Origins : Shifting Perspectives and Shattering Illusions

Frank: 0:45

What's up Toppies?

Jake: 0:47

Hey guys.

Frank: 0:48

Hey, welcome back, jake. Thanks a lot. How was your foray into the wilderness? I'll tell you Once. No a welcome speech.

Noah: 0:56

Yeah, welcome back man. I was trying to think if this was actually your first podcast back Time runs together.

Jake: 1:04

It is, even though I think that to them it's going to seem like we talked about luck after I left.

Noah: 1:11

But uh, maybe it doesn't have to. It doesn't have to. By them you mean our listeners, the Toppies. Okay, gotcha.

Jake: 1:20

That we just said what's up to. They never tell us what's up, by the way.

Frank: 1:25

That's how podcasts work.

Noah: 1:27

Someday we're going to be walking down the street and somebody's going to run up to us and be like Toppies. I know, I know it's going to be that.

Jake: 1:37

It's like the people who get the we don't quit tattoos and stuff.

Frank: 1:40

Do you guys have a clear vision of that day in your mind?

Noah: 1:45

Yes, no, I don't. I can't say that I do. Maybe, that's why we're not there yet. I'll work on visualizing it. I will spend time with that, will you Nope?

Jake: 1:56

It's in my mind, for some reason we're doing the litter box, but uh, that's.

Frank: 2:02

Can you help me understand what the litter box is? This is a visual demonstration.

Noah: 2:09

He's referring to the bottom row. He did not help me understand.

Jake: 2:13

It's a dance move, that sort of you kind of squat, and then you paddle your hands and it looks like you're, you know, throwing litter on your poo.

Noah: 2:26

Oh like, just imagine being a cat. Nope, how would you throw litter on your poo?

Frank: 2:33

I probably wouldn't.

Jake: 2:34

Oh man, really, yeah, I mean the other cats would ostracize you. You would be a bad cat.

Frank: 2:41

As a cat, I would just go outside and go to the bathroom, because cat litter boxes are the worst smelling thing around. They're not good, but but I'm a learner, if nothing else, and so I was like this, doesn't? This isn't the best approach.

Jake: 2:56

So like you, would not be a domesticated cat because I mean, it's kind of, I'm a domesticated human and I don't poop in a box in my main room. You do kind of poop in a box, in a room that's specifically for it.

Frank: 3:11

Yeah, delivers it to elsewhere? Yeah, I'm just depending on the amount of sludge and the plumber.

Jake: 3:20

If you were a cat and you were a cute cat you'd likely have a human owner who would likely give you a litter box and may not give you a pet door to the outdoors.

Frank: 3:34

That's true as a cat. Sometimes you're victim to bad owners.

Jake: 3:39

Yeah, would you jump out the window? Did you figure out how to use your paws to open them? Probably, I'm just. I'm challenging you here.

Frank: 3:52

Would you say you feel?

Jake: 3:53

Are you sure you would poop outside if you were a cat?

Frank: 3:55

More or less mentally ill after your trip.

Noah: 3:58

How would you say? Your trip went Jake.

Jake: 4:01

My trip was amazing. It was in one of those getaway tiny cabins that's like truly tiny. I mean you walk in, it's a kitchen, a dining room, a bed, with this absolutely gorgeous picture window that looks out, and I think I chose the best week ever. It was the last week of October, so all the leaves were purple and orange and yellow and red. It was freaking amazing.

Frank: 4:28

Did it remind you of that last of the Honey Bees song?

Jake: 4:32

It didn't. But I'll tell you something. There were a lot of Honey Bees. They wanted to be friends with me more than I wanted to be friends with them.

Frank: 4:40

Nice.

Jake: 4:41

Yeah.

Frank: 4:43

It starts out like leaves changing colors.

Jake: 4:45

Oh really.

Frank: 4:46

Yeah, okay. I don't know what happens if we play music on this.

Jake: 4:52

I think the lawyers just break the door down and they say you owe us $1 million. Yeah, or you go to prison. Oh, okay, yeah, I hope it's prison. You can still make money in prison, you can yeah? Yeah, you can own a business. I looked up the getaway cabins.

Noah: 5:13

Yeah, and they have some up by Starved Rock. Yeah, that's amazing.

Jake: 5:19

There are some all over the country. There's some in Tennessee, Texas, California. This place had about 30 of them.

Frank: 5:26

I hope he names all the states. Can you name all the states?

Jake: 5:29

I think it started in New Hampshire.

Noah: 5:31

I mean I actually have the map up. If you want to know all the states, I'll let you know.

Jake: 5:38

Is that where the time, I mean the idea, isn't just like you know, you're getting out and camping Like it's legitimately.

Frank: 5:46

You can use a map for that. When you could spend the time to enumerate all the states one by one language. That seems so inefficient.

Noah: 5:54

Yeah, well, I'm willing to do it for you, yeah.

Frank: 6:00

Go ahead, jake, I'm sorry I feel like I interrupted you for really important.

Jake: 6:06

That's why I stopped. I was like you know what this needs to be said, yeah, yeah, the idea is legitimately that it's like a sort of a solitude type of getaway, like it says in the little guidelines when you get there, like all hours are quiet hours, all fires must be extinguished by 10 pm, more than four people at a cabin at a time, like it's not supposed to be. We, you know, we all go camping and have beers outside and play our music. It's like there were I had neighbors about 100 meters away from me or so, but we're kind of tucked into wooded alcoves so it feels like you're completely alone. I wouldn't have known there were people there if I hadn't gotten out and walked around. So really, I mean exactly what I hoped for in that sort of a getaway. It was nice we're not sponsored by getaway, but hey, getaway, I'm saying good things about you. That's the name of the company.

Frank: 7:06

Mm-hmm, I thought you just meant like the. I didn't know that either.

Noah: 7:11

He said you know one of those getaway tiny cabins. And my first thought was is that a thing people know about Like you know those getaway tiny cabins? And so I typed in to Google getaway tiny cabins. First result Wow. Because they're called getaway tiny cabins.

Frank: 7:27

Yeah, they have topical authority.

Noah: 7:29

They do Well. They have the domain and they have the name.

Frank: 7:35

So what you're saying?

Jake: 7:36

is they have topical authority. Sure On on their brand and their exact match URL. It's also a word. It is Absolutely Anyway. The point is, they are called getaway.

Noah: 7:54

We'll put this into our 12 part SEO series later.

Jake: 7:57

I was, I was definitely a.

Frank: 8:00

You just promised that on public air.

Noah: 8:05

Let's let Jake talk more about his drip.

Frank: 8:08

Why are we talking so much? This is off brand.

Noah: 8:11

I know we got used to it last week we had we had the space.

Frank: 8:15

So, yeah, no, we don't have the space. Oh, true, true, jake's back from.

Jake: 8:19

I'm almost done with my story.

Noah: 8:23

There was last week in this podcast, there was more space to speak because Jake had less speak to or less space to live.

Frank: 8:31

Whoa, maybe that's true.

Jake: 8:34

You know, in my mind I had more space to live.

Frank: 8:37

Oh wow, they're all over the country. Really Like where I could list them all for you.

Jake: 8:47

Just one, new York. I didn't know about that.

Noah: 8:51

Let's all, let's all list one.

Frank: 8:53

Okay, I want to listen to one. Okay, frank will start St Louis.

Noah: 9:03

Michigan.

Jake: 9:06

New Hampshire.

Frank: 9:09

That's cool.

Noah: 9:10

This has been getaway with getaway.

Frank: 9:13

We're not sponsored by. It was a getaway moment. They do have a map of all their outposts on their website. Yeah, we are not sponsored by Listen getaway.

Noah: 9:23

This is a great segment you should buy.

Jake: 9:27

It's our getaway segment, you know are we just talking? About ways that you can get away in your everyday life. No, it's a pretty cool model, though, Like I pulled up and I was like I could own something like this just buy some rough land out somewhere and plop a bunch of tiny houses. It was pretty busy, honestly, Like you know, I was there. I got there on a Sunday, so there were people there from the weekend, and then, you know, I was there through the weekend.

Jake: 10:02

Like I'm not supposed to talk about other guests, it's a brotherhood. The Weeknd is a band.

Frank: 10:13

I'm aware of what the Weeknd is and he was or was not. Getaway is a sort of brotherhood of secrecy.

Jake: 10:20

You know, I just feel like his PR agent wouldn't want me telling him everybody that he was in St Francois County. I can't put my face where I want you.

Frank: 10:31

Yeah, did he do that to you? Did he say that?

Jake: 10:33

He was singing Because you're not allowed to have music outside like in a boombox, so he was just singing to himself a lot His own songs. The point is it was a great time and I it was really relaxing.

Jake: 10:57

They have sinks and drinking water, they do, and firewood that's included in the cost of your rental. It's right there. They've got like this giant, you know, box out there by the fire pit and they restock it with bundles of firewood and fire starters. And you really don't. I mean, I brought steaks and eggs and bacon and some curry and just kind of cooked over the fire every night. It was great, sounds, awesome.

Frank: 11:27

Yeah, the fire makes it more awesome than all the other things you said so far.

Jake: 11:35

It was. I definitely went with the intention to just kind of relax. And I mean, there's no Wi-Fi, there's no, I barely had any cell reception, so I really disconnected from everything and I did use it as a sort of writing retreat. I've had some. I've had a story in my head that has been working itself out for probably 15 years in some way or another and I finally started to give it some shape in my head and wanted to start to write it out. So that's what I used this for. There are different types of creativity in my mind. One is like this really difficult work process where you're like building something up from nothing. This, to me, felt more like the archaeologist, is like brushing away the sand from something that already has shape underneath, and it was a discovery process. So I just typed, let it flow out, and it was. It was really a cathartic process. I loved it.

Frank: 12:45

Yeah, this reminds me of socializing a discovery idea or user story with a dev team. Oftentimes, the initial what am I trying to say Is the momentum of dev cycles. You know your sprints. Oftentimes the momentum of sprints just sort of propels work forward before it can be revealed what it should be, and so you end up having to go back and fix it. And so I remember times, especially when I'm working with a new team that I'm not familiar with, where I just have to say like, all right, I think we've talked about this a lot. I don't think we're ready to say what it needs to be. Let's talk about this again in our next friend planning, because I don't think it's ready to work on.

Frank: 13:48

It feels like that sort of thing to me. It's not ready to go. We don't know what it is yet. We've talked about it a lot more and we'll be better at figuring out what it is next to go around or into or something.

Jake: 14:02

Yeah, it's a very active process of like I know certain parts of it, but and I'm going to get those parts out but the connecting threads between those dots aren't totally fleshed out yet and you almost start to see where the gaps are when you put the stuff down on paper. Even those gaps reveal oh, there's so much more here. Let's see what that is, let's dig in and it's almost like it has a life of its own. You know, yeah, like who is this character? What's he interested in, what's his backstory? And it's like I'm the one creating it. But I'm asking this question, you know Sure.

Frank: 14:40

Yeah, I mean, a lot of my best product decisions have been like in the shower or I'm about to fall asleep or something. I have the idea fully socialized. I have thought about it a lot and then I'm like, oh, I connected to some other ideas and some other area of life and I'm like, oh, that's how to do it, we'll do it that way. What do you mean socialized? Just, it's not clear what you're doing. You're like here's some users who want this thing, and these users want it this way, and these users think it belongs over here. And what do you guys think? Where should we put it? What are the constraints if we do it this way, that way?

Jake: 15:23

Okay, so like it's not just in your head, you've gotten it expressed out into the team.

Frank: 15:28

Yeah, and without the purpose of solving it. Right, you do not need to solve this right now. Any I like this is pure brainstorming. It's just give me your ideas and I thought you didn't brainstorm at work.

Frank: 15:45

I always will. We're going to have to revisit that episode Dev team, but I never would call it brainstorming. Brainstorming is what you just did, the trigger. I know I did I only as a callback, because we talked about it and I thought it would help. But the brainstorming that's triggering to me is when someone just sends you an email and oftentimes there's someone who doesn't have any topical authority and they just want a brainstorm. So they say, hey, I know I haven't responded to your emails for the last three months. Let's get together on a call and brainstorm how we can get this moving. And you're like, probably just responding to one of my emails would have been yeah. Yeah, I think it's a little bit of a trigger. Get it approached, I don't need to brainstorm here. Yeah, but yeah All right, I don't.

Frank: 16:37

I wasn't trying to take away from your story.

Jake: 16:39

No, that's it. I mean, I think they Try to paralyze it. Paralyze it, it's one of the things about humans, is one of our defining characteristics is this drive toward creativity and creating something. No, you and I have been having some conversations about the book that we were reading, rick Rubin's book, the creative act, and that's been really cool to read. He talks a little bit about that. He's just like, yeah, it's something that other animals don't do.

Noah: 17:11

Did you finally get into it, Cause last time I talked to you about it you hadn't started it.

Jake: 17:15

Yeah, I'm about halfway through it.

Noah: 17:18

It's good, I like it yeah.

Jake: 17:22

He. He talks a lot about the creative space or like inspiration when it strikes. You don't have any control over when it hits and if you want to be an artist which we all are to some degree or another just depends on what your product or your medium is. Your goal is to be attuned to that space and to be able to sort of tap into it whenever that inspiration might strike. And it might be at dinner with your family, it might be at 11 PM when you were getting sleepy. But he says, like if you can kind of respect and honor that and say I don't have control over this, but I'm going to be the vessel for it to come through, that really amazing stuff happens there and it really is this idea that, like it has a life of its own. It already exists in some form or fashion in this great, infinite space and my job is simply to scrape away all that is not the end product and to find out where those gaps are and to fill them when necessary.

Noah: 18:34

Makes sense to me. I think this applies not only to the creative process, but just to life in general, like if you're trying to figure out something in your life, if you're trying to make a decision, or if you're trying to figure out which way to go or whatever you know, I think being as opposed to actively trying to figure it out, just being tuned into it and then open to it when it comes to you. It's the same sort of thing, yeah.

Frank: 19:03

So what you're saying is directionally correct.

Jake: 19:07

Where focus goes, energy flows. If you're paying attention to it, maybe you'll get lucky more often. This is what I'm hearing.

Noah: 19:14

Yeah, so we've had every podcast in one. Why do we keep doing this?

Frank: 19:21

Well, I keep doing it because I want to get better at speaking. Why?

Noah: 19:29

do you keep doing it? You should really try to cut out those ums.

Frank: 19:34

I'm aware and I'm working on it.

Noah: 19:39

I want to get better at speaking.

Frank: 19:43

Yeah, it feels like you're making fun of actually exactly what I'm trying to get better at, which is why I'm doing this.

Noah: 19:48

I'm not making fun of it, I just thought it was funny.

Frank: 19:51

That's it.

Noah: 19:51

Yeah.

Frank: 19:52

That's funny. I mean it's fun. That's what making fun is.

Jake: 19:56

It's making funny.

Frank: 19:57

out of what was there, I think, I don't know. Anyways, why are you doing?

Noah: 20:03

it. Why am I doing the podcast? Yeah, oh, because I have a good time talking to you guys. I didn't actually mean we should stop doing the podcast, you didn't even say that.

Frank: 20:17

I know I didn't think you meant it. I just thought we should really say why we're doing it.

Noah: 20:23

I was drawing attention to the fact that everything is connected. Everything is the same. I know it's a different conversation about the same thing, which is fine.

Frank: 20:32

I don't have a problem with that. I know I agree. Why do you do?

Jake: 20:37

it. Well, I enjoy creating things, I enjoy hanging out with you guys, I like talking and I like thinking about topics in deep ways. I like applying effort to something and developing a skill. I mean, it's almost exactly what we were talking about. It's sort of like well, I know these parts, I know how to talk, I know all of that, but what else comes from that? Okay? Well, it's obvious to me that just rambling on about a topic forever isn't a great way to communicate this in an audio format. So how do I get better at coming up with word pictures or analogies or shortening these things?

Frank: 21:28

Yeah, I mean, when we talk, I have this flood of ideas, and that's just what happens when people talk, and so I'm trying to get them out of my mouth in a way that's coherent and add something to the conversation. So this is great practice at it for me.

Jake: 21:52

Yeah.

Frank: 21:54

I mean I like you guys and I think we're doing good. I think this helps actually some people. I think it'll help more people in time. It's a compounding effect.

Jake: 22:03

Yeah. Well, I really like that. We've remained consistent and I think that you know we've remained consistent in creating something and I think that that has exposed areas of opportunity for how we can get better at doing that thing. We didn't really apply any pressure to ourselves to become a specific thing by a specific time, which I think is great, because it's just sort of naturally becoming whatever it is yeah, or unbecoming whatever it is Right. Consistency provides clarity.

Noah: 22:44

Yeah, it feels like a conversation we've had before.

Frank: 22:49

No, did you make your final point? I feel like you were sort of leading us in the direction of I was hoping to.

Jake: 23:04

So in Rick Rubin's book, the Creative Act, there's this quote where he says you know, when you get squeezed, what comes out, and that's where this quote comes from. Is that book there? It is interesting, though, when we're creating things like this in any of these spaces, how they feel like they have a life of their own, and you're almost trying to figure out who this character is or what this piece of software is, and you're taking yourself out of this role of quote unquote creator, and it's almost like you become the discoverer or something like that, and I think that's really cool. But there's this other element, and that's like well, how did it get in there? Like, what do you spend your time thinking about? What do you spend your time caring about? Where are your sensitivities when you begin to create, the stuff that comes out must have already been in there somehow.

Jake: 24:14

So that was like one of these quotes from the Rick Rubin's book is, when you get squeezed, what comes out and that could be true in the creative process, it could be true in an emotional setting. It's like hey, if my self-talk to myself is negative all the time and somebody pushes me or prides me or squeezes me, that narrative is going to come out, so I think that's a fascinating topic to discuss. Is like what's inside you comes out. No, you and I were talking about this the other day. What was that again?

Noah: 24:52

Well, it actually came from that quote. I really liked that quote and I actually gave that to you. It's been a while ago, I mean, it's probably been a couple months ago now. When I find myself in that situation and we've talked about this plenty of times usually your reaction to other people has nothing to do with the other people. It has everything to do with you.

Noah: 25:14

What you've been thinking about, what's been bothering you, how you've been treating yourself, whatever all of these things that you have internally come out, expressed towards others sometimes, and so this frustration that you had, I just challenged you with sort of with that quote, it feels like you have a particular frustration today. You've mentioned it a few times and I recently read this quote in this book, this Rick Rubin book, about what comes out when you get squeezed, and so I would just challenge you to maybe look at what you have, and that's something that I had been doing to myself a lot Like when I'm frustrated with clients or with my team at work or friends or anybody like, it's usually something that I've been chewing on that actually comes out. And how did that get there? What's the cause of that? And so this is just kind of a theme that's been running through every like.

Noah: 26:19

All this sort of like personal work I've been doing has been this okay, where is that coming from? I've been doing something that you guys have talked about on this podcast, I think, or definitely in conversations we've had just together, like at dinner or something. But going back to what was it that happened to me when I was a kid, that this is sort of mirroring and all of these things are connected. All of this is just we're saying the same thing in all of these different scenarios, which is what's inside of me that's coming out and how did it get there and how can I reprogram that?

Frank: 27:04

Yeah, that's. I say that as this is the first time you felt that way, like, yeah, you're feeling right now. Is it the first time you felt this way? When's the last time you can remember? Yeah, and then there's a time before that. That's what. Yeah.

Noah: 27:17

It's true and this is a spectrum if you react and anger to somebody, that doesn't mean that you are angry eternally. That means that recently you've been full of anger for whatever reasons. It could be because of yourself, or it could be because of others, or it could be because you feel like something's unfair in your life and you're full of anger and that's gonna be what it expresses when you're squeezed, because that's dominantly what is what you're full of at that point in time. And if you react in love, then you're probably more full of love than you are of anger or whatever the emotion or reaction might be, and so it's a good.

Noah: 28:06

It's just a good sort of check on yourself, like when things aren't going my way or when things are frustrating me, when I'm getting squeezed, what comes out of me?

Jake: 28:18

I think that's really interesting. The first thing that comes to mind is this way that I have heard Richard Rohr talk about humiliation. You hear this word humiliation and immediately it feels kind of negative. But it has its roots and cognates with, like the word humble and the word human. And really humiliation, if we really break it down, is this reflection of our own humanity.

Jake: 28:47

And humanity is this sort of state where, if I can step outside of it, it's like that's kind of embarrassing that I'm human. That's gross. It's like emotional, icky. Sometimes I do things I don't want to do and when you have to come to terms with that, oh, I just blew up at this person who was trying to help me, like, okay, I'm going to forgive myself, I'm going to acknowledge that I'm human and these things can happen, while at the same time being like hey, amen, I'm sorry that I did that in this state of being humble, because that stuff is in there and the only way to change what's in there, what comes out when you get squeezed, is to begin to deal with it to begin to pull it out.

Noah: 29:40

Well, more proactively, I've been thinking about this concept like this, which is you can't give what you don't have. So if my goal is to be a kind, loving, growing, adventurous, supportive, whatever person, I need to fill myself with those things to give that away, because if I don't have it, I can't give it. So how do I focus on bringing those things inside of me, rather than frustration and anger and impatience and these things that we're all prone to Only more easily than the quote unquote good things? That's just sort of the more proactive way I've been looking at it.

Frank: 30:42

How do you get more love inside of you?

Noah: 30:46

I mean, I think that depends on the person, but I mean I think it starts with self. Do you love yourself?

Jake: 30:52

I was going to say. You said you can't give what you don't have, and that immediately brings to mind this statement that I've made a million times, and that is you can only love others to the extent that you have learned to love yourself.

Noah: 31:07

Exactly, yeah, I mean, I think that's where it starts for sure, and just because you react angrily to somebody doesn't mean you don't love yourself, of course, but I think to get more of it, yeah, it starts with do I love myself? Am I giving myself what I need?

Jake: 31:24

That was something. I watched that rich roll podcast with Pete Holmes the other day, and Pete Holmes was talking about this priest who had said, yeah, forgiveness, forgiveness is great, but mercy that's where the good stuff is. And he said what is mercy? Mercy is really just acknowledging, in some way or another, that we are all one, that I am capable of the same wrongdoings that you are capable of, that when I do them, there's a piece of me that feels humiliated and like I shouldn't have done it too.

Jake: 31:56

And extending that mercy to you is different than just saying you offended me and hey, I'll get over it. It's like we're all in this together and what's really cool about that? What's really really cool about that is that by giving that mercy, I'm creating an environment in which mercy is thriving. So if I want mercy for myself, I give it to you. If I want salvation for myself, I give it to you, and together we're collectively creating this world that is more merciful, more forgiving, more loving, and it's like. So. To answer your question, you asked this question how do I get more love inside of myself? I think it's to give more love outside of myself, and that process takes inner work, that process takes thought and care and stepping outside myself and the result is there's that fruit in there.

Frank: 32:59

Yeah, thanks, so it makes sense. At some point there was a shift inside of me where people were frustrated, like frustration was more of a default when something I didn't like it, when something happened I didn't like that someone else was responsible for in some level, frustration was more of my default and at some point I shifted that I think intentionally, but it wasn't the primary thing. I was trying to shift, probably. And now it's sort of like it's just difficult to be human. That's my response usually. I'm like I wonder what they're dealing with. It's not that special, it's not that great to try to be a human.

Jake: 33:53

Yeah, there was another thing that Pete said on that same podcast. He said but this trick that works for me is saying, if I was them, I'd be them. And it's like that's the simplest, most dumb thing you could say but it's like if I was them, I'd be doing the same thing they're doing. How do I know? Because they're doing it Right. So like, just if I was them, I'd be them. That's what I hear when you say that.

Frank: 34:17

Yeah, it's the same. I used well and like when I was very young I used to sort of have a lot of envy or something of other people. I would aspire to have a different life, or I wish my family was different, or I wish I had money or something, and I just don't have that experience like ever anymore. I can't think of someone I would like to be more than me.

Jake: 34:46

It's a pretty cool place to be.

Frank: 34:48

Yeah, yeah, I mean. I mean there are things about me that I'm changing and want to change, but it's not from this place of desiring to be someone else at all. I think that helps if you. I think humility comes from understanding this sort of human condition and that it applies to everyone. And so what seems like it's easy for them, maybe it is, but there's a whole bunch of other things that aren't, and you probably wouldn't trade places with them.

Jake: 35:31

I think you're right. It's this intrinsic understanding about sort of the laws of reality. Alan Watts describes it, and he says that there's no such thing as a mountain that has the sun shining on both sides. You know, one side's in shadow while the other side is in the light, and if more of the mountain is in the light, there's less of this shadow. And it's like you can apply this idea to anything. If you're born with a lot of money, something that on the surface people would say, oh, I want to be that guy, he's got a lot of money, it's like, okay, well, he had a lot of that, so he didn't have to develop these things over here.

Jake: 36:16

Some better or worse. It's just different. But if I understand that thing about reality, if I have a lot of something, I'm going to have less of something else. You wouldn't really trade places with anybody else because it's just trading your set of variables for their set of variables. But like we're all a set of variables ultimately, and every blessing is coupled with its own curse, every wound is coupled with its own gift. We all just have the ones we have.

Frank: 36:50

Yeah, that's definitely. And the fun of the game is playing with the variables you have, yeah, great. Like if everyone got a perfect hand in poker, there would be no game, yeah. And I think this is what really bothers me about politics as well, which is the sense that someone else would be a better president or governor or whatever political office, like if I could do what I could do better than them, what are the chances? I mean, maybe you could do something better than them, yeah, but you're going to do something worse. I don't know.

Jake: 37:32

Yeah, that's an interesting point. It's in, I think, that oftentimes our political narratives are based on a reduced understanding of what's actually taking place. We love having a president because we love having one person who can be the scapegoat or the champion.

Frank: 37:54

Yeah.

Jake: 37:55

I can point to that person for the good things, or I can point to that person for the bad things and, quite realistically, is not one person yeah, that's the fall guy really, sure? Or a lady? Narratives are a really interesting thing. In this same way, frank, I think I was talking to you the other day about this same idea If you squeeze me, what comes out? I think about this a lot as a parent. He's about to turn seven and when he does something the other day he was being loud in a public place and I immediately had this reaction inside myself.

Jake: 38:37

It used to be a trigger point to become angry, to express outwardly frustration, and now that same trigger has prompted this introspective response to sit with the somatic experience and say, okay, I'm frustrated. What's going on here, turns out. This is really another way of saying look at what's inside, you're getting squeezed. What's about to come out? And it's so fascinating that what's really coming out is the narrative that I was given by my parents.

Jake: 39:12

This behavior is unacceptable, jacob. You know from my three-year-old self. They were probably given the same message when they were three years old you want to cry, I'll give you something to cry about. And that narrative was a gift, for lack of a better terms. It was something that was bestowed upon me by the people who taught me about the world.

Jake: 39:34

And now I'm in the position to teach a child about the world, and I have two options Act in reaction and give my son the same narrative that was passed to me, or take a second, respond intentionally and say, hey, let's, let's sit down for a second, pay attention. What is the effect that you're having on the people around you? Do you think you are, you know, being kind and giving them what they need, or do you think you're having a bad effect on these people and making them feel uncomfortable? And if I can make him think about those things and ask himself what kind of person do I want to be? All of a sudden, I'm giving him the gift of agency and critical thinking, and this is his narrative instead of you know, when he has a kid backhanding them or whatever.

Frank: 40:28

Because they're yelling. Yeah, I think I'll do a similar thing. I always think and we'll see how it plays out in real life that I'll follow it with a demonstration. Do you ever do that? What do you mean? So you know, is this the sort of person you want to be in the world?

Frank: 40:48

the conversation you're having and then let me show you what it looked like. Oh yeah, what you're just doing. So I'm just going to lay on the ground and cry out loud, and then just we can talk about how that makes you feel.

Jake: 41:02

It's. I don't think that's a bad thing. I think in that moment we have to understand that we're not dealing with people in full control over. You know, they don't have. Their prefrontal cortex isn't completely developed. They're having this outburst because they don't know how to deal with the emotions that are going on. They're already overwhelming. So in that moment I think that's a little bit difficult.

Frank: 41:27

Oh yeah, I would want to have the conversation so that it's like centered.

Jake: 41:32

Yeah, yeah.

Frank: 41:33

And then, like, I just like really want you to see what this looks like here's a reflection.

Jake: 41:37

Yeah Right, here's your mirror.

Frank: 41:40

I know you weren't like totally online for that, but here's what it looks like.

Jake: 41:44

Yeah.

Frank: 41:45

And I'm willing to embarrass myself to show you what it looks like, just so you know, because I think you can get online during that moment.

Jake: 41:52

Sure Sure.

Frank: 41:54

I don't know if I'll do that, because it sounds good now, but doing it in the middle of grocery store.

Jake: 42:01

Yeah, it's. It is a weird thing Parenting you. You do things you didn't think you would do. I think you don't do things you thought you would do, but I think the the thing that's really brought it into focus for me is like if I hadn't stopped myself and and chosen to be intentional about my parenting, I would have gone by default, and what my default was was what my parents taught me. It was like the way parenting was modeled.

Jake: 42:36

Well, I'm currently dealing in my life very openly with all my friends about the traumas that I received at that time in my life and how it wasn't the ideal parenting. And yet there was this piece of me that was on autopilot and it was like going to do this thing. So it's just fascinating to me that my brain wouldn't just be like hey, maybe you shouldn't do the thing that you're complaining about right now. Right, Maybe you should think about it differently. I think that idea of the parenting has been really important for me too, to change what's inside. What used to be inside was this hurt little boy who was reacting to the world, and now that same little boy has been sort of given what he needed and said hey, you didn't get this. That wasn't fair. But guess what? You're this person now. You're stronger for it. Let's, let's start acting in the world, and I think that's changed a lot of what's been inside of me too.

Frank: 43:32

Definitely. Yeah, that re parenting is you're talking about, like re parenting yourself, essentially right.

Jake: 43:38

Yeah.

Frank: 43:40

Like a scenario going back, give, giving yourself a loving authority that takes care of you, sort of.

Jake: 43:46

Yeah, it's like, yeah, you were failed in this way. Little boy, here's what you needed, and guess what? I'm going to give it to you.

Frank: 43:53

Yeah, that's pretty cool. That's that idea has generated more love for me to give to others than probably any. Yeah, thinking of how to get love or something to be able to give it.

Jake: 44:06

Well, there's that mercy, right. You see yourself as that child and all of a sudden you start seeing that little child that maybe didn't get what they needed. In other people too.

Frank: 44:14

Definitely.

Jake: 44:15

Yeah, yeah.

Frank: 44:17

I don't think it has to be a child, but that's usually where the patterns begin.

Jake: 44:23

That's true, I agree with that.

Frank: 44:25

Yeah, and it's easy to feel like a parent to a child, so that also helps with the story of everything.

Jake: 44:32

Yeah, well, it's interesting in another way because you're right, it's not just children, I mean. I think when we're children, we're in a specific environment, obviously at a formative period in our life, and we develop personalities to survive that environment. It sounds rough and violent or whatever, but that's really what we're doing we're surviving the environment. If it's a compassionate environment, we don't have to develop the same types of defensive mechanisms. If it's not compassionate, we develop a lot of them and maybe carry them into adulthood. But let's fast forward. Let's go to oh, I moved out on my own when I was 20, when I was in college and I had this boyfriend and found out that they were cheating on me and lying to me and all this stuff. And if that happens enough times, you're going to develop personality traits of distrust and potentially self-perpetuating prophecies, self-fulfilling prophecies and this sort of thing too. It can happen at any point in your life.

Frank: 45:44

Yeah, that specific example has a I don't know what it's called. There's a real thing in psychology where people have a bad relationship and a belief about themselves that they should have done better, and so they get into the same type of relationship again and try to do better, like I'm going to make it right when it's often the other variable, that alcoholic boyfriend who beats you. It is the problem. You can't save this person. It's not your responsibility to save this person. If you get in another relationship with one, they will probably do the same things.

Jake: 46:24

Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I've often heard like, hey, you're going to experience the same lesson over and over until you learn it. Yeah, well, it's obvious to think, okay, well, the lesson I think I'm trying to learn is I can do better, when the actual lesson is I never needed to do better, they needed to do better Sure. You see that often, unfortunately, mm, hmm, mm hmm.

Noah: 46:57

I think that lesson happens over and over until your self-worth reaches the level in which you respond appropriately.

Jake: 47:12

Until you prioritize yourself is what you're saying, right? I often see life as this series of science experiments little ones, it's like. Let me prioritize myself better, just like you said, I choose that and then I see the result that came out. The other side, this action leads to this product, and when I see that I start to develop confidence and a worldview around that idea, I'm going to start prioritizing myself more often. Maybe it's going to keep turning out well. That's one step up a giant mountain, right? Yeah, it works.

Frank: 47:56

That's probably why you work out in the morning. Does it feel easier to work out in the morning than at night?

Jake: 48:06

No, I've worked out at every time of the day. I think my favorite that I've ever done was when I was working at 8 am. It was right about 10.30 in the morning. The coffee situation was just right. I had gotten some of the menial tasks done in the morning to set myself up well for the afternoon. Get out there, lots of energy, come back brains, just blank slate and ready to go for the rest of the day. That was fantastic.

Noah: 48:37

I like working out in the morning for lots of reasons, but I like having it out of the way. I enjoy working out, but it's harder the further into the day my time is given to more people.

Frank: 48:54

That's how I feel.

Noah: 48:55

It's easier the morning, especially when I was in grad school. The morning became sacred to me. Sacred in that it was my time to do whatever I needed to do, if that was doing something for me as far as relaxation or self-care or whatever. That's when I did my homework Every morning. At 5.30 in the morning I was doing my homework in grad school. I didn't want to be doing homework, but if I allow the things that I was doing for myself to bleed into the rest of my day, it was going to get interrupted by something or someone.

Noah: 49:37

The morning is an important time for me. It's when I'm doing the things that I want to do. I study Spanish in the morning and I meditate in the morning and I work out in the morning and I sit on the couch and have some coffee in the morning. I really enjoy working out, but I like getting that done in the morning. When it's not going to, I don't need to question whether or not something's going to interrupt me at 7am. I know that's my time. There's mental benefits to having that work out in the morning and to feeling good and having endorphins and starting your day that way.

Frank: 50:21

Yeah, I feel the same way. I am at the level of consistency where I will do the work out, even if I miss it in the morning. But it's just way easier for my whole day if I know that, no matter what happens after this, that will have been done.

Noah: 50:42

Well and beyond that. I feel better when I work out fasted, so working out in the morning works better. For that I have only worked out a handful of times in the last four years where I've eaten first, and every time it doesn't feel great.

Frank: 50:59

One time we did a burpee challenge after you drank.

Noah: 51:02

That was only after I ate, or I drank some electrolytes and they were trying to come back up just from doing some burpees, but I had just drank them moments before that. Yeah, I don't even think you won that?

Frank: 51:17

I don't think we finished that. That's not true, that's not finished that, so we both tied.

Noah: 51:24

Yeah, we failed. We failed together which is a success. We chose to fail.

Frank: 51:31

Yeah, it was a dumb challenge.

Jake: 51:36

There's 100 burpees I think it was 100 burpees.

Frank: 51:39

I think we did 36.

Noah: 51:42

That's right. Who could know how many we did?

Frank: 51:46

I think we did 36. I had just eaten. We were about to eat.

Noah: 51:52

I had also drank some liter of electrolyte water.

Jake: 51:56

Oh, that's right. Yeah, I think the thing that keeps me working out in the morning is just the social aspect. I mean, it's nice to have it out of the way. For sure, that's a huge benefit, which is probably why we situated there, just because the rest of your day is ready to go, like you guys were saying, knowing that someone's out there waiting for me, that's a huge piece of it.

Noah: 52:22

That is a huge motivator. When Jake was on vacation last week, I worked out every day that we normally work out, but it was definitely like I wouldn't say hard to go work out. But it was definitely not as easy when I know these are the days that Jake and I work out in the morning and he's expecting me to be there and I haven't communicated them not going to be there. All of these factors just go okay. Well, this is a given. It's got to happen.

Jake: 52:55

Yeah, that's a good point. You kind of just said something there without meaning to, and that's like it takes action to make it not happen, whereas in action is okay.

Frank: 53:08

This is the default.

Noah: 53:09

This is behavioral.

Jake: 53:11

Going back to James Clear yeah.

Noah: 53:13

Not James.

Jake: 53:13

Clear Well.

Noah: 53:16

James.

Jake: 53:16

Clear described it in his book Atomic Habits.

Frank: 53:20

Wait, is there another? Author F James.

Jake: 53:22

Clear. Yes, he wrote the Great Atomic Gatsby.

Frank: 53:31

The Great Atomic Gatsby is a great book.

Jake: 53:36

It's set just two decades after the Great Gatsby.

Noah: 53:41

But yeah, you're right, the fact that it is the default like we work out Monday, wednesday, friday, sunday If I haven't communicated that I'm not going to be there, then that doesn't mean I can't cancel. We've canceled because we didn't feel well or something like that before. But the default is we work out at this time on these days, and if I want to not only if I want to cancel it I have to do something to cancel it, because it's not I mean mostly because it's just not respectful to just not show up when someone's expecting you. But secondly, now there's that accountability piece too. So my friend is expecting me to work out, and if I want to cancel I have to give a reason that makes sense.

Jake: 54:29

Whether Jake cares or not, I want to give him a reason that makes sense, not just I don't want to work out, which means you have to give yourself a reason that makes sense, and if you can't, all of a sudden, you're more likely to just make it happen.

Frank: 54:43

I do a very similar thing, totally different way, but for all of my life, even as a child, like we bought the cheap cereal, I'd go to the grocery shop with my mom and like dollars really mattered. So I don't really care about small amount of money, but something inside of me was programmed for it. So I have systems that will take $5 from me if.

Frank: 55:14

I don't work out. I always work out. I'm not going to lose $5. I know I don't care about this, but mentally it just works. It works way better than if Jake was expecting me to work out.

Noah: 55:28

I can just tell no, and you know that if you turn it into a habit of not working out, then it turns into a greater sum of money. If it's $5 one time, you can live with that, but if you turn not working out into a habit now, you're losing $5 multiple times a week.

Frank: 55:46

Exactly yeah, and I could tell Jake three times a week that I'm not going to make it today. You?

Noah: 55:52

can also turn that system off. You turned on the system to take money away from you. You can turn it off if you want to.

Frank: 56:03

Oh, you turned the one on to work out with Jake and you can turn it off too.

Noah: 56:06

I'm saying that it works regardless Because you, it's a decision this is going back to another conversation we've had, but it is a decision.

Frank: 56:16

Yeah Right. What I'm saying is you should take the variables that you're given in the game of poker that is your life and use them to your advantage to design an environment that reinforces whatever is going to make you do what you want, so you're consistent. For you, it sounds like more social is better. For me, the bucks matter. I don't know why. I don't care. I literally don't care about my dollars.

Noah: 56:41

I mean I worked out in the morning before I did work out with Jake. I mean when I was in Decatur I was up at 4.30 every morning to go work out at CrossFit and I wouldn't say I had the same. I couldn't know for sure I guess, but definitely didn't have the same. I didn't care about those people at CrossFit. I mean, if I didn't show up nobody was going to say hey, where were you? Right? I think that's the point. They should. I mean that's part of the point of that. Community is for that.

Frank: 57:11

But yeah, I did experience that at CrossFit in hands. I mean, I went years before.

Noah: 57:16

If I didn't show up several times, maybe somebody would be like, hey, where are you been? But nobody had my contact info. Nobody was going to call me or text me if I didn't show up and say, hey, where were you today. If I show up three or four classes later, they might say, hey, where are you been? But I didn't have that same thing, but I still got up every day and did it. This came down to the decision I want to be fitter, I want to lose weight, whatever, I don't know. I just, I really think it just comes down to making a decision and once you do, you'll do the thing that you want to do.

Frank: 57:53

That is true, and I think you should design your environment.

Noah: 57:57

But I think you will design your. That's my point is, if you make the decision, you will design your environment in such a way.

Frank: 58:06

Yeah, if you make the fully informed decision. I've made the decision to lose weight thousands of times in my life. I didn't make the fully informed decision, which is that losing weight is more important than getting comfort from food.

Jake: 58:23

That is a lot I think you can't take for granted the education that you have. And you don't even mean formal education, I mean life education. I think I don't know. I find it dangerous to make blanket statements like that, just simply because everybody's starting from a different baseline and it's like what you said is true. If everyone knew what you knew and made the decision, the fully informed decision, the way that you mean it, yes, is everyone currently at a place where they can do that? They just don't have that knowledge base. It's not equitable. I think that's why you don't find the book Atomic Habits helpful, but because why it's a New York Times number one bestseller is because that type of education is something that people find valuable. Because they don't have it. Sure, that's true.

Noah: 59:18

I don't think it makes what I said untrue, though.

Jake: 59:23

Right, it's just a clarification. I don't know. I'm sensitive to this, Having been in a relationship with a person who tried to accomplish a giant goal and felt like they were making the fully formed decision, watched themselves fail over and over and over again, despite the fact that they felt like they were doing everything they could. So it's like there's a great degree of empathy for those people and when they hear someone and I've seen this working at a gym as well someone who is absolutely shredded, has a six pack and just says just eat the right food and you'll be fine, those people feel like failures and they start to hate themselves and it goes into this negative cycle.

Noah: 1:00:06

That's why I mentioned the self-worth piece earlier. The self-worth piece is super important in accomplishing anything and the self-worth piece is tied directly to those things, those childhood wounds, those are the things that we're trying to reprogram. So if you do all that work and you make the decision, then you'll do the thing and you'll naturally make the decisions Definitely. Which is, I think, what Jake's been saying in this explanation.

Frank: 1:00:29

But yeah, that's the fully informed decision. A ton of people make the decision that I would like to lose more weight. I want to lose more weight, that anyone who has high body fat has made that decision. They may not have made the decision that my life is worth living, that I need to add value to other people's lives, that the way to get there involves having a body that's healthier than this, that I'm going to find the ways that work and the ones that will work for me, and design systems that reinforce them. All of these decisions maybe didn't happen yet. Once they do, I mean yeah, you just have to make the decision. The fully informed decision will get you there for sure. But if you think I just want to lose weight and then you also think this syndrome makes me feel really nice, you'll never get there If you don't balance these forces.

Jake: 1:01:34

True, yeah, it's an interesting thing. I mean, I think this is one of the last things I have to say on the subject, but this topic of when you get squeezed, what comes out. I've done a lot of inner work, and what's interesting is, more often than not now, when I get squeezed, what comes out is something that I'm proud of. It doesn't happen all the time, but it's more often than not now. The other thing that's happened, though, is that I project my own healing, my own progress in that journey onto the world, and I sometimes expect everyone else to be in the same place, because, just like before, where I projected anger and wrong ideas onto another person and expected that they hated me and wanted the worst for me, now I expect that there is healed as I am, and are looking at the world through the same lens that I am, so feel like it's incumbent upon me it's something that I'm trying to make myself responsible for anyway is to project my healing onto the world, to expect the best out of everybody, but to not forget where I've been, because to me, it's more important to be a bridge builder, to just acknowledge oh, the world's better and it's great, and all this stuff.

Jake: 1:02:58

The Buddhists talk about this too. There's two types of Buddha people who have achieved nirvana and one of them is the person who just achieves it for themselves, and yay, great stuff. The other one is known as Bodhisattva, and it's the person who achieves nirvana to come back and share that with the rest of the world and help to enlighten everyone. And I don't know, it's one of the virtues I think I care about the most. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, sort of, I don't know. There's a difference between knowing and being like. Knowing information, saying something that's true, okay, great. Sharing that information, teaching that information, giving that, gifting that information to a person where they are, that's where I strive to get to, and I'm just vocalizing this, I think, for the first time for myself. It's a pretty motivating goal, though.

Frank: 1:03:56

Yeah, I agree with you. I have the same feeling. It's the same thing that I love, it's why I like product, that's why I like software development, and I really do have vision of myself, like doing this more with humans as well, just sort of dissecting like where do you want to go, what is your vision and what are the elements that are going to get you an informed vision so that you can have the vision that I mean, I'm down 81 pounds this year since March and it feels like I'm pretty good at figuring out the execution of vision, even like through adversity and like it's not a straight line in there for sure. But I do feel like I should share that with more people in more ways than I am, so I've been figuring out how to do that.

Jake: 1:04:59

I think it's a worthwhile endeavor. A couple of weeks ago, when we were talking about clarity and consistency and constancy, we said people who have gone through this journey and they're 40 years into it. They can usually distill the entire process into one sentence right, eat less than 20 net carbs in a day and you're going to lose weight. But it's equally true that that piece of information, while great, doesn't change the person you are, it's not a transformation. So acknowledging that we can pretty easily say the most valuable thing I can do is maybe to distill it into one sentence. That's great, gets people excited, makes them realize that something is simple and achievable. But to also say that's one of the steps, it's later. Here's the first step From where you are to here. You can't make that giant leap. Let me help you take this step and just sort of that. Acknowledging where the person is. That's not one to many, though, that's one to one, and that's where the relationship gets built and all that stuff.

Frank: 1:06:10

Thanks, I think so too. It may be for some that it is that easy. This is, whatever it is, it's less than 20 grams of carbohydrates. You will lose weight. I feel like that's definitely true, but if you don't know why, and why is important to you, then you're going to need to know, why, and if you don't know why and it's not important to you, who cares?

Frank: 1:06:38

Just do it. And it feels easy to you, you do it, it'll work. But everyone's different and some people need to know why they should do it. Some people need to know why it will work. These are different and I think most obese people don't. This is sort of what Noah was saying, I think, but most obese people don't have a vision of themselves providing value in the future in the world.

Frank: 1:07:06

And they think that food is the best that life has to offer. I wish it weren't that simple. I wish that didn't feel so hard. That felt really hard for me to believe, but it was core to the change.

Jake: 1:07:18

They usually go hand in hand.

Frank: 1:07:21

Yeah.

Jake: 1:07:22

You're usually not eating that much food, unless you're trying to escape something so sure.

Frank: 1:07:28

Yeah.

Jake: 1:07:29

Yeah.

Frank: 1:07:30

Yeah, but yeah, there's all kinds of details they should sort out. But the other thing's true too the simple version yeah.

Jake: 1:07:45

Absolutely, absolutely. I agree, yeah, I mean there are people who want the information and then they want to have that ownership that really works for those people. It's probably going to take longer, but it's also going to be more elastic.

Frank: 1:07:59

I wish I was one of the people who was someone who would just give me a law and I follow it. But that's not me. I need every bit of it understood to any degree For sure.

Jake: 1:08:09

Well, guys, I think we squeezed each other and saw what came out today. It was this episode, okay.

Frank: 1:08:24

You've always been really good at transitions and I think this is a shining example of your transitional abilities improving.

Jake: 1:08:32

Oh wow, Thank you so much.

Frank: 1:08:34

What do you think, Noah?

Noah: 1:08:38

I got no words.

Frank: 1:08:40

He's still squeezing. All right, toppies. This was it, thanks. Thanks, it was very awesome.