Prepare to be amazed as we unravel some of the most captivating discussions in our new episode. We embark on an uncanny journey through Google's exploits in artificial intelligence and consumer electronics.
Transitioning from the digital world, we dive headfirst into the world of project management. Imagine navigating the treacherous waters of finding the perfect writer for your company or the impending doom of a missed deadline. Sound familiar? We've been there and shared our experiences and tips on fostering a culture that encourages employee growth and creates a supportive workplace.
Finally, we delve into the complicated maze that is the human psyche. From examining our fundamental drives and needs to exploring how they shape our behaviors, we leave no stone unturned. Defense mechanisms, the delicate balance between certainty and uncertainty, and the journey toward personal growth - we tackle it all. So, come along as we go on this roller coaster ride of self-discovery, growth, and understanding, peppered with personal anecdotes and expert perspectives. You wouldn't want to miss it!
Prepare to be amazed as we unravel some of the most captivating discussions in our new episode. We embark on an uncanny journey through Google's exploits in artificial intelligence and consumer electronics.
Transitioning from the digital world, we dive headfirst into the world of project management. Imagine navigating the treacherous waters of finding the perfect writer for your company or the impending doom of a missed deadline. Sound familiar? We've been there and shared our experiences and tips on fostering a culture that encourages employee growth and creates a supportive workplace.
Finally, we delve into the complicated maze that is the human psyche. From examining our fundamental drives and needs to exploring how they shape our behaviors, we leave no stone unturned. Defense mechanisms, the delicate balance between certainty and uncertainty, and the journey toward personal growth - we tackle it all. So, come along as we go on this roller coaster ride of self-discovery, growth, and understanding, peppered with personal anecdotes and expert perspectives. You wouldn't want to miss it!
Hey, after you tell us what Google is, can you tell us what Bluetooth?
Frank:is. Can you tell us what adjacent is Sure?
Noah:So let's start with Google. I typed in what is Google into Google and the first result is Wikipedia. Can we get a summary? It is an American multinational technology company focusing on artificial intelligence.
Jake:Do they seem Oximeronic to you?
Noah:They do. I'm just reading you what's here.
Jake:I apologize for interrupting. Go ahead, let's start at the beginning.
Noah:Google LLC is an American multinational technology company focusing on artificial intelligence, online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce and consumer electronics.
Frank:And advertising.
Jake:They really need to niche down.
Noah:It says online advertising. Oh, okay, I missed it, yeah. I liked that the first one was artificial intelligence.
Jake:Is it alphabetized?
Frank:They have barred.
Jake:Oh, no, it's not Maybe they added it as the most recent endeavor, maybe.
Noah:What was the next thing I needed to the beginning? I mean, it was Google adjacent Bluetooth Bluetooth yeah. What is Bluetooth?
Jake:I know what it is.
Noah:You want to just tell us no?
Frank:It's a short range wireless technology design to replace cables.
Noah:The first result for that one is Samsung.
Jake:Samsung. Samsung Is the authority on Bluetooth.
Noah:They did the best job of optimizing for it. Oh, bluetooth is a wireless technology that uses a radio frequency to share data over a short distance, eliminating the need for wires.
Frank:That's almost the exact match for why I said it is.
Noah:And then what is adjacent, next to or adjoining something else.
Frank:Yeah, it is a Bluetooth adjacent product that plugs into the PodTrack P4. We're not sponsored by the PodTrack P4, but we would like to be.
Noah:I'm glad, yeah, if you can actually hear us this podcast, then it's all because of the Podcast P4. Podcast P4.
Frank:PodTrack P4.
Jake:That's what I said because we edited out the part that said podcast. Oh no, we didn't.
Frank:Who's editing? I think I'm up next. Okay, good, this is going to be a new, different process.
Jake:I like that. Last time I tried a new, different process, I had two thirds of what I needed. But here's the deal. Is that if the audio quality is, why do you claim fault?
Noah:Leagues better, because it was definitely my fault.
Jake:I'd like for you to leave a comment saying woohoo, you did it.
Noah:Like, subscribe and comment anywhere you can get your podcast or something.
Frank:Yeah.
Jake:Yeah, all of them. Please like subscribe and comment everywhere.
Noah:Everyone reads the Spotify comments Do they exist?
Frank:I don't think so.
Jake:Okay.
Frank:Yeah, it's pretty quick read. They have reviews on there. You can rate our podcast. We currently have a 5.0 rating on Spotify.
Jake:Really, did Brandy rate us?
Frank:Many ratings? I don't. It doesn't say that. So at least one person liked us and at least no one hated us. Wow.
Jake:That is impressive. I've heard that it's more likely for someone to opt in to a negative review than it is for them to opt into a positive review, so we overcame that friction yeah.
Noah:Opt in. That's what I'm trying to describe.
Jake:Yeah. So like if there's a little note card at your table at Red Lobster that says tell us how we did, it's far more likely that you're going to get a larger population of negative reviews because, it's more likely for somebody to fill out that card to tell you that they had a bad experience, but if they had a good experience, it takes way more.
Noah:They think they're helping you get better yeah.
Frank:I used to know a guy who always talked about net promoter scores and the value of working with the people above seven to get 10 instead of trying to get the low reviews to positive Interesting. He said it like it was the most important thing in the world, like it was what he believed in.
Jake:Yeah, I just thought like why?
Frank:who? You analyze all of our net promoter scores and then go find the people above seven and talk to them. That's a thing you actually do. But he didn't. He just said this thing, that he was like marketing jargon.
Jake:Yeah, I had never heard of a net promoter score until very recently, and then I was told that it's a great metric to know where you're at from your customer's point of view.
Frank:Yeah, noah hates it. In my experience, I don't think there's a thing that makes him matter in the business world.
Jake:No one told me.
Frank:The net promoter score yeah. Would you recommend this product to your friends? Have we had this? Oh that, yeah, that's a net promoter score.
Noah:Yeah, I think it's stupid. Well, it's stupid because the ones that you get asked about are things that you would never. I mean, would you recommend Target to your friends? Everyone knows about Target.
Jake:I don't need to.
Noah:I don't need to recommend Target, I understand. Hey, listen, friends, there's this place I'd really like to tell you about. It's called Target. Really, what is Target?
Jake:Noah, tell me what is Target. Okay, so I appreciate that. That makes a lot of sense.
Frank:We'll accept that your friends are here in the room and we just did. What is Google?
Jake:So that totally makes sense to me. Would you say there are domains, perhaps at the product level or something, where you're like yes, I would recommend this product to my friends.
Noah:Sure, but those aren't the things you get asked about.
Jake:Okay, my experience with this is usually in the form of like an app, you know you've been using it for three days and they're like hey can we ask you about how we're doing? And you say no, and they're saying so it was bad, huh? You're like I didn't say that. Where's the?
Frank:X. Yeah, they really should improve this. Yeah, I hate those things. I did have a guy reach out via a personal email the other day and asked me to provide an app store review for his product, which I use a lot. It's not possible. You can't provide Apple app store reviews. They don't post. I have posted it 11 times for him because he's trying to get his app better.
Noah:Yeah, apple is bad at a lot of things. I did give an Apple app store review for Apple wallet the other day.
Jake:Did it post.
Noah:I don't know.
Jake:You say you were more likely to leave that review because you had a poor experience.
Noah:Well, they asked me Apple wallet does not work for the thing that it's built for, which is Apple Pay to store my cards, to be able to use. Whatever does not work Cannot. No matter how I try, it won't save a credit card into my Apple wallet, so I don't have Apple wallet on my phone. Then you travel via American Airlines and the boarding pass makes you put it into a wallet. It will not show me the boarding pass on the app. No matter what I do had to download Apple wallet to store my boarding passes to get on the airplanes, and then Apple wallet had the nerve to ask me to rate it, so I did.
Jake:And let's say you had a good experience, as in, it just worked. Would you have rated it?
Noah:Probably not. But I also wouldn't have given it a negative review if I hadn't had to install it, delete it, install it, delete it, install it, delete it Several times. And then they asked me how it works. They should know that it's not working. They made the app not work.
Jake:You know, I did have this experience with Netflix recently. I was streaming something and it stopped a few times and Netflix was like so this doesn't seem like it's working very well for you. Let's try to determine what the issue is. Is it your, you know? Are there other people streaming video at the same time?
Noah:No.
Jake:No, it was like. Is your Wi-Fi router in the same room? Was it, it was not.
Frank:Oh, that might have been it.
Jake:Yeah, it was not he Okay.
Noah:It was a robot.
Jake:No, it was a three-part survey. It was a man-appearance. The other piece was are you able to stream Netflix on your other devices? And it was like. So, if you are, it's likely not Netflix services, it's probably your router. But I thought that was really interesting. You know they're tracking this data and they're proactively trying to provide a solution.
Frank:Knowing what I know about the Apple wallet issue you face, it would be wonderful if they said are other people near you able to use Apple wallet? You may be the problem.
Noah:Yeah, it's the worst app I've ever tried to use in my life, and I mean that sincerely.
Frank:If it worked 90% of people love it and 10% of people have your experience, and their app store reviews are either great or bad. Yeah, well then they should fix it.
Jake:They have a 90% five-star rating. They have a 10% one-star rating.
Frank:Yeah, and they probably have that guy used to work with saying don't deal with the lows because you're never going to get them to positive. So they only help the people who rate at seven. So maybe try rating at seven.
Jake:You know what I think we are doing here. We're really saying there's a flaw in the system, which is Noah's favorite thing to say. It's a problem with the system.
Frank:I've never heard you say it.
Jake:You should say your favorite thing more. He says this never in those words.
Noah:You know what Noah's favorite thing to say is? I think he doesn't ever say he's never said it once.
Jake:The problem is with the education system. It's set up in a dumb way. The problem is that we're hiring wrong. It's the system that's the problem.
Frank:I really don't like when people make things that don't work, if you're going to make a thing, make it work.
Noah:That bothers me, yeah.
Frank:Yeah.
Noah:And if you can't make a thing that works, then just don't make the thing.
Jake:Well, my point is is that they are making the thing that works, but if it really is, that they're not actually getting the negative feedback that they need in order to fix it in the minority of times that it's not working, I gave it to them. Then it's a problem with the system.
Noah:I gave them the negative feedback.
Jake:Well, you tried to. Did you ever? Did it ever go through? I don't know how to tell.
Frank:We don't accept one-star reviews, that would, they don't accept five-star reviews either. They don't accept reviews. Oh interesting, let me see. I don't know what to do with it, but I have posted a review five or more times for this app. Mine never posted still, but there's a lot more now.
Jake:Is it like pending, or is it? It just is gone?
Frank:It's gone, it doesn't ever do anything, it doesn't ever appear. Cool, yeah, it sucks, because it's an app I really enjoy and they've been making it better and better and I'm sort of one of their power users and they really want my review and I'm like yeah, of course, but I can't give it to them.
Jake:It sucks.
Noah:Anyway, it's a horrible app.
Frank:I hope we'll be sponsored by them someday.
Jake:Oh yeah.
Frank:They probably need me to at least be able to produce a review to believe in me.
Jake:Do you want to give them a review right now?
Frank:No, okay.
Jake:Well, guys, you know what I want to know. Oh my God. Oh, here comes the transition. I want to know how you dealt with not knowing if your review was going to post or not. How was that uncertainty for you? Was it difficult to deal with? No, not really. Jessica had a similar experience recently where she was on jeez consumer cellular and she wanted to get on a plan with her boyfriend on AT&T. But there was some situation where they're using the same network and literally you could not port from one to the other Like these companies they talked to each other.
Jake:It just wasn't going to happen. So this was really frustrating for her because she was like if I go to AT&T, I can get the newest iPhone, which is huge for what I need to be doing with my social media and my business and all this stuff for free, I think if she signed the contract. So what they ended up doing was they ported her number out of consumer cellular to Mint Mobile and I think they did this for like Damn, that's a something. Well, it had to be for like three months or something like that oh wow, okay, it was a significant period of time, anyway.
Jake:so as soon as the third month ticked over, it was like, okay, you can do this now. And she's like, yeah, well, I'm paying an extra month at Mint Mobile, it doesn't matter, but now I can go over to AT&T and she finally got her phone. But I thought it was a rather ingenious way to Not ingenious, but like creative way to get around the problem.
Frank:Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, big companies like this create not I don't think even intentionally, maybe they do intentionally create situations where you have to work with their systems and it certainly causes uncertainty. I mean, noah can't use Apple Wallet, that's probably a good. Why don't you tell us about the American?
Noah:Airlines story. It causes me no uncertainty, just frustration.
Frank:You didn't think what if I can't get my boarding pass before the plane needs it? No, Because you had plenty of time or something. Yeah, yeah.
Noah:I did this. You know you check in 24 hours in advance and I tried to pull up with my boarding pass just to test it and it wouldn't let you and it wouldn't let me. So then I downloaded Apple Wallet and it pulled up and I was like, okay, good.
Frank:Yeah, but that sounds like a real moment of uncertainty you had there.
Jake:Nope, just so here's something I'm uncertain about. Currently in my job, I, one of the things that we do, one of the services we offer, is to create SEO optimized Damn it.
Jake:I did it. We create blog posts for SEO purposes. And what'd you do? I said SEO optimized. Oh, yeah, yeah, I know, I know, man. So we create these blog posts for this company and we have been for the last six months. We are responsible for $15 million worth of leads that have come through via these blog posts in six months. It's pretty cool and it's a pretty amazing thing to be able to tell other companies and clients as well. Pretty cool stuff.
Jake:The whole point here is that it's been going really well. However, the process that we've had requires us to touch it so many times. It's really unfortunate how many times we have to get in and actually manage this stuff. So we're looking to reduce the amount of overhead. So we've recently gone to a writer who's willing to do everything from the outline to the edits, to the article writing, to the revision, to the actual going in there and optimizing the post afterwards. It's great, but unfortunately, every outline that they've come to us with is not where we want it to be. It is underperforming in every way.
Jake:We've been trying to get it to the right place, like getting on calls, trying to get them to understand this is your audience. I need you to write for them, and right now we're about three and a half weeks behind schedule on when this should go out and what I'm doing as the project manager is just assuming this may completely go under. This could be really bad. So I've started reaching out to other writers, started to get all of these plan B, plan C, plan D into place, and that to me just feels like a regular old project management. It's like, oh, something went wrong. We had a plan B and now I'm pivoting or transitioning or what have you, but there's definitely some huge uncertainty there.
Frank:Yeah, it sounds like it.
Jake:It's supposed to get published in January, so we have some time, but we're definitely squeezing that and compressing the timeline like crazy. Usually it's about an eight week lead into publication.
Frank:It's a new series or something.
Jake:We're going with a new provider for the actual writing and yeah, I mean you regularly post, weekly or yep. Yep Regularly post weekly.
Frank:And you have posts written through till January, but you need a new provider to start in January.
Jake:Yes, which meant that they really needed to start the first week of November. But here we are at the end of November and I don't have the first step in that process built out yet. Yeah, I have it. I had it back at the time. It's just, uh, who wrote the ones you have now? Um, simon did.
Frank:Okay.
Jake:Yeah, so if necessary, we could bang something out real quick, but right now we're still trying to use this as a learning experience, just assuming this is a growing pain and saying, hey, after we overcome this hurdle, the product should be way better after this. So there's that potential, but there's also the potential that it burns to the ground.
Frank:Yeah, so yeah, I was talking to someone last week about this because they lost one of their best people. Um, and they you know the person came to them and they're like, hey, I got a better offer over here, can you match it? And he's like, no, there's no way I can. You know, I really can't, because if I do that for you, I have to do it for everyone who works here, and that's 13 people and it's just gonna, you know, not make the budget work anymore. And it makes me think about this kind of stuff, because I want I'm probably gonna hire some people in January and I want good people and I want to pay them well, but I also like they're gonna, if they're great, they're gonna get better offers. This is like a I guess it's just part of the game but you can use contractors, but I don't. They're never great Sounds like you're using contractors. Do you guys use contractors?
Noah:No, I mean, we have some clients that hire outriders Does that go well, sometimes. Yeah, it depends on the industry. I have one rider that we have worked with with a couple of different clients, but they're in the same sort of space, they're engineering technology type stuff, so he's very specialized in that industry.
Frank:Yeah, that makes sense.
Jake:Yep, that's sort of the same with this client. It's a very specialized topic.
Noah:Yeah, what about? The uncertainty bothers you.
Frank:That's a lot to answer, but essentially it feels like a lot to help someone become great. It feels like a lot of energy and it's kind of selfish, but it's just like if I'm going to put the energy out there, I don't want to lose the person, and something like that.
Noah:Yeah, this touches on I'm far less interested in uncertainty than I am things like organizational development. Yeah, and I would say that if your focus is on helping people succeed and be great, you'll succeed and be great and hopefully your growth is going to match their growth, which is a lot less uncertainty than you're alluding to?
Frank:Oh, for sure, it's not even. I think the reason it bothers me on any level is that I know what I will do in the situation. I'll be like, oh, you have a better opportunity, you should do it. You should do what you think is cool, for sure. And it's just like okay, and we're going to have to restart, you know. But, that's fine. It's fine, for sure, it just feels icky to have to deal with, but it's not that bad.
Noah:Yeah, I mean I wish we had more employers that said hey, I care about you and your growth and I'm going to help you follow it, whatever it is you want to do, and I'll be okay.
Frank:I agree. Most of them don't. Most of the ones I've worked toward don't.
Noah:Yeah, most don't.
Jake:That's something that we're really thinking about a lot right now. I mean the company I work for. There's three of us that are actually employed by this company. To be perfectly honest with you, it's really two of us that are doing the work for the most part, and we're growing for sure. We're at a place where it is time to bring new people on board, and this is the critical moment to determine a lot of that culture, and we've had a lot of conversations about it and it's easy when there's two people at a table, it's like, yeah, this is what we care about, these are our principles.
Jake:But when you're actually interviewing people and I've interviewing someone on Tuesday it is okay. What are you telling me that I want to hear and who are you as a person? Because we are very principled in what we do. We care far more about people and relationships than we do about making money, and that has served us so incredibly well in the past. Which is like we have a client right now who's getting his budget cut for 2024. And he says hey, guys, I'm going to cut other things, not you. Our prices are going up in 2024. And he said send it over, we're doing work with you. I'm getting rid of other stuff to make room for you, like that's the power of a relationship and to show a person that or a company hey, we care and we're going to get the job done and we're going to do it well. So now we're bringing on a salesperson.
Jake:There's a difference in language between sales and build language, like we've talked about before, and oftentimes that sales language kind of predes things up. I think there's an element to that type of language that almost feels like we're talking about something else. There's the potential to stretch the truth, I guess, and so this moment is very crucial to say okay, what language are you going to use when you're talking to a client? Is it going to be relational? Is it going to be prettying up the product or the service? Because we want the former and we're going to stick to that. So it's an interesting place to be.
Frank:Yeah yeah, sales is interesting. I don't. I think more and more that I don't think the build people should be involved in sales conversations Maybe after they've made a decision to purchase, and talk about implementation or something, but you just get lost on the wrong things.
Jake:Absolutely.
Frank:They just need to help making a decision. That's really what sales is, and I don't know. I think you can always get out of a deal, so like, if it doesn't work later, just cancel it and do it.
Jake:That's an interesting thing. As a native speaker of build language who gets way too lost in the details, I recently had the experience of building out an offer, and when I presented this offer internally, I did it as a salesperson. It was insane to me. It was like who's talking right now? I was talking in sales language like it was nothing. There were no details involved. It was here's the dream, here's what we're going to achieve, here's the solution, and it was like I didn't know I could do that. It was a lot of fun.
Frank:Yeah, it's weird. You don't need the details and they literally bogged the conversation down. The chances of derailing go up.
Frank:You're like it doesn't matter what it is. You could have the sweetest product ever with 10,000 features that does every imaginable thing. But if you say anything about any of the details, then someone might be like, oh, how does it integrate with email? And it could integrate in every way possible, but for you to get all those details right in a way that lines up for them in their head in the moment it just doesn't belong in a sales conversation.
Jake:I think the offer itself lends itself to that. How much are you helping out your salesperson by constructing an offer that is easy to talk about? When we're talking about this offer that I put together, it was OK, so we're going to put a number on this. You get this many number of management hours in the year. I was like no, no, you get unlimited. You have a problem, it's solved. That's so much easier to talk about then. Ok, well, does your request fall under these criteria? If so, then you get this many hours. No, absolutely not. Salesperson gets to say, no, this is a 100% managed solution. You let us know there's a problem. You want a new upgrade, it's yours. That's a beautiful thing to be able to say.
Frank:Right Makes more sense. Does anything feel uncertain at the moment?
Jake:No, really.
Frank:What if an asteroid hits us?
Noah:I don't think a whole lot about uncertainty.
Jake:So that's a really good thing to talk about, though, because I felt the same thing. We started talking about whether we should talk about this topic, which we all ranked as the topic we wanted to talk about more than any other. I think that was an accident. It must have been.
Frank:I think it was because we feel that we have a good handle on it.
Noah:Maybe I'm uncertain about that.
Jake:Maybe. So the first thing that I came up with was when I think of uncertainty, I think of trust. When I really boil that down, what I'm saying is when I meet people who believe that something is certain, I have a hard time giving them that any of my trust. If I boil that down further, I think it comes down to I don't believe there is such a thing as certainty. I don't think any of us believe there's such a thing as certainty.
Noah:You're certain that there's uncertainty.
Frank:Yeah, that's the only thing I'm certain of I'm recovering from a brain aneurysm at the moment.
Jake:If I can't give my trust to a person who believes that things are certain, it means that something inside of me doesn't believe that person is trustworthy because they're not looking at reality, which means that I believe reality on its own terms dictates that nothing is certain. That's a core premise that I'm operating under, whether I'm looking at it or not.
Frank:Yeah.
Jake:What I'm talking about is that there are people who use sales language, for instance, who say you do this, you will get this. They state it like it's an absolute fact, but I have a really hard time believing those people or looking at them as rational individuals, because if you tell me that something is 100% going to happen, I don't believe you've actually looked at all the nooks and crannies of it. I have a hard time trusting your mental processing, so I'll ask questions and if I continue to get no, it's just gonna work. There's no reason to think about that. It's just gonna work. You go all right. Well, we want different things in life.
Frank:I don't know what that person. Why would I even be listening to that person?
Jake:I think we listen to those people all the time. You know, you see the Instagram video and it's like this guy that's driving around in his modified Range Rover up to his mansion and he says you too can do what I've done. All you have to do is buy my product. You know that product's not how you got there. You got there by selling this product to people who believe this product is how you got there.
Frank:Yeah, it feels like a trick or something.
Jake:Yeah. Yeah, it feels like intentional deceit often, for sure.
Frank:That's out there, yeah, I trust doesn't come into that picture for me, though. I don't think I don't trust people who's helped me stuff. I mean I do trust people who have sold me things after the evidence is in Sure, but I just the likelihood of me trusting them upfront. I'm just taking a gamble, like if I know about them because someone else was like they're good, if Noah told me about Target and he said it was really great, I don't trust them.
Jake:But we all three said yeah, certainty, that's dumb. So my question is in what ways has this just premise of uncertainty affected you and your jobs and your life? Like, do you find that you're putting a buffer between you and other things as a result, whether that's people work or whatever.
Noah:Excuse me, I hear you saying that certainty causes cynicism within you.
Jake:Seeing it in other people, right yeah.
Noah:Seeing certainty in other people creates cynicism in you, which makes you question everything. That's kind of what I'm hearing.
Jake:Yeah, sure.
Noah:And I guess I've just never put that much thought into it. Uncertainty just doesn't bother me because I think the way that I look at the world is sort of the uncertainties the norm I mean we're you know, I was born, I could have died the next day, I could die tomorrow, I could die in an hour. That's sort of the premise we're living the life on is uncertainty, and so from that aspect I don't feel like anything is really certain at all and therefore I just don't put any thought into it. The other piece of this, I think, is that I look at uncertainty as excitement in some ways, because I really like to unveil and learn and experience. And there is no learning or unveiling or experience, if I know. So for me it's not nearly as sort of abstract is what you're talking about for you. It just doesn't matter to me that much.
Jake:Sure, well, to be clear, it's not this abstract for me. I broke it down to be abstract to talk about who we are as people. But I totally agree with you Like. It sounds to me like what you're saying is uncertainty is a fact of life, and I have approached life based on this premise, in such a way that I actually become excited about what I don't know what's coming next.
Frank:Yeah, I agree with this. I think, as a paramedic, I enjoyed the uncertainty I would. You know, uncertainty is probably like, not even my favorite word to use for it. It's just variety. Okay, like variety is what makes life interesting and so I hope for it. I expect it when I find people who are speaking with certainty. If they have evidence of that certainty being true, then I believe in that. I'll take to that pretty easily. If they don't have evidence and they say something with certainty, this happens all the time on Twitter. Someone makes a comment and I'm like that's a weird idea and I go look and they have 17 followers and I'm like, oh well, it makes sense. Like this doesn't track. But yeah, yeah, it's just variety to me. I don't, I don't know. I mean, I think it's a human need, like certainty and variety are both human needs.
Jake:Yeah, they are. They're one right after another. It's like Maslow said that you need food, shelter, you need certainty that you're gonna have them tomorrow, and then, once you have both, the next thing you're gonna crave is uncertainty. You wanna know that it all can fall apart.
Noah:Yeah, you tied it to and I sort of tied it back to the podcast you told me to listen to. Yeah, I didn't even do that intentionally, but you. When we were having this conversation earlier in the week, you then sent me the podcast of Andrew Huberman interviewing Paul Conti Paul Conti and the conversation was about what was his name?
Jake:Skip Tripp Tripp.
Noah:The conversation was about defense mechanisms. Uh-huh yeah, and you said that you and Frank were having this conversation on Tuesday. Through that lens.
Jake:Yeah, we definitely brought up the drives right.
Noah:Yeah, and I didn't really listen to your guys' conversation. Mm-hmm, that drives me, but I'm curious. Yeah, I'm curious, like, what did you mean by that Specific to uncertainty?
Jake:Oh, that's very interesting. Yeah, uh, good question. So we briefly said I think that there's probably a continuum of how people act in the world based on their certainty levels or their desire for certainty levels, something like this. So somebody that is super high in the pleasure drive arena, somebody who's always going after feeling good and comfortable, that sort of thing might push their concepts of what should be to such an extreme that everything is sort of known. So it's like, hey, I can't get hurt because I've already said it's certain that this person is going to fall into a trap. I'm certain that this person is going to fall through. Like I can't trust them. I'm certain of it, so I can't be disappointed when they surprise me.
Jake:Somebody in the aggressive drive sort of scenario might say, hey, I'm so certain, I want this to happen so badly that, despite all the evidence that's coming at me, I'm gonna continue on this path, I'm gonna drive it home and it doesn't matter who gets hurt in the short term. And then somebody who is more interested in the generative drive or this sort of fruitful productivity in life, who wants something to just be good for good's sake, might say, hey, things aren't going to plan exactly how we thought they were. But there's something good coming out of this. Let's dig it up and see what's here anyway. Let's see what potential exists and maybe we'll come up with something better than we ever planned to begin with. And that's sort of the beauty of the uncertainty and that balance.
Frank:There's a lot of ideas I wanna connect. Yeah, so there are six human needs. I don't know who identified them originally, but certainty is one, uncertainty and variety is another. Significance is another, connection and love is another. Growth and contribution are the two. Last, number five and number six. Everyone has a primary one, it seems, the one that they will seek, no matter what. It usually has something to do with some childhood lack. So the aggressive drive seems to map most directly to certainty and significance. I will get these, no matter the cost, if you want to be significant. In the hood you get a gun and you shoot someone and you have instant significance. And why did you get that? Because you didn't know you were significant already. This is the aggressive drive. Pleasure drive seems to map most to uncertainty, variety and connection and love. You don't feel good Like that's just the. For some reason you didn't feel loved. When you do this substance, you feel good, so you max this out this is heroin this is food addiction.
Frank:This is the pleasure drive and the other two are growth and contribution. And I think if you grow up in a sort of healthy scenario, these are the most automatic that happen, like the thing that makes you feel good is becoming a part of the larger world and growing and contributing. And I think if you have the aggressive or pleasure drive sort of overriding this generative drive growth and contribution then finding a path to growth and contribution is the way that you will have the most fulfilled life. That's sort of where I've I think about these things anyways.
Jake:Yeah, there seems to be a mapping between how I centered and how we centered. Those are as well. Definitely, yeah, I definitely deviate more toward the pleasure drive in my own life than the aggressive drive for sure it depends on the season of my life.
Frank:When I was younger I was much more. I mean, I wasn't like I don't think I was ever super vigilant, but I did seek significance in a lot bigger way.
Jake:That's true for me as well, but I almost wonder if I wasn't getting, like this dopamine, hit from the significance itself, if it wasn't like harnessing my pleasure drive to be significant.
Frank:Oh sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, and I don't know all the neurochemistry, they're probably the same drive.
Jake:Sure Right, it's just the expression that's different.
Frank:Yeah, you could lump them all in the Venn diagram of selfish drive if you wanted. It's like I need this world to be my way that's really what pleasure and aggression are and the other one seems to be more like I need to be a part of this world instead of I need it to be my way.
Jake:Yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. It makes me think of how you know if the Golden Gate Bridge couldn't sway like six feet in either direction, or the St Louis Arch or whatever, it would shatter when you're dealing with certainty on one side or certain uncertainty on the other side. These are such rigid beliefs that they don't stand up well to reality itself. The wind blows and they crack, and it's an opportunity at that point to either see the light shining through the cracks at what reality really is, or to double down on your efforts and to say, oh, I just wasn't holding on strong enough, I'll hold on stronger for next time, right.
Frank:Yeah, yeah. I mean I just think that that series was so helpful because it connects so many of these ideas that I have learned over many years in like a almost a simple diagram about the generative drive, the pleasure drive, the aggressive drive, and like if the words don't make sense to you, then just change them out, because the ideas are the same and if you are driven by something other than the generative drive, your results will be poor than if you are driven by the generative drive, yeah, yeah.
Frank:That's. I mean, I don't know. That seems like a very easy heuristic that I think makes everyone's life better if they just apply it on some level. Like what are you doing today? Is it generative? If not, do you think there's anything you can move in that direction? Like is you'll be happier?
Jake:I like that a lot.
Jake:One of the questions I've been asking myself at the beginning of every morning is like how identified with my emotions or my thoughts am I?
Jake:And I mean that's why I meditate every morning is to sort of get to a step back sort of position, and it's definitely helped me a lot to not be so reactive in the world.
Jake:But something that I've noticed in my life as a cycle is sort of a pleasure seeking purchasing cycle. If I'm uncomfortable I've told Noah about this before or uncertain about something in my environment, I will purchase things that make me feel comfortable, and it's like a quick dopamine hit in one way. But another way to look at it is, if I spend all the money I have or something like that, I will be certain of the outcome. I don't know what success looks like, but I know what it is to be struggling to put myself in that same position. I've been in before and I think that this question that you just posed am I being driven by the generative drive or this pleasure drive is a great way to look at my behaviors and say which one is it. Am I trying to proliferate and be a source of good and communal abundance in the world, or am I trying to make myself more comfortable right now?
Frank:Yeah, and it's not that those other drives don't play into the generative. Sometimes, if they are less than the generative, they're valuable. Yeah, seeking connection and love inside of a relationship when you're generative is an amazing thing, and enjoying food with people when you're generative is great. And rising to a leadership position when you are a generative person is wonderful. Like significance is great. And finding certainty, like Alex Hermosi has about the marketing channels for leads is great. It's a good thing and it's very aggressive, but it's under the generative drive, it's when those drives are outside, overriding the generative drive that you get into trouble.
Jake:That's very interesting. I mean, I think what you're describing right now is a form of sublimation which is taking these sort of maladaptive behavioral mechanisms or defense mechanisms and channeling that drive towards something productive. I really love that idea. We've talked about it a few times, like with Matt Fraser saying, oh, he's got this insane amount of anxiety but it's driving him and he's like, but it's got a definitive end, it's got a timeline on it when he use it for now and it results right. I love that idea. So what episode did you listen to? The first one, okay, I'm glad I sent the right one. That's all I really cared about.
Noah:Yeah, I, and I honestly didn't find it that interesting, yeah, which I tried, and you guys seemed to both like it a lot, and so I was really trying to listen intently and find something to connect to, but it just wasn't that interesting to me.
Jake:Did you not find it interesting, in the same way that you don't find atomic habits interesting?
Noah:Maybe I don't know. That would require me to have some understanding of why I don't find it interesting.
Jake:Well, I mean, did they just seem like self-evident, like everything they were saying just seemed.
Noah:Yeah, maybe, maybe. So. Um, yeah, it's not that I thought it was a horrible podcast or something, but I just I struggled to get into it and I listened to almost four hours of podcast in a car by myself. So, um, I don't know, I guess it just nothing seemed super enlightening to me and maybe, maybe that's what you're saying.
Jake:Yeah, Sure, sure, yeah, I think the I, I love vocabulary when we talk about the Enneagram. The biggest thing it did for me was it gave me a framework and a new vocabulary for talking about things that were happening every day.
Jake:Um, we, we know from a psycholinguistic perspective that additional words make us more sensitive to our environment and those aspects in the environment. So, like right here, um I, you know, Frank just said this is a question we can ask ourselves. Uh, I think that that was the value that I derived from these talks, which was like, oh, this is a framework for thinking about things and this is new vocabulary, and now I can look at the world in a ever so slightly differently tinted lens, that that helps me see it more clearly.
Noah:Yeah, I, the more I think about this. I actually think that part of the problem for me with the podcast was I don't think it was granular enough, I think it was too. The language was too general, and so it's sort of every kind of example they gave just felt some similar to me. They just felt like this general oh yeah, this person's responding to a thing.
Jake:Hmm.
Frank:Yeah, well, I agree with you and that's what I liked about it actually, because these ideas almost everything they talked about in that podcast is something I have individually discovered in detail, but I hadn't seen someone put it all together that way, in such a general and simple, and it's like that heuristic we've talked about before where it's it's very complex in the middle and it's simple. It's the same idea as, like, if you eat less than 20 total carbohydrates a day, you lose weight. Yeah, to me it's true, and it's way too simple because it doesn't do anything about I can't stop eating cinnamon rolls. It does nothing for that problem, right Well, except it does solve it if you just do it. But you know, if you're unless you're the kind of person who can just will it done, then you're never going to find that out. So it depends on the person whether you need more details or not.
Jake:Absolutely.
Jake:I thought you told me specifically, you said the third episode that's where, that's where some good stuff's at it was the one about relationships and like how do we apply this framework to relationships.
Jake:And I thought it was so interesting that they were talking about compatibility quite a bit and they said well, you know, you could have two people who really love music, but you know, this person likes opera and this person likes, you know, punk rock, and they actually, you know, are at odds with each other and so the seemingly compatible trait is actually incompatible. What we find, and what you just said, is that you know, in the in the higher up you go, the more simple it becomes is that they used this generative drive to say that's really, you know where compatibility lies. You could have two people this one likes music and that one, you know, is a data scientist and loves spreadsheets and they seem to have, on the surface, nothing in common, but when you go up that spectrum, they both are interested in achieving the highest form of blank, and that drive is what makes them compatible. I found that in my own life.
Frank:I agree.
Jake:Yeah.
Frank:Do you think people who don't find themselves interested in the generative drive should find other people who aren't interested in the generative drive to be selfish with together for their own compatibility?
Jake:That's a really interesting question. I hate the word. Should I think that they?
Frank:do. Yeah, I agree. I think of like addicts working together to keep each other addicted and power hungry groups working together to fight for significance.
Jake:What's interesting, though, is the opposite is also true. It's working together to stay away from what they're addicted to.
Frank:Yeah, their generative drive is growing Exactly. I'm saying, what about if I'm not interested in that? I just really believe pleasure is it for me.
Jake:Yeah.
Frank:What should I do? How should I best optimize the pleasure drive?
Jake:Well, it's a really funny thing that you said, because you said it in explicit terms. You said I believe that pleasure is it for me, and I think that most people who actually do believe that could never put that into words because they're so inundated by their pleasure drive that their prefrontal cortex is not online. Yeah, I agree, but if that is occurring, I think the question is all those people who say shit, that drives me insane, that they just say if you'll just get out of bed one hour earlier.
Jake:if you'll just exercise, you'll feel really great, and that piece of you that says that can't possibly be true. They're lying to me. Whatever it is, I've tried it and it sucks. Ask yourself what the world would be like if it was true. Why are all these people saying the same thing if they're just making it up what might be there and I think that's true for anyone anywhere, including myself- yeah, so you don't think they should just go off the deep end?
Jake:No, I think most of the good stuff happens when you ask yourself what is the worst thing a person could be, and then you find it within yourself, that trait, and then you find a way to love yourself anyway. That's like the beginning of seeing the world through a collective lens and through humility, and you start to embrace change a little bit more.
Frank:Yeah, I think you're right. I think that's where it changes, like if you can get humility, if you can see yourself and be sort of loving to yourself and start to see empathy for others, you might start to see some pathway for you. That doesn't involve just the pleasure drive and it does involve contribution and growth.
Jake:Kind of breeds significance, and it kind of derives pleasure from other things.
Frank:Yeah, and it ends in suicide. Way less, Sure, less. I think that's the. If you max out pleasure and aggressive drive, then you end up with suicide. There's nothing else I could possibly do for the world. I just don't wanna have to deal with it ever again.
Jake:Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that those are pathways to a certain nihilism. Yeah.
Frank:Yeah, it's sad. To me, suicide Just seems like a one idea at the right moment would have prevented it.
Jake:Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it's interesting. It's one of those things that it's like suicide is the result of something, and the thing of which it is a result is the sad thing, and usually it's a desperation, a belief that, a certainty that life is a certain way and it's never gonna be any different.
Frank:Yeah.
Jake:Or reality is a certain way. It's never gonna be any different.
Frank:Yeah, and it seems like if you just get out of bed and generate something, it goes away and I hate it. And I especially hate it for anyone who feels like that's not true, you know.
Jake:Yeah.
Frank:Because there's I've been there before where I'm like no, it's not like that, it's not just get up and go, that's not how it works, but it is how it works. So it's the worst when you don't feel like it's true.
Jake:I saw this show the other day it was Nine Perfect Strangers, and in it is a drama series and in it there's these parents who lost a teenage son to suicide and I found myself like on the verge of tears while watching this because I was putting myself in the mind of this father who had raised his little boy and watched him come to this conclusion.
Jake:It just broke my heart, having a son of my own, and I started thinking about my niece, who has also attempted suicide on a couple of occasions. And it's like if you can give yourself just a little while longer, you can see that you know the deepest pain you've ever experienced is only one step in the path toward the greatest joy you could ever experience. And that feels like not the right message for someone in that moment because it's so unbelievable, it's so incongruent with their experience. They're like you're making it up, you're just trying to trick me into taking the next step, but like as someone who has gone through some very desperate times in life and come out the other side to experience that joy it's really hard to describe it any other way Like without that deep pit I never could have experienced the mountain top, because it's that contrast that allows me to see the beauty.
Frank:Yeah, and that even feels like too much to me. Not that it's not true, I just mean that it feels like an extreme belief to come up with. But it's certainly true that if you are at the deepest, darkest bottom of a pit, the next step must be up, like it may be a while before you get to the mountain top. But if this is the worst, then tomorrow will be a better day. Yeah, seems more believable.
Jake:Sure, it's the question of whether it's enough.
Noah:I think, yeah, you know, but if it can be enough, Well, I think Kanke said that the load of finds the high, exactly, which makes sense. I'm looking at the pillars of mental health and I'm also looking at the six human needs thing that you were talking about. I think this is all stuff that I've thought about and worked on for a while now, and so it just kind of makes sense to me. Mm-hmm, I don't know that it's helpful to the listeners to talk about this pillars of mental health document without them being able to look at it.
Jake:Yeah, I can say that the iceberg diagram of the self that was also one of the PDFs it shows the conscious self at the top. It's the very tip of the iceberg, but most of ourself is the subconscious area and we've got all these defensive mechanisms and some of them are healthy and they let the light shine through, and some of them are unhealthy and they make it impossible to know what's below the surface. And so when I this probably would have been a better framework to present the uncertainty idea, I just noticed that all of us were eager to say yeah, yeah, uncertainty I mean uncertainties are given, and it was like, okay, well, that is some sort of mechanism in our lives. Let's look at that uncertainty and see where the light is shining through and what's on the other side.
Noah:Yeah, I think all of us have done a lot of self exploration over. I mean, we're all way different than we were 10 years ago, no doubt, and I think the biggest reason there are lots of reasons, but I think the biggest reason is we've all done lots of sort of self assessment, yeah. And so when I look at this Heisberg model and I think about the unconscious mind for me personally, a lot of that stuff, we all have defense mechanisms and we all have things that we're not aware of yet. Not saying that doesn't exist for me, but a lot of that stuff underneath I've identified doesn't mean that I necessarily control it all the time, but I certainly understand what's going on a lot of the time with myself, even if it's something I react to. A lot of times I step back and go okay, this is why.
Noah:So I think part of the reason that podcast was sort of you know, boring for me was that I've kind of put this thought into myself I'm not really that interested in other people, yeah, and when I look at the pillars of mental health and when I look at the six human needs, I think that holds up Like I'm really just not that interested in other people. In fact, if I had to rank the six needs for myself, just to read them off this is not the ranking, but they are love and connection, variety, significance, certainty, growth, contribution. Those are the six, and I would say contribution, which I think is probably the one that is most focused on other people, contributing to society, contributing to others. Whatever is the one that is most focused on other people, however, is either my fifth or sixth ranked one. I just don't care that much, and so I'm sort of like focused inward a lot of the time these days, and that doesn't mean I have everything figured out, but I'm just not, when we talk about uncertainty, just not that worried about it.
Jake:Yeah, no that makes sense to me. I think that what, frank, you were saying to kind of bring this back around to potentially a conclusion is that all of these drives, all of these defensive mechanisms, they can be healthier, they can be unhealthy, they can be adjacent to the generative drive or they can be all out on their own and I think that the more that we lean into that generative drive, we can start to see these other pieces sort of fall into place. So like, for instance, I've been thinking a lot about finances recently and what my drive towards sort of quote unquote financial success would be and realized I don't care about having a mansion, I don't care about having a lot of money. This, coupled with potentially my lack of certainty or my defensive mechanism to make everything uncertain, keeps me from moving forward Like I don't believe anything's certain. So I never would have sold that package that Simon sold. I never take that step.
Jake:I'm less industrious, probably because I have a defensive mechanism that needs to be uncertain. But then, all of a sudden, I asked myself this question and it's like light bulb moment for me, but super simple and it is what's your why? Why would you ever want to be financially successful? And I realized that the only thing I could really come up with was that, by sort of achieving this level of security, I could release myself from these physical needs of food, shelter, future security and allow myself the mental space to grow and then sort of reinvest that into other people.
Jake:And that why, for me, clicked and I went oh, I'm willing to take some steps into uncertainty, grow, become something different and share that with the world.
Noah:I relate to that a lot more than some of the other stuff we've been talking to or talking about. Rather, I also. I mean I don't think most people really care about money as much as they think they do. It's always something that is lying under that. Most of it, I think, is probably certainty or security, more or less. For me, that's true, I don't care to be rich or something, but I certainly don't wanna just quit my job because I also want the security to know that I can pay my bills and live my life right. So there's somewhere in between for me that is the most comfortable. And my ultimate why is freedom? I just wanna be able to explore the things I wanna explore. And for you I mean you said something about helping others or whatever Mine is just freedom to explore, freedom to learn, freedom to uncover other things that might be fun for myself, you know. So I relate to that a lot more than some of this other certainty talk.
Frank:Yeah.
Noah:But I kind of think that's me wanting this. In some ways it's certainty and in other ways I think it's me really wanting more uncertainty or exploring the uncertainty.
Jake:Yeah, it reminds me of that channel that you were following for quite a while. I don't know if you still do. The big statement was seek discomfort. That could be synonymous with seek uncertainty.
Noah:Yeah, yes, theory.
Jake:It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes. I may have shared it here before, but it's GK Chesterton who says that poetry is sane because it floats easily on the infinite sea. Reason seeks to cross the infinite sea and so make it finite. I think it's beautiful in so many ways, but it just it's not a good thing. But it just really calcifies this idea that, no matter how much we want to make something certain, if it is by very nature uncertain, believing it is certain is a fantasy and not the thing itself. But by leaning into that uncertainty and me taking a step and saying, hey, I'm willing to sell this thing to do something I've never done before, this thing that gets my heart racing, is a step toward floating easily in that infinite sea of this great game of life that we don't really have any control over and we can just enjoy and try and play.
Noah:Have I reached a certain end.
Frank:We could have. Yeah, I think. So the money conversation misses a thing that I think is the coolest part about money.
Jake:What is it?
Frank:Which is that you can give it to people. So freedom I used to seek freedom a lot with money and I built up enough that it felt free a few different times at different thresholds in my life. And there's no bank balance that will feel as good as giving someone some money that they don't have, like they don't have, they don't have a way to solve this problem and you just make it go away for them. I just think we should say that.
Jake:That's all I like it. I like it. Embracing uncertainty is really embracing reality and possibility and growth and yeah.
Frank:Are you summarizing this podcast as though it were about uncertainty? Yeah, if you're a listener, please let us know if this podcast was about uncertainty, because it will help us to see reality as it is for you as our top piece. Alright, thanks for listening. Thanks, guys, out.