162 Tim Chang: From Crisis to Chrysalis: A Silicon Valley Investor's Insights on Finding Purpose and Fulfillment in Midlife

[00:00:00] CK: My next guess is a partner of the main field fund. He invests in early stages technologies, and I've created more than $4 billion in total. Exit value is being on Forbes, smartest list of top tech investors twice.

He is a self-proclaimed hardcore body hacker and very accomplished actor and musician. He's passionate about bringing greater consciousness, connection, and healing the world. Please welcome Tim Chang.

[00:00:17] Tim: Thanks so much for having me. Ck. It's honor to be here.

[00:00:20] CK: The honors mine. So happy belated birthday. You had told me before, uh, we hit record that you have celebrated your birthday in Mexico City.

You have, uh, workshop your way or snuck in, uh, some personal development. Workshops and men's and women's circle together. If you can tell us a little bit about that. I am curious about, Yeah,

[00:00:35] Tim: absolutely. I just turned 50 on October 1st and, you know, it was a date. I was honestly pretty terrified about 50.

Such a big milestone. And, um, in many ways I'd be totally at the point of what would normally be a, a midlife crisis. You know, kind of transitioning career path, thinking about what's next. Um, you know, big shifts in my personal life and family configuration. Um, not necessarily a clear picture of what I would do for the next 50 years.

So normally this is a time a lot of men probably go through kind of midlife crisis. And what I wanted to do is I've been so lucky to build up what I call my tribe, my [00:01:00] chosen family over the last 10, 15 years, about a hundred incredible, incredible humans that on my 40th birthday party, like kidnapped them all to Portland and, and, uh, through the equivalent of a Tim conference, kind of like a joking homage, the Ted with my belief that everybody has the equivalent of the TED talk inside.

But you know, maybe without such the pressure, um, like adult show and tell. And my theory was if I love this person and that person thinks so highly of them and they don't know each other, they're gonna definitely fall in love with each other. And, um, it turned out to be true. Just the number of connections and magic that happened out of that, um, has been so inspiring for me and.

Taught me so much. You know, these are folks that, not just celebrating together, but building together, growing together, visioning, uh, even breaking down, suffering, holding space for each other through our, our lowest points as well. You know, that was what I always really wanted to build the tribe I never had.

As a little kid, we grew up moving around a lot. I never had a posse of friends. And so really in my mid to late thirties, I started thinking about how do I build the posse, the superhero league I always wanted. So I was able to, you know, mark that 10 year milestone from that 40th birthday in Mexico City, and I just kind of opened up and said, Hey, instead of a midlife crisis, I'm gonna recruit you all into this with me.

Help me witness me, hold me accountable, and figuring out what we all do together. We've had a lot of celebration and play and growing, and we've had a lot of individual accomplishment checking off the boxes. But what can we do in [00:02:00] service from here on out? For the next 50 years, how do we support each other?

And, uh, in that way, I was trying to see if we could turn and otherwise midlife crisis into what I call a midlife chrysalis of how we grow together. Um, last thing I wanna share is I learned in, uh, Hindu spiritualism, there's four ahas or four stages that often mark a person's life. You know, act one is growing up learning, um, the student life Act two is the householder life.

Um, building a family, a career individual accomplishment. Act three tends to be more becoming like a modern elder. Um, paying it forward, you know, kind of shifting from me to focusing on we, and Act four is the renounced life of becoming more a spiritual. And I just noticed many of us are shifting in and between act two and act three and um, it can be a really lonely journey.

And the thought was if we each have our tribe, our chosen family to do that with, then we could support each other in it. And it doesn't have to be something that's so lonely and confusing. Hmm.

[00:02:41] CK: I love that. Is there any special reason for a hundred? Why not 25? Why not 50? Why not 300 and why a hundred?

[00:02:47] Tim: Uh, my great-grandfather lived to 102 or so, so I figure, uh, maybe I have the genetics to go that long.

And of course, you know, there is, um, cybernetic technologies and biohacking and longevity and all those sorts of things which seem to be here and, and on the horizon. So, um, you know, I figured it's a nice round number to aim for, but [00:03:00] Got it. Yeah, I had Chip Connolly actually give a speech, uh, a keynote talk.

And my birthday, he's somebody hero to me, building a modern elder academy, something I feel called to shift into. And he was saying that with life expectancy now from the age of 18, even at ifd, I likely have 61% of my adult adult life ahead of me. That's really encouraging because instead of looking at it like, Oh, I hit the peak, it's all downhill from here.

It's almost another way of saying, you know, with the right transition, I'm only getting started right now. It won't look the same as the path up the mountain. It'll probably be more about paying it forward, serving others, being a steward, being a mentor instead of individual achievement. But that's really exciting.

Cause it says maybe from here on out is where the real adventure begins. Mm. I love

[00:03:31] CK: that outlook. By the way, for any of you that haven't seen Tim, just Google Tim and you'll see how shred it is. So, uh, you look way good for, for your age. So I, I think there's definitely a lot more than a hundred. I think you're underestimating yourself honestly.

[00:03:44] Tim: Wow. Thank you.

[00:03:44] CK: Um, I was actually asking about why a hundred people. Oh, a hundred people. Yeah. Is there any reason why you kept it a hundred went on 300 or 25?

[00:03:51] Tim: Sure. Um, yeah, you know, I wasn't setting out for a number originally. It was more sort of, I just started noticing these amazing people I'd be introduced to in my life.

Um, Then more of them [00:04:00] started popping outta the woodwork. And at first I was like, Wow, this is incredible. Where have you guys been all my life. But then what I realized was, because I was more tuning into who I am, and I've always believed that there's a notion of your vibe attracts your tribe. So it's more that as you become fully realized in yourself and you know your own essence, you figure out your own gift and superpower that enables you to see others who have started to tap into that.

Almost as, as you raise your vibration, you're more able to quickly spot that in other people. And then it's beautiful because it's not about how long you've known each other. It's more sort of, Wow, I get you we're on the same path of the same mountain. Um, another saying I love is that, you know, there's many ways up the mountain, but only one view from the top.

Mm-hmm. and. What the feeling is like is that you're meeting kindred souls, traveling up the same mountains, realizing the same truths, getting the same mountain top, but just coming from infinitely different starting points. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. .

[00:04:37] CK: Yeah. I mean, one thing I, I mean, everything you said about growing up, household girl life, modern elder painted for, uh, you know what I, my experience of you, Tim, I mean, you and I, I don't know if you remember exactly how we met or when we met you.

Do I do. Okay. So we met each other 2012 at the ted conference. Mm-hmm. where you perform as a part of cover flow. Right. And then my experience of you since then, it's been while 10 years, my experience ever since has always been your, your you helper. You're always in service of [00:05:00] others. You're, to me, very unperturbed.

Very quist, always very, very helpful in, in. any capacity I see you in, in person as a keynote speaker. And, um, so that's my experience of you.

[00:05:10] Tim: Thank you. That means a lot to me. Um, honestly, the younger me had a lot of insecurity about like, what is my superpower? My great grandfather helped build the country of Taiwan and my grandfather was like, you know, Alan Greenspan of Taiwan, and they had all these big, you know, quote tagline headlines.

And I always wondered, how am I gonna live up to that? What, what am I gonna do? When am I gonna build? And, um, it was reflected to me at my birthday from a dear friend. He said, You know, what's interesting about you is you grew up loving superheroes and comic books and believe that everybody has superpower, but for.

Tim, I see you not as Wolverine or Superman or Batman. You're more like Dr. Xavier and X-men like you. Mm-hmm. love to help other people recognize their superhero and become that. And that really touched me and helped something click for me is that is true. I thought my whole life I needed to become a Superman or something, but when I realized is the joy is helping each person see their own superpower.

Um, I never really knew how to put it in words, but when I had that reflected it, it, it made sense to me. Um, yeah. And that helped me figure it out. It's like, Oh yeah, that's my joy and that's why I do never really kind of knew how to explain it. And I would never dare say I'm a coach or mentor or teacher.[00:06:00]

I think I'd probably too much imposter syndrome for that. But just more, um, let me put it this way, If I could explain what it feels like to be me. One of my first joys was, um, getting reasonably good at guitar, you know, to the point that I could jam with any musician and kind of have my own flavor to add.

And so what it feels like is if you were to come to me and say, Tim, I have this beat, or this groove, or this idea for a song, let me play it for you. And when you do, I can sort of quickly tune into where you're going and have ideas. I'm like, Oh, if you add this, well if you move this over here, let's spice it up with this.

And if we remix it this way, um, that's the feeling I get. It's sort of my favorite is not me coming up necessarily with the idea, but jamming with other people, helping them, you know, evolve and expand and remix and edit and, um, you know, kind of, uh, kind of grow their idea from there. If that

[00:06:36] CK: makes sense.

It, it totally does. I'm actually learning, um, the gemba right now. Nice. Yeah. I wanted to play in ceremonies. So that's, that's, that's a huge inspiration for me. So, um, and, and I, I love that your, your, your email is, well, I don't wanna say in public , but it has something to do with time. Right. So, so, so for me, Jambe has been instrumental for me to realize or alleviate this pressure or finality

[00:06:56] Tim: Yeah.

Of our

[00:06:57] CK: life. Yeah. Because it, it's, it's, it's about keeping beats, [00:07:00] but you can do a lot of different things, The frails and all these things in between the beats. Yeah. So for me, that's has some significant life lessons just from touching this instrument. So how important it is for you, my friend, as a musician, cuz that's how we first met as a musician, to, to balance off with your, You know, your day job effectively as a, as a, as an investor, as a, as a, as a helper in some other ways.

[00:07:18] Tim: Yeah, it's been everything. At first I used to feel, again, a little insecurity about this cuz I identified as a creative, as a musician when I was younger. That's what I wanted to be, you know, a professional musician. Um, and so I always thought like, Oh, I'm this business person, but really I want to be a creative and I shouldn't talk too much about the creative stuff because it'll make me less serious or, you know, less credible as a business person.

Similarly, in, uh, performing arts and the music circles, I was like, ah, I don't wanna talk too much about the business stuff cuz that'll make me look a suit without campus. And I used to try to separate the two until one day it was too tiring to do so, and I just said, Forget it. I'm just gonna be who I am.

I'm, I'm both, I'm a lot of things. I'm a weird hybrid of these. And the more. Integrated them all. The more that, you know, people liked it. And so it taught me valuable lesson of just live your truth. And in many ways, you find your unique identity as kind of a mashup mix tape of your different interests together.

At first, they might not make sense. You might not wonder, Hey, how does Jamba [00:08:00] tie in with, like spirituality tie in with like quantum physics? But the the magic is you have a through line that ties them all together in your own way. And that is the magic you bring to the table of the world. Like that'll be your unique potluck dish that you bring to the party, if that makes sense.

It takes a while to figure out maybe what that mashup mixtape really is, but you know, just keep tuning into the things that really turn you on and eventually a unique through line, like I said, will reveal itself. I love

[00:08:19] CK: that. Well, yeah, so. One of the, So we touch about your, your family history. Mm-hmm.

your passion for music and art, and obviously your day job, that's investment. And you know, you have other passions, which is wisdom, spirituality, burning man art, and so all that combined to make a very unique, you. And you had mentioned in some of your talks that, uh, it was my Valley's talk about 2018, I believe, where you talked about the importance of storytelling.

What's your story, figuring it out, and then tell the story with, you know, uh, full potency, right? Show up fully, shine brightly, and then connect others around it. To me, as a coach, as a course creator, part of my job really is to everything you said, help 'em figure out what their story is. Let of the ones that don't serve them.

Reinforce the one that do, and then [00:09:00] tell their story with full potency without any of the, the shyness around it, and then connect others and attract others around it. So, uh, what, in your opinion as a, um, someone who's going the same journey, um, what have you figured out your own story? Is there anything specific tools or experiences that help you figure out your superpower, your narrative about who you are?

Yeah. So you can chat rightly as you are.

[00:09:21] Tim: I love that question. Um, a couple things come to mind. . When I was a kid, I, you know, I mentioned this for, I loved comic books and superheroes and you know, what I always noticed is that each one had their own unique virgin story. And more often than not, at least in the Marvel universe, the superpower often came from adapting to something that almost killed that person.

And so there's that old saying, with the wound comes the gift, right? Mm-hmm. Peter Parker's bitten by a spider, and you know, Bruce Banner gets irradiated. And these are normally things that would've killed them, but they adapted and gained a superpower out of it. I also noticed in a lot of Ted Talks, many of those stories are also deeply personal, vulnerable shares about some insight that came out of some enormous challenge that would've otherwise crippled or, or killed them.

So there's a similarity in that. So many times I think our story is tied to our core wound or maybe the, the trauma that we survive through. Um, another form of finding our story or superpower also [00:10:00] comes from our purest form of play. What is that thing that makes you feel most alive, most joyful, most curious.

So I do believe stories can be rooted in this playful curiosity side, but they can also be rooted in, you know, deep tragedy or loss as well. And those often inform, you know what it is that is our true gift to share. So what is that saying? Like the wound provides the gift and that gift then is what, what we share?

Mm-hmm. . I've also heard that saying, I think it was Tony Robbins might have said this. We are most passionate about that, which we are denied the most. So I think you wanted is what you really want, and then you teach others how to get that. In my case, it was, I grew up a, you know, a lonely kid moving around a lot.

So I built the posse, the tribe that I wish I had. And um, oh, I forgot to mention, you had asked why a hundred? I think there's something natural to that too. Dunbar's number of 150, you know? Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . I actually, the original guest list was somewhere around 130, and so it kind of ties in with that.

That's the size of the village I think you can keep in your mind. Mm-hmm. , um, all at once. So maybe that's a natural expansion limit of a, a deep tribe you can have. Mm-hmm. . But, um, yeah, this was for me, that origin of my story moving around a lot, being a kid who is mostly more alone, um, you know, into things like video games, role playing games, comic books, and then realizing, wow, those are really interesting metaphors for life.

And also, like you'd mentioned, just this kind of person with a lot of weird disparate interest. Music and [00:11:00] math and computer programming, but also spirituality and, you know, immersive art and things that honestly, I had a hard time tying together early on. It's like, why am I so scattered? But as I saw the through point, um, they became more and more related and linked, and that's when my mix tape revealed itself of sort of playfulness, creativity, you know, arts technology.

Uh, as I went deeper down each rabbit hole I saw, wow, they're actually really similar in practices. I believe that the more you go deep into mastery of one subject, it helps you relate to other subjects because there's a lot of maybe underlying truths that are similar. So in that way, you know, studying math or studying magic kind of become the same thing, you know, over time.

Um, studying magic. Yeah. Magic, magic, magic in, in what you wanna call magic. Maybe in the study of performing magic or magic in the formal mystic or spirituality, but uhhuh, um, yeah, I almost believe that if you go far enough down one end of science and or you go far enough down the, the realm of say, spirituality or consciousness, they bend around and meet somewhere.

Similarly, or like I said before, there's a similar mountain top of fundamental truths underneath any human endeavor or pursuit, whether you get there through pottery or yoga or poetry. I think that journey to those underlying truths is really similar.

[00:11:55] CK: Well, I mean huge on the meta. cognition aspect of it, my frameworks and patterns and all these things.

[00:12:00] So I'm not surprised to hear that you venture into sort of the edge of a certain domain. Then that's where another domain begins. In my mind, in my case. Mm-hmm. , I went through the path of having a PhD mm-hmm. , and then I realized like, oh, there's, at the end of it, um, that's where spirituality begins, like faith, right?

So, uh, because at the end of the day there is an underlying assumption somewhere. Someone made an assumption somewhere, and that's where faith begins. Right? So, anyways, without getting into two esoteric there, I

[00:12:22] Tim: love that. Um, that makes a lot of sense to me actually. Yeah.

[00:12:24] CK: Yeah. Okay. Thank you . Um, well, how, how did you concretize or start to see patterns?

Was there like, Like a download, like an epiphany, like, Oh, this is how music and mathematics and computer programming connect, or were there some journaling practices, some plant medicine involved, or whatever the, the modality is that really help you like, aha, there it is. Yeah, my friend helped me point out the, the, the dots looking backwards.

[00:12:46] Tim: Good question. Um, I think that's something I've always been wired for. I remember even, uh, two, two decades ago writing my essay for business schools, um, kind of talking a lot about, for some reason I see dots connecting in patterns and I just, I called it synthesis. Back then, things always seemed more similar than, than [00:13:00] disparate or unalike to me.

And that. Made it really comforting to be in the world of, uh, all these disciplines. And I used to have FOMO of like, what if I'm not studying the right thing? And so it was kind of this comfort of like, actually everything ties together. There's ways, all sorts of things remixed together. And I learned this by, as I was building this tribe, was something I really dreamed of as I'd love to have these, you know, ninja masters in lots of different domains, whether it's in food or in written word, in literature, or in travel or in science.

And, um, there is a theory in human networks that the value of a network is directly correlated to the heterogeneity or the diversity of the members in that network. So if it's, Oh,

[00:13:28] CK: well slow down if we, One more time.

[00:13:30] Tim: Yep. That the value of a network is directly related to the diversity of the members of that network and.

Another way to think of it is if we only knew Michelin star chefs and only hung out with them, then we'd go really deep in that area, but would probably know the similar people and same things. But if your tribe has a Michelin Star chef and a Nobel Prize winning physicist and you know, somebody who's uh, a master DJ or something, the potential for these weird synergies and mashups gets even higher.

I've always loved the notion of one plus one equals three, and sometimes having these cross connections across really different domains can drive [00:14:00] that. So that was, that was sort of my download of like, . I mean, initially I did it kind of in a self-interested way is I have so many interests. I love people that come from these different walks of life because then I get exposed to a lot of different viewpoints.

What I didn't realize is when they all cross connect all sorts of cool remix mash up things happen. Um, and so that's why I meant by sort of put together amazing people from lots of walks of life and magic naturally ensues . Mm, I

[00:14:19] CK: love that. So you are really building a professor Xavier's School of Gifted Mutants.

[00:14:24] Tim: Yeah, totally. And my favorite, my favorite game when I'm with them together is brag about them for each other. In, in other words, do the intro of them for each other. Cuz the thing is with truly masterful people, they're usually ridiculously humble. And I think it's because when you're a master in your domain, you don't.

You need to brag about it. There's nothing to prove anymore. There's no promotion. You don't need to get more Instagram followers or whatever. So what I've noticed is a lot of these people I gravitate to are deeply humble. And when they introduce themself, they might say something like, you know, I'm Joe, I'm into food.

And you're like, Ah, that's it. And then that's, that's my favorite, is jumping to like, not only is Joe into food, but he's done x, y, you know, all, all that kind of thing. So it's such a joy to spotlight what's magical about, you know, these really humble people, um, to each other. And so that's why my favorite game is like, brag about them to each other.

And, uh, it's, it's, it's a lot of fun. [00:15:00] So with that

[00:15:00] CK: superpower of yours, ability to stay connected with people, you know, building your tribe, and you have now curated this extraordinary school. Extraordinary powers. Um, and you said that you do this gathering once a year. I'm curious, what's that guy's name? Oh man, I don't remember.

He wrote a book about putting extraordinary people together and they have dinners all the time. And that was that John Levy with, um, that's, that's right. That's, that's, that's right. So he does that regularly, quote unquote scaled it, right? That's right. So in your case, if this is something that you enjoy, instead of doing it once every 10 years, are there some other smaller way that you can do this more?

And I'm asking this because here, here's. my dream, my fantasy, because I've talked to all these extraordinary guests on my Noble Warrior podcast. Yeah. My, my dream, my fantasy is, hey, let me actually gather these people and do a plant medicine ceremony together. How cool would that be? Like, hey, amazing. So and so, and you really get to meet each other as spiritual means living an extraordinary human life.

So anyways, that would

[00:15:44] Tim: be, um, to that, I'd love to help you with that. Um, Oh, oh, cool. Thank you. What, And here, here's, here's how I think it could happen. You know, my path has been, Uh, finding and connecting these amazing people. Then creating these transformative, truly bonding, you know, gatherings that foster community, self growth learning.

The next step is I've always been fascinated with real estate and, and places crafting just [00:16:00] really special places, and it wasn't for investment purposes or rental income, that kind of thing. I'm not really interested in like Airbnb rentals just for money, but what I realized is that it's the third piece of the equation for me.

Spaces that are intentional containers and playgrounds for people to work their magic. And I think that people like you, people in my tribe, as we evolve, we're becoming more leaders and modern elders. With that. There's a lot of gathering of others that we know, sharing wisdom, connecting people, and I'd love nothing more than for the properties I have to serve as these intentional places for people like you to work your magic.

you know, so whether, uh, it's villas in Bali or, uh, a farm in Belinas or whatnot, I would love to support you in that and we'll chat offline about that. But I think more and more people will become, not just storytellers, but also community nodes and gatherers of people of, for intentional experiences

[00:16:35] CK: together.

Well, thank you so much. I, I so appreciate it. See, I mean, there you go again, Right. Always being of service to others. Thank you so much. I, I so appreciate it. Do you say, by the way, this, I'm going down the different rabbit holds Uhhuh , um, pulling back, if you wanna say, Hey, let's get on track, but , do you feel like that's ability to add value or to really help someone Right.

Empower people, support people and with their dreams, Is, is is part of your magic of gathering people of such extraordinary powers.

[00:16:59] Tim: [00:17:00] I, I, I guess it is. Um, the shadow work I've done is to also tune into how much of this is me being a people pleaser or a nice guy, you know, at its root, how much of it is that I'm hoping for something back, whether it's affirmation in your validation or love or affection back versus just the joy of that giving.

That's my deeply vulnerable practice of what I'm trying to tune into myself. What my hope is that it's truly out of the desire to see people shine and that they will then take that light and help other people shine. Um, it, yeah, it is something I've wrestled with cuz I grew up with Asian tiger parents and mm-hmm

I grew up in a household that didn't whole lot of, Yeah, we didn't grow up with a whole lot of I love you or I'm proud of you, or hugs and that sort of thing. So of course I crave those things and because everything was measured by, what'd you get on your test and I remember. Like coming home's, like I got 97 on the AP chemistry test and then being met with what happened.

The other three points, . And so, you know, I, I'm manufactured to be a high performance machine by other people's standards. Mm-hmm. . So is there any, is there any question that, you know, there's a pleaser part of me or external validation seeking side and those are things I'm seeking to let go of, to be more, more internally motivated, more internally affirmed, um, needing less of that from other people.

But, um, I, I do feel, you know, pretty authentic when I say helping or enabling other people to shine by just reflecting their magic to them and seeing them, you know, kind of grow is [00:18:00] absolutely joyful. And I need nothing, nothing back from that. I don't need attribution affirmation. I don't need 10% of future earnings, , any of that.

What I do hope is that that will inspire people to. Pay it forward in their own way and help other people light up their light. You know? So I have this formula I I, I found for myself, I wonder if you relate to this too, but any of our first real job is to heal our own wounds. You know, our poor wound, our trauma, whatever epigenetic baggage we picked up with, with that healing comes deeper connection with ourself, our story.

Mm-hmm. that you mentioned, that we find, and then that reveals our true form of play. You know, the thing that makes us feel most alive. Our special gift. Then if we can do that play, not just for individual indulgence or personal career or achievement, but if you can turn your play into a service to others to inspire and light up by others, that is a pretty good recipe for beautiful life, because then other people's play will be revealed in service to others.

The image I have is I'm just this tiny candle. I've got my little spark. If that can help light up other candles, then that light kind of carries on and weighs. I'll never know or see way after the original candle has long since been extinguished, you know? So I love that. That's a great legacy. That's a better legacy than company names or scholarships or fellowships or buildings that'll be dust in a hundred years.

I think the only legacy I'll ever have is the way I made people feel while I was here and how that passed on to others. [00:19:00] Mm,

[00:19:00] CK: I love that. I mean, I'm a hundred percent aligned, uh, within narrative. Uh, I mean, hence one of my core reason to do this podcast is yes, I enjoy deeply philosophical conversations.

There's a little bit of self-serving. Absolutely. But my hope, and it has come back to me already, that people listen to this. shift their narrative, their what they see as possible. Yeah. And take some action around it. And, and can see point casing point, one of the listeners was about to, you know, go through their doctor of the so, but was about to commit suicide.

Mm-hmm. . And then another guess was very vulnerable in sharing. Like, Hey, I went through that phase. Here's what happened and here's the beautiful things happen. Uh, by choosing otherwise, by living a powerful life, that person heard it. And then we literally save a life, you know, from that podcast. So if there's any doubt that this podcast made the difference to anyone, just that along is made it.

Worth

[00:19:44] Tim: it. So that's so beautiful. And it's, that's, that's it. You're a living example of it. Your joy, your gift is stories helping other people find their stories. And in doing that, it ends up being of service and can inspire, like you said, help other people tune into their story or shift their story.

[00:19:54] CK: Yeah.

One of the practice that I do is if I see someone shining a light mm-hmm. , I make a point to tell them like, Hey, I saw you [00:20:00] doing this bingo. Um, you know, take it for what's worth. There you go. You know, I saw you. I see

[00:20:03] Tim: you. And that's what we're here to do. And that's such a great reminder. We're here as mirrors for the best.

Yeah. Sometimes worse of each other, but, um, we need that because in our own hero's journey, it's hard to see the path of our hero's journey while we're in it, but sometimes it's so e easy and obvious to see other people's path of their hero's journey. So that's why we need each other to point those things.

Um, and as we see ourselves reflected by others, we also see ourselves reflected in other people's journeys. And that's nice cuz then you don't feel so lonely. You kind of get that feeling of like, oh my gosh, we're all wrestling with the same six things in different formats. Mm-hmm. ,

[00:20:26] CK: do you, um, as a personal practice, um, since you are a consciousness hacker, a biohacker, and you, you're very much into the meta patterns, do you draw your life and figure out the stories?

Do you journal, do you have, um, what do you call those things? Um, uh, and community discourse workshops to look at it from a higher perspective? Yeah,

[00:20:46] Tim: yeah. You know, I try to do some mindfulness and, and prayer practices. Um, admit it's not always daily getting back to that. Um, been doing more journaling and writing and, and, and reading.

But gathering has always been a great one for me. Um, I've always loved, like I said, these larger gatherings, but the real joy is frequent smaller ones, whether it's, [00:21:00] you know, Jeffersonian dinner salons to focus on one topic or, uh, house parties that are intentional where, um, we. Focus on one or two guests that have a particular story or talent they want to show or demo.

Uh, and then do a group meditation together or sound bath together. And that might lead to more, you know, kind of late night DJ set or something, or you know, kind of a local chef sharing food or potluck style. But even a house party can be made pretty intentional too. So I really like that notion of earned celebration, not just getting together, you know, for what's so happy hour, that that's great and all, but there could be a, an intention with it, like a set and setting for it, just like with plant medicines and those sorts of things.

So, um, that often for me is deeply inspiring. And my favorite is to have a tone of vulnerability and authenticity in these too. Um, I learned this from Keith rok, He'll do dinner parties and the self introduction is say your name. You can give maybe, you know, in just one sentence of what you do, but more importantly, share the thing that you're most.

Confused or struggling with in life right now, and by like the third or fourth person, people are just spilling their guts and sharing their deepest, you know, kind of darkest things and in tears and, and people feel so connected by the end of that. Right? So I really believe that vulnerability is one of the greatest bonding superpowers.

We all are looking for permission to be authentic and vulnerable. We're just looking for permission to do so. Mm.

[00:21:59] CK: Yeah. Breaking [00:22:00] Bread is one of those human traditions that just connect people deeply where, especially over music and or just particularly intention of vulnerability and John Levy has, well scale that into a global thing that he does.

Mm-hmm. , do you feel, as a participant, but also as someone who looks like scaling things all day, do you think that's scalable? . I,

[00:22:16] Tim: I think it's scalable at the human level as opposed to it's an online platform and, you know, reach billions. And, um, this has been a big shift for me. You know, I've spent one 20 years in Silicon Valley venture capital worshiping at the church of growth at all costs.

And I no longer subscribe to that. I'll go as far as say, I think our craziness of scaling is what's gotten the world into this mess. Mm-hmm. . Um, I think scaling exponentially is a human construct. I don't think nature scales that way. I think nails, nature scales at a more healthy way that's healthy at every scale.

The only thing that keeps going up into the right exponentially in nature is called cancer, and that scales until the host organism dies. So I really. Had my mind shifted when I studied things like permaculture, regenerative agriculture, circular economies, just again, studying nature and how nature grows in a more often healthy balance pace than us humans that love to take one thing and scale the crap out of it at the cost of everything else.

So I actually would like to dismantle our church of scale. [00:23:00] I think we would. I think that's what I think has led to, you know, the erosion of soil in nature leading to climate change, leading to food disaster leading to all these things, right? This maniacal focus on, on hyperscale. So to me, the heart of conscious capitalism is looking at the models that we look at, our intentions, our motivations, um, and, and the.

With which we wield these exponential technologies like ai, machine learning, et cetera, right? These tools and technologies aren't bad, per se. What matters is the intention and the goals that we use them with. That's an internal practice. That's where technology needs to meet spirituality and consciousness to understand why.

Not just the what, the, how much, the who, the, when, why are we doing these things? Yeah.

[00:23:34] CK: I don't see a lot, I mean, I'm, I'm searching, I mean, you don't know this, but the origin of Noble Warrior is 2018. I saw this Mongolian huge, you know, five story statue, um, armor, and to me it was a symbolism that I've been searching for the intersection between spirituality, entrepreneurship.

Yes. That was really the origin. No warrior and, and, uh, obviously I'm deeply passionate about plant medicine, consciousness hacking, uh, technology, but also spirituality as well. I, I just don't hear enough. I, I, So there's, people talk about technology [00:24:00] growth at our costs, as you call it. Uh, and then spirituality, that's all about going back to nature, you know, NCES ancestry and, you know, paying respect to the spirit.

But I'm a modern householder, right? Yeah. So I, I want to talk, you know, think about ways to practice both. I just don't hear enough people talking about it per se. So, in your practice, who or what books or anyone that we can direct people towards if this is something that they're passionate

[00:24:22] Tim: about. A few, uh, areas I could point to that have been helpful for me.

There's a, a rise and I think a shift for conscious capitalism or what I like to call business for better, not business as usual. Um, there's groups like Purpose Economy. There's, uh, June Young. Um, you know what he's been focused on steward ownership. Um, but doing you Yeah. He was on the podcast. Yeah, he's great.

You know, he's been a big influence for me on what he's doing with, um, stakeholder capitalism, not just shareholder capitalism, right? Mm-hmm. . Um, there is Boha with Evolve Venture Forum, what he's been doing there, Ki Yang with second time founders asking repeat founders to dig deeper into the why of what they're doing, you know?

Uh, so there's a lot of these folks that are pioneering the way, and a great example I've been studying lately is what Patagonia just did. Mm-hmm. to shift to, you know, more stakeholder, uh, governance than just shareholder ones. Um, so yeah, I'm really interested in these newer models. [00:25:00] Marshall McLuhan's famous for that, me that, that saying, you know, the message, uh, is the medium, the medium becomes the message, right, of how technology shapes what we say.

Um, in a similar way, I kind of view the model, the business model as the motivator and the wound underneath the founders as the why they're doing what they do. Um, I've always believed, if you wanna understand why an organization does anything, why it does follow the business model, follow the dollars.

Mm-hmm. , if you wanna understand why an individual often does what he or she does study their core wound. Cuz a lot of times everything we do is motivated by trying to adapt to or compensate for that core wound. Right. So the, again, back to intentions, the intentions underneath these things and the business models, we, we choose shapes all that behavior.

So going to first principles and studying the models we use, the governance structures, and even deeper our spiritual, uh, motivations. Our, our, our energetic states. You know, are we in scarcity? Are we in abundance? Are we in curiosity or play? Are we in, you know, ego validation mode? These all explain, you know, a lot of the behaviors that we have and how we do the things we do.

Mm-hmm. I

[00:25:44] CK: love that. So on Noble Warrior, we do talk about the cool wounds a lot. Mm-hmm. We say our superpower, the source of our superpower is, uh, lies in the identification of our core wounds and our purpose lies in the giving away of whatever. You got it. We give to others. That's exactly it. Um, so what are some of the [00:26:00] modalities that you have?

either as a practitioner yourself. Actually, let me revise my question a bit. Mm-hmm. , what are some modalities that helped you identify your own

[00:26:07] Tim: war wounds? The most stage one of a lot of my journey was the internal work, is what I mentioned, is healing. You know, those have been everything from, um, finding more authentic connection in places like Burning Man.

Mm-hmm. , um, opening and awakening through things like plant medicine, um, meditation, spiritual practice. Also deeper analysis than to turn downloads and insights into, you know, lifestyle changes and behaviors that can be therapy, coaching intensive workshops like Hoffman Process, um, peer supported groups like Conscious Leadership Group.

There's so many of these. Um, you know, Joe Hudson is an amazing coach in this, Uh, it's. It's the combination of getting the downloads, but then the integration of then walking the talk each day, you know? Mm-hmm. , I know there's a lot of interest in psychedelics and plant medicine for spiritual awakening, um, which I firmly believe in support heavily, but I do worry that many people chase the molecules too much.

Mm-hmm. , I like to believe the, the molecules of the doorway, but the actual medicine is the ongoing integration. Mm-hmm. and putting those downloads into practice and that's the hard work, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. , it's kind of like if you want to get in shape, it's the 20 minutes a day that'll do lots more than like the two hours, once a week kind of thing, you know?[00:27:00]

So it's that ongoing practice. Um, And I have to say, having, finding your tribe of people that'll hold you accountable and to do that work together with makes all the difference in the world. I think that's what the original purpose of church was, right? That community that witnesses you but holds you accountable.

Um, it's why I believe every man needs a mens circle. Every woman needs a woman's circle as well. Yeah. I'm, I'm

[00:27:17] CK: huge on those as, as, as you know. Uh, well, I mean, let's talk about it for a bit because to me, my journey as being believer, I mean, I bought the whole thing of the self-help industry promise.

Mm-hmm. , um, you know, self-made man. Right. I can just learn about these things and do it myself, and that works to some extent. But if I'm honest, I think group based transformation is way better, way faster than the solo work that one does. Cuz I'm not someone who can go into the cave and come out enlighten.

Like I just, I've done it for four decades and just hasn't worked for me. . So, but group based, um, I'm a huge believer in that. Is there anything that you want to double click on regarding the solo work versus the, the group base transformation?

[00:27:51] Tim: Absolutely. I, I've experienced those different modalities and you're right, I, I have done a lot on the individual side.

Uh, the problem with that is, you know, you can fall in and out or we can deceive ourselves easily too [00:28:00] as well. And, um, it can be isolating and lonely. I felt so much support often through say, a coach or mentor led peer cohort. Mm. I think it's because in the cohort I see myself reflected in, in, in the others and learned so much from their stories, and there's a group accountability that I don't wanna let them down.

Right. And, and, and vice versa. I've seen this work really well in everything from weight loss to fitness to, you know, kind of, um, uh, peer support in other areas. Um, so there's something really magical about that container of a group that's witnessing and vulnerable and authentic with each other and holding each other accountable.

You know, it's mm-hmm. powerful when people you respect that, that you love will call you out and be like, Hey, I sense some bullshit in what you're saying. You know, really your truth. Again, we are mirrors for each other, right. So mm-hmm. , I, I do believe that the, the cohorts and the groups, the community support is really powerful and to me, it reminds me of.

You know, we were kind of made to be tribal or village like creatures. The original Netflix was probably sitting around the campfire, trading stories, singing songs, dancing, cuddle, puling, all these things. And, um, you know, being held accountable by, by, by family, by peers, right? So I think we seek that. We've gotten away with from that, with the whole suburban nuclear family isolationism, but we all are craving that return to connection again.

[00:28:57] CK: Are there, Yeah. What, what are [00:29:00] some of the criteria for you in terms of choosing like, Hey, I like this group, or, or, I, I couldn't find anything like my podcast and as in a, as an example, therefore I'm gonna start one. What kind of criteria do you have on a personal basis?

[00:29:10] Tim: For me, I think it's, um, less so accomplishment or something on a resume.

It's more sort of like, um, for lack of bedroom. The heart space they come from is their energy. One that is deeply curious, vulnerable, caring, and generous, but also self-aware. And I think those tie together, you know, that self-awareness. I love when people are super openhearted and not just unafraid, but also interested to go into those crunchy areas that other people might draw away from.

Like, Ooh, I don't wanna talk about that. But I don't know. For me, I've always believed the way out is through, not by avoiding or deflecting or whatever, or making excuses or intellectualizing, but leaning in to the thing that's most uncomfortable is where all the gold is. And so I, I like to try to adopt something where there's no topic that's taboo to talk about.

And you know, the thing that is uncomfortable is the thing I want to. Lean into head on with you cuz that's where we can really connect, you know? Um, Mm. Yeah. So that vulnerability, that willingness to be absolutely authentic, um, is something I crave more and more of. You know, having spent decades in the valley [00:30:00] trying to keep that face of, I'm crushing it.

I know what's going on, right? When the, when the truth is, ah, the hell if I know we're making it up as we go. Mm.

[00:30:05] CK: Well thanks for being very transparent about that. I mean, I think for me, the tell, tell I'm someone who's a master is someone who, yes, I know my stuff and also I'm learning and I'm humble and, and there are things that I can also admit that I don't know.

To me that's the perspective of someone who's secure with themselves versus someone when someone tells me, inform, like I'm crushing it in all aspect of my life. To me, that's a sign that maybe I'm dealing with a very insecure person. Yeah, that's, Cause that's my point of view.

[00:30:29] Tim: The thing is there's such a performative pressure, you know, in Silicon Valley and social media and whatnot.

Um, we, a lot of times we feel like we have to put that face on, um, you know, so we're not, we're not ostracized, we're taken seriously. Um, but you are right. Is, uh, if we really have more security that comes from mastery of something, there's less a need to prove anything. And the truest masters of anything, always have a bit of that beginner's mindset as well.

Right. And I, I like to think, I hope that the best motivator of all is curiosity, right? Mm. Um, I define mastery as ever finer attention to ever increasingly nuanced details. Mm-hmm. . That's the difference between somebody who's like, oh, wine enthusiast versus a sommelier. You just get these ever sensitive.[00:31:00]

Fractal detail, understandings of the little nuances. And I think curiosity is what often drives that. Mm.

[00:31:05] CK: Um, so I'm a huge student of life. And then in all conversations I like to, you know, ask people, This is cks famous last question, uh, question is, Hey, what did you get from this conversation? And what action you gonna take on?

Right? And then some people love it, some people hate it. So here, here's the question for you, Tim. Yeah. There's a difference between my fucking it and really trying to understand the nuance of things for you. What's the discernment? What's the line? Hmm.

[00:31:27] Tim: That's a really good one. Uh, I'm somebody who is highly in my head often is intellectualizing things, rationalizing things.

And honestly what you call mind fucking is, I'm often second guessing or doubting myself. Right. Um,

I'm finding something in my life now, which is the desire to tune more into my body, my emotions, maybe even my spirit. And what I found in doing, you know, things like Hoffman process and, and other work too, is a lot of my tension is whenever I feel like I'm at war with myself and I bet all of us are at war with ourselves.

Constantly imagine, you know, your intellect trying to override what your body is saying, the sensations there maybe in the gut versus the needs of your wounded emotional child [00:32:00] versus than the other maybe higher spiritual self side of you. It's a constant internal debate going on between these three or four sides of myself is when I feel most out of balance.

And this is where meditation, uh, or slowing things down can help and being able to understand which side of me has the microphone. , right? Mm. And balancing it out. I realize most of my life, my intellect has had the microphone. It's what's helped me get to where I am. But a lot of times where I've had conflict is when my body had sensations of like, Oh, this doesn't feel good, or, I don't think this is truly authentic to what I actually want.

Um, those alarm bells I tend to override. And my practice now is to maybe listen and tune into sensations first, even if I don't understand them, even if I can't put explanation to them. But give it credence and equal voice. You know, they're, you, you know this, right? The, the intelligence is spread throughout the body and now there's such a strong link of gut brain connection that it's pretty much widely believe that intelligence also sits in our gut, literally, physically as well as in our brains.

And so there's that saying, feeling in your gut. I'm now thoroughly convinced the body contains a lot of wisdom. And early warning signals that our, our brains don't fully understand. And I wanna learn to honor that. So it's really learning to be embodied as opposed to just in my head, where I'll be honest, I'll spin and loop and ruminate and go back and forth and self doubt and [00:33:00] second guess and hyper rationalize, um, it's that mind fuckery as you said, right?

Mm. Or sometimes it's the body when it feels like firm and calm and grounded. Like that's sometimes deeper knowing than even what happens up here. Mm,

[00:33:10] CK: Well I'm smiling throughout cuz I, I relate. I understand you very well, . So what would you say to the younger cks and attempts who hyper rationalize hyper, you know, in the head to listen to the body or the emotions

[00:33:22] Tim: more?

Um, I would've said to younger me and younger you is learn to become friends with your feelings like, Practice naming what they are, you know? Um, have you ever seen the Color Wheel of Emotions? It's, it's like a mm-hmm. . Yeah. It's beautiful. Right? And when I first saw that, it made me realize I have such a limited vocabulary when it comes to talking about my emotional state or my feelings.

Mm-hmm. . And that is emotional intelligence, emotional self-awareness, Um, and get to know that, get to even practice being able to say, I feel as much as you say, I think, right? Mm-hmm. . Um, there's a amazing founder I once met and she said, You know, whenever employees come to me and something, you know, I'll say to them, Well, you just told me what you thought about that issue.

How do you feel about it? And it was really interesting cuz sometimes that would reveal the root of the tension or the confusion of the argument faster than the reasons behind it. So, um, I, I wonder if you and I grew up with similar cultures, being [00:34:00] Asian, having Asian tiger parents, where we didn't really express our feelings a whole lot.

Right. And so, I know for me, that was never a muscle I had developed growing up. So I probably would've told younger me and younger you is to practice developing that muscle that how you feel is just as important as how you think. And it's okay. It's also okay to feel scared or feel bad about something.

Right?

[00:34:15] CK: Mm. So, so let me push you a little bit for, for more context around it. Sure. So the younger ck, I don't know the younger Tim, and let's say the younger CK would say, Why do I need to do that? Nah, that's, you know, I don't need that, You know, rational rationality is the way, so, mm-hmm. ,

[00:34:28] Tim: I would say, I would've say, uh, that for me and for you, we probably needed more hugs when we didn't feel , when we didn't feel good about something that, you know, toughen enough and, you know, just deal with it.

doesn't honor what you feel inside. And more to the point will become numb to those feelings and either become robotic and worse yet, the feelings that don't get expressed will sit there and stew and just get stuck in the body and then turn into blockages or worse yet, turn into disease over time. And so it's not just a matter of being tough or smart, it's a matter of staying healthy.

Mm.

[00:34:57] CK: Yeah. I would say to the younger [00:35:00] CK that, I mean, you, you, you hit it around the uh, head of the nail. You know how, you know how the liveness that you create, the joy, the passion, the highlights, the juice of life. Uh, this is the access. If you want more of that, yeah. Get to know your body, get to know your emotional, cuz otherwise you're just depriving yourself.

Have a good life.

[00:35:16] Tim: That's a great way to say it. Yeah, that'd be a fun way to say it, is like, Hey, why would you only watch TV in black and white? Wouldn't you want all the colors? It's why would you wanna live in only two dimensions? Why wouldn't you wanna live in 3d? Mm.

[00:35:26] CK: So on that note of 3d, Yeah. I'm curious, uh, in your Twitter bio, you said, working towards becoming nobody, everybody, neither striving or surviving, but hopefully in surface.

Yeah. So it's very much about not, Oh, actually, you know what, why don't you articulate, um, why did you put that in your bio?

[00:35:42] Tim: I once had it posed to me, um, Look, Tim, there's only two questions you really have to think about. One is, who are you really? Mm-hmm. . What do you really want? Those are the cardinal questions.

And in deep meditation or other spiritual practices, plant medicine work, when I really think about those things, you know, it's like an onion. You start with the basics. Who am I? I'm, I'm a man, I'm a vc, I'm a father, I'm a [00:36:00] whatever. But each of those, as you strip it away and go deeper and deeper and deeper, you can peel away all layers of that onion until I got to for myself, Oh my gosh, I'm, I'm nothing but a story that I construct with for myself and with others.

And if I let go of that, I'm nobody. But also I'm a little bit of everybody because we're interconnected. And then even beneath that, I am just this tiny little fractal representation of God, him, or herself. Mm-hmm. and so way. I am nobody. I am everybody. I am God's source, consciousness, whatever you call it.

Um, the image I have is, I'm a very particular, Color. That is the color of Tim. Mm-hmm. , which is part of the collective of white light. And white light is made up of all these infinite different shades of colors. It's only that one color that only we can uniquely represent, but the collection of all those is white light, right?

Mm. Then on the, What do I really want? You know, initially it was like, Oh, I want to be loved and affirmed and validated. I want to know that I'm helpful, like onion peeling all those away. For me, at the end of it is like, I want to stop craving. I want to stop wanting anything that badly, you know, almost to surrender from ego or, or scarcity, Um, mean underneath.

I, I want to just play. I want to, I, I want to express my true nature, um, and I want to do so in a way that hopefully is of service that maybe lights up other people's true nature. , [00:37:00] you know? Mm. Yeah. So that's kind of where I got to, uh, with a lot of these cardinal questions for myself. Mm.

[00:37:06] CK: Yeah. People think that those questions are easy, but if you dig deep enough into it, I mean, to me anyway, those two questions, who are you really?

What do you really want? He's a lifetime to answer.

[00:37:13] Tim: Yeah. And the funny part, here's the irony. I think of this as one of the cosmic jokes. A lot of times you figure out who you are and what you want by stepping through who you are not and what you do not want. It's like there's two ways to paint the chair.

You can paint the chair or you can paint everything around the chair. And I feel like that's what some many of us do in life is we're trying all the, these different identities and settings and places and peoples and, and in a way it's carving away the extra bits in the block of concrete or the block of marble till we reveal the, the, the inner essence statue inside.

You know, what we're left with after all of trying those things. Mm.

[00:37:38] CK: Yeah. One question that I, I think about a lot in, in line of that is the question of faith. Cause I'm very much a generalist. Mm-hmm. , you know, in a negative sense, dabbling, right? Mm-hmm. . But in the positive sense, I like to explore different things, right?

So it depends on the context, the narrative that I have in my head. So I'm very much of a generalist. I like, I'm deeply curious about lots of different topics and, and I told one of my friends that, hey, um, for some people they just dive head in about the whole philosophy of [00:38:00] something wholesale without really questioning it.

But I, I like pick and choose what works for me. And in my mind, the metaphor is I'm chiseling, right? Yeah. I'm chiseling away things that really resonates with me and I'm chiseling away more and more, and, and that's okay. Yeah. So I'm curious, know your perspective around. Buying something wholesale, right?

Believing a philosophy fully without question or you're more of a chessler where you pick and choose and you really think about like what, who you truly are, what you truly, truly want, what you truly believe. Yeah.

[00:38:25] Tim: I grew up in a pretty deeply conservative Christian household and it was pretty much just believe in God this way.

Don't question anything. Um, you know, I tried it as a child when I got to college. I was exposed to other religions and other faiths, and as I learned about them, I remember being really confused, like, wait a minute, we seem to be a spousing. The same truths and values. Why are we killing each other over them?

And that's how I personally became. Mistrustful of organized religion. You know, I started to see it more as a power structure, more about control. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . But the underlying truths being esped were the same. Right? Again, one mountaintop many flavors or packaging, or maybe even marketing brands. But, um, yeah, I, I, I now view it as just find, like you said, find your faith, whatever it is.

For some, they just adopt the one thing that works for 'em. They don't question or wander. For some of us, we gotta wander off [00:39:00] road and try lots of things and make our own mix tape of those. But, um, for me, I do like to explore and question and put together the poor parts that work for me. Um, I like to think that in many ways that's between religion versus spirituality.

Religion sometimes is, here's the way, trust this. Just practice this. No questions needed. The other spirituality's much more, choose your own adventure. And practices. I don't know what your answer is. Your mileage may vary. Go wander through the woods, go try different things until you create and figure out the path that works for you.

Scary cuz there's no hack for it. Mm-hmm. , you know, we mentioned that I've been known before for a spousing like biohacking, longevity hacking, consciousness hacking. Mm-hmm. , and don't realize there is no hack. Hacking is kinda like a Silicon Valley shortcut that we're looking for. Like give the five tips or gimme the fastest way there.

And mm-hmm. , I realize the truest spiritual path is not the hack. It's actually being lost in the woods, wandering around, pointlessly, floating in limbo, you know, going through the dark night of the soul as we talked about until, you know, you start to cobble together the, the, the truths, the mix tape that works for you.

And that's a slow, arduous, confusing, painful process. Often there's no hack or shortcut. So in this point in my life, I don't believe in hacks anymore. I think hacks kind of like, A way that we wanna skip things or shortcut or jump to the end of things. Trying to find a cheat code to things. The same thing is like, give me a magic pill that solves all my issues, when really the ultimate biohack is [00:40:00] sleep.

Well, meditate, Watch your food intake, eat cleanly loving relationships, You know, exercise and it sounds really boring, but that's what it is. It's integration, not the molecule. Yep, yep.

[00:40:09] CK: We do talk about that point a lot too on the, the memorial podcast. Yeah. And a lot of people think that the molecule, as you call it, is, is the work, but really to me mm-hmm.

that may be 10%, but the rest 90% is the daily practice. The, the, the discerning of what it is. Bring the insight and the lesson into your behavior, into your life ongoingly moment to moment. So

[00:40:26] Tim: you got it. That's exactly right. We're changing our story, our identity. And so those, those downloads become behavior, become habit, then become identity.

Yeah.

[00:40:33] CK: Well, what I wanna bring us back to why I really wanted, I was inspired to say, Hey, Tim, let's, let's do a podcast. Yeah. Because you are the unique position where you are an investor still, and you have lived or, uh, preach the, the church of growth at all costs, so to speak. Mm-hmm. , although consciously, and now you're looking into, Hey, let me, uh, dismantle that.

Let me, uh, go into more of a sustainable way of injecting fuel onto an idea that's gonna help perpetuate. You know, throughout time, uh, I'm, these are my interpretations. These are not your words. So what are some of [00:41:00] the models that have you seen that works well, uh, or leading the pack and you, you mentioned a few names, Boha, second time founders, Patagonia, Joan y mm-hmm.

What, what's working and what's not working from your perspective?

[00:41:10] Tim: Totally. Um, there's been a lot of talk that maybe we're at end stage capitalism, meaning this model of just produced more and endless consumptive capitalism is, you know, hitting a wall. In some ways, we're seeing that, we're seeing the end of globalization.

We're seeing supply chain limitations ever since Covid, we're in a global trade war with China right now. Right. Everything takes much longer, is more expensive. We are inflation, we recession, we have a lot of potentially bad stuff going on. Plus know the ver climate collapse in many other ways too. And it's, uh, thought

[00:41:31] CK: that I like how you just kind of, Yeah.

Plus climate collapse.

[00:41:33] Tim: There's so many things, right? I view this as symptoms of maybe the models and the structures, um, that, that we've used. You know, and, and again, the intention was make more, sell more, make more, sell more. We see that in America. We just measure how many units produced profit margins, price per share.

And most of the crap we produce ends up in people's garages not used. We just look at amounts sold and made. Maybe the better metric and model is what's the percentage of utilization of stuff that's already out there that would be different than make more, sell more, make more, sell more endlessly up into the right.

You know? And, um, we're at a time now [00:42:00] where I think this is affecting. Um, not just the economy, but our ecology. So much of the crap ends up in landfills or in water and is affecting our health, which leads to more, you know, kind of drug based, uh, pharma and healthcare systems, looking for that silver bullet.

What it boils down to for me, in architecture, there's that famous saying, we shape our buildings thereafter. They shape us. I think it's the same for technology and tools. We build and create our tools in tech, and thereafter they, they affect us. The ultimate example is artificial intelligence. AI is like the ultimate child of humanity.

Mm-hmm. is first try to shape it in our own image to teach it, but now it's teaching us, it's showing things we hadn't seen, and in a way it's a mirror of who we. Right. So back to this notion. I said the intention of how we use our tools in technology is what matters. It's not that the tools or technology are bad.

They can be used to save, they can be weaponized. Right? And this is why I like to think your question was what models, what frameworks? We went from mass production to information age. We've now shifted to attention economy. We've seen everything with engagement hijacking and digital opioids and PME warfare.

I think what's coming next is where consciousness and technology and business meets together. I think of this as the intention economy. Right? Mm. It's this, all of this to me, is a crisis of consciousness. It's not resources or access or compute power. It's what are we using technologies [00:43:00] for? What are we trying to do with it?

If it's just to bolster, you know, the, the price of shares, um, that's mostly held and concentrated in the few shareholders, of course it's gonna create inequality and it's gonna become exponential over time because these technologies are advancing at exponential rate. So that's why I don't believe the techno optimists who say, Oh, just better technologies will solve everything.

I think it helps, but that's a little bit polyannaish to me because the truth is technologies don't spread democratically or equally, they'll end up in the hands of a few at first. Mm-hmm. , we're gonna basically create a human divide, not just an information gap, but a cybernetic one. Those that get early access to the next gen, dolly twos or AI engines.

Basically become a new species. They become new super humans with the power to, to change the world instantly and will go so far beyond the capabilities of other humans. By the time those trickle down to the cost levels and access the hum, yet we're gonna create beyond a digital divide, we're gonna create basically, like I said, a cybernetic divide.

You know, that's really important to think about. Like, I love how open AI is trying to launch things like Dai two in a different business model, hopefully maybe more for public accessibility than just one superhero CEO founder that has ownership of everything becomes a mega trillionaire, right? Um, my model for all of these is how permaculture shapes design.

I think money, like water, like blood, these are resources that are meant to flow throughout a [00:44:00] system, not get pulled up and held in just the hands of one tree, one person, one organization. So it's about the health of the overall ecosystem. And yeah. One thing I, I guess I will say this, even scaling of people up into the right forever probably doesn't make sense.

This is a bit darker, but maybe we should You mean population? Yes. Maybe we should hit peak human. Mm-hmm. , maybe Covid is mother nature's attempt at spring cleaning. Maybe depending how we build things out. The world's a better place with only 3 billion people, not 10. You know, those are things I do wonder sometimes about, um, you know, I like to think that we can create more abundance and resources, support more people, but, um, there's very much the possibility that, uh, as things shift more radically, we do have to right size, population, and balance with what the planet can bear and mm-hmm.

maybe right size with our intention of how we scale population as well. Originally we created kids cuz we wanted labor units. What if we don't, What if we don't need that same motivation? For how it is that we go with population anymore too.

[00:44:45] CK: Yeah, you're more of a star tracker or Star War.

[00:44:48] Tim: Um, I'd like to believe in Star Trek.

I think a lot of times we get there through a lot of Star Wars though, you know, so humans, we don't have a great track record of, uh, . Yeah. You know, kinda upleveling ourselves. We tend to have moments of massive collapse and then growing from there. Yeah. So I do think things get a lot worse than they do get better.[00:45:00]

But yeah, that could be one of the ways we undo systems too. There's a famous saying too, I think it was Adrian Murray Brown, like, you don't dismantle the house of the master using the tools that the master uses.

[00:45:07] CK: So if, Wait, wait. Once, one more time. What

[00:45:09] Tim: did you say? It's along the lines. I'm butchering it a little bit.

But you can't dismantle the house of the master with the tools of the master. So, In argument that we're not gonna create better capitalism through just regular capitalism ways. It might take the collapse of some things and before we can kind of, you know, rebuild it out of the ashes. So just historically, I do think that's how humans have had it.

We tend to go sort of like, you know, sometimes three steps forward, four steps back, then another five steps forward. Um, that's been our history. We kind of need shit to hit the fan before we do things. Um, but, you know, uh, from a long term perspective, maybe that's what's native.

[00:45:35] CK: That's interesting cuz I, so this is what I gather a little bit you about your narrative since we're talking about stories, right?

By the way, everything you said, I agree and I, I hope that's not the case, but that's maybe what's predictable. So I think this is my read on this is macro, you're at an optimist, but the micro, you may, you know, like, hey, this may go. Go dark a little bit. Go cynical a bit before I go up. Is that an accurate read?

[00:45:53] Tim: It is because just generally things go in cycles and, you know, you're talking about my email, uh, my handle is time change. And it's kind of funny cuz it's my name with typos. I used to get that typo and I was like, I'm [00:46:00] gonna own that. Cuz I think there's some truth in it. The only thing constant over time is change and, and, um, change is scary.

Uncertainty shifts from what we know, but change is also the fertile soil for where growth comes from as well. Right. And so these periods of the pendulum swinging, I, I just see in history patterns of swinging, of centralization to decentralization. Right? Um, you know, from the, the center to the edge, back and forth, back and forth.

Um, scarcity, abundance, anxious avoidant. It's always just these pendulums going back and forth. And that's, um, maybe that is how we grow, how we grow, how we evolve. Mm

[00:46:23] CK: mm I can take this to a lot of different directions, but one thing I want to ask you cuz you had. Coin this phrase, I really love the crisis of consciousness.

So if everything is about the intentionality of those who invented tools and those who use the tools, the tools themself are neutral. But there, that's another point. I could, I could, I could, uh, we can go down that rabbit hole later. So what are some of the ways that you've seen that would address the crisis of consciousness, if that's the root of all these symptoms that we see?

Um, I, I have my response, but I'm curious to know what's yours.

[00:46:49] Tim: Um, it's the work that you and others are doing. How do we get people more tuned into their why? How do we get people more familiar and integrated and healed with their core wounds? How do we shift out of maybe scarcity survival mode into more abundance?

Right. And service. [00:47:00] The whole human condition is we're battling our firmware. You know, from our lizard monkey brain, basically the root from where we have is eat, don't get eaten, do anything at all it takes to get an advantage to spread your genes, the next generation. And that explains so much of human behavior, because that's our animal survival brain.

That's what our genes, our program to do. Yet we've got this higher consciousness right from our brains, our souls that, um, can up level from there. You know, kind of be thinking more system, level of service level can think beyond just our individual self-interest. So it's always that parallel battle between the two.

And that is the beauty of this whole human experiment, right? If we just listened to the animal trait of survival and scarcity, we will be Star Wars. And if we can collectively and individually, you know, upshift, maybe we can create Star Trek, right? Mm-hmm. . So that's, that's the, that's the funny challenge of this whole thing.

Yeah.

[00:47:38] CK: Uh, funny story. A friend of mine is organizing a retreat among his close circles. He's a founder. He's, you know, very well off, has runs a company value at, you know, a couple billion dollars he put in the agenda, uh, of a evening section, you know, will brainstorm how to have more power, more money, and have joy mainline to our veins.

It's obviously a joke. Mm-hmm. , but I think there's a grain of truth in how he's thinking about the world. . So for me it was like, [00:48:00] Huh, that was really interesting. I would never phrase it that way. . I wouldn't count on my mouth, but yeah, I just thought, I was like, so really revelatory of how he's thinking about

[00:48:08] Tim: the world.

There's something to that. And doesn't that even tie into, Do you remember the movie, The Matrix? Mm-hmm. The Matrix. A AI is when machines figured out, Oh, this is how we mainline, you know, these things directly into human consciousness, right? It's a big simulation, right? So there, there's that sort of funny thing There is, where does it end?

Um, I've usually seen often the altruism, the giving back, the service happens later in life after somebody, you know, wins all the prizes, accumulates all the things. And it's kinda like, you know, you play the game as as aggressively as you can. Then you win the game, then you turn around and give it all back.

Um, maybe that's part of the nature of it is I've, I've heard the phrase too, that enlightenment is a rich person's game because otherwise you're in survival, scarcity mode. You don't have time for all of that. But might there be other ways, other models that we can think about how we're also in service or connection on the way up, Not just once you hit the mountain top.

Right? So I do think that's the type of work you're doing and others are doing is, you know, how people figure out their why a little bit earlier. Wouldn't it be great if business school orientation was men's and women's circles, plant medicine, deep self discovery work as part of an MBA curriculum so that you know, we're each questioning what is the why behind just the finance theory and getting a job at Bain or whatever it [00:49:00] is.

[00:49:00] CK: I love that because you're a graduate of gsb, so, and I'm talking

[00:49:03] Tim: about is like, hey, how do we put more personal and spiritual work into MBA curriculums going forward? How do we help people turn more, tune more into their their why than just the what? I think that will be the future. It's something I'm trying to help fund and create at C I s California Institute of Integral uh, Sciences was how could we design the exec MBA program for people like you and me that might have gotten a bit more awakening later in life?

Cuz as this happened, I was like, there's no school for this. Where do I go? It's not quite exactly what you figure out, like an exec MBA program. What if there could be, what if there was a certificate or degree program for people who get more of this calling later in life? It's one of the things I work on, on the side in my nonprofit and impact work,

[00:49:31] CK: you know?

Oh, tell us more about that. I mean, that's very resonant. I, I love that idea. And I think, let's see, how do I articulate this? We teach what we need most is one of my personal belief. Mm-hmm. . So the fact that I'm talking about consciousness, not because I am enlightened, because I grapple with these things.

Yeah. The ego and, and also the higher self in it. I, I hope that I'm conscious enough to be more enlightened most of the time. But in reality, you know, it's a pendulum. And it requires for me outside people and to say, Hey, listen, you are a little bit of, uh, you know, believing your own bullshit too much.

Yeah, thank you. And

[00:49:57] Tim: all that. Right? For sure. Yeah. Um, yeah. In my, I guess [00:50:00] philanthropic or, or impact work, there's a few areas I support. Uh, one of them is legalizing second half medicines, supporting maps and others. Um, the second is helping with, uh, the culture and resources and narrative around end of life.

Uh, and third is on supporting natural farming, regenerative agriculture, permaculture. And the last is with CIAs, California Institute of Medical Studies trying to like, fund and create a consciousness, mba, I guess, equivalent or conscious leadership program. And like I said, basically out of self interest, I'd love to help design the program.

I wish I had for myself, you know, for these questions, I, I probably would wanna be a student at this too, but think like the, something like an exec MBA program where it's rooted also in personal transformation, you know, spiritual growth consciousness, but also the, okay, now what? So what, how do I tie these things into my day job or my career or purpose?

Um, where does that intersect, whether it's at my existing career or, or fund or job or organization or, uh, something new that I do. And, um, I'd love your input, uh, any of your audience. What would you, what would you wanna see in such a program? You know, .

[00:50:46] CK: Going back, let me reciprocate, let me know how I can support, you know, the realization of that.

Uh, I'm a, as you know, huge believer, practitioner of transformation. I love this work. And, and, and I love empowering leaders because in my mind, for me, leaders, if I impact one leader, yeah. All their people, everyone [00:51:00] they touch, you know, propagate throughout. Totally. So I'm a huge believer, like there's still a way to, uh, shift consciousness for the adults.

I'm a huge believer in adults

[00:51:07] Tim: education. Big time, big time. Yeah. What I've seen with a lot of my friends is, happens quite a bit after age 40, you know, is sort of that shifting towards the more of service and consciousness and everything else. And so I imagine this might be a program that's one or two years that's designed for people in that stage of life.

Um, and, uh, Like I mentioned, a lot of it's about, all right, if start to get these downloads or these inklings of downloads, how do we support that? How do we hear from amazing guest speakers and masters in the field about what are newer models? Um, what are, you know, uh, better governance structures? Who are other examples of people doing this?

What are ways to infuse more consciousness with leadership, with business, with investment? What does conscious capitalism start to look like when practice? Who are examples and case studies of this? Right? And on top of this deeply immersive and, and transformative, you know, at the personal level too, might it mean going overseas and doing plant medicine together?

Maybe that might be doing breath work and spiritual practice together as well. Um, it'd be really cool to see what could be possible, you know? Yeah, for

[00:51:50] CK: sure. A hundred percent behind you, my friend. Thank you. Um, well actually quick question there. So my friend and I, We're all levers of transformation.

Mm-hmm. , one squad thought is, Hey, uh, adult [00:52:00] education, everything I just mentioned, people of influence and, and resources, they can impact a whole lot of more people. That's one squad thought. And on the school thought is, Yeah, the adults, they're kind of like done. They, they're, they're gonna do what they're gonna do.

Let's, you know, support the, the younger generation because they're more malleable. They're, they're not yet have these, uh, indoctrination, you know, from early childhood and so forth. What, what's your perspective on adult versus youth?

[00:52:20] Tim: Oh, I love this. I think it's, yes, and we, we need both. And what I mean by that is I wanna see people who are successful in their field, captains of industries, cultural influencers, et cetera.

You know, they have their awakening and they shift their identity and become role models because, They help to spread the message, right? But they also normalize it and, and help define who our heroes are. We don't want just our heroes to be this person made a trillion dollars and built a rocket and send himself to Mars, right?

What if heroes are much more like the Del Lama? And you know, what if someday Kim Kardashian is a espousing, you know, spiritual growth and, and more meditation than, than the latest makeup brand or something like that. I, I'd love to see that. Then that helps influence the next generation as well. And on top of that, if, on, you know, things that influence the youth, whether it's in Discord or TikTok or Minecraft or YouTube or whatever else, and in schools they're being taught principles for connection, healing, consciousness, even at a young age [00:53:00] that'll help shape you know, what they're interested in.

I'd love to see meditation as as standard as recess or, you know, maybe even, um, Authentic vulnerable sharing as a standard practice as um, you know, physical ed. Right. What if emotional ed is the same as physical ed, you know, programs like that. So it, it is, yes. And to both of those, um, we need the adults and leaders for that and we absolutely need to change what's in our curriculums for the youth as well.

Yeah.

[00:53:19] CK: Cuz you're a father, so you experienced this first hand too. Mm-hmm. to me. I mean, I'm a product of our traditional education system and then they teach a lot of content. Mm-hmm. and for me, some of the core human skills. Communication. Who are you? How do you manage your internal chatters? These are core skills that we use forever, are not taught in school, which is baffling to me if I really, you know, now that I'm, Anyways, I'm curious to know your thoughts about that.

So, absolutely.

[00:53:41] Tim: I always believed the best legacy, the greatest gift for the future is an integrated whole, fully expressed, self-aware human being. You know, I think Youngy in psychology says, Well, children are born perfect and parents just fuck them up to different degrees. And, you know, there's nothing more dangerous for a child than the unrequited dreams of the parents.

So the more work we do on ourselves, the more healed and integrated we as parents, I think the, the [00:54:00] more we can serve and provide better examples for our children, right. And, and to have them come into the world with more compassion, empathy, you know, um, self-awareness, um, consciousness that will directly help shape the future.

And it's needed because the future might be really rough for them, right? We're gonna go through some of these darker periods. We need resilient, connected, you know, kind of purposeful kids, Right. To help get, get through that point.

[00:54:18] CK: Right? Yeah. Thank you for that. Let me, let me take a hard right to that.

Mm-hmm. , uh, You use, you invest in technologies that help humans be better conscious, transformational technologies. Um, uh, so there's an idea all transhumanism, right? Technologies, enhancing human capabilities beyond what's natural. So that's one school of thought. Another school of thought is it's uh, I call it natural actualization.

Meaning, uh, some people call it biocon conservatives or bio Luddites and so forth. They just want to realize human potential without the artificial tech. Right. Curious to know your thoughts on your, since you're a practitioner, what's your, um, ideation? How would you articulate? That's a really good

[00:54:54] Tim: per, it's something I still wrestle and ponder with a.

As I've gotten more connected with nature, actually through my conscious journey and plant medicines and those things [00:55:00] being, you know, I grew up with city and suburban kids, didn't really understand much of nature and gotten much more reconnected through this, you know, kind of awakening of from focusing on me to connection to, we like community society than to all, which I view as the planet ecosystem.

Mm-hmm. , there's. , this notion that like, Oh, nature knows best, nature's perfect, just follow nature. Mm-hmm. . Yes. And nature is also pretty brutal. Nature is extremely violent and there's no justice in in nature, and there's no equality win, right? Mm-hmm. . Um, so there's a pretty brutal side of nature too. Um, nature isn't always the most efficient, uh, in ways too, and that's where we create technologies and come up with algorithms and, uh, follow those sorts of things.

We can also argue our creation of technology is a direct extension of nature. Nature evolved to create us with our big brains that we create these next level tools, and that's also an extension of evolution in nature too. Um, the challenges that our way of scaling things is different than the way nature scales things.

The way to think of it is nature works in curves and circles and spheres. We work in hard lines and boxes and linear paths and those sorts of things,

there's more sometimes efficiency of mass scaling of the human way, but I think nature is better at the interdependent balancing of the overall system that we could learn from. Right. And so I think where I've been going [00:56:00] with this is that.

We have to find some balance point, you know, for this. Um, cuz we're still scaling in a way that's not really good for the planet and we treat resources as infinite techno say, Oh, we'll just get more efficient and we'll be abundant at creating new resources. And that can be true, but like I said, but it does sweat the risk of leaving a huge chunk of the population and planet behind.

Mm-hmm. , you know, one answer to that, some might say is that's okay, we'll just go to Mars and have backup systems and backup options. Yes. Perhaps. But I also think let's get our own shit right before we go to other planets and go fuck them up with our flawed playbooks. Right. So there's, yep. Again, like this crisis of consciousness, I think it's about finding balance and a lot of that is, is the art of life.

The art of building businesses, the art of working with people and staying in connection, you know? Um, that is something that, um, [00:57:00] is the, the practice of this whole thing is finding balance. I, I say that kind of consciously that I'm a hardcore Libra, so maybe that's just the way I'm wired, right? Um, but it, it is actually, I

[00:57:12] CK: don't know that reference.

Yeah,

[00:57:14] Tim: cuz I'm, October 1st is Libra, so it's about the scale, but I've always, the clue I like to get in nature is balancing of ecosystems and, um, there's this thing in permaculture where the problem is the solution. And I'll give you a quick example. Like if you have an issue with, say mosquitoes, you don't use D and spray everything.

You put in dragon flies or you bring in like frogs that like to eat the mosquito eggs. You, you balance it out in a system wide way that makes the system better than just take one power tool and try to fix it, right? Mm-hmm. because, That's, that's why our medical system's kind of messed up. You use this one superpower tool and then that wipes everything out, but [00:58:00] then you need another drug to counterbalance that, which requires another one.

Right. So it's just, it's just like house of cards feeling as opposed to a super well designed, interdependent system. Yeah.

[00:58:12] CK: Well, I mean, there's secondary and tertiary effects that we Yes. Can hardly predict. And, um, and, uh, with the tools like ai, my hope, the positive intention is that we can then visualize what may be, or model rather, or maybe the secondary tertiary effects.

But since those tools are designed by humans and or naturally flaw, so there lies the, the rub. .

[00:58:44] Tim: That's right. And that, that's why it's the, the human practice of uplifting our consciousness and being more compassionate, empathetic, being more system wide thinkers rather than just hyper efficiency hyperscale, which is important, like we talked about before.

AI is our [00:59:00] ultimate child. How we train it, what we ask it to do will be everything. Right? Because AI is the engine that can create the most unintended of consequences. Mm-hmm. , that's what all, you know, dystopian sci-fi is based on unintended consequences of these radical, exponential power tools. Right? Um, and AI can lead to tremendous beauty.

Have you been tracking what's going on with Dolly too? You know, um, that, that visualizes professional illustrator level images of whatever you tell it to, right? Mm-hmm. , this is amazing. This is literally like the genie in Aladdin's bottle. You just make a wish and say, I want you to come up with blah, blah, blah.

And it does it at increasingly powerful. This is machine amplified creativity. Mm-hmm. , you know, as it continues, there's a superhero you might remember from the DC universe. Green Lantern. Green Lantern, this power ring. Right? The ring of power. And it's only limited by Hal's imagination. He'll [01:00:00] visualize or say something and the ring just spits it out.

That's kind of what's happening when we have, Imagine Dolly two style engines for every discipline, architecture, poetry, you know, video game design, uh, vi art and illustration. These as they grow, become the equivalent of green lantern's power ring. And then the only thing that's limited by is the seed phrase that we seed it with.

Right. So, and this notion of like, imagine Dolly 2000, the ultimate, you know, simulation or, or visualizer. And the ultimate seed phrase at that point is, let there be light.

[01:00:35] CK: Yep. For sure. Let there be light. Let me make the universe in seven days. Yeah, that's beautiful. Um, hmm. Let's see. You know, it's rare that I don't have a lot of questions left

normally. I just have on and on and on on, and the [01:01:00] questions. So actually let's, since we're fresh back from the burn, if you don't mind, I wanna double click on the burn a bit. Sure. I know the burn this year has been quite a Tinder spot for you. Mm-hmm. . So why do you continue to come back to Bernie? Man? How many years then, by the way?

13, 14. Oh my gosh. That's awesome. Yeah. So this year, even for me, Yeah, third year. Mm-hmm. , I'm like, Hmm, I wonder if I wanna come back to Bernie. Man, this, this thought has, you know, crossed my mind. And the answer is yes. And because I love transformation. It's such a macro container of transformation. So, so are we going back, But for you, why do you go back year after

[01:01:40] Tim: year?

Um, a lot of years I went back because I had friends that want to go for the first time and I felt this almost responsibility, but also this glee at getting to be a Sherpa or relive the magic for the first time through their eyes. So there've been many years I went back to go with friends for the first time, you know, to [01:02:00] help, like I said, play Sherpa or to a guide or something.

So that's been one is spreading that magic. Right. But, um, since Covid though, I've tasted the joy of what it's been like to have and host micro burns, even like house party level, mini burning mans or regionals. There's the love burn here in Miami where I am now. Mm-hmm. that, you know, I love about it. Half the people at Love Burnt have never been to Burning Man and might never be able to go all the way out there, but they can get a taste of what the values, the energy, the lifestyle is from the authentic camps and art cars that go out there.

So I'm with you. I. I, I may still go back to Burning Land. Maybe not as often. I'm even more interested in how do I be an ambassador of the values of Burning Land and maybe help spread, you know, that culture or experience not out to other areas now too.

[01:02:50] CK: Mm mm Well, one thing I wanna say about you, Tim, is I, you know, in my research process, I Google your name and see what shows up [01:03:00] and actually couldn't find much of your public wisdom speeches.

Your, your, your public TED talks too much. Mm-hmm. . And as a personal desire, I'll make it public that you know someone who is on this path, who's so thoughtful. I would love to see more of your content events so that way people can get your transmission of what's possible because you are a transcendent, modern householder.

Hmm. From

[01:03:37] Tim: my

[01:03:37] CK: perspective, right? You are, you, you live life of, you know, high consideration, high consciousness in your music, your business, your relationships, even in private conversations. So I just wish that there's more content about you that's publicly accessible. Thank

[01:03:59] Tim: you for [01:04:00] that. That's a really good reminder.

It's something I I wrestle with, to be honest. Um, in my prior years, the first decade or so of venture capital, you know, such an underdog, I came from outside the networks and I focused so hard on building quote unquote personal brand and thought leadership and, you know, was always on interviews and writing blog posts or, you know, giving talks.

And got to the point where I kind of got sick of hearing myself. And, um, it, it felt like, it felt like work. Maintaining all these social media profiles and making sure I got posts and likes and mm-hmm. it, it felt really. Self indulgent and egotistical. Mm-hmm. and I then just went the opposite way and I just kind of quit social media and I stopped posting on Facebook or anything.

And I only wanted to post to Elevate and celebrate others. Mm-hmm. . Um, and I've had a lot of friends say, Hey, you know, you should share more. And I'm trying to figure out a good way to do that, um, while battling this fear or guilt I have about being self promotional. [01:05:00] You know, it's something I see in the consciousness and spiritual community is that there's a lot of people like go to PO retreat and have to post on Instagram and, and so there's kind of like spiritual egotism or materialism in there and, and like some of the most enlightened or greatest teachers I've ever met, you'll never hear about them in their word of mouth only.

And um, I guess there's this sort of saying if like anybody ever calls him or herself a guru, run the other direction. And so I guess I've internalized that and, um, kind of taken this to. Valuing humility and fearful of self-promotion. And I guess I, my greatest fear is that I'm ever viewed as somebody like, you know, self-promoting or like, you know, you know, humble bragging or, or like, you know, trying to get more followers.

And it's something I wrestle with too cuz people are also saying, look, stuff that you're going through is worth sharing your stories with sharing. So, you know, maybe I can get your help or your audience's help in that is how do you find the balance between authentically vulnerably, [01:06:00] sharing your story in service, but also making sure it's not in too much promotion mode as well?

I think you

[01:06:08] CK: just touch on it. What's the line between self importance and, and um, doing it as a way to support others. And the line is, what is my intention to promote myself or is my intention to serve? Yeah. Like that to me is the line. Yeah,

[01:06:28] Tim: that's a great, thank you for that reminder. I've always believed in like, I want to serve but not save anybody.

Saving means I think I know what's best for you. Mm-hmm. , and you know, how we talked about the model is the motivation. Maybe one way to keep pure about it is I'm not necessarily trying to make a living at it for myself. And so if I don't have the pressure of having to be my income or business, I could be a little bit more gentle with how I do it.

You know, again, not feeling the pressure to scale, um, maybe doing it more invitational [01:07:00] or organically. So yeah, these are things I dance with is, um, can we separate the way we make income and living from our life's work? I've always thought that's such a great hack. There's the word, but, um, that's something I want for my daughter someday, is the way that she can make money doesn't necessarily have to be tied to her true life's passion.

And I, I say that because. I wanted to be musician professionally. At one point I had a band that got a development deal with the record label. When I read the contract, it broke my heart. It was the worst business deal ever. And it helped me understand why so many artists get taken advantage of and exploited and never make a living.

And when I was trying to play music as a living, I hated it. You know, we were the house band at the Hard Rock Hotel in Bali and we had to play, you know, gimme one reason why to Tracy Chapman like six times in the same night. Cuz somebody in the audience wanted to sing it and it was like, Oh my God. Six

[01:07:58] CK: times in the same [01:08:00] night.

Yeah. You

[01:08:00] Tim: know, Wow. When you're, when you're paid for the gig, then it's different than just, uh, when you're hired as an entertainer for what the crowd wants versus paid for, maybe how you're expressing what you want to say can be really different. And sometimes having to rely on money for your art can suck the joy out of.

And so, you know, there's a lot of times the money pressure, the business pressure can pervert sort of like the, the art or the craft that you're working on, right? And so something I think a lot about is what are ways to relieve the pressure of the money from the purity of the intention of the art? Yep.

[01:08:39] CK: Derek receiver say some similar, He's, he said, Don't make, earn money, uh, from your passion. So he, he advocates exactly what he said, separate the two. However, let me actually push back a bit. Uh, another school of thought. I think Jim Rome popularize it, uh, wasn't Joseph Campbell, I don't remember exactly who, but he [01:09:00] said, if you, um, combine your passion to how you make living, that's all you bliss.

That's, that's the dream, right? So, so you're not, you're, you're definitely more of a direct receiver camp than, you know. It's, it's bliss. It's is, you know, you, you, you never have to work again. If you combine how you make a living, your passion

[01:09:19] Tim: together. Yeah, it's true. Um, both can be right. And there is the Japanese notion of Chy guy, right?

Mm-hmm. that which you love. That's what you're good at. That's what you, you can get paid for the intersection of those. And um, yeah, I guess this is often the stuff I help people brainstorm too, are ways that, you know, you can find success financially or other things through doing what you love. And there's a lot of like little mix tape or mashups on there, different hacks you can do.

Um, the model might be different than what you thought. So for example, to this, I love joining nonprofit boards to help them tweak their model. The usual nonprofit model is you go through the death march of hitting up your donors year after year and barely eating them out enough to keep going. [01:10:00] Mm-hmm.

But I like joining nonprofits specifically to help them come with earned revenue lines from content. Or gatherings or tools or resources or, or whatever else that they can make revenue like a business, but it's still a nonprofit so that they don't have to only live off donations. Right. So that's, that's an example of a hybrid model.

I love hybrid models, non obvious models, mashups, things that can open new doors than just, you know, yes, no black, white, one, zero. I guess back to synthesis, that's sort of the thing I'm most interested in.

[01:10:33] CK: Tim has been such a, Actually, you know what, before I conclude, is there, people are listening up to here, what's one thing you know, like, Hey, remember nothing at all?

What's one thing you want them to leave them with?

[01:10:47] Tim: Hmm. Wow. That's always a, a tricky one. I guess it, for me, it, it's going to be, you know, who would you want in your tribe? Not necessarily, [01:11:00] um, you know, the, the titles or the profession, but, Maybe energetically, what kind of people do you want in your tribe?

And write it down. Make a list. Like, these are the kind of people I'd really want to be able to grow old with that would have my back. And that for me has been like the greatest gift. So I, I hope everybody gets to have a feeling of finding and, and building or becoming part of their, their tribe.

[01:11:29] CK: Well, Tim, thank you so much for being an embodied noble warrior, and I really mean it.

You're someone who is a learned student, but you also walking the walk. Thank you. No matter what kind of capacity that I see you. Keynote speaking or small exchanges in between spaces. You know, who you are to me is someone who is one, number one, multi talented, [01:12:00] ridiculous, uh, super articulate, but also super, super thoughtful.

And thank you so much for sharing your, your ideas, your wisdom, what you're grappling with, and what you see as the future. So I so appreciate as a, as a man, but also as a human being. Thank you so much.

[01:12:17] Tim: It's the world to me. Thanks for the honor of being here with you. Thanks for the chance to, um, also learn from you.

Yeah. It's deeply inspiring what you're doing, so thank you.