171 Tom Chi: From Near-Death Experience to Global Impact

[00:00:00] CK: My next guest is Tom Chi. He's one of the founding members of Google x.

Tom's innovative thinking paved the way for extraordinary projects like Google Glass Project Loom and Self-Driving Cars. He is a regular speaker at Ted Singularity University and Mindvalley, and more recently, Tom's focus has shifted towards, at One Ventures, he has raised over 450 million, all dedicated to aiding humanity and becoming a net positive to nature.

But what I'm specifically inspired to talk to Tom, and the reason why I am excited to have him here today is his commitment to continue to nurture and guide other impact entrepreneurs. He's taken on the mission to teaching us how to approach complex global issues in systematic and tangible ways. And, um, whether it's through his enlightening TED Talks [00:01:00] or on our interconnectedness on, or his philosophical musing on the existence of God, to me, Tom's insights are profound and thought provoking.

He has an uncanny ability to make world changing ideas seem not only possible, but within our reach. Welcome to Noble Warrior. Thank you so much for being here, Tom.

[00:01:24] Tom: Yeah, thank you. Good to be here today. Yeah. So

[00:01:29] CK: I wanted to first start off by asking you this question about your near death experience and what you learned from that.

[00:01:40] Tom: Sure. Yeah. So, uh, it happened when I was 29 and, um, about like three months before my 30th birthday. But the, to understand the instance and you need to understand the context before it, which is, um, I had [00:02:00] been working at Yahoo, been raising up the ranks rel relatively quickly. I think I got like five promotions in four years kind of thing.

So was working at a very senior level inside of, of Yahoo. And up until that point in my career, I had a very specific way of becoming successful, which is as a person who had a lot of personal capacity and if I, if I, you know, put in a little bit of extra work, I might be able to generate the output of three people or four people, you know, that kind of capacity difference.

And early in my career then it meant that when challenges would come up, I would just work extra hard and get it done and then people would gimme more challenges. And when I started running teams, then I would use that excess capacity, you know, where I would get my job done. But as I like, went around to the different team members, if they were overstretched, like maybe they were, you know, booked 130%, why would take 30% off their, their plates so that, you know, they could get back into [00:03:00] their kind of like optimal ability to deliver.

And everything would still get done. But I would just kind of take on a bit of that responsibility. And that worked for a bit because when you have a five person team and you have a bit more capacity than most folks to get stuff done, then, then you can easily take 20% from this person and 30% from that person and not kind of explode.

And then it was still working when I had a 20 person team. But by the time that this all happened, you know, my team was not quite 50, but it was like on the way to 50. And when you start taking 20% from this person and 30% from that person, and it basically became way more than one human being could do, uh, even with extra capacity.

And I didn't recognize how stressed I was at the time, but in retrospect, I, I recognize a bunch of stress behaviors that I, that I was exhibiting. Um, like I would go into work, you know, first thing in the morning I would go to the cafeteria, [00:04:00] fill up a 24 ounce cup with ice chips and basically chew on ice all morning.

As I was just kind of plowing through work items. And I, I understand in retrospect that that was a, a. Major, like stress management, uh, behavior, and that, uh, in practice I was internalizing all this stress that was actually hurting my body quite a bit. But, you know, I was like so focused on the mission. I was, uh, effectively neglecting it and just like, you know, stress can be associated with, with, uh, you know, gastrointestinal problems, ulcers, all that kind of thing.

Something like that was basically happening for me, but in the lower GI tract. And it, um, you know, uh, it was the holiday. You know, I was home for the holidays and my, when I was 29 and all this was kind of happening at work and I was hanging out with, you know, some of my old friends from, from high school and just like playing video games or whatever.

It's like how we catch up just by [00:05:00] doing the stuff that we did when we were in high school. And I remember like going up to go to the bathroom and actually collapsed in the hallway before I even got to the bathroom. Because what had happened is that, uh, basically something ba effectively exploded in my lower GI tract.

And, uh, I was massively internally bleeding. And uh, luckily, you know, my, my friends like, heard the thud in the hallway. They called the ambulance. I ended up in the hospital, you know, about 20 something minutes later. And from the outside it, it wasn't clear what was wrong because the bleeding was all happening internally.

But once they actually took my vitals, then like a very like alarmed face came over, you know, the, the nurse and the folks that were taking the vitals and they basically called in a bunch of people, you know, super quickly. Cuz effectively what had happened is I had lost about 40% of my blood in the intervening 30 minutes between that time I collapsed.

And [00:06:00] the uh, and the time that they recognized what was happening and they did four simultaneous blood transfusions. Uh, cuz if it was a little bit of bleeding, then you could do a single blood transfusion, probably stabilized. But, but I had lost so much blood and I was actually so close to dying that they had to do four simultaneous, and then after those four, they had to do another four.

And that stabilized me enough. But then I still had to do two more transfusions, you know, over the night before I could wake up the next day. But that moment when, you know, right before the transfusions were started coming in, like I could actually feel myself dying. Like I could feel my extremities going cold.

Uh, effectively what happens is that when you're in that dying process, then your, your body gives up on everything. Um, so it'll give up on obviously your limbs first. It'll give up on all the internal organs other than your heart and your lungs basically say, well we need that stuff to keep going, but everything else we can shut down, including your brain.[00:07:00]

So, you know, I found out the next morning that. I was about, you know, 60 to 90 seconds away from, from irreversible brain and organ damage where, you know, you basically die shortly after that. But in that entire process, I could feel myself dying. And I remember having a very strong sense of returning, which was a whole thing I needed to go look into after, after I, I came back from dying.

Uh, but, you know, when actually was saved through the transfusions and I woke up the next morning, uh, I, I realized a couple different things. I realized that, um, number one, I was only alive because of the generosity of 10 folks that I, I was never gonna be able to meet or thank. And, you know, that had a lot of leadership lessons in it in terms of, you know, you think that you are going it alone and it's like all about your merit and all that kind of thing.

But really, we are held up and we support each other [00:08:00] in countless ways. And, and most of them are invisible or they're easy for us to forget. But occasionally, you know, something like a blood transfusion, obviously tangible, visible, obvious that you're being supported by others, but that like strong sense of being supported by others, you know, allowed me to see all the other ways that you're supported by others.

Even though we have this kind of hero mythos around, around, you know, the single person putting in the, you know, the long hours to get the amazing thing done, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, the other realization is that, Human beings are mostly liquid and you know, most of that liquid is blood. And that morning I woke up with mostly other people's blood.

So that morning I mostly woke up as, uh, the majority of my mass was other people. And there's just this kind of, you know, so that like concept of being supported by other people, at least that morning, was not just abstract, it was literal concrete, right? Like my body [00:09:00] was still running because of, of a more than half contribution of other people.

And to be kind of held in that way as opposed to feeling like I needed to like, take the work off, take the stress off of all these team members and kind of hold them, then that was a very powerful, um, kind of realization as well. Hmm.

[00:09:24] CK: That's really beautiful. I, I heard you told, tell the story before. Uh, now, back then, were you ever a spiritual person or you just had this, you know, more of a spiritual type experience since the near-death experience?

[00:09:43] Tom: Well, I mean, I think it's a little bit mixed. So my, my mom is a Buddhist and my dad's an atheist, but because my mom's a Buddhist, then I spent, you know, time in, you know, the. Buddhist temples and, you know, learn to do some meditation when [00:10:00] I was younger, you know, learn some of those principles when I was younger, but I didn't really consider myself to be particularly spiritual, though I am a person who's interested in, you know, what things mean and you know, how people form meaning.

And there's obviously, uh, a lot that spiritual traditions have done, you know, on, on those fronts though there are other ways to explore meaning other than spiritual traditions as well, but as like a, a student of the, the larger sense of how people create meaning. But, you know, practically speaking, most of my career up until that point was as a scientist, engineer, you know, technology, you know, product leader, that kind of thing.

And those are disciplines that tend to be, um, highly logical, you know, highly, um, structured, uh, don't necessarily have as much room for some spiritual principles like, you know, faith or the belief in something greater than yourself. Uh, things are relatively mechanistic. Like, [00:11:00] here's the delivery schedule.

This much will be produced in this much time as code, as physical material to go deliver this to those people. So, um, it was a definitely a, a a different category of thought than where I was spending most of my time most days.

[00:11:20] CK: Got it. Well, I mean, this. Reflects back to my experience personally. Um, my friend calls me, um, spiritual rationalist.

Hmm. So my training is in, you know, biomedical engineering PhD or everything. And until I have my first mystical experience, uh, if there's no data, it doesn't exist. Mm-hmm. That was the way that I think about the world back then. And then I had my, uh, WASK experience. I had a mystical experience. I saw, you know, the visions that I saw then, then I realized the [00:12:00] limitations of, um, rationality, um, and where be spirituality began for me personally.

So it, it was a, a pivotal moment for me. I still remember that specific moment. Exactly. Ha. Has it ever since that moment, since that incident, have you had similar type of epiphany generating experience for you to really look at, um, you know, the material realm, this reality as well as the spiritual realm, anything like

that?

[00:12:33] Tom: Yeah, for sure. I have a, a lot of different frameworks that allow space for things. You know, the, the first one is exactly what is a spiritual practice and. And a lot of times people think about spiritual practice according to very specific traditions. Like, oh, in the Buddhist tradition, then this is spiritual practice.

Or in the Judeo, you know, some [00:13:00] Judeo-Christian, uh, you know, context, then this is what spiritual practice is, or in indigenous practice, then here's what spiritual practice is. But like the, the way that I kind of redefine spiritual practice is it's anything that, you know, lifts your spirits. So, you know, uh, cuz for example, I'm a musician and I know that there's moments where I'm like playing with a band or like producing a piece of music and it's like really just gotten to, it's like created a moment that like so strongly lifts your spirits, like can, kind of brings you to a completely different space and perspective.

And this is why, you know, for musicians, music can be a spiritual practice, you know, for dancers. Dancing can be a spiritual practice and you see this kind of woven into the historical traditions where yeah, in a lot of churches, in a lot of spiritual context. Then there will be, there will be music or sound, you know, whether it's the, the, the shaman like, you know, banging the, [00:14:00] the drum at a, at a, at kind of a steady pace or whether it's a gospel band, you know, kind of doing their thing and, and like backing a choir and, and do, doing something really amazing there or.

Or whether it's like, you know, the songs of devotion that, that people sing in, in various spiritual traditions. And when you open up the idea of spiritual practice to be any kind of ritual, you know, any sort of activity that changes your spirits, like take, takes you from lower spirits to higher spirits, then you can see how a lot of things that we do are different forms of spiritual practice.

And, and a lot of the things that people kind of talk about in terms of really grounding themselves or opening possibility through spiritual practice, one can infuse them into what it is, even if you're a relatively secular person. So, you know,

if you're a secular person but you love to go dancing, then there you go.

There is a [00:15:00] way that, that dancing can be your spiritual practice. You know,

if you're a secular person and you know, you love to, to like sing in a community choir, then there's a way that that you know, can become your spiritual practice and a lot of other things as well. So that was an important understanding to me because up until then, as a scientist, then you are way more likely to say like, well where's the data?

You know, if I don't see the data than what's going on. But like, you know, there actually is data, but we haven't collected it systematically. But if you kind of went to a bunch of folks and you said like, Hey,

part of my spiritual practice is, you know, giving back to the homeless. And you were to go interview them before they go do the spiritual activity, and you interview a cohort of them after they do the spiritual activity.

And you could get data on that. You could say, of a hundred folks that went in and did that, then their kind of self-reported mood, sense of connection, sense of wellbeing have changed [00:16:00] from a three outta 10 to a seven out of 10, you know, and across all hundred then, you know, it averaged a 4.4 up to a, you know, 7.2 and that would be data.

Now I think that, you know, because we have not opened our aperture to understand spiritual practices that wide, then we just haven't done the, the work to go collect that data. But we know that anecdotally that people say things like that all the time, that the time that they spent giving back or the time that they spent singing or the time that they spent creating, you know, really changed their spirits in a powerful way.

Just like the time that they might have spent at the synagogue, at the 10 Temple, you know, like, you know, these places, obviously you can, you can do that type of survey in those contexts as well. So this allowed me to like, include a lot of things in the sense of, of what, uh, what Spirit was and, you know, the near death experience was cause you know, I've not [00:17:00] done any ayahuasca or you know, a bunch of different things, five M e o d m t, all that kind of stuff.

But I've heard from people that have done it and there's like, Oh, this one basically creates a near death experience for you. Mm-hmm. And having had a near death experience just in the normal way or in the unsafe way. I don't know how you wanna say it cuz it was psych. Yeah. It's very unsafe way ceremony.

Do it. Yeah. Yeah. Non ceremony way and act honestly quite unsafe. Like, you know, I, I literally almost died to have my near death experience. But like having had that experience though, oh, I understand why people would want to take a molecule to, or be in, in ceremony to have that experience. Especially in a way that, you know, you don't tease, you know, yourself like 90 seconds from irreversible damage and death.

Right. So, um, so I get it because on the other side of it then my sense of perspective connection, you know, it kind of rewrote my understanding of what death was [00:18:00] at. A lot of it came from the exploring of that sense of returning and that exploring of sense of returning is also the thing that, that, you know, kicked off the, the need to create the everything is connected talk.

Cuz I had actually been lightly planning that talk since the early two thousands, like 2003 or whatever. I didn't hear have my near death experience, you know, until yeah, a bunch of years later. And um, but like when that happened then I was like, oh, I definitely need to write this talk. I definitely need to make this into some kind of thing because that sense of returning.

Like what I realized when I parsed that sense of retarding, it's like, well, what am I returning to? Like, you know, what exactly does that mean? Uh, because most people kind of, well, first off, like the actual feeling of dying was not a terrible feeling. Um, so I think that's already an interesting observation because I think our concepts of [00:19:00] what it'll feel like to die are a lot scarier than what it actually feels like to die.

So of course I wasn't like part of some super violent death, like being, you know, strangled or anything, but, but in terms of like what it feels like for your body to shut down in the very last bits than honestly doesn't feel particularly scary. So that's one useful data point, but beyond, you know, all that sort of stuff and the kind of concept of scariness of death as I was parsing through the, the sense of returning, I was like, well, what does that even mean?

I mean, I'm a physicist, I'm a person who like, you know, understands that once an organism is kind of done, then uh, yeah, at least that organism in that form is done. I mean, I, you know, there of course like context of, uh, in different religious contexts, there's ideas of an afterlife, there's ideas of reincarnation, that kind of thing.

But, you know, as somebody who was a lot more secular and [00:20:00] scientific in my background, then I wasn't like leaning heavily on any of those sensibilities when I was feeling that sense of returning. And given that I wasn't, didn't have a big allegiance to any of those sensibilities, then I was like, well, what is returning mean?

Like, what was I feeling? And I ultimately parsed out that, uh, the stuff that's actually in the talk, it includes things like, well, what am I exactly? You know, I made outta atoms and protons, neutrons, electrons, that kind of thing. But where did those come from and where did they go? And it turns out that most of you know the things that you're made out of the protons, electrons neutrons are effectively immortal.

You know, they have been here since the beginning of the universe and they are, you know, the amount of time before a proton decays or an electron reaches its end of life. That kind of thing is many billions and billions of times longer than the age of the universe so far. So we're effectively these permutations on immortal stuff, [00:21:00] like the same stuff that was like, that was kind of floating around in a gas cloud before it collapsed into our sun.

And our solar system is our stuff, which is the same stuff that had been kind of floating through the universe and, you know, kind of coalesced not too long after the Big Bang. It's literally the same stuff, literally the same particles. Cuz those particles don't really just die quickly and come back, right?

Like, like, you know, the protons, neutrons, electrons are very long-lived. Neutrons are the most unstable out of the three, but even they. Have a half-life, which is substantially longer than the age of the universe so far. So all the stuff we're made of is effectively immortal. It's like already gone through, you know, tens of thousands of forms in different stars and different dust clouds and, and probably sloshed around, you know, um, a bunch of different planetary systems before it actually became us in this planetary system.

And even within this earth context, then [00:22:00] all the matter within the earth is constantly cycling in and out. So, you know, the stuff that is us is both immortal, but we actually only, it's only a part of us for a very short period of time. You know, days, weeks, maybe a year on the long side. Any specific atom is only a part of us for a very short period of time.

So like we are both immortal, but we're also this kind of metabolic process. We are like this specially organized, you know, uh, burning candle flame, which goes and, and pulls in stuff and makes something of the stuff while it's all in our form. And then we release the stuff that is of us. Like a candle flame is different from second to second, and the atoms in our body are, are different from week to week.

So we're just like a slow burning candle flame. So if the, if, if the nouns, the actual atoms that make us up are not the stuff of us. And really we're kind of the pattern of organization. Um, you know, like a highly organized candle flame through [00:23:00] which the stuff comes in and the stuff goes out. Then maybe the thing that we are is this pattern of organization.

But then when you look at the pattern of organization, well, where does that come from? Well, a lot of our biological organization comes from our d n a and that wasn't stuff that I made right. I obviously inherited, uh, it literally inherited it from my parents, grandparents, all that kind of thing.

Everybody has all the way to the beginning of the origins of life on the planet. It's an unbroken chain from organisms that, that lived billions of years ago to us. Like there's, there's no way that, you know, d n a just like kept on re spontaneously being invented from scratch. Like it's been a long unbroken chain for billions of years.

So was that exactly me? I'm basically kind of like renting a bit of it or getting to participate in a bit of it that, of a system that I didn't create at all, but from which I'm getting all the benefits of billions of years of evolution and all the [00:24:00] immediate genetic, you know, pros and cons of appearance and the culture that were born into.

So there's all this inheriting of the patterns that, that shape the, the kind of metabolic candle flame that we are. So it, it leads to this kind of, this, you know, all this type of, you know, reflection led me to a type of like, um, Like meditative comfort with what death is. Because on one hand the, the material that makes me up, um, has, is basically immortal.

It's been around since the beginning of the universe. It's going to be around for a very, very long time. And the patterns of organization that had me come into a particular shape, you know, and be in society in particular form, you know, are all very ancient. You know, not as old as the particles in the universe, but also stretching into the billions of years, which means that, um, there's honestly no way I could mess it up.[00:25:00]

And also there that I'm always going to, the pattern organization that created me is also still highly extent, even if I am gone, you know, this particular combination is gone. But it also kind of shows like the, the value of the special combination that you are in this life, right? Like you had a chance to go do the stuff that you are in this life, even if you've inherited 99.99% of the organization.

And even if you've inherited a hundred percent of the physical matter. But like, it gives you that sense of, well, I'm riding on the shoulders of giants and my life actually gets to add that 0.1% to the whole mix as opposed to you're out on your own and you gotta make your way and, and it's a dog eat dog world and, and hustle culture and just every kind of thing.

It's like. No, no, no. What if like, we already inherited the 99.999%. Right. And there is something [00:26:00] for us to go add to it, but we will never need to lift the a hundred percent. Mm-hmm. We honestly won't even need to lift the 2%. Mm-hmm. Like even the most radical thinkers might be like 1% different than the norm.

[00:26:13] CK: Mm-hmm. Well, I appreciate you sharing that story. So here's the. What I love about that story is how you took a near-death experience. Most people get really emotional, really riled up about their experience. Like, oh my God, I almost die. Maybe they get a cool story to tell, you know, once in, in a while. But I love how you think very broadly, very deeply, and the interconnectedness of just under physical material sense, where the, all the molecules come from.

And, um, go, go back to the, the, the, to the origin of those molecules from distance stars. And, and it did two things for you. That is what I got. [00:27:00] One is give you tremendous, um, sense of calm when it comes to this primal fear that almost all humans have around death. And two, also thinking about your role in continuing the legacy that is humanity adding to the 0.1% or 1% in giving the short life that you have burning this candle.

Is that an accurate

reflection of what you said?

[00:27:27] Tom: Yeah, absolutely. And just that deep sense of support. I mean, when you think about it, like people do say something, say things sometimes where it's like, oh, you know, I'm sup I'm supported by my ancestors and I'm getting a chance to like, you know, Work out things and live through things that they, they had wished to achieve or wished to have worked out.

That's great. But like when people think about lineage as well, I think it's useful to understand that, you know, obviously you think genetically, okay, [00:28:00] roughly half of your genetics come from your mom, half of them come from your dad, a quarter from each grandparent. Right. And that just goes back two generations.

But if you scoot back 10 generations, uh, then you actually got 0.1% of your DNA from a thousand people, 1,024 people. Mm-hmm. And 10 generations sounds extremely long. But if a generation is only 25 to 30 years, then 10 generations is only 250 to 300 years. Mm-hmm. So like 300 years ago, the stuff that is, you came from over a thousand people.

And if you scoot back 20 generations, it comes from a million people. So like 500 to 600 years ago, then the stuff that became you were little bits from a million different people. Now when you think about that, like when people understand their ancestors, they, they tend to think of just like the, the one patriarchal lineage or the one matriarchal lineage, what have you.

And because of it, they reduce 20 generations down to [00:29:00] like 20 people. Mm-hmm. Or 40 people. And I was like, no guys, 20 generations is like a million people. And to understand that you are here because of the efforts of a million people. Like, like really contextualize, like how supported you are, you know, all the way foundationally to the d n a that created you.

So I, I think it just, you know, the level of connectivity, I think people look at different coincidences and they're like, Hey, we're connected. Or they have a nice experience in, in church or some other spiritual setting and they're like, Hey, we're all connected. But like the, my realization after dying is that the level of support is so pervasive and so complete.

It's almost like is, it's almost like un you know, like it can't fit in your mind basically, um, how, how complete and large the level of support it is. And it's a real feat that we've created a society where people do not feel connected or supported. [00:30:00] Like you really need to design it very hardcore to like not notice the thing that is basically you.

[00:30:08] CK: Hmm.

Um, there's a lot of directions I can take this conversation. I am curious cuz my whole thing is a mental fitness, mental mastery and neutralizing in inner saboteurs. So when inner saboteurs are acting up, uh, it's easy to feel I'm alone. In this dog, dog world, um, I need to make decisions to, for my own survival and thriving and all these things, right?

It's easy to, um, fall into that downward spiral. So in the moment of despair or challenge, great challenge. Um, is this mental model, this narrative helping you to get back to like, no, this is a momentary, um, loneliness and, but I'm ultimately supported by [00:31:00] millions of people, all my ancestors and they're all here surround me.

Like, can you bring us to maybe a, a personal example of how do you get yourself out of the I'm by myself, you know, woes me, kind of stay two, like, no, that's incorrect. I'm actually supported by all of these people wanting to support me in my life.

[00:31:27] Tom: Well, I think the intellectual construction of it is a good one to go have before you are feeling, you know, in the depths of despair.

Mm-hmm. Because like, you know, the, like, having that logical frame and just knowing that's how the universe works broadly. And in my talk, I, I really associate the, I kind of tell three stories of connection. One is, you know, having to do with our breath, one is having to do with our heartbeat and. One is having to do with our, our thoughts.

Mm-hmm. And I, I chose those [00:32:00] things in particular because everybody has all three of those things all the time. Mm-hmm. So it's, you know, and it's to remind folks at a basic intellectual level that, um, that every single thing that's happening, every single second of their lives, like every breath, every heartbeat, every thought is deeply interconnected.

And if those three really foundational things are interconnected and they're not a special part of life, they are just the fabric of life, then knowing that to be like actually factually true, you know, outside of anything you're particularly feeling ahead of you starting to feel bad gives you some scaffolding to be able to go crawl out because you, you kind of remember it now, if you didn't have that kind of scaffolding before you felt, you know, a sense of despair, then a lot of it's just more related to practice.

Like, you can get folks to, you know, be in a little bit of a different [00:33:00] energy and you can be the person that helps to get people in a little bit of a different energy. And, you know, a, like the mind body system is very well connected. And when people get stuck in a tough loop on things, then a lot of times it's, they're having a, a problem with their mind that they're trying to solve with their mind.

Or having a problem with the body where they're trying to solve with their body. And, and sometimes that works directly and that's great. If it works directly, then nothing else to say about it. But if it hasn't worked for a while, then you know, have a phrase which is like, you know, if you, if you are having trouble healing the mind, then focus on healing the body.

And if you're having trouble healing the body, then focus on healing the mind for a bit. Not necessarily because that will always work, but it like, shakes things up in a way that, you know, you might not have tried yet. And a person that's been really down in the dumps, like sometimes they, they like, you know, maybe their [00:34:00] friend, like convinces them to go take a weekend away and just like be in a different physical environment for a bit.

And all they've done is changed the setting around their body and it has changed a decent amount. Like, it's not as easy to fall into the, the same depressed patterns. Um, you know, and of course there are folks that, that their, their body has been, you know, stuck in particular ways. And, you know, through the process of healing the mind, then they might un, you know, unearth that there were some early life experiences that basically have them hold their body in particular ways as a form of protection.

And, you know, now that those, you know, early life experiences that danger has passed, then there are ways for their body to be able to not need to be on guard, not need to be, you know, um, Kind of contorted or, or, uh, disturbed by, you know, something that has now psychologically passed. So [00:35:00] there's a bunch of different, you know, direct practice that come from it.

But I, I like to share the logical foundations of it more for the mode when you have got the bandwidth to kind of receive it. I don't know that these are the specific practices that you use if you're already down in the dumps.

[00:35:17] CK: And since that near death experience and since having constructed this beautifully articulated physics based mental model, have you explored further of what other narratives, you know, maybe a spiritual belief or construct that help you further explore your own relationship beyond yourself?

[00:35:47] Tom: Man, there's a lot, you know, um, so one of the ones that you look at is what are the things that like, are really making people [00:36:00] dissatisfied? And a lot of times dissatisfaction comes from this, like, um, couple different sources. One is to go strive for things that are, that you're not achieving and therefore you're dissatisfied with yourself or life because the things that you're striving for are.

Are not, you know, being achieved or being at the achieve at the pace that you want or in the way that you want, that kind of thing. And the framework that I have around that kind of dissatisfaction is the recognition that when people look back at their lives, then they, you know, they define their lives by their tragedies and triumphs, but when you look into the triumphs, the triumphs tend to be triumphs because they are things that that society has decided to value in a particular time period.

So your triumphs are not necessarily yours in the same way that your tragedies are yours. Right? The triumphs tend to be like, oh, I won the so-and-so spelling bee, and it's like, cool, that was nice. [00:37:00] Or you know, I like won this tennis competition. Cool. That's nice. Now, if you did win that and whatever you fast forward it to like whatever triumph goal that you had, oh, I became the c e O of so-and-so and I made a million dollars a year for the first of my life.

Right? These kinds of things, whatever the construct of triumph, it tends to be built off of things that society values. And actually a lot of dissatisfaction comes from either not being able to get to that triumph or getting to it and realizing that it wasn't really yours, right? You were chasing it because it was something that you were told that society values and you were kind of trying to find value in yourself by getting to the thing that society values and hoping a bunch of it rubs off on you.

So I would say that like, that is one framework that has been helpful for, for people that, um, guarantee these kinds of problems because like that basic framework of the triumphs, it's, I would challenge people to [00:38:00] say like, if you're dissatisfied with the framework of not being able to get to the, the triumph or the win that you are looking for, you should first step back and ask like, well, where did my desire to have this come from?

Is it something that I just kind of blindly inherited from what society told me was, you know, the triumphs I should care about, oh, I need to graduate from an Ivy League school. If I don't, then I'm gonna disgrace, you know, all the educational work that my family has has, you know, put in da da da. Well was that really yours or is that something?

And sometimes it is, it's great. I'm not against the idea that you interrogate that and it's like, oh, I exactly want the thing that society told me to want. Great. But I'm gonna say a lot of times like, well more than half of the times people look at that and it's like, well, it's not exactly what I wanted.

I mean, the thing I actually wanted was just to do blank, blank and blank. And when you really kind of sort it out that way, a lot of times you can realize that there's a more direct path to doing the thing that you actually wanted. And when you actually, when [00:39:00] you get to that spot, then that sense of like gap or longing or, you know, needing to strive, which is kind of beating you down, then that is, um, It lifts a lot because you, you start to see the shorter path to the thing that you actually want.

The, the other sort of thing that tends to torture people is the sense that, you know, outside of any specific goal, the, the way that you're living your life is not the way that you are wanting to live your life. And I think for, for that particular one, then it's, it's a, it's a little bit of a similar process where you kind of interrogate a bit where it's like, well, is it that I am actually, you know, unhappy about the situation?

Or is it that I have not developed any skills around happiness? And that's, that's a whole interesting interrogation, but sometimes you dig into that and you say like, oh no, I actually [00:40:00] am unhappy with the situation. But then you can start digging into that process like, well, why, why am I in this situation then?

And a lot of times you're in the situation for similar reasons to like the, the merit and triumph stuff where it's like, well, I'm in a framework that society approves of more, or like, you know, like in a template that society understands more easily. And even if it does not totally fit the way that I, I want to contribute to the world, then I've like, you know, I've, I kept my, you know, investment banking job because like everybody is so impressed with it, right.

And then like internally, you're like dying inside. And it's like, okay, well that's not really the profession for you in the long run, but I get why you've like sustained this type of internal tension with yourself. And in that case, it's not even about getting the goal. Like you got the goal in that case, right?

It's like, oh, you got the six figure job and you know, it's gone well, you made a 80% bonus last year and amazing, [00:41:00] amazing. And also it's kind of like tearing you apart. So to the extent that you can get into that interrogation process, then there's um, a lot to be able to be kind of lifted there as well.

But like the, just to go back to the previous point, sometimes we have not built the skills around happiness. And the, the phrase that I've, you know, you know, I kind of like, um, came to my mind and I've been sharing with folks is that that appreciation is more important than gratitude. So like, you know, people are like, oh, you should come up with a, with a gratitude journal.

And like every morning think of the things that you have gratitude for and write down three things. And obviously probably everybody in your audience have like, heard of a practice like this or done in practice like this for some time. And I think that's, that's fine. Like there's, that is a, some good steps in a direction that can help with, with, uh, [00:42:00] with that, with mental health and that sense of connection and that, that and that.

Um, And like feeling like there's things that support you in life. But for me, appreciation is the verb that enables gratitude, right? So like even if I wouldn't put something in my gratitude journal, uh, like, you know, cuz it's like it comes to mind as one of the top five things I'm grateful for in my life.

And a lot of times you do those gratitude journals and the same sort of items will come up and that's great, but appreciation is way more interesting. Appreciation is like, okay, here's the spoon, right? And it's like, well what can I have the skill to appreciate a spoon for three minutes? And like, what is there to appreciate about it?

And if one develops the skill to appreciate things, then there's a crazy amount of happiness on the other side of having that skill. Cuz like, yeah, and a normal day I might never think about this spoon. If I actually [00:43:00] gave it a minute to like, think about how, what I appreciate about it, then I would like start noticing things about like the weight of it in my hand and the fact that I've had it for 10 plus years and never had any issues with it.

And you know, like the, the meals, the great meals that I've had with it over the years, like there's a lot that comes forward even in an everyday object that we would never give a second thought on. That like, is either directly happiness or ha happiness adjacent. And it kind of moves your entire mindset into a completely different state.

And because appreciation is the verb, as opposed to gratitude is almost like the, is almost like the indexing of a bunch of nouns. Then the, the verb form of it is like alive and kicking and potent in a way that like, you know, listing out things that you're grateful for because gratitude is at the end of the chain.

It's like, I, I, it's already done. I already know I, I like get a lot from my relationship to this person or this particular thing I like a lot. [00:44:00] I'm gonna, it's gonna make the gratitude journal, it's gonna make that top five of the things that broke through my mental awareness of things that are worth appreciating.

But the verb of appreciation is a thing that eventually integrates to gratitude and the ability to actually have, you know, command over the verb. And at any given moment, it's like, oh, I'm stuck in the waiting room of this place where, you know, um, I'm trying to buy something, or I'm like, waiting at the doctor's office or whatever.

It's like a total bummer. And it's like, okay, well let me use the verb of appreciation for a little bit. Like, what could I, what could I spend one minute appreciating in the situation right now or what's around me? And that will completely change things, even if those things would never hit your gratitude journal.

[00:44:48] CK: I love that.

That's so great. I mean, a noble warrior, as you can tell. My background is the dojo. And so I use gyms and dojo, this type of metaphors a lot, [00:45:00] and ultimately it's about exercising the muscle of gratitude at the end of the day. Right? Yes. I ex appreciate

[00:45:07] Tom: appreciation. Yeah. I I I use the verb, I, I use ver appreciation as the verb and gratitude as the state at the end.

[00:45:14] CK: Yeah. I, I, yeah. So, so the, the skill of happiness ultimately comes down to, well, one of the skill is how we can appreciate a concept, a thing, and then the variety of different and infant decimal ways that we can appreciate a thing. So in my, the, what I want to tease out for our listeners here is this is a skill that we get to exercise.

And to your point, the more muscle, the more masterful we are in appreciating a thing, a concept a person, the more we can take that same skill to create infinite joy and happiness in our life. That's what I got from this. That was brilliant.

[00:45:58] Tom: Yeah. [00:46:00] And, and, and some of this, like, you know, I, I got from being in the kind of like Buddhist temples and monasteries, it's like the folks actually physically own very little, but there's like so much appreciation for a meal.

There's so much appreciation for, you know, the care that somebody showed you or, or I guess whenever I was there too, it's like they would like make me sweep floors and stuff cuz it's like, you seem capable of things. So they could appreciate that I'm a person that could sweep the floor. So that was, they, they're pretty good at the, that verb.

[00:46:34] CK: Yeah. And then, um, I wanna circle back to your other point cuz you had mentioned, um, uh, achievement oriented, this type of mindset. Uh, I, I recently read a book called Wanting, and that's what the whole book is, is about. Um, the author articulated in, you call it memetic desires, what society, what others want for you.

We [00:47:00] want what other people want versus an intrinsic desire. What we want ultimately. And then, and then, and then your point is to, to respect, to think about why do I want this thing? Do I want it because my parents want it, society want it, my wife wants it, my kids wants it, whatever my, my peers want it. Or is it that I truly desire?

So I wanna zoom in at that point real quick because the way you. Make it sound is really simple, but in my personal experience, it is often not that simple because I had to really think and contemplate, why do I want these things? Do I want a Lamborghini because all of my neighbors are driving in Lamborghini probably, right?

Uh, as soon as I move away from that neighborhood, I don't want that Lamborghini anymore. Mm-hmm. Right? But, but when you're in that environment, that desire seems real. So can you tease that out first a little bit? Because, [00:48:00] you know, it's not, in my opinion, as simplistic as, Hey, just do a meditation and da da, you, you'll have absolute clarity.

[00:48:10] Tom: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think you already pointed to something very important, which is if that desire would be a hundred percent different when you're in a slightly different context, if you're in the neighborhood where everybody has a Lamborghini and you really, really want one, but if you were to, you know, move over to a different neighborhood, then you wouldn't, then that actually shows something about the durability of that desire.

Right? And a lot of times, you know, you look at some of the things, like a, a good warning sign is, you know, it's something that if you got it, everybody would approve of it, right? Everybody would be excited for you. Like those are the things that end up to be, uh, being a little bit more fraught because.

Then, you know, it's quite likely that part of the [00:49:00] reason that you want it is for the approval of it. Now, I'm not saying that we should never do things for social approval. It's like we're part of a society. We should do some of that. It's totally fine. Like, I don't think that we can be in society without doing a, a little bit of it, but like, when it comes to the things that really take over your life, then, you know, don't necessarily have the approval of society be the thing that takes over your life or kind of infiltrates all the goals or creates a ceiling or a floor to your dreams.

Like, that's not, that's the place where it's kind of incurred beyond just the niceties of, of what it takes to be in a society now, you know, the thing that I kind of have come to, which has really helped a lot with it, is that also the idea of achievement, like these kind of, um, these kind of like [00:50:00] watershed or milestone moments where you've gone from the thing was not achieved to it is achieved.

Then I think that that actually is a lot more, you know, comes from like a, like a western consumerist mindset on things and you know, I. I like occasionally will write a philosophical thing. And I think one of the things that I once wrote about this was what if enlightenment was not something that could be obtained?

It's just something, it's a verb that is practiced. So if you're practicing it, then you are enlightened and when you stop practicing it, you aren't enlightened and there is no state that is quote unquote achieved. Right? Because when you achieve a state, then it's almost like I can check this off my bucket list of goals that are done, like milestones accomplished.

And because of it, it's almost like I achieved it and that I don't need to be enlightened again. I, I achieved enlightenment [00:51:00] and like I started to realize like that was a very limiting frame for, you know, and that's why, you know, the bankers will go out there and it's like, oh, I had to quit my banking job and achieve enlightenment.

Well that's because they came from a very achievement driven frame in the first place. I think like one that is in some of those wisdom traditions, they recognize it's a lot more, like if you practice, you'll have a glimpse of it and if you stop practicing it, you will not have a glimpse of it. And you could be just as unenlightened as any other person on any given day.

Even if you have gotten a glimpse of it 50 times, you know, in the last 50 days, your 51st day you could be an asshole and hey, you're not enlightened that day. So like it's not something that you're achieving, it's just a thing that one can practice or not. And actually on one hand that can seem defeating to people because they'd be like, well, I mean, I just wanted to check a thing off my list.

I wanted to just pract, you know, like, get it done. And I'm, I'm enlightened now. I, [00:52:00] like, I have, I'm now like a fourth level master of so-and-so as certified by this, you know, enlightened body or whatever, like get me my achievements. But I think like the, the thing that frustrates achievers about that thought is exactly the useful thing about the thought, which is that like, no, no, no.

If you move it out of an achievement frame, if you move it into a practice frame where you are getting to choose whether to be enlightened and practice those skills or not in a given moment, then it is way closer to what it is to like truly make it something as part of one's life as opposed to, you know, I have a degree somewhere in a box somewhere that was like, or a couple degrees that are achievements.

But like, am I doing literally that type of work every day that of what I studied? No, not at the current moment, you know, not while I sit here on this [00:53:00] couch. So like, you know, given that, it's like, well, am I that thing right now? No, not necessarily. I'm a person that's like, you know, having a conversation with a person right now, that is what I am currently, you know, being, doing, achieving.

So, so like I, I think if you start to understand life in that context, then you start to get a lot more focused on the quality of these moments as opposed to the, the like laundry, like the resume list that I can build up, right? Or the achievement list that I can build up. And the achievement list tends to be very abstracting and gets you out of the moments.

And one that's focused on the quality of moments is, you know, it's, it's way more connecting and uh, gets you into the moments. So like, I actually wrote a goal for myself up on the board over there. I'll just like walk over to it. Sure. Because I think it's an example of thinking about it in that frame as opposed to the, you know, the, an achievement based frame.[00:54:00]

[00:54:01] CK: I love this. This is the first time a podcast guest is showing us some artifacts. This

is,

[00:54:06] Tom: yeah. So over here it's like, so like, my goal is to have a simple life of craft because for me, I'm a person who likes to be a craftsperson of a lot of different disciplines. And for me, my crafts are art, media, music, design, engineering, science.

But you know, to do that for purpose and it doesn't say like, any specific thing I need to achieve from all of that. It basically just says if I'm living a life that is still in the craft of using these skills to do that, I'm gonna be fine. Right. And there's something about that, you know, that kind of framing where.

It allows you just to like, reflect on the moment, which is, am I using my skills to do that kind of thing? Am I still in the craft of it? And being in the craft is a real interesting thing cuz it means that you have practiced enough that you can do something skillful, um, and contributed. [00:55:00] But it also means like to be in a craft, it means that you tend to be in the infinite journey of a further learning of that thing, right?

And I call them mastery disciplines and lit every, literally everything in my simple life of craft is a type of mastery discipline. Like you could spend your whole life learning to be better at art or design. You could spend your whole life learning to be better at engineering. You know, and there would still be more to do.

Like, like my mastery di you know, uh, discipline description is like, imagine you're a person who fell in love with the guitar at age five and from the age of five until the age of 85, you like practiced, you know, five hours a day and it led you to an amazing life in, in guitar. And you got to go and play on the biggest stages and play with amazing groups and write songs that people, you know, have heard and remembered.

It's, you've done everything that a person could do with a guitar. And if somebody were to talk to you, [00:56:00] you know, in your 85th year, and let's say you are, you know, it turns out that you're near the end of your life and um, and maybe you have a week to live and you were to go talk to that person. About their life with the guitar and ask them, wow, you've done 80 years of of guitar.

You know what, you know, is there any more for you to learn? A person that's in a d in a mastery discipline will always say there's an infinite amount more to learn. Right? Like even having spent like literally the longest that a person could do in a, in a human lifetime on the thing. Mastery disciplines are infinite in that way.

And mastery disciplines because they're infinite. They, they are partially a way to go defeat the sense of achievement milestones, right? Because if you are wedded to the getting or not getting a milestones, then there's a kind of boom and bus cycle. There's a type of, and like I say, it's like attached to a capitalist mentality as well, but put that aside for a second, but like this [00:57:00] boom and bus cycle where you also like hype yourself up and get disappointed and feel like you're a failure because it didn't meet up to what you expected.

And all these kinds of things. Like there's all this other color that comes with it, which is not about being in the craft. And for me, the craft is actually already beautiful and joyful, right? If I'm writing music, it's already beautiful and joyful. If I'm doing engineering or design work, it's already beautiful or joyful and, you know, I want to be in like the, the craft zone.

So the craft zone to me is like, um, in totality, what are, whatever craft you're onto, You kind of think about it like a mountain climber climber and a mountain climber typically has three limbs firmly planted and one always reaching. Hmm, right? That's how you actually climb a mountain. And the three limbs planted means you need to be solid enough in the skill that you can deliver something, right?

So there's a lot of people's like, oh, I love all these crafts. And they like try to learn [00:58:00] music for three minutes, and then it's like, here's my crappy song. And it's like, no, their song is actually crappy. They don't actually have that much craft in this thing. Now that said, it's fine, like people gotta start somewhere.

But like, you know what it sounds like when somebody's in their first year of songwriting versus their fifth year of songwriting versus their 10th year of songwriting, the craft, you know, the practice in it does matter. And that is the process of getting grounded and having like three limbs firmly planted.

Those are the ones that are delivering. And then if you are in a craft, you'll always have one limb reaching. So it's like 25% of what you're spending time on in the craft is delivering what you are capable of doing so far. And then 25, you know, sorry, 25% is reaching for new stuff and 75% is delivering what you're good at so far.

And I think if you can stay roughly in that ratio, then one can have a very long life in craft and basically, you know, um, you know, live a life that is supported by craft, uh, in a way that you are part of that [00:59:00] infinite effort, uh, part of a mastery discipline as opposed to using it as a springboard for achievement.

[00:59:07] CK: Well, that, um, that is a rabbit hole in itself. I, I love that. Um, I'm huge on mastery. I'm a student of mastery. Um, what you just share, in my opinion, is the difference between a finite game and an infinite game, right? Finite game. You just want to, you know, get to the final boss. You defeated it all right?

Done. Next game. Right? You play a new game. Infinite game is the point of it is so that we can get, continue to get to play this game, whatever game that we choose. I love the, uh, quote that you say, the quality of these moments becomes more important than the, than the achievement itself. And I also wrote down what you said, the cr, by engaging in the craft, the act itself is already beautiful and joyful.

Mm-hmm. [01:00:00] I I love that. So, so, so here, here, cuz I love talking to virtuosos. That's my jam. That's my craft, right? This, this, this is my craft. This is my

jam. Nice. And I love it.

And, um, and, and I also have met many of 'em that experience, um, huge frustration because they want to achieve certain milestone. They wanna play certain songs, they want to sing certain songs.

They want to have a particular business practice that in a masterful, masterful way that it aspire to be, right. So in the moment of striving, and they're out of the phase of beautiful and joy, um, do you have any, uh, tactical, uh, suggestions for them to get back to the state of joy and beauty rather than frustration and, and, and striving and, oh, I'm not there yet, [01:01:00] and why isn't da da da on?

You know what I mean?

[01:01:02] Tom: Yeah. I mean, like, remember the, in the mountain climbing analogy, 25% is always reaching, but the nature of the reaching, you know, can vary quite a bit. So if you're highly attached to milestones that must come from the reaching, then that can be a major source of dissatisfaction.

Mm-hmm. But like, you know, if, you know, like I have a drum kid over there and I'm like learning how to play the drums better, and there's like various patterns out there and like, you know, when there's like a, a pattern of like coordination of your limbs that I've like not mastered before that I'm like working on, you know, getting the feel of then that's the 25% reaching like, it, it's not like, you're not like flying.

It doesn't sound amazing every time. Like you're like, you know, whatever, you're sticking patterns a little bit off, like your feel of it is a bit off, you know, all that kind of stuff. But like, that tends to honestly not be a painful experience at all. Right. [01:02:00] Like, to the extent that you're experiencing anguish or pain from it.

It's because you've like attached further meaning to the 25% that is reaching and striving and saying like, oh my gosh, well, if I don't learn this sticking pattern or if I don't learn, you know, this, uh, groove within the next, you know, three days, I'm gonna totally fail at this gig or whatever. And that is actually the source of the things that get you out of that feeling of the moment of, um, growing in your craft.

Because I, I tend to think it, you know, not just tend to think it's like it's my lived experience that when you actually go and, you know, expand in your craft, um, through the work that you do in a day, it honestly feels amazing. Even if it was like, okay, I had to practice that riff like 45 times and it, it was kind of repetition for two hours or something, but I kind of got it now.

Right? Like, like, did it sound like the best music ever for [01:03:00] the two hours You're practicing it? Of course not, you know? But did it feel like a tough experience? No. Like there's like ways that it's clicking in with you and like ways that you're relating to it where it's like, okay, not quite this yet. Okay.

That was perfect. Except for like my left hand is coming in a little draggy on, you know, toward the end of the pattern. Okay. And, and it's like, it's, you're like in the craft of it, it actually feels like very engaging. There's a. A type of flow state that you can get for learning, just like there's a flow state that you can get for executing and, uh, especially if the learning is like kinetic learning.

Um, but you know, even on intellectual tasks, like I'll sit down on some area that I'm needing to go, like learn a lot more for my work and it, you know, I'll start the day with a certain level of knowledge and by the end of the day through research, cross-referencing, you know, like writing a little python script to like, you know, give me a [01:04:00] sense of how the numbers work, all that kind of thing.

I exit the day with just a, a way like better qualified sense of what it is, you know, that I set out to understand. And even if the day wasn't a performance day of like, oh, I delivered the thing that, you know, people would pay to, to, you know, ticket prices for, or like people would buy in my online course or people would whatever, then no, it feels like a very satisfying, like, day of craft.

And like, to me, like that, that statement on the whiteboard is just to remind me that that is actually the reward feeling. The reward feeling is to have like, lived my life in craft and have the, have that feeling of, you know, these kind of moments of accomplishment and mastery that are associated with being in craft as opposed to.

The accomplishments that, you know, I would want to put on in the front page of the New York Times or, [01:05:00] or talk to a reporter about, right? Like, no, no reporter wants to hear like, oh, I worked on this sticking pattern on a Saturday for three hours and now I have a pretty good feel how to do so and so. Right.

Like that, that's not interesting to them, but like to me, like, and, and this comes to like, you know, what actual ways of, of living your life actually click for you. Right. For me, I'm a person that's developed a lot of skills over life because I really enjoy this type of feeling of being in craft learning and craft and delivering things in craft.

Like that feeling for me is kind of the North star. Mm-hmm. And if I'm having that feeling a lot in my life, then everything is gonna be fine. Right.

[01:05:41] CK: Hey, man, this, this very point is one of the reason I, I knew I admire you in many different re regards. Not just your achievement, not just how you speak, not just your narratives, but, um, but I, but I think this, this very point [01:06:00] that we're pointing to is I, let me know if I'm projecting.

It's the heart of all these other things cuz you treat life as a craft and you, you, you do it with joy and beauty and in my opinion, these micro moments compounds over a lifetime to what all these beautiful things that you created.

[01:06:22] Tom: Yes. And I think that works for me because my kind of thing is a person that loves to learn, loves to create, and I think for other people, their craft might be connecting people, for example.

And it's like, oh, to achieve what? Right. But like, you know, put that aside for a second and just say, well, what would it look like for me to stay in the craft of connecting people And maybe, you know, during their day job, then they're an event planner, right? But maybe like outside of that, they love holding dinner parties and all that sort of thing.

That's them basically creating a whole life where they get to be in their craft. It doesn't need to be learning things to make things. That is [01:07:00] basically a thing I found out about myself from, you know, the things that, reflecting on the things I enjoyed more in life and the things that, you know, I, I felt more ultimately satisfied in life looking back on compared to the big, you know, uh, big achievements.

Like, like, so, uh, when I was young, I was a competitive chess player and I like won all these awards, but I like got, you know, would win this competition, win that tournament, da da da, and like have this trophy and come back. And that's not why I liked chess. So like, whenever I would come home, I would actually just put it in a pile behind one of my trash cans.

Uh, so in my room, so like, you know, it wasn't up on a shelf or whatever, just like, well, I got another one. I mean, the thing that I liked in chess is like, Effectively like a living, breathing puzzle that is like unfolding in front of you and like fully engaging in, in the kind of intellectual depth of a puzzle that's unfolding.

[01:08:00] Including, you know, the way that that, you know, like the, the other players basically bringing different things to that puzzle. Like that to me itself is like its own kind of captivating little world that you can spend a decent amount of time in. And I remember like my, my mom and dad were very much against me, like spending any time on chess cuz it's like, oh, that's a waste of time.

That's not your studies. That's not, you know, even the e extracurriculars that you could write on a college essay or whatever. Like, that's like, like truly a waste of time. And until like one, so like I actually to do those tournaments, I would actually sneak out of the house. Luckily they didn't like track my movements all day cuz I was third kids.

So at that point you don't mon you're not monitoring your kids at all. But I would like, sneak out of the house, take the subway all the way down to Washington, dc you know, do all the tournaments there, come back, you know, at the end of the day on a Saturday or whatever, like with a, with like a trophy in my backpack kind of thing.

And, um, and one day, like my, my mom was like [01:09:00] snooping or cleaning in my room, who knows? And she like, you know, went behind the trash cans, like, there's like a dozen trophies back here. What is this? And she like called me over to be like, what? Like, kind of confronted me like, what's this thing I discovered?

And, and I was like, oh yeah, I mean, I, I'm good at chess. I'm the Maryland State Junior Champion. I also like won so-and-so, right? Like you just listed out a couple things and then she got like super proud about it and she was telling all her her friends. And I was like, you know what? That's crazy because literally, you know, two years ago you're like, stop playing chess, you're wasting your time, blah, blah, blah.

And now that you see that there's trophies, it's kind of like a big deal for you to talk about. That's weird. But like, I, I, I like that because it shows like how differently people can interpret these things. That for me, I was, I was in it not because the trophies were actually particularly, particularly important to me.

I like didn't even display them in my own room. It was just a, a thing that it would be rude not to take at the end of the thing if you [01:10:00] won the competition. So I would just like take 'em and put 'em in the bag and just put 'em in the trophy spot. Right. And uh, and for, for her it was like, you know, you know, one step removed.

She was interested in talking about my achievements and only when it fit in the achievement frame. Was it something that, you know, not only was she not, you know, trying to talk me out of, she wanted to go tell her friends about. And I was like, Hmm, this is a very interesting learning moment on like comparative.

Now that said, I'm not saying that she's undisciplined in her own life. She's disciplined on lots of things, but like, that's like the difference in what each of us found valuable was very clear at that moment. Where it's like, oh, you, you thought it was a waste? Because I would like spend the time on these sorts of puzzles, like, you know, each chess position's like its own little puzzle.

So it's like a game is like a whole bunch of puzzles unfolding toward an end and um, and it's like, oh, you thought it was a [01:11:00] waste of time because I enjoyed like mentally working through these kinds of puzzles. But like, you know, it only stopped being a waste of time when achievement was at stake. And for me it was the opposite where it's like, well, achievement was like whatever, whatever, you know, it was like really being in the craft of using a mind in a sophisticated way and the game asked you to use your mind in a sophisticated way.

[01:11:23] CK: So, quick question cuz you probably surround yourself with other masters in their own right as well. Do you feel this mindset is common amongst those who, you know, achieve certain level of mastery or multi-disciplinary mastery or polymath of their own rights? Do you, do you see that as a common trait or this is a unique, you know, very rare trait to

approach life as a

[01:11:55] Tom: I think, I think it's, it's um, it's pretty [01:12:00] prevalent in a lot of the people that have been successsful.

And not only do I not think it's rare, I think it's pretty teachable and, you know, pretty doable by, by most people. I think like the, um, We just like taught people the wrong things, right? Like if you, if you understand that, um, if you understand that success is that feeling of being in your mastery discipline, and I have another talk, you know, that kind of talks about like, you know, don't try to create a masterpiece.

Just learn how to love your discipline long enough. You know, that kind of, it comes from it and like, it, it like changes the focus because until then people will torture themselves, including people that would have a great life in this kind of stuff. They'll be like, how come I can't create by masterpiece yet?

How come this business isn't 10 times bigger than the last one I made yet? Right? And it's like, oh man, that's you, [01:13:00] like not loving your medium anymore. And like to, I think everybody that ends up being successful at least had, you know, an extended period of time, if, even if they aren't doing it like ongoing, where they really loved their medium, you know, they like, you know, Oprah really loved broadcasting, you know, Beyonce really loved singing and dancing.

You know, like, like you can kind of go through all of the greats and there was like clearly a moment where they were loving their medium in a way that if you were just like sitting on the sidelines, if you were, if you were watching, you know, whatever, Steph Curry, like practice threes for a while and he wasn't quite as good as he was today at it.

Then you'd be like, this is boring. Here you are on your eighth hour, like practicing threes and like, are you even tall enough to be a serious player? Like all this sort of stuff that people could have said. But like, you know, obviously that's a person that loves their medium enough where it's like, yeah, get up in the morning, let's try to sing some threes.

And they just [01:14:00] kind of kept going at it. And, and so if you are, one thing that's very common to the people that are successful is the quote unquote work that looks boring from the outside. They're fully engaged in it. It's like fully consumed them. They like a three hour practice of syncing a bunch of threes or trying to like blows by, right?

It's not even a thing where like, it, it feels like a great Saturday. As opposed to if you, if you weren't in that mastery mindset, then you would look at that, it's like, oh, I gotta practice another three hours today. Oh, I gotta work on my book another four hours today. Oh, I gotta do so, oh man, how am I gonna find the time to do so and so, and it's like, yeah, at some point in that journey that you need to have been in that state where kind of the time related to creating mastery, uh, became not too big a deal.

[01:14:58] CK: Now you are also [01:15:00] mentors to lots of young entrepreneurs, impact driven entrepreneurs. Do you, is this something that you do your best to teach them this, coach them this? Or even just point towards the direction of this, or this is more of you, you, you'll know it once, you know, once you're in it kind of a thing that's not so teachable.

[01:15:24] Tom: Well, I mean, being an entrepreneur is an environment that gives you lots of moments to learn. So I think it's kind of in between, you know, relative to your question, which is, um, you know, if I were to try to sit down and lecture people for three hours on everything that you need to be an entrepreneur before you even started, that'd probably not be that useful.

Uh, but like, if you are an entrepreneur of any stripe, look, I mean, if I said some things then you probably write down some good notes and it maybe save you a little bit of time, but it, it won't be maximally useful. [01:16:00] But like, you know, when you do decide to be an entrepreneur in practice and not just the concept of wanting to like try it, then naturally all these occasions will pick up that will give you opportunities to practice mastery or not.

And, and in those cases, like because I get to mentor people over an extended period of time, then there's lots of venues to be able to kind of bring it up where it's like, oh man, you've really gotten to mastery in the core engineering skill that is allowing you to really deliver the thing that the product is supposed to be, but there's still a lot to go relative to learning how to manage and motivate a team, like learning how to set a vision that inspires people. So, great. Let's, let's dig into that a bit, right? So like, the, the framework of entrepreneurship is, will like bring all the opportunities forward learning, you know, to your front door and, you know, you will [01:17:00] decide which aspects of that learning you're gonna take on directly, which aspects you're gonna try to hire other people to go do, you know, alongside you, uh, which aspects you're just never gonna do.

And, and, uh, you know, because of it, the business won't be able to do or express that, that kind of possibility, which by itself is not necessarily a problem. Like, there's a lot of benefits to editing as well and saying, we'll do this, but not that. But you know, when people do that decision, I, I think if I'm mentoring an entrepreneur, then a lot of it is, well, are you trying to say, well do this and not that?

Because you've actually kind of learned from how the business is operating that this is the more important thing to be providing, like the, the, the bigger value creating part of what you can do. Or are you choosing this over that because you're just scared of trying this or it feels too daunting or you feel like you won't be successful at trying this, you know, the, the thing that you've [01:18:00] deprioritized and, you know, take some.

Some good listening on the part of a mentor to hear the difference. There are, there

[01:18:09] CK: are, are there common mistakes or barriers? Probably that's a better word that you see just over and over again. So let me give you some menus so you can pick from or come on with one sets outside of the menu. You know, some of 'em may be too confident or not confident enough or too ambitious, but not ambitious enough or, you know, uh, not having good ideas enough or, you know, not having enough mental fitness.

You know, they're, they may have the, you know, uh, imposter syndrome or self-critic that's so overwhelming. Any common barriers that you see after mentoring? Hundreds of entrepreneurs,

young entrepreneurs?

[01:18:54] Tom: Yeah, I think literally everything that you said is a barrier and they all have something in common, which is [01:19:00] none of them have anything to do with the person you're trying to serve.

Hmm. So, like a good entrepreneur is really fo Well, I have a couple different takes on this. Um, so one is called the ten second mba. Uh, cuz a bunch of people feel like, oh man, what if I can't start my business unless I have an M mba? Like maybe I should take a couple years out and get an M B A. And it's like, well you could, and I'm not saying it would hurt at all.

Like, it might be useful to you actually. So not trained to say to not do it. But I can tell you in 10 seconds, like the, the main things that you need to learn from an M B A. And the ten second MBA is the following. It basically says, um, if you want to create a successful business, there's really only two steps.

Step one is do something, anything that meaningfully improves people's lives. Step two, make step one, cash flow positive. That's it. There's, there's honestly nothing else to do to make a successful business. Now, if you are, quote unquote working on your [01:20:00] business and you're not doing one of those two steps, then you aren't working on your business.

So a lot of times I will go talk with folks and it's like, yo, I got this idea, da da da, we're gonna do blah, blah, blah. And he's getting excited about blah, blah, blah. And I was like, cool. Well, have you done step one? Have you, have you made something that meaningfully improves people's lives? It's like, well, this is absolutely going to improve people's lives because da, da, da.

And, and that to me is like, oh, you didn't do step one. Now it sounds, you know, because they're talking about plans that could, they're not saying I meaningfully improve somebody's life. And the reason I like the ten second MBA is that it actually is very grounding. Like most people have done step one in a bunch of the different things in their lives.

Uh, but like the folks that get wound up in their heads, they don't even get into step one, you know, even though they're quote unquote now trying to purposely work on a business. And what do I mean by that? It's like, have you ever, you know, baked a pie? Have you ever helped, you know, a neighbor put a fence [01:21:00] up?

Have you ever, you know, like mowed a lawn, have you ever, whatever. These are things that meaningly meaningfully improve people's lives. And if you think about all those things, there are people that decided to make that step one cash flow positive. So are there people that like, you know, sell pies for a living?

Absolutely. Are there people that mow lawns for a living? Absolutely. Are there people that help to like put fences up or do construction work for a living? Absolutely. You know, did you make a cool website for yourself? Well, sure that's a thing where you created some, some value for the world. That's a step one.

Have there, have there been people that have made the step two on that where they made that cash positive and it be basically became a business and website design? Absolutely. So like most of us have done a bunch of step ones for a bunch of things in our lives. You know, whatever education path you took or whatever you do day-to-day in your life, most of us have some kind of step ones that we've already done.

And I can tell that people are [01:22:00] on the wrong track when they like have this big conceptual idea for what they will do as opposed to just get into making the step one for a person. You know, just make the step one for any person and just see if it like actually meaningfully improves their lives. This is kind of like, you know, when a person ultimately becomes a high paid wedding photographer, but the first time they did it, they just took some prom pictures.

And then the second time they did it, you know, they, well, they're growing up. Second time they did it, they're just doing like some, some freebie photos for the school newspaper. And next thing you know, it's like they're just doing the step one over and over. And then eventually they're like, oh, you know, I think I'm good enough at the step one that I can do the step two to this.

I can like, put up my photography website, like, you know, like post on these different wedding boards. And next thing you know, I'm being interviewed from, you know, by 10 different couples. And three of them said, yes, you know, for me to, to photograph their wedding. And now I got paid whatever, eight k a wedding [01:23:00] for, you know, in, in the next three months, that's gonna be great money for me, da, da da.

And that's them doing the step two for their step one, basically. So first, you know, get out of the abstraction of the business that you're going to create, the benefit you're going to create. And just like, create it at a crazily small scale for like one or two people and just be like, okay, let me just actually deliver.

Let me actually try to make something useful for you right now. Oh, I'm trying to start a new business, uh, making croissants. Well, next Saturday I'm gonna bring over my, my latest recipes on it. If you're willing to eat three croissants like you are, you know, I wanna see if it, you know, I, I can do something meaningful for somebody.

And once, and look, that's a very satisfying process. Honestly. It's way more satisfying than the anxieties, fears, overconfidence under confidence that people might have about doing a business. Because if you known how to make a croissant, like you won't even get that much in your head about this. It's like, I know how to make a croissant.

I'll just make one and bring it [01:24:00] over. It's we're done. Right? It's not like, oh, but am I hustling hard enough? And, and you know, g Gary Viner check said I shouldn't be working this many hours. Like whatever. Right? It's like that's nowhere. Yeah. Like the actual thing is, did you make the thing and it improve people's lives.

Now, once you make it a couple times improve people's lives, well now you do step two. And a lot of what people learn in M B A is about step two, where it's like, oh, I'm making croissants. How do I source the ingredients at the right price? You know, so kind of supply chain and sourcing. How do I like, you know, set it up so that we are able to produce the product, you know, at good quality.

So manufacturing, quality control, you know, product design, all that kind of thing. You know, once we have that, then how do I want to distribute it? Do I want to go sell it in local bakeries? Do I want to like open up my own storefront? Do I want to like, have it as a B2C delivery service for people in the tri-state area?

Right? Like, you will go work out [01:25:00] these, these kinds of things on the step two. But at the end of the day, like you want to keep it all close to the ground. Like, you know, don't let your business ideas like, you know, effer, effervesce into abstraction. Like progress always comes from the most concrete version of it that you can think of.

Because if people say like, oh my God, how am I gonna make my croissant business like the, the next Betty Crocker and like, take over the croissant market and like, get 98% of croissant market share. This is all abstractions in your head. And if you actually keep it closer to the ground where it's like, well, right now we're at 0.0001% market share and we're moving like 85 croissants a month.

So like, okay, but like everybody that we deliver to like really likes our croissants. So like, you know, what would it look like to bring it up to 300 a month? And that's a very like, tractable next step. And you can really dig into the concrete details of that. And when you're in that, you're actually in the [01:26:00] discipline of doing either step one or step two, in this case.

Step two for that. For that. Okay.

[01:26:06] CK: I love that. So let's segue to at One Ventures, um, cuz at One Venture has this huge mission of helping humanity to be a net positive, uh, to to nature, right? And that in itself is, is a huge, in my opinion, my verbiage, huge mission. How do you then ize that, right? Help us bridge from, you know, uh, what did you say meaningfully improving people's lives.

So meaning me meaningfully improve nature. And then how do you do that? You know, sort of from

small to large that way.

[01:26:43] Tom: Yeah. So the, the kind of high level vision is how humanity become a net positive nature. And then to kind of, you know, get that real concrete. Well what's the main problem between the relationship between humanity and nature right now?

I mean, if I went out there and just surveyed a hundred people in the street and say [01:27:00] like, what do you think about nature? Honestly, people are tend to be quite positive on nature. You know, if I were to do a random survey then, you know, I'd probably end up between neutral responses to very much love nature responses.

There's not a bunch of people I'd interview, it's like, I hate nature. Everything about nature is garbage. It's like, no. So in terms of personal sentiment, people already love nature and yet we have a whole civilization that on average loves nature, but like is on, in totality destroying nature. So that leads to the interesting follow up question.

Well, why did the relationship get screwed up if everybody actually like at their core loves nature? What's, because we built an industrial economy that cannot help but destroyed nature in the practice of providing the power for our homes, building the homes that we live in, you know, creating the ways that we get around, creating the ways that we eat.

We basically made an industrial economy that wasn't compatible with nature. So human beings just living in the world, like trying to interact with the economy end up destroying [01:28:00] nature even though they love it. So that basically led us to the following way to go decompose the, the, the goal of helping humanity become a net positive nature.

What you do is you take nature, You subdivide it into four physical categories that represent, you know, the physicality of nature. It's air, water, soil, biodiversity, at least nature on earth, like needs. Those, uh, you know, are like draws off of those categories to exist. And then within each of those categories, you stack rank the industries that are doing the most damage.

So for example, more than 90% of global water pollution comes from just four industries, agriculture, textile, dying paper, and PU oil and gas. And it means that if you could change how those four industries relate to water, you could deal with over 93, 90% of WA global water pollution. If you want to deal with that last bit, the less than 10% remaining, that's thousands of more industries.

So what our firm does is we zoom into the unit economics of how water is used in those industries that are creating the [01:29:00] most damage to nature. And then we look for the disruptive deep tech that is going to bring much better unit economics. So actually the people that implement this will make a lot of money, but much better environmental economics.

The way that water is handled is way more compatible with nature, either by avoiding pollution or even cleaning up water depending on, on specifically the the industrial process or product that you're talking about. And we kind of describe it as looking for something called the triad. The triad is basically a disruptive deep tech, which is ushering in radically better unit economics, paired with radically better environmental economics.

And that's what we're looking at to go disrupt the top of the stack rank in all the industries that are damaging air, water, soil, and biodiversity. So that's what our practical work is like. And you can see what the step one is. It's like if we're able to go find the triad, then we are clearly benefiting people's lives because we are able to go and produce that product or service, but in a way that [01:30:00] is way less, you know, negative to nature or sometimes positively generative to nature.

You know, uh, the step one is also there because the better unit economics means that the people that were producing the old, you know, producing in the older dirtier way that was producing all the water pollution or air pollution or carbon emissions or methane emissions or whatever, are now able to, because of the better unit economics, they actually have a better time of the business where for the same production level they might end up with 50% more profits.

Right? So once again, that's kind of the step one being accomplished for them. And then the step two is like, you know, having that all be cashflow positive. So the fact that we aim for better unit economics actually gives us a lot of leeway to make step two work. And that's effectively what we do with our companies.

Like we, we take the winning unit economic, our team is very good at shepherding things, you know, winning unit economics through the manufacturing de-risk so they can then be offered at scale. And [01:31:00] because the unit economics are better, then it's actually tends to be not too hard to get, uh, step two done.

Where we can find a way for the whole thing to be cash positive.

[01:31:09] CK: What are the tryouts again?

So better.

Um,

[01:31:12] Tom: so disruptive deep tech with radically better unit economics, paired with radically better environmental economics. I see.

[01:31:19] CK: The, the, the third I missed was the disruptive deep tech. Yeah. So there is a particular, uh, so you had in your talks, I can't remember which one you laid out some, um, some of the current projects you're looking at and some of the ones that you are potentially looking at.

And one, one, um, area caught my attention giving data, my mindset coach. Right. So awakening global consciousness. Oh yeah. Is there, is there anything that you wanted to say there regarding what you have found, you know, that provides deep tech and, you know, better unique economics, better environmental economics and so forth?

[01:31:58] Tom: Well, the [01:32:00] couple different things. So there is this kind of mechanistic frame, which is what I'm sharing right now about, you know, disruptive deep tech, which oftentimes is like a, a new sort of material or a new sort of industrial process or a new sort of machinery that is able to go, you know, for example, we invested in a company that that completely eliminates wastewater from textile dying.

So it basically takes second largest water polluting industry and it would bring it down to zero wastewater. I mean, to be fair, it, it generates a couple ounces of wastewater a week compared to metric tons per day. So, but it's down by a huge amount and it also is able to do it at two and a half to three x better opex.

So the amount that it costs to go die, a meter fabric goes down by two and a half to three x. So you can kind of see how that ends up being a win everywhere. You got the triad, which is the new machine, that's the disruptive deep tech. The winning unit economics is two and a half to three X cheaper. And the win for the environment is you take the second largest [01:33:00] water polluting industry and you bring it down to effectively nothing, you know, ounces per week kind of, uh, you know, and, and in that case, like don't, don't pour it in the river then just, you know, dispose it of a different way.

But, um, you know, like the, like the kind of mechanistic stuff, like imagine that to be in a category. Your specific question about the, um, about expanding global consciousness mm-hmm. That referred to, you know, a bunch of different things that I saw in the field where a slight mind shift in how we approached the problem basically created a lot of benefits.

So one of those examples is, um, from this work that I did with a, a company called Kingo that, uh, is providing, uh, solar electricity to all these folks that had never had electricity in their lives before, uh, in Central and South America. So I think they've already helped over a million people that didn't have access to electricity, get el access to electricity for the first time.

[01:34:00] So great. Um, but like one of the things about this is the people that don't have this access to electricity that we're getting it for the first time, most of them live on a dollar or two a day and they live in, you know, environments where they weren't necessarily able to go pay for a hundred dollars object up front, right?

Because it's like the solar, electric box plus the panels or whatever, you know, might run you like, you know, a couple hundred dollars. Now, um, given that what we, what we ended up doing with that is we, we updated the system so that you could pay as you go. So we made it so that instead of needing to come up with a hundred dollars upfront or $150 upfront, which is extremely hard to save when you only live off of a dollar or two a day.

And what we did is, uh, if you could pay a nominal amount, like two or $3, uh, which people could successfully save up for, um, then we would deliver the box to your home. And in delivering to your home, you would now pay for the electricity as you go. But in order to go make it [01:35:00] affordable, we priced a week of electricity cheaper than a week of the cost of candles, cuz that's actually how they were lighting their homes and like just the fuel cost of candles was basically using a third of their income, uh, just to be able to have any light at all.

So we like priced it so that immediately like this clean, you know, light that was not generating all the smoke in your house and creating a fire risk and all that sort of thing, you know, was immediately cheaper. So instead of being a third of your, your weekly expense and then it becomes a 10th of your weekly expense.

But it kind of starts this task of, of you being able to go pay back the system over the course of a number of weeks and months. And in the process of doing that, we realized something really, really important, which is that, um, if we could actually increase the cost of the device, but if we could increase the cost of a device in a way that made it way more durable in the field, so that instead of having a meantime to failure of three years, [01:36:00] it ended up having a meantime to failure of five years or 10 years or 20 years, then actually it more than paid for itself.

Actually, the, the calculation specifically was if we could add $5 to the box, if the $5 extended the likely lifetime of the box by more than six months, it would be way more than worth it. Now, the reason I'm sketching this all out is this is exactly the opposite dynamic of how most hardware manufacturers are currently incentivized to work, right?

The reason that if you have a four year old cell phone, it's a piece of garbage, is that like right now, um, the overall way that people are incentivized, and this is the consciousness and mind, uh, shift thing. Is that, um, the over overall way that people are incentivized is a electronics retailer makes all of their money at the point of purchase.

So what they want is they want the thing inside of the box to be as cheap as possible so that the point of purchase their margin is the largest it can be. And that's the kind of mind [01:37:00] state that they're operating in. And in that mind state, it means, well, let's go through our component list and let's find the most exp expensive components.

Let's replace them with cheaper ones. Even if the cheaper ones break down in less time, let's replace them with cheaper ones. Because every time I can make that a little bit cheaper, my margin's a bit bigger at that point of sale. But when you flipped it around to say like, no, no, no, actually, if I can add $5 to the box and it ends up and it could extend the life by more than six months, it's worth it.

What we ended up doing was like working on the box in that way, we ended up adding $11 to the cost of the box, but actually extending the likely life out from five or six years to more like 40 years. And like instead of the kind of hardware that like breaks in a year or two, or like even the most sophisticated things that we make, like will be garbage in, you know, five years because of this kind of current consumer electronic model, then we were highly incentivized to make extremely reliable hardware that would last for decades.

And at the end of the day, it didn't [01:38:00] require different electrical engineering skills. Like literally the same engineering team made all those changes within a month and a half. It was, it was not even a long task. To actually get it done. But it required us to shift our minds from a mindset where we're incentivized around durability versus incentivized around maximum margins on day one.

And that tiny tweak allowed the, effectively the same people with the same skills to go make something that really fit that market much better. And, you know, created something which is way, has way more annuity value than, you know, just being able to go sell a product up front with 2% better, you know, margins because you, you filled it with cheaper parts, or you injected, you know, you did injection molded plastic for the casing as opposed to, you know, more durable material or whatever.

Like, so that's an example of a mind shift. Another example of a mind shift, you know, comes from the, the zone of, um, of, uh, the rights of nature. So the [01:39:00] first time that I gave the talk that you're referring to was in Ecuador, in Kitto, um, in 2018. And that talk was given on the same weekend that there was a big conference related to the rights of nature.

So there's this entrepreneurial conference that I was keying at. There was, you know, the Rights of Nature Conference and Keyto is not that big a town. So like, like there's a lot of overlap in people going between the two conferences. Now the rights of nature was real interesting because the, the 2018 marked the 10 year anniversary of adding the rights of nature to the Ecuadorian constitution.

Before then, you know, Ecuador, you know, just kind of had a constitution that didn't say that much about nature, but because of an economic crisis, they, they moved their currency from the peso to the dollar. So Ecuador still uses US dollars as their currency, and they also rewrote their constitution and some stuff they wrote in the Constitution.

It's like a couple paragraphs, you can look it up online. It's uh, you know, maybe like [01:40:00] 14 sentences or something. But a couple paragraphs inside of the Ecuadorian Constitution refer to a river's right to, to flow or a landscape's right, to be able to restore itself. So for the first time ever, they basically, you know, assigned nature to have rights, just like we assigned humans to have human rights or, you know, a corporation might have corporate rights.

Then they're like, Hey, you know, why don't we give some formal rights to nature? And that's like a nice thought until, you know, it actually comes up in court and it gets tested in case law. And, um, and the 10 year anniversary was really notable because yes, it got added to the constitution 10 years prior.

And in the subsequent 10 years, actually, things had gone to court multiple times and nature didn't win every single time. But nature won a bunch of those times. And effectively it led to the foundation, uh, foundation of real case law. That meant that in the future, when people are looking at creating businesses in Ecuador, they now need to [01:41:00] understand that unless they respect the rights of nature, that there's a real legal risk to the business.

And things like that, you know, at the end of the day, what was that? That was like 14 sentences. 14 sentences that basically reflected a slightly different way of looking at the world and treating the world relative to the relationship between nature and business and you know, and just that shifted quite a few things for that country.

Uh, just the 14 sentences. So I think that there is a lot that one can do when they kind of, you know, examine how the mind states and frameworks of their current construction of the world are working for them. And then they start exploring what then becomes possible if you had took a different mind state, right?

When the Kingo team decided to focus on durability as opposed to upfront margins, completely transformed the product in a month and a half into something that was incredibly durable. The [01:42:00] stuff's out in the, like South American jungles and Central American jungles, and it's a piece of electronic hardware and there's like almost no failures in those systems, even though they are in these hot, humid, very not conducive to electronics environments.

Because like we kept, instead of looking at the most expensive components and replacing 'em with cheaper components, we stack ranked it by the components that were most likely to fail first. And we replace them with more durable components. And it's a tiny mind shift. It's honestly the same engineering skills in either case.

You know, electronics design, packaging design. You know, uh, integration, unit testing, it's all the same skills, and we basically use those same skills with a slightly different perspective to lead to a massively different outcome.

[01:42:47] CK: So, quick question there.

Um, what, what, in your opinion, cuz you mentioned two beautiful examples of mice shift the subtle but powerful, you know, and it's gonna have continual propagating [01:43:00] effects going forward in the future.

What does it take to shift someone's mind? Is it ceremony? Is it a rapid prototype? Is it, hey, let me take you to the environment where you actually witness in the middle of it this ocean of trash. Like in your example in all, in all the people that you work with, what have you found to be the most effective way to shift

minds?

[01:43:25] Tom: Got it. Yeah. So, um, unfortunately it depends on the person. Uh, though there is a, a bunch of phrases that might be helpful. So for example, you know, um, my coach Steve Chandler has a phrase that, um, it's not what a goal is. It's what a goal does. And, you know, and, and honestly it doesn't even matter whether you achieve the goal or not.

Like, if it does the right thing to you, then it's great. And for some people, like, you know, like, like for example, the, the [01:44:00] goal of our firm is to help humanity become a net positive nature. That's a big ambitious goal. The thing that that does for me is get me excited to go after the big ambitious goal.

Right. A different, and actually, I'm very realistic about what it's gonna take for humanity to become a net positive nature. I think it's gonna take about two to 500 years, which means it won't all happen in my lifetime. But like, like the goal still inspires me to like, go out there and like make the beginning part of that two to 500 years happen now for a different person.

If you, if you were to trot out a huge, ambitious goal, like them, it might be daunting. They're like, I don't even want to get out of bed. That's way too big. Right. And like the, the right form of goal in that it does the right thing as opposed to is the right thing, the right form of goal for them might be a really small goal, which is like, you wanna write your book today?

You're gonna roll out of bed and write 10 sentences. And they're like, okay, okay, that's doable. I can write 10 sentences today. [01:45:00] Sure. Right. And that might be, even though that's a real small goal, and obviously 10 sentences is not a book yet, then like it does the right thing for that person. So I think like, you know, instead of like trying to hang it on like, well here's the per perfect, you know, construction.

I mean, even when people have things like atomic habits, like here's exactly how you design your habits. Here's exactly how you, you design your whatever. I'm not against books like that. It's like, yeah, go ahead and look at all of it. Try all of it, but then ask yourself, did it do the right thing? Right.

It's cuz it's what it does. It's not what it is. And you know, whether it's doing the right thing, that goes back to the earlier part of our conversation of doing the in interrogation of what are, which goals are actually yours, which is, which are inherited and which are unin inherited and unquestioned and, you know, and unexamined versus, which are inherited and examined and you [01:46:00] don't even like them but you feel like you need to do them anyway.

Versus, you know, the ones that actually are kind of concurrent with the, with the ways that one wants to live one's life, by the way, that is only discoverable by doing a bunch of different things that you don't like too. So like the whole idea of like, sit down and design your whole life and like make a perfect plan.

You know, I don't mind those activities if it gets you off the starting line. But I think like one should like understand that most of your life is gonna make sense in the rear view mirror. It won't necessarily make sense in the go forward plan cuz you'll make the plan and it'll end up being a, you know, a different thing.

And like, you know, I, I sometimes kind of state that dynamic almost like in a zen cone type format where it's like, uh, and the cone goes something like, ultimately your life is gonna be the answer to a question. And the purpose of life is for you to discover what the question is[01:47:00]

cuz you look at other people's lives, you know, and we can. We can go do extreme lives, right? It's like, okay, well, you know, Hitler's life was basically an exa, it answers the question, what happens if you live an entire lifetime in hate? What happens if you live an entire lifetime in hate with a desire for power and like a, and you know, something that completely takes you over?

What does that look like? And it's like, okay, you answered the question, dude, and luckily you answered the question for a bunch of people to go see. And like, it has meant that y yeah, actually your name is now representative of a path that most people don't want to take because, uh, you answered the question so well actually, and it means that like we will be answering all kinds of questions, including, you know, living lives that sometimes are not well appreciated by humanity, but we still may be doing something useful in that process, even if it's, uh, giving an example of what not to do.

Right. [01:48:00] You know, whatever Elizabeth Holmes is trying to rebrand herself right now. Her life has been the answer to a specific question so far, which is like, what if you take the optimism of Silicon Valley and turn the words on top of themselves to like, raise money even if your thing doesn't work? You are.

Yep. Her life is the answer to that question so far. So, so like now that said, I don't, will that be the ultimate purpose of her life? She's obviously still alive. But, and like there's many positive examples of this too, right? Like we can, we can talk about the many positive examples as well, but I, I like that framing be because it challenges a person and it challenges their sense of, uh, that kind of, you know, look ahead goal orientation.

Cuz a lot of suffering front comes from the look ahead goal orientation. Now if that sort of thing, you know, if the goals do what they're supposed to do, then it actually almost won't matter whether you achieve that goal specifically, right? It'll get you [01:49:00] onto a path where motion is happening and you're in your medium, you're in your discipline.

So use whatever goals you need in order to be in your medium. But if you're setting goals out there that have you feel intimidated, keep you outta your medium, you know, have you second guessing yourself? You know, have you, you be in imposter syndrome or having you be overconfident like Elizabeth Holmes, you know, it's like, then you should take a step back and be like, is it's not doing what it's supposed to do.

Right? At some point she wasn't creating a useful thing in the world and she kept pushing on that front and it was worth stepping back at some point.

[01:49:35] CK: So you had

mentioned, uh, that you, uh, actually have a coach, right? Someone who can. Basically fact check you or basically counteract you and, and help you find your own blind spots.

And I think that's a beautiful thing. Mm-hmm. I personally, I'm a little biased cuz I'm a coach, but I believe that everyone deserves to coach because they can help us, guide us towards, um, the life that we want to create. Right. So inside of that, is [01:50:00] there anything else for you to say, Hey, I'm my life to answer this question yet to be discover.

What allies can I put in place to help support me along the way? To help me find that question That's beautiful. And, you know, that's unique

to my own life.

[01:50:20] Tom: Yeah. And the, the point of the construction is you don't even need to spend that much of your life answering the question. It, your life will, will be the answer.

And it, it'll be nice for you to, it'll be a nice feeling if you look back on your life and you understand the question answer in your life. But, but even if you didn't, you could still live a full on life. But, sorry, go ahead.

[01:50:43] CK: So,

so not even any kind of contemplation at all. Just like, hey, here it is. And just live your life.

And eventually you'll look back and you're like, oh, my life is ultimately about this. Don't, don't even contemplate and think about,

[01:50:56] Tom: and

you will have local contemplations that will push you into the [01:51:00] next thing. But like, all I'm saying about this is it doesn't need to all add up as you're going forward.

In the, in the forward view mirror, or it's not even a mirror like in the forward windshield, it doesn't need to add up. When you look behind, you will see how it added up, right? Like in the particular work that I do today, like it actually connects stuff that was like fully not part of my career for most of my life.

Like when I was a kid, I was obsessed with watching nature documentaries. I like, you know, I wanted to be a naturalist because I, I loved drawing things and I loved nature and I was like, what better job than to go out into nature and like draw plants and animals and like, you know, do what a naturalist does, right?

So like I was very excited about that, you know, between the ages of like five and 12. And that said, it never became part of my formal academic career. So like, I was out there like fully doing things that were [01:52:00] more like shipping software to a billion people and you know, having people have better search and email and just whatever.

A lot of things in my career. And obviously that has nothing to do with being a naturalist, but like, if you fast forward to now, then yeah, literally everything I do in my work, like overlaps with things that I learned when I was, you know, between the ages of like five and 12 and I've like really extended upon that knowledge.

Now that would not even be a thing if I was talking about the forward view, you know, like forward lookout, the windshield. As to my career so far, if you like asked me 10 years ago, I, I wouldn't even mention. That like wanting to be a naturalist as a kid, like had anything to do with my, my work, you know, on a self-driving car or my work, you know, like on web search or email or whatever, right?

Like, doesn't seem to fit, but like looking backwards, I understand that I'm exactly the right person to be doing this type of work. Both in terms of the, like the in high tech [01:53:00] invention, pedigree, as well as the operational skills to run a large scale technology business as well as, you know, the deep, you know, love and commitment to nature.

And I look around at a lot of other people that are starting venture firms, kind of, you know, adjacent to or in my sector, and it's like, yeah, that person doesn't really have it. I mean, they don't have that deep love of nature or they're finding out now that not all, all soils work the same. And I was like, well, I mean, you would've known that if this was just a thing that you were obsessed with and loved as a child, like you would've seen it just from how you interact with, with, with soil as a child.

And, uh, and yet, like we have folks that are backing things and putting crazy money into, I'm not gonna call out any specific company, but billions have gone into very ill conceived ideas on how nature works. And it's because those fund managers don't have a deep love of it. It wasn't in them. So like I can only mention that looking backwards though, [01:54:00] because.

I, I otherwise would've said, well those seven years, like watching all those nature programs and reading the National Geographic and trying to learn some basic things about ecology and biology and, and like the, you know, cell function and all that kind of thing. Getting a microscope and like analyzing pond water and like whatever, like that stuff would be nothing in my career history until this moment when it was obvious why I spent so many years on that.

[01:54:26] CK: Was there aha moment, by the way, when you, when you're just, you know, being, teaching rapid prototyping and then all these things which is like, you know what, I'm gonna raise the fund to tackle, you know, deep tech to support, to, to help humanity become net positive to nature. Like, was there like a light switch moment or was it more of a, you know, gradual illuminating?

[01:54:51] Tom: No, the, the aha moment was before that. And, and I as mentioned before, it's like our lives are defined by the tragedies and triumphs and [01:55:00] people really like to focus on the triumphs cuz those are the things that you want to post on social media or put on a resume or talk to other people about. But I actually feel that like people's lives, paths are way more shaped by tragedy than triumphs.

Cuz the, the, the triumphs are typically along somebody else's criteria of what good and bad is, you know, what success and failure is. So they're not totally yours. Like society created, you know, these criteria and you just happen to. End up, you know, top 30 under 30 or whatever, you know, list you're talking about, right.

In, in those criteria. But like your, your tragedies are, are yours. And in this particular case, like, you know, we had a house, uh, out in Hawaii that was near a, an astoundingly beautiful coral reef. And you know, that, that coral reef is still the most beautiful thing that I've seen with my own eyes personally.

You know, I've obviously seen pretty amazing things on, on videos and TV and all that sort of thing. But like in terms [01:56:00] of my direct relationship to nature and like spending time around it and, and being around natural beauty, it's still the most beautiful thing that I've seen with my own eyes. And I watched that reef go from every color of the rainbow and life coming outta every pocket and poor to gray and brown and no life in less than two months.

Wow. And that tragedy basically spurred me to ask questions about like, Hey, well you're working on a self-driving car, you're working on augmented reality glasses. You're working on, you know, a contact lens that can measure glu glucose levels. You're working on new artificial intelligence to that's currently powering image searches and voice searches all sounds very exciting.

But what if the skills that you have are going to be important for nature? Making it through this passage and the all the things I just listed could be invented a hundred years from now and life would still go on. But if we did not deal with [01:57:00] these issues in terms of our relationship, the natural environment within the next a hundred years, those things will not go on.

They will be extincted and it'll be many millions of years, if ever, for them, for, to reeve and reappear on this planet. And we're making decisions for the next 10 to 20 million years right now, in the next couple decades. So the era of technology's gonna keep on going and somebody will make an even better self-driving car, you know, in the year 2200.

That's freaking great. Congrats. But like, those things could be put off to that time period. And like, you know, a lot of stuff that we're doing to nature right now could not be put off to that time period. And it, it's like that, that tragedy basically forced me to, you know, reflect on my own skills and ask the question, well what are we doing about this relationship to nature?

And how good is the work so far? And as I like surveyed the world, and I'm not saying that there aren't good people pushing really hard to make good things happen, but I was, um, [01:58:00] I, after taking sabbatical from Google and just like looking at, you know, exactly what this ecological damage was around the world, it was clear to me that what we were doing wasn't gonna make it, it wasn't going to happen soon enough, well enough, you know, at the right scale.

Displaced enough of damaging industry wasn't gonna do enough. And we were gonna end up, you know, we're on a tra trajectory still to like extinct, you know, about two thirds. Of everything on the planet by the year 2100. And I think that's already a very big deal. Um, but like, um, but we need to get off of that trajectory and we need people that are kind of thinking big enough to actually swing a trajectory as opposed to, you know, uh, just kind of launch the, the next version of a particular product in a particular industry.

Hmm. So I was hoping that I could just find the people that were doing that and just like work with them or advise them or hire them or whatever. [01:59:00] But the more that I looked around, the more that I was like, I don't think that there's something that's taking a strong enough swing at this. So yeah, that basically led to me like learning how to do venture in order to take this swing.

So, you know, that was a bit of a plan, but it wasn't like an aha, like I was teaching enough rapid prototyping, go do it. I actually was teaching rapid prototyping because it was both a skill that I learned that I think that could create a lot of benefit in the world, and it has. So that's great and lots of positive feedback from people that I've taught, but it was also a very expedient way to go make the money that I needed to make, to be able to even afford to be in venture capital.

Mm-hmm. I don't think that people totally understand this, but if you are a managing partner at a fund, then you typically need to put in one to 2% the value of the fund in order to run a fund. So we had a hundred, we have 150 million fund one, you know, we are almost done raising a 300 [02:00:00] million fund. Two that's like three to $6 million that like I personally need to put in in order to like be allowed to be a fund manager basically.

Mm-hmm. And then, you know, because of that, we shouldn't be surprised that most of the people in venture capital are, are, you know, white men that were already rich. Right? Like you almost needed to be that in order to like have an extra 3 million, an extra 5 million hanging around. Now I was able to make that kind of money by teaching rapid prototyping for a number of years and that all worked out fine.

But like, you know, um, but up until then, like I couldn't have done venture capital, basically not from the financial perspective. I couldn't have done it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[02:00:43] CK: Thank you for sharing that. Wow. That's, um, so much more to Tom Chi than I realized. And thank you for sharing your childhood, you know, passion around nature.

Um, so question for you Tom, cuz you are a doer, a [02:01:00] inventor, through and through, right? That's in all the things that you're interested in. Your, you know, your, your life is a, a, a life of craft. And then one of the craft in includes inventing things. Does it, was it difficult for you to be more of a at length investor where you're not actually now hands.

Dirty in the invention itself, was it required some kind of a mentorship for you? Or do you still get the itch of like, I wanna start and this technology is solving this problem in these four pillars that I, uh, firm as, uh, interested in solving?

[02:01:39] Tom: You know, I think you can continue to do your craft. You know, even like, even if your professional lens kind of changes a bit.

And I think first off, the way that we do venture capital is a lot more, you know, um, operationally thoughtful, you know, um, kind of [02:02:00] is happening at an expert level compared to a lot of folks. Only get to the depth of like, oh, I'm pattern matching the trends and like, this kind of AI is gonna be super hot.

And it's like, well, you know, give them a background. It's like I can actually deconstruct the way you're approaching the AI and we can talk about it in some, some real depth. So that scratches the itch a bit. But I would say that like, yeah, I still build things, you know, as just part of my, my life and like, it's not necessarily like, oh, I'm being paid to invent things is the main thing I'm being paid for.

Like I was in some of my previous jobs or running teams that invent things though, investing in teams that invent things and running teams that invent things are, are already starting to have, you know, enough of an overlap where, because if you are useful enough to the entrepreneur, then you kind of become like an extended team member.

Where they like come to you for inputs on particular parts of the build or the manufacturing de-risk or you know, the go to market where you're [02:03:00] effectively getting to have the kind of conversation that you would have if you were on the team, but times, you know, 50 things in the portfolio. So like that is still, you know, I think just as, as, um, satisfying in terms of like just being able to use that skill and do some contribution there.

But I still like to build things, you know, with my own hands at home and stuff and just muck around like making different robots and, and different, you know, fun things to make basically. And occasionally I'll have a thing where it's like, oh, that could be a bigger thing though, in practice. Like, you know, I would, uh, because I have like full-time responsibilities on this fund, then they need to be more like side projects though.

Even my side projects are a bit interesting. Like, I help to kick off a team that is building a, a robot that has, um, actually has already been the first robot in history to plant live corals back into a coral reef. Whoa. And also the first robot in history to plant live seagrasses back into a seagrass meadow.

[02:04:00] Whoa. So it's like, even my like hobby time stuff is like, oh that's still pretty interesting. Um, you know, could I make it move faster if that was my, my only project? Absolutely. Sure. But um, you know, I, I gotta go help 50 teams, like, cuz there's a lot of frontiers for reshaping that relationship between humanity and nature.

And I honestly don't think that we get there unless more people have that lens of not needing to trade off either, right? Where you basically, because there is this kind of artificial lens where it's like, oh, I think it'd be more economically successful or it could be better for the planet. And I'm gonna say 85% of the time, that's not even the right framework.

You can actually get both. If you don't start from a framework of trade-offs, if you just, you know, start from a trade, from a framework of, it needs to be above this bar on all the attributes, right? That's actually a more straightforward framework. And then you don't end up investing in things where it is a trade-off.

You've already like made from the [02:05:00] beginning investments and things where they don't need to intrinsically be trade off, uh, traded off. And it gives you a lot more freedom just to like make that successful on behalf of the planet as opposed to make that successful in, in spite of the planet. So I think there's some mind shifts to be done there.

I think we need a lot more people like kind of coming at it with that lens, like looking for scalable things with better unit economics as opposed to trying to guilt to everybody into paying a green premium in order to, to make things work. Look, I, I'm fine if, you know, that happens in some products, but that's not the way that foundational industry is gonna shift cuz consumers can make slightly different choices.

But the folks that like rolled your steel or, you know, extracted your aluminum, you know, from, from box site or you know, like, like. Grew your food or whatever, they, they're just trying to make the numbers work at a basic level. Mm-hmm. And they don't need, they don't get to like show off like the [02:06:00] vegan leather, you know, bag at a brunch or something.

Like, no, they actually just need the core things to work at, at, at a sensible economic level. And the more investors that are in there also trying to, to improve the unit economics while, um, improving the relationship to nature, then I think that gets us on a way better path than, than how we have been applying the money.

Beautiful. Um,

[02:06:28] CK: I have to ask you this question. I know that you made a beautiful articulation of why chat G p T is neither artificial nor intelligent. So, so if you don't mind recreating that, uh, metaphor real quick that I think people really appreciate that.

[02:06:45] Tom: Yeah. So we have this marketing term, artificial intelligence, and I call it a marketing term because it's like a umbrella term for a bunch of different techniques that have been developed over the years.

Um, and a [02:07:00] bunch of those techniques I have some overlap with, so it's, I can speak to them a bit, but you know, there is natural language processing, there's part of speech analysis, there's sentiment analysis, there's ngram analysis, there is, you know, co-occurrence sort of analysis. And a lot of these things are contributing to, you know, and also machine learning.

A lot of these things are contributing to what we are now calling large language models. And then, you know, even more vaguely ai and, and you look at this as like, well, why wouldn't people like actually share some of the stuff that it is? Well, it's because the, the stuff that it is is obviously not intelligent.

And if I keep it at the marketing level, then I can kind of, you know, pot potentially get you on board that it, that, um, that you might believe that it's intelligent, even if it's not. But if you actually just share the, like, the decomposition of techniques that you're using, then everybody will be like, well, it's obviously not intelligent.

It's very straightforward to point [02:08:00] out that it's not intelligent. But the kind of abstraction allows people to kind of believe a thing that's not true. Now, the reason that it's not artificial is that most of what chat g p t or systems like that are doing is, is using natural intelligence. And what I mean by that is they are mining from things that human beings actually wrote.

So natural intelligence produced all the training data basically, and then they permute, you know, things that come from natural intelligence. So when I, if like, you know, uh, 50 million people wrote like billions of sentences and all those sentences are coherent, if I like permute some of those sentences, And I'm able to kind of put them back, you know, back in front of you, you'll read a bunch of sentences, like, oh, those sentences make sense, of course, because they were written by humans in the first place.

And then there is like a additional like ascribing of intelligence that happened. So like we've seen all these articles recently where this journalist [02:09:00] played with chat G P T for three hours and they tried 60 conversations and here's like the two conversations that freaked them out. And that to me is like, no, actually in the curation of choosing the two to publish outta 60, you also did an act, an act of infusing intelligence into the thing.

But that was your intelligence, not the system's intelligence. It's almost like if you had a, had a dice and you kept rolling the dice 60 times and you it had came up a six, like four out four times outta 60 and you wrote an article about those four times and you basically said, I have a magic dice that only row sixes.

It's like, no guy, you curated it. Like it would be quite different if like every single conversation that you had was a deep, profound conversation. Maybe there's something more there then, but people are basically, uh, cherry picking the things that are kind of advancing this hypey narrative. And I think we're gonna discover a couple different things given this.

We're gonna understand that there's way more [02:10:00] height than substance here. Um, hopefully we understand that soon enough, because if we don't understand it soon enough, then we're going to go put a tool that is not capable of doing what we think it's capable of doing. We're gonna put it in the wrong places and give it too much responsibility or the wrong responsibilities.

And we've actually already seen that, like the most sophisticated ais in the world right now are trading stocks and serving you ads and the trading of stocks. It's not doing it responsibly. Like we, we've had dueling algorithms create these crash, you know, these flash crashes where the cost of, you know, coffee beans worldwide might go down by 90% in a hundred milliseconds.

And do you think it's because everybody in the world decided, oh, we're not interested in coffee anymore in a hundred milliseconds? Of course not. Like, that's like dueling artificial intelligence being insanely dumb and actually creating actual negative impacts in the economy. Because, you know, if you're, you might be thinking, oh, it just hurts some stock [02:11:00] traders, you know, they had a bad week because they're, you know, they had a lot of, you know, stuff in coffee futures and it went down or whatever.

But it actually hurts a lot more people than that. There are folks that might have been, you know, in the, in the global south, that might have spent the last two or three years converting their lands to be able to grow coffee. And this is like the first harvest season that they're gonna be able to pay back their investment.

And the week that they're trying to send it to market, there's a flash crash and they're able to get a third of the value that they had hoped to get from it. You may have actually ruined that farmer's life because of a, a AI that was just kind of dueling with other ais and played chicken and created a flash cash.

So like we've basically put a on the spot where it can actually harm the physical economy already, which is a great example of believing that it's smarter than it is and putting it to do a job that it's not, cannot be fully responsible for and relative to serving ads. Then ads affect the cognitive landscape.

You [02:12:00] know, like ads like affect our opinions, ad effects, ads affect, you know, ads hope to affect our desires, ads, you know, ads and informa misinformation, which is another place where we're using these advanced algorithms, you know, can absolutely like confuse people. You know, the people that were storming the capital on January 6th, if you like, look at their online history, it's like, why get, why they believe what they believed.

And also these are algorithms run amok basically. So like when we put AI in the wrong places, we can pollute our interior mind landscape, you know, as per misinformation or advertising. And we can also destroy our physical economy as per flash crashes and dueling algorithms in, in high frequency trading.

And I think this should be the warning shot that every time that we've already gotten ahead of things and kind of put the quote unquote most sophisticated things in place, it actually hasn't been creating value on balance. Right, like [02:13:00] this is the danger of us believing that the stuff is more capable than it is and already like rushing to put it in these spots.

So I think we got to like be a lot more thoughtful. Take two steps back and, and first unpack the, the frame AI into what is it specifically, what are the sub-components that we're talking about for this use case, when you look at those sub-components and you realize that an Ngram model is clearly not smart and clearly does not understand your customer service request and because of it is not necessarily gonna be a good customer service, you know, algorithm, then yes, we'll have a way more nuanced conversation about it as opposed to, oh, Chachi PD is about to go take all the customer service jobs.

Like that's not a conversation. We we're like literally do not even have enough information on the table to have a thoughtful conversation about it. So let's unpack the word AI and say what it specifically is for this use case. Within that use case, let's break it down even further and say like, [02:14:00] well, what net net happens in the world if we do it this way?

On one hand somebody sold, you know, people on high frequency trading and these algorithms to go do it, and it sounded like a good idea of when they started it, but like people didn't like either pay attention to when it started breaking down or they also didn't have some of the conversations ahead of time where it's like, well, what happens if we put it in this spot?

Is there any other things that we should be thinking about other than maybe we could make a little bit more money if we advertise in this way, or traded stocks in that way. So we gotta stop, you know, on a bunch of these fronts and be more considerate in terms of what actually happens if we start making a bunch of money in that way.

[02:14:42] CK: Hmm. I love the cautioning note that you take cuz uh, I myself am an optimist, uh, by nature. So I love the possibility that it brings, right? Oh yeah, this is this good now, you know, six month in or [02:15:00] whatever, you know, imagine what it could be when it actually has more intelligence.

Um, you know,

so I appreciate the sort of the flip side.

I'm thinking about like the long-term impact cuz I wasn't thinking about, you know, high frequency trading or ads impacting our cognitive landscape. To me, um,

those are not something I pay attention to. So I appreciate your broad landscape of looking at all these things in a, I mean,

[02:15:30] Tom: I would feel differently if all the places we have rolled out AI and advanced algorithms, like everything was just going great, but it's not going great.

Or the places that we've put it. Of course we've also made autonomous killing machines, right? Like we have like put guns onto, you know, robotic vehicle platforms and like, Giving them all net. And a lot of the stuff is teleoperated and remote operated. So like a predator drone or you know, a iRobot, you know, like, like [02:16:00] roadside bomb diffuser or whatever are, can be remote operated, but a bunch of them either have the ability to, or you can just flip a bit.

And honestly, the robot will make decisions for itself on like, you know, what targets are dangerous targets, all that kind of thing. So like, this is us. It's not inevitable that we need to make it in that way. It's not inevitable that like the, the discoveries that we make or the algorithmic advancements that we make need to be packaged in that form for that task.

And this is why it's important when people say like, AI is coming the next phase or whatever, that basically like depersonalizes the agency of it into mm-hmm. What's coming anyway. So you just gotta get out of the way. There are no decisions to make about what we decide to make versus not because it is coming anyway.

And I would push back on that narrative strongly because very specific people, you know, who were paid in particular ways and then we end up supporting [02:17:00] those businesses after they get made in this way, decided to make it in that way. The AI is certainly not, it has no agency in itself to go make itself, so it has no agenda other than human agendas on how humans are looking at making money right now.

And when we depersonalize it as if AI has its own agenda and it's getting smarter by itself, then we actually create a, a cover story or a smoke screen that allows people that basically are making terrible choices for society to be like, well, we had to do it cuz China was gonna do it, or we had to do it because like, AI was advancing so quickly.

So, so like, somebody like us had to do it, like the good guys and yeah, I recognized we're making billions of dollars and maybe it's causing some harm now, but we're the good guys. It's like, uh, I don't know guys, like maybe you created that narrative so you could ab you know, abdicate actual responsibility and maybe you created that narrative because it, it allows you to go push off any [02:18:00] pushback as to why are we creating this and why are we creating this particular thing now.

[02:18:07] CK: One last question my friend. Um, how do you keep track of all these ideas and, and, and, and, and frameworks and, and fact toys and stories? Do you use some kind of note-taking system? My palaces? Like how do you keep track of all these in your mind? Or, or you're just uniquely gifted where you have perfect memory so you can just keep track all of 'em.

[02:18:31] Tom: No, I don't think so. I mean, I, I do like write a lot of things on, on paper, so I think that maybe it commits to memory a bit better as I do that also, like I. You know, because I'm a public speaker, then when I do a big chunk of work in a particular area, there'll be moments where I wanna resolve it down to a talk that can be given to other people.

Mm-hmm. So like that kind of curation and reflection act kind of [02:19:00] puts it into narrative frames. You know, like a, a mind palace is effectively a type of narrative frame about spatial geography that allows you to go and, and recite things more easily. So I don't, I certainly don't have a photographic memory or a perfect memory, but I have a very good memory, just like most people do for things that happened in stories.

So, if I were to, to like grill you, it's like, what's the, what's the plot of Titanic? And it's like, oh. And you just like, talk me through the whole story. Okay, what's the plot of, you know, whatever, like transformers just like what some other mu movie, right? And it's like, yeah, no. Like people literally have, can recite the plots of hundreds of movies that they've seen and it's because they got some kind of perfect memory.

It's like, no, it's because movies are set up in a narrative structure and the human mind is quite good at story and narrative. So it's just a highly portable form. When, when I need to go give, look, when I write things down, then they end up kind of being linear and they're like in words. So it [02:20:00] starts to be the origins of narrative.

And then when I need to go give talks about things, then I am kind of expressing a thing in a narrative form. So it kind of becomes a very easily memorable story for me. Hmm.

[02:20:14] CK: Beautiful. What's one thing you want people to leave with after this two hour, you know, download

of Tachi?

[02:20:24] Tom: Yeah, I mean, like related to our previous point, I sometimes summarize like what's happened in the last couple hundred years is we spent most of the 20th century, you know, strip mining the physical resources of the planet. Uh, and you can look at tar sands and you can look at, you know, like, like mining sites and you can look at a bunch of different things, you know, clear cut forest, and you'll get what it looks like to strip mine the physical resources of the planet.

And we are, it looks like we're spending most of the 21st century [02:21:00] potentially strip mining the cognitive resources on the planet where it's like, look, there's only so many people, finite number of people on the planet. A finite set of coherent thoughts we're gonna have in our lives, you know, you know, before we die.

And right now we're kind of making a free game for companies to go and insert themselves and do a bunch, you know, in terms of strip mining, those cognitive resources. And I would say that like, it doesn't need to be this way. Like we basically, uh, that is a form of capitalism that we, that we got into a bit and we can go decide that that's not a form of capitalism that we wanna keep doing.

Right? So for example, because we've outlawed things in the past, like. For example, organ harvesting is outlawed worldwide. And one could say like, well, I mean, it's my kidney. I could sell it if I wanted to. It's like, see, it's capitalism. But there was basically, there's some lines that we drew that basically said, no, no, no.

Some things need to be outside of this frame. [02:22:00] And I think like when you go and look at the arc of how society's developing and how you build your own career within it, just remember that these are decisions that we can make, even if the macro is kind of pushing in a different way. These are all decisions that we can make.

There's AI in a particular form is not inevitable. You know, like the strip mining of the cognitive resources of the planet is not inevitable. The destruction of, you know, you know, most of the species on the planet is not inevitable. Like these things can take a different route. You know, as we go into the future, and, and honestly, most of these things that were created weren't created by enormous numbers of people.

They didn't, they weren't created by 50,000 people. They were created in small product teams that, you know, were probably five to 20 people. And understand that, you know, as a creator, your skill, you know, might be extremely valuable to [02:23:00] creating the world that you want. And a lot of it's gonna happen in teams that are five to 20, which are very approachable to either join or start or be a part of in some way.

Um, and given that like if we are thoughtful about the kind of world that we're trying to create, and we actually stay in the medium of like being in and around those teams, being a good contributor to such teams that are, are like lighting the path down other pathways other than this kind of inevitable one, which is like capitalism eating itself and destroying the planet in the process, like, and destroying our cognitive resources in the process.

Like, then we can start to go shift that trajectory to something different. And we're already starting to see it a bit, but it just, we need that times a million and we need that times a million so that it isn't the default sensibility that, oh, the way to make a business and a capitalist society is blank.

Like, I, I also caution against this kind [02:24:00] of thought process of like, oh, you just need to tear down capitalism. We'll just figure out what's next. Uh, like I think the best reign for it is we need to compost late stage capitalism, right? Just like nature, like makes use of all the nutrients that was in the old thing to create the new thing.

Then let's, you know, look at what was useful in late stage capitalism and let's look at what needs to just kind of fall apart in late stage capitalism. And let's do what composters do. Let's like redirect the nutrients, let's create it in new forms. You know, let's, you know, like have a burgeoning across the forest floor of all these opportunities.

So that. That new life can, can come to the surface and, and be fed in the sunlight. And then yeah, like let's build toward an ecosystem where a lot of folks are benefited and nature is benefited as opposed to just the smaller localized sense of success.

[02:24:55] CK: Hmm. Hey,

Tom, I so appreciate you just being who you are.

We cover a lot of [02:25:00] topics, but it is no surprise to me. We cover near-death experience to our connections to the universe to the mental constructs of achievement oriented versus following the intrinsic desire versus the memetic desires. We cover enlightenment. We cover the frustration of someone who is aspiring to make a big impact in the world and what to do, what to follow Tactically.

We cover entrepreneurship, especially impact driven entrepreneurship. And ultimately, you know, coming down to this, comes down to sovereignty. We get to choose what we want to devote our life force towards and change accordingly. I so appreciate you just the wide ranging of conversations that we [02:26:00] had.

And ultimately just being who you are, being a great example of what it means to live a life of craft as you so beautifully articulated. So thank you so much for being here on Nobel Warrior.

[02:26:11] Tom: Awesome. Thank you so much for the time today.