The Recognition Factor: Transforming Workplace Culture | A Scratchie Podcast

The Science of Good Times: Why Energy Flow Matters | with Christian Schnepf | Episode 19

• Scratchie • Season 1 • Episode 19

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What makes us truly fulfilled? Is it happiness, success, or something deeper? In this thought-provoking conversation, Christian Schnepp reveals his groundbreaking "Science of Good Times" framework that challenges conventional thinking about motivation and fulfillment.

Drawing from physics, psychology, and his personal journey, Christian explains how energy flow determines whether we experience a "good time" or struggle against internal resistance. Unlike traditional happiness theories, his approach identifies five critical areas where energy either flows freely or becomes blocked: our self, social connections, actions, obtainments, and environment.

The conversation explores fascinating contrasts between running away from pain versus moving toward purpose, and how this distinction explains why some leaders create extraordinary results while others generate resistance. Christian shares how his Good Time Ratio (GTR) metric helped one user discover that her "toxic workplace" problems actually stemmed from neglected self-care—revealing how personal metrics can transform our understanding of life satisfaction.

Most provocatively, we debate whether hardship is truly necessary for growth, or if clarity of purpose might be the more fundamental driver of fulfillment. Christian suggests that by gaining absolute clarity about what resonates with you and committing fully to that vision, you can potentially navigate challenges with less internal resistance.

Ready to discover where your energy flows freely and where it's blocked? Try the free assessment at goodtimeapp.com and start measuring what truly matters—your good times.

Ready to take the next step? Visit https://www.scratchie.com/book-a-demo to see how Scratchie can help you recognise and reward safe behaviour on your projects. The future of construction safety starts here.

Speaker 1:

Hey everyone. We have here this week Christian Schnepp, who's coming in from. Germany and who's done his PhD in a similar area of motivation to what we talk about, which is basically self-determination theory, being our kind of like North Star, and Christian's got a far cooler name to his model that he's developed. It's called the Science of Good Times, I think. Is that right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's all right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, sgt, the Science of Good Times. So do you want to just give a bit of an intro, give a bit of your bio? You know sort of a couple of minutes. I'd love to hear a bit about you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you, james, for having me here, and yes, I also think my name is pretty cool the science of good times. Everything is circling around good times, and it actually came from many, many years ago, when I started traveling through multiple countries and was looking for what is it that every human is striving for to get? And some claimed it's happiness, but I found there are some shortcomings in it. And some claimed it's happiness, but I found there are some shortcomings in it. When I have a really good, interesting conversations, for example, that I'm having with you, I would not call that happiness, but I would call it a good time. So I found that as a common denominator, that everyone wants to have a good time, and the more I went into this, I was wondering why don't we measure that? Why don't we align all of our actions in that direction? Measure that, why don't we align all of our actions in that direction?

Speaker 2:

And before I went into that, though, to develop a metric in my PhD that can measure good times, I was going deeper into the question why do humans have a good time at all? So why do we even, why are we able, as an organism, to experience a positive time? Or why do we call it a positive time versus a negative time? And that came back actually to the laws of physics, where the underlying principle is, in thermodynamics, that energy needs to be distributed, energy needs to flow. And how can you ensure that in a closed system like our world, that the energy is flowing when there are individual players in it as I like to use the game theory that need to distribute this energy? So we can't just always reason with our, our intellect. We, some animals, don't argue around that so much. So very simple. We have a positive emotion or a negative emotion, which is this in its whole variety actually nothing else but an expression of when I'm experiencing something positive, then my energy is flowing and again getting the signal, do more of it or go more into this direction, because what you're onto up to, there could be some release of energy, while a negative emotion signals me something is blocking here or there's a threat where my energy could be blocked. So I'm getting instantly in an alert mode to leave the situation and change instantly, and that is basically the whole foundation behind. And for a human, there is this variety of emotions that we can experience that help us to make more precise decisions. It's not just, yeah, this is good for me, no, this is, for example, good for my future income, this is good for my relationship, this is good for my body. I need we can differentiate more through this variety of emotions we can experience, which is basically an inherent navigation system, and understanding that helps us a lot to actually navigate much more precisely.

Speaker 2:

So you asked me a brief intro about myself. Now I went already into the topic For myself. I was wondering how can I live the greatest life ever and how can I ensure that I have a great life for the long term? And that's when I started researching on this, when I started traveling, when I started observing, and I said, well, I need to measure it. So I went to a PhD, researched on the good time ratio metric, so GTR, that's the metric behind how to measure life satisfaction.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's even a good acronym.

Speaker 2:

It's funny, people pick up on it very fast. I talked about it in the beginning some years ago in my friendship groups and weeks later they said my TTR drops and I said okay, good, it's working. So, yeah, I was working on this, developed it Still in the process, but just fine tuning and, yeah, eventually I started building a startup because I realized actually so logically it was a previous thought what is measured can be improved. But if I measure, it gives me much improved. But if I measure, it gives me much more than just nowadays. It gives me much more than just the ability to improve. I can actually building. I build an algorithm behind it. That's what we did in our company, in our startup. I'd call it good time, the startup okay, and we can measure good life satisfaction, but also pinpointed where the energy is blocked and where it's flowing, and based on an algorithm we can actually make suggestions and optimize the energy flow for the long term.

Speaker 1:

Okay, it's a lot to digest. My question is my first question, like being provocative, is are good times what we should be aiming to achieve? And the reason I ask that is it gets back to the Greeks, it gets back to hedonism, and they measured good times.

Speaker 2:

They were good times people.

Speaker 1:

The hedonists. Basically, they did, yeah, and I've worked for a while with the company called the Yacht Week I probably shouldn't have said their name, no, I'm okay with saying who they are and they basically sell a week of hedonism. I was their route manager in Greece and I worked for another couple of seasons with them. They're an amazing company. They have an amazing product. They sell hedonism and it's interesting, just descending, sort of engaging in that world. Yeah, and looking back on it and the things that I and the other captains of the boats look back on favorably is not the good times, it's the hard work, it's the relationships, it's the when you park the boat and you feel great but like the so-called good times were, um, were like fool's gold. How does the, the science of good times, work with? How did you kind of like wrestle with the ancient greeks when you were starting out this whole idea?

Speaker 2:

so hedonism is mostly based on the idea to have a good moment now, so don't care about the future, and I disagree with that. It is more about that, for, say, we have a lifespan of 100 years, then it's not about to have a good moment now and the next 99 years are bad. It's about, basically, how can we ensure throughout this 100 years that the maturity of it is positive, and that inevitably comes with trade-off. So I need to okay, not inevitable. I can come to this point later but it is not about ignoring everything. That is following this advice of live your day like it's the last day of your life Questionable.

Speaker 2:

Questionable because it basically tells you okay, you should live every day like it's your last day of your life.

Speaker 2:

Questionable Questionable because it basically tells you okay, you should live every day like it's your life day of your life.

Speaker 2:

But considering that it could continue, though, and it's not fear-based that I'm working my life long like what we get preached nowadays, or at least our parents' generation Work your life long and then one day you can retire and then you have a good time. That would be the opposite of hedonism, but it's more saying neither what the rebellious generation that then says like I don't care about my future, I don't just do it now that I have a great time. And that's neither the balance. So saying I need to design a lifestyle, I'm productive, to create assets that secure my long-term energy flow, my long-term good times, but I try to make the moment great as well. So I'm not just betting on that car that one day is all going to pay off, I'm also lifting the moment itself. But I'm neither just going for the moment and say I hope the future works out. No, it's a balance what gives me long-term, what gives long-term my good times the most, and how can I spice it up? That's more in that direction.

Speaker 1:

Right. So the likes of Seligman, who was a big happiness guy sort of 20-odd years ago, you're saying that happiness is different to good times and good times is not hedonism. No, I think kahneman, like thinking fast and slow, like the great bias sort of creator, said he was talking about happiness and someone said what do you think about that? And he said well, I think searching for increased happiness is flawed. Now, granted that you don't, you're saying that good times is different to happiness, but just to sort of yeah, just to try and debate and try and kind of poke the concept of. So Seligman was like my understanding and you probably have a deeper understanding of this Seligman was like here's how to increase happiness in our lives. And Kahneman was like we don't want to so much increase happiness as decrease misery, work on the negative and reduce the negative in the world. Because he said, once you're away from that, then you're okay. What do you have to say about that?

Speaker 2:

In the wording. Once you're away from it, you're okay, but you're not having a good time. You just don't have a bad time. So that's the difference. You can ask people do you like your job? Most people say it's okay. It's okay. That doesn't mean they like it, they just don't mean it. They can tolerate it. It's not a bad time. So it's basically kind of a stagnation. So I think I have two, two topics. I listen, two topics out of what you just said. The one is if you work on reducing pain, that's basically the strategy versus we should aim for the good stuff, but did you also hint in the direction that we shouldn't even aim for having more happiness, because aiming for it perhaps decreases our happiness? Was this also a statement you're?

Speaker 1:

being desperate of chasing something yeah, not so much a statement I made, but a point that I would make. Which one do you want me to start? Is happiness an aim or is it a byproduct? So the reason, and good times for that matter, are good times an aim or are they a byproduct? So, if we look at the ancients, the Buddhists and that sort of thing, the Buddha was pretty clear that good times is not what you should aim for. Equanimity is what you should aim for. So, if things are great, understand they're not going to last. If they're miserable, understand it's not going to last. Nothing will last and equanimity is where you're at that stability piece. Yes, and I'm doing my best to be provocative. Yeah, I like it. I like it Good Thanks for telling me.

Speaker 2:

So what Buddha actually meant is you shouldn't be attached to the pleasure, and because making you attached to the pleasure as everything is temporary and the pleasure will cease one day again you will end up being in misery again because you were attached to it and now you don't have it anymore. What it actually means. Translation you are in a scarcity mode, you are depending on something and when it's taken away, you're suddenly feeling like you're lacking something, which basically means like I'm in a bad time. This is yet not a hundred percent accurate, because I can say I love that moment and I really appreciate it, but when it's gone, I'm also fine again because I'm not holding on to it. And that's actually what buddha was teaching. Just observe it. But basically, buddha also didn't, didn't mean um, at least in my understanding, and I I went to, I went to of meditation, I trusted all of that stuff out. And my understanding is it is not about what he meant, is not about not having a good time and having joy. It is about not blocking your energy. Observe, take the things as they are, and when there is something you're feeling resistance, feeling, yeah, resistance to what it don't have this resistance, let it go, accept it as it is. On the other hand, you can embrace the stuff that's given to you. And that brings me actually to the first question you mentioned. It's like what is the better approach? Just working on removing all the pain or heading towards what you actually desire? And actually there's a bridge. Firstly, start as I said in the intro, we run away from stuff to change immediately. When energy is blocked. It is a short-term escape. It's not building the great sustainable future.

Speaker 2:

Let's imagine you're in the jungle and there's a tiger. So the moment the tiger is in front of you, you don't want to argue around. Where do I want to run? You just want to run away, be away from the thing. But if you know the tiger is coming every three months, for example, and you say the next time it's coming in three months, I have three months time, you perhaps don't have to run away. Perhaps you can just secure the place and can ensure that the tiger is not coming in and you can start building a house. And that is the long-term thinking, because actually you want to be here. You don't want to run away, you want to be here, you just want to be safe. So number one is actually securing. I don't know who said this what you meant with. We should work on securing, not as though that we run away from the pain.

Speaker 1:

Daniel.

Speaker 2:

Kahneman yeah. So basically, yes, we should secure that, but with the objective that we don't have to touch it again. We secure it and say let's avoid. For example, if money is constantly constrained, work on it once and for all that it's not a constraint anymore. Don't bet on it that it makes you happy, but work on it that you're not bothered by it. And when you're not bothered by it, then you can start working on what you actually want and ideally, you think about it from the first place. When I reach that I'm not bothered by money anymore. What do I want to do? And is there a way that I'm setting it up right away, that I'm doing what I want to do and make money with it, that I'm not constrained?

Speaker 1:

How do you deal with the fact that we humans are full of contradictions? So one thing I can think of in this context is Sebastian Junger. He wrote some good books, but one of them was Tribes. I don't know if you've come across them, but yeah, at the start of tribes he's describing and it's been a couple of years since I read it, but he's describing what it was like to be in sarajevo during the nato bombing, during that whole slobodan milozovic era, and here's how it was.

Speaker 1:

You and I are mates or brothers or something like that, renting a house. We've got my wife there's, you and me and my wife and we're in the house and we need to go down to the shops, but the shops are. There's two snipers in between us and the supermarket, and so we can get picked off. So it's like you and I go okay, who's going? I say okay, who's going? I say no, I'll go, and you go no, no, no, mate, I'll go, and we have that discussion, and so then it's really tense half an hour when you're evading the snipers and you come back and you're alive.

Speaker 1:

He interviewed these people that went through this and he said how was it? And they said it was harrowing. It's war. It was harrowing. It was also the best time in my life, and so the fact that they were so close to death at any time made them so alive. And if you look at suicide rates in the world today, in the rich world today, it's like there's this crazy thing where the richer and the more material and everything the sort of better life becomes. It's almost like we've got a mechanism that tries to find that homeostasis. We've got an inbuilt mechanism to go. I'm designed for all these external stresses. They do not exist. I'm going to have to create stresses, mental health issues and all the rest of it. How does striving for good times deal with those contradictions in our nature?

Speaker 2:

Okay, I have an answer to that, but it links to the answer to the question you had before. Is good times or something we should aim for? Is it a byproduct? Actually, it's a byproduct because it is um, as I said, good times equals energy flow. So if I'm having a hundred percent good time, everything in my body and in my environment is flowing, basically zero restriction. But not just zero restriction, but also I'm flowing towards.

Speaker 2:

Let me give you a bit of context to understand that principle. So say, I'm in a neutral state. Nothing attracts me, nothing fears me. For an organism in the animal kingdom, there is no reason to move at all. You just stand there. So the reason to move, to utilize energy, to do something, we got to run away from something. Or and that's important, that's not an end, it's an or we got to run towards something.

Speaker 2:

So now think about it. Someone gives you a suggestion and says, hey, buddy, do you want to go out for dinner tonight? And you say, yeah, I don't know, I'm a bit comfortable, I don't really need to, then this offer was not attractive enough. But if he says, hey, I bring my friends with me and whatever, fill the gap with whatever would really attract you. It's on a scale from one to zero to 10, and it's ultimately attracted and that moment it would utilize your energy and you say, okay, let's move. The same as if there's zero pain you don't move. If there is a little pain, you say I can tolerate that if there's a lot of pain, you start moving.

Speaker 2:

But the principle behind again is you want to utilize your energy. So now in the, in the developed, the rich worlds as you, as you described that I don't find it so rich at all, because it's actually a conflict with the energy dynamic say there's an absence of proper pain, but there's also an absence of real excitement and that doesn't trigger any movement. So basically, your energy is just stagnating and makes you think like I don't have a real purpose anymore, I can't really utilize what I'm designed to do. And a human is different than a tree. We are not designed to stand, we are designed to move, to do things.

Speaker 2:

So the example, what you said from the book, of what happened is they just had zero restrictions, zero concerns about the future, and which usually is a big case for people why they don't go all in. Because they said if I go all in right now, that might have negative consequences for the future. So I'm basically just controlling my whole energy and go carefully and just let it play a little bit, because next year I need to pay pay attention to, to my future. So going all in is just fueling the whole body and it's like I'm alive yeah, okay, so it sounds like you're talking about flow state yeah, yeah, basically, but beyond the flow state, but it leans on it, yeah, and.

Speaker 2:

And I actually have a personal example. 10 years ago you mentioned the suicide part. 10 years ago I've been in a point where I said I have everything. I have total absence of problems and I have even everything the society told me matters Like shape, business, acknowledgement, all of that stuff, friends, and I really said there is no point to be alive. I'm just bridging the next 80 years and that thought grew and for one year I was completely suicidal because that thought was just like I don't have a point to be alive. What's the point?

Speaker 2:

I can just end it you have depression.

Speaker 1:

You didn't have clinical depression, you just had by then through eventually.

Speaker 1:

But the thought came first the thought came first the thought came first it reminds me of in atlas shrugged, the, the I forget was it gold, I don't know. But whoever the no, I don't think it was. Whoever the protagonist was in atlas shrugged, he's very successful guy and and he got to that point he was just like I'm done. Why be here? And that's fascinating to me and I wonder, like you say, if you're avoiding snipers going to the shops. And actually I think I'm right here when Solzhenitsyn wrote about the Gulag, the Gulag Archipelago, so he wrote about being in the Gulag in Russia, in Soviet Russia. Mate, you got to read that. That's amazing, honestly. There's the abridged version, which is long enough, but even better is the Audible, because it's narrated by the Gulag Archipelago, by Slukchinitsyn, and it's one of the versions. The version to look for is narrated by his might be his nephew or grandson or something like that, and it's extraordinary. His story is extraordinary.

Speaker 1:

He was in Russia in the 50s and 60s and thrown in the gulag. Basically, the gulag was trying. There was a systemic approach to dehumanizing people and getting free labor, basically prisoner labor, treat them like shit, give them a number and basically tell them to shut up. He was a writer when he went in, so he was quite well-known writer and I think he memorized. He turned his experiences into poems and he memorized the whole thing and then when he got out he wrote it and there's like three volumes of this thing. It's like it's unbelievable. But one of the things that he mentioned was that I think I might be wrong, I had to verify this I think the suicide rate amongst inmates in the Gulag political prisoners was very low. Right, they were, which kind of supports the thesis we're playing with here. When you're avoiding the snipers, then you are flowing actually your energy.

Speaker 2:

There's no conflict there right, no conflict at all.

Speaker 1:

You are just focused, if you don't get killed, that's a win. And I think perhaps similarly in the Gulag Archipelago you've got such a job to stay alive in Russian winter that staying alive is a win. And I think perhaps the weak automatically die. So it's not a case of it's almost like death sort of takes care of. It's similar to the sniper in a sense. The unlucky get shot. In the Gulag the weak die, physically weak, literally, see like it's too cold, not enough food, and so there's no problem with suicide, which is crazy because it's like they're living in hell In Gulag. So we're full of contradiction, aren't we gulag? So we're full of contradiction, are we?

Speaker 2:

And actually it's not too much contradicting if we watch it through the lens of energy flow. And you really say, and that's the issue now, and I think really humans messed up a little bit in the way we structure society, because everything I'm not a fan of. I'm not saying we should impose more threat to push people. That's not really what we need.

Speaker 1:

That's right. That's what we need. We need snipers on the corner that will solve our mental health issues.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that solves it. Actually it doesn't. There's a lot of companies that tried that to push people. The only thing you're pleading through is burnout and complain. And high turnover rate yeah, If you want a really sustainable engagement it's not bad for retention.

Speaker 1:

No, if you want to improve your retention, remove the snipers. Yeah, and you actually brought up a very good point here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, let's replace snipers with micromanaging managers right okay here we go.

Speaker 1:

Now we're heading into self-determination theory. This is good, yeah, yeah. Autonomy Right Okay, here we go. Now we're heading into self-determination theory. This is good, yeah, yeah. Autonomy. Competence relatedness so you're saying the controlling managers are like snipers, basically they are.

Speaker 2:

I mean, really don't do a mistake, otherwise you die. Don't do a mistake, otherwise you're going to have restrictions, you're going to have blockages, and that actually leans into what you said with the self-determination theory, with autonomous, the need for autonomous. It's not really a need for autonomous, it's the need, in that context, for my system, my energy system is working and, as I know best what works for me, I want to have the freedom to do that, but if my manager knows better than me and it's in my favor, then I'm fine with that. And there is a lot of they do deal with that.

Speaker 1:

They do deal with that. They say, if it seems to be controlling, like a parent and a child, they will be controlling, but they have the interest of the child at heart and the child knows this already and so that's a different, that's not so much controlling. But can we get back to the sniper?

Speaker 2:

example.

Speaker 1:

The point of Junger was that snipers, ironically, were good for mental health. Okay, now I'm paraphrasing. He'd probably disagree with me, but he might say you know, you got a point. But so snipers on the corner might die. If you don't die, two thumbs up, you feel alive, you're flowing because you're like now, if we're equating micromanagers or the autonomy which is the anti-autonomy brigade, if we're equating them with snipers, then, according to that theory that we're just playing with micromanagers make you feel alive because when you don't get killed by them, then you're doing great.

Speaker 1:

So I guess playing with that for the sake of it, it's that feeling that you've got a boss who's an asshole and you're getting work done and you go. I just did this, despite you know and reading about jobs was not an easy guy to work under. Musk, not an easy guy to work under. Apparently you do not want to be on their critical path if musk, if you're a musk critical path, then your life is not happy until you're not on the clinical path. So I just want to play with that, because if the highest performing companies in the world have these legendary founders that, on the surface at least, are tough and people might get the wrong message they might say if I want to succeed, I need to be an asshole.

Speaker 1:

It's like no, no, no. They're just very particular about what they want and they're very clear about what they want, because, with all this self-determination theory and good times and stuff, sometimes I think we miss the point of being in a company. The point of being in a company, the point of being a company, is to perform, is to, and so what we want, of course, is to be. If we're going to perform, we need to be focused, we need to be flowing, to use your term. We need to be doing all these things. How do we avoid kumbaya? How do we avoid sitting around the fire and with the? I tell you, each other, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2:

So you, you said actually, you, you actually named it. Maybe you're not aware of it, but you named it and those guys know what they want. They are originally of what they want. The issue is the employees don't so say. Musk says I want to get that rocket up. That's real. He knows he not needs to get the rocket up.

Speaker 2:

And I once gave a a TED Talk about this, perhaps worth watching, and I came up with a diagram I call it the four playgrounds, where we say we have an objective, so in our case, maximize good times, but in Musk's case, launching the rocket. So if you have an objective, there are basically still two ways to dm what you can do with your actions your actions leading closer to it to reach the objective, or your actions lead away from it, further away. So now you consider also the time part. They say temporarily it leads me to it, but long term not, so that that starts the juggling and the management. Very crystal clear if you have an objective, you can just say we want to get that, we want to launch that rocket, or we need to do a and we don't need to do b. So wasting time right now is not launching the rocket. Working on this and solving the problem is launching the rocket. So for musk, that the really clear objective and a really clear, really clear approach. That is it constructive or is it destructive? But for an employee, he needs to have the same objective, he needs to have the same obsession of saying I want to launch that rocket. And if he is crystal clear of I want to launch that rocket, he thinks the same way. And if Musk says that's not leading there, he says okay, got it, got it. You don't have to tell me another thing, I'm just getting this rocket done, got it, got it. Wait, you don't have to tell me another thing, I'm just getting this rocket done. But if that employee, if this employee's objective is not launching the rocket, but this employee's objective is getting enough money home, he's doing just enough to get enough money home and he's stopping or political activism or something. If the objectives are not aligned, you need to push and that's conflicting.

Speaker 2:

The issue for most employees is they are not into work because they say I want to create something. They are into work to avoid pain. Let me concretize this do I work even though I don't get money, because I just want to work here, or would I do something else if I didn't need money, which comes from the point I don't have enough, I'm in scarcity and I try to avoid a problem by getting money. I'm avoiding a problem, so I'm just doing what's needed to avoid that problem. And if you're in this for this motivation, let me come back to this example with you running away from the tiger. When do you stop running? You stop running when you're far enough away from the tiger. Do you stop performing at work when you're far enough away from the pain? And in that moment you need the need, the motivation again.

Speaker 2:

But if your goal was never to run away from the tiger, your goal was to run to the mountain, you don't give a, you don't care about the tiger, you just keep running. You're not done there. And musk is really clear. I want to launch that rocket. And every employee who says I want to launch that rocket gets it and might say, hey, I can't perform anymore for next week, so give me a break, because otherwise I can't reach that mountain, I can't hold fluid. But the moment I have enough energy back again, after I rested, I'm back here. Yeah, and they, those bodies, they work together, but every other employee is because there's like every time I can stop, I do stop. It's like oh, is they got? That guy needs push, but ideally that guy shouldn't work there. That guy should, yeah, make an info perspective reflect that's what it comes down to.

Speaker 1:

Maybe I don't want to do something else. And jobs said something similar. Was listening to him, some kind of interview with him recently, and I think he called it values-based management or something like that. And he's Jobs said something similar. I was listening to him, some kind of interview with him recently, and I think he called it values-based management or something like that. Jobs was so clear. He was such a clear communicator In this one. He said if I want to go to San Diego, if the aim is to go to San Diego, then I need to find other people in the team who want to go to San Diego and not someone who wants to go to Columbus Ohio, something like that, Because if they want to go to Columbus, then it's never going to be a cohesive team. If we all want to go to San Diego, then we're going to have debates about whether we fly, whether we drive.

Speaker 1:

It'll be those sorts of debates and they can get heated, but ultimately we all want to get to San Diego, yeah, and that that kind of talks, very similarly to to Musk and his you know, his rockets and you know, wearing the colonized Mars shirt and like being so clear on his objective, correct, tesla, it's like speed the world's transition to renewable energy, I think that's. He's kind of like that's what we're here for. And if he hasn't said that 10,000 times like so yeah, okay, and then, and then it can be clear, like you say, if someone's not of that, you can test them on that all the time, and it's like, oh, you don't want to go to San Diego, then really like, let me really be helpful for you, I'm not, you should.

Speaker 2:

Can I, can I help you to get another job? Maybe, maybe, maybe I, and maybe I know someone who's flying to San Diego, yeah, Maybe I can connect you with that guy. So actually yeah.

Speaker 1:

Another story that with, I believe with the Starlink team, he wanted to. Elon was wanting some crazy goal. You know Elon's and his crazy timeframes. It's just like impossible until he actually does it. Then it was like unbelievable. And so he was.

Speaker 1:

He was like with Starlink, he was like we're going to have 12,000 satellites up there, like God knows how many years, like 10 years and 12,000 satellites. And he said, right, so to get 12, get 12 000. We need to do this many flights, we need to have this many on, so we need to be making this many a day, you know. And so he had some senior guys, because I think when you're working he's kind of ecosystem you can swap between spacex and starlink and tesla. They're all engineers typically. So he had these people doing starlink, starting starlink, and basically they said can't be done. And he said, okay, fine, you guys gone. New guys seven Again. We're going to San Diego. Basically, here's the objective. Are you cool with that? Are we all on board with that? Yes, all right, let's go. So now some people call that ruthless or reckless or anyone, but man, I think it's just clear and honest.

Speaker 2:

Yes, but there is a way to communicate that I mean. If someone says, oh, that's inhuman how you communicate and maybe it's a matter of the communication style, you can just say, hey, we want to go there as you. Communicated it, it's perfectly fine. I think Like okay, we're not flying in the same direction. Communicated it, it's perfectly fine.

Speaker 1:

I think like okay, we're not right, we're not flying in the same direction.

Speaker 1:

But if you said I don't know if you're shouting your employee to the ground, that might be a different way no, no, I agree, and I, I don't know, you've been on projects, there's emotions getting there and there's all that sort of thing, but I don't know. I think, um, it's remarkable what these guys achieve, isn't it? And and so it's yeah. Anyway, changing tack, getting back to science of good times and self-determination theory and where they might align with you know, because it seems to me that self-determination theory autonomy, confidence, relatedness, those three things doesn't really contradict what you've been talking about, but you seem to take it more into the somatic area of the body, energy, those sorts of things. Is it extending? Self-determination theory, by my understanding, is a psychological theory and they do talk about wellness.

Speaker 1:

They do talk about meditation. They do talk about wellness. They do talk about meditation which starts to get into the body, the mind-body. Is your theory extending that into the somatic area? Is that what you would say or is that oversimplifying it?

Speaker 2:

Yes, but not limited to. So yes, the somatic part plays a role, it's not just psychology, it's also the body.

Speaker 2:

It's not just psychology, it's also the body. It's not just psychology, it's also the body. By the way, my research also shows because I'm on the question how to measure it and where is energy flowing. So what makes us us? You can actually draw a common denominator between every culture throughout the thousands of years that most cultures agree to there's something else between body, mind, there's something else. Some call it spirit, some call it energy, some call it soul, but there's something else. So the point is, something is so. There's flow in our mind, there's flow in our body, there's soul in the third part, but that's just the self area. So I could distill five areas where energy is flowing for a human, where a human, basically, is repelled from or pulled towards, and that is not just a self.

Speaker 2:

I can be appealed by myself, inside of me or outside of me, and I can repel from it. But I can also be appealed and repelled from my environment, from my social environment. I can be appealed or repelled from my actions and I can be repealed or repelled from my actions and I can be repealed or repelled from my obtainment. So what I'm getting? So if I'm making this as an example, like who am I, am I fine with that? Am I fine with the people I'm spending my time with? Am I fine with the things I'm doing? Am I fine with the things I'm getting and am I fine with where I am? And all of that affects whether something at the end it comes down to yourself and whether you're flowing or not, but all of those things usually have an effect on it. Buddha tried to eliminate that effect by just saying I'm equanimous to everything, outside of me perhaps, but at the end for most of us, those things, we are not equanimous towards it and they have an effect.

Speaker 1:

So that is extending beyond mind, body, to environment, actions and obtainments okay, but we're not a quantumist to it because we choose not to be a quantumist to it. It's like um shakespeare. What did he say? There is no good nor bad, but thinking makes it.

Speaker 2:

So I think right, yes, yes, yes. No, I'm not 100% on this yet. I'm convinced that your attitude towards things has a big effect on how you see them. However, I can't neglect that our body needs outside energy, so we need to move some stuff and we need to eat a return. When I don't eat for a long time, my body is running out of energy. I'm depending on my environment because I'm being in a bigger ecosystem, so I'm depending on this energy transformation from nature into my body.

Speaker 2:

Back to nature. This is, it can't be, it can't be separated. So when I'm just saying, well, I didn't eat for a while, okay, I can be equanimous towards it and say, let's can't be, it can't be separate. So when I'm just saying, well, I didn't eat for a while, okay, I can be quenomous towards it and say let's don't be bothered and instead look for how can I get food. That might be a healthy attitude towards it. However, when I don't get food for a couple of weeks, I'm gonna end, and therefore it is.

Speaker 2:

I believe nature did not just give implemented this negative feeling about I'm not having food out of fun, but literally you're depending on it, so you better should do something about it. The thing thing is, however, when I made my made up my mind to do something about it, then I don't have to be, don't have to have resistance and say, oh, it's so bad that I don't have it. Okay, I got it. I don't have it right now, but I made already up my mind to do something about it. It becomes just bad if I don't do anything about it and just say, okay, let's be equanimous, I'm falling apart, my body is rotting and I'm not doing anything. There is a reason why nature gives us a signal to something change sure I think it's not.

Speaker 1:

Economist doesn't mean not doing anything, does it? It just means we would.

Speaker 2:

He tested it not doing anything for a while, until he said that that's not the solution either.

Speaker 1:

So, in my mind, economist is equanimity, so spirit equals spirited In my mind. If you're on a top of a hill, you say I'm experiencing this. This is joy, but I also know that this will end and that's okay. Yeah, yeah, right. So that to me is it sounds like you've done vipassana meditation. Yeah, I did, I did. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, man, it's, it's probably the for listeners. I would say that's probably my biggest tip, like bigger than any book or anything. It's 10 days. It's so hard. I found it so hard Only if you resist, you know, perhaps you're right, but I was full of what do they call them Sankara? I was full of them and basically all these things you've got to deal with and very, very difficult for me I did it in Sweden but very instructive as well, and I love that point that they make, where basically in kind of the Buddhist way where they say you've got the answers, don't seek them from some wise man, like they reside inside you. Just listen to yourself, you know 100% real.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I think that's amazing. So that would be my tip to people Understand it's going to be. It's probably, if you're anything like me, yeah, yeah, but I've forgotten what I was going to say. Yeah, anyway, now can we change tack again and talk practically. Talk practically about, because a lot of people listening are interested in how this might apply.

Speaker 1:

You know, a lot of people are at work. They want to improve the performance of their work. That might just mean happier people. It might mean their reports are just more engaged. It could mean safer, it could mean higher productivity. These things can be very much related, as you know, and I think self-determination theory talks of. They're very much related because if you can improve autonomy, improve competence, improve relatedness within the individual, then you'll get a thriving, a psychological thriving, and then your workplace full of those people will thrive. Improve relatedness within the individual, then you'll get a thriving, psychological thriving, and then your workplace full of those people will thrive. Yeah, you sort of had a story about a practical story of your theory in use in a workplace and that effect.

Speaker 2:

I'd love to hear that story I tell you about the story in a moment, but before I'm coming there, I would emphasize or I would clarify the principle behind. So everything you like, more autonomy and all of those things. Actually, rooting back again to what we said before, what Musk is doing, he has an objective. So number one should be if you're not thriving in your life, if you're not thriving in your business or at your work, then sit down for a moment reflecting why am I doing what I'm doing? I need to find something that drives me that I want to do.

Speaker 2:

I was back then in university, first semester, and I had so much to study and I thought, like this is five times more than my whole high school just for one subject. How do I manage that? And I figured out a one. I figured out a system, but one part of it was I'm not going to start studying before. I found something that really fascinates me. It fascinates me about it. So I spent half of my study time just googling and watching youtube videos around the topic until I found that one thing that I'm saying well, that is cool, I want to know more about it. And at that moment I just everything I studied was like goal-oriented. My energy was flowing, I was effective. I didn't try to fill the eight hours of study time or work time. I tried to get it done and understand it and much, much, much earlier.

Speaker 2:

So it comes the same thing as the suicidal rate again, or the suicidal issue. It is usually when people don't have hope anymore. In other words, they don't have anything to look forward to. But if you at work, want to increase engagement, not just at work but also at home and your life and everything then train your imagination, your creativity, what it is that is worth putting energy in, not just I'm fine and let's just tolerate this and look long enough until it's so bad that I have to move again. Let's just say, okay, you're fine, great, take this as a stable ground, but don't rest here Now as you can breathe, look for where you want to fly, where you want to go.

Speaker 2:

And if a manager can't communicate, I think managers, we don't need more managers, we need leaders. And a leader is different than a manager who's just controlling where the energy should not flow. A leader is telling you where it should flow and he's pointing there. He's pointing the vision and then, if this is clearly enough, communicated and people resonate with it, understand it and say that this is also where I want to go. If this is clear enough, they gonna be engaged. And a manager is usually doing the opposite, what he shouldn't do. He's saying don't go there and don't go there, don't go there. So basically he's building, he's building planks on the side, that that the only way the energy can flow is one direction, but always with resistance, because every time there is no blockage, people will say okay, I'm saying here or I'm doing something.

Speaker 1:

In fact it's funny. You know what you just said. I'm using claude code. I'm doing some stuff because, of course, in scratchy we're tech company and so I'm doing, we've got a team, uh, doing work, but I'm also doing stuff on the weekends playing claude code.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people are, and claude code is now has sub agents. So you create an agent, you specify what this agent's good at, you specify which tools the agent can work with and then you can set that sub-agent to do various tasks, like there might be a database specialist or a super-base specialist sub-agent who knows all about super-base, who's armed with all the documentation and the tools and everything else. It reminds me what you just said is that with the increase of agents AI agents they're essentially managers there's still going to be a need for a leader and a team of leaders. There's going to need, and for two things. One is to say I want to go here, so it is to be very clear on the objective, is to be very clear on the objective. But the other one is to own things, like to own things. So I can see us having a small team, probably a fifth the size of if we were a startup 10 years ago, but each person in that team has the objective very clear, is a leader and owns it.

Speaker 2:

You, you know those two things.

Speaker 1:

So now back to your story in your workplace of the use of your theory in practical life.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so in our app, goodtimeapp, we had user testers many, many months ago and a user was testing, yeah, good, gtr, good time ratio, the user for confidentiality I'm not giving further information. The user was starting a new job and three months later we went into the next test round. The user made the next assessment. But before the user made this next assessment, the user was telling me that the life is really bad meanwhile and hates his job and wants to quit. And we saw after the assessment was made, after we had the dashboard and seeing throughout the five areas where energy flows and where it is blocked.

Speaker 1:

Sorry, pause. Did he give reasons for that, or a?

Speaker 2:

time. Yeah Said it's toxic. It's toxic to work there.

Speaker 1:

Toxic Ah, that old man toxic to work there. Toxic, ah, that all.

Speaker 2:

Toxic work, environment toxic work, and it's funny because we saw then that so all five areas.

Speaker 2:

External factors. External factors. So we saw that all five areas were dropping the GTR. The good time ratio of each area was dropping. All areas were dropping by 20, 30%, except of the self area. The self dropped by 80-85%, something like that. That was like a huge drop and we saw that graph like everything flat and self, and we realized the issue. Actually, the user gave himself the only answer. Actually, my colleagues are okay, they're critically quite supportive and actually the work I like also, but the overall was not too much so that we went into a direction.

Speaker 2:

But what the beta showed really clear it wasn't an issue of that work itself. It wasn't even an issue of the people to spend time with. It was eventually a management issue, what the company could improve, but especially what she could improve, because it was she just didn't take care of herself anymore. Like everything about self-care, about satisfaction, that makes made her, that makes her feel comfortable with herself, she dropped. She didn't went to the gym anymore. She didn't take care of her, the self-care of her, me time and like when she. When she said this is not okay at one.

Speaker 2:

At one point it added the third part of what makes us ask the soul, or however you want to call. You basically acted against your own inner voice what is what you should do? And your body tells you I need me time, but I don't dare to say that. So basically she just didn't take care of herself anymore and that issue is makes it much more clearer. Yeah, she can tell through the manager and I think every good manager will say I understand you. Okay, we need to, we need to take care of you because you're going to burn out. And yeah, what happened? She quit already.

Speaker 2:

So it's clear it's in the interest of the manager to say okay, let's, maybe we don't make 996. We maybe allow Saturday, sometimes some days off, and maybe you don't reach out and expect from you out of the blue that you have to pick up your phone at 10 pm. Maybe there is some time where you can actually make space for your self-care. And that would be something the manager could have done. But for her, very important also to learning, because at the end of the day I'm convinced about no one is responsible for our well-being. That's our job. So for her, important to take care of saying I'm blocking this, I'm defending the things that are important for me to function. And if she doesn't realize that the next job is going to end up like this again there is just no weight she can carry, because every time there comes weight she lets herself drop, and if the self is dropped, nothing works. So that was a very interesting insight.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's true, and it's a great tool that can help people reflect on themselves. So meditation journals they're very time-tested ways, but not all of us do them, so to have a tool that could allow her to go. Marvin Bauer from McKinsey is in a meeting in New York City and he's just been paid millions of dollars by this bank to do an audit. This is, in McKinsey's early days, been paid millions of dollars by this bank and the CEO was quite a rabid sort of individual, big, high-flying New Yorker, and he said well, tell me, what's the one problem? And he said the one problem in this organization, sir, is you Now that took some kahinas to say that?

Speaker 1:

But it's true it is yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If this is an app that allows people to sort of reflect, in that sense, you know, for that CEO to say, oh my God, the problem is me and you've got some science behind it, because that sounds like that's what that girl discovered is it's like oh, actually I can change most of this. I'm never going to be happy in an organization until I fix these things up. That's super valuable. So I wonder if we should talk. Do you have open APIs with your app?

Speaker 2:

Do we have an app? People can use it and can get online.

Speaker 1:

It might be a way, because it's like I think we were. It could be an extension of what we do, because you know you can imagine when people are winning at work, which is what Scratchy is all about. It's about recognition. It's about autonomy, competence and relatives improving them. So feeling like a dopamine we're dopamine dealers that work right. So you feel like you're winning and you get recognized for that. So it's very much something that people in the workforce will use and go cool, you've just won, that's awesome and that sort of thing. But we're also building in some mental health kind of surveys and it's not're not making it boring, we're keeping it game related and interesting. Is that you or?

Speaker 1:

me, that was mine sorry keeping it game related, but it could be great to relate to yours. If they want to go into a deeper dive, just say oh, so you really works no good. How about you just answer these questions and we can help you kind of answer what it might be, because all the time it's just a lack of clarity, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

It certainly is. It certainly is. I mean for me. Sometimes I felt myself in a trouble, into the trap, thinking like, ah, something in my relationship is not right and I realized actually it's me who's at fault. I think I should take care of myself. And, yeah, I need to distribute my social time. I need to distribute, I need to manage my that I'm productive, which is actually the cycle behind um, what were the three? Autonomous, relatedness and competence. The competence part it's the competence is nothing else but an indicator for you feeling what I'm doing is resulting to me getting what my organism needs to function so basically I feel competent yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Basically I feel competent. Yeah, basically, I feel competent the moment when I can tell my system works, my energy system works. I don't need to prove it anywhere, I don't even need acknowledgement from anyone to say, oh, you're so great. I literally don't care, because my system works and as long as my system works, I can do what I want. Basically, my energy can flow in every direction it feels like it needs to flow sustainably, sustainably. Yeah, then I feel competent. I don't need any approval for that.

Speaker 1:

Well, the one pushback I would make there is you're talking about intrinsic motivation. So fine, there's a lot of stuff that's intrinsically motivating and maybe those of us who are really lucky, 90% of our work life is intrinsically motivating. That's amazing. There's some people if you're flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant, then perhaps 30% of your workday is intrinsically motivating, but you've got to do. 70% of it is stuff that you just got to do. It's not very motivating but you got to do it. It's that 70% that it needs a little boost, a little motivation boost.

Speaker 1:

And that's where when managers can say, hey, you cleaned up that area really well, it might not be an intrinsic motivation, but it's really nice to have that motivation boost and it heads more towards intrinsic. Because, as you know, extrinsic motivation is kind of like, can be broken down into a few different areas. You know one of them being like there's a motivation, I'm totally not motivated and then it gets into I'm integrating, it's integrated and it's it gets into more towards the intrinsic motivation. So that's where we try and like, we try and use tools to push things towards being more intrinsically motivating. It might be a soapbox of mine.

Speaker 2:

I once even heard the statement. Actually there is no such thing as extrinsic motivation and motivation is always intrinsic. The only thing that extrinsic can be is motivating. So I don't know, I didn't go deeper into that thought of philosophy behind, but if I would translate, if I would do that, it might be that actually I can just have from the outside something that triggers me to remind me of my intrinsic motivation. So basically, a recognition could be just hey, you want to feel good about yourself, and when I feel good about myself, I'm motivated again inside of me to do something again, that I feel good about myself again. And if someone is working yeah, if someone is working flipping burgers, for example then I mean, by the way, I didn't flip burgers, but I was working at mcdonald's when I was a teenager and for me the motivation it's a client of ours, incredible company.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no comment on that. But the thing is that I knew why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Speaker 1:

I wanted to do it.

Speaker 2:

And the moment I didn't really see any purpose for it anymore it wasn't about and I never really got it. My manager never really had to push me because I felt like I want to be here, because I'm knowing why I'm here, I want to get something out of it and when I'm here I want to do it as good as possible because I don't want to waste my time here. I was naturally looking for what can I do to do the best work? And the moment that faded, I had to look for what is the reason? I realized I can't even identify myself with the values anymore, with the company values, and I couldn't identify with the work culture. So at one point I said, yeah, I feel like a bit draining. And after a couple of weeks.

Speaker 1:

I said young high iq german working at mcdonald's, just asking all these questions honestly but I enjoyed my time being there.

Speaker 2:

I enjoyed, I learned so much from these. And then the people came by and I said that's then. I actually found even a pattern between someone's appearance, social status and what they order. And I realized, oh, I can predict that the next time that person has ordered Coke Zero and it happened Just like water and I was training my colleague and said I'll wait for it she's going to order Coke Zero. And she said and one Coca-Cola? Wrong prediction. And she said, oh, coke zero right away. Meanwhile I can even pinpoint, explain why this, this, um, this guest was ordering a coke zero rather than a coke and it was okay. Drifting off topic. The point is when I can't really be motivated, I can't really gain motivation from the outside. I can just get reminded of something inside of me that's resonating with me, that motivates me to get more of it.

Speaker 1:

And that's the thing. And you know from Vipassana, the Vipassana thing was like an operating system upgrade, wasn't it? It's like changing how we like, reframing our desires, like yeah hardcore. That's deeply embedded, that's it's a great practice.

Speaker 2:

The thing is, what has changed us? It didn't just make you intellectually understand yes, everything is coming and going. You actually experience them and said pain is coming, oh, pain is going, oh, joy is coming. And you realize, like I don't need to, oh, my god, I can get control over, over my trigger. Do I get triggered here or not? Afterwards, after I went out of vipassana, I went to an ice bath and I just I was literally two weeks afterwards and I just practiced fresh in that state, I just practiced that attitude and sitting in there and I say, okay, pain is here, let's observe it even it's going.

Speaker 2:

After 10 minutes I said okay, let's go out, not because I want, because I'm neutral and I have something else to look forward to. So I went out, yeah, and it's like really controlling. You're controlling everything that's happening inside of you and and being able to differentiate between. This is really a need for me to move, or this is just an illusion for me thinking I need to move, but actually I'm fine.

Speaker 1:

In fact, you know what? I was at the sauna and cold plunge here in Bondi last week and it's a silent sauna, right, and I'd had a very long day. I'd gotten up very early in the morning and because we're just about to do a launch of a new product, and so it was like four in the afternoon, I'd been working already since 3.30 in the morning, so I was like, well, I just needed to like, and it's a silent sauna, so it's really good to go in there and there's these guys talking and you know they're talking at a volume that is like not so loud that you would say, guys, can you just calm down, but it's still annoying, especially in my tired state. And I was like I was playing with the whole concept and I was sort of meditating. I was listening to this, listening to them going kind of annoyed Interesting how I'm annoyed and should I say something. And then I was like what if I was in a war zone and I was in the trenches and I was freezing? I was in Ukraine, right.

Speaker 2:

You went hardcore with that thought.

Speaker 1:

And freezing and being shot at. And then somehow beam me up, scotty, I just got beamed up and I got beamed down into this sauna and I was going those guys are fine talking, absolutely. I'm here, I'm in a sauna, it's peaceful, and it was just reframing it in my mind and it was really interesting how I could. It was all in my mind. Yeah, deciding whether or not to be pissed off.

Speaker 2:

Many years ago I was talking to someone who was a soldier in a private industry and I asked and later he was in business and I asked him how did this experience of going every week into a war zone and potentially get killed, how did this change your attitude towards business? And he said well, I really couldn't give less than a care about when someone says no to me because I'm saying, oh, I'm alive, there's nothing wrong. I mean, going into business is hardcore. Yeah, some deal is not working out as planned, but fine, just go for the next because, yeah, my life is okay. He got the understanding of the realization I'm, I'm okay, I'm alive. And I said that actually comes down to that. Actually comes down to our own experience, where most people are stressed out because our, our body or organism is confusing that situation with a life-threatening situation and it's not to you like this is seriously bad if this, oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

But actually if you check in in a press and just make a brief scan and say I'm breathing, I'm alive, I'm probably gonna be alive tomorrow, my resources are covered for the foreseeable future, for, let's say, not foreseeable future of months or years, but like literally foreseeable. I can't even predict the weather of tomorrow, so let's say the next week. I'm fine, at least. If you check in, then you say okay, let's, don't let's don't confuse it with a life-threatening situation and run away out of this and be be in a scarcity mode, where, by the way, research shows that if you're in scarcity, our iq drops by something like 15 points, which is similar to a bad night's sleep. So long-term decisions are pretty, pretty hard to do in that moment. So if I really want to get out of that situation, I need to have my whole mental capacity to make good decisions. And the beginning is me understanding I'm fine where I am, I don't need to run away. So where do I want to run to?

Speaker 2:

And again it loops back to the understanding. I need to be clear about what do I want. Where do I want to go? What am I heading towards? Not what I'm heading. Do I run away from it? No, where do I run towards? What is what I'm into for? And if this is aligned with my environment, if this is aligned with my work, if this is aligned with my relationships of any kind with my friends, and if this is aligned with basically all the five areas of Self, social actions, obtainments and environment, then I'm fine, I'm good to, and then operating without fear, it's like Brutalist.

Speaker 1:

yeah, did you watch that movie, the brutalist?

Speaker 2:

I watched the trailer. It didn't really get me, but I got the reviews. That seems to be a good one.

Speaker 1:

Do you mind if I spoil it? I might be able to do this without spoiling it.

Speaker 2:

actually, You've got to ask the audience if they are fine with it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, no, no. It's a long movie. It goes four hours. It's got an intermission. It's like what if movies have an intermission nowadays? I found it was really good.

Speaker 1:

How do I do this without spoiling? There's one part where his wife was, because the sort of the theme you probably understand theme is they're straight out of Auschwitz or something like that. They're Jews, they're in New York City, it's been, they've gone through all that hell and they're trying to remake their lives. It's the 50s. He's an architect. His wife comes over a few years later and she's crippled. She's in a wheelchair and sort of like can walk, but not really, so she spends most of her time in a wheelchair.

Speaker 1:

Then something happens and there's a very wealthy guy that's kind of the sponsor of this architect. Something heinous happens and the climax of the movie is she goes there and fronts him and says you did this, not cool? Like basically, she goes into the lion's nest with zero fear and the point is she's been to auschwitz, like she's she been. And it gets back to your point about your soldier friend. Like they've got to the point where they go. I am not afraid to do what I need to do. That sounds like that's very empowering for him as well. He's like yeah it is.

Speaker 1:

After what I've been through, I'm not afraid to die. Essentially, I'm not afraid of death, you know yeah.

Speaker 2:

But there are different ways to reach this. I'm not sure if this is needed to have this. I have this uh, rock bottom or threatening moment. I mean I've been there at one point where I said, okay, let's continue with my life, but I'll do it differently and I treat it like a bonus round, so don't have anything to lose. That is one way to do it, but it didn't stick for for really long that I felt like it's a stuck for a couple of years.

Speaker 2:

But I think there are different ways to approach this and say I'm not afraid of dying, and Marcus Aurelius brought a good point in his book Meditations where he mentioned like if someone dies, whether that person is 80 years old or 20 years old or just a kid, it doesn't really make a difference, because the person, what the person is losing, is the same, because the past is gone, future is not there. So the only thing to be lost is the present moment. And if you're considering this, then there are many ways to consider the value or to approach and get a more supportive and positive mindset around the idea of death and freeing yourself from the fear of it. But again, I think the strongest approach towards this is being clear. Why am I doing what I'm doing towards? Not, I'm doing what I'm doing to avoid problems. No, I'm doing what I'm doing because I want something. And the more clear you about this, the more clear you're about this, the less fear you're having to do the stuff.

Speaker 2:

Because you say I'm clear about this, I for myself, I signed a contract with myself. I went on trips, solitude, shut down, phone, all of that and for months to reflect what is it that really matters in my life. And I wrote that down on a paper, reflected over months, again, checked it in with third parties, like, is this resonating, aligned with me? And eventually I signed a contract with myself. I said I'm going to stick to that. And the moment, that moment just freed up everything of right. Okay, there is a potential failure. No, there is no failure. Arnold schwarzenegger was saying in his interview movie like why didn't he think of giving up at that moment when it got difficult? And he just said because giving up wasn't, in my vision, very clear.

Speaker 1:

He just said, I'm getting there.

Speaker 2:

So the moment you you didn't go there yet, you say, okay, then a different way. And then you're not afraid. Because I think the biggest fear is I'm getting into something, something is important to me. Or let's say, we claim this is important to me, and then you're getting into this and say I'm needing something from someone else. So I'm saying can I get this? And you're afraid of, if I don't get it, my, my whole vision collapses, my whole desire, my dream collapses. But if you say, no matter what comes on my way, I keep walking until I'm there, you don't question the outcome anymore. And if you are on that, everyone can say no to you, because sooner or later someone says yes. And if no one says no to it, you just say okay, I'll do it myself. And I think everyone, every high achiever, approaches it that way. Elon Musk is doing it that way. I just get it done.

Speaker 1:

Everyone is doing it that way.

Speaker 2:

You're not afraid of anything.

Speaker 1:

Richard, he was talking at Stanford you might have heard this commencement address but he said you're all asking for tips. I've done really well. I created NVIDIA and NVIDIA is doing great. I think it's the biggest market cap company in the world today. Anyway, life's good, or at least you know. My success is there. You want some tips? He said well, my entire career was full of hardship and pain and struggle and getting told that I couldn't do it, and failure and struggle, and getting told that I couldn't do it and failure. And he said that's what forged me and that's what's enabled my success. So he said I wish upon all of you here today hardship, failure, struggle, because he said that's the only thing that he said is it's the only way you can get sort of battle tested in this hard life. You know that is a struggle, and so it resonated with me at least.

Speaker 2:

It does make sense the way he explained it in his situation in his context. But again, I don't subscribe to that that this is needed. I just say, get it clear of where you want to go and don't question the outcome anymore. So, but really you need to be clear like this is really what's resonating with me. So a simple way to do this is like you're designing this vision, you visualize it and when you say, like my body says hell, yeah, I want to move, you sit still and you say, okay, let's think about I do a a little bit, let's think about b. And when you recognize that your body wants to do something, you feel like, oh, there's some energy blowing. So if you keep doing this and and designing that vision clearly around what your body and your whole self is resonating with and wants to mobilize energy, at one point it's time to commit to that outcome.

Speaker 2:

And when you commit to that outcome, you don't even have to have pain along the road because you just don't. Pain comes from inner resistance, of saying, oh, maybe this get taken away from me and I don't want this be taken away from me. But if you say it's not going to be taken away from me, I just keep going, I just keep walking and I make inner peace with this that sometimes I'm not getting the result instantly, but delayed, and at that moment you lose the inner resistance and then it doesn't have to be pain, but it starts with I set out to climb on that mountain. I made sure that mountain is really where I want to go. And whoever says, well, you don't want to go up to the mountain, you just don't care, because you answered that question to yourself already. And then you just say I'm going, I don't think there needs to be hardship along the way.

Speaker 1:

But when you get those blockers and when you're tired and when people have asked you five times or they've let you down five times and you have to deal with it, like that's hard, that's painful, and when you make a call and it's the wrong call and you are up your backs against the wall, like those things happen, especially when you they're a part of reaching an objective, and like every one that I've come across that I respect, has spoken, is honest, has spoken about those things. Yeah, I've experienced them. I'm sure you have. Now, that's not good times. That is not good times.

Speaker 1:

It's a clear objective, but it's hard.

Speaker 2:

I agree, but again, it's what we learned in Vipassana. How am I reacting at the moment with it? Do I stick to? This is bad and I've lost everything? Or actually our app is pointing this out. What do I still have? What works for me still?

Speaker 2:

And if I'm getting my thoughts around this and I can clearly see actually that's just a couple of points in my life that are not working ideally, but the other things work or I'm grateful for those things, then you're freeing again energy and in my understanding, I had times I was very rock bottom and I had very bad thoughts and I felt meanwhile these are actually don't need it, they are self-imposed. And if I would I mean I try to avoid that, of course, or say I'm aiming for a different way but if I would come into such a situation again, I would watch my thoughts that I'm not saying hey, there's everything bad. I would start looking for what is working and what can work better. And I mean I've been in times objectively, they were worse than in my early 20s where I was suicidal. I've been in worse times afterwards and still had a better time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I knew I'm capable. I knew I can deal with that. I've been at certain points before I had learnings, I knew that I'm getting out again and my hope was realistic and positive and that was missing before. So I'm very convinced of no matter what life throws at you. I mean, like for me, early 20s versus mid-20s, where mid-20s was a bit heavier basically, versus early 20s, but it felt lighter because something the way I approached it was different, which gives me, which shines light on the point, that it doesn't have to be necessarily bad If I can already loosen the rate independent from the outside weight, if I can remove or lower that rate independent from the outside weight, then that is within my control. So perhaps I can completely eliminate the weight, and more than completely yeah, I mean again.

Speaker 1:

I thought the hardship has taught you that. So it's like you would.

Speaker 2:

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if the hardship taught me that or if the good times taught me that true, but I mean the same as going to the gym and training your muscles. I can't go there and say I need to do it, or I'm saying I'm grateful that I can push a little bit further than the last time, and I'm not sure if the hardships taught me that or if the good times taught me that, that I had a reference to how it can be.

Speaker 1:

We should leave it at that because it might be the start of another podcast I can think of. It's been a really good debate. It's gone a lot longer than normal podcasts have been running. But it's been such an interesting discussion, so I really appreciate it, christian. Thank you, james as well. Yeah, and we can be talking. I think there's kind of like a bit of an overlap of our two apps and yeah, that'd be good. Yeah, cool man. Well, thanks a lot and have a great weekend and enjoy Thailand.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and if you're open, I would briefly make another reminder or invitation for your audience. If they want to see what's working in their life currently and where the energy is blocked and really pincoining that, I warmly invite you currently for free, on our website and make a test. We're even onboarding currently some people live. If someone says I want to be guided through it and have some questions along the way, we're making live onboardings as well. Just go on goodtimeapp, goodtimeapp, goodtimeapp written together. Yeah, sign up, give it a shot the first time.

Speaker 2:

If you never made deep reflective works like this. It takes a little bit longer. Currently in our current software solution, it takes 20 to 30 minutes to go through the first time. Eventually, it takes you 5 to 10 minutes in the current version, but the feedback from our users are mind-blowing. It's just saying that the life changes. So, according to our users and I'm one of them I say it's worth it. So give it a shot. And if you want to give us feedback, if you want to give us back always, we are very, very happy. We're going to make a live navigation system that doesn't fail too much, like our brain.

Speaker 1:

Cool man. Thank you again. Yeah, we'll keep in touch, for sure, nice, yeah, thank you, james, and we'll see you again Next time. Bye, no worries, see you.

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Garry Mansfield

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James Kell

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