Your Life is dictated by your questions

Welcome to Wabi Sabi, and this is the art of imperfection, the podcast all around everything around life that is imperfect, and yet it is so sweet and successful at the same time. So Jim, last week you said you actually reached out to an old mentor of yours, and I know Coach, love to kind of maybe start there, because I think that's going to lead us to the conversation we're going to have today.

Yeah. Great. Awesome. Well, yeah, I just for anybody hadn't listened and heard our episode from last week, I found myself getting to a place where I was trying to work through stuff of myself. got, I've got coaches, I've got mentors, I've got support people around me consistently, but there was just an area that I just couldn't work through. Couldn't find out a path or a solution. And so I reached out to an old mentor and coach of mine. I've done a lot of work with over 35 years, Marvin, and it really stimulated something that in context is just so obvious. But when you're in something, you can't actually have perspective from another process. even you and I getting on and talking, and even though we support and coach everybody else, the perspective that we get, that we share each and every week, I walk away from it and go, I learned a lot because I didn't think of it that way. that process of being around people that constantly ask you questions and different types of questions often lead to different answers. And so for me, that was the process that I've been going through doing my own work to improve myself. And yeah, that was really what I wanted to bring into today's theme is the quality of the questions that we ask often determines the quantitative answers that we get.

I would also add to that too, I have met a lot of different people lately and had a lot of meetings, just really interesting people randomly and some people have introduced to me too. And I've been more intentional about going into these conversations to not be so superficial in terms of the conversation. And an example was I just met this really interesting guy. He's American who lives in Lisbon and he just had a really... very interesting background in terms of he grew up in a really rough childhood, really rough family, multiple, same town, but I think they moved like 17 times in his first 18 years of life. And then he somehow left home when he was like 15, that type of story. And then he made it to the music industry and then saw all the craziness of the music industry. And he's like, this is not for me. then he left.

Wow.

He's now like a, I would call him like a super connector, you know? And in a sense of like he very well connected to a lot of people, a lot of powerful people, a lot of just like, just people in general. But he's just like a normal guy that you can just tell, but he tells you the truth and what's interesting. So anyways, so going back to, I gave you that setup, the reason why was because could easily be having a conversation, just having, oh, like tell me what you're doing now, whatever, right? But no, I actually went intentionally, well, when I heard that, I was like, oh, I wanna know. Like, how did you get out? Like, honestly, there's so many people who are in that situation, um you know, going up to the childhood, could have went the other way. But you're like the one in 100 that decided to take a path. And I go, did you know that at the time? Or, you know, like that was my curiosity. right? And so for me, like what you just sort of said, the quality of the question dictates the conversations as well, right? And that's what you meant by the answers as well. I feel like oftentimes we're not having, um

That's a great question.

know, the levels of connection simply because we're not asking the right questions or the great curiosity questions to establish those relationships with others. And that could be your partner, it could be friends, it could be your kids. And I think that element uh is missing because we don't tend to think that. We just tend to like, oh, we'll have coffee, spend half an hour, an hour talking about, you general stuff. But you walk away and like, okay, well, that's another person. But like, I felt like actually understood at least from, you know, like where he was coming from or like how he thought that through. And he doesn't know, he actually doesn't know like, you know, how all this came. Like was like something in him that he, it was an operating system that for some reason was different than his brothers and sisters. And I thought that was kind of interesting way. And I'm curious about those.

Yeah, it is. And the, you know, the, the coach that I've worked in, he's, he's, you know, highest level world-class, um, behavioral modeler. And that's the certification that I have. I have where you can work out what someone's default pattern is, and they may not know what it is, but it's a moment you can get the code for what their routine and process is. You can learn it.

Yep.

and then teach it to other people, right? And it's effectively what Marvin does. And so in that situation that you're talking about, this person may not consciously know, but that if you go back, there would have been a process or a question or something that led them off a different path. Because, you know, in that kind of an environment, it's often the case of someone saying, have you ever thought that there's anything more than this? that in and of itself, starts the process of your brain seeking for different answers, but just being willing and as opposed to just going, is this all there is or just, yeah. And I know we've been really talking a lot about AI of late, but even in the platforms, whether it's Claude, ChatGP, Grok, Grok, whichever one you use, the quality of the inputs.

Yes.

and the clarity of the questions will determine the outcome. So if you can make it very generic, it'll give you a generic answer. But if you're very specific about what inputs you put into it, that determines the magnitude and the clarity and the strength of the answer.

Well, exactly. mean, the thing is, this particular topic is more important now in terms of conversations than any time before, because it used to be like the quality of the question is really dependent on like how you kind of operate your life. But as more more people adapt to AI and these LLMs and how to use AI in their life, yeah, your output, the output that these LLM provides you, LLM meaning like ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini, whatever you use, the output they're gonna give you is reliant on the input you give it, right? And so, which means, usually it starts by a question. So whatever questions or direction that you're gonna give these LLMs, it's gonna directly affect the output it provides you. And because, like, you got these LLMs that trying to give you speed, they're trying to give you the answer as quick as possible, they're gonna shortcut a lot of things. So if you don't give it parameters, if you don't give it parameters to think, it's not gonna give you the answers that necessarily is the best answer. It might make you, the problem with that too, so these don't make you feel like it's the best answer, but it may not be the best answer. And so, and let's use an example, I think it's really important for you people to understand, like, if I ask a question, it goes, oh, um is, you know, like, is, I don't know, let's say, is parking illegal on this particular, oh you know, I don't know, I'm trying to make something up here. uh Is, you know, what is a definition of whatever, okay? Whatever the X is. The thing is is that it has no context. It has no context of like, you, let's just say, what's the, tell me a little bit about peanuts, okay? This is as an example. Okay, so that's gonna give you a definition of peanuts, but if I said to you, can you, as a chef, tell me about peanuts, it's gonna give you a totally different answer because it's gonna come from that culinary kind of space. We're going, I want to manufacture peanuts. Tell me everything you know about peanuts. It's going to give me a totally different answer, because now it comes from growing and manufacturing of that particular peanut and how it So you can sort of see using that as an example, it changes the context. that's what you're talking about. The question is that we have to get better at prompt and engineering, really creating these constraints or desires of what we want from the output. And that hence, uh

Yep.

know, AI is such important elements, which is correlated directly to how humans interact on a daily basis. Your quality of questions really dictate how they react and the emotion that you're trying to elicit.

Yeah. And that's a really good point you raise. And sometimes just as a general perspective, sometimes if you're not sure, you tend to ask more what questions as opposed to why and how, because, you know, if you're asking how I'm going to do this, you're often stuck in the logistics of things and that's not very powerful. And the, why does this keep happening to me?

Hmm.

Well, you know, why do I not do this? Well, your brain default will go, well, listen, this, be honest, dude, you haven't been exercising. How many of these you have been doing that. So what did you expect? Whereas if you ask you say, what would I need to do and what would I need to develop within me to develop these skillsets or have this outcome? Then those inputs are going to drive you down a different path. But oh yeah, that's so that to me, and even I, I've seen it happen more and more.

Yeah, absolutely.

in especially with language models that you're talking about with the skills that we have now available to us but It used to be no different when you actually say, I'm coming up with an idea, but I want an idea that I've got to do. know, like I want to build a business, for example, and it's got to be scalable and I've got to organize it between 9 30 and two 30 because the rest of the time I'm picking up a family and I've got kids and I don't want it to be something that has to be totally dependent on me. Then your brain is going to sift through all those criteria to come up with the solutions. And the great thing about it is that. solutions are going to be higher quality because they're pre-qualified the things that are important to you. So, whereas if you just go, what's a business I can get into? Well, where do you start?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. Where's the constraint there, right? So there's so many things, but you I want to tell me a ton, you know, you can say exactly being specific like what's the best business idea, right? You can put that on ChatGPD or which is what's the top 10 business idea you can think of based on everything you know about me. That's going to give you a totally different answer or what's the top 10 business ideas that you can have for me based on everything you know about me, but specifically

Yeah.

for Brisbane, Australia. Like that's gonna, all of a sudden now, it's just have tighter and tighter constraints, it's gonna give you a different answer. And then you might even add, goes, that has to, everything to do with entrepreneurship. All of a sudden now that tightens that even further, right? Or, and it goes, in specifically about space. All of a sudden like it just niches right down because the quality of that question is really gonna niche down that answer. And yeah, I mean this is, going back to what you sort of said about, you know,

Yeah.

Analyzing yourself or having the self-awareness of your patterns what you know Marvin's kind of talked about like understanding human patterns You know most people like you said don't know about their own human patterns I sometimes don't even know about human patterns But I would love for anybody who listening to this who's ever tried using these LLMs on a regular basis If you do if you don't you should be using it every day, but if you do and have been Love to just get if give it a prompt. I'm just gonna make it up right now It's just like act as like a psychoanalyst right? And tell me the truth. Don't hold back. um You know, tell me brutal, honest truth about everything you think you know about me, right? And analyze me and tell me exactly what are my strengths and my flaws, my weaknesses, and what I need to work on. Like, even something like that. If you tried that on, think you'll be shockingly surprised what your AI knows about you based on your patterns.

Mm.

of input you've actually given it so far.

Have you done that through, um, uh, grok and chat GPT give you a different, um, Apple grok ones can be really brutal, you know, like that one, you know, cause there's a lot of, okay. And you can qualify what tonality you use with that as well.

Yes, in Grok, yeah, can actually tell it to, yeah, I can't remember what the um animation that they use, but bad Eddie or something, or bad Bear, yeah.

But yeah, I can't remember the context of it, but yeah, but but effectively, you know, and I think that probably works where you, where if someone's wanting to hear something, you get it to match how you receive information and accept information exceptionally well. So the direct approach, the blunt approach, it might work well for your personality or culturally.

Mm-hmm.

You know, culturally there's you look, you know, you've talked, spoken about Japan before, and there's, a particular order and way of going about business in Japan, culturally. And if you don't respect that, you get doors shut to you. So you've got to have those. That's where needing the importance of asking questions in preparation helps you would open up doors where it's not traditionally the same way to be done in North America, Australia, or other areas of the world where it's a lot more direct.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think that the understanding of yourself matters so much. And this is why I want to of point out is that because if you never actually uh seen like an external person, unless you've seen a psychologist or sometimes who have been, or a coach who have actually kind of pointed these things out to you, oftentimes we don't actually self-analyze ourselves. And so you can kind of do this and whether it's not as true or not, mean, I don't know, obviously I wouldn't be able to know, but for me, it's just a good way to kind of like, to put yourself through a mirror. of an AI who doesn't actually, well, he knows you well enough based on your inputs, but you need to still have the filter, the human element to go, is that true? Right? But be honest with yourself. And this is why I tell the AI to be honest because sometimes they're gonna hide the truth, right? I want it to be honest. I want to know, this true? know, whatever the output, I still need to filter within my own hands. Like, is this true about me? Because really though, is that I wanna ask myself if it is true, like, what if it is? How can I? Act differently, how can I behave differently or how can I change differently that could actually better my life rather than just ignoring what could be glaring to everybody else but me because I've refused because through ego that I don't want to dress it or I don't want to think about it or I don't want to look at it.

So it's a very interesting thing you raised because I gotta tell you, Marvin, my coach, he wasn't using Chad's ZP. He bottom lined me pretty quickly actually. And I thought I've got pretty good self-awareness. It took me to a place I went, holy smug, I didn't realize that. think like, do you think, you know, the next step that may get you to a level of understanding, but to do and to not to do is to not do right. So to know and not do is to not, not the day. So effectively what happens, you know, chat GPT or one of these language model can give you a perspective. What do you then do with it? Like there'll be a percentage of people who may not actually do anything about it. as a result of that because they don't have a commitment or engagement or have accountability. So I suppose you can build that in there if that's what you're seeking and looking for. How can you use that, do you think, the best possible way?

Yeah, I think that comes down to the personality of the person and what's the driver to even seek these answers. I think the old saying is that the answers will appear when the student is ready. And I think this is something very similar to that. can, I've shared this with several people and they get it and like, oh wow, like some people would go, oh yeah, that's really interesting or this is really scary and they just ignore it. Or you, I mean, I've seen mine several times, I've done it several times, and on different models, like you said. And yeah, sure, they're slightly different, but it's probably because I kind of slightly use different models for different things. But the overall common theme around them is like, yeah, they still analyze me exactly the same way. So which is like, okay, well, that's my pattern. So the curiosity that I have in my head is like, okay, well, what am I gonna do about it? Which is what you're asking. I need to be, I want to improve or if I want to get ahead or if I want to be better, in better meaning whatever you mean it to be, then I need to take action on it. Or I need to figure out a way to help me solve that problem. And so sometimes it is asking AI to go, okay, well, what would you do about that? You know, how would you, if you're now that you know everything about me and how would you, ah how would you help me with this? And what I have done with that, surprisingly with these LLMs are actually some of it has been really good at doing that when they give me answers to other things, right? So for example, there might be, you know, I might be discussing a new project and they'll be like, because knowing you, Lawrence, so, you know, because you are a terrible. you're a great starter, but you're a terrible finisher. My advice would be, you know, and they would just give that extra little bit, like that's the personality that it's getting better at over time. It's not perfect, but it's starting to learn from, you know, these old memories. It's got its flaws, but it's getting better that way to kind of know like how to interact with you or how to do you better. And I think that these are some of the skills that I believe that it's going to be helpful. And it's no different than how humans will react, right? Because reality is this. in, you we're both in the former healthcare practitioners role and you know, how you interact with one client is gonna be very different than how you interact with another just based on their personalities. Like certain people are gonna want more detail and certain people are gonna want a straight answer or certain people need a little bit more loving and a little bit more coddling and some people just go, they just need a bit more banter and a bit more humor and you know, someone else who just needs a little bit more confidence and regardless, you still. doing the same thing in a sense of what you're offering, but you're offering in a different manner. And I think that that's where these LLMs are gonna start doing is that they're gonna start doing that. But I think that's how you need to see it too as well. This is still a human thing, which means that the human needs to still have the desire to change the outcome of the circumstances. You're still the one who has to do the work. I believe the AI will be there to help you assist there to get there a lot faster. Right? So for example, if I'm a disorganized person, then I could use AI to help me get more organized based on my disorganized self and my disorganized brain. You know, I just created in the last couple of weeks, you know, using AI, knowing how terrible I am with terms of um like organization skills, I literally taught it to go, OK, this is what I want you to do. I want you to start organizing my life. How do I do that? And how can I figure this out? And it's actually created. like, you know, a notion of my second brain and it's actually created all these things for me. And I could memorize this and gives me a to-do list to kind of like every day it's going to go. I get a daily brief every day and then tells me like, you know, the top five things and also gives me a daily brief. But like, here's some emails that you should be kind of focusing on. I'm like, oh, like this is really interesting, right? Because it's, it's just helping me do the things that I don't do well enough. Usually I just kind of go up with whatever first action item I have in my head. But now, at least I have a daily brief that kind of comes up and goes, oh yeah, I forgot, I really should be doing that first, right? It gives me some reminders to kind of set that up. Is it perfect? No, but I'm trying to create systems to help me become a little bit more better to manage my weakness, if that makes sense.

Yep. Yep. So that's actually a really good distinction because sometimes you, uh, you know, like especially in AI that they use the term generative, right? But, but as an, as when you're trying to make transformational changes, you also have to be generative in your thinking and you can't, and a lot of the, the, the problems and a lot of the blocks that people have is that they are following along a linear path and they get to a point where they go, what am I missing? What am I doing without? What's the gap? And That's what I mean by the wrong question because sometimes the generative part will get you out of there. And you were even doing it with the language models there. basically saying, based on what you know about me, like that is another question that's generative. So that way they can give you a... a set of parameters outside. what I heard that you said that I thought was really helpful is sometimes is a time for reflection. And sometimes it's like, you you can rock up to the gym and someone goes here, lift this and you haven't had time to think about it. Whatever you just got to do. Right. And that to me is this, I realized parts of my life. I love introspection. I love thinking about it, but then I've got to go, okay, what I'm going to do with it. because you don't pontificate and gauge your navel forever because that doesn't change stuff. You get reflection, but you also have to couple it with action. And sometimes if you're not doing it by yourself, that's when you outsource it to go. That's part of the reason why I love structured classes. You're going to be there at a certain time. You don't, I don't care whether you don't feel like doing that today, we're doing this and you go through and you get out your own way. And I think that that's a level of success.

Yes. That's actually a perfect example. I'm a thinker, and so therefore, if I had to go create my own gym program, which I mentioned this before, I absolutely hate it because I will probably spend 10, 15 minutes trying to figure out what I want to do. And that's not actually what I'm supposed to be at the gym for. What I'm supposed to do at the gym is actually just move my body in a way. So when someone, and when I show up at the gym and go, this is what we're doing, my brain goes, no, I really don't want to do that, but guess what?

Yep.

That's what we're doing. So it's either action or you're thinking. I don't wanna be thinking, I just wanna act. I just need to go put my body through what it needs to go through to kinda get fit, right? That's what you're talking about. And I think that that's, and so a perfect example, like what I love about AI right now is this. We have never been in a time where we've been able to take ideas to put into product prototype faster than any time.

Yep. Yep.

And I'm, because of my nature, which is I'm a quick start, but what I'm terrible at is actually execution. AI has now eliminated the excuse for me, at least not eliminated, but has really shown me like it's still on me, right? So for example, I might have an idea, Jim, right? I might say, Jim, what do you think of this idea? And you're like, oh, Lawrence, that sounds like a great idea. Everybody says it's a great idea, unless they, it is a terrible idea. So then I go, okay, but then I put, like I just really think about this idea. And this idea could percolate in my mind for weeks, months, let's face it, most likely years. Because I don't know the how. And I'm sure I'm not the only one, right? Everybody's like, I don't know how to build that. And the difference I've seen in like entrepreneurs that I've met and founders and stuff is that they don't actually care. They think about the how, but they don't let that stop them. It's almost like,

Mmm. Yeah.

Yeah, I'll figure out the how later. But the next action is this. And there are like, momentum builds. And we know people like that. I've never been on person like that. But what AI has done now, it's like, I have an idea. And this is what I've tried over the last month is like, I have an idea. I wonder what this will do. And then literally just creates it for me. There was an example of it two weeks ago. I had this idea in my head for like at least six months, if not a year. I just typed it into a prompt.

Yeah.

It created a working prototype for me in probably 10 minutes, maybe even less. And I'm like, holy crap, like what's my excuse now? Right? Because I've always had the excuse of like, oh, but it's gonna take this, it's gonna do this, I'm not sure if it's perfect. I'm like, it works, the prototype works. So now it pushes me, now the ball, it's like passing the ball, right? I give it to the AI, the AI gives it back to me, I'm like, oh crap, I got the ball back. Right? So which means it's like.

Hmm. Yeah.

it's now still relying on me, but like, okay, what are you gonna do about it, Lawrence? Like that's the universe going, okay, it's back to you now, right? What do you wanna do? Do you wanna take it to the next step or are gonna sit there and like think about this even further? All right, or do we take the next action? this is, I'm starting to like realize this thrill of, oh, like I get to build, but I actually get to see it at the same time. Whereas before, if we wanted to build something, I don't know, build a practice or build a water like,

Yep.

It's hard to like conceptualize and you gotta get everything perfect. You don't wanna get it wrong, right? You know, like it's like building a house or changing a room. Now you can just go, sorry, I'm gonna divert with examples, but I was in the store maybe two months ago and my wife's like, what do think of this table? I'm like, I don't know. Like I need to see it, right? Like I don't have that ability to take this item and put it into the room. Funny enough, yeah.

Yeah, same. From 2D to 3D.

Funny enough though, I go, huh, I wonder if Chad could do this. Took a picture of that, I go, put this in the table, I had a picture of that room, and sure enough, it created an image within like a minute. I'm like, there you go, I think it looks good. And he was like, yeah, that actually looks good.

Well, that's exactly, that's exactly, um, you know, I think house planning and designs came alive for people, me particularly when you could go from two dimensional to three dimensional, because when I, when I see a picture, go, that's great, but I have no context for that. Um, and Bettina like, well, it's basically the superpower. She can look at four plans and she can visualize it in a mind. can't do that. I really need to feel like I've got it there. so yeah, I've got to be in it and I've got to be fully connected to it. And the moment that they builders did it, remember when we were building a place that was like, oh, now I can visualize it. even when, so that was, that was a really important skill set. So I could totally relate to what you're talking about coming from 2D, 3D.

Are you in it? Yeah. Yeah, and I think that this is the power. It's just that we have these tools now to eliminate a lot of things to action and they actually can see, oh, this is a working prototype. I'm like, oh, do I like this or not? And you can get rid of ideas really quickly of, oh, that's actually a terrible idea, right? Or that actually looks really good. Build websites a lot quicker. mean, someone sent me a website. You know, and I go, yeah, that looks good. But I'm like, oh, I think I like it this better. So I went to AI, I did it, I'm like, I think I want to build it. And I built a way better version and I sent it to him. I'm like, this is what I was thinking about. And I'm like, oh, wow. And he's like, that's exactly what we want it to do, but we just didn't know how or what was the languaging. I did it within like 10 minutes or just tweaking a few things. It was totally different. We went from white to black, you know, or like the lettering and. And it's funny, I sent that to him like maybe three weeks ago, maybe two weeks ago. And he was like, yeah, I'm still getting the website designer. I'm like, dude, I just built it for you already. Why do you need to go to a website designer? Like just take this and just work with it. But it's still, like we're still kind of stuck in some old order thinking. ah And it is about speed. It is about creation. And this is where I feel like this generation is, we are in such a an amazing period of time if used well um to actually create these questions. So, but that really comes down to going back to our original thought process here in this podcast, which is what question are you asking yourself? What problems are you trying to solve? Or what problems do you need to be solved? And how can you frame it in a question that's going to give you some answers that will help you move forward? That should be the question we should be all asking ourselves on a daily basis.

Yeah. And it's interesting because it is a very interesting dimension and time that we're moving into where, you you talk to a lot of CEOs of companies. think it's Palantir that I was, I was reading some commentary about their CEO and he was asked, you know, what kind of industries that will, will be around for a long time, you know, with, advent of changing technology and a lot of times people look at the trades, know, specific trades, plumbing, those kinds of things because there's not those capabilities in there but if there's robotics integrated with A2O. that everything's open game in that gap, but at least for a period of time. But the interesting thing that he said is that people who are basically have a neurodivergent spectrum, are they gonna be the people who quite often are gonna be very in demand because they generally ask questions and see the world in a different way. And now they've got tools and capacities to run with those ideas. Cause they look at things, know, and our son, is kind of, he'd be on the spectrum in terms of how he's considered things. And he's taken to AI in a way, he just asks questions and he sees the world in a totally different thing and then just creates things that most people go, hey, if you're using a linear model, I wouldn't even thought of that. know, I, there's Sebastian, Sebastian. Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. He's,

This is Sebastian. I had a conversation with him this week. I did, I did. He was great. He's a fascinating individual.

Yeah. You know, and, and, but, know, for the longest time, you know, it's interesting because when, when he was a little kid, he would ask these questions that were really uncomfortable for an adult to, cause he asked me these questions like, you're the principal. Um, you told me to do this. Um, but you're not doing that. And great life skill to have when you're in grade one or two, get, you know, the parents get called up to the office regularly. So he viewed the world in a totally different way, but that's skill set.

Yeah, he definitely sees the world a different way. can see that in him and he's got, it's a very, uh I don't know if abstract thinker is the best word for it. Like he just has his ability to see many different viewpoints ah and connect the dots. And very passionate young man. It's really great to see him. I think our call was only for half an hour. I we spoke for like an hour and a half ah on variety of different topics. I don't even think we got to exactly what we're supposed to be talking about.

Oh, did you? I didn't realize you had, yeah. So, but, but that's, but that to me, like he, he is of an age where he would have curiosity, but like you just said, he's not, he is, um, not scared of, of, uh, an idea, test it, kill it really quick, which is what you've said earlier before. He would just go, no, it's got no legs. I've run it. I'm not worried about it. I've tested it. The.

Mm-hmm.

the wanting to fail quickly and learn out what doesn't work. ah He just does that exceptionally exceptionally well. So, but he's now got the technology that supports that. So he doesn't need as big a team that he would have needed 15 years ago. What, what,

Yeah. Well, then that's the key element, right? Like you can see like there were um those people with that fast thinking and that fast brain, uh they can get through ideas a lot quicker. Like you don't actually have to see things through um and waiting for things to develop, you know? And I think this is where I think the absolute right, the people that will succeed is that people who are able to um execute on ideas fastest. and go through a lot of iterations. think people that are going to really struggle, which is more like me in the past, which was sitting on an idea and hoping that it will work and figure it out. that's always been the case, but now more than ever, because one person can have gone through 10, 15 different ideas in one day versus some people would take a year just to figure out if one idea is going to work. And I was just talking to someone just before this and he was saying one of his friends are, they got all these students vibe coding probably 10 different companies right now. And it's almost like your own VC basically. Because instead of like deploying capital to these VC funds, you're basically creating 10 companies and hoping that one of these are just gonna work. But you can kill off some of these really, really quickly without actually spending. uh worrying about hiring someone, then you have to let them go. It's like, no, these are just, you know, using a lot of, you know, live people, but also AI agents to kind of test out a product like, oh, okay, well, I only lost, you know, a couple hundred bucks, you know, doing that and a bit of time, but it wasn't your time. It was just like a computer's time, some tokens, and that didn't work, but that could learn something to kind of build another company. And I think that's where, you know, we talked about this, the trillion dollar company, you know, the first, you know, person to build a, you know, a billion dollar company or trillion dollar company.

Yep.

with no employees, probably won't be like one person building one thing. Like he talked about, it's probably most likely this one person who happens to have like 10, 20, 30 or a hundred different companies all working together who combined together uh is going to create a billion dollars. That's definitely gonna be very, very plausible. I'm very interested in that. I'm kind of curious of how that's gonna work. And I'm curious now it's even to...

Yeah. Yeah.

in the past I would be like, okay, who do I need to hire? And now I'm really thinking like, I really want to kind of do this on my own. It's almost like there's a part of me just goes, I even told my daughter this. I'm like, I want to know if I can build a business just on my own, like without any help, without any, you know, assistance, you know, contractors or anything. I want to see if I can actually do it. So it's almost like this, this challenge to myself to be able to kind of do that.

And you know what, there's something about that, like from a simplification point of view, uh totally makes sense. And when you're talking about Sebastian, earlier on, he started off with one idea that merged into another, started this company and that company, there's actually four companies that have developed within that. But he have that ability to do that. like you just said, I like the idea as well where I have freedom, autonomy, whole lot of things. I don't have the limitation. I don't have the overhead of having to do that. so I'm... starting with the question of how do I scale without necessarily needing capital expenditure and operational expenses that you have to cover all the time? So you run exceptionally lean, but you're amplified and scaled in a way that allows you to go, what I could do once, I've got someone who can do that in another second. So I don't have to worry about that. I'll just focus on this and you're just delegating. So to me, I think it is exciting. I think it's exciting for the people who are prepared to have questions and just follow those questions. And that's the action part of it. But I think for someone like you, Lawrence, who has that, it's just... As you said, allows you to run ideas. I've got a lot of ideas as well too. And some of them would come to zip, but one or two out of 10, I've done that all the time. One or two out of 10 are, think are really good ideas. But now I'm getting to have it of testing all of them, like you just said, and letting them run the gamut all the way through to see what I can't see or what I can't visualize. And it allows you to stay in that zone of genius, if that's what works well. But then you go, get to the, the point where you go, okay, this is now a new, then you decide, is there something that I have to do? I don't need to delegate this again. So it's that process of check-ins regularly, not necessarily what you have to do, but how do I empower the next stage and step? And that's obviously what leveraging is all about in that area.

Hmm. Yeah, and there's that power of Wabi Sabi, right? The power of like just not being perfect all the time to kind of create these things. And it's like, it's going to be a bumpy road. But for me, like what I'm actually starting to, you know, and we talked about this for a long time, like where I've a little bit been lost, it's like the creativity part. And this is where it's like, man is juicing me up, like it's so many little things. And I'm like, oh my God, I like I'm feel compelled to want to create like it's just like there's so much creation where I just have lost that a little bit for a while because I just didn't have any purpose to create. was just like there was nothing exciting for me to go and create. Whereas like I haven't felt that energy in a long time. And it's so funny, like you talk about addictive, we were just, I was talking to my friend just beforehand, like he was a little bit late because he was like, yeah, he had to set up his agents, you know, to be ready so that he could be doing work behind the scenes while he was meeting with me in real life person. the addictive part is like, I mean, I've maxed out my Clot account like three times this week. It's like, put a stop limit on me. It's like, okay, well, you've done it for today. this, I'm like, I'm paying for you. And I'm maxed out. I'm never maxed out on, you know, chat GPT. But I somehow I'm maxed out Claude. like, am I doing that much work right now? That I'm maxed out. And there's like, I remember the other two, three days ago, I maxed out around, I don't know, six o'clock. I said, okay, this will restart at nine, nine PM. I'm like, I'm like, okay, I'm going to go eat dinner anyways. But there was like this itchiness. I'm like, nine o'clock is too long. like, I'm now I'm thinking, okay, I need to get a max account. This is ridiculous that I can't access to this tool right now. then, and this is the word that, that, I don't know, maybe it's an addiction, maybe it's like this, you know, need and but there's just that creativity. And a lot of people, at least, you know, in some of my circles, like, they're all feeling this way, they've never had this type of energy, this type of thrill for a very long time. And it takes a lot. It's a different brand, brand, brain power. and different mental energy that takes it because you no longer stop it by all the things that you don't hate to do because a lot of the thinking now is like higher level thinking, not just like all the little tedious thinking that takes up a lot of time.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It's that, it's that friction and that escape velocity, velocity that goes because right now, like if you want to, if you're going to say, I'll give you a classic example. um basically involved in finance as you know, so I'm doing some refinancing capital uh extraction to do things. The process, the friction points are ridiculous. know, like it's like, you've got to get this paper and that paper and then wait, then you've got to wait five days for this person to have a look at, there's so many holdups. And so this process could be fast tracked so much quicker. But what I realize is that you're talking about is that if you clear a lot of the friction and you're having to wait on things other than your, um, your access, uh, resetting within a few hours, all you're doing is you're ever in top gear. You're only ever in top gear. You're not actually doing the grunt work, which no one loves. You know, no one hates everybody. You know, like even when I was a kid, I used to, my dad used to, you know, buy renovate flip homes and stuff.

Yeah.

Um, everybody loves the roller and painting the roller, but no one likes to do the prep work and the sanding, you know, who likes that? And guess who used to get all these crap jobs when they'd go and help them out. They just want to roll the roll on. I let me do the roller. No, no, you're going to sandpaper. You're going to, so no one likes doing those grunt things, but now you've got agents and capacity that will do that, which keeps you in the constant flow of new ideas that in and of itself. What's not to love about that.

Well, it's also, you know, it's forcing you to ask better questions. Hence the topic, right? Because the material and the people that are doing this, sorry, the AI is answering a lot of these questions. It forces you to ask different questions about yourself, about the product, and that's really helpful because now you're creating something completely different because you already have access to answers to the easy questions. where you need to play a role as a human being is to ask questions that a normal AI can't answer, right? Because they don't know your expertise or your experience as well as you do. And that's the leverage point. The challenge, of course, I find, that will be a problem in the future, or at least in the near future, is the young people that are coming out who haven't established their experience yet, right? For you and I, we're good.

That was my question. was going to say is what do you lose? What's the trade off that critical thinking component of the thinking, the depth of a subject matter expert is because they have this understanding. They don't just have this surface level, you know, a pop understanding of an industry. And for momentum that works, but for depth, that's going to be a problem potentially.

Yeah, it's a huge challenge. it's gonna be a gap. like the gap is right. Like for us, this is the most magical moment in our life. It's like we thought, you know, the internet age was a magical moment, but like this is by far, you know, just jumps another level because the opportunity is like, oh, we get a second crack at this. Like, you know, I missed the first wave, you know, but I oh get a second crack at this in a sense. And, but for someone who's like, I don't know, let's call it 24, you know, maybe getting out, you know, just out of university, unless you did a little, lot of work and you've explored. If you just kind of done the traditional model of just going from high school to university and just basically just stuck with just getting a degree. Yeah, I don't know. Like I think that's going to be really challenging because now you have you have knowledge that is probably outdated. You have knowledge that anybody can get access to. So where where's your point of difference? Like how do you stand out? And the only way to stand out in that circumstances is that you you don't have the experience, say someone who's in there. 35 or 40 years old does. And so therefore those jobs are kind of gone, which then now forces you to have to like relearn and retool. And so if you have a personality of maybe like curiosity of something or, you you now you're gonna have to lean on like what you've done for the first 24 years of your life. Like what are your interests? What were your hobbies? How did you interact? And that you can leverage that. But if you didn't do any of these, just kind of follow that old traditional model. it's gonna be really challenging. And I think this is where people kind of get stuck on like about the job market is that that's where it's gonna get lost because it requires, believe, I believe if you're entrepreneurial, I think you're gonna be fine because you'll figure a way out. But if you rely on someone telling you what to do, like, you know, having a particular role, yet those roles are gone. Because if I can, if you're relying on someone, I mean, just think about if you're a company and you have a particular role that all I need to do is train someone to follow these orders and do that job. That's the job you used to be hiring for. But if I can do that with a human being, then I can most likely automate that. And what's cheaper? And so if you own a company, I you're going to go with the cheaper options. And so those jobs, I think, will be the problematic positions that are no longer.

Yep.

there, like for example, an analyst, if you're like, you know, going to hedge funds, and if you're like, want to do lawyers, like beginning lawyers, like lawyers will be fine, the ones who are actually lawyers. But if you just graduated from law school, you know, you would usually have done like an internship or like done like the grunt work, like, like to do all the real? Yeah, they don't need you. Right. Right. And so but then how do you gain the experience? That's the shortfall. I think that's the trade off at the moment. And I don't know, there's no I don't know there's a good answer to that.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do. wonder about that specifically. And I think there's some critical skills that are important. I think perhaps, know, higher education, like we used to say, used to be more about learning about yourself and going to tertiary education to ask questions, to learn of life. And I think that that's going to be even more so. And I think that the people, you just look at the people who are you know, the 27 year old or the 23 year old or an 18 year old who started a company, there's a particular attribute about them, whether they're hyperkinetic, whether they're asking questions. Now they've got a perfect formula to ask a question and execute really quickly. And that can be, you know, that speed is, is the new black, so to speak, and momentum and all those kinds of things is, and there's just, there's not an acceptance for. you know, things that take time and that will create, there's a whole lot of benefits to that. There'll be challenges, but opportunities, know, whenever electrification happened, people feared about it when the companies were, uh all the gas companies changed. And then there's innovation when the industrial revolution happened, it's all people fear that and people will preserve the status quo. But we don't, I think, know what we don't know in terms of we can be futurists and think, well, this is happening. But I do agree with so many other people who say there'll be a whole lot of opportunities and industries that have developed that we haven't even thought about, but we don't know yet. And we're just only starting to see.

We don't, we don't know. We don't know the answer to any of these things. And if you ask, if you look at any of the interviews of anybody who's, you know, in the forefront or who are like thinkers in this space, no one knows the answers. No one can predict the future. But the reality is this though, it's like, I do feel like we can all just sit there and put up, what, do you say that? Yeah, pontificate about this over and over again, or do we actually go, okay, well, like we're not stopping this train. So what are you gonna do about that?

to be able to Yep.

Like I don't think a 20 year old or a 20 year old right now is to be like hoping, I hope you're not, if you're a 20 year old listening to this, I hope you're not waiting for someone to figure that out for you. Because this is on you. Like you got to figure, I mean, I got a 17 year old who's about to go to school university. And the question in my head is like, do you need to go? And I think she thinks that too. And I worry about my son. Like, does he need to go? I don't know. But the reality is like, I can't do it for them. They have to figure it out on their own and they got to do.

you

whatever that's necessary to prepare for a world that whether or not going to university or not going to university, regardless, the job market, it is gonna be the way it is. So therefore, you better do learn everything possible to figure out what you need to figure out to at least better prepare yourself. And are you gonna get it wrong? Maybe. Are you gonna get it right? Maybe. Again, this is we don't know. So you may as well hedge your bets on certain things that are most likely gonna be. can't be erased or can't be overtaken. And I think that there's a couple things we already talked about before in the previous part. You mentioned this already, cognitive thinking, like the ability to be able to think critical, sorry, critical thinking, be able to think critically for yourself. I think number two is definitely communication, like your ability to be able to communicate values and be able to communicate with others. I think that is still valuable. I don't think that's going away anytime soon. We do live in a human world. We have AI assistance, but we still live in a human world, getting communication is always gonna be a real thing, and that's gonna be very helpful. um I do think three, as a skillset, is adaptability. Like, your ability to not get stuck on one identity or one idea, and to be able to adapt and take the world as it is, and somehow mold your skill to the world, I think that skill's gonna be very, very important moving through this transition. So if you don't have any of those three skills, That's what I'll be doing if I was in my 20s. I'll be like making sure I go, how do I learn that? Because it's gonna take time. It's not like one of those downloadable moments in Matrix that you can just plug it in and go, okay, I'm adaptable now, or I couldn't communicate. No, you're have to go through it. So which means, may as well, as the world figures out what it's gonna look like, you may as well develop these skills so that when you need to apply them to whatever realm, you're ready for it rather than going, oh, there's this job opportunity, but. I need to have these skills for it. And then all of sudden, you're always constantly behind. It's just like, I think it requires self-ambition. oh we need to stop relying on ah being coddled. I still feel like we need to be relying on our self-efficiency of wanting to be better and having curiosity to pursue those things. And we need to develop the skills that that's necessary. I'm involved in all these things and my thinking is because... I mean, let's face it, Jim, like you and I have been talking about this for quite a long time, but like we're preparing for a different age of our life. We're preparing for how do I become like mobile, functional, healthy, cognitively healthy, know, emotionally stable when we're 80 to 90 years old, right? And we're doing everything possible to prepare for something that hasn't happened yet in 30 years from now. I don't know what the world's going to look like when we're 80, but one thing for sure, I definitely want to be cognitively like switched on, I want to be able to have like amazing conversation. I still want to be physically fit enough to be able to, you know, walk up hills and run and play sport when I'm 80 years old, right? So therefore you go backwards and go, if I want that, then I need to do X, Y and Z now. Well, it's no different. We're just going for a different element. And I think the, you know, these kids coming through, it's going to have to start thinking about it rather than being worried about it. Let's start using your worry and translate it to some action.

. Yeah, I'm complete. I think that uh the process has led to further reinforcement of that. This isn't just a uh thing. It's not a fan. It's a, it's going to be a way of life and the people who asked a bit of questions, uh, view the world challenge established norms and are adaptable. As you said, are going to be the people that, uh uh, not only thrive, not only survive, but thrive really moving forward. That's, that's at least the way I see it.

Yep, ask better questions because it's on you basically. So this is Wabi Sabi, the art of imperfection. Just know that the answers you might get will be imperfect, but you should do it anyways. I hope that it's been helpful and we'll see you on the next episode. Take care.