Embodying Purpose: Creativity, Coaching, and the Emotional Path Forward

In this conversation, Tripp Johnson and Marcus Shumate explore various themes including emotional cycles, the art of cooking, the differences between coaching and therapy, the importance of mentorship, and the complexities of intentions and perceptions. They also delve into psychoanalysis and non-dualism, discussing how these perspectives can intersect and inform personal growth. The dialogue emphasizes the value of finding common ground in diverse beliefs and experiences. In this conversation, Marcus Shumate and Tripp Johnson explore the complexities of human connection, the value of mentorship and coaching, and the importance of finding the right therapist. They discuss the challenges of differing worldviews, the role of motivation in learning, and the dynamics of therapeutic relationships. The dialogue emphasizes the necessity of human interaction in personal growth and the importance of being open to guidance while also maintaining discernment in relationships.

00:00 Navigating Emotional Cycles
03:12 The Art of Cooking and Passion Projects
06:03 Coaching vs. Therapy: A Deep Dive
09:08 The Role of Mentorship in Personal Growth
11:48 Understanding Intentions and Perceptions
14:57 Psychoanalysis and Non-Dualism: Bridging Perspectives
17:59 Finding Common Ground in Diverse Beliefs
21:52 The Challenge of Worldviews
23:02 The Value of Human Connection
25:44 Navigating Learning and Motivation
30:04 The Role of Coaching and Mentorship
34:01 Finding the Right Therapist
39:55 The Dynamics of Therapeutic Relationships

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Transcript

Tripp Johnson (00:01.893)
Hair's falling out, zit on my face, testosterone levels must be high today. No wonder I'm feeling great.

Marcus Shumate (00:07.05)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. You hadn't even lifted in three weeks.

Tripp Johnson (00:12.324)
No, I don't know what's going on with that. It's only been two weeks, let me be clear. But I am, like I'm not even motivated to right now and I'm kind of okay with that, but I'm feeling a little guilty and I'm worried that you're gonna catch my gains.

Marcus Shumate (00:28.878)
dude, I'm already, I'm already calling you. Yeah, don't... I'm fretting on it. I'm already going last to him. Yeah, I just forgot.

Tripp Johnson (00:32.167)
Okay. Okay. All right. All right. Well, we'll see. When are you going to be? When are you going to be in Raleigh again?

Marcus Shumate (00:44.31)
Yeah, whenever I need to be apparently right now.

Tripp Johnson (00:47.611)
Look, I got a guest pass and we will, we'll have a throw down here at the old Chapel Hill Carboro YMCA.

Marcus Shumate (00:55.638)
Yeah, let's do it, god. How are you doing? How's the overall, man? How you doing?

Tripp Johnson (01:04.901)
I'm actually like, I'll say like, I'm, like last week was a rough week for me. Well, especially like I had a couple of bad days, but now I've come to like really get okay with that because usually it means like a lot of good stuff is about to come and it's like a cycle I'm used to.

Marcus Shumate (01:26.174)
Yeah, when you say that, I know you don't mean that in a woo woo sort of way. Can you elaborate a little bit?

Tripp Johnson (01:31.48)
Yeah, I actually, I wish I had the book I was reading earlier. you know, I have learned that, any, really any sort of emotional high physical high, any high is accompanied with some sort of crash. Right. And I think the inverse is also true. So a lot of times when something is pretty bad, especially just personally, internally, whatever that like, I, I think it's, it's usually a sign that, you know, something needs to be nice to shift something.

Marcus Shumate (01:40.61)
Mm.

Tripp Johnson (02:01.082)
But I have found that the, you know, there's a post I'm working on. is like finding clarity in the depths of despair where I've found like these really low points that used to like bum me out and like legitimately get me borderline, you know, like suicidal ideation. I started journaling a lot about those seven or eight years ago. And what I found was, you know, almost always within a few days,

Marcus Shumate (02:26.061)
No.

Tripp Johnson (02:30.637)
something like there was some kind of mental breakthrough that I was struggling like I've been beating my head against the wall kind of feeling and then like by letting go, you know created space for something new to emerge or something

Marcus Shumate (02:45.324)
Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I got this cycles like that too. I think in years past, I've always embraced maybe more of a stupid kind of meathead response to it. Like just try to grind through, but there's like such diminishing returns to that for me. Sometimes it's just better for me to just take a day off and not try to get anything done. could do, you end up forcing something that's not there and then just can't.

can't do anything, right? It's just not... anything that I... anything that I accomplish is just not good quality or worth it. I'm just going to redo it anyway.

Tripp Johnson (03:23.147)
Yeah. And that's, mean, I've just learned to step away. Like if it's not working, just like let it go for a little bit. And, yeah. But how are you doing? You had a big, big ramen cooking night last night or all weekend, right? Getting that broth ready.

Marcus Shumate (03:41.294)
Yeah, dude. Yeah, man, I think both you and I share this in common. We have these like complete fixations that we just get lost into something. And I for a while yours was chili crisp oil and homemaking it and everything. Mine was this weekend, man. was talking to the jujitsu teammate and got it in my head that I really wanted to make some homemade ramen and got a great Asian superfood store here and went, bought pig neck bones and started.

boiled them and made a tonkatsu broth and turned out killer. So good.

Tripp Johnson (04:17.987)
I'm going home in about an hour and I have an hour to make ramen tonight, which as you as I know, as you know, Mr. Miyagi over here knows that it takes like 48 hours to make a broth. But this truncated vegan version is the best that my family is going to get tonight.

Marcus Shumate (04:27.362)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (04:39.278)
Yeah, yeah, well, you're not gonna throw it. You don't need to bowl pinpoint big bones down. So you're probably good Yeah, man, but uh, yeah had a big ramen weekend had some good time on the mats and got a couple of really good lifting sessions in and you know Woke up pretty foggy this morning though. So probably every But there we go Bingo man

Tripp Johnson (04:59.726)
Mmm. So I'm just here to shake out the cobwebs so you can create some shareholder value.

Marcus Shumate (05:07.337)
Exactly, yeah.

Tripp Johnson (05:09.762)
The tariffs aren't helping us yet.

Marcus Shumate (05:11.872)
No, not yet. God, man, that's fucking crazy, It's a weird time, man. We've been talking about these men's issues sort of thing the last couple of episodes, and I find it like, I find all of this stuff that's happening right now very interesting through that lens, right? Like.

Tripp Johnson (05:17.423)
That's a weird time.

Marcus Shumate (05:36.414)
Talk about this idea of like coaching, you know, like the difference between coaching and therapy and value and all that sort of stuff. It just right now strikes me as like, we've got so many fucking grifters, man. Like it's, it's wild to watch what's happening in politics and the online space right now. you know, so it's like an initial volley I have with some of this stuff, but it drives me crazy. Like that.

Tripp Johnson (06:03.908)
Yeah

I don't think it's a good sign of what's to come. and I just, I don't know if we can reverse the living in our own algorithmic bubbles. mean, that's the algorithm knows how to tickle our fancies and, and the more we do that, the weirder it gets and the more individual it is. And, know, I was thinking the other day that it's probably a couple of years away when, know, like, I don't,

Marcus Shumate (06:09.485)
No.

Marcus Shumate (06:16.908)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (06:22.67)
Well.

Tripp Johnson (06:36.503)
Did you ever get much into visualization, whether it was for jujitsu or anything else? Was that ever like a thing? I never got like a, like super, super into it, but when I was playing tennis and I did have some like performance psychologists in college and I, I don't know the evidence, but like a lot of people believe in visualization and I think there's some, some evidence as to like performance. Like if you can't train, you can't do things that you can't actually get a lot of the benefits from like really visualizing what it's like.

Marcus Shumate (06:41.878)
Nah, not for me.

Marcus Shumate (06:51.33)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (07:06.562)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (07:07.586)
But I think within a couple of years, like we're literally going to have movies where we just insert ourselves as the protagonist. I mean, I think it's, I think this stuff is happening so fast that now all of a sudden we're like the character in the movie and we can feel it even more, which just moves us closer to being like brains in a vat, if you ask me.

Marcus Shumate (07:15.595)
Interesting

Marcus Shumate (07:29.954)
Yeah, we're living in like a postmodernist dystopian wet dream of construct upon construct upon construct right now. Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (07:43.268)
What do we want to dig into? A little more men? What were we thinking about?

Marcus Shumate (07:49.486)
Yeah. mean, I want to like, I want to hear some of your thoughts on like, I'm gonna like chat a little more about like coaching and stuff and thoughts on that. like we've, I think we're both people that have like, you know, done a foray into therapy and tried therapy and neither one of us have ever found it particularly helpful. Um, but like there's some element of it that's really interesting to me. And I,

For me, one of the things that I notice is like, tend to gravitate towards coaching in anything, like whatever. I think I resting state curiosity, I'm interested in a great many things. And so the whole adage, when the student's ready, the teacher appears. So I'm pretty interested in your thoughts on coaching versus therapy and how you've applied some of that.

Tripp Johnson (08:20.662)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (08:41.665)
Well, I think the first thing I would say is like, I'm huge on just mentorship and learning from others in general. Like if you don't have to recreate the wheel, if you can learn from others lessons, go ahead and do it. It's just quite frankly, it's inefficient not to. and my, recently gotten interested again in coaching because I did a weekend embodied life workshop that was not

anything I would have normally done, but one of the guys I did it with, it has been a serial, serial entrepreneur. And he's on a four year sabbatical right now where he's gone through a coaching certification. And. You know, one of the things like I'm, it's not always fair. So let me first say, you know, like just like whether it's any sort of mental health counseling or substance use treatment, I don't think that you have to have.

Marcus Shumate (09:22.902)
Interesting, okay.

Tripp Johnson (09:37.938)
overcome the same challenges to help others overcome them. And I think that's a really important and that's true in coaching, whatever. But like for me personally, I'm very interested. I've found that, I have a great network and access to what I consider just brilliant, brilliant people. But oftentimes where they're coming from doesn't apply much to my situation. So, for example, I might have

phenomenal CEO executive type mentorship of, you know, giant, giant companies, know, $13 billion revenue companies. But they are just not familiar with the challenges that I face as like an entrepreneurial CEO. And so some of their mental models are very helpful, but their experience is not with the same type of thing that I'm going through right now.

Marcus Shumate (10:23.244)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tripp Johnson (10:32.642)
So that's what made me first really interested in this guy is marrying both the entrepreneurial side and he has a deep interest in psychology, you know, the enlightenment waking up project and this broader human development kind of thesis that there are a lot of people who have models for human development, but this guy's coaching is very much in kind of the spirit of Ken Wilber's integral theory and the idea that there are

Marcus Shumate (10:32.717)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (10:59.062)
There's like a waking up element to human development and a growing up element to it. And so bringing those together, I think is really, really fascinating to me. so that's, that's kind of where I am and I'm, interested in getting a coach, and getting started.

Marcus Shumate (11:17.004)
Yeah. What do you think that will ultimately end up looking like for you though?

Tripp Johnson (11:21.836)
I don't know. He's going to send me a proposal. I think we're going to meet weekly. I think it's going to be a little bit of a hybrid. He's doing a lot of startup advising. He's built a couple of tech companies. So I think it's going to be a little bit of a blend of like advising and a blend of actual coaching. My guess is as we were, were kind of chatting before I'm reading a book on self-awareness and it's

Marcus Shumate (11:41.122)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (11:48.511)
It's really made me turn the attention. You know, I think I have incredible insight internally, but I think I'm like really, really lacking insight as it pertains to my relationships with others. And I think in, in a lot of places, I'm in a position of power, you know, as a CEO, but also just, you know, I've, I've lived a pretty privileged life. And so I think there were a lot of times where I'm coming.

You know, my intentions are not matching what's received. And I really want to close the gap between how I'm perceived and what I'm intending to get across.

Marcus Shumate (12:28.63)
Interesting. I like that.

Tripp Johnson (12:31.188)
Yeah, you didn't know you were actually going to have to do therapy today, did you?

Marcus Shumate (12:33.856)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm barely licensed.

Tripp Johnson (12:39.701)
Wait, but hold on. Let me actually ask, like try and put your therapist hat on because, know, I, know, like when we talk, especially around like substance use and recovery, you know, I think the big book said, you know, talks about terminal uniqueness and I am someone who suffers greatly from a feeling of terminal uniqueness at times. and so I think it makes me, and I was actually, I'll save that caveat, but I was talking to Nick about this because he was encouraging me to

Marcus Shumate (12:44.652)
Yeah, for sure.

Tripp Johnson (13:08.789)
you know, potentially join his, the group therapy, like the same people who do it. And they were coming from a psychoanalytic kind of perspective, which again, we'll pin that for later. But like, if I showed up, like if I got put on your caseload, knowing what you know about me, would that be like a fun thing? Like what, like how would you find me the right therapist?

Marcus Shumate (13:20.419)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (13:26.488)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (13:31.788)
Man,

So, I guess that's two separate things. A couple of thoughts. I mean, you were always the kind of guys that I liked working with, right? I always enjoy someone that's willing to engage and have verbal sparring, wringing out ideas, on a very selfish level, that's the sort of stuff I thrive off of, right? I'm an extra officer. I make sense of things by talking out loud.

Tripp Johnson (13:43.336)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (13:57.438)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (14:03.576)
putting a half-assed idea out and then getting excited about it and having it sort of chewed up and spit back at me and then going back and forth, right? You know, I think the problem with, you know, guys like you in therapy, it's like, what the hell are you here for, right? Because it's not, like, we're not going to generate insight, right? Like you're someone that's deeply contemplative, like...

Tripp Johnson (14:25.151)
Thanks.

Marcus Shumate (14:28.958)
So what's the purpose of this? And so then it becomes much more of a, you know, utilitarian sort of perspective, which in some ways the carrot, right, becomes the banter of the back and forth. But then it becomes like a, know, like what are your practical goals? And I think you already know that, right? Like it's, I want to close that gap between how my intentions and how it is that I've experienced. And so then it just becomes like a...

Tripp Johnson (14:34.431)
So.

Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (14:57.312)
a very didactic sort of experience in therapy, right? Like it becomes a, when you and I were sparring, now you said X, I felt this, this is exactly what we're talking about. This is where you, this is the relationship dynamic put into practice, right? And we're just mirroring it right now.

Tripp Johnson (15:15.904)
So I don't know much about like psychoanalysis other than I feel like it's a bunch of frou frou about unconscious mind. it, and it doesn't necessarily stem from what I'll say is like prince, like truth or like first principles. But one thing I find interesting is I have not met many people who are really into psychoanalysis who aren't exceptionally smart. And that, that to me is a weird thing because it's

Marcus Shumate (15:21.772)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (15:31.309)
Right.

Marcus Shumate (15:41.239)
Agreed.

Tripp Johnson (15:44.608)
you know, as, as our, you know, atheist on the podcast, it's like, can, I can just, I can have a real intellectual relationship with someone who believes in God and just kind of like write that piece off. And so I kind of wonder about, you know, the psychoanalysis, it's sure the mechanism is not the one that you're attributing it to, but we can do some really useful work because what you actually just explained in like my treatment goals,

Marcus Shumate (15:56.544)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (16:14.619)
in terms of reflecting back things kind of close to real time was very much what Nick said, like his process in group and like their therapists are always like, what are you experiencing now? What's going on right now versus like any sort of what happened in the past? Why do you think you're this way? You know, what thought are you having? What are you feeling? What's your body doing? Like just hammering that home. and I don't know if that psychoanalysis that just happens to be a tool and in general,

Marcus Shumate (16:18.531)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (16:44.542)
kind of toolkits.

Marcus Shumate (16:46.306)
You know, your point about psychoanalysis is like, is interesting, right? Cause you're right. Like it's, I've never met, I think so much of it is buck, right? Like so much of it is like, think it's just, it's patently insane, right? Like I forgot what it's called. There's a psychoanalytic theory called like,

like breast screen or something, right? And it's this idea that you have this attachment to you, like this image of your mother's breast or something and like you project, yeah, and like you're projecting it on the different situations and you just get into these like crazy like rabbit holes of just wherever it becomes so self-referential, but it's not useful, right? But on the other hand,

I do see a lot of overlap between like non-dualism and analysis, or at least some like they're adjacent to each other at different points, right? And so one perfect example, there's this essay that I love called, from a psychoanalyst called Beyond, and I can't remember his first name when I butcher it, and it'd be really clear that I'm from Eastern North Carolina if I tried to land his first name, but.

Tripp Johnson (17:48.989)
Thanks.

Tripp Johnson (17:53.111)
So

Marcus Shumate (17:59.51)
It's called On Memory and Desire, and it's like page and a half or something. I think I've probably shared it with you over the years, but essentially the idea is, his argument is that the proper psychoanalytic stance is that you have no memory of your patient and you have no desire for your patient. You're just sort of receiving. And the idea is that we carry these constructs or these ideas of people in our head, and we're always interfacing with the idea that we have of that person.

Tripp Johnson (18:07.965)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (18:28.662)
And so the proper training for an analyst is to be able to recognize that I'm coming into this with this construct of trip, right? Rarely am I totally present, right? Like I'm interacting with my perception of what trip is in any given moment. And that could be, you know, if I'm feeling insecure or if I'm feeling...

Tripp Johnson (18:35.9)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (18:50.038)
you know, whatever, and you're coming at me with a certain type of energy, and then I'm responding to this, you know, my insecurity melding with this energy, and I'm in my past with you or whatever, versus how do you become fully present with someone? And that means like letting go of memory of that person or desire for that person or desires you have for that person. And so I think like, you know, if you take that as like a rest, it's sort of...

Tripp Johnson (19:13.691)
Thanks.

Marcus Shumate (19:17.262)
tool in the Psychoanalyst training, right? Like that's their default. That sounds a whole lot like non-dualism, right?

Tripp Johnson (19:19.421)
Well, yeah. And even like what you were just saying was very Donald Hoffman esque in terms of, know, the graphic user interface. Like we don't interface with the world. We interface with what we perceive as the world and what we're able to perceive as evolutionary in nature. And

Marcus Shumate (19:34.124)
Thank

Tripp Johnson (19:46.94)
yeah, I mean, again, I think like any of these schools of thought, you know, they're, they are, if you're honest about it, it can get you closer to whatever truth is, but you may have to, you know, you may have to accept a bunch of crazy claims, you know, just like what I think of with religion. Like there's a lot of, you know, the golden rule is great. Turn the other cheek. Great. I don't necessarily have to.

Marcus Shumate (19:58.594)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (20:16.305)
believe in bodies turning into bread to get the goodness out of it. And I can kind of throw out some of the Leviticus stuff.

Marcus Shumate (20:24.492)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (20:27.034)
But yeah, I mean, one thing that I found, you know, as I'm getting maybe more mature in a worldview and in terms of understanding others is they are all it's that Zen saying, right? Like don't mistake the finger for the moon. So like what you're pointing towards, isn't it? I don't know. I mean, I guess I'm becoming more tolerant that like we're just going to agree to disagree for whatever reason on

Marcus Shumate (20:43.939)
Yes.

Tripp Johnson (20:56.647)
Things that I find like somewhat foundational and hard to like really, you know, it's hard for me to get over it, but I think I've gotten better in the last couple of years. Like I'm, I'm trying to be more generous to other people that we don't have to wholesale agree on everything for me to take lessons that are very valuable from some.

Marcus Shumate (21:21.282)
Yeah, it's interesting.

had some experience recently that just perfectly captures that. I have a friend or Jiu-Jitsu teammate that in any other context I would never interact with or have anything to do with. Just not a whole lot of overlapping life interests beyond Jiu-Jitsu. And so she's super into astrology and crystals and...

honestly, one of the most gullible human beings I've ever met in my entire life. Like you can't really joke with her because you have to, like, she can't not bite something like hook, line and sink. So it's almost like cruel to joke with her, right? Like you're playing, like, it can't help herself. And so we were having some conversation recently where she was like offering to read me my spirit animal cards or some stuff like that. And it was like,

Tripp Johnson (21:52.316)
you

Tripp Johnson (21:58.502)
Thank

Tripp Johnson (22:10.171)
Thanks.

Marcus Shumate (22:22.254)
I can't tell you how much I disagree with like, or just like how, how little value I find in that and implausible or something to that effect. Right. And she's like, but it's a science. It's been around for 10,000 years or something. And was like, you know what? We just can move on. We just, don't have to talk about this. There's no, you know, like we, so fundamentally, we don't, we're so far off in terms of like worldview that I have no idea how we.

Tripp Johnson (22:44.54)
So maybe a little bit of a hard segue, but you know, one of the questions I've got rattling around is as we've talked about therapy, we just touched on coaching.

Marcus Shumate (22:51.416)
would even begin to bridge the gap in this. So let's just enjoy each other's company in the only way that we can and let's move on.

Marcus Shumate (23:06.21)
Thank you.

Tripp Johnson (23:14.875)
And I guess I'm wondering, you know, what's the value of a human in the loop? And, know, what I mean by that is, I'm someone who tends to be very self motivated when I want to learn something.

Marcus Shumate (23:32.461)
Yeah, yeah.

Tripp Johnson (23:34.039)
And I definitely value a human in the loop, but one of the things that I, I mean, I'm increasingly struggling to find maybe the right people to get in the loop, like the right, whether it's advisors, coaches, you know, to help me both personally and professionally, like I don't need a trainer to go to the gym, you know, like I'm, and, that's, it's not something like, I don't need to commit to a trainer. Like if I,

Marcus Shumate (23:50.263)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (24:02.392)
you know, weren't doing yoga, other running, et cetera. Like I might need an external motivator to get me to show up to do some sort of physical activity. And then same thing, I think can be true about learning, you know, new technical skills for work or anything else. And now that we've got AI, which to me is like the best, you know, assistant and teacher trainer in some way.

Marcus Shumate (24:11.895)
Yeah, yeah.

Tripp Johnson (24:30.563)
Not going to go so far as to call it a coach and a therapist yet, but you know, I, like, our CTO asked me to start learning a little WordPress and I'm not going to go find a mentor to teach me this. I'm going to use Chad GPT, or, know, and I do enjoy like reading books and, and even though sometimes it's not like the best, the quickest way to gain certain insight.

I believe in kind of a lattice work of knowledge and understanding. And the more you read, the more you can build out this kind of inclusive framework to navigate the world. But one of the things that gets me and one of the reasons why I guess I would be a challenging patient or client to some people and a fun one to others is like, I'm kind of coming armed with a lot of like the right information or at least I think I am.

Marcus Shumate (25:03.757)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (25:25.794)
Right. I'm going to at least be a learned person that you're going to have to be on your A game with, or I'm going to write you off. So sorry. The question goes like, what's the, I'm just wondering why do we have, why do we need humans in the loop or do we, and what do you see the value in that?

Marcus Shumate (25:31.234)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (25:44.61)
Yeah, mean, it is an interesting question, right? You so my initial thought to that is like, why do we need humans? Because we're primates, we're communal creatures, all that sort of stuff, right? And I think that's a really simple answer, but I still think it's true. I'm not terribly dissimilar from you, right? Like if I become interested and I want to pursue something, I just jump in and I'm gonna learn, I'm gonna...

I'm going to make all my and fail and just get incrementally better. But the process of doing that for me is always enhanced by like doing it with another human or having like some sort of human involved, even if it's just on the like feel, like just the feeling level, right? A little is better. And I give a very, I'll hang some meat on that and make it very practical example. When you and I, like you and I in the last year or so gotten

Tripp Johnson (26:28.154)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (26:42.51)
into lifting and we use a similar app and we end up screenshotting our workouts, our lifts or what we fit. And when you send me one of those things, it gets me motivated in some sort of way. To your point, we joked around about it at the, know, even at the beginning, right? Like, oh man, I gotta catch up a little bit. Like I got a, I didn't want to lift this weekend. I was exhausted and really didn't, wasn't feeling it, but there is this like general.

Tripp Johnson (26:57.666)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (27:11.982)
Trajectory that I'm trying to kind of keep up with in response to you being in the loop on that I Think that's maybe just a core process for me and probably for most people right? That doesn't isn't just limited to something like that

Tripp Johnson (27:18.092)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (27:27.843)
Totally. And I mean, I think like the, the parallel to like having a sponsor or something is there. I mean, that's different because I guess that's what I'm interested in too, is like, I think my head gravitates towards like some sort of, I don't want to say power dynamics, but you know, like put it like some sort of hierarchy. Like if you're, if I'm coming to you for advice, you know, I like, we're either, I'm either coming to you, we're peers or you're coming to me.

Marcus Shumate (27:33.207)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (27:52.269)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (27:57.91)
And that ro I don't know that that's always like necessarily super helpful. well, I think for people like me, it tends to not allow me to receive the benefit I could from others at a peer or, you know, someone who I don't put as a, at a higher rung than myself. Like, I think there's a lot I have to learn from peers and people, you know, at a lower rung or whatever.

Marcus Shumate (27:57.975)
Mm.

Marcus Shumate (28:04.888)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (28:22.103)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (28:27.212)
That maybe I'm not doing enough.

Marcus Shumate (28:30.761)
interesting. Why do you think that is?

Tripp Johnson (28:36.834)
I mean, I think generally because I feel like I've worked really, not just like worked hard, but worked hard, thought hard.

Marcus Shumate (28:47.16)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (28:47.746)
put it like put in all the reps. And so when I come to a conclusion on whatever the issue is, like usually I've got a lot of evidence behind it. So I can discount people who maybe haven't put in all the work, even if they are actually just right on that example. yeah. And I don't know. I mean, I would also kick this back to you like on the, you know,

Marcus Shumate (29:00.995)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (29:16.138)
maybe the consulting front, because we've engaged, you whether it's marketing agencies, whether it's, you know, individuals to consult on specific problems. And I wouldn't say that we have been the most successful at that overall.

Marcus Shumate (29:31.971)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (29:34.676)
And yeah, like, I don't know what the so what is, or if you have any thoughts from it, but like I do, think it goes back to the uniqueness thing. And I think, you know, since we're fairly similar, I'd argue that I think sometimes like, when we know that it goes back to the fundamentals piece, like almost always the advice people are giving us is like really fundamental and we just haven't done the basics long enough to achieve success.

Marcus Shumate (29:58.508)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (30:04.341)
But we want some quick shortcut to get there. And when they're not offering the shortcut, when they start by saying, you got to be data driven, you got to create a sales funnel and you got to do X, Y, and Z. It's like, yeah, yeah, we already know that, but we need to, we need to trick. And it's like, well, then you just monitor and maintain and keep improving along the way. And it's like, that is the only answer. And like, yeah.

Marcus Shumate (30:07.03)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (30:26.466)
Yeah. Yeah. How do you get better by doing it? Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (30:32.408)
And then like, and then you get better at picking apart the system and what you need to get better at. And so like I see it, uh, and maybe we'll go to the astanga jujitsu kind of analogy, but like, I very much value having a teacher, you know, like I'm going to go, I'm going to wake up at three 30 on Wednesday so I can go practice with my teacher in Charlotte that morning. And

Marcus Shumate (30:50.168)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (30:56.802)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (30:59.847)
It's, I'm not looking to an Ashtanga teacher for enlightenment teachings. I'm looking for practical, physical adjustments and recommendations that I can't do on my end. and I have, because my spiritual side is, is kind of full, elsewhere and not that I'm not looking to that, but, I would even say, so my teacher in Charlotte, I would venture to say she's like more on the woo-woo side and has gotten more into

Marcus Shumate (31:06.476)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (31:29.451)
you know, kind of Hinduism, chanting, just like, you know, like my dad's really into chanting and X, Y, and Z. And I'm like, I, these are all tools maybe, but I don't need them for the waking up project or whatever. but I, you know, like I, I do value it. And then I, like, I value the hierarchy there. Cause I do like in my life, like I want to go there and I just want to be a student and I want someone else to be in charge for a little.

Marcus Shumate (31:32.674)
it's

Marcus Shumate (31:40.27)
Mm-hmm.

Right, right.

Marcus Shumate (31:55.341)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (31:59.084)
Yeah. It's, there is something, I mean, for me, there's something in coaching or getting consulted on, you know, any sort of thing where perhaps the benefit is that like in this moment, I'm suspending my ego. I don't, I mean, ego, both in the sort of Eastern sense, but also in the like psychoanalytic stance, like where we can become, you know,

Tripp Johnson (32:16.799)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (32:27.54)
Ego, egotistical or something, right? In that moment, think there's, it's subjecting yourself to coaching is a sort of intentional surrender of the ego. And in that moment, I am willing to become the student, right? And I just value in that sometimes, right? Like even if it's just a, a contemplative exercise, right? Like why, you know, why do you sit on it?

Tripp Johnson (32:29.151)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (32:55.17)
why do I wake up in the morning, sit down and close my eyes for 10 minutes and meditate or whatever, or have a sitting practice? It's like, because there's value in the exercise of it. But, you know, I've done it long enough now that I can, you know, if I catch myself in my head or I'm like suffering needlessly, I am...

Tripp Johnson (33:09.559)
you

Marcus Shumate (33:20.75)
at a place in my own contemplative practice where can pierce through that and come back to presentness in some sort of way. But that doesn't change the fact that there's still some value in me having that practice. Like I don't think I'm gonna gain new insights from it. I don't think I'm gonna have some sort of ego death sort of experience or anything, like nothing profound is ever going to happen.

I'm not going to notice or see anything else, right? It's all there anyway. But it's the act of doing it, I think, has value in and of itself. So that's what I would say I think the value of coaching is.

Tripp Johnson (34:01.333)
Well, we're going to I'm going to put a pin on this and I think either next episode or in the future, I'm going to start out with the question, do you think you're enlightened? Because I think that would be a really fun one to tease out some

ideas around the contemplative side of things. and everyone will think that we've been getting high on our own supply, but, I, maybe in, as we kind of wrap up, you know, I, as someone who is now, took a pause from kind of external parties, giving me feedback for the last two years, because I think I'd been doing too much of that. And, you know, I, I saw a quote on, on LinkedIn, I think today,

Marcus Shumate (34:22.19)
There it did.

Marcus Shumate (34:39.65)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (34:43.125)
You know, more businesses fail from friends advice than they do like business problems. And like, if you ask too many people for advice, it just comes into conflict. And then you're spending all your time, like trying to figure out how to listen to. But as I go back into a place where I'm like, okay, I need to do some work on myself. I want to smooth out certain facets of my being or life or whatnot.

I mean, I'm certainly thinking like, what do I need to come to the relationship with? And so I'd be curious what your thoughts are if you were giving, especially like a guy advice who maybe hasn't engaged in therapy.

Marcus Shumate (35:14.221)
Mm.

Marcus Shumate (35:22.701)
Yeah, yeah,

Tripp Johnson (35:24.202)
What's kind of the nuanced perspective of finding the right therapist in terms of like, is this person actually good for me? Let me not just like go in like crystal's lady and be like, you're the one in charge. Like I'm deferring to you entirely, but also, you know, be able to get the most out of the experience, regardless of, you know, differences in semantics or, Hey, I really want to get my,

Marcus Shumate (35:35.694)
Right, right, Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (35:51.38)
Yeah, I want to get something in my life together, but this therapist doesn't have that thing in their life together, so why would I listen to them? Maybe even reframe that or rephrase it, because that was not a good framing.

Marcus Shumate (36:02.742)
No, I mean, so essentially like, how do you find a good therapist or a good therapist match or good coaching match? I mean,

Tripp Johnson (36:08.755)
Well, and how do you, let me, let me refine the match piece. Like that's you vetting them. Right. But then how do you do the work to show up to get the most out of it? Like, you know, and again, there may be some mutual vetting type thing, but like, think it's twofold. One, it's like, I need to use discernment to see, this person going to be able to, to help? And if I'm going to continue with them, I need to put some.

faith into the process and how do I show up well even though no one's going to be a god-like being?

Marcus Shumate (36:44.342)
Yeah, I mean, I think generally this is interesting. This is like, goes right back to what we talking about earlier. It's the, it's doing the fundamentals, right? Like if I'm going to show up and engage in therapy or something like that or coaching, then you should probably do what the person's asking you to do, right?

And I think about a lot of clients and stuff that I had a guy one time that would, come into my office a couple of times a week and he would sit out and he was just sort of this depressed Eeyore. He was like, cool man, have you worked out today? No. Have you had any water today? No. Have you, like, what time did you go to bed last night? Like one o'clock in the morning or something, right? Like, and it's like, well, dude, how, like, how are you gonna, like, there's nothing I'm gonna tell you that's gonna make you feel better, right? Like you're running with an anchor right now.

So like until you do these foundational things, like what are you going to get out of it? And so I think that that's sort of it, right? Like you have to kind of show up and do your part. Um, and so I think in terms of, you know, back to the discernment piece and trying to find the right match, it's generally finding someone that's going to be probably at least give you good advice, right? Like, and I know that sounds really basic, but

Tripp Johnson (37:37.502)
Thanks.

Tripp Johnson (37:45.515)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (38:02.604)
I'm not going to go to someone that's going to tell me to do something that I'm just going to do, right? Or just violate internal code or ethics or something, something that's a hard line for me, right? If I show up to a therapist and they start telling me, reading my astrological signs, it's too big of a hurdle to clear. I can't suspend that level of just engaging it, right? So I think, and I'm never going to do the work to show up well for someone like that.

Tripp Johnson (38:07.283)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (38:22.907)
Mm.

Tripp Johnson (38:32.468)
So I think that's actually a good way to phrase it. Like I have the don't ask for advice if you're not going to take it kind of moniker. And so I was asking for too much advice and I was taking bits and pieces. And so I decided like just quit asking for advice. Like you got to dig yourself out of this hole. And now as I'm showing back up, I am trying to do the work ahead of time to then

Marcus Shumate (38:40.91)
I love that,

Marcus Shumate (38:53.006)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (38:59.793)
be in a place if I'm going to ask for feedback on it. you know, like, it doesn't mean I'm blindly going to follow, but it means like, if I keep not listening to a person, then I need to just end the relationship. Like it's not a power struggle. Like they're, they're not getting anything out of it for me to show them that I was right and they were wrong. Like I went to them for their help. And I think sometimes like people get pitted in that relationship, probably with therapists. Like I feel like a,

Marcus Shumate (39:03.406)
Hmm

Marcus Shumate (39:23.523)
Yeah, yeah.

Tripp Johnson (39:29.491)
you know, you hear that with, um, you know, power struggles in therapy. And it's like at some level and, and again, depending on where you are, you know, this may not be true in early stages of recovery where you just need to listen, right? But if you're working on maybe these finer points and kind of human evolution, then, know, if it's not working just in the relationship, but don't

Marcus Shumate (39:29.71)
Mm.

Marcus Shumate (39:44.674)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (39:55.527)
Don't show up and try and get in a struggle with them. Just say, isn't what I need anymore.

Marcus Shumate (40:00.342)
Yeah, the health rejecting complainer.

Tripp Johnson (40:04.369)
Yeah. Yes. Help. I like that. Help rejecting complainer.

Marcus Shumate (40:05.324)
That's terrible. Yeah, yeah.

Marcus Shumate (40:10.861)
Yeah, yeah.

Tripp Johnson (40:12.305)
I don't think I've ever heard that.

Marcus Shumate (40:14.594)
yeah, yeah, that's a, I don't know where I heard it at some point in time, but they're the worst sort of people. They're just the people I dislike being around about as much as even like therapeutic context. Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (40:27.473)
Yeah.

Interesting.

Tripp Johnson (40:36.592)
Well, I mean, I think, I guess that's a wrap. mean, I got to say, like, I don't know. I'm curious if, one of our three followers has enjoyed our last few conversations. Cause to me, they feel like we're, we're, we're circling the drain on something, or at least there's a, there's a thread that I feel like we're, we're following and I like where it's going.

Marcus Shumate (40:39.758)
You're just a rapper.

Marcus Shumate (40:53.559)
Yeah, yeah.

Marcus Shumate (40:58.028)
Yeah, I do too. Well, till next time. See you, dude.

Tripp Johnson (40:59.726)
Alright, until next time.