116: Jacob Nordby | Rethinking Freedom: Purpose, Ritual, and the Value of Being

In this conversation with author and speaker Jacob Nordby, we explore the paradox of freedom in modern life. Is it simply doing whatever we want—or does real freedom require something deeper?

While many consider freedom to be about doing whatever they want without constraints, Jacob challenges this perception. "A lot of people assume that freedom means the ability to do whatever they want," he reflects, "but we're learning that most of what we think and believe happens pretty unconsciously." True freedom, it seems, requires the difficult work of self-awareness and introspection.

Jacob challenges common ideas about success, self-determination, and meaning. Together, we dive into how societal norms shape our values, why unpaid or “unproductive” work (like parenting or crafting) is deeply meaningful, and how rituals in everyday life can reconnect us to purpose. Jacob shares tools for navigating difficult times and reclaiming inner freedom.

“The great victory isn’t avoiding difficulty—it’s knowing we can respond with resilience.”

🎁 Get Jacob’s free journaling tools at https://instituteforcreativeliving.org/creative-self-journal-program 

🔗 Connect with Jacob Nordby
Website: https://www.jacobnordby.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jacobnordby
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/author.jacobnordby
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jacobnordby/ 

📚 Books mentioned: 
Man's Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Wall Kimmerer
Modern Man in Search of a Soul  – Carl Jung
Prometheus Rising – Robert Anton Wilson

🗓️ Recorded April 16th, 2025. 📍Vienna, Austria

Chapters

• 0:00 Defining Freedom in America and Beyond
• 8:46 Authenticity, Health, and Decision-Making
• 17:59 Finding Meaning Outside Religion
• 27:14 The Value Beyond Monetary Worth
• 41:06 Counterintuitive Steps to Improvement
• 54:49 Tools for Navigating Life's Despair

Transcript

Jesper Conrad: 0:10

Today we're together with Jacob Nordby and, first of all, super good to see you again, jacob. How have you been since last time?

Jacob Nordby: 0:19

Oh, it's so good to see both of you too, and I've been well. I've had some big changes in my world and I feel really honored to be invited back. Thanks for having me back on.

Jesper Conrad: 0:30

It is 15 episodes since the last one and I think that if people haven't heard it, I recommend you go back. It's episode 101, and it was in our world a chat in December and now it is April and we are in wonderful Austria, in our world, visiting a world school pop-up where our teens are out roaming with the other teens that also travel full time and are enjoying life. So that's it's pretty awesome. It is.

Jacob Nordby: 1:02

Yeah, so I've never been to Austria, I've only been to Spain and Europe. But have you spent time in Austria before?

Cecilie Conrad: 1:10

Not really no, no. I did as a teenager.

Jesper Conrad: 1:14

Yeah, it is one of Europe's most expensive countries, so it's one of those that is good to avoid if you're traveling a lot. But otherwise it is. I mean, it's green, it's beautiful. There's a lot of art here in Vienna, yeah. But, jacob, one of the things I wanted to talk with you about was freedom, and when I say freedom, what comes to your mind?

Jacob Nordby: 1:47

Well, as you know, of course, I live in America and America has long held freedom as one of its top values, and so I've done a lot of thinking about that over the last couple of years very deeply. What is freedom? I think it's interesting. There's this idea of free will. Of course that's a pretty top level sort of a concept, but I think it filters down into more, you know, mundane, everyday kinds of things as well. But what's interesting to me, jesper, is that a lot of people assume that freedom means the ability to do whatever they want.

Jacob Nordby: 2:29

The trouble I have with some of these things is that we're learning more and more that most of what we think and believe and most of the reactions we have, you know, or responses to opportunities or stimulus, most of these things are happening pretty cognitively. We're most of the time making decisions based on past experiences and emotions, and then we use our logical mind, our prefrontal cortex, to jump in and justify those, those actions or those decisions. And what's interesting is, researchers have found that this emotional decision-making, and then logical reinforcement of it, is even more marked in those who consider themselves to be radical free thinkers, highly individualistic and highly intellectual, and so it's interesting that a lot of them will say emotion shouldn't come into this, but they're actually being driven by emotions, unconsciously, even more so than folks who don't consider themselves to be so intellectual. That's a really long way to walk around the barn, but I think that the question what is freedom? I think it's so crucial because I feel like a lot of us don't have as much access to it as we think we do.

Cecilie Conrad: 3:47

Do you have a link for the research you just mentioned?

Jacob Nordby: 3:51

I don't. I should look it up and see if I can send it to you. That's a good question.

Cecilie Conrad: 3:55

I don't. I should look it up and see if I can send it to you. That's a good question. Thank you, Because it's interesting and I think I would like to read it to find out what's behind the scenes there.

Jacob Nordby: 4:04

Yeah, I feel like I pulled some of this from Robert Cialdani's book Influence the five pillars of whatever that one was. Yeah, I feel like that was somewhat in there. Maybe part of it was coming from Anton Wilson's Robert Anton Wilson's book Prometheus Rising. But yeah, I think that's a good question. I'll look that up.

Cecilie Conrad: 4:24

I was just thinking. We talk a lot about freedom in our family and well, the basic definition of freedom is the freedom to do whatever you want to do, maybe restricted by not restricting anyone else's freedom. For the game to be fair, um, right, but recently I've been thinking about how, maybe, yeah, maybe, health is an interesting word to put into that equation. And I say that now because you said well, is it really a free choice? Are you just being pushed around by things and then you justify it after, uh, and you call it freedom, but actually you're responsive. So a healthy mind would be a more clear mind, right?

Cecilie Conrad: 5:24

In my opinion, a healthy mind can navigate this and know I have an emotional response and I I know I have it and I am affected by this, that and the other. I know what's in my backpack, I know my personality, I know what I've just seen on tv, I know my basic mood these days and within that whole framework, I can work with my decision making and that would give me that freedom. But also, I mean I'm a little tired of the word freedom, to be honest. Maybe it's authenticity, no, but I mean what does it really mean? It's, it's a little bit. Yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 6:09

I don't know what it tastes like, but authenticity, I would even say reality, can we venture into that? It might be more dangerous than freedom, though, to try to define that one. But I just think, if we think about health, do I have a healthy mind? Do I have a clear? Does it make sense? Am I babbling?

Jacob Nordby: 6:32

Not at all A little bit.

Cecilie Conrad: 6:32

Maybe I should just drink my coffee. Am I babbling? Not at all. A little bit.

Jacob Nordby: 6:34

Maybe I should just drink my coffee. No, no, what's interesting is and I didn't bring up that point about you know how much of our conscious, what we call conscious movement or decision making, you know, is actually driven by the unconscious as a sort of fatalistic thing. I think that we, we have to earn the capacity for greater and greater free will and therefore greater freedom. So to me it's like potential. Yes, we all have the potential of free will, but unless we do the hard work of what you just said, cecily, what's in my backpack? Who am I? The self-discovery. The more that we go through that process, I feel that that then becomes more clear.

Jacob Nordby: 7:18

In the moment when I'm being, you know, bombarded with stimulus, it becomes more clear that, oh, I need to actually take a step back. And there's that space between stimulus and response. You know that. Who was that Viktor Frankl talked about? And in that space, that's where our power to choose lies. And so to me, it's really a practice. Freedom for me is really a practice, and it has little to do with my external circumstances, you know, it's more of a who will I be in the face of this moment, no matter whether the moment is pleasurable or the moment is painful. Who will I be in this moment, of this moment, no matter whether?

Cecilie Conrad: 7:57

the moment is pleasurable or the moment is painful. Who will I be in this moment? You know? Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's quite interesting to realize that it's the introspection that gives you the freedom and that whatever restraints you think you have on the outside, restraints you think you have on the outside are not really relevant. It's not about how trapped you feel by your job or your mortgage or the number of kids you happen to put into this world, and now it's your problems. Take care of them, whatever. Whatever situation you got yourself entangled in, because what really restrains you from freedom and the benefits of freedom, which we should get to later, um, what really restrains you is your own mindset, your own attitude to the situation, how. It's not about what's going on, it's about how you take it. Right.

Cecilie Conrad: 8:57

I've said that so many times to my children. They get so annoyed. I start the sentence and they're like shut up mom. This is objectively annoying, and it's not about how I take it. It is annoying.

Jacob Nordby: 9:13

So and I know you all have read this but it feels so relevant uh, in victor frankel's man's search for meaning, the last of human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. And there were always choices to make. And he goes on um your inner freedom, which which determined whether or not you become the plaything to circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity. And he goes on from there.

Jacob Nordby: 9:41

I read man's search for meaning when I was going through this time of having been turned upside down, uh, in life, and I felt very unfree in so many ways. I mean, all my money was gone, the career I'd been part of was gone. I was feeling really oppressed by life, you know, and I read that book and I had had to reduce my lifestyle so dramatically and all these things just felt like I was trapped. Um, I remember reading that book and going, oh my God, I feel like I'm at the bare wire of existence right now. But Viktor Frankl is writing this and lived through an experience that was so drastically, even more to the core of survival, in ways I don't want to even imagine, and that was a real call to me to say, yeah, we still have the freedom to choose in every moment.

Jesper Conrad: 11:13

that is the freedom and that that book actually was the one that began to draw me back into life, being willing to re-engage, you know the reason I find freedom interesting is that when we look at parenting and talk with other people and they look at how we live, then one of the first thing that people notice is, of course, oh, you are full-time travelers. That must be a wild freedom, and what can you do? And what are you doing with the kids? And all these dialogues we have but often the dialogue ends up with the choices we have made is to free ourselves from you can say, societal, inflicted norms, the fact that if you have your children in a public school, you probably have them there for the main period of their time, which means that you live in a certain place from a period of your life, et cetera, et cetera. And when we have stepped away from these norms of how you live, then so many things come up in the air and we need to reflect on them. And in our life it ended up with us asking ourselves but do we need to live here? Just because we started here, chosen a school, choose an area and all this, and in the end I went to work and the rest of the family could be where they wanted, but we were placed in a certain area because I had my day-to-day work and and then we figured out how to make that into an online business so we could travel more freely.

Jesper Conrad: 12:55

But I live now a life where I ask questions about these norms of society, whereas earlier I thought they were how you should live. So it reflects back to what you said about is it instilled in you that you think you have a free will and you choose these things based on your choice in the moment? But what comes from your upbringing? Where in in my life, I the normal life, the life I saw ahead of me was like find a wonderful wife. I succeeded in that, get a good job, nice and get some kids. And then you, you do the things you know, but at the same time, there was this dreaming of something more in life. And now we are here and, having been traveled for seven years and are still going on, and I maybe it's the turning 15 november, I don't know, but I'm just starting, you know, to ask myself these questions about what's next. Is there more freedom to explore? Is it the inner freedom? Where am I going?

Jacob Nordby: 14:07

yeah, yeah, you know, while you were talking, and you both have mentioned raising kids, and I just admire so much your willingness to expose your family to anomalous experiences of life, like outside of the. This is the automatic way that we live and this is what equals success and all of that. And you know what's interesting to me about freedom? I live in this country, this America that has prized itself for being the leader of the free world, and what is interesting to me is the idea of freedom has largely supplanted the actual experience of it here, and I think that's a pretty difficult reality for a lot of people to come to. And I'm not speaking about this in some gloomy sense. It's just really interesting to be living through a time when, when a concept has to give way to what is really going on, and one thing that I find really interesting is that a lot of people feel that freedom is, I feel like in like in the US.

Jacob Nordby: 15:14

It's a sense of we're still a very young country in the family of nations.

Jacob Nordby: 15:20

We might be a teenager at this point or something, and I think there's a lot of teenage hubris, a teenage recklessness and teenage selfishness that permeates the air here and gets equated with this is freedom.

Jacob Nordby: 15:34

Don't tread on me. And to me, some of the greatest freedom we can ever have is the fruit of self-discipline and restraint. And if we don't learn that and that to me is what's mature freedom, a child or a teenager might go, freedom to me is never having someone tell me what to do. A mature adult asks the question how can I live as I really long to within the framework and how can I be a mature and responsible partner to the world around me? How can I contribute rather than how can I take, and I think a lot of people, in this country at least, have begun to really imbibe the idea that freedom is taking whatever you want and not regarding other people, and to me that is not freedom I like that it's a very narrow-minded freedom and also we talk and think and agitate a lot for freedom, or at least we used to.

Cecilie Conrad: 16:35

One of the best questions we ever got was okay, but then what's up with that freedom? What do you want to use it for? Interesting? And we realized that the reason we talk so much about it is that we are pretty clear on what we want to use our freedom on and that our core values don't align with the mainstream life that we were supposed to live. So we decided to find ways to arrange ourselves so that we could do the things and be the ones that we wanted to do and be.

Cecilie Conrad: 17:13

Yeah, and I think there's a lot of unfreedom going on in not doing that reflection, not stopping to think about what's truly important to you and what is true to you. How do you even understand the balances of this life and the reality of what's around you? I think there is simply not enough reflection going on. It's a lot of automated just doing the thing. We're bombarded with input telling us what the good life is and we don't really stop to think about what the good life is. And it's pretty obvious in our circle of cultures that your culture and our culture share that and that we are more or less trying to export to everyone else, that we're not thriving. Most people in these countries are medicated and sick, so did we stop to think about what real thriving is and where it comes from? Yes, of course we did, but somehow we got it wrong. Yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 18:39

We set ourselves up for some maybe comfortable life, very far away from fear and worry, um, so that we could feel safe. Yeah, and that is, of course, freedom. It is freedom to feel safe. There are contextual realities that will stop you from let's be real. I mean, we can talk about emotions and mindset and exploring our inner life, and you know, but if you can't walk the street without being shot, or if you're female and you can't walk the street, end of story.

Cecilie Conrad: 19:24

And or if you can't decide who you're marrying, or, yeah, of course there are oppressive cultures and oppressive situations where people are actually trapped and my heart goes out to that, since most of the people who would listen to this podcast are not in situations like that, and for them it would be more about the inner world. But the freedom has no value if you don't know what you're using it for, if you don't know why you need it, and and I think, um, that is maybe the best place to start to think about, hey, how do I get to thrive? What is important? What do I want to do with this life?

Jacob Nordby: 20:11

well, do you mind if we rewind a minute, because you, I felt like you said something crucial when you talked about the countries, the nations have. We've we've created a lot more physical safety for ourselves in a lot of cases, and physical abundance, and so when I think about that, I'm I've been, I've been chewing on this thought for so many years now. But maslowlow's hierarchy, you know the triangle and at the very base level, the shelter and food and procreation, and you know the things that you know are really the kind of the baseline of life, baseline of life, and then, as we build further away from that survival line, we begin to lose connection to that very simple purpose of life, which is to be and stay alive, you know. So that's interesting to me because most of us in the developed countries have never really experienced survival level living, not really. You know what I might call that right now is still unthinkably wealthy compared to so many other people in this world.

Jacob Nordby: 21:21

And what's interesting about this is and I know you all have no doubt looked into this a lot but when you go, look at the indigenous cultures where they're still living very close to nature, very close to the earth, purpose, having a sense of purpose is so easily fulfilled. I'm going to get up, I'm going to make sure we have wood for the fire, make sure we have food, and once we've accomplished those very basic things, now we celebrate, we hang out, we're in community, and to me that's a very healthy thing, and I'm not suggesting that we should try to roll back all of the physical safeties that we've developed over the years. Some of these things are the fruits of the Industrial Revolution. It's like I don't think the answer is to take those safeties away, but the fact is many of us struggle with a loss of a sense of purpose in the modern world.

Cecilie Conrad: 23:07

Because a lot of people don't know where they fit into the great machine called modern reality, you know, but actually this is a mindset thing to realize that life is about living's. It sounds so basic but it is. It is about living and it's it's a highly practical thing. The first big blog that I wrote had the subtitle title life is first and foremost practical because really what what you do in this life is, you know, you get up and you need to get dressed and you need to wash a cup if you forgot to do it last night Make the coffee and feed the kids and make the money. You know all these practical things.

Cecilie Conrad: 23:44

They take up our hours and where am I going with that Something down the lines of being grateful for that? And where am I going with that Something down the lines of being grateful for that? And this loss of purpose. Actually it makes, if we stop to feel it, it makes most people happy to live and to meet these basic things Make a safe space, make a nice bed, make a good meal, meal, provide for your family, shut the door, broom the floor, take out the trash, open the window, close it again, brush the teeth. These basic things that are about living, about staying healthy and warm and safe. They have this baseline of making us happy.

Jacob Nordby: 24:40

I love that and what's interesting. So I'm just going to peel back some layers here for a moment in my own life and I finished a really big project. I think I was yeah, I hadn't yet finished exiting when we did our most recent episode in December but I really felt that I was needing to exit a project that I had put a lot of my life and money and effort into for the last couple of years. I was feeling more and more off track and so when I finally made the decision to exit, it was a pretty young company and you know I didn't walk out with enough money to retire on or anything like that not even close and so it's been interesting.

Jacob Nordby: 25:22

I spent a couple of months really treading water, retooling some of the other things that I am doing with the Institute for Creative Living and the work that I really feel from my heart to do with people, and also navigating a very strange time on earth where, where a lot of people are feeling um, a lot of people are feeling the oh my God, they're in the fight or flight survival mode, and I was talking with the CEO of daily OM the other day. They have a lot of online courses and mind, body, spirit, things. And I said you know, I feel as if I'm standing by the freeway and all the cars are driving 90 miles an hour past me and they're all on fire and I'm waving my arms, saying you should pull over and meditate with me, and they're like, are you mad? And so I'm telling you this to say that after a couple or three months of, you know, having some time to rest and reflect and all that, but also feeling very restless and not exactly sure of how to connect with enough income and all that, but also feeling very restless and not exactly sure of how to connect with enough income, and all of that, I actually, a couple months ago, decided to just start driving Uber several hours a day, and what's fascinating about that? Even though you know I had enough money to survive, but it was also like I don't know where the next paycheck is coming from and all that. So it was less about you know, driving enough to make a full-time living.

Jacob Nordby: 26:35

I noticed that something about the act of getting out there and serving people and connecting with them, it it took care of a part of my brain that was feeling more and more anxious about what's next. How do I figure this out, and so, even though it's not enough money to really live on, that's a secondary thing for me at the moment. It's been really interesting to go. I'm staying engaged with life, I'm not just sitting still and perseverating over all of it, and so it's been an odd experience of maybe a bit surprising how much peace it's brought me to have several hours a day to do a thing.

Jacob Nordby: 27:12

I was doing it right before I came and got on this episode with you, you know, um, and many people might look at that and say, oh my God, that's so embarrassing. I've had some friends ask me if I feel embarrassed or or hope that I don't pick somebody up. That I know, and I'm like, honestly, I don't care. I don't care, um, and and you know they said, oh my God, that's so brave. I'm like it's really not. It's honestly not brave, it's just continuing to do the next thing that's right in front of me, you know.

Jesper Conrad: 27:38

Yeah, and creating meaningfulness in life.

Cecilie Conrad: 27:43

I am also going to say someone needs to drive those Ubers. There's something wrong with the idea of being embarrassed about that Because the whole machine needs to go. I just put a teenage girl in Uber yesterday. I'm grateful for Uber and I think Uber is amazing and I am grateful for those who will drive the Ubers. I think they're underpaid, but whatever. I can't control the mechanisms of the economy, but I mean, if, in whatever way we can contribute that feels meaningful in the moment, yeah, I think we should do it. Agree, and there's nothing wrong with driving the uber really well, and I think this comes back.

Jacob Nordby: 28:32

I really glad you brought that up, cecily. I think it comes back to this I think you were speaking to this too, jesper about the automatic definitions of success that we take on and then labor under. It's like, oh, I could never do that, because that's not what a successful person of my age would do. It's like what the hell does that matter really? And so we've built these hierarchies, especially in the developed countries, of if you do some sort of white collar work, you're better than the trades people, if you are in the C-suite, you're better than the middle management and the laborers. You know, and honestly I don't.

Jacob Nordby: 29:43

I don't feel that that is the definition of freedom, and a lot of people still continue to hold that definition of the further away I can get from having to work, for example, and so if they're successful in creating that life, a lot of them find themselves and I have friends who are dealing with this right now they have millions and millions of dollars and they struggle to find satisfaction and meaning in their lives, even though they've achieved the American dream.

Jacob Nordby: 30:11

They've achieved the dream of financial freedom, and to me, financial freedom is really a lovely thing, but it's only one slice of very important pie, and I think you've said it when we first started this episode the freedom of health, the freedom of having a healthy mind, the ability to even be with ourselves in the moment. To me, the financial piece and in America, I'm sure, possibly in Europe and other places too, but I'm just in the American bubble In America we've turned that pie into, let's say, 90% of the pie. That's the most important thing and I think that's one of the reasons we're dealing with so many, so much.

Cecilie Conrad: 30:49

A great level of depression and anxiety here is that that is become the top value, you know there's not much meaningfulness to be found on the backside of your visa card, really no, but there isn't. Right.

Cecilie Conrad: 31:06

And I think may, besides the base level of you know, knowing that you'll survive, the feeling of meaninglessness is that a word Might be the worst place to arrive really wake up and feel there's nothing meaningful to do and there's nothing meaningful about finding that copy coffee cup and filling it with coffee and get going with the day. I think that is, besides hopelessness, probably the worst place to be. Yeah, and it has nothing to do with how much money you have in the bank.

Jacob Nordby: 32:01

Um, it really hasn't yeah have either of you read um robin wall Kimmerer's book Braiding Sweetgrass? Nope.

Jacob Nordby: 32:14

Not yet. I'm just listening to it again as I drive around and take people around in the Uber. Such a beautiful book, oh my God. She's a botanist. She was raised as a Native American young woman, so she has this beautiful tradition and sort of natural spirituality, and then she brought the science in and she just weaves it in. But the reason I'm bringing it up is she talks a lot about the need for meaningful ceremony in our lives and that exists outside of, you know, some religious or even spiritual thing as a main component of it.

Jacob Nordby: 32:50

More of bringing ceremony into the mundane moments, and what you just said, cecily, reminded me of that. It reminds me to stop rushing through, to create ceremony over the cup of tea I'm making or create a moment of genuine connection between this really old cat that sitting on my desk right now, the cat himself. He's been with me for, I guess, 16 years. He was a rescue in Austin, texas, when I lived there and started writing, and he's getting to be very, very old and so I'm watching him begin to say goodbye. I'm having to say goodbye to him.

Jacob Nordby: 33:26

You know, and you know I could have my life be so busy that I forget um to really connect with this creature that's been a really good friend to me for all these years. He's lived with me through a divorce and through all sorts of stuff and has been my really good companion, and so I'm bringing that up to say there's one example of, yeah, I could rush through my life and then when he eventually dies, I'd have all this regret, you know. Oh, I wish I would have spent a little more actual time connecting with this being, you know, and so I keep being reminded stop, breathe, connect, you know, like we're doing right now. I love the meaningful conversations we're having.

Jesper Conrad: 34:08

Yeah, but it is so difficult and I am in some ways jealous of deeply religious people.

Jesper Conrad: 34:24

I remember an interview I read many, many years ago with some rock star that was asked about meaningfulness and meaningfulness and life and if the person was afraid of the, of dying and there I think it was a she I can't remember answered I hope to die, either deeply religious or in agreement with the universe.

Jesper Conrad: 34:50

Like I'm, I'm okay with it and I can look at the some of the religions out there and be jealous of the community around the religion and the, the ceremonies and rituals where I think that the Denmark I was brought up in as a not super religious family, we went to, like the church one or twice a year, maybe three times, you know, for Christmas and Easter, and that was it. It was more a ritual than it actually was, something we felt meant and did, and it actually was something we felt meant and did, but it's like it wasn't. When the general religion was removed, it wasn't exchanged with something else, right, right, and you have lived through this very religious upbringing and have said goodbye to it. How have you thought about this of looking back, seeing the good in what was that you decided to leave, and how can you recreate it without going under that strictness?

Jacob Nordby: 35:59

that it was you were brought up in, right I love, yeah, I love that you're pointing that out, jasper, and I have. You know, a lot, of a lot of the people I grew up with. Many of them either stayed in that group or they left but didn't process why they were leaving. You know, and so I see, you know guys who are my age you know I'll be 52 in May and I see guys who are in this age group who never really identified why it was they were pulling out. They just were uncomfortable with and left, and there's a lot of pain and anger still left there. You know, for me, I think that over the years, the last 30 years or however long it's been since I left I guess about 25, have been a lot, of, a lot of inner work, and so for me now, yes, I wouldn't want to go back to it, but there's also I have such deep appreciation for being raised, honestly, outside of the usual way of seeing the world, and so in so many ways I think it's shaped me and allowed me to ask questions that, had I been brought up in the mainstream way, would be a lot more difficult. So that's one thing, but let's go back to the ritual and ceremony thing. Like um in this book she talks about what makes a meaningful ritual, and she said it's the attention that you're paying to the, the act, whatever it is, or the set of actions, and it's the intention behind it. So she said we can take any mundane experience and by placing a certain focus and by placing an intention.

Jacob Nordby: 37:35

You know, I, when I was living in Austin, I worked at a, a cigar lounge that was one of. I had three part-time jobs. That was one of them, and it was mostly middle-aged, pretty well-to-do tech workers who came in there and I grew this really beautiful friendship with them, but they thought I was absolutely crazy. You know, I thought I was a crazy hippie that's what they called me, and. But I remembered that I, after feeling pretty miserable for about a year, you know of just like what has happened to my life Will I ever figure this out again?

Jacob Nordby: 38:07

I began to realize that these are the circumstances of my actual life and I can waste it by being miserable or I can show up with all of who I am, and so I would brew pots of iced tea for these guys and I would just pretend that I could pour love, the energy of love, into that pot and the same thing, and so it began to make this. What was a pretty uncomfortable experience for me in a lot of ways it began to bring meaning to it, and it wasn't meaning dictated by a religious book or by a religious group or anything like that. It was meaning that I chose to create in that experience and to me that's one of our greater invitations and challenges in this modern world is to unplug from all the ways we are told meaning and sense of purpose and fulfillment happens and begin to take our place as the creators of this experience, this exchange, whatever it is.

Cecilie Conrad: 39:03

To me also ritual ties back to values. So if I know what's truly important, I can pay attention to it. And if I know what moments will carry my day and what moments will be most impactful to my core values, I can pay more attention to those. And you know me and my morning coffee. It has to be combined with sunshine, if not, it's.

Cecilie Conrad: 39:43

Putting just a few minutes of real presence into those things that I know are really important makes it a different situation. I'm not just yeah, I I can write a to-do list while doing it, but it becomes a little more of a thing. And I also think another important point is we can probably agree there's a lot wrong with this world. I think no one would say, oh, it's all good and fine and perfect. So even if we don't agree on what's wrong, we all agree that we need to make some improvements. And I'm at a point now where I'm speculating, just circling around the idea that I think a lot of the things we have to do to make these improvements. I'm thinking about your metaphor of the cars on fire and you waving at the side of the road. Come on, let's meditate over here. No, but really I think a lot of the things we need to do a very counterintuitive and I think that on a global level for us as humanity, and on a personal level.

Cecilie Conrad: 41:06

so in order to thrive and get things done and create a harmonious, balanced life, we need to do some things that kind of don't really make sense at all. In order to get a lot done, we need to stop. But it's real In order to be focused, we need to let go of focus and be creative and soft. Let our minds be soft and wild and weird. We need to do things with no purpose in order to find purpose. It's very counterintuitive and I cannot put very exact words on it because it's what I'm needing at the moment yeah and this has to do.

Cecilie Conrad: 41:56

It ties back to the ritual thing, to to be ritualistic and and and without organized religion, because I think that's the line you know you can be spiritual, but you don't need the organized religion. That's where, well, that's where, my cutoff is. Don't tell me what to do or how to do it, yeah.

Jacob Nordby: 42:19

And I'd love to go back to what you just said about get things done and one of the. I feel pretty strongly that one of the things we're being faced with as an entire species on the planet at the moment is, you know, and especially a species that has been dominated largely by capitalism for the last, you know, few hundred years. Capitalism is based on the underlying conviction of scarcity there's not enough, so we must gather it and hoard it and build systems to get more of it. And conviction of scarcity there's not enough, so we must gather it and hoard it and build systems to get more of it. And all of that, and I think that many of us in these cultures don't ever stop to ask why, why does the growth always need to be up and to the right? Why does there need to be constant growth? And if the answer comes back well, it's so that we have more money then to me that's an illegitimate answer.

Jacob Nordby: 43:12

That comes back well, it's so that we have more money, then to me that's an illegitimate answer. That's not a good enough reason to keep building and building and putting ourselves through genuinely inhuman experiences of life in which we're trapped in debts and we're trapped in jobs. I mean, we aren't ever trapped really. I mean, you all have broken free. You know what it means, but it requires a huge commitment and a huge breaking out of the inertia of that kind of living, and so I don't feel like I have the answers. I'm just glad you're bringing it up, because I feel like this becomes another key question of freedom is ask the question why, why does that matter? Does it matter to me? Why, why does that matter?

Jesper Conrad: 43:52

Does it matter to me? You know I have. I have constantly in the dialogue, been reminded of two episodes we have done. One is with a guy called Dennis Narmark and he has written a book called the Price on Freedom where he unpacks the real price of choosing not to be free, the price of working, the price of all these choices we involuntary takes. And the week after we made an interview with a woman who have written a book called Craft Psychology, or she actually created the field of craft psychology. And I found it so interesting because I have for many years never understood my wife who knits socks, sweaters, everything.

Cecilie Conrad: 44:47

You can stop after the word wife.

Jesper Conrad: 44:50

Yeah, I don't understand my wife.

Cecilie Conrad: 44:53

You still don't, but you're very nice, yes, and I love you.

Jesper Conrad: 44:57

But now I've tried something and I've even learned some stuff. No, last summer you can explain it.

Cecilie Conrad: 45:07

Oh, someone made science.

Jesper Conrad: 45:09

Yeah, oh, someone made science. Yeah, no, I started uh whittling and I have uh last summer and I think I've made 40 spoons since and at some point I could have just bought them in ikea yeah, we could have bought them in ikea.

Jesper Conrad: 45:26

It would have taken so much less time and cheaper as well and I've, uh, at some point I looked at all these spoons and I was like, what should I do with all these spoons? And, um, yeah, we have a friend who have a farm and at some point I was like, oh, maybe she could sell them for me. And then I looked at them and I was like, but the amount of hours I put into them. I would rather give them away than charge people what I think they should cost, because they should cost a couple of hundred dollars or something with all those hours I put in. But I really love making the spoons, I love sitting with the wood, I love looking at how the wood is, how it reacts, what spoon it wants to be, and all these things.

Cecilie Conrad: 46:14

I need some help with that yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 46:18

And what she said about this is that we often don't understand the whole what we get out of doing crafts, work, the almost meditative rhythm of doing something with our hands, and the reason she's talking about crafts and not hobbies is that it reflects back to that. People need to be dry, fit and warm. Yeah, she said that is what we basically did earlier in life or earlier in time. We needed to be fit, dry and warm. And if you looked at a lot of the crafts out there, then that's what they are about. It is tools for feeding, it is clothes that people are creating, etc.

Jesper Conrad: 47:15

But she also opened my eyes, for you can say more I I I was looking at, but have I had hobbies during my life? And one of the things she's opened my mind to was that shoveling snows can be. It's a kind of a craft. It has some of the same elements of the repetitiveness and you're actually doing something and, as cecilia would say to many people, I was so happy when I came in from having snow was the best yeah, snow was better than cutting grass.

Jesper Conrad: 47:46

I mean, I was so happy, felt so fulfilled, and it reties to the talk about purpose that my work often is building websites and helping people with marketing etc. But it's not physical. I really like to see, when I've created a spoon, sit and look at it. Or when I had a house and I shoveled the snow man, I was so proud looking at the.

Cecilie Conrad: 48:14

You can wash the car if you want to oh yeah, I'm not, that's not, I'm not there let's not get carried away here yeah all that pollen.

Jesper Conrad: 48:27

You know what are you doing for hobbies, uh, jacob.

Jacob Nordby: 48:31

Wow, what a great question. You know I've watched my daughter, meg, who came and lived back with me, and Meg crochets a lot and has gone through a similar trajectory as you, jesper, with the question of, okay, should I try to sell these on Etsy or something? And eventually Meg just decided I'm, I, I love making, uh, I love making. And I've watched meg do that through the course of some pretty distressing times where you know, where they weren't feeling connected to what was next in their lives and all that. But just watching meg do that, rather than sit there and and um and dump it out on Netflix or something the whole time, it's just been marvelous to watch the mental health benefit, all of that. And Meg is so proud when they come out and show me this next thing they just made. Here's one of them. They made a little, um, a little yellow octopus.

Jacob Nordby: 49:26

So, yeah, oscar sits on my desk. And you asked about me though that's a great question I would say that one of my most important and this isn't crafting, but it does have the element of bilateral movement I love to hike and I love to walk around the river here in Boise, we're blessed with nature around here, it's just amazing. River here in Boise, we're blessed with nature around here, it's just amazing. So I think walking and hiking for me, take up a really important place, and during the winter times I struggle with that because it's, you know, becomes less and less practical to do that. Writing things yes, that's a question. It's an uncomfortable question for me. Yes, because I feel like I need to spend more time in that area of my life. Is the truth?

Jesper Conrad: 50:18

yeah, it took me many, many years to reach a point where I and that's the fun thing is I felt it could be unproductive, but then that it was creating like I primarily make spoons you can use in the kitchen, cooking spoons and wooden spoons, and that makes it meaningful because I feel I'm still producing something. But then in the back of my mind there is this why do I have this need of? It needs to be something that can be used? This need of it needs to be something that can be used.

Cecilie Conrad: 50:52

You see, I think there is a very important line of thought that we all have to do to separate the idea of what is productive and meaningful work and what is not. And I think we all grew up in a culture where whatever someone will pay you for has value and whatever is not paid for has no value. Right.

Cecilie Conrad: 51:26

And you've talked a lot about money and your spoons at this point, and you've talked a lot about money and your spoons at this point, and I think it's about time we stop to give this really deep thought, for many reasons, one of them being for the equality of women. It gets lost somewhere that women's work, what is traditionally women's work, is either highly underpaid or not paid for. Therefore, it has no value. Therefore, the whole language around that could not be paid for, which means a lot of things that are highly meaningful and highly satisfying to do are in that realm of wasted time, and we're all conditioned into this, from our schooling, basically, and then, later on, the working thing. You also talk about your spoons and the hours that go into it, which is, you know, this worker mindset I'm selling my hours, so I have to be here for eight hours and then you'll pay me for it, rather than I'm producing something that has value.

Jesper Conrad: 53:03

But I'm a very unfree, free man in many ways.

Cecilie Conrad: 53:07

Correct, and we all are, except the other half of us, who are women. But maybe the gender thing is not that important in this case. The the case is, because we're confusing value with with monetary value, we we allow a lot of meaningfulness to go down the drain and we completely confuse ourselves as to what we need to appreciate and what is worth doing with our time, which means we lose our sanity, we lose our physical health, we lose our relations. Oh, have we had the conversation about how much coffee I drink and how much I talk? Absolutely.

Cecilie Conrad: 53:54

So many times as if that is a waste of time, but basically I'm maintaining our relations in our social life and most first and foremost, with our children. I do a lot of talking. It's the most meaningful thing I can do. Therefore, I do it.

Jesper Conrad: 54:11

Yes.

Cecilie Conrad: 54:36

But the reason I often return to this area is that I'm aware of my own lack in having reached the point where I am more confident with being unproductive Because it is nagging in the back of my mind but you're so productive when you produce a spoon you produce one every time you sit down. I love doing spitting out spoons so fast.

Jesper Conrad: 54:44

No, no, no, but those are among the things. Yeah, but I'm not sitting down drawing sorry, and stuff like that. And there is this unbalance in my mind where I know I need to. I know it would be very valuable for me to not put monetary value as a goal oh, sorry, a goal. But and at this, oh sorry, I. I know it would be very valuable for me not to have this monetary value as a goal, but at the same time, I've been brought up into a culture where it is what it is and I am responsible for driving a family, getting money to make everything work and stuff. So the challenge and I'm constantly baffling back and forth. But the fun thing is, if I've decided this is something I do, this is good enough, then I have, I'm fine with doing it. I do my yoga in the morning, I run every morning and those things I have attached meaning to. So it is about this. What are we attaching meaning to as something that is worth our time?

Cecilie Conrad: 56:01

um, but but I think also there's a case to be made for letting go there. There is. It's high, if I am to advice, which is always risky business. But if I should, I think the morning pages technique sit down, write. You can handwrite, you can do it on your computer. Maybe it's more efficient to do it pen and paper, I don't know.

Cecilie Conrad: 56:30

Have a set amount that you like and write whatever. But don't stop. Write whatever. Do it every morning. Before you start thinking, before you start doing anything else. You can have a to-do list on hand just to unload whatever is popping up. I have to remember this and that and the other. It comes in the morning, it's normal. I cannot describe how much more efficient I am in the times of my life where I've been doing that. It's the most productive times of my life. If I do something highly unproductive in the morning and the idea of people can look it up morning pages.

Cecilie Conrad: 57:13

It's a technique. I didn't invent it, but you could burn it afterwards. It's not a blog post, it's not a diary, it's not a journal, it's not fancy, it's not a poem. It's just whatever is on your mind, get it out for a set amount of time, set amount of pages, whatever you like. That set amount of time, set amount of pages, whatever you like. That's really nice to do and as a psychologist, I very often recommend my clients to do this sit with it technique, which is kind of the same thing. You have this problem, this thing. You can't control this trauma, this, whatever relational something. It's disturbing your life. We're working on it, you're paying me money for it. It's a big deal. And now I'm telling you to sit with it, leave it be, don't change it, don't work with it. Sit with it for a set amount of time, let's say 15 minutes. Just allow it.

Jesper Conrad: 58:08

Get up, do something else yeah, so by the way, extreme opposite of being efficient yeah, cecilia is mentioning stuff I'm really bad at right here, I'm sorry well, it's interesting yeah, it's interesting.

Jacob Nordby: 58:26

I um, I don't know if I mentioned last time we talked, but, uh, the artist way. I have my father's copy of this with his signature on the spine. He gave it to me before I moved to Austin and Texas and I credit that with really helping me recover and come back in contact with my life, and I've been doing Morning Pages now for the last 15 years, and I've been doing Morning Pages now for the last 15 years. Actually, last week, I just hosted an online class for Julia Cameron for this. It was second of two with her and we've been working together now for years and it's just an amazing experience to me.

Jacob Nordby: 59:03

Yeah, no, it's just such a surreal experience sometimes to be sharing her and this work with people, and I just love that you brought it up, necessarily, because I know for sure that learning some of those techniques and then using them, practicing them, there's no question they likely saved my life back in the day. I said there's no question and I said likely, so I qualified it. But you know, I know we probably have to wrap up pretty soon. But I wanted to say this, and it's so interesting I'm hearing both of you and myself as we struggle to frame value outside of just one lens of what value is, which is, you know, time, money, money for time, all that.

Jacob Nordby: 59:49

One thing that I'm learning to ask myself is what, if something is bringing me joy or pleasure in some way, um, or fulfillment, sense of meaning, what payment, what? What payment am I am I receiving here? Not money. Uh, when you mentioned women and the traditional role that has been so disregarded in so many ways, cecily, and the more that our culture has become fixated on money as that's the highest value, that's the highest form of payment, we forget. We forget that a beautiful, whether it's the mother or the father who has ever taken care of the things, or maybe it's a joint partnership on those whoever's doing things that they're not being paid actual cash for, there's payment. There's payment in the form of connection and of genuine community of fulfillment, and I think that the more that we can start asking ourselves if it's something that really matters but then some part of the psyche says shouldn't be doing, that you're not getting paid for it or not getting paid enough for it.

Jacob Nordby: 1:00:56

The question is for me, what payoff am I receiving for this? And if it's emotional, if it's social and communal, sometimes those are extremely high forms of payment and the more that we can begin to accept it's kind of like the pie. You know. That's like here's the money freedom, here's all these other freedoms. It's very similar to that. For me, it's the question of what payment am I receiving for living my life in this way? And if it's love, if it's connection, if it's mental health I mean, jesper, I can just imagine sitting there carving the spoons. My father was a fine craftsperson and made violins. He actually carved a violin that I make, and so I have to ask you what wood do you like to carve the most Spoons? What's that?

Jacob Nordby: 1:01:48

Just spoons I really love making spoons. What wood do you like to carve? What's?

Jesper Conrad: 1:01:53

the wood, yeah, okay. So what would um? Ah, there's a lot of wood that is really beautiful. But I really like, uh, actually just working with pine wood because it's so easy to to carve and it goes so fast. So for me there is also the joy in in reaching um, to be able to make a spoon in an evening. Often I, if we are sitting talking with the people we meet we, as we travel a lot, around a lot we meet people sit and chat for many, many hours. Then it actually helps my mind being focused on the conversation, as I otherwise would go somewhere in my mind, and then I love just handing them a spoon in the evening when we are finished talking. So if I can three to four hours, that's easy to do in pinewood. I have made some in harder wood and it's so pretty. I really love it, but for me it's the speed. Still, maybe with time I will go to Harderwood. I've also looked into getting a Dremel and that is really fun to work with. Don't you have a Dremel? Yeah, I have it, but the thing is it's very anti-social because it has it is filled with noise. It makes a lot of noise when you're using it, so it's not something I can enjoy with other people around, and that's when I really love to carve.

Jesper Conrad: 1:03:25

Is is is in community as it. It helps me focus on the here and now. To return to the, I like you used the word what payment do I get to kind of free it from the monetary value that we can use it as? What is the emotional benefit? What is it that get out of it? And when I look back, some of the things I've enjoyed most is cecilia and I sometimes give some talks for free when we are at a festival of some sort, and I love doing it. I love the interaction with people, I love the energy you receive back and I love the questions people ask. Yes, and I like to chat afterwards. One thing it's almost an excuse standing uh and and talking about what we talk about. That's not the important part for me. It is answering people's questions and chatting afterwards, where where we get into the really deep stuff about choices in life. Yeah, yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:04:31

I like your pie analogy. I'm not sure I get the point of the what payment do I get the point of the payment could be something other than money. I think it's a dangerous way of phrasing it, though, because payment is usually something about money. But if we could read a word, yeah, maybe we can. But as you were talking about that and I put the feminism agenda on the board here here, um, I was thinking about how women, statistically, are less success, success can't speak again, uh, have a hot, lower risk of arriving at a point of, uh, late in life, onset, depression, big regrets of divorce and suicide.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:05:34

Well, divorces, they are not the ones giving up, and I think it's because women, they might not be paid for it and they might, money-wise, they might not be respected for it, they might struggle themselves to prioritize these things, but somehow, traditionally maybe there's a biological side to it, I don't know they do things outside of the realm of the money-making, the rational thing, more, and they are therefore at a better place at the end of life, which is, um, well, it's a big cash flow to get in there, to realize when you're, when you see the the end of days coming, that you did something meaningful and it was important, and you are important to a lot of people and they appreciate your effort and they want the recipe you know, kind of. So maybe we can learn from that and maybe we can make a little rebellion against the way that the big machine is working by doing something that's not officially meaningful, that makes no sense, that has no value, that creates nothing that could be sold on Etsy. Maybe it could, but it shouldn't. We like morning pages.

Jesper Conrad: 1:07:08

Yeah, jacob, I have a question for you. As you have shared, have lived through some bigger changes in life, both company going down, you have been through a divorce and all these things. What are your tools when you stand in the despair of life? You know, often when we talk with people and we retell our stories, we often just skirt along the highlights and, hey, my life is wonderful, blah, blah blah. But life is also pretty hard and everyone, if we go into it, have met difficulties. But I think what frames us as people is how we get to the other side, and you seems like you have walked a path in your life where you have reached the other side a couple of times. Even so, yes, your toolbox or your go-tos yeah, and it's I mean I love.

Jacob Nordby: 1:08:06

I think we have to view it as a practice versus a destination. You know, um, I mean there is there. There is another side to walking through really deep waters and not knowing if we'll drown, and it's wonderful to get into a less precarious feeling place. But I've learned, jasper, that, um, and not perfectly. It's not like I practice perfectly meditation every day or perfectly journaling or whatever, but I will say that I remember having this book sort of fall off into my hand. I've had that experience in bookstores when I felt the most need of guidance. I would walk into a bookstore and something, would you know, really attract me. And there was this book called the Way of the Warrior I think it was not a famous book at all and I read it and he had this phrase and he said one of the most important things we can do is develop a sense of knowing what to do when we don't know what to do.

Jacob Nordby: 1:09:01

And you asked about the despair piece and the answer is yes, and I don't find any new iterations of despair to be more comfortable because I've been through it and have some tools. That's kind of surprising at times, like wow, I thought I had mastered going through difficult times. No, the new difficult time is still its own fresh hell, you know. But there is some history, jesper, and the history says take a deep breath. I try to practice breath work and not always do really intense stuff, just box breathing. Sometimes I'll do it when I'm in the car and I feel myself all activated and anxious. I think that's been one of the gifts of walking through despair is I become more aware of what's going on in my body and taking care of that, rather than just staying in mental concepts about trying to figure it out. Mentally. It's like, oh, my body is saying I need to take care of it right now. Let me breathe. Good, let me go sit out in the sunshine for five minutes. You mentioned sunshine with your coffee, cecily. Yeah, let me just go find some sunshine, if I can, for five minutes, and be with myself, sit with it. Um, journaling every day really helps me a lot and it helps me spot patterns, uh, mental patterns, you know, um, or emotional things that I keep going through, or fractals. These experiences I've gone through over and over in my life. It's like, oh my God, I get a chance to step out of that pattern now, if I will, whereas before it was just on rote, it was just conditioned, you know. And so I don't know that I'm giving you any gold nuggets here of tools, but I will say that the inner work practices. I remember reading that Carl Jung once had a client come and say Dr Jung and this was back in the 1900s, early 1900s you know, dr Jung, can the world escape an apocalypse? And Dr Jung took a breath and he looked back and he said yes, if enough people do their inner work. Yeah, so these inner work things, and they don't have to be esoteric, they don't have to be complicated, but bring ourselves back into center breathing.

Jacob Nordby: 1:11:14

I did a little program for my community recently called Resilience RX, and I brought in an herbalist and I brought in a breathwork movement specialist and we walked through it. I said I don't want you to sit here and talk about it and me listen to it, I want us to do it together. And that's what we did. We did it together and I'm like, if you can just take one thing, build your own recipe book, do one thing and take it home with you and begin practicing it daily or regularly, not perfectly, but just as often as you find yourself needing it, until it becomes more reflexive when you notice yourself in high anxiety states or feeling despair, feeling frozen.

Jacob Nordby: 1:11:51

The idea isn't to get to some place in life where we never experience high levels of fight or flight or being frozen. You know that's part of the cycle. That's part of the cycle of life itself running through those emotional and nervous system states. The great victory to me is not getting ourselves outside of ever having to deal with something like that. It's more of a matter of learning that I can be resilient and responsive within it, and that, to me, is the biggest freedom of all.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:12:22

Yeah, I would agree To know that when you're knocked out of balance, you know you'll find it again.

Jesper Conrad: 1:12:32

I think that this talk, returning to the freedom we started with, is a wonderful place to end. So, jacob, what I really would like is for you to share how people can work with you, because I know that you have given stuff out to the world in your writings and the programs you have. So please tell people how they can get in contact with you and what you can give them.

Jacob Nordby: 1:13:03

Thank you wow, I really did not expect this amazing loop that we've taken today. And to come back to this point of freedom. It's marvelous. So I have this one program, and I think this is probably the easiest thing is just to allow people to experience it, and then, of course, if they like it, they can reach out through my message box or whatever, but it's called creativeselfjournalcom and it's a method for journaling for people who don't love to journal.

Jacob Nordby: 1:13:30

It asks three main questions and I won't go into it now because we're out of time, but it asks three main questions and I've offered with this program, totally free, an e-book, an audio version. I also have a little guided meditation in there and a three-minute short video to explain what this is all about. So to me, that's a gift I would love to give people, because we've talked about journaling and morning pages today and what a vital resource that can be. So I would just love to give this, this, to your listeners, and I just love what you all are sharing with the world. Thank you for inviting me back. It's such a pleasure.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:14:03

It's been a wonderful conversation.

Jesper Conrad: 1:14:05

Absolutely.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:14:05

I enjoyed it a lot. Yeah, it's been fun.