absurd wisdom
What lies beyond understanding? Beyond certainty? Listen in to conversations between a.m. bhatt and colleagues, confidants, and important thinkers as they tackle questions both timely and timeless, and chat about maintaining your humanity in an ever-evolving world.
You can find a.m. on Instagram and Substack at @absurdwisdom. We are produced and distributed by DAE Presents, the production arm of DAE (@dae.community on Instagram and online at mydae.org).
absurd wisdom
Being a Lover, Just Effing Play Louder, and The Unyielding Pursuit of Innovation and Humanity
This episode dives into philosophical discussions on love vs. like and innovation, threading through the complex web of human relationships and the essence of pursuing the unknown. It challenges conventional views, drawing insights from various life experiences and parallels, emphasizing an open pursuit of future possibilities.
You can find a.m. on Instagram and TikTok at @absurdwisdom. We are produced and distributed by DAE Presents, the production arm of DAE (@dae.community on Instagram and online at mydae.org).
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. While we make every effort to ensure that the information shared is accurate, we welcome any comments, suggestions, or correction of errors.
You can contact us at daepresents@mydae.org.
No, is to be within a specific discipline, a specific world, a specific reality to know is extremely useful for getting things done within that particular discipline or world or reality to be an effective doctor or a pastry chef or a financial analyst. There's much that is critical to know, but knowing by its nature is bounded by, and in fact reinforcing of, the reality within which it occurs. For 25 years, I've worked with executives in large organizations, grad students, tech entrepreneurs, religious leaders, and no doubt my toughest client, myself. I'm developing the capacity to explore what lies beyond knowing, beyond certainty at a practical level. This work is required for things like innovation, but more importantly, I found that this inquiry is critical for maintaining one's humanity. Oh, and if you're generous enough to be listening to these conversations, I respectfully submit that at any point, if you feel you understand what I'm saying, you're not listening deeply enough. I'm A. M. Bhatt. Welcome to Absurd Wisdom. And for today's conversation, we are continuing the ongoing series with Ben Heller, CTO of Driver Technologies. Let's jump right in.
Ben:I was poking around the used bookstore last week and came across this book that, you know, looked oddly familiar. And my wife said, I think I have one of his tucked away somewhere. So I started reading it and it's by Brian Andreas and the book's called Hearing Voices and it's a collection of poems and, and sketches, and I won't read the entire intro, but basically he opens with all the different voices that kind of exist in his head creatively. And those are creative forces that pull him towards in a way from different things and how he at various times resisted those voices and then learned to actually listen to them. So I'm going to read a couple of paragraphs. Finally, I learned to just listen and unexpectedly, they taught me the secret of life. Be a lover. That was it. Be a lover. When you love, whether a child or your work, or the feel of the wind licking your skin, you are in a state of grace. You aren't asking your love to be anything more than what it is. The paradox is that what it is, is beyond imagining. It is real and true and very rarely what you expect. In my work as an artist, most of the time I don't have the faintest idea what's going to happen. I sit down and feel the world around me and in me. I become enchanted in the best sense of the word. I'm filled with delight. I listen to the voices of my heart. I draw a line. I draw another line. I remember the time I won a whole bag of marbles from my next door neighbor. I remember going to the beach with all my cousins. I draw more lines. I remember more things. I keep putting down lines. Every line is a whisper of memory, of my life at that moment. People ask me how I come up with the stuff I do. I tell them it's all right there when I listen. It is a powerful act of love to simply listen well and fully. I'll stop there. I love that last sentiment, rather than comment on it. I just love your reaction to that.
a.m.:Yeah. It's all right there. We just have shellacked over it with so much pointless shit, but it's all right there in front of us.
Scott:We were talking before about a musician that we both know Bob Pollard. I dropped that name. Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob. And the thing that, you know, like I was saying, and according to, you know, your story reinforces it or whatever. It's like, very prolific. Like, hundreds of albums at this point? Must be, yeah. And not, not one of them is any more precious than the other. It's just making the thing. And, you know, don't spend a lot of time fretting or, you know, just, alright, that one's done, next one, kind of thing, you know. And it feels, it's like a conduit, you know, it's like, comes through. And that's kind of what I got from that was, you know, get out of the way. Get out of your own way. you know, what you love will drive what you're doing. Yeah.
Ben:My understanding of his early records was he was recording with like, do you remember those, those kids toy boom boxes that had a plugin mic is like one of those in his basement. And that's what he would record his early demos on was just kind of shouting into that mic. And it began, he was a science teacher at the middle school science teacher at the time. And it's a Dayton and He wasn't trying for an aesthetic. It wasn't this intentional lo fi thing. Like, oh, it's gonna be raw and genuine. It's like, didn't occur to him that he would need anything more to express what he needed to in his songs. And if you haven't listened to any of his songs, especially the early stuff right there, there are Noticeable fidelity issues. And I put issues in air quotes, but the songs are brilliant. They're all brilliant. They have incredible hooks and you, you just, you feel that, you know, there's some songs where you get to the chorus and it's like knocks the wind out of you just a little bit. And it ended up actually kind of spying a lot of imitators and became this genre of lo fi music that, you know, that was something that people were falling into a little bit more as a stylistic decision. But if there's one thing about Bob Pollard is he's, he's a genuine creator. And, and, and that's what, that's what I heard in this, this introduction to these stories. And I really don't know the author. well enough at all. And I've just, I'm not even through with the book, but the intro got me. This is like, if this is anybody's approach to their work, I want to read it. I need to, I need to absorb whatever the result of that, that process is. And, you know, we've talked a little bit about listening in the past but listening as listening as an act of love, and as an act of love for the creative process is putting it together in a way that I hadn't quite done before.
a.m.:So like ten years ago I did a video on Valentine's Day on the three words that we need to stop using, we need to agree to stop using for a century because they're just everywhere and, and we've lost all relationship to them. And the three words were God, leadership, and love.
Ben:I think I only used one of those.
a.m.:But, but, but, but, but, but I mean in the general, right? So, so here I'm sitting here just debating whether I want to open up this whole sort of thing, but I'm going to, let's see where it goes. So, so what's your definition of love? Like what, what, or, you know, how do you distinguish love from like from other affects,
Ben:Yeah, that's really interesting for me. It has a sense of persistence. I, sometimes I like things and later I don't like that same thing. I think identifying love is something that happens, this for me over time. It's a relationship to something over, over a period of time. That's, that's consistent and is a source of energy. I'm not going to comment on the directionality of that energy, but it feels like there's something there that that survives on its own, its own life and its own timeline. That's as close, I think, as I can get.
a.m.:I, you know, as with everything, I'm not going to suggest this is right, but this is just the framework that I have sort of developed over the years on it. So I say I like something to me. That's a management concern. It means that what it produces reliably, I find a value or pleasurable. And whether that's a person or a thing, right? And then don't like is what it produces reliably or, or, you know, fairly reliably. I don't find a value or I don't find, you know, pleasant. And so Starbucks mentioned earlier, I don't like Starbucks. It's reliable for producing a thing that I find not pleasurable. I do like the coffee peddler, you know, Ryan's Place on East Street. It produces an output that I reliably find favorable.
Ben:That was there this morning.
a.m.:Yeah, I say that again. Shop local, kids. Since we're mentioning Ryan Pizza Place out in West Haven, Rebar, go check that out too. That's this little dive pizza place in the Strip Mall in Savin Rock area, West Haven. Has the best bourbon collection on this part, in this part of Connecticut. It's amazing. It's, it's a product of Ryan's, you know curatorial prowess. And so with people, you know, I, I find this, you know, Mel and I used to have a lot of these conversations back room just, you know, because it's, it's, it's tough to have some of these out in public because they just, they're such weighted, they have such weight to them. I don't like most people I meet, like, like the vast majority. And what I mean by that is they're reliable for producing something I find, you know, because they're, because it's, because they're not there. It's their habituation that's there. And so they're producing things that are just to me, not terribly interesting. I don't mean they're not smart, not creative. I don't mean any of that. I just mean they're not there. And so it's just not, it's, it's a certain kind of positional in society, polite, whatever, right?
Ben:The rest of this episode is actually just am listing all the people he dislikes. So if your name appears here, please
a.m.:Here's the thing. So it's not dislike. It's, I don't like, right. I don't, I don't have an active negative absence of like the absence of it. And, but, but again, it's, it's a very specific thing. It's not affect. It's not an emotional. I don't like you. It's, there's a reliability that you have for producing something that I don't find of value or interesting. And most often it's because most people are walking around in habituation. They're playing a role. Love is not related to like for me. It exists in a different domain. Now, like has a temper, has a temporality, has a past temporality because in order for me to have this sense of you were reliable for producing something that I find valuable or not like Starbucks by its nature, that's, that's a past temporality. I'm using evidence from the past and then extrapolating into the future, which really isn't future. It's repeat of past. Right. And I'm assuming you're going to repeat. I go into Starbucks. Actually part of the value proposition is we will repeat past for you. Right. That's a past I don't find valuable. And so I don't like Starbucks. Coca Cola is going to taste like Coca Cola. Exactly. Right. And I don't like Coca Cola. Right. Love is in a different domain. Love's temporality is future. When I say I love someone. What I'm saying is I'm willing to commit future absent any evidence from the past. There's no amount of like you can build up with me that will have me love you. And there's no amount of dislike you can generate, right? See the like, dislike is a product of behavior and value in that behavior and reliability of that. Love is solely up to me. That it is a product of, I say, I am going to commit future with you in the absence of having any clarity of what future would be. And in fact, in the face of a future that for now might be an extension of the past based on the pattern you're going to keep engaging in. So in folks who worked for me in the 30 years or 28 years of advisory work, there's a, like we would have this conversation overtly. I've only had it overtly in here with a couple of people because some people are still new enough that this shit just sounds weird. And part of my wanting to do the podcast actually was to be able to open up conversations that are more about the ongoing development of this place. And then people listen in. Cool. But every, everybody that ever worked with me on, on the advisors, I said, you do not have to like a single client, a single one of them, but you cannot work here. If you do not love our clients, not as affect. but as engaging in a way where you are committed to future with them with no possibility of predictability. Right? And I think it's the same here with the students is whatever you're reliable for that the past says the kind of repeat pattern that is the habituated you, whether I like that or not is irrelevant. If you walk in this door, I love you. Meaning I am blank slate committing to future with you. And whatever is emergent, engaging that emergent thing in a way that generates value in our case for you and your development. I think in a healthy marriage, that's what's happening. And marriages fall apart because they treat love as a static thing. And then when you stop doing A, B and C, maybe I don't love you anymore. But it's an ongoing, for me, it's an ongoing recommitment to future. And where it falls apart then is I'm withdrawing my commitment around future. Around the possibility of surprise for whatever reason, right? Because I, you know, so that's a whole nother thing we can kind of explore. It's tied into the leadership work, like, you know, leadership, art, love, those things are exist in a thread for me. Because it's all about an impossible future, impossible in the sense of there's no precedent for it. But liking is all about a past and the continuation of a past that is either desirable or not desirable. And so like dislike
Ben:We've done episodes on like transactions. Yeah, that's the idea of a like being tied to Something very transactional in nature and love existing Separate from that. I just wonder what's the what is the generator or Predictor of being willing to commit to loving something because something about you has to say this is worthwhile making this commitment. And if it's non transactional, which I think is fabulous right? There's a value somewhere behind it, a different value,
a.m.:right? It's a simply matter of I say, and so there have been people who've walked around on the planet. That are in love with the whole thing that there, it is all possibility that whoever you have been, whatever you have been, however, that I am committed to a, an unknown future with you, with the world, right? And it is not, there's nothing affective about it. We're just coming off of Christmas. My reading of the, I'm not Christian. I'm very clear. I didn't grow up Christian. I'm not Christian and I dig the dude's work. At least the direct reading of it, you know, like dig it a lot. Big impact on my life. Pissed me off when I first read it. Because, you know, I don't know how you actually read the New Testament and then go back to day to day life in terms of the obligation, you know, or the opportunity to have some, a certain kind of impact and, and, and not look at their other, you know, wisdom tradition texts you read and it's like, okay, well, how the hell did I go back? You know, how do I, you know, how do I read the Bhagavad Gita and not get into a very deep inquiry about, you know, kind of how I, you know, Process my own behavior. Anyway so it's, it's very much not a, you know a denominational thing or a religious thing. But when you read, that guy didn't like a lot of people. You know what I mean? There's a complaints about lots of different people. But the whole invitation was, so what? Are you willing to? Work towards a future that's, that's, that's a break from habituation, a break from the past, a break from, which is for me, what, what love is.
Ben:Well, the flip side of that is, I assume I can guess the answer to this, but if you had to put a percentage at the number of relationships in your life that perceive you as being well liked versus well loved. Is the balance a hundred and zero, 50/50, 80/20. Is it important to exist in a world where anybody likes you at all? Is being liked important? Full stop. Is being loved important? Full stop to put it on the other end of that relationship.
a.m.:Being liked is a critical if you want to actually get anything done transactionally. Right. And so the thing you're in a job, like the thing you're reliable for producing is something that is of value. You're liked by the organization. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. Your habituation works for them. And, and so it can be very, even in the context of, of personal relationships in marriage, right? Like, it's useful that I like you, that the things you regularly produce. Right. But there are going to be aspects I don't like. And so if the, if the marriage is based on those likes and dislikes, it's going to fall apart. Eventually the thing's going to get irritating enough, right? Or there's enough of a gap. I think there's also could be, you know, when there's, when there's too much of a disconnect, right? There are too many things that you do habitually just by virtue of your machinery, or I do as virtue of my machinery, that is just a fundamentally out of alignment for you, you know, no amount of, of, of committing can. Potentially work. Though I, I'll say that one loosely. I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm not committed to that statement necessarily.
Ben:The lack of a commitment goes all the way down.
a.m.:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's turtles all the way down.
Ben:Yeah.
a.m.:But, but, but the point is that, that, that, that love is hygienic work, right? Like is maintenance work. Keep tuning to make sure that the machine is running well, that the outcomes that are valued keep getting produced. or the clarity of the outcomes that are not valued, reinforces not engaging, right? But love isn't, isn't a, a a machine concern. And by machine concern, I don't mean is it a negative thing? Again, really critical aspects of life to answer your question. So much of life is contingent upon those, the, you know, the transactional so much of getting things done is on the transactional. And so those like, dislike distinctions become useful. When I want a cup of coffee, it's useful. To know that Starbucks is in fact reliable for a thing and to know it's not my thing. So I don't have to have baggage about it. I just, that's not where I'm going. Ryan and coffee peddler is reliable for producing a thing. And it's a thing that works for me that I like. And so great. So that, but the transaction of, I want coffee becomes very straightforward. Yeah. But love isn't transactional. It isn't about, you know, it is about, am I willing to recommit? Am I with every moment? Am I willing to recommit? Am I willing to recommit? Am I willing to recommit?
Ben:To add a flavor to that, I was talking to a former colleague the other day, and he's on to a new job, and he's enjoying it, and I asked him a bit about, you know, what's the codebase like, how's it going, and he said, well, everyone here is so nice. They all like working here, and they all, everyone likes each other. And the code base is a reflection of that, meaning everyone's afraid to tell anyone else that their ideas suck, that you shouldn't, you shouldn't do it that way. Let's consider another way. And if there's an aspect of this, this sort of liked economy that is very superficial and actually not advantageous for the individuals or the group as a whole, Because you're optimizing for making sure everybody feels well liked, but you're not really willing to be honest with each other, which is super important for the collective good.
a.m.:Yeah. There's no, there's, there's no love in the organization. Yeah. Right. There's no confrontation. Again, back to the new Testament, lots and lots and lots of confrontation because there's lots and lots and lots of love, lots and lots of a sense of a possibility beyond where we are. Right. It's, it's when the thing collapses into sentiment, you know, to affect that it gets weird and gets turned. And that's why I released that video on Valentine's day, however many years ago is, is we just have lost any relationship to that, to that terminology. It is just another, I love cheesecake. What the fuck does that mean, man? What does that mean? Like I love the New York Yankees. What?
Ben:It means you're committed to a future with cheesecake.
a.m.:No, there's no possibility to have a, with the Yankees. There's no possibility for commitment. You can't have commitment with the Yankees because there's no action you can take. You can have hope about the Yankees. I hope they win the pennant. I hope they win seven. Great. But you can't have commitment relative to the Yankees because there's no action that you can take short of highly dysfunctional actions like You know, being a sniper at the games and picking off the opposing teams, you know, like, you know, dark, psychotic stuff. Don't do that. Right. Yeah. Obviously. But, but but this is the point, you know like is psychological and evaluative and, and love is subjective and committed is a navigation point for action in the future. I mean, your kids are still young and how often do they piss you off?
Ben:Every day.
a.m.:Right?
Ben:But I love them.
a.m.:But I love them, which I'm committed to, despite what you're reliable for at the age of one, at the age of two, which is like a pain in the ass stuff that you're reliable for. I don't like this, but I am committed to building a future with you that's a break from any of these habitual patterns.
Ben:And that's part of keeping people around you, right? Which I think is something you've, you've mentioned in previous episodes about community is, is easier to have love for someone and all flavors of forgiveness, patience, tolerance, acceptance. If you know that they're part of what you broadly speaking, identify as your community. You know, if if you're, If you're the type of person who, like you mentioned, loves the whole planet, then you treat the whole planet as your community. And there've been those people. They're rare who can wrap their arms around the entire thing, but they're there. I think the reason that it's easy for people to love their children is it's really, in some ways, the smallest community that you can be deeply confident is going to have a meaningful role in your life for a lot of time moving forward. The goal is how to expand that. And you know, the, the devaluation of of loving cheesecake or the Yankees or ketchup or whatever it might be doesn't really do that idea justice of what your community is because the Yankees are not part of your community. Right. And cheesecake is not part of your community. So you replace it with these symbols. Right? The, the kind of superficial markers of what you value, but that's really, that's the other half of the relationship. That's, that's something you like.
a.m.:Well, this is it. And it's a sort of an extreme expression of like, and it gets collapsed when I, the reason I even got on this thread is, is I love the piece you read and, and, and, and in that last sentence, actually I heard the word love being used in the way that I'm using it. And so that's why it sort of took us down this rathole as it were. When I, when you say you're embracing the whole world, right? When I look at nature, Ben, and I mean this literally when I look at nature and therefore capital L life, like the thing, right? I, there's nothing there but love in the way that I'm talking about it. Not an affect, not an emotion, but a collective commitment to keep the thing moving. A commitment to a future, whatever happens, a commitment to keep adapting so that we can be in future together. Like that's, that's, that's all I can see in nature. It is a collective agreement, not in a human terms agreement, right? In, in, in, you know, the kind of brains we have all that, but it is a certain collective agreement. It is designed. The whole thing is designed based on this principle of, of, you know, the way I'm using the word love. Whatever happens, even if a species pops up and dumps billions of pounds of plastic, the operating principle is love, meaning we're going to find a future that keeps the thing going.
Ben:I think you've said before, the planet will be fine. We might not be here to see it, but the planet will heal.
a.m.:So if you, if you take these, you know, not as right distinctions, right? Because again, I don't think anything that we've ever developed or I've ever developed is right. I think there are filters or lenses to look at that maybe allow for a different way of seeing, right? So if you just take these filters and now look at how we engage with problems and issues, and it is all affect and like, positionality, And zero engagement. And then when, when, you know, love does enter the equation, it's just cheap like that's got a wrapper on it, right? It's still affective. It's still, you know, it's emotional. It's sentimental. It's been hijacked. Yeah. And, and, and the folks who, who, you know, came along every now and again and transformed society, they weren't pointing to affect. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the the Ted talk I did one of the two TED talks I did, they talk about this. You know, if you think about what the new Testament is, and then I'm going to also going to take a secular one. Here's what, what the fundamental part of what I took away from, from the new Testament at 13 and said, fuck, you know, Here's what it is in your blood, like down at the cellular level. You are wired to protect, bias towards, fight for, hoard for those who share your DNA at a primal biological level, a little further out, maybe those who share your ethnicity or social class, that you are fundamentally wired for that. I invite you to say, fuck it and treat every living person the same way. That's crazy. It's arguing against 200,000 years of biology. It's pointing to a possible future and then being committed to it. Secular example, the declaration of independence is saying we have forever. tribal or national separated by some hierarchy or another, some class distinction or another. We commit with a full acknowledgement that we're not even doing it fully today and in fact may never be able to fully do it. But what we commit to is an ongoing future. Of more and more and more and more and more equality for everyone. That's actually what the Declaration is, right? It's, it's, it's an act of love. It's a pointing to the fact that the past, this is what the past is. And if we do nothing, we'll keep moving that way and it'll be fine. But we commit to a future that breaks from the past. That is a horizon point that we probably will never get to. But we commit to keep moving in that direction. And the idiots who are running around now kind of pointing to, you know, they're pointing to the total opposite of what the spirit of that thing is. They're pretty pointing to a past, they're pointing to a, a kind of a fixed thing, right? And so, you know, there are precedents for engaging this way at quote unquote scale. You know, the, the, the, the most significant one being nature. I could suck up the whole hour with other examples but, but I'll, I'll keep it, I'll give you the nature of the New Testament and the Declaration of Independence but there are lots of examples in, in world history of people stepping forward and saying everything argues against it, it's impossible, it's a break from the past it's not about whether I like it or not, but we're out for sort of ever unfolding future in this particular horizon.
Scott:I was just thinking, you know, to paraphrase Bill Hicks, you know, and what do we do? We kill those people.
a.m.:Of course we do. Because we get to, you know, to point to a break.
Scott:He says, somebody shut him up. I got a lot of money riding on this.
Ben:Well, I mean, sort of implicit in, in what you're saying is the idea that there, there come certain inflection points in history, whether religious or secular, where we identify a need to break with something that is deeply coded at an instinctual level, to break with our nature. So, like, why? You know, what's, why do we believe that we're wired for something that has this kind of entropy towards the worst case scenario, right? Towards something that sows conflict, that draws the, the circle smaller and smaller around the narrowest definition of family or community of the people we care about. And why is it actually important to, to break from that, to treat the entire planet as something that's worth considering and connecting with? Obviously we're in an era where I can, you know, we could be, we're in the same room. We could be doing this in different countries and it would be fine. You know, we, we have a global community now in a way that maybe we didn't, certainly didn't, when either of the documents you just referenced were made. And yet they already saw the need to break from our, our most basic instincts and try to do something different. So like, what are those inflection points and why do we feel like we have to kind of fight against this nature or tame it? And to me, there's a sense of. Yes, that makes sense. My value system puts us at a objective good that exists after both of those documents, but trying to kind of peel it back to a point like, well, is, is the natural thing worth listening to and why, and, and why do we, why are we in this place where we're, we're fighting that continuously and why it's important to fight that and acknowledge that and understand why. I don't know if our nature is to make everything smaller and more insular. And what you're really talking about is we have to love each other on a much larger scale, engage with the whole planet. Right. And that's against our nature. What is the implication of going against that nature? Like how do we, how do we listen to that and know when we need to fight it and when we need to go with it?
a.m.:So I don't think inclination is to make it smaller. I think make it more predictable to make it more machine like, and, and the reasons we do that are wired as it's safety. It's a sense of safety. The more you look like me, the more possibility that we are in fact related. And then biologically you won't try to kill me and steal my food, right? Like at a very crude level, right?
Ben:Got it.
a.m.:So it's about about this inclination to make life more and more and more and more predictable,
Ben:which is sort of the social contract.
a.m.:Yeah. The triumph of the past of the future. Some notion of a stable past that we're trying to bring into permanent existence, which is again, what a machine is, right? The reason to love in the way that I'm talking about it is that we are not machines. And that if we collapse into that, we will cease to exist. And in fact, it's what's, it's, it's what's been happening. You know, we are creating the conditions to cease existing as a consequence, paradoxically or contradictorily. As a consequence of our desire to stabilize a thing that is not stable in the sense of predictable stability nature is stable, but it's not predictable in the way we want predictability 14 widgets every Friday, et cetera, et cetera, right? That's not how it works. And our desire to are really psychotic desire is a natural desire. When. We could not clothe and feed ourselves. We did not have the technologies to do that. And we couldn't do it for everybody. The, the deep desire to bring things under, in a state of control and predictability make a lot of sense, but we are pumping gas into a tank that has been full for generations and not realizing all the shit that's spilling out and is flammable.
Ben:I get what you're saying. So essentially predictability to the point of having our basic needs met after which there are other, there are other objectives.
a.m.:Yeah. There's not a thing in nature, microorganism on up to, you know, the largest mammal you can find is not a thing that hordes. A lion will lie down with the lamb after it's full. It won't touch it. It'll, you know, you see these, these, these, these things. With the lions in there and the zebras in there, they're just like hanging out at the pond or whatever. Because lions aren't hungry anymore. It does not have a 401k plan. You know what I mean? Now, as human beings, we realized, oh shit, that's a, that's a very tenuous way to live. And so having some stability, having some stores of grain, the equivalent of right. I mean, absolutely. It makes sense, but we've so far exceeded our need for it and don't know what else to do. That we're with, that we've killed future in the way I'm talking about future, not temporal, like, you know, time, like tomorrow. Yes, there'll be a tomorrow. I mean, possibility we've killed possibility. Yeah. Killed art.
Ben:This gets back to like every, every dinner conversation I ever have when, you know, you can get together with other folks in the business world says, we have, we must innovate. How do we innovate? We've stifled innovation. And, but this is, this is always, it's always at odds, right? And I think we've talked about this. Before a bit, but the idea that we want to innovate, but we don't like the people who innovate because the people who innovate are disruptive. And I don't mean disruptive in the sense of like, we have to disrupt the industry. I mean, like literally disruptive, like they're, they're hard to be in a room with or meeting with sometimes because they're unpredictable not by definition, but by the definition of, you know, what makes us feel comfortable in a corporate environment. And I mean, that's, we've done that in our world in a lot of ways, right? Like, you know, predictably, you're driving down the highway, there's probably gonna be a Dunkin Donuts every 10 minutes if you're in New England, or 30 seconds in some parts of Connecticut. You know, like, we need these, like, repeated, segments of, of kind of comfort. Like the, this happens in New York City. It's like every 20 blocks, right? Every 20 blocks you get a new neighborhood, you get a new laundromat, a new set of Chinese takeout places, like you sort of like the, the idea of what's like necessary, or kind of these building blocks of predictability and repeatability, just get clone stamped You know, again and again on the, on the surface, the surface of almost like a, I think it's like a tile based board game. It's like, oh, yep, that's the hexagon for human comfort and we're just gonna kind of put that down and we'll put another one next to it and they all kind of repeat. And so yeah, your question is an interesting one of like, what is enough? How do you draw the line at enough? And then limit the predictability to the sphere of enough and everything after enough becomes chaos, but allowable, intentional, beneficial chaos that can create and innovate and inspire and do all of these things that don't fit in with the box of having the Dunkin Donuts every 30 seconds.
a.m.:It's organic chaos, right? It's not, it's not randomness. Yeah, right. When just just on the first part of what you said, you know, we, we you know, we bemoan the kind of lack of innovation, but then too often when it when it quote unquote shows up or when it's acknowledged or engaged with, it's actually not innovation. It's sort of hucksterdom. It's hyperbole. It's you know, we do, we do tech education here, right? You've got these, you know Organizations have popped up, you know, in the last decade that are going to be about filling the tech gap that are just same as before, just amped up and they haven't solved a damn thing and you can, you know, you can point this, you can point to this in, in, in, in every area, right? Where there's so much of what, what looks like innovation isn't innovative. It is, it is, it is a mindset that previously existed that's got, you know, a cool new PR team behind it in a way. I'm old enough to remember when, when, you know, like total quality management was an amazing philosophy. Dr. Demings was an amazing human being. And what he had to say about how one could manage an organization. For both productivity and, you know, like real human, humanity based work. It was spectacular. It was boring. And then like a decade later, or more than a decade, but by the nineties TQM got, got it, got a, you know, basically they got a PR agent and it became Six Sigma. Six Sigma was the exact same thing as total quality management for the most part, but it was innovation. It was new. My God, this is it. Right. And so that's what innovation looks like is it's underlying mindsets or tools that have existed, but spun in a way that has them look new. And in that spinning, actually losing a lot of foundational value. And so the cycle time of that innovation to burn out is, is really rapid because it actually didn't have substance to it. That's not the case everywhere. I'm not saying every innovation is that, but, but there's a lot of that you see in the last two decades. Of things that look like innovation, but they're just repackaged something else. And because the emphasis is on the packaging, the thing just spins out, you know, and has a very short half life.
Ben:Yeah, I feel like actual innovation has some measure of, like, irritation and ignorance built into the process. You know I'm not, this is my caveat, I'm not citing this example because I think I'm innovating. I'm not. But I can see how the process happens where, you know, my My CEO will reach out and he'll have an idea and I'll say, oh well Here's like here's a reason or two why things don't really work that way. It's really cute idea. But the idea is like stuck in his head. It's stuck there. It's like lodged. And it's not that he won't take no for an answer, but just the idea of the answer being no doesn't sit right. You can tell it's like, I don't know, that just doesn't feel like that should be how this goes. And you can look and you can research and you can read the docs, figure it just doesn't seem to work this way. But it's, it's almost like this nagging feeling of like, This isn't how, this isn't the version of the world I thought it would be living in, where this is the truth. And I can't accept that this is the answer. And so the only way forward for me, rather than acceptance, has to be changing the nature of my reality to conform with what feels right to me already. And when I can sense that he's getting into one of these modes, it's, I have to like take my brain, kind of save, dump it, and then bring it back in a way that's receptive to this, this alternate universe where we're suddenly jumping timelines where it says, okay, so if this has to be possible, if it must be true, What do we do next? Like, how do we, how do we jump to this other universe in which this is already a foregone conclusion and we can do it. And yeah, that's like an ugly and confusing way to birth an idea, but that's what I think innovation feels like. And when you have the resources to see that through and you can actually connect those dots, which is where I'll, I'll note, I've not really done that yet, but I can see the process. I can see how you get to the other side. And it's not like having this clean, well packaged idea. It's a very ugly connection between this emotional feeling that things should be a different way than they are and trying to actually scrape that out with your fingernails. And it's I think it's precious when you get to do that, when you get to put those pieces together, because it's hard to have The first, the idea or that feeling, like it has to be a genuine feeling. I don't think you can really fake that. And then you have to go through this difficult birthing process and also have the resources to be able to put it into effect. Those are a lot of requirements for that. And I don't think in a relationship, to tie this back to the earlier part of our conversation, where two people in a like economy exist, I Where that ever happens because you're never going to get past the ugliness of it being irritating and the other person having to be dragged along to say like, I know, I feel this, this is wrong. There is, there's something that else that needs to be this way. Come with me on this journey. Trust in that future.
a.m.:You know, I've shared that, that, that a lot of what, you know some percentage of, of what I've discerned about, effective organization comes from hanging out with the Grateful Dead for so long. So there's a period in the early seventies where Weir the acoustic guitar player decides he's going to start to play slide. And of course, you know, they're touring 120, 150, 180 days a year. Like they're just on the road. They don't rehearse. They just play, you know, not big on studio albums and they just play. And so he's, when he's learning slide guitar, he's learning on stage. Right. And it sounds like shit, you know when he's fulfilling and, and the story goes and we're tells a story where at least he used to tell the story. He said one night after, you know, a couple of months of this, like after show, I'm like, fuck this. I'm just, you know, it just sounds terrible. I just, I'm going to stop, you know just try to find time to work on it when we're not touring or whatever. And he says from the other side of the room, I hear Garcia say, Hey man, you know what the cure for that is. And I said, what is it just fucking play louder, right? That's an act of love. That's what love looks like. It says there is no precedent. There is no predictability. There is no, you know, but I'm committed with you in the future. I'm committed with you to a future where you're a slide guitar player. So just fucking play louder. Like that's it. That's what I'm pointing to. That's how we engage the kids. That's how we always engage the clients. You know, 60 year olds who are like, Oh my God, the corporate equivalent of, you know, when they're trying to innovate in an industry or whatever. Oh my God, it sounds terrible. Yeah, cool. I got it. Play fucking louder. Right. And I'm here to be part of the band with you. So you, so we can kind of pick you up when the thing kind of goes, you know, whatever. Right. But just play louder.
Ben:I'd never heard that story. Yeah. It's great. I like the There's a book out there somewhere. Ready to be written about Grateful Dead as management philosophy.
a.m.:Yeah, I'm telling you, there's a, well, here's the thing that they were mediocre managers. Like I wouldn't use them as, as in the way I talk about management, like I wouldn't talk about them. The Stones is, who I'd use as, manager philosophy, like them in there, you know? But, but leadership, you know, how to be in a state of constantly on the edge and out over your skis and riding with it and then discovering things and bringing them back and bringing them into now the predictable space, but not being content. Every single show can contain that. There was a period of the show that was either the dark star or it revolved into space. What was the whole intention is we're going to lose any semblance forget about of our songs. We're going to lose all semblance of sonic integrity. Like it's not forgetting, not even not music. It's not even, it's not even noise necessarily. We're just going to play with the, you know, the space of the thing and out of those sort of things, songs, little snippets of songs and melodies would emerge. It became songs. And you know, that's, that's what a healthy, effective innovation factory. They were a 25 year, 30 year healthy, effective innovation factory.
Ben:I wonder how all these formats apply to, you know, different form factors. Like, how do you take a touring rock band or the way a film is made, you know, or just, there are all these wonderful practices in one medium that are inherently non transferable in totem to other mediums, but where there's something to be learned. And you know, part of it is respect that you can't just copy that, like, don't try. You're not gonna, you're not gonna take that and bring it to your consulting business or to your students. But there's something there that shows you it can be done. In your own way, in your own space with whatever you're actually trying to achieve.
a.m.:For, for me, you know and how we, we taught it for all those years in, in the master's program with clients. Leadership is inherently a unique act of self expression, a one time act of self expression. Not only can somebody else not repeat it, you can't repeat it. Each time you have to, like a piece of art, each time you have to approach the thing as new. And, and, and take nothing from the past as a formula. Now you may well draw, but you can't draw from it as a formula, as a step, as a process. Right. There's, have you ever seen heart hearts of darkness? Yeah. That's another example of like, how the hell did he pull that off? And I mean,
Ben:yeah, it reminds me of that or Burden of Dreams, the making of Fitzcarraldo. I also recently watched another making of that's The Humiliated, which is the making of Lars von Trier's The Idiots.
a.m.:Really? I've not even seen that. I'm not even familiar with it. Wow.
Ben:I don't know that I'd recommend it.
a.m.:Okay, yeah. I'm not a Trier guy. He's a little too, I don't know.
Ben:It's, it's, it's there for the taking. It is what it is. But the making of was Pretty phenomenal in so much as the you know The point being all of these making of movies often expose that the process of the making of the movie closely followed the point that the movie was trying to get across in the first place. You know, I think Hearts of Darkness kind of shows the isolation of all the people involved going through the same type of trials as the boat going up the river. Fitzcarraldo, Burden of Dream shows they actually dragged the damn boat up the mountain. It's insane. It's insane. And you know, the kind of again, humiliation of the characters in The Idiots is what the actors themselves are experiencing as it was being made and the like emotional uncovery that that happened there. So it's, it just turns out that, you know, sometimes you don't even need to really make the thing, the process of doing it proves your point.
a.m.:And, and, and yeah, it's again, unique stuff. I was smiling just because I think like one of my It's not even a bucket list. Like you know those fantasy things you have like if you wave a wand? Like, like, like a fantasy bucket list for me is a cross country car road trip with Herzog and David Lynch. Just like, like a week in a car with the two of them, man. Oh god, that'd be amazing. Because I think day to day they're not like, they are them, but they're not this kind of persona. And I just find both of them so fascinating and revere both of them.
Ben:I'll just put it right out there. If David Lynch or Werner Herzog are listening to the podcast, you're invited guests. We'd love to have you.
a.m.:I'll come to wherever you are, man. Absolutely. Just to hang out. No, both of them are legitimately sort of I don't have a lot of people I kind of consider, you know, like reference points, but both of them are definitely reference points for me. They're amazing. The one thing for me that you can point to that's common, right? So don't take the Grateful Dead's process or steps. Don't take Coppola's, you know, steps or process or don't, you know, like anything's the, it's inherently, it is unrepeatable, but what you can look at, what we found useful to look at and that's common is the nature of human relationships. Seems to be consistent. And, I'm going to keep beating the drum. Very often, the people involved don't like each other. But they love each other. Meaning they're willing to stay committed to a possible future that is impossible. And yet they're committed to staying in it. But they irritate each other and they don't like each other. And when the thing is done, they, they, they leave. You know, they don't, right? Okay. Grateful Dead had so many blowups internally and, and Bob and Jerry on one level were like older brother, younger brother, but on another level were constantly like just not, you know, from, you know, third party, like, I don't, you know, who knows the actual truth of that. But my point is, I mean, if you look at Hearts of Darkness, right, like, was there a lot of like, you know, Kumbaya and I mean, you know, And so one thing that does seem to be consistent is relationship and, and, you know, what we'd tell what I'd tell the, the the executives in the master's program, you know, at a certain point, once, once you, cause you say certain stuff on day one, it's like, what the fuck are you talking about? Right. But, but a couple months in, we'd say, you realize these two years, the only thing we're working on is relationship. And the only thing we're working with is listening. There's a single tool and it's listening and it's deepening your capacity to listen and there's a single capability working on which is relationship. Your relationship to yourself, your relationship to other people, and your relationship to the world. That's it. That's the entirety of it. And when I look at all these, you know, examples of leadership, innovation, things that are impossible I very often find people who didn't like each other. Who irritated each other, who didn't, you know, and it didn't matter because they loved each other in the way that I'm talking about. They were committed to a future that the past said was impossible and they were willing to move forward on it and put aside affect and put aside emotion, put aside like, and dislike, and you got bad breath and you wear your, you know, horrible cologne and whatever, right? Yeah. Because they had a shared, you know impossibility they were willing to commit to.
Ben:I love it. I think the moment of silence is, it's sort of like sitting back after a great meal and just digesting for a minute, you know, which makes sense. Cause we did also have lunch not too long ago, but a more of a conversational meal. Do you ever, This is going to be a, a postscript, but ever watched the Dana Carvey show? It's like a sketch comedy.
a.m.:Yeah, I'm familiar with it. I've just, I've never seen it.
Ben:Yeah, they used to always get like corporate sponsors and they'd always shit all over their corporate sponsors every week until their corporate sponsors kept dropping out one after one after the other. And finally, the last episode of the show, they couldn't get any corporate sponsors because they kept making fun of them. So they were sponsored by the Chinese food place they got lunch from across the street. So I feel like this should be sponsored by Starbucks and we'll just keep taking them down one by one by one.
a.m.:Starbucks was a client, you know, so I, it was through, it was through Starbucks that I got turned on to the in the late nineties to actually even earlier than that, probably like 97, maybe 96. The corporate social responsibility movement, you know, back then you know, Schultz was in his sort of early, you know, relatively early, you know, kind of stability thing. There's still a lot of meaningful ideology there. They hadn't become a beast yet. And they and Levi's were two legit actually committed members of, of BSR, our business of social responsibility and, and So, so at one point, all I wish to say, at one point they did take a lot of money from Starbucks. So they, you know, it's 20 years, 25 years later or whatever, but they, I suppose in a certain way, indirectly are, you know, funding this
