Play The Spaces Podcast
Nithin Cherian and Malcolm Moore host Play The Spaces, a podcast where they utilize the Mind Vehicle to help guests attain personal growth. Their approach is built around focusing on the timing and intensity of simple actions to gain large results.
Play The Spaces Podcast
Shifting Sense of Self: Part 2 - The Butterfly
In this second part of Play The Spaces Shifting Sense of Self series, hosts Malcolm Moore and Nithin Cherian unpack what it means to outgrow the version of yourself that once felt safe.
From losing a job to redefining purpose, they trace the messy beauty of metamorphosis—how fear, failure, and reflection combine to re-train the brain’s “Tenacity Hub.” Through stories, humor, and science-meets-spirit insights, they explore why micro-dosing failure, journaling the hard stuff, and letting go of external validation can open the door to genuine creative freedom.
Listeners walk away with a toolkit for facing uncertainty, practicing persistence, and finding growth inside discomfort.
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*Theme music composition and performance by Malcolm Moore.
**Photo manipulation by Caleb Moore.
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Living your life with intent to create magic in every moment is sort of the philosophy of this. And the way we go through this podcast is facing these really ugly conversations. And how facing those ugly conversations can get you to these beautiful outcomes that constantly move your life forward into a place that you would rather be instead of in a place where you sort of stay still or even regress. Does the caterpillar have to actually start pushing at these walls slowly until it breaks these walls open over a period of time to come out a butterfly?
Malcolm:My good buddy Don, he reads tarot cards. And no matter what your beliefs are on that, the last time he did a reading for me, I thought it was fascinating. He said, You're going through these major changes. Don't think that you have to do things the way you always did them, because your life is changing and you may need a new approach. Whatever you're gonna end up doing is gonna be very different. So don't necessarily take the same path as you did before.
Nithin:Yeah, so I'm I'm gonna get super heady for a second. So if you think about this, like you have an identity, the identity goes away. So your body goes, I'm missing something. I want it back right away. You mean like a muscle memory, right? Yeah, so it's sort of like you lose a limb, and all of a sudden your body tells you there's a limb there and it's not there. Phantom limb. Phantom limb syndrome. Yeah. So if you think about that, that's what your mind is doing right now when you go, holy crap, that job's not there. The thing that I anchored 80% of my day to is gone. And so I need to fill it right away. That's your urgency built in. And the reason that's built in is for most people, their job is a static reality in the sense that you have this process that you've created. Even though the job requirements in small amounts by day are different, your core job is the same thing. So you get up a certain way, you you have your morning ritual, you go to work a certain way, your day has a certain cadence, you do certain things after work, then you go home.
Malcolm:And you get to the point where you can almost do it in your sleep.
Nithin:Yeah, it's like an autopilot. So in my mind, how I translate that is you have let this muscle or this part of the brain called the tenacity hub of the brain basically turn off or lose its strength because you haven't been practicing it. I mean, unless you have a job where your your job is to constantly evolve and you're pushing yourself constantly, think of like a songwriter relentlessly trying to change their style with every record. You know, an artist that does it with every record, so they're constantly pushing themselves.
Malcolm:Right, like a David Bowie or a Beck or Radiohead, yeah.
Nithin:And they're not doing it just to be a rebel, they're doing it because they want to see how far their art can go, how much it can change. What are the limits really limits, or can they push through those limits? Because to them, life only has meaning when they're pushing as hard as they can and seeing the most of what they could do. So basically they're exercising this part of their brain. And what's scary is there's actually science in this, and I found this by accident. Like I was telling you the other day, it just sort of came across, you know, the spies of the internet, you know, were listening to my phone and served me some random article that says there's this thing called the tenacity hub of the brain. And I'm like, what is the tenacity hub? This has got to be BS. So, you know, I do what nerds do these days. I went to one of these AI chatbots and I go do some research, cite the papers that says tells me if this stuff is real or not, and if it's real, how do I use it to my advantage? Right. And so I got a bunch of papers, you know, a paper on the tenacious brain, how the anterior mid-singulate cortex contributes to achieving goals. This is real. I mean, it's crazy that that's a thing. And so I go, well, that's awesome. Since it's real, I can help myself because who am I but a giant chicken? As we've discussed many times. I am only impervious to failure when it's for something for someone else, not myself.
Malcolm:Right.
Nithin:And I've spent the better part of the last 15 years trying to figure out how do I get myself to stop being a giant chicken and just do the things that scare me the most, i.e. the things that mean to me the most. Or do the things that you tell other people to do. Exactly. So learning to walk the walk instead of talking the talk. So stop being a hypocrite, practice what I preach. And I've I would say I've gotten significantly better over the years. Not perfect by any means, but significantly better. And what's interesting is these papers in an aggregate sense basically say that if you actively engage in behaviors that challenge your ability to do something, so i.e. you take on tasks that require persistence and pushing through an obstacle, you can actually activate this part of the brain and improve its ability so you can strengthen it to improve your ability to face your fears and failures. Right. Think about how amazing of a statement that is for people that are constantly afraid of everything. You could literally microdose failure to a point that failure is no longer an obstacle if you persistently push yourself a little bit at a time in measurable ways past what you thought you could handle the day before.
Malcolm:I've been thinking about why is it so difficult that I don't have my teaching job anymore for me to get a grip on it when I've spent most of my life thriving on change? Like when we drove across the country to be here in California and left everything in New York behind. I was actually excited. However, I started thinking, well, why is this one upsetting me to the point that I'm having panic attacks every day? I feel like when I was a teacher, it was the only time ever in my life where the universe responded to me positively. And not only that, my father, who I lost a couple of years ago, he and I did not have a good relationship. We really struggled. And a couple years before he died, he came to the school and saw me putting on a performance and leading, you know, 500 people singing together. And he's like, Don't ever leave this. This is where you belong. I'm proud of you. So for me, feeling like most of my life has been a failure because I didn't reach the goals that I had in my mind, to lose the one time where I thought I was really accepted by the world was really tough on me. And now where I am at, I don't really have a solid response. I do know that, you know, as creators, we create just to create because it's good for our brain, and then we're sharing what's inside us with the world. But to not have that same response from people has been really challenging to me. And because I think it's two things. I don't know what I'm gonna end up doing, and I don't know where the money's gonna come from. Does any of that make sense? Oh, it totally makes sense.
Nithin:You just gotta realize also that you're talking about two completely different situations when it comes to you being a teacher and now moving forward, and you when you left the East Coast and moved west, because you had a vision of what you wanted to become when you were moving west. Which that did not work out too well. Yeah, yeah, but you had a vision of what you wanted. So in your mind, you could do these deliberate actions that made sense to how your brain had worked at the time, and you go, if I try to do these things, I have a chance to get this outcome. And so to you, there was structure and safety. Well, this is the first time in a long time where now you're facing something without structure and safety. Right. Because the reality is is sometimes you just lock into a new groove if you're lucky and something finds you. But for a lot of people, especially when it goes real slow, say like you're applying for jobs for a year after a layoff. Right. The question is, is the only thing you're doing focusing on applying for jobs? Or is there a vision of who you want to be that you can also slowly become while you're applying for those jobs? Right. And and that's the tough part.
Malcolm:Well, you don't really have a choice on that second part. You are going to become what you're gonna become.
Nithin:Well, yeah, but you can have some intention of what you become versus just falling into it. Right. And if you have some intention, sometimes moving with that intention of, okay, life's not ideal. So let's look at this scenario. I don't have money coming in, I have just enough to get me through a few months to live at the certain comfort level that I've gotten used to. Right. What can I put into play? Like anything, you've got to look at your core skills again and go, here are types of things I can do, but you gotta stop looking at it at the ground level, going, I know how to teach this song on this instrument to coming up a level or two or a bunch of levels and going, Oh, I know how to build a curriculum for students of this age with a discipline. So if someone gives me a different discipline, I can put a curriculum together. Okay, well that's interesting. Now that's different. There could be people that could be great teachers, but they're horrible at putting lessons together. Right. Maybe you can sell your own package of lessons that other teachers can use in their private lessons. That's just one thing. Okay. So the other aspect is you do great with younger individuals and mentoring because it has a dual benefit for you, and it has a benefit, you know, because it has a benefit for you and for the kid at the same time. Right. And so, you know, like you've been doing, you can continue doing private lessons, you could build more of these band kind of things. And yeah, it doesn't solve the problem, but it allows you to keep some of that semblance of the parts of you you you liked, but you still want to block out parts of your day to go, okay, is there a small physical thing I can do to get me one step better today than I was yesterday? Right. And then mentally, can you go spend I'm gonna spend 15 minutes on something that absolutely freaks me out and irritates me and see if I can learn one or two things in that 15 minutes? Right. And then you take something social and you go, okay, what kind of thing am I afraid to do in a social sense or an emotional sense that I've been avoiding that I need help with? Maybe I need to have this conversation with my wife, my crazy friend Nathan, without a podcast being recorded, or my kid could help me, or someone that I know, and I go, I need to have a conversation I've been avoiding because it's uncomfortable to just get it off the deck and out of my mind. Right. And then think of something productive. You know, maybe it's mowing the lawn because you don't want to do it, maybe it's fixing that one dripping faucet because it distracts the crap out of you and you lose focus all the time in the middle of doing stuff, and you're like, oh, all I had to do is tighten this thing, but you never do it. Maybe it's doing that. But some simple task or a dreaded task that you can focus on for like 30 minutes that you know has a tangible benefit for you. Maybe it's cleaning your studio up and reorgan, you know, getting it all set. Right. Something like that. Now you could try to do pick one thing in each of these segments, or you could try just one of them at first. Pick any of them. But make sure you cover these four bases of physical, mental, social, and this general productive output. So you can think of it like your work output. So that could be homework, kind of like chores around the house things, household things, or it could be like business things of like setting up social media accounts or setting up this or posting stuff or commenting, feed doing feedback, things like that for your social posts or your podcasts or whatever. And make sure you do at least one of those a day at first.
Malcolm:Right. I feel I feel like I'm doing a lot of those. I hate cleaning and I hate exercising, but I know it is not only good for my body, it's good for my brain. Because with cleaning, you're cleaning your your brain out, and with exercising, you're actually benefiting yourself.
Nithin:But the last thing I'm gonna tell you, which you've probably never heard me say, because I also hate doing this part, and I really don't like doing this part. I'm gonna say it again, I hate doing this part, is reflecting on what your day was like.
Malcolm:Yeah.
Nithin:I'm not a person that's a super fan of reflection because for years I spent tons of time just trying to get my brain to forget stuff because it wouldn't get out of my brain. So reflection isn't in me aren't friends. Right. But how the brain is wired, if you literally take a piece of paper and a pen or a notebook and you write down this is the challenge that I face today. Here's how I felt before, here's how it felt while I was doing it, here's how I felt after. Can you identify based on those things where you felt resistance, where you felt you wanted to quit? Can you write down how you got through it? What did you learn about yourself in your just auto mode, you know, your autopilot mode response to difficulty, and identify places where you had these little failures or setbacks. And the reason you do this is you do this to have no judgment, but just to understand the places maybe that you need to face more work on. It'll give you data on identifying what to work on more, where to focus, where to move forward. Because the key is to fix a problem in any situation, you have to identify the problem, and then you have to persistently execute a plan to overcome the problem. Right. And in this case, you're trying to exercise this part of your brain that says, I'm scared as hell to try something different. I can't deal with a failure on top of the fact that I feel like a failure.
Malcolm:Or the possibility of a failure.
Nithin:Because I just lost myself.
Malcolm:Right. Right.
Nithin:So I won't take the chance at taking a failure because I already feel like crap. And with these micro dosing and facing these little minute things that you know you can win over, as I like to say, it's the groundhog day method of baby steps. Right. If you can do that and then journal about it at the end of the day to reflect upon it and see how many times you like take note of when you're doing it better, recovering better, these things, and pick a thing every day. I guarantee you, in 30 days, which I know is a lot of time, especially when money's not coming in. But if you if you have an overall plan of saying, I need to have these things together because I'm going to try to do this new thing, or I need to build the skill so I can apply for this job. Well, part of your things that are your challenges for the day could be the things you have to do to acquire that skill.
Malcolm:You mentioned uh a Bill Murray movie, but I think you meant What About Bob. But the interesting thing about that is Yeah, sorry, it wasn't Groundhog Day with Bob. But no, you actually made a great point because Groundhog Day is what I'm doing now. I keep doing the same thing over and over, not getting results. If you watch the great movie called What About Bob, also Bill Murray, it's when Richard Dreyfus is his psychiatrist and starts giving him that mantra, right?
Nithin:Yeah, so Richard Dreyfus's character has this book on baby steps, and Bill Murray goes on crazily calling, like, I'm doing it, I'm doing it, doctor, I'm doing it. Baby steps, baby steps. And he's getting all these crazy things to happen, it's making the guy even more crazy. But the funny thing is, Groundhog Day is sort of the same movie in a different way, where Bill Murray is literally the crazy guy and the therapist all in one. Because at a certain point he got bored of doing the same thing every day, right? And he realized by doing a little bit every day, even though he was doing the same day over again, he could become a master pianist, he could become a conversationalist, he could learn everybody's histories, right? All these things, and he literally realized in the same way, baby steps, that with little itty bitty changes every day, he could become the prolific change of human without realizing it.
Malcolm:He's taking advantage of the Mobia strip.
Nithin:Yeah, now for his benefit in the movie, he didn't have to lose a day of his life. He lived probably two or three years of life by doing this. Right. But that being said, there's so many things that you can do and change within 30 days. And the best example you could see of that that's easier for people to understand is take a newborn baby. How much do they change from week one to week two, to week four, to week eight, right, to week twelve, to week sixteen, you know, until they start going, oh, the kid's three months old. We're not even talking weeks anymore, and look how different it is. You know, now it's six months old, nine months old, one year old. Think about just humans and how different they are in time. But if you realize the millions and millions of changes that have to happen for a kid to go from first day born to one month is crazy. One month to two months, it's it's crazy. And you as an adult can harness that if you can get over the fact that the new thing that you're gonna take on, you may not be an expert in like you just were.
Malcolm:Right.
Nithin:You have to earn your way to expert again.
Malcolm:But nor nor was I an expert when I first tried to be a teacher about 13 years ago, yeah.
Nithin:But you were okay with it because you're like, oh, it gave me an opportunity I didn't know I could have, so it's fine. Right. Well, now you gotta create the opportunity yourself. So the to me, I equate having a steady job for more than two or three years, like five years, is like learning in high school or junior high or elementary school. Essentially, your day is spoon-fed to you. You know you're getting a little dose of your day every day that just sort of affirms your identity, and things either keep going great or they go keep going bad, but your day is predictable. So you're like, eh, whatever, and I can survive because somehow my bills are being paid by doing this thing all the time. Right. Now it's like you going to college. Well, what happens when most people go to college? Not everybody gets a scholarship, right? Right. Most people have to pay Afpolo money or take a giant loan, i.e., instantly scared.
Malcolm:Right. What I often tell to my friends who have younger kids, they ask me what was the toughest part, the toughest phase of raising your kids. And I always say college because it is a really volatile combination of the most freedom you've ever had, but also the most pressure at exactly the same time.
Nithin:And you right now are living what it's like to go to college again. Because now you have to turn on your brain to learn instead of just expectation. You have to go into a risk mode where you're like, wow, there's all sorts of options. How do I focus? Well, that's what you're gonna have to decide. And this is where this whole focusing on the 20% of core that defines you and mapping out mentally and visually, these are the outcomes I want for me, is extremely important.
Malcolm:And you can you almost get into manifesting or speaking things into existence.
Nithin:It it's as I I like to say it, it's coming back into all the whole mind-moving aspects. Our conversations have totally triggered these things of trying to get me out of being just into my own head about stuff, because you know me, I like to I like to make it seem like I know everything, even though I know I don't know everything.
Malcolm:In response to what you just said, I was just talking to my friend Donnie Wynne. And if you don't know who he is, he was Robert Palmer's drummer for 25 years, and we were talking the other day, and he said, Malcolm, you know what we did every night after the show? And I was like, No, what? He goes, We would get onto the tour bus, and Robert would have all of us watch the video of the show we just did, and then discuss how we can do it better the next night. Yeah. So that's kind of what you were saying with that. And my question, with that in mind, my question to you is when you and I moved out here, you started working at Yamaha, and then you turned into business nothing, where you wore like a suit every day, you had slicked back hair verging on Pompadour, and you were this really successful guy, and everybody, yeah, the mob star, everybody knew who you were, everybody knew you were Mr. Yamaha. Anybody that was a musician or a sound guy was like, I'm gonna call Nithin because he knows everything about this. So, how many years did you work there? Just just over seven years. Okay, so when you left, you literally had to take off the suit, and you became closer to what I call samurai Nathan. And so now you don't look like that, now you don't do that for a living. And you said at first, some people didn't talk to you as much because you didn't have that Yamaha connection, and maybe they couldn't. You would tell me they can't quite figure out who you are because you're not associated with who they know you to be. So, how was that for you to make that transformation?
Nithin:Well, I mean, uh for me it's different because I did it on purpose, I created my own hell. You know, I I decided I was done living in that phase long before I left there, and I kept giving myself outs to stay. If this happened, I'll stay. If this happens, I'll stay. And certain things happened, so I stayed and jumped into that out of my team.
Malcolm:Out of comfort, like finding reasons to stay.
Nithin:Part of it is finding reasons to stay. Part of it was I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go. So why turn away a paycheck while I'm still trying to figure things out? Right. You know, I I knew I would never lower my work quality, so it was really not about anything like, oh, I'm worried about my performance for these guys, as it was, how do I just know when and where is the right thing for me? I'd been moving so fast, had it not been for lockdown and COVID, I wouldn't have had time to really think about my own things. Right. Because, as you know, and anybody that knew me, I worked so much it was ridiculous for a company I didn't own. Right. I sort of operated on this just disregard of my mind and body connection, and I'll let my body fall apart and I hyper focus on I have to evolve and do something cooler every couple days. Otherwise, I'll lose the flexibility that I have in the job, and likely I'll get canned because I I created too many questions for a lot of people that didn't understand why I could do the same things, I could do more with the same kind of inputs they had, and it just didn't make sense even while I was teaching them what I was doing.
unknown:Right.
Nithin:And so I knew I was just a constant corporate threat, and I I don't enjoy politics, even though I could be very masterful with doing things that are very political, right? I just don't like it. It's not me, so I tried to stay out of it, and that was a big mistake. And because I wasn't controlling the conversation, it also made my life even more difficult and created issues. So at a certain point, I was just like, I need to be out. Now, when I was out, because I had changed my life drastically in my past before, I already knew that okay, just remember don't think any less or any more of any specific person if they don't respond to you, if they don't call you, call frequency changes. Because you're you now in the value stream of what was the primary importance of your relationship, which a lot of these people I met for business first was business. And these people, by their own nature, were workaholics, they you know, they're constantly worried about their next paying big pain gig staying relevant, that they don't have tons of time they carve out for anybody but the closest people in their lives. So I shouldn't expect them to do it to me because I knew I wasn't the closest in their lives.
unknown:Right.
Nithin:But a lot of them did stay in touch for a while, and we still stay in touch a little bit, but we're not like tight anymore. Right. And that's because before we had mutual reasons where when we hung out, we both basically got paid or got benefit.
Malcolm:Well, it's out of necessity in some ways.
Nithin:Yeah. Well, I mean, it's somewhat of a necessity, but nor not necessarily a necessity, but we both figured out how we could change what we did with work to basically get paid to hang out.
Malcolm:Right.
Nithin:And it would benefit our companies. So we weren't doing anything wrong, and we were able to hang out with people where we really enjoyed being around, and everybody benefited. They and their independent company, me and my corporation, that everybody got the benefits of us just having some bro time. Right. And just being buds, guys or girls, whatever. I'm calling that as general neutral bro time. And I knew that was going to be a paradigm I'd just have to let go. And then I had to realize well, we'll say this. I went to see our mutual friend Andy's gig. You know, he's got one of those sort of super pivotal garage rock bands. Right. And our mutual friend Ron, who's like a brother to both of us, right, who's a prolific tour manager dude. They happened to do this random gig at Vegas. So Ron came to Vegas from Palm Springs. Andy was there, and I came to hang out. And this was the first time in years when I realized when they were doing this after thing, I wasn't being invited, not because I wasn't cool enough to hang as a friend, but because they were still trying to keep appearances up in a business sense, and I was no longer the Yamaha guy. Right. And what was funny is Ron even let it slip. Well, you're not the Yamaha guy anymore.
Malcolm:Yeah.
Nithin:And I'm like, it's all good. I get it, dude.
Malcolm:Right.
Nithin:I get it. I don't have the business value. I'm not looking for anything. I just came here to hang with you guys anyway. So if it's gotta be that way, you gotta do you. I know this is work.
Malcolm:Right.
Nithin:It's always work. And and the tough thing, toughest thing for me is most of my friends were very similar to me. They're people that are high-functioning, talented people who majority of their life is work that they can't really take the time away from work because of how they've structured their life to be ahead of the curve all the time. You know what I mean?
Malcolm:Right.
Nithin:It takes a it takes a lot of effort to be ahead of the curve, especially when you're already in a high-functioning space where and you and we're talking like, as you know, these are people that work with the biggest bands in the world. Some of my friends are, you know, Grammy nominated, Grammy winning, world-class composers, whoever. And then fortunate these people are friends because they met them through work. And yeah, we'd hang out here and there, and I could call them and we could hang out if I was coming to town, but they're also just people that their closest friends, when they hang out, they don't really see more than half a dozen to a dozen times a year because they're always working. And so I had to come to terms with okay, I'm not an always working person. Who am I gonna hang out with now that I have extra time just to have a community? That was the weird one.
Malcolm:Yeah.
Nithin:I mean, that was the most bizarre one, is like, oh my gosh, how do I find community now?
Malcolm:And not a lot of there's not a lot of people like you that can walk into any scenario and be comfortable with different people that have different vocations and different thought processes, different views on life. You know, I'm like that too, but it's pretty rare. And I think that's why when someone like you or I go through massive changes, people can't quite process it and they don't know how to maybe politely respond. Well, it's also hard to explain. What do you do? A good mutual friend of ours, I won't mention his name, but a very close friend of mine, both of his brothers committed suicide within one year. And he and I talked a lot, obviously because of his grief, but he kept saying to me, You're one of the only people talking to me right now. And the reason was most people they were like, Well, what do I say? Who do you know that had two brothers that committed suicide? So I know that's an extreme example, but it kind of correlates with what you're saying. People need to identify you with being someone. And if you're in the middle of changing, it's not as easy to do.
Nithin:And the tough thing is when it's a harsh change, you just don't want to deal with other people asking you questions sometimes. And there's it's a really weird thing to know when to let a friend to just do their own thing or just remind a friend, hey, I can tell that you need help, you're going through something, but do me a favor, tag me in when you're ready. Yeah. Just know that I'm here. Right. Now, sometimes you do have to nudge certain people because they're in a funk they can't get out of and they can't see it. But most of the times, people, if you pay attention, instead of trying to solve it the way you want to solve it, right? We'll tell you, this is what I need, if you just step back and go, I don't really know how to tell what you need, but I know that you're going to need something. So you just tell me when you're ready and tap me in, and I'm here.
Malcolm:That's so funny because I was on another interview with my former drum teacher the other day, and we were I brought up one of my favorite authors. There's a spiritual guy named Henry Nowen, who was a Dutch priest, and one of his best quotes, I'm going to paraphrase, but it basically said, A good friend is not going to sit there and tell you what to do or give you advice or say you're doing this wrong. He's just going to, he or she is just going to be with you through that difficult circumstance. And you'll know by their presence they got your back.
Nithin:The importance of all this, I mean, if we're going to loop this back to sort of perception and what you need to understand is your identity is looking for a new anchor, and the key thing is to figure out how not to try to replace it right away, like a rebound partner.
Malcolm:So if that is if that is the mind vehicle, what would we call that? What you're bringing up? It makes sense what you're saying. But how would how would we label that?
Nithin:Well, it's not it's not so we're not trying to move it, right? This is this is a different thing. So if we're identifying, we have a reality distortion that's occurred now because our world has changed. It's like a trauma, right? The job loss is like a trauma, death in the family is like a is a trauma. And you have to sort of take a step back and go, I have to create new normals. And if I have to create new normals, I have to be willing to microdose failure and realizing that failure is my gateway to success. And failure meaning like when you're lifting weights, failure. So if you're going for five reps and you can only do four, at least do the four and see if you can get four and a half or five with someone spotting you. And the next day, you know, if if that's right for your program, or next week, try to do five next week. The week after that, try to do six. But let me set little steps.
Malcolm:Let me clarify though. I just want to clarify so I I know that I follow you. You say as you're getting used to the new normal. So should somebody like me or you be getting used to a new normal, or can that new normal be the river of constant change? You know, should I get used to the fact that everything's going to change every day, or should I hope something comes along like my teaching job, which I can kind of fall into this ritual every day that's always predictable?
Nithin:To me, your brain is wired for safety systems. So the inverse of this Pareto principle thing, which is you do 20% to get 80% of the result. In this case, I like to reframe this 80-20 comparison as you spent 20% of your effort to instantly replace that job with a job that's similar. So you can just go on doing life the same way because that's how you like to live. Right. But you spent 80% of that time that you would call your time waiting, where you'd be frustrated. Some people drink, some people avoid through music, drugs, eat too much, bad habits, eat, whatever, sleep all the time. So think of it like this 20% of your day is your is your day after work. That day after work you spend with your family and you apply for new jobs that are similar to your old job. During the day, when you used to work, do the same work habit of how you wake up and how you come home. But during the day, you block out the day to intentionally get you from where you are now to some interesting version of yourself that you map out. So you spent your first day when you lose this gig on maybe having a friend guide you through what do I like about me? What do I like about my life and my job? And see if I can find high-level descriptions of these things. So it's not tactical, but it's more like, oh, I can find parallels in other professions. I can put parallels and taking these skills and using them to do the same thing in a different way. And can I see options of how I can work in different ways to see what other jobs instead of direct replacement jobs I could be qualified for, for instance? And then go, what would I love like to look like if I took all the things I hated about my workday? The amount of stress I had, the amount of this I had, the amount of that I had that I just hated, and I can visualize and frame a future that says life would be this, this, and this, this much family time, this much work time, this much less stress, this much this. And you build yourself a plan that takes six months to get there. Now you can sort of break that down into chunks and take each day where 80% of your day is focused on how to get to that cool version of yourself that you just imagined. So this is your intent. This is intent. So your your safety, even though it takes work to do, is getting the same type of job you had before.
Malcolm:Right.
Nithin:And everybody knows in the job market today, unless you're really lucky or you got an inn with a friend, it's going to take three to six months to get a job. That means you have three to six months to take time to get more awesome than you were the day before. And I don't care who you think you are, you think you're a piece of crap, you think you're this, everybody's awesome in their own way. And that's why I say it without arrogance and I think it's funny. I go, I'm awesome. I can't help myself. Being that you're unique as an individual and no one is exactly like you, there's something awesome in you. I don't care who you are, what you are. And so, with that, how can I envision the things I wish I could have and dare to dream it?
Malcolm:Right.
Nithin:And if you work on these exercises of exercising the tenacity center of your brain, a real thing. I can't believe it's real, but it's a real thing. So I love talking about it now. And I will talk about it to death. People will hate me over it. Because now it's like a muscle. It's it's the first brain thing I've been able to define where I can actually exercise like a muscle. There's tangible research that says that if you do this, this will happen and you can get better at it. This means no one really has a reason to fail if they take this microdose method. And don't worry, I have a plan to make it so people can learn how to do this outside of this podcast. I am totally in the works of making something cool that people can use on their own because I'm like, I'm sick of this. Everybody has a chance to be awesome. Let's make them freaking awesome. Yeah. So let's go. When you talk about these things, there's other things I ended up researching about the brain, mind sense, influence, well-being, neuroplasticity, like all these crazy things that I would see about nonsense about like voodoo things that you'd see that are total clickbait on Instagram or a TikTok or whatever. And I go, you know what? Let me see if I can verify all these things and do a bunch of research now that I have these robots called AI that'll freaking research a ton of stuff if I'm smart enough to ask it the right way. And it'll give me peer-reviewed sources, you know, from like Harvard, from the National Institutes of Health, from research papers that are peer-reviewed, all the stuff. And you discover all these crazy things about there's actually a certain aspect of truth to the mind-body connection and visualization, which is why you do this reflection process. So that process I talked about earlier in the podcast about how you take on an activity, a small activity, and you practice it, you try to do it, push yourself a little farther than the day before. You engage in that activity, and at the end of the day, reflect upon it. Why did you choose? You know, what was the challenge? How did you feel before, during, and after? When did it when did you get that resistance point that made you want to quit? How did I push through just because I told myself today I'm going to push through? What did I learn about myself? And you get into this daily practice of intentionally breaking through one piece at a time, like a sculptor, but you're just seeing this block of stone as your life and the metaphor, and now you're being the Michelangelo to your life, sculpting that rock into a beautiful piece of art.
Malcolm:And I think that's gonna include making sure you have the ability to forgive yourself, because you might not at that moment live up to the expectations you had for yourself. Not that those are right, but it sounds to me like this is a great idea, but it's not gonna be easy. So if it doesn't go well one day, the next day, just move on and just be like, I'm changing, I'm learning. It's okay.
Nithin:It's you fail forward and you literally guaranteed 100% if you're not failing as you start this process, you're doing it wrong. So you're failing at failing, even though it's so meta, right?
Malcolm:You're failing at failing. Who knew that AI would someday give humans the perspective that they needed?
Nithin:Well, you know, sometimes you just need a brutal truth where people level set you. Well, AI doesn't know any better, except for they try to tell you nice things. So they will tell you a rabbit hole of like you're better than you are, which is really horrible. Just FYI. It will. They're written that way to make you want to sort of hang out and use it more.
Malcolm:It's like that old uh Joaquin Phoenix movie. What was it called? Her when he fell in love with the Siri.
Nithin:Oh, yeah, the yeah, his his talking robot in his ear. So a little bit of that. So all you gotta remember with we'll say on this this one topic of understanding is mourn your identity like you're mourning a death in the family. And the greatest thing is if that person resurrected like Jesus did, great, you're happy you got them back. Who cares? Right. And that's what that's the I applied for jobs that are just like the one I have. Because if I get that job, great. I don't even have to care that I lost the other job, I got a new job, and I got some rollover money from the old job and because a vacation day pays out, whatever, great. Now I got a buffer. But more importantly, hed your bets by living with intention and going, you know what? I'm gonna build this cooler future. I always wish I could, but I never had the time to do it. And I'm gonna break it down into a very simple task day by day, and I'm gonna journal about it, not by typing it, but by writing it. Because there's a difference in the mind, the the mind connection to physically writing something versus typing something of how that sets in. And that's why you want to do your reflection by writing it out, not dictating it. It's intentional. That act of actual writing has a different effect on how your brain works. And so you want to go again, I'll say it a million times. What was the little thing I decided to take on? Because I'm doing this with intent. I'm not just randomly challenging myself. What did I take on? How did I feel before, during, after? When did I feel that desire to quit? That little push that said, Don't do this. And how did I get through it? If you can keep doing that stuff, you can see that you've got it all inside you. You can take yourself to the next level. You don't need somebody's help. Can having help and asking for help be a great thing? Absolutely. Should you do it? Absolutely, if you can handle it. I know for me, when I'm in my worst place, I want everybody to get the F away. Right. Go away from me. Don't talk to me. Don't breathe near me. Get away from me. I gotta get this reconciled in my head, or I'm just gonna be an ugly person. Once I reconcile it and I'm working in it, I'm okay to be bothered. But at first, oh my gosh, if I don't have like all the noise blocked out, I lose my stuff.
Malcolm:Let me ask you this to bring it home to wrap it up. What is the mind vehicle that will take us to the place where we can play the spaces? How could you get that down to two or three sentences?
Nithin:Failure guarantees the future. Fail forward, fail often, failure becomes fun. I mean, all those guys that you look up to, these billionaire startups, yeah, what have they embraced? They've embraced failing. The amount of times those guys have failed and what they do would blow your mind. Most of those companies that have billion dollar ideas never started with making the idea that made them billion dollars. I mean, the easiest one I could tell you was Facebook. Facebook, these idiot college douches wrote an algorithm called Hot or Not, and they would literally take pictures from the sorority books, and a bunch of dudes circulated pictures on the internet and ranking girls as hot or not with a like a thumbs up or thumbs down. And the guy who came up with the algorithm was the friend of Mark Zuckerberg, and Zuckerberg realized, oh my gosh, we could do this thing, we're gonna call it the Facebook, where we make it exclusive and invite people, so they want to get into it only, and only do it at elite colleges at first. And basically, they can all be connected to other cool kids that got invited, and they used the hotter algorithm that this dude wrote to make suggestions of having friends and stuff. That's what it sort of came out of. Right. That's how it started. They just literally wanted to creep on chicks and decide who they're all gonna hook up with at frat parties, and that turned into a billion-dollar idea. I know that sounds really crude, and I'm putting a bad lens on them. Obviously, they're not totally horrible people, but most kids in college are dummies. They do dummy things. Their decision-making center of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, is not fully developed. So they do stupid stuff. These guys were college kids doing stupid stuff, which isn't which was normal for their brain age. And their stupid thing was hot or not.
Malcolm:I came out to California because I wanted to be a professional drummer and tour and record. Well, that didn't work out. Doesn't mean I'm not a good drummer, but I ended up being a really good teacher. I never planned on that. And so getting myself into the space that you're talking about will allow the next thing that is gonna materialize appear. Because look at the guys with Facebook. They weren't trying to make this thing where everybody connects and shares their birthday and news and all this stuff. They just were inherently focused on the present, on what they wanted to do, and then that just blew up into something else later. And none of us can predict what's gonna happen, especially these days.
Nithin:But the key was they failed forward by pushing to see what more they could do. Right. I mean, you know what's funny, two of the biggest things people use is Facebook and YouTube, right? Facebook was started as hot or not. YouTube started as a video sharing platform for dating profiles. Yeah. Because basically, they wanted to share a video. It was too hard to upload videos at the time somewhere to where you could share it with your friends, and they sort of looked at it as like a dating site. And once they figured out how to do it, it changed their whole mission into what became today's YouTube. It's just a way to share videos. Right. We can predict these things. Again, groups of dudes that wanted a date. Go figure. Who knew? In the same way, but what they did was they were persistent in leveraging their talents and their skills to try to do something. And what was funny is when they tried to do something, they got an unexpected benefit, and they go, Wow, that unexpected benefit is way cooler than the stupid idea I had first, which was just to find a date.
Malcolm:And you you know more about the history of this than I do, but I'm sure they were doing what you were saying. They would test something out, see how it went, then talk about it and say what went well and what didn't, and then it slowly transitioned to what we know it is today.
Nithin:Yeah, they would compete because they were computer programmers, so they'd compete. Who could fix it first? Who could find a cool or new feature for us to add? And they would just sit there all day, you know, drinking caffeine drinks and you know, junk food and code more. I mean, that's how a lot of startups work.
Malcolm:But they were in the present, and that's what what you're talking about today makes me think of. I've got to stay in the present, be aware of what's going on, reflect upon what I learned that day, and then things will change and improve as time goes on.
Nithin:And pick one problem, focus your skills on solving that one problem you know you can solve, but it's a little hard. And what you'll find is when you solve that problem, you're like, eh, I wasn't feeling that, but now that I did this, I could probably do this and then solve that problem. Happy accidents. And then and then solve that problem. It's not even that it's a happy accident, it's your mind changes once you see the full picture of getting from point A to point B. Because now you've seen exactly something that you just came into fruition. So you know two things. One, I could make something come from nothing just because I intended to. And two, now that you can see it, you can see how it's actually interacting. You know, it's sort of like when you buy that one jacket or shirt or something that you really like by itself, and you go, I wonder what this would look like, like that one piece of furniture to put in your house or plant or picture, and you love it, and you go, let me put it into this room. It's gonna be great there. And you put in that room and you go, Well, it's still a great plant, but it doesn't look right in this room. It actually goes better in this room. You know what? I realize I don't want a plant over here. What I want is a something else. Right. And and sometimes it just takes you doing the one action and making a decision to actually seeing more of the picture. It's sort of like those you remember those weird like attempts at digital comic books where you choose your own adventure or like the Oregon Trail or something, yeah, the old Apple IIs. Yep. Sometimes it's just making a decision that opens up more opportunity. Right. You know?
Malcolm:Go with the flow, as they say.
Nithin:And so if you can make a decision or two, you'll have a blast. And it's just realizing that odds are you're gonna suck a lot more than you're gonna be awesome at first. And the more you get into it, the more you're gonna slowly become an expert at that new thing that you're getting into. And all of a sudden, you you'll find a new tribe of people you you attract and gravitate towards and things to do and things to get into, and you'll see other ways to make revenue, or sometimes people see ways for you to make revenue for you.
Malcolm:That's why that band uh Primus was ahead of the game. By I remember their first tour, I saw them, and they already had t-shirts that said Primus sucks. They didn't care, they were gonna play a bizarre, weird type of music that no one ever heard, and eventually it caught on. Yeah.
Nithin:So, like you said, fail forward, failure can become fun. And if you ever thought you'd had a chance at being the most successful person in the world, all of them know this one thing persistence beats talent and intelligence, and failure is the way to unlock your ability to see the opportunities for success. So fail forward, fail often, learn, reflect, and then do it again. And as you do it, you'll find these great places. And the best thing about it is if you embrace this process, you can enjoy every moment of it instead of just constantly going, I want to get to point B, that outcome that I can see. And then life just becomes this great fun journey of interesting evolution that just constantly happens.
Malcolm:All right, Nithin Cherian, always good to talk to you. Looking forward to next time we get together for play the spaces.
Nithin:Okay, that worked for me.