Meaningful Connection and Bridging Generations in Virtual Space, with Kyle Doran

In this episode of Unapologetic Leadership, Cory Dunham sits down with Kyle Doran, founder and CEO of The Net VR, for a fascinating conversation about virtual reality, meaningful human connection, gaming culture, AI, leadership, and the future of digital interaction. What begins as a discussion about gaming quickly evolves into a much deeper exploration of how technology is reshaping relationships, communication, identity, education, and society itself.

About Kyle Doran

Kyle shares his journey from lifelong gamer to tech entrepreneur and explains why gaming and virtual environments are no longer just entertainment, but emerging spaces for community, collaboration, learning, and human connection across generations. Together, Cory and Kyle unpack the growing disconnect between older and younger generations in digital spaces, the dangers of unmonitored online environments, the ethics of big tech and AI, the value of empathy and human-centered innovation, and why leadership in the digital era requires far more than simply chasing metrics and profit.

The conversation also explores the powerful distinction between “bits and atoms,” the hidden influence of algorithms and social media, faith-driven leadership, ethical innovation, and how leaders can create healthier digital ecosystems that prioritize people over manipulation. Through thought-provoking insights and practical wisdom, this episode challenges listeners to rethink technology, virtual spaces, and what it truly means to create meaningful connections in an increasingly digital world.

Kyle Doran is the Founder and CEO of The Net VR and believes technology has the power to profoundly shape society when built with strong moral values and positive intent. Passionate about virtual space and the evolving metaverse, Kyle focuses on helping people create meaningful relationships inside digital environments while bridging generational understanding around gaming, AI, and immersive technology. His leadership philosophies are influenced by thinkers including Frederic Laloux, Stanley Milgram, Donald Cressey, Gordon Moore, and Ray Kurzweil, while also embracing principles of Six Sigma, agile systems, lean operations, and high-performance organizational design.

Connect with Kyle:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-doran1/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Unapologetic Leadership. If you've felt stressed, overwhelmed, wrestling with the imposter syndrome, wondering if you're just not good enough, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Corey Dunham.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Welcome to this episode of Unapologetic Leadership. I have Kyle Dornan, who is the founder and CEO of The Net VR. So, Kyle, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Happy to share some insight. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I appreciate you being here. So, yeah, tell us what you do. I see in your bio too, you had gaming and some other things going on. What do you do and how do you impact the world?

SPEAKER_04 0:46

So, yeah, I mean, I I started off my gaming career as a young kid. Gaming kind of hits the child generations. I grew up and focused more on real jobs because parents said go get a real job. And then we found out soon after that gaming now is a legitimate career. That athletes, gaming athletes and game building and world building is actually becoming more and more legitimate where you can actually create a job and a workplace. So that's where my passion lies is taking that knowledge that I learned from the years of gaming that I have had and bringing them back to try and help all generations kind of connect uh more meaningfully.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

I think that's awesome. And one of my colleagues that I have, he says both of his sons work for epic games, and it was the same thing he said growing up, and also my generation, too, since I'm late 50s and uh my colleague's in his low 60s. But just back then it was like, oh yeah, you'll never get off those games, you'll never make a career at it, and here we are eating our words. So I totally appreciate that perspective that you have.

SPEAKER_04 1:53

It is becoming more and more useful. I mean, if you look at the amount of computer usage from you know time 50 years ago to today, it is astronomically increasing.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

That is just crazy. Yeah, and tell me about you said gaming athletes. I've never heard of that. I can kind of imagine what that is, but gaming athletes.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

I mean, so these are kids that are you go out and you play rec sports, right? We go out, we play football, or we go out, but then we have professional athletes, and these are the you know, the top of the top. Within gaming, it's no different. So there's the world championships for Nintendo, Nintendo games, Super Spanish Brothers. You've got gaming athletes that are now out there competing for million-dollar prize pools. You have some gaming athletes that are starting to compete with with legitimate professional basketball, professional football, sports, and they're making millions of dollars in their career. And then obviously, you have brand deals that come with selling the PCs and everything, and then you have content creators on the other side that are also selling just about everything from A to Z, computer parts, and then sponsor brandship deals through Gatorade and Prime, all those other types of energy drinks. They're using sports athletes or okay sports.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Yeah, that's that's really cool. I've never heard of it from that perspective. I've heard of the typical sports, and I've seen some of the gamers that do have sponsors or like you say, book deals, or like you see the what's his name? Beast? Beast, what is it? Mr.

SPEAKER_04 3:20

Beast, Mr. Beast, Mr.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Beast. Yeah, I was gonna say the beast, but I'm like, uh no, it's Mr. Beast. Yeah, it's very good. No, I appreciate that. And so, where do where has that taken you in the recent years and then today?

SPEAKER_04 3:31

So for me, when I was a gamer, I connected through people with multiplayer gaming in a 3D space. So I was basically doing what they call as a first-person perspective or first-person shooter where you're running around, you're kind of playing like laser tag, but it's all online. Yep, it's all done through a PC or computer. Didn't have enough money to go to Laser Tag every week and hang out with my friends and play at Laser Tag out there, but now it's you're able to just do this online. Uh and there's an important connection, there's an important conversation that can be had online, you know, when you're out there running around. You're talking to people about their day-to-day lives and you're just connecting with them. Uh, and so this was one of the things where, you know, hey, let's go over here, let's go do this. You lose that within kind of a voice call or even a Zoom call. We can't really go anywhere. I can't take McCorey and Kyle can't walk over and look at a pond and then have something or a bird comes and poops on your head or something like that. None of that happens in the virtual reality space. But if we had this podcast and we're going on a walk, there's an audience of 50 members following us around, it all kind of starts to get convoluted. The thing that we found out, or that I found out, and my company's mission and drive is to point out that that three-dimensional space, while it's been heavily used in gaming, is also very important for people to have meaningful connections inside their virtual space.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Hmm. Meaningful connections inside their virtual space. I haven't first time I've heard that is from you.

SPEAKER_04 4:55

It's interesting to see a lot of kind of our competitors. Roblox is probably one of the one of the best that I feel comfortable talking about, where a lot of people are like, hey, my kids can never use it, but a lot of adults are like, oh man, my kid won't shut up. Just play it. Those kids are having very meaningful connections with other kids their age. So unlike using a playground where they would have a meaningful connection on a playground in you know, kind of an elder generation, the younger generation's playgrounds have shifted completely to these Roblox type atmospheres. We all used to do bad things on playgrounds. Those bad things happen in those Roblox areas. But one of the big differences is in a playground, usually you have one parent that's watching over everybody. Where in these virtual 3D spaces that these kids are now using, you kind of see, you know, bad actors proliferate a lot more and a lot easier. And it's this understanding and our drive, and one of our big missions is that meaningful connections, it's about teaching elders that younger generations are going to use this more and more and more. And it's not a bad place, it's not an unsafe space. It is if it's unmonitored. And unfortunately, most of these spaces are gonna say it sounds very monitor them like we we do in real world. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Yeah, and I was just gonna say it's um oh for me, I was just gonna say it's uncharted territory from what we've seen in previous generations, but otherwise it sounds almost identical as the playground. Like you said, even if you do have somebody watching, they can kind of control what's happening if something gets out of control, but things happen, you know.

SPEAKER_04 6:28

And yeah, and I guess I a lot of I think adults don't necessarily see again, maybe it feels uncomfortable or like, why are we playing this video game? This is dumb or this is stupid, or but I've also heard a lot of positive stories of adults that are getting on with their kids and they're like they're appalled, and they just pull their kid away from the playground. Well, that's not good because then how's that kid gonna connect with their generation when they're all playing on that robot? They're not in the playground, they're all on Roblox. So you're gonna pull your kid out and go to an empty park. That that just doesn't make sense. Really, for us, it's it's it's being able to kind of implement or help the two generations, the two generational gaps kind of connect, reconnect, um, so that we don't have a lot of this chaos that's going on that you see, you know, social media is social media, but is it really social media? Not really, it's not like a social playground where we really focus more in on that playground aspect and this 3D space for the these kind of younger generations.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Yeah, yeah. No, that's I think really cool about that. And that's as you say that, that's one thing, as my especially my sons, I have two sons and a daughter, and they're all the age from 18 on up to 24. And as they were starting to play more and more video games, I'm like, oh my gosh, they're not, they're just on video games, they're not interacting with other people. As I was thinking when I played on video games when we didn't have the internet, and I know I've told my kids, it's like, yeah, what did you do before the internet? Like, was were dinosaurs walking around then or something like that? I'm like, I have no idea what we did, but no, dinosaurs were not walking around then. But come to find out that they do connect online and they're on, I think I've heard it called Discord or communication channel, where they can talk back and forth, and they're saying all kinds of crazy stuff when I've been near them and listening. Oh my gosh, who are they talking? Who are you talking to? And come to find out it is their friends or maybe some new connection that they've met. So I think that's a really cool point that you're distinguishing these connections.

SPEAKER_04 8:20

Yeah, yeah, for me it's 100%. It's focusing in on on that connection and then trying to again go back and kind of reteach elders. And I know a lot of elders are not used to being taught, hey, that this is important, but it is very, very, very important. And it is, no, you know, they're not just playing your useless video games. But to go back to your point earlier, it's funny, yeah. We used to do land parties where you know the social connection was hey, there's you know, we all have our PCs and we're all playing these games, but we're socializing face to face. The internet has gotten so good these days that we don't necessarily have to do that anymore, these face-to-face connections. However, they are still very important. I will put that tag out there.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yeah, no, that's really cool. So, anything cool that you're working on right now that you'd like to either share about or so.

SPEAKER_04 9:07

Our first application, again, it focuses in on that meaningful connections types of things. So it's just this three-dimensional space that actually connects into a two-dimensional space. So I know that's kind of technical and whatnot, but it basically uses a video game engine and connects to the way that you connect to social media. Okay. All social media these days is done two-dimensionals, you're just endlessly swiping on this screen. You have no control over which way it goes. There's an algorithm that points you to which way it goes. Personally, I don't think that's fair. And three-dimensional spaces, you know, I get to walk around the world. Now, the world's already set, but it at least I get to walk and go where I want to go. I want to be in the space that I want to be in. I get to make and direct that control. Um, so that's what our first application is focused on. And it basically builds these theaters around content creators, so influencers and digital influencers like uh Mr. Beast or the Logan Paul's or the the large content creators of the world.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Yeah, no, I think that's really cool. To me, kind of the, and I'm coming from a leadership angle, the mental perspective of you feel on social media, or maybe just the world that we're in, you felt like you did have control because yeah, I can swipe, I can answer, I can do this or that. And you felt like you had control, but you're talking about a more expanded aspect of control and showing some of the limitations of how social media and some other pieces of media have been. So I think that's really cool to think about. That as I've heard this one saying, and I love saying it, that when you're inside the pickle jar, it's hard for you to read the label on the outside. And you're pointing out that ooh, we all have blind spots in the way we've operated in the world and the things that we're doing. So I like that.

SPEAKER_04 10:48

I think it just comes from my years of looking through social media and being a hardcore gamer for my entire life.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Okay, okay. Yeah, that is really cool. Yeah. So, any have there been any type of tough decisions you've made or bold decisions where you've had what were the leadership lessons on that, or what were the lessons that you've learned from making some bold moves?

SPEAKER_04 11:12

I mean, bold news, one of our big ones is I we we were able to win you know awards at gaming conferences, and we got to go to those conferences, and then we got to pitch in front of competitors, and then realizing that competitors aren't necessarily gonna help you, even though they have avenues and channels to help you. But if your mission is actually kind of scary or sustainable, and you know, you're not just kind of a yes man, you are a true leader. Uh they'll just gonna pick your pitch and try and run with it as long as they can.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Um so not pick it apart, but actually just take it.

SPEAKER_04 11:45

Yep, just take it, you know. And we had a competitor take and run with it as long as they could, but I don't think they had the connections or they knew exactly how we were doing what we were doing. So we didn't pitch all the secrets, but a lot of IP is unfortunately in the virtual space, is pretty difficult to obtain.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

So the if you could explain, I'm sorry, if you could explain IP, because some some of our listeners may not know what IP stands for.

SPEAKER_04 12:10

Intellectual property, a patent on on something. You can't really patent the virtual space per se yet.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Yeah. Wow, that's really interesting. The first thought that came back to me is I knew a gentleman who made some of the best. He had a barbecue restaurant in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, I believe. And as far as I know, he's gone now, but he made some of the best absolute barbecue sauce. And that's the first time I learned 30-something years ago about you cannot intellectually patent or any of that in terms of a barbecue sauce because you're using pretty much the same ingredients and maybe different nuances of those things. But yeah, that's very interesting and would seem extremely challenging in the virtual space, not be able to patent those, but you want people to be aware of what you're doing and developing so you can gain some sponsorships or funding. So, how is that affected you being able to go out, create that awareness, and to be able to develop partnerships or collaborators?

SPEAKER_04 13:11

Within our space, within the gaming space, which is our direct niche right now, like we're we're meaningful connections, we want to bridge across the world. That's just kind of you know, hey, that's what we would love to do. However, our direct niche is within the gaming and creator space. So a lot of them very quickly understand exactly what it is that we do when we explain the idea. It doesn't take much. Our idea is very simple. It's kind of like a Zoom, right? Zoom just came out and you know, Google Spaces, they all turn everything on, or um, Twitter's old spaces where you got a group channel going. Our idea is not necessarily our idea is very very simple, but it is architecturally difficult to build. Uh, and that's been one of our biggest struggles again to go back to is just getting that most software. It costs a lot to start up, and then once the software is running, there's not much to maintain. So you kind of have this big startup cost. And we've never that's been our number one struggle for us, is that startup costs and being able to put a dollar on, hey, how much do we need to start this startup again in the virtual space? You know, venture capital is all over the venture space because you can't go to a government and get a business loan for bits, right? You don't get a government loan for Adams, you know, hey, I'm gonna go purchase this building or I'm gonna go purchase this. But you know, my lines of code don't have a calculated value, even though if you look at it, we use bits a lot these days. Yep. But the only people that are funding it is in that venture angel space.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

That's man, you're saying all these phrases I've never heard before, but makes so much sense once you say them that yeah, we can get a loan for atoms, but we can't get a loan for bits. I'm like, what are we even talking about here? But you're so true, you're so right, that it's it's just a whole new territory, even though I would say your bits have created a lot more value much quicker than what the atoms have in in the last 20 plus years.

SPEAKER_04 15:02

And yes, and that's why your venture spaces and your your private companies are exploding, they're going crazy. AI is all the rage these days, that's all built on bits. Uh but you can't you can maybe go get a government loan, potentially the baby help, but they they're very difficult.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Yeah, yeah, and and difficult to define.

SPEAKER_04 15:23

Sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

No, yeah, no, say that last part again. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_04 15:26

They're difficult to define. Defining bits, hey, I want to create this application to do this. Government specs are very rigid, so it's very, very hard and very difficult. Hey, that's not what we're building, but it's close. Yeah, some people are able to fudge the numbers and get there, but we that's not something we do.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Yeah, it is tough. It's like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole the way they've always done it in the past. Yeah, exactly. So it's like, how do you get this in this shape again? We can't. It's different, it's different. And I think that's important to realize that. So, how do you stay focused with your vision and values when pressure is on and this is not just a short-term game?

SPEAKER_04 16:08

Yeah, I always try and just maintain. I use there's a belief system, right? We have faith, religion, all of that kind of stuff. Just doing the right thing, the golden rule is probably our number my number one thing. Most religion is based around the golden rule. Don't, you know, you've got your commandments and you've got your things. Do good onto others. I always try and focus in in on that is when am I taking advantage of a customer or when am I taking advantage of XYZ? Um, am I just getting this to do a short-term goal or a short-term run? Uh, what are the effects across the board? And for me, it's being very focused and making sure I live that golden rule and I treat others the way that I would like to be treated. I don't want to get slammed in the face with advertisements anymore. I don't think in education, educational systems, if I'm trying to chat GPT something for an educational research, that I should be getting hit with advertisements in my scholastic books, even though we're using Wikipedia out there, but excuse me, not Wikipedia, but encyclopedias.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Yeah, you have to go back 20, 30 years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:18

I see I grew up with those. Uh I mean, I don't might not look as old, but yeah, I we had my family had the Encyclopedia Britannica sitting on the shelf. Uh Wikipedia has taken over that that that atomic book and turned it into virtual bits, and they've been able to stay off advertisements due to donations and keeping the public space kind of helping invest in there. And I think that's important to understand that a lot of people aren't quite seeing is we're getting educated through advertisements, and that's not a place you should be advertising. I think there quote me if I'm wrong, but I believe there's laws against advertising inside public schools.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Yeah, that is so interesting. Yes, because yeah, we never really had, or we never had, what am I saying really? Back in the day, we never had software as a service, therefore, some of the funding comes through the sponsorships and the ads. Whereas, like you're saying, now we have, well, to be honest with you, in magazines and some of those books, there might be a postcard to subscribe, but that was it, just to subscribe to that particular thing you were reading. And but now, like you're saying, it's totally true. There's advertisements, there's gaming, there's the gamification that keeps us looking at those advertisements so we get hooked on something that's going to be a psychological process. So I totally agree with you, and then really that creates even more distractions from us being focused clearly on our values or our purpose that if we've defined it for ourselves. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:50

So yep, and that that's been that that's our goal to is to try and re-rework that. I mean, even within our fundamentals of our company, we're even trying to provide fundamental or tangible ways for people to relook at the virtual space. So right now we we call ourselves the net vr, but we're using virtual reality right now, and you're gonna be like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever. You guys don't have head-bounded displays on. Well, no, those are just it's just a display device, that's not virtual reality, it immerses you deeply in virtual reality, but the virtual reality space itself is anything that's on bits, so you have this new type of matter. So I talk about bits and atoms a lot, but it's also focusing in physics in bits is not the same physics in atoms. So you know, Lady Gaga used to have a concert or something like that, and she'd have 10 people backstage. Well, now in the virtual space, you can have thousands of people backstage. Well, what does that do for revenues? If I'm there atomically, is it worth 10x? Is it worth 100x? But wait a minute, I can have all of these people be backstage now. But how do you start coordinating or valuing or being able to regulate in those different a different time space and matters is what we go down to. But the difference between bits and atoms is really one of the key differences that we try and teach people and even keep core within our company is managing those values. Hey, are we stealing people's bits that you know the time that they're spending in bits, which a lot of I think big tech is doing right now? And so to us, we go back and we look at hey, is is that truly valuable or not? What is the true value and am I stealing it? I mean, how many times have we gone to legislation has come down and been like you're selling personal data? That that's not okay. That's not okay. There's people time that are going into these bits that are making specific bits matter, and then software companies are just taking those bits and turning them into profit, and you don't even know. I think I think if you went to the store, you would say, Hey, am I donating my blood or am I selling my blood, right?

unknown 20:47

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

Boy, you got so many judo flips going through my head, just listening to all this. And I've never thought of things this way. This is such a cool conversation. Yeah, but that's I think that's totally true in what is ethical. Like I've heard the phrase of ethical AI, and how do we move forward this with this intelligently? That it's a win-win for everyone and not just for the big tech companies or those who are willing to pay for all that data. So, yeah, these are great things for people to think about. And in terms of your values, like you said, doing the right thing or the golden rule, how do you stay aligned with that? Where, I mean, what was your journey through life? Because some people just, I'm not saying go over to the dark side, but maybe some people just go over to the money side of things. Let's do that. Go over to the money side and just say, ooh, this is just the way it is. I can make a ton of money. Who cares if I'm hurting people or what the long lasting effect is down the road? So, how do you stay aligned with that? Because I see a lot of creators out there in YouTube, TikTok, all the other spaces, like you mentioned, big tech, and they stay more aligned with hey, how can we grow numbers? How can we grow numbers? There's no human centric area of any of this. So, how do you stay aligned with these values? And I know you covered a little bit of it, but is there anything else that keeps you aligned with what you're doing in terms of like you said, do the right thing, whatever that is. But what where do you get that from? What is right, what's the right thing?

SPEAKER_04 22:14

So doing the right thing, doing the right thing is actually it's a lot harder than I think like doing the right thing. Yeah, okay, you go out and volunteer, you go out and you know, do something that, but that's not the right thing, actually, if you think about it. You need to go out and do something that has value. So it's actually if you go back like Aristotle, Socrates, and you go back vices and virtues, there's a balance to be had between the two. So that's kind of the driving principles that I've used to stay and maintain what is actually good, and focusing in on those vices and virtues, and then saying, hey, you know, greed or seven deadly sins kind of goes to greed, but you know, there's um I forget the virtue off the top of my head, but making money, being super elegantly rich is is you know, it's it's greed, like it's too greedy, but also being poor is also not a good value, as well. You need to have that proper balance in the middle, and trying to help people see and get there is very important. So that's I guess yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Yeah, no, I think that was great because the focusing on the whole idea of value and then the balance of it is so important because as a lot of people say, when you think of the billionaires and trillionaires, I've heard a lot of people say, what more can they do with money? Sure, they can buy islands and countries and travel anywhere they want, have the kind of homes and all that. And that's not so much, I'm not against people making really any kind of money, but it's more focused on what you said. What's the value exchange? What not just to ourselves, but also to others out there, and we're just gonna lead us to in terms of a balance or improving this place. And currently it's Earth and how we operate on it and how we interact with people. But I really like that the whole idea of some type of balance, and we're all gonna have different levels of what we think balance is and at different times, depending on what we're doing. But if we're always focused on that, then it keeps us open to the collaboration piece, the communication, the working with other people, and having some empathy. So those are the things that stand out to me.

SPEAKER_04 24:21

I definitely agree. Empathy is a big one.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Yeah, and how do you keep yourself when there's all these competitors or people stealing stuff, or it's got to be so difficult. I'm not saying this is different from any other place that anybody else works or the purpose they're focusing and taking actions on, but how do you stay aligned with those when things get really tough, or maybe you feel like, geez, I might have lost an opportunity for somebody to fund us?

SPEAKER_04 24:49

You know, an investor comes in and says, Hey, you know, I want XYZ, but it's a super greedy, you know, we say no. You know, the value isn't there at this point in time, or it's just too greedy to us at this point in time. It it sucks to lose those, that that opportunity. But if it doesn't, if it doesn't align, another opportunity will come. I hope this lifetime. Uh right. But but lots of good things have gone away. For me, it's really just a mission that that goes back to just treating others like you want to be treated and kind of focusing on those virtues and vices, and really sitting down, listening to people in this virtual space. I I've been in it, I've have a long, long history that I think is probably much longer than this podcast uh would be. That goes down to, and I've had a metaphorical virtual reality family before. It's the connections are meaningful and they're healthy. And that's what I want to be able to share to some people that are kind of anti. You always get people that are anti, hey, stop this. That again, that goes back down to you should have a healthy balance of pros and cons in both ways. So I guess to go back, how do I stay? I don't know. It's okay, it's a belief, it's just a belief, and that thinking that hey, you know, maybe I can make the virtual reality or the social media space better. I don't think it's very healthy right now. Uh it's kind of creating a huge tailwind. I think people are able to get lost in the virtual space, especially when algorithms like again back to that label when you know what the algorithm on the outside says and versus what you believe inside your little jar. You know, someone's moving those jars around on us. This is not and we're not seeing it. So kind of the the woke movement a little bit. I think people have talked about that. And do I believe in that movement? No, not necessarily, but at the same time, like, hey, are are we able to who's gonna be the person to show that the outside of the label is in what it actually says?

SPEAKER_02 26:51

Yeah, yeah, no, that's a great point. I think because there are a lot of movements out there, a lot of ideas, many of them considered, some are pushed down because most people don't. Ah, that's just terrible. But I think that you're right that there's so many ideas out there that should be considered, could be considered, because there could be some wonderful, valuable things. But if it if we look at history and some of these ideas, it's like, ooh, we've done this through history and we've seen how terribly miserable this idea, whether it's communism or this or that, how those ideas have many times failed the whole, people as a whole, that we then need to look at that. And that's one thing I found, especially with the younger generation that's only looked at what they're being pitched or sold or advertised this day and age, that they don't really look outside of that. Okay, let's go back in the last hundred years, 200 years, whatever, and you'll see these repeating patterns over and over again. But if we stay in our narrow jar, since we're going with that, then it's very difficult. And if you don't realize there's something outside the jar, there's other ideas, other things happening. Everybody either trying to get a piece of the pie, whatever it may be, but if we don't realize that we're interacting with other people and other ideas, then uh we're kind of very limited. We limit our own selves. So I appreciate your mention of faith, which if I go back to scripture, the Bible talks about faith is the substance of things hoped for, and faith is the evidence of things that are not seen. And I used to, I'm like, what does that even mean? But yeah, if you've got faith, and once again, it's kind of like a bit, it's not an atom, a physical thing you can touch. If faith is like a bit, that bit is the evidence that yes, something is there. So I really appreciate the whole idea of having the faith and taking that faith walk, which is very difficult for people these days because they want to have things that are proven, that's a system that's monetized, that's you know, has everything available in the metrics so they can take action. But if you remove the heart and the values and the vision and the empathy, like you mentioned earlier, then what do we have if we're not using some of those internal pieces of who we are as human beings?

SPEAKER_04 29:14

Yeah, it's scary. You kind of end up as a cog in a wheel, and I don't think a lot of people that's happiness for a lot of people, but yeah, some people are okay being cogs, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

Yeah, yeah. And I was gonna try to be funny and say, yeah, we end up just as bits without brains and bits without hearts, you know.

SPEAKER_04 29:31

Yep. Yep, you just end up as a swiper. Yeah. Swiping.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Yep, no, that's great. And I I'm pretty sure you've answered this, so I'm thinking you might say the same thing, which is great to reiterate or to recap. But uh what's one of your biggest leadership lessons you've learned through your pursuits, your passion, and the mission that you're on?

SPEAKER_04 29:53

Just keep saying just keep saying over. I think a lot of people, yeah, will be kind of like, What is it? What is he even saying? What is it? But I've also gotten it. It's hard because a lot of people are like, I don't know what you're saying. I don't get it, I don't get it. Usually when I'm able to sit down one-on-one with people and spend enough time and answer their questions and kind of rework their understanding of the world, they start to get it a lot better. But it's a hard challenge when you're sitting down one-to-one and it takes about an hour to explain the problem. So that means what it's 24 hours, 356 days. It's you can only reach about 10,000 people, but that's zero sleep, never eating food. Never it's a noble mission, but trying to get other people out there, and for us, trying to get like those disciples, I guess, would be kind of that's how you get the word out there faster, out in there and seeing the product is focusing in on that. So taking that leadership perspective, it doesn't have to just be you. You need to pull in people that also share the idea and share the belief, um, and have the conviction to be able to explain it to other people because it is difficult when you start understanding hey, this is time, space, and matter. This is the mission of teaching conscious people, you can spend your time on this matter in this space, or you can spend your time on this matter in this space. You start breaking it down like that, it really starts. Hey, if I'm spending an hour on TikTok or if I'm spending an hour on a social media application versus I'm spending an hour out inside of a park, how much matter am I influencing? You know, how much conscious behavior am I influencing in each one of those spaces, depending on and then now which matter are you doing it in, right? We could go and teaching that to individuals gets very mind-blowing. It almost becomes too much. And that's again one of the bigger challenges. But I I believe it's a noble challenge, and I think when you really break down two people and get their questions answered about the principles or the idea, it makes a lot of sense to go back to the park analogy. When you break it down into a park, a lot of people kind of catch on to that one. Yeah, that that goes a whole it goes a whole deeper. It goes into you know X-rayed type of sites and how much you do that when you go to a club somewhere, you're presenting ID, you're getting, but inside of states, you can just go there with the click of a button, and there's no verification needed. So having those two different consciously that that's very impactful for an entire society. And a lot of people just are kind of turning their blind eye and being like, Oh, that doesn't matter. It truly does in the society you want to live in.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Yeah, ooh, I love that. Yeah, and it does matter in a society that you want to live in. So matter matters, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:32

It's the funny one that we have. The matter actually matters.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

Yeah, no, that's great. Well, thank you so much, Kyle, for just sharing from your perspective, what you're doing, the mission you're on, the values that you have, and just everything. And so let us know what's the best way for people to get in contact with you.

SPEAKER_04 32:51

For me right now, LinkedIn's my number one social media site. Uh, hopefully I'll be able to share the link. And my email is there as well. My phone number is on there as well. So it's open 24-7. I think I do phone calls. It's not that hard to pick up a phone and call somebody, but it seems like this day and age, just an email is a kind of a superficial to use in that virtual space to just send over. But again, it goes back to personal connections and finding, you know, finding people that want to be able to help your matter help and then help the vision that that drives the vision forward.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Well, thank you so much. And thank you for listening to this episode of Unapologetic Leadership, whereas Kyle shared that developing meaningful connections in our digital spaces or anywhere for that matter, makes a huge difference. And that when you follow your passion, your purpose, and your mission, that's where faith shows up and your inner conviction while creating values and focusing on values and a space where we truly live. Thank you again and see you on the next episode.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

So that's it for today's episode of Unapologetic Leadership. Head on over to wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a twenty-five thousand dollar private VIP day with Corey Dunham himself. So head on over to Unapologetic Leadership Podcast dot com and pick up a free copy of Corey's Gift. And join us on the next episode.