Natural Genius: Deep Conversations. Meaningful Lives.

#50 - Matt Hart: Humanware and Becoming Yourself in the Age of AI

• Natural Genius • Season 1 • Episode 50

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 50:24

In this episode, Sam Bell speaks with Matt Hart about Humanware, creativity, fandom, AI, sleep, belonging and becoming more fully yourself.

Matt has spent 25+ years building systems that develop human capability across brand strategy, enterprise culture, education, health technology and venture building. In this conversation, he shares why becoming more fully ourselves matters as AI becomes more integrated into work, creativity and daily life.

The conversation moves from surfing and forest work in Aotearoa New Zealand, to 25 years in London, to FandomOS, WSPR Technologies and IndustryApproved. It is about trust, creative capacity, participation and the parts of us that become more valuable as technology gets more capable.

Content note: this conversation includes brief references to plant therapies and is not advice.

This episode explores:
• Humanware sitting at the top of the tech stack
• Creativity, story and belonging as pathways into a fuller self
• Trusting life’s pull and recognising what has energy
• Surfing, land, whakapapa, whenua and returning to Aotearoa - New Zealand
• Frequencies, sleep and WSPR’s Positional Intelligence
• Fandom, participation and why fans are more than customers
• IndustryApproved and creative confidence for Gen Z

Guest bio:
Matt Hart is a global innovator, strategist and founder working across Humanware, creativity, fandom, education and venture building. Through Better Ideas Faster, FandomOS, WSPR Technologies, Sideways and IndustryApproved, he builds systems that develop human capability across brands, teams, young people and emerging technologies. His work has spanned BBC, Cisco, Spotify, Sony, Warner Music, Unilever and UNICEF.

Guest links:
• Matt Hart’s services, The Humanware Playbook and free resources: https://matt-hart.com/
• Matt Hart on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthart1/
• Free Better Ideas Faster Guide: https://www.betterideasfaster.com/bif-free-ebook
• WSPR Technologies, “Positional Intelligence for Better Sleep”: https://www.wspr.co.uk/
• "The A-Z of Fandom" by Matt Hart: https://matt-hart.com/business
• IndustryApproved for Gen Z: https://matt-hart.com/industryapproved
[Mention Natural Genius or Sam if you want to join Matt’s prototype 12 week crew  for free.]

Conversation references:
• Fred again: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXF6DMVLIVRr2OQAqyfEGeg
• Barbara Marx Hubbard: https://nss.org/national-space-society-governor-barbara-marx-hubbard-biography/

Chapters:
00:00 Becoming yourself in the age of machine intelligence
02:37 AI, Humanware and lived experience
05:34 Five ventures, one underlying idea
08:52 “I don’t choose, I trust”
20:01 Plant therapies, whakapapa, whenua and land connection
30:01 WSPR, sleep and Positional Intelligence
40:23 BBC Radio 1 and Matt’s fandom work
44:47 Fans, true self and belonging in the age of AI
48:05 IndustryApproved and a Natural Genius collaboration

Explore further:
Develop your Natural Genius: https://naturalgenius.com.au
Learn more about Sam: https://samanthabell.com.au

Credits:
Hosted by Samantha (Sam) Bell in Kiama and Matt Hart in Auckland, 13 May, 2026
Produced at the Kiama office, 13 - 25 May, 2026

Natural Genius Podcast https://naturalgenius.com.au

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to the Natural Genius Podcast. We're here to help you tap into your natural genius. Let's go. In the age of machine intelligence, the only irreplaceable act is becoming yourself. And becoming yourself is a creative act. These are words from Matt Hart who I'm so looking forward to catching up with. He speaks, advises, and builds for organizations that understand the real competitive advantages and AI. He's a human intelligence director. Matt has had a career in ideas, innovation, building human capability and beyond. He's also a generous, open, easygoing, kind and believing person. Cheers to you, Matt, and may you listening enjoy hearing from him. Matt Hart, welcome to the Natural Genius Podcast.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, thank you, Sam. It's quite nice to hear those words ring, it's sort of aligning up at a stack there. That's lovely. Thank you for having me. It's so good to see you.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, Matt, it is it's so fun to be able to put the sticker on somebody's chest of natural genius. And we're jokingly saying we need to get merch so that people get to wear that I'm a natural genius.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02

When I was jumping onto your LinkedIn a moment back, Matt, I'm so rapt to see that your background in innovation and ideas uh is so much about human capability and potential. And for the intro that people will have heard before they hear us chatting now, I actually quoted your uh quote on your LinkedIn that talked about human intelligence. So tell me what you're doing these days and um what you're observing, especially around human intelligence.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I I you know, when you're in the field of creativity and innovation for so long, you get a bit burnt out. Like everyone's going, oh, ideas aren't worth anything, and then creativity, yeah, we really want it, but actually we don't really want it, you know, all of that. And so you get a bit like, oh, I'm tired of pushing this uphill, but you know. Um so um what I'm really excited about AI is it's sort of giving me a new lease of life as much as it's blowing up in markets because I talk about and have found this new language in because I think we're still trying to language the space and what's actually happening.

SPEAKER_02

Totally.

SPEAKER_01

And AI is eating into that stack of our hardware and our and the software and starting to come into our human capabilities and capacities. So I'm really excited about the irreplaceability of the part it cannot get to, and I believe it never will, even though they promise, you know, uh general uh artificial intelligence, etc. Generalized intelligence. I just think there's part of our sentience, there's part of our transcendental nature that means it's not a it's definitely intelligent, and it is and it is a kind of intelligence that matches us in certain ways, but there's parts of it'll never be because it's not alive, it doesn't have a lived felt experience, indeed, and so I'm into that part. And what does that mean? And what does that mean for us as growth as individuals, but also what does it mean as value in the markets and blah blah blah? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Oh Matt, I love it. I love the way you talked about the stack as well. I haven't heard it pronounced that way before. And uh I I've got because you and I have both lived through dot com and then social media starting, and like we were languaging social media at the start, and it feels similar, but in this instance, it's actually feels like we're growing the human capability out. Like I feel like we if you use the more that you use agents and set up systems, the more we're getting deeper into what who we are as individuals. And maybe just maybe growing into aspects of ourselves that we might not have gotten to without that tech.

SPEAKER_01

100%. And look, you asked what I'm up to now, and I can come and talk about that. But I do language it by going hardware, software, humanware. I I believe humanware is this new place of advantage because you can look at it like that. Um, and then I've started to see rather than breadth, which is what innovation used to be about, you know, the next client, the next domain, the next category, how do you trade all those learnings across? I do believe it's now a depth. And then actually what it calls on each of us to do is to go inwards again and find new parts of ourselves that may have, in my language, atrophied. Because creativity and the creative brain is an access to those deep parts of who we are and how we are and the idea of us. That's what I'm sort of fascinated about now. And then if you can surface that in new ways, that agentic support can accelerate and augment who you want to become. Not so much looking towards is the threat of am I going to be replaced? It's no, it's going to it's going to rocket me forward. So I I'm quite excited about its capacities.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, fantastic. And Matt, you're working across five different businesses, I think it is at the moment. Tell me more. How do you get so much done? I have a feeling that you're like that, perhaps.

SPEAKER_01

Well, underneath, I always uh for they're easy for me because underneath I see them as a single entity. But of course, people go, Oh, you're across all this, what's that about? It's sort of it's different expressions of the same idea, Sam. So it's there's venturing. So I so you know, all of this, my experience of helping others, which I was really motivated to do and go and solve, help them solve the next problem because that's what my talent, best way I could serve people. It's now going, well, what does that look like for me and the things I'm really interested in? So I've started to do, so we have a venture in e-learning, it's in Hospo in the UK. I have a venture, this big new play I'm on right now, is in med tech. I've always been interested in frequencies and well-being, meditation, all of that great sort of stuff. And now we've started to build a solution that actually speaks to those three things in terms of it is wearable, it does have a beautiful, uh personalized uh piece of software or technology, but it delivers unbelievable human benefits. So that's med tech. So they're the ventures. And then I, you know, my business, I guess my my my consulting was around brand and fandom, and I've got really interested in looking at Gen Z. And I work with so many artists around the world, we're always mapping who their fans are and how do they get more of them. So I became sort of deeply interested and expert in Gen Z, the dynamics, and so wrapping fandom around that now. I'm I'm doing a thesis, I'm doing my PhD in what is belonging, what does that look like in modern you know, in doctoral language they call it participatory economies? But you know, what is fandom? And in today's fandom, uh, given we've become so atomized and tribal, what are in my language propensities? But what does it look like for someone to engage? And what I'm really interested in marrying up with what we were speaking about earlier, how does that surface? How does your true self express through what you're a fan of? I think it's really interesting.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, so true.

SPEAKER_01

So that's quite that that's really fun. And then the big thing we we might come and explore this is you you asked the question on those prep questions, what what might I need help with? I'm wrapping all of that thinking together as as a as a program of becoming that I'm calling industry approved for young people because I the segue out of you know learning to learning to earning, you know, in today's world, like we've now got 16% youth unemployment here in New Zealand and growing. You know, there's a million NEETs in the UK, not in education, employment, or training. So young people are finding it hard. How do they transition into what is a new version of our industrial revolution? I think it calls new skills, new capacities, new developments. Yes. And I I think I've got something to add there. So I'm exploring and have written and developed an Am and prototype of this of a new program that speaks to that. So that's what I'm across at the moment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That sounds amazing. Let's put a little pin in that one because if we don't get a chance to talk about that now, there's a couple of other things happening behind the scenes I'd love to talk to you about.

SPEAKER_00

Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_02

So, Matt, tell me you've got this like uh internal uh motor that just keeps you moving into doing plenty of different things. How do you choose what to work on? What's the criteria? Do you trust your gut?

SPEAKER_01

What's the Yeah, I don't I don't really choose, you know. I think it would be the true answer. I uh and you know why? There is a bit of a founding thought to that, which is gonna sound, you know, um I hope it comes across right. But I sort of believe, and have come to believe, that if I true choose, even though I help organizations do this and brands do this all the time because strategically they need to, if I, by my limited capacities, and I know they're limited, made a rational choice to decide an outcome of what I'm going to work for, I immediately know that is limited because I've come up with it. Yes. And so what I try and do is know that I'm in the path or the the the sort of jet stream of where I want to be going. I feel that. Uh-huh. And I just believe that life will send me the opportunities and connections like this podcast. So perfect. Hopefully it'll draw me forward. And I'll know pretty quickly if I'm if I've uh if I've if instinctively I've got it wrong. Yes, yes. Feel like a cold of sack and like got that wrong, you know, come back up.

SPEAKER_02

Was that the handbrake?

SPEAKER_01

That was the handbrake, exactly right. So I don't choose, I I trust. I don't choose, I trust.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, that is amazing. On a few of these episodes, we've talked about uh human design, and and uh I was lucky enough to have someone uh debrief me on that system a while ago. And it and you quite possibly are a generator, you're talking into the commentary around being able to uh trust that life will pull you forward and opportunities will come up. Tell me a moment back, you were talking about human wear and frequency and other well-being aspects. Tell me what you've always been fascinated by in that, because that's a big field, and it's lovely that it's uh, I must admit, I was looking at a willy wagtail, like a beautiful bird this morning that c often comes to visit. And I was thinking, does he operate on frequency? So tell me what's delightful.

SPEAKER_01

Well, you know, they talk about trees are alive and that those phytocides that they put out into the forest and that uh that are well-being for us, well-being, you know, aromatic cellular content that is well-being for us. You think everything's alive, everything is alive at the at the subtonic, you know. Um I I I had some real troubles in my early life, and I was always drawn to the spiritual, I guess. So so I've always had that um, I don't know, calling to more, right? A restlessness. And um and so that's informed not just that un not choosing, if you like, but a deep trust that I'd be that I was here for a reason. And part of my struggles earlier, my own mental health struggles, were I was trying to find something to do and a reason to do it. I just couldn't find the reason to do it, you know? Yes, it was like I could do things, but I just didn't feel deep enough.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And I made a commitment in some really dark times to go, look, whatever happens, I believe that I'll be shown to live the highest path I can here. Now that didn't mean material success or wealth or whatever, but that my way out was less about um let's say the conventional path, and I was prepared to commit to an unconventional path, and I wanted to be drawn to become as much as it would take, and whatever it would take, use whatever life was given me to always be going somewhere, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. Yeah, and Matt, I'm really enjoying hearing your New Zealand accent. I feel like you're just east of me, which is good fun. That's it. Tell me, in with that background, uh, how did you end up in the UK and then how have you ended up back in uh New Zealand?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Quick story is um, you know, i down from our part of the world, antibities, everyone does the big OE. And in my day, it was they did university and they took off and they went for two years, did the beer crawl around the German bear tents and whatnot, and and came back home. Um I'm and London. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Through London and back. I'm and I was surfing and mountain biking, and I was having an absolute ball in my twenties.

SPEAKER_02

In the still, oh yeah, right. And and tell me more about surfing in New Zealand, which part of New Zealand were you in?

SPEAKER_01

All over. So but I was really fortunate back in those days, you know, working in then university and and then I stayed in the South Island, and it's cold water, but there's big waves. And so Yeah, so we I just I was into chasing that experience, and I where people say you got to go to London, you go, and I'm being like, Well, I don't want to go there, there's no ocean there. I mean, there's no mountains there. I can't, there's no snow. So I was living that outdoor 20s lifestyle, and um, but then I, you know, I'm from a big family and they were in London and they said, you know, come up. And so I had a dream to go and live in the south of France and surf Bellheads and Osagore and places like that. And so I cobbled enough money, went through Indonesia, did the two-month sort of surfing through Bali and the islands, jumped up to London, and I was broke. I was completely I had a one-way ticket, you know, I was completely broke, and um, and so I had to get a job, and you know, bullshit in my way in hand, luck, doors just sort of, you know, it's like doors just open. And I landed right when Princess Diana died, I'll never forget it. And Tony Blair had just got into government, and the UK and London was about to go on a sort of 10-year charge, and I never left. I didn't get to France. I didn't get. I started I got a job, I was earning more in a day what I was earning in a week back in New Zealand. I was like, maybe I should put down here for a while, and doors just started to open up, and so so I did 25 years in London.

SPEAKER_02

And hang on two seconds, I've got to hear about like so. Does that mean that you found your way to surfing in the UK? Like, did you go southwest with you?

SPEAKER_01

23 years I surfed the world from London, yeah. So I was earning money on the pound. Remember back in those days, I remember going to South Africa, and at one pound, I think it equaled 12 Rand or so. I mean, it was it was it was like you were travelling the world, a very wealthy person, you know, luxury you know, you I went to the Maldives three times. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02

It was yeah, I love your incredulousness around that. It's so lovely to hear. And also, I must swing back to talking about Bali. You must be so grateful for some of the places that you've served that you were there at that time.

SPEAKER_01

It was a true pre it was truly well. We went back, we took so now we're down here, so we took the kids to Bali. I always wanted to get back. They went to Bali last year. It's just a different country, it's just nothing. Yeah, and when I when I was there, they used to go it's nothing like it used to be back in the day. But indeed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. Wow. Oh, what a pleasure to have a thread of surfing through this. Yeah, we uh are you catching ones where you are? Not at the moment. My surfboard broke a little while back, so I've got to get it replaced. I don't think it ever leaves you. I no, I don't I came to it in my 40s and being able to jump on a board, whatever, if you if you love it, like whatever ability, and I don't have great ability on it, and I'm quite happy to flounder around and sometimes turn and most of the time just squeal because I'm streaming along on a wave.

SPEAKER_01

Um, but I I 100% agree. People mates used to say, You're a surfer, how can you live in London? I went, I surf every day. It just doesn't, I'm just not I don't happen to be in the water. It's still that you carry that thing with you. And then now, yeah, I'm a little bit older, but a little bit slower to my feet, so I don't I don't take on as challenging ways. But I'm passing the love down to my boy, my 13-year-old, and I get more joy sitting out the back watching him catch a wave than me catching the wave. I'm just stoked that he's finding that same love and relationship with the environment, with the ocean, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Oh Matt, all the power to you and to him as well. I think that that's their cherished moments. And being able to see see him catch a wave or do something new and be surprised yourself as a as his dad. That's just that's very, very simple.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, of course, as I get older, the boards get longer and his is shorter, you know. So I'm sitting on logs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I remember going to the surf surfboard shop when I first started and I'd just done some lessons in Bali. And I said to the fellow at the shop, like, just come outside and have a look at my car and just give me the longest. Just give me the longest and the most buoyant that can fit in my car. Oh wow. So, Matt, tell me more. You were saying about that you're back in New Zealand. So, how did you come to end that 25 years?

SPEAKER_01

Or tell me, tell me why how you one of the regrets is one of the regrets is um, I mean, you're sort of, you know, you trust life, but always living as an antipodean, always living in London, you're thinking, Oh, will we go back one day? You know, it's just the pool. There's something about, you know, in today it's called Fenoua. The fen the land, you know, the land here means something to your spirit. Um, and so, and then we had kids, you know, and they were in London, and it was a fantastic experience. People go, How can you bring up kids in London? You go, it's a magical place to bring up kids.

SPEAKER_02

Um why do you say that, Matt? Tell me more.

SPEAKER_01

Look, there's the natural history museum, there's art, there's galleries, there's parks, there's history, there's I mean, you just go on and on. There's theatre, there's music, there's big gigs. And I was working in music, so you know, da da da. It just goes on. There's this and the richness of cultural diversity is so stimulating. Um, so London is still home for sure, but there's that bit that says to you, wouldn't it be great to give the kids an experience of what it is to because we talk about New Zealand and we're all my family's up there, and all the cousins are meeting, and there's such a beat, a cultural beat that New Zealanders that we are New Zealanders up there.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So COVID came along and we'd always been thinking about it. And I was on a venture, a sort of temporary venture. I didn't tell my wife, but I didn't really know. But she goes, Well, who's gonna pay our way? And I go, that's all right, I'm on this venture. So we up and moved. We didn't even go, let's go down there for three or six months, let's just we just up and moved. And we got back, and it's been a bit of a shock, but the kids are thriving, like really thriving. Uh her and I'm so long away, you do feel like a bit of a stranger in a familiar land, is how I sort of say it. Um, but I'm fortunate in that uh I'm on these global ventures, so I'm up early, on other time zones, connected to the world, and at the moment it's working. So we've been down here four years now, I think maybe five, and that's blown past, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, wow. And Matt, tell me more about being connected to the land there. What have you noticed, or what are you does it does it feel like the nervous system, or you from time to time you just have little moments where you're like, ah you know, it's more than that, Sam.

SPEAKER_01

I you know, I've started in my own personal development, I've started to get into sort of um plant medicines or whatever you want to call those things and retreats. And so I've done a few. I've done I do one annually, and I've done the last year's one was really deep into what's called the fucker papa, you know, my own ancestral um identity here. Uh you have the same thing over there with your indigenous people. But so, and I've and so there's stories that have been coming up that are very connected to the land, the Fenua. Um uh and and the atua, that means gods here. You just metaphorically you experience these things, and then and then I after that retreat, there's so such a an embodied experience that I carry them with me. And yeah, you I I feel actually because I'm an ocean, I was a surfer, I always thought it would be oceans, but actually I find the natural forest, you know. I started my working life as a forestry, right as a forest ranger in the forest. So being back in the natural bush here in the natural forest and the bird song, Sam, and the um it's pretty special. So yeah, I feel pretty privileged, you know. It's a great place to be, and it's a great place for the kids to spend some time too.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, wow. Oh gosh, Matt, this whole conversation, ping, ping, ping, ping. There's so many connections. I'm so privileged, like you are, to have lived and worked internationally and have a great network. And the number of people that are going deeper, even through this podcast, it's been so interesting how many people have uh have are have and are doing that. And I think also jokingly think back to like advertising the 80s and like some of the visuals that we're so used to seeing from some of the top music videos or other artistry that we look at. People, however. They expand their mind through breath work, through plant-based medicine, through other experiences. It to expand the mind to be able to let more in and to be able to make more connections. The ancestry piece is so wonderful to hear of healing ancestral lines, and uh you know that that might help your kids and that might help your family, and uh that might help the person that you encounter today. 100%.

SPEAKER_01

You know, I it reminds me I did some work with some sort of so-called gurus a while back. You know how you get invited into these things, and we went to um Cancun or somewhere in Mexico, I can't remember where it was, and I was with a gathering, and then through that I met someone called, and she she I spoke to her a day before she died. Her name is Barbara Hubbard. Have you ever heard of her or read anything of her? She was a bit of a mystic, an American mystic. Yes, and she said to me something that's absolutely stayed with me, and that was the gift of this short conversation. And she said, uh, look, Matt, as we go forward, look not to what's breaking down, look to what's breaking through what's breaking down.

SPEAKER_03

Whoa.

SPEAKER_01

And that's just completely stayed with me because look at what we're experiencing now, you know, Trump, war, you know, all that's going on. The climate accelerates underneath all of it that we've sort of lost a bit of connection with. I keep going, yeah, okay, that's all going on, but what's coming through? And like you said, there's people, individuals, our networks everywhere who are trying to go, don't be sucked down by that. Let me keep going with what I'm trying to do. And what can we do? And then how do I do it?

SPEAKER_02

You know, well, and there's so much conversation around high vibrations, Matt, and keeping uh you know manifesting and rising and staying in a high vibration. And I've I that really strikes me as uh when all of this uh um in many ways horror to many people is going on to be able to sit in hope and uh joyfulness and to resonate that so that people can come through, yeah. So that people can actually carry themselves with that joy. I I feel like that's part of it. And it's not uh it's not.

SPEAKER_01

I don't think it's any I don't think it's woo-woo anymore. I think we're improving in the the quantum work and the field and what you say opening up and resonating to it. So what does that open? And then what comes to you, right, through projects or people or you know, uh opportunities because you've decided to try as best you can overcome those negativities and resonate in a different space.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's beautifully said, Matt. I bet that would have carried you through nicely through facilitations that you've done through your working career to be able to turn up with great energy.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I I uh again we always learn and stand on other people's shoulders, don't we? So a friend of mine who was an executive coach who was fantastic, and he was older in our team. This is going way, way back years, and we're we're still great mates now. And I speak to him every week, actually, from me, and he's in London. He said this thing, and we were trying to say, what is facilitation? Because I I've never liked that word. I uh not there to facilitate, you're there to sort of help solve da-da-da-da. And he said, actually, what we're there to really do if we're being of of high service is to hold space, and in the holding space, it allows for other things to occur over and over. You know what I mean? So, yeah, yeah, I try and roll and and do sessions in that way. If that's what's called for, then we're going, look, who knows what's going to come out of this. I don't have a particular view. I think I know where we could get to, but let's see what surfaces if we could hold the right space with the right energy.

SPEAKER_02

And do you have any tips for others around that, Matt?

SPEAKER_01

I do. Uh yeah, I do. I think there's the functional skills you can learn if you've never done it before, because they help give you confidence to at least know where you're going.

SPEAKER_02

So doing an open space course, do you mean?

SPEAKER_01

Or no, I think no, I think just knowing that you you prepare uh uh an agenda, like in a session, what do you think are the beats that will happen when you think you need to do it? Yeah, you think about the personalities or people who uh who in the room, and you have as best you can a view of what's the project, what are you there to get to? Yes, and if you at least can prepare, what I say to people, live through that before you get there. So almost meditate or sink into it or close your eyes and imagine how that session's going and feel for either the people or the sticky points where it could get a bit tricky. Yeah. And if you can experience those before you get there, when they happen, you've already experienced it. It's easy. You just move through it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, wow. And is that something that you came up with yourself, Matt? Or do you is this again a tip with your uh friend and partner in in London?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, it'd be a mixture of many things. But no, I actually ended up writing a program uh which I, you know, which I intuited that to begin with was skills uh and process, and then I just moved it to behaviors and went, you know what? If you can be this way, if you can learn to be curious, if you can learn to be empathetic and learn to collaborate and learn to design and lead people, then if you think into that space, those behaviors and that way of being will give permission for other people to be that way. Then you'll be the ultimate facilitator or leader if it happens to be a session, great, if it's in the business or a team, great. But these are the behaviors that you can grow, and then you don't have to think it anymore, you don't even have to do it, just try being it. Well said.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and tell me more about what you were talking about before around frequency, Matt. What else are you noticing in that space? And tell me if you feel like it about the um health tech work that you do.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah, I can certainly tell you that because we're starting to think a lot about that. Sam, I I did learn this. So I do think it's I don't think we're born, I really don't think we're born you're the creative or you're not, everyone's born creative, right? Because it's the way it's the neuroscience of the creative brain. That's where I first got introduced to what are frequencies. And then uh and then our our brain thinks in certain bands of frequencies. And once you understand that, it for me, it just opened up a whole new world of frequency innovation. Going when you're in a closed brain or you're trying to have a creative conversation with someone and they're closed, they're actually vibing at a certain frequency, right? So, and then and then if we're trying to get in an alpha state to all be creative and collaborate to either or at least nurture my own and sink into my own creativity, there's a there's a state, there's a there's a brain state you can get into. And so that opened up this exploration of going, wow, there and then the field, right? The zero point field and and frequencies, etc. So started to read and research a lot about frequencies, and then you start to intuit and put that together with instinctively, I'm feeling something, and then you realize you must be tapping into some sort of quantum field because you can feel what's going on. And what really galvanized that was a literal book called The Field, which is which was written a few years ago about remote viewing and what people some of the capacities some people have to be able to tune into the yeah, and then we started to point it around before COVID, just before COVID and around COVID. A friend of mine, uh a really talented mate, been mates for a long time. We we worked together at it, but MTV back in the day, actually. But he's gone on to get into education and he would does a lot of work in mental health.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my gosh, you've got good stories. MTV.

SPEAKER_01

We co-founded with some people out of the US and we looked at frequencies as healing.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And how uh this this woman Linkley had come up with and she had intuited it through her own near-death experiences, etc. A sort of um uh I don't know how to describe it, but it was a a patterned, uh, a patterned frequency that could move someone through and ultimately heal them over time that was moving through body, mind, spirit and and and resonating at different points at different frequencies. I I've done some mad, really mad woo-woo stuff in the past about looking at the wellness and mapping the frequency of each organ or whatever, you know, all of that. So you can get in, you can get lost in that. In the medtech space, we uh we are looking at the the the problem of sleep. So it started with sleep. Um, how you know there's been a lot of promises to unlock the performance of sleep, let's say, and very few of them deliver. Uh, and and I've teamed up with a mate of mine who's a cut out thoracic surgeon. He's actually he should be on it. He's he's the real genius, like he's a promise of wrong.

SPEAKER_02

Let's do, let's go.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, um, and so we've teamed up together, we've co-founded this thing, and it's because frequencies are how you drift off to sleep, right? So, so when you're in deep sleep in the dreaming brain, you move between theta and delta, and then when you wake, you should come through alpha, and then into your day, you're in beta. And so we want to embed in that med tech space beyond what we're just doing, frequencies that can help people without using their phone and that blue light that then that then puts you back into beta, so suddenly your brain's speeding up and you're awake again. How do you use a vibration that's delivering the frequency onto your thoracic chest that can help overcome that uh the inability to drift off into natural sleep and keep you in sleep uh so that you awake, refreshed, and ready for the day. So we're in that domain with this medtech space. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's so exciting, man.

SPEAKER_01

It is a really, really interesting space because there's a lot to be, we call it positional intelligence. There's a lot to understand about the position of the body in sleep and the position of um, you know, so things like stillbirth are impacted in the third trimester by mums sleeping on their back. So, you know, a lot of women know that there's that age-old intelligence to be sleeping on your side, but you know, we can help with that. So that's where it all started exploring these kinds of areas, and frequencies will come to play a big role in um in helping but people overcome things like sleep apnea or non-time teeth grinding, it is one of the biggest problems in sleep in the world, it turns out. Billions of people actually are chewing on their problems of daily life at night, and all the teeth issues, like dentists will tell you, it's a massive issue, and the neck problems, and then headaches and uh etc. So, yeah, there's a lot to be done in that space.

SPEAKER_02

But your brain and mind and body is so full of uh uh information from so much curiosity that you've had in life. In that last I mean, that was all fascinating to me, and hearing about MTV and then talking about sleep and health tech and frequency. Wow, what a life. Tell me, I was uh joking with you before we hit record that I thought maybe the the hardest question I would ask you is what's your most fantastical moment in life? I thought with all of your experiences, I had to ask that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, I and and I saw that you prepped it, so I was thinking, what do you say there? But you know, I don't, you know, I I had my own troubles with it, so I stopped drinking and doing drugs in uh in my 20s, uh early 20s. And so I I went, what's my juice? is the way I sort of ask it. What really and so beyond so family is it for me, so so let's just put that aside because that would be the number one thing, right? There's nothing better than the Fano. So um, you know, and I everyone goes, What's your best idea? And I go, those two kids, right? That white my wife and I had that that's it. I can't get any better than that, right? So they're it. That is that's the best innovation. Um and so the juice would be, and you know this from what you do and have done, is that spontaneous moment where you feel your ego less, yeah, right? And so you there's that bit of you that's always gnawing away at yourself, so it quietens down, and you receive, right? And you're not broadcast, you're on receive, and for me, they come fully packaged now, like they are true inspiration that we can all have and we all have access to. It's just that I so happen to have tuned into that, and that was meant for me. I do believe that they're gifted. You know, when people say, Let's get in a room and generate ideas, I go, how about let's not? Because I you don't generate anything. If you have an intention for it and an open to it, and it's meant to come to you, it will just come to you. And so that moment where things collide, um, you know, patterns meet, a breakthrough moment occurs, and you know it's occurred because it's not just a cognitive thought, it's a felt experience. You know, you know that you're like that is brand new.

SPEAKER_02

So tell me, give me an example, Matt. What was your most favorite, like even a surfing barley moment or Cornwall or South Africa?

SPEAKER_01

Well, surfing's surfing's different, right? So I remember dropping into this wave.

SPEAKER_03

Whoa, it was huge.

SPEAKER_01

It was huge, it was big, big surf, and a lot of people wouldn't go out, and we couldn't find a boatman to take us out. And so this one guy said, Yeah, okay, okay, we paid him extra money, he took us out the back. We were miles out, and um, I'd been surfing a long time, so I was right in tune, you know. And this huge wave came in, and I it was that moment where you go, I know exactly where I need to be. You know, so because you know, in a wave, you need to be further out or further back, depending where it's going. Got it. And I swam away from the pack a little bit, five or eight of us, swam away for a little bit up the point. No, I turned as this thing was pitching, and I was so in sync, and I just I it was all slow motion. You know, it's one of those flow states, right? Oh, I love this for you. Yeah, there just wasn't a drop of water out of place, and I was onto my feet, drifting down when I can feel my can still almost feel my hands on my rails, the side of the board, getting to my feet as I'm looking at the crew, as I'm dropping, almost free falling into this pit, and I stand underneath it, the thing yawns over top of me. And I don't know if you know if you've have have you surfed the tube yet? No. So any surfer or telly, I don't get in the mutts these days, but any surfer or telly when you're prime, there's this because the air's been sucked back into the water. And so you can feel the air sucking you back, the noise, and I'm dropping it. I must have this grin, the size of whatever, and the boys are all down the line just hooting.

SPEAKER_02

The boys are down the line hooting. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01

Everyone's screaming at you, and I'm just standing in this thing, and I come, you know, you get down it, you know, and you get down it, you stand up. And rather than racing for the line, you know, because usually if it's a big chunky wave, you're terrified, and you're trying to get as far ahead of the monster as you can. And then you just I just stood there, you know, in this flow state with this thing just yawning around me.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, they've got this sort of uh theme in uh skiing where you've got no friends on a powder day, but what you've described about your friends hooting, it's the same for me with skiing. Like so often the crew that I ski with were all like, that was so well done.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my god, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And it's like on a powder day, I'm like, I'm frothing at the top of a run, and I'm sometimes skiing with snowball doesn't need to click in, and I'm just like, oh, there's a there's a sense of anxiety to it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01

You're like, I've got to get again. So true.

SPEAKER_02

I was so delighted to hear that you can remember that moment again, Matt. There is there, that is the joy of life. You reminded me, it's not surfing, but you reminded me one time I was on the Great Barrier Reef on one of those uh trips out and you jump off the side of the boat and uh you've got your snorkeling gear on. And I decided to, I did this actually north in New Zealand as well in the Bay of Islands when I was with dolphins, and I swam away from the uh boat, and then I duckdived down, and in the Great Barrier Reef, I came up and there was like these islands in the water of turtles. Oh wow. And so I came up and there was like turtle, turtle, turtle, turtle, turtle. It was the most magnificent sight. How lucky we are to have those uh stories.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we really are, and and to live in relatively, you know, peaceful uh countries with access to such beautiful environment, you know.

SPEAKER_02

And and for you as well to talk about the journeys that you've been doing to get into the land, to come back and to be welcomed and then to do the work that you're doing surrounded by family and family to uh grow up as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

To pass this on to your kids. Totally, Sam. And I would say it's also it's not just a gift. It's um, you know, I think coming back the last three or four years, I've been really healed in certain parts of it. You know, when you're in, you know this, when you're working in high, let's say corporate environments, running big programs, it's a very heady space to be. It's very intellectual, you know, um, and you're not always embodied. Uh so coming back to places like these in the antipodes, it gives you a chance to to actually become more of your full self, I think, rather than just a walking brain that's solving problems, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, well said. Tell me about the work you do around fans and what you're noticing with the next generations coming through and your PhD, maybe.

SPEAKER_01

I guess for me, it started way back when I I'm not a market researcher, right? It's not my skill, but I'm I'm an empath, I guess. I'm hugely empathetic. I like understanding people. And that driving question of, well, what can I do and why has always been, well, what are you doing and why? You know, I've always had that curiosity. Yes, I that and I we started way back when my it was I still go back to it. Um, BBC Radio One, big brand, and you know, they were losing listeners and they couldn't really understand why. And they had all the market research in the world, but it didn't actually tell them what the problem was. And so we teamed up. I didn't know anything about radio, they didn't know anything about innovation. It was my first client in my first gig, my first company or whatever, my thing. And I said, Let's figure it out together. So it was a true co-creation, you know?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And I and they said, How do we start? And I said, Let's get everyone out of the building and go and meet the fans, go and meet the listeners and understand are they a fan or not and what's happening. Oh, and and that started my journey into what I didn't know, but you know, obviously it became languaged as fandom. And and of course, what you realize is there's a binary approach, you're either a fan or you're not. But what's really interesting was the middle ground where you're a sort of sometimes fan, or you're a very casual fan. And then so you can start to understand people's what we say propensity to engage with what you're about. Now that applies to any domain, any brand.

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01

So any brand. So then I started, so you know, I did entertainment for a while, American Idol and Sony Music and Spotify, and went through music after we've been through that sort of experience and had incredible results. Then I started to go, look, is there a promise around having fans, not customers? What would that look like? You know? And so you could take it out of what we call fan land, sports, entertainment, be working with football franchises, whatever that looks like. What does it look like for any brand? Or, you know, I just was talking to an insurance company and going, look, you've got fans out there with what you're about. It's just understanding the role you play in their lives and innovating around that understanding.

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01

Fandom, I've I've I then, you know, putting it together to everything, so not to talk about enterprise works, but putting together what we're talking about. I think one of the pathways forward to truly solve some of these societal climate, global, national issues, is harnessing the power of fandom, right? Because there are lots of activists out there who so we've got a really great example here with the government here is bringing about a new fisheries law that is just so bad for the environment. It is just nonsensical. And strip mining and scraping the ground and leaving, you know, um, taking off catch limits and sizes, and you go, that's just not a future-proofing policy. No one's going to get behind that. Even domestic fishermen don't want to get behind that. Fish fishing people. I'm not a big fishing person, but and you're like, yeah, but there's a huge but thin, deep fandom that wants to look after that future-proofing, those fish stocks for future beneficiaries and our our well-being. But it's very limited, you know. It finds it hard to have its power activated out in the culture or in a national way. Well, fandom is the thing that can do it because you can find different levels of engagement and then innovate the right kind of idea that can hook the right kind of person and then you know strategize it through. So I really believe fandom is an unlock for how we can activate some of these things. It's just that most people don't understand what it actually is. They think they hear fandom, they go, Well, I I'm I'm not a music fan, therefore fandom doesn't apply to me.

unknown

So

SPEAKER_01

So I'm sort of in that space, and my thesis to answer that question is I've been playing around with different areas, but the area I've I've I want to bring this human wear to bear through a lens of fandom. And I think and and it relates to my own deep interest in in this idea of you know if if AI uh can own and know anything, the real challenge is how we how we become uh the true possibility of who we can become, right? Outside of knowing, because it our currency in the world used to be what we know. Well, AI knows that now, right?

SPEAKER_02

And so, Matt, you were talking about it being about belonging. So tell me more.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so so I think what it does is it surfaces. I think phantoms are way for really interesting to think about surfacing the true self because what you're a fan of speaks to who you potentially truly are or elements of yourself. So clever. Because we're not fans of everything, we're only fans of one or two. And to remain a fan. Yeah, to remain a super fan for like I'm a super fan of surfing, even though I don't surf all that much anymore, you know, or there's there's this intrinsic connection because it speaks to something about who I am and what I really love and what drives me and feels me and fuels me and all of that. So I think that's really interesting in a world juxtaposed against when AI can substitute for who you are, yeah. Right? And kids are using it that way. Though AI will write or create their Instagram feed or automate their TikToks or whatever, and then it's a it's a replication or a substitution of you, but it's not the real you, right? So I'm really interested in using fandom in that way, and then I think we do get to places that I think is more uh interesting versus the value of the fan engagement for an artist or piece of content going mainly to the platform. Why can't it stay in participatory uh participatory economies as a shared sense of currency? Because my fandom is helping you be the artist you are, you love that I'm engaging, and together we're we're sort of innovating a new kind of value. But why can't a lot of that value be reciprocated within that network?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And so what is the currency of exchange? Are we talking tokens, or what else to how do you bring that in?

SPEAKER_01

It'd be weighted, I think, in some way. I think it'd be depending on this is where my sort of fandom works and a spectrum of behaviors that I talk about, sort of fanatic, enthusiast, casual, indifferent, you start to be recognized and rewarded for your level of engagement in that belongingness. Yes, you know.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And so if you're a real node and a socializer and and you're helping, you're remixing and creating the fans part of you. I mean, if you look at an artist who's who's done some of this really well, is Fred again. You know, he goes on tour, writes all his music, and then he open sources it and puts all the stems out there, and anyone can pick it up and do anything they want with it. It's like people will lean in and belong to part of that, right? So, fandom and belonging, Sam, like we've done, like you would understand, it's any kind of value proposition, it's any kind of but it's very human. That's what I love about it. It's not a strategic deck that sits there dead. This is activity on a daily basis that is fueling and rewarding people because I'm a fan. I love it. You know, yeah, it's that ephemeral place of law shared loyalty and intrinsic value that I that I'm rewarded because it makes me feel who I am because I love what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02

Is there anything else that you would like to share? I could talk to you for hours.

SPEAKER_01

Um, the only thing is, oh well, an offer really. One of your questions was what would be your ask? My ask would be, look, I do have this new program that we've we've got a few people taking, and we've we're shaping it in a way that's it's really compelling. And and it is designed for Gen Z or you know, those those younger people making the transition, either school into work or or tertiary learning into work, employability, etc. Um, and in the context of AI, I think it's it it opens up a new space for what's actually required. And you know, I'm I'm fascinated by this idea that, and I've been an employer and got young people in, that if you've got two equal identity people in front of you who've done their CV and they've got a degree or something, or a ticket, or some sort of you know, certification or something that shows them, how do you know which one to recruit? And as an employer, you take the one who's got something about them, right? And and you go, what is it about? I don't know, they've just got something about them. And that's the bit that I this program is speaking to. How do you unlock that for and it's not about Western individualization, it's about personhood. I really believe that, and then creativity and innovation and fandom and belonging, all as part of that. So I wanted to offer and said, if in your audience, in your natural genius audience, there were a cohort of Gen Z who were listening and going, because we're at prototype phase, you know, and we're it's all we've got people going through it. If there was 10 or 20 who said, Yeah, I'd love to be part of that, then through you, we could offer it up and I and they can come and and we've got there's two versions. One's a year-long becoming, uh-huh, which is designed to be the backbeats of whatever else you're doing, just to, you know, I I really like that court of learning, that that sort of development. The one I'm putting through is a 12-week sort of sprint, you know. It's uh Okay, great. It's a 12-week experience. So let's do uh an IA natural genius collaboration.

SPEAKER_02

I love that. I'm writing notes as we speak, Matt. It has been a joy to see you. I love that we've got mutual friends that we've developed through doing audacious things in our lives. Yeah, and uh I love seeing you looking so well and firing. It is a joy.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, thanks, Sam. Fantastic. Keep up the good work.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks for listening to the Natural Genius Podcast. Please share this with anyone who came to mind and visit us at naturalgenus.com.au. Thanks so much.