Natural Genius: Deep Conversations. Meaningful Lives.
Natural Genius is a podcast of thoughtful conversations with people shaping meaningful lives, useful work and uncommon paths.
Hosted by Sam Bell, the show listens for the hidden clever in each guest: the instinct, inner knowing, craft, courage and lived wisdom that shape how they build, lead, create, care and contribute.
Guests include founders, operators, makers, artists, elders, wisdom holders and people whose lives carry practical insight.
The conversations trace what becomes possible through close listening, trusted instinct, and a life organised around what matters.
Listen for the thread. Notice what feels true. Take what’s useful into your own life and work.
More at naturalgenius.com.au
Natural Genius: Deep Conversations. Meaningful Lives.
#54 - Jake Randall: Poetry, Optimism, and the Most Ambitious Good Life
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In this episode, Sam Bell speaks with Jake Randall about philosophy, poetry, entrepreneurship, investing, community, travel, Network School, AI, and the question that keeps shaping his life: what makes a good life?
Jake is a wanderer, entrepreneur, investor, poet, engineer, and incurable optimist. This conversation moves from nomading through Asia and landing in Las Vegas, to writing poetry in the mountains, learning empathy through customer service, building community, practising improv, and staying open in a fast-changing AI world.
At the centre is an entrancing question:
"What is my most ambitious version of a good life?"
Content note:
This conversation includes brief reference to psychedelic and plant medicine experience. This episode is for general information only and is not medical, mental health or legal advice, or a recommendation to use any substance or treatment. Please seek qualified professional advice and follow the laws where you live.
This episode explores:
• what makes a good life, and why that question has stayed with Jake
• philosophy, poetry, trading, investing and self-mastery
• entrepreneurship, integrity and starting again when a plan changes
• learning deep empathy through customer service and real listening
• improv, presence, and the freedom to fail
• Network School and adult, 'summer camp' energy
• third spaces, loneliness, and creating places where people come alone and leave with friends
• AI optimism, human connection, and becoming a constant student
Guest-authored bio:
Jake is a wanderer, entrepreneur, investor, poet, and incurable optimist (we’re also told he’s single).
He’s built companies, traveled extensively, and remains convinced that most of life’s best opportunities begin with curiosity.
He spends his time reading old books, exploring the latest in AI, cooking medium-raw steaks, curating gangsta-rap playlists, and attempting to predict the future.
Oh, and if you somehow missed it the first time: Jake is single (his publicist insisted we mention it twice).
Be on the lookout for his upcoming book of poetry: Reasons I’m Single, Vol. I*
*working title
Guest links:
• “people are welcome to reach out to me via Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thesubliminalartist/ or my email: jake@jakerandall.me” Jake
• Jake on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-r-randall
Conversation mentions:
• Network School: https://ns.com/samanthaleebell/invite and the “absence of defensiveness”: https://www.parallelcitizen.xyz/p/ns-2026
• Em Roblin’s Natural Genius: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_83vFbGU2g
• Christopher Treble’s Natural Genius: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jSAFj7lwy8
• St. Vincent set: https://youtu.be/BfYJt1O8ZjY?si=htfpmUg9Vlb7iNPk
• Hans Rosling’s Factfulness: https://www.gapminder.org/factfulness-book/
• Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged: https://www.audible.com.au/pd/Atlas-Shrugged-Audiobook/B00FG9EVLE
Chapters:
00:00 Welcome and introduction to Jake Randall
01:15 Vietnam, Vegas and seeing with new eyes
08:46 Trading, investing and entrepreneurship
11:24 Philosophy, poetry and what makes a good life
18:29 Empathy, listening and customer service as training
31:46 Family, art, memory and profound life experiences
36:38 Improv, presence and the freedom to fail
42:24 Network School, absence of defensiveness and adult summer camp
45:16 Come alone and leave with friends
49:31 AI, optimism and becoming a constant student
Explore further:
Develop your Natural Genius: https://naturalgenius.com.au
Learn more about Sam: https://samanthabell.com.au
Subscribe to hear future episodes.
Credits:
Hosted by Samantha Bell in Kiama and Las Vegas, 2 June 2026
Produced at the Kiama office, 2 - 10 June 2026
Natural Genius Podcast: https://naturalgenius.com.au
Welcome to the Natural Genius Podcast. We're here to help you tap into your natural genius. Let's go. Jake is absolutely wicked smart, and he is also an incredible programmer and a wise business founder. Exceptionally well versed in Web3 and future technologies. And he's also impressive at building community and standing up for others naturally and being fascinated by individuals. It's such a beautiful set of qualities that complement his other aspects in business and life. He is a standout person to meet, and I'm as always so looking forward to catching up with him. Enjoy hearing from Jake.
SPEAKER_01Oh Jake, welcome to the Natural Genius Podcast. It is a real treat to be together again.
SPEAKER_00It's really lovely talking to you today.
SPEAKER_01So you were just saying that there's some things that have been going on and that you can update me on. Lead on, my friend.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so um I know we we met during network school, and you know, there's been a whole story uh since then and how it's unfolded. Um when we were at network school, um, you know, I was working on an automated trading thing for crypto, and then you know that didn't uh uh work out. And at that point, you know, I had been in Asia for I I guess, you know, by the time I left network school, six months. Um and so afterwards I actually went to Vietnam uh and I got stuck in Vietnam, believe it or not. I filled out my visa paperwork, 30 days, right? Um, but the town was so lovely that I was like, well, I'll just stay, you know, a couple more weeks, thinking that they had given me a 90-day visa, but they'd actually only give me a 30-day visa, even though they will give you a 90-day visa. So I happened to be there uh and I stayed two weeks over. So uh I told them I was gonna be 30 days, I stayed for two extra weeks for 45 days, and uh, anyways, the Vietnamese government did not like that. So they pretty much put me on house arrest and kept me in the country for 45 more days. Uh so I was I was trapped in Vietnam. And the thing about it was so the hotel I was staying at, the uh the manager, he was like, Oh, we're gonna get in so much trouble, you know, that you've overstayed your visa. Like, here's what I'm gonna do for you. I'm gonna fly you to a different city in Vietnam because you know, I couldn't leave the country, but I could go to a different city. He's like, I'm gonna fly you to a different city, and I know people at the airport, we'll make sure you get on the plane, right? He's like, and then you go deal with the immigration department in this different city, they'll be way more lax, right? Uh turns out, showed up to the different city, they were not more lax, and they were confused as to why I changed cities, and they were very suspicious of any and all of my activities. Uh so through some connections that I made through crypto, I ended up staying with this kind of like mad Serbian man who was uh you know, just full of life, full of energy, but very much in the spirit of uh Asia, let's say. And by that I mean we were drinking a lot. There was just it was, you know, and it was, you know, I was his guest, right?
SPEAKER_01I didn't buy that I made.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So, but you know, it's sort of impolite, and you know, he we had a lot of uh different friends, so so I ended up like semi-partying and just drinking too much, but stuck in this little tiny apartment, you know, in Saigon. And yeah, my life trajectory completely changed because I'd actually planned and booked hotels and staying in San Francisco and kind of moving to San Francisco was my life plan. Uh but the 45 days extra being in Vietnam will cost me like many thousands of dollars. Forfeited airfare, forfeited hotel, forfeited this, forfeited that. And I was just so exhausted from the whole Vietnam adventure that I was like, look, I don't really know anybody in San Francisco. I need to see somebody I know and love and care for. So I came and visited my sister in Vegas. But my sister is my favorite person in the world, and she wanted me to stay. Um, and now it turns out, you know, uh, she's knocked up, six months pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. So I'm gonna be an uncle all over again, and I'm really excited about that. Um, but now I've made my home base Las Vegas and I live on the Vegas Strip, and you know, it's kind of a funny place to live.
SPEAKER_01Wow, I mean, and how do you feel about the Vietnam experience now? Because it sounds like it could have been quite traumatic, but you know, talking about it, you know, like pretty much it was actually uh uh no uh terrifying, traumatizing.
SPEAKER_00You know, you go to the immigration office, and in Vietnam, they're one of only five communist countries in the world, right? So you go to the government offices and they're wearing military uniforms, right? Not only that, mostly they don't speak English. And it was also the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnamese War. And I, a white American male, uh was there, and I just gotta say uh they were not too pleased with me. And also, you know, the hotel guy shipping me into another city, they were very confused, and then they were like, What address are you gonna be at? If we go and check on you, are you gonna be there? Uh, but then actually the Serbian guy he wasn't in the country legally either, so then I had to make up one of his friends and I was staying at his house. Um, but then they, you know, after anyways, it was a whole debacle, and so it actually put me in a crazy place. Um, but you know, I'll say there's a Prouse um quote that I've been thinking about a lot, which is like the real voyage of discovery is like in seeing with new eyes, right? Something like that. Are you familiar with this quote?
SPEAKER_02I'm not, but I feel like this might be your life, Jake. I feel like you can look through new eyes regularly, or it's just a practice that you could do.
SPEAKER_00So I was in Asia for eight months, right? So by the time I came back to America, I was like, oh my god, I am so lucky, so privileged. This is amazing. You come back to Vegas, right? And all the things that you think are like kitsch and like cheesy and just like over the top and crazy. I just now I'm like, I love this. I love that we could have like crazy strip malls and like all you can eat, barbecue, and just uh just the over-the-topness of it. Um, and like even the consumerism I've learned to love, if that makes sense. Tell me all well I think you know it's so easy for people who don't travel, right? Because I've been to Vietnam, Thailand, Guatemala, you know, Costa Rica, you know, several several different places. Um well, there's that like David Foster Wallace quote of like with the the fish joke, right? Of like, you know, the fish are swimming and it says, How's the water treating you boys? And the you know, fish goes off, and he says, they go, What's water? You know what I mean? They don't realize that they're in the water. So when you're you're somewhere and you haven't traveled, you just get used to everything. You think this is how life is, and so I'm constantly telling you know, kids I know, 18, 21, you know, 23, like, go travel the world, spend you know, a half a year in a foreign country and just see how different other people live, and then you have a real appreciation of, or at least for me, I had a real appreciation of America and where I'm from coming back.
SPEAKER_02That's awesome, amazing. And tell me, what is the trading platform evolved into now, Jake? What are we enjoying working on? So uh being a proud uncle, which it sounds like you're already in that role.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm very excited about that. The trading platform turns out we had to kill it. Uh, so it was crypto-based, right? And the liquidity and crypto died. Um, so we had to move on. And I'll say, you know, there's I'm just spitting a lot of like quotes and thoughts back here, but um what I'm doing now is two things. But the thing relevant to the trading platform is I'm actually studying to get my uh chartered financial analyst like certification. Um, and so the trajectory I'm on now is I have a friend, uh a VP at uh major US bank, and uh me and him are gonna start a fund um next year. So we're really, really excited about that. And so I've just been investing in trading mostly since then.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. Are you enjoying it?
SPEAKER_00Honestly, I enjoy it so much, and weirdly, people have told me that I should start a fund or I should um invest for a living, and I've always kind of brushed them off like no no no, I want to be an entrepreneur. It's kind of like I feel like it's cheating, like it's almost not creating a business, right? And in my mind, I saw myself or I see myself as an entrepreneur. I come from a whole family of entrepreneurs my mother, my father, my sister, my brother, my grandfather, you know, everybody is an entrepreneur, and I've been an entrepreneur and been successful, but to me, I never connected investing with being an entrepreneur. But after talking to my friend and talking to several people, the idea of starting a fund, you know, in my mind it now counts as starting a business. And for some reason, I I hold business owners in high esteem.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and maybe that's the bonus of being multi-generational and even uh multi-generational entrepreneurial in your family. And uh as soon as you were talking about that, I was thinking you're getting both. You're getting the trading and the investing that you enjoy, and you're also being entrepreneurial in starting a business or starting a fund.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and uh I'm a very competitive person, and this really scratches that itch, right? I like when there's a scoreboard when I can win and lose. You know, a long, long time ago, when I was but 20, 1920, I was a philosophy major. Uh I ended up dropping out, and you know, the joke I tell is I went full time. Um thank you. You're like literally the only person in 50 people I've told that joke to that laughs because they're like, you know, philosophy full time, what does that mean? I was like, yeah, exactly. I was gonna say, you know, I find philosophy was something that I was really passionate about when I was that age. Um, but I've actually, you know, a philosophy and then some self-help stuff when I was in my early 20s, but I've actually abandoned reading a lot of philosophy. I've noticed a lot of philosophers aren't very happy, you know, and that was one of the things, you know. I think there's some modern philosophers that like, you know, are a little happier, but like the Greeks, their original question is like, what does it mean to live a good life? Right. And that question has never not been in my mind, trying to figure out like what does make a good life, and so a little bit after I sort of dropped any sort of study of philosophy, I started writing poetry and getting more into poetry, and I've actually found that has been more nourishing of the soul and more close to answering that question, like what does it mean to live a good life, than you know, reading Kant or you know, Descartes or whatnot.
SPEAKER_02That's amazing. And I we sort of partly reconnected, Jake, by talking about the poetry workshop that Chris Treble was good enough to run. I think maybe it was you and Miven who actually stood up and said everyone needs to do their poetry in their spoken tongue first and then in English. And I that was like such a big it just like had a such a big impact on that space at the time. And what I remember is just many guys sitting around of different nationalities, and the profundity of people sharing their poet poems that they'd created with or without AI had to be declared, didn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, that was a very special space for me because until then I had not shared any poetry that I had written, even though I'd been writing poetry for years, with anybody that wasn't my significant other. Um so I remember that vividly. And so the two things I'm working on now, the one, the CFA, there's this test coming up I have on August 24th, um, to pass that. But the second thing, and the thing I'm working on this month, my focus is actually putting together a manuscript of poetry. Um so I've been writing poetry for eight years, and I finally have sort of a breath in my life, like a moment in time where I can go deep, you know, collect the poems that I've had, study, and try to put together something of value. Um, so uh, you know, I live in Vegas here, and I'm very much looking forward to in the next few weeks, like kind of traveling to the mountains and just getting away from everything, bringing a bunch of books, bringing some journals, taking some days off and putting it all together.
SPEAKER_02Tell me about the mountains, Jake. Which mountains? And have you been there before? And tell me more.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's so funny. I I haven't been here there. I uh so I've lived in Vegas since last August, and I've yet to really travel. Um, so like I know Zion National Park is only three or four hours away, and I've yet to go. I've been to several of the national parks, but but never the ones around here. I haven't seen the Grand Canyon yet. I I know Mount Charleston is close, but I'm thinking of, you know, I've I've got a truck and I think I'm gonna go buy camping equipment, a tent, the whole the whole mine, and just try to see how long I could go into the mountains and just read and write and try to put this thing together that I've been fiddling with for so long.
SPEAKER_02Oh, what an intention, Jake. I love the sound of that. And you just said a moment back that it helps you the most to uh work with the question of what makes a good life, and one of the things that I love in conversation is seeing the really obvious multi-dimensionality of people who are living good lives, and even in these conversations, it's just so brilliant. Like yours, for example, already we're just a short way in, and we've talked about poetry, trading, entrepreneurship, being an uncle, like going into the mountains. And what keeps on striking me uh in my life is that it's never one thing, there's always chapters, there's always uh many different relationships and different and also for people who are uh yeah, intentional about having that it's not necessarily purpose that might be part of it, but the real kind of searching for what is good for them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean the way I view you know it's funny, the the trading and the poetry kind of go together in in two ways. One to me it's kind of about seeing and understanding the world and just like digesting it, but being honest, right? Like in both of these things, honesty is like just very important, and the other side of it is sort of like any given skill, like the self-mastery aspect of it, right? Most of your ability, I find, with anything comes with understanding yourself. You know, in poetry that could be like your voice and trading, it could be, you know, what what are your tendencies? Where are your blind spots? You know, how do you you know lean into your strengths and try to avoid your weaknesses?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I wonder, I was saying before we uh hit record that you have this really beautiful quality amongst being wicked smart, that you're uh fascinated by others and empathetic and uh understanding of. And what I saw of you is that you could build community and also part of that, like you could build community really fast and connections, and it was to me, it seemed like it was through care and through uh fascination with others and and openness. Like I really and uh this is what when you were talking about starting a fund before, I got excited because I'm like that trust and truth that I saw in you. Uh, what a beautiful combination to be able to have others entrust their capital with you to be able to um go with someone who projects that.
SPEAKER_00Well, well, thank you. That's very kind. I uh, you know, I think when I was in my 20s, did a lot of soul searching, and a lot of thinking about my parents, right? And a lot of thinking about what did I get from each of my parents, what are the strengths, right? And for my dad, it was definitely entrepreneurship, hard work, but for my mom, it was empathy, it was like she profoundly cared about others, like she spent a lot of time like working in nursing homes and hospitals, and just was extremely caring and empathetic, and I I think that's what I really picked up from her, and I've always been fascinated about other people, and um so in my middle to late 20s, I worked in customer service a lot, and I worked for Purina Pet Food, and uh so I go in to get this job, so it was like two blocks from my house, right? And I I think I just moved there and I just needed any job, right? And so I come and I apply and they're like, You're way overqualified for this job. And I was like, Yeah, I know, but I I want to get this job. Uh they're like, fine, they hired me. And within the first year, I had been promoted four times at this customer service job. And so I eventually was in a role where I not only helped teach um the customer service representatives, but the managers of the customer service representatives, and was in a position where if there was any sort of real issue at Perina, let's say somebody's gonna sue us, or they're gonna put a bad post in the press, or somebody, you know, was really hard, the hardest case is they would actually have them call me and contact me even after the hours. Like I'd be home and take calls on behalf of this company. And the thing that I always told people about customer service is like to really listen, like to really care about what they're saying. So many people, when they're in a conversation, they're trying to think of what they're gonna say, or they're trying to be like, oh, Especially in customer service, like oh, the next step. Like I'm just getting you to the next step. And to me, it was way more important to establish a relationship with that person by listening to them before we ever got around to solving the problem, whatever the problem may be.
SPEAKER_02Um where do you think it comes from, Jake? Where and you talked about your mom being empathetic, but it it's like it's next level. Where do you think it came from?
SPEAKER_00So uh I'm gonna say learned something about myself. I don't know if it's real or not, but I've taken two online autism tests, and they said, Boy, you were autistic, but nobody nobody could tell because you're really good. And one of the questions on the the thing that they said, like, oh, this is how we flagged you, was because when I was much younger, I actually had terrible social skills. So the social skills that I've had and my communication skills were learned much later as a practice, like as a oh, I really should study this. Like, I really need to figure out how to talk to people. And so, you know, my earliest jobs, and you know, for almost a decade of my life, my jobs were sales and customer service related. So it was all this, you know, going again and again and again, trying to figure out okay, like how do you connect with somebody else? And so I think I've learned out of necessity.
SPEAKER_02Amazing, and I wonder if that was the time when Zappos Zappos or Zappos, the um shoe company, was getting a lot of attention, especially it's fun that you're in Vegas right now because they were in Vegas, weren't they? And I remember hearing about a person that had stayed on the phone, a customer service person talking to somebody, I think, who had recently was bereaving, like who was dealing with loss, and they stayed on the call for hours and hours to um for some custom for some customer service to do with them. And that was one of the sort of flipping points for customer service, I think, in terms of being empathetic towards others and the stats going out the window. It was more about going deep with customers.
SPEAKER_00That was something that I dealt with maybe multiple times a week. So a thing that would happen, right, is uh you know, a dog would eat some food, and then the dog, relatively recently to eating the food, would pass. So that was actually a large number of calls because when you're serving you know 100 million customers, oh that's right. So I remember very specifically, there's a guy, and he was let's say quasi homeless. He was living in a trailer with eight dogs, didn't have a job, and was relying on we used to send out coupons for like free food. So we used to just give free food away for all these dogs. But I remember you know, one of his dogs had passed, and I remember he called me. I probably spent within one week, I probably talked to this man 10 hours on the phone. Um, but just trying to be there for him, and like it was really great working for Preen, because they were like, that's at least for what I was doing, that was the job is just help our customers, you know what I mean? Um and so I I would be listening to the life story, you know, I listened to his life story, I listened to many, many life stories like this. And in fact, before I had the job at Preena Pet food, I had a slightly, you know, a different job in customer service, which was if you got into a car accident, you would call a hotline for your insurance and it would go to me. And so I would answer and get these people who had literally just been in a car accident and try to calm them down, let them know help is on the way, you know, help get their vehicle towed.
SPEAKER_02Um problem solve if needed.
SPEAKER_00Problem solve, you know. But often these people are sobbing, you know, they're they're they've just been in a car accident, you know. Um you know, we try to make sure that they're safe and that they're getting help. Um but just doing this hundreds and thousands of times got me to a different sort of level.
SPEAKER_02Was that and was that one of your first jobs there? Because that sounds like it would have been incredible at education towards empathy.
SPEAKER_00You know, I was probably in my my mid-20s. In fact, my first job, so after I dropped out uh you know, and went full-time philosophy, um, I actually was knocking door to door selling restaurant coupons. So a product nobody needed. It was for one specific restaurant that I would sell you a $25 coupon that was good for $50 worth of food, right? And so I knocked on doors and you get a lot of the doors slammed in your face. You know, you get a lot of people like, you know, didn't you read the sign or there's no soliciting, or I'm gonna call the cops, or this and other things. So you immediately have to be able to connect with somebody, right? If you're knocking on doors, you're a real trooper. Like if you've ever had to do that, and I was paid, I wasn't paid hourly, I was paid only on commission. So I had that job for for several months until I went to an office building, and there's all these uh men, you know, dressed really nice, suits. Um, and the guy said, if you sell my employees, you know, what you're selling, the coupons, I'll give you a job. So lo and behold, I I sell many to his employees, and then I start the next Monday. I didn't know what they did. All I knew is they dressed up and they definitely made more money than I did, right? That's all I knew.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, and it was the game. You had it, you knew the guy, the rules of the game. You had to win that one.
SPEAKER_00So so it turns out uh it was to sell penny stocks. So now it's like Wolfle Wall Street. I'm learning about it's I'm 21 and I'm learning about stocks for the first time, you know, and I'm talking stocks that are like you know, some wind company that's gonna be like the next big thing, you know. They just got some government contract, and you know, they're they're on schedule to do this and the other thing. You know, it took me, I would say four or five, six months to realize A, I don't think these companies really are what people are saying they are, especially I'm saying they are. B, you know, I think my my bosses are selling stock when I'm you know, into me telling people to buy the stock. And so that was crazy. And I had to leave after six months because I was like, this is not good. Like a lot of integrity, yeah. So so I learned what happened to these guys years later. What do you expect happened?
SPEAKER_02Oh, I mean uh in trouble with the authorities to some degree.
SPEAKER_00Turns out they just got fabulously wealthy, have yachts, have jets, and and they quit. So I was one of like less than 20 people, maybe there's 15 people there, every single person there, fabulously wealthy. And you know, so it's kind of funny because you think, right? Like, you know, all this, you know, I'm doing the right thing, it's gonna turn out well.
SPEAKER_01I love that social experiment that I just was participating in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I see because you know, you would think like, oh, they're doing something bad, you know, they're gonna get caught. So the the trick around it was they weren't selling individual customers, let's say, like Wolf of Wall Street, like we were calling um brokers, stockbrokers, who were managing other people's money. And so these stock brokers had a little bit of gamble in them. So let's say they're like, you know, the SP is up 10% this year, and that's your benchmark, but you're up 14%. Well, maybe you slice off a little bit of the 14%, and then you roll some dice with some crazy penny stocks, right? Uh, you know, so it took me a long time to realize oh, these are just like gambling addicts who are trying to bet with money that's over and above what the minimum they've promised is. Anyways, so that was my first introduction to the markets all those years ago.
SPEAKER_01Oh, Jake, you're a complete delight. I wonder if I there's a couple more questions I want to ask you.
SPEAKER_02And and one of them is um, what are the most profound experiences you've had in life? Because I feel like with your openness and your uh curiosity and your fascination and ability to build connection really quickly with others, that you might have ended up in some crazy situations.
SPEAKER_00I'll say I've lived a really awesome life, and I feel like I've had many profound experiences, but the number one experience in my life, believe it or not, is when I essentially was a shaman. Uh I know I'm being a little dramatic here, but so I told you my sister's my favorite person in the world, right? The one who's having twins. Um well, I'm six years older than her, so you know, a little older, a little wiser, a little, you know. Um I had experience with some uh substances, let's say. Um, you know, and I had been on that journey, and they'd really opened my eyes to, oh, maybe there's more to this life than eats the eye. Um so we rented this hotel room, right? And we have everything, and what I remember most about it is you know, about five hours in, I'm giving a lecture on the history of art and music, and showing her like the through line of like jazz, um like to modern day music. And like we're watching, you know, I we're we watched the runaway music video from Kanye West, and I'm explaining to her, you know, the different elements of the music video, how this actually foreshadowed his relationship with Kim Kardashian, and how you can look at his relationship with Kim Kardashian, you know, through this music video. Um, you know, and I'm going over like Sun Raw, which you know, some really funky jazz stuff. And it was her and her boyfriend at the time, and they were just mesmerized. And I was putting on my complete like, here's everything I know about art and music show. And and I remember sort of like as we were, you know, coming down, we went and walked in the park, and it was just me and her, and you know, uh, my mom moved with my sister uh the year I went to college. So for several years, me and my sister were estranged, you know. Um but getting so close to her and then being so being able to like kind of sort of give her that, but also bring us closer together. Um that's that was really everything for me. And it's it also highlights something that I really love about myself, which is just like I love to like give and share and to like teach. Um, and so I was able to do that to that experience.
SPEAKER_02Whoa, that that is so gorgeous. I love that when I talked about profound and crazy, it brings you to that story. That is just the sweetest.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I have any other I've got to have other crazy stories. Um when I was a kid, when I was a little little kid, uh I had traveled a lot. So my my dad worked in uh the travel industry. So when I was two, you know, we lived in Mexico, we lived in Jamaica. Um and so I've always had this sort of like wanderlust. Um there's a crazy story my dad tells that when we were in Jamaica and he got involved in local politics, and one day his limo driver says, I've been paid to kill you and your whole family. You have to leave the country immediately. Um it's a longer story, but it's kind of dark, so I'm gonna I'm gonna cut it there. But uh yeah, you know, I always think of that story because that's like the craziest thing I can think of. But I guess it's more my dad's life than mine, but I was just a little kid.
SPEAKER_01Whoa, hang on, you it's a cliffhanger without any further uh storyline.
SPEAKER_00What's look, we we we lived to see another day. We did, in fact, leave immediately and we were safe. But but you can only imagine, you know, this guy who's you know, my dad was a well-to-do businessman in uh Jamaica, and you know, just backed the wrong course in local politics, and you don't want to do that in the 90s.
SPEAKER_01Whoa. Hey Jake, tell me about improv. What did you love?
SPEAKER_02What do you love about improv? And uh again, to your credit, you s ran a lot of improv at network school generously, and then passed it on to others after you left. But um yeah, tell me what you like about it and what you see in others through that.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, it touches back on what you said before about meditating and kind of being present, right? And back to the you know, customer service through line. I feel like being present, you know, poetry, trading, everything, right? Um, you know, one of the weird quirks about my brain is I have a terrible long-term memory. I it's actually quite sad. You know, people ask me things like, hey, do you remember when we did this? Like, no, no, I don't remember. I have a terrible memory maker. But the compensation for that is I found myself to be much more present than others, and I love being present, and I love just you know, dropping all over the thoughts, dropping trying to drop my like perception of myself, um, and just going. And so that's something that I found is to be a real gift too, because I feel like a lot of people I've known in my life have struggled with anxiety, and I've I've struggled with it before as well. But I feel like there's a lot of anxiety is either ruminating on the past or living in the future, right? And it's not being present. So I feel improv is an amazing tool that I honestly I think every kid, you know, every kid in school should learn because not only do I think it's so fun, but it gives you that sort of presence and it gives you the freedom to fail. I think that's another thing that I've seen through my life is more than most other people I know, I give myself permission to fail. And I give myself permission to take chances that are low probabilities of success, let's say, right? I try to go for it and just know that if I fall flat on my face, I can always get back up. And I feel like improv has really taught me that. And that was something that I I did a lot. I did for four years in high school, and so being able to share that in network school is really fun.
SPEAKER_02Wow, through some of your life experiences, Jake, it sounds like you really have developed that ability to be able to fail, like go for something. No, it's still obviously you want to be successful and you want to win from what you were talking about before about being competitive. But that's such an incredible skill, both the listening and getting deeper into the present moment, as well as being able to fail and know that you can pick yourself back up.
SPEAKER_00I the thing I was saying when it relates to entrepreneurship and maybe people listening is if you give yourself the freedom to fail, and if you're not scared to fail, it gives you the room to be more ambitious. Right. I I don't think people generally are ambitious enough, and including myself, right? That's something I try to meditate on. It's like, what's the most ambitious version of a good life that there is, right? When people ask me, like, what do you want? Like, well, let me tell you, you know, it it's it's grand and it's beautiful, you know. Like, even you know, when I think of having kids, there's this old show, The Wild Thornberries. You see the show Wild Thornberries? Well, I think the premise is something like their parents are anthropologists or explorers, and they're traveling Africa out of like a bus. Like these two girls and their you know, little brother, and they're just exploring the world, and you know, I feel like that's something I'd like to do, and I feel like that's like a non you know, I I know you had M. Roblin on, right?
SPEAKER_02And I was so inspired by her family and the way they're able to maneuver around the world, and how you know her little girl is so worldly from such a young age and got to see so much, and I feel like they were somebody I look to as an example of living a good life, and to explain to that uh even I love uh hearing that Em's Canadian background comes through into her daughter through going to summer camp summer camp once a year in Canada, and they live in Bali, like yeah, so fun.
SPEAKER_00So and they're amazing experiences in China and and then again choosing to live in Bali and and the network school, you know, you know, visiting there and just you know, it's I feel like they live a really beautiful life, and and I was I was very happy and privileged to get to meet them and to see that and to have that as an example.
SPEAKER_02And to promote her um workshop that she did afterwards as well, Jake. You were amazing at being able to support and uh sprue for her. I was reading a uh post, a Substack post about Network School from somebody's observation having been there last at the conference last year and then again living for a month there in May this year. And it was a really lovely uh critique, which was basically saying that it's um it's going well. Uh, and one of the things in it, to quote them, was uh that they liked about the people, there was an absence of defensiveness. And they were talking about that in the world at the moment it's easy to create separation and concern and anxiety, and this absence of defensiveness was great because you could go deep in conversations quick. And you and I both experienced that to put words into your mouth, um, especially through the March and April uh friends that we made and the experiences that we had, and and to this day I just think what what a privilege it was that we were there to experience that absence.
SPEAKER_00A hundred percent. I mean, I I miss the people that I met tremendously, you know. The the for me ninety seven percent of the experience was just the people. Um and You know, it's fun because it does self-select a certain type of person. You know what I mean? Um, and maybe that's the you know, the adventurous type, the courageous type. Um you know, uh there I I can't say enough good things about the people I met and just say that I truly miss miss it. And you know, in some ways it was very much like an adult summer camp, you know. That's the way that's the way I felt felt about it, but in like the most positive best way, you know, and if you're a a nomad or a traveler or just somebody looking to meet other interesting people, or I I would recommend it for sure.
SPEAKER_02And Jake, have you had experiences like that or created events like that that bring those sorts of people together? Do you see if you could break it down? Because I I've got some thoughts around it, but I don't I still I still feel quite amazed that uh that there was that. I mean, a lot of us have tried to break it down, March and April, especially you know, I don't know if you know this what my history is.
SPEAKER_00Well, when I was in my early 20s, I led this um party organization called Body Talk. And once a month we would host events with DJs and bands, and you know, we'd have a few hundred people there. Um, the whole point of these events was to, you know, you could come alone and leave with friends, right? Which is something that's not common. You know, it's hard to have a lot of third spaces these days where you really connect, you know. Historically, I think the generation before me and my parents' generation, you know, they maybe connected at a bar, right? And not to say that we didn't have these events at clubs and bars, whatnot, but the point wasn't to go drink, you know, maybe dancing, maybe music and all that. Um, and the whole point of that organization was to combat loneliness, you know, there's this like loneliness epidemic. And so for a year or so, we would have these events at parks and clubs, whatever, you know, we'd have drum circles and just try to build that sense of connection. Um and I I just think nowadays we don't have a lot of let's say maybe unstructured downtime with peers. I mean, uh I think it's that's part of it. We also don't have a lot of structured uh you know time. You know, I when I was younger, I became much to my parents' chagrin, you know, I think I was 15 and I was like, I'm an atheist. Um and then when I was in my 20s, I was like, mmm, there's something here. I don't know what it is, I still don't know what it is, but there's some way in which we're all connected, and so I also feel like I understand more now the place that religion had played and connecting people, you know, to something greater than themselves, and I feel like in modernity we've kind of lost that, and so with network state, you know, there is sort of a philosophy behind it that people are connecting to, so they're connecting to something greater themselves together, and that's the thing that I would love to figure out how we could do more of.
SPEAKER_02I wonder also, Jake, you were talking about leave with friends. I did a yoga retreat years ago, and I loved that uh in the brochure that or the sort of pre-reading, it said you're gonna be sharing a room with somebody else, but be prepared, you might leave with your future best friend, or you might meet your future best friend. And I wonder if there's hacks like that. I think it's really lovely to be in conversation with you at another event organizer to to to sort of ponder that because I came to network school mainly from the self-sovereignty point of view. I was curious about meeting others that were interested in that. And what I found is not that like that that was kind of maybe one of some people's points of view, but not everyone. And there I've said before to others, I just think the big-heartedness was interesting. So I think being able to create more of those spaces, Jake, which is an amazing intention, and I'd love to see it too. I I uh their the mind is curious about how so uh to kind of reach for you know what I'm thinking about, which is AI, you know, something I constantly think about.
SPEAKER_00I think it's gonna force the issue of how do we connect to each other a lot more. Um and I think this is a big issue for society. Um and so yeah, I guess you know I don't really have any answers other than say I think the issue is becoming bigger and bigger and bigger in the face of advancing technology.
SPEAKER_02Let me throw something in. I feel like AI is going to get us deeper into knowing who we are or what uniqueness we have as individuals. And like we've been saying through this conversation, it's multidimensional. And I wonder if it's like next layer social media, it is being able to nuanced connect people, like like networks state, for example, could actually connect, uh like I was saying, self-sovereignty might have been one reason I was there, but little did I know that uh the summer camp reference that you have, somebody organizing my laundry, somebody organizing my food, somebody like telling me I need to turn up or giving me an NFT if I turn up to a 7 a.m. gym class. Um I wonder if uh that that's like just a few sort of aspects about what would be giving me enjoyment in that space. And uh yeah, I wonder if AI will be able to create those connections and multidimensional connections easier.
SPEAKER_00I think you're a hundred percent right. And you know, a lot of people have um sort of a doom and gloom outlook on the future, and I myself I am so incredibly optimistic. I might be the most optimistic person I know. People think I'm crazy when I tell them how amazing the world can be. Um and you know, I'd thought of something along the lines of what you're saying previously, which is like we can imagine going to a conference, right? And it's an AI kind of overseeing the conference, and it can literally know about you or get to know you, and then start pairing you with other people. Say, hey, like, you know, would you like me to make reservations with this other person? You guys have these shared interests. I think this would be a great connection for you. And it can kind of spur us together, you know.
SPEAKER_02And those shared interests, sorry to interrupt those shared interests could be very, very deep.
SPEAKER_00A hundred percent. I mean, I think of myself living in Vegas. Another example is um, you know, let's say I want to go to a concert, right? They notice I I buy one ticket to go to. You know, I know Metallica's coming to the sphere, right? So let's say Metallica, right? But if you're now like, hey, you know, based on what I know about you, there's this other guy who's going to the show too. You guys should link up when you guys get there, you'll enjoy the show together and you'll have a lot to talk about. You know, that that's an amazing ability that we could have with this technology.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It reminds me of uh there's a skier that I've followed for years that's an artist, and he's put a lot of artwork on skis and uh been a successful big mountain skier as well. And he befriended through, I think through his art, um, The Grateful Dead. And so then that led to the Grateful Dead in the sphere and the concert and his artwork being and and so yeah, that's like nuances that could come out. But I mean, for me as a skier, you could talk to me about skiing and all different aspects of skiing, but you could actually talk to me about that art in that sphere, and that would be the deeper level of conversation.
SPEAKER_001000%. You know, I know people are very afraid of Big Brother, right? You know, Big Brother knows everything about you. But you know, the irony being, you know, if you actually had a big brother that knew everything about you, maybe that'd be great. Maybe it'd introduce you to some mixtapes, you know, be like, hey, actually, you know, you gotta listen to this like run DMC album, like you're gonna love it. You know, actually, hey, you know, I see you're repeating this pattern. I've repeated that pattern before too. You know, maybe you want to try this instead. Or like, you know, my big brother introduced me to sushi for the first time, right? My parents really didn't eat any raw fish, and he was in the uh military, so he traveled the world, came back, um, you know, was like, let me show you what sushi is. And so, you know, that's a moment I'll remember forever. But AI, in the positive sense, and again, I know I sound ridiculously optimistic, could be a big brother.
SPEAKER_02I think I recently read uh Outlaw Shrugged, and I uh I think sometimes when I read things, I can stay in that uh context for a while. And in that I was really getting that sort of perspective of the the lens through which you live life, and it can be that you're living into this grateful state of believing that we just have it so good right now and we can actually keep growing from there. And you and I uh, for want of better words, positive warriors, because I'm constantly uh either sitting back in conversations because it's just too wicked, like people are just so believing that the world's gonna be awful, so I'll just sit back and I think I can't really add too much here. Or when there's an opening, kind of believing in the uh I mean, it's not just believing in AI, it's actually believing in humanity and the combination and integration. And you and I are not Mary Poppins, we're not thinking that it's all just light and love and ease. Uh, there's always the light and the dark. And I often talk about the fact that when social media first started, I was helping companies and people to get upskilled to real, you know, showing them that they needed to get up to speed with digital. And it feels really similar. It feels like the same sort of evangelist moment where it's like, these are the good bits. Let's go.
SPEAKER_00A hundred percent. I mean, you know, I'm really fond lately of saying like your life is mostly the story you tell yourself about it, right? It's mostly all the way you frame it, the narrative that you've generated for yourself and others. Um, that's actually what you're gonna experience. So you should be the one holding the pen. You know what I mean? You you can actually choose what story to tell yourself about the world, right? And I find myself also in a lot of conversations where people are, let's say, bleak about the future or bleak about the present. And you know, I find knowing some history of the world really helps. Because, you know, you start talking about, you know, I won't go there, but you know, there's there's many, many periods in history you could point to where this looks like a walk in the park. You know, let's let's say the you know, bubonic plague for one, right? It's like, are you aware of actually, you know, it killed one third of Europe, right? You know, one third's pretty big. Uh, there's this wonderful book by Hans Rosling called Factfulness. And essentially there's a bunch of charts in this book, whether it's childhood mortality, um, you know, people, you know, uh deaths from war, people living with enough calories, you know, on and on and on it goes. And all these charts, they look great. You know, they're they're up and to the right, as you'd say, right? And you're like, wow, things do actually seem to be getting better and better and better on a long enough time frame. And uh I think we forget that. I mean, in fact, I've been telling people lately, I think we, my generation, will experience the longevity escape velocity. You know, so I've been telling people you need to prepare that you're gonna live to 150, 200, 300. Um and to me, that's so exciting. But it's funny because I tell people this, and most of the time, people are worried, people are scared, and and they're they're they're not happy to be given a hundred more years. But to me, I live with such lust for life that I'm like, oh my god, I get a hundred extra years. This is the greatest. Like, how did I get so lucky, you know?
SPEAKER_01Oh, well played, Jake. What do you think?
SPEAKER_02Final question. Um, what do you think the character traits or the things to study into the future as we talk about AI as well? It's an interesting one, especially for people thinking about uh studying philosophy, for example, or other things that uh further study into employment.
SPEAKER_00I so um I don't want to be you know, I'm not Mary Poppins, as you said. Like in regards to employment, I do think there's gonna be a lot of disruption, especially in the short term, maybe medium term, long term. So that is what it is, right? And I think the world will uh come to the other side of this and we'll all you know as humanity be better off for it. But in the meantime, our ability to adapt to change seems to be much slower than the change itself. Um and so there is gonna be this gap there. And so for me, the way I try to live my life is to just be a constant student. You know, I I um I I counted my books the other day and I'm right near 1400. I have 10 bookshelves. Um and so I'm trying to learn about everything all the time and try to be open to new possibilities. And I told you for like a decade I did sales and customer service. And then I I moved to San Diego because my my mom was in poor health. And you know, I watched this documentary on AlphaGo, and I go, Well, this is clearly the future. Like clearly, this is going to be the biggest, most important thing that's happened to humanity ever. And um alongside watching that documentary, I read uh Yaval Noah Harari's books. He has one called Homo Deus and one 21 Lessons for the 21st century, and he talks about AI in there. And so I make a full pivot. I mean, I was in my late 20s and I was like, well, I'm gonna go to code school now, I'm gonna go learn how to be a developer.
SPEAKER_01You know, and I didn't mind that grant.
SPEAKER_00So I had I had dabbled in coding and knew a little bit, but I was nowhere near able to get a job. Um and so I went and I studied and you know, it was a few months, tried to be the best. Um, and then very specifically, the code academy I went to had an internship program where you were guaranteed an internship, and there was one AI company that I was like, it's mine, you know. I'm like this internship with the AI company, it's mine. And so this was pre-ChatGPT, you know, years before Chat GPT. And so, yeah, I studied hard and I get this internship, and now I'm working at AI just a year after watching this documentary about AlgoGo, you know, trying to ride the wave, trying to skate where the puck is going, and just being flexible and open, I think is what's gonna serve everyone.
SPEAKER_02You are an exceptional human. I absolutely adore that so many of your great qualities came through in this conversation. Thank you for your time.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much. It was really wonderful talking with you.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for listening to the Natural Genius Podcast. Please share this with anyone who came to mind and visit us at naturalgenious.com.au. Thanks so much.