The Pilot- Ask Nathan by How to be Second

What is Ask Nathan? Nathan unpacks the heart behind the Ask Nathan podcast by exploring why questions, rather than scripts, are the fuel that brings his thinking to life. He also outlines his hopes for the show, like helping seconds articulate their value and inviting more voices into a conversation that’s always been bigger than one person. 

Hey, this is Nathan Young, founder and author of How to be Second, and this is Ask Nathan, where I answer questions about being and growing as a second in command + a Second by identity, and tear apart myths around those ideas and other concepts. I’m practicing communicating the value of Seconds so you can do so for yourself and others, with even more clarity.

Transcript

Nathan Young 0:00

Hey, this is Nathan Young. Founder and author of How to Be Second, and this is Ask Nathan where I answer questions about being and growing as a second in command and a second by identity and tear apart myths around those ideas and other concepts. I'm practicing communicating the value of seconds, so you can do so for yourself and others with even more clarity. If you're curious and wanna know more, listen on. If you know you're ready to invest in yourself and go together, connect with us.

Samantha 0:30

all right, Nathan, I have a question for you. Why are we here? Tell me about the idea behind Ask Nathan.

Nathan Young 0:39

I've been studying seconds for like a really long time. Five, six years, something like that. Also, I've been one my entire life and I have so much stuff in my head now that isn't anywhere. Like yeah. We wrote the whole book and whatever. But then it's been years since then that we've been compiling new things or making more nuance or like pushing into more of like what's going on or unpacking more of those concepts. And some of those concepts like don't exist anywhere. Either other than the book or like in my head, or maybe like with some staff from how to be second or like in our conversations or whatever. But they're pretty well fleshed Out. And a surprising amount of people for me have been like, we want to know some of those things. We wanna be in conversation with you, like Yeah, some of the other media stuff that you do is nice, but like we wish that you would just talk more about unpacking some of these concepts that you keep referring to again and again. They seem really valuable. We don't know where to go to really understand them. We sat around for a while and then you were like, what if we just did like a q and a thing with you? And I said, okay. And then also Jason Player was like, what if you just talked for like 10 or 15 minutes? And I was like I'll give it a shot.

Samantha 1:47

And now we're here. I still feel like the format that has been chosen for this though, is unique and I think it says something about how you prefer to communicate information maybe. And so I'm curious why the questioning format? Like what is it about asking questions, answering questions, being in conversation, versus just plopping yourself in front of a camera and kind of going off a script, what is it about this, the idea of this that was more appealing than some other options?

Nathan Young 2:28

I talk about identity and personality. I talk about identity as being something that's sort of core and like with something that we share, right? As seconds, but then your personality layer sort of sits on top of that and it like presses on your identity in weird ways. But our identity is unique to Us. So like I have this identity of my Secondness, which is inspired by the needs and vision of other people. So like I'll sit around and be like, I don't, you know, like, I don't know what's really good or valuable or worthwhile to do. And then someone is like, well, I have a question, and I'm like, oh, now I am inspired to go and find an answer. Not necessarily because I cared about that thing, but because I care about the person wanting a thing and I'm like, well, I can, I can do something about that. Yes. So I have sort of my identity that is galvanized by people asking questions. And then I'm like, oh, it's a little quest. That's fun. On top of that, like I've done the work of self enough to know that on every personality test, I'm like a high detail oriented person. I think that sits as a personality thing that is uniquely mine on top of this. But it means that once again, like I have so much information in my head 'cause I love knowing that I have no idea what of it is actually Valuable. Until somebody is like, well, I want to know about this. I'm sort of like a pinata of information. Like I Somebody needs to, like someone needs to, and then

Samantha 3:54

So wait time out. Someone needs to wacky with this stick.

Nathan Young 3:58

Yeah. Yeah. Slap me and then I'll start.

Samantha 4:00

Okay. I need to clarify that a little bit later. Right. Boundaries. Yeah.

Nathan Young 4:05

Smack me with the question stick and information will come out. That's super funny.

Samantha 4:09

In the beginning of this Ask Nathan experiment. I kind of think of it as an experiment right now. We've talked about it and we have somewhat of a direction to begin with, but do you have any hope, like unspoken hopes maybe, or unspoken expectations or unspoken maybe. Excitement when you think about where this particular show could lead?

Nathan Young 4:42

Yes, I have a bunch. The first one is that this does the mission of how to be second better. As I'm answering these questions, it helps other seconds to go, oh, that is a way that I could say that." Like I'm practicing answering so that other people can watch me doing that practice yeah. And they can take that and either repeat it or refine it or whatever. This is sort of my practicing live on behalf of other people to talk about our value. Don't assume that this is the answer. I guess if anybody is like listening with right now like this, this is an answer. Yeah. But what I know is the most important thing about answering any of these questions is that, because I understand this part about myself, I no longer have to redraw the entire shape of myself for every new person that I meet. Which I used to feel like I had to do. Now I'm just getting better at answering. I'm refining my answer and this is me refining my answer live. So that's my first hope is that someone else would be able to watch this and go, he was pretty close, I could say that a little better for me. Yeah. And so it just helps seconds own their value. And communicate their value to themselves and to others. That's my first hope. My second hope is that someone could potentially whole cloth, just take one of these clips or segments or whatever and be like here, person, boss, friend, spouse, whatever. This is what I'm trying to say. I don't have the energy to explain all of this to you, but apparently Nathan has infinite energy to answer questions and so like I don't, I don't need to try to recreate this for myself, like he did a good enough job. Just watch this video. At 2X speed and like you'll understand what I'm trying to communicate to you. Sure. Like if I'm doing the work for someone of answering a question in their relationship, like that would be awesome. So I think, those are the, those are the top ones for me.

Samantha 6:45

Yeah. Now I know you really well. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. So. My next comment comes with the caveat of understanding a lot about who you are as a person, but I think something you touched upon in the first half of that answer has a lot to do with acquiring the muscle or the courage, maybe a combination of those two to be willing to continue to speak out loud a thing. Knowing it's not a hundred percent right. But knowing the value of the practice. Yeah. And so I also hear that as an undercurrent through a lot of what you're saying right now that. You've been talking about this for a long time now, and you've been living it for even longer, but there's still value in seconds continuing to practice communicating about who they are and their value.

Nathan Young 7:44

Yeah. Yes. That bumps a thing in my head. I talk about this all the time, you know, and it's this like, so, like it has been so long. Of talking about this, intentionally talking about This. I've done this in my own life so many times, which is that I've tried to find a short way to like communicate something, and this has never been easier to get 'cause now you can put it into a machine, the prompt. You can just be like. Give me the eight word summary of this blah voice, 20 minute voice note that I'm trying to say. And it will give you Words. And they are not useful. It is short. It is not concise. Concise is everything that needs to be and not more. Short is short. It's so easy to make short, but that's simplistic. It's not enough. You have to resolve the complex to get to simple. This has been a long journey and so, and I think still on the journey. Yeah, still on the journey. Yeah. So yes. Practice still practicing. Yeah.

Samantha 8:51

So as we're sitting here and we kind of opened with this idea of like, what is Ask Nathan? Um, something that we very intentionally did here in the beginning was. You and I are going through the book again. We're both kind of coming up with our own thoughts and ideas. You're shooting some of those to me, but I'm formulating the questions, but we also kind of both agreed that that one isn't good for seconds in general, that just, it's just two voices and also not sustainable. And so what are your thoughts for how do we incorporate more questions or more voices into this whole ask Nathan?

Nathan Young 9:29

I have several thoughts on that. Some of which I'm gonna make up right now, now that you asked me the question, which is one of the secrets of being like the person giving the answers Yeah. Is I didn't have any answer until just now, but unless I said that specifically. No one would know that I didn't already have it decided, which is kind of funny. I think that's something that we as seconds encounter a lot. I'm just totally tangenting. This idea of like, we ask for more information. Like we get inspired to like do a thing and then somebody's like, yeah, go do that. And we're like, okay. And then we start asking questions and they start giving us answers. And we're like, why didn't you say that? And they're like, I'm making it up as you're asking the questions right now. Like, if you hadn't asked me any of these questions, none of these rules would've existed. Yep. I'm, I, I only decided 'cause you said that. I think that's happening probably 90% of the time. Of the time. And I think that because I am now the person giving answers and 90% of the time I am making it up in the moment.

Samantha 10:28

Are you making it up or has it existed in there somewhere in that infinite knowledge, and it's bubbling up in a way that you maybe weren't expecting.

Nathan Young 10:38

The knowledge is coming in a way that I wasn't Expecting. I'm synthesizing it into a decision that never needed to be made and was not made at any time prior to that moment.

Samantha 10:48

Yeah. I think that's slightly different than you're making it up out of nowhere.

Nathan Young 10:53

Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I have a sense and a direction. Yes. And an idea of the picture of the future. Yeah. But if someone is like, should this be at in the morning or at night? And I go, oh, sure. At night. Mm-hmm. And they're like, how did you keep that information from me? And I'm like, I literally just made that decision based on my lived experience and the information ocean just now, if you had just looked at me and said, I'd like to do it in the morning, I would've gone. Okay. OKAY that squirrel over. The original question,

Samantha 11:23

how are we gonna get other voices than just yours and I? Yes. Right onto the show.

Nathan Young 11:27

So some of these things I'm deciding in this moment, but I would love to do some polls in second place on LinkedIn. I would love to source some questions from just like the, you know, the open air, uh, but also if you're a person watching this, like send the question. Right? Shoot us an email or get on the email list, which means you can send us an email really easily, getting a hold of me on LinkedIn or second place if you have a guide that you're working with from how to be second, then ask your guide. Like, hey, pass this question along to the, for the show or whatever. So I would love to get other questions from seconds, especially questions that they're. Navigating in their life or yeah. Maybe that they have navigated and now they're curious like what someone else would say. So yeah, I would love to source other questions and those are some ways that I, we could do so tangibly, but also like anybody listening, should feel free at any time. And also, second, if you are listening, do not wait until you have a problem. Oh, in crisis to then try to send the question. Yeah. Right. Like when you are curious send the que don't, I don't have anything like that I'm trying to solve right now. So like, I don't really have a question... Really?! You're not an infinitely curious person?! Bullshit. Like that is just not true. You're thinking, oh, I don't really have anything I need fixed. Sure. First of all. Sure. And second of all, just get curious, like what are you working on right now? Yeah. And ask a question about what you're working on right now.

Samantha 12:58

Yeah. And I would also add in there, I'm positive this is the thing we'll touch on, but Secondness is so much more than the jobs that we do. Oh yeah. And so this isn't just about what is a second within the role of a COO or CEO, we will talk about those things 'cause they inherently encompass the work of how to be second. And also.

Nathan Young 13:22

Yeah. I mean, even in this conversation, I've already been like, oh, the way that I answer questions is galvanized in a particular way because of my identity, which is true everywhere. Yes. Right? Yes. I carry my body with me to every role. Yes. Yeah.

Samantha 13:38

And before we go on another tangent about that, I think we will, yeah, yeah. We'll set this down for today. That's fair. Hey, it's Nathan again. If you made it to the end, that's awesome. If you have a question, shoot it over to contact @howtobesecond.com or just touch base with anyone you know at how to be second. If you're first in command and you're interested in understanding more on your own, check out our one second podcast. If you're ready to invest in yourself and go together, reach out directly. If you resonated with how I explained seconds and secondness, and think you might be one, you can check out our am I a second assessment on our website, howtobesecond.com /assessment It is directional, not definitive. You could also grab our book, how to Be Second from our website or Amazon or almost anywhere you like to buy books, including on audio read by the authors, myself and David Hartman. Either way, if you're glad this work exists and want it to continue existing, you can support how to be second at howtobesecond.com /support Thanks again, i'm looking forward to your next question.