Intelligent & Wise: UNCORKED with NIK KRPAN

We’re racing toward an AI-driven future at breakneck speed. Smarter. Faster. More efficient. But here’s the real question: Are we truly getting smarter, or are we merely outsourcing our intelligence, allowing our own wisdom to atrophy like an unused muscle?

In this UNCORKED conversation, Tim Windsor sits down with Nik Krpan—engineer, business leader, and deep thinker—to explore the interplay between ancient wisdom, modern intelligence, and the superintelligence that’s hunting us down.

Listen in as we explore:

Why ancient wisdom has outlasted empires, and why we’re so quick to discard it. The deadly trap of relying on intelligence without wisdom—and how history proves it’s a disaster. Why leadership without gratitude, humility, and rest isn’t true leadership—it’s a ticking time bomb. And this uncomfortable truth: You might be getting “smarter” but less wise along the way.

This conversation is a full-throttle assault on the mindless rush toward “progress” without a moral compass. If we don’t put wisdom on the rails now, we may be about to be derailed and find ourselves profoundly off track.

Pour a glass of port (or a cup of dandelion tea, like Nik did) and tune in. In a world obsessed with intelligence, wisdom might just be what saves us all.

Tim Windsor
the UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast – Host & Guide
tim@uncommodified.com
https://uncommodified.com/
 
PRODUCERS: Kris MacQueen & Alyne Gagne
MUSIC BY: https://themacqueens.ca/

Transcript

PLEASE NOTE: UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast episode transcriptions are raw text files and have not been proofed or edited. They are what they are … Happy Reading.

© UNCOMMODiFiED & TIM WINDSOR

[00:00:00] Wisdom and intelligence are not relics of the past or merely a pursuit of the future. They're a bridge connecting them. Ancient wisdom grounds us to something. Modern wisdom and intelligence shapes us. And superintelligence? Well, we're going to find out. It could possibly launch us beyond our wildest imaginings.

The real question isn't whether we're wise at the end of the day. It's whether we're willing to integrate wisdom and intelligence to create a better world. Hey, my friends, welcome back to the Uncommodified Podcast. I'm Tim Windsor. We're gonna dive into another uncorked conversation, my favorite kind of conversations.

What I want to do today is welcome to the show somebody I met recently, introduced by my nephew, and there's a little connection to his story here we'll talk about, but I want to welcome to the show tonight, [00:01:00] Nik Kirpan. Nik, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Tim. Really looking forward to our conversation

Okay, this is gonna be a lot of fun. Now, if anyone knows about integrating wisdom and intelligence, it's going to be my guest tonight.

Bringing together wisdom and intelligence from different worlds and different eras, that's what I think this conversation is going to do. Now, a little bit about Nik. Here's his story, real simple. Nik's of a farm kid. Retired rugby player. I think he used to play rugby. Not anymore. Engineer, business leader, and most importantly, husband and dad.

Nik built and led Chemi Engineering for many years and now dedicates himself to helping others manifest their full potential through his advisory practice. We'll get into that a little bit later. But of course, this is an Uncorked conversation, but we're going to Uncork it a little differently tonight, so.

Nik, what are you drinking tonight?

tonight. I am drinking roasted dandelion root tea.

Roasted dandelion root tea. Now, I think that's kind of interesting because I did a little research on this and you sent me some information as well about the, this medicinal tea, which is kind of [00:02:00] interesting. So, I actually think it's sort of, like a little bit of a metaphor for our conversation today because this drink is made technically from something we consider a weed, but is actually a medicinal powerhouse.

It has medicinal qualities. It's sort of like this. Interchange between ancient and new wisdom, which is kind of interesting. And so that's what we're going to be talking about tonight. Now, I'm not drinking Dandelion tea. I'm going to drink some port a 2017 port, which I love. Cheers to you, sir. 

Cheers.  

All right. That is a fruit of the vine, a little bit different though, not a weed. So there you go. All right. So here's, we're going to explore tonight on this conversation, wisdom and intelligent, ancient, modern, and super. So here's a question, Nik. Why is this kind of discussion so important? And what have you been exploring in this area of ancient wisdom, modern wisdom, modern intellects, and then this idea of this sort of super, intelligence that we're going to start talking about?

Why have you been exploring [00:03:00] this?

Well, I think a bunch of reasons. I think one is, you know, as an engineer, you're looking at technology, the application of technology, you know, in engineering school. One of the things that is sort of drummed into you is, and with the iron ring ceremony as well, this, this obligation that we have to public safety and the public good and , looking at the, the new technology of artificial intelligence and how we're going to be deploying that technology and how that's going to augment our intelligence and what is that going to do.

When I started looking at that, , one of the ideas that came to me was that , and people have talked about this idea of, of us creating a super intelligence. when I started thinking about that. And I read the original Turing paper, , from the 1950s on artificial intelligence and the way he framed intelligence itself.

 It got me really thinking about the fact that superintelligence isn't something in the future. This is something from our past. Um, and the fact that we've, we've had a [00:04:00] human based superintelligence and we're about to create a different kind of superintelligence. And so, you know, what kind of lessons are there from past superintelligences that have gone off the rails that might instruct us about the future of superintelligence?

So what were the, failure modes that led to those superintelligences going off the rails that we should learn from and not let them happen to these future superintelligences? Mm

really interesting because, you know, so really what Well, I hear you're saying we you and I had a couple of chats about this and we had lunch together and you know, as I've been thinking about this, it's sort of interesting. It's like, like ancient wisdom provides some kind of framework or tethering, that we need to understand because I mean, if we think of how long ancient wisdom has survived.

We're hot, where it's come from and how it's stood the test of time. I mean, people have tried to eradicate it. They've tried to, you know, it's, it's survived wars. It's survived famine. It's survived [00:05:00] all of these things over the years. And this ancient wisdom still comes along and percolates up. creates a framework that we can understand our world today.

Of course, we have this modern understanding and now we're on the precipice and we're beginning to play more and more with this sort of wisdom or intelligence that. is coming, which is very different, maybe, than we've experienced before, or do you think it's really just similar to what we've experienced before in a different, at a different level?

I don't know what the end point is going to look like, but I think there will be similarities, but there are going to be differences too. You know, one of the, things that I keep kind of coming back to, I guess one part of it, way that it's expressed in Christianity this, the idea that decision making should be Pushed down to the lowest possible level that it can be made at. And I think today in, in modern discourse around leadership, in a lot of ways that's what we call empowerment. , but it's, it's a really ancient kind of idea of not centralizing power. [00:06:00] Um, I think that there are elements of that in the story of the Tower of Babel.

I think that this is a, this is an important idea where I, I think with. the new type of super intelligence that may be created with an artificial general intelligence that may be sentient, that there is the potential for centralization of decision making. And I think that there's a lot of danger in that, I think.

Mm hmm.

making references to some, sort of religious sort of construct, in case, Christian understanding, and obviously there's lots of different , religious constructs to look at these things in, but that's interesting because do you think that Part of what's kept a certain mooring for us over the years is we've been tethered as a society or we've been tethered as people back to certain moralities, certain understandings, , and in whether, you know, they're coming from ancient religious tradition or ancient historical traditions, there's been something that has [00:07:00] maybe kept us, , more to something. Is that less true today, do you think, as we 

move 

into 

Yeah. 

these new waters?

yeah, I think that we have become untethered, I think, uh, I agree with that for sure. And I think that, part of the danger is, is that what fills that. you know, I went down a couple of rabbit holes fairly recently about, something called the human potential movement.

Um, this was something in the 1960s. I think, um, Carl Rogers was part of it. Aldous Huxley and, um, Abraham Maslow, they were all part of this human potential movement. And it was. Very atheist in nature and it kind of went off the rails in some respects in terms of, patients that were abused at, certain times, by, sects for lack of a better word that were practicing some of the teachings that were associated with it.

I think the intention was good about maximizing human potential, but it wasn't tethered by any kind of, framework around it to, keep it on, um, out of dangerous territory, let's say, you know, I think religion [00:08:00] has an evolutionary nature to it where, you know, there were rules that were codified to keep people within certain boundaries that are, you know, keeping things on the rails as it were, , and I think one of the downfalls of that human potential movement was that it became very self centered about, I'm going to maximize my potential.

And it wasn't tethered to an obligation to help other people, and I think that that's where I think that what could bring it back on the rails, from a secular perspective, is actually the notion of servant leadership. I think if you marry the, uh, Greenleaf's ideas around servant leadership with some of those ideas around the human, potential movement, I think that a marriage of those set of ideas, secular ideas, could, yield, sustainable approach to life 

that's, that's secular. 

I like, I like that. I mean, I like the image that you conjure up in my mind when you say keeping it on the rails, keeping it on the tracks, because you know, you just immediately sort of see this framework or network of rail lines. And [00:09:00] I think the interesting thing, obviously, once we fix a rail line system, we know we're going to go from one place to another.

But we can put a train on that, it might have a different order, but then as we begin to energize that train and it gets speed there, that speed is directed and contained and there's safety within those rails because we know sort of where it's going. So I'm interested to know, as we look at, you know, ancient wisdom, let's say for a second, modern wisdom, we look at the super intelligence that's really hunting us down now, what do you think are some of the rails?

that we as individuals and maybe we as, a society or maybe as companies or leaders, however you want to think about that, what are the rails that we need to think of making sure that they're set so that we can take advantage of all this energy, this intelligent energy, and it not become destructive in nature.

 I think it comes down to being grounded in values. Having, having a set of values that when you [00:10:00] have, that distributed superintelligence, you've got all these nodes that are, they're making their own decisions, acting collectively as a superintelligence. And I think if they are grounded on a common set of values that are a good set of values, then, I think that that will enable a functional decision making framework that's going to keep things on the rails.

So when we look at in the 1930s and 40s, the, you know, the, the major horrors of the 20th century, the Nazis and then communist Soviet Union. And, um, you know. What were their priorities? What were the, what were the base values that they had? And I, I think there was a lack of respect for people's common humanity.

 As a fundamental value. So I think that there's, there's that that has to be a big part of it. And then I think leadership, is a big part of it too. Having people that are capable of, of, those leadership roles in those leadership roles. Because I think one of the roles of a [00:11:00] leader in this human centric super intelligence that we've had.

 there's a special role for a leader within that superintelligence. Part of it is going to be facilitating communication. so you want to see a lot of, in that network, that sort of neural network of humans, there needs to be a lot of lateral communication. You know, in the, in the old, old traditional hierarchical organizations where the communication has to go up and then back down, it's really inefficient communication from a communications perspective.

And I think part of, you know, part of why we've been able to achieve. A lot of the things that we have in the modern era is because of our massively improved communication and, and it has enabled a lot more lateral communication as well, 

Yeah. Mm-hmm

So that brings me back to something you said earlier, which is interesting because you referenced the Tower of Babel, 

Mm-hmm 

which again, for those of you who are listening, if you have a, if you have a religious context, if you were raised with, an understanding, maybe from a Christian perspective or may it be a Jewish perspective, you, might be aware [00:12:00] of this story in the Old Testament.

And again, I would say some of you might see this as a religious truth. Some of you might see it as a fable. You could see it as, I suppose you could see it as you'd like for a second. But that's interesting because the Tower of Babel is all about this idea at some level of, uh, from my reading of the story historically is that, you know, humans had this ability in this fable or story or whatever it is, they could communicate quite seamlessly and therefore it seemed like there was nothing they couldn't do or accomplish.

Their productivity heightened. Their intelligence was also enabled in some ways. They could apply their intelligence and. be very productive. According to this narrative, at some point, they start to build this tower that becomes known as the Tower of Babel. And, you know, the spiritual entities in this story have to thwart this effort, and they do it by confusing language or removing communication.

So it's interesting that you would. make this connection, because really what you're saying is, is that communication forms a part of [00:13:00] this. As we can communicate more effectively, as we can understand each other better, actually our ability to, to catalyze intelligence, catalyze wisdom towards an outcome becomes increased exponentially, which is very fascinating.

Mm

Mm-hmm . Yeah. And there's, there's, there's a really interesting organization out there. There a Chinese company called Hire, H-A-I-E-R, and they've got this concept called Renda Hay. And they, they have taken this. In some ways it takes, , Nicholas Tassim Taleb's, um, anti fragile idea as well.

It incorporates that, I think, to some extent, where there, you have a real cellular structure where people are in these independent work groups and, it's highly entrepreneurial where these groups work with each other. So instead of building a giant tower, you're building something super flat.

And, and cellular so that, know, the analogy that, um, I was just listening to a podcast and I love this podcast, Econ Talk. It's a, I mean, people that aren't economics geeks, I guess it's kind of dry, but I like it. And the [00:14:00] way he kind of was talking about the, this anti Fragile notion was.

In a warfare context was that Before the catapult people would build these sort of monolithic stone walls then once the catapult developed you could you'd launch a rocket the wall would shatter it And then what they ended up doing was building these like eight foot thick walls where you'd have a stone wall on the inside And outside and pack it with soil in the middle and the wall would hit it and then it would absorb the shock So it wasn't this monolith anymore , and so, you know, and another example that, uh, Taleb talked about in the podcast was if you drop a mouse from a, , two meter height, it'll be just fine.

You drop an elephant from a two meter height, it's probably going to break a leg, right? So, yeah, really interesting idea about that, that anti fragile part of it. And, and, but then how higher is doing this is Where they've got these entrepreneurial units, they communicate within each other, and with each other, between each other, so there's, I think again, communication becomes important, in that [00:15:00] networked group of entities that they've developed like that.

Yeah. By the way, you're reminding me, I read those, read several of Nassim Taleb's book a long time ago, Black Swan Effect, Anti Fragility. mean, these are wonderful books. By the way, if you haven't read them and got to approach them, they're deep reads. But man, there's a real power in that understanding of anti fragility, of structures that are not just, resilient to, change or or to to breakage, but are actually strengthened by the shaking, which is a very interesting way of looking at it.

So let me go back to something you said earlier, because I just find this interesting. So you're talking about if we if we look at putting. Wisdom on a track or intellect on a track that it, it can be serve us towards an end We want to go to

you, you talked about two different rails.

I heard you talk about, well you talked about one rail which is a rail of values, another point say, as you were talking about sort of looking at, you know, , history within the, the wars and, and the rise of Nazism and all of that kind of stuff.

There's, there's [00:16:00] another. Train track here you talk about priorities. So you got priorities and values that come together almost like these two guiding Tracks that allow all this energy all of this wisdom all this power all this AI power or intellectual power To be channeled appropriately.

So is that partly where ancient? Wisdom comes in like if we look at ancient wisdom and the values it gives us like so if we look at for instance sort of Socratic understanding and how how Socrates looked at the world or how he looked at reasoning How does this maybe play into and help us understand what guide rails take us forward into this unknown place?

We're going to

Yeah, I think in terms of that ancient Greek wisdom, I think one of the ideas that I've been using a lot, , look at things is the golden mean idea. And I think that one of the things that today, people have really forgotten that idea. And I, and I think it's a really important idea [00:17:00] when I say they've forgotten it, what I mean is, is I think there's a lot of times I see people when they talk about something and more, something good and more is always better. And that's definitely not the case. You know, everybody would agree almost that, you know, perseverance is a, good quality. Well, is more always better. Not necessarily, you know, too much and it becomes stubbornness, right? So there is a golden mean, I think, of perseverance, but too much of it becomes stubbornness.

Not enough of it is kind of complacency. so I think there are a number of things like that happening today. And that might be a, one of the things when we look at how we deploy AI. I think there's a danger of over deploying it and using it too much to the point where we let certain of our own abilities atrophy, and I think that that's dangerous because I think one of the things I see happening now is that people are using AI to do writing.

Do all their writing. Well, why should I write anything? [00:18:00] I'll get the, I'll just do a couple of bullet points, get the AI to write it all for me. Well, I think that writing is a really interesting thing because it's one of the things that It gets you to collect your thoughts and put them into a composition to be able to communicate informally and concisely and clearly to another person.

And I think if we lose some of those abilities to, to do that kind of compositional thinking, I think that we will, we will lose some critical thinking ability ourselves.

So the AI, yeah, it can make us more efficient. , but I think it's still, I think it would be a good to do, there'll be a golden mean about how much you use it where you use it, what you don't use it for, that kind of idea.

Interesting. You know, as you say that, it's kind of, you know, I almost see these two things in my mind. I see AI and I see AI. And here we've got artificial intelligence. We've got this super intellect that's coming at us and can guide us. But then, if we're not careful, What [00:19:00] happens is, we'll have another A.

I., which is negative, we'll have an atrophying of our intelligence. If we're not careful, our ability to reason, to think, to, to your point, to write, to, to, express, and, you know, as a person who's, had the, you know, the privilege of writing a book myself, I know that through the process of writing, There's something that begins to happen even when I write notes, when I write notes, when I'm, you know, with a client or I'm writing documentation and trying to understand that and processing that, I'm obviously engaging my own intellect, which we don't engage enough.

And we, I think we use a very small part of our brain, actually, at the end of the day, but this is interesting. And maybe again, if you're listening in, I'll just turn to my listeners for a second and just just challenge you and say, Look, how do you how are you balancing this? How are you using a I in your world?

Whatever that looks like without atrophying your own intelligence? That's a good question. That's a really, really interesting challenge that's coming to me out of this conversation, and I'm guilty of it, [00:20:00] too. Nik, you know, like, you get busy. You got stuff to do, and it's just really easy, frankly, and I is so great at it.

It's really easy to Give it up. Give all of up up to it. So there has to be a balance where we can embrace a I on some tracks and maybe one of the tracks or one of the values we need to put in on the one side of the track is that moving into a more of a super intelligent world of a I. While Making sure that our own intellect and our own integrity isn't atrophying in the process because that can happen too.

Yeah. And, and, and in terms of, the Socratic questioning idea as well. So when, when the AI. You ask it a question and you get an answer. It would be good to use some of those Socratic questioning techniques I don't know that some of the AI algorithms are really.  

There in terms of they're not really thinking it's more interpolation It's it's a statistical regression of what word comes next a lot of the time So I don't know that it's really there in terms of now what they're saying [00:21:00] is with What is a deep seek? That's the new Chinese AI without one it it will show you its work, I think that using some of the Socratic Questioning of, what are the underlying assumptions and, and underlying data for how you arrived at a certain conclusion.

I think that that will be a valuable, skill for us to develop as human beings to interact with AI in the future so that we can, , challenge, , some of the conclusions that may give us about things.

That's a really good point. So, so you've got on this your own journey, I mean, you're an engineer By training and trade, you led Kemi Engineering, which is an engineering firm, you know, that tucks into the biomedical space and lots of other different spaces, very, know, highly technical environment.

You've come out of that, you've had a journey, and now you're out of that, and you're moving into a new direction. So, I'm interested to know, so, , in your new world, as you explore, you know, using what you've learned and the things that you think about, you're a very, Clear thinker. [00:22:00] You're very deep thinker, clearly to me in the conversation we had.

So how is this all coming together in the world that you want to move into now? As you look at organizations, organization structure, as you look at leadership, how is this all sort of dovetailing together for you in your world today?

to put it in a nutshell, it's to help people manifest potential. You know, their their own and their organizations in terms of wisdom and a lot of that manifesting of potential, manifests as competency. Um, and I think that the path to competency, one of the major components of competency is wisdom and there is this progression for working backwards from wisdom.

There's. It's preceded by knowledge, preceded by information, preceded by data. So there's this progression of data, information, knowledge, wisdom. And what, human being, what are the things that enable that progression to happen? there is the raw intelligence that needs to be there.

a fluid intelligence that's necessary for that. Um, but I think that there [00:23:00] are some characteristics that need to be at play as well. Humility, my friend Spencer, this is his formulation that humility, perseverance, and emotional intelligence are needed enable that progression to happen. So if there is a failure of some sort and you've, participated in it in some way and you need to be able to have the humility to say, okay, this was my contribution to that.

how can I do things differently? How will I do things differently next time? and I think that that's one of the things, leaders, we have to do that. It's one of the things that really sucks about leadership is when you screw up. It sucks. You're impacting other people. And so you need to look at that, but have the, the emotional intelligence piece of it and the perseverance piece of it coming in is, you know, keeping yourself together and having the, perseverance to be able to push through that kind of push through the suck 

to, 

Yeah. No, that's, that's true. We got to push through. I like that. I'm going to, you know what? I'm going to have to write that one down. I like that one. Push through the suck. That's, that's wise words. So, so let me ask you, as we go [00:24:00] through this journey, you know, we, as we look at society, as we look at history, as we look at leadership learnings, all the things that have happened, obviously leadership theory has, you know, we have so much of it now and leadership books and different things we can read and all of this kind of stuff.

I'm interested to know just from your perspective on life and, and yourself and other people. people. So do you think that we are becoming both smarter and wiser, or are we becoming smarter, but less 

yes, the latter, I think smarter and less wise. I think we're being inundated with information. And people are grinding, grinding, grinding, getting to knowledge, but I think that one of the ingredients that's necessary to get to wisdom is rest, reflection, and self care. Um, I think, without that, you're not going to get from knowledge to, to wisdom.

Help me understand that. That's interesting. So, Articulate that again and help me understand why do you believe that? What's informed [00:25:00] that believe for

Yeah, so, to restate it, it's that you can get to knowing how to do something that's, that's sort of know-how, but wisdom is, sorry, is knowing when to do that thing without somebody else telling you, directing you independently, knowing when you should be doing these things or when, perhaps even more importantly, when not to.

 I, I, and I think when it comes to. leadership that could be you know, meeting somebody where they are. 

You know, you have the knowledge on how to, how to coach, but maybe they don't need coaching. Maybe they just need a bit of support or maybe they just want to be delegated to and left alone.

And some of that is just having a conversation with somebody, but some of it's going to be observational. Having that situational awareness of what what's going on around you and I think that's where I think we get to on wisdom But I think a lot of us are we're just so flooded with Information that there's this sort of cognitive overload that's happening and it's a matter I think of saying okay I'm gonna actually Limit some of [00:26:00] that information coming at me so that I can process what is coming at me and, and deal with that.

Interesting. So that rest reflection, there's meditation and there's something interesting because, uh, when this episode goes to air, it'll be, I don't know, maybe it'd be a month, month and a half after. I just did a recent conversation with a gentleman named and I think the title of that podcast was something like, uh, Power of Pause.

Adam happens to be a, a modern Orthodox Jew, and we were talking about this idea of, for him, it's Sabbath, that we, he called it. The pause and we talked about the wisdom of the pause, which is interesting because there's a connection here talking about how somehow in pause and reflection, we synthesize all that information, all that data, all that knowledge, all that know how and through reflection and pause, somehow we convert it potentially to wisdom, 

Mm-hmm 

that's a really interesting way of looking at

[00:27:00] Yeah. I a hundred percent agree. And part of it is, is where, the value of reading comes in as well. That's part of that rest and reflection is when you're reading something and then you've had some sort of a similar experience and, oh, wait a minute, that those two look a lot like each other.

And when you're able to, you're resting and reflecting, meditating on those things and I'm actually a really slow reader. because of what I, I'll be reading something and then I have to stop and sit, think about what it was I read because there's some other experience that it's now putting in a, you know, looking at it slightly differently.

And I think part of wisdom is, is when you, you encounter something, it's like, oh wait, I, there's something similar to that. It's a little bit different. Make a couple of adjustments and then okay now I know what to do with this

Yeah, funny. Again, if you're listening in, I just want to challenge you with that for a second. And maybe you want to pause the podcast and think about this, or maybe you just want to write it down and reflect later. But, you know, that's a really good question for you to be thinking about.

Are you getting smarter and wiser, or are you just getting smarter? [00:28:00] That's very interesting. Second of all, are you actually enabling, or are you catalyzing wisdom by synthesizing these things through reflection? And also Just this really interesting thing, I think, that you're saying now, Nik, is, you know When we reflect and you step back, where are you seeing the connective dots in your life?

Where are you seeing patterns? Where are you seeing understanding? Where are you taking your applied under your skill or your understanding? Are you applying it and seeing it a way of wisdom? Which goes back, which is interesting, goes back some ways to that ancient tradition. Because In ancient, uh, literature, uh, Hebrew literature, Greek literature, which is kind of interesting, maybe Latin literature as well, I don't know as much about it, but, you know, wisdom is actually an interesting word in, Greek.

So, Sophia, it's actually this, this feminine expression, it's a feminine word, which is interesting, but wisdom is talked about in ancient texts, in lots of different religious traditions. Wisdom is personified [00:29:00] almost as a being or entity. 

Mm hmm. 

It's a very interesting way of looking at

it. 

four stoic virtues, too

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, 

 Tell me a little bit more about 

yeah, so the four stoic virtues the penultimate one is justice and I don't think it means Justice and though I think it's more like fair dealings with other people is sort of I think what I mean One of the ways I think the major meaning of it Courage, temperance, and wisdom.

Ah, wow. 

So justice, courage, temperance,

And wisdom.

and wisdom. That's interesting. 

Now, those are some really great value guide rails

to put all the super intelligence on.

Is it moving us towards a more equitable or just way 

of, being and being with people?

Yeah. Yeah, it's Yeah, exactly. And I think There's another thing We haven't talked about it at all, but it's actually within all of this stuff, is gratitude. And [00:30:00] this is one of the things like, is an artificial intelligence going to be capable of gratitude? Because when you look at leadership, it's an essential element to leading, Authentic, not performative gratitude, but authentic in your heart, feeling gratitude for, especially the people around you, but It's, it's deeper than that, and the Stoics actually have a saying, Amor Fati.

It's, love your fate, but it's a gratitude for what the world is bringing to you.

love your fate. Well, that's a really powerful and you know what and what I love about this conversation, Nik, and what I loved about the couple of conversations you and I've had is precursors, including the lunch we had. Thanks for buying lunch, by the way. I

appreciated that. is that I love the interplay between again, this conversation, modern, ancient, And then this potential super intellect, this, I love the interplay, and it's such a great reminder though, that if we're not careful, we're not gonna [00:31:00] have these tracks in place, we're not gonna set down these, things that could really help us move fast into the future, but but contain that, that development, that evolution in a way that actually it doesn't become harmful or destructive to us or others.

And it's the rails of this ancient wisdom, actually, which unfortunately have gotten a little bit sort of squished out of modern society, maybe a little bit, definitely squished out of, you know, for many, many years out of, corporate. Canada, the U.

S., corporate, and beyond. I think it's coming back though, which is interesting, because there's a movement back towards gratitude and vulnerability and all these things coming back into our corporate structures, but for many years we had just, we erased it all. We led very autocratically, we led with an iron fist, this was the models of leadership, now we're moving toward collegial, empathetic models of leadership, which are important because they maybe form the framework so that we can move into the fore, because at the end of the day, if we don't, I guess if [00:32:00] we don't embrace a more empathetic intelligence,

Not just an artificial intelligence, 

but a more empathetic intelligence, 

hmm. 

that could be the, the destruction of, of all of us 

Mm careful yeah, totally. And that's what we were just talking about before we got on the book I just finished reading by Blanchard, and you know, this is I think one of the things that makes him an effective incredible leadership author is the emphasis he places on on gratitude and empathy yeah, it's gonna be one of the distinguishing features I think and When you look at And I know it's the trope of engineers that love to go back and look at the Roman Empire, but you look at Roman history, and I took Latin in high school, and part of that was Roman history, and you look at the five good emperors, Marcus Aurelius being one of them, and he was a Stoic, one of the most famous Stoics, and him being one of the good emperors, one of the best emperors history, and You know, how much did his [00:33:00] Stoicism, the practice of Stoic philosophy have to do with him being an effective leader?

so, I think it's good for, for people that are in, 

leadership roles 

to, to think about some of these things. 

yeah.

absolutely. Well, listen, if you're listening in and you haven't, you don't know much about Stoic wisdom or philosophy, you might want to go and do a little bit of research, because it is very interesting, and I, I do think there's a lot of connection here, and this is where, for me, when we talk about the conversation, this idea of ancient, modern, and future.

Wisdom and intelligence really all comes together because, because we, we need that framework. We need with the velocity that we're going to go into the future, we need some containment and understanding. It reminds me of a conversation I had probably a year ago on the podcast. I had a gentleman on my Tavakoli, and he's based out of Washington.

And he's a consultant and coach internationally to some very large organizations and CEOs. And his whole world [00:34:00] is AI and leadership and that intersection as well. And his whole challenge was, you know, how, how do we become more human in the face of artificial intelligence, that this is our opportunity, that if 

We want to outpace AI, we have to become more human.

More empathetic, more compassionate, all of these things, which is, again, really important to this conversation. So, so Nik, this is, brings you to this sort of moment in time now. You, you're moving out into this new world. What's your new world called?

Um, I don't know. I, I, I don't like the name management consulting cause that's not what it is. It's more about leadership, um, and business advisory and really at the end of the day, what I, what I want to do is help people that are trying to grow a business to, help them do that and help them, preserve what's, unique about their business.

Um, navigate The bumps that are going to be in the road for them, and help them develop other leaders within their organization. I think it's, like that higher model, you know, one of the aspects of, of good leadership is [00:35:00] making other leaders and it's, I think it will be a necessary thing for somebody to scale their business.

You have to have other leaders that you're going to develop and, and not everybody's going to be a CEO, but there's different types of leadership at different levels in the organization. And so just to help people with that, that's sort of the, the mission that I'm on right now is to, uh, that I want to help people, um, create an environment where these leaders will be able to emerge 

That's 

great. 

and, then support them.

Yeah, and I know from my conversations with you, I mean, the other thing is because of your engineering background, it's interesting because on one level, you have this very structured way of looking at things. You showed me some diagrams you've created about how this could all work, and on one level, you think very structurally.

Yet, at another level, Again, which is this interplay that I see in you. On one level, you're very structured, but on another level, you have this unique humanity. You know, this is a really interesting intersection, and I love it. Your company name is interesting to me. So, your company name is [00:36:00] Okay, what Where does that come from?

So that's simply potential. So P O manifestation systems. 

So 

Okay. 

Yeah, so basically to, to take a systematic approach to, to manifesting potential.

Wow. The 

Yeah. 

approach to manifesting That, that's awesome. I love it. Now, if people wanted to find you, what's the best way for them to find you?

Um, they could look, on the internet. It's pomasis. com. P O M A S Y S dot com.

Okay, and then if you're looking for Nik on LinkedIn, his name has some unique spelling because your heritage and background is

Yeah, my dad, uh, my dad's originally from Croatia, so I've got a lack of vowels in my last name.

There you go. So it's Nik, N I K, and it, we would pronounce it in, in English, Kirpan. In Croatian, it would be,

Yeah.

and it's K R P A N. So listen, if you want to hunt down Nik and you want to have another conversation with him about the kind of things we're talking about, but also how it could apply into your world, your [00:37:00] organization, he has some really powerful models that he shared with me.

And I, I love the way he's approaching this. And this idea, again, of moving through this stage of development and moving to wisdom, you know, from just applied knowledge and understanding is part of the way that Nik really thinks about this in structural ways, which I find really fascinating. So Nik, listen, I really appreciate you coming on the show.

And again, if you're listening in, I always say you listen in for a reason, and this conversation has gone lots of different ways, but we're at a moment in time where we have more information than we ever had, but we actually might have less understanding. than we ever had. We, 

Yeah, 

we're not 

well, I think the other part of it is is that our information is becoming polluted as well.   

and that's I think where there is the real danger on the superintelligence side is it's through, false information that is being used to train AI models that they can become corrupted.

And if they become corrupted and they become integrated into this [00:38:00] larger superintelligence, And then I think that's partially where human based super intelligences have gone off the rails is when there is untrue, uh, information that ends up polluting the environment.

yeah, no true. So listen, whatever wisdom you're applying, ancient, modern or super intelligence into the future. Get it on some rails, two great rails to get it on, according to what I'm hearing today is get it on some priorities, great priorities, get it on some great values, get it more to something that will allow you to move and even maybe express ancient ideas like Socratic understanding in the context of moving things forward.

Listen, thanks for listening in, appreciate your time today. Again, have a great day. If you're interested, let us know what's going on in your head during this conversation. DM me. Email me at tim at the uncommodified. com. Uh, hunt us down and let us know what's happening, Nik. Thank you so 

Thank you. Thank you, Tim. 

listeners. Thanks for listening in.

Bye.