0:13

My guest on the show today is Tom

0:15

Frazier. This is

0:18

the second time this has happened

0:20

in the history of my podcast

0:22

empire. It's not really an empire,

0:24

but maybe, maybe it is. I don't know. So I had

0:26

Tom. So the way Tom and I know each other, I

0:29

actually had Tom on my tech podcast and we

0:31

talked about some really cool stuff

0:33

that he's doing in the green

0:35

data center space and really cool stuff. That sounds good

0:37

for the world, good for businesses.

0:40

And then we geeked out a little bit about both being

0:42

former telecom people. We,

0:44

Tom spent a lot of years at a big

0:47

red company provides

0:49

lots of infrastructure. For

0:52

true us and else us and elsewhere.

0:54

And I spent a lot of years in telecom as well.

0:56

And I remember saying to Tom at the end of that interview, after

0:58

we wrapped up, I said, Hey, like, I really want to have it. I want to get

1:01

to know you on a personal level. So it's like almost like

1:03

in a very friendly way, we've had like a great first

1:05

date and I'm like, all right, time to go like, get to know you more

1:07

time. This is the second, this is our second date, I guess.

1:10

But yeah, so Tom is somebody

1:12

that I got to know from a business context. And

1:14

today we're going to get to know you on a little bit more personal

1:16

thing. So Tom, welcome. Thanks

1:19

for being here. Thanks for having me. Yeah. I'm

1:21

excited to chat again. I mean, what you do is,

1:23

is so important in the world. I think,

1:25

you know, how we communicate between people and a podcast

1:28

is such an awesome medium for it.

1:29

So it is low stakes. Yeah.

1:32

Low stakes. You're, you are where, where are

1:34

you joining us from? Seattle.

1:37

I'm at home today. Yeah. You're at home today and

1:39

you were just telling me about some horses and some

1:41

blackberries and kids going off to school and everything.

1:44

And that's what's so cool is we can, we can do

1:47

that. And Tom and I were just talking about, we both have kids

1:49

in school, like how we can do

1:51

that and be. It sounds

1:53

like you're a super dad. I just call myself a dad, but we

1:55

do that. But then we get to come on and do things like podcasts

1:58

and work on our businesses and all that cool stuff.

2:00

It's, it's really cool. So I'm really glad you're here. So

2:02

Tom, we've got a lot to talk about today.

2:05

And I think we'll just start with

2:08

learning something that you nerd out about. So

2:10

what's something that you nerd out about?

2:14

Well, I would say the thing that defines

2:16

me. Which is what I would nerd out

2:18

about is learning. Like

2:20

my absolute passion is

2:23

like, I want to, I want to learn everything in the

2:25

entire world that's possible

2:27

to learn. And, you know, obviously

2:29

that's not realistic, but that's what I nerd about

2:31

the most. You know, my wife will come home and

2:34

I'll be watching something, you know, some

2:37

crazy physics thing on YouTube.

2:39

And then she comes on the next time and I'm learning

2:42

how to build a drag race car. You know, there's

2:44

just always. My brain goes down

2:46

these rabbit holes and I just, you know,

2:49

try to experience the

2:51

world.

2:51

Yeah. Were you like that? Where

2:53

have you always been like that? Like as a core part

2:55

of your personality from as a child where you're

2:58

like really curious and wanted to know a lot. Yeah.

3:02

You know,

3:02

it's funny talking about kids because

3:04

I see those same traits in my daughter. I

3:07

have two kids, a daughter and a son. My daughter, I

3:09

see that in her as well, where she just.

3:12

wants to learn about something. And, and I've

3:14

always been that way. And I think I got it from you

3:16

know, from my dad at a very young age.

3:19

He, he's, he's very similar. You know, he's got

3:21

one of those garages that you walk in

3:23

and there's all these things

3:25

in there that you're like, I don't even know what half of this stuff is,

3:28

but it was all created for

3:30

some

3:30

purpose. Yeah. So let's

3:32

see, since we have you and you're a learner and

3:34

you're always learning something, what

3:36

is something you've learned recently

3:39

that you think we would find interesting?

3:41

At least some of us, myself

3:43

and people listening. And what's something interesting

3:46

that you've learned recently?

3:48

Well, I've spent a lot of time right now.

3:51

Obviously it's also my job, but I spent a lot of time

3:54

researching and learning about AI

3:56

and the different aspects of AI and what that

3:59

Is going to mean not from a

4:01

productivity standpoint, or, you

4:03

know, just the technological basis, how

4:06

AI is going to impact humanity.

4:08

And the thing that I haven't

4:10

been able to shake in the past, maybe nine

4:12

months is I

4:15

very strongly feel that 2022

4:17

was the last year humanity existed

4:20

in isolation, you know, from essentially

4:23

chat GPT was the moment. Not

4:26

the product, but that was the moment that unlocked the world

4:28

to integrating AI into everything.

4:31

Yeah, and you know, I'm really learning about

4:33

how the philosophy of

4:35

coexisting with technology at

4:37

a very fundamental level and it's, it's

4:39

very interesting. You know, no one knows where we're going

4:41

to end up and there's polar

4:44

opposite views, you know, regulated

4:46

because we have to put it in a box to,

4:50

you know, it's going to turn us into.

4:52

You know, slaves and it's just trying

4:54

to make paper clips, you know, there's all these different aspects

4:57

of AI and I just I love

4:59

it because we are writing that future

5:01

together is humanity right now.

5:03

Yeah, it's cool. I, I saw

5:05

I think it was LinkedIn yesterday. LinkedIn

5:08

has a little news stories in the top right.

5:10

And I think one of the news stories was next

5:12

job for AI CEO. That

5:15

was the headline. Yeah. And they got a lot of people

5:17

giving feedback on it because like a lot of what a CEO

5:20

does is delegate and have

5:22

to represent and present and

5:24

sort of things. Yes. Being

5:26

a CEO is obviously very artful,

5:28

but a lot of the day to day is.

5:32

Like AI can delegate. AI

5:34

is probably pretty bad, is arguably

5:36

better at delegating and managing than people would ever

5:38

be because there's no emotion attached to it. It's like, what's the

5:40

way to maximize the productivity of this thing? Now

5:43

it is, that is frightening. But also

5:45

at the same time, it's really interesting.

5:49

Yeah, I think we're, for things

5:51

that are very, you know, if you, I

5:53

look at the, as a CEO, I look at the lens

5:55

of things and there's three buckets. There's people,

5:57

there's process, and there's technology. And those

5:59

are like the three core things. AI

6:02

will never deliver on the people

6:04

side of that. Kind of triad

6:07

ever. It's just not, you know, empathy

6:09

is a very hard thing to teach a computer.

6:11

And it's, I mean, it's hard to teach another human being,

6:14

much less a computer. So

6:17

I don't think AI would be a good CEO.

6:19

I think AI would be a great COO, right?

6:21

It's going to operate the company, but

6:24

at the end of the day, as a CEO, like ask

6:26

any CEO, there's some portion

6:28

of the success that's due to luck.

6:31

Some portion that's due to empathy

6:34

and that decision making of people. I

6:36

don't know. I'm not sure I buy into that, that

6:38

job. Yeah.

6:40

Or either, well, we don't want to put you out of business or

6:42

me out of business. You're, you're a CEO of a number

6:44

of companies and I'm the CEO. Army

6:47

one over here. So I don't know. We'll see,

6:50

we'll, we'll, we'll see at some point this podcast becomes

6:52

it. Yeah,

6:54

that's sorry. That's one more, one more thing about AI.

6:56

Like I think when you look

6:59

at the history of creating companies

7:02

you know, Silicon Valley was started.

7:04

And it was hugely

7:06

expensive to start a tech company tens

7:08

or hundreds of millions of dollars. And then it became

7:11

10 to 1 million. And

7:14

as AI gets closer and closer,

7:16

and it does more and more things that are not people

7:19

related. I think we're going to see

7:21

an absolute decimation

7:23

of the venture capital industry because

7:25

one man show one woman shows

7:28

can do all the things, you know, so these

7:30

bootstrap companies of one person

7:32

empires, I think. You

7:34

know, I don't know when, but I think we will

7:36

see a billion dollar exit to a one person

7:38

company. I think that will happen. That

7:43

would be, wow.

7:46

Tom, is it going to be you? I mean, is

7:48

it going to be you? Are we wish? Yeah.

7:50

I'm like, I was too.

7:53

I wish but you know, we'll, we'll see. It's, it's

7:56

really great at writing software. It's really great

7:58

at doing tasks and procedures. And

8:00

the more you can lean on the

8:03

process and technology side and keep

8:05

the people side just to the founder. I think

8:08

we're going to see a huge wave

8:10

of startups that are going to happen and

8:12

solve major problems of the world

8:15

and do so at a cost that's negligible,

8:17

you know, and ultimately that's going to change

8:20

the concept of money. Yeah.

8:22

I had a, a client of mine,

8:25

he's always like, man, this management thing would be

8:27

so much easier without people involved. Like

8:30

wouldn't it? Yeah. With

8:32

their emotions and their needs and their

8:34

wants and all the things that can happen

8:36

in their life that have them not be able to show up fully

8:38

at work. I'm like, yeah, that is, that

8:40

is a benefit to, to

8:43

artificial intelligence. It doesn't have any of those

8:45

things. So Tom, let's talk

8:47

about your comfort zone

8:49

and let's talk first about something

8:52

that you know, about yourself

8:54

that is definitely inside of your comfort

8:56

zone, that is most

8:58

definitely outside of other people that you know.

9:01

So something that's inside your comfort zone, then you know people

9:03

like, they're like, that's a hard pass. That's

9:06

a no.

9:08

I think it's uncertainty. I

9:11

think I am very comfortable with uncertainty,

9:14

which as an umbrella includes change

9:16

or, you know, all kinds

9:18

of unknowable things. And

9:21

just as an example, When

9:23

my wife and I, we've been together, I don't know, 17

9:26

years or so. We first got together, this

9:28

drove her crazy, and now she's accepted

9:30

it. But when I travel somewhere,

9:33

you know, if we go away for like a two

9:35

week holiday, my preference is to

9:37

pick the starting point and the end point, and

9:39

every major decision... We flip

9:41

coin. So we,

9:45

we go to London, we land in London heads.

9:47

We go to Spain tails. We go to Italy

9:50

tails, boom. We go to Italy, you

9:52

know, where are we going to eat?

9:55

We'll flip a coin. Will you take the third restaurant

9:57

on the left or the third restaurant on the right? Like that,

10:00

that whole idea of uncertainty,

10:02

like is fuel for me. I

10:04

absolutely love it. Yeah, this

10:06

is a good example. I am, I

10:09

have a little bit of agita just hearing about this right

10:11

now. So I'm like, I

10:13

don't, I'm trying to,

10:15

you know, I'm thinking about that for me. I love

10:17

the restaurant idea, but the flip

10:20

a coin to go to a different area.

10:23

I'm like, no, that is definitely not comfortable

10:25

for me. Cause I want to know, I want to know

10:27

when we're going to be there. I want to know that some of the things we're going

10:29

to do, but the food

10:31

thing is cool. I like that. I really like that. You're

10:33

traveling. You're just like, Hey, let's flip a coin. We're going

10:35

here, here. Interesting. You remind

10:37

me of, you know if you're a comic book, that's

10:40

what, isn't that what two face does. And one

10:42

of the Batman movies, he just flips a coin to make decisions

10:44

about like, we're

10:46

going to flip a coin to kill this person or

10:48

not. Or like, I'm going to go and make this, do this

10:50

crime or not that I liked that. You just kind of get. Mastermind.

10:53

I like that.

10:55

Well, the reason I love it is

10:58

when you plan, again, just thinking about

11:00

the holiday kind of idea, when you

11:02

plan a trip, I,

11:05

so many times I've been disappointed

11:07

from the expectation I had going in,

11:10

right? So it's like, I want to go to, I

11:12

want to go to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower. Oh, actually the

11:14

Mona Lisa. I want to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. And

11:17

you think you're going to have this quiet moment of

11:19

inspiration seeing this great piece of work.

11:22

And instead, you're surrounded by 500 people with

11:24

iPhone cameras taking pictures. And don't

11:26

forget selfie sticks too. Yeah.

11:28

And selfie sticks. Yeah. But

11:31

when you flip a coin, you're like, okay, we're going to go to

11:34

do this or do that. You

11:36

have no expectation. And so anything

11:38

from when you arrive there, even a journey to

11:40

get there, you have no expectation.

11:42

And so everything you're more open and receptive

11:45

to, and it makes. At

11:48

least for me, it allows the idea of

11:50

like this unknowable joy to come

11:52

into my life and experience things

11:54

with a smile instead of the stress of

11:56

kind of being disappointed. See, this

11:58

is the, this is one of the many

12:00

reasons why we're here again, because that

12:03

is brilliant. It reduces

12:05

the stress and the expectation. And instead

12:07

you just, you have to kind of, it's

12:09

almost like release the control that so you can

12:11

just enjoy the moment, which is,

12:14

I love that. I'm not going to go any further on

12:16

that right now, or I think we might go back into that. But

12:19

I'm really interested to hear next

12:22

what's something that is outside of your comfort zone

12:24

that you know is inside of other

12:26

people's. Something

12:30

that's outside of my comfort zone that's inside

12:32

of other people. I, I'm

12:35

really not good. It's,

12:38

it's ironic who I'm married to, but it's, I'm

12:40

really not good with blood

12:42

and injury. And

12:45

my wife, we were talking before, you know, my wife runs

12:47

a a clinic at a cancer center

12:50

and her whole job

12:52

is blood, like as a profession.

12:55

Yeah. And I really, I

12:57

really struggle with it, you know, and having kids, like

12:59

my kids get hurt. I can put on my,

13:02

there's an emergency mode and

13:04

do like a super dad thing, but

13:07

inside is like terrifying

13:09

for me, you know, the idea of like

13:11

something puncturing my kid's skin.

13:14

I, it's really hard

13:16

for me. Really

13:17

hard. That is a really fascinating.

13:20

That's such a fascinating dissonance

13:23

between your answer to what's inside

13:25

and what's not because I like, because

13:28

it would say. I would say

13:30

that one of the things with like injuries, especially

13:32

as a, as a parent is like, it's never, it's

13:34

obviously never planned and

13:37

it's not like you're ever going to plan for your kids to get hurt, but

13:39

then, but the thing that's funny about that is you actually

13:41

know exactly the outcome, they scrape their knee,

13:43

you know that they're going to bleed. Now,

13:45

before we move on, since two dads here, are

13:48

your kids similar? Do you see these

13:50

two things that you just listed in

13:52

your kids? about the

13:54

like less planning more kind of

13:56

like freedom and then also like are either of your

13:59

kids like deathly afraid of Blood

14:01

more even more so than most kids just generally

14:03

don't like it, but that I've seen but you

14:06

see this in your two kids

14:10

Not really, you know, I

14:12

think I very actively try to

14:15

not make my problems their problems

14:18

You know, I think that's easy to do as a parent. It's just make

14:20

it you know, just pass on the

14:22

failures of your yourself

14:25

Yeah, but my kids are very different

14:27

children, you know, my daughter started

14:29

reading at a very young age. She's super academic

14:32

but, you know, she couldn't jump when she was

14:35

little, you know what I mean? Whereas my son,

14:38

he, he's the opposite. He's such a physical,

14:40

outdoorsy kid, but he's not

14:43

that interested in, you know, traditional

14:45

learning. So, like, I don't see those

14:47

things being passed down to my, or innately

14:50

in my children. But you never know.

14:53

They develop so differently over time,

14:55

right? Yeah. Yeah.

14:57

So now let's

14:59

say that I was able to give you five

15:01

minutes and you got to speak to the entire

15:03

world on

15:06

anything you wanted to, what

15:08

would you spend your five minutes on and what would be

15:10

your call to action for us at the end of it? And

15:13

everybody in the world gets to hear this.

15:17

Well, for me, that's an easy one. I

15:19

literally have one tattoo and it's on my

15:21

hand.

15:21

Tattoo. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna give this to the audience.

15:24

It looks, it looks like a D with a dot

15:26

below it. That's

15:28

what it looks.

15:30

What is that? It's, it's

15:32

it's an old, I'm a typography nerd as well.

15:34

Actually, you can see,

15:35

I see that you've got a Helvetica book behind you.

15:37

Yeah, a book type book. Yeah.

15:40

So that my tattoo is an interrobang.

15:43

It's an old symbol that combines a question mark

15:45

and an exclamation mark. And

15:47

that is, it is like the philosophy of my

15:49

life, which is, I

15:51

don't know where I'm going to end up, but

15:53

I'm very excited about the journey. And,

15:56

you know, if I was to give a speech to the world,

15:58

it would, it would be about taking

16:00

journeys and, and sitting with

16:02

flipping a coin and, you know, all this, it's all interrelated

16:05

for me. Yeah. But have

16:07

these life experiences over time. And

16:10

my call to action would be everybody

16:12

in the entire world should go take dance classes

16:15

as an adult. You

16:17

know, I started, I started

16:19

learning how to do swing dancing and tap

16:22

dancing when I was maybe 19.

16:25

I got to you know, a world

16:27

stage level, I would say, and

16:29

I've taught dance all over the world.

16:32

And you can have experiences

16:34

with people that you never thought was possible. So,

16:37

you know, for example, if

16:39

you're in a bad mood. You don't

16:41

go out to go dancing and socialize

16:43

with people. That's right. Yeah. And so

16:45

anytime you do go, you're surrounded

16:48

by this great energy of people and

16:51

it's the most simple

16:53

social equalizer. So it doesn't matter

16:55

if you're a Wall Street

16:57

banker or a parking lot attendant, everyone

17:00

has the same social capital

17:03

and everybody chooses to be there and chooses

17:05

to have experiences with other people. So that

17:07

would be my call to action is, you know,

17:10

be excited about the journey.

17:11

Don't worry about the destination. I love the,

17:14

I love the dance, the dance thing. I actually

17:16

have something similar. I don't know if it'd be my five minutes, but

17:18

I have something similar. Every adult should go take an improv

17:21

class. Yeah.

17:24

Similar, right? A lot

17:26

of, a lot of similarities, right? Chances

17:28

are you're not going to be perfect

17:30

on the dance floor. There's no such thing

17:32

as perfect in improv. Like, what does that

17:34

even mean? You're going to have to interact

17:36

with other people. And you quite frankly don't

17:38

know exactly how it's going to go. And

17:41

dance or an improv because you're, because you're always with

17:43

a partner, with a team of some type. So I really

17:45

love that. And I've got, I've got a bunch of

17:47

good questions when we come back from the commercial break.

17:50

So we're going to do that right now. And we're going to be back

17:52

in about 30 seconds. All

18:35

right, Tom, we are back and

18:39

we're learning a lot about you. So

18:41

what do we know so far? I'm just, I'm thinking about this. What

18:43

do we, so we know you're a world

18:45

class dancer and a few modalities.

18:48

You are not a planner. I

18:52

am a planner. I definitely am a planner.

18:54

You are a planner. Cause that, that was one of the things I was

18:57

going to ask you about here is,

19:00

well, we, we know you're a dad. We know that you're afraid

19:02

of blood and your wife is a doctor when

19:04

works at a, in medicine and works in

19:06

nurse and works in medicine. Perfect. Love

19:09

that. I was going to ask you, and we

19:11

talked about this on the other podcast, but you

19:13

held some pretty high level positions at a big

19:15

fortune 100 company. And

19:18

ran teams and ran big things. That

19:22

attitude of we're not sure where we're

19:24

going. Isn't always

19:27

in my experience, an attitude

19:29

that is. Always

19:32

given a thumbs up by

19:34

in certain industries, I'd say most industries.

19:37

So I'm really curious if you'd be willing to share with us,

19:39

how did you balance like being a senior

19:41

leader and a tech executive telecom

19:44

executive with kind of like that natural

19:46

philosophy? Because I, my experience is

19:48

a lot of that is very controlled and

19:50

here's the five year thing and here's exactly

19:52

how it has to go to get there. So how did you balance that

19:54

altogether? In order to do a good job,

19:57

but also feel like you didn't lose yourself

20:01

with high confliction, I would say,

20:03

yeah, answer. But you know,

20:06

how I ended up at Verizon was through

20:08

a series of acquisitions. So I

20:11

was working for various

20:14

us government agencies doing computer security,

20:17

kind of got burned out, decided I wanted

20:19

to move to another country and

20:21

experience more of the world. I settled

20:23

on Australia because. The lifestyle's

20:26

amazing. And as a

20:28

Western country, it has

20:30

daylight access to about 80 percent of the world's

20:32

population. So I don't know if that

20:35

makes sense, but yeah, it does. Yeah. Australia

20:38

is the same physical size as the

20:40

continental U S but if

20:42

you put it underneath, you know, basically

20:45

China. You have this like huge

20:47

access to all these different cultures. So I,

20:49

I settled in Australia so I could travel a lot.

20:52

And then I, that company got acquired

20:55

and then that company got acquired. And that

20:57

ended up being how I ended up at Verizon. And what

20:59

I noticed as those companies kept

21:01

getting bigger that,

21:04

that freedom got smaller, right? Because

21:07

it's a lot of boxes and that's.

21:10

But I was still very aspirational in my career. I'm like,

21:12

yeah, I'm going to keep climbing the corporate ladder and I can't wait

21:14

to be the boss. You know, I was so set on being the boss.

21:17

And, you know, I was,

21:19

I remember being 29 and

21:22

I was running, you know, I had a pretty

21:24

big number at Verizon

21:28

just shy of a billion dollars as

21:30

my kind of And

21:33

I, I remember having this feeling of like I,

21:35

I can't do this anymore. What, what's the problem?

21:37

Like I'm finally getting to the place that I've wanted to be

21:40

in my whole career and, and

21:42

I, it hit me one day I've, I've climbed

21:44

the wrong ladder. Like that phrase specifically

21:47

stuck in my brain because of the things you mentioned,

21:49

like very procedural

21:52

five year plans, three year plans, one year plans,

21:55

one week plans, you know, it, it

21:57

didn't allow for any creativity, didn't

21:59

allow for any freedom of expression. And

22:02

so I quit and that's when I got into

22:04

startups and I started my first company and

22:07

haven't looked back since.

22:08

There you are. Yeah. And now you're an entrepreneur

22:11

and with small companies and that makes a whole lot of

22:13

sense. You're like, I don't know, what do I want to do today?

22:15

Let's create something. I don't even know what's going to happen, but

22:17

that's great. And I don't have the, I

22:20

don't have all the standard operating procedures or you get

22:22

to create the operating procedures, which is, can

22:24

be fun. So Tom, what else at this

22:26

point, what else do you want us to know about you?

22:31

Look, I, I, I love the

22:33

idea about. What,

22:38

when you look back, when someone else looks back on your

22:40

life, what, what are they going to remember you by? What is that

22:42

legacy? And a lot of people, that legacy

22:45

is success in,

22:47

or fame or fortune. And

22:50

through all of my experiences and

22:52

going to so many countries around the world and so

22:54

many cities and different cultures and everything,

22:58

I kind of feel like humanity is not on

23:00

a path that. He's

23:02

going to be better for the next generation.

23:05

And I think that's been true for multiple generations

23:07

now. And so

23:11

I really want to focus

23:14

my time as that's what I'm doing with three divider,

23:16

right? This idea of a sustainable data center

23:18

company. But how can we

23:21

bridge the gap between humanity

23:23

and the technology that we so desire?

23:26

And that gap is getting bigger. So

23:29

for example, if you use,

23:31

and I'm not picking on chat GPT, it's just an example,

23:34

but you know, the average, the

23:36

average chat with an AI.

23:38

Consumes about a water, like

23:40

one of these water bottles of water in

23:43

computing resources. It has a carbon

23:46

footprint of X, you know, and this,

23:48

this data problem is

23:50

growing like five X in the next

23:52

five years. And so what

23:54

do I want people to know about me is I really care

23:56

about people on the planet and I'm going

23:59

to use all of my resources

24:02

to try to make that better for my children and your

24:04

children.

24:05

I love that. Yeah, we're going to, we're going to talk

24:07

a little bit about Redivider because it is

24:09

a interesting idea and

24:11

outside of the technology part of

24:13

it, it's something that I want people to know about.

24:15

So we're going to talk about that in a little bit before we do that.

24:18

This is the part of the show where I have

24:20

my guests ask me anything

24:23

they want, and I will answer it. I have no idea what's

24:25

coming here, but Tom, what

24:27

would you like to ask me that I can answer?

24:31

One thing that I'm always amazed by for

24:35

my people in your position, you

24:37

talk to people. of

24:40

wide range of abilities and

24:43

skills and success levels

24:46

and interests and domain expertise.

24:49

If you were to sum up the kind of

24:51

one or two things as

24:54

character traits from all the people you've interviewed,

24:57

every person you've ever talked to in your whole life, what

25:00

are those few traits that are common

25:02

among all of your guests?

25:05

Man, this is such a timely

25:08

question. I was thinking

25:11

about this and I, I'm going to

25:13

shout out one of my episodes from a few weeks ago,

25:15

I interviewed Steven Matthew Clark. He's

25:18

sitting in a maximum security

25:21

prison in Maine for conv, he's a convicted

25:23

murderer, and I interviewed him and

25:26

I was thinking about, and then

25:28

the next week I released an episode with, with

25:30

Sri, who I think you may know,

25:33

who's the CEO of, of of

25:35

Craftsman. I, they

25:37

own the, like the Craftsman intellectual property

25:40

and what do they have in common? And it's really simple

25:43

and it's going to sound so rote and routine, but everybody

25:45

I've ever talked to in the one hour

25:47

I've spent with them or sometimes multiple hours,

25:49

they're genuinely good people, like seriously

25:52

good people, like at

25:54

least how they represent themselves. Tom, that's what I would

25:56

say. They genuinely

26:00

care about what

26:03

they're doing now.

26:06

That can make a difference for others. And yeah,

26:08

a lot of it, a lot of it comes from commercial

26:11

success. I've talked to CEOs. I've talked to

26:13

startup founders. I've talked, like you said, I've talked to college

26:15

students and everywhere in between. They're

26:18

all good. Like I would ask to say like, this is a person I'd

26:20

like to have a beer or a coffee with.

26:22

Like, I'd like to continue the conversation. The

26:25

other thing I would say is that. At

26:28

least how it appears to me, the

26:31

majority of them have landed on something

26:34

in their life that they should be, should be

26:36

doing that has some sort of

26:38

meaning. I really,

26:42

if I was to go back and man, I,

26:44

I mean, to be honest with you that this is probably

26:46

episode about 185 on this

26:48

podcast alone. I've got about 20 episodes on the

26:50

other one. So we're talking over 200 interviews

26:52

just on a podcast on podcast. I

26:55

have yet. I have yet to find somebody.

26:58

Who I don't believe is

27:01

somewhat passionate slash doing something

27:03

they're meant to be doing from the interview.

27:06

Now, some of

27:08

the people I don't know at all, never met Bobby,

27:10

never talked to again. Some of them are my dear friends.

27:13

I will, I am going to caveat that.

27:15

If course people can show up for interviews in any way they want,

27:18

right? It's like going on the tonight show and you'd be like, Oh my God,

27:20

I'm so energetic. You're like, no, I'm actually a total introvert

27:22

and don't talk to me ever again. But

27:24

I would say that that's

27:27

the first thing they have in common. And the second. Well,

27:30

I guess that's the second thing. The third thing is,

27:33

and it's the reason I do this, is

27:36

that they all are interesting.

27:39

He's got something really unique, something

27:42

interesting to share something

27:45

about either like

27:47

their life or their story. And I know this

27:49

is such a This is such a

27:51

like a common thing is like you never know until you walk in

27:53

somebody's shoes. Everybody's got it. We, we

27:55

never know about other people's stories. But even

27:58

in an hour interview, I'm always blown

28:00

away by what influences what

28:02

people do, what they talk about, what they care about.

28:05

And it's just, it's really cool. And like,

28:07

that's where the title comes from. The title,

28:10

I've had a lot of people ask me where did it come from? It came

28:12

from Krista Rizzo, who is guest,

28:14

I think number five or six. And we'd, I'd recorded

28:16

like Eight episodes and I'm like, Krista, I don't really

28:18

know what to call this show. She's like, yeah, it's talking to cool people.

28:22

And I find that the people I talk to

28:24

are cool people. So thank you, Krista. Cause

28:26

I was like, I don't really know what to call this. Well,

28:29

somebody gave me like a business kind of thing. I'm like,

28:31

that doesn't. And then she is like, that's perfect. So,

28:34

yeah, that's, that's my answer is I, I would say the

28:36

three things are people are genuinely

28:39

good people, at least they appear that way and

28:42

what they talk about. The second thing is

28:44

that they are doing something that matters to

28:46

them that we talk about. And

28:48

the third thing is that they're cool, literally

28:51

cool people. And I'm not just saying that because I don't really

28:53

want to talk to people on this show that I wouldn't

28:55

want to spend time with outside of recording

28:57

them. Yeah, that's what I got.

29:00

And a quick thank you. That was a beautiful answer. And

29:03

a quick, quick bonus question from

29:05

me. Yeah. What do you get out of

29:07

doing this

29:07

podcast? Oh my gosh. So

29:10

many things. Let's talk

29:12

about the, let's talk about

29:14

the what's in it for Jason first.

29:17

Let's talk about the what's in it for Jason. And

29:19

I'm going to be totally honest. It's good. Personal branding,

29:22

having a podcast is good. Just people can learn about me.

29:24

Yeah, I've, I've driven business through it. That's

29:26

not why I do it, but people go, Oh, I, before I

29:29

hired you, before we talk, I saw your podcast, I

29:31

listened to a couple episodes, listen to the episode

29:33

of Tom really liked what you had to say. Good,

29:35

good there. It allows me to connect with

29:37

people that would, I would never connect with otherwise,

29:40

because I'm, I kind of view it as I'm offering

29:42

a service where Tom can come on and we

29:44

can have a cool conversation and hopefully

29:46

it's beneficial for you and it's always beneficial for me.

29:49

And then the last. thing.

29:51

And this is, these are the things that are just for

29:54

me is, and Tom, you already called

29:56

it out about what you like to do. Do

29:58

you understand how much I learn about the

30:00

world and topics that

30:03

I might not learn about otherwise, if I didn't interview

30:05

a Tom at a murder in prison and

30:07

like, just, I learned so much about topics

30:10

that otherwise, I

30:13

mean, I could read about them, but man, there's nothing better than hearing

30:15

from you about. Yeah, read data

30:18

centers. Like, I mean, I can go Google that, but like, that's

30:20

not interesting. I don't have one. I don't really,

30:22

I don't want to do that. So I just, I just learned

30:24

a lot about the world and it's really

30:26

cool. And it also allows me to reach out

30:28

to people that wouldn't, you know, that

30:30

wouldn't, I mean, if I was like, Hey, I'm

30:33

Jason, I'm a executive coach and a trainer.

30:37

Like, why would you take my call if you don't

30:39

want that? But like, Hey, do you want to come on my podcast?

30:41

It's just like a nice warm, like a nice warm

30:43

when you get to know people. Yeah, I've

30:45

made some great friends through interviews

30:48

and it's just been, it's been wonderful. And

30:50

the last thing, the truth is, it's

30:52

fun as hell for me. And I think people

30:54

that listen to the show know I love, I love interviewing

30:56

people and it's good for my career.

30:58

It's good for my skillset, for the work

31:01

I do for money. And I just, I really love it. I

31:03

wouldn't do it anymore if I didn't. Awesome

31:06

question.

31:07

Yeah, you get, you get to meet, you get to meet so many

31:09

people like that. That's just that's a great

31:11

perk. I mean,

31:12

the truth of it is, And this is

31:14

how you and I met. I have a whole bunch of PR

31:17

people who send me people like, that sounds interesting.

31:19

How would I, I would not meet these people otherwise,

31:22

most likely. I mean, we might, but

31:25

and I, you know, the last thing is it's cool. It's cool to

31:27

be able to highlight great people in the world and what

31:29

they're up to. And getting feedback

31:31

on episodes. Hey, I really liked that episode of Tom where he talked

31:33

about, about why he does what

31:35

he does around AI and data center. Like

31:38

that meant a lot to me. Like that's, that's cool. Like that's, you

31:40

know, it's great feedback. Yeah. So

31:42

it feels good. Fulfilling. Very fulfilling.

31:44

Yeah. And then the last thing is I now

31:47

have over 200 people that I could at least

31:49

send an email to if I ever need anything and be like,

31:51

Hey, like, you know, if you remember me, but. I

31:53

actually see you're connected to this person or I actually have this

31:55

thing and like likely the answer

31:57

will be yes, you know, likely it's like

31:59

any other sort of networking. Yeah,

32:02

awesome question. Nobody's ever asked me that people

32:04

have asked me if I have fun with it. I'm like, yeah, of course,

32:06

I don't do anything unless it's fun anymore. Although I'm

32:08

too old to like not do stuff that I find enjoyable.

32:11

It's kind of a not everything I hate doing taxes

32:13

and those sort of things. But most of the time I try to spend

32:16

most of my time doing things that are actually enjoyable,

32:18

which is. I took too long to do that

32:20

in my life. Yeah,

32:22

yeah. Well, awesome. Thanks

32:24

so much, Tom. Let's see, what else do I want to

32:27

know about... Let's talk about Redivider

32:29

for a couple minutes. Because it's really fascinating

32:32

stuff. So if

32:34

you can just give the audience a

32:37

quick, like a quick summary

32:39

of what it is in a non technical way for

32:41

those who are not listening, and then we'll kind of talk about

32:44

the impact and such.

32:48

Yeah, so Redivider is a

32:50

data center company. We focus on

32:53

a sustainable data center that also

32:55

has high social impact. And

32:58

there's a lot of buzzwords, so let me kind of break it

33:00

down. If you think of,

33:02

before everyone started working from home a couple years

33:05

ago. The Internet

33:08

kind of rigid, right? You have a football

33:10

field size data center connected

33:13

to a really big Internet pipe connected

33:15

to a huge downtown office building in a city.

33:19

And that was fine, but now

33:21

that people are working from home half

33:23

time, three quarter time, full time, the whole

33:25

fabric of the internet is different

33:28

now. So your upload speeds,

33:30

your download speeds, where your computing

33:32

happens, where it should happen,

33:35

and you layer on top of that all these new things

33:37

that are happening. IOT, smart

33:39

cities, AI, just

33:41

Bitcoin, you know, all these different...

33:44

Things that didn't exist 10 years ago. And

33:47

so there's this whole new layer of the internet

33:49

being built called the edge

33:51

edge computing, and that's where you can

33:53

take computing and put it closer

33:55

to where it's the data's generated.

33:59

So it's very simple human example.

34:02

Today's what September 12th,

34:04

Apple's announcing new iPhones today.

34:07

They're going to be these fast five G iPhones.

34:10

Well, the phone is only going to be as fast as

34:12

the. Antenna that you're connected

34:15

to. That's right. And then it has

34:17

to compute that data. So the closer

34:19

you can put computing resources to those antenna,

34:22

the faster your new phone is going to feel.

34:24

Yeah. It's

34:26

not going to be as fast if the computing is

34:28

not there. So read a vider is

34:31

making these edge computer or sorry,

34:33

edge data centers that

34:35

have computers in them closer to the source of data.

34:38

And we're doing it in a way that is sustainable

34:41

and has all this compounding so

34:43

you understand the emissions of the facility

34:46

and all the computing inside, as

34:48

well as putting them in places that can

34:50

have a higher social impact. And

34:52

the idea is to take that new layer

34:54

of the internet, this edge computing

34:57

layer, and do it in a way that helps

34:59

mankind instead of widens

35:01

the gap technology and humanity.

35:04

Yeah, it's almost like you've given this

35:06

as a concept to people before

35:08

you've had to explain this a few times as a start as

35:11

a startup person. I'm sure this is a question you get a lot.

35:13

Well, Tom, I, I was really drawn

35:15

to the example you gave about what

35:18

to do with the excess heat. So

35:21

I'm, I'm thinking to myself, if we had somebody,

35:23

we have somebody, and I'm sure we do, we have people listening.

35:26

And they go, that all sounds great, but my phone

35:28

works just fine. And they don't know, and

35:30

they don't need to understand. They don't care about the technology.

35:33

I'd love for you to share the example of some

35:36

of the ideas you have around. What do you do with the

35:38

extra heat? Cause I think that is a thing that everybody

35:41

here and everybody on the planet can totally appreciate

35:44

is good. So if you, would you mind giving us an example

35:46

that you gave on my other podcast?

35:49

Yeah, sure. I'm going to start by giving a

35:51

like an example people can relate to and then explain

35:54

it. So, yeah if you buy something new

35:56

from the store and you use it at your house.

35:58

And then you're kind of done using it.

36:01

That's like a waste product for you now. Right? So

36:03

you might go and sell that on eBay

36:06

or off prop or a garage sale.

36:08

And so it creates this like circular economy

36:10

right now. Someone else is going to take that and they're

36:13

going to use it maybe for the same or different purpose. So

36:16

when we kind of designed

36:18

re divider. And what

36:20

we were trying to do with these edge facilities,

36:23

we took a look at the entirety

36:26

of the supply

36:28

chain in the beginning, all the way to the

36:30

end of life of how it works. And

36:32

one of the waste products that we

36:34

have as a data center,

36:37

we have either hot water or we have

36:39

hot air as a waste product.

36:41

All these computers have to be cooled and that generates

36:44

stuff. So

36:47

part of the impact that we think we

36:49

can do with data centers, Specifically

36:51

edge facilities that go closer

36:54

to population centers is

36:56

that waste product into a benefit

36:58

for something down the line, which in our

37:00

case is going to

37:02

primarily be the idea of greenhouses.

37:06

So taking that waste heat, using

37:08

it to build a greenhouse with a partner,

37:11

we're not doing the greenhouse part. And

37:13

now all of a sudden you're creating a local,

37:17

like fresh food source for

37:19

the community in which our data center operates.

37:22

And for the most part, we, we're operating

37:24

what are called opportunity zones which

37:26

is a whole complex topic we can

37:28

get into if you want. But there's high correlation

37:31

with opportunity zones and food deserts as

37:33

well. And so by,

37:36

by using the waste product of a data center

37:38

to make fresh fruit and vegetables, our

37:40

theory is over time, we can help change

37:42

the relationship that children have with food. And

37:45

hopefully that's going to help humanity.

37:47

Kind of track to a much better position than,

37:50

you know, chicken nuggets every day.

37:53

Yeah. Talk about the reducing

37:55

the gap between people and technology,

37:59

like something that is obviously required

38:01

for survival of humanity and

38:03

using, like I said, using the,

38:06

the waste or, I mean, yeah, it's waste,

38:09

but it's a necessary waste. It's just part of how

38:11

it's, it's just what it's going to be is heat is

38:14

going to be an offshoot of any computing things. We

38:16

know that as a fact, how can we reutilize

38:19

that as opposed to blowing it out through the top

38:21

or, and I don't even know all the different ways you can do

38:23

it or, or having to power incredible,

38:26

incredibly expensive and energy air

38:29

conditioning units, like water

38:31

cooled things, all those things that really, really amazing.

38:33

I would highly recommend that everybody listening

38:36

just check out read, read divider. Even

38:39

if this isn't the space you're in, because it's really interesting

38:41

how you're marrying, marrying these things

38:43

together. It's like impact for

38:45

good while also providing

38:48

a service that companies need.

38:51

So everybody check that out. Super cool. You have

38:53

some cool videos on there and like the concept

38:55

and I know you all been at it for a while. Just

38:57

very, it's very cool. So that Tom, thanks for sharing that. I'm

38:59

glad we took a little, took a little segue there because

39:01

I wanted everybody to understand what it is

39:03

you do. And yeah, so let's,

39:06

let's now go in deep into the therapeutic

39:08

Pull here. I'm going to ask you the tough question.

39:11

Let's go. Here we go. Let's see you

39:13

make a cry. We're not gonna make you cry. If

39:15

I wanted to make you cry, I'd cut my finger right now and just

39:17

show it to you. So yeah, that'd

39:19

be fun. I would never do that. Probably

39:21

not. It would stress me out. It would. I'm like, Tom's,

39:24

yeah, like for those of here, Tom is like, you're

39:26

a very like calm, cool, collected guy. I'm like,

39:28

what's this? And you're like, oh

39:31

my gosh, wait, is that blood? That's, I wouldn't,

39:33

I wouldn't, I would probably not do

39:35

that on this podcast. So Tom,

39:37

what's, you know, a movie, a movie scene, a movie scene

39:39

that gives me nightmares. Yeah, it

39:41

was in, I think it was the Ashton Kutcher movie,

39:44

something like the butterfly wings, the butterfly

39:46

effect or something. Anyway, there was this. Yeah,

39:50

but if I think there was a scene where this young

39:52

kid, you know, those like a cash registered

39:54

restaurant where they have that stick and they put receipts

39:57

on it. Yeah. Like the

39:59

paper receipts and this movie scene, this

40:01

kid takes his hands and does that onto

40:03

those spikes. And like that

40:05

scene has haunted me forever. But

40:07

yeah, no, like why would you

40:09

do that? Like just to prove he was tough

40:11

or geez.

40:14

Yeah, it was epically

40:17

bad. Yeah. Anyway, sorry, I did. What was your

40:18

question? I know my question, Tom, is what's

40:20

something that you're afraid might actually be true

40:22

about you? Oh,

40:26

that's an easy one to answer. So the

40:29

core philosophy that I've really come

40:31

to in my life is I want to be surrounded by great people,

40:35

period. You know, it really resonates

40:37

me when you're talking about what you get out of doing the podcast

40:40

and. You know, surrounding

40:43

yourself with great people, you just end

40:45

up in a place where it

40:47

just finds its own direction, right?

40:49

So I really love that. And part of that

40:51

is rejecting people that Are

40:54

kind of the a hole

40:57

category. And so we have a very strict

41:00

policy on that. And,

41:02

you know, one thing I'm afraid of, I would say is

41:05

as CEO, you have to make tough decisions sometimes.

41:07

And I fear that people put me into that

41:10

a hole camp because they may not.

41:13

No, I understand the context of things,

41:15

even though my, you know, constant

41:17

mantra is like, surround yourself with great people and

41:19

yeah. So I, I, you know, I worry about that from time

41:21

to time, but at the end of the day, decisions have

41:24

to get made. And sometimes everybody has to

41:26

be in that sort of position. So even

41:29

when you do have those, those moments,

41:32

you know, you try to look through them and make

41:34

sure the person beneath it is the great person

41:36

and it's not situational, you know? Yeah.

41:39

So

41:39

I do fear that. Yeah, that makes a ton

41:41

of sense. And I asked, I've

41:43

asked this question to a lot of my guests and we

41:46

all have a multitude of things we could say here, but

41:49

what's really apparent about this question

41:51

is then how people index that,

41:53

or I'm not going to say overcompensate how they

41:55

compensate for that fear. So what I hear

41:57

for you is that makes a ton of sense that you're going

41:59

to operate that way because you're afraid

42:01

that somebody is going to think you're an a hole. Or

42:04

they're going to pigeonhole you into this thing because

42:06

of what you do. You're going to be very

42:08

clear about what you

42:10

stand for. I love that. I, I,

42:12

I love that as an answer. People know what you stand

42:15

for. So they then go, well, are you being

42:17

an asshole or are you, or no,

42:19

you're not being an asshole, but here's what I stand for

42:21

no asshole policy. So know that I stand

42:23

for that for myself as well. Like, that's

42:25

what I, that's what I'm envisioning for you is like, you stand

42:28

for no ass, hopefully stand for no asshole policy for

42:30

yourself as well. Most of the time,

42:32

you know, I think everybody has the ability to go

42:34

there, but that's a different, podcast.

42:38

Yeah. And if, you know, I've been called out, called

42:40

out on it as well. And it's very self reflecting.

42:42

It's like, actually I need

42:44

to, I need to kind of reset

42:47

because that I actually was, and I

42:49

take accountability for that. And, you know, it's not,

42:51

it's not about needing to be liked. I really

42:53

don't need to be like, I'm

42:55

not an alpha person. I'm more of

42:58

an Omega person where I've just, I'm going to

43:00

do my thing because I believe in whatever I'm

43:02

thinking or doing. So it's not about being

43:04

liked. It's about doing it in a way that's better

43:07

for

43:07

everybody. Yeah. Oh, great

43:09

answer. That's, that's super cool. Well, Tom,

43:11

we're going to start to wrap up here before

43:13

you that love to hear

43:17

how you see the world. In other words,

43:19

what's your life? What's your philosophy?

43:22

How you see the world?

43:26

Well, like I said, I think it's a tattoo on my hand,

43:28

you know, it's I don't know where I'm going to end up, but I'm excited

43:30

about the journey. That is definitely how I see the world

43:33

in, in all aspects from

43:35

business to family, to friendships, to,

43:38

you know, why I live on a little country farm.

43:41

You know, I love the

43:43

idea that there is. Things

43:45

to explore in every, every

43:47

aspect of the world. Like I don't see the world

43:50

as I want to have the same day every

43:52

day and clock in and clock out. Like

43:54

I've had that in my life and I realized

43:56

that's what I don't want. And for

43:58

me, part of how I see the world

44:01

is also filtering

44:03

out things. Not, there's

44:05

not one soul attractor, but there's a lot

44:07

of things that are detractors. So it's about filtering those

44:09

away.

44:11

And that's, that's so, that's

44:14

so resonates for me and that's something that I

44:16

didn't really, I

44:18

didn't really wasn't present to was

44:20

a possibility for me until about

44:23

five years ago. And it's made

44:25

a huge difference. And my

44:27

level of satisfaction with life. And I don't know

44:29

if this is something that happens as people

44:31

get older or what, but man, it took

44:33

me a long time to understand that I actually had a choice to,

44:36

to filter out things. Cause I was always about

44:38

like, what can I bring in? What can I bring in? Cause

44:40

I don't know, like, I guess maybe it's not the way I

44:42

was raised, but that was my mindset. I was like, Oh, what can I do more

44:44

of to feel good? But

44:46

I'm like, Oh, actually a lot of the things that

44:49

point to me being much happier now is things

44:51

I've thrown away. Or

44:53

given up or don't worry

44:55

about anymore, man. That like, man,

44:58

that, that might be the thing that I would do

45:00

my five minutes speech on and you really, you

45:03

asked me why I do this podcast. It's like

45:05

all of it, but moments like that were like, oh man, that meant

45:07

a lot to me that you just said that. Cause like, yeah,

45:10

but, and that's a good example where like, I know that about

45:12

myself, but having you say it, I'm just like, oh, that's a

45:14

big aha for me, that that is something that I've been

45:16

practicing. And I can acknowledge myself

45:18

for it. It's super cool. Yeah.

45:21

Man, isn't it? And

45:21

you can, you can be proud of yourself for those moments too,

45:24

right? Like there, there's

45:26

this, there's this mental framework called the conscious

45:28

competency model. So just

45:30

really quick, four layers to it.

45:32

There's unconsciously incompetent.

45:35

So you don't know what you don't know. There's

45:37

consciously incompetent. You know you don't know something.

45:41

There's consciously competent, where you

45:43

actively know something. And then unconsciously

45:45

competent, where you don't even know that you know

45:47

it. Like breathing. You know how to breathe, but you don't

45:49

think about every breath. And

45:52

that whenever I find something,

45:54

you're like, I really hate this. I assess where

45:56

I am on that framework. It's like, okay, well,

45:58

I'm. I'm consciously

46:00

incompetent. So I need to just go one layer. Like

46:03

you can only progress through one of those filters.

46:05

That's right. So when you learn something, you've got to go through

46:07

four filters, right? You have to go, I don't know anything

46:10

about it too. I know I don't. It's, it's

46:12

a lot more effort to add

46:14

something to your life than

46:16

it is to take something bad away.

46:19

And so if you want to add something to your

46:21

life, you have to remove all this negative stuff

46:23

to make room for you to go four levels

46:25

instead of one. Man. Yeah. That's

46:29

just a little skeleton of how I frame it in my

46:32

brain every time. It's like, do I hate this? Yes.

46:34

Okay. I'm going to take one step to stop hating

46:36

this and I need to do this

46:38

thing, but that takes four steps. So I'm going to go

46:41

build a system to go do these four things.

46:43

Yeah. You're bringing me your what's reminding

46:45

me of this philosophy. I've

46:48

seen this called the Johari window to where it's

46:50

like you're, I don't know if you ever like a couple of

46:52

professors. It's, it's, it's the similar. I don't know if

46:54

they took it, but it's like, you know what,

46:56

you know, you don't know what you know, or it's actually,

46:59

it's actually Johari window. Perception

47:02

of you. So it's like, what do you know that other people

47:05

know about you? What do you not know that

47:07

other people know about you? What do you know that others

47:09

don't know? And then the last one I'm like,

47:11

well, if you don't know it about me and I don't know what about

47:13

me, what's left to do

47:15

there. But it's like, yeah. Why is there,

47:19

but for me. What

47:21

I think of this as strengths based work, like

47:23

if you're doing assessment work, like doing a CliftonStrengths, StrengthsFinder,

47:26

or you're doing strengths based work with

47:28

people with a team, like,

47:30

well, what are you already good at that you're probably going to enjoy

47:33

learning more about? That's going to have you be really impactful

47:35

versus, and

47:38

I think most companies have figured this out by now that

47:40

like trying to get people to improve on

47:42

things that are not good at, or they don't want to do is like

47:44

a lost cause. Most of the time they're going to quit.

47:46

They're going to leave. They're going to be mediocre in the

47:48

middle versus like. What if we just

47:50

gave you more responsibility doing more of the things

47:52

you're already good at? And I, and I would, and

47:54

I, just to wrap with this one, the

47:59

incompetent consciousness, or maybe it's the other

48:01

one, to me, the things,

48:03

like, have you ever taken CliftonStrengths

48:06

or StrengthsFinder, you know, get your, like, 34 things,

48:09

10 you strengthen, the other you

48:11

manage? So

48:13

some time ago, I, I, it, it rings a bell,

48:15

but it's not, it's not something I'm a professional.

48:17

Yeah. Well, but, but the reason I bring this up

48:19

Tom is one of the things that I like

48:21

to say when I do that work with people is the top

48:23

five things in that list, they don't feel like

48:25

work to you. And they're the things

48:28

like, Tom, how do you. Tom,

48:30

like, how are you able, like, you seem like a real visionary.

48:32

Like Tom, how are you able to see that? You're like, what do you mean?

48:34

Like, doesn't everybody, it's like you get into a

48:36

bias of like, everybody has the same

48:39

way of doing it because it feels so

48:41

natural. So I love

48:43

that. It's like, it's like, it's

48:45

yeah, like I'm unconsciously so competent

48:48

in this thing. That for me is like

48:51

getting up in the morning and breathing and for others are like,

48:53

how do you do that? Like, and every human on the planet

48:55

has somebody go, Hey, how do you do that

48:57

thing? And they're like, what do you mean?

48:59

What thing? I just do it. Like, I don't have to think

49:01

about it. I did. I love, I love that. I'm like,

49:03

what's that thing. And

49:05

here's my strong advice. Invest in that thing.

49:08

Whatever that thing is. It's like, I do that in my,

49:10

I can do that in my sleep and it feels so fun. And

49:12

so natural. And the energy is only

49:14

positive. That's the thing. And

49:16

I, you know, like this is a little soapbox, but man,

49:19

I hope I can teach my kids that because

49:21

man, how much time do kids spend on shit

49:23

that like is not. easy

49:26

or they want to just to be like mildly

49:28

proficient at the thing they just don't care about.

49:32

Yeah. Yeah. Especially when it's in, in contrast with

49:34

the education system. You know, I

49:37

think my my

49:39

wife and I don't really fight a lot. We have

49:41

like this great, great, great relationship,

49:43

but you know, I'm pretty firm on one

49:45

thing that we, we very much

49:47

disagree with. And you know, I,

49:50

I pretty much will forbid my children

49:52

to go to higher education. I do

49:54

not want my children going to college or university unless.

49:58

There is a function they wanna

50:00

do that requires regulation or certification.

50:02

Right? Right. Sure. Yeah. You wanna be a lawyer or a nurse

50:04

or doctor. Sure. Okay. You gotta go through, you gotta

50:06

have it to do it. Yeah. Steps to make sure it's safe and

50:09

whatever. Other than that, the,

50:12

the idea of the education system

50:14

was born for making factory workers.

50:16

You sit at a desk. And do one

50:18

functional over again. That's right. It doesn't

50:20

have a creative mindset. So

50:22

like the standard classroom is broken and

50:25

higher education. You get one of two things. You're

50:27

either going to get a network of people that

50:29

you'll have for the rest of your life, go to college

50:31

for that, but you're

50:33

just going for skills. First

50:35

of all, knowledge workers have their, our days,

50:38

me included, our days are limited with the

50:40

advent of AI. And

50:43

so it's really going to be about experience

50:45

and decision making and the people

50:47

part of that people process technology

50:49

triad. So why

50:51

would you go to university? Like you're

50:53

going to start out burdened with hundreds

50:56

of thousands of dollars of debt. As

50:58

opposed to not, so I

51:00

don't know, I just, I think that the

51:02

things we teach our kids matter from day

51:04

zero, you know, and this is one where

51:08

my daughter wants to go to university. I'm like, you

51:10

can, you can totally go, you just have to explain why

51:13

it's valuable and why you care when you're eight years old, like

51:15

you shouldn't be thinking about university.

51:18

You're like my picture. You're like, you're like,

51:22

If you could show up with your, with your pitch deck

51:25

and the numbers to back this up and all the quantitative

51:27

analysis you've done, dear, we'll,

51:30

we'll, we'll have a discussion that we're going to have a board meeting

51:32

about it.

51:34

Yeah. Yeah. But the schools

51:36

should be talking to, you know,

51:38

about university prep, you know,

51:41

like in my opinion, it's, it's like we

51:43

should be focusing on education content,

51:45

not the process of education.

51:48

Yeah. Oh man. I think we have another

51:50

podcast in our future time. We got a lot to talk about.

51:53

Let's see. Yeah. So to wrap

51:56

up for today, I'd

51:58

love if you would leave us all

52:00

with some short and sweet word,

52:02

short and sweet words of wisdom.

52:05

You may have already, you may have already dropped it, but I'm

52:07

curious where you're going to go with it. Something that like

52:09

words to live by, something that's very short,

52:11

like a sentence or two at the most. What do you got for

52:14

us?

52:16

Love yourself. It all starts there. Love

52:18

yourself. It all starts there. Tom,

52:22

thank you. It has been awesome to get to know you in this

52:24

way. After I got to know you as a CEO

52:26

and business person, it's been a delight to have you on.

52:28

Can't wait to have you back on again. Best to

52:31

you, the family. Hopefully, no

52:33

blood in your future of any type. If

52:35

you don't want to see that. I,

52:38

if you figure out how to do that with an eight year old, you'd

52:40

let me know. Cause it seems like we have a lot of scraped knees

52:42

and cuts and stuff going on,

52:44

like little stuff, but yeah, best of

52:46

luck to you, the rewriter re re divider

52:48

team, and we'll have you back on here soon to talk more

52:50

about get to know you even more. So thanks

52:52

so much for your time. Always

52:54

great to be here. Thank you. Thanks Tom. Pleasure.