We have never lived in an age where advice and knowledge are so abundant. It comes from a good place. There's always this desire for us to share what we've learned, share what we know, and so forth. But you don't know how that knowledge may work or fit into your own life, whether it's to your benefit or detriment, unless you actually test it with reality. We are all individual, unique people with completely different circumstances, different upbringings, genes, cultures. So every one of us has an inner compass that is solely unique to us.
Anything where you feel like you are doing it from your own curiosities, your own interests, and you're doing it with intention, that is a form of creativity. There's never been this time where just mental illness is so pervasive and you have suicide rates growing in the most developed nations in the world. I mean, this is...
Almost to the point where we just shake our head at this, like, yeah, that's just the way the world is now. But that's crazy that it's that way, right? That there is no direct correlation between physical well-being and mental well-being. That sometimes it's often the inverse. And I think a huge part of that is... Hello, everyone, and welcome to Linking Your Thinking.
can see what someone writes but i want to know how they think how does the sausage get made i want to know all those details and with me today i'm so excited is Lawrence Yeo and Lawrence is the author of a new book the inner compass cultivating the courage to trust yourself i i am really over the moon about this book i'm not just saying that so i'm excited to dig in but first Lawrence how are you doing i am doing good i feel like we have been in one another's orbit for a long time so it feels nice to kind of
gently collide in this conversation for us together. So I'm just excited to be here. Yeah, and I feel the same way. And I was just expressing this, that you're somebody that I've seen at a distance through different social platforms and different writing. And I just think like, wow, this is sort of like a kindred spirit attacking similar issues in every sentence I read, every thought, every illustration. I'm just like, wow, like you get it in a very similar way
And I'm so inspired when I read your work. And so for us to now finally be talking, it's very exciting because there's a lot of material to get through. Thank you. Let's dive in. Let's dive in. Yeah. Well, first, reading the introduction, and you have this book, and it's really, it's a tight read. It's just over, I'd say, 100 pages. And you start off with something that I think my audience would be really curious about. You're trying to talk about the difference between knowing a thing and understanding it.
And like my domain, some people would call like personal knowledge management. And so knowledge and knowing, but that's not understanding or is it like, how do you think about those two terms to kick us off? I think the simplest way to describe it is that knowledge is taught through information, but understanding is taught through experience. So knowledge forms the contextual basis for what is possible and what is there in the map, so to speak.
Right. But basically, in order to actually have that knowledge convert into any form of wisdom or any form of kind of understanding who you are and these closer things where it feels much more visceral, then it has to convert into some form of lived experience. So you have to actually walk what you believe is the map and, of course, understand the territory and see how it may fit, because I feel like.
We have never lived in an age where advice and knowledge are so abundant, especially advice, right? And it comes from a good place. I think it always comes from a good place. There's always this desire for us to share what we've learned, share what we know and so forth. But you don't know how that knowledge may work or fit into your own life, whether it's to your benefit or detriment, unless you actually test it with reality. And it's really this constant testing with reality.
stress testing, experimenting, and so forth, where it actually becomes your own form of wisdom, your own form of wisdom. And I like to argue that that's essentially what we're doing here, right? Whether it's knowledge management or anything that is in that domain, what you ultimately want is that knowledge to convert into a form of wisdom. And the only way to do that is to contextualize it in the form of lived experience, which is what I call understanding.
yeah and i love that and because that's the thing there's there's knowledge there's information all around us all the time and it feels really good when we're collecting this stuff and consuming it sometimes engorging on it and it's like okay yeah i'm improving or i'm knowing more so therefore i understand the world more but that's not completely true because
Like the knowledge, to your point, is not the understanding. There's no shortcuts. We can't speed our way, speed read our way to understanding, lived experience. That is something that's earned. And so how does one earn it, though? Like one person can be up for 12, 18 hours, and they might just consume a lot of knowledge. But what is a way to...
allow more understanding to happen while you're awake and moving out throughout your day? Yeah, I think I view this as almost a two-step phenomenon of sorts, where let's say you have accumulated knowledge in however way is the best manner for you to do that. The next avenue is kind of the domain of creation, where you take what you know, and then you actually try to distill it
and put it and condense it into the form of some idea that you then express, right? Because what you're doing is you're taking in that knowledge that you have consumed, and you're trying to find the way that it fits in the context of your own perspective, right? And that's one degree closer to your being. How have you contextualized that knowledge? And that really happens through the avenue of creativity. Now, creativity can be
As small of a scale, as you're doing it for yourself, you're journaling, and you are the only consumer of what you create, right? That's what journaling ultimately is. Or you could scale that up to, hey, I want to share that with an audience, some of whom I have never met before in my life. But through that exertion, through actually putting it out there, you're really trying to contextualize that knowledge and make it resonate in a way, right? So it almost tests your capabilities to see if you can actually do that.
and the reason why i don't consider this the end point is that this could still live in the intellectual domain right you're still creating and you're writing or you're recording videos and so forth and you could kind of do that yourself and be in your own bubble the second part is to actually live it out in the form of values like what does it mean to incorporate what you've created into your own value system
And then be out in the world in terms of how you show up for the people that are actually physically around you and the people that matter to you the most. And really through the avenue of relationship, right? You can do that in the domain of creativity, but a lot of times you're doing it without any particular person in mind. So it's easy to get away with things, but once you're out in the world and once you're interacting with people and you have to test everything that you've put out and
test whether you could actually live this out in the context of your own life, then that embodiment of your creativity as a value system becomes a way for you to truly convert everything you picked up in the beginning to understanding. Yeah. So that embodiment, that idea of like relationships.
Like we can't just live in our IV tower in the clouds and just intellectualize everything. There's like this connection where we are relating with others. And I think that's a really good opportunity for us to like look back of how you kind of came into your understandings, you know, how your upbringing. I'm kind of curious, like you write in the book that you were depressed and depression is something that feels so unique and yet sad.
everyone might go through similar aspects of it. And then how did you grapple with your own depression when it was happening? What kind of helped you work your way out to somewhere else? Yeah, I feel like depression and sadness are all kind of commingled sometimes. But I feel like sadness is when you're feeling down when things are not going well, there's a reason for your sadness. Depression
is when you're feeling down, even when things are going, okay, there's it's circumstance independent. So even if things are relatively all right, physically, you're okay. Um, you're safe. You have a roof over your head, you know, where you're going to get, get a meal from the next day, what have you. But internally, something just doesn't feel right. Something, um, feels like there just feels like a fog all around you and
You may try to trace it back to some form of reason, but a lot of times trying to understand that reason feels evasive and you could be even more depressed when you kind of keep living in your head in that sense. So I think the first thing is to kind of differentiate those two, because sometimes there's a reason that you may be upset or sad, and that's not quite depression. I think depression is something where you really don't quite understand what exactly is going on. Um,
And of course, there are biological arguments for depression and there are also psychological elements to it. But I think what I'm focusing on more here is in my own experience, there was this kind of restlessness that even though I had the job that I was supposed to have, even though I had a place I was living, I knew that my family loved me. I was just in a state of misery. I just felt anxious. I felt down. I felt like there was...
nothing that I could do to kind of get out of this in a sense. I felt like I did everything I was supposed to do, but, but what? And I think that feeling was quite pervasive and it's the feeling that you don't have any option ahead of you. Like everything feels so fogged up where you could start feeling a little bit hopeless. And I felt that in my early twenties. Um, and it was kind of shortly after graduation where, yeah,
It was like, I thought this path was it, and it's not. And I think when I think back on it now, there was this element of me feeling like I knew I was supposed to be doing something else based upon what my own compass was directing me towards. And I've always seen myself in some way or form, a shape or form, like a quote unquote creative person, someone that liked to just share my ideas with others. And the way I would do it in the past is I'm just,
you know, around a campfire with some bros and say something deep and like, oh, that's deep, man. But I felt like there was something more I could be doing with this. And I just didn't know what. But the way that I started to see a brighter path was that I started experimenting with various art forms just to see what it's like to break the rhythm and the monotony of the fog that was all around me. So
I started venturing into music and this was purely off of the fact that, Hey, I knew in the past, I like music. I like sharing ideas and maybe music. I'm going to go with that and see what happens. And I started tinkering around making beats in my spare time. And there was no purpose behind it other than I just need to do something different. And I need to find an avenue to get whatever I may be feeling out to just release that in some shape or form.
And incredibly while I was doing it, I knew that it wasn't very good, but the knowledge that I wasn't very good kind of drove me further. Like there is this gap between what I feel like I'm capable of and where I'm at now. And this belief in my capability started to kind of like spread some of those clouds away. Whereas before.
I felt like there was nothing I was really going for. There was nothing more I wanted to be doing in a certain sense. And to hop in on there is like, mastery is a term that is big for you. And when I read that, again, I was like, yes, we're really in sync with a few of these terms, as opposed to accomplishment. And I think when you're playing this instrument that you're not good at, you weren't trying to think I'm going to go to
Juilliard or, you know, play in the biggest stage, the instrument. I don't think anyways, that was your goal. So like, what was it then? Like, why, why, why did you pick this up? I mean, and where were you hoping to go with it, if anywhere? Yeah, you touch on that word mastery. And I really think that mastery is the quest to improve yourself as an end in itself. Comparisons are not made with other people, but only with prior versions of yourself.
That's what you're trying to do. So there's no external barometer. There's nothing that you're trying to achieve based upon what someone else has done. And I was certainly in that phase when I was starting out with music. And I'm sure when you were starting out on your creator journey, we all start there where there's something intrinsically motivating about what we're doing. And then we might get into this later. There's the layers of conditioning and other stuff that go on top of that that could make you burn out or feel all these other things. But
When you think about the start of any given journey, whether it's creative, whether it's entrepreneurial, what have you, there is always this element of, I can do better at this. And there's something about my tastes that signify I have more to go. Right. And I really think if there's something you feel about that, like when you see an art form or a craft or an endeavor that has that kind of texture and
It's so worthwhile to pursue because it starts from your own inner core. And there's something beautiful about knowing that it's there because sometimes when you go astray, at least you have the knowledge that that's where I started and I can always return there. And I think the desire to want something to master on its own accord for its own sake is so powerful, especially when you're not feeling very great about life or when you're feeling lost, because it gives you kind of this objective that
that is purely internal and there's this internal barometer that's pushing you not someone else's words pulling you towards it and taking you away so having that was so powerful for me when i was getting started in that sense yeah so i want to touch on something here and kind of connect it to the the land of linking or thinking but then go back over to the path and the compass and some of these these metaphors that you've put together so like in linking your thinking land um
something that meant a lot to me, especially when everyone was locked in home during the pandemic, and they were trying to master knowledge management and all this, and so you could do more and finish your projects. And I was like, okay, that's great, and it's true, but there's this whole other world that's not just based on hardcore productivity for knowledge. And I was like, we can actually just think for the joy and the sake of thinking. It's a means unto itself, just like you're saying.
and that there's a certain joy with that. And something with your book kind of felt like so in line with this sort of form of not outward striving, but something that's happening more internally. And I think it relates to what the book is titled, The Inner Compass. And especially in the latter part of the book, you talk about this path
and when you're getting pushed off of the path, and then the inner compass is bringing you back. And I think that's really helpful. And I know you could probably talk about it from a bunch of different angles. But how would you, you know, like to talk, like express the inner compass and like this? I mean, what is it exactly? And how is it guiding us? Or how can it guide us? So the inner compass is a metaphor that people may have heard of before when it comes to describing you following what you believe your own path to be. But I felt like there was a
slightly different way that I could frame it that addresses some of the qualms that people have about when it comes to following your intuition and so forth. Because a lot of it could kind of be in this mystical, spiritual woo element, which I completely understand. But whenever I hear about intuition and so forth, I have this objection, which is, well, how do you know that it's properly calibrated? If you follow it and you think it's the right place, then next thing you know, there's a cliff. Maybe it might not have been that
that great to follow in the first place. So I, I wanted to bake that objection into the way that I presented the metaphor. So the metaphor here is as follows. You have an inner compass and we basically, this is the tool that we use to essentially navigate the world. I mean, we are all individual, unique people with completely different circumstances, different upbringings, genes, culture. So every one of us has an inner compass that is solely unique to us.
And that helps us find our way through this world that tries to standardize everything. And that basically has wants to assign a certain function upon all of us to be valuable in a certain way. So it's a way of squaring those two domains. Now your true north here, the way I like to describe true north is what you have conviction in as in what makes you feel like you are driven on your own accord
to move toward that direction, irrespective of what your culture, of what your norms, of what your expectations want you to do. So if that was at zero, what would you do? Right? Some common forms of this question is like, if you had all the money in the world, right? What would you do? That's one way to think about conviction.
The bot now anywhere your true north is not pointed anywhere around it is what I refer to as the realm of conditioning. So you have conviction and conditioning and conditioning are essentially the, any narrative, any story that has been essentially layered upon you to try to show you what it means to be safe, what it means to have certainty.
what it means to have status, all these things that essentially divide us into hierarchical structures, right? That is the domain of conditioning. Let's dig into that. So, so we're talking convention, conviction and conditioning, and I definitely want to keep going with inner compass, but there is something so, um, well articulated by you around conditioning, social conditioning, um, and kind of, especially when you want to express yourself and then you go onto the internet and see everyone else expressing themselves.
and all the engineering around that to knock us off, like knock us off course. Can you speak to that a little bit? Yes, absolutely. It's funny, because I was just watching one of your YouTube videos from back in the it was maybe a year ago about just your struggles with burnout. And you were talking about that. And that resonated to I feel like a lot of folks in what we're kind of doing here struggle with that element. And, and much of it is because of
this element of, well, I should be doing it a certain way. I should be writing so I could attain a certain outcome. I should be making videos so I could get people to my program. There's these narratives of, okay, what you create has to become something else. You can't do it on its own accord because there's no purpose. Everything needs to have a concrete purpose, yo. And that really is a conditioned narrative. It is.
And really what we're trying to do with the inner compass is you're trying to balance the realities of some of these conditioned narratives in terms of, okay, if I want to navigate the world, if I want to function in the world, there's some of it that is useful. But the problem is we rarely contextualize it in our own life. So that goes back to the knowledge and understanding element, right? It's like,
if we learn that this is a certain way to do something to give us success or whatever, instead of taking that as gospel, what would it mean to question that and to wonder, Oh wait, how about I view that as a source of inspiration and not as a source of, I have to do this, right? Because when you're inspired by something, you find ways to incorporate that into your own life, as opposed to when you just absorb it. So it's always this, what I want to do is add a,
little layer of discernment when it comes to what you're looking out in the world. Because when you go on social media, what you're essentially doing is you're opening up your mind to everyone else's narratives and lived experience. And what's funny is that no one actually tells you, ha ha, you're doing what you're doing wrong. This is the right way. It's more of your own interpretation. You look at that method and you're like, wait, I got to do that. I have to do it. It's your own voice telling you to do that.
And that's how deep the conditioning goes is that it has convinced you that you believe that narrative. So, so that's, yeah. Oh yeah. When you're talking about the stories and it's like, so the stories that we're telling ourselves and they, they go deep that way. Like I have to do what this person's doing. And also because I'm not, and the way you wrote that, it was like the, the social media feeds are engineered to, you know, make us feel,
I forget like uncertain or unsteady and alone. And that's the best of the best that rise to the top. And so then we're conditioned to compare ourselves to that. And inevitably you can't stack up to the endless onslaught of everyone's best rising to the surface. And you just woke up and you're staring at a screen
it's not a good feeling. No, no matter what you have done in your own life. And I think, I think that is the, that is the kind of trap of achievement in a certain sense is that your circles of influence continue to change as your, as whatever level of achievement or so forth you have changed. And this is why when anyone starts out doing what they're doing, for example, it's like, there's a magical number. If I hit a hundred K, Oh my God,
That would be a dream, right? But what's interesting is that even if you're not quite there yet, let's say you get to maybe 30K or something. We'll just use this as an example. What happens is that what you're paying attention to at zero is different when you're at 30, right? The circles of influence, the people that you're around, it becomes more of like, oh, people are kind of doing this, people that gain traction. So your people they start paying attention to,
shifts with everything you go to. So by the time you're at 100K, that feels like an inevitability as opposed to a dream. And then you start thinking, well, 150 is inevitable. 200 is inevitable, right? And you get disappointed when you realize it's actually not an inevitability. There's a lot more that goes into it if that's something that you desire. Yeah. And then even when you do get to whatever that desire is, it's relatively fleeting. And then you...
I loved, near the end, the antidote to envy. Just everything in that section, I have a few parts open here. Ultimately, envy is the result of not knowing who you are. It arises when you outsource your definitions of success to whatever norms you've adopted, whether consciously or not. That rings, you know, it's like,
You know when something's true, and that just rings so true. And you talk about something else, too, that I was like, oh, yeah, that's good. Brene Brown with vulnerability. It's synonymous, right? Vulnerability, Brene Brown. It's had its moment. But what about envy? No one's talking about that. But you are here. I'll add to that pettiness, too, I've noticed for myself. I've had to call myself out on that in the past couple of years and really...
like work, continue to work on it. It's like, where are these feelings coming from? And like, shouldn't I be happy for someone else's success? And like, why am I like, you know, what, what's going on? And, uh, and so it's a continued struggle of mine, but to your point, it's something that's not being talked about a lot. So I was like, I, I wanted to talk to Lawrence about this a bit, just like it's real and that you brought it out is really valuable.
I talk about envy so much because I really think that envy is one of the greatest problems in today's society. Because today's society, we are, generally speaking, if you're not in a war-torn, impoverished country with terrible civic infrastructure, we are physically fairly safe. And we, yeah, we are quite comfortable. But mentally, I don't think it's a stretch to say that
There's never been this time where just mental illness is so pervasive and you have suicide rates growing in the most developed nations in the world. I mean, this is almost to the point where we just shake our head at this, like, yeah, that's just the way the world is now. But that's crazy that it's that way, right? That there is no direct correlation between, you know, physical wellbeing and mental wellbeing. That sometimes it's often the inverse. And I think a huge part of that is envy.
it's envy and the feeling of inadequacy and the constant exposure that we have into other people's lives. Um, but more so the way that we just cannot talk about it, the way that it's a taboo, um, even talking about the fact that you have envy or that you may be petty is there, there is like this taboo around it that you shouldn't feel that way. And no one's going to have any sympathy for you. Right. But this is circulating through, I mean,
I would, I would dare to say everyone's mind, anyone that has access to social media and a smartphone. Um, and I really thought about the anatomy of envy too, and why it's so destructive. A big reason is why I think envy lives in the people that have the potential to be very close to you. So for example, let's say wealth, right? People like Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, these folks are,
You're not going to envy these people. If anything, you will try to learn from them. You'll be inspired by them. Envy lives in like that person you went to college with, and then you saw on LinkedIn or something, they recently got some crazy promotion and you're like, Oh, what the hell, yo? Like I was once in a very similar position as you and you've gone on to do this. Well, I'm kind of here.
Or a business partner that you no longer work with that has done something else that you may have dreamed of, or maybe it's just one step away from you in your eyes. That's where envy is huge, right? And family members, a huge source of envy, right? So people that actually are the closest to you and have the potential to actually talk about this with and have a lot of fruitful dialogue around are people you start to detest.
inside. And as a result, you start to detest yourself. I mean, that's one of the themes that I talk about is that relationship is a mirror, the way you view others reflects the way you view yourself. So you view others in that way, it's no surprise that it's going to be each day is going to be a slog for you. To that point. I felt it within myself. And the more I work on it, then what's strange is when I when I had some good things happen.
And I was like, this is a big enough news event that I'm going to actually reach out and tell people. It was so interesting. There were very specific friends that I either resisted to tell or just didn't tell at all because I knew like I would just, I understood that that would trigger intense like feelings within them that were not positive. And what was really,
Conversely great was when there were other friends over the years, and when I shared this, and I felt their just complete unconditional happiness for this thing. And I was like, man, I wish I can embody what you're embodying right now. Like Amr is one of my friends from college, and I was like, I wish I can treat my friendships like you're treating the one that we have right now.
Like it was something to aspire towards. Dang, that's really powerful. Yeah, that's a great observation. Just how you may want to withhold some information that has happened in your life, great things from certain people. And whereas you just have this innate understanding that with some people, it doesn't matter what happens, you want to share everything. And regardless, they'll have your unconditional support. And it is...
And this is not just Nick's life. What's interesting is what you're saying right now rings true because this is everybody's life. There is always this notion of how much do I share? Because I know in this context, I might trigger that feeling because of some history or the way we are. And then others, essentially, like your friend you described, that's a relationship where there really is no game to be played. There's no game at all. And
Chances are a lot of these friends, there is a reason why they tend to stem from a childhood is because in that arena, there was nothing. There's no game to be played other than we just hang out together and kick around a hacky sack or whatever for recess. And that's it. So you're kind of divorced from the areas of status and wealth and things of that nature.
I mean, you know, in high school there's clicks and ranking of your intellect and so forth, but it's not as ingrained, right? So when you start a relationship with somebody based upon this element of no conditions, there's no games whatsoever. Those are the ones that end up flourishing well into adulthood because, and you know, there, when you share something, there's no game, you know, that you have their unconditional love and,
challenge i think with friendships as you get older why a lot of people have a hard time making friends later is that there's a lot of other labels on you now there's a lot of labels on you now i mean it's no secret why people ask what do you do they want to understand what label to use for you first and if that label happens to pique their interest in a way where they're like oh this person's label indicates this thing then i want to get to know them better and stuff and
those things don't quite have that same conditionless element as your childhood friend does. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's really true. And that's, that's, yeah. What do you do? And they're like, you know, is this someone that I should pay attention to? You know, you have to like filter out, is this someone worth my time? Yeah. It's really kind of an interesting phenomenon that we, that we go through. So, so part of that then is like, how then do,
when this conditioning is happening, and we get like blown by the winds of it all. Like, how do we get back on track? Like, how do we, you know, work with the inner compass? So you're talking about conviction and then the conditioning. And so I got kind of going back then to, yeah, how do we apply the inner compass or find it again and feel more aligned with who we are and who we can be? So-
This is where I want to first introduce the second part of the metaphor is that you have this inner compass and the question of when you feel aligned, how do you know you're aligned in the right direction? And the way I view it is that there's actually a magnet on top of the compass here. You could consider it what people may call metacognition or meta intuition of sorts, where essentially it's a magnet that's pulling on your pointer. And if it's tiny,
then when the winds of conditioning blow, the magnetism isn't strong enough. So you end up following your conditioning. But if it's bigger, it's more aligned. And even if the winds of conditioning are strong, you're still able to stay aligned and move forward. This magnet is what I refer to as self-understanding. The practice and exercise of knowing yourself. And the more you delve into that space, then the more you could be sure that where your intuition is pointing you towards is the right direction.
So, so it's the size of the magnet. We want to make that magnet bigger as a metaphor for self-understanding. Correct. Correct. And the whole, I think one of the greatest pursuits of life is to make that magnet bigger and bigger and stronger. So that way you can trust that your intuition is guiding you to the right place. But when I talk about intuition, I always say that it needs to be stress tested by reality to earn its reliability. You have to keep putting into contact with the outside world.
trust that it's learned the lessons required for it to be right. And a big part of that feedback loop is how your magnet grows. And the way in which you make it grow, I basically break it down into three pretty simple principles, which is to reflect, relate, and create. Reflect, relate, create. I think that these three words are very simple, but they house an abundance of detail. And
Each one of them tackle different parts of yourself and your relationship to the world. So, yeah. Yeah, no, that's great. I love it. I have an affinity for these things that come in threes. Reflect is great. I have a similar thing that comes in threes. Guess what the middle one is? Relate. In a different sort of sense, more in that idea sense. I think yours is also really grounded in relationships.
What's yours? Relate? Oh, so it's the three steps of sense-making, add new experiences or information, relate, so connect the dots, and then communicate, like express your thoughts, essentially. And so, but yeah, I see a very similar sort of pattern, but there are differences and there are nuances too. And again, one of the major goals with Inner Compass is self-understanding and
From what I understand from here, you're trying to say what you said at one point was it's kind of a tragedy that we understand so much of ourselves at the very end of our path. And then we pass away and who knows what's next. But your hope with the book is that we can understand ourselves a bit sooner and that we can have a way to further get there.
And that's where reflect, relate, and create can help with. Is that right? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, age and wisdom tend to be directly correlated because experience yields lessons, right? And lessons yield the experience you need. So I want to really break that. Like, I feel like in the end, education, the whole function of education is to break the correlation between age and wisdom. It's...
How do you shortcut that whole process so that you don't have to be 80 and 90 and then you're like, oh, dang, like now I just I understand what really matters and not just understand, but I know how to live that out. Right. Like, how do we do that earlier? So I feel like this three step process with reflect, relate, create really helps with that. So the first element of reflect really is to.
it's a more, it's a more solitary phenomenon where it's kind of more tied into your stereotypical archetype of what it means to know yourself, right? You know, you're kind of just in your own world and you're trying to figure out yourself. Um, so the danger of that though, is that you don't want to be stuck in your own mind when it comes to reflecting, right? You know, so I don't really advocate just meditating all the time and being alone and so forth. Like,
There has to be something kinetic for you to understand what's really at the root of yourself. Like you're trying to peel away all the conditioning that may be layered upon you and through the avenue of reflection, try to get there. And perhaps unsurprisingly, and I think you'll resonate with this too, I really point to the exercise of writing as a way to do that. And I had to think whether I was just biased towards this because I'm a writer, but I
and time again this is actually quite timeless wisdom it's actually been passed down through the ages of how writing serves as an avenue to understanding yourself and to knowing yourself better i mean journaling is the ultimate function is the if there is one thing that journaling helps you do most is to understand yourself because you're doing it for an audience of one maybe not even one because it might be zero because you might not even read it at the end and that gibberish is kind of the point
the point of the practice yeah it just becomes a gibberish but it's like a conversation it's in the moment and it's um pulling you out from the the stream of you know all the conditioning all the noise and then you have at least a moment where you're pulled out from it and i like the distinctions you're making between um journaling and writing as opposed to meditating both both are fine but they're totally not the same thing yes because
you had some good lines on like meditating. It's, it's not, you're not thinking your way through it. Yeah. Meditation is the absence of thought to achieve stillness. Whereas reflection is the usage of thought to achieve clarity. So they're very different. Meditation is more the art of doing nothing. Whereas reflection is a active, active,
activity that you engage in to understand your mind better. And it's very, so what I'm advocating for is the usage of thought, not the elimination of it. The problem though, is that people have a hard time doing that without getting trapped, without getting trapped in their minds. Right. They're like, well, I'm, I'm the intellect is producing my problem. So why am I relying upon it to solve my problems? And, and that's why I advocate writing.
because when you write and I had to make it clear again, it's just for yourself. Like you're taking any potential dam of doubt that you may have of like, Oh, people may see this. You're lowering that. And the way, and when you do that, you have a torrent of thoughts that could just come out and come out and come out. So you're going to lose a lot of order, but you're going to gain a ton of catharsis. There will be your, your thoughts are going to shine with so much vulnerability and honesty and
It's the act of doing that where you feel like you're in this oasis of time. It might just be 10 minutes, but you're plugged in to something else that is completely void of the world around you. And we rarely take the time to do that, right? Maybe we take some time to meditate, but once again, we rarely actually use our thoughts in a way that is completely divorced from the outside world.
but to take a small moment to do that gives you a touch point which is why i don't know i don't know how many people would describe the benefits of journaling right and it's because it works in that context it works what it does for you the clarity you get into who you are without the conditioning becomes so apparent when you do it so your book it sticks with mainly these timeless ideas so you don't go too heavy into tactics and everything but one that you did bring up was asking questions
such as why, going deep on why. I think that ties back to very early on is like what is the story? What are the stories I'm telling myself? You had a variation of what I said that was better. But how would you say for someone who's wondering, okay, I'm staring at the blank page that I'm about to type or the written page I'm about to write. How do I just get started? What am I supposed to say?
where do I go first? So let's start with kind of the general theory here. So I have to make a distinction between a diary and a journal because a lot of people don't see the benefit of journaling because they treat it as a diary. And a diary is more so the what's of life, what I did, right? What I felt, what I saw. So these are more of like a, it's more of like a log.
Yeah, it's more of a log of your life, right? And I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing, right? But what I want to encourage more of is a journal, which through my terminology is where you ask the whys of what you've experienced, right? So why did you feel a certain way? Why did you react that way? So I have an example of, for example, let's say you go to a work party and you felt kind of anxious at this party.
which a lot of people do when they go to these things. A diary would be more of like, today I went to a work party and I felt anxious. I don't like how I feel this way. This is time and time again, I feel this whenever I see these people. And something along those lines. A journal would be more about, okay, you could start with the what, but then start adding words like because or why. So it would be like, today I went to a work party and felt anxious all the time. Because...
The people that I see here don't seem to share the same value system as me. Mine is about following my curiosity, but all they talk about is how to make a ton of money. And then you could be like, well, so why do I keep putting myself in this position? I've been working here for five, six years. I have a decent amount of money saved up. Why do I keep tolerating these people? So you see how one is just a log of what you did.
and so forth, and that's where people scratch their heads and be like, well, what's the utility in that? The other is more so, yes, you have a log, but then you start asking yourself about your own behaviors, about your own patterns of thought. And a lot of time when you start cataloging all that out, you'll see that at the end of it, you're doing what you think you should be doing. That's why you're in this position. Yeah. I think that's so important and really excites me to kind of reflect on my own journaling. I think there's a lot of why in there, but I'm like, how can I even have more why?
Like, how can I even ask more questions? And you probably don't know this, but because is like the word that we, the one word habit I try to instill in linking your thinking, because it's the one word that moves us with certainty from consuming to creating. Because anything that's said after a because, it's you. Like, it has to be you. And so like, why and because, they're two sides of the same coin, right?
And I love that. It's not to be a know-it-all, but just to like throw something out there on the page, right? No one else is reading it. It's just, and then from that, okay, I like what I said. It's true. Or, oh, now that I see it, no, that's not really how I feel. It's more like this, but at least I have something to externalize and bounce off of. That's just a strong frame that everything after because is kind of you. And
There's this element of when you are able to pin down the why, the how starts to come about naturally. When you've identified the why, then you think of, all right, well, now that I know that, the way in which I could go about it becomes more clear. My why and how are so embedded together. But you have to get to the why first. You know, the why is really important before the tactics and all that stuff come about after. Yeah. And...
I just love that. I think that's so simple and practical for someone to pick up who's like new to journaling and kind of curious about how to get into it. And it's just like, okay, if I keep on asking why I felt a certain way, and then we're doing really important work too. Like it's emotion work, it's self work, which then ties all back to the core. One of the core themes is the self understanding that's so crucial. I'm curious, from reflect, we go into relate.
And, and how do you see that transition happening? Is it an overlap and what's happening in, in relate? So reflect is when you try to get to the unconditioned mind, right? Like who are you without the layers of the conditioning that's been placed on upon others? Like w what is the inherent you, however you may want to define that. And then relate becomes more about now that you understand yourself better.
Who are the people that you want to share this core with? And also, how do you want to treat people around you now that you had this higher level of realization about yourself? And the reason why I put a lot of emphasis in relate is because I feel that self-understanding is a communal affair. And the reason is that life is a single player game.
but meaning is derived on multiplayer mode. That is the truth. We live our lives in our own minds, our own heads. We have our own ideas and stuff, but everything you do has a ripple effect. It has an impact on someone else's life, no matter how small or big you think it is. And that impact is how you generate meaning. And that's why like, you know, you talk to parents or something, there's just this inherent meaning like,
I have, whatever I do has an impact on my child and people that create. Whatever idea I put out will have an impact in some sense. So meaning comes as a function of that, but you can't have it with other people, like without other people. Other people are such a crucial part of this whole process. And if you've done the work to remove the layers of conditioning, then what you start to do is to view people without that conditioning as well. And I focus a lot in the book about
the element of status and how our pursuit of status is one of the greatest hindrances to the ability to know oneself and the ability to treat people with compassion and so forth. I think there is a function of status because one thing you mentioned earlier, it's something you're trying to figure out. Who do I want to pay attention to? I have to have some sort of filtering mechanism there in place. But I'd argue that
The more of that filtering system you place on people in general, the more you're going to view your own status as your indicator of self-worth. This is you cannot divorce one from the other. So, yeah, you could have that filtering mechanism. Just realize, though, that you're probably going to have a greater capacity for envy. That's not going to go away because that's how you're choosing who to talk to or others. Right. That's the same barometer you're using. So you're going to use that same barometer for yourself. Yeah.
So that's it. That's interesting. I just, because I, you know, I, I agree with you and there's the online world and that's usually what we're referring to now. Um, I spent three years in New York city, uh, after growing up in Montana. And what was really interesting is that I had to like dial up my filtering mechanism while walking on the streets, essentially, instead of being completely open, like here, I can just go, Hey, how's it going? And I, in fact, I, I,
But right before our call here, I went to this place. It's kind of like a staple restaurant for a sandwich. And I recognized the guy's voice. Now, I'm back in Montana after like a 15-year or 13 years away, something like that. And he's like, hey, I know you. He's like, it's been a few years. I'm like, it's been more than a few years. He's like, you're Nick. I'm like, that's amazing. Wow.
Yeah. And so like, you know, you can have that conversation. Whereas in a place like New York city, you can't do that because you just passed 5,000 people in the span of like two hours on the subway and walking around the streets. And if you did that, you would just be like exhausted, like all that input on you. So then it's like, you have to like, yeah, I don't know what the answers are here, but like you have to put up some sort of
armor or filtering mechanism in those sort of situations, or else you'll be kind of like ran over. But it doesn't serve us well. There's a flip side to it, perhaps, in that now we're judging. Now we're, you know, threat assessing. Okay, is this someone I should ignore, not make eye contact with? Is it someone I should, you know, try to, at a social event, seek out, have a good conversation with, impress them? And...
Yeah, I would just say it's not black and white with when that conditioning is taking over one, the way that, at least myself, I would move through the world. I'm like, okay, where's this coming from? And it might be, oh, suddenly it's less inner compass. And it helped me navigate the streets of New York, but now in a social event or online or somewhere else, it's still the thing that's guiding me.
as opposed to a more internal source, perhaps. I don't know, I'm just kind of like spitballing some thoughts here. That makes total sense. I mean, it really is a paradox where you understand, you have the knowledge that, yeah, there has to be a better way than this. But when you're actually out in the world, there's the reality of your survival mechanism going online. And there's the reality of, well, hey, I want to keep progressing in my life.
path as a creator and so forth, and the circles that I'm seeking are this as opposed to this. It's a tension for sure to have to navigate. And I think in your response was kind of the answer or in what you just said, in the sense that I feel like when you're using survival as the North Star here, then you're not going to override that. It's not really conditioning.
Survival and conditioning are two different things. I think survival is more so, hey, I just want to make sure that I'm okay, that my physical frame is okay. And everything in your body is alerting you of moments where it could go astray. Whereas conditioning, and that's why I make a point in the book to talk about psychological suffering. And that's more so how you choose to view your surroundings in the sense of your own
what you may consider to be psychological survival, but it really is just another way of you feeling like I want to keep progressing in this thing. And that's the trick is that survival at some point becomes subjective, especially in our world. Um, survival becomes more about preservation than it becomes accumulation. Like how do I just keep what I have? How do I continue doing this? And this actually reminds me of a Kendrick Lamar line.
He has this, he talks about in, it's in To Pimp a Butterfly, but he talks about how when he didn't have money, he was kinder to those that didn't have money. Like he was more open to giving homeless people money and so forth. And he's like, now that I'm rich, I find myself disassociating more and more, walking away more, not engaging and stuff. And I thought that that was a very,
self-aware thing for him to say, you know, like he's like, I don't have the answers to get out, but I recognize this pattern in myself. And there's something interesting going on here as a result. And I really think what's happening in there is some form of conditioning that makes you feel like you are in this particular space now in this social circle, whatever. So you have to remove yourself from everybody else. I think that is continuously happening. And when I argue for compassion,
what I'm trying to do here is that if you have an opportunity to exercise that compassion, then exercise it. And that's different. If you're in New York city, walking around, there's 5,000 people around you. You don't really, the opportunity may reside in a simple thing like opening the door for someone or, you know, like regardless of who's coming through, you operate the turnstile and let them through whatever it might be. But whenever there's an opportunity, I think it's important to take it regardless of who,
who you may be helping or not. And that's what I mean by compassion. I don't really mean being nice and trying to embrace everyone. I think compassion has a hard edge to it too, which is when the opportunity is there, then you can exercise that element of kindness for somebody. I haven't heard compassion having a hard edge, but I like that. And I think it, I think I feel it too, because having a hard edge and sort of that motion that you're making,
ties back to discernment. And I can't remember the root word exactly, but it is something like to, to slice, um, you know, or something, but there's like that. There's that. Yeah. That awareness of when is the right time? Can I act in the right way? Um, I mean, we value honesty, right? Like we, we want people that love us to be honest with us. And when you're saying, be honest with me, you're saying that,
cut through it even if it's going to hurt and that's why that's not the same thing as being nice but that is an act of compassion there's a difference yeah that's good let's let's cover the third one create yeah we love that one yeah that one seems pretty natural um at least in this kind of sphere of like creators and sharing things online um i know it goes way way
broader and more basic than that, too, though. So okay, we've reflected, we've related relationships, then how does create fall into this, this kind of way of self understanding? Yeah, I view create as the way to bridge the domains of reflection and relationship seamlessly. So if reflection is more of an internal understanding of self,
and relate is all about how you show up for others and you trying to build your small world that you would like to see really through your own values. Then creativity is the vessel that makes that happen. It's what allows those two domains to go fluidly in between one another. And that's because it's a form of sharing. It's a form of sharing what you've learned. It's a form of sharing your value system with others. And if that resonates with other people, then what you end up having is
these unconditioned cores that are kind of resonating with one another and this unfiltered perception of who you are. So the biggest thing about creation is agency. And this is a word that I refer to over and over again, but agency ultimately is about it stemming from your true curiosities and interests, right? And that's how you, that's how you see what a creative act is. So some people might say, Oh,
A painter is a creative person, but it depends on why he paints. Like if he's painting because let's say his mom is some famous painter and she expects him to carry on the family name. Is it a creative act now? I don't know. It might just be a job for him. As opposed to something like this, where we're just talking. Like if we were just picked up the phone and we were talking, maybe that wouldn't be a creative act. We wouldn't consider that. But the fact that there's two microphones and we're doing this
Um, we set the intention here to talk about something that intentionality is what makes this a creative act and intentionality is nothing more than agency. That's what agency is. Right. So anything where you feel like you are doing it from your own curiosities, your own interests, and you're doing it with intention, that is a form of creativity. So.
I really encourage creativity as a form of self-understanding and knowing yourself, because when you do that, you start to kind of build your own car to navigate the world. And you could choose the passengers you want to be around, which is the greatest part of this whole journey. Um, and that's why creativity is like never a solo affair. Like you have to have everyone involved. You have to have different people involved, and then you have to do it through the form of your own self-expression. Um,
And of course, I think the pursuit of mastery has to be layered upon there because once you start pursuing status through this, then a lot of times it doesn't become an avenue of self-expression. It becomes a way to make up for a deficiency in self-worth. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So agency, if you say I have to do something, then it's almost like that agency, you know, it might still be in somewhat of control of what you're doing, but it's with a different intention. Um,
probably less curiosity. You know, you're like trying to drag your feet through it. Therefore, creativity itself might not be what it could be. And agency is such a powerful word. It really, really is. And then having other people involved versus just yourself and the effects that that has on creativity. All right, so there's something near the...
end of the book and I think this is again about envy and it's like you talk about the dog chasing and catching the car it's like okay what does the dog do when it actually catches the car and two things one is keep yourself busy by chasing another car or learn that this entire chase is pointless and you had just some amazing drawings and that's the thing that anyone who's just listening
this has has no idea but Lawrence is an amazing has such a your whole style and in the writing in this book is it's like simple profound and so i was doing a lot of underlining and i just got it and i'm just like okay this and this and the way you say that and how you're defining the terms it's really admirable because some of these drawings near the end it's about this hike up
hill it's not a super steep hill but it's not flat either it's like you know there's some terrain there that you have to traverse and so when you talked about the chase i was like ah the hike is greater than the chase and i was like okay like everything and that makes more sense if you read the book but it's just yeah i think this is going to i and i hope i hope this is a bit of a
sleeper hit and I think it's one of those that's going to have a long tail as more and more people become aware of it because it's hitting all the right notes for me and I know I'm not alone and I know that what I'm suffering or dealing with on a day in day out basis is a shared experience something that you've hit on
So I don't know, just to kind of close this one out, I'm so grateful that we are able to share this moment, get together and talk about the inner compass, cultivating the courage to trust yourself and just going beyond that too. So just everything with your style, it's fun and it's creative. I have one question before we wrap up and that's this guy that you made, this like little symbol,
A happy boy, perhaps. I don't know if that's how you think about it. But I couldn't help but notice in our email exchanges, in one of your last emails, you did like the happy face sideways, which is an equal sign and a parentheses. And then I looked at this guy completely different. I thought, is that how you got the look? That's funny you ask that. You know what's interesting is I drew that thing when I was probably like eight years old.
Oh, no way. Yeah, it was this character I thought about when I was a kid. And when I started doing more to that, I just decided to incorporate him just as like a throwback to like, hey, this is from my childhood. And like, I want to keep imbuing what I'm doing with that, like curiosity. And I had no idea, of course, that you would, or it would, you know, like find its way to so many different people's minds and so forth. But I always like to joke that if, you know, my
30 something year old self saw like my eight years of eight year olds drawing and be like, it's still going to be the same. That's your drawing style. It's there that you might kind of laugh at that. But I'm glad that, you know, the character had another use outside of what I was doing in my childhood with it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it just evokes, you know, curiosity. Absolutely. For sure. And much more.
Um, yeah, just as we're wrapping up Lawrence, this is amazing. Um, any, any final words or, you know, uh, where can we learn more and, and, you know, learn about your work and more of your messaging? Yeah. So my digital home is more to that.com. Um, I write a lot of essays, stories, blog posts. I just, I say, I like to write illustrated stories on the human condition, however broad that may be defined. And the inner compass is my first book.
And thanks, Nick, for chatting about it, for reading it, for spending some of your attention with me and on the book. And I hope people enjoy it. Yeah. Well, thank you, Lawrence. I hope they do, too, because it is phenomenal. And you should be really proud internally. And I'm excited to see what type of impact this has on others. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Thanks for tuning into this episode of How I Think. We'll be sure to add all the links and resources we mentioned in the video description or show notes, depending on the platform you're watching or listening from. And if you're curious for more, then feel free to check out another episode. I'll see you there.