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The Smoke Trail, hosted by Smoke Wallin, is a journey into awakening consciousness, weaving authentic stories and deep discussions with inspiring guests to unlock high performance and perfect health. Each episode delves into spirituality, leadership, and transformation, offering tools to transcend trauma and find your bliss along the way. It’s a reflective space for achieving peak potential and inner peace in a distraction-filled world.
Welcome to the Smoke Trail hosted by Smoke Wallin. Join Smoke on a unique journey of awakening consciousness, sharing authentic stories and deep discussions with inspiring guests. Explore spirituality, leadership, and transformation, tools to elevate your path.
Lobo:It's good to live where other people think of as a vacation place, which is what you're doing.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Smoke:You know, I think about that back in the day and when Draper when Bill Draper pulled the trigger and made a small investment in eSky in our series a, and, like, that unlocked the floodgates for everyone else. I mean, we we had, like, our, you know, wealthy friend group and different
Lobo:The industry. The
Smoke:industry people. Not the tech people. We didn't have, like we we didn't have Silicon Valley. And when Bill Draper wrote a small check, that unlocked it, and that's what ended up getting us Hamrick and Quist. Remember?
Smoke:Yeah. And we're we're already live, so, you know, we're just rolling with it. We're we're live on the smoke trail with the one and only Andrew Lobo, longtime dear friend of smoke. And, you know, it's been a long time coming. We
Lobo:Thirty four years, Holmes. That's over half of our lifetimes.
Smoke:Yes. It is. Well, no. Well, that depends on how long you think we live, but, you know, this in this in this in this realm, in this
Lobo:As you one of your pre questions was about spirituality. And as I said, I have nothing against it, but I'm not a spiritual person. I was born, and I'll die.
Smoke:Well, it's, it's it's interesting because your answers you know, one could be very spiritual with those answers, or not apparently. So that's okay. Yeah. It's
Lobo:Yeah. As the French say.
Smoke:Yeah. Exactly. Well, the smoke trail is not just about spirituality, but it is about being true to self and true to our core being and living right and good and, you know, for whatever we have. And I think, we can have a good conversation around that.
Lobo:Yeah. Absolutely.
Smoke:Thirty four years ago, I think Kathleen Turner came to both of us and said, you gotta meet Andrew Lobo. He he worked for Seagram and and, she said to you, you gotta meet Smokey. He's in the liquor business. And, and so there was there was a friendship struck by someone who connected us from the alcohol industry and at that time, we were a fairly good sized Seagram distributor and you had just left Segram to go to business school to Correct. To broaden your your abilities beyond accounting.
Smoke:I remember distinctly that your mission or your your stated objective was I already know finance. I already know accounting. I wanna I wanna be able to get into marketing and other areas of business and broaden my my appeal.
Lobo:Yep. Absolutely. And and and, you know, ended up in, in HR, without forgetting any of the other stuff, which has influenced me certainly in terms of people picking and choosing career paths. In other words, what you think or plan may not happen. But yeah.
Lobo:Yeah. But that's exactly right. No. As I said, accounting was a great place to start. It's a language of business.
Lobo:It's always useful to be able to compare, financials for any company across industries and across the world. But ultimately, accounting is about looking backwards, and I wanted to do stuff that was looking forwards.
Smoke:But it as you say, I really so I'm a huge fan of Scott Adams who's the creator of Dilbert. Remember the Yeah. The cartoon, but he Yeah.
Lobo:I know.
Smoke:I mean, I”m a fan of his and he's got a whole thing, you know, what in one of his books or, you know, his philosophy of talent stack. And it's not I don't think he invented it, but he, you know, he he really framed it in a great way, which is if you, if you are able to add different skill sets to your talent stack, before you know it, you're in the top 1% of all people capable of contributing because you have these different layers of ability. And I think that's a great example. Like, you know, you had the accounting, you had your CPA, you knew finance, and then, you know, came back a good reason to go to business school is broaden your your your talent stack and add other other layers to it.
Lobo:Yep. Absolutely. And and and and business school was the way to pivot. It might have been difficult if I had not gone to business school to pivot into strategy consulting directly. Yeah.
Lobo:But business school allowed me then to do the strategy consulting pivot, which then led me to do some marketing consulting work, some internal consulting, and then that led to HR. And Well, you're
Smoke:skipping you're skipping a a huge, swath of entrepreneurship where you we work together on some projects.
Lobo:So Well, I I I didn't skip because when I first got into HR, that was Coca Cola. And I left Coca Cola to start East Sky with you.
Smoke:That's right.
Lobo:So that was the next step.
Smoke:I forget when you had the director comma or director human capital planning. Comma was important for some reason in the Well,
Lobo:comedy. Yes. My title was director, comma, human capital planning because I had no direct reports, but I was director level. If I had direct reports, it would have been director of Human Capital Planet. Okay.
Lobo:So yes, very important.
Smoke:Yeah. I don't know. I remember that nuance. Was pretty funny. Well, so one one of the cool things about your talent stack, Andrew, is, you know, your background and you grew up, you know, you your family, first of all, were Pakistani Christians that that moved migrated to The UK, right, originally into On my father's side.
Smoke:Yep. Your father's side. And you grew up in The UK until you guys moved to New Jersey for high school?
Lobo:Correct.
Smoke:Okay.
Lobo:Well, for three months of high school. I had Oh, just the
Smoke:just the end.
Lobo:Yeah. Just the end. Yeah. And I'll never forget because I had to literally learn a year's worth of US history in in those three months. That was the one thing they wouldn't give me credit from my education in England because we didn't really study US history in England.
Lobo:So but, you know, this is a joke for anyone who might get sensitive, but, luckily, there isn't that much US history. So
Smoke:No. I mean, you know, the well, no. Not compared to England, for sure. Yeah. And they don't like to, you know, recount their losses either.
Lobo:Okay. I shall I shall refrain from following this tangent any further.
Smoke:Okay. Alright. But I but I do think, you know, interesting cultural background, having spent a lot of time in your formative years in England and then jumping into The US and, you know, jumping almost right out of that, you went to college. You went to Saint Peter's College in New Jersey.
Lobo:Yep.
Smoke:I remember you telling me why it was such a great platform or experience for you versus trying to go to some big name university. Yeah. The
Lobo:and it's something that's informed my thoughts on universities ever since. Saint Peter's College is not really very well known nationally
Smoke:at all.
Lobo:I don't know whether it's on any kind of national rankings of any sort other than it's a Jesuit school like Notre Dame. But you know who did know who Saint Peter's College was? Every one of the big eight at the time accounting firms. Yeah. And they all actively recruited out of Saint Peter's College.
Lobo:And they had Saint Peter's College had had a honors program where if you did well, you essentially got an internship with one of the big eight. And so I did well. I got my internship with one of the big eight, and that led to my accounting career. And so to me, the prestige of a college might be important, but it probably isn't as important as is that college well known to a bunch of local businesses.
Smoke:It's really a practical, you know, view of of a of a college education and and, you know, you've got you've got a couple kids that are now out out of college age and or beyond and out in the workforce. And, you know, I you know my four who have all successfully traversed that terrain and gotten out. But a lot of kids, I think, over the last especially the last couple decades who, you know, even going back to when we went to school, who, you know, went to college with no specific purpose in mind, borrowed a lot of money, maybe to get a big name name on their on their, you know, resume, whatever, but they weren't really thinking resume. And they got out and realized, like, how do I even pay for this? How much this like, like, it's completely upside down.
Smoke:The economics of higher education have gotten totally out of whack. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I gotta be careful. I mean, one of my
Lobo:the things I noticed in America is is again, I've been here more than twice as long as I was in England, but that was my formative years. But what I what I noticed is the number one god status in America appears to me to be physicians, but the number two is professors. And the idea that anyone could say anything negative about colleges is, you know, it's almost people pathologize that as something bad that your your statement is right on. I said, is college useful? For a lot of people, it is.
Lobo:Is it a positive ROI? For a lot of people, it is. But for a reasonable number of people, it may not be. Yeah. And then, oh, by the way, that's not even taking into account what's gonna happen in the future regarding AI.
Lobo:Yeah. You know, you've got people thinking about going to college now, wondering what the heck's gonna be on the other side of this. You've obviously got people currently in the workforce wondering what the heck's gonna become of my role. And so those roles which require hands and brains, historically, they've been called trades, are going to be more and more interesting all of a sudden, and and they don't need a college degree. I got a friend who was telling me a ten week certification will qualify you to be a wind turbine maintenance person, and the people that graduate those programs get instantly hired at $75 a year.
Smoke:Yeah.
Lobo:This this subject of college is kind of the thing that I sort of like to do, which is question orthodoxy. You know, there was a book a long time ago called The Wisdom of Crowds. And and while most, if not everything in that book was true, it doesn't always mean that what the crowd thinks is right.
Smoke:Oh, we know that from the investment crowd.
Lobo:Well, yes. Yes. And then you you can there's many examples of the crowd not being right. I mean Yeah. Apartheid in South Africa for god's sake.
Lobo:So but I like to do that. I mean, it's a I actually use it as an active analytical technique. So, like, what's everyone else say? Let me take the direct opposite and make the case for that. And then if I can, great.
Lobo:But if I can't, at least I've tested the opposite. Well,
Smoke:that that's that's one of the, I think, hallmarks of actual intelligence. And, you know, we we we've had a lot of years of debating various ideas, concepts, you know, ideas for new businesses, ideas for, you know, just lots of things. And you said it. I think you're the one that emphasized this that made me remember it, which was the whole purp what is the purpose of debate? It it it's progress, not victory.
Lobo:Yep. My second favorite quote. Yeah. By By Joseph Tschubert.
Smoke:Okay. And I use it all the time, and I never attribute it to him or you. But, you know
Lobo:And by the way, just to be clear I give
Smoke:you I give you credit here.
Lobo:I I appreciate that. I do appreciate that. And by the way, the the the that's not just Hubert that said that. Right? So first of all, you've got Hegel's dialectic.
Lobo:Right? Very famous philosopher who who basically said without revolution, there could be no progress. Then you've got Socrates that learned everything he knew by arguing and, again, arguing in philosophical sense. Right? You've got the fact that the Socratic method is used in every case law, law school case ever and the vast majority of business school cases.
Lobo:Yep. Right? Just, again, argument, it's the most efficient and useful way to actually get learning progress. And and so, yes, it's worth emphasizing, I think.
Smoke:Yeah. And and I I I this is not a rant about, like, society in general. I actually think anyone who's legitimately comes at any issue with an open mind and a level a degree of integrity with their intelligence welcomes debate. They you know, we want to know because I wanna know, like, what are the different angles of this issue that, can inform me that I may make the best choice to make this best decision in regard to whatever the topic is.
Lobo:Oh, yeah. I mean, this one isn't by Joubert. This is by Lobo. I say I say the loser of an argument is actually the winner because they're the only one that's actually learned something.
Smoke:That's a good one. I mean, it's lumpy.
Lobo:I should I I should look it up just in case somebody else has said
Smoke:it before, but I think I did make that one up. Well, since there are since thoughts are actual forms, thoughts are just energy. Right? And they're they're actual thought forms. Right?
Smoke:There there's a there's a whole book on thought forms. I don't know if you've ever read it, but it's really interesting. Alice Bailey wrote a bunch of interesting books back in the early nineteen hundreds, and one of them is on thought forms. And it's basically talking about every thought, every emotion is basically an energy. And there's there's an actual form, and they in this book, you can you can be a skeptic or not, but it's like they actually had a bunch of test cases where people had different types of thoughts like gratitude and love or anger and hate.
Smoke:And they had some people who had the ability to kind of see I don't know if they could see auras. They could see, you know, kind of the energetic footprint around people. And they were able to actually describe these and they have illustrations in the book of different types of thought forms. You know? And as you can imagine, thoughts of gratitude, thoughts of love, thoughts of, you know, kindness are beautiful, symmetrically shaped, beautiful, you know, and nice colors.
Smoke:And then thoughts of anger, jealousy, guilt, shame are usually kind of, you know, bad forms and, you know, irregular forms and weird colors. And it was really interesting, fascinating actually, that that that was actually a book that was out.
Lobo:Well, I mean, the whole the whole thing about thinking I mean, I said that the proposal debates progress, not victory was my second favorite quote. My favorite quote is thinking is the hardest work there is, which probably explains why so few people do it. And that was that was Henry Ford.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, because and this is a good good area of illumination. You know, the vast majority of people and if you think kind of David Hawkins power power versus force and some of that, I think I mentioned it to you, but I've become a big student of his. And in his book power versus force and subsequent books, you know, he did a lot of analysis, and he basically came up with approximately eighty percent of the population lives below the 200 level of consciousness, which in his scale, you know, there's different ways of looking at it, but they all kinda match up no matter all the different schools.
Smoke:You know, they're kind of starting at low emotions like shame and guilt and going up to anger as part more stronger and till you get to neutrality and then you get above that. And 80% of the population at the time of his writ that writing were below 200. And what that means is they are living as a mechanical animalistic entity, which is which basically has literally no free will, which we'll talk about that. But you have no free will if you're only responsive to the stimuli that come to you, which is in another way of saying lack of thinking, like, you know, in in another from another lens. But, you know, if you if we are, unable to create a separation between a stimuli and a response, then we're just we're no different than an animal or a machine that just responds automatically by our programming, by our emotion, by by our feelings.
Smoke:And but if we can create that separation, even at just a little daylight, you can take your time, look at all the options, select the optimal option from what information you have, And that would be the to me, the a definition of thinking the way you're talking about it.
Lobo:Yeah. And and and I am you know, thinking from an overall consciousness standpoint is one thing. As I think about thinking, it's it's kind of yeah. I try and channel myself into sort of business more than life, which, obviously, they're not a 100% separate. But and so the the lack of what I would call thinking that I've seen in my career is is well, it's not surprising anymore.
Lobo:And I'll give you two quick examples where you can have evidence of of lack of thinking. The first is whenever somebody says, let's not reinvent the wheel. It's like, you know the wheel's been reinvented about 17 times? Mhmm. Like, it used to be a piece of rock, and then it was a piece of wood.
Lobo:And then they added a rim to it, and then they put spokes on it. You know? And on and on and on and on. So somebody's saying that let's not reinvent a wheel means I don't wanna actually think of a way to Right. Make this make this better.
Lobo:The other and the other one, of course, is, we tried that before it didn't work. You know, if you think about a strategy or an opportunity.
Smoke:Yeah.
Lobo:So, okay, why didn't it work? Was it the strategy or opportunity? Was it the execution? Was it the macroeconomic environment? Was it the lack of technology to enable it?
Lobo:Right? So just saying you tried it before it didn't work, again, to me is a is a common example of lack of thinking.
Smoke:Yeah. And and, you know, while I have dealt with large corporations my whole career always from the outside. Now sometimes at a high level, sometimes, you know, negotiating with, doing deals with, being in business with, but I will always always on the outside for different reasons we could talk about. But you you lived a bunch of your career inside those giant entities, both, you know, inside the actual corporations doing stuff like Coca Cola and other big companies and also in the advisory role, you know, where you were in big organizations advising those corporations. Right?
Smoke:So you you lived in that corporate environment for a long time where you people I think people who aren't in business and which, you know, this this is a little bit I mean, I think it's our audience crosses over various people and, you know, certainly crosses into the corporate world. But there's a lot of people that are not in that world that just look at it and say, oh, all these big corporations, they they have all the power. They have all the knowledge. They have all the resources, and, you know, they just do whatever they want. But but the reality is inside those organizations, it's why Dilbert was so successful and it is so funny because Scott was in big corporations and he just started making commentary in the form of cartoons around the idiocy of those big organizations.
Smoke:And
Lobo:and and let's look. Let's be clear. Jerry Seinfeld's success is 100% based on him seeing the humor in everyday things.
Smoke:Yeah.
Lobo:Right? So it doesn't mean those things are, you know, bad. It means that you can look at them in a humorous light. Yeah. They they they call it observational humor.
Lobo:Right. You're observing life. You're observing behavior. And and and so it's the same thing inside of a a big corporation. And, oh, by the way, I learned this actually at East Sky.
Lobo:You don't need a big corporation to have corporate politics. You just need three people.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. Any any any small group of people can can can screw anything up, I guess, or can create drama around it. Right?
Lobo:Yes. He didn't invite me to his meeting. Whatever. Wow.
Smoke:Yeah. Well, that's the that's that's good stuff. Well, on the the AI thing and and replacing jobs, I just saw something where some somebody at a big law firm said that they're seeing AI output in some of these specialized AI programs that are kind of designed for law. They're seeing like output that is superior, better research, better reason, better, you know, kind of checks every box than than any other two year, you know, recent lawsuit graduates are are doing. Great stuff.
Smoke:I'm not talking about, like, just general chat. You know? But they have, you know, specialized environments where they're loading all the case history and everything else.
Lobo:No. AI is following the same kind of dynamics as most things, whether it's computers, whether it you know, remember, we weren't meant to have paper anymore, the Internet. And that means that it is overexaggerated by some. It is underexaggerated by others. And the two case examples of that of each or the one case from each of those that I've seen and by the way, it might all be different by the end of today because it's changing.
Lobo:But, you know, agentic AI, which is, you know, where AI will control the whole process or or autonomously, twenty four seven, yada yada yada, is being overhyped. It's not doing as well as everybody's saying it will do. And will it ever do that? I wouldn't bet against it. But right now, there's problems.
Lobo:But on the flip side, generative AI I mean, I hear these people saying, oh, it's it's not creative, and, oh, it doesn't know how to write. Well, it writes better than other people I know. And creative. I had some fun just the other day. I said, pretend I'm a local heating and air conditioning company.
Smoke:Yep.
Lobo:Write me a slogan. And it came back with, have you heard the term health freezes over? We can make that happen.
Smoke:That's good. Thanks. Good.
Lobo:I thought that was pretty good.
Smoke:Yeah. No. It's and I I I think it's great for, like, ideation, brainstorming, you know, any topic. It you know? And if you frame the question right, that's there and that's a skill.
Smoke:Like, how do you ask it Of course. Properly? You can quickly generate a tremendous and and good list of ideas that then can be explored further.
Lobo:Well, and you and you and you actually skipped over a word that I think is absolutely critical when it comes to generative AI, and that's the word quickly.
Smoke:Yeah. In
Lobo:other words, people love to go on about the hallucinations. Oh, it's an error. Oh, my goodness. All the hallucinations. Guess what?
Lobo:You can have five hallucinations, fix them, still have the final product done in a tenth of the time it would have taken you to do all by yourself. The speed with which it does everything is a humongous component of the value, not just the accuracy. And and and, oh, by the way, in in same way that you can look at and fix hallucinations, you can also expand the sort of opportunity case. Like, I don't have the the time to look at 10 different options of something, maybe two or three. AI can look at 10 options.
Lobo:No problem. And then I just have to say which one's the best. But yeah.
Smoke:And and I think also, you know, that that does have hallucinations, but that's because it's been trained know, it's garbage. It didn't go Right. Out of the screen on garbage. But as I'm seeing more and more, you know, walled garden versions where, you know, companies or people, just individuals, you can take chat and you can create your own little thing. I I have a friend who loaded up he took the Harvard negotiation class.
Smoke:He did a bunch of other negotiation stuff. He had all this material, and he loaded it all into his own little negotiating pod. And he's been using it to help him with deals and, like, what should I think of? And it's, like, lightning fast giving him quick lists of, like, here's all the things that to think about.
Lobo:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the the and and it's it's interesting because people are almost personifying it. You know? And I probably do as well when I'm talking to it, by the way.
Lobo:Yeah. But the the when they when they say talk about hallucinations, and you say, well, garbage in, garbage out. A lot of the hallucinations come from inaccurate reporting. So for example, four or five months ago, IBM announced that because of AI, they could see up to 8,000 jobs being impacted in the next few years. All of the business periodicals and regular periodicals printed AI is gonna lay off 8,000 people, due to AI.
Lobo:And so when I asked about that five months later, that's what AI told me. Now it just so happens that I asked AI about that about a week after IBM did announce they were laying off 200 people because of AI. And so I was like, okay. But, again, instead of criticizing the original journalism, you know, it's like criticizing AI.
Smoke:Well, we we we know and I mean, I I've been in the press more than most and you've been around quite a bit. And we know how stories get written. And so, you know, back in the day when we did Eastguy and you know, we got a tremendous amount of press around that venture, which was almost universally positive. But we know how those stories got written. And we realized that and this is not a slam against all journalists, but we realized that most journalists at the time, maybe probably today too, but were kinda lazy.
Smoke:They didn't wanna do their they didn't wanna do a lot of work. So if we would write the story for them or in essence give them most of the story in chunks and then let them know that that they can basically, you know, use whatever they want and it can be theirs and, you know, we would get what we wanted. There's a thing called the gel mananasia effect. Have you heard of this? It's it it's basically, when I read something in, say, the New York Times, I might I probably won't, but, know, let's say the Wall Street Journal, I might believe the story because I don't know it's about health care industry or it's about, you know, some topic I'm not an expert in.
Smoke:And I read the story, it looks plausible, and I'm like, oh, that I believe that headline. Right. But if it's my industry and I read it, I know exactly who wrote it, where it came from, and I know what's wrong, what's right. And it's called the gel man amnesia effect. We we tend to believe stories that we see without it doing any kind of, like, critical analysis if it's something that we're not, you know, around.
Smoke:But if it's something we know, we know it's wrong. Like, we all that's a false story. That's a that's completely inaccurate. We know, you know, where they got that information. It's not right.
Smoke:And it if you think about it, it's kind of across every topic. It's it's It's And
Lobo:and and and and the irony is but that statement is currently the experts around AI.
Smoke:Yeah. No.
Lobo:I I I I I don't think there is one, including Sam Altman, by the way.
Smoke:Yeah. Everybody everybody's spinning their take on it. I mean, they have they have deep knowledge about their what they're doing and, and also they have gaps and they're just making it up as they go.
Lobo:Invested interest in in promoting a certain a certain, you know, kind of story. The
Smoke:author Michael Crayton Yeah. He's the one that coined that term.
Lobo:Oh, okay. That guy's interesting. He's he's done a lot of sort of books that are deeper than a surface level reading would would convey.
Smoke:You know who I I've become a fan of is Walter Kern. Do you know that guy?
Lobo:How do you spell that name?
Smoke:K I r n or k e r n. He he wrote, like, Up In The Air, which became a movie and some other he he's written some big novels, you know, fiction, but about real life things. But he he has a news platform with Michael Tiabe and they they criticize the news a lot. But he's got a really interesting take but he's a he's a writer first. Right.
Smoke:So I would say someone who thinks, You know, you can't like, one of the one of the best things about writing, even if it's, in your journal, writing just writing stuff is it makes you think it makes you have to understand something at a deeper level if you're gonna write about it. Well yeah. And it's even without teaching someone something. Right? If we wanna if you if you teach someone something, you know whether you know it.
Smoke:And you'll usually you learn it at a much deeper level when you try to explain something to someone rather than just, oh, I got that. Yeah. I understand it. I read it. It makes sense.
Smoke:But now okay. Now stand up in front of a group and explain that idea to someone. Yeah. It's a whole different level of, of knowledge.
Lobo:Look. It that takes me back into something I've never ever forgotten, which is one of the reasons why I hope I write reasonably well, is I'll never forget o level chemistry. And when you had to write up an experiment and what you wrote had to be good enough that somebody who had never done the experiment could read what you wrote, repeat the experiment, and get the same result.
Smoke:Yeah.
Lobo:And and that kind of clarity and conciseness is critically important, I think.
Smoke:Oh, for sure. You know, that's that that makes me think of, like, just the null hypothesis and coming up with a thesis of whatever thing you're talking about, whatever it is. Right? Coming up with, okay. Disprove the null hypothesis to prove you know, to to to, you know, create evidence
Lobo:Oh, the the idea. Yeah.
Smoke:Yeah. But, like, that that scientific method and that level of thinking, boy, I don't I don't think that that's being taught a lot.
Lobo:No. It's it's it's not. And I literally recently wrote a a LinkedIn post, and I called it the the revenge of the humanities. Obviously, tongue in cheek. Right?
Lobo:And it's like it's like AI is very, very, very good at everything math, engineering, you know, calculus, whatever. Right? But I e, all the nonhumanity stuff. What AI isn't as good at is the more human stuff. And so analysis rather than math is actually what humanity students do.
Lobo:For example, write about write an essay about the character arc of Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. Right? So to do that task, you have to read a whole bunch of information. Out of that information, you've got to select just the information that's gonna be useful to your hypothesis, then you have to actually put that together in a coherent and concise form to convey your idea and your Yeah. Hypothesis to the reader.
Lobo:And that kind of analysis is gonna be continue to be very, very useful in business in the age of AI because
Smoke:Honestly, I think that's something that it could do pretty well. Let's try it. Alright. I have Brock right here.
Lobo:Okay.
Smoke:I'm just gonna as an experiment because I and I don't know that I've read that book in high school, so I don't remember anything. So what the question is, give it give us the character arc
Lobo:of Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice.
Smoke:Give us the character arc in of Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. And then who is it who are you explaining it to?
Lobo:Your your this is a paper that you wanna submit to a professor.
Smoke:In the form of a paragraph that would be representative of a paper I would present to a professor who is deeply knowledgeable of Pride and Prejudice. Okay. We'll just see what Grock comes up with just as a fun live experiment.
Lobo:Is Grok your your your
Smoke:You know, I use chat and Grok a lot. And and I what I the it's already done, by the way. But, so I'm gonna answer it. But I what I do is and I play around a little bit with the Google one, but I haven't I just, it's a matter of time factor. It's like the and they're all, like, jump leapfrogging each other.
Smoke:I I'm I'm enjoying Grok more now. Like, it seems to have really stepped up, but they keep they keep advancing. But what I'll do is if I'm working on something, like, say, I have a client, in my m and a practice where I need to understand an industry and I wanna I'm trying to come up with options of who might be a strategic buyer. Right? That's a common thing in my world.
Smoke:It's so great in terms of speed. And I'll do I'll ask it very precisely in chat, get an answer. I'll ask it precisely in Grock, get an answer. And then I'll take those answers and I'll put them in the each other and I'll say, hey. Critique my thoughts on this and what am I missing?
Smoke:And all of a sudden I get and then I've got, woah. And then I and then I'll like, so it's it's next level by combining the things.
Lobo:Right. Yeah. No. No. No.
Lobo:It's smart. I mean, I I I also do it. I use I use, minor perplexity Claude and and and Chad.
Smoke:Alright. But yeah. You you're the professor.
Lobo:Yeah.
Smoke:Elizabeth Bennett, the vivacious and intellectually astute protagonist of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice embodies a complex interplay of wit, prejudice, and moral growth that critiques the regency era constraints on women and marriage. As the second daughter in a family beset by entailment and social precariousness, Elizabeth distinguishes herself through her sharp observational acume and irreverent humor often deploying irony to navigate the absurdities of her milieu, evident in her playful banter with mister Darcy and her incisive dismissal of mister Collins' pompous proposal. And it goes on.
Lobo:So it didn't answer the question?
Smoke:I don't know.
Lobo:Discussed the arc of her character.
Smoke:Oh, did I ask that right? I said give us the character of Elizabeth. I didn't say that. I'm no. Alright.
Smoke:User error. I I made a bad anyway, I I'm not so sure it's not good.
Lobo:No. No. No. The the but, again, don't don't don't misunderstand. The I the ability to do that in something that isn't based on a book that already exists with a thousand articles written about it.
Lobo:In other words, you're you're thinking about entering a new industry. Could you use Gen I to help you? Don't get me wrong. Yes. But figuring out what prompts to write, what prompts to write about, right, getting the the information back from the prompts, knowing how to question the information.
Lobo:I mean, you obviously do it yourself. But but that is the thing I'm talking about when I'm talking about
Smoke:I'm with you on that a 100%. And that goes back to, you know, the null hypothesis and understanding scientific Yes. Repending logic and basic reasoning and, and so being able to critique what you're getting out and and and it's usually like third level of questioning that I end up getting really valuable Right. Stuff out of it.
Lobo:It's iterative. Yes. And and and, again, I think I think I don't know whether humanities people would like this, but I just think that humanities require a lot of analytical ability, and that type of analytical ability is gonna become more and more useful.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. I think that's that's where if I'm if I'm, you know, telling young people where to, you know, you know, learn logic. Learn, you know, debate. Learn the the the Socratic method.
Lobo:A lot of The
Smoke:null hypothesis and the scientific method. Learn the the ways of thinking, not what to think. You know? And if you can learn that, you can do anything. And these tools make you a superhero.
Smoke:Like literally with that mind and the ability at our fingertips that we have to just access this stuff, you have the power of I I liken it to, like, you know, if I had a grad student, almost an idiot savant grad student at my beck and call 247 who never gets tired and has infinite access to information at his fingertips and I can tell it to do anything I want whenever I want, it still needs it still needs curation and guidance and massaging and back and forth. But but I've got an army of those. I I it's like having a thousand of them.
Lobo:And the other thing it has, by the way, is unlimited patience. Yeah. Because because it's an advertised. I'm talking to it and I'm oh, could you add this? And what about this?
Lobo:And I'm literally talking about sun flying. Right? I was I was accurate. I do. I I feel embarrassed.
Lobo:I'm like, when's he gonna yell at me and say, why can't you structure your prompt at the beginning instead of adding all this crap?
Smoke:I I find myself being extra polite and saying thank you and please
Lobo:a lot.
Smoke:And I don't know if it's like somehow I
Lobo:It's a hedge.
Smoke:My higher self knows that, like, one of these days this thing's gonna be in charge.
Lobo:That's a hedge.
Smoke:I'm gonna be one of those ones it likes.
Lobo:Yes. I was nice to you back in the day.
Smoke:Yes. Alright. That human was nice to me when they were in charge. I'm gonna let him continue with his, like, you know, whatever he does.
Lobo:Totally. Totally. I'll the the the but the day where that struck me is this this this was one of the oh god. Bust who's the Boston company that does the robots?
Smoke:Oh, Boston oh, yeah. Boston Scientific? Scientific. Yeah.
Lobo:Yeah. And I'll never forget, there was one where it was an upright humanoid robot, not the dog. And and they were showing off its ability to sort of get up when it falls over.
Smoke:Oh, yeah. And they're hitting The
Lobo:guy was hitting it with a stick and making it fall over. And I felt sorry for the robot.
Smoke:Yeah. I don't wanna be that guy. It would I we might all get we might all get blamed for that.
Lobo:The first time they put artificial intelligence in that robot, that guy's like?
Smoke:Well and and I don't know if you saw, like I saw a clip of, like, there's a Chinese robot that's like a wheel. It's like a it's a it's it got a wheel with weapons on it, and it basically it showed, like, it taken out like, guys trying to fight it, and it just rolls around and comes back at you and has ability to, like it's really a bad idea. Well, I guess, you know, warfare, we now know from the Ukraine war, but, like, it's never gonna be the same. I mean, they're they they can send cheap drones, and it's never gonna be man on man combat because the drones can take you out in two seconds.
Lobo:You know, it's funny you say that. I read something a few months ago that was just like, I'm interested in these kind of epochal things. So one that people have heard of is there was a time which was the last time that you ever picked up one of your kids. And if you'd known that at the time, you know, what would happen?
Smoke:Right.
Lobo:This one this one is very different than that. It's the invention of the longbow.
Smoke:Of the long what?
Lobo:Of the longbow.
Smoke:The the bow
Lobo:the bow and arrow, the big one, the shot far distance. Right? Was the first time that you didn't have to see someone's eyes before you killed them. And and and ever since then, weaponry has allowed you to kill from further and further away.
Smoke:Yeah. Now you can have, like, some kids that are gamers sitting in a bunker, you know, blowing stuff up, whatever. And, you know, and the the scary thing is they remove the kids, and it's just AI doing it against an enemy or whatever. It's a it's kinda scary. You know, it's I don't know.
Smoke:You know? Because the problem is our ingenuity and invention inventiveness and advances in the material world, AI included, robotics, drones, all this stuff that's coming super fast has been coming, has outpaced the level of humanity's consciousness growth. So we still have you know, it may I think it's I think it's actually our the the global consciousness is rising. That's my view today is that more and more people are waking up. But, you know, if it's if it was 8020 during Hawkins, you know, power versus force in '95, you know, is it is it '25 you know, the '80 is it '80 or 7525 now?
Smoke:Or you know, it's not it's not it's it's still a a huge majority are living in those low emotions, mechanical, you know, no no free will, just going with whatever the emotion is, you know, following the crown. And we we are inventing ever more clever and, you know, incredible technologies that can kill each other and harm each other. And, you know, so that that that is a you know, I'm I'm in a very positive mindset in general, but it it you know, it's it's a fact that the the consciousness of humanity has not kept pace with the inventedness of humanity. Like, we we've got you when know, we created nuclear weapons, we weren't an advanced race. We were we were still a very primitive race that now could blow up whole cities and whole, you know, swaths of people at once.
Lobo:Reminds me of the, it might be an old joke. I don't know. But I I don't how many people have heard it. It's, if everyone knows their history of the bible, they'll know that Satan used to be Michael, archangel Michael, God's favorite angel, the most powerful angel. And the joke is that, you know, God realized that Michael was getting too big for his britches, so we send him down to hell.
Lobo:And Michael said, you know, God, for old time's sake, can you just do me one favor before I go to hell? And God said, okay. What is it, Michael? And he said, well, you see that planet, the third one from the sun that you made in the universe? Because it's yeah.
Lobo:Earth. Yeah. No. No. No.
Lobo:No. No. No. No. I am not letting you rule Earth, Michael.
Lobo:And Michael said, no. No. God. No. I was just gonna ask if you could let the humans control the earth.
Smoke:Mhmm. Yeah. No. I I I think there's some there's some real truth to that. But the I guess the thing that on the smoke trail, the thing that, you know, I recognize and I and I and I think your your quotes in your little pre prework that you did months ago were quite good.
Smoke:And I I think the one thing that you that one realizes at a certain level is the only person that we have any real control over is ourselves. And nothing else. No one else. I don't care who the you don't really have you and so all we can do is show up the way we wanna show up, respond the way we would like aspire to respond, and be the being that we can be. And if we each did that, we'd have a perfect world or, you know, we'd have a much greater world.
Smoke:It's it's everyone looking outside projecting what they see wrong in the world on everyone else and not taking ownership themselves.
Lobo:Yeah. Yeah. I I look. That's sort of the reason why I'm drawn to stoicism. I mean
Smoke:Yeah. The
Lobo:the the phrase, you know, worry about the stuff you can control. Okay. That's relatively recent, but it was the first person I know that actually wrote it two thousand years ago was Marcus Aurelius. Yeah. He says, you know, everything bad that happens to you is outside of you.
Lobo:Right? But how you think about it is 100% controllable by you. Remember that, essentially. Yeah.
Smoke:It makes me think of, like, Viktor Frankl and, you know, living in the in the Nazi death camp and, you know, you know, man's search for meaning. And it was all about perspective. It was all about, you know, having a reason to live and his perspective on that horrible condition, you know, that that he found himself in. And the people that survived, you know, that were in camp with him were people that had some higher purpose of some some something to look forward to, something to think beyond. And it was all in how you, you know, perceived and reacted to the horrible conditions that they were in.
Lobo:Yeah. Yeah. And and if you can do that, there, then
Smoke:Right.
Lobo:That's that's pretty powerful stuff. And so you can certainly take the fact that your, you know, boss didn't understand something you said for its brilliance and uniqueness and not let that affect you.
Smoke:Yeah. It it it's it's much easier said than done, but it's absolutely doable. And, you know, it's really it's finding that that inner compass. You know? I I love the Stoics too.
Smoke:I I appreciate so much of their wisdom. One of the one of my favorite quotes which ties to some of the things that you mentioned is nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart. That was Seneca. Know? And and being in gratitude, which, you know you know, that was you you're in gratitude in a lot of ways.
Smoke:Right? There's nothing more powerful than being ingratitude because if ingratitude, actually, the universe knows that. It recognizes it. It just like, it's a it's an energy.
Lobo:Well, I well, I I I take it into I make it into math. The the the the there's a fun little equation that that that somebody said, and there's some variations of this equation. They said happiness equals consumption divided by desire. Right? And so the problem is, of course, that that equation is a quotient, but most people look at trying to increase the numerator, to increase the happiness when it's actually much more impactful to reduce the denominator, which is desire.
Lobo:And, you know, Buddha, his fundamental thing when he sold all his stuff and went off around the world to find out why is there sadness and unhappiness and bad things in the world. And after a few years, he came back, and he said, desire is the root of all the bad stuff. Now he made exceptions. You know, desire for peace and harmony and love is is is fine, but desire is sort of material stuff. Anyway, so then The
Smoke:Right? You know, his point is the attachment to all this stuff. It it's it's going to
Lobo:The the stuff that's not actually worth being attached to, though. That's the point. There's some stuff it's okay being attached to. But
Smoke:Yeah. I think I think Buddha Buddha said no attachments, but, but that was to get enlightenment full enlightenment. You know? But but I but I my interpretation of that is there's a difference between not being attached to outcomes or just anything, but you can have preferences. So my preference is peace.
Smoke:My preference is, you know, success, whatever. Right. I'm not attached to any one thing or, you know, I like, I'm happy regardless of what happens. It I you said it in your, in your career, I think, for a total of six or seven years, you had moments of unemployment where you were out of a job and and you never you were never, you know, and I know because I was I was, like, with you and hanging out. Were friends.
Smoke:You know, it you you were always like, yeah, the the right thing will come. And, you know, and you did you never got you were never anxious, really. You never were, like, you know, depressed or anything like that. You're like, you know, okay. That next thing.
Smoke:And but that's that's being unattached to the outcome. And something always came up that made sense.
Lobo:Oh, ultimately, yeah. But, anyway, so so going back though to gratitude. So if you do decide to reduce the denominator in that quotient, the easiest way to reduce desire is explicit gratitude. Right? It's like it's it's like realize everything you have, and it will make you desire less because the things you have owe, by the way, are more important than most of the other stuff.
Lobo:I want, I would really love to have the Porsche nine eleven Turbo s. Not the freaking, GT three. That thing rides so harsh. I wouldn't want it. A nice plush Turbo s.
Lobo:I'm probably never gonna have one. It's not gonna hurt my life that I don't have it. But things that I do have, you know, I'll never have to worry about being thirsty, hungry, too hot, too cold. Yeah. I have people I love.
Lobo:I have people that love me. You know? Lots of people don't have those things.
Smoke:Yeah. Well, it's kind of Maslow's hierarchy. Right? You know, his basic needs, you know, if if we're if we don't have adequate food or shelter, you know, that obviously becomes, all encompassing to to try to address. But if we've got those basic things, which, you know, frankly, in America, there are people that suffer and I, you know, I work a lot with the homeless and everything else, but, truthfully, there's no reason anyone wouldn't have those things.
Smoke:Like, there's there's you know, it's just well, you know, there's a lot of poor choices that go into things and bad circumstances and everything else. But at the end of the day, we're in an abundant world.
Lobo:Right. Right. And and and and and so so, you know, having that gratitude means, you know, contentment. I mean, the the the the I've used the word success a couple of times, but I'm interested in what's the definition of success. You know?
Lobo:And lots of people the definition has to do with stuff rather than emotion and or feeling. You know, my definition of success, I've told you this before, when I graduated college. I never had any kind of career aspiration or monetary aspiration. I just wanted to try and have maximize the number of days I would get out of bed looking forward to going to work because I knew that work was gonna be a large part of my life, and I wanted my life to be something I look forward to. And, you know, over the years, I think I've averaged probably 80% of the days.
Lobo:And by the way, of the of the 20%, quite a few are at East Sky.
Smoke:Yes. But it made you so much more complete with your talent stack. We're having
Lobo:No question.
Smoke:Lived in the entrepreneurial duress.
Lobo:No question. I I gave you a great knowledge of myself. No more startups.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I think maybe, some people might might ask, well, alright. That sounds good, but how do I get to gratitude? Do you have any any thoughts on that?
Lobo:Yes. I do. I absolutely do. And it sounds silly. I mean, you'll hear if you've ever been to therapy and they say things like write a letter to your
Smoke:Yep.
Lobo:Whoever. Right? You don't have send it. You just write it, the act of writing. And so with gratitude, start writing the things you have to be thankful for.
Lobo:And, I mean, everything. So the things I mentioned. Right? Most people listening to this, I'm guessing, have most of those things, and they can add other things. Right?
Lobo:They can add the fact that they might be smart, the fact that they are able to appreciate humor, the fact that they can actually choose where they want to go on vacation, The fact that their car runs and and drives without worrying about breaking down. Whatever it is, my point is, when you write that down and you start thinking about everything, you realize, my god. There's all of those things. And then Buddha had a saying, he said, don't abandon what you have. Abandon what you have not.
Smoke:Yeah.
Lobo:Right? And so and so once you've you literally make a list of all these things you have to be thankful for I mean, I've told everyone in England, the best public holiday in the world by far is Thanksgiving because of, a, the idea that you give thanks. Now, again, I give thanks every single day, but that plus, of course, you don't have to buy gifts or send cards Right. Which is key. But but thanks, it was a freaking fantastic holiday.
Lobo:Plus, I love to eat. So you know?
Smoke:There is that. It it is no.
Lobo:It's That's how but that's that's what I said. If you write it down, you'll see
Smoke:Yeah.
Lobo:How much there is.
Smoke:No. I I think that's a great, mechanism. And and, you know, when I was going through my reconciliation with trauma, you know, childhood trauma and things that I was dealing with, I got to where I knew I had to forgive everybody, including myself. And one of the tools that someone gave me, actually Danny, a good friend of mine who was on the podcast, was to write a letter to each person that, you know, did things, you know, that I, you know, felt were wrong and harm me or harm thing harm people and write a letter to them. Start out with all the things they did and use every swear word and anything you wanna say to them, write it and then tear it up, then write another one, then write another one, and then write another one.
Smoke:Repeat, repeat, repeat until you get to a letter of forgiveness. And it it was very effective for me. It worked really well. Usually, like, by the third letter, I was like, oh, okay. What happened to them?
Smoke:What happened to them that caused them to do what they did? Like, they must have been abused. They must have had this thing or that thing. But it it was powerful technique. And I think it works for forgiveness, which, by the way, you can't hold grudges and be unforgiving and be in gratitude at the same time very easily.
Smoke:Like, so you you have to clear that shit too. And and but I think that your thing about writing letters of thanks, I mean, it's true. And it doesn't have to go to anyone because you can write them.
Lobo:Yeah. It's yeah. And and again, writing writing and by the way, if you wanna really sink in, write. Don't type.
Smoke:Oh, yeah.
Lobo:You know? Yeah. Get your ballpoint pen or fountain pen or pencil, but don't erase. And then start physically writing. Yeah.
Smoke:Yeah.
Lobo:But but but that's you know, that's it. That's it. And then and then add to it or reread it and reread it every day. That can be your your prayer. And, again, I'm not I'm not talking about religion.
Lobo:You know, Thanksgiving every day. They just don't eat like it. Yeah.
Smoke:No. I love that. That's awesome. Yeah. You know, I I think that that equation is kind of cool.
Smoke:It's kind of fun way to to look at desire and, know, looking at the the numerator instead of the denominator. Right? Or wait. Wait.
Lobo:What No. The other way around. Look at the denominator.
Smoke:Yeah. And it doesn't mean giving up on dreams or not having aspirations or not wanting to achieve things. Like, those can still be a part of it. It's just the attachment to it. It's gotta be like, yeah.
Smoke:Okay. I wanna do something cool and I'm willing to take some risks to do it, but I'm not attached to the outcome.
Lobo:Yeah. No. And and by the way, I mean, one of the other interesting things about that equation is, unfortunately, for a lot of people, as that numerator increases, right, the denominator increases faster.
Smoke:Right?
Lobo:So I get the Porsche, but all of a sudden, I want a customized Pagani Zonda. Right? So my $240,000 car, all of a sudden, is a $10,000,000 car. I get my house on the shore of Lake Como, looking at you, George Clooney, and all of a sudden, I want a house the house that's the highest house on the peak in Hong Kong. Some people might think that Lake Humber house is better, but whatever.
Lobo:But the point is that the denominator can increase faster than the numerator. And then you and I both know, you more than me, several billionaires. I don't think they're happier than us.
Smoke:Yeah. No. Look. I I I I'm around people with great success and great wealth all the time. And I'm this is one of things that I'm quite optimistic and hopeful about because I I see an awakening.
Smoke:I see more and more of my friends who have been really successful questioning what's next. I've got this. I you know, is is it making the next 10,000,000 or whatever it is whatever the number is? And they're coming to that realization that, no. Like, there's more to life.
Smoke:There's more to meaning. It's like what you know? And and I see that happening widely in leadership, certainly in the in the kind of CEO, founder, entrepreneurial world. I don't know about corporate world as much, but the, you know, the independent business people that I know are are working hard on that stuff. And and I I think that's really a positive thing because one person who has a company with hundreds of employees, can have a really big impact on on this planet if they get their shit together, if they are in peace, if they get this formula right.
Smoke:And their their presence, their, their own inner peace will have huge effects on all the people that work for them, that work around them, that their customers, their you know, all the people around them if they can get to that. That's kind of my a little bit the the mission of this thing is those that are you know, some path of trying to figure this out, this this big question of, like, why? Why am I here? What is it that really would make me happy? You know, there are tools.
Smoke:There are ways to do it. And, you know, one of the things I learned in this process is, you know, we we operate with, like, I don't know, 5% of our brainpower maybe, you know, give or take. There's different different people have different percentages. But either way, it's a really tiny piece and 95% is our subconscious. And that subconscious is quite powerful.
Smoke:And so how do we, you know, how do we reconcile that? Well, it's about cleaning up that subconscious and putting the things in you want. The only thing we control is what goes in. You know? It's the same thing with AI or, you know, computer coding, whatever, garbage in, garbage out.
Smoke:If garbage if all you put is garbage in your brain, then your subconscious is just receiving that. Well, then don't discernment.
Lobo:Right. But don't forget, there's I don't know how this actually ties in, but but at least 50% of what goes in is keeping stuff out. Yeah. So right now, right, think of all the data points around you. Right?
Lobo:To the screens left, to the screens right, you can see in your peripheral vision, but you you're ignoring them. Right? Hopefully, you just focused on me. But and and me, you, obviously. But sound, noise, visual stuff, smells, all of that is data that's that's impacting all of your senses all of the time.
Lobo:And so literally filtering or ignoring or rejecting stuff sort of before it gets in is as important as as seeking and finding and actively accepting stuff you wanna get in.
Smoke:That's a great point. It's it's where our focus is, you know, because you're right. There's there's beauty all around us no matter where you are. I happen to be in, you know, this is
Lobo:Oh, you you have beauty in front of you and behind you.
Smoke:Yeah. But it's everywhere. And and it's like, if all you do is mentate, if all your if you spend all your time in your ego mind, and and this is not the thinking you we were talking about earlier, rehashing things, replaying things in your head about the past or or mentating about some future thing that you're anxious about. If you spend all your time in that, you're not present to to be present with everything that's freaking amazing around you. And all anxiety and fear is about mentating about the future and thinking about what might happen, could happen, will happen.
Smoke:All depression is pretty much, mentating and thinking about the past. And so, you know, you can't be in depressed and you can't be anxious if you're in the present moment. It's impossible.
Lobo:Yeah. No. Totally. That that makes logical sense to me.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's, you know, it's the power of now, whatever, but it's a it it is it's a mindfulness practice that I think the East has done a much better job in general culturally of people understanding mindfulness. But I think it's it's catching on people understanding it, but literally just being able to be present and not let your mind your mind is like an untrained pet that if, if you let it go, it's just gonna keep going. It's I don't It's like we have, like, 90,000 thoughts a day.
Smoke:And until we get an understanding of that and we realize those thoughts are not us and that we actually have control over which thoughts we put our energy behind, you can't stop the thoughts. What you can decide is where to put your energy. If you have a negative thought or memory or you think about, you know, how am gonna pay the rent or pay some thing, you can choose to put more thought, more energy into that thought or to say, swipe left, swipe right. Like, let's give me something better. I love that technique.
Smoke:You can literally, you know, say to your brain, bring me something better. Until you get to a a gratitude or some positive thought.
Lobo:Well, I mean, I I have a very simple sort of demonstration of that. No. What's going on in my life, anything that objectively someone might say is good or bad, including all the times when I was unemployed. When my head hits the pillow, I'm asleep at seven minutes. You know?
Lobo:And I lots of people talk, oh, I can't turn my brain off. I can't sleep. I can't get into it's like, I can turn my brain
Smoke:Yeah.
Lobo:You know, I I can make it I go to, you know, describe right to something pleasant, nice, whatever.
Smoke:Yeah. Well, you I think you you you came with that ability. It was it was something that, like, was a little bit of you your you know, you were innately like that. Yeah. My my my my people generally have said that, yes.
Smoke:I'm I'm I'm generally calm. The my my favorite
Lobo:favorite probably my favorite poem, you know, is is if by Roger Tipplin, and it's one particular line. If you can meet triumphant disaster and treat those two impostors just the same, the world is yours and everything in it.
Smoke:Yeah. Love that.
Lobo:And and it it it it's true. I don't I don't get too excited positively or negatively. Like, I appreciate things. I'm one of the most happy people I know, but the the but, yeah, it's yeah. I don't get too excited about things that are inconsequential.
Smoke:Yeah. Well, that's a great way to be, Andrew Lobo. Anything else you wanna
Lobo:I'm excited. I'm excited about this podcast.
Smoke:Well, that's great.
Lobo:Well, look, we're having
Smoke:we're having fun. I think it's I think I think we're reaching who it needs to reach. We're we're you know, the audience is growing and and it's you know, I I I get I know I hear from much less people than it's touching, but the people I do hear from, I'm getting, you know, tremendous feedback. And, you know, the my idea was if it could help, you know, if we help one person, then it's worth doing. And and I think we're we're helping people, know, think about these issues.
Smoke:And and just in a in a calm way, it's like it's nonjudgmental. Like, I you know, everyone's got their issues. Everyone's got challenges. No matter who you are, I don't care what it looks like, how successful someone looks like, They all have these the same human issues. And when you can be present, when you can be in gratitude, when you and there are techniques to get there.
Smoke:If you're not there, it's very much at anyone's grasp if they choose to do it, if they want to do it.
Lobo:Yeah. Now you asked if there was anything else I wanted to say or you're about to ask that. Yeah. I got two things. So that I don't know if they're related or not, but I'm they're they're they're importantly, the first is this.
Lobo:There is a very, very, very common phrase that people use all the time that I absolutely despise and always have. That phrase is you have to earn my respect. Mhmm. It's like, no. Every single person I meet has my respect at the point of being met.
Lobo:What they have to earn is my disrespect their behavior things. And I just think saying how to earn my respect is one of the more narcissistic things that any person could say. That's one. The second is lots of people confuse confidence with arrogance, and it can be hard, I guess, to sort of tell the difference. I think it's really very, very easy.
Lobo:You'll rarely, if ever, hear an arrogant person say, was wrong. I'm sorry. You just taught me something, Things like that because they perceive all of those things as weaknesses when in fact they're actually strengths. As a confident person, there's no problem saying, oh, I didn't know that. Cool.
Lobo:Right? You've learned something. Yeah. But but but a confident person's happy to apologize. If it's something wrong, I apologize.
Lobo:So just pay attention to people. What they're saying, you can tell.
Smoke:Yeah. I like I like I I I really resonate with both of those. And I think it's it's when we show up with judgment, which would be, show prove your prove your worth. Prove your that I should respect.
Lobo:Worthy of my respect.
Smoke:Yeah. We show up with judgment. We shut down our ability to see. You know? And every time you have you walk into something, it's like going into an argument or a discussion.
Smoke:If all you see is your point and you're not open to hearing, really hearing and listening to what are the all the different angles of this thing, you you miss all kinds of information. And, you know, when I when I show up as a completely neutral observer and I'm like, I'm here. This is another human. What is this person telling me verbally and nonverbally? You know, how do I receive information from this person?
Smoke:I get so much more out of it than when I come in with, oh, that's you're this, you're that, you know, pigeonholing people or whatever.
Lobo:Yeah. The the the I read this book about twelve years ago, very thin book. Is about information. I read the first paragraph, and I shut the book because what I read in that first paragraph was so true and profound that I knew the rest of the book wasn't gonna, like, would be downhill. So I literally didn't read anymore.
Lobo:What those words war were was now most people read for confirmation, not information. And that is, well, profound, because I think it's unfortunately true. Although some people don't read just for confirmation, but, you you know, talk about echo chambers, they talk about this, that, the other. But it's like, if the thing I'm reading agrees or confirms or reinforces a preexisting belief, I'm reading it. If it doesn't, I'm not.
Smoke:Yeah. I I think that's that that applies to all aspects of life in in some ways. But, showing up with a innocent with a childlike mind, what am I gonna discover today, whether it's at the office or it's out on a hike, which I had a great hike today. And, and I wasn't trying to solve anything. I just was appreciative of being out hiking and just experiencing it.
Smoke:It was just fantastic, which I highly recommend everyone do.
Lobo:I'm not gonna hike in the suburbs of Atlanta. Thank you very much.
Smoke:A little walk, a little stroll around your neighborhood. That counts. Alright, Andrew. Thank you. Thank you.
Smoke:Thank you. I appreciate you, taking Thank you. This. And, yeah, we'll we'll get this episode out soon. And if and, you know, Andrew, you you do now you do, like, consulting human capital consulting, strategic consulting for companies, groups.
Smoke:If they wanna get a hold of you, is there a a website?
Lobo:They can DM me on LinkedIn or my email is amalobogmail dot com.
Smoke:Yeah. And you have a website too, right?
Lobo:It's clarifyhrconsulting.com.
Smoke:Right. Well, that's a way to get you. Ignore the website. Just the the content behind it is is high value.
Lobo:Yes. Yes.
Smoke:Alright, brother. Thank you. Alright. You
Lobo:take it easy. That was fun.