Season 1, Episode 34: How Did We Learn?
with Angie Alexander
The Gravity Well Podcast, hosted by Alex and me, delves into complex ideas and their interconnections, aiming to foster conversations that contribute to a better world. The podcast acknowledges the traditional territories of various First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples, emphasizing respect and ethical relationship-building. In this episode, they introduce Angie Alexander, a professional engineer with extensive experience in the Western Canadian oil and gas industry, known for her skills in organizational effectiveness and strategic thinking. The discussion highlights the importance of collaboration, authenticity, and the willingness to face challenges. Alex and I reflect on their journey, emphasizing the value of curiosity, continuous learning, and the inner work required to foster genuine connections and community. Looking forward, they aim to build on their experiences, amplify the work of others, and create a supportive, educational platform that benefits all participants.
Welcome and Re-Introduction to Angie Alexander
Alex:
Welcome to The Gravity Well Podcast with Alex and Jenny here. You break down heavy ideas with us to understand their complexities and connections. Our mission is to work through your dilemmas with you in conversation and process making our world a better place for all.
Jenny:
We acknowledge that we live on the traditional territories of treaties, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 10. The ancestral homelands of diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Metis. Peoples whose ancestors have walked this land since time immemorial and whose histories, languages, and cultures continue to influence our vibrant communities. We pay respect to indigenous people through our ethical relationship building efforts. Our community agreement asks for genuine conversations, real hearts, open minds, and different perspectives in conflict. Let’s rely on our six W system and live participant feedback. What matters most is finding common ground.
Alex:
We dedicate this podcast to our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The gravity well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. Join us@thegravitywell.net.
Jenny:
Hello.
Alex:
Hello. Welcome to The Gravity Well Podcast. Our guest is Angie Alexander. She’s a professional engineer with over 20 years experience in the Western Canadian oil and gas industry from facility and reservoir engineering with organisation effectiveness skills, facilitation, process design improvement, change management, and project management. She possesses a passion for bringing teams together, working more effectively and making better decisions and being more innovative and thinking more strategically. One of her key skills actually happens to be that she has helped to facilitate simple tools to create more efficient work environments that were used and modified by others. She genuinely has an appreciation for strategizing, communicating, and modifying organisations in any field in order to make them more efficient, cost effective, and better for the environment. With that, I present to you our guest, Angie Alexander.
Angie:
Hi. I’m on my phone now, which isn’t as satisfying on this end. You’re so tiny, but I think you can hear me better, so that’s good.
Jenny:
It works out. Seems like it’s working. Thank you for being flexible, Angie. Angie and I have been collaborating this year as well, and in fact last year too. I’m really grateful for our collaboration, Angie. I feel like I’ve grown stronger as an individual and also as a friend and a parent and all the things in my life because of the work that I’ve been doing with you. Thank you first and foremost for starting off the soft with us. Alex had a chance to meet you in our very first episode that we did for the show, and in that you helped us get grounded in how we were going to build a community agreement essentially is where we landed in that episode. Trying to make sure that we had the space for difference of opinion. It’s funny because Angie and I are redoing a course that she brought me through last year as well, the Positive Intelligence Training course.
It’s had an upgrade and I have to say I’m really grateful for the upgrade. I noticed Shirzad is speaking about the climate crisis and the challenges we’re facing. It was really neat to know that that work is being included in what he’s already doing. It was really gratifying to see them come together. I’m grateful to him for that and for you for redoing this work with us. I’m going to stop there, but I just want to say Angie is going to help us go through the last year, how we’ve all gained working together, and I’m trying to let you take the lead here. I’m just going to slow down and let you take over. We talked a little bit about where we’re headed, but I know you’re a professional at this, so why don’t I just relax and let you do your thing.
What Are We Most Proud Of?
Angie:
That’s right. I yield the mic. Yeah, thank you both for having me. I’m excited, it’s always fun to have these kinds of conversations and just see where they go. Not much of an agenda tonight other than just to explore the collaboration that the two of you have had over the last year where you’ve come and weaving into that. I think Jenny and I have had a collaboration as well, and it’s always quite fascinating to see the interaction between the pairings of us as we go along. I’m really looking forward to that. Thank you. Okay, so let’s just dive in. I think one of the cool places to start that I would love to ask both of you to consider and answer is what are you most proud of when you think about your collaboration over the last year? What comes to mind when you think of what you’re most proud of?
Jenny:
I can go first. Yeah, I mean, I can say that we’re number one, that we’re still working together. We really do challenge each other in a way that is really helpful, but it’s not easy. I acknowledge that and I think Alex, I don’t know, is that, what would you say, Alex?
Alex:
I would agree with that. However, I also think that one of the most special things that you and I have created is the fact that we have a level of maturity to be able to disagree and then try and understand what we’re actually trying to do in the broader spectrum of things, maybe over the long term. Then we’re able to find a way to actually communicate that. If we’re not, then we see guests and we write it out and we figure out a way to try and understand each other. I think that’s something that generally our civilization, because they seem to be generally in a flux, they thirst for being able to facilitate that endeavor and start those dialogues together. I think that’s going to be more valuable then maybe either of us even realize. But it doesn’t even matter about us anyways, because if it’s something that can carry forward, if people can learn to come back to a level of maturity and share ideas, even if they disagree with each other, but do it respectfully and diplomatically, that’s something that you and I have worked on for a year and a half now to actually create and it keeps on going.
Alex:
Even though it’s extremely difficult and it’s a terrible rabbit hole to ever want to go down when it comes to understanding human nature, gosh, it’s so worth it in the end because it’s a message that can be translated and can be delivered to other people. End even if they don’t get it right away, it’s there. We’re planting a seed and they will understand eventually. It’s like a slow awakening from a slumber where we’ve just deceived ourselves. Most people don’t understand that what we’re trying to do is help people to facilitate the opportunity to confront the devil within. It’s like the final
Angie:
Pause. Yeah, I love that. It is so interesting how you said different things in some ways on the surface, Jenny’s point about we’re still here, I’m proud of the fact that we’re still here and we’re still together. Then Alex, your points about how you got, why you’re still together, essentially, why you’re still able to have these conversations and the willingness to go there. I know I’ve been, Jenny and I are on calls almost every week, I’ve been able to listen to, I would say, witness the growth. Of course not everything she talks about in our rooms is about this, however some of it is, whether it’s the collaboration with Alex or some of the other work that Jenny’s doing. To watch live essentially watch Jenny process and learn and grow and challenge and stumble and find your way back through that has been really a joy really to watch. To know that that’s recognized. What I would say, just even listening to the two of you just now, is that it’s a modelling that you can do for others. The fact that it wasn’t, maybe you could tell a little of the origin story. I always love hearing how you met, but that there was an initial connection, but it wasn’t like that immediate connection that you sometimes feel with some people. I think if I recall the story.
Jenny:
Yeah. I would say for me it was an immediate connection. I had a friend with me that day, this lovely woman, Tara, that was my support throughout the war that I would call the election. But anyway, so yeah, I think the thing was, I was saying this line over and over again. I was saying we are in the Apollo 13 moment and we need to just throw all of our resources on the table and have this honest conversation, which is what Alex reflected when he was just discussing being able to come to grips with the devil within. We’ve all made mistakes in this world. That’s the reality of the situation. It’s being able to be okay with that and knowing that we didn’t know any better and we weren’t doing things intentionally.
For me, I’ll be specific, I drilled a number of wells that were probably not economic and not worth doing. That’s one thing I can say that I feel like I contributed to. But regardless, my point is it is hard to come to grips with even just getting to know ourselves and loving ourselves. Angie, you took us through this week and this course we’re taking is being able to love yourself. What I’ve realized is that it’s a leap of faith. Like Alex has said, and I was thinking back when people did TV shows, they would never do the pilot and then build the rest of the show. I guess maybe after just with the pilot, maybe they’d do some work, but we did the pilot and then built the show and basically been stumbling our way through it for a year. That’s essentially what it was, is a stumbling exercise. A real test of humility and not without mistakes, which is also difficult. That’s why I say I don’t want to undermine what we’ve done, Alex. It’s totally true. It’s our ability to look past those pinch points that we say in our language that are supposed to just stop us from talking altogether. I think we just go, what do you mean? Then it’s like, oh yeah, okay, I get that. It’s almost instantaneous.
Alex:
Yeah, it’s a quote that comes to mind, and I think it was [Lindsay Ellis]. The quote is, “Truth of the divine manifests itself in the courage for unforeseen adventure.” We gambled on creating something, didn’t know if it was actually going to produce anything. Still don’t know, frankly, but we’re all still having honest conversations. What’s so cool about it is by year’s end, we will have done 36 episodes out of 52 weeks, which is actually something to be proud of.
Jenny:
Absolutely. But Angie does this almost every week, so we were already doing that. I was like, yeah, I’m already doing it, so yes, we’re going to do it again. I didn’t really think about how much work it was and how many,
Alex:
It’s like, it’s a lot of honest work. It’s a lot of trudging along and trying to figure out the new programming and trying to figure out the audio and the lighting, and
What Are Our Guiding Lights?
Angie:
I don’t have any of that in an audio room. Kudos to all of you for figuring that out. As we discovered tonight, me coming in, the question I have actually now in all of that is in order for that work to continue, in order to continue to show up every week, there’s a guiding light, a north star, right? A compass that is driving that. Clearly, I don’t know whether you’ve talked about it specifically, but clearly it connects you, right? It brings you back to whether you’re having difficult conversations or you’re struggling through the technology or you have to backpedal or go sideways or something, what would you say is the guiding light for the two of you?
Alex:
There is no reason to change course unless the change is equal to or greater than the challenges you’ve already overcome. What’s most interesting to me about doing this is a challenge. I’m having to learn how to create a digital media thing, whatever that ends up manifesting itself. I’ve been a construction worker and a security guard and an art student and things like that. But creating a media organization is entirely a new endeavor. But the reason why I’m not giving up is because it is a challenge and I’m stubborn, you know what I mean? I think that’s it. I think that’s it. That’s what keeps us. I’ve cheated that three times in my life. I haven’t had it easy, but I didn’t make it easy for myself. I’m not blaming anyone. It was all because of my own decisions and my own lack of observation. But the only way that you can actually grow in life is to fail.
And then accept it and own it and then move through it. This is a particular challenge that I quite enjoy because it’s like I have to put myself out there with the potential to fail. I have to put myself out there with people that disagree with me, that I disagree with, but we have to find some balance. We have to find some common ground. I think Jenny felt the same way when we met at the front door because the reason that I voted for her was actually pretty simple. She was the only politician with enough humility to show up at my front door and ask me, what are your three main concerns? Then just let me riff on it.
Angie:
And then listen to you, right?
Alex:
Yeah, she was actually…
Angie:
He riffed.
Alex:
And I riffed, we went back and forth. Her friend was just standing in the street ready to go to the next door and she’s like, I dunno, it was like 20 minutes worth of conversation. But then Jenny asked me if she could put a sign up on my lawn. I said, yep, absolutely. I voted for her. Even though she lost the election, I thought about it and I just wrote her a letter and just said, look, hey, just because you lost this one doesn’t mean that there isn’t an opportunity to regroup and change the platform or change the messaging or anything. I just wrote to her when it was like two weeks later after that, she got back to me and then we ended up going for coffee. She’s like, I think I could actually work with a guy like you and then go to Del University in the Netherlands digitally and just like, all right, let’s figure this out. Let’s figure out how we can actually create something. That’s what we ended up doing.
A year and a half in, it’s a pretty cool experience. I could have never predicted it. I don’t think Jenny could have either. Yeah, here, let’s go.
Angie:
Awesome. Jenny, so what about you? How would you answer that question?
Jenny:
Yeah, I stumbled earlier. I want to try and correct it. When I went to Alex’s door and I was saying “This Apollo 13 moment” problem. I would say that, and people would say, “Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s what we need to do.” But Alex said, “You know why Apollo 13 was successful? Because of Apollo 11. Because in Apollo 11 they did this exercise of what if this happens? If this happens, we’re going to do this. If this happens, we’re going to do this. I realised I’ve been saying the wrong thing. We’re not in the Apollo 13 moment clearly otherwise we would know that and we would be putting things on the table. We’re in the Apollo 11 moment, we’re in the “What am I going to do when?” moment. It’s the reverse engineering principle, right? Yeah. I think for me, what Alex does is, I’ll give you an example. I got asked by a guest, and I would say a friend Beau Shaw wants to talk about his run in the federal election. Alex said, “Well, we should ask the public what they want to see in the general election. We should use the World Economic Forum [progress] report that came out in terms of what’s happening in the future, and we should use that to ask some questions. I would’ve never thought of that on my own.
Alex:
It’s the Global Progress Index. It’s the World Economic Forms Global Progress Index.
Jenny:
Yeah. We’re going to just ask some questions of people from that database. It’s just a good way to root it in something that’s universal that people are working towards and can measure against, but use it in a local way for people. Then basically be able to come to a place of interviewing people that are committed to those goals that bring us together, those goals that help us get past. One of the things that’s in there that Alex was talking about was this. How did you describe it, Alex? It was people going into their corners more social division, is that what you’re saying?
Alex:
Well, there’s a few criteria that have led us to this moment. We have social media and algorithms that are placating to people’s preferences, to people’s interests, be it like cats making funny jumps off shelves and not making it, or politics or funny dogs or whatever it happens to be. The algorithms, they’re not human, they’re not actually people. They’re just designed to placate and advertise according to anyone’s specific interest. The risk what’s going on these days, especially in the past eight to 10 years, with the advent of social media, advanced social media and being on the precipice of artificial general intelligence, is that these algorithms can actually just put people into social bubbles where they’re not even aware of any other information that’s out there that might be countered to the narrative because this interface is just placating to what they’re interested in. That’s creating a division that we haven’t been able to predict. What are the natural causality of this new digital realm that we’ve created? However, that being said, on the positive note, we can circumnavigate by doing exactly what we’re doing with The Gravity Well. We can say, “Hey, wait a second, wipe the dust out of your eyes.”
Jenny:
Shared values.
Alex:
The algorithm is cherry picking information for you, and we’re not seeing a whole bunch of other stuff that might be contrary. A confirmation bias that’s digitally created is creating a social decohesion that actually needs to be somehow repaired or rectified. I’m not going to pretend to know I know how to do that, but I’ve gotten to the truth, to the level of where I know that’s exactly what needs to be done. I think that is sociologically, culturally, societally, and spiritually one of the biggest challenges that we’re facing today. That’s part of the reasons why I’m just not quitting.
Angie:
All good. Jenny, did you have more to add to that?
Jenny:
I don’t know how I could really, I think it’s great. Like I said, it’s just things that I wouldn’t think of, and it’s because we acknowledge that we’re getting annoyed by the stupid words that we’re saying to each other, but we’re like, okay, I said, for example, well, I’ll be specific. Organizing for Power. I said that and Alex went in his chair, what the hell is she doing? I mean, people power collective organizing. We’re just organizing as a society in a way that serves us, not like I am going to be the almighty powerful, but that’s very easily what it would be because most people, that is the goal. That is what most people are about, and especially somebody who’s running in politics, I would be worried as well, because that’s the expectation that you’re in a position of power. But yeah, it’s funny because my husband and I have talked about the election and what it meant for us.
It’s changed our life, not for the better, I would say in a lot of ways. But the community I’m in now, and this is what I’ve said to Angie and why I’m so grateful for your guidance over the last year and more, is feeling like I’m in a community that’s more healthy for me and more healthy for you and more healthy for Alex and more healthy for everybody that’s in that community is really precious. My husband saw [a video that said] people who have a lot of friends, generally they’re in a place where they’re only potentially not looking at community giving, being more apathetic towards others can make you have deeper connections, but fewer connections, which I think is potentially what’s happened for me in this last little while. But anyway, I’m not sure if that answered your question, but
Angie:
That’s what I said. That was good. That was good.
How To Gauge Openness Towards Others
Alex:
Is there a question for you? From my own experience, I don’t have many friends. I have probably five, maybe, but I keep my circle tight. I don’t give trust just blindly. I see it as everybody that I meet, every stranger that I meet has a certain positive balance of trust and faith and all those types of things. But people that I choose to allow into my inner circle, I keep them very close. Do you think that to be wise, or do you think I should be more open?
Angie:
I don’t have a strong opinion on that. I think wisdom comes from… Jenny knows, it’s all about being sage. I think if it’s checking in with yourself, you talked about the devil within before, I would say check in with the sage within, and am I keeping myself to a number like that because of fear, because of negativity, because of being overly protective of myself versus from a place of, what’s the saying, you become the most, the five people you spend most time with. If you’ve curated that group of five for all the right reasons and only you can know what those reasons would be, then I think it’s totally fine. It’s really just checking in with yourself in terms of, am I afraid to have more friends? Am I just putting the little shield over myself and staying within that bubble, like you talked about? Am I venturing out and continuing to learn and grow? I think those would be the things I would check in with.
Alex:
Yeah, I think there’s an allegory that goes all the way back to the snake in the garden, so to speak. If the snake were not to exist in the garden, would there be any motivator to survive to continue? If there were no challenge in life, would there be any purpose? Would it just fizzle out in a whimper? I think ironically, it’s like there always has to be a challenge. There has to be a challenge of trust. There has to be a predator in the garden. There has to be something, but all those things actually simultaneously exist within. I find it interesting to see all those metaphors just slam together in the same foundational message.
Angie:
Alex, let me ask you, I’m assuming I’m going to make the assumption you’ve let Jenny into the circle.
Alex:
Yeah, of course.
Angie:
Yeah. Why is that? What was it that allowed that to happen to let Jenny into your small circle of friends?
Alex:
Authenticity.
Jenny:
I would say the same for Alex. Yeah, I mean that consistent. Yeah, authenticity. Thank you for acknowledging that. I certainly aim to be authentic, I appreciate it.
Alex:
You can be authentically crazy. You can have authentically terrible views. You can be authentically wrong about things. You can also be authentically creative. You can be authentically all sorts of different aspects of who you are as a whole person. But that’s the one quality that I appreciated about you and why I decided to work with you and write you that letter and things like that was you’re authentic. You might be flawed, but who the hell am I to judge? I’m flawed too. We all are. If we’re going to actually be honest with each other, then that’s a good start. That’s why I thought that was the biggest thing about Jenny that inspired me to try and take this on, try and figure something out, try and create something different and work together.
Angie:
Thank you. That’s the answer. Yeah. Thank you for sharing.
Jenny:
How about you, Angie? I was hoping, as I said to you offline before this, I’d love to know your thoughts on how we’re doing, and even you and me in our relationship too. We’ve had a big growth year. I can say from my end, the way you’ve shaped the room, I love how you have gotten to a place for us. Angie briefly mentioned that I should have mentioned sooner. We have a conversation every Thursday morning at 8:00 AM on Clubhouse. Angie has hosted that since 2021, and I joined in late 22. It’s been a very steady, feel good conversation in my life that just helps me feel grounded and helps me know that I’m on the right path with people that are just brilliant. Anyway, we’ve had a big growth here and you’ve changed the room a lot this year, I think, in that. I’d love to hear your thoughts on, and anything you want to offer from our collaboration to Alex and me.
Angie:
Thursday mornings, join us. I mean, I think what’s been interesting with the clubhouse room is the intentionality of the room for me has not been as, I wouldn’t have necessarily said I wanted it to go where it is today from a year ago. It’s been evolving, let it see where it goes. That applies equally to each room individually as well as the arc that it takes over the course of months. For me, it’s about what selfishly what’s on my mind, what do I want to talk about? Because I learn so much from those that come to the room, the collaboration and the conversation. Selfishly, it helps me grow and learn and how I then show up in my life and with my clients, for example. I haven’t intentionally, I usually don’t look more than a week or so ahead, but I’m always thinking what’s floating around in the universe?
What do we need to talk about what’s going on for people? Then plant a few seeds with my LinkedIn post and then see where it goes. The fact that we can all just trust each other to go wherever it needs to go is pretty fascinating to me. Then very specifically with Jenny, it’s been a joy to watch you process and grow. I think one thing that I will encourage and I’ll ask the two of you to do, is just to step back and look at how far you’ve come in this last year individually. For me, watching Jenny process and unfold and take such a deep passion that you have for the work that you do, and learn how to harness it. I mean, today’s conversation in Clubhouse was about patience. The last two weeks we’ve talked about patients and when you’re doing the work that you two are doing and the causes and the conversations, they’re so big and they’re so important and they need to unfold.
I think, Alex, I think you said something about this earlier, it’s just you have to allow it to unfold. You have to plant the seeds. You have to trust that what you’re doing will eventually bear fruit. It may not be exactly like you think it’s going to go right. It’s the right conversation to be having. You think you maybe see where it’s going and be curious and excited about where it might be going that you didn’t anticipate. That’s been really cool. I learned so much as I watched other people learn and grow. Yeah. Thank you, Alex. Go ahead.
Alex:
Yeah, I mean, you nailed it. At the end of the day, it’s like a life without risk is not a life. You have to be willing to take the leap off that cliff into the water in order to either swim to the shore or maybe not. Maybe someone sees something went wrong, maybe you need to ask for help, but no matter what you’re going to get to the shore, you have to be able to take those risks in life. You have to risk failing, right? Because if you don’t fail, you don’t learn anything.
Angie:
Amen to that.
Alex:
What Jenny and I have been doing is just risking failing, risking failing, risking failing, risking failing. A year and a half in we’re like, we’re not failing as much. Now there’s actually a potential to fail even less. Then we can create something better in year two. Let’s see where that goes. Just take the risk because at the end of the day in your life, do you want to ask yourself “What if?” Or you want to say, “Oh, that was a bad decision, but next time the same opportunity presented itself again. I didn’t make the same decision. Now did I? It ended up turning out pretty good.”
Angie:
That’s right.
Alex:
You want to be grateful in life. That’s the whole point. Jenny and I disagree on all sorts of political issues, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love her. Doesn’t mean I don’t care for her, doesn’t mean that if she were ever in trouble, I wouldn’t. Hell, it’s like if she’s in trouble, she bust her leg or her car’s on fire or whatever, and she’s like, help, help. I’m not going to be like, who did you vote for? What’s your skin colour? Or really? In terms of keeping my circle tighter, it’s like people like that. People who will refuse to help other people based on skin, colour, gender, what have you, grace, just those types of people. I don’t want in my inner circle, you don’t appear to me as one of ’em. Jenny doesn’t. Some of our other guests don’t appear to be that way. I’m happy to include them, but it’s just, man, I will not include people that judge people on surface levels and never really look in the mirror or dig into their own hearts and realise the devil within. I have long-winded answers to your questions and I apologise for all
What Does the Future Look Like for The Gravity Well?
Angie:
Good. It tells me a lot about you. I love it. I’m thinking this is a good time to segue to the future, Jenny, is that a good time to be thinking about that? Yeah. I’m going to frame it. I always love being able to think about ourselves based on what you’ve learned about yourself during this past year, year and a half, and then what makes you excited about and leveraging what you’ve already learned. Alex, you talked a little bit about it, the failing and moving forward, the failing moving forward. But specifically, what have you learned about yourself that makes you excited about the future of your collaboration?
Jenny:
What I’ve learned about myself, I’m going to start there. Alex hit on it in a, but this is fresh for me as Angie is taking us through this course. Again, I’ve had a lot of real insights into myself and one thing I’ve realized, so you talked about the devil within Alex and Angie talked about the sage within. The work that Angie has been helping me do is to acknowledge the devil within, because we all have it in the PQ terms, it’s our saboteurs, self sabotage. It’s to acknowledge that that’s happening either through, as she was saying, we were talking about patience, I’m frustrated or irritated with somebody, let’s say, because I’m impatient. One of your guests, I had to re-listen to it. There was so much depth to that conversation this morning. I re-listen to it, Angie, and one of the guests was talking about not looking below the surface.
Again, what is deeper in that assertion? Is it about yourself? Are you expecting something from somebody else that’s unrealistic? Outside of your control is what he was saying. To me, I think I’ve realized having that ability to slow down and see the devil within and then finding that breath to say, I don’t know, as Alex said, we don’t know the future. We don’t know what this is looking like. This is a leap of faith in terms of knowing what we’re trying to do. If you heard the common threads between us, we both want to just be genuine and authentic and have the right intentions with people and help us come together in conversation because we both long for community, we both, and again, quality community, not, I’m not saying Alex wants 5 million friends, I’m good with my five dear friends.
I feel very blessed with my circle and I’m very proud to say, you’re in my circle too, Alex, thank you for this. To me it’s about just finding a way to help people find their connections, their deep connections in their lives, and amplifying those positive things. I think that’s something that I am really excited about carrying forward. Now I feel grounded in, we have this simple way of processing information, which my sisters would hate me to say that I can give my dad credit in something to say the six Ws being rooted in the why, who, where, when, what, and how but making sure that the Why is upfront, which is what this course essentially taught us last year to lead with your intention so people know rooted that we’re out for everybody’s best interest in this, right? I agree with you, Alex.
I don’t want to be in conversation with people that are not looking out for best interests. You know what I mean? That’s the people I want to spend my time with. That’s the time I want to give to people. We’ve had tremendous conversations this year, and Angie, I would extend that to your room with genuine people bringing forward genuine-interest ideas. I’m excited about taking courses so that we’re not, I feel in a position where we’re writing this thing anymore. I feel like we’ve got to a place where we have a system of bringing things in and now we’re just benefiting from that system and learning what other people are doing again. We’re not inventing courses next year, we’re auditing courses that are existing and we’re getting permission from these organizations to do this work because it’s just a conversation around shared learning.
I’m excited for it to be easier as that’s the intention. I think it’s going to be fun. We’re just getting to learn again and potentially teach, because one of them is the creative problem solving course that we did last year. It’s building on what we know. It’s amplifying other people’s work that we support and appreciate and helping other people get connected to this so that they can find their own peeps to help them move forward in this world together. I feel much clearer. I feel like we were painting a picture this year or another way I’d like to say it, we were building an album song by song. Each of these six rounds that we did, it was a side in this album, if you will. To me, it’s getting to a place now where it’s, “Okay, we’ve written an album.”
If we were people that knew what we were doing, we would now be presenting something. We wouldn’t be presenting it last year, we’d be presenting it now. But we have a product now and I’m proud of it. I’m really proud of the work we did, and I think that we’ve built a really great community. I’m thrilled with the people that are working with us in this and excited to just be curious next year and not be, so I got to make sure we’ve got guests and I’ve got to make sure we’ve got this and that. I feel like we’ve gotten to a place where it’s going to give a bit of rhythm to what we’re doing and be able to just have fun, which was the goal.
Alex:
Yeah, I want to second that. There’s a few things that come to mind that have inspired me to keep going with this. John F. Kennedy, when he was a senator, came up with, published a book called Courage, and Jackie Onassis was a reporter at the time, and she came to interview him about the book and about who he was. Then she asked him, “What do you think is your greatest character attribute?” She expected him to say courage. She already had her pre-written answers so that she could write her article. He said, “Curiosity” and all of her answers went right out the window right away. She was like, “What do you mean by that?” He said, “I’m always curious enough to put myself in the other person’s shoes because that’s going to help me to understand their perception of who I am.” I was like, Ooh. That’s what we’re doing. We’re going to keep going.
Angie:
Alex, I’d love for you to build a little more on what you learned about yourself this past year specifically, and then how that will build into the future.
Alex:
I learned I’m a lot more capable of adaptation than I had previously thought. I learned that I was able to navigate information, do poly later research to find different viewpoints, access different viewpoints, and identify with them. I learned to expand creativity and curiosity, and that just continues to grow. I learned how to be exhausted and know when to take time off. There’s a lot of things that I learned, but one thing that I probably, the most important thing to summarize that I’ve learned is that I am going to continue to learn, and that is what life is. If you stop, if you hit pause, if you close that umbrella, the raindrops just come down and eventually you get soaked. You have to keep the umbrella open so you can absorb the drops, but you can allow them to flow around and then you can actually make sense of why they’re moving in the directions that they’re moving, if that makes any sense. As an allegory, what I think actually the past year and a half has led me to conclude is that I’m capable of a lot more than I thought I was. That’s inspiring. We’ll just keep going.
Takeaways
Jenny:
Yeah, awesome. Why don’t we do some takeaways, is that okay? The one thing Alex said that I want to get back to is this idea that challenges are a big part of, I think what keeps him and I working together. I took that course. I know I’ve referred to it many times with both, well at least you, Angie, the Science of Wellbeing. It was offered out of Yale University, and one of the lessons in it is that people feel most satisfied or joyful in their lives when they are challenged within their capabilities. It’s that perfect balance within your capabilities. I think that’s the thing that Alex has, he’s definitely been challenged potentially outside of his capabilities, but it’s been enough curiosity that he’s been willing to overcome those small leaps of faith in himself. I would say you’ve absolutely demonstrated that, and I think that’s a big part of what drives me too, is I understand that now, learning that in that course, that challenging myself is the most satisfying way of living my life.
And to your point about, I don’t want to have any regrets. I don’t know if you said it in those words, but I want to feel that I have tried to bring people together in ways that serve all of us and that I feel good when I go to sleep at night. I can go to sleep and know I tried my best for not only my family, but for Alex’s and for you. That’s the great thing about knowing this. Once you know that you don’t need to worry about if this is good for my son, then somebody’s going to lose. No. When you think in this way that serves others, it’s quite gratifying. As Alex was, I think it’s saying it’s very satisfying work to do, but it’s hard work to do. It’s something like he described. It’s something that we don’t necessarily get to enjoy. My friend Alise says it’s type two fun. We’re not having type one fun. Type one fun is just smoking a joint and having some giggles. This is type two fun.
Not that I’m opposed to that, but the point is, we’ve been having type two fun and I think type two fun translates into type three fun and type four fun and type on and on and on. I think that’s the benefit of the work we’ve now done, and I’m hopeful that we’re in a place now where we can just enjoy the benefits of what we’ve worked towards and get into a bit of a rhythm and have some fun. That’s where my head’s at. Angie, that same goes with you. I’m hoping that this year is designed so that I have more free time and I’m happy to do other fun things with you. There’s lots of ways, lots of areas you’re working that I’m not, if there’s other ways for even Alex and I to support you in your work, let’s look at that being more, if anything, if we can get more cohesive between our groups and others next year is what I would love to start seeing. However we can amplify the work you’re doing, please know that we’re here in that regard for you. That’s enough for me. Who wants to go next?
Alex:
I think what I want to learn from you next year is how to acquire more skills as a sounding board so that I can learn more from other people and just almost leave the stage and just allow them to teach me about all the things that they’ve been passionate about learning in their lives and just be a facilitator and a translator going forward. At the end of the day, it’s not about me. It’s about sharing information via experts in all these different fields and just allowing that open education to be available, but then also simultaneously promoting the experts that we’re interviewing. If you want to learn more about what Angie’s doing, if you want to learn more about what Brad’s doing, if you want to follow this link, this course is available. It’s more of I just want to learn from people like you and then promote you, and then if that helps, that’s great.
And that’s my goal for 2025, and I think there’s a market for that. I think there’s a demand for that. I don’t necessarily say that I know exactly how to bring all of that to fruition, but I am stubborn and I do have an IDE memory, so I learned very quickly, and I think there is a possibility for something like that to be created where we can all support each other and we can all educate each other in different fields and spread the opportunity for other people to learn that they’re capable of educating themselves at the same time. I think there’s also money that can be made from that because if it’s free, it’s worth as much as it costs.
There needs to be a value to education and everybody who’s involved in that needs to benefit. My plan next year is to rack my brain on how to figure out how to make that happen so that everybody feels like they get their fair share and then they get their own profits from what they’re willing and able to teach to others. That’s the way that I am mapping it out, but it’s still going to take me a few weeks to make sure that there’s a good elevator pitch. But everything that I’ve learned so far in the past year and a half has been absolutely incredible. I never thought myself capable, and if it weren’t for Jen presenting the opportunity for bringing Andy on board or for the opportunity to interview 34 people so far, still two more to go within 52 weeks, I don’t know where I would be. I could never have predicted this. How can I be ungrateful when really all that’s actually been presented to me through meeting Jenny and trying to work on this pursuit for the past year and a half has been nothing but opportunity in education.
Alex:
How can I have a bad attitude? Sorry, grateful, merry Christmas shit, man. Look around, look in the mirror, look at your life. It’s just like, holy moly, if you were to write a gratitude list for everything you have in your life, it would be longer than a roll of toilet paper.
Angie:
I love that.
Alex:
And the rest is a bunch of shit.
Angie:
Yeah, there’s the quote. That’s what we needed. Thank you two. Yeah, I thank you for sharing your journey with me. I think I’m always struck by, I think when it becomes most powerful, and Jenny, you and I have talked a little bit about this, is that you have to do the inner work. You started off with that, the devil within the saboteurs, whatever it is, it’s the most effective that we can be in changing others, is by doing the inner work, doing the inner work, understanding where we are, and then that ripples out. It becomes less about trying to force, and you said easy, Jenny, and that’s ease and flow is very much a sage principle, and that starts from within. If I have that ease within myself and I have that sense of who I am and why I’m here, then it just becomes an easier path. Then you can be more intentional around where you’re headed because you’re grounded in yourself. I think I’m hearing, if I think about the early conversation that I had with the two of you, I think we did it on Clubhouse the first time, right?
Angie:
It was different. I sense a different energy from the two of you together, right? You’re more aligned. The energetics between the two of you definitely are much more aligned in terms of how you interact. The future is bright. I love it. Thanks for having me.
Jenny:
Thank you very much. Yeah, this has been a great hour with you, Angie. Thank you very much for getting home safely and having this conversation with us today. Looking forward to what 2025 brings for all of us and for anybody listening, next week is our end of the year season finale, if you will, conversation. Angie, you’re welcome to join us again. The goal is to share a song that inspires us, just a light conversation to end the year to thank the people that have participated in this and might try and send it out to some other friends this week of the show. Thank you, Angie. Thanks Alex. We’ll see you guys next week.
Alex:
Thank you. Angie. One more question before we go.
Jenny:
Yeah,
Is the Positive Intelligence Program Based on Daoism?
Alex:
I’m going to go “Colombo” on this one. Just one more thing, one more quick. The way of the sage that you speak of, is that based in Daoism? Because I only know the way of the sage based on Daoism.
Angie:
Good question. I think Shirzad has never really fully said where, I mean, it comes from a lot of the different science based psychology, performance, science, et cetera. I do think there’s definitely a lot of different faith based… Buddhism comes in a lot, I think. But I can’t say yes or no for sure, but I would not be surprised.
Alex:
Yeah, the Dao de Jang when I received the Dao, it was the way of the sage.
Alex:
I was just how you were referring to the sage. It has multiple definitions.
Jenny:
It’s funny that it hasn’t come up before. This is a great question.
Angie:
I know it is true. I know who you were when you were born? Is a Buddha thing, a Buddhism thing? I think that’s very sage, right? Being able to tap back into who we were before all the devil took over or the plaster came on over top of the beautiful golden statue. Yeah, good question. I don’t have a specific answer for you.
Alex:
Just to give you a lead on that, if you want to dive on it. Daoism, the way of the sage is “To lead by planting seeds in order for others to think that they discovered it for themselves.”
Angie:
Interesting.
Jenny:
Yeah, that’s fitting. I would say that sounds right. That sounds about right. That’s awesome. What a great way to end it. Thank you, Alex. Thank you.