Best of the Year 2023 (Part 2)

0:01I am so glad you could join us. I'm your host, Mo Gaudet This podcast is nothing more than a conversation between two good friends sharing inspiring life stories and perhaps some nuggets of wisdom along the way This is your invitation to slow down with us Welcome to Slow Mo

0:34Welcome back. If I get the times correctly, you will have this episode released literally on New Year's Eve. Actually, we will release it on midnight as we always do. So while people will be watching fireworks and reminiscing about the past year, I'm here reminiscing about what happened on slow-mo last year. And as you see behind me, 2023 was a year where I actually gave myself the liberty to finally treat myself better, to finally not just be driven by my mission, which was taking me all over the world every day of the year almost, to building a home. So I allowed myself to indulge in my hobby of aquariums and plants, and I built a place that feels a lot like what I wanted to be in.

1:28There were moments in this year where I actually allowed myself to reflect deeply on topics that really mattered to me and make decisions that either have already changed my life or will, I'm sure, change my life going forward. It's been a tough year in many, many, many ways. I openly tell the world that this has been the first in many years, maybe 13, 14 years, where I actually felt a pain in my heart that I wasn't able to deal with because of the state of the world. It took me a lot of time to revisit all that I teach about happiness in order to find my stable mindset again. It was also a year here on Slow Mo where several guests have stopped me in my tracks in their conversations to get me to reflect on topics that really made a difference to me.

2:27I hope they did as well make a difference to you. In this episode, I will visit five of them just because they were personal nuggets of wisdom, I would probably recommend that you share as well your own nuggets of wisdom, because I'm sure that some guests that may have not affected me the same way might have affected you in a way that requires your reflection just as we speak and prepare for the new year. The first of those episodes that got me really thinking was my conversation with my dear, dear friend, wonderful human being, Kagi Danlop. Kagi is a TV personality. She's a singer. She's a podcaster.

3:10She is now an author, of course, in 2023 of her book, Saturn Returns. And in our conversation, Kagi, with her typical beautiful purity, brought to my attention the idea of the astrological side of the cycles of our life, if you want. And with all due respect, I'm not the craziest person about astrology. I do believe there is a systemic cycle to things. I do believe that there is a possibility that the location of the stars affects our personalities or emotions or whatever. But I don't really align with things until I find the scientific side of them. And so, you know, I don't yet find a reasonable explanation for how those things work.

3:56But I would say when Kagi spoke about Saturn returns and the cycles that we go through in our lives because of the positioning of the stars and specifically in her approach, the position of Saturn, it really got me anchored in the idea of the seasons of our lives. And, you know, I speak about that publicly quite often because as we navigate our lives, we need to learn to not only reflect and design our life based on our needs and perceived needs, but we need to notice that those needs change. Our own personalities change, our own making changes based on the season of our life. So here's a clip from that conversation, episode number 230.

4:47If you're feeling changes in your own life, that would be a wonderful episode to revisit with Kagi Danlouk. I was going to say that it's quite a female trait, but I don't necessarily know if that's true. But I would say that women are more inclined to shape shift and alter themselves in relationships. Exactly. I'm going to make a sort of gender generalization there. And so within that, we can abandon ourselves quite easily because we've been taught to, been conditioned to. And it's something, this idea that women are to be chosen, not choosing, that we only kind of come alive once taken off the shelf.

5:29so within that we are constantly thinking of how we are going to alter ourselves but what I've recognized is that actually all those times that I did do that and self-abandoned somewhere down the path I realized that this wasn't my path and it wasn't the other person's fault because I'd done it but to go back and find your own path it becomes harder the further along you go and so you know unconditional love and unconditional tolerance it's like I call it a bittersweet victory because when we are in something that is unloving and that you know we're with someone that isn't right for us it's not necessary to say that they're better or they're worse but they're just not right for us the nuances of why certain people work together like often beyond our comprehension but to be able to say this doesn't meet my non-negotiables and non-negotiables sounds like quite a harsh term when we're speaking about the realms of love but it's so crucial and to be able to check in with yourself and be like this is not meeting me meeting me where I need to be met and sometimes loving someone means letting them go but the bittersweet victory in that is when we recognize that we've chosen ourselves and that's something it took me a really long time to do i actually don't think it's non-negotiables are a big thing for love at all i mean the reality is what i talk about explicitly in in finding love is the idea that let's not call this love relationships are made up of so many other things it's you know love is one of them But in my view, love is fundamental.

7:20Love is always there. It doesn't have to end when the relationship ends. It doesn't have to begin when the relationship begins. And love itself doesn't necessarily dictate that we need to sleep together or be partners. Or love is underlying those things. You can add intimacy to it and then become a couple. Or you can, you know, add friendships to it. And then you become really close friends, right? And I think the idea of non-negotiables are almost entirely around things other than love in the relationship. They are about things like respect. They are things like partnership, things like compatibility.

7:58And these are not touching love in itself in any way. So having non-negotiables is important. Sticking to them is difficult. But either way, they don't touch love. Love itself exists. I understand that, but I also think that we create the love. So within the context of a relationship, that friction between one person saying, hey, this is what I need, and another person kind of either stepping in or not, is what creates a deeper level of intimacy and respect, which in turn are the kind of foundational concepts of love. Because if we don't state them and we self-abandon, but we don't communicate anything, that then builds contempt, resentment, and we then stop loving.

8:55We withdraw the love. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I told you that the single most impactful sentence I have absorbed in the entire series of slow-mo so far has been during my conversation with Stephen Jenkinson in episode number 250. Stephen is a philosopher, Canadian philosopher, who lived 30 years of his life attending to the dying. He now lives as a farmer and early in the conversation we discussed that this was one of my lifetime dreams to live off the grid and be a farmer and build my own home and you know all of those lovely dreams that I know for a fact I'll probably be a long time away from achieving.

9:44And Stephen went from that point to discussing how climate change is affecting our planet and how so many of the systems of the planet are breaking reminded me of another conversation I had with Rebecca Costa, the data analyst who wrote the book, The Fisherman's Rant. Similarly, Stephen is observing how humanity has made a few mistakes that led us to where we are here and that there is a price to be paid for us to correct this. And in his very realistic way, he wonders if we can fix it without paying a steep price. and tend to be an optimist. And it's been on my mind quite significantly this year, as a matter of fact, 2023 was entirely dedicated for me attempting to really change things about our world at a very deep level, specifically from a point of view of the positioning of artificial intelligence and the relationship between ethics and artificial intelligence.

10:42And so I attempted to tell Stephen, but there is hope. And he said, and I quote, he said, Hope is the wrong premise. When someone is dying, you don't tell them that there is hope because when you tell them there is hope, they, one, don't live the days that they have and two, they don't take the corrective action to make things go better for the reality of our situation. And I think that was a very significant statement for me. I don't believe that our world is dying. I do, however, believe that we are about to face some very interesting challenges, whether that's climate change, whether it's artificial intelligence, whether it's synthetic biology, whether it is economy or geopolitical challenges.

11:32And as I look at those, I realize that we have to be super realistic. And I think Stephen's statement was probably the one that stopped me most in my tracks when I heard it, of all the episodes and conversations I had here on Slow Mo. I can't recommend it enough. It was a very short episode because he had another time-based commitment. And so, yeah, give it some time and listen to it again. episode number 250 with Stephen Jenkinson, which would allow you to maybe start the year with an anchor in reality so that you make the best out of this year for you and your loved one. I don't think we're approaching a point.

12:15I think we're there. I'm trying to be a little kinder to the ears of my listeners. Yeah. You know, again, this is a terminology that I think I learned when I was working with dying people. Dying people would refer to their dying in the future tense, constantly. When I die, or sometimes if I die, but never I'm dying. But you see, they were all dying, not in some nominal Buddhist sense of the term that everybody's dying all the time, which is clearly not true. But they were actually metabolically dying. And they were employing their dying time to resist the realities of dying. And that seems to be a fairly good metaphor for modernity, that we are in some sense in a period where the onset of ruination is already occurring.

13:13And yet we talk about waiting to see and hypothetical questions like, how do we do this and do that. And I think we're better served and the world is better served if we just change the tense of all of these ruminations and start saying, how have we done thus and so? Because if you can faithfully witness to how things have come to be as they are, then the notion about what does one do in the face of this storm becomes more available because it's a response to something not a kind of generic reactivity it's a particular kind of as we'd say in english response ability yeah so for me i'm not a a fan of hope i don't i don't find that there's any obligation necessarily among grown-ups, sentient grown-ups, to pat each other on the shoulder and reassure each other and that if we just do this and if we find some equanimity and if we just change our socks and if enough people change their socks all at once, well, you know, the globe will tip and, you know, this is not how it happened and it's not how it's going to happen either.

14:35we the truth of the matter is it seems you're familiar with the english poet w.h. odden of course yeah yeah okay so he has a wondrous but kind of ruinous observation he's made about modernity he said it seems to me that we would rather be defeated than be persuaded and so there's a lot of circumstance now geopolitically socioeconomically where the powers that be and the great sort of middle class, if you will, are there with their arms folded playing, let's see what happens. But doing that is the answer to the question, what happens? This is what happens now, waiting to see if it's really that bad, waiting to see if people like me are not just exaggerating or worse, and that we're secretly hopeless, and we're just vectoring our hopelessness, you know, from podcast to podcast, which I'm not hopeless at all.

15:36I'm free of the notion of hope, which is to say, you know, the last time I checked it out thoroughly, hope is a very much a future tense circumstance. That's where it actually operationalizes in the future, but it has immense consequence for the present. But for example, hope is completely not required to mobilize on behalf of a better day. No. I agree. I think one of the things we're doing right now is mobilizing, you and I at this very moment, mobilizing on behalf of a better day. I'm not saying we're being very successful or very effective, but at least in intention, this is what we're doing.

16:16But look what's not necessary. You and I don't have to hope we're sitting here talking to be able to sit here and talk. hope is completely not required to engage the dilemmas that we're beginning to talk about now if you require hope you're importing it from elsewhere yeah so so hope is always a compromise of the present moment nobody hopes for the way it is we hope for the way it isn't okay so so my orientation to life is to do everything I can to inhabit the way it is. Another episode that has definitely been one of my favorites because they are my heroes but also a very strong reminder of something I stand strongly for was the conversation with the minimalists and while the you know the documentary The Minimalists has really affected my life very strongly shaped my attitude.

17:15I didn't expect that the conversation would be so philosophical and deep in so many ways. And I found that to be quite enriching, especially on the sides of what minimalism really means. And does it really stop at the number of items you have in your household? And what makes us hoard so much? What makes us keep so many things? I found that to be quite a defining a moment for me to reflect and revisit my approach to having a lighter life by becoming more, as they mentioned, a utilitarian, someone who really only keeps in his life things that bring him joy or utility. A wonderful conversation in every possible way.

17:58As you head into a new year, you may want to revisit 251, not just for getting stuff out of your life, but perhaps getting concepts and self-limiting beliefs out of your life. Episode 251 with the Minimalists. Yeah, that's a great way to look at minimalism. It's a way to kind of help us get back to our roots, to get back to the nature. I mean, I think when you bring up these poor communities in the world, yeah, I mean, by definition of things, yes, they're not cluttering their lives, but aren't their lives cluttered with so many other things though with uh cell phones and and advertisement in this wanting yeah so it's it's interesting i mean even if uh you know take the take the things out of it minimalism is this philosophy that kind of helps us get back to those those roots to get back to that nature yeah i mean we see in here at least here in the united states we see five to 10 ,000 advertisements a day.

19:02No way. Oh my God. Yeah. And that is, it's, it's, it programs us. And like that, that those ideas, they seed in us and they create these desires that we never would have had otherwise. But yeah, it is, it is fascinating how I've never, I've never looked at it that way, but minimalism certainly can be a tool that people can use to get back to that natural state in a way. Yeah. So because I spend more time working with people who economically would be categorized as poor than I do working with people who maybe have too many luxury goods, here's an aspect of minimalism that I think the philosophical side can really contribute to.

19:44So I'm just going to give you one example. One of my inner city students, we were in class in a small group and we're talking about dreams. And this is a young black man, about 17 years old, and he states what his dream is, and his dream is to be a mechanical engineer. And I thought that was an interesting answer. And I'm thinking, oh, okay, this should be pretty easy to workshop because usually students might say something like a rapper or an actor, and it's kind of hard, right? Because you don't want to contradict their ambition, but there's no clear, easy path for it. And so you got to be really delicate and nuanced with how you talk about it with them.

20:19But he says mechanical engineer, I'm thinking, oh, this should be pretty easy. And so I ask him, what's the hard part? And he says, the hard part is where I'm from. And I say, well, what do you mean? And he expresses to me a firm conviction that the number one reason he doesn't believe he can become a mechanical engineer is because of the neighborhood he has grown up in and that he still lives in. And because of the life of his father who is now in jail because of a life of crime. And so here is someone that's having a really difficult time imagining him ever making it out of the hood and ever being able to fulfill his dream because he has a story going on that says, I can never do what my father did not achieve.

21:04I am destined for a life in jail like my dad. I can never be bigger and better than the neighborhood I grew up in. Now, that story is not his fault. That's a story that has been imposed upon him by the reality of his harsh circumstances, by cultural elements and so on. And in addition to that, there are aspects of that story that have some very strong sociological and economic arguments that give him every reason to believe that. But when you're talking to someone like that, you don't have the luxury to sit back with a glass of wine and just say something that sounds virtuous. You've got to speak into this young man's life in a way that helps him unpack that baggage so that he can be able to create some options for himself without blaming himself for the challenging circumstances that he's in.

21:57And so we begin to have a conversation about what it means to have parents that live a certain way and what it does and does not say about you. We begin to have conversations about what it does and does not mean to grow up in a certain neighborhood. And we have to approach this sympathetically, understanding the things that are beyond his control, but also in a way that encourages him to believe in his possibilities, pointing him to the resources that he didn't know about, that his mentors never showed him because he doesn't have the mentors, right? And so this is just one example of how we can have baggage in the form of stories, in the form of self-defeating beliefs, in the form of self-condemnation, in the form of having people who told us you aren't anything and you'll never be anything.

22:40And that can be as powerful as the baggage that comes from having too many things. It's so beautifully said. Early in the year, I was speaking at the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Forum, a wonderful event. I mean, Sharjah in general is the sort of the cultural capital where books and culture is discussed quite often in the UAE. And so I was there. It was a lovely event. And we were sort of arranging for me to meet with some of the guests. And I have to admit, I was a bit struggling with time. And it was, you know, a very busy event with a lot of people that I know. And so I felt a little drained. But we had already arranged for me to meet with my next guest here on this episode, April Rani.

23:27April was sort of like, oh, we can do it tomorrow, but I didn't want to go tomorrow. So anyway, we found a tiny room that wasn't very properly air conditioned. So it was actually quite hot in there. And we started the conversation that we just could not stop. I mean, despite the fact that you may see a few drops of sweat on my forehead every now and then, I just couldn't stop chatting with April. We started from her defining moment when she lost her parents in an accident that really flipped her life upside down, something that I believe I can relate to very deeply. And we branched from there to all kinds of vulnerabilities and wisdom in a wonderful conversation that was, I think, early in the year, a very important reminder for me of the value of what I'm attempting to do.

24:22I mean, sometimes, even though I hope you don't notice it, I feel overwhelmed with all of the tasks I've assigned to myself, with all of the challenges that the world throws your way and all of the biases of the technology world and social media that perhaps does not always favor my kind of message to the world. And when I spoke to April, I think she anchored me back into maximum focus on my mission. And I will say openly, because of April and so many others that have helped me this year, it's been a very effective year. Difficult as it may have been, I think I have never had a message spread as fast and wide as my message on artificial intelligence.

25:09So thanks for all of those that helped me. And specifically early in the year, thanks to my conversation with April Vignet, which was episode 231, which was lovely, very wise in every possible way. Maybe you'd have the time to revisit that. what i love is you're you're just teeing up these wonderful so i can look at the superpower and say mo like this superpower is already quite strong for you because you're practicing it and it's a it's a practice you opted into you could have done the planning and no you made a choice to but this is grooving this mental muscle yeah and i just love i love everything about what you just said because it's exactly what we're talking about.

25:56And one thing I didn't mention in here is that for this particular superpower, when people are like, how do we get started? I'm always like, the number one is travel. Travel gives you such a great template because for most people, travel is a kind of adventure they pick. I'm going to choose to travel somewhere. And within that, I can have a lot of experiences that might feel scary, but I'm guessing the booking things last minute not only empowering really freeing a total freedom like just and all of a sudden it's like your your lungs expand your heart expands you feel lighter yeah yeah you do it you do it a couple of times and you realize why was i worried about this yeah so one fun side note this is more my personal history um it was shortly after my parents died when i was i was admittedly in the throes of grief and i was i was having a really hard time a little more context both my parents were teachers and we didn't have a lot growing up.

26:52It wasn't about material possessions or money, but the two things we were allowed to spend money on were education and travel. They were real. My dad was a cultural geographer. So he studied maps and migratory patterns and cultural diversity was a huge theme growing up. But I bring this up because I was on the one hand dealing with, okay, I've lost them. I need to do something with, well, one, I have to be self-sufficient. I have to take care of myself. So I can't just like, just go do nothing. I have to build a career. But at the same time, I know I might die tomorrow. So it needs to be a career that makes sense to me and is contributing to society.

27:26But then also, I need to do something that would make my parents proud because now I have this, I don't know if it's guilt or pride or who knows what, but that's a problem. And all sorts of other things, including some mental health challenges and just depression and whatnot. But I share this all because in between undergraduate and graduate school, when my mentors were saying, you need to go work at a consulting firm or a bank and I was like no I don't but what do I need to do and I remember I was 21 when I wonder how I would feel if the tables were reversed but I had some extended family members who were concerned about me and they were like okay you're not gonna go do that what are you gonna do and I was like my plan is not to have a plan they were like oh boy oh boy Exactly.

28:11Well, 21 with no parental oversight, right? Lots of energy. As if there is ever parental oversight. True. Well, what was fascinating, and I know I'm taking a bit of a tangent here, but I hope it's helpful to at least some of the folks listening in. It was an interesting combo in my 20s where I had lots of ideas and energy. I've always had like abundant energy. I had a very clear sense of how fragile life was, a kind of, not a death wish, but I truly didn't think I had long to live. It was irrational, but like, and I had no parental accountability, meaning if I could figure out a way to do something, there was no, no one to tell me, but, but I had to figure it out and I had to take responsibility for it.

28:54And that was a really interesting mix because I was like, okay, my plan's not to have a plan, but I knew it was important. Particularly my parents did expect me to go on to graduate school. They did expect me to contribute to society. They did not necessarily expect me. It wasn't about making a bunch of money and having a fancy title. It was contributing to the greater good. But I realized how little I knew about the world. And the one, so education and travel. And I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I do know that I want to see more of the world and find a way to travel and find a way to understand how does the rest of the world live?

29:25And so long story short, I spent four years without a permanent address, with a backpack. This is pre Airbnb, pre small, I didn't even have a mobile phone. This was nothing. This was getting off the bus and having the grandma be like, you look interesting you're a single young female you'll stay with me i was just going to say and you're not even you don't even look like me oh no no i'm the young blonde who's like you must be lost you get lost and actually that's the the intro to that chapter is the story of me in a rural romania shortly after the iron curtain comes down bucovina i don't know if you've ever written a bucovina these painted monasteries yeah this was back when there were dirt roads They were not a UNESCO heritage site, but I had read about them in my art history class, and I was going to find my way there.

30:12So I get people, single, blonde, fair-skinned, what in the world she is? She is clearly lost. And people would be like, how can you travel on your own? That must be frightening and scary. What they didn't realize is what they saw as a liability, being young and female and solo and foreign, was my asset, greatest asset. Because grandmothers in particular across the board were like, you have to be lost. Here, come in. Let me take care of you. Let me feed you. Let me show you around. I had families open their doors left, right, and center precisely because I was solo and female. That's fascinating.

30:50But I bring this up because back to those four years, to earn income, I researched and guided hiking and biking trips around the world. Got a job as a tour guide, which was so much fun, which gave me enough income not to pay a mortgage or raise a family, but plenty of income to go to the trip. Exactly. So I did that for four years. But back to your point about my routine was not having any idea when I woke up that morning where I would sleep that night. I knew where I was heading on my itinerary, but we'll figure it out. And I don't think I appreciated at that time because I was so focused on other things like the grieving and the what am I going to do with my life?

31:29But I realized now that I was grooving that superpower. I was really getting comfortable with the not knowing, but learning to celebrate it. I got so excited about where might I be tonight? I don't know, but it's going to probably be. It was always cool, even if it wasn't necessarily comfortable or luxurious. It was something new. It was something that taught me something, exposed me to something different. On October 13th this year, Slow Mo gave me the biggest gift it has ever given me. I was rushing through the streets of London. I was late for a board meeting and somehow life in a freakishly obvious way was delaying me so that I get to a specific street corner at a specific moment in time, where I find someone approaching me from the other side, looking at me as if she knows me.

32:23And so I asked, I said, do we know each other? And she said, no, you don't know me, but I'm a friend of Carly's who's a common friend between us, and I follow your work. I love slow-mo, and I just wanted to say hi. And I was honored, so I said hi, and we chatted for a quick four or five minutes, so that I get to know her quickly. And it turns out that Hannah Lord, who is a therapist that specializes, she really dedicates a lot of her work to understanding the depth of what her client needs in a way that often involves sort of the alpha masculine type clients. I was doing the love and romance series at the time.