Embark on an enlightening journey with Neil Krovats, the mastermind behind Clearline Technologies, as we unveil the secrets of his entrepreneurial metamorphosis. Discover how this visionary ventured beyond the family business to sculpt an eco-friendly empire from recycled tire rubber, crafting pipe supports that redefine industry standards and environmental stewardship. Neil's narrative is a homage to the ingenious potential that lies in fusing persistence with out-of-the-box thinking, providing a blueprint for success that both green-thumbs and business aficionados can admire.
Our conversation digs into the rich tapestry of cognitive styles that shape the landscape of business innovation. You'll learn about the 'middler' personality—individuals who straddle the line between structured and dynamic thinking—and how this trait can be a superpower for juggling myriad ideas. Explore the challenges random thinkers face in our sequentially-driven world and the ways they can harness their unique perspective to craft solutions that escape the conventional mind. Neil and I reflect on the synergies and struggles intrinsic to diverse thought processes and how they fuel the engine of entrepreneurial progress.
Wrapping up, we traverse the evolution of environmental consciousness, from its infancy as a fringe movement to its current status as a global imperative. Drawing parallels to this shift, we examine the entrepreneur’s path from outlier to innovator. We delve into the power of embracing individuality and the critical importance of cognitive diversity in driving change. Sharing anecdotes and personal reflections, we underscore the significance of innovative minds in sculpting the future, making this episode an essential listen for anyone passionate about creativity, the environment, or the indomitable spirit of entrepreneurship.
Contact Thad - VictoriousVeteranProject@Gmail.com
Thanks for listening!
Embark on an enlightening journey with Neil Krovats, the mastermind behind Clearline Technologies, as we unveil the secrets of his entrepreneurial metamorphosis. Discover how this visionary ventured beyond the family business to sculpt an eco-friendly empire from recycled tire rubber, crafting pipe supports that redefine industry standards and environmental stewardship. Neil's narrative is a homage to the ingenious potential that lies in fusing persistence with out-of-the-box thinking, providing a blueprint for success that both green-thumbs and business aficionados can admire.
Our conversation digs into the rich tapestry of cognitive styles that shape the landscape of business innovation. You'll learn about the 'middler' personality—individuals who straddle the line between structured and dynamic thinking—and how this trait can be a superpower for juggling myriad ideas. Explore the challenges random thinkers face in our sequentially-driven world and the ways they can harness their unique perspective to craft solutions that escape the conventional mind. Neil and I reflect on the synergies and struggles intrinsic to diverse thought processes and how they fuel the engine of entrepreneurial progress.
Wrapping up, we traverse the evolution of environmental consciousness, from its infancy as a fringe movement to its current status as a global imperative. Drawing parallels to this shift, we examine the entrepreneur’s path from outlier to innovator. We delve into the power of embracing individuality and the critical importance of cognitive diversity in driving change. Sharing anecdotes and personal reflections, we underscore the significance of innovative minds in sculpting the future, making this episode an essential listen for anyone passionate about creativity, the environment, or the indomitable spirit of entrepreneurship.
Contact Thad - VictoriousVeteranProject@Gmail.com
Thanks for listening!
And I always say you know, you're crazy until you're successful. Then you're brilliant as an entrepreneur, as a random. You're absolutely crazy until success. And then all of a sudden they chart all those crazy ways you had about you and these things you do. They're really kind of a negative until you're successful, Like, oh yeah, he used to do this, he used to stand on his head and think about things. That's brilliant. But it's now because, if it's part of the recipe for success that they saw, all those crazy things are actually now becoming really like what you want to do, and that's cool because that's the new way.
Speaker 2:My name is Thad David. I'm a former Marine recon scout sniper with two deployments to Iraq. As a civilian, I've now facilitated hundreds of personal and professional development trainings across the country, and it struck me recently that the same things that help civilians will also help veterans succeed in their new roles as well. Join me as we define civilian success principles to inspire veteran victories. Welcome to another episode. I'm here today with Neil Kravatz. He is the founder and owner of Clearline Technologies. How are you doing, neil? I'm great. How are you doing, neil? I'm great. How are you today? I'm wonderful. Thank you so much for taking some time out of your very busy, busy day. I know you are literally all over the map all over the world spreading the good word. I'd love to just dive in really quick, if you don't mind. Tell us what you do and I know you have this huge goal of what you and your company are going to do and what you're currently doing. Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I was a manufacturer's agent family business for quite a few years and one day and we were plumbing and heating products very glamorous, glamorous stuff, you know, toilets and toilet seats and stuff and we were some guy came just one day with a new line of products they wanted us to look at and it was these pipe supports that were made out of plastic. Now, pipe supports go on rooftops for supporting. When you look at a commercial roof and you see a pipe along the roof, you see a block of something underneath it. That's called a pipe support. And so he had made one out of plastic. Mostly people were just using lumber, like 4x4s. And so when we did our research and came back to him and said, yeah, we'll take the line, uh, he had given it to somebody else. So we, uh. So at that point I just went. Well, you know, I think the idea was great. I had a great response from the plumbers. I thought, well, let's see if we can't make something ourselves.
Speaker 1:So I changed hats from being a manufacturer's rep to being a manufacturer, which you know, I always knew that the better money was in the unlimited life is with manufacturing, not with being an agent for somebody else Because your territory limits you and, being somebody like myself, I can't stand limitations, being told that this is all you're ever going to do. And we had a very small territory, small city. We were in Manitoba. That this is all you're ever going to do. And we had a very small territory, small city. We were in Manitoba, canada it's a province in Canada and in a very small town, 700,000 people. The whole province was a million people, so you had to really sell a lot of stuff to make a living. But anyway, so yeah.
Speaker 1:So I invented this product there's a whole long story to that, you know decided I need to find something that could compete with wood blocks. I wasn't going to come out in the market with some expensive thing and try to get plumbers to stop using something that costs half and get them to use our product. My thought was that if I made it out of garbage, that would be a very inexpensive input cost. I started looking for different waste streams that we could utilize to manufacture a pipe support. So I happened across recycled tire rubber and there was a guy making curbs in montreal, canada, and they were making these parking curbs and I called them up and we, uh, were able to buy their seconds that they had manufactured with square ends instead of chamfered ends.
Speaker 1:That started the business. I cut them all up, put some brochures together and put some steel on them and made a whole product line and went to market with it. I remember when we used to get excited for getting an order of 20 of them. Now we get excited when we get an order 200 000. So it's uh, the scale has changed. Excitement's still there, but the scale has changed that's absolutely brought up and I love it.
Speaker 2:Everything that I do and in my, my day-to-day job, I work in the trade, so I love that this originated in the trades, because it's changed so much of my life. And to see what you've done you do all of this out of recycled tires.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and we we're getting into the science of anything that's uh recycled materials that we can. We can blend with our rubber to make different physical characteristics that allow us to expand our products into more uh other areas uh, stiffer, you know, more compression strength. We're looking at a product that goes under buildings for doing seismic protection on on concrete buildings. It's a whole bunch of different things, but we need different, different styles or different types of characteristics for the rubber. So we're looking at all other kinds of waste streams that we can blend with the rubber to create different mechanical capabilities and characteristics. That's fascinating.
Speaker 2:It's really amazing what you've done and where it started. And now your goal and correct me if I'm off base on it is to eliminate all of the world's used tires, because they just sit there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean the thing about using waste streams is it's exciting to me. Maybe I need to have more excitement in my life, but I love when you can find something out there, and I think the whole world does. I mean you look at the talent shows out there. People are so drawn to. When you can find a diamond in the rough, something where it's a waste it's something that no one's using or whatever you can grab it and make it into something. I think the world is quite enamoredored with that concept and it inspires people and, and so when we come up with different things that we make out of, uh waste streams, uh it's, it's really fun and people really get excitement out because it's like you know you're finding this diamond, this treasure and uh. So I look at all the waste streams out there as a treasure hunt.
Speaker 1:When you look at how much goes into the, the dumps every year, and I mean there's more material being thrown out every year than being manufactured every year and there's that's material and if you can bake, break it down to being an actual uh commodity or a resource like gold or steel or anything like that. That's how I look at the rubber. So I have 1.8 billion tires. A billion tires go into the dump every year around the world and only 25% of that gets recycled into something. And so you know, I look at this there's there's billions of pounds, 70 billion pounds, of rubber out there. That's for mine, for the taking. It's just sitting there. I can have it for free pretty much, and make whatever I want out of it.
Speaker 1:So now it's a case of well, what else can I make with rubber? And there's no end. So we just have to continually grow. We're growing exponentially. I think our growth has been 50% per year for the last three years, and that's a company that's 20 years old and developing new things.
Speaker 1:So we went from having the pipe support to now we have curbs and speed bumps and traffic bases. You know those cones. They have that rubber base on the bottom, and we're constantly developing more products, which is what I enjoy doing. Now, that being said, why not set the goal that we can change the world? Instead of just making your product hoping to make some money, let's actually take this and ramp it up a bit and see what we can do about actually solving the tire problem, because you know input, output, all the output of the rubber out there in this world can be turned into an input, then you would solve the problem. Sounds very simple for 70 billion pounds of rubber, you got to find a use for it, but uh, but yeah, that's kind of. That's kind of how we look at things.
Speaker 2:That's an incredible thing that you've done and I love how you always hear with entrepreneurship is kind of swim to open water, and you've done that with the resources that you need to build your products. Where is everybody else to that diamond in the rough?
Speaker 1:Everybody's looking for the next shiny thing. You literally went to the dump and said, well, what can we make here? And it's pretty fascinating. And and here's the here's the secret. Don't tell anybody this, but the margins when you take garbage and make it into a product are spectacular. And you know I mean that it's all, it's all so simple. When you say it online, you go oh, wow, yeah, duh, but the less you spend, the more you make.
Speaker 1:Retaining of your, of your, of your sales is number one. I always said to somebody I'd way rather have a company that sells five million dollars but profits three million than a company that sells a hundred million dollars and profits three million, and that's and I. That happens all the time. Another company that sells $100 million and profits $3 million that happens all the time. What do you mean? You see these giant companies that everybody gives such respect to. They're doing $100 million, but their EBITDA, the bottom line, is usually 7% to 10%. When you're making product where your input cost is almost zero, I'll guarantee you right now your EBITDA is a hell of a lot more. It's fascinating. We do everything that way, where we look at the bottom line of the company and what we're making.
Speaker 1:People will use failures in trying to use recycled materials that cost too much or all the debate of that. We always say that if it's going to end up costing more than the comparative product, then we won't do it. It doesn't make any sense to do that. People are not willing to pay more for something because it's environmentally advantageous. They'll maybe pay 2% more or it'll be a tipping point between one or the other, but for the most part and I don't think that people should, and I think we've been slamming that down not we, but the environmental industry of manufacturing stuff has been slamming that down people's throats that they should pay more because it's like eco-bullying, it's like, well, you should want to do do this, so you should be willing to pay more. And I say no, you should want to do this because it's good for the world and you don't pay any more for it. So you know, at clearline, we created this criteria and it's it's, it's. Uh, if you look at our logo, we have three leaves on our logo and that's the clear line.
Speaker 1:Criteria is the three things. One is that when we develop a product, it has to be priced the same or better than the product that we're going up against that. We're replacing that's a non-green product. Secondly, it has to be truly green. If it's not, if it's greenwashinghing, you just undermine the whole thing and you undermine everybody's reasons for doing this, because people will point to that.
Speaker 1:We're going to see there are a bunch of snake oil sales salesman. It doesn't really, you know, doesn't really work or whatever. And the other thing is has to, it has to actually meet the spec and there's so often where a green alternative or some other alternative to what's being done right now it doesn't actually do it as well. But you're supposed to just hold your nose and say, yeah, it's almost as good, but you know, not really, because it's green, it's not as good as the other stuff. And I I always laugh about thinking about the guy who I want to hire for my next salesman is the guy who started citronella for candles to keep mosquitoes away because it doesn't work. And I mean, if you're not in the mosquito zone you won't understand necessarily what I'm talking about. But they use a citronella and they put it and they infused everything with it and they went all the market.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's, it's green, because it's, you know, lemons and all that kind of crap and it never worked. It didn't work as good as the toxic stuff, you know, the off or whatever. But you were supposed to just sort of say, well, yeah, but it's green, so I'm going to buy it. That's crap too. So again, all three things has to be as good price the same and are actually really green. And if you hit those three things every time, my bet is that when you hit those three things every time, you will win the decision 9.9 times out of 10 when people are given that point. Well, point nine times out of ten when people are given that one. Well, here's all the things. Now which one would you buy?
Speaker 2:the one that is actually made out of petroleum or toxic or what have you, or this one, and this one is most reflex. That's incredible. I love that you tied that in and your citronella example is perfect. Like I've ptsd from like feeling mosquitoes biting me while it's just not working. I've said at work then it didn't do it. But that's incredible. It makes it really simple as a consumer to make that purchase.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you don't have to be. Everybody's always afraid of a snake oil salesman trying to pull the wool over their eyes, and I understand that, and we get very mad when someone does. And it always makes me mad when I'll find somebody in the industry who has an environmental edge to their idea of what they're doing. And it's all crap because then it undermines all of us. And I remember one time I was at a building show and this guy was selling garage doors, metal garage doors. I went, oh well, how are these green? He said, well, we're not using wood. That's like. You know.
Speaker 1:Wood is a replenishment product. Like wood is actually good Forestation, using trees is what, that's what they're good for. And because now the industry is responsible in replants, using wood is actually incredibly environmental because it's it's, it replenishes itself, and I mean trees have to be cut down eventually or else they'll fall. So, uh, there's nothing wrong with using wood, but it's all I mean. And you know I want to get into the debate of the whole green thing because that's just a nightmare. But what I love about my products are is there's no debate about global warming. The stuff in my product, my product, cleans up the world and we all know that pollution is bad. No matter what side of the aisle you're on, you can appreciate that pollution is bad, and my product takes pollution and turns it into a finished product that makes the world a better place.
Speaker 2:It's amazing. I love what you've done and what you continue to do literally all over the world. It's amazing to hear about. And so I know. We met, we're sitting on an airplane randomly next to each other and we started talking about and you brought up this concept that I would love to hear you just kind of, before we deep dive too far into it, just kind of kind of give a brief overview, but the how, how people are random or sequential in in this nature of it, and what gave you that idea? What is it? How would you just give the elevator pitch of it?
Speaker 1:yeah. So, uh, I mean, being an entrepreneur is somebody who sees things that people don't. They always ask why? And then figure out, they question the stuff that we have taken as the mundane beige in this world that we just accept, and they go why, why are we putting up with this? And they try to figure a way to do it better.
Speaker 1:And, uh, it takes what I call a random mind to think this way. Uh, I mean, we can all do it, and being random or being sequential is is a spectrum. They're not either one or the other. You can fall anywhere amongst the spectrum. Uh, so if you look at it as being, you know, all the way to one side is you're really random and all the way to the other side is you're really sequential. And if you get beyond this one point on either side of random, you become uh dysfunctional. You're too random, you can't actually organize your thoughts, you can't actually be effective. And the same thing with on the sequential side is you become what people would call ocd and you're now not effective and you're you're, you're uh handcuffed with this. But in between, somewhere we all run. And you know I was laughing, you know I explained to people this because everyone always says when I talk to them about if you're random versus you're sequential, everyone wants to know where they are and I'm like, well, I can't tell you or I can give you an idea where I think.
Speaker 1:But there's those guys that you meet that everybody likes, and they're usually like everybody likes me. They'll say, oh, that that fat great guy, love him everybody. Yeah, he's what I call middler, and these are the people who sit right in the middle and they get along with both sides, they can understand both sides equally and they are the one that everybody likes because of that, because they understand. To understand somebody is to walk a mile in their footsteps and to be random, where you walk through the world with a peripheral vision that's wide open, and as you walk from here to there, you can be looking at this, looking at that and thinking about all these different things at the same time. Sequentials are more about a straight line and walking from here to here in the most efficient way, and they don't all of a sudden start thinking about how that light fixture looks like the one from your old house that you lived in, and boy, you'd like to find that. Oh, that house is kind of. I remember that house. I wonder who owns it now, as you're walking towards this over and you're having all these different things happening in mind, but you're able to control it and focus in a way that sequentials just don't understand.
Speaker 1:And I I say to people because you know, you hear as a random, you always hear people saying, oh, he's unfocused, he's all over the place and they, you know, because they can't understand what it is to spin 10 plates at the same time. And I use this, the plate spinner, uh example, because you know, in the circus they just have the guy who spin all the plates. He has to keep them all going. He starts with one. They put a whole bunch of good and that's life to me is that, as I'll have 15 plates on the go and I'll be spinning them all and having huge energy and really enjoying it, whereas as if you tell me just to focus on one plate and just spin that one plate, that plate's gonna fall before you know it because I'm gonna be off doing something else, I'll be bored it, it won't keep my attention and I'll be done.
Speaker 1:And the world wants us to focus on the one thing and we are rewarded for being compliant how we're taught in school. You're rewarded for being compliant, you are punished for not being compliant to the rules and everything is structured sequentially. You know, school is all about here. I'm going to feed you this lesson that starts here and ends there in a straight line, point one up to point whatever, and then you are rewarded for how perfectly you regurgitate that sequence, in perfection, straight, and that's either an A, but for us we bring texture because, remember, we're walking through a world where our peripheral vision is all over here. And I talked about in school how, when I was, you know, when you're learning a lesson in school and they'll start with number one, and then number two, three, and you're getting it, and all of a sudden you're at number six or whatever it may be, and you take off and got the concept, and now you're pulling in this.
Speaker 1:You're thinking about something that happened to you one time over here that relates and this relates. You're trying to look for something to relate it to, and ideas, and, and you ask the teacher about something that has to do with where you are in your thought process up here, and they want you back down, step number eight, and they're like I'm not on, I'm on step number 90 and they're like what are you talking about? Get back down here. What kind of stupid question was that? Because they can't see where you're looking at from and they want to bring you back down and they'll say well, that's not where we're going, we're not going there and going. I know where you're going. This is way better, because I added this and this and this, and, and they're like stop, let's drug you, let's call you, add, put you back in the in the room and we'll just feed it to you one step at a time. And that's something that happens every day.
Speaker 1:And I identified this because that's me, like I am. I am a an interesting study, because I'm the guy on the very far side, right? So those are the studies of the interest. Ones are the most dramatic.
Speaker 1:Yep, and if I was told to, you know, focus, what you know, let's just focus on one thing and it's like your understanding of focus, not yours, but the sequential understanding of focus and the randoms understanding of focus are two completely different definitions of the word. So focus for me is being able to keep my attention and work on multiple ideas at the same time, and I've got all these things going on at the same time in a complex construct. That's focus. So when they take a look at people like me and say you're not focused, it's exactly the opposite, whereas the sequential world defines focus as having your thought and your attention on one individual thing. That's focus and that's not my focus. That's not how I focus. That's not how randoms focus, which allows us to bring things out from you know they. Always you'll hear terminologies like sequentials will say oh, that came out of left field. Well, that's because I live in left field, like nothing's left field to me, it's all just field. I see it all at the same time. I'm bringing this and that I explain to this. I love the one because you always know a sequential, because they always say the same thing.
Speaker 1:When you come up with a spectacular idea, it's simple. All great innovation is usually quite simple. It simplifies things, doesn't make things more complex. The first thing I always say is why did I think of that which, if you're a sensitive guy which you, you don't. You lose all sensitivity and you develop a real thick skin being around them your whole life? Because? But if you're a sensitive guy, you'd say like, like, as if they're offending you, that they should have. They're smarter than you and they should have thought, but but you don't, because you just want them to understand.
Speaker 1:Like, at random, I can walk a mile, like I talked about earlier. How to understand somebody is to walk a mile on their footstep. I can walk 10 miles in a sequential footstep because it's linear, you can follow it. It's all been perfectly laid out and you can do it. I'll hate it and I'll kind of veer a lot. As you know, I'll never do it like they would and I'll get a. I'll get a C or D at the end, but I can do it right. It's predictable.
Speaker 1:To beat to walk a mile in the footsteps of a random is to be able to understand the balance of the complex constructs of thought, to be bringing it all at the same time and and thought isn't just about one singular individual amount of time. I could be bringing something from something I saw 20 years ago and 15 years ago and 13, and, and today and yesterday, and pull it all together on a concept, an idea that pulls into a one moment. You go holy shit, what a great idea. And that's why here's here's a quick test if you, if you want to know if you're, how random you are or if you're sequential. Uh, you never remember where you left anything. Where's my keys, honey? Oh man, you forgot. You can't find your keys again. What's wrong with you? Well, because from the time I put my keys down honey, oh man, you forgot. You can't find your keys again. What's wrong with you? Well, because from the time I put my keys down to the time I'm here right now, I had 4,000 different things go in my head and it was not a great straight line that I could walk back through Right, retrace your steps.
Speaker 1:To retrace the steps for a random moment of an hour is so difficult because the conversation does not have any link. The thought process has no linkage. The linkage is is is all over the place, so you pluck a little from here and here and here, and so to retrace those steps is really tough. So you have to retrace it with thinking about what you were feeling and what you're like. It's a feeling that you retrace and a and a zone that you get into that you retrace and try to feel, yeah, I was thinking about this, and when I was thinking about that, these, you got to retrace that thing and it's really hard. So to find out where my keys are. I don't know no-transcript and get my ass kicked when I came home because my grades sucked. So there's a place for you, there's a place for us, there's a place for everybody in this world.
Speaker 1:I'm just trying to shed light on the world, to say, hey, uh, when you meet a random and by way, and he's not looking you in the eye when he talks, because he hasn't trained his eyes to not follow his mind, because when a random is talking to you and they do this and they do that, it's because they're following the ideas, even though they're hearing every word you're saying, but they haven't trained themselves to, uh, adhere to what people need to see, which is eye contact, and you'll see an autistic. You know one thing about autism, which is and I'm not, I'm not a psychologist, I've done a lot of research on this but I mean, autism is one of the big things autism is is, um, eye contact, and you know, it's just another thing that doesn't go along with the world of how we all expect to solve. So people will be, will misinterpret that, so, at any rate. So, yeah, so I said a lot about this stuff, but, uh, and of course, as being random. We're all over the place right now because I'm just letting it go from one idea to another.
Speaker 1:I have this nice list of all the ways I was going to talk to you about stuff. There's no way I'm writing a book and I decided in the book I'm going to make all the chapters be like first chapter will be chapter five and then we'll go to number eight and then number one after that. And the other guy I join more is that is is fucking with my sequential engineers because I'll be in a conversation with them and I'll go off onto a tangent about something like we're talking about this and well, you know what about this, and we're gonna do that. And I go off on these tangents and you know, allowing us to think and create together and watching the pain in their face when I'm on a tangent because they want. So they're just counting the moments until we get back onto the conversation where we left off. So you watch them in physical pain. Well, I'm off on some tangent, but because I'm the boss, we're still on that tangent.
Speaker 2:Yep well, and I I had. When you said, give me one plate and tell me to focus on this one plate, I half imagined you saying and I spin the plate and I realized that plate reminded me of my buddy's house back when I was a kid and like just, and that's why it falls off, because it's not able to grab it. But I love your explanation of it. I I'm very excited. I know you're writing a book and putting it together and I can't wait to to read it all.
Speaker 1:It was a really just amazing concept well, you know, I I don't think I'm saying anything that the world didn't know, and I think that's the case with most books, because nothing's been reinvented in psychology. This world is just discovery, and it's the idea on. This is one of the big things I wanted to do. I hope to do is help sequential parents understand their random child, and I've had that happen a couple times where I've been on a plane, like talking with you. Yeah, on that plane I was explaining to a lady who said next to me about this and got on top and she started to cry because she was so overwhelmed because she says my child is that and I know he's smart, but he's just having trouble and he's in trouble at school, and all this because and it's like yeah, he's not being engaged and they want to drug him. They want to say say, well, you know he's ADHD. Like if I hear that one more time, if I hear one more person call me ADD, now I don't get that. I understand it because they're trying to put an understanding to me and, as I've said, to understand a human being is to walk a mile in their footsteps. Sequentials can't possibly walk a mile in my footstep because it's so out of control. They can't. They can't balance all that stuff at the same time if it's not following. You know, because I mean, like I said in school, you're rewarded for being this way, right. I mean, when you're in school, what's what do you get straight A's for? Perfect, sequential, linear thought process to follow, learn the lesson and bring it back in a perfect understanding of that. You know exactly where it is. From there here to the end, I got, like I was a 50 average in school and the one thing you'll notice when you find all entrepreneurs, uh, like myself, they all got 50 averages. Like hardly any of them ever got straight A's and usually, if they got straight A's, because they found a way to cheat. And uh, um, averages, like hardly any of them ever got straight A's and usually, if they got straight A's, because they found a way to cheat. And uh, um, I remember when I was in, when I was the grade 12 grades. Uh, they came home and they got put up on the fridge. My girlfriend at the time came over the house and she saw the grades and she, she thought those were the number of students in each of my classrooms. True story, anyway. But yeah, no, I mean we don't do well and we get. We get beaten up our whole lives for being this way and um, and my hope is to stop people from drugging these kids who have random minds. They're not add, they're random and they need to be understood for how they're processing random.
Speaker 1:Sequential is about how you process information. I process information from any angle, any level, any time. It doesn't have to be just visual angles. I say you walk with a peripheral vision where everything you walk by you notice everything. But it's also time, everything I walk by. I can pass this thing to something I remember from 25 years ago. My memory is off the charts because it drives my girlfriend crazy. I never forget anything because I have a visual understanding. I feel the things, my inputs. They're not rote learned, they're feeling learned and they are part of a larger construct. So every time I have an input, I put it into a story of something else that comes along with it. So I just have a. That's how I explain my ability to be able to recall anything.
Speaker 1:A a line from a movie that I saw 25 years ago.
Speaker 1:That's relevant to this idea that I'm trying to explain to my staff.
Speaker 1:It's it's it's you know.
Speaker 1:So it's just me trying to understand.
Speaker 1:And isn't that usually the way right? We usually? You know, when people become doctors, a lot of times they go into the field that is relevant to something they have as a problem Right or has been causing friction in their lives. So yeah, I'm trying to explain myself so that people will and I I I wonder about one thing about this is that you know, with great pressure you can do better things. You know the, the, the diamond under great pressure, the, the, the coal under great pressure comes on right. And I wonder if, if we let us randoms off the hook and let us be overly understood, we don't work so hard to try to be understood and prove our concepts, because we're constantly trying to prove our concepts to people.
Speaker 1:I love this. This is my favorite thing. Again, I'm going off so you can reel me in. No, no, I love it. What's the first thing when you come up with this thing that's ever been done before and it's a concept that's like new, and you take it to the authorities Now, the authorities are always sequential, like nobody's coming to me and say hey, neil, we need you to come in here because we want to set a bunch of rules and regulations. Like, I never write a rule or regulation for anybody for anybody. So, um, the the ability to be able to um work amongst all those rules. Right, where was that going? I'm trying to figure out we just, oh see, I lost it. Now I retraced my steps.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna have a hard time remembering where I was going with that well, I think you were you were talking about and I'm with you I was thinking about um. This is fantastic that this is where we're at right now talking about being um, random with it. The you were talking about how, like, if you were to let everybody be random and or let the randoms go, that, the diamond, that if you didn't have the pressure under the diamond yeah, so we have thick skin because we're constantly getting in shit and our way is never acceptable, right, and it's not accepted by by the, the world's rankings and the ratings.
Speaker 1:I never get good grades, so never the smart guy, so you're never getting. No one's ever giving you the benefit of the doubt because you're not the smart guy, you're dumb guy. You're the guy who got 50 average. So you know, and you have to be better and you have to be able to uh, verbally, uh, debate your concepts and your ideas. I get greater joy, my joy, when I come up with something, when I invent a product or what have you and I've written. You know, I used to do a webcast show, a webcast show and I wrote and directed it and created it and all that. And I got greater joy from watching people laugh in the audience and then I would leave. I didn't want to be around to get thought about me. I love when people see my concept and they applaud it, whether they buy it or they see it, laugh at it or whatever. It is the, the getting the, the uh, recognition for it is not where I get my energy. I get my energy from the concept being proven to be right. I would say the person who's most surprised by a crazy concept that I've created that becomes successful is actually me. Because you have, but you don't ever have such great confidence that you know it's going to work because it's new and it's it's it's new world and it's new territory. So you're trying the best and you're a huge proponent of it. People think that you're, you're being, you know, you're 100 confidence, but it's no. You're just. You're on the team, and the team of mine.
Speaker 1:I always talk about devil's advocates. I hate these people. What do devil advocates do? What? What purpose are they like? And the ones who are devil's advocates will tell you they're, they're really important on this process of trying to figure out whether this amazing thing can happen. And I said here's how it goes. If you want to figure out why something won't work, you can figure it out every time, but at the same time, you just want to spend your want to figure out why something won't work. You can figure it out every time, but at the same time, if you just want to spend your time to figure out how you can make it work, you'll find that out too. So which one would you rather spend your time on and these people are like, oh, you just want yes men around. It's like no, it's not about yes men or no men or anything, it's about yes, we can do. That which is actually on my business cards is yes, we can do that Because everything's possible. It's just what are you willing to sacrifice for that? I can make the next greatest thing, but it could end up costing too much and that doesn't work, but everything's possible. I remember this is a bizarre story. I remember this is a bizarre story.
Speaker 1:I remember one time I watched this thing on TV about how some guy made this material out of household items and it could withstand a blowtorch. And it was just this paste. You could put a blowtorch on it. On the other side, it wouldn't be hot. I was like this is amazing stuff. And I was selling insulation at the time. Coincidentally, I went to the guys who were the engineers of the insulation company and said, well, what about this? Why don't we make the insulation out of this stuff? It's amazing. It was just out of house on it.
Speaker 1:They said, yeah, the thing you don't understand is yes, we could make it doing it that way, but the cost would be exponential. You couldn't do it without a cost being because of the different things it would. So, yeah, you could do that, but the cost would be so high. So that's why it's not gamers. So you know, anything's possible. It's just what. Are you willing to give up to do it? What's going to be the net result? And that's how you have to work through as an engineer and trial, or as an entrepreneur and trial these different things and go to the wall and be the champion of it. All innovation has to. Ever heard the saying that all innovation has three phases I was actually just going to ask you.
Speaker 2:I think you would share this on the airplane and I was very excited to have you share it, so I love that it's right in sync with you so three phases of innovation are this ridicule, debate and self-evidence.
Speaker 1:What that means is when you come up with a new thing that nobody's ever heard of before, it's ridicule, it's like, well, you're crazy, that's stupid, that won't work, you know, because you're doing something that everybody knows not to be true and not and, in their mind, not possible. So you're crazy. Well, somewhere along the line, somebody of who's got some valid validation, this world has some credibility, will say, hey, actually that's not a bad idea. And it can gain a little bit of momentum where people actually, you know, maybe and you've developed a little further, and it becomes the debate stage where everybody's debating whether it actually like people who are will actually take the time to debate it because there's enough there that they think it may be muscle. And when the debate is over and you've actually you find out, yes, it's going to work. Then it's self-evident, like, well, yeah, we all know that.
Speaker 1:And then the entrepreneur is the guy who can start the idea, take it through, accept the ridicule, the thick skin, take it through to the debate stage and be able to verbally defend it and challenge it and debate. And then the big one which you see happen very often, not happen, as often is then when it becomes self-evident to actually commercialize it and make off, because those are, those are all different sets of skills, but that's what it takes. That's why, you see, most inventors never make any money off their inventions. It's always somebody else who grabbed it after the fact and applied it differently and made you know, like the guy who invented mp3 didn't make nearly as much money as ste Jobs did with the iPod.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask you for an example that's a phenomenal example of somebody that brought it through the first two stages and then Apple took it and made it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's a great example.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we are the ones who absorb that beating and what keeps us to go through to that third phase, to get through the first and the second? I'll give you an example, a real-life example, on my three phases of innovation. It was the Green Movement, the environmental, the understanding that the world was having some threat to its environment. The first guys that came out with this thing were long-haired. The first guys that came out with this thing were long-haired birkenstock, wearing hippie incense, burning pot smoke and whack jobs, tree huggers, right, all those things those are not really nice terms, right, but those are which would be defined as ridicule.
Speaker 1:And then, all of a sudden, some scientists listened and they went wait a minute, actually I think they got something here, I think there might. So it became a real debate and scientists listened and they went wait a minute, actually, I think they got something here, I think there might be something. It became a real debate and everyone's back and forth on that. And then something happened, and I don't remember the year, it was the same year that Dole came up with his movie Convenient Truth of the environmental movie Not Dole, sorry, the guy who almost was president lost by a Chad or two. Environmental the Democrat on the environmental side, that was inconvenient.
Speaker 1:Al Gore, gore right, al Gore Dole and Gore right One syllable Anyhow. So he came up with that movie and at the same time, all the scientists of the world had this big meeting and they all came together and agreed that there was a actual problem global warming and that and at the same time, the democrats and the republicans both came together and agreed that this is actually a situation that needs to be looked at. So all those three got together and said you know what? You're right, there is something here. And that caused the world to go. This is now self-evident.
Speaker 1:We all know that there's something going on. It's not just oh, by the way, it's really hot today, or it's cold today, or we have snow. They went holy shit, there's something going on here. So that was when it became self-evident. And now, when it becomes self-evident, we all go oh yeah, we know that, we know about, whether you believe it or not. And again, this is not to get into a uh, political argument, but it's about the. It's about I'm just giving that as an example. So you look at it right. They went from hippies whack jobs to debate, and then now everybody knows it. We're all trying to do what we can and people are trying to commercialize and make products that'll do it better and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:It's a great walkthrough of just the progression of those three phases and, yeah, I love it. I think it's a fantastic example and, if I'm hearing you correctly, anybody that is an entrepreneur should be prepared to go through these three phases, because it sounds like they get lost on that self-actualization where they're kind of out of steam and yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, the whole world's against you, because what do they do? This is what I love when you innovate, you're going to do something that's never been done before, so you take it to, let's say, you take it to the government. You go we want to do this, so what does the government do? Let's bring in our experts. Hey, get the experts on this. Now, what are experts? They are the guys whose whole lives are wrapped up in exactly how it's always been, and they are the expert on exactly how this one thing has always been. And you're asking them if they're wrong and there's actually a better way of doing it. Like, why the hell would you ask them? Of course they're not going to have an open mind to it, because and not because they're angry or they, you know, devious it's just they don't see it. They look at it this way and you're going hey, what if we did see this thing over there? And they go I don't see that over there. And you take their hand and go hold on oh crap, see that over there.
Speaker 1:And you take their hand, you go hold on. Oh crap, yeah, that's, yeah, that'll work. Why didn't I see that? Because, yeah, you couldn't, and I'm walking like this and you're walking like that. So it's always. The answer is always right in front of our, our eyes. It's very simple, which makes it harder, because it's if it's that easy, what you've heard these ones well, it's not easy. Why didn't somebody else do it before? If it's that simple, why didn't somebody else come up with that? It can't be that great, because that's too obvious. And Hidden in Plain Sight should be the title of that entrepreneur's book, because I just took a rubber curb that was already being manufactured and cut it up into a smaller block and put some steel on it and created a multi-million dollar business that I started for under $1,000. And I have every time. Why didn't I think of that? I don't know, but this dumb jock figured it out.
Speaker 2:So I mean, if I could figure out, anybody could Well it's interesting and I know it's right there in what was said but the moment you had made a visual reference where you had, kind of, when the sequential says, why didn't I think of that? And you moved their hand a little bit, because I'm over here, and what I'm imagining, though, is the moment you switch their thought. The sequential then just jumps lockstep and now they just go in that direction. That's the new direction that we're headed, but that's the line that they're moving down, and then it's very interesting on the back end of it Once the experts validate it right.
Speaker 1:They got to be validated because it still couldn't be. This 50 average guy can't be right. We got to get some validation on this one because it can't be possible, right? So, yeah, and it's a case of uh and then, and then the carrying out and getting it done. Everybody's required to need to help, those quenchers need to help, everybody needs to help pull together. And I always say you know, you're crazy until you're successful. Then then you're brilliant as an entrepreneur, as a random, you're absolutely crazy until success. And then all of a sudden they chart all those crazy ways you had about you and these things you do. They're really kind of a negative until you're successful. Like, oh yeah, he used to do this, he used to stand on his head and think about things. That's brilliant. But it's now because, if it's part of the recipe for success that they saw, all those crazy things are actually now becoming really like what you want to do and that's cool because that's the new way I was reading this book.
Speaker 2:Actually, I read it a couple times and there's one section of it this wasn't the context of it, but they talked about Elon Musk and everybody was like man, I wish I had the idea to invent blank or do this. I just wish Musk would maybe keep his Twitter or X profile, like the things that he says out to the world. If he could just reign those in and he was like that's kind of you don't get to choose. Like he's going to be crazy and outlandish. Like what type of 20 year old says I'm going to take on the three biggest motor companies on the planet, you gotta be pretty crazy, well, biggest motor companies on the planet. You gotta be pretty crazy, well, and ballsy, yeah, and ball and. But then you expect him to say crazy. You can't expect him not to be crazy.
Speaker 1:And his random things that he, you know, tweets or throws out to the world that's just that's what makes all the things you love about him too, like mike tyson you can't expect a guy whose life is, he's amazing at being a complete savage and then you want to bring him in and put a tuxedo on him and have him date girls like, and then they go oh, I can't believe he did that, what? Oh, this is terrible. Yep, you don't get one without the other. You don't see a lot of you know upper class ivy leaguers becoming the next world champion of boxing, because to be the world champion of boxing you have to be an absolute animal, because that's just what it takes. Yeah, but you can't then say, well, then we want you to be a, you know, drink tea with your finger up and and be like one of the societies, like everybody else, and it's the same thing for randoms like we're to be able to walk and think and look all these things and do all this thing. It doesn't necessarily conform. And you know, like I wrote down about how the world uh, rewards sequentiality and they punish non-conformity and in in the um. You know, we all are so happy that we're free, that we can speak, because we're in a country that we're lucky enough to be free to speak, and then the communist countries they don't. And if you ever think about it? Does china? Does anybody in china actually ever invent anything? Or are they just incredibly good at taking what's been invented and copying it and making it better, which is a sequential improvement of that, as opposed to coming up with going hey, what if we did? What if we had a voice that was on the phone that we could just talk to and it could ask it questions? It would take things from the internet. We'll call it Siri. Right, the last really innovative thing that Apple ever did was Siri. Guess what also coincided with after Siri Jobs died and he left.
Speaker 1:And what do they do? Is they put a guy who got straight A's at some high league Ivy League university. Well, guys like me aren't getting straight A's at any university. Guys like me are getting the 50s. We're attending the bar at night because we need to make money to pay for ourselves to get through this thing and we're way better at beer bash than we are at school. And the guys that are getting the straight A's and stuff, they're not like me and they are unbelievably good at following the rules and recreating and making a perfect linear control to higher levels. So there was a book a long time ago that all business guys just embraced. It's called Good to Great. It's like every businessman's Bible by Jim Collins, and that book talked about that, where these Ivy League guys can make good companies. But these wild maverick guys will make great companies because they'll do all these things that are out here and out there. They don't make movies about sequential why? Because, right, they always like the movie about the guy who buzzes the tower like Maverick and.
Speaker 1:Top Gun. That's the stuff that is exciting in life because it's not expected. Humor is funny because you, you take a line of a of a story and then you, you shoot off to another direction people weren't expecting, and that misdirection makes people laugh. Everything is, you know, conformity is never innovative, it's's never exciting, it's never unbelievable. It's like wow, that was amazing. We did exactly what we expected, exactly the way we thought we were going to do it, and the night performed exactly how. I thought Wow, was that unbelievable? That doesn't happen. Nobody says that.
Speaker 2:I love that you brought this. So I drew this graph right here. I take a bunch of notes and I know I told you it was going to be, but I actually drew up this graph that has this linear line across it of random to sequential. And I was going to ask you because if you were to let a random just be a random, without holding them to the sequential nature I mean the metric of a sequential, because there are hyper successful sequentials and not so successful and then what would be the ranking and how would you? You know, I'm trying to think of a word to place on it, not to sequentialize, if I can use that and make that up without like putting a linear equation to it. But how do you pinpoint it and say like this is a successful random versus an unsuccessful, and is that even a possible thing?
Speaker 1:well, I mean to be to come up with a real cool. This. One of the biggest challenges is timing. Having the right timing.
Speaker 1:Fantastic idea can be amazing, but if it's not at the right time of life, the right spot where innovation is coming together and cost-effectiveness of innovation is at the right time, I always say it's like the guy who originally came out with the AR glasses, the augmented reality glasses. When they first came out, they failed because they needed a. They were always had to be wired into a computer. Well, you can't have this tether to something and the battery was never. Batteries couldn't make make it portable. So you know, the inventor of it is still going. And if you look at that, if you look at the hockey stick line of innovation, where it goes like this and like this and like this, then all of a sudden something happens. It does this okay, paradigm shift. That little point right there and that little point right there is usually something changed in innovation. Somebody invented a way stronger, lightweight battery that made those glasses all of a sudden be able to be untethered and now they can be portable and boom off, it goes.
Speaker 1:But the whole world, uh, jumps off the bandwagon over here somewhere because they don't have to pay. They just can't. They don't have the staying power to stay with this vision that the guy pushing it has and that guy has is the guy. And you're, you're you're fueled by the wanting to make your theory right, not because you're a narcissist and have to be right. It's because you just want this, you want to see it through and challenge it, and you challenge it and your energy that's what keeps you going in the dark nights is because if it's just about success or failure, well shit, entrepreneurs would. If you're trying to bring an idea from here here, nobody would ever get it or cause you'd be jumping off. When all the investors jump off, it's taking too long and they can't see it and they don't understand it. And you're still in it, you're still pushing away and you still have the faith that something's going to happen to stick with it.
Speaker 1:And then boom, and that's why some, some inventors, will invent something and then they get off, they jump off or it fails or whatever. Then somebody comes in later on. They look into the archives of an old invention that didn't work because, oh, they needed a better battery. What if we? They just invented this new battery? What would you see what I'm saying? Yeah, well, the success of them is is when you actually find that theory, that that works, and people. It becomes the third phase, where it becomes self evidence. Well, yeah, I do need that. That is something that I'm actually going to be that's effective and useful and and it'll, it'll, it'll go like you know one other thing on the random or sequential is um, I challenge you to name one sequential artist in this world.
Speaker 1:You won't find one. You can't be an artist and be sequential. Your abstracts, like, like art, artistry and creating art is abstract. You can't do that on a linear perspective. Well, this painting looked good, so what if I just add this and this to it? What if I? You know, that doesn't. That's not an artist. And and so there's jobs that we all can do and like. As yet, I'm always careful because when I talk about this, I've had so many people that doesn't, that's not an artist. And so there's jobs that we all can do. And, like I said, I'm always careful because when I talk about this, I've had so many people kind of get put off, thinking I'm telling them that they're something lesser and it's like no, I'm not asking, I'm not trying to tell sequentials they're lesser. I'm trying to tell them that we're not idiots.
Speaker 1:I'm just defending myself and my people to say, hey, when you see one of us go, hey, this guy might actually have a brilliant mind, it just doesn't act like mine and we should accept this person, instead of looking at them and saying he's crazy and don't talk to him and he's nuts and all that. There are some of us that are truly nuts, but you know, with insanity, Einstein best quote of all time of Einstein is an idea that at first not absurd, has little chance of success.
Speaker 1:Love that, yeah, it's like because it has to be crazy to be innovative, because innovative is doing something that no one's ever thought of before or a way that no one's ever done before, which would be the definition to a lot of people is crazy.
Speaker 2:So there's definitely a clear linkage that one needs the other. A lot of people is crazy, so there's definitely a clear linkage that one needs the other. You know, you, if with your company and this massive, massive organization that you've built, and you need sequentials inside of it that are going to be happy, that are happy to go through and do it, and then a sequential also needs a random in order to innovate and create new ways of thinking, and so they're both linked together, not as polarized Well of thinking, and so they're both linked together, not as polarized.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and texture, bringing texture to things and creating more than the singular concept of the idea. And oh yeah, my company would be dead if I didn't have a bunch of sequential people in the key positions, like chief operations officer. I don't have a bunch of sequential people in the key positions, like you know, chief operations officer, I don't want me doing that, nobody here wants me doing that. And guess what? Accounting, like controller and all that. I always laugh.
Speaker 1:You know, in LinkedIn, you get these crappy things from these headhunters going. We found a job that's perfectly suited for you and it's like they'll send me one that says an accountant for a company. Really, I'm perfect for it. Obviously, you know me, I must be perfect, I must be something. I don't know about myself, that whole doing the accounting and stabbing myself in the eye with a fork. But I've got people who love that and people who are in their zone of what they're meant to do. And, you know, accountants, I'll give them this pile of bills and crap. That just is awful to me and it's just like toxicity, kryptonite. I'll go and give it to them Like, oh, awesome, love it. Great, I love you.
Speaker 2:You're doing this job that I would never do. I love you. I hug my accountant going, thank you. Had referenced earlier that that woman with their kid and that you have talked about, with ADHD and you know it. It almost seems unfair to have a random inside of the school system. That's so sequential. However, it is what it currently is. So how do you and and I don't know if you've given much thought to this, but how do you help a random succeed in that, in that?
Speaker 1:thought to that. So there's a funny story. This doesn't answer your question specifically, but it's kind of a funny story.
Speaker 2:I would be surprised if it did answer it specifically yeah, well, stay on point.
Speaker 1:So I was giving, I, I sponsored an entrepreneurship award to a school and at the end of the year they had all these awards and there was the entrepreneurship board. I sponsored it. So I went and told my story and, as I gave the award, in this girl and and in all these awards to, to win this award, that award, you had them 90 average and had to do this and this and this, and mine was a 70 average. And they're like what? Well, because if I put any more than 70 average, guys who were entrepreneurs would never win it. The true entrepreneurs aren't going to win it because we're not getting, we're not getting high grades. Nineties would take us out. So it was a 70 average. It had to be something that you know, as I had these.
Speaker 1:All these parameters had to do with what the actual being an entrepreneur was and what it takes to be an entrepreneur. So the girl that won it, um, was a sweet girl and she, um, was a sweet girl and she, uh invented a charity that was brilliant and, uh, it just, it was out of left field how she figured out how to fund it all. It was really amazing. And she created this charity and when she won it, after hearing my story, she came up and she was, um, she was like man, I, I always thought I was dumb and I always, you know, and I'm listening to your story and you're like me I was like, absolutely so she's like hey, I'm not, you know, I do have a chance of making this world, because if you did and you're like me, I do Right. So that was kind of my goal with the school, with helping people understand that, hey, these people have a chance, give them a chance, listen to their ideas, listen to their concepts, and if it's crazy, it is probably good. And there are the crazy ones too, crazy ideas, and that's good. All ideas are fine, I mean, if they're always based off. There's a problem in this world and I have an idea that this isn't performing the way it could.
Speaker 1:I think I have an idea of doing something that's going to save us time, save us money, save you know something, do something better than the other one, and then that's a great idea. And I always start with with my, my group, I'll bring a team together on idea and say we always have this way. If we could do this, would that be cool and it's like, yeah, but the ones that go, well, but we can't because, no, no, don't say why it won't or why it can't, or just, is this idea a good idea? If we could create something that would make you know, save babies lives, would that be a great idea? And, yes, it would Okay, great. I want to hear why it won't. Now, how can we make this happen? Now, let's think about it. If this is a good idea, we all agree this is a great thing. This would be a great thing. Now, let's reverse, engineer and figure out how to get there now, instead of looking at why it won't work and stopping the creative process. Right, all those why it won'ts, they're great.
Speaker 1:After we decide we love the idea that's going to make change the world, and after we figure out how we can potentially get there, then we can come back and say, okay, now tell me some of the things I don't see that are the pitfalls or the speed bumps that I didn't see. Getting to here, what's going to now? Stop us. Now, what's going to stop us from getting here, now that we've decided it's great and here's the vision of what it could be. That's how you take an idea from concept to reality and you take those devils out, because I always love the fact like. It says it right in the name. They are the devil. It's like. It's like. You know, it's sort of going. Somebody comes to the idea well, you know, I just want to be hitler's advocate for a minute. What? No, I don't want to hear from you. You're the devil. It's right in your name. Leave out of the office it's interesting to that.
Speaker 2:You bring that maybe, and I don't think it ties into this one. But the the critic is, and I think it's in a um, that book bird by bird. I don't know if you've read that one. It's a. It's a really great book actually, with with you writing, um, it's it's on writing, and life is the little subtitle to it I think she mentions. The critic is the one that that walks onto the battlefield after the battle's over and shoots all the wounded as they're laying around. It's like that's the easiest part, that's the easiest way out, the easy ways to walk in and say, well, it's not going to work. Great. Thank you for your contribution. If we wanted to look at that, we could find that too, schondenfreude.
Speaker 1:You ever heard of that? German people are going to be listening to this and just absolutely dying the fact that just completely munched the pronunciation of it. But it was a. It was a scientist. They came up with that.
Speaker 1:People taking joy in other people's failures. Okay, my life is filled with those people Because what it is is you're saying, hey, I got this great idea and now they're there. If they are insecure in their own selves, your success means their failure and they want you to fail so they can go. Oh, good thing, I didn't See it was warranted. I didn't try it because look how we failed.
Speaker 1:And it makes them feel good for not getting off their asses and doing it, because they would have failed anyway. So it's kind of like, wow, and they cheer for your failure, they would have failed anyway. So it's kind of like that, wow, you know, and they, they cheer for your failure and and, uh, people always cheer for my failures because it makes them feel better, because I'm the crazy guy out there doing all this is to see he is crazy, he's doing all that, but he's, you know, that didn't work and that didn't work and and like I said we are crazy until we're wildly successful and then all of a sudden we're brilliant and all those things that looked crazy, that we were doing before we were successful, are now looking brilliant.
Speaker 2:Yeah and I really appreciate. I love that tie back of and I have it written right here, just crazy, uh, until you're successful, and it's a really cool thing well, it's like right.
Speaker 1:I mean the old days, if you were having uh uh, if you were uh going uh like alzheimer's before they created also, or you had a dementia before they created the word dementia, way back when you were either crazy or you're senile. If you were rich, you were senile. If you were poor, you were crazy, but you're always rich. So he's sen, seen up, he's not rich.
Speaker 2:Right, Neil. I really appreciate you taking time to share this. I love those thoughts. I don't know that you have any time frame on it. I know you're slowly putting together some concepts for a book. Is there any time frame on when any of us that would love to read it would be able to expect it?
Speaker 1:Cool, that would be a tough one, because, being a random yep, you know, my uh, one of my girlfriends once said he called me mr 90 because I'm like getting that last 10 percent done again. I'm not finishing. I need to find somebody, I think, and that's the thing, right, uh, I need to grab some, some talent to come along with me to say, hey, let's get this done, you, let's keep you on, and that's what my uh, my right hand man in the company, he's great at doing, that he'll grab the ideas and he'll keep them. You know, the next day, in the next day, oh, hey, have we done this yet? And it keeps brings me back and say, okay, I'll tweak this and tweak that, I'm going doing this and I come back and I'll tweak these things. So you kind of need that, that uh, that force to to help me push it over the finish line. I have, you know, hours and hours of notes and ideas and stuff like that. But uh, uh and and and, like I said, I think I, I should, I need to get it done because I think it would really help a lot of people in this world. It would help those kids who like that, that girl who thought she was crap and she won an award and she's like wow, and the wow and the, the in her eyes it was amazing. And she's like, wow, I'm not dumb, I actually am something.
Speaker 1:And I was saying you know, if you're you go through school, if you're a random and you go through school, if you're not good socially and you're not good at sports, what do you have? And that's what leads to people being isolated. They're the, the cast-offs, because they can't relate, they have nothing that they can take pride in, they're not getting good grades, they're not excelling in the sporting and they're not being rewarded as being popular because they're not, you know, charismatic. And if you have those three things, you get, you know those are the kids who have the most, you know can potentially do the worst things. And because you're in isolation, isolation leads to, you know, warping the brain a little bit and and I think that you know my idea to to give people, uh, pride in what they are, which is they could. You know that movie, a beautiful mind. It's like you know, and you know, ever since, ever since, elon musk became successful, what are people all accepting of now? Autism, god, oh man, yeah, he's really successful because he's. No, he was autistic and look how successful he is. Well, geez, these, these.
Speaker 1:You know, I always say a random has a superhero, like an X-Man. We all have our thing that's really exceptional and not like the rest and that's how randoms they have that. But if they're not told, that's actually a good thing. Sometimes you'll try to bury it. I have friends of mine. I'll call them apologetic randoms. They are random but they are trying as hard as they can to be sequential and they're embarrassed for their randomness. So they try to adapt themselves into being a sequential because that's the only way.
Speaker 1:I had a friend, my very good friend of mine, who I I just I basically unveiled to her that she was actually a random. She was the controller of a of a company and she was a random. And when I also explained it to her she was like Holy crap, I'm in the wrong job, like this is. And the stress in her that was relieved when she got rid of that and went into doing something completely different where she started her own company and started running the business and doing the other things that no creating but the stress that came off of her because she was trying to adapt to being a sequential and being told that that's what's only good.
Speaker 1:You get a gold star if you act like this, you get. You get detention if you act like that and and uh. So sometimes you know people will be. They've adapted this because it's a very imposing and controlling world of sequentiality to fit in. So it's like you know. It's like you know, it's like you know, not, not unlike people who are, who are gay, we're being told they have to like the opposite sex, that they don't. They're having to and stress and they end up, you know, they end up committing suicide sometimes and the mental distress from that and then when they're told that, they can let it fly they let it fly, man, they're like they want to tell the whole world.
Speaker 1:This was like my friend. She was this really organized person. I mean, next thing, you know she's like her house is a mess. She could care less about that stuff. Her car is never washed. I was going, wow, we really unleashed the beast here and you know before, that was like who is this person? She's having the time of her life and world is, is, was her oyster, and the unveiling of that was like this massive freedom to be able to be who you are, and people don't think of it in this term but, um, but yeah, that's. That's kind of my goal is to sort of awaken some people to sort of say hey, you know, and when you tell people your crazy ideas, always tell the people who will answer you by saying that's cool, how are you going to do that, as opposed to people who are the devil's advocate, say well, that's not going to work because that's not all that.
Speaker 1:That's already been done. If it was like, stay away from those people, the people who are the best people in the world for a random are the people who say that's awesome. How are you going to do it? Is there anything I can do to help you? That's great. I like the concept. That's a really cool idea and how you can work through it.
Speaker 2:It's amazing and surrounding yourself with people like that, not with the devil's advocate or Hitler's advocates as you, as you.
Speaker 1:As you mentioned, I don't usually use the word Hitler in a podcast very often, but yeah, it's I. I I think that if people can just accept other people for who they are and understand you know, it's like my son is autistic and his mother didn't want to tell the world that he was autistic. Now, he was very light on the spectrum, he was just like on the edge of being so he could function very well and he could, you know, he would talk and he could. He could do things that a lot of autistic kids can't do. He could, you know, be funny and be extroverted and all that kind of stuff and uh, but because, but he had some quirky things about and because we never he never told anybody, because he was never told that he was autistic, and my wife thought we can just not make it a thing and and this way he will become who he's going to be without having some sort of a stigma or something put on. But the backfire on that was that people would look at him and dismiss him as being odd, and when you're obviously always autistic, oh, oh, now I understand why you did that. Oh well, that you know. And now when you come up with things.
Speaker 1:You understand where people are coming from, which is relationship 101, right, but it's like now. You can understand. Now, when you talk to me, even if you're a sequential, you won't get frustrated. Oh, that's neil, that's how he thinks I can see. You know, I understand now that he's if he's looking off, this is he's still like. My girlfriend knows that she can be talking to me, I can be over and she knows I'm catching every single word. She understands and that's, you know, just the the process to try to be understood and get all these other people understood just a little bit more. If that's what I can do and I get people understood a little more than I've accomplished, what I'm going to do I.
Speaker 2:I think you're well on your way. I'm very, very excited to to read about it. I know you're going to get it done, so yeah I really appreciate you.
Speaker 1:You can help me, yeah, well, maybe that's. Maybe that's why you and I met, because you're going to be the one that's going to help me get this thing done oh, whatever I can do to help, please let me know, I'm here.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely going to be the one asking you how can it get done? Because I love it. I think it's absolutely fantastic and and again, that's's why I wanted to have you on the show and bring you on board. So thank you so much for taking the time for sharing everything that you have, and I look forward to it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, my pleasure. It's fun to be able to talk about it and as you talk about it, other ideas came up in my head of what we can do to try to do more. So I love being able to. You know, our, uh, my canvas is always the spoken word. You know, I testify things on people and ideas and if it's good, they say, they give you positive feedback and you can kind of you know.
Speaker 1:So you know, you can't just keep it in a secret room and not tell anybody because, uh, you're just gonna it's only gonna be you who's collaborating on it, I think the collaboration of the world, talking like I'd love for people to come back to me and I do this when I talk to people but this idea they come back and they give me another idea that I hadn't thought of, another perspective on this. So, uh, you know, anybody listening to this, if they have a perspective on this or something they see or they can question why well, you said this, but I don't know if I necessarily agree with that, because I've got a friend who's this. I'm like, hey, I love it. I mean that the idea is fluid and the concept is a is an evolving understanding and it's uh, you know, psychology is something that is not black and white, so and you made me just think of the.
Speaker 2:Uh, bernie brown has a concept that she talks about she used it with her kids that if you light a lighter, that if a somebody that's not a friend will run over and just blow out your fires, just blow it out, and that's kind of like the devil's advocate. It's like that's not going to work and they blow it out. But if you're a friend and I've got to walk this flame from A to B or in a circle, whatever random nature that I want, a friend walks over and helps you along, they actually will block the wind for you. They'll help you with that. And it made me think of you putting your idea and kind of hide it away. When you seal that flame up, it's also going to burn out too, which is why it would be good to not do that.
Speaker 1:You know that old joke your good friend is the guy who comes and bails you out of jail and your best friend is the guy that's sitting next to you going. Holy shit, was that cool.
Speaker 2:So good. You know, man. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you and I, man. Whenever the book comes out, I would love to have you back on so we can introduce it and let everybody know all the great things that you put into it. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Well, one thing I find funny about this one last comment is I had this thing with the camera. I don't have laptops on my screen and I've got to change the camera angle, so the camera's here and the picture's there. So you got to experience almost a full time of random mind, because I'm looking the opposite direction, I'm not looking you in the eyes, I'm talking to you. I guess also the whole podcast of that.
Speaker 2:I think it was fantastic. I think you did a great job of jumping between all of it, but, man, thank you so much, neil.
Speaker 1:Awesome, I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2:Thank you.