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Nov. 18, 2020

#18 Jonathan Stoll- Meaning, Identity, Career Paths

Jonathan and I met when I was a guest on his podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/7eX2IiCxiX7L4RcHpJpmpI 

I was super nervous to go on as he's an academic at OSU, and we have very opposing views when it comes to politics. I was felt so welcome and able to speak my opinions without judgement that I asked him to be a guest on my podcast. The beautiful thing is that we don't have to agree on a single thing to be kind and respectful. I love episodes like this because I want to make it clear I am always open to conversation, and willing to take in new information, and even crazier change my mind if new evidence emerges. I think we can all benefit from a growth mindset, and not identify ourselves by ideologies.  Stay Curious.

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Transcript

0 (4s): Hello, everybody, your listening to Chatting with Candice I'm your host Candice score back before we get started on this week's episode. If you want to support the podcast, you can go to Chatting with candice.com and you can sign up for our patriotic account, or you can click that little button. It says, buy me coffee. Both of those things help me to continue podcasting, improve the quality of the content and hopefully start getting guests in for live podcasts this week. I'm really excited to introduce Jonathan Stoll. I met Jonathan when he invited me to be a guest on his podcast. So for us one, I was super nervous. He's an academic, he's a director of Career education at Oregon state university. We don't align politically at all. 0 (46s): I wasn't really sure how the conversation was going to go. And he was so welcoming, so warm and a great example of being civil and polite and getting along and being friends with someone who has different philosophies ideologies, and just our views on where we should go as people in as a country. And it's a culture. So it was really excited that he wanted to be on the podcast to continue our conversation about spirituality, its role in the education system and his spiritual journey. So I hope you enjoy the conversation. All right, well, thank you for joining the call 1 (1m 28s): Jonathan we met obviously on your podcast. We had a really great conversation. I'm not gonna lie. I was super nervous when you had me on just because I was like, these are our academics and I'm just a regular person that you lead the conversation in such a way that I just felt so welcome. So I was so excited to have you on, if you want to give the listeners a little bit of your background and I guess what you do for a living. Yeah, yeah. I'm excited to be here. And I think that's the truth. We each have a story to tell and I was excited to have you. And so it's definitely reciprocal. I'm in mutual. So I work at Oregon state university where I'm the director of Career education and have worked in higher ed for about 20 years now. 1 (2m 11s): And I host a podcast called the soul force once, and I have a kind of nonprofit consulting business that we just start it up with another partner of mine called soul force education. So I'm all about soul force. And to me, that's a very spiritual and it's obviously soulful and it's in acknowledgement and trying to pay homage to the legacy of dr. Martin Luther King, who said, we will meet at the majestic Heights, essentially meet physical suffering with soul force. So for me, it's spiritual, it's soulful. And just trying to live up to that work in through purpose and defining Meaning in, whatever it is that I do. 1 (2m 52s): Yeah. I think that's so beautiful. So is that something that's relatively new or is that been a mission-driven force throughout 0 (3m 0s): Your life? Because I find it so Curious that you're in education at such a high level, and then you also have such a big emphasis on spirituality because you don't really see that. Like you obviously see like your religion one Oh one classes and we'll touch there, but to actually like encompass spirituality as a part of your being and your narrative, I think is so rare. So how did you get into that? 1 (3m 23s): Yeah, I think it's, I mean, in one way you can probably say it's a life-time in terms of how I've identified and how that's evolved, right. From being raised Catholic, to identify as atheist and agnostic, and now what I would consider animistic. So that showed up really though in my work, probably just about a year, maybe two years ago, when I was doing community relations work and kind of responding to growing enrollment at the university and what they call town gown relations. And once that had improved, I wasn't finding meaning in the work because I think for, in many parts we had solve the problem to a certain degree. Now there's a whole nother problem, right? In terms of town gown issues with a pandemic and students in all of that, I'm not in that position. 1 (4m 8s): And it became a matter of, well, this work isn't necessary. And I just began to think about how in public education, we talk a lot about identity and gender identity, racial identity, and I think we should. And it was really fascinating to me that we didn't talk about spiritual identity, religious, secular, spiritual identity, and how we find meaning. And I didn't realize it, but there were a bunch of people already doing research and talking about this Parker Palmer, who we're going to have on our podcast as well, who I considered the godfather of spiritual education in higher education. And at that time, I don't think you could say that cause it was so controversial. 1 (4m 50s): I think there's an understanding that spiritual can be separate from religious and in a public education context in particular, where there is the separation of religion and state and there should be. And I firmly agree with everything in our first amendment. Like that's, that's what makes the United States, the United States that's what's makes it great is the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion. So there's a difference between practice and do as you do and pushing something on other people. And I think there's a difference to share and learn and understand like, all right, you have a path I'm interested in knowing about that path without this is the only path you got to walk exactly where I'm walking right now. 1 (5m 33s): And I'm like, I'm not cool with that. It's that universal truth. And, and the search of that, that's the journey. And I think that we do that together in conversations. And so I started asking people as I then kind of delved into some of that writing. And that philosophy was what is your faith? I would ask people that at first they were kind of like off-put because usually it's just evangelical individuals who think you need to be saved, who we're going to preach to you. And I'm like, no, I don't. I just want to hear your story. And if you found this really fascinating, intricate stories of people growing up in multi-faith families and just the complexity may be growing up in a cult, or like, there's just how I was watching the documentary on HBO about what does it, Richard? 1 (6m 18s): You know what I'm talking about? Keifer? 0 (6m 21s): No, I thought for a second, I thought you were to talk about the Nexium thing because we touched on <inaudible> and it was like, Oh, we're going to go there all ready? Okay. 1 (6m 29s): It's all connected to me because I found that when I was listening to him, a lot of the stuff he was saying was resonating with me, that idea of inner teacher, and maybe it was always this way, it took this completely left turn where it became about his ego, his power, his sexual conquests over these women. Right. And the exploitation. So there was a fine line. I think when you talk about spirituality, even where it can be exploited, it's like, what are the intentions? What is the goal here? And I think depending on those objectives, you can go, if you're not principled and have values and know what you're not going to compromise, then you can go off in any number of different directions. 1 (7m 11s): It's what grounds you, you know, I think you talked about that on, on the so forth once podcast. I think, like I talked about not knowing that we were going to go in different directions, we got into equity because I didn't identify you as a multiracial being like, how many judgments do we make on people? So the, the breadth of learning from one another, I think became the focal point. So then when I got into Career education, I was really pleasantly surprised. One thing that I was pleasantly surprised about was that what we're talking about in Career education is about making meaning and making purpose. And I was like, wow, this is spiritual. Like, what are your values? Why aren't we naming it this way? And then it became just the interview and preparing for the interview. 1 (7m 54s): This is about meditation and reflection and mining on your experiences. And this is networking and being in relationship with other people. And then the other piece of it that they weren't talking about was the significance of Identity the significance that the work place, just like in life, there is a different playing fields for women, for people with disabilities, for individuals who identify as black, indigenous and people of color, there's all of this complexity. But we're saying that this is the only way corporate white patriarchal. And let's talk about that in terms of what it means to prepare for these environments. So we have conversations about them, the diversity, equity, and inclusion, and how we talk about the culture of workplace. 1 (8m 39s): So to me, it's all connected and I liked finding bits and pieces that speak to it in hip hop and in Career education and spiritual education in pop culture and just kind of shining a light on it. 0 (8m 54s): So do you find a lot of by your colleagues with all of this, because I've never even heard of anyone taking this approach? I mean, the university I'm also in like a completely different geological location, but to me there's a, a lot of nuance. Where are you getting a lot of support, a lot of interest from the students or are they like, Ooh, no. Like, I don't really want to get into spirituality. 1 (9m 13s): Yeah. With the spirituality piece, I'll bring it in during a workshop. I just did a workshop with some students in the EOP trio program. So these are first-generation college students and you name it is because it's really the podcast in a way. I think that's where I explore it the most on campus. I'll bring it up in the sense that I'll talk about what are your values? I do name it to some degree, cause I have the same background on when I'm in the classroom. So to speak virtually is, is naming that this is spiritual to me. And I don't know that it's a focal point just yet, because I've just started on this, like in the last kind of four months, really in a job for a year, try to connect the dots. 1 (9m 59s): Like in many ways I'm saying let's go back to kindergarten, connect the dots. 0 (10m 2s): You do that a lot with language too, which I find so interesting. You're a bit like have a poet. So you're like, it's not about profits. It's about profits. That's the whole interview and then interview. So you definitely have like an appreciation for language, which I think is really neat. It's a metaphor. Yeah. 1 (10m 18s): As a metaphor to try to make sense of life, to give it meaning, to help understand it in a, the Dao de Jing. It says that which can be named is not the eternal name, that the eternal Dao, as soon as you try to name it, like God or Jesus or putting name on it, that you've lost sight of what it's all about, because these are just words. So yeah, to me, that it's hip hop and that I take that as a huge compliment. So thank you. And it's just at the end of the day, they are just words too. Like it's the paradox that yeah. You can find significant Meaning in these words, but it's, what's behind those words. It's how are those words expressed? Right. I could say something really viral call you a cucumber. 1 (10m 60s): And that has no Meaning but I say you fucking cucumber right now. That might mean something. 0 (11m 5s): Totally. So your also a dad. So I'm just curious, what's your take on bad words. Like some people say words are like magic and that they can kind of cast a spell in a sense. And then other people say take the more Shakespearian route, which is like a Rose by any other name is still a Rose. So nothing has meaning unless you give it meaning. So where do you fall in those two schools of thought? 1 (11m 29s): Yeah, that's an interesting question. We definitely try not to curse and share everything with our children, but naming things for what they are. So if it's a penis and it's a vagina, then you use those words. And I think that's a whole other thing. Cause I have two girls as well, but having conversations, talking about what's going on in the world, but then protecting them from certain images. And so I guess that kind of make me think similar to words is I don't think you need to, at least for me, we don't expose them to curse words. Like, fuck there's damn. And there's things that slip out when we're upset and we're angry. But I think our intent is to protect them from it. 1 (12m 13s): And otherwise it's just talking and I'm pleasantly surprised. You hear this with your kids, the words they pick up where they say something. And sometimes you're proud in a sense because wow, they know that word. That's a big word where they held, you hear that. And then other times you're like, Oh wow. I said that right. When they get to a SAS and the attitude, you're like, Oh, I know where that came from. Okay. 0 (12m 36s): Definitely. Yeah. We don't know what approach we're going to take it because I tend to fall with nothing has a meeting unless the observer gives it meaning. So it's like, I enjoy curse words. You know, sometimes there is no substitution for the word fuck. Right? Like there's nothing else that's going to satisfy you like that word. And then it can be used in a funny way. It can be used in a sexual way. It can be used in an aggressive way. Like there was just like so many, you know what I mean? So it all comes down to the person saying it and their intention behind it. So I don't know how you explain that to a little child. That's learning where it's, because obviously it's not socially appropriate for a five-year-old to go around screaming obscenities. 0 (13m 17s): So yeah. We'll have to cross that bridge when you get there. 1 (13m 19s): Okay. And that becomes the thing, right? I think in many ways, why someone wouldn't want their kids to hear it because then they would be afraid that they would repeat that word in a social environment where then it reflects poorly. Now people are judging you right. As a parent, but that's something that you, I think as a parent juggle all the time, and I think it's getting past that is to hell with other people thing, right? Like I'm going to do me and what I think is best for my kid. Sure. There are limitations to that, like everything, but generally speaking, I think that's one of the things that we as parents Lauren, through this process, I'd like to think that my kids teach me a lot, particularly around patients. 1 (13m 59s): And that's the same thing. As I think with words write is, is through Career through life, finding the Meaning in different situations. And so being a parent, I think, I don't think you would realize it until you have kids that it's the most rewarding and yet challenging thing at the same time, that paradox, I think life is a paradox because how you approach it, right? You could also say that they're ruining your life, but if you approach it as this is an opportunity to learn and grow into really share something and it an experience, a lifetime with another being, then it takes on a whole nother Meaning. 0 (14m 36s): I couldn't agree more. There's it's one of those things where there's become such a negative association with having children that you are given, making this massive sacrifice and giving up on this, almost like utopia of your future. But it's, it's all in like your, your frame of right. So you can have this beautiful opportunity that nothing, nothing can even compare it to that. Right? Like you created a life and you're helping kind of crafts a human being. Right. There's nothing else. That's going to be able to take place over that. And I don't find a lot, at least yet I don't find it a lot of limitations. Right. It's all in your mindset. So like, if you're someone who is an avid traveler, I just had someone on the podcast, his parents were, they were nomads. 0 (15m 17s): So he, they took him and his siblings everywhere. Like they sometimes slept in a car. So that was something that was very important for them as individuals. So they just brought their kids along for that ride. And it's, you can argue that that didn't shape that individual later. Right. So you can still pay homage to what's important to you and raise children. And I don't see it being like this huge sacrifice that everyone's talking about. Like obviously there are gives and takes and everything. There's always a trade-off. Right. But I think you can do at all. I don't think you'd have to pick, which I think a lot of times we're told, especially like as women, right? Like you can't have a family and be a career women like you have to choose. 0 (15m 57s): I mean, I do both and I love it. 1 (15m 59s): Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the perception that the perception can imprison us. It can also set us free yet. I think the thing with women, that's a real in terms of, I think women in particular have to struggle with that a lot more. Maybe even just expectations that other women put on other women, but just a culture as well. I think men obviously played a part in that as well in terms of the expectations at home. Right. And are we sharing responsibilities and what does gender norms look like? I'm very mindful of that. Having again to children. No, I don't know in terms of relationships and who we seek and how we grow up with and the environment and what we see in what becomes normalized, how that sets our understanding of the world in our perception of it. 1 (16m 43s): Because I think it's tied to a victim hood. There can be an equity, but as soon as I believe that I am the victim, they have lost the battle. Right. And that's a, that's a distinction between soul force and even hope or idol hope is that you looked at the civil rights movement and dr. Martin Luther King. And that was hope that was so forth. It was an idle hope that people get it twisted, this idea of pacivity or active resistance. They understand his pacivity when it actually takes inner strength, like the courage, the resolve, the resiliency to rise up and to be stronger to actually be non-violent is so easy. And this happens with parenting to lash out, like, because you're, you're challenging my authority who I am. 1 (17m 26s): Right. And to add I'm not by any means perfect. Like I lose it with everyone else is trying to remember like, no, that was because you realize that after you go to sleep the next day, you're like, Oh, well that was my ego. Like I let my ego get involved, but it has to be loved like this place at home, my children come home. This has to be a place of love it anywhere else in the world when there's just so chaos and violence, like this has to be a safe place here. So I can't, I can't be doing that. 0 (17m 57s): Okay. So do you find a connection between, I'll say like a quote unquote spiritual awakening and critical thinking. 1 (18m 5s): Yeah. I think it's interesting. There's this idea of being woke and then the awakening, right. To wake up and it's almost to get past, some people may misinterpret this to get past race. It's not a where I don't see black and white because you have to see it. You have to see the inequities that exist. But in terms of the human interaction, like I think that's what black lives matter is it's and people say this like all lives matter. And it was like, yes, all lives do matter. Your life matters. My life matters. I firmly believe that there's that of God within every one. And we have to respect that of God within everyone. 1 (18m 46s): And that's a certain approach to a shared humanity that is very soulful in spiritual. And so that lends itself to not getting passed the race and the gender, because that's a part of this construction of what we've created here on planet earth. It exists. It's real somehow like I've been thinking about in terms of a spiritual leader, like who we need, we need someone like a Desmond Tutu and we don't have that in either Trump or Biden at some point. I mean, I don't know how else we get past this without someone like a dr. Martin Luther King, like a Gandhi, like, is it possible that we have people like dr. 1 (19m 30s): Cornell West that are people? And if not, maybe we need one person. We just need more people who have this spiritual, this guide that connects us, that gets us past all of those labels. 0 (19m 43s): Right. I think the thing with spirituality, at least in the forms that I've seen is it tries to have you identify the ego and then the pitfalls of that ego. And I think that a lot of people that are quote unquote woke, right? Like that now has like a negative association with it because somehow it got derailed and now whatever it evolved to be is not what I think is intended to be. You have to, 1 (20m 6s): Oh, that's like a lot of symbolism, like a flag too. Right? The American flag has become now a conservative thing that has a negative connotation in certain circles. Like the term woke in certain circles woke is like, yeah, I'm willing to other, circle's like, you're pointing to look at it. Like, yeah. That's like that crazy left wing bullshit. Right. 0 (20m 25s): Well, to me, anyone that has an issue with the American flag, I think that they probably haven't been exposed to enough other enough cultures and another, a different way of living for the majority of the world. I don't care where you were born in this country. Like if you were born in the United States, you do have a leg up compared to the majority of everyone else in the world. Right. Like we, there's very few people starving this country compared to the rest of the world. It just is almost one of those things it's on life support. So even the poorest American rights still, I would say has a lot more opportunity than if you were born like that in India, for example. So it's not to say that we're perfect, right? 0 (21m 4s): Like there's always room for improvement, but I think that we needed to stop like hating our country. I think that's where hate, never solves anything. Right. So I don't understand the disdain for America in general. And then, Oh my gosh, there's a flag. That person must be all right. And whatever. I'm like, that's not, that's not what a flag means. Right. 1 (21m 24s): Right. It becomes a symbol and we make it and define it. And it's recognizing that the way that I see that flag and how I interpret it, it doesn't necessarily need to, I mean, the interpretation from that other person, but there's different associations like you, as a, as somebody who voted for Trump, like people immediately associate that with racism. So I may not agree with that decision, but I can't associate what I think of that person and the meaning that I derived from that individual and apply it to you because that's symbolism like that flag is a symbol. George Carlin said, you know, I leave the symbol to the symbol minded and to some degree, I agree with that. I also disagree with it in the sense that symbols have power. 1 (22m 6s): So if somebody puts a burning cross in front of my house or across, there's a difference, right. If you put it in front of the street right in front of somebody's house and it means intimidation, like you can mean different things. Right. Versus if it was actually legal for Pete. And I think it's still is like, if me and my buddies want to go down into a rural part of Oregon and Verna cross, while there's social implications to that, it doesn't necessarily incite the same intimidation preps. Right. So there's a complexity to it. And I think that's where I, like living is in the gray. Everyone gets caught up and this is black and white. And I'm like, yeah, there's some black and there's some white, but the beauty to me is in the gray. 0 (22m 52s): Yeah. And I think going back to the whole spiritual awakening and Identity again, is it's to detach yourself from ego. We'd like, you are not your ego when you are not these things that you identify yourself. As I think so many people don't do enough in her work to really know who they are. They allow everyone else to tell them who they are. So for example, like me being a woman, right? Like that's an identifier. So just because I'm a woman, I was expected to, let's say, vote for Hillary for years ago. That doesn't matter to me. Right? Like, yes, I'm a woman. Like this is, this is real. And this reality that we're in. But just because we share the same gender in the same sex, then I'm out of magically supposed to think and act and behave in a certain way and support this other woman. 0 (23m 40s): I don't know anything about her or maybe I know everything about her and I just like disagree. So I think we to like take ourselves away from those things that we've been told to identify as whether it's like race or gender, where your religion, or especially ideologies, like that's where we get into trouble and realize that you are not those things. So I think a lot of what I see today as people are just honing in on these immutable factors, right? Like I can't change my race. I can't change my gender. Well, I can change my gender, but I can't change my sex. So no matter what these things are going, they're just going to be, so I know I'm going off into a bit of a tangent, but the point is kind of to do enough work and find yourself spiritually or through religion or whatever you have and detach from ego, and then realize that these immutable characteristics don't define you. 0 (24m 33s): Right. Like, just because you're a black, that doesn't mean anything about you. That doesn't mean you're a good person or a bad person. That doesn't mean that you are not nice or your, your mean, like, I don't know what your beliefs are. I don't know what is important to you. I don't know what your values are or whatever. So there's so much more than these identifiers. So I think we need to stop putting them on a pedestal. And it goes back to like, how do we kind of fix those? How do we get unified again and inspired by stopping putting a magnifying glass on the things that divide us. Right. So I think when it comes to being color blind or going past race, it's not to say that your culture does it matter if it's not to say that your values don't matter, but it's to say that hopefully one day and the future, like you're not going to be like, Oh, how many redheads are working at this company? 0 (25m 22s): Because you were like, why does that matter? That doesn't say anything about that group of people. So it's to hopefully get to a place where that doesn't matter, because it's no longer something that we're allowing it to define people. If that makes sense. 1 (25m 35s): Yeah. I, I agree. And that we can't make any generalizations about the black person, about the woman. And at the same time, we can almost with certainty say that that black man has had a particular experience in this country, that that woman has experienced some form of sexism. So naming the fact that we are, I agree with everything you say, and then we are products of our environment. There's a reason why people in California by and large are not voting for Trump. And they're voting for Biden and people by and large in a particular community, right? Because we are products of our environment. 1 (26m 16s): So as much as what you said is true, it's also a true that these external factors, even though they are outside of us as a considerable influence on how we think and how we process and how we experience this world and how we interact with one another. 0 (26m 31s): I think so too. And I think it's so tricky. Cause it, you can just, I try not to like turn people off because it's like, as soon as you identify in a certain belief system, you automatically alienate other group. 1 (26m 45s): And that's what I'm trying to like for me, I don't identify as Muslim, but there's a lot that I appreciate about Sufi Islam and the five percenters. And so I want to read more about it and I want to pray five times a day. Like not in a ritualistic sense of this is how you pray, but I want to carve out five times out of my day where I meditate. I do to me what, the way that I connect to God, the way that I understand God to me, and I'm not really concerned. If you call God a law or you don't call God, God, and God is in music and God is in the trees, whatever it is that gets you connected to a higher power. 1 (27m 25s): Because I think that higher power is that same higher power that is within us. People get all confused with heaven being up there in hell, down there, the five percenters in this rooting series that I was watching there in the park in there saying that hell is what you go through to create heaven right here. And I thought that was beautiful. So I think if you get to the root of all of the spiritual tests and philosophies and religions at the end of the day, it's about that connection, that universal truth, that self of knowledge, the soul force one. 0 (27m 58s): So do you think that there was a difference between religion and spirituality? Or do you think that there is a different name? Yeah. So how would you, how would you define the difference? 1 (28m 6s): I appreciate there's a group in higher ed where they really kind of focused on religious secular and spiritual meaning making for me, religion is the system. It's the structure, it's that body that conglomerate, that facilitates that. And I think there can be absolute value in that. And I support that. And then there's a spiritual, which I think again, you can find in that organized body. I think there's a lot of people who find that even in non theism and you can be an atheist and be spiritual or have secular Meaning, you know, it is what you want it to be. That's the thing. Like I can't prescribe it. I can tell you how I understand and explain it to me, but it can be metaphysical. It's not exclusive of science. 1 (28m 48s): To me, it's all connected, right? Like you can believe in the big bang and believe in a higher purpose. Like those aren't mutually exclusive 0 (28m 54s): A hundred percent. Yeah. I find that we're in a place now where science and spirituality are starting to become more and more obviously tied to one another. And instead of opposing forces, which it does kind of historically always been. So at that is going to be very fascinating to see with exponential growth in those areas like quantum computing and AI and it's, I just can't wait. 1 (29m 18s): I can't wait in a sense. And it's also fucking frightening. And like what makes us human? When you have people who have relationships with their, their systems, their devices, right? Like that documentary or that film her. And that's a real, like there's people who have relationships with our operating system and they will go to the movies and listen to their significant other. That person is an oar that algorithm or whatever it is, is evolving. You're evolving. You have this relationship. It's so complicated with Career skills. I talk about it like it's our human skills is how we connect with one another. And with artificial intelligence automation, the loss of jobs, the tremendous level of suffering in terms of our Meaning is often associated with our work. 1 (30m 4s): But if we don't have work, then who are we as people. Right. I think there's going to be some existential questions about what makes us human. Especially when we have relationships with artificial beings. It's, Saifai, it's here. COVID is just accentuated that it's been coming, but we have just sped up this process, I think like maybe several years. 0 (30m 27s): Right. And I think it's really important. I think if you are over identifying with your job or your career, that that's like a very dangerous zone to be in. I catch myself there all of the time. So again, I find that you're going to find more gratitude and a more positive outlook on life. If you detach these things from your ego, right? Like you're, you're not your job. Especially for me, that's been an important conversation because I've had so many people who judge me based off of doing porn, that they automatically thinks that they know everything there is to know about me. And it's like, I'm not a porn star. Like, that's something that I did. That was a job. Like, that's not who I am. 0 (31m 7s): That's you know what I mean? So 1 (31m 9s): I appreciate it. When we talked about that and you explained your Meaning in terms of even why you do something like people can consume your product or what you put out there in different ways. Because I was thinking, you know, you shared how couples can use this and it can be very therapeutic and there can be good that comes out of your work. Right. Then afterwards, I was thinking, I was like, yeah. And they're could be like a 15 year old kid who just masturbates to it right. In both could be true, but why are you doing it? I think that matters. Like the intent, like where your heart is, the purpose that you find out, if something that, that could still be meaningful and then you can move on in, there can be other parts of your life that are not defined by your work. 1 (31m 51s): And I think people can be defined by their work if they find tremendous value that you think of individual's like mother Teresa or Gandhi or Jesus or these people, or if I build homes and a half, if I pour my heart into it, like right. If I find desire and fulfillment out of it, then it's, it's okay to, I think it lost in it to some degree. 0 (32m 13s): Then you have to dig into, into more of the things behind what you can call it. Maybe the symptom or right. So like, if you're defining yourself by a building homes, what happens if you become a quadriplegic or you no longer yourself, right? Like, because you have to, right. You have to say what's important about that, right? Like, so there's obviously a generosity there that's helping fulfill you. And that's amazing. So looking to that, like what, that just means that you are this very like a giving person. So that's what you are. You're a giving person. You're not the home builder. So it's to say, yeah, you can be mother Teresa. Right. But it's not the job. It's more of like the ax, it's the, the meaning behind those things. 0 (32m 54s): So think it's important to separate the actual like job title vs the underlying meaning behind that. So with that said, how would you say that you talk about spirituality and finding your Career a purpose. 1 (33m 10s): Yeah. So what you did, there was a little bit of math. So we talked about connecting the dots in kindergarten, you got to the math part of it, which is the common denominator. It's kind of reducing the numerator, finding that common denominator. And that is in career education, the transferable skills that's whatever the employer is looking for. It's taking that experience and finding that Meaning and communicating that and giving that other person on the other side of that table and understanding of how they did this over there, they accomplish this, they could do this over here and how you find meaning and fulfillment out of that generosity that you named. So I think that's a part of the purpose is figuring out what matters to you, right? 1 (33m 53s): Where do you find meaning? It's pretty simple. You hear it everywhere in our language that it's not rocket science. Like we know this, but it's so easy. Just like we talk about parenting. Like we know what we're doing is wrong, but you just get a lost in the moment and you lose yourself. And I think it's the same thing in a sense with Career is it's very easy to get attracted to the celebrity and you have experienced that right. Live in that to get past that. And I think as someone I get caught up in it too, as someone who is aspiring for that in some way, right through the podcasting and through the things that I'm doing, I want people to hear me and be exposed because I think I have something that could provide them with some level of direction maybe, or to essentially find the answers within them. 1 (34m 44s): Because I think we have the answers, we just don't ask the right questions. We get caught up and all the answers that we see out there. And so I think I too can get caught up in this ego, this aspiration for something. And it's to be mindful of what Matt is like, what at the end of the day, it is the purpose. What am I finding? Meaning? Because you can get caught up in that to your point, if you have a tragic accident and you can't do this anymore, what is it about that that you were trying to do? What was the goal and to not lose sight of it, that the money is not evil in a sense that it can open up doors, but what's the intent. KRS one talks about the difference between the rapper in the MC and the rapper being corporate. 1 (35m 26s): The rapper is still has value. That's not to completely diss the wrapper, but the emcee is beholden to a coed in hip-hop that is rooted in the values and discipline. And there is a, in that as well that I personally appreciate. And I think aspire to be hip hop. Again, it depends on what you understand. Hip hop to me because hip hop can be very spiritual, going back to a science there's science research that indicates that when an emcee is in the flow, they're in a meditative state, there's parts of their brain. They're igniting the same way that you would cause to come up. And now I'm not an emcee. Like I call myself MC Stoll, but that's, you know, just the, not an MC I might aspire to be. 1 (36m 11s): But I, I think I hold that term in such high Revere that I have to be an EMC II. I might be an empty, but I think there is a difference in terms of the lyrical content. But that to be in that moment, I think in many ways is to lose oneself, to be one with the mic. The artist becomes one with the pen or one with the paintbrush, right? When a basketball player is on fire, the net gets bigger. The net didn't get bigger. Right? It's just that everything goes in. If you're on a free throw line, as soon as you are in your head, that's when you missed the free throw when you're in a rhythm, right. That's why they practice for you to throw so much so that you are, you're in a rhythm. It's just second nature. 1 (36m 52s): As soon as you start thinking about that task, you don't perform at as well is when you've lost yourself in that task. 0 (36m 59s): So you touched a little bit on money and I so excited because I wanted to get there with you. So there's a lot of misalignment and it comes to being financially successful in the spiritual world, but it's almost like frowned upon. It's like to have this world and shallow, and it doesn't align with a lot of peoples like altruism. So I find that a lot of spiritual people tend to get in their own way when it comes to career success, because they feel like that will deplete their spiritual success. And I've actually talked to this with one of my girlfriends who was a very spiritual person. And I was like, well, like, what if I want the range Rover? 0 (37m 41s): Like, does that mean like I'm a bad person? And I'm like, no, like you worked your ass off. You started this company. It's when you start defining yourself by these things and you start putting too much value on these things. So it's how do you look at money? So for me, my money is freedom. It buys you time. It buys you more time with your family. If you look at it as a status thing, you're like, well, I'm better than I think that's where you're going to get in trouble. So it's kind of like redefining your relationship with money. So do you see that? 1 (38m 9s): Yeah. Yeah. For me with the podcasting, because we're, we're just getting started. So we don't have a bunch of followers. And I think initially, cause I love the process of a podcasting and being in a conversation with other people. That's the fun. And then there's this part of me that has been struggling. That gets disappointed. John, you're putting out all of this way, contact, you're talking to all of these amazing people. There is not more people listening to you because then that becomes access to money. You get more listeners, you're reaching more people. You get the opportunity for advertising. 1 (38m 50s): Now you can make money. Now you can maybe leave the job that you're in, even though you love it, you have the entrepreneurship in the flexibility over here to focus just on that. And so to get lost in that, to get lost in the aspiration of money, have the success of the fame, perhaps have the influence it's real tricky. Cause it's almost tied to that as well in terms of the success of the podcast. And then getting caught up in what is required of that in terms of cutting out segments of your video, creating graphics, the marketing piece of it, which isn't as fulfilling for me, but it becomes the conduit to the success, to these other goals that you want. 1 (39m 36s): So where are you doing with your time? Because you only have so much of it that being the most precious resource, how am I investing in it? So I get caught up in that. Yeah. I would ask the friend is why do you want the range Rover? It's not as if you shouldn't buy the range Rover. I think that just becomes a matter of well, why if once you've answered that question and you've made meaning out of that purchase, very similar to the meaning that you make out of the car, then you're good. That's the only person you have to talk to. Right? Some people might say, God's the only one who's going to judge me at the end of the day. It's you, you're the only person you have to answer to. If you're feeling that guilt, maybe it is right for you to feel that guilt. Maybe it's not that only, you know, depending on what you're doing, the purchase of a car, probably you're the only one. 1 (40m 21s): But I think that it comes down to the individual and where they are again, it's that perception. 0 (40m 26s): Yeah, I think so too. I just see, I see so many people that are Steven Kotler says, if there's a performance issue, then there's the spiritual solution. If there is a spiritual issue, then there's a performance solution. So it's to say that these things can kind of coexist, right? So you can be like this, you know, mega CEO and wildly financially successful and also very spiritual. And you shouldn't feel guilty for that. I think if anything, whether you believe in God or the universe or whatever, external force, I would say that that's just a tangible sign that you're doing something right. For a lot of people, right? Like it's, it's not easy to make a podcast work, for example. 0 (41m 8s): So let's say your podcast, all of a sudden is like top 10 in the U S and you're constantly in those charts, that's a tangible sign that you're doing something right. 'cause that's not easy. So I kind of look at money as the same way. And again, it's just to make sure that you have like a healthy relationship with it, which I think a lot of people don't. 1 (41m 25s): Yeah. So I had like a, I mean, you could, you can make your money in all kinds of shady ways or righteous weighs and you spend your money in all kinds of righteous ways or shady ways I think with purpose, right? There's a lot of students who think that they have to get into government work or nonprofit work in order to have to do good. And for me, I want more people who have a ideology of which we've described in terms of this soul force, oneness, spiritual, being this connection to other people in corporate America, in, in other places, because if you were a principal, then you have value, then you can change places. 1 (42m 9s): Right? So to make money, it becomes because people, I think there's people who've made a lot of money and they might be really shady in terms of how they came up on that money in terms of white collar crime street crime. To me, it does matter where your money came from, where are you a principled and how did you deal with people and interact with people? Did you treat them with respect, but that's where the value in the money comes. That's that, you know, a difference between cash and money and what we like to call making cash, as in community activism, authenticity, soul force, hip-hop the significance of healing, right? Like in the process of making that money, did you create harm? 1 (42m 50s): Did you do evil or wrong to somebody? How did that other person feel through that transaction of someone giving you that money? Right. So for me, I feel like if the podcast blows up, hopefully it's because it was in, in the same with yours rooted in principles of love and compassion and the discovery of truth through conversation with other people. 0 (43m 13s): Okay. So it was going to tie it back in with your students that feel the draw to go into the non-profit sector or government. I think there's another hang up there when it comes to money and capitalism. I mean, you can't really name a sector where the private, the private sector doesn't Excel over public services. Right? So I think that the reason that some of these CEOs, I mean, they get hung up to drive because of some of their salaries, but the, at the end of the day, you're paying for that. Person's like creativity and the fact that they're going to have on that corporation. So I want the most brilliant mind running, like, let's say space X, right? 0 (43m 54s): Like I want, I want a lot of money there. That's going to help further humanity. Whether it's something like red cross, I want someone really smart there so that they can have the biggest impact on the most people. So if you get someone whose salary and let's say, I'm going to pay them a, a a hundred grand a year. I mean, that's not a lot in this country, right. It's still more than most, but it's not, you're not going to get the same mind as someone who is getting that $500,000 salary. So I think absolutely go into the private sector, make a huge difference there because again, like I don't find any area that the private sector doesn't, out-perform the public sector. So I think you can do both. I think you can be financially successful and make a huge impact. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a non-profit because a lot of the thing that's trending right now is a Corp B, right? 0 (44m 39s): So these companies that have a double bottom line, so they have like, you know, there are performance goals for a profit obviously, but we also have goals as far as what they give back to the community and whatever, when they're doing it. So I think you can have a much larger impact to doing something like that and going to maybe a regular corporation, converting it to a court B and maybe you, you know, deliver meals for every hello, fresh that someone buys, whatever it is, there's all these other ways to impact the community in a positive way. And you don't have to necessarily not make it. 1 (45m 10s): Well, I think, I think the social responsibility factor, I think it's more difficult for corporation because you're driven by the pursuit of profit. Like it's, it's designed that way. So a Wells Fargo can invest money to in the community. They can do some great block parties and bring people together. I mean, there's, there's shady practices that happen as well. My mind was going to Keystone pipeline and that's very political. I know in terms of my ideology and what I think is right for the environment and things of that nature, the social responsibility piece as important, I think I get caught up in, I agree with you in terms of the value, when people get caught up on, you know, a university president, for example, cause it can be making a half a million dollars and folks will say that's too much money. 1 (45m 55s): And to your point, I think they could go to work as a CEO and a private company and make four or five times as much as that because they have that mind that they have that skillset that is valued. So you can't just dismiss supply and demand in terms of the value that our economy might place on people. The thing that I get caught up on is then the divide though, because it's not just Elon Musk, it's all of the scientists and the people, right. There was an organization like E's great as a height man. And I'm sure he does more than just hyping things up, right? He's a celebrity figure in many ways. He's the face of that company. And it leads to donors and investments. And if he said something out of pocket, it leads to the retraction of that as well. 1 (46m 37s): So there's a lot of people though that are behind that organization and I'm sure they're getting well paid as well. And they don't need John advocating for them. I'm sure they're pulling just enough money as a scientist or researcher. That to me, I think Andrew Yang said a lot of important things in terms of automation, in how truck drivers and accountants in all kinds of people that have found value in their work, get beyond just purpose and meaning. But to wear, we value their labor rights. We will no longer value their labor. Very soon we have machines that are making salads and it's automated. 1 (47m 17s): We need less people to interact with it. And so if there is less people that we're interacting with and it's all artificial intelligence again, what makes us human and then how do we value other people? Because if I don't need you, do I value you as an individual then? Because it's a, again, so many people see us within our roles. You're a porn star. That's the only value you have to this world. And so I think so little of you, right, as opposed to you're a human being, you have gifts, you have talents that go beyond what you were doing in this capacity, right? As a truck driver, as a, an accountant, I forgot the, to the example that you brought up earlier in terms of we were talking about building houses, but again, some of those skills we're going to continue to require people, but there is a huge level of automation, 50% of the jobs that will exist 10 years from now, don't currently exist. 1 (48m 12s): It's Moore's law, like things are happening very rapidly. And I think we need to pay more attention to that, particularly in terms of how we process and interact with one another and with the world. 0 (48m 23s): Yeah. Jack ma did a conference with Elon Musk and they had kind of opposing views on the future of automation and AI's role in, I guess, taking jobs away. So Jack ma was who's tends to have more of a spiritual approach was explaining that there is certain things that a computer is never going to be able to do that a human can do, right? So like the arts are a great example thing. People want to see or touch and feel something that was made by a human there's just like a, a transfer of energy there. 1 (48m 56s): If you don't know though, what if the artificial intelligence could get to the point where they can produce art? And we wouldn't know if it's human, like, I feel like there's films I do we need actors? Will we get to a point where we don't need porn stars? Because we can have an Eva that is animated and produced and can do those things. 0 (49m 16s): Well, I guess it depends on where your belief system falls though. So if you believe in, well, I mean, this isn't even spiritual, right? This is just physics is everything has a vibrational volume, if you will, or metrics. So like, this is say, let's say this is a, a a hundred. And let's say, I think a dog has like two 50 or something like that. A human being on average is around 200, depending on that. Person's like spiritual level on a vibrational level. So like they can be higher. So everything vibrates at a different level. I think that there is a transfer of energy when it comes to let's say cooking. I think it's a good example. And we always have that phrase like made with love. 0 (49m 57s): I firmly believe if someone that cared about you or really cared about the art of cooking made you a dish next to a robot that made the exact same thing. Let's say like, because this is already exists. We have robots that are cooking. They make the exact same thing. I think you would be able to tell a difference. And I don't know, because I've never done like a blind folded experiment, but I think that there was a transfer of energy and intention in certain things that just won't be the same. I think we can tell the difference between a desk that mass made on a conveyor belt versus someone who put a lot of craftsmanship into it and whether, yeah, 1 (50m 35s): I think we could. How many of us, and I don't think I could, I think that you have to be in such in tuned with the creation of that desk, the creation of that food to where you can feel that love perhaps. But when you think about let's use a video, for example, if there's two animated figures that are having sex, they're obviously not real because there's this filter of the video. Like we experienced the world through videos, so right. I can taste some food through a video, but I can see something, but am I certain that what I'm seeing, because I can't see those vibrations. I can't feel those vibrations through the video. It filters that out. 1 (51m 15s): Right. So if I don't know. Oh really? Okay. 0 (51m 19s): Yeah. I think, I think when let's say you're doing something with sales and you're communicating with customers like via email or social media, or what have you, I think that some part of the explanation between why some, and you can use my industry as an example, like why some girls do better than others. I think a lot of that has to do with that said transfer of energy. So I think when this one girl REITs a caption or If, so, you know, you can even take my voice out of the picture and video out of the picture, like even down to just text, I think that that girl's intention and authenticity behind said caption or a message is going to be different based off of the individual. 0 (52m 0s): And certain ones are going to align different with the consumer. So I think that is one small fraction that can kind of explain like why certain girls do better than others or why people can sell better than others. So I think that there's still, that is still there. 1 (52m 15s): Yeah. I'm I'm waiting. No, no, no. I appreciate that. As you were saying that I was wondering, yeah, it, can there be a best seller written by a robot? Like what would that look like? Would we, as humans consume that? I guess my sense is that what is artificial intelligence? We laugh sometimes at Facebook knows this better than we know ourselves. Right. Picks up on our habits. Could artificial intelligence get to the point where they know us as a consumer. So well, better than we know ourselves, particularly because of this conversation about ego. If we've lost ourselves, if we're so consumed by an ego, could a robot artificial intelligence theoretically know that and then know how to tip off those endorphins to get us to purchase something like to some degree you can say that they've already done that through the algorithms, through Amazon, through knowing what will peak our interests that they know and could potentially know us better than we know ourselves. 1 (53m 14s): Even with everything that you said is still being true. That a few of us, because I don't think on there, but in terms of feeling that energy, because I think that's, that makes it just a certain level of, to be able to be in tune with another being to the extent that you can taste the love and the cooking. 0 (53m 32s): Yeah. I would say that that just comes with like a ton of introspection and a lot of work. And again, like detachment of ego, I think all of those steps are a good way to get there. But even when you talk about neuro matrix or am I using the right word quantum matrix, I'm going to have to go back, check that, but it's essentially, it goes into like our energy is all connected in this giant map that we can't see it through an electro magnetic energy. So again, it's just, it's there. And if you pay attention, like you can feel it, there is healing exercises that you can do. I think it's a Joe Dispenza meditation. I want to say where you picture like your heart, your heart chakra, and you know, that color and vibrates at the color green. 0 (54m 16s): And you envision like that kind of growing an expanding, you know, your house and then you're neighborhood and then your state and then you're country. And then slowly it engulfs like the world. And you can use this to create a connection or, or to maintain a connection. If there's like a loved one that's sick or maybe you guys are distanced for whatever reason to like maintain that connection. So a lot of people do it if there is a trauma in like the birthing process, for example, or even if there's not a trauma, even if you just want to like, create that connection from the mother to the baby. And let's say, you're your distance to, for whatever reason to like, exercise is like, this can help you start to like, I guess, fine tune into other people's energy and start to feel these things. 0 (55m 0s): I'm probably gonna lose a lot of people with that. 1 (55m 3s): No. And, and I, right, you may have lost me to some degree in the sense that I don't know all of that on one level. I want to believe that's true. Everything that you're describing sounds beautiful. It's the interconnection for me, it's the interconnection of words at the interconnection of energy. It's the interconnection of our planet. Right? And you know, one of our elders who was telling me a little girl, I was like, Hey, this is just a dirt. Right? And I'm like, yeah, it was just dirt. But the complexity of the root systems and everything that is the connectivity there as always, it's been great to talk to you. Candice thank you so much for having me on for those of your listeners who enjoy this conversation. I'd highly encourage them to check out our conversation together on our soul force ones' podcast. 1 (55m 47s): And that's available@soulforceones.com and wherever you listen to podcasts. Additionally, as I mentioned, season two is sponsored by the letter P so we talked to you as a porn star, pastor a politician, a university president, and other people in positions with P about their purpose, sort of remixed to spiritual and career development. So check us out. Thanks again. It's been really fun as always Candice take care and be well peace. 0 (56m 19s): That's it for this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have the time please rate review and you can always hit subscribe to stay up to date with our latest episodes. I hope to have you back 2 (56m 30s): <inaudible>.