Tales of Abundance
Tales of Abundance artwork

All episodes

AI Was Supposed to Save Time. Why Are We Working More?

Episode 76 · 3 June 2026 · 1 hr 2 min

Open on Spotify

Show notes

The Jevons Paradox and AI: Why Are We Working More?

The Jevons paradox explains why AI hasn't given anyone their time back: when something gets much more efficient, demand grows right along with it. Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino trace the pattern from coal and steam engines to washing machines and AI. They ask what all that new productivity is for, and how to protect the Five F's.

AI was supposed to save time. So why does it feel like everyone is working more?

In this episode of Tales of Abundance, Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg, and Anthony Marino explore the Jevons Paradox and why efficiency gains often lead to more work, not less. From coal in the Industrial Revolution to washing machines, manufacturing, and now artificial intelligence, the pattern keeps repeating: when something gets dramatically more efficient, demand expands right along with it. And that raises a bigger question—if AI makes us more productive, what are we supposed to do with the time it gives back?

The conversation gets practical fast. The guys unpack how AI is changing expectations in business, why tiny teams can now do the work of much larger organizations, and why “more productive” does not automatically mean more freedom, more happiness, or a better life. They also bring it back to the Five F’s—family, friends, fun, fitness, and finance—and challenge listeners to think harder about whether they are using new tools to build abundance or simply to cram even more work into the same 24 hours.

In the Abundance Briefing, they shift to relationships, forgiveness, and the politics of AI infrastructure. They discuss the long-running Harvard research on happiness and relationships, why forgiveness may matter for longevity, and the growing debate around AI safety, data centers, energy, water, and fear-driven narratives around technological progress.

If you want to understand AI and productivity, the future of work, why better tools do not automatically create a better life, and how to stay intentional in an age of accelerating leverage, this episode is for you.

The AI Productivity Paradox and the Future of Work

What you'll discover:

  • The Jevons paradox explained: why better engines led to more coal use, not less
  • Revenue per employee, tiny teams, and why better tools raise expectations
  • Infinite analysis: when AI creates more data than clarity
  • Time theft: how AI productivity quietly takes from sleep, fitness and family, and the case for using it on purpose
  • The Five F's (family, friends, fun, fitness and finance) as a filter for what to optimize
  • In the Abundance Briefing: the Harvard happiness study, forgiveness and longevity, and the politics of AI data centers and energy

Timestamps

  • [00:03] The Jevons Paradox: why better engines led to more coal use, not less
  • [01:35] From agriculture to industry: how technology keeps reshaping work
  • [03:14] China, manufacturing, and the rise of the middle class through technology
  • [04:51] AI, efficiency, and why almost nobody seems to be working less
  • [06:12] Revenue per employee, tiny teams, and the new leverage economy
  • [07:21] Better tools raise expectations, not just productivity
  • [08:26] Continuous improvement, Six Sigma, and why AI pressure feels familiar
  • [11:36] More opportunity, more abundance, and the risk of working even harder
  • [12:54] The real messiness in AI may be human resistance to change
  • [14:07] Infinite analysis: when AI creates too much data and not enough clarity
  • [18:11] What should we actually optimize for with AI?
  • [20:36] The danger of solving the wrong problem with better tools
  • [22:35] The five whys, sovereignty, and what all this productivity is really for
  • [24:30] Broken money, lifestyle inflation, and why people still feel squeezed
  • [28:51] The Five F’s: family, friends, fun, fitness, and finance
  • [30:57] Health, supplements, and why AI still needs skepticism and filtering
  • [34:40] Time theft: when AI productivity quietly steals from sleep, fitness, and family
  • [36:31] The case for balance and using AI with intention
  • [39:15] Harvard’s long-running happiness study and the power of relationships
  • [42:43] Forgiveness, stress, cortisol, and why letting go may help you live longer
  • [52:02] AI safety, data centers, fear, and the politics of abundance
  • [57:09] Why energy, infrastructure, and innovation matter more than fear narratives

🌿 SPONSORED BY AG1 (Athletic Greens)

Fuel your health and performance from the inside out.

Try AG1: https://shop.drinkag1.com/tales

About the hosts

This is a hosts-only episode with no guest: Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino. (Host bios are on the host pages linked below.)

Find us online:

Hit Subscribe so you never miss an episode of Tales of Abundance. 🔔

Related episodes

Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:05] Picture Britain in the mid-1800s. Factories are roaring, we're in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. There's trains and steam engines spreading all over, and the world the world's changing. And at the bottom of that is really one thing. It's coal. engines get more more efficient, okay? So, you'd think Britain would use less As the steam engines and everything gets less efficient and uses less coal, better engines, less waste, lower consumption. But, there was an economist, William Stanley Jevons. He noticed the opposite thing was happening. As coal became more efficient to use, it became more useful, and it started being used everywhere. Cheaper power meant more machines, more factories, more production, more trains, and so the ultimate ultimately there was more coal being used, not less. And this became known as Jevons paradox. When something gets dramatically more we think we're going to use less of it, but we actually end up using more of it. And we're going to talk today about how this applies to AI. I think that's a lot what's going on with AI, right? We all think, "Oh, boy, it's supposed to give us all this free time, and we'll be able to spend more time with our family, and get more done, and blah blah blah."

[01:19] Well, I don't really know anybody that's working less because of AI. Everybody I know, including me, is working more. So, we're going to talk about that. Why is that, you know, why is that happening? So, John, you want to talk about some other examples from history here? — Yeah, I mean, I think a couple of things are really interesting. Like, back in the early 1800s, even going back to the 1600s, 80 to 90% of the US workforce, and some estimates put even north of 90% working agriculture. And there's a 35-year period in the 1800s where that agricultural workforce moved toward the Industrial Revolution, and people were retooling their jobs. And so, you think about all the things that are supposed to give us more time and sort of did, but I think about like, you know, washing machines are a great example. We didn't used to have washing machines. There was a couple, you know, two and a half workers per kind of one type of household in the early 1900s, and things like the washing machine gave us less people to work in the household, but that doesn't mean we work less. I would say we're probably doing more laundry I don't have any science behind this. My guess is we do more laundry today than we did in the early 1900s. People used to have two or three sets of clothes, and I don't know about you guys, but I've got, you know, full closet full of clothes now. And and probably the same for you. This is a So, when we find technology advancing and more efficiencies get found, often that leads to more or better lifestyle. You know, I would argue that most people today live better than almost all of the, you know, kings and queens of history. With from indoor plumbing and, you know, sanitation and medicine and, you know, education. And so, I think what we're looking at is that if you if you took all the gains in productivity and assumed we were never going to do more work, then a lot of our fears might be real. But that's never been the case in human history that I can find. We've always found new things to apply the work to.

[03:14] — During that time, standard of living has increased tremendously. Every time there was a breakthrough in technology, there's hundreds of examples. You know, I was standing and thinking, in the last 25 years, a country that was 90% agrarian, because of the technologies of have moved almost 100% of that agrarian to the the factories, if you will, in the in the businesses, and moved off the farms into the city. And now, I think it's 70% of China's population is considered middle class, where in 2020 2002, when I was there, I think it was less than 20 of that population. So, I mean, to me, it suddenly strikes me strikes me as a shining example of the opportunity of what technology and we don't think manufacturing plants as technology, but I guarantee a Ford and GM think of the the manufacturing plants in China as with the huge advances in technology and robotics and so on and so forth. So, yeah, I I just think it's amazing to to think about even our recent history, you know, what what what's happened.

[04:33] — 50 years ago, 1976, we were just seeing the the start of the personal computer at the earliest stages of 1976. And then, you know, 100 years ago in 1926, I we couldn't even see what was going to happen today. lot of the name came from there literally that was a job title is that there were humans with a pencil and paper and maybe a I don't know, even pre-calculator. They would compute numbers and that job is no longer with us, but those were smart people that could find other things. So, let's go back to Jevons paradox for a minute. You know, again, the concept efficiency gain means lower cost per unit, but that means demand rises, right? And AI makes producing intelligence in a lot of ways cheaper. We produce more. And part of where this topic came from, I saw a tweet. I think Marc Andreessen retweeted. I would love to give credit to the original source, but it said, "I don't know anybody working less because of AI." And that really hit me right between the eyes because I have what it's allowed me to do is I am able to do things that I couldn't do 6 months, a year, a couple of years ago and it just opens tons and tons of opportunity and I'm working more and I'm thinking about boy, I've got I could do this business and this business but I need somebody to execute it, right? And there because there's only 24 hours in a day, but my possibilities have opened up more than the efficiency, right? And I think Go ahead, John.

[06:12] — Super interesting to see what happens in terms of like revenue per employee, which is, you know, I don't think it's the best metric for a lot of reasons, but it's certainly interesting as we look at the what people are generating in terms of productivity. I think, you know, gross profit per employee is probably a better number, but not every company ubiquitously shows that number, so but you know, there there's one company right now that that I think has made national news that was, you know, $400 million and two employees and a bunch of contractors, of course, but like that's interesting to me. first got in the cabinet business, we used to deliver and we would tell people 6 to 8 weeks and they were amazed because normal was 8 to 12 weeks back then. Well, now there's manufacturers that can deliver much faster and it's just very quickly all of a sudden. It used to be if I had 6 to 8 weeks and there were back orders or something took 10 weeks, it was no big deal. People weren't in that much of a hurry. Now, customers would be like even their expectations have changed in the market, right? Now, if you take you if you took you 10 weeks, they'd lose their minds.

[07:21] — Well, strategy is you know, strategy is about saying no to things, right? And so I think that that saying no to the right things today maybe becomes even more important because it's so much easier to say yes. And so and right now, I think the cost of of utilizing AI is going to continue to rise for all the reasons we've talked about in past episodes. Go check those out if you want to listen in on those conversations, but I think we're going to see that like really getting focused is going to be an important thing and strategy will become a lot more day-to-day in terms of what we say yes or what we say no to. — Yeah, I I I've been thinking about this in terms of some of the stuff I'm doing is taking me more time because I'm having to learn how to do it. I'm learning new skills and applying them and growing in that way. And so part of me says, well, once I get to this point, right, and my my AI agents are doing all these things, I will have free time. I don't know that that's going to happen cuz I said I had seven abundance of ideas and I can easily fill that time with with, you know, the next best idea.

[08:26] — Let me say this and I don't I'm not really throwing cold water on all this, but this is nothing Okay, AI is you know, the the the search and the mission of continuous improvement has been going on for for since man began. So I'll take you back to oh, let's go back to the '90s when several companies embraced Six Sigma. And the our youngsters out there probably don't know what that is, but it's a it's a continuous improvement methodology where you know, you try to get a six zeros after the decimal point of of of quality. Think of an airplane. If if I told you that 99 % of the time an airplane will take off and land safely, you might not get on that plane. But if I told you 99. 00 99.99999 % of the time you're going to you are getting on that airplane. So I remember the pressure of having to go through continuous earn your black belt in in Six Sigma then apply it to GE was famous for this. Apply it to your business. Everyone had a project and you had to show how you were more productive now than you were yesterday using the Six Sigma tools.

[09:51] Then I left Sears and went to Toyota where they have the most famous continuous improvement methodology uh the Toyota Production System. I spent a year back and forth in Japan learning this thing with a group of men and women who were the smartest people I have ever been around with and the unbelievable to take that and those learnings back to Toyota and apply it directly to my business in a way that I could quantify. And so now here we are today. John, I'm sure you got more examples of this, but today we've got this, you know, machine. You know, and a machine and keyboards and and a microphone, really, cuz that's what what most people are doing. And we're all under incredible pressure to improve. And you know, and and God forbid if you're working in a in a in a bigger company, you fall behind the knowledge you're irrelevant. And it That was the case in six with Six Sigma. That was the case with the Toyota Production System. And now it's the case with AI.

[10:55] The pressure is incredible to, you know, be up the knowledge curve and be able to use these tools in a way that you can prove your worth, literally. You got to You got to prove your worth to get hired. You have to prove your worth to stay employed. Or if you want to start your own business, you have to prove your worth that you, you know, you're going to deliver value to a consumer or a business to um to make enough money to stay in business. So, it's it's just, you know, I I it just dawns on me that this is nothing new and pressure is remains the same. So, get used to it cuz next year, next month, next decade, it'll just be a new reason to be under — Yeah, it's I mean, look at farming. Look at these fancy combines and tractors and how much work that can do compared to what it used to be with humans using horse or oxen or whatever else, right? It's freed those people up. AI does the same thing, right? And again, I've said this over and over. I believe in the Star Trek future. Where, you know, we'll find new stuff.

[11:57] If you watch Star Trek, they have all new technologies and capabilities and, you know, next thing you know, you're mining other planets and, you know, building Dyson swarms and, you know, every other technology that we've talked about. So. You know, but we talked, was it last a couple weeks ago we talked about how our 10-year goals a lot of times are not equivalent to our actions, right? And we talked about people wanted to spend more time with friends, fun, family. And I think that's what we're really talking about here. More than, you know, is Are people getting I'm convinced that we're not going to have a job shortage, that it's going to create job abundance. There might be a little bit of messiness in the turnover, although I'm now convinced that's going to be less than all that ever. Because all the things we've been talking about for the last few minutes, there's actually going to be more jobs, more opportunity, more abundance, but is it leading to more happiness, more fun, more friendship, more connection? — Well, and Rania, I would say this. There are people that are going to be less inclined to change, and so I think that messiness is real, but not for technology reasons, for human reasons.

[13:03] And so, my encouragement is that like, you know, understand what you can and can't control. You know, I had a really smart mentor of mine once told me there's only two two things you can control, your thoughts and your actions. And so, you know, the messiness is going to be more messy where people are unwilling to change, and less messy where people are willing to change. And then I think relationships are going to become more and more important. And you know, one of the cool things for me is, you know, my mom passed away in 2017, but I can load up all of her emails into an AI agent and I can go have a conversation with her about what she would say about parenting with my children on the one hand. On the other hand, I want to make sure that doesn't stop the conversation I really am going to have with my wife about those things so that I'm talking to an AI instead of my So I've got I've I'm trying to balance those two things in my head, right? About like it's cool that I want to go see what I think my mom might have said. That's interesting. But I don't want to shortchange the real relationship that's really important to me. Right? And so I I've just noticed that it'd be really easy to lean into the AI and not actually go have the conversation with my wife.

[14:07] — Well, AI makes it easy to be fair. — No, what AI for me, AI has offered infinite analysis. There's There's nothing you can't analyze. There's no data you can't scrutinize and I think I'm I'm finding myself going down wormholes. You know, John and I have experience in call center management, big call centers. And back in the day we used to run reports, call center reports that had I don't know, John ours had 20 metrics across the top of the page, right? And you know, we measured every damn everything, you know, call time, abandon rates, you know, by rep, by product, blah blah blah blah blah And frankly, it was all a waste of time cuz there were two or three things that mattered, you know, in a call center in terms of productivity and quality of of the customer experience. I find myself back at that doing the work that I'm doing now, consulting for some people. I'm ripping spreadsheets apart. I'm throwing them up into chat or Gemini or wherever I'm throwing them up and asking really s- detailed questions, getting answers that I cannot use that don't really matter. I I have gone full circle in my almost 45 years of business experience. So I'm going to take a step back from this and kind of um what what's a good word, John? I guess filter or you know, carve off some of what I'm doing and try to get back to what what what am I what am I customers really need? What's going to change to help them change their business for the good and just kind of use AI to focus on, you know, the few uh not the many. See if that gets me somewhere because right now I've I've overdone it. I mean, the data — Yeah, you guys you've heard my talk on numbers, Anthony. You know, you guys get sick of me talking about numbers and the the difference between a forward-looking, you know, KPI versus a backward-looking objective. Both important, but man, it is easy to get buried in data if you don't only look at what's actionable and don't have agreement amongst the stakeholders about what a number means. The amount of just ridiculous and unnecessary debate you can get into is worthless. And that's it's why it's so important to have the conversation about what's an executive scorecard, what's a functional scorecard, what's a process scorecard, what's a project, you know, and getting really clean language around that.

[16:30] That's one of the reasons I went to like 16 CEOs of companies and COOs late last year and said, "Let's find one common set of language we can use around what done means and around what important means." And so, we got these really clean sets of language cross-company. And then each company had to go in and do the same thing for their scorecard, but like yeah, getting really clean definitions for communication, which is the opposite of what I hear from people when they say things like, "Well, to me this means blah blah blah." It's like, "No, that's you know, danger will in relationships become super important in that in that in that — back to the knowledge gap. You know, yes, I'm uh I've developed too much data, but in several cases I've found I have found some things, right? Some very important things. Now, you use the word stakeholders. If the stakeholder is behind the knowledge curve and doesn't really understand where you came from, you've got a real battle on your hands and it's and it hasn't been pleasant because in some cases you're actually calling people out and there's a there's a nuance to that that you have to apply that it you know uh you got to be careful cuz you know, when you when you're dealing with third parties who have a position, right? They're consulting, I'm consulting, then there's the stakeholder of the business.

[17:55] If they if when on an alignment uh or there's no understanding, it gets to be very very difficult to execute. So, you've done all this work and you know, you created the the the the road map and no one's going to do anything with it. — So, John, Anthony, you just got done talking about all the numbers, all of these metrics. What metrics should people be optimizing for? Like with AI, what what is a win? What does that look like? Right? Cuz we talk about freedom and time and so, what numbers should we be talking about? — Are you talking inside a company, Randy? Are you talking about like personally cuz those were two separate questions. — I don't care if it's a 20-year-old college student or a 25-year-old getting in the workspace or somebody that's 80 years old and raising grandkids. If they're using AI, what metrics like what how should they be judging if they've gone too far as Anthony said or if it could make their life What what what's the right metrics? — You'd be shocked to hear I have an opinion about this, Anthony.

[19:00] — Can't imagine. — I you know, for me I think, Randy, it's like where are you trying to get to professionally and personally and measure you against that. And so, personally it's like, you know, if if you're trying to balance for a season or if you're trying to learn for a season, I think setting milestones so that you can say I'm I'm I'm getting where I want to go, wherever that is, is really important. And then I think inside the business, you know, every business has revenue and fulfillment and people and AI operations and technology and you know, accounting and finance. And so getting super clear about what's important and why it's important and making sure that um it's not you're not driving something I'll give you a great example. I had somebody who worked in an accounting department once tell me how they wanted to set up all of our accounting and finance measurement. And when I asked them what they were optimizing toward, it was about filing taxes for that one day a year where you have to file your taxes. Four days a year for companies, I I was like, "Hey, look, that's not that's not what we're going to do. We're going to actually optimize for managing the business day-to-day and then we'll make those adjustments for tax appropriately on the days where you have to do that. But the job of accounting and finance is to manage the business day-to-day, not to make the job easier on tax day." And that was just a big miss. And so I think having an executive team that really understands what the target is and that becomes really important for what we measure, how much we measure or how little we measure. And then I think on the personal note, it's making sure that, you know, you're being as deliberate in your life about what things it is you want to get accomplished so that you're not inadvertently going off course.

[20:36] — Going off course is a big deal. You know, there there stories now Now, of course, the the uh podcasts are all littered with stories of, you know, duplicate duplicate of efforts by people in the same company doing the same thing, you know, work same workflow improvements. One company spent a half a billion with a B dollars on tokens. And they found out that they were basically that there was nothing really that was gained for those tokens. And for those of you know what a token is, that's you know, your usage on a on a with one of the agent agentic — Did I hear that right? It was a half billion dollars or a half billion — Half billion dollars. — Yeah, it was it was some ridiculous thing and then there's story after story of five different people solving the same problem. And so you you're basically given, you know, Ferrari to a 16-year you know, your group of 16-year-olds and say, "Hey, you got to take off. You know, go go you know, go out." And they're smashing into every tree and, you know, rolling them over and they're just making a mess of things and and it's just it's a you know, So you ask what the what the key metric is, Randy. The key metric is, as John where do you want to be?

[21:53] Like, what's the most important thing in your business? Do you want to drive revenue? Do you want to reduce head count? Do you want to increase gross profit? And then, you know, having a strategy around all those things. You know, if you're a small business, you know, an entrepreneur, you know, you you want to you know, streamline where you can streamline so that you can engage more customers and get more throughput from customers into your business. So if you're in the home improvement business, you want to be able to do sell more of whatever it is and and get it installed or get it delivered faster and faster so you can have more throughput. So how is AI going to be can AI AI be used to help you with that? So how do I have a goal? — I would push — You know, — you talk about the five whys. You might even be the person that taught me the five whys. It was you or John, wasn't you? You know, but why do people want to be more productive? Why do they want to be more profitable? Why do they want more head count, right? So for me, a lot of that comes down to sovereignty or to simplify it a little bit, let's just say Right? And and I want those things so I can do that, right? But I'm thinking, you know, if I'm up till 2 in the create working on this because it will create that sovereignty and that freedom in my life, right? Why do I want What do I want the freedom and the sovereignty to do? This is kind of our our topic from a couple weeks ago, right? It's to be able to enjoy myself, travel more, spend time with family, etc. etc. All you know, like enjoy life.

[23:23] But now all of a sudden I'm working more than I'm working in here. — asking the five whys. It's the single biggest mistake every and we all fall into it in our personal lives and our professional lives. It's all the same. You got to have leadership. You got to have personal You have to have business leadership to to not cuz that that's what's creating the work. Everyone's working harder because there isn't great leadership around this. So, if you're working for a a company like Madoff or one of these a manufacturing firm that's got tens of thousands of people and you're looking around and you're seeing people hustle and stay in later, you know, working 8:00 to 8:00 because they got 12 agents working on a project and one agent finishes and you you can jump to the next one and so on and so forth. And that gets back to the the the points of pressure I talked about. You got to you better you're going to you're going to be left behind. There's just no two ways about it in that particular world. So, I mean, I don't know what else what else to say about it, but it's it's feeding on it's it's it's kind of like eating your young. It's it's feeding on itself.

[24:30] — Another Another way to look at this, you guys know I a lot of stuff comes back to money and what you know, what's the core problem, right? And you were talking about how life is easier, Anthony, and you're right. We live better than kings and queens. People live better than Rockefeller live now with air conditioning and you know, indoor plumbing and all the different stuff, but you know, if we were to have go back that far to where one person could take care of a family with multiple kids, right? And they they could take vacations, they could pay their mortgage, and life was easier. And now with broken money and people's savings, they just it's hard it's hard for a lot of people right now. They're both working, and you know, the the hope is that AI makes them more productive so they can't do that. But I would also say we have to fix the money at some point, cuz otherwise it's just going to keep They're going to keep printing more money, going more in debt, and you we have to be more efficient, I would just to survive in today's world than we 50 or 70 years ago. — You know, I I don't dispute the broken money, and I don't dispute that the possibilities of creating, you know, more abundance for people isn't a distinct possibility. What I disagree with is there's a lot of choice people are making that are that are making things difficult for themselves.

[25:48] You know, take you back to post-World War II. You know, a home builder in Johnstown, Johnstown, New York, built I don't know, several thousand 1,400 square foot three-bedroom, two-bath homes. And that was considered fantastic People, you know, veterans came back from the war, they had a they had a and it was fine. Today, you tell a kid, "Here's a 1,400 square foot home in Kansas, Missouri, with three baths and two bedrooms on, you know, a 10,000 square foot lot." And they're going to tell you to get lost. That's not that's not that's that's not what TikTok wants them to do, or Facebook, or Instagram. You know, they want the two-story, acre lot, you know, five bedrooms, you know, and all that. So, people have changed, in my opinion, and I'm guilty of it. — You know, take us take us back to you know, you've been to Europe a couple times recently.

[26:51] Take us back to like the same affluent upper middle class European, you know, land owner or whatever, also wants the 10,000 square foot, 5,000, 6,000 square foot place. Right. — No. No. No. No. Social influences of the Keeping Up with the Joneses. You know, it's it's a well-known term, right? Keep up with the Joneses. It's actually a disease. In my opinion. It's actually a disease. You know, we drove We were up on the West Coast uh last week. And John, you're exactly right. And out in wine country in the Sonoma Valley and heading towards uh the the Pacific coast, it was extraordinarily modest. You know, there were Yes, on the high on the hills there were some amazing homes and so forth. By and large, it was an agrarian economy. It was a lot of, you know, what I would call ramshackle homes with, you know, campers in the driveway. And I'll guarantee you those people are just as happy, probably happier, than some hustler, you know, here in trying to get the the 4,000 square foot house in Westlake, you know? So, yeah, I think I think this is something that we've we've got to step back and consider. I don't I don't see how it's going to change with the influences. Uh maybe we'll flip us flip the switch on this thing and you know, as socialism takes over our country and everyone the pie gets divided equally and you only get a 1,400 square foot house instead of a 4,400 square foot. I don't know.

[28:21] But uh I think that's part of the problem. Along with inflation, you know, along with a lot of other things uh that we're dealing with. But — I I think as we as we deal with abundance, I would say, you know, it's important to understand how to filter the messages coming in and and why the messages coming in. Like I'm I'm very sensitive to like why marketers tell us what they tell us and why people you know, and so that way at least it goes through a filter so that that be more informed about what decisions I want to make. — Well, let's talk about the five F's, right? John, you have this framework of the five F's. Uh you know, family, fun, friends, fitness, finance. So, let's let's talk about I think we've talked about the financial, the professional one a fair amount, right? Being more efficient, working harder, and you know, we I I do think maybe the financial finish line, this is a good place to remind people of that. Like, that's kind of where do you get off that hamster wheel, and you don't have to work like that and and constantly be chasing it, but let's go with family.

[29:25] How does Like, what is the right way for people to think about this in the lens of maximizing their family and having abundance in in that area? There's things that I want to be able to do for my family that sometimes take would have taken more work that I can take less work cuz I can spend more time with them. And so, I'll give you a couple ones that are really just helpful for us. You know, there's many couples that I've talked to, and I would put my marriage in the same bucket where the conversation of like, "Where do you want to go to dinner tonight?" And it becomes a thing back and forth, and it becomes more stressful than people think it should be. And so, my wife and I just took a list of all the things we enjoy doing together and all the restaurants we've enjoyed being at, and we we dropped it into a little thread, and so now, every other week, I drop in and say, "Hey, I want to plan date night for my wife." And she loves that. And every other week, she grabs one and says, "I'm going to plan date night." And it makes it really easy for us to try the things that are important to us, right? And so, that's one example of how it just has reduced stress and time for us that's been fun and easy and light. And so, and then I think the other thing it's done is it just um there's more for us to talk about because we're both learning AI right now. But there's a topic we have when we want to connect about what she's learned for the day, what I've learned for the day, how we're utilizing it in different parts of our life. And so using it as a point of connection has been good for us. And so Now, that being said, AI doesn't choose where our date night goes. It just makes the process — You know, being being in the last stage of the last season of my life, the the amount of information that's available relative to health and fitness is just well, it's over actually overwhelming and it's contradictory.

[31:12] So, I spend a lot of time sifting through, you know, what is going to work for me in the current state of health that I'm in and trying to figure out what's what's not real and so you have to In order to do that, you've got to really, you know, go to multiple sources and get confirmation on things, you know. There's a new There's a new supplement that is the all the rage for longevity called NAD3 a hundred a hundred percent zero longitudinal studies about its effectiveness. Yet you you can't get it and if you get it, it's expensive and I've got three bottles of it in there cuz my wife keeps buying a different version of it every 20 minutes. But it's an example of the good of that is you you have a quick reference. Before, you know, I'd ask have to ask you, you know, what are you doing at the gym and so on and so forth. Now, you can, you know, put a plan together, you can upload your medical chart, you can upload your blood tests and, you know, at least become conversant of what you ought to be doing of what you ought to be changing. And then you seek obviously with if you're talking about supplements and other such things, you you know, you seek a doctor's advice at the end of all that.

[32:33] So, that's what I'm saying. — And and [clears throat] here Brandy, here's a great example of like where the filters matter, right? Because a lot of the LLMs are built on Reddit and things that are not scientifically kind of accurate. And so having what Anthony said about talk to your doctor at the end or prompt your AI or build your AIs to be more factual. I just think, you know, Anthony does this naturally where he's naturally skeptical of the information will keep digging. I think it's way too easy today to kind of just take the first answer and go with it. And that's where, you know, we had problems with LLMs and probably still do about LLMs making LLMs dumber over time where they just kind of because they're So, I just I think there's there's a caution there about how much content can be created. And I think models are getting better at that, but that's just a a word of caution for the listener. — Yeah, and even even travel, you know, I'll I'll give you an example the you know, I used the LLMs to help me select hotels and places to stay and things to And one of the hotels that they that kept coming up as it's great place. I won't use it I won't tell you where it You know, it was expensive. It was in the heart of things. Every every everything about it was supposed to be great. The reviews online were great and all that. We get there and it was a dorm room.

[33:51] For all intents and purposes. I mean, there was a basically a Grateful Dead curtain between the bedroom and the and the sitting area and the sitting area had a recliner type thing that one end was higher than the other And and then when we told the manager about it, they sent a housekeeping crew came up. They didn't speak English and they made a bed. They they put sheets on it. They turned it into a bed. It was just the worst freaking experience you could possibly imagine. So, to your point, John, you know, do don't take everything at face value and I I that's a real because, you know people are can get an answer quickly and there's nothing like a quick answer, right? Get a quick answer, take action. No, definitely not. — I think the underlying thing that we haven't necessarily hit on is time. Right? And we talk about using AI or whatever it is, modern technology, we make our business more efficient, more effective. We buy more time, but it's more time to do what, right? If we just planned it back into doing work and we do more and more work, that means we're not making time for family, for friends, for fun, for fitness. And I'm thinking about even the prompts I use in AI, like I'm working on business-related stuff It never even occurs to me to factor in family, friends, fun, fitness into it. And if I stay up till 2:00 in the morning coding on something cuz I'm excited and I'm trying to create all this efficiency over there and now it impacts my sleep and maybe now I I don't get up as early so I don't go to the gym the next day and I'm tired the next day.

[35:35] Right? I'm stealing time from one area to take to another. And I think really maybe that's the that's the thing we have to be protective of is how are we splitting up our time. It's the same it's the same battle in a new package. — Yeah, balance, right? You know, we we've talked about this a lot. Being conscious of the balance between the five F's and being you know, being aware of when you're not devoting enough time to something or even giving it any effort because you're focused on some one or the the something else and it's usually finance that drags us away from the other the other four F's. So, yeah, I make it sound so easy, just you know, keep it in balance, you know, [snorts] — Um it's a it's a real it's a it's an effort even for me and I'm and I'm a part-time worker right now, but I'm still my days are still filled and I you know, I can't say that I'm I'm balancing very, very well all the time. — All right, let's put a bow on this thing, gentlemen. Last thoughts here. let's let's let's let's let's lift the spirits, right? You know, John mentioned the two-man company that's, you know, turning it out 400 million in in revenue. So, it's an example where AI can, you know, a small team can compete with a big with a big team.

[36:53] You know, it it does do a lot of mundane tasks, meeting notes, job descriptions, uh transcripts, you know, you can you can develop, you know, uh formats for you and plan for you, do brainstorming, shorten learning curves, right? Again, you don't have to I don't have to call Dr. John to ask him about, you know, a particular medicine or or treatment from his medical practice. I can get a start by getting the information. So, there's a lot of positive stuff. Um the ability to plan travel very easily, you know, schedule things. There's so so there's a lot of lot of lot of lot of good here. But like anything else, it's like a a skill saw. You got to be careful, you know, cuz you can lop off a finger just as easily as you can cut a 2x4. So, that's that would be my my take on all this. think I'll leave it exactly at that and uh look forward to the break. — I just think my big takeaway is that yes, there's all kinds of advantages. I agree with all that and I've got it doing all kinds of cool things. But for me, I need to be more intentional with my time and where I focus it and and, you know, splitting it into some of the other five Fs. So. Uh listeners, uh we will be right back after the break with the Abundance Briefing.

[38:17] — For our Tales of Abundance, we know that fitness is just as important as money and milestones. It's one of our key five steps. There's lots of those. Taking care of my body while I build my life is one of the more time-consuming and difficult goals to chase. That's why we're partnering with AG1. It's a daily drinkable habit. Less than a minute, this formula with 75 plus vitamins and nutrients and designed to support energy, digestion, and immune It even has a few grams of protein uh that we're all chasing these days. If you want to try it with our affiliate link, you'll also receive a free AG1 flavor sampler plus vitamin D 3 plus K2 with your welcome kit when you first subscribe, a $72 value. Go to the — Listeners, welcome back. Uh John, I'm going to turn it over to you for the abundance briefing and talking about relationships in this Harvard study. Tell us about this. — Yeah, I mean, there's a study at Harvard that's been going on for nine decades now that looks at happiness. And there's a lot of critiques of the study about, you know, who's being studied. But at the end of the day, nine decades of research, and it can't causally definitely say that relationships cause happiness, but the correlations are pretty high. And at the end of the day, people who have great strong relationships tend to report being happier, and people who are more lonely tend to be less happy. And so, I think it's a really interesting data set. And I think, you know, anybody who wants to like find a reason to poopoo at, you know, part of the the bias of the study and the the scientific rigor and the and the you know, randomized control, lack of randomized control, maybe.

[39:54] I think you can do that, but I think the interesting part is this. You know, people who are lonely tend to be less happy. People who are in strong great relationships, marriage and otherwise, tend to be happier. Like, there's something to it, and it appears that there's been something to it for at least the last 88 years. — Well, we all know people that are in both, you know, bifurcated, you know, the the the hard working loner who's you know, all he does or she does is work, work, work and kind of doesn't really devote any time to for themselves personally or with family and friends. And they're kind of lumbering around, you know, they're not they're not they're not in great moods. I I I certainly golf with a few of those guys on weekends, you know, it's it's on the other hand, had a great weekend with a couple of guys that were, you leading abundant lives with, you know, babies and grandkids and great spouses talking about trips and weddings in Greece and so on and so forth. And there it was a it was a very, very pleasant day on Saturday, for sure, with those guys. It was a very different mood, if you will, when someone appears to be in a good social mindset and open for friendships. And I didn't even know these guys, by the way. It's the first time I've ever met them.

[41:10] And we were able to, you know, break through and and have great conversation, a lot of fun. Walking through the woods, looking for golf balls. I mean, it was great. We just had a had a great day. — The Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who is twice the Surgeon General, I think once equated, if memory serves, loneliness as the great epidemic of our society. And I think it was something like 15 cigarettes a day of smoking was the same as being lonely. And I don't remember the numbers exactly or if that's but directionally, that's right. And so, I mean, think about that. Like smoking three quarters of pack of cigarettes a day being similar to loneliness in terms of the epidemic. Like that's that's a strong statement from the Surgeon General. know, be conscious of your surroundings. Don't you know, don't be alone. Get out. Doesn't matter where you go, you know, be be and be pleasant. You know, that's that's what I find is when when people are pleasant, you know, and they when they're self-effacing, they're much easier to approach and get along with and have a conversation with as opposed to you know, this stodgy old man, which I'm trying not to be.

[42:21] — Well, you know, the four skills I talk about all the time with relationship are being accepting of somebody else's position, being trustworthy, so that you keep people's secrets where it's appropriate, being appropriately vulnerable and sharing about yourself, and then see choosing to see people in their best light, you know, when that's appropriate. Like those four skills are really important for connection. — Well, seeing people in their best light leads us to forgiveness and staying at Harvard, John. You and I talked about this study uh that's that also this is from the Harvard Gazette, but the longevity study and forgive or using forgiveness as a longevity study. Won't take us through that? — This one was interesting to me and it was new uh for me, but you know, I think what I generally talk about with forgiveness and this is not mine. This is something I've read somewhere else is that, you know, if I don't forgive someone, that's a weight that I carry and the other person probably doesn't even know or care that I have or haven't forgiven them. And so, I think you know, I've read several books on forgiveness over the years and lots of papers on this and I think you know, I this is not kind of my area of specific expertise, but on a personal note, I will say that I work really hard to forgive myself about things. I work really hard to clean up my side of the street when I make a mess, regardless of who it is or where it is for if for my benefit, if not for theirs, and I try not to let ego get involved and I I see you heard me say try lots of times there cuz I'm certainly not perfect at it, but man, I think forgiveness is as much about the person doing the forgiving or more than the person being forgiven.

[43:56] It takes practice. — Anthony, what say you? — Yeah, the this is what tough one for me because my mental model growing up and through my, you know, corporate business taught me to forgive no one, to trust no one, to, you know, be prepared to fight, to you know, shoot, ready, fire, aim. It took me a long, long time to even get marginally better at this because it's so ingrained in us. And when I say us, I mean people fighting for the things we talked about earlier in the episode about fighting for finance and promotions and things like that. That you know, when when someone in a in a big corporation, a peer, you know, does something that it just doesn't help you or even hurts your your career, it is really hard to forgive that person. Now, in personal life, you know, it to for me, it depends on what the transgression was. You know, if someone violated a trust, that's that's a tougher tougher thing to You know, smaller transgressions, not a not a big deal, easier to do.

[45:07] But none of it's simple. None of None of this is simple. So, I have — Sometimes Sometimes, Anthony, it's like it it's not even known, right? Like I We've talked about this on our show before, but you and I got sideways a few years ago, and it was years and years into our relationship. And I mean, I think it's fair to say you were fairly pissed at me and I didn't even know it. You know, do we want to tell that story — Well, you know, the story the quick story is I was doing something and I had expected that John to do the same thing, and he didn't. But I never asked him to do that same thing, and he didn't know I was doing the thing. So, so I got wrapped around an axle all by myself until one day John said, "What what the is wrong with And I said, "God damn it, you aren't" and I filled in the blank. He goes, "Well, I didn't know." So, I was holding a grudge — that I created all by myself, all by myself. Not proud of that, but you know, a learning experience for sure. — I think that happens — we had to resolve it, though. — Yeah. Yeah, we had to resolve it. — That happens all the time. You watch people and one person makes one assumption and the other person makes another assumption or maybe the other person isn't like in this case wasn't even involved. They hadn't even thought about it, right? And — Hold on. In Anthony's defense, there was something going on that I could have been more sensitive to, as well, right?

[46:24] Like I could have watched more closely, asked questions earlier. So, he made it seem like it was all one-sided there, but there was definitely a part of it where I could have I could have been a little more just thoughtful and maybe asked a couple questions earlier. But boy, as soon as it came out, it was like, "Well, I'll do Like it wasn't it wasn't a big ask. But but I didn't know. And so and then and then once it was like, "Well, we're going to fix it." Then we had to repeat do the repair work, right? And it it wasn't like I was like, "You son of a it's all yours to repair." Like I had to own my piece of it, too, which was I could have been a little more sensitive. I could have been I could have asked to help you in that way. I could have So, but but now and and lucky for us we had years of trust built up behind that because if it'd been a lot earlier in the relationship, that could have gone a lot differently. — Perfect. So, it's your fault, not Anthony's, and I can't believe he forgave you. That's That's my takeaway. — You know, — All right. — So, I'm going to take us back I'm trying to take us back to the thing, right? Like we're talking about holding a grudge, but that's not the point of the article and the study. The point of the study is to forgive and you will live Like like we're we're wallowing in this pain. That's that's the opposite of what this study says, right? And I get it.

[47:37] Sometimes talking it out and and discussing it can help, but Anthony, one of the things that I that jumped out to me as you're like it's hard to forgive. And it is for most, but not everybody. Right? Some people are really good — And not in every situation. You know, back to the longevity, you know, I don't I don't know this to be a fact, but I would imagine the by, you know, being an unforgiving person and and retaining all that stress raises your cortisol levels. And you know, that's a that's a biomarker for not longevity, right? You know, the whole discussion of lowering your cortisol levels or using cortisol levels at the best time of day and lowering it as the day goes on and so on and so forth. And if you're holding on to this, it's it's a it's a biological hazard uh that's actually eating away at your lifestyle and your health. — And that's where I wish the study would have gone was actually doing some of that blood work because they did some interesting social science. They could have done some very interesting biological science that would have been even more powerful. I think not to say what they did wasn't powerful, but I think that there's we could go one layer deeper there. It's really tough to measure brain chemistry. It's not really tough to measure cortisol in the blood.

[48:51] So, anyway. — It It goes back to asking the five whys. You know, why why does forgiveness increase longevity? You know, it's why? You know, it's and they they may or may not have done that, I don't know. But I you live longer because you're You live longer because you have brain health. You have body health. Your cells are protecting you against, you know, disease and so on and so forth. So, — the takeaway for me is that you you have to work on the skill of giving forgiving people, letting go of grudges, moving on, giving them the benefit of the doubt. Like these are all to live longer, right? And why? I mean, if we know it works, I'm a little more like, okay, if I know it works, I don't care. Here's what do I need to execute, right? And I just think that's we need to work on that skill set. And it's hard in today's world because there is so much conflict, whether it's, you know, it it it just doesn't matter these days.

[49:54] Everything is politicized and conflict and social media builds it. So, maybe it's stop watching the news, get off social media. That might be, you know, get out in nature. That might be as much of this as anything, but anyway, forgive your neighbor. That's That's That is the big takeaway here. So, — Yeah, I like the I like to go get out in nature, you know, it's That's not That's a non-trivial thing. Being in bright sunlight, you know, know, how you know, what what what am I hanging on to for no good reason, you know, you you you can expand um your thoughts and, you know, come to grips with something by by not being behind this keyboard. I did this the other night. I was really upset about something and I was just stewing, right? And I thought, okay, I got to get some exercise. I got to And just get out in it. And literally, I went I grabbed the dog. We went for a walk. I, you know, I'm lucky I live down by it. There's a river where these big, beautiful trees and bushes and, you know, I just took a 90-minute walk. So, it's a combination of getting out in nature. I think being by the water relaxes me, walking the dog, and it just I came back and I was 90% better, right? So, yeah.

[51:10] — Hey Randy, about that situation, did you go out pretty hot, like in the middle of an argument or in the middle of a like feeling pretty emotional about — Yeah, I was I was pissed, right? It was kind of a Some of it was I just needed eject from a situation, but it also I was, you know, I was actively like, okay, how do I just and and, you know, — that's super important. Like like — Yeah, when you get super emotionally charged up, there's some chemicals that drop in your bloodstream that can take up to 45 minutes to get worked out. And so, sometimes just taking the space and the time and not trying to solve it while those chemicals are in your bloodstream super important, not the topic of today, but I think that's a great example of where you got to let the chemistry work itself out before you go fix a problem. And and time can be really helpful from from a biochemistry perspective. So, I don't want to get too deep into that, but great great example. — All right, let's move to the battle for AI safety. And this is a big one. You know, it's interesting here, I live in Bastrop and there's data centers going up all around here, both Elon Musk with Tex- Tesla and SpaceX, but outside. And there's a there's another one that's supposed to be going in and there's a meeting tonight. And we were having dinner with some friends and one of the ladies like, "Yeah, they're going to take all of our water."

[52:27] Right? And I was like, "Not really, not modern data centers. I know some of the old ones do, but" and I was just, you know, like talking to them and they all had all of these preconceived notions that are just not true in 2026, right? And so, it's, you know, let let's talk about Anthony, this is a topic I know you really wanted to talk about, but you know, I have some thoughts on what's going on and why it's happening. I mean, what do you what do you what's your take on this? — Nothing nothing in life is simple, but let's try to reduce it down to its core. Fear sells, right? Sex sells and fear sells. And so, who's who's creating fear? Politicians. Why are they doing that? Well, because they want they they they want to be on on the side of the little guy, the family value, the middle America. Why? Why? Again, keep going through the whys. They want to get reelected. Why do they want to get reelected? They want to get rich. It's purely self-interest. It's It's It's so selfish. It's It's It's infuriating and I'm going to have a hard time forgiving them.

[53:33] To be perfectly honest with you. — Okay, tales of abundance. Here we go. — Right. So, the abundance part of it for them. They're going to get the votes and they're going to get the the the from the companies that are going to want to sway their opinion when it comes casting a vote for or against it. So, they're going to get it both ways and that's what's that's what's a little bit infuriating about it. — The motive — is just is just wrong. — I talked to them I talked to my family, mostly my kids and and occasionally myself. Like I encourage them to fact before they feel. And it's really hard to do that, right? Like if you have a feeling sometimes you can't control those feelings, but you can control how you react to it. And taking that 45 minutes to let the feeling subside and pass and then check the facts and then decide how you want to respond can be really helpful. And so I think you know that that fact before you feel you the truth is you can't control your feelings, right? You're reacting to something. But you can choose how you act based on that Right? And and so I think that's the that's the intermediate step that I encourage for my kids and for myself to like how you know check it out before you feel.

[54:49] — Well, and — It's hard, right? You hear something like this, you know, I get I get it. You're a resident here. Everybody talks about water problems and then all of a sudden it's like oh god these data centers are going to take all of our water. It was it it's already an issue, right? Cuz there's a whole thing where Austin's trying to buy a whole bunch of our water and people are up in arms about that here. And and so how can you keep track of all the things going on in the world? But back to Anthony's you know, what are their motivations and where does it come from? You know, Anthropic, I am suspicious of Anthropic. You know, I'm kind of anybody that seems too holier-than-thou I'm a little suspicious and this guy is a little holier-than-thou. In fact, he's got the Pope on his side. The Pope decided I don't know if you saw — Well, that's not exactly the speaking of fact before you feel. That's exactly how that story goes, but you keep going. — writing a what, a 240-page document saying we need to regulate and stop AI. — Yeah, that's not what he said, but — He's Well, okay. So, we'll we'll get off that. We'll do We'll agree to disagree But, you know, but there's also So, Anthropic, if they don't have the power, and I've been noticing that models have throttling me down more than ever lately and more quickly and in specifically Claude has been throttling me down really, really fast lately, which tells me they don't have enough power to run all the inquiries, which is why I think, like when they said they weren't opening up Mythos, I am now more convinced than ever that that was a marketing ploy, right? And they're trying to come across, but the other thing, they are spending ungodly amounts of money now. They're become one of the biggest lobbyists in the country and spending money trying to get inside that regulatory mode. So, what are their incentives, right? If they can get in and And right now, it's hard to make to be compete with those big four, but if you look where the technology goes in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, it'll probably become a lot easier unless they can build that regulatory mode and make laws that make it impossible for the little to compete, which is what government does a lot, right? Like this had Like try starting a bank in 2026, it's almost impossible. Or a meat packer is one I'm very, you know, it's almost impossible to process meat in 2026.

[57:05] — So, what's what's the abundance message about that? — Well, it's it's the abundance is we need these data centers, is what I think, okay? By the way, there's also I was pulling up articles and I got article upon article upon article. The one here I'll share right now from the New York Post is This is just one of many that claim that a lot of these groups that are fighting this and a lot of this data is coming from the CCP, from China. if we're in a race here, and this is an arms race similar to the Cold War in a lot of ways, I think, right? Well, China is build China has way more energy, and they could run much many more data centers than we can run. If they can slow us down, that's a competitive advantage for China, right? — Sure, yeah. — And so, whether it's Anthropic trying to maximize their shareholder value and their riches, or it's China trying to stay ahead of us, I think the message is we need these data centers if this is the race, right? And we need to put more money and more effort into them.

[58:08] — We need we need the data centers. We're going to need them for a lot of reasons, not just AI, but this is a self-inflicted wound by these You know, all these guys have done is is hype the valuation of their company. They raised 50 50 billion out of a 900 billion-dollar valuation. They're so much so that, you know, the the government's going to want to come in and and take pieces of those companies, and they're coming into little towns in Bastrop, and they're asking for tax breaks. And they and they have increased electrical cost in some where they they could have taken those profits and guaranteed electric bills would not go up, that the water usage would be within a certain with certain constraints, or bring their own power, which, you know, they've been authorized to do. So, they're they're they're they've shot themselves in the foot a lot here. And again, fair sales. So, you're never going to change people's mind about the water. I don't care how many times you tell them it recycles and comes back through the system, and then they use they use 5,000 gallons once, and they need another 500 a month to replenish. That's it. That's all that that's less than flushing your toilet during the year during out You're not going to change that. That that's an instilled fear. And that's going to be there forever.

[59:33] So, well, the only way out is to buy your way out. And that's what these folks are going to have to do. They're going to have to buy their way out. Either they have to buy their way to space or they're going to have to buy their way to a nuclear reactor in their backyard or they're going to have to that the people in the community are going to get free electricity or it's going to be lower not more. They're going to have to buy their way out. If they don't do that more I mean, what is it? 50% of the projects are now on hold or have been Some number like that. I don't even know if anyone has an accurate an accurate read on that. — That's I mean, back to John's abundance framing, right? I mean, we need this if we're going to stay ahead. And it's not just that, it's robots and everything else. And efficiency comes. But this is going like we've talked about before, if you want to see a country's wealth in general it is almost exactly tied to their energy output throughout all time. Places that don't create energy never have great economic output. And there is a model we just talked about this I think last week, right? Bitcoin mines are going in all over Africa bringing electricity to millions of people that never had them.

[1:00:42] And they're using they're getting the communities behind it because they're giving them energy for really low prices, lower than almost anywhere in the world, and giving them access when they never had it. And then using all of the excess energy from the waterfall or whatever to mine Bitcoin. That model is here also. They could supply energy at a reasonable rate for a community and get people on board so they're going to vote for that and then use all the excess for the data center. — In a competitive in competitive world, better to have the resources and choose how to monitor, regulate, whatever, than to choose not to develop the resources when your competitor's going to be. Like I think that's just the thing that that we have to get our arms around is that, you know, you you've got people that are going to do it no matter what. And then, you know, having choices is better than not having choices. And so, that to me is like create more abundance, create more choices, and then you can choose later, you know. And then And those are complex questions. I get that.

[1:01:45] — But this is no different than, by the way, what's been happening for centuries, right? A technology comes out, big corporations or other countries, whatever. I mean, recently, you know, there was the whole they shut down all the nuclear plants in Germany. And it turns out it was Russia that was financing all of the opposition to that or around about all of it, but the vast majority of it was being financed by Russia. Why? Because Russia was selling their oil and natural gas to Germany, and they didn't want to have to compete with nuclear. And it's I think this happens a lot more than we're aware of even. And, you know, the news reports on it, and we go blissfully through our life, you know, not even aware how much is happening. So. All right, gentlemen, let's wrap this up. Listeners, if you're still here, you love us, download, subscribe, tell your friends, all that good stuff. Uh we're growing. Help us keep growing faster. Anthony, John, I've enjoyed it, and until next time, everybody go spread a little abundance. — Thanks, Brady. Thanks, Anthony. wherever you get your podcast. Click follow for more content like this, or go to talesofabundance.com to join our community and get free tools.