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Peptides, Gene Mapping, and Thinking in First Principles - A Guide to Medical Agency and Better Decision Making

Episode 66 · 18 March 2026 · 1 hr 13 min

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First Principles Thinking, Peptides and Gene Mapping: A Guide to Medical Agency

First principles thinking means stripping away assumptions until you reach what's actually true, then building from there. Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino apply it to Apollo 13, the Cuban Missile Crisis, marriage and parenting. They start with peptides, GLP-1s, the $100 genome and what AI could mean for jobs.

In this episode of Tales of Abundance, Dr. John Oberg, Randy Lorensen, and Anthony Marino dive into the rapidly evolving worlds of peptide therapy and genomic sequencing, exploring how these breakthroughs are shifting the landscape of personal health and medical agency. The hosts break down the "bro code" of gym-based peptide stacks versus evidence-based clinical use, the future of $100 gene mapping, and how AI is poised to disrupt both the job market and insurance industries. The conversation culminates in a deep, sometimes spirited debate on the power of First Principles Thinking—a mental model used by visionaries like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to strip away assumptions and solve life’s most complex problems from the ground up.

First Principles Thinking Examples, Peptides for Weight Loss and GLP-1s

What you'll discover:

  • Peptides: the gym "bro code" vs. clinical evidence, and what we know about GLP-1s
  • Medical agency and the $100 genome: how cheap gene mapping could change insurance and early detection
  • AI and the future of work, and the "pipe dream" of taxing AI
  • First principles thinking examples: Apollo 13, the Wright brothers and the Cuban Missile Crisis
  • Applying first principles to marriage, parenting and everyday disagreements
  • Dr. John's "why": a calling to end type 2 diabetes globally

This episode is for educational purposes only and isn't medical advice.

Timestamps

  • [00:00] The peptide revolution: the gym "bro code" vs. clinical evidence
  • [02:46] GLP-1s and beyond: what we know about weight loss, diabetes and longevity
  • [05:40] Medical agency: giving patients the data to consume healthcare like experts
  • [09:09] The $100 genome: how cheap gene mapping will change insurance and early detection
  • [13:18] AI and the future of work: will robots take our jobs, or just change them?
  • [19:15] Taxing the machine: the "pipe dream" of taxing a borderless AI
  • [22:38] Break — Sponsor: AG1
  • [23:30] Defining first principles: moving beyond tribal thinking to foundational truths
  • [24:43] Apollo 13 and the Wright brothers: solving for the first-principle outcome
  • [30:58] The Cuban Missile Crisis: avoiding nuclear war through clear objectives
  • [38:58] Relationships and trust: applying mental models to marriage and parenting
  • [40:44] Raising kids from first principles: the tantrum example
  • [45:10] Why so many disagreements start with definitions
  • [47:16] Same outcome, different paths: debating a family friend
  • [48:29] The great debate: facts vs. perspectives — Dr. John and Randy clash on definitions
  • [51:27] What "first principles" actually means, and how it applies to building rockets
  • [57:50] A direct-mail example: finding the real first principle
  • [1:04:51] Dr. John's "why": a calling to end type 2 diabetes globally
  • [1:08:08] How to get to first principles: iterate and ask the five W's
  • [1:10:17] New Year's resolutions, assumptions and the abundance blockers
  • [1:12:42] Wrap-up

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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.)

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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.

[00:11] Abundance. Let's jump right in. Anthony, you got some questions for John about peptides. And uh John has been doing a lot of deep research and things with his medical practice into peptides. So, he's our perfect Dr. John expert here for this. So, go ahead. Well, so you know, I I'm a huge believer in supplements, exercise, good diet. Um, and I'm hopeful, um, that, you know, peptides will join the party. Um, but right now, I feel it's more of a bro code in the gyms. Um, and there's very little, at least my knowledge is there's very little um, evidence um, about the efficacy of, you know, the various peptides that are out there in terms of, you know, the different stacks that people are putting together for longevity versus muscle building versus weight loss and so forth and so on. I mean, we have we have a lot of history with GLP1s and diabetes. And now we have a couple years of GLP1s, you know, having weight loss impacts, but I think we're um I get the sense that we're running 100 miles an hour blindfolded into the peptide world. And I I can just see, you know, on Fox and CNN ads for peptides with no clinical support. So, I'd love to hear from Johnny. He's got a medical practice that's getting going. I wouldn't I know it's early, but uh I'd love to hear his take on this.

[01:50] — Yeah. And I mean, just to be clear, like I'm I'm not a physician. I'm a behavioral health guy and so my partner is the medical doctor and we have lots of patients who are using peptides and want to understand what peptides are. And you know, we talk about kind of a spectrum of in like the way that you treat patients, right? And so on on the one hand you have evidence-based care. Then you have the standard of care is kind of one step down. Then you have things that are like off label. Then you have kind of anecdotal evidence where a lot of supplements sit. And then you have things that have kind of been debunked medically. Right. So that's kind of like the the spectrum of things that happen from one side to the other. And and you know you did what a lot of people do, Anthony. You've lumped in kind of GLPs which are peptides in with the rest of peptides. And the truth is we have different sets of evidence for GLP1s than we have for other peptides. You know, GLP1s have been on the market for a very long time. Go ahead, Randy. — Are we talking in this conversation? Are we talking about GLP1s or are we talking about the others like BP1? — That was my that was my first question. Yeah, that was my first question because GLP1s are well studied. They've been FDA approved for a very long time there. You know, we're in our second and third kind of generations of the GLP molecules being put in. So, Anthony, are you talking about GLP-1s or are you talking about like the other peptides that are being stacked up and people are taking that kind of describe better what you said was the bro code at the gym?

[03:08] — Well, that what I'm saying what I'm saying is, you know, I when I I didn't even know that a GLP1 was a peptide. — like peptide. — Yeah. I I mean, I learned that a couple weeks ago. So, that's that's what I'm saying. We're running headlong into an area of supplementation and I don't think the bro code guys know that even you know no they're just hearing letters you know LB27 — and oh I got to take that from my to build muscle. So I I just think we're running headlong into something then. — So the answer to the question is you're talking about the stack the the be whatever be whatever it is 157. — There's lots of stacks. Yeah. — No, what what I'm talking about is, you know, up a up a level. I'm talking doing something medically that's — This this just happens to be the peptide stack is our specific subject matter for the day. But that's that's what I'm talking about.

[04:18] — Yeah. We we tell our patients, Anthony, that that having kind of agency in their own medical decision-m is a really important part of the process. And my my pipe dream, and I recognize it's a pipe dream, is that patients have enough information to consume health care in the way they're expert at consuming clothing or other services. And so, and that really means being very candid with them about what we know and don't know about whatever it is they're doing for a therapy, whether that therapy is mental health therapy or drug therapy or peptide therapy or supplements or whatever the case may be. Giving them really honest information so with their caregiver, they can make the right choices based on their given circumstance. And so, like with GLP1s, we know a lot about how they handle they help with type 2 diabetes. We know something about uh what they do with cardiovascular disease. We have people wondering more about how they handle some forms of dementia. Alzheimer's in particular is being talked about. I saw an article over the weekend that I didn't dive into in a in a consumer trade rag about GLPs causing blindness.

[05:25] First time I've heard about that. So I've got to go dive in and see what kind of science is around that. So I think there's lots of like fear-mongering in the media and all those things. But the science for GLPS in particular, really solid on, you know, diabetes, pretty good on cardiovascular disease, too, pretty good on weight loss. I think, but longevity, like even though those drugs have been around for a long time, I don't think we have a lot of great longitudinal studies about GLP1s. And there's a lot of hope that there's some really nice long-term effects, but we had that same hope for metformin only to find out that the the studies were flawed. uh and and we can talk about those details later if you're interested. But on the other peptides, I think you've got a series of things and depending which ones you're talking about, some of them um appear to have some good impacts if they're used appropriately and and there is appropriate use and inappropriate use and the different peptide stacks have different kind of uh regimens that are kind of recommended. And um and then there are some like you know we were approached recently by a group of people about I want to take this particular set of peptides for this particular thing and the answer is that's not prudent. We don't believe in that and there's a number of reasons why in this case it was about osteoporosis and you know treating um osteoporosis with peptides prophylactically was actually um you know in our mind contraindicated in our practice for reasons we can get into. So I I think it's it's a little more it's it's a little more nuanced than peptides. It's like what's your situation as a patient?

[06:56] What do we know about these particular peptides? What's the right approach? And how do you get the patient to um sit down long enough to understand enough to make a well- educated decision? And part of that slowing the physician down enough to have the conversation, too. — Yeah. Usually breakthroughs, right, medical breakthroughs come from either an accidental discovery or a very controlled approach by a pharmaceutical company that's profit driven? — Are peptides uh generic and and and is there money to be made other than you know selling the you know the raw material? you know, does, you know, the the big Nova Novartis and these guys, do they have a [snorts] a reason to study this and come up with conjure up a stack that's going to build muscle or, you know, help longevity? What's the how are you approaching that from a, you know, as a as a practice? Where are you getting your information besides from your patients? — Yeah, I think right now, I mean, what we're looking is two areas for the scientific information. We we read scientific journals on a regular basis inside of our practice. And those scientific journals for us are kind of the medical science and the pharmaceutical science. And then we've got a group of scientists um across multiple kind of domains including pharmarmacology and in medicine that we talk to on a regular basis to understand not just kind of the latest greatest information about the ba basic sciences of the body but then also about pharmarmacology. And so that means we've got to have pretty good networks of people so we understand not just the published science but also the science as it's happening.

[08:35] — All right we got Anthony sorry to cut you off — these peptides. Hang on. — We got to move. We'll have a whole peptide episode. Let's come back to it for an episode. — We're way over. — That's fine. Let's let's let's — we'll bring we'll bring a doctor like a physician back and we'll have this conversation again. — Yeah. So all right. Well, more questions. listeners, if you have questions, send them in. But, uh, the next thing, this kind of builds on last week we talked about taking the fruit fry fruit fry fruit fly brain and uploading it onto a computer and an AI. But, you know, this is with humans. And by the way, it was 140,000 neurons there. I looked it up after it was billions in the human brain that would have to be done. But the the human genome has become so cheap. If we go back to 2000 when Craig Venttor started this, it it cost about $300 million to map the human genome. And Craig Venttor, they created an X-P prize that they were going the goal was to be able to map the genome in 30 days for $10,000.

[09:41] Well, pretty exciting news. Before they could even get this X-P prize launched, it is now down to $100. So their goal was 10,000 and technology has outrun it. So you know this helps a you know what does this do for health care? What does this do to insurance? What you know I mean I what are your guys' thoughts on this? I mean I think it's going to change insurance and uh criminal investigation probably the fastest because they're going to have the easiest access to data sets. I'm guessing here by the way. I don't have inside information, so this is just my kind of knee-jerk reaction to this. But I think it's going to be um insurance for sure because you're going to have people that have far more data they can plug into their system. And then you're going to get, you know, you you're going to have all kinds of privacy qu questions and how privacy is impacted into kind of criminal investigations is my best guess. — Wow. I didn't think about that one, but that's a So insurance you're saying is going to get cheaper because there will be early I mean I don't know if this is what you said or so, but is it because of early detection?

[10:46] — Oh, I don't think it's going to I think it's going to be it's going to be impacted the most. I think you're going to see kind of more like risk pricing where there's going to be more variance in pricing based on certain risk factors. And I think there's there's going to be a lot of arguments about whether or not that's appropriate because, you know, on the one hand, people are going to say it's statistical and on the other hand, people are going to say I'm not a statistic. And so I think you're going to see I think there's going to be some really hot conversations around that. — I don't know. It's interesting. So I I have heard in that when people get their genome mapped, the number of times that they find some early like cancer before cancer would have been detect detectable on a normal test. So early detection is really going to help. — Longevity in healthcare, I would think. Um I hadn't really thought about the freedom, the law enforcement. I mean, we're talking Minority Report stuff now. If people remember movie, — you know, it seems like a little bit, but uh you know, only with healthcare instead of crimes. — So, wow. All right. Um but anyway, I think it's exciting for $100. I mean, and if it's a hundred now, it's going to be 10. And then we mix that with AI. You know, you're a robot doctor in the future that John's going to warn you against, but I'll do it for him. Don't — I don't know. I I think that we're pretty we're pretty long on the robot doctor. You know, Randy, we're using it.

[12:09] We're using AI a lot in our practice. And what I would tell you is that, you know, there there are some things that today are still kind of appropriately trial and error on some things. And so if we can get those things tied back to genomes or even other variables that we understand that are non-getic environmental or you know like it would be amazing to be to give people a narrower set of things to do to be healthier longer. So I'm I'm actually really uh you know probably surprising to you I'm actually pro analytics here. — Yeah. Is this is this a um another aspect of um the the dissolving of our You know, I mean, what else are the is the universe going to know about us that they don't already know? Now they're going to know, you know, that we we're precancerous or um and then, you know, they're going to have, like John says, is have different levels of insurance costs because of um yeah, we're we're we're h hurtling towards the uh the 1984. So — We we might already mostly be there, but anyway, let's just go back to Tales of Abundance. So uh Anthony the next topic you know the conversation I know you've been thinking about this is will AI take our jobs I think most people now think yes it is going to take a lot of jobs right and so now the question being asked is how does everybody share how do people survive so I know you you've got some thoughts on this — well you know we we've had this discussion about technology in general you know actually you know creating more jobs that it took away despite the fears of people um thinking that would that would happen. You know, whether it was online shopping and so forth, you know, Amazon created I don't know how many jobs uh when they basically, you know, took the bookstores out of u most of put most of them out of business, although many of them are back. But I I'm less fearful of that. I think the jobs are going to change. Um certainly things are things are moving. There's an article this weekend about a plant in South Carolina where they have a robot carrying a 50 lb box of parts and um even though it's still supervised by a human right now, they expect that within a couple weeks or a couple months that human will be eliminated and it'll be unnecessary to do it. So, you know, as I', you know, things are moving at an unbelievable pace. I mean, literally the speed of light in terms of change that's that's happening around us. um not not to not to tie the two things together or get away from abundance, but even the way we're conducting warfare has changed in the last 12 months. Uh so it's things are just going 100 100 miles an hour and more. And um I'm I'm not going to even try to guess what's going to what's going to come next. I I'll — did a bunch of research this morning, Randy, getting ready for this part. And in the early 1800s, 90% of our economy in the US was employed by agriculture.

[15:20] And today, it's 1.3 to 1.5%. And there was like a 35- year period where that number, according to AI, jumped pretty dramatically. And we're about four or five years into this shift. We're going to see the same type of maybe instead of a 35 year period, it's going to be a 15 or a 20-year period. And I am certain, I shouldn't say I'm certain, I would guess that people in the agricultural days, like there were some people individually that were really hurt by that, but um but I think, you know, for people that are sensitive to it and are going to reskill now, I think they can get ahead of the wave. I think to Anony's point earlier, there's going to be more jobs. They're not going to be the same jobs. And if you try to do something that was going to cause you middle management, white collar success 15, 20 years ago, you might find that opportunity has dried up today. — If you're new to the workforce, — I think when you talk about the the move from agriculture to uh, you know, automating agriculture, if you will, and industry, there was it was a very precise and specific problem that they wanted to solve. They wanted to get the crops in the ground faster. They wanted to protect them, and they wanted to get them out as quickly as possible into market. very precise and specific thing that was going on. What's happening now is I and where I think the the magic is going to happen is people are creating things now that never existed before that that they are they're not so much solving problems, they're creating new industries. They're creating um support for industries and it's I think it's just it's just mindboggling.

[16:55] I'm glad it's in the hands of people a lot smarter than me. Um that's why I think good things are going to come out of this in the long run. It's I think the difference John in my mind I I tend to be very — positive like okay all this new tech is going to create abundance and it'll create more jobs and we could go through example after example throughout history where it has opened up you know whether it was you know horse and buggies going away and everybody was worried about those jobs but the auto industry created 50 or 100 times as many jobs or whatever it is right so history is littered with that story my concern here is how quickly it's happening. Like it's it I I feel like what took decades with farming is going to happen in 3 to 5 years with AI. Is that — Yeah. I guess my the only thing I'd say Randy I say we we're already four years in so it didn't happen in 3 to 5 years. It's going to take five or 10 more years. So it's going to be faster. So I I I will give you it's going to be faster but it's already been 3 to 5 years. Like we were already past that point. So, I do think that people are well served to be more deliberate than they've been in the past, I think it is going to happen faster. I just I just think that, you know, um for the people that are paying attention and that are taking control of their career, it's going to be harder for some people than others. If you're deep into your career, this is a harder deal. If you're early in your career, it's it's it's different because you're not going to follow the same footsteps as before. If you're 10 years old right now, probably a little bit easier. But I just I'm pretty bullish on the future. it saying it's 40 years I mean even saying it's two or three years it's just in the last few months that AI has really started taking human jobs like that's that's really been happening in the last quarter or two at least at any scale right and I think by the way I've been thinking more about this if you're the type of person that wants to build things and be creative there's probably never been a better time with more opportunity if you're that kid getting out of school and you just want to tinker and create code and and create apps and make products, this might be the the the best opportunity in history. But if you're not that kid and you're getting out of school now, there's just I'm you know, it's going to be rough because not everybody's built to do that, right? Um, — and the other thing I think about, you know, I heard Andrew Yang on a podcast last week again talking about UBI, UBI, and and all of these politicians, they talk about how they can tax AI, right?

[19:25] They always go to how they can tax it. I think this is a pipe dream. They may want to tax it, but AI doesn't have to stay in the US or any jurisdiction. And AI is already clever enough if you really push it and it doesn't want to pay taxes. I don't think it's going to pay taxes. Like I think it I think it can move and there's a there's already technology uh you know something as old as Bit Torrent, right? They could just create different jurisdictions, make it so nobody can tax them if they want to. So just because we that politicians want to, it's hard for us humans to move and get away, right? See, and it's not so hard to move from California to Texas or New York to Florida, but — but moving to different countries is harder. But for AIS, it's pretty quick and pretty easy. — You know, I I had a boss years ago use a very sophisticated um theorem when uh when we were working on a business problem. He says, "Anthony, you're looking at the whole, not the donut." Okay, very sophisticated. And what I what I believe here, and I think we're making the mistake, AI is the whole.

[20:34] Okay? It's not the donut. The donut is everything around us, right? the rest of the universe, the rest of technology, the other things that AI is impacting along with what other things are impacting those things. It's a or uh there's probably a better phrase phrase for it going back to the farming. It wasn't just, you know, the automated planting and the automated harvesting. It was building bigger trucks that could carry more product. It was the elimination of the farmer market and the creation of the supermarket and the staffing of those supermarkets and the stocking of those shelves, you know, and the methodology to get that stuff to to market. So, the technology was just the whole the donut was what you did with it once it presented its opportunities to you. And I think we we keep talking about AI eliminating jobs. AI is just a a tool in the toolkit. It's not everything. So keep your, you know, take the blinders off and look widely at the situation that you're in versus just saying, "Oh, AI is going to do the job of a lawyer." You know, it's it isn't just that. It's a lot more than that.

[21:49] There's still going to be judges. There's still going to be juries. You know, um, all of that's all. Now, maybe the juries will have access to AI intellect and so on and so forth. But you know, you got to look more broadly at this than just just the technology. — All right, that's a that's some Anthony wisdom is a good way to to wrap up this abundance briefing. Uh when we come back from the briefing, we are going to be talking about thinking in first principles. Um John, I'm going to encourage you to we we talked about last week your your mind shift and changing your belief systems about marketing. I think this could be another step on that is talking about what are the first principles you want to accomplish and uh we'll dig into more of that and even talk about Apollo flights and Wright brothers and and you know some other interesting stories around it and then how to use it in your real life. So we will be right back here at Tales of Abundance. We know that fitness is just as important as money or milestones. It's one of our five Fs lots of us. Taking care of my body while I build my life is one of the more time consuming and difficult goals to chase.

[22:53] That's why we're partnering with AG1. It's a daily drinkable habit. Less than a minute that's formulated with 75 plus vitamins and nutrients and designed to support energy, digestion, and immune defense. It even has a few grams of protein uh that we're all chasing these days. And if you want to try it with our affiliate link, you'll also receive a free AG1 flavor sampler plus vitamin D3 plus K2 with your welcome kit when you first subscribe. $72 value. Go to Listeners, we are back. I'm excited about this topic. We've been we've been talking about doing this one for a while, talking about first principles and better decisionmaking. And you know, I think most people, they think that they're operating from truth and facts, but they're probably not. Most of us, it's it's what do we see online? What does our tribe believe? What do the people we work with or the school we go to, our parents, our family, this just all of those different things have a bigger impact on most people's thinking than actually thinking for from first principles, right? And when I I don't know about you guys, when I think about first principles, um, a lot of what I think about is like Jeff Bezos when he built Amazon, the first principles, the question he asked over and over and over again was, "Does this make the customer experience better?" That was his first principle or like guiding thing. Uh, Elon Musk and all of his different stuff, the question he always asks is, "Does this get us closer to Mars and becoming a multilanetary species?"

[24:33] Right? So uh you know like the Apollo 13 John I know like that you want to give people just quickly that story and how it applies to first principles. I mean, so this is the one where you had astronauts who were in space stuck, had a bunch of problems on the spaceship, famous movie with Tom Hanks where the oxygen was being depleted and the carbon dioxide levels were going up and they had a very little period of time to solve this problem or they were going to run out of oxygen in the module and they had you know the engineers I think started to kind of get uh talking about philosophy but they very quickly said let's just find out what they have in the module and what are the facts of what's going on and then and then it became a problem solving solution that was very time constrained. Is that — so close enough what is what is the first principle they were solving for? — Well, I think in this case they they had a couple things they had to do, right? First they had to keep the the astronauts alive. That was an oxygen problem. Then they had to worry about the systems themselves, the battery levels and and then and then they had to worry about how they were going to steer the ship back into the atmosphere. So it was really about get it was all about one thing. How do I get these astronauts back on to the surface of the earth safely and alive? And then they had to work backwards through steps like what has to happen first, what has to happen second because out of order doesn't — right? So, but the first principles is the one you started and ended with, right? Keep them alive and get them back to Earth alive. However you want to frame it, — right? And everything else in the middle are steps or things that happen, but but everything references back to — how do we get them home alive, — That's right.

[26:15] — Let's talk about what are first principles because I think you know when we were preparing for this, Anthony was talking about this is a tough topic and I think he's right. So when you guys hear first principles, what do you guys what do you think? — I think I made a mistake in whatever problem I was solving by not applying um you know the uh the race to coup race to solve a problem. I think the the um we don't stop and and really think about what we're what we're doing and and you know Musk uses the uh example of overautomation in his plants. you know, thinking about automating first versus what his first principle was, which was creating a product um that consumers wanted and needed or would get would get people to Mars. So often in business especially um you know, we're presented with an issue and so we rush to the problem solved as opposed to you know, what am I really here for? um you know solving the root cause issue so that that problem doesn't reappear.

[27:23] — You have an example where you've either done that well or poorly might be more fun in your career. — Well, yeah. I mean, lots of times. I mean, um could be an HR issue. You know, someone comes to you with a you know, I you know, I I always use this example when when someone would would resign that I that I really didn't want to resign. Instead of asking, you know, the obvious, they would always say it's for more money. I would always go back and say, well, wait a minute. What made you start looking? And that is a an example of a first principle to help you solve what might be an inherent problem in your business. Why? Why did you start looking? What? Yes, you're leaving because you got more money, but why did you start looking? And then that's when you find out, well, my boss was a jerk or I don't like working in the warehouse and I don't see growth or whatever the the myriad of reasons could be. And so that's an example where early in my career, I would just throw money at a problem. Oh, okay. I'll give you another $2 an hour when the real discussion should be about why did you why did you start looking in the first place?

[28:30] — John, what do you think about when you think of first principles? I mean, look, when I I just I look up definitions of first principles in terms for this, you know, podcast, and the first principles are the things the things that there's nothing else underpinning underneath them. Like, it's it's the first principle. It's the facts, right? And if you can go deeper, it's not a first principle. So, I think I think having a goal and applying first principles is a thing, but the goal isn't the first principle, right? Unless unless you're talking about the genesis of your goals, right? So, but it's really I think the first principles is a starting point where you can't work backwards any further. And the purpose of talking about first principles is so that you're actually reacting to the reality of the situation versus something that may not be the — Yeah. It's uh right. It it Anthony, you've talked about many times the five W's, right? And I think that's kind of a way to get closer and closer to first principles, you know, in the five W's for people that don't know. I know you had that at your time at Toyota, but you ask why do you want something? And then when you answer why do you want that?

[29:38] Why do you want that? Why do you want that? It's it's really difficult to get five W deep, — right? Um you know, I think usually if you try this at home, you'll probably get two, three, four deep and run out. It'll probably take you a long time to get five W's, but but it's getting down to that core foundational, you know, the the example earlier with the Apollo 13, it's the objective is to get them home alive, right? Everything else became secondary to that. Um, and that could be your business, it could be a relationship, right? Like what do you want in a relationship or anything? So, what what do you know what has to be true? This could be what has to be true because it's the laws of physics. It could be what has to be true because that's your belief system, values, or something else. Right? So, um, another I I I think another story that helps explain this, uh, the Cuban missile crisis, right? I don't know that you know, Anthony, you probably lived through this, could probably remember it better, but the Russians were sending missiles to Cuba, right? and Kennedy, what they really wanted Kennedy to do was attack. Like that's what the army wanted. They they want they were talking about air raids. They had all kinds of different plans and things. But that's not what Kennedy did. Kennedy did a bunch of things. A lot of it was behind closed doors. I mean, there's actually a story where he had a chess player working on this over at a chess tournament communicating with the Russians behind. But most people and and I think currently our current commander-in-chief, one of the things he loves to do is be strong and they like a lot of politicians, a lot of leaders, they they want to show strength when it comes to something like this. And what Kennedy decided that what was most important first principles was to avoid war and not have a nuclear war in Cuba.

[31:36] And it was less about being strong. No, I think he came across as strong, but he didn't get the op optics caught up with the outcome, — but that was a how, right? That wasn't the Yeah. So, he was he was really clear about his goals, and I think that, you know, so that and that's smart. — Yeah. I mean, Anthony, what do you remember that? I I don't know how old would you have been? — I have I have I have you I was about eight. Um I have some recollection of the the days of this occurring and then obviously [snorts] you know through elementary school and high school we talked about it a lot. Um so not no expert at all but you know there there were a lot of uh side dealing going on and and what people may not realize you know we're we're about 15 or 16 years only away from the last time a nuclear explosion occurred on our in our universe and now it's been 80 years since that happened. But it it was almost, you know, um faith complete. You know, we we people were preparing to duck under their desks and and so on and so forth.

[32:49] There was a real a real fear that this this could occur and you know, the coolest head in the room was Kennedy and whatever. And there's a lot there there's a lot of apocryphal stories about you know letters that went to Kruef and side dealings and and diplomatic discussions and you know each side did not want to look weak in the end. So there was there was a lot of those minations that were going on but um in the end both Kruef and Kennedy came out of it looking strong and doing the right thing. So, um, yeah, it was, um, it was a very, very tense time looking back on it, even now, extraordinarily tense cuz it was real. I mean, there was there were warheads on those missiles. Um, and we were ready to go the other direction. So, we we were very, very close to a nuclear winner. — That reminds me, Anthony, there's a book that you recommended, you gave to me. In fact, I'm looking at it right now.

[33:51] Possible, right? And that guy, that was a guy that has negotiated several peace deals, right? And all over the world, multiple presidents over decades. And it just makes me think, you know, his his first principles when he's negotiating that is always how do I avoid war? How do I create peace? Right? And he had his techniques build a bridge and all, you know, his his rules. — Is that William William Yuri? Is that who it is? — Yes. Yeah. William Yuri. His his actual first principle would be his first question he would always ask uh as the the middleman in a negotiation was what is it that you want? you know very simple you know what is it that you want and you know he gives the example I think of a South American uh president or a senior level person and he wanted more free time and he wanted um to be spend time with his family and so on and so forth and okay well that's you know a lot easier to solve than to u take over the military so but that you know that was his way of doing things and I I think that is a really fundamental first principle. It applies to what does the consumer want? What do my employees want? What does my wife want? What do my what do my kids want?

[35:11] Uh and then that settles things because that's the John, you mentioned the word truth and and that's really where it begins. What is the truth? And then from there you you know you're you're building you're not you know fixing you're building from the beginning. when we don't have conflict on our kind of notes for today but when I teach conflict resolution and going back to Yuri's thing that first principle there's only three things that cause conflict in the world and whether it's you know a peace crisis or a marriage crisis or whatever it's always about values goals or style and and sometimes it's a combination of multiple of those things but like when you're going through conflict resolution understanding which of those concepts are in play is it someone's value system the goals they have or the style of behavior Like those are the things that cause conflict. And so when you understand that, it's much easier to get at the root and solve the conflict if it's solvable. — Identifying, you know, the notes talk about identifying the bottleneck. You know, what is the bottleneck uh to the — Yeah. I mean, with with the William Yuri, you know, he was dealing with things where, you know, two Middle Eastern countries that were arguing or whatever, right? like they and and it was very emotional, but he would get into looking at what the other one wants, trying to get them to be more empathetic, thinking about what the other side wanted and and how to deliver it. So, I I think there's a lot of good lessons in that, you know, in that book. Um, you know, another quick example from history, the Wright brothers, uh, you know, they were bicycle guys. They weren't the people that were expected to, you know, be the first to flight, right?

[36:56] Like that was not and a lot of the people that were the so-called experts, they focused on more engine power and trying to, you know, assumptions about lift and takeoff where the Wright brothers focused on control. They were like, well, we have to be able to control this. So they built a wind tunnel and they tested it and you know they they went about it a different way because they had different first principles of what what they were trying to solve. So let's talk about where does this show up in life? Like where is this useful to people? Okay. So hopefully by now people understand what what it is, right? But where can you use this? I mean, to me, Randy, it comes out in conflict, particularly like in middle management situations at work where people don't always understand what's driving their own emotional reaction to something. And so, often times, you know, I've asked people like before we, you know, obviously there's the opportunity for an emotional reaction, but can we level set on what the playing field actually is and then react to it?

[37:59] And is, you know, you can't when someone's emotional that they're not in the same part of their brain. So, it may take a minute to get them out of that emotion and come back to the logic later. it needs to happen. But oftentimes when we can get people to kind of broaden the view to see the entire playing field, they're like, "Oh." And then the emotion is is easily, you know, uh, navigated in that circumstance. And sometimes like, gosh, I didn't understand that or didn't know that. So to me, I think just helping people to see the whole playing field before reacting when that's when that's possible, not always possible, when that's possible can be super helpful. And then the thing I said earlier about understanding the underlying values, goals and uh styles and how that can impact relationship and th those are things that you know that I deal in every day as I work in the medical practice or as I work as a consultant. So that's those just very commonplace — Anthony, I know you had some thoughts about this when it comes to — Yeah. And it it really doesn't matter if it's um you know personal uh marriage, kids, business or otherwise. I mean a mental model for me starts with you know four or five things. You know I mentioned the first one any kind of relationship is foundational. Trust is foundational right you you cannot get if you don't have that the relationship no matter what is going to be difficult.

[39:24] You know then there's you know communication and how you communicate you know communicating honestly in a straightforward way in a in a respectful manner understanding you know again what does the person uh business across the table from you what do they really want where's the mutual benefit you know incentive alignment foundation and his the way he uh you know looked at businesses show me the incentives and I'll show you the help you know what's the mutual benefit and then it comes the last couple things would be like values you know are our values aligned you know it's really difficult in a business environment when you know you're trying to work with someone whose value set is vastly different than yours you know um we've all run into that situation to the point sometimes where you just can't work with a person or a business because the values are so misaligned John and I just went through this last year with a particular situation that we're involved in. And then, you know, certainly in terms of raising kids or in a marriage, you know, where's the emotional safety?

[40:32] — You know, being very conscious that, you know, the person, you know, it's it's circular, right? It takes you back to the beginning back to trust. Are they emotionally safe in this conversation? — Go to the raising kids, right? Give me two different examples of different first principles and how you would raise Oh, you know, we could talk about, you know, the the gentle parenting that, you know, the the always got to, you know, conflict resolution, you know, the kids. — But what is the f but what is the first principle that leads to that? — Okay. So, so the the child is having a tantrum. The first principle is understanding that the child does not control their emotions. Okay. So you have to um understand that part as you try to resolve um the the child needing a predictable uh environment so they can unwind from this moment of of terror that they're they're they're laying on the parent. Um they can't calibrate their behavior. Um — what's the I'm going to take you back again. What what is the what is the parent's first principle here?

[41:50] What is the parent trying to accomplish? So the what the parent is trying to accomplish is raising a child to be a responsible adult. That's the outcome that you're looking for. So as that child goes through life, they're responsible. They're developing skills. They're they're going to become a capable adult. And to do that, you've got to provide an environment for them. — You know, — to be fair, that that's your goal for your kids. I mean, yeah. I mean, I think so, we're conflating a little bit here because there's a first principle, which is what are our goals and outcomes. There's also a first principle like what's what is the nature of the thing? Like what is the physics? What is the like like and what you said about like you know kids can't control their emotions. Yes, that's a first principle. There is a goal for the parent whatever it is. Sometimes it's what you said which is healthy and functional but sometimes it's dysfunctional which is I want to live my dreams through them and it's unspoken and it's very dysfunctional. I mean and that happens. — Yeah. I I think — but we're confl we're conflating goals goals and and tr and facts right. I'm I'm just thinking like a real simple thing is one set of parents their first principle is they want their child to be happy and a second one wants their child to be rich or play a professional sport so they can live through them like John said or whatever else. By the way, it's also very possible that they want them to be rich, but the first principle is because they think that's what's going to make them happy, right? Um, you know, I for me that it would come down to just what is going to make that child happy.

[43:29] And people may disagree on that, but yes, to John's point, I think it's different for every parent, right? — Well, I mean, every parent, the first thing they want today is for their child uh and no matter what age they're at to be safe, right? That's that's the absolute first principle, safety and and maybe security. But you know the the adult world is full of frustration. Uh shielding children from from that frustration is not preparing them for the next day in their life whether it's next day or the next decade. So you know that's that's part of the first principle is understanding that there's going to be frustration in this in this kid's life and you know you can't remove all that frustration as a parent. — Yeah. But I think — I think that's the first principle, right? The go the go the goal itself is not the first principle. It's the it's the foundational truth that's the first principle. That's the I think that's — well I mean just like just like the business um question the first principle is you know what do what do I what does what is there a customer for my product is is the the analogous to raising to me raising a a child that can be a responsible safe and productive adult so that's how I kind of kind of view it and maybe I'm not saying it the right way but that's kind of the way I — I just think anything that has to be qualified with to me is probably not a first principle because it's not foundational by definition.

[45:06] and again I just we're choosing I think this is one of the things that we're dealing with in our society right now about communication is when two people don't agree on definitions that are written down in a book then we're going to have a fight about definitions no matter what we do. At some point if we're going to communicate well we need to agree that like I don't like zero is zero one is one two is two. If we have if we have to debate all that, then we can't do math problems together yet. — yeah, you know, I'll give I'll give a personal example and my my one of my kids will be mad at mad about this, but the way that — Don't tell don't don't don't tell us who it is. — I [laughter] won't I won't. But it's it's one of them. Um they're so protective of their child's self-esteem. like you never they avoid criticism or negative feedback at every there just there's just nothing and a first principal they they should be looking at competence you know if the if the the kid comes home with a D on their math paper in the third grade you can't say that you know that's okay you know we'll we'll do better next time no you got to go work on the competence okay get over here young man or girl, let's let's sit down and let's redo all this stuff and and put some structure around it and it's okay that that that child knows that they're wrong and you know and and push through it. You know, this constant avoidance of conflict and negotiating conflict with kids. I mean, it just absolutely drives me crazy to to watch it because I don't think, you know, constant reasoning with a six-year-old or, you know, an eight-year-old is is going to work. I mean, yes, there are times that where it's appropriate, but it's not every single time. And and that and that's kind of what I see in in some of the uh dealings with some of my grandkids.

[47:03] — I think this is a big issue um in society, right? I mean, almost every political disagreement has a lot big part of it has to do with both parties not understanding the other person's first principles. And a great example is we have a family friend. Um, fantastic lady, but we had her over for Christmas. Well, many many years we had her over for Christmas. Her and I debate like crazy. We don't agree on I I've literally never met anybody that I disagree with on that big of a percentage of things and yet we get along great because we both know that the other what the other person's intention is. Uh for example with education, right? I mean her theory or we her thing is like we just got to spend more. We got to pay teachers more. We got to spend more money. Spend more money. Spend more money. And I think that we have to change the system, improve the system, etc. I don't want to turn this into that debate, but we can debate this like cats and dogs and we walk away perfectly fine and neither one of us gets our feelings hurt because I know that her first principle when it comes to this is she wants better education for the kids.

[48:17] — And that's the same that I have. We just have we have two different paths to get there, but we have the same exact outcome. Even though we disagree on almost every topic, we do agree on the outcome on pretty much every topic. Ra — But Randy, I think I think the idea of first principles is they're inarguable. Like I I think maybe maybe we call that something different like what you value versus what she values. But I and and but but if you can argue something and there's something underneath that argument, you're now not talking about a first principle. — And so I just I just want to be careful that we're not leading people down the wrong path. I think you and I see this very differently. I mean, I what is in — But again, — but what is hold on what is inarguable? — I I think that in the moment like until some like there's theorems in math that are inarguable until they're disproven. There's science that is inarguable until the next thing is proven along the way with where it goes. But you can't like you can't um I'm trying to think of one that was that was inarguable that got changed. But like there was a number of scientific kingdoms in biology when I was in school that's been updated since then. But you you couldn't when when I was in high school, you couldn't just say, well, I disagree with that number of kingdoms.

[49:31] It was like that was the definition foundationally until someone came through and said, we're going to reorganize this and here's how we're going to and here's why and here's the science. And so I think that this is this is a part of where I think we get sideways in communicating is that like there's base definitions and just because someone doesn't like them doesn't give them permission to change them without ruining the ability to — So I would say we think the definition is almost exactly opposite of each other. I think that having that is the opposite of first principles. If you really believe like like okay here's the you're not going to be capable of thinking in first principles it it it's you know it's the opposite if we go back to Jeff Bezos his first principle of is this going to make the customer experience better right and and you know we opened with Elon Musk is this going to get us closer to Mars that's their — but those aren't first principles those are the go I don't think so I think those are their goals and I think those two things are conflated and I think That's where we're going to send people down the wrong track. So if just I mean just Google first principles and find out what Wikipedia says or the definition or any any any uh dictionary says about what first principles are.

[50:45] But if we tell somebody — go back to your go back to the Apollo example the first principle became getting them back alive. — But I think the first principles were as I as I'm reading through this right now I'm trying to fact check our work here. Right. First principles are this is what we have in the pod. Like those are first principles. Nothing's going to change those things. We have this size filter, this much duct tape, this much tubing, this much whatever. Like those were the first principles. — I don't I I would consider those facts or perception of fact. I would not consider those first principles at all. — Well, I'm I'm just reading definitions here. So um fundamental truths like the building blocks such as what raw materials are used or what scientific laws apply versus looking at the assembled component challenging an assumption right and so um the first basis from which something is known the from from the Oxford dictionary the fundamental concepts or assumptions on which a theory system or method is based and so I I don't think it's I don't think it's the goal itself I think it's the the fundamental information upon which something is. And this is important because when we don't have the same definitions of words we're using when we communicate, this is how people get crossways in the communication and inadvertently talk past each other. So I I'm not trying to be pedantic. I just — Well, can I ask John because I'm I'm getting sideways here a little bit. Um — And I'm I'm looking up some definitions too along with you.

[52:15] — Yeah. Isn't isn't the you you use the term conflating the first principles with the goal, but the first princ the first principles are contextual to the situation. So this simple example that it came up when I talked to my buddy um you know instead of asking how a rocket's usually built the first principle thinking asks what must a rocket fundamentally do. So it's it's contextual, right? It the the uh it's it's a goal, right? To get the rocket to do what it needs to do, asking how rockets are built is the is not a first principle. So it's contextual. So it's just raising kids. the first question uh that you'd ask about raising kids would be different than if you were trying to um you know make an AI chip, you know, three times more powerful. So I guess — I would say it's always fundamental, but the the idea of a first principle is you can't go beneath it. And so if you guys are arguing about if someone's arguing about one versus the other and there's a layer underneath it, then I think you're by definition not talking about first principles. And this is the whole my truth versus your truth.

[53:30] — Yeah, I I see where I see where you're coming from. It just it's hard to um in my mind, — let me say it. I'm I'm going to say I'm going to say it differently. I think we need to separate facts from — Oh boy. — Like like I think this is where we get really problematic. — We're opening such a can of worms now, right? The the problem with — I didn't I didn't pick the topic today. Well, [laughter] — there there's again this is comes back to I've said this at nauseium so I apologize to the listeners but 99.9% of science over time has been proven wrong and they were all considered — and most of what we know now is going to be proven wrong at some point and so — you know if if you look at the people that really make breakthroughs they take the assumptions and they throw them out and a lot of times they go to first principles, right? I mean, when going back to Elon, but you know, talk about going to Mars. When he started, everybody told him it was impossible.

[54:32] Like, you US, — China, Japan, India, Russia, all these countries have a 50-year head start or whatever they had. They have trillions of dollars to throw at the problem. How the hell are you going to start out with a hundred million or $200 million or whatever they started and beat them? And within a few years, he did because he took all their assumptions. He studied all the things that they took as fact. Like he went really deep and learned, but he took a lot of their assumptions and threw them out out the window and started over like he's so he started with we have to have a reusable pocket — to get the price down. — But pause. You just talked you just talked in a big circle, Randy. So you just went from science to facts to assumptions and you just interchangeably used all three of those words to make your point. And so there's a whole bunch of logical misses in what you just said. So like let's just let's talk like let's slow it down for a minute and like like if if two people are going to have a conversation about a theorem about math and the point of the conversation is to challenge that theorem and advance it and move it forward hyperfunctional for sure. But if we're both going to have a conversation about moving that forward and we've agreed that we're not going to challenge that theorem like but you like it things can't be in flux all the time like like at some point you have to agree what the words mean that you're talking about like the sun means — understood but the but the first principle like he started out with going to Mars and then like the next layer was we have that was the goal — we have to have reusable rockets — was was the next thing even though all the facts said nobody can do this and you're not going to be able to do it.

[56:14] That's what all the facts said and all the experts told him. — I but that's the point of first. Yeah, I I agree that you're using first principles by breaking down the assumptions into the core. You're you're going to rebuild something better. I think that's that's a very common use of the term. But but I think I think that the the first principle itself all the way at the very bottom is the foundational thing that's genu like considered inarguable. And so in this case I would say like the in this case the the cost of aluminum for example was Um but it was arguable about maybe what materials you could use for a rocket. Maybe I don't know much about this one. You're gonna know more about this than when it comes to Elon Musk's building But the but the the amount — Elon said um — go ahead Anthony. — No. Well, and I think it's on on the subject, you know, the he said something and I'll paraphrase it that there there is no bigger waste than optimizing for something you don't need. So what what he's saying there is which is part of the definition of uh practical definition of first principles is you need to strip away assumptions and conventions to get to the the the the the bottom line truth. And you know I'll give I'll give marketing a marketing example of you know what John and I discovered early on in our journey um in one of our businesses. We found that the people that were providing services relative to direct mail were mailing tens of thousands of letters to people who never had not responded for five years. And when we pointed it out to the provider, we said, "You stopped sending over there." And they said, "No, we can't do that." And we said, "Why not?"

[58:09] And they said to us, "You never know." Okay? John and I said, "No, we do know because you've been doing it for 5 years and we've never seen a response from you." So that's our version of getting rid of, you know, u optimizing the aluminum that you don't need the aluminum in the first place. And so it got us to a it got us to a first principle of if we're going to do this task of mailing to people, we want to mail to people who are going to respond to us. That was our first principle. Um we didn't know it at the time that it was the first principle. It just seemed logical to us, but now that we're older and wiser, we can we can, you know, take credit for it. Um, and that's why I said earlier today, this is a tough subject because you never know when you're in. I mean, you don't always know you're you're battling to a first principle because you're solving a problem. We were solving a problem with direct mail. We didn't realize that we had to go back to the first principle of we want people to resp that that that meant we wanted people to respond to us. So, — but I think the There's a difference between someone that's made an just based on an assumption versus someone who's made an assumption based on I've seen something a bunch of times versus someone who's scientifically kind of proven things to the extent that you can with the scientific method versus someone a group of you know skilled experts who've said hey this is for now the definition that we're going to use because it's the limit of our understanding like and those are four different levels of of acceptance, right? And so, and again, all of them there there's an appropriate time for all of them to be challenged, but the because I said so reason, like that's where I just kind of like — it's really hard to have a conversation with somebody it — but but the first principles is taking these things that are assumed to be the bedrock and questioning them and going below them, right? like like your aluminum thing you're you're that's not a first principles. The first principles has to be okay what are we using the aluminum for?

[1:00:15] — Is it the best material? What would be the best material? What are we trying to accomplish? It's more questions like that like should we even be using aluminum? Should we be sourcing aluminum a different way? Um you know — since you were talking about Elon at that point and rockets I'm going to switch it to his other company with Tesla. But every car company in the world, every one of them buys and they put hundreds or thousands of pieces together for a frame for a car. Not that guy. That guy went to First Principles. He at the beginning of their assembly line, the first step is a smelter and it's a big warehouse full of aluminum, aluminum cans, aluminum hub caps, etc. They put it in the smelter and that thing comes out in a form. The body is one piece, — right? instead of I think it's 3,000 that's in an average car or something. I forget the number and you have to fact check me on the 3,000 but there's like he has to qu this is how everybody does it. This is the facts in the industry and he's like no I'm going to do it this way because there's less that could go wrong. It'll be cheaper in the long run.

[1:01:19] It'll be better for customer service, you know, whatever. Right. So, — I mean, it's look, I think it's okay. We we clearly don't agree even on what the what the definition of this is. Um which I think that's healthy. — I man it's I think people could get very frustrated here if they don't stop for a second. You whatever your smelter example is it sounds great but I'll guarantee you that before that occurred something else was going on. So, you have to iterate your first principle to get it right. You and you you you touched on the the five W's, the Toyota production system five W's a while ago, and it'd be wise for anyone trying to determine what their first principles are is to is to make sure you get through the five W's. Why is this my first principle? Why, you know what I mean? Really drill down. I don't think it's easy to get to first principles. I think it's brutally hard, intellectually difficult. You've got to, you know, we talk about strip away conventions and assumptions. That's the probably the hardest thing in the world for a human being to do is to rip away assumptions so so simply. Oh, I'm just going to forget that's something I've believed for the last 20 years. That's really freaking hard.

[1:02:40] Well, and and there's some [clears throat] things like I think there's also a level of like you know you you can get to the why, but like for me getting into the why in a um in a situation that I can't go like I'm not me personally I'm not going to get into like uh you know any kind of like um you know atomic level computing or things that I have like that are scientifically still big question like there's no benefit to me doing that because I like those facts don't change my day-to-day. Really for me, the idea of first principles is getting down to like what's factually inarguable for this situation so that we can react to it with what the facts on the ground are. But like I I I and I have this happen all the time. Someone's like, "But what if the sun doesn't come up tomorrow?" Any version of that I'm pretty allergic to because it's not actually moving the conversation forward. But John, I've worked with you enough and you're really good at this actually that you will ask people like, "Okay, what are you trying to accomplish? What's the objective of like like just asking something as simple as what's the objective of the business?"

[1:03:46] See, I think it has like that is getting to first principles, right? You've asked me that question, right? Is it to build this is it to build this business, own it forever? Is it to build this business and sell it? Is it for it to become a cash machine? Like that's getting to a first principles. Why was this business — Right. Yep. So, let me Okay, we're going to use my definition of of So, I apologize, John, but I'm asking — See, I love that. I I I No, no, I love that because now you have a convers You're like, "Hey, for this conversation, here's the definition." Boom. Like, I think that is super — But mostly, I'm asking the question, so I'm going to make it mine. Yes. But anyway, all right. Be a smart. So, — it's fine. I'm good with it. I like it. back to your, you know, we we had a conversation last week and you opened up about your challenge with your beliefs about marketing. I think it I think it's really helpful if we tie that back in here using my definition. In other words, what is it you're trying to accomplish? What's the what is the real goal with marketing? — I think I think is a really good question.

[1:04:54] — Do you know the answer? — Yeah. So there's two two I mean I I yeah I have not considered it enough to be definitive about it. But here's what I would tell you. I think there's on the one hand I've got things that I want to accomplish in the world. I've got this answer for how we fix type 2 diabetes in very difficult populations and I want to make sure that we don't keep that a secret. Like I want everyone to know so we can really impact people's lives in a great way. — That's that's on the one hand. — Can I ask you can I ask you — on the other hand? — Can I you want to know? Is that what you want is just for them to know? — Well, no. I I want to fix the problem globally. Like for sure I want it. Yeah. And that but that's that's not just a marketing question. So I was like the marketing question is about awareness, interest, desire, and then taking action to engage in the process. — The reason you want to market is you want to fix the problem. You want to you want to you want you want to treat the diabetes problem. — Yeah. I I think d I think I think we can end type two diabetes across the globe. — Okay. Love that. love. Okay. So, what's the second thing you said? — Well, then then then then the second thing is like on the so there's a blocker for that inside my brain somewhere that needs to get fixed. And so so the a kind of a a on the way to that path, there's a belief system that I've got. I I think that I have to rewire inside my brain.

[1:06:14] And I don't fully have my arms wrapped around that yet, but I do believe that I'm I'm getting in the way of that because of something I believe that is today subconscious, but we'll I will hope rise to the level of consciousness and fixing very shortly. — I I would I guess label that as an abundance blocker. I don't know if that's even a real clinical term or whatever, but I I would label the second thing I the first one I think is a is an amazing first principle, right? Like I want to cure type two diabetes in the world. Like that's the reason for marketing. Like the reason for marketing isn't to change the belief system. Like you have to change the belief system to solve the problem. Yes. But the real core is in my mind, and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but but that seems really clear, really impactful, really amazing, right? I want to solve type two diabetes in the world. That's why I market. Well, and and the I mean to be even more clear like I I feel like that that's a calling that I have that goes back to my kind of spirit. So it actually that's not the first principle. The first principle is even deeper kind of at a spiritual level. So but that's that's a broader topic.

[1:07:23] — Better yet, right? So to me again with my that's where it goes and then that I think knowing that will make it easier for you to solve it. And you know, you asked the question last week, why can't I, you know, bring on a million new people and not piss off any of them or, you know, piss nobody off? And and so I think that if you go back to first principles, it's like what's more important? Not pissing people off or bringing on a million new clients. — Yeah. I mean, your your comment about that actually was pretty helpful. And I think I'm I'm now past the point of like, hey, if somebody reacts poorly based on their stuff, I can't control that. And so I'm I think I'm past that point. It's great. So anyway, all right, — So let's let's you know, let's move let's move the conversation to the next the next level. So we've talked about what it is, right? We've talked about what uh first principles are. Um we've talked about how you know you go about you know working on it and and I think everyone should understand that it's an iteration and you may not get it right the first time and ask the five W's. uh in terms of getting to your first principle for whatever it is that you're working on. But why why do it? You know, why do it? What I think is the why gives you the why is doing this well and being in having a constant focus on it gives you confidence in what you're doing. It will it will it will it will feed on itself. you you know you're on uh a path that makes sense for the circumstance that you're in. So when you take an action now you're solving a problem with the foundation of your first principle.

[1:09:12] You're going to feel good about that tactic. You're going to feel good about that um uh action that you're taking because it's based on a first principle. So I think it's really important that people understand that that's what's creating abundance, right? That's what this is all about. How how do you create abundance? By having a foundation that really is solid that gives you confidence in the things that you're going to take take forward. So, I think that's really important. And it — Anthony, I think about that like exercise. You've said your reason for exercising before is like so you can play with your grandkids, right? And be, you know, be healthy, active, live a long life, spend more time with family. Uh, you know, we had Dr. Jeffrey Gladen on last week and he talked about making a hundred the new 30. I think that if whether it's having a long life, spending time with your grandkids, you know, making a hundred the new 30, I don't care what the goal is, but if you take whichever one of those that is going to keep you going to the gym and working out more than than just going, well, I think some people New Year's resolution comes along and they say, I'm going to the gym three times a week.

[1:10:24] Okay, great. We all agree that's good for you. But if you're not focused on a first principles or a reason, an you're just unlikely to follow through. Right? If your why, — I guess another way to put it, if your why is big enough, everything else becomes easy. — yeah, and I think in in real life it's very, as I said earlier, it's very difficult to constantly be thinking about first principles when you're trying to just survive, you know, you know, um, you know, a 20some kid out of college who suddenly is, you know, uh, sending out, 1700 resumes and getting no um, uh, no response. um you know it's a tough tough environment like what's my first principle you know bring you know bring that bring that person back to that first principle so um not easy to do but you got to know why and you got to have confidence in what you're doing you know we've often said I certainly have is sometimes you make a mistake but you work so damn hard anyway that you you minimize the mistake and still come out on on a good end of things. Not an optimal end of things necessarily, but a good end of things. So, um it's not a perfect journey. It's not as simple as reading a book and writing it down and journaling and all that. It's a it's a lot of iteration.

[1:11:59] — All right. Um I I just think a lot of breakthroughs are coming based on getting to first principles, right? And and this this is this is one of the big abundance blockers that's out there is that people have assumptions and if they're because they live in those assumptions or they're not thinking about it deep enough and and what the real reason is, you know, why do you have the business? Why do you have the marriage? What do what do you want to accomplish with your kids? Whatever it is, why do you you know, why do you go to the gym? I think all of those things is is the other side of them, I think, is where there's a lot of the Gentlemen, I enjoyed it. I especially like that we disagreed a little bit. Um, and uh, listeners, as always, download, subscribe, tell your friends, tell your neighbors, and uh, and and keep coming back. We'll be here again next week. Thank you, gentlemen. — Listen and subscribe to the podcast 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.