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Your 10-Year Dream Won’t Happen If You Keep Prioritizing the Wrong Skills

Episode 74 · 20 May 2026 · 59 min

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Your 10 Year Vision Won't Happen If You Keep Prioritizing the Wrong Skills

Ask people for their 10 year vision and they describe family, friends, fun and freedom. Then they spend almost all of their energy on work skills. Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino start with Steve Jobs' last words and walk through the Five F's. They name the relationship skills most people never practice on purpose.

What if the life you say you want in 10 years is not the life your current skills are building?

In this episode of Tales of Abundance, Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg, and Anthony Marino tackle a hard question: why do so many people say they want more family time, deeper relationships, more fun, and more freedom… yet keep investing almost all of their energy into work?

The conversation explores the hidden disconnect between stated priorities and actual behavior, and why the “tyranny of the urgent” keeps pulling people back into career mode. The guys break down the Five F’s through a practical lens: family, friends, fun, fitness, and finance.

They talk about the relationship skills most people never intentionally study, including responsibility, accountability, acceptance, vulnerability, trustworthiness, gratitude, emotional regulation, being present, and managing time on purpose.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re winning at work while quietly drifting from the life you actually want, this episode is for you.

In the Abundance Briefing, the conversation shifts to the future: OpenAI’s clinical assistant and what AI means for diagnosis, Anthropic’s compute deal with SpaceX, ocean-based data centers, and why so many Gen Z workers are reportedly sabotaging AI rollouts.

Steve Jobs' Last Words, the Seven Levels of Intimacy and the Relationship Skills Nobody Trains

What you'll discover:

  • Why work has a scoreboard and family usually doesn't, and the "tyranny of the urgent"
  • Why you should spend more time preparing for the marriage than the wedding
  • The core relationship skills: responsibility, accountability, acceptance, vulnerability and trustworthiness
  • Presence, devices, emotional regulation, and why fun gets postponed
  • Why money alone doesn't create happiness, and how to start living your 10-year life now
  • In the Abundance Briefing: OpenAI's clinical assistant, Anthropic and SpaceX, ocean data centers, and Gen Z workers sabotaging AI rollouts

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Steve Jobs’ final regrets and the real cost of success
  • [00:28] The 10-year vision exercise: what people say they want most
  • [01:37] Why work and life get separated in the modern mind
  • [02:43] The trap of believing you have no choice but to sacrifice everything for work
  • [05:17] AI makes us more productive… so why are we working more, not less?
  • [06:11] The “tyranny of the urgent” and why most people only train work skills
  • [09:29] Spend more time preparing for the marriage than the wedding
  • [10:24] Why work has a scoreboard and family usually doesn’t
  • [15:06] Gratitude, positive feedback, and the ratios that shape strong relationships
  • [17:09] Core relationship skills: responsibility, accountability, acceptance, vulnerability, trustworthiness
  • [21:59] Presence, devices, time management, and emotional regulation
  • [24:22] Friends and community: structure, flexibility, and making it about others
  • [28:35] Fun: why most people postpone it, and how to bring it into life now
  • [33:41] Why money alone does not create happiness
  • [41:25] Can you start living your 10-year life now instead of waiting?
  • [42:17] Break — Sponsor: AG1
  • [43:24] Abundance Briefing — OpenAI’s clinical assistant and whether AI is becoming better at diagnosis
  • [50:54] Anthropic + SpaceX: compute, energy, and the new AI chokepoints
  • [54:45] Ocean data centers, power demand, and the race to build AI infrastructure
  • [57:06] Why 44% of Gen Z workers reportedly sabotage AI rollouts

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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.

[00:04] think it's pretty well known and pretty widely known through Walter Isaacson that Jobs reported having regrets at the end of his life that he wasn't more available to his kids. Lots of discussion about what oh wow, oh wow, oh wow means. And at 56 years old, I think most people would say Jobs died too young. And so Randy, we had an experience recently where we asked people about their future and it was pretty eye-opening for a lot of people in the room. Yeah, I sat and listened and everybody it was really where do you see your life in 10 years and what do you need to do now to oversimplify it to get there, right? And everybody when they were asked, almost to the person talked in 10 years about spending more time with their family, their kids, their spouse, traveling more, having more fun, having more quality time, things like that. That was their focus and where they wanted their life to be in 10 years. And I remember you would ask them or one of your standard follow-ups were, "What skills do you need to work on now?" And almost without exception, those skills were all Right? So there was this disconnect and I would watch people talk about 10 years, there was one thing important, but yet what they were prioritizing was a completely different things. There's and I think that's true for a lot of us, right? I'm I'm as guilty of it as anybody cuz I think my answers were the same. So where Let's talk about that disconnect. Why do Why do say we want one thing, but then we go do something I think a lot of people think they have to do something at work so that they can do something for non-work later. And I think that is a really big challenge that, you know, sociologically we didn't have those choices, you know, in millennia past. And you know, retirement is a political construct that was created by a politician who wanted to get old workers out of the workforce so he can get young workers who are unemployed into the workforce. And and that was so it was it was really a political construct, but the reality is that that for most of human history we've had both family and work had to coexist for people's lives in its entirety.

[02:20] was where that came from. That's So, I mean, yeah, I I watch the challenge, right? And I think so many of us feel like we have to work to your point that that's how we're going to be able to travel. And maybe I know Anthony you have some concerns about that about this whole topic and maybe we ought to put those out right now, right? Cuz some people don't feel like they have a Yeah, and that that's what I You know, we were talking earlier that you know we're we're all three very pretty successful guys and we've had a interesting journeys different different stages. for a lot of people the only thing only choice they have at least they think the only choice they have is that they have to work and work to make money and sacrifice friends, family, everything else for the sake of the job. And it's you know I don't think it's getting better. I think it's getting worse, you know talking to people specifically in the tech industry and what's expected in terms of just raw physical effort in that industry these days. I mean it's expected in a startup mode to work Saturday, Sunday. Who was Who was the um one of the I think it's Anthropic or I don't want to throw anyone under the bus.

[03:49] But they have a Saturday morning staff I mean, that kind of follows up your weekend. I mean, you know, if you got to get up and go to work on a Saturday morning for a staff meeting. I don't know how long it is, but it's it is it is a staff meeting. It's just tough You know, I mean, that's that's not different than Walmart used to have a global meeting every Saturday morning. So important that they put an entire satellite system into space that had I can't remember how many dozens of satellites just so that Sam Walton could speak to the entire team on Saturday mornings. I don't know if it was every employee, but it was certainly management level. And I think I if memory serves correctly, it's been a long time since I've read about it. I think that was a Saturday morning meeting as well. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's We we've we've everyone here has thrown themselves into their work to the detriment of the other four F's at some point in their career. And sometimes, you know, let me put it to this way. I'm not sure I didn't have other choices. I you know, I was just I was really enjoying it maybe. You know, or maybe I listen to I'd rather I'd rather do this than that.

[04:57] But as we work through this this this meeting today, um what's striking me is, you know, how do you balance or at least be conscious of your five F's at all times? You know, how do you do you is it possible to do that? Um that's what's that's what I want to learn about today. Yeah, I I heard a quote a few days ago. I think Marc Andreessen retweeted it and it was I've yet to meet anybody that's working less because of AI. And I've really kind of been sitting with that and thinking about it because that's true of me, right? Like there are plenty of things where it's made me more efficient, more productive. I just it's making I'm actually working because of AI, not less. And I think when I think throughout history, that's what's happened. I think for the most part, we get new technology and it just allows us to cram more and more and more into our day and we're not working on what we say is important to us. And really, I don't want to tell people what they should think, but I think most people would agree that the family, the fun, the all of that different stuff should be prioritized much higher or much more highly.

[06:11] This is the tyranny of the urgent, right? Which again, has been a part of human existence forever. And so, it's two mental models that I would offer as up for discussion for us today. One is that it is a lot easier to work on work when you understand what the work is. When I was especially early in my career, less so now, but still to some degree, like the skills of relationship, the skills of family, the skills of community, I wasn't naturally good at those things because I wasn't brought up in an environment where it was called out to me. And so, I had to like technically learn how to be a better friend, how to be a better family member, how to be a better father. And I know that sounds really cold and clinical and anti- you can give me crap for it, I get it. But I didn't know. And so, I needed to go figure out the formula. Like there's a reason I'm better at baking than I am cooking in the kitchen cuz baking is really prescriptive and it tells me exactly how much salt and exactly how much of this and and it makes it so that I can learn something because it tells me how to learn it. And then I can learn how to cook where it's a little more creative or whatever. But most people when they learn something have to start with high and then get more creative. When you go from creative to structure, it doesn't work. Structure to creative does. So, that's So, one thing I'd say is we have to have the mental model for things other than work.

[07:26] That's one piece of it. So, John, you have spent time on that working on relationships, working on these different thing. And I think, you know, the question I'm really asking is why aren't I mean, you're in the minority. I'm I'm just telling you, most people never They read the book about how to make their business better, how to be more of you know, the four-hour workweek or about finance or whatever it is, public speaking, I don't care, to make their career better. And they don't read the book about how to be a better parent or maybe they are when they're having a baby, they read them all but they or you know, how to be a better husband or wife have have deeper friendships. Like I What is it? 5% of people do this? 10%? It's a small percentage. Well, let me let me jump in if you don't mind. The I think what makes it difficult is with work they're not a lot There's a lot of structure in work environment. You know, there's a boss, there's a you know, there's a way the company runs or you're running your company, whatever it is.

[08:29] And so there's structure. With the other F's, you know, think of a think about friends. There's a lot of You No two friends are alike. There you've got to you know, learn their nuances, what what what to say, what not to say. Same thing with family, you know, raising kids. Where Where's the training for being a There's no training for being a dad. It's an on-the-fly activity, you know? What's What Where's the training to be a husband? Maybe you have a model of your your parents, maybe good or bad. So, I think it's just so many variables with the other F's that, you know, human nature is to gravitate to things that you like and you're good at. And so with work, you know, I'm good at work, so that's where I put my time and energy. To your point, Randy, it's working on the other things where consciously working on those other skills doesn't come naturally. But I think that I think that you've made a tremendous number of assumptions there and I think they're accurate to your experience and by the way, accurate to my experience, too, when work is barking at you all the time, it's really easy to put your focus back there. And it is hard to find the models for friendship, and for family, and for fatherhood, and for all Like those things are harder to find, but they do exist. Like to say like that they don't happen to is is just not true. To say they're harder to find, absolutely true.

[10:00] And so it takes a But I mean, you talk to people who are very deliberate about marriage. So like I was talking to a young couple who's going to get married, you know, we were talking about what my advice I didn't want to be too heavy-handed. I said, "Spend more time preparing for the marriage than you do preparing for the wedding. And if you want to talk about that means, come back and talk to me. But the marriage is more important than the wedding, so you should treat your investment of time like that." I love that. You know, the other thing is Anthony was talking that that comes out to me is in business, in work, in life, in there's a way to keep score. Right? Whether it's sales, it's dollars, it's, you know, being on a newsletter. Different people do it different ways, but there's always a way to keep score. And I think with our kids, or our spouse, or some of that, there's not really a scorecard. people react to incentives. And then, you know, motivations, and I think it's that, and the other thing I'd be remiss if I didn't say is I really think a lot of this comes down to broken money. I think some of it is the society we're in.

[11:05] You laugh, but I mean, I'll die on this — Fix your marriage with Bitcoin. I love it. Well, there's the problem is people feel they have to work because it's so much harder. If we, you know, if you go back to the '50s, generally a man, they'd have a whole slew of kids, the wife generally didn't work, and the one person working just what we would call normal everyday jobs could have a house, take vacations, support their their slew of kids, and today that's harder and people are watching. They have to work harder and their I just even if they don't can't consciously do it, their subconscious watches things become more expensive and everything's becoming harder for not everybody, not the people on the top of this this K, but for 70 80% of society. I I just want to level set here for people listening like you just talked about the last 70 years. Let's talk about the last 20,000 years. Historically like agricul- agricultural societies that were like let's call it 10,000 years ago, women brought 60% of the calories to the table, men brought 40% of the calories to the table. It was it was not it was not a single provider for the family.

[12:17] And if you look over 20,000 years in peaceful societies, women had leadership positions that were highly successful, very different than we've seen in maybe the last you know, 80 or 100 years in the world in our lifetimes for example. And so I think that if we look only to the last, you know, 25 50 years, we're going to see two types of environments. But we know there's at least four types of environments that are, you know, the idiom of soft times make for hard people, make for good times, make for soft people, and and the cycle goes on. We've all heard that before. And so I think that independent of any of that, if you're trying to like find the one thread for a mental model, to me I try to break it down to one question. What are the skills for family, for friends, and in a perfect world, what skills can I develop for family or friends that positively impact my professional life? Because if I can develop one set of skills that impacts all of it, and I'm really deliberate about what hills I'm climbing, I don't think it takes 40 hours a week to have a great family. But I do think a little bit of being deliberate matters. And you guys joked about not having a scorecard at home. I don't have like a scorecard that we review weekly, but I definitely check in with my wife to see where she's feeling things are on a semi-regular basis to make sure that she's getting what she wants out of the relationship.

[13:35] Well, there there is no physical with the other F's. I mean, with finance, you know, sure there's a scorecard there. You can check your bank account and and what have you. But most of the feedback you get in the other three F's is negative. So, you go and do something You know, you say the wrong thing, you do the wrong thing, you forget to something at the grocery store, you you know, you pressure a kid a little more than your spouse wants you to pressure kids. So, the feedback is negative. So, because I think, you know, part of it part of this whole equation what we have I wish I wish I learned a long time ago is to not not let that negative stop you from continuing to develop the skill. Take it as a learning experience and figure out what if I if I'm in that situation again, how would I handle it differently? So, I being conscious and you used the word deliberate. I used the word conscious. Just be conscious of what you're working on.

[14:36] And you make a great point about some of the skills that we learned at work exactly as they should with family and friends. I mean, be a good listener, not be the smartest guy in the room, you know, open-minded, be present, you know, really be present, whether physically or making that phone call from out of town. being deliberate and conscious is really really the lesson I think is the lesson of the day here, whether it's I don't want to get too clinical with you here, Anthony, but like you're like it is this way and that might be true for you, but I would say that the negative feedback that you have viewed with other people or experienced yourself, like that is an approach and that is an experience. It doesn't have to be the only experience, right? So, you you can just like great leaders at work there's bad leaders at work and good and bad leaders at work only give negative feedback. Great leaders at work give positive feedback. That can be a choice inside of a relationship. And for me, I was the leader for sure that was giving only negative feedback from years and years of my early career. I had to learn the skill of every time I was grateful some for something forcing it out through my mouth. And my life has changed for the better by being more grateful with people more often than I was in the past. But that was a skill that I had to develop, a muscle that I had to practice. And you two can give me lots of critical feedback about how I'm not good enough with the two of you, and I'm sure that would be true and maybe well taken. But it's, you know, someone corrected me in marriage. They said that the Gottmans found that in a positive marriage there was five positive pieces of feedback to one negative. And I was like, "No, no, it's 20 to one." They're like, "No, it's five to one." I went back and looked, it is five to one when you're in conflict.

[16:21] It's 20 to one when you're not in conflict. And so there are measures of things in the five Fs that we can pay attention to. So, in family and if you're not in conflict, 20 pieces of positive feedback to one piece of negative feedback is a ratio for happy couples. If you're in conflict, it's five pieces of positive feedback to one piece of negative feedback. So, there's one measure inside the five Fs that people can use to grade their own paper, hopefully not to grade their partner's paper, right? So, grading your own paper more important. Randy, what are you going to say? Well, John, you have a framework of the five Fs. So, let's go through. You you've talked a lot about skills. Let's talk about the skills for each of the five Fs. You just started on family. So, what other skills can people work on if they want to improve their family, whether it's spouse, kids, yeah. Parents, whatever. And the skills I'm going to walk through are going to be more human, so even more broadly. So, this particular skill set applies to friends, to community, to co-workers, everybody. But as at the fundamental level of relationship, you have responsibility and accountability. It's very difficult to have a relationship if you don't do what you say you're going to do. It's just hard. The built upon that foundation of responsibility and accountability, there's four important skills: acceptance, vulnerability, trustworthiness, and seeing people in their best light.

[17:39] And so, acceptance means just giving someone the space to have a different point of view, be in a different place, and accepting that's where they are. And that type of radical acceptance builds relationship. On the flip side of that is vulnerability, where you share with people where you are. And I'm talking about appropriate, healthy, functional sharing, not emotionally vomiting on people in the moment of emotional energy, but but being vulnerable and sharing with people. And you know, Matthew Kelly wrote a great book called The Seven Levels of Intimacy, primarily about partner relationships, but it applies to relationships more broadly, about different levels of vulnerability. And I heard a therapist talk about it, you know, as layers of the onion. You let people in different layers at different seasons of life for different relationships. And I think So, that level of acceptance and vulnerability are really important, mixed with trustworthiness, which is keeping someone's secrets when it's appropriate. Like being able to hold confidences. And the fourth one, seeing people in their best light, like, you know, when I get sideways with with Amber, which is really, really rare, and she's pretty it's easy for me to remind her that I always know she has my best interest in Like like that's never a question. Like I always know that she's got my best interest, even if we step on one another's toes. Super important.

[18:51] Um but it's hard to see someone in their best light all the time, especially when you've been burned. Anthony, I know you've probably had a little experience with those things. you know, um and everyone has a a different personality, you know, a different a different way of approaching things. You know, you're you know, you're pathetically clinical about everything that you do, which is great. You know, that and that works for you, you know? I'm more on the emotional side. Not pathetic, not pathetically emotional, just — No, not pathetically emotional, just — Okay, all right. Good for the — I'd say horribly emotional, but I think and I know when something gets broken in one of these F's, my approach is harder to fix because it it is emotional, right? And so you have to get through that, you know, I'm right, you're wrong moment, you know, or it's your fault, not my fault moment, and your approach Eventually, you know, you go to the giving side of things, and you just keep giving something good in the in the discussion, in the relationship, and eventually that, you know, gets you to where you need to be. So, recognizing that there's an issue is probably the most important lesson I learned in in time. Sometimes, something went sideways family or may not even been aware of it or cared about it or wanted to fix it, take the time to fix it, I'd just march on and, you know, this too shall pass. So, I learned that the hard way that that is — a good framework for building I think a lot of the things that you can work on in the family actually relate to work, right? I mean, Anthony said it earlier, there's a lot of the skills, but the relationship building and the gratitude John talked about, and all these things, I'm guessing for most people, if they're like me, the same thing that shows up at a problem at work is, I'm guessing, John, like when when, you know, if you don't show enough gratitude at work, you probably aren't showing enough gratitude in a relationship. So, it's But if you work on it, you can work on it in both and communication and listening skills and all of those things. So, it may be the skill and it may be just applying it in that session.

[21:24] you know, the other thing I think of these days is just being there and being present. I think it's so tough. So many people are addicted. John, you've quoted before what percentage of people have social media addiction or cell phone addiction and there really are people just walking around staring down at their hands with their phones controlling them. And that is, you know, or sitting at the dinner and everybody's on their phone. We've all seen this, right? And that's So, just working on being present and staying off devices with your family, I think, is another skill that we all need to work on. I'm pretty good This is actually one something I'm pretty good at and I still could improve. Time management. Time management, you know, it is seems so trite and fundamental. But managing your time, you know, not not doing the things some of the things you mentioned, but even more than that, not doing things that really aren't necessary, you know, overworking something, you know, um and time ago.

[22:26] That That was really helpful in running a business. It's also really helpful in being able to block some time to plan a trip, block some time to get a dinner reservation and things like that. Yeah, I think time management is something that gets away from us and when you when you go back to managing it, you suddenly free up time. So, hard skills, soft skills, right? So, I'm teaching my 15-year-old time management at age, you know, 15 right now. I didn't learn that skill really until I was 19 or 20 and so that's been one thing, but there's something else you guys walked right past, which is really important skill. Managing your emotions, like understanding how to process your emotions individually and then take the report out to the rest of the world versus vomiting out to the rest of the world, which I'm just I'm projecting now cuz that's what I used to do when I learned how to process my emotions. I would vomit on people and didn't realize that I was actually doing bad things in a relationship, not good thing. I thought I was sharing until one of my mentors actually pointed out that I wasn't sharing. I was, you know, being a jerk. And so I think once you And I didn't call that out as a relationship skill because I think everyone does well to learn how to process their emotions. There's a ton of books about it, therapy about it. Like like definitely that's an individual skill that helps us tee up for the rest of it. And then into your point, just putting things in your calendar so that they are important until you build the habit. Like yes.

[23:51] Let's move We got five F's here. So we're going to skip finance because the whole part point of this in a way is people spend too much time working on the career and the finance part of it. So we're going to skip that one. We've already talked about family. Let's go to friends. I think friends and community is pretty similar to family other than just which one are we prioritizing or we prioritizing and wherever that balance is. So what skills can people work on in friends and community that are different the family one? I think in addition to the things we've already talked about, which are very important for friends and community, it's putting things into the calendar where you're driving that connection in terms of timing. You know, being out with people and and then I think being really again conscious of deciding where it's too much. I've met people that have their social calendars booked out 6 months in advance and when something else pops up, they're not able to be there. You know, and so um I think it's just really important to everyone's got a different set of thresholds for how they want to do that, when they want to do that, seasons of life, but like I've got a date night with my wife once a week.

[24:57] Pretty standard on a Friday night. This last Friday night we had a kids event, so it didn't happen. We didn't have the same type of date night. We had big plans with friends on Saturday night, so having both the structure, but also the flexibility. You know, you guys give me crap about being so structured on this show sometimes. I think that that's the way it comes off when we're talking about it versus what actually happens in reality. And so, I think having the structure about how do you want your friends to get together? What is the structure, the timing? And then balancing that with the flexibility to be able to rest, relax, recuperate, and all those things. That's a that's a practice and a habit, and in my experience it changes from season to season in life. To be clear, John, we give you about it because it's just different than how we do it. I don't think either one of us is is making judgment or saying it's wrong. It's what works for you. — Anthony's touching me. What? — Anthony's definitely touching me. Yeah, I would say that. Yeah, I would I would Yeah, I it's you know what it is? It's it's really judging you from the perspective like I find it humorous. You know, I just I couldn't live I couldn't I can't live that way, and I think it's kind of funny the way you go about things or at least approach things, but at but at the same time I learn a lot from the things that the way you approach things. So, hats off to you, but I'm enjoying the I'm enjoying the ride as well.

[26:17] But that's the goal, right? The goal is to take the tool and use it for you, not to you're not trying to live my life. I'm not trying to live you, but if I can help people do that, it's like if I could just think about it differently enough to get a little better the way I want to get better, high five. Like I'm going to high five myself. Like I've done my job, but I definitely don't want you living my life. Yeah, but if you can take from it, thumbs up. Well, Brady, you you asked the question, you know, what's what skill um do you have to develop in regarding friends and And I I don't I'm I'm I'm hope to be able to to to say this well. This the skill that I I've learned is with friends or community, you've got to learn that it's not about you. It's It's about the friend. It's about you know, caring where they are. What do You're You're You want to give, not get. And especially in community, if you're doing something with your church or some community, it's not about you. You are You are there as a facilitator. You are there as someone to help and listen and and develop a bond. It's not about you.

[27:23] To John's point, you're not going there to tell everybody about your day at the office. You know, you're saying, "How can I help?" If you lead with that, you're going to get a lot more out of those friendships and a lot more out of the community. So, that would be a very specific skill. And again, didn't learn that until later in life. You know, if you could teach teach the 22-year-old Anthony, I I'm not sure what would have happened. I think it I I I would have been um better off overall. Well, Anthony, I think I think that's great advice. And I think it applies to the first the first two F's that we already went over, right? You're talking about it in community, but it absolutely is the same with family, same with work, right? It's like if you make it about them, it'll probably fix all three of those areas to a large extent. One of the cool conversations I have with one of my younger kids earlier in their lives was about gift giving cuz you know, they always wanted to give the gift they wanted versus giving the gift that the receiver wanted. And so, trying to help them understand it from the receiver's point of view has always been a fun lesson as the kids are growing up.

[28:33] For sure. Let's move to fun. So, let's have more Let's have some fun with fun. This is another one that gets pushed off, right? And people talk in our group a lot about travel. I want to go here. I want to go there. And some of them are pretty good at it. Some of them not so much, right? It keeps getting pushed off. So, what are the skills here that would work to make to increase fun? For me, you know, the the thing that I when I was younger, I had a whole lot of preferences. Like I had a I had an opinion about what was better for me in And as I paid attention to that, uh this particular season of my life, I was going through therapy for some other things, but I recognized was the thing that was most fun for me was doing things with others and having shared experiences with other people that I was close to. And so, when that became clear for me, I realized how few preferences I had that truly mattered to me. And you know, the guy that I was going to therapy with at the time said there's capital R right and capital W wrong, and there's very few things that our society has said fit into those things. Like, you know, murder generally is considered wrong as an example.

[29:42] And so, but most other things are preferences. And when I recognized that there were so few preferences that truly mattered to me if I was doing things with friends, then it became about having experiences with friends. And you know, I and so like it can be a 10-minute experience or a 10-day experience or anything in between, but like for me, what's become most important for fun is having experiences with friends. And there are things I don't enjoy as much and things I enjoy a whole lot more, and I tend to drive my friends to things I enjoy a whole lot more. So, I've got season tickets to a soccer team here in Boston, and I do that. But there's things I enjoy less that I still want to do with them. And so, I try to say yes as much as I can, and that's been the big difference for me, Randy, is trying to start with yes as the answer to someone when they say, "Do you want to do fill in the blank?" I try to always say yes unless it's skydiving. Anthony, what's helped you with fun? Yeah, um I I approach this topic very, very differently. I don't think of it as as Fun to me is now in this season of my life, which is a little bit later than yours, is always being in a good mood.

[30:55] Just being like happy with what where I am at the moment. And then that leads me down paths to the different things in life like I'm feeling really good. I'd love to go back to Italy. Let's plan a trip. Or find out does it Hey, do you want to go back? Do you want to go back to Sicily? Let's have a conversation cuz you're in a good mood. You're you're upbeat. And so when the friend calls and says, "Hey, I got tickets to the Knicks game or You know, you're you're in a you're in a good head space you can have a good conversation around it and decide if that's what I that's that's what you want to do. When you're uptight, when you're like all about, you know, God, then I'm just not feeling what a crappy mood I'm in and so on and so forth. You're not you don't have clarity. You don't have an open mind to things. So, I've been really working hard at just trying to be in a good mood all the time. It's not doesn't happen all the time as a person I live with will tell you very quickly even in this particular moment. So, before we before we die I need to get some I need some counseling. But just having that mindset that things are good now and they're going to be good What else can I layer on this cake? You know, what how do I put icing on this thing? That That's something I learned much later in life. I want to dig more into this and as much as I want to give you about this, I have to give you your flowers because I have noticed in the last 6 months give or take that you have been way more positive, less grumpy, right? Like historically, you were the big teddy bear, but you were the tough rough part of Boston corporate, you know, you kids get off my lawn. That's maybe that's a little far, but but and I have noticed more — We got all the way to get off your lawn with with Anthony A. more Yes, you've been lighter, you've been more positive, you've had like like what How have you done it?

[32:55] Like what what steps have you taken? What's worked for you there? You know, so let's dial this back to the beginning of the conversation. I was working. That was the focus of my life was generating a an income to get me to my financial finish line. So, that was my priority. Now, still the happy guy underneath, the fun-loving guy, the jokester, and all that, but it didn't come out, you know, 80% of the time. It came out 20% of the So, I've flipped that script. Again, not the 20% still sucks, okay? I could still be a dick 20% of the time. You know, yeah, so Better than the 90% that you were — it is a conscious thing. It is a conscious thing, and you know, I got some money in the bank, big deal. That that that didn't do it. That that didn't change my life. Money doesn't change If anyone thinks getting to your financial finish line or money's going to change you, uh-uh, not not true, man. Take it from someone who's been there.

[33:59] You you are no different. You are not You are not going to be any happier because you got money. It's a mindset. That's what you have to work on. — at it. Like you've you've worked at this. Yeah, I have. I I took the feedback that I was getting all my life, and I'm working on it. I think as we go back to the beginning of the conversation, why do people neglect the other four F's? They think that the pursuit of the dollars is going to enable them to have the fruits of the other four, and it's just not true. You have to and we said it sound like a broken record, but pay attention to this cuz you've got to be disciplined, you got to be conscious about those other things and you actually have to work on them. They don't just come to you. You have to work on them. Trial and error. Get feedback from people. And it's got to be things that are going to make you you know, lighter on your feet around others. Is the way I I kind of think about it that way. Am I light on my feet? You know, we had our daughter over the weekend with her two baby girls and you know, it was um an up and down weekend. You know, there was some wonderful, you know, moments, but you know, it's tough taking care of two toddlers when the parents are you know, took off for a couple of hours and so, you know, being upbeat at that during that time was was a struggle, but we you maintain it, you know, you you know that there's light at the end of the tunnel.

[35:27] that's why — And you know, the to your point earlier in the episode, that doesn't discount Maslow's hierarchy of needs that you have to get, you know, your basic fundamentals, food, rest, and shelter, right, kind of handled before you have self-actualization, but most people today live better than the kings of yesteryear. Mhm. And so, they can have a little bit different balance than 1,000 years ago for sure. John, you had some thoughts about appreciation. You want to go into those? I think that I think that was great I was just recognizing An- Anthony just made the point, right? It's like when people appreciate what they have and focus on what they have and the appreciation of it versus wanting what they don't have or other people have, that level of gratitude seems to have a material impact on people's lives throughout kind of studied science and so and and again, to me, that was a skill set that I could learn when someone unveiled that for me and it was very clinical, it was very scientific the way that I learned it, but I wanted figure out like what do other people know that I don't know and how do I actually practice that skill? And it And you guys have watched me do this. It's like it's been very robotic, right?

[36:37] And you know, Randy, you've been around long enough to have seen a lot of that transition with me and so you can talk to what it was like, you know, 14, 15 years ago when we first met. And so I I hope you've seen a change and an improvement. God, please tell me you do or lie to me if you have and But I had to practice — I'm not going to lie. Yeah, there's a there's there's an old Sheryl Crow song, you know, it's it's not about having what you want, it's wanting what you have. And that's a tough that that sounds so but that that that that's like weightlifting. If you don't If you don't lift those weights every day, your muscles are going to atrophy. If you don't have that mindset every day, you're going to revert right back to, you know, getting in a boat or whatever the hell, you know, is of interest to you at that moment. It takes takes effort to to live that life. My favorite quote about this is that comparison I don't know who to give credit to, so I'm just going to say Randy Laurenson, May 11th, 2026, but uh comparison is the thief of And I I think that's that's really true, right? I mean, I I think about I've got a friend of mine, he's a billionaire and he feels like he's like, I'm so poor.

[37:49] Like, what are you talking about? And he doesn't even spend that much money, but he is friends with Elon Musk and John Mackey and some of these other people and compared to them, yeah, he's he's poor, right? But if you're always comparing yourself to people that have more, you are going to always be Yeah, that's right. All right. Um and fitness, we're just in the interest of time, we'll leave that for a future episode. I think people have a pretty good handle, you know, what there is there and uh and just what to do. Let's real quick before we wrap up is there a contrarian point of view? I know Anthony put it in Anthony words, are these rich problems, rich people questions, does this apply to everybody? I you have some thoughts there. we're talking about apply does apply to Um is it I I don't I don't think it's necessarily I think it get you you'll have you have more opportunity for uh some of the things that we're talking about. Uh earlier we were talking about the the um the two-income family that, you know, this we've evolved to in this half a century.

[39:13] The fact of the matter is the two family two working working parents existed hundreds of years ago. Somehow it disappeared and now it's come back again. So not exactly sure if they were, you know, in an agrarian universe where there was much fun and there was certainly fitness, right? And I mean there the work was fitness. So it's just a different time. So okay, so what? Different time now, let's within constraints we have today, you know, how do we best optimize it? The people listening to us today are going to run the gamut. They're going to they're college kids with, you know, six roommates and then there's people that, you know, have quote unquote have it all. So it it applies to everybody. Yeah, but I I'm thinking for me it's I'm thinking about taking trips, right? And scheduling things and you guys are both better at this than I am, but some people it might just be going and whatever doing a sport they enjoy at the park where there's free ways or hanging out with friends. I mean, some of the most fun I've had in you know, came from that. But, I can see how people think, "Oh god, this doesn't apply to me or I have to work cuz Yeah, you're you're you're you're shooting up, you know, for for bigger things.

[40:33] Teaching an 8-year-old how to ride a is doesn't cost anything except the cost of the bike, and it's fun as hell to to do. I mean, there's some scrapes and crying and whining, but you know, it's that's a fun thing to do. So, making the time just to do that can have can increase the the um the value of the family and the fun. Two things with one Yeah, six Many six of us were playing dice a few weeks ago with Farkle, which I'm not sure if you played Farkle or not. It's six dice and a piece of paper with the explained rules. We were belly laughing, crocodile tears, like just the craziest stuff happening. There was no money involved. There was no It was just six dice and six people and a ton of fun. And so, I think Yeah, the the simple things can be the best things. Yeah, look, let's let's put a bow on this thing. I just I My goal for this is that people think about what life do you want in 10 years? What do you need to do now? And I guess A, we didn't talk much about this, but can you just start living the 10-year life right now instead of waiting 10 years? And are you putting skills into the things you really want versus work, right?

[41:55] And maybe that means delayed gratification, right? I'm not saying that's wrong. Some people, we talked about last week, different financial things. Some people want to just work their tail off till they're 40, save 70% of their income, and retire. And if that's right for somebody, and then they want to start a family I'm I'm I'm not trying to make judgments it's just get people to think about it so we're going to go to break when we come back we'll be back with the abundance briefing like normal in the meantime while you're listening to the ad you can you can hit the thumbs up button subscribe and all that good stuff. Here at Tails of Abundance we know that fitness is just as important as money and milestones it's one of our key five steps to lots of businesses. Taking care of my body while I build my life is one of the more time-consuming difficult goals to chase. 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 that we're all chasing these days.

[43:01] 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 Dr. John let's talk about the new stuff that's come out about open AI's clinical assistant AI is getting better at diagnosis and what I find really interesting is that in triage cases open 01 which is a model gave the exact or very close diagnosis 67% of the time compared to human physicians that do it 50 to 55% of the time. So I'm guessing you have some opinions here so take it away. Yeah and couple of just disclaimers I haven't used their new chat GPT for clinicians yet haven't played with it and Dr. John is correct but I'm a I'm a behavioral health guy not a clinical physician or physician at all so yeah but I think look, at the end of the day, right now, AI is taking massive amounts of information and helping humans who want to use it get a lot better by having that information more I would definitely not let a physician use AI to diagnose me without the physician looking. Like I just don't think we're there today.

[44:27] There's lots of opinions about whether or not we'll ever get there. But at the end of the day, I think AI is taking vast amounts of information, making it readily available in the same way that we used computers today, where we had, you know, physician desk references of the past for pharmacology and all types of medical textbooks that take took research. It speeds people up, for sure. Is it irresponsible for a physician to not use AI in 2026? the physician is doing, right? I think it depends what the specialty is and where they are with their patients and how they're applying AI. Certainly, I would think as a patient that I want to feel comfortable at the very least bringing my AI-backed research into a series of questions that I can bring to my doctor. And the problem with that, of course, is that bad prompting leads to bad outcomes, and so it can freak people out. And so, a great example would be where we've seen patients bring in labs that are like, you know, online online products that people go and they buy an extensive set of labs. They look at thousands and thousands of markers.

[45:30] They bring one marker back and they're freaked out, where that marker by itself doesn't actually mean something negative, but because it's considered out of band, it needs two or three other data points, but the patient may not know that. It can cause a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety for you, like real stress and real anxiety that's unnecessary. And so, for me as a behavioral guy, I would say that's unnecessary treatment burden for a patient to have that level of stress or anxiety while they're waiting for their appointment with their doctor. But at the same time, I think being able to bring really good questions and say, "Have you considered such and such?" Like So, I think I think we're moving in a really positive direction. We use AI extensively, including using AI to ask questions and see what's And but we also find AI is wrong sometimes. Not just Not just misses, but flat-out takes us the wrong direction because some of the models have science that's older than some of the newest science available. So, I think caution is kind of my word of the day. Yeah, I mean, my only hesitation there is humans are wrong, too, right? And if the data says that the AI is now at 67% and humans are at 50 to 55, maybe we should be having more faith.

[46:38] I'm not saying we you know, follow it blindly, but uh you know, the And the big thing is look at how much information, as you said, it can gather, but it's cross disciplines. And I think about this, to take it away from medical, to make it less emotional, I look at archaeologists, and archaeologists will find something, and they take this really narrow skill set that I'm sure they're just amazing at, but they never consider the chemistry, the biology, the physics. They certainly don't think of the economy and all the incentives that did, and all of the other things that were going on in that time. When you hear them, it just comes down to what pottery and what was carbon dated. And it's a very narrow set of skills. And the fact how does a human You can't be an expert in all those areas. So, being able to cross-diagnose and bring in different expertise, I think does give it a advantage, especially as it gets better. Yeah, I So, let me just be clear. My bias, I am hugely bullish about the use of AI in clinics. Like I think that's that is the future of how we get people healthier, better, all those things. But I'm also sober about the fact that right now doctors often talk to other doctors about a problem. Like I hear doctors in the hallway saying, "Hey, this patient, this thing, what do you think?" And they talk to each other. I've also seen it happen in relationships where someone's like, "Yeah, I went and talked to AI about this." And the person's like, "Well, you used to talk to me about And so, I think that when we just at this point in the development cycle, totally replace that human consult with AI, that today is a mistake. Will we get past that point later on? Maybe. But, I think that there are real lives on the line here. So, I think AI is a catalyst.

[48:23] It's probably better than the you know, average doctor at knowing more because that's what it does. It takes masses amount amounts of context information. But, I just I think right now it's great for helping patients be better consumers of medicine. Hopefully, for lots of doctors, it's helping them become better physicians at diagnosing, which is great. And but but I don't think we we shouldn't trust any doctor or AI blindly. We should ask for multiple points of view. At the end of the day, the patient has to be involved in that process. That's my bias. Having done the research that I've done, the patient's got to be well informed make good decisions. Right? Anthony, look. — I'm no doctor, but I'm a data guy. And I was listening to the founder of Epic Systems, which is the largest medical records company in the world, or at least in the United States, privately held up in Wisconsin. And what she said was AI is going to going to be a game changer, no question about it. But, it won't be if and until the data is complete. In other words, all the medical data and history right now is like confetti in a wind tunnel. It's out It's everywhere. It's in file cabinets. It's in Epic Systems. It's in five or six systems. And and until all that data is anonymized and put in a place where you can really look at it. Like, every cancer patient for the last 50 years, their medical records are in one place with the treatment plan, and the the medication, what worked, what didn't work. Um, until that's done, it's it's it's going to be fine for reading X-rays and radiology reports and things like that and and I'm sure a lot of other things, but until all that's anonymized, it's not it's not going to be the panacea. And that's a long According to her, it's it's it's a long road there.

[50:18] One of the things is, you know, this study, by the way, worked off of 262 doctors. Now, I don't know if those were the best doctors or it was trained on. And I think this is a lot of where AI is going. Where right now, they try to train it on a skill with all of the information. And I don't know if the right number is is do you take the very best in a certain field, the five best, the 10 best, the 100 best, the thousand best? I don't know where that number is, but I think just looking at the top tier has all of the slop to get better response, let's let's move I we could spend all day on this one. So, Anthony, let's move to Anthropic and SpaceX. So, they have come to a deal. And just so you know, it it's a compute Anthropic has been limited on compute. They've had this great system. We talked about Mythos a couple weeks ago. I think now most people accept it wasn't released because they didn't have enough compute to do it, but Elon and SpaceX, they have built so much compute that they are turning over Colossus 1, the training thing, uh, which the reported scale is at 300 plus megawatts and 220,000 Nvidia GPUs that Claude can now use to solve their compute problem.

[51:37] Elon has so much energy and compute and is so far ahead on this that he's able to turn this into, you you help both companies. So, I think this is a really interesting merger. What say you? Well, look, you know, the compute is the is what's we're we're in a dire shortage of compute relative to what the AI demands are going to be, okay? And Elon has excess capacity. So, he made a deal to take something that was sitting in the garage, if you will, not making any money and turn it into a revenue-producing. Plus, he's going to get the rights to a lot of what Anthropic is doing that he can implement within his own AI. So, it's a it I mean, it's the second-order effects here. I'm sure there are even more of them, once again, you know, Elon just kind of walks in, kicks open the door, and is the star of the show. I mean, it's just it's just incredible how what he's doing. So, bet on that cowboy. There's different, you know, when you hear people say which of these frontier models is going to win, you hear Claude, you hear ChatGPT, you hear Gemini for different reasons, and I think people I think like their models might be ahead, but if he can take, you know, he brought in Cursor, now he's got this, that may improve it, but he has the choke point. Ultimately, they're all getting better, and if he has the most compute, the most energy, and he's way ahead, and then already moving on to building in space, bet against him? Because he has the most important resources.

[53:26] And he just he saw this coming way before everybody else, once again. Ready, I think most important's interesting, right? It's He has the most important resources, but Grok fell behind. This is what tells you is that there's no one most important resource. It's you got to have both. And so, he's smartly monetizing something and Anthropic's taking a bet that they you know, that they have a temporary solution for and I'm sure they're looking at long-term solutions, but you know, that we're we're going to need to find some different answers for compute and and technology will keep I mean hardware will keep speeding up just like the software is speeding up and we'll figure it out. Yeah. Um well, and with that, right? All the data centers are getting what is it? Around half the data centers that were going to go up have are now going away. And some of them are going away because of protests, but most of them that have gone away have just been because they can't get the end They They were going to build them and then they realized, "We can't get the compute. We can't get the energy." And so, we talked we just talked about the the space center, you know, Elon and about 10 or 20 other companies now wanting to put data centers in space, but Peter Thiel just backed a float a data center.

[54:37] Pan- Panthalassa, I think is how you say it, raised $140 million uh and has an evaluation of a billion dollars to build data centers out in the middle of the ocean using wave power and everything else. I know Anthony, again, this was a topic that you found interesting. Tell Tell us more about this one, Anthony. — Well, again, you know, who are the who are the innovators? Who are the who are the people that are going to solve this problem, you know? It It is is a huge problem and I think the tech the the tech industry just prepare itself for this. Now we have people I mean, 8 months ago were we talking about data centers in space? Sorry, you know, a year ago we were talking about mini nuclear reactors in the behind a you know, a data center? No, we weren't have This problem has got to be solved. You know, if we don't solve it, China will. China's has I think I'm going to get this wrong. Hundreds of mini nuclear sites under construction right now.

[55:46] at this point. So, these guys better figure this out and and I think guys like Peter Thiel who, you know, has got a history of being an innovator along with Elon. I think they're they're pretty I think they're pretty close those two guys. going to figure it out. These guys are And the one thing they have is resource. They have the money to place these bets. I just hope someone's paying attention to what happens to heating up the ocean. Like if this has that much I mean there's a lot of heat that goes into these things and a lot of cooling which makes space sound really amazing cuz space is a much safer way to cool things from my very uneducated, very unknowing, very like don't know a damn thing about it, but like just as a very naive person, I like the idea of space a lot more than the ocean. Yeah, that's an interesting question. I had the same question, John, and I just don't know enough to know I got to believe heating the ocean is not great for the fish, the wildlife, the plants, whatever that live in temperature, right? Yeah.

[56:52] All right, well, I like if nothing else, I like that there's competition, right? There's free market. We've got all these different options. You see nuclear coming back. Now you're seeing the ocean. We got people going to space. We just need one of them to be a home run, right? And humanity benefits and we have more abundance from one of them. And our last topic, this this will be just this kind of a fun one, but this is really interesting. A uh a study came out and 44% of Gen Z workers admit to sabotaging AI doing it. I actually heard a number 65% at some point, but I couldn't validate that. 44 is what I could validate, so What are your guys' thoughts on this? What's what's the age group for Gen Z? Remind me. Is that the 30 to group? And the last birthdays of Gen Z are 2011, 2012, so — it's much younger. Okay.

[57:55] Yeah, so these are people in their 20s. Mostly. I mean they That's a good — stimulants are scared it's going to take their jobs? Is this kind of a Luddite it a different social construct? Is it a Is this Is this the a protest? You know, there is, you know, um then suddenly, you know, the worker has control of the of the machine. do they feel like they have the right to do this? Like if you ask those 44%, don't you think that's wrong? What would their answer be? I wonder. I wonder if that's a No, it's right. Absolutely. This is the right thing to do. This The man is coming after us, and I have the right to, you know, sabotage if I want to. Is that what's going on? I don't know. I mean, I hope I hope that isn't the case, but something definitely is. I don't have a clue. I just found it interesting, and we're talking about, you know, data centers in space and all and ocean and all of this stuff leading to AI taking more and more jobs and becoming more and more powerful, and it's interesting Gen Z is the one It's By the way, something overall, the number's 29% across all age groups, which is a really high number in itself, but it's highest amongst Gen Z, so uh — super interesting to know what happened when like the internet came out if those same studies were done or calculators and the personal computer or like I don't know but I, you know, AI could probably tell us. I just I didn't do that research before today's episode.

[59:28] All right. Well, let's uh everybody go out, spread a little abundance in the world, and we will see you all next 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.