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Your Job Is Not Your Identity How to Reinvent Yourself Before Life Forces You To

Episode 89 · 2 September 2026 · 51 min

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Your Job Is Not Your Identity: How to Reinvent Yourself

Your job is not your identity, but for many people it slowly turns into one. In Episode 89, Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino talk about career identity crisis. Anthony shares what happened after he sold his business, and the hosts lay out a simple framework of awareness and agency for choosing who you want to be.

The samurai lost their swords in a single afternoon. Some built businesses. Others never recovered. The difference wasn't talent — it was identity.

Career Identity Crisis, Life After a Business Exit, and Choosing Who You Are

What you'll discover:

  • Why tying your identity to your job is a trap — and how to escape it
  • Anthony's raw account of selling his business and the void that followed
  • The difference between identity (how you see yourself) and image (how others see you)
  • Why most people never consciously choose their identity — and how to start
  • The "awareness and agency" framework for building an identity you actually want

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Introduction — The samurai who lost their swords
  • [01:13] What is identity? How it forms across a lifetime
  • [02:14] Anthony's story: selling the business, losing the role
  • [04:06] When work is almost all of your identity
  • [04:54] You can choose your identity — but it isn't easy
  • [06:20] The struggles after the exit — the void and the restlessness
  • [07:41] Preparing for the exit, and "senioritis"
  • [09:05] Happiness, identity, and the Stanley Cup moment
  • [11:12] Identity doesn't have to be work-related
  • [12:17] How community shapes identity — social identity explained
  • [13:42] Being high agency: choosing your identity vs. drifting
  • [14:34] Is identity a conscious effort? Should it be?
  • [17:14] Identity vs. perception: are they the same thing?
  • [19:24] Sandler's lesson: separating identity from role
  • [20:40] Young adults, social pressure, and the college identity trap
  • [26:39] What advice do we give a high school graduate?
  • [33:30] Roger Staubach: an NFL quarterback's story of abundance
  • [35:52] The takeaway: awareness and agency
  • [36:42] Sponsor: AG1
  • [37:38] Abundance Briefing — Diamandis: everyone lives like a millionaire by 2031
  • [42:24] NASA's Roman Telescope — 100x wider than Hubble
  • [45:22] The blood secret of 100-year-olds: immune cells that keep expanding
  • [47:33] China's Artificial Sun breaks the Greenwald limit
  • [51:18] Wrap-up

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About the hosts

This is a hosts-only episode with no guest. Anthony Marino tells his own story. He spent 30+ years as a C-suite operations executive, then grew a Central Texas Pella distributorship from under $1M to $30M in sales over 7 years before selling it (from his host page). Randy Lorensen and Dr. John Oberg co-host.

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Related episodes

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

Transcript

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

[00:04] the most honored people in the country, the samurai. They were warriors, but they weren't just fighters. They were the social fabric. They were the ones that held things together. Their swords weren't just weapons. They were everything. Status, identity, proof that they mattered. You didn't just carry a sword. You were a samurai. Then the government passed a single law. No more swords. No more special status. the warrior class gone in one afternoon. Some of them figured it out. They started businesses, built companies. Turned out a lot of them were great at a lot of things. Thousands of others never recovered. They couldn't imagine being anything other than a samurai. Some chose to die rather than become common. When the role was gone, they had nothing Because the sword wasn't just what they it was who they are or who they were. John, you've talked a lot about identity. I know, you know, back when you were a Sandler trainer, that was one of the things even in the sales world, right? There was role and identity.

[01:11] How do you see this playing out in the world today? — Yeah. I mean, for for centuries, right, people have identified with certain things in their value system, their job, their family, and the social norms. These things create identity and and a person doesn't have just one identity necessarily. A social identity might be cultural identity. A social identity might be a group that they identify with as a certain group or a part or subgroup of a larger group. I see it most often with my work when people change jobs, exit a career. Their identity if it's tied to their work or social group and they lose that work or social group, there can be an identity crisis because their value system may change. I think at the end of the day, understanding that you get choices about your identity versus having reacting to things around you gives you a little bit more agency in your life. And so for people that I talk to professionally and even for my family, the goal I think is for people to understand what they can control, what they can't control, and then exercising their agency in whatever way they choose to at that point.

[02:12] — I want to come back to that because I think that's a really important point. But before before we do that, Anthony, you want to talk about how this played out for you? you had a great exit a while back and I remember when going through this this was this was a struggle for you. You want to talk about that for a minute? — Yeah. In getting prepared for this topic overall, I started to obviously think about I had a business, sold a business, and then had to kind of get on with my life. But I was thinking back though, what what really defined me over the years, even before we had the business, I had high ranking positions at some big companies. all of my identity was all about status and power. Then I started my own business and that status kind of disappeared and I and I became a different I had a different identity. I wasn't running a business. I was the business. And then as we got closer and closer to exiting, I had to plan what what I was going to do with my life because I not I didn't have status from my old jobs. I wasn't going to have a business, right? I wasn't going to be the business. what was I going to be?

[03:17] And there there was a real struggle afterwards because I I didn't know. I I couldn't put a I couldn't put my arms around exactly what it was going to be. I knew I was going to keep working and doing things to stay active. I to this day as we sit here right now, I'm not exactly sure what my I shouldn't say what my identity is. I'm not very comfortable with what my identity is right now. I've moved on in other parts of my life in my social life and in my family life to have more of an identity, you know, caring for the grandkids and things like that. That's crystal clear. But from a a business perspective, day-to-day life perspective, I'm still struggling with it. Really trying to form an identity. It's seems very fluid to me right now. — Well, would you say that for you work was the identity? What percentage of your identity was tied up in being the provider, the worker? — Almost all of it. And to the detriment of my family over the years to some extent. And I think that was very very true for a lot of people of my generation. It was it was about building wealth and building status. And you did that through your work. I'm not sure it's different by the way today for for certain certain people. I think that it's still a very common thing. It was sure as hell hard to change your identity or adjust your identity having been at the same, you know, living that same life all alone. I imagine it would be easier with some help if you're younger, but almost all of it has been tied to work.

[04:54] — John, this sounds like where you started with people have a choice, right, Anthony? I'm guessing a lot of that identity came from the way you were raised growing up, just the culture, where you came from, the family, the the neighborhood. But now you're making a choice. And John, this I mean this is a question for you, but am I reading this right? Like he's making a choice now to transition into putting his identity around other things. — That's right. And and and I'm not saying it's an easy choice, right? I don't want to make it seem easier than it really is. But but people do have the ability to associate their what they identify with, right? What value systems. And a lot of those things reach back into very early childhood from the time you're like 0 to six. Some of those things are harder to change than others. But we do know that people make changes in themselves at different places in their life, different times in their life. It's easier and harder at different times. But yeah, pe people do get to make choices around these things. So and and what you identify with and again it's not people will talk about identity sometimes as if it's a singular thing and there there might be a primary identity somebody has but people can have they can identify with several different types of identity even different social identities as an example uh at a given point in their life and that can even create some internal conflicts for people.

[06:11] — Anthony, can you talk more about the struggles when this happened cuz you'd been working your whole damn life and all of a sudden it's wow all of a sudden things are going to change. What were the struggles — when you sell a business? There's relief, right? But then there's restlessness. Now what? You lose the your the your your business network, if you will, because now the business is gone. And so the people, the places, the commute, all that is disappeared. How you drive a vehicle is part of your identity right there. Some of us drive fast, some of us drive in the the right-hand lane. I mean, all of it just goes away. So you got and and there's a void. There's just a void. Thankfully, I had I have some good friends. I have great family. I have the peer group that we all belong to and that was helpful to to have to be able to talk about it. I can't imagine what it would be like if it did if I didn't have a network to talk to and get it get it out on the — Important. This is a place where like even projection becomes a really important thing. Like Anony's just talked about all the places he has identity and like as a driver for example. I don't have a strong identity as a driver where that wouldn't be a thing for me but it is for Anthony.

[07:24] Neither one of them right or wrong by the way but different. Often times we take our view of the world which is our identity and we project that onto other people as the way of seeing it not a way of seeing it. I think that's that's a part of the first thing we do is just kind of pulling things apart so that we can see where the changes are possible. Anthony, we we talked about this identity thing that was going to be coming up pre-exit years before at one point unsuccessfully. And then as we got closer and closer, we talked about the identity thing that was coming. And we also balanced that with managing senioritis. And I don't mean that from an age perspective, but like the high school college perspective where you get really close to a turning point and you start to just want to phone in a little bit. Do you remember all those conversations we had? — It was uncomfortable. Let's just Is that a fair way of saying it? — Yeah. And and I'm glad you brought all that up because I'm not I was I think in retrospect I was very lucky to have people close to me helping me get prepared for this. I I would would have been a lot worse off had I not at least made every attempt to prepare and talked about what am I going to do next and so on and so forth. I mean, it could have been a lot worse than it is. And I don't want anyone to get the impression that I'm in a dire situation here, but there is a there is a still a bit of restlessness. There is still a little bit of uncertainty. Even things like being around the house a hell of a lot more than I used to be. Is you know that I'm I'm certain that there's someone in my life that doesn't want my identity to be the guy who does the laundry. Right.

[08:59] It's still that it's still a work in I've watched you deal with this challenge, but my perception is you're h happier now than I've ever known you. Would you Is that Would you agree with — Am I happier now than ever? very happy. I mean, and we I think we had a podcast about the the definition of happiness at one time. I know we did. And I I think I was the one who said, "I'm not sure you can really define it." I am certainly not unhappy. I'm certainly free to choose the people, places, and things that I want to do. But there is the there there there is a sense of, and put it this way, money doesn't change. Money doesn't create the happiness. Achieving the goal, crossing the finish line first, uh, isn't all that it's cracked up to be. I remember a a hockey player years ago went won the Stanley Cup. His name was Derek Sanderson. Was a long time ago. and after he won the Stanley Cup and he was in the locker room and he was being interviewed and he said, "Is this is this really what it's all about? I I don't really feel much different." Which was an interesting thing to do. You know, you're a hockey player, you win the Stanley Cup, it's the number one thing that he's probably from the time he was 6 years old on and now he's 20some. And he says, "Is this really what it was all about?" And that's kind of the feeling that I had after the exit. Okay, I got money in the bank.

[10:28] It's a little bit of that. — But I guess from again I might be completely off base. My observation is it's more about that you are spending time with the grandkids and the family. You're going to Scotland this week with your son to go golfing and do stuff. Well, you were doing some of that before, but I feel like that change in identity has balanced you. And I you seem happier to me, but maybe you're not. Maybe you're more miserable. — I just don't know what the definition of more or happier is. — You smile more often. — Do I? Well, good. I'm glad I'm glad to know that I do that. It is what it is. And it's there. Look, a 20some who gets laid off for or can't get the job that he wants has to work just as hard to create and and mold a new identity. — He doesn't have to be workrelated, right? I think that's where you see people who are seriously living out their faith, regardless of what faith that is, oftentimes that's their primary identity, and then other identities become secondary to that. As an example, when I was a an athlete younger in my life, I had a bumper sticker that said water polo, a way of life, across my doorframe in my bedroom. And it truly was a way of life. Like that was an identity for me. That certainly not my identity today. I think while many people do have work as their primary identity and that I would say work as your primary identity would be more common in the US than it would be in other parts of the world as an example.

[11:53] And I used to to joke that when I was at a cocktail party in the US and someone says what do you do? It's about the job that you have. But when I was talking to people about what do you do in Europe when I was visiting there, it was like oh well I kayak and I hike and it was more about the the avocations than it was about the vocations and perspective matters a lot and I think that's that is that tells a lot about what they're identifying with. — John, you talk about community a lot. How much of this is about community? And it could be the community of work and that type of people, but it also could be that people get on a group about underwater basket weaving on a social media platform or it's politics or whatever it is, right? How much of that of this identity thing is tied into that connection that people are striving for? — Yeah. I mean, you're talking about a type of identity called social identity and the that is social identification happens both deliberately and I think that I don't know this to be factually true, but I would assume that also there are people that adopt social identities without even kind of being deliberate about it. They just kind of get moved into the wave of a social identity. And I think that in in the most hyperbolic and worst cases, it would be in kind of a bad cult situation where that might happen where some where there's kind of a deviousness about um identity and people talk about identity politics. And from my perspective, my hope for people is that they just understand the impact of their own identity and then they understand what agency they have to be deliberate about it. And then I tell people all the time like not making a choice is a choice, right? If I choose not to swim and I'm in a current, then I'm gonna end up wherever the current takes me. And if people aren't gonna make a choice, that's okay, too. I just want people to know what is available to them.

[13:42] — I love the idea of being high agency making the choice, right? And I do think I do think a lot of people don't think about that. If we use the political example, there's so many people whether on the red team, the blue team, or a different team that they didn't make those decisions. They didn't think about it's just my team believes this and I better fall in line if I want to be a part of this community, right? — There's a there's a really great scene in a movie called Dead Poet Society with Robin Williams and he has all these kids out in this courtyard and he's talking about individualism and how to walk and they're all walking in these crazy weird different ways and there's one kid standing over by a wall not walking at all and uh he says, "Hey, you're not participating." He says, "Actually, I am participating. I'm exercising my right not to walk. And that was the whole point of the scene. It was such a great scene about agency. Maybe we put a clip of it in the show notes. John, let me ask you this. effort? I'm trying to want to get to the point quickly, but I don't know that I [clears throat] ever really thought about my identity or creating an identity explicitly. You know what I mean? It just it just kind of happened.

[15:00] I just don't I don't know how many people are actually thinking about this. And and secondly, is this important? I mean, look, I I'll I'll tell you that um there are lots of people I've met that haven't thought about it and that when they do think about it and they get to make those choices, they report the people that I've worked with directly, they've reported um a much better set of outcomes that they wanted both personally and professionally. I don't think everyone thinks about it. I think that part of the problem is that there are some groups of people that understand how to manipulate identity kind of at the macro level. So people get dragged along with a group identity without really having made any choices about it. Do lots of people think about this. I don't that's not been my experience. Does everyone have the opportunity to think about and choose their identity? I mean for the most part I would say yes they do. Uh and by the way it's in some cultures it's much harder than it is in the US. In the US we have a much easier framework for being able to kind of allow for that type of agency. There are places in the world where choosing a different identity can be physically dangerous.

[16:18] to Anony's point, most the vast majority of people don't think about this. And if you really want to search for abundance, thinking about it and making decisions and taking ownership of it is one of the best ways to do it, to build the life you want instead of the one that just happens because of randomness and — When when I was when I was a little bit more brash in my career and I was leading people, the way that I talked about it was like lots of people are sheep. They just kind of go with the flock and don't be a sheep. And then there are people in the military, they talk about there's sheeps, there's wolves, and there's sheep dogs. Which one are you going to be? I think that there the wolves are the ones that manipulate identity and this analogy. And sheep are the ones that kind of just go with the flow. And then the sheep dogs are the ones that can choose their role and hopefully for the good of the flock and the good of themselves. Although I don't believe it's one person's job to to manage somebody else's identity. Just to be clear, — is not to get philosophical, but to get is is your identity is your identity really what other people think of you and how they perceive you and not so much maybe that's what people are unaware. By being unaware, you don't realize what your identity is being perceived as. As a result, you may not be getting the results. The rewards are whatever because you're being perceived a certain way and you don't really — Yeah. Identity has nothing to do with perception other than your own perception of yourself. So, it's it's what gives you a stable sense of who you are based on your values, roles, experiences, but it has nothing to do with how you see me. It has to do with everything to do with how I see me.

[17:59] — But, okay. So, let let me give you a specific um let's keep this drilling down a little bit. During my my business career where we were I was fighting to climb every ladder I could climb. My identity was I'm a hardworking this guy's a hardworking person knows a lot about particular subject is brash is bold and I thought those were all good things to have as an identity but some of that didn't play well in the it didn't allow me to play well in the sandbox. I didn't necess I wasn't necessarily effective at getting uh peers aligned with with what my goals were, what my needs were. You follow what I'm saying? — Do you? Y — the the identity I created was working against me and I didn't I didn't I didn't realize it. — That's that's more your image or your perception to others. Your identity in my mind is how your identity is how you see yourself. Nothing more, nothing less. It's just how you see yourself. What you're talking about is how other people see you, which would be in my mind a perception or an image. They're two separate things.

[19:08] Is that accurate, Don? You're you're the wordsmith here. Is that is that — Yeah, I think it's close enough, right? I think it's about how you I think some people talk about it in terms of self-esteem, right? And so, how do you esteem yourself? How do you look at yourself? But really, it's it's — Well, John, you used to talk about this and go back to Sandler. I thought Sandler did a really good job of outlining this. You want to talk about there how salespeople look at this? — I mean S yeah S Sandler I think skinnied it down as if you had one singular identity which is not really the case but I think that it what they did is did a nice job of making the distinguishing features of identity being the way you view yourself versus the role which is how you act and how to separate those two things from each other. And I think that's that's a useful framework for most people, particularly in a work context, to separate how you view yourself from the way that you act. — Well, especially sales people, because sa most sales people in most industries get a lot of nos, right? And if they put their identity and their value through that identity into their performance and you get no no, it's hard to be real happy or think you're real successful, right? When when you're constantly — Yeah. I would say that and if your identity is that I'm a hard charger, I think that that can cut the other way, too. I've met people who think that every single person who who's breathing on the planet is their prospect right now. That can be fairly offputting, too.

[20:30] There's a balance for all of that, right? I think if people identify as only being a salesperson, that's all they ever are. It's a short-sighted way of of viewing oneself. I think — so much of it societal pressure though in the group, in the community. I'm thinking we we talked about Anthony exiting his business or business owners, but we have listeners that are 18, 20, 25 just entering the job market, right? And I'm watching because I have a couple of kids in that that group and watching them make the decision of what do they want to study and what job do they want to take. So much of it is social pressure. And even where my kids went to school, everybody went to college basically. And I remember at my son's graduation or actually one of his friends graduation, I was talking to one of their other friends and I asked her, "What are you going to do after college or I'm sorry, what are you going to do after high school or now that you're graduated?" She was like, "Thank you for asking that. What do you mean?" She's like, "You're the first person literally that's not asked me where I was going to college." Got a son that probably would have been happier going into a trade school or becoming a plumber, electrician. and he went to college because that was what was expected in the community in the family and the identity was you're either a college student and you're a college graduate or you're a loser is kind of the versus being happy. I I think it's — and a lot of that was a construct that was made by our society, right? And that's happened a lot of times history where the government wants you to go a different direction. things like social security was a political construct to help with unemployment of younger people and without any value judgment about that just knowing the history can be useful right when I went through this kind of learning about I can actually choose my identity as an adult taking that agency made it great for me because I got to select okay what's important to me what's the value system that I grew up with and is that a value system that serves me well going forward and I I appreciated that level of autonomy where I could actually make some choices about my life going forward.

[22:36] they're typically told is you got to build your personal brand, find your passion, keep upgrading your skills. The problem with that is it creates a powerful professional identity, but it's but you they need to be prepared to abandon it because you're if you're upgrading your skills and you want to find your passion, that means you're going to change. So may maybe some better advice would be what what do you enjoy? What problems do you enjoy solving? You know, what am I naturally curious about? Things like that that would help them find a path, right? What am I what do I like and what am I good at? You know that no one ever gives that advice to to young kids. — Anthony, I think but you're again once again you're projecting right because that's the place in life you are right now. The first thing that most kids have to solve is how am I going to feed myself and how do I put a roof over my head? I think you're jumping way ahead on Masla's hierarchy of needs because of where you are and where your family is. But I think for for most people there's I think more fundamental questions about what and then what value system is their family of origin kind of set like pre-wired them for. I think the identity questions for a 20-year-old are tough because their brain isn't even all the way formed yet, right? It takes another five, six years after that. I think you've got to balance the kind of the the Japanese sense of purpose with eeky guy which is the passion and the skills and the what's the world going to pay me for and what mark am I going to leave on the world on the one hand with kind of Maslaw's hierarchy of needs which starts with the physical needs of food shelter and then gets to self-actualization at the very top but I think skipping steps — well let's let's push on that a little bit because what Randy described was the suppression of Everything you just talked about the no one no one asked in no question was every question was what what college you going to. There was no question about how you going to pay for it. It was assumed that either the parent or the government was going to continue this delay in creating an identity. Right?

[24:43] If if someone had said to me, — back up. Delay in identity. Back up. Identity created long before the — And their identity would be a college student if that's the case as well. — Yeah. I guess I'm I hear what you're saying in terms of your you you have an identity when you're six years old and you have an identity when you're 60 years old. I get it. — That's right. What what we're talking here about is the practical steps that you take to form an identity you're going going to be happy with. That's what I'm that's what I'm talking about. I mean, there's nothing worse than having an identity that you're not happy with. This is who and I don't like me. I know of people who, as an example, were cradle Catholics and their and their identity was Catholicism from early early early earliest memories until late late in their life. And I can show you people that have fallen away from the church, come toward the church, and but but they but there is an opportunity for a lifelong identity. By the same token, I think there's people that worked at a company for 50, 60 years that had an identity that was a work identity for decades long, and that worked. And I think you have people that had identities as stay-at-home spouse as an example for decades long. And then there are other people that have had their identity as an entrepreneur where the identity was I start something new and I exit and I start something new and I exit it. I think there's all different ways and shapes and types of identity.

[26:12] And I hear you keep coming back to your experiences which is your identity where you are but there's a whole other part of the world where people experience identity differently than that. The thing that's the same amongst all the people is that everybody has an opportunity to to identify what their identity is. So to kind of understand what it is and then if they want to adjust that identity, there's there's a a way to do that as well, right? — What's the advice? What's the advice that we're going to give to our listeners here? Give what advice do we give the the high school graduate to the mid20s listener? For me it would be making sure that you understand what pre what what's pressing into your identity and how is it being formed. Right? You have value systems from your family of origin. You have value systems from college professors and from groups that you identify with and those people are are pressing on you about how you identify in the world. Right? Being able to identify those things and then choose which identities you want to lean into or lean away from is an important part of getting to a place where you find your path that you are happy with.

[27:22] — But okay, — but I think but you can't but you can't let go of the fact that you do have like for most people food and shelter is a thing you got to take care of in your early part of your career, — right? So how does that help if that's that was exactly where I was going to go? If I've got to meet the first layer of Maslo's needs and that's it. You got to make you got to make some money so you can survive on your own. How does that help you create an identity? Or is that that or is that just it? My identity is I got to make 30 bucks an hour. What's going on there? You know, spiritually and mentally that's helpful in creating an identity. One good example of that is when you grow up in a family of means, you generally have a different relationship with money. So that you just see money differently, even first jobs out because of your networks and because of the way that you believe, you might have a different set of opportunities than than people who didn't grow up in those organiz those families of origin that that have means. That would be one way that that identity shapes even the early part of your career. And you could argue that's not an even playing field. And I think that's a that's a reasonable argument.

[28:30] The way that my kids, for example, view money at the ages that they're at now are radically different than the way that I viewed money at those ages just based on our family of origin alone. — Anthony, you said what's the takeaway or the advice for me? The big takeaway and I guess therefore advice to others is take agency over this. make choices based on what you want and actually think through what's the outcome that you're looking for, right? And I think we all have lots of identities. We we're talking primarily about people's primary identity, but I'm just thinking about you, Anthony. Your primary identity was more about being the provider, being successful, being the business person, the hard charging, all of that stuff. But you're wearing a Grateful Dead hat for the for our listeners only. You also could have been a dead head. You were a dead head. Part of your identity was as a as a dead head, right? And the business person, I mean, those are pretty contradictory in a lot of terms, but you could have chosen a primary identity to be you could have just been full-time deadhead, right? You at some point made a choice that wasn't the direction you were going. But to me, it's all about taking agency over that. And — yeah, I'm trying to I'm trying to figure out how to help people here. I'm going to ask another question because I don't I certainly don't have an answer to it.

[29:52] I'm on the younger side. I'm meeting the I'm meeting the the first layer of of Maslo's needs. So, I've got shelter and I've got food. I have a a lifestyle that isn't 100% of what I want, but it's it's I'm surviving every day. How does my identity help me get to the next level? What should I be thinking about in terms of developing my identity? You're see you're already doing it though. You're projecting like you getting to the next level. That's your projection of Anony's identity onto the person who you want to give the advice to. The real question about identity is about are you aware of where your identity is coming from and is it taking you where you want to go? The questions you have to ask before that are where do you want to go and is this identity helping me to get there? But you've already made an assumption that it's to the next level. — Okay, that's you you framed it better. That is good advice. It's understanding what your identity is and determining where I want to go. And then you have to look at — and are those two things resolving, right? Yeah, that's that's exactly — that's helpful.

[31:01] — Yeah. One of the things that really was tough for me when I was learning about all this, it was in the middle of a kind of personal crisis that I was having identity crisis and a few things that were given to me were that I had a lot of thoughts at that point in my life about what was right and what was wrong in the world and capital R and capital W wrong. And someone said to me, there's very few things that are capital R right and capital W wrong. But there are lots of preferences and John, you have lots of preferences with very strong opinions. And I mean you guys know me now and if you can remember back 10 years ago, 12 years ago, John, I had more preferences, more strong opinions. And now I have a lot more room in my life for people to have different points of view. Even if I don't agree with them, I at least understand that there are lots of other points of view that are valid and respectable even though I they're not my point of view. They might even be exactly the opposite of mine, but I can still respect that somebody has a very different point of view. Having that and allowing for the room to have other people to have those opinions, points of view also means that there's more identities that people can identify with than I can count. But I can recognize that and it just it makes for easier relationships. It makes for more interesting conversations in my estimation. That's one thing I'd also leave with the listener is that we become aware of what it is that we want.

[32:20] That doesn't mean that's the only thing to want. Maybe maybe the only thing for me, but it might be totally different for you. Again, I I just keep going back to making a choice and what are you focusing on? Dan Sullivan's got a great quote about longevity and and keeping his enthusiasm and and he just says, "Is your future brighter than your past?" Many people like your identity is going to change. If you were the high school football star and you move on and you get stuck in, it's never going to be that good again. And you're still trying to live and not update your identity. you still want to be the high school football star when you're 40 years old, life's probably going to be pretty hard. Probably not be very happy, right? But if you take that and build it, similar to we talked about the samurai at the beginning, right? They were they were these big stars. That was their identity. But some of them figured out to start businesses, do other things, and move on and change or expand their identity. But I think we have to own it and pick what's going to make us happy. I know Anthony you don't think we can define happiness but moving in that general direction at least — to take that Randy into kind of an a story of abundance there was an article about Roger Stalach who was a Dallas Cowboys quarterback in the 60s recently and he started a company called the Starbucks company he sold that company for like $600 million later in his career but this article talked about the fact that he only ever stuck only ever made $600,000 in the NFL that was the total amount of money over his whole career and he actually worked in real estate estate in the off seasons and even during the season on Tuesdays he would work in real estate development to try to build this career and then he gave away 88% of his company when he sold the company. So of that $613 million he'd given away 88% of the equity to people because he believed in the ownership of the company for other people and at 80 years old now he's worth hundreds of millions of dollars but always generous, always working hard. His identity wasn't just as a quarterback in the NFL. He had some identity things that were tied up in other parts and some of his identity was tied in generosity. It didn't talk about that explicitly in the article, but it's certainly easy to draw it back to abundance and identity where he came from. And it just goes to show that like there there's no one way to do it and do it right. Staluk did it in a way that was, I think, probably considered breaking the mold at that point for him or for most of the NFL players, but a really cool story of abundance that was just told recently about a guy who's been really generous and really — And I I think for me too, the abundance, we we got to get back to the five Fs, right? It doesn't have to be all about the financial and the career. I mean, it can be the the fun, the friends, the family. One of the things that the young kids do much better than our generation is they travel and do experiences. I just look at kids now and they're all experiences and I think they've they've got to done a much better job. Now maybe they've overcorrected in that area to some extent.

[35:23] identities. I mean for one person they may not care about having the fancy house. They want to have whatever their version of helping people. It could be feeding the homeless or whatever. I just think making the choice is what I keep coming back to is and because I would didn't make a lot of those choices growing up. It was — what's in front of me and what opportunity is there versus really picking what direction I wanted to go. — What were you saying, John? — I said awareness and agency. That's what you're talking about. I was just I was I was agreeing with you. — Let's put a bow on this thing. What What What are our takeaways? I've said it three, four times that just choosing it. What do you guys What are your takeaways here? What what's your last piece of advice to listeners? — I don't know. My for me this was this was an educational opportunity for me and what I my takeaway is be conscious of what your identity is and then ask the question is this who I want to be and then take the steps. If if the answer is yes continue on. If the answer's no, take agency and make some changes.

[36:29] — That's it. Be aware, be deliberate. I love it. Be aware, be deliberate. — All right, listeners. After you listen to Anthony tell you how to be healthier, come back for the abundance briefing. And in the meantime, download, subscribe, tell your friends. — Here at Tales of Abundance, we know that fitness is just as important as money or milestones. It's one of our five Fs. For me, taking care of my body while I build my life is one of the more time-consuming and difficult goals to chase. Along with a good night's sleep and exercise, you need the right balance of nutrients for good health. That's why we're partnering with AG1. It's a daily drinkable habit. Takes less than a minute. It's formulated with all the vitamins and minerals you need, including probiotics, designed to support energy, digestion, and immune defense. And if you want to try it with our affiliate link, you'll receive a free AG1 sampler plus vitamins D and K2 with your welcome kit. That's when you first subscribe. That's a $72 value. So do it now. Go to take care of a lot of your needs first thing in the morning.

[37:38] — Welcome back. Peter Diamandis says by 2031 the majority of humanity will live like a millionaire and this is what Elon Musk has talked about as universal high income. When you guys hear that what is what do you think when you hear that? — I honestly don't understand how this is going to happen. I'm not it hasn't it it sounds great but is it great or is it just a different playing is it is it a playing field that is just in some ways ele elevated from a dollar and cent perspective and people are no better off I don't it's not it's not resonating with me I don't understand it so I would love some help to to to kind of get wrap my arms around this thing — yeah I just see this totally differently if I if you look at every king over the history of time other than modernday emperors or kings. Even people that are borderline in poverty have things that kings didn't have a thousand years ago like running water, sanitation. There's all these things that people have. Our standard of living today for where the poverty line is. And again, I'm not saying we shouldn't help people out of poverty. I'm a social worker by training. I want things to get better and better. The standard of living does continue to raise over time, even from just a hundred years ago. I see this as having happened more times than we can count. If you look at the last 20,000 years, people are saying it's happening more and faster. I can see it. And the challenge is that we have all these entitlements about people thinking, I have a right to a car. I have a right to and and that's where I think we get a little sideways is that but the reality is that the things we have available to us and the standards of living are so much greater than they were even a 100 years ago that I can't see how this is objectionable in even a little way.

[39:29] — Well, it's all of these futuristic things are coming together. We talk here all the time about AI, right? And AI is adding productivity. I I hear people say it's not and I think it's insanity because it's made me literally multiples more productive. So people I would encourage to to learn that if they haven't figured it out. But it's AI, it's robotics. And I know Anthony, you don't want the robot in your home. But if you can buy a robot at a reasonable price and it can work around the clock doing things that you need done, you will find things for it to do. building a house, the price of building shelter will go down if all of a sudden robots can do it and they can work around the clock and we don't have to pay people, right? And now that brings up a question of what do those people do? But there's going to be new opportunities. Humans have never had a lack of finding new opportunities. And every new technology that we think is going to steal jobs tends to create five or 10 new new jobs for everyone that it takes away. It's flying cars. It's we're doing things in space. where every time I turn around there's new new drugs, new things for longevity. It's all of these things coming together and converging simultaneously. I think that to John's point, we're growing at a speed that we never have. And it's hard for our our monkey brains to figure out how all of that is going to stack and compound each other. But as energy prices become down or energy becomes more plentiful, robots become more plentiful, AI is the dumbest it'll ever be. I really do think it's just I think he's right. It's a world of abundance. I don't know the time frame, but it's it's coming.

[41:11] — And and that's not to say there won't be winners and losers, by the way. I think people have to go along, have to certainly work to be a part of the the the evolving landscape. But it's an exciting time to be alive. Well, the question, John, and you alluded to this, is Rockefeller at one point was the richest person to ever live. Would you rather be a middle class or even lower middle class person today or would you rather be Rockefeller? And I think some people would choose Rockefeller because they would choose the power and everything else, right? But he didn't have indoor plumbing. He didn't have cars to drive. Now, maybe later in his life, the car came around, but you had to take a horse and buggy everywhere. if he wanted to go to Europe, it was weeks on a boat or whatever it is. And he had to get his his butt from Cleveland via horse and buggy and train and everything else. Access to the foods. I mean, all of the different things, electricity. I think most people with their big screen TV and their iPhone and being able to take an Uber everywhere and Door Dash would choose today over being Rockefeller back then, — especially if they really understood it.

[42:17] I think that's right. — Yeah. All right. Well, anyway, I think it's good news. I think that's where we're going. This next story is talking about some of this. And NASA just launched the most powerful eye in the universe, and it's already in space. A huge telescope, by the way. They put it on a SpaceX rocket, not a NASA rocket. I don't know why it says NASA, but anyway, they put it on a Falcon Heavy from the Kennedy Space Center and a $4.3 billion mission, and its field of view is a hundred times wider than the Hubble telescope. John, what's this mean to — I mean, look, more information, more data is super interesting. I don't I have a hard time. Space is not my environment as much as the biology and science and wellness, but I just think about all the things we're going to be able to learn by having something so much more powerful than the Hubble. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around it. I'm excited about all the all the new data and pictures and things that are — I think what — Well, Hubble Go ahead. — Go ahead, Anthony. Go. Well, the Hubble telescope gave us a view that we never had before, but it actually created more questions than answers because we started to see things we had never seen before. We didn't understand them. We found black holes. Still don't quite understand how what what they are or how they get there or what the lifespan of a star is and so on and so forth. And I expect this will be the same thing. We we will learn some things but I think more questions will be uh there'll be more questions than answers in the long run and if there is you know life out there other than here on earth will this be the the portal through which we find that who knows I would advise everyone to watch the the actual Falcon Heavy take off yesterday and the reason NASA's on here NASA paid for the uh the launch watch, but it is amazing to watch those that that thing take off. Uh the the power that that thing generates is just incredible. And the fact that two out of the six rockets are reusable is pretty amazing.

[44:23] — Yeah, it's — quite this. — Just so listeners know, they're going to send this thing almost a million miles from Earth is where it's going to be stationed and then it's going to be a five-year mission sending things back. And I think this ties into our last topic, right? We are going to get new information. I don't know what we're going to learn. I'm sure we're going to learn plenty. And I'm excited that they're going out and they're trying to figure out what this dark matter is. I don't know if people are aware of this, but I think it's something like 95 to 98% of the universe is what they call dark matter. And they don't even actually know. Zero people know that dark matter exists. We can't prove it. It's just a theory that 985 98% of everything around us, we don't know what it is. I'm hoping it's going to do that. But my guess is that we'll learn 50 things that we weren't expecting to learn by being able to see farther, see brighter from farther away. That's more information for humans to study, but it's also more information for AI to study, which should make it that much more effective. Dr. John, there have been some medical news this week. In particular, I'm interested in the the uh blood secret that help for people that live past 110.

[45:30] — Yeah, it's cool. The University of Osaka just released some information August of 2026 that found uh people over a 100red years old are carrying high levels of this CD4 cytotoxic Tlymphosytes, CD4 CTLS. And these are like cells that go out and they eat bad cells in your body is the best way I can understand it. And you know, right now, typically these are like 4% in people age 70 to 99, but these people over 100 have 9.6% of these cells. So more than twice the amount, and they continue to improve with age. It's not their immune system just isn't aging in the same way that other people's are. And the stuff that I read didn't show anything about stem cells related to this, but I'm super curious to see if we can get stem cells to turn into these cells, that can give everyone a better shot at aging past 100. So, no idea where this is headed. Not my field of science as my expertise, but I'm super excited to track it to see what it means for me personally and see what this means for future therapies around uh the immune system. So, really excited about that.

[46:32] — It seems to me that if they can identify this that the next step is they figure out how to give more people or everybody these cells, right? I mean, — that that's the hope. Either either get people to create them like stem cells or be able to transfuse them. I I don't know how it's all going to work and that's again not my area of expertise, but I sure am hopeful what they're finding. And then I think the same thing is happening over in the cholesterol side of the house where there's an FDA approved drug that is promoting healthy lifespan. And so now they're trying they just uh did something where they're trying to add to your life with this new cholesterol drug. And then I'm hearing that they're talking about genetic improvements where they can actually help people who are genet genetically predispositioned to higher cholesterol solving some of those problems as well. So a lot of things are happening around longevity that that we're learning more and more and so I'm pretty excited about that. And then of course in our practice we keep talking about get the right medicine more like just get the exercise and diet thing right and it's going to help a ton. — Okay. Tell us about ch China's artificial sun. Again, the three of us talk about energy all the time and energy being kind of really important for the future of the world. And China has this reactor called an artificial sun where they have taken what looks like a huge step forward in fusion. I had to read about this to figure it out.

[47:51] But scientists for years, like decades, 40 years or so, have tried to pack plasma past a certain density called the Greenwald limit. And that's where the plasma goes unstable and collapses, right? And so this Chinese reactor just blew past that limit, running like 30 to 65% denser than what they thought the ceiling was. And the trick was managing how this super hot plasma touches the reactor's metal walls. So if they keep the wall cooler at startup and less metal flakes off to contaminate and cool the fuel, the whole thing stays clean and stable at a higher density. And what's cool about that is that like it changes the limits of what we thought was possible. And it means that uh we're one step closer when you look at some of the stuff happening with the giant international reactor in France of making fusion a reality by moving the science forward on a couple of fronts. So I wouldn't say this is like breaking the laws of physics, but I think we've certainly gotten past a barrier that we thought was true for physics for the last 40 years. So I think if you're a physicist, assuming this all turns out to be repeatable, you know, reproducible, pretty exciting science coming out of out of the tiny sun. So I'm always excited when there's something that we have considered was a limit or a law or a rule and science, which that's the whole purpose of science is to disprove things and find that wrong. Like this is science doing what it's supposed to do. So to me, that's pretty cool. Anthony, I know you have some concerns about this or some — Yeah, for sure. coming out of China.

[49:22] — Well, yeah. Number one, it was China and not us or not a European group of scientists. and listening uh recently to someone talk about how the science if if you're if you're a if if Einstein were alive today and he presented his theory of relativity and I'm I'm using this example that this person used he would be an outcast because the theory of relativity was a completely new way of thinking and because of the way science is done in the United States now where you've got to get published you've got to get grants. They're more inclined to be very incremental in their thinking versus thinking way outside the box to something that was that might be impossible. And I and I think John, you said not only did they achieve this end, they they exceeded the what they thought were the absolute limits of it. So, it's concerning to me that China's leaping ahead in the world of science. They're obviously catching up very very quickly in the world of AI and we just seem to be whistling past the graveyard. So, I'm a little bit concerned about it.

[50:35] — I'm pretty sure I listened to the same thing you did. His point is that if you tried to do this and get a grant for it, you would never get funded, right? — All of the grants go to things that are trying to make what we already know or think we know five or 10% better. And if you're trying to do something that's a one inaund shot that there's no way to get funded or even attempt that in the — Well, this goes back to what I said several I mean this I've said it before lots of times, but we know right now if we move our universities back toward basic research and away from applied research. I think that that's how we made some of the greatest scientific advances of the last hundred years. And so that's probably a different full topic for a different day, but worth getting into. Very well. Until next week, listeners, go out, spread a little abundance, and make the world a little bit better. — but you can split you can split it with the other one. — I know. Thank you for spending this time with us.