Ep. 1 – Breaking Free & Finding Purpose | BlackWlvz Podcast ft. Jonathan Reichental

Hey everybody, this is Garrett and Jade, and we're the Black Wolves Podcast. This week we have a friend of mine, Jonathan, here who we're going to talk to a little bit about concepts like durability and persistence and achievements. Jonathan has had a pretty accomplished professional life. I think personally as well, like he's had a pretty, we've had a pretty close relationship over many years, which I have always appreciated. So we're going to talk a little bit. I'm going to give a little bit of a background of how we met, and then we're going to like launch into like some of these concepts, if that works for you.

I love it. Yeah.

So, you know, you and I met, I don't know, it's probably been a decade ago now when all is said and done. And you were the CIO for the city of Palo Alto at the time. I worked for the county of San Mateo. And I think I remember hearing you talk about open data and kind of when that concept was just coming on the scene, especially in government. And I I was fascinated by the concept, right? So it was, I brought that back to the county at the time where I kind of tried to emulate some of the things you were doing in the city. And I think we just ended up running into each other in various conferences and started talking to each other. And then you moved on from that and I moved on from the county and maybe we were a little like looser, we still kind of connected maybe through social media and things like that. Or if we ran into each other, because we live in the same neighborhood. But we then didn't, you know, have that much interaction or the same type of interaction. And over maybe, I don't know, it's been about 8 months or so, you know, we kind of reconnected and yeah, we would go on a walk and we'd be talking and it's been great. Yeah, it's been really great. So, you know, I wanted to kind of frame this up and maybe you could give a little bit of background about yourself, like, you know, what do you do work for work-wise, but also kind of what makes you tick.

Sure.

And then we can kind of play off of that and just see, explore some of those ideas.

Yeah, certainly, certainly. Well, thank you to both of you for having me here, and it's great to meet you, Jay, and good to be with you, Garrett. And I love what you're doing in terms of the topics and the things you're exploring. Very important. And that's why I wanted to be one of your first guests. Yeah, yeah. Because I believe in what you're doing in a big way. You know, no career is a straight line, and mine certainly isn't. But recently I've got thinking about, you know, Who am I and what is it that I bring to the world? When I look back, you know, I'm really an educator. That's what I am today more than ever. But if I look back at my roles at the city or before that as a consultant, you know, in a big firm and the topic of technology and having teams and having people work with me, what I'm doing basically all the time is learning myself, but also communicating that. Those learnings to the people with me so that they can be successful. And along the way, hopefully I'm successful too, possibly through them and with them. So that's a big core. Now, I'm a technologist. My education is all technology right through undergraduate, graduate, and a PhD. So that's consistent, right? I have an engineering degree from, just for good measure, it's around it all. Okay. Yeah. But when I think about how I started. I started because I was watching my brother program a computer back in the '80s, and I was a kid, and you kind of look up to your older brother. And I remember coding something very, very simple on a VIC-20, and I showed it to my dad, and he was really impressed. It didn't do much. I think it changed colors on the screen and made noises. But once I impressed my father, that was it. I was hooked. In America, I was in, and yeah, fell in love with tech. And when I think about the things I've done, I like technology because of what it can bring to the world and what it does for people. And, you know, recently in the last few years, I've taken my experiences and my love of technology to a very large level, tried to help city leaders all over the world how to use technology to advance, you know, the quality of communities. And that's a big part of what I do today. But I also advise businesses in the same way. But if I look at the spread of what do I do the most, the largest part is public sector related. And then there's a smaller part which is universities and private organizations. And so going back to this sort of theme of education, because I believe in lifelong learning, it's rewarded me handsomely, to be honest with you. Going to school is, you know, going to advanced education is really going through some tough, I think, rethinking these days.

Yeah.

But whatever it is that you do to acquire knowledge and then get some experiences and skills, assuming you apply it the right way, there would, you know, there, it should pay you back well, you know, you gotta be current and it's gotta be in-demand work. But then, you know, the education's gonna pay dividends. So I write, I have 7 books today, which I can't believe, just in the last few years. I really started writing a lot during COVID And I don't mean to, yeah. And Valerie, you're around a lot of people writing books and it just means a lot that you're giving back that information. Thankful. Yeah, for sure. Well, it's a great way to scale. Yeah. I can do podcasts and I can do YouTube videos, but if you write, you kind of dump your knowledge into a book, a 300-page book, and it sells all over the world. It's just a wonderful way to scale your contributions. Yeah. And I think that's what a big part of it is for me. And then I do videos. I do LinkedIn Learning videos that people can watch. On a whole range of tech-related topics, everything from digital twins to blockchain, all the stuff on cryptocurrency and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Industry 4.0. So it's a little bit of a kind of a windy way of telling you about what I've been doing, where I came from, how I got to today. I think where we're probably going to go in the conversation is, you know, I was part of sort of the corporate world, the structure of business up until about 5 years ago. And then I walked away from it.

Yeah.

And I started out a completely new course.

Yeah.

Which I could entirely control.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's it. That's, you know, that's a great segue into kind of what we were kind of talking before. If you started talking.

Sure.

And what I really, what I really like about kind of exploring this topic for you is, you know, we all kind of believe in, you know, you were born in America, but you've lived here for a while, right? So, but the kind of the quote unquote American dream, right? Which is kind of, you know, go to school, maybe get educated, you know, come out and get a job, work for the man, do corporate America, you know, kind of try to make your, get your piece of the pie. But I feel like there's a certain level of risk in mindset that goes into kind of veering from that path.

Right.

And just to be honest, like for me, like I haven't found that yet. This podcast is like my first foray into kind of trying to strike out on my own, do something that kind of fulfills me in a different way than work does. But you know, what was going on in your mind when you're like, okay, I've got a good career, I'm getting paid pretty well, you know, I've kind of got things under control. And then all of a sudden one day you're like, I don't need that anymore, I don't need the security. Or maybe you thought— maybe that's not what you thought, but yeah, what was kind of going on in your mind? Because I think that plays into a lot of the concepts we're trying to get across, like those are, you know, risk tolerance and durability and trial and error and all these other things. Yeah, I think we kind of leave on the table so often in our lives. Like, yeah, don't explore those skills that we actually do have, but we're a bit too afraid to try.

Yes. Yeah. If I went back to a younger version of myself and was able to see me now, I wouldn't believe it. Action. I don't think I thought I would be this way at this point. And in some ways I wish that my older self than now could have spoken to my younger self because actually I would have done a lot of things sooner, made a lot of decisions that I eventually did, but did them later and I probably should have done them sooner. I mean, I was Mr. Corporate. I mean, there's no doubt about it. When I was with a big consulting firm. And it was, for me, it was all about getting to the next level, promotion, earning more money, having more staff there. What I thought was the American dream or what I went after. And it did serve me well and I learned a lot. I was surprised to work for the government. You know, that was, it did come from left field, but it seemed like a great opportunity. I was gonna still be the technologist. I was the Chief Technology Officer. So I knew I was going to be working on tech-related things, but I was also fascinated by cities and fascinated by government. It was sort of like I often say, you know, I wanted to peep around the curtain. I wanted to know what was on the inside. And some of it was, you know, as I anticipated, but a lot of it was quite a lot of surprises. But, you know, to get to the core of your question though, when I found myself sort of, you know, really about a year or so before I left finally the city and went out on my own, there was just so many moments when I would be sitting in meetings or be asked to do things, or I would ask for permission to do things where I started questioning, like, this doesn't seem to be really who I am. Like, it's not a good use of my time., and we have very limited time. Like, let's recognize that. Yeah. I look at a calendar these days and I flip through it. I'm like, I don't have much time left. Yeah. And I mean that both in a little bit of a humor, but also in an awful lot of seriousness. Yeah. And so it's sort of, that was a moment where I said, there's something else I can do. There's some other way that I can live my life. Now I decided to leave the city. The city manager was leaving and I said, this is a good time for me to move on. I planned to stay 3 years. I ended up spending 7. It was good work. It was interesting work.

Yeah.

But it was time for me to sort of, you know, move on. And I, but I was having these deep thoughts about, well, what do I actually want to do? Do you know, is the next job gonna be again, corporate job or another city. And I certainly interviewed with some tech businesses and things like that. But I guess I had that just a moment where it's like, it's a combination of the feelings I had about what I should be doing, the value I should be bringing, the age I was at and what was next and how much time I had left of, you know, when I'm gonna be bright and energetic and enthusiastic about things here. And so that intersection sort of suddenly suggested to me maybe I should try something a bit bolder, try to do my own thing. And not for everybody. And I think the risk was balanced because I kind of went through what I think everybody would go through, which is, do I have enough money in my bank account if things don't work out? You know, what's my buffer? What's the worst thing that can happen? But so starting the worst-case scenario, working backwards. And, you know, it's true, most things we worry about don't actually happen. Bad things happen with people. Sure, we can explore that a little bit further. I'd be happy to. Yeah. So I mean, that sort of, for me to be as bold, say I'm not going to actually get another job and I'm going to do the things I want to do. All this is out of character. But as I look back, reflecting on 5 years, approximately about 5 years later now, it's exactly who I am. Like, it's hard for me to imagine doing anything else than that. And the question is, well, what does that mean? What am I saying when I say do anything else? Having control over each of my days, like having the freedom to make choices about what I do. Now, fortunately, I have the experience and education, the tools to do things that are valuable. And what's really key here is asking yourself on some sort of periodic basis, and that could be monthly for some people, quarterly, whatever, is do I have something unique to offer to the world? What is my value? Okay. Yeah. And I heard a wonderful thing recently. I'd love to share this with you. How you can find out what you're supposed to do is number one is do you have the skills to do it? Number two, do you have a passion for it?

Yeah.

And does the market need it? I said, that's the most succinct thing I've ever heard. That's absolutely perfect. And it matches all the things I do. The minute one of those three don't actually work, you got problem. Yeah, yeah. You're not aligned, right? So I have that every day now. I do quite often, probably more often than I should. I ask myself, you know, do I like what I'm doing? Am I—

yeah.

And do I have the skills for it? And does anybody want to buy it? Where you upselling, whatever that—

yeah, yeah.

And right now it's, you know, it's, it's, uh, it's consulting, it's education, it's writing, it's doing videos, uh, just being an advisor, it's spending my experience, it's working with students.. And so I got this wonderful freedom. And look, I don't know what 3, 4 years from now will be. Nobody does. Nobody does. The world is changing in remarkable ways. So I don't try to worry too much about the future. We'll get to the kind of mental health in a few, I think.

Yeah.

But that's, yeah, that's what got me to this unique moment. And living in Silicon Valley, being a technologist, these are good things, you know. Yeah, you know, not everybody who will watch this podcast or listen to it will be fortunate enough to have their skills perfectly aligned in the community in which they operate.

Yeah, man, I think two things, a few things that kind of caught me on your conversation is one, um, you mentioned earlier in the discussion about like, I'm an educator, right? And then you talked a little bit about kind of like thinking through your process of kind of doing this. And I don't know if I'm— I don't want to put words in your mouth, but like, it seemed like it was a moment where like, all of a sudden, like your soul aligned for a little lack of a better term. And you kind of like, all of a sudden you were able to embody what, who you are with what you're doing. They kind of like meshed.

Yes. Right.

And that doesn't always happen for people.

No, it didn't.

I'm kind of a firm believer when those things do mesh, that's when you're in the zone. That's when you're in the groove. Right. That's when things are happening for you. I'm perfectly aligned. I am doing and living who I am.

Yeah.

And that, I mean, that's— do you ever kind of get in that? Like you're in the zone, you're like, wow, it's just like, like my work doesn't feel like work, my play doesn't feel like work. Like, it's just like everything just kind of encompasses and encapsulates itself.

It does. And I think what I think about most when I reflect on that question, and I do it often, is could I not have got here sooner? You know, did I have to get to midlife and beyond to have this realization in this moment. And I wish again, I had done it sooner. Now, the fact that I've done it and I'm thriving out of this is a good news story. Maybe things had gone differently. I wouldn't be sitting here in New Geistem, or we'd be having a very different conversation. But this idea that I finally did it, got the guts to do it, I was in the right situation or did it and it worked out. I'd like to have done that sooner in my life. That's the big takeaway. And so, you know, the first year of actually doing my own thing was tough. Oh yeah. And there was a lot of anxiety.

There really was.

It's only when I sort of started getting paid and realized this is working, and then the second year it got better that I said, maybe this is okay.. And then, you know, 5 years on now, I kind of, it's working very well, thankfully. It's, it's, I have to pinch myself because I'm like, it's like I, I had no idea that I could get to this point and be at this point in my life right now. Yeah.

I mean, to kind of even kind of get into that a little bit, right? So I've been, I wouldn't call myself a metaphysicist by any extent of the imagination, but like I, I've listened to some of these concepts and one of the prominent concepts in that is like, it can't happen until you think of it, right? So everything exists as a thought before it becomes a reality. I'm not going to get into all the possible dimensions and things like that, but I think what's interesting about kind of, you know, you can start asking yourself all sorts of questions like, could I have done sooner? The question is, Could you have thought of it sooner? Yeah. Right. And you kind of start playing on some of those ideas. And then maybe if you kind of take it to the nth degree, you realize it happened when it was supposed to happen. Yeah.

Right.

And coupled with the work experience that you had, you know, where you were in your life, everything aligned and you were able to kind of step out of this place that you were not in an uneducated way, like, oh, blind faith, but working into a place where you're like, hey, this feels like it's alignment with who I am, what value I bring to the world. I think that's— we've talked a little bit about this together off of the podcast, but this idea of— I think many of us deep down inside of us, when we started, we all think we're here for something a little bit more than maybe what we're doing at that moment. And I know for me, like, I'll just use my job. I like what I do. I'm intellectually stimulated by what I do. But like, it's not in the Maslow's world, my self-actualization. It's not really what is completely aligned with my, right? And, you know, I think, you know, when I met Jade, doing what we're doing here with the podcast is for me, is kind of similar on a much maybe less risk thing. I'm not betting my career or money on this at this point. This is more about, hey, I found somebody who I connected with. We found some topics that really we think resonated in that there's value. Getting back to that concept, like, is there a market? Is there value in what I'm bringing to the people? And our big thing is we talk about we want to speak greatness into the universe for the human experience. Yeah, exactly.

That's it.

And that's kind of like what we're about. And hence why we have you and we want to hear your experience. Yeah, exactly. Right. It's really at the end of the day, this is the venue for people like yourself to speak your greatness. Right.

And only have taken risks and really found the passion to do something and really like, I mean, you're an educator, you're here to help people.

Yeah.

You know, and that's what Black Wolves means.

I mean, that's why we're so thrilled to have you.

We just want to hear like what greatness you're bringing to the table.

And I think that you embody it. Thank you. You know, if I look at my— I've worked for over 30 years now, although I can't believe it. And for most of that, I was working. And then I was at this firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers.. And I got a job. They created this position, the Director of Technology Innovation. Nobody really knew what it was. They, a person, you know, was asked to do that position, but they ended up leaving or moving to another position. It became vacant. And I said, I'll go for it. You know, it seems like a good alignment. And I got the job. It's the good news story. And I remember meeting with my my supervisor at the time and said to her, what do we want to do with this job or this position? What do we, what's the outcome here? And their answer was, I actually have no idea. You make it up if you figure it out. Yeah. And so the next, and this was like, this was a gift.

Yeah.

I can create this thing. And what I discovered was you could actually get paid for your hobby. I actually stopped working and I started doing my hobby, started playing. I started doing what I love to do. And okay, this is going to be really pokey, but I'm going to say I never really worked after that. Now that's— I should have thought about the timing of this, like 2006. So I haven't really worked in the sense that I get up every day, like I have to go to a job. Yeah.

And not at labor.

Yeah.

That's how I kind of differentiate it in my mind. Labor is the place you go to get paid that you really don't want to be at. Work is, hey, I do stuff because it's intellectually stimulating. I enjoy. Oh, and by the way, and I get paid to do it too. Yeah.

So I do. I don't take it for granted. And I feel very fortunate that I've had those opportunities. Now, again, this is going to sound like another cliché, but there's a lot of hard work involved in all of this. There are long hours. I mean, just if I think about the studying that I did to get into, to be able to have, I remember I'm sitting at the, it's the very first day of the PhD program, which I was accepted into. And the Dean, it's funny, like you go through these big programs, whatever. And I remember like 5 conversations over the course of, you know, several years that really stuck with me. But the Dean said, you know, you're, congratulations, you know, it's unique for you to be here. You've earned it. You've been accepted. To all of the PhD students, not just me. And he said, you know, what's gonna happen is you're, you're going to, what this is gonna do, it's gonna open doors for you that weren't open to you before yet. And when you go through those doors and you sit down at the table, this is amazing. This is what this will do for you. But the minute you open your mouth, all bets are off. At that point, it's like it's, you're starting from scratch. So what has happened is through my education and my work, doors have opened, but I've had to perform after those doors have opened.

Yeah.

And I've worked long hours and there's been tough days and good days, but then it allowed me to have that second chapter or third chapter, whatever, where I suddenly realized, you know, you got to find your song and sing it every day. And so I did that and then From then on, it was, how do I keep doing this? And each opportunity that I've pursued has— that's the lens by which I pursued. And I think today is the personification of that, is doing exactly what I want to do, not feel that I'm ever working, but I'm contributing in some way that is useful to the world.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that's what a lot of us hope to accomplish, right? And, you know, in our lives, right? It's, I think deep down, society and kind of the systems that we're in right now have actually benefit from, you know, disjointing us, right? And kind of pulling us apart, making everything about the individual. Individualism versus kind of these more pluralistic kind of concepts that, you know, as kind of a collective group, you know, we move together forward. And, you know, my thoughts is that you've really spent a lot of time, you know, thinking about these concepts, right? You know, where you've spent a lot of time, like you said, you've spent a lot of time educating cities, right, about how to build better communities, right? And how technology can serve as a backbone. I mean, social media and things like that, it does have kind of some negative connotations with it. But on the flip side, there are, you know, as an example with a podcast, like we're able to get ourselves out, right? And voices are able to be heard that maybe only had a very discreet community. We're able to get across across the world, right? So, you know, I think I'd be interested in kind of your perception on a couple of those things, but also, you know, kind of calling this into kind of an advice kind of approach. I think we could kind of glean some of those out. But if, you know, for our listeners, advice you have around, you know, like you said, you've had bad days, right? I imagine maybe some days like you all were like, I'm done, I'm quitting, I'm walking out the door, I'm done with this pursuit or whatever it ends up being. But I heard something and I do put you in this category where I heard a quote that went, the difference between the exceptional and the mediocre is what the exceptional people do on their worst days. Right. And that kind of resonated with me, right? Because we all have good days, we all have bad days. That's the human experience. It's universal.

Yeah.

Right. But why do some people rise to success and others don't?

Yeah.

And I think a lot of it has to do with kind of the mentality that we bring that, hey, even on my bad days, Like, I'm not giving up. I might feel like giving up, but I'm going to continue to pursue. I'm going to continue to see something better, a brighter future, a better outcome. Maybe talk a little bit about that because you don't end up with a PhD and a master's degree and CIOs and a lecturing career and all those things just like going, oh, well, this feels a little too hard today. I'm going to stop.

Right? No, that's right too. I'll tell you about— there's two things that I— let's call them qualities that I have that can be both positive and negative, unfortunately. So the positive is that I'm both patient and I persevere. So I've thought about this quite a lot over the years. When you are patient, you know, waiting for something to happen rather than abandoning it too early when you were so close to getting it is useful. Perseverance means that when somebody— when the first conversation you have, when you're asking for something, somebody says no, yet again, you don't give up. You persevere. You actually try to do it. I magnify these, both patience and perseverance, to the nth degree. A lot of who I am. But the negative is I'm too patient and I persevere too much when I should. And again, that's one of the reasons why I think that I would like to have been further along in my career where I was in my life earlier than where I'm at now. But I'm okay with what has happened. I was too patient sometimes with things that I tolerate, whether it was a bad manager, which can happen. And I stayed too long, should have moved on. Why didn't I? It's interesting, right? A little bit of fear there, but also that it just seemed like I didn't have to wait long enough, that the patience was okay. And then the same thing with perseverance there. You know, it's a quality of innovation, by the way. If you're doing really good innovation, most of the time people are going to say no. And the only way you actually get the big things done, the risks achieved, is when you are pretty persistent and you persevere. But there's a point at which we stop. Constant perseverance to advance, to achieve something that clearly not going to happen. There's a point at which you say, enough, I'm going to pivot. I'm going to choose something else, to use a Silicon Valley term. So those are two qualities. I think I try to use them now in the right measure. I think that I am a more patient person, and I think patience does come a little bit with age and wisdom. I still persevere. I still get a lot of nos. I touch my nose. Yeah, if you're listening to this, you don't know what just happened. I saw what happened. And so whereas— no, but the point being, today I think I have a better sense of when to persevere assertively and when to back off. In order to serve someone I'm helping or some interest I'm trying to find.

We're going to stop for a second, but I want to segue into the concept first is two things is what you're talking about is strength to weakness. Right? You like a lot of our times, our strengths are our weakness or weaknesses are our strengths. And the other one is I want to segue into a little bit around your personal pursuit. Right. Not just like in the sense of what caught me and why I really wanted to get you on here is we have conversation and this is when I maybe realized Jonathan's a little bit deeper even than I thought he was. As I said, what are some of your goals this year? And you've talked about how you want to find more inner joy. Yeah. Yeah. And so we want to talk a little bit about that, but we're going to take a quick pause.

You were talking about patience and perseverance. Students that you have, what would you say to them if they're stuck in the corporate world and they're on that seesaw and they're not understanding or what they should do next? What would you say to them and what insight could you give them?

What's probably the most common conversation I have with the— I teach a lot of graduate students at university. So they are, you know, they already have jobs. They probably are a little way, a little bit into their careers. So, and they're often in a graduate program because they're trying to change the direction of their life. Yeah. I mean, that's the impetus for a lot of people. They've got an undergraduate degree, they're happy, and so that's fine. They don't have any need, but suddenly they're like, how do I get the next job? Or how do I get into that industry? Or so one of the ways to do that, you've got to get maybe that certificate, you know, because whether we like it or not, these are still the tools we use to get ahead in the United States.

In many parts of the world.

So they do ask me this question, you know, how do I prepare for the next thing? And look, everybody's situation is made to be unique. So generalizing here is hard. I do think that we all need to have our own vision statement, right? And I'm not sure when a student comes up to me, and now I'm talking about the no student in particular, but a student. And when I start to maybe dig a little deeper, do you know what your value is? Do you understand what your vision is? You know, is will make you happy and bring you joy? And these are questions perhaps they haven't confronted. And I try to help them begin to unpack those and really think about them deeply. There can be a point at which they suddenly realize maybe they're in the wrong program or they have to make some very significant changes because they never thought about, you know, what they need, what it is they want and how to get there in a quality way.

Or like checking a box, like, oh, I think I need to get to the next place in my career. Maybe I need to be more educated. Maybe I need to take that maybe that's what's going to break the ceiling for me, get me to the next place. But kind of maybe what I'm hearing a little bit is it doesn't always get you that if you're not— maybe if it's not supported by somebody having a vision.

Yeah.

For themselves and where they want to go.

Well, that's very, very true. It'd be useful if I give a specific example. Sometimes what happens is a person, you know, they they are in a graduate program or they're just studying in school and they're getting good grades and they're thinking this is taking them to where they want to be. And then I'm having a conversation and suddenly it comes out that they eventually would like to run their own business. They'd like to open this restaurant, maybe, or something. And then my question is, well, why aren't you doing that? What is this sort of like step you're taking or and suddenly you realize the person's confident or they don't know how to get to the thing. And what I try to do is, you know, encourage them to be a bit bolder, is that they actually go after the thing they really want. Yeah. And, you know, it'd be interesting if you surveyed a lot of people and you asked, you know, why are you not doing the thing that you love? What variety of answers you might get. Some of it is just lack of confidence. Or it could be just they don't know how to, and they don't have a mentor or someone to help sort of guide them. But I, again, this is easier for me to say than it is to do. I'll acknowledge that is life is short and I don't know if there's a half to life, there's anything left. So I'm assuming there isn't for now. And you know, what's the worst? Take the risk, go for it, be bold. Yeah. Doing the tough things. And why not? I mean, what else is there? You know, maybe we'll find out that there is an afterlife, but we'll only find that out— or there's something else, I don't know, whatever that is. And that's a bonus. But assuming there isn't, and you've got a certain amount of time left, you ought to kind of go after what you want somehow. Yeah, yeah.

I think, uh, yeah, kind of two things, and then we can get into kind of like personal pursuit. So kind of following up on that, I heard this really interesting quote by this guy Alan Watts. He was a theologian and philosopher. And the way I kind of interpreted, he was kind of noted well for bringing like Eastern concepts and bringing them into Western words because there's not a lot of direct translation. But he had a, I've heard of a variety of stuff that he's done. And one of the things that he kind of talked about is like, what would you do if money was no object?, right? And finding that and then going and doing that, because his premise is when you love what you do, you will find other people who love what they do and who need what it is, that gift that you're giving, right? And as a result, and then you will get paid to do it.

Yeah, right?

Because That's basically the premise is when you kind of embody kind of the love of something, this really, in the end of the day, that ends up being the gift you're giving, right? You know, it's like kind of who you are and that's the gift you're giving to the world.

Yeah.

And when people see that and when people see that, they want it, right? And then eventually people end up buying it, right? And so you could take that out to all different types of realms, but it seems like you kind of done that. With your careers, right? To get it kind of a little bit more personal, right? We've talked a little bit about, you know, your accomplishments and your professional life, some advice you have for, you know, the people out there, listeners, about like how to be persistent, how to keep moving forward. But I'm a little interested in kind of like your personal pursuits, right? We talked a little bit about, you and I talked a little bit ago and you were saying, hey, one of my goals this year is to find more inner joy. And what struck me is you're able to differentiate tangents and concepts. You're like, hey, in general, I'm a pretty happy person, right? I enjoy what I do. I'm pretty good-natured. I enjoy myself. I enjoy my friends. I enjoy the people around me, enjoy kind of life. But there's something else there that I need to work on. It's this little piece, and you called it inner joy. And I'd just be interested in kind of hearing, Toby, what your definitions are and where you are on that journey. And have you found more inner joy? Have you not found more inner joy? Or, you know, where is inner joy? Let us all know.

Yeah.

Well, specifically, I think it's probably the same. It's more joy. Yeah, probably more inner joy. I never thought about it using that term, but okay. You know, in in thinking about this concept of New Year's resolutions, right? I wouldn't arbitrarily just pick something just because that I knew that I wouldn't achieve or just because I had to, you know, have a checkbox. Actually choose something. If I'm not going to have a resolution for the year, I'm not going to pick one. But I was thinking deeply about this topic. I'll get to it in a moment. For this year, this is a 2024 resolution. I just have one. It's called more joy. But it is quite deep. And I can say with confidence that professionally I've done really well with my life and that's given me a lot of freedom and great opportunities. And I've been able to see a lot of the world and see the great cities of the world and have great experiences in these places. So there's no doubt about that. I found, you know, last few years, although I earlier, you know, I said I get paid for my hobby, we just for a moment just say it's work, as in there's some labor that I get some cash for.

Yeah.

I found that I was putting a lot of emphasis, almost all emphasis on that as my joy. So for my happiness. So, you know, doing a job well done. Having a job on the back and I was able to deliver that high quality and I got paid for it. That's making me smile. It's making me happy.

Yeah.

And I also noticed that I was making a lot of people around me pretty happy too and joyful, whether that was a girlfriend or a friend or even a family member. And then after some reflection and some dialogue with folks, I realized I'm doing nothing for myself, actually. I'm actually not doing anything that, you know, proactively beyond the work that actually gives me joy. That was a gap and a revelation that I had to get on top of and achieve. If I wasn't working and delivering some satisfaction to some other person, I lost meaning and I just wasn't happy. And, or I just ignored it. I was like, so I'm not happy, who cares? Like, I was like, just deal with it. And it seems like it's a missing piece. Wasn't, you know, if there's a jigsaw and it need a pair, And just 4 or 5 important pieces. That was not— I'd lost that piece. I didn't even know that that piece existed.

Yeah.

Because I think I found things like not sleeping well or worrying unnecessarily about things or having a little bit too much anxiety where I didn't need it were all products of kind of working too hard, too many hours, traveling too much, not taking care of myself, you know, not so much physically, but mentally needed to be addressed. And so when you think, well, what's missing? Well, I'm not actually making time for joy in my life. Well, what does that look like now? And now it's, we're recording this in July of 2024 or 7 months in. This is still very much a work in progress because once you start unpacking it, you start asking some really key questions about who you are. Like, what actually makes me happy? What gives me joy? What is that? Enjoy, kind of joy, to use your term. And I can't tell you right now I'm entirely sure what that is, but it means, for example, being okay with doing nothing. Like having a day when you've just gone to the gym and go for a walk and have a cup of coffee. I don't do that. I mean, sorry. Yeah. For me, there had to be something I delivered. There had to be something of value that I actually created and delivered to just be, you know, to walk, to have coffee, to sit. Yeah. Absent, not present, not part of my, that gives great joy if you embrace it, to just be, right? Be in the moment. So these are things that I need desperately. So you might have heard my story up to this point and thought, this guy's, I'd love to be this guy, he's got a lot of business success, but boy, am I missing some joy in my life. You don't want that, but you don't want to have just joy because then you're not doing it. Like, that would be nice, or maybe that would be terrible because then you aren't actually contributing. Question is, can you, can I, because you asked me personally, can I build a life that has the right balance of these things? And I haven't yet done that. Yeah.

I mean, I think you kind of used the analogy of puzzle pieces and things like that. I think that's really spot on in many ways, right? So if we're looking at all these things in our lives, the kind of who we are, They're all different pieces of the puzzle that make us who we are.

Yeah.

Right. So, you know, to your point, like just this more joy model where I'm having coffee and going to the gym and taking walks, that's important. But if that's all that you have, you're still left void in, in like, in contribution.

Yeah.

Like, and I think deep down, a lot of us as humans, or all of us have a desire to contribute and be part of a community, right?

Yes.

Have connection, right? And, and so we need to make sure that those parts of the puzzles, and then we have kind of the spirituality of our lives and we have the physicality of our lives. And for those of us who have families and, you know, or media families or extended families, whatever those, those parts are, you know, those are all kind of pieces of the puzzle that make us who we are. And I don't know if balance is even the right word, but it's, it's more of a completeness concept.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

And And that's what I hear from you a little bit. It's like, hey, you know, I've got, I feel like I got a lot of these things figured out, but I'm not fully complete. I'm missing a couple little pieces and I'm gonna start pursuing, making sure I pursue those now because as a human, I'm gonna feel better when I'm more complete.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, in that, Looking after yourself and your family economically is important, physically. But if you leave the mental piece out, that actually affects everything.

Yeah, for example, I pay the bills.

Yeah.

Like I'm mentally not here.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

That's no good either.

Right.

The thing that I discovered actually predates my More Joy philosophy that Today is something very interesting I'm exploring, and perhaps your listeners or viewers could have a look at this if you're not familiar with it, is Ikigai. This is the Japanese philosophy of life. And I'm not going to be— say I'm an expert at this point in the year, but I'm reading about it, and many parts of it align with this conversation and what you're asking me, you know, is sort of the complete life is achieving happiness. And then through that, hopefully a longer life. You know, the disaster of Western life is that we have medicine that helps us live longer. We've added decades to our lifespan. But what we haven't done is ask the question whether those are quality years. So yeah, we can retire hopefully, you know, at a reasonable age these days. And then you may live another 20, 30 years, sometimes 40 years. And now you might be taking pills and the life might be really, really bad because you haven't taken care of your Ikigai your entire, you know, life.

Yeah.

And so what I want to make sure is that, or what I like about it is that it is lifelong, that it is identifying things like diet is extremely important. For sure. Things like a social, you know, you have friends. It doesn't have to be a lot of friends. You have to have good friends. I know. Doing something every day, whether it's reading for a certain amount of time or gardening or having an activity. Maybe it's work or maybe it's writing. And this is like in, you know, as you, you're sort of where, you know, your job isn't the vast majority of your weak days, right? You, you retired or you have a different type of balance now going on.

Yeah.

So that's something that I have, that I like a lot right now. And the more I learn about it, the more I like it. It, it's just rooted in sort of just nice practices and it's got evidence, you know, it's not abstract. It's, it's very practical. And these are the things you should do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, there's some— I think that's super. And like, I was reading up on some Japanese kind of philosophies and culture concepts. And one that I kind of got hooked on, this concept of wabi-sabi, which is like the perfection in the imperfect.

That's right.

Right. And I think kind of coupled with those, that ikigai concepts, you know, I think that's our good examples. Of kind of this Eastern versus Western philosophy, Kryon, and, you know, those things really do resonate with me, right? You know, from kind of a completeness perspective, you know, being all right with something not being perfect, right? You know, we always— I think the Western term is don't let perfection be the enemy of good.

Yes.

But there's another way of just saying, hey, you know, I did enough, right? And it maybe wasn't perfect. It wasn't horrible either. It was enough. And whatever it was, it got done, right? And that's something I've struggled with in my life because I mean, I'm not some multimillionaire at this point, right? Have everything in the world that I worldly possessions that I'm looking for, but there's an element of me that's very perfection-oriented and actually it's stopped me from maybe pursuing a lot of things that I should pursue because I'm too afraid to kind of fail in that sense. So I'm so focused on the perfection of delivering it that I avoid doing it. Like kind of getting into those kind of more Eastern cultures, concepts of just, hey, I'm, I'm all right the way I am. And, and so I think bringing that up and I think it plays well into like this inner joy, more joy concept, right? Which is I'm all right though at the same time, like, hey, I'm still pursuing. I'm still trying to find this piece of the puzzle and understand a little bit more and fit it in the right way. I see the, I see the piece. I'm not quite sure how it fits in for me. Oh, there it is. But being all right if it's not right, being all right, going, hey, I'm looking for more joy. I don't have it the way I want it today. And that's all right. So, but I think in general, through our conversations over the years, through kind of what I've learned from you, right? Like getting to your point as an educator and everything. You know, I've taken a lot of what you've learned and embodied as much of it that interests me and try to pass on some of those concepts like I talked about with the open data and things like that. That's something that really kind of rung true to me. And now, knowing you on a more personal level now over the last many months and kind of realizing that you're like, you're not giving up with your perfect on your professional side, you're like hard pursuit on betterment as kind of like at a personal level too. And, you know, that's, you know, powerful. And that's why we wanted to have you here. So yeah, I don't know if we've got anything else, but—

You know, I'd really like to talk about where people can find you on LinkedIn because I know you have a lot of videos and a lot of educational pieces that people can pick up and I know you have a book, so. Where can we find you on LinkedIn?

Well, I'm very easy to find online, as you can imagine. Just type in my name and you'll get a lot of results coming back. You know, I tell you a funny story. You know, you can— people used to do what they call ego searching, I think, when you search yourself on Google and see what comes up. Well, you can do that on generative AI now too. And not everybody comes up, but I come up. Okay. And there's a thing called AI hallucinations, which basically the AI makes stuff up. And if you read it, and it's actually, fortunately, in my case, the hallucinations are very positive. Okay. So lists a lot of things that I've done that I didn't do. I actually did a screen print and I use it in some of my AI education just to show people that Be careful right now what you trust in AI. It'll get better, of course, in the months ahead. So don't rely on searching for me in generative AI right now. Use the traditional, the old school Google.

Okay.

You'll find a lot of my stuff, but probably the best place to go is just my core website, which is reichental.com. Okay. My last name, reichental.com.

And we'll plug it at the very bottom.

That gets you to everything, gets you all my posts. I write for Forbes magazine and you can see my links to my articles there. All my YouTube videos, my Twitter account and different things and LinkedIn. So it's all there through reikantal.com. I think that's the best way to get there. I do have a dedicated area called reikantal.com/learn. With me. It makes sense, right?

Yeah.

And that's a place where you can go directly to some of my educational resources. And I have to say, I say this, you know, every podcast, every, you know, keynote I do, a lot of my stuff is free. A lot of my stuff is free. Now I have premium stuff. I sell things.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, people go buy my books, buy my videos and things, and I make a good living from it. But you can also, by all means, just enjoy my content, the free stuff. And if it helps you, that makes me very, very happy. So that's the best place for people to, to, to like a source to get all the other stuff that I have. And that's free.

That's awesome. Well, hey, appreciate your time. You know, we've talked a lot over the last few months, like I mentioned, and I learned a little bit more about you today. So that's always a good experience. So Thank you for that. And with that, we'll conclude this episode. And so, you know, tune in, like us on Instagram, tune in next time and, you know, endeavor to persevere.

And don't forget to like and subscribe to the channel. We'd love any and all comments that you have.

I will definitely respond to everybody.