#163 - Ben Lytle on Leadership, AI, and Thriving Through Rapid Change

0:00 The only thing that holds us back, Mark, is believe in ourself. Fear will make you make bad decisions. And so, as you're going into a period of great change, you don't want to be fearful. you Today on The Necessary Entrepreneur, I'm sitting down with Ben Lytle, a true visionary when it comes to business and leadership.

0:42 Ben's built and led multiple companies from the ground up, including Anthem, which became one of the largest health organizations in the country. He's also the author of The Potentialist series, where he shares powerful ideas about how to think ahead, lead wisely, and thrive in the world that's changing faster than ever. This is a guy who's seen it all, or at least we're going to find out today. From startup challenges to public company leadership, he's got a ton of wisdom to share for anyone building something that matters. Ben, it's great to have you on the show. Thank you, thank you, it's pleasure to be here. um You've traveled a long journey of business and in life with massive stories and experiences that we can all learn from.

1:24 You're a very humble guy and you have a discipline and a commitment inside of you for the things that you think about, that you're curious about. It seems like you're thinking a decade ahead all the time, if not more, and you see what's coming. And we were talking about your books that you had written and how you went about it. the potentialist book series, the first one's out and did really well, you spoke to. The second one's, I think it's out now and it's starting to have the same trajectory and the third one is to come. What are you trying to do with it? Because we're sitting here with a guy who has massive experience in the professional world, building companies.

2:06 You have traditional education at a high level to the point where you have a Juris Doctorate, a lot of that's an attorney, traveled the world. Born in states, lived in other states, now moved to another state for a second go at life on building a substantial and big life. What are you still doing and what's your goal with these books? But it's pretty simple. We're going through the period right now, we're in it, and we'll be in it for the next two, three, four decades of the greatest period of change in human history. That's really saying something, but it's not hyperbole, it's true. And so I recognized about 10 years ago that that's where we were headed because real Change occurs because things converge.

2:58 Change forces converge with new technologies and that accelerates change like rivers flowing together. You you'd see it in Cincinnati around the Ohio River. So you watch what happens when rivers come together. The current accelerates, creates rapids, and then downstream it settles back down into a new period. That's kind of how big changes occur in history like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. three prior industrial revolutions. And so I recognized this one was going to be more profound and faster than ever any in history. I originally, the idea was I wanted to try to get my very smart, uh successful adult children and grandchildren and other friends ready.

3:43 And then fortunately had someone encouraged me to publish it. So, you know, everybody needs access to this, give people a chance to do it. So These books have one thing, let us go through these periods of change and have more people successful and thrive in it than ever before. Because not everyone thrived in the first. I mean, in the end, other periods I mentioned lifted humanity, but it didn't lift everybody at the same time. And a lot of people suffered unnecessarily. So that's my goal. And don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm changing. I don't think I'm saving the world. There's other people out there trying to help in their own way for us to adapt.

4:26 And human beings are very resilient. But this time, I wouldn't want to bet on my resilience without preparedness. That's it. that preparedness looks like though? mean, so, cause I'm, and I like that you said that. I like when people say things that come up against the things that I, that helped me build my life. And I go to this place of resilience is one of my words. have it sitting in my office because there's many times in life, not just me, everyone, it's like when the chips are down and it's really hard and everything about your circumstances and the world changing around you is trying to convince you to not get back up and keep going. And the person that resilience is you have the courage. or the belief or the commitment to be resilient and to get up and keep going based upon some belief that you think you're capable or that you see the vision for your life.

5:14 if it's more than, if it needs to be preparedness, tell me what do I need to do to be more prepared if all these characteristics that have gotten me this far in my life aren't gonna be the catalyst that's necessary next time and now. Yeah, and if we have a moment after I give you the solution answer, we'll go back to some of the specific things driving this change in blind. What I'm talking about are the recommendations. So the first book in the first four chapters lays out, here's what this new reality is going to be like. And so that's the way, you know, the first thing I'd say to you and your viewers and listeners is, think of this as a new reality.

5:56 not anything like the world's ever seen before. And real easy to think about why, you know, first time in history, we're going to have fewer people, not more. We've got a population decline and it's creating an inversion where we have fewer young people than we and we have many, many older people that we have to somehow fund. And we've always funded them because there were more working people. Now what are we going to do? And where's that money going to come from? And so that's part of the new reality. Part of the new reality is the fact that for the first time in history, we're going to be able to talk to all the automation around us and have it do exactly what we want it to do.

6:37 And it's intelligent automation. And it's automation that if you don't know the difference, you can think, well, that thing's almost human. No, it's not. It's a math machine. And you always have to understand that and its limitations. So just a couple of the huge changes we're facing. The recommendations, so the first four chapters says here's this new reality. Here's what it's gonna look like. The next seven chapters are here's the first seven things, the first seven things you need to do to get ready. there are everything in there are things that were always good to do, but now you don't have a choice. If you think you're gonna be able to really just trash your health and live 30 years longer.

7:22 and the government, everybody else is going to be able to take care of you. You're just dreaming because there's not enough money in the world to do it. So everybody's going to have to take care of their health. And it's not that hard. It really isn't because most of the problems we have are lifestyle. I promise. And the second thing, another example is wealth. Same thing. You can't not, you can't live spending every dime you make. and then turn to retirement agents and say, okay, you guys come in and take care of me. It's not going to work anymore because that base we had isn't there. And so, you know, the fantasists will say, well, let's tax the rich.

8:03 If you took every billionaire's last dollar, it wouldn't make a difference. The math doesn't work. So that's the drivers. So the first book's these seven things. The second book says, but What do we really need to fundamentally do to thrive? Because I'm positing that the best time for humanity is in front of us, not behind. And that what we're about to go through, this new reality, as we exit on the other side, we're going to have tapped into human potential in a way human beings never imagined and the way most of us can't imagine it today. Now that's a pretty staggering idea, but it's true.

8:45 What moves us then? from where we are today, going beyond just doing the seven things that are sort of the basics, what do we do? And it's to be to achieve our, know what our potential is, achieve it, and then become wise in the process. Because the two are interrelated. Wise people reach their potential, reaching your potential makes you wise. And it's because it's an organic process. And I've interviewed over 400, really, really wise, amazing, high performing people. And they all basically said the same thing. And they lived that way.

9:26 Are we pretty much talking about constant learning? Yeah, that's it. And one of the things I do in my speeches is I explain how we will accelerate learning paces by multiples. And you go, wow, really? Is that possible? Absolutely. And it's not all technology. So part of it's technology because we're going to be able to, we can do it right now. I have an avatar, we call, I call them alter egos of me. And it teaches my books. And so you'll be able to, when you buy my book, you'll get access to it. You can go in, you can ask it questions that you'd like to ask me, but I can't be everywhere.

10:11 And it'll learn how you learn and it'll teach it in a way that's personalized to the way you learn. And that's, technology is there and that's going to revolutionize adult learning at least. And I think it'll revolutionize K through 12 as well in time. but we'll use the, still have teachers, but you'll have these as 24-7, 365 tuners. Do you think that the way for us to educate our mind like this, is it about being exposed to, is it about exposure, or is it about curiosity in the individual? Both. You have to have an opportunity to, AI is like your, I always encourage people, don't think of AI as information technology.

10:57 It's not. It's more like your smartphone. I mean, you learned your smartphone by using it and tailoring it to make it more usable to you. You have to use AI to understand it. You'll never understand it if you don't. And you will because it's coming, you it's going to be in our jobs, it's going to be at home, it's going to be in our cars, it's everywhere. And so you'll learn it. But that comes back to also why uh reaching our potential is not only a desirable thing. Probably nobody in the world would say, you know, that's a terrible thing. everybody would say, yeah, it's great.

11:37 How do do it? Well, first you have to define these things. And one of the things I do in my book is I take these concepts that we've heard about that are very vague and make them very clear. What's potential? What's wisdom? What is my psychological body and how do I use it as good as I do my physical body? so potential is becoming fully human. Beautiful. Defined by 14 or 15 adjectives that you can easily look at and go, and When you learn, the reason that's so important as an adaptation step is that as we're surrounded with intelligent automation, the existential question for every individual, government's not gonna answer it for you, education's not gonna answer it, you have to answer it, is how do I integrate with all this intelligent automation that looks and sounds increasingly human-like?

12:44 in a way that it enhances my humanity and doesn't degrade it. Because if you don't, if you start thinking it's human, you're in trouble. It's not. And so that's where, that's why potential is so important. And also one other thing, one of the things AI is going to do is it's going to eliminate the subhuman work. You know, that's the place it's going to go because that's where it can make the biggest impact. And we have to have it because in a declining population, economies will fall apart if we don't have enough people. So we have to fill that gap with this intelligent automation.

13:24 Well, the easiest place to fill the gap is to do the things that human beings shouldn't be doing in the first place. Like repetitious, boring work. so, so, but as we do that, we're going to always have to really appreciate that we are unique, that the human race is unique. And I mentioned those characteristics. The most important characteristic within that 14 or 15 that we as humans sometimes have, some of us have a hard time appreciating is that every human being, I don't care what job they're doing today, I don't care what their education level is, every human being has a creative core.

14:07 They have a unique place inside them in which their talents, whatever they are, reside and a big part of the ultimate goal of your journey if you decide to become a potentialist as I have been is discover what that is and then give it to the world. And when you do, you are happy beyond belief and fulfilled because you have found why I'm here. And you give that back every day in different ways and it's incredibly fulfilling. In my case, mine is I have a talent for seeing or being able to explain really complicated things simply.

14:54 My dad was good at it. I'm good at it. And that's my, that's my real talent to give to the world. And the other is that I'm very aspirational. I am a, I am an optimist, but I'm a pragmatic optimist, meaning that the better evidence says we're going here. And so that's what I can give to the world and why this very advanced stage, I'm outdoing it. Because it needs to be said and it wasn't being said as clearly as I think it could be. Other people will contribute their own way. This is mine. Do we ever fully reach our complete full potential?

15:38 I think you do in a way. mean, when you look at those 14 characteristics, it's things like uh developing intimacy with human being, another human being. That's a very human quality that none of the animals, as far as we know, have. And doing it consciously. It's things like uh having moral reasoning. As far as we know, only humans can do that. And I can tell you for sure. Intelligent automation can't do it because it's math and that's an intuitive process and they don't have a soul and you know We have a soul and I'm using soul here as a psychological function not in a religious context which both but but we get Timeless wisdom from that function.

16:26 They don't have that and you can't teach that so so anyway, I think what what you do is you're set you're satisfied But you always keep growing You know, there's only two states in life, you're growing or dying. Very simple. And you have a choice. And so if you're growing, then you're gonna feel good. And when you start dying, it doesn't feel good. Where does ability come into play with this? Because ability and potential, are they separate things? Yeah, the human race, we will never be uniform. That's a distortion of the ego to believe things are ever uniform.

17:06 If you go look in nature, so much to learn in nature. When I take walks, I don't just walk. I'm looking for what I knew I can see and learn from nature. And one of the things about when you look at nature is there is no uniformity. Every grain of sand's different. Every snowflake's different. Every tree's different. Even in a flower, looks like it's uniform. Look up close. It's not. And that's a lesson for us that we are so unique, and that's a good thing. And there'll always be a distribution of skills and capabilities. But I will tell you, out of those 400 wise people, probably at least 20 % were people that the world wouldn't recognize because they're They're nobodies, they're maids, they're janitors, they're people that do menial work perhaps, but they're wise in the way of the world, very wise in the way of the world.

18:08 And their ability to give is as great as the person who sets in power. Because you don't know who you affect. uh So you make a clear distinction. um between fear-based leadership and opportunity-based leadership. especially in times of rapid change. And that's what we're sitting here talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Fear is something that I would, you know, would really encourage. I do encourage everyone in every speech. Fear will make you uh make bad decisions.

18:51 There's not very many decisions that are fear based other than get out the way of those truck about hitting you. There's not very many fear based decisions that are good. And so as you're going into a period of great change, you don't want to be fearful. You want to say, my gosh, I mean, what I reason, you know, I mentioned that at the beginning, the period of greatest change in human history, isn't it? I mean, think about it. They think 122 billion people were on the earth before us. We got 8 billion here now. We all get to be part of this thing and not just as as uh as bystanders stand on the curb watching it going by.

19:33 We're all participants and some of us that like you and the people in leadership positions, we're the architects, the engineers of this new reality. And at minimum, even if you don't think you have much to give, you have an opportunity to help the next generation. Because they're going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting after my day's done and your day's done. And so getting those next generations ready is a worthy mission of every person, regardless of of their ability what they think to guide others. The, can you go back to a time? of whether it be your childhood, if it's your early education, uh that you started to become this.

20:14 When did you come into this human that you are now to see? times of change as opportunity because everything that we hear about humans, about patterns, about human nature is we don't like change. Right. And that's a bit of a fallacy. It's always good to when you're thinking of human beings, the ego causes us to say all, none, everybody. It's not that way. know, there's always better to have, as soon as somebody uses that, go, isn't that probably something like a bell curve? And the same thing's reaction to change. About 50 % of the people are excited about change and predisposed to accept it and get involved.

20:59 And 50 % are not. and they're resistive to change. And then there are extremes within each of those 50 percentiles where 15 % of the people are fast followers. will, they're going to get up, they'll succeed in this period. And of the 15%, about 15 % of the 15%, about two and a half percent of the total population are pace setters. So there are the people out going this way and everybody's predisposed to change is going to get there. Folks that are predisposed to fear, resistance, are going to struggle. They're going struggle and they're going to miss huge opportunities. makes you make bad decisions.

21:39 Pessimism blinds you to opportunity. And I was fortunate in that I was raised in a family where my parents, again, low income folks, but hard workers doing their best. uh They always... made me feel and I think made my siblings as well. You can do anything you want to do. You're a smart kid. You work hard. The world's your oyster. Go get it. That's what I was raised in. And I had aunts and uncles who were very similar. ah And so I started out with that. And then the other two things that really helped shape what I call my North Star was that very early on, I was always an avid reader.

22:29 I started reading when was, my mom said I was three years old. I don't believe that, you know, probably, probably four or five, but whatever it was, I loved reading. and so early in my teens, I fell in love with science fiction and science fiction is the fictional imagining of a future. Sometimes negative, sometimes positive, but in negative cells better. that's why there's more of those in the art. And so I fell in love with that. And then in college, excuse me, in college, I began to understand there were these people called futurists.

23:11 And instead of using fiction, they use analytics to project the future and to describe the future. And so that became an application. It was just something I was fascinated with and then getting into tech in the early years, that just made it even more interesting ah and made me more knowledgeable. And then the other part that really shaped me uh was potentialism. And I explain that in the book, so I'll keep it relatively short, but I happened to take, was having to go year round to graduate in four years, and I was looking for a summer class.

23:51 And there was this class called Introduction to Personality. And I go to class, I didn't really know what it was all about. And it was, I don't know, 14 or 15 of us. And almost immediately, and the professor was a young guy, he was probably in his early 30s, mid 30s, the 60s long hair, very charismatic. And almost the first words out of his mouth were, you don't have to be anything anybody wants you to be. In fact, you shouldn't be. What you should do is discover. who you are, discover that creative core inside, and then live that. And if you live that, you're gonna have a very good life. And I was like, wow.

24:33 And so I was like an instant acolyte. I glommed onto this guy and he gave me a reading list, which I still have, and it became my avocation. But those two things came together to shape me where leadership meant and management meant helping people see the potential in themselves they couldn't see. It became my entrepreneurial drive. See the idea that everybody else is missing. Where's the unmet need or the underserved need everybody else is missing? And what could we do with it? Looking at a company, this company is a mess.

25:13 Can we make it into something a lot better? And so that really shaped. that really shaped who I am and that shaped everything I've done in my life, really. If you were starting another company again, or I'm sure you do some consulting, you probably are in a world where a lot of people call you and say, what should I do? Um, if you were to take, use this term of the 10,000 feet view. I think we say that because you see it all from high above. You're not in it. Um, where would you start? If you either are in a position where your company's not performing at the level you want it to, and it feels like there's big problems, or you would have started a new one, where would you start from the beginning?

25:57 So I always start with looking for the underserved or the unmet ah need because ultimately that's what drives all innovation as well as ah something that's available. Democratization is a type of innovation and that means looking for something that's available or affordable only to a few and seeing if I can make it available to many people and then ultimately a commodity. I mean that's what the printing press did. You know, those are the those democratizing innovations, the Internet, they change the world. And so so when you can find one of those or go looking for them, and there are actually a lot of them available.

26:40 And I think the other thing I would do today is uh is don't be intimidated by because it's I see a lot of entrepreneurs get intimidated by the big companies. uh And you know, the giant companies can do some things well, but they don't do all things. And AI, for example, can be delivered for a fraction of what you'll ever get it through any of the big companies. Because they're going to charge you huge consulting rights. They're going to want to license for everything you do. And you don't need to do that. And again, it's like your phone. You didn't need a big company to come in and tell you how to let all your employees have mobile phones.

27:21 You did it on your own. Same principle. is a powerful democratizing innovation. And so I would look for unmet need, look at the industries that are poorly performing today ah and not doing a very good job and go right at them. Thinking out, you're someone who thinks about the future. Let's say that when you and I and everyone listening to this, when we're all gone, let's go out into the future, say 500 years. If the world, the earth, what we're currently physically experiencing, if it's still here, what do you think the potential is for humans and how we're engaging with that world in 500 years?

28:09 Well, I don't think we have to go out that far. I mean, I think when I said we will leave this new reality for that stable part of the river before the next acceleration occurs, ah at a tapping a level of human potential that we can't imagine today. ah So I think we're going to, first of all, uh live longer uh and better lives. Nobody particularly wants to live a longer life. disability and pain. Why would you? But if we can continue to extend life ah and do so in a way that those years are really profound. ah Another thing that I think that we uh can do and that I see this coming back is today we throw life experience away.

29:05 We just throw it away. So you have people live these remarkable lives. oh I've never talked to one person that I got deep into their story. I didn't find remarkable. And so we take that and it's gone. And all that knowledge, all that wisdom that could be available to young people to lift them up is thrown away. That's foolish. And our pre-root, the times before we had writing, we did that through tribal histories. They became the myths of tribal peoples and they grew from that and they learned from it.

29:46 So I have a dream for AI and it was why I founded the AI company I did, is I want every human being who wants to capture their life story and to have young people start capturing it from the day they're They just walk around and they record little pieces of what they did today, what they thought, decisions they made. And we capture those life stories. first of all, you can give it then to your heirs. It's an asset. And I think it'll become, we'll realize, we'll get wise enough in this period to realize that asset is more valuable than leaving money.

30:27 And because you're leaving your knowledge and experience. So you're great, great, great grandchildren. could have a conversation with you. What was it like? What was it like in the 60s? How did people go through this? What did you learn? And so, and you can also then industrialize this because you can take, what if we got a representative sample of humanity or representative sample of the American population? And you could go in with the problem and because it's a large language model and it's contextual search, right? And we've tested this on my alter ego. You walk in and say, hey, I'm 25 years old and I just came home and I think my roommate who's been my best friend since the third grade stole money from me.

31:12 I don't know what to do. And I can't tell my parents because they hate him anyway. And you go, well, okay, what would you like to talk to St. Ignatius about what betrayal is and how you deal with betrayal? Because it's a very painful hurt. And then you're doing this. Of course, it's an actor, but it's St. Ignatius' work. And then he says, well, would you like to to some people that at your age have a similar problem? And all that could come back at you. That's how we could visualize it. I think that in and of itself could create a leap in humanity we can't even imagine. But on other things, we'll have technology gains. We'll have the gains of we can talk to all of our automation, think about the efficiency, think about the people who today can't do that because they can't afford a device.

32:02 And now they'll be able to, they're not gonna be bound by their language or bound by their lack of being able to type or whatever it is. So that's gonna help lift humanity a lot. So I think we're gonna come out of it better human, more human if we focus on that as our potential, our goal. We'll come out of it more human. We'll come out of it. uh being able to have less poverty. There's no reason anybody in world shouldn't be able to be educated now for a fraction of the cost of the day. So I think all of those things are possible. Do you think, have you gone neurologically into this deep path of how much of our brain we're actually using?

32:45 Is there a truth to this? No, it's kind of hard to measure the math that we're 10 % at. That's not a very reliable measure. But I think what we can know for sure is that we do use a fraction of it, a fraction of what we're capable of. So much of our time that we have on the earth today is spent in subhuman work. instead of work that only humans can do, creating, problem solving, intuitive leaps. Only humans can do that. And also, we waste a lot of time uh without really fully appreciating how important time is.

33:33 And that doesn't mean every moment has to be serious. You should have a lot of joy in your life, whatever you enjoy. But at the same time, our ability to learn and our ability to grow is pretty dramatic. One of the things that is a fairly recent understanding, uh which gives you a sense of it, is one of the technologies I pay a lot of attention to is neuroimaging and brain mapping. A lot of people, you don't see many articles on that or anything, but that's finding out what parts of our brain do what and what triggers it. First of all, learning that we're going to be able to learn probably the answers to a lot of neurological diseases.

34:19 That's what Neuralink, know, Elon Musk company, and there's about, you know, a dozen or more of those out there. They're trying to go at those diseases that are incurable today, like ALS or Parkinson's and figure out a way to wire around the brain. And that's using hardware and that's chips and so forth, but we'll be able to do it. You can already. use brain to computer interfaces that are noninvasive. And I think we'll get to a point where we'll be able to transfer stuff into our unconscious while we're asleep and recapture it the next day. ah And the rate of learning will go like this.

35:01 Because one of the things they've been able to do is uh with neuroimaging is capture brain speed. So the conversation, we're having a conversation right now. Well, ours is one-on-one, so it's not a good example, but in a classroom, you typically are operating at about 50 bits per second. And if you go one-on-one and you and I start talking, pretty soon, I know what you want to know, you know what I know, we know how to, and we're talking shorthand. The speed jumps to 150 bits per second, in some cases as high as 300. Now, if we, The fast, a faster way to learn is, uh, is doing it right.

35:46 You learn by doing you, your, your, your, your, your ability to recall goes up through the roof when you actually do it. Well, we can do that if more and more, uh, and that's how we learn things like how to play golf, how to play any sports. We're imagining it. What they've learned is that our brains don't know the difference between us imagining it actually doing. So the more we imagine it, the more we imagine that speech we've got to give tomorrow at PowerPoint presentation, the more we imagine making a really good positive impact on the employee group I'm going to speak to, the better we get at it. And it builds muscle memory in our unconscious.

36:28 Literally just like muscle memory. So when I walk in, boom, I do it just like that. And so that's a tool we can all use today. And I think... Now imagine that where you can also now bring into it virtual reality, augmented reality, where you can bring into it an avatar to where if you wanted to practice a one-on-one, a sales call, you're practicing with a real, somebody who's gonna react a lot like the person you're trying to talk to. So that's just some ideas, but it's gonna accelerate learning. So why is my handicap not a five then? You need more visualized to realize time.

37:12 I think the amount of power that it would take for me to visualize that would probably eliminate me from accomplishing the other things I need to in life. From where I'm at to a five is a long, long way. Yeah, want a good friend of mine once said about his golf game. He said, you know, I work hard at it. He said, at the end of the day, there's a duck and there's an eagle and I'm a duck. uh What do what can we make of that distinction? Do you think that there's distinction in humans the same way there is in ducks and eagles because you hear the metaphor of eagles fly so high and no one else you want to be an eagle. If that's a reality, do you think there are some of us if we're just being honest with ourselves in a positive way, not negative, not pessimistic?

37:56 Are there ducks and eagles though? Yeah, I think so. uh At least nature would tell us that it has some kind of natural distribution that it creates on probably every human characteristic, probably everyone. Everything inside of us is probably a spectrum and we're somewhere on the spectrum on every one of those. What I think we can do is recognize the ones that are really important to us and we can move somewhat on the spectrum. We can't go from one end to the other, but we can move it. And I know that's really when you talk about self-improvement, that's what you're doing is, okay, where am I just, that's what I do in that annual process.

38:40 I go, what am I missing? It's self-awareness really important in this. Absolutely, absolutely. And taking the time, you know, to look at yourself and not falling into either trap of beating yourself up or judging yourself, because that's not you, that's your ego. And so don't listen to it. Don't judge yourself. Just try to say, okay, where am I? What's important? What can I do better? What can I do better in incremental steps? can't make it very rare that you have, you know, dramatic change. Sometimes those happen in your life, but usually, We have to make increments. go from, we visualize to realize that creates muscle memory. Then that becomes habit.

39:22 And that's how we learn everything. So how much time, if you're making an argument that we have to, it's not just gonna be resilience, it's preparedness? How much time should we spend preparing though versus taking action? Yeah, you have to kind of start with where you think you are. So for example, uh on wisdom, you can learn a lot just by curiosity and breaking out of your habit of scrolling through your phone, kind of a mindless thing, or watching the reruns of the 1964 championship game of something. have to, know, all time problems are priority problems.

40:05 That's simple. And either your potential and becoming wise is a priority for you or it's not. And so you start with saying, okay, I got a lot of stuff I could unload here and spend my time better. And you'll find you feel better. You feel better about yourself. You're growing again. When you're growing, you're doing this stuff that's not causing you to grow. It's a form of dying. so focus on the things that cause you to grow. But in terms of absolute time, it's not much. That's one of the... the misunderstandings about wisdom is a lot of people think, I've got to go to a class or I've got to have a psychoanalyst. You don't need any of that.

40:45 And my books are intended to give you a guide. And there's others out there. I'm not the only person. a guide for here's how I develop wisdom in myself. And here's how I develop and march towards my potential. And I don't think it takes, I know it. takes less than uh what you spent grooming every day. Reflection and re-learning for me is so important. If I don't like an outcome or I want something to be different, reflect on it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, and a lot of people, think, you know, think this has to be painful, it ought to be enjoyable. Find what you want to learn, find what stimulates you.

41:26 That helps guide you to that natural creative core inside. So many entrepreneurs and business owners, were in the world, I you were in corporate management at a high level. From an entrepreneur to corporate management, dealing with boards and public companies. I mean, you dealt with totally different infrastructure and you had to find a way to succeed. I know many entrepreneurs, it's not just entrepreneurs, it's business leaders, but it's every human. It feels like in 2025, everybody's so overwhelmed from what's next. We just need to. build clarity and an action for the strategy now it seems.

42:10 It seems to me like we can focus on what next. That's how we're always growing. But we seem to get bogged down and stuck there. So I'm assuming the books about the potentialist helps people do that. You won't, because I hear people say they're stuck. I hear so many people say I'm stuck. Yeah. Well, what happens is we get overwhelmed. A little story on innovation. It's really helpful, I think, to understand why this is the direction of life. a good place to start with it is uh a fellow said to me the other day, you know, we got to keep telling people this is as slow as it ever gets.

42:54 This is it. Today, every day will be faster from here on. That's a fact. And every day will be more complex than today. Therein lies the adaptation challenge. So, but the technologies that are coming down the line, AI especially, is one of the ways we reduce complexity in life. And we will be able to have it do a lot of things for us. But that's not the total answer. We're a lot of the problem. mean, if you literally, you got to really set back and do an assessment of your time. And if you're wasting a hell of a lot of time on something that's not growing, not helping you, then you're just basically, you're enjoying that do nothing, but do it in a better way.

43:41 Go take a nap, go take a walk, because you're going to be a lot more productive. Those are going to be hard human choices nobody can make for you. But on innovation, Innovation is hardwired into evolution. So innovation is what elevates the quality of life. That's really at the end of the day, all innovators are social entrepreneurs because you're always innovating, you're elevating the quality of life on almost everything. But when you do, it always accelerates life a little bit and it makes it little more complex and it creates new problems for you to solve. That is the cycle of innovation and that will always be here and it'll keep speeding up.

44:26 And so we have to learn how to adapt and be faster than it is and more comfortable with it. The second part of innovation is how it spreads and that's democratization. Taking something that's only available to a few, making it available to many and ultimately everyone's a commodity and that's how society gets elevated. And that's hardwired into the evolutionary engine we live And so we can complain all we want to about it, but always keep in mind, today's as slow as it gets. So how am I going to get the time to get on top of it? So when someone comes to you for advice, I'm gonna put everybody into a bundle.

45:07 You mentioned kids and grandkids. You started this to help them live a better life, to help them be prepared. But I'm gonna put them in a bundle with anyone that when you're giving a seminar or having a conversation that someone comes to you and asks you for any advice. What approach do you take? Is it different from when one of your grandkids who I'm assuming being a grandparent. It's probably the most satisfaction and happiness you get. Absolutely. Best job in the world. So what approach do you take to giving them advice? And then after that, I'm have a follow-up question about how I think people can learn from what you're gonna share here.

45:50 Well, I think you mentioned humility and I don't mean that in self-serving way, but it is important when you're trying to help somebody to remain humble, but at the same time, honor your gifts and what you know. Because a lot of times we become so humble, we don't want to say anything, or we become so braggadocio that we know everything, you know? So you have to first respect that person on the other side and what is it they're looking for. And so usually my first 10 minutes are all questions before I ever open my mouth.

46:31 I'm trying to get to what is it you know, what do you feel is a barrier, what is it you feel you don't know. And so I think, and then the second thing is getting them to really look at, or fundamental under, a fundamental of wisdom. is that you have to understand something called the tension of the opposites or law of polarity. You can look it up. It's ancient, ancient, ancient understanding that's been lost in contemporary society. That resistance to whatever it is you want is a reality in everything you do and it's never going away.

47:13 And it's your best friend, not your enemy. So whatever's holding you back, whatever you feel like is in your way, is there for a reason. And what it's doing is when you appreciate, okay, I got this challenge, maybe I've started a company, it was doing good, and suddenly my sales flatline, whatever it is, or suddenly the financier goes to the company, came back and said, either we get cashflow positive in two months or we're shutting you down. Whatever that is. You have to look at, what's the message, the real message for me there? And then you start over here with, well, where am I? And when you honor those two things equally, creative solution comes about.

47:57 That's the way our minds work. That's the way our legal system is supposed to work between the two parties. That's what the judge was trying to do. is a fundamental secret is that resistance, not my enemy, is there with the message for me. Am I listening? And once you get that, it's a completely different way of looking at whatever you're, wherever you're stuck. Because you're stuck because you're not appreciating what it is that's the message there for why um I'm being held back. sense? Yeah, and here's what I'm taking from it. I assumed that that was going to happen because of your wisdom for me to then even make this statement without being a question.

48:39 Then we should do this for ourselves in every situation. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so one of the things I try to do in the conversations, particularly with young people, is to really reset their expectation about life. Because every single thing in life that we enjoy comes about from a breakthrough moment where somebody did that, boom, and a great idea was born. Or sometimes not even a great idea. It's, you know, should I? Should I drive, be at work 30 minutes earlier? I don't know, you know. It can be very minor things, but always look that resistance is there for a purpose.

49:23 And if I really understand it and I value it, I'll get that answer. And I'll tell you a quick one for me, it was huge. So when the person I was working with, the editors, you know, recommended I publish these books, I really didn't want to be a public figure again. I had been a public figure and it was fine and I... and thankful for it, but I was enjoying my anonymity as just uh being a grandpa and doing my entrepreneurial work and uh working with my sons. uh And so I really was struggling with it. And so I figured out, OK, what am I struggling with? Well, I knew humility.

50:03 The humility part of me was saying, who am I to write books like this? You know, I mean, this is this is pretty heady stuff to say this is where the whole of humanity. And then the other, but I kept thinking of the other part that wanted to as egotism or egocentricity. And I kept making a negative. Well, I knew the law, the law says, no, no, As long as you're looking at good and bad, you're trapped in your ego. You have to see these as the way life sees it as I need this polarity for the right thing to be born. As soon as I did it, I got it.

50:43 The opposite of humility is individuality. Both neutral, right? Both good. Within 30, 40 minutes, it popped in my mind what the answer was about writing these books. Always be humble, but honor your gift. Hmm. So as soon as I knew what my gift, okay, then that's why I'm here. That's why I'm in, that's why I need to do this. I've got these gifts. I think I can say something about the future in a way people can comprehend it and be useful to them. Do it. And if one person, that was the other thing I said, if one person's helped, was all worth those 400 people you talk to, cause I can sit here and talk to you all day long.

51:23 Dave's behind the scenes, probably flashing lights on me back here and he's like, we're podcasting. Like I don't want those other podcasts. I want to stay here talking to Ben. Um, but I guess the benefit that this coming to an end is go buy the book, read the book, right? I'm assuming you've built yourself with into financial independence. You don't need the money, but the more books you sell, probably, I bet you would make an argument. The more impact you have the potentiality of making. Yeah, this is a mission thing for me. you know, today, if you're a multimillionaire and you want to become a millionaire, write a book and you'll lose enough money. You'll get there. So, so, so, cause you don't, I'm not doing this.

52:06 have better. I have, I have many, many ways I could spend my time. Yeah. And that'd be very rewarding. I'm doing this because I think it's a message that needs to be heard. And the real, you know, the message is. that you can, the only thing that holds us back today, the only thing that holds us back Mark, is believe in ourself. Believe in ourself individually and believe in our fellow human beings. That's it. Because human beings have accomplished greater things than what we're doing. I mean, this is something that every individual can do. Doesn't cost any money to speak of. Doesn't cost a lot of time. And we have, it's right there.

52:46 We can, technology's gonna help us, but we can become wise and reach our potential in life. All we have to do is say, I believe in it, I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna give it time, I'm gonna make it happen. Once you do that, you will, you absolutely will. We should have ended on that, I want to ask this question. um When you talk to those 400 people, some were janitors, some were probably successful in the way the world's, know, determined success. world famous jurists, mean there were those quality of people in there too.

53:28 I'm assuming those 400. cared about doing a good job. always. That's what I found in life leads you closer to a potential in greatness. couldn't agree more. Yeah. The thing that's in front of me right now, let me just do that really well. Yeah. And the thing I learned from that allows me to level up to be prepared to do the next thing. I totally agree and it goes, first of all, the chapter seven of the first book is my favorite chapter. And I think it's one of the most important and it's why it's the last chapter because it leads you into the second book.

54:13 But it proposes that we redefine success, very important for young people, that it's not money, fame, power, social status, appearance, because over a long life, all of those can come and go. and they will over a long life. But what sustains all of those 400 people and me and many, others is when you lay your head on the pillow at night, you know I did my best to be my best. I did my best and I did my best to be my best person today and leave the world and the people I met a little better than I found them because it's not just your job.

54:56 That's what we think about. It's not your job. It's when you go to the grocery store and instead of just checking out and walking out, you see the person behind the counter and you look them in the eye and you go, how's your day today? Going okay? Good. Yeah, I like coming in here. Those little things matter. Everything we do alters infinity. That's an amazing concept. Every single thing we do alters infinity. It rolls and we don't know where it rolls. And when you start living that way, and working that way. It's a whole different, it's a whole different life. Yeah. Um, thank you for coming on.

55:37 Thank you, Mark. It was a lot of fun. think no doubt this is going to be intriguing enough of a conversation for people to pick up the book. And I like that this isn't your career of being an author. I love that this came out of this. It feels like you felt obligated to do this for society and for the future generations. Yeah, and again, I want to say that in a humble way. It's not up to me what happens. It was up to me to write about it, talk about it, try to argue its merits. But it's not up to me what happens. It'll be all up to you. And it'll either help people. I know it's helped a lot of people already. It's very rewarding to me.

56:18 Some of the parents say they are actually a lot are saying they're doing a book club with their own kids. walking them through the first book and then in the second book. That's exactly what I would dream happened. That's it. it is absolutely from a place that I hope it can be a gift to you. I know it's not going to hurt anybody. I know that. There's nothing in this book that's hurtful or say you have to do this or anything. So hopefully that'll be the way it lands out. Knowledge is power and go fulfill our potential. That's right. Absolutely. Ben Lytle, thank you for coming on. We'll put all of, all your socials and the tags and the book and stuff in, all the stuff we put out here on social.

57:04 Thanks a lot.