Terry McMullin asks one simple question of his podcast guests: “what’s the value?” IOW, what is the value that matters most to you, that makes you who you are? That is where things get interesting.
“Rich wants to make the world a better place for his family and for society at large. He was a philosophy major, has a masters in psychology, spent years as a futures broker/floor trader, and now has developed a program to help business leaders increase their personal effectiveness.
He believes his experiences, including his time as a child when he was constantly seeking ways to make his depressive mother feel better, have given him insight into the human psyche.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7yALsZxJeultgnDt731w1M
Rich created his “Mind Muscles” model (https://conversations.money/) to teach his clients mental models they can use to catch themselves when their mind breaks bad (e.g., biases, irrational insecurities, ego issues, etc.).
The concept that came through most in this discussion is “chipping away.” From the prior paragraph you might assume Rich is another quick-fix self improvement guy; coming up with some gimmicky model or program to help you be successful, happy, and fulfilled. But that is not what I got from this discussion.
Rich has a deep appreciation for how hard it is to deal with our inherent mental flaws. He makes no promises of a quick fix. But he does believe with consistent work and effort you can find better, healthier ways to deal with your mental baggage.
I’m on board with all of that, so we spent a good bit of the discussion exploring if it is actually doable.
Given how hard it is to challenge our own ego and address our own mental flaws, do we really think we can pull it off? And even if we can, what does it say about humanity that we have to work so hard to be the best version of ourselves?
This all led us to some interesting discussions about the value of money in our society, religion, liberalism, and the right approach to raising a well adjusted child. We took that “chipping away” approach to these questions, not claiming to have any definitive answers, but trying to do the work to understand them a little bit better and improve the quality of our lives and the lives of those around us.”
Image of dog asking the big question is by Alexander Grey on Unsplash.com
