The Transformative Power of Bold Thinking with Dr. Michael Alexander

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The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast host and guest and do not necessarily represent those of our distribution partners, supporting business relationships or supported audience.

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Welcome to Transacting Value, where we talk about practical applications for instigating self-worth when dealing with each other and even within ourselves, when we foster a podcast listening experience that lets you hear the power of a value system for managing burnout, establishing boundaries, fostering community and finding identity.

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My name is Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and we are redefining sovereignty of character.

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This is why values still hold value.

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This is Transacting Value.

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Many of us feel somehow that if we don't know something, that's a failure on the part.

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I wouldn't call ignorance a weakness, it is simply the next challenge to take on.

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Today on Transacting Value.

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Where do you start when your role no longer aligns with your identity?

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Our newest ambassador of self-worth on the show is a speaker and author and self-proclaimed energy economist, whose balance and boldness may very well convert self-awareness into success.

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His name is Dr Michael Alexander, and so, without further ado, folks, I'm Porter, I'm your host, and this is Transacting Value.

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Michael, how are you doing?

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I'm doing very, very well.

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How about yourself?

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Good, good Again.

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I appreciate you taking some time out of your day.

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I understand it's pretty much even after work, so thank you for taking some time out while you're at home, even to sit down and record a little bit.

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I appreciate your time and your insight.

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I have a few questions for you, though, and I don't want to catch our listeners off guard, because there's a lot of topics that you discuss throughout your career and your book that I want to get to, but I don't want to get too far ahead and put the cart before the horse.

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So, for all of our new listeners, all of our continuing listeners, let's just start at the beginning.

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Who are you?

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Where are you from?

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You know what sort of things have shaped your perspective on life.

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If you want to take a couple minutes and work through some introductions, well, I am Michael Alexander.

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I have a PhD in economics, but I describe myself as a systems engineer because I had become fascinated in the course of my life not just with one thing, but with a way everything fits together Interesting.

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This is something I learned.

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My father was an engineer, an electrical engineer.

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He is the fellow who invented the barcode, as a matter of fact, cool code, as a matter of fact, cool.

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Who pointed out that he has a master's degree in vacuum tomb engineering, which he got the day that the transistor came out, okay, and so he had to reinvent himself from ground zero, absolutely.

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But he decided to just keep going, took what he had, learned a little bit about everything as he went, and so he did different types of engineering.

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He of course, had a background in theater, which he passed on to me, and everything else in life.

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My mother was an English teacher, so from her I learned a lot of the English language but she was also a dog trainer as a paying hobby.

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So it all came to how does it all fit together?

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That was my next question.

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And as I tried to understand everything, I think the final pivotal moment in terms of my own self-identification came when I was introduced to a gloom and doom model called the Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome, which talked about the fact that the energy was going to run out, that pollution was going to destroy us and overpopulation was the end of the world.

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I didn't believe it and I looked at it.

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sure enough, by the way, that model, which was very popular at the time predicted that by 1988, we would be out of energy and starving, no matter what we did.

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It didn't happen, but I learned when I looked at it.

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I looked at models in general and saw this was a case of Malthus in, malthus out.

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It wasn't garbage in, garbage out.

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They started by assuming what Malthus said, that growth was unlimited and resources were and that would never change.

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And resources were and that would never change.

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And they did a very careful combination of things, looking at Malthusian economics, which was interesting to look at was interesting to understand the model, but of course things grow and adapt.

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As an economist, which I became, I realized no, things do adapt and I started to look at how things adapt and I started to look at how people adapt, and this became a fascination which has carried me all the way till now and will carry.

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For example, overlap to such an extent that you've created a career, crafted a career, out of that overlap with social sciences and hard sciences like economics.

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And so something that I heard you mention before we hit record was a difference, or maybe a slight difference, between creative thinking and outside the box thinking, and a reference you just made to this.

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Well, I guess thinking inside a vacuum, irrespective of any additional facts, to adapt and flex, is sort of like your vacuum tube career path.

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Initially your father had and then the transistor, and so I'm curious, in this reinvention point, what role do you see creativity and or outside the box thinking having in that process?

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Let me start off in my response by saying that if you only think outside the box, you're never going to have cornflakes for breakfast.

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Okay, all right.

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If you only think outside the the box, you're always going to be reinventing the wheel.

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So what I've argued long is that you have to learn not to be limited by the box in either direction.

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You've got to learn from the past.

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You've got to learn from what they already know, you've got to learn to adapt it, and then you have to come up with new ways to look at what you know and what you don't know.

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The motto that most of my teaching and career is based on is change the focus, find the solution.

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Okay, people often concentrate on what they don't know, they concentrate on what can go wrong and they stare at the problem.

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You know we're trained to focus on the problem with laser-like precision and if we do that we're going to miss the solution which is right next to the problem.

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I see that became the driving force in the way I approach problems in general.

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And so is that just be open-minded, or it sounds like there's more to that.

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Well, let me give you an example.

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Sure, I had been invited on a scuba dive off of an oil rig.

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It's a beautiful scuba dive and the fish were beautiful.

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The various plant life was unbelievable and I was just having the time of my life and we descended 30 feet underwater.

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40 feet, we got down to 90 feet underwater, still absolutely beautiful we checked we made sure everyone had oxygen, we made sure everybody was in good shape and we went down.

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Well, they did.

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I got vertigo.

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I completely lost all awareness of which way was up down, left or right, I felt like the oil rig was spinning around me, even though I knew it wasn't.

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Now this is a time when scuba divers die.

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They either go down in the wrong direction until they run out of air, or they panic and go upward too fast until the change in water pressure causes the air in their lungs to expand and explode and they can't breathe and die right now, if I concentrated on what I didn't know which way was up, I would have died, but instead I said I didn't know which way was up.

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I would have died.

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But instead I said I don't know which way is up, but the bubbles know, and so I followed the bubbles.

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I was able to come up slowly, stop to let things equalize.

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And I got to the surface and I'm alive today to tell you about it.

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And the reason why that worked was because I changed the focus from what I didn't know to what I did.

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I learned this from my father when he invented the barcode.

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My father went to lunch with a friend of his and said what are you working on?

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He said.

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His friend said I'm working on a way to identify railroad cars.

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Okay.

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Because when a railroad car from one company drives on the tracks of another company's railroad tracks, they pay a rental fee.

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Now, telling which company owns the cars is done by looking at the numbers on the side.

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This is a job which unfortunately goes to those with seniority, whose eyes are a little squinty and who don't care a lot, and they mix the numbers up, which completely fouls up the accounting.

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Sure, so the National Railroad Association has asked for a way to identify the railroad cars electronically, so we don't have this problem.

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Okay, said my father.

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So how are you working on it?

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Well, I have a series of colored strips that go on the side of the railroad car and they travel past a sensor which looks at the strips and that identifies the railroad car by number.

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Sounds good, said my father.

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How's it working?

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Terrible, said his friend, because the cars go by so fast that the whole thing blurs and they can't tell what the numbers are.

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And I've tried everything.

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I've tried faster algorithms, better equipment, faster computers.

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Nothing works, it just blurs.

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And my father, and this only took a second of his time said well, here's your solution Take the strips and rotate them so that instead of being vertical they're horizontal, and then you scroll down them at your own pace and they won't blur, because they're just long that way.

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And that will solve the problem.

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And it did, and that ultimately became the barcode.

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What my father said is don't look at what you can't do.

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Look at it differently.

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All right, folks, stay tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

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Imagine a little lady who wouldn't give up her seat on the bus, A TV host who wanted to be your neighbor, or an inventor whose 10,000 failures didn't stop him.

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These vivid images all share the same caption inspiration.

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These people just did their best and they inspire us.

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Now what will you do to inspire others?

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Inspiration is in you.

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Pass it on From PassItOn.

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com.

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What my father said is don't look at what you can't do.

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Look at it differently.

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Identify what you can control, what's within your control.

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Sure, there's a lot of, I guess, social theory and actually proven social science around managing anxiety in a lot the same way, where it gets qualified as focusing on something outside your control and so that increasing worry and stress and other emotions as a result, to the point where you lose so much focus on what you can control that now you're theoretically paralyzed and you can't actually get through the situation to any given extent.

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The points you just brought up, though, I think is very powerful, because then you can, even though it still may be problematic, circumstantially problematic.

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It's not a myopic focus on the problem, but I think that degree of self-awareness for the sake of insight or inquiry, critical thought, any of those types of things you can't teach it.

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I assume in this example your father was an adult, right?

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My father was an adult.

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Okay and well, okay.

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So here's an example.

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So when you mentioned, well, I guess you and your mother's affinity for theater, that's when you were maybe not a child, but younger, not quite an adult.

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My parents met in play shop in college.

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Okay, so the whole way.

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So I like to tell people.

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I've been involved in theater since before I was born.

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Right.

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Do you think that exposure to creative outlets and imagination and reinterpreting a script or a setting or a set, for that matter, a role, helped with some of this thought process, some of this reinvention and perspective?

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Absolutely, because instead of putting myself in the position, as many people do, of being the victim, that's one role you can play.

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Sure, I put myself in the role of the problem solver.

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Murray Byrne, in his book Games People Play, talks about a game called, " In his book games people play talks about a game called why don't you, yes, but okay.

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The essence of the game the game is the word burns uses for scripted interactions which have a purpose not to solve the problem but to spend time together and put people in a position they feel comfortable.

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The essence of why don't you, yes, but is a person comes to you with a problem and you offer a solution.

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Their role in this interaction is not to solve their problem.

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It's to explain why they still have a problem because that's where they feel comfortable.

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In their mindset.

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This is who I am.

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I am a person with a problem that can't be solved, and they get stuck that way.

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Alcoholics wind up in a similar situation.

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They have a role of alcoholic and when they are offered solutions, they often will force themselves back into the same behavior, because that's the behavior they're used to.

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They have in the theater terms.

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They have a role that they keep playing.

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Alcoholics Anonymous is based fundamentally on changing people's role from the victim to the friend, the problem solver, and that puts them in the same interaction but in a different role which lets them out of it.

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Now the theater background, as you mentioned, puts me in a chance to play a different role.

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I change my role.

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I change my focus.

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Yep, that degree of ownership in the moment, or at least in preparation, identifying what controls you have.

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So when the moment comes, ie on stage or in life, you understand the options.

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You have to fill the role as the same consistent character, though.

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As the same consistent character, or you change what character you are.

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Well, let's say, you have, I don't cease being Michael Alexander, but I cease being Michael Alexander the victim.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I mean I being Michael Alexander the victim.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I become, michael.

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Alexander, and while a lot of the stuff I deal with when I work with people is solving technical problems or problems like being trapped underwater, some of it is.

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I work with people.

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For example, there's a group in South Africa that I'm on with.

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Frequently I talk with women who have problems that they are trapped in the roles that I'm on with.

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Frequently I talk with women who have problems that they are trapped in the roles that they've put upon themselves, and it's the same thing.

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I tell them to stop playing the same role and think about how they can take a different role, a different approach to their problem.

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So it's logical as well as technical.

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Well, again, a healthy overlap between sort of the artistic humanities and hard science or social science of a problem set.

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I think in that you had mentioned the roles that people put themselves in, in this case the south africans you were just referring to, but you know a lot of that is the same thing with service members that get out of the military after X amount of years.

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I mean, let me explain it like this Are you familiar in the United States department of defense with 18 being the minimum age to join the military, waverable down to 17 with parental consent?

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Okay, and I assume also by some of the topics in depth that you've communicated so far, you're also familiar with this 25, 26-year-old average brain development maturity threshold, right?

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So I have a working theory that by having a minimum age to join the military and this is again just to the US military Department of Defense, not branch specific, department of Defense, not branch specific we have 17 and 18 year olds coming in that, to varying degrees of maturity, are now learning, or relearning in some cases, how to communicate, behave, walk, eat, sleep, when, how often, which frequencies, when to turn right or left, and that becomes a new perspective.

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You learn a new role, right, and I think what we lose in that process, or at least what I lost in that process initially, was, like you said earlier, what do you bring to the table as your baseline?

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And I didn't know.

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I wasn't aware of that at the time.

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And so then fast forward, in my case, 14 years, and then I got off my active duty contract and opened the front door metaphorically out into the rest of the world and didn't recognize what I saw outside or inside, because I didn't have a baseline to start from and exactly how you explained it.

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So I fell back into this role of I don't have a structure.

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Time to panic to panic.

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I think ultimately and please don't misunderstand I have a great deal of respect for the armed forces and the defense of their country, whether it's this or any of the other countries that are out there that need defense.

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Sure the reason why they take people at the age of 18 is not for their physical capabilities.

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It's because this is a point in their lives when they're easiest to mold, to teach, to think in a military point of view.

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And clearly.

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I'm the kind of guy I realize if I'd ever been drafted I would have died, Because I'm the kind of guy who, when the sergeant says duck, I would look around and say why, Instead of ducking.

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Oh, they're out there.

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Yep, but that's why you want them at the age of 18 or so, when they are young, impressionable and can learn to just follow orders or develop a behavior pattern which is appropriate for the military mindset, for the survival in a military mindset, and it's very important.

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But it also means that you have molded them to a role, to a way of thinking, and when they leave that, when there's no one telling them what to do, when there's no one providing them with structure, when the world is not something which is just given to them, then they have to rethink, or, in some cases, they can't, and they have this culture crisis, yep, and that's why a lot of people have a hard time adapting to the real world when they get out.

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All right, folks, sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

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Join us for Transacting Value, where we discuss practical applications of personal values, every Monday at 9 am on our website TransactingValuePodcast.

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And they have this culture crisis, yep, and that's why a lot of people have a hard time adapting to the real world when they get out.

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Well, that's the point in time that I try to combat or help to bring recognition and awareness to, I guess you could say, in sort of an advocacy type role, because it exists not just for the military, for anybody.

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I mean, you've got the prison system, you've got all sorts of other high stress, high environmental stress considerations in different occupational fields.

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You know, cops, teachers, lawyers, whatever firefighters, all the above that, I think, experience a lot of this routine for the sake of environmental discipline and necessity and muscle memory, and it can be detrimental, I think, when you need to reinvent and relearn, after you no longer need that skill set, your military career ends, you're no longer in prison, you don't have the same need for the coping strategy that you had decades ago or whatever, and so, I think, to build that degree of self-awareness or ability to reframe your perspective about your self-awareness, I think that takes some courage.

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I mean, it's scary, it's overwhelming, it's vulnerable, and those are three primary feelings that at least I wasn't familiar with ever experiencing or recognizing.

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I was experiencing.

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So what then?

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How does this factor into those moments and transitions then?

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I think what it really boils down to is the realization that you need time to be retrained.

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When we take people into the military.

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we put them in boot camp.

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Sure, people get new jobs, stressful whatever.

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They go through a high training situation To a lesser degree.

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People who have nine to five jobs for 40 or 50 years and get out have a similar problem that my life doesn't involve getting up at the same time, going to work, filling out the paperwork and coming home to my wife or kids.

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We train people to get into the world.

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We should train them to get out Instead of just taking a military point of view and saying congratulations, your two years are up.

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Here's your manumission papers.

00:22:52.105 --> 00:22:54.672
Go forth and do great things.

00:22:55.472 --> 00:23:02.740
We should give them the same training, the same six weeks or whatever it takes, and I can't tell you what that is.

00:23:02.740 --> 00:23:10.214
We should give them training for how to be normal citizens again.

00:23:10.214 --> 00:23:17.344
Prisoners who are out of prison after a while go back in in many cases because they don't know how to readjust.

00:23:17.344 --> 00:23:32.164
Some of them will be let out slowly through halfway houses and everything else and if they are properly reconditioned they have a chance of avoiding returning.

00:23:32.164 --> 00:23:36.713
But you've got to give them the skills it takes to be a normal citizen.

00:23:36.713 --> 00:23:45.087
So we need to think of that as not freedom like freedom is wonderful, but a chance to learn a new role.

00:23:45.880 --> 00:23:55.661
I think that sort of freedom is underrated, where you have a chance to learn a new role within certain constraints, confines, qualifiers.

00:23:55.661 --> 00:24:03.603
Maybe you're not going to be necessarily an astronaut after you worked in logistics, so you know.

00:24:03.603 --> 00:24:14.465
Maybe there are some qualifiers here that aren't readily applicable, but but I think overall, yeah, having that freedom and ability to retrain and reconsider what's going on makes a big difference.

00:24:14.465 --> 00:24:19.925
What about the things when you don't, things you're maybe unaware?

00:24:19.925 --> 00:24:25.223
You're promulgating Generational traumas, for example, and I understand that's a heavy topic.

00:24:25.223 --> 00:24:40.215
But to whatever extent you maybe care to unpack that, we don't always know that well, I raised my son a certain way because that's how I experienced whatever discipline or teaching or something relationship building, care, affection when I was a kid.

00:24:40.215 --> 00:24:41.943
So that's just how I do it now.

00:24:41.943 --> 00:24:43.569
It worked for me, then It'll work for him now.

00:24:43.569 --> 00:24:47.124
What about in those moments when nobody's there to show you?

00:24:47.124 --> 00:24:50.648
Well, there are other options and you got to recognize it on your own.

00:24:50.648 --> 00:24:51.430
You know what I mean.

00:24:51.430 --> 00:24:51.971
You're the parent.

00:24:51.971 --> 00:24:55.194
Now, how does this reframing concept apply?

00:25:00.279 --> 00:25:02.818
I think, again, we don't give people the training in terms of how life changes.

00:25:02.818 --> 00:25:19.786
Now, sometimes there are books and sometimes there are courses that are available, but we really need to think about how do we educate people, how do we give them a feeling of how the world and life has changed, and we don't talk about that.

00:25:19.786 --> 00:25:21.444
This was good enough from my father.

00:25:21.444 --> 00:25:23.230
It's good enough for me, exactly.

00:25:23.759 --> 00:25:27.770
Well, my father raised me in the 50s.

00:25:27.770 --> 00:25:31.509
We had a whole different set of technologies.

00:25:31.509 --> 00:25:34.392
Then we had a whole different set of technologies.

00:25:34.392 --> 00:25:35.440
Then we had a whole different cultural world.

00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:39.050
The world changes dramatically over the course of time.

00:25:39.050 --> 00:26:16.182
What's expected, what's reasonable changes, and I think really we should be educating people, we should be making that a priority, to let them know this is how things are changing, and we do it to some degree with talk shows, which means that the only people who get this education in general are unemployed housewives, but the average guy who comes home from work and he's tired doesn't have the time, the luxury, to watch that and he needs to have it filled in in different ways.

00:26:17.505 --> 00:26:20.991
Okay, so we meet people more effectively where they are.

00:26:20.991 --> 00:26:23.182
Things like podcasts, for example.

00:26:23.182 --> 00:26:27.442
If people are commuting, they can listen to your audio books, right, obviously.

00:26:27.442 --> 00:26:30.431
Newspapers, magazines, there's all different media forms, I guess, is my point.

00:26:30.431 --> 00:26:40.631
But what about, I guess, in other circumstances, if you're unaware that you're missing something, it just feels misaligned.

00:26:40.631 --> 00:26:46.827
How do you, or what are some other outlets to reinvigorate or reawaken?

00:26:46.827 --> 00:26:47.830
I don't know.

00:26:47.830 --> 00:26:50.663
Balance, it can't all be on other media forms.

00:26:50.663 --> 00:26:52.788
I mean, there's got to be something we can do on our own too.

00:26:52.807 --> 00:26:54.132
Right, it can't all be on other media forums.

00:26:54.132 --> 00:26:56.718
I mean, there's got to be something we can do on our own too.

00:26:56.718 --> 00:26:57.259
Right, Absolutely .

00:27:04.674 --> 00:27:09.002
All right, folks, sit tight, we'll be right back on .

00:27:12.145 --> 00:27:14.909
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00:27:14.909 --> 00:27:23.297
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00:27:56.401 --> 00:27:59.289
com for more information.

00:28:08.191 --> 00:28:23.182
Absolutely, and the first thing I think we need to do is to stop feeling a need to be perfect, be afraid of admitting that we're wrong, or be afraid of admitting we don't know what we don't know.

00:28:23.182 --> 00:28:34.326
And I think many of us feel somehow that if we don't know something, that's a failure on the part, and I wouldn't call ignorance a weakness.

00:28:34.326 --> 00:28:40.757
It is simply the next challenge to take on, and I think we should encourage that.

00:28:40.849 --> 00:29:04.987
We should make more heroes out of people who are making an effort to learn and we should give people who say something's "off good on you for realizing that and then have the resources available, whatever they are, whatever they are, to study it in the media to make it okay to talk about to your buddies.

00:29:06.531 --> 00:29:09.180
Well, let me inject here for a second.

00:29:09.180 --> 00:29:15.310
Then inject here for a second.

00:29:15.310 --> 00:29:38.501
Then I think developing that degree of, let's say, communication in general, built on self-awareness and honesty and authenticity and loyalty, dignity, in some cases has to stem from some degree of exposure in our social circles growing up or as adults, in my opinion, from a similar or like-minded value system, and then it gets reinforced as we get older or it expands and changes as we get older.

00:29:38.501 --> 00:29:42.140
And so I'm curious this is a part of the show called Developing Character.

00:29:43.910 --> 00:29:47.077
For anybody new to the show for that matter, and in this case Michael, you included.

00:29:47.077 --> 00:29:53.101
It's just two questions and, to that end, my first question is about your value system.

00:29:53.101 --> 00:30:03.785
Whatever you were raised around and brought up on or that you remember experiencing when you were a kid that you feel sort of set your foundation for your own perspective and outlook on life.

00:30:03.785 --> 00:30:05.696
What were some of the values that you were raised on?

00:30:06.471 --> 00:30:07.733
One of the advantages I had.

00:30:07.773 --> 00:30:10.541
Growing up, as I said, my mother was a high school English teacher.

00:30:12.329 --> 00:30:38.423
Growing up, as I said, my mother was a high school English teacher and my mother would talk to me about the things that she was dealing with, the things that her students were dealing with, always maintaining discretion Absolutely don't get me wrong on that score but she wasn't afraid to come to talk to me, to tell me what was going on, to give me examples of problems and get me involved in the concept that solving the problems, thinking about the problems, thinking about other ways to work on it, was both interesting and fun.

00:30:39.190 --> 00:30:43.378
I wasn't superior, but I had problems to work on and think about.

00:30:43.378 --> 00:30:45.163
This was a challenge.

00:30:45.163 --> 00:30:58.561
We have math problems when we grow up, we don't talk to people as much about social problems and we need to do it in a way which isn't pressing superiority in some fashion and that was a large part of how I grew up.

00:30:58.561 --> 00:31:18.136
When my father talked about the problem, the things that he was working on and it wasn't just the barcode, he had a number of things I mean, obviously his whole life wasn't that five minutes piece of having this he talked about the things personal, social, whatever, again realizing the limits that I had.

00:31:18.176 --> 00:31:27.982
He didn't try to give me, if you will, calculus when I was trying to do my sums, yeah, but he'd go ahead and talk to me realistically about.

00:31:27.982 --> 00:31:29.133
This is the problems that we're.

00:31:29.133 --> 00:31:36.832
You know, this is the problem, these are the things I'm dealing with, this is how I'm solving it, and he would teach me in that he would teach me problem solving.

00:31:36.832 --> 00:31:39.096
He wouldn't teach me solutions.

00:31:40.820 --> 00:31:42.003
I see, I see.

00:31:42.003 --> 00:32:01.692
Well, it sounds like in large part you've adopted that throughout your entire life, but I can't help but think, with all of the exposure you've had to everybody else's perspectives and issues and problem sets that you've thought through, that maybe that hasn't somehow changed or been affected.

00:32:01.692 --> 00:32:04.557
So my second question is what about now?

00:32:04.557 --> 00:32:08.394
What are some of your values that you stand on if anything's changed?

00:32:08.954 --> 00:32:19.436
Well, as life goes on, as time goes on, I have become more tolerant of people being wrong, and that's key.

00:32:19.436 --> 00:32:24.310
It's not just a matter of sometimes they're right and I'm wrong.

00:32:24.310 --> 00:32:26.294
I accepted that for a long time.

00:32:26.294 --> 00:32:31.903
Sometimes they're wrong but happy, and that's something you have to accept.

00:32:31.903 --> 00:32:40.518
I've also realized that sometimes change is hard, and I will help where.

00:32:40.578 --> 00:32:46.998
I can and there are things I can't do, it's easier for me to let go than it ever was before, and that's been a big change.

00:32:47.759 --> 00:32:50.084
I'll also admit I raised my son.

00:32:50.084 --> 00:32:51.994
I love my son, I'm very proud of my son.

00:32:51.994 --> 00:32:53.840
I have a wonderful relationship with my son.

00:32:53.840 --> 00:33:01.064
It's even a better relationship than I had with my father, which I thought was probably the best father-son relationship the world had ever seen.

00:33:01.064 --> 00:33:04.460
But did I make mistakes in the process?

00:33:04.460 --> 00:33:05.955
Yeah, I did.

00:33:05.955 --> 00:33:09.298
Did I do things that worked for my father and for me?

00:33:09.298 --> 00:33:11.894
Yeah, and that didn't work for him?

00:33:11.894 --> 00:33:14.691
Yeah, and I've accepted that.

00:33:14.691 --> 00:33:20.251
I've accepted he's not me, just as my father accepted that I was never destined to be an electrical engineer.

00:33:20.251 --> 00:33:22.376
Well, I love my son and I'm proud of him.

00:33:22.376 --> 00:33:28.660
I love the people I work with and many people I know and who do good things.

00:33:28.660 --> 00:33:36.660
I have friends who, however, are going to be messed up for the rest of their lives, but that's the way that they feel comfortable in the world and I accept that.

00:33:36.660 --> 00:33:46.118
It wasn't easy, but I've learned and I'm happier as a result and I am doing a better job of not driving them nuts.

00:33:46.378 --> 00:33:46.941
Yeah, I bet.

00:33:46.941 --> 00:34:17.085
I bet Trying to be the fixer every time, so saying that having gained some acceptance or maybe even appreciation for other people's perspectives and cultures, I assume now, like you mentioned South Africa earlier, that's why you travel and have global clients and work through, I guess you could say, exponentially varied problem sets based on culture, language, things now you're maybe unfamiliar with.

00:34:17.085 --> 00:34:19.516
Was that part of a driver there?

00:34:20.097 --> 00:34:20.659
I think that is.

00:34:21.130 --> 00:34:22.094
I think that definitely is.

00:34:23.030 --> 00:34:25.079
My wife is from Taiwan.

00:34:25.079 --> 00:34:36.934
I get on extraordinarily well with her family, half of whom don't speak any English, which is still more than I have Chinese, and they raise their children differently.

00:34:36.934 --> 00:34:38.318
It's a different culture.

00:34:38.318 --> 00:34:44.456
I was raised thinking that American culture was the epitome.

00:34:44.456 --> 00:34:45.980
It was the right way to go.

00:34:45.980 --> 00:34:51.438
It wouldn't work for them and even if it would, they wouldn't be able to listen to me.

00:34:51.438 --> 00:34:53.922
So I've learned to work with them.

00:34:53.922 --> 00:34:55.335
I put myself in their shoes.

00:34:55.990 --> 00:34:58.418
You talked about the theater and the different roles.

00:34:59.630 --> 00:35:03.481
One of the ways that the theater has helped me is I can put on a different role.

00:35:03.481 --> 00:35:06.920
I get into the character of the people I'm working with.

00:35:06.920 --> 00:35:14.949
So when I'm consulting, I'm not Michael Alexander, professional energy economist in America.

00:35:14.949 --> 00:35:30.179
I become the friend confidant with an understanding of South Africa, Taiwan, Australia or any place else, and that helps me deal with them on their terms.

00:35:30.179 --> 00:35:34.199
And if you don't understand the people you're working with, you can't help them.

00:35:34.739 --> 00:35:54.996
That's a great point, and I think the same thing goes outside of professional considerations personally, if, for example, you have an extended career or period of time where you grow away from your family physically, geographically, mentally, emotionally, whatever and then you try to reintegrate.

00:35:54.996 --> 00:36:10.757
It's a collection of different people over some time and I think it's the same parallel where, if you don't understand who you're working with, you trying to fix the problem is probably going to cause more problems, conflict, maybe not more problems or conflict.

00:36:13.019 --> 00:36:15.070
Well, I can just pause you for a second.

00:36:15.070 --> 00:36:15.733
Yeah, please, please.

00:36:15.733 --> 00:36:17.556
I've learned over time.

00:36:17.556 --> 00:36:28.184
I don't try to fix the problem, I try to help them figure out how they can fix their own problems novel and it shouldn't be, but it is.

00:36:28.889 --> 00:36:30.811
It is absolutely, Michael I.

00:36:30.811 --> 00:36:55.248
I appreciate your time, I think for the sake of it, I really only have two more questions for you, and one of them is having experienced all of these things that we've discussed in this conversation, and all of these aspects of your life that you've rolled into your career to help other people come to these different solutions and realizations, what has that actually done to you for you to instigate your own self-worth?

00:36:55.849 --> 00:37:02.777
I like to say that I want as much good to happen in the world as possible, and there's a limit to how much I can do.

00:37:02.777 --> 00:37:07.121
So I want to increase the amount of goodness in the world.

00:37:07.121 --> 00:37:30.601
I have to empower other people to do good, and that means that every time one of my students, one of my friends, one of my counselees accomplishes something, I take a matter of pride in what they've been able to accomplish, and I hope that they will continue to accomplish new and better things that I never thought of.

00:37:30.601 --> 00:37:34.894
Continue to accomplish new and better things that I never thought of.

00:37:34.894 --> 00:37:38.041
So a wonderful quote from one of my teachers who said I don't want my son to follow in my footsteps.

00:37:38.041 --> 00:37:43.760
I want him to walk beside me and then continue further than I ever dreamed of going.

00:37:43.760 --> 00:37:46.552
And that's the way I feel about the people I work with.

00:37:47.833 --> 00:37:48.253
I like that.

00:37:48.253 --> 00:38:03.704
It's empathetic, it's professional and, again, I think it's incredibly underrated that concept, but I appreciate every bit of it that you brought into this conversation and, obviously, your time and perspective.

00:38:03.704 --> 00:38:13.664
My last question, though, is if anybody wants to reach out to you, follow with you, walk alongside you in any capacity, where do they go?

00:38:13.664 --> 00:38:14.746
How do they do it?

00:38:15.309 --> 00:38:18.275
The easiest way to reach me is alexandertalks.

00:38:18.275 --> 00:38:20.219
com.

00:38:20.219 --> 00:38:28.378
I'm simply at Michael at alexandertalkscom, or my website, which is Undergoing Revisions, of course, which is wwwalexandertalks.

00:38:28.378 --> 00:38:32.134
com, and I'm glad to talk with people.

00:38:32.134 --> 00:38:37.693
They can find me on LinkedIn and if they want to talk to me directly, there's talktomichaelnow.

00:38:37.693 --> 00:38:39.157
com.

00:38:39.157 --> 00:38:41.173
I'm always available.

00:38:41.173 --> 00:38:42.697
I always want to help.

00:38:43.340 --> 00:38:43.880
Outstanding.

00:38:43.880 --> 00:38:50.534
Well, to anybody who's new to this show, depending on the player that you're streaming this conversation on, you can click see more.

00:38:50.534 --> 00:38:59.556
You can click show more and in the dropdown description for this conversation you'll see links to Michael's websites and his social, so you can find him on there as well.

00:38:59.556 --> 00:39:06.836
Michael, again, I appreciate your time and your perspective and everything that we were able to cover in this conversation.

00:39:06.836 --> 00:39:20.193
So, for all of your flaws and your insights and your successes and your problem sets that you've worked through throughout your life, I'm really appreciative that you were able to bring it to us and to our audience.

00:39:20.193 --> 00:39:22.418
So thanks again for your time.

00:39:23.018 --> 00:39:25.894
I'm delighted to have been here, and I appreciate it very much.

00:39:26.597 --> 00:39:26.958
Of course.

00:39:26.958 --> 00:39:27.581
Of course.

00:39:27.581 --> 00:39:37.630
I hope you have a safe trip coming up here over the next few weeks, at least at the time of this recording, and otherwise we'll definitely be in touch.

00:39:37.630 --> 00:39:39.291
Thank you to our show partners and folks.

00:39:39.291 --> 00:39:43.552
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00:39:43.552 --> 00:39:55.597
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00:39:55.597 --> 00:39:56.757
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00:39:56.757 --> 00:39:57.438
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00:39:57.438 --> 00:39:59.880
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00:39:59.880 --> 00:40:01.019
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00:40:01.019 --> 00:40:08.382
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00:40:08.382 --> 00:40:42.016
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00:40:42.016 --> 00:40:43.659
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00:40:43.659 --> 00:40:45.483
That was Transacting Value.