Zach White on Lifestyle Engineering and Accelerating Your Growth
“At the end of the day, the antidote to analysis paralysis, the antidote to indecision is to make more decisions. Go and get experiences and go try things and learn.”
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Zach White is Founder and Coach at OACO, the Oasis of Courage. The business was born out of his passion for helping people push past their fears and find the edge of possibility in life, business, and career. It doesn't matter how successful, or how stuck, you may feel today - everyone needs a great Coach. Zach will challenge you to go further, much further, than you would ever go alone. In 2019, OACO launched a new program called the Lifestyle Engineering Blueprint, specifically for engineers and technical professionals, to accelerate your career while designing a life you love.
Zach began his career as a Mechanical Engineer at Whirlpool Corporation and holds his BSME from Purdue University, and MSME from the University of Michigan. His career shifted to Global Marketing for the KitchenAid brand before leaving the organization to found OACO, and finish certification as a Knowledge-Based Professional Coach (KBPC) with world-renowned coach instructor Leni Wildflower.
Interested in learning more about OACO and Lifestyle Engineering? Find us on Facebook and Instagram (@oasisofcourage), then email your questions to Zach White, Founder and Coach (zach@oasisofcourage.com) or call 269-235-9633. Live with passion!
Links list:
Webiste: www.oasisofcourage.com
Show Notes:
[00:04:38] Zach's Current Focus
[00:08:16] When Did Zach's Interest In Engineering Start?
[00:10:05] The Engineer Mindset
[00:11:13] Systems Thinking
[00:13:38] Taking Technology For Granted
First Principles - Farnam Street
[00:15:54] The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop
J.C.R. Licklider |ARPA, ARPANET
[00:17:24] Entering The Real World After College
Whirlpool Corporation | University of Michigan
[00:18:23] Where Pushing With A Single-Minded Focus Left Zach
[00:19:34] Changing Mindset Towards Career
[00:20:55] People Noticed The Change And Wanted To Learn
[00:22:22] Being Comes Before Doing
[00:25:08] A Warning To "Smart" People
[00:28:34] Live As A Whole Person
[00:29:33] Descartes' Error
[00:31:10] Building An Awareness Of Your Feelings In This Moment
“I'd encourage everyone if you don't have a strong sense of the emotional side of your life. Press into that. It really is important, and there are so many ways to do it. Whether it's starting, most of us are engineers and academics. So let's read a good book, whether it's, whether it's emotional intelligence, there's something that you grabbed Daniel Goleman's work. Or others begin that journey. The sooner, the better. “
[00:32:38] Altered Traits and Mindfulness or Meditation
[00:34:23] Why Do Did Nobody Ever Talk About Mindfulness A Hundred Years Ago?
Mechanistic View | Western Culture
"The things we practice are the things that we master. If you look at your life all day, every day, and you ask the question, what is my mind practicing? We practice distraction. We practice short, little bursts. Sweet. We're in the middle of a project at work. And we're, we're letting email Gchats text messages, phone calls, everything, interrupt us. For some people, every minute, every 30 seconds. Not even, you're not focused on the work. You're in the middle of an FMEA, and you're responding to five chats at the same time. That's not work. "
[00:37:22] Why Mindfulness?
[00:39:27] Thinking In Spectrums: Mindfulness to Meditation
“Mindfulness is your entry point. Mindfulness is using like Headspace, Calm, any of those apps.
Then Meditation is the deep work. Meditation is where you do the introspection:
Where you're like, Hey, what am I like? How do I figure myself out? Where are my pain points here? How do I start untangling those mental knots?
Like you would try to push yourself at the gym and like break your body down.
Where can I find these knots in my psyche that are holding me back because I'm too scared?
To start opening Pandora's box. I think one of the things about Meditation is that it is scary, and what you're going to find is not going to be good sometimes.”
[00:41:23] Practice Thinking About Just One Thing
[00:42:44] Be Where Your Feet Are
[00:43:31] Cultivating Presence
[00:45:41] Separating Yourself From Screens
Zach’s Routine: No Screen for the first two hours and during meals.
[00:48:16] Making Our Devices Work For Us
[00:49:27] During Podcasts Nobody Checks Their Phone
Your Smartphone Reduces Your Brainpower, Even If It's Just Sitting There - The Atlantic
[00:51:26] Putting The Phone Airplane Mode
How to Configure Your iPhone to Work for You, Not Against You - |Medium
[00:53:36] The Power Of Habit
Charles Duhigg's book The Power of Habit
James Clear’s book Atomic Habits
Small changes that compound over time: “So you know my morning routine, I already mentioned it. It's pretty regimented around how I do things, and I realized that if I could make a couple of small tweaks.
The way that I structured the activities, I could probably free up an additional five minutes in my morning routine, and some of my friends made fun of me like, fuck, what are you talking about?
Five minutes? Well, that five minutes get applied to the time that I read in the morning and let's say I could read a page a minute.
I'm not a fast reader. I'm an engineer. I read like an engineer. So a page a minute.
Well, five pages, man, over 300 days a year that I'm doing this. That adds up to, I mean, how many, like what, 20 more books or something that I'm going to devour this year just because I can get through that many extra pages.
The point is, don't underestimate the power of small compounding benefits in our lives and living habitually and stacking good habits and replacing bad habits with good habits. To me, that is an X factor to results that are bigger than you could ever imagine.”
[00:56:52] Eisenhower Decision Matrix Or Stephen Covey Time Management Quadrants
Dwight D. Eisenhower | Stephen Covey | Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Eisenhower Decision Matrix was described in #77 - How To Train Your Mind: Movement
[00:58:15] Being Able To Discriminate What's Important to You
What are the peak moments? What are the proud moments? What are the stories that come to mind when you reflect over your life and say in my autobiography, these are the big wins?
Look deeply at those stories. And what about them makes them important to you?
Then do the opposite.
What are the low points? What were the things that I had a big failure? Or something that is off track and is a hugely negative memory for me, and dive in like what was I feeling? What was I experiencing? Who was around what happened?
And then you want to diagnose what were the things that made it unique in our lives.
[01:01:36] What Are Your Commandments?
“ It doesn't matter if you're getting closer to the goal if you hate your life the whole time on your way there.”
[01:03:07] Personality Tests
Big Five Personality | VIA Character Strengths | Gallup Strengthsfinder 2.0
[01:04:44] Cultivating Self-Awareness: Look To Your Heroes
[01:06:23] Only Two Limited Resources: Time And Energy
[01:07:22] The Purpose of Vision
“Vision acts as a true North to make sure, like, am I going in the right direction? I think we all can create our visions regardless of whether or not you're a CEO. We're all the CEOs of our own life if you think about it.”
Ari Weinzweig found of Zingerman's
Ari’s definition of vision: “Vision is a picture of what success looks like at a particular point in time in the future. Described in rich emotional detail such that, you know, when you have arrived.”
[01:09:31] The Power Of Zach's Vision
Teddy Roosevelt and The Man In The Arena
Paraphrased here by Zach, “It's the man who's in the arena, whose face is marred by, by sweat and blood, and who's doing the deed. We want to get out of the bleachers, out of the grandstands of being a critic, and get into the arena of our life. The vision for OACO is to be a vehicle. The Oasis that helps people recognize you have to first get into the arena.”
[01:13:45] Allowing Technical People Express Themselves Fully
[01:16:36 ] Viewing Stress As A High Watermark - Two People Who Are Underwater Are Still Drowning
“Two underwater people are both drowning. It doesn't matter if relatively speaking; it's different in their world. They're drowning. The point I wanted to make was giving yourself permission to look and say, I'm drowning."
[01:19:11] Don't Be Vulnerable Because It's Popular
[01:20:38] Erich's View On Knowledge
“With Knowledge, Comes Responsibility”
“Throwing is as much information that we can at people and say, here's what seems to work. Now do it. Like, don't break it. Be the engineer.”
[01:21:26] Building Cultures and Elevating The Individual
Pete Carroll | Culture of caring for the individual continues paying dividends for Pete Carroll’s Seahawks
[01:22:50] Potential Left On The Table
[01:23:36] Prioritizing Recovery For The Individual
For more on the idea of recovery: #70 - How To Train Your Mind: Daily Recovery
Also, read my overview here - Meet Whoop and Oura Ring
[01:26:05] Organizing Human Capital
[01:27:38] Recommended Books
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter
Awaken The Giant Within by Tony Robbins
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
[01:30:27] Be Decisive
“At the end of the day, the antidote to analysis paralysis, the antidote to indecision is to make more decisions. Go and get experiences and go try things and learn.”
Other episodes you might enjoy:
#80 - Worth Reading: My Most Impactful Books of 2019
#78 - Marcus Aurelius Anderson: Turning Adversity Into A Gift
Check out our blogs:
JOKER Review: What Made This So…Disturbing? by Jordan Criss
Wearables: Meet WHOOP and Oura Ring by Erich Wenzel
Hard But Worth It: Three Life Changes To Break Out of A Rut by Jennifer McGregor
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Full Transcript Episode 81 - Zach White
[00:03:52] Erich Wenzel: Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of feeding curiosity. Today's guests, we are joined by Zach White. Hey, Zach,
[00:04:00] Zach White: Hey. Erich, how are you?
[00:04:01] Erich Wenzel: Pretty good. This is really awesome. You know, being in the middle of December here, it's, it gets a little crazy with the holidays, but carving out time to make these conversations and it's just a, a lot of fun to do this. I really appreciate it.
[00:04:16] Zach White: Absolutely. It's a pleasure to be here. No better time, right at the most wonderful time of the year.
[00:04:21] Erich Wenzel: I guess that's true. So go ahead and let's start with your current background because I'm sure we'll unpack the previous background as part of this conversation. So what do you do right now, or what are you focusing most on?
[00:04:38] Zach's Current Focus
[00:04:38] Zach White: Right now, Erich, I am growing my own company, just started full time into the world of entrepreneurship in 2019 and the company is called a OACO. And I like to think of myself as a lifestyle engineer. And what I mean by that is, bringing the skillsets of career success and life success together. And helping other people reach a new level, find their next level.
[00:05:07] So I'm, I'm a coach man. I'm a high performance coach, building programs and building tools for, you know, engineers and technical professionals. Again, to get to the next level. And so it is an incredibly exciting time for me because scaling that business has been my sole focus here in 2019 and will continue to be moving forward into 2020 man.
[00:05:28] Erich Wenzel: Where did that become the logical decision for you? Because it doesn't sound, I mean, it's not a normal path that most of us would take. At least into lifestyle design. And that's more of a new term, probably, I don't even know, maybe 10 years. I kind of started hearing that. It's not very widely talked about yet. Maybe more so in like Silicon Valley area, but not here, out here in the Midwest.
[00:05:55] Zach White: I'm not sure that there's anything logical about it, but you know, the answer to the question, how did I get here? and, and part of it's connected to my journey, but in a way. My personal passion and purpose in life has always been triggered more on helping other people find their way than on any specific.
[00:06:19] You know, corporate or financial type of reward. And I loved engineering. I loved marketing. And I know we'll talk a little bit about my, my background and my story. Business is such an incredibly fun platform to meaningful work, but coaching and lifestyle design and bringing my background as an engineer into that space and, you know, creating this, this concept of lifestyle engineering, it was thrust upon me then something that logically made sense.
[00:06:47] You know, there was. So many people asking me questions and seeking out the coaching and the insight that I kind of would say, you know, destiny found me around this space and could not be happier to be doing it, to be honest.
[00:07:02] Erich Wenzel: It's just a meandering path and all of a sudden you just kind of wake up one day and you're like, Oh, I guess this is what I'm doing now.
[00:07:10] Zach White: I love what you said there. One of my best friends, he calls it wayfinding. Oh, cool. It's a nice. Metaphor to what you're describing. Like sometimes Erich, we just don't know what's going to come around the next corner and it's not going to be logical. You just gotta you gotta make decisions and go try things. Again, life has a way of unveiling the path if we'll just keep moving forward.
[00:07:34] Erich Wenzel: I mean, that's why, you know, this podcast has many themes behind it, but one of them, the cornerstone of it is exploring the precarity of human experience. And you know, it's precarious, right? The is that word precarity. And it's the random events that happened in your life and you don't have a chance.
[00:07:50] You don't realize where it's taking you until you reflect on it. And that's where, you know, it's reflection is kind of the most powerful tool that we can have because it shines a light on the trajectory that, you know, why we end up where we are in some ways. so for that, where did your love of system building start like, did it start like engineering for a lot of people starts at a really young age. And was that something for you?
[00:08:16] When Did Zach's Interest In Engineering Start?
[00:08:16] Zach White: Yeah, no questions. I, I'm that guy. You know, my, my dad and I used to sit in the basement and build circuits. my dad was he was a PhD, electrical engineer, smart guy. And you know, I grew up in the engineering and the engineering mindset. Typical story, right? I was good at math and science.
[00:08:37] I had an inclination to want to know how things work and had that analytical, logical approach to life. You know, no emotional intelligence at all in the early years of my life. But, but yeah, I found my way into the space the way a lot of people do. You know, you're, you're good at math and science. You want to go into a profession that pays well, and everybody says, Hey, you should be an engineer.
[00:09:01] And my dad was an engineer, so, so I've made perfect sense. You know, my idea of rebellion was to do mechanical engineering instead of electrical engineering. That was my, you know, way to stick it to the man when I was at high school.
[00:09:14] Erich Wenzel: How do I differentiate myself from my dad, basically.
[00:09:16] Zach White: Exactly.
[00:09:17] Exactly. I want to follow in his footsteps. So I'll be a mechanical engineer. Right. But, but yeah, I went to Purdue and studied in me and, and got into the world of systems and structure and process, right. As an engineer. That world is natural. It's home base and it quite frankly was a place I was very good.
[00:09:36] I had great success in school. I loved the engineering school. Purdue was an incredible place to study engineering and it just fed that love of, you know, when, when you really see end to end. What's going on in a particular process, and you can learn how to solve problems. The way that engineers are trained, it opens the doors to so many different things and it's a skill set I will always be happy to have, even though I'm not doing engineering work today.
[00:10:05] The Engineer Mindset
[00:10:05] Erich Wenzel: I'm an engineer, as many people on this podcast already know, at least professionally, and I really truly think of engineering as a problem solving lens. Like it really doesn't matter what brand of engineering you pick at the end of the day, it's more of just specialized knowledge that gets overlayed on the type of problems you solve.
[00:10:25] A grand scheme but what it winds up doing, I think engineering is the, the bubbling up of the practical application of high level math. Basically it's, it's taking chemistry, physics, mathematics, and all of that and saying, how do we really solve real problems in the real world and do it cost effectively or at least as practically as possible, and then iterate.
[00:10:48] I do really get that and understand it. And I think having that lens really does lend itself to not only entrepreneurship, but also being able to look at things broadly. You know, the systems thinking like everyone likes to talk about nowadays is a little buzzwordy. So I don't know if you want to expand on any like systems thinking ideas or principles that have worked for you, at least as an engineer initially.
[00:11:13] Systems Thinking
[00:11:13] Zach White: Sure, man. I mean, you're right. It is. It is. Buzzwordy and to be honest, a lot of people, when you say systems engineering, probably have no clue what they're actually talking about. But it sounds great in a meeting item, to impress your boss. But no, I think there's so much truth to the reality that the world we live in all around us all the time is, a system of systems.
[00:11:35] And the more that you can see that. And you know, as you, it kind of opens your eyes to what's happening. The more you can begin to influence those systems. So I'll give you an example how this comes to life, right? And how much we take it for granted, I think is what is compelling to me. Most of us probably own a car and every day we go out to the garage or to the parking lot.
[00:12:00] We push a button on this little thing in our pocket and the door unlocks, or we walk up to the car and, and actually just touch the handle. The door unlocks, we get and we turn the key and the engine starts and we put it gear, and it drives. All of this happens by habit automatically with no effort whatsoever on your part.
[00:12:20] And we just say, yeah, it's a car. But then one thing breaks on the car. One thing breaks, you go push the button and the door doesn't unlock. It sends us into this instant rage about how cars are pieces of crap and or, or you know, the transmission fails and suddenly you're out $1500 bucks or more and you know, your car's in the shop and like your whole life comes off the tracks.
[00:12:46] Well, that system of systems, your car, when one of the systems breaks. It throws us for a complete tailspin that we don't know operate in our life anymore. And it's like there are unbelievable numbers of systems moving all around us all the time. And when they don't do what you expect them to do, we call those problems.
[00:13:10] And the more visibility you have to what those are, and the more you, you know, can exert your control over those. The more you can open doors that in the past maybe were closed to you. So I think to your point, that the engineering skillset, the engineering mindset allows you to look at all kinds of problems in a new way, whether it's.
[00:13:30] I'll even be as bold as to save relationship problems if it's business problems or if it's engineering problems.
[00:13:38] Taking Technology For Granted
[00:13:38] Erich Wenzel: I actually resonated with them. I pretty hard because when I first started doing my engineering degree, when you're learning fundamentals, especially like ohm's law and some of the electrical stuff, I started taking that to the, to the first principles thinking, right?
[00:13:51] So there's another buzzword. And, I was like, okay, so if I'm going to learn how to do this stuff, I want to be able to understand how to solve the problems that have already been solved. Right? Like how do you build a power supply like this? That's where I kind of went with stuff because I wanted to be able to understand, you know, the foundational things that it seems like our society is built on that almost 90% of us take for granted.
[00:14:13] Right? Like, like you're saying, that's basically what you're saying is all this technology we just take for granted because it is engineered in such a way that it just works. And it's so useful that when it doesn't work like we expected to anymore, we get really frustrated. I actually just had this conversation earlier today with my coworker talking about internet speed.
[00:14:31] You know when you're like, phone takes like 30 seconds longer or not even 30 seconds longer, like two seconds longer to load a webpage. You get really annoyed at it. You're like, I don't know what's going on with my phone. Internet sucks here.
[00:14:43] Zach White: Like, absolutely.
[00:14:44] Erich Wenzel: It's so, it's, it's really funny. You know, this cognitive, like.
[00:14:48] Blinders, I guess. I don't even know what the word like the right word would be. Cause it's just kind of, we just take for granted technology and it's a, it's an elegance in the system though, because we do have all of this technology that does allow, I mean, even for this conversation happen, I'm using my phone right now to talk to you a couple of hundred miles away.
[00:15:06] And it just works. Like we just press some buttons and schedule the meeting and all of a sudden everything's it just happens.
[00:15:14] Zach White: It's fascinating.
[00:15:15] And Erich, it's such a privilege to be able to be a part of the intersection of technology and design in a way where these things become seamless in our lives.
[00:15:26] Right? That is really special. And to your point, it's so automatic. It's so taken for granted, and that is the result of an unbelievable, tremendous effort of engineers and designers and, and you know, marketers and everybody to do these things. So it really is fantastic to see the output of the creative energy of human thought in technology and science. Just awesome.
[00:15:54] The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop
[00:15:54] I get fascinated by this stuff and I do want to recommend a book for you really quick because I do think you'd probably get a lot out of it. It's called The Dream Machine by M Mitchell Waldrop, and it's basically the story of JCR Licklider who is like the Johnny Appleseed of the guy who created help create computers in the internet.
[00:16:13] He worked for ARPA, and then that became the ARPANET and then the Internet afterwards, and he basically helped fund all the universities and just fostered creativity within people to make what today and all this hardware that we're using today to talk to each other. And also even some of the early theories of what the internet could be like.
[00:16:36] Basically. It's really fascinating book, and as an engineer. If I ever had the ability to teach a classroom of entry level engineering students or computer science majors, I would make them read that book.
[00:16:47] Zach White: Like that's, that sounds great, man. If I know on my list right now,
[00:16:51] Erich Wenzel: I loved it so much and I have it all over my website. I've like excerpted it like crazy, but I think you'd get a lot of value from it.
[00:16:58] So back to your story, how, how did your change or how did your idea of lifestyle design turn into the disability that I would rather help other people then make products, because I'm assuming you left college and started at a company and were part of a design team of some sort or another. So where does the post-college life continue?
[00:17:24] Entering The Real World After College
[00:17:24] Zach White: I'll give you the kind of the arc of the story, Erich, and stop me at any point if you want to dive in, but I did exactly what you said. I did the Emmy degree at Purdue and then took a role with Whirlpool corporation and joined one of their, you know, rotational leadership development programs.
[00:17:40] Felt extremely honored to be chosen for that. I did four, four jobs in six months. Each to get some exposure around the company, working on all kinds of major appliances and, and was having a ball. I did go back and do my master's in mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan and then did the exact kind of thing.
[00:17:59] A lot of, you know, high powered, successful achievement driven people do, which is started working my ass off. And, you know, it was rewarding because I was good at work and people were giving me the affirmation of great job. This is good. We, you know, do more of that. We want to see that again. And it's the first time in your life, you know, I'm an adult, I've got a job, and people are telling me I'm doing a good thing.
[00:18:23] Where Pushing With A Single-Minded Focus Left Zach
[00:18:23] So we just keep going and you keep pushing. And I really enjoyed it. So it was easy to go spend time and energy and the place where I thought I was seeing success. And. You know, ultimately, Erich, I'll just take a long story and make it really short. That mindset of just keep pushing, keep pushing, keep going, do everything I can do to achieve in the corporation led to a singular focus and long hours, and I ended up one day waking up and realizing that I'm sitting across the table from a lawyer getting divorced.
[00:19:01] I'm depressed and this is not working. And I hit a really low dark place in my life, and this was just five years out of college and all of that energy and success that I thought I was getting suddenly became meaningless. It's like, what is going on here? And during that time, in a way, OACO was born, I just didn't know it yet.
[00:19:34] Changing Mindset Towards Career
[00:19:34] And what I mean is, you know, I had to go deep into myself and into my faith and get back into my time with family and the things that were really important and ask some hard questions about what I really want and why was I behaving and putting my energy into things the way I was, and ultimately took a completely different approach.
[00:19:58] To career and my mindset around career after that. And you know, the beautiful irony of life when you learn lessons the hard way sometimes it was that after that point. Is when I got five promotions in five years, saw my salary increased from 70 K to 170 K and that same time period, and had some of the best experiences in engineering of my life.
[00:20:26] And. And the cool part was, I probably only worked on average, you know, 45 maybe 50 hours a week. Nothing like I was doing before. I mean, of course you have long weeks, right? There's going to be times when the project demands it, but on average, I just had this incredible balance about my life and got remarried and everything was going so great and people started noticing like old Zach, new Zach, what's going on?
[00:20:55] People Noticed The Change And Wanted To Learn
[00:20:55] And, and so they ask questions, right? They want to know like, what's going on? How did this happen? Will you mentor me? I'd love to learn from your experience, how did you design your career path and all of these things. And I started having more and more opportunity to share my story and to share my approach.
[00:21:11] Yeah. And said, look, this is what I did the first time. It didn't work. This is what I've been doing the last five years.
[00:21:18] Erich Wenzel: So let's go deep. Let's really paint the picture. Let's like do old Zach and we'll juxtapose it with like how your new frame, and it's obviously, it's still adapting to this day because now you're committed to it full time as, as your new passion.
[00:21:30] But what was it like, because I think this is a super important thread to pull on. Especially within the engineering and tech space because. I don't like before we go into like your specific story, but what you're saying to me, it sounds like this idea, and this comes from psychology.
[00:21:46] It's the old mantra is do more to be more, right? You have to just grind, grind, grind you know, push all day, work 14 hours, do all that. And then the new paradigm, and this is what I believe and this is why I get fired up about things. It's about being more to do more. You know, when you organize your life and you know what you stand for and get your recovery straight and you really prioritize what you value in life and understand that I can't push all the time.
[00:22:17] I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I want, I want you to unpack it with your own words.
[00:22:22] Being Comes Before Doing
[00:22:22] Zach White: Yeah. And you know, Erich, earlier you mentioned the other buzzword of first principles. And what I would say is that the distinction you just made. Of being comes before doing. That's the first principle that's always been true.
[00:22:37] It's just recently that we finally are getting our heads wrapped around it, and it's becoming a popular message finally. But, but you're absolutely right. I, you know, what was it like what was happening in my mind? I'll just be totally honest. I was a classic, you know, approval seeking, achievement driven, high performer, right.
[00:22:59] And everything in my career mindset was how do I distinguish myself from others to be the top performer on this team and to achieve incredible career results? That's what I wanted, and who doesn't? Everybody wants to move up and get the money and get the, the, the acclaim and you know. All those things sound great when you get out of college.
[00:23:23] For a lot of us, it's why we went into such a tough major like engineering is we wanted to go to solve tough problems and get big rewards, but the problem was I had a mindset that was so driven by this feedback loop of acceptance and approval and reward from the company that if my boss said. Hey, thanks for coming in over the weekend to get that done.
[00:23:53] That meant one thing to me. I need to get my button, the seed every weekend to impress my boss. So I did it. I was working all the time. Or a coworker would say, Hey, can you, can you cover for me on this part of the project because I've got this or that. And you would do it the first time because you're not, you know, you're just trying to be nice.
[00:24:16] And then somebody says, Hey, you know, that was, that was awesome. Zach is such a reliable guy. You can always go to him. Right? And instead of setting a healthy boundary and actually working theme, I started just taking on anything I can get my hands on because it looks so good. So. The do first mentality you just described was made to a team man. And again, it was an approval seeking fixed mindset.
[00:24:41]Erich Wenzel: Yeah. External validation. Right,
[00:24:44] Zach White: Exactly.
[00:24:46] Erich Wenzel: So, but you did have the, the validation of internally driven because of the way you wouldn't have been a high achiever anyways in school. So it had to be a trigger by, for the first time ever getting out of an educational environment and realizing like, Oh, Hey, I'm different than my peers. Is that correct?
[00:25:08] A Warning To "Smart" People
[00:25:08] Zach White: And here's, you know, the warning for all the smart people my whole life, he would tell me, man, Zach, you're, you're so smart. You do so great in school. Everything comes so naturally to you. You're so gifted. You're so talented. That was meant for good, but what it did in my life was it created a belief that everything should come naturally and easily to me, and that I should always be in the first place.
[00:25:39] I was valedictorian in my high school. I always had good grades. Everything, you know, in math and science came easy. In college, there were some tough spots, but I still got through relatively easily compared to some of my peers in terms of how hard I had to work. And so what happened, Erich. As you get into the workplace with a mindset like that, the first time you realize you don't actually know what's going on, the need to stay in that, you know, first place.
[00:26:11] This is easy. I look good. I don't want people to see me struggling here. Creates a real sense of an identity crisis and urgency. To make sure that everybody knows you're the guy, and that is exactly the opposite of what you should be doing at that stage of your career.
[00:26:32] Erich Wenzel: Right. Yeah. I, I couldn't politically agree with that because when I had, first it was less about being like that in a professional environment.
[00:26:45] Cutting Yourself Off From Emotion
[00:26:45] But I just felt like I couldn't be emotional period. You know, part of the analytical mindset is that you hyper rationalized just about everything and everything you should do. It should be able to be black and white. And because emotions are messy and scary, or at least that's how my younger self used to look at things.
[00:27:07] And I think the problem with that, especially as, as anyone who is scientific. What winds up happening is you take in your emotions and you bottled them up. And please feel free to take this whenever you want and you wind up just becoming like a pressure cooker and there's going to be a point where you know the wheels are going to fall off or you're just going to break, break down, and it's going to be horrible.
[00:27:29] Right? And I saw that for myself, and that's part of the reason why I do this is because I needed to figure out what it meant to be vulnerable, especially as a guy and as an engineer who doesn't like emotions. Like it was really, really hard to do that. So, I don't how you helped like break that cycle.
[00:27:48] Zach White: Yeah. I mean, Erich, the reality is I, I didn't until I bottled up so much that it, it created this, this catastrophe in my life. Right. And, and I agree with you that it's not intentional, but it is a consequence of spending so much of our time in engineering school learning how to rationalize and be analytical and logical that we pick up this idea.
[00:28:13] That the world can be solved. Like any other type of physics problem. The world around us, and unfortunately the world around us involves other humans and humans are emotional creatures and you can't just live in that world and you can't choose to bottle up everything forever.
[00:28:34] Live As A Whole Person
[00:28:34] Exactly. Like you said. So I didn't figure that out until life forced me to figure that out. And, you know, I just hope that this conversation is, people hear it can encourage them not to wait until you hit rock bottom moment. To recognize that you've got to learn how to live as a whole person and your whole person is both emotional and rational and you have to be in touch with both sides.
[00:29:03] Erich Wenzel: It really is a lie that like this left brain right brain thing. I get to useful moniker to use to kind of understand the creative and analytical sides of each person. But it's not really true.
[00:29:14] It's just a helpful overlay. And I think that was one of the things that really broke through for me. I listened to a podcast where they had talked about this idea of Descartes' error, basically. And I, and I really resonated with that and that kind of kinda started peeling away the layers of my, my own assumptions about how people think.
[00:29:33] Descartes' Error
[00:29:33] And I was like, wait a minute, there's a missing half of this whole thing. Like I can be emotional and analytical at the same time, or at least overlay that. And because I really genuinely love connecting with people and it's stories like this that I think are really the reason why we need to be talking more, especially long form with people because you don't get stories about this is what shaped me, which is usually something bad where wheels fall off the train and you got to crash and burn and build yourself back up.
[00:30:05] To, to actually have the real work because it's through pain that we grow. It's through pain that you realize, Oh, I don't want to hurt like that ever again, or I don't want to hurt someone else because of the way I acted.
[00:30:16] Zach White: I think it's important to make a distinction here because you're right. The paradigm of left brain, right brain or emotional, rational, and even the way I commented earlier creates this either or like these are distinct.
[00:30:34] And the reality is all the time, at any given moment, we are operating in both worlds and our thoughts lead to emotions, and it's the emotional energy of our life that drives our actions. And this is an all the time operating system. You don't get to choose, I'll behave emotionally now or I'll behave rationally now.
[00:31:00] They're always both. Operating. And so it's just, it's a bad model to say that these things are separate. Yes. Cause it's, they're both always on.
[00:31:10] Building An Awareness Of Your Feelings In This Moment
[00:31:10] Erich Wenzel: I think a lot of it, for me, with this mindset stuff that I've worked with and, and try to apply it. It's being able to build broadly speaking and awareness of your internal, you know, internal and external.
[00:31:27]How do I feel in this moment? Or how do I, you know, how does my body even feel in this moment? Like, do I feel nervous? Like where does that come from? Or, you know, like. Can you register, like when you feel yourself being elevated in some way or another, right? Like maybe your, your, your pulse is quickened and, and things like that.
[00:31:43] I think being able to build an awareness for like w how you're responding to the moment of things is really the distinction here. Because I don't think I would have the, the younger man had no comprehension as to what that would even mean because it was just so you know. Subconscious that it was just like, I'm just in this moment. I'm freaking out.
[00:32:07]Zach White: I'd encourage everyone, if you don't have a strong sense about the emotional side of your life. Press into that. It really is important, and there's so many ways to do it. You know, whether it's starting, know, most of us are engineers and academics, right?
[00:32:28] So let's read a good book, whether it's, whether it's emotional intelligence, there's something that you grabbed Daniel Goldman's work. Or others just begin that journey. The sooner the better.
[00:32:38] Altered Traits and Mindfulness or Meditation
[00:32:38] Erich Wenzel: Altered traits, I thought it was a fantastic, also introspection for me because I had already kind of forayed into mindfulness and meditation.
[00:32:48] That's where we're going to go next, because I want to see who you, how you think about that. yeah. Yeah. And I had gotten into that, but through secondary means, I had listened to podcasts and I was listening to, you know, much like this one, and people started talking about mindfulness and meditation, or, or maybe they didn't call it that, but they did something where maybe they sat down.
[00:33:08] Like quietly for five minutes, or they went on a walk outside and it, you know, you or they go to the gym at the very least, and then all of a sudden it's like, Oh yeah, I kind of can check out when I go to the gym and I'm like, wait a minute. There's like all these patterns. You know, there's the systems level thinking like, here's this pattern that keeps coming up and here are the CEOs and top performers that should be busier than I could ever be.
[00:33:30] But yet they're making time to do nothing in quotes. Right. And as, as these analytical people doing nothing, it means you're not being productive. So go ahead and unpack what you think of like mindfulness and getting comfortable with doing nothing because that may be more productive than actually just doing something.
[00:33:50] Zach White: This is an incredibly important topic, and it's culturally. I believe going to become more and more important every year as the demographic shifts. And as you know, the first generation of pure onscreen internet, only people are entering the workforce, et cetera. So, mindfulness, let's, let's just pose an interesting question for a moment.
[00:34:15] Why, why did nobody ever talk about mindfulness a hundred years ago? Yeah. Go ahead. What are your thoughts, man?
[00:34:23] Why Do Did Nobody Ever Talk About Mindfulness A Hundred Years Ago?
[00:34:23] Erich Wenzel: Personally, I think it's the over westernization of, of science. It's we, we, we took the, an overly mechanistic view, you know, and, and we, we tried to take everything and take it bite size little chunks and say, if we understand this little piece, then that'll give us why it works this way.
[00:34:42] But the problem is, I think this is just me riffing here, but I think it's because of that disconnection. It's not the. Parts that make it the whole, it's the interaction of the parts that make the emergent properties of the whole .
[00:34:57] Zach White: And let me build on that. So what's fascinating to me and the popularization of mindfulness as a topic in Western culture now, and the reason I think we never had to talk about it before is that the mind.
[00:35:15] As we get deeper and deeper into neuroscience and cognitive behavioral therapy and just understanding the way the mind works, it seems pretty clear that it's very good at doing one thing at a time and not so good at doing a lot of things at a time. And it's also pretty clear that the really transformational things in our lives, the deep work that creates incredible results.
[00:35:44] Happen over extended periods of doing what a lot of people are not good at doing anymore, which is called thinking.
[00:35:52] And, and so we live in a world that is so, you know, just saturated with multitasking and inputs and short bursts and short attention spans and interruption and distraction that the mind has forgotten.
[00:36:11] We've stopped practicing. How to think about one thing long enough to solve the really tough problems. And that's not just engineering problems, that's relationship problems. That's, you know, identity, crisis, problem, whatever it may be,
[00:36:28] Erich Wenzel: and any of the major things.
[00:36:29] Zach White: The stuff that really matters in our lives requires the ability to think and. It's a very simple concept that the things we practice are the things that we master. And if you look at your life all day, every day, and you just ask the question, what is my mind practicing? We practice distraction. We practice short, little bursts. Sweet. We're in the middle of a project at work. And we're, we're letting email Gchats text messages, phone calls, everything, interrupt us every, yup.
[00:37:06] For some people, every minute, every 30 seconds. Not even, you're not even focused on the work. You're in the middle of an FMEA and you're responding to five chats at the same time. That's not work.
[00:37:17] Erich Wenzel: Right! And it took you two hours to do something that maybe took you half hour if you really could just focus. Right?
[00:37:22] Why Mindfulness?
[00:37:22] Zach White: Exactly. And you're not getting to the quality of deep thoughts, so, so why mindfulness? What's going on here? For me, it's, it's really a, it's a cry for what is our natural state, where we should be in terms of singularity, of thought, clarity of thought, and because we don't practice. That in our day to day lives in any other format, we have to create a practice for it.
[00:37:53] It's, it's really not different than the gym. You know, before there were jobs where everybody sat at desks all day. People didn't have to go to the gym, farmers didn't have to go to the gym. They were working out all the time. And then we changed the culture around us to where being said, and Terry was normal, and then gyms became a thing.
[00:38:15] To me, it's the exact same problem with mindfulness, right? We didn't use to need meditation and mindfulness practices in our daily routines in our morning and evening routines, because our whole day was a mindfulness practice where we would wake up and be present with our family while we got ready for work.
[00:38:35] We'd go to work and we would focus on one thing. You know, Thomas Edison would sit in the lab and focus on one thing. For hours on end. He didn't have text messages distracting him while he was trying to invent the freaking light bulb. It's just, to me, again, it's a manifestation of our minds sort of crying out for their natural state, and if we don't do it, then we're not healthy.
[00:38:59] Just like going to the gym is a solution to something. Our bodies need to be healthy. So I think it's super important. Erich, I don't mean that in any way to kind of. Poo-poo on mindfulness as a practice. I think it's super important that people have something in their rhythm to, to bring this in. But I guess my point is that it's kind of a bandaid because we've gotten into a state of living where we don't practice using our minds the way we should.
[00:39:27] Thinking In Spectrums: Mindfulness to Meditation
[00:39:27] Erich Wenzel: So I'm not saying you're poo-pooing at all either. I think there is a distinction to be made here. There's two different versions. I like to think of it as a spectrum. I like to think of a lot of things as a spectrum, honestly. But so when I'd first gotten into mindfulness and meditation, meditation had this really icky, scary, spooky connotation to me.
[00:39:47] I thought of like monk sitting on top of a mountain, and you know all of the religious, spiritual, bad PR and marketing that it has. And. As again, this analytical mind. I was like, that seems gross. Like I can't understand that. Right? I can't do scientific experiments on that and prove that I'm doing anything useful here.
[00:40:10] And so my new version of thinking about this stuff is you use mindfulness as your entry point. Mindfulness is using like Headspace, calm, any of those apps. You know, Sam Harris, I love Sam Harris's cause he's actually a little bit deeper into the spectrum of, of how to do this stuff. And then meditation is the deep work.
[00:40:28] Meditation is where you do the introspective. This is where you're like, Hey, what am I like? How do I figure myself out? You know, like, where are my pain points here? And like, how do I start untangling those mental nods? Just like you would, you know, try to push yourself at the gym and like break your body down.
[00:40:44] It's like, where, where can I go find these knots in my own psyche that are holding me back because I'm too scared. To start, you know, opening Pandora's box almost, because that's, I think one of the things about this stuff is that it is scary and what you're going to find is not going to be good sometimes.
[00:41:06] Zach White: I like the distinction that's not one I've drawn before between mindfulness and meditation. But both the things that I would say are important to me, and I do have a meditation practice, and I really believe in this as something that's important to do, but think about two things.
[00:41:23] Practice Thinking About Just One Thing
[00:41:23] One is just, is there something that's in your life's rhythm. Well, you're forcing yourself to practice thinking about just one thing and a lot of mindfulness practices, whether it's breath or you know, a particular mantra or whatever, it doesn't matter, but just have a time set aside. To get your mind focused on one thing.
[00:41:45] And for a lot of people, the first time you try that, you're going to realize how unbelievably difficult it is. As soon as you start thinking about your breath, 10 other thoughts pop in. And so the second thing then it's really becoming sharper around it. The idea of metacognition, which is us thinking about thinking, the ability to see the fact that we have thoughts and to see a thought for what it is.
[00:42:11] And you know, the apps you mentioned and the tools you mentioned really help people to become comfortable with this. But as you sit in a quiet space and you practice thinking on one thing, to become aware of what thoughts you are having. And just see them for what they are. And that's the work you're talking about.
[00:42:31] That to me is the heartbeat of why this is so important. You want to, for one, train your mind to be great at focus. and for two, you want to learn how to become aware of your thoughts.
[00:42:44] Be Where Your Feet Are
[00:42:44] Erich Wenzel: [00:42:44] If you're feeling like you're distracted or not really in the moment, the company is Compete To Create, and they told us this one.
[00:42:55] It's just be where your feet are. If you're ever feeling distracted, just wiggle your toes. Because how many times in a day do you ever think about your feet after you put your shoes on? And for most of us, almost never. And I just freaking love that cause that'll snap you right back into the present like no other.
[00:43:12] And it is one of the coolest distinctions about like cultivating presence, basically that I think it's really like sharp and distinct. And I think having things like that where you can make a distinction for yourself, I think is, is what allows people to understand, you know, cultivating as many present moments as possible.
[00:43:31] Cultivating Presence
[00:43:31] Zach White: And this is an interesting time of year for this discussion, and I love what you just said about cultivating presence and here's a thought exercise for everyone as they go. you know, whether, whether they're listening to this a year from now or whenever, but think about the last time you were with family around the holidays and reflect about the conversation.
[00:43:51] And here's what I've found to be true. We are terrible at being present in our conversation and in our time with other humans. 90 something, 99% of our conversation. Lives in the past or in the future. And here's what I mean. What do you do when you see uncle Ben for the first time in six months over Christmas?
[00:44:16] Hey, uncle Ben, how have you been? And he proceeds to tell you all the stories of things that have happened in the past since the last time you saw it. And then what's the next most common question? So what are you up to? What are you going to be doing this year? And then you start telling people about the things that you have planned for the future.
[00:44:36] And we spent all of this time catching up and talking about where we're going. But almost no time at all is spent saying, Oh my goodness, this, this, you know, pumpkin pie that I'm eating right now is just tastes so good. And you know, like actually talking about things that are happening right now in the present moment were terrible.
[00:44:58] So I love what you said there. The cultivating presence, wiggling the toes whatever it takes. Just to notice. Notice things that are happening right now.
[00:45:08] Erich Wenzel: One of the best questions that I've ever encountered it as an experiment for doing this podcast, but also just in real life, not just in an interview setting I've used is what are you most excited about right now?
[00:45:22] That will open up so much about someone. You'll just see their face light up and they will not shut up because that is not a question people get asked very often. I love that. It's one of my favorite questions to ask someone because it immediately brings them right to. Now basically.
[00:45:41] Separating Yourself From Screens
[00:45:41] Erich Wenzel: It's so, it is one of the most fun things for me to, to do as part of this thing is being able to, one, have conversation and also being better at conversation means your able to do it better in real life. And so it's this double whammy about all of this stuff that we're talking about here that I think, you know, we've lost an art.
[00:46:04] Our art form of being able to converse with each other because most of what we do is stuck through screens. So I don't know for you, do you have ways to separate yourself from your screens. In any way, it doesn't matter. Like if it's like screen tinting or do you have times where you're like, I'm done with my phone or done with a laptop, it gets closed, like stuff like that.
[00:46:28] Zach White: Yes I do. And yes, this is an important topic for everyone, right? For one, it is tough, right? I do a lot of my business online and so I'm in front of the screen a lot and for one thing. I'm really, really intentional to not include any screen time in basically the first two hours of my day. Awesome. So, so that's the first thing that I'm really, I'll say borderline religious about.
[00:46:57] The only thing I, I use the screen for is the occasional timer for. My morning meditation or yoga practice or things like that, but, you know, there's zero time with me on the phone and that the first two hours of my day during my morning routine. And then also, you know, I like to be really focused when I can, and it's, I'll be honest, it's not all the time, Erich, but when I'm with other people at meals.
[00:47:25] You know, with that said, lunch with a colleague or with a friend, you know, my wife is, I'm sure she'll hear this and she'll say, Hey, that's, this is not always true. You know, when we're together at dinner, phone's got to go away to be present with other people. And so those are, those are the times that I'm really careful.
[00:47:41] I don't get to shut it off during the Workday much. Because again I have to be where the people are and online is how I serve people. But yeah, those are the big ones for me during meals. That's such a special time. Culturally. It always has been. Yep. And it's just ruined by people sitting on their phones while they're eating.
[00:47:59] And then the morning is the other big one for me. Yeah.
[00:48:02] Erich Wenzel: I love that. I think one being religious about not grabbing your phone in the morning is huge. It's, it's, it's really hard for me because my phone, I know, I know we shouldn't have it in our rooms, but I use. You know, music to go to sleep and things like that.
[00:48:16] Making Our Devices Work For Us
[00:48:16] So it's unfortunate that I have it, but it is a thing sometimes where I'll just grab it right away. And you know, I try not to do that, but it is what it is. And I think for me, one of the bigger things that I try to do is I, I really think about making our devices work for us. And, and I feel this is a really deep seated responsibility as an engineer because like we've talked about in the beginning, we, we've created these systems that.
[00:48:43] I inadvertently emerge as these things that more or less become dopamine drips for our brain. All of these notifications that are bombarding us all day, right? All these distractions, basically, they, they've now circumvented our dopamine systems in our brain, and we are basically addicts, or you could be an addict. Without even realizing it.
[00:49:04] Zach White: No question, right? We are addicted and we can pretend we're not.
[00:49:11] Erich Wenzel: Pretend we have willpower, right? And I just think we need to be making, like you said, a conscious effort to say, I don't want to be that person. Because what winds up happening is when you make a conscious effort to not be that way.
[00:49:27] During Podcasts Nobody Checks Their Phone
[00:49:27] The people around you notice it without even like. And they won't do it. You know, even this podcast is an example of that. When I have people here in person, I usually leave my phone on the table upside down and nobody checks their phone unless they're fact checking and it's like for an hour and a half.
[00:49:47] That's unheard of in the modern world. You know, it's, it's like this crazy, this thing that somehow when you put people in, lock them in an environment, maybe it's the headphones, I don't know what it is. But nobody reaches for their phone. And it is like this little magazine, magical moment to have people's undivided attention.
[00:50:09] Zach White: And it's interesting you mentioned that Erich, cause I can't remember who published the study right now, but there is some really interesting research that shows that when a cell phone is just sitting on the table. That the, you know, the actual brain waves measured brain waves around the individuals in the conversation shift.
[00:50:29] They changed the focus isn't there.
[00:50:31] Yeah. I've heard the led to conversation is not. Going to be the same just by having the phone out on the table. So you seems innocent, but put it away.
[00:50:39] Erich Wenzel: Yeah, I do. I do agree with that. I have read that study and I was like, Ooh, maybe cause there's like a perception issue, a perception change where it's like more negative connotations and things like that.
[00:50:48] I do remember reading something like that too. Yeah. I, it's one of the things I, I just make it clear that when I put it upside down, it makes it less likely for me to want to reach for it if I feel it vibrate in my pocket, if that makes sense. Because that vibration is just as distracting as, as not even looking at it.
[00:51:06] Right. Or is it looking at it? And so I try to be mindful of it as to send a clear message of like, okay, the phones are out, but like, they're not going to get touched because. It's, you know, in plain sight of everyone. And if I'm in this conversation, you're going to know I'm distracted as I'm recording this, right.
[00:51:23] Your voice, all that kind of stuff.
[00:51:26] Putting The Phone Airplane Mode
[00:51:26] Zach White: For sure. You know, for me, sometimes I little hack that I'll use is to put my phone on airplane mode if I'm going to be doing something where I really just don't want to be distracted that this would happen to me. Last night, it was date night with my wife. As soon as I got home and it was time for us there.
[00:51:41] The rest of the night is my time with her, with the phone. On airplane mode and I don't look at it again and if we get home and it's time to go to bed. So it's so easy folks, that the technology allows us to control it, but we have to make that conscious choice to do it.
[00:51:56] Erich Wenzel: There's an awesome medium article called Make Your Phone Work For You, I think it's called, make your phone work for you, not the other way around.
[00:52:02] Or something along those lines. I've shared it before on the website and it's basically all these little hacks that you can basically set up your phone so it's less distracting and it's like, turn off all your, it's very engineering ask in many ways because it's like, turn off all of your notifications basically, except the ones that you need the most.
[00:52:19] Like, you know, social media, you don't need to be checking like, you don't need them sending notifications. what was the, there was one like this one gets really in depth. It's like organize everything.
[00:52:33] As full as has its own alphabetical, like subfolder too. And then you take the social media apps and you put one thing, if you have an iPhone, you put one thing in that folder on the front side and you have to swipe again to get to the time sinks, as I called it on my phone. So I have, I have to like triple tap basically to get to all of my social media apps.
[00:52:57] Zach White: Hey, I mean, that's clever. I. I don't do that, but I think it's the right heartbeat. You know, we have these habits already built in. Click, click, boom, and next thing you know, half an hour's gone on on Facebook. So if it takes. Fricking five layers deep to get you to think twice about going there and do it right.
[00:53:18] Something to enter up the pattern.
[00:53:20] Erich Wenzel: So what are other frameworks or modalities that you use or talk to with that have helped you break out of this stuff? Cause we've talked about like mindfulness, we've talked about screen time. What else do you got?
[00:53:36] The Power Of Habit
[00:53:36] Zach White: You know, it may seem cliche, but I really, really believe in the power of habit. and , you know, I think Charles Duhigg's book The Power of Habit. Fantastic. I think James Clear’s Atomic Habits is fantastic, but you know the paradigm that structure and habitual. In a habitual approach to life being contrary to creativity and spontaneity and innovation is another one of these broken paradigms.
[00:54:08] And fundamentally creating the latticework of structure and habits in your life that make results automatic. Is the foundation that you build incredible innovation and creativity on. So in my life, Erich, I do as much as I can to, in essence, automate. The results that I have always wanted to have. Things around health, things around mindfulness, things around, you know, daily disciplines that are important to me.
[00:54:38] And the better you can get at creating habits and rhythms of your life that are again, become automatic. Those things compound so much over time. I'll give you a little trivial example. So you know my morning routine, I already mentioned it. It's pretty regimented around how I do things and I realized that if I could just make a couple of small tweaks.
[00:55:05] And the way that I structured the activities, I could probably free up an additional five minutes in my morning routine and some of my friends made fun of me like, fuck, what are you talking about? Five, five minutes? Well, that five minutes get applied to the time that I read in the morning and let's just say I could read a page, a minute.
[00:55:24] I'm not a fast reader. I'm an engineer. I read like an engineer. So a page a minute. Well, five pages, man, over 300 days a year that I'm doing this. That adds up to, I mean, how many, like what, 20 more books or something that I'm going to devour this year just because I can get through that many extra pages.
[00:55:42] And the point is like, don't underestimate the power of. You know, small compounding benefits in our lives and living in a habitual way and stacking good habits and replacing bad habits with good habits. To me, that is an X factor to results that are bigger than you could ever imagine.
[00:56:01] Erich Wenzel: I couldn't agree more with that because it's all about, you know, I've thought about this as as like, if you can be 1% better.
[00:56:10] Than you were yesterday in whatever domain you pick, it doesn't matter what it is. Say you want to be better, I don't know, guitar player, you practice five minutes every day. If you do that every day for 365 days, you'll be 365% better than you were when you started. Like, it's this, it's that simple, and I think, I don't know, maybe this is a symptom of the technology that we have because of all this instant gratification and the Amazon-iffication of the world that, you know, you get something in two days or now one day to some degree, and we don't realize that you have to just put conscious effort into things that are important to us because we're going back again to the distractions.
[00:56:52] Eisenhower Decision Matrix Or Stephen Covey Time Management Quadrants
[00:56:52] I don't know if you've heard of this, but there's a, an Eisenhower decision matrix and it's a two by two matrix and it's basically you have urgent not important or urgent, unimportant. Oh my God, I'm getting it wrong because I'm thinking about it too much. You have urgent not urgent. Important, unimportant.
[00:57:14] And so what winds up happening is the things that are urgent and important, wanting to be the things that waste the most time. The things that are like meetings or the things that are like a phone call that you just got, your boss told you like, Hey, you need to contact this customer because they want to come in tomorrow, or whatever it is.
[00:57:28] And. What you have to realize is it's the things that are important but not urgent, which you've, we've been outlining this entire conversation is mindfulness, eating well, getting your rest in, limiting screen time, focusing on your relationships, all of those things that can wait another day or wait another hour, but those are the things that we have to prioritize because those are the things that get thrown out in the gutter and we sacrifice our wellbeing when we do such a thing.
[00:57:58] Zach White: Yeah. And the other thing with the Eisenhower matrix, or you know, people may recognize it as a Stephen Covey time management quadrants,
[00:58:06] Erich Wenzel: but really, I didn't know it had another name too.
[00:58:09] Zach White: So in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People covers that same two by two. Wow. It's a good MBA thing, right.
[00:58:15] Being Able To Discriminate What's Important to You
[00:58:15] Everything in life can be broken down into a two by two matrix. Yeah. The problem that I see with so many of the clients that I work with. Is that they're familiar with the concept of urgent, not urgent and important, not important. But they don't discriminate in their life carefully about the, the dimension of each and everything becomes urgent and important in their mind.
[00:58:43] Yeah. And so it's like, wait, I get it, but what I have to do this, Oh, and I have to do this too, and I have to, and really this and next thing you know, it's like. The whole tool becomes worthless to you because you've put everything in quadrant one, it's urgent and important. So I guess what I'd say is like, you got to get intentional to force discrimination through decisions around what really is important and not, and you can't just sort of say that everything in our world is of equal importance because it isn't.
[00:59:15] Yeah. I, I think it's for the, so what would you say to someone who's, who's having trouble with their value system? Like how would you like to guide someone through the process of finding out what they value most? Like, like say someone, like they wish they could work out a little bit more, like maybe you'd healthy or have a clear head and be able to focus.
[00:59:36] Like how would you start walking someone through to, to be able to paint the picture for them to, to like at least get to baby steps where they can. Add some delineation to what is really important in their own life or for their well-being, I guess.
[00:59:50] You know, there's, there's a lot of things as a coach that we would do together if I was working with a client on how to help them discover their values, if they're uncertain what they are.
[01:00:01] But, you know, the main thing I've found is that your life's story, the narrative of your life already has all the clues. To the things that you value the most, and whether you use a coach to help you discover it or you really dive in and self coach your way to explore those things. The first place to look is in your life.
[01:00:26] You know, what are the peak moments? What are the proud moments? What are the stories that come to mind when you reflect back over your life and say, you know, in my autobiography, these are the big wins. These are the things I'm most proud of. And look deeply at those stories. And what about them makes them important to you?
[01:00:48] And then do the opposite. What are the low points? What were the things that I really had a big failure or something that really. So being off track and is a hugely negative memory for me, and just dive in like what was I feeling? What was I experiencing? Who was around what happened? And then you want to just diagnose what were the things that made it special in our lives.
[01:01:11] Positive emotion and peak experiences. Almost without exception feel that way because we're living in perfect harmony with our values and what's most important to us and the things that really sucks, almost without exception, feel that way. Because we have violated some core value of ours that is a rule that we set up in our life of how it's supposed to be that we just haven't been conscious of.
[01:01:36] What Are Your Commandments?
[01:01:36] So that's where I would start with people. And then I think. The two concepts that are important as we journey through life and try to reach our goals and achieve amazing things is pay attention to your values and, and pay attention to what I call your, your commandments. And a commandment is just how these values come to life and our behavior.
[01:01:56] So,if you said, Hey, a core value of mine is my health. Okay, great. What's your commandment around your health? And it could be measured by I always want to be 150 pounds plus or minus a few, and eat decent.
[01:02:12] Erich Wenzel: So it's however you decide to measure it, basically. Yeah.
[01:02:14] Zach White: Yeah. You get to decide.
[01:02:15] It's not that there's no one else gets to choose. You get to choose, but you got to know what those things are. And okay, we're engineers, so make a list. Whatever you gotta do. Right. But, but if you don't have a conscious set of decisions. Around your values and your commandments. Then what happens is we find a goal that can be really inspiring and we start pouring all of our time and energy into the goal, and next thing you know, you're halfway to the goal, but you've gained 20 pounds and you're depressed.
[01:02:47] Well, guess what? That's. A poor balance between the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment. Yeah. Because it doesn't matter if you're getting closer to the goal, if you hate your life the whole time on your way there. And I think values and commandments, it's just one of many really important things to keep in mind and the journey of life.
[01:03:07] Personality Tests
[01:03:07] Erich Wenzel: I want to just say these now because I've done both of these. You don't need to do both of them, or I've actually done like three of these now actually at this point, but it's the Big Five Personality test is really helpful. That's a psychological framework. It's on the big five personality characteristics that are each broken into two.
[01:03:23] So there's like 10 and they all play positive. Not really positive, negative, but it's like agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to new experiences, et cetera, et cetera. The other one I've done is the VIA Character Strengths. And that one's really useful as well. That one is built around positive psychology, if those are familiar.
[01:03:42] And then I've also done the Gallup Strengthsfinder 2.0 and my, my engineer in me is really showing through because I just collect information.
[01:03:54] Zach White: So true. Those are all, those are all great tools and I think the heartbeat of it is the same for everyone to recognize self awareness.
[01:04:01] Erich Wenzel: And what are your strengths, period.
[01:04:03] Zach White: Yeah. You just gotta know it. Look at yourself,
[01:04:06] Erich Wenzel: Look inward and start looking at that. And then once you can turn the light on, okay, maybe this thing is a strength. Now, where is a moment in my life that I was at my best period and I'm like, do the honest deep work about it. Like, you know, some of this stuff.
[01:04:22] I think for a lot of people it sounds fluffy and it sounds like, Oh, it's like sunshine and roses and all of that kind of stuff. But it's because the life that we live is kind of cushy and we don't have a lot of time to think about it because it's like, well, I got bills to pay. I don't have time to think about, you know, this kind of stuff.
[01:04:41] It seems silly to some degree.
[01:04:44] Cultivating Self-Awareness: Look To Your Heroes
[01:04:44] Zach White: And Erich for, I used to feel that way, so I get it. And if anybody listening is in that boat, like this is getting woo, and I don't, I'm not into it. Here's, here's the thing. I would say, put your list of heroes. Together, the people, especially if you're an engineer and you're, you're looking at business success, you know, find the, the top five people who have your life could model their success.
[01:05:06] You would be so blown away. You know, life life couldn't be better. read their biography or their autobiography or, or study them, research them and tell me that they don't have an unbelievable level of self-awareness, reflection practices, meditation practices, doing all the things we're talking about.
[01:05:26] You're not going to find anybody at the pinnacle of any field, whether it's sports, business, academia, you name it. Who doesn't invest energy into the things that you're talking about?
[01:05:40] Erich Wenzel: I think one of the coolest distinctions that made me up, me and my friends actually even talk about with when it comes to like top performing CEOs or even leaders domains, they purposely keep their schedule as open as possible and they don't think about simple things like what they're going to wear.
[01:05:59] Like think of Steve jobs, he had a uniform because that takes mental energy. That he uses to feel his own productivity. So he's, he's purposely limiting himself to allow all of his, you know, horsepower to go into what he really cares about. So it might be worth thinking about, okay, what are the things that I don't really need to spend as much time on?
[01:06:23] Only Two Limited Resources: Time And Energy
[01:06:23] Zach White: Oh, no question. I mean, there are only two resources in our life that are actually limited. Erich, everybody knows the first one. It's our time, but very few people spend any of their thoughts on the second one, which is our energy. Right. Everything else we can get more of. Okay. We talk about limited money, limited fill in the blank, but there's always ways to get more of everything else you need.
[01:06:51] If you're resourceful and you're willing to learn and grow to get there, but your time and your energy are limited. And guys like Steve Jobs and you know, every president ever, they take those decisions decisions that are not important and cut them out immediately because they know my decision. Making energy.
[01:07:11] My ability to apply myself to things is limited and I'm not going to waste it on anything that's not absolutely moving me forward towards the goals and dreams. That are meaningful to me.
[01:07:22] The Purpose of Vision
[01:07:22] Erich Wenzel: So you just mentioned CEOs, and I think one of the things that really sets CEOs apart from most people is their ability to hold true to vision and being an entrepreneur yourself, you have to hold this vision.
[01:07:36] You are in many ways the vision of where you want to go because you don't have many employees probably yet. And, and so. I would love for you to elaborate on what your own vision is because it feels, it acts like a true North to make sure like, am I going in the right direction? And I think we all can create our own visions regardless of whether or not you're actually a CEO.
[01:07:56] Cause I guess we're all the CEOs of our own life if you really think about it.
[01:08:00] Zach White: Erich, I, I love the topic of vision so much. You know the guy who taught me more about vision than anyone else alive. His name's Ari Weinzweig. He's out of Ann Arbor, Michigan. He owns the company Zingerman's for anybody who's a Michigander they would know of Zingerman's.
[01:08:20] It's a really, at this point, world famous deli in Ann Arbor and really amazing. But Ari is a guy who is visionary through and through and teaches about vision and his definition. I have memorized because it's so good. He says, vision is a picture of what success looks like at a particular point in time in the future. Described in rich emotional detail such that, you know, when you have arrived. And it was a huge paradigm shift for me when I studied with Ari on vision and did some workshops with him and met him personally because vision when I got out of college was a one liner on the wall of the office at Whirlpool, right?
[01:09:05] And, and it was this sort of grandiose, almost trite statement that a bunch of MBAs and, and highly paid consultants probably spent a bunch of time at a fancy hotel somewhere putting together, and not to discredit the fortune 500 and how incredible these organizations are. But the reality is there's nothing inspiring about some of these, you know, one-line visions that are out there.
[01:09:31] The Power Of Zach's Vision
[01:09:31] So to me, vision is something where you can actually take yourself in your mind's eye to that place in the future, and imagine what it's going to be like when you get there. And, and it's the kind of thing for me that when I wake up in the morning.
[01:09:50] The smile on my face and the energy in my body when my feet hit. The ground is driven by this vision. And if it's not doing that in your life and you don't have a vision, vision is something that actually gets you out of bed in the morning. Vision is that thing that pulls you through those tough times.
[01:10:09] So when it's hard and when it sucks and you're like, come on, could anything else go wrong? You can always turn to the vision. And say it's worth it to press through this to get there. So anyway, I could go on and on and on about that. But let me tell you about my vision. So OACO is based off the idea of being an Oasis of courage.
[01:10:32] And the metaphor that describes this best and the vision where I put myself in the vision is based off the quote from Teddy Roosevelt about. It's not the critic who counts. I don't know if you're familiar with this. I can't quote it all from memory, but he basically describes that, you know, it's not the critic who counts.
[01:10:51] It's the man who's in the arena, whose face is marred by, by sweat and blood, and who's actually doing the deed. And we want to get out of the bleachers and out of the grandstands of being a critic and get into the arena of our life. And the vision for OACO is to be a vehicle and Oasis that helps people recognize for one, you have to first get into the arena.
[01:11:16] All right? You can't get the things you want in your life if you're sitting on the sidelines. So you gotta get, you gotta get into the arena. The problem, Erich, is being in the arena. It means you're going to get punched in the face. Like it's not, it's not always easy, and life's gonna hit you. And if you go for big dreams, you're going to get knocked down.
[01:11:40] You know, it's, it's not like you're at a crossroads and if you turn left, you're gonna succeed. And if you turn right, you're going to fail. It's one journey. And between you and success is a bunch of failures. So you got to get in the arena. When you get punched in the face, then where do you go? And the problem is that a lot of people run back to the bleachers and sit down next to the critic and start blaming and complaining and pointing to problems in the world around us.
[01:12:07] And once you do that, it's hard to get back into the arena again because it hurt. So I want this business and I want to be personally that third place where when you get knocked down in the arena of your life. You go to the Oasis of courage to be recharged, to be renewed, to find strength, to find encouragement and accountability, and then enter back into the arena and keep going.
[01:12:34] And that's what a OACO is. And practically speaking, man, I want to, I want to be involved in helping engineers and technical professionals learn how to live a full and complete life, their whole self tapping into this emotional side, being able to, to master the strategies, the tactics that the first principles, like we talked about and really use everything at their disposal to create success, not just in their career, but in their families and their communities and in whatever your values points you toward.
[01:13:08] And I think that there's so much that I've learned that I can help people to do that. And if I can create that kind of place and coach people to that kind of life, then that's the vision of success that I'll know. You know, five years from now, 10 years from now, the better I can help live that way.
[01:13:30] The more on mission and on a reach and division, that's going to be for me. So I don't know if that helps a little bit to suit, to describe it in a metaphor. Obviously there's a lot of really practical things that need to happen in people's lives to live and enjoy it. But. That's where I'm headed, man.
[01:13:45] Allowing Technical People Express Themselves Fully
[01:13:45] Erich Wenzel: I mean, it's, I think it's all about frameworks. And I think that the unique view that you have of this as someone who is, you know, in many ways, the shining example of what many people wish they were as an, as a technical professional or someone who was an engineer, and you, you're, you're a prime example of like, Hey, this is what happens.
[01:14:07] You know, I should have been happy at where I was, and then all of a sudden it's like you have this moment where you're like, Oh, okay, everything's not as good as I thought it was. You have the outward trappings of success, but the internal. You know, what is success internally for you? And the deep, you know, human aspects of what we all need, right?
[01:14:30] We can pretend like we don't need certain things like relationships and positive environments and feel like we're loved or expressing ourselves completely and fully. Right? And again, that's kind of treading scary waters as an engineer because that sounds very Wooeee, but it. It's, there's this component there that's missing for a lot of technical people, and I think trying to shine the light on that and, and painting that picture, at least to make it seem not as intangible is really important.
[01:15:01] Zach White: Yeah, and Erich, I think it's super important to just take a moment and, and say this, that we have to give ourselves permission to face what is real in our story and our life. Because. I mean, I'm going to go into some taboo things just really quick. Like if you're a, if you're a middle class white engineer and you make good money and you know you have a wife and a kid and you live in the suburbs, the kind of cultural undertone of that is you're not allowed to have problems because what problems do you have?
[01:15:34] Like you make great money, you got a family, you got all these things, like your life should be fine. You're not allowed to have problems. I don't say that in any way to discredit the types of things other people than that person deal with, but the point is that person still has real pain in their life.
[01:15:55] If you're listening and you're that person, like it's okay to just face the reality that what is real in your journey and your story may hurt. Or be as unfulfilling as any other problem that anyone else is facing. And so it's not about who you are or any of these other topics. It's just every single human listening now and that you're ever going to meet has something in their story that causes real pain.
[01:16:27] And it doesn't matter how trivial it may seem in comparison to something else, because your life is not a comparison. It's your life.
[01:16:36 ] Viewing Stress As A High Watermark - Two People Who Are Underwater Are Still Drowning
[01:16:36] Erich Wenzel: I think one of the best ways to think about this is, is pain or stress or anything like that. That's an emotion. We like to externalize it and compare ourselves to other people and say, well, this person went through that and I should be happy because my life is so easy compared to theirs.
[01:16:52] And that is completely disingenuous to one yourself and, and just totally wrong, because I think when you. Have stress like watermarks. It's a threshold and it's, it's like, it's like you do, you have a high water Mark. And so someone who like, you know, just to use an extreme example, someone who went into the military and saw war, their watermark for stress and pain and if they got injured or something, is way higher.
[01:17:17] Then yours, if you just are this middle-class person that we were painting this picture before. So just to say your pain is equivalent or not equivalent to another person's is completely wrong because that for you might be your 11 whereas that to another person, maybe they're five but that doesn't mean it's not real. It doesn't mean it doesn't matter that much to you.
[01:17:38] Zach White: Two people who are underwater are both drowning. It doesn't matter if relatively speaking, it's different in their world. They're drowning. The point I wanted to make was give yourself permission to look and say, I'm drowning.
[01:18:02] I get a coach or get a counselor or just face that for the first time. I think it's super important.
[01:18:07] Erich Wenzel: I think the world is changing around this stuff, I mean just us two as two male engineers talking about this. I think that that shows that shows something about the cultural shift of being able to be vulnerable and say, Hey, I've heard and I've processed emotions.
[01:18:26] Erich Wenzel: [01:18:26] I talk about this all the time because that was one of the things that really drew me. podcasting because it was the ability to be vulnerable, right? And as males, again, there is a taboo word, right? And I'm going to pull on this taboo story because you opened it because I think it's really important.
[01:18:43] And I think being able to come to terms and say, Hey, maybe I'm not actually perfect because we like to pretend like or society seems like we should be perfect. When in reality, we're all just kind of groping through to the world and just doing what we think is best at the moment. I mean 90% of the time, cause we don't know how it's going to turn out.
[01:19:01] You know, I can have these ideas and these things and say, yeah, I'm going to do that. But you don't know it's going to work out in the end. It's just, I'm going to try.
[01:19:11] Don't Be Vulnerable Because It's Popular
[01:19:11] Zach White: And, and since we are, you know, probably talking in some cases to a lot of engineers here, or at least if you are one, let's, I'll land the plane on this.
[01:19:19] You don't do it just because it's taboo or because it's culturally cool to come and be vulnerable right now. The reason to consider what we're talking about. Is because it actually works in getting results in your life for both achievement and fulfillment, and you're going to love the quality of your life more if you'll do it.
[01:19:41] And I've experienced that myself and I've coached so many other people through this, and consistently, 100% of the time, people's everyday quality of life goes through the roof. When you press into these things, so don't do it because it's popular. Do it because desire a result in your life that's worth it.
[01:20:02] Erich Wenzel: I think that goes for all of this stuff that we've talked about, including mindfulness and meditation, right? As these things, as these things get more popular and more people are like, Oh yeah, you got to try doing that. You know, it's like going to try like matcha tea or something like that. That's kind of, or CBD isn't like another huge thing right now, or at least it's growing.
[01:20:19] So it's like, don't just do these things because other people are doing it. But do it because you want to actually work on yourself. It's because it's disingenuous to yourself, I think to just do it because everybody else is doing it right. Following the crowd is, is, is not what this is about.
[01:20:38] Erich's View On Knowledge
[01:20:38] This is my vision in a condensed form, but it comes down to having knowledge. With knowledge comes responsibility. You know? And then the, the longer form of that is, is that once you have the knowledge and the responsibility, it's then providing frameworks and blueprints for people so that they can live and learn to lead a more fulfilling life, period.
[01:21:05] And that's as, that's as far as this goes. And this is, this conversation I think aligns exactly with all of this because it just throwing is as much as that as we can at people and say, here's what seems to work. Now go do it. Like don't break it. Be the engineer.
[01:21:26] Building Cultures and Elevating The Individual
[01:21:26] Erich Wenzel: This is, it's really important for me to do this stuff, and I think this is just a Testament of like what kind of people it attracts when you actually.
[01:21:36] Get really clear about what you stand for, and it sounds a lot like when you mentioned your one of your mentors and his definition of vision. It sounds a lot like Pete Carroll. I've learned from Pete Carroll through through other mindset companies and stuff like that. And he's an exemplar in the space of creating cultures and creating groups of people that it's not built about.
[01:21:55] Like your, you kind of mentioned the fortune 500 companies and how it seems not disingenuous, but doesn't it a little hollow. Yeah. Yeah, and I think for me it's, it's about elevating the individual to, to the, as the prime mover. Because if you can get people not really out of their own way, but you, you unlock that spark within them that that flame that's just waiting for the right Tinder or the little thing that whatever it is, the need that they can go take it on their own.
[01:22:25] That is what moves the needle over the long term because that person then helps their friends or their family or whoever it is because they're, you know, self actualized to be able to do it for others but not even really meaning it. Because if you feel like you're good about yourself, then you're going to keep doing that.
[01:22:44] And then other people are going to notice because you're going to have quote unquote more left over.
[01:22:50] Potential Left On The Table
[01:22:50] Zach White: And there's a lot of ways we could describe it, but I can't even imagine how much potential is left on the table. And potential is such a loaded word right now especially, but it's like, yeah, but here's the bottom line.
[01:23:06] We'll say it this way. Every single person in our companies, in our world around us has more to offer than they're offering today. We're all capable of growth. We're all capable of Mar. And if the culture of the company. Is one where everyone recognizes that seeks and desires to become the best they can be at whatever they're passionate about.
[01:23:26] I mean, there's just so much incredible thing that could happen. if we, if we do that. So I love how you described that as the individual, as the primary mover. I think that's great.
[01:23:36] Prioritizing Recovery For The Individual
[01:23:36] Erich Wenzel: I just think is this missing thing with, within the world. I'm trying to paint this picture of what kind of, what we're talking about is this idea of like recovery, like instead of looking at productivity as the major metric for your people, you know, like looking at Pareto principle, I guess if we're going to keep throwing out fancy words that people like to throw around, you know, also known as the 80/20 and if you look at that, and I think productivity.
[01:24:11] Is in many ways the wrong thing because as as modern world gets more and more roboticized and automated and all this stuff, the thing that we don't notice is that it still takes a human element, the human capital to run the businesses. There are still people at the end of the day, they got a deal with customers, deal with the problems that robots and automation can't handle.
[01:24:34] And to me, that comes down to with prioritizing the value structures. I E. recovery. And that means are they moving? Are they sleeping? Are they eating? Are they having fulfilling relationships? You know, are they overworked, overstressed. And can you to paint this to a business is if a person is recovered well, every day, they're already more productive.
[01:24:57] They go home feeling fulfilled. They have enough to feel like they can be meaningful impacts in their relationship that they care about and whatever role that happens to be, be it a parent, be it, go to the gym. And whatever category they decided to show up in, they just do better.
[01:25:13] And it's, that's I think the biggest thing and that's why you're seeing, I think like calm and the mindfulness industry explode because it's helping bridge this gap into this. Paradigm of prioritizing recovery, and this is my word, and I don't even know where this is going to go because I see, I just came up with it as a quality problem for my engineering class and nobody else, I've never heard anyone else talk about this idea and I'm giving it away and I don't know if I'm, I'm probably going to shoot myself for that one, but it's okay.
[01:25:45] Erich Wenzel: I get really fired up about this because I wear both. A Whoop and Oura Ring that measure my sleep and recovery. And I'm super bullish about like understanding how your body responds to stress and like what are the stresses that you're accumulating on your body to perform better? I keep you on my soapbox all day with this,
[01:26:05] Organizing Human Capital
[01:26:05] Zach White: You know, but here's the bottom line. Napoleon Hill I think probably gets more credit than most for this idea, but it's not a new idea by any means. The most powerful people on the planet are always going to be the ones who are able to organize the creative energy and the imagination of the most other people. And it's that organized effort of human capital.
[01:26:34] To your point, that is always gonna be the deciding factor of ultimate influence and power in the world. And there's only so much you can do with. You know, machine and automation, unless you're a matrix, a destiny kind of believer, which I'm not. But, it, you know, so at some point, if you cannot influence the people around you and organize the effort of those people, well then you'll always be limited in terms of the power that you can, can gain in the world around you.
[01:27:06] Erich Wenzel: Awesome. Yeah. You know, we've, we're almost at an hour and a half already, and we could easily go for many, many hours at this point. So, you know, there's always around two on the horizon if we want to, and at a future day. And so I think at this point we could start wrapping up with some of the more general questions.
[01:27:26] You already mentioned a whole bunch of books, but are there any books that you. Like to gift people or have just been super impactful for your own life?
[01:27:38] Recommended Books
[01:27:38] Zach White: You know, probably the book I've gifted the most is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I think it's. It really should not be optional reading.
[01:27:48] And in my mind, everybody should read it and probably should read it every year until you actually practice everything that's in it. Just such an important set of simple, simple principles that your, your grandparents tried to teach us, you know, teach you, but we didn't listen. so that's one, you know, then for me.
[01:28:06] I think the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad probably changed my thinking about life as much as any. I like Awaken The Giant Within by Tony Robbins. That book is fantastic and maybe a more recent one, something different, for people who are listening here, especially with all the sort of soft stuff we've talked about.
[01:28:25] The book, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Is a really, really good book and she for me has helped. My ability to be present and that book and some of the practices that she presents in that book, you know, two in particular, the practice of morning pages, which I do in my morning routine. That's a Julia Cameron thing.
[01:28:49] And also the artists date, and I won't spoil it. You should get the book the artist's way. And. Really, really great way to,
[01:28:57] Erich Wenzel: It's so funny. You are literally echoing an artist who just said these same exact things. That's crazy.
[01:29:05] Zach White: I think it's really good, especially for me coming from an engineering background.
[01:29:12] I want to again be a whole person. I want to learn how to use all of my mind and all of my faculties and emotions to my advantage. And so, that's a book I highly recommend to start tapping into that side of your life.
[01:29:24] Erich Wenzel: [01:29:24] And I couldn't agree more, man. It took me a long time to understand what creativity is.
[01:29:29] My brother is a graphic designer and I. Would look at what he did and I'm like, Oh, he's a photographer. He does graphic design. I'm an engineer. I like numbers and straight lines and all that kind of stuff. And I'm like, I don't do creativity. It took a long, like probably two years of me recontextualizing that creativity is a much broader category than we'd like to believe.
[01:29:51] Zach White: You and I are going to be discovering what creativity is for the rest of our lives.
[01:29:55] Erich Wenzel: I couldn't agree with that even more. It's always about discovery. You never know. Nothing has ever solidified. Right. You can't ever know truth in by capital "T" truth. I mean . so as a final closing question, and this is probably been echoed through the entire conversation, but if there's any advice you would give a college age student who's smart, driven, just entering the real world, what would you do or what would you tell them to avoid?
[01:30:27] Be Decisive
[01:30:27] Zach White: Be decisive. No, you got to take action and just kind of go for it. Especially engineers. We get so caught up in analysis and we spend time in a state of indecision trying to think and figure stuff out. And we, we tell ourselves a story that we're serving ourselves by, you know, being careful to make the right decision.
[01:30:52] And the reality is you living in fear about making the wrong one. And, and here's the deal, man. Like we said earlier, our actions are driven by emotion in the end anyway. So if you don't know what to do right now, you're not going to suddenly figure it out. Like collecting more data for years and years and kind of like a hundred people's advice isn't gonna somehow make it clear.
[01:31:16] It's just going to make it even more confusing. At the end of the day, the antidote to analysis paralysis, the antidote to indecision is to make more decisions. Go and get experiences and go try things and learn. Right. So I guess that'd be my, my bottom line advice. I was just too careful when I was coming out of school and so be decisive.
[01:31:43] Erich Wenzel:I love it. It's awesome. And as final closing, we'll have links in the show notes and on the website and all that stuff, but where can people connect with you? Find your oasis of courage and all that kind of stuff?
[01:31:56] Zach White: Yeah, I mean, www dot oasis of courage.com is the website. People can go check that out. I hang out on, on LinkedIn.
[01:32:03] It's Zack white a you can search for OACO - O A C O as well. Do you want to find me there? you know, Instagram at Oasis of Courage is the handle. Facebook, et cetera. But, you know, people are welcome to just email me directly if you have a question or a thought. It's Zack Z, A C H @oasisofcourage.com.
[01:32:22] Erich Wenzel: Awesome. Thanks, Zach. This has been an incredibly powerful conversation and I think you're on an awesome journey here. And. You know it, it came with a lot of bumps to get you on this path, but I think you're on the rebound at the very least. It's awesome to hear that other people like yourself are doing their own thing like this.
[01:32:43] That fires me up like, seriously. It's awesome.
[01:32:47] Zach White: Thanks a lot, Erich. I hope, you know, if one person somewhere got us some value that changes their life, then it's worth it. I love what you're doing and really appreciate you having the on man.
[01:32:56] Erich Wenzel: Thanks, man. It means a lot.