Live All Your Life

041 Learning Styles, Teaching Styles, Communication, and A.I.: The Philosophy of Fitness Ep. 31

• Cody Limbaugh and Tali Zabari • Season 1 • Episode 41

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00:00 Getting naked in a room full of people, or letting them see your drawings? What's worse?

04:50 Learning Styles, Teaching Styles and How To Relate To More People: Skills can atrophy, so if you want to be able to relate to more people, you have to practice various forms of communication

08:05 Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

26:41 Study: handwriting notes and improved retention as discussed on The Huberman Lab Podcast

30:43 1 Corinthians 9:22

31:40 Milk

32:24 Seems like most people think they are immune from their echo chambers while everyone else is susceptible

44:09 Live All Your Life: important take-aways for staying in a growth phase as you age

48:45 Life Expectancy · Both sexes: 76.4 years · Males: 73.5 years · Females: 79.3 years.

49:45 Learn by teaching :AKA - The Feynman Technique

51:07 The Dig

52:30 To communicate more effectively, ask for clarification through various styles

53:28 Strawman VS. Steelman

55:17 The Lex Fridman Podcast : CEO of ChatGPT, and The End Of The World?

57:29 Experiential Learning

01:04:00 AI

Couples - Proven Fitness & Intimacy Practices To Achieve Your Health and Relationship Goals Together!
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Cody:

Hi, this is Cody Limbaugh. And I'm

Tali:

Tali Zabari, and you're listening to the Philosophy of Fitness Podcast on the

Cody:

Live All Your Life Network. Okay,

Tali:

so

Cody:

from the top, take two. Take two. We had some technical difficulties. We just got through about 20 minutes of podcast in release. I wasn't coming through. Look at you. Look at you. Go look at my peaks now. Your sound waves look great. Okay. Don't say anything. It's fine. Sorry.

Tali:

Keep going. I can't, I can't act normal when that happens. All right, so today's icebreaker. Today's icebreaker. Maybe we should pick a different one.

Cody:

Oh, we can just pretend like we didn't have the conversation. We just had. It was a good icebreaker. I think it relates to the topic of the show.

Tali:

Alright, so my icebreaker of choice for today is about drawing and whether you have a preference of being the artist or the subject As Cody and I have experience in both, go.

Cody:

Yes. Well we were just to fill in what you missed. We were figure models for a drawing class. We've each done well. You've done a lot more than I have. Mm-hmm. And I did one session with you. And then we both took a couple classes where we were the artists, and I gotta say that, what are you laughing about? I'm sorry, I can't help, but like, you're just like

Tali:

staring at the I can't help it. I'm just trying to make sure that you're on board. It's coming through.

Cody:

Okay. I was saying that for my experience because I'm so rusty and I feel like I used to be a decent artist, and now it's like, I feel like most of what I put down is sort of trashy. That it's easier for me to be the model cuz just standing around naked in front of people isn't that difficult for me. But having to produce something that looks good with a skill is something I'm a little bit more self-conscious about. So for me it's easier to be the model, but I'd prefer to be the artist more often because I wanna get better at it and I'm not gonna get better at it if I don't practice. So, no,

Tali:

interestingly, when I started doing the modeling and IT and Word kind of got out at work about it, so many people would come up to me and say, wow, I can't believe you're doing that. That sounds so hard. I'm like, ah. I was like, no, it's actually pretty easy. It's like some of the easiest money I've ever made. Yeah. Sure you get really stiff and maybe it gets a little bit boring at times because sometimes there's interaction with you, but not all the time. But you know, you do have to be thoughtful about creating interesting shapes and. Dynamic poses so that the artists have a lot to work with in any given hour. But I do prefer being on the artist's side. I feel really drawn to drawing. Huh. And it feels like there's a lot under the surface that I don't know yet. And so it feels really exciting. Mm-hmm. And the time flies by so much more quickly drawing than being the subject. Being the subject can feel like a very

Cody:

long time. Oh yeah. Sitting still like really sitting still, not just meditating or anything. Mm-hmm. But just like really sitting still because if you move, you're gonna fuck everyone's drawing up is harder than it sounds like for 20 minutes of a stretch at a time. It's like, holy shit. How Or

Tali:

40. Yeah. Yeah. I took that really seriously. You know, the teacher. Told me many times that I have the option to take breaks, and I very seldom did. Mm-hmm. I think the only time I ever took breaks were when you and I were working together, and that's probably because, you know, our poses kind of depend on each other, and so either your weight on mine or my weight on yours, like it would just need a little bit of shifting from time to time. But I'm really excited. We've got another series coming up and we've been practicing at home a little bit here and there, which has been cool to do in the meantime. So I really appreciate you being willing to be my subject.

Cody:

Sure. Vice versa. Yeah. Yeah.

Tali:

So today's topic is all about learning styles and. It's gonna be a little bit tricky going over this because like Cody said, we had already done like 20 minutes of the podcast already, and so I don't wanna miss anything that we already said, but it, it feels weird to kind of go back over it. It feels redundant already, even though we have, this is a fresh recording. Yeah, that's fine. But something that's interesting about this particular subject is I think the theme is maybe more closely related in a gym sense to coaching. There's a lot of different ways to be an athlete. An athlete defined as someone who works out intentionally. And yeah, I think we're gonna have a lot more to say from the coaching side than the athlete side, but, I would say when we take things out to a larger scale or outside the gym as a student, this comes in handy or I would say this is a little bit more prevalent. Yeah. Exploring

Cody:

this idea. Yeah. So as a coach, one of the things to develop is a lot of different communication styles so that you are making sure that you're getting through to everybody. So you may be teaching a squat a hundred times, but you might not teach it exactly the same way. Mm-hmm. Each of those a hundred times. And it's kind of interesting too, when you have a lot of experience as a coach, like we've been doing this for years and years, how you can use a lot of, you find really good communication tools that work for most people. Yes. And so you're gonna get into this thing where you're teaching the squad similarly to all the new students that come in, and then all of a sudden you get somebody who just doesn't seem to get it, like, The last 20 people got it. Like, why aren't you? So you have to, you have to really be able to call on those sort of old tools from when you were first a coach and like exploring the different communication styles in order and you have to kind of dig that skill back out again. Mm-hmm. For that one person who's just not getting these cues that most people get, but for some reason this person is just not relating or not understanding what you're asking of them.

Tali:

Sure. I was telling my mom earlier today the difference in enjoyment when it comes to teaching a group and coaching one-on-one, like personal training and I was saying how we're kind of interested in changing our next few steps in our business model for our in-person options. And I was telling her. Not only is it more efficient to be coaching more people at once, but it makes the experience as a coach a lot more interesting. It's easy when you work with one person, one-on-one that you know, you get used to how they operate really well, and it's easy for those grooves to feel really greased up. And I can see how that would be considered a benefit to know how to communicate with somebody effectively. But in a way it kind of atrophies being able to coach other people effectively. Mm-hmm. Because you get so comfortable in a single modality or a certain language around something. So I actually really prefer working with groups because not only is the energy a lot more exciting, but you have to call upon your teaching tools. Much more Yeah. Than you would with a single person.

Cody:

Yeah. And this is a little bit of a tangent, but I'm gonna bring it up cuz it's interesting stuff. It, I was just reading in, I'm reading several books at once, so I forget exactly which one, but I believe this was in atomic Habits by James Clear. And he was relating to different parts of the brain that sort of expand with different skill sets. And so we were just talking about that this morning. Yeah. We were talking about that this morning with racket any racket sports like e whether it's table tennis or, or regular tennis Pickleball. Pickleball or how it came up. Any of these That there is so much fast strategy going. It, it's a certain skill level, of course. Like this would not be true for me because I don't know jack's shit about any racket sport as far as strategy. You would still be training it though. Yeah, but there's no strategy involved. It's just like, hit the ball, you know? Yeah.

Tali:

Just don't die coming to me. Yeah.

Cody:

Sure. But once you get past that whole, like, I gotta hit the ball stage and there's some strategy involved. The combination of fast movement and the agility aspect with the accuracy aspect of using the racket in the ball and the strategy of thinking of where to place your opponent and thinking like two or three hits ahead, almost like a chess match. When all those things are in play it actually helps to grow your cerebellum. And they, they actually. They can see like people who play racket sports versus people who don't. And you can see a size difference in the brain. That's kind of interesting. Cool. The other one they did though was with taxi drivers. And I'm gonna get the parts of the brain mixed up, so I'm not gonna say which part it is, but there's basically a section of your brain that has to do with spatial recognition and mapping. And so you can kind of visualize a city or where you're at or your s spatial awareness whether that's parallel parking or like where you're gonna turn next or whatever. And cab drivers in New York have an enlarged section of their brain. What, like un like literally you can measure the size of their brain in this one section that's responsible for mapping and visualization for spatial awareness is larger than people who are not taxi drivers. But the interesting thing, and the reason I bring this up is, It when people quit the job and they test them later, that part of their brain atrophies. Mm-hmm. And so it goes back to a normal person who's not getting that. And I guess the reason I bring that up is you were talking about coaching and sort of getting into this zone of like, if you're one-on-one client and you only have one or two, and you get into this communication style, it starts to narrow your skillset because you totally, those skills that you're using by coaching 40 or 50 people in a day like we used to on the regular. Right. Those skills will start to atrophy even in a physical sense. It's not just like, Oh, I forgot. No, it's like literally your brain is shrinking in that area that you had expanded.

Tali:

I totally believe it. I feel like I experienced that and know that that is happening. And

Cody:

it's one idea that I, I wish that more people were aware of is that your brain acts very much like a bicep in, in a very simplistic way. If you lift heavier weight and you do progressive loading and you're using the range of motion and you're, you're constantly practicing fitness, you'll re maintain muscle throughout your life. Yeah. And I believe, and I think more and more and more the science is pointing toward this, that things like brain plasticity, which they think, you know, you used to think just didn't happen after a certain age. Sure. And that's been disproven. Well, I believe that even the current theories of, well it happens after a certain age, but to a much lesser degree. I still think that's bullshit. I think, I think what's happening is that people specialize, they get into a routine of their life and the longer they're in that routine, the more plasticity they lose because they're not using it. There's not enough varied experience. Exactly. They're not learning new skills like how many 70 or 80 year olds are starting a new habit or a new hobby or a new career. Some are, it's becoming more prevalent, but it's not the norm. No. Most 70 year olds have been doing the same shit they've been doing for the last 50 years and. I think that's a huge reason for cognitive decline. So the today's podcast seems kind of specialized, like it's a coaching style. We're gonna be talking about different learning styles that we have had to learn and practice as coaches. Yep. And maybe you're not a coach, but even if you're not a coach, I think being aware that you can frame learning into different styles of learning and experiment with doing them yourself, I think can contribute to having a more nimble and agile mind. Mm-hmm. And a more critical thinking. Ability and maintain that throughout your life if you continue to practice it. Sure. So I think this podcast, even though it's kind of specialized into our experience as coaches, I think this can really carry over to some pretty cool stuff. If, if you treat your brain like your body and know that you have to work out, you have to do uncomfortable things and you have to have a consistent practice and you have to try new things, and you have to introduce new stimulus if you want growth. And, you know, for a long time they would say like, well do crossword puzzles or Sudoku or whatever, however you re say that, Sudoku and to keep your mind sharp and everything. It's like, well, that, that's one pathway that might be, well, it's not, it's, I I was gonna say it might be true for three to six months, but doing crossword puzzles for 20 years is not gonna keep you young and in mind.

Tali:

Well, and you, we were just talking about multiple areas of the brain that have different specialties. Exactly. You can't. Only grease the groove of one. Exactly. If you want overall health or plasticity. Yeah.

Cody:

So particularly for plasticity, it's, it is important to constantly be learning new skills.

Tali:

I have to say I've been stuck on this idea since you mentioned it with the taxi drivers. Hmm. What did they do before gps? They just had to know their way around or, and like hopefully the most efficient route. Well,

Cody:

they probably had a Thomas guide. A what? A Thomas guide. Which is that a map? Yes, it's a map. And I used to have one for LA when I lived there. Oh, because that was pre gps. Well, I think GPS was around, this was like early to mid nineties, but only the extremely wealthy people had them. And it was probably like a g p S unit. It's not something that was built into your phone or

Tali:

car. And I don't mean to like date myself too. Extremely here. But when I was a kid MapQuest was a major thing, and like my mom would have pages and pages of printed out MapQuests. Yeah. But that's still just in the car,

Cody:

but that's still just directions. MapQuest gave you directions, turn left, turn right, do this, do that. A Thomas guide was just a big fucking map, like it was, when I say adventure and choose your own adventure, when I say a big fucking map, I'm saying this was about an inch thick book that was spiral bound that you kept in your car and it was the map of la but each page was like a grid of few blocks so that you could, and so you'd, you'd have to travel from page to

Tali:

page. How exactly do you do that if you are a loan in the car?

Cody:

There would be, I would put sometimes like pencil marks or. Or I would write down the directions and then if you get lost, you have to pull over and

Tali:

open your map up. So you had to do some work ahead of time. Mm-hmm.

Cody:

Oh yeah. I, so I, I never would've survived When I, when I lived in LA I couldn't get a job to save my life. I applied at McDonald's and there was like 150 applicants or something. I may be exaggerating, but I don't think I am. Cuz this was a two story tall McDonald's Damn weird. Like a standalone building. It was LA but it was like a two story cuz they had like a dining area upstairs. Okay. And they closed that off for the day for applicants. And so there were like five managers there from different stores all helping get through the initial application process. And so every table in the upstairs restaurant part was full of people applying and there was a line going down the stairs. Damn. And I was just in that big pool. And I think I actually, I, I got that job initially. I don't know why I actually never went to work. I think, I think the way they, they filter people out is like, okay. Out of those 150, we're taking these 20 candidates. And then these 20 candidates go through like a an initiation, like you sit down and watch all the stupid corporate videos uhhuh, like how great it is to work at McDonald's and what an opportunity it is and sexual harassment, you know, and, and that kind of stuff. Yeah. And I remember being in the room with that and it was like seven of us at that point. Okay, so you made it through the first round. Yeah, but then I never got called to work and I think it's just a test. It's like, if we don't call you to work, are you, do you have the initiative to call us and say, Hey, you didn't call me. I've been through initiation, like when's my start date? Well, that is, and I never did. Well

Tali:

you're not much of, much of one to call anyone.

Cody:

Yeah. Well my point with all that rant was that the only work that I could actually find down there was extras work on movie sets. The problem with how rad, the problem with that and the GPS topic is that you, they're always somewhere else. Like you're never just showing up to the same studio over and over again. Mm-hmm. It's like, oh, we're filming in this park on this random schoolyard at eight o'clock this night, and it'll probably go for the next 48 hours. You know, so, Yeah. So I would, the night before, stay up on, and actually what we would do is we would map it with the Thomas guide, and then we would drive it the night before just to make sure I knew where the fuck I was going. And then I'd go home and go to bed and then try to do it again and in the morning, just to make sure. Are you serious? Yeah, because I, I mean, I'm from a small, small, small, small town there. There's not a single stoplight in the whole county of where I got my driver's license, and then I went from that to la, so I would like drive it twice just to make sure

Tali:

that's so endearing. Hmm.

Cody:

Wow. It Well, and the interesting thing too is that sometimes the way to get somewhere is not the same. You don't just go in reverse to go home. No. Like sometimes there's one way streets. Oh yeah. Or the traffic changes in the certain parts of town or whatever. So there would be many times when I'd get to the job successfully, but getting home was like an adventure.

Tali:

I love hearing your LA stories. I am also super grateful that I didn't have to do that. That sounds

Cody:

like such a bitch. And for all of you listening, I was 17 at the time, so Yeah, it was it was an adventurous time.

Tali:

You're so cute. I was just thinking about how, you know, when I started CrossFit, that was really the first time I had ever been in an situation where things were demonstrated effectively. Mm. You know, I think about like PE class and that president's test, and they'd be, the teacher would tell us like, okay, now climb the rope. Yeah. It's like, How Well they probably didn't know, how are you gonna show me? Yeah. And most often than not, like you would not be shown, you would just be told how to do things and, you know, physical arena or not. I feel like verbal teaching methods have been kind of standard, at least in like schooling and stuff. Mm-hmm. I always had trouble with that. Always. It was never enough to like fully understand what was being asked of me to do. Yeah. I always needed things to be shown to me and I think I struggled in subjects that didn't like that was an, an inherent part of it. Like math, for instance. But when I started taking physics classes, which is like applied math, it all made sense to me. Mm-hmm. But that's because I could see what was happening. Mm-hmm. I could say, just to be told the same thing over and over again and like, it's just supposed to work. Yeah. Really didn't do much for me. And so CrossFit was really exciting because there was such an emphasis on, you know, breaking things down into small pieces. I'm gonna show you now, it's your turn. Let me, you know, fix it as we're moving through it. And then we put all the pieces together. It was kind of the first time things had been broken down in digestible pieces that I actually could learn. Yeah. And it's a really valuable skill to be able to pass along.

Cody:

Yeah. I feel like I'm just gonna, this isn't meant to dog on teachers specifically because I think teachers get the brunt of a lot of issues. Formalized education or state run education. And a lot of times they don't have the autonomy to do anything differently than what they're doing. Or just ideal conditions. But I would say that physical education, PE in schools is a fucking joke. It's not an education at all. It's physical, but it's not an education. Calling it physical education is a absolutely absurd because from my recollection, and I don't think things have probably gotten better, is

Tali:

that Well, don't they keep cutting things out? Yeah. Like recess gets shortened. Our classes are shortened. Physical education's probably next

Cody:

on the list, but it's not just the I, I guess my beef with it was, it was never educational ever. It was, there was no education component whatsoever. Maybe health class it was, but, but I'm saying PE is called physical education. Yeah. And it's not. It's run these kids so that they're not so obnoxious in their next period. Like, that's pretty much it. Or play volleyball or play whatever. And it's like organized recess. Mm-hmm. And there's no education whatsoever. And when I became a personal trainer and then later on, like a coach strength coach, I, I, there's, there's certain aspects of that that it's, to me it's just ridiculous. Like any, any level one CrossFit coach out there who has at least a year's worth of experience. Any, and I say any, and there's some shitty coaches out there, it's probably providing a much more valuable service to their members than they ever got in state schools. As far

Tali:

however, education, I can't think of a lot of opportunities, even personally where I'm in a CrossFit class and I'm learning, you know, you'll learn the benefits of why you're doing what you're doing, but not necessarily, isn't that something?

Cody:

It's something in pe it's just like run until you don't feel good anymore, you know? And it's just like, what's, what am I learning here? You know, I didn't, I don't know, I had a pretty bad experience myself cuz I would like puke and then they'd say, well you, you set this out and watch everybody else run. But I guess my point

Tali:

is, ugh, I wish I would've had that luxury. Cody.

Cody:

There was no learning styles involved because there was no learning. There was. Activity. Just busy work. You know, I'm

Tali:

wondering what most have taken place because I do, you know, I remember my first high school that I went to, we had pretty distinct blocks throughout the year of what we were quote unquote learning. Mm-hmm. Like I remember having golf and ballroom dancing and softball, but I don't remember like learning technique. Yeah. Like you're lucky if you show up and know what it is already.

Cody:

So the closest I had to that was in grade school. I remember we had a unit on jump rope and they had jump rope team come in to motivate us and they would. This explains why you're such a jump rope. So we had this like scene school assembly and we watched this team and then we took a unit on jump rope. Those kids are amazing. I don't think most people got very far, but it was something. And then I remember also a unit on juggling. I

Tali:

remember learning, juggling and PE

Cody:

too. Yeah. Which is kind of cool. It's like learning a skill for hand eye coordination. But if you still think about it as like physical education, it's like, what's the takeaway there? Like they're, they're not telling you like, Hey, this is applicable somewhere. Yeah. Well they're not even explaining to you like, Hey, we're working on hand eye coordination and here's how it can carry over to other things. And you know, none of that's ever discussed. It's just like, here's a handkerchief, throw it in the air and then we'll go to two of them and then we'll go to three and then we'll switch to a ball and blah, blah, blah. I never made

Tali:

it past the handkerchief phase.

Cody:

Yeah. I didn't play it. It's too hard. I had a couple of friends though that did That's right. Got pretty good cuz they were practicing at home probably.

Tali:

Well, so as I mentioned just a little bit ago, I'm more of a visual learner. I really need to see how things are done to feel confident to even attempt them. Mm-hmm. I, I've mentioned to you many times that I feel like I don't have a really active imagination, so I feel like I need some sort of reference to know what's gonna happen to feel comfortable enough to even go for it. And I'm curious how, what kind of learner would you say you are?

Cody:

This may be stretching the point a little bit, but I feel like I'm an experiential learner. Ooh. Like, I feel like the more I experience something, the, the more I really understand it because I take in information in all kinds. I'm a book reader. Versus audiobook reader. You know, I have a couple friends who will literally refuse to read books. It's just like, if it's not an audiobook, it's it's not gonna happen. I can make

Tali:

a case for audiobook though.

Cody:

Yeah, I know. But a lot of people can. But I think my, my point is though, I listen to a lot of podcasts. Mm. So I understand that like the convenience and benefit of being able to listen to something while you're doing dishes or whatever. But I also think, and I really believe that there is an intrinsic value in sitting your ass down and looking at a page and reading words with your eyes. It's different. It's different than an audiobook cuz you're not doing it while you're driving, you're not doing it while you're doing dishes. You're not it. An and thing. It's what you're doing and

Tali:

I think there's a difference. What about people like me? Like when I was a kid, I would read something and you would have to, you, if you asked me what it was about, I wouldn't be able to tell you. Yeah. I wasn't able to retain what I was reading.

Cody:

Yeah. And absolutely. I think that refers to learning styles like you're talking about. I just, my point is that it's different and I think some people equate it too easily. Like, oh, why read it when I can just listen to it at two x? Cuz I can listen to it faster than I can read. It's like, well, okay, that's one benefit, but I still think you're missing something sometimes when you're not actually reading the words. And there's studies done on this, I'll link to it in the show notes that I just heard about recently of the retention rate of writing down something after you've heard it or read it. It goes way up. And we've been taught this for years, but they actually did studies on it and kind of figured out some of the mechanisms involved. Interesting. And it's because you're using, when you hand write it, by the way, this is not like typing notes. Mm-hmm. When you hand write, there's, it's, it goes back to the racquetball thing we were talking about and hopefully that's on this podcast and not the one we just trashed cuz I can't remember if we brought it up twice. Damn. I really don't know. But it was this one. But there's a hand-eye coordination involved in writing, actual writing, like in a journal. So if you read a chapter and then you give yourself a little summary, even if it's just like three or four takeaway sentences, but you hand write it, you're more, that information is more likely to stick. And it has to do with the fact that you're using hand eye coordination, dexterity, and repeating it back to yourself. Yeah. That tells your brain that this is important.

Tali:

So that's how I used to take notes in college, like through my textbooks. I would just have notebooks that I would write things down and just like you were saying, but it would actually be word for word of like key concepts. Mm-hmm. It's such a slow process. Yeah. It's such a slow process and unfortunately in school, deadlines are all

Cody:

over the place. Well, and I think there's a little different aspect to that because if, because I used to do that too. One reason I would cut down the time that it took to do a lesson, I was, I remember we'd have a science book and we're like, the assignment is to read the chapter and then answer the eight questions that are at the end of the chapter. Mm-hmm. Well, what I would do is I'd flip to the end and I would look at the eight questions and know it to look for, and then I would like skim the fuck outta that chapter to look for the answers to those eight questions. Oh. And then I would write down those and just kind of memorize those. And that worked pretty well for me. But there's, when you're writing down key concepts as you read, that's a little different than what I was just saying. Cuz what I was saying is, cause it's after the facts. Right.

Tali:

But that's with the hope that you can retain

Cody:

what you read. But that's the recall. So if you just read it and then you write a small summary for yourself, that's your first instance of recall. And the more you recall something, the more likely it is to stick.

Tali:

Well, it's a shame you weren't my teacher, I just went years and years, like even into college you know, having a really hard time finishing books on time. Mm-hmm. And then I remember taking classes that were on short stories and that was much more my, it was a lot more successful. Yeah. Yeah.

Cody:

So I, I think. Not to just like sum up this whole podcast early, cuz we haven't even gone into some of these ideas yet, but exploring different learning styles. I, there's two ways to think about it. One is like, well what is my learning style? I think you asked me that. Like I did, what is your learning style? And I think that's valuable to experiment with different modes. You know, maybe some people do retain more with an audiobook than reading it or whatever. But I think it's good to experiment with lots of different learning styles, even if you already know like, oh, this one is my primary, this one is the way I absorb

Tali:

information. So like to be CrossFit with your learning styles.

Cody:

Yeah. Well, and it kind of relates to that brain plasticity that we were talking about. Mm-hmm. You, you become less rigid. You might be able to see things from different points of view, different. Aspects of a concept might stick if you're learning it in different ways.

Tali:

Sure. And there's, they all probably support each other. Yeah.

Cody:

:And kind of build on each other. And, and I love, I love, I know you love it when I bring up Bible verses, but the Apostle Paul in the Bible was talking about being able to preach. And there's this segment that I think is kind of a valuable lesson for anybody who has any kind of communication that they want to provide to the world, which is he was instructing his followers to be everything to everyone. And what he meant by that, in, in that particular instance, was they were talking about like I think they were criticizing him for like hanging out with rich people who, who like killed Jesus or whatever or hanging out with like people from a brothel or whatever. And like he was being judged for the company he was keeping. And his response was, well, I need to be everything to everyone so that I can communicate to more people. Because if I only hang out with a certain type of person, I'm only gonna know how to relate and talk to that one type of person.

Tali:

That reminds me of the movie we watched last night. We watched Milk, which was about Harvey Milk. Who what was he on the board for? City Supervision is what they were calling him. City Supervisors in the 1970s in San Francisco. And he led a lot of legislation around gay rights. And in terms of his, like his strategy, he had to really open up beyond his kind of favored community because you need more people to back you than just who you identify with. Right. It's not enough to win a campaign. Yeah.

Cody:

And nowadays, I think the term that is referenced a lot of is an echo chamber. Yeah. Because Google and Facebook and all these I would say, I'm gonna call them early technologies in our internet era. They, I, I actually believe that initially they thought this was just useful. That it was, they were providing a better product by trying to predict what you wanted by providing the results they thought you were wanting to see. What they inadvertently do is they cause you to take on a worldview that's very myopic, and that's one reason for a lot of the divisiveness that we have in western culture of left and right and Republican and Democrat and progressive and conservative and all this like red and blue war that's going on. It's the thing that struck me the most about. The whole Covid thing, and I'm not gonna get all controversial here, I don't think this is a controversial thing to say, but I would see posts from people on the left, for instance, who were like, I just can't understand how anybody could think of this certain way. And I'd see people on the right saying the same thing. I can't understand how anybody on the left could possibly believe what they're saying. And it's like, how can you not understand that that person that you're criticizing is only being exposed to information that backs up their worldview? Yeah. We all need to recognize that because it's really fucking critical when you're, it is, it is.

Tali:

If you ignore that component, you're not seeing it for what

it

Cody:

is. And it's the same with even my, you know, voluntary friends who are outside of both of those political spheres and still criticizing people like, how can you be. Locked into this status cult, you know? And it's like, yeah, I get what you're saying, but you don't understand that that's all they're exposed to. That's all they see. That's all their feed shows them. That's all the Google and Facebook and whatever media they're on. It doesn't matter if you're looking at a smartphone, it's showing you what it thinks you want in order to keep you on there and engaged. Yeah, there's a lot of reinforcement. And so it's not only reinforcing your beliefs, it's also making the opposite of your beliefs look like buffoons or hatred or idiots or whatever. Yeah. Because that's what keeps you locked in. And man, if we could just all recognize that, I think it would go a long way toward progress because debating the aspects of covid, lockdowns, whatever, that, that's not the whole point of what I'm saying. My my point though is that you have to recognize the people who are opposing you. They're not. Fucking idiots. It's that they are exposed to a literal different reality than what you're exposed to.

Tali:

And language is so important. And I think during Covid, I was very intent on saying, or starting my sentences with, from my perspective, from my experience. Mm-hmm. As opposed to just saying things as if they were true.

Cody:

And I think that's one reason I'm pointing this out, is I know that you would preface that, but then you'd still get backlash because people just gloss over that, you know, they gloss over the fact that you prefaced it by saying, this is my point of view, my perspective. They only took the, the second part of what you were saying, and then would push back on it. Well, here's why that's not true. And then rant on a bunch of nonsense. It's frustrating. I think that this podcast, what we're talking about in exploring different learning styles, might actually be a tool to break free from that myopic viewpoint too, of the information that we're being fed.

Tali:

Absolutely. It's the same thing that we were talking about with personal training. Mm-hmm. Like you are zoning in, if you're only using one means of getting your information, only one means of learning new information. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. It's a trap in a lot of different realms.

Cody:

Yeah. And I think a lot of people too, they, they hear that and they think, well, I get my news from a lot of different sources. It's five different networks on tv. You know, it's like, well, that's not. They're all the same. Sorry. They're, and

Tali:

same with, yeah. Have you seen those? We've seen those videos where they're like layering them saying the same thing on top of each other. Yeah. Yeah. It's all,

Cody:

it's all scripted and it's so creepy. And social media is kind of the same thing. I, so when I say different places of information, I'm like, remember what libraries are. I mean, there's nope, there's like a there's ways to have experiential knowledge to go out and have conversations face to face.

Tali:

Well, that was really important to me at the time, was to stay offline. Yeah. And to really interact with our community and like, what is it actually like here? Yeah. Cuz it's interesting what's actually happening here. Well, and when you, that's what's relevant to us.

Cody:

Yeah. And when you act, when you interact with people face to face, there's nuance when you act, interact with people. Oh yeah. On social media, it's just them pre like, They're thinking about the response ahead of time. So they're formulating there's no creativity. Yeah. They're formulating this perfect response to like, shut you down or whatever, and, and then spewing it at you in a DM or a tweet or whatever. And then the other person's response to that is to defend what they were already saying by formulating their perfect response. And so they're trying to outdo each other in like having the ultimate answer to life and everything. The university. And it's not really a conversation at that point, isn't it? No. But when you're face-to-face, that's not how people communicate. We, we communicate with. The thoughts that are arising as they're arising and the, that brings out nuances in the conversation.

Tali:

Plus, well, and there's also incentive to be nice, to be nice and also to dig deeper, to try to ask for clarification or understanding of like where is that thought coming from? Yeah. Where online has this kind of like, it's all packaged up perfect. And sent. And there's also something about writing that feels very permanent. Like you can't take it back. Mm. Mm-hmm. You know, people are so seldom to do that in person already, you know, to apologize or to say I was wrong. You know, once it's written, it's written, you know? Yeah. There's something in my eyelashes and I can't figure out what it is. It feels like a cat hair course. I

Cody:

would say that's a good guess. At any, any point in our lives, two cats are, have a multiplying effect over one cat. Yeah. Little, little knowledge nugget for all of you listening. So one thing I didn't get to on this recording cuz we, we did on the first recording that did not take, is exploring some of the different learning styles from a coach's perspective. Mm-hmm. And what I used to do early on in my first certification was through National Academy of Sports Medicine and I, that some of this may have been taught there, I'm not sure where I picked it up, but to categorize coaching styles in, into, sort of put it in different buckets. So you've got a tactile teaching style where you're actually touching the person and, and getting them into the right position or, or. Touching their spinal erectors and saying like, I want you to feel stiff right here. You know, I want you to feel this tension

Tali:

or like, press into my hand or, yeah,

Cody:

exactly. However, yeah, exactly. I use that one a lot or, yeah, like for an overhead lockout, that's a really good one. It's like they've got PVC pipe and they're sort of like floaty and like a flag in the wind and they're just sort of like, you know, wavy, like one of those inflatable guides outside the used car lots, you know? And so you might go up and like hold, pull down on the bar, pull down on the PVC pipe and like I, you know, I want you to like push against in push. Yeah. Your elbows shouldn't bend, your shoulders shouldn't collapse. So that's tactile verbal is what I just did. I just described what that would be like. Mm-hmm. And then visual would be demonstrating that and showing the alignment and the lockout that you want. Ideally

Tali:

you're doing multiple at once. Yeah. And that's what was so fun about coaching together is that I could be your demo girl and you would explain things. Or, or the

Cody:

other way around. Yeah. Yeah. Or one of us can provide tactile cues to one person in the room who's not getting it outta, that was 15 people. Right. And one person could go over and just like, like offer them some tactile cues while the other person's explaining. It's really cool to co-coach with you. More to come, babe. Yeah. But in my level two CrossFit certification, they actually broke those down in a really visceral way by making you go through this drill where you're in a group of three or four people and each of the, you're teaching the same movement to like the fourth person. And the first person can only use verbal, and the second person can only use tactile, poor, tactile person only used. Yeah. That sounds so hard. It is. I mean, it, it kind of is, but Yeah, especially if you don't already know what the movement is, I guess. But we would be, for instance, like coaching a squat and we're all teaching the same movement, but having to only exclusively use three different coaching styles or communication styles there. I think it's most effective when you can do it all. Yeah. I think you can also break down each of those categories into different styles too, because some people can learn verbally, but they need more of like a visual cue, like break the floor apart with your feet. Totally. You know, and other people you can just say, push your knees apart from each other, and they get, and they get the same thing. Right. And one of'em is more like instructional, like, do this and then they just do it. I love working. A lot of times young athletes are really good at this cuz you can tell them to do something. Do it. People who have not worked out for 30 or 40 years and they come in and it's like, okay, you need you, you don't know what it feels like to do what I'm asking you to do. Sure. So then you have to be a little more descriptive. And so even like on a verbal aspect, I think there's different categories of how you can verbally coach. Same with tactile. We were just using a couple different examples cuz you might, you might touch a certain area of their body. Like I want you to feel engagement here. Another method that's used a lot is like, hold somebody's back and say, you know, I want you to maintain this position and then pull back on their shoulders. And so you're, you're almost like pushing them into their proper, this position in position giving them feedback. You know, I want you to push against my hands, that kind of thing. So those are all different kinds of tactile cues. So I guess what I mean is this can be a really deep rabbit hole. And even with demonstration, like demonstration, you might be able to show. A certain position. You also might be able to, like, sometimes I'm, I I'll tell people like, I'm gonna pretend like this is heavy and I'm showing them with a wooden dowel or something. Mm-hmm. But I'll kind of use a little bit of acting technique, I guess, to like Totally, yeah. To like really like emphasize the, the strain, like where I want you to feel that and where the tension is in your body. And I'm like slapping my own belly, like, I'm really tight right here, you know, and that kind of thing. So that's visual, but it's a different kind of visual than like demonstrating the movement.

Tali:

I'm gonna have to really think about incorporating this into my training this upcoming week. Mm-hmm. Because I feel very spoiled by my client, you know, she catches on really quick. Yeah. And I don't have to really use a lot of that queuing, but you're absolutely right that those skills can really atrophy if we're not using them. And we certainly have, it's. It's been some time since you and I have worked in a proper gym.

Cody:

We don't own a proper gym.

Tali:

I'd say no, but we're on the way.

Cody:

We're directionally correct, honey. Yes. So I think this is a little bit of a meta podcast like we're talking about. Is it? Yeah, we're, cuz we're talking about various learning styles and we're talking about how, we've mentioned how if you don't utilize those as a coach, they start to atrophy. But I think as just people who are interested in learning and growing and remaining sharp and independent and useful all of our lives, like, I don't, I'm not really interested in growing old the way people grew old three generations ago. I'm just not interested in it. I don't wanna you participate in that. How do you Because it's, it's, it's, for a long time it was just accepted that hey, by the time you get to 60 things are gonna start falling apart. And by the time you get to 70, you're gonna start forgetting why you went into the kitchen. Like you're gonna go walk in there and be like, whoa, what am I doing here? And that's just how people age. And I call bullshit. I call bullshit because I think most of that is lifestyle. I know there's some genetics. I know that, you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to like shame anyone who has a disease or has gotten ill or suffering from dementia. That's not my intention to like shame people. I'm just saying I think that we are on the cusp of knowing better Absolutely. Of how to deal with that. So that absolutely. Like if you're 30 today, if you are interested in this kind of thing, if you are interested in. Continuing to improve and continuing to be vital and, and live an exciting and like fulfilling life and a self-exam life. Well

Tali:

used some really great words just before you said useful autonomous. Yeah. And something else. It was like vital,

Cody:

like, like you feel alive, you know? And Yeah, like our company is called Live All Your Life. This podcast is called Live All Your Life. And if you're the type of person who's interested in living, really living all your life, if you're in your thirties right now, I don't think you have much of an excuse to decline in the way that our grandparents did. Like they didn't know better. But I think we know better now. I think that it's a, it is simply use it or lose it. Yeah. And so the reason I say this is kind of a meta podcast is like, yeah. It's, it's one thing to, to point out that people have different learning styles and also if you are wanting to teach or communicate with people, you need to learn to communicate in various styles. Sure. But I think it's also just something that we should all. If we're interested in remaining sharp and growing long term, then we should, I'm gonna use the word ooh, not ot. Should ot. Same thing one

Tali:

sounds Chevy.

Cody:

I think that it's in our best interests Ooh, better to explore lots of different learning styles within ourself, even if we've already identified where our

Tali:

strength, strength is. Strength there. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you and I are doing CrossFit again and obviously having done CrossFit for many years before I did weightlifting, I was able to figure out that strength is something that comes very naturally to me and something that I can excel in much more readily than say, running or gymnastics. And you know, here we are again doing CrossFit all, you know, retraining all of those grooves that I know I certainly let go of for many years. Mm-hmm. To make way for one.

Cody:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sort of, I'm not surprised, but it's a little eye-opening, a little revealing sometimes when I go to practice a certain skill that I used to just be able to sort of demo for a class fairly easily, and I'm like, Ooh, this is either really hard or not even possible. Like there's a few skills that I really need to get back and

Tali:

I'm gonna venture to guess that what you can't do, I can do. And what I can't do, you can

Cody:

do except muscle ups neither one of us have right now. Mm-hmm. But

Tali:

I'm just, well, I can't imagine teaching those anytime soon to anyone.

Cody:

I guess my point is I'm looking at 50 years soon, you know, and I'm looking 50. It's interesting because 50 I, we tend to think of as middle-aged, and I think it might be because of the way technology is life expectancy is, is, is increasing and all that. Yeah. And I might depend on that a bit. But in today's world, 50 is not middle-aged. Like I hit middle-aged 50 is like, woo, second wind. Well, no, I'm saying statistically, I hit middle-aged 15 years ago. Like you're almost middle-aged. Oh, oh. Like the average person. Only this. Okay. I

Tali:

was, I was thinking this was going a

Cody:

really different route. No, the, like, I don't, I forget what the average ages are now. Like we can look it up and put it in the show notes or whatever. It's quick, quick internet search. But what is it? 68, 72? It's not that. Oh, it's not. That's that's low. I know. I mean, you know, in my family it's low. You know, a lot of people who might make it to 80, but that's not an average, like an average is like, My point is, is I'm way past middle age, statistically speaking, and I'm like, I, I want to get these skills back and try to hold onto them as long as I can.

Tali:

I did a cartwheel at work the other day just to see if I still got it. I've never been able to do a cart. Alyssa was saying the same thing too, and I was like, I could bust one out right now. And I immediately felt it in my wrists when I did it. Yeah. But it was beautiful. I saw the video. I love doing cartwheels, but like I have not done one in three years.

Cody:

Yeah. You better just spend more time on your hands first before you start like flipping over onto them. We've done a couple of

Tali:

handstand pushup workouts recently and it's like very instantaneous. You're not like staying upside down or anything, but

Cody:

you got momentum on your side. Yes. One other thing that makes this a bit of a meta podcast is we had a whole podcast on teaching once and the benefits of learning by teaching. Yes. And I think that you can kind of listen to that podcast and this one in conjunction with each other because teaching other people is a f is a learning style. Yes. Like you and I have found that that's one of our strongest learning styles is when we can distill something enough to teach it to somebody else, we understand it better ourselves.

Tali:

Absolutely. Having to pass it along. Yeah. In an effective way. Mm-hmm.

Cody:

And I think that's probably true for most people. I would think that that's kind of a universal thing because I think in order, in order to develop the skill of being able to teach something, you really have to know what the hell you're teaching to explain. You could be really shitty at teaching, but that's my point then you might not know it as well as you think. I think it was some famous scientists, I don't know if it was Einstein or feineman, one of those famous ones was saying that like, you don't really know a concept unless you can teach it to a second grader. Hmm. And I thought that was interesting cuz these are like, that's very specific, these amazing physicists who, you know, had these world changing ideas and they're saying like, if you can't describe it to a child, then you probably don't understand it as well as you think you do.

Tali:

Do you remember in the movie that we watched this weekend, the Dig where Basil Brown talks about one of the books that he wrote, which is to, is like essentially like a astronomy for dummies. Mm-hmm. I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah. Kind of sounds like the concept you're saying now. And. I think, I think that makes a lot of sense that if you're able to simplify and distill really advanced understanding to be able to pass it along to somebody else who doesn't have that background. Mm-hmm. That's major.

Cody:

Yeah. And then if, if you bundle that idea with what we're talking about as far as learning styles and just ask yourself like, how many, how many different ways, how many different ways could I teach this? Yeah. Then I think that's really going to solidify a concept for yourself. So even if you're, you're just sort of selfishly wanting to learn something new, whether it's a skill or a fitness ability or some intellectual concept thinking about ways that you could teach it to other people in various forms, I think could be a, a really cool approach for, for being able to really dial in a new skill or concept.

Tali:

Well, it benefits everybody. Yeah. It allows you to have more reach and to be able to teach more people. And you yourself are. Developing your own skills to communicate a single idea in multiple ways. Yeah, yeah. Well, talking about all the benefits, of course. I had a note here that, you know, it's important to know yourself and to know the, the ways that you learn the best. And I think if you ever find yourself in a situation where maybe that isn't available to you, it could be really interesting to pose, pose that request to somebody who's teaching you. Like, can you, can you say that differently? Or maybe not even teaching, but like when you're talking to people, we often forget that we don't all have the same backgrounds. We don't all have the same language, we don't all have the same beliefs. And I often joke about how people are sorely mistaken when they forget that. Mm-hmm. And think that no matter what they say is just gonna fly with whoever is around because. They just think everyone else thinks like them. And I think asking for clarification is something that people don't do a lot. We make assumptions about what people are saying or we fill in the gaps or, you know mm-hmm. Sum them up as a person and like come to conclusions of what we think they're meaning.

Cody:

Yeah. Which is a logical fallacy called the strawman argument. And is that what that is? Yeah. What the strawman is like you, you take somebody's nuanced opinions and ideas and you distill it down to a single concept that's easily defeated. So you build a strawman model of what they're trying to get across, and then you've set that on fire. It's easy. The opposite to that would be a steelman argument, and usually what the steelman argument is. Let's say I disagree with something that you are saying. For me to be able to try to advocate for your point, the one I disagree with in the most effective way possible, helps me to understand you better. Sure. It helps you to know that I understand you better. Sure. And if I can defeat the steelman argument, then I kind of win. Like it's, it's like a, it's like a, you can't logically escape. It's like if we both agree that we have made them soundest argument possible for this concept and then I defeat it with some logical principle after that, it's like, well, we both have to agree now that you probably write on this. Hmm. And so a steelman argument is an interesting way of creating empathy, understanding, but also maybe even o overcoming an idea that's not accurate. It's funny cuz I feel,

Tali:

well it's just like you're really putting in the work to. Engage in the conversation or to engage in the debate, whereas, yeah. And so people are just waiting for their turn to talk.

Cody:

Yeah. So few people do that. So, yeah, I mean, hardly anybody does that as far as creating a steelman argument. And it's funny cuz Lex Friedman, one of my favorite podcasters, he asks that question a lot, probably almost every interview, which question? Well, if some controversial topic comes up, they're like, can you steel man an argument that's opposed to what you've been saying? Mm-hmm. And it's funny because a lot of people will act like they respect the question and they're like, oh, that's great. And then they dodge it, they don't really do it. Huh. And it's, it's really, it's hard. It's hard to look at at an idea that you oppose and then try to argue for it for a moment.

Tali:

Well, obviously that's not something we're accustomed to doing. Mm-hmm. We're all about defense. As a culture, I'd say, yeah, well right. Stick to your own, stick to your guns.

Cody:

And it's not just a cultural thing either. I think some of it's an evolutionary thing because okay. A lot of times we think, a lot of us think that we are rational beings, but we are actually a rationalizer beings different. Very different. We have an emotional, I rationalize their rational. You. Yes. We have an emotional decision making mechanism and then we find ways to rationalize why we made that decision. Which is different than being rational. It's backwards. Yes. Yeah. And that's just kind of how human brains work. So to be rational takes it takes fucking work. It takes effort. It takes well

Tali:

and it takes, it takes an intention. Stuffing your ego away, don't it For sure. Yeah. And you really have to look at things objectively and probably means you're gonna have to recruit some help. Mm-hmm. Cuz there's probably so much that we just can't see even if we tried on our own. Yeah.

Cody:

Yeah.

Tali:

Well, you had mentioned something about your learning style being experiential. Hmm. And I wanted to take a similar idea out, into, out of the gym and talk about like, learning just life lessons as a person for a really long time, I would've characterized myself as somebody who not only learned lessons the hard way, but wanted to you know, I think it's really normal that in your adolescent or in your early twenties, like he make really expensive mistakes or you learn a lot of lessons the hard way and like suffer a lot of heartbreak or you know, Torment. I don't know. I'm trying to think of things specifically, but for a long time I kind of identified as someone who wanted to learn lessons the hard way. Like I think being defiant is something that I almost admire. Mm-hmm. And when I, and I kind of default to it, and I would say like more recently in life, I actually listen to advice to try to avoid some of those things that I mentioned before that are like very challenging to come back from. And I don't know if it's just a matter of age or of ego or what, but you know, I actually ask for advice now or before I did not care for anybody else's advice. I wanted to just learn in my own way. And I think that that's valuable in a lot of ways. You know, there are a lot of mistakes or experiences that I don't care to repeat because I learned very potently that those are harmful decisions to make or hurtful in the long run where I think now I can be a little bit more self-protective in a different way. Like you and I have talked a lot about self-preservation and a lot of ways that we as young people really hid from, you know, embarrassment or ridicule or whatever it was. But this is self-preservation in a different way. This is like actually out of advocating for thriving. Mm-hmm. Which is very different mm-hmm. Than what I had previously mentioned. So that was just something that came to mind.

Cody:

I think it's probably one thing that drew you and I to each other is that we're both that way, we're both a bit of rebel. Black sheep defiant type people.

Tali:

Well, we just jump in with both feet. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I say it all the time, even still, that I don't wanna make assumptions about things. I wanna experience them and then have a an informed decision. Mm-hmm. Or an informed idea around something. Yeah. And that can be kind of reckless, like that can get you in some trouble. Mm-hmm. For sure.

Cody:

It's really uncomfortable sometimes too in a more structured way. It can be really uncomfortable. I think you and I gravitate toward that just in our day-to-day interactions and the way we carry ourselves out. But to reel it into a more structured, tangible example is in some recent business mentoring that we've gotten, there was. Part of our business mentoring program is that he, there's some curriculum that they have mm-hmm. Almost like a course that we can take along with their actual coaching of our individual needs in our business. It's very thorough. It's very cool. And however, there's this, like a couple of chapters of, or couple of modules of the course that had to do with marketing. And I blew through them in about a week and a half. I just really, under the guidance of our mentor, he's like, you just get through this as fast as you can so you know what's going on, and then we'll start your marketing. And to be honest, I, it was, it's an interesting thing because I understood everything as I was reading it and watching videos. Interesting enough, it's like two different learning styles. Sure. In the same thing they have, like, you read it and then you watch a video on it. Aren't they the same verbatim? Not always, but pretty much. Pretty much. And very close when they're not. And so I did all that and I went through all that curriculum. It wasn't till we actually started the marketing and I started getting prospect conversations going that I understood anything about what I had read before. Like I thought I was understanding it as I was reading it, but then as I was practicing it and doing it, I was like, oh, that's, this is way simpler, first of all, than it seemed. Sure. That's great and it all makes sense and I understand what each step is for, and I get the, all the concept, everything gelled, everything gelled when I did it, even though I thought that I had known what was up just by reading it. And I think it's a really valuable lesson for people to, like, I'm a, I'm a big advocate for reading books like you should. I think everyone should have a reading habit if they care to be a type of person who's like growing and thriving. Read some non-fiction, some personal development stuff, like be in the game, like be learning. But if you're not, Actually practicing and applying the things that you're learning. You only, it's all theoretical. You only think you know what you read. Yeah. You don't really get it until you put it into practice. And it doesn't matter what it is. And that's some, just something that I've learned I think in recent years or at the age that I'm at, is that it's easy to want, avoid those kind of things. Just like what we started this conversation with was whether you wanna be the model or the drawer. Mm. Is way uncomfortable to be the person drawing. But I also know that thinking about drawing, watching people draw, listening to the instructor in the class isn't doing a fucking thing for me unless I pick up the pencil and put it on the paper. And so you have to do the uncomfortable part of taking action for any learning to be meaningful. Yeah. In any way. Like we're. I really despise the analogy that we are just like computers in meat sack because ew, we are so much more than that. And I think that moving your body and, and taking action and actually doing activities is the way that we experience the universe. Like that's the reality. Like everything happening in our head is just, is fleeting and it's subjective. And until you put it into practice, you're not really learning anything. And certainly it's not gonna stick. Even if you do understand a concept fully, if you don't actually put it into practice and do anything with it, it's, you're gonna be three books later. You're not gonna remember anything you read from that previous book.

Tali:

What does that mean for ai?

Cody:

What do you mean?

Tali:

Will AI be able to experience.

Cody:

That's actually a good question. That actually is funny that you would ask that because Lex Friedman asked, asked the same thing on the podcast. I was listening today. Did he? I'll link to it in the show notes since I'm bringing a specific episode up. Cuz he's interviewing forget the guy's name right now, but he's the c e o of chat, g p t. And he asks, you know, like will, what they call agi, which is like artificial general intelligence, what's the difference? Artificial general intelligence would be like something that we might consider conscious, like a new life form a a type of AI that's so advanced that it can think and, and evolve on its own in a way that might. Conscious. The name doesn't lend to that at all. Well, specific artificial intelligence is the op opposite of that. And it's basically a type of computer program that can outthink a human, but only in a very narrow line. Okay. And they've had that for within parameters? Yeah. And they've had that for like 20 years because big Blue I think is the one, I forget, they, they all kind of run together right now, but the artificial intelligence was able to beat the Grand Chess master of the world. Like, oh my, he beat the, and now they have computer programs who can beat the best at Go, which is even more complicated. Mm. Cool. But you can't ask that same computer like, what's a Nike shoe look like? Like they don't know. It doesn't know anything except chess or it doesn't know anything, but go. Got it. Those are specific artificial intelligence as well.

Tali:

I feel like general should be changed to like unleashed. Sure. Or boundless.

Cody:

So anyway, general sounds blah, but the question was like, does for that AGI to achieve consciousness, does it need to be like in a robot body or something that can experience like a physical, have an, have an experience in a, in a physical world? Yeah.

Tali:

That reminds me of her. Yeah. When they pair her with that woman's body. Yeah. I'm not exactly sure how that worked though.

Cody:

Well it was just meant for him to be able to try to relate to her better cuz he's stuck in the physical world, so he'd be able to relate to her physically. Got it. I don't think she would, but she couldn't. Yeah. I mean she would still just be getting like a bird's eye view, so to speak, of

Tali:

so important question. Mm-hmm. I think was she faking it?

Cody:

Well that's the whole debate, right? Like we, there's no way for us to know this, but it's an interesting question. There's

Tali:

no way for us to know this.

Cody:

There's als Well, not at this point, I don't think. Cuz nobody, even the people who are creating these artificial intelligences don't know like

Tali:

how, I hate that. Hate

Cody:

that so much. How would we know when consciousness is? You should know you made it achieve. No, but it's not one person. It's

Tali:

not like, that's the scary part is like these people are just creating shit. Like who knows what

Cody:

it's capable of. Yeah. It's not one person in a shoe shop making shoes. It's like a team of people with various skills all coming together and creating something larger than they ever could on their own. And so nobody really knows like how certain aspects of it are working.

Tali:

That sounds really irresponsible, don't you think? Like, did any of that come up in the the Absolutely Podcast in terms of like, is this moral,

Cody:

that's the main theme of the whole podcast. So what did they come to? What was through listening to it all yet? But I don't think an answer. I don't think there is an answer. I think the only answer is it's, there will always be people who are competitive with other people. And because of that technology will always be improving because of the, of this nature that we have of cooperation and competition. And that sort of like equilibrium, okay, means that humans invent shit. That's just what we do. It's like, it's what we've always done. And because it's that way, because that's sort of like an evolutionary trait of humans in a way. Technology is inevitable. Whether we understand it or agree with it or not, it's kind of a moot point. It's fucking coming.

Tali:

You said it, you said just the thing that like irks me the most, which is like we just have to accept it as inevitability. I think that's such

Cody:

crap. We what? Are you gonna stop it?

Tali:

I don't see the point

Cody:

of it. The only way to stop it would be like a nuclear holocaust or a fucking comet hitting the earth or something that just like resets everything that's probably coming. That also could be inevitable.

Tali:

I'm more comfortable with that.

Cody:

I mean, what difference does it make?

Tali:

It's just so unnatural. Like

Cody:

maybe it's not, maybe technology is natural. Maybe that's just how the universe always evolves. But don't you think it's

Tali:

also like just as much of a facade as like the Declaration of Independence? Mm-hmm. Or no, maybe it's what they say about the government for the people by the people. Yeah, whatever. One of those where that's a really nice sentiment at all, but it's not, that's not true. Right? Yeah. Like how does this benefic humankind, how? Yes. Are we encouraging people to read more books by having ais?

Cody:

Well, there's an article because there's a lot of

Tali:

horror movies that would say otherwise.

Cody:

I just read a short article on an ai Who, that I, who, I'm amper, I can't say that word, but you know, I'm putting human qualities on a robot, but because it probably looks human. No. This one was actually for detecting cancer and it was able to detect breast cancer four years before it would've been active. What? That's fucking amazing. That's when you talk about early detection being like the, the key to surviving cancer and this AI was able to predict this person had breast cancer before, like four years before traditional like mammograms or anything would've been able to detect.

Tali:

So is it de, is it actually detectable then if it's Yeah.

It's

Cody:

like, it's like literally like a couple cells. Wow. Like as before it's even causing tumors problems. Yeah. Yeah. So then it can easily be eradicated. Like you asked what the benefits are, like the certain types of, of artificial intelligence could mean I like the spec. Really amazing things.

Tali:

Yeah. The specific types I. Sound great. Yeah. It's the ones that are just like, nah, we'll see what happens with it. Well, hopefully it doesn't fucking kill everybody.

Cody:

So here's some of the positive aspects of the, of the general intelligence is things like nuclear fusion. If, if we had nu nuclear fusion reactor reactors instead of fission, like right now, nuclear power plants are like breaking apart atoms. Right? And it's, and it has all this waste and it's danger and everything. Well, fusion is what the sun does. It fuses atoms and there's a lot of energy produced, but it would be sort of like unlimited, cheap energy if humans knew how to create a stable reactor on a small scale that does the same thing that the sun does. Okay? It's such a complex problem. They've been working on this for probably a hundred years, like probably since. The original people were working on atomic energy of any kind and they've not ever been able to figure it out at, to reverse this time, the process. Yeah. And so if an artificial intelligence can bring together various forms of science and ideas and concepts and philosophies and be able to create nuclear fusion generators for us, we would have unlimited clean energy for like, forever. Like as a species, we no more fossil fuels. You wouldn't even have to have solar panels, wind energy nothing. Like you wouldn't have to have any other form of energy other than these cuz they would be so in theory, so efficient and not produce any waste. So there's, there's an example of how general artificial intelligence might seriously change things for us for the better. That sounds like cheating.

Tali:

I know. I know that since it's made by man, that it is technically. Advancement of man. Mm-hmm. Like, it's just as fair to say that that is human advancement, even through another channel. Mm-hmm. He's just so creepy. I really wanna see iRobot though, because I have been told there's like an endearing twist. Yeah. Yeah. So that might be helpful because what the twist is, I don't know for sure. I just know that what is advertised looks really scary and that's what I think about when I think of AI and X Machina and that new horror movie AI Doll thing that, do you remember that one that I just, we watched recently, we watched the movie, we watched the trailer. I don't remember that. And I was like, it's supposed to help with loneliness. And it's like a fierce, defenser creepy doll. It's, yeah. It's like what's creepier than a haunted doll?

Cody:

AI doll. Well, D dystopia sells.

Tali:

Is it that dystopian though? If it's like right around the fucking corner, it's like right around the corner.

Cody:

You know how you can't watch Black Mirror because it just creeps you out too much? Yes. The creator said that the reason they didn't continue making series or episodes, he's like, well, it's all about to happen, so there's just no point in like making any more of these.

Tali:

That's so terrible. And so true. Yeah. Eek. Yeah. I mean, what even comes after

Cody:

that? We don't know. This is a new frontier

Tali:

like, but isn't it all moving faster and faster? Like Absolutely. Should our foresight for it be. Yeah. They

Cody:

were talking about how faster too, you know, iterations of chat G P T have taken months. And there will come a time when the technology is helping to advance itself to the point where it, you could get new versions in days, like new iterations that are exponentially smarter in, in days instead of

Tali:

months. I just listened to our last podcast where you were talking about your Commodore 64 mm-hmm. And how you had to type in every single time. Yeah. All the code. All the code. Is it shocking to you what is happening technologically in your lifetime? It

Cody:

sort of isn't, because I was such a technophile as a kid. I was obsessed with Star Trek, the Next Generation. Mm-hmm. And so I kept expecting that to be my, my future. Like I thought Star Trek was just like, that's what it's gonna be like when I grow up. And I was kind of disappointed when it wasn't like, in some ways it feels like it's taken for fucking ever because. The idea of like Elon Musk's lurk is working on Neurolink right now, and mm-hmm. One of the first applications that they're gonna try to get approval for, basically to be able to surgically implant a chip into people's brains is to be able to help paraplegics walk again, because it'll basically bypass the injury point of a spinal cord injury and send the nerve signals back and forth from the legs to the brain with computer components. That would be amazing. Yeah. But the thing is, is that idea has been talked about since I was a little kid. Hmm. And so to be almost 50 years old and it's like, it's still not here, like it's still being talked about. So sometimes I see things like that and I'm like, it's taking forever. Everyone says all this shit is like right around the corner, right around the corner, right around the corner. Four decades later, fusion still isn't a thing. You know, spinal cord injuries are still not recoverable. Like there's, but still what

Tali:

a leap. What a leap. I always think about your dad, like watching your dad use a smartphone. Yeah. That kind of wakes me up. So, yeah, because my grandparents, they all died before smartphones were a thing. Mm-hmm. And so they never even got to see it. And I remember showing my grandfather a CD player and like that blew his mind. Mm-hmm. And that's after they had been around for a while. You know, it's just wild to see your dad with the technology that he has coming from this town. You know, the changes in technology in that

Cody:

regard. Yeah. To clue you in while you're listening to this. We live in Wau County, Oregon, which in the 1950s when my dad was a kid here this is pre-internet. And in the 1950s there was only certain classes of people who had televisions. You know, like we see things like mad Men and we watch period shows like that and it's showing everybody with their record players and their TVs and whatever cars and everything. And it's like, well, city folk. Yeah. Those are like upper middle class city people who had that at the exact same time, there were people farming with horses still. Like my dad remembers the first tractors that were being used in this county. Right. And now he's on a smartphone. Yeah. And now he's got a, an iPhone.

Tali:

Man. I would love for you to tell him about, Chat. G P T G P T. Yeah. I just like wanna see like, your dad's actually pretty agile Oh yeah. In general. So I don't think he would be surprised by it, but like I would imagine if you told my mom who's like 16 years younger than your dad, she'd be like, what? I think it just depends if you, you know, if you keep yourself exposed and mm-hmm. You know, keep up on your neuroplasticity and all that. I, I,

Cody:

but I think Yeah. But I think in the next six to 18 months that these chat robots, like chat G p t, are going to be so integrated into our lives that people won't even realize.

Tali:

You think it'll be like, Because they can just put a voice to it.

Cody:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It'll, it'll not, it'll, it not, it'll not only be more humanized like with voices and like visual, like you can have a, an avatar of a person who looks like they're talking to you and you can choose like, oh, I wanna, you know, I want a hot, you know, 27 year old Jamaican gal or something. Like, you know, whatever. You'll be able to talk to whoever you want, you know, in whatever style you want. But my point is, is that it's gonna start to be integrated into things in such a way that you don't really, it's kinda like the internet. So when I remember in the earlier days of the internet, and some people I still know today, I might not name a name right now who are afraid to give their credit card information over the internet. Are you on my dad? Yes, I am. Yeah. I wasn't gonna name names, but he knows that. We all know that. But here's the funny thing is if you swipe your card at any terminal in a grocery store at a gas station, It's going through the internet like it didn't used to. Mm-hmm. It used to be a dial up direct thing, just secure, like from that to the bank. It's, everything's on wifi anymore. Absolutely. Everything is going over the internet now, but you don't know it. It's just so convenient that you don't even fucking know it. Sure. And these chat G p t things are gonna be the same way. You're, your your GPS talks to you as it is right now. It gives you directions. Right. Well, imagine intelligence built into that to where it's like, I know what your objective is. I know that you're trying to get to this resort by a certain time, but I also know that you haven't eaten for four hours. And so as you're driving, it's gonna be like, there's your favorite restaurant is only 10 minutes out of the way. Would you like to divert to that? You know, and you'll think, most people will think, oh, this is just a new Google update to my gps. No, it's, it's an, it's an intelligence that's trying to predict what you want and give it to you. And it's gonna be built into things like that. And so people are gonna be using it without even knowing that they're using it.

Tali:

Well, part of me, it feels very fortunate to be the last of the stone age where things were so simple.

Cody:

Yeah, I think it's kind of exciting. I'm trying to be optimistic about it cuz it's kind of like if it's, if it's a dystopian situation, it's pretty much outta my control. Like I'm not, what am I gonna do to stop it? Well, let's watch

Tali:

iRobot. It's kinda like, I don't know, let's, let's see what your options are.

Cody:

You have talked about this before where sometimes over the last three, and I'm not going to try to get too dark here on our podcast for you listening, but there's some really, really tough economic. Realities that we are being faced with right now. Yeah. That most people are just sleeping through. Like they're totally unaware, but it's real. There are global food shortages, banks collapsing currencies collapsing. Governments on the brink of collapsing. Like we are in a very fragile state in a lot of ways. And a lot of people are just oblivious to it, or seem to be. And it kind of kept me, and I think both of us from really making a lot of progress during the covid lockdown phase through 2020. We didn't make a lot of progress with business or our physical fitness or like anything. We didn't make a lot of progress in any area of our life for that year. And some of it was just because we felt like there's this impending doom, like what's the fucking point? Why, why build a business now if the whole economy is gonna collapse? Right. But you've made the point, and I've tried to keep this in mind too, is that like, well first of all, It might not. And if it doesn't, then we're gonna be in a good position if we're building our business now to come out the other side of a recession in a better place. I inspired this.

Tali:

Yeah. Okay.

Cody:

Because you've said, well, what if it does collapse? What difference does it make? Like if we build a successful business in six to 12 months and then it all goes to shit, it would've gone to shit anyway. Right? So why not just do what we would normally do anyway? Like, why not try to make forward progress with our finances, our fitness, our business, our, and all the things that we want to accomplish in our lives? You might as well just work as if the isn't inevitable. Mm-hmm. Even if it is it's, so that's how I look at ai. It's like, well, we might as well look at how it's probably gonna help cure cancer. Probably gonna help cure aids, dementia, Alzheimer's. Like diabetes, it, it,

Tali:

but that might not be, that doesn't seem to be, at least when it comes to like the general narrative around ai, that that's the driving force. It is.

Cody:

It's just that you might be looking at the scare headlines only, whereas I'm more like geeking out on it. And so I see like a lot of the intentions behind ai Okay. Is to do these things for humanity. Well, feel

Tali:

free to pass those

Cody:

along more. Yeah. So my point is, is that I'm choosing to kinda look at it in a positive light because even if the dystopian future is the truth and the reality of it, I can't do a fucking thing about that anyway, so why worry about it? Like, I, I can't go there anyway, so I might as well look at the positive advancements that it's having or, or positive contributions that it could have in our lives. Well, and there's

Tali:

also a very different I sentiment to continuing to move forth as opposed to burying your head in the sand. Yeah.

Cody:

It doesn't do any good. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So,

Tali:

well, on that positive note,

Cody:

I think it's a very positive note.

Tali:

Oh man. I feel like all, all conversations like lead to AI at this point. Well, we're at a, it's really fascinating. Yeah.

Cody:

We're at a, we're at a crossroad. This is like the early nineties for the internet. Like we're in that phase again where everything is about to change. And I think that's something that I can say confidently. Like, I don't know if it's gonna get, I think you're right. I don't know if it's gonna get way better or way worse, but it's gonna, but it'll be different. Be very different. Yeah. Like we are gonna 10 years, we are living in a different world that we would not recognize today. So Do you wanna go cuddle your

Tali:

cats? I do, except they're just starting to fight. Well, let's wrap it up. Okay. Well, that was fun.

Cody:

It was fun. It was almost two podcasts in one. Got to geek out on some AI

Tali:

chatter. I can't even remember why that came up. But learning styles. We'll listen to it again in the editing process. Hope

Cody:

you've enjoyed the ride. If you're listening we'd really love to hear from you. Yes, we have a podcast page on our website. It's got a little orange button. You just click that and it's so easy. Get into a quiet spot and give us some feedback on anything that was said. Anything you disagree with, anything you'd like to contribute on any of our episodes, and we'd love to revisit those concepts. And play your recording on the air. So give it boo boop. Yeah, drop us a, a little massage. think that's it for me. You? Mm-hmm. All right. Well, we will see you all in a week to see you in a week. I love you. I love you too.

Tali:

This episode was produced by Tali Zari and Cody Limbaugh. Check out our writing coaching services and homesteading adventures at live all your life.com. For show notes, resources mentioned, or to submit a question or contribution, click on the podcast tab.

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