Peter Daly-Dickson (00:08.866)

Welcome back to Not A Straight Line with me, Pete Daly-Dickson. This is the show that explores the non -linear journeys of artists and entrepreneurs to inspire you as you zigzag through your own non -straight line life. And this week, I was a little bit starstruck. A few months ago, when I was starting to get Not A Straight Line off the ground, there was one person that I thought that I really wanted on

podcast because of what I knew about his journey. It's someone that I've followed online for 10, 15 years maybe, but I thought, well, just send him a DM and Substack and what's the worst that can happen? Ed Dale responded to my message and wow, what a conversation. mean, on the surface, Ed's a typical tech entrepreneur. He did amazingly well with a business leveraging.

Apple products, specifically the new stand on the iPad. And he actually got to a place where he was able to consider early retirement. And then the next phase of his life started. And this was in the part of his life that I didn't really know anything about. I love this conversation with Ed so much, not least of which because he probably broke the world record for the longest answer to a single question. Just such a fascinating, interesting human.

The conversation is really a story of two parts. It changes gear kind of halfway through. And that's really the nature of not a straight line, both in conversation and in life. I know that you'll find more than one nugget of wisdom to take away with you from this conversation. Here's Adele.

Peter Daly-Dickson (01:54.262)

It's kind of a little bit surreal for me, actually. I've known of you for so long, way back in Underachiever days and Frank Kern and stuff. kind of feel like I know you, especially with you, the way you came back out of retirement, I guess you called it that last year and the way that you showed up there talking about your ADHD and stuff. I felt like I know you even more. So have a...

a chance to spend some one -on -one time with you. I feel quite privileged really. well thank you. really looking forward to that. I love these things because for me, it's like I can just sit back and answer questions rather than having to run the show. Now the technology is all working well and I've figured it all out. We're cooking with gas. Talking about questions then, maybe it's the ADHD, I don't know, but I have very little

a time for small talk. I don't like it. And I think if you're going to have a conversation, you might as well go deep and go quick. So let's jump off the deep end, shall we? The conversation. go. I sent you a bit of homework in inverted commas. I don't know if you saw it. I kind of like to start these conversations the same way, just so there's the same launch pad. And then obviously the conversation just goes as it goes. Yep. At any point in our lives, when we look back on our lives,

we can see that there are stepping stones. Steve Jobs talked about this thread that joins all of the stepping stones, that is the Stanford commencement speech. Where you are now looking back on your life and you see all those stepping stones, what stands out for you as a particularly big zag, if you like, to one side or the other, or perhaps where the stakes felt particularly high at the time? You can either jump in there or set a bit of context to that situation.

Let's start there and see where we go. Yeah. It's interesting because there are through lines and threads like you described, and I can absolutely see those, know, teaching and helping is like a through line throughout my entire life. The zags are what I've come to believe almost inevitable. And I was quickly trying to look it up.

Ed Dale (04:20.846)

before, and I'm sure you can put this in the show notes. There's a study that I love to talk about. it was conducted by a Stanford professor. was 3000 or successful startups. And this, the, the, it was a simple study and the question was, was the thing that you started your business. The thing that ultimately became successful and the answer in

93%, I believe it was, cases was no, it was not. And I remember reading this for the first time and I thought, that's crap, that's rubbish, they're successful businesses. And then I looked back at every single successful, what people would call successful thing that I've done. And I asked myself the same question, was that, was the thing I was doing the thing that made it successful? And the answer was never, not once.

Not once. you give me an example? Yeah. So we had a company that was a publicly listed company on NASDAQ and it was doing teaching and sort of education, work and courses and all of these sorts of things. And it was doing okay at all of that. And then I remember a good friend and colleague of mine and, and, and,

business partner at the time, Dan Raine and I, we were in San Francisco for the WWDC. Apple conference. Yeah, yeah. It's 10 odd years ago. That's right. The Apple conference. And they announced Newsstand, right? So for the iPad and Newsstand for those of you who remember was just basically bringing magazines to the iPad, which was a very

obvious thing for the iPad to be doing. And of course, here today, know, magazines are almost a relic of history and indeed newsstand is a relic of history. However, at the time, magazines were very important. And if you talk about a through line of my life, magazines were a vital part of my education. I grew up in a small, tiny country town and I was so blessed to have Jim McCormick, still remember the owner of the news agent.

Ed Dale (06:47.426)

He, he had this extraordinary collection of magazines. and I'd get all the computer magazines from all over the world, even the, the, rare ones. Now they'd be six months after they were published. Right. Literally. But I'd get them and, and I would, I, with my meager amount of work money that I was earning pumping petrol at, Downs's service station, I would get those magazines. So magazines has always been a huge part and I.

Recall at one point, cause I had to put it in my tax return. I remember one year I'd spent $4 ,000 on magazines. So I was serious about magazines. So you talk about through lines. So they announced this new standard and immediately occurred to me that gear is a media step change. So what do mean by that? Anytime a new media, and it can be either a new technology.

Or a new delivery system is created. creates opportunities for incumbents to be upended in a marketplace. Recent examples, of course, the iPhone, right? You look at Uber does not exist without the iPhone. Right? That portable computer in your pocket. And do you use a taxi these days or do you call an Uber? Only if Uber's not there. Right.

Massive incumbents, right? Completely upended through these, through these changes. eBay, as opposed to the various trading posts. I don't know what they were called in all the parts of the world that everybody's listening to this, but there used to be a paper that people would buy lovingly by every week, which would have all the, where people would add all their musical equipment and stuff that they were trying to buy. There would be a physical paper. No longer, of course, you know, eBay and

Facebook marketplace and all these things. With the iPad, in particular with the newsstand, there was this opportunity. All of a sudden, I knew the economics of a magazine. Again, you talk about three lines. My first business failure, my first real almost bankrupt business failure, I later got better and was able to actually become bankrupt. But this one's a near miss.

Ed Dale (09:12.706)

The near miss was I started up a NASCAR racing magazine. And folks, if you're listening to this, I'm based in Melbourne, Australia and was at the time. We did have NASCAR racing actually here in Melbourne, Australia, but I was not in North Carolina. I was not in the United States of America. And I started a magazine and the economics of a magazine. The old joke is how do you make a small fortune? Which is start a magazine. That way you've got it.

a large fortune, start the magazine and it will become a small fortune. Got it. And I thought business, not genius that I was at the time. I was 19 was okay. The printing costs were expensive. Like a producing a magazine was expensive. was a thousands, tens of thousands of dollar exercise. And I thought, okay, I'll sell ads, which will cover the costs of the printing.

And then eventually I'll get the newsstand sales because the newsstand sales in those days took months, literally months, three to four months before you'd see any money come from the sale of a magazine. So the ads were what were important. And I learned, this extraordinary, business lesson, which was, the larger the company, the slower they are to pay. Yeah. Ain't that the truth. It's so true. Right. It is so true. And.

So yeah, so of course, then learned the lessons of cashflow or what a lack of cashflow does to a business. And yeah, it was, as I say, you know, just avoided, avoided that time bankruptcy marginally. so to see this new stand announcement, it immediately hit. Wow. You can do a magazine. What are the costs of delivery and distribution now in near zero and the team we had at the time.

was more than capable of creating a platform that would allow the people that I love working with, which are people who build niche businesses, that was our business of our organization. We were able to create some software which would allow somebody with no skills at all, they didn't even have have layout skills, create a beautiful looking magazine and be able to distribute it on the iPad. And I'm very proud to say that that

Ed Dale (11:36.526)

project alone created millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars for people. only got contacted, it was 12 months ago now, one of those original Magcasters, the product was called Magcast, who did a magazine on Disney World. That was there, like it was a Disney World fan magazine, sold it for $5 million. And I'm listening to this story with a big smile on my face because

I'm one of those people. didn't make millions of dollars, but I published two magazines on the Magcastle platform. Thank you for the opportunity that you gave me. you go. was a game changer and it was extraordinarily successful. We sold millions of dollars of it, think six, seven million dollars worth of product, but we were exactly, I don't know, a year, two years early. We used to sell it all upfront.

Like you, bought the course and then off you go. Right. Of course the business model today, if we'd done it would have been a software as a service where you pay a monthly fee and then potentially, you know, royalties on sales and stuff like that. But we weren't that sophisticated or, and that really wasn't, as I say, we're just a little bit early, which was, so that was an example, if you like Pete of, like a really, like that was a significant zag from.

what we did, ultimately the thing that made that company successful was that. then my most, like literally the most recent one, you mentioned at the start that I effectively retired. I love working with Taki Moore and his business coaches because I'm coaching the people who got their start. And often I'm working with people who started out prior to the

that there was a thing called the, which was another zag, which was the 30 day challenge. And that was the first, that was literally the first challenge on the internet. Right. It was the, it was the very first one. Now you can't throw a stick for your five day challenge or your seven day challenge. But back then it was an extraordinary concept and we had 450 ,000 odd people go through and make their first dollar in an online business. And so it's wonderful to, to this day, I'll be literally on a

Ed Dale (14:00.654)

train somewhere in some weird location and somebody will say, I got my start online because of you. which is just wonderful. that ability to see that and work with that and, and have those sorts of experiences. So I've been coaching with, with Taki Moore, working with, coaches who were making a million dollars or more a year.

And it was, was a lot of fun. was something to do during the pandemic because I retired. saw where the business, where the online business was going. It was a team sport and I specialized in beginners and people who started. in 2019, even to make a hundred thousand dollars, the complexity of that business, like with ads, with social media, with everything. In my day, you could make a million dollars with one person. Right. When I started back in 2004, 2005.

Right. It became a huge team sport. And, and so I thought, it's not some, this is a game for others now and influences and all that. So off we go. So I, and then I literally, my last call that I had was March, 2020. And my first day of retirement was meant to be the day before my 50th birthday, the 23rd of March, which I don't know if that date rings a bell with your listeners.

That was the day the world shut down. So my vision of going to Japan and reading books and just retiring just went out the window. Well, that's a collective zag for humanity, wasn't it, really, in a way? Well, it was literally the great, you know, was a great reset. But I'd never, like I'd never considered going back and doing something with

beginners again, because I didn't think it would be possible. then November 13, 2022 happened, which was Chachi PT and this extraordinary AI development. it was like when initially I saw it, was the moment I saw it. And it was funny because I thought I was too, Pete, I thought I'd gotten, I thought I'd aged out. I thought, you know what?

Ed Dale (16:22.382)

Because during the pandemic, the hot technology, right? The hot, super powerful technology was of course, web 3 .0 and crypto and NFTs and all this sort of stuff. And I couldn't see it. I thought, have I aged out? Like, I just can't see how this is a business or it's a thing. Like I understood.

Bitcoin and I understood how that could be a store of value because there's a scarcity associated with it. So that makes sense. And if everybody agrees, it's a, it's a bit of value. That's fine. It can work in that, that sort of thing. And I saw some benefits of that, but all the other stuff associated with it. applications on top of blockchain. The applications, the, and by the way, you know, a lot of people drop, I'm not sure what the, rating of the podcast is. So I say drop who?

a great height on it's a it's 18 explicit. It's you beauty. So, people who, who dropped, who crapped from a great height on NFTs. I actually, the NFTs that were monkey stuff that was, that was never going to fly. The, the thing that, well, like any mania will go while, you know, there's enough suckers to pass on the thing for it. But actually the like,

Do I think digital goods have value and having a certificate, even though somebody can copy something? Of course. That's there are lots of photos and postcards of the Mona Lisa. Is that the value of the Mona Lisa? No, of course not. So I'm actually with that and I'm also an observer of, you know, Gen Z and they think nothing of buying Fortnite skins and unique clothes and items of clothing and so on. Anyway, I saw that and I'll go, I'm done. Like I'm washed up.

And it was so silly and, and it was only through starting up my newsletter again, like it was a real forehead slapping moment. And this is such a good, a good lesson. And if we go back to the things that were successful, like the challenge, the new, the, the mad cast creating a newsstand, it was a great demo, right? The demo immediately goes, that's cool. None of those.

Ed Dale (18:48.462)

There was no, wow, that's cool demos ever in web three. There was that and it was all extraordinarily complex and it was all really making stuff hard. So that was a great reminder and a great lesson, right? And from the moment anybody uses chat GPT, you cannot be amazed and wowed. you, when you shared being able to talk to chat GPT, was just, you know, hashtag mind blown was just amazing. was. Yeah.

And I started off thinking that, wow, like I pretty quickly, when I was talking with colleagues saying, Hey, this is an iPhone level event. Right. And what I mean by that is the iPhone into when the iPhone launched in 2007, perhaps even more than the internet itself. In fact, definitely more than the internet itself created, extraordinary opportunities for people with the app store and new businesses, new business models.

It was extraordinary. It was a revolution. put more devices in people's pockets. So markets expanded, et cetera, et cetera. so I thought it was an iPhone level event and pretty quickly came to sort of by the March after that November, it became clear that this, wasn't just an iPhone level event. This was a revolution level event. And so what do I mean by that? I mean, it's like of the level of the industrial revolution.

Or the transistor, right? That level of it. All right. without a shadow of a doubt. I'm more convinced of that. Even though we're in a little bit of a, and having the advantage of being around a few decades, there's an inevitable cycle to the world. And there's an, there's this initial hype cycle and then things go down in the doldrums for a little bit. And then they, then it takes off and off we go. And, we're in the quiet stage of.

AI at the moment, think we're in the, but it will be an extraordinary like it. And for me, it was, wow, this enables people to be a one person business again, as your assistant brainstorming, writer, et cetera. And it would encourage AI apps effectively would be a whole new world, you know, creating assistance to help people in these areas was.

Ed Dale (21:13.302)

Amazing. So in what I'm hoping to claim the record for the longest answer to one question in your entire podcast history, either prior or to come. just, not just my podcast in podcast history, full stop. Particularly I'm going for, I'm going for the record. My most recent zag for me, like, so I was happily going down and along that path and I've been doing a lot of,

you personal inner work and just, just, know, as you, start to, know, you get some wisdom and you see some things and you realize that it's not outward dollars success and what cars you have and what you can buy and all those things that really matter. It's internal. and as you well know, Pete, I, yeah, so similar period of time in sort of January, 2023, started taking ADHD medication and.

that changed my world. got diagnosed with ADHD and it was for me, it was a miracle. as I'm sitting here looking at you, I'm 34 kilos lighter than what I was through no, no change per se, just quantities and just ability in my output. And what I'm able to do is expand it so much. So part of that has been a, is looking at a lot of inner work.

And actually this story will tie it all up into a nice neat little bow. On December of this year, I'd been married for a long time and I'd gotten separated last year. And so I was spending my first Christmas by myself and the girls had been over and it was great. Like it was fantastic. I had a great Christmas. I loved it. Enjoyed it. It was stress free for the first time in about 15 years. it was enjoying and I had a great time with the girls the Saturday before and they were off with their mother.

And so Christmas was fine, then come boxing day. And then I was starting to go, I'm not talking to anybody. This. All right. And I wasn't speaking with anybody and I was just starting to get a bit down in the dumps about things literally. And I was on Facebook and boy, that's, if that's an indicator that I'm down the dumps surfing Facebook is definitely a, like that is a key, that is a key indicator. And this dude pops up.

Ed Dale (23:41.578)

And it's a dude with a gong and it's an ad and he's like, I'm, you know, I'll solve these problems and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I, I, I coined a term. I hate bought that PDF. thought I'm going to, what a scammer. I'm just going to, what's the scam? Not to expose him or anything. Just, I was feeling bitter. So I figured, let's see what the scam is here. Right. What is the scam? And,

So because I'm in the industry and like, okay, so what's this guy's deal? And I downloaded the book and I'm a fast reader to start with. I hate sped read and, and, you know, people talk about hate watching reality shows where they, they, the fun they get is about complaining about the show to their friends. So I was pretty much doing this to this, to this book and I'm like literally virtually digitally flying through it. And there was a.

It hit a point and this point was this guy's, you know, classic story down, down to his last dollar. He's living in a pay by the day hotel, about to get chucked out of there the following day. And he goes down and he puts his feet in the pool and he's, and he's like, well, this water is the same color as it would be if I was putting my feet in the pool in Jamaica or Hawaii. And look at the sky. This had been apparently very gray there.

Well, it's blue today that it's as clear as it's been actually. And that would be as blue as it is. And, that's as blue. And I just had a realization as I looked up from my sub penthouse here in Melbourne with the ability to travel anywhere in the world, anytime I want buy anything that I want. That was like a punch in the guts. It was like, come on, seriously. Really? And so I put it down and said, I'm going to give you some more time tomorrow.

you've earned a little bit more time. And so I picked it up again the following day. I started to read it and here's this guy who's in sort of the inner work, dare I say it, spirituality game. And he's talking about the theory of constraints. I'm going, come to daddy. This is fantastic. This is what? How is somebody talking about theory of constraints in

Ed Dale (26:07.65)

What is a air quotes for those who are listening spiritual in a work type thing. And I started to read it and my gosh, this guy has a step up. Cause one of the things that frustrated the hell out of me in all my research, cause when I research something, I go hard when I get a ADHD, right? In one of the things that always frustrated didn't matter whether it was Eckhart Tolle or it's any of the

Joe Dispenza, any of the Buddha for goodness sake, any of them, they all say you have to get present and then you have to let go. then Does he how? Nobody tells you how to let go. None of them tell you how to do it. They just say, well, you just sort of release it. And I say, I'm feeling furious right now. How can I release this ball of fury in my stomach? And this guy, this guy had a step -by -step process to doing it. can't bloody hell. Okay. Wow.

So I did something that I hadn't done, but at least a decade, if not longer, I actually paid hard earned of my money to join this guy's membership program. Got on that first zoom session and this guy was extraordinary. Like I've worked with the best of the best. Did you know Pete, I've spoken on stage for Tony Robbins business mastery. I've like, I've in my little world, I'm a famous person. knows. And this guy on zoom.

was the most extraordinary zoom presenter that I've ever seen in my life. Because he was so present, I imagine. Yes, you're exactly right Pete. And that's what I came to realize is that because he was so incredibly present, he was picking up signals from people, the gallery view of zoom, like I've never seen somebody do. And most importantly, he actually

practiced what he preached and over the course of the session worked with two people and they had extraordinary breakthroughs. So I was like, I was really surprised. Anyway, to cut a long story, I won't even call it short at this stage. After I got on off the call, about, you know, not half an hour later, I got a message, a private DM on Facebook from this guy saying, how did you, how did you like the session? thought, isn't that good? Like,

Ed Dale (28:27.15)

Not only does he know his stuff, he's got one of his customer service team to reach out to all the new people to see what they thought of. So I didn't respond. there's some automation there or something. He's got, he's got, he's got a good system. Yeah. Exactly. There's an automation. There's something, well done. I was like, you know, two points for you. And I thought, wow, you know, I didn't answer straight away. was that, not till that evening. And I thought I was fine. And I just said, here's the things that I thought you did really, really well. And not 30 seconds.

Later, I get a message back and it literally says, and this is where we bring the story and you talk about threads. The guy's name was Brian Ridgeway and Brian sent me this message and he said, I almost had to stop the zoom recording when I saw you were on the call. It distracts. And I had to tell everybody on my team afterwards that you were on the call. You are the guy that got me into internet marketing.

with the challenge all those decades ago. They challenge. my God. It's better. You win the prize. You've already won the prize by the way, Ed. You've already won the prize. Just to say, know, in terms of the longest answer. it gets better. gets, dude, it gets better in the story. His story, not my story, his story. He goes upstairs after he's had this realization and there's literally an email with a job offer. Right. And, and the rest is history. The job offer.

was sent by a very dear friend of mine at the time. I knew all, it absolutely was. was all a extraordinary, like talk about threats. There was this, so it was extraordinary. He said, look, this is weird, but I've got this, I'm doing my first four day event that I've done in years. And if you can come over.

I'd love to have you as a guest as a thank you for all that you've done." And I said, yeah, and by this stage, I'm just like, come on, this is ridiculous. So I booked myself a ticket and said, all right, I'm coming. so it went over. just to be clear for the listener, you're in Melbourne and the event was in Hawaii. yes, thanks Pete. Literally on the other side of the world. Yes, very good, very good key part of that.

Ed Dale (30:53.11)

was that it was, and it was only like three or four days later. Right. So I just, yeah, that just moves things around to make it happen. And went to that event and that sort of level five event with Brian Ridgeway, the four days. Like I've never seen somebody in a room. And as I say, I've worked with the best of the best of the best. It was unbelievable. And then the breakthroughs that I saw, I'm sort of hesitant to even talk about them on a podcast because

People are going to listen to this and say, Ed, Pete, who's this guy? This is bullshit. He's obviously completely like the literal changes that I saw. and, and yeah, it was just, I've never seen anything like it. Never seen anything like it. And he had his, he had his team over there and I offered to stay to just sit in because they were having a team meeting for two days. I felt, you know, he, he'd done something with lovely for me. So I thought I'd do something nice for him.

And he and his wonderful team, literally sort of a week later, his business partner flew to Sydney and flew me up to Sydney and said, we want you to be part of this. I'm sort of like, gosh, this is, it reminded me, you started with a Steve Jobs quote, so let me finish with a Steve Jobs quote. When Steve was recruiting John Scully from Pepsi.

The thing that made John come over to Apple was Steve looked him in the eye and said, do you want to be selling sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to change the world? And to me, it was one of those moments. So you talk about zags, right? To me though, the zags are normal. The science says that, remember we talked about the studies. In fact, there's a, if you want to read thousands of pages of

doctoral thesis on all of these sorts of the, the difference between emergent and, deliberate strategies. You know, so what I've realized is that the most important thing is to start on a deliberate strategy. You take action, right? You make forward steps towards it. And in doing that, the thing that will become successful emerges out of that. So what you, so if there's a lesson to anybody that's still listening is that

Ed Dale (33:19.938)

those zags, right? Those zags are the main event, right? And it's you being open to those and working, really doing action. You know, this sort of, I'm just going to manifest my success and I'm just going to re or I'm going to research myself to success. Like we see in the sort of the, when people are starting their businesses, they tend to research rather than get out in the marketplace. That's the key, right? Is that take those deliberate steps, that deliberate plan.

deliberate action. Then the thing that will ultimately be successful is often a thing that emerges out of that thing. It's really interesting. We are real -time, you and I, right now in the middle of that. I've already shared my story on the first few episodes of this podcast. I don't need to go into that now. I'm in a situation now with my work, what I'm doing for money, that isn't sustainable. have to do something to

get off the road. Literally, I'm moving vehicles around the UK. If things have to change, something has to change. That's part of the impetus behind this podcast because it's this deliberate action. It's forcing me to connect with people. Opportunity, a phrase I heard a few years ago, which just… You know what it's like when you hear a quote. I'm a quote man, drive my wife mad with it. But this quote in particular is an op

Opportunity always comes attached to people. Opportunity always comes attached to people. I've done some podcasts in the past, so I'll do this one. I know that although I can't see really clearly how it's going to end up, I know that the thread that's going to go through these conversations is going to lead to something great. I can't think of a better person and a better conversation to have had.

to get this thing started, to get this zag started. Well, I'm hoping my zag abilities are working well because I remember Nathan Chan, who is now the proprietor of the incredibly successful Bounder magazine and the whole empire that has evolved an extraordinary multi -million dollar business that has become. I was his first

Ed Dale (35:46.85)

human cover, real person cover. There was one issue before me and then there was the very first, first issue. was a Magcast and, that, and as I joked with him many years later, like there's no way I'd cracked the cover of a founder these days. yeah. So I said to, I've always said to her, I'm always grateful for the fact that I got in early. So hopefully, you know, I probably won't be able to get on your,

podcast list, I just won't write, but you know, in a couple of years time. I'm pleased to be. God. You're more self -deprecating than a Brit, Ed. You talked about right at the beginning of your historic epic answer to my first question, 40, 39 minutes that was in the end. So, Scott, I'm going to find the website where you, where you log, where you log these details and see where you are on the leaderboard. Could be a Guinness Book of Records, opportunity.

You mentioned about the way you looked at it was a distinction between threads and through lines. And now the conversations I've had with people kind of leading into starting this podcast is whether you call it a through line or a North Star or some sense of internal gyro compass kind of just to keep you headed in the same direction. But for you, it's helping in teaching. Where do you, so we've, with your story stories there, we've kind of ended.

relatively recently because that event in Hawaii was March, wasn't it? March, April? January this year. January. Beginning of the year. Yeah. So fairly recently. So I want to go back in time. When was it that you first recognized that helping and teaching was, I mean, you wouldn't have known at the time that it was going to be your through line because you only know that in retrospect. When did you first kind of get a sense that that was part of who you were?

So, so there's two parts of it. The first, the first part that emerged was, suppose, a performing aspect. got a lot of praise as a very, I was very, I was, I was cute and tiny when I was, like in started school and I was already a sensational reader. Right. I just.

Ed Dale (38:12.844)

I just have always loved reading and literally from the get go. so I, I read a mass at St. John's primary school and people go, this prep can do all that. And so I got a lot of positive, like, got a lot of positive feedback from that. and so there was this thing of performing and speaking in front of other people that I get nerves like anybody else, but it's something that I.

I enjoy, and I far prefer it to say having to write or do an assignment or do something like that. I would much prefer to talk and to present, and I'd much rather speak to a room of 100 people. actually get, I really truly think of myself as an introvert. I do not enjoy networking events. do not enjoy those sorts of, I'd much rather speak at the front of a room in front of 100 people, because then I don't.

necessarily need to speak to anybody, right? It's, it's weird. Yeah. It's not weird actually. It's, it's, it's, it is actually. I hear you. hear you. And, so that part of it was important. The other side of it was the teaching part. I, from certainly from when I got into high school, my intent was to be a librarian. Remember I like books and I thought being a librarian teacher and I wanted to be a teacher and I'll never forget this.

Mr. Plant, our career teacher in year 10 at Beechworth High School, I said to him, when you have your year 10 career counselor, was a, and I said, he asked me, what do you want to do? And I said, I want to be a teacher. said, Ed, what are you talking about? You'll never make any money as a teacher. Are you insane? And I look back at that and I go, well, as it turns out, you can actually make a lot of money being a teacher.

depends what you call teaching. Right. So from an early age, I've wanted to teach. I did not have any of the disciplines to stick with anything for very long. Because of the ADHD presumably? Correct. Right. Those ADHD symptoms were very much untreated and not understood. So my whole

Ed Dale (40:40.522)

a sort of trajectory from a business perspective was sort of set on a particular entrepreneurial path, which sort of accommodated like so many of our colleagues are sort of more likely like there's much higher percentage of entrepreneurs with ADHD than other occupations because it's, it's, it's an occupation. can get away with it. Right. So I love that.

I love that. if you're the boss, then it's just eccentricities. It's not, you know, it's not these things. And as I've cut like, and particularly with the work I've done, you know, with level five and, and with Brian and all these things, you know, there's a lot of labeling going on and there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that have been used to treat things, which are covering up underlying core issues. So I do want to be very careful with the way I label things and the way people label things.

There's no doubt, however, that that T by that through line of teaching and performing, I was in all the school plays. And so that combination of showmanship and teaching led naturally to sort of presenting. And I remember selling computers like when I will recall when I first had that near bankruptcy experience, when I came out of school, I had to sell ads.

the Western suburbs newspaper. funny now as I look out this window, I see my entire territory of where I used to sell ads. And let me tell you, the Western suburbs of Melbourne, it's probably like the West of a lot of, it's the colorful side of town. I would go into a fruit and veggie shop, had to drop off a newspaper and ask them if they wanted to have ads and I'd be told

If you don't get out of my shop, I'm going to shove this end of the pineapple up your ass. It wasn't fun. It was not fun. Straight up. And then I had this insane, and it was actually reading Awaken the Giant Within, funnily enough. There was just recently published at the time. Yeah. Right. Tony Robbins. And reading that book, had this, so I can actually sell stuff that I like. That's an idea. What a concept. And so I wrote.

Ed Dale (43:08.206)

to all of the Macintosh Apple Mac, because I love Apple and always have from the time I was 14. Couldn't never afford it. Like I never afford an Apple. And as I know now, of course, that's for a sales manager, somebody actually writing to you wanting to do sales for you is like manna from heaven. You love that. I didn't know at the time, but that's what I did. And so I got a job as an Apple salesman and became the top Apple salesman.

I'd do anything to get the deal because I was only interested in getting the deal. So I wouldn't care about making the company that I was working for money. I just like I'd sell it near cost as long as I got the deal. And so I wasn't ideal from that perspective at that particular period of time. But that was again, just an insight that wow, that, and again, you sort of see these threads and through lines and then these zags as you describe them.

and particularly now, ironically with the work I do at level five, know, Brian would say that really the Zag is actually the main game, the thread or the through line. other people would say, that was synchronicity or that was a bit of good luck, or that was, you know, that was a miracle. Right. And the reality is, I think is as you become more open and you start to work on those things, you sort of free up.

energy, for want of a better word, that you start to notice more of these things. If you become more present, you start to notice these things more. And as you start to notice these things more and you create interactions, you know, that takes me back to my physics days, right? Nothing happens without an interaction, right? So if you're not interacting as a business, of course you're not going to sell anything, right? If you're not interacting, it doesn't matter, if you're not interacting with the piano and you're learning to play the piano, you're not going to get better, right? So it's all of these things are so important.

So just going back to that job selling Apple computers, was that a zag away from your through line of teaching that kind of made you realize that you wanted to come back to it or were you able to still kind I'm so glad you asked. Remember, introvert, introvert and cold calling, like that is to me is the worst of the worst of the worst. And my opinion has not changed. It's just me then. No, no, it's horrific.

Ed Dale (45:34.574)

and particularly from some people who've got an aptitude for it and bless them. They probably don't have ADHD. Yeah. And so this ties it all together. The way I figured out how to do this was there was lots of cool new products being released as them, not as many as there are today, but there were a few. And of course there was no internet. There was no, right. There was magazines. That was it when I was doing this. So I thought Apple had a beautiful seminar room here in, in Melbourne and I knew the Apple reps and I said,

Would you have a problem if I used your seminar room? And so I organized the distributors to come and demonstrate their software. And we would, I just invite all the graphic design firms and all the firms I knew that use Macs, right? And I just invite them to these seminars and I would stand up the front and I'd be the MC of the seminar, of course. And, and let me tell you, there was no science to that at the time. What I realized now looking back.

is that you get that reflective authority of introducing and asking questions of the people. It's the Oprah effect, right? so, yeah. Chet Holmes is it? Yeah, Chet Holmes was about selling through education. Yeah, right. And what was interesting about Chet's approach was that the education didn't have to be anything to do with your product, right? It had to be useful to your target audience. That's what it had to be.

Yeah. was Chet Holmes, interestingly enough, was the one bright spark of my time at the Western Times suburban newspaper was that the sales manager had Chet Holmes sales tapes. Before Chet Holmes was Chet Holmes, he sold advertising for magazines for Charlie Munger as it happens, speaking of coincidences in small worlds. Warren Buffett. Yeah. He created a video series of how to sell.

advertising for magazines and newspapers. And that was the very first, cause I really genuinely had my full process was I've finished school now. I will never learn anything again. I'll never go to any sort of training. wasn't aware of self -help. wasn't aware of, I was a computer nerd. I honestly, I was not, didn't even understand any of this. So it was like, so it was, it was absolutely ironic. And I had the privilege before Chet passed away of

Ed Dale (48:00.512)

of actually speaking with him at a number of Tony Robbins business mastery events. And so was great to be able to thank him and say, you were the spark that realized, wow, you can actually teach, right? You can teach and you can train people in things other than what you would learn at school. And so that was, that was the, how about that for tying things together? It's also interesting. Yeah. It's, it's wonderful.

And I'm a firm believer that you only need to be in conversation with somebody for really a very short space of time to find some point of connection between you. You just said there, just almost throw away that you didn't really know what you were doing. You you're a computer nerd, but it seems to me that at some level you did because it seemed to you to make sense somehow to get this seminar room and invite people.

And you took deliberate action. How old were you at this time out of interest? 20? Yeah. Just sort of coming, of a bit better, if you like, coming back out. Is that a learned thing or is that just part of humanity, you being human and some people recognize it and learn it and some people don't? Well, sort of how deep do you want to go with this? Very, very, very.

We've been doing on the surface so far. Okay. So, we can go from a, with the greatest love in the world, a woo woo angle, or we can go from a quantum physics angle. And I'm the only thing that I did well at school was I topped the state, in my physical, I failed English and top the state in physics. And that's ironic, seeing as you're a copywriter now, he won't go into that. It's absolutely hilarious. Right. And I can never pursue a career in physics because I just had none of that. Like you had to do.

like detailed experiments and then had to do the experiments were fine. was the notes and the recording and having to be consistent and everything else that was just not possible for me at that time. so one thing that's a very interesting aspect of physics and in particular quantum physics, but physics is a general, well, quantum physics in particular and the fundamental laws of physics, the best that we know right now, time is not a factor. It doesn't, it's immaterial to

Ed Dale (50:25.248)

Any physics, there's no, there's one slightly off -Broadway fundamental that may have time as per other than that, none of the fundamental laws that as we know them in terms of energy or any of these things, time is not a variable, right? It's a construct, right? By definition, scientifically, this is not we were people, this is quantum physics. It is a construct to help us explain a pathway between A and B, but that pathway is a construct. So the reality is, so if you took that weird

So, okay. So that's the first weird part. The second weird part is then if you look at any of the fundamental, the laws of thermodynamics for our physics nerds that are listening, the amount of energy that exists is exactly, is the same amount of energy that exists with the big bang. And it will be exactly the same amount of energy that exists when the universe, if it ever actually contracts, it will be still the same amount of energy.

it does not change and it expands, right? That's the other thing. We'll expand to fit that container. what is then, okay, if we keep following down this path, what is, what is information? What is knowledge? It's energy. Like think about it. It's bits. Communication is anything that has the ability to go from, it's a switch A to B.

Well, something can go from A to B and something, and it can change that state. can become a communication device. Yes, no, one, two. So if you keep going down that path, then time is not something that exists in a physical sense. So basically all the knowledge that there ever was is, or will be, is already there in the form of energy, because energy has not, the amount of energy that

And again, gang, is not, this is not your Akashic records or, although they are potentially examples of explaining this concept from all sorts of different angles. What's that? I'm not familiar with that. The, I probably even pronounced it wrong. I so don't know. This is really getting out of my, I'm much more the quantum physics in that area over there. The Akashic records are, here's the thing. The more present that you.

Ed Dale (52:52.78)

The more present you are, the more these, where do these, where do ideas come from? Right. Where do they pop in? And the reality is there's two, two things that happen. Right. Is your mind and all the chatter that goes on with your mind, all the different, all the different steps. Right. And the talks and the criticisms and all the, all the stuff that goes on in all of our heads that are listening to. Yeah. Yeah.

You've never had an idea from there, right? Something that's been a positive worthwhile thing for you in your entire life. I encourage you to fact check this. All of you don't take my word for it. Whatever you do. Who am I? don't know nothing. Every intuition, as people call it, a label for intuition is when you're present, the difference between how you can recognize what is one of these proper intuition events and what is just your mind, your monkey mind or

your mind chattering and thinking about things is that the intuition comes fully formed. Comes back. just go bang. I'm going to run this seminar at Apple and I'm just going to invite all the people. didn't sit there and think, Hmm, okay. Let's think about it. Okay. Stem and arm room, right? you see him trying to figure out all the dots and figure out all the things and what are all the things that can go wrong and what are all the things that can bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. That's thought.

Right. That's your zags do not come, will never come from thoughts. They come from intuition and the different, it's, and I was so glad somebody pointed this out to me because it is actually very easy. Once you actually understand this is, you know, level five and Brian is this, that an intuition comes fully formed. It's, it's baked. The idea is there, right? There's no, the details are already there.

They are there and you've just been, what I've realized now is you are present enough to allow those intuitions. The more present you are, the more intuition. Okay then. So it's not being devil's advocate at all because I'm with you. So again, real time, the intuition about this podcast and the services coming out of it to help business owners tell their story through their own podcast.

Peter Daly-Dickson (55:16.194)

that came to me fully formed. So on one level, I'm hearing you and I'm thinking, great, I'm on track. I didn't try and figure it out. I knew I had to take a week off driving work to have these interviews and stuff like that. So my question to you, is the intuition coming is part of being human. that what you're saying? Everyone is capable of getting that kind of intuition. Or do you?

Do you need some kind of training training? Okay. Here's, and I'll do this from the quantum physics place because if the reality is, if everything is energy and everything is energy, then who's this human you're talking about? Who's this, who's this person? We're all, we're all the same stuff. There's one, there's one entity of energy. Right. It's facts. Right. It's not even, I'm not trying to be woo woo. We're all one.

Although I see where they're coming from. so the, if that is the case, like if you take that, if you, if things become very interesting, if all of a sudden you just, and again, this is not asking you to believe something. This is not asking you to, even take my word for it, but just as an interesting exercise, if you, you, a thought experiment, if you will, if you go from the point that.

Well, we're all just part of the same thing and this, the mind is a thing, right? Is something, but it's all part of the same thing. Then we're not separated in any way, right? And if we're not separated in any way, then how can anything that happens not be for you?

think you set two records on this podcast episode. The longest answer, the longest answer and the deepest. And here's the thing, right? And so there's two approaches to that, right? There is, okay, well, I can think about that a lot, right? I can really think about that, or I can just be present to that. Not have to particularly think about it either way.

Ed Dale (57:41.438)

And then all of a sudden when stuff comes up, right, as it inevitably does, right. The reason it's coming out, the reason that anything affects you is because it's happened. Something has happened to you in the past, which has caused an emotional response in some way. It's your, your, because the brain again, scientifically, right. Remember what we said about that unit of communication is a switch.

Zero and one, our computers, AI zero and one, our brain is zero and one. And indeed it has one function is a sorting and storage function, which is, is this good or is this bad from my perception? And unfortunately, all the stuff that all the good and bad stuff is, is all being given to us. It's made up. It's, as Brian so eloquently puts it, and I love this is where did you get that shit? Cause it wasn't from you.

It was from an interaction typically with a parent in the early days or a community or a culture or any of these sorts of things. they're all just things, right? Brian calls them spells and they are, and I love that construct because again, if it's a spell and then if things that are happening are happening for me rather than happening to me where I've become the victim,

All of sudden, well, if we're all part of this same energy mass, then nothing's happening to me. It's happening for me. It's all part of this same energy mass. When you apply a big enough microphone, microphone, not a microphone. If you apply a big enough microscope, it's all stuff, right? It's all the same, all the same stuff. It's waves and particles.

depending on whether you're looking at it or not, but let's not go there, because that's a whole different, an amazing kettle of fish. So, you know, all of a sudden something happens. And let's say, let's call it a negative event. Something's happened to me. Well, if you can, if you just as in a thought experiment, we're all the same things, all the same energy mass. if I've experienced something, I could then...

Ed Dale (01:00:03.852)

Instead of going, woe is me or the going to the typical, this is good or bad or anything like that, because I am separate from this event, right? Instead of saying that just again, thought experiment, if we're this glob of energy, what if you said, how is this for me? Right. And you mean it. And how do we mean it? It's very simple, right? You mean it by breathing, getting present so that you're focused on the

the situation is not even focused. It's just being present. So you're thinking forward, backwards or whatever you get present. just breathe and you genuinely ask yourself, how is this for me? somebody stole my car. well that's an external event. No, how is this for me? It's a very interesting thought experiment. is an interesting thought experiment because the whole kind of,

Zyganic effect is that when you ask yourself a question, your brain has to try and find an answer for it. So if you're not asking yourself the right questions, that's probably symptomatic of where you're at. So that seems to me to be a pretty great question to ask. Your mind is like the most enthusiastic golden retriever of all time. It will do exactly what you

Throw the ball, get the ball. Throw the ball, get the ball. the ball, get the ball. Ask a question, get an answer. Yeah, you will. Right? It's a navigator. Brian describes it in level five as a, but the thing that you can do with the brain, which it's very good at, and this is the proper way to drive a brain, is that you point it. It's like a magnifying, imagine the sun, magnifying glass and the

piece of paper that you're trying to light on fire. All right. The mind is the magnifying glass part and the sun's the whole energy. Like, well, literally again, energy. If you can say, how is this for me? Then it's a golden retriever. And you well, somebody stole my car. That's not for me. Yeah. okay. Well, and here's the thing. And this is where you, you get present, then if I ask you this question, okay. All right. What is the this?

Ed Dale (01:02:28.354)

Well, somebody hit my car. Somebody stole my car. It feels this is great. This is ridiculous. I said, okay. Okay. Somebody stole your car. And if, long as you're breathing and you keep breathing and you're present, then I'll, I'll just say something. Hey, where are you feeling this in your body right now? And this is the blow away. This is where, and if you get present, you're really holy shit in my diaphragm or on my shoulder or somewhere. Okay. Let's breathe into that.

Is there a time in your life where you felt exactly the same way? Yeah. When my older brother stole my. By truck. I was three. That's like, okay. Well, where are we feeling that and breathing into that and dissolving that energy. So you've gone from what is a no question is an experience.

It's a definitely in the non -preferred category having your car stolen. Hey, was it insured? Was it not insured? Was it, know, what's the, does that mean you get a new model of the car? What's the right. At the very least, at the very least you've processed that in a whole different way. There's somebody else may have and to be dramatic, but not somebody could.

Their car got stolen. go home and they hit their wife or they hit their kids because they can't, they haven't processed that anger, that emotion, that feeling, that sadness, that fear, that anger in the right way. And why did they react to that badly to a car being stolen? Because something's occurred at some point. Right. So all of a sudden this, this exercise that's unresolved, it's unresolved. And by looking and just.

putting your magnifying glass, your attention on how is this for me and breathing through it and being present, it's remarkable. so yeah, I'm not sure how we got here, but that's - We just resicked and we zagged at, which is the way of the world. So I have a question for you and this is a devil's advocate question. Go for it. And you know, it may be a question that's in some listeners mind. How do you know

Peter Daly-Dickson (01:04:54.046)

Seeing as the story you were sharing about when you came across Brian and you were at a low point in your life with the breakup of your marriage, how do you know that you haven't zagged into a cult? Great question. How do I explain this? Brian is the least spiritual, least cult leader, most foul -mouthed, swearing,

person that you've ever met in your entire life and could, and constantly, you know, could not give a top. And he points it out. I'm not a teacher. I'm not a guru. At best I'm a reflector and I'll point a couple of things, right? It's, yeah, there's, I, I, I know the difference. I encourage,

If you dare, if your sensibility, because here's the thing, if you're a little sensitive, you probably don't want to look at Brian which way material because he swears and he tells things how they are. And he has opinions and that'll resonate and not resonate. So having, yeah, being, and yes, like I couldn't buy the company. wasn't like this, the shaver, Victor, I am the shaver guy where he loved the shaver so much.

bought the company. Colts have characteristics, right? They have elements that you almost can check the box on how they work and how they are. And I just encourage anybody to take that Colt checklist and run it against Brian. You'll spend about

30 seconds in his YouTube channel and you realize, no shit. It's, and I think that's what appeals that frankly appeal to me because I'm not really into, find it very hard to this day. The spiritual woo woo stuff is I I'm uncomfortable with. I, and I think it's a lot to do with that. Right. And I could ask, how is that for me with that? Uncomfort. the.

Ed Dale (01:07:19.694)

The best way I can describe it is that if I look across everything that I've done and everything, it occurs to me that there's a series of fundamentals. It's just how it is, right? is a, there is, to me it seems obvious that there are a series of fundamentals. And if I look at physics, quantum physics, and I look at where the life sciences and the

As we learn more and more and more about the way we work and the brain science. I think AI is actually very, very intriguing in its, that's adding to the argument. There are two ways you can look at it. Right. And for those of you who are listening to this podcast, I'm sort of pointing with angles and I think they're heading to the same spot. think it's a, it's a, you know, physicists for years have been talking about one rule, you know, one law to rule them all.

underlying universal unifying theory. Yeah. Unifying theory. I suspect there is. And so there's two ways you can approach this. You can approach it from the perspective of, well, let's try that as a thought experiment. And if it works for you, great. Then just keep doing it. Do you have to understand every element that got to that point for you to believe that it'll work? Or do you just want it to work? All right. And that's actually a very good indicator.

That's actually a really good indicator of why, sort of Brian, which way on level five definitely fails the cult test. He's far more interested in delivering an immediate result and telling you to lovingly piss off. I like, I've never seen somebody more frustrated at somebody that just hangs around and like enjoys the, the Netflix.

ality of watching people have these breakthroughs. It would make great reality television. So yeah, it's to me. I guess, I guess that's, I guess that's a fundamental, tenant of a cult is that they want to. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, and it's the, yeah, it's the, is no, yeah. And when you look at all the, look at all the religions, scrape everything away, scrape all the crap that typically men added, right over time.

Ed Dale (01:09:43.224)

They're all the same. It doesn't matter whether it's Islam. doesn't matter whether it's Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, any ism that you'd like to pick. Right. It's, it's only the, the bullshit, are effectively, you know, control structures, way to ways to keep power for whoever wants to be in power at that particular point in time. Right. know, I, I, I, I'm laughing because

We've just, I mean, we've been going for about an hour and 20 minutes. we could probably go for another hour and 20. And I just got a sense that where you got to there, that could like go, go, take the conversation to a whole other place. I you might have to have to have a, Ed Dale on not a straight line pop too, maybe in a few months. I'll wait to see your reaction. You may, you may get a lot of people saying, God, never get that guy back again. So, we'll.

We're just starting to wrap up now. We started thinking about looking back on our lives, and that's where we have the context and understanding of the threads and through lines that you've talked about so eloquently. It's more difficult, I guess, to look forward and think. Although we know where we got to,

was not a straight line. We kind of think that it's going to be a straight line going forward. Do you have any sense of, of, of where your life might dig and zag in the future? So this is great. I love this question because I've got a great answer for it. And the answer is I have no fricking idea. And I, and here's the difference is the difference. Whatever it will be, it will be awesome. Yeah. Because the zags the main thing, right? Cause the zag is the main thing. And if I stay present.

I keep walking forward doing what I end and stay in tune with what appears to be my mission in life, which is teaching and, helping people. it's going to be awesome. the Michael Singer, who is, somebody who wrote, the, my gosh. I can't believe it. the awakened, my goodness. Can't believe it. Anyway, the book that really resonates. Yeah, please, please. Because they're great books.

Ed Dale (01:12:04.302)

particularly the second one, the book that he wrote called the Surrender Experiment. I never put down a book. And when I first read the Surrender Experiment, I literally said, this is bullshit. I very rarely, very rarely for me put it down. And in 2023, when I was starting on this and just with the ADHD stuff had just happened and diagnosis, I picked the book up again for some reason and read it and it had the most profound impact on me.

And I realized that, you know, all that energy stressing about, I have to do this or I have to do that, or I've got to do this or that stress, that importance is actually going to act against you. All right. It's going, if you look at the people who are truly fundamentally successful at what they do, there is a, and I keep trying to find the right metaphors for this. The, the, for those of you who are old enough.

There used to be volume meters, right? And you will seen them on podcasts, even on this software here, where there's the green, the yellow and the red. When you put too much importance, it's sort of like the sound needle going to red. And so this is big challenge with people, I've got to make money, I've got to make money, right? I've got to make money, I've got to make money, right? And guess what they're doing? They're redlining, right? They're redlining, because it's not money. It's what you do with the money for a start and...

The only reason you've got a money problem is you've got a deserving issue. All right. You don't do, you feel like you don't deserve. That's the reality. The people who don't have that issue, they're like in the green, they're in that perfect spot. You know, not yellow. It's just green, just not zero, no volume, not sitting there hoping stuff will happen, but they're right in that, in that green and they're right in that spot and they don't sort of waver and they don't get blown around by everything. they, the sort of the audio meters not going backwards and forwards and uncut.

So for me, going forward is, is, is I have no, what I know is I have no idea that I'll continue to practice being as present as I can with whatever I'm doing in the moment, do that to the best of my possible ability. And if I do those two things, the rest will look after itself. in that, Ed, you said something that if you look at, if could anyone that

Ed Dale (01:14:29.93)

is successful, but it seems to me that the whole idea of success and failure is, is what, what, what does that even, what does that even mean? so it's actually rubbish. You're absolutely correct. Right. It is there because it's a spectrum, right? There is no, cause here's the thing. If you have success, then you can have failure by definition, right? It's a definitionary thing. But what, does, yeah, exactly. So what does that even mean? So the, goal. So what do we know? I actually mentioned it. It's.

law one of the law of fundamental laws of nature, law of thermal dynamics, which is energy is expanding. wants to expand its natural state is expansion. And if you're alive, if you continue that thought experience that we've been talking about, you're basically part of this energy. Then guess what? Your whole experience is about expansion, expansion and growth, That's, that's the.

Energy and its fundamental nature is about expansion. What happens though is that through experiences, particularly as a kid, you sort of put these stop signs on expansion. can't expand there or I can't expand with this relationship or I can't expand because of this, right? You have to put all these stop -loss. I can't grow my business because of the economic climate. Whatever. you know, that right there, that sentence is so full of.

fallacies and holes and lies to yourself that, It's, it, yeah. As soon you start to break it down, what economics, what part of the, the, right? What is that? It's like, it's like the Mandelbrot set. It's like the Mandelbrot set, isn't it? do you want to peel, do you want to peel the onion and just layer by layer by layer and layer and get to the core? do you just want to cut them off?

get to the core, right? That's the... is the core? would you like, if we were wrapping up the podcast now, of like, what's the core? So the core is that at any particular moment in time, if you are present in that moment in time and you are doing, you're having an experience which you would prefer rather than not prefer, then that's the game.

Ed Dale (01:16:54.454)

And you do it in the next moment and you do it in the next moment. Right. And if you don't prefer it, so that's great. So if you don't prefer it, then the obvious question is what would I prefer in this moment? It sounds so simple. Yeah. And so it sounds so simple. And of course it gets thrown off the rails by your mind, right? Because you're thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking instead of breathing and going, well, if you're having an experience, because it's feelings that you're having.

Right? It's feelings. If you're having a non -preferred experiment, you're having one of three feelings. You're angry. You're in fear. We're sad. There's only three. It's pretty simple. And if that's the case, then by being present and then we're, see, we're taught to repress those feelings. This is where the problem comes, right? We're taught to repress those things that we're not meant to do those things. And then we're meant to, know, stiff up a lisp.

for our British friends, right? Soldier on. that's the worst fucking thing that you can do. Right? That's where, that's where, that's where the problems start. And you, instead of properly processing these things, you store them inside and they exhibit themselves as symptoms of disease and, and stress. And then things happen and you react. How many times do you react over the top at something, right? Where you look at in any state, when you look back, you go,

What, why not? I have heard that for others, does happen. And that's, that's because you've, this act has reminded you of something else that has happened, which you didn't process at the time. Cause if there's hundreds of thousands of things that happen every single day, they just pass through. They just pass through. And you know, this is all of this is really cool. And as I said, the.

The great thing about Brian Ridgway's stuff is that he actually gives you the steps to do that processing part. then, because here's the thing, again, it's just, so if you have a, again, by definition, we know that energy, if you've got a bottle, the energy that's in that bottle, the stuff that, the energy that's in that bottle will expand to fill that particular thing. doesn't matter whether it's gas or whether it's a...

Ed Dale (01:19:16.16)

It will expand to fill that space. If it's possible to expand, it will expand, right? To fill that thing. What happens if you remove, if you loosen that lid and you take the lid off, you remove that block off it goes, dissolves, right? expands. It expands. Your natural state is one of expansion. And we've just put all these blocks and it's, it's not, you don't have a funnel problem, right? You don't have a.

the economics are really bad out there. That's a, that is, you know, where did you get that shit? That's, that's my favorite line. Anytime I have a thought like that is where did I get that shit? Cause I'm tipping it's probably not from you. What an incredibly stimulating conversation for me anyway. I've had a great time. Thank you. You've got the ball rolling and yeah, maybe you're right in, five years time.

You wouldn't get a look in on the podcast. No, I'm so glad that I've had the honor of getting in early so that when you crack the big time, just remember us little people when your podcast is smashing it. Smashing all records. Well, you set the ball rolling with the records that you smashed today. The listener listening to this that is intrigued by one or several things that you've spoken about. You haven't actually mentioned it, but I know that you're

maybe you did, we've talked about so many things that you've, you've taken the 30 day challenge, you're reinventing it with AI in the mix. that might be intriguing to our listener. You've talked about level five. there are two things that I would recommend, that, people look at. If any of this talk has intrigued you because I've probably butchered it enormously, but if, if some, any of the, the stuff that we've been talking about in the last half intrigues you.

I go to, your new beginning book .com. That's the same place I went to at the start. your new beginning book .com and you can remember and you get Brian's book. And that's a, that to me was a absolutely revelatory thing. also I've read it. I can endorse that. thank you. And the, and the other thing is, yeah, my newsletter is just good old.

Ed Dale (01:21:40.206)

www .aibrezerodc .com and you'll, and increasingly you'll hear musings on both topics. So, cause they actually meet in the middle, like you talk about threads on threads, Pete, and I'll finish with this. Of all the people who started the 30 day challenge all those years ago, right. Approximately 6 % or thereabouts made their first dollar, right. They, they went on and

created a business. The thing that stopped them from creating the business was not the process. wasn't the steps. wasn't the anything was the stuff that was going on in their head. Right. And so for me, it's sort of all come full circle. And I'm one of those people. one of those people. I lost track of the number of times I did the 30 day challenge and never made a single, yeah, never had a single set. So, you know, that's, that was an experience that you had and now you've got new experiences.

that you can go for. That's amazing. For the last question, it came to me fully baked. Who's non -straight line journey through life would you like to listen to? Would you like to know more about? Sam Altman. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. think he, it's, I would be very interested to, he's had quite a bit of success as his later entrepreneurial career.

I'm always way more interested in how people earn their first dollar than how they earned their last dollar. Because that's actually where the real lessons are. yeah, Sam Altman would be a fascinating story to hear that. I'll put it on the future guest list. Absolutely. Someone who I would like that you might be able to help me get on the podcast is Brian Ridgway himself. I'd love to.

explore his non -straight line journey. well, I can make that happen. That's actually, I can set that intention and make that happen pretty darn easily actually. I know people. Well, I get my people to talk to your people and we can sort it out. Yeah, that's right. Let's do lunch. That'll be amazing. Ed, it has been a privilege, said at the beginning, and it's been an absolute joy to chat with you. And I'm looking forward to where we continue to zig and zag and intersect.

Ed Dale (01:24:05.006)

together going forward. and I'm sure we'll see each other and I'm looking forward to getting over to London later in the year and the UK so who knows what magic can happen. So no, I love that and thanks Pete and good luck with everything.

Peter Daly-Dickson (01:24:27.928)

Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of Not A Straight Line. If this conversation helped to reorient your internal compass or inspired you in any way, please let us know by heading to podcast .notastraightline .life forward slash rate and leave a rating and review. Thanks as always to Matthew Bliss of MB Podcast Services for his exquisite engineering of this episode.

If you'd like him to help you with your podcast, contact details are in the show notes. And if you'd like to be a guest on the show or there's someone whose non -straight line journey you'd just love to hear, then please visit podcast .notastraightline .life Thanks for being here with me and I'll see you next week for another amazing, deep, inspiring non -straight line journey. Love you.