SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the future ventures scaling with clarity podcast. Today we're joined by Manush Agarwal, founder and chief innovation officer at Tetra Neurotechnologies. Manush has spent roughly three decades working in technology and AI and holds four AI patents. But today's conversation isn't really about AI tools, it's about a much bigger scaling question. How do you build a company that becomes less dependent on its founder as it grows? We're going to explore where AI genuinely creates leverage, how founders can turn knowledge into systems, and why some of the biggest constraints to scale may have less to do with technology than with the founder themselves. Manush, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Thank you so much. Excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Same here. I'm looking forward to the conversation. I mean, we've known each other uh on LinkedIn for quite some time, but this is the first time that we're actually speaking face-to-face video. Um, why don't we start with like a little double click on who's Manoush?

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Sure, yeah. Um, well, um I grew up in India. If you can tell from my accent, I grew up in India in a small town uh and uh started uh working in my dad's factory at 15. Um and start I uh started college around 16 or 17 and dropped out of college in the first three months because I fell in the wrong company, got into drugs and things like that. And uh then I was completely lost. Huh?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Was was the college in in India or somewhere North America? Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Yeah. And it was only college uh, you know, at that time in the in the city. So um, so yeah, I mean I was like like dropped out and I didn't know what to do with my life and uh somehow stumbled into computers. Computers were very new at that time, and we didn't have like internet or anything like that. These were like old floppy disk computers, but I learned programming on those and I just fell in love with programming. I was like, this is fantastic. I'm an introvert, I don't need to talk to humans, I can just talk to machines and they'll do the work. And that was fantastic, and so that drive of just kind of like you know, using my skills, creativity to kind of solve problems and not talk to humans led me to many, many places. Uh, work with uh Microsoft, IBM, T-Mobile, um got four patents in artificial intelligence. So I started working with AI in 2005, uh, wrote a couple of books on technology, got to get to speak uh and various stages. So that's uh the a little bit of a background, but sort of later part of the uh story is that I got in got into a um midlife crisis around 2012. I had a depression and suidal thinking, and that led me to kind of like truly getting to know my mind and neuroscience and psychology. Um primarily what helped was meditation. So meditation helped unlock the the you know the dark corners of the mind, and then it became sort of my you know passion to share meditation with people, but most people said, I don't have time, I don't have um, you know, my mind is not still um so so then my next kind of uh passion became to create like sort of a digital version of meditation. So we use we use AI to kind of like unlock the mind, uh using neuroscience, principles of neuroscience, using principles of somatic therapy and all of that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Nice, nice. What's uh what's your favorite type of meditation? What time of day?

SPEAKER_02 3:58

And what I do uh guided meditation. So you may have heard of this uh company called Mind Valley. So they have a six-phase meditation, uh guided meditation. So I do that and transcendental meditation, and then you know, I have other some other meditation practices that I yeah uh do. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Understood, uh I mean, given that you help from India, have you ever gone back to India on meditation retreats?

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um uh a couple of times. Uh, you know, I built so the place where I grew up, it's uh at the foothills of Himalayas, like a little bit uh close to the foothills of Himalayas. So I've visited Himalayas multiple times, you know, where um to multiple ashrams and places, uh like high energy places, or you can call spiritual places. Um, there are a lot of Buddhist monasteries deep, deep in the Himalayas, like thousands of years old. So I've I've gone onto these pilgrimages to these like thousand-year-old monasteries and sat in the meditation halls. It's very powerful.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

So help me. Uh I mean I'm a I'm a convert, I'm definitely not at the same level as you are, but I do my daily meditation. Um, I I I love meditating, like walking meditation while I'm walking the dark. Um, so tell me why did meditation have such a profound impact on you? And because you said it unlocked the dark corners of my mind. So yeah, yeah. How can you stand?

SPEAKER_02 5:35

You know, the thing is that we all have dark corners in our life, in our mind, and it's a perspective of looking at what is causing that dark corner. Dark corners are not avoidable, like that's part of life, but generally, you know, generally uh we try to externalize the blame and say, Oh, you caused it, or this environment caused this, or the government caused it, and so we are giving our power away to other people, other uh sources, right? With meditation, what happens is like 95% of the subconscious mind, uh the mind is subconscious, like we don't have access to it. These are the hidden patterns that are controlling our lives. So imagine you know, 95% of your energy is going somewhere where you don't even know what is going on, right? And generally, as I said, all the negative thoughts are are generally like consuming your life. So whenever something negative happens, I was accumulating layer over layer over layer. Okay, you did this, you did this, you know, and that caused that caused a lot of pressure on me as if like I'm fighting the world, right? But once you start to understand the patterns that you have the power, you can create your own life, you are in in fact creating your own life, then you get the power back, and then you start to understand even the negative events have a positive lesson in it, and you start to like live life as as it comes, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:08

So, I mean, I didn't know this is where we're gonna go, but like fascinated. So, how do you stop the rumination? How do you slow down in order to have the clarity of thought?

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Correct, correct, correct, correct. See, the thing is, um our thought uh we are naturally inclined to have clarity of thought, but the modern uh environment, industrialization, marketing, all of that, it is infusing so much data in our minds. It's think of our mind as a you know 60 watt bulb, like the normal.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

But there are many more, it's only LEDs, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

So, yeah, LED, okay, sure. But the environment around us is producing so much data, it is like plugging the this bulb into a nuclear power station. Okay, so that is what causes all this uh noise in our head. But the thing is, you can neutralize it, you can filter just like we filter our water, you know, filter our oil, we can filter our thoughts because research has proven that any average adult thinks about 60 to 90,000 thoughts per day, and 80 to 90 percent of those thoughts are negative. Okay, so imagine yeah, yeah. So imagine your most adults walking on this planet, 80 to 90 percent of the time they are thinking negative, yeah, you know, yeah, yeah. So when you start to filter the thought, so much positive energy is released, you realize how much how many resources, how much power, how much energy you have.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

In fact, so how does this parlay into business? Is it like I have to be strong in order for my business to be strong? Like it's kind of like um my partnership with my spouse has to be strong in order for me to be strong and to work on it, like how many interconnected, it's all interconnected, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Business, business is made is business is for profit, profit is money, money is energy.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Yeah, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

So if you are carrying this heavy energy, negative energy all the time, how do you how are you going to attract the money energy? You're not because any deal that comes to you, you're gonna say, ah, you know, I don't like this person, he did not smile at me nicely, or you know, he didn't say it this way, or she didn't say it that. But if you have positive energy, you will say, uh, maybe that person is having a bad day. Let me look at the deal at least. Let's see if it makes sense, and that positive energy has place in your life to come in, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

So, besides creating the negative energy, how do you how do you invite more positive energy? Is it like a bit of a snowball effect? The more positive thoughts you have, the more positive energy you bring.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Absolutely. So, think you know, in nature, nature leaves a lot of clues. So, think about a planet. A planet like Jupiter will attract so much around them. It's the the gravity is so big, right? It doesn't need to go and talk to another planets and say, Hey, you know, send me some material, guys. Like it just stays there, yeah, right? So it's it's the pull of the energy, not pushing anything, just pulling the energy. So a human being, when they actually start to go inwards, the energy cycle is creating that gravitational pull that attracts people, right? I mean, you just said in the beginning of our LinkedIn conversation, we have known each other for a while, right? And then every now and then we exchange some messages, and then obviously, you know, you you you sent me a short message. I was like, Hey, you don't talk much, and you said, if you want to talk, let's get on this call. So you see, it was like not spending energy too much, you know, not convincing or anything. It was just like just a human-to-human connection, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Okay, okay, okay. Have you um um in and I love this for me? Um I I I mean, at the moment it's seven o'clock Cower time, eight, uh six o'clock uh uh Burnaby enrichment time. Um I I I I love this time because it's kind of like a calm time, like the day, the business of the day is behind you, you have time to reflect, but also like I find that the podcast conversations are highly energizing for me because I'm highly curious. So every conversation for me is like a learning opportunity. And so I absolutely love this. But um, as you were talking about this, one thing that's reminded me is like, do you know who is Tina Sealick?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

No.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Um, she she used to lead the entrepreneurial program at uh Stanford University. She wrote recently wrote a book um called Luck. And I absolutely love it, it's a short book. You can probably listen to it in under six hours. Um, but it's it's the it's the same thing. You gotta put yourself in the arena. Luck creates luck, so it's it's very similar in terms of the thinking, like positive thoughts breed more positive thoughts, but you have to put yourself in the arena in terms of like creating those opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, um in our work, like you know, we have a framework, we have mapped the human existence, like human experience in seven pillars. Okay, one of the most important pillars is embodiment. Embodiment means you cannot sit in front of the computer and think, okay, I'm going to become a millionaire or billionaire. You have to go out in the world, you have to engage with people, you have to engage with nature, you have to engage with other entities to um kind of like get your body used to the future that you are creating, you know. So action is absolutely necessary, real-world action.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Yeah, I mean, the brain is a muscle, um, and the more you train it, the better it gets. And I mean, hence why we talk about neuroplasticity. So it's just no different than than you know, doing biceps girls or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

So I see a side of you that I didn't know. I mean, I knew he was a business guy, entrepreneur, a speaker. Like, um, where is the passion like? Is it more so or is it like on both sides? Kind of like what gets you up at night? Uh I mean gets you up in the morning. What's uh what's your happy place?

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Kind of like yeah, you know, the thing is like the thing is that life throws a lot of uh stuff at you. And in my case, after my suicidal thinking, like my mom passed away, then I had a terrible divorce, my kids were taken away. So life kept throwing so much at me that I was like, wow, like what is going on? I was losing completely my identity and everything, right? And sometimes life gives you so much push that you say, okay, now I hope I it doesn't happen to other people. And I want to find a solution that I can give to other people so it doesn't happen to them, you know. So my passion became to build a scalable technology that lives between the technology side, the computers, and the humans, so that humans can kind of upgrade themselves. So that's my passion, that's what like drives me because I suffered so much that I don't want other people to suffer, you know, if they are open to it, if they're open to it. But I found that a lot of people, and I it will trigger some people, okay? So I'm warning you, but subconsciously they want the suffering, they cannot let that they cannot let go of the suffering. Their suffering is more comfortable to them than the anxiety of the unknown, because the future is unknown, and you cannot let go of the suffering without being uncertain and having uncertainty and insecurity, like you know, when you uh uh you know, when you're building a company, when you're building a startup, there's a lot of uncertainty, yeah. Right? So, entrepreneurship teaches you a little bit about that, but yeah, but a lot of people actually are scared of success. Okay, it's scared of success because it means they have to change their identity and in process let go of a lot of things that they hold dear to themselves. So it's it's it's a very fascinating world when you start to understand the inner world of uh human beings, it's very fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Interesting. Um so for the founders that are listening on a podcast, um what would be the next step? What would you recommend that they do if they if they're feeling if they're in the same mindset that you're describing, like where the bombardment of thoughts, the overwhelm is settling in, this the suffering is there can what would you recommend that they do, like in terms of break the cycle, or how do they get on on the proverbial path to clarity?

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Yeah, yeah. So first thing, first thing is find your why, find your purpose. You know, every human being, eight billion people on this planet, every single one of us have a unique purpose. Okay, and that purpose is not making money, is not going to university, it's not even raising your family. Because if it was true purpose, then Nelson Mandela will still be raising his kids or you know, uh have be happily married. He will not say, Okay, I'm going to go to prison for 27 years, right? Buddha, the uh Buddha will not leave his like small, like one year old. I think he left his son and went to the jungle to find the truth. So your purpose is unique to you, and it also can mean you have to give up a lot of things. Once you find your purpose, then it becomes easier because then every decision you can make and you can say, is this aligned with my purpose or not?

SPEAKER_00 17:44

That becomes your north barometer. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

Exactly, north star, and that could be, you know, once you do some work, inner work, once you get some help in finding your purpose, it would be make a lot of money and then do something with that money, or it could be uh helping somebody uh with a specific disease, it could be uh somebody, you know, something like you went through some pain, let's say, you know, like I was talking to a female entrepreneur, she just got recently divorced, so she went through a painful divorce. Perhaps her purpose is to transform that pain for other divorced female entrepreneurs. So some our deepest pain reveals our deepest purpose.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

So, I mean, we we're talking um, we're talking a lot about founders or with we're thinking about a person rather than a team. Um and and come companies is is is is really a pool of talent that you've assemble intentionally. So what does a founder have to give up psychologically in order for the company to generally scan scale beyond them? Is it control? Is it being needed? Why is so many founders can the bottleneck in their businesses or it's the need I like nobody can do it as well as I can do it? Look at your perspective.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Exactly. It's it's a control, it's the ego. Okay, the ego will not let go of the control because their purpose subconsciously is to prove their worth to themselves or someone important in their life. Meaning, if I don't do it and somebody else takes the credit, it's not good, I have to do it, and then I will prove to myself that I am successful. Because in order to build a core team, think of like you know, let's say you have uh you have two colors, uh white and pink, okay? Or white and red. If you mix them together, you will get pink, right? So as a CEO, you need to allow your thoughts, your passions to mix with others and dilute, dilute with them. Okay, so you become one with the team. Let's say if you're watching a, you know, we had the soccer world cup. Let's say if a player only plays, if the captain of the team says, Okay, I'm the only one who's going to score the goal, nobody else will score the goal. How far do you think they will go? Right? So the common thing is we want to score the goal. No matter who scores the goal, this is our strategy. Let's all work together. We will even wear the same jersey, same uniform, same, same um everything, and we will play for one thing only, which is defeat the other uh team, right? Uh in that case, the ego has no place, you know.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

I agree completely. Um, I mean, I've I've held leadership roles since uh, I don't know, 2006. Like it was a while uh when I first became manager, and and you kind of learn through uh through your career that if there's credit to be given, the team gets the creative, there's blame to be had, the leader takes the blame, uh just the reality. And so um HIGW is a HIGO is an interesting uh idea in my mind. It's and and kind of like your point, double-clicking on the ego is like what's causing the ego? Is it because you're psychotic, um, or is it because you're perhaps insecure um because you're in a situation where you feel like you're uh have an imposter syndrome. But either way, to me, ego is an emotional baggage. As soon as you let go of it and you realize that you're surrounding yourself intentionally with smart people, greatness isn't the agency of artists. Like you like they surprise you, but you have to remove those barriers the the lot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

Absolutely. Yeah. So when you ask me what is my passion. This is my passion because the technology we create actually helps you to dissolve the ego, to actually look at the ego and and look at it as as in front of you and say, okay, what is going on here? Um, what caused it? You know, generally, generally, what the root cause has happens, it happens between seven to ten years of age. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So each of us has a child living inside us. That child is about six years old to eight years, uh 10 years old. And that child remembers all the bullying that happened in the school, all the teachers that yelled at me, all the friends that didn't uh you know celebrate with me, all those things it remembers and it shapes your actions. So, unless and until you face that child and you understand the events, um, you will keep repeating it. You'll keep repeating it unless you learn the lesson so badly that life teaches you that lesson, otherwise, you know, um, you can take control of all these patterns and then unpack it.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

So, Manush, how are you using technology to help you with this? Yeah, we will break down the U. Okay. Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Yeah, so as I said, like what we have done, and through my personal life experiences, the pain that life gives you, it teaches you a lot. So it it further uh brought me to research a lot of ancient wisdom. You know, we have a lot of uh knowledge that has been forgotten for centuries. So, looking at all of that, as I said, we broke down the human experience into seven pillars, and then we created a technology that creates sort of like a digital mind of a human human being, or a team of, as you said, a team of people or an organization, because a team or an organization is a collection of human minds. So we create this digital mind, and then we this mind understands the human existence in these seven pillars. So, purpose is the first pillar, so it helps us find the purpose, it helps us shape the identity. The I the next one is identity, because once you find your purpose, the next one is how do you become that person? The world, the world does not give you what you want or what you need or what your startup is about, the world gives you what you identify as so that identity. The next one is relationships because every dollar that you get, that you earn, that you make comes through a relationship. Okay, the next one is creativity or courage. So when things get tough, most people give up. So that's where your creativity and courage to keep going comes in. Then the next one is time. How do you spend your time? So you mentioned you know walking meditation. So imagine most people will be utilizing their time going on TikTok while they're walking, but you are utilizing your time for higher purpose, right? So, how do you spend your time? That and then finally, peace of mind. So if you don't have peace of mind, as I said, so this goes back to 90% of negative thoughts. If you have peace of mind, 80% of your uh thoughts will be positive, no matter what is happening around you, yeah. And then the seventh pillar is embodiment, that's real-world action. So once you have the mind, body connection all figured out, the technology moves you to that state of mind and gently nudges you to upgrade your system internally, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Yeah, but uh Minusha, I I I I I can't help but notice the the similarity, the parallels between the human and the company. Um versus because if I if I look at it, let me just put my um purpose. Yeah, I mean, you start with why, like it's like what do you stand for? Identity, if that's really the positioning relationship. I mean, we have a saying in our company that niches make riches, so focus, focus, focus, kind of like what a relationship. Who are you in a room with? If you're in the wrong room, it doesn't matter how great you are. Um, you could like to your example, you said, Well, in college, I ended up with the wrong crowd, so I need to break that cycle. Great. So you literally pulled the door up and walked out that door. Um, so do you coach train founders to kind of apply the same framework um on them as well as in their businesses?

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Yes, yeah. So as I said, so it's a it's um it's a simple technology. It's uh even though the back end and all that, the the research is very complicated, it's a simple technology. If we work with individual, individual finds their purpose and shift their identity. If we work with the team, the team finds a common purpose, okay. But very importantly, they also find their personal purpose and how it aligns with the team's purpose because you know a personal employee, uh, an employee's personal purpose would be to send their kids to college. That their that is their life purpose, the company's purpose could be serve the clients, but most human beings will not be able to connect the dots between these two. So, what we do is we show them this is how you serve your clients, and when you do that, you serve your team, and then you serve yourself of you know your purpose of sending. So, once all these are aligned, you their behavior starts to shift automatically. Now you don't have to have coaching sessions, you don't have to have like trainings and SOPs, they self-propagate. It's like a snowball effect, as you mentioned earlier.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Oh, yeah, I mean, achieving clarity is the highest gift or the highest level of maturity a company can achieve. Um, so um when everybody's doing what they're supposed to do without anybody having to direct traffic, um, it's beautiful when you see it in action. So um, I mean, you're talking about digital, uh, digital mind. Um, the most the the like the companies that they're very much invoke in moment in terms of attracting investments are the ones that are creating company brain. It's just different phrasing for the same thing in in many ways, but like how are you personally using or what would you recommend to founders? Um, how are you using AI to drive clarity, to drive decision making, to be brain or digital mind?

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Yeah, see, it's a very subtle thing, I will say. Okay, so here is here are some facts for people. Average IQ of human beings is 90, which is young adult between 18 to 24. Yeah, okay, so that means these AI platforms they have to cater to the minimum lowest common denominator. That means when you use AI, eventually it will turn you into an average human being of IQ of 90. Yeah, okay, which means the slope of artificial intelligence is real intelligence going down. Okay, so what we do is as I said, we create a filter on top of it whose only purpose is to elevate you. So whenever you interact with AI, it will say, Oh, by the way, yeah this is not aligned with your this is not aligned with your purpose. Okay, so shift your strategy and focus on your purpose. Um, and then when it uh says, okay, you know, this is uh my goal is to achieve this much revenue, okay. Who do you need to become? What is your identity uh that will help you get there? So it will automatically start to shift your identity. As this intelligence is refined, it will automatically start to kind of like bring you to that point where you are aligned with your purpose, with where you have the clarity, your decisions are faster, your decisions are more accurate, and all of that.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Interesting. Uh, do you do you know who is Angela Backworth?

SPEAKER_01 30:37

No.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

So Angela Backworth is uh a psychology professor. She's uh uh famous for her research studies on um uh grit and kind of like what what makes what makes people gritty? And in in entrepreneurship, we talk a lot about grit, and and you must possess grid gritty species because um you've had to overcome a lot of hardship to get to where you are. And these statistics around like 50 plus percent of all US presidents um suffered a loss of uh of immense proportionally lost a parent or something like that, that was really traumatic, which made them really greedy. But the reason why I'm bringing Angela Dockworth, um, her latest research is on AI and what is the impact of AI on human brains. And so essentially it's it's a bifurcation, if I was to summarize the research. On one hand, um if you use AI, and I don't know how the best describe or the terminology that she uses, if you use AI in a lazy way, where you just take the output, don't think about it. Um, it you your point is extremely valid. This is proven to be true. However, the opposite is also true. If you use AI to feed your curiosity to elevate your knowledge, the opposite is equally true, where you can actually significantly increase your both both your depth and breadth. And and there's this book by um called Range in terms of all of the distractive innovation are coming from people with a lot of breadth, because like they they're not limited to just a domain or study, but they they can interconnect. And so to me, it it's kind of like the example that you give that you gave around me. Like when I'm when I'm walking, I I I love walking meditation. It it doesn't last very long, but I literally I would close I'm walking with my dog, so I would literally close my eyes and walk, and I'm just listening to the footsteps. That that's that's my repetitive sound that I'm listening to. And and I have so much trust in my dog that I could easily take like 50-60 steps without opening my eyes, and she just she's just walking. No, there's a challenge if this is a squirrel, um, then oh oh hell breaks loose. But um, but anyways, I just wanted to share this thing because I found fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

Angela, uh, is that she's from MIT? Is she from MIT?

SPEAKER_00 33:11

So okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

Yeah, no, I so I agree with you um in this sense that if you use it for this purpose, curiosity and all of that, but my question back is how many people actually are in that state of mind? Very, very, very few. Because 99 point, even if you are a curious soul, our lifestyle is so that average uh uh like attention span is about three seconds on on uh uh the game shorter, you know. Yeah, so so think about it like no, you know, yes, sometimes we'll sit in front of uh AI and and contemplate and kind of like go deeper, but in most cases we'll just say, okay, I want to get this done, give me the strategy. I want like what should I do? And that is where the danger is, you know.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Okay, I 100% agree with you. Um what um uh I'll give I'll give you my hack. Um when I'm using AI, my favorite app at the moment and probably for the last four months is Whisperflow. Um it's it it essentially takes speech and converts into text. Um, but the way that I use it is I narrate my thoughts into OneNote or I put them into a lemon and a prompt. Um, but it's it's it's like essentially I don't have to care about being fancy with my words or my propositions or structure or a grammar. It's just a subconscious stream of thoughts. So if I'm trying to build something, let's say I'm working on position or working on strategy, whatever it is. It's yes, I'm using AI, but the starting point is not AI. The starting point is kind of like what's here between my two temples in terms of yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

No, that is great. I will take it one step further, as I said. Um so you are putting your raw thoughts into uh into the LLM, but the LLM is the sum total of all the averages of all human beings.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:21

So I will as I said, like this is where uh you know uh the work that we do, or something similar will come in where before LLM responds to you, it says to LLM that Maxim, this is his life purpose, this is the kind of human being he is. So these are his thoughts in this moment right now, but his longitudinal thought process, his whole life experience is this. So when you respond to these thoughts, please take into account his his entire journey so that when you respond, it aligns with him.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Yeah, it's interesting. Um there like I've worked with amazing firms like EY and Deloitte and Nike, like I've I've worked for amazing companies in the world. Um the two trainings that stand out for me is um one of them, I was with Deloitte at Deloitte University called uh Den Rome wrote a book called Back of the Napkin. Um essentially, how do you illustrate an idea in a simple way that it's easy to storytell, it's easy for the other person to grasp. That was incredibly powerful. And the other training was in 2018. There's uh not not far from Calgary, there's a there's a little town called Cochrane, there's a medical doctor there by the name of David Irvine that leads a course, it's a three-day retreat in in the Mountes in the Bef uh Center for the Arts, um, where it's like meditation, yoga. It's called the Otter Everest. Because it's like in order to reach the apogee, in order to reach the height, you kind of have to start with like, what is my person? What is my mission? Who am I? Um, what do I stand for? Um incredibly powerful. So this was by far my the most impactful. So I'm actually having on a podcast in a couple of days on Thursday, and so um looking forward to the conversation because it was incredibly powerful, and it's very much things that you're describing.

SPEAKER_02 37:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. In fact, uh it's funny that you mention it. The program uh like the technology that we deliver, we also have um a 10-day trip to Himalayas. So we deliver we go to the Himalayas, get get disconnected from the world, yeah, but we deploy the technology in your mind so that you come back with this upgraded kind of like upgraded thinking. Um so, but yeah, I mean all of these like ancient technologies exist, but uh you know, when you add on top of it like the modern advances of neuroscience and AI and all that, it can be really, really powerful.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

I couldn't agree more with you. Um suppose I'm uh uh a founder of like my business, and this is very typical for our companies, um, but a founder running a 10 million dollar company, 50 employees, very little um uh AI infrastructure. What should I do over the next 90 days?

SPEAKER_02 38:51

Okay, so the first thing is figure out what is it that you want to achieve in the next 90 days. It's always working backwards, not forwards. Okay, so whatever you want to achieve, now figure out what are the three constraints that affect affect that outcome. So is it sales, is it operations, is it personnel, is it like whatever those three main constraints are, right? Yeah, now you have some clarity on where you want to make a difference. Pick the first constraint, pick the first constraint. So, for example, it maybe say sales is generally the most important in most companies, right? Yeah, so now understand in our work, this is how we do it, right? We understand okay, sales is what we need to improve. For sales, we need to increase relationships, we need to elevate the identity of the sales team, we need to uh come up with some creative ideas so that they can contact more people or they can kind of talk to the existing leads. So once you understand what is the constraint, the the way that we work at least is to decipher it in human human language or human uh terms that this is what the team needs to do to hit that target, and this is what can be done by the humans, and this is what can be done by AI, and you put it together and you you know you hit that goal.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

So couldn't be more um backwards. Um, I mean, we we call it a merlin exercise. How do you help found it? So, how do you identify what are the real truth constraints? Kind of like because I I mean, um spending almost 15 years with uh with the big four, you know, you do root cause analysis and fish bone diagrams in five wise, whatever. Um so how do you go about identifying the truth constraints, like the things that really hold you back?

SPEAKER_02 40:58

Yeah, see, this is where you need to read between the lines, okay. So let's say their goal is uh, I don't know, increase the revenue, increase the revenue by 15%. Okay, so we say, okay, great, increase the revenue by 15%. Let's look at where is the current revenue coming from. Okay. Who are the current clients? Okay, if those current clients, uh generally every company has 80-20, right? Like uh 80% of the revenue comes from 20% of the clients. Now, how many times do you think when we look at this data, they don't know where the revenue is coming from, they don't know whether they are trying to upsell to the existing clients or not, they don't know whether they are contacting their past clients or not, right? So when you start to ask some basic questions, because remember, sales, we draw the come like uh the most important line for sales is relationships. How many relationships do you have? Existing relationships of people that you know, like, and trust. So if sales is the problem, relation, we look at relationships and how are you maintaining and creating those relationships?

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:17

Okay, that is the bottleneck. Now, if you have enough relationships, the next thing is how do you engage with them? Like, are you engaging with them on a regular basis? That's where creativity and identity comes in. Because if you have existing relationships and you don't approach them, generally it's you don't know what to say to them, or you hesitate because you have a fear of rejection, right? So the creativity and identity comes next. Then after if if this is all sorted out, then we say time and and peace of mind. Like, are you are you spending enough time on contacting these people? Are you in the right state of mind? Because if you're not in the right state of mind and you're talking to people, they will pick up on that energy.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, we we call it sell, like we call it sales breath, like he uh like you're pushing, you're pushing, but it's the authenticity is just not there.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Yeah, exactly. And and the purpose is the central pillar. If you don't uh like you everybody needs to be aligned with your purpose. So no matter what, no matter what solution uh problem you throw at this framework, because it is rooted in the human experience, it's it, you know, between these seven pillars, it figures out this is your main problem and this is how you solve it.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

Okay. Okay. So Manush, um I I I I couldn't agree more with you. I mean, um even personally, I'm just gonna be a vulnerable for a moment. Um, I have thought about doing a podcast for quite some time, and I'm like, but who? Who who am I who am I to to do a podcast? And the first few episodes were hard because I had this imposter syndrome and like people were like, Well, like, who does he think he is? Like, does he want to be Joe Rogan? I'm like, no, that's not why I started the podcast. For me, every conversation, it's uh it fills my curiosity cup. It it's it's an opportunity for me to learn, it's an opportunity for me to build a human connection, and so um I I overcame it, but but I personally I struggled with this. Uh, and do you know how it came about? Like we with with my wife, uh kind of we we used the uh the the week between Christmas and yours is a bit of a reflection point, and and one of the things that we did is like, what are our 10 goals for the year? And so leading up, we we burnt one without like we folded in a piece of paper, we we burnt one every night, kind of for the last, and whatever was left uh on night 10, which was New Year's Eve, was what we were gonna dedicate all of our time and attention. That this was our um priority number one, uh our Michogi uh was to focus on this for the world. And this is what pushed me over the edge to me to start a podcast because I I had 10 10 good ideas that I wanted to pursue, but this was but this was the last one that was left standing.

SPEAKER_02 45:36

Yeah, you see, so you had to you had to find a purpose, you had to shift your identity, right? You have to shift your identity, you had to create relationships with the guests and you know bring people in. Uh, you had to be creative to figure out okay, StreamYard will be the right platform for you and whatnot. That's exactly how people make progress in life. They find a comfort zone and then they cross the boundary because growth happens outside the comfort zone, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:08

100%.

unknown 46:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

100%. What's uh what's next for Manoosh? Like where what you what like I mean, I I I I understand you know where I understand you for your purpose. Um what's next for you? What uh what does five years out look like for you?

SPEAKER_02 46:27

So my my mission, I didn't share this with you because of which how everything came together. My mission in life is to help 20 people win the Nobel Prize. Okay, and um a lot of people have the potential to win the Nobel Prize, yeah, but they just just like you said, they do not take the first step. Right? So they come in their own way. But if we can unlock, think about it this way, right? Like you work with 500 brilliant people. Let's say, let's say we bring together 500 brilliant people, we unlock their mind and we say, Okay, whatever you're thinking of doing, it's valid. Go. You know, you're not an imposter, uh, you don't have any imposter syndrome, you are right in doing what you think is right. Yeah, 20 of them will definitely, I mean, that's just mathematics. 20 of them will so do something so big it will change the world.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Agreed, agree. Um back to the theme of the of the podcast. If you had to give a founder one principle for scaling with clarity, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 47:50

Think about your wealth as the number of people you have helped and the depth to which you have helped them rather than the amount of dollars you have in your bank.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

Okay, okay. Wonderful. One this is absolutely a wonderful way to close the interview. Um I I I'd like to pose the following question, and and it's a it's a I guess it's a two-part question, you can choose to answer whichever. Um, what's the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you? Or and andor, I what is the best piece of advice you have ever received?

SPEAKER_02 48:33

The kindest thing I will say, um one of my mentors, she she is like a great mentor, and she uh I asked for something like you know, it was a session, and I asked her, is it okay to record the session? And she said, No, I shouldn't record it. But I ended, but I ended up recording it anyways, right? Okay, but then I felt guilty about it, and I I I told her, you know, I I recorded it, and she said, It's okay, just delete it. And that was like um, you know, that was like uh very, very kind of her because I thought she will be so mad at me and everything, you know, because I broke the trust. Uh that was amazing. The best piece of advice, um I think it's like it is what it is, just keep going. You know, life is gonna throw a lot of curves at you. A lot of people get scared. Yeah, but don't be scared uh of any any downturns in life. Remember the pain, the pain is inevit inevitable, but suffering is optional.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

Love it. Um, let's close on that note. That's a fantastic piece of advice. I really enjoyed having you in the pod, Manoosh. Uh, looking forward to continuing our conversation and hopefully not just over LinkedIn or photo or video, but in person as well.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Okay, thanks.

unknown 50:04

Thank you.