Episode 116 : Deep Human and Deep Tech - Nichol Bradford

Nichole co-founded and built Transformative Tech.org, a global ecosystem dedicated to educating, gathering, and activating wellbeing tech founders, investors, and innovators. Today, Transformative Tech has members in 72 countries and 450 cities and their tentpole events online or in person attract 1K+ attendees. They help founders leveraging exponential tech for mental and emotional wellbeing, social and emotional wellness, and human potential and performance find feedback, funding, and friends. They help investors find the best wellbeing tech founders and companies. Nichole helps corporate innovators understand and apply these powerful tools. Nichole curates the Transformative Tech Conference -- the most important event at the intersection of tech and wellbeing (www.ttconf.org).

Audio Title: Ep116 - Nichol Bradford
Audio Duration: 01:19:35
Number of Speakers: 2

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to the Heroes of Reality Podcast, a podcast about the game of life and the hero's journey we all experience. Let's jump in with our host, Dylan Watkins, as he introduces today's guest.

[00:00:15] Dylan Watkins: Welcome, adventurers, Dylan here. And on today's podcast, I have Nichol Bradford. She is the co-founder and built the Transformative Tech and Global Ecosystem, dedicated to educating and gathering and activating wellbeing tech founders, investors, and innovators. Today, Transformative Tech has members in 72 countries in 450 cities, and their tent pull events online, or in person, attract nearly a thousand attendees.

They help founders leveraging exponential tech for mental and emotional wellbeing and social and emotional wellness and human potential and performance and find feedback, funding and friends. They help investors find the best wellbeing tech founders and companies. Nichol helps corporate innovators understand and apply these powerful tools. Nichol curates the Transformative Tech Conference, the most important event of the intersection of tech and wellbeing.

With no further delay, I'd like to welcome Nichol.

[00:01:07] Nichol Bradford: Hi, how are?

[00:01:07] Dylan Watkins: I'm doing awesome. How are you doing today?

[00:01:10] Nichol Bradford: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:12] Dylan Watkins: I'm so excited for you to be on this show today. You have curated and created an amazing community through the transformative technologies. And it's an amazing ecosystem that actually is pushing technology into a place of positivity. So, I'm excited to dive in, and also learn a bit of your origin story, and what got you into actually founding transformative tech.

[00:01:38] Nichol Bradford: Yeah. So, yeah, so, I actually – so Transformative Tech is in short, the TLDR is that it's technology for the inner landscape. So, that might be technology for mental health, it might be technology for purpose and performance, and it also might be technology for social and emotional wellness. So, you know, that could be technology for culture that could be technology for teams.

And we can go into that a little bit more, but the way to really think about it is that, we're humans, we're having a human experience, we have an inner landscape that's about our mind attitude, culture, norms, beliefs, inner health, psychological stability, psychological safety, the ability to take risks, like all of these human things. And transformative technology says, hey, there's a role for technology for the inner landscape. And so, where that came – how that came about was, I was in, video games and, you know, and I have had a pretty amazing career, been in pretty extraordinary places, including, you know, I started out at Disney Interactive and then went to the Vivendi Games, and the important thing there was, I eventually became a part of the core deal team on the Activision and the Vivendi acquisition of Activision and the creation of Activision Blizzard, which was an in industry defining event. I reported to the CEO, worked with the C-Suite and was one of a very small group of people who worked on an 18 billion deal that completely changed the landscape of gaming in the west. And then, after that, I moved to China and became ultimately the head of operations, the director of operations for Blizzard Entertainment for China, which meant that I worked on World of Warcraft and Start Craft and a bunch of other things overseeing the back end and also go to market.

But that also meant, very early upon getting there that, you know, Blizzard changed partners in China and moved from the Nine to another company called NetEase. And that was the first time a foreign company had done that. So, it completely changed the landscape of gaming in China when that happened, and what people thought, you know, was possible.

And so, I was doing that, loving it. And I was moving from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and had a month off. And so, with that month, I decided to have a few adventures. I'm an Enneagram Seven, you know, just a lot of good adventure and, you know, I've been to 70 plus countries.

And so, I decided that I wanted to do three things. One was to go to Bhutan, because I was in the neighborhood, two was to get PADI certified in Thailand, and three was to try a silent retreat, like a full silent retreat. I had sort of played with meditation before, that I hadn't gone full silence. And so, I went to a Goenka Retreat in Southern Japan, it was actually my first stop on my, you know, on my very casually considered adventure. And I had an awakening, not an epiphany, but an actual, like, awakening on that retreat, and that changed the course of my life.

[00:05:29] Dylan Watkins: Wow. So, there's a lot of amazing things there to unpack; one, first being exposed to, you know, the biggest levels of gaming and what that fundamentally has, the shift that was taking place in that, and realizing that these industries can fundamentally have huge pivots and bring you into new landscapes. So, you kind of got a feel for that whole, as the gaming industry evolved, you could see it evolve right in front of you. So, you knew that was possible. And so, you had that kind of possibility open up, but then you had that internal reality open up to you well, with an awakening, which I'd love to dive into a little bit, because it seems there’s various ways to get there, but can you describe to me and unpack a bit of the awakening?

[00:06:11] Nichol Bradford: Well, I mean, the net of it was, I would say, and I would call it a first awakening, because I have to tell you, it's like the wars that are fought over what that word means and what it means to whom, is just more than like anyone wants to bear. So, you know, basically the TLDR is that, we think thinking makes a sound, you know, like fundamentally we think thinking makes a sound, and let me turn a notification off. So, we think thinking makes a sound.

And so if you – if when you read, you hear your voice in your head, which I hear my voice in my head, but if you hear your voice in your head, when you read, it means that you're sub vocalizing. And so, because most of us sub vocalize, we think that thinking makes a sound, but it doesn't. And one of the ways that we know this, more broadly than spiritual practice is that, people who competitive speed read, they actually have to – they train themselves to not sub vocalize because it actually slows you down.

And so, you don't need – so thinking doesn't make a sound, but we think that it does. Are you there?

[00:07:31] Dylan Watkins: I'm here. Can you hear?

[00:07:33] Nichol Bradford: I can hear you. I can't see you, though. Can you see me?

[00:07:36] Dylan Watkins: I can see you, you're coming through. We have – people in the crowd, you seem to be coming through loud and clear. So, I'm not too sure what’s –

[00:07:44] Nichol Bradford: Okay. I'm going to close some windows while we're talking.

[00:07:47] Dylan Watkins: Okay.

[00:07:48] Nichol Bradford: So, we think that thinking makes a sound, but it doesn't. And so, what happened to me is, I went on this seven day Goenka Retreat I had a lot of interesting things happen. but one of the outcomes was that, by the end of the retreat, you know, I, that inner chatter was gone, and it was gone for about four months. And it turns out that you don't need to think to read – you don't need to sound like the sound of thinking, you don't need it for reading, you don't need it to build Excel models, like you don't actually need that sound. But we think that we do because, you know, people think that the sound of our – that action of sub vocalization, you know, it's thought to start happening around four or five, as we like start to add layers to our identity.

And so that went away, and because of that, usually the voice in your head, also says all sorts of terrible things to you, about what's wrong with you, you know, what you look like, are you too old, you know, you're not blank enough, you're not rich enough, old enough, young enough, smart enough, tall enough, enough, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so, with that being gone, I got real happy and I got real fearless, you know, like I got real happy and I got real fearless.

And, I also got real curious, you know, and I also, you know, my – I'm African-American, I'm from Houston, Texas, my dad was a plumber, you know, my mom was an entrepreneur, and had a law degree, but didn't practice. So, like I'm a solidly middle class, you know, when things are great, lower middle class, you know, when things were sketchy economically, but you know, like that's who – that's who I am. And so, I was really aware of the realities that even though a meditation retreat, especially the Buddhist ones, might be free, like a Goenka Retreat is free, the reality is that the bulk of the world, works, and they work every single day. And so, even if a retreat is free, it is still an elite experience.

And so, you know, for me, I have a very democratic orientation, you know, like, I don't think everyone has to do everything, but I think everyone should have access to the good things. And so, because on the back of World of Warcraft, I saw friendships, you know, I saw, like I saw in the data, I saw friendships and community and connections and, you know, examples of like 15 year olds running 5,000 person guilds filled with adults, you know, I saw this like, you know, this, in many ways, a lot of meritocracy in many ways, you know. And the good games don't allow you to pay for power. So, you do have to grind, like you pay with time, but you can't buy power in a game – in a really ethical game, in my mind.

And so, you know, those are the principles of World of Warcraft, you can't buy power. And so, because I, you know, was pro tech and I was also pro tech because like growing up in Houston, Texas as a little black girl in a white neighborhood and trying to figure out who I am, I watched Star Trek and like saw a world where humanity for the most part, was on the same page, like we'd really like gotten over ourselves, right?

And we’re, for the most part, on the same page, and we were about the business of discovery. And that really appealed to me, and the fact that I saw Black people in that future, I was like, yay, we made it, right? And so, it just was really meaningful to me. So, I was always very pro-science, pro-technology. And then, you know, having this experience where, you know, where I had this dramatic – this dramatic experience and, you know, having the point of view that – having the point of view that the way to really, really make it accessible, that technology, you know, the technology is the thing that makes what is scarce, abundant.

And if we really wanted people, to be able to have access to, you know, a kind of happiness and fearlessness, you know, then, technology was the way to go. And I didn't have any – you know, I didn't have any – I didn't have anything that made me think that that wasn't possible. And so, that's what led to me, looking for how you could use technology to, how you could use technology to make that happen. And so, that's what led to me being connected to Jeffrey Martin, and us starting Transformative Tech.

[00:13:45] Dylan Watkins: That's beautiful. And there's a couple things there. You are having some notifications, so, I don't know if you can silence those at all, but I do want – I do want to –

[00:13:51] Nichol Bradford: I did.

[00:13:52] Dylan Watkins: Perfect. Okay. Some things that I'm noticing here that are actually really amazing is that, you know, we all see reality through the lenses that we're given, right, or that we experience, and a couple of these different lenses that you're going through and you're going through is one, you saw the power of gaming, and you saw the power of friendship through World of Warcraft. And I remember that, because I had my own, entrepreneur business where we actually were all – we had a guild all in the World of Warcraft because we all, you know, I ran a food truck decades ago, and we got together and we all had a guild together that we'd hang out in. And I remember doing that because it was a fun way for us to just have a good time together.

So – but you're having the power friendship, right, and then in the tech space, but then you see this mind blowing experience with that internal landscape, because we realize that we have – we identify to this internal narrative, and we think it's us, that internal narrative is us, but you were able to separate that internal narrative, from your actual consciousness, and realize that while it might be that internal narrative, it is a terrible, terrible best friend to have and experience. And so you could see, oh, this experience that I had in my internal landscape, if only this was more abundantly available, like in the gaming space, in the technology space, and if people like Geordi La Forge can create an amazing reality of the future, then it's possible for me to do this. And you have this – when you talk about what it is, you're talking about absolute happiness and bravery, which is a powerful combination to be able to get you to move forward, because my guess is, you probably have what I would call, in the hero's journey narrative, some threshold guardians, in order to be able to build up a community along the way.

I'm sure it wasn't all a simple path. Can you just turn it on, everybody showed up, no problem?

[00:15:41] Nichol Bradford: Oh my God. Absolutely. I mean, it's like, when I announced to my family that I was leaving that, you know, what I had done, to go do this crazy thing, it was straight up craziness. And so, you know, and a lot of people like people that I knew in the games industry thought I was absolutely, like insane, like I actually had people call me up and be like, we want to know what's going on with you, you know, like almost interventions, right?

And so, 2015, I was crazy. 2016, I was crazy. 2017, I was interesting. 2018, I was more interesting partially because of, you know, candidly the high profile suicides where people that no one expected to commit suicide were beginning to commit suicide, and it was also when men started to come forward and say that they were having mental health issues, and pushing on the stigma, and people started to say, oh, okay, there's a problem, and starting to realize that the scale and scope of the problem compared to the, you know, the solutions, like, for example, like the basically, you know, depression is the leading dis disability in the world today. And that was even pre-COVID.

And so, the number of – like basically the number of therapists, teachers, coaches, you know, like the number of people who deal with human transformation in all of its forms, there are not enough people, just, even on the license side for depression and mental illness, to actually serve the delta, to serve like the change or, I mean, the difference between how many people we would need to do it the old school way, and how many people have the need. And, you know, and you would actually, you know, I saw this really fascinating study that someone had done and I don't remember who it was, but it basically was like, if you took the student body or the school size of every licensing body, your certification body in the world that deals with mental health, like all the universities that have psychology, psychiatry, whatever, and you filled them up maximum capacity, current capacity, it would take a hundred years to meet the demand or meet the need of this being the leading disease burden.

And so, you know, it was one of those things I would have conversations with people who were like, you know, there's no replacing a human in this kind of area. And I was like, okay, I hear you, but you have to understand that with that point of view, that there's no room for technology in this space. You are saying, it is okay for all of these people to suffer, for as many years, as it takes for you to be comfortable with technology being in this place. So, people in 2018 were starting to say, oh, you might have something.

And then 2019 was our biggest event ever, and mental health is just one piece, and I'll tell you why, in a minute, but, 2020, I was right. So, it's like, you know, it's like 2020 was a year that it's like, everyone's like, oh, Nichol, you were right, because we were forced into using tech in these ways. And now, I actually just looked at a study because I had to do a bunch of consulting around wellbeing tech and there was a study that was done with about 3,000 people, so, it's, you know, big enough to be statistically significant, and like 73% of these people said that if their doctor did not offer telehealth, they would change doctors.

So, that's like a primary intimate relationship and people are saying, look, if I can't meet you online for, you know, the stuff that doesn't require you to touch me or take something liquid from me, then I'm not doing it. Like, that's crazy. Why would I go through that horrible experience again? And it really took something like a global pandemic to get the medical community to change, honestly.

[00:20:15] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. And that's really interesting. The medical industry, and also the education facilities, the irony, the fact that the places that teach people new stuff, struggled with adapting to learning new stuff. And there – absolute irony there. And you're talking about the truth meter of going from, you know, crazy to prolific, to being common knowledge is what you kind of had to go through along your journey, along the way. And, again, those moments, I would be curious about that, you know, that, you know, they say, people that can bear, with any why, can bear any how.

So, along the way, was it the fact that you knew your inner peace, and you knew the gift that you had given, and that's what allowed you to endure? Because there's a lot of, I mean, we are social creatures and that's social, because there's three realities we live in, we do live in the physical reality, we do live in our own internal landscape, but we also have that third social reality. And so imagine that pressure that you got faced upon, as people were saying, you’re crazy, like what gave you that ability to continue on through that?

[00:21:22] Nichol Bradford: You know, it just really was, you know, I have a – I just have a I call it the golden thread, it's just knowing about some things, and I just, you know, I just knew. That doesn't mean it was elegant, and it doesn't mean that it was pretty, and I cried a lot of tears, as I thought, oh my gosh, what have I done to my career? You know, like I don't have a trust fund, you know, like, yeah, I don't have a trust fund, you know, and I'm not married, by the way, anyone, I am dating, but I don't have trust fund, I'm not married, I don't have any backup, right? It's just me.

And, but I just knew, you know, I just knew that this was needed. And so, I stuck with it, not elegant, not pretty, lots of tears, lots of like dark nights of the soul and wondering what I was doing. But then there would be this moment where I was, you know, talking with someone who was building something new, that I thought that the world needed, you know, and it would inspire me.

[00:22:49] Dylan Watkins: See, right there is really powerful because people just see the aftermath go, oh, it's, you know, of course it's an easy idea, just make this type of community, it's no problem, boom, turn it on, super successful. Yeah, of course, it’s such an easy idea. But that journey that you do is so powerful. And then what you’re talking about, which I think is really interesting, is, you're talking about these moments of energy that you get from the community. That actually is kind of, you're creating this flywheel of inspiration and motivation and engagement. That's the power of this community. So, yeah, can you talk to me just a little bit about some of these technologies and doesn't need to name any specific ones or if you do, that's fine, that really gives you energy. Is there any personal stories that you've seen of people using the technologies and the profound impact that they've had, so that you know that there's meaning and purpose to what you've done?

[00:23:39] Nichol Bradford: Yeah. I mean, there's many, many cases. One of the products that I still love so much is, Moxie, a social emotional robot. And part of it is because the, you know, we're all born with emotions, but we aren't born with emotional fluency. And so I think Moxie is a – I think it's a really great example of how to build, so, Moxie is, it's a little robot, it looks like a Pixar character, the guy who developed it, wanted something that could be a best friend to children, but they made some really amazing design choices such as, Moxie sends children into the world, so it isn't the final mediator. So, you know, and the people who are using it the most, are people who have children who have special needs or who are on the spectrum in some way.

And so, you know, Moxie asks children how they like, a question might be, who's your best friend, Nichol? Oh, well, my best friend is Dylan. How does Dylan feel? Oh, I don't know. Well, go ask Dylan. You know, and so it's like, it's very much – it sends children out. So it's not the source of truth. It's not the arbitrator. It's the giver of missions into the real world, real people, so children can have real experiences, you know, and become more comfortable with that. So, that's the first design element is that the technology is not the final arbiter of truth.

The second thing is that, the robot is only accessible for one hour a day, so children cannot binge. So, in an on-demand world, you know, how do you teach people to wait? You know, and you hear about the marshmallow test, where if a child is able to wait for two, it's an indicator of success. Well, how do you teach that? You know, the way it's presented is that, you either have it, or you don't, and whether or not you have it, will determine how successful you are in life.

Well, like what about teaching that? That's the core of transpersonal psychology. That's the difference between transpersonal psychology and regular psychology, regular psychology is sort of like what is, and transpersonal psychology, which is the William James, you know, like that area, is about the idea that the human mind can change, that transformation is possible.

So, you know, like teach children to wait, how do you teach children to wait? They have to wait 24 hours to interact with a robot again, teaching them to wait.

And then the third part is security. So, parents have access to, like the language logs or like they can see what's going on with the child, because one of the things is that, word usage, at least in English, and their stuff is mostly based on English right now, you know, word choice, and the way children speak is a really good early indicator of learning disabilities, and especially with spectrum kids, being able to find out early, so not a learning disability, but a challenge, like being able to find out early that they've got, that you know, that they've got a little bit of neurodiversity, is very helpful for parents, because a lot of times, the way parents find out is when the child starts failing at school, and when they start failing at school, then they get confidence issues, you know?

And so, it's not only do you have to unpack what's wrong, but you have to like, you know, erase all the terrible experiences that they have when they might have behavioral issues because they're not understanding, you have to unpack all of that in order to get at what this is.

So, you know, their mandate was to be a best friend for children, be an ally for parents. So, they're not trying to replace, it's not about screen raising, it's about giving parents a tool to understand how their child is doing, and early insights. But if the parents lose the password, then, the robot has to be wiped, and it will have no more memories of that child. So, what they do is, everything is stored locally, and certainly, probably like a great hacker could get in there and whatnot, and, you know, I don't know how many people actually like really care what a six year old thinks, but who knows, you know? But, what goes back and forth to the company is not the photos. it's not the voice files, it's just math. So, it's called a homomorphic database, it's just math that goes back and forth, no assets.

And you know, and the connection is really to push new content and the content stays with sort of like the gold standard of like, how do you, you know, how do you teach children, social, emotional cues and learning. And so, that I love this product, because I think it's a great example of how you, how you do it. They got security right, they got, you know, they got, anti-addiction right, and they got, you know, the human part is the part that matters, right, the technology is not the goal, it's just a tool.

[00:29:49] Dylan Watkins: I love that so much for several reasons, because I mean, the greatest technologies are the ones that connect us, right, the airplane, the cellphone, the internet, all those are just mechanisms to have us be connected because what we're doing is we're creating digital unity, right? I mean, that's what all this is, we are all creating together is this form of digital unity, where we are one.

And what you're talking about, this is almost like a digital lubricant, digital, social lubricant for kids that allow them to remove that anxiety of having to connect with other people. But if you can turn that whole needing to connect with somebody else and remove that social pressure that we all feel because we're social creatures, and you can turn it into a game, you can turn it into a mission, you can turn it into a quest, then you take the focus off of the actual social pressure of the connection, and you put it more on, I'm just playing a game. I'm just going about this. And that will then teach them the game of being a social human being, which is something that we all crave, but it is something that we aren't always given the equal tools to be able to function and facilitate. And I love that. And it sounds like what they're doing is, they're, de-identifying any of the actual, languages that the child's speaking, and it's just setting up patterns, and it’s guess it's sent through an AI.

[00:30:57] Nichol Bradford: Yeah. It's just math, is what goes back and forth. And, that kind of stuff is fairly common now with ethical organizations, fairly common, but it's sort of like a good example. And so, I think, you know, if you were to think about it, it's like, you know, I think the fundamental crisis that we have, is that we don't know how to be, feel and become, that that's really what's going on.

And you know, the being part, the technologies that are forward, are around stress, anxiety, you know, sleep, because if you can't sleep, like you have no choice, like, it's hard to be well, if you're not sleeping, it has a lot of cascading effects. Around the becoming is about all of this sort of like training, social and emotional wellness or, you know, interaction, like how do we – how are we good together? Like, I think trust is a skill. And I think it's – I think it's, I think the ability to trust is a skill. We all know people who can't trust and how terrible it makes them in relationship.

I think the ability to create trust is a skill, you know, innovation, one of the primary requirements for innovation is the willingness to take risk. So, the most innovative teams in the world are the ones that have leaders that establish psychological safety, which is basically, it doesn't mean nice, but it means, I can take a risk safely in this group. And that risk might be, this design is wrong. The customers don't like it, actually, or it might be, you know, this is wrong, or what about this?

So, all of that is sort of like, you know, core to innovation, like psychological human health is actually the core for, I think outrageous, endless human innovation. and so, using – learning how to use technology for that, is very important. And then the last part is sort of, you know, you know, well, that was feel, and then the last part, is becoming, and so it's like, where are we going? So, it's sort of like, if you look at where we are right now, is, there's a tremendous amount of pressure that's coming from technology.

And so, I'll give you a really good example is that, we live in the age of networks, and so what that means is that, never before, has there been such an opportunity to learn and earn, all over the world, you can learn and earn, in a network which might be an Airbnb, it might be a Mechanical Turk, it might be, you know, like these are all networks, that allow you to learn and earn. The other side of it is that, it's the nature of a network that basically, we are all rateable, in relationship to one another, and it is the nature of a network it's kind of like networks are kind of like, they have like a reverse centrifugal force. And I don't know what the name of that is. I should know what it is, but basically excellent stays in the middle and everybody else gets pushed to the outside and they know what their number is.

[00:34:25] Dylan Watkins: It's like gravity.

[00:34:26] Nichol Bradford: Yeah. It's like – it pushes, so, excellent stays in the middle, and those are the top compensated people, and then everyone, if you are not excellent, you feel a force that pushes you to the side. The reason why that matters is because, our primitive brain does three things, eat, procreate, and fight in order to eat and procreate. I mean, that's really what the – like the base lizard does.

And sure, there's like a lay in the sun part, but, you know, the lizard brain eats, has sex, and defends the ability to do one and two. And so, you know, status is a big part of your ability to do, you know, those three things. And, so what the age of networks is doing, is, it is taking, the technology is rubbing directly up against our base human nature. We know our status and it isn't just our own village, now, it's the whole world. You can know your status across the whole world, and it makes us incredibly uncomfortable. So, if the difference, and the difference is between, what we're talking about is suffering, right, so, if you know your status, and you are identified, if your identity is tied to status, then in the age of networks, the technology itself ties you to suffering.

[00:36:03] Dylan Watkins: And the reason why you're suffering, because you are – it is impossible to separate yourself from comparing yourself to others in comparison as the thief of joy. Is that what you're saying?

[00:36:12] Nichol Bradford: Exactly. So, but we know from the ancients, right, we know from the world's, you know, spiritual traditions, that there are many humans who have gone down the path of not having identity tied to status. So, we know that it's something that is doable and there's lots of people who have done it, right?

And so, the thing is, is that, the only way to thrive in the age of networks – because also the people who are the most excellent, they're miserable too, because they're trying to keep it up, right? They think if they can't, it means something about who they are often. And so, the only way to really thrive, and you know, or have full liveness, let me call it that, because you can economically thrive, but the only way to have full of liveness in the age of networks, is to detach your identity from status. You have to graduate beyond your primitive brain.

And the only way to do that, is to have human transformation, like you have to actually evolve. And so that's what we have to do. And so, if you look across like, and that's just one example of what's happening with exponential tech, and a bunch of other things, we have this huge, you know, force change, it's compounding. And then if you look at sort of like the rise of the software line, and what's actually required, because software's like eating most – eating a lot of tasks, but the tasks that are left are the human interaction tasks, the human creation tasks, the human innovation task, the creativity task, where you take the software and you make it better.

Like that's what's left, but we don't teach any of that. We expect people to pick it up from the culture. So, we're in a place where we have a lot of pressure on the molecules of life, right, that stuff, and the digitization that's happening there. And then we have the head space that we need to be in, and then we have this gap, and for me, the gap is filled by transformative technology, because we also don't have a tremendous amount of time.

I have some friends who did a really interesting study, or the way that they looked at history, is, they looked at it in terms of, they looked at the fall of civilizations, but they looked at it in terms of – basically their thesis is that, what happens before falls is actually massive clusters of technological innovation without corresponding shifts in the organizational system of a civilization, and the organizing system or OS of a system, I mean, of a civilization, is, beliefs, norms, values, myths, narratives, it's basically all that inter-human stuff.

And so, we're, you know, in short, the TLDR is that, we're in a place where, we require human transformation and we need it at a scale and a density, I mean, tech has made scale a dirty word, but we need it at a density, that actually makes the difference. And we have 10-ish years to get that done. And it doesn't mean that we'll destroy ourselves, but it does mean that we have a future we're sort of facing, do we have a future that looks a little bit more like hunger games or do we have a future that looks a little bit more like Star Trek? And that's kind of where we're at right now

[00:40:01] Dylan Watkins: Yeah, society is a race between Utopia and disaster. And what you're talking about on this pattern is, we live in this weird paradox, and one of the things I've always like, if you look at like, like the Bhagavad Gita, native at the time, right, so how do you de-identify it? Well, you can be a hermit and you can separate yourself from the network, that's one path, and the other one is, to be the king that is of service to the people, completely detached to the actual production, but to be of service to the people, right, which is very counter to what the U.S. says, which is me, mine, first, go, thrive, I win, right?

So, what you're talking about is, we live in this weird paradox where we have to have this heroic belief, that we can be the heroes of our own story, affect change, and be able to create some sort of technology or some sort of network or some sort of place, that allows us to shift conscious to make possibility, to make opportunities and to do it in a way that doesn't do the typical consumption greed, I consume all, but in a way that actually, instills new belief pattern that by us all banding together, we can actually rise together and we can grow this pie, versus trying to eat the pie from each other.

[00:41:15] Nichol Bradford: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:41:19] Dylan Watkins: So, then, in terms of that, how do you, because there's a lot of people that get disenfranchised with a lot of this type of stuff, like, oh the ocean screwed, I can't do anything, I'm dis-attached. I can't do anything with the government policies, I'm disattached. So, they get this belief pattern that I'm too small to affect any change, right? So, then, how do you shift that change and that belief pattern, to really open up the possibility that while, yes, they are small, they can also have tremendous impact? So, how do you, since you've gone through this, how do you make that mental shift happen for people?

[00:41:52] Nichol Bradford: Yeah. you know, so what I – the way I think about it is the intersection between what I call deep human and deep tech. And historically, deep technology meant sort of like wasn't consumer facing chemical or whatever, but Thomas Friedman has this wonderful quote where he says, the world has gone from flat to fast, to smart, to deep. And it's sort of like the, you know, the deepness is like this precision, and the world is starting to be awash with no code tools, where people can build things. So, that that's one part.

But on the deep human part, that's really being, you know, that's really going as deep as you can as a person, becoming, as – I swear my Discord is off, so that's not me.

[00:42:42] Dylan Watkins: Me.

[00:42:43] Nichol Bradford: Oh, I don't know where it's at, like, everything –

[00:42:46] Dylan Watkins: This just come into the space, you know, they try to connect. Yeah.

[00:42:50] Nichol Bradford: Going as deep as you can, as a person, like getting as live as you can, you know, doing, like getting as deep as you can. And it's funny, it's like people will say, you know, one of the other things that overwhelms people a lot is the attention economy, Facebook surveillance, economy stuff, and they'll be like, oh, in that environment. And I'd be like, well true, but let me ask you something, you have kids? And they're like, yeah, I have kids. I was like, well, big brothers watching you, and so are your kids, you know, like your children are watching every move you make.

And so, if you are, you know, if you are not modeling emotional fluency to your children, because they're definitely going to be in this world, you know, that's coming, then you're doing them a disservice, if you're not modeling, you know, the sort of person who is at least working on dis-attaching your identity from status, then you are not being of service to them. So, like the most basic thing you can do, especially if you've got kids, the most basic thing you can do is get as deep as you can, and help them get as deep as they can, because what will happen is that, the people who have the ability to be the most human, will be the ones, you know, should our work, work as I hope, they will be the ones who will be the most desired to work with the technology of the future, right?

So, if like, if you want to get them ready, you know, for their turn at the reins, get them as deep as you can, because that's actually, you know, what we're working towards. So, that's number one.

And then number two, is, there are some things that are going to need to happen. Like, you know, there will be a time in our lives where we will need to vote, on neuro rights, you know, like you're going to have to, you're going to – especially if you're a young person, if you're in your twenties and you're listening to this, you need to be prepared to make your voice heard about, neuro and bio data rights. So, just be prepared for it. So, there's that. And then the other thing is, be a builder, be a creator. You know, the world is filled with no code tools, where you can build things and make things and, you know, and you can be the kind of builder that makes things that, you know, like one of the big issues with data right now, is that, on one side, you have zealots on all sides, so, on one side, you have people who think that they're entitled to your data, and it's like everything that they do, that's the stink of entitlement, really. they think they're entitled to it. And so when you read their privacy policies, they are granting you privacy as if they owned your data already. It's really – it's subtle, but it makes a big difference.

And then on the other side, you have people who say, you know, all data belongs to the individual. And so, you know, to that, I say, you know, we're looking at, in 15 years, two-thirds of the world's population is going to live in cities, and the cities are going to be smart, so there's going to be an OS, a city OS that is managing the traffic lights, the elevators, all of these things. So, while I believe you have the right to hide your identity in a smart city, you don't have the right to hide your presence because how will the traffic lights work? How will the elevators work? You know, like you have the right to hide your identity, but you know, the city needs to know if there's 7 million people or 5 million people, or if someone's on the elevator or not. That kind of thing.

And so, there's like commons, public commons that are a part of it. So, the truth is somewhere in the middle, you know, figuring it out. And I think one of the things that's key is, we need the ability to tag our data, public, private, and for sale. We need data unions. We need the ability to have leverage right now. We have no leverage, especially with these entitled people. And so we need that, but you know, we need neuro rights, we need bio rights.

[00:47:32] Dylan Watkins: So there's a couple of pieces I want to touch on. So, one being is, I'm an uncle, I have a 7-year-old an 11-year-old, 17, 18, and, there's this thing, we're trying to teach them social emotional awareness where my brother said, he's like, I will never play monopoly with these kids because it always ends in a fight. And so, I took him on that challenge. I said, let me do this. I said, okay guys, every time one of you gets upset, we're going to pause, we're going to say something grateful to the next person, we're going to do this. And we're going to do some heart head breathing exercises. And it worked for most of the time.

I got most of the way through it, until the little one quit. And then she got mad because she wasn't included on the heart head breathing, but it was trying to teach them this awareness even though she wasn't a part of the play and she politely went away, but then we didn't include her in it, she was very, very upset and she didn't say things. So, we had to have a pleasant conversation.

But that ability to try to get them to experience because normally it's either, you know, fist or feet, right? I'm either going to punch you or I'm going to run away. And there's that – being able to sit in that pocket with the kids and teach them that, because now you're right, anybody can create anything, but then can you connect, can you go deep, can you connect with yourself, can you connect with others?

And there's a real power and need for that. And that's the first step of the social emotional awareness, and then regulation, right, which is two things, you have to first be aware, and you have to regulate. I was not aware that she wanted to be included in the meditation. So I – we went through some regulation afterwards and I had to apologize and play games and do dress up. But anyway –

[00:49:03] Nichol Bradford: There's also a couple of other things, which is, it's like, you know, because I have such a big background in games, a lot of times people will come to me and they'll want to make, you know, they'll want to make, – they believe that there's a world in which there should be no representations of violence. And, you know, the thing about like, okay, so here's the biggest issue with the shopping engines, basically the recommendation engines, whether it's Amazon or Netflix or whatever, the way a recommendation engine works is, it is based off of what you liked in the past, and what people like you, liked, you know?

And those are the things that get surfaced. And so, the challenge with that is like one of the fundamental pieces of becoming an adult, is, having – I swear my Discord is off, and I turned off my notifications. I don't know where it's coming from.

[00:50:12] Dylan Watkins: I can't imagine how busy you are on a daily basis. If you get that much notifications, I would have to have like a – you throw a fair day cage over your computer or something to try to keep it.

[00:50:22] Nichol Bradford: Yeah. I don't even know. I just – it's like – I actually, I turned off my Discord, so it's not coming up. But anyway –

[00:50:31] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. Please continue though, you're talking about the recommendations –

[00:50:35] Nichol Bradford: Yeah. And so, it's like, being an adult is being presented with what you don't like and knowing you don't like it. So, part of that is like, you know, every one of us has had that, you know, like every one of us has told a secret as a child. You know, every one of us has told a lie as a child, right, you know, anyone who says that as a child, they've never lied is lying. Kids do it all the time, well, not all the time, but they do it at least once, right?

[00:51:08] Dylan Watkins: Yeah.

[00:51:09] Nichol Bradford: And so, you know, the thing is, is like, there's this part of being adult, which includes trying things and realizing that you don't like the way it feels to hurt someone else or that you don't like, you know, these other things.

And so, you know, I think that, you know, what we're not trying to do, is get rid of fear, get rid of sadness, get rid of anger, but it's to get into a different relationship with those things so they're not in charge, you know, and to have the ability to experience it, but not act on it. Like that's what, you know, the goal is. It’s not – anyone who's trying to be happy all the time, is someone who is really creepy and nobody trusts. You know.

[00:52:01] Dylan Watkins: I'm highly medicated. Yeah. No, but you don't – because those negative feelings that you have are true and real, and if you don't, it turns into what we know you disengage, repress, and it turns into some – it pops out in weird creepy ways. It's like trying to keep air balloons underneath the water, you're trying to hold down all these things. And you're using like 90% of your mental capacity to just try to force the negativity down, versus accept it, be with it, honor it, and, you know, embrace it, and sit with it, and it's being able to sit with that negativity and sit with those – it's like sitting with the – it's like, you can't just feel good all the time.

Sometimes you have to struggle because on the other side of struggle, there is that sense of achievement, belief, growth, you know, all that, all those pieces. So it's a circular flow of that stuff. So you're totally right. You can't just be happy all the time because there's obviously something that is not being acknowledged because we don't – there's a science to sadness and there's a piece that we need to honor. Otherwise it doesn't work. We don't work – we're not human. We need both sides of that equation, so.

[00:53:05] Nichol Bradford: And I think you interviewed Jeffery, right? Jeffery Martin?

[00:53:10] Dylan Watkins: No.

[00:53:11] Nichol Bradford: Oh, you should interview him next because, you know – so Jeffery was my co-founder for transformative tech and Jeffery's research is really all about non-dual states. And the world uses – there's over 200 terms, you know, non-duality, unity, consciousness. Like there's enlightenment. Though, that is a dangerous word. You have no idea how ratchet spiritual people get over using what word.

[00:53:48] Dylan Watkins: Religion and politics, man. Religion and politics.

[00:53:50] Nichol Bradford: But anyway.

[00:53:51] Dylan Watkins: Yeah.

[00:53:52] Nichol Bradford: But really it's about, you know, it's like the fundamental human – like the problem is the fundamental human problem, which is, you know, that fundamental human – and I guess it's not a problem, but it's whether or not it's conscious or unconscious is the problem. So we say that there's three doors. Door number one is to remain unconscious. And in that situation, the lizard is in charge, whether it's for status or whatever else, the lizard is about. Door number two is to manage it. And that's where a lot of the positive psychology comes in. And you really can, like, there's so many things that you can manage and you can manage it and you can like, you know, you can do a lot to manage it. The third one is to actually really solve it and that solving it is about, you know, actually like, you know, making the transition and transitioning into, you know, a state where sort of like your fundamental nature is different. And for that, we have a lot of proof from the agents that people can do this. The question is like, how do you do it in a modern context in a world where, you know, religion is deprioritized, but spirituality as a need still exist. So it's probably another hour.

[00:55:12] Dylan Watkins: Yeah.

[00:55:13] Nichol Bradford: But how do you do that? They were right about some things, you know, and we need that stuff now. I think it's fascinating that we're at a place where, you know, the technology has put us in a place where we need to be as human as we can. And my thesis is that, you know, being as human as we possibly can is how we actually get more out of the technology because we got climate change, we got inequality, we need to get, you know – I think we need to get multi-planetary, you know, we have longevity, we've got food. Like we have so many things.

And, you know, what is happening, especially with like a lot of the people who are very early to digitization is what they've discovered is that you can't have the full benefits of digitization without human transformation. If you just hand people the software and you haven't, you know, supported them to become flexible, adaptable, emotionally intelligent, psychologically safe people, then they just take the software. And when it breaks, they go, oh, it broke.

[00:56:26] Dylan Watkins: I'm broke.

[00:56:28] Nichol Bradford: Or when it's not optimized, they just go – they don't say anything. But if you actually want to max it out, you have to, if you transform the people, when you do the digital transformation, then they start kit bashing the software, making demands of it and then the software gets better. And so our thesis, my thesis is that for transformative technology, if we're doing that with the technologies that support human growth and transformation, then we get to a place where the technology transforms the people, and then the people transform the technology. And it ends up in this loop that is a virtuous cycle.

And, you know, what I want and what I believe now and what my next set of work is – because when I did TransTech, it was really, it was the frontier. But now, because of COVID, it's like the frontier moved, like we were on the frontier and then now the frontier moved past where we were at. And I'm glad about that. Like I never meant to build a museum. It's not my nature. But you know what I think the next thing is, there's a stack, I'm calling it the humanistic stack and there's the real, there's the transformative augmented layer, and then there's the fully digital layer where you have the metaverse digital twin, whether there's cities or people or whatever. I think our best outcome is for that to be fully interoperable and for it to be humanistic from top to bottom in kind of the ways that I've described to you.

And for me, the purpose of it is that, you know, the digital layers and the transformative augmented layer should really serve so that when we are together, it is, you know, we are together in our full aliveness and that's what it's for. That's what it's for.

[00:58:15] Dylan Watkins: I love it. Yes, there's a lot to unpack in that, but just – I want to hit a couple of things on that. So one of the things being is like, you know, we make the tools and the tools make us, and that the one loop in between there, I would just add, interject, is that social layer, because, you know, there's our internet landscape, we have their physical reality. Then we have the social reality and we're using that whole thing to kind of build our environments together because, you know, I am who you think I am. And so I respond in kind.

And so if you can see yourself as being, as I would say, the hero of your own story, or to be of hero to other peoples, then you will rise occasion and you will have that resilience. Or you're talking about suffering. And you're talking about the negative side, the dark side, the light side, think about man's search for meaning. I think it's not just towards pain and away from pleasure because it's purpose. It's a, you will go towards suffering if there's purpose. A mom will go into a burning car to save the baby's life, it's suffering, but there's a deeper purpose. So within that purpose gives you the leverage to see yourself to do things, not just for yourself, but you know, for them I am, for them I am strong enough, for them. I am brave. And for them I am this.

And so if you can see yourself as being not only a member of the society, because you're talking about people that de-identify with the society say, look, you're still a member, man. Okay, fine. I don't know your face, but you're still a part of this community. So you need to be a part of this community. I think there's a power in that because when we get separated that isolation causes a lot of neurosis because we are connected in this weird, strange way. So those are some of those elements I would like to talk about.

My other piece that we're talking about, I want to touch on, because we got into this area is talking about being connected, one with technology. How long before you let Elon Musk put Neuralink in your head? At what point would you be willing to shave your head like me and just put in a little chip? Like, what would you need to get out of that situation? I'm just curious if we're talking about future tech here, what would that look like for you?

[01:00:13] Nichol Bradford: Well, you know, like one of the things that has to happen has to happen. And there's an incredible guy named Richard Whitt who's working on this. But we need in – you know, before all of that, we need independent agents. So each of us needs our own AI agent who is loyal to us and that AI agent is, you know, able to make contracts and decisions at the speed of, you know, surveillance or at the speed of your data halo online and off, and is based on the parameters you set, you know, saying yes or no to your data being taken by someone else and that agent, we need to have those agents in place I think before we all have widespread chips because it can't be like someone off someplace else making decision rules. It needs to be, you make your decision rule.

And your agent is not just in your chip, but your agent is, you know, as you walk down the street in New York, from your hotel to your office, or to your restaurant reservation, the agent is knowing when you're walking through an IoT circle and negotiating with it about how much data it can take and what you get paid for that data, or you say, no, not at all. And so we need those and there are people who are working on those, you know, and it's – yeah, we need those. And there are people who are working on those. So we're going to need those.

And I think by time you could go to the Apple Store or go to a store on the corner and get your Neuralink put in. The AI agents will be – like your own AI agent will be available. By time that's actually possible. So that's one thing.

And then we do need, we are going to have to address neuro and bio rights. Like people who are like what's happening in your email and what ads you're looking at is child's play, like that's nothing compared to, you know, the neuro and bio rights and, you know, and that data halo, so we got to get that right is a big part of it.

And then I guess the other thing I would say is that I'm not interested in uploading my consciousness. You know, like I'm sure at one point I will, maybe, I don't know. But I don't think that we have come anywhere near to maxing out this, this, this. So like, we haven't even maxed this out, right? So let's do that. Like, let's focus on that. And then I think you're right. Like one of the things that is that is unknown, but I think we're seeing the early tendrils of it is that, you know, I've been in the game for so long really. And one of the reasons why, you know, TransTech was vertical, I mean, horizontal across, mental and emotional health. So stress, anxiety, depression, happiness, like happiness training, which is really psychological, meaning making, and sleep, which leads to a lot of like physical health. You know, there's a lot of tracking this, tracking that. The second category being the social interpersonal stuff, and then the third category being consciousness enhancement, purpose enhancement, like that higher step that you get to, where if you think of the Maslow's hierarchy, as you go through every level.

Right now, the bulk of technology is on the lowest two levels around, you know, food and security and stuff like that, but then as you move up, it also corresponds to, you know, the different verticals of transformative technology. And by the way, the top of Maslow's hierarchy is really self-transcendence. And most people think it's self-actualization, but that's just that, you know, he did it, he published the bulk of it first and then – but he was one of the first Western people to really start tracking people who were having non-dual states and flow states and a bunch of other things.

So there's that. And so – I lost my train of thoughts. So we were talking about –

[01:04:53] Dylan Watkins: So you're dropping digital bombs along the way. We're talking about what does it take in terms to get a neural chip implant, the neural chip implant you're talking about, we needed to have AI that's got your back, your AI sidekick there. You need to have the full knowledge and rights on what you have and what you will, and won't allow inside your system. And then you started talking about what are other things that we needed along the way, which was you – you started talking about the technology right now is serving the base needs. And you started talking about the needs at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which was the trans –

[01:05:31] Nichol Bradford: Oh, self-transcendence.

[01:05:33] Dylan Watkins: Self-transcendence.

[01:05:33] Nichol Bradford: You know, the point where – yeah. Yeah, so, oh, I know. So it's like, we haven't maxed this out and, you know, I think that we should – oh, I know what I was saying. The reason why TransTech went across so many verticals is because the tech is all the same. You know, so whether someone calls who they serve a client, a patient, a student, you know, or a customer, you know, the real difference has been sort of like maybe the regulatory environment and then also the passion of the founder, what was the problem they wanted to solve? What were they trying to – like, what were they really trying to get at? But, you know, the machine learning is the machine learning, you know, the haptic sensors are the haptic sensors, you know? So all of those things. So I think I was saying that and –

[01:06:27] Dylan Watkins: Where I felt like you were going with it and tell me if I'm wrong …

[01:06:28] Nichol Bradford: What was the question you asked before when I get the dip?

[01:06:33] Dylan Watkins: The question before you get the chip. One of the thing I – what it would take to get the chip. And you said you didn't think that we've maxed out this enough, right? And I thought that's where you were going to it because you're not – you didn't want to actually upload your consciousness yet because you were still focused on you and you said maybe at some point.

[01:06:48] Nichol Bradford: Oh, I know what I was going to say. So this is the important –this is a really important thing. So the early products in the category were very much tech-based. So it was like out of the wearable space, you know, and so there were lots of bracelets for this and trackers for that. And what is happening is that people are – so I've seen the same product be tech only, and then I've seen the same product add coaches, add people into the process, but the technology is used to facilitate the connections between the people.

And so what their clinical studies have shown is that technology plus a person supporting you is better than technology alone and the person alone. And that's the thing. People are the sticky, people are the sticky. And so I think there's something and this I haven't, it's just the tendrils of. I think there's something about – and this was to your point, there is something about we need to be witnessed to truly know that we've changed and change is not truly yours until you know it. And the only way that you can actually know it is when you are in relation to another human being. And so that's the thing. So, you know, Yogi in a cave is easy. Like sitting in a cave [1:08:28] [indiscernible] like eating, meditating and eating thistles, easy compared to going home for Thanksgiving, you know, and like not getting triggered, you know. Like he was not hanging out with his mama, right? So that's the thing.

[01:08:45] Dylan Watkins: It's that fine line, man. It's like the same thing. It's like, it's easy to run away, it's easy to fight. But can you stand in that fine line? And the fine line is it's easy to go into a cave when you have no temptation, it's easy to go and get all the temptation and go to Vegas and do whatever, whatever, it's hard to sit on that fine line and be able to run that course.

And then also what you're talking about is that that reflective of what I said was, I need to be the hero of my story, and I need to believe that you believe that and that method of being something for the tribe and being someone in that space is kind of what we're talking about and what I'm telling almost like what you maybe think about. You're talking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I feel like there's a layer on top of that now, which is the digital transformed self on top of that, where it's not just transformation and the non-dual state, but using the tech-assisted version that allows you to reach even the higher peaks. I don't know, I just thought about that as we're going through it. So I don't know if it's a hundred percent true, but it was just the thought process of we can get further – I mean, technology is just a magnification of human intent and will, so if we use that technology, we can use it to become more for us and for the other people in our world. And so it's interesting to think about that it allows us to merge deeper with ourselves and other people, which is, – it sounds like what your whole, the TransTech community is all about.

And is that your – what's your Holy Grail? What I would call the Holy Grail of the hero's journey for you in creating this TransTech community and all the work that you do? Is it, do you want to be – do you want to create that starship in the space and be able to travel to other planets? Or what is it? What is it for you?

[01:10:24] Nichol Bradford: No, no, I want – I would say what I want now is I want the stack to be humanistic and I want it to be infused with consciousness on every level. That's what I want.

[01:10:40] Dylan Watkins: To bring humanity to technology, to use it to connect us and not disconnect us.

[01:10:45] Nichol Bradford: Well, it's – yes, yes. But it's also, it should be, you know, it should be for our transformation and betterment, you know, or betterment's the wrong word because there's nothing wrong with this, but it should be like the stack I think of the real topped by the augmented layer, topped by the fully digital layer should be human-focused, human-centric. It should be support our transformation. It should be interoperable, you know, and it should support the development of human consciousness.

[01:11:27] Dylan Watkins: Beautiful.

[01:11:28] Nichol Bradford: So that's what I want.

[01:11:29] Dylan Watkins: That is beautiful. And it is the whole package. The last question I've got for you on this is, what is the dragon? If that's the Holy Grail, what is the dragon that you would need to defeat, that we would need to defeat in order to make that come true?

[01:11:46] Nichol Bradford: Well, I mean, there's the – I mean, it's really, it's the people have to build these things and we need the things that make them safe for us. So we need the AI agents and we need the rights, and we need the education. So we need that. And there'll be mixes. You know, the reality too is it's sort of like a lot of times, especially since so much of the stuff I look at is like, you know, like the inner landscape, your inner landscape is already knowable, you know, like you're actually already known. So people who are like, you know, what's coming. It's like, yeah, what's coming is kind of scary, but already it's pretty like, you know, right now only governments and ad sellers look at it.

But you know, if it were – if all the pieces of your data halo were to be pieced together, including all the bio data that you drop, like your gate and psychological state are tied already. The way that you walk, right? So, you know, Wi-Fi can pick up emotions. Like, it's just really like the stuff that I've seen, you know, like ...

[01:12:58] Dylan Watkins: Wow.

[01:13:00] Nichol Bradford: You know, being able to, you know, the people can like look down your, you know, into your eye and see cognitive load. Like, we're revealed. We're revealed, but it's not connected. You know, it's not connected yet. And so we need to get ahead of that. So I would say the dragon would be apathy, the dragon would be people not building, like you got to build the good stuff. The dragon would be, you know, people not getting into the arena and building the good stuff, people not demanding the good stuff, people not, you know, choosing to join the data unions and things that give them leverage, people not, you know, taking the opportunities that come to them to become as deep as they can and teach their children to be as deep as they can. You know, I mean, I actually, I'm incredibly optimistic, and not from a tech optimism kind of way, but just because I pay a lot of attention to the technology arcs and how they compound.

And so we're very quickly getting to a place where, you know, on the molecular level, the shift from extraction to creation is much closer than you think, you know. Like a lot of times when people think about AI-driven, you know, discovery, they think about drug discovery and a bunch of things, but people are doing AI-driven material science discovery. So the ability to make materials that don't create the kind of waste that current materials do, you know, that are stronger and, you know, and tied to nature and a bunch of other things. So like that stuff is moving as fast as everything else.

But we do have some existential threats, mostly around the climate. And so, you know, it isn't a given, you know, history doesn't write itself. And so, you know, like the magic pixies are not going to do it, you know? Like you have to get off your butt and get in the arena and build the things that need to be created.

[01:15:18] Dylan Watkins: Oh, that's beautiful.

[01:15:19] Nichol Bradford: In some form or another. And the worst case, that means maybe you fund a, you know, there's someone, you know, who's got a Kickstarter and they're building good stuff and you put your $25 down, you know, like do that, you know, like whatever it is, do it.

[01:15:35] Dylan Watkins: That's so beautiful. I actually got started in technology because I backed a small little project in Kickstarter known as Oculus and my headset came in and I was just like, oh, what's this? And my mind was blown. I was like, okay, let's figure this out. But you're right. I mean, bringing it full circle with everything you're talking about, like, I mean, you're talking about like, so the dragon of apathy, the dragon of don't believe that you can do it, the dragon of thinking that you can't have an impact in this world. And really, we need to do it through hard work and effort and belief. And people calling you crazy and you just knowing that you're early and your ability to keep going along your path, you know, and keep going through the whole course and say, I know, it's okay if you say I'm crazy because at some point you're going to say, I'm awesome and I'm going to keep going.

[01:16:22] Nichol Bradford: Well, you know, I mean the good news is one of those things is if you do this kind of thing and you do it for long enough, you get to the point where like someone said to me, they were like, oh you're right. That must feel very good. I was like, I'm past the point where my identity is based on that kind of stuff. You know, like it lasted – you know, the journey lasted just long enough that if that's how I was fueled, I would be. FUBARed, you know, like not wired like that anymore.

[01:16:53] Dylan Watkins: Professional.

[01:16:55] Nichol Bradford: You know, had to dewire – had to really dewire that to stay the course. And so, you know, for me, it's really, I think this next thing is also really the thing that matters. And I don't think I'm quite as early as I was last time. So I'm going to start – actually, I'm working on a book right now and I will be starting to talk about my, you know, my new theses next year. So I'm taking this time in the fall to like really dig in and some other stuff. So I'll start talking about it next year. But I'm pretty excited about this. I think a lot of my thinking now is really, it's very different than what many people are saying. I think it's really new. And it's kind of fun. It is fun to like see new things. And so it's new thinking and, you know, and I think it's different than what most people are hearing and I'm going to start pushing that stuff out next year.

[01:18:06] Dylan Watkins: I think that's beautiful. And when you are ready to launch your book and you're ready to announce it and promote it, please, you are more than welcome to come back in the show and talk about it and release some juicy nuggets along the way because that would be – that sounds incredible. And so that that'd be amazing.

And so with that being said – you know, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Is there anything else you'd like to let people know about before you can tell them how to get ahold of you or the community that you're a part of?

[01:18:36] Nichol Bradford: No. I think we covered a lot and I have to go. So transformativetech.org if you want to be a part of this, join the community and, yeah, I think that's –

[01:18:52] Dylan Watkins: All right, Mike drop on the way out. Nicole, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for coming in the show. I really appreciate your time, all the effort, all the grind that you've done. It's very much appreciated. So thank you for pushing society in the right direction. And I will see you on the other side.

[01:19:08] Nichol Bradford: See you on the other side. Bye.

[01:19:09] Dylan Watkins: Okay. Bye now. Take care.

[01:19:13] Outro: Thank you for listening to the Heroes of Reality Podcast. Check out HeroesofReality.com for more episodes. While you're there, you can also take the hero's quiz to find out what kind of hero you are, or if you have a great story and want to be on the podcast, tell us why your hero's journey will inspire others. Thank you for listening. See you on the other side.