Ask Jim Anything #3

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Ask Jim Anything. This is episode number three. I'm experimenting with the earphones in today because I want to make sure the audio is better. It's a little weird here myself, but let's go. So today I'm going to answer 10 questions. Today they were all submitted by me because I didn't do a good job at collecting guest questions or audience questions, but I'm going to get better in the future. And so if you have any questions or you have multiple questions, please let me know and I will do my best to answer them on the show. Two and a half minutes each per question and we'll give you the best, often off the top answer I can. Sometimes I'll think about them before the show, but often I'm trying to get better at responding to them in the moment. I think it's good practice for me, but I think it also tends to give you a more authentic response, at least a gut feeling response. So So yeah, and then afterwards I'll split these up into two and a half minute clips and you can listen to them or watch them on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, whatnot. And if you like what I'm doing, please go to jimcliver.com slash giving. The funding model I use for this is that I give stuff away to the public for free and the public decides to give me resources for free. No strings attached because we care about each other and we want each other to do well and we want to lift each other up and empower each other. So I'm going to end the intro and just jump right into it, because I don't need two and a half minutes for that. So here we go.

Question number one of 10. What do you think of Trump doing a deal with the UAE in Trump cryptocurrency?

So to be honest, I don't know too much about what happened today, partially because I read the article and I stopped. I felt so much anger and frustration and disappointment and helplessness that I think I kind of got overwhelmed and gave up reading the article. And, uh, the gist from my understanding is that there was a deal made not with directly with the government in, I think it was UAE. Um, but through someone who is state sponsored for the government, doing a deal with Binance using Trump cryptocurrency, Trump cryptocurrency.

And I believe one of his kids was there. One of his sons was actually at this meeting, public meeting, I believe.

I don't... Okay, let me say it very strongly. I don't believe that the president of the United States should be undermining the U.S. Dollar by selling his own private cryptocurrency. I think it is one of the most cash-grabbing, grifting, look at me, I use golden toilets, I want to be a king, emperor, like puffing out of one's chest that I have seen in a very long time. I don't want a country that's run by a currency or a world run by a currency by a man, by a single dude who frankly doesn't know what the heck he's doing with currencies or most economics. You can tell I feel very frustrated and very angry because it is one of the most fundamental things that a government does is to manage one's currency. I am okay if the world wants to go towards a global currency. I think it might be good to not have to do all these exchange fees, but I really don't think that should be governed by a single man or even just a man's likeness. Can we please can we please get global cooperation to actually solve problems instead of just perpetuating this strong man puff out my chest i think i know how to solve problem things. I am just i'm so frustrated by it and it just seems i i don't know how anyone else could have a different reaction but i'm curious to hear other reactions next question fiery why do you think giving money to individuals will become more important.

I had a conversation with a mentor today and he kept saying, form a non-profit organization, form a non-profit organization. I don't know why you're so adamant, so stubborn about doing this as an individual.

And I think it's one of the main reasons, I mean there's many, one of the main reasons is that I believe, the pace of change is accelerating, especially with AI and robotics, and that people may lose their jobs very quickly, and lots of people may lose them. And if that happens, I mean, Yuval Noah Harari has talked about this. Andrew Yang has talked about this. I mean, many people have talked about it. And if it happens, can people retrain fast enough to get the job. Is there actually an incentive for companies to create jobs or do companies want to create profit? And if companies want to create profit, do they want to create human jobs? Maybe they want to create robot jobs or AI jobs or agentic jobs, if you use the current AI terms, but human jobs. So what happens when people don't have the skills that are needed to. Do we just forget about them? You can say, okay, maybe a job, like I described, is to have something to do and a way to receive money or resources. So maybe you could say, oh, people still have hobbies and things to do. That's great, but people need a way to receive resources.

And I'm pushing on this so hard, part of that because of that reason. And the other part is because I think individuals fundamentally can be more risk taking, can be more innovative and can come up with new things that the majority of society would say, no, that's stupid or that'll never work. Or you're pushing against, you know, don't even recognize that it's a worthy thing to fight for, fight against. Don't even recognize it's a fight.

And so I think there's a huge power in investing in individuals and giving to individuals because at the end of the day we are individuals in a collective, and how we interact with each other is giving and receiving and I think it's okay to give unconditionally with no strings attached to people in our lives whether that's attention or money or other resources, next question question number three whom do you hate i had a friend once ask me he's like i don't even it's not so much that you don't hate people it's like do you not even dislike anyone.

And i want to make a clarification i don't think there's anyone i hate i don't think there's anyone really that i dislike now there are plenty of behaviors that i hate there are plenty of behaviors that I dislike.

Behaviors, when I say hatred, they make me very angry, they make me very frustrated, very helpless, very riled up, afraid. Same thing when it comes to dislike, maybe to a lesser degree. And I try to echo what Martin Luther King Jr. talked about in his speech, Loving Your Enemies. And he says, you know, when I say loving your I'm not talking about, I mean, loving who they are, their good intentions, their good will. There's plenty of people who talk to me. I don't like how they talk to me. I don't like how they treat me. I don't like how they behave with me, but it's about believing in their redemptive good will. And so when it comes to whom do I hate.

I think there's no particular... I don't even hate Trump. I don't hate Putin. I don't hate, men who have broken up my relationships with women. I don't hate women who have broken up with me. I don't hate my parents. I don't hate, the typical targets of hate. I don't hate terrorists. I don't hate... I don't hate... I sure don't want to hate. Sometimes I get thrown into a loop where I noticed the other day I was going down a deep dark spiral and the spiral was like me being so filled with hatred and anger towards other people. But I feel really lucky that I was able to jump out of it, that I, recognized that I was focusing more on the ideal state where I want people to be and seeing how they weren't even, in my opinion, close to it in terms of their behaviors. And then what got me out of it was seeing their context and going, ah, man, they're just being beaten. They're getting hit from all angles. It's really hard to expect them to be an Olympic athlete when they have bullets, emotional bullets flying at their head. So I don't think I really hate anyone. At least not long term.

Okay, question number four. Whom do you love?

This one can be a trickier question, I think. I talked to a guy yesterday. I met him at the Mexican restaurant. And we just talked for maybe an hour. Talking, talking, talking about ideas here, ideas there. And he said he wanted to do something bringing people together, having them learn about each other's music, play games together, really just bond and not talk about the politics, not talking about the other things. And he said one of the reasons why it was because it could be, you know, you can't really get in trouble for doing something like that. You know, it's not really illegal or it's hard for people to hate on doing that. But I think it's actually very easy for people to hate on showing love towards each other, especially showing love towards someone else that one should not show love to. That could be a specific individual. If you're in a romantic relationship, often that could be a whole gender.

If you are in a specific religious group or a national group or an ethnic group it can be showing love to someone in the opposite group or in your rival or enemy group, it could just be in a one-on-one it's like when two of your friends are fighting and you show love to both of them that can cause problems on both sides oh you care about them you don't care about me, So I struggle sometimes answering this question because I think I love everyone. Does that mean I want to marry everyone? No. But do I have kind of a deep love, a deep respect of one's humanity that people are trying their best and struggling in this world and to see people's good intentions? I fight so hard to get there. Like I said, sometimes I slip out of it, but this answer can be more controversial for people than the hate answer.

Because we can get jealous. We can get scared that the person's going to leave us. And more than anything, we can... I wonder if it's that we feel embarrassed or ashamed that if somebody we care about loves somebody that we hate, then it's like we recognize that we're the ones filled with hatred, and that we can't get over it. I don't know. I don't know what the root of it is. I just know that often there's, a desire for people that we love to not love other people, and I don't play very well with that desire. Okay, question five of ten. What do you miss about childhood? Sports.

Sports. I played a lot of sports as a kid, probably from like age five, officially organized sports like age 5 to 18, most of the sports. Football, soccer, you know, European football, basketball, baseball, hockey, tennis, ran track for a season. I just miss being so athletic. I did a little bit of Krav Maga in my late 20s, I think.

I just miss that feeling of being athletic and being involved in the competition. And I recognized it the other day. I went up to a sports store that's in my old town. It's a soccer store. I have not been in the store probably since I was 15. No, not even 15. Probably since I was like 10. I used to go there and buy goalie gloves because I used to play goalie back in the day. And I think it might be the same guy running it. I don't know. I went in and had a conversation with him. I saw that there were German in soccer, football jerseys.

Yeah, we were talking about shoes and how soccer cleats no longer are made of leather. He says only Adidas makes them out of leather. Everything else is synthetic. Just interesting to see how the times have changed but haven't changed at all. Like this juxtaposition of something that, is the same since I was a kid, and yet feels so different as well. Maybe that's just a reflection on childhood, too, that some aspects of our childhood and our lives maintain the same, you know, remain the same, rather. And some things feel so different. It's like we're straddling two different worlds at the same time, constantly, like, not knowing who we are, but knowing who we are, but not knowing who we are.

I, yeah, like I laugh, okay, so I'm going to go get back into soccer now, am I really? Even the guy there, he's like, you know, these kids, they're wearing through their shoes and the leather you can see kind of, it's all faded out. He says, me, I don't do that anymore, you know, my body can't handle it. I said, oh man, can my body handle it? I know LeBron James is still playing at my age, but I'm no LeBron James. I suppose I can get back in shape, right? Next question.

Question 6 of 10 what do you wish people knew about your work over the last 13 years.

That even though I am not constantly showing it in the public I've been working so damn hard on this stuff I think it's so easy to think that if somebody is not, having success or having publicity that they're not working hard or if somebody's not sitting behind a computer for eight hours a day or 12 hours a day or if they're not in a restaurant or in a factory, if they're not, it doesn't look like they're doing work, then they're not doing work. And part of me is just fighting against this culture that we have in the U.S. Especially, but other parts of the world where it's like, disrespectful to be lazy. In other words, it's disrespectful to not be working hard, and working hard is such a celebrated value.

And for me, maybe it's different than, I think it's different than other people. Even when it looks like I'm not working, if I'm doing some type of escape, I'm still thinking about work. I'm still trying to connect the dots and see how that might help with work, but I'm seeing how work might help with life. I'm seeing how all these things might swirl together and improve my living situation.

And yeah, so I think maybe it's that I've been thinking and working on this stuff a lot more than people may realize, and that even things that look like distractions to me are often, or like to you are often ways for me to try to figure out how to improve what I'm doing for myself and for other people.

Yeah, because it really riles me up when people are like, oh, but you don't do any work, you're so lazy, all you do is sleep. And they're like, really? Are you serious? Like, I go to the bar, what do I do at the bar? I talk about work. Because work is emotion. Work and life, the balance, like, they blend together for me. And so, yeah, there's this frustration when people... But at the same time, I imagine maybe they just want to see more of my work, they want to see more of me, they're sad that I'm not sharing more with them. It's not that I'm, they don't think I'm doing it. Maybe it's just that I'm not sharing. Oops, time ran out. So maybe it's just the not sharing aspect.

Question seven of 10. Who is one surprising guest you'd like to have on your podcast?

I thought about it the other day and I almost want to have somebody on the podcast where the conversation is, like where most people might think that the conversation was bad. Or maybe they were overrunning me. Where they won't let me speak at all and they're just controlling the whole conversation and talking about conspiracies and talking about hatred and how the world's out to get us. Or maybe it's where people aren't talking at all and it's just silence and I keep trying to pull teeth to get them to say anything and it's just one of those awkward interactions.

I think I want to have one of those people on the show just because I think we need to recognize that it's okay to be uncomfortable and natural on the internet. That we don't have to polish everything and edit everything and cut out all the ums and the ahs and the human moments. The irony is that AI is trying to get better at these human moments. Because when AI does not say, uh, ah, hmm, then we think it's a robot. And yet we are trying to become more like robots and cut out all of these human missteps, missteps, see, the little giggles and everything.

And so I think that's who I'd like, you know, that's somebody I'd like to have a show on. I think why it might be a surprise is that we, I think, often expect guests to be charismatic.

We expect guests to be agreeable. We expect guests to have an expertise, to be well-known.

Part of me just wants to have, like, some random person that the conversation's not that good.

But it's real. it's real and it shows two people trying to have a conversation and not necessarily succeeding but also not giving up so in a way succeeding because the conversation still happens whereas I think sometimes giving up is a thing that really kills and makes a conversation a loss because then we lose the conversation next question.

Question number eight fashionable or functional which do you tend to choose hey man i am almost always functional hey i don't know if it's the engineering background in me or if it's because i don't know like i had some trouble with my feet before and i switched to these barefoot shoes and i love them at first it was the barefoot running shoes the toe shoes so, You know, the shoes look like, you can see all five fingers, they're literally called five fingers.

Yeah, they're not the most fashionable, but they're very functional. They feel comfortable. And I think it's not just my style, right? You know, if I'm wearing shoes or if I'm wearing a shirt or jeans, I often try to go for function. Not just comfort, but function, whether it's got zippable pockets and things like this, over how it looks. And I know a lot of people don't. I think a lot of people actually choose fashion over function.

And part of me appreciates that it admires that a part of me gets really annoyed by that it's like why would you wear those shoes they're going to hurt your feet oh and you now have problems with your feet but you're still wearing those shoes that makes no sense to me at all.

But I don't think it's just with fashion clothing I think it's also with websites or Instagram video quality. My last video did not have very good quality. And I know people are like, dude, you got to improve the quality. You need better lighting. You need better sound. You need better this. Part of that's function, right? I think at some point, the high levels of design, the high levels of fashion also blend with functionality, at least in my opinion. Something I was reading that said that like some of the best designed things we never even notice because they're so well designed the handle of a hammer or a kitchen utensil, so well designed that we don't even notice it, so yeah I mean I definitely do the function is probably front and center for me but I'm trying to get better at blending the two and not just giving up on function so if you have suggestions on how to make these instagram videos are these shorts prettier and more fashionable please let me know um functional i yes if you have suggestions i'd like that too but uh i feel pretty confident in that sphere, Question 9 of 10. Ooh, these are long. Do you guys like these 10 questions? It's question 9 of 10. What is it like being a white man in Africa? Oh.

I tell people it's kind of like being a celebrity. Like a nameless celebrity. It's almost like the story I'd say. It's like me walking down the street. It's like everyone sees me and goes, Oh, hi, Brad Pitt. How are you, Brad Pitt? Oh, nice to meet you, Brad Pitt. And then I go, but I don't think I'm Brad Pitt. But it's like maybe tom hanks or it's like being a very famous celebrity where people assume often assume that i have a lot of money and i have a lot of fame and connections and, and uh that brings the you know the minuses and the pluses and the minuses being people often want to ask me for money people often get angry if i don't give them money people um often ask me for jobs overseas in the U.S., like I can just snap my fingers and get them a work visa.

People assume that maybe I think I'm better than them. People assume maybe I don't care about them or want to talk to them. So maybe those are some of the minuses. Some of the pluses obviously are very related. It's like I get more access to opportunities.

It's almost like I'm given more trust than I deserve. I remember when I lived in Tanzania, they put me on some business plan competition judging. I was like, I shouldn't be judging this. I'm 21, 23. Why am I a judge for this businessman competition? Oh, you're American. Okay. So, um.

Because of wealth disparity, it's going there just as an American. Yeah. We tend to have more money. Um, and so there's also access to certain groups that tend to be more cosmopolitan. And often those ones or the upper classes in these countries, just because a lot of times the wealth, like the income distribution is not very equal, so there's not often a middle class, there's like a poor, a lot of people who are relatively or severely poor, and then a small, very wealthy class that often has more money than a lot of people in the U.S. And other places, so yeah, it's just it's like being a celebrity with all the pluses and minuses of that, celebrity without a name that people know so, let's go to the next one.

If my little dingy works, it doesn't work okay, voila oops.

My clock has run out. Everything's failing on me now. Look at me now. Okay, we'll just do this one quick. Question 10 of 10. What is it like being a white man in the U.S.? Hey, I mean, just simultaneously nothing special, but also kind of that, not the celebrity, but kind of looked up to in some way, but it's also nothing special. And it also depends so much on one's socioeconomic background and where they live. thin. I mean, a white person in a rich suburb is different than a white person in a poor urban area or poor rural area. A white person who has an academic college background is different than someone who has a trades background or a retail background or different types of jobs that way or factory background. Um, so yeah, it's a mix. I think it's much more clear cut when I go overseas. Um, whereas here, especially overseas to Africa, whereas here, I think it's more mixed. Um, yeah.

People say that there's like a lot of white privilege in the U.S., and it's like, they've never been to Africa. You know how much white privilege there is in Africa? Hey, we're seen like celebrities often, whereas it's not that extreme here. It's, yeah, there's definitely, it definitely exists. I really just don't think it's as sharp of a distinction as it is in Africa, or maybe Latin America, or Asia, some other parts of the world, Whereas here in the US, it's more subtle, it's more...

I don't really know. This is something I'd want to think about and talk about a little more. Because me talking about being a white man in Africa, I feel more confident and comfortable. I feel a little more afraid talking about being a white man in America, to be honest.

It's like... Maybe since the gap is not so big, there's more kind of a tussling and kind of a fighting back and forth. There's definitely still a gap being there, but not as dramatic.

Huh yeah I don't know so I'm going to end on that one I don't know how long this was the clock ended and everything's failing, reflection let me just do a minute or two what is coming up for you right now, it's a lot to answer 30 minutes of questions non-stop once like 25 minutes whatever.

It's a lot Especially if people aren't interacting with me, especially if I'm asking myself all the questions, it feels maybe helpful in some way. It feels a bit lonely, I almost want other people to ask the questions. I don't know why my accent started to become a bit more Irish, or at least what I assume to be Irish.

Yeah, I wish I want people to ask questions Please ask me questions If you like this format The format, you know Actually I'm starting to get some doubt To be honest I'm starting to feel a little bit of doubt Whether this format is something That I should do every day Or whether people would enjoy it, Whether it's satisfying a need For people to hear And then I get some frustration of Why do I care so much if people hear it? Because, I don't know. Yeah, maybe it's helping me to reflect and I appreciate it. But I like interacting with other people. I like having conversations. Just conversations with myself? Nah. I can sit in a forest and do that and go crazy. I like interacting with other people. So, yeah, if you have any questions, even personal conflicts that you're going through, or any sort of challenge or curiosity or about me or about life especially, I'd love to help. So please, that's kind of the conclusion of, yeah, it feels maybe longer when I'm asking myself the questions and also maybe just the uncertainty of like, well, do people want to hear me ask myself questions or are they curious to hear what other people are asking me? Um, so yeah, not knowing if people are want to listen or watch this one, but might as well just be really doubtful and upfront, right? Or at least really upfront about the doubt. Anyways, I am going to finish the episode now and, uh, would love to hear your feedback. I would love to hear your questions. Uh, would love to hear your comments. Uh, would love to start a conversation with you. So if you're interested, please, uh, check out jimcliver.com, uh, slash show to listen to more of these episodes. Also go to jimcliver.com slash giving to give not just money, but there's non-financial ways. So you can contact me through there, send me questions and things like that. So, all right. Take care, y'all.