I Forgot I Had Free Will

Richard Lowe: Hello, this is Richard Lowe with Leaders and Their Stories podcast. I’m the owner of the Writing King and a ghostwriter, and I’m here with Georgie-Ann Getton, and she’s an organizational systems architect. She’s currently the CEO of GSD Solutions, a mom of two, and a multimedia personality who creates contents and gives professional talks. Her work spans a 12 and a half year career in the New York tech space, specializing in operations, innovations, and business. Her work teaches how to leverage psychology and technology to be more productive in life and business.

She sits on the New York Tech Alliance, Black Podcasting Awards, and Caribbean in Tech and Enterprise Boards, and supports various other initiatives that foster innovation and inclusivity, not exclusivity, within communities. Thank you and welcome to the show.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Thank you so much, Richard. I’m so happy to be here.

Richard Lowe: It’s going to be a fun show. We talked beforehand and you had a few things to say and I think we’ll have a good time. So you said to leverage psychology and technology to be more productive in life. How does that work?

Georgie-Ann Getton: I guess that’s just a long way of saying mindset, right? Psychology just ties into how we think because 99% of our actions is determined by how we think, the things that we choose to do or not choose to do, or the stories that we tell ourselves. And if you don’t tell yourself the right story, that could be stopping you more than any tool can ever stop you. So if you have the psychology, the mindset, telling yourself the right story, then you have the tools at your disposal, whether that be the internet, a camera, a mic, a pen, a pencil, a notepad, right?

Then you can leverage those tools. And with technology, we’ve gotten so advanced that if you have the right mindset, if you have a vision, a dream, and the story that you’re telling yourself makes sense, you could bring that thing to life without needing even another person directly there supporting you. don’t even need hundreds of thousands of dollars the way you did in the past. So with the right psychology and the right technology. the world is your canvas. Like you have so many opportunities out there, but many people don’t think of it that way.

So I’m like, hey, here’s the technology. Here’s how you use it. Hey, here’s some, you know, psychological things, some neurological things, some ways to improve your mindset so you have the right thinking and be able to combine those to truly improve your quality of life and the outcomes that you want in your own life.

Richard Lowe: I see. And I assume you’re talking about people who are rational, not having um you know they’re not they’re not the insane or the or people who have these dreams that are so far beyond reality that I think it’s more of um what I’m hearing is you can have or what maybe I’m reading this into it you can have all all the dreams you want but if you don’t actually do something it’s not going to come true 100% 100% so.

Georgie-Ann Getton: That’s, one of my first brands was called GSD, which stands for Get Sugar Honey Iced Tea Done. And I still use the acronym to this day because GSD Solutions, but now it’s Get and Strategic Development. And we refer to that as Get Systems Done, right? But if you don’t take action towards these things, if you don’t say, hey, I believe that I can, I have the tools in front of me, I’m going to combine those things and take some action, then all those dreams, all those ideas are meaningless, right?

I remember somebody said like ideas are like a dime, less than even a dime a dozen because everyone has ideas. And when we think of history and see things like how the TV was invented by two different people, many different people were working on a version of the airplane, but it all depends on who’s gonna actually go out there, stick to their guns, work hard, use their mindset, right, the psychology, and use the technology, whatever tools they have at that moment to truly build this and bring it to life.

So that’s really what differentiates, you know, the people, and this could be rational people or truly irrational, like the delusional folks that are just like, listen, I’m gonna figure it out. I’m just gonna, I’m gonna make a path where I see none, but you have to take action on it.

Richard Lowe: Yeah, and I think sometimes the You have to have the right goal. When I left home, my goal was, well, I’m always going to make enough money to get by. I’m going to get by well, so I’m never going to be wanting and I’ll have a good job and blah, blah, blah. And just last year I realized, wait a minute, I would always have enough to get by. Doesn’t mean that I’ll have a surplus. And then I reset a new goal.

Okay, I want to actually have more money coming in, more income, more relationships, more podcast episodes and stuff like that. I don’t want to just get by.

Richard Lowe: Even though getting by was pretty good.

Richard Lowe: It wasn’t really what I wanted. It was just a goal that I set when I was a teenager.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Yeah. And that’s, I feel like that happens to a lot of us, right? We set these goals, especially when we’re young, you know, and we don’t realize, I think, I experienced this as well. When you’re really young again, teenage years, you think like, I’m gonna take over, like I’m on top of the world. I’m so smart. I know everything. You know, I have a teenage son right now. He’s in that mode. Like, I’m so smart. I know everything. It’s like, this is what I’m gonna do.

This is what I’m gonna be when I grow up and how I wanna live my life. And we set these goals and we dig them so deep into our mind that over time, we may achieve those goals. We may no longer have interest in those things, or we want more. But for some reason, we don’t adjust the goalpost to wanting that more or honor that wanting more. And you know, what you just mentioned and like the language that we use around our goals is very, very essential.

I forgot where I heard it maybe like five, six years ago, someone was saying, you know, when they set goals, they put instead of saying, I want to let’s say like money wise, I want to make $10,000 a month like that. Instead of saying I want to make $10,000 a month, say I want to make at least right? So that way that’s the floor and you kind of manifest. I know that gets a little bit into like all that heebie jeebie, but it’s like you want to manifest like this is the floor, not the ceiling.

Because if you look at it as the ceiling, when you get there, you’re like, I want more. it then kind of requires a lot more effort from your brain and body to sync up your mind. Yeah, everything. It was like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But if you say at least, then you’re like, I’m trying to hit, I do want to hit that. But wherever it takes me beyond that, I am welcoming that into my life. That’s where I want to go.

And whatever effort I have to push out, right, you will do that because you’re like, oh, the at least that’s great. And so anything above that, like you’re excited, you’re happy, you have the momentum to go after it.

Richard Lowe: Also, I think it’s important to remake those goals and objectives through your life as you get older, they may change. I had a goal earlier of climbing a couple of mountains. Well, I’m not in the physical shape that I was. Those goals need to go. I’m not going to be climbing a mountain. at all. I never did.

Georgie-Ann Getton: I did a lot of hiking. I was like, oh, what’s that like?

Richard Lowe: I did a lot of hiking, a lot of walking, a lot of, I mean, miles and miles and miles and miles, but I never actually took on. I wanted to climb Mount San Gorgonio, which is a mountain in California, and it’s not that big, but it was a challenge for me at the time, and I never got around to it. And I guess that’s bucket lists are important, but you actually have to have a half of a bucket and so forth. As a psychologist, something that I think you’re like, you said you’re a psychologist.

Georgie-Ann Getton: So I’m not a psychologist. So I don’t want to claim that term. I’m a person that studied psychology. So I did my master’s in organizational psychology and I’m obsessed with learning psychology, but not there yet. Maybe in another three years when we do another interview, three to six years, if I go back, We’ll do that.

Richard Lowe: Okay. I think it’s also important when you’ve got your goals and objectives to not have, this is something I write about and talk about with writing all the time. You need to get rid of the toxic people in your life. And it doesn’t matter who they are. They could be family, they could be close friends, they could be enemies, obvious enemies, they could be obvious friends. You need to look at each one objectively. and get rid of those toxic people. And if you don’t, then you’ve decided to put up with your life being chaotic and you’re having bad things happen to you.

Dump them. And sometimes that can be really hard. Could be somebody really close to you. I got rid of a friend who for 47 years and realized, oh, this person’s toxic. And life immediately the next day improved. It was night and day. and creative energy came back and life changed. So I think that’s also important to meeting goals and objectives. I thought I’d bring that up.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Yeah, and you, in your example, you refer to like toxic people. And I think there’s also toxic habits, toxic behaviors, just things that we do. And there are, they’re the ones, there are ones that people know, like, oh, you know, smoking is bad for you, right? Drugs is bad. Like those, the big ones, like the big heavy ones. But things like not going to bed on time. That could really ruin you.

Richard Lowe: I never do that. I never do that.

Georgie-Ann Getton: You know, not eating the proper meals every day, right? So there’s a lot of things that we do when we don’t think they’re a big deal. But when we really take a step back, how much is this helping me or harming me? Saying yes to things that you really don’t want to do, but you’re like, oh, you know, I’ve always done this, or I need this extra bit of money in this case scenario. And what ends up happening is that we keep ourselves in these loops and we end up blaming outside factors.

If I had done this when I was this age or if I had said no to that person, but we have to take control of our lives and I feel like I’m guilty of this as well. We don’t do that enough. It’s just so much easier to blame somebody else for what’s happening to us instead of saying, hey, I could literally change every single thing about my life right now, right here, right now. But we also have to accept the pain that’s going to cause.

It’s going to be a griefing period. It’s going to cause pain. And at the other side of that pain is growth, right? Literally is growing pains. But we don’t want to go through that pain for the, I’m making it rhyme, the game at the other side, which is kind of what I try to talk about a lot. And I have not only reinvented, I have purposely put myself in situations that have caused pain. And every single time I think I’m like, oh, this is the end of me.

There is like, this is it. Take the wheel. At the other side, I’m so much better for it. And you look back at it into like the whole scope of everything. And that pain was like this small for the gain and the opportunity and the income or whatever you wanted at the other side to be this big. And then that pain is just this much. You’re like, okay, I I think I’m okay with F. I need to go through another pain period because the gain is just so worth it, you know?

Richard Lowe: Not to say you should live in pain your entire life.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Yeah, no, no, no. Yeah, but pain is a part of life, right? Like not to say to live in it, but once we accept it as a part of life, right? Everything in life is hard. We’re gonna have cycles. Pain is a part of it. I think we’re then more open to going through it for the outcome instead of just because you’re sitting in pain if you’re still with a toxic person, you’re sitting in pain if you’re with a toxic habits and behaviors, but it’s just like, it’s chopped up.

It’s like a little bit each day versus a lot for like 10 days to then like have even way less for two, three, 4, five years, you know?

Richard Lowe: Right. One thing that’s important before you throw a toxic person out of your life is you need to look at yourself and figure out if you’re the toxic person. Because that could be very true. You could be causing.

Georgie-Ann Getton: No one wants to do that one. And that one is hard.

Richard Lowe: That one’s hard, but you could be the one causing, you could be making little carping comments. I was very sarcastic as I was growing up. I know that’s hard to believe now. And I used to cause all kinds of problems for myself because people don’t like it. when you get really into the biting side of sarcasm. Finally, I’m kind of humorously sarcastic now, but I’m not, I don’t get into the biting comments anymore because that makes me toxic. And I don’t like being the one who’s, I didn’t like looking at myself going, oh, I’m the one who’s toxic in this relationship.

I just knocked that off. And it changed A lot. There’s a guy named Larry Winget. He wrote a book, People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It. And several other books.

Georgie-Ann Getton: I like that title. I love the title.

Richard Lowe: He’s a he’s retired now, but he was a coach. And that book is one of the it’s a fast read and it’s one of the best ones that I’ve ever read. But you do have to have a strong personality to read it because he’s he comes at you. It’s like you’re an idiot if you smoke because right on the package it says this will kill you.

Richard Lowe: So why would you do that? You know, if you drink and drive, you’re an idiot. How hard is it to give the keys to somebody else? And he goes through a whole bunch of stuff and he has solutions for it all too. So it’s not just banging on you. And it is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read. I would actually recommend it to anybody. It’s, I don’t know if it’s still, yeah, it’s still in print and it’s on Amazon.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Yeah, Amazon got everything.

Richard Lowe: It’s got everything. Too much sometimes.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Literally too much. I’ll write that down. You said people are idiots and I can prove it.

Richard Lowe: Yes. He’s done a bunch of other books. You know, Grow a Pair is one of them, and I forget the others. And there’s one about jobs. And they’re all pretty good. They’re all pretty fast. They don’t go deep. They’re like a lot of books like that. They’re kind of surfacey. But even if you just take some of the advice, like find out the places in your life where you’re being an idiot and fix it. And they’re really easy to spot. Yeah, you know, drinking two bottles of booze every day, you’re probably being an idiot, you know, because you’re hurting everything in your body, not eating right.

You’re probably being an idiot, you know, how hard is it to eat right? And so forth. So it’s a good book. And it fits right along with what you’ve been saying, that being an idiot with your life is not a way to meet your goals. Having toxic people is not a way to meet your goals. Sorry.

Georgie-Ann Getton: No, yeah, I’m sorry to cut you off as well. I think it’s just because, and I think it’s getting worse. That’s really what I want to say. I think this concept of being an idiot is unfortunately getting worse. And I know we were discussing a little bit about AI earlier, and it’s not because of AI that I think people are becoming an idiot. It’s more of like people’s expectations around the technological tools that we have at our disposal, whether that be Amazon two day shipping, now one day or even same day, depending on the products that you’re ordering, the fact that everything is just made available folks are losing curiosity, right?

And I think, and curiosity, critical thinking and pushing back. And that’s what I think tie into the whole theme of being an idiot, right? Like you said, you read the cigarette box or are you closing your eyes and then just opening the thing and just like taking it quickly into avoid seeing this? And where else in your life are you doing that same thing, closing your eyes, right? You’re using the AI, you’re closing your eyes and just saying, oh yeah, it’s sped out like a 40 page thing.

So it has to be good. why aren’t we questioning more? Why aren’t we pushing back and saying, do I actually want to do this? Does this feel good in the moment? Or will it feel good 5 minutes from now, 10 minutes, you know, a year from now? And what type of life do I want to live? Going back to what we were talking about earlier with these goals. And if you’re saying, okay, I want to live a long, prosperous life. I want to climb that mountain.

Maybe a pack a day is not the best idea here. But your actions are directly conflicting with what your outcomes and your goals are. If you’re using AI and only taking it at face value and not adjusting, building, being curious with it, but you want to be, the best engineer, the best business owner, the best whatever, you don’t even understand the thing that it’s even giving you back. So even if you read half of what it was spitting back out to you and comprehended it, you would be better than just a prompt response prompt solution, spit it out, send it out to ethos.

So when are we going to really take accountability for the actions that we’re taking, the goals that we’re setting, and the things that we are doing, and then the things that we’re not doing. And I think that’s really why it’s getting worse with the AIs, because people are just saying, oh, I don’t have to take any ownership anymore. I don’t have to be the one steering the ship of my life. I’ll just kind of go wherever it flows, wherever the ocean takes me.

Richard Lowe: That’s one of the dangers of AI is you see, you possibly, if you don’t, if you use it wrong, concede some of your responsibility to it. Yeah. The AI said this, it must be true. It’s the same problem we have on the internet. Well, the internet said this, it must be true. I like having a person where I can talk to them, and we can have disagreements and talk them out like human beings.

Well, he he and I got into some disagreements, and I asked him where he got his information from, because We were talking about a court case and I actually went, which he disagreed with. And I actually went to the transcripts and read all the transcripts, read the judges stuff and stuff. Like, okay, I understand why they came to the decision they came to. Don’t necessarily agree with it, but I understand why they came to it because I’ve read all the transcripts and listened to the, watched the testimony, you know, and all that kind of stuff.

And I asked him where he got his information from and he got it from some website. That said, that told him what to say. It’s like, well, dude, then how is your opinion valid? Why would I even trust you? It’s not your words, it’s somebody else’s words. So that’s something that’s important. And I say that, yeah, it’s okay for everybody to have differing opinions.

It’s the person really. It’s not their race or their religion or anything else. It’s the person. I actually have a book that are just published recently called Everybody’s Prejudiced. And everybody has prejudice. That’s just no, I mean, we come from a tribal background when you when you reach back. Family is the smallest. tribe and then tribes grow and that’s how they were safe back then. Well, now that we’re more advanced, hopefully, and have more advanced civilizations, perhaps we should not be so tribal and think that, hey, what I like to judge is people on their actions.

If somebody acts well, then I treat them well. If somebody acts like a jerk, guess how they’re going to get treated, you know? And I’ve been watching Karen videos lately on YouTube because they’re very entertaining watching these people who turn a taillight, you know, taillight broken into going to jail for 90 days because they’re just stupid. And it’s just interesting watching them dig their own hole and then cover the ground over them. All you needed to do was speak nicely to the cop.

You may not like cops. You may hate cops. Who cares? The police officer’s there. He has a gun and he’s licensed to use it. That’s an important fact. He could shoot you. So maybe you should be nice to him.

Georgie-Ann Getton: And I want to add on to something that you said earlier in regards to just like the additional research and digging deep that people do. everyone has their own opinions. And I feel like everyone is a combination of percentages, right? whether it be like, you said, gender, race, political standpoint, like it’s all like a, what’s it called? Like a sliding scale or like spectrum, if you want to call it that. Where it’s like, you might be 30% this, more 60, 70% that.

And when we come to like, but for me, similar to what you said, it’s about the person And if you can have a discussion where you’ve done the work to find additional information, whether it is to support or disagree with the argument, I then have more respect for that person. And so in the example, you said the person that you were talking to was like, yeah, I saw it on this random blog versus you wear the transcripts and you watched the testimony.

I actually, literally this morning before this interview, I had a golden kiwi. And I don’t know if you’ve eaten them or you’re familiar, but growing up the whole time, kiwis were green on the inside. So it was in the last like couple years, I’ve seen this like whole golden kiwi thing. And I’m like, oh, you know, at first I was like, I don’t want to eat nothing that’s like super modified. And I thought about like everything’s modified, whatever. So I was like, you know, let me give it a try.

So I had them. I was like, this is a delicious fruit. So I bought some today recently and I had one today and I thought to myself, I was like, how did they make this? Who invented this? And that curiosity, I went to Google, started looking it up, started looking into how did, you know, who invented Golden Kiwi. That was my search. And it gave me the information. It was like found, you know, created in New Zealand. There’s some like naturally found ones in, what’s it called?

China. So I’m knowing all these facts, but that took me about 5 minutes or less to do that additional research. You know, I’m clicking through a few different links. I didn’t just look, rely on what the, what is it called? The Google AI analysis at the top. I wanted to find out more information for my own purpose. And I didn’t need to go write a report on how golden kiwis came about. But I wanted that knowledge for myself. I was seeking that information in the event that, you know, I wanted to offer somebody, you know, because I know my original argument for not eating the golden kiwi earlier is that I thought like, you know, it was like some terribly genetically modified, like this is bad for you.

Like that was my, uneducated or, ignorant perspective on it. Once I tried it and I’m like, the deliciousness beats whatever thought I had before, but I still wanted some more facts to support like, how did this come along? You know, what was the journey? Is it like super modified or not? Like, is it more modified than anything else that I’m eating already, you know, in America? So I wanted that additional information in the event. I offered a golden kiwi to somebody.

Then now we can have a discussion and I had facts to support it versus like, oh, it tastes really good. While that’s my opinion, if they wanted additional information, I could provide it to them. And I think that’s what’s missing. Curiosity, information seeking and knowledge obtaining. So you could form your own educated opinion on a subject, whether it be golden kiwis or, you know, the court case that you mentioned. And we’re not doing that enough. Where is the curiosity to say, I want to have my own thought, own opinion, even if it disagrees with what the general consensus is.

And I think it’s because of the, I love social media for what it, you know, the connectivity, but like you said, the tribal aspect of if one person that matches one or two of my traits agrees to this thing, I must also share that same opinion. And it’s like, If you share that same opinion because you’ve come to the same conclusion, totally fine with me. If you share that opinion only because you should share that opinion, now we have a gripe because why aren’t you doing the work to challenge your own assumptions, your own, like you said, everyone is prejudiced.

You have these unconscious biases, you have these subconscious thoughts and things that, you know, based on your nurture, your nature, right? How the group you’re born, now your tribe, now your nurture, how you were brought up, and what experiences you saw, how you lived your life, did you travel? Like every single moment from the day you were born till now has impacted the lens in which you look through at the world. So why don’t we consider respect that and give ourselves a chance to form our own opinions in a stronger way.

And with AI doing everything else, you could be forming your opinion while it’s coding whatever website you need. So, you know, like we have more opportunity to study and increase your knowledge and be curious, YouTube University, all the things, even if you are watching different channels, but at least build it up on your own and not just, oh yeah, they said it automatic, challenge like that assumption, challenge that thought.

Richard Lowe: That’s one of the problems is first of all, social media, you have the dopamine effect. So you get 1000 likes or a million likes on your video. Oh, boy, I’m good. But typically, that doesn’t translate to any real world benefit. It’s just you got a bunch of likes. Whoop de doo. You got a bunch of comments. In marketing, that’s considered, who cares? It didn’t translate to somebody making a purchase.

Richard Lowe: It didn’t convert. So the likes and stuff are irrelevant to you living and they’re very short lived. The dopamine effect doesn’t last very long. Usually it’s minutes or hours, depending on what happened. Could be days, but it’s gone. And that’s one of the main problems with social media is you, oh, you want those likes you want. So you’re going to do goofy things in the mall and maybe something gets you arrested and that’s just dumb. I mean, you’re just getting a like and why are you doing that?

And then the false information part, I mean, there are. foreign actors, other countries that purposely use the internet to put in false information. Why? Because it’s a cheap form of warfare. It’s super cheap. Hire a bunch of geeks, you know, kids for buy them pizza and give them a few hundred bucks and they’ll put out whatever you want. And that happens all the time. They’ve affected elections. And generally when they affect elections, their goal is not to get a person elected. Their goal is just to put chaos in there.

Richard Lowe: It’s not the election they want. It’s the chaos. It’s the fight. It’s the people yelling at each other and screaming and stuff. Well, they got their wish and it weakened the United States and that was their goal. And it didn’t matter who was elected to them. That’s the interesting part. Did a lot of research. Actually, some of my books go into that a bit because I like geopolitics. I love the it’s not politics, it’s how geography forms politics. and it makes certain patterns that why countries act the way they do. Wonderful subject if you ever get into it. It’s awesome.

Georgie-Ann Getton: It’s like as you’re describing it, reminds it’s reminding me of how I feel about psychology, right? Like it’s like getting into the person’s head and not even like not realizing, but as I’ve studied psychology more, I’m now I was able to pick up on a lot of the triggers. And I think that’s what attracted me to psychology, right? A lot of the things that people didn’t know is I’m like, oh, that’s there because of this. That smells like that because they want you to feel like this.

And people are just like, what? do you mean? I’m like, you don’t realize like this whole place all these places that, you’re supposed to have like, be happy and spend extra money, they smell really good. So that way you’re calm and you want to spend extra money. Like why? So, yeah, and with that being said, it’s just like, there are so many little, considerably little things that make such a huge impact on what we do or don’t do and things that we’ve decided as social norms that aren’t really like a rule, but people follow them, right?

Like one example I could give real quick is like going up and down stairs, right? I go to Grand Central here in New York City all the time. And just in general, stairs, when you’re going up, it’s like, I don’t know if this was in a book somewhere, but it’s like when you’re going up the stairs, you’re on the right, and when you’re going down the stairs, you’re on the left. So if you’re going up the stairs and on the left, people look at you like, why aren’t you following the rules?

Or even the escalator. If you’re standing on the escalator, you stand on the right, but if you’re walking up the escalator, you have to keep the left clear. And now I’m saying that out loud, it reminds me of like traffic lanes. So maybe we just took whatever for traffic lanes. If you’re, it’s like a two-lane Rd. when you’re doing like Rd. trips, the right lane is where you drive, the left lane is like the passing, the fast lane, like, so maybe that’s a similar concept, but these societal things that we put in place as this is how we should operate or what we have to do.

and how somebody else would come into that ecosystem and say, no, this is how we, and if they have charisma, if they have enough leadership skills and an authoritarian vibe or even an authoritarian, like a leader look, people just start following whatever they’re doing just because they fit that bucket. And I’ll say one last example. So I was recently reading this book and I’m actually gonna show, so Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. And I think it’s in chapter 3, but one of the chapter, he talks about Warren Harding. So are you familiar with-?

Richard Lowe: That’s President Harding.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Yeah. And I’m not gonna lie. I don’t know all the presidents. I’m just gonna be honest.

Richard Lowe: I don’t got it memorized either. Don’t worry.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Yeah. And so what I, this is the first time I’ve heard of him and the way he describes it. So he’s pretty much talking about like how he became president. And it was like, you know, he was never into politics. He was never a political guy. And it was more so the people around him just kept saying, you look like a senator, you look like a president. Like he just had this like stature that they associated with a person in high political standing.

So with his like, what do they call it? Not the board. I forgot the group of people that helped the like elected officials, but them, they were like kind of pushing him through. And the reason why he got elected or even from the story, the reason why he got elected in the as the Republican candidate for that year was because the other two potential candidates people had a lot of opinions about them and they couldn’t pick between one of those two.

Right. So they’re like, he’s not causing us any issues. We all, we all like him. He looks good. All right. He gets, he, could go like we’ll have him be the candidate because there was just so much discussion about the other, the other candidates that like no one could pick a side. And I think I want to tie it back into what we were saying is just that how often does that happen without us even noticing? Because of the chaos, right, where we should be paying attention, just so overwhelming chaos, we just like, oh, okay, that option is not stressful.

It’s calmer. Like, let’s just go with that. And like you said, when we think of social media, and then you just mentioned like the geopolitical items, it’s just that how much of that is happening. And we’re just put it, put, we’re chaos is being put into media around a specific topic, not to have us make a choice on that topic, but just for us to be so overwhelmed that whatever the opposite of that is, that’s the choice. That’s where we put our head on.

Like, I need, not this. Whatever this is, I don’t want this. I don’t even care what the other thing is. I just want that, not this.

Richard Lowe: Right, I’ll tell you a good story related to the tribal thing we were talking about earlier. Okay, so when I was young, my parents were You know, they were of an older generation. I’ll give them that much. But they taught me that that black people were evil, that by by even being near a black person, I was going to go to hell, that I would get stabbed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So when I was a kid, I’m terrified of black people, right?

Well, we started this was when desegregation started in the 1960s. So I was probably a six or seven or eight, something like that. It’s probably third, fourth grade. I get on the school bus, there’s one chair left next to the black kid. And I’m like, Oh my God, I’m going to die. I really thought that I was terrified. Sat down next to the black kid, shaking sweat, the whole thing looked over him. He was shaking and sweating. And I realized my at that moment, my parents were idiots.

They were wrong. And we became the best friends for two years. I lost track of them since then, but we became the best friends after that. And I realized that what other people tell you, you need to get out of your box and look around, which they did that day, and find out if it’s real. There was nothing bad about this kid. He was a great kid. And, you know, there are bad white people, there are bad black people, there are bad Mexicans, but there are good black people, good white people, and good Mexicans.

Probably the good outweighs the bad all over the place. That’s something I found out over and over and over again, is the skin color doesn’t matter. It’s totally irrelevant. It’s some cells on your body that are affected by sunlight and little genetics. Who cares? Religion is another thing. I mean, who cares? Somebody’s Jewish or somebody’s Muslim or somebody’s Christian. I’m interested to hear what they have to say because I like cultures. I like, some of the black people I’ve talked to have been the nicest people in the world and we’ve talked to them and I’ve learned about their culture.

Why do you have those braids? What do they mean? And then we get in this long discussion about how much she has braids all the way down to her waist. And it’s like, boy, that must take forever. And she says, you have no idea. And it’s a good, and then she asked me pointed personal questions about being a white person. And I answered them honestly, this is what it means and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And instead of going, like you see so often nowadays, we just had a good conversation. And that’s what I’ve been finding over and over in life since that.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Like you said, thinking, looking outside of the box that you’ve been told to just, only those, if you’re in a box, it’s more than four walls, like the floor plus the two. But nonetheless, like looking inside that box, the math nerd to me is like, I can’t say 4 walls. It’s a ceiling and a floor. But, you know, being inside that box and starting with curiosity and asking questions. And I talk about that a lot in a lot of the conversations that I make and a lot of the conversations I have.

ask the question. There’s no, that’s saying there’s no such thing as a stupid question. And there isn’t, respectfully ask the question. If a person declines to answer based on their comfortability and their lifestyle, that’s totally fine. You’re gonna meet another person that fits that criteria that will be possibly fine with answering the question. Right. So if you come from a respectful place and a place of curiosity, I don’t think anyone’s gonna dismiss your curiosity because if they feel like you’re genuinely curious, because there’s people that ask questions, just to be like rude, like, why do you do that?

And it’s like, they don’t really want to answer, like you said, you do, you mentioned like sarcasm when you’re younger. But there’s people like, oh, what, why, do you, know, put the food together like that? Why do you use that type of ingredient? Why do you season in that way? You know, what does it impact? Does it impact the flavor? And even like adding on to the question and making a compound question versus just like, what was the, what is the origins of this dish, right?

Instead of saying, why do you cook that? What’s the origins of this dish? So that way the person realizes like, oh, you’re genuinely curious about this thing. And I’m open to sharing that information with you. And again, people may not be comfortable. I actually don’t know and I don’t feel, I don’t feel like I want to talk about that right now. And you got to be able to say, okay, fine. this person didn’t want to, I’ll maybe ask another person and I’ll keep on moving.

But I think especially with the internet, people get hung up. And I see this so much on social media where, they call it like, what is it called? The bean soup analogy where it’s just like somebody’s talking, you know, I go on and say, hey, everyone should read this book. I loved it. It’s really great. And then somebody’s like, but what about podcasts? What about, audiobooks? Do audiobooks not be as important? And I’m just like, I just like to read physical books.

Because you don’t explicitly say, this, like all the things, they start like pulling out things that you did not say and making inferences. And I think that is a bucket of its own problem. but we have to lead with curiosity, ask more questions, be open to information that challenges our beliefs. And none of us have a roadmap to, life from the start till right now, humanity from the beginning to now. Everything has been retold, whether that was from cave drawings to, historians to prophets that wrote different different books, right?

Somebody somewhere told a story and we have no true way of ever fact checking and validating to 100% of the truth of what that story is. Because you and I could come off this podcast right now and somebody’s like, oh, how did that go? What were your experiences? And we have completely different opinions of the same experience. So that alone should tell you that relying one hundred percent on something that was said, done or made-up who knows how many millennia ago doesn’t make sense.

You know, you could compound your and say like, I’m gonna, you know, lean into this theory because I’ve, you know, gathered the information. But just saying that, like, it has to be the truth and there’s nothing else that could be possible beyond this does not track with like real reality. Like, you know, you could say, I believe this. I know there are other stuff out there. I’ve chosen not to believe those. This is what I’m sticking with. But that doesn’t mean the other ones are impossible.

Richard Lowe: Well, you’ve got your truth and then there’s everybody else’s truth. And everybody has their own truth. And when you think about it, we see the world or sense the world through our senses. And these senses connect the brain to the real world. And there could be all kinds of stuff that’s in the way. Those senses could, I mean, you could have alcohol that compares senses. You could be a younger age or an older age. I mean, I know that when I was in my teens, I was dumb as a brick.

I mean, there were bricks that were smarter than me. And that’s actually part of growing up. They’ve actually scientifically proved that younger people’s brains aren’t formed fully until they’re in their mid twenties. That’s that’s fascinating to me. And I can look back on my life and go, yeah, it probably actually took me until the thirties. I mean, I was dumb. I’m surprised I survived a few of those things, but unfortunately, I didn’t do anything stupid enough to wind me up in jail or get me killed.

So younger people should keep in mind, I think, that there’s more to go. There’s a lot more life to go. There’s a lot more to learn, and there’s a lot more experience, and they don’t know it all. You think you do, even when you’re older, you think you do, I know it all, right? But you don’t know it all. You can’t know it all. And you don’t know how you stop being arrogant about it. I know it all. You know, screaming at people and stuff. It’s like, why are you doing that? You don’t need to scream. Just back off. Go home. Who cares? You know, and.

Georgie-Ann Getton: And then to add to that, you don’t know what you don’t know, right? Like that saying. I think that’s a topic that really blew my mind, early on in my early, late teens, early 20s, because what and or at least you should know that you don’t know everything. But then there’s this whole sphere of stuff that you don’t even know that you don’t know, right? Like that’s the bucket that always is like getting me excited because like there’s just so much more of the world and opinions and thoughts and cultures and perspectives.

we’re having this pod, we’re doing this interview, we’re having this conversation. We’re on the internet every day. We’re using AI. There are literally people living in the middle of the Amazon jungle whose lives look nothing like ours, we could tell them what we do every day and they would think like, you’re an alien. You’re crazy. Like, why are you doing that? Like, why would you not go outside? Why would you opt into being on a computer every day in bills? Why would you do that?

Right? Like, I go hunting and they would choose hunting and gathering and, you know, living freely. Or again, that’s or opinion, right? So we’re thinking of that and living freely, or maybe vice versa. Maybe you go over there and they’re like, oh my gosh, I don’t have to hunt and gather. I could just go to the grocery store. I could just type on a computer. I don’t have to be, you know, in the sun and sign me up for that immediately.

And the word thinking, they’re living freely. And they’re like, oh, you’re living freely and like convenience. So we don’t know how many opinions there are out there. And how life really shapes us to become who the people we are. And we have to have more, going all the way back to the beginning of the conversation we’ve been having, being open and curious to what possibilities are out there and resetting our goals, updating our own versions of what we want from life as we discover more.

We don’t know what we don’t know. And as we discover more, being open to saying, oh, that’s possible. That’s an option. I didn’t know that. I think I actually want to do that as work. I want to actually travel to that place. I want to eat that food, whatever it may be. And so being open to that.

Richard Lowe: Yeah, like when I was 19, my dad and I had this argument. Oh my God, it was the argument. We were ready to kill each other. Literally. I mean, it was me move or something bad was going to happen. So we had an argument and he finally said, if you don’t like the rules here, you can just leave. I looked at him and argument was over at that point because I was done because I thought that never even occurred to me before.

I didn’t realize that I could just leave. I got a job and started saving up. I got a car and then left because I’m smart and I did it in a good way. I got out of my box then. My box was living at home in this room in my parents’ house and trying to follow their rules. It didn’t make any sense to me at the time. Still don’t make sense to me actually. I’m 65 and they still don’t make sense.

Realizing that I can move. I don’t have to put up with this. I need to put some stuff in place so I don’t live on the streets. That would be dumb. Because I imagined even at the time that living on the streets is going to be far worse than living at home with the hostile parents. it’s the same thing. There’s options. There’s always options. Unless you do something really stupid, like get yourself put in prison or catch some vile disease because you do dumb things. You don’t always catch the vile diseases because you do dumb things. That’s a bad statement. But you know what I mean.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Yeah, I know what you mean. Just like you always have a choice even. And I think there’s a thing that again, back to psychology, not making a choice is also a choice, right? Like not making a choice is a choice. And when people think, I can’t choose, like you’ve chosen, like you’re gonna do nothing and be subjected to whatever comes. And so like you said, just make that choice. But that is a good one, right? Like we’re, not realizing that, yeah, I could leave.

Because again, we are put into these like systems and processes and they’re just so automatic. And we have to really call out our brains because they do a great job. because if I have to be responsible to make sure that I breathe every single time, I don’t know if I would have made it this far, right? But, I’m happy for that automation. But then there are certain automations that I’m like, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. We don’t want to do that anymore.

And I’ll tell a quick story. It was a couple months back and I was, I walked my daughter to school and I was walking home and I wanted to go to a store that was on like a different path home than the path I usually take after I drop her off. And so I’m just walking And I didn’t realize that the walk to and from the school was on autopilot because I was walking and I passed where I was supposed to turn because my brain was like, all right, time to go home.

And I just was doing it right. And then I was like, oh, man, I missed my turn. I guess I have to go another time. I was like, what are you talking about? You have your legs and it’s attached to your body, which is attached to your brain. Turn around. and go to the store. But in that moment, it felt like, I guess I got to do it another time. But again, we go on autopilot and we make these constraints. Like literally in that moment, I forgot that I had free will and choice and my legs, I could turn around.

And so I turned around and went to the store. But where else in our lives are we doing that level of autopiloting that we don’t even recognize or call out or pause to say, oh, wait a minute, I can make a new decision. I can make a different choice. And like you said, you have to sometimes, put parameters in place before you jump into it. Like again, you don’t want to live on the street. And for some people, that option is better, right?

That might be their better version because of however the situation is where they are. So just acknowledging that you do have options. And if you want better options, you have to do some work to get them. And that’s really it.

Richard Lowe: Yep, I knew a person who couldn’t hold a job, didn’t want a job. He was he sponged off of everybody, you know, went from couch to couch. He occasionally had some kind of relationship, which he used to make money. It was alcoholic, all kinds of stuff. And he would tell me that that was as good as it could get for him, because he wasn’t any better than that. And I looked at him and I thought, okay, I told him, I Recently saw in a YouTube video, a guy with no arms and no legs is a motivational speaker. You probably know who he is. He’s a short guy.

Richard Lowe: I’ve seen kids with basketball winning the Special Olympics, even though they have no legs. I’ve seen, I could go on and on and on, all these people with severe handicaps getting over those handicaps. And we’re talking mental handicaps and people with Down syndromes who become actors and things, actually pretty good ones. So you’ve got your arms, your legs, and your brain works. You got a reasonable IQ. There’s no reason why you can’t hold a job other than you don’t want to.

Well, you know, it’s like, you know, you can just go live your own life. I’m done. And that was the end of that because I’m not going to put up with people in my life who don’t even have the motivation to hold a mediocre job to pay and they have to use people to make money. Stop that.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Yeah, and it goes back to what I was in the beginning, that mindset, right? And that’s why the psychology of it is so important, because I’m pretty sure he had all the tools at his disposal, even in the moments where he was leashing off for other people or just leveraging their couches, I’m pretty sure you’re in their homes, they probably have computers, they probably have, internet, like you had opportunities to try to make something or, asking them to make an introduction for you.

So just, but like no matter what help another person offers you, if you don’t want it for yourself and you’re not willing to do the work to maintain it.

Richard Lowe: Not going to work without the attitude underneath.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Yep. No one can get it done for you. got to do it yourself.

Richard Lowe: So he’s probably in his 50s now and he’s probably still going couch to couch and using people. Who knows? One thing I do know is he used to drink two 12 packs of soda a day. We’re talking the sugar kind plus cigarettes plus alcohol. He had to have all his teeth pulled.

Georgie-Ann Getton: That’s my biggest fear. I need these, I need these bad boys as long as I can have them.

Richard Lowe: Did you know soda can destroy your teeth? I didn’t know that until him.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Soda. Oh my goodness. 12 packs.

Richard Lowe: Which he then would slept with all this stuff on his teeth. He didn’t brush his teeth.

Richard Lowe: I know. And I’m thinking, man, I go half the day without brushing my teeth and I don’t like the taste. I want to brush the teeth. And if I see a little blood on my gums, I’m like, oh my God, I got to brush more, you know?

Georgie-Ann Getton: I drink one soda and I’m just like, okay, that’s my, that’s not a weekly fill, right? And I’m real specific. I’m like, you know, if I’m traveling, maybe it’s a treat. Soda is a treat around these parts. Well, I drink at 12. Oh goodness.

Richard Lowe: I drink seltzer water, no sugar, no salt.

Richard Lowe: That’s all it has is bubbles and water. And it serves my purpose because I like the bubbles. But I don’t need the sugar. I don’t need the artificial sweeteners because Lord knows what they are made of. Well, we’ve been on NIR now for about 45 minutes and it’s probably time to wrap it up. Do you have anything finally you want to say to your audience?

Georgie-Ann Getton: Yeah, I definitely want to just give a piece of advice. from my book, The Art of, since this is the writing show, I have a book. It’s available on Amazon and all the places you can buy books. It’s called The Art of Getting Sugar Honey Iced Tea Done. And a quote that I really love from my book is don’t wait for life to force you to make a change. Make that change consciously and on your own time. And I feel like that really sums up a lot of the things that we’ve discussed so far in this episode of taking control, taking ownership, taking accountability of your life because it is yours, and from the moment you came to this earth until the moment you leave, your life is yours and you have to make the choices and decisions that align with who you want to be on an everyday basis.

So, just making sure that what your choices are aligned with who you say you are and who you want to be. And stay curious, ask a lot of questions, and do the work, and you’ll be good.

Richard Lowe: Very good. And how can people find you?

Georgie-Ann Getton: Can find me anywhere on social media under my full name, Georgie-Ann Getton. Just Google me, right? Do a little research on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, all Georgie-Ann Getton, as well as LinkedIn.

Richard Lowe: All right, and I’ll have links in the description, so they’ll be able to find you that way. Well, thank you for coming on the show. It’s been awesome. We had a great conversation. And until next time.

Georgie-Ann Getton: Thank you so much for having me, Richard. Have a good one.

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