BOLDER & WISER with Peter Wang and Michelle Kraemer

Tom White: Embracing tourette; joy of gratitude, kintusgi, and faith

• Peter Wang • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Tom White was diagnosed with Tourette's at the age of 9, Tom learned to face adversity and embrace the curse and the gift. 

Tom is the author of a newsletter called White Noise. He runs a writing consultancy and is also an angel investor.

Tom is a deep thinker and a man of many quotes—from CS Lewis to Jim Carey, E.L. Doctorow, E.O. Wilson, J. R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Richard Feynman, and many more.

We talked about

  • Why life is more like golf than tennis
  • Goodhart’s Law: “If a metric becomes the measure, it ceases to be a good metric”
  • How incentives run the world
  • how everything is an experiment, a curse, and a blessing
  • the lasting impact of his grandfather, a veteran of D-Day and World War II
  • how growth and comfort cannot coexist
  • how happiness is a byproduct, not something you aim for

You may or may not agree with everything Tom shares, but I bet you will walk away more aware of the gifts you have been bestowed and more peaceful about wherever you’re in life.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Tom’s grandfather: “Run hard, and shoot from the top.”

Enjoy the episode.

Tom White:

two quotes. One is from Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov, which is probably the greatest novel ever written. Live and live well, for someday you will be needed by somebody. For me, that encapsulates life is not, your life is not about you, your life is about others, fundamentally. And giving very much is receiving, it's tied back to faith whoever lays down his life. Or gives it for a friend, it's the greatest gift you can do.

Peter Wang:

That was Tom White, this episode's special guest. Diagnosed with Tourette at the age of nine, Tom learned to face adversity, embrace the curse and the gift. Tom's the author of a newsletter called White Noise. He runs a writing consultancy and is also an angel investor. Tom's a deep thinker and a man of many quotes, from C. S. Lewis, Jim Carey, E. L. Doctorow, J. R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Richard Feynman, and many more. We talked about why life is more like golf than tennis, the good heart's law. If the metric becomes the measure, it ceases to be a good measure. How incentives run the world, how growth and comfort cannot coexist, how happiness is a byproduct, not something you aim for. I'll leave you with a quote from Tom's grandfather. Run hard and shoot from the top. Enjoy the episode. Tom, welcome to the work in progress podcast.

Tom White:

Thank you, Peter. It's a pleasure to be here. I love and admire how much diligence you put into the process. It shows. As I've been preparing for this episode, and also just given the shows that are out in the interwebs, so to speak.

Peter Wang:

Thank you. Appreciate that. Every person brings something different. You have a very complex history, in a good way.

Tom White:

Yeah.

Peter Wang:

I don't mean that just from a professional point of view, complex from health point of view, like growing up Tourette's. You have very deep look across topics, and you write a lot to express and work through those ideas. The first thing I'll start with is, who is Tom White?

Tom White:

I think about this sometimes I would say the three labels that I would apply to myself. First and foremost, Catholic. My faith is very important to me. Born and raised in an Irish Catholic family. And it's sustained me through good, bad, and ugly. Secondly, I'd say stoic. A lot of things happen outside of your control, but your perception of those things actually enables you the freedom to dictate not only your response, but also your attitude and resolve with regards to life, work, people, et cetera. The third, I'd say American. I won the genetic lottery by being born in this country. We have our problems, we have our divisions, but fundamentally, you don't know what you got until it's gone and traveling abroad to places far and wide developing economies, frontier economies even first world economies. The U. S. Is, truly something special. I recently wrote about it, a meditation on the American flag, like what it means to me. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, that's a preposterous proposition for the vast majority of history, but not in this experiment we call america, democracy birthed with the Greeks, and then, hopefully, knock on wood, I'm on the right track with us and the Western world, so to speak. three, three kind of labels that come to mind.

Peter Wang:

I love that. And what's interesting. You mentioned that it's an experiment that we're in.

Tom White:

Yes. Everything is. One of my favorite quotes, and forgive me, because I'm a quote guy, as this author, E. L. Doctorow, he said it about writing, but I think it also applies to life. Life is a lot like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole journey that way. Everyone is making it up as they go along. I firmly believe there are no adults or experts in the room. Elon Musk gets stuck in traffic, right? Jeff Bezos spills his coffee. Everyone is fallible. The only certainty is the immediate moment. Everything that lies in the future is shrouded in secrecy, mist, whatever you want to call it. I think there's great promise in that. The thing that separates those individuals that have done X or Y is that they just tried, right? They swung the bat as opposed to keeping it on their shoulder.

Peter Wang:

Your quote about the fog lights ahead of you, reminded me of Steve Jobs, connecting dots. You can't connect forward. It can only connect backwards. I know you have three things going on right now. Three sets of focus. But maybe before we go into that I want to go back in time a little bit. It was your talk at Notre Dame.

Tom White:

How do you know someone went to Notre Dame?

Peter Wang:

How?

Tom White:

Don't worry, they'll tell you.

Peter Wang:

Unexpected. See, this is how this episode is going to go. There's one quote. I think it was at the end of your talk. That was about 10 years ago?

Tom White:

Gosh. Nine, ten?

Peter Wang:

10? 10 years ago.

Tom White:

Which is wild to say out loud.

Peter Wang:

You were a student still then, right?

Tom White:

I was a senior, yes. So that was the beginning of the spring semester of my senior year. Yeah January, February of 2014.

Peter Wang:

Wow, okay, so almost 10 years ago, you said, embrace the life that you lead. Let your talk be heard. And remember that each word is a celebration and has hope. I felt that it's almost like a common thread in the way you look at life. You were just talking about you're Catholic, right? Belief and how optimism is important. How has Tourette and OCD shaped you in that period of time?

Tom White:

It's a blessing and a curse, like most things. Stephen Colbert is a great quote when he's discussing the suffering and the difficulty in his life. His story is wild. The fact that someone so joyful, optimistic, faithful can't recover from just abject tragedy. His father and a number of his siblings, died in a plane crash the same day, I think when he was like 9, 10, 11 years old and it left he and his mom just a spiral. I can't even imagine, I shudder to think about that with like my own family and what have you, but He is this phenomenal quote is like you have to learn to love the bomb. You have to love to learn that thing which you wish never happened. Doesn't mean you're happy that it happened, But you've come to a deep sense of acceptance with regards to it. And I think that's that encapsulates threat for me. I hate it is a cruel vicious difficult heavy burden that I bear on a second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour basis. I'm fighting my tics right now. Every morning from when I get out of bed to when I go to bed and finally fall asleep, it's a battle. It's a fight. It's neurological warfare. But, by waging that war, since I was first diagnosed with it at the age of nine I, it's, I've come to embrace it because I know that psychologically neurologically, mentally, I've been through a hell of a ringer, and all the other stuff that comes is table stakes. Like I've tried to conquer the war, or tried to battle or tread water in the war that is myself, and having done that, anything that comes in my way will not be as bad as that, which is going on between my two ears and simultaneously, it's a blessing. I think and make connections and I'm able to associate things much more quickly than other individuals because the neurons and the electricity that's coursing through my head at a much more rapid pace than like the vast majority of individuals. Yeah. Overthinking. It's a hyperactive drive that is a font of ideas and creativity and different business motions and research motions and all of this stuff. My blessing is very much my curse. And another quote that Colbert says in this article, it's a GQ article. It's from J. R. Tolkien, who wrote Lord of the Rings another large Christian thinker, who said, What punishments of God are not gifts? And I'm not saying that it's a punishment, but everything if existence is a gift, fundamentally. Us being here, breathing, which mathematically, probabilistically, should never happen, the odds are infinitesimal that we're having this conversation, let alone that you or I were born, or anyone was, like, or like humanity evolved in the way that it did, right? The odds are tremendously stacked against us. If you are grateful for that, by definition, anything that happens has to be treated with gratitude. And if you have a grateful heart, if you have a grateful demeanor another quote, A grateful heart hath a continual feast. And I truly believe that gratitude is the only way to treat the wonder and the joy that we all take for granted on a daily basis. I think just as we become numb to tragedy, numb to news about the war in Ukraine or gun violence or anything, we become numb to those things that we take for granted, like hot water in the morning or sleeping on a nice bed or air conditioning. Let alone the simple acts of kindness, like people holding a door, or strangers helping a mother carry her stroller down the stairs of the subway. There's wonderful things that are always happening, but because neurologically and evolutionarily, we are alert to danger as a survival mechanism, we hone in on the bad and block out the good. Which is useful when you have saber toothed tigers and woolly mammoths running around wreaking havoc. But not as much when you live in a society that, I don't know we're, the Library of Alexandria is in your pocket. Anything you want, you walk down the store, you can get at the grocery store. It's unfathomable, a lot of these things. Yeah, I think it's made me Tourette. But like the only way I know forward is one of gratitude, one of like love, and one of faith. Because the kindness and the actions of the vast majority of individuals that I have in my life, family, friends, et cetera, who are those are my three things, family, friends, faith, that's everything to me. It's staggering. I'm, at a loss for words because of the love that I have received from a wide variety of individuals in my life. And that is a gift front and center. And who am I to complain? Based upon that. Who am I? I have health of my movement and of thought, and sure, maybe I have a vocal tic, or a motor tic, or whatnot, but by and large, it's not neurodegenerative, thank God. It's not terminal. One final quote I'll leave you is I think it's a Stoic concept. It's from the Greeks, but were everyone to take their problems and their tragedies and their difficulties and throw them into a pile in the center. And they have the choice of picking a random one or picking their own. Most people would pick their own. Because you have no idea what other individuals are going through. And, as I said in the TED Talk, and I still believe today simply because my suffering, my malady is conspicuous, it does not mitigate the difficulty, the torture that people are suffering from. Whether it be like addiction, or someone going through a divorce, or trying to treat treat a child that is sick. You have no idea. What other individuals are going through. And again, I fail at this time in and time out. This is where I want to be. This is my kind of aspiration actuality obviously fluctuates, but I think you have to have unembarrassed joy with regards to the life that you lead. Because everything's a gift

Peter Wang:

It's so easy to forget.

Tom White:

nev we've never met in person. We're talking over literally like fiber optic cable. That is stretching the span of the United States. And I can see you clearly. I can hear you clearly, and we can have a conversation. And then it will reach a wide variety of individuals that we'll likely never ever meet. It's insane. Try explaining that to someone in the 19th century.

Peter Wang:

Yeah. When we slow down and we talk about all the things we have available to us, it makes logical sense. It's wow, how could we not?

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

But it's the immediate surrounding today, next minute that has such a governing effect on how we feel. We forget about that all this existed, but the moment someone said something, a word that could trigger us, we forget everything else, that becomes a focus and it takes minutes or hours to get over it. But why is that?

Tom White:

I think it's why there's this pining for spirituality or for meaning. Jim Carrey has a great quote. I wish everyone would get rich and famous. They'd realize it's not the answer. And I think a lot of people are chasing the wrong the wrong dream, the wrong goal, etc. But, by slowing down, and that's that's prayer, that's meditation, that's yoga, etc. And by being aware of the miracle that is the body and the brain, that we still have no idea, like how it came to fruition, how to heal it in every way, shape, or form. I think It allows you to be present in a world we were designed to function in, right? The information overload that we have on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, a monthly basis, it's staggering. I think it's an anthropologist, E. O. Wilson, who has this quote. The problem like with modernity is that we have primeval emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. And those things are fundamentally incompatible. And I think that's why you're seeing a rise in anxiety, a rise in depression and suicide. Because a lot of individuals don't know how to tread the water of this informational flood in which we find ourselves. And I don't either. Everyone falls victim to it. Talk to anyone that's over reliant on their phone or works from home or is in technology. They all say God, I wish I could just throw my phone in the ocean. Or take my laptop and, chuck it

Peter Wang:

Yeah. But it's also very easy to turn it off. Why is it harder to turn it off?

Tom White:

because there are tens of thousands of highly paid engineers and psychologists that are monetizing your attention. It's the whole idea, right? That the greatest minds of our generation aren't trying to get us to the moon. They're trying to get us to click ads. And that's like deeply sad in a lot of ways. It's because the hardwiring that is inherent to each and every one of us because of evolution, because of psychology, neurology is being exploited on an instantaneous basis. Something as subtle as TikTok, right? Like changing from the need to follow accounts on an Instagram or a Twitter to passive consumption it like, it primes us for it. It exploits our need evolutionarily to conserve energy and not to always be seeking out because we didn't know when our next meal was going to be as cavemen and cavewomen. It's easy to turn off. Literally, but figuratively, when you know there's a whole world that you're potentially missing, it's all FOMO, and behavioral contagion, everyone else around you has their phone, is on the phone, is engaged with the phone, then it becomes near impossible, because we're social creatures.

Peter Wang:

So what is your media? We can compare notes on that one.

Tom White:

what is my media consumption

Peter Wang:

Yeah. Your habit.

Tom White:

Oh my routine is really no routine. But I, will only read print books. Because I like to annotate, I like to write, and the marginalia, and underline, and dog ear the book so I can easily reference things if I want to. I've tried the Kindle, but it's just not the same, and the feel and smell of a book is wonderful. So I read. I think I'm subscribed to like over 150 substacks and beehives like newsletters or what have you. And I'm not going to faithfully say that I read each and every one, but I try to get through that to keep abreast of things, like you said, not just in investing, but also in psychology and philosophy and theology, because the more you can accumulate a lattice work of interdisciplinary thought, ideas, and connect concepts, say, from music to math, or from physics to investing, the more dangerous you're going to be. Fundamentally I try to be deep and wide with my reading. I try to read one or two books a week. Just cause I'm, I love to read. I have a system whereby first I will read like a work of nonfiction. And that could be anything from like Freakonomics to say the Tipping Point to Talking to Strangers, any kind of number of thing. Then I'll read a classic. A Brother's Karamazov, or Plato's Republic, or... Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Some classic book that has stood the test of time. Which is the reason why those books have persisted, at least in my mind. And then I'll give myself like a break and I'll read like a work of fiction or a beat read, like something easy so I can just relax and unwind while doing so. So that's the modus operandi with regards to my, so I try to, not silo myself to one area because that's akin to a horse having blinders on. like you can move ahead. But you might not see a better path there.

Peter Wang:

That's interesting. I'm picturing the horse right now. It's ironic in many ways because you can be very sure about where you're gonna go. But you may never know about all the other paths. You just see the one in front of you.

Tom White:

Yeah. and also if you think about it if you're running the wrong race and you're going in the right, wrong direction, the best thing to do is stop and turn around as opposed to keep running, That is progress. Ironically, that's progress, right? If you're hurtling down the wrong path and it's, this is a concept stolen from CS Lewis, but. The man of progress is not one that keeps going down the path, but one, if he realizes he's on the wrong path, stops and immediately turns around. That's more progress than running a race that is wrong, or wrong for you, or not optimized, or interesting, or what you're meant to do.

Peter Wang:

that takes a lot of awareness

Tom White:

Oh yeah, it's so difficult because behavioral contagion, FOMO. Show me the few individuals you spend the most the greatest amount of time with, I'll show you who you are.

Peter Wang:

Or the influencers that you spend most time with on your phone. That's who you are. That's in like today's world.

Tom White:

terrifying and sad, I would argue, in a lot of ways.

Peter Wang:

It reminded me of book you were talking about the books. I this one, it's called have you seen this one yet?

Tom White:

No, I haven't. Is that new?

Peter Wang:

I'm not sure it's new. It's 2020 or 20. Within the last five years for sure. I'm still at the beginning of it. Let's see if I can do its justice. Its primary thesis is that the conventional argument of social media creates an echo chamber. It's a flawed thesis. The social media itself, the nature of it promotes extremism on

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

the spectrum. And that is something that we have to recognize. Versus saying that it's just an echo chamber

Tom White:

I agree with that.

Peter Wang:

the silent majority that is moderate,

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

silenced, and actually those people are actually less active on social,

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

but they're more active in person.

Tom White:

Yeah, they hold society together when everyone's screaming on social media and proselytizing and virtue signaling. Individuals that are just trying to keep a roof over their head and feed their families are what hold everything together. And now everyone has a microphone and some people are screaming into it. But, I would say that's a loud minority of individuals, as opposed to, as you said, the silent majority, which is the vast number of people that are not in the hellscape that is Twitter, or doomscrolling on TikTok or Instagram, but rather They're stopping and smelling the roses and they're spending time with their families and they're trying to lead a good life and make ends meet. I think content consumption is a cancer and I would love to see, I don't know how you would even do this, like what the impact that has been on productivity, right? Because we read these frameworks, we listen to podcasts, we like, Hey, like by doing that, we think that we're going to be the next great business person or we're going to have a breakthrough idea. It's if you want to be a golfer, and you want to have, you want to be a scratch golfer, or if you want to join the PGA Tour, you're not going to do it by watching YouTube videos of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. You're going to do it by swinging the damn club.

Peter Wang:

there's a ratio between consuming content to learn something and spend more time applying it.

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

versus consumption. Actually, there's three things. There's consumption, there's application, and there's creation, like creating content. And every one of us can probably break down how much do we do.

Tom White:

Yeah.

Peter Wang:

probably consumption in the majority of the pie

Tom White:

Yeah.

Peter Wang:

application, a tiny slice. And even less maybe creation.

Tom White:

Yes. It's the power law at work, right? 1% of people on social media create 99% of their content.

Peter Wang:

And that's where, that's interesting, right? We are both quote unquote creators.

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

But I think where we share, we are both creating as a way to process

Tom White:

Yes. 100%. I think that's well said.

Peter Wang:

very different than create to promote.

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

I think that's where, and I also recognize that there's weaknesses from the typical social media metric point of view. When you're creating to process, the metric with which you measure the success of it is not the three million people watch this.

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

It's actually the clarity. I'm observing a couple episodes in and evolving the process. What am I trying to learn?

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

Who, what kind of conversations

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

I'm looking forward to? What success. And then a few people will find them. Maybe more.

Tom White:

I'm 100% with you, Peter. For me, I started writing online and publishing. I write for me. For White Noise, I'm writing for me. My newsletter, White Noise. I am fundamentally writing to understand. To update my base rates and my priors. To better understand what I believe, why I believe, how I believe. Writing is thinking and comprehension for me. Yes. And an archetype that I love if you're underthinking, read, if you're overthinking, write. And I have a tendency to overthink everything, so white noise is my way of making sense of these emotions. And the byproduct and the only reason why I have published Things I went public with it is a forcing function, right? I'm bad at being accountable to myself. Writing is not fun. It's nasty. You just sit at the laptop and you bleed. It's a very difficult, creative slog. Yeah it's true. It's just awful. But then it's like Sean Parker's quote on entrepreneurship. Being an entrepreneur is like chewing glass, but eventually you start to the taste of your own blood. It's like writing. I don't like writing. I like having written. Because it's such an achievement and a shrug against infinity. It's hey, maybe this idea will outlast me, or maybe this will change someone's life, or inspire someone in some way, or make them see X differently, or Y differently. White Noise, my Twitter, it's a running ledger of my thoughts as opposed to something with an agenda, which I would say the vast majority of promotion is. So for me, like the stuff that I write is the end unto itself, as opposed to a means whereby I can book a podcast or a speaking engagement or get a client or what have you, that's a nice by product, but fundamentally, I know if that is my metric, it's Goodhart's law. If a metric becomes the measure, it ceases to be a good metric. It's, silly. It's the whole, like in India, for example, the British, when they they had a bounty for cobra heads, I think. Hey, every cobra head you bring, which means you kill the cobra, you get, I don't know, a hundred rupees or whatever it was. And the byproduct of that, the second order impact of that, was that people started breeding cobras and then killing them. So the population of the cobras went up. As opposed to down in that regard. So I think maybe by the conventional metrics, my white noise, my social media presence or whatnot is is diminutive relative to that of other individuals, but I'm playing a different game, right? Like I'm playing. The game of quality and deep conversations as opposed to quantity. And I think a lot of people conflate those things. But life, it's not tennis. It's golf. It's like you versus the course. And you can help one another. You can line up one another's shots, etc. The idea that like, like that, that writers or podcasters are competing with one another, I think is foolhardy. It's silly. And I think you have to, and it's very easy to get sucked into, again, because of our evolutionary disposition our behavioral contagion, and how we are fundamentally comparative social creatures, but, comparison is the thief of joy, two everyone has their own game that they're playing, and they just have to remind themselves of it.

Peter Wang:

And how many of us know, if you ask people, what game are you playing? Can answer that question.

Tom White:

Yeah, for me, fundamentally, it's simple, but it's not easy. I want to do great things with great people and continuously learn while doing so, while being able to provide for myself, my family and like, the people I love and care about in my life. Never having to worry about like finances or anything like that. I think giving is very much receiving. That's my hope. And like the way in which I do that, it's this weird eclectic mix of the writing, the consulting, the investing, the reading, but for me, those are three different fronts in the same war. And the more fronts that you have in a war, the more dangerous you are when combating the opposition, because you can outflank them and feign different moves and what have you.

Peter Wang:

You have this boutique writing consultancy, which you call it thinking as a service,

Tom White:

Yes, thinking as a service is basically what I do for some people.

Peter Wang:

And you have your advisor to a number of funds. And you're also an active investor yourself.

Tom White:

yes very tiny angel investor. Oftentimes the smallest on the cap table, but I try to be most active I hate this term, but the most helpful The trope classic, but like one that is confessor, consultant, counselor to founders, because is the highest of highs and lowest of lows and individuals that are trying to bring something new into the world, whether it be like a media publication or an app or logistics software. It's very, difficult, but those are the people that actually change things. So I love being on the side of David versus Goliath. I think it's much more fun and much more interesting.

Peter Wang:

why do you decide to put money into it versus just having consulting where you say, Hey, founders, if you need help, come to me.

Tom White:

I want to put my money where my mouth is, Right. I think actions speak louder than words. And the individuals in whom I've invested, I firmly believe in them. And again, it's not, it's a bet. Sure, they're working on a project that is interesting, in a large enough market, that has tailwinds, that has the right time and place. But it's a bet on the person and that team. Like the team. That's what it comes down to. People make products. Products don't make people.

Peter Wang:

And the dollars you've spent, actually, I feel like angel investors that do put money their thesis or their belief, it's the book skin in the game,

Tom White:

Yes. Yeah. By Taleb.

Peter Wang:

right? I love that book. The core thread was very clear and it has changed the way I look at things like who is that skin in the game? It's a qualifying question.

Tom White:

Incentives run the world. And I think a lot of people in a world, and this is why I hate the term, and I get so sad, like kids want to be influencers now.. They don't wanna be doctors or lawyers or bankers. They want to influence individuals. Influencers are the neck of society as opposed to the head, which are the doers, right? And the influencers turn the doers whichever way, but they don't do anything. Fundamentally, they're not trying to create, not trying to go from zero to one. They're trying to like guide and shepherd, which I think it's a real tragedy because the people that actually do things and build things and hustle and grind are those that make history, make things happen, help individuals, create jobs, et cetera, as opposed to to influencers in that regard. So I don't like that nomenclature. I think it's super, super dangerous. And imagine the most popular influencers on Instagram. Imagine them in Congress. And again, like you probably can't get worse than Congress currently. I'll just put it that way, but imagine these individuals as elected representatives, because it's a popularity contest fundamentally. That is terrifying. If Logan Paul and Charlie D'Amelio are debating. What to do for like the conflict in Israel with regards to Palestine. That is a terrifying prospect. I think, unfortunately, we're headed in that direction.

Peter Wang:

That's interesting. Remind me of two questions. Let's start with the first one. Who are your heroes?

Tom White:

I would say number one is my grandfather, his name is John Landers on my, I actually gave the eulogy in 2012, I remember when he died. I wrote it and delivered it at his funeral called him Pop. He was the kindest, most faith filled, most. incredible man that I've met. Veteran of D Day and of World War II, Battle of the Bulge. He was an attorney. He came back from World War II went to college under the GI Bill. He married my grandmother, Ann Landers. They had seven kids. In order to provide for the family, he went to law school on nights and weekends. So he got his JD and then he got his LLM, which is like a graduate degree in law, which no one does because it doesn't, isn't really worthwhile unless you want to be a law school professor, but he did it because he thought it was interesting. And that kind of attitude, his attitude towards life and learning and soldiering on. One of his favorite quotes is run hard and shoot for the top. That has guided me and sustained me. The most clever, kind, brilliant man that I've met. And on his deathbed when he was 90 he was trying to learn Latin. And he was doing calculus, because he loved to learn, like that's the type of man that he was, and he was the best father, best husband, best grandfather, I'll give you an example, there was some, my, my mother, his daughter is one of seven, her younger sister Julia, died of pancreatic cancer when she was 12 or 13 I believe and death is awful, death, I think, of a son or daughter, Or a sibling is just especially pernicious and visceral and real. And sick for a while. It was good Friday when she died right before Easter Sunday. And my grandfather went to the hospital with my grandmother saw that she had passed away, went home to the family, told my mom and her siblings and everyone was crying and just like wailing, shrieking, like she's dead. And my grandfather, my mom, it's stuck with her to this day. He said, stop it. Stop it now. Stop crying. Stop. This is not what Julia would have wanted. We will have a happy fall. We will have a happy home now and always. We will have a happy home now and always. And can you like imagine your daughter has just died. You are just destroyed with grief right now. You haven't even processed it. You're probably in shock, but having the faith to console in the moment when you probably need the most consolation, like That's Type of man that he was. A quote from the eulogy is He was the type of man that wore like the brightest suits on the darkest days. His love of his family, of his faith, of learning that's my hero. If I can be half the man that he is I will be, ecstatic. So yeah that's hero, my, my grandfather.

Peter Wang:

The brightest suit on the darkest day. What shaped him to be that kind of person?

Tom White:

It's a really good question. I think his mother was blind, so he had to grow up very quickly and take care as the man of the house, the boy of the house. His father came from Ireland, was a laborer who thought that college and education was a waste of time. And his mother was like, John, you have to go for it. You have to go for it to make a better life of yourself. You have to work at it. Whereas my my maternal great grandfather, wanted him to drop out of high school and join a painting business, get some money in your pocket. And my grandfather obviously took the road less traveled, but I think that, and I think also I think the war he never talked about it, but the war probably impressed upon him. The horror of things that men and women can do to one another, seeing that really formative, because it's hey I see the terrible destruction, the impact that men, women, and children can have on one another, but there's the other side of that too, those little moments of grace where it change, it changes everything. He is in the foxhole during the Battle of the Bulge, 19 44, 45. And he's trying to sleep. It's freezing cold in the middle of the den forest, and he gets woken up by a machine gun. It's a German soldier with an MP40 nudges him with the gun when he's sleeping and he's this is it, I'm dead, God here we go. He thinks he's gonna die and the German soldier just said one word Zigaretten, which means cigarette. And so my grandpa was like, yes, I have a cigarette, pulls out the pack, gives him a cigarette. He takes one out, they lit and they smoked all that night together and just tried to talk like a thing of humanity. And went their separate ways. The German left and went back to his line. And my grandma's yeah, I could have killed him next. I have no idea. There's like humanity and everything. So I think that's just one story that he told often. But, I think his mother hit the war and his faith. His faith was everything to him. And I think it's a true Testament. I think we live in a world where we want to know and do everything externally, but avoid the things internally that actually matter. And I think that's why you're seeing like a resurgence in like spirituality and faith and people what was the place potentially of the church or the mosque or the synagogue. In history, people are turning towards like yoga and like apps. My, my friends run Hallow, which is a series C company. It's the top religious app on the app store. And it's a Catholic prayer meditation app. And when they started it like five, six, seven years ago, it's you guys are insane, like there's no market for this. I wish you well, I think it's really good, but you're doing. This is a nice project. I was dead wrong. I think they crossed a billion prayers. They have a metric a billion, like prayers, like people spending time reading, reflecting. And that is such a positive force for good, I would say. and not A lot of people take the time to do that. And I think that's the curse of the never ending content consumption.

Peter Wang:

Quite a few things to unpack The way you talk about your early days, growing up with Tourette and OCD, your grandfather's early life, seeing a lot of adversity at an early age has been a common thread. And I think gratitude comes when you experience hardship. There's a book the Comfort Crisis

Tom White:

I've heard of it. I haven't read it actually, but I've heard it's really good.

Peter Wang:

It's similar in a way where the comfort is our enemy now.

Tom White:

Yeah.

Peter Wang:

Because comfort is the enemy of growth.

Tom White:

Yes, growth and comfort cannot coexist.

Peter Wang:

That's right. And now there are initiatives similar to the Hallow app. There's a project called the 2% Project. It's about choosing the hard things. Ice bath, cold showers

Tom White:

fasting.

Peter Wang:

Because we recognize the pursuit of comfort has no end

Tom White:

Yes,

Peter Wang:

does not satisfy. gets bigger, endless.

Tom White:

it's like fast food versus like a home cooked meal Like it checks the box and you feel the instant gratification when you have a bag of Cheetos or something like that but the satiety that comes after eating a home cooked meal of meat and potatoes, or chicken and rice that is something, sure both are caloric. But one actually nourishes, whereas the other just is putting a band aid on a bullet hole. It's Goodhart's Law as I mentioned earlier. Like, when the metric becomes the measure, it ceases being a good metric. If you're aiming at comfort, you've lost. It's just like happiness. Like happiness cannot be an end, it's a byproduct. If you aim at happiness, you're not gonna hit it. I want to be happy. So you're happy by volunteering, by being present with family and friends, by traveling, by reading, by doing these things. You can't aim at happiness because you're surely gonna miss.

Peter Wang:

Happiness is a byproduct. You remind another book called How Will You Measure Your Life, by...

Tom White:

Clayton Christensen.

Peter Wang:

Yeah.

Tom White:

Yeah.

Peter Wang:

That's a classic.

Tom White:

Yeah. He was exceptional Yeah,

Peter Wang:

I don't have the quotes like you do, but that book is influential to me. If you were to ask what is the metric that you measure, that you use? For me, it's probably the sense of peace. Do I feel peaceful, at peace? Happiness is, I think, more emotional,

Tom White:

yeah.

Peter Wang:

fleeting. Do I feel happy?

Tom White:

Yeah.

Peter Wang:

Peace is a state of mind, regardless of what's happening. And I feel like I'm starting to pursue maybe a strong word, but I am seeking, like I'm looking forward to feeling peaceful. And I know when I'm not peaceful.

Tom White:

Yes I think it's a good reflection for individuals, myself included. What is that metric if you will, that around, and I would say for me, it's joy, I would say. Happiness, I feel is superficial. Joy is visceral, deep. It's those moments of joy. And that could be something as simple as making a cousin of mine laugh. Or the pride that you have when you see a family member graduate from high school or college, just joy. It could be something as simple as hanging out on a beach with your family and just hey, this is truly wonderful. The reason why maybe there's a real, real bereft nature of joy, I think is because we're not attuned to the present moment because we're always looking on Twitter and Instagram and our phones and they're binging and they're buzzing and whatnot. So you can't be in tune with that, which is around you and I fall victim to it. Every hour, every day, right? Because there's always dopamine waiting for you. But I think and outside of that, the impact I wanna have is kindness. I just want to be kind, above all. It's a simple thing, but it's not easy. We tend to overcomplicate it. Like just be kind, right? It's just another example is losing weight. You want to lose I want to lose weight right now. It's simple, move more, eat less. That's it. It's math, but it's not easy because we self sabotage in every way and we want we want a bacon cheeseburger as opposed to a salad for lunch or whatnot. So that, yeah, I would say joy and kindness are my kind of my loci.

Peter Wang:

Kindness also starts with yourself.

Tom White:

Yes, totally.

Peter Wang:

I notice when I am judging myself, I projected on others around me and my family. And this is where maybe the peace comes in for me. If I don't feel peaceful, part of the why I'm judging what's going on. I feel stressed about it.

Tom White:

Yeah,

Peter Wang:

One thing I want to go back to is on your writing.

Tom White:

sure.

Peter Wang:

How do you pick your topics?

Tom White:

So if I'm working for clients, oftentimes they have an idea and I help them take the idea. So they have a seed of an idea and through conversation and collaboration, we enable it to grow into the the flower. For me, I write about what I feel like and what I'm thinking, as you said, I think it's a means by which to process the world. I always have a number of drafts going Most of my writing happens away from the keyboard. Which is to say I have ideas all the time, everyone has ideas all the time, we don't as as humans have an idea generation problem, we have an idea capture problem, and I've just become better at capturing them in like almost a compulsive manner. So I'll like, I have email threads to myself and one is Hey, the subject of the piece, the working title, and then it's just messages of stuff that I've read or something I'm thinking about, or like a passage that comes to you, right? Like it's a curse, but it's simultaneously wonderful. You get up in the middle of the night and write. And a lot of that happens. You're in bed, you don't have any screens, you're like totally serene. It's oh, that's a brilliant idea! For me, for my writing, I write quite simply about what I feel like for White Noise. What I'm in the mood for. I let the quote unquote muse just kinda guide me. I'm an instinctual writer, so I just... Pour it all out and then separate the wheat from the chaff in that way. I'm toying with this concept right now. And I might write about it, TBD the 3 2 1 rule for writing. For every hour of writing, you should do two hours of editing and three hours of thinking. Because I think most most, books should be articles. Most articles should be emails. Most emails should be tweets. And most tweets should be silence. We just like to hear ourselves talk. We talk to sound smart not to communicate. And I'm guilty of it as the next guy. But I think there's a reason why you have two ears and one mouth and I have to remind myself of that a lot Because You should listen as much as you speak, because you might learn something. You're not going to learn when you're talking

Peter Wang:

That's fascinating. I like that. Is that going to be an article or a tweet? I'm kidding.

Tom White:

or silence better, or just a snippet on a podcast as opposed to an article.

Peter Wang:

This is coming full circle a bit. We talked about the overflowing of information because people want to talk to sound smart.

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

Okay. But a lot of what's out there isn't necessarily smart or wise.

Tom White:

That's garbage. The vast majority of it. It's the Pareto Principle, right? Like the power law, like 10% of things that you read will influence 90% of your thoughts, your actions, etc.

Peter Wang:

I restarted buying physical books this year for a few different reasons. Actually, I'm a big Kindle person. I have thousands of books on there. I like highlight in there. And I use the type up. type is a way for me to, and I would just go back to my typed up highlights.

Tom White:

That's the one tragedy I would say about reading paper books is I Can't search them. I can't like import the notes because it's all analog and it's not digital But it's intentional in that sense because from a screen. I'm away from a

Peter Wang:

Yeah.

Tom White:

Like I'm with the book. I'm present.

Peter Wang:

You have good memory. I have terrible memory. You can remember quotes.

Tom White:

Actually I don't have really good memory. Things just stick with me And I think I probably repeat myself time in and time out, but at least I'm consistent with regards to the things that I express and truly believe. Again, a quote, Mark Twain, if you tell the truth, you never have to remember anything. And that's my MO. I just try to be honest and truthful.

Peter Wang:

If you tell the truth, yeah. Your energy is a function of your attention. And the only way to really get rid of the bad information diet, is by replacing it with good information diet. The absence of darkness is light. You have either one or the other. There's no lack of darkness with something else.

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

I'm working on a waterbrand right now, a physical waterbrand

Tom White:

Oh, wow.

Peter Wang:

Because now I have a different goal. It's about building a consumer brand. I started reading all the brands, like this one is about Chick fil A.

Tom White:

Interesting. Is that good? Is that one good?

Peter Wang:

I haven't started reading it. I just bought it. This just arrived yesterday.

Tom White:

wow. Okay, nice.

Peter Wang:

But I do know from a numbers point of view, Chick fil A has done

Tom White:

incredible.

Peter Wang:

most successful franchise. Very quiet about it too.

Tom White:

Actions speak louder than words, right? And I think this is the curse of influencers, right? Everyone is trying to sell a course or hey, I'm the value guy, or I'm the real estate guy, or I'm the build in public, sure, just do it. You don't have to talk about it. Don't talk about it, be about it. And if these people, and this is awful and it's a gross generalization, but if these individuals were any good at what they're doing, they would actually do the damn thing as opposed to have to sell a course about it to people, right? You don't see Tiger Woods and hey, like the Tiger Woods Swing Academy 101. It's no, like I'm going to go and I'm going to hit a 65 every round.

Peter Wang:

All right. just do

Tom White:

Yeah, just do it. Nike.

Peter Wang:

Nike. Actually, I watched the Air

Tom White:

Air Jordan. That was a Good movie.

Peter Wang:

That was actually pretty moving. It was more about the era of Nike lagging, not having a basketball business and the brink of, are we going to have a basketball business at all? In the face of Puma, it's funny, right? The converse of the world and the Adidas of the world and how much life has changed. What's interesting is it's coming back. What is the number one brand now? It's not Nike. it's

Tom White:

Adidas?

Peter Wang:

not Adidas. It starts with an N.

Tom White:

Oh, New Balance.

Peter Wang:

New Balance.

Tom White:

Is that number one? Because I love New Balance. nothing is new under the sun, right? What's old is new again, and what's new becomes old.

Peter Wang:

New Balance did have rebranding, new collaborations, new designs to refresh New Balance. A New Balance that used to be like the old walking shoe, right? That, right? Not cool. I was at BuzzFeed when I learned about this, because we had a lot of sneaker heads talk there. And that's also why I bought a New Balance. Oh, here's the limited edition. I bought that one. I haven't worn it because I'm like, maybe I shouldn't be wearing this. I should just be on the shelf. But brand building is storytelling. I'm actually going to shape the shop almost like a living room, like a bookshelf in the back. Cause the whole point of it is making good decisions about what you put in your body, like making good, like making wise decisions. I have these books on the shelf. It's a conceptual, I'm playing it out, see how it goes.

Tom White:

Yeah. And you're never gonna know unless you put it out into the world, right? It goes back to the experimentation, nobody knowing anything. The difference between those people that have an impact are remembered change things. Is they did it. They took the step. They asked the question, they built the product. They pour blood, sweat, and tears into whatever. Ideas are cheap and execution is very expensive. That's what it comes down to. And to your point I talk with my, clients about this all the time. Business is simple, but it's not easy. It's spreadsheets and storytelling. A lot of people obsess and think very deeply about the spreadsheets. But they ignore the story and the more clear, concise and comprehensible a story that you have that's directly correlated with the potential for your idea to go viral for people being able to communicate via word of mouth and. The best channel, I would argue with regards to sales, what it is you do, why it matters and how it benefits them in some way, shape or form. We are social creatures. We love to tell stories. From Homer's Odyssey all the way to Oppenheimer, which is coming out, I think this weekend. We love stories. We love the hero's journey. There's a reason why there's a whole mythos around founders because of. The founding story for any of these companies, right?

Peter Wang:

Yeah.

Tom White:

It's good marketing branding. Maybe it's not all truthful, but it's good marketing branding to say Hey. Jeff Bezos leaving D. E. Shaw to hole up in an office and sell books online. Larry Page and Sergey Brin to meet at Stanford, drop out and set up shop in Susan Warsiacki's garage to build Google, right? Probably the most successful piece of content marketing in the modern era, if not of all time, is Drive to Survive Formula 1. That was an exercise in marketing and branding, and now F1 is the cat's pajamas. Everyone loves it, and they we have a race in Los Angeles. Er, not Los Angeles, Las Vegas coming up on the strip. Right? It's just, it's wild. This is from a Netflix series. And now every sport is doing it. There's quarterbacks, which is about the NFL. There's breakpoint, which is about tennis. There's full swing, which is about golf. Because it's so damn successful. It's all about the stories and the humanity and the people that are behind the masks or holding the racket or holding the steering wheel or the golf club. It's a story.

Peter Wang:

Stories about the people. How did these people got to where they are and not just about the numbers.

Tom White:

And to that point, Justin Khan, right? First time founders focus on the product. Second time founders focus on distribution. How do you distribute something? By articulating it clearly so that people can understand, grok it, and then tell the next person. I have frameworks that I can send you, that I work with individuals on with regards to branding, storytelling. Two things that I always say to clients, don't ever think it and go with your gut.

Peter Wang:

Yeah.

Tom White:

That's what it comes down to. If you overthink it for the sake of optimizing, that's not a good measure. Do something that is real, that is authentic, that resonates with individuals and actually captures what you're doing and why you're doing it. Because then you can be excited about it and then you can talk about it and your enthusiasm and authenticity will show through. And people want that more than the BS that a lot of companies and people promote. Look at Starbucks. Starbucks, literally the name Starbucks is from Moby Dick. Which is a whaling story written by Herman Melville and what's his name, Howard Schultz liked it. And he's hey, I'm gonna make a coffee shop called Starbucks. That's weird. That doesn't make sense, but it works.

Peter Wang:

One concept I really loved what you wrote was about the concept of kintsuki, the Japanese hard repairing broken pottery, mending it together. And I feel like your life represented that. Actually, all of us are like that, except we

Tom White:

And you can leave those pieces shattered. You can glue them back together. Or you can accentuate those things. Because those things have made you. right? That suffering has been made worthwhile. Like the marathon is worth running because it's hard. It's JFK, the moon we go to the moon not because it's easy, because it's hard. That's why we do it. that hardship leads to vulnerability, which leads to connection, which leads to conversation, which leads to camaraderie, which leads to dignity. That's my thought. It's all, all from that. And again, it goes back to Colbert loving the bomb. You don't know what bombs have gone off in other people's lives. They're gifts. They have to be, per existence.

Peter Wang:

that's interesting. Would you then say, for people who are not, because I'm thinking about, each of us want to be more intentional, more aware, like where we want to go. Part of it is actually choosing something that's meaningful, but hard to do.

Tom White:

Yeah.

Peter Wang:

If you don't have that's why it's so easy to doom scroll,

Tom White:

Yeah.

Peter Wang:

I've heard a lot of talk about vulnerability in today's modern world, but I feel like the word vulnerability sometimes is misused.

Tom White:

It's been bastardized and co opted. A lot of posturing, not a lot of actual activity. I would argue. And it goes back to hey don't just talk about it, be about it.

Peter Wang:

Yeah, how would you say what true vulnerability is?

Tom White:

True vulnerability is taking those things that you potentially don't like about yourself, that you're ashamed of, that you're having difficulty with, and sharing them with someone with anyone. It could be a stranger at like an airport or a bar. It could be a loved one. It could be a friend. It could be a priest. Saying the damn thing that you need to say, and I find this with my writing. The thing that I least want to write about, often times resonates with individuals the most. And there's a quote about this, C. S. Lewis, who writes acquaintanceship becomes friendship at the point where one person says to another Oh, you too? I thought I was the only one. And at that point, they stand together in the immense solitude of existence. It's that vulnerability, breaking down the walls, inviting individuals into your head, or your world, or your suffering, or your struggles. And upon doing that taking the mask off that we oftentimes wear. I'm writing a post called, it's masks all the way down. About how we wear different masks in different scenarios with different individuals. So what does that mean to be the true you? And I think social media and filters, literally and figuratively, amplify that in a lot of ways.

Peter Wang:

So what role should social media play in our world?

Tom White:

I think that's above my budget, candidly. I think people conflate connection with depth, and they conflate quantity with quality. The best social networks that I'm a part of, are those group text messages that I'm a part of with friends from high school, from college, from personal life, professional life their social networks, but it's of a group of individuals that really deeply love and care for one another, as opposed to the riffraff or the screaming or silent masses. That populate social media because it's so easy to be vicious, to be mean, to to be disgusting candidly, like behind a keyboard. It's hard to do that, like in person. I think it's the whole, like Mike Tyson bit, right? Like most people like should have been punched in the face, like more than they, they have, because then they would learn their lesson as opposed to being like keyboard warriors with nothing at stake. But I think the best social networks are those that are. That are micro, they're small in their focus, and they're intimate because there's a deep respect, love, and kinship for one another, as opposed to something like a Twitter or whatnot. It's useful for bringing people into your fold, but you have to be very careful about doing that because I don't know, not all that glitters is gold. And I think a lot of people that you think are X, maybe aren't X. And when someone shows you who they are the first time, believe them.

Peter Wang:

When someone shows you first time who they are, believe them.

Tom White:

Yeah.

Peter Wang:

Let's talk about something else. That's about faith. I want to talk about faith because faith is very much under attack, right? At least in America, right now. You've said faith is such a central of the three things, gratitude, love, and faith are three things, right? Or family, friends, and faith. You've

Tom White:

Yep, exactly.

Peter Wang:

Why is faith under attack? And why do you think it's so crucial?

Tom White:

Because faith is representing the understanding in my mind that there is a God and you are not him. And I think we make ourselves gods in a lot of ways that are deeply problematic and unhelpful. I think it is under attack because it's the last kind of area that can be under an attack because of cancel culture or what have you you can't attack X group or Y person or Z thing because you will get shut down, shot down, shouted down, And canceled for that. For some reason, faith is not part of that conversation or equation, which I think is deeply problematic. A quote comes to mind. It's like the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing people that he didn't exist. And I think, unfortunately, there's a lot of evil at work, both overtly, and innately. People want what is true. They want what is good. They want what is beautiful. But there are more distractions now than ever. And I think... The attack is not just one of repression of faith and closing churches and mitigating X, Y, and Z, but rather, it's a more vicious passive one. It's hey, Instead of going to like mass or temple or the mosque go to the movie, see the movie. You know what I mean? We're inundated with all this, grotesque stuff, and it's the easy way out. And I think people are pining, like you said, for comfort. But that is, that's cancer. To pine for those things. Because then, you eat the cheeseburger, you nap for four hours a day, you don't go to work, you don't try to improve yourself for your partner or your family. That is so evil. And faith is about, to me, finding meaning In the hardship and difficulty of life and offering it up for the greater glory of God and something of that nature. My favorite words in the English language are, I don't know. I know that I know nothing, like Socrates. I'm a doofus. I'm just like super curious and I read all the time. I think a lot of people have difficulty being vulnerable and saying, I don't know. And that's why they vehemently attack faith. Faith without doubt is not true faith, like per Sorin Kierkegaard, you have to take a leap, like it is irrational, like it is irrational to believe, fundamentally, like faith without doubt, without wheedling back and forth is not true faith, it's very difficult. Think of any holy man or holy woman, they've all had doubts.

Peter Wang:

Yeah.

Tom White:

Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he had doubts. He's hey I'm gonna do this, God, but if, I don't have to, please take this cup from me I don't want to do it. You do the damn thing.

Peter Wang:

Mother Teresa was famous for her own doubt, Struggling with faith as well.

Tom White:

From the Bible, Peter who's the first apostle, that he knew Jesus three times after his death. Saint Thomas the apostle. Doubting Thomas, right? He's yeah, like, all right, unless I can stick my fingers through his stigmata and the Holiness side, I'm not gonna believe it's no way he rose from the dead. It's irrational, but that is absolutely part of it, and I think we're in this world where people are trying to optimize towards certainty and they oftentimes ask Jurassic Park. They think about whether they could, not whether they should. And I think they conflate permission with permissibility.

Peter Wang:

Break that out a little bit more.

Tom White:

So simply because Society or people say that it's okay to do something, like to steal or to hit someone or to lie or to cheat on your taxes or whatnot, doesn't mean it's permissible to do which is doesn't mean it's the right, moral, just thing to do.

Peter Wang:

I see. The could versus the should.

Tom White:

Yeah, I mean like natural law, which I would say is like morality versus like societal law. Two different things.

Peter Wang:

What is the rock you stand on, right?

Tom White:

Yeah, and If you don't stand for anything, you fall for everything.

Peter Wang:

And that, for you, faith has been necessary for you

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

to go through the hardships.

Tom White:

Yeah,

Peter Wang:

myself as well.

Tom White:

The joy of gratitude. It's hey, I have a wonderful family. I have tremendous friends. I have the ability to express myself online. And have asynchronous conversation with thousands of people. That's a gift.

Peter Wang:

Yeah.

Tom White:

Like that is like really like a gift. So it's not just like making sense of the suffering and it's also realizing that hey, I don't deserve any of this, but I'm very grateful to have it.

Peter Wang:

That's the opposite of cultural message.

Tom White:

Yeah, 100%, more, consume more, eat more, do the order.

Peter Wang:

You deserve it. You

Tom White:

Yeah,

Peter Wang:

is what the world's saying to us.

Tom White:

and it's a lie. Luck and skill are so conflated.

Peter Wang:

It's a good reminder. Let's go to the last section. What would you want to say to everyone out there who try to make good decisions in their lives? Making progress in ways that they are proud of.

Tom White:

Yeah, I would say, true to form, two quotes. One is from Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov, which is probably the greatest novel ever written. Live and live well, for someday you will be needed by somebody. For me, that encapsulates life is not, your life is not about you, your life is about others, fundamentally. And giving very much is receiving, it's tied back to faith whoever lays down his life. Or gives it for a friend, it's the greatest gift you can do. That's literal, metaphorical, figurative, etc. But to sacrifice for other individuals is true goodness and beauty. So that's one. Two is from Marcus Aurelius. Again, it's ironic, we've come full circle, right? Catholic Stoic to Catholic Stoic. I'm nothing if not consistent. Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be one. Again, a lot of people talk about it, few people are about it.

Peter Wang:

That was a poster in my office when I

Tom White:

literally a poster on my wall as well.

Peter Wang:

Yeah. Yeah. it.

Tom White:

And I love it. It's such a good message. It's so simple, it's so direct, and it really cuts to your core.

Peter Wang:

reminds me of first Peter, just like he always speaks so plainly,

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

obviously.

Tom White:

Yes.

Peter Wang:

That's it.

Tom White:

Because again it's a really simple thing, that what life is. Like, all we need is like a roof over our head, we need our heart to keep beating, we need oxygen, we need calories and water. That's literally it.

Peter Wang:

You, didn't mention praises. I thought we need like praises and we need

Tom White:

Yeah validation and likes and millions of followers and TikToks. I think we do a great job, myself included. I'm caught up in the rat race like everyone else, but it's refreshing to sometimes work on the system as opposed to in the system. It's simple, but it's not easy. And we tend to do a lot of self deception. Richard, Feynman, right? The physicist, the key is to not fool yourself. And you are the easiest person to fool. After this recording, I'll probably go check my email, I'll probably go check my text messages, and I'll go text this, that, and the other thing, and I'll do superficial work before doing the deep, hard, dirty work that you need to do.

Peter Wang:

Yeah, that's true.

Tom White:

we default towards that.

Peter Wang:

Yep. People can read you. tomwhitenoise.Com, That is your home now

Tom White:

TomWhitenoise. com and then www. WhiteNoise. email and my Twitter, which I'm way too active on per this conversation is at TomJWhiteIV.

Peter Wang:

is your father's name tom as well?

Tom White:

Yeah, so my full name is Thomas joseph White IV. I am the,

Peter Wang:

Oh, wow.

Tom White:

Gotta, keep the the namesake going.

Peter Wang:

My son's name is Tom as well. Tom. Thank you so much. It's been a deep and wide conversation. I think I have a lot to reflect on myself.

Tom White:

Same.

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