Episode 1
· 58:45
Hi. Welcome to the first episode of Everything is Interesting, the show where I talk to people about whatever they're enthusiastic about. Today, I'm talking to Ben Borowski, and we'll jump right in.
Ben:I'm already recording, so we usually just jump right in and have start talking.
Travis:Yeah. Let's do it.
Ben:And then you sent me an email the other day that was like and I'm just quoting from it. He said, I wanna talk to interesting people about what they're enthusiastic about, starting your own podcast, and I position that we should just do a chat and, we could probably use it on both of our podcasts. Mine, Grief and Pizza. I don't know if you have a a podcast name yet.
Travis:I do.
Ben:Yeah. What's oh, what's the name?
Travis:It's, Everything is Interesting.
Ben:Awesome. That's a great name. Yeah. Yeah. And, it it kind of made me smile because couple years ago, your son, Kyle, interviewed me on a podcast that he had called I don't know if he's still doing that, but, called Kids Learning Careers.
Ben:Yeah. And just interviewing people about the jobs that they do. And I had a conversation with him about programming and firefighting and kinda how I do those two things together and sounds like, you know, he got obviously a lot of that curiosity about what people do with their lives and what they're excited about from his dad. So that's really cool to see that the field. So, why don't we why don't you introduce yourself and then I'll introduce myself?
Ben:That way, if we use the episode for both of our podcasts, we can kind of it can kinda be like a dual type thing. So go for it, Travis. Perfect. Yeah.
Travis:Yeah. So, Travis Northcutt. Like, Ben just mentioned, I'm starting this podcast. Everything is interesting, where I just wanna talk to interesting people about what they're what they're really into. I find that when I have conversations with people, a lot of times they're surprised if I'm asking keep asking questions about, like, what they're into, and, I could listen to somebody talk about, you know, what they're enthusiastic about all day long.
Travis:So I love doing that. I do software development for work. It's not necessarily my passion. I enjoy it, but, you know, there's there's a lot of life out there. So, yeah, into lots of stuff.
Travis:Cool.
Ben:Yeah. And Travis, we've been we've been kind of buddies on Twitter and various online places for a while and
Travis:Yeah.
Ben:Similar similar career backgrounds, I guess. I'm I'm Ben and I do right now, I I teach, Notion at this place called Notion Mastery. My partner, Marie Poolen, and I run a company called Okeydoke Digital, and we kinda just help people organize around different systems and workflow designers. And so we do a lot of, like, organizational design and change management stuff. Over the years, I've also been a software developer, run the SaaS before, and things like that.
Ben:So, yeah, I think, you know, our business is very much one of following, curiosity and what we're interested in and and kind of designing tools and systems around that. So I usually think of my work as honestly, like, the artifacts of curiosity in a way that, you know, the things that I end up building, just because I I need them to pursue what I'm what I'm interested in. So, yeah. So what are you what are you interested in right now?
Travis:Oh, man. I, I like to do I like to get outside and do stuff, you know, ski in the winter and mountain bike in the summer. I know you're into mountain biking too. I don't do that as much as I would like to, you know, life, etcetera. I read a lot.
Travis:Yeah. That's kind of my, you know, cognitive exploration most of the time is, is reading a lot of history, a lot of historical fiction, that kind of stuff. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Travis:I don't. Yeah. What about, what about you? What are your, I know you have quite some, some varied interests that you you pursue pretty intently.
Ben:Yeah. To to start, we live in, we live on the sunshine coast outside of Vancouver and where our neighborhood is basically right opens onto the back of a provincial park. So for me, the mountain biking, we have, like, probably a 100 kilometers of mountain bike trails, like that are quite well curated because there's a really big community in North Vancouver and up where we are and upwards of Whistler where there's, they convert the ski Hills into sort of downhill mountain biking in the summertime and stuff. So where we live in British Columbia is quite mountainous with the, you know, the Rockies there. And so, yeah, like that's, that's one of my summertime and into the winter too.
Ben:We get pretty decent weather up here that such that we often ride in November and in December as well, because it's usually just like cold ground. There's not a lot of snow up here.
Travis:But
Ben:yeah, I've over the years, over the last couple of years, we've done a couple of rides where we get up high enough where we're actually kind of trudging through snow at some point. But yeah, I I have a couple of friends that I ride with, so yeah, that's kind of my outdoor activity is definitely mountain biking. And interest wise right now I started I started I've been a DJ for a long time. I don't know if, like in the background here, you can see my turntables. I love DJing, love curating playlists and music.
Ben:So that's kind of my primary hobby. And in March I started I just decided one day after doing this course from art of accomplishment called the great decisions course, I had this epiphany that like all of this time that I've been kind of obsessing over music that I've never really started creating music of my own. And so I had this this desire to all of a sudden start creating stuff. And so I just sat down. I finally opened up Ableton, which I had, I had on my computer for probably like 8 years.
Ben:And I would always purchase the upgrade with every intent to start like making music and never doing it. And for some reason, this March, I, I finally got over the hump, and I spent 30 days in a row creating a song every day. And by the end of the 30 days, I uploaded my first, like, finished what I consider a finished song to SoundCloud. And I've been doing that since March, and I've got, like, 8 or 9 songs now up on the the SoundCloud that are, I think, progressively getting better and better and better
Travis:Yeah.
Ben:And having just so much fun making that. So that's kind of my enthusiasm where my enthusiasm is going right now is the music, learning how to produce music and and make the song. I my I kinda have a general long term goal of I wanna make a song that I feel belongs alongside of the my favorite artists selection wise so that I could include it in a in a DJ mix.
Travis:Okay.
Ben:So that's kind of like what's driving me right now. No real, like, notoriety or money or anything like that goal, but I don't know. That's one thing that's been interesting to me lately is how how quickly our passions and our interests become a little more rigid when we start thinking about, like, what's the outcome that we have for this versus and I was writing this tweet the other day where I was talking about the difference between play play music every day versus make an album. Like, there's, like, this discordance between those things where things start to feel a little bit more rigid when you have those specific goals in mind. And so I'm trying to, like, avoid making any sort of, like, release an album.
Ben:It's just like, okay. If I end up with enough songs, cool. I'll release an album, but no no real intent there. Yeah. Yeah.
Ben:So that's what that's what's been driving me lately is mostly music stuff.
Travis:I'm I'm super curious and you you sort of answered this a little bit because you said you'd had Ableton for, like, 8 years, you know, before you started using it. Do you feel like that desire to create music, like you've been involved in music a long time. That's been like an interest and passion for a long time, but do you feel like that, that desire to create your own has like always been there and you've been like repressing it or just kind of denying it in some way, or like what that come from?
Ben:Yeah, I think she probably in, in, I went to a fine art school in in 1999. I was there for the first you know, for those 5 years from 99 to 04. And during that time, I did this program called it was called TIME at the time. I don't think it's called that anymore, but stood for technology integrated media environment. And that was how I made the transition from from being into fine arts to learning about like how you can use computers to generate art and things like that.
Ben:And so I did all these like interactive installations and robotics, and I I had, like, pieces where I was doing break dancing and, like, incorporating some of the music that I was making. And I used to do a lot of, like, even, kind of found art music where I would just record a bunch of sounds and turn them into, like, a rhythm or something, kinda like Pogo style, who's one of my favorite musicians.
Travis:Yeah.
Ben:Where you're just, like, you know, sing found sounds in nature and, like, what, like, you know, the the music that's all around us kinda thing.
Travis:Mhmm.
Ben:So I made I made some stuff like that in in high school, and it was like that thing where The reason I think college is valuable is not really the, the, the degree part of it, but that you're, you're immersed in an environment that is conducive to that pursuit. So just being around all these people that were constantly questioning what we were doing and, like, I would be doing a thing and somebody come and be like, you know, like, why why don't you add this and do this and do this? And there's just like, and I, you know, in some senses, I think we get a little bit of that vibe on Twitter where it's just that running commentary. I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing?
Ben:What are you doing? And then getting, like, getting really stoked about what everybody else is, like, doing and, like, okay. I'll take your thing and I'll rip remix it and do this. Right. That yeah.
Ben:So I think I've always had that, like, I'll the way that I like to listen to music is is curation. And I almost, like, exclusively design my listening experience through playlists and and organizing songs that make sense in a in a thematic way in my head. Mhmm. So I'm almost always, like, building a a mix when I'm listening to music. So I I actually have a hard time working sometimes when I listen to music because I get so much involved in, like, I can't help but start organizing the songs and You're
Travis:like processing it while you listen to it and yeah.
Ben:Yeah. So like DJing became this way of like interacting and playing the music at the same time to find that like perfect blend and that perfect like timing. And, and so I really enjoy that like interactive and, like, participatory way of listening to music. And so I feel like that was I was I was missing that. Like, the the actual, like, playing of the music is it was, like, kind of the next evolutionary step, I think.
Ben:Yeah. Yeah. And I just had, like, a, like, a kind of, like, my like, an identity shift in going from I'm I'm an artist, not just a DJ. And so now I'm, like, really kinda going back to being, like, like, I'm trying not to to lament too much the the fact that I didn't go into music and think about what advantages does not being a professional producer give me in the enjoyment of music. And sit and not like beating myself for like, oh, I should have gone into audio engineering instead of software engineering.
Ben:Oh, I should have, I should have been continued making music. I would have been so good right now if I had been doing this for 20 years instead of programming and it's, but like now I'm like, what, you know, what does programming afford me in music making that that these that musicians might not have? Like, I have this ability to to, create maybe create new tools that help me learn faster or adopt the, you know, the style of music that I want more and that you know? Yeah. So I've just been experimenting and trying out new tools and seeing what happens and not having much of a goal around it has been really, really nice.
Ben:Yeah. Just enjoyable.
Travis:Yeah. That resonated what you mentioned earlier about, identifying as, oh, I'm, I just want to create versus I'm going to make an album. Like, because then you're, it seems like then you would tend towards, well, there's a, there's a roadmap for this thing. If, if that's my accomplishment, if that's my goal, I wanna make an album. Like, well, I need to follow the roadmap that people follow to do that.
Travis:And like, since you're not a, you know, professional musician, it's like, oh, there's no roadmap. Like you can go and explore and like, just meander and wander any direction you choose at that point, for you to just, you know, follow curiosity versus, you know, some end goal in mind. So, yeah, I really like that. Do you find that that creation in music, like has some resonance or kind of echoes in other, you know, other interests that you have or other things that you've done, like in programming or, you know, other, yeah. What like, is that pushing some of the same buttons or is it like as this whole separate thing for you?
Ben:I think so. I wrote about it. The pinned tweet on my profile is about the way that I had this identity shift around, this idea that we need to have these explicit focuses to help us, you know, productivity wise and whatnot. And I think, my measure of productivity is is a measure of harmonization with the rest of the things that I'm interested in. So I think about things in terms of like, how does this how does this flow with the general vibe that I'm trying to direct my life in?
Ben:And so I've, you know, I I use I use the examples of the way that I learn as, as examples a lot in our in our course. So I know when I'm teaching Notion, we use we use the the my music generation dashboard that I built in Notion to help me, like, you know, plan and learn things and, like, all the tricks and trades. I, like, document all the tools that I'm I'm using for each song and things like that. So, you know, I try to find these, like, sequencing things that that exist in all of the stuff that I'm doing so that I can you know, everything is kind of a song that I'm playing in general that that is nicely harmonized. And so if I'm doing a thing over here with music creation, it's naturally going to lead to some sort of revenue generation because I can use it to design, like, okay, maybe I'll maybe I'll show a workshop on, like, how to build a learning engine for yourself.
Ben:And, like, it just kind of plays nicely with everything else that I'm doing. And it's and it's it's less of this thing where I have to, like, switch into work mode to to to make money. And then, okay, now that I can switch into play mode, it's all part of the same play in some way. So that's the measure of success to me is, like, how well everything I'm doing and creating is, is like in this, this sort of same key as my life in a way. So yeah, I've been abusing that metaphor a lot lately.
Ben:It's been.
Travis:Everything being the same key. Yeah. It's it. It's good. Yeah.
Travis:I like though you said something just then that that really resonated about it's all part of the same play. Like, so music is play and also your work is play in a way. And that's very, yeah, that's super appealing, you know, it's like, oh, what, how can you design life and work so that your, your pursuits are a form of play and exploration and just that you're oh, and and by the way, you're already living as a byproduct of that play, you know, like it's pretty neat.
Ben:Yeah. Yeah. One of the, one of the coaches that we did, I was, I mentioned that great decisions course, from art of accomplishment, but, the founder of that, of that company's great coach, Joe Hudson, he often asked this question of, like, how it's it's kind of confronting a lot of times. And I and I find myself getting, like, really heated when people ask me the question, like, specifically, Marie will ask me this question and and it but it forces this, like, mindset shift in real time. And the question is just simply, how can you enjoy this 10% more?
Ben:And it's like, when you're just like, fuck this. I hate this. This sucks. And somebody goes like, how can you enjoy it 10% more? It's like, like, how can I I I can't?
Travis:It's You not see? Yeah.
Ben:It's this bad. But then, like, when you if you sit there and actually feel that that emotion, that anger for a little bit and be like, okay. Well, how can how is this actually how does how does this actually help me? How do I actually enjoy this difficult job? You know, I'm not you know, I've been really, really over committed this past month and I've been really exhausted and I'm and that's been something that's kinda with me this whole time where I'm just like, I just got, you know, okay, one more day of this, one more training to get through.
Ben:Like, how can I enjoy doing this training this morning, like, 10% more? Like, how is this how how can I how can I teach this in a way that is part of the thing that I enjoy? So that's kinda like what I do is like, alright, I've gotta deliver a workshop this month. How can I make this something that I can enjoy? And and that might be just, the tone of the workshop, the the the subject matter.
Ben:So I might teach a technical concept of notion, but be talking about, like, something really fun and playful at the same time. So we've done that in various degrees in our program over the years. Like, we'll teach, like, you know, we'll teach around, like, cute puppies or, you know, I know Thomas Frank uses Pokemon to to describe, like, how to do an API backed solution with Notion. Like, it's fun. Right?
Ben:And it's something that, like, maybe you're interested in. Like, another one of his examples is, that he plays Magic, the Gathering. And so he'll do, like, notion examples in magic, the gathering, or I'll do mine on in I'll use firefighting as a as a way to describe, what I'm working on. Like, like an organizational dynamic where you have, you have a, a role hierarchy system of, of, of roles. And you've also got lots of varying like income, you know, discrepancies because it's all volunteer based.
Ben:So how do we accommodate, how do we design a notion such that, you know, it works for kind of the the varying differences in in organizations and things like that. So I I I leverage my my understanding of leadership and hierarchy in my in my company trainings and things like that. And also in my in my, student trainings and things. So there's just like, you can. It's there's so much so many ways to leverage what you're interested about in business that, yeah, it's it's just it's a, it, a lot of it is a mindset shift and like, how can I actually enjoy this even though it's not fun?
Travis:Right, right, right, right. Or you convince yourself that it can't be fun.
Ben:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Travis:I think that's interesting framing too, of not just like, oh, how can I make this suck less? But, but the, no, how could I enjoy this 10% more? You know, like it's a very deliberate, way of looking at it. I like that a lot. When you, when you, you know, get that question and think, and you're thinking about how can I do that?
Travis:Is it like, is it just a mindset thing for you then? I mean, you kind of touched on that. Is it just like
Ben:I think, I think it's less mind and more body like the stuff that the stuff that, you do in these courses, is often self development work and a lot of it is, like, actually doing emotional inquiry, which involves you Yeah. Sitting there with the emotion and and, like, actually, less intellectually, but sometimes it feels a little bit intellectual analyzing in the body how does that emotion actually feel. And a lot of times when we you know, like, if I have a panic attack or something, sitting there, like, I've seen a couple of things recently where people say instead of trying to, like like, fight and be rigid with the anxiety, like, just, like, actually feel it and be, like, I'm having a panic attack and, like, really feel that.
Travis:Yeah.
Ben:And you get this this sense of knowing what it what it feels like in your body, such that when you're flooded with emotion, you can recognize it for what it is and and sit with it before you start intellectually reacting to how you're feeling. And so I think, you know, that a lot of times, like, you know, we try to over intellectualize the feeling a feeling. And and you can't really you can't really stop an emotion with with your brain. Like, you have to do it with your body in some respects. And so, yeah, I think, like, that practice is really good for for doing that, for getting better at like noticing when those things are happening in your body and, and not reacting as much.
Ben:Yeah. I don't know if that is a good answer.
Travis:Yeah. It's a great answer. Yeah. I find that, I find that stuff fascinating. I'm, starting to, to explore, you know, those, those areas a little more and yeah, there's, there's a lot there.
Travis:I think, I, I think I became aware of maybe aware of Joe. It's Joe Hudson, right? Maybe from you guys. Yeah. Maybe from, from you and Marie talking about your experience there.
Ben:So Yeah. We met him in at a retreat in, California, and then we did his, the connection course was the first one we did and, you know, like, might be something to try out with your Yeah. With your partner. It's awesome as a partner work. But it's all just about like the way that the way that, the the framework that they have in there is called view.
Ben:It stands for, vulnerability, impartiality, empathy, and wonder. It's just it's just a way of holding space and holding conversations with people that you stay in the state, this sort of, like, state of view, and it helps it will just help you connect more deeply with the people that you're around. And, and so the connection course then kind of leap frogs into the decision course, which largely is about developing a set of principles for which you'd make decisions by such that the decisions kind of make themselves and you're not like, you're not really in this, like, should I or shouldn't I? You're just, like, doesn't match my principles. It go, yeah, I can I can make this decision with that without too much, like, discordance in the life?
Ben:So, yeah, some of the some of those principles, I have these principles now that when I get stuck, I can go back to and be like, and really think about like, how do I, how do I get past this, you know, this, this difficult period and the principles are there to kind of assist you to do that. So, yeah, tough work. I got a lot of tears, a lot of like yelling and stuff, but it's so, so valuable at the end of the day, like doing that with, with a partner and being like totally raw with, with somebody that it's so beneficial to relationship. It's it's really fun.
Travis:Yeah, that's really cool. I want to shift gears a little bit. You touched on this a little, that one of your other areas of interest is firefighting, which, you know, probably the, your prototypical firefighter is not like a programmer who makes music. So how, yeah. Where did, where did that come from?
Travis:And like, yeah.
Ben:Now the funny thing about the funny thing about firefighting and I I tap this, walk out this stat a lot, but at least in Canada, about 75 to 80% of firefighters are unpaid volunteers. They might get some variation of paid on call, but most firefighters in North America are volunteers. And most people don't really know that, but people think it's like a firefighting career. And, you know, there are what they call career firefighters for sure. In major cities, most firefighters are career, but in rural areas like where we live, everybody's a volunteer.
Ben:So when you say, like, you don't see too many, you don't see too many firefighters who are programmers, that's because you're looking at the the city firefighters that are people that that's what they do for work. Most firefighters are like, we have numerous really talented musicians at our fire department that play in bands. We have, a firefighter who works for a major SAS that is the CTO.
Travis:No way. Okay.
Ben:Cool. So yeah. Like to say that, you know, that's that's just like a common misunderstanding, I think, of, like, firefighters. Like, we get this a lot where we'll go on a call, and you'll, you know, you'll be there for 4 hours rescuing, like, a deer that somebody called 911 for, that was stuck on the side of a cliff. And they'll say, well, at least you guys are getting paid for this.
Ben:And it's like,
Travis:not much. Not
Ben:really. But yeah. Still happy to be here. This is why we do this.
Travis:So yeah.
Ben:Most people are volunteers, and we have, we have folks that are 18. We have folks that are 67, 70 years old. So and everybody in between.
Travis:So Yeah.
Ben:You know, at this point, we have fewer women than men, but we're starting to get towards a more balanced, gender spread. And, you know, we have, folks from that do more on the side of, first responder type stuff, so more of the medical side of things. And then you have people that are mostly on the firefighting side of things. So it's like, you know, you kind of to run a a volunteer fire hall, it takes all kinds of folks. Yeah.
Travis:A bit
Ben:it's a bit cliche, but it really does, because not many people wanna wanna do the work, volunteer unpaid. It's really it can be challenging and and a lot of labor. And, I think last time I checked, it was on the order of 4 or 500 hours of training to get to the the minimum requirements so that you can you can, volunteer. So, it's also because of that, it's very difficult to get people who can commit to that level of involvement. So, I was just seeing last week, I was saying how it's been, oh, it's been a pretty chill month, and and a couple of the lieutenants were like, what are you talking about, dude?
Ben:We've had 17 calls this month. So, like, you know, you get a call every 2 days or so. You know, based on whether I'm available, I can respond or not. But, yeah, we have 247 pagers and we go to as many calls as we can. So there's a lot of that kind of vibe right now of trying to get more compensation because there's situations where people just can't really respond and can't do the training because they have, like, kids at home and they're they're being paid less to train and to respond than it costs to pay a babysitter locally.
Ben:Cost of living wise in our location is quite high in for a for a Canadian, location. So it's the those kind of things that are that are tricky, but it's also why we have such a awesome variation of people that volunteer because, you know, we'll you basically take whoever wants to show up and and volunteer.
Travis:Right.
Ben:So different totally different set of of standards for career firefighters than the, you know, the you know, if a a 50, 60 year old wants to become a firefighter, they can get a a place, out of local volunteer, but they have usually most, career fire departments have, like, an age limitation.
Travis:Right.
Ben:Like, they I think New York, m y NYPD is, like, 37, I think, is the oldest you can be to apply to be
Travis:a star firefighter.
Ben:So when I started that was, I was 38 years old or something like that. So I'm just outside of the, of that, you know, I would be able to do it as a career kind of thing.
Travis:Right. Yeah. How did you, did you get into that? Just because you, like, you were aware there was a local need and like, what was the
Ben:idea? I had no idea when we first moved here. It was in January and, there was a party down the street. Marie had this friend locally that we had stayed with when we started looking at houses out here and we were without Internet that 1st week. So she was like, oh, come over.
Ben:We're having a birthday party for my partner. And the partner was a volunteer firefighter. And I basically got cornered at the fire at the party and they were like, see you on Wednesday. And I was like, what are you talking about? And it was like, you know, we you're going to come and you're going to, you're going to check out fire practice.
Ben:And, and this is kind of me now, anytime I see an able-bodied person or even like just anybody walking around, I'm like, hey, what are you doing on Wednesdays? Like, you know, I'm just, like, trying to recruit all the time because that's part of being a volunteer is constant recruiting.
Travis:Yeah.
Ben:So, yeah, I just they were just like, see you on Wednesday. And I was like, okay, I guess. Because I didn't know anybody locally. And I thought and so when I thought about that, I was like, oh, that could be a good way to, like, get to know my community. It's a community of 1500 houses.
Ben:It's quite small. There's only, like, a few 1,000 people that live here during the winter. It's it's a lot it's more of like a kind of a a coastal town. So there's more people that it's like a combination of people who have been living here for 40 years and then a and then people who have bought, like, vacation property here. So, kind of a coastal area.
Ben:So we have a a higher population in the summer than in the winter. So I went on Wednesday. They were just like they gave me some old, equipment. And the very first practice, they handed me the, you know, the what they call them the jaws of life, but we just call them cutters and spreaders. And we're like, hey.
Ben:Cut this door off, of this car. And so we just, like, chopped up a car and destroyed it. And I was like, well, obviously, I'm doing this. This is awesome. Because it's like every kid's dream to just like blow stuff up and set things on fire and then put it out.
Travis:Kind of
Ben:a kind of a famous saying in the department, in the service that like, you know, you don't become a fire fighter if you're not a, some kind of pyro. Yeah. You know, it's like that and that and saving people's lives that get people stoked. So, you know, we gotta we get to do that every practice. We do some kind of, like, auto extrication or or, life saving stuff, practicing, medical, a lot of, fire firefighting stuff, which very rarely gets used.
Ben:So, yeah, that's another kind of common misunderstanding is that fire departments these days are majority of the stuff we go to is medical and, overdose and and cardiac arrests and just kind of taking care of patients and and very little for actual firefighting, especially in a rural area. So most of what we do is medical and then, car accidents and then maybe 3 or 4 structure fires every year. And they're usually pretty minor. Yeah.
Travis:What, what has been, so how, how long have you been doing that now?
Ben:7 years. And I've been, I've been a Lieutenant for almost 2 years now.
Travis:Yeah. What's been, what has been the most like rewarding and what's been the most challenging part of of the of doing that?
Ben:I think that's both usually it it kind of the same thing in both cases. I think the, the dynamics of of volunteering in general, like there's so many different people and so many challenges of, of organizing people who have totally different schedules are not professionally trained firefighters. So it's not their job. They have to come from some other things. So they're, you know, you're bringing so many, so many different facets of life, to the picture.
Ben:So I think the the hardest part is, is really the, the, and I think this is like the same of, of everything almost. It's almost like with software development. It never the software, that's the hardest thing.
Travis:The humans.
Ben:It's the humans. Yeah. It's the people building it. It's the people using it. It's the, you know, the organizational dynamics when you're training, all this stuff.
Ben:So so much of that, like in a really extreme was like what helped me, I think, refine what I do in organizing, like, you know, the day to day of running a business is so much less in, you know, wild than dealing with, an emergency scene with, with people who are just coming from somebody might be coming from taking a shower. Somebody might be coming from working a job, building a house. Somebody might be programming. Somebody might be coming from a fight. Like, there's all these different variances that come into it.
Ben:And it's not just like we all plan to be here today and work today. So it's that I think, that's both the most challenge and the most rewarding is like, you know, that understanding. And I think I tell this story a lot, but I think the thing that that that has been the most rewarding for me and also the hardest is my understanding in the way that the average person lives lives life and the and the difficulty of of what people are going through on a day to day basis. I think that you can go out and you can go to the grocery store and you can see, like, a 100 people and you don't really see what what their life is like. You see this, like, surface level version of everyone.
Ben:But when you go and you go into people's homes that are are struggling and you realize, like, oh, damn. My neighbors that's, like, happy and chipper all the time is, like, really struggling. And, like, I've got this other neighbor that's dealing with addiction. I've got this other neighbor who's has this long going illness and they're in constant pain all the time. And just, like, just how much pain that the average person is is dealing with and and and grief and difficulty.
Ben:And then they just, like, have to, like, go out about and deal with the same stuff in the world. So it really made me look at look at people differently and start, like I think I'm I generally consider myself a very kind person, but I'm not a very nice person. And I've just been I think since I started fire firefighting, I've been I have this desire to just crank up the the kindness even more because because just, like, you just have no idea what people are going through. And it's like, you know, incredibly saddening and also Yeah. Makes makes you feel really good, seeing, seeing folks just, like, put their lives on the line to to protect the most vulnerable.
Ben:Yeah. So yeah. I think that's the hardest. The most challenging and the most rewarding are usually the same thing in in these types of things because it's Yeah. You know, it it's confronting and also like, you know, invigorating in a sense.
Travis:Is it ever hard to, I mean, that resonates what you're talking about, you know, for the most part, you have no idea what people are dealing with, you know, and there's like, there's a lot of hurt and pain and sadness, that you don't see normal day to day interactions. Do you ever struggle with like, I could imagine myself in that scenario, just that getting me really down, you know, like how do you, how do you deal with that?
Ben:Well, so we explicitly train and in this thing called critical incident stress debriefing. And so we do we you do this as, as an individual, and then you can also get sort of trained in providing critical incident debriefings, to your crew. So whenever we see difficult stuff, we have a discussion post event right on the scene. You know, we saw some things today. Does anybody need to talk about it?
Ben:We're gonna be here. And for more serious events, we actually are required to have, somebody who was not part of the scene to come in from a neighboring district perhaps and deal with that. So when we have, like, a death on scene, that can be really traumatic for for people, even people that have seen a lot of that. You never know. Like they, they always tell these stories that you have no idea what's gonna like bring that back up later.
Ben:So like a lot of times I go scene to a scene and I see something really challenging, really difficult, really graphic or something. And I'm just like, okay, like that was, that was another day.
Travis:That was an even
Ben:Maybe later on down the line, you see, like like, they always give the example of seeing, like, a sweater or something that reminds you of your grandmother when she died. And then that all of a sudden comes all that that violence and that difficult that those really graphic images come flooding back. And so they, you know, we talk about this a lot, like the decompressing and and debriefing on the stressful stuff and having places to and we have these, like, you know, plans that we can we always have somebody we can talk to. And they you know, we do these trainings on not, not retraumatizing. So
Travis:Mhmm.
Ben:I'll give you an example. One of the things that that people will ask and I always you know, I have a bit of a derisive view of some paramedics, like, because I've I've met a few paramedics that will immediately launch into these really graphic, disgusting scenes as like a shock factor. One of the worst things you can ask a first responder is what's the worst thing you've ever seen?
Travis:Yeah.
Ben:Like you you don't wanna know and like you shouldn't know. And like that
Travis:Maybe they don't wanna talk about it. Yeah.
Ben:They definitely don't wanna talk about it. And the ones that do wanna talk about it are there to because they're they they wanna talk about it. They like that idea of re traumatizing people. So that's one of the hardest parts is, like, you know, you can't really just be, like, going home to your spouse and being, like, blah, blah, just dump it on them.
Travis:Right.
Ben:Spouses do tend to to see a lot, the partners of of the first responders, and they get a lot of that. And so but, yeah, like, in terms of how I deal with it, I'm I'm pretty you know, I do feel like I have a sort of a pretty strong stomach and a sense of detachment from a lot of, that stuff. But, yeah. I I talked to I talked to my friends. I have therapy, all that good stuff.
Ben:You know? I I think there was a there's a period at the beginning of this year where there was some pretty pretty rough rough scenes and things like that. And I was going through some other stuff at the time. And so that was like a good time to be like, I think I think this might actually be impacting me to my therapist. I think I think I might have, like, this might actually be hitting me a little
Travis:bit in
Ben:this thing that I saw. So, you know, even to just talk about that in, in kind of general terms with a therapist is, is usually pretty helpful for me too.
Travis:Yeah. Cool. Yeah. What, are there people that you, you know, you mentioned you're like always recruiting, right? You're always, you know, Hey, you look like you can, you can do this, come do it.
Travis:Are there, are there people who shouldn't get do that? Who shouldn't get involved in that kind of thing?
Ben:Yeah, I would say, Yeah. Like, there's a a sort of authoritative personality type that I think and there's some people there's some people that I've met in the service so far that I say, like, I'm glad you're a firefighter and not a police officer. Mhmm. Because there's a sort of, like, vindictive violent, aspect of people. Like, if you're a very angry person Yeah.
Ben:Like, that's it probably not a a great fit. But, for the most part, I think anybody can do it. And, you know, and I in, I think, you know, it has nothing to do with, like, physical capability. There's lots of people that can be you can find jobs for them. And Right.
Ben:And and as long as they're, like, you know, open and so you know, the best people are are open minded and creative and the worst people are are closed minded and and maybe not very, like, emotionally savvy. So, but yeah. I usually it's like, I'll give you an example. Last week we had a guy that when we were, you know, getting de dressed from a call, this guy popped up and drove by and said, oh, hey. Like, the I saw these guys, like, starting fires on the wood the other night and blah blah blah.
Ben:And and I don't know if you know anything about British Columbia, but during the summer, it gets incredibly dry here. And, like, any sort of fire is, like, the dumbest thing you can do. And and we do not well, we're we're not very friendly to people who start forest fires or flicking cigarettes because Yep. You can, like, kill a bunch of people by starting a forest fire. And, you know, we have a very small fire department.
Ben:So it's like, you know, if a forest fire starts out here, we're we're in a lot of trouble.
Travis:Huge deal. Yeah.
Ben:We don't have the resources to handle that. So it would have to be like an outside province kind of thing. And by the time that everybody musters and gets there, the the whole neighborhood is gone. So yeah. So somebody that's like really somebody that shows up and is like like, I wanna protect my community, and that kind of thing.
Ben:A lot of our firefighters are we have a guy who joined about a year ago who's now become a solid member that we went to his house and took care of his kid. When she got hurt, she fell out of bed and hit her head or something. And he would and, or it'll be like, we put somebody's house out or we took care of their grandmother and did such a great job. And then they're like, oh, this thing exists. Like, I think a lot of people just generally don't know that it's a thing that people could do on a, like, a semi regular basis.
Ben:And so it's usually the, you know, we'll we'll get people that pop by and be like, is this like, I could just come and like do this and be like, yeah. Yeah. You know, you can get trained up and, you know, if you can commit to this, then sure you can do it. So, yeah, I'm all I almost always, I'm like, there's nobody that can't do this. It's just, like, for who it's not is usually those folks that don't have that don't that aren't very, you know, are aren't kind.
Ben:I think that kindness is a real is a real important feature in taking care of people and being a first responder. There's a definitely a lack of it in the in the the services.
Travis:Mhmm. Cool. Cool. Cool. What, what else are you into, Ben?
Travis:What what other stuff do you do you do? What, what gets you gets you going? Or what are you curious about?
Ben:Right now I, I have been off of it a little bit, but we went to Japan for a month in the last November. And, Marie and I both do, like, daily Japanese studies, and we have a local community group that we meet with once a week that has a we have a Japanese sensei who teaches and, kind of just we just have conversations in basic Japanese. So that's been something I've been really interested in. I love I love the the grammatical structures of language and how, like, ordered it is.
Travis:Interesting. I don't know.
Ben:But Chris
Travis:yeah. What is that like? I don't know anything about how Well, definitely. Or surely.
Ben:Yeah. So we have we have different words that we use to change the meaning of things and, like, Japan, Japanese uses a lot more, like, conjugations to imply meanings, and so the the conjugations are highly regular. So, like, for example, English has something like 400 irregular verbs.
Travis:Mhmm.
Ben:And, Japanese has 2.
Travis:Oh, wow. Okay.
Ben:The other ones are, like, once you understand the grammatical structures, you can change the meaning of, like, the language by just changing the way that you're conjugating the verb, but you don't have to learn a entirely new set of words to describe it in the same, like the conjugations. So I really liked that aspect of it, how, how regular it is, but it's, it's got all, it's it's also got all of the nuances that you'd expect of a of a language. And so it's just so deep and so interesting. And the way that it's, like, kind of, it's it's all sort of pieced together from different aspects of language too. So there's 3 there's basically 3 out, like, character sets that they use.
Ben:The hiragana is like Japanese. Katakana is another Japanese, that you use for foreign and borrowed word than for names and things like that.
Travis:So
Ben:if I were to write my name in Japanese, I would use katakana and then here a Ghana. And you could read those phonetically. And then there's the Kanji, which you can't read phonetically. Really, it's not like a b c. It's like each each pictor pictogram has like a pronunciation.
Ben:And the interesting thing is that a lot of almost, I think the majority of Japanese Kanji are words that are pictures that come from Chinese. So
Travis:Yeah. Okay.
Ben:Chinese Chinese folks and Japanese folks can read a bit of their each other's language, but it would be pronounced differently in Chinese than it would be in Japanese. So there each kanji has a Chinese reading and a Japanese reading. So some words when you're speaking Japanese are actually you're basically saying a Chinese word and and vice versa, like, you're you pronounce them differently. So that's where it gets really, really hard to read is the kanji side of things. If everybody if everything was written in katakana, you'd be able to read it pretty quickly because you just need to memorize You
Travis:can learn learn the rules. Yeah.
Ben:Yeah. It's like it's like the English alphabet. So, yeah, it's yeah. It's really cool, but there's so many just, like, subtle ways to to, like, inject nuance into the way that you're speaking. And then there's this whole side of the language that has, like, this these different conjugations based on how honorific you are being.
Ben:So, like, how polite you're being. So if you're speaking to an elder, if you're speaking to an older brother, if you're speaking to your boss versus your family, there's, like, different ways of speaking. And of course, like we have that similar stuff in English, you know? You know, you're a lot more casual with your your buddies than with your your, your family and and and your bosses and stuff like that. So, yeah, I've been enjoying that.
Ben:That's another, like, thing that I've built quite a few sort of learning systems around. Yeah. I think that's one of my core Marie and I talk about this as one of our core interests is is learning systems. So it's not really like that we're, like, interested in a thing, but that we we create these unique systems of ways of approaching, like, a such an an an interesting thing. So, like, building notion dashboards for music or or learning Japanese and, like, what would be the what would be the most, like, interesting way that we could bring some of this into our daily lives?
Ben:So for example, I found my friend, Justin, who just started learning Japanese too, and he's, like, already accept excelling way past me because he's, like, a really avid, book learner. He introduced me to this app called Migaku, where you can actually install a, Chrome extension and watch Netflix. So you can watch an anime. It it will show you the the Japanese on the bottom, and and it'll you can actually interact with the with the subtitles. So you could click on a word and say, like, what is this word?
Ben:It tells you the definition, how to pronounce it. Uh-huh. Okay. Like and if you know a word, you can mark it in a certain way so that such that the the the subtitles are actually indicative of your understanding of the language. So when you go, you can actually ask it to recommend you, like, shows that feature that that word so so that you can go watch that episode or whatever.
Ben:And like so it's like, I I again, it's this like harmonization thing where
Travis:Yeah.
Ben:Like, you're you're building the learning such that the thing that you're doing elsewhere, like enjoying an anime or whatever, or a Japanese, like, drama that you may never have watched and you're just doing it to learn. So you're getting that, like the learning plus the entertainment plus the
Travis:Right.
Ben:That. So I love those kind of
Travis:Plus your brain, you're so much more engaged in that way than Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Ben:Yeah. So I love stuff like that. That that stuff really interests me where we were building systems that sort of reinforce the behavior that we're trying to to target, versus like, you know, just a a book of here's here's how to learn Japanese. It's, like, not very deeply integrated. So I think, you know, with AI and with more of these toolings that are just, like, reinterpreting things for us and, and that I think, yeah, the future of learning is really, really, really interesting to me.
Ben:So, yeah, Japanese, yeah, like I said, music stuff, anything related to music is really interesting. Yeah, like, the podcasting has been fun of late, just having conversations and stuff. And, yeah, I I kinda go in fits and spurts with reading. I just finished this book by Eric Davis called high weirdness. That was one of my favorite books I've ever read.
Ben:It's basically it's all about, like, weirdness and psychedelics a little bit and mostly, like, sixties seventies, sci fi writing. So it's like the works of Philip k Dick Mhmm. And Robert Wilson, little bit of Terrence McKenna. So it it kind of like an essay format, PhD thesis. So it was like, I had to have a the source and a dictionary with me the whole time.
Ben:And that was a place where I found, I was using Claude at the time and I built this, like, the high weirdness study guide. And I was just like, every page I'm like highlighting 10 words and be like, I don't know any of these words and I'd have to go look them up and, you know, end of the book. I'm like, ah, I finally understand the difference between like epistemological and like, you know, an ontological. Like now I can actually think about these words and kind of understand what's being said when people use these words. So it was it took me 9 months to read, probably the longest time I've ever spent with a book, but it was so enriching and so interesting.
Ben:And, yeah, just like was everything that I was interested in at the time.
Travis:That's super cool.
Ben:Yeah. That was a book I really enjoyed. Right now I'm focused on, reading a book, a bunch of books. I'm so I'm working on a course that I just started kind of a subset of Notion Mastery. It's called architecting workspaces, and it's my, like, consultants and experts guide to building high impact, high f highly effective Notion workspaces.
Ben:Like, basically, like, do it like this. Make sure all this is set up. Here's how to onboard it to your team. Here's some light training and stuff. So, like, a no must, no fuss kind of, like, guide to the best practices for using Notion.
Ben:And so I'm I'm reading a bunch of stuff about change management, complexity theory, particularly obsessed with, with Dave Snowden's method. I don't know if you've ever heard of
Travis:this No. I have not.
Ben:Method, but a framework.
Travis:Okay.
Ben:So it's a Welsh word, It's kind of a odd spelling, but,
Travis:Dave
Ben:Snowden writes about it. And it's it's it's all about these domains of complexity, complicatedness, like, chaos and simplicity and the liminal states between those. And it's about, like, basically, like, it's a met it's like sort of a framework slash methodology for identifying what where you are in a in a in in a question. Are is this is this a place that requires, like, a lot of of, order? Like, do we
Travis:need to order this?
Ben:Do we need to move towards chaos? Because we're looking for like innovation and new ideas here. Right. And it's about like, you know, how we how we always exist in these liminal spaces between those. And that's when, like, this really interesting stuff happens.
Ben:So I use it as like sort of an internal thing for when I'm doing client work. I never make it really explicit in my work, but I use it as a way of like, you know, identifying. Cause I think a lot of people will come to a situation and be like, this is, this is too, this is too chaotic. We need to simplify this. And I often feel like, we have this over, over emphasis on, on simplifying things.
Ben:And sometimes they actually need to be complicated as, like, sort of necessarily complicated. And sometimes, like, we need to actually lean into and embrace chaos to, like, unpack, like, what's what's actually happening in a situation. So I think, you know, for me, like, I that's kinda how the the way that I approach work is not not going into a thing, like, thinking, like, I'm gonna simplify this process and simplify this company right out of the gate. Like, you need to be in there a little bit in an observational phase and kind of figuring out where where is expertise needed? Where is it not needed?
Ben:Where should it be left to someone else to figure out? You know, being sometimes I leave companies that I work with with a considerable measure of uncertainty and I'm like getting to be like sort of okay with that, that it's not high. It's not right actually to answer all the questions. Yeah. So yeah.
Ben:Complexity, change management. Those are the kind of things I'm reading about and the things that I'm particularly interested in right now.
Travis:Some of, some of that, it's really interesting. Some of that, you're talking about, you know, people will have that tendency to, oh, we need to simplify, simplify, simplify. And you're saying like, maybe we need to embrace the cast. It feels like that rhymes a little with what we talked about back at the beginning about feeling your feelings like, like that used the example of like a panic attack, like, okay, I'm having a panic attack. I'm going to feel this as opposed to putting up that resistance to feeling and experiencing like fully embodying those feelings.
Travis:It feels like there's there's echoes there of like, okay, this, this is chaotic. We're not going to put up resistance and just try to like hide the chaos. We're going to like, let it, let it all be out here in the open and like pick through it and experience it and use that as a way to move, move things forward. Yeah.
Ben:And one of the most, one of the most beautiful things that that Joe, Hudson introduces his work as this concept of the golden algorithm where he says that the thing the thing that we the thing that we resist is the thing that we invite in the most of. And I think the the most famous example of that for me is, like, this this fear of, like you're afraid of shipping something that people won't like or writing something that people won't like. And so you resist that by not shipping. And that causes you to feel that to invite in that people don't like you because nobody's like commenting because you have no work. So you feel like the shame of not shipping.
Ben:Right. So you're just like continuously not starting because of that fear of the shame that or shame that you're going to feel for doing something that people won't like. So it's like, the more you resist that thing, the more that you're going to invite in that thing that you're resisting. So I think it goes that way a lot in, in every aspect of our lives that, you know, if we start, you know, worrying about solving a thing, then we're going to naturally cause us to not solve that thing. So, you know, that letting go.
Travis:Just keep replaying the feeling. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's super interesting. Cool.
Ben:Yeah. Other than that, I play, I play video games a lot. I've been playing the latest Elden Ring, DLC. I've just been starting this game called Wukong, which is pretty fun. I love the game Bellatro, the kind of like solitaire, like poker, but but with, I think a lot of programmers would like ball, ball outro it's like, basically you get, you know, it's like a poke.
Ben:They're they're all poker hands, but you get these jokers, which one, which can modify the deck. So you can end up with like 5 of a kind and then like, okay, like 5 5 of the same kind. So you can turn your whole deck into one card, and then you get all these, like, stat boosters based on having certain cards in your deck, or, like, you play this card and then this happens and you get these multipliers and the score just got keeps going up and up and down. It's it's a it's a challenging game, but it's it's basically solitaire. Like, you're you're just, like, building a deck over time.
Ben:Right. But, yeah, that that one that one was really, really appealing to me.
Travis:Well, that sounds very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Like layers of complexity. Yeah.
Ben:Yeah. So that's that's when I got really, really hyped on a couple months ago until Interesting. Until I started playing Elden ring DLC.
Travis:Yeah. Yeah. I don't play that, but I've I've known a number of people who were pretty pumped when for that to to come out recently.
Ben:What are you excited about right now?
Travis:Cool. Yeah. What am I excited about right now? That is a good question. I've lately reading.
Travis:I'm like, I go, I feel like I go through these phases with reading where I'll like slow way down and like not read as much and then get, you know, kind of get back into it. Right. And just read all the time. And at any one time I'll have, you know, anywhere from like 3 to half a dozen books, you know, going at one time. And sometimes that trips me up.
Travis:You know, I have like too many different books in flight and then like, oh, I can't decide which one to read or I'm never finishing a book. But yeah, I I I read a lot of I mentioned I read a lot of history. I'm reading a really interesting book right now on the Russian revolution and civil war, immediately after World War 1. It's great. You know, it's it's dry and, you know, a little little dense, but I like that a lot.
Travis:And I love the the rest is history podcast. It's like, excellent. But if you're a history nerd, that's excellent, I guess. Yeah. Yeah.
Travis:So it's getting me going. So.
Ben:Yeah. I feel like in my late twenties, I spent, a good year or 2 just reading about like the tactics and tactics and battles in World War 2. So, like, I read this, like, 1,000 page book. I don't even remember what it was called, but it was about all it was only about the tank battles in Northern Africa in in the late stages of World War 2. And it was just it was fascinating, like, you know, how much and just even how much information they had about, like, what was going on from literally day to day to day, they would know, like, they would, you know, be able to retell you all of the Right.
Travis:We have
Ben:all these, like, historical documents of what the movements were and what the battles were like and what people were fighting there and what happened. And that was super, super interesting, like way more than any like war movie. That's like, you know, fictionalized. Right?
Travis:Yeah. Yeah. It's it's, it always gets me how there's like, which is sometimes a depressing thing is like, oh, there's way more interesting stuff out there than I could possibly ever take in. You know, like you can, you can go deep in it any area, basically, you know, whether that's history or any other interest is like, oh, you could, you could focus on that and go as deep as you want. It's like fractally interesting.
Travis:But yeah. Anyway, what, you, you briefly mentioned movies. What is there any, any movie that you've enjoyed recently in particular movie or TV show?
Ben:That's tough to say. Not sure. Yeah. I don't I thought the new Deadpool was pretty good. That was funny.
Ben:I'm excited to see the new Alien movie. I I've always been a big, alien fan, so Romulus looks really good. You might go check that out this weekend. Yeah. I like sci fi movies.
Ben:I'm excited for the new severance season to come out, and
Travis:Marie
Ben:and I just finished watching another Apple TV one called dark matter, Yeah. Which is based on a series of books. Basically, guy, they build this, like, device that combined with this drug allows you to sort of, like, basically go to any version of reality that you would want. And it it ends up having kind of disastrous consequences
Travis:Right.
Ben:Creating the thing, obviously. So that one was pretty cool. Very, like, you know, sci fi. I like those kind of weird sci fi kind of things.
Travis:Yeah. I enjoyed I enjoyed that one a lot. I'd I'd read the book several years ago and then
Ben:Oh, nice.
Travis:But long enough ago that I had forgotten, you know, kind of like the details. So that was it's interesting to see how they Yeah. I'm curious to see if they try to stretch it to to more seasons or do anything else.
Ben:I might like to go back and check out the book. I did that with, I loved the 1st season of Altered Carbon, and then that second one wasn't so great. And I went and read the the first book in that series, and that was pretty good. But I don't know. It's it's really tough to go read a book after you've watched the, the, the, the, TV version of it.
Ben:But sometimes it's enjoyable. You never know.
Travis:Have you, this is only vaguely scifi, but have you watched the movie Palm Springs?
Ben:I think so.
Travis:Is it Andy Samberg? Yeah,
Ben:yeah, yeah, yeah.
Travis:Like the loop one. Yeah. That's kind of
Ben:like a ground groundhog day in the
Travis:desert. Yeah. That strikes me as something you might. Yeah.
Ben:Yeah. I like, I like time travel stuff. It's strikes me. Yeah. That one's a funny one.
Ben:Andy Samberg's pretty funny.
Travis:Yeah.
Ben:Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Cool.
Travis:Good. All right. Well, Ben, I super, super, super enjoyed chatting with you and hearing about what you're what you're into and what you're curious about. What's next? Where's the
Ben:where can people find your podcast?
Travis:Yeah, everything, everything is interesting pod.com. It's the URL. Yeah. And your
Ben:personal website is, travisnorthcut.com.
Travis:Yeah. Yeah. And find me on Twitter, tnorthcut on Twitter. I'm, perhaps too active on Twitter. So I just, I love talking to people on Twitter.
Travis:Like it's great. Yeah.
Ben:Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I look forward to hearing more of your podcasts and, good luck to you.
Travis:Yeah. Thanks Ben. See you.
Ben:Awesome.
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