Trickle-Down Galaxy Brain
Wow. Take a good look at this OG Coyote Man!
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January 4th, 2021
Two of my heroes are Dale Carnegie and Ralph C. Smedley. You've probably heard of the former, but not the latter.
Dale Carnegie, of course, is the famous self-help author, who wrote How to Win Friends & Influence People. A classic in interpersonal excellence, which is consistently rated the top business book of all time.
I actually thought the book was pretty overrated when I first tried (and failed) to read it, probably since my expectations were so high given all the hype around it, which at the time I did not recognize as “lindy” hype. As the people who regularly read my journals know, I was a trainer at Dale Carnegie Training, and I taught the legendary Dale Carnegie Course which he developed in 1912.
While probably corny and somewhat dated, the advice is solid, especially his 30 “golden principles,” some of which are:
Principle 8. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
Principle 15. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
Principle 26. Let the other person save face.
This seems like basic stuff of course, but lots of people are really bad at the basic stuff. Maybe it is corny to listen to Carnegie, and become socially fluent, as social assholes like Steve Jobs get all the glory. Carnegie was an absolute sensation during his day though, and people flocked to see him so he could teach them the basics. He was a businessman as well, and he was not shy about making money.
While his business hustle was admirable, that is not the aspect I admire about him most. I admire his ability to teach navigation of the complex realm of social dynamics, which he did through an ecology of basic principles, and his teachings have consistently led to people getting better at relationships.
He was a man for the masses, and he had no judgement for the normies in his heart. Our metatribe needs a Carnegie, as I wrote about before:
In one of her Psychotechnology Playground sessions at The Stoa, Bonnitta Roy, who I totally have a crush on, conveyed that we need to remove the epistemic fat from a lot of these sensemaking discussions if we are going to reach a larger audience. I teased her that the phrase epistemic fat is epistemic fat for most.
I love my pretentious and unnecessary terms way too much to be the Carnegie of the metatribe, but I can code-switch with the best of them, so maybe this might be a calling for me one day. Tarn Rodgers Johns and Ellie Hain, who critiqued the sensemaking scene for this very reason, might be the women for the job. They are returning to The Stoa in February in a new “communal podcast” series, and will be addressing how to make all this sensemaking wisdom more accessible.
The other hero I mentioned, Ralph C. Smedley, is the guy you probably have not heard of, but his influence is just as profound as Carnegie's, if not more so. He is the guy who founded Toastmasters International, the international public speaking organization.
I was a part of Toastmasters for a few years, and at one point I was competing in their tournament to become their “World Champion of Public Speaking.” There are some videos of my past speeches still online, which I would totally self-cringe at if I were to watch them now, as the Toastmaster style of speech is not an extemporaneous one, but one that is memorized and well-rehearsed.
It was really helpful doing that though, because not having to worry about what you have to say, allows you to focus on and perfect the neglected aspects of speech: body language, tonality, eye contact, etc. I got all “quantified self” about it as well, and created my own evaluation system, made spreadsheets, then filmed all of my talks to analyze the data against what I was seeing.
I admire Smedley because he helped me and many others become better public speakers, by basically creating a public speaking “psychotechnology,” which is now replicable via Toastmaster clubs the world over. If you stick with their system, you will become a better public speaker.
In The Story of Toastmasters, Smedley wrote that he was getting pressure to make Toastmasters a for-profit company, and he could have made a lot of money from doing so, but opted to make it a non-profit. In his own words:
There have been occasions when someone recognized the money-making possibilities in our work and started talking about capitalizing on it, but an explanation of the facts was enough to stop him. I have been pronounced various kinds of fool for not making a fortune out of it, but my reply has been that I would rather be rich in friendship than in money.
Fuck yeah, Smedley. You crazy beautiful human. If you look at a photo of him, you can see the daemonic fire in his eyes. What an OG Coyote Man. I am not saying one should not go for the “fuck you money” option if they have the chance, as that might be the wisest thing for somebody to do, but the spirit has to be situated in something other than solely the profit-motive.
I sense what we need is the love-child of Carnegie and Smedley. Somebody who can cut the epistemic fat without using the phrase epistemic fat, and who can create a psychotechnology that is not behind an intimidating paywall, and gift it to the world like a boss.
I am probably not the guy for this, as I am just a simple man, who wants a simple life, but I am happy to fail by example, which is to say fail in the right way, with what our friend Dave Snowden calls a safe-to-fail probe. The Stoa is such a probe.
I am writing this entry after hosting Evan “The Bridge” McMullen’s first session in his Sensemaker in Residence series. I was asking Evan some questions, and flexed my coinage game with the following phrase: trickle-down galaxy brain.
Galaxy brain has become somewhat of an insulting meme that jealous people use towards super smart and articulate people who have very impressive and seemingly all-encompassing world-views. For the most part, when I use the phrase here, I use it in a loving way, as I think it does gesture towards a category of people. I’d proudly say a bunch of my friends are galaxy brains: Jordan Hall, Daniel Schmachtenberger, John Vervaeke, and yeah, Evan is totally one as well.
I am no galaxy brain. Most of us are not. This is why we need to trickle-down the wisdom of these fine people. In order for this to happen, we need a Carnegie to cut the fat, and a Smedley to selflessly spread the good around.
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