Eureka effect

It's an immense loss indeed.

Okay, the next myth, the Eureka moment versus incremental growth.

It's quite related to the lone geniuses, but again, when we read about innovation in schools or universities, it's always about someone was observing something, then they say, oh, this happened, then that's how at least the story or narrative was framed and presented to us.

Tell us, what's the real picture you observe from history?

Really.

And you already answered one of my next questions, which was, what was the aha moment that led you or triggered this idea? And so this is really fascinating.

Always we like to hear such stories because many times it's like inspiration, you know, and at our AGI 26 conference, actually, Mike Levin said, Mike Levin spoke about inspiration and how it comes from his platonic spaces and so on.

It's fascinating.

By the way, it really was an aha

moment.

It was an aha moment and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck disappear.

the apocryphal story, stand up.

Yes

...before we come to this eureka moment, as you call it, actually, the, the plate tectonics, and an extraordinary discovery q-quite recently.

I mean-

Yes

That's what they demonstrated.

And so we moved from a happy idea to a really quantitative foundation of sea floor spreading.

And that theory, which you've called the eureka moment, I'm repeating myself, but it's worth repeating, is, is, is something that was resisted in America, and particularly in, in Russia at length.

Can you tell us briefly why it was so heavily resisted?

And both of you are like, well, we did coaching today.

But then that awareness, that aha moment does not lead to any change in their lived experience.

And months later, you're still talking through their people pleasing ways.

And now you're coming to the end of your coaching contract.

And it's super frustrating for both of you.

I just want to say, I think we can all blame Oprah for believing that the aha moment was ever going to be enough.

But this is the territory I really want to explore today, like why having those moments, those realizations and doing kind of mindset work can be so genuinely useful and why sometimes it doesn't reach far enough and what becomes possible when we learn how to coach at a different level.

So look, before we get into it, if this is exactly the kind of coaching conversation you want to become more confident holding, come and join me for my free masterclass.

I was looking at it from a completely different direction, direction it shouldn't be looked at, but this actually rules.

I had that aha moment, and Malcolm can probably guess this, with Alexis King.

This past Saturday at – at NXT Live in Petersburg.

Come

Yeah.

And then, you know, him coming in, and, I mean, the way that he... was able to, you know, come off as the like pussy millennial Gen Z thing.

Like where it just, that to me, the aha moment.

And we can talk more about the Petersburg event after this, but like, I love those aha moments where like, I was watching that with Malcolm and I was sitting there and I was like, okay, wait a minute.

The old

aha moment.

that's a great see i like i like to work until the aha moment and then i'm like okay i need a new something else to work you are

exactly that that that is a great characteristic you are the personality type that goes oh i've mastered this i'm not going to keep mastering it i'm going to move on and i am off to the i want to go in here and figure out how to re re uh rewire a car

i'll do i will that i like i chase aha moments and then i am done I like to get

into the aha moment and say, okay, how farther can I go? I got, I gotta be, I gotta do more.

So let us know in the comments, what, if any of this podcast two and one makes sense to you, uh, if you understand kind of what the community we're trying to build and where you fall into that, are you into this thing? Because you're just like, Oh, I just like good barbecue.

I don't have one care in the world about lighting a fire, managing a fire, uh, You're missing out.

I mean, I've interviewed thousands of nonprofit founders in the last 15 years, a lot of people.

And most people, I would say 99% can remember the moment when the light bulb went off the aha moment that says, I am making a U-turn in my life.

And I'm doing this, this, this, I have to do this.

So did you have that moment? And if so, set the stage.

And you don't always know where it's going to lead.

No, you don't.

So I would say that my work, particularly in local economies through planning board, informed my understanding of the like how important local economies are so when you think about that aha moment it was there were building blocks but the other piece there was the aha moment when and so throughout i i would say for a decade i was very deep in um the civic space i had taken like a career gap i stopped earning you know the the big you know wall street you know um salaries and did the consulting on the side.

But the big moment was when my oldest was going to college and like, wow, I spent all this time readying her to go out and seize the world, you know, What are all the skills that I've developed? I got to do something to fix the world kind of thing.

...

this specific aha moment when everything suddenly clicked? Did you get that?

I mean, that moment that I've just described was, was where everything begin, began to click, in fact.

You know, and I think when, when I started to bring the knowledge, uh, the learning that I was having around the chakra system into my yoga practice and use it in a very intentional way, um, you know, there've been moments, you know, there's still moments where I have aha moments all of the time, [laughs] you know.

Because this lang- this language of the body is so fascinating, and the deeper you go, the more you realize there is to learn.

You know, for example, you know, I'm, I'm currently working on, um, the minor chakras.

So y- ancient texts say that, uh, there is, um, I think, 114, um, chakras in our bodies, um, seven major, uh, 21 minor, and 80-odd little teeny-tiny ones around the body.

But when you begin to understand, um, that there are these points of energy within your body that hold so much wisdom that we can learn from, it, it puts a whole new perspective.