Simon's Infinite Game [The Zero Dot Podcast #28]

the old adage, follow your bliss, right?

Whatever makes you happy, just go and do that thing.

That's great advice.

Except there's many people I know who are trying to do that and they're suffering right
now.

So I think following your bliss is one part of the equation, but it's not everything.

If anything, it's about finding the bliss in the things that you do that align with your
why.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, boys and girls, everyone of all ages, welcome to the
Zero Dot podcast, where you go to get your energy restored when things are feeling a

little low for you.

And you come to realize that when our chips are down and our resources are down, that's
when we are actually our strongest.

I'm your host, Sam Kirk, John Merrick.

Well, he's taking a little bit of a time off right now.

And Daniel Prattley, our producer, well,

He's in the wings right now producing this episode to make it magical for you.

So right now this is the Sam Kirk show and I'm super excited to talk about this week's
episode with you.

But first, I think it's important we give ourselves a little bit of good news.

You know, it's been a little bit of a week.

I don't know if you've heard it, but you know, seven consecutive days and uh thanks a bit,
know, thanks a bit of going depending on where you are.

And I'd love to know how your week has been.

So go ahead and drop in the comments.

How's your week been?

good, bad, ugly, tell us all the good deets.

I care about you.

I really do care about you.

I wanna make sure that you're doing okay.

And if you're not, know, my energy goes in your direction.

With that said though, my week's been okay.

Let's give ourselves some good news for the week.

So for our good news for this particular week, I'm gonna take us to the Global Wind Energy
Council.

They just released their 2026 report with findings from the past year, 2025, and
predictions for the future.

Now, this is important.

The GWEC, they focus specifically on the wind industry and wind turbines of that kind, and
they have found some incredibly fun and some they have found some incredible findings in

the past year that should make all of us incredibly excited, especially when we think
about our good Mother Earth and how we can take care of it and live on this planet for as

long as we can.

infinitely, you might say, or at least as long as we think we can, which is going to come
up later for this week's topic of discussion.

They say, and this is from their website right now and their report, the wind industry
sets a new benchmark as installations hit a record 165 gigawatt power capacity increase

from last year.

That's up 40 percent from the previous record year of the new capacity.

That is massive.

That is huge.

So what does that mean?

China, USA, India, and other countries now are leading wind capacity additions driven by
high demand for onshore wind.

Global wind power hit 1,299 gigawatts of power, or 1.3 practically terawatts of power, as
governments turn to homegrown renewable energy.

28,395 wind turbines

were installed across 57 countries in 2026.

Whoa, that's massive.

And 138 countries worldwide are now powered with wind energy.

That's really exciting folks.

With the exception of like the one person that thinks that wind energy is not good for the
environment or you know, what's gonna happen if we run out of wind?

I'm not gonna talk to you right now.

For everyone else that knows that using wind to harness energy and

power, our utilities and so forth and everything in between is a good thing.

This is great news and it gets even better.

You see, it took them about 40 years, they say, to install the first terawatt of wind
capacity.

That was in 2023.

They reached that milestone in 2023 and they predict it's only going to take about six
years now to install its second terawatt of wind capacity in 2029.

That's like three years from now.

Three years from now, we're going to have two terawatts of wind capacity energy, you know,
helping fund and energize the entire planet.

In fact, here's the coolest part.

This is the thing that kind of got me on my chair and made me go, what the heck?

The International Energy Agency, so that's IEA, a separate entity, their current
projections, which tend to skew a little bit conservatively considering, you know, the

amount of experts that are in this area that say that generally their predictions are a
little conservative, they suggest.

we might be able to install as much as eight terawatts of wind power capacity by the year
2050.

2050!

That's not too long from now.

That's 24 years.

Eight terawatts.

Now, to give you perspective, this is a big deal because right now, if we got eight
terawatts of power,

That is nearly the entire energy generating capacity of the entire world.

It's practically there.

So what that means is by 2050, it seems reasonable.

If we don't go more aggressive than that trajectory, the whole world can be powered by
wind power.

And for those that want to protect our planet, want to make sure that we don't tap into
our fossil fuels endlessly wants to not, you know,

contribute to global warming any more than we have to and give ourselves a way to use the
energy that's already around us to help make our lives a better place.

That is just good news all around.

Now folks don't take my word for it.

You can actually look at this information yourself right now by going to gwc.net slash
reports slash global wind report hashtag download and you'll be sent to their splash page.

It gives you a ton of cool information and then you go ahead and fill out just some basic
small bits of information about yourself and you'll be able to download the entire report,

which is a hundred and twelve pages of

good stuff, just interesting findings where we are on the energy conservation front where
scientists believe we are, where experts think we are, and it's just good news all around.

So please take a moment to go to that link, download that file yourself, read up through
it.

You don't have to read through all of it, but it's just interesting stuff.

And thank you for every single person that stayed on Team Human that's been trying to make
the world a better place for us on the nature and the earth and just the actual world we

live in.

I thank you.

I know Daniel thanks you.

I know John thanks you.

And all of us at Team Human thank you.

So that's good stuff.

I'm excited about it.

All right folks, that's some good news, but what about some weird news or something
interesting for us to poke at?

You know, we've had this habit from time to time here at Xer.

I've kind of highlighting certain creators or certain people on the interwebs that you can
find that we think are worth your interest.

And one such person I might point you out to right now is can be found on youtube.com,
goes by the name of Lewis Woods.

Now Lewis Woods appears to be some kind of filmmaker, essayist of some kind.

They have three videos on their YouTube channel right now with a whopping 1610 or so ish
subscribers, but that's no easy feat with only three videos.

But I want to point your eyes to one video they have on their channel.

They just published it one day ago as of this recording.

So a couple of days ago when you see this, it's a video called Forget Ambition, a case for
hopeless creativity.

Now I won't go ahead and play the video for you.

It's only about six and a half minutes long.

So here's the summary notes of this particular video.

And by the way, this is a screen grab from their video themselves.

So apologies for summarizing a really great video, but I love this video because he's
talking about the creative process and he really is examining the life of an actor called

Bryan Cranston.

You know, Bryan Cranston, you know, from Breaking Bad, know, from Malcolm in the Middle,
you know, and from all different kinds of prestigious projects, but he follows the

trajectory of that individual's career.

And the man was working long and hard in bit.

bit rolls in commercial advertisements.

He did voiceover work uh for multiple projects, including Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
before he ever got his big break in Malcolm in the Middle.

He even had one roll, one bit roll in an episode of the X-Files.

And he was following this person's trajectory and trying to take what he could uh from the
creative pursuit of just trying to be creative for the sake of creativity, not about

ambition.

not trying to accomplish something.

And the three big takeaways for this video, he says is number one, work for happiness now,
not happiness later.

We've talked about this before on this podcast.

And one of the things I'm super sensitive to is this idea of intrinsic value versus
extrinsic value.

Many people on this planet do things for extrinsic value.

I go get this job, this job will pay me money.

If I get more money, I'll have my needs met.

If my needs are met, I will be happy, right?

The very basic way of thinking about things.

I play a video game, I play a video game to get the achievement, I get the achievement,
the big little point thing happens on my face, and suddenly I now have more achievements,

right?

That's extrinsic value.

But intrinsic value is the act of doing something for the sake of doing the thing, right?

Being happy now, like.

Why do I have a job for the money when I can have a job because I love the job that I do?

Why do I play a video game to achieve something when I can play the video game that brings
me joy right now?

And then the same pursuit can be said about creativity and being an actor and just trying
to push forth and make things.

And the big lesson here is work for happiness now, not happiness later.

Don't chase the award.

Don't chase the alcholades.

Don't chase further fame and fortune.

Chase what's right in front of you and keep things small.

In the same way, number two is,

He kind of examines David Lynch's work and how he went from being a painter to someone who
made short little animated films to shorter films, to vignettes, to finally getting

funding to making his first commercial success and critical success Eraserhead, which is
don't try to make the big blockbuster, the big gargantuan massive thing right now.

Instead, work within your means.

What are the tools you have in your toolkit?

David Lynch is famous for saying that he doesn't consider himself much of a filmmaker.

He's a painter first.

And everything else has just been a fun hobby of him to kind of explore, digest, kind of
go down different rabbit holes make things that interested him along the way.

David Lynch is one of my favorite creators simply because everything he's ever made, he's
enjoyed the process along the way and he's used whatever tools he's had at his disposal to

do that.

And again, this video kind of highlights that here as well.

And last but not least, which ties into our later bigger topic, let success grow
naturally.

Meaning again,

not chasing the big, big, whopping success euphoric thing, but rather just keep creating
and you'll be surprised by the results that come through chasing what I would call the

infinite game rather than the finite game, right?

Not trying to end with the big bang, but rather just make sure that every step of the
process you're enjoying it along the way.

It's a great video.

It's six and a half minutes, but I want to give a shout out to this particular creator
because this creator just seems like they're going to be going places and it's a great

video to kind of...

be a stepping stone for our larger topic today that we have here at Zero Dot.

Hey, it's me, just doing a quick little interruption to thank all of our amazing Patreon
supporters for literally supporting this podcast and making it a reality.

You know who you are, but a quick shout out to David Rivera, God of Grunts, Aid, JP,
William Kirk, and Robert Restante for being the legends that you are.

Thank you for supporting us.

We hope we do you proud.

And this show is made possible because of those folks.

Thank you.

So that's been some good news, that's been some weird news.

And now what does this all have to do with?

Well, our topic for the day, which is, well, actually a topic that is near and dear to
Simon Sinek's heart.

Simon Sinek, if you don't know who this individual person is, uh he's a public speaker.

He was a marketing person before he got into kind of the leadership development space.

And now he's most famous, probably if you've seen any of his work on Ted talks or any
other.

uh

Any other platforms like LinkedIn, TikToks, Instagram, et cetera.

He's famous for his book and his work on the concept called the infinite game.

And I thought I'd take a moment right now to dive into that particular concept.

If you've been listening to us up until this point, you know that I'm not the biggest fan
of self-help industry or even other people in my own industry, but there's a couple of

good eggs.

And one of them is Simon Sinek.

Simon Sinek talks about the infinite game.

He talks about the idea that when it comes to life,

All of us are playing the same game and it's up to us to choose whether or we want to play
the game by the actual rules in front of us or rules we've made up inside of our heads.

So to break this down, think about an infinite game versus a finite game.

A finite game has a set of rules that everyone agrees upon, a set of players that we've
all agreed upon, no other external extraneous factors we haven't agreed upon and an end

goal, an end result, right?

That's a finite game.

An infinite game is one where there's a known set of players, but then new players can
jump in and out whenever they please.

The rules keep changing constantly.

uh The only measure of success in an infinite game is staying in the game to keep playing.

That's it.

So trying to play an infinite game and saying I've won is not possible.

The only way to be winning is if you are still playing.

The moment you step out of the game, you're no longer playing.

You're no longer playing the infinite game and therefore you have lost.

To be a human being then is to be a participant in the infinite game.

And so I want to use that as our jumping board for our discussion today because as a
leadership consultant myself, one of the things I talk to people about quite a bit is what

they view success to be.

What is success for them?

What's their metric for success?

And I get all kinds of interesting answers like making sure over a year over year yields
are higher than they were last year, year over year growth.

Making sure that we're seeing a sustainable profit margin, etc, etc, etc And those are all
fine good enough goals, but then I asked them.

What is your purpose?

What's your value?

What are you trying to do today that no one else is doing now?

And that's where they struggle.

That's where we all kind of struggle And so one of the things I like about Simon's next
concept and I we can extrapolate that a little bit more together today is The infinite

game reevaluates what success means but then gives us permission

ask the right questions and kind of see the forest from the trees, right?

To give you a demonstration of what I mean by the infinite game, let's imagine you're
tracking performance of something.

Let's uh performance by a certain amount of time.

And let's say that, well, on this graph that I'm showing right here, here in the
beginning, this is where things start.

We want to obviously, this is the passage of time going right on the X axis and the Y axis
is performance.

And it doesn't matter what you pick.

You can say selling a certain amount of uh

product by a certain amount of time, getting a certain amount of sale, getting enough
revenue, performing in a certain way.

It doesn't matter what you choose, but X axis is time, time of progression, and Y axis is
upward length, right?

And in the world of project management or any person that, you know, puts two pennies
together and says, here's a plan for success.

Most of the time they say, okay, by a certain amount of time, let's say three months, I
expect you to hit this particular amount of target.

uh

The target that I have right here is this red X right here.

This is our target that we're trying to shoot for.

Now, the infinite mindset and the finite mindset or the infinite game versus the finite
game might not change the overall end result goal.

In fact, some cases, the end result does change, but rather the way we get there is
significantly different.

And as someone who's in the leadership consultant space, that's something I care a lot
about.

So for instance, let's pretend for a moment, let's pick purple for finite.

We're in the finite mind space.

And let's say I'm trying to achieve this particular goal, this red X by the three month
mark, whatever that means.

And that's my target.

And I've decided that I will win when I have achieved this particular target.

It's the most important thing to me right now.

I have to achieve it.

Well, let's say we start off, things bumble a little bit, things fall, but then we start
ramping up things.

Maybe training goes up, maybe additional hires happen.

Maybe we expand our teams, but then we have some budget cuts.

And then we scramble working with our project leaders and things are going well where it
seems like there's no ceiling, but then we start crashing really bad.

And then we have to do whatever we can with efficiencies and getting more people on track
and hiring and onboarding.

And we zigzag all the way forward.

We are literally going crazy until at the very last second, look at that.

We made it.

We made it.

This is an exaggerated graph, but as you can see, there was lots of peaks and valleys, but
gosh darn it, we made that target.

God damn it.

Good for us.

Things are going to be looking up for us.

I get to announce at my quarterly review with everyone else that we met the target,
whatever that meant.

You get to announce to your friends that milestone you were chasing, whether it was
lifting a certain amount of weight.

certain amount of time or beating a video game in a certain amount of time or achieving
this or achieving that etc etc etc you get to say you did the thing now i'm the consultant

i start asking questions and i then ask well what happened after that date and if you're
really smart and you're good at your job you won't you won't show me what happens

afterwards but if you open the door and you're honest with me and we

might be able to make some big progress together, you will be honest.

And you'll show me what the graph looks like after the three month mark.

You'll show me what the graph looks like.

the three month and one day mark and it will look something like this.

A significant drop.

And that's because getting to here, this whole thing, wasn't sustainable.

You were chasing an extrinsic value.

So whether you made the target or not, my question would be, well, are we actually really
at the target or do we just stretch ourselves to get there?

Because then if I were to do kind of a median line, let's say a very, I'm

I'm going to use a straight line for this one, see if I can get it right.

Well, we might actually be like right here.

But we're not even there sustainably.

I don't even know if we're actually there.

So it actually doesn't look like we even met the target.

But in some ways we did.

That's a finite mindset.

Now let's go back.

Let's go back a little bit and look at the infinite mindset.

Go back, go back, go back, go back, go back.

Let's pick the color blue, because I like the color blue.

But an infinite mindset says is whether they know that that's target or not to go, okay,
that's target.

But like, I know that we're going to be doing this well past that target date of three
months.

So we have to build the foundation now wherever we can.

And things might start really slow, like really, really slow.

Oops, let's go back.

And things might start really slow, like really, really slow.

It might feel like we're not making any kind of a momentum whatsoever.

But then slowly we start ramping up, we start getting a good foundation.

There's some peaks and valleys, but they're a lot smaller than before.

We're moving on up, we're moving on up.

The trajectory is pretty much more consistent.

We're moving on up and we feel pretty good steady and we end right here.

So to give you comparison, this is where we are.

We did not meet the target.

We were very well below it.

In a finite mindset, you'd look at this and say, this is an absolute failure.

We did not meet the target.

And in certain project management circles, they would certainly view it that way.

But other project management circles know that a target, whenever you place it, they only
have a 60 % confidence rating that you'll actually achieve the target.

And that's okay.

Just striving for the target is good enough.

And in my circle as leadership consultants, I like this line a lot better.

Because when I take this line, it's a lot straighter than the other one, which tells me

Yeah, let's go back and pick the right color.

This line is a lot straighter.

There's a lot less variance, we might call it.

And so that leads me to believe that if we look at the behavior from before, past behavior
is the best predictor of future behavior, that generally speaking, if I were to predict

how are things going to go three months in one day, well, generally, you're probably still
going to keep up on that trajectory.

You might level out a little bit.

because know, things can't keep moving on forward forever in an upward trajectory.

It's just not possible.

It's literally not possible, but at least it's a more even path.

What I don't expect to happen is if we did this and suddenly we start dropping, I know
that if we start dropping, some external force came up that no one predicted.

But in more cases than not, I would expect that if you were to ask me to predict, that's
what I'd be looking at.

Now that's the infinite game.

Now, some people would say, this is a failure.

We did not meet the target.

I would look at this and go, I prefer that.

And most of the greatest companies you've ever heard of, um the ones that are less
short-sighted in their goals, have an infinite game and an infinite mindset like this.

So why am I talking about this?

Why am I talking business all of a sudden?

Well,

I'm talking this because I think all of us could benefit from challenging our notion of
what we're doing, what our goals are, and making sure that we're doing our best to stay in

the game for as long as we possibly can.

Asking ourselves the question that our good friend Lewis Woods just kind of asked us, am I
working for happiness now and not happiness later?

Or am I putting that off?

Am I putting off my happiness?

Am I working within my means or am I stretching myself so much that I'm falling apart that
I'm burning out?

And am I allowing there to be the opportunity for success to grow naturally?

Or am I just begging and praying for some magical, amazing, incredible force to come swoop
me up and make me quote unquote successful?

Those three pieces of advice can be framed as questions and those are great jumping off
point to kind of ask us what can we possibly do to make sure that we're on a more infinite

game path?

Because I'll be honest folks as a consultant and as your friend, you're on my podcast.

I want you to be playing the infinite game.

Really?

I do.

I want you to be playing the infinite game.

The infinite game is going to make sure you're in the in the game for the long haul,
obviously.

But also if you played the finite game.

with the exception of like actual games that you're playing that have finite specific
beginnings, middles and ends, you're selling yourself short, you're hurting yourself and

you're hurting your family and you're hurting your loved ones.

And I don't want that.

I don't want any of us to do that.

And as I think about what's happening right now,

geopolitically and otherwise.

It is really easy to feel like we've hit the end of the finite game.

There's a lot of despair out there.

There's a lot of, well, lack of hope.

And way I see it is all we got to do is hang on, hang on longer than the other guys, hang
on longer than anyone else is willing to.

And I think that might give us, well, it not might, it will, it will give us the strength
to win this thing.

And by winning, mean, just being in the infinite game for as long as you possibly can.

When Simon Sinek talks about finding your why in his book, he's really trying to ask
people to uncover what it is that pushes you forth beyond motivations, beyond dalliances,

beyond preferences.

Like what is your mission in life?

Because your mission in life is to be able to pursue whatever that mission is for as long
as you possibly can, hence the infinite game.

The two are intertwined with each other.

Folks, I was blessed, fortunate we'll say, with having an opportunity of losing almost
everything.

Like almost everything.

Like my career was gone, my marriage was not doing great.

I thought my life as I knew it had ended.

And it kind of had, in a good way.

I got the sage advice from a good couple of colleagues.

I hired a career counselor who was also a psychologist who did some work on me.

And I got to find out what my why is.

And my why might not be surprising to you, but other people might be is my why is I want
people to communicate with each other in ways they don't realize they can't.

I want to bring people together.

I want people to realize that when we're together, we're our strongest.

When we're separate, we're not.

Now that might seem obvious and especially if you're part of the Zero Dot podcast, you
know that.

Like, of course, we're all in this together, right?

We're team human, as Daniel says.

But here's the thing, that's still a novel thing.

In fact, it comes across as like a bit optimistic and a bit like a dreamer's tale.

But I've seen it in action.

I've seen the magic that happens when we all come together, work together for a common
goal.

We achieve things well beyond our wildest dreams.

I've seen it.

And my mission in life is to let people know that that magic is still there and it's real
and it's true.

And to communicate and learn other people's walks of life and learn from their stories and
they learn from mine.

And we all get to be closer connected than we ever have been.

And that's how I got into the work that I do currently right now.

I'm very grateful for that.

I'm very grateful.

And now, because I've had the opportunity to discover my why, one of my great gifts that I
get to do is help other people find and discover their own why.

One of the greatest things that my psychologist career counselor walked me through was an
assessment of questions.

And one of the questions he asked was, Sam, if I could promise you success in anything you
wanted to do, meaning if you were to start the skill today and just start it, I guarantee

you will be successful.

And by successful, I mean you will be the highest levels of achievement.

You'll be on Time Magazine.

You'll win the Academy Award.

You'll get the Nobel Peace Prize.

You will do whatever

is the umpteenth level of success for that industry.

Who cares if you know anything about it?

What would that be?

Now it takes a while to kind of unravel the question because the way I answered it, the
way most people answer it when I asked the same question to them is, well, know, well,

mm-mm.

They start thinking about a skill they think would be marketable.

They think about a skill that they think they could have some tenacity for learning really
quickly.

But that's not the question.

The question is what would you want to be involved in?

What would you want to achieve if I guaranteed that whatever that was, you would be
successful in that?

If I guaranteed it for you.

And I remember what I said.

I said, well.

I know nothing about film beyond just loving film and cinema.

I didn't go to film school.

I don't have a fancy camera or anything like that.

But if you said that I would be successful and I love to be an incredible and amazing
director of film.

Cool, great.

And we talked about it.

He asked me what my dream film was going to be.

And I don't even remember what I said, but I I talked about the film.

says, Sam.

As you're talking about this film, the fire in your eyes is lighting up.

I can see it.

And then quickly the fire went down in my eyes and I said, his name is Seth.

Seth.

I can't be a director.

I don't know anything about directing.

I don't know anything about cinematography.

I don't think about a good script.

I just am just dreaming right now.

So that's okay.

That's okay.

You can dream.

It's perfectly fine.

And then throughout our time together, he asked me the question again.

I'm like, oh, you're asking the question again.

Yeah.

What would be one skill you'd like to invest in?

If you started today, I could guarantee you'd be the most successful in it.

What would that be?

And he said, give me something different this time.

uh I said acting.

think acting was one of them.

I like to act.

I'm not really, I don't know anything about acting.

I've, don't know what it's like to be in front of a camera.

Like, like I am right now.

If you're watching this podcast, I like to act.

You know, I did a couple of plays here and there.

I've done a couple of small bit parts, but like, know, it'd be cool to be like a real,
real actor and like be successful in that way.

And he's like, Oh, that's incredible.

That's amazing.

And once again, he said the same thing.

The light is in your eyes.

The fire is in your eyes.

But then I went ahead and pushed myself down and I said, Seth, I don't have any training.

I wouldn't be any good at it.

Um, I'm a short guy.

I'm five foot six.

I'm not a very tall person.

So I wouldn't, I wouldn't be a leading man in really anything.

And once again, he was picking up like you're putting yourself down again.

Like, yeah, I am, but I'm

just being realistic.

He says, okay, that's fine.

That's fine.

And we keep working together on things and he do assessments on me.

And then finally asked me the question one more time.

says, Sam, once again, one more skill, one more thing.

If I could guarantee you have success in this, guarantee it.

What would it be?

And I thought I'd said anything I possibly say.

I thought everything.

I thought I said everything that there was to say about this.

And finally, like,

When I was a young kid, I wanted to be a comic book artist, a graphic novel artist.

And to this day, when I write in my own free time, sometimes when like,

either there's a piece of scenery that's beautiful or like there's an action sequence.

I don't want to write down the action sequence.

I just want to draw a picture of what that sequence is because that would do it more
justice than the words and I can give it.

And then I tell them about the story that I had for a graphic novel and I just made it up
right there on the spot.

I don't remember even I don't even remember what I said.

I just said, here's what I'm thinking.

And he was like, Sam, I am completely blown away by this.

This is incredible.

Yeah, but you know, I'm not, I'm not an artist.

I don't know how to draw very well.

I don't have the patience for it.

And that's when he shut me down.

He said, Sam, I'm seeing a theme here.

You want to tell stories.

You want to create an experience that changes and moves people because you see the value
in that because those experiences have changed you.

And because that's your lens already, we can take your current skillset and see what we
can do to make you that storyteller you've always wanted to be.

And that was one of the moments of like, wow, not only do I know my why,

But I know my how, like it's possib-

And I have to be honest, folks, I wouldn't be in this booth talking to you right now if I
didn't have that conversation with my good friend Seth about that.

If I didn't have someone waking me up to that.

Because as powerful as the why is and as powerful as the message of the infinite game is,
I think it's also important to know how how how could I possibly make this work?

How do I I'm starting at zero and I know I need to get to to 10.

I don't even know where steps two, three, four, five, all those up to 10 where that all
adds up.

I have no idea.

not even a clue.

And my life has gone in some really interesting places.

I've traveled the world.

I've talked to professionals of all kinds.

I've even dabbled in voice acting.

I used to do voice acting a long time ago for the commercial space.

Now I'm doing creative voice acting.

I've seen a lot of interesting things happen in my life all because I've just decided, you
know what?

I know what my why is.

I know what I want to do.

All that matters is that every single day I wake up, I get to do some version of what that
looks and feels like.

Bryan Cranston, the actor going back to him, never met him.

Seems like a nice guy.

I don't think he woke up deciding he wanted to be an actor and specifically who wanted to
play Walter White in the show Breaking Bad.

He didn't think about it.

He didn't understand what that was.

In fact, I know it.

Instead, what happened was he had an endless pursuit to just keep doing what he loved from
bit parts in Seinfeld to voiceover work to commercial work to bit parts in certain dramas.

He he decided to pursue his creative passion regardless of ambition.

And what he was able to do is he worked at it long enough that people saw him for what he
was able to do.

And someone called him up and said, Hey, I'm working on a show right now.

And I think you'd be great for it based on what I just saw you do in that X-Files episode.

And what's the show?

The show would become Breaking Bad.

That little small one episode, one shot he did for X-Files.

starring alongside David Duchovny.

changed his life.

But it wasn't just that moment, right?

It was the fact that he was pursuing the act of acting, knowing that was going to be his
one true calling as long as he could pay the bills on time.

And it didn't matter what that looked and felt like.

He would not be able to predict what Breaking Bad would have done for him and his career
and his family and all elsewhere.

He'll always be known as Walter White to many people, as well as Malcolm's father from
Malcolm in the Middle.

He's done a bunch of roles ever since then.

He's now a prestigious actor.

He's a mentor for other people.

He shows and teaches other up and coming actors, the process of acting and showing up and
knowing your lines and being comfortable making comfortable sets for everyone.

Like he's an actor's actor.

Yeah.

One can say he's never really changed his approach or his demeanor about anything.

He just keeps being constant, being that persistent force.

So going back to that visual that I had before, and again, apologies for those that are

Just listening in.

He's this guy.

Bryan Cranston is the blue line.

Steady, smooth.

He didn't hit his target by whatever date he had.

I mean, he didn't reach his breaking point until well into his 30s, 40s, right?

He didn't become an overnight star as a kid, but he just kept at it because all he cared
about was acting and telling stories and being a player in this house of cards that were

in.

And I'm bringing all this up to remind us all of the power in this.

think right now in the year 2026, many of us are falling susceptible, myself included, of
being frustrated with progress, not moving along as fast as we wanted to.

We're frustrated that things might be regressing and going backwards.

We're frustrated that maybe I'm making a decision right now that's going to hurt me later.

And the only thing that really matters is that we're doing

that we're doing.

What is in alignment with our why?

And that I have the means to be able to do it to some reasonable level of success.

Now last part about this, this is a lesson I got from my father, who's a listener of the
podcast, but also other people that say the same thing, which is, you know,

the old adage, follow your bliss, right?

Whatever makes you happy, just go and do that thing.

That's great advice.

Except there's many people I know who are trying to do that and they're suffering right
now.

So I think following your bliss is one part of the equation, but it's not everything.

If anything, it's about finding the bliss in the things that you do that align with your
why.

Like for instance, I'd love to be a film director someday.

Still, I'd love to be a graphic novel writer or storyboard artist of some kind someday.

I'd love to be an actor someday.

Love to.

Maybe I don't have the skillset.

I don't have the means.

I don't have the resources.

I'm doing whatever I can to fulfill those things.

So I'm doing some voice acting work.

I'm doing some screen test work.

I'm dabbling in some drawing.

some things on the side just for myself, I'm doing some writing, and I'm communicating to
other people in whatever way I can, professionals and otherwise, and bringing people

together, pursuing that why.

And maybe someday I'll reach the goal of my other lofty dreams, but that's okay.

That's perfectly fine.

I find the bliss in the things that I'm doing because it aligns with the value proposition
that I want to bring to the world and help us all out.

I'm sharing all this because I think it's a good reminder.

think we could all benefit from that.

And I'm not talking up my ass either.

I'm not saying this to imply you didn't already know this, but rather be a reminder of the
power in doing so.

Hey, real quick to interrupt, but do you have a question you want Sam, John, or Daniel to
answer and discuss on the Zero Dot podcast?

Anything leading from relationship advice to leadership advice to career advice,
professional advice, anything of that nature.

You want us to discuss it, dissect it, and give you kind of our own two cents on the
matter.

You can do that by going ahead and giving us an email at questions at
thezerodotpodcast.com or just simply going to our website, thezerodotpodcast.com and

filling out the form below so that way you can go ahead and

Let us know your thoughts, feelings, your story,

Only takes a few moments.

We'd love to hear from you.

We want to make sure the Zero Dot podcast is specific to your needs, giving you a little
bit of optimism in a world that doesn't feel so optimistic.

Thanks.

Now, before I go, I this is a shorter episode than before, but I want to leave you with
one more thing.

We've talked about the infinite game.

We've talked about finding your why and your how.

I want to leave you with one more thing, which is the fact that in 2026, a majority of
people do not feel that their boss cares about.

majority of people do not think their boss cares about them.

Something like 60 % of people believe that just generally speaking, your boss is out to
get you.

And when I think about that stat, forgetting the workplace for a moment, I'm thinking
about our personal relationships as well.

If we have that kind of adversarial feeling towards a majority of our workplace
situations, that has to trickle down into our personal life because we spend more waking

hours at work than we do.

you know, in our home life.

So the question I want to ask all of us, before we wrap things up is, what can we do to
let people know that we care about them?

Really, what can we do?

What can we do to ensure that they know that we've got their back, and we're interested in
what they have to say, and we care about their personal experiences, and we have an

interest in them?

Because I think we do, we naturally do have an interest in people's lives.

It's just that we have an entire system in front of us from good old capitalism to the
internet, to social media, to surviving the workplace that de-incentivizes us from doing

that.

I say this all the time, but there's two different types of leaders out there.

There's a type of leader that says, Hey, John, you've been down your numbers three months
in a row.

If you don't.

things together soon, I can't say for certain what might happen.

Or you can say, hey John, you've been down your numbers three months in a row.

I'm worried about you.

What's going on?

two very different responses to the same level of detail.

And all of us have the choice to be able to be one and not the other.

To ask while assuming innocence on all sides, to inquire and be interested and really care
about others.

Because as human beings, we love it when people care about us and so we can just do the
same for them.

What can we do to make those that we love know that we care about them and we're
interested in them?

I think if we walk away from today's short episode,

With that in mind, I think we might be incredibly surprised by the results.

Alright folks, that's been the Zero Dot podcast for this week.

I am Sam.

It's been a pleasure being your host this week.

Folks, I love our podcast sessions together.

We get an opportunity to connect and energize each other.

I hope you got some value out of today's podcast.

Be sure to check us out at thezerodotpodcast.com and everywhere else where podcasts are
featured.

That includes Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple podcasts, and everywhere in between.

We air every Wednesday.

We can't wait to see you next time or hear you next time.

I'm Sam.

Cheers.