Jean-Paul (JP) O’Brien is CEO and Managing Director at Black Lab, is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and community builder. JP O’Brien is on a mission to inspire, activate, and hyper-enable scientists, entrepreneurs, investors, elite athletes, and creatives to design and build a beautiful future for all of humanity. Black Lab builds and invests in HumanTech ventures, with themes centered around Longevity, Consciousness, Community, and Environment. In this episode, we dive into finding your core purpose, what the world’s change makers have in common, and how you can unleash your human potential. 

JP O’Brien is also Founder and CEO of Me Biosciences, Inc., precision nutrition and human performance company, is President of Flywheel Project, a 501(c)3 education non-profit, is a Lead Mentor with Techstars, earned his B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University, where he played D1 lacrosse and football.

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JP O’Brien

[00:02:25] Sean: JP O’Brien, welcome to What Got You There. How are you doing today?

[00:02:27] JP O’Brien: Hey, thanks, Sean. Thanks for inviting me and excited to be here.

JP O’Brien Mindset

[00:02:32] Sean: We’re going to dive into a lot of interesting things all around, unleashing greatness, building connections, doing meaningful work, but I would love to know just to start, is there a mindset of yours that if you could just pass on to anyone even early in their career, you would just love to pass that onto and think there’d be just these amazing benefits for them?

[00:02:51] JP O’Brien: The mindset question, I love it. A big start here. Well, I will admit it by the way to start off Sean, I’m a beginner. I’ve got a beginner’s mind. So I am just on a journey. So things I’ve learned along the way, and maybe my opinion, especially around things like mindset, I’m definitely kind of in first, second grade, third grade, maybe. So I’ve got a long way to go. But from what I’ve picked up so far is that there’s this trio of maybe three legs to the stool, from a mindset perspective. 

One, if we take a step back and look at how ridiculous this life is, we can see how insignificant we are. I mean, we’re sitting on this rock spinning in the middle of space, going millions of miles an hour around black holes, and there’s a sun maybe. This is crazy, like for this actually to be real is so probabilistically impossible. And so having some respect for that, just being kind of puts it over a certain mindset into place. The second thing is you can then take that and say, well, then what’s the point of doing anything?

But if you instead say, Hey, we have this amazing gift called somehow I’m in this human body and I have consciousness, why not go all out? So one we’re insignificant, two go full send. Go all out. What does that mean for you? Does that mean on the football field? Lacrosse fields? I mean, at work, what does that mean to your family? You know, and take nothing for granted, type of thing. And then the third leg of the stool is, and this is kind of maybe been the most profound for me over the past five, six years has been to basically surrender to what actually shows up. 

So it’s instant and again, but you really care, so you’re gonna go full out, but then whatever shows up has the stability to almost be like somebody at the movie theater, like you’re watching it, but you’re in full VR mode. And so you’re experiencing it. And I think that if you can balance those three things, that’s a mindset I think will unleash you to really figure out what your purpose is in life. 

And then how to live that fully and to, regardless of what life then responds to based on your actions, because you’re living fully, you’ll be able to really enjoy that life. And I think that kind of ends suffering and actually creates things that like our hard work and pain actually being into the experience. So I’ll stop there for a second because I know that was a lot.

Surrendering Fully

[00:05:33] Sean: No, no. So much for that Shoshin, that beginner’s mind. It seems like you’ve explored the depth of this a little bit. I would love to know, when you surrender, what does surrendering fully mean to you?

[00:05:46] JP O’Brien: I think I was listening to Sam Harris the other day and he said it kind of nicely. So I’ll borrow some of his words. He said, how many times in our life we’ve been set up with fear about the future, fear or hope. And both of those things look actually very the same, which is why they create this sort of feeling like, oh my gosh, what’s going to happen or I hope this happens. And the idea of being able to surrender just truly enjoy where you are this second, like right this minute. 

Because if you look back, you probably don’t remember those fears that much. At the time they were significant, but if you look back now, you’re like, well, most of those I’ve forgotten about them. Or even those hopes. I guess I went through the experience, and now I’m here. So to me, surrendering is kind of full acceptance. It doesn’t mean that you’re super happy about everything. It doesn’t mean that you’re upset about everything. 

It just means like, wow, that’s amazing. It’s like watching a great movie and you’re like, I had no idea that was going to happen. That’s amazing. You don’t really put emotion behind it. So if we can kind of go into life and accept, what’s actually showing up. It doesn’t mean we don’t act or react or start to be proactive in what we’re designing next. It just means that we truly accept what’s there and be present. That’s what it means to kind of accept and surrender.

[00:07:12] Sean: This is something I try to implement as well. I’m wondering for you throughout your daily life, how often are you able to surrender to those moments? And I guess I’m asking, like, how often are you thinking about the past, thinking about the future, letting some of those emotions kind of throw you off tilt.

[00:07:29] JP O’Brien: Yeah. Sean, I’d love to hear your take on this. So I’ll tell you a little bit about some of my practices. I’m new to meditation too. I’ve only been meditating for about eight years. So I actually learned it. My brother happens to be a teacher. I say Shaman, he doesn’t really like that word. He’s a teacher. He teaches in the Lakota tradition. And just eight years ago, I went up to him and said, Hey, you know, you’re doing this amazing work, can you tell me about this meditation thing?

And of course I was coming at it because I wanted to increase my productivity and performance and he’s kind of laughing. He’s like, sure, come sit down and let’s walk through it. Anyway, I dive into this thing. I love, I think meditation is one of those things that… I mean, we’ll get into this later, I’m sure. But everybody should make a practice around the learning, their own version of meditation. So I’ve been doing that for years and years and years, and it wasn’t just until about a year ago that I kind of hit a difference, and I studied lots of things, Zen, and lots of Japanese and Buddhism in lots of different types of meditation techniques.

And then just recently and I can’t remember the teacher who talked about it, but it was a Buddhist kind of teacher. And he said, listen, I think the reality is that meditation is kind of useless once you understand that the benefit of meditation is to find the meditator. And that really woke me up because I realized that I was trying to be super present during those meditation times, but the opportunity is actually to be super present during the entire life. 

So even during this conversation, can I truly just be right here with you right now and have this conversation and not have that future or past either, whether it’s a hope or a fear or kind of distraction. Can I just truly just realize that this 10 seconds, that I’m kind of in right now, is all I have. And so that’s where I’ve kind of started to get to Sean, always being in that moment.

[00:09:32] Sean: You just mentioned some of the other practices that you’ve dove into in the past there, around Zen, Buddhism, exploring all these different things. Are there ones that most resonate with you or are? Or are you picking and choosing from all the different ones that are out there?

[00:09:46] JP O’Brien: I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface of this knowledge. I knew about Zen, but I didn’t dive into it. And so that was about four years ago and I’m like, oh my gosh, who was hiding this from me? It was the most amazing opening, like seeing all this and experiencing it. It was the most amazing thing. And then I feel like I can’t wait to turn the next page and be like, again, be blown away with knowledge and wisdom that’s sitting right here for me, but I haven’t even seen it.

Unlearning

[00:10:19] Sean: Oh, I love that kind of discovery phase. Like we’re all seekers to some degree. And when you uncover those little bits of knowledge, it’s going much deeper. You kind of could become aware of how little you actually know. This is so great. I love what you build out around your mindsets. I’m wondering though, one of the biggest things for me is just learning some of the things I need to unlearn and then letting those go. Are there any things like that that you just had to unlearn, forget, or just push to the side in order to really unleash yourself?

[00:10:48] JP O’Brien: I’m sure there’s a lot. And I’m trying to think about a good story. So in the act of war and some of the active learning I’ve learned, like the ego gets in the way, for me was definitely something I had to really work on. In the back past, I would put a big wall around and shell around me to try to protect something. And then that ego would kind of make me blind and deaf to hearing new information. So that’s probably the biggest one and it’s come in many forms. 

There’ve been instances where I’ve used other techniques to kind of crack into that shell. And if you’re vulnerable enough and willing and daring enough to kind of let that shell go off and expose yourself then you really actually are almost protecting yourself more. So I think for me, it’s been about not going back to my old tendency, which has been used as the defense mechanism of turtling up almost hiding, like getting into that shell for protection. But instead, really being willing to share and show what I truly am, who I am and what I believe and being normal.

Wellness

[00:12:14] Sean: I truly appreciate you thinking about that, exploring that. This is one of those really hard questions, right? Like not only do you have to be aware of some of your flaws, your biases, but then you have to shed them. Which is one of the really challenging things to do. But you were talking about meditation there, and I know that you’re constantly at the forefront and surrounding yourself with people who are also at the forefront, cutting edge technology, health. Are there other things you do throughout your day, pretty consistently that you just think have massive benefits?

[00:12:41] JP O’Brien: Yeah. We are all about wellness and that kind of comes in the form of physical health, exercise but maybe more importantly what we eat, our nutrition. So I spent the past decade really working on that and thinking about that and exploring that actually starting companies in that space. We have in our lab, a whole wellness. We have a whole human performance laboratory. So, turf and lifting equipment, and so getting to peak performance there.

But we also held the modalities of body work, whether it’s acupuncture, massage, and cupping and dry needling and all those different modalities. We’re also working a lot with regenerative medicine. From a physical perspective, that’s a key element to saying, Hey, if you’ve got this body, why not allow it to be as beneficial as possible and to perform as good as it possibly can. And then the second thing is our, our cognition in our mental health.

And so we work a lot with self-development and it goes all the way to the point of the things we’re talking about here, this kind of consciousness question. What is consciousness and where are you and how conscious are you? What percentage of the day are you actually conscious? And then that turns into once you kind of go into that realm, it turns into spirituality and peace, right? And you can call that heart. I wouldn’t call it religion for us, but exploring your spiritual side of it and how you connect to others. Do you see me versus you?

Do you see, oh, global one how you connect to the bigger system or the earth? When we think about the system, again, going back to that mindset of like in one sentence for insignificance, because this thing’s going to go on and do its thing, and it’s amazing at the same time we can affect. And so why not go do our full send and do the very best we can. And then regardless of what happens, how do we kind of enjoy that ride? Because that’s what this is, it’s a gift, right? So, really enjoy the ride.

[00:15:04] Sean: No, I love that perspective of this being a gift. You and I think about things somewhat similar as well in terms of the body. I kind of think about it, and I don’t know who originally said this, but your body is the only temple your soul can live in. And I think about that a lot. And I want to take care of this body that is going to be here for this time. 

Core Purpose Search

It’s fun because what you’re doing, exploring the big questions and believe me, we’re going to get a lot into Black Lab Sports. But I’m wondering for you, you were talking about those three pillars here in terms of mindset. And talking about going full throttle. For you, when you’re fully unleashed, like when JP is just full throttle, like giving everything you’ve got. What are you going after there?

[00:15:44] JP O’Brien: So I went down, something I called core purpose search. And this was about eight years ago. Listen, my life before that was really good. I talk about it as I was good at playing the “choose your own adventure game”. I was able to get into a great college, pick a engineering degree, aerospace mechanical engineering degree, do really well in that, graduated with a distinction, got an amazing job with Eris Consulting. I could do these things.

I was able to pick the right path, if you will. It was to Choose Your Own Adventure Book. Do you want to marry the mermaid? Go to page 52. You want to slay the dragon? Go to page 80 right now. And I was good at that game. When I looked back, I didn’t feel like I was actually creating any of that. I was reacting to what was showing up. And so something would show up and I’d be like, oh, I’m going to go this way or I can go that way.  About eight years ago is when I went down and I said, Hey, listen, I really want to figure out what my purpose in life was and where it is.  

For me, when I’m full send, my purpose is to unleash the greatness of the people around me. And so those are just words, but that, to me, those were very, very motivational, like super core deep inside me. And what that means is I’m “full-send” when I have an amazing group of people around me, they’re all fired up, that are living a purposeful life, that is basically chasing what that means and doing a full send with the work that they’re doing and the people around them.

Inevitably though that’s around solving and working on big, messy problems that are basically impacting humanity. And so if I have a group of people, cross-disciplinary from artists to investors, to entrepreneurs, to athletes and tactical athletes, everyone gets together to say, Hey, let’s go solve these big things, that’s what gets me fired up. 

[00:17:40] Sean: With this core purpose search, what did that look like as you were discovering that even more? I know you said eight years ago, it was like, Hey, what is my purpose here? But what did the actual process for you look like, to come to that definition?

[00:17:55] JP O’Brien: Yeah. So for me it kind of just hit me one day. I was like, Hey, I need to figure out what my purpose is, and I started reading a lot. I’ll tell you this, the book that started it for me was I read Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon hill. And in there he was talking about all these greats, you know, from Carnegie to Franklin, these people had changed history especially in the 1800s, 1900s and what their mindset was. And so that was really interesting. So that triggered me. 

And then my next book was Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. And that story is about Victor Frankl, who was a philosopher, but was in a concentration camp and he realized that the setting of where he is in, he’s not in control of. He couldn’t control the fact he was in the concentration camp, but the only thing he was fully really in control of is how he responded, his mindset during this environment. And he said, this will be the pivotal time. I will create a new philosophy because of this situation. 

And he did. And he was one of, I think, just two or three survivors out of that entire camp. He lost his wife. He lost his kids. A horrible tragedy but out of it came his book that he literally had to memorize in his head because the Nazi prison guards would take away if they saw the kind of thing he wrote down. So you literally wrote a book in his head and when he was freed from the camp, he then created this new philosophy. And so that opened me up and made me realize everything is about our mindset and how we approach and how we think, how we respond to things.

And if we kind of go after something and we believe it, and we want that to be true, all we have to do is kind of work through that scenario. So I’ll pause there because that was the start of the core purpose search. He found his purpose, which was to define this new philosophy, to live through his concentration camp. So you could define this new philosophy and teach the world that it’s your mindset and how you approach that was absolutely impactful to me, how somebody can do that. 

I went down and literally just started to keep on reading other folks. And I was reading about da Vinci and Carnegie and Einstein and Feynman and Mozart and Beethoven, and even Elon and Gates, and Phil Knight. These people who’ve done amazing things, and what was it that they had in common. And what they had in common was they had a personal purpose that was the core of everything they did. And they then put all of their work around that purpose. 

And they basically understood that all they need to do then is turn those thoughts, what they think about, the creativity into reality. So that was my process and it took me about eight months just reading people and reading about all these amazing folks realizing again, being a systems engineer, aerospace engineer, that there has to be a repeatable process. This can’t be random every time. So what are these amazing people doing? And the process I saw was exactly that, figure out your core purpose, and then learn how to turn thoughts into reality.

[00:21:47] Sean: When doing all of this research, coming across all these legendary people who achieved greatness, did the majority of them understand and have this purpose defined? Or is it only in hindsight that we are able to articulate that this is actually what was at the top of everything for them?

[00:22:03] JP O’Brien: No, I think when you read you’ll see that they’ve all been very defined, they may not say what my core purpose is. They won’t use those words necessarily. But when you look through a time and you read about them absolutely, even their autobiographies, they all have this and it doesn’t mean that…  It wasn’t always socially acceptable what their purpose was. It doesn’t mean like it fit the norms of that day, but you could tell during these stories that everyone had a very specific purpose.

[00:22:41] Sean: Yeah. I would actually love a little bit later in this conversation to revisit that, of going against the grain. A lot of these change makers, like we were talking about earlier, they’re asking the big questions. They were really going against society. One of the things I love that you highlight with this, and it is clear going through a lot of these people’s biographies, and even you mentioned Napoleon Hill, I was recently revisiting a conversation, it was him and Andrew Carnegie sitting down. 

And this is like the forefront of all of it, it’s like yes, purpose and mindset. And two more recent models that I just think about around the impact of mindset and what it can do for you. Two studies, one of them actually wasn’t a study. It was someone who was involved in a study around anti-depressant pills. And so he shows up at the hospital and heart rate is going crazy. He’s on the verge of death because he took all of these antidepressant pills. 

He had a fight with his girlfriend and it turned out he was actually part of a research study. And they were placebo pills. They were just sugar pills and he basically put himself into a state of almost death. And so that’s like on the negative side of things, but you think about it, all he took were sugar pills, but his mind told him something totally different and it literally changed his body. The other one I think about is actually a study that I just love, and it was about maids or housekeepers in hotels.

I guess, per average each hour that you’re doing housekeeping, you burn about 300 calories. And so they asked all these housekeepers, if they do any workouts, physical exercises, all of them said no. And they took half the group, and they told them that actually, when you’re doing all of this cleaning, you’re burning about 300 calories per hour. And so what ends up happening over the next six weeks?

The ones they told them, all of them, all of a sudden biomarkers skyrocket to the positive, they start losing all this weight and are much healthier. And it’s just crazy. It’s like these little shifts in mindset, fundamentally change who you are. And to me, I mean, you can look at that, like in the negative, or you can look at that as the most empowering thing, right? Like we talk about superheroes to me, that’s an absolute superpower. So, I love that you’re just uncovering all of this. I’m wondering if you’re… 

[00:24:43] JP O’Brien: Can I ask you a question, Sean?

[00:24:44] Sean: Yeah

[00:24:45] JP O’Brien: I’m curious, have you gone through this process, this core purpose search?

[00:24:48] Sean: We all have different definitions of things and how we view them. It seems like we are kind of coming at things from the same place. So in the past few years, I’ve defined what I defined as my core purpose. I’m not sure if it’s exactly aligned with how you would map it out, and what you think it is. Mine’s just to create, evolve, discover with love. And so the way I think about that, like I love creating.

That’s zero to one phase, whether that’s in sports, art, business, anything. That just gets me up. I just love that. So, and then discovering, talking about mindset. There’s so much unknown and I love that whether that’s travel, whether that’s our own potential. So I love creating, I love discovering. That’s just like so key to me and then obviously within that there’s evolution, right? It’s like evolution is going to happen. And so I want to continually evolve. 

Even when I was really young, I just remember hearing certain people talk about, they had a job for 50 years. And I remember being like five years old, I’d be like, I could never do that in my life. I’m going to be doing a lot of different things. And so for me, that’s evolution, right. And that final component is with love. And the way I think about that is I want to be surrounded by people that I just deeply connect with. 

So I’ve got some really great people in my life. And I just love that. I love meeting new people and uncovering new things. That’s one of the great things about doing this podcast. Not only do I get to learn from people like you, but also other people learn from these conversations and then connect. I got to spend about an hour connecting with a listener probably 10 years younger than me the other day.

And we were just exploring some of these big questions. He was like, “Hey, I’ve been listening for a few years” and that’s that with the love component. So create, evolve, discover with love. That’s how I think about everything that drives my actions in life. I don’t know if that’s exactly how you approach your core purpose, but for me, that’s what I’ve mapped out the past few years.

[00:26:32] JP O’Brien: And so one of the things that I do actively is that I ask that question to just about everyone I come across, because I want people who don’t know it to get on board with that, that it’s important. And if you’re not on board, that ‘s okay. We’re probably not going to do a lot of work together because we’re not aligned in kind of how we see our importance. Maybe their importance is, you know, financial or some kind of other area where the wildest things are important. 

What’s most important to me is, Hey, are you living your purpose? And how’s that line? How can I help you do that? It’s fascinating to me when I talk to folks, I find there to be three groups of people, more probably 90% of people have never really thought about this question. What’s your purpose in life? So, whoa, that’s an interesting question. Thanks for asking. Out of those people, probably about 80% of the people when I meet them again, a month later, they forgot the question. 

They didn’t spend any time in the next 30 days to consider that or go down a path or start to explore. They got back onto this wheel of just running. Life just swept them away again. Okay. Here we go. The other 20% of the folks really are starting to look at it, and what I find to be common is that like, I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m curious. Every time I open the door and I look around the corner, is it going to be this person?

Is it going to be something there? What is it? They lit up. They’re so curious about life again. And then there’s the people who do know it or are working on it and you can see, again, kind of that passion, the light, the fire, that’s kind of behind them, just like you just mentioned, right? I love hearing it because it’s pure energy.

[00:28:22] Sean: Yeah. You had mentioned that process. I don’t know for you, my process was, I got really curious about that. Like started asking some of those bigger questions and then unveiling that there’s some of these commonalities behind l the true reason behind doing a lot of the actions and a lot of different things in my life.

But this was a process. It wasn’t like I just instantaneously came up with create, evolve, discover with love. I mean, there was a ton of work for me and that’s just my own process. I’ve got to uncover the deeper meaning of things. So yeah, this took months and months and months for me to uncover. I’m wondering, you work with so many entrepreneurs, artists, creatives, everything like that, for people who haven’t even started exploring this, where do they even begin?

[00:29:00] JP O’Brien: So we do actually have, as part of the Black Labs, kind of what I call curriculum, but basically “our language around communicating”. We actually have a mastermind group where we meet. And so we walk through some of this stuff. I think just opening that question is a good starting place. I always recommend people read about folks that they admire, and what their mindset was, and how they approached it and what the commonalities are. 

We have some frameworks around learning this stuff for yourself and exploring it. I think the best way truly is just to say, know that that’s important. And if you can understand that, how powerful and impacting that is to you. Just be curious, your purpose is to find your purpose and it’s okay if it takes 10 years. But, that can be a starting place. It can be as simple as that really. I think just being around other folks that are willing to ask the question on Monday meetings before they start, or go around the room and say, Hey, just remind them my purpose is to unleash the greatness of people around me.

And my purpose is to know the skills,and the people I do life with. My purpose is to serve and create amazing technology that I perfect. That’s empowering. All of a sudden everyone was like, oh man, this is great. I know what you’re really dying to do. I know what you’re dying to do.

[00:30:27] Sean: It’s almost one of those self selecting things, right. There’s going to be a certain number of people listening to this, and then all of a sudden that curiosity is gonna be sparked. It’s gonna peak for them. Then they’re going to be like, you know, I want to uncover this for me. And then that curiosity leads to them exploring which leads to uncovering. And directional progress is where that arrow is headed. 

Black Lab Sports Ecosystem

We’re discovering so much about ourselves in that process alone. So I love that. I think it would be really helpful, actually, if you just map out what you are building over there at Black Lab Sports because I love it obviously. I mean the listeners will find out here in a second, it’s just aligned a lot with how I think about the world and what I love looking at, and getting intrigued by.

[00:31:13] JP O’Brien: Sure. About seven years ago now, I found my purpose. I’m trying to figure out what I’m gonna do with part two of my life. I found my purpose. I’m like, oh, amazing. Unleash the greatness to the world around me, which I do. I could be a teacher. I could be a coach. I can start another company. But what came up was to build this ecosystem. Bought a vehicle where people as crazy as me and you could come together and actually work on really messy problems to push humanity forward. 

And so what we built was, we raised an investment fund vehicle that we can invest in startups. We took down a warehouse in Boulder, Colorado, and we converted it into a park, human performance laboratory, part high-tech hub for, kind of think of it as like an accelerated incubator. Incubator space for companies to get together, part wellness center, part art studios and art collective part, video studio part, part three PL so we can actually shift. We actually build partnerships with all the sporting goods company retailers like Dick’s sporting goods, for example, Academy whatnot.

And our whole thing was to build this platform where we could say, Hey, innovation is a key thing. And for us to help kind of solve these big problems, how do we make it a platform for anybody to come in? Again, it can be an artist. You can be a special forces operator. You can be an athlete. It could be an entrepreneur. It could be a brand new entrepreneur. It could be a college kid. You could be an investor, but how do we make this a place where people come together, a blank canvas, so we can actually work on amazing projects and wash those in. So we raised the fund. 

We invested in a bunch of companies. We launched a bunch of companies. We started something called the Human Performance Summit and Experience, which is bringing together all those folks annually. And it’s just been amazing, the growth of this, and the excitement around. We have people, I’ll give you an example. We have people in special forces now, and it’s not like they’re going to leave their job in the DOD (Department of Defense). But this is another group of people that they can then partner with. 

I want to say try, but basically people who have a similar mindset about purpose and pushing forward, that’s outside their existing company organization that helps them to do their job better. So you could be in Google, you could be in a venture firm, you could be an entrepreneur in your own company. You could be an artist, you could be at NASA. You could be at Harvard or at Yale as a professor. And all of a sudden, now you have another group of people that are cross-disciplinary, exploring these things.

And in today’s day and age where technology is growing at such an exponential rate, this group now can actually act very nimble to launch new companies, new technologies that benefit you as an individual, us as an ecosystem, but also the whole point is to take these technologies to market. 

[00:34:16] Sean: Some of the things I really love about this is clearly you can tell based on a lot of the people I interviewed, like I like cross disciplinary thinkers. I always think about the Renaissance time period. You’d have artists, creatives, entrepreneurs, writers, everyone getting thrown in. And the second component is it’s positive sum in nature. You might be a great artist and then right next to a great technologist and they’re thinking they can learn from each other.

And that creates these positive sum win-win games for everyone, which is really cool. I know there’s gonna be a lot of listeners, we’re going to have all that linked up where they can dive deeper. Because there’s some really cool things that people can get connected with on blacklabssports.com. But I want to know how you think about the element of community. I mean, it’s such a key component in all of this. 

Building A Cross-disciplinary Community

Even in the early days, what was the thinking there in terms of getting all of these different people in space and then how do you build community from that with people who are coming at the world slightly differently?

[00:35:12] JP O’Brien: Very differently in some cases, yeah. 

[00:35:16] Sean: Great point. Yeah. 

[00:35:18] JP O’Brien: I think it really starts with trying to minimize the power of the ego. So if you can get people together and you can create a safe space and I do that by saying, Hey, Sean, I know you. And by the way, I know Joe, I know Susie, I want you to all three meet. And by the way, I trust all three of you. You now by relation can trust. You feel some safety there. And even if that person is somebody you would not normally talk with or to. And not you Sean, but someone else who might not normally be in the same circles with the person. 

That creates a canvas of exploration and then you challenge them. And you say, here’s we’re going to challenge ourselves to think differently and open up. And so you’re setting that, not just that canvas, but you’re saying the parameters to actually put people out and it’s a self-selection process. I’ll give you a story, but before I do that, we kind of have one rule and one philosophy behind the culture. Our one rule is no assholes. And it’s been used before, but when you take that to be the starting point, again, it’s self-selecting. 

Certain people don’t show up to that because they realize that maybe their negotiation or how they’ve been able to manipulate or kind of enter a certain group is not going to be tolerated or accepted. And the second thing is our philosophy is to give first. Again, you’ve probably heard that. Actually the first time I ever heard of it, that was actually Napoleon Hill, the go-giver. But the idea of go-give to build a relationship. Don’t ask to build a relationship, go give something.

And I think that’s how we can actually help each other. And that’s a great way of starting. I’ll give you the story then. So at our first Human Performance Summit, it’s about three years ago. By the way, we’ve got about 250 people here across, again, all sectors. At one table I’ve got Philip Thomas who’s running human performance for the Green Berets at Fort Bragg. He’s probably one of the top human performance specialists in the army. And an amazing human by the way. He’s become a very good friend. 

And then we have a shaman at the same table. And of course I get to set the tables up. So these two people could be on a flight for 20 hours and they wouldn’t have talked to each other, right? They don’t have anything in common, they think. And then we set this framework and some of the exercises we do, we get people to start to think about what’s the utopia for the world and what’s dystopia. And what we realize is instead of talking about all the steps to get there, if we just talk about where we could be, where we could end up, people actually are pretty well aligned.

Everyone wants things like freedom and equal rights, and security and all these things that everybody wants. It’s just how we get there can be a little different. Anyway, during the conversation, it’s a full day summit. Philip Thomas says, Hey, listen, you know, we’re pretty good at doing a lot for our soldiers right now. We can get them to run through walls. We can get them to take a shot and keep going. But the concern is on the flip side, we have a real problem. 

We’ve got 22 suicides a day now in special forces, what’s going on here? We have to think about the full career, not the career of the full, but the full life of these amazing humans, not just how they perform in six to 20 years. And Jude says, well, I can help you with that. It’s like, well, that’s what they teach us. Like we’re go-tos, we’re warriors. And so we had to send those people off and then come back and reintegrate. So anyway, they start talking. So this happens at our summit.

Next thing you know, about two months later the Green Berets in Fort Bragg paid to bring Philip Thomas and a couple of NCS up to Jude’s land in Colorado. They spend a week together, they’re doing sweat lodges, fire pits. They even do a vision quest up on a mountain and it completely changes the language around what’s possible. And now we’re still trying to figure out, and he probably tried to bring that back to Fort Bragg.

How do we integrate this? Can we integrate this? This new technology is ancient new technology. And I think that’s what’s amazingly possible when you bring really different people together that are really trying to access and get to the same place.

[00:40:31] Sean: I hear that story, and I feel like the first thing that comes to mind for me is you need to be open to this though, right? How important is that? Because I just think about so many people that just automatically shut down ideas and refuse to even explore some of these things that might challenge their beliefs. It might challenge their views. How do you think about that because you’ve seen this so much more than I have?

[00:40:53] JP O’Brien: Oh, it’s critical. I mean, just think about what we’ve changed in the past 20 years, right? I mean, I grew up in an era where this is your brain on drugs. And now pot’s legal in almost every state I’m in anyway. We’ve gone through so much radical change in how we see beliefs and what we think is true. So you have to enter every day with that curiosity and the willingness to challenge your beliefs and whatever, again, the ego facade you’ve put up in front of it. 

Curiosity And Willingness To Learn

[00:41:34] Sean: Along the lines of that, what are the things that you have done a really good job of? I don’t necessarily want to use the word like reinventing yourself, but I would view this as taking on the unknown and really challenging yourself. And I’m just wondering for you, what has been like the recurring theme that allows you to do that continually?

[00:41:54] JP O’Brien: That’s a good question. So just to emphasize that point, I do feel like that’s something I learned, but I didn’t know that all along. When I left college I went into consulting. I was a technologist, a software developer… 

[00:42:15] Sean: Quick detour, you played two sports at Cornell, right?

[00:42:17] JP O’Brien: I did. I played football, lacrosse just for a short time. A couple of years in physical sports, and then I started building race cars.

[00:42:26] Sean: I think about even dabbling in multiple domains, that curious nature even seems to be present even earlier in your life than I might have initially thought.

[00:42:35] JP O’Brien: Yeah, it was always there. I just didn’t recognize it as being something that was unique. In Anderson consulting, I became an architect building these massive systems for these companies, JP Morgan, G Capital, Sprint at a very young age, which was pretty amazing. I give timing really a ton of credit there. I started my first company in 1998 with three other interesting guys. And that was my bug, I was the CTO and we sold that company about 18 months later. 

After I sold that company, I actually met a couple of gentlemen, Phil Siegfried and Dave Maney. And they called me and said, Hey don’t hang up. This isn’t a sales call. And I was like, okay. And he said, this is Phil Siegfried. I’m the former CEO of Credit Suisse First Boston. We’re starting a merchant bank and we want you to come help us start it. And I’m like a merchant bank? Are you guys going to take credit cards? I didn’t even know a merchant bank is an investment bank.

So a company that helps other companies buy, sell, buy companies, sell their company, or raise money alongs. And it has basically a fund associated with it so that our, in our case, was a $10 million fund that we could co-invest along with other equity partners. And I was like, wow, that sounds amazing. I don’t know anything about this. And so I jumped in and helped them build that. I actually sold our first company and then realized I wasn’t a banker at heart, but yeah, I would say that. 

And I remember my brother-in-law, saying, how do you do that? How do you go from a software startup to investment banker? Like that makes no sense. You don’t even have an MBA. How many financial courses have you taken, do you even know what Excel is? And I think for me, it’s curiosity. It’s like knowing that you can learn anything. Like you can learn anything, that’s not a problem. The question is, do you want to do the hard work? Do you want to learn it? And are you really curious about it? And if you are, go after it.

[00:44:46] Sean: One of my favorite things to really think about is you can learn anything. I’ve used this really empowering mindset, if you think about some of the most elite fighter pilots on the planet, that’s gotta be one of those complicated high-speed real-time decision making things you can do. And the best in the world are basically doing that almost to a subconscious level, meaning that they took the most complicated tasks on the planet, moving at hundreds of miles an hour and are able to execute subconsciously. 

So if you wouldn’t think about learning anything new just look at a great fighter pilot. And then all of a sudden it’s like, oh, wait a second. Yeah, we’re capable of so much more. But, to your point, not having any industry experience, any knowledge you said you were just really curious, why the heck did those two guys call you to join them? What was it in you that they saw? I’m wondering why they would call JP up.

[00:45:30] JP O’Brien: Yeah, again, it was good timing. What Phil was trying to do is he said, listen, we see a gap in the space where middle market investment banking is. A couple of the companies at the time had just been bought by big banks. And so he wanted to bring Wall Street experience, Wall Street expertise. Like Phil was the First Boston type of here’s how you run a deal and pair it with the very best entrepreneurs. And so Dave Maney, he was actually an amazing entrepreneur, had just sold a company for, I think, $80 million, Wellbridge. 

And I was coming in on that side. So with Dave, I was like the resident entrepreneur. I’ve got empathy. I understand what the entrepreneur needs. I understand selling your baby is really hard. These guys over here tell us different jokes. They see the world in different lenses. The bankers, they don’t always fit. And so we wanted to build this merchant bank, this investment bank that really had the empathy and capability to understand the mindset of the entrepreneur, but have the expertise of Wall Street to get anything done.

[00:46:31] Sean: Got you. No, I appreciate you being open. Clearly, you have plenty of skills and expertise, that is why they would have called you. I appreciate you going a little bit more in depth there though. Something that you were talking about earlier, I’m just always curious about other people and learning and you were mentioning Napoleon Hill and things like that.

Grand Biocentric Design

Some of these great thinkers throughout history. What about you right now? I know you’ve exposed yourself to a lot of interesting thinkers and doers. Is there anyone right now that you’re just really intrigued by how they approach the world, their mindsets, their thinking overall, anyone like that comes to mind for you?

[00:47:05] JP O’Brien: There’s a lot. There’s some amazing people that are making changes right now. I will say that probably, maybe not answering you. Maybe I’ll let that question brew a little bit because I don’t want to make some of the obvious answers. But one thing that recently came up for me, Sean, is have you read this book, The Grand Biocentric Design?

[00:47:32] Sean: No. I’ve read the book Biomimicry. I have no idea if these are the same principles. No, I have not read it. I’ll hand over the floor back to you.

[00:47:45] JP O’Brien: It’s by Professor Lanza, out of Wake Forest, and basically this is a hard premise. It’s a combination of quantum physics paired with our reality. So in quantum, so the thesis is…  and you may just decide to kill this entire section Sean during post production. 

[00:48:15] Sean: Let’s roll with it. 

[00:48:17] JP O’Brien: Let’s roll with it. Quantum versus Einstein’s general relativity type physics. So we understand that there’s still a problem in matching those two because Einsteinian physics, you know, basically a space time continuum, only goes in one direction and it’s predictable with very specific equations and algorithms. Quantum is fully about probabilities and it’s been proven in experiments that the only thing that basically breaks down the probability is a conscious observer.

So there’s a classic experiment, which is the double-slit experiment. And you have a photon emitter going towards two slits in a fence. Let’s call it a whole little slit in the fence and it creates this amazing kind of wave of probability of where things are going to hit. Once we put a camera at one of those slits, it no longer takes, it goes from probability to absolute every single time and it changes it. And this is hard to understand, so you have to do your research, but just for the sake of it, let’s believe that this is what’s actually happening at the quantum level. 

So probability turns into a particle, a wave turns into a particle. When you start to take this up into the Einsteinian world, this is Schrödinger’s cat type experiment. Taking probability and trying to turn it into, how does it affect us? The grand biocentric design basically says that the reason the world exists is not that the world exists and we happen to be here, but the reason the world exists is because we’re a conscious observer and we’re creating it. And so it flips the conversation around. 

And what’s so intriguing to me about this right now is that it does have everything to do with mindset. It does have anything to do with purpose. And if you go down this path of quantum, and if you read again, you can read the biocentric design, what’s going on there and the research behind it, because it’s actually scientific research and exploration. And that is fascinating to me. And so when I think about what’s possible with that, to me, that’s one of the most exciting things that I’ve found falling kind of into recently in the past six months. 

Designing And Creating The Future

[00:50:53] Sean: No, I love hearing about these rabbit holes people just get really entrenched into. It’s always fun getting some new reading material. What about for you, and this could even be, let’s just call it like the last 10 years, has there been a thing, an idea concept that just has fundamentally shifted how you approach things? I know we were talking a lot about purpose, but something else, other than that, just a new way of seeing the world. Has anything like that come to mind for you?

[00:51:18] JP O’Brien: Yeah. I think the thing we’re doing at Black Lab is a couple of things. One is we see there to be a massive set of problems coming up here. And so what I always say is we’ve got three choices. The future’s coming, we can either fear it, we can wait for it to be consumers and wait for it to show up, or we can be part of the team that designs and creates it. And that’s again in the mindset, but I think it’s a rallying call around people who want to actually design and create the future. If we wait for it to show up and someone else is going to create it and we can be consumers of that, or we could fear it, not want it. 

And that could be good things or what we think are good things like the iPhone, but then they have unintended consequences or they could be bad things like this, from an economist that I listened to and read, you know, this next great depression that we’re going to hit in 2030. So if that’s going to happen, if it’s going to be as bad as a concentration camp, it’s going to be as bad as Viktor Frankl. How do we go through it and create something amazing out of it versus fear it, or try to avoid it to the point where it’s detrimental.

[00:52:36] Sean: I’m thinking about that. You mentioned those three different types of people, and the ones who want to be a part of that, it’s going to self-select. I’m wondering what you think about now that the world is so global, how you think about that self-selection process. That’s much different than it looked like 20 years ago where it was so just small communities, are you approaching things differently now? I’m just wondering how Black Lab views this because of things like the internet and how globally connected we all are.

[00:53:05] JP O’Brien: Yeah, absolutely. We’re excited about the technology changes. So for example, let’s use 5G, you know, and the combination of 5G and the smartphone and the internet, those three things. Right now, we have about four and a half billion people that are actually online. But we have 8 billion people here on the globe, and within the next 18 months, we’re going to have the rest of the world go online. So those are going to be voices. 

They’re going to be people that are learning, these people never had access to Google. Think about that. They’re going to have potential access to this podcast, and they could be consumers, they could be vendors, they could be providers, they could be partners, they could be part of your tribe. So we’re super excited about this opportunity to start to expand out and have the entire kind of globe be connected like it’s never been connected before.

The Theme of the Human

[00:54:03] Sean: Just thinking about new opportunities, of course, one of the things you do is you provide capital to startups and entrepreneurs. Are there specific things that you’re looking for? Just because you’ve worked, you’ve advised, you’ve invested in so many in the past, like what are the commonalities that you’ve uncovered that you’re like, yup. It needs to fit this mould.

[00:54:23] JP O’Brien: Yeah. Our investment theme for this next decade, we want to invest a billion dollars over the next eight years in the theme of the human. And so we break it down to four main areas. Vitality, wellness, healthy living, you know, really healthy until you die, probably adding a couple of decades to your current life span. But as well as the second one you talked about before, the community, what does that really look like?

And how do we down the road build community in a way that’s beneficial to us as an individual, our mental health, physical health and our society health. The third one is consciousness. I really believe as we have more and more as we continue to kind of benefit from our abundance that we’re going through. And in this world people are going to continue to want to grow, and it’s no longer going to be about just shelter above their head. It’s going to be getting into higher levels of consciousness. 

And then the fourth one is the environment, which is we have to, we are a closed system. Even if we go to the moon and to Mars as a species, we are part of this closed system, this ecosystem of the earth and beyond. So, the environment is super important. That’s how we think about thematically. Now that doesn’t drive any decisions, you could come to me and say, Hey, I’m the best solution for one of those pieces? The way we invest is a hundred percent about the people. 

So we look at people, people, people, and then is it going to help a billion people? Does that solution have the potential to address a problem that a billion people are facing, and that’s how we look at things. So on the people’s side of it, do you have a purpose? Are you purpose led? What are your values? We do a lot of work with Gunther Weil and his biometrics tech to look at what he’s doing, their amazing stuff. Do you have the capability to be onstage in three years and be leading the conversation and be leading the dialogue around what you’re working on. 

And so those are kind of how we start to look at those people. It doesn’t mean you’ve had to run 10 startups before. It doesn’t mean you have to have all this experience. It’s just kind of really like what have you done so far that’s woven you into the spot right now that we can believe with our community to help you, that you could be the one kind of being the leader through the next decade?

People’s Default Behavior

[00:57:01] Sean: What’s so fun about this is you and I could spend decades talking just specifically about people. So you mentioned, can they be up there on stage leading their company? What do you think about people that have an unrealized potential, like that potential is in them? It hasn’t come out yet. What do you think about that, in these companies’ journeys?

[00:57:20] JP O’Brien: I think we’ve all been there. I was there at one point and I’m still trying to find my full potential. So everybody I meet is just about going through, and I think you can tell, for me anyway, I can. I seem to have a sense of when people are awake and conscious of who they are and where they want to go and who they’re not. And that’s a great place to be. 

[00:57:54] Sean: Is that just pattern recognition, like you’ve worked with so many people, seen so many different people, or is that just a different skill set you’ve developed?

[00:58:04] JP: Probably a combination. I think the pattern recognition is around the stories and the language, and then when people say they’re going to do and what they do even in the small things.

[00:58:19] Sean: Is that one of the things you explore a lot, actually, the small things?

[00:58:22] JP O’Brien: Yeah, I think it’s. This goes all the way back to behavioral interview training in the mid nineties. Tell me, you know, are you more optimistic or pessimistic or are you more a realist or an optimist? And they give you an answer, like, go cool. Tell me a time when you displayed optimism over realism. And if they can’t show that this is a behavior, like we are, we are basically a system ourselves, right? So all these inputs come into us. We have sight and sound and taste and smell, and we have our sixth sense and we have our internal thoughts, but basically those are signals.

And then we’re basically hardwired. There’s a lot of software there too, but we have hardware and software running that could predict exactly how we’re going to respond to whatever event comes in. And if we think we can just change all of our behaviors and habits, because we just want to, the answer is no. We have to actually start to rewire the plasticity, the plasticity in our brain to actually get us into a different behavior pattern. It happens through meditation. It happens through seven habits of successful people. And so not to dive into all those different techniques, but very quickly you can see people’s default behavior in small things.

Monthly Intentions

[00:59:45] Sean: Well, we don’t need to dive into all those techniques, but clearly it’s showing the breadth of knowledge that you have. So, for someone who’s just constantly trying to learn themselves, what is that process like for you? When you’re coming across new ideas, things you want to explore further, what is your learning process like there?

[01:00:03] JP O’Brien: One of these things we do is called monthly intentions. And so we do our five areas. So we say you need to have something very simple for your body. It could be like my workout three times a week. For your mind, this is like the learning side. I want to read a new book. I want to learn French. I want to play piano, whatever it is, for your spirit. This is more about belief and knowledge. What do I really think about immigration? Stop listening for a second to what my politicians are saying, or the news is saying, what do I really believe? 

What is the real problem here? Those sort of things. For intention, how do you want to deal with a relationship? Or how do you wanna work on a relationship, maybe it’s your wife or your spouse, maybe it’s your kids. Maybe it’s a good friend. And then the fifth one is how do you want to show up at work? How are you going to literally show up for other people? How will you hold space for people? And so we do this monthly and this is a great tool because it’s not like I’m committing to changing my life forever. 

But can you imagine Sean, if every year you had 12 beliefs that you’ve challenged and now have a knowing on or 12 things that you learned, that compounds exponentially. And this is a great way I think, every month to set those intentions. They’re super small, but you read them, you know them and you know that this is what you’re supposed to work on every day for 30 days. And then you move on to the next step. 

What’s JP O’Brien Best At?

[01:01:37] Sean: I mean, my insides are just screaming like, hell yeah. I mean, it doesn’t have to be the most crazy mind cheat ever, but these little steps really do work. You mentioned that compound interest has such a profound impact over time. So I love that. I hope the listeners are really going to start implementing some of these things you’ve discussed. I wonder just being able to step back, analyze yourself a little bit. What do you think you’re best at?

[01:02:00] JP O’Brien: I believe I’ve gotten good at motivating, leading. I’ll just say it this way, and this might answer very quickly when we turn those words to unleash the greatness of people around me into a mission statement, it’s to inspire, activate and hyper-enable change makers, thinkers, and doers to propel humanity forward. And I think that’s what I’ve gotten good at. I want to inspire you. I want to activate you. And then I want to hyper-enable you. If you’re one of those folks who are like, I want to take on a yoke and go, to go and go.

Activating People Through Questions

[01:02:36] Sean: I know we could spend hours and days, weeks, months exploring this, but is there something you’ve uncovered about activating people that you might not have known 10, 15 years ago, but he’s just so apparent in that recipe for success to activate someone correctly?

[01:02:53] JP O’Brien: You know, it’s what you’re doing here. It’s a lot of questions. It’s that math, that method of being Socratic and to not try to tell people, but have people explore it because you have no idea where they are at. I had another investor by the lab the other day, and we were talking and he was getting into all the details and I just stopped and asked him, I said, Hey, by the way, I want to re-emphasize, we’re very purpose-based. And I was just curious, what’s your purpose? And his body language completely changed. He kinda got nervous. 

He crossed his legs and he took a breath. And he’s like, oh my gosh. And so we were talking about all these things and he was exploring all these concepts of purpose and what that could do when you have a whole community focused on these things. But then when it flipped and you asked him about that, I mean, you could see that was an activation point for him. There was a true Aha moment where it became introspective. And I think those are like turning the light bulb on for a five-year-old when they learned about the blue sky or something. Those are magical moments. 

Failures And Learnings

[01:04:04] Sean: Well, one of the great things is not only having those magical moments, but actually being able to realize that one of those magical moments is occurring and then what transpires next. It’s always interesting to see that shift. Certain people understand it in the moment, but then it continues with them moving on. I’m wondering for you, have you had any moments like that, but they were failures. What were the spectacular failures, any big speed bumps you’ve had to uncover throughout this journey for yourself?

[01:04:31] JP O’Brien: Oh man. I’ve had so many failures. I mean yeah. There’s been so much learning. Sometimes the failures still don’t even feel like failures. It’s just that they’re not failures how we think about them. They’re “learnings”. I don’t mean that like every failure is a learning. We can talk about that too, but sometimes when you learn something new about yourself, you realize you spent 40 years or 30 years breeding something that now you no longer think is true.

And I think those are fascinating. I’ll just use the time, and I’ll give you a kind of a story here. So I was going through kind of a tough patch, and I had scheduled time to go explore the Iowaska ceremony. And I don’t know if that is okay to talk about here?

[01:05:36] Sean: Yeah. 

[01:05:37] JP O’Brien: Okay. Iowaska is a plant medicine and this teacher was from Peru and we’re sitting in, typically in a circle. You have about 20 people in a room. They call them a singing circle and then you drink this medicine and it creates a reaction. Basically it’s a psychedelic experience. And it was at that time when I really found out and saw what I was doing around the shell thing I talked about earlier. Where I was putting the shell on. 

And it was almost like I was watching a different movie or seeing something, somebody was telling me something new that was always there. And yet, it was starting to flash all these things, all these small, in some pretty large scenarios where, because of my behavior around my shell, I literally was hurting the relationship, hurting myself, hurting someone else, being unkind, maybe even being an asshole at times. And it was like a whole movie playing in front of me. 

And it was just like showing me all these different pieces. And at the end of it, I remember almost like trying to give myself a hug and be like, it’s okay, dude. Like it’s okay. You have to let that go now. If you can let that go, you can’t control that. You can’t fix that, but if you let that go, you can create a new behavior around how you handle that environment. That’s how you can learn with failure.

Conversation With Someone Dead or Alive 

[01:07:13] Sean: Oh, that’s fantastic. I appreciate you opening up and sharing that story there. Just a few final things here, just kind of understand some of the more interesting things that you’ve explored and uncovered. I would love to know if you could do this, like you love questions, you love exploring long form conversation with anyone dead or alive. Who would you love just spending a day having a great conversation with?

[01:07:33] JP O’Brien: There’s so many. On one level, Andrew Carnegie would be fascinating. What he went through, the entire time of the war and the steel and JP Morgan. And I mean that entire episode would be amazing. I think to sit down and really understand, was he conscious of all the things he was really doing? It seems like he was by reading his autobiography and whatnot. But how much was that all kind of created through his imagination and turned into reality? Or was he reading a joint venture book? So that would be fascinating.

[01:08:31] Sean: I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen it, I’m pretty sure the History Channel released it. This is like a decade ago. It was a show like a six or seven part series. The Men Who Built America, have you ever seen it? 

[01:08:41] JP O’Brien: I haven’t. I need to, though. 

Impactful Books

[01:08:43] Sean: I think I’m pretty sure Amazon prime has it all. So it’s all about Rockefeller, Carnegie, JP Morgan, all that. So if you enjoyed some of those stories as biographies, you’ll love that one. I mean, you’ve brought up so many interesting thinkers throughout the past. I know you and I have kind of talked about some of these people throughout history, any other books that have just had profound impacts on you? Not just like, oh yeah, this was a really interesting read, but like, oh wow, this probably fundamentally shifted how I approach things. Any books like that come to mind for you?

[01:09:12] JP O’Brien: I mentioned some of them already. I mean, Richard Feynman’s books, he’s a physicist, but he was amazing. I really thought Phil Knight’s book Shoe Dog was…  it showed me a completely different story. And if you re-read it from the beginning after this podcast, you’ll see, he was very purposeful and he had a very specific vision and he was able to turn that into reality. And his process of how to meditate happened to be a bourbon at the end of the night, but it doesn’t matter. He was doing a very purposeful process around what he was doing. 

Again, I guess when I look at this, the things that we’re talking about here, and again, I’m still in an elementary school, but I think that we can be pretty certain that this is a repeatable process that people have probably fallen into most of the time then after they’ve fallen into it, they write about it in some way. And that might be in some religious sect, that might be in an autobiography, that might be in the history of building amazing companies. But that this process is repeatable and it’ll be interesting to see as more and more people come online, how many people actually enter and try to achieve this process versus kind of just let life guide them through the river.

Where To Stay Connected

[01:10:39] Sean: That’s awesome. I appreciate so many things about you, but that beginner’s mind, that ability to explore the unknown, ask those big questions, so many amazing things you’re aligning with. I want to make sure the listeners can stay connected with you. Find out more about what you’re doing, what you’re building over there at Black Lab Sports. I know it’s blacklabsports.com. Where else do you want the listeners going, just to stay connected and hopefully join some of these things that you’re building?

[01:11:05] JP O’Brien: Yeah, that’s the best place to come in. And if you’re interested, that’s the place to find what we’re doing with our communities, and our forums. We’ve just had, for example, a forum just last week on the human eye. We had these amazing technologists for Mojo Vision, Three VR on, and then we also had Dr. Ali. We learned from NASA by talking about actually what’s going on in the eye. 

What we’re trying to do is bridge all this amazing technology, expose this new learning into other people who have probably no idea about what’s going on there, but are coming at it, and are either experts in their own right in some other fields saying, Hey, how do I engage with what’s coming on? So yeah, we’d love to have people join in and be part of it. Reach out if you have any questions or if you’re interested.

[01:11:55] Sean: That’s exciting. Well, JP O’Brien, I can’t thank you enough for joining us on What Got You There.

[01:12:00] JP O’Brien: Sean. I appreciate it. It’s a pleasure.

[01:12:03] Sean: You guys made it to the end of another episode of What Got You There. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I really do appreciate you taking the time to listen all the way through. If you found value in this, the best way you can support the show is by giving us a review, rating it, sharing it with your friends and also sharing on “social”. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. Looking forward to you guys, listening to another episode.