Year: 2025

There’s something tugging on my brain with regards to my last post and I’m trying to figure out what it is.

I know it has something to do with work but I’m not sure in what way.

For example, Dave Gray mentioned that for his School of the Possible, he wanted people who understood their purpose and were able to express it. And in expressing their purpose, he wanted them to be able to create a course for it, so they could teach it within his school, thus allowing that person’s purpose to actually become their work and livelihood.

There’s something about this though that feels off.

Not in terms of wanting to achieve this goal, as I think it is a noble achievement.

No, it has to do with how difficult the reality of this is.

For example, what I’ve noticed is that within my life, the first half was focused on technology and the second half is focused on sociology. And even though technology can be difficult for people to grasp, it’s much more approachable and understandable to people than sociology.

In effect, it’s easy to talk to people about technologies that are invisible to them (i.e. Wifi) but it seems monumentally more difficult to talk to people about psychology that is an invisible foundation to their lives.

What I’m trying to get at here is when a person make a shift in their work that also underpins a shift in their perception of life (i.e. worldview), that is a monumental leap to make.

Like people can grasp when I talk about computers and the Web. However, when I talk about stages of development, levels of consciousness, and worldviews though, most people don’t know about these things, even though they are foundational to their lives.

Now what’s strange about this though is that shift probably feels just as a much foreign to someone who works for an employer and then they suddenly start thinking about perhaps going freelance and start working for themselves.

In other words, just becoming a freelancer is a monumental shift in someone’s life and worldview.

It’s a step that requires a massive amount of courage but the payoff, both in terms of self-reliance and also in terms of living and embodying values of freedom and autonomy, are enormous.

Anyways, that’s all I wanted to say.

In effect, I think the enormous leaps we need to make in the future don’t require someone to understand their purpose in life at such a high level of consciousness initially. I think it really just requires someone wanting to make the next step and become more independent and self-reliant in their work lives, thus no longer feeling like the need to work for an employer and feel trapped within a relationship that isn’t conducive to their own growth and development.

So it’s really about creating a community that at a basic level is helping people to make that first big step in becoming an independent freelancer.

Yet at the same time, the community at a deeper level can be about helping people to understand their purpose over time and thus evolve themselves and their work at the same time.

BTW some examples of this would be Tiago Forte’s “productivity” focused work which is really just a Trojan horse for growth and development. The same could be said of Chris Do’s work which appears to be about design work but again is just a Trojan horse for growth and development as well.

I guess even though Sri and myself want to create similar communities that have a Trojan horse of some kind as an entry point that eventually leads to growth and development, the key difference with us is that we both seem to enjoy using gaming metaphors to describe our communities and the approaches used within them.

When I read this question above by Sri Seah that emerged from some deep reflection by them, I immediately thought of two things.

Making the Invisible Visible

The first thing I thought of was a quote by Beau Lotto from his book Deviate.

The best technologies make the invisible visible.

Such technologies open up new understanding, transforming the ideas that we have about our world and ourselves. They not only challenge what they assume to be true already, they also offer the opportunity for a new, larger, more complex set of assumptions.

Bea Lotto, Deviate

Imagining a World of Play

And the second thing I thought of was a statement I created some years back that describes the arc of my life.

This arc began decades back playing within imaginary worlds in role-playing games and MMORPGs. And it spans to today where I’m wanting to imagine and build a newer worldview, one embodying play. But play at a much deeper level than most people conventionally perceive it as.

Here are some quotes below that touch upon this deeper level of play which to me is essential for transformational growth and development because this play allows one to creatively step outside of one’s “self” into a larger sense of “Self”. And in doing so, one makes one’s larger sense of Self visible to the world and thus it is no longer invisible, buried, and perhaps even marginalized within oneself. This effectively embodies vertical development within the second half of one’s life as a process of removing layers as “masks” that hide one’s True Self.

Hello.
Welcome to the human race.
We are playing a game.
And we are playing by the following rules.
We want to tell you what the rules are
so that you know your way around.
And when you’ve understood what rules we’re playing by
when you get older,
you may be able to invent better ones.

Alan Watts

Ultimately, this book is about understanding the role of play and using it to find and express our own core truths. It is about learning to harness a force that has been built into us through millions of years of evolution, a force that allows us to both discover our most essential selves and enlarge our world. We are designed to find fulfillment and creative growth through play.

Stuart Brown, Play

Imagine a world where everyone was constantly learning, a world where what you wondered was more interesting than what you knew, and curiosity counted for more than certain knowledge. Imagine a world where what you gave away was more valuable than what you held back, where joy was not a dirty word, where play was not forbidden after your eleventh birthday. Imagine a world in which the business of business was to imagine worlds people might actually want to live in someday. Imagine a world created by the people, for the people not perishing from the earth forever.

Yeah. Imagine that.

The Cluetrain Manifesto

Creating a Quest(ion) Log

Actually one additional thing that jumps to mind when reflecting upon Sri’s question is how its larger scope mirrors a larger question I had a couple of decades back on transforming the conventional concept of work (and perhaps how I should be creating a section on my site to list these larger questions as a whole as well).

My response to this question was as follows. Basically creating a statement that was a collection of values.

And here is a translation of it applied to myself as a person.

Embodying Values

What’s interesting about this statement is that it’s easy to say. Embodying its values is another story altogether though.

And I think this ties into creating a safe space and playful environment for people to express their larger, invisible selves within, thus making them visible.

Everyone participating within this space, not just the host of this community space, needs to truly embody what they say and believe for this space to truly become a reality for all involved within it.

Anxiety and Depression Linked to Persistent Low Self-Belief – Neuroscience News

New research reveals that individuals with anxiety and depression tend to focus more on their moments of low confidence rather than successes, fueling persistent low self-belief.

https://neurosciencenews.com/anxiety-depression-self-belief-28776/

New research reveals that individuals with anxiety and depression tend to focus more on their moments of low confidence rather than successes, fueling persistent low self-belief. Despite performing just as well as others and responding positively to feedback, these individuals build an overly negative self-image by discounting their confident performances.

I’ve experienced this same thing myself.

And I think the number one way to overcome this negative self-image is to continually reflect back upon one’s life and to become aware of and reacquainted with one’s successes that one often has forgotten about.

Overall, our findings offer a simple yet powerful message – that the persistent negative self-beliefs experienced by people with anxiety and depression are often illusory, and may be rooted in a dysfunctional view of how they evaluate themselves .

Dr Sucharit Katyal

But just to clarify. Just because something is illusory, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel real.

AI Education Won’t Future-Proof The American Workforce. Here’s Why

AI education is the right answer to the wrong question. To navigate an uncertain future, Americans need foreign language skills, not faster language models.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/pialauritzen/2025/04/27/ai-education-wont-future-proof-the-american-workforce-heres-why/

But the question shouldn’t be ‘How do we make AI part of every child’s upbringing?’ Rather, political and corporate leaders should ask themselves, ‘How do we cultivate the skills everyone needs to navigate an uncertain future with rapid changes in technology, geopolitics, health, climate, etc.?’ Being able to adapt to change, focus on what’s relevant, switch between tasks, manage conflict, and recognize systems that may be different are all important aspects of the answer to this question.

You cultivate them collectively with vertical development.

This is also similar to what I’ve said before in the past.

The future of work isn’t about learning to code. It’s about learning to recode yourself.

This is an awesome introductory video explaining the basics of vertical development by Ryan Gottfredson (which I believe I may have shared before, as it looks familiar).

Main Points

In reflecting upon the video, did you catch the following?

The difference between horizontal and vertical development is the difference between doing and being.

Vertical development helps us to embrace the challenges of life by elevating our mental maturity so that we can make meaning of our world in much more complex ways.

Vertical development is a part of developmental psychology which has been around since the 1880s.

Whereas developmental psychology often focuses on child development through predictable stages of development, vertical development focuses on adult development through more mature stages of development.

However most adults do not develop in adulthood. That’s because adult development is not based upon age but rather effort.

Mind 1.0 embodies safety, comfort, and belonging and encompasses 64% of adults and 7% of executives.

Mind 2.0 embodies standing out, advancing, and getting ahead and encompasses 36% of adults and 85% of executives.

Mind 3.0 embodies contributing, adding value, and lifting others and encompasses 1% of adults and 8% of executives.

Since people can operate at different levels at different times, your center of gravity is where you spend most of your time operating from.

Robert Kegan’s Minds

Now for those who might be aware of Robert Kegan’s work, here’s how it aligns.

Mind 1.0 = Socialized Mind

Mind 2.0 = Self-Authoring Mind

Mind 3.0 = Self-Transforming Mind

Richard Barrett’s Stages of Development & Levels of Consciousness

For those aware of Richard Barrett’s values-based work and how it fleshes out and provides greater detail of Robert Kegan’s minds, here’s how it aligns.

Mind 1.0 = Socialized Mind = Stages / Levels 1, 2, 3

Mind 2.0 = Self-Authoring Mind = Stages / Levels 4, 5

Mind 3.0 = Self-Transforming Mind = Stages / Levels 6, 7

What Richard Barrett does is differentiate stages from levels. While you can achieve stages, your level is what you are currently or primarily operating at. For example, you may have achieve stage 4 and thus level 4. But if you lose your job, you will immediately drop down to level 1 temporarily until you can gain employment once again, even though you’ve still achieved stage 4.

In terms of myself, I’m transitioning between Mind 2.0 and Mind 3.0, as per the video, or between a Self-Authoring Mind and Self-Transforming Mind as per Robert Kegan’s work. From Richard Barrett’s work, I’m transitioning between stage 5 and stage 6 but I have not achieve stage 5 yet. In terms of my level, I have brief moments at level 6 but I mainly operate at level 5 and occasionally drop to level 3 or 4 when I’m feeling down temporarily.

What you will notice is that the more mature your stage of development, the less time you will spend at lower levels of consciousness when you drop down to them. For example, a decade ago, I would drop to lower levels and could spend days, weeks, or even months completely dejected about my life. Nowadays, this time span is just reduced to hours within a day or a few days at worst.

Different Perspectives, Greater Understanding

To state the obvious here, all of these different ways of perceiving growth and development as an adult can feel confusing at first because so many different people have been working on it over the years.

But one thing I’ve realized above all is that looking at something from multiple perspective is the best way to understand it, as this embodies a Mind 3.0 perspective naturally. In effect, it’s like walking virtually around something unknown and understanding it from different angles, so as to make it known.

From a creativity perspective, it is shifting from looking at life as this OR that (i.e. black or white) and looking at life as this AND that (i.e. a spectrum of colours).

In reflecting upon my recent realization, I’m also now understanding why Dave Gray back in 2018 only wanted people who understood their life purpose (and could document it) to join his School of the Possible.

In effect, he only wanted people who had actually experienced the journey of levelling up their level of consciousness because articulating this to someone who hasn’t experienced it is effectively next to impossible.

It would be like asking someone to see something that is invisible to them.

But what I just realized about this is that the experience of it is not enough.

You need a common language with which to communicate with each other by, so that you can actually articulate and put into words what you are experiencing as you progress further on your journey.

And if you don’t have this common language then everyone communicates with different words that have different meaning for them.

So you effectively get a Tower of Babel experience whereby people are speaking words that someone might “know” but with which they don’t understand the deeper meaning behind the words.

For example, someone might say their journey has been like growing a garden. So they use terminology that someone who is familiar with gardening might know. But again what these words mean from that person’s perspective won’t be understood by others (even those familiar with gardening) unless that person explains their deeper meaning.

Now imagine twenty people in a video call all talking about their growth and development experiences but each using their own metaphorical language to explain them.

It would quickly become quite confusing for most people.

This is why a common language is needed.

And this is why I believe vertical development is that common language because it gives you words that can help you express the psychological journey across the inner terrain you are experiencing within your “self.”

I no longer want to try to explain who I am or what I’m seeing to anyone anymore…unless they are on the same journey and understand the basic language of it.

Nollind Whachell

So when reflecting upon what I said above, I obviously do need to explain who I am and what my purpose is in plain English as much as possible, so that it can potentially resonate with others.

But after that, I would need to highlight and communicate the language I’m using to express my purpose which would be vertical development.

And I would need to help people understand that unless they want to learn this common language of growth and development, I won’t be able to communicate with them, share my journey, or even help them on their own journey.

Again this common language is essential for understanding this psychologically inner journey.

And only after I have communicated all that, can I share my own metaphorical language which is just an extension of the vertical development language.

But obviously the person would have to understand the basics of vertical development first because my own metaphorical language and framework for life (i.e. Life’s a Role-Playing Game) is scaffolded on top of it.

So all that said, I’m totally fine if people don’t get my metaphorical language at first but I want to work and collaborate with people who understand the common language of vertical development at least.

That is essential for collaboration and shared growth amongst us.

This is the experience of most people on the planet. They find it difficult to meet their survival, safety and security needs. Consequently, like my father, they never get the opportunity to explore the fourth stage of their psychological development; they never get to individuate.

Let’s assume that you are a young adult, in your mid-twenties or early thirties, and you are fortunate enough to live in a nation where you can get your survival, safety and security needs met. You will now want to find freedom and autonomy to become independent and accountable for your life; to adopt the values and beliefs that are meaningful to you, rather than the values and beliefs of your parents or the community in which you were raised. You will want to individuate.

If you are successful, and you can also meet your survival, safety and security needs, then you will feel a sense of well-being. If you are successful at individuating, but for whatever reason you are no longer able to meet your survival, safety or security needs, then you will not feel a sense of well-being.

The contrary is also true; if you can meet your survival, safety and security needs but cannot meet your individuating needs, you will not feel a sense of well-being. This was the situation that precipitated the Arab Spring.

Young adults from the Arab nations of North Africa and the Middle East had studied abroad and come home to relatively high-paying private sector jobs that allowed them to meet their survival, safety and security needs. They now wanted the freedom to explore their own values and beliefs; they wanted to individuate. Unfortunately, they came up against authoritarian regimes that were operating from a lower stage of development. Although they demonstrated over several weeks, their needs were not recognized. Many of these people left their respective countries because they were being prevented from growing and developing. They could only find well-being by settling in a country that was operating from a higher stage of development that allowed them to individuate.

Richard Barrett, Worldview Dynamics and the Well Being of Nations

I wanted to highlight this important quote because it touches upon what I experienced myself. Not in terms of wanting to move to another country but wanting to move to another company.

Simply put, I couldn’t find a conducive organizational setting that would align with where I wanted to grow and development.

So even though my survival, safety, and security needs where being met by having a job within a company, my growth needs were not being met because many of the leaders within these companies I worked for often operated from at a lower stage of development than me.

What this created was a continual catch-22 situation whereby I would need to fulfil my survival, safety, and security needs, so I would get a job. But then after being in the job for six months to a year, I found I couldn’t really express myself and grow within it because management operated from a lower of stage of development than me. This caused me to eventually quit in frustration and start back at square one, needing to get a job again to meet my survival, safety, and security needs.

For many people in the United States right now, who are operating from a higher stage of development, they are probably feeling the same way about living within the United States and having a president who is operating from a lower stage of development. They probably are feeling like they want to leave the country and go to another country where the leader is operating at a higher stage of development.