Pod Insights LifeBlood 2538: The Future Belongs to The Wise About this episode We are living in the most information-rich moment in human history. And yet…many people feel more confused, distracted, and overwhelmed than ever. Why? Because information is no longer scarce. It’s infinite. Artificial intelligence can already analyze, summarize, and generate more information than any human could possibly process. As AI advances, information will become cheaper, faster, and more abundant. But that creates a new problem. When information is everywhere…What actually matters? That’s where wisdom comes in. The future will not belong to the most informed. It will belong to the most clear-sighted. The people who know what matters. And who build their lives around it. Get the Wisdom Filter Exercise here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1quRj6dtYjnwVr3j4CAwoovi7sjitLEegZXfOASYIQjQ/edit?usp=sharing George’s newest book is available! Get your copy of The Meaningful Few here: https://amzn.to/4qA26X9 Feeling busy but unfulfilled? The Meaningful Few helps you identify what truly matters, eliminate distractions, and live with intention and clarity. Learn more here: MyMeaningfulFew.comWant to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee.https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifebloodThanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here:https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcastCopyright LifeBlood 2026.
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0:43 Speaker 01 When you think about wisdom, when you think about a wise person, who comes to mind? What comes to mind for you? Is there somebody that you think about? Is there something? Is there a tradition that you think about? It seems like the Stoics are getting a lot of really solid run today, which is great. I think that Stoic philosophy is immensely wise and immensely valuable. You think about foundational religious documents like the Bible and the Quran and the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita. These are sources of eternal wisdom people have turned to forever, for as long as we've been reading.
1:28 Speaker 01 Then you can think about these oral traditions and these stories that have been passed on from generation to generation that have survived all of it, that have survived at least the recorded history that we know. That's extraordinary. And then you think about where we are at today, because for the majority of human history, information was very, very, very, very scarce, which made it very, very, very, very valuable. If you wanted knowledge and information, you had to go out and find it. You had to get your hands on the book, or you had to get an audience with the village elder.
2:10 Speaker 01 You had to sit at the feet of the teacher. You needed to... It just wasn't free. It was, in fact, the opposite of that. It was extremely precious.
2:24 Speaker 01 And now, smash cut to where we are today. It's the opposite. Information is everywhere. We are lousy with information. We're all carrying around, you know, supercomputers right in our pockets, and they can literally tell us anything. I can remember having arguments with people, and we would not have the means to actually find out who is correct or to get the answer. More often than not, it was a question, some kind of a question about sports or something like that, or trivia. But today, that's obviously not, not an issue at all. And obviously, once again, artificial intelligence can boil down
3:07 Speaker 01 and immediately give us whatever information that we are looking for. So if information has now crossed the Rubicon from being extremely scarce and precious to being absolutely abundant, is it of value anymore? And the answer is no. Information is not as valuable, if it is even valuable at all. But certainly, wisdom is. Wisdom has always been immensely valuable. And in a time where information is cheap and abundant and everywhere, that just means that wisdom is even more valuable. That's interesting.
3:50 Speaker 01 And you think about what the future of life, future of work, whatever, however you want to think about that kind of stuff, what that's going to look like, because we don't know. I really think that wisdom is going to become the most valuable human trait that there is. And it's because that's something that a robot, a machine, an AI, can't manufacture. Because wisdom, it's not intelligence. It's certainly not knowledge. It's not information. It's being able to suss it all out and to make judgments on what actually matters. It's the ability to say that this matters, that doesn't matter, this deserves my time,
4:34 Speaker 01 that deserves my attention. I'm going to put my energy into this thing, and this other stuff just doesn't, flat out.
4:46 Speaker 01 Makes sense, simple, wise, wise even. I have been mildly obsessed with Pareto's idea of the meaningful few over the past couple of years. And what the meaningful few is, is simply that there are, which is very much aligned with Pareto's thinking, of the 80/20 rule, that 80% of the results are going to come from 20% of the inputs. And he talked about how the meaningful few are the certain activities or things that are going to be delivering you the results that you want. And the opposite of the meaningful few are the trivial many.
5:27 Speaker 01 So that's the ocean of information, of potentialities, of possibilities, of things. You could be giving your resources to time, energy, attention, and money. You could give it to everything, and everything wants those things. But there's only a handful of things that actually matter. And that's what this meaningful few, and the meaningful few framework that I've developed, built on Pareto's ideas, to help you suss this stuff out. So it's the ability to separate the meaningful few from the trivial many. We've always known that we need to separate the wheat from the chaff. Cream rises to the top. How do we focus on what actually matters and tune out the rest of it?
6:11 Speaker 01 Because in the world of infinite information, the ability to do that, the skill of doing that, becomes really valuable, maybe even priceless. So, where throughout the course of human history did wisdom come from? It came from elders. It came from people who had lived long enough to observe, and smart enough to observe, to see patterns, and to understand what that actually meant, and to be able to make decisions based on that. It came from philosophy. When people, thinkers, were trying to answer a simple question... What's it all about? What's the right way to live? How should human beings really live?
6:56 Speaker 01 And as we talked about up top, it comes from religious traditions that have been passed down across millennia, centuries, to help people orient themselves, to help us know. This has helped many other people that have come before you make meaning out of this mess that is human life. And of course, it came from lived experience. Pain. If you touch that really hot thing, it's gonna really frickin' hurt. Came from failure. Well, that seems like a good idea, but I tried that a bunch of times. It just didn't work. It came from, it comes from the acceptance of responsibility. And of course, it comes from loss.
7:41 Speaker 01 So those historically have been the greatest teachers of wisdom that we have. Because those experiences, those force you to reconcile, to come to confront reality, to interrogate reality. Because something interesting happened along the way that brought us to this modern world. And that is that we began to confuse intelligence with wisdom. Because they're not the same thing. We celebrate and started celebrating people who could quickly process information. But the simple processing of information is not the same as knowing what to do with it.
8:26 Speaker 01 The world is awash and littered with educated derelicts. Genius level IQs, highly educated people with all the degrees and certifications and certificates that you could ever imagine, still making terrible decisions. They're not able to take and apply. Think financial literacy, which is what you know, and financial wellness is what you do, or map that across every domain in life. If you understand nutrition and exercise and fitness, yet you're a fat, lazy POS, well, you're not being very wise. You're an educated derelict. Same thing goes, most everything. I'm a relationship expert whose kids hate me.
9:10 Speaker 01 Whatever. So many brilliant people throughout the course of history that lacked wisdom entirely. Because wisdom demands, requires something that intelligence doesn't. And that thing is judgment. Judgment, that is what you get from experiences, from laying it on the line to stepping into the arena. GLP-1s are changing weight loss.
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10:33 Speaker 01 And doing. Falling flat on your face, becoming humble, reflecting on, oh, that was interesting. Really thought this was going to happen, but when I did it that way, it really F'd everything up. So, here we are in the age of artificial intelligence. Potentially Skynet destroying everything because AI can already analyze way more information and data than I could ever possibly imagine. It can write stuff, it can solve problems, it can explain different ideas. And if it's not already doing it better than me or you, it certainly will be able to do them better in short order.
11:16 Speaker 01 Which means we're in a really important time because, again, information is now a commodity. It's been totally commoditized, making it of less value. And abundant value goes down.
11:30 Speaker 01 But then we revisit wisdom because as all those other things are happening, the wisdom is becoming more and more scarce. Because again, wisdom requires something that the robots don't have. Skin in the game. Number one, skin. And then the idea of putting skin in the game. Because the robot doesn't experience the consequences. It doesn't suffer, doesn't have any responsibility. You and I do. Meanwhile, in the real world, and responsibility is where wisdom grows. It's where it flourishes. So here's a question. Where will humans find wisdom today and moving forward into the future?
12:14 Speaker 01 What do you think? And ironically, or not ironically at all, in many of the same places that we always have. Find it in philosophy. We find it in the great traditions of human thought. We find it through mentors and teachers and wise men and wise women. And it's still found in experience and it's still found in the ability to reflect on things and to contemplate, occasionally ruminate. Let's think about stuff. So, future, wisdom's gonna look a lot less like knowing more things and more like choosing fewer things.
12:58 Speaker 01 Getting better at making decisions. Fewer priorities, fewer commitments, fewer distractions, fewer inputs, fewer goals that we're chasing. So in other words, living according to Pareto's idea of the meaningful few. You know anybody who's burning the candle at both ends? Who's just burned out, who's overwhelmed, running around like their hair is on fire? Well, I mean, we see that person every day in the mirror, don't we? At some level. And it's not because life's really hard. It is. It's not because life's too full. It can be.
13:41 Speaker 01 It's that there's just way too many choices, this tyranny of choice. Too many. Way too many opinions floating around out there. A lot of things to pay attention to and be notified about. There are a lot of expectations on us.
13:59 Speaker 01 I mean, there's always been a war raging for our resources, for our most valuable resources of time, energy, attention, and money. There is a countless, nameless, faceless army of stuff working to extract those from you. And if we're not making decisions about how to allocate those, well, there's that whole army, and it's getting bigger by the minute, who's interested in helping us make those kinds of decisions. So we need to be such good stewards of our time, energy, attention, and money. We've always had to be, but just more so than ever before now.
14:37 Speaker 01 If we choose to thinly disperse those across a thousand trivial things, what happens? Hmm, I think you're gonna end up with a trivial life, a trivial existence. Probably some version of a basic bitch life that I can't imagine you want. But if instead, you're able to focus them on your, on a meaningful few, it'd be better if it was your meaningful few. Well, that's when we're on to something. That's when we start to do meaningful work and have a meaningful career. That's when you start to prioritize and strengthen yourself and your family,
15:21 Speaker 01 and you have a healthy, strong body, and you're not in constant chaos. You have peace of mind. And you accept the life of responsibility and of impact and of contribution. And that's a wise thing. Because wisdom is certainly not about knowing everything. That's never been it. It's about knowing what really matters and what deserves you and your best. And that's not a question that, uh, whatever version of artificial intelligence that you're working with can answer for you. I'm sure it'll give you an answer.
16:04 Speaker 01 It'll tell you what's possible, but it can't tell you what really matters. That's up to you. And that's not responsibility that you need to abdicate. People who take that responsibility seriously, who embrace it, people that really make their own decisions, make up your own mind on what matters.
16:26 Speaker 01 Understand what matters, understand what must be done in service of what matters, and then do those things, that's executing on the meaningful few. Those people will have a chance to thrive in the future of technology and artificial intelligence. Because while the robots are going to get better at processing information, you and I must get better at wisdom, at becoming wise, at the practice of being wise, doing wisdom. So, to position yourself for the future of all of it, just the future. I don't think focusing on knowing more is the key, it's always a good idea, but I think
17:11 Speaker 01 the idea is to choose better. Because the future is not going to belong to the people that are most informed, because that's cheap. It's going to belong to the people who are, that have the most clarity, that understand what a priority is, that understand how to value and keep the main thing, the main thing. That's the main thing. People who know what matters, and then who are able to build their lives around what actually matters, and not be led around by the frickin' AI. Don't let the tail wag the dog.
17:49 Speaker 01 So, service of all of this, as I scream into the void, have to know what matters. So, I've done a lot of work around this.
18:01 Speaker 01 The simplest way to enter this kind of work, from my perspective, I created this wisdom filter exercise that you can access in the description of the show here. It's not, I'm not even asking for email or anything like that, it's free, you can just find it.
18:17 Speaker 01 You can pick up a copy of the Meaningful Few book that I wrote, it's called The Meaningful Few: Designing a Life That Works. And then there's some additional resources at mymeaningfulfew.com. And I invite you to check it out. If some, if, if what I've been talking about resonates, well, lean into it. Lean into it.
18:40 Speaker 01 Because I might not be right, but I'm definitely not wrong. And here's something I know for sure, I need you to do your part, and you do that by doing your best.
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