Hello everyone, this is Tonya Down Recla, your Super Power Expert and again, of course, I’m laughing because I have the amazing job of being able to connect these fantastic people prior to the show, and then I go to record, it’s like I’m already on cloud nine, because I just got to experience them.
Today’s show is no exception to that, and I’m so elated to have with us today, Gustaf. We’re going to talk a little bit about the name. But we’re talking today about disrupting the human condition. Make no mistakes about it folks. I may be happy and joyful right now, but this is a deep conversation, and we can still have fun with it, which we’re going to do.
But Gustaf is the reason why I’m so excited. We’re gearing up for Burning Man and he’s a burner and he’s been involved with and is the founder of Urban Burn. This is so exciting, but they do things like talk about leaderless leadership and what is that, so really pushing the bounds of what we’re capable of, what’s possible, what kind of given on a natural state of existence. What do we gravitate to? If we’re not impeded by constrictions and limits and rules and regulations which, you know, I’m counter intel, former army, I’m a rules and regulations girl.
But, what happens when we start questioning that and looking beyond that? What’s possible and what’s the bounds in that. This is a really yummy, yummy conversation that we’re going to have here. He’s in Sweden. Gustaf, you’re in Sweden right now, right?
I am in Stockholm right now, yes.
Very cool. Thank you so much for taking some time out.
Thank you for having me in.
And for joining us. I’m just so excited. I wish were sitting, having coffee together.
I’m excited too.
Very cool. So, in addition to being this amazing person in the world, he’s about to be a new dad and so big kudos to you, congratulations on that.
Thank you.
We’re so excited, so you have to make sure to send pictures when you get to. Well, do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?
It’s a girl.
We’re energetically welcoming here.
We call her Donta because then it becomes Donta Tadaa.
All right. I can’t get into that yet. I have to ask the first question, then I want to hear all about the names. First and foremost, what are your super powers?
.What are my super powers? I am good at talking.
What are my super powers? I am good at talking. I just been really good at storytelling. Getting really big complex ideas and then just putting them together into really like, attractive cute little stories that make people feel like they can be a part of it.
That’s really what I do. Both as a leader in the community and a community organizer, a lot of storytelling, getting people to understand the grand narrative and how they fit into it. And also that’s what I do professionally as a speaker or as an organizational developer and leader and coach. It is so focused around storytelling. It’s like the analytical mind which connected to the storytelling, I think that’s my superpower.
I can really, really appreciate that because one of the techniques that we work with a lot is, we call it by different names but the more popular one is story crafting. And it’s the idea that we write the story. We are the story writers. We have a pure experience of something and then we immediately allow and ask both of us to overlay it with the story of it.
When we can recognize that tendency and capture ourselves at the moment, we get to take control of the story. It’s this really cool awareness of like, you’re doing it anyway, you might as well write a story that sounds good. You might as well write one that’s fun.
Exactly. And that is as to as in the internal story and the personal development part and your storytelling about you, but it’s equally true as in the grand narratives, because it is as we’re telling the stories together, they become reality. That’s how all of our society is shaped. It is through the collaborative crafting of a structure, of society, of symbols, of God’s light.
We actually take it further and one of the sections that we teach is kind of this internal, external game. And we encourage people to use the projection to move the internal game and vice versa because if you’re willing to look at the projection as simply a reflection of what’s happening internally within you, you have two really phenomenal playgrounds, the macro and the micro to play with. It informs everything and so we kind of take this both angle approach and run with it.
Because if we can start looking at all the different aspects inside of us, one of the techniques I teach people is like, every morning wake up and have a little board meeting and be like, okay, where’s everybody sitting? And this is internally like wants to do this today. This one wants to do this and start naming them or whatever, but then you if you want those characters are so often the projection.
I have some names for my characters too. It was actually an art project, it was an art project at the borderland which is the Nordic Burn I’ve been organizing. At one of the art projects one year, there was a group that built, it was a pond. They built a dome next to that pond, probably with like branches and all leaves and stuff. And then you have to dive into the pond. You got naked and you dove into the pond and then you could swim to the dome from below, that was the only way you could get in.
And when you came in, this was the temple. When you came in there, there was an old man, who would do an analysis of you, basically, finding your own. All your different personalities and then you got your name and you got to sit there and write in that like a big old book of pictures of dead people and you got to like find a picture that you could. This is that person and that person you got rename them.
And you’re like in there for an hour naked, which is weird. Then that guy also happens to be on the jury of Swedish Idol. He’s like the Simon Cowell of Sweden. And you wouldn’t know, you’re like diving in naked and suddenly you’re in there with this as the guy from TV, and he’s standing next to you being naked and talking about your subpersonalities and trying to get the names.
Oh my gosh. Everybody who’s not a Burner is going, “What the …”
Things happen.
Wait, so is he naked too?
No, he’s not naked.
Because that’s only fair. I mean, come on.
Yeah and he starts with the mirror and you get to look at yourself naked in the mirror and tell the story of what you see. Things we play within this world.
You had me at the water. The fact that you have a Burn that has water, is like, “What?” Because we’re all used to the desert.
Our daughter tells a story about we experienced the human carcass wash at a burning man. And again, I get that this really pushes people’s boundaries and them and stuff like that. But you’d be able to kind of roll out the tongue with like nakedness and this is it, and you’re exposed and you’re real. I mean, really a lot of the work that we do is helping people recognize that this concept of transparency isn’t a choice. You’re broadcasting everything whether you like it or not. Whether you’re aware of it or not. There’s no private part.
And that is even truer now with the digital world. To a massive extent and just most that you’re not even aware of. It’s not a question of something like, “Oh, is it good or bad?” But it’s kind of the evolution of humanity is a story of interconnectedness. As we develop more.
Well, we ultimately like this show, Disrupting the Human Condition, but it’s really rewriting the story of the human condition because of you on it, the idea that in some way that’s a deficit. Or in some way, that’s a threat to us in any way or this transparency concept threatens our privacy. I mean, the story of privacy was the fictitious part, not the transparency. And I think that that just like with everything, what you identified, the technology is just reflecting us what’s happening in that internal game.
I wouldn’t even argue that technology is the most human thing that exists. It is what separates us.
Technology forces us to become human.
Your quote, “Technology forces us to become human.” That’s really interesting.
It is what makes us different from every other species. Technology, if you extend that, a lot of people use the word technology to just describe everything that was amended after I was born. But technology is the history of humanity. The printing press that for the first time enabled for normal people to understand that this king, he was not a god, he was just like us. But it requires some kind of basic education for everyone to be able to understand what everyone else is understanding so that they can see that we’re equal.
For that to happen, it requires the printing press. It’s the printing press that enables democracy to happen, it can never happen without that. Or for that matter, the written word. The fact that we can remember things from generation to generation without it having to be a generational whisper game.
A telephone.
How deep the written language goes in us that we see as part of us. It’s technology. It’s a technology just like Facebook. That is the history of humanity, it’s the history of technology. We have always been it and co-evolved with it.
I’m just going to let you run with it. So beautiful, but I want to jump in here real quickly because I want to dive into this. I promised that we would get kind of a name game that you’re talking about. But let’s take a quick break. Before you do, where can we send it because I know everybody’s very fascinated with you and where you’re coming from with this stuff. Where can we send them to find out more information about you?
You can google my name, Gustaf Tadaa, and it will probably be in some headline of this pod I guest in. And then you can find my web page http://www.guff.se/. You can also follow me on Facebook. Like my page on Facebook. I think those are the most. I’m on Instagram too.
So wonderful, but we’re going to take a quick break, do not leave because we’re diving more deeply into this. We’re talking about disrupting the human condition. Stay with us, and we will be right back.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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