#237 Delving into Entrepreneurship, Masterminds, and Deep Work: A Conversations with Parker Harris

0:00:02 - Mehmet
Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the CTO show with Mehmet. Today I'm very pleased to have with me Parker Harris. Parker, the way I like to do it is I keep it to my guests to introduce themselves. You have a very interesting biography and I was really impressed. So if you can just introduce yourself and what you are up to, Sure. 

0:00:23 - Parker
So I am a entrepreneur that's very passionate about business and started multiple companies or projects before going to work for a Fortune 100 technology company and, through my experience there, started to realize what I was really like, passionate and good at, and that was bringing together entrepreneurs and executives and investors to have intimate conversations around business and technology and philosophy, and that is what I currently do in my role at UNTO Global. 

0:00:56 - Mehmet
Great, and thanks again for being on the show here today. So, parker, the way I love to you know, I'm always curious by nature. You know what let you know that you have to choose to be in this entrepreneurial journey rather than going the standard way. So what was the moment that you said you know what? I'm going to be a full-fledged entrepreneur. 

0:01:21 - Parker
You know that's a great question. I think there was multiple moments along that journey. I started working at a very young age because I wanted, you know, money and resources to buy my first car, which I bought when I was 14 years old and fixed up, and I think I found a lot of joy or like a lot of internal reward by adding value to other people. So that was something that I just like I think that's something that entrepreneurs often have is like just a desire to add value to other people. And then I took the traditional path. You know, I worked. I worked in jobs for a while and I just didn't feel like I was. I was heading out like I wasn't getting what I wanted from those and I saw a lot of like politics that I was like this is not a game that I want to learn how to play, like I want to be really good at adding value to other people and being rewarded for that, and I started doing that through a health company that I started when I was 17. But our like corporate attorney or the attorney that was starting to do our partnership and lease documents was like, hey, what's your goal with this? And I was like, well, I want to build a big company that has an impact on the world. He's like, well, it looks to me like you're creating a job for yourself. So if you really want to do that, like, go learn finance, which he described as the language of business, and then go work for a big company. 

So I ended up taking that path and working for a large wireless technology company and when I was there, I had aspirations to become the CEO of that company and I got to know a number of the executives and started talking to them about their day to day and you know their, their fulfillment level and how much they enjoyed what they were doing and what they recommended to me. 

And to my surprise, they were like I wish I was asking these questions when I was your age, you know. I was like that's super interesting Because there's, you know, thousands and thousands of us, tens of thousands of us, in this company competing for your job, and you wouldn't even recommend it to me. So I started asking you what advice would you give your children? And they were like that's a very personal question. I'm like, yes, it is. And it led me to start looking in my life currently what I was doing that added values to others that I enjoyed doing and I had this very ethereal moment where I was sitting on a bench at the beach and I saw my life as if I was living it, like like I saw my life going through if I stayed on the path that I was on and I just realized I couldn't take that path, that I needed to take more of the unknown path or the path less traveled, and that led me to where I am today. 

0:04:03 - Mehmet
Great, great. So, like every time I speak with someone who passed it all, always they tell me like the best way to do it is actually what you, the path that you follow is to go for a large company before you go and you start your own business. But the question here, parker, is sometimes not everyone get the luck, you know, to have mentors and to have, you know, the accessibility to work for large company. And you know, I know a lot of people who have the passion, they have, you know, the ideas, they have everything, but they miss the know how. So if someone today, you know, want to follow your path but they don't have access, so what do you advise them to do? 

0:05:01 - Parker
Yeah, I'm glad you're asking that because I was someone that didn't have access either. I applied for a number of different positions that I didn't even get an interview for, and the position that I ended up getting when I initially applied I didn't get the interview. They wouldn't even interview me. And I'm going to answer your question is I found myself stepping into leadership roles in extracurricular activities, different organizations that were more professionally focused, where we would bring in executives. In this case it was. I still remember it was like a director of business development for the company I ended up working for to speak to the other students, and I continued to do this even after I wasn't a student, organizing these types of events, and I made a really good impression on him by being very prepared with him, you know, giving him a great tour of the campus and just building a personal relationship with him based on shared faith and just, you know, being a person that wasn't asking anything from him, but just like building. You know, looking at each other as peers. But he was someone that I respected. Again, I introduced him really well to the group and there was just a great conversation. I asked some good questions. I made other people feel comfortable to ask questions. So it was a, it was a good environment. And at the end of the event, I remember he came up to me and gave me a hug. He was like if there's anything I can ever do for you, let me know. And I followed up with him a few days later and I was like you know, michael, there is something you can do for me. There's this position. I really want it and they won't even interview me. Can you just help me, like get an interview? And he's like send me over your information. And within a week the HR team reached out to me and was like hey, we'd love to interview you for this position. And because I failed a number of times previously with different companies and different roles, I like nailed it because I I'd thought about all the things I did wrong and what I wish I would have said, and I thought about that for days and days going into this interview and I just I just nailed it and I got the position. 

And so you know just to be more specific about your question is when I, the last day of college, when I graduated I'll never forget the professor gave this lecture around basically the career opportunities within the degree that we were all I was. I was a finance major and I was shocked. So by that time I had I already knew where, what position I was going to take. I got multiple job offers from different companies and I had chosen mine six months earlier, right, so I like. 

But I was still working hard in school and showing up to class and that last day he gave that lecture and I was like you know, this is too late, and 90% of the students went up to him after the class and they were in line, talking to them and like asking questions, and I was like you know, you guys are in trouble because you waited too long. And I realized that there was like 10% of us that had multiple job opportunities, multiple job offers and we're going to like really cool opportunities, and those people all took on leadership roles. They were adding value to the other students because they enjoyed doing it and that there's a. Those type of people get multiple opportunities because that's what people want with it and they're in their company as well. 

0:08:28 - Mehmet
So, in my way, parker, from what you described to me and I asked the question to reach to this question, thank you for answering this way. You know how important is to keep networking with people because you know, in order for you to get that interview, you needed to go to an event, as I understood. So how, yes, how, how important is networking, and especially in today's you know landscape that we live in, for an entrepreneur, the same goes that your network is your net worth, right? 

0:09:08 - Parker
So I would say that it's almost everything right. It's not what you know, it's who you know. But in that same breath, I would say that I think that most people have networking wrong and it almost makes me like physically ill sometimes to go to a networking event because people are just like, oh, what do you do Right? And it's basically like can you? And really what they're thinking is can you help me? Can I sell you something or not? And then the moment they determine that you can't buy anything from them or you can't help them, they just start looking over you and looking at who else is in the room and I just like I have very low tolerance for that. 

So I think of it more as relationship building, right, and like really building relationships with people that potentially you enjoy being around, that there's some shared values or like-mindedness or just again, a general enjoyment with each other and leading with value, like being abundant, being like, oh, I have someone I could introduce you to, instead of like looking to get value, looking to give value. And when I did that, people wanted to hire me on the spot and I wasn't even looking for a job Like this was at a point when I already had a position that was like I was really happy with and I was like I'm not interested. But people want that type of energy where it's like, oh, this person has an abundant amount of energy, where they must have something to give me, or like I wanna build a relationship with that person. So I think, not being transactional, but being really relational and seeking to add value to other people, even if they can't do anything for you at that time, is really the secret to networking or, again, relationship building. 

0:10:59 - Mehmet
Yeah. So I agree with you, parker, we should call it relationship building, because the terms networking by itself it's might be we come together in one event and then we exchange maybe business card or whatever, and then hey, like see, like I do this, you do that, and then you don't build a relationship, like it's like look very same-ish, I would say, because I'm trying to sell my services, the other party is trying to sell their service. So I agree with you, it should be kind of a real relationship building. 

0:11:31 - Parker
Now I know, parker, that- and just to add to that, I love what you said there Is. 

I think the easy part sometimes is like building that relationship in the moment. Right, it's like there's that energy of different conferences or events where there's just like something that happens there. I think the hard part is continuing that relationship after the event, like doing the follow up, inviting that person to coffee. Sometimes that first coffee is easy. The hard part is the second coffee, the third coffee, the fourth coffee, like actually thinking about that person, sending them things that would add value to them without any expectation in return. 

And the company that I currently lead, which is a mastermind for entrepreneurs, that was kind of like. What we were doing was like it's very difficult to meet someone and just have coffee with them a dozen times, 20 times, over a year or two years or some period of time, and trying to do that with like five or 10 people is even was like potentially much more difficult. So we decided to find these really high quality people and then bringing them together for a conversation on a regular basis was kind of like a hack for us of how to build that relationship, keeping up that frequency and creating value for each other. 

0:12:53 - Mehmet
Yeah, definitely, and this actually wanted to ask you about the mastermind that you have built. So I know that you've built it and it was kind of inspired by Benjamin Franklin. Can you explain the concept and how it's different from other mastermind groups? 

0:13:13 - Parker
Yeah, it's funny, I'm actually reading Benjamin Franklin's biography from Walter Isaacson right now, so it's given me a newfound appreciation, because this was a big part of his life. He started Hoontow in 1727 when he was in his early 20s. He was a tradesman at the time, a young printer, and essentially he brought together in other industrious people, people that were diligent, hardworking, for a conversation once a week where they would discuss business and philosophy and technology and politics and spiritual like anything that was important to them. They would have discussions around. They went through questions around like what are you reading that would add value to us? Who has made a fortune recently that we can learn from? Who's lost all their money recently that we can learn from? Who can we do good for? Like have you met someone recently that we can help? How can we make our community better? Like these type of questions right, and I firmly believe that the quality of our questions determine the quality of our lives. 

He went on to start like American philosophical society where they would continue these conversations. He got into the free masons, which some of these conversations happened. He went over to France and England and into the salons and coffee houses and continued this type of collaboration right, which some people would say is the magic of Silicon Valley, or it used to be that type of network where people came together to share ideas and support each other. It was there was no hierarchy, it was very flat, it was a round table conversation where everyone is peers and they would build trust with each other and build relationships with each other. 

0:14:55 - Mehmet
So I think that that was part of the magic that he, you know, he was really good at Mm-hmm, you know, to your point like, and it's like kind of a coincidence or maybe a moment, that just happened before we start to record this. So I was talking to a friend and just to your point about Silicon Valley, and we were discussing, like you know what's the secret, you know like what, why Silicon Valley kept being, you know this way. And one of the point and we were discussing, like in a philosophical way I can say, and one of the things that we both were agreed on is, you know, regarding that, there's no hierarchy over there. So you know, you cannot, you don't have, you know to follow, you know to reach someone, you don't feel like you are inferior or like you know you need like some two, three steps to reach them. So it's quite interesting that you brought this point and you know, I believe you know what you mentioned is a spot on. So how, how does Can? 

0:16:05 - Parker
I add to that real quick, please, please. It's like I think entrepreneurship is one of the most humbling experiences of life, probably like getting married can be kind of humbling. Having, you know, having kids can be humbling. Sports, I think, is like a kind of a humbling, like you know, a tool that teaches humility, and I think entrepreneurship is one of those spaces as well. 

One of the great Silicon Valley entrepreneurs named Peter Thiel and Elon Musk quotes this a lot is you know, entrepreneurship is like chewing on glass and looking into the abyss. It's like the hardest, most painful, challenging thing that it's like the choice to do. It is its own special choice and once you're in it, you kind of want to help other people that are in it too. And unfortunately and I'm still trying to understand this in my life is some people love hearing that wisdom or love being challenged or supported and some people hate it. Right, in scripture, it's the difference between the wise man and the full. So I think that when there's a group of people that really get it get how hard it is and the value that can be created, there's an energy around it and some values and principles where there's a benefit to contributing to the success of other people. 

0:17:43 - Mehmet
Yeah, true, I agree with you, parker, on this. Now, continuing on that, and do you think first let me ask you this way do you think that part of what you mentioned about the Silicon Valley, do you think it faded a little bit and now we have different kind of mentality over there and this is causing some challenges for younger entrepreneurs. Do you think we have something like this today? 

0:18:12 - Parker
Well, I think a lot of Silicon Valley left Silicon Valley right, Like you know, people move to. There's a great place in the United States called Jackson, whole, Wyoming, and there's a joke that a lot of entrepreneurs move there and a lot of them move to Texas and you know Austin area. I think that's where, you know, Elon Musk moved somewhere, somewhere in Texas, not Austin, Florida. So I think there's been this, you know, flattening of the world and with COVID and really the response to COVID, the concentration and the ecosystem that was in Silicon Valley spread it out to a place and I think technology also caught up to a point where it still facilitates those interactions, but the network is a little more closed and harder to maybe get into versus attending, you know, an incubator event or you know some sort of event that was just happening in Silicon Valley previously. So I do think the landscape has changed and maybe it will revert back, but my experience is things never go back to the way that they were. You know, just kind of moves forward and changes. 

So I haven't spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley. I have spent some time in IDO and Palo Alto and like learning from some really interesting entrepreneurs, but my experience has been more in San Diego, which is in Southern California, and it has a little bit more of like a defense tech, like military technology and defense technology, and the culture around that is a little more closed right, Because there's just like confidentiality things and you know, and so the culture was different. Where I was from, I guess the wireless semiconductor company that I work for had a defense tech arm, but the entrepreneurs that I associated with were more like e-commerce companies, marketing agencies, consumer facing technology companies, and so there was this desire to collaborate and find a space to have these type of conversations. 

0:20:16 - Mehmet
Right, so that is a fact, I think, parker, that you know, as you mentioned, because the technology now allows us, you know, to be anywhere in the world, literally like you can be sitting, maybe, on a tropical island in the Pacific or in the. 

0:20:34 - Parker
Indian Ocean or in the Eastern Europe? 

0:20:37 - Mehmet
Yeah, exactly, but now I believe and I want your opinion on this, but still I believe you know, based on the work that you are doing also currently, you still need this relationship building and kind of masterminds right Community. 

0:20:55 - Parker
You know it's interesting. I've learned that human connection is a more basic need than success, and so sometimes people sabotage their own success for connection, unfortunately. So I think if we don't have a community, a success team that really supports our success or our growth, it can be very difficult to do alone. And I think you know that unknown unknown like March Wayne, who's like an American philosopher has this quote that it's not what you don't know that's going to hurt you, it's what you know. That isn't so, and I see a lot of entrepreneurs being limited by what they know. That isn't so, and until we have a group of people that can see it and challenge that point of view, we're stuck there. 

0:21:53 - Mehmet
Right, right. And you know this is lead me to the next question. Actually, and it's I'm liking, you know the way, how we are doing this and just for the audience guys, like it's a casual chat, we didn't prepare for this, but parking at myself, we're all the same frequency, it seems, today. So what are you know some of the? Let's say two things First, how entrepreneurs can prepare themselves from personal development perspective and you know, habit building perspective to read to. You know to be up to the level that you were mentioning. 

0:22:32 - Parker
We talked a little bit about, like if you give someone feedback or share some wisdom with them, they'll either love you or hate you for it, right depending on being the wiser, the fool. I think that growth mindset of being open to feedback and open to change, open to growth, is like the foundation of all of it. From there, I would say, learning to set targets, like set and achieve targets, execute discipline is another, like core aspect of it. And then something that I'm really fascinated by is this idea of processing triggers that come up. 

Mike Tyson, who was a famous boxer in the United States, said everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face, and I think entrepreneurship is a great place to get punched in the face and punched in the stomach, metaphorically. And it's like what do we say to ourselves and how do we act when we're getting punched in the face? And are we going into a victim mode and are we destroying relationships and even drinking and destroying ourselves, or are we the hero that overcomes these challenges? So I think learning to craft our own identity and write a story or a narrative that serves us and stepping into, like living out that story is incredibly valuable. From there, I think, getting really clear about who we are and why we're here, like what is that pain that we wanna solve? What is our mission, what is our purpose, what is our passion, simon Sinek, he famously says, like start with why. Right, great leaders start with why. So really figuring out our why and then creating a vision that's tied to that why and from there setting up a space and environment for our success. 

I think is a little talked about piece of personal development that is incredibly valuable as it impacts discipline and focus and clarity. And then from there, I think habits are a really important part of this journey like setting up the habits, and especially in entrepreneurship, there's the personal habits as well as the business habits that can lead to success, both on like I'm really fascinated about leading KPIs versus lagging KPIs and like doing controlling the controllables, like what are the inputs that I can control? Because everybody knows the output that they want, but they don't often know the input that's required to create that output and that's true with business and often on the personal side as well. And then from there I think it gets. Life can get pretty easy if we've mastered, if we've mastered those pieces. 

0:25:25 - Mehmet
Right, right, like very great advice and, I think, a lot of wisdom from you, parker, and I'm a big fan of all these the fault leaders, I would say, whether it's Simon or the others that you mentioned, and it's about the mindset. And, honestly speaking, just if you are a little bit, the audience would allow me like I don't talk much usually on the show but, to your point, it takes like a lot of time to understand that you should go out of the victim mentality Because I was doing this a lot and I was blaming yeah, it's like they don't understand me, the timing is not right, this, that. But once I shifted my mindset and I said, okay, maybe things are not going fine, but I will not try to find problem outside. I would try to find problems inside and let's see how I can. Maybe I did the mistake, so let me try to improve next time. I would try. So very spot on that one, parker, from your side. Now, please. 

0:26:41 - Parker
I don't mean to interrupt you, but two things, no, please. One is that's why there's this adage like the gift of the journey is who we become, not the destination, and like I think that just ties to what you said Right Is like it's so much more fun to get out of that victim place and become like the hero that can overcome challenges and that becomes the gift of walking the path versus where we get to the money, the cars, the whatever right, the houses, the like, whatever. Sometimes those outwardly, those outward rewards are not like the real gift where it really becomes being the person that can overcome challenges and stay steady and think through situations when we're getting punched in the face, right, being able to deal with those and then the you know, just to round out this personal development conversation is I think a lot of times personal development focuses on the individual. Like the personal development where I don't think personal development is an individual journey, I think a lot of times the ways for me. 

I also had a victim mentality for a long time even though I had done a lot of work on myself or I thought, you know, I read all the books and attended all the events. And then it took another peer, when I was sharing some challenges I was having in my business, to point out the fact that I was being a victim, and I was immediately like defensive, you know. I was like what are you talking about? And I had to sit with it for a few days or even a few weeks. I had to realize he was right, and so I think a community and a success team are also like that last layer of the personal development journey that set up the foundation for our business. I also am fortunate to have a success team and community for my health, for my relationships, for my own, like fun and the impact that I want to have on the world. 

0:28:40 - Mehmet
Yeah. Now one thing also, Parker. It came to my mind because I didn't do it honestly, but maybe when I was younger I used to do it. But I want to hear your opinion on that. Some people falls in the trap. They say, okay, I want to have this person as a model for me, so I want to become like X or Y, and then they go too much into a cloning mode. I would say they want to clone that person, so they forget about their Y. I want to hear from you about how we should avoid being in the trap. So just to let you, every single one you don't want to become like Steve Jobs. Every single one want to become like I don't know Bill Gates. Some people want to become like Elon Musk. Some people want to come. So, while we should okay, of course we could learn from these great entrepreneurs, but we should not be falling in the trap of being a clone of them. So I want to hear your opinion on this. 

0:29:54 - Parker
I've heard it said and I think it's so true is you know you're not on your path when you're following someone else's path, right like. 

There's this documentary that I love. It's called Finding Joe and it's about a guy named Joseph Campbell who created a framework around the hero's journey which is used by Hollywood and writers and screenwriters around this journey. That's like very embedded in the human experience and one of the analogies in it was like around like the nights of the round table and how they had to enter this like forest. This thing was a scary place but everyone had to enter their forest on their own in their own path, that ablaze, their own trail. And you know the surest way to know that you're not on your path is if you're just following someone else's path, and so I think it can feel really comfortable to adopt that. And maybe there's a. There's definitely things we can learn from mentors or great people that came before us, and a lot of times they share that wisdom freely. But I think the challenge with that sometimes is there's this learning framework that I love. It's a. There's four levels of learning there's unconscious incompetence, there's conscious incompetence, then there's conscious competence and then there's unconscious competence, and I think the challenge with someone like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett or Elon Musk or Steve Jobs is there's a whole lot of unconscious competence that it's like when you're in a plate, you know. When you're in unconscious incompetence or conscious incompetence, it's like. It's sometimes it's like 50 steps ahead, when what we really need is two steps ahead. You know, and so, yeah, if it serves someone to follow the path of someone else, then you know, I, you know. 

Then I'm not going to judge that, but I think a lot of times it for me, it slowed my path down, where I was always looking for the answers outside of myself versus learning how to hear the answers within myself and trust my own gut. And I've had the fortune of being mentored by some, you know, multiple billionaires and successful people, and when we would ask them or when I would ask them, how, how do you make these types of decisions? Like, how did you make that decision? It was I trusted my gut, you know. And so then it's like, okay, well, how do you learn to trust your gut? 

And I think that's like this thing of again going within, learning to hear ourselves and to be wrong, make some mistakes and be like oh, I didn't trust my gut here, like I need to listen to that voice inside of me. So I think there's sometimes a paradox to truth, right? Or it's like there's two contradictory ideas that somehow both exist, and so I think there there is an element where we can benefit from mentors and successful people that come before us, but we also need to learn how to trust ourselves and listen to ourselves and figure out who we are. Socrates once said like knowing myself is like true power or like true knowledge, and I heard it was actually stolen from like Egypt, like Egyptian wisdom on like the temple of what's that place in Vegas? The pyramid, do you remember? 

the Luxor, yeah, the Luxor temple in Egypt and I think the full saying is like like know thyself and you will know the gods, Like it's something like that right, Like just so powerful where I don't know how many people in this world actually know themselves. 

0:33:36 - Mehmet
I fully agree with you. I think that this is where I believe we see a lot of noise Parker out there, and I tell people, yeah, but you know what, this noise will fade. I believe this noise will fade. It's temporary. 

And some people ask me why are you doing this? Why you could have, I don't know, done something else, enjoyed your life. Why are you recording every day and no reward for that? I said, look guys, it's not about the reward, it's not always money, it's about to learn from people, because I start to see it as a learning path for myself and trying, in the ocean of noise outside, if I can be that small drop that can enlighten some people, for me it's okay, I'm happy, this is the way I look at it. And yeah, so they say okay, are you going to become like Gary V? Are you going to become like Joe Rogan? I said these are great names out there. 

Of course I can learn from them, but I cannot become them because I have something inside myself that I cannot. Even if I wanted to, I would not be able. You cannot be the clone of someone else. And it's a little bit philosophical because at certain point in time, in certain location, in certain you know all the things that are around you at this time. You cannot be someone else. You cannot even if you try to, even if you imitate the sound and the voice and the you know mimics. You cannot be someone else. So this is my belief. 

0:35:19 - Parker
Now, and those people that we wanted to be like, they didn't want to be like someone else. Exactly, they wanted to be themselves and manifest within them, to manifest right. So we can learn 100%. And one other point in the minute you just mentioned is super powerful. Like around the noise, right, there is so much noise and the amount of noise is ramped up like from like. 

You know, if you think about a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, you know it's like we would learn, we'd hear something and we would be able to sit with it for weeks at a time. You know. But now you know, I think this is back to like the fool versus the wise man, right? And I'm also like I don't want to think of that as a binary journey, because one of my friends says this to me that I really love it it's a fool in search of his folly becomes wise, and I think that's true for my journey and I hope it's true for my journey. But you know, I think that there's like a point in someone's life where maybe they learn to shut out the noise because it doesn't serve them, but I think a lot of people are addicted to it and it's. You know, I don't remember where I heard this, but it's like this idea of you know, every human problem can be solved if we're willing to like sit in a quiet room by ourselves for 30 minutes. 

You know, true, and I think that happens for different people in different ways, even in the United States right now, and I don't know how this is going globally but a lot of young people are actually turning away from alcohol for, like one of the first generations in many generations, where just a lot of young, healthy, you know, successful people are like. 

You know, this doesn't serve, like this is not part of my life anymore. The same way that I think people are shutting off notifications on their phone, going into airplane more and more and more, deleting social media apps from their phone. So I think there is some counterculture going on, but I'm not sure what percentage of the population it is and exactly how does somebody make that choice. My assumption is it's like a certain amount of pain building up right and maybe then hearing from someone else that this work for them and then being open to it. But I think it's gonna be interesting when technology or AI or you know, I have a goal of building some technology that actually, like helps people achieve their goals not the advertisers goals and like actually being like, hey, you know what. 

0:37:56 - Mehmet
To achieve your goal, you need to not be on your phone right now, so we're gonna shut it off for you, yeah yeah, and you know, like I believe, because we are turning back to your point and yeah, it's just something global, because I read about it in the US and other part of the world, even here, because I think humans are turning back to their nature, because you know our nature is to be outside, to be, you know, having a walk in the woods. You know, of course, we have like hot weather here, but anyway, still in winter time it's nice, you can go to the gym. 

0:38:31 - Parker
Oh, four yeah. 

0:38:33 - Mehmet
Yeah, so, but to your point, people, you know, they started to feel this is dubbed right, like I'm sitting in front of a small screen the whole day just scrolling like this. What is it for me? Okay, maybe I can entertain myself for five, 10 minutes, and I do it honestly sometimes, I don't hide it but you know, I cannot understand, you know like, or I cannot imagine myself doing this whole day, and this is why, yeah, I do. You know, I was lucky to read a couple of books. One of them is Deep Work, right, so this book is really you can yes, so use it as a framework and it really gave me kind of a roadmap how to do it. 

And the author did a very good job and he mentioned from the beginning guys, you cannot do this in one shot, because it's like when you are used to do something physically, you cannot stop it all of a sudden, like you cannot stop smoking once and same thing for you know these notifications because they are kind of addiction. So you need to do it slowly, slowly. I've done two parts, you know, in the day where you specify until you can reach this 19 minutes deep work where you don't do anything other than the task that you are focused on. So, yeah, so, parker, like great, great conversation. Yeah, please, please, go ahead. 

0:39:56 - Parker
I remember hearing this story in the last couple of years that the guy who invented email doesn't have an email. 

0:40:06 - Mehmet
I've read it somewhere. 

0:40:07 - Parker
Yeah, he doesn't want to be that easy to get a hold of because he's thinking about stuff for like weeks, for months, trying to solve like big problems, and if he's like, if I'm receiving 100 emails today, I can't think about what I'm trying to solve. So that's kind of been interesting for me to think about, and over the last year I've exited from where I normally reside and I'm traveling with my wife and it's really simplified things down and cut out the noise and help me to identify what it is like, what the steps forward are, in a way that I wasn't able to do previously. 

0:40:47 - Mehmet
Yeah, yeah, 100%, like we call it, sometimes kind of a detox from technology, and it works like magic. I tried it a couple of times and, guys, you know, I advise you if I know like it's hard to do it a couple of days in a row, but if you try it just for one day to be away from emails and social media, oh man, you would discover yourself again. This is the experience that I can tell you from my point of view. 

0:41:18 - Parker
And maybe you might be making your team stronger, your business stronger, like you might be able to show it better for the family. I just think there's a lot of unintended consequences where sometimes it goes back to identity, like we almost get meaning from being available at the time or being there to solve like someone's problem, versus like allowing them to solve their own problem and build that confidence and trust themselves. 

0:41:43 - Mehmet
Right Now I have a question. You know out of curiosity for you, Parker, If you had unlimited resources, what's one problem in the world that you try to solve? 

0:41:56 - Parker
Education. I think education, my understanding of why education exists, is to unlock the potential for human beings, right or maximize the potential for human beings, and I think that the current education system wastes talent, and so I think there's a way to restructure or redesign education to bring out the best in human beings, both personally, health-wise, relationship-wise, financially, career impact that we're just scratching the surface of is gonna be one of the next big renaissance. I'm always like fascinated by margins in like a business and, like you know, I think education is one of those industries that has the highest margins and potentially is adding the least value for those margins right now, and I think those type of industries are like ripe for disruption. 

0:42:59 - Mehmet
Yeah, agreed, parker. As we come to almost the end, is there anything that I missed to ask you, and it's not a tricky question. 

0:43:16 - Parker
Yeah, I mean, I think this conversation could continue for hours. I don't think there's maybe one thing you missed. I think you know you know your people and I have a big goal to get out to Dubai sometime in the next year or two. So maybe I can come visit you out there or we can get together when I'm out there and have this conversation again. 

0:43:36 - Mehmet
Great. So, meanwhile, until you come to Dubai, where I remember. 

0:43:41 - Parker
One thing I wanted to say, too, is it was around like technology that stopped us from like being on our phone, you know, all the time, because sometimes the biggest thing like like I see this when I when I walk around college campuses or when I walk around just just the world is people are on their phone and I I'm not trying to judge it, but I think the thing that I got most from my experience in university was the people that I met there, and so sometimes, like the phone, what it needs to say is like hey, talk to this person to the right of you, and that's been one of the biggest things that allowed me to be having the freedom and abundance that I have today is I was the person that was talking to the person around me that I didn't even know yet, and sometimes that was a very awkward conversation where I'm like I don't want to talk to that person again. 

But a lot of times it was, you know, it was like oh, here's my business or here's my email or here's my phone number. We should connect, and just forming those relationships, I think, is again one of the keys to success. Back to network is is net worth, and so, I think, humbling ourselves to face rejection and having uncomfortable conversations with the people around us, and those people can become, you know, our friends, our mentors, our peers, our collaborators, in ways that that maybe is hard to really understand until we try it. 

0:45:04 - Mehmet
Yeah, and until you come to Dubai, where people can find more about you and you know the mastermind that you do. 

0:45:11 - Parker
I'm on social media LinkedIn, instagram, facebook with and Twitter at Zachary Parker Harris, which is my full name. 

0:45:21 - Mehmet
Okay. So I gotta make sure I will put you know all the handles in the show notes. And, parker, really I, as you said, I can go hours and hours. I can make maybe a record, five hours recording with you. I really enjoyed our discussion today. So thank you very much for you know, enlightening us and this is one of the thing that I try to do is because, although the show name is the city or show, but I believe these human conversation, these personal touch, need to be more and more discussed in tech and in general, also as well in entrepreneurship. So thank you for sharing, you know, all the experience that you told us today about and for the audience. 

Guys like I'm really enjoying reading your feedbacks and you know, thank you very much for providing. You know all the support that you are giving me and, as usual, I like to read also negative feedbacks. If something you don't like, don't be shy, tell me. Mehmet, we want you to enhance this, do that, do this, try to bring someone you know from this field to talk about this topic. So I'm all ears to you. So I'd love to hear your feedback and thank you for being supporters. Thank you for following and, as you know it's a daily show, so if this is not a Friday, you're going to see me tomorrow. Thank you, bye, bye. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page