Why We Really Make Choices — Dr. Clotaire Rapaille on Instinct, Culture & Influence

Proj 2 - Host

[00:00:00]

Arthur: Dr. Ter rap. Wow. What a pleasure it is to have you on. You are known for really helping people understand human behavior from sy psychology perspective and leading brands to success advising 50 of the 4,100 businesses. On that, where do you just did you discover this passion for understanding why people do what they do?

Clotaire: Yeah. First, thank you for having me. Thank you so much. I think that all my work is about the first imprint. The first imprint. When did you learn something? You create some mental connection that unconsciously for the rest of your life you're going to keep using. I want to start with one of my first imprint.

I was born during the war, and after the war, my parents sent me to a a Jesuit boarding school. That was, like a almost like a military environment. And I didn't care [00:01:00] because, at least I was alive. And and then my first imprint was when, once a week we had a shower.

So once a week all the kids will come get naked and will go into a little cabin where they could have a shower. And so I say, fine, I will doing like all my friends, I will go there. And I I had a soap that's on my soap and I was very careful about it. And so I went there inside and I start, putting some so on myself, and then the water came so I can, I was, I wash myself.

And then the water stopped so I didn't understand. So I keep putting some soap and then I was full of soap and the suddenly the door opened and people told me, get out. So I was still full of soap. I didn't know that the first water was just to get ready. And the second run of water was to clean yourself.

Nobody [00:02:00] told me, and I had one week to span with full my body, full of soap, that the next week when I had to go back to get a shower, I knew. I had learned. I will wait for the second run of water to cl to clean myself. So you see I think this is something very interesting in that you learn faster when nobody tells you the rules.

Wh when you get the consequences of not understanding the rules, then you learn very fast. Part of my work was in anthropology and I had to spend some time with some Indians in the mat grosso and the the Amazon in Brazil. And I didn't speak their language and I was staying there with them for, several weeks at the time.

And I survived. Why? Because I remember the shower, my first imprint of shower. You better watch what [00:03:00] other people do and be careful of what you, it's so interesting to, to, my first training was not in psychology. It was in survival. Learning the rules, even if they don't tell you the rules, and then of course, I start working with autistic children. So children that don't speak, I didn't care. I didn't want, I didn't need them to tell me their problems. I was just watching and feeling and connecting with them at another level, and so that this is the ability we have lost because we think too much, pge, which is a great child psychologist taught me that intelligence is what you do when you don't know what to do.

So we think we know. And so we are looking for the reference system that we have imprinted that say, wow, in this case you should do that, and that. The problem that we have [00:04:00] today is that things keep changing so fast that whatever you knew becomes irrelevant. And so the big thing that we need today is to be able to activate this creative mind, to look at the environment, to grab the environment, to swallow everything, and to deduct what is the best behavior to have at that moment today.

So I, I always wanted to understand not what people say, 'cause I don't believe what people say. They don't lie. They just don't know why they're doing what they do. So this is becoming unconscious. So they, oh, this is natural. Let's do that. You're sure. But they don't understand what, why they're doing that.

But if you discover the first imprint and you understand the code of that's why you understand better. Suddenly why, because there, there is always a connection. [00:05:00] Everything is connected, but we don't see the connection. So that's my work working with autistic children. They don't speak usually.

And so you see and just like I was watching their behavior and I was trying to understand what they were trying to tell me. I had a little boy called and he, he wanted some hot chocolate in the morning, every morning. He wanted a little, I was working on working with autistic children at the time.

So he, he wanted the bald chocolate every morning. And, and I will ask her, art, how are you today? Of course, he never answer to me and he take the ball of chocolate sometime he will take it and put it on his head and the chocolate will fall on his face. What was it trying to tell me? I'm happy to there with your questions.

I'm not feeling too good. I'm feel, I think they're going fully on me that, [00:06:00] if you read the behavior you understand a lot of what people do. They, that, that's why I like animals, unlike animals very much because animals, they are reptilian, they survival. They, they don't have a they can, you can train them, of course you can train them, they still have a very basic relationship.

So my work is to try to go into what I call the reptilian brand. The reptilian brain, we born with it. Nobody need to teach you to breathe. Children breathe right away. Yeah. And nobody need to teach you to eat. You want to eat right away. So there are some basic elements that don't need to be learned.

And that's what is so interesting to me. What are the imprints we have in our mind that, tell us, and that's part of the culture. That's why the culture is so interesting because from one culture to another, you get different imprint. For, let me give you [00:07:00] an example. I did study cheese, of course I was born in France, so cheese is very important.

And I was working for a French company that, that was trying to sell cheese to Americans. And they, the French attitude towards cheese is the code is the cheese is alive. So how do you learn that? First of all, my mother will go back to buy some cheese in France and she will open the ca bear and start poking it and smelling it.

And so what is she doing here? American are really they offended when they see somebody touching and picking and you look at that there is other people fingerprint because other people have done it before. Wow. This is horrible. Yeah. No, but there is a reason why people do that.

And the reason why is because the code, that cheese is alive. So the culture tells you don't eat a cheese that is too young, [00:08:00] it's not ready. Don't eat the cheese. That is too old. It is too late, but she's, it's a cheese that is mature, that is right at the right time to be eaten. And so the culture taught my mother to read the edge of the cheese, what she was doing.

Poking is because if the cheese is like, something hard is too young, if it's like this, it's too old. If it's like this, it's good. It is good to, for eating today I have a place where I go buy some cheese in France and when I say I would like to buy a ca bear, and his question is always for when are you going to eat it?

Ah interesting. Nobody asked me that in America, and I will explain why, but in a, in France, okay, I'm going to eat it in two days. Okay, two days. Okay. It takes one. Or right now. Okay, take this one. So you know, it, it will choose the cheese according to the [00:09:00] time. I'm going to eat because the cheese is alive and he has to grow.

When I became an American and I tried to eat some cheese in America I did some work on what is the first imprint of cheese in America. And what we discover it was the cheese is dead. The cheese is dead. American eat dead cheese. No, what means dead? It means pasteurized. And it's illegal to sell the cheese that is not pasteurized.

So safety is number one in the American culture, not taste. In France there are 800 people that die every year because they eat the cheese that is not pasteurized, but they don't care. The risk. Enjoy the pleasure. We know that. But so now will you look at what American do? And they never poke, never smell the cheese.

They don't want to smell corpse. [00:10:00] And they buy the cheese and the cheese is wrapped up in plastic. If it was in a body bag, of course he's dead. And then they take the cheese and they go home. Where do they put it? In the morgue? The refrigerator in the morgue. When do they eat?

It doesn't matter. It's dead anyway, so you can eat it anytime you want, and so this is, very interesting to see that the, what people do has something to do with the first imprint they have. And most of the time they forgot that first imprint. So they don't run they think it's is way, this is the way it should be, and that's it.

Arthur: We live, you've touched on a few things. We live in a very busy world

with lots of information and a lot of choice. Every product, there are so many in thousands of variations. How do you encourage people who have brands or have messages to, to connect to that, to what people connect to you?

Podcasts, for example, [00:11:00] there are so many podcasts and you've talked a lot. It's so fascinating your work, the way you link what people really have a relationship with different things. But POD podcast , here we are today. We know we're here to open people's minds up.

Inspire is a busy space. What, how would you what's the code behind that? Do you feel that people could, should actually connect to,

Clotaire: Yeah I think that first of thing don't start, don't try to have an intelligent answer. , We have three brands, as the cortex, the lambic, and the reptilian, right? And we stuck into the cortex. We think we are intelligent. So we think and we think too much.

And we forget about the reptilian. So this notion of, podcast information, we surrounded by all the information, I am in France. I don't watch the news. I don't care because one day after the other, they keep the people keep [00:12:00] saying the same thing, repeating the same thing, and that doesn't go anywhere.

So it is like a buzz that, I have to prioritize. There are things that I'd rather read the poetry than watch the news. This is, there is more truth in the poetry than in the news. Now of course, if I'm going to travel. I need to understand what is going on there.

What are the new rules that they invented for us? So I might get some information here, but it's practical information to be able, not to be bothered by going through, but the general feeling about, the international, we have so many wars all the time. I remember reading that the first 1914, the first World War was supposed to be the war to end Old Wars.

Thank you. Didn't work very well.

This is it. So today we have so many information. I know how many people died [00:13:00] in Bangladesh every day in accident, on the road accident, or I know how many people in Ziba are going to die of anger and all that information.

All that information. What do you do with all that you see? So how this is influencing my behavior, that's what is important here. If you want not to think, then you're go into other people thinking for you. So they tell you what to think. Yeah. But if you're not interested, who cares?

For example I will spend one week without watching the news when I'm in France, nothing at all. I just read and write and I'm very happy with that. After one week, my life is still the same. I don't have any special problem besides maybe less anxiety than if I was watching the news all the time.

So that, so what is my advice? My advice is try to always connect to the reptilian [00:14:00] brand and the reptilian brain is the smell, the touch. For example, I love animals because I can touch them. And touch is very reptilian. You need to be touched when you are a baby, otherwise you don't survive.

So our first of being touched, manipulated, you see this is becoming a bad word to manipulate people, but we want to be manipulate. Manipulate means hand man. So you want to be touched. You want to be touched and. The culture tells you no. Okay, so then we got people isolated.

What do you think? So many old people, what is a couple today after a certain age it's a human, usually a woman and a dog or a cat. That's a couple.

Why? Because there is a reptilian dimension in the animal. You feed them you take them out to do their business outside.

You [00:15:00] touch them, you hug them. They, there is this very simple connection. So an animals are the best therapists. I remember I was working in a hospital in Denver, Colorado, and they had in the lobby, they had all the pictures and the portraits of the doctors working in this hospital.

And on the right side, they had all the animals. Working in this hospital, they call that dog therapy. And I remember speaking with patient that say, oh my dog need him come today. I'm missing my dog. The dog was a therapist coming with a dog and you can speak to the dog and you can, caress the dog.

And they even told me that the dogs are better at diagnostic in what is happening to you than the medical doctors. They told me some dog, they're going to crawl under the bed and start crying because the person is going to die. And nobody knew [00:16:00] the person were going to die. You say, but the dogs, yes.

Which means there is a connection at the reptilian level, which is so powerful that we lost this ability. For example I've done a lot of work on smell. Firmin was one of my clients, and they're the one that create all the perfumes and the, with the toilet that you use all the time.

And, the smell is so important that people rather be blind. Some people told me I'd rather be blind that not be able to smell. Wow. And why? Because, if you don't smell that is bad, you might eat it. So it's a survival priority. Priority. When we are babies we don't see, we don't, that we smell, the smell of the mother is so powerful for survival, so we should learn how to smell again because we lost this ability. This is so simple. For example I can't to [00:17:00] a place like where I am in Norm. And I remember the smell of this place, and that triggers a lot of emotion for me to remember the smell of this place. But most of the time we forgot to re, to imprint it.

We forgot to remember that we just, so sometime we have a smell. We don't know what you're coming from. It say oh, what that see? So there is a disconnect. We need to reconnect with all these strong element of survival because smelling is associated with survival, smell, taste. The food is a good example.

We need to eat every day, but do we really smell? Do we really taste? In America lunch is six minutes in front of television. Do you have time to smell when you spend six minutes for lunch? Rituals. Rituals are very important because they help us to reconnect [00:18:00] and to really enjoy, let me give you an example again.

The in France, people love wine and, there is a very long tradition of wine in France, of course, but the way you relate to the wine is very important. You, you don't drink it because you're thirsty or only American do that, but you don't, you drink it because you want to enjoy the taste and the smell and the look.

So the, there is a ritual. You start opening a bottle of wine. You don't drink it quite away. You go into a decanter to regen it, it's it's. Very interesting to take the time. And then you look at the legs, which is very interesting because the way French describe wine is almost like if they were describing a woman, the one has legs and thighs and smell and it's just oh, whoa, a color.

And the, they speak about the robe [00:19:00] of the wine. Just amazing. So there is a very ous way to relate to wine, and then you wait for the right time to drink it, and then you don't swallow it right away. When you go to visit vineyards they give you a bucket and you can taste the wine and you throw it back in, in a in the bucket.

You don't drink it, you say, because you can if you drink too much wine, then you get drunk and crazy. But the problem that we don't understand is. This is wine and it has a pleasure in itself. It's the pleasure of the wine, the taste of the wine, the smell of the wine. The color of the wine is not just the alcohol and that, that's why this is interesting to see the difference between how people relate to everything like wine, coffee, food, from one culture to another.

Arthur: So fascinating. There's clearly a theme of connection [00:20:00] and I love that the way you draw back to our basic needs that are universal. And your work has, you, you cover how cultures are different and different cultures relate to d things in different ways. Knowing what you know, and you've had years of studying behavior. What advice do you have to people to who are feel, disconnected? Maybe it's lonely. What do you see as the sort of the approach that people should be taking to have more fulfillment feeling more connected, more purpose?

Clotaire: Yeah I think you have to address. You, your reptilian need first. I remember reading a little cartoons, these two women speaking to each other. And one woman say, I would like to find somebody that be loyal to me will always kiss me will always be there for me, will be happy to see me.

And she say, okay, buy a dog. So you [00:21:00] see, buy a dog, which means that you don't going to find a man like this. Forget it. You have to need to buy a dog. And so the way to reconnect with what I call the reptilian brand is to go into people that are raped, tillian, or being that are reptilian, a dog or cat or, they rape tillian, but then communicate with them.

This is so interesting. For example I've done a lot of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and everything. And I have a dog. That is the best psychotherapist I ever had. So when I was in, in psychoanalysis the analyst was behind me in a chair, and sometime I would turn around and he was asleep.

Okay, it doesn't matter because this is a projection, this is a but when I speak to my dog, he never falls asleep. So he doesn't speak. My analyst didn't speak either. He didn't, not supposed to speak. Okay. So you see, so there is a way to connect [00:22:00] with different element in life other than to go through your cell phone or your computer or, your the, I call that the zombie culture.

People are not there. They are somewhere on the phone, so my first recommendation I will say is that. Spend some time without your cell phone. Spend some time without calling anybody. Spend some time with just, when you walk in the forest, walk in the forest, not just your cell phone in your, just get rid of the cell phone and start feeling, smelling, seeing, listening to the noise.

And the, that, the way to reconnect, we, we have the cell phone is a drug, and the drug takes you away from the reality. So this is what is so interesting. For example, I've, look at teenagers, try to take them, their cell phone [00:23:00] away. They're ready to kill for that.

Recently in Paris two teenagers attack a woman and they wanted to steal. Her cell phone and she didn't want, so they kill her. Wow. So you see, so your life depends on things like that, that are so interesting. Why do we care so much about that? Because it's a drug, it's a way to get away from the reality.

The real smell, the real touch, the real feeling, the real. In in, they are hotels in California. And I went there to see how it looks like. And you spend more than a thousand dollars a night there. Why? Because there is no internet.

There is no telephone, there is no television.

There is no electricity. Whoa. Candles. And that's why you have to pay a $1,000 a night. [00:24:00] Not for what they have. For what? They have not, yeah. And I, I promise you, this is a great experience. Suddenly, wow. When you spend a week like this and you go to the restaurant and you want to speak to people, you want to connect with people.

So that, that's what is so again, powerful, that we get stuck into a way of life that is not reptilian and is not natural and is not some, something is wrong with that. I don't want to go too much into critic criticizing the modern world,

For example I believe in quantum physics, and I don't know if you're familiar with quantum physics, but in quantum physics, everything is connected.

Everything is connected. The way your dress is connected and your glasses, connected. What you have behind your your head is connected. All that is connected, so we don't see the connection, but part of the ability we have to [00:25:00] develop is to find the connection, connect the dots.

I watch a lot of television in different countries just to see how the television express the culture, and when people go on television with a tie and a shirt and, and they're shaved, that's when you look at television today in France.

It looks like on purpose, they want the hair to be in all direction. They have not shaved they dress with a t-shirt. They, what's the message that they're saying through that? Of course, this is a rebellion against the parent that say, you should be clean and you should be dressed up, and you should be a, but I remember one of the young guy working for me for a while.

I say, you should not dress like that. Just why don't put a jacket and a tie. And he did it. And he said, it's amazing because once I'm dressed like that, people react differently to me. Say, yes, of course. So you see, [00:26:00] again, this is something we are losing. We think that when you see all these billionaire on television coming from California with a t-shirt, the costume, the black T-shirt why?

Because this is a statement. That they make and the statement we reacted that I don't want to be like the people that are supposed to be like, I want to be different. I want, but you can be different in the creative way. You don't need to be rejecting the culture.

Arthur: That's so fascinating how you talk about connection. It's so complicated. And people talk a lot about the gut and how important the gut is in terms of making decisions, and I bet that's very relevant for, certainly what you've been doing. The way you were talking about smell, I went on a walk once with a woman, a photographer who was. Close friends with the Dalai Lama, and she taught me this meditation exercise where you spend two minutes just focusing on [00:27:00] smell and you try and absorb e everything about the smell. And then the next two minutes, it's about touch. And then the next minute about sound and just completely focused on only that.

And it's clearly it's, it is, your, the primal need is connection.

How do you advise people to, for example, who we spend time with do you have views or learnings around, on one hand you've got, friendship, friendships, and then on the other hand you have relationships. How do you advise people to make more Yeah. Better judgements with who they spend time with. And part of that might be relevant to actually our own ability to work out who we are.

Clotaire: Yes, absolutely. This is the very interesting because my, my work was working with our autistic children at the beginning and then applying that to everyday life, realizing that everyday life we can do that. How do you choose people? Because we [00:28:00] choose, unconsciously or consciously, we choose, if I'm here today with you, because I choose to do it, now how did I choose that?

I didn't smell you. So you see, so yeah. What other element of my choice, the same. When I want to buy something, I want to go somewhere. There are some too many elements and I just go back to something that's familiar, something simple, something that just resonate with me. And that's what customer do.

They just go some things that resonate with them right away. So the point is try to see what are your tools that you have to make your choice? What are the things that you do? For example if you only choose things because the price okay, that's cortex numbers is Cortex, I love my wife.

I didn't ask the price.

This is something that goes beyond the cortex, so then [00:29:00] there is the emotion.

What triggers an emotion is reactivating a first imprint of a first emotional imprint. So emotion is very key here. For example when I work with mothers and children, I say if your child never cries that something is wrong with the child, if the child growing up a little bit doesn't break anything, something is wrong with your child, he has to break to find out if things are breakable.

I know he is not pleasant for you because you have to clean, but.

You understand that you have to go through that. So what are the things that you have to go through to make a choice? And some, sometime you don't have the time. You have a list of things that you should do, but you don't have the time for that.

So you're going back to some basic, simple things. And for example, intuition. Intuition is a very important element. Usually women [00:30:00] are more intuitive than men. Men are too rational. And, but the intuition is so important. Intuition is the way to trigger into your emotional bank account.

You have all the emotion inside and you can reactivate some of them. I, you haven't experienced something of that. You meet somebody for the first time and you don't know why. But this person, you like this person. Now don't try to understand why, because understand means going to the cortex.

It's irrelevant.

Enjoy it. That's it. My point is enjoy it. This is very simple. Then, if you, after a certain time you, you don't like this person anymore, go away. Don't feel sorry about that. Just follow your instincts, follow your reptilian, follow your feelings, your guts.

The we think this, the brain is right there, but the brain is at the gut level. [00:31:00] Your gut's at the, is another brain and maybe more important than your, the brain you have in your skull there.

Arthur: And people make so many decisions every day.

From which side of the pavement do I walk to? You've got, very important decisions then tiny decisions. Maybe you want to focus on how we improve our ability to make better think better about the big decisions. But how do you. If we've got people listening today, how do you want them to be equipped? How can you equip them to make wiser choices?

Clotaire: This is very complex. It is not very simple question what you're asking me here. The how do you know that you're making the right decision? You never know. You never know

what I learned, studying quantum physics is called the uncertainty principle. The eisenberg's uncertainty principle. For example, when you want to [00:32:00] understand somebody there is who this person is there is a momentum. What these people, for example, what is your momentum? Where are you going to go tomorrow?

What are you going to go when you age? What is, so we pay attention to what the person is today, which is usually the dead part is finished, this is the past, and we don't pay attention to the, where the becoming, what is his person becoming. Eisenberg certainty principle that you cannot know both who, where this person is and the same time the momentum.

So if you want to understand the me momentum, you have to destroy or ignore where the person is. And if you want to understand where the person is, you have to forget about the momentum. So this is the uncertain in certainty principle. We, we have, we very weak and primitive in the way we read the world.

This is, we had a big [00:33:00] mistake. We still think that science help us to understand the world. No science is, cortex doesn't understand, the, my dog understand better the world maybe than I do. And so the point is that you have to reactivate your how can I say it?

Animal dimension. I would say trust yourself, but don't trust your thinking is trust the news on on, on television or whatever. This is ridiculous. You don't, but trust your feeling, your guts and your emotion. You know that what is important. Reconnect with your guts and your emotion. And I think this is so important.

I, you see the, I like some element of the French culture. I don't like everything about the French culture, but I like some about the French culture. And the they try to sell products to one very simple word, pleasure or pleasure. [00:34:00] American is no protein or no calorie or no, who cares.

If it's no pleasure, so if we is certainly your priority in life is how much pleasure you had today. Oh, interesting. So you're not eating for food, you're eating for pleasure, you're not drinking for, alcohol, you're drinking for pleasure, you're not meeting people for interest or whatever you're meeting for pleasure.

The pleasure to be together, the pleasure to have a nice discussion, to have pleasure, to have a, whatever it is. It doesn't, it is always very s in a sense that even if you speak about poetry or literature there is a strength sensuality there. That is to be reconnected is not just intellectual, the danger is always we say we want to be intelligent.

Oh, I don't know if I want to be intelligent. We want to know everything. Oh, there are things I don't want to know. [00:35:00] That's very simple. This is very, I remember going to the university and and I spent some time in, in, in medical school and we had autopsy.

Autopsy, and oh, I think I don't really want to do that. I don't want to go inside. The, the guts of a woman. No. There are things I don't want to, I don't want to know. And I think this is so interesting make a list of the things you don't want to know and avoid them.

You should't want to know them. Why do you want to know them? Oh, you have to know. No, you don't have to know, it's a choice, and feed your mind thing that you like and forget about putting the bad thing in your mind that you don't want. For example, that they are, there are things that I don't want to see on on, in a movie.

I don't want to see that in a movie. I don't want to to see people torturing animals or children. I don't want to see that. No, I know. Sorry, I not even know that it exists. This is just keep that away from your mind and [00:36:00] you feed your mind, like you feed your body.

So we have very careful about what you put in our body, but we are not very careful about what we put in our mind, and that is a big mistake.

Arthur: So one thing that's been quite interesting leaning learning about your work is your coverage on culture and how people are different

and certainly what seems to, what I experience is that people are not as welcoming, I think in some ways as they should be with regards to. How people behave and how cultures are different, people get very nervous of making generalizations,

which, there's, good reasons to be about. But for example, the Brits being over polite, perhaps not being truthful and the Dutch being very direct. I'd love your view, knowing, having studied culture

so much in human behavior, if you could portray what you want and taking the best from different [00:37:00] cultures

around the world. So maybe it's drinking someone you know, like a French person working like a German, or, treating people in a way that someone from Japan would treat them, that kind of thing.

Clotaire: yeah. We call that best practice.

Best practice. What are the best in a given culture that you might want to preserve? Keep or maybe. Add to yours,, to your box of tools if you want. You don't really invite friends to come to a German restaurant.

Why wrong? What's wrong with that? But you take them to a French restaurant or sometime a Chinese restaurant. So you see, so there are some elements that are associated with the culture unconsciously. We think about the culture this way, for example I believe that the notion of quality is so Japanese.

That's why, usually when you get a Japanese car it starts in the morning. I remember a long time ago the men, number one problem we had with cars, [00:38:00] especially American, where they will not start in the morning or something like that, so now this is quality is no, but I remember for a while the notion of quality control was Japanese.

Control, Japanese. Very powerful on, on, on the dimension there. The German is engineering. You want to have a BW or you want to and and now Rolls Royce is a Japanese, sorry, rolls Royce is German. It's a German engine, like the Bentley.

So the British were very good in, created this kind of prestige that.

They lost their engineering. And now the German took over that Dimens. It's it's so interesting that there are some solution available in the world if you look at different cultures. I remember some people telling me, oh, we, we cannot work together because we don't speak the same language or we have to, no, I said, look at the Swiss the Switzerland is [00:39:00] a fantastic example of how people with different languages can speak.

They have four official languages in Switzerland, four the French, the German, the Italian, and the Ramos. Not too many people, but Ramos. So legally a document I is supposed to be in four languages. Wow. And Switzerland is very nice. It's a very nice country. I really enjoy it. People are nice, but they're different.

No the French for example, the German are afraid of the German Swiss. They say they're more German than we are, so it is like some people take a quality from a culture and exaggerate it in some ways, can then that the German Swiss are more German than the German.

This is, so in the same time they are quality and, they are superiority and inferiority in some way, so for example I did a lot of work in Switzerland and I love [00:40:00] Switzerland. But when I want to have fun have fun, I go to Italy.

There, there is a little statement that I read recently. I don't need psychotherapy, I just need to go to Italy. That's amazing. Amazing. The French hate to remember that Italy was number one in cooking and in pleasure and a lot before the French and Francois, premier French King say, we have to imitate the Italian.

They did a lot better than we are. And he was the one that asked Leona Lu DaVinci to come to France and and teach us. And that's why Leonardo DaVinci died in France. And the Italian culture was best at a certain time and then lost it and maybe come back in. But still personally, if I am in Germany, I'm not going to Germany for pleasure,

But I might go to Italy for pleasure.

So [00:41:00] they are, each culture has a dimension that you might want to acknowledge. I, I be careful about the fact that some culture catch up with the others. For example, there is a new whiskey that I really like, very much is Japanese.

What? Yeah, it's a Japanese whiskey. And these guys have to good now, it costs a lot of money, but, so we have to be, again, for example they are vodka made in France

And these vodka are good.

You know why? Because the French have a culture of making alcohol and cognac and and all these things. So there's a tradition of working with alcohol product and they go into, for example, in France. People drink more whiskey than any per capita, per header. People need more whiskey than any other place in the world.

Whiskey,

Arthur: huh.

Clotaire: everybody. So you go to a friend and they, [00:42:00] you take a glass and they put some whiskey and never put a knife in the whiskey. No, no water, no nothing, just straight or, and they drink more in quantity per capita than anybody else in the world. So what is that? So what you can see that there is a tradition, in, in every culture that, that can be used as a reference system for the planet. I will still think that I like the French cuisine, French food but I like, the German cars in some ways.

Yeah. I learned the Italian elegance and design and so there, there are several cultures like that. You combining all this is the way you make your own relationship with cultures. I would, for example, I like sushi, but I don't want to become Japanese.

So there are something you want. I did a lot of work in Japan. My first work paying [00:43:00] a job was in Japan at the time for Nestle. And, i, it is fascinating culture, very intense, very, okay. But in the same time I don't want to be Japanese, this is clear.

I don't want to become, so again there, there is this ambiguity sometime, if you if you drive a German car, it doesn't mean you become German. No. If you eat sushi doesn't mean you become Japanese. But you need to keep your own identity and at the same time, be able to get the best from all these different cultures.

Arthur: Yeah. From each. Yeah. That's interesting. And you've mentioned technology. It, it is not always your friend as it were. And you like to be without it at the same time. And also you, what you've also touched on is how cultures change.

And sometimes it can be hard to pick up on these things because sometimes that movement is quite slow. It's very subtle. Of course that change is so multidimensional. Now with ai bringing in information to such an [00:44:00] accessible way and then adjusting in terms of how people want to absorb information, there is something to be said about incredible improvements in connection, but then equally it can make you very isolated.

But for example, AI can improve our ability to work out which services are available to us that we need. . Do you have any. Surp, surprising views or core beliefs around what it will bring us in the future.

Clotaire: Yeah I think, I have a very strong position regarding artificial intelligence. It is very artificial. Definitely. And so I think that what is interesting, what happened recently is that artificial intelligence and traditional computers tried to solve a problem, and it took, it would've taken years because they solved this problem.

Then some company like Google and others [00:45:00] had a quantum computer that doesn't actual think the way artificial intelligence think. Think artificial intelligence take, A-A-A-A-A path and repeat it and exaggerate it. Quantum computers, they go in all direction at the same time, all direction.

At the same time, the quantum computer could solve a problem in 90 minutes. That will have taken years for the traditional. And my point today is that we have to stop thinking that old computer and we have to start thinking like quantum computers. Of course, we are going to develop quantum computers and we're going to develop quantum people that can think this way.

I can predict that we will find cure to cancer, cure to, this is the way to go, not the traditional computers. And so [00:46:00] is just like going fast in the wrong direction.

​.

Clotaire: I'm sorry.

Arthur: Yeah. No fascinating. Fascinating. Your thinking just touches on so much. How about how we make decisions, how we find joy, what we need. Do you feel, you've talked a lot about how a lot of our core needs being re, from our reptile needs,

Do you think that,

That sounds like it's massively under focused on and there are one, one reads these instances where people are healed through quite non-traditional ways. Do you feel like mon not enough money's being spent on us understanding how we meet those needs?

Clotaire: That I think that the big business, the direction of the big business is health survival living longer. When we going to have people that are going to be 120 as an average, I'm planning to be [00:47:00] 120. That's my mindset, And so this is it that is going to create a situation that is completely different to what we have we thought about yesterday.

So this evolution of health and how you take care of your body and how you can take care of your mind and how you take this is going to be the next big thing. Not so much to make money short term, because if you, the way you're planning your life is different if you're going to be a hundred than 50 or if you're going to be die when you are 85.

This is very different, so we, I think we have to start thinking quantum and thinking age. And the notion of time and that the length of life what means life? If it's you have a different mindset. If you think about, I know that some people think that aging is a disease and so we can cure it.

[00:48:00] So then we don't age anymore. I've done work on that by the way. I've done, I've been paid by a company that was to say get me the code for immortality

And they pay me to study that. That's is very difficult to think about because do you want to be 200 year old? If you are 200 year old and nobody else is 200 year old, so all the people you know are dead, or do you want everybody to be 200 year old?

And and then there is, there, there is some limits. We, our mind is, we can think about be 120, 130. Okay. 150 already 200 year old. We don't want to be 200 year old. This is a mindset. There is no reality behind that. It's just the way we think about it. Yeah. But, so we don't want to age too much, and then there is the classic things that say, okay, I'm okay to age as long as I can.

We keep my mobility, I keep my mindset, [00:49:00] my mind is still working and my body is still working. Okay. But there are limits in our imagination. The limit that we have is a limit of imagination. If we can imagine something we have the resources that we can create it. We can create everything.

I believe that. I believe that, you know what I remember when, I saw the first man landing on the moon in 1969. That was a, a little step for man, a big step for mankind. Yes. Yeah. But that was in 69, god, what happens in then, and so we can dream, what is the next moon to explore?

What is the next step, big step for mankind? What is the next, I think this is so exciting, but looking at the way we think in the past doesn't going to help us. I believe that you cannot solve a problem today with the same mindset that created [00:50:00] this problem.

That's very important. You cannot solve a problem with the same mindset that we created it. You need to change your mind. And that was quantum physics. Does that was I do I say people start thinking the way you think. Start, exploring, discovering, going to another direction.

What is the next moon? We went to the moon. Okay, already done.

What is next? You say I work for nasa, for example. And they say, how come the government doesn't give us any money? We need more money. I say, what are you offering a shuttle to go to the moon? A shuttle, back and forth all the time is like going back from New York to Boston and back.

This is not exciting. Of course, they don't want to give you money for something that is not exciting. A shuttle try to do something that is impossible. Why? Because you're American only. What is impossible is interesting. So at the time, that was like 15 years [00:51:00] ago I told them, go to Mars.

What? Yeah, go to Mars. It's impossible. Great. That's what you should do. Look for the impossible. Get money for the impossible. And that what is so fascinating here, as in we we are not interested in what is impossible anymore and too bad because that's what the future is.

Arthur: So fascinating and you made me think of some advice which is, which sometimes one comes across, which is think like a child. We are so conditioned to have, we're so conditioned to, to accept things for being true, which aren't necessarily true.

Clotaire: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Arthur: and it's funny, the smartest people I come across, at least my perception of the smartest people those that, that, they question things the whole time.

They're asking really basic questions. If progress is understanding more about the world, we need to be embracing a culture where people can [00:52:00] ask really basic questions.

Yeah.

Clotaire: yeah. One of my book that I never published because there's too many secret there that I didn't want to share to people yet is called Wisdom of Madness. Wisdom of madness. You have to be crazy at a certain time and proud of your madness, okay. We are going to fly.

We are going to go to the moon. This is crazy. one day it is not crazy anymore. It's done. But madness is very important because if you afraid to go into madness, then you afraid to see the future. You're afraid to see what is going to happen. I believe a lot of people that are crazy are crazy until we acknowledge that they are geniuses.

Arthur: Someone very intelligent once said, if you want to be really successful you throw win fear out the window. Do you [00:53:00] have a view on that , do you agree with that and how how should one be approaching, avoiding getting absorbed by fear?

Because if one is absorbed by fear, it seems to be the opposite to creating and following a sense of productivity.

​.

Arthur: Yes, this this intelligent successful person said it's important to throw fear out of the window

Al. .

I just wondered if you had any thoughts around that and if

that was important.

Clotaire: absolutely. I think that people should be afraid not to be crazy enough. This is what is killing people is the routine re the repetition, the patterns the the limit in their mindset. The fact that they don't want to see beyond the little frontier. This is what is really killing [00:54:00] people.

For me the, wisdom of madness is very important because a lot of people have the crazy idea, but they have been repressed sometime by the culture. There are some culture. The American culture, for example when I was teaching in, in the French University I had already crazy ideas.

I say, oh, I want to teach that and that Say no, you cannot do that. This is not acceptable. You crazy. Stop staying and things like that. So I say, okay, go to hell. And I move to America and I want to Michigan to Grand Valley State Colleges with our teaching there. And and I was so surprised I say, oh, I would like to do that.

Yes, do it. Oh my God, I want to teach a class on that. Yes, do it. Oh, wow. See, so suddenly every time I had a crazy idea, at the time we are doing meditation, but that was before meditation became such [00:55:00] a fashionable. And so I say I want my student. To go to a walk in the park and turn in circle trying to empty their mind for an hour and they say, sure, let's do it.

Let me try to explain that to people at the in Paris that we have to go into meditation and we are going to turn in circle for an hour without doing it. And I say, you crazy. What is this? So that, that's what is so interesting. The culture, the American culture is, just do it Nike, fantastic slogan.

Just do it.

Arthur: So

Clotaire: We usually say that American they don't know what they're going to do, but they do it.

Arthur: that's so fantastic. There's so much, commentary around Americans attitude to failure, just having a go. It's very different to the uk. And interesting. You talk about meditation. We've had on the podcast the founders of the London Meditation Center, [00:56:00] which teach transcendental meditation.

Vedic meditation which I ever since I, I started doing that year ago. It's been it's been quite incredible. And so much of what you've talked today is about just connection and being present and honestly it's it's been so fantastic to have you on a real privilege.

Clotaire: Okay I really enjoy it. We should do it again.