How Feeling Lost Can Teach Self Trust with James Tsai

Not knowing what comes next can feel like danger, not curiosity. When that alarm goes off, we often do the same thing: tighten up, go inward, and force a decision just to feel safe again. We slow that moment down and ask a sharper question: what if uncertainty isn’t a sign you’re failing, but the space where self-trust gets built?

James Tsai joins us to unpack why feeling lost can feel like being unprotected, and how that fear can shrink empathy and distort how we read other people. We talk about the basics we’ve drifted away from, paying attention to body language, movement, and the nonverbal signals that humans relied on long before constant online commentary. We also dig into what James calls “digital rot,” the way instant posting and curated platforms can weaken attention, independence, and the courage to think clearly.

We get practical about getting unstuck: creating a factual story about yourself, fact-checking your own thoughts against research and logic, and refusing to self-embellish when you’re scared. James also shares a provocative angle on AI search results and online reputation, if you’re curating your public history in the age of artificial intelligence, accuracy becomes a responsibility, not a branding tactic.

If you’ve been forcing answers, this conversation offers a calmer alternative: build evidence, stay truthful, and let uncertainty do its work. Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review with the part that challenged you most.

Transcript

Why Uncertainty Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Dear listeners, you know, like we spend so much time trying to figure out what comes next, the right move, the perfect plan, the answer that will make everything clear. But what if the uh not knowing is where the real work happens, right? Like what if uncertainty is not a problem, but uh the place where we actually learn to trust ourselves. Good to think about, right? So welcome back to another powerful episode of Mind Meets Machine. I'm your host, Evic, and uh this is the podcast where uh we slow down and look at the questions that don't always have easy answers. Today we are upsetting with the discomfort of not having it all figured out and finding out at the same time like what that teaches us, right? So I'm joined by a very lovely guest with us today. So please welcome James Steig. So welcome, Mr. Thank you so much for having me on your show. Amazing, amazing. Thank you so much, JLS. I mean, we we are talking about something which is very, very informative, like I say about the question that I mentioned, right? It is very, very important in our life. And when we have teams, I do not want to let that option to uh I mean get away where we can uh get to know a lot more things from him. Uh James, I would love to ask

Feeling Lost And Unprotected

SPEAKER_00 1:16

you on this. When people feel lost, or maybe they are unsure about their direction, right? What do you think is the most common misunderstanding that they have about what uncertainty actually means?

SPEAKER_02 1:27

I think what happens when we get lost as an individual, we we feel unprotected, we feel abandoned because as children, we have always known the love and the physical protection, the size of our parents. Obviously, in a good, healthy family, we feel that protection when we're alone. And so as we get older and we're alone and we feel fearful, we feel unprotected. And when we feel unprotected, we start to become introverted. And when we're introverted, we lose objectification of others because we're just concerned about ourselves because we're trying desperately to protect ourselves. And it's just an evolutional structure of defense and then flight afterwards, right? You will always defend yourself because you don't feel protected. That's the big thing that we have to get over is that that fear of being lost. And it's it's very painful to feel lost.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

So, like um, I mean, obviously, it's uh the uncertainty part which I was mentioning, like is not a sign that something is wrong.

Body Language And Real Intuition

SPEAKER_00 2:24

So, how do we start to see it differently? Like, especially when everything in us wants us to nail things down.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

You know, that's that's a really good question. And actually, uh my whole life's work to date has been about that. But if we consider that before we ever spoke, before humans spoke, like, hi, how's it going? We paid attention to each other's body language. We saw how each other moved, and by seeing how each other moved, we could intuitively, because we're predators, we could tell by body language, we could tell if somebody was walking or not feeling well just by looking. And then the emotional articulation occurs through evolution. So if we start to actually look at how people's bodies move and trust our intuition, which is what I have done and it's kept me alive, obviously, for some very dangerous situations. But if we're paying attention to the body language, then we start to have more of that visceral empathetic structure, which is our apex predator, because we've learned to pay attention to whether or not uh there is a weakness or a strength. So once we start paying attention to body language instead of just talking all the time, because there's a lot of instant talking on social media instead, just kind of like, I guess kind of like my my Chinese dad, where it was just, you know, you just stood there and you didn't have the emotions and you observed and then you gave heck. But we are so quick to have instant gratification. And so we no longer want to pay attention to body language, and that's why we see what we call digital rot. That digital rot is actually from the evolutional uh inability to process logic and emotion relative to this physical coordination and syncing. So we're we're we're no longer paying attention to anything because we don't have enough care, we don't have enough empathy to go to the other person and say, let me watch what they're doing and then make an assumption and put ourselves in their shoes. And when we do that, then we have that ability to go back.

Digital Rot And Lost Empathy

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Exactly. Exactly true. So obviously, I mean it's it's interesting that how we uh are taught to treat uncertainty like a gap that we need to close as quickly as possible. But maybe it's more like an um, I'd say, more like an opening, a pause where we get to ask better questions instead of rushing towards answers that might not even have it or not even fit as well. And what do you think? I mean, is really going on underneath when someone says that they feel stuck or directionless. So how would it be?

SPEAKER_02 4:43

I mean, I think I can speak from my own personal experience, and it took me literally over eight years to write a book. And getting stuck, uh, the biggest thing for me is feeling alone. Feeling alone that what my story, who I am as an individual, and especially what I was doing, which you know am doing, is is very uh esoteric. Well, it is only esoteric. And so it was actually for me uniquely, like I lost all my friends, all my friends, because nobody wanted to hang out with me anymore because of what I was doing. They couldn't come over. I always had to leave. It was hard to get over these things because um I also had to figure out whether or not I was right about what I was thinking. And I think a lot of people struggle with that too. Is how do I feel? Am I correct with the rest of the world? And am I fact-checking myself? See, for me, I had to because I had life or death, right? Because if I was not paying attention, if I was not self-checking, going to in my head, did I do it right or not? I I would be quite viciously hurt. So for me, it was I can only say from my end again, I had to just, you know, because if you live by yourself, you can kind of go a little bit crazy too, right? Because you lose that that touch with reality. And again, with the lack of socialization for myself, I had to just basically really did. I actually went online, I would fact-check myself if I had thoughts, I would fact-check them. And I didn't fact-check them against social media, but I would fact-check, you know, research and logic and mathematics. And I would just make sure, okay, am I right? And that would give me the balance,

Alone With Your Thoughts

SPEAKER_02 6:05

even though I couldn't phone up anybody. I could not talk to anybody about what my problems were. So, and it wasn't a pride thing, it was just I knew no one understood me. So I would just go, well, instead of going crazy, because again, having uh high intelligence or profound intelligence, it's very easy. So I went, I'll just go online. And it's the only way that cut me out of it, is that I actually had to apply logic to what I was thinking about to make sure I wasn't going delusional. And the stuff that I was doing, you know, with really dangerous giant dogs and all that stuff. Yeah, that was working, but then I had to make sure that my emotional relationship didn't get out of hand. It was also uh one of the things I I I stopped myself from doing, from getting into that craziness, was to um to kind of look at everything I did as a normal thing. Even though, you know, my book is done phenomenal and like US national bestseller and all that stuff. Um, but at all times it's kind of like just I know what I can do, and I just want to teach people so that we can save lives. And I guess that part of really understanding who I am. Did I want to share what I that's the thing too? Did I want to share with what with the rest of the world what I can do? And they're you know, it was yeah, I know it's trying to get out of that fear. I mean, on a personal level, and I'm sorry to make it my own, but uh really good question again. Yeah, I just I had to try. I I really had to try and get out of the morass and out of the like I really knew that if I didn't stop myself, I could go crazy. You know what I mean? Like where you feel that point where you're like, nobody understands me, so I can't trust anybody anymore, and I don't want to share anything with anybody and because trustation comes in.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Oh yeah, I was like, nobody understands me. Like I never cried or anything. I would just go, well, why should I share it? Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

But then again, yeah, I think that previous question is like watching people and seeing all this. Um, you know, not to bring it down, but to see the suffering. Like, oh my gosh, to to so wantonly enjoy the deaths of so many children, for example, with uh with cutting aid to them and all that stuff. Like the soul has got to be so dark. And so when I saw all this stuff, I actually thought to myself, well, I already know I'm understanding behavior and I could bring so much to you know artificial consciousness. So the only reason that brought me out of my introverted path that was kind of going like, okay, stay out, was really wanting to share with the rest of the world what I thought was factual and logical and reliable and you know irrefutable. And that's the only thing for me, out of my perspective. But for other people, I know it's tough for everyone else to try to get out of that spiral because my gosh, right? Because you really don't feel like anyone loves you, so to speak, that no one cares, that you're actually you're abandoned, right? You you feel again alone. And we're showing these signs because we stop moving so physically, like I see this in all my my beloved dogs and all that stuff, like the physical stiffness. And then we go, Oh, wait a minute, that's like that in a child. Oh, wait, that's like in an adult. That's like, like, you know, you've seen a someone get really upset, they're kind of like this, you're like, just loosen up. And it's like, oh my gosh, there really is a um, is not like I don't want to call it, it's not, it's not uh a magic thing. It isn't. It's really like this thing of give its empathy out because we knew it as predators from day one. You know, even when we're hunting other uh tribes of humans early back then, right? We still could understand that person's injured, that person is weak, that person is the the most strongest. And we understood that empathy from the emotional sense because if I want to attack that person, they might kill me or hurt me. And nowadays we're just like, yeah, whatever, just turn off the keyboard, right? We don't care that the courage that we get from the keyboard. Like for me, if you see me online, I just go right at you. I I just go right at you because and I say, if you have the courage, pick up the phone, I'll give you my phone number, you can talk to me. It's online, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

But yeah, I think we we've really been coddled too much in that sense of everything that we say is also curated by the social media regulations. So there's like a business platform that I'm on, and I'm not going to name it. But it's like, oh my gosh, it is such a um kumbaya kind of thing. And it's like, well, then how do you even have the drive to get better if you're always trying to be thankful and appreciative of everyone else? And it's not like an evolutional structure, but it's like what drives evolution, genius, and and ideas is the emotional drive, not to be better, but to give more to the people. And then when I see all this, well, let's take care of each other, and it's like the homogenous uh kumbaya thing is destructive because now we have that little circle, right? We you're like banging your head against the insanity wall. Sorry, okay, anyway, yeah. So yeah, we could talk about that for a while. But yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Definitely. Yeah, yeah, definitely. We can we can definitely

Come Back With A Factual Story

SPEAKER_00 10:43

talk about it. Uh and and and also one more thing, but when someone is making progress with this and then they hit a setback, and I I believe that is the time when the problem comes. Like maybe they uh sip slip back into their old patterns, old anxious patterns, and they start forcing decisions again and again. So, what do you think? I mean, what helps them find their way back?

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Have a story that is factual about yourself, have a story of evidence about yourself, and not one of those crazy ones where like, oh well, one day I'm gonna be a superstar or singer, but an actual factual thing, especially like when we're debating or arguing online with people. If you're gonna argue, be factual. If you're gonna argue, spell check, you know, if you're gonna be arguing, make sure that you come with your A game. And if you can't come with your A game, make sure that the next time you do, you have that. But people aren't doing that. We're we're just we've capitulated to the convenience of moderators, we've capitulated to the convenience of this self-regulation that, oh well, we don't want to say something that's controversial because 25,000 people get angry at us. And so then we have no independence, we have no innovation. We have become kind of again a snowball of the same type of human beings. And the only way to get out of that, to see that in other people, to help guide them, is really just have that story. Because if that story is true, if you can put that story anonymously out on the right, you know, James Chai rehabilitates extremely human predatory dogs, and I can prove it. That's my factual story. Everyone goes, he's he's cuckoo, but then it's you're proving it. And I prove it in my work. So if you have a story that you feel you're being attacked for or your life is being attacked, just write the story. If it's not even this glamorous thing, because you know, I associated with very uh well-established individuals, it's not a glamorous thing about this. Your success is about whether or not your facts are true. My gosh, I would be so embarrassed if I was like saying I could do these things, and then at the end of the day, I couldn't do even one of the things I claimed about. And so it's not really a pride thing either. It's because for me, I know that what I am leaving behind is has to be factual. Actually, if you don't, if I can kind

Curating Truth In The AI Age

SPEAKER_02 12:52

of go on a tangent. So if you look at my social media background, if you Google me or uh AI Google or AI Yahoo, whatever, search me, you will find no information about me socially. There's no independent articles, nothing. So in actual fact, I'm literally curating my own information online. So I am so every I've noticed that it comes from you know certain social media platforms that I've associated with, and there's no other information that's out there about me. So all the things that I'm talking about, like dismantling Watson reasoning task and all these other aspects of uh profound uh disruptions to behaviorism. The funny thing is that artificial intelligence has no background on me. So all my words are that are neologisms that I am kind of you know putting together and I'm connotating, making up, so to speak. Those words are being now used as verbatim in the printing of artificial intelligence results about me. I've come up on uh the top two rankings under the soul of a dog. So I'm literally curating my whole life, my whole introverted life, because I'm really not a public person. Like I, yeah, I tried being an actor, failed, and all these silly dumb things over this glory. But the reality is everything about me I am curating now. Everything I I put out, I have to be careful because there's no other source. No one, no one has ever published anything going, James Chai cannot do this. He says he can, he cannot do it because of all the facts. It's it's empirical. So that task for me is like, oh my gosh, I'm controlling my history, and it's more powerful than social media. It's it's the most powerful social media is the artificial intelligence that I have now of search results on me. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I I really have an obligation to make sure that uh my history, because I'm now the only one controlling it, which is just ironic, right? It's like he controls it, right? Because every time I post something on like LinkedIn, a couple of articles, then artificial intelligence will start to respond and post it out or on on Facebook or on Instagram. So I could really pervert it, right? I could destroy it, I could bastardize it and all that stuff. And I can't because that introverted structure in me, that protection, that feeling of not being abandoned means that if I don't want to feel abandoned, the only way for me not to feel abandoned in public is for people to understand that my facts are true.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Very true.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Yeah, it's it's the thing of having Chinese parents. They're very, they were very, very, very much like you don't lie.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

If you did lie, you go like, okay, go outside, get that big stick. The one that is gonna, you know, and then they just use it till it breaks, and they go get another one. That's my personal trauma.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

I'm sorry. There is no reason. I mean, um, yeah,

Don’t Lie And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 15:20

definitely. So, I mean, I know time is constrained, but uh still like if uh you have to give one advice to the listeners, what that you can do.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Don't lie. Don't lie about yourself, don't lie about what you can do, don't lie to self-aggrandize, don't lie to self-embellish, don't lie to uh increase your wealth. You don't have to, if you're really capable of doing something, then just stick true to it. And it makes you a better person, even if you're not part of this big cog. Because, you know, before my book, I was like, James, what who's that loser, right? Like nothing came up about me. And so if you're truthful to yourself and you don't lie, you make sure that your facts are facts. Make sure you check online, you double check, you triple check. You have to have a little bit of pride. I know it's kind of a sin in some religions, but you still have to have some pride because if you don't have the pride, then you have no reason to share it. You have no reason to go emotionally, I feel great about my work. And that work has to be truthful because, like, for example, in my line of work, if my work isn't truthful, I don't die. The innocent, dysfunctional dog is killed, and that's my fault. So that got responsibility. It just don't lie.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I agree. And if listeners wants to connect with you, how can they connect?

SPEAKER_02 16:26

So I have a website, rfarfbarkbark.com. It's kind of low budget, uh, but you can see uh my book online, Amazon. It was US National, number one new release in Canada, USA, and all that stuff. Um, you'll be able to find it just basically just going the soul of a dog, you know, instantly come up on their over other like PhD behaviors that have been around for 40 years. Yeah it's an incredible honor. I'm sorry, I just the craziest dream. The craziest dream to live right now. It's not even like winning a million dollars. It's it's really honestly like to see your name create artificial intelligence results.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

It's like I don't know, it's like I'm like a little kid. Sorry, okay, go on.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Great. So uh dear listeners, what I'll do is I'll put all the links, details, everything into the show notes for easy reference. And I have to say thank you so much, Teams, for sharing this and uh for everyone who is listening or who's here for letting this question uh sit with you for a little longer. And do let us know what you think, uh how you feel because uh it it just needs to be met with a little more kindness and a little more patience. So that's the work. That's enough. So until uh next time, I'd say take care of your mind and I will see you for the next one. Thank you so much.