[A: 00:01.4]
Well, welcome back to this edition of Inside Personal Growth. Joining me on in the Midwest here, I'm going to say the Midwest, Paul, is Paul Kirby and we're going to be talking about the Fuse Pathway, how to find and live a fulfilling life.

[A: 00:21.1]
Paul is from Loveland, Colorado. Good day to you, Paul. How are you doing?

[B: 00:24.8]
Good morning. I'm fine, thank you. So nice to be here with you.

[A: 00:28.6]
It's nice to have you on our show about Inside Personal Growth. And I always say that, you know, I look at your path and what you've done and you're truly a shining example of somebody who has constantly worked on themselves to make themselves not only just a better human being, but to find, as we just said, our multiple passions and roll it into one.

[A: 00:54.8]
And I want to let our listeners know that if they want to find out more about you, you're going to go to thefusioneer.com fusioner F U-S I-O-N-E-E-R dot com.

[A: 01:10.7]
You have someplace else you want them to go to?

[B: 01:12.5]
Yeah, that's an older website, the, the new website which is also in conjunction with the book. It's called the fuse pathway.com one word. The fuse Pathway. Yeah.

[A: 01:24.5]
Okay. So we'll also put a link to that as well. So there's two websites you can go to. But if you want to read about his bio and the Kirby foundation, the film, fusioneering, the robot, the art, this website has lots of videos as well.

[A: 01:44.8]
But the Fuse Pathway is the book. More push toward the book part of it. But Paul, I want to let our listeners, if you don't mind, know something about you because you do have a very unique background in the way in which you approach this.

[A: 02:04.5]
As we said, Paul's curiosity channeled him to his passions. Was raised in Northern California. He worked for AP's corporate research labs for four summers just after high school. He went on to earn an engineering degree from Cal Berkeley and then upon graduation he was commissioned as an officer in the United States Air Force.

[A: 02:27.1]
After serving for four year tour of duty in the military advanced research lab, Paul decided to pursue an MBA from Harvard. With his background in engineering and business and after a stunt working at HP and marketing, he joined the world of venture capital investing in early stage high tech companies.

[A: 02:48.3]
And they he has a little thing here says watch brushstroke. So if you want to go there, hit breaststroke, it's a film to learn more. Well, you are somebody where people really, when they want to see this, they need to go to the websites which we said we'll have a link to both of those websites and watch some of the videos.

[A: 03:10.3]
And with that, I, you know, you know, this fusioneering that you speak about in the book, I want you to kind of explain it and why the people that are listening to this podcast today, who maybe feel a little disjointed, they're trying to do so many different things, they have so many different path pathways they'd like to go to, because we all have a lot of passions in life, things that we like to do.

[A: 03:38.0]
And how you were able to bring that together in something is quite unique.

[B: 03:43.8]
There's a lot of material in that, in the answer to that, that question. So I'm trying to figure out how to begin. So, so essentially fusioneering is identifying your passions and then putting them together into a personal vision.

[B: 03:58.9]
That's excite that, that's. That you are excited about is what lights you up inside, you know, what you get, what you get excited about. And the difference between a Dr. Dennis lawyer and, you know, plumber, carpenter or whatever, that's more of a linear path. So the distinction here is in the fuse, the fusionary, where you combine things you love to do and then pursue it.

[B: 04:18.8]
And so that's what I was doing for, you know, over 25 years. And now, for reasons we can get into later, I want to share that because once you fuse those passions, then, then you're living your dream all along. There's no end goal because you're already there living your dream.

[B: 04:36.9]
And so I can go there, but I'll let you go, Greg.

[A: 04:39.8]
Well, no, you, you obviously have lived your dream much of your life, and you've been very blessed. You have a foundation. You've been able to take whatever earnings you had and, and invested into this.

[A: 04:56.2]
And, you know, a lot of people may want to go, well, how do I get there? So you select. You've. You've successfully blended your background in engineering, robotics and art. Okay, so let's let our listeners really get an idea.

[A: 05:12.7]
So when you go to this website and you watch these videos, of which we're going to have links to all these videos, you're thinking engineering, robotics and arts. Okay, so what inspired you to merge what seems to be some pretty unrelated disciplines.

[B: 05:30.9]
Yeah.

[A: 05:31.5]
Into one. Because when people see. And we're going to actually, in between here, folks, for those watching on video, we're going to actually. My video editor will put up pieces of video of which the voiceover will happen here, Paul, so he'll be able to do that.

[A: 05:48.2]
So People can actually see your robotic. Is it del cinia or del cinea?

[B: 05:55.3]
Dulcinea.

[A: 05:56.2]
From Dulcinea.

[B: 05:57.6]
Don Quixote. Yeah, yeah.

[A: 05:59.5]
And it's Spanish. That's a Spanish word.

[B: 06:01.8]
Yeah, There's a story behind that I can get into later. Yeah.

[A: 06:05.4]
Okay, so, so explain if you would, taking those three unrelated, what seem to be unrelated and bringing them together.

[B: 06:14.8]
Okay, so I was in second year graduate school and I had the opportunity to take a self assessment test. So think of a hundred multiple choice questions that are real simple, like what would you like to do on Friday night? And there's a list and then what would you like to do, you know, on Saturday?

[B: 06:33.3]
Or who is the greatest person, you know, Albert Einstein, Albert Edson, Abraham Lincoln, etc. And so then I got the results of that and, and it graded six criteria relative to myself, not nothing to do with anybody else. And at the bottom I had four in a cluster.

[B: 06:50.7]
I had social, religious, economic and political. And then way up above, halfway I had aesthetic. And then way up high I had, which was a total surprise to me. And then way up high I had theoretical, which wasn't a surprise. So here I am in second year Harvard Business School, back then, you know, known as the West Point capitalism.

[B: 07:11.1]
And I didn't want power and money, which is at the bottom of the stack. And then, and so I said, well, what do I do with these two? And I was walking across this footbridge on, on the, across the Charles river between Boston and Cambridge to go to 6pm Sunday night Mass at St.

[B: 07:26.9]
Paul's Cathedral. And it just struck me, what if I combine that aesthetic with that theoretical. And I had, you know, several years of engineering before that in a, you know, R and D research lab in the Air Force, and then four summers working at HP building things and designing things for them.

[B: 07:45.3]
And so I said, well, you know, I like, I like robotics and I like electronics, I like technology. What if I combine all that with art? And I was good in many. You have different kinds of classes in business school. And manufacturing came natural to me because numbers came natural to me.

[B: 08:04.6]
So I was going to build a factory with robots to create paintings to sell. And this is before the PC, so this is early on. And microprocessors 8 bit from intel and Motorola had just come out, but that was the original epiphany. So I've had three epiphanies and maybe we'll get in that later, but that was it.

[B: 08:21.4]
But then like all my classmates, I went in most of at that time Everybody went into the corporate world. And so then it wasn't until 17 years later that, that I, I was skiing with a friend in Europe. And Lars, a childhood friend, being an army brat living in Copenhagen for a few years, said, let's go ski.

[B: 08:40.5]
So I land in Copenhagen. And he says, before we drive down to Austria, let's take the ferry across to Malmo, Sweden, and visit this traveling Leonardo da Vinci museum show. I went in there, changed, just like the bridge, that, that, that experience changed my life.

[B: 08:56.7]
And so I saw all these wooden replicas of his mechanical designs and there was a lecture in a, in a case, you know, one of his notebooks, and he painted two of the most famous paintings in the world, Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. So here's your artist, here's your inventor, and he's a mechanically oriented, you know, we all, you know, admire, you know, da Vinci.

[B: 09:16.2]
And so I came out of there so excited and I said, that's what I want to do. And so as soon as the ski trip was over, at least an empty shell of a studio. There's 14 studios in a row where I live here, or not where I live, but where my art studios are.

[B: 09:33.8]
And so I leased one that was under construction and I asked the owner to add extra power, utility power into that studio. And that was the beginning. So, so the bridge kind of started it, but then, then what happened was that museum show. And I said, this is what I.

[B: 09:50.2]
So the fusion idea was there and then the impetus was the, the Malmo, Sweden museum show.

[A: 09:57.1]
Well, you know, you, as you were speaking about Leonardo da Vinci, and I want to reflect for a second because obviously many of us have his books. I have a couple of them. I've watched documentaries on him. His, as a child walking through the woods, he was so inquisitive about the connection of things, meaning, like how nature worked and how all of this worked, and they never knew what he was going to do.

[A: 10:26.8]
You know, it was kind of like, well, what is his parents like? What, what is this kid going to turn into? Because he was quite, not only inquisitive, but curious, always investigating things. And I can imagine you're that kind of person as well.

[A: 10:43.5]
And I just wanted to make that comment because I have a lot of that in me too. I'm not certain that I've quite found that nexus of, you know, taking these three or four different things that I have high levels of curiosity about and bringing them together.

[A: 11:00.2]
But who knows? There's still time, right? So, you know, in the book, and I think this is important because for my listeners, when you get your copy of this book, the Fuse Pathway, it outlines this structure, and you call it find, upgrade, start, evolve, if you would.

[A: 11:19.8]
And I love that because, you know, it's like, okay, those are four steps. These are four steps. So if you would walk us through the four steps and why they're essential for personal and professional growth, because I can imagine and.

[A: 11:38.3]
But I want the listeners to hear it from your mouth.

[B: 11:41.9]
Okay. Yeah, it's. It's a good question. And it's actually. It's a gentle guide to lead you forward, you know, and the other thing I would say is once you start down this pathway, you're already living your dream. And. And so it's. You don't have to wait, you know, to the end to get there. So.

[B: 12:00.1]
So that's really an important distinction. So F is for fine. And that's actually the hardest of the four. You have to. You have to be introspective and quiet and find out, you know, what your passions are, what. What excites you. And I have some exercises in the book and ways of thinking about things to help you uncover.

[B: 12:20.4]
Uncover. Like, you know, aesthetic, as I said, was. Was a real surprise for me, but it turns out that. That art and visual is. Is a real natural for me. You know, like, there's a sculpture head behind me there that I took. Yeah. And it was really easy for me to do it. You know, I'm good with my hands.

[B: 12:37.2]
And the book also talks about nine different IQs, and working with your hands and kinesthetics is one of them. So in this find, you find what your passions are, and then you fuse those into a vision, and you might have different ones that are possibilities.

[B: 12:52.5]
And so now this is a really important distinction for find. If you combine your interests, it's not going to have enough kilowatt powers to get you through your journey, because you're always going to have ups and downs in your journey, which is natural. I call it puddles on your pathway, you know, and then the sun comes out.

[B: 13:10.4]
But if you're combining passions as opposed to interest, then you have enough wattage, you know, kilowatts, to. To get you going through all the rough times. So I'm going to use this character that I've used before in the book called Noah, and I'm going to walk him through the four.

[B: 13:28.5]
The four stages, or four steps at the same time. So Noah is this bright young engineering major that likes to write, and he has a promising new career ahead of him. But and so he's, that's where he's channeled, that's where he's going. So that's that linear path that school and society and jobs set you up for.

[B: 13:47.5]
And then the distinction is here that he also loves travel and adventure and he doesn't want to just be a writer. And so he realizes with this fuse, this f part of it that he combined combine them and become a travel writer. So he's a simple example, but really vivid of how you combine two different things.

[B: 14:07.3]
So then you have upgrade. And upgrade is you, you have certain things to fulfill your vision and so you need to upgrade those skills. And so I like to use this analogy and some of my friends don't like it, but I'm on the mic here and being recorded.

[B: 14:24.6]
So think of your vision as a st. In this case, a travel writer. And so it has two legs. You, you're a writer and then, then travel. And so during upgrade, he's going to continue to work on his writing skills and getting jobs and before he starts traveling.

[B: 14:41.6]
I'll get in that in a minute. And, and so, so he's going to research travel and research travel articles and travel blogs and that kind of stuff and work on it. So he's upgrading his skills. Okay. But then he has this passion for Brazil and for whatever reasons the Amazon has always intrigued him from a little kid.

[B: 15:00.9]
And so he says, well, you know, to get the, the nitty gritty in depth articles that I really want, I should learn Portuguese. And he doesn't know anything about Portuguese, but, but that's the third leg on his stool. And so he's upgrading to prepare him well as he's going down this journey.

[B: 15:19.4]
Now the interesting thing is I'm not language inclined, right? But in his case it doesn't matter because he's living his passion already. He's a travel writer. And oh, by the way, I need Portuguese, I need a third leg on my stool. Okay, so then he's saving money also while he's in this upgrade stage because he doesn't know, you know, how soon he'll be able to sell his articles and support himself.

[B: 15:41.5]
So he's building up his client base in the US and with a laptop he can be a writer anywhere. So now he travels to Brazil and, and that's the start. Now there's something really important to get across about start. You can do a knife edge thing or more realistically, for most people it's going to be a gradual step.

[B: 16:00.6]
So he's, you know, saving money during his Upgrade. And then as he's starting he's, and he's in Brazil, he's in Rio, but he's also can chain his articles for his US clients that he's had from before. So start. It doesn't have to be right away, it can kind of be planned.

[B: 16:18.1]
And in the book we have three protagonists with totally different profiles going through the book and we walk the reader through all, all these stages and how it's unique to those. And so we try and cover a broad spectrum of, you know, the people in your audience.

[B: 16:34.1]
And then, then, then there's evolve. And this is where you're, you've been living your dream all along, but now you continue to evolve. And so in Noah's case, he said, boy, if I learned photojournalism, then my articles would get even better.

[B: 16:50.3]
And so he went back to upgrade and he's learning about Photoshop and cameras and all that and he's continued to evolve with his writing articles. So that's it. Find your passions, put them together, upgrade the skills you need like in my case, machine shop here in robotics etc. Etc.

[B: 17:06.6]
And then start know either right away or gradually and then just continue to live your dream.

[A: 17:13.4]
Well, one thing I want to let the listeners know is that when you go to the fuse pathway.com Paul is really put this all together for you. Step one, step two, step three. And I think it's important that you know, when I say that it's like, hey, I get the book first, I get access to the chapters if I want because you can get access, then you can share them obviously.

[A: 17:40.3]
So this is thought out like an engineer. I get the book, I get a chapter, I'm inspired and then I want to start sharing it and I think it's, it's really well done site. And so for all my listeners, again you want to also begin the studio tour there as well.

[A: 17:58.5]
That's where you're going to learn more about what Paul has done. Now I have a question for you because as you were speaking, Paul, what came up for me is I've taken those assessments myself. Now the assessment you took which showed your inclinations as an individual, do you have any that you recommend?

[A: 18:21.1]
Because there's a starting point for people they kind of know but maybe they don't really know and they've never taken one of these assessments. Do you have an assessment that you'd recommend that maybe they take?

[B: 18:35.2]
I'm excited you asked that question because I have one that, that I'm passionate about and I have a friend that I, that he was in between careers. He didn't know what to do. Right. And, and so it was probably a handful, maybe over a half year or no go.

[B: 18:51.7]
Now I suggested to him, and we happen to be having lunch yesterday, and I asked him, did you ever do this? And he says, oh, yeah. And then he started to rattle off all the benefits he got out of it. So what you do is you pick an event in your life. This is maybe the most poignant, you know, piece of advice I can offer in this whole, this whole sphere of what we're talking about.

[B: 19:13.3]
So pick any event in your life that kind of is memorable for whatever reason, an achievement or something you accomplish or maybe a family vacation or whatever. And, and just write about it. You know, stream of consciousness. Just write about it. And you're the only one that's ever going to see this. So really flesh it out and, and describe whatever it is that you want to write and then set that aside and then do another one and then another one and you're, you're building a collection of, of nuggets and then maybe start early in life and then every five years try and think of something and then write about it.

[B: 19:48.5]
So then after you've, you, you have, you know, a reasonable set of these, these little mini essays or nuggets, then here's the magic. You get a yellow marker and you mark all the verbs, and you mark all the verbs.

[B: 20:04.2]
And when I did that, the verbs percolated through the whole history, the whole timeline. It was the same verbs all the way through. And I asked Chris yesterday, I said, did you mark the yellow verbs? He goes, yeah. And I said, well. And he said, they repeated this.

[B: 20:19.7]
I had the same pattern through my whole. And he was dumbfounded at lunch yesterday. And so my verbs just. So everything I'm doing now are the same verbs. When I was preschool, I was working with, you know, building a record set all the time I was in Austria and didn't know the language and I was shy.

[B: 20:35.4]
And then later I was in Copenhagen, so there's a lot of years growing up in Europe, I was shy and didn't know the language. And so, you know, my mom could never discipline me because I had my rector set and Lincoln logs, etc. Etc. And so that trickled all the way through. So I, over here I have a 10 foot by 10 foot tall and wide robot which is essentially an erector set.

[B: 20:54.5]
Yeah. So those verbs just the, the state and you'll be dumbfounded. How, how well it works.

[A: 20:59.8]
Well, it Does. And, and just for my listeners, he's saying, write something you're passionate about, then find the verbs inside of there. So take some time in between. Right. And then find those verbs and you'll find that they will repeat themselves.

[A: 21:15.6]
And I, I've done something similar, so I know that it's, that it's there. But this is a valuable insight that he's providing to all of our listeners as well. And an inexpensive one. You can just do it with a yellow pad of paper and a pencil or however you want to.

[A: 21:32.8]
Now the. Do you have any formalized tests that you recommend, like the one that you took that actually showed you a little bit more about your personality and inclinations? The one you took where you were. You were kind of ranked no recommend anything or no.

[B: 21:51.1]
You know, in writing the book, I thought about that. But I wanted to, to be self contained, rather.

[A: 21:56.3]
Okay.

[B: 21:56.8]
Using some other resource.

[A: 21:59.0]
Some. Yeah, there are. But my listeners, there are a lot of resources out there. You can find them for these self assessments. So let's shift to the robotic partner, this painting partner you had. I mean, people can see your studio behind you.

[A: 22:14.5]
They don't actually see the robot, but we're going to play some video of that robot actually making art. And, and it's Delinea. Is that right?

[B: 22:24.5]
D.

[A: 22:27.0]
So you've named the. This Delinea and you said you wanted to tell us why you named it Delinea, which we'll get to. And it is a, a fascinating creation. So what role did problem solving and creative thinking play into bringing this vision to life?

[A: 22:48.3]
Because you've really taken what would be a mechanical instrument. Obviously, people today are seeing more and more robots. When you were doing this, this was like literally like crazy state of the art. Now you're seeing even personal robots that are being advertised for sale, or robots that vacuum your carpet or robots that do all kinds of things.

[A: 23:11.4]
But is in, in the mechanics of putting repetitive activities together. But in your case, this isn't repetitive. This is. These are all unique brush strokes. They're happening each time.

[A: 23:26.6]
You kind of have to create this P. I watched you last night with these dots on a, on a, on a computer screen saying, hey, I wanted this certain brush dough to had to be more fine. It had to be wider. It had to be this, this thing changes color.

[A: 23:43.2]
It does a lot of things. So you really are a master engineer to get this thing to do this. So explain, explain this if you would, because I think our listeners would love to know more.

[B: 23:57.5]
Yeah. So you start out by saying Problem solving. And then you kind of then said.

[A: 24:03.2]
Creativity of thinking creative, creative thinking in play.

[B: 24:06.6]
So I'm going to switch that around and then I'm going to start with curiosity. And so then if you're curious about something and I'll give you an example and then, and then that leads to creativity. And then any creative endeavor that I can think of entails problem solving.

[B: 24:25.9]
If not, then you're not being creative because it's not new. And so problem solving is, is a given and it's constant. You know, you're kind of going in between down this pathway and there's always something that pops up and you might relish it because, you know, let's say you're programming, you know, my iceberg, the hidden part is all the code that creates the painting.

[B: 24:45.3]
So I'm always, you know, debugging something and moving on. That's just the nature of fast prototyping and software, for instance. So I'll give you an example.

[A: 24:54.3]
Well, let me ask you this because last night when I watched that video about meditation on death, which you did, and you went from 180 degrees to 360 degrees and I, and I realized you made that programming change and this was like a light bulb that went off in your head.

[A: 25:14.4]
And I think for my listeners will play this part of the video of the meditation on death, video of the painting that was created by the robot. But you made a big point of it. It was kind of like, hey, I was, this brush stroke was moving at 180 but I had to go 360 and I saw the programming and I went, wow.

[A: 25:37.1]
That was like, well, let's just see what happens when we do this. Right? Yeah, right.

[B: 25:43.8]
All right, so this is maybe my favorite example that I've ever come up with for fusioneering. But to set the stage, there used to be an art school across the parking lot here next to these 14 studios in there and a bronze foundry. Loveland's considered the sculpting capital of North America.

[B: 26:01.6]
So I had an art teacher and I did several trips to Europe with him, studying the masters. So one time we took a train ride four hours north of Stockholm to Malmo, Sweden, I mean to Mora, Sweden, to see the, to see the Anders Zorn Museum.

[B: 26:17.4]
And in his studio he had a can of brushes, old beat up brushes. He's long dead now. And they were all round brushes and all the dozens of art classes and instructors, everybody uses a flat brush. And so per what you are saying is when I built the wrist, I Built it so that it could rotate.

[B: 26:33.8]
I'm going to back up a little bit. I rotated so you could, you know, twirl the brush 180 degrees. But if you're using, if you want to make a beautiful curve, a flat brush can't do that. But if you have a round brush, I'll use the black marker. If you can see that. If you have a round brush, you can go like this.

[B: 26:50.2]
So if you're going clockwise or counterclockwise, you roll the brush the same way and you can take paint off and you make this beautiful curve. Well, some of my paintings, you know, had. Had a round brush and these curves, but they're 4, 5, 6 inches long, like the cappuccino painting that we could talk about.

[B: 27:06.5]
But I wanted, for Linda's painting, I wanted this. The. The spirit is going through realms of the afterlife, and I wanted longer curves. And so as an artist, I say, I'm running out of paint 180 degrees. And then as a fusioner, I said, well, I built the wrist, and I know that the joint six, you got xyz, roll, pitch, roll.

[B: 27:25.6]
And so joint six can continue to roll. So I'm going to roll it 360 degrees to keep taking paint off the edge. You know, this. The circumference of the brush as I'm dragging, I have always have fresh paint. So then since I built the wrist, I knew that.

[B: 27:41.0]
But then I also configured the operating system for the robot. So I went and changed 180 to 360 and then I wrote the code. There's two computers here. This one, anyway, this is a big computer where I create the painting. So I go in there and I changed it to 180 to 360.

[B: 27:57.2]
And then I go into the. The computer and the software that runs the actual robot, the application, and I changed it. So as a fusioner, I had this idea. But because I was knowledgeable in all these domains, I was able to put it together. And so on the video, I assume you're going to show, you're going to see these beautiful, long, gracious, gorgeous brushstrokes.

[B: 28:16.9]
So that's. Yeah, we are definitely all these domains. The legs of your stool allows you to do that.

[A: 28:23.9]
We're definitely going to insert over our talking the visuals of the actual robot creating this artwork. And I think for our listeners, it's going to make it so much more engaging, right, to actually see this.

[A: 28:43.2]
And again, I want to let them know, hey, look, if you want to stop this interview right now and go begin the tour. Just go to the website thefusepathway.com and hit begin the tour. You can actually look inside the studio.

[A: 28:58.9]
You can play videos on this, the robot. You can do all kinds of things. Now, one of the things that you mentioned is that you struggle to explain your work to others. I think you've done a pretty good job this morning of explaining this to us.

[A: 29:15.2]
Who wanted to categorize you as an artist or an engineer? How did you overcome the challenge of that? Because in society today, people always want to put a label on, you know, like, okay, what is he.

[A: 29:31.0]
How do I. What is Greg voice. And what is Paul Kirby? What advice do you have for people who feel stuck kind of between these passions and they're trying to be. Someone's trying to label them.

[B: 29:45.9]
Yeah, I got. I got. I want to. I have two answers, so I want to drop down here.

[A: 29:50.7]
Okay.

[B: 29:53.6]
So before I. Before I jump into that, I'm excited to do that, but I want to back up. So if you. If you go into the virtual reality tour and you're wandering around the rooms, click on a painting, like any painting, and then you can zoom in, and you can keep zooming in. Like, if you do the cappuccino painters, just fluid, giant, fluid painting, you can zoom all the way in to see the brush strokes up close.

[B: 30:15.9]
Because a lot of people go to the website and they never do the tour. And then the people that do the tour never click on a painting, and then click on a painting, they never go in. So you'll see gorgeous brushstrokes, exquisite brushstrokes with the color. So now back to how do I explain what. What I'm doing? So I was always frustrated.

[B: 30:32.0]
People would come into my studio here and see this wall of oil paintings, which I did when I was taking all these art classes over the years. And they say, paul, Paul, these are really good paintings. Why don't you just. Why don't you just paint? And I was always frustrated, and I didn't know how to answer that.

[B: 30:47.6]
And, you know, I mean, it was a fair question, but I wanted to be polite. And so I came up with this analogy. And then I actually did a video and. And added it to the website. And it was filmed in a local coffee shop with a. Anyway, so.

[B: 31:03.7]
So my hands are over here on the left, and I say, what if you really love apple pie? You just really love apple pie. And then over here I go, but you also love vanilla ice cream. So who says. And this is true for careers now, you know, like our Travel writer who says you can only do one or the other, put them together and then have apple pile and mode, but even make it better by heating it up and having hot apple pie. Alamode.

[B: 31:30.1]
And so when I said that, it kind of gave people a hook to, you know, something to, you know, to think about and to understand rather than. It can only be one thing or another. And so my neighbor, who I actually saw a couple days ago, had this teacher that wanted to bring some gifted fourth and fifth graders over, and there were seven of them.

[B: 31:53.7]
And I said to Bill, ask them, the teacher, if they would look at my website ahead of time. And I'm going to tie this together for you really nice with the apple pie. And so I didn't think they'd look at the website. And so they were supposed, supposed to come at one. It was little after, and Bill and I are standing out on the sidewalk here and this gaggle of, you know, fourth and fifth graders and the teachers show up.

[B: 32:15.2]
And then Bill introduces me to the teacher, this is Paul Kirby. And the kids hear my name and they go bonkers. They're running around like I'm the super rock star. And then they come in and I didn't realize it, but they only have two speeds, you know, total exhilaration and euphoria and dead silence.

[B: 32:32.3]
And so we're sitting in a semicircle on the floor, and I'm on a little footstool and they're asking me really good questions. And then, then when I answer, it's just dead silence. And you can just see the wheels turning, right? And so Peyton's sitting here and he says to me, what do you like more?

[B: 32:47.4]
And he gestures to the paintings or he says, or the robot in the computer. And. And I said, well, that's a good question. Normally it's depending on what I'm doing at the time. And then I said to this group of seven, you know, bright eyed, you know, gifted kids.

[B: 33:02.9]
And I said, same thing with my hands. I'm sitting on this footstool and I say, what if you really love apple pie? And my hands are only halfway across and simultaneously they all shouted out, vanilla ice cream. My hands didn't even get over here, all of them.

[B: 33:18.1]
And so I knew in that moment that I had seven fusioners for life who says, you know, I can only do this or if I'm gifted at math, you know, or whatever, biology, history, you know, sociology, that that's all I can do, you know, so they know that it's.

[B: 33:33.5]
The world is opened up. To them.

[A: 33:35.8]
Yeah, that is. That is such a good analogy that you use between the apple pie, ice cream, and I'll add, you know, put. Put a little caramel syrup on top of that ice cream, too, and make it even.

[B: 33:47.3]
I got her. Can I use that? Can I use that? Yeah, you can.

[A: 33:51.6]
You can use it if you want.

[B: 33:53.4]
Yeah.

[A: 33:53.8]
So.

[B: 33:54.4]
So I'm the other that. I don't know for how much time if we're going to get into that. But this other thing about people are stuck. Well, why don't you go and then I'll remember what I was going to say about people being.

[A: 34:03.9]
Well, that's okay. I. I think that, you know, this whole idea of the role of passion and purpose is. Is a key area. So one of the key takeaways from the book that you shared with the readers is the idea that we shouldn't have to choose, just like you said just now, not, you don't have to choose between apple pie and ice cream.

[A: 34:27.2]
It could be apple pie and ice cream. How would you help someone who's listening today identify the passion that they should fuse together for more fulfilling life? Because I think, you know, like you said, hey, you can start writing and then look at the verbs and attach kind of, and see where it's going.

[A: 34:51.5]
But do you have any way that it happened for you where you were able to, like, fuse together what you were doing? Yeah, because some people may be a little confused. They're like, okay, I get what he's doing.

[A: 35:09.9]
But, you know, I think sometimes I don't think. Sometimes I think a lot people are like in a lane, like you just said, oh, you're a plumber, you're a carpenter, you're this, you're that. Well, who says you just have to be a carpenter or a plumber? You can be a handyman and have all those trades if you really like doing them. All right.

[A: 35:28.6]
And you, you can be a painter as well. Not the kind of painter you are. I'm just saying somebody who paints the house. Right. Makes sense.

[B: 35:40.0]
Yeah. I think with reflection and time, it'll percolate. But what's. What's happening is you're going to have these ideas and you're going to be feeling restricted. That. Oh, that's not really reasonable or whatever. So I think it's not so much coming up with the idea as it is how I go about that.

[B: 36:00.5]
You know, I'm afraid, I'm scared or whatever. And. And the book covers that. But I think one of the things that we're actually Going to say earlier that's really applicable in this fine process is something that'll liberate you. And there's a fascinating word if, if for those that aren't familiar.

[B: 36:17.4]
It's called autotelic, and it's Greek mean auto meaning self, and telos meaning goal. So it's self goals, and it means you're doing something from within yourself as opposed to external goals like recognition or more money, fame, you know, working up the corporate ladder.

[B: 36:35.1]
Those, those are all external. And so when you're fusing your passions together, you know, well, I, I want to, you know, work up this corporate ladder that's all external. And it's not really going to address your, your ikigai or your dharma.

[B: 36:51.5]
Ikigai is a Japanese word meaning what you were born, a concept, not a word. It's a word, but it's a concept, what you were born to do in life. And so if you come up with two ideas, for instance, one might be just using interests, as I said. But if you're finding something deeper than what you're born to do, if you pursue that, you'll feel fulfillment all along the way.

[B: 37:15.5]
And it's the same as your dharma, you know, what you're born to be doing. And so that, that coupled with autotelic, you know, from within, gives you the freedom then. And then once you have that passion, once you have that vision, then that's going to give you unlimited enthusiasm all along the way.

[B: 37:34.4]
Like, you know, over 25, 30 years now I've been in this space. I never had a bad day coming to work. I might have had huge problems, but it's never a bad day.

[A: 37:43.9]
Well, you're a problem solver, so nothing was a problem. And again, for my listeners, go get a copy of this book. You can go to the website, you can get it off there. You can go directly to Amazon. But I do want to ask you a question, because in the last year that, that I'm aware of now, I'm sure it's been going on for years.

[A: 38:06.6]
And, and my son, I, I should have followed my son because my son from UC Irvine got a master's degree in artificial intelligence many years ago. But AI is really advancing so rapidly today. We're seeing it everywhere. It's being used in every kind of piece of software.

[A: 38:23.4]
Is somebody who built this robotic artist. What do you think about the role of AI in kind of this creative process? And should artists who are out there kind of fear it or embrace it?

[A: 38:38.6]
Because you're the guy that's Embraced it. If there's anybody that's embraced it, you're probably my shining example of somebody who is as you used it in art.

[B: 38:51.4]
Yeah, yeah. I mean, my. When, when I was building the robot and then near its completion, I said, well, what am I going to paint? And I already made the rule that I never copy a photo. I never use pixels, you know, bitmap kind of information.

[B: 39:06.6]
It had to be original art. And that came from all my trips to Europe, studying the masters, because they didn't, they didn't copy anybody. So I wrote my first AI program 25 years ago. My first two paintings were based on generative AI. And generative AI is talked about all the time now.

[B: 39:22.8]
And so, you know, it was pretty. They're only. This is before Internet. This is before my, you know, Adobe. And so you had to go to the bookstore, you know. And so I found two AI books which are still considered classics. One author went on to head up technology at Google, for instance.

[B: 39:39.6]
But anyway, so I, I did that. So I've been, you know, close to, or, you know, one pain. I use four kinds of AI and one was artificial life, which is parallel, which was really big back. You know, I went to the first conference at Stanford 25 years ago, whatever. And so, so I' near it all along.

[B: 39:56.7]
But I saw where Bill Gates said everyone should read this new book called the Coming Wave. And it's about the, you know, the industrial evolution way, the computer, the Internet, all these different ways. But, but the, the author is one of the foremost knowledgeable people in the world on AI, and he's saying that this is going to be huge and it's going to change the whole, you know, it's going to change everything much bigger than I would have understood or anticipated just in my, my cubby hole here.

[B: 40:27.5]
And so I don't think anybody can predict where, where it's going to go.

[A: 40:33.1]
And, you know, Muscles, it is pretty fascinating. I mean, I hate to interrupt you, but I mean, I use chat gbt, like many people, almost every day, three or four times a day. Right. But what always kind of surprises me is when I say, hey, I want an idea for a brochure or something, or I want to do a new logo or, you know, this thing creates something.

[A: 40:59.8]
Actually, they're not bad. I mean, they're not, they're not ready for prime time yet, but they're, they're really, really, really well done. And it just always surprises me how it continues to advance. And as you said, right now we're seeing it in video, it's being used in video production.

[A: 41:19.6]
It's been used in video in the movie studios forever. But now it's available to any Tom, Dick and Harry who has a computer, who wants to put AI in whatever they want to do and make something out of it.

[B: 41:32.6]
So let me just add, though, two things. One is that if you look at a painting, though, and the brushwork and all that, it has a textural feel to it and it's a different on the wall, it's a different experience, digital art that you see on a computer screen.

[B: 41:50.3]
So if you're going to decorate your, your den or your living room or your kitchen or whatever, you know, what do you want to have for art on the wall?

[A: 41:59.2]
So I got a question for you, because all along we've talked about your creativity and your passion and the robot and the art and all that. And you, you mentioned that initially you weren't interested in selling your paintings, but you wanted to share your journey. How do you define success in your work?

[A: 42:18.5]
Because a lot of artists create art to sell, right? I don't know how many of these pieces you've sold or if you're interested or you've been commissioned by somebody to create pieces. So tell us just a tad bit about that and the time remaining that we've got here. Paul.

[B: 42:36.5]
Yeah, so when I was walking across the footbridge, you know, in night, that was actually October 23, 10 to 6pm 1977, the idea was to have a factory that painted with robot painted paintings to sell them, you know, so, you know, I was a business major, so the idea was to form that business.

[B: 42:57.3]
But then later, you know, two decades later, all these trips to Europe, studying the masters and taking art classes, I fell in love with the whole creative process. And I said, well, I don't want to sell. I was fortunate. I didn't have to have an income at that point. But I don't want to create paintings to sell for an income.

[B: 43:15.0]
I want to experience the creative process in making paintings. You know, one, you know, I'm always working on the next painting. You know, painting might take two, three, four, five years, you know, Linda's painting Meditation upon Death took me five years. And the video tour explains that.

[B: 43:30.2]
So then we have an open house here every October and a neighbor artist, neighbor brought her husband over. He says, why don't you sell your paintings? I says, I don't want them. And he got mad at me, says, why don't you sell your paintings? And I says, I just don't want to and then he did it a third time, and I was really furious.

[B: 43:46.4]
I don't know. I don't know why, but it's. But. But it's autotellic. You know, I'm doing the painting for myself and I'm fortunate. I've been given many gifts and unfortunately, I don't. I don't have to have the income for it, but I'm doing it because I want to do it, you know, for me. Not.

[B: 44:02.1]
Not for money, not for recognition. You know, I mean, if. If I wasn't trying to share, to help people, you know, find their passions and lead a, you know, fulfill, I'd be really happy as a hermit in my hobbit hole here, working on the next.

[A: 44:16.0]
Yeah, so question, Paul. Can the. Can the listeners actually come to Loveland and come to your studio and if they wanted to, and actually see some of your paintings there or where are they displayed?

[B: 44:28.8]
Yeah, they're only.

[A: 44:30.1]
Other than the Internet because, you know, you can't get the same visual from watching what you've created on the Internet as you can seeing them in person. I am curious enough right now to fly to Denver, go to Loveland and actually see your studio.

[B: 44:45.4]
Yeah, I'm always, you know, Loveland's kind of out. Not out in the beat path, but it's an hour north of Denver and not that far. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, visitors are welcome. And I got a text message 2 days ago from a woman that saw, you know, just stumbled on the website and wants to come and visit.

[B: 45:02.4]
And that's fine because my goal is to help people, you know, in a bigger sense like this or in an individual sense. I talked to two engineers that were University of Pennsylvania engineering majors yesterday. We had a Zoom meeting late afternoon, and they. I said, well, look at the tour first and watch all the three videos on the robot and watch the videos on the paintings to elevate the conversation.

[B: 45:22.8]
So I love, I love doing that. You know, I love when kids come here, too. They get so excited. Yeah. So, you know, so. But what I was going to say is, per what you just said, segueing off, what you just said is, I was. It's not 90 or 95, it's 100 of the time that people will see, like, the Brushstroke movie, you know, documentary about me, and they'll see the website and they'll see all that.

[B: 45:45.6]
And then they come to the studio and every person says, this isn't what I expected. It's so much larger and more impressive. And so if anyone wants to come. They're, they're welcome. And we'll set it up.

[A: 46:00.5]
Okay, so all listeners, you can go to the website and you can contact Paul if you want to go out there. But again, go to the Fuse Pathway. That's the book website. Now in, in, in this, let's kind of wrap this interview up.

[A: 46:17.0]
Kind of looking ahead, what's the next evolution of your work and how do you hope that the Fuse Pathway, the book, will impact the readers enough that they actually take those steps that you talk about?

[A: 46:33.2]
Find, upgrade, start, evolve.

[B: 46:35.8]
Yeah, so that's two questions there. My next. Yeah, and then before that the, the Fuse Pathway. But also if you go to YouTube, the fuse pathway and then click on our channel, there's a few dozen short and medium sized length videos on there.

[A: 46:52.2]
And we'll put a link to that. I just want my listeners know. There'll be a link in.

[B: 46:56.1]
Yeah, and then Instagram. Instagram too, with my followers. So the next painting I've already started on and the last painting I did was called Early Light and it's in the room called Gallery 2. It's 7 foot 4 inches wide and it's that beautiful light in the sky before the sun comes up.

[B: 47:15.5]
And it's just really soft, glowing, luminescence, serene beauty. And so there's a Latin expression, momento mori. And so the conquering general will be coming in his chariot into the city and the slave would be standing behind him on the chariot, whispering into his ear, memento mori.

[B: 47:34.6]
Remember you're going to die. And so the painting I'm working now is called Comes the Dark. And it's kind of the opposite of Early Light. And it's all this dark, ominous. There's slivers of color here, you know, like the sky and then all this dark, ominous clouds are layering and coming in.

[B: 47:52.4]
And so that's the concept. So everything should start with a concept and then you figure out, you know, how to, how to fill that in. If you have questions, you go back to your concept. But I talk quite a bit about that in the book. And so then, well, they also, I.

[A: 48:06.7]
Think you've got the Kirby foundation and for this to live beyond you. You know, we're all, we're all, you know, I, I interview a lot of people with Eastern philosophy and I was interviewing a guy the other day at Dr.

[A: 48:23.8]
Sikumar Rao and he said, well, when is the last time you ever saw our hearse with a U Haul behind it? And the reality is, is none of us is going to be taking any of this with us. But I like the fact that I can direct my listeners to go to the Kirby Foundation.

[A: 48:41.0]
And you do accept donations there for the foundation or.

[B: 48:44.7]
No, haven't set that up yet. But, but, but that's a good question. And if someone wants to donate, then, you know, by all means, because then I can expand what I'm doing to help and share with others.

[A: 48:56.7]
Well, I think the legacy here is that Paul Kirby passes this on to somebody so that, you know, the work can continue. Right. Like you have these students that are coming and so on.

[B: 49:07.0]
Yeah.

[A: 49:07.4]
So I think that's great.

[B: 49:08.7]
Yeah. Let me just inject you real fast because I know, I don't know how much time we have, but the Curry foundation is a 501C3, and I formed that a while ago. And, and, you know, and so we do want to expand our reach. I'm thinking of STEM and STEAM because, you know, young people learning multiple disciplines, engineering will be a natural.

[B: 49:27.7]
And so, you know, donation would help pursue that, that avenue.

[A: 49:32.0]
Yeah. Well, Paul, you've been a great guest on Inside Personal Growth, and this truly is Inside Personal Growth because there isn't anything that isn't written about in this book to find and live your fulfilling life that people today need to pay attention to.

[A: 49:53.1]
The process you've given the idea of fusioneering, the idea of bringing that up and allowing people to really understand, to find maybe multiple interests and bring them together. The apple pie, the ice cream, and oh, by the way, the caramel syrup on top of that.

[A: 50:09.2]
So you, you've been a great guest. I want to thank you for being on the show. I want to thank you for taking this time and for all of you who are watching this video still right now, I hope you enjoyed the collage of video that we put in between Paul and I speaking so that you can see those and all those you listening.

[A: 50:29.3]
You really do need to go to the websites and again, without being a broken record, you're just going to go to the fusepathway.com and you there, you can click on videos, you can go to his YouTube channel, which we'll have a link to as well.

[A: 50:48.5]
Paul, thanks for being on Inside Personal Growth. Have a beautiful rest of your day. You're a wonderful soul and I'm glad you're out there helping people fuse their interests together.

[B: 51:00.4]
Well, thank you. It's been an enjoyable session together.