The Richly or Poorly Show
Show Transcript
shdawson-20260113.mp3
Episode 01/13/2026
01/13/2026
Hello! Welcome to The Richly or Poorly Show!
My name is Dr. Stephen Dawson, and I am your show host.
Thank you for joining me.
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The show's motto is unmistakable: RICHLY IS GOODLY!
Please consider how you define the term good as we journey through life together in your pursuit of defining the term richly in your life.
I spoke of the term reasoning four weeks ago. Today, we will look at the term and apply it to all we have covered so far.
I hope the two stories you hear at the end of today's episode will encourage you by the stories helping to propel your effort to live your life more richly. I know the two stories added much thrust to my effort to live life more richly. I trust you will benefit greatly from what you will hear today.
The term reasoning is a plural term. It is a noun. A noun states an attribute of a person, place, thing, or idea. Reasoning is defined as the process of forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences from facts or premises by one or more statements presented in justification or explanation of a belief or action.
Here is the long and short of reasoning: It is either used entirely or not at all. There is no middle ground with its application.
A partial usage of reason is the same as being kinda pregnant or kinda dead. Neither of these three exists. They never have, and they never will.
The scope of using reason must be defined as the first step. Scope is achieved by determining what a person wants to accomplish. Use reason to accomplish the desired result, and you are done. You have used reason successfully.
The first thought that comes to my mind after hearing this definition of reason is: Can reasoning use The Truth. The answer is yes. The answer is yes because facts are a subset of The Truth. A set is a group of related items. The nature of the items and their relationship can literally be anything imaginable. A subset is a part of an entire set, with a set being an entire collection of something. A subset means there is more than one subset comprising a set. Here is another way to define the terms set and subset: A connected series or succession of objects; a number of things used or classed together.
So, how does one use reason successfully? They use the first principle I have found as paramount, undeniable, and non-negotiable to living life more richly...
Principle 1:
Understand Your Data Lifecycle
Reason is a set of statements. If this is the case, then that is the result. Here is an example of reasoning. Water is wet. If you are in water, then either some or all of you is wet.
The background on reasoning is that the Israelites first started with reasoning, the Greeks are famous for using reasoning, and the rest of humanity has experienced various forms of success and failure using reasoning.
Albert Einstein never worked with radioactive material in his entire life. However, he is credited with discovering the theory to harness radioactive material as energy. More on that statement in a few minutes by way of a true story to help contextualize the term reasoning for you.
I have used reasoning many times in my work, teaching, consulting, and advising. I have used it many times with technologies, but I cannot say that technologies use reasoning. They use whatever they are limited by in their design for building whatever it is they can scale up to achieve. I can say I have been fortunate to order my thinking by way of programming various technologies. My work in business as an entrepreneur is the purest form of reasoning I have experienced. If I cannot prove to a buyer that what I am selling is worth it, then they are not going to buy it. There you are, another set of IF-THEN statements to help explain reasoning.
Reasoning occurs all around us. The kitchen table discussion can be the simplest form of reasoning imaginable. What needs to happen to help care for the family? Reasoning does not get any more personal than that. My time working with executive leadership teams and board members is when they are stuck, must get unstuck, and ask me for help. The help I bring is strategy. Strategy answers one and only one question: What do we do? Then, the various parts of the organization do what must be done to accomplish the what part of the strategy. It either happens or the company suffers. There is no such thing as multiple strategies. There is either one strategy or no strategy. There is no running multiple families. There is either one family or no family. There is either an executive leadership team running the company, or there is no company.
Now, the story I promised you.
A friend of my family worked with Albert Einstein to help him realize the discovery of the theory to harness radioactive material as energy. Please understand clearly, there has never been an invention of nuclear energy. It was humanity's understanding of nuclear energy that occurred. You see, the Sun above us is a perpetual nuclear explosion with the greatest energy source known to mankind.
So, here is the story.
The friend of my family, I will call him Bob. Bob went to school and earned his undergraduate degree in mathematics, graduating in 1940. He then went and immediately did his graduate degree in mathematics. He graduated in 1942. He left with a degree in physics. He did both of his degrees at an Indiana school. So, how does one walk away with a degree in physics when they study mathematics? It happened because he only had a high-level understanding of physics based on the courses he took for his degree.
Anyway, he ended up with a job offer right before he graduated in 1942 for a new research project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with the Manhattan Project. His work was to perform mathematics with other scientists to arrive at answers based on reasoning.
So, about a year passed, and the folks in Oak Ridge could not understand how to complete the scope of their work. Remember, I said earlier today, the scope of using reason must be defined as the first step. The scope is accomplished by determining what a person wants to accomplish. Use reason to accomplish the desired result, and you are done. You have used reason successfully. The folks in Oak Ridge felt, but did not know for certain, that they were about 50% of the way to understanding how to harness radioactive material as energy.
Einstein became an American citizen in 1940. He was working at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He felt, but did not know for certain, that he was about 50% of the way to understanding how to harness radioactive material as energy. He ended up coming to Oak Ridge in June 1943 to meet with the Manhattan Project team.
So, Bob was in that meeting. Remember, Bob is a mathematician. He tells the story that does not include him using approximations, but specifics. He said 41 people were in the room for the meeting. He said a senior scientist of the Manhattan Project team presented their material on a chalkboard with white chalk lasting 19 minutes. He said Einstein was silent. He said they asked Einstein if he understood what had been presented. He said Einstein started to cry and was silent. He said the presenter of the Manhattan Project team asked Einstein if he was okay. He said Einstein replied, "I have the other half."
Bob said Einstein spent the next 44 minutes presenting his material. Bob said it was in the last 15 seconds of the Einstein presentation when everyone in the room, including Einstein, understood the theory to harness radioactive material as energy. It was reasoning that helped humanity come to this understanding. The rest, as they say, is history.
The best student, by far, that I ever taught was Jacob. He was in first grade. I was teaching music theory in private practice while I was doing my undergraduate degree. His mother asked me to teach Jacob music theory. I told her I teach with college-level material. She was fine with it. We agreed not to tell Jacob that the textbook I used to teach him was college-level material. Jacob listened, repeated back to me what I told him, and did his assignments each week. His mother wrote out flash cards of the learning material to help him remember things. Jacob is living proof to me that learning by way of reasoning is not about either age or skill. It is *all* about the willingness to be humble, listen, read, and come to conclusions that cannot be denied.
How about you? How many problems in your life did you see running away from you, never to return, by way of using reasoning to accomplish your work as I spoke to you today?
How much more richly can you live your life by eradicating false statements from how you proceed to live your life?
You see, only liars and those who live in fantasy do not like reasoning. They either will not or cannot be held accountable for their conclusions. There is nothing wrong with this condition. However, my worldview cannot have this behavior in my life. So, they cannot be in my life. My morality says if I cannot agree with their worldview, then I cannot let their ethics bring me the harm that will most certainly result from lying and living in fantasy.
Well, that's it for today.
RICHLY IS GOODLY!
Are you understanding more about the terms richly and goodly in your life and how you want to apply them in your life?
Please consider all you have heard from me today.
I hope you are excited about how you can apply the material I present to you on the show to your life, so you can live your life more richly than you have ever known!
Try to settle in your mind my role in your life. Doing so will help you be ready to continue your journey with loads of joy and excitement about the good results in your life gained from experiencing all I have to share with you.
Thank you for joining me for this episode of The Richly or Poorly Show!
I have enjoyed presenting to you today.
Until the next episode, I hope you will be safe and join me next week.
Until then.
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