Robb is a leader and social innovator in human development and integral metatheory, advising entrepreneurs, executives and thought leaders on leading-edge social innovation, vertical development, leadership development and company growth.
He is CEO and co-founder, with American philosopher Ken Wilber, of Integral Life, a digital hub supporting the global trend towards meta-integrative human capacities (representing ~4% of adults in advanced economies). At Integral Life, he has spearheaded dialogues, courses and events that build skills and tackle pressing problems, including climate change and the rise of populism and the end of US hegemony. He has produced media and events that include Full Spectrum Mindfulness, The Future of Christianity, The Fourth Turning, WhatNEXT, Beyond Seeking, the Climate Leadership Campaign and Loving Completely.
He was founder and CEO of Chrysallis, the world’s most comprehensive human development app, which offered hundreds of practices across more than 50 areas of human life. Chrysallis was nominated for the 2015 Goldman Sachs Healthcare Startup of the Year and the IONS award for Transformational Technology before being acquired in 2016 by ADURO, where he now chairs the Advisory Board and supports Fortune 500 companies to deploy full-spectrum human performance initiatives.
He was a co-founder and partner in Nevada Ventures, the state’s first venture capital fund, dedicated himself to building Nevada’s innovation economy (syndicating over $200 million in capital). He is a former director of Alere, a three-time Inc. 500 awardee, which became the largest population health management company in the United States.
Robb was named Nevada’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is former president of Entrepreneur’s Organization Reno-Tahoe. He started the Nevada Ventures Nanoscience Program at the University of Nevada and spun-out Nevada Nano, whose detection of explosive, chemical and biological substances was chosen by Scientific American as the best defense-related technology and closed on its $25 million Series A in 2017.
He is a graduate of University of Nevada, the Venture Capital Institute and held the Certified Management Accountant and Certified in Financial Management designations. He is a fellow of Desert Research Institute, a former fellow of Aspen Institute and former trustee of Nevada Museum of Art. He was named to Nevada Top 20 under 40 lists in three different decades and in 2012 he was nominated for the TED Prize. He gave a TEDx talk in 2013 on The Transformational Life.
Links
@robbsmith
Show Notes
*For a basic map of Integral Theory
*There were some technical issues with the podcast. The content certainly exceeds the minor issues, so please stick with this. The technical issues were only on Christine’s side. Robb’s audio came through clear and clean. At the very end we look at the 3 stages of relationships. If you have had any personal relationship issues, marriage breakdown for example, you will find this model very informative.
The four areas Robb referred to in a social media post.
1.Private preferences 2. Beauty as ontology 3. Evolutionary sexual dynamics 4. Lust/polarity as moral good
The CES event 2019 –female robotic sex toys still too controversial for 2019
A hyperobject – in Integral Theory we have a term or an occasion that is not a pre-given reality where everyone can agree on precisely what happened from an objective point of view.
A complex objective reality and a complex intersubjective reality, and complex subjective realities all of which are co-arising at the same time.
A hyperobject cannot be unpacked without a fair amount of patient, methodical discussion.
In a postmodern and post #metoo environment we have a hair trigger sensitivity = anything that looks like it might or could insult anyone for any reason
The mechanics of the hair trigger sensitivity are interesting if you watch them play out in your own consciousness
Seeing ourselves on the other side of the iPhone recording us and this is making us in turn more and more sensitive. The positive side of this is we are becoming more sensitive to marginalised groups.
Victoria Secret is serving a very important part of us as evolutionary primates. It’s tempting but not accurate to reduce it to a post #metoo sensitivity judgement.
In reference to Victoria Secret, don’t apologise for who you are. Don’t buy into the myth that what you are doing is sexist or oppressive or morally improper. In fact it is serving a really important layer of overall needs and drive structures that is one of the most fundamental needs and drives that we have for men and women.
Post modern puritanism – as we come into this hyper sensitivity where everything is up for debate as to whether it is insulting and anyone can be insulted by anything.
The natural tension between how fast do you grow and how true do you stay to your core values.
The arising of diversity over the last 50 years as part of the Green Structure of consciousness (Green structure is one of the stages of development of Integral Theory)
Fenty and Victoria Secret are serving different places on the moral, aesthetic and taste of functions for their audiences
Much of what is judged as beautiful is embedded in the brain at an evolutionary level, for both men and women.
We are seeing a proliferation of options and a proliferation of voices
Beauty as youth negating the possibility of beauty as age. To Robb this conversation on beauty feels like a hyperobject
One part of the story is that we have this really innate part of our brain structure where our emotional soup in the mid part of the brain triggers us with these valuable and important drives towards a certain kind of selection mechanism. It is not, however, the full picture.
As we mature and become both more aesthetically, morally and interpersonally sophisticated we become more refined in how we think about beauty as not just what is turning on the lower half of the body. The complexity of my discernment is – is this someone I can talk to, is this someone who can meet me, is interesting, who has lived experience and has some wisdom to share with me..all these other factors layer on to that core drive.
As we go from monochrome to technicolour where we are seeing way more, the way we experience beauty becomes more complex and we see more of it over time. (If we are evolving vertically as humans – some people do not)
No moral judgement of a women who gets botox/cosmetic surgery – only that person can authentically report whether what they are doing is congruent and healthy for them. Are they doing it because they are coming from a place of lack and shadow, or trying to cover up for trauma, vs someone who says…no I actually just want to look my best and I feel better this way, I feel more beautiful, younger…
We need to be really careful to honour the first person perspective of the person making these decisions. We have our own second person perspective (our opinion)
The traditional structures have judged the archetype of the whore in a really brutal way for all kinds of reasons that have to do with social sanction of a certain type of behaviour by females.
Females have the power sexually (excluding physical domination like rape, force, violence)
Which environments or which subgroups are still struggling with female lust?
The polarity of lust is an extraordinary animating powerful energetic gift – it is a moral good and a moral danger
“Inhabiting anything more fully aways requires inhabiting it a lot less fully along the way.”
Regression via progression – if we are teaching everyone that being constantly triggered or sensitive or constantly afraid of our own bodies or others bodies – it has many negative by-products including shame and the sense that we cannot express ourselves fully – creates a sense of being restricted freedom wise, the “thought police.”
Sex as a biological function, sex as a spiritual function and sex as an adventure.
How Robb and Tiffany keep animating the aliveness of a nearly 20 year marriage.
1.Structurally – time, family, date nights – the house you pick, financial condition, etc.
The marriage come first. (Before career, money, even the kids.)
2. From an intersubjective point of view – the interior of the relationship – their core values are really aligned, and they have skills that serve these values. For example they are both conscientious
3. See marriage as a container for the further growth and development of each other – holding each other in this adventure of growth and development over the life course.
4. Robb and Tiffany try to keep the polarity alive constantly. How am I polarising the relationship from a point of attraction?
Marriages need to keep their stories alive.
The three stages of psychosexual maturity
Stage 1. Traditional man, traditional women. We are very familiar with this stage as it has been the predominant model. Stage 1. has a lot of polarity built into it.
Stage 2. What emerged in the modern stage was the masculine become more sensitive, the feminine become more autonomous and aggressive and independent, which resulted in them both getting closer to each other, reducing the polarity. The polarity collapses. For example, becoming best friends but with no sexual spark. Often this Stage 2. understanding is seen currently as the most sophisticated way to be sexually. It is confusing our boys and disappointing our girls.
Stage 3. Preserve but transcend the polarity and the power and what was interesting about Stage 1. You can also preserve the sensitivity of the male, for example, from Stage 2. and the independence of the women that was gained in Stage 2. It becomes an extraordinary and powerful dance for both partners.
To find a Stage 3. mate become Stage 3. yourself.
Polarity at Stage 3. is a conscious recognition that polarity is necessary for healthy existence. It requires an ongoing dialogue between both parties on who holds what type of polarity and how to keep the tension of that polarity fully expressed. It is a constant ongoing evolutionary engagement.
The broader the polarities and the bigger the container gets, the more you can hold, the more of life you can hold, the greater the relationship.