Why Starting With Where Changes Everything With Tommy Kilpatrick

What if the fastest route to clarity is the one we usually skip—where are you, when is it, and who are you—before asking what to do next? In this episode, Jackie sat down with Tommy Kilpatrick to explore his book, Human Occidental Owner’s Manual, and translate big human questions into practical habits for teachers, creators, and lifelong learners. Using a crisp computer setup analogy, we reset our defaults: location determines time, identity shapes action, and context beats assumptions.

From there, we unpack communication through vivid sports metaphors that actually change how you host conversations. Conversation plays like tennis with cooperative volleys, debate ranges from elegant fencing to MMA intensity, dialogue becomes chess for co-solving, and discussion moves like rugby with many roles carrying the ball. We also map single-voice modes—lecture, rant, sermon, story—and show how choosing the right mode prevents conflicts and keeps teams, classes, and families aligned.

We close with the “first fork,” the early identity choice that silently guides a life. Write one sentence for each of the four essential human questions, choose your fork for the week, and watch momentum return. If this conversation helped you reset your settings, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review to help others find the show. What’s the first question you’ll answer today?

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Transcript

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Welcome & Book Setup

Jackie Pelegrin 0:00

Hello, and welcome to the Designing with Love Podcast. I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you information, tips, and tricks as an instructional designer. Hello, instructional designers and educators. Welcome to episode 96 of the Designing with Love podcast. Today I'm welcoming back Tommy Kilpatrick to discuss his book, Human Occidental Owner's Manual. Think about it. We buy a product and it comes with an owner's manual. When you and I were born, did our parents receive one? Not for me. Tommy realized that no one has written one since the advent of writing about 5,000 years ago. So he wrote one and is encouraging each of us to try our own, even as an open source project that all can contribute and benefit from. Today we'll unpack the chapter called The Four Essential Human Questions and Tommy's First Fork and then turn those ideas into practical, hope forward habits you can work with this week. Welcome back to the show, Tommy.

Tommy Kilpatrick 1:03

Thank you.

Jackie Pelegrin 1:04

Yes, great. I know you I had you on my show initially in June. So this is really great to have you back on and talk about your book and some of your practical tips. And so I'm really happy that we're getting into some of those things that I talked about in that foundation

The Computer Analogy: Where, When, Who

Jackie Pelegrin 1:19

today. So you say that your your book, the Human Occidental Owners Manual, is for Westerners who will understand it better using a computer analogy. So can you give us the quick computer setup analogy?

Tommy Kilpatrick 1:54

So when you buy a brand new computer and you open up the box and you open it up, push the button, say on, the first thing that blinks it says, Where am I? And that's one of the most important questions we have is where are you? And then once you type where you're at, then it knows a time. So where always determines the when. Let's say you work for a company and they're in New York and they want all the New York time. They don't want to start figuring out about time, or when you don't change time zone in uh Arizona, you don't go to uh daylight savings. Well, then you say to the computer, you're in New York, but even though you're not, you're in uh Arizona. But that is what the company wants it to be. Everybody timestamps their time. They don't care what time you're up in the morning or something like that. So that's the night, and then the sex question is who are you? And then you can personalize it with your name. So the right there, right off the top, is who, uh, where and when are those three most important questions to ask first before you can ask the what? Because you don't even know what you're talking about before you don't get the location, the timing, and who are we talking about. So me it's okay to interrupt people and go, who where were you? Uh when was this? Oh, five years ago. Okay, I thought it was like there you go. So I always try to do that, get that

Communication As Community & Family

Tommy Kilpatrick 3:18

established. And so um in a uh in my owner's manual, the most important thing is communication. And communication is community, and that means to share something and to make common. And what we do is we make common with our family. So family is the most important thing, and that's communication. So we kind of see family as a social structure, but what we do with each other is to communicate, to make something in common, and that's with our language, so we speak with each other, and we might even use sign language in that sense. So there's lots of different ways of communicating. So I have figured out that there are, and I'm always open to more. So as you said, I encourage people to write their own, and your friends, you've got a better owner's manner than me, I'll drop mine and pick up yours. And if I can pick up some good things, I will do that. So that's I'm really an open kind of guy that I'm gonna learn this. So I've come up with about four different ways that we communicate

Modes Of Communication & Sports Metaphors

Tommy Kilpatrick 4:13

with two or more people. Okay, so if we're talking a little bit more plural answer, so the one is conversation, conversation, and I came up with the opposite con proseation. So that's uh uh new newlogy. Nuology means making up new words, so I like making up new words, so there's a conversation versus with poetic thing, and then there's con prosation, and that would be more written out thanks and stuff like that. And I use an analogy to uh a sport, so I thought up of a sport of tennis. So when we have a conversation, I hit the ball into your court, and then you answer or respond to me, and then you add something to communicate back to me, and you hit the ball back in my court, and then I respond to what you said, and then I can write up another question or think of another, or not write up but think of another question and advance it back to you, or a statement, which might demand you go, are you really true about that? Where's the evidence? And see how it goes back and forth. So there's rules and there are violations, and then another one is a debate. So the difference between that would be fencing. So if you're gonna use your foil or your epi and you fight back and forth, it could be very uh artistic, it could be very with finesse, and you're not really trying to stab each other, it's just a fun touch, or you have to touch, just trying to figure out you know, this if I do this way, you go that way, and then there's also MMA. So that's oh yeah, and then so you might get into a bait, it's just brutal. And so I put it either one. You can do finesse or you can do brutality. Then a dialogue is really different. So I will say to my fiance, I want to have a dialogue, and so she kind of knows what we're gonna be doing. That's kind of like a game of chess. So you never take the uh the king off table, the king falls down or something like that. This is not it. What you're doing is you're thinking through four or five steps ahead, and you're thinking about what your opponent is gonna do. So instead of an opponent in your dialogue, I have an idea, honey. I need you to help me with this. Oh, well, did you think about this? No. Well, if anybody said that, this is how you counter it. And I don't need a devil's advocate, I need someone who's on my side who's going, okay, I see your logic, this and this and this, and then you get to do the same thing with her. So you think through five good arguments against you. Well, here's my argument, and here's your argument. But here, if you use this, it's better uh uh foundation, or it's more facts, or here's more of a logical thing, and here's a better conclusion than yours. And so you're you're trying to solve a problem. So a dialogue focuses on that with two people really intimately trying to help each other out. Then you have a discussion, and a discussion, I use it more like rugby. It's it's not so much of the brutality, it's the activity. And if you look at the rugby team, it is every single body shape and size. It's not football players that are big and strong, it's everybody. You need the little guy who's fast, you need a big, huge guy that doesn't move very fast, but it's just a tank. So any anybody with any physique can play rugby. And so those are each one has rules and violations. And then I'll just kind of back off and stop because I'm getting into a lecture. Obviously, you're obviously getting tired of this. Then there's a single uh way of communicating, and I've come up with a lecture, which I tend to do, a rant. So a friend of mine came up with that idea, and yeah, you can take a rant, it says single person just talking, and then you have a sermon, and then you have a story. So if it's once upon a time, people love to tell stories, other people tell you you should do this, you should do that, and bingo, right? There's a sermon, or here I am ranting and waving on a lecture.

Jackie Pelegrin 8:01

I love that. Uh and I love how you use the sports analogy because it's something we can relate to in society, right? And we can make that connection. So I like that. Yeah, that's really great. Because I've been doing some episodes, solo episodes lately and from my podcast. And I've been asking ChatGPT to kind of help me come up with an analogy or something that it it can relate to. So the steps in the process kind of, you know, like a road trip or something like that. So I like the sports analogy, that's great. And then you can kind of relate to it and go, oh yeah, I get it. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, a debate can be uh different forms of that. So I like that. And it's great that you've been trying it out on your fiance a little bit too, and and others to say, how how is this working? You know, is there something you know that I need to adjust? And the fact that you're willing to take others' owner's manuals and you know, be able to take theirs and adapt and like you said, take pieces of it or you know, um, it's a community. I like that. Um, and that's that's what education is all about. Yeah, yeah, being able to communicate. Right, exactly. Right. I I love that. So to to help us design instruction, how can a teacher use the questions where, when, and who to start the day

Applying Where, When, Who In Teaching

Jackie Pelegrin 9:17

well? Um, those questions that you mentioned earlier.

Tommy Kilpatrick 9:57

Oh, sure. You're gonna have to have that right in the beginning is uh when you're communicating with your students, uh where are they from? Who are they, who are they? And uh sometimes they're on different developmental levels. So you speak to one student this way, but you gotta tone it down, you gotta use more simple words. Or the other one is they're so bored, they're so bright, they're so quick to catch everything. You gotta give them some extra little uh beyond what a school would ask you to do. And so just keep them occupied, because I found myself bored in school, that's my mind's going all the time. So that's where those first three questions is who, where, and when establish that before you do the what. We go into questions, usually in the first grade, and we never revisit them. So here's a good opportunity to say, okay, class, we learned this in first grade the questions. So let's go back. What would be the first question to ask us? And they're all gonna say, why? Because the TV, the news, always asks why. And why do you ask why? That's to stop a conversation and to start a debate. Because that's one of the violations of a conversation is to ask why. Well, why ask why? Well, it starts a debate. You know, it doesn't. Yes, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. See? So that's good. It puts it down right away.

Jackie Pelegrin 11:12

Yeah, I love it.

Tommy Kilpatrick 11:15

So and then who are you? And we kind of get into those kind of questions too. And I think of always Alice in Wonderland where the caterpillar says, Who are you? Well, I'm Alice. So that's just a name for a body. So that's the important thing to start off the day or start off your your day on what do you want? What if this year and I where are you coming from? Where are you in life? And it's not necessarily where you are, you could do it socially, where you interact that way. And where you are in life, there's a toddler and there's someone who's about to expire, and there's in between. So where are you in life? You start in a family, and then I was lucky enough about 15 years ago to meet a lady with a two-year-old, and it started my whole life because what was I looking forward to? Death and uh getting sick and old and you know, expiring. So, with that family, it gave me a whole new lease on life. So it's a different way of attitude, and it can sure help you with your uh lesson planning and what you're thinking about, what you're gonna do that day.

Jackie Pelegrin 12:10

Right, exactly. So let's uh Tommy get into the framework before we go a little bit deeper. So to you, um, so what are the four eternal human questions that you've and I think we talked about this in the first episode too. So, what are those four eternal human questions that are so important to to know today?

Tommy Kilpatrick 12:30

And what they are is one, where did I come from? Two, where am I gonna go when I die? The body dies. Three, who are you? And four, what's your purpose? So we if we just step back and go where, where, who, and then what? Ah, so where, where, right there, that's more important. Where is the most important question? You gotta know where you're at. If you're lost and you don't know where you are, if you kind of know where you came from, well, then you can kind of turn

The Four Essential Human Questions

Tommy Kilpatrick 13:00

around and backtrack and stuff and see the sun and you're gonna have to get back that way. But if you don't know where you're from, you have no idea where you're going. And that's again where people are lost in this world. We're not brought up with again those questions and going back to almost where are you? Where are you not physically, but where are you mentally, where are you all kinds of those kind of questions? So that where is the most important question? You've got to answer that yourself. But then that answers goes into one of the forks. The first fork is a primary decision. So if you make a primary decision of which fork in the road you're gonna take, then you're gonna go this way or that way. Kind of back to the analogy of my computer. Um axioms are rules, so the computer operates by rules. But then when you have if you do this, the computer will do that. Those are the forks and the roads. And that's where the um the uh so I'm trying to remember your your question was about the I'm getting off topic, so help me out.

Jackie Pelegrin 14:01

So it's okay. The four uh the four eternal questions, yeah, right. Oh, right.

Tommy Kilpatrick 14:04

So the four turn, so then who are you would be a very simple question. It sounds like that, but just give me your name, but that's a name of your body. We know about mind, body, and spirit. So I say, well, what's your name of your mind? What's the name of your spirit? No one's ever asked you those questions before. Yes, that's the whole point of this, is to ask you the question you've been asked before. So who are you by your by your with your body? Is it could be a name. If you don't like that name, make up a new one and go to court and have your name changed, it's sad. The other one is what is your mind? And my mind is I use Latin, it helps me out a little bit, is concepcion simplicado, which is simple concept. So I like to take a very complex thing and make it very simple. That's just the way I always am. So that's my mind. So mine's talking, I'm talking simple concepts to get things through. And my spirit is uh my spirit is a wonderful healer. So I am a healer full of wonder. I do the reflexology and I see it working. I go, I am amazed. I am the one who surprised more than anybody else that actually works. So that would be a question to you and your audience is who are you? You give me a name that you were given. It's not your name, someone gave it to you. And you can have a nickname, you can have another name, you can go by that. There's as long as you're not defrauding. You can call yourself Bozo the client. Well, that's our trademark, but uh have an untrademarked name, and then you want to then uh have a name for your spirit, and it takes time to think about it, and that's really who you are. Oh what's your purpose? And so we can kind of dive into that too.

Jackie Pelegrin 15:41

Wow, I love that. So it allows you to go from the the the things that are surface level, you know, what's your name? And then you you just go deeper and deeper each with each question, right? Um I like that, yeah. And it really gets people to thinking about things that they haven't thought about before. And I think that helps us as educators too, because then if we understand who our learners are uh and where they're coming from, I think we can design better instruction for them. We can teach those learners better. So I think it really, really helps to get to know who they are. One of the things we do in instructional design, and it's done also in other industries too, like uh marketing, customer service, is they they do they create uh user personas or learner personas and are in the case of where what I do, and that allows you to actually have uh a person that you're creating that learning for. Now they don't actually exist, but uh what you're doing is you're taking the the different um traits and experiences of your actual learners and you're putting that into a persona. And then a lot of times, you

Naming Body, Mind, Spirit & Purpose

Jackie Pelegrin 16:49

know, they they have tools that you can create where you can put all of that together and then you can print out, you can even put a face to that individual and just you know, uh and I encourage even sometimes with my my listeners, if they do that, to print it out and put it on their desk, put it, you know, in a place where they can see it. And then as they're developing that training or that curriculum, then they get to see that every day, and they know that's who they're designing for. So it kind of reminds me of that, Tommy. We're we're yeah, we're doing that.

Tommy Kilpatrick 17:19

Yeah, you are absolutely right. You're you're doing it, and we might call it an avatar. A lot of people use the word avatar for an image. And you can actually have the kids, you could have your students drawing out who are you? It doesn't have to be artistic, just it could be uh an item, it could be uh a noun, it could be a verb, it could be electricity. You can make up anything you want. And then that's so great, is that then you can use a picture and you can relate to them not only with their name, you know, and then we um the name, but you also can then focus in on who they really are, and and you can figure that out. You don't have to wait for them to tell it out. You've been with them long enough, you know what they're doing.

Jackie Pelegrin 18:01

Right. That's so true. Wow, I love that being able to connect that those four eternal human questions with you know what what those what are those everyday things that we do? Right, to help others. I love that. Great, I love that, Tommy. That's wonderful. Oh yeah, yeah, that's great. So um I've got a quick bonus question for all of our note takers. This is something I've been doing recently uh for my episode. So um uh you and I, we've heard it said that it's not what you know, it's who you know. I've heard that a lot in business too. So, how do you answer the third question? Who are you?

Tommy Kilpatrick 18:39

Yes, that's a very good question. And that's a difficult question. People always just relate with their name, and that's who they are, but they could say what their job is, you know, what they identify with their work. That's what a lot of men do. And then when they retire, they die very quickly because there's no purpose. And um so what you can do is really simple is have a quiet space for like a little 10-minute um process to do. It's take a few minutes just to relax and do some breathing. And the funny thing is, if you look up spirit, the spirit definition is breathing. So if you want to bring God back into your life, do some deep breathing. And it's funny how uh the word uh is not pronounceable. You can't pronounce God's name because it's the breathing. How do you spell that? You can't spell it because it's you are whatever. So you can break the letters down, y-h w h if you want to, but you can't speak it because you're breathing it. So take a few minutes, just two minutes there to breathe in and out, get the relaxing. And then what I offer you is a Visa card watch. Not a not a not a credit card, but a Visa card. It comes from a little bit of the Buddhist training, is that V stands for all right now whole view. So take the minutes just to take in the view. Uh yeah, it's everything. Don't look at anything moving, just look at anything and everything you can touch, you can smell, you can taste it, you can hear it, and then the color, the shape,

Personas, Avatars, & Learner Insight

Tommy Kilpatrick 20:07

the texture, and then at the end is when you already start to see movement. So ignore all the moving parts in your work you're looking around, and that will give you a whole place of where you're at. Uh I stands for right now whole intent. So take that minute or two to think through what is my intent. I'm my intent here is to communicate with you about my book. I'm so excited about and your intent is to bring this material to your to your audience. So we have our intent in it's a sense of alignment. So there's no conflict, there's no controversy, controversy, so we're a counterverse. And so the next thing we do is to um is uh S is speech. So now you speak it out loud, even if nobody is there, so speak out your intent, like I just did. And this go A stands for action. So just go out and do it. Don't sit around and think about it. Say it and then say, I'm going to, well, you can say it's for me to do this intent. It's gonna take this, this, this steps. And today I'm gonna take the first step, the second step, immediate step, little steps, and then say it out loud and say you're gonna do it, and just go do it. So that's simple. So I'm giving you a Visa card so that you can then do right now whole view, intent, speech, and action.

Jackie Pelegrin 21:27

I love that. Wow. So maybe you could even someone could put it like in a like a quadrant, almost like a SWOT analysis, but you're doing this uh differently. So you could have like maybe a table with four quadrants, and you could, you know, if you if someone wants to write write that down as they're doing that, they could they could do that. That would be kind of cool to do that, right?

Tommy Kilpatrick 21:49

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Jackie Pelegrin 21:50

Yeah, yeah. So because I know if uh I know I'm a visual person. I know there's people on my team that are they say they're visual. So that would I'm kind of imagining how you know you would go about doing that. Um, but yeah, you don't even have to write it all down. But you know, if if someone chooses to do that, that would be a cool kind of a neat way to do that. I like that. That's great. Yeah.

Tommy Kilpatrick 22:13

There's a book called How uh it's a it's a free book. It's out there on the internet. It's called and it's been written for many years ago. It's called uh how to make people like you in 90 seconds or less. And in there it talks about how 55% of the people are visual and 30% are kinesthetic, more feeling. That's that's where I kind of fit into, and 50% of the people auditory. So very few people get it from a lecture. So that's all we've been doing for you know 10,000 years of been standing up lecturing the people, and it just doesn't work for most people. Most people

The VISA Framework: View, Intent, Speech, Action

Tommy Kilpatrick 22:45

are visual, they need to have some kind of a and then just write it up yourself. If you can't get a video done for it, just draw it out yourself. It doesn't have to be accurate, just close enough, and you'll get the idea. So start drawing your ideas out on paper and be visual, or more the feeling, be more of a touching and feeling the comfortable uh sweatshirt or something very soft and something that's pleasurable to you.

Jackie Pelegrin 23:08

Right. Yeah, I like that. So maybe maybe you and I could work together and come up with like a template or something, and then I can uh I try I can drop it in the show notes or something like that. So we'll see if we can work on something like that and and do that. So that'd be great. I love that. Yeah. So here's the last question for today. Then we'll continue the conversation in part three. Um, how do you answer the last question? What is your purpose if you don't know? And does that tie into your first fork that asks us to choose an identity of who we are?

Tommy Kilpatrick 23:40

Yes, it really does determine that. So who are you? And uh you go back to I I talk to people that are lost in their life, and I'll say, when we were five, six, or seven, there was something you were passionate about. You just couldn't get enough of it. And then someone along the way said, No, that's a stupid idea. No, that won't work. Oh, that's not gonna get you a job, you know, how are you gonna make it on an as an artist? You know, and you got the negativity and you listen to them. And the Latin word for listen means to obey. So if I say the word elephant, you have a picture of an elephant in your head, and I put that image in your head, not that particular image, but I made you think about that. So that's the thing that when we listen to people, listen to me. Well, what you want in them to do is obey you. So that's been our thing about power and control, and that's in my uh axiom. Um it's number 13 of 14, but it should be number one. It's always about power and control. So that's where the uh power and control is all what we're trying to deal with in life. And so what you do in uh to know who you are is just take those minutes and go back through your life and take the image that you had first and kind of run it through as a movie. It's not maybe gonna be the first time, maybe not the 10th time, but you keep working this movie, go over and over again. Okay, this happened, this happened, this happened. Oh my gosh, when I was six and I was in school and I left about airplanes, and that's all I could think about was airplanes. Well, get involved with aviation, you don't have to fly, but just be involved with aviation somehow. So that can help you find out your core where where you came into this world with. I believe you have a uh a holy contract. We have holy water, we have the holy spirit, but I believe we have a holy contract. So and we're born, we're for we forget what that is. And so that's where getting back to that is looking back at your life saying, where were you five, six, or seven, and then pursue that in some way you can today. Because today there's no jobs, jobs are not gonna be happening anymore. It was a 1750 thinking, and there's no company gonna be expanding, hiring you. So you've got to kind of figure this out yourself. How are you gonna survive in this world without a job? And that can be back to what you were supposed to be doing.

Jackie Pelegrin 26:02

Wow, I love that. So you're getting back to the root of uh of you know, what like you said, five or seven years old when you were younger before uh probably before life started getting you know more layered and more complicated, right? Uh, because when we become adults, we kind of and I was talking to somebody about this the other day, Tommy, uh on one of my other episodes about how we we do, we lose track of that. Um, and he's an artist and and he's an author and he does some other things with consulting as well. And so he was talking about that very same thing you're talking about. Get back to what you love to do as a child. And uh if you feel like your creativity uh spark is gone, and then that way you can you can do that. So I think that's great because then that re-anchors you in your purpose, right?

Tommy Kilpatrick 26:50

Yeah. Yes, yes, it it's that happens to everybody here. We always have that path we cross, and someone says, Oh, what about this? Oh, I haven't thought about it in a long time. So these souls are crossing your paths for a reason, a purpose. So everybody across yours included, I think we made a deal before we arrived here that you would be interviewing me, or somehow we cross paths. So if we keep talking, we can figure it out.

Jackie Pelegrin 27:14

Yeah, I love that. And and that goes into that first fork. So I love that. That's great. So, Tommy, thank you so much for laying the foundation. Uh, for all my listeners, I want to challenge you to make sure to write one sentence for each of the four questions because Tommy's challenging you to do that too. Then take note of your first fork and choose that for this week. Um, so in part three, we'll make this practical uh a 10-minute spark exercise. So we'll do that, Tommy, in the next one. And then that love and mercy and action, responding to wind learner struggle and writing one page of your owner's manual. So we'll be back um for part three. So thanks so much for listening, and thank you, Tommy, for coming on to the show today for part two.

Tommy Kilpatrick 27:57

Thank you so much.

Jackie Pelegrin 27:58

Appreciate it. Thank you for taking some time to listen to this podcast episode today. Your support means the world to me. If you'd like to help keep the podcast going, you can share it with a friend or colleague, leave a heartfelt review, or offer a monetary contribution. Every act of support,

Rediscovering Purpose & The First Fork

Jackie Pelegrin 28:18

big or small, makes a difference, and I'm truly thankful for you.