Who I Am - 2023

Hello! I am Harry.

This post is for people who want to know more about me. I don’t necessarily think I am important enough for a dedicated autobiography without the intention of informing interested parties. Nonetheless, my aim is to provide individuals with a deeper understanding of who I am and what I have to offer.

I am 30 at the time of this writing. Professionally, I have been an entrepreneur, investor, and consultant. Personally, I am an intellectual explorer who cares deeply about living an extraordinary life. My curiosity is boundless and I have a deep commitment to the attempt to make the world a better place. I hope my effort and earnestness in life displays this claim. I care, and I care passionately, from my soul outward, about all systems of life on Earth and empowering all to have the best chance at a beautiful and meaningful life. 

I have had many struggles and failures on a personal and professional level, as well as some moderate successes. It is my hope that these experiences have resulted in unique insights and wisdom. It is my intention to share these unique insights and wisdom with you.

I was born in North Carolina and raised primarily in Utah. Though I have lived in Virginia, Illinois, Arizona, and California since. My mother was a psychiatrist and my father was a house painter and artist. For high school I went to Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City, Utah and Fishburne Military School in Waynesboro, Virginia. I played college basketball and studied economics at The University of Utah – though I took classes all over the map in math, business, chemistry, and international studies. 

My self-education was the most important aspect of my education. I read for an average of 6 hours a day for a decade and built an ontology of reality in order to comprehend it better. I will share that ontology in the future.

In 2015 I left school to found a small investment group (though I returned to finish my degree later). I raised funds and began investing in private companies. I've placed investments and been an operating partner in the Food & Beverage, Healthcare, Biotech, Franchise Branding, Facilities Services, Media, Finance, and Contracting industries. 

My investing experience has mostly been failures, but I have had some moderate successes. The general curve of success suggests if I keep pushing with intention a more prosperous future is in store. So that is what I am doing. My failures have been deep sources of lessons and wisdom whereas my successes only added moderately to my personal development. 

I have worked with leaders of some of the largest companies and institutions on Earth, as well as with first time small-business owners just beginning their journey. I try to record, catalog, and organize my experiences in my personal knowledge ontology in order to extract the maximum value from them. My experiences and my proactive responses to them have put me in a position where I truly feel prepared for just about any challenge.

Moving forward in my career I will focus on building self-sustaining ecosystems rather than traditional businesses. I care about sustainability, renewability, stakeholder value, and circular-economy principles. Everything I build or do, I build with the intention for it to last and to be great.

There is a way to build a more prosperous future for all stakeholders and I am going to find it or die trying.

I have taken a lot of time to reflect in my life and built what I consider to be the most important tool in my life – My Personal Constitution.

1. A Central Intention: this is typically referred to as a “Mission”, but the term “Mission” has other connotations that I don’t think appropriately encompass what the concept really is. The Central Intention acts as your north star that you are always striving for.

2. A Set of Foundational Values: these are the values that you have discerned to be most important to you. These act as your compass.

3. A Set of Life Priorities: these are life-long goals, or “nodes of focus”, and are never finished. They remind you of the ultimate goals for the major dimensions in your life and help you design your long-term, mid-term, and short-term goals to actualize this reality. These act as your map.

I will share more about what a Personal Constitution is and how to make one in a later post.

This is the intentional operating system of me. With appropriate follow through on my part, this alone should tell you all you need to know about me.

Central Intention: 

1. Be Extraordinary

Foundational Values:

1. Spirituality

2. Health

3. Wisdom

4. Love

5. Integrity

6. Effectiveness

7. Mastery

8. Power

9. Creation

10. Freedom

11. Peace

12. Evolution

My Life Priorities:

1. Grow Forever

2. Reach for the Divine

3. Optimize My Body

4. Infinite Competence

5. Integral Behavior

6. Elevate

7. Prosper

8. Elevate Others

9. Leave Something Great Behind

You can learn more about what these mean to me on my website here.

I am a passionate life explorer who has consciously built how I think and interpret reality. My systems of thought have been designed with the intention to find the wisest course of action, not necessarily the most expedient, strategic, or pleasurable. 

How I think can be divided into two sections:

• I think in possibilities, probabilities, and statistics. I interpret the world as an interlocking web of systems and any intellectual positions on these systems are just perspectives that are more probable or less probable of representing reality accurately.

• Precision: My precision operates on a scale from preponderance to total accuracy and depends on the strategic environment and risk associated with the decision or knowledge.

• I think in evidence, and historical curves. I perceive most things as curves through reality living out their lifespan.

• I triangulate and validate - I do not blindly trust.

• I have built a research methodology that helps me interpret reality (I will share this in a later blog post; it is essentially an expanded and personalized scientific method).

No matter how we cut it or what we want to tell ourselves, a purely reductionist and rationalist perspective of the world is inadequate. There are many dimensions of the world that we cannot comprehend from the reductionist approach. This is the place of spirituality, emotion, feeling, empathy, intuition, and wisdom. I make an effort to approach and evaluate reality through this lens as well. What this means in practice I have not fully developed yet. I am still working on this model and its integration with my broader research methodology. 

As for now, I want to make it clear that it is my intention to integrate this into any analysis I conduct. 

When it comes to life “passionate” isn’t the right word, “utterly obsessed” is getting there. There is a beautiful reality surrounding us and I am deeply emotionally and spiritually connected to it. Every day is a miracle and a piece of art to create and I refuse to retreat from this position. Any malaise, apathy, nihilism, or discontentedness represents a lack of awareness and psychological maturity. We are living in the greatest creation currently known to exist and have adequate freedom within it to create the life we desire. “Passionate” isn’t the right word.

Everything within reality interests me; from ecosystems, to philosophy, to bolt manufacturing, to sexuality, to human systems, to xyz, you name it. This has presented its own benefits and unique challenges I am working through. Determining what I need to focus on has been difficult but I have made great progress.

I am an explorer of life who has had many unique experiences, epic failures, pains, and joys. If I can reasonably help others, I will. I have made many mistakes in my life and in every major category. Some of these have not been small mistakes, but mistakes that have brought me to my knees where the only two options were to give up or rise from the ashes. These experiences and my response to them have developed deep empathy within myself. 

Whether or not I share these painful stories, I do not know. It will depend on the dynamics of this blog and the Substack community. But I will do so if I think it has a reasonable probability of helping others along their journey.

I care about every living system, I care about the subjective experience, and I care deeply about living the best life I possibly can.

When you read my work, you are effectively outsourcing hours and hours of research to me. That is, if you trust my integrity, thought and writing process. Which you may decide you don’t. Regardless, my intended value is to synthesize complex lessons into digestible sizes and formats.

The above is a basic introduction to who I am. I am a very transparent person. On my website, harrywhitt.com, you can find out more about me, including more in depth essays on my mission, values, personality, and history - I show it all.

I hope I have some value to give. But that is for you to decide.