Thought Mining
Extract meaningful insights from an assortment of thought patterns through contemplative discussions about resonating thoughts.
Derek Olson and Nathan Anderson met in the fall of 2023 when they were serendipitously brought together to be rappers in a parody video to promote a wine walk event in their local community (neither of them were rappers by trade or had any formal experience rapping). They became instant friends and quickly realized that they were simultaneously seeking opportunities to pursue creative projects. They tossed around a range of ideas for creative initiatives and eventually settled on a plan to start a podcast. Initially, they weren’t quite sure what they would discuss on the show, so they entered a brainstorming phase where they spent a couple of months exploring potential directions and purposefully positioned themselves with an openness to consider a wide range of possibilities. The brainstorming phase led them to the idea for thought mining, which is based on a couple of middle-of-the-night reflections related to the concept that Nathan wrote in the spring of 2023. Nathan shared the thought mining reflections with Derek, and the concept resonated with him. The reflections served as a seed of inspiration for the podcast as they both felt that they could build a show around the theme. And so it began.
Derek and Nathan don’t know what the project will evolve into, but they feel a strong sense that pursuing the journey will lead them to places they're meant to go.
On a side note, when they began the podcast, they had not been aware of the thought mining term being used in other settings; however, we became aware that other people (e.g., Norman Chella) had been using a similar term prior to the time that it spontaneously made its way to Nathan’s mind when he woke up from a deep slumber in the middle of the night. Derek and Nathan appreciate that others have utilized terms similar to thought mining. They are simply creating their own spin on what thought mining means and how it could be applied.
Each episode is projected to be between 30-60 minutes.
Episodes are projected to be released 2-3 times per month.
Thought Mining is a conversational podcast with two co-hosts.
Each episode begins with a thought that has been resonating with one or both of the hosts and then proceeds with a free-flowing, reflective conversation to explore deeper meanings of the initial thought as well as other thoughts that surface through the discussion.
This show is targeted to reflective audiences who are interested in exploring deeper meanings of conceptual manifestations.
The episodes may contribute to a listener’s well-being by prompting them to practice thought mining or other reflective methods that are conducive to extracting meaningful insights from the assorted thought patterns in their lives.
Derek Olson and Nathan Anderson. As practicing thought miners, they pay deliberate attention to the diverse thoughts and perspectives of themselves and others to help make meaning out of what they are experiencing in the world.
Derek Olson
Yes, here they are. Some of the responses to the Thought Mining podcast FAQs are excerpts of the reflections.
3/16/23. Thought mining: The extraction of meaningful insights from an array of thoughts. Thought mining may be internal, external, or shared. Internal thought mining is the extraction of meaningful insights from one’s own array of thoughts. Internal thought mining occurs with thoughts inside oneself. External thought mining is the extraction of meaningful insights from an array of thoughts representing one or more individuals outside of oneself. External thought mining occurs with others’ thoughts outside of oneself. Shared thought mining is the extraction of meaningful insights between the thoughts of oneself and at least one other person. Shared thought mining occurs between thoughts that are inside of oneself and thoughts of one or more others that are outside of oneself. Internal thought mining involves being aware of one’s own thoughts and actively engaging with those that seem worthwhile to ponder further. You can practice internal thought mining by positioning yourself in a state of presence that allows you to maintain awareness of your thoughts. Simply observe your thoughts from a nonjudgmental perspective as they pass through your mind. If you find yourself beginning to feel a stronger sense of resonance with a thought as it enters your stream of awareness, the deeper connection that you are feeling may be an indicator that the thought is worthwhile to ponder further. You may engage with the thought by allocating a greater degree of attention to the thought and allowing other related thoughts to surface and begin synthesizing with the thought. Considering how you might respond to predefined reflective prompts may also help foster your engagement with the thought in a way that helps cultivate meaningful insights. Methods of engaging with a resonating thought may include interpreting the thought through subsequent thinking, oral dictation to oneself, or writing. The concept of thought mining emerged through this process. I woke up in the middle of the night and was unable to fall back asleep. My mind was racing with meandering thoughts. Eventually, I settled into a state of presence that was conducive to being an aware observer of the thoughts that I was thinking. The phrase, thought mining, emerged and captured my attention at a deeper level than the other thoughts that had been passing through my mind. I began to engage with the thought by pondering it further and jotting notes related to my interpretation of its meaning. The insights described in this brief reflection are the result of an internal thought mining process that was prompted by the phrase, thought mining, which aimlessly passed through my mind at a moment when I was an aware observer of my thoughts.
3/17/23. It’s the middle of the night. Something is telling me to get up and work, but both my mind and my body are telling me to stay in bed. I tend to advocate for acting on the guidance from a source of something that transcends the body and mind. Why am I resisting the transcendent guidance that I am being given now? I think it’s because I’m very tired. My mind seems to be telling me that I won’t get much accomplished if I get up now and that getting up now would inhibit my energy and how much I get accomplished during my normal work hours. What happens, though, if I just continue to lay in bed and am not able to fall back asleep? Will I both reject the opportunity to respond to the transcendent something that is calling me to take action in the middle of the night and inhibit my productivity during my normal work hours due to lack of sleep? Although I haven’t gotten out of bed to work on tasks that I initially thought the transcendent something was nudging me to allocate time and energy toward, I suppose that writing this note as I continue to lay in bed could be considered a response to the nudge that I have been feeling. Although working on predefined tasks in the middle of the night may have been a worthwhile use of my time, I tend to find value in writing spontaneous, unstructured reflections like this. This sort of feels like an example of the “thought mining” concept that I’ve been beginning to wrap my mind around. I woke up in the middle of the night and was unable to fall back asleep. Several thoughts were racing through my mind. I felt an internal nudge from a source of guidance that seemed to transcend the cues I was being given by my body and mind to go back to sleep. The intensity of the nudge strengthened as the minutes passed and, after around a half hour or so of lying awake in bed with a mind full of racing thoughts and an expanding sense of frustration, I felt myself shifting from being overtaken and frustrated by my thoughts to being more of an aware observer of the thoughts that were cluttering my mind. As I entered a heightened state of awareness, I began to feel varying degrees of resonance with my thoughts as they arose. The degree of resonance noticeably strengthened as a thought surfaced around what to do when I feel an internal nudge to do something that seems to clearly deviate from what my mind and body are telling me to do. In response to the strengthened resonance with the thought, I began to engage with the thought through writing as a way to extract meaning from my thoughts. The insights presented in this note are the result. Position yourself as an observer of the thoughts passing through your mind. When you feel a strengthened degree of resonance with a thought, take initiative to engage with the thought as a way to extract deeper meaning from what you are thinking.