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Modern Wisdom
#801 - George Mack - 13 Life-Changing Ideas Youve Never Heard Of
#801 - George Mack - 13 Life-Changing Ideas Youve Never Heard Of

#801 - George Mack - 13 Life-Changing Ideas Youve Never Heard Of

Modern WisdomGo to Podcast Page

Chris Williamson, George Mack
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22 Clips
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Jun 24, 2024
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Episode Transcript
0:00
Hello friends, welcome back to the show my guest today is George Mack he's a writer marketer and an entrepreneur George is one of my favorite writers and probably delivers the highest insights per minute of anyone on Twitter. And today we get to go through some of my favorite ideas from him over the last few months on human nature tribalism happiness and politics expect to learn what the busy trap is and how to avoid it. The biggest differences between the u.s. And the UK the contrarian
0:30
Argument for why money doesn't buy happiness why strategic ignorance is so important George's favorite story about Charlie Munger the lessons we both learned celebrating his 30th birthday in Miami and much more for those of you who enjoyed the Vlog we put up on YouTube last week and said, who's that guy sat at the table? He's really interesting and I loved his idea about a bear or bull market for mustaches. This is him and you get to hear two hours of him and he's on fine for
1:00
Today lots and lots to take away. So get ready for this one. Also people of Australia. I will be inside you very soon Brisbane Wednesday 6th of November Melbourne, Friday the 8th of November and Sydney Saturday the 9th of November tickets will be available very soon. They will be available tomorrow morning from Chris Williamson dot Live / Australia. So go there sign up and get presale tickets available right now, and I will see you on the other side of the planet pretty sure.
1:29
Some people think there's a conspiracy that Australia doesn't exist, and it's all fake. So I guess I'll get to find out see you soon.
1:37
But now ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome George Mack.
2:00
What's the busy trap the busy trap is the idea that we're busy today? Because we were busy yesterday and we'll be busy tomorrow because we're busy today and it's this never-ending busyness that we get busier because
2:14
A busy now with the I was looking at Google Trends earlier and if you look at the wood busy from 2004, it's like the Apple stock price it just each year. We get about 10% more busier and we're constantly hitting the peak every single year of people searching the word busy.
2:29
Right? It's a business is getting busier. Yes, right. And what do you mean when you say that you waste yours not being able to waste hours. So this is a quote from Amos tversky who is Daniel kahneman's writing partner on thinking fast and slow and when
2:43
I hear it's like as a righty. Why didn't I write that that is so good. You waste years by not being able to waste hours and it's this idea that because we're so busy. We never get around to actually asking the bigger questions. We're constantly on the C+ tasks rather than the A+ tasks and one of the memes I posted with this essay. It's two guys working extremely hard like being super busy and there's one guy in the corner who's like, you're right Lads kind of give you a bit of help and he goes we're too busy and the
3:14
Carrying a will and these guys are carrying everything but they're too busy to realize that there's a wheel out there and I think tversky is point with that is by having a few extra hours in your schedule. You may change your annual Direction here or there. But if you're constantly compressing everything into some kind of maximal efficiency you end up wasting years as a result.
3:35
Why is the busy trap a trap? Why do we default a busy as opposed to defaulting to lots of spare
3:42
time?
3:43
I think well, there's to quote the philosopher Molly May. There's there's only 24 hours in the day Chris, which is a live by the way, which is a lie not having to go to Mali but there's actually 16 hours in the day. Like I find the fact that we talked about 24 hours when we sleep for 8 hours is absurd. It's like confusing your Revenue with your profits putting up the Shopify screenshot. It's like how much did you spend on other things that so you have let's say 16 hours a day and that's pretty Lindy like that's been consistent throughout human history.
4:14
our experience of time meanwhile the amount of activities we can now do the amount of content that gets uploaded to YouTube Every Minute the amount of slack messages that are coming through the amount of emails that are coming through the digital the beauty of digital systems is it's so high Leverage The as your sat here right now, there's probably five thousand people watching a clip of Chris as we speak in the next couple minutes and that the digital level for yourself is a constant problem because you only have 16 hours in the day yet there's
4:43
Things that are constantly coming through unless you're proactively trying to put systems in place. You will just get destroyed by The Busy trap. We also learn in school to do work without questioning the work. So one of my old essays was this point around it's a lot of the behaviors from school that you were rewarded for you ultimately get punished for later in life and a lot of the behaviors at school that you were punished.
5:14
You ultimately get rewarded for later in life. And it's this sad change of Affairs. I realized my age from like 20 to 29 was just trying to rewrite what I learned from 10 to 19. So it's been a clusterfuck and one of the behaviors that you were punished for in school that you get rewarded for later in life is asking why are we doing this? Does this make sense? Is this the most important thing to be working on if you said that in your like year 10 algebra class?
5:43
It didn't go down. Well, shut up back. Yeah, exactly. But what did go down? Well is
5:49
if you just complied and
5:51
took the schedule as it came through and I think you basically have these digital systems compounding on top of these weird or let's say incorrect behaviors that you learn at school. Yeah. And what about the Trap
6:06
element of busyness? Why does it sort of continue to why does it cyclically make us more prone to being busy in the future?
6:15
Everyone's experience cleaning out their inbox and you realize you've not cleaned out your inbox. You've just essentially chopped off hydras head and another head has reappeared. So the more you almost try and defeat busyness, ultimately the more busy you become actually my number one test for myself because I've been this guy still I'm this guy recovering busy guy it the number one test I have for myself is I know I'm too busy. If I don't know what the most important question is right now.
6:44
I mean by question the priority the thing I need to be answering and the irony is if you don't know what the most important thing to do in your life right now is or the most important question to answer or what the number one focus should be you've actually just found it. So that's quite a beautiful thing within itself. So if you are concerned that you're too busy whenever I'm concerned that I'm too busy and I go I've not figured out what the most important thing to focus on right now is I've just focusing on what is the most important thing to focus on right. Now what we have to focus on yeah. Yeah. What is
7:14
Some other signs that you're too busy like what when you think back to the times when you've been drowning in busy work, what are some of the other things that come along for the ride?
7:26
I think it's it's so it's a funny funny message. I got sent me of the day when I posted this from my friend Phil and he was saying how the essay hit him and he asked himself this question, which was let's say he set his five goals for the week. And he said if I got them done by Tuesday, how would I feel or what would I do and he goes, I think I'd go in this full-blown anxiety of what do I do for the rest of these few days and the irony is he goes that problem means that it just stretches out throughout the week versus if he just said,
7:55
To myself. How about I Sprint get everything done by Tuesday? Then? I'm relatively three Wednesday Thursday Friday, but this busyness you can't because you're so busy. You constantly need to stay busy. You're addicted to that feeling you like the rat when the cheese comes out when I whenever I've found I'm too busy is I know that Peter Drucker has this great thing a great thing called the activity trap, which is essentially the idea you have your activity and you have your output and your activity is
8:25
Just inputs going in the system doing things replying to messages clicking buttons and moving around and feeling like you've done something but at the end of the day nothing's happened. So the activity trap is if you stress activity, you don't necessarily increase output whenever you whenever you stress output. So the end result you always you always improve output, but you'll often actually ironically decrease activity. So the biggest thing for me is if I'm sat there at the end of the day and I feel exhausted. I'm like what actually got done. Yeah.
8:55
What yet, not what did I do? What got done? Yes, because what I did doesn't actually always result in something being done on the other side. What was that? Andy Groves quote that you told us in Miami?
9:08
It's yeah it gave me goosebumps. This one the quote is
9:14
people the so many people working so hard and achieving so little
9:20
what's I mean to you?
9:23
It's it's the type A personality trap, which I usually fall into where you end up exactly what my friend said earlier where they would rather get their five goals done for the week on the Friday. So they're constantly feeling busy then actually done sooner what it means is there's so much inputs going into the system without any outputs and because we're so busy, we never actually get time to question the outputs that we're producing. There's another element of this.
9:54
Especially for people that work in offices, right the demonstration of effort, you know, you're not cranking widgets. You can't see the bucket of widgets to be cranked to the one you're cranking in the bucket of widgets that you have cranked today. So how do people demonstrate their work their effort their optimizing for signals of busyness, which is always being the quickest person to reply you tell me that some dude in your slack Channel. We was the only guy in the entire company that checked slack on Christmas day. Yes.
10:23
Ha
10:23
ha ha incredible that guy Bradley. So yeah, I mean slacks a problem itself. I was thinking and I'd be surprised if we don't look back five to ten years from now about how broken slack is because sometimes I'll check slack like a social network. I'm just like refreshing the
10:40
feed just to see what's going on. What's going on? Yeah, even in channels that you're not supposed to be supervising is happened is because you're an
10:46
admin so Sam Caracas the guy the could have put his last name there, but fuck it the guy that
10:53
Runs levels he said it was a study recently where the average Tech worker check slack every 7 minutes, which is quite an absurd.
11:03
Absurd idea for people that are trying to increase outputs to be constantly moving things just messages and B back and forth.
11:10
Hmm. What about energy how to sort of energy flows throughout the day play into the busy
11:14
trap? Yeah. I think the the law I found with my own personal energy levels is that if I don't skate like proactively schedule things in the increase my energy, they'll never happen and if I don't proactively defend things that decrease my energy they will eat up my
11:33
It's kind of like running a business it all all it's almost at the laws of physics that your revenue is trying to go down every day and
11:41
you'll costs that trying to go up every day and it's exactly the same with energy and I weirdly found this when I was traveling or when I'm going through super stressful periods of life that the natural idiot brain that I have is when I have imagined your energy levels like inflows and outflows like an engineering system whenever there's lots of energy outflows on the system.
12:02
IE I'm super stressed IE. I'm traveling right now. The natural weird thing that we do is to turn off all the energy in flows to give ourselves more time to work on the outflow the outflows and then you end up completely burnt out. Whereas actually what you need to do is crank up the energy in flows more to deal with the high cost on the system last week. I tweeted there's no such thing as being overworked only under-rested. Yeah, how much truth do you think's in that?
12:29
I think it was it was one of the I forgot which president it was who said that I never stand up when I can sit down and I never I never worked sir. I never worked stood up when I can be working sit doubt sat down and I never works at down when I could be lay down and even Churchill you think about grinding I Churchill World War Two like that's some light Sigma serious thing grinds that right there like the Apex and
12:59
Even him like taking multiple naps throughout the day. That's my one of the reasons how you managed to work throughout the nights. And yeah that concept of there's no such fingers under arrest. There's just so there's no such fingers being overworked. There's just under rest makes so much sense from a utility perspective. You might not necessarily be true, but it reframes
13:22
I think anybody it's one of those things that probably doesn't work in theory, but does work in practice where you can pick that apart as
13:29
a pithy little aphorism, but if you actually think about what your felt experience of being a very busy person in the world is like have you ever been overworked when you haven't been under ested?
13:41
Has there ever been a time when you've gone? Wow, I'm rested but also overworked no almost never because of the busy trap because of the fact that you continue to Loop yourself back. Oh, well, I'd better reject all of the things that give me more energy by meditating or breath work or getting up early or going for a walk or going to the gym or spending time with friends or turning the pods off for five minutes today. You don't do any of those things. So it's like it kind of a sort of a self.
14:11
Western which is that those two things are the same for most people they're not the same in theory, but in practice they are being overworked and being under rested are the same thing. They're two sides of the same coin and
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you can have scenarios where you've not worked in weeks, but you've been on Tick-Tock nine hours a day
14:28
still not under as its own arrested still not rested and you can
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have other scenarios where you've worked the hardest you have in your entire life. But because you've got those energy in flow systems dialed you don't reach the
14:41
same burnout that you would and it's another hidden and observable metrics problem to write that what you're trying to optimize for is quality of life clear thinking great ideas opportunity to to have leverage on on what it is that you're coming up with. Where does that appear on my slack analytics on my balance sheet. It doesn't even really appear on my fucking whoop data, but the number of emails that I sent the
15:11
Chin in my total number of unread messages the all of that stuff super easy to quantify. So you're sacrificing the thing you want clear thinking for the thing which is supposed to get it which is clearing out. Admin
15:22
tasks Mmm Yeah, it's quite horrific how much time we waste why one of the experiments is to go back to your Google calendar this time last year and look at certain things that you did and you'll often realize that most of it was a
15:41
As a complete, what does any of this matter what I mean? There's always that power law that exists. I heard yesterday that even Warren Buffett in one of his shareholder letters said that I think it was only 12 of his Investments that really move the needle for Berkshire Hathaway, which was about four percent. So even the guy like the best allocator in this case of capital rather than time only 4% of his bets were were correct. So and that's him spending so much time thinking
16:11
A single day and if you're then so busy. We're not even going to get past the the 1% or at least I'm not use said bringing a Victorian factory worker mindset to the age of infinite Leverage is like bringing boxing gloves to a drone War. Yes, one of my favorite lines. I think I need to flesh this idea out more but this was kind of a asterism to myself. I try and paint on the back of my eyelids, which is this idea that
16:39
They say you have quote-unquote type A type B personalities. I don't know if it's an actual thing. But just for the utility of categorizing them. You have type A personalities that are they have a what feels like a work ethic problem. They constantly feel lazy, but it's actually a work ethic problem. It's actually a leverage problem disguised as a work every problem and type B personalities have a they think they constantly had a leverage problem, but they actually have a work ethic problem and you'll be able to immediately booked at those.
17:08
People inside your head immediately. Yeah, I
17:13
I would think a lot about trying to dial back busyness, you know, we're both of us are kind of permanently fighting this entropy on a morning. Well, what what may be by ABO time block the morning and protect it like go through some of the tactics that like from a strategic perspective that you've used personally to try and defend the busy trap. So go back to cocaine Cal phone. Mmm. Everybody should know that by now two separate phones, I'd say the
17:43
Busy trap for me. Probably the easiest thing is having a big three. So I got this from the concept of 4000 weeks and having a big three of things I need to do and then everything else just goes to the everything else section and the idea of only being able to have three tasks on the big three makes you prioritize things by definition. I think ultimately the opposite of the busy trap is privatization, which is such a difficult skill when there's infinite.
18:13
Things coming at you Mmm Yeah, if there's so much that you could be focused on and permanent notifications this ambient sense that you're falling behind all the Berkman has this beautiful sentence where he sits in the productivity debt essay that he does. He says it's up this vague sense this vague fear that I'm falling behind and I think that that kind of really encapsulates at least for me the if I take too much time off and here's the brutal thing you realize that you
18:43
I've become your own Taskmaster in many ways, you know, you complain about the prison of your busyness, but you realize that you're the guards that's holding the keys to it. You've locked yourself in and thrown them out, you know, perfect example of this if I spend a ton of time working and working and working in all I can think about is archived it be so called to just have a couple of days and I do I play Pickleball and I have fun with my friends and go and do this thing and
19:12
About
19:13
10 hours into the first day of that. I think I really could do it get any better graph done. What if I just you know there and then you smack up with a little bit of slack or you got an email or you do, you know, you complete a little bit of work. So yeah, we are the prison guards of the jail that were complaining about in many ways, which actually I think when people fully realize this which everyone listening will have done because we've
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talking about it a lot and they're all reasonable.
19:45
There's a lot of shame that can come along with that to which adds another layer of difficulty on top. She said God, you know, I'm choosing to do this to myself. I don't need to answer my bosses email at 11 p.m. At night. He's not expecting it think it's even illegal in France or something. They're made that law right where you can't you can't contact this is this stinks of a threat of you that you can't contact workers outside of their hours of work. I think they it might even be like how China used that streaming service to stop kids from
20:15
Compute again might be like cold turkey or frozen turkey, but for work email or something. But yeah, they just they're trying to have this sort of Workers Health act where people don't work outside of it. But it's you it's always been you and then you realize oh God, it's me. And then you think how shameful am I that I'm wasting my life. I'm choosing to do this to myself. And then you start to layer all of these stories on
20:39
top Mmm Yeah. I came up with this idea of the Midway review the midweek.
20:45
View which was previously I done at end of week reviews and about her fucking three hours session. It's like 60 different points and my Midwife version now is for each area. So like Health life work, what are what were the three wins this week? And then what are the three things that would actually move the needle for each one
21:05
and then everyone used to move the needle I can play it
21:07
in terms of Leverage in terms of prioritization because otherwise unless you really think about each action.
21:15
Put that thing in the essay, which is if you don't have 20 minutes each day to think about what's the most important thing you probably in an hour. So again another note to myself and what I mean by move the needle is I think probably one of the underpinnings of the busy trap is that you never really write down your hypothesis like a scientific experiment. You never say Okay of these so there's option one I can do today. I can reply to this slack message or the the all these slacks option to I could build
21:45
out this new marketing funnel that will take me two hours option 3, I could go see my parents whatever it is like in terms of that and then actually mapping out. Okay, according to all my different priority areas. What's that's going to deliver as much hot will your in life I guess but from a business perspective, we very very rarely ever go. Okay. Here's the five decisions we can make how much time is each one gonna do we anticipate each one will make each one will take and how much revenue or profit will this thing
22:13
make and only then when
22:15
Of this thing, but we're having to play Within the observable metric Paradigm again. Yes, like look what we're defaulting to say. Well our Quality of Life Time with parents the sanity of the internal texture of my mind profit. I can see that on the balance sheet. In other news. This episode is brought to you by momentous. They make the
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get up to a 32 percent discount site-wide off everything including that protein by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to live momentous.com / modern wisdom that cell. I ve momemt OU s.com / modern wisdom. So you've been in the US three weeks now Mmm Yeah, no more more actually because you did Miami. Yeah, we've been talking a lot about differences between the UK and the USA.
23:45
What's have you come to believe about that?
23:49
So I say my biggest takeaway from being in America as a Brit is it's like finding out my dad had a kid with another woman that I never met and we meet for the first time and I'm like your kind of me, but you're not me. It's like you spent a bit more money on you he made you.
24:14
Believe in yourself. Your mom was clearly much nicer or Kinder and you go. Oh Americans like we're kind of the same but it's like Ritz with self-belief Brits with self belief is what Americans is one of the different there's lots of pros and there's lots of cons for both but that was my overwhelming overwhelming take away. The second biggest takeaway I have is that Brits don't really truly realize
24:45
How impactful the British accent
24:47
is so you leave Britain
24:50
and metaphor. I came up with for describing. The British accent to Brits is Imagine everywhere else in the world. There's a salmon famine, right and a British accent is like selling salmon and the only place in the world where there's an abundance of salmon is in the UK. So if you're they're using that basically gets you nothing in the UK, but you suddenly leave or
25:14
go out.
25:14
Anywhere else and we were exactly where else and they think you're smarter.
25:18
They think you're more attractive.
25:21
Yeah Americans often ask me when they talk about that and I do think it's true that Brett's have an unfair advantage in America of being seen as molar nerd. They started like every one presumes that were part of the aristocracy or something and they often ask me. Well, what do you think of American accents in the UK? That was a really interesting question. It's like
25:44
Actually don't know I think it's like certainly for me on girls. It's like kind of sexy it felt that that Phil's exotic in some way definitely energetic overly enthusiastic and excitable, especially when you've got one American in a bunch of Britt's when you're the Britain a bunch of Americans are well, you know, everyone's just sort of excitable and first line Cocaine Energy when you drop one American in a like, Newcastle or something. Oh my God, who is the intern?
26:14
Nuclear warhead surrounded by a bunch of Swords.
26:19
Yeah, I think
26:20
since being here, you know, it's made me reflect on the UK. I'd hate being disparaging about the UK. Like it's the country that gave me a new start we both went to University there. We both had our first jobs though. We both built businesses there. I think we're both in one form or another still registered. You'll be on companies house and some vestigial old fucking thing. I hate I really wish that I didn't sort of talk badly about it, but
26:44
you sent me a tweet last week and I've been watching bald and bankrupt Awesome YouTube channel. I invited him on the show. He replied he said he'd love to but he's actually trying to actively wind down his public exposure. So he said he keeps getting asked for too many selfie photos and Tesco and he does strike me as the kind of man. That probably doesn't want to be Overexposed. You know, he was doing for the people that don't know you this guy who just kind of like dark tourism stuff. He got traffic to cross the border into Mexico.
27:14
He was detained in a Russian jail for a while. And then he decided he was going to take on the final boss of dangerous places, which was Seaside towns of the UK and he just travels around sort of looking at all of these these bad places and you sent me that tweet last week, which I think Nails it which is the UK has the sixth largest economy in the world, but people are confused. The UK doesn't have the sixth largest economy in the world. London has the sixth largest economy in the world. It just has a really poor.
27:44
Our country attached to a very rich city. Yeah,
27:47
and then there was another one which was us universities. So I think in the top 10 universities in the world the UK has three and the US has three yet the u.s. Outputs five times those us universities fight output 5 times the number of entrepreneurs that those UK universities do so in theory. These people are as intelligent as one another across that I think is Oxford Cambridge and of
28:14
universe.
28:14
Maybe tomorrow maybe and what's interesting when you go across Global university rankings and outputs of entrepreneurs in the study that was shared the UK University the which was Oxford. So that's a number one for entrepreneurial output was 50th across the whole world despite the fact we rank so high in education. Yeah actually transforming that into entrepreneurship doesn't seem to happen and I wonder again whether that's the self-belief thing. You also see this weirdly.
28:44
And I could be mistaken here. I have this bias that I think Brits are fundamentally more funnier than Americans. However way more great stand-up comedians that are American and British like we have Ricky Gervais sui have Jimmy Carr and then in terms of global appeal outside of that. There's not a huge amount more and my theory behind that is so why do you have the funniest people? Yeah, not the biggest stand-up comedians out of those names that I'm going to think the same krub crabs in a bucket mentality that makes people so funny because we
29:14
Shoot people down and shoot ourselves down is the same thing that makes it absurd absurd as a concept to go and get on stage and say I want to be a funny person like that in the UK. So I think the funniest guy in the world right now is probably in a Greg's in Wigan more. He is in a pub in Portsmouth and because of that crabs in a bucket mentality Americans are way more likely to get on stage and go I want to be a funny person because that's part of the American DNA. Meanwhile the Brits who I think are actually funnier.
29:44
Don't end up doing as much than that
29:46
entrepreneurial as well as other area. Yeah, but you know even within that that sort of self-belief it's one in the same. I think it's agency. It's the preparedness to go against the grain and you know this I'm we're going to talk about subprime audiences later on but you know this audience is like I would guess I would say like it's full of like A's and Double A's of people especially the ones from the UK and I think the reason that this resonates I'm not saying it to disparage the
30:14
Don't think either of us are but to kind of reassure the people for whom they feel a little bit like a square peg in a round country. That's sad in the UK, you know some normal Town. You're in fucking Wakefield or Carlisle or Middlesboro Rochdale wherever you are and you think kind of you know, this is the sort of conversations. I really love to have these has the kind of thoughts that I think about. I really want have Big Dreams for myself and then I
30:44
I was really struggled to resonate with the people around me. I really really failed to do that. And I think I wish that I'd had when I was younger more reassurance that I wasn't the problem. I you know, there's no value judgment people that have big dreams people that don't have big dreams, but there's nothing inherently wrong with you having those dreams and there's no reason that you should be castigated or have the piss taken out of you because you want to do something different because you don't intend being born living working.
31:14
Dying within the same 20-mile radius of you know, where your
31:18
parents grow up. Yes, but even our a walking around level you see this. So if you walk around America, there's Flags everywhere. Mmm. There's kind of pride in the nation. If you walk around the UK and you see a flag. You got off PDL memory. They might be an artsy. She's create unless there's a football tone and then everybody does it that's the weird Paradox of the UK. Yeah, so it's even at that level you see this kind of pride.
31:44
The nation level and at the UK it's almost like this weird autoimmune
31:47
conditions. You have any idea why the British football team uses Three Lions rather than the Saint George's
31:52
cross don't know
31:55
it's not interesting because I don't think Scotland does I don't think Islanders and I don't think whales do and I can't think of any other team.
32:07
Actually the England cricket guys will do the same thing. There must be reason someone will be correcting me in the comments as we speak. But that's yet for the Americans that listening British national pride like BNP British national pride, and it's not that but like it's just it doesn't exist. And then you come over here and it is nice. It's nice to hear that people have got have got pride in their country. So the probably the critique people have of those right now is that we're
32:37
In Britain way more than we are critiquing America, but I'd also point out that's part of being British. You're way more naturally to critique yourself into critique other people and I do love that side of being British because you're way more self analytical
32:51
I think in terms of other differences between the UK and the u.s. That I've noticed in terms of benefits for Brits is because Brits like take the piss out of one another on average way more it means that you do have maybe that lowering self-belief, but you're almost a bit more antifragile. So if people do say a remark, you've already cracked a joke worse than that in the past or your friends have particularly. I think the more Northern in the country you go the
33:19
more it is the further away from London that you yet.
33:21
At the mall piss you to have taken out exactly where as in America. I think
33:25
people are a lot more could be more fragile to comments like that. Whereas the Brits the same way. I always say another difference. There's two big differences that I think explain the differences between Americans and Brits. So one is simple A/B test of when you meet an American and they're super enthusiastic and excited and the Brits arm if you actually go historically back there was a simple A/B test which is when the boats came and said, hey there's this
33:51
Land far far away we can't show you a video because videos don't exist yet. You may die on the boat. Do you want to come and visit this crazy land the Brits were the ones who were like, what a ridiculous idea. That is I'm going to
34:06
stay here staying in skegness and the Americans were the ones
34:09
who were like, yeah bring it up and that A/B test fundamentally explains it as well as when you think about it historically Americans have
34:19
apart from Pearl Harbor and that was quite far away from America. Let's be honest. I have never had an attack on their Homeland in recent history
34:28
when 11.com
34:30
the 911. Yep. There you go. That's one example, but comparing that to the bombing like World War one and World War Two like the whole City's completely destroyed. So there's definitely more like scar tissue build up that makes Brits. I think a little bit more grittier in some regards then Americans as well. Yeah. I
34:47
don't know man pessimistic. Yeah, I can tell.
34:49
well, it's
34:52
For certain people that I had this discussion with Piers Morgan Piers was like, oh, yeah. I like I like people bring me back down to two other. I like the democracy and stuff and my peers that's great for you. It doesn't seem to work too. Well for me like my desperate requirement for validation and reassurance from the world like wasn't being very satiated in Stockton. Yeah, right a whore Newcastle and then you come over here one of the best things and this is something that anybody anywhere on the planet should do in this is one of the coolest life hacks. I've taken since being in America and you've seen me do it to you and you've liked oh Cole
35:21
Old and a bunch of parties which is when in America at least in my group of friends, you are the new person in a group your friend that knows you and knows the group will introduce you and tends to do it in the best 30-second showreel of you that anybody could give you know, it's got this amazing marketing agencies a phenomenal writer and he's pivoting his kind of champagne homeless at the moment. He does all of these things and like that's a really lovely gesture. It's your friend. It's an opportunity for
35:51
M to do something nice for you, it gives you the best impression on the group and it reminds you about what your friend kind of saves about you behind your back when you're not there and it's like it inflates you a little bit it makes you feel good and warm and stuff. What would the equivalent be if you were a British friend being introduced to British Friends by a British
36:09
friend, it would be your worst ever story. Correct? Certainly the north again. This is an
36:13
awesome missing this this is George shit himself last week. Like, you know that my mom still has wet
36:19
dreams like, you know,
36:21
Yeah is interact like the introduction side how we introduce one another I've definitely found Americans are much better at selling themselves immediately. Whereas I think Brits often downplay themselves immediately. There's a big difference there in terms of like ever so slight cultural differences. One of the reasons why I think America has been so successful so far and wanting Britain could improve upon is if you look at human beings, I think what makes you
36:51
Beings if you put one human being in a jungle, it's that classic phrase that you put one human being in a jungle and meet you just introduce prey into the environment. But if you put a thousand human beings into the jungle, you've just introduced a apex predator of which the world's never seen before. So the only thing that really makes special if you look at as we don't hear that well compared to other animals. We're not that fast. We're not that strong. We're pretty shit across the board, but our ability to cooperate is
37:21
What makes us unique it's the classic Steve Jobs thing of if you look to I think it's Energy Efficiency in movement humans are so far down the rankings at the so many animals ahead of us in terms of to do a mile how much energy they need to burn. But if you look at a human being on a bicycle human beings have just blown through the charts and he has this great quote which is the computer is the bicycle of the mind and if you then go back to will ultimately the only thing that makes us unique human beings because we're shit took back everything.
37:52
Animals is our ability to cooperate if you have a more enthusiastic society that supports one another more
37:58
can cooperate more which means that you'll then have way more economic output
38:02
because in a certain country, that's more optimistic that goes I've got this idea a load of naive Americans are like great idea. Let's do it tomorrow. Yeah, whereas people culture that's more may be cynical means that those ideas don't happen, which I think explains why across these universities we have essentially the same IQ levels the same intelligence.
38:21
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gra MMA RL
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why.com / modern wisdom.
39:19
What was that thing another person so
39:21
Two guys that I wanted to have this conversation with first one bald and bankrupt and that's fine. Like he wants to take a step back second one Tom Bonfield guy that founded
39:30
Monza, which is where I got the thing from
39:32
swing and a miss another one for me. I got I got rebuffed twice in a space in the space of a day.
39:37
It's interesting both the founder of Manzano and the founder of revolute. So the to you'd argue the most successful UK companies that have come out recently both of them having huge issues with the UK, I believe so Tom obviously broke that piece about the UK culture and how he's trying to fix.
39:51
And I think the founder of revolute is either left or wanting to leave because of the regulation that exist there. So two of our best entrepreneurs
39:58
Tomlinson SF now write as part of Y combinator. What else do you learn anything else from that tumbling Fields article? He wrote it on fucking Tumblr. I really that that blood in is know is that blog post is on Tumblr? Wow. Yeah, bring it who knew that CEOs of a internet Savvy internet startup bank and 13 year old girls posting email photos. Also, that's the like horseshoe.
40:21
Ooh Horse shoed Around. Well, I mean the probably the other takeaway I would say is Vision. So I always look up let's say and again a lot of people who listen to this podcast might hate these places, but the one thing you can give them is when you go there you kind of get a vision. So that's Austin whether that's Dubai whether that's Miami whether that's Singapore weather alerts El Salvador right now even Saudi Arabia, you may not like those places at all, but when you're there or you kind of see what they're doing you go kind of get where you're going.
40:51
It the something happening, whereas with the
40:53
UK, I think fundamentally, that's probably one of the problems right now is that you don't fully know where the country's
40:58
going? Yeah. That's a really really great problem. Great. Great point. I reached out. I got Dominic Cummings email. I got his I got his personal email address. So I reached out to him.
41:08
So last time we were on the show, we spoke about how the head of cyber security for the UK government job role title was a 65 Grand a year. Someone's now made the meme of that original screenshot.
41:21
Not with I think it's the
41:23
like Tick Tock. Yes some summer
41:25
person who's maybe high of cybersecurity tick-tock. It's like 360 Grand a year. It's like wow, the the contrast is
41:32
is there. Yeah. I don't know man part of my live show is me saying that I want to make enthusiasm great again and re-import the American enthusiasm back over to the UK. That being said no matter where you're from. I think that you have the opportunity to be
41:51
the enthusiastic
41:52
person and I've been really getting into
41:57
direct communication instead of Shadow sentences recently and a lot of the time I think to myself what would have happened 10 years ago, if in the northeast of the UK the group of friends that I had that were around then Darren Johnny Yusuf like those guys what if I'd gone to them and I said look like I want to make a real hard left turn in terms of the sort of demeanor and the way that I view the world and I've heard about the
42:21
That more enthusiastic groups of people seem to do better. They have a five times increase in entrepreneurial success. And you know, we have the same levels of scale better accent more salmon. Why can't we deploy this? I really want to try and cultivate the most positive friend group that we can why don't we just try this? Why don't we like pretend to be British American or like British Saudi of whatever the whatever you want to be. Why don't we try and do that? And I wonder how much direct communication in that sort of away in a safe space where there isn't one person in the corner that's always going to default.
42:52
Gay Mike if because that person everyone it's like a regression to the mean it's like regression to being mean, you know what I mean? Like the meanest person in the room is the one that everyone defaults to because that person always seems less naive they seem a little bit sort of more sardonic and and smart and cool. And again if you're American and this is I don't like being around those people at all go to the UK for a couple of weeks and they are everywhere. But yeah Tom bomb
43:21
Fields article on Tumblr about the difference between the UK and the u.s. I think it's fascinating and that just as a frame what a phenomenal frame to say. The UK isn't a successful economy. London is a successful economy that has a poor country attached to it. Mmm. What do you sort of flipped the script though? So we don't get lots of angry Brits. What do you already do? What do you miss about the UK or you think the UK has his strengths Over America because I would say America definitely has great a blow-up risk, like I could easily imagine a scenario where the u.s. Goes to a civil war quicker than the UK does.
43:51
I would imagine that there's many more people many more entrepreneurs that have gone bankrupt. Yeah in the u.s. Because they're just swinging for the fences a lot more. It's my belief that most people who do things like entrepreneurialism from a good standpoint are more risk averse than they are prepared to deal with risk. So most people actually need to crank that up. They need a little bit more encouragement things that are problems in America is certainly that there are blind spots that many of them have there's an entitlement that a
44:21
Of Americans have to you know, think about the fact that as you're coming up through school, maybe less. So now when America is the most, you know, misogynistic xenophobic place on the planet, but for the most part up until maybe about five or ten years ago children were promised the what the American dream is still alive and well Blue Sky Thinking helicopter Vision will loop back by end of week and
44:44
If that's what you've been told as a child and then you arrive in adulthood and you're not given that you throw your toys out of the pram. This wasn't the world that I was told and I think that that's why the entitlement and the victim had culture is more propagated in America. Hmm and it isn't any UK because all hopes and dreams that you had for a life. That was remotely good are just Stamped Out of you you need to so many people in the
45:13
And this isn't a knock to so many people in the UK success is getting a solid graduate job at 23 on 35 40 Grand a year and then slowly climbing the corporate ladder to make six figures by 40 and then to retire with a solid pension toward the end of life the British dream. Yeah, that is the British dream and it's just it's much more on a set of train tracks. There's fewer variations. And again, that is a
45:43
perfectly acceptable perfectly successful life, but more people slot themselves into that because they don't think about stuff going another Direction's I think the opposite problem occurs in America, which is kind of the Paradox of choice why I can do anything I want I basically got 50 countries attached with in one big continent. I can go wherever I want. I can work there. I can use the same currency. I can speak the same language. I've got the light all of the things. What should I do? I don't fucking know way more homeless people. Yes way more prescription.
46:13
Bugs I wrote about that in the what is neglected by the media, but will be studied by historians that I think five of the top three the top five news networks in the US either the number one biggest Advertiser or the number two biggest Advertiser is a pharmaceutical company, which is a Brit sounds absurd and there's only two company two countries in the world that that's allowed New Zealand and Australian America. Yeah, so that's definitely a difference but I think one of the things the you mentioned there is that ability for
46:43
Each state in America to have a lot more control and it feels like if you don't like what's going on in this state, you can move to a different state and you can run these A/B test. Whereas in the UK as you mentioned London has this Stranglehold. It's that thing I used to say to Americans when I was explaining the UK is in the UK in the u.s. If you want to get into Tech you go to San Francisco. If you want to go into Finance you go to New York if you want to get into entertainment you'd typically go to La if you wanted to get into politics you typically go to, Washington.
47:13
In UK, it's London London London London. And obviously that's changing Manchester's beginning to Boom a little bit. But if we could begin to decentralize things a lot more that Newcastle could go you know, what we're going to be the AI in capital and if you come here, we're gonna have all these incentives
47:31
that were the why I fascinating wife. Why are ya fucking got it? All
47:37
right.
47:40
Why do you say that adults don't
47:42
exist.
47:43
Fucking out. This is probably my most when I had this idea of someone asked the question of if you could have something on the billboard for everybody to see what would it be and it would just be adults don't exist. And it's just a big mistake of mine at having not that much agency growing up and still at times trying to improve it where you constantly think there's this Adult class out there. And again, it kind of comes from the
48:13
Location system of teachers you have these teachers and they've
48:16
kind of figured out life and they're giving you all this advice and they they've these are adults and I say there's kind of two red pills that make you realize that adults don't exist. So the first one is when you go to college or university and one of your friends or people that you know, who's just so like all over the place unintentional hungover all the time does know what I want to do with a life and they go
48:43
thinking of becoming a teacher and you go hold on all my teachers always significant amount of my teachers that person who just didn't know what they wanted to do and I put them on this pedestal. So it's this kind of low agency mindset of thinking that there's these a out there that are wearing these beautiful clothes and these CEOs that these politicians but actually the more High agency perspective is realizing that they're just grown-up children like they were a sperm cell that
49:13
Lies the nag that came out screaming that looked at things around them. Learn this language and puberty kicked in and then there are quote unquote adult and the other realization you have is when you're 15, you meet like a 25 year old, you know, wow her 25 that's like old that's an adult and you become 25 and you go I still don't
49:34
when am I going to become an addict
49:35
when I become an adult and you realize oh 30 is the same and I think it'll just be the same all the way through out. So there's these adults just don't exist.
49:43
Yeah,
49:45
I have this sort of
49:47
undo respect I think
49:51
and I place an awful lot. I did for a long time similar to yourself place an awful lot of credence in Authority. I think this is a big British thing to
50:02
like Brits love a
50:04
queue. Love queuing can't wait to q and
50:09
that sense that the people in charge, you know what they're doing. They've got it all sorted. You know, the thing about America. I think it perfect example of this perfect example of not to bring it back to the UK US thing. Look at the first dose vaccine uptake in the UK compared with the u.s. I think first dose in the UK will probably by now be 96% It was at least 90 to a couple of years ago. So at 96% I think the u.s. It wasn't even two thirds. Mmm. So there are so many more people on this.
50:39
If the pond that are fed say I don't think the people in charge know what the fucking
50:44
doing. Now I have
50:45
distrust in our officials in the people that say that they are Beyond us. I wonder whether this
50:51
is at least in part
50:53
Downstream from having a monarchy, you know your highness, it's someone that is raised above His Highness right? You are literally positioning yourself. This is Alex O'Connor ISM argued with Piers Morgan about this. Yeah. I put a lot of and you wait in the
51:09
odds of people who knew no more than me and it's that same thing about business degree lecturers at University. Like these are the people teaching about business. What is the outcome you want to be successful at business? Okay, if you were successful at business, would you be teaching business in a UK unit at Newcastle University? Probably not and probably be busy running my business like not everyone's Scott Galloway swatting in to give a like Community speech once
51:39
every quarter and saying that he still teaches at NYU Stern give them honorary position for Scott Galloway. Yeah. Yeah. Meanwhile, he paid 14 mil in taxes last year like he's got proof in the pudding. But yeah, I think it's idiots all the way up and it's the same for
51:56
any industry that you care to care about whether it's
52:00
status whether it's Athletics, whether it's podcasting whether it like any of the people that you respect probably don't have that much of a clue about what they're doing. They all fumbled through the way the number of people that I've met that have a really well-constructed thesis first, principle fundamental view of why they do the things they do how the world worked why they've got to the place that they are almost everybody just stumbled into it. Those that thing from my live show that adulthood is like being pushed down a set of stairs at age 18 and trying to catch your feet until you die his perm
52:29
Only building it as you go like a fuck where in the air like all right, but put a wing on the plane and let's get a propeller and let's do this thing Mmm Yeah, I come back to one of the problems we've had adored as well is during childhood. There's these Milestones that you have.
52:44
Not being able to talk like being able to talk walk. I guess it's the reverse order then first grade second grade third grade or you had these big birthdays every single year that people celebrate gcses in our case a levels or middle school high school, whatever the they have out here and then adulthood it's pretty much.
53:04
Mortgage wedding down like death funerals of other
53:07
people. It's maybe your clothes for your kids been mortgage wedding
53:11
kids funerals of funerals of loved ones, then your own funeral. So there's so few Milestones was really interesting is covid then acted as a quite an interesting Milestone now, where was when you talk to people about covid there's a before covid moment and then after covid moment and I actually think it's quite it's interesting when you get to experience other cultures for the first time you go, of course, that's such a better way of doing things. So in the Jewish,
53:34
Community they celebrate bar mitzvahs, which is a big coming of age when you're 13, and I think there should be some kind of bar mitts for for turning 25 because your brain kind of fully developed when you're 25, and it's when it's Debbie for yourself 25 jahre, no still struggling. It's when the rail guards of Life are like fully released at 25 as well. You have some friends who are in prison you have others that like selling nft is online you have this person who has three kids and it feels like 25 that Benjamin Franklin quote of the average person dies at 21.
54:04
Five isn't buried until 75. I think we should probably do more milestones in adulthood because if not you end up to loop back the conversation to the start in the busy trap and it just before you know it it's a you
54:15
run you run through everything without any Milestones will get back to talking to George in one minute. But first I need to tell you about a G1
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55:18
Wisdom, I had this take where I wanted to normalize girls getting a single round of IVF with egg freezing for the 21st birthday. Hmm. I think that if you can instantiate that into culture, I think that that would result in an awful lot more freedom for women and I get a lot of criticism for being like way to probe male apart from all of the Pro male people online who think that I'm way too Pro women, but I think that this is just a win for everybody. I don't know anybody who loses its
55:46
not fertilized egg. So the abortion Community debate doesn't have a problem that presumably unless they have a problem with every period to that a girl has which I'm going to guess maybe someone does but 21st birthday. Don't buy him a watch don't buy em shoes. Don't buy them holiday to Zante with their friends. I mean, it's more expensive. This is you know, hi. It's a significantly bigger investment, but I think that it just opens up so much and that would be another milestone in some way and it would be the best.
56:16
Sharon's policy that you could think of and it would help to combat declining population declining birth rates. Like it's just that 21 Peak fertility fantastic quality of eggs. One round of IVF is going to get you got out of I don't know what you get 21. I've never even seen date on it like maybe like 15 20 viable eggs that you get pop it away put it in the fridge and then you're 38 and you've worked on your career for a long time or your
56:46
T9 and your partner and you are having fertility, but whatever it's just it's straight-up optionality and I think that that you know, just thinking about where are we missing Milestones? I'm going to freeze my sperm. I've got Legacy sperm by the way. I did a ton of research and spoke to a bunch of friends that are like in the IVF while Legacy sperm in America at least is what it seems to be. The number one now module is to get 25 years of Frozen spot your sperm to separate units Frozen sperm five grand. Wow.
57:16
Grand for a quarter of a dagger a quarter of a century to freeze his sperm for and I was like why why I 5 grand is not a nominal amount of money. Like it's a big amount of money. Why wouldn't I just come in a cup? Yeah. I'm just picturing someone Yousef trying to do his own home in your freezer. So in DIY DIY, yeah, it's in there next to the Ben & Jerry's we'll Bill Ackman. I think had this idea I could be butchering it, but it was along the lines of rather than pensions.
57:46
And the government would when the child is born put money in the SMP 500 or some kind of ETF and by the time they're 65, it will be millions and you can almost guarantee that across every single citizen versus them having to slowly but surely realize when they're 36 that they probably should start contributing towards the pension. But again trying to get these ideas to be tested you would need looping the conversation run again multiple States particularly the UK to be able to do that. I don't think it'd be very very difficult. I think to get that through house apartment.
58:16
What is your contrarian take about whether money buys happiness or not?
58:21
So everybody's probably heard the question does money buy happiness and then they'll be a big debate evil way, but the correct way to actually answer that question is to say that is the stupidest question that I've ever heard and they'll explain why so we can use an example here. Let's say you've
58:44
Used 95 percent of your salary to get this crazy Penthouse in New York to show off to everybody and you realize in the first night that your next-door neighbor's P Diddy. And in fact that's having these like while loud orgies or neither and it's just
59:02
of beating his wife in the corridor outside. Yeah a nightmare to live
59:05
next to write in that case did money buy happiness actually money might have bought misery. Let's say you then go on
59:13
Amazon Prime and get those earplugs silicone ones that mold to your are the block out all the noise and it costs you $10. Well in that case a little bit of money but a lot of Happiness. So the problem with this phrase does money buy happiness as it implies all money is created equal and all happiness is created equal and you can see if you ask the question. So when people ask you that question, the best question to reply with is does money buy good Investments.
59:42
Well, I know some people that have bought
59:44
depends what your convertible stocks really early on. I know some people that have bought
59:48
Bitcoin 123 and had a terrible time. So ultimately it completely depends on what you've invested in. So the actual real what the question is trying to get to or what the real answer to the question should be is that strategic money buys happiness and on strategic money can buy misery or strategic money can buy happiness and on strategic money can buy misery exactly the same investment.
1:00:12
The reason why this question exists is because within itself, it's a presupposition. It presupposes that all money is created equal and it presupposes that or happiness is created equal when it's not it's a completely individualistic thing like an
1:00:25
investment. What is a way to strategically spend money and what is a way to uncertainty giclee spend money. The
1:00:33
the honest answer is and this makes it into a terrible YouTube clip, but the honest answer is is that it's so personalized to the
1:00:41
dividual by definition its complete what may make one person happy with one purchase may make another person happy with another purchase. I gave you a pickleball paddle. That's brought an awful lot of happy now see if I gave that pickleball paddle to Zack it would become a doorstop. Yes. So it's looking at the cost of thing service product experience and impact that has on utility of the possibility. Yeah. I mean Zach said the other day at yours that you guys have a sauna.
1:01:11
Are these spent a little bit of money on and he says that is an example of strategic money can buy happiness. Yeah, it's very interesting reframe on the question and
1:01:22
We've spoken about this before I think both of us are fortunate that we have a low materialism set point and I've always thought about this is a competitive Advantage for people. So if you grew up in a household that was gifts and public presents and stuff what kind of displays of affection if large things were made out of birthdays and of Christmases and that way there was a sort of keeping up with the Joneses mentality, maybe mom or dad would always looking
1:01:51
to improve the car and stuff like that. That's fine. But
1:01:56
It is likely that as you grow into an adult, you will tie an awful lot of your self-worth and your place in the world to the possessions that you have or your ability to provide possessions to other people or maybe the way that they give gifts and possessions to you as a show of their love and affection and again hidden versus observable metrics. It's very in a society that is obsessed with more more more. It is a radically revolutionary thing to say that I have enough. Mmm.
1:02:26
And I have always seen of all of the different mental pathologies. I've got and it's fucking laundry list the one of the ones I'm most glad that I don't have after alcohol. It's Omen and sort of substance stuff is a need for that materialistic possessions to make me feel satiated and satisfied in enough. So if you are the sort of person that doesn't have that if you don't have a
1:02:51
Drive to get more possessions in order to make yourself happy you can basically see that as your happiness burn rate is way lower unit to 10 times that hundred times less than somebody else and you could have been brought up or born with the predisposition where you had to have the newest car you had to have the fanciest bag you had to always be flying away on holiday.
1:03:12
Is it fun? Yeah, but basically that means that your operating costs as a human a way higher.
1:03:21
Yet it's a good point. I reminded of I forgot who said it might be Coco Chanel of the best things in life are free and the second best things are really really really expensive. But yeah, the more strict the more the more I realized as I get older is the money buy happiness question is so absurd on all it comes down to is how strategic you can be with your money
1:03:45
when it comes to you you said it was personalized when it comes to you. What are the places that you have found a
1:03:51
Proportionate investment leverage where when you spend a dollar on it. Are you getting 10 x return in terms of your money for happiness
1:04:05
earplugs? It's B allergic not because I'm next to did it but are plugs especially when I'm traveling around because if I have one bad night sleep and I get these silicone multiple ones that I exchanged each time. It's like five to ten dollars a week which sounds like quite a hefty Airport Budget, but it's definitely
1:04:21
definitely way more than any like materialistic purchase that I've made essentially anything that makes me feel better throughout the day or speeds up time what sorts of
1:04:31
things paying
1:04:33
for access to a sauna I can regularly go there for example, or if I'm looking at an option where I'm staying that slightly nearer
1:04:43
a gyp
1:04:44
thinking through just based. I always come back to one of the things I think about is that high leverage relaxation. So look at things that
1:04:51
Recharge you to give you the most amount of energy and what has this the lowest cost or the lowest energy to produce that. So those two things in particular being able to see friends getting like Dickie gave us this at my birthday because I've never experienced until I came here the difference between Ubers an Uber Comforts and in America at the Uber can be any
1:05:15
car that pulls
1:05:16
up. Whereas an Uber comfort you getting this like
1:05:18
comfy little Tesla and it's only an extra two dollars sometimes for the journey.
1:05:21
Depends on the ride and that is like an example of a little bit of money their strategic money. But if I'm going somewhere like today and I mean like a nice Tesla beforehand and I can think about what being the chat about versus if I'm in like a clap top card. It's breaking down. Yeah. It's a bit more of a
1:05:35
problem. Yeah. Those are those are really good ones Dickie at it. You can go all the way down to the very bottom which is exact Excel which is a big Yukon or an escalator something and you realize when you're actually price it together for the number of people that are going especially if you're
1:05:51
Excel it's like maybe twice as expensive. But you feel like you feel like P Diddy, right, but with without the without violence without the violence you feel like P Diddy in his Heyday. That's great. I'm trying to think about other stuff for me certainly paying for assistance with things that I want to do. So you talking about high leverage recovery going to the gym is great going to the gym with the trainer. Yeah, you leave with more energy than you went in with. It doesn't stop your willpower. That's just somebody there that's telling you what to do. Same thing would be true.
1:06:21
True for going to a CrossFit class, you know paying for a CrossFit membership like yeah, you know the gym or Planet Fitness or something I can get that for 13 pounds a month. Okay, but how much of your energy is it sapping our how much of your willpower you having to use to get yourself into the stage where you can get some energy back like you're spending energy to get energy. Whereas if you go into a CrossFit class or a Barry's Bootcamp or you get a PT or you do whatever last night. I did a breathwork class and it's $15. Yeah $15 for a
1:06:51
Breathwork class for an hour I did.
1:06:54
As much breathwork last night as I did all of last week an hour of breath work last night and I think I managed to get four 15-minute sessions in last week and it costs 15 bucks. So I think externalizing motivation. That's a big one for me good quality coffee, like nice nice coffee. Nice water stuff like that. And these are for many people Goods that would push their spend to income ratio up a little bit, but you can get an awful lot of Happiness out of
1:07:23
Quite low spend and you'd be surprised at the places that it comes from. Yeah, the obvious answer is things that you use a lot as well. So shoes laptop laptop laptop Riser. Yeah. Why have you been obsessed with Roger Federer and Djokovic and Nadal because you won't shut up about the my eyes. It's so good. So this came from Matthew sired. And for me, this is I've always enjoyed like self-help and self improvement, but there's a part of it that always felt a bit.
1:07:53
Icky and this metaphor kind of explains by problem with it.
1:08:00
And Matthew sired is a big tennis fan and he talks about he would go and watch Tennis and it was such a unique point in history because you had the three goats at once. So in football you had arguably the Two Goats of want Chad Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel
1:08:14
Messi in
1:08:15
tennis, you had Djokovic Nadal and Federer and obviously in the
1:08:22
self-help world or
1:08:23
that space. It's like this is the way well you see these Instagram reels and it's like if you do,
1:08:29
ABC this will happen and what's beautiful about this metaphor that Silo tells us you have he used to watch at Wimbledon the warm-up courts, so he'd turn up and Nadal's there and the dowel is like full-on Goggins like biceps bulging screaming as he's hitting the shots in warm up yet in warm-ups printing up and down to get himself into the Zone. I going as hard as he can then you have Djokovic who comes out who's
1:08:59
Almost an emotionless like robot who's just laser focused on getting the job done. Watch him warm up is how to hold on. These are the two goats at the same time completely different way of doing things then Federal returns up and you can hear him laughing before he arrives at the core. He's trial in like trick shots. He's doing dinks. He's laughing with his friends. He's just finessing the ball left, right and Centre and these three and obviously the debate between them but these three arguably the three goats
1:09:29
Out of there at the exact same time give or take and had completely different philosophies to doing things and that goes to show and I've always now took that metaphor whenever somebody gives me 0 you need to do things this way or this is the way this gets done and realizing. Okay. That's the Djokovic we're doing there that might not apply to me on that's the federal we're doing it. Oh, that's the Nadal. We're doing it. Ironically in Dallas. She had the most minor injuries, which is one thing you could take into consideration But ultimately,
1:09:59
Is no the way as shown by those three, there's completely different ways of achieving essentially the exact same output. In other news. This episode is brought to you by element.
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Going to drink LMN t.com modern wisdom that drink LMN t.com /
1:11:07
modern wisdom. I wonder whether one of the reasons that people look for one-size-fits-all answers to questions is that if there's three potential answers to the question that then puts the onus back unto them to work out how to do it. Right what
1:11:25
people want is
1:11:27
a reliable set of
1:11:29
puts that can get them the outcome. Someone else got they don't need to go. What is the way for you to get the outcome? It's the same thing again. It's what you focusing on inputs or outcomes. You want to get the outcomes,
1:11:39
but if
1:11:41
someone says here is the answer there is no answer there are multiple different ways and here are some principles and you need to work out. It's like I fucking paid 500 dollars for this course. I've paid $400 for the dollars for the productivity costume. You're telling me that it isn't I need an external brain, but I might do and it isn't I need to do spaced repetition, but it might do
1:11:59
do and it isn't I need to do time blocking but I might do a yeah, I think a huge hesitation should be placed on saying this person achieved success and did this thing there for doing the thing that they did will cause me different person different disposition different background different set point to get the same outcome that they did. Mmm.
1:12:24
I think it then comes down to
1:12:27
The scientific method it's we live in the enlightenment period it's only been what not couple hundred years or so that we've had electricity had all the things that we take for granted now and that comes out the Scientific Revolution and applying scientific frame to viewing these problems of okay. That's the Nadal we're doing it. That's the Djokovic way of doing it. That's the federal we're doing it. How about I'll try this see how that goes. I'll try this see how that goes. Try this and see how that goes and then judging based on the experiments how it worked.
1:12:57
Personally for you, you're seeing this huge boom in nutrition right where for the last 50 years. It was like there's this diet. There's the only banana diet. There's the vomit three times a day diet and now it's actually what is probably the best diet for Chris is different to what's the best diet for George, etc. Etc. Etc. And I think we'll just find out more and more with time that personalization is more and more important than we think but as you mentioned then it's hard to sell that.
1:13:27
It's not as gimmicky. It's not as easy to get people into a funnel that buys the 699 course because it's often a lot more personalization and the people need to have a lot more agency over their
1:13:37
existence. The work is put back onto the person who needs to do the work. Yes, but the truth is the way yeah. Yeah. I think that you're right. We also had this discussion in Miami about why hard work is something that people often pray at the altar of and I'm one of these people right, you know hormones have been on the shogun's Jocko Etc.
1:13:57
And I don't disagree hard work is a very reliable route to achieving success. But I think that optimizing exclusively for hard work causes you to miss an awful lot of the higher leverage roots. And also maybe some of them are personalized ones too. There's very few problems in life that aren't made easier by working harder, but there are other high leverage high-return less painful routes to achieving the same outcome. Those are less reliable though, right?
1:14:27
Like hard work will almost always get you closer to your goal working hard will almost always get you closer to your goal. Incrementally
1:14:34
therefore. It's like a
1:14:38
moderately effective but highly robust
1:14:42
drug that I could give you to deal with some malady that you're dealing with and then here's five other options
1:14:49
for of which won't work at all. But one of
1:14:52
which will work 10 times better than you just doing the hard work thing and maybe hard works. It's sort of alongside it you kind of loop them in as combination. But yeah, I think that's one of the reasons why praying at the altar of hard work, it's something that's
1:15:06
so
1:15:10
It's so podesta lized because when has anybody ever worked harder and it hasn't helped at least a little bit. So it's the Panacea but it's actually only working at sort of a sealing cap sort of right and there's way more effective versions that you could look at alongside that are outside of that. That isn't just okay just get up earlier go to bed later spend more time in front of the screen. Mmm. What's an example for yourself? That's more productive or impactful than hard work or things.
1:15:40
That you often neglect because you're too busy working hard. That often is a bigger lever
1:15:46
reading. So I asked myself this question during my end of your review. I think I'll see you this is well, what are the things I think are productive but aren't yes and what are the things that are productive but I don't realize our and that's just such a phenomenal question cause you're starting to see where am I putting investing into hard work kind of reliable, but could be not so useful and where am I not seeing the penny stocks that have got 1,000
1:16:10
X potential upside so for me sitting in front of the computer when I'm not working or when I'm low on energy makes me feel like I'm working. It makes me feel like I'm busy actually don't really get anything done being on slack being on emails and taking calls for the most part very very low. Roi does move me incrementally closer to the goal of whatever it is. I'm trying to do stuff that is productive, but I don't realize it going for a walk without my iPods in and without phone.
1:16:41
Reading which is huge reading and writing probably should have been in there focused reading and writing massive massive upsides going for coffees with friends and going for dinner with people that come through town for a short period of time. So next week we're going to go for dinner. We're going for not putting with Brian Johnson and a bunch of is a bunch of his friends and it's like, you know, it's a Thursday night going to be one of the last night's that you're here. I do we really want to spend the time with people not too sure
1:17:09
but
1:17:10
I can almost guarantee that I will come away from that evening with an amazing story or some cool insights or a new friend or it's something cool. So thanks saying yes to more. Novelty is a good a good start one add on to the list
1:17:25
just really matter.
1:17:27
there I think when we discussed the UK issue earlier, I know you chat to like young guys a lot or in that space about feeling lonely or loneliness epidemic one of the things that doesn't feel productive that I'd say is like they're the most productive thing I've ever done is whenever I'm on social media, which is by definition often quite unproductive time or it's that I described Twitter now is like swimming through sewage searching for gold and every day I'll get a bit of gold but I'm covered in shit and it's that's the fact the trade-off that
1:17:57
Make my social media platforms now and one of my friends recently was saying how he's not got a circle like himself where he is. He's got his old friends is not going to so-called by himself and he goes so I might start going to a yoga class or across the class and see if I can meet these people go that's definitely better than doing nothing. But the odds of it of that is quite slim relative to online. So I go back to how me a new map right? I I I think I was sat on the loo.
1:18:27
And I D mu so I was just like hey, mate and we'll do I mention of some about Chrome extensions
1:18:34
said I see that you're coming to my office Who coming to my place of work in a couple of weeks time. Let's exchange Google Chrome extension, right? So
1:18:41
that in terms of finding people who produced like something call online and dming them like hey, I thought this is awesome. Do you ever hear let's do something together the amount of people that do that is so slim. I bet even the mistake people make is they'll
1:18:57
I right and this will Grant Cardone you'll get yeah, they'll go they'll try and punch way above their relative standing. And I mean the
1:19:05
first the good news is that even if you do that even someone like you you probably get so many diems and I get quite a few but 99% of is absolutely
1:19:12
shite. So if you can even provide some value immediately
1:19:14
in the 1% but I think the mistake that young people make all that I made is that you then try and punch you try and punch upwards. So you try and go as find the guy who's two million ABC always got older like my
1:19:27
Dream whatever, but actually what you want to do is meet peer so when we both met this basically so you had relatively nothing really nobody's just like yeah, it was back my favorite period of Chris when he would be interviewing some of the hike world's most hardcore Niche philosophers on the trolley problem. So I'd go on his Instagram story seemed like the trolley problem with some doctor at Cambridge and then the next Instagram story was 2 for 1 tonight Voodoo get Jager bombs in at this price then boom back to the toys. I can Batman Clark Kent single feed. Yes, so
1:19:58
So just finding people like that and dming them by the way, the only people will then the Imposter syndrome will kick in is like well, I don't make any content or I don't have a following. Honestly. It doesn't matter. All you need is a bio that says this person isn't fucking weirdo. So I just some kind of nice Savvy bio and a little bit of content on there and that's what I think all you need and you're better off finding peers then trying to find people you're fans of because you're always going to have this like vertical weird relationship, correct. Whereas if you meet people early on you can then grow together.
1:20:27
Other which is way more enjoyable because if you're 20 now and you try and become best friends with you, you're much older you're going to you're not going to go into that ib4 with them. It's going to be you're going to be boring relative to them. So finding peers that are on your level and it's so easy just by scrolling through social these days and people do not do that. Don't forget as well that if you find somebody that is at your level. Yeah, they're going to be dealing with the same problems that you are now me at 36. I can still remember like most of the
1:20:57
That at 26 but at 16, I can't remember any of them. I don't know what my mindset was like at 16. I can't even put myself in that theory Ali Abdullah. I keep coming back to this. I don't know where he said it. He said, um, you want to teach people that are about two steps behind you because you can't remember the problems of someone that's ten steps mind you so he has this idea of permanently sort of laying a trail of breadcrumbs and you basically get to lay and follow the trail of bread crumbs when you're with somebody that's on that same level as you write your similar age.
1:21:27
Racket similar sort of background similar sort of desire for where you want to go in
1:21:30
life. The the only thing
1:21:32
really that you need to optimize for two things first one being Vibes when you spend time with them at their sofa friend or a treadmill friend. Do you feel energized and revitalized and and regulated after you've been with them or do you feel a bit fucking irritated and healer God like I need to chill out after that. Those are antagonistic or I didn't like this it just something felt off. Like how do you feel post content Claret light post conversation Clarity and then the second thing are you
1:21:57
Are they optimizing for growth? Do they have a personal growth vehicle that they're moving along with basically, are they prepared to change because if you want to be someone who changes and you're around someone who doesn't change it always going to struggle because you're always going to be suggesting new things. They're going to feel like it's a value judgment on them and they're going to feel like accused a little bit and you're going to feel held back so Vibes and personal growth velocity. If you can match those two things, you've got a great set of friends that you'll continue to
1:22:24
grow and it's so much easier to do that online.
1:22:27
So going back to the reference of my friend who was I might go to the Cross Fit club? And by the way, that's not like a bad way to do it. It's just the brick-and-mortar weary
1:22:34
of doing it what it is so much more I had this idea that as you were talking about it that the finding someone on the line who you can tell you're going to get on with is a targeted strike from a sniper right? It's one of those drone drone bombs that hit an individual going to CrossFit classes carpets carpet bombing. Yes, and hoping hoping for the best. That being said, I do actually think that
1:22:57
Spreading the like, you know in a typical CrossFit class. Maybe there's 20 people in a typical gymnast 100 like that's a there's a pretty big net there. So you are probably going to find dude run clubs Jesus Christ The Run club that Noah runs here raw dog nut. Run Club is fucking huge. And if you are the sort of person that it 8 a.m. And 9 a.m. Wants to stand outside of the pizza truck and set off on a 4.5 mile Loop. That's a you've selected for a very unique sort of category of
1:23:27
Person there. So the more unique that it is but if it was like a I don't know random yoga class. Yeah. Yeah something that's the barrier to entry is a little bit lower. You're actually going to be selecting for a broader range of people,
1:23:39
you know, like a networking event is probably the worst example, right
1:23:41
any con for any professional
1:23:42
conference. So I go back to if they what's really interesting is we've now caught up were 10 years ago saying you'd meet people saying you date somebody online you was like this absolutely.
1:23:57
Submit to Allah Widow, and now it's completely at the whole date market and more than 50% of people meet online and I'm convinced the numbers higher but people lie, so but weirdly if you start to worry about making friends online, it still has this stigma that dating online 10 years ago did but it's purely just of like this momentum that exists but I do I go back to I reckon it's going to change with Gen Z. I think that's probably one of the most reliable or the highest conversion rate way of meeting people that are high
1:24:25
signal the problem is that
1:24:27
that locks people into only having online friendships or meet. I'll meet you on never but it's if you never transition out your own under the problem with Gen Z. Yes, the Genesee problem is that they're locked in to online friendships without transitioning them or graduating them to being in the real world. But yeah, I think there was an analogy that I remember realizing when I was thinking about pickup Artistry like forever ago and lots of guys were doing Day game and Kino escalation and
1:24:57
In the UK and there was a neck there's still a Nick. I think that many girls have around guys that say that they've actively learned sort of communication around dating if you re branded actually to I've learned direct communication or a non-violent communication which actually has the worst branding in the world like nonviolent communication MVC is like phenomenal is a modality fucking awful is branding because it's like you learned nonviolent communication. What's the subtext of that?
1:25:27
That you had to fix your violent communication like that. That doesn't sound particularly great my point being
1:25:33
If there's a Nick that some women have around a guy that has purposely gone out and learned how to communicate well with women because maybe it sounds a bit Machiavellian. Am I being manipulated here? But I believe that the real underlying Eric is oh, so you naturally don't have the talent to be able to do this and you had to learn it which is absurd because it's like saying, oh you go to the gym, so you're not naturally jacked and in shape or you train at
1:26:03
hitting the golf ball. So you can't just walk up and hit it. Everything is trainable right and almost no one but when you talking about Charisma almost see it feels like personality. It's a natural outgrowth of who you are and playing around with that is bad is sometimes seen as bad when it comes to friends and friendship how
1:26:24
Like despondent and and feeble does it sound as a 25 year old guy or girl to say I need to consciously work at having friends. I need to find friends. I need to go out and find them you think well, what's the subtext of that? Oh, you don't already have friends what's wrong with you? What's wrong with you that you as a grown adult who lives on their own and has a degree doesn't have the perfect group of friends already and I realized that
1:26:52
It's just a total fucking fallacy, especially if you have high standards for who you want to be friends with especially if you're non-typical with the sorts of relationships that you want to have with your friends of the way that you want to spend your time at the lifestyle that you aspire to have. Yes, and I
1:27:05
think one criticism people will give his I don't want to I'm not like an influence right it when it meet influences and that's the natural way to shoot down. I think the key thing with this is actually on the fewer followers often the better you want to just I love people who are find and they posted some incredible essay on the sovereign.
1:27:23
I had five likes and I'll see the location. I was in Amsterdam I go. Okay. I want to meet this guy. I'll go. Hey man, love this on the best things. I've seen on the internet this week and then have a back and forth and go I'll catch you in Amsterdam and I know with like 99.9% certainty with probably going to get on most of the
1:27:38
time there's obviously exceptions. You meet people who are very different to who
1:27:41
they are online. But this idea that oh they're for your meat it you having to go after people with followings or crate content the reaches lots of people. It's really not the case you can
1:27:53
You can narrow things down so much more specifically and you just so obviously our right but there's just this ickiness that exists and it's just this constant thing that exists in humankind were new technology comes along and we have this ickiness to people that use their
1:28:08
natural. This is the same
1:28:09
thing the same people that mocked it at the same people that are then using it in 10 years later or their kids are using it and they have no memory of mocking it in the first place.
1:28:18
That's a concert is Cycles all the way down from the start of
1:28:20
electricity to the wheel.
1:28:22
The first guy that create fire they were other human beings gun. Why do you need fire? Mate? Yeah, it's all the way down. So just don't take the opinion serious.
1:28:29
It's one of my least favorite things about people who are unduly critical of different strategies new technologies and Ardent that this is something that's wrong who in future end up using it and don't an object. You should be forced at fucking gunpoint to issue a
1:28:51
retraction.
1:28:52
That thing and
1:28:53
I keep bringing this up because it's always in the back of my mind. Remember that WhatsApp photo of the single squaddie walking down the Streets of London that was forwarded a million times and it was like martial law is going to be implemented in London during the middle of covid. You're going to be locked in your homes at gunpoint. And this is the way that it's going to work. I got this thing sent and it just got propagated around. I'm like you can forward a message on WhatsApp, but then it went on to the real internet Facebook post and Twitter threads and a breakdown of how it was all going to work though these tanks rolling through Miami Beach.
1:29:22
And people sharing it like the World Health Organization are going to have health passports and there's going to be digital ID and it's going to be a surveillance State just like it is in China all of those people that posted all of that stuff.
1:29:36
What the fuck happened? What happened? Oh well because we pushed back so much. That's why they haven't been able to insert because Klaus Schwab. He really wants to do be hasn't yet and because of how you know the revolution the resistance we push back against like no go fuck yourself. It didn't happen. You made an insane you wasted my mind space because that's still stuck in my brain and I can't get rid of it. Right you owe me an apology. Yep.
1:30:00
So I comes back to the forgetting Paradox, right? We forget more than we forget because by definition we've forgotten it. Therefore. We never realize how much we actually forgot in the first place ironically when you message me yesterday saying what do you want to chat about let's chat about the forgetting Paradox and I searched it and we actually talked about on the last show that it was the most ironic thing ever that I forgot that we spoke about the forgetting Paradox so that constantly exists and it's there's a meme online of like the new current thing and there's constantly a new current thing in society.
1:30:30
Consciousness and it rips so fast. It's it's come through and it's gone. It comes through and it's gone it and what everyone's willing to fight on the street or on them the digital Street shall we say on Twitter about and then they'll forget their opinion or completely change their opinion member Kony 2012. Yeah, good example that example people will completely forget and it's like things that fade away the when things fade away you don't notice they're fading away because by definition they're fading away and if you did it wouldn't be fading away.
1:31:00
This is constantly happening throughout. I mean one idea you could potentially build is some kind of Chrome extension which just keeps a track of people's opinions on the new current thing on chain. And then whenever they
1:31:12
digital let's say they got a general ledger of all of your bad say opinion
1:31:15
on the war that's going on. It's like you click on it and you go. Okay. Here's your opinion the last five what you really supported this Iraq war thing that's on chain, but without that we never really reflect and we're constantly dealing with the new thing so we never actually have
1:31:30
Any reflection mechanism to see what people's past predictions what because we've moved on so fast, there was this question around if the vaccine is if the vaccine came out when they say Trump got elected and it won't be the election buses Biden and it was seen as the Trump vaccine would be of had a flip where the people on the left would have been more vaccine hesitancy on the right would have been more pro-vaccine. Who knows. I think there was a Democrat who said I won't be taking the truck back scene when he was doing trumpet in the classic thing around I cried the vaccine.
1:32:00
Before he got host it out. So it's really interesting these opinions that constantly change the new current thing. I did this this image. I found of the biggest talking trends of 2022 and it's all the usual political hot beds here today gone tomorrow here today gone tomorrow and of them all of these most heated talking points for that year the most consistent one that lasted throughout the year was Wordle a novelty game the ultimately disappear. So you've got to be strategically I think a lot more strategically.
1:32:30
And with what you want to
1:32:31
consume what you mean, when you talk about strategic ignorance
1:32:33
strategic ignorance is essentially this idea. So you have the terminology ignorance is bliss which is such a weird upside down nietzschean worldview that we calling something Bliss as an insult and you essentially you essentially realized that there's so much things. You can pay attention to in the modern date. There's so many things constantly getting uploaded that you have to be ignorant and there's this old all your ignorant about this. It's like, well, what do you think about the situation?
1:33:00
In Djibouti, or what do you think about the situation in as one teeny or what do you think about the situation in jackass tan and they got what and what you realize is that they don't even realize these countries existed and they have no clue what's going on there and didn't realize the jacket stands our country that invented. So so you essentially realize there's everybody's ignorant but some of us are looking at the stars. So essentially you have what I call low agency ignorance, which is kind of just top down like you're just reacting to what's on
1:33:30
On the newsfeed constantly and by definition you're only ever going to consume naught Point naught naught naught naught 1 percent of the world events because it's just the way of the world and then you move on to the next current Thing versus high agency ignorance is at least unless I'm going to be ignorant but I'm going to try and be intentional about what I am ignorant to who I'm going to consume what I'm going to listen to so we are all ignorant, but some of us are looking at the stars
1:33:51
so something arises and you go. Yeah, that's another post about X thing that's going on. I know that other people think that this is important, but it just doesn't
1:34:00
Resonate with me. So I'm not going to invest a tiny amount of time or no time at all and give my opinion. I'm just going to let this one sort of Slide by yes. Yeah, Douglas Murray had this idea about normalize saying I don't know. Yeah. I have no opinion on that. I'm not wrong. I haven't I don't really know about that thing. What do you think tell me and I think that the internet has kind of demanded that we all have an opinion on whatever the topic of the day is.
1:34:30
And we all get dragged into it. But ultimately, you know, probably nothing really that contributes to the situation. Like what do you
1:34:38
really know about epidemiology. Do you really know about Middle Eastern
1:34:42
politics? Would you really
1:34:43
know about border
1:34:45
immigration and you can you know, if you're treating news stories like the Kardashians where you just get to foam finger wave for whoever your favorite team is or you just want to talk about it because it's gossip fine, but if you want up a meaningful conversation
1:35:00
And if you want to get emotionally charged on one side or the other about it, you you need to be strategic in your investment of understanding about it because otherwise you're just allowing yourself to get ragged around by whatever the news story of the day is like there is a huge cohort of people for whom every big story is their big emotional investment over and over and over again, and it must be fucking exhausting like I got criticized for not commenting on covid. I didn't have anything to say on
1:35:30
bird could it have been done better in retrospect absolutely could have been done better at the time. Yes, whether some things that were fucking ridiculous. Absolutely all of the things all the way down. I like I'm not the guy for this. Okay. I did a what we did one episode which is a lockdown hacks, which is how to work from home with Johnny music and as I told the guy for I'm the guy that's my area of expertise. You want me to teach you how to be productive from a home office. Absolutely. I can teach you how to do that. But you quickly realize they're not when people go. Yeah, but what's your opinion on it? This is a serious topic.
1:36:00
And then you ask them about another serious topic that's maybe 10 times more serious than what they're not considering right now. They were ignorant all along. So you basically realize everybody's ignorant. Some of us are doing strategically and some of us are doing it on strategically by just reacting to random events that are going on talk to me about why only the weird Behavior survives
1:36:19
So I was at a funeral and it's a northern funeral. So it's a mixer like everyone's a emotional bonds. Also laughing at the same time and I realized when people turn stories at the funeral, but the person is the only stories they would tell was about this person's irrational weird eccentric behavior that made them them and I kind of realize that all the normal stuff like the job and and they made the
1:36:48
a cup of tea and certain words that they would use obviously by definition. Nobody mention that all the only thing people would bring up was the crazy stories about that person what separated them as individual and I realized that all essentially normal behavior is forgotten. So when you're trying to fit into the tribe so many of the try and do and get rid of our
1:37:07
individualism because we think it's weird
1:37:09
or whatever the irony is that come the only thing comma funeral time or come once a few years later.
1:37:18
When people think about you, the only thing they can really think about is the weird idiosyncratic behaviors that you have and this desire to fit in with the tribe means that we end up leaving. The only thing that they ultimately remember I told you that story about Salvador Dali Roberto. Did you do this is this is fucking great man. I research Salvador Dali for that tedx talk I did forever ago, and I'm
1:37:42
My thesis basically was that Salvador was an unbelievably unique human his parents had a child nine months or 10 months before he was born called Salvador who died during childbirth and they were adamant that the actual Salvador was a Reincarnation of his dead brother. So that was how he came into the world. That was how we started Life by age 10, he'd found out that he was a masochist and used to throw himself down the stairs for fun. She'd enjoyed pain.
1:38:12
He wants needed to be wrenched out of a deep sea diving suit mid presentation on stage because he was suffocating because he just tried to do this thing. He fell in love with this woman. He was married. So was she they both left their Partners to be together and he literally considered her Divine. He thought that she was his Muse that had been sent down from the Heavens to inspire him in his work so immediately as soon as they got together he bought her a castle that he wasn't allowed to go to
1:38:42
And he had to send formal letters of request like you would to royalty in order to be able to visit her non fungible non typical guy, right?
1:38:50
Every different bit of Salvador Dali needed to be expressed in its fullest form in order for him to be able to be him because his brilliant as they were Michelangelo didn't do
1:39:03
Dolly and Leonardo da Vinci didn't do Dali and Van Gogh didn't do dolly
1:39:08
in order for us to get everything that he had to offer the world and the universe he had to embrace all of the things that were fully him and had he have compromised on any one of the different.
1:39:20
front bits of idiosyncrasies and witnesses that he had the world would have been fundamentally let's because we would have been depleted of what his offering was and I think that when you see
1:39:32
it is your duty to bring to the world that which only you can I think that's a really beautiful reassurance. Yes. Only you can do this. You can't look Salvador. You can't be DaVinci much as you may try much as you may have established patterns of success societal Norms the way you dealt with past trauma your fears about shame and mockery your guilt about not being as successful as you want or your your concern for the future or regret about the past.
1:40:01
The only way that you can contribute to the world that which only you can is by being the thing that only you can be but the
1:40:09
mistake I've made is when I and I'm high on the weird scale his then when I feel that weird thing that I want to do or say come up is I got on harder than normal thing because I want the social benefits of that but the realization I had at that moment of the actually that's not even true all that the social benefits in the short term.
1:40:31
But ultimately people completely forget about the behavior, whereas when you do the weird thing of the idiosyncratic thing or The Eccentric thing in the short term, they might be will the immune system kind of goes well Jesus Christ, what's that but long term that's the only thing that people ultimately remember you for anyway, so all the social benefits so the social you'd only reason you was actually making the trade in the first place was because you were scared if you showed you a weird side you winning at the social benefit but come funerals come like long-term history. The only thing people remember is the word things. I remember one of my friends Nike.
1:41:01
And a birthday party on and it was kind of like 20 21. It's very shallow relationships at that point. I was trying to get the most of my people to attend my birthday parties ridiculous and loads people attend, but my friend Nike but came all the way from London to New York to be there. I was like we've had so many other interactions of a chat about the weather or the football, but the that's the irrational behavior and I remember what what what are some other good examples of irrational behavior that from your life for people around you that you think we'll survive
1:41:34
For me it comes down to I have this terminology called like non fungible human. So people now know the word NF T is so money is itself fungible little Chimp on the blockchain that has a silly hat fungible non fungible. So non fungible essentially means something that's completely unique can't be traded out and you quickly realize that everybody in your life who are your favorite people are fundamentally non fungible. I had this realization with use Africa. Why do I like you to have so much go? He's so non fungible. He's so
1:42:03
uncommon amongst uncommon men and signs of non fungible people and people listening to this or go check I think about the person who's not fungible in your life and will have this checklist. It will be they have isms. So they have their own language. So like for example, say what you want about these people you've got like Elon Musk has MA schisms Conor McGregor has McGregor isms. Charlie Munger has Munger isms. Like the rump or Trump has that has their own language that they you think of words that they use or phrases that they use that makes them.
1:42:33
Fundamentally different they make them non fungible you have stories about them. There's so many stories that that person produces because by definition they're living whether you like it or not some kind of authentic existence, but in this definition to be fungible, we ultimately completely delete the whole the whole memory stack about us, which is quite ironic because the only reason we were doing it in the first place was to to make people like us and they don't even remember it my favorite irrational behavior of you surf was that he was doing he was practicing no way.
1:43:03
wait, no bar Olympic lifting in airport departure Lounge during a like in front of a packed group of people because he just wanted to move so he was there but
1:43:15
standing up with a pretend barbell above his head better one is what's the one with his Bat? Oh God. So I mean this is on the internet. This is I think the most played video I slept on the floor for six months to see if it would fix my back and he was he'd only just got into a relationship with a me as mrs. Maybe three months or they're not long time before nowhere near a long enough time to be like, in fact, I think he was doing it when they met. I don't think that she'd ever stayed over at his house and he
1:43:45
Perilously close like nicked the bottom of I'm not going to like I'm not going to get into a relationship with your stay in this relationship that I've been in for two months. If you make me come around to sleep on the floor, I'm not sleeping on the fucking floor you surf and he was just well. Okay. Well we can stay at your house and I'll come home and I'll sleep on the back because he wasn't prepared to break this experiment. So just outstanding but I mean, you know, this is just personal experimentation, I think and it kind of comes back to that positive reinforcement.
1:44:15
ultimate thing we were talking about with your group of friends that if you want to be around people that give you great stories that have different interesting things that are going on that show you a different perspective and the world
1:44:30
The behavior that you want to encourage needs to be encouraged and if someone does something new or strange when you can laugh about it doesn't mean that you need to be even Pro it but you need to be able to accept like dude. I can't believe you nearly made your Brand New Girlfriend sleep on the floor at your house that you were in this brand-new relationship. Like I wouldn't have done that would have been crazy. That would have been you can give the criticisms you want but be accepting of the fact that they've done it and he's like, okay that's reinforcing that person to go and
1:45:00
themselves and that enriches the color and the you know, like
1:45:06
Dahlia stiffness of their existence in Rich's yours, it adds flavor and it adds excitement and stuff like that. Hmm.
1:45:16
Three or four big ideas from the last few months subprime audience. What's
1:45:22
that? So people know on 2008 you had the great financial crash that happened and a lot of it was these subprime mortgages that were getting sold on which were basically just junk mortgages people that couldn't afford to ever pay off those mortgages. It was trash mortgages that were then getting sold on a mass and as a result people were buying them. The whole credit system was propped up and the whole thing.
1:45:46
Came Crashing Down and I think there's a similar ish thing going on right now with craters and influences were a lot of them have like subprime audiences where it's just they've created content that they themselves don't like to attract an audience. They don't like and now the audience is beginning to no longer like them as well. It's yeah when I think it comes back to the hidden visible Matrix idea that when you're optimizing for likes
1:46:16
Use Clear width metrics and forgetting about the depth metrics. So there's a big difference between this video got played 10 million times and this video got played a thousand times by 100 people. It's so significantly different. I think one of the ideas I have for Twitter, so I would like to see
1:46:39
Perkele or happen is right now with Twitter or a lot even Instagram a lot of these platforms. You have a like as the currency and the comment I guess but let's you if you look at the like the problem with the like is it's completely infinitely fungible. Like I can like as many pieces of content and the problem that their means is I could release two pieces of content one piece that gets a million likes one piece that gets a thousand likes and the million likes was just as cool.
1:47:08
All thing that was here today gone tomorrow, but the 1000 likes Ron, there's 200 people in there that have read that thing 10 times and of glue it to the wall and get emotional when they speak to you because it was so impactful to them. But when I look at the screen I go. Well I need to do more of this one because the call the likes it's getting and I had this idea of probably stealing from dating apps, which is the concept to like a super like these social networks should have where you get one super like per week and it means that there's more value in a specific thing because then you can actually gauge
1:47:39
The success based off that
1:47:40
this is the best thing that someone saw this
1:47:42
week. Yes, and then forget about everything else and just go up purely off that you can kind of see it with Twitter. Now we've bookmarks closest likes is I kind of a better indicator and you can imagine a phase where you could then customize the algorithm more that you're getting more golden likes. I would way rather have my algorithm optimized for Golden like
1:48:00
so even though you could have optimized for bookmarks. Yes, right. I mean this is so he'll in the ISIS group that we're in iron sharpens iron Squad Sean.
1:48:08
On he he mentioned I think he posted some tweet and before that had done relatively. Okay in terms of numbers, but just had this absurd number of bookmarks on it and you go that's good. And that's it's kind of similar to your idea of after a while. It doesn't matter how many retweets it gets it matters who retweeted. Yeah, you just optimizing for depth rather than width. I just love the idea the subprime audience idea. I think it's so phenomenal because from the outside it looks like it's full of
1:48:39
He's in Double A's but when you get in there, it's seasoned double
1:48:42
seas and a good indicator of a subprime audience with a good indicator of a subprime mortgages. The person selling. It wouldn't have bought it. They wouldn't have done because they know it's junk and a good indicator of a subprime audience not always the case but a good indicator is the person creating the content wouldn't consumer. That's Max
1:49:01
content real right there. Would you consume your own content? If not, don't post it
1:49:05
and I think a lot of craters or people that
1:49:08
That some people may have issues with it comes down to that fundamental problem with the problem is that you can gain popularity and win on the objective metrics Thing by creating content that you don't care about and you can lose on the objective metrics Thing by creating content. And you do care about what you optimizing for and again, it just come everything's fucking hidden an observable metrics all all over again right now. But yeah, I think you know, one of the things that I was really not pleasantly surprised by because you
1:49:38
I can tell in the comments section A lot of the time but the comment section also selects for a particular type of people and blah blah blah the live shows that I did last year and were looking at the ones for winter this year as well every single person.
1:49:53
Caveat that almost every single person that came to those live shows. I would have happily gone for a coffee with I bet they're interesting people there into cool stuff. They've got like a cool story. They're working on
1:50:03
things that to me was the
1:50:07
biggest reassurance that the direction of the content that I'm making which I'm interested in and I get captured by this is a topic that we should talk about because it's in the news. Maybe I should do a bit on Diddy. Diddy videos are getting you know, two million plays. Maybe I should talk about did well, all right.
1:50:22
It really does it matter. Am I going to Care do I want an audience of people that he ever did he gossip maybe but do you want an audience of people who are here for did he gossip then Paris Hilton gossip than Kim Kardashian gossip and blah blah blah because after a while if you keep on spinning that up you end up surrounded by people that aren't like you and that consume content that you're not interested in because you've processed this is basically the subprime audience is the
1:50:50
it's the
1:50:51
exit liquidity of audience
1:50:54
capture. Hmm. Like that's
1:50:56
ultimately what you end up with. If you keep on winning the game of audience capture you end up with a very successful audience of people who aren't like you and Aren't don't like the things that you actually like because all you've been doing is feeding them red meat and the the worst thing we've subprime audiences is the hidden metric. So the visible metric are the people who've had a successful strategy with it, which are the ones that have huge content creators.
1:51:20
That wouldn't consume their own content. But the irony is there's a load of hidden ones that are also pursuing the same strategy and because it's so shy / never actually getting any form of take off versus going back to the my content razor of would you consume your own thing? If you do that you were guaranteed you have at least product Market fit with yourself. Yeah, and then you can kind of bat there's at least some of a weirdos and maybe a hundred a thousand ten thousand whatever that are going to also fit just due to the law of large numbers.
1:51:50
But when you have the opposite when you're posting things that you wouldn't yourself consume, it might be the case that the total addressable Market zero. It's like creating a product idea where you don't want the product and ultimately nobody wants the product did I think I taught you about I asked people on the internet who use the word grifter for the people who use it. What does this mean to you? Like? What is the word grift because you know, there's lots of that word gets thrown around an awful lot. It's kind of like anybody who monetizes anything kind of but then there's
1:52:20
um people that monetize and don't get called a grafter. So I was like, okay. Well, it's not a word that I particularly use. I'm typically on the receiving end rather than on the like so saying and and I asked and the best definition that someone gave was if the person selling the product wouldn't use it or buy it themselves.
1:52:40
That's a grift like would you use or
1:52:42
buy this thing yourself? If you weren't being paid for it, or you wouldn't own it and you know for all of the criticism there's a lot of skepticism. I think her up pod pod casts advertising influencer advertising in general at the moment. That's the best heuristic. If you want to be immune to criticism about the partners that you work with about the views that you hold about anything that you do just partner with people that you use their product.
1:53:09
It's like I would Jim shock. I
1:53:12
can't get a sponsorship from Crocs yet. But whoops rat like all of the things I talk about are used. So even if people have a big problem with it, you're at least in some part insulated from it to go all fucking hell. I like it. Like I like an eight sleep. You know, I I use momentous protein. I didn't you know fucking shoot me. I'm not complaining about you and what bedding you you go to bed in the only difference is that you're not talking about it. So, yeah, I think that's and it's similar to your the
1:53:39
subprime audience thing is similar to The Golden Rule of the internet thing that
1:53:42
you've got.
1:53:44
Yeah, the golden rule of the internet is
1:53:48
if you run enough A/B
1:53:49
test you'll eventually end up with a porn site. All
1:53:53
roads will lead though. If you keep going. Okay, we'll start with this
1:53:56
from nail or we'll start with this intellectual topic and will A/B test it. If you don't have a point of guidelines that things that A Line in the Sand all roads will ultimately lead to a porn site. One thing that you said to me ages ago that I liked was you have almost brand guidelines.
1:54:13
lines that act as this
1:54:16
Room / border and then you're willing to A/B test within that but it never goes outside of that. Correct, but I think a mistake that can happen is you never put those in place and just let the A/B test decide everything and then you just kind of drift. Oh continuous Q, so you need to balance the the art with the science because if you go pure science, you will ultimately end up with with a porn site. And if you go pure art then you end up with something that's probably to ineffective. Yes. You need to play Within the rules. I mean, yeah, you know we have the method
1:54:45
That we use for split testing thumbnails on back catalog videos that are over the over three months old that those get Q seed. So the copywriter who already understands the brand guidelines that we have gets another person to come in and okay it to ensure that it really really is just a second set of eyes. Do you know what it's like, you're right right a marketing headline one day and you go pretty great that and then someone you work with goes swing and a miss there I do.
1:55:15
I think that that's quite quite right you need a second set of eyes on top of I think all marketing cup I think is pretty much impossible to get marketing copyright with just one person. Like you always need a second between you woke up that day. You were understaffed are overslept a really great gym session your caffeinated and everything's amazing you goober drivers your best friend now and you get any. Oh, yeah this headlines for not a fantastic. You know, you you even you would look at it in seven days and go what was I thinking about that Ash -
1:55:45
A basic concept I got from I think Eric Weinstein originally which was the The Ash and Milgram Conformity experiments. So the asch Conformity experiment was a famous experiment as questions around the validity of it, but the idea itself is quite fascinating, which is you would have multiple lines iabc white lines and imagine a would be 4 cm long be would be 6 centimeters long and
1:56:15
C would be 3 centimeters long and you put people in a room and you'd say what's the biggest line and it let's say nine out of ten are actors and they go first and then the final one is the participant and what would often be found if the nine would vote for C or a even though the biggest wine be that person would often vote in line with everybody else and action - or Ash positive is whether somebody in that scenario would go against the consensus of the room. So, it's quite a
1:56:45
Useful because it's our he's Ash - Ash - would be somebody who fails the
1:56:50
test therefore called truth. So Ash - would be but I think bees you guys all said a or C or a I think it's be and therefore that person will be Ash - but Ash positive would be essentially the person who kind of looks think I think it might be be but then this goes it's a or at sea or there's so much positive that the crowd distorts there.
1:57:15
Our own
1:57:15
perception. So we've no don't even see the evening realize that such like uber Ash
1:57:19
positive. Right and it's a useful naming Convention of being able to split certain people that you know, and you know, that person's pretty harsh - and it's quite useful because you know, if I'm asking feedback from somebody will they give me honest feedback or if they're in a certain situation that the Crowd Goes one way which way will they go and I thought about that like how do you actually create more and more Ash - people? It's quite a it's an interesting problem should be taught in schools if interesting idea. Yeah.
1:57:44
Well
1:57:45
Outsourcing your thinking to the crowd is always going to be quicker route. Like, you know, that's why we read books someone lives in entire life. They condense that down into 80,000 words. You read it you take away five things that you care about the most you've outsourced your thinking to them. But if you are totally at the mercy of other people's opinions, then you end up in this sort of Ash positive like uber Ash positive scenario. I had this idea from a text message thread that was in about a month ago, and I was talking to
1:58:15
A guy of a text and we were debating about somebody else and he had a very negative opinion of this particular person. And I remember thinking like I don't have the same negative opinion, but there's a part of me that's scared to say that I don't have the this negative opinion because if I do I'm maybe going to deplete in the eyes of this person that I want to like me and then it
1:58:45
We realize people don't want to hear what they want to hear. People want to hear what you actually think and I stuck to my guns and you know skirted around my people pleasing nature said actually, you know, it is hasn't exactly showered himself in glory recently. I really love his takes an x y and Zed and the response was like, well, I think he's a dick as a try. Okay, that's fine. And then I reflected and thought unless it's something that people really care about me saying like, you know, Saddam Hussein actually an alright guy like unless
1:59:15
Is a really outlier in cash flow
1:59:16
conversion
1:59:20
unless it's a real outlier opinion or something that they're very very precious
1:59:23
about.
1:59:26
Almost saying something
1:59:28
perfect. Another perfect example of this whole mozi would Alex's wife prefer it if he got dressed up to go to dinner in a nice suit and a shirt and all of the rest of it.
1:59:42
Unless the short term. Yes kind of because it's probably nice to not go to dinner with someone who's always in a beater and
1:59:49
shorts but
1:59:50
in the long term, she is more attracted to a person who wants to wear what he wants to wear than wants to wear what she wants him to wear. And that's the same people don't want to hear what they want to hear. They want to hear the truth from you. They want to hear what you really think and that it takes a lot of like confidence and sort of self-belief to be able to say I have faith that my
2:00:12
Ian is sufficiently right the I can stand on my own two feet about whatever this thing is that I think and that this person is not going to reject me for just saying what I believe and it kind of comes back to that subprime audience thing the observable and hidden metrics thing the non fungible humans thing that
2:00:34
would you rather get to the end of life being a
2:00:39
popular and successful caricature surrounded by people who don't really know you or like who you are deep down because you've never shown it or would you rather be a little bit less popular but actually maybe more popular by doing the thing you do. Yeah, because you're going you're never going to be connected to the things that you say or the opinions that you hold or whatever. It might be. I realize this with um, like dating with girls and stuff, you know, like let's say you're flirting back and forth with somebody and they ask what are you up to today?
2:01:09
Today or what? Did you get up to last night or like show me your outfit to know whatever, you know, just like normal flirty shit Anna your well, you know, I could send a photo from the archive of me looking all dressed up or I could send a photo of me walking down the street in Crocs or whatever it is that you're doing at the time he go. Well if I send the photo of me that me dressed up I may get positive reinforcement because it's me looking cool, or maybe I've done my makeup or have done whatever it is, but
2:01:36
That compliment isn't actually going to land. Yes. It's going to get the outcome that I want, which is someone to think XY as out of me. I'm not connected to that like they're going to give praise to a previous version of me. But I've lied I've lied in order to try and get the outcome that I'm looking for. I'm not actually connected and they don't see me and any praise that they give me doesn't land with me. So it's like to Google Translate things not talking the same language to each other but somehow like saying oh and we understood.
2:02:06
And each other at the end of the day.
2:02:09
Again, that's an example of only the irrational Behavior survives, right?
2:02:14
Yeah, the guy that refuses to not wear a beater and shorts to go to dinner. What have you come to learn about incentives something that we've both been pretty obsessed by recently.
2:02:22
I think incentives are
2:02:27
the most under discussed topic when it comes to the news when it comes to society when it comes to the individual level. So few people talk about the incentives and when she understand the incentive you begin to understand everything a few fewer aphorisms on this is never as your Barber if you need a haircut because guess what he'll think you need a haircut. I'm you / soon as you go. Oh what's the incentives of the system and then begin to understand that a lot of
2:02:57
Stations that people have with individuals or Society begins to make sense. So there's one famous example of I think it was FedEx that manga talks about where
2:03:07
FedEx were having huge problems of getting deliveries done on time staff would working way over into the next Day deliveries were late and somebody had the genius idea to stop paying them per hour and start paying them by the shift or when the work was done and all of a sudden it was no longer a problem and there was another example of the in Greece where apparently they had it were to deal with congestion. They created a system where people with
2:03:37
with their license plate ended in an odd number they could drive this day and then the next day even numbers and all that happened was people within game the system. So rich people would just buy two cars and you end up with more congestion on the fuck. I don't know.
2:03:48
So whenever you see
2:03:50
the whenever you see the incentives, you'll often have a Insight in what the outcome is going
2:03:55
to be. What was that British criminals dying
2:03:58
thing? Oh, yeah. This was I think goes back to understanding history this when you the fascinating thing of Australia was
2:04:07
The where we just sent our criminals, you know, Colin is wild what it's one of the reasons why I love understanding history because you begin to realize how absurd reality is that the current day is and so there's a story from when the Brits were moving prisoners. I believe over to Australia and they were originally paid per person getting on the boat and back then like it wasn't great HR policies. They treat people particularly well, and it was something like thirty three percent would die.
2:04:37
On the voyage from Britain to Australia, but the people are already pay they don't give
2:04:41
a fuck then when they change the system that they would get paid for when the people arrived in Australia. The survival rate went from
2:04:47
66% to like 99% So again, all you've done there is change the incentive system looping back to the beginning of the conversation things that are sometimes more important than hard work things that are more important than being busy is actually understanding the incentives of the systems that you're operating in and one tweaking one tweak in somebody's incentives that's working for you or
2:05:07
In your life the compounding impact that can have is absolutely
2:05:11
absurd never a tribute to conspiracy. What is more easily explained by incentives and incompetence from novel?
2:05:18
Yeah that explains so much of modern politics that explains so much you have people making horrific or inhumane business decisions, wherever there's incentives. I always have this idea which is one good razor that I'm trying implement it.
2:05:37
Is whenever somebody tells me something that goes in line with their incentives kind of massively downplay that idea and don't just download it because in the past I've done that somebody will go someone who lives in this city will tell me why this City's great and I got oh, I'll download that piece of information and then three years later. They leave the fucking set, you know, hold on. You told me this was amazing you no longer hear versus when they tell me the opposite. So when they tell me why they hate that City or let's say they're talking about their partner or their job if they're going against their incentives and identity.
2:06:07
The level of truth that's probably a nice so much greater than when people are going in line with their incentives. Is that question a classic phrase of never I think I wrote actually it was there's two two things. You should never try and do try and defy the laws of physics and get somebody to understand something that their salary depends on them. Not understanding what they're paid for people will not swim against their incentives.
2:06:33
On average sausage fests
2:06:36
talk to me about sausage fest
2:06:37
sausage fest, okay.
2:06:41
Fuck it. I don't know what to sell sausage
2:06:42
fest. Next one. Next one. Well, I think that you know, this came out of our Miami trip, which was a 20-person how many people came it was? No, it was like 14 what kind of us, but it's in Miami. Yeah, and at least half of them are from the UK. Yes. So we realized that sausage fest or under prize underpriced assets. Yeah.
2:07:04
Basically, I think the realization is more sausage fest is obviously a crude terminology for it, but essentially the idea
2:07:10
There is I think it's both a male thing a female thing a individual personality thing. But when you're I think as you get older what tends to happen is people particularly Matt, I think it's basically a male problem. They stop hanging around their friends because they've got their relationship. They've got their kids and guys are just busy and we're not really emotional milk care for one another and guys get lonelier and lonelier and lonelier and I'm convinced it's because they stop hanging around like one of the reasons the suicide rate is so high is because they stop hanging around their friends. And I also think it's
2:07:40
It often benefits their partner as well. I had this realization once when I was with my friend Alex at a bar in Manchester, and we're trying to way and I could see these girls kind of like looking over at all. Maybe these guys will talk to us and I just start burst out laughing because I'm in the process of breaking down Jim sharks negative cash flow conversion cycle and I got if only they could hear what we were talking about that immediately find a so attractive but I think guys and girls
2:08:05
sometimes need depending on their personality type. Obviously some people get it from
2:08:09
different means need
2:08:10
that synchronicity where they can get the thing that their partner would find someone attractive out of them in that nerdy environment. And by the way, this is so true. I think with the reverse as well. Imagine if the girls are doing a girls night and one of the girls is like and Annie come. Yeah, and he's like just completely ruins the vibe and the girls can't fully let their hair down. I think that ability to allow your inner nerd is have you seen Ryan long did a sketch which was the guy that brings his girlfriend everywhere and you know,
2:08:41
it's so fucking clever man. Like I love that world of sketches. Shane Gillis is doing it really well. But Ryan I think is sort of gold standard for it at the moment. Everyone knows the person the dude whose girlfriend either doesn't like him to go out on his own or the couple that kind of just always seemed cemented together. They just never never really apart. Even if it's supposed to be a boys night or whatever and it's the guy who brings his girlfriend everywhere, but this guy is part of a criminal Trio that's about to try and rob a bank so
2:09:10
He turns up and the girl friends with him and the other two dudes I get like why did you bring Stephanie? Because no she's fine man, you know, like she's fun and then she starts complaining about the fact that she needs to wear all black. She said, why do we always have to wear all black like, you know, can we not had a little bit of color in and they said right we've got to put the tights over our head so that they can't detect you said I've just done my hair. I'm not wearing that tight and it's just
2:09:34
oh fucking phenomenal idea and it's true.
2:09:39
It's true.
2:09:40
II sausage fest or underpriced what's the equivalent? What's the female equivalent?
2:09:47
He can't really say this without coming up with something. That'll get you fucking cancer. There's no equivalent. I'm sure that they'll be some work looking at is
2:09:53
definitely a male thing. Where when you're young you want to hang out with a few similar like-minded men and then obviously as you hit puberty you wanna be around dating and then as you get older actually the think the reason why I think a lot of minor depressive because they stop hanging around
2:10:09
there's some really good out in the first to suggest that one of the reasons that men suffer more men are hit harder by divorced not just
2:10:17
Financially, but socially I think that the biggest predictor before suicide for men over the age of 40 is the boss the deaths of divorce and depths of Despair. One of the main reasons being that men often subjugate their social networks because women are better at keeping in contact with close friends and then the wife's friend group becomes the husband's friend group. And then when the divorce happens not only does the husband lose a wife.
2:10:46
He also loses his entire Social Circle because their original loyalty lies with her and he's now in this sort of weird scenario where he's been maroon from the most important relationship he had and all of the other ancillary were relationships that would have helped him to whether those storms Robin Dunbar talks about the fact that you know, he's got this dunbar's number but it's really interesting when you break it down properly. It's been on the show twice and he talks about these sort of concentric circles going up and I think it's like it maybe a thousand or even 5,000 people that you can
2:11:16
have that a kind of you know, the name or you're aware of who they are or whatever. It might be. He's got this 150 number but the real important one is the most the tightest Circle in the middle, which is 5 so that you can have around about five close friends really close friends. And in order to sustain a relationship with one of your close friends you need to spend I think it's two hours a week in contact with them ideally in person but a relationship a committed relationship takes up two spots.
2:11:46
So you go from having five friends to actually only having three friends plus plus your partner. That's how much attention needs to be paid on that. And this is on average as people are going to hang close friends. I'm sure a worn or whatever non. But yeah when you realize okay, how am I subjugating my friend Circle?
2:12:08
For the relationship and I mean it's the meme is as old as time that your boy spends all of his time with you when he's single get into a relationship disappears off the end of the the end of the Earth and then six months later breaks up. He's like boys, I'm
2:12:23
back. Yes, but the reason why I think it's a underpriced sausage fest or underpriced assets, which I never thought I'd say out loud is that the scene is so lame, even the terminology is quite lame but it automatically makes that individual happier because they can get their nerd.
2:12:38
D weird self out but their partner gets really find some maybe a little bit icky when they talk about Jim sharks negative cash flow conversion cycle. So they get that out. They have the insurance policy of anything ever happens to their relationship that they still maintain these incredible friendships that they have and ultimately the relationships then healthier because they've got this we've got some a bit of alone time and attention comes back. Yep. It's crazy. How often that's sacrificed and when you see the suicide numbers, it sounds ridiculous than link everything back to that, but I would be surprised if that plays a small.
2:13:08
What I do least I tell you why sausage fest or underpriced is a valid like we had skin in the game in Miami. So it's George's 30th month ago month and a half ago is something in Miami and 14 guys come over and we have this big Villa and everyone staying there and we have the most non typical Miami 30th, which included group breathwork e-filing at 8:00 in the morning pickleball, and it was a Saturday afternoon and we'd done the breathwork thing. We got up and maybe
2:13:38
Going go-karting or something like that earlier on so he'd had the typical sort of morning. And then it's 1:30 p.m. Beautiful Miami weather in the middle of April and you think right. Okay 14 lads who are all aged between 25 and 38 or something and you go right there going to go send it. They're going to go to Soho Beach House. They're going to go to downtown and I've got the contacts Justin's their needs that I can sort you out at one Miami tonight you like. Where do you want to go you what you really want to do? You want to get your own do an early dinner?
2:14:08
Here and then you want to because the club start picking up around about 11 all the rest of it. And we've got this huge plan of different things that we could do and we piece it together and all the rest of it. I can't remember who it was. I don't think it was me but someone so and we've been talking about this for an hour all of the different things and all the guest list being sought in all the rest of it and someone just went
2:14:29
Boys, do you uh, do
2:14:31
you feel like just staying in the Villa shouting shit? And that was it for the rest of the night. We took a little trip to Little
2:14:38
Havana came back.
2:14:39
Maybe when we did go for dinner we went for dinner on the night time. And then that was the day that we bailed out of everything else. So yeah, we put skin in the game for the sausage fest like Camp. Yeah for skin in the game where should people go don't to keep up to date with all of the stuff that
2:14:58
you're doing?
2:14:58
Do you know if they want to keep up to date with everything I'm doing Twitter is always a good spot to George dash dash Max. Someone's got George Mack the bastards, and then by the time this is out. My website should be live. So that's just George Dash back.com, and that will have all my best ever essays and a few little nuggets on
2:15:17
there and was the mailing list
2:15:19
George Dash pack.com. You'll find the newsletter list on there as well. Holly. I'm pretty sure you man. Boom. Thank you so much for having me.
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