What's the green eggs and ham effect?
>> That is a describes a finding in
psychology that people become more
creative when the easiest solution is
taken away from them. So it is named
after the Dr. Seuss book Green Eggs and
Ham which he wrote on a bet that he
couldn't write a children's book using
only 50 words. And that restriction
forced him to experiment with his
rollicking rhythm, right? Because he
couldn't experiment with vocabulary. So,
it's it got that name in psychology
because it represents this huge body of
work that shows, as the cognitive
scientist Daniel Willingham likes to
say, you may think your brain is made
for thinking, but it's actually made for
preventing you from having to think
whenever possible because thinking is
energetically costly. And so, your brain
wants to do the convenient thing, the
easy thing, what neuroscientists call
the path of least resistance, like just
reach for stuff you've seen before. And
so it actually becomes kind of
impossible to be creative unless the
easiest thing you would reach for is is
blocked.
>> So the thing that actually led to that
bet with Theodore Geel aka Dr. Seuss was
before that
>> he was asked if he could write a
children's book using about 200 words
from from a vocabulary list for kids.
>> Is that so that most kids would have
access to it not not be able to not
comprehend?
>> That's right. And there was a a kind of
visionary publisher who correctly deemed
children's literature at the time very
boring. And so he wanted to it was an
assault on illiteracy. He said, "Look,
kids are not learning to read in as big
of numbers as they should. Why don't we
try making something interesting for
them?" And Dr. Seuss takes this list,
looks at it, realizes there almost no
adjectives, and starts complaining to
his wife. He basically makes this very
fine, I think, susian comment. He says
it's like trying to make a strudel
without any strudles. And then he just
throws his hands up and says, "I'm just
going to take the first two rhyming
words on the list and write a book."
First two rhyming words, cat and hat,
and the rest is history. So that's what
forced him originally to develop that
rollicking rhythm that he became known
for because the things he would have
done otherwise were were blocked. And so
that green eggs and ham effect that a
psychologist named is is summarizing
this huge body of work that shows that
the best way to prompt creativity is to
pull away the path of least resistance,
the convenient thing that people would
look for otherwise.
>> What would be the convenient path of
least resistance when it came to writing
that book? Because what it sounds like
is that it is more effort to work with
fewer words.
>> Yes, definitely. It's it is more effort
because the the things that the easy
things familiar phrases, right? Like one
of the things that jumps out about
Seuss's work is the phrases are
unfamiliar.
>> Normally, if he'd been left to his own
devices, he would have gone for more
familiar phrasing, which is what all
children's literature did at the time. I
mean, it was very literal. You know,
Johnny ties his shoes, walks to school,
and all these things.
>> Not this sort of LSD absurdism that he
ended up with.
>> Exact. Well put. Um and and he he
actually used this to to co-found a
whole book imprint that changed
literature for kids and and helped boost
literacy where he basically put
constraints on the authors. It was, you
know, vocabulary constraints. It was uh
the pictures all have to be continuous
across two pages. They can't depict
anything that isn't described directly
in the text, etc. And he said, "If you
don't like those constraints," and some
of them didn't, then you're just not one
of our authors. But they built the most
successful uh children's imprint
>> ever made by restricting people from the
things you know those who bought in said
I'll give it a try.
>> Uh found that they were able to do work
that they never would have envisioned
otherwise.
>> Why do you think talking about
constraints is so unsexy?
>> I think the word itself
is yeah unfortunately unsexy for me. I
think the word itself is like almost
synonymous with something that's
frustrating. And so I think our brains
are built for
to always overvalue freedom, complete
freedom and choice in the abstract,
right? And and the theory for why this
is is that in our evolutionary history,
we didn't really have a problem with
having too much of stuff or too much
choice, but we did have a problem with
having too little.
>> Issues of scarcity, not abundance.
>> That's right. And so that we evolved to
always want more, to be programmed to
want. You know, I I think of it as
similar to the brain in the way that we
are with sugar with our bodies, right?
We we evolved to like it because there
was only a little bit available and it
was useful when you found it. Now it's
all over the place and and we consume
way too much of it because we're just
not built to treat it as like the scarce
resources we should. And so you can see
in all these surveys and things, people
always say they want more choice, right?
Uh one of the when when psychologists
did this international survey of known
creativity myths since we were talking
about creativity,
>> things that we know from research are
not true. The top one was that people
are most creative when they are most
free. And we know this isn't true.
>> So they surveyed people and said, "What
are your beliefs around creativity?"
>> Yeah.
>> They came back and said, "The more
freedom equals more creativity."
>> Yeah. I mean, they they offered them a
whole a huge list of statements of
things that they that they um and then
people would say they agree with it or
they don't agree with it. And so they
could say agreed with what were myths.
Yeah. Most agreed with myth. Yeah. It
was like tied with that group
brainstorming is a good way to come up
with lots of novel ideas. That's that's
another one we can talk about. But um or
you see like people always say they want
more options for consumer things, right?
So consumer options have increased by
about
100 million fold compared to
pre-industrial societies, which dwarfs
the increase in wealth, which is only
like 400fold.
And people always say they want it.
Economic theory models us as if we'll
always be better off with more choice.
But then you look at things like since
the introduction of infinite scrolling,
people have been getting progressively
more bored, which makes no sense.
And researchers who are trying to figure
out how this could be like how could
more choice make us more bored in
>> entertainment options,
>> would run experiments where they would
say randomize some people to a group
where they would have 20 videos that
they could choose whatever they want to
watch. Or they were just given one from
that same set of 20 and they have to
watch it. and the people who had to
watch the one are less bored than the
people who have the 20. And the thinking
is that because our brains are
comparison engines that just the idea
that there's some other thing that you
could be doing undermines the experience
of the moment itself. And so it's all
this disconnect with how you know
rational actor man is modeled in
economics and and what's real in our
psychology where the rubber meets the
road.
>> Is this similar to Barry Schwarz's
stuff?
>> Some of it is. Yeah. I mean Barry
Schwarz's
some of it absolutely is. So I think the
way we're at and he was one of the
pioneers of I think showing that the
economic models of what should make us
happy and satisfied and lead to good
decisions are are are not the case.
>> And one of the places that he was really
impactful had to do with the the
affective consequences or the
consequences on our psyche of of too
much choice. So there was a uh he he and
his colleagues built this thing called
the maximization scale. Right? So this
is how much of a satisficer on one end.
Satisfice is a the term coined by this
Nobel laureate Herbert Simon. It's a
combination of satisfy and suffice. So
it basically means setting good enough
rules for decisions and and taking it on
one end versus
>> how much of a maximizer are you on the
other end. Maybe we would call that an
optimizer now, but it basically means
>> you will explore all of the possible
options looking for the best thing.
And it turns out that there's not a lot
of evidence that maximizers actually
make better decisions even though they
spend a lot more time making decisions
and they are less happy with their
choices. Uh they're more prone to
regret.
>> Um they are less happy with their lives.
They are much more likely to opt for
reversible decisions even though that
typically prevents them from kind of
committing one way or the other.
>> And so the people who are more satisfied
tend to be these people who say, "Here's
what good enough looks like and once I
get to it, I'm going to take it and move
on." cuz we we can't we can't actually
maximize anyway because we're not good
at predicting the consequences of our
choices. We can't evaluate infinite
options. And so if you counted the cost
of agonizing over decisions, I think
people would see that satisficing is
actually the maximizing strategy in the
long run.
>> It's so interesting. I think when people
consider, do you want to go into the
jeans store and see one pair of jeans or
do you want to see 20 pairs of jeans?
You go, I want to see more because I'm
going to be able to get closer to my
fully maximized, optimized utility
function to derive the most value from
the jeans that I'm going to buy. Uh, but
for all of those reasons, people seem
less happy. Something would tell me that
if you couldn't return jeans,
>> if there was no refund option and no
returns, no exchanges, that people would
probably be happy with their jeans as
well. Probably
>> certainly actually no exchanges because
that would be the most
>> right
>> uh direct one to one.
>> You know, this is basically directly
tested in some studies, not with genes,
but with other objects where people are
either allowed to exchange it or not.
>> Okay?
>> And the people who are not end up
happier with what they have. So it's
kind of like
>> despite the fact that they could have
chosen wrong and been unable to switch
it.
>> That's right. Chosen,
>> but they're committed. So that's so they
don't end up regretting. This is like
Ellen Langanger famously said, don't
make the right decision, make the
decision, and then make it right. Right.
You can't know what the perfect thing is
anyway. So I think it's sort of more
important what you do with it after
you've after you've made the choice than
agonizing on the front end. It's the
thing that's interesting is
we're very bad at rationally assessing
how a decision will make us feel.
>> Yes. What we do in advance is look at
this perfect sterile hermetically sealed
environment where we would be rational
actors and we would be able to derive
the maximum amount of satisfaction
effective satisfaction affective
satisfaction from the decision that we
made but we aren't able to discount for
the paralysis analysis the regret
minimization concern the I'm going to go
back take I'm going to take them back
I'll do the thing uh I And how many
times I remember when I was a kid I um
when Nokia was still sort of the phone
on the market and there was lots to
choose from. Do I want the one that's
sideways? Do I want the one that slides
up? Do I want And I would spend it was
kind of interesting to me. It's the same
as people with cars to a degree. What
level of trim do I want? What sort of
interior do I want? What particular type
of alloys do I want? And actually if I
get the 2023 model instead of the 22,
they upgraded this thing on the
interior. But uh but a lot of the time
that I I probably wasn't all that
satisfied with my decision. But in
advance, do you want to have that choice
restricted? No, absolutely not. So we
have this inability to predict how
unsatisfied we will be with the maximum
amount of the thing that we think that
we want, which is freedom.
>> And and and this this runs into
>> all sorts of consequential things like
if you survey people uh you know and say
if you got cancer, would you want to be
involved in choosing your treatment? and
something like twothirds of people say
yes absolutely I would want that agency.
Okay.
>> And then among people who actually get
cancer it's like 10%. Right? Like once
that actually comes they they don't they
want somebody taking that burden off of
them. That's interesting.
>> And and some of it has to do with
complexity too. So more choice is good
to an extent. It's just that we've
usually blown way past that extent. So
if you look at things like people's
retirement plans, you know, 401ks, if
they have a company match, once the
choice sets get increasingly complex,
they're more likely to make no decision
at all, even if that means forgoing free
money from the company, right? And so at
a certain level of complexity, it's like
it makes no sense that you wouldn't want
more choices, right? But human
psychology does not behave according to
the rational actor model of
neocclassical economics. What is going
on in human psychology that means that
we don't like it? Like why would that be
the case? Why would choice be
overwhelming? I'm trying to work out
what the source code is or what the
particular bug that's being hacked here
is.
>> Yeah, I think some of it in that case
like with the retirement plans is
anticipated regret basically. I think
that's uh
>> because of your shoulders.
>> Yeah. the fear of having made the wrong
decision that you're you're you get so
obsessed. It it it it becomes it feels
so bad the idea that you might make the
wrong decision
>> that you end up making no decision
basically and people stall and stall and
stall. So we are comparison engines,
right? So the the ability for us to feel
bad about what other thing we could have
done,
>> it's kind of a beeviling aspect of
psychology, right? in in all things the
these to go back to maximizing there
there's there's evidence from these
international surveys that some aspects
of maximizing tendencies are actually on
the rise. Nobody's a maximizer or
satisficer in all things, but some
people are much more
>> of maximizer or satisficer. And there's
evidence that the maximizing tendency is
on the rise, particularly in like the
richest parts of the world.
>> And that includes things like socially
prescribed perfectionism, right? People
feeling like they're never their life
should always be doing something better.
>> And of course, the theory is that it's
this ability to compare yourself
infinitely to what other people are
doing like on social media and all these
things. And we're not built for that,
right? is like we are comparison
engines. We are you know we compare our
status all these things but in our
history that was like to the people in
your immediate vicinity for the people
on your block not to the entire world
and so I think it's just a a poor fit
for for how our brains work.
>> Herbert Simon wore the same socks ate
the same breakfast lived in the same
house for 46 years and won the Nobel
Prize.
>> Yeah. He's you you would you would you'd
almost accuse the guy of having low
ambitions for some of the things that he
did if he hadn't won both the Nobel
Prize in economics the touring awards
the highest prize in computer science
because he was a founder of AI and then
he won the highest award in psychology
and his feeling so he coined satisficing
because he said humans humans do not
behave according to these economic
models we we can't we're not equipped to
evaluate infinite options we have all
these other motivations that aren't just
maximizing utility uh and we can't
predict the the consequences of our
choices. And so his feeling was that we
should proactively satisfy in in areas
of our life where we can. So the reason
he had one beret, one pair of socks, he
told his daughter, "One only needs three
sets of clothing. One on one's back, one
in the closet ready to wear and one in
the wash." Right? And so he sounds kind
of lame except he was he was preserving
cognitive bandwidth for the things that
he found most meaningful, which were his
his his work.
>> Yeah. So there's research that shows
people are more satisfied with
irreversible decisions than reversible
ones. And yet
>> modern optimization culture, decision
theory a lot of the time if it doesn't
have a psychological in informed view
specifically seek reversible decisions.
>> Yeah.
>> Does that mean that keeping your options
open is a form of self harm?
>> I think it often can be, especially when
it becomes an end to itself. Like I
can't tell you how many people including
my peers who will be talking about a
decision and they'll start talking about
optionality and which one preserves
optionality. And I'm like that makes a
lot of sense at a certain point in your
career for that to be like a certain
value but at a certain point you don't
want preserving optionality to be the
end in itself. Right. There's this
>> you've preserved optionality to preserve
optionality to preserve
>> exactly turtles all the way down
optionality. And then there's
>> there's this interesting research by
this guy Scott Stanley on relationships
that's finding increasingly younger
people are doing what he calls sliding
versus deciding in relationships where
in the interest of keeping their options
open. They'll say like I'm just going to
keep seeing how it goes. I'm not really
committed and then their options are
closing whether they like it or not if
they stay in. Right? So they kind of
sleepwalk into this escalating
commitment and if they end up getting
married they're more likely to get
divorced. They're less likely to be
happy. So compared to people who say I'm
in or I'm out and that's the decision.
So sliding in the interest of feeling
like you're keeping your options open
actually you know leads to these bad
outcomes and and you don't do the hard
work of saying like am I in or am I out?
>> Yeah. I mean how many people she's she's
kind of hot and you know we'll hang out.
She seems quite nice and well she's
coming over a good bit so I I'll give
her a drawer and she can have a a
toothbrush holder and well I mean you
know her lease is up so we well cool
like she can move in or whatever.
>> That's one of the ones he mentions in
the research. It's like someone's lease
is up, so they're like, "Well, it'd be
easier just to move in." But they didn't
really make a commitment to each other.
That one comes up a bunch in that resp.
>> I bet it does. Well, I'm I was going to
get a dog anyway, so why don't why don't
we buy a dog? And we've been together
for a couple years, so I suppose like
it's the thing that you do is to get
engaged and now you're engaged. It's
like, well, you know, like she I'm off
the pill, so like maybe we didn't fully
plan to have like you can fall backward
through your entire life.
>> Yeah.
>> Relationally.
>> Yeah. and in terms of career like well
you know like I'm here like it's I I did
the thing at uni and it was sort of the
it was the first guy that I spoke to at
the graduate fair.
>> Yeah. And he just seemed he seemed nice
and like convenient.
>> And I think taking data, right? Whether
it's as dating or with your career is is
really important. In fact, I think if we
treated careers like dating, we'd never
force people to settle down so quickly,
right? You want them to take data, but
you want this to be intentional. What am
I doing here? What did I learn about
myself? How does that inform the pivot?
whether it's a relationship or not, just
am I keeping my options open and seeing
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and using the code modernwisdom
at checkout. Interesting that uh if
somebody's CV looked like their dating
history, they would look like an
incredibly unreliable employee. Uh, but
if somebody's dating history looked like
their CV, they would look like someone
that didn't have an awful lot of
experience depending on what it was that
you did. But yeah, I I
learning can only be done through
updating. So there is a tension here,
right? There is a tension between the
desire for freedom and and the need for
constraints because in order to update
your model, you need to expose yourself
to as much as possible.
>> So it feels like these two things are
intention.
>> Yeah, absolutely. And and I mean my
previous book was about expanding your
experiences.
>> Do you know what episode that was on the
show?
>> Uh I don't know what episode. I mean it
must have been seven years ago
basically.
>> 84.
>> 84.
>> I want like a I want like an 84 out of
>> You should 1,180
something. This maybe 1,18.
>> I was 84.
>> 84.
>> I was I would not have guessed double
digits.
>> 84 dude. Crazy. [ __ ] crazy. That's
pretty cool. That was one of the the one
that we did on Range was one of the
highest played that I'd ever It was the
first time that we ever hit the charts
on Apple in 2019. It was the first It
was the episode that put us on put us
onto the charts. Yeah. It was like mid
middle of the year in 2019. I remember
I'd just started doing two a week a
couple of week a couple of months before
and I'd started the year with Rory
Sutherland and he was insane and it was
brilliant and I was like I should do
this twice a week and then yeah partway
through the episode 84 that was us who
was episode one
>> Stuart Morton he is a a guy that I
trained with at the gym and he was going
to row the Atlantic solo was 14 million
allstrokes across the course of a few
months and every single expedition this
is before he went out every single
expedition that he tried had to do.
There was some huge meteorological
catastrophe or the boat had a got hit by
a something and every single time he may
have done it now. Uh I kept an eye on
him for a good while. Compelling story.
Really cool. Um but yeah, I just found
some dude in the gym like hey you you
it's me and you sit down. I want to ask
you about this thing or a way to start.
>> And you were 84.
>> How many people in the top hundred have
been repeat guests
>> in the first hundred? Yeah.
>> In the uh A good few. Okay. Uh, Robert
Green, uh, James Clear, Rory
Sutherland's been on eight times, a
bunch of my other friends, including
George Mack, yourself. [ __ ] me.
>> We have to figure out some way to slice
and dice this data for me to have a
record of some type. I'm sure we can do
it if we
>> Very easy. Yeah, the the earliest I
mean, you'll be in in terms of book
sales over the last 5 years, you will be
certainly up there with range because
that absolutely smashed it. So, I mean,
yeah, it's it's cool, dude. seeing
seeing the full arc of people. I had um
Robert Wright who wrote the moral animal
and why Buddhism is true had him on for
his new AI book this week or last week
and uh we haven't spoken for 5 years.
That was the most in the moral animal
was the single most influential book in
my intellectual journey. I got to sit
down have a chat with him again like
Chris so great to see I love your
substack. I subscribe. It's cool. It's
like a little professional. You're in
different universes of
>> it's it's great. There's a Christopher
Hitchens line. says, "It's a melancholy
lesson of old age that you cannot make
old friends."
>> And uh
>> Interesting. Oh, wow. What a beautiful
quote. Isn't
>> that great? Yeah. I I think about that a
lot, especially with the show that I get
to watch like I don't know who I'll have
had someone on the show that's died.
I'll have had someone on the show that's
gone to prison. I'll have had someone on
the show who's been in a car wreck,
who's maybe gone to jail for some like
heinenous crime or some some false false
accusation crime or whatever, like a
thousand people. It's a big big
>> I think you should have a family reunion
of guests.
>> [ __ ] me. Could you imagine that? I think
there's probably quite a lot of beef in
between some of the guests that I'm not
aware of.
>> What family reunion doesn't have some
beef with some of the people coming?
>> I can make it into a Hunger Games thing
and the one that is left over.
>> Uh, all right. What was General Magic?
because this was a a company that I feel
like I should have heard of.
>> Yeah. But I haven't.
>> I like to call it the most important
company nobody's ever heard of. Yes. Not
not important because of what they
accomplished because they went down in
flames, but because of the people that
came out of it. So this this is a story
about the danger of having too few
constraints. So this was a company that
was so visionary in the early 90s that
Goldman Sachs took them public in the
first so-called concept IPO in Silicon
Valley history. They went public just
with an idea, right? not with a product
founded by three former Apple employees,
two of whom designed the original Mac.
Uh the third guy, his job inside of
Apple was seeing what's the next
frontier after personal computing named
Mark Pat, absolute visionary. He was the
CEO. I was reading his PhD dissertation
during book reporting 1976 at Stanford.
He coins the term information economy on
the first page and this thing is eerie
to read. He saw the future
in a way that I certainly never have and
not not just the promise of technology
but the dangers with automation with
misinformation etc etc.
>> And in 1989 in a big red leather
notebook he draws a thin glass rectangle
with no protruding buttons and a
touchcreen with rectangular apps on it
that's going to be a a phone and a
computer and a fax machine and ATM and
video games and messaging and everything
else. The web didn't exist yet, right?
15% of American households had
computers. But this thing is so
visionary that money pours in, talent
pours in. They form this 17 member
alliance of international
telecom companies so big that their
their meetings have to start with an
antitrust lawyer listing all the things
they're not allowed to discuss, right?
And they can do anything. They have
unlimited money. They have unlimited
talent.
>> And so they frequently do do anything.
Any good idea, they're making this
personal communicator. any good idea
that somebody has, they they basically
do it. They define their customer as Joe
Sixpack, which is as good as no
definition at all because nobody has met
that guy.
>> And so they're doing this incredible
innovation, precursors to USB, the
precursors to emojis, all these things,
but it just keeps growing and growing
and growing until it starts to collapse
under its own weight because they have
no focus whatsoever. This incredible
amount of resources
obiates the need to decide what they
should actually be doing. So, I
interviewed dozens of former employees,
>> and I'd say threequarters of them said
something to the effect of, "I just
couldn't figure out what not to do."
>> The the emblematic interview was with
this engineer named Steve Pearlman, who
was writing a a calendar function for
the communicator, and he writes it to go
from 1904 to 2096. Checks it in, thinks
he's done. Then a team leader comes to
him and says, "Steve, someone might
write historical apps. You have to make
this thing go back farther." So, he
opens it up and writes it to go from
year one to the future. Done. Then
another team comes to him and says,
"Steve, why are you tying it into this
arbitrary religious context? You should
make it go back to the beginning of
astronomical time." So he opens the
calendar function up and writes to go
from the big bang to the future. And it
takes months when it would have been
four lines of code if they stuck in 1904
to 296. This is how everything happened
at General Magic. They they go public in
the mid '90s. Mark Pat said he raised so
much money because he wanted to create
heaven for engineers, right? Where they
were free to create and and and limited
only by their imagination. And he said,
"What more could anyone ask for?" I
think the answer was less freedom
because they could not figure out what
not to do. So it totally imploded. You
know, stock price doubles first day,
worthless two years later.
>> Wow.
>> But the people that came out of it,
especially the young people, were
scarred by this and took these lessons
about the importance of putting limits
in place. and they co-founded LinkedIn
and eBay and Nest and created Android
and iPod and iPhone and uh Google Maps,
Safari, all these all these other
things. And so I think it became
important in that way because the
lessons that these other founders took
about the need for constraints
uh became incredibly important. One one
of the important characters in the book,
this guy Tony Fidel, was like the most
scarred because he it was his first job
out of college
>> and these were his rockstar heroes and
it goes down in flames and it was like a
trauma for him. He goes on to lead the
design of the iPod and then he co-ounds
Nest the smart thermostat company where
he when when I first interviewed him by
the way he was like I'm interested in
constraints and Bill Gurley the venture
capitalist had connected me with him
>> found the show
>> and Bill had told me uh when I said I
was interested in constraints said he
said we have a saying in venture that
more startups die of indigestion than
starvation he says you got to talk to my
friend Tony talked to Tony Tony says
that's my saying I say that
>> you I've got to interject here do you
know what churchian drift is
>> no So, uh, any unattributed quote over
time is more likely to be attributed to
Churchill. Okay.
>> But it's kind of if nobody can define
who said it first, it's almost
everybody's. I think I think dogs are
sort of like that. If you got a child
with you, I can't go up and pet your
child. If you've got a dog with you,
that is a gift to humanity. An
unattributed quote is kind of the same
thing but for public intellectual.
>> That's fair. Okay. I would have thought,
see, my first uh thoughts would have
been you attribute either Yogi Bear or
Mark Twain.
>> Mark Twain. There's definitely a
Tweenian dress. I don't think he said
almost any of the things that he has
actually that he said.
>> That's the position you need to get
into, though. Okay.
>> One of my favorite things is to be uh
accused of having said great quotes that
I didn't. I'm like, this is the freest
plagiarism
>> that I can ever do. I'm pulpably
deniable.
>> Are they good quotes though?
>> The ones that are bad, I mean, that is
the entire he said this thing and I
didn't and now I'm getting castigated
for it. A lot of the time they're pretty
good. A lot of the time they're not
sloppy.
>> That's nice. I I have an I have a quote.
So, I have an a different quote problem
with this one quote where I gave it for
an article once and I thought I was
taking it from someone else and I sort
of told the reporter like I can't
remember who said this but the quote was
I was talking about how expert
performers often don't know how they do
what they do. Like they'll give an
explanation but they actually often
don't know enough.
>> Don't tell me that you quoted yourself
and forgot.
>> So So I I said the quote was just
because you're a bird doesn't mean
you're an ornithologist,
>> right? Just because you fly doesn't mean
you know how you're doing it.
>> Yeah. and neither she nor I have ever
been able to find another source. I
swear I was taking it from somewhere,
but I've never been able to find another
source. So, she ended up attributing it
to me and I still am skeptical, but
>> Well, that's okay. I feel like uh uh
originality is just undetected
plagiarism and if it wasn't detected,
then it means that you got away with it.
>> Okay. Find it.
>> However, if you forget,
>> someone watching this is going to find
it now.
>> It'll be the internet's going to get it.
Yeah. Yeah. Find out who it is. Um, if
you say, I can't remember who said this
quote, but this this this thing, and it
later turns out that you said it, that's
an additional level of embarrassment.
Not knowing who said it is moderately
embarrassing, especially if you say it a
lot. But not knowing who said it and
finding out that it was you is a sort of
dementia that should be reserved for old
days.
>> Doesn't bode well.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh,
Bill Gurley, uh, indigestion.
>> Tony Fidel. Okay. though at at Nest he
this was kind of the apotheiois of his
fervor for constraints where he forced
the team to work inside a literal box
where he made them prototype the
packaging before the product because he
said this is what the end user is going
to see
>> on a shelf
>> if we can't fit it here this thing that
we're trying to tell them it's not a
priority and we're putting it on the
back burner
>> and so it's I think that's what useful
constraints can often do is force you to
clarify your priorities in a way you
wouldn't otherwise
>> how do limits power learning
This is the
a kind of complicated part of the book
where I write about the so-called
replication crisis in science. The fact
that most published research is not
true. And the reason it's not true is
because people haven't had enough limits
in how they go about discerning the
truth. So before I got into writing, I
was training to be a scientist. And I I
I should just say since I'm going to
accuse scientists in a way, I made these
same exact mistakes when I was a grad
student.
The issue is we gather data whether
we're doing it like scientists or we're
just doing it in our own life or we're
doing market research or whatever it is
we're doing.
What we should be doing first is making
predictions about what do we think? What
is our theory of the world? What is our
theory of this drug we're testing? What
is our theory of our product and the its
value add in the market or whatever it
is that we think we're doing
>> and then you gather the data and you
look to see if that prediction was
correct. But that's not really how
people have been doing it. They've been
sometimes make a prediction, sometimes
not. Gathering data and then
retrospectively looking for associations
in the
>> guest or something.
>> Parking is one of those hypothesizing
after the results are known. So it's
like a sharpshooter firing randomly at a
wall and then throwing a bullseye around
some clump. And someone who comes later
will say,
>> "Oh, that they're a really good
shooter." But really, they just circled
retrospectively.
>> And that's what science a lot of
scientists have been doing. So there's
this interesting point in the year 2000
where in in the leadup to 2000, decades
leading up to 2000 there all these big
trials for medications and supplements
to improve cardiovascular health and
most of them were positive. And then in
2000 all of a sudden almost all of them
are negative from 2000 on and there was
this question of what the heck is going
on? Can medicine stop working at the
millennium? But in fact, it was because
a funding agency decided for these
trials, you have to record your
prediction of what's going to happen
ahead of time.
And so they put more constraints on the
people doing the work. And suddenly they
saw that these their predictions were
not right. And what they had actually
been doing all along was retrospectively
making predictions by sifting all the
data, right? Just whatever they thought
was not right. So they just said, "Well,
we've got all this data. Let's go find
something else that pops out."
>> It seems like you should be able to do
that. You have a bunch of data. why
can't you draw a conclusion? But it
turns out that for statistical reasons
that's actually like running an infinite
number of tests. You're saying like
what's what's here that I can find?
>> And so it might pinpoint something for
you to then test. But to say you can
draw true conclusions from that,
>> you you can't. And so some of this
thinking was applied to businesses in a
study where businesses were randomized
to different types of training for
market research. And some of them were
trained in the scientific method where
they said come up with your hypothesis
of how your product fits the market.
uh come up with a way to test it. These
have to be specific predictions of what
you think what you think people will
value in your product or whatever it is
and then test it and see what happens.
And most of the companies that did that
that got that training found it there
something about their theory was wrong
about the value they thought they were
adding what people would want and all
those things and they would pivot. And
those companies were much more likely to
succeed and start making money than the
ones who really didn't make a strong
prediction, didn't test it and ended up
not pivoting. So they really didn't
learn. So you want to learn whatever it
is your own exercise something you're
improving at work make a prediction for
what you think that something you're
going to try whether it will work or not
and then test it and then you tweak your
beliefs slowly according to that. We
should all be making a lot more
predictions about what we think is going
to happen whenever we make a decision
>> and then you update little by little by
little.
>> Who is that guy with the soup bowl?
>> Uh Brian Wansync was the soup bowl guy
and he's kind of a poster child for
non-replication science. So, the soup
bowl was this famous study
where uh people were given bowls of soup
and just told eat until you're full and
then stop. And some of those people
secretly had a tube under the table that
was filling the soup bowl while they
were eating slowly.
And the finding was that those people
ate much more even though they were told
like just stop eating when you're full
that the people who had the the secretly
refilling bowl ate like way more than
the people who didn't. And so the
conclusion was we don't have a good
visual mechan we don't have a good
mechanism for deciding when we're full.
It actually depends on this visual
aspect. Whether that's true yeah whether
that's true or not I don't know but
basically his entire life's work has
been retracted. So Wansync was the most
famous nutrition researcher in the
world.
>> Nutrition research is a friaking mess.
Right. There's a there's a there's a
sadly humorous paper that sometimes
people call the everything in your
fridge causes and prevents cancer paper
where it it it gathered up all these
different studies of different foods and
plotted them and you could see literally
every food had been found to cause and
prevent cancer multiple times except
bacon which was found only to cause
cancer which is sad but real but for
mental health you know keep your mental
health
>> cracked my tooth on a piece of bacon
recently I think my sole take away from
that piece of bacon Yeah, bite down and
pull. You know, my sole take away from
that wasn't anything to do with
nutrition. It was just that the Muslims
were right.
>> Like that was that was Allah getting me
back. Yeah. Or maybe the Jews as well.
Like both of them actually. But finally
something they can agree on.
>> What
diplomacy? We should we could use that.
That's something we can build on that.
>> Come together guys. No pigs.
>> The the Wansync. So Wansync was doing
this the way that his career came down
because he was like one of the people in
charge of issuing you know making
recommendations for dietary guidelines
to Americans and the time when his
career came down he was a superstar. He
wrote a blog post talking about how he
does research and he basically said the
blog post I believe was titled the the
grad student who never says no and he
was writing
uh this praiseworthy account of this
grad student where he said they would
test something like did the you know
price you did the price you paid for
pizza affect if how much satisfaction
you had from it you know whatever it was
and they would find out no it doesn't
matter or like does watching a talk show
versus sports matter for how many
pretzels you'll eat or something and and
they would make some prediction and find
out, oh, it didn't pan out. And so he
said, but we have all this data, so I
would tell the grad student, go and find
something in there that's true. And he
says, she never says no. She always goes
through the data and find something. And
that's that's exactly the problem. So
other scientists immediately jumped on
this and said that's like a textbook way
of how to get false positives. And
ultimately about 18 of his his famous
papers were retracted. So but it's
nutrition research is a mess like that.
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It feels like our brains are sort of uh
cognitive misers
>> definitely
>> just want to default to familiar things.
>> Yes,
>> that's path of least resistance uh
leaning into past habits. Why would it
be the case then that it takes more
cognitive effort given that decision
making is such a huge burden?
>> Yeah.
>> Why does it feel more effortful when
there's fewer choices?
because we think harder, we think
deeper. It's it's psychologists call it
desirable difficulty, right? So when
there are fewer choices, you don't
survey as much, right? And it sort of
depends. Like if you're talking about a
consumer decision, it it it won't
necessarily feel more effortful when
there are fewer choices. But if you're
talking about a creative decision, it it
will. And it's in large part because you
explore the possibilities of this
limited space in much more depth
>> than you would uh if you were just given
open possibilities.
>> Do you know if people spend more time
assessing the entire set of options when
there's more or less?
>> Uh I don't know if they
thinner over the um
>> that's a good question. I think it
probably depends on the context for
consumer options. They do spend more
time when there are more options. Like
if it's like what's the thing that
you're gonna buy at the store,
>> which is where the uh uh paralysis
analysis exactly why it happens that you
go into the store that's got every type
of genes on the planet and you walk out
with no genes.
>> That's right. That's right. Or you walk
out with jeans and you're just thinking
if you should have gotten something
else. So then there's the regret aspect.
Um so I think it's probably context
dependent. Uh
>> yeah, but for consumer decisions, people
spend more time.
>> Okay. So constraints force us beyond
those defaults. Yeah. Right. rather than
being in freedom. So having constraints
pushes you off the path of least
resistance which is typically uh leaning
on what you've done previously. So
actually a pivot from freedom to
constraint must be a unique uh situation
for humans to go through if it's within
the same sort of decision-m criteria.
Like if previously you had all of the
options in the world and now those have
been constrained especially including
the one that you used to resort to an
awful lot, right? that must really
generate creativity. You know, my
favorite example of this uh when I I
found out what your book was about, I've
only ever had what it's great to have
like you I don't know what it is that
you do for a research process, but you
have more stories per page than I think
any other author. It's [ __ ] insane. I
only ever had one example of this. Jack
Butcher who does Visualize Value um
graphic designer worked with huge
companies for a long time left to go and
do things on the internet very
influenced by Nal's work came up sort of
the same time as me and George Mack he's
coming to the England game at Houston uh
in Dallas with us this week he decided
to restrict himself one font one
colorway one style of design geometric
shape and it meant that all of you hey
dude you're a graphic artist the clue is
in the name It's about the graphics.
It's about
>> how the font and the drop shadow and how
well this thing's rendered and the color
gradient that no, I don't want to do
that. All I want to do is focus on the
two things that matter most, which is
what is the quote that I'm choosing to
represent or the idea that I'm choosing
to represent and the way that I'm
representing it. That's it. So, you only
had two things and he thought really
hard about those two things.
>> He blew and yeah, so he was choosing the
best ideas and representing them in the
best way.
>> This is so that's fascinating. So one he
limits he he he he explores the space
more readily once he limits those what's
there and this happens in all sorts of
things like there's this this
approach in sport learning called the
constraintsled approach or CLA that's
been around for decades but it's having
a moment right now because Victor
Womenyama and Shi Otani have publicly
associated with it
>> where instead of sort of teaching
someone a repetitive motion that the
coach is like an environment architect
where they they try to set up uh just
restrictions that force the person to
find their own best solution. And and
the the key thing of it, so it's like
Kyrie Irving, you know, he has all these
like weird spins and angles and he grew
up with a backboard that was missing a
chunk and so he had to like reach under
and do all these sorts of things.
>> And you see in these studies that it you
put like, you know, fouron four soccer
in a small space and people start
exploring what's available. There's less
available, but they explore what is
available in this much more vigorous way
and try all sorts of new and different
things. So there's that aspect of it
where he would explore the space more
actively and vigorously because he
limited it. But it's also in a way sort
of textbook of artistic innovation. I
mean there's the history of artistic
innovation. There's this woman who
studied it named Patricia Stokes a
psychologist and creativity researcher.
And the theme that she identified in
artistic innovation was this process
that she called paired constraints.
Paired because it's two steps. The first
is what she called a preclude constraint
which means blocking the familiar thing
like identifying the status quo and then
block it
>> and then the uh next step is called a
promote constraint. You take just like
you were talking you take this thing
that you do want to do you say I must
use this. So the classic example is
Claude Monae who said all right painters
are using light and dark shades to
portray light. I'm not going to use
light and dark shades. I'm not going to
use black at all. I'm not going to mix
anything with black. No black. He he he
banished black so thoroughly that at his
funeral and someone draped a black
shroud over his coffin, one of his
friends freaked out and started yelling,
"No black for Monae." And went and got a
floral tablecloth and put it over his
coffin.
>> And Monae said, "Instead of using light
and dark, I'm just going to use only
pure color and I'm just going to put
pure color next to each other in sort of
a mosaic and see if I can give off any
impression of light that someone could
see." And that was the birth of
impressionism. But that's kind of the
pattern that she identified in artistic
innovation. You say, "Here's the status
quo. I'm blocking that. and here's this
thing I'm forcing myself to use in its
place, which sounds quite similar to
what you were describing.
>> Now, presumably you can force a
constraint that it turns out makes the
work worse.
>> Definitely, no question. This is a messy
as as Stokes would document, often these
innovators
would do this repeatedly and they would
have uh one of the things about these
successful innovators and this is true
not just in art, is that they have more
they just have more failures than other
people do. like they have you know it's
like Thomas Edison it's like over a
thousand patents most of them are
stinkers right don't lead to anything
and then a few are world changing
>> does does this suggest then that if
you're going to take a constraint
focused approach you need to have a
degree of
longevity resilience and a sufficiently
broad enough set because the likelihood
if you're going heavy on constraint you
may end up with some of the winners you
may invent the light bulb but you may
also fall way worse than sort of the the
middle of the bell curve, which is
typically where most people are going to
given all of the options. Does that make
sense?
>> Yeah. Yeah. I guess it depends. You
>> need to roll the dice a bunch of times.
>> Yeah. I guess I mean
>> I guess it depends what you're going
for, right? The the easiest thing to do
is to just look at what everyone else is
doing and do that and you probably kind
of end up somewhere in the middle if you
can do that competently. Yeah. Right.
>> Yeah.
>> If you're trying to do something
>> that's AI.
>> That's AI.
>> That is AI.
>> Yeah. So, so you may not want to be
there much longer. Um, but if you're
trying to do something different or
something new, then you have to come up
with some way to force yourself to try
something new. And what Stokes was
arguing was this is the structured way
that these people do it. It doesn't
guarantee success, but this gives you a
structure to try to get somewhere new.
You know, I've been trying to think
about things that I've done through the
podcast, 1,100 episodes. About 400
episodes in, we stopped using uh smash
cut trailers at the start. So, we never
did the full-on Hollywood style trailer
thing, but we did used to just take
episode 88 for you or 84 will probably
have 15 seconds or 25 seconds of a good
bit from the middle of the episode. We
got rid of that and now the episode
always just launches with a question
that I'm really interested in or a
comment about something that I'm really
interested in. that's constrained me
down that I only have whatever 5 seconds
to try and say something good that's as
engaging or more engaging hopefully than
a fully edited trailer with all of the
movement and all of the this is the bit
that's going to come up later on and the
open loop and the zygonic effect that
kicks in.
>> But what it means is it's focused my
attention on what's the most compelling
and interesting thing that sets the tone
for the rest of the conversation I want
to ask.
>> That's fantastic. It forces you to
clarify your priority. And by the way,
I've never heard someone use the garnic
effect that fluently in a sentence. So,
congratulations on that. Unless they
were describing the Zagarnic effect.
>> Uh yeah, I think I've redpilled
everybody on this enough. It's one of my
favorites. Uh James, I was in Austin
downtown and uh this is four years ago.
James, my business partner in Newton,
was sat next to me at a bar and I just
farted out the story about the zygarnic
effect. Six months later, it was in his
bestselling book and he said,
>> "That's a good magpie writer right
there."
>> Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um so you
said this there about um originality.
Yeah. Like how do you come to think
about creativity and originality? Is is
there anything that's truly original
>> only if it's not going to be that
useful? So
things that are truly original usually
don't really connect with people uh in
any particular way. So
the idea that creativity and originality
were synonymous wasn't even really a
thing until the late 18th century
romantic period which was a reaction
against the enlightenment basically with
its emphasis on logic and science and
all this stuff. So there was this group
that wanted to build what they called
the cult of the hero like these creators
that were just struck by divine
lightning and you know it's just ideas
came out of nowhere but that's not the
reality of how creativity works. I mean
before that creativity was more
associated with taking something that
people generally understood and your
skill was in showing that you could make
it different. So Shakespeare for example
I mean
>> he didn't write Romeo and Juliet or he
didn't come up with the idea.
>> No not even clo no he adapted it from
Arthur Brookke who had his countrymen
who had adapted it from other people. I
mean by the time Arthur Brook was
writing it he had in the introduction
you'll recognize this play people
because they'd already seen it somewhere
else. I mean, there are lines in Romeo
and Juliet that today you would probably
call close enough to plagiarism. There
there were chain, you know, Shakespeare
put a spin on them, but there were like
very unique words that he would use in
the in the same lines,
>> but that wasn't a problem because it was
about him taking the hits like a
musician and putting his spin on it. And
that was seen as what you do because you
people understand the story. And so now
they get to really focus in on what is
this person doing differently with this
thing that I understand. And that's the
case for artistic creatives. It's for
like to go back to Edison. He didn't
invent the light bulb. He wasn't even
close to inventing a light bulb. But he
made it he got people to accept it
because he did things like keeping the
wattage low and keeping lamp shades even
though you didn't need them for gas
because he didn't have gas lamps anymore
because it gave this sense of
familiarity. What modern designers call
skuomorphism where you give a new thing
characteristics of the old thing so that
people understand what they're supposed
to do with it. Why you have folders on
your computer or why the first electric
cars had a thing that looked like a gas
nozzle that plugged into where the
non-existent gas tank is. Right? Mhm.
>> Um and so any idea you the more radical
an idea is, the more important it
actually is to ground it in something
that people already understand. So I
think this is is is also a more
democratic view of creativity because
you don't need to just come up with this
bolt of lightning. It's like take
something that's there and and start
tweaking.
there is a
what would do you say judgmentalness and
understandably if you've spent a long
time coming up with an idea and somebody
else comes along and takes it probably
likely to get pretty pissy
>> right
>> uh I think that's the the typical way
that people approach uh idea ownership
in the modern world uh but yeah that
line originality is just undetected
plagiarism it's why I've been thinking a
lot about this AI music thing
>> have Have you tried it?
>> I have not tried it. No.
>> It is [ __ ] terrifying how good it is.
>> I mean, I saw there was just like some
huge hit, right? There was
>> a number of artists are over half a
million plays a month on Spotify, which
is a big band. Uh, and they don't exist.
It's all silicon. Um, I've been thinking
about that and obviously there's an
awful lot of push back from musicians
that, uh, this is turning a much more
sacred industry than content creation,
which I don't think anybody thought was
that that sacred to start with.
Instagram newsfeed hasn't been the
birthplace of sort of the the highest
good in terms of artist art artistism.
Uh however,
>> they have been getting increasingly
unhappy and saying um this should be
stopped or this should be banned or it
should have some sort of label on it.
And I understand why because if you've
spent a decade or two decades learning
to play the guitar, that feels like a
high cost that some guy that's able to
just prompt an app on his phone has
slipstreamed being able to speedrun this
thing that you you're supposed to put
your time in.
>> Yeah.
>> Not at the same level that starting a
podcasters. Podcasters also are going to
get pissy about uh Notebook LM and other
services similar to that taking our
jobs, but broadly
a podcast is just a good dinner. Like,
and everybody's had a good dinner. So,
the skill gap seems to be less. Like,
we've put less in on the front end, even
though when you get to the top, like
hopefully you you develop some skills,
but no one has spent 20 years podcasting
in their bedroom to finally go out onto
the stage to play the main gig that
they've always wanted to with the
equivalent of their guitar. Uh but the
like ethics of it sort of fall apart a
little bit when you realize that every
musical movement has just built on the
ones that came before.
>> Yeah.
>> And every great musician has taken
something that they loved from their
inspo and just tweaked it a little bit
because my guitar only had four strings
so I had to do or my guitar only had one
string so I had this particular
constraint. Well, the corpus that you
have taken your inspiration from, your
originality is just undetected
plagiarism there. This is just easier to
detect.
>> Yeah.
>> Because the corpus that it's learning
from has been literally taken from
everyone as opposed to a elevator jingle
that you were listening to in the
airport and you real interesting chord
progression. I had really thought about
using a, you know, three over four as
opposed to a four over whatever the
[ __ ] like
it's it's more obvious when we see that
plagiarism now and I think that's why
people are getting increasingly
territorial about their ideas.
>> Yeah. I mean there are a lot of deep
philosophical questions embedded in
that. How much does the human
involvement matter? Right. Um
does it matter? Do people only care
about the product? I mean because
obviously there's the produ I mean look
I'm a book author. Like our stuff is you
know my work's pirated the day it comes
out right. Um,
but I'm not territorial about ideas. I
mean, it's
it's a tough one. It's a tough one. And
I think
there's I think it's a bit of a golden
age for in-person events like inerson
podcasts, inerson concerts, because
people do want that humanness to it. But
for the things that are going to play on
Spotify a million times, do they care
about that?
>> I'm not so sure.
>> Yeah.
>> Um, and I think that's, you know, one of
the one of the legal arguments that gets
made. I mean, I've gotten notices, you
know, when AI's like digested my books
for like class action suits and all that
stuff. And and those notices, my
understanding is that they're primarily
because they pirated them. Not not
because they were using them, but
because they got them in a pirated
>> Yeah.
>> uh method, but had they just bought them
and digested it into the model? Is that
tanamount to a person who could just
read a ton?
>> Yeah. And now it's a part of my
inspiration soup.
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wisdom. How do you Okay, so how do you
break with habit and convention that's
come before then? In this in this way,
>> uh
break instead of embedding in it like if
you want to get somewhere new, I think
first identifying what it is, what do
you want to break with, right? So
there's some of the innovators in the
book that I write about like for example
Virginia Wolf there who's one of the I'm
the big fiction writer because I reader
because I think you have to read if you
want to be a great writer. Fiction has
much more structural diversity. So I
think it's important to read for someone
who wants who's cares about their
writing craft. I care about writing
craft a lot even though maybe it's
getting commodified. But even when AI
turns on my lights I'm going to be doing
it because I just find it very engaging.
Um but she was writing these she she's
written three of the the hundred best
books ever written probably. But before
that she was writing these conventional
books and she wasn't happy with them but
she couldn't get out of that mode. And
so she took this time to start writing
essays about what the conventional
status quo of the time was. Reading all
these books defining it and saying look
these these these modern novels at the
time they're out of step like life has
become more complex than these things
reflect. And so she really defined what
the status quo was and then literally
said now I'm blocking this. here are
these techniques of writing that every
popular writer is using, including me,
and I'm not allowed to do this anymore.
You know, and for example, a narrator
that knows everything about the
characters. I'm not allowed to do it
anymore. And that's how she came up with
what we now call stream of
consciousness, basically by really
working hard to define what is the
status quo and then saying, I'm not
allowed to do it. And then she launched
in these short stories, each one of
which was a single experiment in a
different form of narration. And then
one of those experiments, she was like,
this is the thing. And then she took off
and her next three books were three of
the greatest ever written. Didn't Stan
Lee use this as well?
>> Uh Stan Lee was he he had some
constraints forced on him? Uh where he
was the editor uh at a a comic company,
Atlas Comics, and their whole business
strategy was to pump out a huge volume
of comics. They were they were a volume
shop, fire hose of content. And then
their rivals
DC became their distributor and limited
them to only about eight titles a month.
So they were like they they they
kneecapped their business strategy
basically.
>> And so Stanley said, "Okay, if we only
get eight titles, then we have to make
longunning stories with characters that
people are going to engage with in a
long-term basis." And that's when they
came up with superheroes with character
flaws, you know, teen angst, anger
problems, all these things. And that was
the more complex
>> that was the birth of Marvel. That's why
they rebranded as Marvel. They were
forced into that. If they were allowed
to keep they never there would be no
Marvel if they hadn't been limited by
their own rival to a small number of
titles a month and had to figure out how
to make longer stories that had had
narrative development.
>> So cool. Okay. So do you think that
designing with constraints in mind leads
to better designs then like this
principle of universal design
>> in in many cases? Some some people find
this controversial, but the the idea of
universal design, it came out of the
disability rights movement in 1960s. But
the idea was that if you design for
people, the most constrained users,
let's say those are people who are young
or old or big or small or pets,
whatever, or have disabilities,
you'll often be identifying user
problems that are just extreme versions
of problems that many more users have.
And so it can show you where to focus
your design effort. So some of the
simple things in the world like curb
cut, the reason that curbs are have a
part that's level with the street, those
were originally made for wheelchairs,
but it turns out they're better for
everybody, right? Or web pages that work
on mobile have these hierarchical
logically structured menus. And but that
really came out of making websites that
could be read by screen readers for
people with visual impairment. But that
led to the need to hierarchically
organize these menus on on websites,
which turns out to be beneficial for
everybody. Or one of the examples I used
in the book where I've lost it now, but
I gained about 12 pounds to research one
chapter because I had to do an army
obstacle course wearing body armor from
Vietnam to the present. And I'm not a
big guy. And so some of this stuff like
outweighed me if once I had like water
and batteries and all this stuff.
>> And I was there because I was learning
about the design of modern body armor.
And what had happened since about
Vietnam, it had just gotten heavier and
heavier and heavier and heavier,
especially uh like in Iraq when people
were could be hit by shrapnel from any
standpoint, they just like covered
turned soldiers into turtles and they
were protected but they couldn't move
and that caused all these other dangers.
And then about 10 years ago when women
were first allowed into the close combat
force in the military for the first
time, they realized the body armor was
way too heavy. And so the army had to
design body armor specifically for
women. So it had to be smaller, more
mobile. You could mix and match parts
and they made it much lighter. And it
turned out that it was better for a huge
portion of the force. So they had to
start calling it and they had things
like a notch in the back for a hair bun,
but it turns out everyone wants to be
able to raise their head when they're
lying prone on the ground or to be able
to shoulder a rifle, things like that.
And so this this armor that was designed
specifically with women in mind who are
only like 1 to 2% of the close combat
force ended up being used by a ton of
the men. So the army actually had to
rebrand it as unisex just to get all the
guys
>> like who it would be good for to use it.
So So it came out of
>> you know studying these very specific
mobility problems and ended up building
something better for everyone.
>> What was that story about was it the
F-16 seat?
>> Oh yeah. Yeah. This was pre-16 I believe
where
when when jets were proliferating
uh there were a whole bunch of accidents
in the air force like there was one
weekend where there were like 17
different accidents not all not all
deaths but accidents
>> and at first the air force thought it
was pilot error and then they
commissioned a young lieutenant to study
these these cockpits had been created
based on the average measurements of a
whole bunch of pilots and this young
lieutenant
that they commissioned to study it went
and started taking body measurements and
realized there is no such thing as the
average pilot. Like if you took even
three measurements on someone, you know,
arm length, thigh circumference, and uh
height,
>> it was like 3% of people who would even
be in the middle 30 percentiles just
with those three measures.
>> Yeah.
>> So, in designing this cockpit for the
average pilot, they had actually
designed it for for no one.
>> And so, the answer was adjustable
cockpits. And they started having a lot
fewer accidents. Does all of this mean
that doing one thing at a time is
crucial? I have to assume that
multitasking is basically the anathema
of being able to do this. Well,
>> multitasking is worse than I thought it
would be. Well, so first of all, it's
not really possible because it's
actually our brain. That's not true.
There's some types of multitasking that
are possible. We can walk and talk at
the same time when when when we're
combining it with a function that's
basically automatic. You know, we can do
things and breathe, then multitasking is
possible. But the way that people
generally think about it, two different
cognitively engaged tasks, it's not
possible.
>> Think about parallel processing when in
fact it's task switching.
>> That's right. You have to drop one set
of rules and activate another one and
there's always a cost when you do that.
So as Gloria Mark, a psychologist who
who studies people at work, says your
brain's like a whiteboard, and you erase
when you switch, but there's that
residue left
>> for the next thing and it interferes
with the next thing that builds up over
the day until you sleep, basically. And
she's been studying people at work. her
her research is the scariest thing that
went into the book. I think she's been
studying people since about 2000. And
when she started like she would first
she would sit behind people with a
stopwatch. You know these days it would
be key loggers and cameras and
everything. People were switching tasks
about every 3 minutes on average. Then
by 2012 it was every 75 seconds. Then by
2022 it was every 45 seconds. That's
where it stuck for a few years.
And that's terrible for your ability to
get anything done.
The more switches someone does a day,
the lower their end of day productivity
and the higher their end of day stress
that measured by things like heart rate
variability and immune function. Like
you can see this huge impact on stress.
And the scariest thing is she found that
your your attention gets trained so such
that if you're interrupted by
notifications or other people or
whatever all day and then you suddenly
say, "I'm putting this away. It's time
to focus." You will self-interrupt with
intrusive thoughts at the rate to which
you've become accustomed.
>> Wow.
>> As if we have this internal distraction
barometer that
wants to keep a certain cadence going.
And so the ways to combat this are to
try to work in blocks where she found
that people a few years ago were doing
about 77 different email. So in and out
of the inbox about 77 times a day on
average, which actually sounds low to
me. Yeah. Um, but if you have to answer
all those emails, but can you do it in
one or three or five or seven blocks
where you're just doing email and then
you're not doing email and have a block
of other things and you can start to
regain some of your ability to pay
attention. I one thing I find for me,
this isn't from Dr. Mark's work and keep
a pad next to yourself by the way, so
when those intrusive thoughts pop in,
you write it down. Cognitive
outsourcing. One thing that's I found
useful um is what I call the Hemingway
principle where Ernest Hemingway would
stop his workday in the middle of a
sentence.
>> Y
>> because then the next morning he knows
an important thing that I am starting
with is this sentence. So I try to make
the last thing I do in every workday
defining what is the important thing I'm
going to start in the morning because it
kind of saves me from two possible
problems. is one, getting lost in feeds,
mindless stuff, or two, getting lost in
my inbox, or falling prey to this thing
called the mere urgency effect where
people prioritize things that feel
urgent over things that are important,
even if it's a worse use of time.
>> Yeah, you got the Eisenhower matrix
upside down. It's a little zygonicky as
well with that open loop overnight
thing. Yeah, very cool. What who are
your favorite examples of people who
locked in singularly?
Very well.
>> My favorite examples, it's a good
question. I mean, I I love the example
of I write a lot about Isabelle Yende,
but I would say that because I'm I'm a
writer. Again, I really I strongly
identify as a writer, as a craftsman in
that way. And for this book, I got to
shadow one of the greatest living
writers, Isabelle Aende, who didn't
start publishing books until she was
about 40. And then
started her first book on January 8th,
has started a new book every January
8th, assuming the previous one is done.
Since then, since the age of 40, it's
been 44 years now. She's produced a
bestseller about every 18 months on
average for 44 years, 80 million copies
sold. And she organized her life around
ritual. And again, this started when she
was just before she was 40. Every book
January 8th, she clears out this room.
But before she had all these resources,
she did it in a closet,
>> right? Wherever she could, she makes a
quiet space, designates certain time,
she lights a candle to start her
workday, blows it out at the end, closes
the door, say that that story is staying
for me there. And she implemented all of
these rituals. She puts a certain book
of Pablo Nuda poems under her computer
just for, you know, inspiration. But
really, all this stuff is a cue like a
basketball player who takes three
dribbles and claps before they shoot a
free throw. You start to associate these
rituals with how you get into your
headsp space for performance. M
>> and so as she said like when I was
around her family would say if if you
want anything from her she has this big
foundation she's given $20 million of
her book proceeds to
>> you have to get it by January 7th
because then her life turned outward as
she calls it is disappearing and
everyone around that everyone around her
knows that
>> and respects that and so it was just
amazing to see that and think about you
know what could I take for myself but
just to be be around someone like that.
I will say though,
she
uh I offered to send her an advanced
copy of the book because she's in the
book and it was like
April and so I like she probably just
started a novel. She can't read it.
>> And so she emails back, "Yes, send me a
copy. As you know, I just it was January
8th was recently, so I started another
book. I can't read it, but send it.
Thanks. Bye." Great. Perfect answer.
Like I know she's locked in. And then I
just a few weeks ago I get a message
from her saying like I'm loving the book
all this stuff. Like what are you doing?
You're supposed to be writing and not
reading anything. And she sends me this
email. Can I read this email?
>> Yes, please.
>> She said she said I could share this.
>> She says I started a novel on January
8th and gave myself a deadline to finish
a first manuscript by the end of March,
which is crazy. She says the reason for
this short deadline is not important. So
whatever it is, she doesn't want to tell
me. She said, "My agent, my brother,
read it and liked it a lot. It still
needs polishing, but it's May and I find
myself without work until next January
8th. I'm going crazy. I'm getting rid of
my clothes, replacing the furniture,
walking in circles, reading
compulsively, etc. Your book's been an
inspiration. I need to give myself a
task with boundaries. For example, write
a novel set in Lima in the year 1610
about a cowardly Spanish soldier, an
Inca maid, and the Inquisition. Or a
story set in 1810 in Ireland about a
girl/witch expelled from her village who
seeks revenge. You get the idea. I can't
start writing until January 8th, but I
can start researching and planning. I
have total freedom to do whatever I
want. And at my age, 84, I have no
obligation to keep writing. This freedom
is lethal. Help. Exclamation point.
Exclamation point. Love your pen pal.
Then an hour later, she sends another
email that says, "Have any ideas for me?
Not the Inquisition or the Irish Witch."
So, it's lethal.
>> She because her whole life has been this
cycle, this ritual, and all of a sudden,
she decided to give herself this
ridiculously short deadline for reasons
I don't know.
and has suddenly found herself without
that structure that gave meaning and
pace and seasonality to her life.
>> Jared, you ever considered that you
might have a drinking problem?
>> I don't consider a lot, Chris.
>> Well, you drank an entire case of
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>> But they're non-alcoholic.
>> And that's not a problem.
>> Sorry, man. I I just kept chugging. Wait
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Bottoms up.
>> There's an interesting trend that's
going on at the moment. you used you
interchangeably used the word maximizer
with optimizer earlier on and I do think
that kind of the uh era of the optimizer
is maybe we're toward the tail end of it
now but has certainly been around
>> yeah this is me licking my finger and
putting it in the air there is a big
push back at the moment against
overoptimization against I think what
people see as an unnecessary obsession
with tracking metrics with uh
restricting life especially what's seen
as being associated with fun not
drinking alcohol not staying up not
cheating on your diet, not not training,
etc., etc.
>> And uh I get it. I do understand. And
I've certainly gone through my era of
David Allen's getting things done and
Pomodoro timers and Cal Newport. Like I
think everybody kind of goes through
that and squeezes themselves out of the
aperture of the anus on the other side
of it, which is pretty important. Um
what is what's fascinating to me though
is
what people see routine as when they
can't understand why the routine is
there is something much closer to
superstition
>> than uh uh preparedness that why are you
doing all of this stuff like it doesn't
relate to your performance in any case
why you lighting the candle like the
candle doesn't matter I I think baseball
is probably the canonical example of
this where uh it's a sport that's very
iterative that uh success and failure in
each of those iterations is very tightly
defined. You either got on base or you
didn't get on base and you see the
players and in between every pitch, one
glove, other glove, tap tap, helmet,
>> stand, wiggle,
>> bat,
>> like everybody has I mean there's
stories of baseball players who didn't
clean the helmet for their entire career
because they thought it had become
imbued with some special sacred and if I
change this thing that is the reason.
Yeah, it is. It is. It becomes clo way
closer to a rain dance than it does to a
ritual or a routine. And um you kind of
slippery slope your way down. I think
the the era of the optimizer, it's
having a huge wobble. If the if there
was a VIX index for optimizers at the
moment, it would be [ __ ] through the
roof. Um and I think that this is
because people feel like they're
overwhelmed. I think that it is due to
massive amounts of optionality, chaos,
unpredictability about the future. Is AI
going to take my job? Is Iran going to
come and [ __ ] blow everything up? in
that I just want a little bit of
simplicity. I want to do something that
feels like fun and I don't want the rest
of my life to feel like homework.
>> That I that makes sense. I mean, I'm I'm
a self-improver so I've felt those
things. Sometimes I kind of like
experimenting on myself. At the same
time, like I was a division one 800
meter runner, right? And the better I
got the actually the less I use certain
like eventually I said I don't need a
watch anymore.
>> Yeah,
>> I can go by feel because I understand
this well enough. And I thought that was
sort of freeing. on the the other hand.
So I try to think of this because I do
have a tendency I have some maximizing
tendencies myself and I have a tendency
to get overwhelmed when I see some of
these optimization things like that's
that's the thing you know
>> it's going to be the answer
>> but then if you have enough of them it's
like okay I have to write five pages in
the morning and then I have to do this
kind of exercise right
>> and so I try to ask myself sometimes
if there were one behavior I wanted more
of right now if I could only pick one
behavior that I wanted more of right now
for myself what would it be and and I
find that is just like a helpful thought
exercise for me to say like I'm just
going to do this one.
>> I don't know if it's true, but I've
heard this story a bunch of times that
uh for a very long time and maybe even
still now every decision that Elon made,
Tesla, SpaceX
was run through the same single
ordinating principle which was does this
get us closer to Mars?
>> No, it's definitely changed at least
because he's bothered with the moon more
than he is with Mars at the moment. Uh
and that Bezos had the same thing Amazon
which was does this improve customer
experience? If you have a single
alternating principle, one thing that
everything else gets squeezed through,
it's pretty easy to understand, does
this thing contribute to that toward
that goal or not? Soon as you have two
or three or four different conflicting
goals, well, this one's going to improve
goal A, but actually take a little bit
of a hit on goal B, and it's going to
make goal C. It's neutral for goal C,
but it's going to make goal D a little
bit easier. So, but I I value goal B a
little bit more than C and A. So, it's
really really hard to work out. But if
you squeeze that down, and I think this
is one of the the unseen benefits of
doing macro multitasking too from a life
direction perspective not just within
the day but across periods of time.
>> Absolutely. Pro macro multitasking over
Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry.
>> Yeah. Just the periodization
periodization of goals, right? Like
you'll make you will lose more fat in 6
months if all you're doing is fat loss.
And you will gain more muscle in six
months if all you're doing is muscle
building. Which means that across a year
you can lose more fat and gain more
muscle if you do them separately than if
you try and do 12 months of them
together.
>> Absolutely. And and I think you'll
you'll do those things, right? Yeah.
You'll do them better. You'll bring
clarity easier. You'll be less like it
more. Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree.
>> What about avoiding
constraints becoming too constraining?
How do you know when the problem is too
much freedom or too much constraint?
>> Yeah, I think there's an art to that,
right? I think you can see in studies,
for example, of problem solving when
people are basically told not only what
they have to do, but how they have to do
it. That's too much constraint. like
their ingenuity, their creativity goes
way down. So you'll see it in these
studies of mechanical inventions. Like
if people are given a 100 pieces and
told to make anything, they make less
creative inventions than if they're
given only 20 pieces and said you have
to make a piece of furniture.
>> But if they're given only 20 pieces and
told that they have to make a chair,
then it goes the other way. Like the
creativity totally drops. So if there's
no if you say could I still surprise
myself and the answer is no, then you're
you're way too constrained. So I think
the point is to leave that wiggle room
where you're forced to explore. M that's
fascinating. What have you applied to
your own life beyond the dance halls and
the pickle ball and the turning up at
the same time?
>> Oh yeah. I mean I I totally I do my work
completely in blocks now which requires
a little more pre-planning,
>> right? So this is a block where I'm
going to be doing email. This is a block
where I'm going to be doing research or
writing or whatever it is. And again,
the last thing I do at the end of every
workday is to say, what is the important
thing I'm going to start with tomorrow?
So I'm not making any decisions when I
wake up. I've already designated this
important thing. I set decision rules
for things that I do. I mean, my
newsletter, this isn't going to make
anybody want to read it, but is a
satisficing exercise for me because I
have these optimizing maximizing
tendencies. So, if a book say has to be
like a nine or 10, the newsletter, if I
can reach six and a half, I send it out,
>> right? Again,
>> how do you make that judgment?
>> Just my own quality judgment. I mean, I
always subjective obviously, but I
always have these other things in my
head every time I send it out where I'm
thinking, ah, here's like three, you
know, here's something else I should put
in there. But if I feel like it's a six
and a half out of 10 already,
>> I send it. And that's been a very
important, satisficing exercise for me
to actually ship, you know, to actually
get things out the door because
otherwise I can kind of feel that
paralysis at anything short of a book,
basically.
>> What's the true meaning of the road less
traveled?
>> It's funny that you should ask that. It
is not what the way that people usually
often quote it in graduation season
which is that it's this ode to rugged
individualism the poem um saying that
you know you take the road that less
people have trod and therefore that's
what led to your success. What Robert
Frost was actually doing was sort of
criticizing
um his Edward Thomas his walking partner
who would when they would come to two
roads that looked the same would agonize
over which one to take and then no
matter which one they take when they
were done he would say we should have
taken the other one. So if you look at
that poem, the road less travel closely,
Frost says both roads were just as fair.
He says neither had footprints in it
from that morning. So he was actually
criticizing
the uh the drive to think about what
else you could have been doing. So I
think the rugged individualism like
zigging when other people's zagging, I
think that's an important message also,
>> but it's not the one he intended. And I
think the one he intended is actually
even more important for uh u for our
modern condition. I've got an essay that
I wrote a little while ago. Thus,
conscience does make cowards of us all.
The line comes from Hamlet, and it's
usually misheard as an insult, as if
Shakespeare is sneering at morality.
Like ethics often soften us, or thought
drains courage from the body. That's not
what's happening. Shakespeare isn't
attacking goodness. He's pointing at
self-awareness and naming its cost. In
the to be or not to be siloquy, Hamlet
isn't really weighing life versus death.
He's circling a more practical question.
Why do humans hesitate to act even when
action would clearly relieve suffering?
Why do we endure situations we don't
want? And why do we tolerate lives that
we could in theory change? Well, pain
isn't the only obstacle. Imagination is.
By conscience, Shakespeare means
something closer to consciousness. The
ability to think ahead, judge ourselves,
and simulate futures before they arrive.
To see consequences coming, and
experience them emotionally in advance.
And unfortunately, that ability cuts
both ways. The very capacity that makes
us reflective, ethical, and intelligent
also makes us hesitate. We imagine worst
case futures so vividly that we treat
them as already real. So courage isn't
defeated by fear. It's defeated by
simulation.
>> Fascinating. That's beautiful. Pas
>> fantastic. No, our ability to to think
about those counterfactuals, which I
think is also unique as far as we can
tell um among life.
>> Mhm.
>> A blessing and a curse.
David Epstein, ladies and gentlemen.
Dude, you rule from episode 84 to
episode 1,100 and whatever the hell this
is. Where should people go to keep up to
date with everything you're doing?
>> Uh, david.com. They can find my stuff
there. My newsletter, which is free,
some tips from inside the box and info
about my books.
>> Heck yeah, David. I appreciate you. All
right, see you next time, my beauties.
>> Dude,
thank you very much for tuning in. If
you enjoyed that episode, YouTube knows
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