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thank you. You researched nearly 500
self-improvement strategies. What'd you
learn?
>> Yeah. So my co-author Jeremy and
Stevenson and I, we had this crazy
project where we're like, what if we
could gather all the good stuff in
self-improvement and try to cram it down
into one book. But there's a big problem
with that, which is there's so much
stuff, how could you possibly make sense
of it all? So our idea was, can we find
the underlying psychological drivers
behind each of the self-improvement
techniques? So once we gone through over
100 self-improvement books and over 20
types of therapy and taken out every
method that they had, we asked ourselves
for each one, what is the psychological
method behind it? And much to our
surprise, we were able to boil it down
to just 12 levers, which is these 12
underlying psychological strategies. And
that's the name of our book, 12 levers.
>> Why do you think so many people have
become so disillusioned with self-help?
>> I think one of the problems is that
they're taught that there's a silver
bullet. You know, someone has some new
cool idea and they say, "This thing is
going to solve your problem." And often
the author says, "I used to be like you.
I can relate to you, but look, I turned
my life around and look how great I am
now." And the reality is there isn't one
silver bullet that works for all people
at all times.
>> There are some really, really good
methods, but even the best methods,
they're contextual. You have to use them
on the right person at the right time.
And it may not be the first method you
use that's actually going to solve your
problem. What's been interesting to me
uh working with doctors and and working
on health and stuff like that since I
moved to America,
>> every single uh specialist has and these
are the teachers, right? Not even the
students who are maybe even more fervent
or ardent about like whatever the thing
is that saved them. Every single person,
the sleep guy, has a story about how
someone started using CPAP and went from
being a brain foggy mess into a
superstar and he went on to become a
millionaire and all of this great stuff
happened to him. or the nutrition people
will tell you about how someone was
allergic to blue 40 and peanut butter
and seed oils and they cleaned their
diet up and it totally transformed them
and now they're a Olympian bodybuilder
or something like there for every single
strategy there is an outlier success
story and those people if you went to
them and you were to say hey man like my
health's not feeling too good or I want
to be a bit more productive and they go
dude I've got the strategy and it's
weird because those people it's quite
easy to accuse them of being like
grifters or overzealous or overselling
what the strategy can achieve. But no,
what you're doing by a process of
selection like by selection bias, self-
selection bias, you are seeking out
people that are hyper respponders to
that particular strategy and they are
telling you sometimes they're lying, but
a lot of the time they're just telling
you their real experience. This is
actually what happened to me or this is
exactly what happened for a client of
mine. And then if you embark on this but
it's the wrong context, the wrong time,
you don't apply it right, it's not right
for your physiology or psychology or
particular situation or whatever, you're
like, "Well, this is [ __ ] You lied
to me about what it does for you." And
it's like, "No, no, no, no. It is right
for the right person at the right time
applied in the right way." And that the
idiosyncratic nature of any intervention
is why blanket coverage advice is
probably [ __ ] You know, if you look
at lists of cognitive biases, you'll see
there's over a hundred of them. But I've
been thinking about recently, what are
the ones that the smartest people fall
for. And I think this is one that the
smartest people fall for. They find
something that was genuinely
life-changing, like truly life-changing
and amazing, and then they just say,
"Everyone's got to do this thing." And I
know so many smart people that have done
this, and I don't blame them for it, but
it's a huge mistake.
>> One of my friends, Gwindogel, got this
idea. he calls um the the golden hammer
and he says that uh a public
intellectual usually one that's got
famous for a small number of principles
sees that principle in everything and
then he's got in brackets afterward
every definition of this should come
attached with a photo of Nasim Talb
which is like you know someone who's got
an amazing idea set but is able to like
retrofit lots of insights to this idea
set and it's kind of the same as this
what's your problem oh athletes What?
Allow me to show you my CPAP machine.
Like I fixed [ __ ] athletes [ __ ] with
a CPAT machine. Like all of these
things. And you're right, like this uh
this golden hammer kind of approach
seems to be a master cognitive bias that
a lot of smart people that are the kinds
of people who have gone through lots of
these spirals uh that they're going to
fall for,
>> right? And there are methods that really
don't work. Like they're genuine
[ __ ] And then there are genuine
grifters out there that are lying to
you. But there's a lot of what's
happening is that people genuinely found
something really useful and they're just
trying to apply it to everything. M how
much of the self-help industry is just
old school psychological techniques
repackaged with new terminology?
>> Well, it's so funny because sometimes
you're reading about some cool new
technique and you realize it was
discovered by the Buddha or something
[laughter] and you're like, "Wow, this
has been around well over a thousand
years." Uh, but that doesn't mean it's
not useful. Like maybe it has a new
twist on it. Maybe it's better adapted
to a modern audience, right? We can't
necessarily work with this thing that's
thousands of years old. Uh, but I would
say a lot of it rhymes, right? You're
seeing the same thing again and again
and again. And this is part of what uh
set us down this journey of writing the
book, The 12 Lovers, was that my
co-author and I had both seen the same
methods come again and again and again.
And it started to make us think maybe
there's a pattern here, right? Maybe
there's less behind it all than you
might think at first when you look at
hundreds of techniques. Why these 12?
Like what was special about this
particular bucket of 12? was there one
that was nearly 13 but that actually got
[ __ ] off.
>> It was really that once we sat down with
this list of almost 500 techniques. We
went through each one one by one and
said what's the psychological principle
and just attached it and then when we
got to one where we didn't have a
psychological principle we had to add
one.
>> That's new.
>> And then sometimes we would go back and
merged some and we're like oh that one's
kind of the same as that one and merge
them. And literally by the end there
were 12 and we all the techniques fit
into 12 which was shocking.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If self-help is
already for a lot of people over
complicated,
is this not risking just being another
complicated system like uh is this the
last personal development book that I'll
ever need?
>> We give references to tons of really
great books that can help you go deeper
on any topic here. So I think of this as
a map. It lets you see the whole space
of what are all the levers that you can
pull to improve your life and we give
you really concrete steps that you can
put them into action. But you may want
to go really deep on that specific lever
that's helping you or the specific
technique. And there's we have
references to so many great books in
here that can help you go follow that
thread.
>> What were some very well-known personal
development strategies that had
surprisingly little legitimacy backing
them up in terms of effectiveness,
science, etc.
>> Yeah. So, one interesting one is cold
exposure. And so, we focus on we focus
on psychology, right? Our book is about
psychology, but we do talk about the
intersection between the body and the
mind. At the end of the day, we're minds
attached to these biological robots, and
what happens in our bodies just has a
great impact on our psychology. So, you
kind of can't ignore that. And uh
techniques like cold exposure really
have an influence psychologically. And
we uh one thing that we did for our book
is really go through the evidence
looking at like what's known, what
studies have been run, what's been
tested in the psychological space and
trying to navigate through an
evidence-based lens while also bringing
in our experience. Jeremy Stevenson, my
co-author, is a clinical psychologist
who treats patients. I've built many
many tools for people on our website
clearththing.org where we teach people
psychological skills. So we we also
bring in our own experience from that.
Um but if you look at something like
cold exposure, many people report more
alertness. Uh many people report feeling
good doing it and that's fantastic, but
the evidence base for having long-term
health benefits is actually much weaker
than you might think. There's some
suggestive evidence, there's a little
bit of research, but we really need way
more research like looking at long-term
people. So, you know, randomizing some
people to do it for a year and some
people not and really looking at what
changes about them.
>> I imagine that cold exposure is going to
be very difficult to do a double blind
placebo control, tri like it's very hard
to convince someone they've been in cold
water when they actually haven't. Uh but
yeah, so the point around cold exposure
is not it doesn't necessarily make
people feel better because it can and it
can improve their performance over the
like from a state perspective,
>> right? Short-term effects,
>> but getting into a trait perspective,
the evidence is much more wishy-washy.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And we just need much longer
term follow-up to really see what
happens when people do it for a long
time. Yeah. That's a funny one also
because it traces back so long. Like
early humans were doing cold exposure,
right? But it's but it's obviously some
people get really good benefits out of
it and if you feel great doing it that's
awesome that's good enough reason to do
it.
>> How should people go about diagnosing
their actual problem then so that they
can actually choose the right technique.
>> Yeah. So this is why we put this as
literally the first lever of our book.
We call it unravel the causes. It's
about figuring out the deeper
controllable causes of your life
challenges. And we put it at the
beginning because often without really
understanding your challenges you can't
have good solutions. better
understanding leads to better solutions.
>> Uh so one example you might think about
suppose you're having fights with your
girlfriend regularly and you might think
well I know why we fight right like she
wants one thing I want another thing and
that's like one level of understanding
we call it level one causal
understanding but then you could ask
yourself huh but I know other couples
where they want different things and yet
they're not fighting about it all the
time. What's going on? And you start
reflecting and you realize well every
time we try to have a discussion about
it we both start getting angry. So
that's level two understanding, but
there's an even deeper understanding of
that. Well, why is it that you're both
getting angry? What's bringing up that
angry? Is it some deep-seated
resentment? And that could get you to
level three understanding. So the idea
is these tools that can help you figure
out what are the deeper level causal
structures. It's kind of like if you
were trying to fix your car that won't
start and you just start fixing things
at random,
>> it's going to take you really long time
to fix it. If you go get a diagnostic
now, you can fix it right away. What is
the best diagnostic tool or your
favorite one, the simplest one that you
found?
>> A simple one that's quite powerful is
called the ABC technique. A stands for
activating events. So that's what is the
event that occurs right when the
situation is happening. So maybe it
would be, you know, your your girlfriend
sees dishes in the sink and says, "I
told you not to leave dishes in the
sink." That's going to be the activating
event, right? Uh B stands for beliefs,
which also includes thoughts. And so
that would be like, well, what what do
you what do you think in your mind when
your girlfriend says that? Maybe you
have the thought,
>> well, I just want to be able to like
live in my peace. I don't want to have
to think about the dishes all the time,
right?
>> And then C stands for consequences,
which could be behavioral, could be
emotional. So maybe you start feeling
annoyed. Uh maybe you start engaging in
a certain behavior like you raise your
voice
>> and you can start tracking these
situations where things are going badly
for you with a simple ABC technique. And
as you map it out that way, you can
begin to see things that you never
noticed before.
>> What happened? What was my belief about
it? And what were the consequences that
came of that? Why is that format? How
can that be revealing? Like what's what
happens to somebody's life if they start
to investigate that more deeply?
>> Well, fascinatingly, let me ask you a
question. How many thoughts do you think
you have in a day?
>> [ __ ] I remember they is it like 70,000
or something?
>> I my I I think estimates are, you know,
5,000 7,000 something like that. But
it's tough to estimate. It's honestly
tough to estimate, but it's a huge it's
a huge number.
>> At the end of the day, if I asked you,
how many do you remember? How many could
you write down?
>> Essentially zero.
>> Essentially zero. Like a few, right?
It's fascinating that discrepancy. What
it shows us is that we're not very aware
of our mental life after the fact. But
when it's happening, if someone were
going to ping you right in that moment
and say, "What did you just think like 5
seconds ago?" You could tell me, right?
>> Yep.
>> So,
>> it's like a permanent forgetting.
>> It's a permanent forgetting. So there's
a the technique that I developed called
the inner Y technique that helps with
this. It also relates to ABC technique.
The inner Y technique is is very simple.
It just says notice when your emotion
suddenly shifts negatively and then ask
yourself why. What was the thing that
just happened? And if you can catch it
in the moment, usually only one thing
happened and then you only had one
thought
>> and you immediately know why your
emotion shifted. But if you wait 20
minutes, you might not be able to
identify it.
>> Now I'm just in a bad mood.
>> Exactly. It's this big like amorphous
sort of like clouds that you're trying
to move through after the fact
>> exactly even 20 minutes later you may
not be able to piece together what
happened. So you can make a little game
out of it for the next few days say how
many times can I catch my negative
emotion suddenly starting and just ask
why and then that can start turning into
the ABC technique where you're like okay
now that I'm having more awareness of
when this is happening I can now break
it down activating event belief
consequence and I can start to
understand our problem.
>> What did you learn about values? I think
a lot of people with personal
development really begin there. Every
time that you sign up for some new
personal development course or coaching
or whatever, like the first place that
they'll get you to start is their
values. What did you learn about them?
>> So values a topic I've actually done a
ton of research on. We tried to make a
categorization system of the entire set
of human values. To start, we created a
little training program that taught
people about the distinction between
intrinsic values and instrumental
values. Intrinsic values are things that
you value for their own sake. You don't
value them merely as a means to an end.
>> Whereas instrumental values are things
you value because they get you other
things. So for example, a watch, you
know, watch is really nice to have. It's
convenient. It helps you in a bunch of
ways. But nobody values it
intrinsically. You value it because it
gets you stuff, right? Or cash, you
value because it gets you stuff. But
happiness, you value it intrinsically.
If someone said, "Well, why do you care
about being happy?" You'd be like, "You
don't even know how to answer that
because of course I care." or connection
with other human beings, you probably
care about that intrinsically. Uh there
but there are a lot of things that
people care about intrinsically. We try
to map them all out because these are at
the core at the root of everything else.
>> These are the things we're fundamentally
after, right?
>> And what we found is 22 categories of
intrinsic values. So it's quite a bit
big set includes everything from
longevity like living a long time,
reducing suffering not just for yourself
but it could be for everyone in the
world or all conscious beings. different
you know people have different values
could be around you could have values
around nature or you could have values
around spirituality many different
things so it's really a diverse set but
almost everyone has multiple intrinsic
values
>> okay
why is understanding your values so hard
I think a lot of the time people do
their self investigation u this one and
this one seem in conflict with each
other uh I like connection but I also
like autonomy perhaps uh or this one and
this one kind of overlap but they also
feel distinct
And sometimes I have this and other
times I have another. Like why is why is
there so much conflict when it comes to
understanding your own values?
>> It's funny because the human brain seems
to encode values directly but not
intrinsic values. If I showed you
something, you could say whether you
wanted it, right? Whether you valued it,
>> but to figure out whether it's an
intrinsic value actually takes this
extra cognitive effort to figure, do I
really like that for its own sake or am
I just trying to get something out of
that? Right? Is there something else I'm
after? It's it's a tricky kind of
thought experiment you have to do. We
developed a test called the intrinsic
values test. It's totally free. It's on
our website clearthinking.org. And it's
exactly for this purpose to help figure
out what their actual intrinsic values
are and separate them from the
instrumental. And it's kind of shocking
because sometimes people will go years
and years or decades and confuse their
instrumental values with their intrinsic
values. I I had a funny example of this
where a friend of mine was feeling very
depressed and she came to me and she
said, "You know, I can't really tell why
I'm depressed. I think it has to do with
my boyfriend, but it's really confusing
because he's a really great guy." And I
said, "Okay, interesting. Like, tell me
like why don't you write down his
positive qualities?" And she wrote them
down and I was like, "Yeah, he seems
like a really awesome guy. All these
great qualities. Now, write down your
your values." And she wrote those down.
Zero overlap in the list. And I was
like, "Wow, that's fascinating." And I
had this idea. write down your parents'
values. And she wrote them down and it
was a perfect match to her boyfriend.
>> Wow.
>> And I was like, you're dating your
parents ideal person. Of course, you're
not happy because that's not the person
that you want to be with.
>> And she broke up with him was much
happier after.
>> So, yeah, we can easily confuse these
things.
>> Is it your perspective then that people
should focus on their uh intrinsic
values? But presumably we can't always
get directly to happiness. I value
happiness, right? Or I value adventure.
We can't get directly to that. That
means I need to uh work or travel or
spend time in the sun or whatever. The
approximate versus the ultimate in EP
language. How much should I work on the
first order thing? And how much should I
work on the end result thing?
>> There's a funny paradox where some
things when you try to do them too
directly, it undermines it.
>> What? Like
>> so meditation if you say to someone okay
I want you to I want you to meditate as
well as you can right now trying to
meditate well actually tends to
undermine your ability to meditate
>> sleep is another one
>> sleep there's a really funny study where
they had two groups and one group they
said okay we want you to try to sleep
and the other group we said we want you
to try to stay awake even though you're
in bed and the group they told to try to
stay awake fell asleep faster
>> hilarious
>> so uh happiness can be a thing like this
where trying to be happy is not actually
the way to be happy usually to be happy
you focus on the things that generate
happiness rather than trying to get it
like straight on.
>> I imagine human connection is not one of
those though. Human connection to me
seems to be the sort of thing that you
actively can seek directly. I am at the
checkout counter in front of the lady
and I'm going to say something nice to
her or ask how her day is going. That is
the most direct way. Yeah, it's
intrinsic like I'm using words to get
connection but like that's pretty direct
and I do think that that's one of those.
So this begins to get a little complex
now which is I guess where the the devil
is in the details.
>> Yeah. And for some things even with
human connection some people as soon as
they think I want to make more human
connection they're going to know exactly
how to do that. Other people are going
to be like how the hell do you do that?
And you know that's where tools start to
come in right.
>> Mhm. Okay. What is your advice for
people about working out what they
actually value in terms of uh stuff
that's in conflict with each other? A
lot of the time their intention this
this things that feels opposite. Yeah.
So, our values genuinely conflict. And
the reason that they conflict is because
trying to get one thing often is at odds
with getting another thing. If you're
going to put time into seeking
adventure, that's going to be less time
for your family, right? There's a
fundamental conflict there. Also, the
world sometimes puts them into conflict.
For example, you suppose you go to your
friend's play. They're really excited to
have you there. Afterwards, they come up
to you and they say, "What did you
think? Did you like it?" And you
actually hated it. You thought it was
terrible. or you couldn't think of a
single good thing to say about it, what
do you do? And that's a genuine values
conflict. And some people are going to
say, well, that's easy. You just say,
oh, it was great. And other people are
going to say, well, no, I like I care
about being truthful more than I care
about protecting their feelings, right?
And suppose here that they're not going
to learn a great lesson from you.
They're just going to feel bad, right,
if you tell them it sucked. So yeah, the
world puts our values into conflict and
effort puts our values into conflict.
The only thing you can do because
they're your values, the things you care
about is you have to then carefully
reflect and say,
>> "Well, how much do I care about this
thing versus this thing in this
situation?" And thought experiments can
be really useful. Sometimes you can ask
yourself, okay, suppose I knew that it
was going to my friend was going to cry
for 3 days and be brokenhearted if I
told them their play sucked. Would it
still be worth it? And you can start to
play with this to figure out the
trade-off between your values, right?
Because you're figuring out your own
trade-off curve. Essentially, it's a
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and modern wisdom a checkout. I think
when people think about personal
development, self-growth, self-help,
habit building, habit setting is maybe
at the top. It certainly be in the top
three. You tested a bunch of habit
building techniques. What' you learn?
>> We ran a giant study on habit formation.
It was kind of like a horse race pitting
the techniques against each other.
>> Were you the one that was trying to
embed the habits? No, we ran it on
hundreds of people. So we we took 20
different habit for information
techniques. We randomized people. So
each person in our study got five out
out of the the 20 and picked at random.
Plus there was a control group and we
tracked them for a month to see who
stuck with their habits better.
>> And the fascinating thing was that
almost none of the techniques worked,
>> first of all, but brilliant.
>> We did find some things that worked. Uh
the things that were most promising, we
actually ended up doing a follow-up
study with the things that most work. We
bundled them together into a package
that you can use. We actually call it
daily ritual. It's also available for
free on our website clearththing.org.
But you can use this habit uh packet
that worked. But the things that worked
were one the ridiculously stupid method
of writing down a note like a a piece of
paper and sticking it somewhere in your
office or your home that just says
here's my habit. It actually increased
people's sticking to their habits.
>> What was there a particular category of
habits that that worked more effectively
for or less effectively for? It tends to
work for people that tend to be more
forgetful because some people they just
are going to remember like memory is not
even going to be an issue but for people
like myself I'm kind of forgetful like
that actually probably would help me
just like reminded every time I walk by
oh yeah I have an intention to do that.
So that was one that worked a little bit
silly. A second one that worked kind of
a famous technique, sometimes called
tiny habits or or similar names, is you
make a version of your habit for days
when you can't do the whole habit,
>> right? And the idea is you you never
miss your habit because this tiny
version you're allowed to do instead.
And there's no excuse ever to not do the
tiny version.
>> You didn't get to the gym, you do 10
squats on a day that you don't go to the
gym.
>> Exactly. There's no excuse not to do 10
squats. You should be able to hit every
time. And what's really cool about that
is it helps not break the cycle. So the
the mental uh machinery of forming the
habit never gets broken which makes it
stickier. And you might think, well,
aren't people just going to start
cheating, right? And just do that
instead. But in our study, they actually
didn't. They actually were more
successful with the big habit even
though they had the option of doing the
tiny habit, which is kind of
fascinating.
>> What are some of the best habits that
you found the tiny habits intervention
effective for?
>> Well, I think it tends to be good for
things where life really will get in the
way sometimes of doing it and you're
just like, look, today's just too crazy.
I cannot go to the gym for 30 minutes.
Like, it's just not going to happen.
>> And you know, and yeah, just having that
that follow
>> meditation for one minute.
>> Exactly.
>> Reading a single page, half a page, a
[ __ ] poem, whatever.
>> Exactly. Okay.
>> So, you're never going to miss it. But
I'll tell you the the most effective
technique we found, the most promising
one in our study was one that we call
habit reflection. And the way it works
is you first think about a habit you
succeeded at in the past. Then, and I I
recommend you write it down. You write
down what did you do that helped you
succeed? Did you tell your friend that
you were going to try to do it? Did you
pre-plan it in advance so it was easy to
do every day? What did you do that
helped? Then the final step is you write
down how can you apply what you learned
from doing that past habit to this new
habit. So that was sort of the the one
standout technique from our study.
>> What do you think's going on there?
>> It's self- adapting. Many habit
techniques, they assume you have a
certain challenge, right? tiny habits is
great, but it assumes that your problem
is that you kind of don't have time to
do it some days, right? Or, you know, so
every technique sort of has a certain
group that it works with. You know, uh,
putting a little notepad with your
habit, that's great if you're the sort
of person that tends to forget, but if
you don't forget, then it's not useful.
What's cool about this, it's self-
adapting. You're you're just remembering
to use whatever it is you learned.
>> Yeah. It's like a survival of the
fittest, survival of the most effective
within yourself. You are the system. You
are the testing ground. you've abed
whatever happened in the past. Shock,
horror. If it worked for you previously,
it'll probably work for you in the
future.
>> But it also shows that people like
somehow are not applying that knowledge,
right? Even though they succeeded.
>> I have evidence that this worked before
and for some reason I've discarded it
now and I'm trying to do the new thing,
the new sexy thing. I guess that's a
that's a question. You talked about
biases before. How much of what you
found is people already knowing what
they should do or having an insight but
just not applying it or being seduced by
something that's more recent that's a
little bit more available to them.
>> Well, knowing what you should do is a
tricky thing, right? So, you could say,
well, everyone knows they should
exercise a whole bunch, right? But maybe
that's not the most useful way to think
about what they should do because maybe
what they should do is find a form of
exercise that's incredibly easy for them
that they really enjoy doing rather than
trying to do, you know, the right form
of exercise.
>> So sometimes what they should do is is
something that's actually super
customized to them rather than the best
thing.
>> And and maybe we can get lured in to
want to do the best thing even if it's
not working for us.
>> What do people get wrong about setting
goals? Because habits and goals
typically a habit is a daily or you know
hourly weekly engagement to move
somebody toward an outcome. And goals
feel slightly different to values like
sort of instrumental like I I have this
value there's this goal which is like a
physical thing that's typically going to
get me towards something that I value
but habits also aren't goals and values
aren't goals. So is there is does goals
deserve its own set here?
>> Absolutely. Actually, I'll tell you
about one of the biggest disagreements
me and my co-author Jeremy Stevenson had
when writing the book, which is that he
doesn't find thinking about values that
useful, which I think I find it
incredibly useful and I know many other
people that do. So, we kind of had this,
well, what do we do about that? Because
he's like, I don't know. I don't know if
it's that useful. So, I was like, well,
how do you do it? And so, through this
discussion, we realized there's this
broader set of things that we call your
guiding foundations. Your intrinsic
values is part of it, but also your
principles, which are the essentially
the rules you decide to live by to help
implement your values. So you might have
a principle like always tell the truth
or principle like family comes first.
It's essentially prereddeciding on how
you're going to make your decisions so
that you live by your values. And then
the last one is priorities. These are
the areas that you you're deciding to
focus on. So you're going to say, I'm
going to prioritize health in the next
three months. I'm going to prioritize
family in the next three months.
Whatever whatever it is. So that's your
guiding foundations. And the thing about
guiding foundations is you never
complete them. They're ongoing
processes. Just keep going and going and
going for the rest of your life.
>> Goals then relate to those, but they're
it's but are distinct because goals they
end. You you achieve a goal. You're done
with the goal.
>> But my view is what people often get
wrong is they don't build them on their
guiding foundations. Your goals should
be built out of your guiding
foundations. They should be reflective
of your deepest values. [ __ ] it's
complex.
>> It is.
>> It [laughter] feels It feels like very
It doesn't surprise me that you had to
do what 450
different techniques in order to refine
them down and bucket them into 12 and
Yeah, that uh that doesn't surprise me.
Why Why is focusing on fear important?
>> You know, I know some people that don't
feel afraid ever, but much much more
common is that people are limited by
fear.
And it's just such a big problem that um
I would say many people could benefit
from not letting fear stop them from the
things they find most valuable.
>> And I'm a perfect example of this. I'm
someone who was always anxious my whole
life from from childhood. And in
particular, there were certain
situations that were devastating to me.
If I had to go up to a stranger at a
party, my heart would be pounding in my
chest. My brain was like predicting that
I was going to die. Now, obviously,
that's ridiculous. It's totally silly.
as a educated, rational person who knows
how the world works.
>> Yeah. And I didn't believe, you know, on
a reasoning level, of course, I knew it
was safe, but my brain did not perceive
it as safe. And you, if you've ever had
a phobia of anything, whether it's
snakes or spiders or flying, you know
what it's like. You can, your brain is
like, I know that's safe, but it your
body is completely freaking out as
though it's the end of the world.
>> And finally, when I was in my early 20s,
I said, I have to do something about
this. This is ridiculous. So, I went to
find a therapist and I found a
specialist who works on anxiety. And he
said, "You know, Spencer, I can help
you, but you're not going to like it.
How I'm going to do it?" And I said,
"Well, how are you how are we going to
do this?" He said, "You're going to have
homework to go to a bar every weekend
alone and you're going to talk to five
strangers." And for me, this was, oh my
god, I can't do that. It's insane. But
we started small. We build what's called
a fear hierarchy. The bottom of the fear
hierarchy is something that's stressful
to you but bearable, right? So, a one
for me that was go up to people and
simply ask what time it was.
>> And I was quite afraid doing this, but I
could handle it. It wasn't too much
fear.
>> Yeah.
>> And then when that got easy, we took it
to the next level, which was going up to
people and saying, "Excuse me, what is
that you're drinking? That looks good."
>> And we worked our way up all the way at
the very top. It got really crazy. The
the final culmination of this is I went
up to people at bars and this was in
Manhattan and I said to men, "Excuse me,
would you give me a hug?" And [ __ ] me,
that's brilliant.
>> My my literally I thought I was going to
die. Like I thought not but amazingly
not only did I not get punched in the
face like the worst reaction I had was
like people laughing or being like no.
And it was shocking. It totally
transformed me.
>> How many hugs did you get?
>> I I definitely got a few hugs. I
definitely got a few hugs.
>> Oh, that's nice.
>> Yeah. um you know maybe it wouldn't work
everywhere. I don't condone I don't
condone doing that depending on where
you live but um
>> but my social anxiety it felt
dramatically and I certainly still have
social anxiety sometimes today but it's
shockingly less than it was and it it
all took place over you know maybe six
months. Um and there's some situations
today where I'm sitting in a room of
people and I'm like I think I'm less
socially anxious than the other people
here. This is amazing.
>> What is the principle that's underlying
that? Is it basically the same thing as
exposure therapy typically for phobias?
>> Yes. So it is this idea of exposure.
Basically the way fear typically works
is that when we're exposed to really
frightening things, we start associating
that with frightening things and pattern
match. So it extends beyond that initial
thing that made us afraid.
>> So let's say you got assaulted while you
were walking down the street one day.
That whole neighborhood start might
might be frightening to you. Even if
rationally you know the chance of you
getting assaulted again is incredibly
unlikely. Mhm.
>> And unfortunately, fear can tend to
propagate, especially when we engage in
avoidance. So suppose that you always
avoid that neighborhood. You just never
will go near it. Now, maybe you'll start
avoiding even the areas around it and
the areas around that.
>> And it it can it can be pernicious. It
starts spreading.
>> And this is why fear can be such a big
problem for so many people because it
starts carving these boundaries about
around what you're willing to do and you
start avoiding all these valuable
things.
>> Yeah. And the basic idea of exposure
therapy is you expose yourself to the
things you fear. But and here's
something that almost everyone misses.
You have to avoid engaging in safety
behaviors. So safety behaviors are
things we do to make ourselves feel
better in those situations, but they
cause our brain to learn the wrong rule.
>> Can you give me an example?
>> Yeah. So I have a friend who is
extremely afraid of flying, but he flies
regularly. Isn't that strange? How could
he be afraid? Like wouldn't wouldn't he
be doing exposure therapy by flying
right now?
>> But by flying so much, he should have
dissolved his fear.
>> Exactly. But here's the issue. Right
before he flies, he's constantly
obsessively checking the weather reports
to make sure that the weather is
perfect. And he cancels his flight if it
has bad weather. So his brain doesn't
learn flying is safe. His brain learns
flying is safe if the weather is
perfect. And I carefully check the
weather report every time. So he it
essentially prevents his brain from
learning the the rule that the thing is
actually safe to do.
>> Yeah. It's a fragility. You're
programming a kind of anti- robustness
into your system by doing that. What are
some other Can you give me another
example of safety behavior that people
might do?
>> Yes. So in social anxiety, you might do
a safety behavior of leaving event
early. Like say it's like, oh, I go to
parties. I'm social anxious. I go to
parties. Why isn't it work? But maybe
halfway through the party, you're like,
"Okay, I'm getting stressed out now. I'm
going to leave. Right?
>> Or maybe during during conversations
with people when you're feeling socially
anxious, you start laughing at all their
jokes and being overly friendly and
that's your safety behavior because you
think if I don't do that, they're going
to hate me.
>> Yeah, that's interesting. What about
the fear thing is fascinating because it
really does feel to me like if you
haven't worked out fears in at least a
good chunk of them in most areas of your
life. They are like a speed governor on
your system. There are certain things
that you are going to be unable to get
like you the territory idea is great.
There's certain bits of the map that are
just going to be inexplorable to you.
The cognitive map, the world map. I'm uh
terrified of intimacy. You go. Okay.
Well, that means that the world of
intimacy is not going to be open to you.
And then the world of stuff downstream
from intimacy. Maybe that means that you
can't have a family. Maybe that means
that you're not going to be able to get
a dog. Maybe that means d like all of
these things. Uh I have to assume that
thinking about fear reinforces the fear
or talking about fears to some degree,
obsessing over them as your friend would
have done. He's now got this weird rain
dance ritual that he has to do before he
gets onto a plane. How do people work
through their fears without obsessing
over them so much that they reinforce
them and then become uh like completely
obsessive about that? If we're talking
about something non-dangerous, because
you shouldn't do exposure therapy for
feeling truly dangerous, like don't do
exposure therapy for swimming with
dangerous sharks. Like this doesn't make
any sense. If we're talking about
something non-dangerous, the first thing
is to make sure that you really are on
board intellectually that it's not
dangerous. That's where I would start,
right? Because if you if you are
convinced that flying is actually
incredibly dangerous, well, of course
you're afraid. That makes perfect sense.
So the first thing is to work on the
cognitions and try to understand how
dangerous is this thing really. Do I
intellectually buy into this being safe?
>> Once you've intellectually bought into
it actually being safe and now it's just
an emotional thing there, it's not
really about doing lots of additional
thinking about it. It's really about
exposing yourself in a controlled way
and letting yourself sit with the fear.
A really crazy example, but it it
actually is it fits the theory and I'm
pretty sure it actually would work is
imagine someone is terribly afraid of
snakes and they fall into a pit of
harmless snakes, right? The snakes don't
hurt them, right? They're they're in the
pit of snakes.
>> How many hours do you think it'll be
until they're bored?
>> [ __ ]
>> 12.
>> Eventually, the thing is they will be
bored. Like eventually they're going to
be like, "Oh, [ __ ] I can't wait to get
out of this pit." bored of these snakes.
I wish they would bite me. Jesus Christ.
>> Like your brain just cannot freak out
indefinitely.
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Someone told me a story about this years
ago that um the same thing for animal
exposure which is kind of one of the
gold standards for exposure therapy
stuff. I think like single intervention
relatively simple phobia and that you
can basically you can sort of titrate
people up but assuming that there isn't
an adverse event during it. You can just
throw someone in a room filled with cats
and just wait like lock the door to
leave them in there. like highly
unethical. But I guess some people might
choose to be like, "All right, I could
step my way up to this thing or I could
just ask a bunch of people for a hug." I
suppose the high-risk
uh side effect of this is that if you
get a rejection on asking for the hug,
you've now taken steps back. So that's
why you begin with the exposure therapy.
So you learn, okay, this is safety and
even if I fall back, I fall back to now
a higher baseline because the rejection
did hurt, but I have some degree of
momentum which is moving me forward.
this incredible psychologist who who
actually was one of the people that
popularized cognitive behavioral therapy
for the general public. His name is
David Burns and I had him on my podcast,
Clear Thinking. And he I'll I'll try to
do this from memory, but he tells these
crazy stories where he uses this like
these oneshot exposures. Sometimes it's
called flooding. And if I recall
correctly, it was a patient who was
terribly afraid of contamination. And he
brings her into the bathroom. He's like,
"Okay, we're going to lick the toilet
seats.
>> [ __ ] heard about this. He's like, I'll
do it first. I'll do it if you do it.
Right.
>> And uh so he has these incredible
stories, but it's generally not
recommended. Obviously, when you're with
an expert, that's one thing like you can
decide what the experts get together.
>> But uh but it's generally not
recommended because people often freak
out and run out of the situation and
that can reinforce their fear. Yeah. So,
you really have to stay with it.
>> What about mental states? How do people
control the state that they're in to
control their performance?
Uh you mean if you're feeling like
emotionally dregulated?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. So it's interesting when people
are really highly emotionally
disregulated often kind of grounding
outside of the body is really really
helpful.
>> So there's a very simple technique where
you simply look at three things notice
three different things outside of
yourself. You notice three things that
you can hear and then you notice three
things in your body and kind of you
switch between these and it kind of
grounds you outside of your mind because
when you're feeling like really
emotionally disregulated often there's
sort of chaos going on in your mind and
you actually get out of there to
temporarily feel better.
>> Focus on that outside of me going to
focus on this that's on me and then I'm
going to focus on this that's in me.
>> Yeah. And then um if that doesn't work
um there are more intensive techniques
like you can kind of shock yourself and
so what not with electricity but with a
for example you can do it with cold
water. So just splashing yourself with
super cold water briefly um actually can
suddenly shock you out of a emotional
disruption.
>> That's interesting. Is that mamalian
dive reflex adjacent?
>> That's that's interesting.
I you know it may be because I think the
mamlian dive reflex which triggers when
you're in cold water uh does lower your
respiratory rate as I understand it. So
it might be related to that but this was
a technique that it was developed as far
as I understand it for people with
borderline personality disorder
>> because people with that disorder tend
to be very emotionally disregulated
easily and so they had to figure out
techniques like what do you do because
you can't like have a conversation and
reason when a person is in such a
disregulated state. So you need to give
them something to do
>> throw water at them. Well, you have a
whole you teach them to do it for
themselves.
>> Then you
>> throw the bucket out.
>> I think that probably make them more
upset, but you teach them to do it for
themselves so they can use it to kind of
uh yeah, come out of that state.
>> How many self-help books do you think
should have just said move your body and
go outside?
>> Well, you know, it depends on depends on
the person. It depends on your goals.
Yes, there are so many people that would
benefit from just like move your body,
go outside 100%. But if you're
depressed, is that going to solve your
problems? Maybe it'll help a little bit.
But why are you depressed? you know
what's really going on? Is it because
you think you're ultimately worthless
and unlovable? Well, okay, you may feel
a little better moving your bed and
going outside, but it's probably not
going to solve the underlying issue. So,
my view is that there are a number of
kind of powerful techniques and we need
to know the right one, the right time
for the right person.
>> What did you learn about the
relationship body, mind?
>> Yeah. So, there's so many ways that our
mind and body kind of affect each other
and interact. And a really fascinating
one is that when we're anxious or
stressed, we tend to tense our muscles.
And presumably this is because tensing
your muscles prepares you to fight,
prepares you to run. But you then find
that people who have chronic anxiety
will have neck pain, shoulder pain,
lower back pain, right? So because it's
actually this chronic anxiety impinging
on the body
>> and they might go out and spend years
trying to, you know, solve their back
pain with surgery or something like that
only to discover, oh [ __ ] it's like
literally muscle tension from chronic
anxiety, right? Not always, obviously,
but but sometimes it is. And so it's
kind of remarkable, but it can also go
the other way too, which is fascinating.
So there's a method called progressive
muscle relaxation where you alternately
tense and relax different muscle groups.
After each one tensing and relaxing, you
kind of like feel into the relaxation of
it. And it works in reverse. By relaxing
your physical body, it actually starts
to relax your mind just the way a tense
mind tends to produce a tense physical
body.
>> I think uh a lot of NSDR is similar to
that, right? Yoga nidra body scan type
things and you're realizing uh just how
much tension was held in your eyebrows,
right? Or in your lower back or
something despite the fact that you're
laid on the ground. And if you do
classically as an entrance into a
meditation sit, okay, so I'm going to
scan through my body and there are weird
places you go, "Huh, I I had loads of
tension in like my right forearm for no
reason and it's just like ambiently sat
there and until you pay attention to it,
you don't really notice it."
>> A technique I just started exploring
just the other day out of curiosity. It
was one where you find the point of your
body that has the most tension, you try
to relax it, then you try to find the
next point that has the most tension,
you relax it, you kind of work your way
through. It's kind of interesting.
>> Yeah, that's fun. I imagine that a lot
of the people who are into this sort of
stuff, one of the biggest afflictions
that they need to get past is
overthinking. That uh over complication,
intrusive thoughts, rumination,
uh what did you learn about how to
combat overthinking itself?
>> So there's an interesting bifurcation
here. There's strategies that try to
combat thinking with thinking.
>> Mhm.
>> For some people with overthinking, that
can be a problem. like people with
obsessivempulsive disorder trying to go
that route of combating thinking with
thinking can be problematic. Uh and then
there's trying to combat thinking with
not thinking. And so if we're taking
that route, there's methods known as
diffusion where you're trying to take
the thought, diffuse from it. So you're
noticing you're having a thought, you're
diffusing from it, like separating
yourself from it and viewing it from an
outside perspective. So an example is
suppose you have the thought, I suck. I
can't believe I did that. you can
notice, oh, I just had this thought.
That's not reality. That's just a
thought about a thing. A thought is not
always true. A thought is a process in
my mind. It's not the reality of the
situation. And then once you've stepped
outside of it, you can do things with
it. You can let it go. You can imagine
it drifting away on the clouds. You can
make fun of it. There's literally one of
the most ridiculous techniques that um
we talk about in our in our book, The 12
Lovers, is you can literally sing the
happy birthday song to your thought or
use do a silly Daffy Duck voice to your
thought. Because the idea the idea is
just finding separation, saying,
>> "Yeah, I have the thought that I suck,
but it doesn't mean I suck. That is
literally just a thought." And some
people actually find this really useful,
especially people who are overthinking
and and trying to engage in thinking
with thinking. Maybe it's part of the
problem.
>> That is interesting. I guess a good bit
of the problem with overthinking is
thinking that overthinking is useful.
Like believing that if I do this more,
some sort of outcome will some
beneficial outcome, desirable outcome
will will happen on the other side. The
same with worry. I'm I'm going to worry
and that's going to give me some degree
of maybe control or a sense of ownership
or sovereignty about the future, reduce
uncertainty or whatever. So yeah, it
become even if it never actually becomes
effective, it can feel effective during
the moment. People with a lot of anxiety
tend to have these beliefs about anxiety
that are counterproductive. For example,
they tend to believe that anxiety and
worry is urgent. If you're having the
worry, you have to worry about it now.
They also tend to believe that that they
can't do anything other than worry about
it. Like, oh, h like literally I'm not
capable of not worrying.
>> Um, and they tend to believe it's really
useful. Like, oh, it's really valuable
that I'm worrying. If I didn't worry,
something bad would happen. And there's
this technique that is really not
wellnown, but that I love that's
sometimes called the worry time. And the
way it works is you pick a time of day.
Let's say 5:00 p.m. You don't want to
pick before bed. That's important. Say
5:00 p.m. And throughout your whole day,
every time you have a worry, you write
that worry down if you haven't yet
written it down. So let's say you have
the worry, um, oh no, I don't know if my
project's going to go well tomorrow. You
haven't had that yet. So you write it
down. The next time you have that worry,
you don't write it down, right? You're
just going to write it once per day. And
then the idea is you're not allowed to
worry about it. You have to wait till
5:00 p.m. So, you're essentially batch
processing. You're saying, "I have to
defer my worry until 5 p.m. And if it
keeps coming back, you just say, "Nope,
I need to wait till 5 p.m." And then
when 5 p.m. rolls around, you worry as
much as possible about all those things
you wrote down.
>> High intensity worry training.
>> Yeah. And the the really funny thing
that happens is that first of all,
people start to realize, huh, I seem to
be to have more control over my worry
than I thought. Like, yes, my worry
might keep coming back, but I can keep
just redirecting and say, I'm going to
worry about it at 5 p.m.
>> Second, when they get to the worry time
and they sit down and like try to really
worry about all this stuff, they often
are like, "This is not that useful.
Like, what am I doing here? This is
ridiculous." Yes.
>> Like it kind of calls it out as not that
helpful. And then when you finish
worrying for the for 15 or 20 minutes,
you can then transition to problem
solving and say, "Well, what am I going
to do about this stuff? Let me pick one
of these worries and actually create an
action plan to try to improve it." And
so it can be a shocking intervention for
people that have worried their whole
life.
>> One of the interesting insights from CBT
is worries and fears are often like
bullies on the playground that they want
to come up to you when you're not ready
for it. But if you go to the bully and
you're saying, "Okay, now's the time."
It's like, "No, no, it's not like I want
to jump scare you as you're walking
around a corner." You go, "No, no, no.
I'm choosing the time." And I think that
that there's something about that uh
valitional versus surprised relationship
between you and a fear or you and a
concern that um is from my time in CBT
is
>> like one of the best things. Okay, I'm
going to go and find the bully. whatever
it is I'm concerned about, I'm going to
go in when I want and I'm going to make
it start. I'm going to start the fight
now.
It never wants to engage. And yet, when
you're trying to do something else,
that's when it wants to come over. So,
yeah, the flipping of that power is
interesting.
>> Yeah. And it's also funny that when
we're worrying, we often feel like we're
doing something, but then when you
switch to problem solving, you're like,
but what was I doing there? Like, I was
just cycling on the same thought over
and over again. It's almost like worries
often don't complete. You don't think
so. You think, "Oh no, what if my
project is bad tomorrow?" And then
you're like in, you know, thinking about
that and you're stressed about that, but
like often it doesn't turn into the
useful thing of okay, like what can I do
right now that's actually going to help
tomorrow go well?
>> Are intelligent people particularly
vulnerable to worry and overthinking?
>> I don't think I I know there's a
perception that they are, but I don't
think it's actually very linked to worry
per se. M um overthinking probably more
so there's a there are kind of cognitive
traits around enjoying thinking thinking
more often and I think more intelligent
people tend to have those traits but not
necessarily
>> overthinking comes along for the ride
with enjoying thinking generally
>> I I would guess so yeah but I don't
think worry does
>> that's interesting yeah I I mean there's
a lot of people who believe that
basically if they're anxious about work
and their work that they're being
responsible they almost sort of feel
like it's their duty to worry is Is that
actually true or is that sort of one of
the biggest myths about anxiety that
it's dutiful to do it?
>> Yeah, definitely some people have that
attitude. For for example, parents often
feel if I'm not worried about my kids,
I'm not a good parent.
>> Responsible parent. Y
>> but being a responsible parent is not
really actually about the worry. It's
about
>> making sure your kid's not safe. Make
sure your kid is safe and not dead.
Yeah.
>> Exactly. And if the worry about your kid
is like damaging your relationship with
them, for example, or driving them
crazy, well then maybe it's not actually
helping you be a better parent. So, but
yeah, sometimes people think their worry
really is important. Um, religious
people sometimes worry that they're not
following God's laws well enough. And
they might think that's part of being,
you know, a good religious person is
worrying about that.
>> I wonder whether
overthinking is partly an addiction to
feeling like you're solving something.
It's like there has to be a problem. I
have a uh particular demand for problems
and I will broaden the category for what
I determine a problem to be until the
supply reaches my demand. If that makes
sense.
>> Yeah. I mean I think sometimes people
think the more they think about
something the better solution they're
going to have or the more they're going
to be able to handle it. But after a
certain point we not only hit
diminishing marginal returns but often
actually makes things less clear. you
know what you know if you've spent three
hours thinking about the thing and
you're no clearer than you were before
you're probably thinking is not the next
thing to do right you maybe you need to
take action maybe you just need to take
a step back from it for a little while
and so I think it's important to track
well how much progress did you make in
the last 10 minutes of thinking about it
or 20 minutes of thinking about it and
calibrate that way
>> that is how you would tell the
difference between productive thinking
and rumination
>> yeah now of course it's always possible
that you're you're going to have some
breakthrough after three hours but I
think it's a good indicator if you're
stop making progress.
>> What's cognitive restructuring?
>> Cognitive restructuring is this idea
that you can learn to actually change
the thoughts that you have over time.
Now, of course, you often can't change
the first thought, right? Something, you
know, if someone jumps out and you might
have a thought and you're you're not in
control of that necessarily, but you can
often change the second thought, the
response thought, and that can make a
tremendous difference. M uh so for
example let's say um let's go back to
example of fighting with your girlfriend
a lot right and let's say when your
girlfriend asks you oh you know why why
did you leave the dishes in the sink you
know I don't like that um your first
thought might be well I just want to do
things my way right I want to feel
comfort in my home right maybe you don't
control that thought but you can learn
to have a different thought after that
and you can you can ask yourself well is
that the most helpful thought to have
right now and what would a more helpful
thought that's at least as true. So, not
a self-d delusion, but at least as true
be. And you can you can actually learn
and practice to have that be your
response thought. So, maybe a more
helpful thought that's at least as true
is, well, this is her home too and we
need to find a balance, right?
>> And so, after you have that first
thought, you can train yourself to have
that second thought and then that can
set you up in a better position for
success.
>> Similarly, I learned about parts work
when I went to a meditation retreat
recently. Why did that make it into the
bug? Well, there are a lot of people
that find that thinking of themselves as
having parts gives them self-insight
and um so we included it just because
there are a lot of people out there that
particularly like this set of
techniques.
>> Uh it's most famously associated with
internal family systems, but it's
actually used in other therapies. For
example, I believe it's used in schema
therapy, which actually has surprisingly
more evidence for its efficacy than
internal internal family systems. Um so
I think it it actually does work for
some people. The basic concept as I
think about it is we're not literally
different parts, right? We have one
brain, but we have sort of activation
patterns of emotions, beliefs,
motivations, drives that get activated
together. And when you have these things
get activated together, it's almost like
you're a different person temporarily.
>> Like maybe there's a child part of you
that never got enough love. And
sometimes in certain situations in
adulthood that gets activated and
suddenly it's almost like you're back
there being that child that didn't get
enough love and you're being really
needy and you're having certain fears
come up etc.
>> And so the idea of parts work is you can
learn to try to communicate with these
metaphorical parts.
>> Try to really understand where they're
coming from, what they're trying to do,
validate what their needs are, try to
help their needs be met, and really
approach them from a place of of deep
compassion and understanding. And some
people find that really unlocks insights
for them.
>> I wonder how much of that strategy is to
do with the same principle around fears
and worry that in the
fighting with it is the reinforcement of
it that like you're not pushing it away.
You're sort of bringing this thing in.
Oh, there I am again worrying about
being perfectionistic. Oh, well that's
the part of me that wanted to get a lot
of love as a kid and felt like love was
going to be predicated on performance.
Oh, well, like if I saw that version of
me now, I'd pick him up and give him a
hug. Wouldn't that be nice for him? Oh,
well, that's like there's compassion.
I'm no longer in tension with that
thing. I am that thing and it is a part
of me and I'm trying to offer it some
some care.
>> It's often recommended that you give
these parts names because it kind of
makes it easier to talk about them like
the scared part or the perfectionist
part or whatever it is. And it's often
also recommended you not give them mean
names. And
>> the idiot. Yeah, the idiot or that guy
who's ruining my life or whatever. And
the reason for that is that the parts of
you are trying to do something. Y
>> right. They're trying to achieve
something. And it's useful to think
about that. They're trying to protect
you. Even if they drive you crazy,
they're trying to protect you. And
that's that's a useful reframe to say,
"Hey, that thing that's beating me up,
it's because it's scared that I'm not
going to achieve enough if it doesn't do
that." And holy [ __ ] maybe I can I can
explain it. I can achieve my goals in
other ways and it doesn't have to beat
me up. so much.
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Talking about achieving things,
productivity is kind of the buzzword of
the decade. What did you learn about
productivity?
>> Well, I'm a mathematician. I don't know
if you know that. And uh I so I was so
tickled when I realized I could create
an equation for productivity. There's
literally an equation that's it's true.
And uh it's that productivity equals
times efficiency times importance. And
I'll break that down. So productivity is
the amount of value you produce each
week based on what you fundamentally
value. And that's what I like to call
healthy productivity where it's based on
everything you value not just producing
one type of output. If you focus on
productivity on just one type of output
like how much can you create you know
just your job. The problem with that is
it can often come at the expense of the
other things that you fundamentally care
about like your your family life, your
relationships, your hobbies etc. So, so
that's the first part. Productivity is
the value you create each week based on
what you fundamentally value. Then we
can break down the equation. It's time,
which is the number of hours you work,
times efficiency, which is the fraction
of your project you complete with each
hour.
>> Mhm.
>> Times importance, which is the total
value based on what you care about of
completing your project.
>> And having this equation, we can then
start to think about how do you tune it?
For some people, you're going to tune it
by saying, "Well, if you're not working
very many hours on the things you care
about, you're going to want to get up
time."
>> But if you're already working 70 hours a
week, that's a trap. Trying to push up
time, you're not going to get much out
of that. Those last few hours are going
to cost a lot and they're not going to
give you very much.
>> Okay. Well, what else? You could work on
efficiency. There's a whole bunch of
techniques you can use for efficiency.
But often one of the most overlooked
ones is importance.
>> Yep.
>> That by you know, you can't work 100
times more than a person. It's literally
impossible. those 24 hours in a day. But
sometimes you can find something a h
100red times more valuable for yourself.
So you you can get sometimes incredible
>> gains in thinking about the importance
part of what's actually truly valuable
to you. What do you want to work on?
>> How long you work,
how well you work, and what you're
working on
>> basically. Yeah.
>> Right. Yeah. That's cool. That's that is
cool. And you're right that work done is
time times intensity. But that work done
can be in service of a thing that you
don't really care about. And you saying
you're being productive. I suppose so
like you have produced things you have
certainly produced something but whether
that is salient or valuable to you in
your life or even the thing that is
being given to you that sometimes you
don't get to always choose what it is
that you need to work on like someone
might not want to work on their taxes
but I would imagine that you can link
that to a deeper value something that
you do care about and then you go okay
how efficient can I be at filling in the
spreadsheet and how much time am I going
to spend doing it
>> yeah exa exactly and um and when you
take that broader view of productivity,
you realize that some things are just
not worth it. You know, imagine a truck
driver who's trying to get, you know,
valuable merchandise, you know, from
point A to point B. Well, if all they
care about is getting the merchandise
there, they can drive over the speed
limit. They can not sleep in the entire
trip, but, you know, clearly that's not
worth it. Why is it not worth it? Maybe
the merchandise would get there faster
on average, but they're going to put
people's lives at risk. They're going to
be absolutely miserable, etc. Right? So
they're going to burn the things they
care about to produce this sort of
narrow view of productivity.
>> Yeah. Most productivity advice then is
focused on efficiency. Like very little
of it is like just work longer. It would
be an incredibly short book.
>> Well, there are some interesting
techniques around time as well.
>> Okay. Well,
>> yeah. So, uh, one thing we we uh talk
about in our book, The 12 Lovers, is
doing a time audit. And you can, if you
have a a very, uh, the same schedule
every single day, you can just do it for
one day, but you could also do it for a
few days if your schedule tends to vary.
And it's just looking for how do you
actually spend your hours. So every time
you transition to activities for a few
days, just simply write in a notepad,
what were you doing and for how long?
And when people do this, they're often
shocked to discover what they're
actually spending their time doing.
>> Often times people spend way more time
scrolling their phones than they
realize. Like they often underestimate
by like literal hours. Sometimes they
think that they're working more than
they're actually working. So a time
audit can then help you look back and
say maybe I do have like an extra hour
or two more than I thought and then you
can start being strategic. So obviously
you can't make time out of nowhere but
you can make time out of
>> time that you're you just think is not a
good use of time.
>> Yeah. I think that's the number one
realization that people get from wearing
a sleep tracker like a Whoop or and
using an eight sleep or something which
is just dude you are sleeping less than
you think you are. Like you're not
sleeping that much. Yeah man. I was like
I got 8 hours.
>> That's what happened to me when I
started wearing one. Yeah. No, you were
in bed for 7:15 and after it took you a
little while to get to sleep and then
you woke up a couple of times for a
piss, it's like you got 6 hours and you
thought you got eight. And there's a big
difference in that. What about
efficiency? What were the best ways for
people to improve efficiency?
>> Yeah. So, in terms of efficiency, we
talk about first of all coming prepared
and there's different versions of coming
prepared to work. One is I know so many
people that like type a lot as part of
their job and some of them are really
slow typers and it's fascinating to me
because it's like you type so much part
of your job. Maybe you type a lot on
your phone but you like actually kind of
suck at typing.
>> If you just spend like five hours
improving your typing that's going to
give gains for the rest of your life. So
that's one version of coming prepared.
Another version is when you sit down to
your desk is everything there ready to
go? You know, chefs have this idea of
having like everything laid out in the
perfect position all ready to go so you
can just focus on cooking. And so we can
take that to heart with many different
types of work and it could be just
clearing away all the freaking windows
on your computer so you can focus on
what you're doing, right?
>> Um so coming prepared. The second thing
second thing is avoiding distractions.
So this is a big one. When people when
people start getting into their work,
things often pull them away. And you
know there's a bunch of things you can
do whether it's you know silencing
notifications changing your work
environment uh using noise cancelling
headphones whatever distracts you and
figuring out how do you remove that so
it's not going to be a problem
>> I love the idea of the component skills
I totally didn't think about
if you're writing anything ever which
almost everybody is hey dude how good
are you at writing how many errors how
quick can people become better at typing
[ __ ] five hours of training
>> that's a good question so I was uh
working on improving my typing speed on
my phone and I felt like I got
significant benefits after like 5 hours
of practice. But I mean, you know, and
not that website where you can go to
like
>> you can literally get a game that's like
a game where you have to blow things up
by typing. Like there's like a there's
so many different apps and all kinds of
stuff that you can
>> stuck about your your typing.
>> I think I have Yeah, I think it it
stuck. I mean, look, I'm not the fastest
typist on my phone, but I'm faster than
>> My girlfriend's a freak. Like she is
able to get stuff out quicker than I can
think it. Like what the [ __ ] is going
on? Like watching what? It's like
watching dead not dead. Who's the guy
with the Flash? It's like watching the
Flash on the on the on the phone.
Anyway, um well that that's an
interesting insight that your voice
especially now chat GPT uh voice
commands and stuff. I wonder what uh
additional efficiency gains will be able
to be made by people that are using
voice as opposed to having to and then
we go to Neurolink and we start to speed
these things up. But that will change
some of the input restrictions that
people have in terms of that being the
rate limiter, the skill of being able to
do that into, okay, well, how often are
you being distracted? Okay, well, how
are you prioritizing the sequence? Are
you coming prepared in terms of making
sure that you actually have everything
that you need before you begin that
task? A lot of stuff like that.
>> Yeah, absolutely. I mean, technology, I
think, is going to be huge for
efficiency. I mean, I'm just going crazy
trying to figure out all the ways to use
AI to make my life more efficient. And
uh I think there's tremendous
opportunities there.
>> What does the research say about
scheduling fun? Like a lot of what we've
talked about so far is kind of grind set
grind set adjacent. I'm making things
happen. I'm dealing with my problems and
I'm expediting my goals and stuff, but
like presumably fun is good in and of
itself and also a strategy for a more
fulfilling life and presumably a more
effective life too.
Sometimes I worry about saying things
that are too obvious. But then what what
I came to realize over time is if you
say something obvious that someone
hasn't heard before, it can actually be
really valuable because they just
immediately get it. They're like, "Oh
[ __ ] you're right." Because it's
obvious, right? And we were worried
about this with one section of our book.
We call it glad you did it activities.
And the idea of a glad you did it did it
activity is very simple. It's just an
activity where afterwards you're glad
you did it. You're like, "Yeah, hell
yeah. I'm glad that I did that thing."
>> Yep.
Very often we do non-glad you did it
activities, right? We scroll on our
phones or, you know, we we watch too
much TV or whatever it is. And I think
sometimes people make the mistake of
thinking, "Oh, I should be replacing all
my downtime with something productive,
right?"
>> But that's a denial of your own needs.
When you get home from work, maybe
you're tired, you need to relax. Yeah,
that's why you sit and scroll on your
phone. It makes sense. To just replace
it with work is to deny those needs. And
it's not a very healthy thing to do. But
you can be smart about it and you can
say, "Well, how do I replace that with a
glad you did an activity?" Because you
probably aren't glad afterwards that you
scroll on your phone.
>> And for me, for example, I love watching
documentaries and there's so many I
haven't seen that I want to see. So, a
simple thing I can do is be like,
instead of doing whatever [ __ ] to
relax, pull a documentary I've wanted to
see. Yep.
>> And watch that. And I'm And I'm like, it
feels like a meaningful use of time.
I'll remember having watched that for
years and be able to discuss it with
people. And so it's about finding ways
to meet your existing needs that give
you more benefit in the long term.
>> That's such a good switch. That's really
good. That's I think that's probably my
favorite one from the book for me. Uh if
you can even switch screen forcreen, I
guess if you count a Kindle as being a
screen, but uh I'm obsessed with this.
I'm wearing my new dungeon crawler call
t-shirt today. Shout out to the people
that know my t-shirt collection is ever
expanding. Um and this it's a eight book
series at least at the moment. And
there's probably going to be like 18 or
something when Matt Dinman finishes up.
And uh I'm like, well, I'm already on my
phone. If I just do that device goes
down and this device or I guess even
like a paper book comes up, my felt
sense of, and this is interesting as
well.
Glad you did activities
aren't just things that you enjoy doing
in the moment. But even longer than that
is the story that you tell yourself
about what you did and about being the
sort of person that does that sort of
thing. And then the identity that is
built up by being the sort of person
that tells yourself the sort of story
about being the kind of person that does
that sort of thing. Like it is so
recursive and just what the [ __ ] you do
with your time is kind of the pebble at
the top of the avalanche. And then
downstream from all of this are uh
habits, fears, uh uh story, narrative,
identity, all of this [ __ ] sort of falls
downstream from just like this one
switch or going for a walk with the dog
instead of lying on the couch and veging
out or whatever.
>> There's this interesting word that most
people haven't heard of, which is choice
points. The idea is that we make many
micro decisions where we can move
towards our values or away from them
throughout every single day, right? Your
mom calls you. Do you pick up the phone?
You know, what do you decide to buy at
the grocery store? And there's these
tiny little decisions add up. Are you
moving towards your values or away from
them? And I think it's empowering to
realize that because you don't have to
transform your life with giant bold
actions. You can also do it through tiny
micro decisions.
>> Yep. Yep. Yeah. Other than for you
documentaries, what are some of the most
commonly rated Glad You Did It
activities that people can do easy
switches for?
>> If you have a pet, like spend time with
your pet, right? Like that's relaxing.
It's, you know, fun and typically more
meaningful than like a lot of the things
that people, you know, do for
relaxation. Yeah.
>> Um obviously, you know, if you're not in
Gen Z, you can call a friend. I don't
know if Jenz does that anymore.
>> [snorts]
>> Um, you can uh take a walk outside. A
lot of people like being in nature often
people feel good about having done that.
>> A call and a walk at the same time. Oh,
it's great.
>> Yeah. Is and I How this is the problem.
What I guess when you distill things
down, they end up being so cliche or
trite or like seemingly obvious like
shock horror. You've got to be an hour
and 10 minutes into a podcast to find
out that going for a walk and calling a
friend is something good for you. And
it's like, all right, dude. If you're so
[ __ ] smart, why aren't you doing it?
>> It's the same thing every time that I
sit down with Hubman. Andrew Human's on
the show this week. Like he'll go cold,
dark, quiet for sleep. Like that's the
thing. And people want the recency bias,
the the, you know, the new novel
insight. What's the cutting edge tool?
It's like, bro, if you're so bored of
the basics, why aren't you doing them?
Why are you not doing that?
>> And that is such a great question. And
it's like, well, that that is actually
maybe the next step they need to take.
Why are they not doing it? That's the
thing to dive into, right?
>> Rather than, oh, try to do the next
technique. It's like, well, why aren't
you doing? Because there's a reason.
There's a psychological explanation for
that that they may not understand yet.
>> Yeah. Which is the investigation, the
reflection. That's kind of important.
Did you look at discipline? Because
discipline, willpower, resilience,
motivation, you know, second after maybe
habits and productivity sort of the
buzziest of buzzwords coming out of this
kind of world. So there was a lot of
research on what they called ego
depletion, which is the idea that your
your willpower is kind of like a muscle
and it gets tired out after you use it.
So there were a whole bunch of studies
where they would do things like, you
know, get people they would give people
like cookies but then have them not eat
them. So they'd be like exerting
willpower
>> and then they would test them afterwards
and find that they had less willpower
after that. So it kind of would get
depleted and it build this whole
beautiful theory around it and then
researchers tried to replicate it and it
did not replicate like they could not
replicate the like a bunch of the basic
findings.
>> Now does that mean willpower doesn't
exist? No willpower but clearly there's
a thing willpower but unfortunately our
scientific understanding of it kind of
collapsed when due to the replication
crisis
>> Roy Bmeister has been on the show and
I've like harassed him a bunch of times
and each time he like he comes out with
a new weapon. He's like a a guy that's
going through a rotating door and every
time that you throw him in he's like now
I've got a mace. Now I've got a lance.
Now I've got a flamethrower. Like um so
that battle is kind of going to be
fascinating to unfold I think. Like what
does ego depletion tell us because they
they're constantly iterating at least.
Sorry for interrupting. Cut.
>> Yeah. Um but what I would say is that
one of the things that people do too
much is they try to use willpower to
solve their problems. And the the
problem with willpower like yes there
are there are so who are like willpower
so right? They're just going to they're
going to like use it to do everything.
You know, I know someone like this who's
a ultrarunner and nothing's going to
stop her. She can just use willpower to
solve her problems. The rest of us
though, willpower is usually not the
best solution. And the reason is
because, well, you might be really
psyched up today and be able to push
through. But will you be able to do it
tomorrow and the day after that and the
day after that? And as soon as your
motivation flags, you're in trouble. So,
I prefer easier methods that require
less willpower. M so for example if I
encounter someone who doesn't exercise
at all and they say I really want to
exercise and I say to them what kind of
exercise do you most love what's the
most fun type of exercise that require
the least willpower possible and if they
say I hate all I hate all exercise it
all sucks then I say have you heard of
temptation bundling so this is a a
phrase coined by Katie Milkman the
psychology researcher the idea is
pairing something that we don't like but
that's good for us with something we
really do like so you hate exercise well
go run on your tread and play video
games, right? Combine the thing you
really like with something you don't
like to do the healthy thing.
>> Let's say that you didn't enjoy walking,
call a friend.
>> Yeah, exactly. Walk when you call a
friend.
>> Find a way to make it enjoyable. Make it
good enough that it's no
>> or if you hated calling a friend, you
could walk at the same time if you enjoy
walking.
>> That would be fun.
>> There you go.
>> I don't want to talk to mom's ringing.
[ __ ] I don't want to answer it. I do
enjoy walking. All right, I'll go for a
walk and I'll pick it up.
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How does positive thinking factor into
all of this? the framing that we place
around it, optimism, resilience,
stoicism, stuff like that.
>> Positive thinking is often talked about
like, oh, you know, if someone's
depressed, they should think positively.
That is probably the most annoying thing
you can say to a depressed person is
think positively.
>> And I think in general people are
confused about it because they think,
well, when I have positive thoughts, I
feel good. So then what I should try to
be doing is having positive thoughts.
But I think that's actually not the most
healthy way to think about it. Um I
think in terms of so strangely
oftentimes positive thinking follows our
behavior rather than something we
generate from nothing.
>> Yep.
>> There was a really crazy study done on
depression. It kind of blew everyone's
minds where they had one group that was
getting sort of standard cognitive
behavioral therapy very well proven to
help with depression. And they had
another group that was getting basically
they were saying, "Okay, just find
things you really enjoy doing and you're
going to schedule them and you're going
to go do them regularly, right?" And
like the researcher talks about how like
they kind of felt bad for that group
that was randomized to that because like
nobody thought that was going to be very
effective. And shockingly, it worked
really well. And it now there's a whole
therapy around it. It's called
behavioral activation. And the strange
thing about it is you think you take a
depressed person and they have all these
negative thoughts and you think well if
they're having all these negative
thoughts like surely just
>> the problem is the thoughts.
>> Exactly. But fascinatingly just getting
them to do more positive activities that
they really enjoy actually tends to
produce more positive thoughts which is
kind of mind-blowing.
>> What do you make of this battle between
sort of bottom up and top down um for
behavior change for mood change
especially as well? like it seems to me,
I don't know, very seductive to a lot of
people. And maybe it's the uh look at
how smart I am. I'm going to think my
way out of this problem. Um
presumably there is a limit to how much
we can just bottom up create the state.
If people could do that, they would be
by split testing the evolution of their
own life strategy. Constantly going for
a walk or playing pickle ball or dancing
with a friend or whatever it is that
they're supposed to do. How do you come
to think about the top down versus
bottom up for moods approach?
>> Well, have you heard of the Janna?
>> That's the [laughter] that's the
meditation retreat that I went to.
>> Oh,
>> I went to Journey.
>> Oh, you went to Journey? So, I had I had
the founder of Journey on my podcast,
Clear Thinking, the other day. Yeah.
>> Um,
>> yeah. So, so interesting. So, it's funny
because you really can learn to generate
positive feelings
>> from nothing.
>> From nothing. And actually, part of my
morning routine is I spend one minute
trying to generate the most positive
feelings I can.
>> Okay. Just
>> have you ever managed to hit any of the
genres in a minute?
>> Uh, no. I can't have in a minute, but I
I have I have had a couple experiences
with genres, which was
>> cool. What have you got? J1, J2.
>> Well, uh, my
>> strike me as a J3, J4 kind of guy.
>> Oh, well, I'm to be honest, I haven't sp
spent that much time exploring that, but
my crazy meditation experience was
>> trying to generate feelings of pleasure
>> and eventually getting to the point
where everything went white. I couldn't
see and I was like I remember having the
thought, holy [ __ ] this is better than
an orgasm. Oh my god, that's that was
that was
>> that sounds like J1. That could be that
could be pretty good for J1 J2. Uh it's
so I mean we're deep in the weeds here,
but [ __ ] it. I went I spent a week
silent, right? I'm allowed to indulge.
Um kind of fascinating. One of the
things that I realized from a Janna
perspective that I spoke to the guys
about there too.
Basically, for the people at home, we're
talking about different levels to a type
of progressive meditation. And you go
from J1 to J8. And J8 is disillusion of
the self and everything in time and
space and all the rest of it. But going
down to J1, which is like very exciting,
it's kind of like going to a rave a
little bit. It's like like a high energy
state. But what was interesting and I
thought was really telling not everybody
enters into the Janna at J1 even though
they kind of are sequential and the
first three are first four are embodied
and the second four are sort of
disembodied. Uh that I found I was much
closer to like J3 J4 adjacent because
for me one and two were way too
energetic. It's like holy [ __ ] like
every time I glanced off the side of
them it was like uh I don't know like
holding on to an electrical cable or
something I was like ah that's just too
much. And there were a bunch of other
people including some of the
facilitators who said the same. And the
long realization I had around that is
basically what a lot of how we framed
the beginning of this conversation which
is even a singular technique which works
for you works in an idiosyncratic kind
of way like you're entering into this
ladder that other people have been there
but the way that they got to the
location that you got to you just
entered straight in at J3 or J4 and
everybody else had to ladder up from 1
to two to three to four and you can't go
back down like you would actually
struggle to go back to where they came
from. I like that whole thing, the
idiosyncratic nature of ourselves
following the same practice with the
same wetw wear and you know largely like
constructed from the same stuff like is
completely different. Having run over
100 studies on human psychology, my
biggest takeaway about human nature is
that we humans are way more different
from each other than we realize.
>> There we we don't think about it because
we just have one mind to go off of,
right? you only have access to your own
mind and you kind of assume other people
must have a similar thing going on. Uh
but also social norms tend to compress
behavior tremendously. So you know
imagine going to a wedding like people
are you know dancing on the dance floor,
they're having a cocktail. They're
sitting eating dinner. Nobody's like
dressed in alligator costume like
leaping onto the table right
>> to the wrong weddings. You need
>> Yeah, exactly. Maybe that's my problem.
But uh social norms make people behave
so similarly that we think oh what's
going on their minds must be similar.
but it's really really not. And so as
I've studied people, I've really come to
discover like
>> what's going on is so different. So it's
not at all surprising to me that the way
people enter the genres is really
different.
>> That's such a good point. I I've tried
to say that in the past less elegantly
than that. Um that we're never going to
experience anybody else's mind. Even if
you're born with a twin, the closest
that you're ever going to get to them is
by having some theory of mind of how you
think and then like porting it on to
them. And from the outside, because we
only get to see this tiny aperture of
the things that people think and then
hit consciousness from subconsciousness
and then choose to share or act out in
front of us that we are there to
interpret and then we feed it through
our own lens and finally come up with a
theory about what it was that they were
thinking based on their thoughts or
actions, their words or actions. Sorry.
like that is the,
you know, galaxysized input to grain of
sand output like aperture that
everything gets squeezed through and
then you look at this person and you go,
"Yeah, that that's a a rational agent.
They seem kind of like similar to me and
we do the same sort of things." It's
like, no, you behave in the same sorts
of ways because cultural and societal
norms kind of expect you to do that. And
you're right, you go to a wedding and
people are largely behaving in the same
way despite the fact that the galaxy of
[ __ ] that's behind each of them
could be universes apart, but like you
don't want to be that weird and
nonfgeible at a wedding because like you
will be the story. You're the headline
of the [ __ ] wedding there or you're
the headline of the office or whatever
it might be. This is how it's kind of
crazy that we can be so different as
humans and yet like civilization just
takes along and people stay in their
lane when they're driving the car and
like people don't just shriek like most
people don't just shriek random things
on the street and like they wait in a
queue when they're going for food and
then they put the knives and forks away
once they're finished up and they don't
stab someone with it on the way out or
like throw all the cookies on the floor
or whatever like start eating all the
salt. that people behave in relatively
predictable ways that are relatively uh
uh uh normalized and yet all of us it
gives the impression that we're kind of
similar whilst being like wildly
different.
>> Very well said.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. And it may be part of why humans
survived because we have so many
different types of people. You know,
there's the adventurer that's going to
go find that next area that has the
great berries nobody's found. And then
there's the worrier who's going to make
sure that, you know, the tribe has
everything they need, but is never going
to go adventuring. And and so many other
distinct, you know, types
>> psychopath that'll go and invade
Lindesfon and come back with a bunch of
gold and some new insight or the Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So when you're sort of
thinking about this as a whole, how much
of the fundamental strategies of
self-rowth, personal development are
just where you focus your attention,
that's where your life goes. There's
this famous piece of advice, we Newton,
this company, we've got a a Formula 3
racing team at the moment, AIX, and
there's this famous piece of advice from
racing, which is don't look at the wall.
Like where you put your eyes is where
the car goes. Don't look at the [ __ ]
wall. If you're in Monaco, we were in
Monza last week. We're in Monaco. Don't
look at the [ __ ] wall. There's walls
everywhere. How much of this is where
you focus your attention, that's where
your life ends up. Where you when you
look at the wall, that's kind of where
you're driving the car. Well,
>> this goes back to the idea I mentioned
before, which I call the unsaid obvious.
The things that are so obvious, but you
usually don't think about. Everything
you experience is where your attention
goes. Like, that literally is your life,
what you're paying attention to. And
when you realize that, you're like, "Oh
[ __ ] what I pay attention to matters a
lot." If you're walking down the street
and you're the person that notices the
beautiful flower beds rather than the
person that notices the dog [ __ ] near
the flower beds, that's going to have a
big difference in your life. Of course,
you need to make sure you don't
accidentally step in the dog [ __ ] But
that is really a profound difference
between people. And you can learn to
begin to control your attention and pay
more attention to things you want to,
more to the things that that bring good
things to you that make life happy. Was
there anything that you struggle to
categorize or is there anything that's
important when it comes to people
framing the way that they should think
about a psychological toolkit for
improving their life that isn't in the
book or that you struggle to
communicate?
>> You know, we thought a lot about how do
you communicate which tool is right for
which person because it is a difficult
challenge. uh we wanted to categor all
the best tools but then you still have
the question of okay you've got a bunch
of tools which do you use we tried to
map it out and we actually at the back
of our book we have a decision tree to
help you a little map to help you figure
out which tool but I think it is really
hard to capture when is the tool going
to be right and you know maybe the first
thing is what tool resonates with you
but there's probably a more nuanced way
to kind of get to the really core of
like who's going to benefit from what
>> what do you think people are going to
overlook the most well what's the least
sexy but high impact strategy that
probably more people should pay
attention to
>> the least sexy highest impact thing is
that you can't just learn techniques you
have to literally sit down and make time
and do them like and it's it's so stupid
and obvious but many people read
self-improvement books and they do
nothing differently afterwards it will
not change your life until you actually
put into action and we like I don't know
how to say it more emphatically then you
have to do something.
>> Y yeah so it would probably be better to
read one chapter and then go away or to
have a single strategy. I suppose this
is probably one of the advantages of a
book like let's say atomic habits or
tiny habits BJ fog you okay there is a
I'm aware there's varieties of
interventions and you sort of there's
this lattis work that you're building
your understanding of how habits happen
but it's like you're still doing a thing
it is a singular track you're sort of
following along with this as opposed to
having uh like much more disperate uh
like for instance human human's new
protocols. It's a [ __ ] tome. It's
like 500 pages and there's all of this
stuff in there. But there really should
be, I don't know, like a a way that you
can register that you went away and did
a thing for long enough time for it to
actually impact you because reading the
thing is not doing the thing. And
unfortunately, until you do the thing,
it's not going to have the impact on
your life. And then reading sometimes or
learning about something can give you a
simulacrum of the progress that doing
the thing would have given you. So like
the consumption of more knowledge about
it feels like progress whilst actually
taking away from the time that could
have been spent acting in a way that
could have given you real progress.
>> You know this reminds me some people in
this world of AI they're like well why
write a book? Why not just like you know
talk to GBT about it or something like
this? And I think I think the best
argument for a book is that a book isn't
just a packet of information. Ideally, a
book is an experience.
>> Yes.
>> And the hope is that from the beginning
of that experience to the end, you've
written the words in a certain order for
a certain purpose to change a person,
right? So that's the ideal is the
process of reading the book create some
kind of change in them.
>> I completely agree. I also think part of
the Socratic dialectic relationship that
you have when speaking with an LLM or
now with using voice and you know Chad
GBT's got like this live thing where it
can just sit and like it'll only pipe up
when you want to speak to it which is
pretty [ __ ] cool but it there is
something about the uh optionality
which can I think take you out of the
experience of what you're doing. It's
like a choose your own adventure book a
little bit as opposed to just reading
something that is a linear path where an
expert who has spent [ __ ] ages
crafting this thing to make it into an
arc that brings you into land at a place
that they have pre-defined as useful to
you from a place that they have
predefined is probably the like
normative starting point for most people
and this is where we go. as opposed to
you kind of ripping yourself around all
over the map. And sometimes you have
insights and sometimes you get bored and
sometimes you're not sure if you should
stop and sometimes you should maybe
change to another da like the
optionality that is baked into that um
choose your own adventure with LLMs I
it's a blessing in some ways but on
average for this kind of stuff I
actually think it's I think it's just
less effective. Yeah, it is. It's really
fascinating now having written a book
for the first time of like how much
effort you put into the order of the
words and the exact words. I I don't
think I've ever had that much care
before in the words that I've written in
a certain order. And you know, I love
podcasts. I think podcasts have a ton of
value, but it's almost like the opposite
end of the spectrum where like a podcast
is unstructured conversation. You don't
know where it's going to go. You don't
know what's going to happen.
>> And a book is like no, you're going to
read this exact thing.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so curated, so
carefully put together. Dude, you're the
best. I I I love everything that you do.
I think Clearer Thinking podcast and
website are great. I keep on sending
people back to our IQ and astrology
episode from a couple of years ago. Uh
where should people go to keep up to
date with everything you
>> Oh, thanks so much. It's been so fun to
chat with you. Um yeah, so I actually
have a new YouTube channel. So search
Spencer Greenberg on YouTube. Just had
my first video hit a million views. So I
was really excited.
>> Congratulations. I was looking at it the
other day. Very good.
>> Um and yeah, our website
clearerthinking.org. If you're
interested in the book, go to
12Loversbook.com.
We've got three cool free bonuses you
can get when you get the book. including
a little AI bot that will help you apply
what's in the book. So, it's
>> awesome, dude. You're the best.