44 Harsh Truths About The Game Of Life - Naval Ravikant (4K)

Happiness is being satisfied with what

you have. Success comes from

dissatisfaction.

Is success worth it then? Oof. I'm not

sure that statement is true anymore.

Like I made that statement a long time

ago and a lot of these things are just

notes to myself and they're highly

contextual. They come in the moment,

they leave in the moment.

Happiness. Okay. So very complicated

topic but I always like the Socrates

story where he goes into the marketplace

and they show him all these luxuries and

fineries and he says how many things

there are in this world that I do not

want right and that's a form of freedom

so not wanting something is as good as

having it in the old story with

Alexander Dionius right Alexander goes

out and conquers the world and he meets

Dionius who's living in a barrel and

Dionius says get out of the way you're

blocking my son and Alexander says oh

how I wish I you know could be like

Dionius the next life and Dionis says

that's the difference I don't wish that

I could sorry Dioynes Dioynes Dioynes

says I I I don't wish to be Alexander so

two paths to happiness and uh one path

is success you get what you want you

satisfy your material needs or like

Dioynes you just don't want in the first

place and I'm not sure which one is more

valid um

and it also depends what you define as

success if the end goal is happiness

then why not cut to the chase and just

go straight for

uh does being happy make you less

successful? That is a conventional

wisdom. That may even be the practical

earned experience of your reality. You

find that when you're happy, you don't

want anything. So, you don't get up and

do anything. On the other hand, you

know, you still got to do something.

You're an animal. You're here. You're

here to survive. You're here to

replicate. You're driven. You're

motivated. You're going to do something.

You're not just going to sit there all

day. Unlikely. Some people do. Maybe

it's in their nature. But I think most

people still want to act. they want to

live in the arena. Uh I found for myself

as I've become uh happier is a big word,

but you know, more peaceful, more calm,

more present, more uh satisfied with

what I have, uh I still want to do

things. I just want to do bigger things.

I want to do things that are more pure,

more aligned with uh what I think needs

to be done and what I can uniquely do.

So in that sense, I think that being

happier can actually make you more

successful, but your definition of

success will likely change along the

way.

Is that a realization you think you

could have gotten to had you have not

had some success in the first place?

At least for me, I always wanted to take

the path of material success first. I

was not going to go be an aesthetic and

sit there and renounce everything. That

just seems too unrealistic and too

painful. Uh, in the story of Buddha, he

starts out as a prince and then he sees

that it's all kind of meaningless

because you're still going to get old

and die and then he goes into the woods

looking for something more.

I'll take the happy route that involves

material success. Thank you.

I think it's quicker in some ways. You

know, one of your uh insights is it's

far easier to achieve our material

desires than it is to renounce them.

And uh

it depends on the person, but I I think

you have to try that path. If you want

something, go get it. Uh, you know, like

I I I quipped that the reason to win the

game is to be free of it. So, you you

play the games, you win the games, and

then you get hopefully you get bored of

the games. You don't want to just keep

looping on the same game over and over.

Although a lot of these games are very

enticing and have many levels and are

relatively open-ended.

Uh, and then you become free of the game

uh in a sense that you're no longer

trying to win it. You know, you can win

it. Uh, and either you move to a

different game or you play the game for

the sheer joy of it.

Yeah. You, another one of yours, most of

the gains in life come from suffering in

the short term so you can get paid in

the long term. I think

that's classic.

Winning the marshmallow test on a daily

basis. But, uh, there's an interesting

challenge where I think people need to

avoid becoming uh, a suffering addict.

Sort of using suffering as the proxy for

progress as opposed to the outcome of

the suffering. Right? It's like I was in

pain not eating the marshmallow. I was

in pain doing this work. I have attached

well-being and satisfaction to pain, not

to what the pain gets me on the other

side of it. If you define pain as

physical pain, then it's a real thing.

It happens and you can't ignore it. But

that's not what we mean by suffering.

Suffering is mostly mental anguish and

mental pain. And it just means you don't

want to do the task at hand. Uh if you

were fine doing the task at hand, then

you wouldn't be suffering. And then the

question is what's more effective to

suffer along the way or just to

interpret it in a way that it's not

suffering?

You hear from a lot of successful people

they look back and they say oh the

journey was the fun part right that was

actually the entertaining part and I

should have enjoyed it more.

It's a common regret. Uh there's a

little thought exercise I like to do,

which is you can go back into your own

life and uh try to put yourself in the

exact position you were in 5 years ago,

10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years

ago. And you try to remember, okay, who

was I with? What was I doing? What was I

feeling? What were my emotions? What

were my objectives? And really, really

try to transport yourself back and see

if there's any advice you'd give

yourself. Anything you do differently.

Now, you don't have new information. And

don't pretend you could have gone back

and, you know, bought a stock or bought

bought Bitcoin or whatever, but just

knowing what you know now in terms of

your temperament and a little bit of age

related experience,

how would you have done things

differently? And I think it's a

worthwhile exercise to do. So don't let

me rob you of the conclusion, but I'll

tell you for me uh

I would have done everything the same

except I would have done it with less

anger, less emotion, less internal

suffering because that was optional. It

wasn't necessary.

And I would argue that someone who can

do the job uh at least peacefully but

maybe happily is going to be more

effective than someone who has

unnecessary emotional turmoil.

Well, you end up with a series of

miserable successes, right? The outcome

may have been the same, but the entire

experience of getting there

and and the journey is not only the

reward. The journey is the only thing

there is. You know, even success, it's

human nature to bank it very very

quickly, right? Because the normal loop

that we run through is you sit around,

you're bored, then you want something,

then when you want something, you decide

you're not going to be happy until you

get that thing. Then you start your bout

of suffering or anticipation while you

strive to get that thing. If you get

that thing, then you get used to it and

then you get bored again. Then a few

months later, you want something else.

And if you don't get it, then you're

unhappy for a bit and then you get over

it and then you want something else.

Right? That's the normal cycle. So

whether you're happy or unhappy at the

end, it tends not to last. Now I don't

want to be glib and say that oh there's

no point in making money or being

successful. There absolutely is. Money

solves all your money problems. So it is

good to have money. Um that said there

are those uh those stories. I I don't

know if you've seen those studies. I

don't know how real these are. A lot of

these psych studies don't replicate, but

it's a fun fun little study that shows

that uh people who break their back and

people who win the lottery are back to

their baseline happiness two years

later. Yep. Again, I don't know if

that's entirely true. I think money can

buy you happiness if you earned it

because then along the way you have both

pride and confidence in yourself and you

have a sense of accomplishment and you

you know set out to do something and you

were right. So I I'll bet that lingers

and then as I said money solves your

money problem. So I don't want to be too

glib about it but I would say in general

this this loop that we run through um of

desire, dopamine, fulfillment,

unfulfillment like you you have to enjoy

the journey. The journey is all there

is, right? 99% of your time is spent on

the journey. So, what kind of a journey

is it if you're not going to enjoy it?

How do you shortcut that desire

contract?

You could focus, you could decide that I

don't want most things. I think we have

a lot of unnecessary desires that we

just pick up everywhere. We have

opinions on everything, judgments and

everything. Uh so, I think just knowing

that those are the source of unhappiness

uh will make you be choosy about your

desires. And frankly, if you want to be

successful, you have to be choosy about

your desires. You have to focus.

You can't be great at everything.

You can't be great at everything. You're

just going to waste your energy and

waste your time.

Is fame a worthwhile goal?

Uh, it gets you invited to better

parties,

gets you into better restaurants. Uh,

fame. So, fa fame is this funny thing

where a lot of people know you, but you

don't know them. And, uh, it does get

you put on a pedestal. Uh, it can get

you what you want, uh, at a at a

distance. So, I wouldn't say it's

worthless. Obviously, people want it for

a reason. Um, it's high status, so it

attracts the opposite sex. Uh,

especially for men, it attracts women.

Uh, that said, it is high cost. It means

you have no privacy. Um, you do have

weirdos and lunatics. Uh, you do get hit

up a lot for weird things. Uh, and

you're on a stage, so you're forced to

perform, so you're forced to be

consistent with your past proclamations

and actions, and you're going to have

haters and all that nonsense. But the

fact that we do it, the fact that we all

seem to want it means that it would be

disingenuous to say, "Oh, no, no, I'm

famous." But you don't want to be

famous.

Um, that said, I think fame, like

anything else, is best produced as a or

pursued as a byproduct of something

potentially more worthwhile. Um, wanting

to be famous and craving to be famous

and being famous for being famous, these

are sort of traps.

Fame for fame's sake.

Yeah. Exactly. So, it's better that it's

earned fame. Uh so for example earn

respect in the tribe is you do things

that are good for the tribe. Uh who are

the most famous people in human history?

Uh there uh you know there there are

people who sort of transcended the self.

The Buddhas and the Jesuses and the

Muhammads of the world. Who else is

famous? Uh the artists are famous. You

know art lasts for a long time. The

scientists are famous. They discover

things. The conquerors are famous

presumably because they conquered for

their tribe. There was someone that they

were fighting for. So generally the

higher up you rise by doing things for

greater and greater groups of people

even though it may be considered

tyrannical or negative like uh you know

Jenghaskhan is famous but uh to the

Mongols he was doing good to the rest of

them not so much uh

the higher level you're operating at the

more people you're taking care of the

more you sort of earn respect and fame

and I think those are good reasons to be

famous if if if fame is empty if you're

famous just cuz your name showed up in a

lot of places or your face showed up in

a lot of places then that's a hollow

fame and I think deep down you will know

that and so it'll be fragile and you'll

always be afraid of losing it and then

you'll be forced to perform

so the kind of fame that uh pure actors

and celebrities have I wouldn't want but

the kind of fame that's earned because

you did something useful

uh why dodge that now you can there's a

challenge I think especially if people

make uh very loud public proclamations

about things you mentioned there about

um you're almost hostage to the things

that you used to say that um being able

to update your opinions and change your

mind looks very similar to the internet

as hypocrisy does. No, no, no. The

difference between me saying something

in the past and saying something

different now is perhaps I've learned,

perhaps I've updated my beliefs, but so

few people do it in a legitimate way. I

think that the grifter shill you see

this is the the the smoking gun that

shows that he didn't really believe that

thing all along. Right.

And uh yeah, I I went to a retreat in LA

a couple of years ago and there was a

guy that I used to follow that a big um

business and productivity advice content

creator really really successful and he

just totally stepped back from

everything and went uh like monk mode

and focused on his business. I asked him

why and he said uh I started feeling

like I had to live up to in private the

things that I was saying in public.

Right.

Yeah. It's a it's a what was it that uh

who said it was a mein that um foolish

consistency is a hobgoblin of little

minds right um but essentially look all

life is all learning is error correction

right every knowledge creation system

works through correcting errors making

guesses and correcting errors so by

definition if you're learning you're

going to be wrong most of the time and

you'll be updating your priors and so

for example I did this Joe Rogan podcast

I don't know it's like eight or nine

years ago um and people will call out

like the one thing that didn't turn out

to be correct, right? And it's just like

and they just beat on it because it it

helps them in their mind raise their

status a little bit. Aha, I caught him

in an error. Well, I think if you catch

someone in a blatant lie where there's

believe one thing and they say another,

that's legit. That's a character flaw.

They shouldn't be lying. But on the

other hand, if they just made a guess at

something and they got it wrong. And by

the way, mostly it's about the AI AGI

thing. And I think I'm still right about

that, but it's a different story. Um

people who think we have achieved AGI

just fail a touring test from their

side. Um but uh

it's funny how people latch on to single

proclamations. But the reality is all of

us are dynamical systems. We're always

changing. We're always learning. We're

always growing. And uh hopefully we're

correcting errors. What you don't want

to be doing is lying in public so that

because you're you're trying to look

good. And I think people can smell that.

I I I what this world really lacks right

now is authenticity and because

everybody wants something. They want to

be seen as something. They want to be

something that they're not. And so you

do catch a lot of people uh saying

things that they don't really believe.

And I think people are very sensitive to

that.

Uh [ __ ] radars have become hypers

sensitized to try and work out whether

or not this person means the thing that

they're saying.

Yeah. I mean they they a lot of people

are wrong. Most of us are wrong most of

the time especially in any new endeavor.

Difference between being wrong and

disingenuous though, purposefully wrong.

Correct. Exactly. So I think I think

that's the big difference. If someone is

wrong, no big deal. As long as they have

a genuine reason for saying what they're

saying, or believing what they're

believing. But if they are lying to

elevate their status or their appearance

or to live up to some expectation,

that's the mistake. And that's a mistake

not just for the listener, it's a

mistake for themselves cuz then you're

going to get trapped in a hall of

mirrors. You yourself are going to be

consistent with your past proclamations.

So if you're lying to others, you're

going to be lying to yourself. You're

puppeted by a person that you are not

even.

That's right. Yeah. It's it's like what

was that line? There's you're you're

basically trying to impress people who

you know don't care about you. Um so

they don't like the real you and if they

saw the real you they wouldn't care and

the people who would like the real you

don't get to see the real you so they

pass you by

right? You only want the respect of the

very very few people that you respect.

Uh trying to demand respect from the

masses is a fool's errand.

status games, the allure of acrewing,

whether it's fame, actual fame, or just

the competition comparison trap, it's

always there. Uh there's a real draw of

being swayed by social approval. How

should people learn to get less

distracted by status games in that way?

I think it it just helps to see that

status games don't matter as much as

they used to. uh in old society, let's

go back hunter gatherer times, there was

no such thing as wealth. You just had

what you could carry. Um there was no

stored wealth. So wealth games didn't

really exist to wealth creation games.

All that existed was status games. If

you were high status, then you got what

little was available first. Um but even

back then, you had to earn your status

by taking care of the tribe. Uh now we

have wealth creation where you can

actually create a product or a service.

you can scale that product or service

and you can provide abundance for a lot

of people. Uh and that's not zero sum,

that's a positive sum game. I can be

wealthy, you can be wealthy, we can

create things together and clearly since

we are all collectively far far

wealthier than we were in huntergatherer

times. Uh wealth creation is positive

but status is limited. There's limited

status to go around. It's a ranking

ladder. It's a hierarchy. And so it's a

rise in status. Somebody else has a

lower in status. Now you can have

multiple kinds of status. So you can

expand some kinds of status, but it's

not like wealth creation where it can go

infinitely where we can all be, you

know, living in the stars and moon bases

or Mars colonies or what have you. So

just realize that status games are

inherently limited. Uh they're always

combative. Um they always require uh

direct combat whereas uh wealth creation

games can be just you're creating

products. You don't have to fight

anybody else. Yes, in the marketplace

your product has to succeed, but that's

not quite the same as uh invective

against other people or being angry with

other people or feeling pushed down or

pushed up or having a beef with

somebody.

So, I would argue that wealth creation

games are both more pleasant. Uh they're

positive sum and they actually have uh

concrete material returns. If you have

more money, you can buy more.

Show me where you can exchange your

status at the bank.

Exactly. Yeah. It's it's it's vague and

it's fuzzy. Now, you see people get

rich, they have money, what do they

want? They want status. So they go to

Hollywood, start starring in movies,

they donate to nonprofits, they go to KS

or Davos or what have you. Um, and they

start trying to trade the money for

status. So, you know, people always want

what they don't have. Uh, and we are

evolutionarily hardwired for status

because as I said, wealth creation

didn't really exist until the

agricultural revolution, uh, when you

could store grain and then the

industrial revolution took it to another

level and now the information age is

taking it to yet another level.

But there's never been an easier time to

make money. Yes, it's still hard, but

there's never been an easier time to

create wealth because there's so much

leverage out there. There's so much

opportunity. You still have to go find

it. It's not easy. It's not going to

fall on your lap, and you have to learn

something and know something and do

something interesting. But nevertheless,

it's possible to many more people.

A few hundred years ago, you were born a

surf, you were going to die a surf.

There was almost no way out of that.

That's changed. And so I would argue

that you're better off focusing on

wealth games and status games. If you're

trying to um build up, for example, your

following on a social network and get

famous and then get rich off of being

famous, that's a much harder path than

getting rich first.

Um and then go for your fame afterwards

would be my advice.

Well, a lot of people do that as you

said. It's funny how uh people who have

achieved such a level of wealth that you

don't think why do you need the status

given that most people use status to

then try and cash in to achieve wealth

if you've achieved [ __ ] money already

if you're post money or uh asset heavy

as it's known. Um why are you trying to

go in the other direction? Well, as you

said because we've we've got an

illustrious history biologically of

wanting status and wealth is kind of

novel.

It's new. It's new. Wealth is uh

something that you have to understand

more intellectually. Yeah, there's a

physical component, more food, more

survival, but uh to truly understand the

effects and the powers and the abilities

and limitations uh and the advantages

and disadvantages of wealth, you have to

use your neoortex a lot more.

Does that mean

it's not limbic?

The reason to play the game is to win

the game and be done with it is harder

to win and be done with for status than

it is for wealth.

That's a good observation. I had thought

that through, but you're right. Yeah, I

think that's right. I think you people

will always want more status. Uh but I

think you can be satisfied at a certain

level of wealth. Well, as well

you always have this sort of sense. This

is what leaderboards are, right? This is

the the billboard chart, right? And it

is zero sum and it is

I guess you know the Forbes richest

people on the planet thing.

That one's harder to climb the ladder

on. But uh the fact that for example

iTunes and YouTube can put you in

competition against your contemporaries

every single day and make you go up and

down and show you likes and comments and

ratings. This is how much you're up.

Exactly. They they keep you running on

that treadmill forever.

Jimmy Carr has this cool idea where he

says trajectory is more important than

position.

So if you are number 101 in the world

but last year you were number 200 versus

you're number two in the world but last

year you were number one. there is this

sense of the deceleration is very very

tangible and um it's

again it goes back to evolution you know

something that is bleeding eventually

dies unless you stop the bleeding so

you're you're hardwired not to lose what

you have and because we evolve in

conditions where we're so close to just

not surviving uh you don't want to give

anything up. It's hardwired into us to

not give anything up.

So you grip tightly.

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and modernwisdom a checkout. The worst

outcome in the world is not having

self-esteem.

Why? Yeah, that's a tough one. Uh, well,

I I I look at the people and I don't

want to offend anybody, but I look at

the people who don't like themselves,

and that's the toughest slot because

they're always wrestling with

themselves, and it's hard enough to face

the outside world. Um, and no one's

going to like you more than you like

yourself. So, if you're struggling with

yourself, then the outside world becomes

an insurmountable challenge. And it's

hard to say why people have low

self-esteem. It might be genetic. It

might just be circumstantial. A lot of

times I think it's cuz they just weren't

unconditionally loved as a child and

that sort of seeps in at a deep core

level. Um but self-esteem issues can be

the most limiting. Uh one interesting

thought is that you know to some extent

self-esteem is a reputation you have

with yourself. Um you're watching

yourself at all times. You know what

you're doing and you have your own moral

code. Everyone has a different moral

code. But if you don't live up to your

own moral code, the same code that you

hold others to, uh it will damage your

self-esteem. So perhaps one way to build

up your self-esteem is to live up to

your own code very rigorously. Have one

and then live up to it. Uh another way

to raise your self-esteem might be to do

things for others. Uh if I look back on

my life and you know what are the

moments that I'm actually proud of,

there's very far and few between and

it's not that often and it's not the

things you would expect. It's not the

material success. It's not having

learned this thing or that. It's when I

made a sacrifice for somebody or

something that I loved. And uh that's

when I'm actually ironically most proud.

Now that's through an explicit mental

exercise. But I'll bet you at some level

I'm recording that implicitly. So that

tells me that even if I am not being

loved and the way to create love is to

give love to to express love through

sacrifice and through duty.

And so I think doing things like that

can build up your self-esteem really

fast. It's interesting when you talk

about sacrifice because a lot of the

time people say, "I sacrificed so much

for my job." It's like, "Yeah, but that

was you sacrificing something that you

wanted less for something that you

wanted more as opposed to genuinely

taking some sort of cost." And uh yeah,

I wonder whether if self-esteem is you

adhering to your internal your your

actions and your values aligning um even

when it's difficult or perhaps even more

so when it's difficult. I wonder whether

there is a price that people who are

more introspective, high integrity pay

because you think well you've got this

uh

heavy set of overheads that you need to

pay in some way.

Well, if being ethical were profitable,

everybody would do it, right? So, uh you

at some level it does involve a

sacrifice. Uh but that sacrifice can

also be thought of as you're thinking

for the long term rather than the short

term. Um for example the virtues are the

set of uh virtues a set of beliefs that

if everybody in society followed them as

individuals it would lead to win-win

outcomes for everybody. So if I am

honest and you are honest then we can do

business more easily. We can interact

more easily because we can trust each

other. So even though there might be a

few liars in the system as long as there

aren't too many liars and too many

cheaters uh a high trust society where

everybody's honest is better off. And I

think a lot of the virtues work this way

right? If I don't go around sleeping

with your wife and you don't sleep with

mine and you know if I don't take all

the food that's at the table first and

so on, then we all get along better and

we can play win-win games. Uh in game

theory, the most famous game is

prisoners dilemma. But that's all about

everybody cheating and the Nash

equilibrium. The stable equilibrium

there is everybody cheats and you're for

the only way you can be you can play a

win-win game is if you have long-term

iterated moves. But that's not actually

the most common game played in society.

The most common game played as one

called a stags hunt where if we

cooperate, we can bring down a big stag

and both have big dinners, but if we

don't cooperate, then we have to go hunt

like rabbits and we each have small

dinners.

So most of uh and and that game has two

stable equilibriums. And one could be

where we're both hunting the rabbit and

one could be where we're hunting the

stag. So the high trust society is a

more most more virtuous society where I

can trust you to come hunt the stag with

me and show up on time and do the work

and divide it up properly. So you want

to live in a system where everybody has

their own set of virtues and follows

them and then we all win. But I would

argue you don't need to do that for

sacrifice. You don't need to do that for

other people. You can do it just purely

for yourself. You will have higher

self-esteem. You will attract other high

virtue people.

Would I go on a stag hunt with me?

Correct. Yeah, that's right. And if

you're the kind of person, if you're the

kind of person who long-term signals

ethics and virtues, then you will

attract other people who are ethical and

virtuous. Whereas, if you are a shark,

you will eventually find yourself

swimming entirely amongst sharks. And

that's an unpleasant existence. But

again, this goes back to the equivalent

of the marshmallow test. And by the way,

the marshmallow test does not replicate.

I saw it replication crisis hard

recently.

But it is about trading off the short

term for the long term. Uh, and so I

think for a lot of these so-called

virtues, there are long-term selfish

reasons to be virtuous.

Yeah. Uh, did you deal with self-doubt

in the past? Is that something that was

a hurdle for you to overcome?

Yes and no. I think I I dealt with

self-doubt in the sense that, oh, I

don't know what I'm doing and I need to

figure it out. Um, but I didn't doubt

myself in the way of somebody else knows

better than me for me or that, you know,

I'm an idiot or I'm not worthwhile or

anything that I I guess I had the

benefit of I grew up with a lot of love

like the people around me love me

unconditionally. And so that just gave

me a lot of confidence. Uh, not the kind

of confidence that would say I have the

answer, but the kind of confidence that

I will figure it out and I know what I

want or only I am a good arbiter of what

I want.

Yeah. That level of self-belief, I

suppose, allows you to determine what is

it that matters to me, my self-esteem,

should I chase this thing or not? I can

make a fair judgment on that as opposed

to being so swayed. But it's such a good

point about even if you think you're not

consciously logging the stuff that

you're doing, there is some that's in

the back of your mind. Was it the Damon?

Is that what the ancient Greeks or

something used to talk about?

Yeah. The Yeah. Also in computer science

like there's a concept of a demon which

is a uh a program that's always running

in the background. You can't see it.

Okay.

Um but yeah, it probably comes from the

ancient Greek demon. Uh but yeah, I what

you know that you don't even know you

know is far greater than what you know

you know, right? You can't even

articulate most of the things you know.

There are feelings you have that have no

words for them. There are thoughts you

have that are felt within the body or

subconsciously that you never articulate

to yourself. You don't really you can't

articulate the rules of grammar yet you

exercise them effortlessly when you

speak. So I would argue that your

implicit knowledge and your knowledge

that is unknown to yourself is far

greater than the knowledge you can

articulate and that you can communicate.

And

so at some level you're always watching

yourself. That's what your consciousness

is, right? It's the thing that's

watching everything including your mind,

including your body. M

so if you want to uh have high

self-esteem then earn your own

selfrespect.

I had this idea the internal golden

rule. So the golden rule says treat

others the way that you should be

treated. You want to be treated. The

internal golden rule says treat yourself

like others should have treated you

and it was a a repost to maybe people

that didn't grow up with unconditional

love. Yeah.

In that way. On the love thing, one of

the interesting things about love is you

can try to remember the feeling of being

loved. So go back to when someone was in

love with you or someone did love you

and like really remember that feeling

like really sit with it and try to

recreate it within yourself and then go

to the feeling of you loving someone and

when you were in love. And I'm not even

talking about romantic love necessarily.

So be a little careful there. I'm

talking more about like love for

it can sometimes get complex if you're

talking about past romantic love,

right? a sibling or a child or something

like that or or a parent and uh think

about when you felt love towards someone

or something. And now which is better?

And I would argue that the feeling of

being in love is actually more

exhilarating than the feeling of being

loved. Being loved is a little clawing.

It's a little too sweet. You kind of

want to push the person away. It's a

little embarrassing. And you know that

if that person is too much into it that

you feel constrained. On the other hand,

the feeling of being in love is very

expansive. It's very open. It actually

makes you a better version of yourself.

It makes you want to be a better person.

And so you can create love anytime you

want. It's just that craving to receive

it. That's the problem.

The most expensive trait is pride. How

come?

Oh, that was a recent one. Uh I I

tweeted that just because I think that

uh pride is the enemy of learning. So

when I look at my friends and

colleagues, the ones who are still stuck

in the past and have grown the least are

the ones who were the proudest because

they sort of feel like they already had

the answers. And so they don't want to

correct themselves publicly. And so this

goes back to the fame conversation. You

get locked into something you said. It

made you famous. You're known for that.

And now you want to pivot or change.

So pride prevents you from saying I'm

wrong. It

What's pride in this context here?

It could be as simple as you're trading

stocks and then you don't admit you were

wrong. So you hang on to a lousy trait.

Uh it could be that you uh made a

decision to uh you know marry someone or

move somewhere or enter a profession, it

doesn't work out and then you don't want

to admit that you were wrong so you get

stuck in it. Uh it's mostly about

getting trapped in local maxima as

opposed to going back down and climbing

up the mountain again.

Mhm. And that's why it's an expensive

trade because you continue to need to

repay it in one form or another.

Yeah. You're you're just stuck at a

suboptimal point. Uh it's going to cost

you money. it's going to cost you

success

and time

and time. Uh the great artists always

have this ability to start over whether

it's Paul Simon or Madonna or you two

and I'm dating myself a little bit. Um

but even the great entrepreneurs,

they're just always willing to start

over. Uh I'm always struck by the Elon

Musk story where, you know, he uh he did

PayPal as X.com originally. Actually, it

was his his financial institution that

got merged into PayPal.

It's good that you've got the domain.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, exactly. I'll park that. I'll hold

on.

He's consistent. He's been using it for

quite a while. Um, and he said something

like along the lines of, uh, I made $200

million from the sale of PayPal. I put

$100 million into SpaceX, 80 million

Tesla, 20 into Solar City, and I had to

borrow money for rent. Right? This guy

is a perennial risk taker. He's always

willing to start over. He doesn't have

any pride about being seen as successful

or being seen as a failure. He's willing

to put it all in.

Back himself again each time.

Back himself again each time. But the

key thing is he's always willing to

start over, right? even now when he's

sort of made his his new startup is a

USA, right? He's basically trying to fix

it like he would fix one of his

startups. And I think that is a

willingness to look like a fool and that

is a willingness to start over. And a

lot of people just don't have that. They

become successful or they become rich or

they become famous and that's it.

They're stuck. They don't want to go

back to zero. And creating anything

great requires zero to one. And that

means you go back to zero and that's

really painful and hard to do. Talking

about risk, something I've been thinking

about a lot to do with you. Any moment

when you're not having a good time, when

you're not really happy, you're not

doing anyone any favors. I think lots of

people have become

unusually familiar with suffering

silently in that sort of a way of not

having

a high bar for your expectation for

quality of life. Uh yeah, a lot of it is

just you're memeing yourself into a bad

outcome because you think that somehow

suffering is glorious or that it makes

you a better person or you know my old

quip was if you're so smart why aren't

you happy? Why can't you figure that one

out? Um the reality is you can be smart

and happy. There are plenty of people in

human history who are smart and happy.

Uh and I think it just starts with

saying yeah you know what I'm I'm going

to be happy. There was a guy that I met

in Thailand a long time ago and uh he

used to work for Tony Robbins. uh you

know he had a great attitude and uh we

were sitting around and he said you know

uh he said I realized one day that

someone out there had to be the happiest

person in the world like there just that

person just has to exist he said why not

me I'll take on that burden I'll be that

guy and I heard that I was like wow

that's pretty good that's a good frame

right he knew how to reframe things

and so I think a lot of happiness is

just a choice uh in the sense that you

make first you just identify yourself as

actually I'm going be a person that's

going to be happy. I'm going to figure

it out. And you just figure it out along

the way. You're not going to lose your

other predilictions. You're not going to

lose your ambition or your desire for

success. I think a lot of people have

this fear that, oh, if I'm happy, then I

won't want to be successful. No, you'll

just want to do things that are more

aligned with the happy version of you,

and you'll be successful at those

things. And believe me, the happy

version of you is not going to look back

at the unhappy version and say, "Oh man,

that that guy was going to be more

success. I wish I was him."

You're actually trying to be successful

so you'll be happy. That's the whole

point. you have you've gotten it

backwards.

You you unlocked one of my trap cards.

Um, one of my favorite insights is that

we sacrifice the thing we want for the

thing that's supposed to get it.

So, we sacrifice happiness in order to

be successful so that when we're finally

sufficiently successful, we can actually

be happy. And if you have some sort of

simultaneous equation and you just sort

of stripped success off from both sides,

the at least in my own life, I have not

found there to be a trade-off. If

anything, I have found that the happier

I get, the more I am going to do the

things that I'm good at and aligned with

and that will make me even happier. And

so, I actually end up more successful,

not less. The aligned with thing is

interesting. Uh, I'm going to try and

put this across as delicately as I can.

I would say from the bit of time that

we'd spent together, you have a really

interesting trait of

holistic selfishness. Uh, you're sort of

prepared to put yourself first. um you

seem largely unfazed by saying or doing

things that might might result in other

people feeling a little bit awkward if

it's truthful for you. Uh it's like

unapologetically self-prioritizing, I

guess. Yeah, I think everybody is. Uh

maybe unapologetic is the part that's

that's relatively uh rare, but I think

everybody puts themselves first. That's

just human nature. You're you're here

because you survive. You're a separate

organism.

That's interesting. I'm maybe. But I

know we like to virtue signal and

pretend we're doing it for each other.

How many how many times does somebody

say, "Yeah, of course. I'd love to come

to the wedding." They're like, "I don't

want to be at the [ __ ] wedding." How

many times does someone say, "How are

you doing today?" And they don't tell

you. How many

I don't go to weddings.

But this is my point.

So I don't think you're necessarily

right with that. I think that people do

I don't think they put themselves first.

I sometimes think that they they

compromise what it is that they want in

order to appease socially what's in

front of them.

Yeah. I just view it as you're wast

everyone's wasting their time on it. Um,

don't do something you don't want to do.

Why Why are you wasting your time?

There's so little time on this earth.

Life goes fast. What is it? 4,000 weeks.

That's your lifespan. Um, and and yes,

we hear that, but we don't remember it.

But, uh, I guess I'm keenly aware of how

little time I have, so I'm just not

going to waste it. How have you got more

comfortable at um,

being the unapologetic self-

prioritizer?

Yeah, I've gotten I've gotten utterly

more and more ruthless on it. Ma mainly

it's that I see or hear people's freedom

and then that liberates me further. So I

read a uh I read a blog post by uh P

Mark aka Mark Andre where he said don't

keep a schedule and I took that to

heart. So I deleted my calendar and I

don't keep a schedule. I try to remember

it all in my head. If I can't remember

it, I'm not going to add

I'm glad you got here on time.

Yeah, exactly. Um

I hate to look things up at the last

minute. Mhm.

Uh so, but ironically, I don't even know

if Mark himself follows that, but he

made the correct point. Uh I read a

little story about Jack Dorsey doing all

his business off his uh iPhone and iPad

and not even going into a Mac, and I

said, "Okay, I want to do that." So, I'm

going to operate through text messaging

and not put up my nasty email.

Does that feel like more freedom?

It does. Yeah. Cuz you're on the go. Um

so, I have a nasty email autoresponder

that says, "I don't check email and

don't text me either." Right. If you

need to find me, you'll find me.

Obviously, some of this is a luxury of

success, but some of these habits I

adopted long before actually the hostile

email autoresponder started a long time

ago. Um, I used to own the domain. I let

it go. I don't do coffee.com. I used to

reply from that email uh just so people

would get the point. But I stopped being

rude about it. Now I just ghost. I just

disappear. Um, my wife knows not to ever

uh book or schedule me for anything. Uh,

I'm not expect I'm not expected to go to

couples dinners. I'm not expect to go to

birthdays. I'm not expect to go to

weddings. If somebody tries to rope her

into having me show up, she says he

makes his own decisions. You got to ask

him directly.

What about vice

versa? Well, are you not killing

serendipity in a way that

No, no. I'm freeing up all my time. So,

my entire life is serendipity. I get to

interact with whoever I want, whenever I

want, wherever.

You'll hear the invite, but make the

decision because if you're if there's

fewer things in coming, you're assuming

that you know what's best for you to

anything in the future. So, I'll say,

"Okay, if that thing is interesting,

I'll see if I can get in that day when

I'm in the mood." But there's nothing

worse than something coming up that your

past self committed you to that your

present self doesn't want to do.

God damn it.

Past. Yeah. And then it destroys your

entire calendar. It destroys your your

day because there's like, oh, this 1

hour slot which is sitting like a turd

on my calendar that I have to like

schedule my whole day around. I can't do

anything the 20 minutes before, the 20

minutes afterwards.

Even for phone calls, if someone wants

to do a phone call, say, "Okay, just

text me when you're free. I'll text you

when I'm free." and we'll just do it on

the fly. It's a much better way of

living than this overly scheduled uh you

know cal.com or iical whatever.

The uh the overscheduled life is not

worth living.

It's not. I think it's a terrible way to

live life. That's not how we evolved.

It's not how we grew up. Um it's not how

how we were as children hopefully uh

unless you're a helicopter parent or a

tiger mom.

Um

your natural order is freedom. Uh I had

a friend who uh said to me once, you

know, uh I never want to have to be at a

specific place at a specific time. And I

was like, "Oh my god, that's freedom."

When I heard that, that changed my life

right there.

You still arm alarm clockless?

Yes, I'm alarm clockless. Today, I did

set my alarm clock just so I wouldn't

miss this.

Very important. Yeah. If you still,

but just so you know, I set the alarm

clock from 11:00 a.m. in case I was

stricken with a flu that day. I wasn't

going to set my alarm clock for 8:00

a.m. or 9:00 a.m. And sure enough, I got

up many hours before that.

Um, but it was sort of a backup

emergency alarm. In fact, sometimes when

I something

that I need to do, I don't want to look

at a calendar, so I'll just set an alarm

for it.

Just sink a little bit more into that

like kind of that [ __ ] you energy, that

self- prioritizing energy because I

think people rationally love the idea of

this. I'm going to do what only I want

to do. uh even if they've got the level

of freedom,

it's not [ __ ] you energy in the sense

that I think everyone should live their

life that way to the greatest extent

possible. Obviously, we have our

requirements around work and obligations

that are genuinely important to us. But

don't fritter away your life on randomly

scheduled things and things that aren't

important don't matter and events and

weddings and you know tedious dinners

with tedious people that you don't want

to go to. To the extent you can bring

freedom into your life, optimize for

that, you'll actually be more

productive. You won't just be happier

and more free. You will be more

productive because then you can focus on

what is in front of you, whatever the

biggest problem of that day. When I wake

up in the morning, uh the first 4 hours

are when I have the most energy and

that's when I want to solve all the hard

problems. And the next 4 hours are when

I kind of want to, you know, do some

more outdoorsy activities or I want to

work out or maybe I can, you know, have

some meetings, but I'll try to do those

last second based on whatever the day's

priorities demand. the last 4 hours I

kind of want to wind down. I want to

hang out with the kids and I want to

play games or read a book or something

like that.

So having that flexibility and freedom

is really important. So you can just put

whatever is most needed into the slot at

that moment. Uh and instead if I have

like a meeting at 2 p.m. and then I have

to like get a thing and some emails

done, I put that off till 6 p.m. I'm

rushing. I'm not going to be productive.

I'm not going to be uh

You're certainly not free.

You're not I'm definitely not free. But

also another thing that I really believe

is that inspiration is perishable. Act

on it immediately. So when you're

inspired to do something, do that thing.

If I'm inspired to write a blog post, I

want to do it at that moment. If I'm

inspired to send a tweet, I want to do

it at that moment. If I'm inspired to

solve a problem, I do it that moment. If

I'm inspired to read a book, I want to

read it right then. If I'm inspired to

solve a problem, I solve it right there.

If I want to learn something, I I do it

at the moment of curiosity. The moment

the curiosity arrives, I go learn that

thing immediately. I download the book.

I get on Google. I get on ChatGpt,

whatever. I will figure that thing out

on the spot and that's when the learning

happens. It doesn't happen because I've

scheduled time because I've set an hour

aside because when that time arrives I

might be in a different mood. I might

just want to do something different.

So I think that spontaneity is really

important. You're going to learn best

when you're having fun when you

generally are enjoying the process not

when you're forced to sit there and do

it. How much do you remember from

school? You know you were forced to

learn geography, history, mathematics on

this schedule at this time according to

this person. Didn't happen. All the

stuff that sticks with you is you

learned it when you wanted to, when you

genuinely had the desire. And that

freedom, that ability to act on

something the moment you want to is so

liberating that most of us go through

our lives with very very little tastes

of that. If you live your entire life

that way, that is a recipe for

happiness.

It feels like efficiency that that you

have

efficient also.

You have the inspiration that is going

to be the most frictionless time to ever

do that particular task. So, oh, I've

had the inspiration to do that. I'll put

that off until a time when I no longer

really want to do it quite so much. And

while I do want to do that thing, I'll

do something else that I needed to do

because it's on the schedule.

It does not work. Procrastination is

because you don't want to do that thing

right now. You want to do something

else. Go do that something else. I

reject this frame that efficiency and

productivity and success are counter to

happiness and freedom. They actually go

together.

How so?

The happier you are, the more you can

sustain doing something, the more likely

you're going to do something that will

in turn make you even happier. and

you'll continue to do it and you'll

outwork everybody else. The more free

you are, the better you can allocate

your time and the less you're caught up

in a web of obligations and commitments

and the more you can focus on the task

at hand. In other news, this episode is

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That's functionhealth.com/modernwisdism.

This is related to another insight of

yours. The less you want something, the

less you're thinking about it, the less

you're obsessing over it, the more

you're going to do it in a natural way,

the more you're going to do it for

yourself, you're going to do it in a way

that you're good at and you're going to

stick with it. The people around you

will see the quality of your work is

higher. But this seems like a difficult

tension to navigate because an obsessive

attention to detail is a competitive

advantage of your work as well. So you

have these two things sort of

conflicting with each other. No one is

going to beat you at being you if it So

one of the things I like to say is like

find what feels like play to you but

looks like work to others. So it looks

like work to them but to you it feels

like play. It's not work. So you're

going to out compete them because you're

doing it effortlessly. You're doing it

for fun. They're doing it for work.

They're doing it for some byproduct. To

you it's art. It's beauty. It's joy.

It's it's flow. It's fulfilling. Uh, you

must enjoy podcasting. If you didn't,

you wouldn't be good at it. You would

either, right? If you would, you if if

you decided that the right way to get

ahead in life was to go write books, you

would nobody would have heard of you.

Chris Williamson's book would be a

complete flop. That's not who you are.

You're a podcaster. You enjoy talking to

people. You enjoy interviewing them. The

more you do things that are natural to

you, the less competition you have. You

escape competition through authenticity.

by being your own self. If I had to

summarize how to be successful in life

in two words, I would just say

productize yourself. That's it. Just

figure out what it is that you naturally

do that the world might want that you

can scale up and turn into a product and

it'll be it'll eventually be effortless

for you. Yes, there's always work

required, but it won't even feel like

work to you. It'll feel like play to

you. And modern society gives us that

opportunity. You know, if you were 2,000

years ago, you're born in a farm. Your

choices are very limited, right? You're

going to do stuff on that farm. Now, you

can literally wake up and you can move

to a different city. You can switch

careers. You can switch jobs. You can

change the people that you're with. Uh,

you know, you can change so many things

about who you are and who you're with

and what you're doing that there is

infinite opportunity out there for you.

Literally infinite. And so it's much

better to treat this like a search

function to find the people who need you

the most, to find the work that needs

you the most, to find the place you're

best suited to be at. And it's

worthwhile to spend time in that

exploration before diving into

exploitation. The biggest mistake in a

world with so many choices is premature

commitment. If you prematurely commit to

being a lawyer or a doctor and now

you've got like, you know, 5 years

invested into that, you might have just

completely missed. You might just end up

in the wrong profession, the wrong

place, or the wrong people for 30 years

of your life grinding away. And yes, the

best time to figure that out was before,

but the second best time is now. So,

just change it.

And also, presumably kill things that

aren't working very quickly.

By default, you should kill everything.

You know, if you can't decide, the

answer is no. Uh, and most things you

should just be saying no to. The part of

my keeping my calendar free is just by

default saying no to everything. Do I

want to create a calendar just to add

your event, right? Or to add your need

or your desire. One of the other things

about, you know, early on in life,

you're looking for opportunities. So,

you're saying yes to everything. And

that is a phase that you go through.

That is the exploration phase. Later,

when you found the thing you want to

work on, you're in the exploitation

phase. You have to say no to everything

by default. And if you don't say no to

everything by default, if you have to

even explicitly go out of your way to

say no to something, that will take up

time. Uh, for example, you know, there

there are a lot of people out there who

are into hustle culture and and a big

piece of hustle culture is like, well,

you're not going to get something if you

don't ask for it. So, they'll hustle

people. They'll always be sending you

requests, messages. Yeah, this is a

famous person problem, but I have it.

And people are always asking me for

things. And I kind of squirm when I get

these messages, and I'm sure you get

these two text messages, emails saying,

"Hey, Chris, my friend so and so should

really be on your podcast, or you should

come to my event. You should write a

forward for my book." And you kind of

squirm when you get this, right? You

have to figure out how to say no. And

one of the things I learned along the

way is that if you wouldn't ask somebody

else to do it and then you get that

request yourself, you can just dismiss

it. You don't have to respond. You don't

you don't even let let it enter your

brain. You have to be able to delete

emails and text messages without

flinching if you want to scale. And

scaling is very important. Scaling your

time is really important. Every

interruption will take you out of flow.

So the only way you can remain in flow

is if you get either very good at

ignoring these things by default or

closing yourself off like a hermit like

our mutual friend Tim Ferris does or you

just become emotionally capable of not

registering these as something that

causes turbulence inside of you.

That not registering it emotionally

thing is that uh

it's fundamental. That's so fundamental

to so many things in life.

Okay. Can we dig into that a little bit?

is because again I've only seen you as

you right I didn't know you 20 years ago

I didn't know you as a child um so I've

only seen you with this

holistic selfishness the in integrated

self- prioritization whatever we I don't

know what we called it

selfish is fine I'll take selfish I'm

selfish I'm very selfish person don't

contact me

uh yeah that emotional reaction I also

get the sense too that

maybe people have lived obligation life

for so long that they actually kind of

struggle to tap into what it is that

they want. They've hidden their wants

and their desires and their needs and

they've dep prioritized themselves so

much for so long they go, "What do I

want actually? What what is it? Do I

want to go to this thing or not?"

Because all I've done is be [ __ ]

puppeted, right? I've been marionetted

by other people's desires for so so so

long. I can't even tap into that

anymore. And saying no feels like a war

crime. So, so I think it's really good

to be able to view your own mind and

your own thoughts objectively and that

is the big benefit of meditation. It

creates a small gap between your

conscious observation self and your mind

and that lets you then look at your

thoughts and evaluate them a little bit

like you would a third party's

statements. And uh if you just take your

mind to be you and they're integrated in

one and the same at all times and you're

reacting from the mind, then you're not

even going to question things that come

into your mind. Anything that comes in

that creates a reaction will immediately

create a reaction. But if you can

observe your thoughts a little bit and

not in some woo way, but you can even

just do it through therapy, you can do

it through journaling, you can do it any

way you would like, you can just take

long walks, you don't have to meditate

and do lotus position. uh all that is

unnecessary. But if you can observe your

own thoughts and view them a little

objectively, then you can start being uh

a little more choosy, a little more

critical and you can realize that there

are no problems in the real world other

than maybe things that inflict pain on

your body. Everything else has to become

a problem in your mind first. You have

to view it and interpret it and create a

narrative that it is a problem before it

becomes a problem. And then you realize

that a lot of your emotional energy is

spent on reacting to things that your

mind is automatically saying are

problems. Uh and you don't need all

those problems. Do you really need that

many problems in your life? Again, I

would say try to focus on just one

overarching problem and then go solve

that problem. It's like if you want to

be successful, define success very

concretely. Focus on that. In everything

else, when it enters your mind, it

becomes a problem. Whether it's a

judgment about the girl walking down the

street or the car that just cut in front

of you or whether it's like you know

this your accountant did this stupid

thing like yes it's going to trigger you

but observe for a moment that like it's

triggering me. I've created a problem.

Do I really want to have this problem

right now? Do I want to spend the energy

on this problem or do I want that going

somewhere else? And it it doesn't have

to be that overt. You don't have to the

mind mud wrestling with itself is also a

problem but because it loves to do that.

I have my problems have got problems and

I have a real problem about fixing my

problems.

Yeah. Exactly. So you just you're going

to be much happier and much more

focused. Again, I think happiness and

focus and success can kind of complement

each other. You're going to have much

more energy. Just think about as mental

energy. You have much more mental energy

to focus on the actual problems you want

to solve if you don't start

unconsciously, subconsciously,

reactively picking up problems

everywhere. So before anything can be a

problem that takes up your emotional

energy, you have to accept it as a

problem. You can be choosy about your

problems. And I'm not saying I'm perfect

in that regard, but I think I'm better

than I used to be.

Well, lots of people are addicted to

solving problems. So much so that

sometimes people create problems when we

don't have any simply so that we can

solve them. We have that going on. And

then even worse is we take on problems

that we can't affect. So, uh, you know,

another one of my little quips was, uh,

you know, um, a rational person, uh,

can, uh, sort of a rational person

should should cultivate indifference to

things that are out of their control,

right? Uh, or a rational person can find

peace by cultivating indifference to

things that are out of their control.

Uh, and I'm as guilty as anybody of doom

surfing on X or social media and getting

worked up about things that I can't do

anything about, right? like, do I want

to be fighting those battles in my mind

when I literally cannot do anything

about it? So, if you find yourself

looping on a problem, like you're

watching the news too much and you're

getting caught up in a problem you can't

do anything about, um, you have to step

away from that. And, uh, modern media is

a delivery mechanism for mimetic

viruses. And now, what's happened now

is, you know, 100 years ago, 500 years

ago, if something wasn't happening in

your immediate vicinity, you wouldn't

hear about it. it wouldn't be a problem

for you. But now every single one of the

world's problems has turned into a

mimemetic virus which is going into the

battlefield of the news and is trying to

infect your mind in real time so that

yeah so that you become obsessed with

the war in Ukraine which is really far

away or you get obsessed with climate

change or you get obsessed with AI doom

or you get obsessed with whatever and

there's nothing as riveting as the old

religion the world is ending the world

is ending pay attention the world is

ending and if you don't

Cassandra complex at global scale

Cassandra complex at global scale Well,

and I would argue that large percentages

of the population are essentially just

infected with these mimetic viruses that

have taken over their brain and are

causing them to do incredible girration

about things that probably aren't even

true or are greatly exaggerated. But

even to the extent they are true,

they're things that that person can do

nothing about. And they should put their

own house in order first. So, you know,

another little line I have for myself is

your family is broken, but you're going

to fix the world. Right? People are

running out there to try and fix the

world when their own lives are a mess.

Oh my god.

Right? And and I think it defies

credibility if you can't fix your own

life first. I'm not going to take you

seriously if you can't fix your own

life. Like all these philosophers who,

you know, seem like people you emulate

and so smart or like these brilliant

celebrities and they go off and commit

suicide. Well, you just kind of

invalidated your whole way of life.

It's like that line of in No Country for

All Men where the killer is waiting for

the protagonist and protagonist shows up

and the killer says, "Well, you know, if

your set of rules brought you here, then

what good are your rules?" I didn't

work. Um I I I I am self I'm

holistically selfish in in that I want

to be objectively successful in

everything I set out to want.

Mhm. Yeah. Uh you have one life. Don't

settle for mediocrity.

Don't settle for mediocrity. And and I

think the only like people debate

intelligence for example, right? We talk

about IQ tests and all that, but I think

the only true test of intelligence is if

you get what you want out of life. And

there are two parts to that. One is

getting what you want so you know how to

get it. And the second is wanting the

right things. Knowing what to want in

the first place. I could want to be a,

you know, 6'8 basketball player and I'm

not going to get that. So it's wanting

the wrong thing. So

that's wanting something that you can't

get.

That's wanting something you can't get.

Is also wanting something that you don't

want.

Yeah. Wanting something that's a booby

prize. There are plenty of booby prizes

out there, too. Right.

I haven't heard that word in about 20

years.

Yeah. Prizes that are just not worth

having or that create their own

problems. Well, if you're not careful,

you can end up in a place in life not

only that you don't want to be, but one

that you didn't even mean to get to.

That's if you're kind of proceeding

unconsciously. Uh but and usually I

think people end up there because they

are uh going on autopilot with sort of

societal expectations or other people's

expectations. So, uh you know, or out of

guilt or out of like uh mimemetic

desire. You know, Peter Teal has this

whole thing from Rene Gerard about how

mimemetic desires are desires are picked

up from other people. Uh, and some of

those are automatically baked into

society like, you know, go to law

school, go to med school, go to

whatever, go to business school. Um, or

they might be from watching what your

friends are doing and, you know, the

other monkeys are doing. Um, or it might

just be, you know, what your parents

expectations are. I might be a guilt.

You know, guilt is just society's voice

speaking in your head, socially

programmed, so you'll be a good little

monkey and do things that are good for

the tribe.

Um, but I think the the the best

outcomes come when you think it through

for yourself and decide for yourself.

And I don't think people spend enough

time deciding. For example, we run on

these uh four-year cycles. You know, in

Silicon Valley, you go join a startup,

you vest your stock over four years.

That's the standard. Okay? Um uh in u uh

college, you know, you go for four

years. High school, you go for four

years. Um some things take longer. You

know, you have children, they hit

puberty 9 years later. That's like a

9-year cycle until that relationship

changes. Um but we're used to these

fairly long cycles, multi-year cycles in

which we are committed to things. You go

to law school, you know, four or five

year cycle. You go be a lawyer, 40-year

cycle. These are very long cycles. The

amount of time we spend deciding what to

do and who to do it with, very short,

very very short, right? We spend, you

know, 3 months deciding, one month

deciding on a job where we're going to

be for 10 years or 5 years. And because

a lot of discovery is path dependent

where the next thing you find on the

path is depend on where you were on the

previous path. You sort of start going

down this vector that is a very long

distance. People decide frivolously

which city to live in and that's going

to decide who their friends are, what

their jobs are, their opportunity, their

weather, their food supply, their air

supply, quality of life. You know, it's

such an important decision, but people

spend so little time thinking it

through. I would argue that if you're

making a four-year decision, spend a

year thinking it through. Like really

thinking it through.

25% of the time.

Yeah. Exactly. There's the secretary

theorem. I don't know if you know that

one.

Computer science.

After you've done this many people, pick

the best one of the next however many.

That's right.

Yeah. The secretary theorem is this

computer science professor is trying to

figure out uh how much time he should

spend interviewing secretaries and then

how long to keep the secretary. So let's

say he's going to have a secretary for

10 years. Does he keep searching for you

know one year, 2 years, 3 years, 1

month, 2 months? What is the optimal

time? Uh and it turns out that the

optimal time is somewhere around a

third. about a third of the way through,

you take the best person you've worked

with and try to find someone that good

or better. So that by the time you've

gotten about a third of the way through,

you have, excuse me, seen enough that

you now have a sense of what the bar is.

And then anybody who meets or exceeds

that bar is good enough.

And this applies to dating, this applies

to jobs and careers, this applies

generally. But the interesting thing

about the secretary theorem is that it's

actually not time based. It's not based

on onethird of the time. It's iteration

based.

The number of candidates,

the number of shots you took on goal.

That's right. So, you want to have lots

and lots of iterations. So, that means

that you need to bail out quickly and

you need to be decisive quickly.

That's right.

You need to you need to take

opportunities quickly and bail out

quickly.

Correct. Like if you go back and you

look through failed relationships, uh

probably the biggest regret will be

staying in the relationship after you

knew it was over.

Exactly. You should have left sooner.

The moment you knew it wasn't going to

work out, you should have moved on. So

in that sense, I think Malcolm Gladwell

popularized this idea of 10,000 hours to

mastery. I would say it's actually

10,000 iterations to mastery. It's not

actually 10,000. It's some unknown

number. But it's about the number of

iterations that drives a learning curve.

And iteration is not repetition.

Repetition is a different thing.

Repeating is doing the same thing over

and over. Iteration is modifying it with

a learning and then doing another

version of it. So that's error

correction. So if you get 10,000 error

corrections in anything, you will be an

expert at it. don't partner with cynics

and pessimists. You mentioned there

about uh the people who've got a

nightmare going on at home and are

trying to fix the world. But a lot of

the time that cynicism and pessimism we

find in ourselves. We see the world

whether we want to whether it's because

we've embied what the news or or the

negative people around us have said or

it's a bit more kind of endogenous than

that. It's just sort of in us. It's the

way that we see the world. How can

people

avoid cynicism and pessimism within

themselves?

Yeah. Synism and pessimism is a tough

one. It's we're naturally hardwired for

it. Again, I go back to evolution. I I'm

sorry to keep harping on evolution, but

within biology, there's very few good

explanatory theories. And you know,

theory of evolution by natural selection

is probably the best one. So, if you

can't explain something about life or

psychology or human nature through

evolution, then you probably don't have

a good theory for it. And I would say

that pessimism is another one that comes

out of this, which is in the natural

environment, you're hardwired to be

pessimistic. Because let's say that I

see something rustling in the woods and

if I move towards it and it turns out to

be food and prey then good I get to eat

one meal but if it turns out to be a

predator I get eaten and that's the end

of that. So we are hardwired to avoid

ruin um and and uh you know just dying.

So we are naturally hardwired to be

pessimists but modern society is very

different despite whatever problems you

may have with modern society. It is far

far safer than living in the jungle and

just trying to survive. uh and the

opportunities on the upside are

nonlinear. For example, when you're

investing, if you short a stock, you the

most money you can make is 2x. You just

lose, you know, if the stock goes to

zero, you double your money. But if the

stock is the next Nvidia and it goes

100x or a,000x, you make a lot of money.

So upside through because of leverage is

nearly unlimited.

Uh also in modern society, because

there's so many different people you can

interact with, if you go on a date and

it fails, there are infinite more people

to go on a date with. In a tribal

system, there might have been 20 people

and you can't even get through all of

them. So, modern society is far more

forgiving of failure. And you just have

to sort of neoccortically realize and

override that. You have to realize that

you're much more running a search

function to find the thing that'll work.

And then that one thing will pay off in

massive compounding. Once you find your

mate for the rest of your life, you find

your wife or your husband, then you can

compound in that relationship. It's okay

if you had 50 failed dates in between.

The same way once you find the one

business you're meant to plow into and

it'll compound returns. It's okay if you

had 50 small failed ventures or 50 small

failed job interviews. It doesn't the

number of failures doesn't matter. And

so there's no point in being a

pessimist. It's you want to be an

optimist. But I would say you want to be

you want to be skeptical about specific

things. Every specific opportunity is

probably a fail. But you want to be

optimistic in the general. In the

general you want to be like something in

here is going to work out.

How do you navigate that tension?

I mean, exactly as I said, I'm

optimistic in the general that if

something fails right now, then this is

a little woowoo, but it wasn't meant to

be. It was a learning experience. It was

an iteration. As long as I learned

something from it, then it's a win. If I

didn't learn from it, then it's a loss.

But as long as you're learning and you

keep iterating fast and cutting your

losses quickly, then when you find the

right thing, you have to be optimistic

and compound into it. So, you don't want

to jump into the first thing. And you

don't want to marry the first person you

date necessarily, unless you got very

lucky.

Um, but you you want to investigate and

explore very very quickly until you find

the match. And then you have to be

willing to go all in. You have to be

willing to move your chips to the center

of the table. So both those uh both

those uh approaches are required.

So it's a barbell strategy. It's sort of

black or it's white. And most people are

sort of stuck in this gray bit. And I'm

like half in, but I'm kind of don't

really know if I am. I also think like

labels like pessimist, optimist, cynic,

introvert, extrovert, these are very

self-limiting. Humans are very dynamic.

There are times when you feel like being

introverted. There are times when you

feel like being extroverted. There are

contexts in which you'll be pessimistic.

There are contexts in which you'll be

optimistic.

Leave all those labels alone. It's

better just to look at the problem at

hand. Look at reality the way it is. Try

to take yourself out of the equation in

a in a sense. Like obviously you're

involved, but motivated reasoning is the

worst kind of reasoning. Uh you're not

going to find truth through highly

motivated reasoning. You have to be

objective. And objective means trying to

take yourself out of it as much as

possible or at least your personality

out of it as much as possible.

And so to the extent you run with this

thick identity and personality, it's

going to cloud your judgment. It's going

to try and lock you into the past. If

you say, "I'm a depressed, unhappy

person. Yeah, I'm going to be unhappy."

That's a way of locking yourself into

your past. even saying, "I have trauma.

I have PTSD." Yeah, you you feel

something. There are memories. There are

flashes. There are occasional bad

feelings. But don't define yourself by

it because then you'll lock it into your

identity and you're just going to loop

on it. It's better to stay flexible

because reality is always changing and

you have to be able to adapt to it.

Adaptation is also intelligence.

Adaptation is survival. Adaptation is

kind of how you're here. You're here

because you're an adapter and your

ancestors were adapters. So to adapt,

you will be able to see things clearly.

And if you're seeing them through your

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[Laughter]

Moving on to sort of thinking about

happiness. Obviously a topic of yours

that's a

it's honestly the one that I feel least

qualified to talk about.

Is it like a guy that's got long arms

teaching you how to bench press or a

dude that's really tall teaching you how

to deadlift? someone that feels like

they came from behind the eightball.

Yeah. Is you're you're asking a crazy

person about their thoughts. So, just

thought it through. Is happiness still

more about peace than it is about joy?

It's just one of those overloaded words

that means different things to different

people. So, I'm not even sure we're

communicating the same language. But, uh

what is happiness?

I think it's just basically being okay

with where you are.

Not wanting

not wanting things to be different than

the way they are. Not having the sense

that anything is missing in this moment.

Needing something to change. Your

current positive situation being

contingent on an adjustment

on getting something from the outside

world.

Ironically,

I think most people if you were to ask

them when they were happiest for a

sustained period of time, not for a

brief moment, because pleasure can

override happiness and create kind of

this illusion of happiness.

But if you ask people when they were

happy for a sustained period of time,

they were probably doing some variation

of nothing.

That's interesting because in the chase

is this sort of lack, this contingency.

That's right. But then you get bored. If

you just sit around all the time, you

get bored. So you want adventure, you

want surprise. Like there's a funny

thought experiment of the bliss machine,

right? Which is suppose I could drill a

hole in your head and put electrode in.

And they did this with monkeys and I can

put a wire in there and I can stimulate

just the right part of your brain and I

can put you in bliss and you'll just be

in bliss. Would you would you want that?

Would that be nice?

For how long?

Do it and I'll tell you.

Right. So most people will say, "Well, I

don't want that. I want meaning. I don't

want just bliss. I want meaning." And

you're like, "Okay, well, I'll put an

electrode in there and I'll give you

meaning. How about that?" And if you

kind of run this thought experiment long

enough, I think most people realize

actually what I want is I want surprise.

I want and

I want the world to surprise me and I

want to wrestle with it in ways that are

somewhat predictable but somewhat not.

And you kind of end up back where you

started.

So I I don't know if necessarily

for some people Pure happiness is the

ultimate goal. They want to, you know,

just be blissfully happy wherever they

are, whenever they are. But I think

other people, most people would say,

well, I'm here in this world. I'm here

in this life. I don't understand it or

why, but I want to be I want to be

engaged. I want to be surprised. I want

to do things. I want to accomplish

things. I want to want things and then

get them. Right? That's kind of the

whole game that we're all playing here.

Surprises are really interesting. the

sort of unpredictability. I think total

bro science here, but I'm pretty sure

that that's kind of how dopamine works.

That things are a bit better than you

expected. That within that it means that

if you for the perennial insecure

overachievers that uh cloy for control

that really want to be able to the

schedule is perfectly done and we know

the itinerary, we know where we're going

to be at this time. you're in some ways

I guess reducing down the capacity for

surprise because everything has become

uh very contrived prescribed done in

advance laid out your ability to be

surprised actually diminishes. Yeah. If

if nothing worked out the way you

expected, if it was all serendipity and

you didn't want that, you would just be

a ball of anxiety. On the other hand, if

everything worked out as you expected

and wanted, you'd be so bored you might

as well be dead. So there's some, you

know, the the river of life kind of

flows between these two banks and enjoy

it.

You say thinking about yourself is the

source of all unhappiness, but

presumably you need to work on yourself

and your weaknesses as well. So some

degree of reflection is important. And

if thinking about yourself is a source

of unhappiness, is this a price that you

need to pay? I need to sort of reflect

inward. I'm going to have to diminish

this level of happiness for a little

while and then I can use this new level.

I've got my brown belt on and I can go

out into the world as a brown belt.

What I'm specifically referring to that

is if if you're thinking about your

personality and your ego and the

character of you and uh you're obsessing

over that. That's where a lot of

depression and unhappiness sort of

lingers and and gets cultivated.

Uh so uh thinking about woe is me, this

happened to me. that happened to me. I

have this personality. I have this

issue. I deserve this. I didn't get

that. That's you're just strengthening a

little beast in there that is

insatiable. And that's where I think a

lot of unhappiness comes from.

What's the beast?

It's the ego. But that word is so

overused that I kind of hate to use the

word. Um, but it's like a it's a

recurrent collection of thoughts that

are very self-obsessed and will never be

satisfied.

Very concretized as well. So, they're

not malleable, not particularly

flexible. So you're just adding to them

by thinking about them all the time.

You're creating narratives and stories

and identities. Um but that's different

from solving personal problems. So if

you encounter something, you learn from

something, you're reflecting upon the

learning, then you can reflect upon it,

absorb it, and then just move on. But

sitting there saying, "I'm Chris. I'm

Nal. I deserve this. This happened to

me. That person wronged me. This is who

I am. This shouldn't have happened. I

need to go get revenge on this or I need

to fix that or change this." I mean that

I think is where a lot of mental illness

is, you know, comes from.

So it depends if you are thinking about

something to solve a problem and get it

off your chest and get it off your mind.

If it leaves your mind clearer at the

end of it, then I think it was

worthwhile. If it leaves your mind

busier at the end of it, then you're

probably going the wrong direction.

Is this a a justification for

detachment? uh cultivated ignorance uh

distraction.

Detachment is not a goal. Detachment is

a byproduct. It's it's just a byproduct

of just realizing you know what matters

and what doesn't. Uh and and just for

one moment on the self thing, I think

everybody craves thinking about

something more than themselves. If you

want to be, you know, happy to some

extent, you have to forget about your

personal problems. And one way to do

that is take on other problems, bigger

problems. Uh and that could be a

mission, that could be s that could be

spirituality, that could be kids, um it

could be caring about the planet,

although I think people take that a

little far, you know, and then they get

kind of oppressive and and tyrannical in

support of abstract concepts. But so

these can be taken too far. Just like

religion for example, just like

anything in excess,

anything in excess, right? Um but

generally the less you think about

yourself, the more you can think about a

mission or about God or about a child or

something like that. I remember Vinnie

Himmath uh the founder of Loom said uh I

am rich and I have no idea to do what to

do with my life and you replied God kids

on mission pick at least one that's

right preferably all three.

It's very liberating.

Um yeah thinking I think overthinking

about yourself is probably the it's it

may not be the cause of depression but

it certainly doesn't help rumination.

Yeah. I

I kind of had a self-induced Stockholm

syndrome from this sort of a thing

because I like to think about stuff and

you provide you with an endless number

of things to think about. So, you're

kind of Yeah, you have this um you're

the prisoner and the prison guard at the

same time. And I had Abigail Shrier on

the show. She was wrote this book called

Bad Therapy, sort of pushing back

against therapy culture for kids,

specifically for kids. there was a blast

radius that covered pretty much

everything, including kind of CBT, I'm

like, f like we're getting perilously

close to some really evidence-based

stuff here. But

the more that I've thought about it and

the more that I've looked at the

evidence, there is like basically a

direct correlation between how much you

think about yourself and how miserable

you are. Therapy is great if it lets you

vent and it solves a thing and then x

session later you're done. You're clear.

But if you're just looping on the same

thing forever, then it's actually the

opposite.

You're bathing in it. You're indulging

in it. Yeah. Yeah.

How have your become happy techniques

developed over time?

Yeah, I used to have a lot of them. Uh,

now I kind of try not to have any

because I think the techniques

themselves are kind of a struggle. It's

sort of like bidding for status implies

you're low status. It reveals that

you're low status. So, someone who's

basically trying to show off uh comes

across as low status. The same way

someone who's trying to be happy is sort

of saying I'm unhappy and creating that

frame. So it's better just to not even

think in terms of

you position yourself as being in lack

in order to attain.

Yeah. I don't even think in terms of

happiness unhappiness anymore. I just

kind of just do my thing.

Again, another question that's similar

to a bunch of them. Do you think you

could have got there had you have not

done the procedural systematic sort of

step by step by step this is what it is

and then come out the other side?

I don't think there are any formulas. I

think it's unique to each person. It's

like asking a successful person, how did

you become successful? Each one of them

will give you a different story. Uh you

can't follow anyone else's path. And

most of them are even probably telling

you some narratized version of it that

isn't quite true.

I mean, that's something that I

continually realize, especially as I get

to spend more time around people that

are successful and you hear um it's very

important to prioritize work life

balance, right? That's one of the most

common things that people who have

attained success say

that's not my experience. But if you

look at, you shouldn't be asking

somebody who is successful what they do

to continue their success now. You

should be asking them what did they do

to attain their success when they are

where you were.

And the people who are really

extraordinarily successful didn't sit

around watching success porn.

They just went and did it. They just had

they had such an overwhelming desire to

be successful at the thing that they

were doing that they just went and did

that thing. They didn't have time to

study and learn and listen and they just

did it. It's the overwhelming desire

that's the most important and the focus

that comes from that.

That tweet of yours that was uh people

who are good at making wealth or people

are good at attaining wealth don't need

to teach anybody else how to do it.

Yeah. You don't need mentors, you need

action. That was one of them. Another

one is you know the uh the people who

actually know how to make money don't

need to sell you a course on it. There

it is.

Um, yeah, there's lots of variations on

it. But I if you don't, another one is

if you don't lie awake at night thinking

about it, you don't want it badly

enough.

Yeah, I think you I've heard you talk

before about how um sort of unclosed

loops problems that you're working on

can cause you to be sleepless. And uh

this

I'm not a good sleeper.

Tell me about that.

Oh, I mean my eight sleep hates me. It's

always telling me I failed at sleeping

again. And Brian Johnson thinks I'm

going to die early. He's probably right.

But I

How much do you reckon you sleep a

night? You got any idea?

Oh, it's so random. Some nights I'll

sleep 8 hours. Some nights I'll sleep 4

hours. But it's literally just random.

Are you bothered about that? You trying

to optimize? You go a sleep coach

teaching you how to

I don't fogg myself over things. Uh if I

want to sleep, I'll sleep. If I don't

want to sleep, I don't sleep. It's not a

I don't think I'm doing anything right

or wrong.

You don't label it good night, bad

night.

No, I work out every day because I think

it gives me more energy and I've gotten

into a good habit with it. Maybe I'll do

the same thing with sleep. Maybe I'll

develop a good habit, but I'm not going

to beat myself up over it. There'll come

a point where it's important to me and

when it's important to me, I'll just do

it. You know, most of like, for example,

you look at people with addictions,

right? Overeating or smoking or

whatever, they can

kind of go through all the different

methods, but it's half-hearted. And then

one day they're like, "Oh [ __ ] I've got

lung cancer. My dad has lung cancer."

and they drop it immediately.

So I think a lot a lot of change is more

about desire and understanding than it

is about uh forcing yourself or trying

to domesticate yourself.

It's efficiency again I guess you know

aligning the thing that you want to do

with the way that you feel about what it

is that you want to do.

Yeah. It's not it's not getting caught

up in a in a half desire or a mimetic

desire. It's really just

being aware of what it is that you

actually want at this point in time. And

when you want something, then you will

act on it with maximal capability.

And that's the time to act on it. In the

meantime, just doing it because other

people tell you you should do it or

society tells you you should do it or

you feel slightly guilty about it. These

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mentioned anxiety before. Uh imagine how

effective you'd be if you weren't

anxious all the time is is one of yours

and anxiety is the emotion dour of the

21st century and lots of driven people

very anxious very paranoid that's what's

caused them to be affected. They pay so

much attention detail oriented not

letting things go staying up at night

thinking about it. That's the paranoia

coming in. What have you come to learn

about anxiety and dealing with it?

So, anxiety and stress are interesting.

They're very related. Stress is when uh

like if you look at an iron beam, when

an iron beam is under stress, it's cuz

it's being bent in two different

directions at the same time. So, when

your mind is under stress, it's because

it has two conflicting desires at once.

So, for example, you know, you you want

to be liked, but you want to do

something selfish, and you can't

reconcile the two, and so you're under

stress. uh you want to do something for

somebody else, you want to do something

for yourself, right? These aream you you

don't want to go to work but you want to

make money so you're under stress right

so you have two conflicting desires and

I think one of the ways to get through

stress is to acknowledge that oh I

actually have two conflicting desires

and either I need to resolve it I need

to pick one and then be okay losing the

other or I will decide later but at

least just being aware of why you're

stress can help alleviate a lot of

stress and then anxiety I think is sort

of this pervasive unidentifiable able

stress where you're just kind of

stressed out all the time and you're not

even sure why and you can't even

identify the underlying problem. I think

the reason for that is because you you

have so many uh unresolved problems,

unresolved stress points that have piled

up in your life that you can no longer

identify what the problems are and

there's this mountain of garbage in your

mind and it's a little bit of it poking

out the top like an iceberg and that's

anxiety. But underneath there's a lot of

unresolved things. And so you just need

to kind of go through very carefully

every time you're anxious. Like, okay,

why am I anxious this time? I don't know

why. Oh, well, let me sit here and just

think about it. Let me let me write down

what the possible causes could be. Let

me meditate on it. Let me journal. Let

me talk to a therapist. Let me talk to

my friends. Let me just kind of see like

when does that stress go away? If you

can kind of identify and unravel and

resolve these issues, then I think that

helps get rid of anxiety. uh a lot of

the anxiety is piled up because we move

through life too quickly, not observing

our own reactions to things. We don't

resolve them. So, this goes counter to

what I was saying earlier about not

reflecting too much on things, but you

reflect on the problems to observe them

and solve them. You don't reflect on

them to feel better about yourself,

to indulge them.

Well, if if if you're doing it to just

feel better about yourself, that could

be strengthening your personality and

your ego and could be creating a more

fragile personality. Um, you know, one

one big anxiety resolver for me is just

ruminating on death. I think that's a

good one. You're going to die. It's all

going to zero. You cannot take anything

with you. And I know this is trit. And I

know the the we don't spend enough time

thinking about the big questions. We

kind of give up on them when we're very,

very young. You know, a little child

might ask the big questions like, why

are we here? What's the meaning of life?

What is this all about? You know, is

there Santa Claus? Is there God? But

then as adults, we're taught not to

think about these things or we've given

up on them. But I think the big

questions are the big questions for good

reasons. And uh if you can keep the idea

in front of you at all times that you're

going to die and that everything goes

literally to zero.

What's there to stress about?

Yeah. For better or worse, life is very

short. How should people deal with its

briefness?

Enjoy it.

Make the best of it. You know, it's it's

even briefer than that. Each moment just

disappears. it's gone. There's only a

present moment and it's gone instantly.

So if you're not if you're not there for