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How do I know when to quit something?

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It's okay.

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You can quit things.

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Hang on a minute.

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When I went to the gym this morning, there was a Michael Jordan quote.

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If you quit once, it becomes a habit.

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Never quit.

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He's wrong.

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And it's very clear that he's wrong.

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And I've failed more times than most people who listen to this.

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And the simple secret for the power of quitting is the dip.

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And the dip describes something in the world that no one talks about.

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And so one of the things

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I try to do is help people understand it.

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Because my whole career is about how can I help people do better?

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Find why they're stuck, realize what's holding them back, or solve the problem.

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Because problems are opportunity.

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And I believe all problems can be solved.

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But what we're wrestling now with is people are afraid, people are lonely, people are disconnected.

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They're victims of all sorts of media and commercial systems.

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And we've been indoctrinated to not notice it.

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So I really want to just focus in on people who feel stuck right now.

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So there's this philosophy, which is the key to figuring out our stuckness.

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The donkey is trapped halfway between the water and the cat.

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The donkey is thirsty and hungry, but he's unwilling to move away from either of the things he wants.

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So he starves to death and he dies of thirst.

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And all of us do this, and we do it with one simple word, but...

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I want to run the marathon, but I don't want to get tired.

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I want to have a job that fulfills me, but I also like this car and this house.

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And so I can give you tools that can help you overcome resistance.

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And also I can give you the mechanics to become the person your future self thanks you for.

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And then the skill of overcoming shame or embarrassment might be one of the most important skills in the modern world today.

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How do I get better at dealing with that?

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So let me try to make it really simple.

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The floor is yours.

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Guys, I've got a favour to ask before this episode begins.

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The algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed.

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So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know.

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And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button.

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but also it's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make the show better.

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And I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this on right now and hit that follow button.

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Thank you so, so, so much.

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Go then.

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For my audience who've just clicked on this conversation, my question to you is by the time this conversation is done, what do you hope that they're going to come away with?

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What questions in their life are they going to have answers to?

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Some of your best guests are world experts and they show up and they say, I did the research, I did the math, do this because I told you to.

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And I've never done that.

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I show up and I try to paint a picture for people of what the words mean and what the systems are like, and then encourage you to do things because you told you to.

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And so what I think we're wrestling now with is people are afraid, people are lonely, people are disconnected.

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They're victims of all sorts of media and commercial systems, and we've been indoctrinated to not notice it.

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And there are problems all around us.

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And if we can solve problems, we can make things better.

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So what I want to help people do is find the words to talk about their problem, realize what's holding them back, go solve the problem.

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Because when we solve problems, we make things better for ourselves and for other people.

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So problems aren't something to be avoided.

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Problems are our opportunity.

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And I believe all problems can be solved.

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Some things aren't problems.

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They're situations, and you have to live with them.

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But if it's a problem, it means there's a solution.

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And I would like to help people find the vision and the words to see where they're stuck, why they're stuck, and whether it's a problem or a situation.

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If it's a problem and someone's going to benefit from you solving it, I hope I can give you the mechanics, the tools, the vocabulary to go move forward toward better.

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And what kind of problems specifically do you try and solve for people in your work, but also in this more recent book that you've just written called The Knot?

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So I don't solve problems for people.

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They solve problems for themselves.

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And when someone points out to you

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where the problem is, you can now make a new decision.

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So if someone's applying for college, it's super easy if you're 17 years old to get all hung up on, I'm about to be judged, how are they gonna know the real me, what if I get rejected, am I a loser, have I wasted my whole life?

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But once you see the college industrial complex, once you understand the agenda of the admissions office, once you realize what people are looking at and why,

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You say, oh, this is a game.

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This is a game like Settlers of Catan or Monopoly.

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And if I win this game, it's not because I'm a good person.

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It's because I played the game better.

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If I lose the game, same thing.

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Once you see that, all the drama and entanglement of applying for college moves to the side.

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You say, what's in it for the admissions officer to see the person I want to present to them?

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Because if I can solve their problem, I'm going to go to the school I want to go to.

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Well, that's true in so many parts of our lives.

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We engage with a system or a person or a boss or a coworker or a spouse, and we think we're right.

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We've got all this noise in our head.

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We think everyone can hear the noise in our head.

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They can't.

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We think everyone wants what we want.

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They don't.

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And so we show up saying, it's my turn.

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I need to get this.

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And now we have a problem.

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And the reason we have a problem is because that other person thinks they're as right as we think we're right.

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And they have a different problem.

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So we're colliding.

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But if we can see that all of this is a dynamic within family systems, corporate systems, commercial systems, we can understand what are the forces at work.

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Now that we see them, we can use them to get to where we want to go.

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It's funny because I go out into the world and I sit in taxis and I walk down the street and people come up to me and I get sort of an idea of the personas of people watching.

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And because I get in a lot of taxis, I have a lot of conversations with taxi drivers.

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So they're one persona in my head.

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And then, you know, the other is maybe like a mother with a kid or two who's trying to make a change in their sort of later career.

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For those people, the average person listening right now

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Where is it that they want to go to?

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And I don't mean specifically, I don't mean job.

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I mean, where is it that they want to go to and where are they?

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Right.

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I think most people we meet would like to be seen, missed if they are gone, understood, and of use.

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Right?

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That's something that crosses borders and cultures.

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And yet...

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We end up being a cog in a system.

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The Uber driver racing around doing things they wouldn't ordinarily do because the system is pushing them to cut every corner.

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Or the mom who's struggling because the financial system that she's stuck in is pushing her away from the kind of work or parenting she wants to do.

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and many of those things are injustices, and some of those things cannot be fixed by an individual.

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We can accept those as situations.

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You're not going to change Uber.

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Uber is going to be the way Uber is going to be, and if you choose to be an Uber driver, the rules of Uber come with it.

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But other things are things where we get to make a choice.

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And I'm not saying, I want to be really clear, I'm not saying anyone deserves an injustice, anyone deserves where they are right now.

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But given who you are, given where you are,

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What are the choices you do have?

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And how do we get out of the not, the stuckness, of wanting two things that we can't have at the same time?

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Because it's when we want two things at the same time that cannot coexist that we feel stuck.

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And that feeling of stuckness robs us from the chance to be of use.

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It robs us from the chance to get to that place that deep down we want to go.

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So I use the word purpose.

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And what I mean by that is not you're born with a purpose because I don't think you were, but you can choose with intent the purpose of whatever you're going to do tomorrow.

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That purpose might be I need to get paid.

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That purpose might be I need to get this date.

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That purpose might be I need to put something on the internet that changes the lives of a thousand people.

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When you say your purpose out loud, the purpose of this work is so-and-so, then I say back to you the very first question, which is the key, who?

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Who is this for?

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Is it for everyone or is it for 12 people or 1,000 people?

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What change are you here to make and for who?

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And if we can't figure out who the who is, then we feel like there's just this amorphous, horrible, heavy blanket on us, trapping us.

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But if you can find the five people you can solve a problem for or the 25 people who would miss you, it starts to work.

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So let me give you a quick story to help you understand the analogy.

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You're a stand-up comic.

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You've been working really hard.

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And your agent calls, I got a great gig.

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So you go and there's 100 people there.

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And you bomb.

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Not one laugh for 10 minutes.

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And then you leave the stage.

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Then you find out it's a tour group from Italy.

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And no one in the room speaks English.

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So who bombed, right?

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It's your agent who put you in the wrong room.

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There was nothing wrong with your jokes.

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It was a mismatch because the audience didn't speak English.

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So you're allowed to say, it's not for you.

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When we show up to try to engage with someone it's not for, if we read the comments, if we read the reviews, and someone gives a great book a one-star review, all that one-star review says is, this book wasn't for me.

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That's all they needed to write.

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Nothing else in the review is helpful.

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Because someone else thought it was a five-star book.

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So the author has learned nothing.

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So we pick who it's for.

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What is our intent?

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This person I'm going to help, I'm going to trade with, I'm going to engage, I'm going to sell to or whatever.

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Who exactly?

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What do they believe?

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What do they want?

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What are they afraid of?

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If I can solve their problem, they're going to want to engage.

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And I can be of use.

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And then I can do it again.

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And then I can do it again.

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Is this a point about getting unstuck in your current situation?

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Is it come right back to who you want to serve, their persona, what their needs are, and then focusing on that?

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Because I'm thinking again about this Uber driver who feels somewhat powerless in their life.

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They think I've got to sell my time to make this much money, but I'm not satisfied and I'm not fulfilled.

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So how does what you've just said sort of dovetail into that person's life?

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Yeah.

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So people sometimes call me a marketer, and I had the luxury of starting my career right when television was dying.

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So before that, marketing meant big companies buying ads, interrupting people, hustling them, et cetera.

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And then it shifted.

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So I got to define marketing as anything I wanted.

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And I have defined marketing as telling a true story to the right people in a way that helps them get where they want that they will tell their friends about.

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If you do those steps...

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You're not doing any of the icky part.

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You're being of service.

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And you don't have to have a budget to do this.

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We are all marketing.

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When you walk in in tatty jeans to a job interview at an investment bank, you've just marketed yourself by your clothing, right?

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There's a signal that you chose to send and that they will receive or not receive.

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So when we think about the agency, the freedom that each of us have,

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We have the freedom to decide who we're going to show up for and what's the story that's built in.

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So back to this Uber driver.

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If...

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You want to make a living driving a car and meeting interesting people.

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One thing you could do is give up all of your freedom to Uber and let them find you the passengers.

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But the other thing you could do is realize that there are 75 people who live in this suburb of your town who need to get somewhere reliably and safely and would be delighted to have you be their driver.

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And when you hand out the right cards to the right people, making it clear what you do and don't do, and who you do it for and don't do it for, getting to 15 regular customers is not out of reach.

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As a private chauffeur.

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Yeah.

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That path is a better use of his tomorrow than simply being ground out by some social media company or ride-sharing service.

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Bringing it back to this rope thing over here, because I really want to just focus in on people who feel stuck right now.

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The essence of where I'm trying to go to in this conversation is I want to speak to people that currently feel stuck, but they know that they're capable of more.

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They know that they could have another life, but they practically don't understand, I guess, both the psychology, the systems, the mechanisms, and I guess what they can control in order to move from where they are to where they want to be.

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Right.

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There's a rope here.

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And it serves as a somewhat interesting analogy for, I guess, being stuck.

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And pulling on the wrong thing.

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Yeah.

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You sound like a magician.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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I mean, do you know the analogy?

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Yes, I do.

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So 2,500 years ago, this guy named Alexander, he didn't have a last name yet, showed up outside of a small village in Turkey.

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And there was a legend from King Midas.

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There was a wagon there and it was tied with a complicated knot.

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And the legend was whoever could untie this knot would become the ruler of huge parts of Europe.

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And Alexander was 21 years old, and he did not use a knife.

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He did not cut anything.

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But he looked at this knot that was tied to the wagon, and he did one thing that no one before him had ever done.

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He realized that there was a pole in the center of it that it was tied around.

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And he removed the pole.

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And then he could see by looking very carefully how the whole knot was held together.

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And he could untie it with no trouble whatsoever.

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And then he became Alexander the Great.

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Because the secret, the simple secret was we are stuck because we can't see what's holding us there.

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If what's holding us there, we cannot change, like gravity is holding us to Earth, gravity's not a problem.

219
00:14:13.520 --> 00:14:14.562
Gravity's a situation.

220
00:14:15.124 --> 00:14:15.945
Going to the moon...

221
00:14:16.832 --> 00:14:18.173
doesn't deny gravity.

222
00:14:18.513 --> 00:14:20.333
It works with the fact that it exists.

223
00:14:20.834 --> 00:14:29.537
But we are working with problems, but we're confused because we want two things.

224
00:14:29.857 --> 00:14:30.677
So can I show you what I mean?

225
00:14:30.777 --> 00:14:30.917
Yeah.

226
00:14:31.197 --> 00:14:31.438
OK.

227
00:14:31.878 --> 00:14:36.419
So here's an actual carrot, and here's actual water.

228
00:14:37.020 --> 00:14:41.721
This is not actually a donkey, but let's pretend this is a donkey.

229
00:14:42.002 --> 00:14:42.142
OK?

230
00:14:43.522 --> 00:14:49.263
In Burden's philosophy experiment from a couple hundred years ago, the donkey is hungry and thirsty.

231
00:14:50.044 --> 00:14:51.104
He has complete freedom.

232
00:14:51.144 --> 00:14:51.704
He can move.

233
00:14:52.144 --> 00:14:55.765
And he's halfway between a pile of carrots and a bucket of water.

234
00:14:56.865 --> 00:14:57.546
And he's trapped.

235
00:14:58.106 --> 00:15:01.326
Because every time he moves toward the water, he's moving away from the carrot.

236
00:15:01.346 --> 00:15:02.547
Can't do that because he's hungry.

237
00:15:03.207 --> 00:15:05.828
And every time he moves toward the carrot, he's moving away from the water.

238
00:15:05.868 --> 00:15:07.328
Can't do that because he's thirsty.

239
00:15:08.078 --> 00:15:13.662
And so in the experiment, because we're trapped, we end up dying of hunger and thirst.

240
00:15:14.463 --> 00:15:20.187
And all of us do this, and we do it with one simple word, which is but.

241
00:15:20.908 --> 00:15:24.951
I want this, but I also want that, right?

242
00:15:25.331 --> 00:15:30.755
I want to have a creative life, but I never want to get rejected, right?

243
00:15:31.023 --> 00:15:34.608
I want to run the marathon, but I don't want to get tired.

244
00:15:35.169 --> 00:15:36.190
And we hide the but.

245
00:15:36.330 --> 00:15:37.832
We don't say the but out loud.

246
00:15:38.702 --> 00:15:42.743
So my favorite story, which I talk about in the book, is Jackson Pollock.

247
00:15:43.004 --> 00:15:49.846
So Jackson Pollock was the most famous painter in America in the 1940s, about 80 years ago.

248
00:15:50.506 --> 00:15:51.847
He was on the cover of Life magazine.

249
00:15:52.247 --> 00:15:54.387
He had three years where he could do no wrong.

250
00:15:54.528 --> 00:15:57.309
His paintings were snapped up.

251
00:15:57.869 --> 00:16:00.530
Everyone saw him as a little bit of a hero.

252
00:16:01.170 --> 00:16:03.911
It's very unusual for an artist to be a hero in their own lifetime.

253
00:16:05.375 --> 00:16:11.638
And his wife, Lee Krasner, later said that he felt like he had done everything he could do with this cycle of art.

254
00:16:12.078 --> 00:16:16.640
And what most people in that situation would have done is become a Jackson Pollock cover band.

255
00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:18.801
Paint more versions of his old paintings.

256
00:16:19.221 --> 00:16:19.801
Take the money.

257
00:16:20.262 --> 00:16:20.682
You won.

258
00:16:21.722 --> 00:16:24.745
He wanted to be a brilliant creator.

259
00:16:24.905 --> 00:16:26.206
He wanted to be on the frontier.

260
00:16:26.706 --> 00:16:29.448
So he stopped painting Jackson Pollock paintings.

261
00:16:29.889 --> 00:16:35.954
He went to a studio and came up with a whole new style, different size canvas, different approach.

262
00:16:36.054 --> 00:16:38.396
It didn't look like Jackson Pollock had done it.

263
00:16:39.136 --> 00:16:40.878
And he brought it to this big show,

264
00:16:41.938 --> 00:16:42.799
And the world yawned.

265
00:16:43.399 --> 00:16:45.120
Not one piece sold.

266
00:16:45.700 --> 00:16:50.582
And to this day, if you go to a museum, you will probably not see a second cycle, Jackson Pollock.

267
00:16:51.323 --> 00:17:00.066
This led him to become even more of a substance abuser, which led to him dying in a tragic car crash that killed somebody else as well.

268
00:17:00.867 --> 00:17:02.748
Because Jackson Pollock wanted two things.

269
00:17:03.508 --> 00:17:07.893
He wanted to live on the frontier and be the creative artist on the cutting edge.

270
00:17:08.574 --> 00:17:14.020
But he also wanted to be the celebrity who could sell everything he made and was seen as a genius.

271
00:17:14.060 --> 00:17:19.065
He forgot how many years it took the first Jackson Pollock to accomplish that.

272
00:17:19.526 --> 00:17:24.611
And because the second Jackson Pollock didn't hit, the butt became really loud in his head.

273
00:17:25.770 --> 00:17:29.452
can't have two of these things if they are diametrically opposed.

274
00:17:29.512 --> 00:17:31.033
We need to find where is the but.

275
00:17:31.133 --> 00:17:32.454
I want this but, I want that.

276
00:17:32.874 --> 00:17:34.355
It's usually hiding as an and.

277
00:17:35.416 --> 00:17:42.480
But once we see it, once we say, oh, that is what is keeping me from giving the people I'm trying to serve what they need.

278
00:17:42.520 --> 00:17:44.962
That's why I'm not getting where I need to go.

279
00:17:46.253 --> 00:17:55.818
We can remove the pole, see the entanglements, see what we're measuring wrong, forgive them, make a new decision, and the problem goes away.

280
00:17:57.299 --> 00:18:00.381
And you can substitute and, you're saying, instead of but.

281
00:18:00.561 --> 00:18:02.922
The and is the thing that emphasizes it.

282
00:18:03.183 --> 00:18:12.548
I want to be a creative person and I'm eager to be rejected and not have people get the joke for a while and have to live in the back of my van because that's what creative people do.

283
00:18:12.768 --> 00:18:13.468
That's part of it.

284
00:18:13.748 --> 00:18:14.229
I get that.

285
00:18:14.829 --> 00:18:24.894
I want to be popular on social media, and that means I can't be honest and authentic and consistent because I got to keep chasing X, Y, or Z.

286
00:18:25.714 --> 00:18:30.657
And when we look at the people who consistently get big clicks, that's what they're doing.

287
00:18:31.237 --> 00:18:32.218
They're not saying, this is who I am.

288
00:18:32.258 --> 00:18:33.879
They're going to chase the next thing.

289
00:18:34.319 --> 00:18:36.120
If you're not happy with that, please don't do it.

290
00:18:37.160 --> 00:18:41.923
But the and amplifies the work, but undercuts it.

291
00:18:43.223 --> 00:18:48.246
There's people listening right now that are, maybe they've got three kids under the age of seven.

292
00:18:48.366 --> 00:18:49.186
I'm thinking about my brother.

293
00:18:49.226 --> 00:18:50.667
He's got three kids under the age of seven.

294
00:18:51.368 --> 00:18:55.290
And they also want to launch a company.

295
00:18:55.310 --> 00:18:56.030
Right.

296
00:18:56.926 --> 00:19:03.268
And they might feel that there's a tension between those two things because they, on one hand, want to be the best dad on earth like my brother wants to be.

297
00:19:03.408 --> 00:19:03.608
Yeah.

298
00:19:03.728 --> 00:19:06.909
But at the same time, they really want to launch that AI startup.

299
00:19:07.189 --> 00:19:07.430
Yeah.

300
00:19:07.830 --> 00:19:09.330
Now, these two things are tugging at each other.

301
00:19:09.610 --> 00:19:09.970
Correct.

302
00:19:10.471 --> 00:19:10.931
What do they do?

303
00:19:11.131 --> 00:19:13.572
Well, the first thing they did was really important.

304
00:19:13.612 --> 00:19:14.092
They named it.

305
00:19:14.432 --> 00:19:14.712
Okay.

306
00:19:14.872 --> 00:19:15.132
Okay.

307
00:19:15.672 --> 00:19:20.294
Second thing, can't do two things at the same time, but you can do many things over time.

308
00:19:21.675 --> 00:19:26.076
And what that means is he made a commitment to three small humans in this moment.

309
00:19:26.716 --> 00:19:30.097
He's going to go to work, but he can't go to work for 100 hours a week.

310
00:19:30.837 --> 00:19:37.759
So he needs to pick a project where the amount of time he has is enough time to do the project really well.

311
00:19:38.439 --> 00:19:40.660
He cannot start an open AI competitor.

312
00:19:41.040 --> 00:19:41.980
It is off the table.

313
00:19:42.500 --> 00:19:48.562
That is impossible because the thing he's committed to cannot coexist with that.

314
00:19:48.802 --> 00:19:49.982
That's hard to admit.

315
00:19:50.482 --> 00:19:53.503
Right, but it unlocks the door to what we can do.

316
00:19:54.083 --> 00:20:05.887
If he can figure out how to build an entity where he's not hiding, where he's actually showing up on the hook to a group of people and say, I know more about AI than you and I'm going to use this tool to do X and they pay him for it.

317
00:20:07.413 --> 00:20:13.735
Now, at the end of a 40-hour week, he appropriately goes and does the work of a dad.

318
00:20:13.955 --> 00:20:19.337
That's a business that's creating value for people that will make you more profit than OpenAI made last year.

319
00:20:20.177 --> 00:20:26.419
So the point I'm making is media keeps showing up and saying what you're supposed to do is be a Kardashian.

320
00:20:26.659 --> 00:20:28.980
What you're supposed to do is be Sam Altman.

321
00:20:29.080 --> 00:20:30.260
No, that's not what you're supposed to do.

322
00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:35.022
You're supposed to make promises and keep them for the smallest audience that's enough.

323
00:20:35.722 --> 00:20:39.543
You can't maximize two things that use the same space.

324
00:20:40.083 --> 00:20:49.545
Do you think it's possible to know if a motivation or a goal or a dream you have or an ambition you have is real or not?

325
00:20:50.525 --> 00:20:58.487
And when I say real, I mean, like, did I just inherit this from expectations from Instagram or from my family or because my brother-in-law is rich and I want to kind of compete?

326
00:20:58.867 --> 00:21:02.767
Is there a way to know if the goal I say I want is a real one?

327
00:21:03.028 --> 00:21:03.828
Yeah, I love this.

328
00:21:04.168 --> 00:21:04.848
This is brilliant.

329
00:21:05.348 --> 00:21:06.969
This gets back to the idea of purpose.

330
00:21:07.669 --> 00:21:11.690
What is the change you seek to make with the next cycle of your effort?

331
00:21:12.190 --> 00:21:15.912
Not your purpose on earth, but the purpose of the work you're about to do.

332
00:21:15.932 --> 00:21:17.532
Are you trying to make Mark Zuckerberg happy?

333
00:21:17.912 --> 00:21:20.213
Are you trying to make an anonymous commenter happy?

334
00:21:20.233 --> 00:21:21.914
Are you trying to teach troll a lesson?

335
00:21:22.694 --> 00:21:26.815
Because when you say that out loud, you realize that's a ridiculous purpose and a trap.

336
00:21:27.696 --> 00:21:34.458
If we can be clear what's in it for me, if I put this time in, what will I get in return?

337
00:21:35.692 --> 00:21:38.013
So my company has 75 people, let's say.

338
00:21:38.553 --> 00:21:41.133
And should I grow to have 250 people?

339
00:21:41.373 --> 00:21:46.274
Well, what would be in it for me to be a CEO of 250 people instead of 75 people?

340
00:21:46.315 --> 00:21:47.595
You're going to have a bigger headache.

341
00:21:47.915 --> 00:21:49.635
You're going to have more money, theoretically.

342
00:21:49.735 --> 00:21:50.335
Theoretically.

343
00:21:50.455 --> 00:21:53.056
But what you're really going to earn is a different kind of status.

344
00:21:53.216 --> 00:22:05.139
You have to decide if that status, boss of more people, that status, what I get to say at the cocktail party, that status of what could happen after that is worth the price you're going to pay to do this.

345
00:22:06.179 --> 00:22:06.720
or not.

346
00:22:07.420 --> 00:22:11.384
And so we keep making these choices about what is the purpose of this work.

347
00:22:12.324 --> 00:22:16.307
And that leads to the key from Steve Pressfield, which is resistance.

348
00:22:17.148 --> 00:22:20.231
And resistance is any feeling we have

349
00:22:20.951 --> 00:22:27.754
that keeps us from doing generous, generative, creative work of any kind.

350
00:22:28.154 --> 00:22:30.835
So for example, writer's block is resistance.

351
00:22:31.315 --> 00:22:35.037
For example, you're going out on a date and you change your outfit six times.

352
00:22:35.597 --> 00:22:44.241
Resistance shows up in so many of the things we do and the systems around us indoctrinate us because they want us to be cogs in the system.

353
00:22:45.001 --> 00:22:46.583
They want us to say, well, how do I get an A?

354
00:22:46.623 --> 00:22:48.446
How do I get permission to do X, Y, or Z?

355
00:22:48.566 --> 00:22:50.509
I'm not going to initiate anything.

356
00:22:51.610 --> 00:23:02.405
So it's easier for your brother to deal with the resistance in his head by saying, I'm stuck, than it is for him to say, I changed the lives of 17 people this weekend.

357
00:23:03.500 --> 00:23:14.833
Whereas if we kept drilling into what's your purpose, I think he would say, yeah, changing the lives of people is more important to me than making Business Week magazine happy because I built some company.

358
00:23:15.589 --> 00:23:18.792
Is it useful to try and name the resistance in order to overcome it?

359
00:23:19.173 --> 00:23:23.397
You can't make resistance go away, ever.

360
00:23:24.478 --> 00:23:25.439
You can dance with it.

361
00:23:25.899 --> 00:23:27.401
You can invite it in for tea.

362
00:23:27.921 --> 00:23:28.782
You can name it.

363
00:23:28.942 --> 00:23:32.186
You can say, the reason I'm hesitating to do this is resistance.

364
00:23:32.726 --> 00:23:33.927
You can say, I don't feel like it.

365
00:23:33.967 --> 00:23:35.569
I got to go do this other thing instead.

366
00:23:35.649 --> 00:23:37.130
I don't want to host a small party.

367
00:23:37.150 --> 00:23:37.911
Resistance.

368
00:23:37.951 --> 00:23:38.252
Resistance.

369
00:23:39.073 --> 00:23:45.535
My friend Lisa moved across the country to be with her partner all the way to Los Angeles, knew three people in the whole city.

370
00:23:46.935 --> 00:23:49.036
She says, I don't want to live a lonely life in Los Angeles.

371
00:23:50.076 --> 00:23:52.176
I'm going to have a potluck dinner every Friday.

372
00:23:52.677 --> 00:23:54.697
I'm going to start by inviting the three people I know.

373
00:23:55.537 --> 00:23:58.038
And every week, you can come back if you bring a new person.

374
00:23:59.358 --> 00:24:03.319
50 weeks later, she has a network of 400 people, all good friends.

375
00:24:04.720 --> 00:24:05.980
Anyone could have done that.

376
00:24:06.912 --> 00:24:07.573
No one does.

377
00:24:08.153 --> 00:24:08.613
Resistance.

378
00:24:09.274 --> 00:24:10.735
What if I invite someone and they say no?

379
00:24:11.356 --> 00:24:12.737
What if I invite someone and I don't like them?

380
00:24:12.757 --> 00:24:14.018
What if I invite someone and they don't like me?

381
00:24:14.578 --> 00:24:15.899
Resistance, resistance, resistance.

382
00:24:16.540 --> 00:24:19.061
Name the baggage, drop the baggage, do it.

383
00:24:19.902 --> 00:24:24.245
Once you can name the baggage, you can say, this is why I am feeling stuck.

384
00:24:25.206 --> 00:24:30.090
If I can let go of this other thing, I can move toward the carrot because I can forgive the water.

385
00:24:31.118 --> 00:24:36.463
I was sort of running through different people in my head that I know, again, trying to think about the personas of the people listening.

386
00:24:36.483 --> 00:24:39.806
And one of the things I realized is that everybody's starting from a very different place here.

387
00:24:40.006 --> 00:24:40.166
Right.

388
00:24:40.366 --> 00:24:41.087
And why is that?

389
00:24:41.167 --> 00:24:43.669
Why is it that some people are quite good at dealing with resistance?

390
00:24:43.709 --> 00:24:44.970
They can invite around strangers.

391
00:24:45.330 --> 00:24:47.512
And then other people are living in fear.

392
00:24:47.532 --> 00:24:49.454
They're almost, they never take a risk.

393
00:24:49.814 --> 00:24:49.954
Yeah.

394
00:24:50.014 --> 00:24:52.717
Well, a big part of it is privilege.

395
00:24:53.297 --> 00:24:54.418
It's injustice.

396
00:24:54.618 --> 00:24:57.621
It's living in a culture that never gives you the benefit of the doubt.

397
00:24:58.770 --> 00:25:08.276
But even if I look among a group of people who all have the same amount of privilege, there's still somebody who is at the marketplace helping strangers find where they're going.

398
00:25:08.296 --> 00:25:13.038
There's still somebody who, you know, I have a family friend went to an Ivy League school.

399
00:25:13.058 --> 00:25:13.859
He wanted to be an actor.

400
00:25:14.900 --> 00:25:18.502
And he went to apply to the improv troupe for auditions.

401
00:25:19.322 --> 00:25:21.423
And they picked 10 people and he came in 11th.

402
00:25:22.704 --> 00:25:23.425
And he called me up.

403
00:25:23.465 --> 00:25:24.105
He was very upset.

404
00:25:24.825 --> 00:25:27.007
And I said, why don't you start your own improv troupe?

405
00:25:27.727 --> 00:25:28.889
You don't need any equipment.

406
00:25:29.290 --> 00:25:30.372
You don't need a permit.

407
00:25:30.753 --> 00:25:32.937
You just need four people to do improv with.

408
00:25:33.057 --> 00:25:34.560
Start your own improv troupe.

409
00:25:35.542 --> 00:25:38.688
And the irony, the reason I remember the story is he couldn't do it.

410
00:25:39.611 --> 00:25:40.672
I mean, isn't that what improv is?

411
00:25:41.513 --> 00:25:42.714
Start your own improv tree.

412
00:25:43.735 --> 00:25:47.559
And so, you know, I run an online community called purple.space.

413
00:25:47.960 --> 00:25:52.164
And on Purple, we've got thousands of people who are coaching each other.

414
00:25:52.985 --> 00:25:55.047
And it's the opposite of a social network.

415
00:25:55.067 --> 00:25:55.808
There's no scams.

416
00:25:55.828 --> 00:25:56.468
There's no hustle.

417
00:25:56.488 --> 00:25:57.890
Nobody sells anything to anybody else.

418
00:25:58.310 --> 00:26:00.713
It's just, I'll talk you through my experience.

419
00:26:01.960 --> 00:26:04.423
Not, you talk me through yours, let's hold each other accountable.

420
00:26:05.063 --> 00:26:06.605
Well, someone needs to go first.

421
00:26:06.805 --> 00:26:17.397
Everyone wants to be invited to an engagement like that, but few people want to start one because you're afraid of being rejected because it's one step short of dying.

422
00:26:18.378 --> 00:26:23.083
So when we can name this and realize it's actually not at all related to dying,

423
00:26:23.770 --> 00:26:27.754
This isn't about hustling someone and getting in their face to sell them something.

424
00:26:28.034 --> 00:26:35.561
This is about offering to solve their problem as you solve your problem by naming the thing and figuring out where we can be of value.

425
00:26:36.489 --> 00:26:41.910
One of the things that I've experienced as a podcaster is a lot of people come up to me in the street, and they'll tell me about the podcast idea that they've had for four years.

426
00:26:44.231 --> 00:26:49.812
And it's quite a curious thing to observe, because it appears on the surface that they are serious.

427
00:26:50.672 --> 00:26:55.414
But the very nature that they've been mulling it for a couple of years means that there's probably some kind of resistance there.

428
00:26:55.434 --> 00:26:55.774
Correct.

429
00:26:56.454 --> 00:26:57.214
Exactly.

430
00:26:57.234 --> 00:27:01.715
So for a couple of years, my friend Alex DePomme and I ran the podcasting fellowship.

431
00:27:01.775 --> 00:27:05.016
So thousands of people went through this workshop to start a podcast.

432
00:27:06.056 --> 00:27:14.883
And the reason podcasts are such a great example is everyone knows what a podcast is, and the cost of starting a podcast is less than a dollar.

433
00:27:16.004 --> 00:27:17.606
So why don't you have one, right?

434
00:27:17.906 --> 00:27:22.269
Okay, well, so we start the cycle by giving me all the reasons you can't have a podcast.

435
00:27:22.890 --> 00:27:25.852
And one of the ones that comes up is, well, I don't think I could get good guests.

436
00:27:26.413 --> 00:27:26.553
Hmm.

437
00:27:26.813 --> 00:27:29.874
And then we would say, okay, who would be the best guest you could ever get?

438
00:27:30.975 --> 00:27:33.096
And amazingly, Michelle Obama's name comes up.

439
00:27:34.697 --> 00:27:36.277
Michelle Obama is not going to be on your podcast.

440
00:27:38.038 --> 00:27:42.120
But who would you need to have on your podcast as the guest before Michelle Obama

441
00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:44.641
That would lead her more likely to say yes.

442
00:27:44.822 --> 00:27:47.083
And who would be the guest before that and the guest before that?

443
00:27:47.203 --> 00:27:49.005
And let's go all the way back to your next-door neighbor.

444
00:27:49.365 --> 00:27:51.587
Can you get your next-door neighbor to be a guest on your podcast?

445
00:27:51.847 --> 00:27:52.147
Yes.

446
00:27:52.928 --> 00:27:57.071
So go make that podcast and just play it for the 20 people who are in this circle.

447
00:27:58.031 --> 00:28:00.133
And at that point, half the people can't do it.

448
00:28:00.933 --> 00:28:02.475
There's no technical reason why.

449
00:28:03.055 --> 00:28:08.039
It's just too hard to say to your next-door neighbor, can I interview you for 20 minutes and then show it to somebody else?

450
00:28:08.539 --> 00:28:09.360
Because resistance.

451
00:28:10.635 --> 00:28:16.299
And so the hack I give people is start a blog under another name, under an assumed name.

452
00:28:17.180 --> 00:28:18.200
No one will know you wrote it.

453
00:28:18.861 --> 00:28:20.082
Do it for 100 days in a row.

454
00:28:20.382 --> 00:28:24.345
If you do that for 100 days in a row, I'm betting you're going to want to put your real name on it.

455
00:28:25.005 --> 00:28:33.011
But if not, at least you understand there was nothing fatal about posting something in public for 100 days in a row with somebody else's name on it.

456
00:28:33.351 --> 00:28:35.373
So that's obviously not where the writer's block is.

457
00:28:36.130 --> 00:28:37.292
It's in resistance.

458
00:28:37.472 --> 00:28:38.433
Two things at once.

459
00:28:38.573 --> 00:28:39.334
I want to do this.

460
00:28:39.434 --> 00:28:40.315
I want to be recognized.

461
00:28:41.116 --> 00:28:43.659
But I don't want it to fail.

462
00:28:44.120 --> 00:28:45.221
I don't want to be disrespected.

463
00:28:45.462 --> 00:28:46.343
I don't want to lose status.

464
00:28:47.023 --> 00:28:48.726
And those two things keep us paralyzed.

465
00:28:48.806 --> 00:28:50.368
And the system likes it like that.

466
00:28:51.382 --> 00:28:55.706
What you did there is you took the resistance and you tried to break it down into the smallest possible piece.

467
00:28:55.886 --> 00:28:56.286
Correct.

468
00:28:56.706 --> 00:28:56.907
Yes.

469
00:28:56.927 --> 00:29:00.269
So you took a big piece of resistance, which is how do I get Michelle Obama on my podcast?

470
00:29:00.590 --> 00:29:04.172
You broke it down into, I need to go ask my next door neighbor to come on my podcast.

471
00:29:04.713 --> 00:29:07.755
And then you broke it even smaller to, I'm going to start an anonymous blog.

472
00:29:08.136 --> 00:29:08.316
Yeah.

473
00:29:09.697 --> 00:29:14.581
Because when we call her on bluff, it's very uncomfortable, but it's better than someone else calling her bluff.

474
00:29:15.563 --> 00:29:27.452
And this gets back to my posture of, I can't solve your problem, but maybe I can give you tools that can help you name your problem so that in a safe place, you can talk to somebody about where is the resistance?

475
00:29:28.112 --> 00:29:29.993
Why am I in my head about this?

476
00:29:30.053 --> 00:29:37.879
What's the smallest unit of value for the smallest possible audience that I could do that would make a difference for them?

477
00:29:38.239 --> 00:29:41.522
Bob Lefzitz writes the most popular music blog in the world.

478
00:29:41.842 --> 00:29:43.343
Everybody in the music industry knows him.

479
00:29:44.659 --> 00:29:47.864
I promise you, when he started, he had five readers.

480
00:29:48.726 --> 00:29:49.927
My blog has a million readers.

481
00:29:49.987 --> 00:29:51.650
When I started, I had five readers.

482
00:29:52.331 --> 00:29:53.673
That's the way they all start.

483
00:29:53.693 --> 00:29:55.897
That's how your podcast started, five listeners.

484
00:29:58.625 --> 00:30:09.877
When you broke it down there and you turned it into an anonymous blog, I guess what you were also doing is you were breaking down the embarrassment into smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller pieces of embarrassment.

485
00:30:10.058 --> 00:30:10.278
Right.

486
00:30:10.438 --> 00:30:13.281
But like, irrespective, there was still embarrassment.

487
00:30:13.942 --> 00:30:17.145
And I heard this phrase, embarrassment is the cost of entry.

488
00:30:17.165 --> 00:30:17.786
Right.

489
00:30:17.866 --> 00:30:23.930
Would you agree with the general idea that irrespective of what you do, you're going to have to be embarrassed?

490
00:30:23.950 --> 00:30:30.014
You're going to have to pay that as the fee of entry to almost anything outside of your current context and identity?

491
00:30:30.594 --> 00:30:30.794
All right.

492
00:30:30.834 --> 00:30:33.576
So let's talk about lifeguards and imposter syndrome.

493
00:30:33.956 --> 00:30:38.059
So imposter syndrome was named by two social scientists about 70 years ago.

494
00:30:38.739 --> 00:30:47.105
Imposter syndrome is that feeling when you're doing something important or new that you're a little bit of a fake or a fraud and that someone else ought to be doing this instead of you.

495
00:30:48.460 --> 00:30:50.401
So the story I tell is about being a lifeguard.

496
00:30:50.642 --> 00:30:53.644
So in Canada, you have to get your bronze medallion to be a lifeguard.

497
00:30:54.264 --> 00:30:58.167
And imagine you're on Canoe Lake on duty.

498
00:30:58.287 --> 00:30:59.768
There's six lifeguards on the dock.

499
00:31:00.749 --> 00:31:03.230
And a kid starts drowning right in front of you.

500
00:31:04.404 --> 00:31:08.646
The first thing that might come to mind is, I just barely got my bronze medallion.

501
00:31:08.986 --> 00:31:12.488
And that guy two docks down is a much better swimmer than me.

502
00:31:13.028 --> 00:31:14.569
This is, someone else should say it.

503
00:31:14.629 --> 00:31:16.810
And then you realize, no, no, it's right in front of you.

504
00:31:16.930 --> 00:31:17.531
This is your kid.

505
00:31:17.871 --> 00:31:18.711
You jump in the water.

506
00:31:18.911 --> 00:31:20.312
Do you apologize for your stroke?

507
00:31:20.792 --> 00:31:22.953
Do you say, I'm really sorry I'm not getting there as fast?

508
00:31:23.234 --> 00:31:24.554
You save the kid.

509
00:31:24.914 --> 00:31:26.175
That's what lifeguards do.

510
00:31:26.455 --> 00:31:28.997
The kid is going to thank you, and their parents are going to thank you.

511
00:31:29.657 --> 00:31:31.278
That's the work of a lifeguard.

512
00:31:32.098 --> 00:31:35.719
Lifeguards are able to overcome resistance because it's such a vivid thing.

513
00:31:36.599 --> 00:31:46.402
Well, if someone's going to send an email newsletter to someone who asked for it, and that might help them get to where they're going, where's the embarrassment exactly?

514
00:31:47.522 --> 00:31:51.843
And shame is this interesting emotion because we must receive it.

515
00:31:52.143 --> 00:31:54.804
It's sent to us all the time, but you have to receive it.

516
00:31:56.177 --> 00:31:56.757
for it to work.

517
00:31:57.158 --> 00:32:02.721
Now I'm walking on 74th Street, not far from here, past this little pocket playground.

518
00:32:03.742 --> 00:32:07.304
And I hear a four-year-old inside the playground taunting somebody else.

519
00:32:08.045 --> 00:32:13.048
And this kid is making fun of this guy, making fun of his clothes, making fun of the fact that he's bald.

520
00:32:13.409 --> 00:32:15.370
And then I realized the kid's taunting me.

521
00:32:17.037 --> 00:32:20.939
Because he was just, you know, it felt safe for him and he was yelling at bystanders.

522
00:32:21.779 --> 00:32:25.041
The point was it instantly brought me back to third grade.

523
00:32:25.581 --> 00:32:28.663
Instantly brought me back to what does it feel like to be bullied.

524
00:32:28.743 --> 00:32:31.184
But wait, first of all, you're on the other side of a fence.

525
00:32:31.484 --> 00:32:32.564
I'm never going to see you again.

526
00:32:32.785 --> 00:32:34.645
You cannot put any shame on me.

527
00:32:35.426 --> 00:32:35.966
It bounces off me.

528
00:32:38.116 --> 00:32:45.822
And when we can get to useful work for a small audience of people, we're allowed to say to someone who doesn't get the joke, sorry, it's not for you.

529
00:32:46.762 --> 00:32:47.283
I forgive you.

530
00:32:48.143 --> 00:32:49.264
I don't have to accept your shame.

531
00:32:49.364 --> 00:32:53.427
I don't have to accept the embarrassment you want to give me because I'm here for the right reason.

532
00:32:54.067 --> 00:32:56.149
And if it's not for you, we both learned something.

533
00:32:57.014 --> 00:33:01.956
I guess because of the internet as well, embarrassment is everywhere and shame is everywhere.

534
00:33:01.976 --> 00:33:05.797
People are, you start anything on the internet, there's going to be some troll that tells you it's terrible.

535
00:33:06.417 --> 00:33:25.263
Even when we started this podcast, I mean, still today we get a lot of people telling us it's fucking terrible, but because it's everywhere, one could almost argue that overcoming it is now a superpower because you know everybody that does anything is going to encounter it and you know how painful it is to deal with that.

536
00:33:26.183 --> 00:33:27.584
And you also know that most people won't.

537
00:33:28.204 --> 00:33:39.691
That actually the skill of mastering, like overcoming shame or embarrassment or critical feedback or whatever it might be, might be one of the most important skills in the modern world today when there's so much negative feedback and so much shame or embarrassment or whatever.

538
00:33:40.732 --> 00:33:42.493
That's what I was thinking of when you were saying it.

539
00:33:42.533 --> 00:33:44.454
It's like, how do I get better at dealing with that?

540
00:33:44.854 --> 00:33:47.816
Well, let's look at it slightly differently because I think that's a great point.

541
00:33:47.936 --> 00:33:50.417
But practical empathy says...

542
00:33:51.418 --> 00:33:52.358
I don't know what you know.

543
00:33:53.079 --> 00:33:54.099
I didn't have the day you had.

544
00:33:54.439 --> 00:33:56.340
I don't want what you want, and that's okay.

545
00:33:57.021 --> 00:34:01.342
And I can forgive that, and I don't have to take it personally.

546
00:34:01.883 --> 00:34:03.644
I can simply take it seriously.

547
00:34:04.384 --> 00:34:05.564
And those are different things.

548
00:34:06.025 --> 00:34:08.406
Here's an interesting semi-business example.

549
00:34:08.426 --> 00:34:09.186
You've been to Shake Shack.

550
00:34:09.566 --> 00:34:09.746
Yes.

551
00:34:10.347 --> 00:34:11.767
My friend Danny Meyer started Shake Shack.

552
00:34:11.807 --> 00:34:13.268
It's now a multi-billion dollar company.

553
00:34:13.908 --> 00:34:16.568
Shake Shack is based on his youth in St. Louis, Missouri.

554
00:34:17.509 --> 00:34:20.229
And he grew up with crinkle-cut french fries.

555
00:34:20.589 --> 00:34:24.990
Crinkle-cut french fries are the secret to a certain kind of fast food hamburger joint.

556
00:34:26.210 --> 00:34:31.051
And fancy New York restaurant critics, Ed Levine, The New York Times, said, what are you doing?

557
00:34:31.351 --> 00:34:34.011
You're making this whole big deal out of everything that's handmade and fresh.

558
00:34:34.512 --> 00:34:38.812
You're serving frozen crinkle-cut french fries that we can buy in the freezer.

559
00:34:39.312 --> 00:34:39.992
It's a supermarket.

560
00:34:40.453 --> 00:34:42.513
You need to make real french fries.

561
00:34:43.373 --> 00:34:47.816
So Danny, his status is associated with the fanciest restaurants in the United States.

562
00:34:48.656 --> 00:34:54.900
And he and his team see this assault they're getting on being embarrassed about the French fries, which are at the heart of their menu.

563
00:34:55.760 --> 00:34:59.002
So they spend millions of dollars over the course of a year.

564
00:35:00.323 --> 00:35:10.130
Researching potatoes, reconfiguring every single restaurant, putting in a different kind of fryer, making fresh-cut French fries is a really big challenge.

565
00:35:10.830 --> 00:35:17.375
Also, fresh-cut French fries are a living thing, and in May, the potatoes are different than they are in November.

566
00:35:17.835 --> 00:35:24.480
So sometimes a fresh-cut French fry is the best French fry you've ever had, and sometimes it's limp and not very good.

567
00:35:25.240 --> 00:35:33.327
And they switched to fresh cut French fries because they wanted the status that came from New York cultural critics saying, these are guys that are authentic.

568
00:35:33.407 --> 00:35:34.187
They're the real deal.

569
00:35:35.288 --> 00:35:36.469
And the French fries were no good.

570
00:35:37.710 --> 00:35:42.654
And the entire internet blew up and say, what have you done to Shake Shack?

571
00:35:42.894 --> 00:35:46.537
And the staff hated making them and it was a mess and you had to clean things differently.

572
00:35:47.158 --> 00:35:53.583
Nothing good came of the shift except making a couple people in New York City happy because that's who they decided to listen to.

573
00:35:55.046 --> 00:36:00.129
And one day, Danny looked at this and said, what is the purpose of the French fries at Shake Shack?

574
00:36:00.590 --> 00:36:07.474
Do the French fries at Shake Shack exist to help a non-customer feel good about eating at a Danny Meyer restaurant?

575
00:36:08.014 --> 00:36:12.477
Or do the French fries at Shake Shack exist to further the story of what it is to come to Shake Shack?

576
00:36:13.537 --> 00:36:17.778
And they ripped everything out and they went back to the crinkle cut fries and the world rejoiced.

577
00:36:18.318 --> 00:36:32.021
Profits went up, productivity went up, and they got back to what they were trying to do in the first place by forgiving and ignoring the people who needed to say, you need fresh cut french fries because that's what they stood for.

578
00:36:32.501 --> 00:36:34.602
But it wasn't what the business was for.

579
00:36:35.977 --> 00:36:45.159
This sounds like a business story, but actually, as you were saying it, I realized that it pertains to everybody's life listening right now because we're all serving a certain voice.

580
00:36:45.459 --> 00:36:45.679
Right.

581
00:36:45.959 --> 00:36:50.560
And then the other thing that came to mind is I've just hired someone called Ada Pema, who came from Amazon.

582
00:36:50.640 --> 00:36:53.781
She was leading products there, building AI products at AWS.

583
00:36:53.801 --> 00:36:58.502
She's now leading, she's our CITO, Chief Innovation and Technology Officer at Stephen.com, my holding company.

584
00:36:58.982 --> 00:37:04.409
And one of the things she told me about Amazon is that they are just unbelievably obsessed in the customer.

585
00:37:04.869 --> 00:37:07.913
Every decision they make from a culture perspective is all about the customer.

586
00:37:08.173 --> 00:37:18.505
She even told me that Jeff Bezos in his meetings and still in the Amazon meetings today, they put an extra chair in every meeting that is empty to represent the customer.

587
00:37:19.106 --> 00:37:20.927
because they want the customer to be in every meeting.

588
00:37:21.308 --> 00:37:27.212
And she told me how that anchors all of the decisions they make from a product perspective right back to the person they're serving.

589
00:37:27.812 --> 00:37:34.897
I guess it kills the donkey thing you told me, because they're not having to choose between serving the merchants or the customer.

590
00:37:34.977 --> 00:37:36.298
They are serving the customer.

591
00:37:36.718 --> 00:37:41.001
Sometimes she told me at the merchant's expense, but you have to be okay with that.

592
00:37:42.080 --> 00:37:42.660
That's what she said to me.

593
00:37:42.841 --> 00:37:45.503
And I actually really stayed with me because now I always think about like, who's the customer?

594
00:37:45.523 --> 00:37:45.963
Who's the customer?

595
00:37:45.983 --> 00:37:47.945
Even when I do this podcast, you hear me talking about personas.

596
00:37:48.285 --> 00:37:50.326
I'm talking about Dave the taxi driver and Jenny the mom.

597
00:37:50.607 --> 00:37:51.007
Exactly.

598
00:37:51.027 --> 00:37:51.968
That's who we're serving here.

599
00:37:52.228 --> 00:37:52.408
Yeah.

600
00:37:52.688 --> 00:37:54.690
And so I just need to put a small paperclip here.

601
00:37:55.210 --> 00:37:57.812
In the last two years, Amazon has lost their way about who they're serving.

602
00:37:58.513 --> 00:38:07.800
And Amazon made billions and billions of dollars last year selling ads that make Amazon search worse to people who want to interrupt what you're looking for to put their thing up on top.

603
00:38:08.200 --> 00:38:09.301
That doesn't serve the customer.

604
00:38:09.561 --> 00:38:11.363
That serves a different kind of shareholder.

605
00:38:12.043 --> 00:38:28.274
But yes, the model of what Jeff built there from the way they hold their meetings, which is absolutely fascinating, to what they chose to do about who it was for and who it wasn't for, were consistent about saying, this is the problem we are here to solve.

606
00:38:28.674 --> 00:38:30.175
This is the purpose of this click.

607
00:38:30.476 --> 00:38:31.937
This is the purpose of this page.

608
00:38:32.257 --> 00:38:33.838
There's no doubt about what it's for.

609
00:38:34.798 --> 00:38:42.943
And so the meeting thing, most people who are listening to this go to meetings, and many people who have white-collar jobs say the meetings are the worst part of their day.

610
00:38:44.264 --> 00:38:45.425
What is the meeting for?

611
00:38:46.205 --> 00:38:55.011
The typical meeting, if we're going to be honest, is to make the boss feel like you are listening to them and let the boss take attendance because it could probably be a memo.

612
00:38:55.706 --> 00:38:58.748
And if you're not sending a memo and you're having a meeting, let's be clear.

613
00:38:58.988 --> 00:38:59.708
Who's this for?

614
00:39:00.188 --> 00:39:00.769
What's it for?

615
00:39:00.829 --> 00:39:04.191
What is the purpose of what we just did here with eight people just listening the whole time?

616
00:39:04.571 --> 00:39:07.292
Well, why didn't you just send them a video that they could watch at double speed?

617
00:39:08.713 --> 00:39:09.674
Meetings are a symptom.

618
00:39:10.194 --> 00:39:17.958
They're a symptom of whether the organization is entangled and stuck with unspoken rules about what we do around here.

619
00:39:19.379 --> 00:39:21.700
And we can see them everywhere we look.

620
00:39:22.160 --> 00:39:24.842
When in doubt, there are three things that drive people.

621
00:39:26.474 --> 00:39:31.038
Fear, belonging or affiliation, and status.

622
00:39:31.899 --> 00:39:33.560
And we don't really understand what they mean.

623
00:39:33.600 --> 00:39:34.541
So first, fear.

624
00:39:35.882 --> 00:39:38.265
I call it the freedom from fear, which is different.

625
00:39:38.465 --> 00:39:41.628
Freedom from fear is I don't want to do things that are going to make me feel nervous.

626
00:39:41.688 --> 00:39:44.730
I don't want to do things that I think I'm afraid of.

627
00:39:45.311 --> 00:39:46.932
That keeps people from doing a lot of things.

628
00:39:46.952 --> 00:39:47.393
That's resistance.

629
00:39:47.413 --> 00:39:47.793
That's resistance.

630
00:39:49.088 --> 00:39:55.651
Affiliation is you don't wear a tuxedo to a funeral or a clown suit.

631
00:39:55.851 --> 00:39:57.572
No one's going to do that, so you're not going to do that.

632
00:39:57.772 --> 00:39:58.272
Fitting in.

633
00:39:58.672 --> 00:39:59.333
Who's to my left?

634
00:39:59.593 --> 00:40:00.253
Who's to my right?

635
00:40:00.333 --> 00:40:01.454
What's everybody else doing?

636
00:40:02.174 --> 00:40:05.195
And the third one, which is really misunderstood, is status.

637
00:40:05.895 --> 00:40:06.796
Status is simple.

638
00:40:07.296 --> 00:40:08.277
Who eats lunch first?

639
00:40:08.697 --> 00:40:12.378
When we get to the oasis, which animal gets the water first?

640
00:40:12.458 --> 00:40:15.260
Status isn't money, but it could be related to money.

641
00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:17.861
Status is just who's up and who's down.

642
00:40:18.601 --> 00:40:24.246
These three things keep dancing with each other about how people choose what kind of code.

643
00:40:24.266 --> 00:40:28.009
Are they going to buy Patagonia or are they going to buy a cheaper knockoff?

644
00:40:28.410 --> 00:40:32.013
One of those things comes with a different kind of affiliation and status than another one.

645
00:40:32.313 --> 00:40:36.156
But if we look for this, we can start to decode

646
00:40:37.117 --> 00:40:39.618
That quiet butt that's been going on in our head.

647
00:40:39.998 --> 00:40:40.919
Name it, right?

648
00:40:41.199 --> 00:40:42.219
I want to get this car.

649
00:40:42.379 --> 00:40:42.679
Why?

650
00:40:42.699 --> 00:40:43.500
Because it's fast.

651
00:40:43.560 --> 00:40:44.700
No, you don't need to go fast.

652
00:40:45.120 --> 00:40:52.483
I want to get this car because that kid at the high school lunch table who said I was never going to amount to something, he could never afford this car.

653
00:40:52.503 --> 00:40:57.425
And every time I get in this car, I'm going to be able to tell myself a story that I'm not that kid from the lunch table anymore.

654
00:40:57.645 --> 00:40:58.766
That's why I want to get this car.

655
00:40:59.466 --> 00:41:01.907
Okay, now we're clear about what problem you're here to solve.

656
00:41:03.312 --> 00:41:03.712
Go for it.

657
00:41:04.392 --> 00:41:04.592
Really?

658
00:41:05.313 --> 00:41:06.313
Well, does it help you?

659
00:41:06.713 --> 00:41:09.194
Is that what you want to put your resources into?

660
00:41:09.234 --> 00:41:12.615
If that helps you, then it solved the problem.

661
00:41:12.775 --> 00:41:15.056
Do you think it is a worthy goal, a worthy reason?

662
00:41:15.276 --> 00:41:23.538
Well, it's not for me to decide this, that high school leaves all sorts of tracks all over how we look at the world.

663
00:41:23.618 --> 00:41:30.140
My high school English teacher wrote in my yearbook, you are the bane of my existence and you will never amount to anything.

664
00:41:31.989 --> 00:41:40.874
And she was partially in jest, but remembering that as I become a professional writer is fascinating.

665
00:41:41.534 --> 00:41:46.637
I dedicated like my ninth book to her and then I could let it go, right?

666
00:41:47.197 --> 00:41:49.918
And she and I had a wonderful lunch a couple of years later.

667
00:41:50.258 --> 00:41:54.561
The point is we can't deny that these things are in our lives.

668
00:41:54.861 --> 00:41:58.883
None of us are living this optimized, fully optimized life.

669
00:42:00.338 --> 00:42:12.833
The reason you're going and taking those nutritional supplements, the reason you're listening to this thing about some shortcut of bio whatever has nothing to do with you doing an actual analysis of all the best ways for you to be healthy.

670
00:42:13.574 --> 00:42:14.935
They have to do with feeling agency.

671
00:42:15.296 --> 00:42:19.240
They have to do with feeling a certain kind of affiliation with the crowd you're in.

672
00:42:20.081 --> 00:42:21.622
That's why we have cycles in medicine.

673
00:42:22.142 --> 00:42:27.025
It's not because medicine goes in and out of actual science fashion.

674
00:42:27.125 --> 00:42:35.269
It's because culture changes what we think is beautiful, changes what we think we need to do to get our emotional needs met.

675
00:42:36.373 --> 00:42:42.558
I've got 60 seconds and I'm going to show you how much I can get done because of our sponsor called Whisper Flow.

676
00:42:42.678 --> 00:42:48.883
And for those of you that don't know what it is, it's a business I invested in that turns your speech into text in any app or device.

677
00:42:49.003 --> 00:42:53.887
I'm going to post into our Slack channel, which rewards whichever team member conducted the most experiments this week.

678
00:42:54.287 --> 00:42:54.828
Hi, everyone.

679
00:42:55.168 --> 00:42:57.510
Here is this week's Experimenter of the Week.

680
00:42:57.750 --> 00:43:03.414
Congratulations to the Diary of a CEO trailer team, which is Ant, Liv, Dom and Cam.

681
00:43:03.755 --> 00:43:04.695
You guys have won.

682
00:43:05.616 --> 00:43:06.797
Okay, now I'm going to open Gmail.

683
00:43:07.057 --> 00:43:10.058
So here is one of our founders on an email chain that I want to connect my team with.

684
00:43:10.158 --> 00:43:16.001
All I have to say is add my team's emails and Whisper will do exactly that.

685
00:43:16.241 --> 00:43:19.163
Now a quick message to Juan who does my schedule every single week.

686
00:43:19.423 --> 00:43:22.204
Hey Juan, can I record on Wednesday at 2pm?

687
00:43:22.304 --> 00:43:23.025
Actually no, do you know what?

688
00:43:23.045 --> 00:43:24.686
Let's record at 3pm on Wednesday.

689
00:43:24.706 --> 00:43:24.806
Okay.

690
00:43:25.806 --> 00:43:30.068
Whisper Flow is four times faster than typing, and it is incredibly easy to use.

691
00:43:30.088 --> 00:43:36.111
So if you want to give it a go, all you have to do is head to whisperflow.ai slash Stephen to download it today.

692
00:43:36.131 --> 00:43:43.234
I've spent the last decade building and investing in companies, and so often the conversation around marketing budgets follows the exact same pattern.

693
00:43:43.334 --> 00:43:46.155
The budget gets approved, but then the results don't come back.

694
00:43:46.275 --> 00:43:49.856
And most of the time, the creative pitch and the offer is fine.

695
00:43:50.157 --> 00:43:51.757
The problem lies with the audience.

696
00:43:52.057 --> 00:43:55.359
Ads reach people who will never buy or refer.

697
00:43:55.779 --> 00:43:57.820
nor do they have the power to sign off anything at all.

698
00:43:58.120 --> 00:44:00.682
And this is why so much budget gets wasted.

699
00:44:00.862 --> 00:44:10.508
LinkedIn Ads, who are a sponsor of this podcast, lets you reach them specifically by job title, seniority, company size, industry, the skills that they have, and much more.

700
00:44:10.688 --> 00:44:13.210
You're no longer hoping your ad reaches the right person.

701
00:44:13.611 --> 00:44:15.833
Instead, you're defining exactly who sees it.

702
00:44:16.133 --> 00:44:21.378
And LinkedIn ads drives the highest B2B return on ad spend across all major ad networks.

703
00:44:21.778 --> 00:44:25.081
Give them a try at linkedin.com slash diary.

704
00:44:25.401 --> 00:44:34.550
And if you spend $250 on your first campaign, you'll get a $250 credit for your next one just by going to linkedin.com slash diary.

705
00:44:34.850 --> 00:44:35.531
Keep this to yourself.

706
00:44:35.571 --> 00:44:36.552
Terms and conditions apply.

707
00:44:37.658 --> 00:44:44.902
I think I ask this as well because, yes, you can serve my parents' expectations because they're immigrants and they want me to be doctor, lawyer, scientist, whatever.

708
00:44:45.542 --> 00:44:50.005
Or I could serve my kids who want me to be a great dad.

709
00:44:50.225 --> 00:44:55.287
Or I could serve my playground trauma who wants to get the kid back who said I was never going to be anything.

710
00:44:55.348 --> 00:44:55.808
Exactly.

711
00:44:56.368 --> 00:44:58.370
Are any of these voices more worthy than the other?

712
00:44:58.510 --> 00:45:01.493
Is there a particular voice we should really orientate ourselves around?

713
00:45:01.513 --> 00:45:05.637
The other thing I've really now sort of internalized is I'm going to have to say no to the other voices.

714
00:45:05.797 --> 00:45:06.017
Yeah.

715
00:45:06.117 --> 00:45:09.441
I can't try and serve them all, or else I'll be the donkey stuck in the middle of the water and the carrot.

716
00:45:09.561 --> 00:45:10.001
I love this.

717
00:45:10.101 --> 00:45:11.162
I wish I'd put this in the book.

718
00:45:11.322 --> 00:45:16.567
This is exactly correct, that we're going to have to forgive some of these voices.

719
00:45:16.647 --> 00:45:18.970
So there are three basic things that get us hung up.

720
00:45:19.470 --> 00:45:25.993
There are time entanglements, which is today is not yesterday, and today is not tomorrow.

721
00:45:26.053 --> 00:45:26.733
Today is right now.

722
00:45:27.594 --> 00:45:31.435
There are social community entanglements.

723
00:45:31.515 --> 00:45:32.856
What will this person think of me?

724
00:45:32.896 --> 00:45:34.256
What will that person think of me?

725
00:45:34.857 --> 00:45:37.918
And then there are the entanglements we have with our vision of ourselves.

726
00:45:38.838 --> 00:45:41.539
When I look in the mirror, if this works, what will I think of myself?

727
00:45:41.680 --> 00:45:43.460
If this doesn't work, what will I think of myself?

728
00:45:44.101 --> 00:45:46.722
And all three of them get in the way

729
00:45:47.580 --> 00:45:51.901
of announcing a purpose and then going to solve that problem.

730
00:45:52.561 --> 00:45:59.142
Because we say to ourselves, well, I want to work to help the poor, but I can't get a job at a really fancy nonprofit.

731
00:45:59.322 --> 00:46:03.083
And if I get a job at a less fancy nonprofit, then what will my parents think?

732
00:46:03.463 --> 00:46:05.543
Oh, all of that's going on.

733
00:46:05.663 --> 00:46:07.364
We have to acknowledge that, right?

734
00:46:07.764 --> 00:46:10.824
We say, I went to law school for three years.

735
00:46:11.224 --> 00:46:11.905
I didn't like it.

736
00:46:12.125 --> 00:46:13.865
I practiced law for five years.

737
00:46:14.705 --> 00:46:15.286
I hated it.

738
00:46:15.846 --> 00:46:18.609
Do I want to spend the next 40 years of my life being a lawyer?

739
00:46:19.109 --> 00:46:21.071
Because I've tried it fully out.

740
00:46:22.292 --> 00:46:31.020
We can't quit because then we would have to explain to our former self, why did they pay this big price to get me this fancy gift?

741
00:46:31.400 --> 00:46:32.181
And I'm ignoring it.

742
00:46:32.581 --> 00:46:34.163
Some costs keep us trapped.

743
00:46:35.088 --> 00:46:38.130
And what we can do is realize that's a gift from our former self.

744
00:46:38.731 --> 00:46:40.372
And like all gifts, you don't have to accept it.

745
00:46:40.392 --> 00:46:44.635
If someone shows up and offers you a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig to take care of, you can say, no, thank you.

746
00:46:44.755 --> 00:46:45.796
I don't want to accept your gift.

747
00:46:46.196 --> 00:46:50.079
That law degree is a gift, but you don't have to accept it now.

748
00:46:50.260 --> 00:46:55.063
Now that you know what you know, you can make a different decision about the purpose of your work.

749
00:46:55.804 --> 00:47:02.369
And if it's not helping you achieve the purpose of your work, you can forgive it, say thank you very much, and untie the knot.

750
00:47:03.602 --> 00:47:07.984
I think that point around sunk cost is an important one to really double click on.

751
00:47:08.244 --> 00:47:12.686
Because when I learned about the idea of sunk cost, it completely changed me as an investor.

752
00:47:13.666 --> 00:47:14.386
It was actually my brother.

753
00:47:14.406 --> 00:47:18.328
My brother's been working in investment banking for 15 years, now works in my company.

754
00:47:18.988 --> 00:47:23.552
and he explained to me one day early in my career, he goes, Stephen, it was a stock I had.

755
00:47:23.872 --> 00:47:26.934
I was an investor in a particular stock, and the stock was doing terribly.

756
00:47:27.194 --> 00:47:31.818
The company was doing terribly, but I didn't want to sell it because I'd invested at a higher price.

757
00:47:32.038 --> 00:47:32.378
Correct.

758
00:47:32.458 --> 00:47:39.744
And then he sent me the Psychology of Money book and a few other papers and said, this is what sunk cost bias is, and it'll ruin your life if you don't realize what it is.

759
00:47:40.164 --> 00:47:41.645
Yeah, and it's in everything we do.

760
00:47:41.885 --> 00:47:47.629
So the new parking apps let you find a parking garage near where you're going and pay in advance.

761
00:47:48.030 --> 00:47:48.170
Mm-hmm.

762
00:47:48.570 --> 00:47:50.711
So when I come into the city, sometimes I'll do this.

763
00:47:51.351 --> 00:47:58.274
So I've got a $35 ticket to go park at this lot starting in five minutes.

764
00:47:58.294 --> 00:48:01.056
I'm driving in and I pass a free space on the street.

765
00:48:01.776 --> 00:48:02.416
Should I take it?

766
00:48:03.997 --> 00:48:10.740
So the advantage of the free space, of course, is you can leave when you want to leave and you don't have to engage and it saves you five or ten minutes.

767
00:48:11.300 --> 00:48:16.663
But if I take the free space, I'm wasting the money I just paid for that parking garage.

768
00:48:17.596 --> 00:48:24.919
And it still goes off in my head that, well, yeah, obviously you take the free space because the money you paid is already gone.

769
00:48:25.639 --> 00:48:28.160
That ticket is a gift from your former self.

770
00:48:28.920 --> 00:48:31.701
Knowing what you know now, would you take this job?

771
00:48:32.041 --> 00:48:35.002
Knowing what you know now, would you take this parking space?

772
00:48:35.902 --> 00:48:39.904
And if the answer is yes, then you can forgive what got you here.

773
00:48:40.847 --> 00:48:44.548
Because serving the old you, the old you's gone.

774
00:48:45.148 --> 00:48:47.289
I was thinking about relationships as well.

775
00:48:47.509 --> 00:48:47.709
Yeah.

776
00:48:48.830 --> 00:48:56.032
Now, if you're the kind of person that leaves a relationship every three weeks because you're ignoring sunk costs, then you're never going to have a relationship.

777
00:48:56.552 --> 00:49:02.955
Repeating the process has costs to you because it develops these patterns.

778
00:49:03.355 --> 00:49:05.675
That's not the kind of sunk costs I'm talking about.

779
00:49:05.695 --> 00:49:09.917
But yes, when you meet somebody who has decided to end a relationship,

780
00:49:11.096 --> 00:49:15.400
The healthy thing for them to do is to say that relationship was then.

781
00:49:16.101 --> 00:49:20.946
I made all the right decisions based on who I was then, based on who they were then.

782
00:49:21.667 --> 00:49:23.308
But we are not those people anymore.

783
00:49:23.468 --> 00:49:26.652
So based on who we are now, do we want to recommit to this?

784
00:49:27.593 --> 00:49:28.954
Will it pay off in the future?

785
00:49:29.314 --> 00:49:32.858
And if the answer is no, it will not pay off in the future, you've already answered the question.

786
00:49:33.558 --> 00:49:36.300
It reminds me of Daniel Kahneman's work on loss aversion.

787
00:49:36.700 --> 00:49:44.844
And I think this is an important thing to explain, because when you realize what's actually going on in your head and why people don't like to lose things, you can spot it when it's happening to you.

788
00:49:45.204 --> 00:49:45.445
Right.

789
00:49:45.825 --> 00:49:49.427
I read this study that showed if you lose 10 pounds in the street, falls out my pocket.

790
00:49:50.027 --> 00:49:54.629
If I then find £10, it doesn't make up for the £10 I just lost.

791
00:49:54.809 --> 00:50:01.812
I'd have to find £20 to feel the pleasure sufficient to the pain that I experienced from losing the £10.

792
00:50:02.072 --> 00:50:02.272
Yeah.

793
00:50:02.312 --> 00:50:04.033
Humans don't like to lose things.

794
00:50:04.753 --> 00:50:07.994
And when I remember searching, what's like the evolutionary reason for this?

795
00:50:08.094 --> 00:50:14.017
And it came to say that once upon a time in our evolutionary past, again, this is a hypothesis,

796
00:50:14.937 --> 00:50:22.380
when we had a meal in front of us, going in pursuit of another meal, that would risk the one we currently have was a terrible decision to make.

797
00:50:23.040 --> 00:50:30.503
So actually, we're designed to be sufficiently satisfied with what we have versus the pursuit of surplus.

798
00:50:30.963 --> 00:50:32.544
So we want to protect what we currently have.

799
00:50:32.684 --> 00:50:34.425
That was a survival advantage.

800
00:50:35.365 --> 00:50:36.046
No, absolutely.

801
00:50:36.106 --> 00:50:37.507
We don't have to look in evolution.

802
00:50:37.547 --> 00:50:38.708
We look at wild animals today.

803
00:50:39.088 --> 00:50:40.229
Wild animals are wild.

804
00:50:40.749 --> 00:50:41.830
They hate change.

805
00:50:41.970 --> 00:50:48.035
Change never helped a species move forward because it represents a threat.

806
00:50:49.095 --> 00:50:53.339
And what we built as humans is a culture where change is happening faster and faster and faster.

807
00:50:53.379 --> 00:50:58.443
By the time we're done with this conversation, some AI company will have launched a new frontier model.

808
00:50:59.323 --> 00:50:59.603
Boom.

809
00:51:00.424 --> 00:51:02.506
And we can look at this and say, where can I go hide?

810
00:51:02.526 --> 00:51:02.806
Right.

811
00:51:03.325 --> 00:51:07.988
How can I get back to being a wild animal that's in this one place where nothing changes?

812
00:51:09.029 --> 00:51:21.016
Or we can decide to get back to the purpose of what are we trying to do right now, ignore the stuff that's not relevant to it, seek out the stuff that helps us make the change we seek to make, and get back to work.

813
00:51:21.876 --> 00:51:24.278
So we need to decide.

814
00:51:25.222 --> 00:51:26.742
Where are we going to put our attention?

815
00:51:27.022 --> 00:51:29.043
Because our attention is something we can never get back.

816
00:51:30.123 --> 00:51:34.964
You talked as well about systems, the systems we're held in place with.

817
00:51:35.764 --> 00:51:38.565
One of the things that I've seen in your work is this idea of picking yourself.

818
00:51:39.105 --> 00:51:44.746
Because I guess we're wired to believe that there are still gatekeepers, but those gatekeepers have increasingly vanished.

819
00:51:44.766 --> 00:51:50.647
I mean, the fact that I can start this podcast and people listen, I think is evidence of the fact that you no longer need gatekeepers.

820
00:51:50.667 --> 00:51:52.047
Do you know a funny story that I've never told?

821
00:51:56.329 --> 00:52:03.995
I went for an interview with LBC, which is a UK radio station, before I took this podcast seriously.

822
00:52:04.295 --> 00:52:04.775
I went there.

823
00:52:05.156 --> 00:52:07.637
I did my two-hour audition, sat there in the chair.

824
00:52:07.838 --> 00:52:08.858
People pretended to phone in.

825
00:52:08.878 --> 00:52:10.339
It was just staff LBC.

826
00:52:10.920 --> 00:52:11.841
And I left.

827
00:52:11.901 --> 00:52:13.142
I was quite nervous, etc.

828
00:52:13.162 --> 00:52:16.364
I thought I did a good job, but I was a little bit nervous, unsure about what they might say.

829
00:52:16.924 --> 00:52:17.625
And I never heard back.

830
00:52:18.205 --> 00:52:19.346
They never gave me feedback.

831
00:52:19.366 --> 00:52:20.947
They never told me if I was good, if I was bad.

832
00:52:21.328 --> 00:52:24.050
So I started this podcast on YouTube in my kitchen.

833
00:52:24.070 --> 00:52:24.350
Yeah.

834
00:52:26.428 --> 00:52:27.369
Back from LBC.

835
00:52:28.030 --> 00:52:33.835
And it just goes to show, actually, you don't need a massive company to give you permission to start a platform.

836
00:52:33.855 --> 00:52:35.776
You can just do things in this modern world.

837
00:52:35.816 --> 00:52:38.038
And this is kind of dovetails into your idea of picking yourself.

838
00:52:38.218 --> 00:52:38.398
Yeah.

839
00:52:38.719 --> 00:52:41.081
So let's talk about systems first, and then we'll come back to picking yourself.

840
00:52:41.221 --> 00:52:41.421
Okay.

841
00:52:41.781 --> 00:52:46.005
People get a little glassy-eyed when you talk about systems, so let me try to make it really simple.

842
00:52:47.488 --> 00:52:50.311
When you get in a car here, you drive on the right side of the road.

843
00:52:50.872 --> 00:52:53.795
When you get back to the UK, you drive on the left side of the road.

844
00:52:53.815 --> 00:52:53.895
Why?

845
00:52:54.335 --> 00:52:58.039
Because it's way more efficient to drive on the same side of the road as everybody else.

846
00:52:58.879 --> 00:53:02.540
We have a system that says if you're going to drive in the United States, drive on the right side of the road.

847
00:53:02.560 --> 00:53:04.421
Systems start to get a little bit more complicated.

848
00:53:05.101 --> 00:53:12.824
The college industrial complex is a system that starts in first grade that includes things like the SATs and the stickers and the football teams and the dorms.

849
00:53:13.144 --> 00:53:17.726
And it's a 400-year-old system that we got into because it works.

850
00:53:18.607 --> 00:53:19.127
It works.

851
00:53:19.847 --> 00:53:26.971
For most people, most of the time, it's an easy way to look at a resume, see one word, and decide if you want to interview somebody or not.

852
00:53:27.832 --> 00:53:35.557
So the system that people my age grew up in is you would do as well as you could in high school, and a college would pick you.

853
00:53:35.997 --> 00:53:38.458
And then you do as well as you could in college, and then a company would pick you.

854
00:53:38.859 --> 00:53:42.721
And you do as well as you could at the company, and then they would pick you, and you get a promotion.

855
00:53:43.101 --> 00:53:43.882
And then you would die.

856
00:53:44.522 --> 00:53:48.224
And so we indoctrinated billions of people around the world.

857
00:53:48.344 --> 00:53:49.724
Please wait to get picked.

858
00:53:50.065 --> 00:53:51.005
Here are all the rules.

859
00:53:51.665 --> 00:53:54.006
And if you follow all the rules, you might get picked.

860
00:53:54.146 --> 00:53:55.147
Turns out it was rigged.

861
00:53:55.727 --> 00:53:57.768
Some people got picked unfairly.

862
00:53:57.968 --> 00:53:59.629
But that's what we got brainwashed.

863
00:53:59.669 --> 00:54:01.009
And we still teach our kids this.

864
00:54:02.410 --> 00:54:06.932
And then all of a sudden, starting in the 90s, we said, here's a microphone.

865
00:54:07.412 --> 00:54:08.373
Here's a video camera.

866
00:54:08.793 --> 00:54:10.133
Here's a typewriter.

867
00:54:10.834 --> 00:54:11.294
Pick yourself.

868
00:54:12.918 --> 00:54:15.761
And now it's extended to, here's an AI.

869
00:54:15.921 --> 00:54:17.422
You can start a company by tomorrow.

870
00:54:17.463 --> 00:54:19.985
You could build a complicated website by Friday.

871
00:54:21.390 --> 00:54:23.492
Wait, I'm waiting for someone to tell me I should go do that.

872
00:54:23.892 --> 00:54:24.793
No one's going to call.

873
00:54:25.793 --> 00:54:26.814
It's $20 a month.

874
00:54:27.435 --> 00:54:29.136
You can probably get it for free at your library.

875
00:54:29.956 --> 00:54:30.557
What are you going to do?

876
00:54:31.558 --> 00:54:34.840
And when we put ourselves on the hook, it's super scary.

877
00:54:35.440 --> 00:54:39.163
Because does that mean I'm responsible for every kid on Canoe Lake who needs a lifeguard?

878
00:54:39.503 --> 00:54:43.366
And I'm responsible for every kid who might suffer from river blindness.

879
00:54:43.386 --> 00:54:44.227
And I'm responsible for this.

880
00:54:44.787 --> 00:54:46.609
So it's easier to say I'm responsible for nobody.

881
00:54:46.949 --> 00:54:47.489
I'm a victim.

882
00:54:47.509 --> 00:54:47.930
Right.

883
00:54:48.430 --> 00:54:52.052
But we have the chance to say, I picked myself to solve this problem.

884
00:54:52.132 --> 00:54:54.212
I'm on the hook to help these people.

885
00:54:55.073 --> 00:54:59.475
I'm going to use whatever tools I can to pick myself to make a thing better.

886
00:55:00.615 --> 00:55:01.816
Turns out that's generative.

887
00:55:02.236 --> 00:55:05.697
If you get a little good at it, lots of people will ask you to do it again.

888
00:55:06.518 --> 00:55:12.020
When you give away credit and take responsibility, lots of people will ask you to do it again.

889
00:55:13.770 --> 00:55:20.993
Sometimes we tell ourselves that we're waiting to be picked because it's a nice excuse for resistance.

890
00:55:21.353 --> 00:55:31.837
We live in a permission-seeking state because it's a good shield to avoid this thing you were talking about, which is the freedom from fear.

891
00:55:32.158 --> 00:55:32.358
Yeah.

892
00:55:33.259 --> 00:55:39.583
I mean, the entire New York City book publishing industry is based on the author gets to say, well, they picked me to write the book.

893
00:55:40.544 --> 00:55:43.846
And then I got to go promote the book because I promised I would promote the book.

894
00:55:44.166 --> 00:55:47.468
The book isn't there because I wanted the book to be there.

895
00:55:47.528 --> 00:55:49.229
They asked me to write this book.

896
00:55:50.050 --> 00:55:56.994
And as soon as you can publish your own book, as soon as you can start your own YouTube channel, you don't get to say, great news, YouTube call.

897
00:55:57.014 --> 00:55:57.114
They

898
00:56:02.636 --> 00:56:09.640
The number of people you would think would go ahead and use this tool isn't as big as it could be.

899
00:56:09.860 --> 00:56:13.182
Because, again, it's one thing to ask a teenager to be on TikTok.

900
00:56:13.583 --> 00:56:14.863
They're just entertaining themselves.

901
00:56:14.963 --> 00:56:16.945
They don't see themselves as a TikToker.

902
00:56:17.645 --> 00:56:20.927
To see yourself as somebody, I picked myself.

903
00:56:21.287 --> 00:56:23.308
I am saying this and I'm responsible.

904
00:56:24.349 --> 00:56:24.849
That's hard.

905
00:56:25.189 --> 00:56:26.150
No one taught us to do that.

906
00:56:27.232 --> 00:56:28.413
It's kind of like the LBC thing.

907
00:56:28.533 --> 00:56:30.054
I was waiting for LBC to pick me.

908
00:56:30.154 --> 00:56:32.515
I think once this podcast comes out, they're going to call you.

909
00:56:33.236 --> 00:56:36.318
And you've got a big decision to make because it's steady, Stephen.

910
00:56:36.958 --> 00:56:40.540
They'll give you health insurance, the whole thing.

911
00:56:40.920 --> 00:56:42.081
I still love LBC, by the way.

912
00:56:42.101 --> 00:56:43.242
I still watch LBC.

913
00:56:43.682 --> 00:56:46.384
But I'm probably too busy now to do LBC.

914
00:56:47.064 --> 00:56:51.327
One of the sort of adjacent points here is how do I know –

915
00:56:52.307 --> 00:56:53.227
if I'm delusional.

916
00:56:53.667 --> 00:56:53.887
Right.

917
00:56:54.488 --> 00:57:05.411
I always think this, because a lot of the advice we give people around getting going and starting and pursuing the thing they want to pursue doesn't necessarily always come with the nuance that actually, like, I can't actually be an NBA player.

918
00:57:05.791 --> 00:57:06.191
Correct.

919
00:57:06.591 --> 00:57:07.611
But how do I know?

920
00:57:07.671 --> 00:57:11.773
Because all the advice is just go for it, pick yourself, et cetera, but... Yeah, that's not my advice.

921
00:57:11.793 --> 00:57:12.713
I might not have the talent.

922
00:57:13.113 --> 00:57:14.233
I'm so glad you brought this up.

923
00:57:14.293 --> 00:57:14.914
That's not my advice.

924
00:57:14.974 --> 00:57:15.954
You probably...

925
00:57:16.774 --> 00:57:25.539
are delusional if you're picking something that's super fun, that involves skipping lots of intermediate steps, and that ends with a happy ending where you're famous.

926
00:57:26.079 --> 00:57:28.580
The chances of winning that lottery are very, very low.

927
00:57:29.201 --> 00:57:31.782
So people come to me and say, I got this great book.

928
00:57:31.802 --> 00:57:34.504
Will you help me get a career as a novelist?

929
00:57:34.984 --> 00:57:36.825
And the answer is super easy.

930
00:57:37.405 --> 00:57:38.005
Take your novel.

931
00:57:38.606 --> 00:57:39.586
It was really hard for you to write.

932
00:57:39.626 --> 00:57:40.046
I get that.

933
00:57:40.447 --> 00:57:42.248
Make it into a nicely formatted PDF.

934
00:57:42.308 --> 00:57:42.988
Costs you nothing.

935
00:57:43.588 --> 00:57:44.129
Email it to 20

936
00:57:45.969 --> 00:57:50.719
If they send it to other people and it spreads, someone's going to call you and hire you to write your next novel.

937
00:57:51.501 --> 00:57:53.585
If it doesn't spread, write a better novel.

938
00:57:55.575 --> 00:58:01.720
But don't start running around saying, I'm a novelist and I deserve to get picked and have a big advance.

939
00:58:02.140 --> 00:58:11.368
The heartbreak of someone who is delusional is they insist that the world owes them because they worked so hard on X, Y, or Z.

940
00:58:12.409 --> 00:58:17.953
Or that they have found some secret transcript that if anyone else understood it, everyone would realize.

941
00:58:18.093 --> 00:58:19.895
Well, if people don't understand it, that's on you.

942
00:58:21.120 --> 00:58:24.722
So we can get past the delusion by going for the smallest viable audience.

943
00:58:24.742 --> 00:58:30.405
What's the smallest group of people that if I made a difference for them, it would be enough?

944
00:58:31.085 --> 00:58:36.909
What's interesting is I imagine if you said that to some people, they would really not like the answer.

945
00:58:37.509 --> 00:58:38.750
People hate it when I say this.

946
00:58:38.910 --> 00:58:39.290
Why?

947
00:58:40.150 --> 00:58:42.892
Because it's so comfortable to be stuck in that knot.

948
00:58:44.545 --> 00:58:48.487
I'm a genius and I'm really hardworking, but no one in the world understands me.

949
00:58:48.687 --> 00:58:58.072
So now my butt isn't the problem because I don't have to worry about any of the things that come with the responsibility of it being in front of the wrong people or whatever.

950
00:58:58.412 --> 00:59:00.373
It's so much easier to say, if only.

951
00:59:01.194 --> 00:59:05.176
And I need to be home for this or this thing happened to me.

952
00:59:05.636 --> 00:59:06.817
Therefore, I'm stuck.

953
00:59:07.597 --> 00:59:10.478
We're safe at some level in that frustration.

954
00:59:11.678 --> 00:59:17.199
And so what I'm trying to do with the knot is help people understand this is possible, but it is not easy.

955
00:59:18.099 --> 00:59:21.960
This is possible, but it will not give you the thing you are dreaming of.

956
00:59:22.620 --> 00:59:26.821
It will merely find a path to get to where it is possible to go.

957
00:59:27.841 --> 00:59:30.382
That's a grown-up thing to have to commit to.

958
00:59:31.262 --> 00:59:35.143
If someone's not happy with the advice you just gave, I think it also illuminates...

959
00:59:36.263 --> 00:59:37.604
that maybe their motives are wrong.

960
00:59:38.004 --> 00:59:44.429
It reminded me of when I started this podcast and I had these two friends, Oliver and Ash, come to me and say, that was good, when's the next one?

961
00:59:44.609 --> 00:59:48.831
And I always say, if they hadn't have said that to me, it probably wouldn't have continued because I was busy with other things.

962
00:59:49.092 --> 00:59:54.695
But those two people who I trusted and would tell me when something is terrible, I often do, saying that to me...

963
00:59:56.276 --> 00:59:58.617
just it gave me so much energy and motivation.

964
00:59:59.337 --> 01:00:06.179
And I kept publishing in part for them, because I knew Oliver had this like three and a half hour commute to work every day from Sheffield.

965
01:00:06.939 --> 01:00:08.459
And I loved the process.

966
01:00:08.519 --> 01:00:10.580
I was getting this feedback from this particular person that carried on going.

967
01:00:10.920 --> 01:00:18.502
But a lot of the time, actually, I think a lot of people would bounce off this advice of just send it to 20 people because they're actually attached to the podium.

968
01:00:19.322 --> 01:00:22.023
And what you're saying is, no, focus on the journey.

969
01:00:22.043 --> 01:00:22.503
Right.

970
01:00:22.603 --> 01:00:22.803
Right.

971
01:00:23.103 --> 01:00:26.324
But they want in their head somewhere, actually, no, I don't fuck the journey, Seth.

972
01:00:26.684 --> 01:00:29.224
I want to be famous and I want the million pounds.

973
01:00:29.244 --> 01:00:29.444
Right.

974
01:00:29.924 --> 01:00:30.925
And that's not what you're offering them.

975
01:00:31.005 --> 01:00:31.725
But actually you are.

976
01:00:32.105 --> 01:00:34.285
Well, someone's going to win the lottery, Stephen.

977
01:00:34.585 --> 01:00:35.765
And it's probably not going to be you.

978
01:00:37.026 --> 01:00:37.146
No.

979
01:00:37.326 --> 01:00:41.566
And so in your case, we're talking because you won the podcast lottery.

980
01:00:42.187 --> 01:00:46.747
There are 100 podcasts as good as this one out of a million, right?

981
01:00:46.907 --> 01:00:47.908
That's pretty amazing.

982
01:00:48.628 --> 01:00:49.908
But there's still 100 of them.

983
01:00:50.744 --> 01:00:55.729
So you show up to buy lottery tickets in a way that lets you buy more lottery tickets.

984
01:00:56.109 --> 01:00:59.252
You show up to add value for people so you can keep going.

985
01:00:59.872 --> 01:01:02.815
And then when there's a lottery, you got a shot, right?

986
01:01:03.215 --> 01:01:10.102
But along the way, the journey says, I have a chance to say, here, I made this.

987
01:01:11.422 --> 01:01:13.523
I made this means it's for you.

988
01:01:14.083 --> 01:01:15.204
It is a gift I'm giving you.

989
01:01:15.304 --> 01:01:17.465
If you don't accept the gift, I can't blame you.

990
01:01:18.205 --> 01:01:19.386
I just have to make a better gift.

991
01:01:20.106 --> 01:01:23.448
But if people start accepting your gifts, you have traction.

992
01:01:23.768 --> 01:01:25.889
And Steve Blank talks about customer traction.

993
01:01:25.949 --> 01:01:27.069
As an investor, you know this.

994
01:01:27.650 --> 01:01:32.632
Customer traction is the single best indicator of whether a startup is going to succeed.

995
01:01:33.532 --> 01:01:34.813
More than any other metric.

996
01:01:35.693 --> 01:01:38.155
How many customers would miss you if you shut down tomorrow?

997
01:01:38.775 --> 01:01:39.055
Hmm.

998
01:01:39.792 --> 01:01:41.513
And for a pizza place, 100 is enough.

999
01:01:42.374 --> 01:01:42.814
Yeah.

1000
01:01:42.854 --> 01:01:44.095
They say that a lot in product development.

1001
01:01:44.115 --> 01:01:47.516
They say, just make a thing for one person you know.

1002
01:01:48.577 --> 01:01:51.919
And make it for one person you know that really, really, really loves it.

1003
01:01:52.319 --> 01:01:55.601
And it will turn out that there'll be lots of people like that person you know.

1004
01:01:56.121 --> 01:01:56.622
Enough people.

1005
01:01:56.642 --> 01:01:57.042
Enough people.

1006
01:01:57.062 --> 01:01:58.683
Maybe it's not lots, but it'll be enough.

1007
01:01:59.443 --> 01:02:03.826
And so this cycle we're talking about isn't self-focused.

1008
01:02:04.006 --> 01:02:05.467
It's empathic.

1009
01:02:06.107 --> 01:02:12.832
You have to let the audience in to your thinking or else you're thinking about what's in this for me and me alone.

1010
01:02:13.612 --> 01:02:23.660
And that's narcissistic, and that is where you see all the Internet hustle going on, all the people who are trying to pressure folks into sending them $5 or multilevel marketing, all that stuff.

1011
01:02:24.100 --> 01:02:28.063
That isn't what's possible, and it's not what we should be spending our time on.

1012
01:02:28.803 --> 01:02:31.065
But when we can be of service for the right people,

1013
01:02:32.651 --> 01:02:37.712
We have a chance to make things better, but I need to put a big aside here, which is where resistance kicks back in.

1014
01:02:38.673 --> 01:02:46.675
The only way to launch something new is to create tension, not to relieve it, but to create tension, generous tension.

1015
01:02:46.835 --> 01:02:48.695
The tension of you might be left behind.

1016
01:02:49.015 --> 01:02:50.976
You won't be in on the first cycle of it.

1017
01:02:51.136 --> 01:02:53.716
I have this thing that's going to help you, and you don't know what it is yet.

1018
01:02:54.217 --> 01:02:54.837
Tension...

1019
01:02:55.777 --> 01:03:01.244
that's offered generously is the only way people create forward motion.

1020
01:03:01.645 --> 01:03:03.888
So Taylor Swift is having a concert.

1021
01:03:04.088 --> 01:03:05.891
15,000 people can fit in the arena.

1022
01:03:05.911 --> 01:03:12.219
She just created tension for 40,000 people because they're saying to their moms and dads, I got to go get tickets before everybody else.

1023
01:03:13.160 --> 01:03:15.501
If she's not willing to create the tension, she can't go on tour.

1024
01:03:16.241 --> 01:03:18.861
So yes, it's awkward to create a tension.

1025
01:03:18.941 --> 01:03:20.742
It's awkward to say, I'm doing this event.

1026
01:03:21.142 --> 01:03:22.542
I hope there's room for you.

1027
01:03:23.142 --> 01:03:30.224
But it's the only way we can cause other people to decide to move forward.

1028
01:03:30.644 --> 01:03:32.705
I was stress testing that Taylor Swift analogy.

1029
01:03:33.125 --> 01:03:37.546
And the way that I stress tested it was, well, what if Taylor did a gig and there was unlimited seats?

1030
01:03:38.686 --> 01:03:42.550
People would still go, I guess, because the tension is that she's so good.

1031
01:03:42.850 --> 01:03:44.432
I might miss the experience, as you said.

1032
01:03:44.752 --> 01:03:46.513
There's FOMO itself is the tension.

1033
01:03:46.534 --> 01:03:49.056
There's unlimited seats, but there's not unlimited nights.

1034
01:03:49.376 --> 01:03:50.437
It's just tonight.

1035
01:03:50.597 --> 01:03:51.278
Yeah, okay, yeah.

1036
01:03:51.378 --> 01:03:54.201
And that's why live events create a different sort of tension.

1037
01:03:54.661 --> 01:03:56.323
You know, this video's on the internet.

1038
01:03:56.343 --> 01:03:57.424
You haven't seen, I haven't seen.

1039
01:03:57.684 --> 01:04:00.386
And we're not stressed about that because they'll be there tomorrow.

1040
01:04:00.406 --> 01:04:00.847
Right.

1041
01:04:01.047 --> 01:04:01.327
Right?

1042
01:04:01.647 --> 01:04:08.372
But the live event starts to change how we're going to engage with it among that community.

1043
01:04:09.432 --> 01:04:13.075
What else is sort of adjacent to this idea of getting unstuck?

1044
01:04:13.095 --> 01:04:14.476
Because that's really what we're circling here.

1045
01:04:14.516 --> 01:04:19.959
It's like the things that keep you stuck and how to take sort of actionable steps outside of being stuck.

1046
01:04:20.479 --> 01:04:22.621
Is there anything else we need to close off on here?

1047
01:04:23.181 --> 01:04:25.443
So you saw some of my juggling balls there.

1048
01:04:26.423 --> 01:04:27.464
Juggling is...

1049
01:04:28.884 --> 01:04:36.449
fascinating because when you see someone on the street, if you're a good person, if you see someone on the street juggling, you're not rooting for them to drop a ball, right?

1050
01:04:36.709 --> 01:04:39.690
That we want the juggler to be able to juggle.

1051
01:04:40.091 --> 01:04:45.514
So when people say, I'm going to learn how to juggle, what happens is they throw one ball and they can catch it.

1052
01:04:45.534 --> 01:04:46.294
They throw the other ball.

1053
01:04:46.795 --> 01:04:48.336
But within two or three throws,

1054
01:04:49.375 --> 01:04:50.496
One of the balls goes over here.

1055
01:04:50.816 --> 01:04:53.858
So they lunge to catch it because juggling is about catching.

1056
01:04:54.278 --> 01:04:56.299
So they lunge to catch it, but now they're out of position.

1057
01:04:57.020 --> 01:04:58.281
And the next one's going to hit the ground.

1058
01:04:59.001 --> 01:04:59.902
And then people give up.

1059
01:05:00.646 --> 01:05:04.407
People give up because they think juggling is about catching.

1060
01:05:05.107 --> 01:05:05.607
It's not.

1061
01:05:06.187 --> 01:05:07.167
It's about throwing.

1062
01:05:07.947 --> 01:05:11.168
If you get good at throwing, the catches take care of themselves.

1063
01:05:11.828 --> 01:05:16.889
So the way I teach juggling is with one ball, throw it, catch it, throw it, catch it, till you're really bored.

1064
01:05:17.229 --> 01:05:18.969
Then two balls, throw, throw, catch, catch.

1065
01:05:19.269 --> 01:05:26.471
This is not hard, but if you do throw, throw, catch, catch for 20 minutes, every ball's landing exactly where it's supposed to.

1066
01:05:27.091 --> 01:05:28.351
And now juggling is easy.

1067
01:05:29.280 --> 01:05:35.826
But what we are hooked on, and listen to any self-improvement podcast, it's all about the catching, right?

1068
01:05:35.846 --> 01:05:36.907
Does this help me lose weight?

1069
01:05:36.927 --> 01:05:38.008
Does this help me find friends?

1070
01:05:38.028 --> 01:05:39.209
Does this help me build my business?

1071
01:05:39.229 --> 01:05:40.350
Those are all catches.

1072
01:05:42.166 --> 01:05:43.006
Where's the throwing?

1073
01:05:43.346 --> 01:05:44.727
How are we going to get good at throwing?

1074
01:05:44.847 --> 01:05:53.510
How are we going to get good at realizing, even if no one reads this next short story, I'm going to get good at putting words on the page.

1075
01:05:53.650 --> 01:05:54.230
The process.

1076
01:05:54.270 --> 01:05:56.111
The process, the practice.

1077
01:05:56.471 --> 01:06:00.673
If we can develop a practice, we're no longer attached to the outcome.

1078
01:06:01.453 --> 01:06:02.934
Because the outcome's out of our control.

1079
01:06:03.414 --> 01:06:05.295
The practice is under our control.

1080
01:06:05.636 --> 01:06:06.636
Get good at throwing.

1081
01:06:07.016 --> 01:06:12.219
Get good at seeing where problems lie, seeing where audiences are, seeing where you can be generous.

1082
01:06:12.960 --> 01:06:17.523
When you get good at seeing those things, the catches take care of themselves.

1083
01:06:18.483 --> 01:06:20.625
This is something that I've made for you.

1084
01:06:20.705 --> 01:06:24.848
I've realized that the Diary of SEO audience are strivers, whether it's in business or health.

1085
01:06:25.088 --> 01:06:26.969
We all have big goals that we want to accomplish.

1086
01:06:27.309 --> 01:06:39.057
And one of the things I've learned is that when you aim at the big, big, big goal, it can feel incredibly psychologically uncomfortable because it's kind of like being stood at the foot of Mount Everest and looking upwards.

1087
01:06:39.458 --> 01:06:42.680
The way to accomplish your goals is by breaking them down into tasks.

1088
01:06:42.700 --> 01:06:46.224
Tiny, small steps, and we call this in our team the 1%.

1089
01:06:46.244 --> 01:06:50.449
And actually, this philosophy is highly responsible for much of our success here.

1090
01:06:50.629 --> 01:06:57.077
So what we've done so that you at home can accomplish any big goal that you have is we've made these 1% diaries

1091
01:06:57.958 --> 01:07:00.339
And we released these last year and they all sold out.

1092
01:07:00.659 --> 01:07:06.762
So I asked my team over and over again to bring the diaries back, but also to introduce some new colors and to make some minor tweaks to the diary.

1093
01:07:06.782 --> 01:07:11.225
So now we have a better range for you.

1094
01:07:11.425 --> 01:07:21.009
So if you have a big goal in mind and you need a framework and a process and some motivation, then I highly recommend you get one of these diaries before they all sell out once again.

1095
01:07:21.109 --> 01:07:23.851
And you can get yours at thediary.com.

1096
01:07:24.091 --> 01:07:25.812
And if you want the link, the link is in the description below.

1097
01:07:27.067 --> 01:07:32.054
This, again, is not a narrative that people will love because we all want to get good at catching.

1098
01:07:32.174 --> 01:07:32.334
Yeah.

1099
01:07:33.556 --> 01:07:37.542
Weirdly, this is very, very adjacent and almost unlinked, but it's somewhat linked.

1100
01:07:37.602 --> 01:07:38.904
I sat here with Julian Treasure.

1101
01:07:39.404 --> 01:07:41.147
He did two TED Talks, one about speaking

1102
01:07:42.018 --> 01:07:42.699
right?

1103
01:07:42.739 --> 01:07:43.279
40 million views.

1104
01:07:43.680 --> 01:07:44.300
What about listening?

1105
01:07:45.181 --> 01:07:45.682
2 million views.

1106
01:07:45.822 --> 01:07:50.286
And I thought, it's almost kind of similar to like the catching and throwing.

1107
01:07:51.467 --> 01:08:00.997
And actually, when I sit here with spies, and I've interviewed some of the world's leading spies, and I say, how is it that you're able to get people to do whatever you want that have just met you in foreign lands and hand over their secrets?

1108
01:08:01.017 --> 01:08:02.038
They say, listening.

1109
01:08:03.019 --> 01:08:03.920
It's all about the listening.

1110
01:08:04.360 --> 01:08:07.962
I go in the taxi and I listen to them for eight weeks as they offload because no one listens.

1111
01:08:08.442 --> 01:08:12.084
And it kind of got me thinking about this is like, no one focuses on the throwing.

1112
01:08:12.924 --> 01:08:14.925
And actually that becomes the great competitive advantage.

1113
01:08:15.085 --> 01:08:15.305
Right.

1114
01:08:15.465 --> 01:08:15.865
Exactly.

1115
01:08:16.165 --> 01:08:16.345
Yeah.

1116
01:08:16.425 --> 01:08:16.966
The practice.

1117
01:08:17.146 --> 01:08:21.528
I love the idea, world famous spies, because you would think that that's sort of an oxymoron.

1118
01:08:21.588 --> 01:08:24.709
I would imagine the world's greatest spies, we have no idea who they are.

1119
01:08:24.949 --> 01:08:28.091
Well, they go on podcasts now, so they are like, yeah.

1120
01:08:28.131 --> 01:08:30.492
But part of it links to one of the books you wrote, which is called The Dip.

1121
01:08:31.292 --> 01:08:36.454
We're talking about delusion here and how to know if you're delusional or if you're just going through the dip.

1122
01:08:36.574 --> 01:08:39.375
So I've got some images here.

1123
01:08:39.455 --> 01:08:39.875
Okay.

1124
01:08:40.395 --> 01:08:49.018
How does someone listening know if they should give up on something or if it's just the inevitable rough patch that you go through when you start and you're bad?

1125
01:08:49.278 --> 01:08:49.538
Okay.

1126
01:08:49.558 --> 01:08:54.660
So the dip describes something in the world that no one had talked about in the book before, which is the power of quitting.

1127
01:08:56.221 --> 01:08:56.842
What is the dip?

1128
01:08:57.143 --> 01:09:00.629
The dip is the hard part in between starting and getting good at it.

1129
01:09:01.411 --> 01:09:04.897
The dip is organic chemistry on your way to being a doctor.

1130
01:09:06.573 --> 01:09:09.294
And you got to get through it to get to the other side.

1131
01:09:09.614 --> 01:09:12.975
The dip is the gym in March.

1132
01:09:13.476 --> 01:09:19.718
If you want six-pack abs, you can't quit the gym in February, which you joined during the holidays.

1133
01:09:20.218 --> 01:09:21.839
You're going to have to get through the hard part.

1134
01:09:22.719 --> 01:09:26.881
And so most of what we do that creates value has a dip in it.

1135
01:09:27.981 --> 01:09:31.482
And my argument is you should A, see the dip before you start.

1136
01:09:32.263 --> 01:09:35.224
You should say, if I'm going to drive this car across the Gobi Desert,

1137
01:09:36.137 --> 01:09:38.640
I can't whine when I can't find a gas station.

1138
01:09:38.840 --> 01:09:40.541
There are no gas stations in the Gobi Desert.

1139
01:09:40.581 --> 01:09:42.403
There's a dip to get across the desert.

1140
01:09:42.904 --> 01:09:46.087
Pack what you need to get through the dip or don't start.

1141
01:09:47.488 --> 01:09:53.955
And number two, when the dip shows up, say thank you because it means you hit the hard part.

1142
01:09:54.355 --> 01:09:57.198
It means this is the beginning of getting to the other side.

1143
01:09:58.028 --> 01:09:59.469
Don't complain about organic chemistry.

1144
01:09:59.489 --> 01:10:01.031
You knew organic chemistry was coming.

1145
01:10:01.231 --> 01:10:05.174
Organic chemistry is part of the process of becoming a doctor.

1146
01:10:05.454 --> 01:10:09.478
As my friend Gabe says, it's not an obstacle in the way.

1147
01:10:10.298 --> 01:10:11.900
It's something along the way.

1148
01:10:12.680 --> 01:10:14.422
And it's a signpost that you're on the way.

1149
01:10:15.183 --> 01:10:17.224
So your question then is, should we quit?

1150
01:10:18.445 --> 01:10:21.408
Has anyone ever made it through this dip before?

1151
01:10:21.428 --> 01:10:21.528
Sure.

1152
01:10:23.268 --> 01:10:28.731
If this is a dip like organic chemistry where every single doctor in the world has made it through, now you know.

1153
01:10:29.311 --> 01:10:32.833
You know this is coming, and you know if you make it through, you're going to get to the other side.

1154
01:10:33.533 --> 01:10:38.315
On the other hand, no one that I know of has ever smoked their way through emphysema.

1155
01:10:39.196 --> 01:10:41.457
That when emphysema shows up, it's not a dip.

1156
01:10:42.177 --> 01:10:44.939
And continuing to smoke is not going to make you better.

1157
01:10:44.959 --> 01:10:45.799
It's what made you worse.

1158
01:10:45.939 --> 01:10:46.760
It's a cul-de-sac.

1159
01:10:46.880 --> 01:10:47.360
It's a trap.

1160
01:10:48.538 --> 01:10:59.731
And so what we look for when we're talking to people about this journey, this delusion, this problem we're trying to solve is what does it usually cost to get through a dip like this one?

1161
01:11:00.112 --> 01:11:04.397
Do I have the resources to get through it or am I just throwing good time and good money after bad?

1162
01:11:05.393 --> 01:11:15.056
But if you've got a business that's losing money and losing money and losing money and losing money, and there's no evidence that putting more money into your thing is going to get you to the other side, that's a cul-de-sac.

1163
01:11:15.116 --> 01:11:18.498
Forgive yourself, the old self who started the wrong business.

1164
01:11:18.918 --> 01:11:20.138
Say, thank you.

1165
01:11:20.538 --> 01:11:25.420
Thank you for having the right insight, but it wasn't correct for this world today.

1166
01:11:26.080 --> 01:11:26.640
I forgive you.

1167
01:11:26.860 --> 01:11:28.481
I'm going to go quit and do something else.

1168
01:11:28.561 --> 01:11:30.242
The key word there you said is evidence.

1169
01:11:30.522 --> 01:11:30.742
Yeah.

1170
01:11:31.142 --> 01:11:34.183
And the evidence could be, as you say, small.

1171
01:11:35.592 --> 01:11:36.252
Yeah.

1172
01:11:36.352 --> 01:11:46.894
So if we think about the business, if you got a retail shop or a restaurant, the ones that succeed, 95% of their profit goes to the landlord.

1173
01:11:48.234 --> 01:11:51.255
And the ones that fail, 102% of their profit goes to the landlord.

1174
01:11:51.555 --> 01:11:55.135
That's the only difference between failing and not failing in one of those businesses.

1175
01:11:55.375 --> 01:12:00.376
The landlord's job is to take as much as they can of your profit, but not too much that you go out of business.

1176
01:12:01.937 --> 01:12:04.257
So someone's got a four-year lease.

1177
01:12:04.975 --> 01:12:06.095
They're two years into it.

1178
01:12:06.916 --> 01:12:07.816
They're not making rent.

1179
01:12:08.416 --> 01:12:09.956
They're losing money every single day.

1180
01:12:10.536 --> 01:12:16.698
And they have a sunk cost, which is I got to pay for the next two years of this storefront, whether or not I'm in here.

1181
01:12:17.558 --> 01:12:22.380
But you can quit because you can forgive that two years you have to pay.

1182
01:12:22.580 --> 01:12:24.540
You decided that two years ago.

1183
01:12:25.260 --> 01:12:26.601
That's not a new thing.

1184
01:12:26.861 --> 01:12:27.601
That's an old thing.

1185
01:12:28.694 --> 01:12:38.263
Are you really going to spend the next two years of your life punishing yourself because you made a decision a few years ago and signed a bad lease and built the wrong business on the wrong street in a system that doesn't support you?

1186
01:12:38.383 --> 01:12:38.664
Why?

1187
01:12:38.704 --> 01:12:39.925
You can't get those two years back.

1188
01:12:41.122 --> 01:12:47.110
But we can take a deep breath and say, yeah, I'm going to leave this place empty and go build something really useful over here.

1189
01:12:47.810 --> 01:12:52.116
And I'll come out way ahead compared to defending that old decision.

1190
01:12:52.616 --> 01:12:53.958
Hang on a minute, Seth.

1191
01:12:53.978 --> 01:12:57.943
When I went to the gym this morning, there was quotes written on the wall.

1192
01:12:58.063 --> 01:12:59.385
And the quotes are like this one here.

1193
01:13:02.205 --> 01:13:03.006
Can you read that out from there?

1194
01:13:03.026 --> 01:13:04.927
If you quit once, it becomes a habit.

1195
01:13:05.247 --> 01:13:05.948
Never quit.

1196
01:13:05.968 --> 01:13:07.169
It's a Michael Jordan quote.

1197
01:13:07.189 --> 01:13:07.909
Michael Jordan.

1198
01:13:08.650 --> 01:13:08.850
Yes.

1199
01:13:09.130 --> 01:13:11.472
I'm never going to have an argument with Michael Jordan, but he's wrong.

1200
01:13:12.613 --> 01:13:14.254
And it's very clear that he's wrong.

1201
01:13:14.754 --> 01:13:17.536
He doesn't play professional baseball anymore.

1202
01:13:17.937 --> 01:13:22.040
He doesn't play professional golf, nor does he play professional basketball anymore.

1203
01:13:22.809 --> 01:13:29.463
Because humans age and he did a thing, but then he stopped doing the thing because it wasn't productive anymore.

1204
01:13:30.404 --> 01:13:32.569
And when we think about our fuel...

1205
01:13:33.463 --> 01:13:37.685
He used as an athlete a couple things to fuel him.

1206
01:13:37.925 --> 01:13:39.246
One thing he had was grievance.

1207
01:13:39.726 --> 01:13:45.649
And if you listen to his Hall of Fame speech, it's just a long list of chips he's had on his shoulder for his whole career.

1208
01:13:46.110 --> 01:13:46.790
That's fuel.

1209
01:13:47.310 --> 01:13:50.592
Based on who he was and how he grew up, that's how he gets on the court.

1210
01:13:50.992 --> 01:13:52.313
And the second one was never quit.

1211
01:13:52.713 --> 01:13:58.956
So if those two pieces of fuel help you become the greatest basketball player of your generation, I'm not going to argue with you.

1212
01:13:59.337 --> 01:14:01.638
If that's getting you where you need to go...

1213
01:14:02.840 --> 01:14:03.380
It's up to you.

1214
01:14:04.081 --> 01:14:07.702
But for most people, it's resistance and a trap.

1215
01:14:08.643 --> 01:14:09.823
It's shame.

1216
01:14:10.283 --> 01:14:11.744
It's getting stuck in a knot.

1217
01:14:12.164 --> 01:14:14.005
It's all of the buts, right?

1218
01:14:14.285 --> 01:14:17.486
I want to be a successful business person, but I can't admit I was wrong.

1219
01:14:18.427 --> 01:14:21.708
I've shut down more businesses than most people who are listening to this.

1220
01:14:21.828 --> 01:14:23.969
I've failed more times than most people who are listening to this.

1221
01:14:24.370 --> 01:14:31.793
If I was still running the light bulb fundraising company I started in 1987, I wouldn't be talking to you today.

1222
01:14:32.013 --> 01:14:32.113
Yeah.

1223
01:14:34.388 --> 01:14:41.296
It's funny because there's this weird paradox that's so obvious to all of us, but still people believe this idea of never quitting.

1224
01:14:41.316 --> 01:14:47.823
And the paradox that I'm pointing at is the minute someone starts something, a new company, a new job, a new relationship, we celebrate.

1225
01:14:48.064 --> 01:14:53.189
But we also intuitively know that in order to start something like a new job or a new relationship,

1226
01:14:53.870 --> 01:14:56.611
You have to do something before that, which is quit the other thing.

1227
01:14:57.411 --> 01:14:59.392
Never quit, but we celebrate starting.

1228
01:14:59.852 --> 01:15:05.315
Theoretically, then, we should celebrate the quitting just as much as we celebrate the starting because they are fundamentally interlinked.

1229
01:15:05.555 --> 01:15:07.776
Correct, but only quitting the right stuff.

1230
01:15:07.896 --> 01:15:22.502
You don't want to celebrate someone who quits the marathon at mile 25 because what they failed to do in their training was become the kind of runner that sees that the people who finish the marathon figure out where to put the tired.

1231
01:15:23.313 --> 01:15:28.138
But that's not the same as working for an abusive boss because your boss is never going to stop being abusive.

1232
01:15:28.979 --> 01:15:31.822
And so you can say, this can't get better.

1233
01:15:32.323 --> 01:15:41.532
And every day I come here and subject myself to this trauma, it's costing me, it's reinforcing a system I don't believe in, and I can get tomorrow back again.

1234
01:15:42.173 --> 01:15:44.616
What you've described there sounds a lot like...

1235
01:15:45.236 --> 01:15:52.421
something I wrote about in my last book, which was just a quitting framework for this exact situation people find themselves in.

1236
01:15:52.441 --> 01:15:53.842
Because I know what people are saying that are listening.

1237
01:15:53.862 --> 01:15:56.344
They're all saying, how do I know when to quit something?

1238
01:15:56.644 --> 01:15:58.445
So I made this framework, which I'll throw up on the screen.

1239
01:15:58.466 --> 01:16:00.067
And actually the example I use is a marathon.

1240
01:16:00.767 --> 01:16:01.507
I mean, this is the framework.

1241
01:16:01.527 --> 01:16:02.167
You can see it for yourself.

1242
01:16:02.187 --> 01:16:03.648
And I'll just sort of give you the voiceover.

1243
01:16:04.168 --> 01:16:07.688
But if you look down the left side, I'm referring to a marathon there.

1244
01:16:07.808 --> 01:16:11.369
And what I'm saying is when something is hard, that is not reason enough to quit.

1245
01:16:11.429 --> 01:16:16.570
Like a marathon in mile 23, when you're raising money for a charity, that means a lot to you.

1246
01:16:17.530 --> 01:16:24.131
When you should quit is when something, if you go down the right-hand side, is when something sucks, like you've said about the toxic boss.

1247
01:16:24.271 --> 01:16:29.092
And critically, the effort it would take to change it is not worth the thing on the other side.

1248
01:16:30.033 --> 01:16:30.616
Exactly right.

1249
01:16:30.858 --> 01:16:31.924
Because that's what people will say.

1250
01:16:31.944 --> 01:16:33.573
They'll say, how do I know when to quit something?

1251
01:16:34.664 --> 01:16:35.144
How do I know?

1252
01:16:35.345 --> 01:16:37.226
How do I know when to quit the job or to?

1253
01:16:37.806 --> 01:16:37.987
Right.

1254
01:16:38.047 --> 01:16:39.508
And you can question your judgment.

1255
01:16:39.628 --> 01:16:51.517
Because if you have a history of quitting, because in the short run, it was tough as opposed to looking at whether it was worth it, you can find a coach or peers who can challenge you on that.

1256
01:16:51.537 --> 01:16:59.002
So I was one of the leading makers of DVDs for book publishing companies back in the brief moment when they do this.

1257
01:16:59.022 --> 01:17:01.624
I worked with Fisher Price, and we made a DVD for parents and stuff.

1258
01:17:02.625 --> 01:17:11.083
And then this day shows up and it becomes very clear that book publishers aren't going to do more of this because the internet's here.

1259
01:17:11.384 --> 01:17:12.386
They're going to do less of this.

1260
01:17:13.291 --> 01:17:20.254
So every day I would be defending what I had built as a DVD producer was completely wasted.

1261
01:17:21.194 --> 01:17:22.715
So forgive yourself.

1262
01:17:23.015 --> 01:17:23.855
I didn't change the world.

1263
01:17:24.095 --> 01:17:25.136
Somebody else changed the world.

1264
01:17:25.756 --> 01:17:27.317
But it's not going to get better.

1265
01:17:27.717 --> 01:17:29.297
This is a cul-de-sac.

1266
01:17:29.337 --> 01:17:29.998
It's a dead end.

1267
01:17:30.698 --> 01:17:31.478
Thanks for doing this.

1268
01:17:31.738 --> 01:17:32.659
Let's start something else.

1269
01:17:32.959 --> 01:17:40.242
Because there's a lot of people right now that are in their 30s, 40s, 50s that are in jobs that have not made them fulfilled for a decade.

1270
01:17:40.282 --> 01:17:40.402
Yeah.

1271
01:17:40.422 --> 01:17:40.522
Yeah.

1272
01:17:41.432 --> 01:17:42.692
But they're 20 years in.

1273
01:17:42.713 --> 01:17:43.593
They've climbed the ladder.

1274
01:17:43.613 --> 01:17:44.313
They're director.

1275
01:17:44.673 --> 01:17:45.173
Right.

1276
01:17:45.193 --> 01:17:47.754
So they have sunk costs because they've earned the spot.

1277
01:17:48.135 --> 01:17:50.776
But they also have a whole bunch of entanglements.

1278
01:17:50.816 --> 01:17:55.157
Like, I want to have a job that fulfills me, but I also like this car and this house.

1279
01:17:56.018 --> 01:18:01.600
I want to have a job that fulfills me, but I also like my neighbors thinking I'm this stable, respectable person.

1280
01:18:01.620 --> 01:18:06.782
I want to have a job that fulfills me, but I have all this other stuff I have to pay for.

1281
01:18:06.862 --> 01:18:07.122
All right.

1282
01:18:07.502 --> 01:18:09.203
But if we look at those buts.

1283
01:18:10.052 --> 01:18:13.216
We realized you just made the choice to stay in this job.

1284
01:18:14.077 --> 01:18:16.220
So you don't have to fret about it anymore.

1285
01:18:16.460 --> 01:18:18.522
You've accepted that you made that choice.

1286
01:18:18.763 --> 01:18:27.954
The alternative is move to a two-bedroom flat, eat rice and beans, take a deep breath, reset all these things, and now you can get a different job that's going to pay you half as much.

1287
01:18:29.055 --> 01:18:31.596
Because you gave up the buts, right?

1288
01:18:31.996 --> 01:18:41.599
A job that fulfills me will give me a better relationship with my family, will give me hope for the future, will give me a chance to make X, Y, or Z happen in the world.

1289
01:18:42.619 --> 01:18:46.500
That's hard because you can't have the buts.

1290
01:18:46.520 --> 01:18:47.260
You got to let them go.

1291
01:18:48.061 --> 01:18:50.661
In that scenario, you know, okay, I have the car.

1292
01:18:51.122 --> 01:18:53.462
I have the business card, which is impressive to people.

1293
01:18:53.582 --> 01:18:55.323
I get invited to nice things, but I'm miserable.

1294
01:18:55.343 --> 01:18:55.663
Yeah.

1295
01:18:56.195 --> 01:18:56.375
Right.

1296
01:18:56.735 --> 01:18:58.516
So what do I do?

1297
01:18:58.916 --> 01:19:04.077
I've got a community I've built around this identity that is on this business card, but I'm miserable, Seth.

1298
01:19:04.417 --> 01:19:04.617
Right.

1299
01:19:04.657 --> 01:19:17.581
So the magic of this process is if you announce through this that it's a situation, that all these other things are so important to me, that I cannot change my job, suddenly your job gets a lot better.

1300
01:19:18.881 --> 01:19:21.062
because you're not bridling against it.

1301
01:19:21.122 --> 01:19:22.003
You chose it.

1302
01:19:23.283 --> 01:19:30.647
And so if you talk to people, I gave a couple of talks for people who are in the funeral industry, undertakers.

1303
01:19:31.667 --> 01:19:36.209
Most of us would not sign up for that job as high school students at the career fair, right?

1304
01:19:36.589 --> 01:19:41.892
But the people who stick with it, they're not sitting there saying, this is horrible.

1305
01:19:41.972 --> 01:19:43.373
I hate being around dead people.

1306
01:19:43.653 --> 01:19:46.474
They're saying, all the stuff that I get in my life,

1307
01:19:48.055 --> 01:19:49.276
This is part of it.

1308
01:19:49.876 --> 01:19:50.536
It comes with it.

1309
01:19:51.156 --> 01:19:53.077
Just like getting tired in the marathon comes with it.

1310
01:19:53.117 --> 01:20:07.284
If I want to have this life where it's stable, where I don't have to move around, where I'm a member of the community, where the cash flow is assured, and I get to be an undertaker, within that structure, how do I be the best undertaker I could possibly be?

1311
01:20:08.124 --> 01:20:14.767
As opposed to wishing that I would get a call from Michael Jordan who wants me to run his financial empire or something, because it's not going to happen.

1312
01:20:16.894 --> 01:20:17.715
I get to be.

1313
01:20:18.375 --> 01:20:20.617
You're taking back control from the situation.

1314
01:20:20.637 --> 01:20:22.618
You're shifting from victimhood to control.

1315
01:20:22.778 --> 01:20:22.958
Right.

1316
01:20:23.098 --> 01:20:30.343
There's this remarkable couple of stats that I read about this idea of feeling like you have control and how it changes your outcomes in your life.

1317
01:20:31.224 --> 01:20:39.730
The first stat is people who believe they are in control of their life and have control over their happiness rate their overall life satisfaction at an average level.

1318
01:20:39.910 --> 01:20:47.172
of 7.4 out of 10, compared to those that don't feel like they have control of their situation, who rate their life satisfaction at 5.6.

1319
01:20:47.192 --> 01:20:48.352
Yep.

1320
01:20:49.472 --> 01:20:57.734
People who report low overall happiness are five times more likely to feel like their own personal situation is entirely outside of their control.

1321
01:20:57.754 --> 01:21:01.595
I mean, this one was a landmark study they did in care homes.

1322
01:21:02.275 --> 01:21:18.898
In a famous 1976 study, elderly residents given plant care and small daily choices that they could make were 50% less likely to die over an 18-month period compared to residents whose care was fully handled for them.

1323
01:21:19.038 --> 01:21:19.318
Yeah.

1324
01:21:19.818 --> 01:21:20.178
Crazy.

1325
01:21:20.238 --> 01:21:22.459
The power of feeling like you have control in your life.

1326
01:21:22.699 --> 01:21:22.939
Right.

1327
01:21:23.079 --> 01:21:28.440
And also, I don't know the stats, but when they give people in hospice control over their painkillers,

1328
01:21:29.540 --> 01:21:32.443
As opposed to them having to wait for someone to give them a painkiller.

1329
01:21:32.463 --> 01:21:34.104
They don't necessarily take more painkillers.

1330
01:21:34.164 --> 01:21:35.686
It's knowing they can do it.

1331
01:21:36.386 --> 01:21:37.707
Same thing back to the meetings thing.

1332
01:21:37.808 --> 01:21:42.432
If you have a job where you're going to meetings all day where you just have to do it like this, you've lost control over your day.

1333
01:21:43.486 --> 01:21:46.307
And I'm not here to say there's no cost to switching.

1334
01:21:46.407 --> 01:21:47.747
There's huge cost to switching.

1335
01:21:47.767 --> 01:21:49.628
That's why you chose not to switch until now.

1336
01:21:50.088 --> 01:21:50.988
But let's name it.

1337
01:21:51.548 --> 01:21:55.430
Let's say, you know, gravity is fascinating because it's here.

1338
01:21:55.470 --> 01:22:04.132
But if I was on a planet that didn't have gravity or had low gravity, I would miss this gravity because I've built my whole life around gravity being this consistent thing.

1339
01:22:04.893 --> 01:22:06.913
I get to live on a planet with gravity.

1340
01:22:07.493 --> 01:22:10.574
I get to be the kind of organism that's going to die before he's 100.

1341
01:22:13.677 --> 01:22:22.450
that that's inevitable and I get to inhabit each day the best I can, you're going to have a different life than if you're spending all your time trying to figure out how to live forever.

1342
01:22:23.214 --> 01:22:32.580
I'd never heard that painkiller study before, but as you were speaking, I just pulled it up, and it says it's one of the most famous real-world demonstrations of how the perception of control alters your physical and psychological experience.

1343
01:22:33.040 --> 01:22:37.863
When hospital patients are given a button to self-administer pain medication, two incredible things happen.

1344
01:22:37.983 --> 01:22:41.446
Number one is they consume equal or less painkillers.

1345
01:22:41.946 --> 01:22:45.768
Number two, they report lower pain levels and higher satisfaction.

1346
01:22:46.229 --> 01:22:50.551
The physical pain itself doesn't magically change, but the stress of helplessness...

1347
01:22:50.692 --> 01:22:50.912
Right.

1348
01:22:51.532 --> 01:22:52.554
amplifies pain.

1349
01:22:52.854 --> 01:22:53.054
Right.

1350
01:22:53.655 --> 01:22:54.817
The stress of helplessness.

1351
01:22:54.837 --> 01:23:07.955
I mean, it goes right back to what we're saying about the knot in your new book, which is a lot of us are living with the stress of helplessness, but sometimes, not always, but sometimes that helplessness is in part a story.

1352
01:23:09.765 --> 01:23:16.908
I would say it's always a story because we can look at someone who is in human bondage.

1353
01:23:16.948 --> 01:23:24.152
We can look at someone who's been through trauma and we are projecting what we would feel in that situation.

1354
01:23:24.692 --> 01:23:26.693
There are all these unfair situations around there.

1355
01:23:27.454 --> 01:23:30.397
But then the question is, what is our narrative?

1356
01:23:30.937 --> 01:23:34.660
What is our narrative of how are we living this day?

1357
01:23:34.700 --> 01:23:36.622
What do we actually have control over?

1358
01:23:37.283 --> 01:23:40.966
And what situations are we choosing to stick with?

1359
01:23:41.426 --> 01:23:44.789
Because most of us have the freedom to shift, right?

1360
01:23:45.230 --> 01:23:50.834
And so it's a story we tell ourselves that might not change the outside world in the short run.

1361
01:23:51.635 --> 01:24:00.959
But what it does is it gives us this feeling of agency, which then gives us a sense of responsibility, which then amplifies into choice.

1362
01:24:02.119 --> 01:24:07.141
And my whole career is about how can I help people do better?

1363
01:24:08.342 --> 01:24:09.822
I wanted to throw another quote at you here.

1364
01:24:09.842 --> 01:24:11.743
This one is about meaningful work.

1365
01:24:11.963 --> 01:24:13.804
So if you could read that as well.

1366
01:24:14.825 --> 01:24:22.387
From Warren Buffett, in the world of business, the people who are most successful are those who are doing what they love.

1367
01:24:22.787 --> 01:24:23.867
I've heard that a million times.

1368
01:24:23.907 --> 01:24:24.527
Do what you love.

1369
01:24:25.288 --> 01:24:26.008
Yeah, it's backwards.

1370
01:24:26.048 --> 01:24:26.568
Sorry, Warren.

1371
01:24:28.088 --> 01:24:32.249
The people who are the most successful love what they do.

1372
01:24:33.090 --> 01:24:33.690
What's the difference?

1373
01:24:34.330 --> 01:24:41.172
Well, doing what you love means there's an amusement park out there that has all the treats I love and all the best prizes.

1374
01:24:41.372 --> 01:24:42.172
Of course, I love it.

1375
01:24:43.476 --> 01:24:44.617
The other is a choice.

1376
01:24:45.718 --> 01:24:49.160
I chose to do this work because I love it.

1377
01:24:50.141 --> 01:24:53.723
There was a guy who worked at the Dean and DeLuca Cafe in Midtown.

1378
01:24:54.344 --> 01:24:56.545
And he was developmentally challenged.

1379
01:24:57.106 --> 01:24:59.067
And he was probably 50 years old.

1380
01:24:59.547 --> 01:25:01.489
He was the mayor of this Dean and DeLuca.

1381
01:25:01.709 --> 01:25:04.751
He was the guy who cleared the tables and kept the thing straight.

1382
01:25:05.652 --> 01:25:06.732
He loved this job.

1383
01:25:07.653 --> 01:25:10.434
You and I would have lasted 15 minutes in this job.

1384
01:25:10.554 --> 01:25:13.916
He loved this job because he decided to love this job.

1385
01:25:14.656 --> 01:25:17.197
The Reverend King had a great quote about street sweepers.

1386
01:25:17.537 --> 01:25:26.261
And he said, if you have to be a street sweeper, at least choose to be the best street sweeper in that situation under these conditions that it's possible to be.

1387
01:25:26.761 --> 01:25:29.482
And the reason is not because you want to help the street sweeping company.

1388
01:25:29.502 --> 01:25:31.763
It's because your day is going to go better if you do that.

1389
01:25:32.493 --> 01:25:46.401
I was thinking he also meant potentially, although he, you know, I guess he didn't clarify, but the way that I perceived it was that if I become the best street sweeper, not to say that's not an important job, it increases my possibility of becoming something else as well.

1390
01:25:46.882 --> 01:25:56.507
Of being promoted, being, dare I say, picked, to be something else or to start my own street sweeping business or to, you know, I'm going to build a great relationship with my customers.

1391
01:25:56.807 --> 01:25:58.849
Yeah, and I think they rhyme and dance with each other.

1392
01:25:58.949 --> 01:25:59.209
Yeah.

1393
01:25:59.249 --> 01:26:00.390
They don't contradict each other.

1394
01:26:01.330 --> 01:26:09.838
And so all of us have had a job where we thought it was a good job and someone doing the same job down the aisle hated it or vice versa.

1395
01:26:10.599 --> 01:26:12.281
So clearly it's not the job.

1396
01:26:13.082 --> 01:26:14.503
It's where did we come from?

1397
01:26:14.843 --> 01:26:15.644
What are we afraid of?

1398
01:26:15.924 --> 01:26:16.685
What do we believe?

1399
01:26:16.945 --> 01:26:17.626
Where are we going?

1400
01:26:18.006 --> 01:26:21.710
That creates the story that opens the door for possibility.

1401
01:26:22.563 --> 01:26:24.386
Well, I guess some of these other quotes link to it then.

1402
01:26:24.406 --> 01:26:28.494
I mean, they kind of all say the same thing, but let's do this one.

1403
01:26:28.534 --> 01:26:31.479
This is a famous Mark Twain quote that probably everybody's heard.

1404
01:26:32.973 --> 01:26:37.015
If you get a chance, talk to your favorite AI about Mark Twain quotes.

1405
01:26:37.595 --> 01:26:39.256
The most mostly fake.

1406
01:26:39.356 --> 01:26:40.536
It's a great conversation.

1407
01:26:40.876 --> 01:26:45.238
The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

1408
01:26:45.759 --> 01:26:46.579
I've heard that a lot as well.

1409
01:26:47.219 --> 01:26:50.541
And my small shift is not the day you find out why.

1410
01:26:51.281 --> 01:26:53.762
It's the day you decide why.

1411
01:26:55.732 --> 01:26:57.493
Because this isn't something you're born with.

1412
01:26:57.753 --> 01:26:59.133
This is something you choose.

1413
01:27:00.313 --> 01:27:16.138
And if you make the decision, like my friend Jacqueline, to say there are 400 million people on this earth who are making $3 or $4 a day, I'm going to devote a generation of my life to helping them, you can go do that.

1414
01:27:17.438 --> 01:27:20.461
And most people don't have the head start.

1415
01:27:20.501 --> 01:27:23.123
Most people aren't starting at mile 20 of the marathon.

1416
01:27:23.663 --> 01:27:25.365
Some people are starting behind others.

1417
01:27:25.565 --> 01:27:31.609
But we still get to decide, based on who we are, what we know, what we've got access to, which problems are we going to solve?

1418
01:27:32.830 --> 01:27:35.112
And who's going to benefit from us solving those problems?

1419
01:27:35.833 --> 01:27:37.774
That is what I think Twain was trying to get at.

1420
01:27:39.055 --> 01:27:39.736
And my last one.

1421
01:27:41.337 --> 01:27:44.660
This one from a very famous guy whose device I'm using right now.

1422
01:27:45.493 --> 01:27:48.834
The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

1423
01:27:49.114 --> 01:27:49.455
Bingo.

1424
01:27:49.595 --> 01:27:51.935
If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.

1425
01:27:52.556 --> 01:27:53.376
Don't settle.

1426
01:27:54.436 --> 01:27:54.877
Who is that?

1427
01:27:55.137 --> 01:27:56.017
That's Steve Jobs.

1428
01:27:56.877 --> 01:28:02.459
And I think the keep looking part might mean look inside.

1429
01:28:02.840 --> 01:28:03.760
Don't look over there.

1430
01:28:05.260 --> 01:28:07.421
why is it that you don't love what you do right now?

1431
01:28:08.022 --> 01:28:09.902
Let's unknot that first.

1432
01:28:10.883 --> 01:28:12.984
Is it because you're being disrespected?

1433
01:28:13.704 --> 01:28:19.807
Is it because the external narrative of what's happening is undermining who you hope to be?

1434
01:28:20.407 --> 01:28:22.428
If we can get clear about that,

1435
01:28:23.308 --> 01:28:25.892
finding the next thing gets way easier.

1436
01:28:25.932 --> 01:28:30.398
You're not giving in to this lottery of hoping you get picked by the next right boss.

1437
01:28:30.418 --> 01:28:31.560
You can go hire a boss.

1438
01:28:32.261 --> 01:28:36.427
And when you hire the right boss, your job is transformed.

1439
01:28:37.388 --> 01:28:39.311
At the heart of a lot of this is...

1440
01:28:40.320 --> 01:28:41.441
This word perfectionism.

1441
01:28:42.382 --> 01:28:43.382
That's a big knot.

1442
01:28:44.083 --> 01:28:52.729
You know, when I was thinking about the young lady that came up to me in the Apple store the other day and told me that she's been thinking about her podcast for two years and she's been working on it for two years, but it's never been published yet.

1443
01:28:53.290 --> 01:28:56.492
What I heard there is perfectionism maybe as a form of procrastination.

1444
01:28:57.032 --> 01:28:58.613
Perfectionism is a trap every time.

1445
01:28:59.694 --> 01:29:01.656
Perfectionism has nothing to do with quality.

1446
01:29:02.676 --> 01:29:04.578
So the word quality has a very specific meaning.

1447
01:29:05.198 --> 01:29:06.139
It doesn't mean luxury.

1448
01:29:06.859 --> 01:29:08.200
It means meets spec.

1449
01:29:08.220 --> 01:29:08.321
Okay.

1450
01:29:09.678 --> 01:29:20.342
So the quality of a 1998 Toyota Celica was higher than the quality of a Rolls-Royce in 1998 because the pieces fit together better.

1451
01:29:20.442 --> 01:29:21.383
They met spec.

1452
01:29:21.763 --> 01:29:22.883
It wasn't all over the place.

1453
01:29:23.944 --> 01:29:26.785
If you're not happy with the quality, make the spec better.

1454
01:29:28.068 --> 01:29:36.577
But perfectionism says perfect feels like an honorable thing to pursue, but perfect is unachievable.

1455
01:29:37.398 --> 01:29:39.641
So if I announce I'm a perfectionist, I'm hiding.

1456
01:29:40.061 --> 01:29:43.905
Because what I've just announced is I'm never going to need to ship this because it's never going to be perfect.

1457
01:29:44.746 --> 01:29:49.368
One of the other words that I think does tie people in knots as well is this word authenticity.

1458
01:29:49.548 --> 01:29:49.789
Yeah.

1459
01:29:50.369 --> 01:29:54.571
Because authenticity is a terrifying concept when you really think about it.

1460
01:29:54.591 --> 01:29:55.631
What do you think of this idea?

1461
01:29:55.671 --> 01:29:57.932
It's a trap and authenticity is for amateurs.

1462
01:29:59.013 --> 01:30:00.494
Your friends need you to be authentic.

1463
01:30:00.534 --> 01:30:01.954
Your family wants you to be authentic.

1464
01:30:02.354 --> 01:30:02.835
Nobody else.

1465
01:30:03.035 --> 01:30:04.515
Professionals are not authentic.

1466
01:30:05.016 --> 01:30:06.576
Professionals are consistent.

1467
01:30:07.397 --> 01:30:09.378
Professionals make a promise and they keep it.

1468
01:30:10.058 --> 01:30:15.823
So if you're having knee surgery, you don't want the doctor to authentically be in a bad mood and screw up.

1469
01:30:15.863 --> 01:30:20.767
You want them to be the best version of themselves even if they don't feel like it.

1470
01:30:21.708 --> 01:30:24.871
And Keanu Reeves, he's not authentically Neo.

1471
01:30:25.852 --> 01:30:26.873
He's an actor.

1472
01:30:27.593 --> 01:30:29.395
He's pretending to be Neo.

1473
01:30:29.455 --> 01:30:32.838
If he was playing Keanu Reeves in the movie, it wouldn't be any good.

1474
01:30:34.475 --> 01:30:40.884
On social media, if you're going to show up and show up and show up, unless you're a diva, then we're watching you self-destruct.

1475
01:30:40.904 --> 01:30:41.885
That's what we're paying for.

1476
01:30:41.905 --> 01:30:43.988
You know, like Amy Winehouse or something.

1477
01:30:44.529 --> 01:30:47.453
Everybody else, we want them to be consistent.

1478
01:30:48.314 --> 01:30:50.096
And consistent means you made a choice.

1479
01:30:50.885 --> 01:30:55.688
about the promise you're going to make, and you keep the promise over and over again.

1480
01:30:56.028 --> 01:31:00.651
So when I'm writing my blog, I am playing the role of Seth Godin, the blogger.

1481
01:31:00.811 --> 01:31:04.333
It is not authentically how I felt in that moment.

1482
01:31:04.433 --> 01:31:09.637
It's my best version of what I think Seth Godin, the blogger, would say today.

1483
01:31:10.570 --> 01:31:12.291
And we've spent time together.

1484
01:31:12.371 --> 01:31:14.252
I like you a lot, but I don't know you.

1485
01:31:15.313 --> 01:31:17.193
And that's for your friends and your partner.

1486
01:31:17.774 --> 01:31:22.696
So authenticity as a buzzword is a version of resistance.

1487
01:31:23.017 --> 01:31:24.657
It's one more way to hide.

1488
01:31:25.138 --> 01:31:27.079
We say, oh, I was just being authentic.

1489
01:31:27.139 --> 01:31:28.279
No, you were just being a jerk.

1490
01:31:28.940 --> 01:31:33.482
And that's why I rejected you, because you chose to be a jerk, not because you were authentic.

1491
01:31:33.822 --> 01:31:39.045
We say, I can't write the next novel because it wouldn't authentically be who I am.

1492
01:31:39.525 --> 01:31:42.266
Well, yeah, but the people you're writing the novel from don't know you.

1493
01:31:42.786 --> 01:31:44.527
They just want to read the next Perry Mason novel.

1494
01:31:44.807 --> 01:31:49.888
Write that or else get out of the circle we're in, because that's what they came for.

1495
01:31:50.628 --> 01:31:52.829
In some way, these two things are somewhat interlinked.

1496
01:31:52.849 --> 01:32:03.892
I was thinking, you know, as a podcaster, I know that I'm going to have to do, if I want to sort of accomplish my goals and continue to have this life, I'm going to have to do thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of episodes.

1497
01:32:04.092 --> 01:32:08.474
And one of the ways that I'm going to be able to do that is by being as authentic as I possibly can.

1498
01:32:09.194 --> 01:32:14.319
Because I find it to be very exhausting to be inauthentic in that way.

1499
01:32:14.660 --> 01:32:19.605
One very practical way that I mean that is when I look at my guest booking request list that my team sends me.

1500
01:32:20.105 --> 01:32:21.767
I go down there and I look at all the people.

1501
01:32:21.807 --> 01:32:25.331
I go, oh my God, okay, so that person's got 100 million followers and they're a super famous person.

1502
01:32:25.351 --> 01:32:26.232
I've never watched their movies.

1503
01:32:26.252 --> 01:32:28.054
I have no idea who they are because I don't really watch many movies.

1504
01:32:28.734 --> 01:32:32.116
But, you know, I guess I could be authentic and pretend to care about that thing.

1505
01:32:32.376 --> 01:32:36.578
But then this principle comes into my mind, which is, well, then I wouldn't be able to do this for a long time.

1506
01:32:36.718 --> 01:32:41.961
I wouldn't be able to be consistent if I didn't make those, dare I say, authentic decisions.

1507
01:32:42.441 --> 01:32:49.145
For me to sit here and try and be someone else in those hours and hours and hours times by 10,000 episodes, I wouldn't be able to be consistent.

1508
01:32:49.165 --> 01:32:50.166
Thank you for calling this out.

1509
01:32:50.746 --> 01:32:53.447
What you just said doesn't contradict what I said.

1510
01:32:53.888 --> 01:32:55.408
And it's really important we highlight this.

1511
01:32:56.029 --> 01:32:57.970
You should not sign up for something.

1512
01:32:58.912 --> 01:33:02.617
where you cannot happily be consistent.

1513
01:33:02.658 --> 01:33:03.819
So let's think about a teacher.

1514
01:33:04.782 --> 01:33:06.282
The teacher knows everything they're teaching.

1515
01:33:06.522 --> 01:33:08.043
The students know nothing they're teaching.

1516
01:33:08.723 --> 01:33:13.584
So the empathic solution is not to authentically talk about whatever is interesting to you.

1517
01:33:14.164 --> 01:33:19.465
It's to create the conditions for you to teach people so that they can start to get closer to where you are.

1518
01:33:19.985 --> 01:33:23.266
That's a commitment, not an authenticity thing.

1519
01:33:23.406 --> 01:33:29.327
It's what kind of taste am I going to bring so I can consistently make a promise and keep it?

1520
01:33:30.218 --> 01:33:36.424
That needs to rhyme with what you would do if it was your hobby, but it shouldn't be your hobby.

1521
01:33:36.444 --> 01:33:38.826
When you turn your hobby into a business, you ruin both of them.

1522
01:33:39.306 --> 01:33:48.855
So do I conclude then that it's this sort of dance between me and my authentic self and the thing that I can do to be consistent at this goal?

1523
01:33:49.035 --> 01:33:49.776
Is it a dance?

1524
01:33:50.316 --> 01:33:52.038
It's a dance because people who are happy

1525
01:33:53.202 --> 01:33:58.764
find consistency that rhymes with their overall authentic self.

1526
01:33:59.724 --> 01:34:05.866
And their overall authentic self, it turns out, changes over time based on the promises they made.

1527
01:34:06.226 --> 01:34:19.991
So if you hang out with people on Wall Street, even if they weren't loud and short cycle kinds of people when they got the job, they authentically became like that because that's who they were surrounded by, affiliation, status.

1528
01:34:20.431 --> 01:34:21.032
We change.

1529
01:34:21.092 --> 01:34:21.972
We're not who we were.

1530
01:34:22.848 --> 01:34:25.169
And so we get to pick this arc.

1531
01:34:25.629 --> 01:34:36.655
It cost me a lot coming out of business school to be an underemployed entrepreneur in the creative business, not joining Apple or Activision or something like that.

1532
01:34:36.915 --> 01:34:41.598
So for years, I was behind on the status ladder of my peers.

1533
01:34:42.522 --> 01:34:49.267
That's an investment on the long arc of, quote, authentically becoming the kind of person I wanted to be all day.

1534
01:34:49.727 --> 01:35:00.114
But I said to myself, if I have to make a promise to an engineering company that I'm going to be Dilbert all day, every day, I'm going to die a little bit inside until it's over.

1535
01:35:00.295 --> 01:35:01.275
And I don't want to do that.

1536
01:35:02.256 --> 01:35:03.577
All industries are changing.

1537
01:35:05.278 --> 01:35:12.004
AI, what are your thoughts on this crazy new technology that has come down from where I am?

1538
01:35:12.024 --> 01:35:19.411
So my background here is when I was at Stanford in 1983, I took a PhD course with Doug Lanotte, who was one of the fathers of AI.

1539
01:35:20.011 --> 01:35:23.915
I worked with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke in my first real job.

1540
01:35:24.175 --> 01:35:28.078
So I've been a science fiction person thinking about AI my whole life.

1541
01:35:28.859 --> 01:35:31.821
And so when it finally showed up, I was like, yes, it's finally here.

1542
01:35:32.362 --> 01:35:34.123
And I'd been writing about it for a while.

1543
01:35:34.163 --> 01:35:35.744
I did some AI-related products.

1544
01:35:36.384 --> 01:35:38.146
Here's my two big ideas.

1545
01:35:38.306 --> 01:35:43.209
Number one, this is the biggest change in our world since electricity.

1546
01:35:44.390 --> 01:35:48.473
And number two, either you work for AI or AI works for you.

1547
01:35:50.513 --> 01:35:52.134
And what do I mean by those two things?

1548
01:35:52.694 --> 01:35:59.379
There were companies and workers in 1890 who said, I'll wait for electricity to go away.

1549
01:35:59.519 --> 01:36:01.720
I'm just going to keep being a blacksmith or whatever it is.

1550
01:36:02.120 --> 01:36:03.481
That did not work out very well.

1551
01:36:03.862 --> 01:36:06.043
This is like that, but much, much faster.

1552
01:36:07.524 --> 01:36:14.769
And then the AI thing is, if you work for an AI, it's not going to treat you very well, it's not going to be secure, and it's not going to make you happy.

1553
01:36:15.350 --> 01:36:23.776
Because bosses are going to keep pushing the AI to do all the good parts and you to be a gig worker for all the parts that the AI can't do yet.

1554
01:36:24.256 --> 01:36:30.841
But if you can say, I use AI to connect humans, I use AI to build a network of people, I'm

1555
01:36:31.621 --> 01:36:33.462
We don't know how to replace networks of people.

1556
01:36:33.782 --> 01:36:36.143
And AI is never going to be able to replace networks of people.

1557
01:36:36.163 --> 01:36:43.886
If you are trusted and connecting and leading using whatever AI tools you want, you're never going to have trouble making a living.

1558
01:36:44.993 --> 01:36:58.739
And so that's what you say, okay, if I have these tools, how do I use them not to be a junior, smaller version of open AI, but use them the same way that the movie theater used electricity, right?

1559
01:36:59.099 --> 01:37:06.323
That the electric company brought electricity to lots of businesses, but it took a movie theater to figure out how to get you to pay $5 to see the movie.

1560
01:37:06.883 --> 01:37:21.386
You used the word people and humans within that answer, and it made me sort of think that actually maybe the great opportunity in a world of artificial intelligence is not to try and be the world's best accountant, because maybe the intelligence is going to be great at that, but all the human stuff.

1561
01:37:21.666 --> 01:37:21.946
Correct.

1562
01:37:21.986 --> 01:37:23.147
All the human and the people stuff.

1563
01:37:23.367 --> 01:37:24.827
Yes, exactly right.

1564
01:37:25.287 --> 01:37:28.928
Good taste, understanding who trusts you and why.

1565
01:37:29.958 --> 01:37:36.540
There are very few jobs where if I can write down what you do all day, I can't find an AI to do it faster and cheaper than you.

1566
01:37:36.900 --> 01:37:37.520
Interesting.

1567
01:37:38.520 --> 01:37:42.621
So you want a job where I can't write down what you do all day, and then you'll be fine.

1568
01:37:43.302 --> 01:37:44.102
What the quiet quit is.

1569
01:37:45.042 --> 01:37:55.485
Well, I mean, so if you think about what does a bookkeeper do, I can write down all the rules of bookkeeping and hire a different bookkeeper tomorrow, and my business isn't going to fail.

1570
01:37:57.379 --> 01:37:59.920
That's something AI is going to get really good at really fast.

1571
01:38:00.341 --> 01:38:03.602
Because once we can write down rules, AI knows how to follow them.

1572
01:38:04.543 --> 01:38:13.528
On the other hand, somebody, the way you were talking about your good taste about who the next guest should be, you can't write down the algorithm for how to do that.

1573
01:38:14.390 --> 01:38:28.842
Your awareness of the world you're in, the fact that you have read so many books, met so many people, talked to so many listeners, I can't write all that down with instructions to get Claude to do that for me.

1574
01:38:29.042 --> 01:38:30.304
I was thinking about my fiancée, actually.

1575
01:38:30.324 --> 01:38:34.107
She runs a business called Bali Breathwork, and what she does is she takes...

1576
01:38:34.627 --> 01:38:36.948
women away on these retreats for seven days.

1577
01:38:37.408 --> 01:38:42.091
And I see the sort of feedback and the testimonials and the videos that these women sent, and they love it.

1578
01:38:42.431 --> 01:38:44.472
I always say to her, don't worry about AI, you're going to be fine.

1579
01:38:44.492 --> 01:38:47.033
And most of what they got out of it is each other.

1580
01:38:47.293 --> 01:38:48.594
Yeah.

1581
01:38:48.614 --> 01:38:53.356
And when we let the computer networks take over, it keeps pushing us away from each other.

1582
01:38:53.416 --> 01:38:58.038
It pretends we're connecting on social media, but people are more lonely than ever before.

1583
01:38:58.718 --> 01:39:01.560
But when we figure out how to connect human to human,

1584
01:39:02.220 --> 01:39:04.082
We create value.

1585
01:39:04.902 --> 01:39:08.686
And ultimately, if you want to make a living, you're going to have to create value.

1586
01:39:09.306 --> 01:39:14.611
And the bosses that are right now cost-reducing as fast as they can have no imagination.

1587
01:39:15.072 --> 01:39:17.934
They're saying, oh, this is cheap, super offshore labor.

1588
01:39:17.994 --> 01:39:18.935
It's called a computer.

1589
01:39:19.215 --> 01:39:21.778
I can get rid of 400 customer service reps.

1590
01:39:22.358 --> 01:39:23.519
They're racing to the bottom.

1591
01:39:23.780 --> 01:39:24.280
Yeah.

1592
01:39:24.580 --> 01:39:25.921
Some people are racing to the top.

1593
01:39:25.941 --> 01:39:27.742
How can I make this more human?

1594
01:39:28.322 --> 01:39:36.607
How can I make it so that now that I've augmented doctors with these AI tools, they're going to spend more time per patient, not less time per patient?

1595
01:39:37.468 --> 01:39:42.651
Because we know that patients that have doctors that spend more time with them are more satisfied.

1596
01:39:43.533 --> 01:39:45.475
So that's a business advantage.

1597
01:39:45.816 --> 01:39:57.569
Because now someone can either stay home, talk to Dr. Google, and figure out what's wrong with them and never go to the doctor, or they can go to a doctor that's worth paying for because that doctor has an AI working for them.

1598
01:39:59.591 --> 01:40:00.412
It's very true.

1599
01:40:01.793 --> 01:40:04.777
Is there anything else in the knot

1600
01:40:07.031 --> 01:40:09.111
that we haven't talked about, that we should have talked about.

1601
01:40:09.131 --> 01:40:11.352
Obviously, I want everyone to go and buy the book.

1602
01:40:12.412 --> 01:40:13.593
I love what you did on here.

1603
01:40:13.613 --> 01:40:16.613
I think this is probably worth just spending a second on.

1604
01:40:17.373 --> 01:40:20.814
But, I mean, do you know when you see an idea and you just wish it was yours?

1605
01:40:22.495 --> 01:40:23.615
This is one such example.

1606
01:40:23.955 --> 01:40:27.456
Yeah, that's the names of all the people who pre-ordered the book from my site.

1607
01:40:27.996 --> 01:40:30.456
And then I used a gray tone.

1608
01:40:30.617 --> 01:40:36.698
So if you look at it from a distance just right, it says the word purpose, as in what is the project you're trying to do.

1609
01:40:37.278 --> 01:40:47.623
Let me close with the story of Dame Fina Cooper because a lot of times we talk about the personal thing, what should this Uber driver do?

1610
01:40:47.963 --> 01:40:51.184
But then there are other times we talk about systemic injustice.

1611
01:40:51.424 --> 01:40:52.245
Are we all victims?

1612
01:40:53.325 --> 01:40:58.167
So Dame Cooper was an indigenous person growing up in New Zealand.

1613
01:40:59.168 --> 01:41:03.230
And New Zealand was the last major country to be colonized by the United Kingdom.

1614
01:41:04.078 --> 01:41:13.995
And so huge amounts of Native lands were taken, and the Indigenous people were disenfranchised in a lot of ways.

1615
01:41:14.496 --> 01:41:16.059
It's really tragic when you think about it.

1616
01:41:17.001 --> 01:41:34.930
And Dame Cooper, at the age of 78 or so, decided that she would use her status and affiliation within the tribe she was part of to capture the attention of the entire nation and try to put Indigenous people's rights on the agenda.

1617
01:41:36.011 --> 01:41:37.532
So you look at this and say, here's this woman.

1618
01:41:37.552 --> 01:41:38.832
She's not famous.

1619
01:41:39.192 --> 01:41:40.153
She doesn't have a lot of money.

1620
01:41:40.533 --> 01:41:42.134
She's almost 80 years old.

1621
01:41:42.654 --> 01:41:43.815
What could she possibly do?

1622
01:41:44.653 --> 01:41:47.276
This is a problem or it's a situation.

1623
01:41:47.316 --> 01:41:48.838
If it's a situation, what are we going to do?

1624
01:41:48.858 --> 01:41:49.459
Just live with it?

1625
01:41:50.020 --> 01:41:54.505
But if it's a problem, let's figure out where are the pieces to make progress happen.

1626
01:41:55.487 --> 01:41:57.329
She organizes 50 people.

1627
01:41:57.990 --> 01:42:02.015
Most of us could organize 50 people and they start marching to the Capitol.

1628
01:42:03.437 --> 01:42:07.482
And they do the work to spread the news in advance.

1629
01:42:07.702 --> 01:42:13.690
And day after day after day for more than a month, this group of people is walking to the Capitol.

1630
01:42:13.911 --> 01:42:18.917
She's on the front page of every newspaper in New Zealand by halfway through.

1631
01:42:19.978 --> 01:42:23.721
Now there's 100 people, 200 people, 2,000 people.

1632
01:42:24.061 --> 01:42:30.264
By the time they get to the Capitol, there are 4,000 people patiently marching side by side.

1633
01:42:30.825 --> 01:42:37.689
And they presented their demands, requirements, suggestions to the parliament and...

1634
01:42:38.409 --> 01:42:50.204
Too late, not enough, but in a very big way, it shifted the culture of the entire country, changed the laws about how land was allocated, and made a really fundamental difference.

1635
01:42:51.345 --> 01:42:52.887
She didn't do that by herself.

1636
01:42:53.768 --> 01:43:02.841
But she understood she had enough agency to connect the others, to create a culture, to show up and show up and show up with a practice.

1637
01:43:03.683 --> 01:43:08.930
So if one 80-year-old woman can change an entire country, what can we do?

1638
01:43:09.911 --> 01:43:13.953
We can't drive to London or Washington DC and change everything.

1639
01:43:14.533 --> 01:43:22.917
But what we can do is find the others, come up with the story we can tell ourselves and the others and establish a new normal.

1640
01:43:23.417 --> 01:43:33.001
The only way the world has ever changed is when a few people come together, build a culture and repeat it over and over and over again.

1641
01:43:34.762 --> 01:43:45.469
For some reason, when you talked about that, and it was a very motivating thing to hear, that the subject of death came into my mind because, again, I've dropped into the world of the listener right now.

1642
01:43:46.050 --> 01:43:51.273
And I guess I asked myself, how do you create that tension to do it today and not tomorrow?

1643
01:43:51.494 --> 01:43:51.674
Right.

1644
01:43:52.034 --> 01:43:53.655
Because there's never going to be a perfect time.

1645
01:43:53.795 --> 01:43:54.896
Tomorrow's going to be imperfect.

1646
01:43:54.936 --> 01:43:55.997
Next week's going to be imperfect.

1647
01:43:56.037 --> 01:44:02.841
So when faced with lots of imperfect options, how do you create enough tension to get whoever's listening right now to go do it?

1648
01:44:04.398 --> 01:44:04.578
Yeah.

1649
01:44:05.139 --> 01:44:10.343
When the person you're dreaming of becoming meets the person you become, how's that meeting going to go?

1650
01:44:12.064 --> 01:44:14.666
How do you become the person your future self thanks you for?

1651
01:44:16.488 --> 01:44:18.149
Because most of us have regret.

1652
01:44:18.990 --> 01:44:22.092
I wish I had done something when I was 20 or 30 or 40.

1653
01:44:23.033 --> 01:44:25.094
Well, that regret's a powerful fuel.

1654
01:44:25.435 --> 01:44:28.057
You said this to me before we started recording about regret.

1655
01:44:28.397 --> 01:44:28.617
Yeah.

1656
01:44:28.797 --> 01:44:29.418
And you said that,

1657
01:44:30.959 --> 01:44:33.300
It's actually not about what you want to accomplish, I think you said.

1658
01:44:33.320 --> 01:44:35.501
It's actually about some of the things that you wish you had done.

1659
01:44:36.482 --> 01:44:51.750
Yeah, so when I think about my mistakes, and I've had so many mistakes, the mistakes I regret the most are the things I didn't do, not the things I tried that failed, the person I didn't help, the lesson I didn't teach, the door I didn't open.

1660
01:44:52.650 --> 01:44:59.074
Because it's easy to ignore those things and just move on, but that's our power, our leverage, our agency.

1661
01:44:59.814 --> 01:45:02.336
is to be able to say, there's a thing I could do.

1662
01:45:02.456 --> 01:45:04.518
There's someone on that street corner who needs a hand.

1663
01:45:05.038 --> 01:45:10.262
How do we build a thing that our future self will thank us for doing today?

1664
01:45:10.883 --> 01:45:14.846
And so I spent two years organizing the Carbon Almanac with 1,900 co-authors.

1665
01:45:15.486 --> 01:45:18.268
Full-time volunteer work for me.

1666
01:45:19.049 --> 01:45:28.216
And the 1,900 of us got something out of seeing each other, working with each other, realizing we could do something about our understanding of our climate problem.

1667
01:45:29.036 --> 01:45:36.542
And then it became a bestseller in five or six countries and opened the door for many of the people who participated in it to have more leverage and to do the next thing.

1668
01:45:37.563 --> 01:45:48.833
But when I think about that day, when I said, well, I could post something about this and see who shows up, it would have been super easy to say, nah, let's just go see what's on Star Trek today.

1669
01:45:50.134 --> 01:45:54.177
But the habit, the practice of saying, okay, this is the next thing.

1670
01:45:55.486 --> 01:45:59.549
That begins this generative positive cycle, and it's contagious.

1671
01:46:00.470 --> 01:46:02.411
And that's the magic of this sort of virus.

1672
01:46:02.571 --> 01:46:12.078
If the generative contagious idea of who can I open a door for spreads, then you're probably going to end up living in a world that's more like the world you want to live in.

1673
01:46:13.278 --> 01:46:14.840
Why do you continue to do things?

1674
01:46:15.200 --> 01:46:17.563
Because you've written more books here than I could bloody carry.

1675
01:46:18.424 --> 01:46:27.332
I mean, you know, I was saying to you before when you arrived that when I started my career as a marketeer, which is, you know, that website that failed, turned into a marketing business, essentially.

1676
01:46:27.352 --> 01:46:34.119
And then I and then people, everybody gives you this book when you get into marketing, which is your book, This Is Marketing, and they use your ideas all the time.

1677
01:46:34.640 --> 01:46:36.361
I mean, one could say, Seth, you've done enough.

1678
01:46:37.794 --> 01:46:41.017
Maybe now is a good time to just enjoy it, they might say.

1679
01:46:41.238 --> 01:46:42.179
Why do you keep going?

1680
01:46:43.180 --> 01:46:48.005
You know, when I invented email marketing all those years ago, I needed to do it to make a living, to eat.

1681
01:46:49.046 --> 01:46:52.891
And it was thrilling to watch an industry grow up out of that.

1682
01:46:54.262 --> 01:46:57.724
But after that, writing books is a lousy way to make a living.

1683
01:46:58.745 --> 01:47:00.306
But it's a pretty good way to make a difference.

1684
01:47:01.486 --> 01:47:06.630
And I said don't turn your hobby into a business because you'll ruin both of them.

1685
01:47:07.810 --> 01:47:12.233
But it's interesting to think about turning your business into a hobby, into the thing you love to do.

1686
01:47:13.114 --> 01:47:15.295
And if someone said I can't share ideas anymore...

1687
01:47:16.081 --> 01:47:18.021
I'm not exactly sure how I would spend my day.

1688
01:47:18.822 --> 01:47:28.724
For me, when I hear from somebody who says, I learned something from someone who learned it from someone who learned it from someone who learned it from you, that's thrilling.

1689
01:47:29.784 --> 01:47:36.105
The only thing I'm trying to do is turn on some lights for people, offer them some dignity, and create the next cycle.

1690
01:47:36.625 --> 01:47:39.026
And if you sign up for that, I'm not sure how you can stop.

1691
01:47:40.698 --> 01:47:48.486
Now, maybe just maybe, listen, I'm not that superstitious, but maybe there's a couple of people that found this conversation and they got to this point in the conversation for some kind of reason.

1692
01:47:48.826 --> 01:47:51.429
And I imagine it's because they are in, you know...

1693
01:47:52.798 --> 01:47:54.019
they have their own knot somewhere.

1694
01:47:54.839 --> 01:48:12.211
So just to close off for those people who currently are in a bit of a knot, it could be a job, a relationship, a situationship, whatever it might be, what is your sort of closing remarks to those people that are a bit stuck and that are on that precipice of maybe taking a leap, a step forward, but they're tied up a little bit like these knots are?

1695
01:48:13.492 --> 01:48:14.333
Yeah, you're not alone.

1696
01:48:15.053 --> 01:48:15.554
We all are.

1697
01:48:15.994 --> 01:48:19.696
Every single one of us, especially me, we're all stuck with something.

1698
01:48:20.897 --> 01:48:26.921
And you can forgive that and then say, okay, who can I contribute to today?

1699
01:48:27.442 --> 01:48:31.324
Who can I offer help to and maybe ask for help?

1700
01:48:32.365 --> 01:48:35.307
And it doesn't mean that where you are is fair.

1701
01:48:36.068 --> 01:48:38.549
And it doesn't mean that what you're feeling isn't real.

1702
01:48:38.670 --> 01:48:39.150
It is real.

1703
01:48:39.590 --> 01:48:41.892
The only question is, what will we do next?

1704
01:48:43.183 --> 01:48:49.904
I really sort of take into heart this idea as well that we talked about earlier of just being really clear on which voice you're serving.

1705
01:48:50.965 --> 01:48:54.345
Because everyone's life is a noisy place increasingly.

1706
01:48:54.625 --> 01:48:54.825
Yeah.

1707
01:48:55.465 --> 01:48:58.626
You know, we're so connected in a digital sense.

1708
01:48:59.166 --> 01:49:01.187
We're so connected to other people's lives.

1709
01:49:01.367 --> 01:49:07.528
And even if someone isn't directly shouting at us and telling us what to go be and who to become, their life is.

1710
01:49:07.788 --> 01:49:07.908
Yeah.

1711
01:49:07.928 --> 01:49:08.028
Yeah.

1712
01:49:08.788 --> 01:49:15.210
seeing them in Hawaii on a beach, having a margarita is shouting at me, telling me that my life sucks and that I should change it and that I should be more like them.

1713
01:49:15.290 --> 01:49:25.132
And in such a noisy world, I think maybe some of the most critical advice you've left me with is this central idea of like getting clear on which voice in my life I'm going to listen to.

1714
01:49:25.392 --> 01:49:25.572
Yeah.

1715
01:49:26.032 --> 01:49:26.732
Because we fail.

1716
01:49:26.832 --> 01:49:29.213
We end up in a knot when we try and serve them all.

1717
01:49:30.673 --> 01:49:32.354
People are really lucky to have this show.

1718
01:49:32.694 --> 01:49:41.737
The way you show up, you've been narrating this kind of journey for years now, and you probably don't hear it often enough, but it's important, and thank you for doing it.

1719
01:49:42.217 --> 01:49:47.099
Well, that's an unbelievable compliment coming from one of my sort of personal icons, so I appreciate that a lot.

1720
01:49:47.899 --> 01:49:49.479
The Knot Problems Can Be Solved.

1721
01:49:49.499 --> 01:49:50.660
It comes out in September.

1722
01:49:51.700 --> 01:49:53.141
If it's September, it's out now.

1723
01:49:53.241 --> 01:49:54.601
If it's not, you can pre-order it.

1724
01:49:54.621 --> 01:49:56.422
There'll be a link below.

1725
01:49:56.442 --> 01:49:59.043
But I think, again, in the context of the world, I think...

1726
01:50:00.043 --> 01:50:16.262
unfortunately we might find ourselves in even more knots so this is a wonderful thing i think to buy for somebody in your life that might be in a little bit of a knot themselves um but also to buy for yourself if you find yourself in one seth we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next not knowing who they're leaving it for

1727
01:50:17.493 --> 01:50:18.453
And the question left for you.

1728
01:50:19.334 --> 01:50:23.655
If you were given the opportunity to live forever, would you take it?

1729
01:50:23.995 --> 01:50:24.155
No.

1730
01:50:24.836 --> 01:50:25.376
That was quick.

1731
01:50:26.536 --> 01:50:38.481
I think walking through the world as the only immortal person would be heartbreaking and enervating and wear you out much faster than you think.

1732
01:50:39.221 --> 01:50:47.069
If everyone was immortal, I think we would play by different rules as a planet, and that would be fascinating, but that wasn't the question.

1733
01:50:47.389 --> 01:50:52.635
I think if you read enough science fiction, you realize that selective immortality is a real curse.

1734
01:50:53.856 --> 01:50:54.076
Why?

1735
01:50:54.857 --> 01:50:57.879
Because everyone around you is dying and you're not.

1736
01:50:58.359 --> 01:51:00.861
Every single day everyone's dying just a little bit more.

1737
01:51:02.022 --> 01:51:04.844
And we define our humanity by our connections.

1738
01:51:05.725 --> 01:51:08.847
And we're all on this journey together and all of a sudden you opted out of the journey.

1739
01:51:09.448 --> 01:51:12.690
You're the only person on the boat that's not going where the boat's going.

1740
01:51:13.691 --> 01:51:19.255
And in the short run, it would be nice that my shoulders didn't hurt and that my voice was fixed and things like that.

1741
01:51:19.636 --> 01:51:21.277
But that would get old really fast.

1742
01:51:22.861 --> 01:51:26.885
That point of connection is so interesting because it immediately made me think about my friendship circle.

1743
01:51:27.205 --> 01:51:29.407
I've got these five best friends I've had for the last 15 years.

1744
01:51:29.847 --> 01:51:32.269
And we're all progressing through the life stages together.

1745
01:51:32.750 --> 01:51:34.171
Like they've all started having kids now.

1746
01:51:34.211 --> 01:51:36.013
And then I'm trying to have a kid at the moment.

1747
01:51:36.633 --> 01:51:40.577
And so we're like talking about that together and we're connecting about that together.

1748
01:51:40.657 --> 01:51:47.283
And actually, my nightmare would be to be the only one that wasn't in that life phase right now.

1749
01:51:47.623 --> 01:51:48.684
I feel disconnected.

1750
01:51:49.044 --> 01:51:49.244
Yeah.

1751
01:51:50.165 --> 01:51:51.887
Gosh, and if I lived forever, I would, yeah.

1752
01:51:52.087 --> 01:51:53.568
No, I've never wanted to live forever.

1753
01:51:53.648 --> 01:52:00.675
I think it's people need to think about the trade-offs of everything in their life, but particularly this idea of longevity.

1754
01:52:00.715 --> 01:52:02.737
Embracing this moment, you lose that.

1755
01:52:03.157 --> 01:52:06.300
I highly recommend just before we do wrap up, people go read your blog as well.

1756
01:52:06.320 --> 01:52:07.261
I'm going to link that below.

1757
01:52:07.501 --> 01:52:07.861
Thank you.

1758
01:52:08.281 --> 01:52:08.682
Seth, we're done.

1759
01:52:08.982 --> 01:52:09.543
What a treat.