Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - How To Escape the Comparison Trap | Creator of 'FOMO', Patrick McGinnis

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

We all know about FOMO, or the Fear Of Missing Out. We’re scrolling through our social media feeds, and there it is: post after post of a friend who’s somewhere exotic, having a great time, or at an exciting new job… and we’re not. We can’t help but compare our lives with people who seem to be doing so much more.The result can be an uptick in anxiousness, distress, grinding to “keep up” and sometimes FOMO can even stop us from taking action…that feeling of being overwhelmed. FOMO – the acronym and the idea – really struck a nerve in the social media age. Not only is it now in the Merriam Webster dictionary, but it’s spawned a whole slew of related acronyms: FOBO (Fear of Better Options), JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) and even inspired me to coin the term FOPO, the Fear Of People’s Opinions.Today on the podcast is writer and entrepreneur Patrick McGinnis, who invented the term FOMO back in the early 2000s. He did it flippantly, but then the idea took off, and he’s been owning it and studying it ever since.Patrick has come up with a way of looking at our fear of missing out, how to train ourselves to work with it, and even use it – in positive ways – to really go after the things we want and elevate our lives. It’s a fascinating story, a unique perspective on modern culture, and a great way of using this “negative” idea and turning it into a tool for better living.In the spirit of FOMO... you DO NOT want to miss this one :)_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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What happens when we feel FOMO? We are losing agency in how we decide to live our lives. We are outsourcing our priorities to somebody else. Inside of our head, we are telling ourselves a story. And that story is what you're doing isn't good enough. That said, there are some upsides to FOMO because as much as it can compel us to degrade ourselves, it is also an incredible motivator. Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I am your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training, a high-performance psychologist. We all know about FOMO or the fear of missing out. We're scrolling through our social media feeds and there it is, post after post after post of a friend who's somewhere exotic, having a great time, or at an exciting new job.

And we're not. We're scrolling. And we can't help but to compare ourselves with the lives of people who seem to be doing so much more and living the good life. The result there can be an uptick in anxiousness and distress and thereby defaulting to grinding to keep up. And sometimes, sometimes FOMO can even stop us from taking action. That feeling of being overwhelmed can take over. FOMO, the acronym and the idea really struck a nerve in the social media age. Not only is it now in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, but it's also spawned a whole new slew of related acronyms. FOBO, fear of better options. JOMO, joy of missing out. And it even inspired me to coin the term FOPO, the fear of people's opinions. So today on the podcast is writer and

entrepreneur Patrick McGinnis, who invented the term FOMO back in the early 2000s. And he did it flippantly, but then the idea just took off and he's been owning it and he's studying it ever since. So Patrick has come up with a way of looking at our fear of missing out and how to train ourselves to work with it and even use it in positive ways to really go after the things that we want to elevate our lives. It's a cool story, a unique perspective on modern culture, and a great way of using this negative idea and turning it into a tool for better living. So with that, let's dive right into this conversation with Patrick McGinnis. Patrick, how are you?

I'm really good. Thank you so much for having me. Awesome. Okay, so this is going to be fun. There's lots of acronyms that we're going to share. And we've got FOMO, FOBO, which might be a new one for some folks. Of course, FOPO, the thing that I've been working on for a while. We've got JOMO, YOLO. There's a lot of stuff here that I want to have some fun with you. But you coined the term FOMO, and it's a really important term. And so how did the concept of FOMO, fear of missing out, how did that originate?

So it goes back a lot farther than people realize. It was the early 2000s. It was a time before social media. And I was a student at Harbor Business School. Now, I had just moved up from New York City, and the way I like to think about my journey into coming out with FOMO is to go back to September 10th, 2001. It was the day I took my GMAT, which is the entrance exam for business school. I did much better than I had expected, and I thought, well, I'll apply to business school

at Harvard. And I didn't expect to get in. I didn't really know anybody who'd gone there. But I decided to do that on the 10th, woke up on the 11th, and it was 9-11. And I lived in lower Manhattan. And I remember going from real joy at having done well on this test to real uncertainty and stress and questioning of the world in which I was living, and a real feeling that life was deeply precious and that I couldn't waste a moment and that I needed to make the most of every second. I ended up getting into business school and moving up to Boston. I took that ethos, that carpe diem ethos with me. And I did everything. I took as many classes as I could. I went to every company presentation, even companies I didn't want to work at. I applied

for all the jobs. I went on all the trips. I just did everything all the time. And the reason I did that was because I'd never lived in such a choice-rich environment before. I come from a small town in Maine, a middle-class family. And I just saw this as this amazing opportunity to do things that I couldn't have done elsewhere. And when you match that with that carpe diem, that ended up in me running around like a madman. And I remember one night, I went to seven birthday parties. And I thought to myself, this isn't even fun anymore. This is like a job. And I have this fear of missing out on all these things. And frankly, I just can't keep up with it. I feel stressed. I feel tired. I feel anxiety.

And I started calling that feeling, the fear of missing out, I shortened it to FOMO because I'd always come up with acronyms. Since I was a kid, I probably invented like 10 acronyms over the course of my life. And I started using that word. And what I realized was that everybody related to this feeling. We didn't have social media. We didn't have those things. It didn't matter. We all lived on top of each other on this campus in Boston. And so it became a popular word on campus. And then I decided when I graduated in 2004 to write an article in our school newspaper talking about my funny little word. It was a satirical article in the humor part of the newspaper, but people knew that it was real in their lives. And that article became very popular. And that was the beginning of its

propagation because my classmates took it with them all over the world and slowly working in places like Google and many consulting firms and banking firms, they started using that word and slowly it spread to the point where it made the dictionary about 10 years later in 2013. And as you know, you and I have spoken about this both on your podcast and otherwise where FOMO was the origin, you know, out of fun, the origin for FOPO. And so it was so clever, so clear. And thank you for the inspiration there. And, you know, in a fun, clever, you know, counterintuitive way to point to something that's really serious. So you've done a nice job of it. So when you think about FOMO in your life and many of the folks' lives that you've impacted with it, how do you think about the origin of FOMO?

Not how it just started, but like from a psychological perspective. So as you dig into the fear of missing out, what is the lightning bolt experience for most people? Where does it start from? Yeah. So one of the things that's quite remarkable, and you know this, Michael, is that clinical psychologists, they work on college campuses, many of them, and they research and they have this laboratory. So they've been able to run tons of experiments and I've read all the literature and I've written about it myself, trying to understand like what is going on when we feel FOMO. And really there's two major things happening. Number one is when we feel FOMO, we feel it because we have aspirations for more.

We want bigger, better, faster, shinier. And so when we see something that stokes that feeling in us, then the dopamine starts to release because we expect some sort of reward. If I get this one thing, life will be just a little bit better. Now, of course, we all know that many times those triggers can be, for example, social media, they can be completely disconnected from reality. There's so many filters, everything's marketed. So, you know, not even getting into that,

the reality of the fact that it may not be real, we still feel that dopamine and we want that thing. We have that aspirational FOMO is what I call it. Now you combine that with the second element, which is what I call herd FOMO. And that's the idea that everybody's doing something and I'm not, and I don't want to be left behind. And these urges, these go back to the earliest humans because the earliest humans stuck together in a pack because they knew that if they were separated from the group, something bad could happen to them. So being in the group and the safety of the group, it's a response that is anthropological and within us. But when we feel that we are going to be excluded, our brain chemistry goes nuts and

we start to get the epinephrine, the stress, the fight or flight. And so you take those two things together, the aspirational FOMO and the herd FOMO, you add them up. And when you see something that elicits this kind of response, your brain reacts and you feel lots of feelings and that's where it all comes from. So how has your understanding of it changed over time? So my first understanding was very much as a high class problem. It's like, oh, poor me. I'm at this very fancy business school going to too many parties and company presentations. This is really ridiculous. And I wrote my satirical article because again, I come from a small town in Maine and I thought to myself, you know, this is ridiculous. I'm going to graduate from this place. I'm going to go back to my normal life and this

word will be a funny memory. And so that's why I'll write a little article as a way to capture this culture that I thought was so, so amusing. Now, when I realized that it had become a thing and that it was in the dictionary and that people were studying it, and I thought about it more deeply, I realized that it is a serious, serious condition because what happens when we feel FOMO is that inside of our head, we are telling ourselves a story. And that story is what you're doing isn't good enough. You are lacking something. And so that's where the problems start because you start to degrade your own life and experiences instead of appreciating the many, many things that you do have. And so now as I've looked into it, FOMO has been linked with mental health challenges, with physical stress,

with losing sleep, with digital addiction. So that's a hugely important issue. That said, there are some upsides to FOMO because as much as it can compel us to degrade ourselves, it is also an incredible motivator. FOMO is the reason I ran the New York City Marathon, right? So there's good things about it too. And I think it's important to recognize that with the bad, one can also find good. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring

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That's linkedin.com slash deal. For two full months for free, terms and conditions apply. Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals on a demanding day, certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put him on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars

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Like, don't you need to pay attention to people's opinions? And of course you do. And so there's a yin and yang to it. So I was pointing at the excessive worry of people's opinions. And what are you pointing at more narrowly? Are you pointing at the excessive worry about missing out or like, yes, there's an upside. What is the downside that you're most concerned about or that has been most prevalent in your awareness of it? Yeah, that's okay. So I love, this is why I love you, Michael, because you go right down into the heart of the matter. What happens when we feel FOMO? We are losing agency in how we decide to live our lives. We are outsourcing our priorities to somebody else.

And oftentimes, those priorities that we are getting from external sources, right, exogenous sources. They're not even real. So we, you know, it's like you see things that trigger feelings of FOMO. Like think about Firefest. Great example. I'm sure many people listening or watching have seen the Netflix show and the Hulu show. It was so crazy. They had to make two shows about it. People were, you know, looking at that and thinking like, my life isn't that great. I want to go hang out with all these famous people at Fyre Fest. It was all a lie. It never existed. And so think about how many times your FOMO, you feel that FOMO. Think about how many times that FOMO is connected to something that doesn't even exist. How scary is that? So that's really what I'm getting at.

Okay. And if FOMO is about a type of anxiety not clinical anxiety but it's a type of anxiousness about um not being included or that you're going to miss out how have you come to understand how that impacts the decisions that we make and then the bigger part of the question part two really is, you know, how can, how can the understanding or embracement of FOMO help us make better choices in our lives? So it's really interesting because what happens when we have FOMO, if we let it affect us, is that we end up reordering our priorities. We say, it's sort of like, you know, you think about you're doing, you're living your

life, you're doing your thing. Some piece of information triggers FOMO. And all of a sudden that thing rises to the top of the priorities. And so it sort of disorganizes the plan and distracts us from what's truly important. Now, what's also crazy though, and this is what the research shows. And when I read this, it really was quite a, it was quite a compelling sort of piece of information is that when we do things out of FOMO, we are doing it largely because we don't want to be excluded. And therefore our enjoyment of that thing, we do get enjoyment by being part of the crowd. That's great. But our actual enjoyment, intrinsic enjoyment of that thing, we do get enjoyment by being part of the crowd. That's great. But our actual enjoyment, intrinsic enjoyment of that thing is not the driver of why we did it. It's the fear.

And so if you think about that, if you're living a life that's driven by FOMO, the pleasure you're getting out of things is coming from the wrong place. It's really, it's a very fine point. It's like, I chose to do this thing. Now the thing itself isn't what's giving me the joy. It's the fact that I didn't miss out and that I'm not outside of the crowd. That's where the joy comes from largely. And so therefore you are living a life that is far less rewarding than it could be if you were able to get the joy from the thing itself and the pursuit of the actual, you know, whether it's a trip or a job or a relationship that

you're, you're missing out on that actual source of joy. Yeah, that, that's a rich insight. You go do the thing. And then afterwards you say, I'm glad I went, but it wasn't that fun. And I love, I love the, the articulation that you're doing it for, you didn't say it this way, but you're doing it for the wrong reason. You're doing it for this impulse, not impulsive. You're doing it to quell the anxiousness of missing out, as opposed to the intrinsic value that comes from the joy of unlocking something or the sheer fact that you'd rather be with somebody else, but you don't want to not be seen by this other group.

That's really good, Patrick. How has this adventure you've been on to share about FOMO, how has this impacted your life? Are you better for it? I am better at managing FOPO, fear of people's opinions, than I was when I first started the book. And I was far better now than I was when I was a teenager. So I've seen a growth arc by paying attention to it. And I'm wondering if you've seen the same. So I call myself patient zero for FOMO. I've always had FOMO. And I think about this concept that Carl Jung talks about, which is the wounded healer. And what he says is that a lot of people become therapists because they have experienced therapy,

see how powerful it is in their life, and they are compelled to share that with other people. But there's still just a few steps ahead of their patients on their journey. And so I have the humility, I'd like to be humble and say, I definitely feel FOMO. I feel financial FOMO around investing. I feel it around trips. I feel it around opportunities all the time. LinkedIn is like a very triggering place for me when I see what all my friends are doing that's cool. So I still – I receive the triggers and the brain starts to roll. But I have been able to figure out a bunch of different ways to process that information. And so as a result, I've become a much more calm and decisive person over time. And what I do try to do is when I do feel FOMO, I try to examine it and then figure out how I'm going to deal with it. And

maybe sometimes even listen to it because it is learning. It's all data. And I think that's the, that's the part that I didn't recognize before, but having written the book, it's like, I feel it. It's like the little, it's like, I feel it. It's like the little angel or devil on the shoulder. And instead of just trying to ignore it, I step back and kind of look at it calmly, as calmly as possible. It's so good.

Let's look at a couple of different relationships, the parent-child relationship and the child-parent. So it goes bi-directional. And then let's go peer to peer. And so are you more interested in the peer to peer relationship, like two adults or two college students or two peers in high school? Are you more interested in that or have you focused on the parent to child, child to parent interaction? Do you mean in terms of what provokes the FOMO? Yeah. So I'll be more concrete. Let's do the parent to child is that a parent can have FOMO about their kid not being

included. And so somehow it reflects the parent and the kid. The kid can have FOMO about not being included in the social event or the activity. And that can be separate from the parent's experience. But if the parent has FOMO as well, you've got two folks with FOMO, it feels like it would be far greater of an impact in decision-making and quality of life than if it was just one. And that's separate from the peer-to-peer, which is when I look at what my peers are doing, that it could trigger FOMO. And I don't know if the other peers having FOMO or not. So I'm looking at the tight-wound interaction between parent-child relationship as opposed to a bit of a different relationship between peer-to-peer. And I don't know if you've dug into both of those or primarily done peer-to-peer. Well, I've done primarily peer-to-peer. And I don't know if you've dug into both of those or primarily done

peer-to-peer. Well, I've done primarily peer-to-peer, but I'll tell you something that's very interesting. And I appreciate this because it's a very fine point. When we think about FOMO, what is happening? It's reference anxiety. I am comparing myself to somebody else, somebody who I believe is my peer or could be in some way, and that I could conceivably partake in the same activities as them. Now, some people get FOMO because Kim Kardashian bought a dress. Well, everybody can buy a dress. Maybe we have to save our money. So even with celebrities, we can feel that peer-to-peer with a parent-child relationship, as you've just stated, like,

for example, the parent sees that junior is excluded from the soccer team and feels the FOMO. I would argue a lot of that is actually still back at the parent because the parent wants to feel that they've done a good job and their kid is, so it is largely self-referential sort of thing, rather than saying, well, you well, my kid is excluded. That is certainly, there are feelings around that, but I would say it's less about FOMO because FOMO is so much in the regard of one, to the people around them who they perceive to be their peers. Independent of who the person is that's got some FOMO, whether it's a parent, a youth,

or an adult referencing their peers. How do you help them work through it? I know you said you recognize it, you notice it, data is information, but that information to be able to apply it is a bit different. So once we have information, we need to know what to do with it to make it applicable or turn it into something that's powerful. Do you have ways that you found that are either unique to FOMO or general to fear responses, you know, writ large that have been helpful to help folks through FOMO? Absolutely. And a lot of the work that I do, I'm not a therapist. I'm not a licensed therapist. So I will not call myself that,

but I do what I call FOMO therapy, which is to sit down and look at a situation where somebody's feeling FOMO and then work through the feelings and the thought process. Because at the end of the day, if we think about what FOMO is, it's a decision-making challenge. I got back to the question earlier. I mentioned this notion of agency. When you feel FOMO, you were then, you were given an opportunity to make a decision about what you're going to do next. And again, we have this new information. How will we deal with it? Now, the really simple way to begin this process is to think back to the two elements of FOMO that I mentioned earlier. There's the aspirational element of FOMO, and there's the herd element of FOMO.

So the aspirational, let's say, for example, that you hear about a new job opportunity, like you're like, let's do this. You work in a very nice job that you like. And then all of a sudden you see on LinkedIn that your college roommate is moving into the AI space, working in AI. And, you know, AI is very attractive. It's the talk of the town. And you're thinking like, wow, you know, if I got into AI, I could be the next Sam Allman. I could be worth a lot of money. I could, you know, stock options at that company could be worth a ton. I, you know, this could be it.

This could be my big break. So you start to think about it. You start to think about it. And the aspirational part says I could make more money. I could have more prestige. I could, you know, have fun. It's exciting. All could have more prestige. I could have fun. It's exciting, all that sort of stuff. So part one is to start thinking through that. Number one,

do you even know anything about AI? Are your perceptions that it's so great grounded in any fact or is it simply that you read an article in the New York Times last week about all the money that's sloshing into this industry? Just know, just kind of like taking off the filters and all of the marketing around something and asking yourself the basic questions like, what is my true understanding of this thing? That is the beginning. It's a process of due diligence into your own feelings and perceptions about some sort of opportunity to figure out how closely your perception matches the reality of this thing. Because so much of what we have to do in fighting FOMO is we have to minimize the

distance between reality and perception. That's part one. Part two is to take on the herd FOMO and say, okay, great. Say, by the way, it does live up. It is real. You've done your research. Maybe you're an AI scientist secretly, and you're well-equipped to work in this industry. Then the question is, why? Is this following the herd? Are you doing this just because your college roommate did it and you don't want to watch them get rich while you're sitting on the sidelines? Or do you actually have a deep and abiding interest in this thing. What is the motivation? Is it internal or external? Because, you know, all of us learn as little kids, like, just because so-and-so jumped

off a bridge, are you going to jump off a bridge? Of course not, right? Nobody should be jumping off bridges, ideally. But what is the reason? Who has agency in this decision? And if you think about it that way, it really helps to start winding away the FOMO feelings and replacing them, all that fear with facts. I think what you're suggesting is that once you feel it, that, oh, wow, I really want to be part of that. Then you're saying, hold on, is this because I don't want to miss out or is this I really want to be part of that thing that's taking place.

And then you have a cognitive, um, you explore cognitively, right? Or you're trying to close the gap between, um, two, two variables. What were those two variables you, you said? Perception and reality. So the perception is the way it will look and the reality is the way it will feel. Is that, is that what we're doing? Well, in other words, when you see something that creates FOMO in your mind, you start to project. It's sort of like, I remember when Bitcoin came out and I heard about people buying Bitcoin. I was like, oh my goodness, if I don't buy Bitcoin,

everybody's going to be rich but me. And Bitcoin just goes up and up and up and up. I don't know why, but it just seems like, and by the way, there are influencers on social media who you have no idea what's really happening in their account, but they're telling you the story of the riches they're making. And so you start to internalize this whole narrative. The reality is that it's not clear that any of that is particularly true or that it will be replicable. And so that's what you have to get away from is just buying that as fact. I love that perception reality gap. That's cool. Because in marketing, whether it's an individual influencer or it's a large brand that we're all familiar with, it certainly seems like FOMO is some of the best marketing tactics.

Like buy this, don't miss out. You know, like you don't want to, you don't want to blow it by not being part of something. That's a feeling that I get from a lot of advertising. And if you were part of the dark arts, you know, of doing some of the advertising campaigning type of stuff, would you use FOMO as a tactic or would you go a completely different way because you know the damage that it can create in people's lives? So it is true what you say.

And in fact, anybody who's listening, if you just look at your emails that you get from brands, they'll say things like, don't miss out 25% off today. The amount of FOMO that is deployed in email marketing and web marketing and other types of marketing, once you know it and you're on the lookout for it, it's really everywhere. It's like the matrix. Here's what I tell marketers because I do talk to marketers all the time about FOMO. FOMO isn't a bad thing. FOMO is, as I said earlier, can be a great way to change consumer behavior. It can be very powerful and that's okay. Where you have to be careful is that if you use

FOMO to get somebody to do something and then that thing doesn't live up to the promise and doesn't bring the utility that's expected, well, then you won't get that person back again. And as we mentioned earlier, it's like if the person's entire purchase decision is driven by a fear of not doing something and they don't actually enjoy the thing that they're participating in, then it doesn't work and it doesn't last. And so that is the challenge of the marketer, by the way. I mean, getting back to that perception versus reality, the challenge of the marketer is to make sure that even as they use FOMO as a way to change behavior, that they're not telling a story to the customer in which perception and reality are completely divorced.

Because, I mean, we all do this, right? You order something on the internet, like you buy something on Amazon. It looks amazing. You get it in the mail and you're like, this is not what I ordered. And then you'll never buy from that person again. So that is, for anybody who's a marketer here, that's your challenge. And if you can do that well, then FOMO is a great, great tool. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters.

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And when I'm locked into deep work, they also help me stay focused for longer without digital fatigue creeping in. Plus, they look great. Clean, clear, no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Yeah, I get that. You know what I really like about this conversation is that it's nuanced. Fear serves a purpose. So fear is not a terrible thing by any means. It gets lumped in with anxiety. Anxiety is problematic for the most part, certainly the forms of it.

But fear is information to our earlier point. And you mentioned also that FOMO could be a positive motivator. Can you open up that one more time so I can get my arms around? It's not all the dark art, but there's a good part to it. Absolutely. So this is a topic that I have talked about a lot in terms of the business world. And so let me give you the example. There's a lot of people out there who have a day job and, you know, they like it. Not their, you know, it's not like their dream in the world to do this one thing, but they like the work fine, good salary, stable life, comfort, all those sorts of things. Many of the benefits of having steady employment, right? But they have a dream. Like I remember I met a woman who was an assistant

at McKinsey and Company. She loved candles. She loved making candles. And her dream was to maybe have a candle company. So she didn't quit her job. If her FOMO was uncontrolled, she would just quit her job and start a candle company and see how it went. But no, she started a candle company on the weekend, started selling, and then eventually she got carried by major retailers and was able to go do this candle thing. So FOMO is the tap on the shoulder that says, have you thought about doing this? And then it invites us to say, okay, I have a little FOMO right now. Let me dig into it. Not going to quit my job and run the candle company, but let me like try it on the weekend. Let me go to the country fair and sell my candles. And this is what my first book,

The 10% Entrepreneur was all about, how to be an entrepreneur without quitting your day job. And so that's the kind of stuff. During the pandemic, I remember I didn't know how to cook. I was, I mean, it's tough. You're in New York City, stuck in your apartment, you don't cook during a pandemic. And I just decided like one day to start cooking foods of places I wish could go. And I was a terrible cook, but I just try every couple of days I'd make something. And then I learned how to cook. I'm not quitting my job to become a chef, but it was something that I thought, maybe I should try that. I saw some people cooking on Instagram and I thought, maybe this is my moment.

You know, where's that starter bread? So it's that kind of stuff. You get turned on to something. You're curious about it. You do a little diligence and then you start dip a toe in and go from there. And that is the beauty of FOMO. Okay. This is great because really what you're pointing to is the importance of awareness first, right? So I love the tap you on the, when FOMO taps you on the shoulder, that's awesome. Like when you get a little ping, like, Hey, you know, is this really, you know, all of

them are doing that. Don't you want to be part of that, like that tapping on the shoulder? And then to be able to pause, to create some space in there, that only happens once you're aware that you've been training a sense of awareness to be able to examine, to observe your thoughts and emotions and behaviors rather than reflexively jump right into the next thing or jump right into a FOMO response. I love that. And I also think that our attention span is compromised for a lot of reasons right now.

And when our attention begins to wander, which attention is a trainable psychological skill, when our attention begins to wander, it could easily wander to all the social media platforms or starting to muse about things that are happening outside of this present moment. It feels like what they are doing is a big part of the wandering. And so training your mind to come back to the assignment, whatever the assignment is, and that could be being in this conversation or it could be cooking email, whatever it is, that if you can focus on the assignment, you're going to have a better chance of dissolving FOMO and not being reflexive in the response to it. So I imagine being present and awareness training are the two that would pay dividends to help people through FOMO and not being reflexive in the response to it. So I imagine being present and awareness

training are the two that would pay dividends to help people through FOMO. You know, it just made me think, Michael, as you're talking, I think, first of all, I completely agree. And I think attention and focus, FOMO is about decision-making. It's also about focus, right? The second thing is when your attention begins to wander this may be cheesy but go with me when our attention begins to wander so does our intention so they go together and i think that that is really where the problem starts yes yep yep and so um intention, and intensity are three of the three really important words in performance psychology. And so we haven't talked about intensity. It's not relevant really here, but knowing how to gauge the right type of intensity for the assignment, for the task at hand

to be able to meet the demands of a moment, but your intention will drive attention. And so, you know, and then one click under just for fun, Patrick, is that establishing a commitment to be able to do those things that you intend to do with great attention. I hope this doesn't get too, I hope we didn't just get wandered here. No, no, I think you're completing the circle. You haven't even got to Jomo. Yeah, we are completing the circle. You haven't even got to JOMO. Yeah, we are completing the circle. Yeah.

Okay. So is JOMO, is that the opposite of FOMO? Or was that somebody being clever and you're not really down with it? And JOMO is the joy of missing out. I don't think that that's what you're pointing to as the anecdote or the counter to FOMO. But I wanted to make sure that we create space for it. I love that you brought this up. I have a funny JOMO story for you, Michael, which is that the person who invented JOMO is an entrepreneur called Anil Dash. I think quite well-known, quite prolific on Twitter, lives in New York City,

as do I, or at least has lived here. And I heard about people, anytime somebody posts about Jomo, like Brene Brown, whoever, my inbox is flooded. And I love that. I think it's interesting and fun. And I have, you know, the term is cool. I like it. Now, I was really interested to learn more about Jomo. And I have reached out to Anil and have unsuccessfully tried to reach. He doesn't want to talk to me for some reason. I'm not sure. He's busy. But I find it quite ironic that the Jomo guy doesn't want to talk to the FOMO guy. I've got the FOMO about talking to him. He has Jomo about talking to me. So that is just, that is like a, I don't know, that is meta as heck.

Well, we got the FOMO guy talking to the FOMO guy. I love the FOPO guy. Huge fan of the FOPO guy. Like I said at the top, like you inspired, the framing inspired FOPO and they're related. I think it'll be fun for us to talk about how they're related. Obviously they're very different. Missing out is different than the fear of people's opinions, but they are definitely hooked around each other.

And so that'll be fun to unpack a bit. However, all that being said is when I reached out to you, you were like, oh my God, this is great. Oh, this is amazing. You are super generative. And so you don't have a scarcity model that you're working from. And so I just want to recognize that, that I didn't know how our conversation was going to go, you know, cause you could have said, Oh, listen, I see what you're

doing. You know, this was a little too close. Why don't you, why don't you find your own thing or something? I don't know. But yeah, rising tide floats all boats and you certainly had that, that approach. Oh, I appreciate that. I'm an abundance seeker. And I feel what it does in this particular one is it gets us who are people who have a lot of things that we can talk about and spend time together and have a good vibe. It brought us together. So why could I even feel anything else but happiness? And because I think the work you're doing is really good. Now, Jomo. So I like Jomo is really good. Now, Jomo. So I like Jomo.

I'm on board with Jomo. The problem though, Jomo has a couple. Here's my big problem with Jomo. It's like this. If you have Jomo and you post about it on Instagram, you don't really have Jomo. Why are you telling me about it? Why are you telling me about your Jomo?

Because Jomo, you should be, you should be like a, a, the Buddhist ideal disconnected, you know, just observing around you. And so when it becomes an ego expressive emotion, then it, then it clearly isn't working out so well. And so that's my problem with it is that, that it's kind of, um, it's kind of fake. And then the other thing is, I always say- Wait, wait, you just slipped that in there. Okay, what's that? You just slipped that. It's a really big statement.

You just slipped it in there. It's kind of fake. I think that, so you're, hold up, before you go further, please remember your thought because I want to share the timeliness. Is that you're, okay, good. You're pointing to, I grew up in surfing and there's core surfing and competitive surfing. And in core surfing, you put yourself in the most consequential condition that you can

because you want to feel it and you don't talk about it. You don't ask, did you see it? You don't go to school or a meeting and say, hey, did you see what I did? Or you don't talk about how heavy it was. The culture is that you intrinsically experience the activity and are completely present in that event. You're actually in it. And that is the reward. And so you don't need to talk about a matter of fact if you

do talk about it whether it's the joy of the experience or the intensity of it you've compromised the integrity of the experience by talking about it for a secondary gain i think that's what you're talking about it's not chill when you say you know it's it's not it's just not chills okay and it's and the other thing is like think about this i mean just to go another spin around on this roller coaster of jomo is that if you're telling me about your jomo and it's because it's an instagram thing a lot this is a very social media type thing um if you're telling me about your jomo like what are you trying to provoke out of me are you trying to provoke out of me? Are you trying to make me feel FOMO that I have Jomo? Like what is going on there?

A hundred percent. It's, it's a lot to think about. It's just, yeah. And there's a FOPO loop in there too. You're trying to say, I've got Jomo. I'm joy of missing out. And I don't care what you think of me not being part of something. There's a, there's a hook between all three, which is really clever. Yeah. So, okay. So all that being said, let's get down into FOBO, which is another acronym that you've built, which is the fear of better options and how that is different than FOMO. So can you unpack those two? Yeah. So FOBO, fear of better options. It is a cousin of FOMO or like the yang to the ying kind of thing. They are related. And in fact, I invented FOBO at the same time and wrote about it in the same article back in business school. It just didn't take off in the same way. And so what's happening there when you have FOBO, a lot of the

same triggers, social media and stuff like that, is that you have perfectly acceptable options in front of you. You're deciding on... A really classical one that we all live with is what to watch on Netflix. Well, guess what, everybody? There are plenty of wonderful things. Netflix does not have a shortage of content, but yet in this world of abundance where we have so many choices, we have overload. We have choice overload. We have decision paralysis. And so what happens when we have FOBO is we think, well, this is good enough, but I really want to watch something awesome. So I'm going to keep looking and looking and looking. And we continue to search and search and search because we want to maximize

and because we believe that as we search, we might find something better. And what happens is we either never decide or when we have decided, we spent so much energy on this process that we have anxiety and regret over having not chosen the best thing. And so just like FOMO, it's very much a lie we tell to ourselves. Oh, there is a riskless choice out there. That's just not true. But I find that FOMO is particularly pernicious. The reason why I love to talk about it is because I get why why people have FOBO about things like jobs or the house to live in.

I get it. I mean, I'm not saying that it works out, but I understand that. But so many times our FOBO is about things that are deeply inconsequential. You know, I try to order food on Uber Eats. 30 minutes later, I give up. So that's what's going on. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we

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And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple. Their products are simple. And they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate

your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. It's really a clever insight by you because the research on psychology about decision making is that it's easy to make a decision between one obvious, let's call it good decision, and one bad. And really, it's favorable and unfavorable conditions. Those are easy. Nobody misses those, right? The ones that

both are unoptimized, both are not great. Those are tricky, but the trickiest are when you've got two really good ones and they're both favorable, that that can be as difficult as any decision for people because to your point, there's a luxury. And so I can imagine that to your Netflix scenario is that I've got like, let's call it 90 minutes to watch something. And I spend 20 minutes looking for the best option and it's kind of whittled into the 90 minute window to watch something. Now I've got to split it between two or whatever. Like it's that machination around the luxury of making a decision between two favorable options is actually, to my point,

some of the research quite tricky for folks. And then you're hitting on something else, which is if you have a bit of depression on board or a bit of anxiety, people that are struggling with depression find it difficult to make decisions. So going into a grocery store and not having clarity of what you want with a little bit of a depressed mood can be like super overwhelming because there's seven different types of bread or 17 different types of bread.

Certainly the same as with digital choices. So FOBO is actually exasperated by just a little bit of anxiousness and or a bit of depression as well. How about that? It makes a ton of sense. I hadn't thought about that before. So thank you for sharing that. But it does make sense that when you're already feeling overwhelmed to then add more performance anxiety on top of that, it's very, it can be really compounding. Yeah. It's something that happens. You'll hear people throw around the term paralysis by analysis is the looping of trying to find the better option. You know, if you're always thinking about're always thinking about that there might be something else better and you don't want to strike

because there might be a better option, that keeps the door open, but it never gets to resolution and or action. And so have you found any linking between FOBO, even anecdotally, of course, between FOBO and paralysis by analysis? Absolutely. And one of my favorite books is a book called The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz.

It's a wonderful book. And Barry's a friend and somebody who's, I consider, you know, one of, he's like a, you know, I have FOMO about being like Barry because he's so incredible. I don't have FOBO. But talking to him about this, he studied this now for many, many years. They're absolutely related. There are cognitive issues. It's also just the fact, what I find particularly interesting is that people know this. It's not like we don't know this. We all know that if we go into a store and there's too many SKUs that we'll simply turn

around and walk out. But yet for many different reasons, including the way that retail works and the fact that we live in a super abundant society, we have all these things. And so I always call this an affliction of abundance because it is so counterintuitive in our system, our capitalistic system, that more makes us less happy. But of course, because of the psychology, because of the physiology, we know that it's true. This is why some of the marketing geniuses, certainly on the web, have advised us and many people to say three choices, good, better, best, three choices. And so make the choice as easy as possible. And I mean, not surprising, most people choose the best or better and don't choose good,

which is interesting. So I love what you're doing here. And so have you found that you struggled at all with the fears of doesn't quite point to the thing that you would want to have happen. So that's why I was wondering about JOMO as the thing that you would want, but you dissected that in a very articulate way. What I struggled with is I identified FOBO, fear of people's opinions, but didn't quite square yet what the thing is that is the target. It is not a acronym that I have. There's a freedom, but that doesn't quite hit it square yet. There is a high agency experience, but that doesn't quite capture the fun that I'm trying to also articulate. So do you have, for example, when you're teaching a basketball player how to shoot a free throw,

you wouldn't say just don't miss. You'd say focus at the back of the rim and snap your wrist. And so you're telling, you're giving direction to your brain about what you want to have happen as opposed to the thing that's getting in the way. So do you have a North Star that you're pointing to? So I don't have a fun, unfortunately, this may be my homework for 2020. Yeah.

It's coming up with it. We, we can, you and I will workshop acronyms whenever. That'd be great. I would love to do that. That'd be fun. It's fun to do.

Yeah. Okay. When I think about, you know, the, when I think about these two or I let's start, they're kind of different in terms of where you're trying to get. For me, the opposite of FOMO is agency.

It's fact-based agency. I have looked at the facts, and I'm making a decision based on what I believe is important because I know. And this is the other thing that's kind of interesting because I know what I want. With FOBO, what I think is going on there, what is the opposite? It's the realization that every decision is not – people think every decision is being high stakes somehow, which is not true. I mean, there are high stakes decisions, but oftentimes our FOBO is not with those. It's with these little things. A decision is just a door to walk through to the

next set of decisions or doors. And so when one realizes that, it just makes it really important, much more powerful to be able to just move through things. So the opposite of FOBO is decisiveness. And it's also gratitude, recognizing like, I have perfectly acceptable options in front of me. I'm going to choose one and move on with my day. To your point about the intensity of decisions, a framing that's helped me a bunch and certainly has helped with, I think it would with FOBO, but I just want to make sure we're on the same page. And I think it was Bezos that coined the term one-way or one-way door decision-making and two-way door decision-making

and two-way door decision-making. Yeah. So if it's a one-way, it's like once that door opens and closes, you're done. But a two-way is a little bit like in a restaurant, like the door kind of swings back and forth between the kitchen. Like you can go back, no problems.

But has that framing helped you at all in FOBO or do you see a problem with that framing? So here's how I think about it. I'm not saying I'm better than Jeff Bezos Has that framing helped you at all in FOBO or do you see a problem with that framing? So here's how I think about it. I'm not saying I'm better than Jeff Bezos because he's pretty great. But I do something slightly different. I think about it in terms of high stakes, low stakes, and no stakes decisions. So high stakes decisions are kind of like the one-way door.

It's like I am going to marry this person, move to this city, take this job. They're big things. They're the things that we will remember having made that decision. We will, and thus, we must take them onto ourselves and we must do a lot of work around them. Low stakes and no stakes. What's a low stakes? Low stakes is something you won't remember really having the decision-making process in a couple of months, like buying you know, buying a new printer.

Now there's criteria that is required. You have to think about it. There is an investment, but it is not going to change your life irrevocably. And then the no stakes, which are the ones that I really have no patience for is the stuff that you won't remember. Like, what did you have for lunch three days ago, Michael? I bet you couldn't tell me without thinking deeply about it. But if you spent 10 minutes trying to decide whether to have the chicken or the fish, and you don't even remember that three days later,

that's a no stakes. And so where I really like to encourage people to think, I mean, I have a lot of, you know, I've thought about all of these, but the easy thing to target if you're trying to start today is the no stakes. You can just flip a coin. And what will happen is if you say it's like chicken or fish at lunch, and if you go to flip a coin and you get fish and you're like, oh, but I didn't want the fish. Guess what? Your decision is made for you now because your true intent came out. You put a bunch of constraints on yourself and forced yourself to actually make a decision.

So it's a really simple way to escape from those no stakes decisions where people get stuck. Because guess what? If you do that every day, you make lots of decisions without thinking about it. But if you spend a lot of time on these no stakes things, and some people really do, it can paralyze your life. And by the way, it's very annoying for everybody around you. People start to, they start to look at you like somebody who can't, who doesn't have sort of executive function and it can really hit people's perception of you as a decision maker. I love that. That's a great framing. So Patrick, thank you for introducing FOMO and FOBO and being so articulate with what it is, what it is not, how to work through it. You've got a book that people can, you've got at least two that I'm aware of.

Where do you want to point people to be able to have more tools and better understanding of something that is affecting decision-making in their personal professional lives? Sure. So the best place to find me is, first of all, my podcast is called FOMO Sapiens. Michael came on. It's a fantastic episode getting into FOMO. So is called FOMO Sapiens. Michael came on. It's a fantastic episode getting into FOMO. So check out FOMO Sapiens. That's two words, wherever you get your podcasts.

And then to find out more about me, go to PatrickMcGinnis.com. I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram, talking about these challenges and opportunities and just generally talking about what I call entrepreneurial decision-making, which is how can we make better decisions for our lives and our businesses. So, okay, before we go, one more kind of quick hit here. You're sitting down with a young person who is suffering from FOMO. They have it. You have, you know, two minutes with them. What are you saying to them?

You know they have FOMO. You've only got a handful of moments. And they're really struggling. And they're looking to you for some guidance. So I would say to this young person is I would really encourage them to, as we said before, observe what they're feeling. And then go backwards. Why are you feeling this? What is giving you these feelings? How does this correspond with your core values? Why do you think you want this thing? Just go deep within oneself to the root of the feeling

and what tends to happen. Just like when we talk about our fear of, a lot of us have fears of things that may not be super rational. And we start to think through those things. Why are you afraid of this thing? And you can't give a good reason. And then the answer presents itself. So that's what I would do. It's within you. It's totally within you, the ability to overcome this. Maybe you need some help, but you can start with it. Surprising answer. And I love every bit of it. Are there any regions or countries or cultures that are immune from FOMO? I love that question. Well done. So I, I don't know if you know this about Michael, but about this about me, Michael, but I've been to 117 countries. So there are now, why is it?

This is okay. So there are three places that I've been in the, in the world where I explained to people, they're like, what do you do? And I told them, and the person looked at me with tremendous skepticism and shock. And those three places were Jamaica, believe it or not. I was in Kingston for a business trip. I was in to leave Jamaica aside for a minute. Turkmenistan and Lalibela. Turkmenistan is a closed society. The internet is largely not present. There is no social media. It is not allowed. It is a low information society. So therefore, people just don't have reference anxiety because they don't really know what's

going on. They're not keeping up with the Kardashians. And so as a result, FOMO is very low. Same thing with Lolli Bella. No cell phone service, rural, simple life. People are living as they would have hundreds of years ago. And so it's just not a thing. So low information societies or places that are digitally disconnected typically will be places with less FOMO.

The third, Jamaica. I posit it's cultural. Now, my sister-in-law is Jamaican, but I am not Jamaican. So I'm no expert on Jamaican history. But it is a culture that is deeply collective. People are very close to their families. And it's a relatively easy going and, and, and joyful culture.

And so as a result, the idea that I should be missing out and worried about what other people are doing, I just remember folks just didn't really feel that way. And so that, that's my perception. I'm sure some Jamaican folks are listening. We'll have a different opinion. You can find me online and tell me more, but those are, those were the three places that stuck out in my mind. Very cool. Yep. and tell me more but those are those were the three places that stuck out in my mind very cool yep and you know you bring up the kardashians um the title of their show

keeping up with the joneses keeping up you know with the kardashians that is fomo isn't it that is the that is the promotion of fomo keeping up what's crazy, Michael, in all of the stuff that I've been doing with FOMO, I had this one moment that was my jaw drop moment. Because we all know keeping up with the Joneses, of course, is a terminology. So that actually comes from a comic strip that was in the New York Globe 100 years ago or so. And it was very popular about this family. And they lived next to a family called the Joneses.

And the father of the family was always jealous because the Joneses, Mr. Jones would have, he would have a new pair of pants and it was really weird things he was jealous about, like red pants or whatever. And so he was constantly constantly the theme of the whole comic strip was like that this gentleman was was jealous of his his neighbors the joneses the name of that character was aloysius p mcginnis same last name as me spelled with one and not two

that's pretty funny when i found that out that was, I was like, well, this was God's plan. P. McGinnis. That's really funny. Yeah. That's great. Oh, my God. Way to close this out. That is really fun, man.

So listen, I appreciate your mind. I appreciate how clearly you can articulate something that so many of us have wrestled with. And your generativity to be inclusive and to be of abundance and absolutely your adventure spirit to go get down with 117 countries that I think you said our producer found that there are Alex Wood extraordinaire's found that there's 195 countries in total right now. And so you're really close. That's pretty awesome. Don't give me FOMO.

You're right there. Yeah. No, no, no. Yeah, my goodness. Okay. Thank you for what you've introduced to the world and to all of us here. So I really appreciate you, man.

I appreciate you too. Thanks so much. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening.

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And the team is very thoughtful about making sure we love and endorse every product you hear on the show. If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers you heard about in this episode, you can find those deals at findingmastery.com slash sponsors. And remember, no one does it alone. The door here at Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same. So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend, and let us know how we can continue

to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional. So seek assistance from your healthcare providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.