Habits and Hustle - Episode 397: Michael Easter on The Comfort Crisis: Is Optimizing Life Making Us Weaker?

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Is our obsession with optimization actually making us weaker?  In this episode of the Habits and Hustle podcast, I am joined by Michael Easter, author of "The Comfort Crisis" and "Scarcity Brain," to explore how modern society's relentless pursuit of wellness and optimization might be backfiring.  We discuss the possibility that the more requirements we add to basic human functions (like sleeping, exercising, or working), the more fragile we become. We also dive into elaborate morning routines, sleep-tracking devices, how subtraction, not addition, might be the key to building real resilience in our overly-comfortable world, and the best way to end a day of intellectual work.  Michael Easter has made a career as a New York Times bestselling author by traveling the world to uncover practical ideas that help people live healthier, happier, and more remarkable lives. His research spans from war zones to the Arctic to the Bolivian jungle, where he's interviewed thousands of experts including Nobel laureates and world-class athletes. Easter shares these science-backed insights in his books, including Scarcity Brain and The Comfort Crisis, as well as in his newsletter, Two Percent with Michael Easter. His work has been adopted by professional sports teams, Fortune 500 companies, and elite military units to transform their approaches to physical health, mental well-being, and performance. What We Discuss: (00:00) Book Authors Discuss Success and Integrity (08:27) The Scarcity Loop in Behavior Psychology (15:34) Behavioral Psychology and Impulse Control (28:16) Unpredictability and Stimulus Seeking (42:21) Efficiency Through Resource Subtraction (50:30) Daily Habits and Mental Stamina …and more! Thank you to our sponsors:  AquaTru: Get 20% off any purifier at aquatru.com with code HUSTLE Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off  TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. BiOptimizers: Want to try Magnesium Breakthrough? Go to https://bioptimizers.com/jennifercohen and use promo code JC10 at checkout to save 10% off your purchase. Timeline Nutrition: Get 10% off your first order at timeline.com/cohen Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers.  Find more from Jen:  Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen   Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Michael Easter: Website: https://eastermichael.com/  Books: https://eastermichael.com/books-v2-wip/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michael_easter/

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Okay, so this is the book. This has been out for a year, the Scarcity brand, yeah? Yeah, year tomorrow actually. Wow, happy anniversary. And this one is The Comfort Crisis, which is I really enjoyed this one too. Oh, thank you. This is your first one. Yep. I'm going to ask you a couple questions from that too, because I really, I noticed

something which I found to be very interesting in it. You talk about in that book, I just did a Ted talk. Let me just get back up. Three days ago. Nice. Awesome. Thank you. Part of that Ted talk was me talking about this cool concept of like how boredom has been a lost feature in our world.

And because of that, I think mine was much more about kids and how building mental strength and toughness has been, it's becoming a problem in a very soft world. And I think a big part of it is because of boredom. We've lost that ability. And then you talked about that a little bit, which is an interesting, I didn't realize, I didn't realize like, I was like, oh my Yeah. We've lost that ability. And then you talked about that a little bit, which is interesting. I didn't realize, I was like, oh my God, I really like this guy now. You kind of make mention of it also, what the benefits of boredom are and how the world has evolved to not having it anymore. Yeah. Well, we'll have to talk about that. I know. Let's talk about it. Go ahead. We're starting.

All right. We're starting. That's how we start here. We go right into it. I like it. Awesome. Well, I'm glad to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. This is Michael Easter. He's a two-time at New York Times bestseller. Did the Scarcity Brain become a New York Times bestseller? Yeah. So Scarcity Brain was New York Times bestseller. Comfort Crisis wasn't, because Comfort Crisis had this like- What? So Comfort Crisis was interesting because Comfort Crisis had this like. What? So Comfort Crisis was interesting

because it was one of those books that it came out, had a decent opening week and then it kind of sat and it just needed to like, it was kind of like the virus where, two people to four to eight to 16 word of mouth. And so now, I mean, at this point, three years later, we're selling a lot more per week than we were like even in week three of the release.

So it just kind of word of mouth took over. That happens. That actually happened with like a couple of things, Family Man that happened with and like Breaking Bad. Like certain things like don't really have like a strong, very rarely, maybe a strong out of the gate, but then through word of mouth and picks up momentum and it becomes like a cult hit, a cult following. I thought your book, I thought it was great.

I thought the comfort crisis was a really, really good. Um, I thought this was a New York Times bestseller. No, but we've, um, you know, we got there, we got where we needed to get. So. I love it. Yeah. So let's talk about the scarcity loop and then

we can go into the comfort crisis. Is that cool? Yeah. It's good with me. Okay, good. So, because that is like the more topical for now, but can we talk about number one, the scarcity brain? And you talk a lot about something called the scarcity loop.

Can you just start by talking and defining and explaining what the scarcity loop is? Yeah. So the easiest way to think of the scarcity loop, it is, I argue in the book, the most powerful habit loop of the scarcity loop it is I argue in the book the most powerful Habit loop in the sense that it pushes people into repeat behaviors that they later regret so the easiest way to Understand how it works is to picture a slot machine and why people get hooked on slot machines

So the scarcity loop it has three parts. It's got opportunity part two is Scarcity Lupit has three parts. It's got opportunity. Part two is unpredictable rewards. And then part three is quick repeatability. So when you play a slot machine, you have an opportunity to win money, right? But two, unpredictable rewards. You don't know when you're gonna win money

or if you're gonna win money, right? Any random game you play on a slot machine, you could lose, you could win like a dollar or you could win thousands of dollars, right? There's this insane range of possibilities that can happen from this one behavior. And then three, quick repeatability. Once you finish a game, you can play over, right? And so people play over and over and over.

So I live in Las Vegas, which was really kind of the impetus for me to start thinking about this loop, just watching people play slot machines all day long. Because when you look at that behavior, you're like, that doesn't make any damn sense. Right? It's like, everyone knows the house always wins in the long run, yet people keep repeating and repeating the behavior. And it's simply because that three-part system is incredibly powerful at grabbing people's attention and incentivizing this repeat behavior that is fun in the short term, but it's detrimental in the long run. Now the reason that it's important is, you know, people are probably listening to this

going like, I don't play slot machines. Why do I care? The reason this is important is that this three part system really got sort of revived and put at scale in slot machines in Las Vegas in the 1980s. And then a lot of other industries saw that people would play these machines and lose money and they were making, the casino industry is making billions of dollars off this thing. And they go, okay, well, how do we do that?

What is that? How do we do that? And so now you see this three-part scarcity loop being put in a lot of mobile technology. So I would argue that if the average listener wants to pull out their phone and look at their most used apps, I guarantee most of them are going to be using this loop. So think of social media. It's like you have an opportunity to get a like, a comment, to see something entertaining, but you don't know how many likes you're going to get if you post, right? It could be one or two and you're like, oh, that sucks. That's a loss. Or you could

go viral. It's like, oh my God, my life changed. And then you check and recheck, right? It's in dating apps. It's the sort of swipe, swipe, swipe. Am I going to get a hit? But it's also in the rise of sports betting on cell phones. It's in, I mean, it's just been placed in so many different areas in our life that we often lose our time, resources, and attention to. It's even put in shopping. Online shopping is really leveraging the loop to get people to buy more stuff they don't need. So is it that companies really understand the schedule? Like how is it that there is it like so so if they understand that loop then they have technology that's based around creating like basically working on the human psychology of at what point do people get anxious if they don't look at something or do

something? Is it like is there a particular speed? Is there a particular what is that? What is the actual precision? Is it the same with the algorithm and it is with slot machines? What I found interesting when you talk about this is the slot machine when it was a handle versus when it was a digital form, when it became digital, you just press a button, the amount of usage for slot machines like skyrocketed. Yeah, it went so the average slot player went from playing 400 games an hour on the handled machines because it's slower, right? You got to pull this clunky handle to playing about 900 games an hour when you could just

hit this button repeatedly. So basically double. So yeah, the three things that it needs is the person has to get something that's of value to them. First of all, it has to be unpredictable, right? If something is predictable, like I'll give you an example of a slot machine. That's kind of a ridiculous example, but it'll help you understand it is if you were to put a dollar in a slot machine and every time you hit the button, you got $2. It's like, okay, that would be nice, but it wouldn't be that fun.

I mean, that's basically what a job is, right? It's like a basic labor job. Like I pull this hand, it's like working in a factory. I pull this handle and I get a predictable amount of money for the act. That is a job. So you need to have that unpredictability. And then third, to your point, the faster you can deliver and repeat the behavior, the more likely someone is

to get hooked on it. So for example, like buying a house, that has a certain amount of unpredictability too, right? If you're looking at it as an investment, but no one gets hooked on buying houses because you're going to own the house for like 10 years. So you need the speed, the faster, basically as a general rule, the faster you can repeat behavior that you get something good from, the more likely you are to repeat it. I guess that's a dope. Isn't that like a dopamine hit though?

Yeah, it's like, so dopamine, um, sort of drives is the wanting element of it. It makes you want to do the behavior. And then, um, there's a different system that delivers the reward. That's called the, the liking system. And so like, it's, it's crazy. Like even like, do you know, have you heard of a company called Rakuten? I have heard of them, but I don't know a ton about them. Tell me.

Okay. Well, it's like these companies that now are like these, like if you're online shopping and you can save money for every dollar you buy, right. They also call it like, there's been a ton of like funny funny like memes on like, it's called like girl math, right? Like, oh, you know, like I just got $7 because I spent $700. So I made $7, you know, because they say, whatever you buy today, lucky day,

you're gonna get 10% back of whatever you buy. So people that end up buying so much, thinking that they're actually making money. You're actually not making any money. You're losing money because you're spending all this money. Totally. You know what I mean? And it's like this like crazy Jedi mind trick that they do on you.

And it's kind of similar with slot machines, right? Because you put a dollar in, you get eventually get a quarter back and you think, Oh my God, I'm making money now. Right. Even though you've lost like 20 bucks, you know? Exactly. It's still exciting. I'll say two things about that. One is there's another website and app called Taimu. It's this like direct buy from China website. That site is like the crystal meth of shopping. It's like you go on the site and you get literally this

wheel like you would see in a casino where you spin it and that determines your discount. Sometimes they'll even pop up with a slot machine where you play it and then it tells you, oh, you're going to get this discount. And it's also on a timer. So that incentivizes speed. They're like, you're going to get this free gift, but you got to buy something within five minutes. So now it's like the speed is on. It is just like, it's out of control. It's completely ridiculous, but it works. Like this company went from nothing to like being this giant online retailer. Oh my God. That's me. It's so brilliant though, because I'm, and by the way, I'm a victim of it too, even though I know better. And I know that like it's all playing on

a certain like psycho, like psychosis or psychological human behavior, I still do it. It's also, they used to have like scratch and save days, you know, when you go to a store and like, whatever you scratch, like today 10% and like, oh wow, so they end up buying the whole store thinking or Costco. Think about Costco. Oh yeah, Costco is good with this. Costco is amazing with it. And so I guess my question to you is like, if we know better, right? Like this becomes a whole big existential thing. Like, you know, why do we do behaviors that we know otherwise?

Like we know we're doing things that we know are otherwise not good for us or not necessary, but we still pursue it. Why is this? Yeah. Okay. So I don't think people do anything that is completely irrational. There's always some benefit we get from these behaviors. So take buying stuff. That's fun as hell in the short term. You're like, oh, this is great. I got my, I just scratched off 20%. I'm going around the store. I'm throwing stuff in my shopping cart. I'm like, I'm going to look amazing in this. Everyone's going to love me. You buy it. You're like, oh God, that was so much fun. And then you get home though. And you're like, why did I do that? So the point I'm trying to make is

that we often, when we get ourselves in trouble is that we choose these sort of short-term rewards at the expense of long-term growth, long-term good decision-making. Like we're very much wired to long-term growth, long-term good decision-making. We're very much wired to look to the short-term for satisfaction. And part of what I argue, a lot of my work looks into the bigger why we do that. And I think a lot of these quirks that we have today, I think they go back to evolution and how in the past, to survive, you just had to do the next thing that was going to get you a benefit. It didn't make sense to think long-term in the past. You were just trying to survive.

You were trying to get food. You were trying to keep your kids alive. You were trying to procreate. You just needed to do the next thing that was going to give you a reward. In today's age, with all the opportunities we have to have fun in the short term. I think that's not always the thing that leads us into long-term places we want to be. No, no, absolutely. I find it, but I guess the question is how do we stop ourselves really from wanting more? Even if when we know better, like how do we do that?

Yeah, well, I can tell you ways to stop that sort of short term bad decision making, and then I'll give you kind of a larger, more existential answer. So in the short term, I think because we know that speed is such a driver of these decisions we later regret, I think if you can figure out a way to slow down a behavior, that can be a really great way to basically stop it. So if you think about online shopping, even something as simple as like, okay, I got a rule for myself, I'm going to put this thing in my cart and then I got to wait 48 hours, 72 hours, and then I'm going to come back to it in 48 hours or 72

hours and say, okay, do I really want this thing? Now I've found personally, literally probably 80, 90% of the time, I'm like, I don't actually need those shoes. I don't actually need that new workout gizmo. Like you just, you don't actually need it. Right. And so I think that can cut it down, but you can apply this to all sorts of things. I mean, even like, even food and eating junk food, like getting junk food in a place where

there's a long barrier to entry to getting it, that'll slow down how much junk food you eat. Like if you just like don't have it in the house, that's a lot easier to not eat it, right? Financial decisions too. I mean, there's, you can apply this to a lot of different ways and even like cell phones. So there's this, there's this app I love called ClearSpace. And what it does is you choose the apps that you want to put a limit on. Okay. So let's say I like select, all right, I want to put a limit on Instagram. Once I click Instagram, it's going to pop up and it's going to say, do you actually want to use Instagram? Because most of the time it's just like this reflexive thing, right?

We just pull out and pick the app that we use too much. And then if you say yes, it puts you through like a 10, 15 second pause where you breathe in, you breathe out. It shows you this nice, inspiring quote. And then you go, okay. And then you pick how long you actually want to spend on Instagram. It might be five minutes, say five, 10, 15 minutes, whatever. You pick that. And only then can you go into the app. So simply by having that friction to get in there, it will reduce your use of the apps that you don't want to be in significantly. Like significantly. Well what's interesting is that it took an app to stop you from using apps.

I know. That's not really lost on me. And you know what I mean? Or anybody. Oh, totally. Right? Totally. So the way I heard about this is I had written a thing about how there's a lot of research that says if you just change your phone screen to grayscale, that reduces how much you use your phone because your phone suddenly becomes a lot less rewarding.

Like, it's just not as interesting. What do you mean grayscale? What does that mean? What do you mean? So there's this setting that you can use in your phone. I think if you just type in grayscale on the search, and it basically means so you're... Where? I'm going to do it right now.

Yeah, type in, let me see gray scale it's in there's something in the settings I haven't done it in a while but long story short what it does is it makes your screen black and white basically and when your screen is black and white all the sudden your phone is like the life gets taken out of it it's so boring and it's so like, it just sucks to use it. So because it sucks to use, you stop using it so much. So long story short, and there's a study out there that found it reduced phone use by about 40%. So I write about this study and the founder of that ClearSpace app, he sent me a DM and was like, Hey, I really liked

this. We have this app, it reduces screen time. And I wrote him back and I'm like, so you're telling me you want me to use an app so I can use another app less? You guys, yeah, I know. Just try it though. So I'm like, all right, I'll try it. I tried it, it worked. Wow.

Is there like an override button though? Like, so for an example, if I put, I only wanna be on Instagram for 10 minutes a day. Can I override that? Yeah, you can go into the app and you can put, I only want to be on Instagram for 10 minutes a day. Can I override that? Yeah, you can go into the app and you can say, I don't want any limits today. Like if you're just like, you know what, today's a day that I just want to go off the rails on Instagram. I want to binge.

I want to go crazy. It allows you to do that. That defeats the whole purpose though. Yeah, but you still got to go through the whole breathing exercise and everything. And so I found that I'll occasionally do that. Like if I have a work reason to be on Instagram more in a day, but it's really reduced my use of Instagram. Twitter is a bad one because Twitter is just seems to be where mental health goes to die.

So yeah. By the way, that one I make two, I say two comments. Number one, a hundred percent. I think social media is where mental health goes to die for so many reasons, right? Because there's a lot of problems on all of it. But more than anything, the biggest problem is people are just like, are so, it's just increasing and impacting mental health and loneliness. I mean, people now don't even know how to socialize,

or they don't want to socialize because they have faux friends that they think are their friends. If they're on Instagram or looking at Twitter and they have these fights. So I think overall, it's crazy. But I think that the other thing that you said was really true that they think are their friends. If they're on Instagram or looking at Twitter and they have these fights. So I think overall it's crazy. But I think that the other thing that you said it was really true and interesting is a lot of things in life.

If you just like take a second and slow down or like have like some kind of barrier where you have to think again before you act, typically a lot of times that's enough to not do that act, right? Yeah, totally. And that's what that could be with like, food eating, it could be with, you know, consuming anything, right? Like any kind of addiction.

Yeah. Because, right? Absolutely. Even, I mean, literally even drug addiction, if you can slow down the delivery, that leads people, like addiction rates go down. I think that gray scale thing is a really interesting like stat that I've never really heard of before. Yeah, I'll send you a link. So I wrote about it on my newsletter.

I'll send you a link to the post. It's called 2%. And so yeah, I'll send you a link to that. That'll give you all the details. Yeah, that's your newsletter, right? I know I was actually, I meant to sign up for it and I haven't yet. Can you give me some other things like that? That's a really good one.

The great turning your phone to gray scale. Do you have anything else that you want to like, or you can, you can share that are things that maybe the people haven't heard of that can help them with all that stuff, like helping them with like reducing social media or helping them like get into the moment where they can rethink or anything like that's a really good one. I love that. Yeah, well, I think I think a lot of it goes back to finding pauses. I gave you the one about food. I gave you the one about shopping, gave the one about cell phones. What's that app called that you said clear space?

Clear space. Yep. It's great. It's great. We actually did through my newsletter, we did a ClearSpace challenge. I think it was in April where we got, everyone went on the app and there was like a competition of who could use the apps they had banned the least. And it was awesome. So many people are like, I downloaded this

just cause I wanted to win the prize and it has totally changed my relationship with my phone. It's been awesome. So that's that is amazing because I think the phone has been like the bane of everybody's existence. Totally. I mean, it's it is unbelievable. In fact, the other skit, hey, well, why don't you talk about that? I want to talk about predictability for a second, right? To go back to what you're saying, like, can you talk first of all about something that you talk about called in the pigeon story?

And then I'll tell you why I want to talk about predictability Mm-hmm the gambling pigeons the gambling pigeons the degenerate gambler pigeons. Yes So for this book, I talked to this guy whose name is Thomas and tall and He's one of like the best most legendary psychologists in the world. So this guy started doing his research like back in the 60s and in one of his studies what he did is he would set up this game for pigeons to play. They could choose from two games. So he would take these pigeons out of their cages, he would put them in this big cage, and they could play from two different games.

So the first game, they would pack a light and every other pack, they would get a predictable amount of food. So they might get say 10 pallets of food or whatever, every other pack. Now the second game, they would pack the light, but it was unpredictable about when they would get the food. So it was like a slot machine, right? It's totally random. They pack, they pack, they pack, no food, no food, no food. And then bam, they would get food, but it would be 15 pallets of food. So it was like a slot machine, right? It's totally random. They pack, they pack, they pack, no food, no food, no food. And then bam, they would get food, but it would be 15

pellets of food. So it'd be about every fifth pack randomly that they would get this 15 pellets. Now, if you do the math on this, it makes way more sense to play the first game. Like you end up with way more food in the long haul. And there's all the, there's this theory called optimal foraging theory that basically says that all creatures will do whatever they can to get the most amount of resources. Like you'll just choose the option that gets you the most food, the most whatever. But 98% of these pigeons chose the gambling game, even though it didn't make any sense. Literally these pigeons would play the one game, play the second, and they'd be like, oh, this second game, that's what I want to play. And

they would just play that even though it's getting them less food. So is that why that's what I find interesting. Like, so I actually think that like, is it that we humans and animals and pigeons alike, it says to me that we like unpredictability, right? Like some people are creatures of habit, right? Like they like to know what's coming. But the truth that matters, are we mostly programmed to not like predictability because it's boring? Like what is that? What does that say?

Mike McDonald Predictability becomes boring. Yes. And unpredictability is not boring, right? It grabs our attention. And the guy, Thomas Zintal, who I just mentioned, his idea, and this is backed by a lot of other people, is that the reason we're so interested in unpredictability or the reason that really grabs our attention is because when you think about how humans evolved to find food, it was kind of like that pigeon game, right? It's like we would have to walk to one area looking for food. We wouldn't find it.

So then we'd walk to another area. No food there either. Then we walk to one area looking for food, we wouldn't find it. So then we'd walk to another area, no food there either. Then we walk to another area. Oh, no food. Finally we go to another area and it's like, bing, bing, bing, jackpot. You find all this food, right? But it's totally unpredictable. You never know when you're going to find it. And so it's almost like the brain had to almost incentivize falling into this unpredictable scarcity loop reward schedule to grab our attention so we would continue looking for food.

Because if you're the type of person who goes, well, we didn't find it in two places, I guess I'll quit. You're going to die. Right? So you really have to keep looking. And then when you finally find that food, even though you didn't know it was going to be there, it's got to be really exciting. It's like, oh my God, yes, we live.

We live to see tomorrow. And then you have to go do the thing over and over again. That's why we will repeat these behaviors ad nauseum. See, I guess my curiosity is about how I think that we've become a soft culture society, right? Because the world has now evolved where we get everything at our disposal. Not everything's easy. We got like, people are now conditioned to do the easy things, right? Like, we can find food everywhere, even exercise, right? We don't need to exercise. We're going to create these situations. We've got to create treadmills and weighted vests and all sorts of concoctions and gimmicks to make people gamify the idea of moving, right? Like, everything has become easy.

So like, I feel like, is it, I mean, you may not even have the answer. Is it that we now crave unpredictability or some type of like excitement dopamine because we've now, we've become so, we've evolution to a place that everything is so easy. That's where we kind of gain our excitement as a nation or as a society.

Yeah. I think you nailed it. And I'll give you another, a follow-up example with the pigeons. Yes. So the pigeons, they live in these like small cages, right? It's like they got enough room, but not a ton. Their life is rather boring. So then when he puts them in this box where they can choose from two games, they all play the gambling game Now what happens though is that they will take the pigeons and they'll put them in this like Giant cage that is meant to mimic like the wild like a real world that a pigeon would live in the wild where they have to

Like they got to go out and forge for their food They build roost they interact with other pigeons. They're living a wild life that a pigeon was evolved for. So they'll let them hang out in there for a while, they'll live there for a while. And then they put them back in the box where they can choose between the two games. And all the pigeons choose the predictable game, the one that makes sense. And so why is that? Tell us- The conundrum. It's quite the conundrum, right? It's because they have lived a life where they found plenty of stimulation elsewhere. Right.

They were living as a pigeon evolved to live. And so I think when you think of humans today, it's like our lifestyles are way different than how humans lived for two and a half million years, right? We don't have to physically go find food. We don't have to physically work to survive. We don't, we're not outside as much. Our social lives have changed. Like all these different things have changed that have taken away just

tons of stimulation from us. And so without that, we go looking for it elsewhere. We play, we play slot machines. We spend a million hours on Instagram. We go onto Rakuten. Is that what you called it? Yeah, I know. Well, you'll go on we go on to Rakuten. Is that what you called it? Yeah. I don't know. Well, you'll go on to Rakuten. But what happens is you download this thing and it

shows up. Let's say if I'm on the Bloomingdale site, and it comes up like today, Rakuten is 10%. It's already embedded into your computer. You need to go out and download it. It says today at Bloomingdale's, you get 10% back. And so then you're like, oh, I'm for sure gonna shop at Bloomingdale's now. Even if you weren't intending to do it. Yeah. So instead of like the stimulation that you would get

normally hunting and gathering and living outside two million years ago, it's like Rakuten has become that like, oh, here's this new thing. Yes, it makes it exciting. But I find, and you said this actually where it was in the book, I read both books and I saw all the stuff that you did. So I don't remember exactly where I saw what, but I was researching you before you came on the show. But it was also the fact that you did, so I don't remember exactly where I saw what, but I was researching you before you came on the show.

But it's also the fact that, like you were saying, even when you don't have problems, the more minimal your problems are, you actually, it's part of the nature now where we create problems, or our baseline for when it's even a problem becomes lower, because we need to create this excitement, this because it's like so scarce in our world and our life right now.

Yeah. So this is a, I wrote about this in the comfort crisis. There's this- Oh, this is a comfort crisis? I'm telling you, I found a lot of stuff in that comfort crisis. I love- So it's called, the researchers call it prevalence-induced concept change. And what you can really think about it as is problem creep.

And it basically explains that as humans experience fewer and fewer problems, we don't actually become more satisfied. We just lower our threshold for what we consider a problem. So we end up with the exact same number of problems, but over time, as the world has improved, our problems get more hollow, more silly over time. And so it's kind of like the science of first world problems. And they demonstrated this in a couple, the researchers

were from Harvard and they had did a couple studies that were really clever and kind of hilarious to find this. But yeah, long story short is that people will find problems no matter how good they have it. I want to take a quick break from this episode to thank our sponsor, Timeline Nutrition. We all know that being our most successful self requires us to be our healthiest selves. And this is why taking control of aging is one of my main priorities. One thing I'm focusing on to reverse aging is supplementing with Mitopure from Timeline Nutrition.

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allowing for the proper functioning of cells and overall cellular health. One way to think of Mitopure is that they are like little Pac-Men in your cells chomping up the damaged mitochondria that makes you feel old and tired and then recycling it into new healthy ones. Taking two soft gels a day for two months you can actually see significant improvements in your cellular energy, muscle strength and endurance. And after four months of taking Mitopure you'll feel yourself

getting stronger, recovering faster after a workout and experience way less inflammation. And it's all part of a healthier aging routine. So Timeline is offering at 10% off your first order of Mitopure. Go to timeline.com slash Cohen to try it out now. That's timeline, T-I-M-E-L-I-N-E dot com slash Cohen. So what does this tell you about where we're heading? You do all this traveling. What's the purpose of your traveling? Are you doing it just because you're, are you trying to like get, are you trying to,

is it based on a hypothesis that you have in your head and then you reverse engineer to prove it? Like what, or is it just because you love to travel, you're like an adrenaline junkie, you've been to Iraq in the most crazy times. Like what is the purpose or are you trying to figure out like where we're going in like as a society? Because I could tell you. But what is the goal in mind?

Yeah, I think that I have learned, on my background as a journalist, and it's very easy to try and learn from a screen. I could read a bunch of studies and anecdotes and whatever, but I've always found that I get the most interesting stuff, the most true stuff, and also stuff that you wouldn't expect. I've had things that I totally believe to be true, totally reversed because I went to the actual source looking for the information. And so that's ultimately why I travel is because I just know that I'm going to find the best stuff if I actually go there and talk to people on the ground and put my

And also put myself in Experiences where I can actually experience what I'm writing about that just I feel like leads me to write something that's Maybe a little more true and at least for me I also saw like you were also you're sober right like you were were you looking out were you an alcoholic? Yeah, you're a drug. Yeah, when Yep. Yeah. When did you get sober? I got sober almost 10 years ago. Oh, so that's not that long ago. No, not, not super long ago.

Yeah. I was 28, 37 now. So yeah, I got sober when I was 28 and I think this actually kind of goes into the whole back to the pigeons in the cages thing is like, at the time I had this job that was, you know, it was kind of like, yeah, whatever. It wasn't that fulfilling to me. And I've always been somebody you kind of alluded to this, but I've always kind of been

someone who likes to go out, learn things, kind of explore the edges. I'm drawn to like intense experiences. And because I just wasn't getting those in my life, I could get them pretty easily through drinking, right? Like on Friday night, I can guarantee that if I were to start drinking, it would be a more unpredictable, probably crazier night than if I had decided just to sit home and watch Netflix, right? So I was able to get that through drinking.

Unfortunately though, that eventually backfires, right? That works until it doesn't. Then when it stops working, it's like really bad. So part of me getting sober was one, having to unpack, okay, well, why did you drink like that in the first place? And then two, once you have that answer, you can start to say, okay, well, where else can you get what you were looking for, like that underlying thing you were looking for? How can you get that in a way that enhances your life and other people's lives rather than messing up your life and other people's lives?

Wow. So I think that both of your books, like they dovetail nicely. Like there's like a lot of synergies between them. What's your thing you're going to do next? Is there a volume three of what you're going to do? Yeah. I spent a lot of time on my newsletter because I've found that books are interesting because you basically sit alone in a room for a year, a year and a half and don't talk anyone, and you're alone with your thoughts,

and you get no feedback, and then you kind of just release it and go, here you go. Right, right, right, exactly. Whereas the newsletter, I can talk to people in real time, work on things that maybe don't perfectly fit into the narrative of a book. So it gives me a lot more bandwidth and real time stuff. But I will, I probably will do a third book, and I think I want to really dive

into mindset in the third book. So Comfort Crisis had a lot to do with physical health but I kind of want to look at how this idea of the Comfort Crisis is impacting mindset and resilience and stress tolerance and things like that. So that'll probably be the third book. So let's talk about Comfort Crisis for a second because we just, that's, you know, I loved

it. But one more question on what scarcity for a second, because I heard another great thing that you were mentioning about how you were working with another psychologist and about some guy about a Lego program or thing. And yeah, I find that, you know, it's one of these things, what I like about your work, you know, is that when I was reading it, it's like, sometimes common sense isn't so common, right? We try to like find these complicated reasonings for all these, for like, sometimes the simplest thing, right? Like you're talking about like, people are constantly adding and adding,

but really, like, if you really look at it, it's all, it's the things that have the most, the best solutions is when you actually subtract and take away. Yeah. And it's so true. Yeah. I'm going to tell you the whole story because I think it's an amazing story. Yeah. So it starts with this researcher whose name is Lighty Klotz and he's like this top of

the world engineering researcher, basically, one of the best in the field. And he's playing Legos with his son. And his son is three years old. The kid's name is Ezra. And they're building this Lego bridge. So they build these two pillars and then they build the span and they connect the two pillars to the span and they realize they have screwed this thing up. So that one pillar is taller than the other. So the span is like scowampus. It's at an angle, right? So our Mr. PhD smartypants engineer, he's like, oh, I can, I got the fix for this. So he turns around, he rifles through the den of Legos, and then he turns back around with the Legos and he

realizes his son has solved the problem. So his three-year-old son simply removed Legos from the taller pillar. So he fixed the problem, but he did it in a better way because it was more efficient, it used fewer resources. And so now they have more Legos that they can build this entire Lego city around the bridge, right? And he realizes, oh my God, like removing these Legos, it didn't even cross my mind to fix the problem. So what he does is he makes the bridge kind of scowampus again. He starts taking it around the university campus. Anytime he meets with other professors, he pulls out the two pillars and the span, throw some extra Legos on the table and he goes, Hey, fix this bridge.

Every single professor adds Legos to fix the problem. So this makes him realize, okay, maybe there's something here. And long story short, he ends up setting up 12 different experiments where people have to either make an improvement or solve a problem. And in every single experiment, the best, most efficient way to make the improvement

or solve the problem is to subtract resources. So you can solve it or make the improvement by adding. You can, but it's always more efficient to subtract. And what he finds is that every single and every single experiment people add to fix the problem to make the improvement. So this basically tells us that humans are wired to add even when it doesn't make sense. We just preferentially overlook subtraction. So it's not that like one is any better than the other, but it just tells us that we don't even think

of subtraction. And by not thinking about that, we're leaving like half the options off the table and those options are often more efficient. They're often a better use of time, of energy, of resources. And so kind of the takeaway is, if you're trying to improve something, if you are trying to solve a problem,

you should probably write down, okay, how would I solve this or improve this if I were to subtract? Because your brain is automatically gonna go, add, add, add, can I throw money at this? Can I do X, Y, Z? Can I buy this thing? But often the answer is just to subtract.

You know, I find that just like to be like a metaphor for life, right? That's why I really like, I really to be like a metaphor for life, right? That's why I really kind of responded or resonated with me, right? Cause it's so true, again, like so many of these other things. Like I feel like the easier life has gotten for us, the harder it actually became, right? Like, even all these like sleeping tools,

like all the rings and all the things. I always try everything, I have everything, and I eventually throw them to the wall and throw them away because all it does is create more angst, more anxiety, worse sleep, worse this because now you have just yet another thing to be concerned about, another tool to be concerned about, another tool to be concerned about, another this. When like, we don't need all that. Like we just have, we're just like, we just are like just amassing stuff, stuff, stuff.

Like even all these apps and technologies to make your life easier, actually just makes it harder. Totally, yeah. And a lot of times, I mean, and unfortunately a lot of times they're totally wrong. Like I did this whole series on the newsletter about accuracy of wearables and you look at the numbers and you're just like, wow, these things are, these things are not good at their job.

Not at all. So how did you figure it out and how wrong was it? Like how inaccurate was it? Yeah. So, uh, you can do, if you look at step counts, step counts are anywhere from 200% off to some are like within 10%, but the vast majority are within 20 to 30% off. And they're always, they always overestimate. So if you took, you know, it'll tell you, you took 10,000 steps when you only took eight.

But I think where it starts to get really wacky is when you get wearables that score something like sleep or give you like a strain count or something like that for your workouts. Those are, I mean, they're basically just making stuff up. Like it's not, it's not good data. How do you prove that? Like how did you prove it with another app? Well, you can, if you basically look at how they track heart rate through the wrist, like they're making generalizations based on your size, based on wrist-based heart rate tracking for a lot of the workout stuff. And that's been proven to be incorrect a lot of the time, because there's just so much noise coming through the wrist.

The sleep ones, the algorithms make a ton of assumptions that aren't necessarily true. And the other thing is like, how do you score sleep? I'd like to know. I mean, I've seen, I've had a million sleep experts on here and I've had a million people talk about every single wearable possible. And all I've seen, all I know is that if I wake up feeling rested, I said, well, if I didn't, I didn't. Like it's pretty basic. Exactly. So like you can't, you know, and if you're wearable tells you, oh, you're

actually, you know what, you only got a 39 out of a hundred, like, what are you going to do? Like, Oh, I guess you're right. Wearable, even though I feel great. Like I'm going to feel like shit now. Like, come on, you know, it's, it's like, um, the technology just really isn't there and frankly, I don't know if it'll ever be there because there's so many individual variations.

I mean, like some people can sleep totally fine if they just get six hours a night. Some people they need consistent eight hours. Some people sleep better in absolute darkness while other people actually need a little bit of light, a little bit of noise in the background. Like it's just so individual. And so by trying to like put this all in a single number for everyone, it just, it doesn't make any damn sense. Like it's better just to do some self-examination, be a little bit self-reliant, figure out what works for you, experiment, come to, you know, find your own Buddha out in the sleep universe and then, you know, do that thing. I agree.

I mean, I find there's way too many variables to really be accurate. So does that mean you don't wear any of these things then? You're not wearing, you're not tracking anything? I'll track steps. Actually the most accurate step counter you can buy is like a $20 pedometer off of Amazon. You wear on your hip like your grandma probably wears when she mall walks.

That's about the most accurate you can get. I'm at the point now where I kind of know did I get enough steps for the day? And that's good. I know if I worked out, like, you know, there's a lot simpler ways to track this sort of thing that all come down to pen and paper, like we were doing before, before we got all these crazy tech devices.

No, I know. Also, I, you know how I wear this weighted vest. I think you do too. I heard you talk about them too. By the way, this is not like it's become like super trendy now, like, I mean, everyone's like now rocking. But guess what? This has been around for many, many, many years, and now things kind of hit a trend

or an uptick. And all of a sudden, it's the latest and greatest thing. I mean, I just find it very interesting that like, it's people need to like, that's, I guess this is the issue, right? Like, we have to kind of like create like these environments or these things where people are like tempted or interested in like moving their bodies versus, because we've allowed people to become lazy, really.

That's basically what's happened. Yeah, I mean, we've engineered exercise out of our life really. And I mean, that's progress, right? But progress also has a price. Yeah, no. And we're paying it with our health for sure. What are your habits? Like, what do you do daily? I mean, you've seen it all, you do it all, you talk about it. Tell me the things that work best for you that you've seen. The pedometer on your hip, like your granny. Yeah. Yep. That's a good way to track your steps. I mean, I've found kind of going back to that

subtraction idea that less is probably more when it comes to what you're trying to accomplish. So I mean, for me personally, it's like, I have to get honest with myself and be like, what is your goal? And my goal is to write words that help people live better. That comes through writing. First thing in the morning, I usually wake up pretty early. I don't use an alarm or anything. But I'm usually up really early and I just start writing. I write for maybe three or four hours a day.

Then I usually take my dogs for a walk. I will often- Then you write for four hours a day just like on something, or do you have a a topic or that you just start writing and it just flows that easy? Yeah, it's either for the newsletter or it's books or some other project I'm working on. So I was right every day. I mean, that's my job, right? People are like, oh, you write four hours a day. It's like, yeah, but if I was like, you know, at a auto factory, I'd

be making auto parts for eight hours a day. So it's, a day. True. But normally you have to be writing about something, like for example, for your newsletter, where do you find the topics? Do you look for certain things? Do you just, how does it, what's the process? Yeah. Ideas come through a lot of different ways. A lot of it is just noticing what's happening in the field and writing about current things happening. A lot of times it's readers will have questions,

you know, or I'll write one piece and people will be like, hey, well, what about this thing? It's like, all right, well, that sounds like a topic for the next one. Right. And luckily, I mean, and anytime I have an idea, I always write it down because ideas are like one of those things that they last for five seconds. And if you don't write them down, they're gone. Totally true. So I just have an idea log. So yeah, I write and I usually walk my dogs. I'll toss on a rock when I walk the dogs. And then once I'm done writing, I kind of reserve the rest of

the afternoon for the stuff that's less intellectual lift, responding to emails, doing that sort of stuff. I'll usually work out at some point before dinner and then usually at night I'll like read, watch some series with my wife, whatever. We have this, I don't like to talk about this publicly, but I'm going to, we love the, we love the Real Housewives series. I don't blame you for not wanting to talk about it.

And I'm joking. Which one do you watch? Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. That is my jam. So I grew up, I grew up north of Salt Lake City. And so I've never watched this crap. And then they did a Salt Lake City one. I'm like, I'll watch the first episode.

And I got, I just got straight up hooked on that. Oh my God. Seriously? Yeah. Michael, I'm so surprised to hear you say that. You don't seem like the type. Yeah, I didn't think I was the type either, but here I am. So it's basically like your, like, it's just like your like guilty pleasure, basically. Yeah, that's my mental sludge. I do think it's, I do think it's probably good for people if you do

a lot of intellectual, heady work to offset that with something where you just don't have to think. So a lot of people will do intellectual work all day and then they'll be like, you know what? I'm going to relax with a really, really dense book. That can sometimes backfire, at least for me. I would try to read this heavy stuff at night and I realized, oh, I should probably put that in like the afternoon. Well, you know, I totally agree. You know, it's interesting what this, even when you were talking, we're

talking about sleep a little bit, is that like, they have all these rules and regulations of like how to fall asleep, how to have the best sleep, no blue light, no screens, no this, but truthfully, like I like to, I love like comedy and I love stand-up comedy, like I fall asleep to stand-up comedy and it makes me like, it puts me in a happy, good mood and I go to bed like that. So like, right? So like all these rules and regulations

and what you should do, what you shouldn't do, like I believe like there's so many variables and everyone's so different. Like what works for you, Michael, I mean, is not gonna work for me. Like you like Real Housewives. I like, you know, I like watching Chris, you know, whatever. I like, I like watching whoever like Chris Rock, whoever, you know what I mean? So yeah,

the thing with sleep too, it's like people say, oh, you need to sleep in absolute darkness. It needs to be absolutely silent. I can tell you that our species would have died off if that's what we required to sleep. Like people used to just sleep around the fire, which by the way is bright. There would be people snoring all the time. There's like the wilderness noises the whole time. Like if we couldn't sleep when it was kind of bright and kind of loud, like we just wouldn't be here. Like people are fine. You'll figure it out. You know, people are fine. So this is the thing, right? So this is why I really love this comfort crisis, whatever. And also the scarcity brain. Like, I find, like, we've made our cult,

we've made our society so soft, where we have, like, to sleep, now you're gonna do it in this position and in this darkness and at the temperature of 65 or else you're not gonna... Like, we're making people so fragile. Like, actually doing hard things or putting yourself like in a situation where you're going to be uncomfortable, actually like builds a lot of staff, like mental stamina.

And like, does it make you such like, like such a snowflake? Yeah, totally. I like the word fragile you used. I mean, in general, I think the more you need in order to do something, the more fragile you are. You know, it's like, you should be able to just do a thing without many resources. Like that's exactly what you're after. And a lot of this stuff borders on superstition.

Like to me, you know, you see all these crazy morning routines people have. They're like, I got to go through 11 steps before I can sit down and work. It's like, that to me is no different than a baseball player who stands on the mound and has to like tug their cap three times and then do some weird thing before they'll throw a pitch. It's no different. You know what? It's being able to be malleable and flexible. In the world of wellness and health, in the guise of wellness and health, we've lost the

ability to be healthy and well. Totally. Right? It's 100% what's happened. This podcast is called Habits and Hustle, right? So you can imagine, I have everybody on here talking about their habits and their hustle. Some of these morning routines, by the way, also night routines, are so laborious. I don't even know how you have a job or a family because you're doing your morning routine until like three o'clock in the afternoon. Like I think it's also breeding a lot of like narcissism,

right, like I have to do, I gotta put myself in these situations to be, I gotta do my sauna, my cold plunge, I gotta meditate, I gotta journal, I gotta do my gratitude, I gotta eat a piece of protein, then I gotta work out and then I got a rock and I'm like, do you work? Do you have any responsibilities or are you just routine-ing all day? Right? Totally. Yeah. I think it's worth analyzing what actually is helping, being kind of ruthless in that examination. So the person with the 11-step routine, if they got ruthless, they might find

two or three of these things are good, but there's a lot of stuff that's actually just adding to this burden of like things I have to do. And if I don't do them, I feel guilty. I feel like I've lost the magic potion that's going to allow me to do X, Y, Z. So that's basically how I view it. Anyway, I agree with you. That's why I was like actually asking you, like, I think there's a book there right there. But don't I mean, I think there's a book and how like we've, we've, we've made ourselves like mentally unwell by all the wealth things, where all the mentally or all the wellness things we're doing, you know? Yeah, totally. So don't, don't steal my idea. No,

I'm joking. I think you should write it. But I know you're not feeling well. I know you have COVID, poor boy, and you still came on this podcast. And I really write it. But I know you're not feeling well. I know you have COVID, poor boy, and you still came on this podcast and I really appreciate it. Maybe when you're in LA next, we can do it in person. I don't love doing these things online like this. It's wonky for me. Yeah, we'll do it. That'd be awesome. I love that.

I would love to meet you in person. We can dive deeper in both. But thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. I hope you feel better. Yeah. well, I'll be fine. This is like a tax that my job takes with all the travel. So it is what it is. Oh my gosh. Well, God bless you. I love what you're doing. I think you've nailed it. I can't wait to see more of your stuff. And I'm also going to subscribe to your newsletter, which I meant to do. Awesome. Well, all, send you that grayscale one. Don't forget.

Do you have my email? No. Okay. I'm going to, can I will get it off this. I will get it. And I was, I definitely want you to send that to me. Yeah, we'll do. Sounds good.

Thank you, Michael. Have a, I hope you feel better. I'll talk to you later. Yeah. Thanks so much. It's great to be here. Yeah. Thank you.

Bye. Bye. Bye.