Modern Wisdom - #558 - Tim Urban - How To Take Charge Of Your Life's Direction

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

Tim Urban is one of the internet's most popular writers and the founder of Wait But Why. When we look to our past, many of us believe that we could have behaved differently, perhaps that we should have behaved differently. Yet when we look to the future we believe that our path is locked in and genuine change is difficult, this couldn't be more backward and Tim explains it in a number of obvious, face-palm-inducing ways. Expect to learn what Tim thinks about Elon's takeover of Twitter, why leisure time when you're not supposed to be having leisure time is a curse, why you should absolutely not marry the wrong person, Tim's best advice for dealing with procrastination, how he copes with criticism from strangers and peers, how to avoid dwelling on decisions you didn't make and much more... Sponsors: Get $100 off plus an extra 15% discount on Qualia Mind at https://neurohacker.com/modernwisdom (use code MW15) Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 4.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get 20% discount on House Of Macadamias’ nuts at https://houseofmacadamias.com/modernwisdom (use code MW20) Extra Stuff: Read Tim's blog here - https://waitbutwhy.com/  Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Tim Urban, he's one of the internet's most popular writers and the founder of Weight but Why. When we look to our past, many of us believe that we could have behaved differently, perhaps that we should have behaved differently. Yet when we look to the future, we believe that our path is locked in and genuine change is difficult. This couldn't be more backward, and Tim explains it in a number of obvious face palm-inducing ways today. Expect to learn what Tim thinks about Elon's takeover of Twitter, why leisure time, when you're not supposed to be having leisure time, is a curse, why you should absolutely not marry the wrong person, Tim's best advice for dealing with procrastination, how he

helps with criticism from strangers and peers, how to avoid dwelling on decisions that you didn't make and much more. Tim is an absolute legend and he's got a book that's coming out in a few months, so he should be back on to that. If you are not familiar with his writing, I highly, highly recommend you go and check out, wait, but why? It's super accessible, really funny. There's tons of cute little illustrations that really drive the point home. And, uh, yeah, the guy is a genuine, the original thinker, very, very glad, to have had him on today. Also, over the next month, I've got the most intense schedule of huge name guests

that I think I've ever had on the show. So, if you want to make sure that you don't miss those episodes when they go up, go and press subscribe. It supports the show, and it makes me happy, and it ensures that you don't miss those episodes when they go up, go and press subscribe. It supports the show and it makes me happy and it ensures that you don't miss these episodes when they go up. Thank you. But now ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Tim Urban. I just learned about the Mutual Combat Law in Texas. Have you heard of this? No. Dude. Mutual combat is legal in Texas. To be legal, the fight must be overseen by a police officer. The police officer is supposed to act as a referee by breaking up the fight when an obvious

victor has emerged. Consent to fight in Texas doesn't even need to be explicitly stated if someone's words and actions make it clear that they want to fight. This is considered consent under the statute and considering that Texas law allows people to legally carry swords in public, it's hardly surprising that consensual fits fist fights are legal. That's a remnant of what we would call honor culture. What's on a culture? Honor culture is a conflict resolution culture that exists in lots of places of the world today in the Middle East. For example, it's very common and really it exists, tends to exist in places where people

don't fully trust the law. And so the more lawless the place, not right, often in slums or in places where it feels very lawless, you'll end up with a very strong honor culture. And honor culture says that it's defined by real sensitivity to slights. So thin skin. so if someone insults you, can't just let that roll off your back, you gotta respond. And you respond with direct confrontation. You don't go to the authorities,

you respond by finding, so in other words, if you insult me, we'll just have a duel to, to restore my reputation. You've made, you've turned into my reputation, I need to, you've to restore my reputation. You have, you've made, you've, you've, you've, you've tarnished my reputation. I need to restore it and I need to preserve my reputation as someone who can't be just, you know, you can't just walk over me.

So that's honor culture. That's why you know, not a culture. You see a lot of fights, a lot of tools. And the Wild West was a very honor culture. Isch, you'll know that you'll see it though in a bar of, you know, a bar, a Boston bar of high schoolers where I used to sometimes be, you know, you set someone bumps into you and you, you just, you know, you just have to fight them, you know, it's, it's, so that's on our culture.

And, and, and I say it's a remnant because in the, in the US today, it's much less common than it used to be. It's been replaced by dignity culture, which is what happens. Places where people do trust the law is eventually, it often will morph slowly into dignity culture, which is much thicker skin. It's sticks and stones may break my bones, but words or names will never hurt me. So, hearing that as a kid, you were raised with dignity culture, which is, you know, let it roll off your back, it's ignore them, it's not your problem,

that's the them problem. But if the thing, if something gets so bad, you know, if someone's really hassling you, it doesn't say you should be a pushover to it, but it doesn't say go fight them ever. It says go to the authorities. So honor cultures, thin skin, and you've got direct confrontation,

dignity cultures, thick skin, but when it gets a certain level, you go to the authorities. It's like procedural. But the two places that this is still legal in America are Washington DC and Texas. That's funny. I don't know what it says about those two places.

I mean, there's also like, you know, you hear about like some of the Southern states like outlawing lynching or slavery, like in like the last decade. You know, so a lot of times there's these really old, old, like, laws that are, you know, that seem like they're from an ancient history, but actually technically the legal code still. This sort of vestige of a time gone by, I learned as well that, you know, the House of Lords in the UK where the guys are going back and forth between each other and the sat on those green benches, and you've got the speaker of the house.

The distance between those two benches is precisely the length of two swords at arm's length. So if a man was to hold it out, if somebody had, I don't know, scurried his good name, and he was that they wouldn't be able to swing at each other and they wouldn't be able to hit each other. Yeah, I mean, and we can laugh at it because it sounds insane. But if you lived in an honor culture time, you would be like this. I would too. If you lived in a time like that, and someone insulted you, you would definitely want to go fight them.

And that's why tools happen. This is in an early US. People would go and shoot each other. One would often die because of an insult, which is so foreign to people living in a dignity culture of today. Yeah. One of the conversations that I've seen you have a good bit recently is about the shortness of life, and given the fact that life is when you, you know, sometimes I will, if I just sit and, you know, hang out at my apartment and work over the weekend or just do, you know, maybe I'll go grab a meal with someone and hang around, maybe it's

raining and I watch TV, you know, the weekend flies. It's like, it was Friday and like, now it's Sunday night and like nothing happened. It just felt like a second. Versus, sometimes you take a weekend trip, you go somewhere really interesting or you fly somewhere, you know, or you take a train somewhere, or,

and you go and you explore a new place, or you're with the whole new people you're at a wedding, right? And all this stuff is happening. Or even just you're being really adventurous in your own city or whatever, and you're actually going out and trying a bunch of different things.

At times Sunday and night hits in your back home, it feels like an eternity since Friday afternoon. I mean, you can't believe it's only been two days, think about how much happened in the last two days. And genuinely, it's like, who cares if the time between Friday and Sunday was the same in both cases? Your experience of the second thing felt much longer, which to me is,

all that matters, your research experience is all that your actual reality. So you actually lived more, you actually lived more time. If it felt like forever, it means that you actually lived a lot more in those two days. So that one of the ways to think about the shortness of life is, yes, the actual time is variable. It's fairly constant, right? We all have, you know, at most, you know, 80 to 100 years, you know, and that's if we're lucky. And, you know, we can't really do much beyond that.

But someone who lives full of novel experiences, and they're always trying new things, and they keep it interesting, and they really have, they live their lives richly. I feel like they actually live like three times, the amount of subjective time, that someone who kind of just sticks to their routine, doesn't try anything new.

And I think novelty is a way to kind of triple your lifespan in a way. So that's one of the ways I think about, I try to, this is not quite your answer. I mean, your question, which was, you know, how do I remind myself? But, you know, I remind myself with, I make visuals about this all the time to try to remind myself and others. I make visuals about this all the time to try to remind myself and others. I remember certain things sticking my head. I was like, I think I was like 38 or something a couple years ago. And I was in the car with my grandmother who was 94 and she said, I said, wow, you know, she's just turned 94 and I said, man, 94 and she was like, yep.

And I was like, wow, I was like, one day far, you know, long from now, hopefully I'll be there too. And she goes, it's tomorrow. And it just hit me. She was just like, she was like, it's tomorrow. In other words, this seems to me, especially since, you know, when I think about my childhood, it seems like forever ago, but time moves subjectively quicker as you go.

And so I get what she was saying, which is that it probably when she looks at me, you know, in my late 30s, she's not thinking, oh, that was ages ago. She's probably thinking it feels like not very long ago. I was right there and now suddenly I'm here. So I, that stuck with me and I'm like, damn it. You know, I'm like, I, you know, very quickly, I'm going to go from someone who's around 40 to who someone is around 60. That's going to happen much someone who's around 40 to who's someone who's around 60. That's going to happen much quicker than 20 to 40 happened.

It's going to happen and it's going to feel like there's going to be certain friends I see this year that aren't very close friends. The next time I'm going to see them, we're going to both be 60 and it's going to feel like, oh, it's been a while. It's not going to feel like it's been ages. It's going to feel like, oh, it went to the last time we each other. And realize it was when we were 40. So anyway, I do a lot of this thinking to try to,

to try to not, you know, look back later and say, oh, man, I just like, I let the time fly without appreciating it or thinking about it or like trying to maximize it and whatever. I think you're right to look at what are the tools that I can use in order to slow down the passage of time subjectively. And like talking about reminding yourself of the shortness of life,

really it doesn't make any, there's no point in thinking about that unless it impact the way that you move forward in life in any case. So going with a tactics first or a strategy first perspective, like how you answered it is the right way to go about it, I think. And yeah, absolutely novelty and intensity seem to be the two things that kind of slow down our subjective experience of the time that we're going through. Conversely, something that is routine means that our brain doesn't need to forge any new memory units. I always use this example of I went to Africa for the first time about four years ago and

the after we got off a plane and then got on a safari truck and then we went on this little boat and then we finally got there and this guy met us at the front Morris. I don't think it was his actual name, but Morris who was one of the guys in the bewindi impenetrable forest huts that we were staying in. I remember the shoes he was wearing. I remember the book on on mythology from birds that he had in his hand. I remember the sound when he walked down the muddy track that we were going along.

Dude, I've had the same credit card for four years and I can't remember the 16-digit number across the front of it. But I recall this endless litany of totally arbitrary things because it was just full on novelty and intensity. I can hear gorillas in the jungle behind him. There's the sound of birds, there's different smells. I've been traveling for 24 hours.

Like, that was maximizing the time. And yeah, I think it seems like we have a similar view of a life where I lived, which is one in retrospect to your glad that you lived. You look back and it seems to be quite rich. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, for, at least for me, I mean, that's one of the, you know, objective measures, one of the measures that seems to me,

like a very valid metric for that you want to go up on, which is just experiences. And, you know, I don't know, some people could argue why, you know, what's, why is that better than having a content, being content in your routine and just being with that? And I don't think there's necessarily a good reason, but I think the fact that it slows down time alone is a good reason. And then I happen to be a curious person who loves new experiences, not that I do it all the time.

You know, that's why sometimes I'm kicking myself, or why, you know, when I go do something interesting, I think why don't I do this every, you know, weekend? And to be clear, you know, obviously traveling somewhere with guerrillas. I mean, you're gonna, that's gonna be a great way to do this every weekend? And to be clear, obviously traveling somewhere with gorillas, I mean, that's gonna be a great way to do this, right? But it doesn't have to be, so it's much easier than that. You can literally go to like, you know, I don't know, a hardware store and get some supplies and try a new hobby, try building something. You can go get a new musical instrument

and try learning something. You can go to a museum you never go into in your city. You can go to travel, you know go to in your city, you can go to travel, make a little destination, that's 45 minute drive away to this restaurant. You've heard, there's so many ways you can just do something that's special, that's different, that's like, you suddenly it lights up this child in you, this like adventurous side in you,

and so it is this whole other part of us that just wants to resist effort. So, you know, that we're always, if that side has too much power in our head, it's very short term. In this exact moment, I just rather hang around. I don't want to go deal with the whole thing today. That's some other day. And I think you have to kind of, that side isn't very wise and often makes some very short

term decisions that don't serve you very well. So yeah, I think it's just being aware is helpful. We often mistake a comfortable activity for an enjoyable one. Yeah. The couch always just seems seductive and going out to do a salsa class on a cold Wednesday evening in November or something

is like, oh God, I know I said I'd go and do salsa, but no, like tomorrow, what would you tomorrow look back and be glad that you did? Another, I do, I saw this article that looked at people's subjective perceptions of time when using their phones. And basically what you're doing when you use your phone is speedrunning life. Like you're, it's a speedrunning strat for life.

It is fucking terrifying. If I like, I wake up in the morning and just say, it's 815. And the obvious thing to do, the wise thing to do is to get out of bed, get in the shower, don't touch the phone, just like your mind percolate and get on with your day. You know, start doing, if you're not gonna get

started on work, that's fine, but go take a walk, do something, you know, rich, something good for you. You know, do some writing, just do something. You know, make a good breakfast. If instead what I often do is I'll pick up my phone and it is 930 like that, like an hour and 15 minutes passes and nothing happens. I mean, I text a little bit, I'm scrolling on Twitter and maybe I read a couple articles and it's just like, boom, there goes like, there goes like 10% of my day.

Like 10% of my day is gone on like, and it's like I was enjoying it the whole time. I'm sitting there a little time with a part of me in my head saying, get out, this isn't good. You know, that's what I call it, the dark playground. When you're doing some lead your activity, big party, your head knows you're not supposed to be doing. You know, it's anxiety will with a time. It's not fun.

So the phone is the ultimate. It's the opposite of like the novel experiences. Even if you're doing something novel on the phone, somehow it just riddle time. It's not fun. So the phone is the ultimate, if the opposite of like the novel experiences, even if you're doing something novel on the phone, somehow it just sucks the time. It's framed in such a familiar environment, isn't it? Yes. But I like what you said about comfort. I mean, I think sometimes it's almost inversely correlated

with like discomfort both physical sometimes. Like you said, you know, maybe you're going to go climbing or something, but even more just like emotional comfort. you know, maybe you're going to go climbing or something, but but even more just like emotional comfort of, you know, it's very emotionally comfortable to do exactly what you're used to doing with the exact people you're used to doing it with. It's easy. You don't have to know challenging yourself, right? There's no stepping out of your comfort zone at all. And so so often, even if even if it's fun, often the really novel experiences can be uncomfortable. Not always, you know, sometimes you're just going doing some incredibly fun tourist activity and you're doing something you love that you haven't done in a long time.

But I think inviting discomfort is very important. It's so many of the things that I love now started off as me venturing into what seemed like an uncomfortable place once realizing I like something, getting addicted to it. Now it's a regular feature of my life. I used the example like I used to just write blog posts, just text. Now my blog posts are all heavily illustrated with, you know, hand drawn stuff and, you know and stick figures and diagrams and I just love putting visuals in. That didn't just happen, right? It was binary. It went from, there was no drawings to there were drawings. The transition point was a day when I did

something Iki. I took a drawing tablet that I saw and I plugged it in and I didn't know exactly how to even, whatever I had to connect to, or or do I get it in my computer, will it, is it compatible with my computer? What's the software? How do I get that to it? Do I need software for this? Once it's done, how do I get the thing onto my blog? This was earlier, it wasn't as obvious, you can just obviously export something and upload it. So I was thinking can I even get visuals on to this like primitive blog? This was back in I think like a 20 no 2009 something like that and so often I just There's a hundred things still right now in the queue for me that are that are like that where I'm like

I know I probably be good at it or I might be good at it and I'd like to try it But it's just icky so I haven't gotten over that but that one I did and because I did I realized oh Okay, suddenly the feet all that icky kind of like I haven't gotten over that. But that one I did. And because I did, I realized, oh, okay, suddenly all that icky kind of like, I don't know how to do this, the ickyness one of us, like this isn't icky at all. You plug it in, you download this simple software, you draw, you export, you upload, it's done.

And from then on, it just became a staple of what I do, is I draw, and so that's an example of something that is very comfortable for me now, started out as me having to face discomfort. That's the step that most people I think struggle with. Increasingly when I when I first started the show, I was really, really interested in getting people from really struggling to just getting off the ground. And that's still a conversation I often think about.

Like how is it that you just encourage someone to get past that very, very first piece of friction? But one of the things that we've referenced there is a regret that I didn't spend the weekend in the most exuberant, fantastical way that I could have done. And then also with this, people could look back on all of the opportunities that they've had to lean into discomfort to maybe develop a new skill that now, three years hence, they would have been capitalizing on or really competent in or loving it. How do you avoid dwelling on the decisions that we didn't make in the past?

Yeah, I mean, so as I tend to, I make visuals that help me and sometimes others, like reframe. Because a lot of times, the time that visuals perfect for something like this is not, you know, to make us believe something that's not true or like help us fool ourselves. It's the opposite. There's a lot of, our brain is not really a rational truth machine. It's the opposite. It's like there's a lot of our brain is not really a rational truth machine. It's not great at those things. It can be okay at those things. It's you know, but it's nature is to be varied to make all these assumptions and to kind of have this to be in this kind of groove about various lines of thinking that it's just natural for it to be in.

And they're often not mapped on to reality. Well. So part of the reason I make the life calendars and stuff is because one of the things our brain thinks about or assumes is that time is infinite. You know, and again, I know your rational brain doesn't think that, but like I said, if I see my friend, a certain friend who I like, but you know, we're not best friends, and I see maybe I see him once a year.

And we get dinner once a year, and I think, yeah, this is great, this is a friend in my life. I think when I leave that dinner, I'm like, yeah, we have hundreds, thousands more of these hangouts, you know, I mean, and it's like, no, maybe if the, if the, one of us only lives till 78,

and we're both 40, and we, you know, do this maybe even slow down a little bit. Maybe we've got 30 of these left, maybe 25. Wow, right? And so my brain are not thinking that way. They don't realize that this is one of the 25 the hangouts I have forever with this person. Now, you know, look, you can go crazy

if you're thinking about that. You don't wanna be weird and emotional at your dinner with your friend all the time. But to just aid to prioritize these things and be to enjoy it when you're there, to actually try to like, when you're with your family and Thanksgiving, your whole family is there. Oh my God. How many more of those do you have? Who knows? Don't be on your phone. Go on extra day. don't rush out. I actually try to spend some time there, do something novel with them. Don't just sit around watching the game, open a game, play a game, try doing something interesting,

start an interesting combo of dinner, whatever. That's one example. Now, you asked about a regret and how to not let regret about the past consume you. And so another visual I use, which is, I think also helping us kind of see clearly through what is a natural delusion is it's, I, it's, I, I like, I think if it as like my green tree visual and I think if if you Google like Tim urban life paths Dean will be able to put it up on the screen so it'll be it'll be up on the screen at the moment for the people that are listening

You can you can give them a rough explanation perfect. So yeah, so basically When we're looking into the past and regretting, which we all do, right? We all are on a huge tilt, about 100 things that didn't happen or that we said that we shouldn't have said it, that we didn't do that we should have done, or that we didn't do until it was too late or whatever. And that's true. Those things are real. That's not that that's not true. Yeah, I mean, but we all have it.

That's there's no human that's gonna get to adulthood and not have it. So first of all, it's not like I did something wrong that I have these regrets. Everyone has them, right? It's just which ones are you, which ones do you happen to have? Okay.

And you can't do anything about those and you couldn't have avoided having them. So you shouldn't beat yourself up about it. And the question is, how do you proceed into the future? To minimize regrets in the future. You're going to have some regrets in the future. Future usually is going to have some regrets about stuff that you haven't yet made the mistake on. And that's also inevitable, but you can minimize these, you can get better at better. You can have a better, good decision to future regrettable decision ratio as you get older.

And so the left side of this diagram is all the paths that the road's not taken. The paths you could have with different decisions, some worse than your current life maybe, and some better. So you also got lucky sometimes. You really made a good wise decision. It's a mix, or it's a mixed bag looking into the past.

But the implicit assumption when we get upset about those is that I had agency back then. I could have done something. If I had just been a little bit wiser or a little bit gutsier, I could have had it differently. So that's this feeling of past agency we feel. But then when we look into the future, I think we spend so much time looking at all those black lines that we then kind of think, well, but now this is just my life. So I made those decisions and here's why I ended up. And this is just what happened. And now here just my life, right? So I made those decisions and I, you know,

and here's why I ended up and this is just what happened. And now here's my life for better or worse, and this is the life I'm living, which is kind of an assumption that you're on a green path, which is the life you're living that just extends a singular green path into the future, that you're stuck on, like you're in a tunnel, you can't get out of it now,

and that's just where you are. So that's exactly the opposite of the thinking you're doing when you're regretting the past because you're not, you're suddenly removing all that agency. All that, oh, I could have done better. I should have, right? Which means you had the ability to, when you look into the future, it's as if you're like, well, but now it just, I'm just beholden to fate.

I'm beholden to my previous decisions and that's where I'm stuck. I'm handcuffed. to fate. I'm beholden to my previous decisions and that's where I'm stuck. I'm handcuffed. No, you're not. You have in 20 years, you will look back and all of the black lines. Those are yet to happen. You all, they're all open to you currently. So you have this big, vast green tree

stretching out into the future that when you're 80, will be black lines like the ones behind you now. You know, they'll be all close to you. But the moment they're bright green, and you have that agency, and you can look back, and instead of being upset about their regrets, you can say, these are my, oh, that's motivation, and that's wisdom. So what did I learn?

What are those regrets? What did I wish I did differently? Amazing. So now I can go and crush the green tree because of what I learned in the black tree. So I love that visual because the delusion is that just like we think we have an infinite amount of time in somewhere in our heads, we also think that we don't have choices that we're kind of stuck where we are. And those are those two together are a dangerous recipe for complacency. It makes us think, well, you know,

hey, I have all the time in the world and B, what's the point? Nothing's going to change anyway. The opposite. You have limited time and it's totally in your hands. So if you can kind of use visuals like this, you can, you can, it just can be super empowering and exciting to go and grab those green branches. That asymmetry of believing that we had degrees of freedom in the past, but we've got lock-in for the future is so funny. Hang on a second, I'm literally... No, I chose, I'm right here right now, therefore I didn't choose anything different in the past and worrying about it can't change it. And I have the opportunity to do as much as I want in the future, all of these different options are open to me. There's such a, like, a head bang against the wall

realization when you when you notice that you've been doing that. Obviously, another, another big piece of, of change that's happened recently has been Elon's takeover of Twitter. I know that you've spent a good bit of time studying him. Have you noticed anything interesting around the dynamic of the response to what Elon's been doing? Have you, have you observed anything that you thought was pretty novel or interesting? Yeah, I mean, I think it's very early. Look, the way Elon tends to do stuff and people forget sometimes this,

if you know, if you that, you know, in SpaceX and Tesla started, it was, let's move. Let's try stuff. Let's build prototypes. Let's make mistakes, right? And when you look in retrospect at a successful project and you see it started that way, it seems awesome. Wow, and they were just bold and they were making mistakes. And now look at led to the success, right?

We see it as just a purely good thing. But when it's happening in that moment before the success happens, when it's in doubt that it might not, you know, when the success may or may not happen, all of that raw experimentation and failure and bumbling failure early on looks not good. Doesn't it look a lot of out of control? Yeah, you know, but if you take a big zoom out and you realize like this is how innovation often looks in the moment. Look at that, take your favorite songs in the world. And go on a time machine back to when those songs are being written and look at the original verses

and the original lyrics and the original chords and the playing around on the piano that this composer did, and it's gonna be a mess, right? And it got to this beautiful place eventually. And so anyway, what I see is we're in month one still basically month two, Elon's Twitter. And so I see a bunch of early attempts, you know, some things that I think are promising and some things that I think are pretty obvious mistakes.

So, taking the long view, I'm like, great, good, go, try shit, make mistakes, be innovative, be ruthless about your standards for this thing and like, see, so I'm happy, but what I see is a ton of people spiking the football and being like, aha, sea, like all so and so, you know, you were, you know, you were pro free speech and now you're doing this or you're, you know,

you're saying you wanted to be neutral but now you're like, you know, like, it's messy and someone, I mean, I think that mostly if you don't like him and you're rooting against the project, then this is a great, you know, it's fun. A fun shot and fun. You're 30 long, right? You can see that.

Things and act, you know, and it seems like it's validating your predictions. No, not, not that everything, I think, not that there are things that could have been done differently or better for sure. But I don't know, for me, I would bet on, I would bet on long-term Twitter. I bet in three years, my guess, and again, it could be wrong. And Elon's the first to admit this.

He always says that his projects all have a high percentage of failure, you know? So, but I would, my guess would be that in three years, Twitter is doing, leading the way in a lot of ways and that a lot of other social media companies are copying just like a bunch of rocket companies are now trying to learn how to land rockets, copying SpaceX to try to, you know, look at all the electric car companies now, all the big car companies who were copied Tesla essentially and started making electric cars after they did. So that's my guess.

But, you know, no one is going to have a perfect track record. Maybe this is an area. This is going to be one of Elon's big failures. Maybe he'll try it. It'll turn into a disaster. Maybe social media is unsavable. And so I wouldn't say, I wouldn't put all my money down on it. But I would say if I had to bet on, you know, that Twitter being a big success story, I would give it more than a 50% shot of that. Twitter being a big success story, I would give it more than a 50% shot of that. It seems like there might be an element here that most of the stuff that happens in engineering companies, it seems like Elon is taking a more sort of engineering approach, even when it comes to the staff base, I think he sent out an email recently that basically warned everybody that was working there, there are going to be some changes, you are going to

have to work a lot harder than you're used to. If you don't like this, then feel free to leave. Most of this stuff, it seems like would be done in relative privacy. You know, the story's coming out of Tesla. You know, it's like a leaked memo from half a decade ago or whatever that we see now. That's the sort of stuff that we see. Whereas pretty much everything that's happening

at Twitter is practicing in public Everything seems to be it's basically a total glass door policy not by design necessarily Although I'm sure that Elon is thinking to himself anything that I decide to put out on the local company intranet Needs to be visible to the press and it needs to be acceptable by the press because it's not gonna stay private But there is definitely like a more voyeuristic sense of the internal But there is definitely like a more voyeuristic sense of the internal iterations of what's going on within that company than the certainly what I didn't know what what SpaceX's first 20 versions of the rocket looked like but I know what Twitter blew and all of the debates about what's going on online and Everybody somehow feels like they're invested and they've got a say in how Elon should be running this company But but no one thought that when it came to Falcon 9 rocket design.

Of course. I also saw an interview with Joe Lonsdale the other day and he made a funny point where she was like, you know, when Elon first started getting into rockets and cars, they said, what the internet guy can't make rockets and cars. These don't happen in Silicon Valley. Now people are saying the rocket and cars guy can't do internet. I mean, it's just kind of like it's that this is assuming that success has to be specialized. But I think if you look at what are the roots of what makes someone successful in the industry,

they're often the same. It's, you know, being able to recruit the right people, having a clear goal, being able to reason from first principles and innovate, and sometimes in the direct conflict of conventional wisdom, being ruthless and persistent over many years. And so, I mean, it's just, I think none of this is, I'm say rocket science, but SpaceX is, but none of this is specialized to one industry or another. If you apply those principles in any industry, again, the CEO isn't gonna be doing all you're gonna hire

expertise, so you're gonna get the different expertise you need that you don't have, but the same principles apply. And as far as him saying saying you have to be hardcore and like work extra hours, I think it's totally valid to say this is that's toxic, that's bad, that's not a good way to have a company, that's not a good way to treat employees, that's a totally valid view. But it's also a free market. And so I think that it's what's cool about it is he can do that.

And he'll attract the kind of people that are workaholics. And that just are they would love to go to a place where everyone is hardcore, right? Think about like, are those same people criticizing people who want to play in the NFL? You think the NFL has chill work hours? It's the most hardcore round the year,

round the clock, demanding punishing activity, right? Are those people saying, you know, the NFL is toxic for having all this off-season practice? You know, no, you know, how about a tireless activist who wants to go work on a presidential campaign and is working around the clock? Are they criticizing those people and saying, you know, criticizing the campaign for, wow,

you want your people to work on weekends? No, it's just, there's certain things that are hardcore in life and military, right? I mean, there's certain things in Elon's basically saying, this is my companies are like the military and the NFL and the political campaign. That's just what we're like. And it's not for everyone.

And it's gonna filter out the people who don't want that. They can go get a different job and the people who do like it. So I just said, again, you can say this is bad. That's a totally valid. Just like you can say it's unhealthy to join the military, you're gonna play in the NFL. And you shouldn't do totally valid opinion,

but to say that he's doing something like, that something is like, like, something is like wrong with this. It shouldn't be allowed to have something. It's just like, you don't have to work there. It's like, let him attract up. I'm glad that hardcore people have companies like this to go work at because they'd be bored and underestimulated in a normal company. So anyway, I think it's great.

I think it's like, bring some of that in the Silicon Valley because Silicon Valley is known for being very cushy and which is great. They raise the standards. They have a philosophy that employees should be treated really well and have great work life balance. I think that's awesome, right? But bring some very variety into Silicon Valley and say, there's also some really hard core companies here and you can go do that if you want.

Love people to choose. There is a contingent of people out there who want a hardcore life. Like, yeah, exactly. It seems to me that the people that are less passionate about the stuff that they do struggle to put themselves into the mindset of someone that's obsessive. Like if someone is absolutely obsessed.

Right, your values to everyone and saying everyone should have your particular values. You know, like, you know, no one would, it's like someone else could say, it's very popular in our society. It used to be popular, I think, in older America to be like work hard, as hard as you can.

That was a high value. Now that's looked down upon, at least within the Silicon Valley type crowds, it's not on Twitter. That's bad, that's toxic, right? But as someone said, you know what? I'm going to, I only want to work four days a week. And I want to retire early if I can because I want to spend a ton of time with my family. I want to, I want to dig in to my family.

No one's like, wow, you're being too hardcore. That's toxic. It's like, let people choose how they want to spend their one life. And for some people, nothing gets them going more than working hard with a team to build something. They think is important and that's their fun and that's what they really enjoy and maybe if they're stage and only maybe they're 25 and maybe when they're 40 they're not going to want to do that anymore but they're 25 and they do and so again I just like variety. I like the idea. I like having people get to choose what fits them the best. How are you getting on with writing your book?

fits them the best. How are you getting on with writing your book? Well, the book has been done for a while, but fact checking is a bitch. It's amazing, because I do this, and I think I'm being so rigorous. I'm researching everything really carefully, and I'm checking what I'm doing, and I'm making sure I'm doing it. And then you get a hardcore fact checker, and I got two of them to go through and read your book. And it's amazing what they can find problems with. I mean, and basically, you're paying them to act like the most pedantic, annoying reader that will ever read the book.

Someone who is trying to point out all the ways this book is wrong and you shouldn't trust this author because this is wrong. It's basically saying, be that person and tell me everything that they could possibly say. And that sounds great when you're hiring them except when you're actually going through my god. It's like, because sometimes it's just so, you know, like, well, this is technically, you know, not what every one of the, you know, post Marxists said, you know, there was this school and you're like, okay, shit, you know, I shouldn't say, you know, I shouldn't

generalize. Or this isn't, it wasn't just this law that did this because actually it existed in common line, England before that. This is a, oh my God. What you don't want to do is, if you just do everything they said, you're going to end up with a boring, overly detailed book. So happy at say everyone. Put an end note and a cut.

So, I'm gonna say, you know what, this is too nuanced to, it's gonna be boring if I do it justice, so I'm just gonna cut it. Or I'm gonna put it in an end note, or I'm just gonna change the wording and say, in part, it was developed by, you know, so I'm getting better at like trying to do the right, and you go through these fact checks efficiently,

but I'm just about done with that process. And it's being copy-edited by a different person. And so it's in those final stages, which is way easier than when it's being done, but it's the drag. It drags on and getting close to being finished here. As someone that's thought and written a good bit about procrastination in the past, is there anything that you learned from having such a single, large project that you're working on for a good amount of time? Yeah, I mean, I learned that a procrastinator who can learn how to, you know, be productive usually is relying on a lot of kind of like crutches, you know, one can be deadlines

imposed by someone else, else. That's great. Collaboration when you're accountable to someone else. External pressure of different kinds, when I was publishing blog posts every week, there was this excitement of AI, I owed this to readers because I told them it would be out next week. But also, the adrenaline that comes from this is about to go live in two days you know would actually be something that would help ease procrastination because it was like you know dopamine just from you working on the project. This long book project without any you know feedback as I'm going from readers and without any you know has been taken away a lot of those crutches so it's been very difficult so I've done I've learned throughout the pro I've actually this this

has been a bootcamp for me over the last few years of getting better at doing, I built a bunch of new devices to help me like I will say, where would I want to be a week from today? Like where do I want it? What, what, what could I do in the next seven days? We're a week from today. I'd be very happy with where I am in my progress. Okay, that's my goal. Now I'm gonna tell two friends, this is my goal, and either I have to do a certain thing every day, certain product, or just something by the end of the week. And either way, and I have to then mo you,

each, a good amount of money, each day I fill. Something where it's small enough that you will do it. It won't be so ridiculous that you just say, I can't, sorry. You have to actually be able to do it, but it hurts. It's like, oh, God, I can't believe I just lost that money. I'm even finding the sweet spot with the amount of money and with the rules and that works great if you can have an internal ethic where you say they won't know, I can lie about what I will not lie about this, I will be honest, I will send it if I didn't truly do it.

So if you can't pull off that internal ethic and you find yourself lying, okay, that doesn't work, you have to come up with something there. So it's just what are the tools you can use to help push you forward when the normal external pressures are not? And that's been working on a bunch of those. Some of your friends ended up profiting massively for more attempt at writing about. Yes, I've paid over $1,000 in different overall. And, but I also got back some good solid cash from them because they're also creators and they've been also.

Oh, it's like a cartel, a pooled thing, like a dead pool, but it's for instead of who's dying, it's who's going to hit the word count. Yes, and it's so fun when they fail and I get money, it was a lot of money. Do you ever find yourself trying to distract them or trying to sabotage that? Oh, yeah.

I'm rooting against them fully. And yeah, so I mean that that can be very helpful. Okay, here's another one I've been doing, which is that I just, if I'm left to my own devices, I will dig around for a big huge chunk of the morning. The morning's when I'm energetic. I'm feeling social. It's when I want to text my friends or call or play with my dogs or just I just feeling like, you know, I don't work as a chubumber.

I'm like, I have all this fun energy, but it's also the best time to work. The obvious like happy life and productive life is you get up, you're serious, you get your work done and you're free. You're off. That's the school mentality. You know, the bell rings at three. You're off for the day. Yes, say by the bell, right? And to me at least, I mean, I'm sure some people like to have their mornings free and then they hammer down in the afternoon, not for me. It's not good because I, because I, and I don't end up enjoying my mornings, I'm in the dark playground,

I work looming over me, I'm self-loathing, then I haven't done anything. So how do I get myself to actually, you know, not dick around till two and then work till dinner, but actually try to work till two and then take the time off. Which kind of guarantees a productive day, you know, because if you if you mess around in the morning, you can end up actually just doing nothing that day and that's really miserable. And so, and also, you know, not drifting back with sleep. How do I guarantee that I'm like consistently working up early, working early for me is waking up at eight, you know, and that's not for most people. I'm up early and working. So for me, it was, I have my colleague, Alicia,

who's the way, but why I manage her, lots of things. And she and I've been working together for seven years. She knows exactly all my faults and flaws, like probably better than anyone. She could write a book on them. And one of the, but she's always willing to help in any way she can. And so I was like, you know, what would help is,

it's, I'm not gonna say that the computer and start dicking around the internet or texting. If someone's looking at my screen, that's embarrassing. At A, you can see what I'm doing. It's weird, but B, it's also just like, it's so shameful to procrastinate in front of someone. It's so like mortifying to someone to watch you. And I realize that like, it's,

I don't need that big of push to do what I'm supposed to do. It's not like you need to drag me kicking and screaming. I need, it's like, you know, the old feeling of, oh damn, class is starting. Damn, I had my free block. And it's not that I'm like, you know, the old feeling of, oh, damn, class is starting. Damn, I had my free block. And it's not that I'm like, screen, it's just like, okay, you know, it's Monday morning, and you just gotta do it.

And you don't want to, but you have to. And so, suddenly, having someone looking at my screen is that it's like, I don't wanna work, but. Are you saying that you've had your manager, Lissia, just sit and watch over your shoulder like a super visory parrot. In person, but also she heard her knee and was immobile for a while and we were, you know, zooming and we realized that that works really well too.

I just go on to a Slack video. I share my screen, my whole screen. And she's working. It's not like she's sitting there staring, but at any given point, she might be looking at the screen. I don't know when that is. Oh, you've got to pan up a virtual panopticon going on. Yeah. And that's a cool solution.

And also it doubles up as the purpose of, you know, she's a collaborator in all the stuff. She's very involved in the writing and the editing. She was kind of my main editor. And so I'll often say to her, you know, like, do you like this new sentence or like, do we think we need a source here, you know, maybe, you know, can you, can you like, we're looking to this, you know, make sure that I got that right. So it's, it's also just nice to be able to have someone there. You can kind of like bounce something off as you go.

So, but you know, then sometimes I'm like, oh, as I'm writing, I think, oh, that's an interesting thought that would be a perfect tweet. What I just wrote would be a perfect tweet also. And my instinct is to go tweet. And I'm like, no, I'm not gonna go tweet when someone's looking at my screen. That's really embarrassing, like procrastinating thing to do right now. So I just won't go do it.

But if I, if she weren't there, I would go to tweet, right? And you think, okay, that's five minutes, big deal. But it's not, I get stuck on Twitter now. Now I'm scrolling for an hour later. So it's having someone that prevents that little You know quote five minute break that was actually an hour actually saves me an hour and Every day now at noon. I'm like, oh, I've gotten three hours of work done real focused work done And so anyway, these are examples of hacks that work for me

I think every procrastinator does it for different reasons different weird psychological emotional reasons um, and everyone needs to come up with solutions that can help them. And there's no one-size-fits-all solution for this. I'm about to embark. It looks like on writing a book, and that means that I've got particular voyeuristic interest in the tools that you've used. So yeah, I mean, all of those sound like the would work. I had an idea that I came up with about a year ago called anxiety cost, and I think that's what you're referring to on the morning evening thing.

So opportunity cost by doing a thing, you can't do another thing, you have the choice between the gym and the theme park, by going to the theme park, you can't go to the gym. Anxiety cost is the pain that you suffer mentally by thinking about as yet undone tasks that could be gotten rid of by just doing the tasks. So each day you're to do this begins

and you, when you wake up on a morning, you have to meditate and walk the dog and answer emails. The longer that you take to walk the dog, meditate and answer emails, the more time you spend during that day thinking about the fact you haven't done those things, whereas if you just do them, if you frontload them towards the start of the day,

you're just bathing in this sort of glorious reflective. The same exact task can cause a variable amount of pain is what you're saying, you know? If you do it later, it causes you, and it's almost like a physical wound, and it's like, there's something that's hurting you consistently, and then you do it, it's like, it's almost like, you know,

I don't know, you're like, yeah, it's like, and you can patch up the wound once you do it. And it's like, you can do the task and it takes a little bit of pain to do it, but there's no long sitting there in pain with the wound or you can, you know, so yeah, I think that's a very clever way to kind of think about it is the, you know, actually think of that as a quantity, as a metric. Yeah. Posponing, postponing a task extends the pain, right? Right. Exactly. Look, you have to do the same pain either way at some point to do it, which is pain. You know, it's not like you should pretend that it work as fun. So it's often not. But you, that pain is, is constant. It's going to happen either way. It's a certain amount.

And it can like drag on, like leaving this long wake of pain. And it's, you know, or it can uh, it can just be done without that wake. Yeah. You had a article where you were talking about the person that you're supposed to marry. And you said, whatever you do, don't marry the wrong person. Given that young people at the moment are having less sex and ever, and both children and marriage are being delayed more than ever, plus there's more optionality than ever, it kind of seems like an increasingly difficult decision to commit to a partner. Do you think this is like a paradox of choice? Barry Schwartz thing going on? Like, what do you think are some of the issues that's happening here?

Oh, man. So this is not something, this particular problem, I've seen like the graphs and the stats on it. And I've heard theories. I don't have much original thought here. I've heard theories about like men are getting old. Like, there's more sexless men than there used to be. And the theories I've heard is not that they're, and it's not happening for women as much, right? And so why? And the theories are that it's the apps create this marketplace where, you know, in the old days, a woman would, you know, two people would start dating who met in the office, right? Just say, or they met in the local bar, or they met through a friend, right? And so this is kind of like your local world

would provide you with mates and people within that world would match up, just naturally. But now it's like a, that same woman can go onto an app and select the most desirable guy that she can find. And maybe that person is more desirable to her than anyone in her little local world. And she can, and it's not like, oh, well, okay, but that guy's now taken because a lot of times

there's casual sex, right? So you have that guy can have casual sex with 40 people in a year if he wants to, right? So all these women are slipping with a smaller pool of super desirable guys, and it's leaving a bunch of the guys in the local networks and local groups with no one. So this is the theory I've heard, which makes a ton of sense. It almost reminds me a little of like, you know, in the old days, if you were, you know, good guitar player, you could play for your friends, and you, in the old days, if you were, you know, good guitar player, you could play for your, you know, friends and you'd be the one you'd say, I'm going to put on a little concert tonight. And, you know, in your village, the 50 people will come

listen. And you had this gratification where you could provide this great gift you could give to people your art and other people will come listen. And that was it. And you had this, you know, you had your dreams. I'm playing guitar for people every now with the world of that we're in now. I mean, you know, 100, 100 years later, you've got everyone can go and listen to the best guitarist in the world on Spotify. So, you know, you're not going to go and, you know, you're all going to go to Madison Square Garden to that concert and not going to go to your local thing as often. And so there's all these artists out there that have this gift to give that no one's taking because they're pretty good.

And no one needs, there's no need for pretty good art anymore because you have one class art everywhere you look. It's so easy to great. So you have the small number of artists having huge numbers of fans and you have most artists having no fans. And that's in some ways cool because for consumers it's great, right?

Everyone has a world-class entertainment. For the artists, most artists, it sucks. And so to me, it's the same kind of concept that's happening with dating. And again, I don't know this for my own research. I know this from hearing other people say this theory. But of course, the out that the, the concept, this is not good, right?

It's sad. Um, and there's a lot of people that are real mean to like, in cells, they're like, oh, you know, like, these in cell medicine, well, but that's sad. They're not, they're like, they're lonely and they're not getting like a core human need that, that in 50 years ago, they, the same people would have gotten, and that leads to, I think that's one of the things that makes people, you know, breeds anger and regret you know, I think sexually frustrated countries are going to have more war probably, you know, not, you know, I don't go overboard here, but like, so I'm always rooting for, like when I see a stat like that, there's not like, Shodden Friday or anything, I'm always just like rooting for as many people to be like, satisfied in their lives and sexually happy as possible

because it's just gonna, you know, even just selfishly it's gonna create a better society if the more people there are. So I don't know what the answer is there. But in my general advice to someone if they are having, you know, if they wanna find a relationship. And by the way, not everyone does. I think we should move towards a world where some people wanna say stay single their whole lives or some people want to date and not be married.

And it should be much more fluid than it is right now. It's like this binary thing. Why are you not yet married? You're supposed to be married from this age on. That's a little bit unnewanced. But but I always say that it's like if you wanted to I always say that it's like if you wanted to, if you wanted to find, so basically if you want to get, you know, discover anything, you want to go try a bunch of things, you know, we talked about what Elon does, he tries a ton of things,

sees what fail, sees what succeeds, right? You know, versus imagine if you're trying to create a strategy for a company and you sit there in the war room all day just talking and talking and discussing and trying to come up with the perfect, absolute, perfect strategy before you execute and then you execute it. That's not going to be successful as the company that says, let's come up with something else, try it, let's come up with something else, try it, let's learn, let's learn, let's get our hands dirty. So dating is the same, I feel like it's get out there and you rather than people sitting there and thinking about,

torturing themselves in their head, what do I want? What do I need in a partner? Go out there and go on 50 dates in the next year. And, you know, maybe one of your points originally was that it's hard to find dates. And I don't know if that's true, but I just think I always say, you know, like just go on lots of dates if you can. You also had a tweet that I really enjoyed asking, looking at an important life skill

is recognizing the difference between criticism from people who don't care about you and don't root for you and criticism from those who do. The first is best ignored and the second warrants attention and reflection. One of the issues that you have online is that it's very difficult to work out somebody's intentions and whether or not they do have your best interests at heart. How do you deal with criticism in this way? So yeah, online, I mean, a few, it's, people say it's hard,

but I can usually tell online, I think, I have a pretty, first of all, most of the tweets that are nasty towards me, right? And there's not too many. I feel like I'm lucky that I don't have too many haters, but if I tweet so many political, for example, or anything controversial, you're gonna have hate, hate, hate, or tweets. The really nasty things I look and almost never,

they almost never follow me. So I'm like, they don't know who I am. I am some dehumanized shitbag guy over there. They don't have no idea who I am. They just, and so they see someone, they think they hate, they don't even know what who I am. And so they see someone they think they hate. They don't even know what I think about, you know, but they see one tweet, they put me in a box, they demonize me, and I'm,

I don't personally take that personally. I'm like, this person doesn't know me at all. It's like, they're, good thing to remember is that someone who's being real nasty to you online, probably was, if you went and looked at their, their other tweets, they probably have been nasty to 12 other, probably was if you went and looked at their other tweets, they probably have been nasty to 12 other people

that day in the same exact way. They're going around in this mood, doing this. You're caught in a lot of line of fire. So I don't give a shit about an assiness from someone who is not my follower, because they don't know who I am. Now, when someone follows me, okay, I'm gonna pay a little more attention. If they're being nasty though, you know really personal like this is not my kind of person

This is not my kind of person. I don't know for and I'll make friends with this kind of person who makes a really kind of mean and Alameda m'attaq really kind of like you know cynical sassy, you know, tone I'm like this isn't my kind of so I'm not gonna worry too much about this kind of person right like And so I also usually don't pay too much attention to it. Then there's a comment from someone who does follow me and I can usually tell that this is someone who likes me and likes my stuff and they're disappointed in this particular tweet or they usually resonate with me but they don't hear. And that's super interesting to me. Now it's pay attention. they usually resonate with me, but they don't hear, right?

And that's super interesting to me. Now, it's pay attention. And someone's that hurt. So those are the ones that might hurt because it's the person who, you know, you're thinking anything I do is gonna create rando haters and is gonna get nastiness from the really cynical kind of ad hominem type people out there.

That's just inevitable. But if I'm actually kind of like, you know, turning off people who normally like rest of, that's interesting. This doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong. Sometimes I want to challenge people who like rest of too. And sometimes there's just a disagreement.

But it doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong, but it definitely warrants paying attention to. And the nice thing about having a good size following is that it's not just one person. It's that I have a sample size. So if I get 400 comments very quickly, it's like I can start to see. There seems to be a decent frequency here of people who actually seem like genuine, part of the way the way the way the way the community who really didn't like what I said

or things that think I'm off on this. And that is, that means a ton to me and I'll reflect on it. And I feel grateful that I get that. You know, a lot of, you know, you have to have a sizable following of people who do care about you and like your stuff to get that quality feedback from people who care about you. So anyway, these are some like little things I just kind of feel like I've developed a slight sixth sense for this over time. And then of course in real life it's much easier, you know, but it's hard to get constructive feedback when people will care about you in real life because most people will care about you don't want to hurt you.

And they don't want to hurt your feelings, right? They want to be nice to you. They want to compliment you. It's almost like real life is the opposite of the internet. On the internet it seems like people tune up their displeasure and decide to just throw shade or try and dunk on someone for no reason. And in the real world, it's difficult to get criticism out of most of the people that are around you because they're concerned about hurting your feelings or they want to come across well or they care about it.

Well, in general, the paradox is that the more online or in the real world, the more someone knows and cares about you, the less likely they are to give you criticism. And that's exactly the criticism that you do want. And the criticism that you're more likely to get is from people who are rooting against you who, you know, often don't know you are anonymous. And that's the criticism that's not as valuable because because you think about what it's motivated. The reason I say it, you should listen to the kind from people who care about you is not like that, you know, you can learn from any criticism.

But the people who are if you especially in real life If there's someone who you just think You know you know deep down who some of the friends you think just you know Whether it's a stage in their life. They are just who they are the kind of relationship you have with them They're not rooting for you. They're happy when you fail. They're happy when you don't succeed You know a psychology go work or whatever and the criticism from that person is just, you think about where it's coming from. Their goal, deep down, their hope is that you do badly, that things work out worse for you, right?

So they're giving you this criticism. Maybe they're doing it to boost how you feel about them. So they're going to give you good criticisms so that you think they're a good person. But maybe they're literally doing something that they think is going to somehow how you feel about them. So they're going to give you good criticism so that you think they're a good person. But maybe they're literally doing something that they think is going to somehow hurt you. Like, why would you take help from someone? Why would you, you know, who is whose goal is to push you off the cliff? You know, you're on the cliff and someone wants to push you further down it. Why would you take their hand? It doesn't make any sense. So someone who does care about you and gives you criticism, especially given that it's not fun to give criticism to people you care about, right?

So they're going out of their way, they're doing something that's hard for them, that's not pleasant for them. And you believe that their hope is that you do better, right? That is precious if you can get it. So, and look, it's some of the nicest people I know, they're great at a lot of things, they're not gonna be good at giving criticism

because they're too nice. And those are some of the best people I know, right? And that's like one of their great qualities is that they're nice, but that happens to mean they're not going to be great for criticism. There are certain of your friends who are in that sweet spot where they're good friends. They care about you. They're rooting for you. And they also are not shy. They're open. Maybe they do it as a humor, humorous, sorry, maybe they're just confrontational and you really got to treasure those, what those people can do because and seek it out from them. I mean, you know, it's, it's really, really valuable. That's a really interesting point to think about how you curate your group of friends to not just be yes people that tell you what you want to hear because it's actually rarer to

find a friend who is both in the caring but critically able camp than it is to find someone who's caring and just comforting and tells you what you want to hear. Sometimes it's the people who care most about you. I mean, in some ways, if you're dating someone that's not good for you and everyone knows it, right? The nice friend who says, yeah, I love them. Good. How is going great? Oh, it's going good. Good. You know, know It's not that's not their shining moment is your friend right there, you know, they're not actually, you know They're in their head thinking oh, this is bad But like I want them to feel good in this moment. That's a little bit almost like a visselpice act Versus the person who will kind of say

Sure, it's good like I don't know. I'm a little worried about you know or you know if you're doing a I don't know, I'm a little worried about, or if you're doing a, if you're annoying everyone in a party or somewhere, you're too drunk or something. A friend who will kindly tell you in the next day, maybe you don't wanna, that person is doing something unpleasant to help you versus everyone else who's kind of thinking,

is that my problem? Is it something that's gonna be nice? Because the critic is paying a price personally in order to be able to advise you to become better. So they're actually paying more. They care about you so much that they'll go and actually tell you versus if you cared less, you wouldn't go through that. You think it's, you know, so, yeah, I mean, I think, especially, you know, we're

really fragile about, you know, artists and creators and entrepreneurs and these people who create stuff, they can be very fragile. Their ego's, their self-esteem, their self-worth. And so when, you know, when you're making something new and you're, you know, trying to be bold, you really want to specifically seek out, because there's, again, there's the person who's always going to say, that's great. I love your song, even if they hate it, right? And that person's, you know, again, they's the person who's always going to say that's great. I love your song Even if they hate it right and that person's you know again, they're nice

But they're actually not helping you very much and they can lead you to think kind of you know You can be going down a bad path and they'll just let you go And then there's the person who's rooting against you You got to be very careful because that person will try to hurt you even if it's subconscious They'll try to hurt your confidence, you know, and if it's good, they'll whatever and then it confidence. And if it's good, they'll, whatever. And then it's like, to find that person who will just be honest with you about how you're, you know,

what you're working on, it's just, it's, yeah, it's hard to find. Friendships are a minefield, man. Look, Tim, let's bring this one home. Wait, but why on absolutely everything? Have you got any idea when your worst, harshest, critic fact checker people are going to be finished? Have you got anything close to a release date? Yeah, it should be early February. Oh, dude. How excited are you for that? Barry, then I have to turn around immediately and work on another

book. So my friend Douglas Murray says that once the book is published, that's when the real work begins. So you're going to be doing it a double job for a little while. Yeah, that's okay. I'll just be happy to have one under my belt. All right, man. Dude, I appreciate you. Thank you. Yeah.

Thanks for having me on. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,