More Money Podcast - 392 Breaking Free from Scarcity - New York Times Bestselling Author of Scarcity Brain and The Comfort Crisis, Michael Easter

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Do you ever feel like no matter what you do there's never enough? Never enough time. Never enough stuff. And especially never enough money. If you said yes, you're not alone. For most of us humans, we're stuck in a scarcity loop without knowing how we got there or how to get out. Luckily, there is a way out, and New York Times bestselling author of Scarcity Brain, Michael Easter, is on the show to talk all about it. For your reference, the scarcity loop is: Opportunity -> Unpredictable Reward -> Quick Repeatability Once you understand this, you can start seeing how it appears in all aspects of your life and how it can especially impact your financial present and future. But as Michael shares in his book, although scarcity helped our ancestors survive in a world where there wasn't enough, it's actually hurting us in this new world of abundance. The only way to combat this is to become aware of our triggers and behaviours and reevaluate what success and fulfillment mean outside of consumerism. To enter to win a copy of his book, make sure to visit jessicamoorhouse.com/contest to enter to win. This episode of the More Money Podcast is presented by The Globe and Mail. Visit TGAM.ca/Jessica to get unrestricted access to globeandmail.com for only $1.99/week for 52 weeks (plus tax). Follow me: Instagram @jessicaimoorhouse Threads @jessicaimoorhouse TikTok @jessicaimoorhouse Facebook @jessicaimoorhouse YouTube @jessicamoorhouse LinkedIn - Jessica Moorhouse For full episode show notes and transcript visit jessicamoorhouse.com/392 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. I am your host, Jessica Morehouse, and this is episode 392. And in this episode, we are going to dive into the topic of scarcity. Now, I know we've mentioned, you know, scarcity, abundance, mindsets throughout so many episodes on the show over the years, but I really wanted to get into the science of it, which is why I have invited Michael Easter on the show. He is the New York Times bestselling author of The Comfort Crisis, but also the new book Scarcity Brain. And he has been able to travel the world, talk to so many brilliant thinkers and people living at the extremes. And he has had some, I mean, his book is incredible, obviously, that's why I invited him on the show. But

he has been able to go through some really interesting situations to really get to the core of what makes people happy. Why do so many of us in this modern society have this scarcity brain? Why do we feel like we don't have enough? We will never have enough. And even when we do have enough, we cannot recognize it. Because at the end of the day, really, this is kind of the best time in the world to exist. There is abundance. And yet for many of us, we still can't see it and we don't recognize it. And we're just not getting it. And so we're going to dive into all of that in this episode, but a little bit more about Michael in case you haven't read either of his books yet. And I will be giving away a copy, so make sure to listen to the end

of this episode for more information about that. His work and his ideas have appeared in over 60 countries and not only that, they've been endorsed by directors of the CIA and Navy SEALs and gold medal winning Olympians, leading physicians, Pulitzer Prize winning authors, Buddhist and environmental leaders, and so much more. But really, his background is in writing. He's a journalist, and he has appeared in Men's Health, where he's a contributing editor, but also Cosmo, Vice, Esquire, Scientific American, and Women's Health. And most recently, he was also a professor in the journalism department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and even co-founded the Public Communications Institute,

a think tank at the university. And yeah, he lives in Las Vegas, which I thought was a very interesting kind of thing to start with in this episode. How can you live in Las Vegas, which I thought was a very interesting kind of thing to start with in this episode. How can you live in Las Vegas where, I mean, I don't know, it depends on your point of view. Is that a place that is abundant or scarce? When you think of, I guess, the environment in the desert, scarce. But then when you think of the Las Vegas Strip, I mean, that's abundance. There's stuff everywhere, too much stuff. So I thought that was just a fun fact, really. But yeah, we have so much great stuff to talk about in this episode. I know you're going to love it. So without further ado, let's get to it.

This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by The Globe and Mail. We've yet to see what 2024 has in store for us when it comes to the economy, interest rates, housing prices, and inflation. But the one thing you can always be certain of is no matter what's going on in the world, you'll never regret investing in yourself by growing your financial knowledge. And what better way to do that than to check out all of the amazing resources from The Globe and Mail, Canada's leading source of business and investing news. At globeandmail.com, you can learn more about saving, investing, and reducing your debt from their expansive array of personal finance content, helpful tools like the Globe's watchlist and RRSP savings calculator, podcasts, and newsletters like my personal favorite, Carrick on Money. And for a limited time for more money listeners, The Globe is offering unrestricted access to globeandmail.com for just $1.99 per week for the first 52 weeks plus tax.

For full details, visit tgam.ca slash Jessica. Once again, that's tgam.ca slash Jessica. Welcome, Michael, to the More Money Podcast. I'm so excited to have you on the show. Well, I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me. You're so welcome. When I found out about your book, I'm like, this is definitely a book or an author that I need to have on the show talking about scarcity, a very popular topic in the personal finance world, obviously. But I think we don't necessarily dive into where does that scarcity come from and how it can reveal itself in other parts of our lives.

So I really enjoyed your book. I read the whole thing in two days obsessively. And it was incredible just the journey that you went on and all the different experiences that you did to kind of explain how scarcity exists. But before we kind of dive in, I know, you know, you've, you know, there's so many things that I think is really interesting about your background. I thought the first thing was like, you live in Las Vegas. I thought it was really interesting. And like, that's an interesting place to like write about this topic. But also, you know, you teach, can you kind of share like how has living in Las Vegas maybe influenced the idea that you had for this book? Cause I'm sure scarcity is all over Las Vegas, especially like the strip and the casinos. That's kind of where I kind of go to

think. Yeah. Yeah, totally. So, um, I mean, I think that it is the perfect place to study the topic because I generally think of like when we think of scarcity i just generally very simply define it as like the feeling that we don't have enough right and i think that everyone has that it manifests itself in all sorts of ways and to the point of your podcast like money's a huge thing right um but las ve Vegas is totally, uh, totally built to fulfill this people's cravings for these things they can't get enough of, right? It's like food, stuff, uh, money, right? There's always this lingering promise that you could get, you could leave town far richer

than you came to, came to it. And, um, I think that the gambling industry in particular is a really interesting vehicle for looking at human behavior and why we make the decisions we do and how randomness and random rewards impact our decisions. So I would say when we were kind of coming up with the idea for the book, and when I say we, I mean me and my editor, very much just, I started noticing that Vegas is just the perfect place to study this. And so I did a lot of research into slot machines and how they work and how

they basically get people to repeat this behavior that is fun in the short term, but irrational in the long run, like the house always wins. And yet people play slot machines in particular, an insane rate. Yeah. I thought that part of the book was so interesting because I didn't know the history of slot machines and how they were never supposed to be the big moneymaker. And then just with a few tweaks to encourage certain people's behaviors, now they're everywhere. You mentioned this. And it's true. I remember years ago going to Las Vegas and there were slot machines in the airport. I'm like,

that is the weirdest thing I've ever seen. And yeah, they're like everywhere. And people are there for hours. And they like, you know, have food around them. So they don't have to leave their spot. It's crazy. And you mentioned like, part of this has to do with the thing that you call the scarcity loop. Do you want to kind to share a little bit more about what the scarcity loop is? For me, I think that's the reason that I never go to casinos. I never gamble. It's because I just feel like it is too dangerous and hard to get out of once you're in that kind of repetition. Yeah. I make this observation that one, slot machines are all over Las Vegas. Two, people play them around the clock. When you look at the stats, slot machines make more money

than books, music, and movies combined annually. It's just a crazy huge industry. I mean, the slot machines in the airport in Las Vegas alone have made more than a billion dollars. Oh my God. And so like I said before, it's like everyone knows the house always wins, right? So I kind Oh my God. what the heck is going on there. And so long story short, this takes me to this place on the edge of town in Las Vegas. That's this like brand new, fully working, cutting edge casino. But it's not totally open to the public. So it's used entirely for human behavior research. It's like a casino laboratory. And it's funded by casino companies, but also a bunch of big tech companies. And when I'm there, I talked to this guy who's a slot machine designer. And if you want to understand how slot machine works, you have to

understand this scarcity loop. So it's like a three part behavior loop. And the three parts are one opportunity, two unpredictable rewards and three quick repeatability. So to kind of unpack it, it's like the first one opportunity, you have an opportunity to get something of value to unpredictable rewards. You know, you'll get the thing of value at some point if you keep doing the behavior, but you don't know how valuable it's going to be. And you don't know when you're going to get the thing that is a value. And then three quick repeatability, you can immediately repeat the behavior. So you just go over and over and over. So in the case of a slot machine, it's like you, you have the opportunity to win some money, but you don't know which game is actually going to win it, how big the win is going to be anything like that. And

then you can just play game after game after game. And so the reason why this is important, though, I mean, it's like, one thing that is in slot machines, and it's powerful there, but that three part behavior loop, when it sort of exploded in the 80s and slot machines went from like these things that no one played to being everywhere and kind of being the workhorses of casinos, a lot of other industries sort of looked at that and went, what the heck is going on there? Now that's interesting. And so now you're seeing that same three-part behavior loop being put in all sorts of tech products. And it's really embedded in our lives. I mean, it's what makes social media work.

It's what makes sports gambling work. It's what makes dating apps. People get hooked on those. What makes Candy Crush and mobile games such moneymakers? It's just all over our lives. And once you start to see it, you can't unsee it. And you realize that this thing takes a ton of your time and attention and oftentimes money. It's even in online shopping now. Well, I'd even say too, and you mentioned and make reference to this in the book when it comes to stock trading. And we saw a lot of these

behaviors over the past couple of years, especially over we saw a lot of these behaviors over the past couple of years, especially over COVID. A lot of these apps like Robinhood, we have similar apps in Canada, like Well Simple Trade. There's no friction. It's super easy to make an account, put your money in and start trading. And there is that kind of loop. It's like you don't know when you're going to make it big, but you feel like it's going to come and sometimes you'll make a lucky trade and then you're going to and it's easy. Just press that button and then you can make another one or you can sell. And it's just too easy to get stuck in there.

And you kind of lose sight of, wait, why are you doing this in the first place? Wasn't it to save for retirement? Not to just get rich quick. It's radical. But like you said, it's one of those things where you see it in so many industries now. And yeah, even just mentioning social media, it's the same as scrolling TikTok or Instagram Reels or what have you. And I get stuck in that loop too. It is that unpredictable reward. There's a lot of crap on there, but sometimes there's a funny video

and that'll be like, oh, I really like that. Maybe I'll find another one. And you keep on scrolling and then you're on there for three hours when you probably could have done something more efficient with your time. Right, right. So there's really nothing better at capturing human attention than this. And to your point about finance apps, yeah, I think that removing trading fees was huge because it increases the quick repeatability. Yeah. And then some of the apps were also using basically stuff that was directly pulled from casinos, like spinning wheels for bonuses. Or like a celebration, you know, oh, you made a trade, celebrate. And then it makes you feel good like you want to do it again.

It's crazy. Yeah. It's scary. Yeah. It's scary. Yeah. It's definitely unparalleled at getting people to make decisions that they sometimes might regret. Yeah. Often they regret. I know, obviously, when we're thinking of scarcity, it is a natural feeling. It comes from our ancestors and it was to help us survive. But now we're in a very, and you talk about this in your book, we're in a very different situation. We have everything we need, or it's very easy to get it. We don't have to go hunt for our food. We don't have to worry about predators killing us in our sleep. We're pretty safe and cozy. So why do you think besides the scarcity loop that a lot of these companies are using to make us feel like this? Is there any other thing that makes us feel like there's never enough? Because I can't even like think of when did this start for me? But I feel

like once I entered adulthood, I've always had this kind of scarcity, like there's never enough. And even when you do have enough, you can't recognize it. So you feel like, oh, I thought that was enough, but actually it's not. I need more. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, you have to ask why do people, why do most people focus on what they don't have rather than what they do have? Why are we such amazing consumers? And this is like everyone, right? And the answer is, I mean, it's pretty simple. It's just that, you know, humans evolved in these environments where everything we needed to survive was scarce and it was hard to find. So everything from food to stuff, to information, to status, to X, Y, Z, you name it. And so we evolved to sort of crave and overdo those things,

but there was never enough of them, right? So if you had the opportunity in the past when you came upon food to eat more of it than you needed, that always made sense. If you had the opportunity to get more stuff in the form of tools or whatever, that would give you a survival advantage. Same with status, right? If you had higher status and were above other people in your tribe, you would get out of like the crappy work.

You'd probably get more food. So you'd survive. So we still have these genes that basically tell us to focus on what you don't have, try and get more than you need. But now the difference is that we're in a world where we have an abundance of all the stuff that we're built to crave. And we don't necessarily have good, like a good governor to see when we've had too much. So, I mean, even just in the past, like 100, 150 years, you just look at how much more of all these things I'm taught we're talking about have increased. And it's insane. It's like in the late 1800s, the average person had like three outfits, maybe. Now the average person has 110.

Oof. Yeah. The average house has anywhere from 10,000 to 40,000 items. Right? I mean, food consumption has just dramatically risen. Oh, yeah. We now see more information in a single day than we used to see our entire lives in the 1400s on and on and on and so you see like you put these creatures i.e humans that are just designed to like get and

consume and always be like what more can i get and do and blah blah in a world where it's possible to do that and you just start to see there's some effects of that. Now, granted, this is a good problem to have in the grand scheme of time and space. I'd rather be worried about counting calories because I'm worried about having too many than I don't have enough. I'd rather have to pick a coat rather than not have a coat. But there's still problems. And so I think it's like, as we've progressed as a society, it's awesome. At the same time, there's going to be side effects

that we're going to have to deal with. Yeah, I think the big issue is we're actually living in a world of abundance, but we don't see it and we don't know when to stop. There's no stop. There's no stopping. And especially it's the messages that you see a lot in the news, on social media, even on TV that you don't have enough because there's people that have more and they look like they're happier, they're more secure. You should want more. And so it's even when we are in a place where like, oh no, I think I'm good. Everything outside of you saying, are you though? Maybe you're not. And so it's, how do we know when to stop this cycle? I know one of the things I really enjoyed in your book were some of the adventures that you went on, which seemed like the one that seemed

like the worst to me was honestly living in a monastery. I know my husband would love, he's done silent retreats, he would love that life. I would not thrive in that situation. But I appreciate exactly what they were set out to do. It was all like their lifestyle was all about enoughness. We've got enough, we're taking care of each other. It was a beautiful thing. But it was like in this little bubble of the world that only exists in that situation. I want to kind of ask you, what was that experience? How long were you there for? What was that experience like? What did you learn? I was at the monastery for about a week. Yeah. So the whole reason I went there is, you know, we kind of live in one of the things that

we want more of is happiness. Right. And so like a lot of philosophers argue that everything we do is simply to eventually be happy. And, um, I would say that today we often think that happiness is going to be in the next purchase. It's going to be like, Oh, once I have this amount of money in my retirement account, like then I'll be able to do that and then I'll be happy. Right. So it's this. But the thing is, is like, once you get to that place, you realize like, okay, like things are basically about the same as they were. Exactly. So he's disappointing. Yeah. And we often think that like having more is going to lead to happiness. So then I come across this research on these Benedictine monks, and it basically finds that they are significantly happier than the average person on average.

And so when you look at how they live, it's like totally the antithesis of what we would consider the American dream. It's like they have all these things they do that we're told, yeah, that won't make you happy. That'll make you miserable. So, for example, they spend a lot of time in silence. They're not super social. They do hard physical labor four hours a day. They have to go into the chapel and pray like eight times a day. And really early, really early. Starting at like 345 in the morning um they don't eat a ton they don't really they don't drink a lot they don't have cell phones they don't like they don't have tvs they don't like i mean they're literally living like it's you know yeah the year 1000 or whatever um but they're happy and so you know i i see'm like, well, what the heck is up with that?

So I get, yeah, I go live with them for about a week. And I think my takeaway was that, you know, oftentimes happiness is not a result of what we own, but rather it's kind of like a process. It's a rolling average of our behaviors. And oftentimes by trying to, by focusing our attention on getting the next thing, doing the next thing, thinking that there's some end game to happiness, that, that backfires. That's just like, that's a really good way to not be happy. And instead of these guys focusing on their happiness, um, they're really just kind of focused on doing the next right thing that's serving some higher good for them. So for them, it's God, it's religion.

But I think the average person can get that from all sorts of different things so long as we get out of ourselves and are of service. And we also have to realize like what makes one person happy isn't going to make another person happy. So like I get really somewhat frustrated with stories that come out that are like, oh, you need to do here are the five things you must do to be happy. So like, I get really somewhat frustrated with stories that come out that are like, oh, you need to do here are the five things you must do to be happy. It's like, well, no, it doesn't really work like that. Like people are different. And actually part of becoming quote unquote happy is having doing some self exploration and building some self awareness about like, what actually does make me happy? And like, no, that's not always easy. It's oftentimes hard, but you come out the other side of that, a better, more useful, more interesting person. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by The Globe and Mail.

Want to finally get a better handle on your debt and spending this year? Or maybe you want to stop feeling so intimidated by all the financial jargon and terminology that's thrown around all the time. I've said this on the podcast countless times, but I'll say it again. One of the best investments you can ever make in yourself is by expanding your financial knowledge. And one resource I've always turned to for staying up to date on financial trends and news and expanding my own knowledge is the Globe and Mail, Canada's leading source of business and investing news. Not only do they have a plethora of personal finance content by top financial journalists like Rob Carrick, Erica Alini, and Salman Faruqi, but they also

have helpful calculators, podcasts, and explainers on everything from how to invest when you're just starting out to how to pick the best robo-advisor. And for a limited time for more money listeners, The Globe is offering unrestricted access to globeandmail.com for just $1.99 per week for the first 52 weeks plus tax. For full details, visit tgam.ca slash Jessica. Once again, that's tgam.ca slash Jessica. And staying with that feeling of this is what makes me happy when you're confronted with no, you're wrong. Like that's probably the hardest part is sticking to your guns being like no this is because a lot of it is contrarian to most people they're like no it doesn't make any sense why would you be happy living like a minimalist that would make me miserable it's like yeah that would make you

miserable but maybe it'd make me happy right right exactly and um yeah and i have like good friends that i have a friend who always battles me because I'm like, I'm like, I realized there's a lot of people who need to be around others all the time to be happy. I'm totally opposite. I need like two people and my dog. And by the way, if I don't have like at least a week where I'm totally alone every year, I'm going to go absolutely nuts. And like, that's fine. It's like fine that you want all these friends around you all the time, but like, you know, I need some alone time here. Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, I'm the same way. I'm for sure the same way. The other crazy thing that you did that I think is like, I don't think I'd ever do in my life,

but I love hearing people's stories doing it as you went to the Amazon jungle. And honestly, I've been thinking about that section for so long, especially because you lost so much weight when you did their diet. I'm like, I should probably try that man, trying it even getting started with like cutting out the sugar and just eating like these people. I just literally haven't been able to start it. I've been thinking about it every day. Like if I just ate like that and continued you know being active I'm sure I'd you know lose xyz you know amount of pounds but do you want to kind of talk about like how did that situation arise I can't imagine that's very easy to set up like hey we're

gonna go to the jungle and it's gonna be like yeah you're not gonna have anything with you and live like that for for a little bit how did that happen and again, to what did you find out from living with these people who also seemed pretty happy with just the things that they had around them? Yeah. Well, here's, here, I have some good news for you, actually. So I have on my website, which is easternmichael.com. Do you have a meal plan for me? Two week. Yeah. It's a two week, uh, chimane diet challenge. So maybe I'll try it. Walk you into it. Uh, it'll a two-week chimane diet challenge. Okay, maybe I'll try it. It'll walk you into it. It'll kind of give you pointers.

It'll help you troubleshoot how to do it because everyone faces the same issues when they do it. And so, yeah, there's your answer. You can try it for a couple weeks. Because honestly, I've been thinking about, you talk about, especially with the food, there are certain foods that are just so addictive. Like, yeah, chips or something. You're like, I'll just have one.

And then you just eat, eat. And it's just like, you're't even thinking and it doesn't even fill you up. It's not giving you any nutrition, but you just can't stop. And I'm like, I don't want to live like that anymore. It's hard. So, okay. So, um, to answer your question, uh, my background is I've been a health journalist, like my entire career. And, um, I was a professor for a while too. Um, okay. So when you look at what kills people, it's heart disease. Heart disease is the number one killer of people worldwide. Like full stop. The average person has basically a coin flips chance of dying of heart disease. Okay. When you look at what people worry about, it's like home invasions.

Yep. It's like, you know, it's cancer's a big one. Terrorism's a big one. Car accidents, stuff like that. No one worries about heart disease. You look at what people worry about. It's like this tiny thing. I've never thought about it in my life.

I'll tell you. I've never thought about heart disease. Exactly. And then when you look at what the media actually covers in terms of causes of death, they don't cover heart disease at all. So there's this crazy mismatch of like, here's this big looming threat that's all going to kill us. And like, by the way, no one cares and like, no one's covering it. So I kind of come across that data, which I think is really interesting. And then like a year or two later, this study gets released and it basically finds this tribe in the Bolivian jungle who do not die of heart disease. Like no one dies of heart disease, not to mention heart disease, but they also have way lower rates of diseases like Alzheimer's, which is a big killer of modern people.

They don't get a lot of same cancers we do, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm like, okay, well, this is interesting. So I got to go find out like why, right? So I fly to La Paz, uh, which is capital of Bolivia. And then we drive like 12 hours down these kind of cliffy dirt roads to this, uh, jumping off point of the jungle. And we take this canoe like six hours up river. And, um, you know, eventually the, the guy who's kind of like manning the canoes engine, he just like pulls over in the middle and everything looks the same. You're just going through the jungle for six hours. It's all the same. I'm like,

how do you know this is the spot? This is the spot. Yeah. There's no GPS here. How do you know? He just is like, it's a spot. I'm like, okay. So we get out and he's right. There the tribe is, right? So they're called the Chimane tribe. And I lived with them for a while. And the main reason they don't seem to get a lot of the diseases that kill us goes back to what they eat. And so when you look at what they eat, it's also interesting because at some point in a day, it's going to offend one of our fad diets that's been popular in the US at some point over the last 30 years and in Canada too. So like it's not keto, it's not paleo, it's not low fat, it's not low carb, it's not vegan. I mean, just insert all these things, right? But the one commonality that all the food they eat has is that it's just one ingredient.

So they're eating foods, you can think about it as they're eating foods that are ingredients rather than foods that have ingredients. Yeah. So they'll eat like rice, white rice. They grow it. They make it themselves white rice. They'll eat like potatoes. They hunt their own red meat. There's this type of deer that lives in the Amazon. They eat a lot of fish that they catch themselves. They eat a lot of fruit. They eat nuts, they eat avocados, et cetera. They're not eating dairy and stuff because they don't have cows. But yeah, it all goes back to that. And then the question is like, okay, well, why is that food seem to be healthy? And one of the reasons that the primary reason seems to be simply that you can't over consume it. Like, so think about eating a potato that's boiled versus potato chips, like an ounce of boiled potato has 50 calories,

and an ounce of potato chips has like 300. And by the way, which one is way more delicious, and is more likely to lead you to like eat more and more of it. So there's these, there's this really interesting studies by the NIH, where they basically lock people in the lab and they have them for two weeks, eat food that is, um, like the tribeats it's unprocessed. And then they put them, uh, another two weeks. They, these people have to eat really processed food. So scientists call it ultra processed food. They have me ultra processed versions of the same food, but everything is like matched, like for overall calories they have access to for fat, for protein, for salt, for all this stuff. And when people eat the diet, like the tribeat, which is all this like unprocessed food, they just naturally eat 500 fewer calories a day and they lose weight. Whereas when they eat the

ultra processed food, they do the opposite and they gain weight. And it's simply because ultra processed food, which by the way, is like 70% of our food supply. Now it has all these cues that lead us to eat more. That doesn't say it's much more delicious, right? Um, there's a much bigger variety and it's also much faster to eat. So a junk food executive, um, who I talked to basically said, if you want us, if you want to sell a junk food to get people to buy junk food, it's got to have three Vs. It's got to have value. It's got to have variety. And it's got to have velocity.

And so that's just like the food version of this scarcity loop that we just laid out a minute ago, right? Like the speed of eating is, is a huge factor. And so when I, when I got home from Bolivia, I decided to try the diet and just try and eat like them for a week. It's not easy. You can't replicate it perfectly, but you can try. And, um, I mean, I, yeah, I definitely lost weight. I was, and I was not trying to, and, um, it actually became, got to the point where I was like, I kind of want to stay at the weight I was at. And so I had to eat more and it just is so much food because food that is just one ingredient

is just way more filling, way more filling, but it's also a lot healthier for you. Cause it's, you know, you're getting a ton of nutrients. And so how hard was it to maintain that though? Especially when you go to the grocery store and 70% is like ultra processed food. Like what? And again, it's like, you have to be that contrary and go against the grain because no one else is eating like that. Like, was that, I mean, I don't know if you're still doing it. I assume not. I don't do it a hundred percent, but, uh, what I will say is that it definitely

influenced me in that. Now, most of my sort of go-to meals fall into that where I'm just like a few foods that have just one ingredient, like rice, some vegetables and some lean meat or fish. Like that's a, that's a go-to for me now. I would say it's harder at first. And there's even all these things where if you go like, okay, I'm going to have potatoes and like meat and some vegetables. Well then like our next thing that we normally do is like, all right, I'm going to have potatoes and like meat and some vegetables. Well then like our next thing that we normally do is like, all right, I'm going to cover this in some like sauce. That's like butter and blah, blah, blah. Or like barbecue sauce or like sour cream and blah. And it's like, well, all those things just like enhance the flavor and add a ton of calories. And like,

they don't do that so you kind of have there's like definitely an adjustment period where you start to realize like oh i add so much stuff to this like food yeah it's just like natural i need to learn how to like make it taste good in a way that's not adding a bajillion calories on the side yeah which kind of goes back to a message in your book where it's not about adding more sometimes it's about taking something away now there's that example of like there's a experiment where it's like build a bridge out of these things and most people added more blocks instead of taking them away to make it more efficient and i think it's a great representation of how we think about things we think more is more less is less but really really, even just thinking about the food example,

if you're eating those whole foods and you're not putting a bunch of things on it that will make it tastier and that will make you want to eat more, your stomach will tell you when you're done, when you've had enough, because you literally just cannot eat anymore. But in other circumstances, we just do not have that. It's not as easy to develop that kind of reflex of like, you've hit your point, you're good, you're done. But yeah, do you think it's possible to develop that when we're just embedded in the society where it is like the, you know, the American dream or the Canadian dream? It's about, you know, starting your own business and wealth and then there's all these billionaires now, and it just

seems like that is what we are all pushed to try to want to get and to achieve because that is what success and happiness is, even though all the data in the world shows actually that's not true. Is it possible to live differently, I guess, in this world of abundance where we feel like there's never enough. Yeah. I mean, I think it's like, how are you measuring success? And a lot of people measure success in money. And if you measure success in money, you're never going to feel successful because there's always going to be someone else who has more money than you. And as you begin to sort of climb up the quote unquote economic spectrum, you're just going to surround yourself with people who have about the same amount or a little more money than you. And that's what you're going to make comparisons to.

So, for example, people who live who are in the top one percent of wealth in the US, which I think is like 600,000 a year or something like that. When they poll these people, when scientists poll these people, they say they often feel poor, they often feel stretched, they often feel unhappy. And it's like, okay, well, why the hell is that? And it's because they live in neighborhoods with other one percenters. And so they see what these people are doing and what these people have. And it makes them feel like they don't have enough. It makes them feel like they're poor, right? It's like when the neighbor pulls in with a new whatever car and they're like, well, mine is two years old. How can he measuring this? And if you start measuring it by quality of life, like that, that's going to change your decisions, right? Like plenty of people could make more money if they worked more, but like, why the hell are you working in the first place? Oh, it's so I can do X, Y, Z. And that's often at odds with adding more hours of work.

And that's like a hard balance to toe, obviously, but that's like got to be the fundamental underlying question that you're asking yourself. And I think that just kind of like big picture on people consuming and like craving and always wanting more is that I think like with the scarcity loop behaviors, there's three ways you can basically get out of behaviors like this. So the first is just becoming aware that this is happening. So this is called the observer effect. Once you observe a behavior and you understand why it's happening, it tends to just naturally change the behavior. So this messes up a lot of scientific studies, but it's actually something that real people in the real world can use to do things they want to do and less of things that hurt them. The second part is that you can change any of the three parts of the scarcity loop that we talked about. So one of the big ways is simply just finding ways to slow down a behavior. I'll give the example of shopping because this is a money podcast. It's like, if you find yourself buying too much crap on Amazon, which I mean, just think about that for

a minute. When we talk about the abundance thing, it's like kidding. It's like you, you put something in your cart and then there's immediately, Hey, here's something else that you might like. And well, and even like 15 years ago, if you decided you wanted something, you would have to drive down to the store to get it. And you'd have to walk the aisles and you would have limited choices. You'd have, they'd have maybe like three of them. And there's just this period of pause, right? There's so many steps you have to do to be able to get that. Well, now it's like, not only is it way easier to buy something because you just go on Amazon from your phone. But also, we're spending way more time on media. And you're getting ads that are hyper-targeted to you because of phone

based media. So in the past, it's like if I opened up, let's say I'm passing my time by reading a magazine and it's like the Atlantic, it's like, well, who's going to advertise with them? Like Ford, maybe Rolex, maybe like, like there's, there's only going to be so many ads that really speak to me. Now, when I go on Instagram, it's like, oh my God, they've hyper targeted the products where I'm like, oh wow, that's a, that's, that's great. Oh wow. Look at that product. Like they're just, they're just like, oh yeah. Like there's so many times me and my husband have mentioned something to each other and then we'll look at our phone and there's an ad and you're like, that is so dangerous. Like we just mentioned it and they know and it's being targeted and then it'll keep on targeting you until you probably do some sort of action. It's so difficult and it's like, you know, spending problems and overspending and getting into debt those have

been issues in in personal finance for decades but it's just so much harder to be diligent with that now compared to oh there's lots of tv you know ads on tv well now there's ads literally everywhere you go in your pocket you know and it's just impossible to get away from it feels like and that's i think the hard part is like, if I can't, how do I change these behaviors? If these, you know, things that are trying to trigger these behaviors are following me around. Totally. So the, so the way to like kind of slow that down is before you want to make a purchase, like figure out how you can insert pause and time. So a lot of times, I mean, just simply putting a item in the cart that you think you want and then being like, okay,

we've got a 72 hour holding period. Once you go back three days later, you're often like, yeah, I don't know why the hell I wanted that. Like you just, I mean, there's so, that saved me so many things that I didn't need. Cause I'm like, why did I think I wanted a leather jacket? You know, like, I know. Yeah. And yeah. And then there's, I mean, the book lays out like how you can alter the three parts and all these different types of behavior.

But then the third big picture thing is like, I think a lot of times people fall into these sort of loop behaviors that are negative simply because they don't have stimulation elsewhere in their lives. Yeah. So there's a bunch of research on animals. There's also plenty of like anecdotal research on humans that basically shows that when you don't have other fulfilling things in your life, like we need a certain amount of stimulation and it's really easy to get stimulation through binging social media, through gambling, through drugs and alcohol, through buying too much crap, whatever it is like that gives us stimulation. But if you can find a way to find an interesting hobby or get stimulation from

something else, that's often going to be far more life-giving and lead you into better health and wellness in the long run. And you'll stop obsessing about these things that you didn't even need. So finding some hobby that's outside, maybe you get really into volunteering. Maybe you got, I mean, there's a million different things that you can do that aren't like more social media, more buying stuff. I'm going to go to the bar. I'm going to go like things that eventually hurt us. And that's kind of like the happiness thing. That's a journey for everyone. Like what's going to do it for me isn't going to do it for you, isn't going to do it for you and vice versa. But there is something out there for people. And I think that that exploration

is very worth it. Yeah. And I think one thing that, you know, especially just like COVID really messed things up a lot, like these things were issues before and they really rattled people because it forced us to stay at home alone, not with much stimulation. And so we gravitated more to shopping and going on social media. And I feel like even though, you know, we're kind of past that now we're in 2024, a lot of us develop those behaviors and it know, we're kind of past that now, we're in 2024, a lot of us develop those behaviors and we're not realizing you can go outside again. You can socialize. You can get a hobby that is outside of anything that you see online that is just pure joy

that will take your mind away. And what I find is like when you are busy with hobbies or work that's filling, you don't think about shopping or spending money or buying the next thing you're, you're living your life and you're doing what you want to do. But I think we, we still have some work to do and kind of unprogramming ourselves from some of those behaviors we learned a few years ago that were like, we thought we needed to survive. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Um, yeah, I write about a lot of this stuff. I got a newsletter that I send out every few days a week. It's called 2% with Michael Easter. And we cover a lot of these things that seem to be working for people. And there's like, you know, there's a community. And one thing that I've found is that it's, it's different. There's obviously commonalities, but people just need to find their thing. And then once they do, that can be like an awesome unlock. No, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think too, since you mentioned community, that's even though like, I'm an introvert, sounds like

you are too. I like my alone time. Having those communities, those people, whether they are online or offline are so important and will make you kind of rethink some of those behaviors. Like maybe, you know, I'm in this loop of thinking that I need to get this new thing because everyone seems to have it. Like, oh man, like what was one for me? Taylor Swift tickets. People were going crazy. And I'm like, I don't even listen to her. Like I had nothing against her. I just haven't listened to her in years, but I was very close to buying tickets for whatever reason. Cause it was, you know, everywhere. And then I'm just like, or just talk to some friends, you know, get out of that, get out of this weird vacuum that has nothing to do with anything,

but it's just making you want to buy something because you think it will fulfill something else. But yeah, I think that the really important message that I got from your book is, you know, we are in this world of enough and of abundance even too much. So we are not so we need to recognize that, you know, our programming isn't quite up to snuff. And we need to recognize why are we doing the things that we're doing, because we are on autopilot most of the time. And it's like you said, one of the first steps is to recognize what is going on and then making your own plan. And sometimes that's difficult to fulfill. But it sounds like you've got it, you know, pretty figured out. You, you seem pretty happy. Yeah. I mean, I think that it's a constant battle for everyone. I definitely have days where I'm like, you know, get caught in

like the trying to do more. Oh yeah. You're human. Yeah. I definitely have to have the conversation of like, okay, if you do that, that means you can't do X, Y, Z, which are the whole reasons that you work in the first place. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So yeah. I mean, the book was definitely, um, good for me to write though. I definitely learned a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And I know a lot of people will learn a lot by reading it. Um, so thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. It was such a pleasure having you on. Where can people find more about you, some of your resources, and where can they grab a copy of your book? Yeah, go to EasterMichael.com. And I have there's that Chimane diet challenge there. Yeah, I'll check it out. And then yeah, pretty much everything you need to know is about me. There's links to my newsletter, which goes out a few times a week.

And there's a fun project. And yeah, I appreciate you having me on. This was fun. Oh, good. Thank you so much. And that was episode 392 of the More Money Podcast with Michael Easter. Make sure to check out his website, EasterMichael.com. And of course, grab one or both of his books, The Comfort Crisis and Scarcity Brain. Make sure to also check out his newsletter, 2% with Michael Easter. You can find more information about that at 2pct.com. So that's T-W-O-P-C-T.com. I'm going to link to everything in the show notes for this episode, jessicamorehouse.com slash 392. And don't forget to also follow him on Twitter and Instagram at Michael underscore Easter. That's where you can find all of that

info. Now, like I mentioned, I will also be giving away a copy of his book, but also so many books. I'm actually just going to go to the website right now because I think I was smart this time. Instead of like every week updating it manually, because that is literally what I've been doing for years, I've actually put a bunch of books. Some guests have already been on the show. Some will be on the show in the future. So you can kind of get a taste of who is going to be on the show in the future, this season. And one, two, three, we've got seven books up there, including Michael Easter's book. So if you want to enter to win one of the books, I mean, if you're a winner, you're only going to win one, but you can enter to win all of them and kind of raise your chances of being a winner. Just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash contest and you can find

all the different books right there. I mean, at this moment, we've got The Pandemic Paradox, Career Forward, Your Best Financial Life, Millionaire Mission, Invest Like a Girl, Scarcity Brain, of course, and Fair Shake. And there's going to be a few more that i'm going to add as i add more guests to this season and i'm getting close to booking all of my guests so we'll see who who else is going to be on here i don't know i'm i'm also in the dark we will find out but i'm looking forward to it speaking of books in case you've been following my own book writing journey i got my line edits from my editor, and I am in the thick of editing my book right now. And I've got to say, and thank goodness for this, this is so much easier than writing the book. Like when I talk to some people, some authors,

they're like, oh, no, it was awful. I'm like, well, okay, so far. I mean, again, this is early days. I'm almost done editing chapter three. And so I've done the intro and chapters one to three, I still have four to nine left to edit. So again, maybe it gets messy in the middle. It might do. But so far, so good. So far, I'm not ripping my hair out, which I was while I was writing this book. So that's kind of the update on that. And yeah, we're, you know, I'm getting my actually while I'm recording this, in a few days, I set up a little photo shoot so I can get a new author photo. So I'm like, yeah, I've got some photos I took like only two years ago that I used for my website. But I think I wanted to do something special, like a bit of a different

photo for my author photo, you know, just something to spice, just spice it up a little bit. So that's, that's something that's gonna happen. And you know, we're talking covers, like things are developing, like this is kind of wild. And it's, it still doesn't feel honestly real to me. But yeah, a book is happening. And eventually, I'll, you know, be able to share more. And of course, I've gotten some questions about this. I will, of course, be doing some events. I'll obviously be doing one in Toronto. I hope to also do one in Vancouver because that's my hometown. And that'd be really cool to to celebrate with my family. And yeah, we'll just kind of see where else it makes sense to go if anywhere else. I mean, let me know if you're in a particular city. Let me know if you would like me to do some sort of event. But yeah, marketing for this book is we're not even at that stage. I mean, I'm slowly kind of

making up a plan because that is what I also hear from a lot of authors. It is that that's the hardest thing is to market your book. But I'm still in the editing. I'm still in editing mode. I'm not in marketing mode yet, but we'll get there. We'll get there. But I'll, of course, let you know what's up, you know, as time goes by. So anyways, that is it for me. Thank you so much for listening. And I'll see you back here next Wednesday. If you want to know who's going to be on the show next week, I've got Sean Stewart. He's the president of Air Miles. And we are going to do a deep dive into everything that you need to know about AirMiles. There has been a lot of changes, a lot more changes to come. It is under new ownership. And so we're going to talk about how you can utilize this program that has been around for decades and get the more bang

for your buck when you're doing your shopping and collecting those free rewards. Like I have said a lot on my social media lately, if you're not collecting rewards from like a free program like Air Miles, I mean, what are you doing? What do you do when you're leaving money on the table? So that is what you can look forward to next week. But a big thank you as always to my podcast team video edit by Justice Krar and produced by MRAVanada.com. Thank you so much for listening to the More Money Podcast and being a supporter of this show all these years. In June, we're going to hit nine years, y'all. Nine years. That makes me feel old, but I'm excited. I'm excited about that. So thanks, and I'm going to see you back here next Wednesday. Have a good rest of your week.