SOLVED with Mark Manson - How to Find and Live by Your Values, Solved

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Welcome to the first episode of the Solved Podcast. Today, we are solving your values. Over eight years ago, I wrote The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck—a book that, underneath all the swearing and irreverence, was really about one thing: values. What do you care about? What’s actually worth your time, your energy, your life? So in this kickoff episode of SOLVED, Drew and I are going deep into why your values are the foundation of everything—your happiness, your mental health, your relationships, your sense of meaning—and why so many of us today feel so lost. We break down the difference between chasing cheap dopamine hits and building real fulfillment, why not all values are created equal, how to figure out what your true values are, how to change your values, how to start living out your values more fully, and how values silently shape your decisions and relationships every day. If you’ve ever felt stuck, directionless, or like you’re living someone else’s life, this episode is the wake-up call you need. It’s time to stop drifting through life and start giving a fck about the right things. Forget the rest. Welcome to SOLVED. Get the Values companion guide for this episode: https://solvedpodcast.com/values Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person: ⁠⁠https://markmanson.net/breakthrough⁠⁠ Get clarity on what actually matters. Try Purpose, Mark's AI mentor app that learns your patterns, challenges your blind spots, and helps you take action. Get 7 days free at ⁠⁠⁠https://www.purpose.app⁠⁠⁠ Chapters 09:31 CHAPTER 1: What are Values? 1:05:01 CHAPTER 2: Values and Your Relationships 1:37:25 CHAPTER 3: Where Do Values Come From? 2:14:34 CHAPTER 4: Identifying Your Core Values 2:48:53 CHAPTER 5: How to Change Your Values 3:21:56 CHAPTER 6: Lessons and Takeaways Follow Mark Mark’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/markmanson Solved IG: https://www.instagram.com/solvedpodcast/ Twitter: https://x.com/markmanson LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmanson/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@IAmMarkManson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's something else here now. Something new. From exclusively on Paramount Plus. It's the series Stephen King calls Scary as Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi Vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules. Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch.

Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. This is a very serious podcast, Drew. I can tell already, yes. How can you tell? Well, the jacket you're wearing. I figured. You're a blazer today.

I figured somebody needs to take this seriously around here. Oh, okay. It's, you know, we're doing values today. It's a very deep philosophical topic. It's a new podcast. You know, somebody's got to be a professional in the building. I know you just woke up like 20. 20 minutes ago.

I did. You know, ran a comb through your hair for half a second. You didn't even do that. You just have a barbarian over here. Well, I'm glad you're keeping it classy for us. You're welcome. Yeah. The inaugural episode of the Solve podcast.

My God, we've been working on this thing for so freaking. It seems like a very long time at this point while still doing the other podcast. I know. I know. It's almost like six months. months of prep for this. It's here. It's here.

It is here. No, I'm excited for this episode. It's in many ways, this subject, this podcast that we're about to record, uh, is, feels long overdue. Like I, I don't think, maybe not everybody realizes, but, you know, the thing that I'm best known for is the book, the subtle art and not giving a fuck. And that book did spectacularly well. It was a huge bestseller all over the world.

And I think, obviously, you know, know, people will flippantly kind of make comments of like, oh, it's because of the title, it's because of the F word. First of all, that's not why it did so well, because many of the translations did not have the F word in the title. But I really think the reason that book resonated so much is because it was a little bit of a Trojan horse for the subject of values, which is like essentially when you ask yourself, what is worth giving a fuck about, what is worth caring about, what is worth worrying

and stressing and staying up late at night, being anxious about, that's essentially a question of what's worth valuing. Like what am I going to make important in my life and what am I going to prioritize? And I really do think in this day and age, in the 21st century, that question is harder to answer than ever. There's kind of like a sick psychological side effect of living in such an abundant world and that when you have all these opportunities, when you have all these options, when you have all this information in front of you, it becomes that much more difficult to distinguish what is worth pursuing and what's not. What is worth listening to and what's not.

What's worth caring about and what's not. And that book kind of started to tackle that question. I think it at least identified the problem correctly and maybe pointed people in the right direction of what they should be thinking about. But in many ways, it never dove deep into the topic and it never got super prescriptive on the topic. And I think those are two things that we're going to do today. Our goal with this is to be exhaustive on the subject. That's kind of the whole basis of this podcast. The whole point of solved is to give you everything you possibly need on each episode's topic so that you will

never have to listen to another podcast about that topic ever again. So we are going to go super deep. We're going to get very philosophical. We're going to go through probably half a dozen different psychological frameworks. I also think that values is a little bit tricky. I almost feel like we're starting on hard mode because it's such a slippery and abstract concept. Everybody kind of intuitively knows what it is, but when you actually really start to try to define it,

it gets super broad and abstract very quickly. But all that said, I think this is in many ways, arguably the most important topic that we might cover on this podcast, at least for a long time. And the reason for that is that ultimately when you do look at psychological outcomes, psychological well-being, life satisfaction, metrics like that, living in accordance to one's values is arguably the most important thing you can possibly do. It is the driver of so many positive outcomes in your life, it orientes you towards so many good things that can potentially happen.

I mean, just within the body of research that we went through in preparation for this episode, we found data showing that it lowers stress, brings more peace and clarity into your life, creates more emotional resilience and stability. It makes people feel that their lives are more meaningful. They experience more day-to-day happiness, not just hedonic pleasure, but like an actual long-term life satisfaction. It helps with decision-making. It helps with prioritization.

It generates healthier, more honest, long-term relationships with more stability and less drama. And it also generates more motivation and drive in people. Values, it is not just a nice, fun, fluffy idea. It is in many ways the cornerstone of modern-day mental health and well-being. and honestly, they're just drastically under-discussed. It's funny because when you, you know, if you, I don't know, if you get on TikTok or if you watch cable news or if you listen to other podcasts, like current events podcasts, like with political topics or whatever, you read the news of headlines, values are imbued in every single thing you're reading and listening to, yet they are never discussed. And in many cases, I think a lot of what passes as like social issues or controversies or cultural problems are really just two groups of people with diametrically opposed values who are arguing past each other.

They are both correct locally within their group of people of similar values. But globally, because they're misaligned with other groups of people, they are basically arguing in an empty vacuum, you know, just a little bit of an echo chamber. So that's everything we have in store. Is there anything you want to add before we dive into this? Well, right alongside that way you just mentioned, I think, you know, there is the problem of there's so many options and so many things out there to give a fuck about, right, to value right now that we have a hard time with it. There's also, I think since the book came out, this has gotten worse as well.

What you were just talking about was there's a lot of people trying to tell you what you should value. Yes. And it's kind of like the water that we all live in that we don't notice, right? We're like fish and water a little bit and there's values swimming all around us and we don't notice them. And to your point that you just made a lot of the whatever it is, political discussions or big headlines, controversies of the day are about values and we're not explicitly saying that. And so I think just raising that awareness there and realizing that there are just a lot of people now and everybody's got a platform to try to push their values onto you. And being aware of that, I think is going to be really important going through all of this.

I definitely want to come back to that because I think there is a much broader conversation to have around that, around religion, culture, institutions, whatnot. We'll definitely get into that. Yeah, I agree. It is. I think that's part of the problem of confusion is what I'm talking about. Absolutely. And, yeah, I agree with you. Not only is it the water that we swim in, but it is like so much of the content that we consume is subtly pushing their values onto us without us necessarily explicitly realized.

And then we wonder why we're confused about our own values. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Okay. So this is a long episode. And I just want to lay out a little bit of a roadmap for the listener so that they'll be oriented as they go through the episode.

Now, the first half the episode, we're going to talk about the theory behind values. We're going to talk about what they are, how we adopt our values in our lives, where our values came from, how they affect our relationships, how they affect our decision making, how they affect our happiness and our well-being. And then in the back half of the episode, we're going to get into all of the takeaways and prescriptive advice for the listener. So we'll start out with some exercises on how to determine what your core values are. We're going to talk about how to decide whether your values are harming you or helping you. From there, we'll talk about how to actually go about changing a value in your life. There are a few different methods, and they're probably not what you would expect. And finally, we're going to finish on this idea of practical wisdom or the idea of balancing your values throughout your life to maintain.

the most stable form of well-being that you can. We'll finish the episode with our personal lessons and takeaways, and of course we'll point the listeners to resources where they can learn more. Just a reminder for the audience that there is a full PDF guide of this episode. If you go to Solvedpodcast.com slash values, you can download it. All of the main points and principles are present in that summary, as well as some of the stories and anecdotes. If you are concerned with like the fundamental points, you want to review them later or as we go through the episode.

Or if you want to look up all the citations, check our work, look at the research yourself, look up the papers of yourself. They're all there as well. So go to solvepodcast.com slash values and on with the episode. All right. Let's get into the nitty gritty a little bit. Like what is a value? How do we define these things? What do they look like?

How are they different? Yeah, let's make it concrete. Yeah, how is it different from like a need or a preference or something you like? You know, what exactly is a value? So modern value theory within psychology is primarily kind of the godfather of it is an Israeli researcher named Sholom Schwartz. And he's written a few books on values. He's written tons of papers. He's the originator of pretty much all the major value surveys that are used in the field today.

And he defined it as, quote, beliefs about trans situational goals. varying in importance that serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or a group. That's a mouthful. Sounds like a psychologist definition. Yeah, exactly. You make that down for us. Okay. So there are really six key characteristics of a value that I think separate it from maybe

other things that you might think or feel throughout your life. So the first one is that they're linked with emotion. Values are inherently very emotional things because by definition, they are the things that you consider them to be most important in your life. If you think about, I don't know, protesters, right? Protesters are never really chill. Like, there's a lot of emotion going on at a protest. Or if you think about somebody who is wronged you in some way,

like obviously your emotional reaction is an intense amount of anger. That's because a value of yours has just been violated by somebody. So that's the first one. Linked with strong emotion. Second one is that they motivate action. Generally, they are not only the thing that define what you want to pursue in your life, but they also drive the energy behind that pursuit as well. So if you value status and acclaim,

not only will it help decide what the goals are that you want to pursue in your life are, but it will help get you up in the morning, get you excited about the opportunities and the potential that you can experience. The third one is, is that they apply across context. So Schwartz actually has a great term that I really like. He calls them trans situational.

which means that basically they maintain their importance and relevance across context. So if you value honesty, it means you value honesty at work. You value honesty in your relationships. You value honesty with your friendships. You value honesty with your family. There's no situation where you're like, oh, well, no, I don't really care about honesty here. Like, if it's a value, it's a value. No matter where you are, what you're doing, who you're with.

The fourth characteristic of your values is that they are often the standards by which you make moral judgments. So it's not just that we become emotional about our values. We tend to use them as like the yardstick that we measure other people and we measure ourselves. Right. So if I have a very strong value for, say, personal freedom, I will judge myself. I will measure myself. If I have a lot of freedom in my life, I will feel good about myself. If I have no freedom in my life, I will feel bad about myself.

And similarly, I'll look at you and I'll say, man, Drew has all this freedom in his life. That guy's killing it. Or I'll say, and Drew has no freedom going. He can't do anything. What a loser, right? It becomes the yardstick by which we measure progress, self-worth, worth of others, et cetera, et cetera. So the fifth characteristic, they tend to be ranked. We all have value hierarchies going on on our heads.

And in many ways, it kind of defines who we are as a person and what we care about and why we make the decisions. we make. And then finally, number six, they involve tradeoffs. To care deeply about one thing, you have to, by definition, not care about other things or devalue, say, the contradiction of the thing that you care about. So if I care deeply about personal freedom, then I'm probably going to care less about things like stability, consistency, routine, maybe commitments, because all of those things are constraints on personal freedom in certain contexts. And so if personal freedom is my highest value, then I'm probably going to devalue those other things. They're going to be lower on my value hierarchy.

Basically, values answer the question, what matters, what is worth pursuing, and what kind of person do I want to become? These are really fundamental questions. Really, really fundamental. I mean, we're like beyond the bounds of personal development at this point. We're like into philosophy. Like what is my life here for? What makes you you?

Yeah. Exactly. Like why are, how are we separate people and what is what is the distinction that separates us? A couple important clarifications just just for clarity as we go forward. There is such a thing as psychological need. Needs are different though from values and that they are a universal, right? Like, we all have the same psychological needs in different proportions. And then secondly, they are survival-based, right?

So a need for food is, like, the most obvious example. Like, if I don't get food, I'm going to die. Everybody needs food. Certain people like certain foods more than others, but, like, ultimately, food is a need, and there's, like, no negotiation about that. There's no argument about it. There's no, like, it doesn't shift over time. And it's the same with psychological needs.

And so there are a handful of psychological needs. There are a few different models and frameworks, but like a super common one is just like social connection. Right. Everybody needs social connection. Everybody needs to feel a sense of belonging. That's non-negotiable. What changes is like the strategy in which we go about fulfilling that psychological need. And this is kind of an insight that I had.

And it's also, it is part of the basis of where Schwartz developed his framework. is that values are in a sense strategies to meet our needs. Some people meet their need for connection and belonging through benevolence, through helping others, charity, giving, being generous, showing up when people need you. Other people fulfill their need for belonging through, you know, group affiliation, status markers, loyalty and hard work, being part of the tribe, whatever. So it's like different values are different approaches to satisfying the same itches. that we all have going on inside of our brains. The difference is that psychological needs are permanent over time, but values shift and change throughout our lives.

So chances are you have different values than you did when you were 20, and when you were 20, you had different values than you did when you were eight years old. Very much so, yeah. Values can change because of things that happen to us, right? Life circumstances change. Maybe there's a trauma or tragedy that happens. We're going to talk about that a little bit later. but we can also proactively shift and change our values as well through our behavior and the things that we focus on reflections that we have about ourselves and whatnot.

Finally, there's kind of a pedantic difference between values and preferences. Preferences are essentially non-impactful taste between things that you don't have a strong emotional attachment to that don't reflect on your identity, that don't particularly. motivate you in any significant way. Like, you know, we can go to a restaurant and my preference is for steak over chicken. That's not a value. Like, I'm not getting out of bed in the morning thinking about the steak I'm going to have tonight, right? It's just like it's choosing between apples and oranges.

It doesn't really matter. And so there are plenty of things that are preference-based. Preferences only exist within specific context. values exist cross-context, and then needs are permanent and universal. So that's the differentiation between those three. Yeah, I think going back to the characteristics that you outlined from Schwartz, too, I think, I hope people are starting to already get a sense of, you know, the first one on there was they're linked to emotions, right?

It's an emotional thing that people have. So you can't really try to change somebody's values, especially based on like reason or rationale. Yeah. And not only that, but there's so many different emotions that people can experience at any given time that people are going to be pulled in all sorts of different directions. And hopefully you can just kind of step back in a little bit and be like, oh, they're operating through their values at an emotional level. And it's not something like, for me, anyway, that kind of takes away some of the judgment of these values. When you're looking at other people, maybe somebody is obsessed with success, right?

and making money or having all these outward markers of success. But the underlying emotion for that is that belonging, right, is that they have a deep value of belonging to a group or belonging to other people that they respect. And so that kind of takes a little bit of the judgment and the edge off of it for me anyway. I agree with that. I've got marked somewhere in my notes for this episode

to talk about empathy. Yeah. how understanding these frameworks can increase empathy because you understand where people are coming from, even if they have a diametrically opposed value to you, you can understand that like that is a life strategy that they developed to fulfill their needs and particularly based on the culture and the environment that they grew up in. I do think it is helpful to view things that way. I also think the point you made about emotion is super important and probably important for the listener to think about two as we go through this episode. Values inherently stoke emotion. So that means not only

does it stoke emotion when you are out there living out your values, but it also means it's going to stoke emotion if something causes you to question your values. So there might be a moment in this episode where you and I are talking about something and it causes the listener to question something that they value. And as soon as that happens, there's going to be a discomfort, there might be a sadness, there might be an anger, there might be an anger towards us. Yeah, yeah. Um, It is, it's not an easy subject to wade through. Like this isn't, we're not talking about like time boxing your calendar here. Like this is very, this is as core to who you are as a person as you can really get psychologically speaking.

And so it's very, I can't overstate like how sensitive some of these topics can be. Not in the sense of like, oh, we might say something offensive, but just like questioning one of your own values is one of the most. deeply uncomfortable and unsettling things that you can do. I mean, that is essentially like what the work of the best therapy and the best interventions is trying to do. It's trying to get you to look at something that you care about and get you to question whether you should continue caring about it or not. And we'll talk about this more later, but like all of my therapists, friends say that one

of the most common issues that occurs. When somebody comes in is there's a conflict between two values going. Yeah. We'll get more into that later. But just to flag that for now. Oh, yeah. There will be plenty of value conflict going forward. The other point you made, though, in this section was about how values are a way to get our needs met.

And so maybe just to make that a little bit more concrete, I think I have an example of this where, in my life anyway, we all have, you already mentioned this, we all have a need for belonging and for connection, social connection with other people. And I think I definitely, you know, I knew that early on I had this very strong need for belonging. Everybody does, I think, to some extent. But the way we go about getting that need met is very different. That over the years translated into a value for me of like friendships and connection. You know, we've talked before a lot about like how I do value friendship. You're a much better friend and I am. We've established.

Okay. So that's what I'm going to ask you. How do you get your need for belonging met more? Is it by making YouTube videos and podcasts and writing books? No. No. I honestly believe that psychological needs are kind of like, I was just going to say macros, but that's a horrible analogy. That actually doesn't make any sense at all.

I see the thread there. Yeah, the idea is I think everybody's born with a different amount that they need. And I definitely, and whether it's genetics or just, you know, growing up feeling very isolated in childhood. I have a very low need for connection. I do need it, but like I have noticed throughout my life that I am perfectly fine spending a lot more time alone than most people. But there are other things that like I have a very high need for,

I have a very high need for novelty and stimulation. It's like constant. Your experience, yeah. Yeah. I think everybody's like that. Everybody, and some people have a very high need for security and stability. Some people have a very high need for, you know,

status and growth and development, developing skill sets. It's like everybody's a little bit different. Yeah. Yeah. Are you satisfied? I see.

Yeah. That's planting some seeds. Planning some seeds. Okay. You're going to come back at me here in like 20 minutes. I can tell. Okay.

So we're going to go through, you know, again, because values, it's such an abstract topic. We're going to go through like four or five frame works here to help people like really get a handle on this. And hopefully by the time we get through all of them, the listener is going to have like a really clear idea of kind of like,

okay, I can see myself in each of those. Now I understand like why I care about these things and I don't care about those things. Or now I understand why I'm having this issue in my life. So the first one I want to talk about it comes from Schwartz himself, comes from the man himself. So to give a little bit of background, this. So the first thing we're going to cover is Schwartz's values wheel. And this is the result of dozens and dozens of massive cross-cultural surveys across more than 70 different countries. And so this was, unlike many things in psychology, this is what this has been replicated across many, many cultures. And it has been found, it has indeed been found to be quite universal. And essentially Schwartz narrowed the core human

values down to 10 of them. And these are universal. So it's important to know that we all have all of these, what changes is the proportion. And he mapped these out in a wheel, and we'll talk about why he put him in a wheel in a second. So the first two are, he called them the self-enhancement values. First one is achievement, which is self-explanatory. Second one is power. Then there's the conservation values. He has tradition, security, and conformity.

And then there's the self-transcendence values. One is universalism, which is basically kind of feeling at one with everybody around you. And then the second one is benevolence, which you could think of as charity, being helpful, altruism, things like that. And he is the openness to change values, which is stimulation and self-direction. You could think of self-direction as personal freedom or autonomy. And then finally, the 10th is, of course, hedonism, which is, I think it's interesting that I guess at some point he probably recognized. He's like, well, yeah, clearly people value pleasure. Right.

Otherwise, they wouldn't be sacrificing all these other things for it. So you have to throw that in there. Right. It's a category of its own. Exactly. He placed these 10 values in a wheel because what he noticed is that certain groups of values have an inherent internal tension with each other. So for example, the openness to change values of stimulation and self-direction have an

inherent tension with the conservation values, tradition, security, conformity. And if you think about it, think about a person in your life who most embodies, you bodies somebody who's open to change and values stimulation and personal freedom, you're probably imagining some hippie-dippy person who's like always traveling around and going to festivals and partying and, you know, just live in life, going with the flow with everything. What is the complete and utter opposite of that? It's somebody who's like super uptight, very traditional, demands conformity, security all the time. And so like basically it's no matter where you are on the values wheel, there's

something across from you that is, there's an inherent tension with that, right? Self-transcendence, the craving to identify with a group around you, to help others, to be supportive of others, to give yourself up for others is diametrically opposed to the values of self-enhancement, which is the achievement of status, growth of power, the dominance, over yourself and others. So all of these values exist within us. And if you're watching on YouTube, we're going to have the values wheel up on screen

while I'm talking about it. If you're listening, we've got the values wheel. It's in the PDF guide. If you go to solvepodcast.com slash values, you can get it there. Not only do values across from each other on the wheel are at odds with each other,

but values that are next to each other, they harmonize well with one another. So, you know, universalism and benevolence will harmonize with one another. The self-direction harmonizes with hedonism, stimulation, same thing. So everybody gets the idea. Now, I think the brilliant insight here is that Schwartz identified two inherent tensions that are always at play within each of us all the time.

So the first one is openness to change versus conservation. The second one is self-enhanceance. Pop quiz. Can you think of any framework that reflects these same two dimensions? I mean, it sounds very political to me. So is there a political science framework or something that does this? Good guess, Drew Bernie. Okay.

So a lot of people online have probably seen a thing called the political compass. And there's two. So there's the X axis, which is like left and right, or it's really, it's like group-oriented versus individual-oriented. Okay. And then there's the Y-axis, which is libertarian versus a third. authoritarian. So it's like rigid controls and personal liberty and freedom. So chances are if you've been on the internet since the 2000s like old people like us, you've taken a quiz at some point that's mapped you to this political compass. And interestingly, this, I couldn't find any

information that explicitly said that this political compass was based on Schwartz's research. But I do find it absolutely fascinating that the two dimensions by which we measure people's political beliefs are also the same two spectrums that Schwartz found for people's fundamental values. We're going to come back to this again as well. This is not the first time we've heard of these two dimensions. Right. So I think it's hugely important to understand these inherent tensions in our values because

for one, it just normalizes internal conflict. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten emails from readers and listeners over the years who they'll kind of go through like some problem in their life. and really when you boil it down, it's just that like they care about a thing. Caring about it is hard and it's stressful and they feel really anxious and maybe upset over something like the price of caring about that thing. And then they email me like asking how they can make the struggle or the sacrifice go away. I just think that like the thing that gets lost so often is that to care about anything

deeply, you are going to experience proportional internal conflict to caring about that thing, right? Like, the more you sacrifice for anything in your life, the more difficult it's going to make other areas of your life. Because the more you're going to have to give up and the more you're going to have to compromise and the more you're going to have to let go of opportunities. I think the other reason this is super important is that it helps us navigate difficult choices in our lives, right?

It can clarify what the pros and cons of choosing a certain path might be. If you've got a difficult decision in front of you and two different choices that both look good, if you kind of think about what are the values being represented by each of those choices and which of those two values are you willing to compromise on or give up and which ones are you not, can help you make that decision. So if you're somebody who is upset over a lost opportunity or something that happened in your past that you wish you could go back and change or you sometimes wonder about.

Understanding your values can help you look at that situation and really come to terms with being okay with that loss, being okay with what you gave up because it was ultimately for something you cared about. Now the second framework I want to bring up, and we'll spend a little bit less time on this one. It comes from a researcher in the 70s named Milton Rokic.

Any of this idea that I really like it's called instrumental values and terminal values. Terminal values are the actual values that you are pursuing ultimately. Like it's terminal because it's the last value. It's the last thing. There's nothing past it. You're not using it to get something else.

You value it because you value it. Exactly. That's it. It's just inherent and unconditional. Instrumental values, on the other hand, you value because they actually lead you towards a terminal value. I think this is a really useful distinction.

and I imagine this is going to come up a lot in our discussions, simply because I think a lot of people don't have clarity around that. Like, they think an instrumental value is the real value, whereas they don't realize what the terminal value is that it's driving towards. Yeah, and I think when you confuse those instrumental values for the values themselves, obviously, like you're saying, that gets you into a lot of trouble too. Another, I think, common one, too, is people like making money, right? Yes.

That's another one. Like, they look around and like, okay, people are making money. I should make money too. And then they don't connect it to the terminal value at all. Why are you making that money? Yeah. And so it just seems like you get a few years into it and you're like, I don't even know what I'm doing here.

I don't like what I'm doing here. I don't like what I'm doing. Why am I doing this? Whereas if you have a why behind that, you have a terminal value, you know, whether it's for your family or whatever, almost any job could be valuable to you, right? That instrumental value of that job serving the terminal value of your family or whatever it is actually takes on a completely different meaning once you connect those to. In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $24.50 an hour.

Employees also have the opportunity to grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields like software development and information technology. Learn more at aboutamazon.ca. And this framework is the second time that we kind of run into this idea that there is a hierarchy to our values, that there's this high. idea of like there are certain values that we're willing to give up or that are conditional that we're only taking on that we're only caring about because they lead us to some other deeper, more important values. So there's some super important values at the top of the pyramid and there's all these other values near the bottom of the pyramid that we're kind of just adopting because they get us closer than ones at the top. We're going to return this idea again and again

with different frameworks and different perspectives, but just want to seed that. that again for the listener because it is super important and we are going to come back to it. Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to talk to just real quick. Go back to Schwartz's wheel, right? He has this one pie in the wheel, piece of pie in the wheel called benevolence, right? Yes. So generally being good to other people helping out helpfulness, that sort of thing. That's not a pretty high value of mine. another one though too is like there is kind of an achievement value that I have to those are oftentimes in tension with one another right and I've seen this I see this play out all the time in my life

because I do I really want to help people and then it always butts up against the oh but I need to get this other thing done that's going to benefit me as well then there's another tension like as long as I'm doing well for myself then I can help more people too so there's there's kind of a benevolent tension between the two too right this is what people have to navigate a lot. And this is what I think you find out when you get more explicit about your values. You are, there is this hierarchy that starts to form. And there's going to be times where you have to choose one over the other. I think you made a point to you about people would just want this to be pure. I'm always going to value this value over another one or I'm always going to put the

importance on this value over the other one. And that's just not how it works either. Yeah. Like there's going to be times you have to trade them off at a different context. Different context, different places. Like, obviously you don't want to be like focused on achievement in your marriage. Like that's going to be a disaster, right? You really want to bring benevolence to the forefront in your marriage. Whereas like, you know, maybe you don't want to be focused on benevolence and some other content. Like if you're at war, right? So it's it is, it's not the values themselves are cross-contacts, but like you want to,

you can lean into them in different circumstances. I'm curious, have you taken Schwartz's value survey? No, I didn't. I haven't. Did you? I did. You did you? Okay. Do you want to guess what my top three are? Yes, I do. You probably will nail it. Heedonism. No.

Power. Power. And, yeah, stimulation. There we go. There's your top three. I'm going to, no, okay, I'm going to guess, let's see. I'm coming up for a raise pretty soon, I think. So you're very benvolent. You're an extremely benevolent person. I would say self-direction, like the creativity, freedom, that's pretty high on yours.

Definitely autonomy is one of your top three, I would say. I'm going to also say probably achievement. That's got to be in your top three? Yeah? Yeah. Okay. And then, ooh, the last one. I'm going between the stimulation and between universalism.

Hmm. Interesting. Let me see. I'm going to go with I'll go with universalism Neither Okay, what's your third one? The third one actually is benevolence

Oh, it is benevolence Okay, oh, okay, yeah Which kind of surprised me I thought stimulation might make it in there Because I am just an ADHD Dopamine junkie But it's funny because I think What the survey caught is that

I don't value the stimulation in my life I have a lot of stimulation in my life But it's like Oh, interesting I actually feel ambivalent about it. Okay. I go through these phases where I like detox and I meditate and I try to get away from stuff. So I thought that was interesting that it came up that way.

But yeah, I was self-direction achievement and benevolence. I found something similar to. I mean, I didn't go through Schwartz's. I didn't go through any of them because I've been through value surveys before. And they're always like, they're always different. Everybody kind of has a little bit. They'll use Schwartz on basically all of them. But all of them kind of have a different configuration.

and I've taken them and they don't seem to. But mine were, or unless you want to guess, I'll just tell you mine, because I don't want to guess mine. Okay, okay. What do you think about her? Definitely benevolence. Yeah, that was. Is up there. I would say benevolence and achievement are like the two easy ones.

I would say, I would go either universalism or self-direction. Self-direction. Yeah. Universalism was my fourth one. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. We're not heeding this, Drew.

No, no. Not anymore. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I found something similar, though, too, because I do. I like novelty in my life as well. And I don't know if it's just because I'm getting older now or just de-prioritizing it or whatever it is.

But yeah, it's just there is. I experienced a lot of novelty still, too. Not as much as you probably. I don't think I seek it out quite as much as you. But it's just not a value of mine, even though it's in my life a lot. And so that really made me think like, oh, okay. Yeah. I definitely think if 15, 10, 15 years ago.

novelty or stimulation would have absolutely been one of my top ones because I and I very consciously built a life around stimulation around novel experience and doing new things, living new places. Proof that values do evolve and change. Yeah. And it's funny because it's like everything else happens downstream of that value change. Just that shift of like stimulation like stimulation going from being, you know, probably my first. or second down to fourth, fifth, or sixth is like a dramatic manifestation in my life in terms

of like what I spend my time doing, what my day-to-day life is like, who I am friends with, who I spend time with, what sort of things I care about. Right. It's, it is pretty remarkable, honestly. We can save some of that too for later when we talk about how values change. So, yeah. Okay. Cool.

I'm actually curious, before we move on, the benevolence is the highest value. Where does that create tension in your life? Everywhere. Everywhere, all the things all at once was the saying. It creates tension when I want to help people. I'm bad at saying no. That's, I think, the primary one. There's a tension between the benevolence, the helping others

and I guess kind of taking care of yourself. way too. So whether it is achievement or mastery, I think is another one of mine like environmental mastery is one of my values where I want to be a competent person. We'll get into that one. Yeah. Yeah. So there's there's a lot of tension around that

I guess. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. And I mean, also just you know, working with you for over 10 years. Like that tracks. Yeah. Like you definitely don't say no enough. Or I want to do everything. I want to do everything. I want to do it. It's been really hard too. Like with as the business has grown and more people have come on. And I just have to

ignore parts of the business that I've never had to do that before with you because we've always done it with a small team. And now I'm just like, I don't know what's going on over there and it's driving me nuts. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. I definitely feel tension. You know, my highest to these days, I would say, are self-directedness and achievement. Yeah. And it's funny because I think my value for benevolence, like really gets fulfilled through my work. Yeah. Like so much of just what we do is driven by helping people and being useful to people. Not to say that I'm not charitable to my friends and family, but it's just like that doesn't,

I don't scratch that itch there. Right. Or I don't scratch it as much. But it is funny because it is, I would say, connection, community, social relationships. Like that's definitely been the falling out. That's been the sacrifice over the last five or six years,

I would say, is it's almost like this is dramatic, but I'm just imagine it's like you like sacrifice another value at the altar of the value that you are prioritizing. I just kind of do. It kind of feels like that. It feels that way sometimes. And I really like when I look at the last 10 years of my life or actually what am I saying? My entire adult life because I was a nomad for eight years.

Yeah, social community social connections. It's like that's really been the thing that I give up consistently for other things. And it's usually, that's usually where I'm like stressed or frustrated or, you know, feel like I'm not operating at like a. Right. Like Schwartz showed and said, we have all of these values. Yeah. You know, but we can't optimize for all of them at the same time. Yes.

And that's where all of that kind of mental anguish comes in. Again, like my therapist friends say, people come in all the time with a values conflict. That's usually what brings them in. And sometimes it takes a few sessions for them to figure out what's even going on and get underneath all of that. But as simple as like a student comes in and say, you know, I'm really, they're high in like a social justice. They want to make a difference and they want to contribute in that way. But they also want to achieve in their classes as well. And, you know, maybe they have to skip class to go participate in some of these things.

And it causes a lot of tension. And especially when you're younger, those things can really cause a lot of mental anguish. I mean, it makes sense, right? Like, it's easy to give up things that you don't care about. It's hard when you have two things that you care about, and they are directly contradictory to each other. Like, you, they oppose each other and they demand the sacrifice of one another. Like, that is where difficult adult decisions come in.

That's Schwartz's framework. That's the wheel. Everything's a tension. Everything's a tradeoff. We're going to keep hitting on the tradeoff thing. But I think it'd be interesting to discuss another framework of values. that doesn't integrate the tradeoffs, that really just aims to find the best values possible

that pay the most dividends in terms of happiness, mental health, well-being, physical health, all those things. And that brings us to Carol Riff's framework. Okay, so Carol Riff, she basically asked the question, you know, what makes a value a good value, all right? She was doing research like in the 80s, and up to that point in the psychological research literature, researchers have basically defined good values or good, what is well-being as happiness, as that hedonic

happiness. What feels good. Yeah. Do you feel good more than you feel bad? That was an indication of how happy you were. X minus Y equals happiness. She wanted to come up with a more, I guess, developed idea of well-being. And she came up with this idea of psychological well-being.

All right. She drew from some of the big names in the early 20th century, people like Abraham Maslow, Carl Young, Carl Rogers, Marie Jehota. And she went and she found kind of the common threads that all of them talked about. And she came up with these six different dimensions of psychological well-being. So each one of these dimensions contributed to what she called psychological well-being or human flourishing, basically. What set us up to basically achieve our potential? Okay. Yeah.

So what are her six dimensions? The first one was autonomy. Okay. So people who score higher in autonomy, they typically will, like, resist social pressure to conform. So they're very aware of their values and they live them out based on their own autonomous will. It's the people who don't give a fuck. It's the people who don't give a fuck. To put in in Mark Manson's language, yes.

On the other side, you have the low scores who they rely on others' opinions. They probably just look around to see what to do and they do it. And so they don't have a very strong sense of autonomy. And they probably don't even know it as well. Okay. So that's the first one. Environmental mastery is the second one. Okay.

So things like competence. If you score high on this, you feel like you're competent. You can manage daily life very well. You adapt to a lot of different environments to get your needs. needs met. So you feel competent, basically. Yeah, that's skillful. You know how to get around. Can figure things out. Your street smart maybe, yeah. Common sense. Low scores, though, they feel more powerless. There's kind of a, there's a little bit of a internal versus external locus of

control element to this as well. Like, you think you have some control over your environment. And if you do, that's more psychologically healthy than if you don't. So other people who don't, who score low on this, they feel powerless. they feel like they can't improve their circumstances, right? Okay. Third one, personal growth. People who score high on this dimension, value kind of growth and learning in their life,

long-term, lifelong learning even. They're continually evolving, open to new experiences around growth. They are, they strive for self-awareness in some degree. And, again, skill-building as well. They're more, attuned to that route in life, whereas the low scores, they're not really interested in learning or evolving in any way.

It's interesting because it's the environmental mastery, I'm hearing a little bit of like the self-efficacy measurement, which is like belief in one's self. Right. Belief in one's capabilities. And then in the self-improvement, I'm hearing like Carol Dweck's growth mindset. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So each one of these has kind of been,

as almost its own little area in psychology, since then. Carol Riff, though, was like she was the founder. She's the OG. Yeah, everything that came out, like the positive psychology movement really drew on a lot of her work and everything since then basically has drawn on any area of human flourishing or well-being has really comes back to Carol Rift for sure. Yeah. Next one would be positive relations with others. So it's your social connections. Yeah. People who score high in this, you know, they're social. They have trusting bonds with other people. They can form bonds fairly well with other people. And they understand that relationships are like a give and take. It's not a power struggle. They see relationships as the end in themselves,

not the means, right? Not an instrumental value. Not an instrumental value. It's a sake. I guess one way to think about all six of these dimensions is that they are the terminal values, right? 100%. Yes. Yes. Or they should be. Yes. That's definitely how she formulated this. And, you know, The people who score low on the relational scale will feel more isolated. It's difficult for them to connect. So you can see already that this is a huge one. Where if you, people who don't value those sorts of things obviously tend to struggle a lot more than others, especially as they later on in life. Totally.

Number five, purpose and life. This is a big one for us. Some big one we harp on quite a bit as well. And the people who score high on this, they generally set pretty clear goals or at least have a direction. in their life, a sense of direction in their life, a strong sense. And they see meaning in both the past and the present, whereas low scores, they seem to kind of just be drifting aimlessly. They don't have a lot of direction, a lot of purpose, so on and so forth.

Last one is self-acceptance. And this is a huge one, too. High scores are, they have a positive attitudes towards themselves for the most part, or very forgiving, at least, of themselves, is too. They're very forgiving of themselves, too. They, but they're not delusional either. I think that's an important point to make, too. They're actually very realistic.

They own their flaws. Right. Self acceptance is not self-indulgence. Exactly. Exactly. Or, you know, and self-forgiveness is not self-indulgence either. You don't forgive yourself. Right.

Right. Whereas the low scores, they have a lot of regrets, a lot of dissatisfaction with their past decisions, current decisions. They're just lot in life and they're very self-critical. well. So you put those six together, and if you look at them as each kind of a positive value that contributes to kind of psychological well-being, as Riff is defining it here with all six of these, if you put those together and get the right mix of them, you have what she says is a mindset that's prime for human flourishing. It's funny because when I think about Schwartz's

values, I can easily imagine context where I'd be willing to give one up. right like security I can think of a million situations that I'd be willing to security I feel benevolence I can think of situations I'd be willing to give it up with these with the these psychological dimensions like I I struggle to imagine context from like oh I would give that up right yeah like it is really remarkable how hard to argue with these are like you would think if you were if you're gonna do a fucking four-hour podcast on values yeah like we are, and we're going to spend all this time talking about all these frameworks and dozens and dozens of different possible values that you can have, ideally the strongest values would

end up being the hardest ones to argue against. They'd be the ones that it'd be hard to think of counterfactuals or exceptions to where they'd be useful. And like, I think out of all the frameworks that we talk about in this episode, hers is like the most difficult one. Like I can think of situations that I would give up autonomy. I can't. can think of situations that I would give up, you know, say personal growth or development. But it's really hard. Like I have to like really reach and get creative and imagine like a fucking terrible scenario. Yeah.

Yeah. And you would go temporarily suspend them probably too. And you go right back to them as soon as you could. Totally. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. This is definitely one of those where it's not easy.

And it, I think she, she wanted. Again, this was kind of a basis for positive psychology that came in the 90s and 2000s after this. And I think her real goal was creating this idea or creating a good definition for psychological well-being because it had been so neglected for so long. Yeah. Right. Everybody thought it was, okay, it's happiness. All it is is positive emotions minus negative emotions. That's how that's an indication of how well you're doing.

And it's like, well, that is so naive. even immature, really, when you think about it. Yeah. And she was like, look, Aristotle had it this whole time. If you want to put it in psychological terms, here's a good little framework for you with six psychological components that'll make a well-being for you. So, yeah. And all six are worth sacrificing for, all six are worth struggling for, all six are, you know,

difficult to give up, things that you would fight for, and things that you obviously want to optimize. it's funny out of the six I think the one that most people have trouble with is probably self-acceptance. Yes. Which is really interesting. Well, it's so hard. It's incredibly hard. Going back to you, you just asked me, you know, what the tension and the values. And one of those, so when I did let this person, when somebody asked me to do something for them, I think I did a half-ass job for it when I let them down, I just felt.

awful about it. And so I thought about it was okay, this is a value of mine. I'm going because we're going through this and I'm over intellectualizing all of it. I just, I get to the point where I'm like, okay, I want, I don't want to feel like this anymore. So how do I reconcile all this? How do I resolve this tension, this terrible feeling? I finally got to the end of it. I said, I think I just have to feel this way. I think I'm going to feel this way because I, it's a reflection of my value. Right. Right. And when you fail a value, it's made very, very clear to you through these terrible feelings. Feeling bad about it is part of having that.

And I had to just accept that. Yeah. And I gotta tell you it hasn't gotten any better. So it's really hard. That self-acceptance is the hardest part of this. You're absolutely right. And it's, people don't want to do that, especially in a culture like, you know, here in the United States where it's like, no, you can, there's something you can always do about it.

You have control over this or that or everything. Sometimes you don't have control over the way you feel, especially when it's tied to a deep embedded value that you want to live out. The irony too is that I feel like people who struggle with the other ones, it likely is rooted in a lack of self-acceptance, right? Like when I think, because there's a lot of people who, you know, say people who don't have a growth mindset, people who don't think they can learn and get better, whatever. When you talk to those people, it's really just like they kind of think they're a piece

of shit and nothing's going to change that, right? It's a lack of self-acceptance. Similarly with, you know, people who struggle with autonomy, you know, like, you know, like they feel like they don't deserve to have control over their own lives. Make their own choices. Yeah. Make their own choices. Have freedom and disappoint people or do things that other people don't like.

So I'm sure we're going to do an episode on self-acceptance at some point. Yeah. Because it is another super deep topic and touches. We'll talk about it more in this episode as well. So many things. Yeah. Is there one of these, though, the one of these sticks that you gravitate to more than others, the autonomy one maybe?

I mean, autonomy is obviously huge. growth is huge for me. Yeah, even though I think we need all of them and we seem all as positive, I still think we gravitate towards one or the other. Again, there's that emotional pull towards one or the other. Yeah, you definitely prioritize, you know,

and getting the hierarchy, right? Right. Pretty close to the top of my hierarchy is probably autonomy and personal growth. Yeah. Which I think maps pretty well to Schwartz's self-directness and achievement. All of these actually map pretty well to Schwartz

in some way or another. Yeah. Like the environmental mastery part to, like, there's a competence component to that that I really gravitate to. That I didn't realize was such a high value for me. I knew I valued that. Yeah. It was a higher value than I thought.

I don't like the name of that one. Environmental mastery? Yeah. Really? It's bad. Like, she needs a brand consultant. Most university psychology departments do not have the budget. They don't?

Yeah, no. Oh my God, Drew. This is a billion dollar business waiting to happen. What's wrong with environmental mastery? I don't look. Well, first of all, I, I, I, I, I, when I hear the word environment, I just immediately started thinking like, you know, climate stuff. Oh, yeah.

And you hate that. You hate the environment. I, that's, I forgot. You just, you cut all the trees down. Stop slandering me, drills. This is, this is being recorded. No, I just, I, I associate that word with just a completely different subject. entirely. I understand. And then like mastery. I mean, I would almost even just call it mastery.

Just mastery. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just like the rubber green book mastery. Yeah. Just like the developing being skillful. Right. Like, um, developing being good at things. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It is such an abstract concept. I yeah. I don't, I just, I gravitate towards like, because I do, I like, I like being, I like learning about a lot of things. I like getting good at them. Like, very different things, too. You know, everything from, you know, podcasting to whatever, working with my hands or whatever. You're super handy. Like, you are, you can tell you, like, you really enjoy using your hands and building things and fixing things and arranging things and organizing things.

And I am like so in my head and just I'm like in la la land half the time. So, yeah, that's probably my lowest value out of those six. Interesting. Honestly. Yeah. I mean, unless you considered writing. like a form of environmental mastery. But I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know about that. Yeah, I don't know. Huh. The last framework that I want to present, I want to go back to the granddaddy of them all, which is Aristotle. And I don't want to get into his virtues. He actually had a lot of virtues.

I counted 17 in the Nikomachian ethics. And there's debate as to whether he had more in other places. What I like about his framework and what I think is true are useful for us to discuss is that he defined a virtue as not maximizing a certain thing as much as possible. He defined it as a golden mean between two vices. So Aristotle had this, like a very novel approach to what a value was. Like if you look at Carol Rift's framework or Shalom Schwartz's framework, it's like you either have a lot of benevolence or a little benevolence. You either have a lot of autonomy or a little autonomy.

Aristotle saw the virtue as being halfway between two extremes. So Aristotle would say too much autonomy means that you're disconnected and isolated from the world. And too little autonomy means you're enslaved. And so the proper amount of autonomy is a golden mean or a happy medium between the two extremes. Another example is too much courage means that you're reckless and irresponsible. Not enough courage means that you're a coward. and not able to stand up for the things that you care about. And so the proper amount of courage is actually the happy medium, the golden mean.

You could go down the line not only with all of his virtues that he listed, but you could kind of do this with anything. Yes. Take honesty, right? Too much honesty. You're just an asshole, right? But obviously not enough honesty and you're a liar. Generosity, you can be too generous, right?

Like if you're just always giving things away, you can actually be very very. very wasteful and you can enable all sorts of bad habits and behaviors in people. But obviously, if you're not generous at all, then you're, you know, a stingy Scrooge McDuck. I really like this idea and I wanted to include this idea in this episode because I actually kind of think maybe it applies to a lot of this stuff. One of the three fundamental problems that people have is that they over-index on one value. So you can over-index on any of this stuff. And yes, there will be tension and trade-offs with other values. But ultimately, it's like you can take any good thing too far, right? Too much self-acceptance just becomes narcissism. Too much social connection becomes

codependence. Too much achievement becomes just, I don't know, what's the word for somebody who tries to achieve too much? Try hard. Yeah, you could be try hard. You could be, there's also a narcissism for that, though. Yeah. I mean, you could be a status whore. Yeah. That's, I think that's where to go. There you go.

That's, I believe that's the technical. That's the research term status for. We'll have to look up the literature on that. Not only does it kind of takes care of that problem of overinvesting in one, but it also helps a little bit anyway getting to this problem we keep coming back to where the tension between two values sometimes is. because if there you do want to be uh what was it like um generosity um versus um what would be the opposite value of generosity or so the opposite of benevolence would be like achievement or something frugality frugality there yeah there you go um obviously you know that creates a little bit there's attention there or you could find yourself in some tension there and you're like oh actually

there's virtue in both of these so that helps a little bit sometimes yeah i i just kind of the I came to, you know, when you look at all of these frameworks together, it's ultimately values function in a kind of a network. They're like interlocked and interrelated. And ultimately, no single value is valuable in and of itself. It is valuable in relationship to other values that you may have, right? So it's like if the only value you have is courage, then you have nothing to be courageous for. If you're all, if the only value you have is generosity, then you

have nothing to give to because you don't care about anything else. It's if you have, if your only values achievement, you have no reason to achieve anything because nothing else is important, right? So it's like all of these values only have significance and meaning because

they interlock and interrelate and kind of like a system. Yeah. And I think Aristotle was also aware of kind of the systemic nature of virtues because he he made an argument, we'll come back to this towards the end of the episode, but he made the argument that ultimately wisdom was the understanding. Wisdom was the most important virtue because it was the virtue that had a broad understanding of that system of virtues. Of all the other virtues. Of all the other

virtues. And when they were out of balance, when you were being too reckless or too benevolent, or to achievement oriented and to like pull yourself back into balance. So what about like whenever I hear these arguments for balance, I always think there's always, isn't there always a risk of like watering it down? You know, like people say, oh, find work life balance. And it's like, well, then you just end up kind of blah in the middle, right? Yes and no. What's the difference here?

I mean, I think you made a good point earlier that, you know, you. Even values that are in tension with one another can enhance each other, right? Like, the more power you accumulate personally, the more benevolent you can be to more people. Right. Right. So I think that's a big one of people miss. Absolutely. Oh, I don't, like, yeah.

Right. The more money you have, the more you can give away. Right. It's great. And, like, the more personal freedom you have, the more people you can build social relationships with. So it's like they are synergistic even when they are intention with one another and, like, they feel compromising. I do think there is a kind of just overall compounding effect that happens to the virtues, right? It's like the more of any virtue you accumulate, the more of other virtues you can begin to accumulate.

And I think the question about balance, I think that's, it's a very individual thing. You know, a lot of it is personality based, right? like what feels in balance to me is probably going to feel out of balance to other people and the same for you. And so I think a lot of this comes back to self-understanding and self-acceptance, like understanding that, you know, like I said earlier, like my need for connection, I think, is lower in most people's. And my need for, you know, novelty or stimulation is higher in most people. So like what's going to feel in balance for me is going to feel off for a lot of other people. And it's similar for you, similar to everybody listening to this. this. And I think just understanding the what your needs are, what level your needs exist at,

and then also like what your primary values are and what proportion that you want to invest into those values is, is useful and important. But it's like, I guess the balanced equation, like everybody's network is going to look a little bit different. People's central nodes are going to be slightly different. The emphasis is going to be different. But like ultimately, like you do need system of interlocking values that reinforce each other or support each other or counterbalance each other. Yeah. Right?

Like keep each other honest essentially. Yeah. I hadn't thought about it that way. That's, yeah, that's very interesting where you, the interlocking values don't exist in a vacuum. And yeah, that's a big thing, like within yourself, but also with other people as well. Yeah. Want to go electric without sacrificing fun? That's the Volkswagen ID4.

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this girl for a while. Last time I saw him was a few months ago, and he was like super excited about her and everything. And he had an interesting story, which coincidentally dovetails perfectly with values and all the things that we've been talking about. So let me set the stage for you, and then I'm going to ask for a prediction. Okay. So he's been dating this girl for three-ish, four-ish, much. months, they decided to take a trip together.

First trip. Real test. Yeah, real test. And just to give you some background, this friend of mine, intellectual guy, very bookish, loves to travel, but loves to travel in the, like, likes to find some obscure museum and spend the afternoon, like, reading about 13th century architecture or whatever. Like, very kind of nerdy travel guy. Yeah.

A little bit hippie-ish, like very low-key, you know, his idea of a great Saturday night is like a beer and a movie and going to bed at 9.30 with a good novel or something. Gurley's been dating. Owns eight Hermes bags. where's like a $20,000 Rolex watch spends half of her summer in St. Barcl's in San Troupe partying

and they decide to do this trip together to Paris and she asked if she can book everything and choose everything. Oh, and by the way, the guy, very frugal, very tight with money. I want you to guess how long it took, how many hours it took, It took for the first fight to start.

I wonder where this is going. Yeah, exactly. How many hours do you think it took for the first fight to start? Okay. Can I have a hint? Were they off the plane yet? Within arriving, I'm going to say that was one to two days. Yeah.

Really started the first dinner. Yeah, okay. They started having a fight about money. All right. She's also very traditional, right? Like grew up in a very religious family. Oh, okay. Man is supposed to pay.

Man's supposed to take care of. everything. He's super liberal. He's atheist. He's very like, you know, split the check type of guy. She's booking these like Michelin Star restaurants 500 euros for a prefix menu. He's like, what the fuck, dude. I just want a beer and a novel in a museum. This is not what I signed up for. This is for my car. Second question. How long do you think it took for them to break up? Well, I hope they made it back home at least. They did not. Oh, wow.

Really? Oh, that's rough. They broke up on the trip. That is rough. Okay. They broke up on day three. Oh, of like a week long trip or what? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Right in the middle of it. He like, he had to get a separate hotel room. Oh, no. He had to spend money on a separate hotel room. Oh, God. But then he told me he was like, he was like, yeah, it really sucked the first night.

But then it was great because I could just go to whatever museum I want. Yeah. I'm sorry. By the way, if this friend is listening, I apologize. Yeah. I were laughing at. But I actually, I like, you know, I was at dinner with him last night. I was like, I have to bring this up on the podcast because it was really interesting talking to him about it.

I started to ask him. I'm like, clearly there were red flags, dude. Didn't you see this one coming? Yeah. Like, how did you not see this coming? And he was like, you know, I have this really bad tendency in past relationships for being too judgmental. and like shutting off relationships too quickly over like small pedantic things.

And he said that he's like, you know, I really decided with this one, like I'm not going to judge, you know, if we have different interests or different preferences, like I'm not going to like judge it too quickly, you know, because you can compromise on things. Sounds reasonable. And I told them,

I was like, yeah, but the problem is that these are not simply different interests. These are different values and you can't compromise on different values. Like if she really cares about having expensive jewelry and Hermes bags and like going to the nicest restaurant and you like saving money, like you're not going to negotiate that. Yeah, that's not a difference in interests. Yes. Yeah.

That's that's a fundamental difference in values. How they manifest is different obviously, but it's a it's a difference in value. Right. And same thing with the traditional thing and, you know, her being very like old school religious and him being kind of liberal and atheist. Like, I think, I remember I was talking to a friend once and he said he was, this is totally just a theory that kind of half-baked theory by a smart friend of mine. He said he's been happily married for like 20 years. And he said he was like, I think there are really five categories that couples fight about. Like most fights in relationships happen over like value differences.

The first one was cleanliness. Mm-hmm. Second one was religion. Third one was politics. Fourth one was raising kids and family. And then the fifth one was money. Mm-hmm. And he said, you can get away with being misaligned on one of those, maybe even two if you

communicate extremely well and like adapt well to each other. But in his theory was if you're misaligned on more than two of those, then you're probably fucked. Yeah. Yeah. Like you just can't come back from. Right, right. I don't know if that's true or not, but I thought it was interesting to think about.

And I do think, you know, when I think about values, differences of values in relationships, I think it's most of what attracts us to each other. And I also think it's most of what drives couples apart. Like if they break up, it's usually because of a values difference. Assuming, like, trust wasn't broken. If couples grow apart, it's usually because their values have shifted. and they no longer see eye to eye or care about the same things

or find the same thing's important in their life. Would you think values, like differences in values attract us? Is that what you said? No, no, no. I said, I think we're attracted by similar values. Oh, okay, I got you.

Okay, and then we're pulled apart by... Different values. Okay, correct. Yeah, okay. Makes sense. I will say this. Like, I don't think you necessarily have to have all the same values as your partner.

Definitely, yeah. I think you have to have complementary values as your partner. Right. Like you either have to have similar values that like resonate well with one another that harmonize or you need to have like counterbalancing values that make each of you a little bit better. Like we were talking earlier about how it's easy for people to go overboard in a particular value in their life. Right. Like if you are way too self-sufficient or way too tight with money, it can be actually be good to be with somebody who's like maybe a little bit more communal to counterbalance.

balance you and make up for the downside of how over-indexed you are on a certain value. I think a lot of what we experience is like a good relationship is that complementary set of values. It's like some people are making up for some of our deficiencies or some of the tradeoffs that we make by caring about what we care about. By having a partner who cares about the opposite thing and being able to get along with them, we can kind of have the best of both worlds. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I think another way to put that is shared values don't necessarily mean they're identical values, right? Right. You can have a set of shared values together that aren't necessarily reflective of each one of your individual values. But if they work together in a way, you know, it's not necessarily like, do you agree on things, but can we support each other's values, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, which I mean, that is, I think, especially with like modern dating and dating apps

and everything like that. And I won't go on too much of a diatribe here. But they do try to match you more on what they think or call interests, I think, rather than values. Values. And I think it primes us to start looking, oh, this person likes whatever, hiking or sports or whatever it is. And it's like there's no value necessarily behind that. Which you end up in a situation like my friend because I'm going to you what brought them together is that they both love travel. Oh, shared interest in travel.

Right. But the value system underlying that. travel, the desire and motivation to travel is completely different. Completely opposite. Yeah. Yeah. Not only opposite, but like, I think... Incompatible.

Yes. I think they like disgusted each other a little bit. Ah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You ever been in that situation? You ever been in the middle of a trip and I have. That's happened to me before. Rule Mexico.

It was even worse. So... Yeah. I have not, that has not happened to me on a trip. I've been very fortunate and that the trip. that I've taken with girlfriends have generally gone well. It's a great way to test out the relationship. It really is.

It really is. All those values that your smart friend mentioned, the cleanliness, the everything, it kind of happens on the trip. It shows up, right? All in a compressed, condensed time and place. And yeah. It's, you can't get away from each other. That's, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Also, too, I think what values in relationships, too, when you are, argue with each other, that comes out. It's what values are what you actually arguing about. So it's not about these other things. It's not about the interest or it's not about, you know, you left the toilet seat up. It's not about what restaurant you book dinner at or what hotel you're staying in.

It's the value underneath that. It's the value underneath of that. And so arguments are a good way to bring out those values and figure out what's going on. And going back to that, like can you work with that? Are you able to, you know, this is one of the problems I have with a lot of people who are in the kind of attachment world. You know, they say, oh, find somebody who's secure enough, right? Well, usually somebody who's avoidance, right? They value their independence or, you know, their autonomy, maybe a little too much and maybe there's a little bit of whatever going on underneath that. But they say, well,

you should find somebody who's more secure in their relationships and doesn't value autonomy as much or whatever. It's like, no, can you work with somebody's autonomy? Just like can you work with somebody's anxiety too? Somebody might value, I value emotional availability, right? Yeah. And And if you're not emotionally available for them, well, obviously, that's going to be a problem. Without getting on too much of a tangent. And maybe we do an episode one day on attachment. I feel like attachment theory is it's a great descriptive model. It's great at describing why certain people's relationships function or don't function.

I think it's a poor prescriptive model. And I think that's gotten confused this day and age, especially on like TikTok and Instagram. Like everybody's like, oh, you're anxious. You should be doing this. And it's like, I don't know about that. Right. Like, it's more complicated. I do want to go back to what you said, though, about, like, the argument is not about the thing.

It's about the value underneath the thing. And I think, like, this is why this episode is, this topic is so important. Like, because talking to my friend last night, he didn't understand that it was actually a value difference. That, like, people will have an argument with a partner over a restaurant that was booked or a trip that was planned or, you know, there's, like, they're squeezing the toothpaste tube on the wrong end or whatever. And they don't realize that the argument's not actually about the restaurant. It's not actually about the toothpaste tube. Like there's an underlying value underneath that that's in conflict.

If you're just arguing about the thing, you're missing the real negotiation that needs to happen between the two value systems. And I just think most people are unaware of that. And if you're unaware of that, then you're not going to be able to solve it very well. No, you escalate. You're going to ask you that, right? You're going to think it's about the restaurant. And so it's, and it's funny too because, you know, my friend was telling me, he's like, they went through this whole process where it was like, okay, well, why don't we alternate?

Like, I'll go to, we'll go to a fancy place for lunch and then we'll go to like a dive bar for dinner, which just meant that they were both miserable. Right. Right? But they were just, like, doling out the misery in equal proportions. Where it's like, no, there's like, you have to address the underlying value of, like, okay, well, why does she care so much about this? What's like the, the itch that's being scratched by like booking, spending all this money?

Is it a need for status? Is it a need to feel important? Is it a need to experience luxury, you know, enjoy your vacation to its fullest? Like, what is the underlying value or motivation? And then see if you can address that in a way that meets both people's needs. And it's hard. It's like those aren't easy. First of all, both people need to be self-aware enough to understand like what's motivating

themselves. And then second of all, both people need to be mature enough to actually communicate those things to each other. And both of those things are rare. So condolences to my friend. Although I think he's, it's, it's, they're both better off. It sounds like. I think they both dodged a bullet, honestly.

Yeah. Yeah. I also think relationships are an interesting mechanism for revealing your values. Yes. Right? Yeah. Like I look at an experience like my friends or maybe like yours in rural Mexico. It reveals things about yourself that maybe you didn't know and that you didn't have a ton of clarity on.

Right. Like I remember my girlfriend in my 20s, we had a very overall, I would say it was a good relationship, but it was like very up and down. Like it was kind of rocky, a lot of like drama and fights and stuff. And at the time, I mean, she was a huge party girl. and I was a big party guy. And so I think we mostly bonded over that. Yeah. But it was interesting after being with her for a year or two,

there was like a self-destructiveness to her that was like a big turnoff to me. And I used to try to communicate that to her. And then she would look at me and she's like, you're doing all the same drugs and drinking just as much. Like, what are you talking about? You fucking hypocrite? Yeah, yeah.

And I was like, yeah, but it's not the same. Like there's like the motivation is different. I think the thing that the value that was underlying, the experiences, was driven by different things. What do you think that was? I think in my case, it was kind of this compulsive need for novelty and excitement. And I think in her case there was a lot of that as well. But I think she had a real self-destructive streak that I didn't. I always kind of had this awareness in my mind that like this is a phase.

This is like, I'm 23. This is the I'm doing this because I'm 23 and probably in a year or two I'm not I'm not going to do this anymore like I don't want to be doing this in a year or year or two more and I definitely don't want to be doing this when I'm like 30 or 35 and I detected no sense of that in her like in her it was just like no man we're just going to have fun like this is just life like we're just going to go hard and all gas no breaks yeah and that's fun for a night it's fun for a weekend. it's fun for a month, but like after a year or two, being around that person, you know, it's like, eh, this is, this is, there's, there's a darkness here. There's like a self-destructiveness here that, like, worries me and I don't want to take part in. And ultimately, I think that was a big part of ending that relationship. It was a big part of like why I wanted to get out of that relationship. And I didn't have the maturity to fully understand that or communicate that at the time. But in hindsight, it's very clear to me.

And I think at the time, too, it was clarifying for me because I think going into the relationship, I kind of had the same attitude of just like, yeah, fuck it. All gas, no break, let's go, you know? And through the course of the relationship, I noticed that I started becoming uncomfortable

with certain situations or certain decisions that were being made. And it was clarifying for me. It was like, it showed me this isn't who you are. Like, you're a tourist in this lifestyle. You're not a resident. So make sure you don't get trapped here. Make sure you don't get stuck.

So that's one experience that I've had. But I mean, there have been quite a few. I think your relationships force you to confront your most deeply held beliefs and assumptions and motivations. And, you know, ultimately that's, it comes down to what you care about. Like, what do you find important? Because it's like when you try to imagine a future with somebody, that future needs to be compatible with what you find important. in your life, like what you're optimizing for in your life. And so if there's an incompatibility there, right, it's like if my future is, you know, I really don't want to, I really want to stop party and

stop doing drugs and get my shit together and build a business and be more ambitious. And, and I can't imagine my partner in that world, then it becomes hard to stay with that partner. Yeah. Have you experienced that? Yeah, definitely. I think to, going back to like to revealed preferences, I think is what a relationship will do to you. You know, if I value honesty and yet I don't, I'm not honest in my relationship or I just, I don't communicate honestly with the other person. Like, do I actually value honesty? And so you're right.

It brings it to that. But I think the ones, the relationships where I've had value clashes, it was the same thing where I thought it was like an interest thing or just a preferences thing when it came down to it, but it was actually values. And then what I've also noticed, though, too, going back to what we talked about, where, like, can you work with somebody else's values. I think that I've gotten better at that as well because I think before, especially like my 20s and early 30s, I was very much valued autonomy and independence and wanted that somehow in a relationship too, but I wanted it way too extreme. Yeah. And so that can clash. That can show this clash of values in a relationship as well. And basically, like, when anything would go wrong in a relationship, I would just be like, well, you know, I'm independent and autonomous anyway, so it doesn't matter and whatever, just screw it.

What I've come to get better at, I think, is to stop and slow down and look at what values are driving anybody's behavior or motivation in that situation. Yeah. Yeah. Any grimy stories? Oh, God. Drama, juicy drama. Give us drama, Drew. Well, I mean, give us the Drew Bernie show.

I mean, I've had just like instances where I can point back to relationships and like, that's the moment they fell apart. And it's because I didn't, I was just, I put my values above the relationship really too. I think that's another one. Somebody snaps at me in a certain way or something like that. And I'm just like that, you're violating my autonomy and you're trying to get me a change who I am. I'm done. Yeah. Yeah.

Where now I was like, I step back. I'm like, oh, okay, they're not getting their need for emotional connection right now. Yeah. That's what they're, they value an emotional connection and I'm being very distant and that's why they're upset. Yeah. That's that's a, that's been a common one for me. I mean, I just, I don't know, throughout my, really throughout my adult life, I've, it's always been, I have, I have placed a value that is probably a value that's to me higher than the relationship itself. And I think if you want to be in a relationship,

but you have to put some value on the relationship that can sustain you through those differences and those arguments and those fights and stuff like that. And I just wasn't willing to do that for a long time. Yeah. It brings up the question is what is worth compromising on? Yeah, yeah. We kind of said earlier, like you can't really compromise on values. You can a little bit.

I don't think you can compromise a lot or wholesale. Like there comes a point in relation to, that if you're compromising too much of your values, you're literally losing who you are and what you stand for. And so you are figuratively and psychologically kind of killing your own identity to placate your partner,

which is incredibly unhealthy and not sustainable. But at the same time, I do think it is impossible to be in a long-term relationship without compromising on something or at least like deciding to let certain things go, deciding being like, you know what, this is very important to me, but I'm willing to back off a little bit for the sake of the harmony and my relationship. I think it comes back to that idea of like values being like a network system.

And when you're in a committed long-term relationship or you could even say with like family relationships or with kids, like they kind of become part of that network. and if I'm you know if my wife holds a value super strongly that I don't I do need to find ways to accommodate that value and maybe it's not giving up my own values wholesale but it maybe it's just like turning the volume knob down a little bit on a couple things and you know instead of instead of being like a nine out of 10 on autonomy I'm a seven out of 10 on autonomy and you start to realize that you can be very healthy and happy that way. We're actually going to talk later in the episode about how to change your values and how to do it in a way that feels congruent and not like you're forcing yourself or murdering yourself. So I do think some of that comes into this, but it is an interesting question of just like how much compromise is too much compromise?

Like what is a bridge too far? Yeah. Yeah, I think I think one, two, about changing your values within relationships. as well. The, I think a lot of people, you and me included, when you're younger, you do kind of value novelty and excitement and fun and all of that and you want that in a relationship. And then as you go through some relationships and you see how that can also blow up the excitement and the novelty and the fun and, you know, oh, I have such a strong connection with the person right away. And usually that means, okay, things are going to get, you know, there's going to be

some fireworks. Not a good way necessarily. And over time, you change more towards, oh, okay, I, I realized that valuing that is kind of, it's a little bit counterproductive to the relationship at a certain point. And so you start to value, actually I value more stability in my relationships. I think that's, I, like, it took me a while to get there, but I started, you know, because especially in my 20s, I was just like, no, like novelty fun, date around, you know, and you get a little bit addicted to that. And then all of a sudden you wake up and you're like, oh, this is, there's such a diminishing return to this. Yeah. So I don't know, maybe we can save a little bit of that for the changing values too, but that's definitely

We'll definitely come back to it. I think the example you raise there is very pertinent. I think it's to have a healthy long-term relationship, period. I think both people need to value stability and consistency to a certain extent, which means stability and consistency is in tension with personal autonomy, novelty of experience, stimulation.

I think there is an inherent trade-off there that is probably just fundamental to relationships itself. I do want to touch really quick, before we move on about how relationships fit into the value hierarchy, because I do think there's something uniquely interesting about whether you want to call it romantic relationships, love, or just a specific relationship in general. But it basically, for whatever reason, if you make a relationship or your relationships the top of your value hierarchy, it actually undermines the relationships.

Ah, yes. Like, there's something very subtle about if you make a, another person, the most important thing in your life, it actually is counterproductive for that person in the relationship with that person. And I think it comes back to you're compromising too much, right? Like, if I'm giving up too much of myself to make my wife happy, then I stop being the same person that she fell in love with. I become this like half empty caricature of the man that she fell in love with.

And so I think this is where you see that that strange dynamic where like not compromising occasionally makes a relationship better, like refusing to be different or change, like keeps the intimacy alive because you are maintaining a certain amount of healthy autonomy and individuality that that sparked the attraction to each other in the first place. Anyway, I feel like we could do an entire episode. 100% yeah just on values and relationships I'm sure we're going to do many relationship episodes over the course of this podcast life so we will come back to this at some point so wait what would you recommend to your friend then going forward for looking for a new relationship so this I'll

tell you the advice I gave them okay I said the first thing I said was what I said earlier about interest versus values from preferences versus values I said dude like it's this is not a preference for nice restaurants. Like this is a difference in values and you need to ask yourself like what's driving that. And by the way, dude, like the fact that she showed up to your first date with like a $30,000 watch might have been a tip off of like this is who you're getting involved with. It just, I love you, man. But it's, uh, I mean, there are signals. There are, there are clues. People are sending out clues of who they are all the time. I think I actually, uh, I wrote in my dating book models years and years ago that the true self is always shining through.

Like you, you, it is impossible for a person to hide who they are because if they're trying to hide who they are, that says something about who they are. Right. Right. Right. So what I encouraged him is I said, look, obviously you want to know a person's preferences and interests and the things that, you know, that they like pretty early on in a relationship the first couple days.

I said, move these values-based questions up to the front as soon as possible. Because one of the things that came up is when they had that first fight on their trip, that was the first time. He'd been dating her for almost four months. That was the first time that they actually talked about the fact that she thought men should pay for everything. Oh, wow. And I was like, how do you get that? Like, you have to have these conversations sooner. You have to filter for these things really early on.

And I understand you don't want to bombard somebody with a bunch of philosophical questions. and like asking them like what the meaning of their life is on the first date. I don't know. Or maybe you do. I don't know. But like I would definitely say within the first month, you should have clarity around those big categories. Yeah. Right.

Like you should you should definitely learn what is their their attitude towards money. Like how do they see money? What are they motivated by? Like what do they find most important? What are the how are they getting their needs met? What do they think about religion? What do they think about family? How do they spend their free time?

Not only like where do they travel on their vacations, but like why do they travel? Like what's the motivation behind it? Just get like start to get a clearer sense of what they care about and what they find important and what they hope for themselves in five or ten years and see if that's compatible with what you hope for yourself. And I get why people don't do it because when you have a beautiful stranger across the table from you and it's going well. You don't want to fuck it up. Yeah. Yeah. But this is my last chance. Yeah. Yeah. But at the same time, you know, you're you're just kicking the can down the road. Like it's going to be more painful. You'd rather break up with this person on on week three than

year three. Right. Right. Right. If you can spare yourself that pain. And you want to find out as soon as possible. Yeah. Well, I think too, though, it's not necessarily too that they have the right answers to those questions too, but like how easily can you talk to them about it and how easily can you navigate that interaction with them. So if it's, is something you're like, oh, you travel and you like to spend it extravagantly, why is that? And if you can have an honest conversation with them and like kind of come to a like, oh, a mutual understanding, like you've said before, it's not like respect is actually kind of the foundation of all this. And if you can respect their values, even if you don't necessarily agree with them or agree with them, that can go a long ways too.

You can have, again, that goes back to the interacting values that you might have that actually are compatible with each other, even if they're not the same. I would actually, yeah, I think respect, you know, earlier we were using the word shared values. I would say it would be respected value. Respect for values, yeah. And I think what broke down in his case, it wasn't that they didn't share the same values. It was that they didn't respect each other's values. And because they didn't respect each other's values, they weren't willing to compromise. Right, right.

That applies to any relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Oh, and before we move on from the relationship topic, so you can buy these decks of cards that are have questions that are designed to help, you know, people who are dating for the first time to get to know each other quickly and understand each other's values and understand if they're compatible or not. So I've never used one of them because I'm an old married man, but you should. You should try it out. Yeah, it could be fun. It could be actually. So I did an event, I think, I did an event with School of Life. So School of Life has one of these decks, and they gave me the deck as a gift. And I brought it home.

This was maybe like six, seven years ago. And Fernando and I did a bunch of the cards. And it's funny because it's, it was like we already knew each other's answers. Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. There's no mystery left in your marriage whatsoever anymore, huh? It's just all.

Not. I mean, kind of. It feels that way. But in a good way. In a good way. It's funny, actually. So the other night, or maybe like a month or two ago, we were at a dinner party with a bunch of other couples. And all the other couples were either engaged or just recently married.

Like they'd all been together for like three, four, five years. And Fernand and I have been together for 13, going on 14 years. And they wanted to play this game. I don't remember what it's called. But it's basically like you draw a card and it will say something like favorite breakfast. and all the husbands have to answer, guess what the wife? It's like, what's that old game show?

Oh, yeah. Oh, God, I'm going to mic on it too. Dude, what is that old game show? Newlyweds. It's a newlywed game. So it's exactly the newlywed game. But it's like a card game and it's, you bring it out at dinner party.

So we were playing the newlywed game. And it felt like, it felt like Faye and I had cheat coats. Like it was so unfair because, like, All these couples have been together for like three years. They just gotten engaged. I will say this. There's a certain point that you hit. I would say that when you adapt enough to each other's values, like even though my wife

and I, like, we don't share all the same values, I think we're so well adapted and now balanced in each other's values that there's a, like, there's a stability that you can't really find on your own, I would say. and in a comfort, like a security that comes that I've never experienced on my own. But it's like extremely gratifying and profound. And you can kick ass at the newlyway game. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah.

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Get 20% off almost all regular priced merchandise. Two days only. Tuesday, April 28th, and Wednesday, April 29th. Open your PC optimum app to get your coupon. All right. So let's do a quick section on where do values come from. I don't want to dwell too much on this. It's funny, we kind of fell into a research rabbit hole on this one.

Very much got in the weeds, yeah. Because there's actually a lot of interesting backstory and research on this. I don't want to stay in it too long if we can help it just because I do want to get to the actionable advice for people. So this whole idea that values very widely across people and across cultures, it's a relatively new idea. If you look back at like the colonial period, it was, I guess you would say not very pluralistic. You know, it was very much like Europeans showing up to other parts of the world and being like, these people are savages. We need to give them our values. It really wasn't until the 20th century.

So in 1925, a young anthropology student. named Margaret Mead went to a Samoan village to study a local tribe there. And really the thing at the time, you know, obviously like female academics were a rarity. It's there wasn't, I don't think there was as much wide traveled, you know, to the South Pacific and all these indigenous cultures back then as there is now. And so what she was doing, she was already a bit of an outlier and just in terms of who she was in her program. And then she was also studying something in a way that was also a bit of an outlier. So she goes to the Samoan village. She starts observing the people.

And one of the first things that she notices is that the teenagers are, A, way less inhibited than European and North American teenagers. And B, they seem way happier. They're like chilling and enjoying themselves. They're not, they're not rebelling against their parents. They're not getting angry and going out and drinking and like hurting themselves and getting in the fights with each other. And the other thing that she noticed was that ironically, they were way more sexually expressive and that sexual expression was seen as okay. They weren't judged or shamed for it, particularly the young girls. and you didn't see as much, you know, teenage pregnancy or out of wedlock relationships.

Like everything just seemed much emotionally healthier to her. And this was a little bit shocking at the time. Like if you imagine in 1920s, they were pretty buttoned up and strict in their morals. And they weren't very open-minded, especially around things like sex and young women being sexual. Right. Victorian hangover still. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit.

So she came back to America. she wrote a book called Coming of Age in Samoa where she essentially argued that most of our values around cultural norms, propriety, society, sexual moors, all this stuff,

all these sacred cows that the West had believes very strongly. And she argued that these were relative, that they weren't absolute values that if anybody in the United States, if they grew up on Samoa, they would grow up with these other values and they actually might even be better off.

Now, as you can imagine, this set off an absolute firestorm, like huge lightning rod for controversy. What's impressive about Mead, though, is that she didn't back down. She actually got back on a plane, and then she went to New Guinea. And she spent, I think, at the time, people criticized her. They said, well, this is just one tribe. And, like, who knows, maybe it was just the families that you hung out with. Like, you can't really generalize this to wider population.

So she went to New Guinea and she was like, fuck you all. I'll show you. So she followed three tribes in New Guinea. And not only did she find that all three varied drastically from American values and morals, all three varied drastically between each other. So one was super aggressive and very violent. One was very passive and very chilled out. One was matriarchal, which is basically like women had all the power in the tribe. One was extremely patriarchal.

So again, this informed her theory that ultimately most human values are culturally relative, that we absorb our values from society around us, and that most of what we believe to be important is simply the result of where we grew up and who we grew up around. So all the controversy aside and all the arguments aside of, you know, know, Margaret Mead's research process and how scientific it was or not, I do think the takeaway from her that is extremely important is that there is a certain percentage of our values that are chosen by us, that we kind of seek out ourselves and determine for ourselves through reflection and experience.

But there's also a large percentage of our values that we simply inherited, right? Whether from our parents, from the school, we went to the neighborhoods that we grew up in, the socioeconomic status that we had when we were. we were young, the values were handed to us. They weren't necessarily built or discovered for ourselves. And I do think that realization and just understanding what is what, understanding like what you inherited versus what you've chosen. Yeah. I do think it's very important on an individual level. And I also think it's a very tricky thing to figure out as a young person. I know for me, you know, spending so much time abroad was extremely illuminating for myself

because it really showed me, I think it showed me a lot of values that I was flexible on. And most importantly, it showed me some values that I'm not very flexible on. Like there was, it didn't matter how much time I spent in other countries or how many places I went to. Like, there were a handful of things where I'm like, I don't fucking care. Like, this is the way it should be. And this is the way I always want it. Give me a cold drink, please. I value cold drinks. Like fucking ice.

I need some fucking ice in this drink. Yes. Or public trash cans. Holy shit. Right. No, the one thing I noticed around that was punctuality. Yeah. I can't get over that one either.

Oh, my God. I understand it. I get it. You have a different cultural norm around it, but my God. Yes. I lived four years in Latin America. I lived for over a year in South. East Asia. I get it. You're on island time. Life's easy. Go with the flow. Yada yada. Dude,

just like fucking send a bus on time. Just be within 15 minutes and I can deal with it. I think that sort of self-discovery is very useful. And I think, you know, in the old podcast, we did a couple episodes on travel and the value of travel. And for me, like, ultimately, that was the value of travel, is that it clarifies for you what seems to really be deep inside of you. Like, what are the values that are kind of non-negotiable for you? And what are the values that shift quite a bit when you alter your environment? When you go to a new place and surround yourself by new people with different values, like what naturally starts to change within yourself? So what were some examples of that for you? What did you find that could change more easily

depending on where you were? That's a good question. I'll say this. I think living abroad made me much more politically fluid. Yeah. It's you know when I was young when I started traveling in my early 20s, you know, I was pretty far left like most young 20-somethings of our generation and what's interesting is that you go to all these countries and places and they have completely different systems and they have completely different political spectrums and they have completely different laws and and initially, you know, in week one there's a lot of things that just kind of upset you. or you find distasteful, but you spend a few months there and you realize, like, wow, like, yeah, people get a long fine here.

Societies can work in many circumstances and under many systems and with many types of incentives. So that's not to say that I don't hold strong political views, I do, but like I do think that period being nomadic and living in a number of different countries, I think it's made me much more politically fluid than most Americans. just because I realize how negotiable a lot of this stuff is. And context dependent and location dependent they are too, right? Absolutely.

And honestly, that's been such a blessing over the last 10 years because it's like I watch everybody in the United States is like running around like their hairs on fire, both on the left and the right. And I just kind of feel like this weirdo who's looking around and I'm like, guys, it's not that bad. You've been to Venezuela. It could get so much worse.

Yeah. Yeah, I flew into Guatemala one time and three days later they arrested the president. So it was like, yeah, there you go. There you go. What about yourself? Well, I mean, when I think about this, I usually go back to because I grew up in a small town conservative area. And I realized how much of that has influenced me, how much of that culture has really influenced me. So it was a place where self-sufficiency was valued very highly.

And again, that's context and location dependent. There is a small town. There's not a lot of resources around. You have to be self-sufficient. Yeah. And so they are going to lean more towards, you know, that kind of bootstrap mentality that you have out there. And they're going to value things that support that. And then, you know, I've lived in bigger cities and in other countries as well where that's not the case.

And you can be a little bit more, hey, we all need to get along a little bit better and help each other out a little bit more and contribute a little bit more in a collective sense. So I've had very similar experiences as well as when I'm navigating different cultures. Yeah. You definitely, once you embed yourself in those, you're right. You actually start to see why they do the things they do rather than just looking from the outside and saying, oh, that's stupid. You know, it's dumb. Why would you do that? Yeah.

So, yeah, it is, it is recognizing the water that you swim in, I guess you could call it. Yeah. And understanding, like, what you've chosen and what's been chosen for you, essentially. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It was interesting because kind of the successor to Margaret Mead was another woman named Mary Douglas. And she really built on Margaret Mead's research and work.

And she really tried to map out what cultural values there were and kind of place different cultures on that map or that grid. And she came up with a two-dimension framework that, guess what? it's going to sound extremely familiar because it's almost the exact same two-dimensional framework that we've discussed throughout the entire episode. So she called it the grid group framework.

So there's high grid cultures and low-grid cultures. High-grid cultures is very rigid, rules-based. They prioritize order and authority and respect for authority. And low-grid cultures are very libertarian, independent. individualistic. Individualistic.

And then you have the group framework. So there's high collectivist societies, you know, where it's just very communal and you sacrifice yourself for the large group. And then there's high individualistic societies. Individualism, yeah. And guess what? Maps perfectly well into the political compass that we talked about earlier. Also maps extremely well onto Schwartz's two dimension tension of between the self-transcendence and self-improvement versus openness to experience. and conservatism on the other axis.

So there does seem to be these two inherent tensions just within the human mind, period, between the things that we value, and they seem to show up fractally across all sorts of different things, whether you're looking at an individual psychology, which is Schwartz's value framework, you're looking at a politics within a society,

which is the political compass, or you're looking at cultural values across society. which is Mary Douglas's grid group framework. So if listeners are interested in the grid group framework, we've written a bit more in the PDF guide, you can go to solvepodcast.com slash values and download it there. We've got some nice little charts and graphs. You can really nerd out on it.

You can nerd out on it. All the citations are there as well. So I think ultimately, you know, Mary Douglas's points are like individuals, each cultural type chooses its own values and its own tradeoffs. And these values become the norms and taboos of that society, right? So, you know, within an individual, you kind of have tastes and distaste.

I think within a society, you have norms and customs on the one hand. Those are things that we are reflections of the things that we value. And then you have taboos, which are the reflections of the things we don't value, right? And I think just as with individuals, we have a natural tendency to see cultures and societies with conflicting values to ours as immoral or wrong. Ultimately, the fundamental point of cultural relativism is that there isn't any absolute right or wrong. But I do want to make a caveat here because the primary criticism of cultural relativism is

like, you know, stuff like what about societies that have slaves or do human sacrifices or, you know, women can't leave the house or whatever. It turns you an apologist pretty quickly. Yes. What's interesting, and I didn't realize this, but Margaret Mead was very aware of this issue and, like, struggled with it a lot. Of course she did, yeah. And to my knowledge, I didn't read all of her stuff, but like, to my knowledge, she didn't really find a satisfying answer to that question. I read a little bit beyond this too, and we won't get into this, but like, you know, Sam Harris wrote a book on morality, right?

Yeah. And he thinks that if we can find a more objective way to measure morality, we would be able to then objective. objectively compare cultures. And his was well-being, much like Carol Riff, like how do we increase well-being? And does a culture or society increase the well-being

of its individuals and its groups and all of that? That's debatable that we even do. Yeah, right. You know, my intuition on this is that cultural values are very similar to what Schwartz talks about, which is that you can over-index on a value. Yeah.

Right? And when you over-index on a single value, it harms the other areas, the other values, right? And that's true within an individual we've already talked about. I think that's true within a society as well. Like, if you over index on order and authority,

like, you are going to sacrifice a lot of other valuable things. Similarly, if you over index on freedom and autonomy, you're going to sacrifice a lot of other valuable things. More chaotic, yeah. So I almost see it as, again, to come back to my main man Aristotle, like the virtue is the golden mean, right?

The optimal amount of freedom in a society is it's not total and complete, but it's also not lacking either, right? There should be no enslavement or coercion or oppression, but there also just can't be like, you know, chains off, run wild and free, you know, do whatever the fuck you want. Consequences be damned. Like, you can't have that either.

So, like, again, even within a culture, like you have to make tradeoffs between the things that you value. You have to give up maybe a little bit of, freedom in this domain to promote more social cohesion and harmony in this domain. And I think as long as you're not going to any extremes on any dimension, you're probably within the realms of morality, which interestingly, Aristotle is the only framework that we've talked about that like he did see this as a moral question. He did see excess as a failure of morality. That becomes a little bit more apparent when you look at it on this like social scale. Yeah, I think another example, you and I

have talked about this before is like a lot of Latin American and Asian cultures put family as a very high value in their systems, right? Whereas more individualistic cultures like the United States and Western Europe, we don't as much. And from the outside looking in, a lot of us are like, oh, we wish we, you know, valued family more. And you get into those. And you can see when it's taken to extreme, right, that you start maybe sacrificing things that maybe would, would benefit you if you didn't sacrifice them for your family or you see this all the time, especially in Latin America, like there's corruption charges somewhere and what do they say? Well, I was doing it from my family, right?

Dude, it took me so many years to connect those two dots. And when I did, it was like just such a mind-blowing moment. But like if you look at those family-oriented cultures and you look at corruption scales, like they are pretty strongly correlated. And it wasn't until I lived in Brazil for a long time that I started to realize. I remember actually having a conversation with a number of Brazilian friends. And I was like, if your brother killed somebody and the police came and knocked on your door and asked where your brother was, would you tell him where he is? And every single one of them

was like, no, he's my brother. And of course, as an American, I'm like, yeah, he's right there. Like arrest the fucker. Yeah. Yeah. And it was so interesting because, and I remember reading, I remember, I forget where, but I remember reading a book on corruption. And it was, it's exactly what you said. It's like everybody who commits corruption, they justify it by saying like, well, I'm just going to skim a little bit off the top here to like send my kid to college. Well, you know, I'm going to skim a little bit over here because my aunt has cancer and she's going to have a lot of hospital bills. Oh, well, you know, I'm going to take a little bribe over here because, you know, my cousin just broke his leg and he can't work anymore. You know, there's always

a justification that feels very morally righteous and feels correct to them. And, and, you know, and And then when you scale that across millions of people and over a very large system across a population, you get a system that just breaks down and completely fails. And so, yeah, that's a perfect example of how these value networks exist in a very tenuous balance and not just on the individual level, but also on the social level. And so we would be remiss to talk about where values come from without talking about. We've talked about the nurture side, right? It's like the environment you grow up in, the people you grow up around. We would be remiss to not talk about the nature side, right? How much is there a genetic component to what you value, what you find important, what you find moral and immoral?

It turns out there probably is. Right. Yeah. Yeah, this comes from Jonathan Haidt and his moral. foundations theory. Now, obviously now he's moved on to social media, trying to save the kids. Saving the kids from social media. But he started out in moral psychology, actually. And he came up with this whole framework called the moral foundations theory. And essentially what he says is that we have evolved a set of moral foundations that are kind of like taste buds. They're kind of like

tastes for different moral configurations, if you will. And he came up with, well, there's a set, But he said there's at least six, basically. And I'll just list them off real quick. They are care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty. Okay. The moral foundations theory basically posits that we each, we all have these values, those values, okay, those six values in some way. It's just that we prioritize them differently. And he said these proclivities, these foundations, they evolved for specific.

purposes, right? Like, so care, the care foundation evolved so we would care for children, right? And then it got co-opted into a value system, right? Same thing with like fairness and cheating. If we're going to live in groups, we need to be able to spot cheaters and have some sort of cheating detection mechanism and punish them if we find them cheating. Authority, we need to have group order, all that kind of stuff. Okay. So essentially these helped us cooperate in living groups, survive, thrive, reproduce, propagate the species, right. Everybody has these. It's just they come in different configurations. That can be influenced by culture like we just talked about. But there probably is some genetic component to it as well. If we're talking about this from a political standpoint, then what he's found,

the multiple tests has been replicated many, many, many times is that liberals tend to prioritize the care. The care versus harm foundation is what he calls it, as well as somewhat the fairness and cheating foundation. Okay. Conservatives, interestingly, kind of use the whole palette. All five or six of these, right? They do prioritize care and fairness like liberals do, but they also prioritize these other ones. So like loyalty to your in-group or loyalty in general, but mostly that's an in-group type of thing. Loyalty versus betrayal. Authority versus subversion. Sanctity versus degradation. That's a big one for the conservatives as a well. It's kind of purity value and then liberty and oppression.

It's interesting because I feel like the last 10 years, the left has been big on purity. It's a different form of purity though, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a thought purity. Yeah, there's more thought purity. Or, well, there's always kind of been purity around like, oh, what do you eat, right? That's kind of a left thing to you. You shouldn't be eating these processed foods and stuff like that.

But it's simply, like big picture, they're more concerned about care and harm. Yeah. conservative is more loyalty. Loyalty, authority, authority. Yeah. Liberty oppression. What's interesting, too, I think, these are all based in like an emotional reaction. You have an emotional. People argue about politics and they're always arguing about the facts and the ideas behind it.

But all of this is incredibly. The point, the very good point that I'd love to hear an argument about a fact. The very good point. It's been a long time. That hype makes is that he has this analogy of the elephant and the writer. So he wrote about this in the book called The Wretches Mind. It came out like 2012, I think. All right.

And he thought, oh, my God, political polarization is crazy. And we were all like, hold my beer. Like, this is going to get worse, right? Dude, I have such a good segue coming up in five minutes. We keep going. Okay. But he said, he has this analogy with the writer and the elephant. And he's like, look, the elephant is in charge.

You've made similar analogies like this. The elephant is in charge. the writer, what he calls the writer on top of the elephant, comes along after the fact and justifies whatever the elephant is doing. Right. So the elephant really pulls us. The writer is just there as kind of our lawyer to be like, well, this is why I'm doing it, obviously. It's always after the fact. Yeah. Okay. And so these moral foundations are all emotionally based and emotionally tugging us in different directions. What I kind of thought about was like, okay, if conservatives are using the whole palette of these moral foundations, it makes sense that they

are conservative, that they want to conserve and not change, because they feel that pull in all these different directions. Whereas liberals kind of just have this emphasis on care and harm, that's kind of like their main moral foundation, then they're okay, changing everything in order to optimize for care and harm. Whereas liberals are like, no, care and harm is important, but so is, you know, liberty. So is being loyal to the people around you and having a community in a group that can support you. And so they don't want to mess up that balance as much because they feel that emotional pull.

So I think that was kind of an unlock for me where it was like, oh, okay, there's this really deep-seated emotional basis for these values. And it's obviously because, you know, they've evolved over hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years. And so you can't really reason with someone. You can't reason them out of their values. You can't convince somebody to stop caring for people they. care about.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Or you can't convince them to, you know, not want freedom. Not want freedom or not want fairness in a system. Yeah. Yeah. There's really no argument.

There's no logical argument against those things. There's an interesting little thing too about the fairness foundation as well. He found that liberals are, unsurprisingly, they see fairness as a quality, right? They think a system is fair if it comes to roughly equal. outcomes for people, not necessarily outcomes, but even opportunity as well. Whereas conservatives are more concerned with fairness as it pertains to proportionality. Okay. So if somebody contributes more, a conservative would think, well, they deserve more. Whereas a liberal will be like, well, yes, I get that, but also at the same time, too, there's all these systematic disadvantages that

they have. And so there should be some equalizing mechanism there, too. So there's a budding head. It's not that conservatives don't care about fairness. It's just they have a different idea of what fairness means. There's different definitions. Which both are totally justified and valid. 100% valid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is it's so funny that these like these contradictory and intention value systems, like the more we talk about this, the more it's it's so clear that these are baked in as a as a feature, not a bug. Yes. Like this is you are supposed to feel torn as a human, right? Like that is I almost think about it as like we all have like committees in our

brain, right? Like, let's imagine that, you know, whichever values framework you want to pick here, it could be nine people, it could be six people, it could be five people, whatever, are sitting in your brain and they're like arguing about each decision. And sometimes every once in a while, you'll get like a unanimous decision, right? It's like, there's a six to zero vote. And it's like, oh, that's an easy, that's a no-brainer decision. This is the right thing to do. But most big decisions, it's like three to two or four to six or five to four or something. And you just feel like so torn. You're like, this doesn't really feel fair, but it's also good for the people I care about, but it's like not really aligned with these other things I care about. And like, you just

kind of agonize over it. It's super. And that's most decisions are most, most situations. It's most decisions. So my, my banger segue here, the rider and the elephant, that's a facsimile of something that Plato talked about. Yeah. Which is the rider in the chariot, which would Jonathan Haidt also mentioned in the happiness hypothesis. So Plato, allow me to nerd out a little bit here. If you read Plato's Republic, one of the most interesting things about the Republic, I mean, there are all sorts of interesting political points that he makes. And it is kind of considered the foundational text of Western political philosophy.

But what's fascinating about the Republic is that there's kind of this alternating organization to the to the book, which is that each chapter, or technically each book within the book, each chapter is like one will be about the individual and like what is right and wrong and how decisions are made and what are what's virtuous and what's, you know, a vice. And then the next chapter will address kind of the same topic, but it'll address it at the societal level. And throughout the whole book, Plato, like, you can tell he's bending backwards and pretzling himself to keep this metaphor alive through the whole thing, that, like, what is

personal is also social and what is social is also personal. So, like, towards the end of the book, like, he sets up this whole framework of how our individual psychology functions. And he kind of talks about this of, like, you know, he talks about the writer. in the chariot and how like we have these like competing drives and and motivations and how we have to like balance them properly with each other. And if they get out of balance, then we start making poor, poor decisions and it's like very damaging and harmful for our individual.

And then the very next chapter is about the same thing for society and how we have all these conflicting interests in society and how we need to find mechanisms and systems to balance them properly. And if anything gets out of balance, then we're going to make bad decisions and it's going to be harmful for society. So it's funny, I was like kind of Amused by this Especially as an author

I was like this is a really interesting like he's really holding on to this very hard And then I started researching this episode Yeah And I was like Mother fucking Plato man Like it is really impossible to ignore The parallels and the fractal nature Of how values exist within the individual

And also within the society And you know obviously I don't think Plato's framework was perfect I don't think like his prescriptions were perfect, but like he clearly was tapping into something very fundamental and very true. And it's interesting because I remember reading it. I think I read it in like 2018 or something. I found it absolutely fascinating. Plato and Aristotle, like you can really never go wrong going back and reading them again. But I didn't take it super seriously.

And I didn't think about it on a day-to-day basis. But like prepping for this episode, especially now that we're recording it and talking out all this stuff, that you and I have been researching for months, it really is, it's kind of become impossible for me to not see. You know, the same way we talked about how like a healthy individual has a well-balanced network of values and opposing values that are counterbalancing each other effectively and other values that are harmonizing each other,

it's impossible to kind of not see that play out within a society itself or across societies. And I almost think you could kind of look at history as a series of societies getting out of balance or over-indexing on one particular value, it having dramatically negative consequences, and then the corrective to that out-of-balance, right? So you could almost, you could look at, you know,

sorry, it's the internet, we're going to get there eventually, it's Hitler, you know, you could look at the Nazis, right? You could look at the Nazis as like just an insane over-indexing on certain values that we have. all have within us. And then there had to be like an intense corrective measure to counterbalance that, to bring it, to bring balance back to the force as as Star Wars would say. I think it can also work in a positive direction.

And so it's just like it's a very interesting thing, I guess philosophically. It's super interesting that I feel like I can kind of see the matrix in terms of like how all this stuff functions. And, and it's super cool. I mean, we're going to the, in a minute, we're going to start getting into like the, the applications and, you know, how to change your values, how to figure out your values and change them and work with them and alter them and all that stuff. So we're wrapping up kind of the philosophical and the theoretical portion of this episode. But I do have to say that, like, I feel like I've, I've, like, reached a point on this subject that I feel like Neo.

I see the ones in zeros. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I actually... I'm dodging bullets, true. Yeah. In slow-mo. Yeah.

Yeah. I have an example of this actually, too, that illustrates this on a little bit smaller level, but still illustrates this. So can I tell you my story about when I almost got in a fist fight at a taco truck? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yes.

This is what we're here for. This is what we're here for. This is where the values really play. Is that the taco trucks, okay? The taco trucks. I mean, there's some truth to this, as you'll see, I think. It was years ago with an old girlfriend of mine at the time, and we went to this taco truck we'd go to all that.

It wasn't too far from where we were living. And go to this taco truck. We order our food. We go sit down at the picnic table. Well, there's a guy sitting down at this picnic table already. There's only one picnic table. He sat down next to him. He strikes up a little bit of just small talk with us.

It becomes clear very quickly that he's not, he has some mental disabilities. Yeah. Okay. And he's not all there. Really nice guy. He's being really sweet, though. Eventually, he asked us, he's like, hey, I just spent all my money at the taco truck and I'm trying to catch a bus. You guys got any money for bus fare. We're like, oh, sorry, man, we're out of cash. We don't have any cash. Apologies, you know. Didn't think anything of it. A few minutes later, he gets up. There's

another guy ordering at the taco truck. This guy gets up and goes up to the window and he reaches into the tip jar. I think what happened was he tipped. He realized they didn't have any money. He went to go get his tip back so he could get on the bus. That's what we're what I think, that's what I saw. From my point of view, that's what happened. But the guy ordering just saw him reach into the tip jar and he lost it on this guy. Just lost it. Just started screaming at him, cursing at him, you know. And obviously, he hadn't interacted with him at all to that point. So he didn't know he was mentally disabled in some way. And so I went up there to try to diffuse the situation, told the guy's like, hey, buddy, I think you just need to leave. You know,

we'll get you some money somewhere else or whatever. Then the other guy pulled some money out of his pocket and threw it in his face, like pulled a couple bills. Wow. And I lost it right there, okay? That's when I lost it. And then my girlfriend's sitting over here like, don't. She's like, Drew, sit down. Just stop, okay?

And me and this guy get into a shouting match, the guy who threw the money at this other guy, me and him get into a shouting match. I call him an asshole. He calls me a lot of different names. We're going back and forth. He's getting physically threatening with me. I'm like, oh, this is going to happen. Here we go.

Oh, boy. And so it was we de-escalated eventually. He and I shook hands. We parted ways. I've thought a lot about that since then. This was years ago, but I've thought a lot about that since then. And it really did play out with these values and actually the ones that Jonathan Haidt played out here, right? Fairness, right?

He was violating my sense of care and harm. He was like I had an interaction with this guy. I realized he was mentally disabled and probably needed a little extra, you know, leeway. Yeah. He didn't see that, obviously. What he saw was the cheating, the unfairness and the cheating going on. That really set him off. And then my girlfriend sitting back here, she was more like, I need peace and common order right now.

She came from a very hectic background and stuff like that. So she really valued more order in her life. And so all of these values were competing at this. And it all came to a head. And none of us were necessarily wrong. We were just all operating on different values at that point because of what had happened in our perspective, right? I can look at it now from a more detached point of view, but at the time, I mean, it was

a very emotionally charged situation, obviously. Yeah. And it was because of these value triggers, these innate kind of foundations that height outlined here, they've been violated for each one of us in that situation. And I don't know. I just thought it was interesting. But now I can look back at a detachment like, oh, okay, this guy wasn't actually an asshole.

Yeah. He just saw that somebody was cheating the system and he didn't like cheaters. Like, okay, that makes sense to me. He didn't see that I had already seen this guy. He had probably needed a little extra care and a little extra tending to. And he violated that when I saw him treating him poorly. And then my girlfriend was like, okay, this is just stupid, basically. And she was probably right, honestly.

Yeah, your girlfriend was the wise one. Yeah. So I don't know. That to me, that is kind of a microcosmope I think of what goes on all the time. People get into fights or they get into arguments and they think they're so right because one of their values has been violated or triggered in some way, and they don't see that somebody else's has also been at the same time. So I don't know. I just thought that was kind of interesting.

You know, Plato called this the allegory of the taco truck. He did. Yeah, that's true. He's got the allegory of the taco truck. Yeah, that was in the cut chapter of the Republic. That's actually what the chariot was. It was actually a taco truck. He's the writer in the taco truck.

Yeah. New book idea. The writer and the taco truck. The allegory of the taco truck. That's my taco truck. I thought you were going to say, and this was all a metaphor for Trump administration 2.0. Well, I mean, you could go there. Yeah.

Yeah. All the conspiracy bros are going to be dissecting that story for the next three months on Twitter. Yeah, basically. Drew, I've come to a realization. Okay. The blazer was a bad idea. Yeah, because we're an hour three or four here and... I'm sweating like a fucking pig.

Yeah. What I've discovered is that my value for professionalism is not very high on my heart. Okay. Less than luck. You won't change your behavior going forward now. I definitely value my own comfort. That's good. And lack of sweatiness a little bit more.

You could shed it if you want to. I think that's okay if you're going to do. Okay. Keep it glassy. How are we going to be credible if neither of us is wearing a blazing? I'm not going to help your causes at all. That's for sure. What are we talking about, Mark?

What are we at now? Where are we going to? So, okay, we've talked quite a bit about what are our values? What do they do? Why are they important? Where do they come from? It's finally time to get into the application. Like, how do we figure out what our values are?

how do we change our values and how can we adapt to our values moving forward? So from here on out, we're getting into the nuts and bolts, the takeaways, the applications, starting with, actually determining your core values.

Yeah, figuring them out. Yeah. Because it's very ambiguous and unclear. And, you know, we've, up to this point, we've had a ton of these conversations. We've had a bunch of little anecdotes and like, oh, yeah, when I was young, I used to feel this way.

And it's really hard to get actual clarity on like, what are your values, roughly what order do they come in? And so I think it's probably useful to kind of go through a few exercises to help people clarify doing that. And I should mention, too, that like, we're going to go through a few exercises here, but we have a full 30-day program based around this episode of values that help people break down their values, discover their values, act on their values, change their values. It's in the momentum community. So if people are interested in that, they can get help with this. They can learn

to apply all these things. They can get a bunch of useful exercises and journaling prompts and accountability. So just go to find momentum.com slash values. You can find more info there. We're going to start with something called the Desert Island Visualization. One of the things that I find is really clarifying for people is that like a lot of people, you know, we talked earlier about how there's like a murky line between what our values are and what the people's values around us are. And how do we know that we're actually doing something for ourselves versus just doing something to please other people? And so I think one of the one of the kind of the initial useful exercises is simply practicing a thought experiment of like removing those social

pressures. So the simple version of this is that imagine you're on a desert island. And the desert island is absolutely abundant. So it's everything you could ever want, materially is there, any like video games you enjoy or hobbies you might have or different foods that you might want. Like, hypothetically, you are capable of doing anything on this island that you can do off of the island. Okay. But you're alone on the island.

And so the question is, what do you spend your time doing? Oh. Are you reading? Are you watching TV? Are you painting? Are you making music? Are you learning a new skill? Are you studying a language?

Are you like, what are you doing? Yeah. Right? What would you do? When you said reading, I was like, oh, I'd definitely bring a bunch of books because I just, I love that. I think I would, I still think I would work out. I actually think I would. Even though I think I started working out to look good for other people, but I still

think I would because I feel so good about it. Yeah. So I think I would definitely still work on my health because even if you're alone, there's a lot of value with that. Yeah. And yeah, I would explore all sorts of creative stuff too, just anything. and everything. If nothing mattered, if nobody, there was no social pressure around to judge my work or anything like that, I think I would go nuts with that, yeah, in an ideal world. Those are the top of mind for me anyway. What comes to mind for you first? It's funny because I don't think my life

would be that different. Oh. Oh, Mark. Wow. That's a total, yeah, that's a huge flex. I should say that in a lot of these exercises, that is kind of the ideal response. Right, right. Yeah. Because it's like if I was alone on a desert island, I would probably spend most of my time reading and writing and playing video games, which is basically what I spend my time doing now. So running on the beach, which I also do now.

So that's the goal. That's the goal is that you, if there is a large discrepancy, if like all the things you would do on the island have nothing to do with what you're doing in your day-to-day life, that's a sign. Okay. That's a sign that a lot of what you're prioritizing in your life are not, actually your values. It's the values of the people around you.

Okay. Another useful exercise is to imagine your funeral. This is almost kind of the opposite of the desert island exercise because this is, this kind of reintroduces the social pressure, but it's also asking yourself, what do you want to be known to other people for? It removes you from it. It removes yourself from it. So the second exercise is imagine yourself at your funeral and what do you wish people would say for your eulogy? what do you wish that people would say about you if you died?

Yeah. Mine is, I hope they say he gave more than he took. That's, I think I've heard that someone. That sounds like a Gary V thing or something. I don't know. But that really rings true to me. I hope everybody says, yeah, he gave more than he took. That's like the core of benevolence.

Yeah, yeah. Like all the way through. That was an easy one for me. Like that one came to me right away. And I was like, okay, I hope I'm living that out too. And I feel like I am. So there again, I think I'm in alignment with. that, which is good. It's funny. I'm trying to think. I'm actually kind of having a hard time

with this. Yeah. I was about to make a joke of like, I don't have friends or I don't like people. Mark didn't like anyone. Yeah, I don't want you at my funeral. Don't come. You're not invited. Everyone go home. I think what I would want people to say is that that I was authentic and I stood up for what I believed in and ultimately I was a net positive force in the world, right? That I gave a shit, essentially. Right.

So what's that underlying value then, like a contribution or a... I think there's some benevolence. I think there's some benevolence in there. Authenticity's definitely, that's kind of the first thing that came to mind. A little bit of self-directed. You know, it's like I did it my way.

Right. Right. Like, I wasn't afraid to like strike out on my own past. and try things differently. That feels important to me. And then, yeah, the contribution feels important as well, like, you know, leaving some sort of legacy or... So, okay, what if somebody has the answer to that?

I think I'm borrowing from something you wrote one time, like he fucked like a Wildebeest and... Had the best golf swing I've ever seen. Yeah, right. Got the word all of them two every time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, unless you're Tiger Woods. I doubt that's realistic.

So that's a mainstay of the social media account. It goes, nobody's going to stand up at your funeral and say he fucked like a Wilder Beast and had the best golf swing I've ever seen. I think the point there is that ultimately when you're dead, you don't really care about impressing people anymore. So what's the value you're really leaving behind? Like what's the statement you're leaving behind? What's the legacy you're leaving behind? I think it's a useful thing to think about. I do think ultimately the things we care about, they should be greater than ourselves in some sense.

Like I think our highest values, like the top of the pyramid, are really things that we should put above ourselves. Yeah, right. Like there's the, that everything we know from the philosophy and psychology kind of states that like that, that is the optimal arrangement is that the self is high on the pyramid, but it's not at the top. Right, right. Yeah, so I think if you are like, if for whatever reason, I don't think very many people would think that. Like, oh, this is what I want people to say, you know, I fucked like a will to be. the best golf swinger ever. If those kinds of things are coming to mind, maybe reevaluate that a little bit.

Yeah. It's a sign that you're looking for a lot of validation. Yeah. Yeah. What's another one? This one was very clarifying for me. Look to frustration in your life as clues to your values as well. What sets you off?

What what what what what's your pet peeve that you have when it comes up over and over and over again? Like for me it was just I see incompetence in the world and it just oh it drives me fucking insane right this goes back to my mastery like I want environmental mastery or competence in the work you do. I like I value competent people. I value competence in myself. I expect that in myself and the people around me and when I don't get it when it's around me when incompetence is in my environment. Oh, it just it drives me insane. Yeah. But it was like. When I thought of this exercise, like that one went straight to it. I was like, yes, that one. You know what the first thing it came to my mind is? It's actually kind of funny. This is similar to this is like my version of the allegory of the taco truck. Okay.

I hate line cutters. Oh, yes. That's another thing. We get it right in the United States. Oh, my God. Everywhere else. Come on, you guys. Like literally if you, the, like, if you added up every time I've almost gotten in a fist fight,

Yeah. Like 80% of them are because somebody cut in line. Yeah. I fucking hate it, especially when you're at like a concert or something and you're like waiting in line for an hour and somebody just walks right in front of you. Lose my shit. Absolutely lose my shit. I'm always that guy who's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Back.

Yeah. Back. You back. Go. Back. It's the fairness, right? Yeah. Absolutely comes down.

And fairness is a huge thing for me. Fairness and fairness, justice, integrity is like a big thing for me. But it's, I do think for me, it's fairness is more, it's less about equality and it's more about integrity. Yeah. Like integrity, honesty and integrity, like huge things for me. The rest of us stood in line, you have to too.

Exactly. That's how it works. Exactly. And like the way this plays out in my career is that like I just, I mean, as you know, there's a lot of bullshit in this industry. There's a lot of shortcuts. There's a lot of things you can say to, to get some audience or get some money,

like a bunch of, you know, little hacks and stuff. Right. Shortcuts, yeah. I can't do it. Yeah. I fucking, I can't do it because it's, it's, if it's not, if I don't honestly believe it's helpful to people, like, I just can't bring myself to say it. So that's a huge one for me.

Okay. Yeah. It's no taco truck, but it's the best I got. What else? Okay. Ranking and prioritizing. if you would just put two values up that you're trying to decide between. I like this.

This is like, yeah, yeah, what's that movie, Sophie's Choice? You know, where it's like... I don't think I've seen that movie. Oh, it's, I think it's about a mother who has to choose between two of her kids. Like one, she has to decide which of her two kids dies. Okay. Sounds great. I should really check that movie out.

It's just a bundle of fun. Take the whole family. Yeah. So I kind of imagine like a Sophie's choice arrangement here with like you put two values, you know, maybe in the gallows and like put a noose around their head. Getting a little sick here. But and then you have to like pick one, right? So it's like you have to live the rest. So let's go with like honesty and competency.

Okay. So like honesty and competence. Oh yeah. Gun to your head. You have to live the rest of your life without one of them. Which one do you pick? I'm going with honesty. That was a gut reaction.

You'd get rid of honesty. No, no, no, no. I would choose it. I would choose it. Yeah, I would get rid of competency, I think. And it would drive me insane. Yes. And I would hate it.

But I would rather live in an honest world with a bunch of incompetent morons than like a bunch of lying assholes who are highly competent. Yes. I totally, you know what I just did there? I just made all that up after the fact, too. Yeah. I did the whole, this is the whole John Hight thing, right? Yeah. That was the writer.

Your writer was justifying your elephant. My elephant there. My gut reaction was honesty and then I made up a reason for why. Yeah. I'm with you though. And actually I think you could actually argue that dishonest competency is like...

Oh, that's... It's the definition of evil. It's malignant. Yeah. Right. Right. Like, that is... That's like Darth Vader, right?

Like, that's a... Yeah, yeah. Of course, in the real world, we don't have to make those choices, luckily. I mean, sometimes maybe we do. Or do we. We could be in the Matrix once again. I mean, have you seen the recent elections?

Yeah. Good point. Fair point. Typically, we don't have to choose between those. But yeah. Yeah. No, it is an interesting thought experiment of, I mean, you can get yourself in some really ugly situations, right?

Like, if you think about, I don't know, like a community versus career achievement, right? Gun your head, you can only have one. Which one do you take? I would probably take career achievement, which is not. the quote unquote yeah correct answer but if I'm being honest that's what I would take who that's a tough one for me I don't know if I don't know I might lean towards more community on that one just because well I'm just I'm making up another I mean I think it's a thing you can't think too much about I think you're right that

it's like the gut reaction it's the gut reaction it's like the first thing that just seems right you just go with it because that is ultimately like these values exist at a very deep emotional level this brings up a question I wanted to ask in this section, too, was how much, how, how dispositional do you think values are versus aspirational, right? Because I think a lot of these, like, when you, when I came down to it and when I was going through, like, okay, really decide my values. And I do this every couple of years, like what am I valuing right now and this and that? It's a gut thing. It seems like such a gut thing to me. But I don't know how much of that is like, you know, there probably is some mix of genetics

and culture and socializing and all of that. How much? How much of these are dispositional versus aspirational? And we'll get to the change part, I guess, changing of value too. But can you aspire to change a value? I don't know. I think you can? Yeah. You think that, I mean, there's some personality component to it, though, right?

There is. Because, like, for instance, my mom and my sister were both social workers. And they're, like, both of them, like, business is, thinking about business kind of drives them nuts. They're just like, oh, whatever, you know? And they're just, both of them have hearts of gold. And social work makes sense for them. Somebody who's like more achievement based

that was going to look at them like, why would you be a social worker? That's insane. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Well, there's probably a very dispositional factor that went into that. There is. So I think you can be aspirational at the margins.

Right. I don't think you can wholesale. So let's use the example. I think achievement and community in my life is like a really good example of this, right? So I, even if I bullshit you and said community here, because that's the thing that you're supposed to say and, you know, whatever. it does not take a rocket scientist to look at my life over the last 10 years and be like, clearly you value achievement more because you've like just worked like an insane person.

You designed your life around it. Yeah. Right. And like foregone community and connection repeatedly through your choices. That's part of it. But that being said, I can look at my life. Like understanding what everything I know about psychology and well-being and human flourishing and whatnot.

It's very clear to me that it's like, yeah, I could use more community in my life. Like that would make me a more balanced, better functional person if I like maybe de-indexed on achievement, just a little. Like maybe bring the volume knob down from 10 to a 9 and then dial the community up from like a 4 to a 6. Okay. Like if that, if I can manage that trade-off, that's probably overall a beneficial trade-off in my life. But it's hard, right? So I would say in that sense, a value can be aspirational, but I don't think you can go from like, I'm trying to think of something like I genuinely just don't fucking care. So like formality or propriety, like we're making the jokes about blazers and stuff, right?

Like, if there's anything I just genuinely do give zero fucks about. It is, it is like formality, like impropriety, social, like social, like, I do care about social norms, but like, you know, stuff like you're, you know, when you go to this sort of event, you're supposed to wear your tuxedo like this and always touch this fork first. Like, I don't fucking care. Don't care. Yeah. Never will. I'm with you on that, too. I don't care who's princess you are.

I'm going to eat with my hands. I'm from Texas, I'm going to eat with my hands. I don't care. So I don't think I can aspire to start carrying about that. Ultimately, if I do aspire to start caring about that, it's probably because it's becoming an instrumental value in something else. I'll give you an example about that. So we were joking about Tiger Woods earlier.

Yeah. I almost had the chance. I had the chance to play golf with Tiger Woods. Oh, okay. And I didn't. Like, unintentionally, I didn't. The hilarious part about this is that I hate golf. Okay.

I'm just going to say. So the story behind this, I was doing Will Smith's book, and Will is a good friend of Tigers, and Will loves golf. He's like, fucking obsessed with golf. And I was hanging out with him in Miami, and we were like having dinner or whatever. And Will just like very casually was like, hey, you want to play golf tomorrow? And I was like, no, I don't really play. He's like, oh, okay, cool. and then like Will's manager came over

and he's like, hey man, I think you should go to golf with him tomorrow. And I was like, dude, I don't play. I'm going to be and like I know enough about golf to know that if you don't play golf, you're going to embarrass yourself. And you are going to slow everybody down. Like you just, you drag the whole game. Right. Like it just, it makes everybody miserable.

And so I was like, no, no, no. I mean, like, it's not going to go well. And he was like, he looked at me. He was like, you should really go to this golf game. And I was like, I'm tired. I don't know. I was like,

this is kind of weird. There's a lot of pressure. I was like, no, no, I'll just catch up with him after. Anyway, come to find out,

the golf game was with Tiger. Okay. And the next day I found, like, I saw Will and he like comes in. He's like, man, just had a great golf game.

Man, we were playing with Tiger Woods. You should have come out. I was just like, what the fuck? What the actual fuck? And so I went through this minute phase in my life where

I had this realization, which is like, okay, really rich and successful people love golf. And I just, I could have, I just passed up on like four hours of intimate FaceTime with Tiger Woods and Will Smith that if I just knew how to swing a fucking golf club, I would have had that. Right. And then I started thinking, I'm like, how many other people are there in the world that if I knew how to swing a golf club, I could have that sort of FaceTime and have that act. And man, like, you're just out in this golf course by yourselves and like nothing else to do. And so you're just chatting and like you get to know each other and like you really build a relationship and all this stuff. And I'm like, wow, knowing how to play golf. And like now I get it.

Now I get why all those fucking corporate douchebags and CEOs and stuff play golf all the time. Because it's like the best networking activity there is, period. So I was like, okay, I got to pick up golf. And so I went through this phase for like four months where I'm like, I got to learn golf. I got to like start liking golf. And so I went to a driving range with a friend. I was fucking terrible. And then I went to another friend's bachelor party and we played golf with a bunch of guys.

I got through like 10 holes and I was like, I hate my life. I want to go home. And then I went home, I visited my parents. My dad's obsessed with golf. So I was like, I told my dad, I'm like, you got to take me out, play golf with you. Like, teach me how to play this game. Teach me how I like this thing. Anyway, long story short, after like a few months of this, I'm like, I fucking hate this game.

Like what? There's absolutely nothing redeeming about this for me. There's nothing I like about it. I'm absolutely terrible at it. And I realize I'm like, what am I doing? Like, this is not, I don't actually value this game. Yeah. I value what this game gets me.

This is my achievement value at work, right? Like, the only reason I care about this is because I think it's going to like get me an end with people that I might want to have an end with. I'm like, that's stupid. Like, there's so many better ways to meet people or like having in somebody, right? Instead of like trying to make me. make yourself play a game that you actually hate playing. So anyway, that's my golf career. Nobody will be standing up at my funeral and talking about my golf swing.

Your golf swing for sure. Yeah. I, fuck, I hate golf, too. So I don't know. I got nothing to add there because I've tried as well. Yeah. Yeah. Any other fun exercises to discover values?

No, there, you know, there's a lot of these. You can kind of even come up with it on your own. There's also you can go out and you can take these online tests for the values. We kind of already mentioned that a little bit. You can do that. That's fine. Schwartz Value Survey. Yeah.

And then I believe there's another one. I think it's called the PVQ. There's tons. There's a bunch of them. There's a bunch of them. I found these exercises to be way more valuable for me, though, because it gets a little too analytical when you start, okay, what's my score on this values test and this and that? And it's like, oh, these are real examples from my life that I immediately and emotionally

connect with. Like I was saying, you have these like immediate reactions when you do these thought experiments. And those are way more clarifying than any test. Yeah. Because you get these and you're like, you're like 42 on this and 33 on this. And I'm just like, what does that even mean? It can be super abstract. I mean, I do think I like these thought experiments better and kind of giving yourself time to debrief them a little bit.

So since this is the first episode, I'm going to explain something really quickly, which is these are very long episodes. And there's a lot of content in them. And there's a lot of takeaways. And as we were putting these together, we kind of realized this is potentially a little bit overwhelming for the listener. and it would be nice if we could package everything that we're talking about in each episode and break it down into like daily chunks or weekly chunks and then just give the listener progression system of like how to move through all this stuff. So it's like if you, let's say you've decided that values is a huge issue in your life

and you really need to get this stuff figured out and you would love to spend, say, the next three weeks like just 15, 20 minutes a day working on this part of your life and really trying to get it solved once and for all. So we've created that track for people. And what we're doing is we're doing this for every single episode and we're putting everything in a community so that people can do it together and that people can keep each other accountable. So the people who are, if you want to work on your values, you can connect with the thousands of other listeners who also want to work on their values and are also going through these exercises and are also like coming with all sorts of questions and, you know, stumbling through things and want to ask me

something or whatever. And we're putting this together in a community and we're calling that community momentum. And the idea behind momentum is that real life change, it doesn't happen in a weekend, it doesn't happen in an epiphany, it doesn't happen, you know, because like some guru, like, told you to meditate for 10 minutes or something. Real change happens slowly and gradually over a long period of time. It compounds. It's, it is a bunch of small actions that slowly compound over the course of multiple months or even years. And so the community is built around that concept. It's built around giving people momentum, giving people little bite-sized things to work on every

single day to implement all the stuff that they're learning on the podcast and then hold each other accountable, build relationships, meet like-minded people, et cetera, et cetera. So if you are interested in that, you can go to find momentum.com slash values. that's where you'll find the values track. We have dozens of prompts and exercises, similar to the ones that Drew and I just went through, as well as plenty of supplementary content there. And not only will you be able to do this month's podcast episode

and work on all the stuff that Drew and I are talking about today, but you'll be able to do it every single month with every episode. So go to find momentum.com slash values. So before we move on, I actually, I'd like to return to the, the value hierarchy idea a little bit and dig into it a little bit more. We've referenced it throughout the episode at this point. And I think it's one of those concepts that people intuitively understand, like you hear that like, yeah, okay, we all kind of prioritize our values

and there's like a ladder, right? There's like my top value and there's values underneath it. But I think it's worth considering a little bit more deeply what the significance of it is. I also think this is really where the central message of subtle art comes in because if you think about the whole concept of not giving a fuck, like the point that I make in the first chapter of that book is that there's no such thing as not giving a fuck. Really all there is is prioritizing things that deserve to be prioritized above the things that don't deserve to be prioritized. Like generally when people are like, wow, I really I really wish I didn't give a fuck about this. What they're saying is I wish I didn't care about this as much as I do. Right. Like, like, you're always going to care about what other people think of you. You're always going to care about obnoxious people hating on you on the internet. You're always going to care about, I don't know, like whether your shoes are cool or not. It's a very human thing. That's not going to go away. What does change or what does go away is your prioritization of that. And if it's not properly prioritized on your value hierarchy, if your highest value is something that is actually very superficial and unimportant, then you're going to suffer pretty intensely because of it.

So really the value hierarchy is kind of the basis of the not give a fuck framework. And in the book, you know, I really tried to kind of outline what I saw as good values. You know, I said like you should value things that are ultimately within your control that are not tenuous or short term or superficial that you should really focus on like long term abstract principles. But it's one thing to just say that. it's another thing to actually do it. And I do think to me the most important, maybe the most important message of my career that I really stand by is this idea of choosing your struggle. Because I think one thing we haven't really discussed yet is that generally speaking,

when people think about what's important to them and what they want in their life, you're always thinking in terms of what you gain. You're never thinking in terms of what you give up. And ultimately, I think that is actually what defines, what, where something is on your value hierarchy. Like, the thing at the top of your value hierarchy is not at the top because it's the thing you want the most. It's the thing that you're willing to give up everything else for.

And if you want to nudge something further up your prioritization, further up your value hierarchy, the way to nudge it up higher is not by wanting it more. It's by giving up more in the process. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, it does. And it's also, no, matter, there's a cost to all of this, right? Right. It's the trade-off. It's the trade-offs.

And it's what you are, uh, whatever pain you're going through now, it's because of whatever value you have been prioritizing. Exactly. Right. And you might not be aware of that. You're like, why am I, why am I suffering this way? I don't get it. I don't understand it. It's because of whatever you're choosing to value. So if you value, uh, you know, autonomy over, uh, comfort, well, get ready for some instability. Yeah. And like, you're like, why is my life so crazy. Well, because you value autonomy and freedom and less structure. You refuse to compromise any of your own impulses. So I love this idea that real value change actually comes from what you're willing to give up. And I think it's not a coincidence that,

generally speaking, the largest changes in people's lives occur not after a euphoric or great moment, but actually after either trauma or tragedy. We see this over and over again. So I'm I'm curious, Drew, like, what is it about these intense negative events in our lives that actually do open us up so much to change? Yeah. Yeah, there's this whole field in psychology, this whole theory around it called post-traumatic growth theory. It's been around for a few decades now. There's lots of research backing it up. Essentially, what the research finds is that somewhere between like 80 and 90% of people, after they experience some sort of traumatic event, a loss in their lives,

And it can be big T trauma, I can be little T trauma even too. After they experience these traumatic events, somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of people report experiencing at least one positive change in their life. Now, this is not to romanticize trauma at all. Okay, this is not, you don't need trauma to change, okay? And you should not seek out trauma. Do not seek out trauma. Trust me, life will come and give you some trauma. It will deliver on that promise for sure.

Yeah. That said, trauma is incredible. common too. I think that's another point to drive home is that we all experience some degree of trauma. Some people get a worse than others, yes, and I want to acknowledge that, absolutely, but it's an inevitable part of life. And the wild thing about humans is not only can we bounce back from trauma, not only can we endure these traumas, but we actually can thrive and grow after these traumas. That's a very common thing, too. So not only is the trauma itself common, but growing from that trauma is an incredibly common thing.

There's five areas, five domains that researchers have identified for areas of growth that people experience after a trauma. You have improved relationships with others, discovering new possibilities in life, increased personal strength, a greater appreciation of life, and spiritual or existential development. You can see already those are like value-laden domains of life, right? Relationships and new possibilities and personal strength. All of these are very, very value-laden areas.

Yeah. And what happens, what they think happens, there's this kind of process that people go through. You experience a trauma. And there's all these factors. It depends on your personality. It depends on your coping strategies. It depends on your social network around you. Right.

But what happens generally is you have this traumatic event and it shakes up your worldview in some way or another. Think of like an earthquake that happens or the fires in Los Angeles. Yeah. Like something like that happens. Everybody kind of has this sense. of, oh, something's different. Something has changed. What I believed before no longer applies.

Yeah. And so it forces you into this space of re-evaluating priorities in your life. You ruminate on the event, trying to figure it out, trying to make sense of it. Our brains are just trying to make sense of the world all the time. So it's trying to make sense of this trauma. And what happens through that, you go out to your social network. You start talking to people. You engage.

You try to come up with a new worldview, basically. And through that, your values change. Or at least they're reprioritized. Yeah. Yeah. The way I've always liked to think about this is that a trauma, a traumatic event or a tragic event, it is part of what makes it so painful is the experience of a value failing. Yes. It's like you used to really care about this thing or you used to really believe this thing was true about yourself or the world.

And suddenly that belief or that value for that value. fails you catastrophically. And it leaves this like void. Right. It leaves a vacuum that needs to be filled inside you with some other value or some other belief. And that process of like finding the new value or finding a new belief, it's difficult and uncomfortable.

But ultimately that vacuum is the opportunity for change and growth. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like a classic example is, you know, someone gets a terminal illness cancer or something like that at some point in their life. And all of a sudden they're thrown at, why am I spending so much time at work? Why am I so obsessed with status? Why am I so obsessed with

validation from other people when I have my family right here that I've been neglecting? Or something along those lines, right? A lower value for a higher value again. It puts that into stark contrast for you. Now, again, I want to go back and just reiterate that you might have these positive changes or these value changes that are in the right direction right alongside all the bad things about trying to. They happen simultaneously. So again, not romanticizing it or saying there's only good things that will come out of this. That's not what I mean at all. It's one of those situations where you have to hold the positive and negative in your mind at the same time.

Like I remember seeing a survey data that found that like cancer survivors, something like 70 or 80% of them reported feeling more gratitude and in satisfaction with their lives in general after surviving the cancer. And it's funny because I think the stupidest way to interpret that data is be like, oh, we should all go get cancer now. Right. Yeah. It's like, no, no, no, you still don't want cancer. Right. Right. But if you do get cancer and you manage and you're fortunate enough to survive, chances are you're

actually going to develop a lot of gratitude and satisfaction for the people and things in your life. What we're talking about is value change, though. And it's like it's undeniable that some traumatic events can change your values. Now, it depends, again, like on some personality traits that you have, your coping strategies. The event itself, if it's like really horrible, then it's less likely actually to have more positive effects than not. So there's all sorts of factors that go into that. But there are some personality traits.

People are generally optimistic over pessimistic will experience this more. Being open to new experiences too. That helps your coping styles like actively. There's this thing in PTG in post-traumatic growth called active rumination. So, you know, a traumatic event happens and it's just natural for you to ruminate on it. Right, right. If you actively engage in that rumination, though, like the rumination is going to happen. If you actively engage in kind of cognitive reappraisal of it, it's like, okay, this happened.

What value is it calling into question in my life? Yeah. How can I respond to this in a positive way? All of those sorts of things will help increase the likelihood of some sort of growth. I think one of the biggest ones, and this comes up over and over again in all the studies I've read on post-traumatic growth, which is your social group. And which fits into the larger culture as well, though. So if you are in a culture that's a little bit more,

they're not open to the reinterpretation of the trauma or they don't want to hear, you know, it's more of a closed off, keep that to yourself. Yeah, or they're not supportive. Not supportive. Obviously, that's not going to help. But the social group in general has been shown to be one of the key factors in post-traumatic growth.

And to be clear, not just social, I mean, it could be family partners. like support network relationships. Absolutely. Yeah. Quality relationship. Yeah. Yeah. You remember how like hipsters

would always brag about how like their favorite band was one you never heard of? Right. Until you heard of them yet. Yeah. So my favorite psychologist might be the psychologist nobody's ever heard of. This is my hipster psychology team.

So I'm a huge fan. There was a guy named the Casimir de Browski. Oh. Which you know. I know because of you. Because I've written about them multiple times. Yeah. I've written about them multiple times.

But huge fan of Kazimir de Browski. So nobody, it's actually really fascinating. I love this dichotomy that happened during the Cold War. So Cold War happens. And Western psychology pretty quickly by like the 1960s is really focusing on self-esteem and happiness and positive effect. Self-actualization. And it's like everything's just like, let's be great. Like how do we, how do we be as happy and what?

wonderful and great as possible. And meanwhile, in Eastern Europe, Kazimir Dabrowski, he was Polish, I believe he was working out of Warsaw. They were in, he was working in the aftermath of not only World War II, but the Holocaust and also working under Soviet occupation. And so what did he decide to study and work on? Tragedy. Yeah. And the effects of tragedy. And to my knowledge, he was actually the first researcher to actually find the case. So he actually studied Holocaust survivors and Polish World War II veterans. To my knowledge, he was the first one to find this idea of post-traumatic growth. Because what he started to notice was that, you know, obviously in the immediate aftermath of the war in the Holocaust,

people were traumatized, they were despondent, they were, there was despair, they like didn't know where they're going to get their next meal. Like a lot of people didn't have a place to live. But as he kept following up with people, pretty soon within a few years, he noticed something really strange, which is that a significant percentage of the survivors started to say that they had actually become better people. And they would describe themselves pre-war as being ungrateful, self-centered, untrustworthy, not liking themselves, not ambitious. and then after the war, they had actually felt like they really grew as a person. They had become very grateful for the people in their life, and they really valued their relationships with people, and they actually wanted to work hard and maximize their potential.

And so, Nebraska actually called this positive disintegration. And he meant it in actually like a very literal term, because he meant disintegration is in like the disintegration of the ego. he saw trauma and tragedy as like a way of your ego literally being destroyed. Like all the things that you thought were true about yourself and true about the world become violated. They've like been proven utterly and completely wrong. And that ego destruction is like causes an extremely stressful and emotional response in people. But if the ego is destroyed and that vacuum is then filled with more positive things,

things, if the lessons that the person takes from it are more adaptive and more psychologically healthy, then that becomes a positive disintegration. And the fascinating thing about Debrowski is that he did all of this work in the 1950s, and then it just sat behind the Iron Curtain for like 50 years. Right. And nobody knew about it. And it wasn't until like some PhD students in Canada came across him. revital, translated his work,

revitalized it, and then published some of his work in the early 2000s. And then it's like, that's the only reason we even know any of this exists. But it's like, you know, Dabrowski was,

you know, was my favorite band that you've never heard of. And I knew him before he was cool. And you're welcome. You're so cool. You're the coolest nerd, Mark. That's all I,

Drew, this is all I've ever wanted to hear from you. All this podcast, all the studio, that's all I ever wanted to be here. I'm the coolest nerd. All right. I have a story in my life about death and tragedy that has been, ultimately been a very positive influence. I'm curious if you have any story like that. Yeah, well, I'm not as dramatic as the one you had, definitely.

But there's been some, I've recently, I think my family has become more, central to my value system because of a few things around that. Several years ago, and I've talked about this before, I guess, but several years ago, my uncle passed away, and I was pretty close with him. He didn't have any kids and he treated all of his nieces and nephews, kind of like his extended children, basically, you know, extended family of children. He was just a really good, generous guy, was somebody you really look up to. I was actually the one who ended up calling the ambulance for him, and the next day he passed

away in the hospital. And that was kind of a wake-up call. for me around like, oh, I haven't, like, I hadn't spent a lot of time with him the previous couple of years, even though he was like a big part of raising me and a big part of my life. And he's helped a lot of other people in my family and a lot of other people in his community as well. And to me, I was just like, oh, that brought into very stark contrast, like the way I was living.

I always said, yeah, I value my family. And yes, you know, whatever. But it wasn't up until that point. I was like, oh, we're all living on borrowed time a little bit. And I need, if I'm going to say that I value family, I need to start acting like it. So that was, that was one for me anyway that was, you know, that's not a huge, like to me, it's not a huge trauma per se to my, my well-being necessarily, but it did definitely shake things up.

So that's, yeah. I feel like death in general just, it will. It's a slap in the face. Yeah. It's like, dude, this shit is precious and scarce. and you have been taking it for granted. And I almost feel like it's almost impossible as a human to not take people for granted to a certain extent.

It's very hard to remind yourself. This is why the Stoics were all about momental mori. You have to actively try to remind yourself about your own death and the death of family members that are impending to stoke that gratitude. Yeah, right? Yeah.

Yeah, because we're so good at avoiding it. Yeah. Yeah. What was yours then? Well, it's in the book. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's in the book, and I've talked about it quite a few times.

So I'll go over it briefly. But it's, you know, for people who are curious, it's the last chapter of subtle art. But when I was 19, a good friend of mine drowned at a party, a lake party. And you were there. I was there. And it was just like utterly, honestly, I think I just went in the shock. Yeah. When you're 19 and something like that happens.

What that's the only reaction. I think I spent about 24 hours in shock. And to this day, kind of the deepest, the next couple months with like kind of the deepest depression that I've ever been in. And, uh, but it's wild, man. Like I, that rumination too, like I just remember my brain could not get off of it. Like it kept trying to make sense of it. And that's the thing about death is like there's no way to make sense of it.

Right. It's just, right. There's no. You try, you keep trying to find like deeper meaning or reasons or purpose or like. like, could I have done this or could this person have done that? Or like, you know, why did they deserve it? And there's no answer to any of it. Like, it's all just an open loop that never shuts.

But the end effect of that, I eventually kind of came out of that funk. And it was a real wake-up call, especially, you know, when you're that young. I mean, first of all, I was, at 19, I was totally an entitled twat. I, like, took no responsibility for anything in my life. I smoked pot all the time. I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was, a basically a failed music student and didn't really care. Sounds like every 19 year old male I know.

Yeah, go on. But no, it was a wake-up call. It really kind of, it was a, it was a positive disintegration. Like it was a shock treatment. It was like a dude, this could end at any moment. And like, what the fuck are you doing? Like this is, you were literally wasting your life. And I was smart enough too to understand that I was so young and that my choices then were

going to compound throughout my life, right? So it was, I pretty quickly noticed that, you know, correcting my trajectory, every year that I corrected my trajectory sooner was going to have like an outsized effect on everything else. So it really changed my attitude towards a lot of things. I quit smoking pot. I started studying for my classes. I got it dropped out of music school and like went to a real university and started

taking everything seriously basically taking myself seriously taking life seriously and it's you know it's still a very sad experience in my life and obviously like I don't recommend it but I can honestly say it's like one of the single most positive instigators of change in my entire life right like it is the that single experience was worth reading 300 books and attending 20 seminars. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. Again, I don't recommend it. Yeah. No, no. An interesting little fact that I found in the research as well that I'll tack on here. There's some, there's cultural influences. We've touched on a little bit already. But what you find in more individualistic cultures like the United States, Western Europe,

you would typically find, so the five areas I listed before, right? You will typically find that people in those cultures, when they experience a traumatic event, will end up re-evaluating and revaluing things that are more achievement-focused, kind of individual-focused, whereas in more collectivist cultures, they tend to value things like moral duty and family and society and stuff like that. I just thought that was kind of interesting. So it really does depend. Again, it goes back to that whole socialization around you and the culture around you,

how this kind of shapes what you end up revaluing or reevaluating as you go through this too. So in your case, you know, you're being an American from Texas, no less, right? You kind of double down like on the, okay, I need to the achievement and the like not taking life for granted and this is the one life we have and, you know, that sort of thing. So I just thought it was interesting. You know what's funny, though, I distinctly remember. like a huge motivator for me at that time. I had this very, so my friend who died, his name was Josh,

I had a very palpable sense that like, I morally owed Josh. Oh, yeah. The duty of living well. Yeah. And, I mean, part of it was the way he died because it was literally just, I mean, there was everybody there was drunk,

a bunch of people were on drugs, everybody was swimming in the same lake, you know, it could have happened to anybody. Like it's the coroner said that his legs cramped up. Yeah. And he just went under it. And it was dark and nobody could see him and he just went under. Right.

So it was literally a situation. It could have been any of us. It was very random. And I think part of the randomness and part of the struggle with that was like the realization of like that could have easily been me. Yeah. Kind of survivor guilt. Yeah. Yeah.

Totally. And so there, there, I remember just feeling a strong sense of moral obligation of like, I owe him living well. Yeah. Right? Like if I just sit on my couch and smoke pot for the next five years, like I'm kind of doing him a disservice. Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting. That may be completely irrational, but it's what I needed to believe in at the time. And that's part of the cognitive reevaluation that you did. So there's an active rumination and that's the conclusion you came to. That's the sort of thing that the psychologist in this area would call like cognitive re-evaluation. Yes. And you put a positive spin on it in a way where it could easily go the other way. Well, he died.

It was random. Life is meaningless. That's the other interpretation that you could have went down. I'm glad you brought up the cognitive reevaluation because there's an associated experience with any cognitive reevaluation, which is popularly known as cognitive dissonance. Yeah. And I think as we were doing research for this, I kind of came to a realization that, like, I don't think you can really change your values without experiencing some cognitive dissonance. Dissenance, like I do think there is a requirement to change a value, whether it is to just simply lose the value, have it fail you through tragedy or trauma, or to deprioritize it through sacrificing or giving something up. You are going to have to go through a period of cognitive dissonance where the actions and experiences in the world around you do not match up your prior beliefs.

And so I think it's worth digging into what cognitive dissonance is and kind of talking through what the experience is and like how people tend to respond to it because it's actually some funny stories. So fascinating. Around around how people respond to cognitive dissonance. But it's it's, I think it's really important to touch on because I think anybody listening to this who's going to challenge themselves to change their values, you're going to have to confront this at some point. Yes. cognitive dissonance is a concept invented by the psychologist Leon Festinger. Is it Festinger or Festinger?

I've always said Festinger, but I've ever seen it written, I guess, so I don't know. Okay, well, let us know Internet whether we're pronouncing this from. Leon Festinger, he worked in the 1950s at the University of Minnesota. And I feel like most popular psychological theories, they have like a little origin story.

And then some of them are cool. Some are kind of lame. The cognitive dissonance origin story is fucking awesome. That's really cool. I love it. I love it so much. So Fessinger and his colleagues were they were working at University of Minnesota. And one day they opened the newspaper and they find a news story about a local cult.

And the cult was run by a woman who called herself Marion Keach. And she believed that she was communicating telepathically with aliens who were going to come take over the world. and it was only through her group, her cult, and her, I believe it was prayer, that they were going to prevent the world from being taken over by these aliens. So this was a thing that was going on around Minneapolis, and Fessinger was like,

this is so interesting. And so what they did, which part of me thinks like this would never fly these days. So part of what they did is they actually infiltrated the cult. They actually pretended to be cult members and pretended that they, like, believed all this shit because they actually wanted to observe because, oh, important detail. Marian Keech, she, there was a, apparently there was a specific date that the aliens were going to come and the world was going to end. Of course, right. Like most good cult leaders, right.

She sets up an end date. So the researchers were fascinated by this. They're like, let's join the cult. Let's pretend to do all their weird shit. And then when the date comes, let's watch what happens. and let's like, let's see, let's just observe and see if we can learn anything. So sure enough, the date comes and goes,

no aliens invade, nothing happens. And the psychologist's expectation was that, you know, once the date came and went, all the cult members would be like, what the fuck? You know, like, I guess we can go home now. Like, clearly this was all a bunch of bullshit, right? Actually, the opposite happened. The cult members became even more fervent

because they believed that they had saved the world, and they believed that there were going to be more dangers and threats to the world. And they were the only ones that could save it. So nobody left the cult. Nobody stopped believing in Marian Keech. And she just kept going on, like, her merry way, with zero problems. And this absolutely fascinated the researchers. What Fessinger went on to kind of explain is that when we're exposed to a contradiction in the world,

to our worldview, right? We believe the world is one way, and then an experience goes the other way. It contradicts that. We experience a certain amount of dissonance in our minds. It creates discomfort, and that discomfort can't exist for very long. And so the only way to relieve that dissonance

is to either deny reality and pretend it doesn't exist, or it's to change the belief. And generally speaking, changing a belief is uncomfortable because it requires you to lose something. It requires you to lose something you used to think was important. Now you have to lose it.

And reorganize all your frameworks. Reorganize your value. Our hierarchy and now some of your needs go unmet. So if you think about those individual cult members, right? This kind of comes back to the whole thing about values are strategies to meet our needs. When you ask yourself, like, who joins a cult and who buys into this shit?

Well, they're probably motivated to join a cult and buy into the ideas because it's meeting some fundamental need that's like not being met in another way. First and foremost, when you read anything about the type of people who join cults, they tend to be very lonely individuals. Like they lack a community. They don't feel like they're part of something, right? So a cult immediately you're given a sense of community. You're given a sense of purpose. And you're given a sense of importance, right? Like, oh my God, we're the only ones who can save the world.

Holy shit, like aliens are going to come. I'm so lucky I found this guru. Like she's so amazing. She's so in touch with all this stuff. So it really is fulfilling a number of psychological needs. And if you're somebody who's not who is historically and consistently not met those needs in other areas of your life, then the cult's going to feel like a big upgrade. The problem is, though, is that to break out of the cult, you're going to have to break all of the values and belief systems. that are fulfilling your needs.

So you're going to have to like downgrade the things that you care about. You're going to feel isolated again. You're going to feel unimportant again. And you're going to feel a lack of purpose again. And a lot of people, the thought of that is just too painful. And so they don't want to go back to that. And so when they're presented in a, when they're presented a situation with cognitive dissonance,

they just double down on the belief. But the reason I bring this up is for two reasons. One is just A, so that the listener understands kind of like what's going on in their brain. when a value fails them or when a contradictory experience intersects with something that they believe or find important. But B, I think this is something that you can actually leverage to change a value. And the way you leverage it is to actually, like let's say, I'll give a really simple example. And it's kind of piggybacks on the example you just gave.

Let's say that I want to value my family more, right? Like I have this real Is it maybe somebody dies or maybe something happens And I have this realization of like You know I've really taken my family for granted I've not been close with them I've not kept in touch with them

My parents are getting older My aunts and uncles are getting older I don't know how much longer they're going to be around Like I should really take advantage Of the time I have left and like really commit And you know Put the time in Let's say I've decided that

Yet my actions are still completely contradictory to reach that. Like, I don't call home. I don't go home. I don't do anything. So let's say that I've intellectually decided that, but like ultimately my actions don't reflect the values, right? Like it's, it's, I've clearly not making them a priority. I can incite cognitive dissonance in myself by like simply taking action on a value as if it's much higher in my value hierarchy than it actually is, right? So it's, again, it comes back to what are you willing to give up? So before, it's like I wasn't willing to take time off work to fly home and visit family, or I wasn't willing to spend an extra holiday with my family, or I wasn't willing to, I don't know,

like call my dad every weekend or whatever. You simply make the commitment to the action. The action will feel like a waste at first. It will feel like a waste of time. It will feel like you're sacrificing something more important for it. But, and that will cause cognitive of dissonance, but if you proceed with the action, eventually your mind will adjust itself and you'll start valuing the thing that you're doing proportionally to how much you're doing it. Right. I guess the moral of the story here is that your values follow your actions.

And if you want to prioritize something higher on your value hierarchy, if you want to care about something more or care about something less, it's literally just a matter of how much focus and energy you put into it. And understand that it will feel weird at first. It will feel like you are poorly investing your time and energy. But eventually, you'll start experiencing the benefits of the new value, and then your belief systems will adjust themselves to relieve the cognitive dissonance. And then your value hierarchy will shift. Right.

Yeah. So the super short version is like values follow your actions. Right. Yeah. I think you also have to be very aware of, of where. which value that you are addressing with those actions and that cognitive dissentance too, right? Let's go back to the cult example. The reason that these people double down is because they value the community, right?

It's because they value that the social relationships and all the purpose and everything like that that you explain. People from the outside look at it and say, well, they're wrong. They don't value truth. No, they don't. They value the community around it. And so, of course, they're going to bend over backwards to defend that, right? That's like such an interesting definition of a cult. Is that a cult is basically people who value community over truth.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And this applies to like less extreme examples too. If you, you know, we talked a little bit about politics. If you're just having a conversation with somebody about politics, and this happens a lot where you try to induce cognitive dissonance in them by pointing out the contradictions in their beliefs. Yeah. Usually what you're doing is you're not.

You're reinforcing the belief. You're reinforcing the belief because you're not targeting their correct value. Yeah. Like, let's take a fairly common example, abortion, right? So people, liberals will point to conservatives and say, well, you guys, you say you value life so much that you're against abortion and yet you're pro death penalty too. That makes no sense. There should be cognitive dissentance there. No, those are two different values you're talking about.

So it makes perfect sense to somebody who believes that because on the one hand, they value sanctity, that sanctity value preserving life. And then on the other, they value fairness and authority and order. On the other hand, when it comes to like the death penalty. So you're talking about two completely different values. So turn that back on yourself. If you're trying to use this cognitive dissonance framework for that, make sure you're like targeting the right value. Yeah. And it is interesting because the liberal in that situation, those two things are actually the same value for them.

Right. It's the harm care. Right. Right. On both sides. Right. Right. Whereas for the conservative, it's actually two different values that are, that they're, that's a, that is a really.

interesting way. And it is so hard to remember that. Like if you're ever in an argument with somebody and you start using facts, right? You come up with all these facts. It's like it's not about the facts. It's about the values. It's funny too because like the biggest gripe that everybody has about political discourse or the news or whatever. It's like, oh, it's not factual enough. But it is like it. No, it's you're not understanding everybody's values is what is happening. Right. And yes, there is misinformation and a lot of bullshit out there. But like all of that comes after the fact. Right. Like if so take the mainstream news, right? So the past 10, 20 years.

Like CNN, for instance, or the New York Times is probably a better example. Like, the New York Times has actually pretty consistently not gotten things factually wrong. It is that they are only presenting facts that are reflective of certain values and not others. Right. And so you're, you are still getting a very biased perspective on a story, but not, it's not biased because the facts are. wrong or that the facts have been fudged or that the statistics are not, you know, accurate or the study isn't referenced correctly. It's biased because it's facts, the framing of the story and the framing of the facts is only through the lens of a single value. Right. That is reflective of one

political leaning, not the other, right? So, but that's such a hard thing to communicate. Right. Right. And you know, and for years and years and years, I would hear conservatives complain about the New York Times. And I'm like, what are you talking about? It's like the most fact check publication in the country and eventually I started to get it. I'm like, oh, yeah, they're, they're just hammering on the like the same two or three values over and over again. And it comes back to a healthy society has a diversity of values. Right. And they are allowed to counterbalance and counteract each other. So the researcher who came up with the instrumental and terminal values, Milton Rokic, he actually had to hear this other concept called self-confrontation. And he actually spent

a number of years researching whether he could get people to change their values themselves, just through reflection and kind of interrogating their own reasoning and their own thoughts. And he was actually successful at it in a couple circumstances. And the way he was successful at it is actually exactly what you're saying. So what he did, this was during, he was doing this work during the civil rights era, in the late 60s. And he took people from both sides, you know, the lefties who value. equality and then like the people on the right who valued a fairness and autonomy and freedom and

what he would do is he'd have them do a written exercise where they you know they chose between freedom and equality and then he would have them like write a short essay on like why they believe so strongly in it and then he would ask them a question that would essentially frame their value in terms of the other value so to give you an example he took like the the people though the right-leaning people who chose freedom, they would write their essay on why freedom was so important and why the civil rights movement was potentially jeopardizing some of the freedom. Well, then he would give them a prompt that would basically say, well, what if you, have you ever considered that the civil rights activists are actually protesting in favor of

freedom? That actually they're using the word equality, but their word of equality can actually also be understood in terms of freedom. And then he would have them make that argument. And when he had to make that argument, they would change their mind. Yeah, yeah. And it was, it's exactly what you're saying. It's like if you can take your argument and package it and the other person's values,

they'll start believing it. I guess this is like kind of at the root of persuasion. Maybe we should do an episode on persuasion. Oh, that'd be a good one, yeah. And we'll just persuade the audience to do things for us. The other thing. I want to touch on before we move on from this.

And this comes to this ties in a little bit with the cognitive dissonance. So I'm a huge fan of Charlie Munger, the legendary investor. Both Charlie Munger and Warren. So for people who don't know, Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett's business partner.

And both Charlie and Warren are like almost philosophers. Like investment, they're investors, but they're also like philosophers. And both of them just have like so many amazing quotes and ideas and frameworks. and mental models and stuff. But Charlie is this great saying that I think about all the time,

which is show me the incentive and I'll show you the behavior. And we just talked about how cognitive dissonance teaches us that ultimately, if you lead with the behavior, even if it doesn't feel right, your feelings will follow. So if you just act out the value you want to have, then you'll start eventually feeling aligned with that action because your mind will prevent the cognitive dissonance. Well, there's kind of another string in that chain is that if you can set up an incentive for action, then your action will naturally just gravitate that direction as well.

Because, like, another aspect of humans is that we tend to do the things that we're incentivized to do. Right. And so I like the idea of kind of stretching this out. Again, like, let's say I want to prioritize my family more. And I just, I've been saying that for years and I don't do it. one way to do it is to just, I don't know, book a bunch of flights and schedule calls or whatever, you know, with family members or whatever. Another way is to incentivize myself in some way, right?

Like, reward myself, make an agreement with myself of like, you know, I'm not allowed to take another trip. You know, I'm only allowed one trip somewhere else for every trip I take back home to see my parents or something. basically create like rewards or punishments for myself that nudge myself in the direction of the value that I want to have. The most obvious example here is around like fitness and nutrition. Most people want to value health much more than they do. A lot of people try to do the actions that embody the value of health and fail to do those actions. And in my own health journey, one of the only things that I ever found was actually generally, generating incentives for myself to do the healthy actions and actually

You know follow through with them because then it's like you create the incentives to To nudge yourself towards the healthy action so you sign up for classes and you do things with a friend and you Gameify things and track and keep scores and then that nudges you into the behaviors and then as you're doing the behaviors you start to experience the benefits and you start you stop like whining and complaining that you're wasting so much time like getting ready for the gym every morning, and then your values start to align. And because you're giving up the other things for your health to resolve the cognitive dissonance, your mind starts to believe that health is actually more important.

And now that you actually believe that your health is more important, it is much easier to do all the things that you want to do. And goes back to your values are what you're willing to give up. Yep. Right. Goes straight back to that. Yep. Yeah.

What are you willing to give up? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All right. So as we round this episode out, I think I'd like to kind of get it. into like a summary of takeaways for the listener

and I would actually like to frame this around Aristotle had this idea of practical wisdom and he argued that of all the virtues the most important was wisdom because wisdom was the one that allows you to calibrate all the other virtues to know when you were over-indexed

on one and under-indexed on the other and when you should give something up and when you should take something on and so he he believed that if you didn't have wisdom you couldn't really maintain or manage all the other all the other virtues so what I'd like to do is go through these four elements of practical wisdom and just break down piece by piece what they are how people can practice them how people can get better at them and why they're so important

and effective when it comes to discovering your values and also living out your values and I'll start with self-awareness which is pretty self-explanatory I think so much of this episode probably 70, 80% of this episode has really just been helping the listener around their self-awareness around their own values. I mean, the importance is pretty logical, right? Like, if you aren't aware of what you value, then you can't adapt or change what you value. So the first step to managing your own values is to simply get clarity and awareness around your own values.

And like I said earlier, we've got a whole 30-day track in the momentum community around doing this. This whole episode is around doing this. But there's all sorts of... I mean, you can, journaling is effective for this. I think ultimately a lot of the work that is done in therapy is around helping the patient understand what they're valuing and what they're prioritizing and maybe they should be prioritizing something else.

I also believe that meditation is useful for this as well. That, you know, by sitting and noticing your own thoughts and proclivities and what you're focusing on, you start to develop a sense of what you're valuing and what you're prioritizing in your life. Yeah. And then the next one to emotional regulation, aligning your emotions with your values. Keeping those emotions align with the values so you can act in a way in accordance with your values, right? There's also, there was a psychologist Albert Ellis, who came up with this idea that between an event happening and your reaction is the interpretation, right?

And he has this, there was the ABCs of what he developed this whole therapeutic model called rational emotive behavioral therapy, right? He's got the ABCs. R-E-B-T. R-E-B-T, yeah. A-B-C is the activating event. The B is the beliefs and C is the consequences of those. Okay. So I think as you navigate your own values in your life and you have your values kind of front and center after being more aware of them, you'll start to run into this quite a bit, I think.

I know I have any way in relationships. You know, benevolence is a big value of mine, right? And I would, looking back, I think there have definitely been times where I haven't acted benevolently in situations, people in my life. Close relationships in particular, those, you know, start pushing on your emotional buttons a little bit. And what I notice is like, okay, if I'm going to value benevolence, then I need to act benevolently at some point, right? But the thing is, is that in the moment when your emotions are running high, that's really hard. Yes. Right. Yeah. So learning how emotional regulation, you mentioned meditation already, that's one way to kind of learn how your mind works in accordance with your emotions in certain situations.

For me, though, I have been able to use this kind of ABC method here. When I have a triggering event and an emotion pops up, I've learned to like catch myself right there. Like, okay, I'm going to act on this emotion or should I act on this emotion? Yeah. And how is that reflecting my values or this situation, this relationship right now? Yeah. It's hard to do and it takes a lot of practice. And this is really a, I mean, therapy helps. It is a skill. And I know we're already planning on doing a full episode on emotions and emotional regulation.

Three things come to mind, like listening to you talk about this. Three ways I can see kind of emotions hijacking this process of living out your values. the first one you already mentioned is that being triggered by some lower value that inadvertently causes you to sacrifice, you know, a higher level value that you later regret or feel bad about. That's one way. A second way is that when you are prioritizing a value, say you are, when you're trying to move something up the value hierarchy, it means you're giving up other values, which there's going to be negative emotional reactions when you give those things up, right? Like if I am, if I start taking time off work to spend more time with my friends and family, I'm going to have negative emotions around having to give up time at work.

Like I'm going to question it. I'm going to feel guilty about it. I'm going to feel stupid about it. I'm going to, you know, whatever. And so you have to be prepared for those emotions and those side effects and whatever. No, this popped into my head when you were talking about the relationship thing because our values are not only the metrics by which we measure ourselves. They're also the metrics by which we measure other people. And so if you have a very strong value around, say, benevolence and you're dating somebody who very much is not being benevolent, that will also probably trigger you.

Yes. Yeah. You'll be like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Like, I can't believe I'm with this person right now. And so you could see it pop up in relationships as well, right? Like, it's like if my wife does something that like really goes against my values, you can bet your ass we're going to have a fight about it. So it's something else to be like very cognizant of because if your values are way out of alignment or you are prioritizing something that's like very stupid and not not serving you, that's also going to show up in your relationships. And you're going to start judging your partner for all these, all the dumb stuff that you care about or your best friend or your brother or sister or whatever.

Like it's going to, it will manifest in your relationships. in not the same way it manifests in your own life, but probably in like symmetrical ways that it manifests in your life. Yeah. Also with the social relationships, you can leverage them as well to help you stay in line with your values. So not only, yeah, are you judging the people around you

based on your own values, but you can also choose those circles of the values that you want to associate with, right? Yeah, your relationships almost like amplify your... Right. What's already there. Right. Reveal a lot of...

Reveal and... And yeah. Amplify. Yeah. Third one is relationships. And again, I think a huge component of this is like you don't necessarily need the people in your life to have the same values as you. You simply need to respect each other's values and trust each other to act on your values. And it's you actually kind of want a diversity of values in the people around you because it's going to bring out the best of each other and you're going to counterbalance each other.

You're going to offer each other different perspectives. Like, you know, the fact of it. We have different values. It's like we can compensate for each other's weaknesses and keeps us from running too far in one direction. Exactly. Exactly. So it is when we talk about strong relationships, it's you don't want to just find a bunch of mini-mees and yes men around you. Like you want to find people who are different from you, but you respect them and you respect those differences.

And you can have honest conversations around those differences. Like that that's really what the key is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then the last component of practical wisdom. It's the self-acceptance part that you already talked about. The non-judgment.

This one of my favorite psychologist, Mark, who this is not as cool as yours, but Carl Rogers, he's much more well-known. He said, the curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. Yeah. Okay, so accepting yourself as you are without trying to change yourself allows you to change yourself. It's one of those neat little paradox. Yeah, love it.

I love it, right? But it's pretty hard. So we've talked about, you know, these other three or four principles here of practical wisdom. And, you know, yeah, when you trade a lower value for a higher value or you're acting out one of your values that's in tension with another one of your values, there is that uncomfortable feeling. You do kind of just have to accept that that's what that is. This happened to me recently. I already kind of alluded to it when I was, it was a benevolent thing I was doing, but it caused a lot of issues with because I needed to get some stuff done and it ran up against my value of accomplishment. and achievement.

Yeah. And it just felt bad. Just felt bad. And I was like, okay, how do I stop feeling bad? That's immediately where I went, how do I stop this feeling? I don't want to stop this feeling. And I kind of came to conclusion, oh, wait, I just have to accept that this is how I'm going to feel sometimes.

It's funny because self-acceptance, I feel like out of all of the values that we've talked about at this point, and at this point, I think we're probably up at 25 or 30 different values in this episode. Of all the different values on this episode, self-acceptance is probably, you know, the simplest and also the most difficult in many ways because it really is just what you said. It's like being okay with feeling bad sometimes. Like the fact that you feel bad that you didn't achieve as much as you could have or you feel bad that you weren't as benevolent as you could have been with this person you care about

or you feel bad that you wasted some time on something that didn't matter. The fact that you feel bad about that and want that feeling to go away is the opposite of self-acceptance. The self-acceptance is like, I'm human, I'm flawed, I'm going to care about some of the wrong things at times, I'm going to care about some of the right things at times, and even the right things I'm going to have to give up a bunch of stuff for those right things. And it's going to be unpleasant and it's going to be intention and there's probably going to be uncertainty and there's going to be periods where like, I don't even know if I'm doing the right thing or not. That's all part of it. That's all part of it. And it's so hard to remind ourselves

of that. Just be like, This is what you signed up for, man. This is the human experience. Yeah. But it does help when you realize that you're doing it for a value, right? Instead of just this, I feel bad and I don't know why, that's what drives people crazy. Yes. And that's what I had to come to.

I'm just like, I feel bad. I don't like this. Why? And then I always, oh, it's because I had to prioritize this value over another one. And in a strange way of just accepting that I was going to feel bad. I made me feel a little bit better about it, you know, in a way. It didn't relieve it. I still feel, you know, I'm still like, you know, I still have a little bit.

bit of shame and guilt around it, but I'm like, okay, that's the price I have to pay for this. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just trying to think like where people probably run into this the most. Like I'm just thinking about like the lack of self-acceptance. I'd say to me, the two areas that I see it the most. Yeah. I would say it's like work and romantic relationships. On the work side, you see it a lot with workaholics who like they strive and they achieve and they achieve and they achieve and it's never enough. It's never good enough. They've, they could have always done more. They could have been better. And they're just, they drive themselves,

like they literally make themselves miserable. And there's all sorts of like really famous, successful people that have done this. And I've seen it a number of times among my friends. I've fallen prey to it myself a number of times. It's just really interesting that like, I think we have this ideal sometimes that it's like if I work as hard as I can and if I do the best job

and I get the best work out of myself, then I'll be satisfied. Right. And then when you're not, you feel like, something's wrong. Right. Right. And that you,

there's something else you could be optimizing to do it better. And then I think when I see it with relate, in regard to relationships, I see it in regard to like, there's just kind of this, there's only, I would call it like the Disney delusion, right? Like people's expectation of what a relationship is is just like not very

realistic. They kind of assume that if they fall in love, that they're just going to live happily ever after. You're not going to fight. You're not going to, there's not going to be any, certainty and nobody's ever going to like, you know, get sad or depressed or angry at each other or, you know, you're never going to question the relationship. Like, these are all actually very

normal things. Like every long-term relationship goes through periods of struggle and stress and questioning and, you know, sometimes you grow a little bit distance and then you come back together and sometimes you question whether you really want to be with the other person and then you, like, are reassured that, yeah, you do. And it's like, it's this organic process. that like uncertainty and a certain amount of dissatisfaction is just kind of inherent to it. And again, I think a lot of people like it's the refusal to accept that that makes it so much more. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Take love as a value, right? If you're going to value that, you also have to just accept that there's going to be some heartbreak along with that. Yeah. Like that's, it's not that you can diminish it. It's not that you can void it. It's just part and parcel of that value is that you have to put yourself out. there, be vulnerable, and you will get hurt at some point.

And there's just no way around it. No, it reminds me of something that a brilliant man and philosopher and a hero of a human being once said, his name was, wait, let me look. Oh, Mark Manson. He once said, he once said, he once said, a wise man once said. What you value determines what your problems are and what your problems are determines what your life. I thought that was Aristotle. Oh, okay.

It was Mark. Same thing, right? Basically the same guy. But seriously, you know, the quality of your values determines the quality of your problems and the quality of your problems. Notice implicit in there that you never get rid of the problems. The problems are always there. And it's like if you really the only best. benefit of choosing one better value over another is that you get better problems.

It's better to ask yourself if you could have been more benevolent than to ask yourself if you could like have cooler, more expensive shoes or something. That's a better problem to have. So you chose that problem. It's a better life. Yeah. And you just have to accept it. Yeah.

All right. So to wrap things up, Drew, you and I, we want to finish all these episodes with what we call the 80-20 of what you. whatever we're talking about because God knows at this point we're so many hours in. We've covered so much material that it's easy to get lost and it's easy to get, you know, lose track of what actually moves the needles. So we're going to finish this off by talking about the 80-20 of values. This is for people not familiar, the 80-20 principle is that it's usually the 20% of the things you do generate 80% of your results.

And so this section is just very much focused on like, what's the 20% that's going to give you 80% of the result? What should you be focusing on as you leave this episode? And so I'll start us off. I'll just say, you know, the crux of all of this is just getting clarity on what your values are, whether that's doing some of the exercises that we talked about earlier in the episode, whether it's thinking through your life and a lot of the major decisions that you've made, thinking through some of the, the more uncomfortable experiences, the tragedies or the pet peeves, and asking yourself what values are those reflective of? And then just trying to get a little bit of clarity

on what you care about and why you care about it and why it's important to you and whether it should be important to you. Like I just think these are all very, very useful questions that we should all be asking ourselves. And if you're not in the habit of asking yourself about it, you know, this is a great opportunity to sit down and do that. Yeah.

Yeah, self-awareness around your values, I think is huge. That'll put you in front of 80% of other people, I think, is if you just know what you value. What you care about. Because most people, like we've talked about over and over again in this episode, they're going through life and they're either absorbing the values of the other people around them or they're just not aware at all of what's going on. And I think, too, paying attention to the discomfort and the pain and the kind of, you know, the fresh, frustrations in your life. That really was what points you to a lot of your values. Not the aspirational, oh, I want to, I aspire to this and that. No, look at what's like, what are your problems in your life? We all want the same good stuff. You know, we all want to be rich and liked and have

great sex and, you know, be king of the world and whatever. Values are found in the pain. They're found in the problems that you have. And like we already mentioned, too, the, whatever problems you're having in your life right now are a reflection of the values you've chosen, whether you are aware of it or not. Yeah. So just the awareness around it is key here. So maybe that's actually the 80, 20 of clarifying your own values is looking at what are like the three biggest problems in your life and then asking yourself, what are those the

results of the tradeoffs for, right? Like I already talked, I talked earlier in the episode about how, you know, there's, I've definitely felt like a lack of community and connection in my life over the last five or 10 years. and it is not very hard for me to see the tradeoff that caused that, right? And that is very much linked to my valuing of achievement and self-directedness. So it's generally speaking, whatever you're suffering from is on the opposite end of the seesaw of whatever you're deciding as important. Yeah, okay. And related to that, too, looking at friction points in your relationships, like where you're arguing, say with your significant other, your family or friends or whatever it is,

looking at those and really kind of like, okay, what is the value at work on my end? What is the value on their end as well? And we have that whole section on relationships, right? So identifying those values and asking yourself, can you respect those values? Or is there some sort of reconciliation you can do around these values? Can you at least respect them, I think, is the main question. Yeah. Fernandez says I fart too much.

Okay. So what's the value here? Flagellus. Flagellas. The value. I'm deeply passionate about my flashlets. Maybe she values you thinking about her a little bit more. I'm pretty sure she values her breathing.

That's what she always tells me. She says, I can't breathe. That's usually the manifestation of the conflict is I'm laughing uncontrollably. And then she's telling me she can't breathe. Okay. Maybe you should respect her value there, Mark. I think as an extension of that of understanding your values is also distinguishing between your higher values and your lower values. So once you start to get a little bit of clarity on what you care about in your life, start pitting those things against each other.

Like in a, oh, that'll happen naturally. It's like an immortal combat tournament. You know, like, do I care more about a community or achievement? Do I care more about family or, you know, taking care of myself? Right. So it's, I think it's useful to ask yourself where the sacrifices currently are being made. And again, if you're not aware of your values, then you're probably making sacrifices in places that you wish you weren't on making sacrifices. And then once you have clarity around your values, then you can start deciding where the sacrifices should be made. Right.

Like which values should you be giving up or deprioritizing in order to prioritize something else. Right. It goes back to the lower and the higher values. Identify your lower values. Identify your higher values. choose the higher value more often than not. Yes. Right. And recognize, too, that you're going to be pulled to your lower values. Like, that's the inertia that's out there.

It's being human. Yeah. That's very much a part of that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So all the values hierarchy stuff we covered. And we talked about that in Aristotle's, the balance of all of your values.

Keep that in mind when you are feeling bad and you just have to accept that you're going to have to feel bad about something. That's because you're trading a lower value for a higher value. and there's going to be some friction there for sure. Yeah. So we talked about developing practical wisdom, which, you know, aside from kind of the nuts and bolts of self-awareness and emotional regulation and everything, it really what it is is just developing, once you've developed this awareness of what your network of values is, being able to monitor it and ask the right questions and notice in the right moments, like,

oh, I think I'm over-indexing on this value, or I think I've been like going way too hard, in this area of my life for the last six months and I'm starting to pay a price for that. Just like ultimately that is what wisdom is. It's an awareness and an understanding of where you need to maybe dial the volume knob up in your life and where you need to dial it down in your life. One of the things I've written before,

and I'm just going to wing this, I'm probably going to fuck this quote up, is that knowledge is knowing how to get something. Wisdom is knowing what's worth getting. Right. Right. Yeah. And I think really as a virtue, wisdom is just understanding like, are your values properly aligned or not?

When is it time to push something up your value hierarchy, push it down the value hierarchy, right? It's things happen in life, you know, career changes. You move to new cities, relationships end, people die. And as circumstances change, it's going to make sense to adapt your values accordingly. Right. Like, it's a, if you are a married parent of three small children, your value hierarchy should look completely different than it did when you were like 25 and single and, you know, spending a year abroad. Like, that hierarchy should change. It shouldn't be permanent. It should be fluid based on what's going on in your life at the time. And, you know, just as in 10 or 20 years, when your kids are grown and have moved out of the house and you're thinking about retirement, that hierarchy should shift again. So the hierarchy is always in flux. It's always in flux. It's always in motion. And the skill here is the wisdom, really, is just getting adept at that flux in motion and learning how to maneuver it throughout your life. And I know that's super abstract and philosophical, but really that is the basis of just everything we're talking about in this episode.

Yeah. Yeah. And part of the practical wisdom, too, we talked about was the emotional regulation, right? The least emotional awareness around when you are acting out of your emotions and not in a line with your values. Yes. That's a big one too. So being aware of what triggers an emotion, you have the consequence, but in between you have the interpretation. And that's part of the practical wisdom, too, is developing that.

And that comes with time and practice and experience. Yes. I've definitely noticed in my life, and we can get to it a little bit more here in a second with how it plays out. But that's a huge one. It's just getting a handle on those emotions and how they, how they're reflected in your values in the way you act.

Yeah. The emotional regulation is, it's key because any violated value, whether high or low, is going to trigger an emotional response. And when you're triggered in that emotional response, if it's a lower value, you can easily sacrifice your higher values,

give up honesty, give up charity, give up charity, give up family for something stupid. Right. So it's important in that moment. I would also say on kind of a, if you zoom out in more of a macro, way emotional regulation is important because as you go through those periods of flux and life changes and tragedies happen and different unexpected challenges

arise there is going to be emotional fallout to dropping and adding in new values like that it is it is an emotionally stressful process of like rearranging your value hierarchy throughout your life and it's accompanied by a lot of self-doubt it's accompanied with a certain amount of uncertainty it can be sad at times because you you like grieve your lost value, the thing that you used to care about and that used to really define you and now it doesn't anymore. In some cases, there's a lot of anxiety about a value that you're taking on. You know, it's like you just had your first child and you're not sure if you're ready to be a parent, but it's like the most important

thing to you now, but you're not sure if you're ready for it to be the most important thing. Like it could be fucking terrifying. So there's this emotional roller coaster that kind of accompanies the shifting in the flux of the value system and I think just the self-acceptance piece that we talked about is the understanding that that is part of the game. Like there is a certain amount of that emotional stress

and emotional turmoil that is going to be ever present. There's not really... And I'm sure we're going to get into this very deeply when we do our episode on emotions. But the key is not to get rid of the emotion. The key is to manage the emotion. It's like what you said with it. It's the key is to interpret the emotion.

motion positively and usefully in a productive direction. Or accepting it too or just at the end of the day. Like I feel bad about this, but that's because I've chosen this value. Because a lot of times what we do is we'll, you know, if you have the value of say, I want to be healthy, right? And instead you end up just staying on the couch. What you're doing is you're kind of avoiding that negative emotion that's associated with getting up going to the gym.

It's uncomfortable. I have to be self-conscious about certain things, all of that. You're avoiding all of that, right? And so there's just more practical wisdom in just accepting that you're going to feel bad about that. And that's directly because of the value you've chosen. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

A huge component of emotional regulation is our relationships, right? And our dark moments, it's often the people around us who support us and help us through it. Sometimes the people around us cause our dark moments. So being very conscious of who you surround yourself with and the values of those people that you surround yourself with. I will say, you know, maybe we undersold it a little bit in this episode, but like, I will say the consequences of having people close to you with awful values is significant. Right. It is very significant. I think people underestimate how much the values of the people around them rub off onto them or influence them in their choices and their own value system.

Like, ultimately, our value systems are kind of networked with the value. systems of people around us. And if we're surrounded with people with shitty values, then it's going to kind of reset our baseline and our standards for ourselves. Yeah. Another one of those things you have to be very honest with yourself about, right? Because it's easy. Well, yeah, they're like that, but that doesn't affect me.

There's so many instances of this in every different parts of our lives and behavioral change and everything like that. Well, that doesn't affect me. It does. Yeah. Be honest with yourself. You know, you can't keep junk food in the fridge because you're going to eat it. You also can't have a bunch of assholes around you and not think that.

you're not going to be an asshole at some point too. Yeah. Yeah. I think it normalizes things. Yeah. Right? It's like, think about it. It's like if all your friends are drug addicts and alcoholics and you're sober, like you, it's

easy to be like, well, I'm not doing drugs. I'm not, I'm not drunk all the time. But it's like they normalize it and they set a baseline expectation that they just put the bar extremely low. Right. Right. And so it's, even if you're not participating or doing the bad behaviors that they're doing, you are accepting the standards.

that they have set. And you're setting that same standard for yourself. Because again, it comes back to, like, remember, the way you measure yourself is the way you measure others, and the way you measure others is the way you measure yourself. So if you are accommodating a bunch of bad behavior and bad values in the people around you, then you are unconsciously accommodating that in yourself

or you're being tolerant of that in yourself as well. I think there's one thing too you want to be careful about is not to go too far the other way. There's a self-sorting that goes on to that we just sort ourselves into people who have our exact values. And like we've said, repeatedly throughout this is it's not necessarily like shared values aren't necessarily having the same values.

It's more a respect for values that you have for other people. And that itself is a value. Like being able to tolerate and respect other values that complement each other within, you know, reason anyway. Yeah. If you, yeah, if you go the other direction and your standards are just so absurdly high that nobody can meet them, then yeah, you're going to be a miserable asshole by yourself for a long time. And a diversity of values is a great thing to happen in any group or even person.

Yeah. And then the last thing, we talked about cognitive dissonance and how ultimately our values and our belief systems follow action. They are not. Action does not follow our values. Values follow our actions. And so the best way to reprioritize your value hierarchy is to take action on the hierarchy that you want or force yourself into a situation, whether it's through constraints or

incentives to take the action that you want and understanding that it's going to be uncomfortable and difficult and maybe even unpleasant at first and that there's going to be all the self-doubt and associated guilt and sadness and anxiety and icky, icky feelings. But if you push through that, then ultimately your brain will resolve the cognitive dissonance by adopting the new value, reassessing the hierarchy and then basing that hierarchy off of the way you're acting in the world. Yeah. I think I have a good salient example of this too. If you're in a relationship or someone, let's say it's your romantic partner and you've been fighting a lot, right?

And you say you value this relationship, right? But when you get into fights, what you do is you just want to win the fight, right? Yeah. This is everybody has this. You want to win the fight. You actually value being right more than you value the relationship. So next time you have an argument, instead of like trying to be right with someone, just stop and say, okay, what's really going on here, right? And say, I'm sorry, first of all. Maybe just apologize right out of the gate, even if you don't know what you're sorry for and try to understand the other person. And this, that's a good like the action, the value follows the action. Because once you stop and then that other person, their guard goes down. You can sit here and it's like, we're, we're both prioritizing the relationship now over being right, over winning an argument, which is. stupid to begin with.

And the funny thing is, is that like probably at least 50% of the time, that is what the argument is about. Yes. It's just the lack of prioritization of the relationship. Like, again, it's not about the toothpaste tube. Yeah. It's about the thing underlying the toothpaste tube. Yeah.

You know, so yeah, that makes sense. This was one area. I mean, I had a lot of cognitive dissentance in my life that I never really resolved because with most people in my life, I was benevolent and I was understanding and everything like that. And then in closer relationships, you know, the ones that can really poke at. your buttons more. I was not. And so there was that gap. I had that values gap there. And I had to realize at some point I was like, okay, do I value being right and like protecting myself and or whatever it was that I was prioritizing over a relationship? I was like, actually, no,

this relationship is way more important to me than winning a stupid argument. Yeah. 99% of which I don't even remember from the past that have derailed relationships. Oh, I remember all the, all the arguments I've won. Because you can count them on one hand. Yeah. Yeah. It was funny because when you were talking about like saying sorry, even if you don't know what you're saying sorry for in my head, I was like, every husband is nodding along right now. What it is.

So many times you do, you have, you know, partner in your argument. I mean, seriously, there's been so many. I'm like. You try to, you get defensive. Yeah. You get defensive. And you're like, I'm not like, look, I'm right. I'm not trying to hurt you.

I'm not. And it's like, that is completely besides. I think any married person, it can relate to like, you know, just. not like, I don't know what I did wrong, but I'm just going to say I'm sorry. And that's going to set the tone and you're going to be able to move on way quicker. Yeah, totally. I think it is interesting that for like arguably the most philosophical topic in psychology, ultimately, I think that the most efficient or highest leveraged solution around this is the simplest, which is taking action.

And yet so many people struggle so often with taking action on the things that they want to take action on. And I think a lot of it comes down to this is because the thing they want to take action on, it's a thing they want to value. But they don't value it. Yeah. And that friction or that distance between wanting to value something and not valuing something and summoning the motivation and the willpower to actually take action on it. I think it's like one of the most prevalent struggles and issues that everybody goes through. And I think everybody's constantly going through. Like I speak for myself, but I think every single person, no matter how discipline, how much motivation and willpower they have, there's some area of your life that you're like, oh, yeah, I wish I was doing a little bit better on that.

Right. So next episode, and we're going to try to do this thing where each episode leads into the next episode. So next episode is going to be about this question of like, how do you take action on things that you don't necessarily feel like taking action on? The next episode of Solved is going to be about procrastination. And I'll be dropping on June 1st and it's a doozy. It's a fun one. Last question, Drew. What did you learn prepping for this episode and recording it?

Yeah. Yeah. So I think one of the big takeaway, the self-awareness thing really, it was a big one for me. I have an idea of my values for a while. And every few years, I kind of like sit down and I'm like, okay, what is, you know, the value shift or whatever? What surprised me is how much my values have shifted over time, honestly. So going from some of these lower values, you know, when you're a little bit younger, you prioritize different things. And as you age, all of those things, it becomes apparent that they're not important.

Yeah. You know, having fun and excitement and novelty and all of that. going to just simpler values or maybe more, the higher values, really. That was big for me. So the self-awareness piece around this, I don't think it can be understated. I really do think that if you are just aware and clear-eyed about your values, that's not the fix. It's not going to change so much, but especially for people who just haven't done this before. Yeah.

It's a clarifying. It's so clarifying and it can direct so many of your decisions going forward. And you just understand, like, you understand why you feel so bad about certain things. Like I said, I've just been able to accept that, oh, I'm just going to feel bad about this sometimes. And that's okay. And it's a side effect of you caring about it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

It's like, oh, this is actually a good sign, right? Yeah, that I'm feeling bad about this because I value this relationship so much or this value in my life. Yeah. So I think self-awareness, I hesitate to like put that one up front because it's not the whole picture. It's not the fix-all for everything. But it will get you a long, long way. Yeah. So right off the bat, yeah, the self-awareness around my values and how much they've changed,

that was a big, that was a big one for me. Priorities too. I knew benevolence was pretty high in mind, but I just didn't realize how just how central it was and just how much it butts up against the other values that I have too. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to reconcile those, yeah. So for me, you know, as you know, I've been writing about values for like 10 plus years. For me, I think the biggest, the biggest aha, prepping

for this episode was really getting that broader understanding of like, I guess, the kind of the network of values, like how values kind of interlace with one another. And I guess the potential danger of over-indexing on one single value, because I think my approach through most of my career was very much, it was a little simplistic. It was like find the thing that you care most about and go all in on it. Yeah. And I think on a surface level, I think that's a good advice. I certainly think that's way better than just not knowing what you value at all. So like if you take somebody who has no idea what their values are and or like feel pulled in different directions and you tell them to like find the one thing and go all in on it, I think that's going to be a significant improvement.

I think going back and prepping for this episode and doing a bunch of the research and especially reading some of the older philosophy around this, like it really gave me an appreciation of that actually going all in on one thing for too long can be problematic. And it would It was interesting because it actually caused me to look at some of the decisions I've made over the last 10 or 15 years. Like I definitely think that's an issue I have. I have a tendency to go all in on one thing. And there are a lot of benefits to that. Whatever that thing is, it tends to you get very, very good at it and you get outside's benefits.

But it definitely harms other areas of your life. So like I've probably, I've spent most of my life being a pretty unbalanced person in that sense. Like I'm just like very over indexed on one thing. So yeah, for me it was gaining the understanding of like, of like, hey, you need to have a small diversity of values. You know, it's probably optimal to have three or four things that you're all in on, quote unquote, that can harmonize together and counterbalance each other and rest on each other. And that way you're a little diversified, like kind of like a stock portfolio. Like, you know, if one thing that you care about just suddenly goes south terribly, you have a few other things to fall back on. You're not putting all your self-esteem or self-worth in like a single basket.

So that was the biggest thing for me. And then, you know, kind of that rediscovery of talked about in Plato's Republic of just kind of like the, you know, the individual is the social and vice versa. Like how that plays out on a social level as well. Yeah, that's fascinating. You don't want a society that's all in on one thing because you know. going to pay the price for that. You really do want a society that has a diversity of values and those values can harmonize but also be in tension with each other. And also just the fact that some of that tension is is a feature. It's not a bug. It's that that tension is evidence that

it matters and you're you care about it and you're taking care of it. Yeah. Yeah. And along those lines too, I guess another realization I had was when you are in tension with other people, values or whatever it is. Make sure you're talking on the same level, right? Yeah. Are you having intellectual conversation or is it actually about values? Or is one of you, like on the intellectual level and the other one is talking on values? And I feel like I've been pretty good about this most of the time.

But like allowing people to kind of just have their own values and like be okay with it, not judging them for that. A lot of times we just, oh, this person's stupid because of whatever view they hold or thing they're doing or value they hold. And it really just comes down to they just have a different set of value. So like, you know, the whole Jonathan Hyde thing, the moral foundations theory, knowing that we all value kind of the same things with just in different proportions. Right. That was a real.

That's if you need a more intellectual framework for that to like understand other people and their values, that was that was helpful for me anyway. Yeah. And I like thinking of it in those terms as well. Because I do think there is a tendency, especially in like political conflicts. Like to have this assumption that there are right and wrong values, that there are certain values that like you should have or shouldn't have. I like the understanding that most values are shared by everybody. What changes is the proportionality and the emphasis. Right.

And so when you look at maybe, say, tension between different cultures or different places on the political spectrum, it's not that they value different things, is that they prioritize different things. Right. And this group of people over here sees, you know, harm and care is more important than, say, fairness. And this group over here sees fairness and freedom as more important than harm and care. So it's just that they have a different hierarchy. And it's playing out across the political world. Right, right. And it's the elephant, right?

It's an emotional tug. It's an emotional world that you're dealing with. And so, you know, when you are trying to reason with people, you need to speak to their values, too. And even if you're going to agree to disagree, you need to understand someone on the level of their values. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I'm excited because I'm going to get the fuck out of this blazer.

I'm never going to do this again. Lesson learned. Lesson learned. Enjoy it, audience, while you have it. Any epiphanies, change behaviors, anything you're going to go home and do differently next week? Or are you just going to sleep because you're tired? I mean, the sleep I do need. to value some sleep, I think, after this.

But, no, I mean, like I was saying, I knew that benevolence was like a core value of mine. I just, I didn't realize just how core it was and how many times it bumps up against the other. So I've really been thinking on that lately, and I'm going to continue to think on that. Cool. Well, if listeners of the show,

if you want to think on these things as well, discover your own values, spend the entire month working through everything that we've been talking about, piece by piece, exercise by exercise, then we have a 30-day values track in the momentum community. Ultimately, what momentum is about is the idea that it's a series of small changes in your life that create momentum, that get you pointed in the right direction. And the reason we're building a community around this is because ultimately taking action

is about accountability. So if you want to check that out, if you want to implement everything you've heard in this episode, if you're still fucking, if anybody's listening still, if you're still here, I assume you care enough to want to implement this into your life. So if you want a framework and a guide to help you implement it into your life, and then you also want the accountability on the back end to make sure you're actually doing it, check out find momentum.com slash values. All the information is there.

And like I said, we're going to do this for every single episode every month. That's right. And so it doesn't end with values. When we do procrastination next month, we're going to have a 30-day track for procrastination, help you solve procrastination in your life. And then when we do the episode after that, same thing, on and on and on. So please join us there.

I'm really excited about it. I'll be dropping into the community here and there, answering questions, doing live webinars. So it'll be a great place to connect and actually do shit. Yes. Do this stuff. Like take some action.

Like stop talking about it and listening to it and like go fucking. do it. So I'm excited for that. Anything else, Drew, before we sign off? I think we did it. You want to go home? I think we did it. Okay. I want to go home. Let's go home. Thank you, everybody. Be sure to like and subscribe on every platform. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review. Let us know what you thought. And please check out the newsletter. If you want to be up to date on other stuff that I'm launching, whether it's YouTube videos, articles, books, go to markmanson.net slash

newsletter. You can get all the updates there. We also announce all the new episodes there as well. Once again, solvedpodcast.com slash values for the free PDF guide that goes along with this episode if you want to review everything or check our citations or whatever. And we will be seeing you next month. Hey, so if anything in today's episode hit home for you, don't just let it fade. Because that's usually what happens, right? You hear something. that clicks, you think, I should do something about that. And then life happens. And three weeks later, you barely remember what you heard in the first place. That's why you should check out purpose, because purpose is built for exactly that situation. It's a personal development

AI that learns you. It takes the stuff that you're learning and helps you actually apply it to your life, to your situation, everything you're dealing with right now. It remembers what you've told it. It tracks your patterns. It gives you specific personalized direction and not just a pep talk. out try it free for seven days go to purpose.app that is purpose.app.