Order of Man - MICHAEL EASTER ｜ Conquer Your Scarcity Brain

00:00:00.000 So many of us as men are operating from a position of scarcity. We've wired our brains over decades

00:00:06.580 to constantly crave newer, better, more. Ironically, more doesn't always enhance and enrich our lives.

00:00:14.840 In fact, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the quest for better actually makes us less

00:00:20.960 happy and less fulfilled. My guest today is Michael Easter, author of The Comfort Crisis

00:00:26.020 and his latest book, Scarcity Brain. Today, Michael and I cover why we constantly crave more,

00:00:32.100 the dangers inherent in social media along this path, parameters to consider looking for abundance

00:00:37.660 in our lives, how to strike the balance between contentment and ambition, and how to finally

00:00:43.580 conquer our scarcity brains. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears

00:00:49.480 and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:56.020 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is

00:01:02.560 who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:01:08.260 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Brian Michler. I'm your

00:01:13.680 host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and global movement at this point. We were looking

00:01:19.780 through some data and some information over the past week or two and realized that there's so many of

00:01:25.120 you who have been listening, who have joined the Iron Council, who have bought products, who have come

00:01:30.440 to our events, who have engaged in some way for literally eight years now. Eight years, almost a

00:01:36.960 decade. We're coming up on a decade of doing this work, reclaiming, restoring masculinity, trying to

00:01:42.080 put good information out in the world, trying to serve us as men and help us lead those that we're

00:01:46.520 called to lead. So I want to first and foremost, thank you for tuning in. Thank you for joining us.

00:01:51.200 And also thank you for sharing. I've never done any sort of advertising or poured any money into,

00:01:58.440 you know, spending type of any money to get new listeners or anything like that. And not that I'm

00:02:04.000 opposed to that. I just, I can't believe the growth that we've experienced, the grassroots movements,

00:02:08.740 that is Order of Man, just based on you guys sharing. And that's a big honor to me. And I just want

00:02:14.980 to let you know, I appreciate you. If you are new guys, we're interviewing incredible men. I've got

00:02:18.740 Michael Easter on the podcast today, New York Times bestselling author, but we've also had other guys

00:02:23.680 like Jocko Willink, David Goggins, Cameron Haynes, Andy Frisilla, Tim Tebow, Tim Kennedy, Terry Cruz,

00:02:32.900 Matthew McConaughey, Ben Shapiro. I mean, we've got, we've got some, we've got some big names at this

00:02:38.100 point who have joined us. And that's a testament to the work that we're doing here and a testament to you

00:02:42.840 implementing the information that you're learning. So thank you for tuning in. I don't really have

00:02:48.960 any announcements today. I want to get right into it with my guest. He is a friend and a repeat guest.

00:02:53.580 His name is Michael Easter. He's the author of the bestselling book, The Comfort Crisis,

00:02:57.400 and his latest New York Times bestselling book, Scarcity Brain. His work has appeared in over 60

00:03:03.800 countries. It's been translated into 40 languages. It's been endorsed by directors of the CIA and US

00:03:11.000 special forces, professional sports teams, leaders in medicine, and so much more. He's also appeared

00:03:16.960 on a small little podcast called the Joe Rogan Experience podcast and in outlets like men's health,

00:03:23.080 women's health, Forbes, ESPN, and he's going to have to add order to men to that list as well. 1.00

00:03:28.100 On top of all that, Michael is currently working on a podcast series for Amazon. He's a professor in the

00:03:33.500 journalism department at UNLV and has become a leading voice on how humans can integrate modern science

00:03:40.380 and evolutionary wisdom for improved health, meaning, and performance. Gentlemen, please welcome

00:03:46.280 Michael Easter. Michael, what's up, brother? Great to have you back on the podcast. Looking

00:03:51.400 forward to the conversation today. Yeah, likewise, man. It's good to be back. I appreciate you having

00:03:55.780 me. So I just want to address the, probably one of the number one questions that I receive,

00:04:00.880 and we're going to work our way backwards into your book and message, but I think this is very poignant

00:04:04.940 based on what you're talking about. One of the questions I get all the time is how do you balance

00:04:10.480 contentment and ambition? That's something that I hear from the guys all the time about,

00:04:17.260 hey, I want to be happy and satisfied with where I am, which is a lot about what you talk about,

00:04:21.900 but also I do have goals. I do have dreams. I do have ambitions. I do have other things that I want

00:04:26.440 to accomplish. And where do you find that balance? Yeah, that's a great question. I think if anyone had

00:04:32.000 the perfect answer, we'd all have found it and that person would be very, very rich.

00:04:37.600 Yeah. What I'll say about that is this. On one hand, I think that humans can be very content with

00:04:46.580 a lot less than we think, especially in the context of modern life, right? It's like people

00:04:53.000 have been happy throughout time and space. And for the vast majority of time, people didn't own a lot

00:04:58.000 of things. Their conditions weren't 72 degrees all the time. They had lives that had a lot of

00:05:04.520 physical effort in. They had all these things that were seemingly hard, but they managed to find

00:05:08.360 happiness, perhaps not even despite it, but maybe because of that, right? So I do think that there's

00:05:13.900 a message in there that we do thrive when we have some amount of challenge in our life,

00:05:19.200 not an overwhelming amount, but some. And then the other thing that I will say is that

00:05:25.060 humans are a really fascinating creature in that we are just relentless explorers and pursuers,

00:05:32.840 right? We are the only species that has literally taken over the globe. We've gone down into the

00:05:38.940 deepest parts of the ocean. We've gone to the highest mountains. We've gone into outer freaking space.

00:05:43.620 So we are this creature that just goes and goes, what's over there? Because there might be greener

00:05:47.740 grass over there. But what if there's greener grass over there? There's greener grass over there.

00:05:51.140 Now, that's obviously got us to where we are now. But I think in the context of everyday life,

00:05:56.220 it takes a little bit of perspective to realize when you're just moving to different lawns and

00:06:00.860 they're all pretty much the same and it's making you miserable in the effort. And so I think a lot

00:06:06.720 of it comes down to realizing that the things that we often want to pursue, whether it's like

00:06:13.100 possessions, whether it's partners, whether it's a certain number in our bank account, it's like these

00:06:18.420 sort of worldly things. I think that you see that we only need a certain amount of them to be happy.

00:06:24.500 And once we go over that, we don't get much more happiness. And in fact, like continuing to trying

00:06:29.400 to pursue them can probably be counterproductive. And once you have sort of your bare minimum,

00:06:35.060 you probably have to shift your goals to something bigger, whether that's helping people,

00:06:38.940 whether that's doing the next right thing, whether that's devoting yourself to, I don't know,

00:06:42.460 spirituality, something greater than yourself. I think that that's a message that sort of

00:06:47.120 holds up in most religions and throughout time. But how do you know when your ambition is making

00:06:53.280 you miserable or is it just part of being human, the human experience, right? We're going to suffer

00:06:59.600 whether we're talking about cavemen who didn't have fire or food for three or four days, that's

00:07:05.180 suffering. Or whether it's us who maybe just went through a breakup or a job loss or financial

00:07:11.540 hardship. How do you know when it's actually your ambition that's making it miserable or just the

00:07:16.660 human experience? Yeah, that's a great question. That's a really good question. What are some

00:07:22.440 ways I can tell you that I do feel like when you start to see symptoms, underlying symptoms, something

00:07:29.420 like addiction, depression, anxiety, all those sorts of things, like if you're pursuing and yet you're

00:07:36.400 ultimately fulfilled, that to me seems like it's, you're probably doing the right thing. But I tend to

00:07:43.420 think that a lot of the behaviors that we fall into that are negative in the long-term, those are

00:07:49.600 usually a symptom of something gone awry and that could be just too much ambition, right?

00:07:56.580 Yeah, I think we kind of inherently know too, right? I mean, I like what you said about addiction,

00:08:01.700 you know, self-destructive behavior versus, hey, I'm having a bad day.

00:08:05.640 Right.

00:08:06.000 Like we're all going to have bad days, but if you start slipping into self-destructive behavior

00:08:09.840 habitually and it becomes a trend, then I think there's some things that we need to look at as

00:08:14.640 the underlying issue. Yeah. I mean, I, I find, I think that most self-destructive behaviors,

00:08:20.620 when they start, they give us a benefit or else we wouldn't do them.

00:08:24.220 Of course.

00:08:24.920 Right. So it's like you, let's take this, a stupid example of like, you're on your phone 1.00

00:08:32.480 too much. It's like most people, when you look at the data, 90 some odd percent of phone pickups 0.98

00:08:37.840 aren't because of an external cue. They're because the person got bored or they experienced stress

00:08:45.220 or something. Right. So we find these behaviors that will relieve whatever our problem is in the

00:08:50.720 short term. But when we continue doing them over and over and over, they lead to

00:08:54.040 long-term problems, but you're still going to get that short-term benefit, right? If I'm stressed

00:08:58.780 out or I'm bored and I look at my phone and fall into Instagram, it did relieve that problem in the

00:09:02.560 short term. But then the long-term problem is I've just wasted half an hour. I've just spent my time

00:09:07.500 doing something that I don't ultimately want to be doing with my life. That could be used a lot

00:09:11.600 more productively. Same with addiction, right? You, you get home from work, you're stressed,

00:09:15.500 you're pissed off, whatever you have a drink. And it's like, wow, that, that fixed the problem

00:09:19.640 pretty soon, pretty quickly. So you have another, oh, that was good too. And eventually repeating

00:09:24.000 that cycle over time, you start to accumulate long-term problems. But the problem is, is that

00:09:27.560 the behavior still fixes your problem in the short term. So you often have to do something hard,

00:09:32.400 which is not do the behavior. You have to sit with whatever the underlying issue is and figure

00:09:37.080 out, well, why am I doing this in the first place? And then you can start to, even though that's hard,

00:09:41.620 you can start to get rid of those long-term problems. That makes sense.

00:09:45.520 It does. And I just think the problem, the problem, the challenge is we're so impatient and to have to sit

00:09:50.800 with our own shortcomings or inadequacies or boredom. It's like, why do that? I can just turn

00:09:57.820 the TV on. I can just have a drink. I can just have a smoke. I can do whatever your thing is,

00:10:02.520 right? You can just do that. If it's, if it's like, Hey, I need to get laid, just jump on an app.

00:10:06.480 Like everything that we, we want to give us short-term gratification is literally at our

00:10:12.200 fingertips. Yeah, totally. I mean, I think that that, so this book I wrote scarcity brand,

00:10:16.740 that is very much a big part of the message is that, you know, in the past, we didn't have all

00:10:23.680 these different ways to quickly escape to, you know, we couldn't just buy stuff all the time.

00:10:30.280 We couldn't spend time on, in these online worlds. We didn't, we didn't have like alcohol everywhere

00:10:36.440 or whatever it is. And now we just have so many different ways to escape that we often find

00:10:40.880 something that sort of does it for us. And that can ultimately be destructive. So in the past,

00:10:45.800 you'd often, I mean, take boredom, right? Boredom is this evolutionary discomfort that basically

00:10:49.640 tells us whatever you're doing with your time, your time invested is one thin. So if you think

00:10:55.300 about people hunting and gathering, let's say we're hunting and we need food and we're going to,

00:10:59.160 or else we're going to starve. If there's no animals coming through, boredom kicks on and

00:11:04.320 basically just tells us go do something else. Now in the past, we would have gone and done something

00:11:09.280 productive. We would have gone and picked potatoes. We would have picked berries. We would have done

00:11:12.800 something to survive. Right. But now it's like, we don't actually need to be doing these

00:11:18.040 acts that we need to do to survive. And when we feel boredom, we've got this easy, effortless escape

00:11:24.360 from it. And it's all over, right? It's in the form of your cell phone. It's in the form of your TV.

00:11:29.880 It's in the form of your computer. It's like all these different ways to escape. And so I think what

00:11:34.440 really happens is that a lot of these sort of evolutionary tendencies we have in the human brain to

00:11:39.940 acquire, to be stimulated, to gather more influence, to, you know, eat, whatever it might be.

00:11:47.380 They sort of almost get co-opted in a world where there's food everywhere. There's Amazon Prime. You

00:11:54.300 can have something to your house in six hours and you don't even have to leave the couch where if you 0.99

00:11:58.860 want to get laid, you don't even have to go down to the damn bar and put in the effort of like 0.97

00:12:03.180 spinning a good game, spinning a good game. You can just like go on Tinder and like swipe, 0.98

00:12:07.380 swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe. Oh, here's someone they're just like totally down

00:12:10.620 to, but we were not, we're not even going to talk. Right. So it's just, we've got like this

00:12:15.260 abundance of all these things that we're built to crave now. And we don't necessarily have a

00:12:21.260 governor on how we manage them, let's say. So I actually, I want to talk about the governor

00:12:27.760 before I do. I I'm always a little skeptical of the, of the argument of, you know, well, we used

00:12:32.940 to, right. Uh, thousands of years ago, our ancestors used to do intermittent fasting is

00:12:38.980 what I hear a lot. It's like, well, yeah, because you know, like they didn't have food

00:12:44.140 all the time. Like we do. And now we have to force ourselves or, you know, our ancestor

00:12:48.200 didn't have gyms. It's like, well, yeah, they didn't have perfectly balanced symmetrical

00:12:51.700 barbells to lift, but they were, you know, moving logs and picking up rocks and throwing

00:12:55.960 things at objects and animals so they could eat. Is that the argument? Because I'm not really

00:13:01.800 sure. I'm willing to trade places with the Neanderthals. So it's, it's just an interesting 0.94

00:13:06.500 argument to me. Well, to me, what it is, is it's that it's fundamentally an evolutionary

00:13:10.900 mismatch, right? Um, our ancestors didn't necessarily choose to do the things they did.

00:13:16.600 And so the blessing of our time is that we do have an abundance of all these things. We don't

00:13:20.760 have to go move for our food. Um, we don't have to fast if we want to, but we still have,

00:13:28.040 we're still compelled to behave in a way similar that our ancestors would have, would have,

00:13:32.460 which is, for example, if you found food in the past, it made sense to overeat it like

00:13:37.500 for all the time, eat it all and do nothing. And by the way, exercise, we invented that 150

00:13:43.600 years ago when we realized like, Oh, these new jobs we have that are more or less kind

00:13:47.940 of sedentary. Like, it seems like we're getting health problems because of that. So what are

00:13:51.840 we going to do? Like, I don't know. Let's just like build a building where people can go

00:13:54.860 move around and like pick stuff up and put it down and like run on a belt. Right. Let's

00:13:59.700 exercise. That never made sense for all of time. And so I do think that, um, while we

00:14:04.940 can't be a slave to the, to the past, because to your point, like, yeah, our ancestors didn't

00:14:11.620 choose the fast, like they would have eaten if they had food, they would have eaten it all

00:14:15.660 the time. Right. Um, but I do think that it can inform and can help explain a lot of times

00:14:22.600 when we find ourself in trouble in the present more or less.

00:14:27.300 So how do you then turn on you, you use the term governor. So how do you turn on that governor

00:14:32.080 and realize, you know, I'm, I'm overeating or, uh, or, or I've grown complacent or, uh,

00:14:39.300 I'm on social media too much. And I think these are all things that most men would acknowledge

00:14:43.680 readily. And yet they have a hard time and myself included tempering some of that behavior.

00:14:49.440 How do you turn on that governor so that you can be comfortable with what you have and

00:14:54.200 not overindulge?

00:14:57.700 Yeah. Um, I'll answer that this way. So as part of this scarcity brain book, um, I got,

00:15:04.200 um, I live in Vegas and you live pretty close to Vegas. If you've ever come down here, it's

00:15:10.660 like there's slot machines everywhere and people play them around the clock. It's like grocery

00:15:14.900 stores, gas station, restaurants, bars, whatever. And that is a behavior that it really doesn't make

00:15:20.000 much sense, right? Cause everyone knows the house is always going to win. And so I start

00:15:24.020 to get really interested in why do people get obsessed with slot machines? Like, you know,

00:15:28.820 you're going to lose eventually. So long story short is that, um, I end up going to this lab

00:15:35.520 that is effectively a living, breathing, working casino, but it's used for, uh, research on gambling,

00:15:42.600 on human behavior, on all these sorts of different things. And when I'm there, I ended up talking to

00:15:47.440 a guy who designed slot machines more or less. And he explains to me how slot machines work and they

00:15:54.100 work off this three-part, uh, habit loop that I call the scarcity loop. And it's got opportunity,

00:15:59.800 unpredictable rewards, and quick repeatability. So with number one opportunity, you have an opportunity

00:16:05.080 to get something of value that can enhance your life. And form a slot machine, it's obviously money.

00:16:09.880 Number two, unpredictable rewards. You know, that if you, if you keep doing the behavior,

00:16:15.300 you'll get the thing of value eventually, but you don't know when, and you don't know how valuable

00:16:19.520 it's going to be. So with the slot machine, any given game, you could lose your money.

00:16:23.400 You could win a couple bucks. You could win like $2 million and it changes your life. Right.

00:16:28.060 And so that's exciting. And then number three, quick repeatability. You can repeat the behavior

00:16:33.160 over and over and over quickly. So with slot machines, people play 16 games a minute on average.

00:16:40.420 Now, the reason that this is important and why we're talking about slot machines is because it's

00:16:46.120 not really about slot machines, right? It's the, uh, that three-part system has been placed in all

00:16:53.180 sorts of different technologies and institutions, uh, today. So basically it's what makes social media

00:16:59.660 work. It's what makes dating apps easy to hook people on. It's being put in the gig economy system.

00:17:05.600 It's being put in, um, a lot of financial apps like Robin hood that increase quick repeatability

00:17:09.940 that explains the rise of sports gambling. So it gets legalized and then we put it into cell

00:17:15.900 phones easily. And we allow people to make multiple bets and sometimes bets down to the

00:17:19.800 second in a game, right. And on and on and on. And so that's a kind of long way of explaining

00:17:25.200 that. I think a lot of these behaviors that we get hooked on and do repeatedly that eventually

00:17:30.480 hurt us. They tend to often fall into that scarcity loop, which is, you know, you've got

00:17:37.720 this like random rewards game that you fall into and there's nothing better at grabbing

00:17:43.020 human attention and holding it than that. And this is even seen in all different animals.

00:17:49.500 Like I talked to the psychologist and he, you can turn a pigeon basically into a degenerate gambler

00:17:56.000 in about two minutes by giving them a game that has this system and works in rats. It works in monkeys.

00:18:01.540 It works in all different animals. And it probably tracks back to finding food in the past. So if you

00:18:06.580 think about our ancestors gathering food, you go to one place, no food, the next place, no food,

00:18:12.560 the next place, no food. You need that food once you're going to survive. So you keep repeating

00:18:16.720 the behavior and repeating the behavior and then jackpot, you finally find it. And that saves your

00:18:20.900 life. And that's so exciting. Right. So it's almost like we're inherently attracted to this,

00:18:25.480 this system. And I think that a lot of times today, since it's been co-opted in a lot of different ways,

00:18:31.500 we're still attracted to it, but it's in these places that we don't necessarily want to be

00:18:35.000 right. It's still like the random rewards are still going to hook our brain, whether it's in

00:18:40.060 actual gambling, whether it's in slot machines, whether it's in the fact that our grocery

00:18:46.440 stores have a billion different choices of chips and like, Oh, I'm going to try this one.

00:18:49.920 This one could be great. Um, whatever it might be. So I don't know if that answered your question,

00:18:54.320 but I do think it provides a sort of underlying framework of how, um, we do have these ancient

00:18:59.260 brains and we do have these habit systems that used to keep us alive in the past and how now when

00:19:04.940 they're applied to these sort of modern environments, they don't always make sense.

00:19:10.100 Yeah. I, you know, it's interesting as you were saying this, I was even thinking I've got a really

00:19:13.540 big hunt. One of my favorite hunts of the year. I even see this in hunting. So I'll go out with a

00:19:17.440 group of buddies and we'll go sit in different tree stands that are on the property. We hunt and

00:19:21.840 you know, you have the opportunity, which is to kill an animal. That's why we're all there.

00:19:25.320 Uh, you have the unpredictable reward because at any given point you could either see a deer or not

00:19:30.080 see a deer or see a big buck or not see a big buck or your buddy's like, Hey, I saw a massive buck

00:19:34.380 over here, but you didn't see anything. So there's that unpredictability. Um, and then the quick

00:19:39.700 repeatability, cause you can go out every day and sit for hours and hours and you'll see something

00:19:44.460 and that'll keep you coming back and back and back golf's the same way. You know, you keep coming

00:19:48.280 back and you hit one good enough shot every once in a while to keep you coming back to this damn 1.00

00:19:51.960 game. Uh, and then what I see guys do in the hunting world is, uh, you know, maybe they'll sit 0.99

00:19:57.920 over here on the West end of the property, but on the East end of the property, uh, on the cameras

00:20:02.140 is this big buck. And so even though the buck's been coming over on the West end every single day,

00:20:07.220 the next sit, you're going to go over there because the camera picked it up over there.

00:20:11.140 And then he happens to be where you were. And you just end up chasing this buck all over this

00:20:14.860 property. You're all over the place, never finding him with the hopes that you'll get something in

00:20:18.700 return for it. Dude, that that's exactly it. And hunting is a great hunting is like the ultimate

00:20:24.860 example, right there. So the, a lot of these, um, this loop, it appears naturally in nature in a lot

00:20:30.820 of forms. So people who get really into birding, it's like, you want to see some sort of bird,

00:20:35.340 you know, you're going to see a bird at some point, but you don't know if it's going to be like

00:20:38.200 the crow that you see every day, or it could be some super rare bird. Like, Oh my God,

00:20:41.760 I can't believe we saw one of those. Right. Um, and you're just kind of looking and looking,

00:20:45.440 looking it's, um, it's obviously in fishing, right. Toss a line. You don't know, um, if you're

00:20:51.080 going to get a bite. And when the fish is on the line, you're like, well, this is tugging pretty hard.

00:20:55.140 Like, is it a giant or is it just kind of small and strong? Right. You don't know. And there's

00:20:59.060 something inherently attractive about that to humans. And so I think one message that I talked about

00:21:05.200 in the book is like, we know that this scarcity loop behavior will really grab our attention

00:21:10.560 and hold it. And so the question is, how are you going to use it? Because I would argue that when

00:21:16.400 you are falling into a behavior like hunting and being hooked by that, like you're outside,

00:21:20.940 you probably had to hike in to get there. Um, you're doing it with buddies. Like you're getting

00:21:26.140 all these things that are really good for you in the process of this behavior that is kind of

00:21:30.620 addicting. Right. Uh, whereas something like slot machine gambling, it's like you're sitting

00:21:36.500 in a smoky casino. You're probably ripping a Marlboro red. You're probably not hanging out

00:21:42.020 with anyone and it's all inside and you're not moving around. And so, and by the way, you're losing

00:21:46.540 a lot of money in the process. Although one could argue hunting might be more expensive once you add

00:21:50.760 up all the shit you have to buy, but I think it's fine if you're aware of it. Like if you actually 0.67

00:21:58.040 know how much you're spending and you're, you think to yourselves consciously, yeah,

00:22:02.460 I'm spending a lot of money. Cause that's different than I'm going to go do this for,

00:22:06.360 you know, 12 hours. Uh, and, and you're not even aware of the amount of money that's burning

00:22:11.480 through your pocket. That's a different story. Right. Right. And so, yeah, one thing I actually,

00:22:16.380 I actually say in the book is that like, I don't care if you want to spend 12 hours on TikTok.

00:22:20.540 I just want you to make the conscious choice to spend 12 hours on TikTok because unfortunately we tend

00:22:26.240 to naturally just sort of zone out when we're in this system. Um, it's sort of like the ultimate

00:22:30.740 fun escape. And I do think you see a lot of people, I mean, I see it in Vegas. It's like

00:22:35.680 someone will look up and be like, wow, I've been on slot machine for three hours. And how much have

00:22:39.220 I spent? But also I would argue that probably everyone listening to this podcast has been on

00:22:44.900 some sort of app on their phone and then like, Oh my God, I was on Instagram for 45 minutes just now.

00:22:51.140 Or I, I've been scrolling through the New York times or the, whatever it is, Fox news for

00:22:56.220 40 minutes down this rabbit hole of a story. And I don't even realize it. So I think really,

00:23:01.160 I'm just trying to get people to be aware of this thing, why they do it and where it lives.

00:23:06.480 Are there general parameters that you would suggest people set up in their life? So for example,

00:23:11.520 you know, you said awareness is key, but let's take social media. Is it just a matter of saying,

00:23:15.620 Hey, I'm going to spend from 9am to 9 30 on social media. And then when 9 30 hits, I'm done.

00:23:20.700 I'm done for the day or I'm done for the morning or, you know, whatever your own parameter is,

00:23:25.400 is that the tactic or is there something else? Yeah, I think, I think that's one of the tactics,

00:23:30.280 really the way that you can reduce a behavior is to take away or change any one of the three parts

00:23:37.200 that it has. So you can take away or change the opportunity. You can take away or change the

00:23:40.860 unpredictable rewards. You can take away or change the quick repeatability. So your example is kind of

00:23:45.660 taking away the quick repeatability, right? Because you're, you've only got a certain time limit.

00:23:49.340 Another example that takes away quick repeatability would be there are certain apps where you have

00:23:55.780 to, when you go to open the app that you find yourself going into too much, it makes you pause

00:24:00.360 for like five seconds. And oftentimes that is enough for people to go, Oh wait, I didn't even

00:24:05.380 really want to be in this app. I just like reflexively checked it. And so you tend to see time go down.

00:24:10.560 It's an app that, that, that builds that function into it. Is that what you're saying?

00:24:14.820 Yeah, exactly. Which when I first heard of this, I was like, so you're telling me that I have to

00:24:19.140 download an app so I can use another app less. And I rolled my eyes. Um, but finally, like the,

00:24:24.360 the, the founder of this, uh, company, the one I was using, I think is called clear space.

00:24:29.200 He was like, dude, just try it. I'm like, okay, I'll try it. And it really is based on behavioral

00:24:33.660 psychology. I mean, it's just, uh, you download this app and then you pick the apps that you want

00:24:38.160 to have to wait to get into. So then when you go to clip, whatever the app is that you're spending

00:24:43.260 too much time in, it could be email, could be Twitter, could be anything. You're going to go,

00:24:47.780 okay. Like it's, it says, do you want to use this app right now? And you go, yes. And you go, okay.

00:24:52.180 You know, three seconds, three seconds goes by. And then it goes, how much time do you want to spend

00:24:56.360 in the app? You got to pick, okay. I want to spend 10 minutes or I want to spend five minutes.

00:24:59.880 I wouldn't do that. I'm not, I'm not doing that app.

00:25:02.100 But if you find yourself stuck, like just spending way too much time on an app, I guarantee you that'll

00:25:07.580 reduce your time because it just takes away. No, that's what I'm saying. I would not do whatever

00:25:11.020 app it's blocking me from. I'm like, I'm out because we want everything immediately. If I can't

00:25:15.920 get on Instagram, when I pull it up, I'll pull up a website and it'll take, you know, seven tenths of

00:25:20.620 a second. I'm like, damn it. What's taking so long? And I catch myself. Exactly. I get, I get so 0.98

00:25:27.140 frustrated. It's like, uh, Oh, what's the comedian? Um, Lewis CK or CK Lewis. I don't

00:25:33.260 know what his name is, but he, he, he has this, like this, uh, comedy routine. I think he did it

00:25:38.660 on one of the late night shows and he's like, give it a second. It's going to space, you know,

00:25:42.520 cause somebody was so upset. It wasn't downloading whatever they wanted to immediately. We live in

00:25:47.860 crazy times. That is how it is. Um, yeah. But then another one would be, you could take away

00:25:53.380 the unpredictable rewards. And this is a fun one on, uh, phones. If you turn your phone into

00:25:59.380 grayscale mode where everything on the screen is displayed in, um, white, black, gray, that makes

00:26:05.800 the phone less stimulating because colors stimulate us. They tell us to do things. So you think you see

00:26:10.580 a red sign on the road tells you to stop, right? Um, they stimulate behavior. And so when you take a

00:26:16.560 phone into the grayscale mode, you tend to see screen time go down significantly because the phone has

00:26:21.000 just become far less rewarding, like far less rewarding. It's almost like, Oh my God, this

00:26:25.780 thing is so boring now. Yeah. I imagine the same is true for music. You know, you look at Instagram

00:26:30.980 reels and, and stories and, you know, you can dub the music over the top of it and it makes a clip

00:26:35.700 that was otherwise boring, pretty interesting. And these things tend to go viral. So you take the

00:26:40.120 music out, you're like, that's not nearly as exciting as I thought it was. Yeah, totally. And why,

00:26:45.380 I mean, so, you know, you really see this, um, almost arms race to figure out who can get the

00:26:51.600 most attention grabbing thing. And that's just been climbing and climbing and climbing, especially

00:26:57.520 since the 1800s when we started using the ad model in media. So the first guy who really used the

00:27:03.940 ad model, uh, to make money off a newspaper, he basically realized his name is Benjamin day.

00:27:09.220 He basically realized, okay, if I'm going to make money on advertising, I need the biggest audience.

00:27:15.240 I can get. Right. And then I'm going to take those eyes and I'm going to sell them to an 0.98

00:27:20.300 advertiser, but I can charge more, the more people I have. So how do I get as many people

00:27:25.560 to read this newspaper? There's, Oh, I should make it as not boring as possible. I should start

00:27:31.260 covering crazy stuff that will naturally grab human attention. So we start all this stuff,

00:27:36.100 murder, like scandals, all this crazy stuff in New York, uh, which was different than other

00:27:42.560 newspapers were covering at the time. And in about a year, he had the biggest paper in the

00:27:46.060 world. And then it's just been an arms race ever. It was called, uh, the sun, the sun. Okay.

00:27:52.360 Interesting. I was thinking maybe it turned into like national inquire or something like that.

00:27:56.540 Well, they are very good at it. Yeah, that would be, that's the model right there.

00:28:00.340 But now we have it in a world where we have, where you can track every swipe, every pause,

00:28:06.280 everything on an algorithm. Right. And then it kind of just gets floated up into you. So I think

00:28:11.700 we're starting to see like just this, uh, sharpening of the needle there.

00:28:16.980 Well, it's interesting. I have this consultant, this business consultant. He's like, Hey,

00:28:19.780 I need your demographic data. I'm like, all right. Like, what do you need? So he told me and I'm

00:28:23.120 like, okay. And he's like, this way you can come up with better product services offerings,

00:28:26.700 which all makes sense to me. And I can see the value in that. He's like, and then you'll get a

00:28:30.100 very clear picture on who your target customer is, who your ideal audience member is. And then you can

00:28:34.820 speak to them directly. And I'm a, I'm a small fish, right? But when you think about these huge,

00:28:40.080 huge corporations and conglomerates, the amount of money they're pouring in to know their customer,

00:28:45.900 it's the same thing. When you pull up your phone and you've been talking about going on a trip to

00:28:50.040 Hawaii and all of a sudden you're getting bombarded with different ads from these incredible resorts

00:28:55.140 in Hawaii. It's like, how did this know? I don't know. I don't understand. I mean,

00:28:58.840 part of that is my, my, your phone might actually be listening to you, but the other part is it's just

00:29:02.980 behavior. You know, what, what you're doing, what you're looking at, what you're,

00:29:06.080 what you're engaged in and the computer is tracking it. Totally. And I mean, it's one of

00:29:11.460 those where, you know, the example I like to give is when I go on Instagram, I, it just knows what I

00:29:18.420 watch. It knows who I follow. And I get fed so many things, uh, like, especially around the band,

00:29:25.640 the Grateful Dead, who's like my favorite. And if there's like a, if someone puts up like a bootleg

00:29:29.820 tape, like I'm in for watching the whole like five minute, you know, clip or whatever. Then the next

00:29:34.760 one is like, Hey, you need this Grateful Dead sweatshirt from this like show from, you know,

00:29:38.220 1980, whatever. I'm like, Oh man, that's pretty sick. Right. But like no one else in the world

00:29:42.320 is getting the same ad algorithms as I am, you know, for you, it might be like, you're watching

00:29:47.440 a minute long hunting video. And the next thing is like, yo, check out this sick. So yeah, it's one

00:29:54.820 of those where it's like, this product was tailor-made in a lab exactly for my strange personality. And I do

00:30:00.320 like it at the same time. I'm totally creeped out by this whole thing. You know, I mean,

00:30:04.860 it's pretty convenient. I, uh, I bought these, these pants and I'm like, these are good. I like

00:30:10.800 these. I like the fit of these. And all of a sudden I'm getting ads for the same pants that I bought.

00:30:14.160 I don't even know how they got it. And I actually just got them in the mail about 15 minutes before

00:30:18.220 I jumped on this call because I bought the same pants in two new colors, you know, and they just

00:30:22.840 extracted $300 from me, uh, because I bought, you know, two that I actually really liked. I don't even

00:30:28.640 know how they did it, but it happened. Yeah, it happened. And so, you know, one,

00:30:33.600 one portion of the book that I look at, um, cause I'm really kind of looking at, okay,

00:30:38.280 what are the things that humans have sort of evolved to crave and need and it's food, stuff,

00:30:45.680 information, um, status, uh, et cetera. Maybe something like that. Sure. And, um,

00:30:52.620 in the stuff section, I mean, it was just so fascinating because you look at how much people

00:30:57.800 owned even 150 years ago. And, you know, the average person might've owned three outfits

00:31:02.960 and now the average person owns more than a hundred different outfits. Uh, the average

00:31:07.860 home has more than 10,000 items in it. And this is not, yeah, this is not just that, you

00:31:13.220 know, this, this researcher who was looking at all this data, he talked about how a lot

00:31:18.640 of people, you know, shop compulsively cause it's so much easier now. And this is not just

00:31:23.540 a problem for people who have money, like stuff has become so cheap that this has become an issue.

00:31:29.660 This overbuying has become an issue for all economic classes, like for the first time ever,

00:31:35.060 basically. Are you a, uh, are you a proponent then of this minimalistic mindset or movement

00:31:41.620 that we see that I think tends to be, you know, growing in popularity? Uh, so I, I take the framework

00:31:47.820 of, uh, that I find useful is what I call gear, not stuff. So when you look at why people buy

00:31:54.280 things, uh, there's a lot of different reasons. It could be that, um, the thing is a piece of gear

00:32:00.220 that helps you accomplish some larger purpose. It could be that you're getting status from the

00:32:05.180 purchase, right? You know, a Rolex isn't telling you what time it is. It's telling you what time it

00:32:11.140 is, but that's not why you buy Rolex. That's secondary to what the real, the real purchase

00:32:15.660 meant to you. Sure. Exactly. Uh, third people will buy things to belong. So this is like,

00:32:21.120 you're buying some sort of item to kind of be in a specific group that you want to be a part of.

00:32:25.440 And then fourth, I think that people do a lot of buying just because they're bored. And it's like,

00:32:29.280 you got your phone and an ad comes up, which I'm guilty of that. Look at, I got, I got freaking

00:32:34.300 five grateful dead t-shirts in my closet right now. Um, but I try and take the framework of gear,

00:32:39.920 not stuff where every time I'm going to purchase something, I'm like, what, what is the higher

00:32:44.780 purpose of this? What I'm, what is this allowing me to accomplish? And so I think that that framework

00:32:50.200 has just taken out a lot of the purchases I perhaps would have made in the past that wouldn't

00:32:57.300 have really, that were just to make a purchase or to like buy into some idea about, you know,

00:33:02.220 status or belonging or something like that. So I've, I've found that useful.

00:33:07.120 Do you find that alternative, maybe more noble or righteous? I don't even know if that's the right

00:33:13.100 framing. Um, more valuable, maybe more valuable, uh, goals and desires are a good deterrent.

00:33:19.440 So for example, that might be, uh, uh, maybe you want to buy a house and you need to come up with

00:33:25.240 a $40,000 down payment. It is, does that tend to be sufficient enough to say, Hey, I'm not going to

00:33:31.860 go out and buy the grateful dead shirt that I wanted to buy today, or, um, I'm not going to eat out

00:33:36.660 this much this week because I'd like to say that extra a hundred or $200 that I normally spend.

00:33:41.740 Like, is that, is that a tactic that people use? Cause I tend to look at it and think,

00:33:46.320 yeah, I might want to come up with that 40 or $50,000 deposit on the house. But you know,

00:33:51.080 me, me, me going to McDonald's and spending $8. Yeah, that's good. That's okay. I can do that.

00:33:55.200 Like, do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, I do. I mean, I think some people can be very

00:33:59.780 stringent, but I think for most people, um, stuff is relatively cheap in the grand scheme of things.

00:34:06.140 Um, here's a fun example. People used to burn down buildings in the 1800s just for the nails

00:34:12.620 because nails were so hard to find and so time consuming to make and so expensive. You literally

00:34:17.900 had people like, well, I need some nails. I'm going to go set my neighbor's house on fire

00:34:20.820 so I can get these nails. Now we can make like 400 nails in a single minute off of machines. Right. 1.00

00:34:26.300 And they're so cheap. Like go to home Depot and you buy a box of nails for like a buck,

00:34:29.960 two bucks, something, uh, four bucks with inflation, but okay. So I do think that things

00:34:38.320 have become so cheap in a lot of ways, which is good because more people can get what they need,

00:34:44.940 but they've also become so cheap that we all have so much stuff that we don't necessarily need. And

00:34:50.540 that, um, I think that that can just become a hobby in and of itself. It's just buying shit. 1.00

00:34:55.820 Yeah. I've noticed for myself personally, and I don't know if this is a mentality or if this is 1.00

00:35:02.240 just human nature that when things get cluttered in my life, it's probably not human nature. It's

00:35:07.740 probably more of a personality because I know people who love clutter to the extreme. You see

00:35:12.120 all sorts of hoarder shows on TV and they just hoard everything. Uh, but I, but I tend to look at

00:35:17.620 when, when I have too much stuff in my life, whether that's activities or physical possessions

00:35:24.260 that are just like consuming me, I can't, I can't focus on anything else. Like I would not be able

00:35:29.500 to have this conversation with you as effectively if I had a thousand different things going on in

00:35:33.240 this room that didn't belong there. Yeah, I do. And there is actually research that suggests that

00:35:38.860 people who have a ton of clutter in their office, um, it impacts their thinking. It impacts their,

00:35:44.620 uh, productivity for me. I've definitely found that I do better work if I have fewer things

00:35:51.780 to do. So it may not be as much of a stuff thing for me, but it definitely is a, when the to-do list

00:35:57.280 gets too packed, even if I stack all the crap I have to do later in the day and devote, you know,

00:36:02.960 four hours every morning to writing or whatever it is, that'll still impact my writing. Cause I have

00:36:07.360 all these things that I know are coming up and on my brain. And I find that when I'm able to chop out

00:36:12.140 some of the, the extras, I just have more time to have to think clear, to sort of deal with

00:36:17.760 some of the ideas I have to grapple with as a writer. And, um, I do think it leads to better work.

00:36:23.520 And I do think the trajectory over the last whatever amount of years is that we have a lot

00:36:29.700 of opportunity to pack our schedule. I mean, I think that life was, uh, you know, they, it's a

00:36:34.640 cliche to be like times were simpler back then, but I do think you had less inputs coming into your

00:36:40.120 way in the form of people trying to communicate with you, the things that you could possibly do for

00:36:43.620 a job. Um, the tasks you could be doing all that sort of different things. I think it was a little

00:36:48.160 more straightforward. Guys, let me, uh, pause the conversation as I do every single week.

00:36:54.300 I want to ask you a question. What does it mean to be battle ready? We've all heard that term.

00:36:59.420 Uh, and, and I think we generally know what it means, but I want to share with you what I think

00:37:03.060 it means. And that means that you are prepared and qualified to deal with whatever life has to throw

00:37:08.000 at you, whether it's a divorce and separation or a job loss, a medical diagnosis, maybe a lawsuit,

00:37:14.620 financial troubles, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, so much stuff happens throughout life and

00:37:19.020 we want you to be ready for those things when they happen, but we're not just talking about playing

00:37:22.760 defense here. Being battle ready is also about going on the offense and accomplishing the goals

00:37:28.460 that you set out for yourself in scientifically proven ways to achieve maximum results. And that's why

00:37:34.960 we created the battle ready program is to help you achieve all that you set out to accomplish

00:37:40.000 in the most efficient and effective ways possible. So when you sign up for our battle ready program,

00:37:45.540 you're going to receive 17 emails over 30 days that will help you identify your goals,

00:37:51.560 break them down into actionable daily steps that will produce results and maintain consistency towards

00:37:57.720 your deepest dreams and ambitions. So I want you to stop sitting around. I know you do too.

00:38:03.640 Stop sitting around and, and, and thinking about and pondering and pontificating about what you want

00:38:08.980 to accomplish and actually start doing something for yourself, for your loved ones. And those who

00:38:14.080 are relying on you to be the man that you are meant to be sign up for our free course. It is free

00:38:18.940 guys, our free course at order of man.com slash battle ready. That's order of man.com slash battle ready.

00:38:24.820 Go ahead and get signed right up after this conversation for now. I'll get back to it with Michael.

00:38:29.060 Have you found any, uh, any, any advice for activities that don't, don't produce immediate

00:38:37.580 results? So for example, when you write the scarcity brain, do you mind if I ask how long

00:38:41.480 that took you roughly to write from start to finish minus the edits and all the, all the stuff,

00:38:46.680 you know, just, just to write it itself. I would say probably two years to write it. And then there

00:38:50.940 was, you know, the year of edits and probably all the publishing nonsense that goes along with

00:38:56.260 getting a book out there. So, so with, with a three year project, essentially is what you're

00:39:01.240 saying. It's like, man, how do you find the motivation to get up and write a thousand words

00:39:07.060 today when you know, that's just a drop in the bucket for what needs to happen. And also you've

00:39:13.720 got plenty of time to make it happen. Right. You have to, you have to actually like the process and

00:39:19.620 enjoy it. Um, I find that some of my happiest times, uh, are when it's, you know, five in the

00:39:25.840 morning and I'm working on a book grappling with a specific idea and trying to figure out how do I

00:39:31.820 make this, how do I write this in a way that's entertaining and digestible? I'll also say some

00:39:36.460 of my most insane moments are at 5.00 AM when I'm writing and trying to make an idea digestible,

00:39:41.640 but it's kind of, well, it's hard, right? I mean, sometimes you're dealing with information that

00:39:49.340 doesn't make sense and trying to be like, how do I explain this in a way that doesn't just put a

00:39:53.920 person to sleep and feel like a textbook. Um, maybe things haven't quite lined up. You're like,

00:40:00.380 you're circling the drain of, I know I can make this idea make sense, but I'm not quite sure how

00:40:08.000 the threads need to be tied yet. Right. This is like tying a ship to a dock. And if I don't use this

00:40:12.840 damn knot, the thing is going to drift off and go away. And like, what is the dot? I got to learn what 0.96

00:40:17.620 this knot is in the first place. Then I got to learn how to tie it. Like that's really hard. Um,

00:40:21.580 but ultimately that's, that's very rewarding. And I think you can apply that, um, across the board

00:40:28.100 that if you don't, you have to enjoy what you are working on. That doesn't mean it's always going

00:40:35.940 to be easy, but you have to find the outcome very rewarding, right? There's things that you and I

00:40:41.780 could go do. Like we could go move rocks from point A to point B and it would be challenging,

00:40:48.420 but like, what is the greater purpose? Would that ultimately like give us this large,

00:40:52.460 deeper reward? And the answer is probably not. Right. And so I think you do have to find whatever

00:40:56.240 that thing is for you. It could be building a business. Like for you, I'm sure you've got,

00:40:59.880 um, you know, working on a podcast and building this thing into what it is. I'm sure that you've had

00:41:05.600 a lot of setbacks, but you've also had a lot of times where you're like, Oh my God, this is,

00:41:09.280 this is great. Like I'm, I'm having the time of my life doing this and it's work.

00:41:13.940 Yeah, it is work. And every once in a while I get a piece of feedback or an email from somebody who

00:41:18.380 changed your life around. I'm like, all right, cool. You know, this, this is good. I don't,

00:41:22.580 I've written a couple of books myself, not nearly to the same success that you've had.

00:41:26.660 I hate the process. Like I find it miserable. Um, there, there's nothing about it that is redeeming

00:41:31.860 for me other than being done with the book and knowing that somebody is going to take it

00:41:35.660 and read it. And hopefully their life is going to be a little bit better,

00:41:39.280 because of it. And that that's enough for me to, you know, get me to write a thousand or 1500 words

00:41:44.620 today. So you're, I mean, you're gratification. It sounds like is on a longer, um, delay scale

00:41:52.320 to mine. So I might, it might be 5.00 AM and I wade through some luck for an hour and then the

00:41:58.760 sentence comes together and I'm just like, that's it. And that's my gratification. But for you,

00:42:03.660 you wade through the muck for a year, two years, and then you get that email and then you, that's

00:42:09.420 your, that's it. Right. But there is still some sort of gratification there.

00:42:13.180 I think there's also gratification in the process. Not so much about, well, let me think about this

00:42:17.220 for a second. So with writing the gratification, the process is I did what I said I was going to do.

00:42:22.600 You know, if I, cause I, when I was writing my books, I, I, I wrote, my goal is to write

00:42:27.780 1000 words per day. And regardless, I don't care how I feel. I don't care about the weather. I don't

00:42:33.360 care about what else I have going on. I don't care about any of that. You write a thousand words per

00:42:36.860 day because that's what you committed to doing. And some of those words really good. And some of

00:42:40.680 them were not so good. And some of them got edited and some of them got changed, but my goal was a

00:42:44.020 thousand. And the, the, I did find joy in the sense of accomplishment that came from writing

00:42:51.180 that 1000th word of, of the morning or the afternoon of the day. Yeah. No, that, yeah,

00:42:57.260 that makes sense. I mean, for me, it's I don't have a word limit per day. I mean, some days I'll

00:43:03.240 just get on a heater and it might be a couple thousand. Some days it might be 200 words because

00:43:08.160 I'm trying to figure out, you know, how do I explain it? I might be dealing, I might have to read a

00:43:12.260 certain study, make sure I understand it and then put it into English and that could take four or

00:43:17.340 five hours, you know? Yeah. But yeah, ultimately I do, I do find it rewarding. So, well, you've,

00:43:24.440 you've hit the New York times. I haven't. So maybe I ought to be taking advice from you,

00:43:28.140 not thinking about my, my own way of doing it. Well, when I start a podcast, I'll probably

00:43:34.320 be like you with writing and be like, this is hard and I'll have to hit you up for advice.

00:43:39.820 Yeah. We'll trade industry secrets. Um, one of the chapters you talk about in the book is

00:43:44.260 that the concept of influence. I'm really interested in that because, um, I, I do want

00:43:49.100 to be influential, uh, specifically and mainly influential in lives of my children. Like if I

00:43:54.780 had to select a group of people, I want to be most influential with it's them. Uh, but also I do want

00:44:00.520 to be influential with my guests, guys like you, I want to be influential with the guys who get

00:44:05.640 involved with our movement and buy our products and services and offerings and come to our events.

00:44:09.780 So I'm really curious your take on influence and is it a worthy ambition? When does it become too

00:44:14.840 much? That sort of thing. Yeah, I think, uh, I mean, the reason that people want to be influential

00:44:21.800 is, um, it's always kind of given us a boost in life. You know, in the past, if you were a person who

00:44:28.580 was more influential in your tribe, that probably got you out of crappy menial labor. It probably got you

00:44:34.040 the bigger cut of meat. It probably got you, you know, a couple more partners to procreate with

00:44:40.260 that sort of thing. So I think that we did evolve to sort of crave, uh, influence and status.

00:44:46.500 And you still see that today. So when you look at, uh, research on health outcomes, a big predictor

00:44:53.060 of health outcomes is, um, a person's status. And this holds even in countries where they have

00:44:58.860 universal medicine. So people who are wealthier, who are generally living the higher status part of,

00:45:03.340 uh, neighborhood or whatever, even though they're seeing the same doctors, they have better outcomes

00:45:07.340 than the people who are lower status. So it definitely affects us because we're social

00:45:11.080 creatures. And so for me though, I think that, um, one thing that's interesting about today is,

00:45:16.300 you know, in the past, it might've been that you could only influence say a hundred,

00:45:19.920 a hundred people, 150 people, whatever your, um, group was. And now it's sort of in this realm where

00:45:26.360 you could influence millions of people in a single, in a single tweet. Right. And it's all quantified.

00:45:30.980 It's all gamified. You know, exactly what your influence is. If you're buying into say,

00:45:35.200 you know, I'm, I'm measuring this with the number of followers I have, or the number of

00:45:39.440 people who liked my tweet or whatever it might be. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing,

00:45:45.140 but I do think that we need to be a little bit careful about how we use it. So I think it,

00:45:51.740 I think that craving status can be good to a point, but eventually it backfires because it's kind

00:45:56.580 of a moving target, right? Once you get the, once you get that much status, you want a little more,

00:46:00.960 you want a little more, and that can lead us into things that are not always good. So there's a

00:46:05.760 researcher I talked to, whose name is Jessica Tracy, who she researches pride. And she talks 0.78

00:46:11.420 about how there's really two types of pride. There's what she calls authentic pride, which is

00:46:15.840 when we do something that is a good and we feel this sort of great feelings of pride. Right. And it

00:46:22.460 doesn't matter if someone saw us do that or not. Like it's this useful contribution we made, right?

00:46:27.260 Something earned great way to put it. Yep. And then the other is inauthentic, which is essentially

00:46:31.980 unearned. That's when we can advertise ourself when we're trying to sort of front that we're someone

00:46:36.540 we're not and better than we actually are, or have accomplished something great when we haven't.

00:46:40.940 And I think that, uh, today it's easier to, for people to sort of blast out that inauthentic

00:46:47.480 pride, that sort of unearned, because you can put whatever you want on social media. And in a lot of

00:46:52.120 ways we all advertise our life on social media, if we use it, right, we're usually not taking the 0.98

00:46:56.720 photo of ourselves where we look like absolute shit and we're out like, you know, picking up the 0.99

00:47:01.540 dog crap in the backyard. It's a, so it's a, it's a strange world. And I think we're all having to 0.98

00:47:07.220 kind of navigate. What does that really mean? I look, I'm going to say something controversial,

00:47:12.140 but I think about this when it comes to the LGBTQ, whatever agenda, it's like, if you were born

00:47:17.080 that way, which is the argument, then what are you proud about? There's nothing, that's nothing you

00:47:20.980 did. That's nothing you chose. So like why the excessive pride, you know, I don't, I don't

00:47:26.420 necessarily take pride in being a straight, a straight man because like this is how I was born.

00:47:32.540 Like this, there's nothing I earned. So it's interesting when we see it, I'm using that as

00:47:36.380 an example, but it is interesting when we boost ourselves up and prop ourselves up on something

00:47:41.500 that we didn't actually go out and do like run a marathon, uh, or lose 100 pounds or, you

00:47:48.360 know, bring happiness to a bunch of people, uh, or donate to an organization or charity, which I

00:47:53.760 think is, is significantly greater than, Hey, here's what I look like, or here's how I am. And

00:47:58.700 I'm just proud of that. Yeah, I can see your argument. I mean, I think probably when you see

00:48:06.380 that sort of, um, advertising of oneself, it's often a reaction to, uh, having felt suppressed for that

00:48:14.640 for a period of time. So, you know, from, from their perspective, they might be like, well, this

00:48:19.600 is something I can never talk about. And I never could even be proud of if I wanted to, because

00:48:23.480 society suppressed that part of me for so long. And that, so I've been constrained. Now I'm having

00:48:28.860 the equal opposite reaction of unleashing it, if that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. A reaction

00:48:34.580 or response to not being able to be so open about some of those things in the past or other people

00:48:40.300 who have not been able to do those things. Yeah. Yeah. And then, I mean, and then that opens up,

00:48:45.200 uh, you know, larger, I think debates and questions about at what point does it become an overreaction?

00:48:52.100 What is the appropriate reaction to that? Do we overcorrect? And then once we overcorrect,

00:48:56.380 how do we correct back? And I do think that, um, to quote, uh, Martin Luther King, it's like this long

00:49:03.660 bend towards finding what, um, what the right answer is for these types of things, you know?

00:49:10.960 I had a really interesting interaction in a, in a convenience store, not too long ago.

00:49:16.080 Um, there was a woman working there and she had like, her hair was interesting. It looked nice. 0.96

00:49:19.640 It was interesting. I said, I really like your hair. And she said, thanks. I grew up myself.

00:49:24.680 And, uh, you know, she was just being funny. And, and I thought it's a really good answer. Like

00:49:29.580 there isn't anything special. Like it just grew, you know, like she, she was funny. She liked the way it

00:49:35.940 was, but she wasn't overly boisterous or proud about it because it's just the natural

00:49:39.800 state of things. Like it wasn't a big deal. And I'm like, you know, I really appreciate that answer.

00:49:44.660 That's awesome, dude. I love that. I'm going to remember that one. That's killer.

00:49:48.300 Yeah. Yeah. What a cool person.

00:49:51.960 I mean, yeah, really cool. And I think those are the people that we appreciate most is that

00:49:56.200 they have something unique or interesting or special or something that stands out about them,

00:50:00.300 whether it's just who they are inherently or something they've worked on. Uh, but somebody who's

00:50:05.260 not overly boisterous or proud about it, uh, they're just, they're just, they're just exercising

00:50:11.160 humility and, and they're enjoyable to be around. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I'm with you.

00:50:18.160 Hmm. How do you, uh, so in the book itself, you talk about fixing this craving mindset. Are there

00:50:24.540 some strategies that you would suggest that we do or implement on a, on a daily basis, or is it just

00:50:31.580 being aware of it that, that we can do in order to not be so desirous of things that we don't really

00:50:37.980 need to desire or crave after? Yeah. Um, I think awareness helps. I think, um, what I mentioned

00:50:44.540 before finding, if you can, uh, change or get rid of any of those three parts of the loop. And then I

00:50:53.340 think the third thing that I found to be really interesting when I was reporting this book is that,

00:50:58.040 um, so I mentioned how that guy can make these, uh, pigeons basically turn them into these

00:51:03.740 degenerate gambler pigeons, right? With this, they'll choose this gambling game over a game that

00:51:08.320 actually gets them more food over time. Um, but what this guy found is, so normally these pigeons,

00:51:13.920 they live in these small cages, right? And they think they're fine, whatever. Uh, but when they put

00:51:19.060 these pigeons in an environment, it was more like their kind of natural environment where they had to

00:51:23.660 work, they had to build nests. They had, they could live like a pigeon normally would. They could

00:51:27.360 interact with other pigeons. Then they put them back in the, in the game where they can choose.

00:51:32.640 Are you going to play the optimal game or are you going to play the basically pigeon slot machine 0.96

00:51:36.080 game? And what they found is that all the pigeons started playing the game that actually got them,

00:51:41.320 um, more food. That was the more rational game. So they didn't want to distract themselves with this

00:51:46.360 sort of scarcity loop gambling game. And the guy who did all this research and who I was talking to,

00:51:54.080 he then kind of made the comparison to humans. He just went right away and was like,

00:51:57.160 you know, and I think that you, you see this in humans as well. It's like when we are living a

00:52:02.760 life that isn't kind of a, a good fit for us, when we're not doing things that challenge us,

00:52:07.880 we're not having to work to survive when we're not doing these things that we almost kind of would

00:52:12.240 have done forever. Um, we start to look for stimulation in other ways. We might drink,

00:52:18.060 we might gamble, we might, um, you know, get super obsessive about work. We might like,

00:52:22.920 there's all these different things we can do to distract ourself. And so for me, my takeaway was,

00:52:27.440 um, you kind of have to find some higher purpose that, you know, is going to be rewarding and lean

00:52:34.320 into that. And oftentimes when you're doing those sort of behaviors that can be counterproductive

00:52:39.080 in the longterm, that's usually a signal that there might be something underlying. You might be

00:52:43.240 in the cage. You might be in a small cage. You need to figure out, well, where the hell is my big

00:52:46.900 cage? And how do I get into that?

00:52:48.140 How do you, how do you develop that though? Because I mean, I don't think that's new information

00:52:53.340 necessarily, you know, especially in the self-help space and world, people say, Oh, you find your

00:52:57.540 calling, discover your purpose. That isn't new information, but I still find so many men who

00:53:02.620 have a hard time uncovering it, even myself. Now I've found it, uh, and I feel fortunate and blessed.

00:53:08.780 I've worked really, really hard to explore a lot of different veins and move towards things that

00:53:16.500 I didn't really feel like may turn out, but I had some level of interest in, and they developed

00:53:21.220 into essentially what you see now. And I feel very fortunate, but a lot of guys just haven't,

00:53:25.720 haven't been able to achieve that and find that to be pretty elusive.

00:53:28.900 Yeah. I think you got to try stuff. I think you got to try different stuff. I mean, I, you know,

00:53:33.360 there's a lot of things that you can do, even if you're not going to quit your job and do something

00:53:37.000 crazy. I mean, I do think that we know that, um, doing things in nature, for example,

00:53:43.480 tends to be rewarding to humans, especially if there's a level of challenge to that. I think

00:53:48.060 it's finding ways to get out of yourself, which that could be some sort of volunteering. You do

00:53:53.700 some sort of side project that really gives you, um, rewards. And I think it ultimately is a search.

00:53:59.800 I mean, that's the whole, it's the whole backbone of religion, right? So it's a search. We're searching

00:54:06.600 for some answer to these, like things that we have about being a human, which is that we,

00:54:12.560 we often aren't satisfied. And, but I do think that the search is worth going on and trying to

00:54:17.540 trying different things and saying what works for you, because if, if it is just, well, I don't know

00:54:22.540 what it is and I'm not going to do anything about it. Well, you're, you're going to be stuck either

00:54:25.640 way. And you've only got, you know, as far as I know, one shot at life, it's like, try stuff,

00:54:30.380 see, see what works, see what doesn't work. The whole point is the search.

00:54:35.780 That is interesting because I think there's so many things in life and some of them are noble and some of

00:54:40.700 them aren't that are designed to keep us from searching. I think about, for example, something

00:54:45.420 that might be noble as a marriage, uh, where you as a man might feel the desire to go out and be

00:54:51.740 ambitious or start something new or start a business. And your wife might be more interested

00:54:55.340 in the status quo. And I'm not even saying that negatively. She's very consumed with safety and

00:55:00.580 security and stability. And you going out to start a business does not represent any of those things,

00:55:07.000 right? So she may not be interested in you quote unquote searching. Um, I think there's other

00:55:13.100 powers that be, maybe it's even the government to a degree who's not interested in a man, a strong,

00:55:19.580 independent, resilient man going out and searching and finding his own way and becoming sovereign in a

00:55:25.200 lot of ways because he's unpredictable and he's harder to control. So there is a lot at work against

00:55:31.240 us both noble and, and not so noble, uh, that keep us from going out there and searching and trying to

00:55:40.120 find a path for ourselves. Yeah, I think so. And I think that as you see, a lot of this is determined,

00:55:45.820 um, by technology. So basically the more technology you insert into life, the more you have to abide by

00:55:52.380 some sort of system because you start to need rules. I mean, just think of something as simple as the

00:55:57.540 car. It's like, once we invent the car, it's like, okay, well now we have all these people

00:56:02.040 just driving around. We can't have that. So we got to have roads and then we got to have like this

00:56:05.900 law. Then we got to have that law. Then we got to, okay, well now you got to pay to park it. Now

00:56:08.880 you got to do all these different things as a result of this single technology. And I do think that

00:56:13.160 the more tech that we have in our life, the more constrained we can often be, which is just kind of

00:56:18.400 part of living in this system. But I do think it's a noble fight to try and find the things that are

00:56:25.500 going to allow you to, um, feel like you're doing the thing that you want to be doing.

00:56:30.580 Like you've got some real purpose and oomph behind your life. Yeah. Yeah. And I think when you find

00:56:37.000 that, um, things begin to unfold in a different way than they did before, you know, and, and I don't

00:56:43.220 think things necessarily become easier, but the path becomes clearer, which gives you the mindset and

00:56:49.500 the fortitude to be able to continue on in the face of challenges and adversities. You know,

00:56:53.600 I've had my own share, fair share of challenges and adversities over the past year and a half, but

00:56:57.720 I'm plowing through them because I realized the importance of being a good father. Uh, I realized

00:57:02.200 the importance of the work that we're doing here. And so I'm not free of hardship. I just can see past

00:57:06.820 it and plow through it. Yeah, totally. And you know, the hardship is going to give you perspective too,

00:57:12.720 that, um, enhances your life probably in the longterm. You know, I don't think people learn from times

00:57:19.080 when they have no problems, there's no impetus to change. There's no, you know, whatever. It's

00:57:24.800 always, you look at all the ancient myths. It's always, you know, the, the main character things

00:57:28.720 are great in their life until they're not. And then when they're not, they go on this journey of

00:57:33.140 that is ultimately, uh, an inner journey of self-discovery and learning new tools that allow

00:57:40.500 them to go back into normal life and be a better human, uh, that enhances themselves, uh, their future

00:57:47.220 and the community around them as well. Excellent. Well, Michael, I appreciate this conversation,

00:57:52.560 man. Um, I love your work. I love the book, the scarcity brain comfort crisis is your previous

00:57:57.020 book. Read that book, of course, had you on to talk about that as well. Um, why don't you let the guys

00:58:01.280 know where to connect with you? And then, uh, is there any way you could give us a sneak peek into

00:58:06.420 what might be coming down the pike? Like I'm sure, cause you talked about this being a three-year

00:58:11.260 project. If I do my math correctly, you're writing this book even before the comfort crisis came out.

00:58:16.660 So I'm curious about what might be next. Yeah. Well, I, you know, the publisher is asking me

00:58:23.740 when's the third book and I haven't, uh, I've been thinking about it, but a lot of what I spend my time

00:58:28.060 on now is I have a sub stack that it's, uh, it's called 2% and it's at twopct.com. And it covers a

00:58:34.920 lot of what I write about in my books, but, um, it comes out three times a week so that, you know,

00:58:40.700 the upside of books is that, um, you kind of have this one tome where everything is,

00:58:46.020 but I do think that it's really fun for me to write in sort of present tense and have more back

00:58:51.760 and forth with the people with common interests. So writing three times a week, uh, via sub stack

00:58:57.220 has been an awesome way to do that. And it kind of allows me to write in the present tense and get

00:59:01.980 thoughts out while I have them and while they're relevant. And so that's been a, that's been a fun

00:59:05.760 project for sure. Awesome. Awesome. We'll send guys over there. Michael, I appreciate you again

00:59:11.460 and your work. Thank you for joining me on the podcast today. Yeah. Thanks a lot, man. I appreciate

00:59:15.760 it. Gentlemen, there you go. My conversation with the one and only and New York times bestselling

00:59:20.960 author recently dubbed New York times bestselling author, Michael Easter. Please, if you would let him

00:59:26.240 know that you heard this podcast, not only does that help him acknowledge and recognize that the work

00:59:32.380 he's doing is valuable and it's, it's making an impact, but it lets him know that you heard it

00:59:37.020 here. And when we go out and do that, it helps us secure better podcast guests because they're going

00:59:41.620 to get the, the recognition and the, in the book sales and, and the, uh, acknowledgement that these

00:59:47.440 guys are, are after. It's not just about that, but they are promoting a book. They are promoting

00:59:52.120 services and just sharing with him that you heard him on the order man podcast goes a long way for him

00:59:57.180 and it goes a long way for us. It's a great way to say thank you for what we're doing here.

01:00:00.440 Also along those same lines, just go ahead and take a screenshot right now before you move on to the

01:00:05.360 next podcast or move on to work or your, your training regimen or whatever it is you're going

01:00:09.400 to move on to. Just take a screenshot, tag Michael Easter, tag myself, post it up on Facebook,

01:00:13.860 Twitter, X, YouTube, I don't know what threads, uh, where else? TikTok, wherever you are, just post

01:00:21.440 it up, tag me, tag Michael, let people know what you're listening to. And then also, as I mentioned

01:00:26.560 earlier, check out the battle ready program at order man.com slash battle ready. Get

01:00:30.280 yourself battle ready defense and offense to improve your life in scientifically proven ways

01:00:35.360 to make this happen. Uh, last thing I just want to mention real quick is my good friends over at

01:00:39.440 Montana knife company. They're making incredible 100% made and sourced in America knives. I use all

01:00:45.200 of their knives for hunting and for cooking, which I've been getting into. My daughter, in fact,

01:00:50.280 wants to start a cooking channel with me, a cooking project. So stay tuned because her and I have

01:00:56.240 some good ideas on that. Anyways, guys, that's what I've got for you today. We'll be back tomorrow

01:01:00.360 for our ask me anything until then go out there, take action, conquer that scarcity brain and become

01:01:07.080 the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take

01:01:12.220 charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order

01:01:16.860 of man.com.

Order of Man - October 10, 2023

MICHAEL EASTER ｜ Conquer Your Scarcity Brain

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