Episode 1637 Scott Adams： Watch Me Fix Most of the World's Problems While Being Insulted. Bring a Beverage
Episode Stats
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Summary
A Canadian trucker sticker and Elon Musk's tweet of support for the Mandates protest in Canada. Also, a non-recommendation you might not want to be exposed to, and an entertainment recommendation you might want to avoid.
Transcript
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Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to probably the best experience you'll ever have
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in your life. If you wait until I get through the newsy stuff, I'm going to tell you stuff that will
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change the world, change your life for sure, make you happier and less anxious.
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How would you like to be less anxious? Or do you have any kids who are less,
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who are anxious, who would like to be less? Well, I'm going to fix all that after we sort out the
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world affairs, all right? Should we, I don't know, I just feel a responsibility. We should take care
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of all the big problems in the world first, and then we'll work on you, okay? But first, let's take
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it up a notch. Let's take it up. Let's go up a level. We're going to level up, and all you need
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is a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or chelsea, a canteen, a jug or a glass, a vessel of any kind,
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fill it with your favorite beverage. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled
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pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better. You can feel your
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pulse quickening. Your breathing is getting faster. It's coming. It's the simultaneous sip. Go!
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Oh! Oh! I can barely explain the euphoria I'm feeling right now.
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Speaking of euphoria, I'm going to make an entertainment recommendation, a non-recommendation.
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I don't know if I've ever done one of these before. There is a series called Euphoria.
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Uh, I don't even know what to say about it. I watched two episodes, and first of all, it's
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kind of a masterpiece, I've got to say, because it looks like what they did was they took some
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high school. The plot is about high school kids. And what they did was say, what would happen if we
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showed you what it really looks like? And then they show you what it really looks like. And you're
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just horrified the whole time. You spend the whole time just thinking, really? What? Is this what
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happens when they walk out the door? Now, I'm not your children, right? So it's a certain subculture.
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But, uh, it is just jaw-dropping. Anyway, um, it's scary, and if you don't want to be exposed to that
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kind of stuff, that's why I say it's a recommendation, non-recommendation. You might, you might just
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not want to have it in your head. You know? You just might want to avoid that kind of entertainment.
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But it's a masterpiece. It's really well done. Well, who loves Canadian truckers? Who does? Who loves
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Canadian truckers? You do. I do. Yes, we all do, except for Trudeau. Well, uh, I don't know how any,
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uh, single industry has ever become more popular more quickly, but there's nothing I love more than
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a Canadian trucker. Right? It's funny, just because they're doing this protest, which apparently is
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getting fairly massive. Uh, in Canada, over the mandates up there, uh, Elon Musk has tweeted his
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support. How much difference does an Elon Musk tweet of support mean in today's world? Probably a lot.
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Probably a lot. Um, and I don't know how many other people you could put in his category.
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I can't think of another one, frankly. Think of anybody else who would have enough credibility,
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frankly, credibility is the thing, to, to be able to, you know, tweet support and then people
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would think that's a good thing. There aren't many people. Um, there's a great video of a Canadian
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small business owner who was putting up a sticker on his business. He tore down the, uh, the mask
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signs, I guess, or the mandate signs. I'm not sure what they said. And, and he put up his own sticker
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of a, uh, Canadian truck. And as soon as I saw that, I thought, I thought, well, I want one of those.
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I want, I want a Canadian trucker sticker. Don't you? I mean, I, I don't think I've ever seen a bumper
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sticker that I craved before, but if you could give me a bumper sticker of a, just a Canadian
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trucker, I'd put that in my car tomorrow. I like it. So I love what those guys are doing. And I love
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the idea of putting up a sticker on your business. The point of which is that, uh, uh, he's defying
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mandates basically. Now locally, uh, most of you are probably in non-bandate states. Would that,
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would that be true? How many people watching are, are already passed the mandates? A lot
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of you, right? So good for you. Wish us luck. Those of us who are still behind, uh, the concentration
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camp doors here in California. Yeah. So I, I crave your lifestyle, but I got to tell you, I'm starting
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to, uh, to feel it locally. Let me just say this out loud. You know, I didn't want to say this out
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loud right away, but locally the mandates have dropped for small businesses, meaning that if you
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went into, I don't know, maybe if you went into the cheesecake factory or something, that's a chain
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that they might tell you to put on a mask. I don't know. Target store, they might. But if you go into
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any local business, it's done. The local businesses are all done. Am I right? Now, all I mean is that
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I'm not saying there are no masks. I'm saying that they're not going to ask you to put one on.
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There's no local business that will do that anymore here. I don't know about your town because
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number one, there's nobody afraid of consequences. What exactly would be the consequences for your,
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your local whatever, if they don't require masks on February 1st? Nothing, right? There's no
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consequences. So they just have to decide they don't want it anymore. And a lot of them have.
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So on February 1st, I'm going to do my damnedest to not go anywhere where they still require that.
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Now, I don't know how long I can hold out, right? If the mandates hold out, I might,
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I just might need to go to Target. I just might need to. But I'm going to do what I can to just for
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as long as I can, you know, not fly. I'm just going to avoid flying until the masks are gone.
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Because by February 1st, I'm pretty sure I can say, all right, I can hold out for however long that's
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going to take. If it takes a week, or if it takes three months, I can hold out. I don't have to fly
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for three months. But I'm not going to support any industry that's still sporting the masks,
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for sure. But I'll do my best. I can't promise you I'll be consistent on that. But I'll do my best
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on that. I hope others do just to put a little pressure on it. And I was trying to think of what
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kind of symbol could small businesses or even big ones put on their building to say that they're done
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with mandates. What would be the most appropriate symbol besides the Canadian truckers, which I like
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a lot? The American flag. I would think that if you wanted to show that you were done with the
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mandates on February 1st, just put on a flag. You don't have to say anything else, I don't think.
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I think anybody who is aware of the February 1st date who saw an American flag on a business,
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or even a residence, even a residence. Actually, if you have an American flag,
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and you have a flagpole, you know, maybe you put it out on the patriotic holidays.
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Maybe think about it. Just think about putting it out. Because if you think about it, there is no,
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there's no more universal signal for revolution than the American flag. If you want a real insurrection,
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the American flag is a good symbol for it. All right. There's a report. Jack Posobiec is saying
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that the White House had no idea about Breyer retiring from the Supreme Court, and now they're
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scrambling. They asked Kamala, and she said no, per a White House staffer. Do you believe? Well,
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first of all, some context. Jack Posobiec has good sources, right? So he has good sources. That's the
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first part of the contact. But do you believe this? That doesn't mean every, that doesn't mean every
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source is correct, right? But do you believe that Kamala was asked if she wanted it and said no?
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I believe it. I believe it. I believe it. And here's why I believe it. Because asking doesn't
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mean they wanted her to have it. Asking sounds like, within a political context, they just wanted
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to check. Because what if she said yes? It would be kind of a disaster if she had secretly craved
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that position and nobody asked. So I think you just have to ask. But I think they also knew that
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they probably knew what she would say by then, right? So don't you think the asking was more of
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a political formality just to make sure she didn't have an issue? So if you ask me, that sounds like a,
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that sounds like a completely accurate, what would you call it, a scoop? Yeah, I think Jack got this
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one right, as he often does. So that doesn't mean anything about Kamala. It just means they probably
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asked her. Now what are you thinking about this Supreme Court having to be a black woman?
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Um, I think the Rasmussen poll said, uh, 61, 61% of the public thinks you shouldn't prick, prick, that you
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shouldn't pick a Supreme Court nominee based on race or gender. 61% is a pretty big majority in American
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politics. It's hard to get 61% for anything. But, um, I'll tell you, I'm, I'm a little bit of two minds
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on this. I'm a little bit of two minds. I've, I've told you before that when it comes to, uh, the
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Republic and protecting the Republic and the system versus getting my way on a specific policy,
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I'll usually pick the system over the specific policy. There might be some exceptions, but generally
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speaking, I would do that. Now, what does it do to the system when the Supreme Court, who would
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be the very entity that says a business can't do this, the same entity that has ruled that a
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private business can't do this, you can't hire people based on race or gender, uh, is, is going
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to be the subject of this very treatment. I mean, that's the president doing it, not the Supreme
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Court, but they would be subject to the same treatment. Does that look like a gigantic mistake?
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Let me, let me give you the best argument to support Biden's position, because I think if
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you can't do that, you're not really an honest broker, if you know what I mean. If you can't
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tell the other side's argument in a coherent way and then still say your side is the better
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one, you just feel like a propagandist basically. So I'm going to give Biden his due and here's
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the argument. We need to protect the system first. The, the entire system is having a
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credibility crisis. I think you'd agree. Congress, the government, experts, fake news, there's
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a credibility crisis of unprecedented proportion. Supreme Court is sort of our last defense against
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all of that. You know, as long as we keep the Supreme Court relatively coherent and credible,
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the other stuff has time to work itself out in a variety of ways, but you can't lose the
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Supreme Court. I feel like that would, that would just take the whole system out. So if you imagine
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that the Supreme Court is the, the ultimate thing that keeps the country together, I would
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say that having a Supreme Court that better represents the public, remember this is a perceptual
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thing. It's not a data thing. It's just a perceptual thing. Would the credibility of the court be
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better if you had at least one black conservative man, which we have, and one black conservative
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woman in the mix? Now, you might say to yourself, no, it makes it worse because it looks like a,
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you know, it looks like a diversity higher. But nobody's really saying any of these people are
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unqualified, are they? Is there anybody in the Supreme Court that we think is unqualified?
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They're just people that we hate their decisions in some cases, right? I don't think any of them are
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unqualified. Yeah, I see the names. There's some names going by, blah, blah, blah. But, you know,
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is it a coincidence that the unqualified ones are always on the other team? Seriously? Just a
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coincidence that all the unqualified people disagree with your opinion? I mean, maybe. I mean, you could
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be right, and it's exactly that. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't automatically assume that that's what's
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going on. It sounds a little bit more like a little bit team play situation going on. So if I
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were to support Biden's argument, I'd say you do want the Supreme Court to look at least a little
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bit like the country. Because then whatever it comes up with is going to have that little,
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that little 5% extra, well, you know, we got a lot of opinions from different kinds of people.
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Now, if that requires, if the net of that is that you end up with a worse justice, well, then that's
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a step backwards. Would we agree with that? If having this, I hope it's temporary, silly diversity
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higher thing on there, if having this temporary little thing caused us to get a worse justice,
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well, that wouldn't be good. But there's no evidence that that's the case. Is anybody saying
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that the, I don't know, dozen or so black women who are being mentioned, is anybody saying they're
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unqualified? I don't think that's in the argument, is it? So, on one hand, I reject anything that seems
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like discrimination, and this certainly smacks of racial discrimination. On the other hand,
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it does favor the system over the policies. And I generally don't take a stand when that's the
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case. So, in other words, I'm not even going to say which is a better way to go. I'm just going to
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be silent whenever the system is supported over the decision. I'm not sure if that's fair or not.
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Let's talk about Russia and Ukraine. So, are you a little bit puzzled as I am about the way the
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United States is handling all of this? As in, there's something we don't know? Does it feel like
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that to you? And I'll give you some more context about this. You know, the few times that I've been
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allowed behind the curtain to see how things really run, as opposed to the public impression
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of how anything works, you always get such a different view. You know, from behind the curtain,
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nothing's the same. And basically, nothing is the same behind the curtain. So, why would this be
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different? It's sort of like that the Gelman amnesia thing. If every time I peek behind the curtain,
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I see that everything we know or thought we knew is wrong, like every time, why would this be
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different? Do you really think we have enough information about this whole Russia-Ukraine
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thing that you and I can say, hmm, let me assemble the variables as they've been reported and judge
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the actions of our government based on these totally accurate variables that leave nothing out?
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probably nothing like that can happen. Probably there's something gigantic or several gigantic
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things or forceful people or some money interest or something that's going on that's big enough
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that's distorting this thing. But let me tell you what it looks like. This is not a claim that this
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is what's happening. I'm going to say that missing that variable or variables, this is what it looks
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like, which is different than what it is. What it looks like is that we're intentionally suckering
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Putin into a limited attack. Because you know how Biden sort of let it out? You know, we don't know
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what we'd do if it was some kind of limited incursion. That kind of opened the door for a limited
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incursion, didn't it? Sort of. At least put that thought in your mind. It seems they would treat
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a limited incursion slightly differently than a massive incursion. So is it possible, and again,
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I'm just considering all the possibilities, that there's anybody in this world who has influence
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over our government, whether it's Biden's staff or somebody influencing them, who thinks that a
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limited incursion by Russia would have some benefit to them or to the United States? For example,
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if Russia did a limited incursion, it might not change the security situation of the world much,
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much. But at the same time, it would allow us to close down their energy markets, totally cripple
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their country, and probably some American energy companies would benefit. But can somebody do a
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fact check on that? Are there any large entities, doesn't have to be American, actually, American or
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European, let's say, large entities, energy companies, that would definitely benefit by Russia being shut
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down as an energy exporter? Can you give me a fact check? Some of you know the answer to this, right?
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China? Somebody says China? I don't know about that. So what I'm wondering is, do we know for sure
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that Russia is not going to fall for this trap? I'm calling it a trap, like, hypothetically. I don't
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know that it's a trap. And then here's the final clue, and this is from CNN. Now, hold what I've
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said so far, and now I'm going to add a clue. This is CNN's reporting. And it says a call between
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Zelensky, head of Ukraine, and Biden on Thursday should have been used to get on the same page.
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But the Ukrainians made it known ahead of time they would ask the U.S. president to tone down his
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rhetoric. Interesting. And after the leader spoke, a senior Ukrainian official told CNN's Matthew Chance
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in Kiev that the call, quote, did not go well, and that Zelensky had asked his U.S. counterpart to,
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quote, calm down the messaging while arguing the Russian threat was still ambiguous. Still
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ambiguous. In other words, it seems as if the United States is selling a higher certainty of
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invasion than the Ukrainians believe is realistic. What does that tell you? Does that tell you that
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somebody who is maybe more of a friend to the United States or to their pocketbooks
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is influencing the United States to be not on the same page as Ukraine? And can you give me a good
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idea why we would not be taking Ukraine's, let's say, opinion of risk as fairly definitive?
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Why would our assessment of risk trump Ukraine's assessment of their own risk? I feel like they're
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pretty tapped into whatever the risk is here, more so than we would be. Or do we know more than
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they know? It's possible we know more than Ukraine knows, and we can't tell them because of sources and
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methods and corrupt, corrupt governments and whatnot. So it's really Burisma. Burisma comes up in every
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conversation. Yeah. So, and what does it mean that Ukraine and the United States are not on the same
00:21:58.300
page? Would that suggest that Ukraine does not have any blackmail on Hunter Biden? Or will you see
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Biden immediately conform to Ukraine's preferred communication on this, which would suggest that
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Ukraine does have a pretty big influence on them? So there are a number of scenarios here that are
00:22:23.520
alarming. When I tweeted about whether or not we were trying to sucker Russia into something minor
00:22:30.660
so we could grab their energy markets, Ian Bremmer, who I look to as the sane voice of issues like
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this, assures me that we definitely don't want Russia to attack. We definitely don't. Now, we definitely
00:22:49.980
don't want a major war. I would agree with that. And I would agree that if we means most people, I would
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agree with that too. And if we means most of the government, I would definitely agree with that
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too. But I'm not sure we extends to everybody who has billions of dollars to spend on this project.
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And I'm not sure we extends to every influencer within the Biden administration. It wouldn't take
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many people to be on the side of war to make it happen. Unfortunately, like they would just have to be
00:23:24.820
the right people. You would only have to get a few opinions changed before Biden would probably go
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long. So I remember those 17 intelligence agencies that said blah, blah, blah. And it turned out it was
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really one, but it wasn't even the whole agency. It was just a few people. And then it turned out that
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the few people were handpicked by one person. So the 17 intelligence agencies were really one person.
00:23:48.200
One person could do a lot of damage. Do you know how many things have been done by one person
00:23:54.980
recently? I mean, look what Greta Thunberg has done. She's one person. Look what Michael Mina did
00:24:02.460
with rapid testing. There was probably one person who prevented it. Look what Fauci does, one person.
00:24:11.920
You know, DeSantis, one person. Joe Rogan, one person. There's a lot of one person stuff going on
00:24:21.480
here. Malone, one person. No matter what you think of him, big influence. Soros, one person. So, you know,
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although one person can't control everything that there is to control, one person can definitely
00:24:36.780
control one topic. And it doesn't have to be the richest. You just need, yeah, George Floyd,
00:24:42.560
one person. Yeah, good example. All right. So I'd say that there's a missing variable in this Russia
00:24:50.760
stuff, but I'm not going to rule out yet, despite the smarter and more well-informed Ian Bremmer saying
00:24:57.640
that nobody wants it. I'm not sure that nobody wants it. I'm not sure. I think there might be a play
00:25:04.800
here where we're just trying to bluff them into doing something that's bad enough that we can crush
00:25:11.220
them financially and take their markets. I feel like that's the play. I don't know. Nobody thinks
00:25:19.100
Russia is going to go nuclear over Ukraine. I don't think. I don't think anybody thinks that.
00:25:25.140
All right. There's new numbers that suggest a growing crisis of men. So men now comprise only
00:25:34.460
40.5% of college students. What? There are 50% more women in college than men?
00:25:49.160
50% more. That's not close. And apparently one of the problems of this is that women are less likely
00:25:57.380
to go to college if there aren't enough men there. I hate to say it. I didn't make that up,
00:26:03.880
by the way. Innocent, innocent, innocent. As soon as you think I made that up, I'm in trouble. I'll
00:26:12.280
get canceled. Nope, nope, nope. I'm not saying that some women go to college to get married. I'm saying
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I just read an article and that was one of the claims, that women say they don't want to go to
00:26:22.620
college if finding a boyfriend is going to be like a struggle. I would like to admit that I chose my
00:26:31.740
undergraduate college based on the male-female ratio. I thought I needed an edge, so I chose a
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nursing school. It wasn't just a nursing school. It had a lot of majors, but it was famous as a
00:26:45.500
nursing school, so I had a high percentage of nursing students. And I thought, what could be
00:26:51.520
better than having a college that has not only extra women, but their nursing students? I mean,
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I figured I needed every advantage I could get. I need the ones with lots of empathy. The ones who
00:27:03.760
say, oh, you're not that sexy, but you do look a little sick. Can we spend some time together?
00:27:08.620
So that was my strategy, and I think it worked brilliantly. So anyway, men are failing everywhere.
00:27:17.220
And of course, the big question is, is the problem with men, or is the problem that college and schools
00:27:23.660
have been designed for women? What do you say? Have schools been designed for both men and women?
00:27:30.300
Let's stipulate that men have still a sports advantage, meaning that sports seem to be still
00:27:38.660
more dominated toward men in lots of places. So besides sports, which we stipulate to be the
00:27:46.180
case, besides sports, is college and high school designed for men or for women? Or let's say
00:27:53.360
optimized. Is it optimized for men or for women? Well, I think that because we're a woke society,
00:28:00.300
you optimized for the comfort of the greatest number of people, wouldn't you say? You optimize for
00:28:09.740
comfort because you don't want women to be in a situation with a bad situation, basically, an
00:28:18.300
uncomfortable situation. And if you optimize for comfort, is there anything that might be
00:28:24.560
de-emphasized? Yeah. For example, maybe attracting men. Because maybe the curriculum and the way it's
00:28:35.060
being taught and the, let's say, the extra stuff that comes with it, maybe it's not ideally suited for
00:28:42.140
men. So maybe men are just opting out because it doesn't make sense, but also because it doesn't
00:28:47.200
teach, in many cases, the kinds of skills that a lot of men are looking for. Right? Maybe they're
00:28:53.180
not looking for a Russian literature degree. Maybe they just want to, you know, be a plumber or
00:28:58.860
something. But so what can we do to fix it? I told you I was going to fix everything, and I thought I
00:29:07.120
would do that right now. I've said this before, but I think I've got a little more meat on the bones.
00:29:13.120
And I just tweeted, I said, suppose you were designing an open source, not-for-profit,
00:29:20.260
virtual college in which people could independently assemble useful life strategy skills,
00:29:26.860
life strategy skills, just things that would help anybody. You know, things like how to communicate
00:29:32.840
better, how to persuade, how to work on your fitness, you know, just basic life strategies,
00:29:40.440
how to build a skill stack, how to use systems versus goals, you know, that sort of thing.
00:29:46.220
And I said, what books would be on that list if you were going to have a credentialed type of thing?
00:29:53.640
And so a number of people suggest books. I hope some of my books make that list. I think I saw that
00:29:59.640
they were on there. But then I asked myself, do you know what a DAO is? D-A-O. We've talked about
00:30:07.520
this before. A DAO is a decentralized, autonomous organization in which you use the blockchain,
00:30:15.440
part of the crypto universe. You use the blockchain to build, to create trust and build a organization
00:30:24.000
for a single purpose. Could you, and I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not, so somebody who knows
00:30:32.360
more about the, these D-A-O's, DAOs, can maybe inform me. Could you build a DAO to build a life
00:30:42.060
strategies credentialed course in which people who are simply interested enough and qualified enough
00:30:50.980
say, yeah, I'll be on that project. We'll just put together a, we'll just put together a list
00:30:56.480
test and we'll maintain it somehow. And it'll say, if you read these books, blah, blah, blah. Now,
00:31:03.040
I think it also needs some testing. Could you create a way to do a quick enough test that you
00:31:10.960
would say you would know that somebody read my book, right? I'm not, I'm not talking about like
00:31:16.180
testing. You read everything in the book and you understood it, but did you read the book,
00:31:20.140
enough of a test that, that you could be sure somebody did and a way not to cheat? Now, could
00:31:27.280
the blockchain allow you to know your, you didn't cheat on the test, you did read the book and you
00:31:35.720
did get a credentialed degree? And then could you form a different DAO for different, let's say,
00:31:45.140
flavors of life strategy degrees. And all of them could be credentialed, but maybe they'd be
00:31:50.780
different. So one might say, emphasize, I don't know, more physical skills. One might emphasize
00:31:57.840
more, you know, mental office-y type of skills, something like that. But you can, you can imagine
00:32:04.420
some different flavors that would all be credentialed. So here's my point. It seems obvious at this point
00:32:10.480
that the, the embedded educational system doesn't want to change as fast as we need it to. Would
00:32:19.360
everybody agree with that? If you wait for the, the colleges and the, and the teachers unions to
00:32:25.920
change themselves, you'd just be waiting forever. So you're going to need some kind of outside
00:32:31.120
disrupting force. Could you create a situation where somebody comes in for a job and you say,
00:32:40.480
let's see your resume? Whoa, it looks like you were smart enough not to rack up $200,000 in college
00:32:48.160
debt for a Russian literature degree. I like that. Let's see what you did do. Oh, okay. You got one
00:32:56.660
of these life strategies credentials. Can I see your certificate? Okay. Yeah, I could check that on the
00:33:02.400
blockchain. Yep. There it is. Our HR can check that. And sure enough, you do have a degree in life
00:33:09.320
strategies. Well, I mean, is that good for us? You know, we train you in the actual job. So we're
00:33:15.580
going to train you how to do the specific job, but let's see if you're trainable. Let's see, you've
00:33:21.500
learned communication. You've learned public speaking. You've learned persuasion. You've learned
00:33:28.120
how to build a skill stack, systems over goals. You've learned, and then I just go on. Who do you want to hire?
00:33:40.040
Yeah, who do you want to hire? This is a trainable, curious person.
00:33:46.320
Somebody who has the skills to learn a skill, right? Do you have the skill to learn a skill? That's
00:33:54.020
all I care about. I'll train you the specifics. You know, keep in mind that unless you're something
00:33:59.080
like, let's say, a lawyer, doctor, engineer, a few other fields, a lot of your stuff becomes
00:34:06.820
obsolete in a year anyway. You know, even having experience isn't what it used to be, because,
00:34:12.800
you know, who's experienced in the newest field? All right, so that's my first idea, is to fix all
00:34:21.440
of education by some kind of open source. I'm not sure if crypto needs to be part of it, but maybe
00:34:28.280
somebody smarter can say, yeah, that would be a good component. Number two, here is my single
00:34:36.680
biggest happiness tip, which will be followed by a few more. The best way to be happy is to match
00:34:46.000
your energy to your schedule. And here's what I mean by that. And by the way, this, some of this
00:34:52.820
comes from my book, had it filled almost everything and still went big. Suppose I said, how would you
00:34:59.200
like some delicious food? And I'd say, I love delicious food. Yay. And then you say,
00:35:06.520
all right, we're going to do it right now. And I say, oh, I actually just ate. So how much value
00:35:13.660
would delicious food be to me if I just ate and I'm full? Well, none. So my energy, I'm using that
00:35:20.800
generically, in this case, my hunger was not matched to this excellent thing that I like, eating good food.
00:35:28.900
Likewise, exercising when you're in the right mood for it is actually kind of fun. Exercising when you
00:35:35.680
really don't want to is just pain. It's just torture. So my one whole life arc happiness tip
00:35:44.360
that's the best tip you'll ever hear is work toward a situation and it won't, it won't happen
00:35:50.120
instantly, but work toward a situation where you can control your schedule as much as possible.
00:35:55.860
Because then you can say to yourself, I'm hungry. Eat food. Two o'clock in the afternoon.
00:36:04.740
Nobody's going to stop you. Right? I'm anxious. I'm going to go exercise right now. I'm going to stand
00:36:13.260
up and walk out the door right now. The moment you can match your exact energy and need to the thing
00:36:20.860
that satisfies it, your happiness level is going to go through the roof. I reminded myself of that
00:36:26.780
yesterday by taking, and this is uncharacteristic for me, I don't usually take a block out of my day
00:36:34.340
and just say, this is just for me. Like I'm always doing something for somebody or something I committed
00:36:40.380
to or something. So typically I'm going from one thing I have to do to one thing I have to do.
00:36:44.880
And even with my schedule, and I have a lot of flexibility, but even with my schedule, there's a limit
00:36:52.120
to the flexibility. But in that two hours or so, in which I just said, I'm just going to do whatever my
00:36:58.060
energy wants me to do, and then I did that. I can't tell you how good that felt. Just matching my exact
00:37:04.900
schedule to my exact energy, just through the roof. Now, just make sure you do that. Don't save all of
00:37:12.520
your leisure for a vacation. Don't save it all for a vacation. Sometimes you just got to carve out a
00:37:20.280
time to do the thing that you want to do during that exact time. See how it feels. All right, next
00:37:26.420
thing. It has been said of me many times, and I believe it's true, that I'm unusually good at
00:37:32.960
handling pressure. Has anybody noticed that about me? I'm not sure if you can tell from a distance.
00:37:38.480
But do I seem like I'm good at handling pressure? I would be interested in your subjective evaluation.
00:37:48.500
Now, you do see me blow up and stuff, and if anybody doesn't know it, if I allow myself to lose
00:37:56.100
control on the live stream, it's because it's part of the show. You all get that, right? You all get
00:38:03.160
that if I were not doing a live stream, I wouldn't be cursing at somebody and, you know, and shouting
00:38:10.020
and being a madman. It's just part of the entertainment. If you didn't like it, I wouldn't
00:38:14.160
do it. The moment the audience no longer wanted to see it, I'd be like, oh, okay. It would be easy
00:38:20.840
to control. All right, so here's my point. In my own opinion, I think that I'm unusually
00:38:27.900
not susceptible to pressure. Indeed, I actually have always performed better in competition
00:38:36.520
when things are tight. You know, and I'm not sure how much of that is organic. But I will
00:38:44.420
tell you this. I have spent most of my life working on that like it's a life skill of maximum
00:38:50.880
importance. Let's say if you were to compare my nervousness level to yours at age 11. At
00:39:00.680
age 11, pretty much a nervous mess. And it made me unhappy pretty much all the time. Nervous
00:39:10.000
mess. And so I realized at that point that if I didn't make it my full-time job to figure
00:39:16.160
out how not to be stressed as shit, I would just be stressed forever, and it wouldn't matter what
00:39:21.360
else was happening. Even if everything else went well, I was still going to feel like crap
00:39:27.460
if I didn't figure out how to get out of my own head. So I'm going to teach you how to get out of
00:39:35.040
your own head, and I'm going to tell you why everybody in this generation has an anxiety problem.
00:39:40.300
You've noticed, right? Everybody has an anxiety problem. Mostly younger people. And if you're
00:39:48.200
above a certain age, you probably don't. Have you noticed that? Above a certain age, you probably
00:39:54.040
don't have an anxiety problem. Below a certain age, oh, you have one. Oh, you got one. Yeah.
00:40:01.100
So let me tell you what's different about, you know, when I was young versus when somebody's young
00:40:07.820
right now. You know what's different? Everything that affects your anxiety. Everything. Everything
00:40:16.140
that affects your anxiety is worse, like way worse. Let me give you an example. Let's see.
00:40:26.940
Do you think that kids get outdoors as much as we used to? We meaning anybody in my age group. No. No.
00:40:35.320
There's no way in hell the kids get outdoors. Is getting outdoors correlated with your anxiety?
00:40:42.700
Yes. Yes. It's super correlated. Like really, really strongly. If you don't get outside, you're not
00:40:50.200
going to feel as well. Right? And there's a big difference. How about complexity? When you're around
00:40:57.140
a lot of complexity, does it make you anxious? It does. It does, because it's like too much work.
00:41:03.000
Right? Is life more complex? Yes. By what? Order of magnitude? It's not even close. So of course
00:41:13.960
they have more of a challenge. How about, is it easier now to compare yourself to others?
00:41:20.680
Oh my God, yes. You know, when I was a kid, the only person I could compare myself to was somebody
00:41:27.180
on the one channel of television that came in well, and the 25 people I knew personally.
00:41:34.220
That's it. Now you're comparing yourself to the whole world and filters, and yeah, of course,
00:41:38.960
all that. How about family cohesion? Less. Right? There's less. How about addiction? More. Right?
00:41:50.020
So even if you're not the one who's addicted, how many people have an addict in the family? Mother,
00:41:55.760
father, sibling? A lot. How many people had an addict in the family when I was a kid? There's still
00:42:02.840
too many, but I don't think it was close to what it is now. If you have one addict in the house,
00:42:08.360
how's everybody's anxiety doing? Am I right? Everybody who has somebody who's addicted to alcohol
00:42:14.840
or substance? If you have one of them in the house, how's the energy level in the house?
00:42:20.820
Everybody calm? No. No, one addict can ruin five people's lives minimum. I think that's actually
00:42:28.580
a reasonable ratio. It's probably higher. But here's my number. One addict ruins five lives minimum.
00:42:35.720
Somebody's saying 10, and I think you're closer to it. I think 10 is closer. One addict ruins five
00:42:41.980
lives minimum. Minimum. So that's different. How about more fake news scaring the shit out of you?
00:42:50.240
Yes, that's different. How about climate change scaring the shit out of you? Well, that is different,
00:42:55.920
but I will say, to balance it out, in my generation, we had the nuclear war risk all the time.
00:43:02.320
And that felt similar. Like, you know, life as we know it could end any moment. So maybe that part's
00:43:07.860
similar but different. How about are we eating the wrong foods and getting fatter? And yes. Are we
00:43:15.460
less confident about the future? Of course, because everything's changing faster. And right? When I
00:43:22.160
grew up, I could be confident about the future, because I knew if I went to college, got good grades,
00:43:28.660
I'd get a good job in any variety of places. So I didn't really have any lack of confidence,
00:43:34.780
because everybody had the same path. Study, go to school, get a good job. It was pretty much
00:43:41.800
straightforward. But now, who knows? Could be robots and AI in five years. How about being less
00:43:52.900
self-sufficient? I would argue that a 14-year-old in my generation could successfully run a small
00:44:01.140
business? Is there anybody my age or older who would disagree with me? In my generation, a 14-year-old
00:44:09.980
could successfully, and did, and in fact, I know people who did exactly that. I know somebody well
00:44:16.100
who ran an entire bowling alley at 14. It was something his father built and owned, but then his
00:44:25.600
father had, you know, his career went somewhere else. And so he just said, well, I can either sell this
00:44:30.140
thing or you can be in charge of it. He was 14 years old. He said, okay, I'll run it. And then he ran
00:44:35.960
his business at 14. Later started his own large business, sold it for millions. Do you think that
00:44:42.440
running a business at 14 helped him become an entrepreneur later? Yeah. That kind of builds your
00:44:49.740
confidence, doesn't it? Now, now here, just for a joke, imagine a 14-year-old today running a business.
00:45:00.100
I'm sure there's still some, but it's almost like a joke, right? It's a complete difference in
00:45:08.440
how self-sufficient you are. A 14-year-old back then would not know how to do things, but would know how
00:45:14.380
to figure it out. We'd just ask somebody to figure it out. But we'd have the confidence that we can
00:45:19.400
figure it out. So all of those things are wrong. And here's my tip for fixing it all. Do you remember
00:45:28.580
you were, have you ever been taught that happiness comes from within? Have you ever heard that saying?
00:45:33.700
Happiness comes from within. Were you taught that when you were young? Yeah. If you just seek
00:45:42.600
within, you know, find out who you really are, you know, follow your dreams, follow your passion.
00:45:49.160
So, you know, for sort of an internal process that you could find happiness. That might be the worst
00:45:56.400
advice ever given. It's the worst advice. There's no happiness within. It's not in there. Don't look for
00:46:04.860
it. It's not in there. Your brain is just a recipient of inputs. You just change the inputs.
00:46:11.460
Happiness. Happiness is without. Happiness will come to you by doing the right things externally
00:46:19.400
with your body. Take your body outdoors. Don't look within your skull. Go outside in the sun. Walk
00:46:30.500
around. Happiness is not in your head. It's in your fucking stomach. Don't eat shit and then tell me
00:46:39.320
you're unhappy. Maybe it's because you ate shit all day. Maybe that made you unhappy. I don't know.
00:46:47.000
I just did a little experiment in the last month where I tried to really clean up my eating.
00:46:53.460
My allergies went away. I mean, seriously. I mean, I have pretty much permanent allergies all the time.
00:47:01.080
All I did was say, oh, for a month I'm just going to really just eat really clean. I mean, as much as you
00:47:07.240
can in the modern world. My allergies went away. And yes, I do have allergies in the winter and all year
00:47:13.660
round, normally. So, did I find happiness within? No. It was on my plate. Happiness is on your plate.
00:47:23.060
It's out there. Did I find happiness within? Or did you have some good sex? Did you meditate? Did you
00:47:33.360
do some yoga? Did you get some exercise? Did you put your phone down at 9 p.m. instead of playing
00:47:39.380
with it at 2 p.m. and do all the wrong things to sleep? Have you spent 10 minutes googling what it
00:47:46.040
takes to have good sleep habits? Number one, go to bed about the same time every night and wake up about
00:47:51.860
the same time. Actually, the waking up is more important. Right? Here's my, when I was 11 and I
00:48:00.420
realized that my anxiety level somewhat biologically was through the roof, I said to myself, my number
00:48:07.260
one job is that. Every day I'm going to work on figuring out how the fuck to stop worrying about
00:48:14.740
everything. And I did. I exercised in every way you can, sports. I learned meditation when I was in
00:48:25.560
high school. I became a hypnotist, in part to use self-hypnosis, which is very effective, in the same
00:48:32.960
way meditation is. And I've spent all of my adult life studying every skill that could give me any angle
00:48:41.140
on how to make my anxiety less, which is related to your entire health, right? The whole thing is
00:48:47.840
wrapped up in your whole health. And so, do not short change yourself. If you want to know what your
00:48:55.720
priorities ought to be, and I say ought in terms of best, best outcome for all people. Usually, best
00:49:04.580
outcome, you know, is usually for one person at other people's expense. But here's the best outcome for
00:49:10.360
all people. Take care of your anxiety first, which means taking care of your health, right? I could
00:49:17.600
have said, take care of your health first, but your health isn't like the concept that's bothering you.
00:49:23.180
It's your anxiety that's bothering you. Make it your full-time job to figure out anything you can do to
00:49:31.360
make that go down, and do it without drugs if you can. The exception is weed. Weed works for some people,
00:49:37.940
and it's just a positive. In my life, it's just a positive. That doesn't mean it would be for you.
00:49:43.540
I think maybe one in five people could say that for sure, at most. So, you have to find your way.
00:49:49.780
Like, there's no one thing that I'm going to tell you that's going to work for you. You've got to find
00:49:53.400
the system that gets you outside. You've got to find the system that lets you eat right. By the way,
00:49:58.540
that's my book teaches you how to do that. How to fail almost everything and still win big.
00:50:04.260
But do not allow yourself to think it's something happening inside your head. It is not.
00:50:13.460
All right. So, that is your lesson on happiness. Make it your full-time job.
00:50:18.580
Now, how do you know when somebody's having cognitive dissonance, and how do you know it
00:50:26.040
isn't you? I've told you before, so I'm going to add something to the things I've said before.
00:50:30.700
I've told you before, the first way is to look for the trigger. All right. Because somebody needs
00:50:36.540
to do something that's, or be in a situation in which their self-image is challenged, or they've
00:50:42.240
been proven wrong in public. Those are the triggers. Now, suppose you're not sure who had the trigger.
00:50:50.320
Maybe you think, oh, I think you had the trigger. And then the person you're pointing at says,
00:50:54.580
I'm not so sure. I think you're the one with the trigger. How could you further figure it out if
00:51:00.120
the trigger doesn't answer the question? Well, I would say that one of the ways, and not 100%,
00:51:07.740
is how people are prepared for the trigger. How prepared were you to be wrong? Because that'll
00:51:16.820
really tell you something. And let me give you my example. One of the reframes that I do, that I think
00:51:24.840
keeps my mind healthier, is that I find that being wrong, even in public, is thrilling. How many of you
00:51:35.740
could say, and honestly, that being wrong, and other people seeing it, would actually give you kind of a
00:51:44.140
charge? Not many, right? So it's a learned ability. I don't think you're born of that. I think that
00:51:54.680
everybody has a natural sense of shame and embarrassment. And I had plenty of it. I mean,
00:52:00.320
I had lots of it. But I do think you can practice it away, that there's a skill set about that. Now,
00:52:07.900
in my case, I've also monetized being wrong. Since what I talk about, what I talk about here is
00:52:17.060
cognitive illusions. If there were a really good cognitive illusion, and I got one seriously wrong,
00:52:24.860
my business model would make me more money. Because if I do a title of these live streams
00:52:30.920
that says, oh, I got everything wrong, or here's how I have to apologize for this,
00:52:36.240
my traffic goes up 30%. You've seen it. But if I tell you that I'm right about everything,
00:52:43.620
and you got it wrong, what happens to my money? It goes down 30%. You know, my live stream traffic's
00:52:51.900
probably down 25% or so from its peak, for no other reason than because I'm not telling you I'm wrong.
00:52:59.520
So if you're going to follow the money, I guarantee you that admitting I'm wrong is more profitable for me.
00:53:07.080
Do you accept that? You can see it yourself, right? I mean, you can just check my numbers. They're public.
00:53:13.540
They're listed right there. Just look, and you see that when I'm eating crow, people love to watch it.
00:53:20.860
So people like to watch other people squirm. But for me, it would be actually sort of an exciting
00:53:30.940
learning experience. Now, keep in mind that one of my frames of life is that I'm living in a simulation,
00:53:39.180
and that reality is slowly, you know, revealing itself to me. So anytime reality feels like it comes
00:53:47.060
from behind a curtain, and then reveals itself to me, and I find out how blind I was to something,
00:53:52.900
I kind of like it. I kind of like it. So while nobody likes to be proven wrong,
00:54:01.380
I do have a business model that supports it. And I can think of lots of examples where I thought,
00:54:08.680
whoa, I was so wrong about that, and said it in public, and I was fine. I also know that I survive
00:54:15.800
it just fine. Being wrong. How many times have you seen me be wrong? And here I am. I'm still here.
00:54:25.080
There's no difference. I have trained myself by being wrong enough in public, embarrassing myself
00:54:32.540
enough in public, and finding out that I wake up the next day and breakfast tastes exactly the same.
00:54:37.560
I'm like, well, let me test this theory. I was, a lot of people think I'm wrong, and they hate me right now.
00:54:57.280
You think something's going to be different because you're embarrassed, or because somebody has a lower
00:55:04.940
opinion of you, but it's really not. It's really not. Things are just the same. And once you realize
00:55:11.660
that, that other people's opinions, here's another reframe for you. I'm starting to work on a book on this
00:55:19.200
topic, which is why I'm thinking about it a lot. One of the reframes for you to avoid criticism,
00:55:24.660
or the impact of criticism, is to remember that somebody else's opinion of you is a chemical
00:55:34.100
reaction happening in the brain and the skull, I like to say, inside the skull of a stranger
00:55:39.220
who's not even in the room. It's a microscopic chemical attraction, or a chemical reaction,
00:55:48.620
and electrical, I guess, happening in the skull of somebody who's nowhere around.
00:55:53.460
Like, I don't know where that is. And even if I were there, the chemical little reaction would be
00:56:01.320
so small, I couldn't even detect it. And that's the thing you're worrying about. Tomorrow, your coffee
00:56:08.440
will taste the same. When you're on your deathbed, here's another reframe. Here's another reframe.
00:56:13.680
Every time something like that bothers you, and you know it's small ball, you're saying to yourself,
00:56:19.720
I know that's small. Man, that bothers me. Oh, God. It's small. I get it. But man, that's bothering
00:56:25.360
me. Just think about your last breath. You're on your deathbed. Are you going to be thinking about
00:56:32.520
that? Is that going to be in the top million of things you're going to think about on your last day
00:56:38.300
at Earth? Nope. Nope. So don't worry about it now. Let it go. All right. So those are your
00:56:47.700
reframes for the day. I believe that we've solved or put into motion a solution to education,
00:56:56.320
the high cost of college. I believe that we'll also get rid of systemic racism, as it is mostly
00:57:03.420
present in the public schooling system and the teachers' unions supporting it. Once we have
00:57:09.400
everybody trained and no longer trained to be racist, we will have the strongest, most powerful
00:57:15.220
country that ever existed. I'll tell you what China doesn't see coming. They don't see talent stacks and
00:57:23.180
systems over goals, something that has swept America and made people who used to be pretty good
00:57:29.740
at doing things into people who are great at doing things. Do you think that this reframing stuff
00:57:36.180
and the systems over goals doesn't work? I'm going to prove it to you right now.
00:57:43.280
In the comments, both locals on YouTube, tell me how many of you have recently quit drinking. Go.
00:57:53.780
I'm not going to say anything. If you're listening to this, I'm not going to say what's happening
00:58:02.040
right now. Look at the comments. Now, YouTube, you're a little bit slower, but let me just say
00:58:11.540
that the local people are incredible. Oh, my God. I've never seen so many people say they quit
00:58:21.240
alcohol. Here comes YouTube. Coming online. YouTube.
00:58:30.800
Now, let me ask you this. Do you think that the representative sample of other live streams
00:58:38.160
would have this many people who quit alcohol recently?
00:58:43.780
Ask yourself. Do you think any other live streams would have this many people immediately saying,
00:58:51.240
I quit alcohol? Yeah, this reframing stuff is powerful. When I told you that alcohol is
00:58:57.720
poison, and I repeat it all the time, that's the reframe. If you think alcohol is a beverage,
00:59:04.300
you're fucked. Let me be clear about that. If your idea of alcohol is that it's a beverage,
00:59:14.220
It's poison. It's poison. Now, it is poison that feels really good, and I've greatly enjoyed the
00:59:22.080
times that I've used it. Greatly enjoyed it. Had terrific times. But it's poison. Let's not kid
00:59:28.440
ourselves. So if you want to drink less, just think you're taking poison. It's just you've decided you
00:59:37.060
won't take that much of it. So you think you'll survive. But that little bit of a reframe, it'll
00:59:42.000
work on you over time. And over time, you'll find that it's easier to quit if you want to.
00:59:47.600
I'm not saying you should. I'm not saying you shouldn't. You're free people. But
00:59:52.140
this is powerful stuff. And I will talk to you tomorrow.