Real Coffee with Scott Adams - The Scott Adams School - 05⧸11⧸26 HOME TEAM Monday! The Meaning Of Life w⧸ Scott

00:00:00.000 there yet good morning are we there yet good morning everybody happy may 11th i think everybody's

00:00:09.140 going in the chat sorry i couldn't start it as early today just a little bit later but i think

00:00:15.260 it gave us time for everybody to come on in so come on in and we have oh we have a special show

00:00:22.480 for you today. We have a nice lesson from Scott on the meaning of life. And it'd be a good time

00:00:32.900 for that. I have some ideas about the meaning of life myself, and I want to see if they're

00:00:37.200 aligning with Scott. So let's get this Monday going with a simultaneous sip. Ready, everybody?

00:00:45.800 Well, you know, if you want to enjoy coffee with Scott Adams, you need to also enjoy the

00:00:49.280 simultaneous sip, and you don't need much to enjoy it. No, you don't. All you need

00:00:53.380 is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice or a stein, a canteen

00:00:57.260 jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like

00:01:01.520 coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure,

00:01:06.040 the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better.

00:01:09.620 The simultaneous sip. Go!

00:01:19.280 oh breathtaking i know you feel the same i did a little shimmy shake with his

00:01:30.780 excellent excellent owen and marcella how are you guys doing how were your weekends

00:01:38.260 good it was wonderful yeah tell us owen how was your project during the weekend

00:01:46.780 Oh, my son was graduating from college, so it was a big milestone for the family.

00:01:51.240 Congratulations.

00:01:53.960 Congrats.

00:01:54.520 It was great spending time with him, and his older brother and his grandma came up with us, so it was good.

00:02:02.880 Oh, I love that.

00:02:04.420 And, Marcella, you crushed it on the after party.

00:02:07.240 You filled in for Owen.

00:02:08.740 I did.

00:02:09.200 Was that a good time, or what?

00:02:10.700 That was a good time.

00:02:11.960 Everybody was great.

00:02:14.340 Everybody had good opinions.

00:02:16.000 you know about all sorts of things and i'm happy they all showed up because i was like

00:02:22.720 the after party is nothing if i'm alone by myself so i'm always glad when they always come up

00:02:29.960 seven in the morning for me so um and lots of people have things to do on a saturday so i'm

00:02:36.620 very thankful for everybody that was there eric goes there for a bit and uh it didn't last as

00:02:44.260 long as usual, but it lasted three hours and 30 minutes or something. Oh, that's, that's plenty.

00:02:50.140 I would say it's a busy weekend. And, you know, I think a lot of people were prepping for mother's

00:02:56.160 day. I hope, um, anyone who had mother's day festivities had a good time, um, and happy

00:03:02.420 mother's day. Okay. So you guys, some people will say this is AI, but I'm going to say this is a

00:03:10.700 dream you decide oh my god there's so many where do they keep coming from we're a nightmare what

00:03:26.840 is this city i'm telling you i was like i'd put like 20 bucks in that thing oh my god can you

00:03:35.300 imagine they're so cute i know they're so cute i love it um so that was just my that was my little

00:03:41.560 animal story of the day but then i thought like so my friend and i had a whole discussion about

00:03:46.200 this i was like well then this like big puppy vacuum comes at the end of the day because

00:03:50.920 they're not real and they vacuum up all the puppies and then you can do it again the next day

00:03:55.160 oh my gosh owen do you want a puppy vending machine

00:04:01.240 um i don't know that that would be a good good idea i think you know puppies are a careful

00:04:07.660 investment yeah you gotta be it's a lot of responsibility unless you are gonna vacuum

00:04:12.320 all vacuum them all up and just get rid of them but that sounds kind of grotesque to me 1.00

00:04:16.300 but they're not real they're not real free bird said that's how somalians are made in minnesota 0.88

00:04:21.600 but oh my gosh okay so i had to get that out of the way you guys know i like a little animal

00:04:28.440 something. Oh, and you had some story was, what was that about this morning you were talking about?

00:04:37.160 Well, amazingly, there's a study that shows that coffee is good for your brain and your gut.

00:04:42.520 I know this is shocking and, and something we probably never talked about before, but

00:04:47.320 there's some new research that says that coffee reshapes your gut microbiome and boosts your mood,

00:04:52.780 your cognition, stress reduction, and focus, and they're claiming even decaf versions work,

00:04:58.860 I wouldn't know because I don't drink decaf, and I would not recommend it to anyone.

00:05:02.840 But apparently there are some things outside of caffeine that are also helpful. So it's not just

00:05:09.060 the caffeine, it's also all the polyphenols and other things that are in there. They have some

00:05:14.860 specific findings about certain types of bacteria in your gut that are higher in coffee drinkers,

00:05:20.840 and they help with digestion and fight bad bacteria. So drink your coffee.

00:05:25.160 Are you going to tell me next that it has to be black coffee?

00:05:28.540 I won't tell you that. I do think there are some studies that say that, but there are other ones

00:05:32.760 that say it's okay. So, you know, to put some things in it. But I do think there are some of

00:05:37.580 the health benefits that they say are either counteracted by sugar and milk or, you know,

00:05:43.000 things like that. But I think, I'm guessing you still get a lot of the benefits.

00:05:47.500 Okay.

00:05:48.060 Even with those things.

00:05:48.980 some are getting in there i just please i just that's the only fun thing about coffee for me

00:05:54.440 and i don't want to put vitamins and minerals in my coffee and i need my little flavor

00:06:00.760 okay so it's an acquired taste i will say that i used to drink milk and sugar in my coffee and

00:06:08.600 and then i think it might have been in the army where you know they didn't have that option

00:06:11.900 basically or it was so gross because they only had were like the fake stuff that powdered milk

00:06:16.520 But yeah, I just switched to black and I never went back.

00:06:20.580 It was, you know, as they say.

00:06:22.440 That's what they say.

00:06:25.140 They do say that.

00:06:27.140 Good point.

00:06:28.820 Oh, my gosh.

00:06:29.480 So it's true.

00:06:30.380 All right.

00:06:30.900 So all right, you guys, this is going to fall under the category of if I had to see this, you had to see this.

00:06:40.340 Many of you did see this already.

00:06:42.180 Marcella hasn't, shockingly.

00:06:43.580 so this is going to be keep in mind a high school graduation okay high school graduation

00:06:51.240 you know a little family event um you're now going to see justin pearson he's a

00:06:56.840 democrat candidate in tennessee uh representative uh district tn09 he is at the mace mase charter

00:07:06.600 school. And this is a high school graduation. He was their, I guess, keynote speaker.

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00:08:01.560 not at all like my high school graduation 85 years ago but interesting interesting so he's

00:08:23.580 getting a lot of backlash for you know trying to you know um i guess act like this they were saying

00:08:30.100 the spirit of god came into him and how inappropriate it is and it's like tennessee i

00:08:35.740 mean you're having enough problems now with like people wanting to like redraw redistrict re

00:08:40.560 whatever it's like everybody calm down like it's like these types of you know theatrical moments

00:08:47.200 are not helping anything the comments on locals of the wtfs are just so funny what the hell is

00:08:54.940 happening everyone's asking um i don't know what he was saying i see your question freebird i don't

00:09:00.680 know what he was saying so owen did you happen to catch this at all no i don't know what he was

00:09:06.120 saying either it just seemed like he was having a seizure for a few minutes and eventually got

00:09:11.400 control of himself so i guess i'll just leave it at that he's like a democrat being told no

00:09:16.120 um marcella was that fun did you're you sad you missed that graduation you know it must be that

00:09:22.620 live in california that i didn't think of it as shocking i guess um lots of black church seriously

00:09:30.300 because in hispanic culture in hispanic culture like they would dance they would do that i i mean

00:09:37.580 it looks like it's a it's a christian high school it's just a huge cross so just happens to be in a

00:09:43.340 church i think the graduation yeah yeah so it wouldn't surprise me lots of people concerned

00:09:51.020 he was having a seizure. Yeah. So anyway, very odd. I just felt like I needed to bond with you

00:09:58.240 guys over something that just burned my brain for a minute and I wanted to share it. So I hope you

00:10:03.340 enjoyed that. So you guys, like I said, we have a great clip of Scott coming up. And before we get

00:10:10.180 to that, I just want to do one more clip because Spencer Pratt is just knocking it out of the park.

00:10:16.720 So if you don't know, he's running for the mayor of Los Angeles.

00:10:20.980 He is like a breath of fresh air.

00:10:23.920 He's just common sense.

00:10:25.560 You know, it's just like, and I like, don't freak out, love him or hate him, blah, blah,

00:10:29.540 blah.

00:10:29.860 But you know, Trump in 2015, breath of fresh air washed over me.

00:10:34.340 I'm just like, yes, like you're just talking.

00:10:36.360 You're just saying the things that people are thinking.

00:10:38.560 And I just so appreciated that.

00:10:40.720 And Spencer, it's the same thing.

00:10:42.580 so he was on the all-in podcast uh one of scott's favorite podcasts one of our favorite podcasts

00:10:49.140 i think we all watch it um so he sat down um with one of the hosts of the all-in podcast and here's

00:10:57.220 just a little clip and i just find this refreshing okay let's listen in so the ad that blew up crazy

00:11:05.620 is when i showed bass's house nithya ramen's million dollar mansion multi-million dollar

00:11:11.860 and then my airstream that one broke every ad record in history that is if it has my name on

00:11:18.420 it is legally mine anything like these incredible grassroots ads yeah if i don't put my name on it

00:11:26.020 it's literally not mine there are people out there doing these ads not in your campaign

00:11:30.580 correct that are creating this movement correct because people feel the common sense they feel

00:11:35.460 the emote that totally it's connecting i keep trying to tell everyone that you know they try

00:11:39.380 try to put me in a box.

00:11:40.840 I didn't run for it to be a political party.

00:11:43.000 I didn't run to be a politician.

00:11:44.600 I ran because I experienced what city leadership failure

00:11:49.420 at the ultimate level is.

00:11:50.960 That's why I stepped up.

00:11:51.980 That's what cuts through.

00:11:52.960 So the media and everyone wants to jump on

00:11:55.140 and be like, oh, Spencer's our guy.

00:11:56.720 No, I'm the citizen.

00:11:58.260 I'm the angry taxpayer.

00:12:00.440 You can be a Democrat and love me.

00:12:02.360 You can be a Republican and love me.

00:12:03.960 The only people that don't love me

00:12:05.340 are communists and socialists,

00:12:06.560 and I don't want them to love me.

00:12:08.100 love that uh marcella what do you think about that clip um that he had good he has good ideas

00:12:19.520 i mean he went to their house uh and and one of the things that was asked in that interview

00:12:24.340 is you know how are you going to improve skid row and all that and one of the things he he

00:12:30.980 he shockingly told David Friedberg is that it's Skid Row is tire Los Angeles now it's not just

00:12:39.980 in downtown LA it's Santa Monica Venice somebody yesterday or two days ago with us some some I don't

00:12:50.480 know who it was they ran away they had a samurai sword and they almost chopped up someone's arm

00:12:56.420 while they were walking in bennis beach you know so bennis beach is like really expensive areas

00:13:04.360 uh it's shocking how uh it's come to this but um i'm hoping that there will be

00:13:14.400 uh secret spencer pratt voters because there's this pressure by a lot of democrats to vote

00:13:24.680 democrat and to keep it going because what they argue is and i think joel talked about this is

00:13:31.960 oh all of this is is president trump's like this is why uh and one of the things that people forget

00:13:40.280 is that there's been a lot of ice raids in california and los angeles and it's caused

00:13:46.520 people to be anti-federal government anti-ice because it wasn't people that were criminals it

00:13:53.320 It was just like your everyday hotel waiter, whatever it was, taken away.

00:13:58.440 And one thing that President Trump and most Republicans don't understand is that the people that are legally here have family that are legally here.

00:14:09.260 And so there's, you know, because they had kids or, you know, or family that was residents, alien, whatever it is.

00:14:16.340 So a lot of people that can vote have family that was deported.

00:14:20.580 it. So that's, that's what would, I would think would affect him, but maybe there'll be secrets.

00:14:28.120 Spencer Pratt voters. I don't think people who want law and order. I think, I think people,

00:14:36.920 I should say people that want law and order, they're going to vote for Pratt. Like the people

00:14:41.460 that are looking around, like, okay, like this, like we've run amok, like we've destroyed the

00:14:48.020 place, you know, that we're supposed to love where we live. So I feel like anybody who wants law and

00:14:53.300 order and wants to be safe and clean up or whatever, you have no choice, literally. And I

00:15:00.260 think that he's doing a pretty good job talking to the unions also, to the union, the people that

00:15:05.320 vote with the unions and the unions. I don't have that clip. I just wanted to do one clip, but

00:15:11.280 he's like he's just continuing to make a lot of sense um oh and did you catch any of uh his

00:15:18.040 interview by any chance i didn't watch the interview but i've seen the ads and and i think

00:15:22.920 they're great and i'm rooting for him um i did notice on polymarket right now he's up to 30

00:15:28.100 so that's a big jump up um i don't know do you know marcella when the primary is where they

00:15:33.800 narrow it down to two i think in june okay so it's coming up relatively soon

00:15:41.260 and you know the other woman ramen is down to 18 so he's way above her at this point

00:15:47.980 and that's a recent change so it looks like he is getting some traction i mean unless someone's

00:15:52.860 manipulating the market but he talked about ramen right in that interview he thinks that ramen is

00:15:59.240 only there to make to dilute the vote so that most people won't vote for him and i think it's

00:16:05.340 sort of working hopefully not that's weird to me though because like ramen from what i've heard

00:16:10.960 from her seems like the opposite like just you know total socialist like not not a moderate right

00:16:17.560 and so i don't know how that would like anybody who wants to vote for pratt wouldn't be voting

00:16:22.520 for her and i you know i'm amazed that karen bass is still at 49 i don't know if that's just the you

00:16:30.120 know the rigged part of the vote that just stays there all the time but um you know it does seem

00:16:35.460 pretty amazing given the palisades fire and all the other scandals that she's been embroiled in

00:16:40.120 that she'd still be getting almost half the vote but yeah i shouldn't be surprised because i you

00:16:46.420 know i'm from the chicago area and i've seen the same things happen here where it's like even

00:16:50.740 people who you would think okay there's no way they're getting re-elected and they do

00:16:54.420 and they get a very wide margin so i don't know what's going to happen there but um i really hope

00:16:59.880 he does get elected and i think we should start out the secret pratt voters and you know encourage

00:17:05.580 people to pretend like they're voting for bass and actually vote for pratt and just don't tell

00:17:12.200 anybody i think that um well i what i love is that the three of us represent three notoriously

00:17:19.220 corrupt uh states and we have the west this the center and the east coast and um i do think that

00:17:29.520 well one thing i loved is that people asking um who was it that did that abc did an interview

00:17:35.420 with him and then they like edited it down to five minutes to make him look bad. And he forced

00:17:40.840 ABC, Spencer Pratt forced ABC to release the whole interview. He said, you know, that's totally

00:17:47.280 interference in an election to just cherry pick and edit. So to their credit, they did. And I love

00:17:54.900 that he's just like, listen, I wish, I wish the debate, you know, he said several times, I wish

00:17:59.760 it was five hours long because I needed more time to point out all the lies and corruption

00:18:04.880 of these two. Um, and then he was cute. He said, you know, I promise all of the Democrat women

00:18:11.460 that love me that, you know, want to vote for me. They all said, Spencer, you've got to keep your

00:18:16.160 cool. You got to stay calm. Like don't freak out during the debate. And he's like, you know,

00:18:21.460 there was a lot of times where I wanted to just like, you know, shout something or say something,

00:18:26.220 but I had them all in my head and I made a commitment to them that I wouldn't freak out.

00:18:30.060 So I love, he's so, uh, casual and conversational. He's not like talking with stupid talking points 0.99

00:18:37.940 and slogans. And I, I feel like that's resonating. And then I've also seen people that understand 1.00

00:18:45.800 Hollywood like he does, you know, um, some of them are like, you know what? Yeah. Go Spencer.

00:18:52.860 So those are a lot of people that would typically vote Democrat just because, but now they're like,

00:18:57.980 go Spencer, or if he becomes mayor, I'd move back there because he gets it. And, you know,

00:19:04.220 like I would support that and whatever. So I feel like he's getting like this unusual wave of

00:19:08.660 traction. And I, I'm sorry, you guys, I didn't look about Steve Hilton to see how he's doing,

00:19:13.680 but I feel like California is like at hit their bottom. So I can't imagine it bottoming out any

00:19:24.680 further. So I'm feeling optimistic about Hilton and Pratt, which would be amazing. So we have to

00:19:31.740 keep our eye on that. Let's get some stats for tomorrow and see what's going on. But I think

00:19:35.900 Hilton's ahead for him. So that's good. That's good. We want California to be amazing again

00:19:44.660 and to be able to go there and vacation and spend money and want to live there. And we want

00:19:51.540 marcella to have beauty all around her and clean everything right marcella we want you to yeah i 1.00

00:19:57.940 don't i don't want a samurai sword attack you know exactly yeah um you need some kind of option on 0.98

00:20:05.220 your tesla to protect you from those yeah like something that shoots like come on ilan give me

00:20:11.100 some some bomb throwing car some like like a cloud of mace comes out no it's just an optimist robot

00:20:18.180 in the trunk that jumps out with its own samurai sword i just wish i just wish locally spencer

00:20:25.460 would be on more um because the things that he talked about in regards to the fire and how he

00:20:32.820 you know disclosed the issues of how it ended up happening and all of that in showing that um

00:20:40.260 um, Mayor Karen Bass was part of, you know, the issue. And I think that has not been

00:20:47.760 done locally as much. So it's kind of like, not that people watch local news too much,

00:20:56.140 but it needs to be out there more than just him. You think people don't know that, that, um,

00:21:02.520 she was off on her trip. And he also pointed out how she just talks about this one reservoir. He's

00:21:10.080 like there's a reservoir next to my house that's empty, you know, or maybe it had, no, it was

00:21:16.280 empty. And they were just like, and he said, he always felt like, oh, you know, like if there's

00:21:20.300 ever a fire, we're set because they would do drills and training up there all the time where

00:21:24.980 like a helicopter would come with a basket to scoop water and whatever. And he said he was

00:21:30.280 calling the fire department. He's like, I know the guys at the fire department. And I was like,

00:21:34.300 hey, listen, there's a tiny brush fire right near me. If you guys can get some water on it,

00:21:39.280 none of these houses up here will have a problem and they're like we have no resources we have we

00:21:44.100 can't we have nothing that can come up to you to get that so that's why his house burned down

00:21:49.300 and one of the things he brought up in there is that karen bass mayor karen bass he alleges that

00:21:55.500 she didn't call um air air supply like the helicopters and all that that do that they're

00:22:02.420 supposed to call them allegedly she argues that there was too much wind for the helicopters to 1.00

00:22:07.200 fly. And she said that the rest of where he was talking about was for drinking water. So she's

00:22:14.340 able to hoax. How are people able to hoax? Because there's not enough information. So she's able to

00:22:21.360 pass it off. Yeah. She's a horrible human being. Okay. So if you guys want a brain cleanser,

00:22:31.760 do you? I need a Monday morning palate cleanser. And we can only do that with Scott, let's face it.

00:22:39.920 So I want you guys to snuggle in, get cozy, hold your coffee, and let's listen to Scott.

00:22:47.280 We're going to talk about the meaning of life. Oh, which video is that? Nobody knows. Why does

00:22:54.360 it come up like this, you guys? All right. Bear with Owen, entertain them for a second. Let me

00:22:59.080 just look at these. Dance on dance. Yeah. Oh, and talk. Oh, okay. I can see if I can find another

00:23:12.460 story to talk about for a minute. Another fun story. I think it's this one. Try it.

00:23:22.740 Okay. Let's see you guys. Let's, let's test small. Wait, one, two, three, four.

00:23:29.080 I think it's this one. Okay. Ready guys. If it's the one, we'll see you in 12 minutes.

00:23:37.200 This is your micro lesson on the meaning of life. Now this is going to be an individual meaning,

00:23:44.120 not a meaning that applies to everyone because you can take care of yourself in terms of the

00:23:49.480 meaning that you find out of life. There's not much you can do for other people. They have to

00:23:53.580 figure it out themselves. So this is your personal journey and how to find meaning

00:23:59.000 in your life. So here's the basic idea, the starting point, and then we'll get to some

00:24:05.100 more detail on the other side. If you were to live an ideal life that was compatible

00:24:10.660 with your biological self, what would it look like? And here is my contention, that you

00:24:18.620 will have the sensation of, and for all practical purposes you'll have, meaning in your life

00:24:27.400 if you stay on this line, which is the line of selfishness.

00:24:34.480 And the idea here is that you're born a baby,

00:24:37.340 and there's nothing you can do about it.

00:24:40.040 You didn't ask to be born, and if somebody asked you to help out,

00:24:43.940 you couldn't do it if you wanted to. 0.98

00:24:45.760 You are 100% selfish baby. 0.89

00:24:50.080 Now, as you get older, if you're doing things right,

00:24:54.680 maybe when you're a teen, you can start to help out a little bit.

00:24:57.180 you're a little less selfish. Maybe by the time you're a parent, you don't have to actually

00:25:01.700 biologically have children, but you're an adult and you find yourself giving back as

00:25:06.840 much as you're getting. You know, you've given back a lot. Could be to your family, could

00:25:10.840 be to anybody, your company, whatever. Eventually, once you've got everything that you need and

00:25:17.480 you've taken care of the people who are around you, you enter some kind of a, I'll call it

00:25:21.580 a mentor mode, where you're sort of a senior member of the tribe, you know, you're a tribal

00:25:27.880 elder essentially, and you're just trying to be helpful. And then the last thing you do, at least

00:25:34.220 in our culture, the last thing you do the moment your life is extinguished is you give away

00:25:41.540 everything you have. So all of your material possessions just go away at the moment of death.

00:25:48.980 So this is a purely unselfish moment because you're literally dead.

00:25:55.220 So you start 100% selfish and you try to stay on the line to get to the point where you can be so unselfish that you die perfectly.

00:26:05.760 A perfect death is you've given everything.

00:26:09.000 There's nothing left to give.

00:26:10.720 If you do that, or even if you feel you're on the line to do that,

00:26:16.160 So, for example, you're just in school.

00:26:19.700 Are you doing the right thing if you're a teenager

00:26:23.180 and you're just doing well in school and paying attention?

00:26:26.160 Yes.

00:26:27.080 Very rarely do young kids ask about the meaning of life

00:26:32.180 because they're actually biologically doing exactly what they need to be doing.

00:26:36.640 So if you find yourself compatible with your biological nature for that point of life,

00:26:42.860 you will feel meaning.

00:26:44.140 If you're learning and then giving as much as you're getting and then eventually becoming more purely unselfish, you will feel meaning in your life.

00:26:56.040 Now, how do you do this, though?

00:26:58.800 That's the hard part, right?

00:27:00.800 How can you be sure that you can take care of yourself well enough, which is really the key?

00:27:06.620 If you don't take care of yourself first, you're not going to be in any kind of position to be helpful.

00:27:11.740 So you have to be selfish in the beginning until you've acquired enough safety, knowledge, financial assets, network, family, whatever, to be safe yourself.

00:27:23.240 And then you can start branching out.

00:27:26.780 The basic belief behind this is that we evolved to take care of ourselves first, because that's what survival would require.

00:27:36.500 But secondarily, as soon as we take care of ourselves,

00:27:39.360 we broaden that to the family, the people close to you,

00:27:43.640 your tribe, and then, of course, civilization.

00:27:48.640 So, how can you be helpful?

00:27:52.080 And make sure you're staying on that line.

00:27:55.580 Well, let's say you wanted to be an author of this simulation.

00:28:00.320 If you're new to this, I like to call our reality a simulation

00:28:03.460 because it feels like it.

00:28:04.500 You don't have to believe it's a simulation for any of these purposes.

00:28:08.340 It's just fun.

00:28:09.740 So when I talk about authoring the simulation,

00:28:12.220 what I'm talking about is not necessarily changing base reality

00:28:15.900 because we don't have any access to base reality.

00:28:19.960 Even if it changed, we might not know the difference.

00:28:22.820 Because we did not evolve to be able to know reality.

00:28:26.980 We evolved to live in these little worlds that we manufacture ourselves.

00:28:30.540 So to the extent that you can manufacture your own world, you become the author of the simulation you're working in, you're living in and working.

00:28:41.400 Now, the process for doing that, I'm going to give you the general outline, but then each of these items you'd have to work on individually.

00:28:49.920 So this would be how to understand your world the best

00:28:54.900 in a way that helps you get to that great line

00:28:59.920 where you're becoming more useful all the time.

00:29:03.480 All right?

00:29:04.540 So I broke it into three categories,

00:29:07.760 but before you can even get serious on this,

00:29:10.440 you need to understand the beginning point,

00:29:13.340 that these are filters, not necessarily reality.

00:29:18.100 And what I mean by that is, imagine if you would, you go to the grocery store,

00:29:22.120 and I like to use this example.

00:29:23.840 You're standing in a grocery store, and next to you is somebody with a different religion.

00:29:28.900 And on top of that, they also believe everything that the opposite political party from you,

00:29:35.600 whichever that is, they believe the opposite.

00:29:39.480 Are they living the same reality that you are?

00:29:42.540 Probably not.

00:29:43.400 They might be worried that the leader is going to do something horrible, and you're not.

00:29:49.000 So you live in a world where there's no risk for all practical purposes.

00:29:52.880 That's what you experience as your reality.

00:29:56.200 Again, independent from any base reality.

00:29:59.240 It's just what you experience as your reality.

00:30:01.820 Once you understand that we're all walking around in these manufactured realities,

00:30:07.660 it frees you to author your own reality.

00:30:11.740 If you feel you're a victim of reality,

00:30:14.520 and it's just, well, I'm just the output.

00:30:16.940 I'm not the input.

00:30:18.560 I'm not the variables.

00:30:19.840 I'm just what got squirted at the end.

00:30:22.300 If that's your view of life, that's exactly how your life will go.

00:30:25.940 If you believe that it's you who manufactures this filter on reality

00:30:31.080 and then can live in it,

00:30:32.680 you could turn yourself into, let's say, a Buddhist,

00:30:37.120 if that was compatible with your thinking,

00:30:39.600 and you can live in that world, sort of a Buddhist reality.

00:30:44.260 You could become a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent.

00:30:48.240 You can author your own reality.

00:30:51.600 Now, does that alone help you be more successful,

00:30:56.520 live better, be healthier, have better relationships?

00:30:59.620 Well, not by itself.

00:31:01.120 You need some technique.

00:31:02.180 Here are the things which I recommend that you understand are your priorities.

00:31:06.600 If you have not developed people skills, the odds that you will be successful enough to eventually give back and therefore have meaning in your life, because you're learning and getting more powerful all the time, in order to do anything useful in life that gets to the mentor stage anyway, that really is a well-lived life, you're going to have to master people skills.

00:31:31.720 I just listed some example ones here.

00:31:34.700 So everything from working on your shyness, which you can work on as a technique.

00:31:39.240 I've talked about that before.

00:31:40.940 Your networking, your conversation, your public speaking,

00:31:44.100 learning how to criticize people without hurting their feelings,

00:31:46.900 how to manage them, et cetera.

00:31:48.300 So it's a long list, but you know what it is.

00:31:50.900 If you're not actually working on that list,

00:31:55.180 meaning you're not reading a book on something on this list,

00:31:58.060 you're not taking a class, you're not practicing something,

00:32:02.600 then you're not quite getting ready to be an author.

00:32:07.300 You're still in sort of taking it as a comes mode.

00:32:12.020 I've talked too much about the talent stack,

00:32:14.340 but it's so powerful that if you're not developing your skills

00:32:18.040 that layer well together, in your case,

00:32:21.420 it's not the same skills for everybody.

00:32:23.500 It's just whatever is the combination that makes you powerful and unique

00:32:27.340 and valuable in the market.

00:32:29.140 If you don't have a skill stack

00:32:31.120 and some people skills,

00:32:33.440 you're just not going to be successful.

00:32:35.760 I mean, you could.

00:32:36.940 It's possible that people without people skills

00:32:39.820 can be successful,

00:32:41.080 but it's less likely,

00:32:43.440 which gets us to the last thing.

00:32:45.980 You should understand the math of life.

00:32:49.140 I'll call it the odds,

00:32:51.060 but it's really sort of the math of life.

00:32:52.820 If you understand the math of life,

00:32:55.980 You have basically a strategy.

00:32:58.140 I don't like to use the word strategy, so I prefer to say, do you know the odds?

00:33:03.500 Do you know that if you do this thing, you'll have better odds than this thing?

00:33:07.280 Here are just some examples of it.

00:33:09.600 I talk about how it's very typical in the business world to try ten different things before one of them works.

00:33:17.120 If you didn't know that, you'd give up after three.

00:33:20.720 but if you knew it was almost sort of built into the texture of civilization

00:33:25.340 I don't know why

00:33:26.700 but it's a good rule of thumb that you probably try ten things

00:33:30.500 and one of them is likely to catch on

00:33:33.180 you try three things, well, your odds are less

00:33:36.200 so understanding that about the world is important

00:33:39.960 you should understand that if you sell your time

00:33:43.940 there's a cap on how much you can make

00:33:46.800 even if you're a lawyer, there's a cap

00:33:48.700 So maybe you should start your own business if you want an uncapped potential.

00:33:54.080 The math of talent stacking is that just because you have, let's say, 10 talents and you add one,

00:34:01.300 you don't go up just 10% in power.

00:34:04.320 You might double in power.

00:34:06.280 So once you understand the multiplicative geometric benefit of adding skills,

00:34:14.860 you have a strategy just built into your normal thinking.

00:34:19.220 Understand about diversification, especially if you're investing.

00:34:24.080 Don't put all your eggs in one basket, as they say.

00:34:26.840 And follow the energy to go where there's the most luck, most stuff happening.

00:34:31.640 If you go wherever there's the most stuff happening with the most people, you have more chances for luck.

00:34:39.340 That is the outline for finding meaning in your life.

00:34:44.120 Now, of course, the details of how you fill out your various categories and stacks here

00:34:50.560 will be personal, and maybe you're all on your own path.

00:34:54.660 But the idea is that if you're following that path from completely selfish to completely unselfish,

00:35:04.920 you will have an internal feeling of meaning.

00:35:09.200 and that feeling will be just you being compatible

00:35:13.440 with your most basic biological self

00:35:16.840 because you were born to take care of yourself first

00:35:20.740 so if you're doing that, especially when you're young

00:35:23.800 you'll feel like you're doing exactly what you ought to be

00:35:26.700 and kids do, kids generally feel like they're doing exactly what they should be doing

00:35:31.900 learning, playing, growing

00:35:33.920 so just keep on that path

00:35:37.160 And, uh, you'll, you'll feel that, uh, feeling of completion and a feeling of meaning.

00:35:48.000 Well, I needed that today. It's a reminder to all of us, you know, um, I love how he laid that out.

00:35:56.520 I'm going to come to you first, Owen, but I just, you know, so a couple of, you know, I've been,

00:36:02.520 I had a little bit of a rough morning. Um, but I feel like in that rough morning I had

00:36:09.520 that I have all that in my head somewhere because I am fulfilling what I believe like the meaning

00:36:19.600 of life is and what my purpose is and who I am and like what skills I have. And it's obviously

00:36:26.160 not perfect, but, um, I think it's important. I think it's really important and put your,

00:36:31.880 you know, put yourself first. And I like how he lets you know, like you got to hone in,

00:36:37.600 you know, in these three different categories, you know, maybe if you're like, well, I'm not

00:36:42.880 like at this yet, you know, maybe you've got to hone in your personal skills, like your

00:36:47.800 communication skills or your shyness, like you said. So Owen, you know, how did you find that

00:36:52.920 to be? Yeah, no, I mean, I agree with all of that. I think, you know, there's lots of science

00:36:58.700 behind what he said I know he didn't focus on like there's this study or that study but I've

00:37:03.560 seen countless studies like this where when you're focused on helping other people and if you're

00:37:10.360 focused on yourself like ruminating over your problems or all that that's when you get depressed

00:37:14.340 and when people are isolated they get depressed and so I think we're kind of wired as you know

00:37:20.180 social creatures that are supposed to help each other and so I think it all makes sense and it's

00:37:26.280 backed by a ton of science um i think it you know he sort of skips to the end of that and says okay

00:37:33.420 here's the recommendations which i think is perfect i mean i don't think he needs to walk

00:37:36.460 through all the science but i do think that there is plenty of psychological and other evidence

00:37:40.800 um that he's on the right track with all that that when you start out as a kid of course you

00:37:46.240 don't have the capability of helping people very much and you go through the normal development

00:37:50.280 stages but as you get more capable the more you can help other people the more you can

00:37:55.340 give to other people, the better you're going to feel. And I think, um, to me that, you know,

00:38:01.600 having a family is a big part of that personally, at least, I mean, having kids, I think totally

00:38:06.420 changes your perspective on life. Um, and I don't think you can really understand it until you become

00:38:10.840 a parent. I mean, you can imagine it, but I think it's totally different when you meet your child

00:38:15.060 and you just see that you have this life in your hands and you just, your priorities change.

00:38:21.940 you're you care about different things and um so i think that's an important element for a lot of

00:38:27.820 people not everybody but you know for a lot of people to have kids and it just makes a big

00:38:32.460 difference in terms of the meaning of your life i think a lot of parents would say the best thing

00:38:37.060 they did in life was having kids or that that's the most meaningful thing and i think you know

00:38:41.420 it also pays off in the end when you have a family in your older years and you have people to hang

00:38:46.240 out with and spend time with and to give to because a lot of what he described you know the

00:38:51.660 most time you spend is usually with your family and so when you get into mentoring and other things

00:38:57.520 like you said at the end you need people to mentor and you know for Scott with his big platform he

00:39:01.980 could mentor all of us but not everybody has that kind of platform and I think they may be looking

00:39:06.600 for how can I contribute how can I do that and I think it's sad when people end up in like an old 1.00

00:39:11.060 folks home and then no one's asking them for their advice and no one's seeing them and they don't

00:39:14.820 necessarily have people to contribute to maybe they're contributing to each other and I hope

00:39:18.720 they are but you know I would like to see more of the older generation having opportunities to give

00:39:25.300 back to the younger generation and to do that mentoring and I think it would help the younger

00:39:29.100 people and the older people for everyone to feel like they're more connected and they have better

00:39:34.460 relationships and that they have more meaning in their lives so I think it's a great lesson

00:39:38.240 and I think it's a good way to think about life and I you know not for that reason but certainly

00:39:43.840 as I was going through my early career, I was certainly thinking that along those lines of

00:39:47.840 saying, how can I get more capabilities? But when I, when I would try and develop my skills,

00:39:52.780 it was always, how do I develop my skills to help other people, to help my clients,

00:39:56.680 to help my colleagues, to how, you know, how can I learn how to be a better team leader or a better

00:40:02.060 project manager or better at, you know, managing the client or all those different things. And

00:40:07.040 it's always been focused around how do I solve this problem for this client? Or how do I help,

00:40:12.040 you know, help get people to a better place. And I think that's given me a lot of meaning in my

00:40:18.200 career to be able to say that I help people and I've solved a bunch of problems. And I think,

00:40:22.720 um, if you have the opposite, that might feel kind of depressing. Like if you don't feel like

00:40:26.240 you're contributing and I have times like that where I feel like, okay, I didn't really contribute

00:40:29.920 much this week, but other times I feel like, wow, I really knocked out of the park. I did

00:40:33.680 really well. And so, you know, I understand there's a rhythm to it. You can't necessarily

00:40:38.060 to get it every day, but it does really

00:40:40.120 help when you feel like you've really

00:40:41.580 done something for people.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - May 11, 2026

The Scott Adams School - 05⧸11⧸26 HOME TEAM Monday! The Meaning Of Life w⧸ Scott

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