The Art of Manliness - #184： Using Behavioral Psychology for a Rich Life With Ramit Sethi

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so we all have

00:00:18.520 different goals in our lives maybe you want to get in shape perhaps you've been wanting to get

00:00:21.960 out of debt or maybe you've had your eye on a lovely lady and you want to ask her out on a date

00:00:26.080 you know what you need to do but you don't do it something's holding you back from taking action

00:00:31.120 on your goals well my guest today on the podcast has spent the past 10 years helping individuals

00:00:36.180 get past that thing that's been holding them back on improving their lives his name is ramit sati

00:00:41.600 he's the owner of a website called iwillteachyberrich.com and don't let the name of that

00:00:45.560 site fool you he's not selling get rich quick schemes it's a site filled with just really

00:00:50.380 practical actual information today on the podcast ramit and i are going to discuss how insights

00:00:54.540 from the field of behavioral psychology can help us become the men we want to be whether it's

00:00:59.360 getting in shape starting a business asking to raise maybe improving our romantic life we also

00:01:05.480 talk about what it means to live a rich life and how it doesn't necessarily mean having a lot of

00:01:10.000 money this is a podcast that's filled with a ton of actual information so you'll want to take notes

00:01:14.420 all right ramit sati welcome to the show thanks for having me all right so man i've been like we

00:01:28.140 were talking about this the other day i've been following you and your site i will teach you to

00:01:31.940 be rich when you first started back in like 2006 or seven and this is when i had a personal finance

00:01:38.100 blog people don't know that about me i my first blog was called the frugal law student so i read your

00:01:43.520 stuff because i was in that that sphere but what's interesting is to see how your business or the

00:01:50.860 content you put out there on i will teach you to be rich has evolved so it started off primarily a

00:01:56.160 personal finance blog but now it's something different it's more all-encompassing about living

00:02:01.800 a good life where you talk about entrepreneurship social skills fitness psychology productivity etc and

00:02:09.420 they all seem connected i'm curious what would you say would is the underlying philosophy or objective

00:02:17.320 of i will teach you to be rich right now for me it's about showing people how to lead a rich life

00:02:23.900 and i like that word because rich can be different things to different people and i'll give you an

00:02:30.360 example when i started off in personal finance the predominant worldview was that you shouldn't do

00:02:37.400 anything with your money cut back on lattes cut back on everything and i just didn't believe in

00:02:44.220 that i mean i took a look around at my friends and my friends wanted to go out they wanted to buy a

00:02:48.840 round of drinks for their friends you know we just want to have a good time and so i started to develop

00:02:54.520 this philosophy and it started with money although i think money is really just a small part of living

00:02:59.840 a rich life i think if you ask people even the people who are listening right now what does a rich life

00:03:05.300 mean to you the things they're going to tell you are not going to involve like stacks of cash they're

00:03:11.500 going to say you know i want to be able to take a trip in the middle of the week um i want to be able

00:03:16.400 to um you know get a really nice jacket and not worry about it for me the rich life when i started off

00:03:23.120 was simple it was like i want to be able to buy appetizers at a restaurant because my family we have a

00:03:29.300 pretty big family we didn't have a lot of money we never ordered we didn't eat out and when we did

00:03:33.520 we would never even think of ordering appetizers so i think that a rich life evolves over time but

00:03:40.360 it also is unapologetic if you want to buy a two thousand dollar coat awesome let me show you how

00:03:47.840 to do it i'll show you how to negotiate your salary and get a twenty five thousand dollar raise

00:03:51.540 if you want to fly your parents out for their 40th anniversary and surprise them this is something

00:03:56.420 i just got back from a few days ago and you want to put them up in a nice house with a chef and all

00:04:00.860 that stuff do it let me show you how to start a side business and you can earn that so for me a

00:04:06.680 rich life is unapologetic it's different for everyone it can be about giving back to charity

00:04:11.320 could be about just getting a nice pair of shoes it could be about getting fit and changing your mind

00:04:16.040 and so that's the kind of general philosophy that goes through everything we do right or it could be

00:04:20.840 like i just talked to a guy the other day he lives on a homestead in vermont in a house he built

00:04:25.260 perfect example perfect example because that is really off the beaten path and you wouldn't think

00:04:32.900 money directly ties in with that but for him that's a rich life that's why i say money is a

00:04:39.340 an important part but it's a small part of a rich life right and so it seems like what you're doing

00:04:43.900 with i will teach you to be rich is you're you're you're disrupting thinking patterns that people have

00:04:50.120 about what is and what is not possible because i think a lot of people are they have this idea okay if i

00:04:54.920 want to have a good life i have to go to college i have to get this certain kind of job i have to

00:04:59.800 live in the suburbs i have to do this etc but you're saying no not necessarily you and you challenge those

00:05:05.180 assumptions that people have completely true if i had followed my typical default life path i would be

00:05:12.760 i'm about 5 11 5 11 and a half uh i would be 127 pounds i'd be working at cisco as a network

00:05:20.120 engineer i'd have an oversized white polo shirt that i wear with khakis and that would be it that's

00:05:26.760 my default life path and when i took a look i just said that's not where i want to be and so that means

00:05:33.780 everything from um stepping outside the typical job situation turning down a job offer at google

00:05:39.660 starting my own company uh it means stepping outside of the typical entrepreneur mindset especially

00:05:46.480 online entrepreneurs who say i don't want to have a team because that's a lot of responsibility

00:05:51.280 well guess what i want to have an impact and so if that means i have to have a team then i'm going

00:05:56.120 to learn how to have an amazing team and then it also means learning how to get fit and change the

00:06:01.540 way i look and dress and i think that's important too so the world wants you to be vanilla it wants you

00:06:08.360 to follow these typical paths because it's comfortable and the entire world is built around that

00:06:13.440 when you try to step outside of that you get people who will give you varying degrees of pushback

00:06:18.920 that's always going to happen in fact the more and more you do it the more and more you're going to

00:06:23.900 get but that doesn't mean you should stop gotcha well you're talking about you know getting fit right

00:06:28.840 like i think this is a really it's been fun to watch your transformation um because i remember like

00:06:33.320 way back when you were like you're doing like little classes at stanford about personal finance

00:06:38.020 yeah it was so cool yeah you know you you had the big polo shirt you had that rocking i believe

00:06:43.840 um and you were skinny and like you decide and what made you decide i need to get bigger and stronger i

00:06:49.360 mean that's something we've talked we have a lot of guys on the podcast i'm about to talk to a power

00:06:52.100 lifter who can deadlift you know 800 pounds oh my god um what like what made you decide like that's

00:06:58.240 an important part of my life that i need to focus on that you know there's there's two parts uh and both

00:07:05.440 of them are not what you'd think it's not that i sat down one day and i examined the health benefits

00:07:12.220 of muscle gain no i sat down one day with a girl that i was dating and she's a really sweet girl uh

00:07:21.580 and one day she made an offhand comment about how she she was basically she said i want you to gain

00:07:28.060 more weight and i'm like this is really weird for this girl to say this because she never had a mean

00:07:33.340 thing to say about anybody and she said i want you to gain more weight because it it will make me feel

00:07:37.700 like more of a girl i thought wow that is the kind of comment you never hear that's like a life changer

00:07:45.840 game changer and the next day i went to work and there was a guy used to work with brian and i asked

00:07:52.280 him you know can you help me learn how to work out and i was 127 pounds at the time i had the body of

00:07:59.080 a supermodel a female supermodel and i asked brian like hey can you show me how to work out so he takes

00:08:05.680 me to the gym starts you know showing me some machines and stuff and he goes all right you want

00:08:10.420 to gain weight uh do you like thai food okay do you like milk do you like this do you like that i'm like

00:08:16.960 yes no yes no he goes he thinks about it for a second he goes all right you need to eat all those

00:08:21.460 things so that was one and then the second thing was when i moved to new york i took a look around

00:08:28.740 me and it was very obvious that people in new york look great they look great they have great

00:08:34.660 fashion just everybody's playing at another level and i was like this is a great opportunity to step

00:08:39.740 my game up but i have to tell you that i was pretty nervous um i wanted to get a personal trainer i could

00:08:44.860 afford a personal trainer it still took me four months to get the courage to walk across the street

00:08:50.240 and go get a personal trainer and when i did it i basically put myself in his hands and i said i'll

00:08:57.680 do whatever it takes and he said all right we're gonna start and i just i happened to walk in and

00:09:02.660 luckily find an amazing trainer who i've worked with for years now but you'll notice that none of

00:09:08.440 these things it wasn't like i was debating the difference between a three-day or a four-day split

00:09:14.340 with your chest or power lifting versus olympic none of that it was all emotional and psychological

00:09:20.360 and that's something that i think a lot of people uh overlook they'll spend years and years looking at

00:09:27.200 different splits and different workouts but not realize most of it is psychological and once you

00:09:32.920 master that then the actual workout you do is pretty straightforward well yeah there's a lot of

00:09:38.000 things we can unpack right there so one thing i noticed about i will teach you to be rich and the

00:09:41.940 content you've been putting out in recent years is a lot about behavioral psychology and and and

00:09:48.700 tapping into that in order to motivate uh yourself to improve your yourself or motivate customers or

00:09:55.880 motivate employees um and i think that you just mentioned there's a lot of like a lot of people

00:10:00.680 when they approach fitness they they get very analytical about it and then they think that's the

00:10:06.580 answer right i got to be very rational and reasonable about this but you're saying that no that's not

00:10:10.760 really the best way to approach it you need to approach your person whether it's personal

00:10:15.340 fitness or your finances thinking about emotions first because that seems to be the big driver

00:10:20.800 because what got you going wasn't like you know like you said it's not about oh this will help me be

00:10:26.060 stronger and this will extend my life it was like a girl told you like you make me not feel like a girl

00:10:31.560 yeah that's exactly right and i i'm so glad to be talking about this here because i think for men in

00:10:38.520 particular not only are we hyper rational or we we believe that that's the way to be successful

00:10:45.200 but we actually shit on emotions and i actually am guilty of this as well if you go back and listen

00:10:52.200 to my early videos i joke about being an emotional robot ha ha ha and you know growing up as an indian

00:10:59.340 guy you're not really taught about the emotional side it's like a very stoic kind of way to grow up

00:11:05.320 and in a way that taught me a lot of stuff like i rarely get bothered by little day-to-day things

00:11:11.920 it's that i'm pretty steady but when you approach the world with logic only as your foundation then

00:11:21.820 you start to it's it's a real problem because you're approaching the world as a robotic automaton

00:11:26.740 and then the world does not work that way and i'll just give you a perfect example

00:11:31.760 there i walk outside uh a few blocks away there's a hospital there's always a bunch of nurses and

00:11:36.860 doctors huddling outside smoking now how does the robotic person rationalize that these nurses and

00:11:43.780 doctors know every single fact there is to know about how bad smoking is for them and yet they still

00:11:48.900 do it so if your worldview is only operating rationally only then it makes no sense what you're missing

00:11:56.920 is the psychological the emotional in this case the biological dependence same thing for working

00:12:03.360 out do you think overweight people don't know they're overweight they fucking know do you think

00:12:08.340 they don't know it's bad they know you think people who don't have enough money like they haven't ever

00:12:13.680 seen a compound interest chart they've seen it a million times and it gets me angry because in the

00:12:20.260 personal finance world where i started off like 99 of the experts there they go under this worldview

00:12:27.260 that let's just educate these people let's teach them how important it is to invest at age 25 and

00:12:33.280 that'll get them you know what normal people are thinking like i don't even know how much i spent last

00:12:38.180 week can i afford to buy this drink for my friend or am i going to look cheap and try to slink out the

00:12:43.180 back and so once i understood this and i learned this at stanford i learned this in an applied way

00:12:51.160 with my readers then it started to really connect so the big thing i'll just say is it's not you don't

00:12:59.560 need more facts the facts are out there you can get them with one google search if you wanted to lose 30

00:13:04.980 pounds and you were a robotic automaton you could do it and yet you have it so what is it is it that you

00:13:11.720 don't have the right facts no there's something else going on and that's really the crux the

00:13:16.140 difference between what we say is important and what we actually do that's really the crux of what

00:13:21.580 i will teach you to be rich is about yeah that's awesome and i think it's interesting like they've

00:13:24.940 done research where they say that we make decisions first on an emotional level and then we come up with

00:13:29.380 the reason right like why we did this and like i think men are really guilty like they think they're

00:13:35.620 like i'm making a logical decision here's like no actually you are coming up with a

00:13:39.300 ex post facto reason why your gut said you need to go with this thing and they'll talk about like

00:13:45.280 i'm buying this car because it has these features it's fuel efficient yeah no you thought it was a

00:13:49.520 cool car exactly and you know what my favorite studies in psychology are the ones where the

00:13:55.880 experimenters vary just one variable and they can experimentally show that it's because of this one

00:14:03.920 factor it's not logic it's not the facts it's because they changed the color of the car and that's

00:14:08.220 what got 27 of people to buy it more and they go and they actually tell the subjects hey this is

00:14:15.400 why you bought the car and they the people will be like no way that's impossible you don't know what

00:14:20.640 you're talking about and they're like no we have the data this is experimentally shown nope that's not

00:14:25.320 why i chose it because it has a four-wheel drive okay and the one of the greatest books on this by the

00:14:30.940 way is a book called mindless eating it's by a cornell professor of food psychology

00:14:35.800 and he basically shows how we think we're super rational and logical when it comes to eating

00:14:41.380 actually we're anything but we eat not just because we're hungry we eat because the colors

00:14:48.460 are brighter because the plate is bigger or even because the bowl is closer to us if you move the

00:14:55.720 bowl like two feet away our consumption will go down like over 10 percent so it's a great reminder

00:15:01.460 that we are not robotic we're not rational we're emotional and psychological creatures the minute

00:15:08.340 you can get that is the minute you don't look down on emotion and psychology but you actually start

00:15:13.160 trying to understand this entire invisible world that exists around us so okay let's take figure out

00:15:18.600 so that we understand this how can an individual you know they understand okay i'm an emotional being

00:15:24.140 i'm making decisions based on emotion i'm motivated based on emotions how do you harness that so

00:15:29.160 basically basically what we're trying to do i guess i guess a lot there's that uh analogy that

00:15:32.920 uh we're there's like we're an elephant and an elephant rider right i've heard that so the elephant is our

00:15:38.680 emotions and and the rider is the the the rational part so how do we get our rational part to direct

00:15:44.460 our emotions so we can leverage that to improve our life does that make sense okay yes so let's let's get

00:15:49.820 into the specifics because one of the things as you start to get into this theoretical world it gets

00:15:54.000 really up in the clouds so we can talk about how it applies to finding a dream job how it applies to

00:15:59.840 starting a business or getting fit whatever you want to talk about you tell me but let's get down

00:16:04.060 to sort of the street level let's talk about getting like your dream job perfect all right so just think

00:16:11.260 about all the invisible scripts this is a phrase invisible scripts which are beliefs that are so deeply

00:16:18.920 held to us that they are invisible and these invisible scripts guide our lives one invisible

00:16:25.000 script you probably have is education is great more education is better that's an invisible script for

00:16:33.420 basically every indian person i actually think it's a pretty good invisible script but it's an invisible

00:16:37.920 script my invisible script when i was in college is i'm 127 pound indian guy i'm just a skinny indian guy

00:16:45.340 i can't get as big as those white guys okay that was an invisible script for me do you have an invisible

00:16:51.220 script in your own life that you can share man i'm trying to think of one um like visible so it's

00:16:56.940 right hard to think about it's kind of hard to think about like i have a hard time like asking for things

00:17:01.240 perfect i'm not the kind of person who asks for things right and if you dig deeper you might even

00:17:07.060 find out that um you don't believe that you should get help based on someone else you should do it

00:17:13.020 yourself right very self-reliant self-reliance right pull yourself up your bootstraps right

00:17:17.440 exactly okay so it really goes deep right and it's so deep that it's manifested in these really weird

00:17:24.540 ways like you might have someone who you meet at a cocktail party and they're like hey brent like i

00:17:30.240 really want to like hook you up with this job or this opportunity and you you're like oh okay and

00:17:35.460 then you just don't follow up and later someone's like hey this guy wanted to put you on the today

00:17:39.840 show why did you follow up and you're like oh and it goes down into that invisible script

00:17:45.280 so let's apply that to jobs there are these invisible scripts floating around us that are so

00:17:51.540 pervasive you almost can't escape them so this mindset is uh the economy is bad i should just be

00:18:00.140 lucky to have a job and if i get an interview i'm going to go in there and try to impress them

00:18:04.820 and hopefully i'll get the job okay all that sounds reasonable but if you take that approach

00:18:11.760 you are doomed because you are now doing what every single other person does and that is adopting the

00:18:20.040 frame that the economy is bad who says the economy is bad for top performers the economy has never been

00:18:26.260 better i'm recruiting over 10 people right now i cannot find them for the life of me and i will also

00:18:32.140 tell you that top performers are routinely getting 20 25 000 jobs so that's balloon puncture number one

00:18:38.680 number two i should just be lucky to have a job well is that true if top performers can leave their job

00:18:45.940 on friday and have a new job offer by monday maybe you actually have a lot of leverage and then three if

00:18:52.280 you walk into an interview and you hope to impress them it's kind of like going on a date you know

00:18:57.280 yeah of course you want to impress them but you also want to be seeing if they impress you in other

00:19:03.480 words you're the prize not to be arrogant you actually have to be good at what you do or you

00:19:07.900 have to be attractive and engaging but if you walk in from a position of subservience you already lost

00:19:14.740 so that's that's a total different view of finding a job okay i can go into specifics about how to do it

00:19:22.400 and how to stand out most people take the completely wrong approach they just submit their resume online

00:19:28.520 and wait the problem is like 10 million other people do that too but i'll just say that you have

00:19:34.180 to change the mindset and study what top performers are doing top performers know that companies are

00:19:39.500 desperate to find great talent they're desperate to find people who come in with ideas and actually

00:19:44.080 execute them and if they do that they will pay and they will pay like a huge amount so this is the

00:19:50.220 difference between what most people do and how to take behavioral psychology and change the way what

00:19:55.580 you do gotcha well here's here's something we don't think of the specific job so maybe you already have

00:19:59.600 a job and you like your job um you've written a lot about this um like asking for a raise yeah right

00:20:06.200 that is like one of the i think one of the i think it frightens a lot of people because i think there's

00:20:09.260 that invisible script that like i i shouldn't ask for this i should be just lucky that i have a job

00:20:13.780 so how can we use behavioral psychology understanding this whole you know we're emotionally driven

00:20:19.740 other people are also emotionally driven how can we use that to overcome that fear and and ask for a

00:20:26.100 raise okay so the invisible script here is great because in our culture especially in america um

00:20:32.780 not only do you not negotiate it's actually looked down upon and if you think about the examples from

00:20:39.120 popular culture who do we have we have used car salesmen and if you think about a used car salesman

00:20:45.480 it's like you crinkle your nose you're like ah that's so disgusting well i actually think that

00:20:50.140 negotiating can be really good but it's a different approach um you don't walk in there and bang the

00:20:55.360 table the way that you can negotiate a salary increase it's it's different so i'll give you a

00:21:03.760 couple of examples and there's a bunch of free stuff i'm going to point you to one you have to first

00:21:09.500 know what it takes to be a top performer at your job so this is how you do it it's not a one day

00:21:14.660 process you don't walk into your boss's office and say give me ten thousand dollars he's going to tell

00:21:18.580 you to get the fuck out of here you say you walk and you say you know what uh let's say your boss's

00:21:23.140 name is john john um i'd love to set up a meeting with you to discuss what would it take to become a

00:21:29.160 real top performer here i'd like to outperform what i did last year and i'd love your help in coming up

00:21:34.800 with a few kpis key performance indicators every boss is like salivating over getting that email

00:21:41.460 so john's like come in tomorrow let's talk so you walk in and you're prepared you do something you

00:21:47.580 walk in and you say you know based on what i've seen here this is what i'm seeing are the key

00:21:53.300 priorities of the business here's what i'm working on and if it were up to me these are my three kpis

00:21:59.440 improved sales 13 improve retention 10 blah blah blah what do you think are these the right goals

00:22:05.560 for me to be working on so then you guys have a nice discussion maybe you come back in a couple

00:22:09.680 days with some more data and you say okay john i i get these three numbers i just i'm going to work on

00:22:16.060 these and i'm going to update you every two weeks and now assuming that i hit these goals i'd love to

00:22:22.580 discuss a compensation adjustment but we can discuss that a few months from now but do we both agree that

00:22:28.880 these are the numbers that i should be pursuing yes okay so now you've sent an email record you've

00:22:34.620 got it all written down do you see that we haven't even talked about money really right this is

00:22:40.080 completely different than what people think about a negotiation so now you go back and you have to

00:22:44.540 actually do the fucking work and i say that because so many people think oh there's some magical phrase

00:22:49.160 that's just going to get you ten thousand dollars no you need to actually do the work so you do the

00:22:53.640 work the key here is you update them every two weeks hi john just want to let you know we

00:22:57.600 improve the optimization process we're on our track blah blah blah okay so by the time it comes

00:23:03.080 time for your compensation discussion not only have you exceeded your goals okay but you've let him

00:23:10.840 know the entire way so there are no surprises so now when you walk in the room you are armed to the

00:23:17.400 teeth and it's a friendly discussion one you already have the numbers you've crushed your goals number

00:23:22.980 two you've looked at the comps around you and three you have the right words on how to discuss this

00:23:28.500 i'll just tell you one more little secret that a lot of people don't know and then i'm going to tell

00:23:33.100 you where you can find all this stuff for free so the secret is bosses get basically a certain amount

00:23:40.080 of money to distribute to their team let's just pretend for easy math that it's a hundred dollars

00:23:45.460 so you know joe over there is not really good at his job so we're going to give him cost of living

00:23:52.000 increase three percent um the other guy uh whatever his name is mike he's pretty good we're going to

00:23:58.860 give him you know ten bucks ten percent but there's this one person who's absolutely amazing and i'm

00:24:04.140 going to save all my chips all my money and give it to him because i want him here and i want to

00:24:08.360 promote him your boss will tell you sorry can't do it this is the economy it's times are tough blah blah blah

00:24:14.980 it's bs if you are a top performer you will get the lion's share or you can leave and get it from

00:24:21.440 another company but you have to approach it in the right way so if you guys want to find out how to do

00:24:26.420 this the words and all that stuff i put up a bunch of free videos you can just google ramit ultimate

00:24:31.660 guide to getting a raise i mean most people can use that stuff and get a five to ten thousand dollar

00:24:36.360 raise right off the bat and it's free so check it out i think it will be helpful right there's two

00:24:42.100 things there we can unpack so that's a big win like that's a big man that's a mantra that you have

00:24:45.960 on i will like go for big wins yeah easy to talk about that yeah let's talk about that because like

00:24:51.120 what's the good because this is like another invisible script i think people have is like

00:24:54.080 you know we're going to go for just small incremental which is fine right i'm a big believer

00:24:58.260 of improving one percent but there's there's always opportunities to make big changes right

00:25:03.500 and big improvements yes big wins so okay there's a thing in psychology called

00:25:08.860 the principle of being a cognitive miser and a cognitive miser means we have limited cognition

00:25:14.640 and limited willpower it's like you can't walk around all day making a ton of decisions it's like

00:25:20.140 lifting you know doing a bicep curl with a 45 you're just going to get tired after a while and so it's

00:25:25.620 ironic that we spend our valuable cognition willpower and attention on decisions like should i buy this

00:25:33.040 three dollar latte who gives a shit three dollars doesn't add up to anything in the grand scheme

00:25:38.520 i'd rather negotiate my salary get a ten to twenty thousand dollar raise and lock that in for years to

00:25:44.420 come so the i will teach principle of big wins says get the five or ten big wins in your life right

00:25:51.520 and you never have to worry about the rest of these questions for example here are some potential big

00:25:58.600 wins getting a dream job automating your finances getting fit having great relationships you know

00:26:06.960 maybe some people want to put food up having great food okay fine it's up to you it's your big wins but

00:26:12.960 there's some classic big wins that most people cluster around if you do that you never have to worry

00:26:19.040 about you know can i afford to take this taxi instead of the subway or oh can i order this dessert i

00:26:25.500 don't know like those questions are irrelevant once you have a great job maybe you started a side

00:26:30.620 business your money's automated and to me that's much more relieving like i actually love going

00:26:37.480 outside and not having to look at the price tag when i'm at the grocery store it's cognitive relief for

00:26:43.380 me to me that's freedom and that's a rich life right and i guess another big one you talk about is

00:26:47.840 like you know negotiating your rent down yeah another one right because that frees up so much more money

00:26:52.540 where you don't have to be a cognitiviser about your resources totally so there's this concept we

00:26:57.660 have called the tripod of stability as you can tell i love names i love it no it's great makes it makes

00:27:03.360 it easy to remember yeah so the tripod of stability says get these three critical things right in life

00:27:10.240 and most of the rest of it you can afford to be more risky so let me give you an example i'm

00:27:16.240 conservative on where i live which means i pick a great place and i stay there for a long time

00:27:21.660 when i used to have a car i picked a good car and i kept that car for a long time a few things right

00:27:28.700 relationships etc if you are conservative in those areas and you pick you make a great choice and you

00:27:36.960 stick with it then you can afford to be really aggressive and risk-seeking in others like my

00:27:42.660 business like we can afford to try these crazy experiments in our business and you know i know

00:27:48.240 that i have this tripod of stability that i can lean back on so absolutely that's true for your

00:27:53.540 job for negotiating your salary for many other things in your life this sounds very much like

00:27:58.140 talib nasim talib's like barbell strategy right where yes you get like have like you have a lot of

00:28:04.940 conservative you know money so you can take more risk in other speculative areas exactly right all right

00:28:10.960 so the other thing i thought was interesting in your um negotiating example is that it's it seemed like

00:28:17.420 the the employee has to become an entrepreneur like it sounded like the employee was treating his

00:28:22.880 boss like a client right i mean that's what i mean like you were like a freelancer giving a pitch to

00:28:28.880 the client and i think a lot of people have this mentality that well i'm an employee i just just tell

00:28:33.200 me what to do and i will do it but it seems like in order to get a raise you have to be a little

00:28:38.200 more of a self-starter more of an entrepreneur even in a nine-to-five job well that's one of the

00:28:42.400 deepest invisible scripts there is and that is that mommy and daddy should tell me what to do

00:28:47.480 and i'll be a good boy or girl and do what they say and that script plays out almost every day of

00:28:54.000 our lives in fact if you're listening to this i'll challenge you right now to think of an example where

00:28:59.880 that mommy daddy invisible script played out was it at your job where you waited for your boss to tell

00:29:06.820 you what to do was it in your personal relationship where your partner told you what to do and you

00:29:13.180 actually felt good when they did it now i'm actually not saying there's anything bad about that

00:29:17.720 okay those can be great invisible scripts but when it comes to a job if you want the extraordinary

00:29:24.980 results then you have to do something different than what most people are doing and the frank truth

00:29:30.640 is most people are going in they're doing what they're told and they get a nice cost of living

00:29:36.300 increase three percent that's the way the world works if you're comfortable with that awesome

00:29:42.200 maybe for a lot of people they just want to end at 5 p.m and they want to go do their own thing

00:29:46.220 awesome but if you want that 25 000 raise you know i just posted on instagram yesterday this guy used

00:29:53.040 four of my courses he he paid about 4 000 bucks over two or three years he made 72 000 okay

00:30:00.940 that guy's atypical he's awesome if you want results like that you don't just go to work and

00:30:07.480 do what the boss tells you you have to actually exactly as you said treat them like your client

00:30:12.560 be proactive understand the business and make some pitches so you pitch them you make the business case

00:30:19.060 and suddenly your boss every time you walk in they're like ah mike is here to tell me what he's

00:30:25.920 going to help me with instead of mike is a burden that i have to feed and you know tell what to do

00:30:32.220 you become not a liability but you become an asset and i mean i think that's a that's hard to do

00:30:38.440 because i think yeah that invisible script of just waiting for people to tell you what to do and not

00:30:42.520 being a self-starter that's hard to overcome yeah so i mean is there anything we from behavioral

00:30:48.320 psychology or any like just quick i don't know nothing i hate like quick life hacks or whatever but

00:30:52.760 like is there something you can that sort of a philosophy you need to help you jump start your

00:30:57.520 self-starting mentality okay so first is to know that when you when you start trying to become a

00:31:04.740 self-starter at work it's going to be hard and you're going to make mistakes that's really important

00:31:09.140 you're not going to be perfect at this for example you might pitch these ideas to your boss which gets

00:31:14.360 shut down because they're crazy and you don't understand the pitch you're making that's going to happen

00:31:19.920 expect it acknowledge it plan for it we call it failure expectation when i was applying for

00:31:25.580 colleges i already planned on not getting in and i had my backup i was going to write them an essay

00:31:31.380 send them my new clippings because i already expected to fail you should do the same thing so

00:31:36.260 don't try to be a perfectionist your first few times of trying to be a self-starter are going to suck

00:31:40.520 that's okay the second thing is to study what other people are doing there are a lot of self-starters

00:31:47.700 at your company go find the person and by the way it could be outside of your company

00:31:51.880 go talk to the people who have sailed past everyone else you know they became a vp in like three years

00:31:59.660 how did they do it and sit down with them and say look i i really admire what you do i'd love to take

00:32:05.420 you out to coffee could you share you seem to have you know sailed past everyone else you have an

00:32:10.760 intuition you have a knack for knowing what needs to get done how do you think about this and then

00:32:16.000 they're going to give you these vague platitudes and you bring it down to earth you say okay

00:32:18.780 here's where i am at my job i go in i do these excel reports it's fine i get a three percent cost

00:32:25.200 of living i want to get promoted i want people to listen to me in the room and on and on and on

00:32:31.800 what would you do if you were in my seat okay that's number two so you're asking other top

00:32:37.740 performers how they do it and trust me there's a lot to learn those top performers have been top

00:32:42.260 performers since they were six years old so you're building a whole new muscle you've never used

00:32:46.600 the third thing is talk to your boss exactly what i said earlier about going in and asking your boss

00:32:52.400 what it takes do you know how many people on my team they will come and be proactive but they're

00:32:58.640 kind of proactive about the wrong thing and then they go and talk to their manager or they talk to me

00:33:03.060 and they say what would it take to be a top performer and the manager knows i need you to hit these

00:33:08.360 numbers and if you hit those numbers you become a top performer so don't just try random things get

00:33:14.700 help from other top performers and from your boss that's awesome well here's another big picture

00:33:19.720 approach that i think applies to a lot of domains not just uh your job not just uh money not just

00:33:25.400 personal anonymous fitness but you know i get a lot of letters i just got a letter from a guy yesterday

00:33:30.640 saying that you know he'll get really motivated you know he's those emotions are working in him he's

00:33:35.500 like i'm going to change my life i'm going to quit smoking i'm going to start exercising i'm going to

00:33:39.160 you know go in and ask for that raise and they start taking action and then it just sort of just

00:33:44.500 putters out like the emotions go they're gone right emotions are fleeting um and they just they they're

00:33:51.620 stuck back where they start and they get really despondent so it seems like there's something from

00:33:56.960 what we've been talking about right now is that we have to there's something in behavioral psychology

00:34:02.080 that we can leverage to help i don't know offload some of the i think i think what's going on there's

00:34:07.200 like there's a overload of cognition going on you're trying to do a whole bunch of things

00:34:10.220 and uh you have to i guess have a system in place so when that emotion that motivation is gone that

00:34:15.820 you have something carrying you forward with your goal yeah well i'm curious from your perspective i

00:34:21.940 mean you've been at this a long time it would have been easy to get bored or lazy or not be

00:34:28.500 motivated one day so what what has pushed you through especially in the unmotivated times

00:34:35.680 i mean i just i like it this kind of sounds kind of dumb but i treat it like a job right it's like

00:34:40.500 if i had a job at a nine to five like i would still have to do it right i mean so i have like a system

00:34:46.840 like okay from this time this time this is what i do even if i don't feel like it i gotta do it and

00:34:52.340 then what's what's here's the interesting thing is like once i start doing it i actually kind of get

00:34:55.940 into it right once i start doing it love it i'm so glad you said that by the way for everyone

00:35:02.780 listening notice that the question of motivation if you talk to people who are really good at what

00:35:08.020 they do they're not talking about motivation they're not if you talk to people who are really

00:35:12.580 fit and you're like oh bro how do you get motivated to go to they look at you like you're

00:35:17.000 fucking crazy what do you mean motivated that has nothing to do with it it's they completely

00:35:22.060 sidestep that and it's about discipline and it's about systems so i'm gonna give you a couple

00:35:26.900 examples from my own life um i love that you said you treat it like a job i also love that you said

00:35:31.560 once you get good then you get motivated um there's a great book by a friend of mine cal newport um

00:35:38.460 it's called getting so good they can't ignore you or be so good they can't ignore you and he and i

00:35:43.940 both agree a lot of people think let me let me what am i passionate about and then i'm gonna go

00:35:49.360 get good at it and we believe get good at it and then you become passionate so get good at it what

00:35:55.680 does that mean start by crawling then walking then running you can also use i mean brent like you i hate

00:36:02.240 life hacks sort of like very reductionist but i used to try to get motivated to go to the gym

00:36:08.380 and what i did was instead of feeling guilty and judging myself i started to try to look at my own

00:36:14.920 behavior with the mind of an experimenter very non-judgmental but just saying what's working

00:36:20.580 and what's not that's hard because you look at yourself and you're like oh my god i've been talking

00:36:26.140 about starting a business for five years i don't do it i suck i'm worthless you got to put those aside

00:36:31.220 so i created like a basic excel sheet and i was like i'm gonna test a few things and i tested like

00:36:37.440 writing it down i tested listening to cool music all this stupid stuff and then the thing that

00:36:43.420 actually worked for me was putting my gym clothes next to my bed like folded and ready to go and i

00:36:52.600 would roll out of bed and put them on and get up and go and you know what's crazy when i actually

00:36:57.980 figured it out i realized why i hadn't been going and this is the this is the craziest part of all

00:37:02.360 my closet at the time was in a different room i'd wake up in the morning it was freezing cold

00:37:07.200 and i didn't want to have to go just in my boxers to the other room shivering to put on my clothes

00:37:11.780 it was that simple and you would think oh like that's so easy don't be stupid don't be lazy but

00:37:20.460 again if you're not adopting that robotic mindset if you realize that we are emotional creatures

00:37:25.020 you realize that sometimes even the most minor of barriers can stop us and so just basically don't be

00:37:32.380 so hard on yourself but take an experimenter's view and test different approaches to see what works

00:37:37.240 gotcha so i mean but i guess you do have to have i mean i think a lot of guys have this idea of the

00:37:43.260 kind of the man they want to be right they want to be confident they want to be able to provide for

00:37:49.300 their family they want to be you know all those things that we kind of think of like the ideal man

00:37:54.300 yeah um so i mean do you have to like i guess do you have that picture in your mind the entire time

00:38:00.240 and then you just get to work or is it i mean i'm trying to figure out like how do you take go from

00:38:05.240 big picture to little picture like should you have a big picture goal you're like an ideal you're

00:38:08.620 shooting for or should you just kind of stick to like the minutiae and just focus on the process

00:38:13.200 i don't know i mean i think this is different i'll tell you my perspective honestly i didn't start

00:38:18.960 my business out um with this grand vision in mind that's just not i didn't either yeah i didn't

00:38:24.080 either right and i just find the more and more people i talk to especially once you have a couple

00:38:28.580 drinks and you know you get to know somebody look they're all like i had no fucking clue this thing

00:38:33.440 was going to work i just started it out because i felt like i had something to say and over time you

00:38:39.560 know i learned how to be more strategic and think about vision and all this stuff but like honestly i

00:38:44.820 started my blog in 2004 i was a college kid i was cocky and i was like these people need to hear

00:38:51.700 what i have to say and it was as simple as that and the only difference is that i stuck with it

00:38:57.840 um for years and each time i tried to improve i knew my stuff was all right but it could be better

00:39:02.820 and i think a lot of it is just longevity if you stay and you keep working at something you're going

00:39:08.420 to get good at it if you are studying the best but to your question about like a an ideal man i

00:39:14.540 think that's so interesting um because there's a lot of emotion in there there's a lot of emotion

00:39:19.480 involved in that a lot and we take our cues from the media too so if you look at what is your ideal

00:39:24.240 man you know is it uh a guy who you know has a ton of women is it a guy who has a ton of money

00:39:31.180 is it a guy who has a ton of style what is it um i think that we are more influenced by the people

00:39:39.060 around us than we would let on and i also think you can tell a lot about someone by their heroes

00:39:44.000 so i'll give you an example if you think about silicon valley one of the biggest heroes there

00:39:49.580 is mark zuckerberg he started a startup from nothing he maintained control as he raised tens

00:39:55.480 of millions of dollars in venture capital he wears a hoodie and he built a product without much marketing

00:40:00.860 it was viral so those four components are really critical because silicon valley lionizes those

00:40:07.620 things this is why you see a bunch of young tech entrepreneurs who think marketing is stupid

00:40:12.820 fashion is stupid and i should build a product that's viral and i'm going to maintain control

00:40:18.800 at all costs now i'm not saying that's good or bad i'm just saying that's the hero archetype in

00:40:23.740 silicon valley for a lot of young entrepreneurs move over to new york and take a look at the goldman

00:40:29.240 sachs ceo who has this massive empire maintains a fleet of black cars and has ultimate control

00:40:36.220 et cetera et cetera that has produced an entirely different type of hero and a different type of

00:40:41.460 follower so just think to yourself who are your heroes and what does that say about you in the

00:40:47.940 internet marketing space which i want to take a huge shit on because people i mean give me a break all

00:40:54.200 they want to do is make a million dollars they don't want to put the work in not do anything they

00:40:57.220 want to live you know go to a beach right oh my god okay i'm so glad you said that i went to this

00:41:02.180 conference which i should not have gone to and i brought one of my staff members with me and we

00:41:07.340 all went around the table introducing ourselves and i told him i said listen watch when everybody

00:41:12.420 introduces themselves because they're going to say two things they're going to say how much money they

00:41:16.900 make and how little they work and he's like no fucking way i was like watch so lo and behold like

00:41:22.740 20 seconds later the first guy goes he goes my name is blah i make um like twenty thousand dollars a

00:41:29.280 week and i work three days a week it's a good life on the beach and i just look at my friend and

00:41:35.340 he looks at me and i'm like told you so i hate that if that is your hero then all you're going to care

00:41:43.120 about is how much money you make and how little you work and that's going to influence everything

00:41:47.660 you do um so just be very mindful of the heroes you have and you may realize that the people you were

00:41:54.260 you know that you were admiring you may want to think a little bit bigger that's something that

00:42:00.340 has been critical to me as our business has grown right right let me let's talk about starting a

00:42:04.760 business i think that's a dream of a lot of guys the whole idea of being self-reliant yeah owning a

00:42:10.420 company you know it's the american dream i know it's not for everyone like i mean i think it's

00:42:14.380 completely like one of the things i hate about the internet business world is like they put out like

00:42:18.400 this is the only way to live a good life right if you don't start a business you're a failure yeah

00:42:23.100 if you live in the suburbs in middle america then like you suck and it's like man like i i live in

00:42:30.120 tulsa oklahoma in the suburbs and like i kind of i like my life a lot um yeah so i mean what is the

00:42:38.620 thing i mean i think a lot of guys they want to start a business and like online is where you have

00:42:42.100 to do even if you have a brick and mortar business or you have a service you provide you have to be

00:42:46.120 online um you know marketing yourself what do you think are the biggest mistakes that people make

00:42:52.400 when trying to start a business because i have my i have my things that i've seen when people

00:42:58.140 start business but i'm curious what you what you've saw i can't wait to hear yours too um okay my the

00:43:04.140 things i've learned so we have like over a million readers a month a lot of them are interested in

00:43:08.520 starting businesses and we are very particular about telling them what it actually takes and this

00:43:16.040 is the the critical mistakes that i've seen which happen over and over again number one everybody

00:43:22.380 wants to play business they want to get the fancy beautiful website they want to get the business

00:43:27.500 cards they want to start hiring some seo expert it's all bullshit you for a lot of people they don't

00:43:34.040 even need a website to tell you the truth we have students of ours who earn like over a hundred

00:43:38.700 thousand dollars a year from their business they don't even have a website so playing business doing

00:43:43.900 all the accoutrements of having a business except for the one thing that matters having paying

00:43:48.880 customers yeah it's it's this idea in life that so many of us do which is let me do everything except

00:43:56.140 the hard thing that matters okay and another great book by horowitz is um the hard thing about hard

00:44:03.420 things that's a good one best one of the yeah it's amazing so that's number one two is the idea of

00:44:09.380 just dreaming trying to be 40 before they're 40 and i'll when i was just out of college i was going

00:44:16.200 to buy a car and i was trying to think which car i should buy and you know i had some money saved up

00:44:20.660 now and i was like hmm should i buy a mercedes you know they have these sporty mercedes and i was like

00:44:26.600 what the fuck am i doing who what 22 23 year old buys a mercedes and where do you go from there

00:44:33.360 you can't go down to a kia so i reminded myself don't try to be 40 before you're 40 and we see a

00:44:41.220 lot of people doing this in the online world or starting a business they they tell me ramit i'm gonna

00:44:46.740 i need to get a sophisticated marketing automation platform like what the fuck you talking about how

00:44:51.360 many people do you have on your list oh 3 000 but we're growing rapidly 10 percent month over month

00:44:57.120 i'm like stop talking you don't need to be getting a marketing automation platform you need a simple

00:45:03.480 email provider where you can send emails that's it you don't need all this crazy stuff people don't

00:45:08.920 like to hear that you want to crawl before you walk before you run they want to start running yeah i

00:45:14.620 think it's a problem like with a lot of millennials right like oh my god in their 20s like they want

00:45:18.960 they're 20 years old but they want to have the lifestyle of like a 40 year old that you know it

00:45:22.220 takes 20 years to build up completely god i love this like you look at go to your parents house

00:45:28.660 wherever they are and you just look open up their you know where they keep their spoons and knives

00:45:33.200 look at how many spatulas they have what they have four six spatulas you know how many decades it took

00:45:40.120 them to get six spatulas and we got a bunch of 22 year olds telling me i want to be vp what are you

00:45:45.640 talking about right but you know it's not sexy to put in the work and become truly um like with a

00:45:54.980 craftsmanship mind to become truly masterful at your job but one day if you do that if you follow

00:46:00.060 the process if you build the systems to do that you blink your eyes and one day you are masterful

00:46:04.720 at what you do and suddenly everyone else is looking at you like whoa that's so cool what a life and they

00:46:10.400 will never realize all the work that you put in but that's when it becomes intrinsically rewarding

00:46:14.960 that's awesome no like for me like the thing so i get a lot of people who will approach me and be

00:46:19.520 like hey brett can i have lunch with you and or coffee and you know talk to you i'm trying to

00:46:24.160 think about starting a business okay and i i do i i used to do it more frequently but i don't do it

00:46:30.220 anymore because um you know i would you know tell them what i've done and they've i said like how long

00:46:36.720 have you been planning this and they're like well it's been about a year right and then i'm like okay

00:46:41.820 well i've given some really you know i tell them just get started just like start start right now

00:46:47.400 and i'll follow up with them you know three months later hey you know how's it going because i'm

00:46:50.700 curious see if my advice helped at all and they're like have you gotten like and they haven't even

00:46:54.160 started because they're still busy i think they're playing business but like not even they don't have

00:46:59.040 a business to play with right it's an imaginary business so they're they're really they always ask

00:47:03.840 these questions about you know which you know microphone do you use for your podcast what you know what

00:47:08.740 platform do you use and i'm like man i just i have like a microphone that i've i plug into my

00:47:13.440 computer and i start talking that's it and then i feel like they're always kind of disappointed uh

00:47:18.780 when you don't have a secret microphone that makes you like build a multi-million dollar business right

00:47:23.120 and like and they just like i think it's like just not getting started like it's like they just get

00:47:27.080 stuck in planning mode or dreaming mode well i'll i have the same experience i feel like we might be the

00:47:33.020 same person because i have i got frustrated when people would want to you know go out to coffee and

00:47:39.480 i would do it and then i i would also follow up notice that they would not follow up right right

00:47:44.000 yeah i would i'd have to follow up it doesn't make any sense and so i so i'll tell you something i do

00:47:49.560 this thing like i get a lot of emails i get about 2 000 emails a day i read every single one you are

00:47:54.540 crazy how do you that is nuts well i'll tell you i first of all it's i love it because i people will

00:48:02.480 tell you everything in email it's a very intimate platform and they trust me right so they're telling

00:48:07.660 me like the kind of stories that i would never get even publicly one-on-one right so with the stuff

00:48:13.440 they tell their therapist right exactly right and i'm like this is so juicy this is amazing and then

00:48:18.720 also you know i've seen a lot of it so i can sight read an email really quickly most emails are pretty

00:48:23.600 much the same thing um but every once in a while i run across these emails that are just absolutely

00:48:28.520 amazing and i respond to like hundreds every day so um i get these emails from people saying you know

00:48:35.280 ramit your courses are so expensive and this is ridiculous blah blah blah and you know i would do

00:48:43.260 anything but i don't have the money i said okay hey listen i understand my courses are expensive

00:48:47.400 they're not the cheapest our goal is not to be the cheapest our goal is to be the best i'll tell you

00:48:52.180 what how serious are you about starting a business they write back oh i'd do anything oh my god this

00:48:58.280 is crazy i go okay i'll tell you what i have 11 years of free material on my site and on my youtube

00:49:04.940 channel you could go through it and in 30 days you can earn one to five thousand dollars completely free

00:49:10.940 you know i will show you how to earn more i'll show you how to save more the chapters from my book are

00:49:16.880 free i want you to read everything there is and i want you to write me back tuesday night by 11 59 p.m

00:49:25.520 and tell me what you've accomplished okay so right now about 50 of them disappear i never hear from them

00:49:31.440 again but 50 say sounds good i'm on it and they you know slam the table i say great i set a reminder

00:49:38.240 for myself i check in with them wednesday why wednesday because they never wrote me back on tuesday

00:49:42.980 and i say hey how's it going and this is again i have the numbers to show it because i've done this

00:49:49.900 so many times about 70 never respond and the other like 29 they go oh uh yeah really busy um definitely

00:50:02.160 going to get to work on this thanks so much exclamation point smiley face and maybe one percent

00:50:08.360 can show something that they've done i think that guys i think that you should become impatient with

00:50:15.580 yourself life is short i give them a deadline of like 48 to 72 hours because you can actually change

00:50:22.800 your life in 72 hours you could completely change your finances in 72 hours you could completely change

00:50:29.620 the way you think about fitness in 72 hours you could hire a trainer or a nutritionist you could plan

00:50:36.460 your next trip to thailand with your wife or your husband or whoever it may be 72 hours you could

00:50:42.340 change your life and we have people who are saying i should wait two years five years until i know more

00:50:49.460 to start a business get impatient with yourself right that's awesome i love that well ramid well this has

00:50:56.160 been an awesome conversation we've hit on a lot of high level topics as well as the nitty-gritty i think

00:51:01.480 we could talk a lot more i think there's some other things we can talk about so i'd love to have you

00:51:04.520 back on sometime in the future i would love it but before we go where can people learn more about you

00:51:08.780 and your work okay we if you're interested in online business we have an entirely new site we've launched

00:51:14.520 called growth lab.com growth lab.com and we're talking there about conversion um optimization

00:51:23.980 uh copywriting building online products sales and psychology i think people will love it and of course

00:51:30.760 the site that i've been writing for 11 years uh i will teach you to be rich.com awesome ramid sati

00:51:36.720 thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure thanks so much my guest today was ramid sati he is

00:51:41.300 the owner of i will teach you to be rich and you can go over to i will teach you to be rich.com right

00:51:45.740 now and you can find a ton of free content trust me this is not get rich quick type stuff it's practical

00:51:51.440 useful information on how to have long-term success ramid's got some great scripts that you can use to ask

00:51:57.780 for raise negotiate your credit card rate down um how to get a better job and a ton more free content

00:52:04.760 there so again i will teach you to be rich.com well that wraps up another edition of the art of

00:52:12.760 manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website

00:52:16.760 at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy this podcast and have gotten something out of it i'd really

00:52:20.740 appreciate it if you give us review on itunes or stitcher help get the word out about the show

00:52:24.420 as always i appreciate your support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay

00:52:29.160 manly

00:52:29.920 you

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#184： Using Behavioral Psychology for a Rich Life With Ramit Sethi

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