The Art of Manliness - #301： Why Action is the Answer

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well last year

00:00:18.660 art of manliness contributor kyle eschenroeder published a piece on the site called meditations

00:00:22.780 on the wisdom of action contained 116 short punchy devotional-esque passages on the nature

00:00:27.980 and importance of action it was one of my favorite pieces of content in 2016 and i still find myself

00:00:32.760 continually thinking about its principles and trying to utilize them in my life the feedback

00:00:36.300 we received from readers has been similarly enthusiastic and at over 16 000 words this long

00:00:41.260 form article is about the length of a short book so we decided to turn it into one and self-publish

00:00:46.040 it and call it the pocket guide to action 116 meditations on the art of doing today on the show

00:00:51.220 i've brought kyle on to dig deep into his philosophy on action he shares why inaction can be expensive

00:00:55.940 how action can sometimes mean not doing anything and why taking action is the best way to find

00:01:00.160 courage and passion in your life along the way he shares tactics you can take today to help shift

00:01:05.620 yourself into a more action-oriented mindset if you've been struggling to get started on a project

00:01:09.600 or just feeling unmotivated this podcast will light a fire under your rear after the show is over make

00:01:14.640 sure you check out the show notes at aom.is action where you find links to resources we delve deeper in

00:01:19.800 this topic and you can buy a copy of our book the pocket guide to action 116 meditations on the art of

00:01:25.820 doing by kyle eschenroeder kyle eschenroeder welcome back to the show thanks for having me again

00:01:34.860 brett all right so it was a few months ago you wrote an ebook long treatise and it wasn't a treatise

00:01:42.120 it was like these pithy meditations full of just awesome actionable information it was called the

00:01:47.460 meditations on the wisdom of action and you took sort of these 116 or so ideas about action

00:01:54.880 and fleshed it out but here's the thing it was really popular got a lot of great feedback from

00:01:59.240 it similar to the other content you've published on the site about you know not hacking your life

00:02:04.660 you've also written about action before but this one you fleshed it out some more and what's

00:02:08.820 interesting about your take on action it's not this sort of rah rah like motivation instagram meme like

00:02:15.700 i'm going to take over the world type action but it's more of a lens by which to see the world you

00:02:21.880 know a posture you take so it's i mean it's like really a philosophical look at life where it

00:02:27.320 involves around action so how is action its own prism in philosophy yeah this is probably one of

00:02:34.600 my favorite question because a lot of people read it and they kind of take it as this like you said

00:02:40.020 exhortation just me yelling about doing more stuff take action take action take action when in fact

00:02:47.740 what it is is a description of action as closely as i could kind of witness it so what happened is

00:02:58.000 i consumed a ton of those kind of rah rah blog posts and books that are just yelling at you to take

00:03:07.040 action take action just do it you know it's all just an extension of just do it but i kind of got

00:03:12.580 exhausted from that like you know that kind of stuff might get me pumped for a day then it got

00:03:17.360 exhausted and then eventually kind of embarrassing to me so like you said i wanted to actually look at

00:03:25.420 the world through action see if it's a worthwhile goal so where i started from is i took you know what

00:03:32.240 happens when i take action and i try to look at it as closely as possible to understand it as closely

00:03:38.880 as possible and after working through this for a while the more i understood action the easier it

00:03:46.240 became to take more bold actions take action more consistently but then i think even more important

00:03:52.900 and what i was not expecting was that i was more discerning in my action right because when we talk

00:03:59.060 about taking action we're not using a dictionary definition because that's just everything we do right

00:04:06.260 what we're talking about is taking right action doing the things we know we want to do but kind of

00:04:11.460 are held back by you know maybe steven pressfield's resistance or some other kind of internal or external

00:04:19.480 force pushing against us so you become more discerning in the actions you take when you understand

00:04:25.280 the nature of action and when you understand the nature of action it also becomes easy to take the

00:04:31.400 actions you know you should so that was a long way of getting to the core idea which is you know the

00:04:39.100 lens of taking action is essentially prioritizing reality over stories about reality so that is also

00:04:47.340 prioritizing execution over explainable understandings of the world so an example of that is you know we can

00:04:55.400 walk more efficiently when we're not thinking about how we're walking if somebody says wow you're walking

00:05:02.400 funny you're definitely going to start walking funny because you start trying to understand it you start

00:05:08.580 trying to consciously bring to your consciousness something that you do automatically really really

00:05:14.420 well so the implications of prioritizing reality over our stories about reality mean that we put our

00:05:22.100 relationship to reality ahead of measuring reality we put what's important to us over what others tell

00:05:31.100 us should be important we put predictions and commitments ahead of justifications and explanations 0.95

00:05:37.740 and again we actually nasim taleb puts it puts it really really well he says suckers try to win

00:05:44.500 arguments non-suckers try to win so again overall the prism is that everything flows from 0.97

00:05:51.920 prioritizing action over explanation gotcha so read less blog posts business books and spend more time

00:06:00.560 just doing stuff that you're reading about right yeah exactly if you read a how-to book you're going

00:06:06.900 to feel like you're learning how to do something when you probably would have learned more and gotten

00:06:13.140 further if you actually tried doing that thing right and i thought it's interesting too like you know this

00:06:19.580 sort of this definition you have of action it's not sort of the this typical definition it also the way

00:06:25.560 you argue in your the article that action can also mean being passive sometimes but like but like

00:06:31.400 passive in an active way if that makes sense like deliberately being passive right that's that can be

00:06:37.600 action as well right yeah and i think in the book i use the example of the spartans like spartan

00:06:44.280 warriors were kind of known for waiting for the other army to come charging at them lose their

00:06:51.500 composure and basically start flailing around things that we would traditionally see as action

00:06:56.980 when in fact they were just losing control of themselves whereas the spartans were waiting as an

00:07:03.280 action so if we're waiting out of fear or out of laziness you know that's inaction that's something

00:07:11.000 that works against us while waiting attentively waiting for a certain moment is one of the most

00:07:18.660 powerful moments we can take a more modern example is warren buffett he makes investment moves very very

00:07:25.640 rarely he's always waiting always watching always attentive to find the most powerful most leveraged

00:07:31.920 move he can make so he's actively waiting he's not waiting because he's fearful of the markets or he's

00:07:39.000 he's scared he's waiting to pounce kind of thing right well speaking of inaction right so there's a

00:07:45.360 type of an inaction that can be productive right in the case of warren buffett or the spartans but

00:07:50.740 there's also an inaction you say that you say inaction is expensive why is inaction expensive and

00:07:58.200 why don't we often realize it's the cost of not taking action so this is i think another key so when we

00:08:05.700 take action the costs are immediate and obvious so the rejection we might face the failure we might

00:08:14.460 have to accept the money we might lose all those things are immediately painful and they're very

00:08:21.220 obvious to us very measurable and the while the benefits of action are delayed so the growth the

00:08:28.040 virility the progress the learning are often come later so with inaction it's reversed right so inaction

00:08:36.880 costs are immediate benefits are delayed with inaction costs are delayed and benefits are immediate

00:08:45.940 benefits primarily being comfort right so if we decide on inaction we feel better right away and then

00:08:54.960 later the costs come and not only are the costs delayed they're also kind of hard to measure so the costs of

00:09:03.760 inaction tend to be like decay depression and our life generally gets smaller it's harder to find but we become

00:09:11.180 smaller when we choose inaction too often right and this plays great to a couple things our need for instant

00:09:20.700 gratification right so we get the comfort right away whereas action we have to put in cost right away

00:09:26.800 and it also plays to you know what gets measured gets managed we can measure the costs of action it's very

00:09:34.980 difficult to measure the costs of inaction but they're undeniable once they've had some time to compound

00:09:41.640 your life is just you know like you said it's a smaller no virility yeah so it's kind of this slow

00:09:48.380 gradual descent that that makes it very difficult to see day to day but year over year it's painfully

00:09:55.600 obvious right so inaction the benefits are immediate so that's hard to get over though because oftentimes

00:10:01.100 you have this line in your book and so just for people know we actually took kyle's thing he wrote

00:10:05.860 it's like it's not a it's not a post because it's too long to be a post but it's like an ebook we made

00:10:11.840 it an actual book we called it the pocket guide to action and it's available for pre-order it's fantastic

00:10:16.800 i love flipping through it we'll put a link in the site one of my favorite lines in the pocket guide

00:10:21.040 to action is this it's i don't feel like working out until i get my blood flowing i'm too tired to

00:10:25.740 have sex until we've begun i don't want to go to the party until i'm there motivation will follow 0.97

00:10:30.540 you if you have the balls to go without them and it's true like we've i think we talked about this 0.99

00:10:34.740 last time when you're on we talk about action the thing about action is that like usually don't feel 0.95

00:10:39.980 like doing the thing that you know you need to do until you start doing it so that's the question

00:10:46.960 that was like how do you bootstrap that right how do you get yourself to do the thing you know you need

00:10:51.560 to do that you don't feel like doing but you know you're going to start feel like doing it once you

00:10:56.100 start doing it i mean so how do you take that first step i think that's what holds a lot of people back

00:11:00.560 people know they need to work out and they know once they start working out it's not going to be so bad

00:11:05.600 and they're going to enjoy it but they just they don't feel like working out at that moment is it

00:11:10.360 is it just brute force discipline or do you have psychological ideas that can help you get over

00:11:17.660 that hump or beat that resistance yeah so i think there's a million little tricks for this i personally

00:11:25.560 have to avoid relying on brute force discipline just because i don't feel like i'm incredibly

00:11:33.980 disciplined so i mostly have to trick myself into doing something and and really it's whatever works

00:11:42.000 for you there's like you know this is one of those things there's a million blog posts out there and

00:11:45.540 they all give you like a little trick to get going i think just trusting in the quote that you just read

00:11:51.960 like trusting that once you start you'll like it you'll you know you'll gain momentum i think knowing

00:11:59.800 that and it takes a little leap of faith each time but just knowing that helps get the ball rolling

00:12:05.420 but probably the most consistently effective tactic that i use is to trick myself into kind of minuscule

00:12:15.100 steps towards the thing so something that i'm doing right now is getting back into cold showers and

00:12:22.220 it's almost impossible for me to talk myself into getting into a cold shower because it's just so

00:12:29.120 uncomfortable right away right it immediately puts my body into shock it's like it's not fun for the

00:12:35.860 first 30 seconds at all so while my mind is running all these like negative things and like trying to

00:12:42.620 you know making me flinch away from the water i'm taking kind of rebellious tiny steps in the direction

00:12:50.580 that i decided on which is you know cold shower so i'm turning on the water and i'm making it cold i'm

00:12:57.060 opening up the door and each time i'm not committing to taking the shower i'm just committing to a tiny

00:13:03.680 step towards the thing so then finally i'm there you know nude in front of a cold shower and you know

00:13:12.040 what am i going to do now i have to retreat now it takes more effort for me to turn on the hot water

00:13:18.300 and i feel bad about myself right so you get yourself set up so retreat feels bad the same thing another

00:13:24.440 example you know going to the gym right so if i'm just getting back into the habit of going to the

00:13:30.060 gym then i have to just put on my gym clothes or just show up at the gym right and because once i'm

00:13:37.360 there i'm going to feel really guilty if i just walk in and walk out so i just commit to the tiniest

00:13:42.680 easiest possible thing that might have a chance of making me feel guilty for not doing the right thing

00:13:48.280 and i think you know both of those things like working out and taking cold showers once you do it

00:13:52.960 then you you're like amazed that you ever had any kind of aversion to that thing but of course like

00:14:01.740 at the gym you're literally ripping your muscles apart so it's not pleasant if you're not used to

00:14:06.500 it but once you you know get in the habit then it feels great so yeah that's my my biggest trick is

00:14:11.680 just making you know lowering the bar so far that you can kind of roll over it right right now that's

00:14:17.840 that's a great point we've had ramit sadie on the podcast he talks a lot about you know making micro

00:14:22.420 breaking down your goals into micro steps tim ferris talked about when you're trying to create a habit

00:14:28.140 if you're having a hard time with it you probably need to redesign it like how you're approaching that

00:14:32.400 usually means making the habit smaller yeah a lot of great advice there okay so you just said

00:14:37.620 something when you were talking about action and your kind of approach to action you talked a lot

00:14:41.240 about the importance of experiencing things firsthand right experience is the best teacher and i'm a big

00:14:46.120 believer in that like i think the best way that i learn is when i get my hands dirty with something

00:14:49.800 and mess up and learn from those mistakes etc but at the same time and i know you are you've read some

00:14:56.860 charlie munger yourself what i love about charlie munger is like you know he's a big believer in reading

00:15:02.480 and you read so you can learn from the mistakes of others so how do you balance that how do you balance

00:15:08.820 learning from experience you know at the same time reading from and learning from the mistakes of others so you

00:15:15.320 don't commit those same mistakes yeah it's so funny you mentioned munger because the when you said the

00:15:23.340 question the first thing that i thought of was a quote from charlie munger that he likes to repeat

00:15:28.740 you know and by the way i i don't know if you mentioned this but munger is warren buffett's kind

00:15:33.260 of legendary investment partner that totally changed the way buffett approached investing early on and

00:15:39.820 allowed him to get as huge as he became but he has he he has this thing that he's been repeating for

00:15:45.980 decades and he says all i want to know is where i'm going to die so i never go there and that is you

00:15:52.700 know some of the best advice you can get like you said he's looking for mistakes other people have made

00:15:57.880 so he doesn't have to make them so and i and i do think that we can avoid you know avoiding terrible

00:16:04.480 things is the best way to a good life more than anything positive it's kind of this via negativa

00:16:09.300 approach to a good life is if you avoid doing all of the terrible things people do to make life worse

00:16:15.980 you're going to have a good life so at the same time i believe that to really grok something to

00:16:23.080 to really understand something deeply you have to experience it so i think what munger is doing and

00:16:29.740 what we're doing when we decide to avoid the mistakes of others is we just decide that we

00:16:36.120 don't really need to understand everything right so if i'm avoiding you know if i could have avoided

00:16:42.780 touching a hot stove when i was a kid my mom told me and i trusted her and i could have avoided i would

00:16:48.560 have avoid getting burnt once but i would never have a true understanding of why like what does it feel

00:16:55.900 like to have your fingers burnt off so i think when we go with this it's just kind of you have to

00:17:02.880 there's certain things that you don't want to understand all the way you know um so there's

00:17:07.300 certain drugs that are so addictive i there's you know i don't need to know the experience of having

00:17:13.440 that drug because i know it's going to end in a bad place now that doesn't mean i can have full

00:17:19.820 empathy with people who have gone through addiction and um you know suffered through these things but i

00:17:27.020 have a good enough understanding that i need to move forward and to make decisions in my own life

00:17:32.420 and so we can make you know we we can avoid certain things but i don't even think you know certain mistakes

00:17:41.480 mistakes have huge consequences other mistakes are completely avoidable but the cost of making

00:17:49.100 certain mistakes is worth making a mistake so in my example let's say i i used to trade money right i

00:17:57.860 used to be a day trader i used to run a small fund so when i made the transition from paper trading

00:18:03.780 trading to trading real money there was no you know the theory was the same and most of the practice

00:18:11.220 was the same but the psychological effects were completely different so i had to make a similar

00:18:16.780 set of mistakes that i did with paper money with real money i had to lose real money to really understand

00:18:24.220 what trading method i needed to use and then the same thing happened when i started trading other

00:18:29.640 people's money so first i was trading mine then when i started trading other people's it you know

00:18:35.100 say again same theory but whole new set of mistakes psychologically that happen when you're dealing with

00:18:41.500 other people's money right so it's a different texture of same mistakes and you need to make those

00:18:47.100 mistakes like you need to lose money at least a little bit in order to not lose a ton later on

00:18:53.060 right does that make sense in this context okay i think that makes sense i mean it's yeah it's it's

00:18:59.180 about being smart about certain things and like there's like some things you just should just stay

00:19:04.520 away from completely but there's some things that you need to figure out on your own because that's

00:19:10.120 the only way you're going to learn it's it's basically taking an aristotelian approach like

00:19:13.160 be smart about like like make the right mistakes for the right reason the right time

00:19:19.920 right that sort of moderation idea exactly yeah it's like that yogi barrel line in theory there's no

00:19:27.220 difference between theory and practice but in practice there is right so you can have a great

00:19:32.540 working map of your surroundings but until you actually go and investigate the territory you can't

00:19:40.600 fully understand what the map is saying so one of my favorite ideas you talk about in the book

00:19:45.560 is that some actions have more leverage than others so what does it mean for a certain action to have

00:19:51.960 extra leverage and what are some examples of that i think even before we go into them you say the these

00:19:57.220 are actions that should be prioritized right and i i consider leveraged actions to either automate or

00:20:04.520 eliminate the need for future actions so a couple types of actions that automate actions are creating

00:20:12.360 habits you know and so that's you know habit of working out the habit of meditating it's something that

00:20:17.660 you can do it automates a habit another way is creating an environment right so if you shape

00:20:24.440 your environment in a way that shapes future actions you're essentially automating future actions

00:20:30.160 an example of this i used recently is my girlfriend and i were eating out quite a lot just because we

00:20:35.780 we weren't in the habit of cooking our own food for a while and so to kind of ease us into cooking our

00:20:42.220 own food we subscribe to blue apron right so blue apron we're paying for it food's going to get

00:20:47.580 here for the week and if we eat out too many times and we're going to waste a bunch of food that we

00:20:52.640 already have in the fridge so that was a way of shaping our environment to shape and automate future

00:20:58.980 actions no we're fans of blue apron too by the way nice they are a sponsor of the podcast oh i had no

00:21:05.500 idea but they're so they but just to know you know yeah kyle this was not like kyle was not paid to

00:21:11.340 blur this at all it might just happen that they are one of the sponsors on this episode but i thought

00:21:16.360 yeah i love blue apron because you're right it does create this habit of cooking when you don't

00:21:21.880 have it right yeah it makes it super easy and then you know for us we were on it for you know two months

00:21:27.280 and then started going to the store and it was easy like it was easy to start cooking from total scratch

00:21:32.380 so those are two ways we can automate future actions right and then another great way to have a

00:21:39.060 leveraged action is to eliminate future actions you can do that with experiments so if you set up

00:21:46.120 an experiment then you're paying attention to the results of a certain action or series of actions

00:21:53.600 close enough that you're going to minimize repetition so you won't have to do the same or similar actions

00:21:59.440 over and over again because you know that that's not working right so another another type of elimination

00:22:05.560 would be like hiring in a business right if you have a set of of tasks or whatever you can eliminate

00:22:11.320 future actions by by hiring right no it's it's a very aristotelian approach aristotle was all about

00:22:17.840 you create habits like you not only want to be able to not have to think about doing the thing

00:22:22.920 like you're you're wanting to do but you want to make it even like to the get to the point where you

00:22:27.780 enjoy it right like you actually yes doing the thing and that takes work like it takes a lot of

00:22:34.340 psychological emotional and mental sometimes physical work to get to that point amen yeah and

00:22:41.300 but it's it's interesting it's again to me that goes back to you know delayed it's what do you want

00:22:47.000 up front and what do you want later right so you want to want to do the hard thing but in order to

00:22:53.240 do that you have to suffer through doing the hard thing when you don't want to do it you have to earn

00:22:58.200 the right to want to do the hard thing so another idea that i love was that right action is not reactive

00:23:05.260 it's proactive and i like this thought because it's something i've thought about nearly every morning

00:23:09.600 when i wake up and i look at my phone on my dresser and think of checking it and try to decide not to

00:23:15.260 start the day in a reactive way right where i'm like reacting to my phone what are some other ways

00:23:20.860 that we set ourselves up for making reactive decisions and why is that why is that so detrimental

00:23:27.300 to us i think the example you gave is so perfect for outlining this idea in total so if you think

00:23:35.580 about you're waking up you're reaching over to this you know i don't know just this source of

00:23:43.060 information you have no idea what you even want from it you just want whatever's there and then you

00:23:48.260 open it up and you start scrolling through twitter or i don't know what your your thing is instagram

00:23:53.040 reddit so i my mine are like reddit and twitter that's where i go to if i if my brain's turned off

00:23:58.980 and i just want to be fed random stuff i go to twitter reddit and so you're starting the day asking

00:24:05.620 for the world to tell you what to think right now essentially right instead of starting the day you

00:24:12.680 know proactively doing the thing that you most need to get done today or thinking the thoughts that

00:24:19.420 you most want to lead the day with right you're going for a total crapshoot just by opening up

00:24:24.460 your phone first thing in the morning so i think essentially like if we are taking a posture of

00:24:30.320 action part of that is being engaged enough with the thing that we're doing to know whether or not

00:24:37.980 that's the thing we should be doing right so having a priority if you have a priority if you're engaged

00:24:43.500 in action you're you're automatically proactive or at least will self-correct to being proactive but

00:24:50.140 a couple like very common examples of setting ourself up for reactivity is you know checking

00:24:57.300 your inbox with no purpose or outside of like a defined time frame you know if you you know finish

00:25:04.140 task if you know you have a task to do but then you open up your inbox for some reason just to see

00:25:09.240 what's there you're asking for other people to demand your time right again super common nothing

00:25:16.360 interesting here another one is surfing the web with no aim right so there's a thousand companies that

00:25:23.560 are a b testing headlines to capture your attention to essentially biologically force you to read their

00:25:32.880 content and to trap you as long as they can with clickbait and whatever provocative headlines

00:25:39.220 they have so you're just setting yourself up for reactivity if you're just going to go surf the

00:25:43.660 web and not that surfing the web is a terrible thing we should just be conscious of okay i am

00:25:50.260 submitting myself to these forces right to me the antidote for these things is just to ask myself what's

00:25:57.980 the best thing i can do right now and if i'm trying to get entertained and i want to spend time on reddit

00:26:03.220 then i'm there but i also should know that i'm setting myself up for reactivity right the the opposite

00:26:09.980 would be you know the proactive use is i'm going to reddit to get entertained or i'm reading this news

00:26:16.700 story because i want to know this specific fact or if this specific thing is true right so that's a way

00:26:23.780 of consuming as an act of action right it's conscious we're engaged with it it's purposeful one thing i've been

00:26:31.500 thinking about though lately is that it's it's hard it takes a lot of mental bandwidth not to be

00:26:36.700 reactive because it involves a lot of restraint and you see your phone you want to grab it you want

00:26:42.860 to check it you have to restrain yourself from checking your phone you have to like fight that

00:26:47.480 urge and one thing i've been thinking a lot about lately and it came up to mind while you were talking

00:26:51.760 it's a while back go ahead ian bogost on the podcast i don't know if you read his book play anything

00:26:56.580 but he had this idea about constraint versus restraint and he says we spend a lot of time

00:27:01.820 restraining ourselves and it just backfires because like we only have so much bandwidth

00:27:05.720 mental emotional bandwidth today to say no to things so instead of restraining ourselves

00:27:10.680 he argues for putting up constraints in our lives and this kind of goes along what you were saying about

00:27:15.760 shaping your environment to make action easier so he says instead of having to worry about

00:27:20.920 restraining yourself you offload that to your environment so you have these constraints you have to work

00:27:25.980 within so that might mean you put some sort of blocker right on your smartphone where you can

00:27:31.660 only check certain apps at certain time so you no longer have to think about restraining yourself

00:27:35.640 you have that constraint there if you go to check your phone at the not the right time well you can't

00:27:39.940 check your thing and it just it's amazing when i do that whenever i put constraints in my life

00:27:44.840 how much smoother things go how much more i get done compared to when i'm constantly trying to

00:27:51.120 restrain myself from being reactive oh yeah amen and i actually i really like that that podcast you

00:27:57.780 had with ian it was a really fun conversation but totally so i guess i should have mentioned that

00:28:02.940 you know when i'm on reddit i also have stay focused running which is a program that i have set for like

00:28:08.720 20 minutes a day so i have 20 minutes between twitter and reddit each day that i can kind of scroll

00:28:14.820 through and then it blocks me automatically and so i used to have facebook blocked but i can't because of

00:28:20.720 business so i removed the time my timeline right so the distracting part of facebook is you know

00:28:27.360 seeing all the stories in the center i don't have that there anymore how do you know shaping

00:28:31.540 it's this app called oof i can give you a link okay uh but it's a it's just a plugin for chrome and

00:28:39.800 it's yeah man it's it's so good because you don't see there's you know the people that you actually care

00:28:46.320 about that you hear about their life news in texts or emails or through another friend or family

00:28:52.900 member but yeah most of the stuff on facebook especially around election time you know with

00:28:58.140 politics as it is now it's not informative and it's just really it makes you lose respect for

00:29:04.020 a lot of the people you you like so i think it's funny so i've been off facebook for a long time i got

00:29:10.960 back on for a reason i needed to check something something was going on with a buddy but i got on

00:29:14.780 the timeline and i was like boy these are people like i i when i'm around them normally like they're

00:29:20.620 they're great people but now you see the stuff they post you're like man i don't know if i like you

00:29:24.100 people anymore so yeah completely so i get out because i want to like these people because they're

00:29:31.460 good people no i hear i hear you on that yeah absolutely but yeah i'm i'm 100 about you know shaping

00:29:38.280 environments first before i even try to exert my willpower you know because i think my my level of

00:29:44.880 willpower is even lower than most yeah all right so let's talk about this you talk a little bit about

00:29:51.460 this in the meditations on action is about probabilities a lot of people the reason why

00:29:57.100 they don't take action or they think they're taking action but they really are taking action

00:30:01.180 they sit down they plan things out and they try to think of all the contingencies that could happen

00:30:06.700 the chances of these different contingencies happening so basically trying to figure out how

00:30:11.180 probable success going to be and if the probability is high then they will take action do you think

00:30:16.660 probabilities are useful to look at when deciding whether or not to take action yeah this is a really

00:30:23.000 good question and i think statistics are getting you know more and more attention in the mainstream which

00:30:28.860 is i think really good but we as a general rule we are terrible at predicting just about anything you

00:30:36.500 know the best mathematicians the smartest people in the world created systems that gave us

00:30:41.740 probabilities that enabled actions that created the 2008 crisis right at least in part right there

00:30:48.660 were incentives created primarily by bad probabilities and so in our personal lives we're really really bad

00:30:56.560 at knowing the probability of something so especially the probability of success because there's so many

00:31:04.140 factors in success so to answer your question more directly i think there's certain domains in which

00:31:10.200 probabilities are really useful right so in health for instance if there is just overwhelming evidence

00:31:16.200 that says cigarettes will cause health issues then you shouldn't probably smoke cigarettes there's

00:31:22.280 there's just a lot of a lot of evidence that's like there's you know two percent of people might live to

00:31:28.020 a hundred and smoke a cigarette every day but 98 chance you're gonna fail your body by smoking a cigarette

00:31:34.480 so there's also studies that say that 80 percent of restaurants fail within the first five years

00:31:42.200 that does not mean that if you start a restaurant you have an 80 percent chance of failing because

00:31:49.360 that is taking all restaurants into consideration and regardless of you know we don't we don't know what the

00:31:57.240 economy was like at the time we don't know anything about the people that started i mean restaurants

00:32:00.840 tend to be started there's a lot of people that just think it would be this ideal life and would

00:32:05.860 be easy and fun to have a cafe when the reality of actually running a restaurant hits them they

00:32:11.120 fold so it's taking into account just all sorts of things that statistic knows nothing about your

00:32:17.380 network your skills your level of grit and the current economic situation so you may have an 80

00:32:23.500 chance of succeeding if you start a restaurant peter teal is a silicon valley investor started

00:32:30.340 paypal just very smart guy in most fronts and he has this saying that is aimed at entrepreneurs he

00:32:36.980 says you are not a lottery ticket you don't start a business and then once it started you have x percent

00:32:42.180 chance of winning you have a million decisions to make every day you have decisions about how much

00:32:47.880 energy you invest how safe you play it how hard you hustle for sales a probability is you're never

00:32:54.320 going to have a good probability there's also another investor and x startup guy named ben horowitz

00:33:00.980 one of the co-founders of a16z and tereson horowitz a big venture capital fund has a saying he basically

00:33:08.960 says as a startup founder your job is the same whether you have a hundred percent chance of success or a

00:33:16.220 one and one thousand percent chance of success you have to find the path to winning right yeah it doesn't

00:33:23.520 matter it doesn't matter your your chance of success and so an example that i think kind of brings these

00:33:30.260 two uses of probability together is shown in edward thorpe this is a guy who he's run hedge funds for 20 years

00:33:39.760 but he got really famous for being the first guy to really he wrote the book beat the dealer which is

00:33:46.660 what inspired 21 all these blackjack movies and books he used probabilities to beat the casino right so

00:33:56.380 he used statistics and learning about probability to learn how to beat the house in the actual game of

00:34:04.480 blackjack but then in deciding his path and deciding whether or not he should try to beat the house in

00:34:12.660 blackjack he could not use probabilities because everybody thought it was impossible this was in

00:34:17.540 1950s early 1960s everybody told him it was impossible to beat the casino right because otherwise why would

00:34:25.880 they exist why would they be so profitable and he didn't even know his chance of success right he didn't

00:34:32.080 consider the probability that he could beat blackjack but he used probability to beat the house i love

00:34:39.220 that but really like the peter teal quote that you're not a lottery ticket yeah right it's a sense of

00:34:45.580 probability and this is yeah exactly exactly and i think what you were really getting out with the

00:34:49.880 question is people use probability to rob themselves of agency in this world they use a statistic as a

00:34:57.260 reason to not try and that is in every case baloney you heard here it's baloney okay

00:35:03.460 you also talk about how action has a sort of a magnetic effect it creates things like passion and

00:35:10.320 courage right once you start taking action you start building this momentum but you even say it

00:35:14.160 attracts forces bigger than ourselves i mean this sounds very much like steven pressfield territory can

00:35:20.260 you tell a little bit more about what you mean by action creating this magnetic effect

00:35:23.740 absolutely i think the whole action book you know the pocket guide to action was really inspired by

00:35:30.040 pressfield and some other people but especially the format of the book i almost see it now is like

00:35:35.620 the positive to his resistance right steven pressfield wrote in war of art about the resistance describing

00:35:42.740 it and to me action is focusing on the thing that overcomes it every time not saying that this is on the

00:35:49.540 same level as pressfield but this idea yeah absolutely at the end of i think it is at the

00:35:54.940 end of war of art he talks about you know how action essentially calls down the assistance of

00:36:00.500 angels and mysterious creative forces to me you kind of witness it it's the same idea that my mom was

00:36:06.580 talking about when i was a kid when she said god helps those who help themselves when people say the

00:36:12.040 more i work the more lucky i become so i think a big piece of this is that people respect

00:36:18.720 those who take action and so are willing to help more often right so if you're confidently taking

00:36:25.880 action or if you're just consistently taking action with a certain aim and you show grit people

00:36:31.460 will eventually begin to help you and so a lot of times these are the unseen forces right it's just

00:36:38.620 people that saw you trying who you didn't know saw you who later show up with assistance another thing

00:36:46.600 that kind of feels magic but maybe isn't is that action allows for emergence of new perspectives

00:36:53.820 in an article i used the example of walking in new york city right so you're walking down this kind of

00:37:00.700 grid of skyscrapers and around each corner something new emerges and there's a pattern right you go past

00:37:06.980 one building you look to the left there's just a bunch more buildings but then eventually you walk

00:37:12.460 past the skyscraper you look to left and then you see trees you see central park you see nature so

00:37:18.700 up until that the previous 90 blocks of walking you should be able to extrapolate out from that

00:37:24.480 and predict okay i'm just going to walk through skyscrapers the rest of my life but no now there's

00:37:30.080 this whole new potential and so the same thing happens when we're taking action there's a possibility

00:37:35.660 when we take action for an entire new perspective for an entire new piece of knowledge that helps us

00:37:42.880 move to the next level in a way that was impossible for us before because we just saw the world

00:37:49.500 differently or we're missing this one piece of information to me those are just two examples

00:37:55.080 of hidden benefits that happen when we take action that feel like they're coming from the outside they

00:38:03.420 feel like it's something bigger than us and that's just me playing it safe you know there's a lot of

00:38:07.680 things anybody who is you know really gone for it really committed to something taking consistent

00:38:13.700 action after it has noticed new powers within themselves right so inner commitment action is proof

00:38:19.860 to yourself that you are willing to do what it takes and so a lot of the kind of self-defeating

00:38:26.540 pieces of yourself fall away when you prove through action to yourself that you're going to keep moving

00:38:34.480 right that also feels like you know the sky is opening up the angels coming to assist you because

00:38:40.440 parts of yourself that were not engaged before now are right it can absolutely feel like magic

00:38:47.200 that's awesome going back to things that keep people from taking action we talk about probabilities

00:38:52.680 using statistics to stop taking action you argue in the book that another thing people do that

00:38:58.260 prevents them from taking action is asking questions particularly bad questions the time

00:39:03.280 wasters that keep them from getting going actually doing something so what are some of these bad

00:39:08.400 questions people waste their time on these are all based in you know we're taught that if there's a

00:39:13.380 question then there's an answer and that may be true but there's certain questions that i think

00:39:19.300 break logic or that we expect too much from and the four bad questions that i i pose in the book

00:39:25.520 belong to that category so the first one being am i happy so i think happiness is something that is

00:39:32.540 usually had obliquely it's it's something that kind of follows when we're taking action in a certain way

00:39:39.160 it's not something that we can look at identify and say okay yeah i've got it right um so i think that

00:39:46.060 that is a bad question that ends badly for most people another one that is answerable for a few

00:39:51.360 people but i don't think honestly is answerable for many at all is what is my purpose in life i hate

00:39:58.840 to bring in to leb again he's been a big force in this conversation but he has this perfect quote

00:40:04.340 that deals with this he says life is more about execution than purpose and at first that seems kind

00:40:10.280 of like sterile or um you know afraid of purpose or something but in my experience the only true

00:40:18.500 purpose that i've ever experienced has been when i'm dedicated to taking action when i'm focused on

00:40:26.900 the actions that i'm taking there's that book start with why i think if you start with an abstract why

00:40:33.480 you're going to end up with a really beautiful mission statement or a really beautiful you know

00:40:39.940 poetic vision of your life but it's not something that's going to hold up when you're trying to take

00:40:46.300 action it's not going to hold up when you're struggling right because you can argue against a

00:40:53.100 beautiful written abstract sense of purpose true purpose to me is something that is felt and probably only

00:41:02.020 only explained later so another bad question is do i love this person right and as soon as you try

00:41:08.500 to answer that question you're not loving them love is a verb in my view and so once you start to answer

00:41:15.460 that question you're not taking the action of loving the person you are separating from them and abstracting

00:41:23.020 your relationship which is a really easy way to talk yourself out of loving anybody and then the fourth

00:41:29.740 and probably the heaviest of them is why live like why stay alive and camu albert camu even said

00:41:37.940 the only serious philosophical question is whether or not to commit suicide if you want to take that

00:41:44.380 challenge you're going to be really frustrated people have been doing it for thousands of years and

00:41:49.800 coming up with a lot of different answers and if you want to stick with logic i don't think anybody has come

00:41:56.200 up with an airtight answer but that doesn't mean the question is relevant or hard to answer at all

00:42:03.240 it's just hard to answer in the abstract when we pay attention to the actions we're taking when we're taking

00:42:10.720 earnest action that question just can't exist right that's not a question that anybody asks that's trying to do

00:42:20.060 something if you're in the middle of playing a game of football or or doing any kind of challenging task

00:42:25.900 you're never going to ask yourself why even live that only happens when you're living in a purely 0.99

00:42:31.120 abstract place so to me action is always an obvious answer to the affirmative of that question so like i said

00:42:38.140 all of those are just kind of this breed of questions that ask too much from logic and don't respect its limits

00:42:45.360 no that question what's my purpose in life it made me think of victor frankel it's been a while since

00:42:50.480 i've read victor frankel but then i forgot what i was listening to maybe want to revisit and i forgot

00:42:55.960 like that frankel talked about this he talked about like he thought that asking about what your purpose

00:43:01.560 in life was was a dumb question he thought it didn't matter what we expected from life but he said

00:43:06.600 rather we should be focused on what life is expecting from us and then try to answer that question that

00:43:12.000 question is being asked to us daily hourly what's life his answer wasn't you know you don't respond

00:43:17.480 with talk and meditation but it's right action right conduct in order to answer that question that life

00:43:23.080 is asking you you know what life is expecting from you at that moment basically yeah and it's never a

00:43:28.500 romantic answer right like it's never going to sound world changing it's never going to sound like

00:43:34.180 something that you want on your bio it's going to be something really simple really specific probably

00:43:39.800 but it's going to carry a lot of weight and that questions can be like my purpose right now is to

00:43:44.640 help my crying kid who's being really annoying i'm going to do this thing get it done but like be

00:43:50.660 patient and calm in the process like that's that thing it's very grounded in action amen you also say

00:43:56.880 that action both makes things harder and easier the way we've been talking about action makes it sound

00:44:02.200 like oh just opens these doors you get these creative forces that come help you you develop passion by

00:44:07.700 taking action but how can action make things harder as well there's a trade-off here and i think it's

00:44:12.600 one worth making a lot of times people say well here's an answer and it's like obviously easier and

00:44:18.560 everything will work out if you take this stance i think what we're talking about there's a whole host

00:44:24.560 of benefits that make focusing on taking action worthwhile but it also i think makes life significantly

00:44:31.780 more difficult because you end up taking on more challenges which means you end up taking on bigger

00:44:38.060 challenges right so once you face the things that are immediately in front of you your problems don't

00:44:43.440 usually get smaller they tend to get larger in scope you're just growing enough to handle them so

00:44:50.020 you're dealing with more pressing situations and putting more skin in the game right so when you're

00:44:56.100 taking more action when you're focused on action you generally have more immediately at risk so your

00:45:03.540 skin's in the game and you're engaged probably in some version of the strenuous life that that you wrote

00:45:10.700 recently really beautifully about your article on the strenuous life i think in a lot of ways

00:45:15.680 talks about the harder aspects of a life of action and so you're under more strain you're under more

00:45:24.100 pressure you're more committed right but you're more engaged you're more alive you're more virile

00:45:29.320 but life also becomes easier so as you take on these bigger challenges as you're more engaged and pushing

00:45:36.700 against more things that means that you're not ruminating right you're not leaving as much space

00:45:43.620 to drain yourself of energy while talking yourself in circles you're not justifying your decisions or your

00:45:51.500 life to people who don't matter you're acting i think more in line with nature because you get out

00:45:57.940 of your head and into reality where there's ties between actions and consequences you're not breaking

00:46:05.620 yourself to fit into a mold or checking off boxes that you think you're supposed to you're becoming

00:46:11.560 more self-reliant i would say so you know things get harder i would say physically not strictly

00:46:18.100 physically but they get harder and there's more strain probably there's more pressure but easier

00:46:23.940 and that more of that strain more of that pressure is coming from the outside coming from challenging

00:46:30.180 situations you're putting yourself in and less self-harm and kind of less respect for obligations

00:46:37.300 or invisible obligations that society might be putting on you i love it well kyle there's a lot more we

00:46:42.420 can talk about the pocket guide for action is available for pre-order the art of manliness store

00:46:47.280 it's pretty cool both kyle and i've been working on this thing for months we've self-published this

00:46:51.980 thing and that was some action that was hard as kyle can uh attest to but uh we learned a lot in the

00:46:59.520 process but it turned out really great and we're really excited about so you can buy that on the art

00:47:03.300 of manly store but kyle you've also set up sort of an accompanying online course that people can take

00:47:08.840 with the pocket guide to action right yes you can see some of the details at the action course.com

00:47:14.340 it's also you know the urls in the book i think on the book page it takes the ideas from the pocket

00:47:22.740 guide to action and puts them in practices that you can apply immediately so there's about 20 lessons

00:47:31.980 that have you know five to 20 minute practices that will help you kick start this perspective

00:47:39.000 of this habit of taking action awesome well kyle eschenroeder thank you so much for your time it's

00:47:44.340 been a pleasure thanks a lot brett my guest today was kyle eschenroeder he's the author of the pocket

00:47:48.440 guide to action 116 meditations on the art of doing it's available at the art of manliness store

00:47:53.040 at store.artofmanliness.com you can also find more information about kyle's work at kyleeschen.com

00:47:58.320 that's k-y-l-e-s-c-h-e-n.com and also you can check out our show notes at aom.is

00:48:03.740 slash action where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:48:07.300 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:48:22.520 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy this

00:48:26.540 show and have gotten something out of it i'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us

00:48:29.300 review on itunes or stitcher that helps us out a lot and another thing you can do is just share

00:48:33.800 the podcast with a friend or family member help spread the word let more people know what we're

00:48:37.400 doing here at the art of manliness as always thank you for your continued support and until next time

00:48:41.540 this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

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The Art of Manliness - May 04, 2017

#301： Why Action is the Answer

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