Set Your Future Self Up for Success
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Summary
As you move through time, you exist as a present self who makes decisions, an in between self who should carry out those decisions, and a future self who will benefit from those decisions. Yet as we all know, in between selves often fail to follow through on what present self resolves, leaving future self pretty bummed out. The solution to this dilemma, my guest says, is for your present self to become much better friends with your future self.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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As you move through time, you exist as a present self who makes decisions and in-between self
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who should carry out those decisions and a future self who will benefit from those decisions.
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Yet as we all know, in-between self often fails to follow through on what present self resolves,
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leaving future self pretty bummed out. The solution to this dilemma, my guest says,
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is for your present self to become much better friends with your future self.
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His name is Hal Hirschfeld and he's a professor of marketing, behavioral decision-making,
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and psychology and the author of Your Future Self. Hal and I spend the first part of our
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conversation taking a really interesting philosophical dive into what the self even is.
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We talk about why your future self can feel like a stranger, why it's hard to know what he'll be like,
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and what this dilemma has to do with becoming a vampire. We then discuss how building a stronger
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connection with your future self makes your present self more willing to help him and how
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you can become closer to your future self by engaging in mental time traveling. Hal shares a
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couple techniques that can facilitate this mental time travel, three mistakes people make in taking
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this cognitive trip, how to start making tomorrow better today. After the show's over,
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check out our show notes at aom.is slash future self.
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All right. Hal Hirschfeld, welcome to the show.
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Hey, thanks so much, Brad. I'm happy to be here.
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So you are a professor of marketing and behavioral decision-making,
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and you've spent your career studying how we think about our future selves and this idea of mental
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time travel. What led you down this research path? Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of that sounds
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like a lot of words thrown together there. But, you know, my PhD is in psychology, in experimental
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psychology. And what that means is I like to study how people think about their world, how they make
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decisions. And honestly, while I was in grad schools around the time of the 2008 financial crisis,
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and I started to get really interested in why are people having a hard time making the same
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decisions that they say that they want to make. And that led me to start thinking about,
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you know, maybe it's not necessarily elements of the decision itself, but elements of the way that
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people think about themselves sort of unfolding through time. And it was really that seed that
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got planted that led me to study these things. And I'm at a business school in a way because that
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lets me focus on sort of applied questions. Okay, so you're interested in looking at why we might say
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something like, hey, I want to do this to lose weight, or hey, I want to make this investing
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decision. So I'll be better off in the future. But then we don't do that.
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Yeah, exactly. It's, you know, I don't start with the assumption that, you know, more people should be
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doing x, y and z thing, you know, more people should save more or eat healthier or whatever, you know,
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that may be true. But it's the place where I start is, you know, if someone says, man, I really want
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to be exercising more, and I just can't seem to do it, I really want to be saving more, and I just
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can't seem to do it, or whatever that thing is, you know, off my phone, that gap between intentions
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and behavior, that's where I really get interested. And that's where I like to study behavior.
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And this is where this idea of mental time travel comes from. When we are making goals,
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we are having to think about ourselves as, you know, present self and future self.
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Yeah, exactly. You know, when we are sort of thinking ahead, and thinking about what some
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ideal outcome is, we are really thinking about ourselves right now. And we're thinking about
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that eventual version of us, like who will be sort of the, you know, almost ideal version,
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if you will, that, you know, exists at some later point in time.
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Gotcha. So before we dig into your research about mental time travel, and our future selves,
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I think we have to get philosophical first, and talk about what a self even is. And I think most
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of us think we know what a self is, you know, ourselves feel continuous, and permanent, and
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singular. But you make the case that the self might not be as continuous as it seems. So what is the
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self? Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I think there's a lot of us that probably would say,
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you know, yeah, I am me, like, I've kind of been me. And sure, some things have changed over time,
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but I am essentially the same person. But then you start thinking about it, and it becomes really
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complicated, right? It's like, your name might have changed, you know, the way you look might change,
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like your friends might change, your interests might change, even your personality might change a
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little bit. And then when you start sort of like, stepping back and figuring out like, who am I over
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time, it becomes really hard to say, like, I am one person. And so the sort of philosophical notion
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that I really subscribe to is that maybe a better way to describe it is that we're sort of a collection
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of separate selves. Now, I mean, you asked this great question, which is like, well, what is the self
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even, you know, and I think of the self. And I think psychologists think of the self as a kind of a bundle
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of things. It's, it's different attributes. It's my preferences and emotions and feelings and my
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connections and my, you know, quote, unquote, identity, all of those things and kind of a swirl.
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But all those things change over time. And so it really does seem like a more apt description to
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say that we're sort of a series of almost separate selves. Yeah, this goes back all the way to ancient
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Greece. There's that idea of the ship of Theseus. Exactly. Yeah, it's like this famous ship. And then
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they sort of made it like a memorial. But over the years, they had to keep replacing the parts,
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because it was wearing down. And at some point, the philosophers are asking, well, is it still the
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ship of Theseus? And people are like, well, yeah, it is. And it's like, well, it's completely just new
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parts. And, you know, psychologists and philosophers have applied this to humans. Human beings were
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constantly creating new cells. Our cells are being replaced. So you can say, well, is our self the
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body? Because if that's the case, then our body's changed. So maybe we're not the same. They're like,
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well, if it's not the body, then they said, well, maybe it's our memories. But that gets tricky,
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too, because we've had a podcast guest talking about how our memories can change based on
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experiences we have in the present. So we might experience something now that change how we think
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about the past. And I was like, well, maybe it's not our memories.
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Right. And I mean, the memory explanation, by the way, is it's really interesting, because I think
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it's on the surface intriguing. You say, well, maybe the self is this sort of collection of what I
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remember. And then you stop for a second, you say, you know, do you remember what you had for
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lunch two days ago? Like, no. Well, is that not you? And as you said, memory is, it's fallible,
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and it's constructed, and it changes. So that doesn't really seem quite right.
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And then, you know, my wife, I think of myself as myself, and it hasn't, I mean, I know I've changed,
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but I still think of like, I'm this, I'm Brett, I've existed since I was, you know, since 1982.
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But I'm thinking about my wife, like my wife fell in love and married 22 year old Brett.
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And I think, I think she still thinks she's married to the same Brett. So what is it about me when she
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interacts with me? And I, but she knows that I've changed over the years. What makes her think I'm
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the same, even though I've changed over the years?
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Yeah, I love this question, because it, it really becomes almost existential on some level. You know,
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we want permanence to some degree, right? Like we want to see our partners and our best
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friends. And I mean, to some extent, even our parents as occupying these sort of, you know,
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stable conceptions of a person. But, you know, I think when push comes to shove, I'm sure your
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wife could point to many things about you that have changed. Now, my way of sort of reading this
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really has been influenced by psychologist Nina Strominger. And she has this fascinating research
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that suggests that when we look at other people, the way that we think of them as being, you know,
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quote unquote, stable over time, what we think about really is what she and her collaborators call
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the essential moral self or essential moral traits. The idea here is that, I don't know, Brett,
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you know, maybe you're like, a little bit sarcastic, but ultimately kind, whatever, whatever sort of like
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blend of those kind of like core aspects of your personality are. If the surface level things
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change, but those remain relatively constant, that allows somebody to say, okay, you are still Brett.
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That's the essence of Brett, right? And my bet, not knowing your wife, but my bet would be
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that she could point to those things and say, that's the same now as it was when he was 22.
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Okay. So yeah, there's some moral qualities. So kindness, compassion, whether you're polite.
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Yeah. And that research about that made me laugh out loud. Nina, she asked this guy,
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what are some of the ways your wife could change? And you would say, she's no longer the person I
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married. And then he, the guy responded quickly. Hmm. I guess she became a bitch.
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Exactly. It's, it's kind of funny because part of that conversation, she asked, you know,
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what about you? What would change in you to make your wife say that you're no longer the person
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she married? And the person Nina was talking to as an artist who said, well, I guess if I suddenly
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became bad at art. And it's, it's funny because there's this little asymmetry there. When we think
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about ourselves, we think, I don't know, it must be these sort of things I do. But when we think about
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others, it's, it's not what they do. It's who they are really deep inside that sort of core. Right.
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And if you were kind all your life and then suddenly became this monster, I'd be like,
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Okay. So the takeaway from all this thing, like what is a self, it helps us understand there is
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something there that we, that helps us think of ourselves as a continuous permanent self and
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allows others to think of us as continuous and permanent. However, there are things about
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ourselves that means that we have multiple selves. There's a past self. We might even be different
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selves in different situations. I think people might've experienced that when I know I've experienced
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that when I connect with old high school friends. Yes.
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I immediately fall into, you know, 1999, 2000 Brett. And I'm making jokes that my wife,
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like what's going on? I don't understand. Like you're kind of, I don't, I've never seen this
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Brett before. It's because I have this groove with those friends. So the self can be situational
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too. Yeah, absolutely. I totally relate to that particular experience. I remember going back from my
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20th high school reunion, you know, with my wife and we're sitting around and it's like instantly like
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1997, Hal showed up and, and, and it is, you know, there's elements there that, that sort of
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crossover, but there's also elements where you say, I'm not really that same bundle, you know,
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now that I was then. Okay. So let's talk about this mental time travel component. So thanks to our
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memories, maybe keeping a journal or looking back on old social media posts, we can have a pretty
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good idea of what our past self was like. Again, our present self can modify that, right? We might,
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we do this thing where we, I know I've done this too. And I've seen other people where we try to
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explain the past in a way that helps us make sense of the present, even though you're kind of doing some
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mental gymnastics to make that make sense. But we can have an idea of what our past self was like,
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because we have documentation or maybe just memory, but you argue that it's really hard to know what
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our future self will be like. Why is that? Yeah. So part of the issue here is that our future selves
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are sort of inherently uncertain and our future selves change as, as we go through changes and in
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ways that we can't fully anticipate. And then you have this mental exercise that a philosopher came up with
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about thinking about becoming a vampire. Yeah. Yeah. What can thinking about becoming a vampire
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teaches about how hard it is to know our future selves? So yeah, this is LA Paul and she had this
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great analogy, which was essentially, you know, imagine you have this opportunity to become a
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vampire. And she says, all your friends are doing it and they tell you it's great. You're going to love
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it. Like they, they think they know you. They say, you know, you like staying up late at night and like
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trying exotic foods. And that's what it's like to become a vampire. But there's this catch, which is
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that once you become a vampire, you can't undo it. You're sort of always a vampire and you can't really
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know what it's like to become a vampire until you become a vampire. Now, I mean, it sounds a little
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bit sort of ludicrous and almost sci-fi in a cheesy way. But when I first heard her talk about this, for
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what it's worth, I was at a little small conference and we had found out my wife was pregnant like only
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days before. And I'm sitting there listening to her, LA Paul, talk about this, you know, vampire
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problem. And I started instantly going down this sort of like anxiety spiral of, you know, oh my God, this is
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kind of the same thing as becoming a parent, right? You know, my friends are telling me it's, it's like
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meaningful and I'll like it, but I can't know what it's like until I'm actually doing it. Like as I'm
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having this sort of spiral of anxiety, the professor LA Paul says, of course, this is just a thinly veiled
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analogy to becoming a parent. I was like, ah, yes, this makes sense. But I thought it was so
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interesting because it really highlights the sort of, you know, inherent unknowability of our future
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selves that, you know, we go through these changes in our lives. We become parents, we move, we change
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careers, we get married or divorced or any of these things. And those things change us in ways that we
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can't anticipate. And once we do them, we're sort of now a slightly new and different version of
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ourselves. Right. Becoming a parent not only changes, I mean, it changes how you think about other parts of
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yourself, how you think about your career, how you think about your hobbies, how you think about
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vacation. And so it is, it is hard. You can talk to people about what it's like to be a parent.
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And as you said, you can kind of get an idea, but you don't really know how it's going to change you
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and also change other decisions that you will make until you actually do it. I've noticed that with my
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own life. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's so true. Okay. So we have these different selves. We have a
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past self that we can have a rough idea of what we are like. We have a present self. Then we have our
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future self, which it's hard to know what our future self will like or want or need. So what
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you've done with your research is you've actually, you've stuck people in MRI machines to see what
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happens in their brains when they think about their future cells. So when you stick someone in MRI
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and you ask them, like, hey, think about what you'll be like when you're 70. What happens? What's
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going on in our brains? How do we perceive our future selves? Right. So one of the things we
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know from what's called social neuroscience is that the brain can essentially distinguish between me
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and, you know, somebody else. There's a certain pattern of activity that you see in what's called
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the cortical midline structures when I think about me. And you see less of that activity when I think of
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a stranger or somebody else. And so, you know, we put people in the scanner and we had them think
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about themselves now and themselves in the future and another person now and another person in the
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future. And what we find is if you look within those same regions, the regions that can kind of
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distinguish between me and somebody else, what you see is a similar pattern for when we think about
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our future selves. If I can put it more simply, the brain activity that comes about when we think of
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our future selves, it looks more like the brain activity that comes about when we think about other
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people in general, which is really fascinating because it suggests that in some ways our future
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selves look like other people. Well, and one something you found too, and you've talked about
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is, okay, when we think about other people, depending on how close they are to us, there's like an
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activity that's different. So we think about someone like a stranger differently than we think about
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our kids or our spouse. That's right. Other work has found that those self-other differences in the
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brain. They're like exacerbated when I think about someone I don't know, but they're muted. The
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differences are a lot smaller when I think about, say, my spouse or my kid or my parent, somebody who
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I'm really close to, right? And so it suggests that not only is the brain coding for what's me and
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what's not me, it's also coding for sort of closeness and similarity and connection as well.
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So when someone's close to us, like a spouse or a kid, we actually, in a way, we incorporate them
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into ourself. Like they're part of us, our identity. Yeah. You know, researchers have called
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this the, you know, psychologists always have higher, higher level terms for things than we
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need to, but they call it the inclusion of the other in the self. Basically saying, you know,
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the people we love become a part of us. And then how we think of people, other people
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affects what we'll do for them. So because we think of our family members, spouse, maybe close
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friends as part of us, part of ourself, we're more willing to do things for them because
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in effect, we're doing something for ourself. But then for strangers, we're less willing to
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go out on a limb because they're not part of ourself.
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Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, you know, it's, it's funny. You don't have to think too
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hard about this, right? I mean, to, to really get it, you know, it's like if your kid or your
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best friend or, you know, someone you're really close to is like, Hey man, can you help me this
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weekend? We're in a bind and I really need somebody to help me like move all this stuff
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out of my garage so that we can do whatever, you know, you would probably be like a little
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annoyed because you have plans this weekend, but you would like, I don't know if they're
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really close to you, you'd probably figure out like, yeah, let me see how I can help
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you. And if, you know, somebody on the street stopped you and asked you the same question,
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it's like, it's not that you're selfish, but of course you'd be like, I can't, you know,
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I've got other things going on. You know, the, the reason that that is sort of
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interesting, I think is if we think our future selves are kind of like those people that we
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don't know, well now all of a sudden it makes sense why I wouldn't do things for their benefit.
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You know, if I'm supposed to eat healthy, you know, for that guy's cholesterol levels
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and that guy's, you know, waistline, well, I don't know. I think I'd kind of rather just
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do the thing that satisfies me right now because who's, who, who is that guy anyway? I don't
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know him. Okay. So yeah, this idea of the closeness of a person determines what we're
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willing to do for them. We can apply this to how we think about our future selves. So the more
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distant or disconnected we feel from our future self, the less likely we'll be willing to do
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things for our future selves, like exercise or save money or things like that.
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And I think, doesn't Jerry Seinfeld have a bit about that?
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Yeah. Yes, he does. He, he's like, man, like he's always ahead of the curve. And like,
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I think he is deeply philosophical and he has this whole bit where he says, you know,
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I stay up late at night because I'm night guy. You know, what about getting up after five hours
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sleep? Like, that's not my problem. That's morning guy's problem, you know? And he has this great
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sort of solution. He says like, the only thing morning guy can do is to try to oversleep often enough
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so that day guy loses his job and then night guy has no money to go out anymore, which is like a
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perfect, a perfect solution. But it's, I mean, I feel like it's a really deep joke because
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it suggests that there can be these real lack of emotional connections between selves and that lack
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of connection or presence of it can dictate the things that we do. In his case, you know, staying up
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too late, right? In my case, it might be snacking, you know, at night or having like an extra glass of
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wine when I said I wasn't going to. And what you've done with your research is you looked at the,
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the distance of how we think about our future selves. And you're saying, okay, well, if we think
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of our distant future selves as basically strangers, right? And because of that, we're not willing to do
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much for them in the future. Your hunch was, well, are there things we can do to strengthen our
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connection to our future selves to improve outcomes like in health, money and psychological
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well-being? So what is, what is your research found on this? Can you strengthen your connection
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to your future self? And if so, what are the things that you can do to do that?
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Absolutely. So yeah, first off, you're right. The sort of degree of connection matters for these types
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of behaviors that you've been talking about. And then you have this question of like, can you
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strengthen that relationship? And you know, the short answer is yes. The long answer is that there's
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a lot of different ways to do it. And they work with sort of like varying degrees of success.
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One that works nicely is to write a letter to and then from your future self. That's a,
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a newer technique that Yuta Shishima and Ann Wilson came up with. And I think it's a really
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sort of clever exercise because it forces you to step into the shoes of your future self.
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Again, there, it's not that I'm just writing a letter to my future self, but then I'm
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turning around and then writing back to me right now.
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I guess what you're trying to do with that is you're trying to kind of guess what it's
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That's a great way to put it. And I think, you know, I would go a step beyond what the
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research has done and sort of say like, yeah, I mean, it may be helpful to recognize that we
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can't know. Like, I just don't know what it's like to be a vampire until I become one. And
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I think that's okay. If we can sort of get past that, then the exercise of stepping into
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future me's shoes will ultimately be helpful to sort of strengthen that connection between selves.
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And then another tactic, I think maybe people listening to this podcast have heard about,
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there's a, maybe even experienced this. You've had people with virtual reality,
00:22:43.220
see what they would look like when they're old and how that affects decisions they'll make for
00:22:48.260
their future self. What's going on there? Yeah. I mean, so essentially the idea here is
00:22:52.740
we can use these age progression apps to show you what you look like or a version of what you look
00:22:58.820
like. Now we've, you know, used these sorts of programs and had people sort of interact with
00:23:06.140
their future selves. We've done this in virtual reality. We've done this online. We've done this,
00:23:09.720
you know, through emails, essentially campaigns like that. And, you know, what we find is sort of
00:23:15.280
across the board, there are these effects where the people who are exposed to these images are a
00:23:21.480
little bit more likely to, to save or to act ethically. You know, the, the most recent version
00:23:27.020
of this, we've did a study with about 50,000 customers with a Mexican bank and half of them got
00:23:33.520
these opportunities to see their future selves and half of them didn't. And the people who did were
00:23:37.520
a little more likely to make a contribution to their long-term savings accounts, their retirement
00:23:42.880
accounts. Now there's a lot of this sort of thing available now, like you can go on Face app or
00:23:49.080
Snapchat or aging booth. I think there's a lot of them. Just because I've seen an image of my future
00:23:56.180
self doesn't mean I'm all of a sudden going to live my life differently. Right. But in the right context,
00:24:00.900
if that future self image is something I look at and think about and sort of converse with
00:24:07.640
while I'm then also in the mindset of making some sort of decision, you know, whether it's
00:24:14.660
signing up for a nutritionist or thinking about my long-term savings or whatever it might be that
00:24:19.240
that's when I think these sorts of vivid examples and exposures can make a difference.
00:24:24.980
Okay. So what you're doing with these techniques, whether it's writing a letter to your future self
00:24:28.100
and having your future self write a letter to present you or looking at a aged picture of
00:24:34.100
yourself, what you're trying to do is close the gap between your present self and your future self.
00:24:40.100
And then by doing that, we are more likely to follow through on good decisions for ourselves,
00:24:47.940
whether that's exercise, saving more, not procrastinating, being just a good person because
00:24:58.120
That is exactly right. I think that's a well, we'll actually hold on. Let me just make a little
00:25:02.040
modification there. Sure. I'm not sure that it's necessarily because it's that we feel our future
00:25:06.120
self is us, but rather because we now feel closer, feel closer to our future self and we can like
00:25:11.800
better envision them. Right. So I do actually think, you know, it's like some of this, I don't want
00:25:18.120
to like split hairs here, but it's useful to know like why these things happen. I think there's some
00:25:23.220
debate still about, you know, is it because it just simply makes that future self more vivid and
00:25:28.080
therefore more emotional? Is it also because it's making that future self sort of feel closer to us?
00:25:33.620
I think at the end of the day, it's still always going to be another person. Just like, you know,
00:25:38.240
at the end of the day, your wife is always going to be another person. But what can vary is,
00:25:43.160
you know, how close you feel to her. Right. And the closer you are, the more likely you'll probably
00:25:48.760
do things that are going to help her. We're going to take a quick break for your word from our
00:25:52.960
sponsors. And now back to the show. We do this mental time travel stuff all the time, but there's
00:26:01.640
things that we do when we do this mental time travel that can make it less effective. And you talk
00:26:07.860
about there's three ways we can mess up our mental time travel. And the first one is you miss
00:26:13.020
the flight in the first place. So how do we miss our flight?
00:26:17.100
Right. So I mean, like, you know, to back up the mental time travels, really, like you said,
00:26:20.900
it's just what happens when we step into the future or back to the past in our minds. And by the way,
00:26:27.260
we're really good at this. We can do this in super sophisticated ways. I can step to the future and
00:26:31.840
think back to now and step into the past. And I mean, I can do all of this in the span of,
00:26:37.380
you know, seconds back and forth, back and forth. But even though we have this sort of machinery to do
00:26:42.440
this, we often aren't great at we make these mistakes. And so, yeah, in the book, I sort of
00:26:47.040
organize them into different categories. The first one, I call it missing our flight. I mean, this is
00:26:52.480
just how I think I think about things in analogies. Sometimes I think, you know, maybe it's easier to
00:26:57.380
just describe it straightforward. But this one works for me, which is like, I feel like everyone's had
00:27:01.840
this experience of, you know, you get to the airport, and you're like, Oh, I've got a little time
00:27:05.540
before my flight. Let me go get a drink at the bar or, you know, sit in the corner and read a book or
00:27:10.940
whatever it is. Now, I've never had it happen. But I've had it almost happen where you get so
00:27:16.020
engrossed in the thing you're doing that beer at the bar. You look up and you realize, Oh, my God,
00:27:21.220
you know, they've been calling my name, and I've missed my flight. And the reason that I bring this
00:27:27.020
up in the space of sort of mental time travel is it's, it's sort of like being so focused on the
00:27:32.940
present that I look up and realize that I've completely missed thinking about the future in any deep
00:27:37.240
way. And, you know, that we do this sort of thing all the time when we act in ways that deeply
00:27:43.880
prioritize the future over the present. It's not as if we don't know the future won't come. You know,
00:27:49.880
when we go to the airport, it's not as if I've just completely forgotten about the flight. It's just
00:27:54.300
that it occupies such a minor place in the back of my mind. And I get so engrossed in what's happening
00:27:59.180
right in front of me, that I act as if I've missed it entirely.
00:28:02.020
Right. And we do that for various reasons. One is when we experience the present,
00:28:08.020
the emotions that we experience or the feelings are more intense because we're actually experiencing
00:28:12.160
them. And then when we think about the emotions we might feel in the future, well, it's hard to do,
00:28:16.920
right? It's hard to think about what you'll feel like when you're a vampire. And so you're thinking,
00:28:20.780
well, I'm enjoying this late night show. This is great right now. I'm enjoying it. I'm going to keep
00:28:25.680
doing this. And you don't think about, well, how is, how is tomorrow Brett going to feel about this?
00:28:30.520
No, that's not, I'm not going to worry. I can't, I can't feel that. So I'm just not going to do
00:28:35.260
Exactly. And it's like, you said it, there's the uncertainty of the future. And there's also just
00:28:39.980
like the feelings right now feel more intense than the things worth, you know, anticipate
00:28:45.840
feeling in the book. And I like quoting her a lot, Liz Dunn, one of my collaborators. She has this
00:28:52.700
great line in one of her papers. The paper is not even about this concept, but she just has this line
00:28:56.700
in there. And it really stuck with me, which is the present acts as a magnifying glass for our
00:29:02.420
emotions. And I think it's such a smart way to think about how powerful the present is when we're
00:29:13.160
Okay. So the first way we can mess up mental time traveling is we miss the flight by thinking too
00:29:17.760
much about the present, thinking too much about what we're experiencing now and not thinking about
00:29:22.880
what future self will want. Another way we can mess up our mental time traveling is what you call poor
00:29:28.780
trip planning. So how do we plan our mental time travel trips poorly?
00:29:33.720
Yeah. I mean, so this would be, I'm going to like, just like kind of lean into the,
00:29:36.820
you know, airport plane travel metaphors, but essentially this is the, you know,
00:29:41.820
I've planned my trip. Like I know I'm going to Chicago next week. And then I realized that I,
00:29:47.380
I've, I haven't done really anything other than book the flight and maybe the hotel. And then I get
00:29:51.600
there and I'm like, well, now what am I going to do? And this is, this is the version of,
00:29:56.440
of mental time travel where we think a little bit about the future, but we do so in such a surface
00:30:02.340
level way that by the time we get to the future, it's looks maybe different than the one that we
00:30:07.120
had envisioned. So, you know, as an example, I think procrastination fits perfectly into this
00:30:12.500
bucket. It's like, I'm thinking ahead. I'd say to myself, next week is going to be the week
00:30:19.640
that I finally take care of like putting in this paperwork that I've got to put in for
00:30:24.700
work and blah, blah, blah. But I'm not really thinking deeply about the future because if I was,
00:30:30.460
I'd realize that, you know, if I don't want to do that thing now, future me isn't going to want
00:30:35.200
to do it either, you know? So it might make sense to not compound the problem and just take care of
00:30:39.540
it right now. But the gist is that I'm not really deeply thinking ahead to the future. And even
00:30:46.320
though I know it exists, it's not planned for in a more than surface level way.
00:30:51.480
Gotcha. So you're thinking about your future self, but you're not doing it in a very deep or
00:30:55.880
profound way. And as a consequence, you might make decisions that you think I'm doing something for
00:31:00.780
my future self, but really it's not helping them that much.
00:31:06.520
The one that you talked about there that really resonated with me is the yes, damn effect. I think
00:31:11.860
everyone's experienced that. And this is what it's called. Like the psychologists, they call it the
00:31:17.380
What is the yes, damn effect? And how does that constitute poor trip planning?
00:31:21.720
Yeah. It's when you get asked to do something and it's not going to occur for another two months,
00:31:27.740
three months, four months, whatever it is. You look ahead at your calendar and you say,
00:31:31.300
yeah, it's wide open. Yeah, sure. I'll do it. And then, you know, the time goes by and you get
00:31:38.500
there and it's the week of, and you realize I have, you know, agreed to do this presentation at
00:31:44.600
work. I've agreed to whatever the flavor of event is. Like, I'm sure we can all conjure up our own
00:31:50.820
idiosyncratic ones. And you say, damn it, I really don't feel like doing this. And so they, you know,
00:31:57.560
psychologists call it the yes, damn effect. And the issue with this is what I'm doing is I am
00:32:03.780
thinking ahead to the future. I'm saying, yeah, future me will do that thing. And then I get there
00:32:09.200
and realize that's not really something I'd want to do. Now, there are cases that there's nuance
00:32:15.060
here, right? Because sometimes the only way to get us to sign up for something is, is to put it
00:32:21.180
distant enough out in the future. And then, you know, some, there's versions of these things that
00:32:25.160
we do, you know, whether it's like agreeing to coach our kids team, like maybe I don't really want
00:32:30.200
to do that this week. It's a lot of work, but next, you know, next year, sure, I'll do it. And
00:32:34.620
like, ultimately that could be a really good experience. And I wouldn't have signed up for
00:32:37.940
it if it was occurring next week. But there's many other cases where I unfairly sign my future
00:32:46.520
self up to do the very things that I don't want to do now. Right. Because you don't think about
00:32:51.560
future self having issues, right? So your calendar might look open. You think future self, man,
00:32:57.000
the sky's the limit for future self. He's got so much free time, but then once future self arrives,
00:33:02.300
all the problems of the present are there. So you've got school that you're dropping your kids
00:33:06.820
off. You've got fires to put out at work. You've got other responsibilities that your present self
00:33:12.280
wasn't thinking about when you committed future self to make that decision. That's where the yes,
00:33:16.880
damn effect. You're like, yeah, it sounds great. But then when future self that you thought about
00:33:20.520
finally becomes present self, you're like, oh damn, this, why did I do this? This, this stinks.
00:33:25.160
Exactly. I think that's exactly right. And I think one way you can counter that one thing that I've
00:33:30.480
done is if you're being asked to commit to something way in the future, like months or maybe
00:33:35.500
a year, one way you can counter the yes, damn effect is ask yourself if this thing was going
00:33:40.420
to be tomorrow, would I still do it? And if the answer is no, then, well, maybe I don't commit to
00:33:46.880
that. I mean, it's again, there's nuance. You might not do that in all situations, but it's a good way to
00:33:51.900
figure out if you, you actually want to do the thing. I think that's exactly right. And it's,
00:33:57.380
you know, it's, I think the beauty of that is that it's so hard to step into the shoes of our future
00:34:01.720
selves, but it's easier to live in the shoes of our present self. And if present self doesn't want
00:34:06.560
to do it, you know, it's a good indicator that future me might want not want to do it either.
00:34:10.860
Right. So you're closing that gap between present and future self by doing that.
00:34:14.720
Okay. So we can mess up mental time traveling by just poor planning. Another one is once we're on
00:34:22.160
the trip, we pack the wrong clothes. What do you mean by packing the wrong clothes for our mental
00:34:27.520
time travel trip? Right. So this is like a little bit different. So, I mean, we've probably all have
00:34:32.580
this experience imagining, you know, it's like the winter time I'm living in a cold weather place.
00:34:37.240
I'm in Chicago. We're going to, you know, go to, I don't know, Miami or something like this.
00:34:41.000
And I'm thinking ahead, I'm packing my bag and I'm packing my clothes. And I say, you
00:34:48.160
know, I know it's going to be warm there, but it's really hard to shake the feeling that
00:34:51.380
I'm freezing right now. I should probably throw some sweaters in just in case. And, you
00:34:56.680
know, is it a mistake? Well, you know, if I get there and I don't have enough of the
00:35:01.280
warm weather clothes and I've got all this other stuff in my suitcase that is taking up
00:35:05.680
room that I'm not going to use, well, there's a little bit of a mistake there. But when you think
00:35:09.340
about time travel, the gist here is that I convince myself that I'm planning ahead for
00:35:15.440
the future. But in doing so, what I'm really, really doing is using my present day emotions
00:35:20.760
and projecting them almost unfairly on my future self. And the reason why I say that this is
00:35:26.180
really problem and really pernicious is because I've convinced myself that I'm doing something
00:35:32.180
good for my future self when in reality, I may actually not be appreciating the way that
00:35:39.200
he will differ from me, the way that he'll change. If you want another sort of example
00:35:44.000
or sort of analogy, it's like getting gifts for your spouse. You know, nobody wants to get
00:35:51.040
the gift that the gift giver wanted. You know, it's like if I say to myself, what my wife really
00:35:56.800
wants is that new Nintendo switch. It's like, no, that's what I want. You know, it's not really
00:36:02.980
fair to her in the same way as if I use my present day feelings and emotions and project
00:36:08.200
them onto my future self. It's not really fair to him.
00:36:11.760
Yeah. So what you're doing, you're thinking about your future self, you're trying to do
00:36:14.520
some mental time traveling, but you're thinking going back to that vampire analogy, you're thinking
00:36:19.440
that being a vampire is going to be like what it's like being you now, but that's not actually
00:36:25.240
what's going to happen. I really like that. I hadn't put it quite that way. And I think you're
00:36:29.620
exactly right. It's like, you know, if I sort of think like, I'm sure he'll want to, you know,
00:36:35.580
sleep at night and, and, and wake up early in the morning because I do. And let me arrange things for
00:36:41.480
him so that that happens. It would be a mistake because it turns out once you become a vampire,
00:36:46.220
that's not what you like. And then another thing that causes us to, you know, pack the wrong clothes,
00:36:51.600
it's this idea in psychology called the end of history illusion. What is that?
00:36:56.560
Yeah. The end of history illusion. This is, um, Jordi Quadbach is the original author on this work.
00:37:01.940
The idea with this is that I think that I've somehow become the sort of fully baked version
00:37:07.260
of myself now and that moving forward into the future, I'll change a little bit, but not that
00:37:12.040
much. In other words, the end of history illusion is recognizing that I've changed from the past to the
00:37:16.480
present, but then failing to see that I'll continue to change moving from the present to the future.
00:37:21.960
Now, the reason that that's problematic is that we do in fact change from the present to the future,
00:37:28.320
probably as much as we've changed from the past to the present. And that that's really hard to
00:37:32.860
grapple with because we say, no, no, no, no, that can't be like, I've, I've changed so much from,
00:37:37.480
from then to now. I can't continue this way. And the reality is that we will, but we don't like to
00:37:43.860
see that because it sort of suggests that, you know, we're more malleable than we like to think.
00:37:48.620
It's also a problem when I make decisions and plans for a future self that limit his ability
00:37:57.140
to change his mind, that sort of lock him into something in a way that he might not particularly
00:38:04.260
What are some examples that you've come across where people have done that?
00:38:08.640
So I think a good example of this is career planning. Sometimes we can get sort of locked
00:38:14.640
into something or we say, this is what we want because this is what I want right now. And then
00:38:19.040
later on we say, I should keep doing this because, you know, past me planned it. We also see this on a
00:38:25.300
smaller level of, you know, some researchers have found, you know, taking on projects. I might take on a
00:38:32.000
really big project and be super excited about it in the early days and convince myself that I'll
00:38:38.320
be able to maintain that level of effort and excitement and, you know, passion, if you will.
00:38:45.280
When in reality, those things may wane and change so much so that I won't be able to see the project
00:38:51.080
through to completion because I no longer have the sort of inclination or energy or will to do it.
00:38:56.020
I suspect this is something that happens in the startup world quite a bit because early on,
00:39:02.160
that's the most exciting period of time. But we may end up biting off more than we can chew because
00:39:07.900
we sort of unfairly think that future versions of us will be able to continue to maintain the same
00:39:13.780
level of sort of drive and effort and work that the early versions of us did.
00:39:19.780
Okay. So when we think about our future self, we often think of them as like another person,
00:39:24.900
a distant person. And as a consequence, we're less likely to do things for future self because we
00:39:32.600
think, well, that's another person. And then you have all these biases that cause us to do that,
00:39:36.960
whether it's being too focused on the present or not thinking about correctly of what our future self
00:39:43.400
will actually be like and things like that. And so there's the things you've talked about that you
00:39:47.440
can sort of close the gap between future self and present self, write letters to your future self,
00:39:52.900
and then have future self, write letters to your present self, or look at an aged picture of
00:39:58.880
yourself. But again, you don't just look at it. It's not like you can just fire up TikTok and look at
00:40:04.220
what you look like when you're 80 and you'll suddenly start exercising and saving for retirement.
00:40:10.780
Maybe you do that when you're deciding whether to start a retirement account or whether to save
00:40:16.700
money that might help. Besides those two things, you've also researched different commitment
00:40:22.220
devices we can use so that when we think about our future self and we're like, yeah, future self
00:40:27.760
wants a robust retirement account. Future self wants to be 25 pounds lighter. Present self is going to
00:40:33.840
commit to that. I'm going to help future self out because future self is me. But then you also highlight
00:40:38.380
there's commitment devices you can do to ensure that present self continues to do those things
00:40:43.860
to help future self out. I know we're doing a lot of mental time travel right there when I was
00:40:48.660
describing that. But so yeah, what are some commitment devices that can help ensure that we do good
00:40:53.100
things for future selves once we make the commitment to help future self out? Yeah. So the gist here is
00:41:00.800
right. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to get it too complicated, but it's like, there's this
00:41:04.760
version of me right now that wants to do something well. I want to, you know, not snack at night.
00:41:09.480
There's this future version of me that wants to look back and say, yeah, I did it right. I didn't
00:41:14.060
snack at night. And then there's this guy in the middle who messes things up, right? That's the like
00:41:17.880
eventual version of me that says, I'm tired. I'm going to take a snack. I really, I really am hungry
00:41:22.800
right now. Now, commitment devices are sort of tools that we can put into place to put guardrails
00:41:28.740
on our future behaviors so that we can ensure that we don't sort of fall off and mess things up.
00:41:32.920
So, you know, a good example is this website stick.com. It's with two K's and it's fantastic
00:41:40.040
because what I can do is say, Hey, I've got a goal to, you know, act a certain way. I want to work
00:41:45.940
out three days a week for 30 minutes. And then I'll sort of enlist the accountability partner.
00:41:51.780
Let's call it you. Brett, every week you're going to call me and say, did you do it? Did you work out
00:41:56.260
three days a week? I also give my credit card to this site and I'll give the name of an anti-charity.
00:42:02.340
That's like a, call it a political organization or group that I don't want to donate to.
00:42:07.660
And then if I fail to live up to the goal that I said, well, you would press a button and suddenly
00:42:13.460
200 bucks, 500 bucks, a hundred bucks, whatever the amount might be is going to be taken out of my,
00:42:19.220
you know, charged my credit card and donated to whatever this disliked organization is.
00:42:25.060
Now, you know, through the lens of present and future selves, the gist here is that
00:42:28.840
you've got to pick punishments that are strong enough to deter the unwanted behavior,
00:42:34.220
but not so strong that we don't sign up altogether and just say, no, I would never do that to myself.
00:42:40.960
And so one thing to keep in mind when you implement these commitment devices is you might realize,
00:42:46.800
okay, so present self makes this decision to, let's say, write a book by the end of the year.
00:42:51.820
And so you start writing and you make a commitment with sticks. If I don't finish a manuscript by
00:42:57.560
the end of the year, then I got to pay X amount of dollars to this anti-charity.
00:43:01.900
But then in the course of writing, you discover, you know what? I don't actually enjoy writing a
00:43:07.460
book. This is not what I want to do. So you might learn by staying the course for that future self
00:43:12.100
that actually what you thought was your future self isn't your future self.
00:43:15.660
Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, I think that's okay to
00:43:22.660
some degree. Yeah. Right. Because that's reality. We can plan. You know, I love the phrase man plans
00:43:28.520
and God laughs. You know, it's like we can know that and I think still plan and then be flexible
00:43:35.720
with our plans. Right. So, yeah, I mean, that might apply that you might be able to back out of some
00:43:41.380
things, but not all things. Like you can't just be like, I'm going to back out from being a parent.
00:43:45.060
Right. Right. Your kid gets to be a teenager and you're like, yeah, I don't like this. Done with
00:43:49.700
this one. You can't do that. Um, or, you know, you can't do that with the, some people do with,
00:43:55.460
with romantic partners. Well, you know, five years in don't like this one, get rid of that one. So
00:44:01.680
yeah, I, yeah, I think when you make a certain types of changes, you got to be careful about what
00:44:07.120
you do because they might have very dramatic outcomes if you decide to, to jettison it.
00:44:12.960
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And I mean, I think, yeah, you can't just, uh,
00:44:19.200
you can't just like suddenly make all these changes. Like there's no consequences. Right.
00:44:27.180
But I think the bigger insight here is that we still have to make decisions moving forward and
00:44:35.720
also recognize that our future selves are going to change and have different preferences from us.
00:44:40.040
And then, you know, idiosyncratically consider how we deal with that. Right. So yeah, ourselves
00:44:45.260
might change, but there's still a permanent part of ourself that we have to reckon with,
00:44:49.940
not only with ourselves, but with other people, like other people are depending on us to be
00:44:55.640
permanent in a way. So we can't just, we can't change big things willy nilly. Like if suddenly
00:44:59.340
you become this just jerk, I, you see what I'm saying here? It's like, I guess this, again,
00:45:04.340
like this gets really philosophical, like when is it okay to course correct on yourself? And when
00:45:10.340
are there ethical and moral quandaries that arise when you do that?
00:45:14.860
Yeah. Yeah. This is a, I think this is a really, this is a really difficult question to grapple with,
00:45:20.440
you know, because this is almost a question for the philosophers, but I'm not sure that we've fully
00:45:26.180
sort of, you know, delineated, like, what are the spaces where it's okay to sort of make a shift?
00:45:32.160
What are the other ones where we have almost like a moral or ethical responsibility to stick
00:45:36.660
with the plans that our past selves made? I mean, I think also, by the way, this is exactly why big
00:45:42.520
life decisions are so, you know, existentially confronting because we do probably on some level
00:45:49.680
recognize that when we decide to get married or become a parent, you know, if we are fortunate
00:45:55.320
enough to sort of decide that or, you know, decide to switch careers or something like that,
00:45:59.440
there are implications for those choices. Yeah. And that's quite, that's quite difficult to sort
00:46:06.720
of recognize. And yet at the same time, it's not that we just sit in a state of paralysis and do
00:46:11.800
nothing. You know, eventually you make the decision and you do it with your sort of best guess in mind.
00:46:18.000
One thing that the research suggested, I think is really important to consider is to not just try to
00:46:25.320
simulate our own future selves, but to talk to others who've made the same decisions as us.
00:46:30.300
So you get a better idea of what it's like to be a vampire. You might not know completely,
00:46:33.980
but you'll have a better idea. Exactly. Exactly. So we've been talking about how,
00:46:38.980
if we feel closer to our future self, we're more willing to do things for our future self that might
00:46:43.880
not benefit us in the present, right? We're more willing to give up eating the cake, exercise,
00:46:49.180
going to bed early, saving more instead of spending more. But you make the case that
00:46:55.300
if we really want to be good time travelers and good to our future selves, sometimes it pays to
00:47:01.920
indulge present self. So how can indulging present self be good for future self?
00:47:07.460
Yeah, absolutely. I think this is a really important question to ask because
00:47:11.540
at the end of the day, the things we do in the present are what create the memories that future
00:47:17.940
self can look back on and have. And, you know, if we're sort of always sacrificing for future me,
00:47:25.620
what sort of present is that, right? It's like not, it's just not, life isn't going to be
00:47:29.800
fun or worth living to some degree. Maybe that's extreme. And so I do think it makes sense to
00:47:36.540
occasionally sort of celebrate the present, you know, to go for it, to do the thing, to pay the upgrade
00:47:42.640
so that we can both enjoy now and also have experiential memories that future you can look
00:47:51.300
back on with satisfaction and contentment and happiness and whatnot. You know, the issue arises
00:47:58.480
when we always do the upgrade. And then also the issue arises when we never do it, right? And so
00:48:05.200
to some extent, this is all, you know, idiosyncratic, but it's kind of finding
00:48:09.980
what's the right back and forth between present and future self so that both can be satisfied,
00:48:18.120
almost to sort of expand the pie for ourselves across time.
00:48:21.880
Well, Hal, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book
00:48:25.880
Yeah, thanks, Brett. It's been so great to talk to you. They can go to halhershfield.com. I've got
00:48:30.280
everything there. And the book, Your Future Self, How to Make Tomorrow Better Today,
00:48:38.220
Fantastic. Well, Hal Hirshfield, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:48:42.940
My guest here is Hal Hirshfield. He's the author of the book, Your Future Self. It's available on
00:48:46.720
amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about his work at his website,
00:48:51.000
halhershfield.com. Also check out our show notes at awim.is slash future self,
00:48:55.960
where you can find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic.
00:49:04.200
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at
00:49:10.200
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00:49:14.080
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00:49:29.440
continued support. Until next time, it's Brett McKay, reminding you to listen to the AOM podcast,