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The RedLeaf Fitness Podcast
The RedLeaf Fitness Podcast
Reading with Ari: Scarcity Brain by Michael Easter
In our latest podcast episode, my guest Ari and I discuss Michael Easter's book "Scarcity Brain." We explore how our survival instincts and scarcity cues can keep us trapped in a cycle of insatiability, and the far-reaching implications of scarcity and numbers in our daily decisions. We also tackle the controversial topic of cancel culture and the alarming rise of overthinking and offer practical guidance to foster contentment through gratitude, meditation, and wise decision-making. Tune in now for a deep understanding of how scarcity influences our lives and how we can combat its effects.
🧠 This episode and more are available now on all streaming platforms. Check it out on Spotify, iTunes or http://podcast.redleaf.fit/
'𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐝𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐟 𝐅𝐢𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐏𝐨𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬, 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐲, 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞.
#Strength #Adventure #Community
Welcome back to another edition of the Red Leaf Fitness podcast, a show dedicated to bringing you stories, interviews and conversations about living a healthy, resilient and productive life. I'm your host, sean Blinch, and I want to thank you for making time to listen to this episode today and, if you like what we're putting down, we would love it if you would follow, rate and share this podcast. Alright, now let's get down to business. Welcome back to the Red Leaf Fitness podcast. On Monday, november 13th, I am sitting here today with Ari. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm good. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing so good.
Speaker 2:Good to be back.
Speaker 1:You and I have been apart.
Speaker 2:I know, but only like physically.
Speaker 1:And geographical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we talk all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but not in spirit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's truly a point.
Speaker 1:But here we are.
Speaker 2:Here we are.
Speaker 1:You make the drive down Happily. You're coming from Oakville or Burlington.
Speaker 2:Well, I would be coming from Burlington but I was at my mom's, so Brampton.
Speaker 1:Brampton. Okay, yeah, so not too too bad. Not too too bad. There's one turn. I don't know if it's the same when you're coming back, I think it is the same, but there's one sort of transfer where I think you go from the express to the to like collectors.
Speaker 2:Is that what you're?
Speaker 1:talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's like where, it's like the bottleneck.
Speaker 1:It's super gnarly there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's always so much traffic. Yeah, I feel like partly it's probably people confused. They don't know if they want to go to the express, go to the collectors and it's like a mess yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that part. It used to give me the heebies. But the reason why we're sitting down today is we are doing our next installment in our book review, and this one's a really cool one. It's a really special one. So months ago, ari and I kind of bonded over the comfort crisis by Michael Leester. And then, when Ari caught wind of his new book, which was well before I even knew he was coming out, she said, oh, we got to do this. And I was like, okay. And then one day she walked in and she gave me the book. I'm like now you don't have a choice. So I was voluntold. Yeah, basically as it should be, but this book was wonderful, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Oh my God, so good. I just I love him as an author.
Speaker 1:I do too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, his writing style is just great, so great.
Speaker 1:You asked me a really cool question when you got here. You were like so which one did you like better? And what she meant was like which did you like comfort crisis or did you like scarcity brain better? Which is the book that we're reviewing today, scarcity brain, michael Leester, and I wouldn't mind like would you tell me your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it's tough because I did really love both. Like I feel like the first one changed a couple aspects of my like daily activities.
Speaker 1:That's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like now, I got into rocking and it was because of the book, of course, because you told me a bunch about it, and then I started hearing it on podcast and it mainly was parked by reading his book and, like I was even saying, like wrecking alone has changed, like my running and like all these things that I didn't even notice. So I feel like that book has a special place in my heart for me, just because I feel like it did change a couple things. But then scarcity brain, like we were saying before, it touched on things and in a way that I hadn't thought of before, like we're going to be talking about the scarcity loop and I had never thought of apps and slot machines and all these things through that lens.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah. So would you say that one sort of impacted you more than the other, or just differently?
Speaker 2:Just differently, because now, like now that I read about the scarcity loop and all these things, I can start seeing it in different places and just being knowledgeable of that has an impact in my behavior. So yeah, what would you say?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would. I would agree. I think I think comfort crisis is probably in my heart in a more emotional way, just because I think I think the book is a work of art, just how he was able to go through and just tell such a beautiful story in parallel with the points that he was trying to get across and how important they are. But I think what I, what touched me the most about both of these books, is his ability to be so topical about what society needs, ahead of society knowing it needs it. And comfort crisis is something and what I what's so cool about his book. You know, comfort crisis, you know, when I first thought I was like, oh God, there's going to be a book that's going to make me feel bad about using a pillow when I sleep and he does say that a bit in the book about like not feeling bad about these things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know he's really good at just saying hey, like you know, I'm not saying modern comforts are not a great thing. What I'm saying is we should be aware of some of the ramifications downstream that these are causing and how we can we can approach our lives. And so he did the exact same thing. I felt in scarcity brain. He's saying, hey, like it's not a bad thing to use an app, but you should. You should be an informed user of that app and understand that what it's leveraging against you and what you're trading away, and then that way at least you're in charge of your life with it. And it's not about a shame Like don't be ashamed for being on Twitter but understand what's happening, using it for the right reasons, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so scarcity brain by Michael Easter. Would you mind kicking us off and telling us about what it's about?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think an easy way to explain what this book was overall about is human suck and moderation. Like we want everything in access and like we keep eating when we're full. We keep shopping when we own too much. We keep drinking when we should have stopped already. We keep scrolling when we probably shouldn't be. Like we suck at doing things in the right amount. We just love doing too much of it all.
Speaker 1:I've never once done any of those things.
Speaker 2:No, not at all. You've never eaten too much, to a point where you're, like regretted.
Speaker 1:No, never bought things I don't need.
Speaker 2:I went to my sister's all you can eat pizza and, oh man, big regrets. I ate way too much. It's like never coming here again.
Speaker 1:Wait, can we just plug that pizza place real quick?
Speaker 2:So Okay, so what's the name of the pizza?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Which just means everybody's always like what the hell does that even mean? Just very thin crust, lots of toppings. Amazing, it's at near St Clair and Dufferin and she does all. You can eat pizza once a month. So if you want to eat pizza to your heart's content till you feel sick, that's where you should go.
Speaker 1:And what's it called?
Speaker 2:It's called Y, it's spelled U-A -I, because it's just like this thing that we say in my state. It's similar to Canadian saying A, so we named it that. But yeah, if you want to make a pizza.
Speaker 1:How would you use Y in a statement?
Speaker 2:Basically the same way we use A. Like you can end any sentence. You can put in the middle of a sentence like Could you do a sentence? Like in Portuguese. Yeah, I'll go say this a pizza why? Yeah, like you could literally add it anywhere.
Speaker 1:What did you say?
Speaker 2:I really like that pizza. A yeah, Like it's very, very similar, very, very similar.
Speaker 1:Best.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, go check it out, yeah, so basically that's what the book is about is just why do we suck so bad at moderating? Why can't we just do things to a right amount? Why do we got to have so much of it? And he believes that the main reason why we do this is because of these scarcity cues. And a scarcity cue is basically anything that lets us know that we don't have enough. So it makes us think that we don't have enough.
Speaker 2:So it could be even something as simple as walking by your neighbor's house and seeing that he got a shiny new car, or being at a restaurant and somebody being served more food than you were. Like those little things, even though we might not notice, those are little cues that in our brain it's like oh, you don't have enough, so you must eat more or do this more to get this thing that you really want. And this was amazing for our ancestors, our monkey brains, because we lived in the world of scarcity. Like we didn't know when we were going to get our next meal. We didn't know if, being a lower member of our tribe, like, would we able to survive if we were at that point. So like, we have this need for influence too, because at that point if we had a big influence in our tribe, we were more likely to survive.
Speaker 2:So we lived in environments of scarcity. We didn't know if we should eat a lot, because if we didn't eat a lot we might not survive. So it's like we had to want a lot of things or else we probably wouldn't make it. But the thing is like, that made sense back then. But now we live in a world of abundance. We have access to literally everything. You need connection, go on Instagram, you need food, uber Eats, you need to buy something Amazon Prime. But, like back then, that wasn't a thing. But even though our environment has evolved, our brains are still the exact same. So we're still stuck in that mentality of I need all these things or else I might die, even though we won't die. But our brains are still that monkey brain from the past.
Speaker 1:You know, isn't it amazing at how many times like this is a common thread, isn't it? It's like we evolved this way, but now we're living in on Jupiter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is insane.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, and so it's. Isn't it recurring, right? You just like we evolved to never know what our next meal is. However, we still have those exact same cues and sparks in our brains.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I know my next meal could be sitting in the fridge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, our brains are like but what if it isn't? I guess I'm going to eat an extra slice of pizza because there might not be food at home. What if it's not? Do I want to risk dying? I don't. So yeah, so we basically suck at moderating because our brains are still stuck in that world of scarcity, where we didn't have much.
Speaker 2:And the best way to explain that is to look at this thing that he describes as the scarcity loop, which is made up of three parts opportunity, unpredictable rewards and quick repeatability. So if you look at each part of the loop, the first thing you have is an opportunity. So this is basically any opportunity we are given to give to get something of value that could improve our lives. So a great example is I could open this app on my phone and scroll and might see this incredible thing. So we have that opportunity to do that.
Speaker 2:And another example is like a slot machine. I might click the button on the slot machine and I might win a lot of money, which leads us to the next part, which is unpredictable rewards. And that's the key thing we might get something of value, but we might not. And if we do get it, we don't know when we're going to get or how much we're going to get, and that really sucks human in. And you could see that easily in a slot machine, because when you press the button you might win $10,000 or you might win 50 cents. And same thing with Instagram, for example you might scroll, you might see something cool, you might not.
Speaker 2:And another important part of the loop is quick, quick, quick repeatability. So most things in life have a beginning and end, like if you have an itch, you scratch that itch and the itch is done. But with something like this, it's like I can keep scrolling, I can keep pressing that button on that slot machine, and the fact that I can do that so quickly gets us going through this loop over and over again, because if I do that I might get something awesome. I might not, and that just keeps us stuck in that loop over and over again.
Speaker 1:You like, when I open up Instagram and there's this like red dot, I'm like what's the red?
Speaker 2:dot Exactly. And it's insane, because that part of what is that red dot, that's what's key. It's like that gets us more exciting than actually seeing what that red dot is. So that keeps us going over and over again. And he gives a great example of like you get home from work stressed and you have a glass of wine and that glass of wine lowers your stress level. Your brain goes oh okay, so if I get home stressed and I have some wine, that's going to lower my stress. So next time you get home, before you even think about the glass of wine, your brain's already like okay, you're stressed, let's crave that glass of wine, because the last time we had it it lowered our stress. So then you start craving it just because it did lower your stress. So even the craving of the wine is a bigger satisfaction to you than even having the wine. Which is like why? Why is our brains like that?
Speaker 1:Why do we why?
Speaker 2:do we function that way?
Speaker 1:You know, speaking of wine, it's really interesting that I think that I think the scarcity loop has actually saved me from wine. So I don't, I don't know how you feel about alcohol or whatever, but I've noticed that in the last little while, since I've turned 97 years old of age.
Speaker 2:I've tracked like 60 from that.
Speaker 1:Alcohol turns me into an anxious wreck. I, I can. I'm not a fan. I've never been, you've never been a drinker.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've, I was always like a good I could, I could drink, I had a good balance of it and stuff. But if I have one drink I start thinking really bad things.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, that's good. You have a negative like feedback loop. I have a negative feedback loop now which is that's good, it's, yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1:And then the one thing I wanted to. You know what this part of the book reminded me of the unpredictable reward. You know what else this does for me. That hit me. There's there's some of this in misogy. There's some of this, yeah Cause you don't know how. You don't know if it's going to finish it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, you don't know if you're going to finish. You don't know if you finish you're going to feel accomplished for doing it, like there's so much unpredictability to it.
Speaker 1:Like and this is why part why I like big goals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even like, exactly like with the homo-soggy thing, like I might run this 5k but like am I going to finish at the time? That I was hoping is like the weather going to be good, am I going to be feeling good that day? Like there's so much unpredictability but it's like, if it does go well, like how good am I going to feel.
Speaker 1:So good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's like that. That's a big part of it too, so like it can be used in a positive way. It's just not not just negative.
Speaker 1:That's right, and when I finished my first Ironman last summer or this summer, I had no idea how it was going to go. It could have gone really, really bad, and in fact, a few weeks prior, when I was at the half Ironman in the same place, it did go really bad not in my performance, just that the smoke rolled in and I couldn't run it. It was devastating.
Speaker 2:And you would have never expected that.
Speaker 1:Yeah and uh, yeah, nobody ran the race that day and then, but when I finished and I came across the finish line, the amount, the purchase on life that that day was, I will never forget it. It changed my life. It's uh, my life is forever changed going forward. That's amazing, yeah, and I've never felt more love in my entire life than I did that day. Very different than when, like you know, I don't know like my kids were born, or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a different thing from from an external like for social setting. The messages that you sent me, the messages that the voice messages that you know, um, everything like everything, meant so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you should feel proud Like that was a huge accomplishment.
Speaker 1:And it's all part of that unpredictability.
Speaker 2:It, is it really?
Speaker 1:is.
Speaker 2:Cause you don't know, you have no idea how that's gonna, how it's gonna go If you were going to finish, if you're not going to finish, if something was going to happen mid race or not.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah, so that made me think yeah, sorry for intruding.
Speaker 2:No, that's totally okay. Um, so how does it, how does this scarcity loop hook us? And it's basically, like I said, we lived in a world of scarcity. We didn't know when we were going to get food or not. Like we could go to one location, nothing, go to another location, nothing go to another place, jackpot, all kinds of food, um, but how much food was at that location? Like, was it a small little rabbit or was it like a little bush of berries? It was a whole herd of animals, we didn't know.
Speaker 2:And it's and it's so funny because, even if it, if we did travel hours and hours and hours and hours and we got there and it was like this little tiny bush, our brains still registers that as a win, like, even though, if you think about it technically, that was a loss because you lost so much calories to get to that one place, but we registered as a win because you still sort of got a reward out of it. It's even like when you play a slot machine and you bet five bucks but you win 50 cents, it's like, oh my God, I won, let me do this again. And that's built into our brain because if you didn't feel that way you wouldn't go foraging for food again, so our species would have died. So it's like our brains were built that way for a reason. That's what kept us alive.
Speaker 1:That was one of the most interesting parts of the book.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like this section.
Speaker 2:I agree too. So like literally, our brains are that way because of survival. So we should be thankful, or else we wouldn't be here at all. And the way that that is built into our brain and more of a like biological way, is through the neurotransmitter dopamine. So dopamine is super interesting and I think it gets like it gets my nerd brain going because there's so much to dopamine and I'm like we should even read dopamine nation we book do. So.
Speaker 2:Dopamine is like any other neurotransmitter. It basically transmit transmit information between nerve cells. It basically helps us associate a certain condition in our environment with getting a reward. So once we know that something is rewarding, dopamine gets released in our brain when we're anticipating receiving that thing. So when you begin to associate in the activity with pleasure, the anticipation alone is going to raise your dopamine levels. And if the reward is even better than you thought, then we get an even bigger hit of dopamine. And that's what gets us hooked to doing that thing over and over again because we might get that huge hit of dopamine.
Speaker 2:So the basic formula formula goes we do a thing. If that thing was rewarding, we're now more likely to do that thing again in a similar condition. So that's basically what I explained. In regards to the example with the wine, if we got home and we had that wine and really it decreased our stress levels, we're likely to do it again because our brain remembers and again. Yeah, the same thing happens with slot machine. Like imagine if every time you hit the button of a slot machine it paid you the same exact amount. That would be called a job. It wouldn't be a slot machine and it wouldn't be exciting because it would just be the same amount. There's no unpredictability to that. So to us that's not exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is which is pretty, pretty cool. So yeah, like the, I guess, in summary, the reason why it hooks us is because it kept us alive, and if you didn't persist, you would die quitters die. So we had to be the kind of humans who persisted and did things over and over again, despite the chances of not getting a reward, or else we would have died as a species.
Speaker 1:Quitters die.
Speaker 2:Quitters die. You hear that.
Speaker 1:Quitters die.
Speaker 2:You can put that on a shirt Quitters die. Start a whole like movement. That sounds so bad.
Speaker 2:There's certain things you should quit, so don't take that literal. So where can you find this scarcity loop? It's literally everywhere, not just slot machines. So social media again it's a great example. We post and we scroll, all because we might get a like, we might get a, we might get more followers, we might get a DM and to us that's like, well, if there's a chance that I will get it, then I'm willing to do it and figure out what works, what doesn't. Same thing with emails when we refresh our inbox. Shopping like Amazon Prime, because there's the great, great, quick repeatability with that Like we can quickly just click order now. Same thing with Netflix, like with the autoplay. And another great example are dating apps, because they're basically slot machines.
Speaker 2:It's like swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, no match, swipe, swipe, swipe, match. And it's like especially something like Tinder. It's like you match and you're like, oh my God, was that like that incredible guy that to me seemed perfect? And it's like our brains just go nuts at like the possibility of it even being that. So it is like a slot machine. And even news, like with the whole, with like breaking news and stuff. We get excited in a way that it's like I don't know what that could be. Is that like a good breaking news? Is that a bad breaking news? And a study even found that the most unpredictable and controversial politicians on both sides actually get the most engagement. Yeah, anything that's super controversial to us is like very excited again because of the unpredictability of it all.
Speaker 1:I want to narrow in on that part, just for us. I think that's really, really important. I remember reading this over and over and over. Yeah, like it's not the first time I've heard it, but you know, like the best books in the world tell you what you already know louder, and that's just like go back to what Ari said. So the algorithms within the news and social media are rewarding the most negative and controversial viewpoints.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the news is so skewed, so incredibly skewed.
Speaker 1:So the darker and more paralyzed or polarized um the statement or the fact or the or whatever it is, that is what gets the volume turned out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like a learned behavior, like people noticed that, like when people started posting to Twitter, they realized that whenever they posted something controversial, it got more likes and it got more retweets. So it was kind of like okay, so if I do this, it's a numbers game, I'm going to get more influence in a way, like I'm going to become more famous online in a way. So why would I not post something more controversial? Because if I post something neutral or not controversial, it's not going to get as many likes, as many as retweets, so it's not exciting to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like if I said I, um, I discourage the use of the color mauve, no, it would listen. But if I said, when I see the color mauve, I slap someone across the face with a sea bass and you know like the more rage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the more rage there is to the post, the more likes and tweets and all of that that it gets. Yeah, huge problem. If it's more emotional, anything that's just yeah, that holds a lot of that. It gets people going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and news is a documented depressant.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We know that and so, if we know that we're being, our scarcity cues are being levered against us to go and reach for more of a depressant big problem.
Speaker 2:We should be aware of that. Yeah, so yeah. Like we humans literally have this innate need for more because it got us to survive. He even says what was an unexpected pleasure yesterday is what we feel entitled to today. It won't be enough tomorrow, which is very true. A new thing comes out and it's like okay, I guess it's not enough anymore. No, I need to get this other thing. And they even ran experiments to show how humans have this need for more, by showing how we love to add but we hate to subtract.
Speaker 2:This one expert, lighty Klotz, conducted a bunch of experience experiments like showing participants this Lego bridge and telling them to stabilize it, or showing them a miniature golf hole flow and telling them make this better. And each time participants just wanted to add more Legos or add more features to the miniature golf. And even when he told them like look, I'm going to charge you for every Lego piece that you add, humans still added. And like, even when he specifically said you can add, but you can also subtract, humans still pick adding, which is insane because to us, adding is good, adding is like that's abundance.
Speaker 1:That's positive. More is better.
Speaker 2:And less is like. No less sucks Like. Why would you want to subtract things Like?
Speaker 1:I don't want any less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't want any less, I want more. So it's like that's that shows that it's built into our brains. And it's funny because when he did the same Lego bridge study with his kid, his kid immediately took out Legos, which is kind of funny. It feels like, although it is built into our brain, or our environments make that worse.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we live in a society that encourages adding and adding, and adding.
Speaker 1:Are we doomed?
Speaker 2:I think, at this point, I think we are doomed. And he even gives the example of saying that, like we now own 233% more clothes than we did in the 1930s and restaurant portion sizes are four times larger compared to the 1950, which is like there's proven numbers, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:And that is the success of a country, by looking at their GDP, which is literally just more.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And basically the extreme to all this wanting and adding and adding is addiction, which is just chronically seeking a reward, despite all the negative things that come with it. And you can even you can clearly see that, like when marijuana became legalized, the use of it went down because it wasn't unpredictable anymore. It wasn't as exciting as it was before. You can see that back then, during the alcohol, during the prohibition, when you couldn't, alcohol was prohibited, there was a huge rise in alcohol because of the unpredictability of being able to acquire that. And again it goes back to us wanting more and more and more and more, so much that we get hooked into this loop. A little bit doesn't satisfy us anymore. And I thought this stats was also so interesting. He said that 2% of the world's population is addicted to drugs or alcohol. And then and now, the same percentage, the same percentage. 2% is roughly what. The same amount of people that are addicted to technology, which is is crazy to think that's such a new problem.
Speaker 1:You know, I just want to jump in and you like, right? What you were saying just reminded me of this perfect quote by Mark Twain that I always loved, and he says it is in the prohibition that makes anything precious.
Speaker 2:It is, but you can't have it. You really want it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you make something just like? You know, like and he was talking in the context this is back in like the 1890s, when prohibition was like really starting to take over stuff and they knew about it. Then this is like something that we've known for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and people are leveraging it. Now, like, if you look at like I think, a great example that I might a lot of people that listen might understand, like the Crossfish shoes, rads, why are they so popular? Because there's only a few amount Like you might. When you go on that site, when it's released, you might get it, you might not. It might be sold out by the time you click, and that alone is like I might get it. So why, like, I want to order it because I might be. And then it goes back to influence and it's like, oh, I might be one of the few people that have those shoes, which is like, whether you want to admit to it or not, it's like there is this influenced thing of, like I'm part of this group that owns these shoes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like it's. So I think it's really hard for us to even accept that. But there is an element to that of like you do feel kind of cool to own this very exclusive pair of shoes.
Speaker 1:Are there like other companies that are just like all over this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's always been companies doing drops, like a limited amount of this shirt or this pairs of shoes, and that sells like crazy and Rad is like capitalizing on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of my, one of the teens that I train, and he was. He was telling me about some of these companies and he was like, oh, have you heard of this? And I was like, no dude, I haven't heard of that company, I'm old Mold. But yeah, he would show me pictures of it and it would be hideous. And it's just like this. It's just like this. It was these two words. I can't remember what the words were. Do you know these companies?
Speaker 2:No, I don't know which company you're referring to.
Speaker 1:It was like oh, sean, you're so old and yeah.
Speaker 2:but yeah, the companies have been doing this for a long time and it's just in its yeah, yeah, and it's literally playing to this to like our need for influence, cause you do feel kind of special to be able to own this thing that nobody else has, and they can only because it's a limited edition thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So then he asks the question like what is it about these tech products and the scarcity loop that can be such a comforting escape in the first place? And it lies in certainty. As much as we love unpredictability, we love uncertainty. We hate uncertainty. Like with a slot machine, for example. You press the button, there is that unpredictability of I might get something, I might not get it. By the times the reels stop spinning, you have an answer, you know you got it, you didn't get it. And then, like life is not like that, you might do a thing and it might take years for you to know whether that thing was smart or not.
Speaker 2:So, like, humans basically hate anything that doesn't give us an answer right away. And one great example that he talked about is they did a study with people where they had to flip over a rock and if there was a snake under that rock, they got shocked. Humans hated that because they didn't know it was uncertain whether they were gonna get shocked or not, that they actually preferred picking to get shocked then, not like just getting shocked by like being uncertain whether they were gonna get it or not. So, like, even though we hate, even though we love unpredictability, we hate uncertainty, we hate not knowing, and games are great because you play a game, whether it's like something like social media, which doesn't feel like a game, but at the end of the day, it is because it's a numbers game. We get like real certainty of how we're doing based on those things, and we don't get that in real life.
Speaker 1:That's incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like you go through nature and it's like you feel good, but you can't put a number on that, so like it's hard to know for certain how that's affecting you. But social media it's like, okay, you have 10,000 followers. It's like you're putting a number to it. You know exactly how you're doing. Which is A score?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a score at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is like-.
Speaker 1:Are you getting an A, a B or a C?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like even grades. He says like grades were created just to make admins' lives easier. And he even says he's like kids nowadays are so focused on their grades that like it doesn't really matter if they're learning or not. It's more like yeah, the numbers what matters.
Speaker 1:How'd you memorize?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, it's a memorization. It's like, how well can you memorize this so you can get a good grade? Yeah, yeah. And I thought another great example that he gave was this guy, robert Parker. He started long time ago. He started giving wine scores and that completely changed this. Yeah, like how many wine of each brand was being sold? Because if he gave it a high score, everybody was like, okay, must be good, because this number is high, so we should get, we should buy this wine because it must be better than the other, even though it was like it was based on this one guy's taste. But because we value numbers so much, we ended up people ended up buying more because of this one guy. And again, you can clearly see how that plays into social media and it's. I even thought it was interesting.
Speaker 2:I don't have this in the notes so I don't know the exact name of the tribe. There's still a tribe, I think, in the Amazon that don't even use numbers. All they. They can only count up to three and everything else is like small, a medium amount in large, like they don't even have numbers. It's like it's such a new thing to us and we put so much value into it when really it's just an over. They're just over simplified scores that don't really tell us the whole thing. Which then leads us to what I was just talking about influence and how we have this need, and it goes back to food. We lived in a world of scarcity in regards to food, but also in regards to influence, because we lived in groups of 150 people, so there was only a number of people that we could influence, and the more influence we could have, the bigger our chances of survival and passing on our DNA. So that's also still very much in our brains of like the more that I can influence somebody, the better I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1:You know I'm really connected to this point that you just made about humans evolved with in and around the 150 people Like you know. How many books have you read? That like like sort of refer to this research and stuff.
Speaker 1:And it just it really speaks to me for a couple of reasons. Number one you know, here I'm about to get a little personal. So, like, one of the things that drives me so crazy about this world right now is people feel very justified and giving their opinion on you, whether you are just somebody on Instagram just trying to post things about fitness, or you're reviewing things, or you want a business, or you work for a company or something. But what are the things I realized in the last couple of years is that, like everybody's got typically gonna have a negative opinion that's going to be loaded with their negative to be able to deliver them. They're the result that they want for their life. So what has to happen is this negative opinion has to go out there, make you feel bad, so the person can acquire their result.
Speaker 1:Now, one of the things that I one of the mental crutches that I use against this, and why this drives me crazy, is that okay, number one, you're not in my 150. And even if you are, there's a boundary on how close. Like you're still pretty, you're still sitting pretty high up in my arena. Like you're not, you're not in the premium seats. So if you're a person, 150, that's like the least amount of fucks that I have a pep for opinion.
Speaker 1:You know if you're in my top 10, I really care and so that's how I triage people's negative feedback. People love this word feedback, this corporate whitewashing of feedback. It's just feedback to fuck your feedback. I'm not always like, really willing to take that in, like, so I'm aware to listen to it, but I'm not always gonna take that in as if you have full access, because you know what? Not everybody knows me well enough to make me feel like shit today.
Speaker 2:Exactly agree, and they shouldn't have that ability.
Speaker 1:This world is, like, so built to make you feel like shit all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's the entitlement. There's just way too much entitlement. It's way too many people thinking they get to have an opinion on things they don't get to have an opinion on.
Speaker 1:I went on a bit of a tangent there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a good tangent though. So like it's very clear that we care about status, and I think a great example that he gave is like planes that have a first class or four times more likely to have air rage Somebody causing some sort of trouble in the plane. And what's extra interesting is that when people that are in economy have to walk past first class, that number goes up to nine. So like even that, like just seeing, oh there's all these people that are doing better than me, that can, that are making more money than me. That pisses some people off and they don't even notice. But if you look at the stats, there are way more air rage incidents on those types of planes, which is that's crazy.
Speaker 1:I will. I am never gonna be a flight risk or risk of doing rage, but I'll admit. When I walk through them I'm like, oh, look at this. Yeah, like must be nice. Wow, Must be nice, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 2:You get to lie down while I get to sit with my knees crammed. Yeah, like it's whether we like it or not, like and the whole thing too, that he says it took psychologists years to start studying status. Because there's this thing of like we know that, we care about it, but it's kind of like if I show that I care about my status and about my influence, it looks bad. So it took psychologists forever to study it because there is such a negative connotation to it, even though it's not all negative. Like if the kind of thing that you're spreading is a good thing, then influence is good. It gets people like motivated, sharing good stuff with the world. So it's not always bad. But there is this bad connotation of like if you care about your social rank, then that's bad. Like you must be selfish, you must be this, you must be that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, I thought this was another very cool study. He did a poll of 70%. He did a poll and he found that 70% of workers said they prefer a better title over a raise, because they believe that the better title would lead others to view them in a more successful light and respectful light and give them more influence. Which is like that shows you how important rank is. Yeah, and like the other one that I had to write down cause I thought it was so cool how we feel at any given moment is surprisingly linked to the pawn we're in. So one research that they did was they found that the 1%ile of wealth, so these are the 1% of people that are making 600K a year they often feel poor, and the reason why they feel poor is because they usually also live around other people that are making that amount of money. So if those people seem to have slightly more than them, they feel poor because that's the people that they're surrounded by, which is like that's just crazy. And then he kind of talks about how even this drive for influence that we have can create a lot of anxiety for us. One research showed that the most stressful thing that can happen to us is taking on a big public task that we don't feel prepared for, or even seeing two people whisper Because yeah, automatically our brain goes you must be talking shit.
Speaker 2:Like there's no way that you are saying nice things right now. It's like we automatically assume the words, and I think this other one is a big one that I think you're the exact same as me and, like me and my friend Chris, he always joke around about this. It's like you say something to somebody like an ambiguous comment and it didn't mean anything, you automatically assume that the person is like, thinking the worst of you, like, oh my God, they definitely took this the wrong way and you start to think about how am I going to fix this. But when it's the other way around, if somebody says something ambiguous to you, you don't generally overthink it. You're like I probably didn't mean anything, like. But when it's the other way, we're like no, no, they hate me Now. It's like I'm stupid, I said something dumb.
Speaker 1:It's like we automatically get concerned about it. I read this in the book and I was like are you talking? Are you talking to me?
Speaker 2:Are you specifically using me as an example?
Speaker 1:Somebody tell you about me.
Speaker 2:We're such over thinkers and it goes back to like this influence thing. It's like I don't want to be seen as somebody who would do that, because then that lowers my social ranking away.
Speaker 1:I I in fact have done this to you. I have sent you a 17 paragraph text like this is what happened. I didn't mean it.
Speaker 2:And the whole time I'm like Sean. This never crossed my mind. So funny though, because I've done that too. It's like, and those are the things that like you remember forever. You're like remember when I did that. One thing like nobody remembers, but you do which it's nuts, it's nuts. But now there's this whole thing of like. Like. Social media is great, but there's this whole rise of like cancel culture, because before we used to live in these little groups of 150 people, but if we did something wrong it would stay in that little group. Now it's like you do something stupid and somebody's with a camera near you. This is getting blown up on social media, which is like. It's a lot more intense now than it used to be back then.
Speaker 1:I just I want to comment on that one. I think this is also tied into my, my deep thought on the one magic of 150 and cancel culture and how much it fucking pisses me off.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We try to cancel people, and I understand that a lot of it comes from a really good place, but, and I and I, and I yes, I understand there are times where, like you know, people do need to be canceled or whatever, I don't know. Um, but I think what I'm trying to say is that, like, can we please just think twice about? Like piling on people who made, who are making mistakes actively in front of us. It's like a car crash taking place and we can't take three beats and a deep breath and say what happened here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, instead of throwing blame around, and canceling people.
Speaker 1:It drives me nuts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like a little empathy, put yourself in the other person's shoe. You don't know.
Speaker 1:Like you know, one of um, a good friend of mine, once told me who's it. You know I won't mention his name. He's like um, he's a dude. People would know. But anyways, he said to me I was asking him about his career, he's on TV and stuff and I was like, so, like you know, how did it feel to rise up at such a young age and like you still have this career going.
Speaker 1:He's like. You know what I always I always believed that I was three bad decisions uh, away from living on the street and I was like oh my God, like I never took that out of my mind and that's how I made it through my career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, damn, yeah, that's tough, yeah, and I think that kind of ties into, like this thing that he mentions the fundamental attribution era era. It's how. It's basically how we attribute other people's actions to their character, but we attribute our own actions to factors outside of our control. So when someone's late to a meeting it's because they're lazy, but when we're late it's because we got stuck in traffic. So it's like it's so easy yeah, it's so easy to think that somebody else's mistake has something to do with their fundamental character, instead of thinking, oh, like, maybe their kids were running like psychos in the morning and they couldn't make it. But no, like, right away, we're like. No, they must be lazy, they slept in. It's like we automatically do that, which is again like little empathy, right?
Speaker 1:Can I relate this to CrossFit? Real quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:And CrossFit coaches. If you're listening to this, listen the fuck up, Okay.
Speaker 2:All right, everybody sit down and listen. Yeah, take some notes.
Speaker 1:Okay, if somebody walks into your class late and you give them a burpee penalty, that is so erroneous and you may be playful Okay, I know this is my hot take on it, but it's not. You have no idea what has happened between that person's like evening the night before and that car ride over here and what they're managing, you have no idea. No-transcript. I'm looking at them and I'm thinking the very opposite.
Speaker 2:Glad you could make it. Yeah, cause you don't know, you have no idea, and then it's like and then you do something like that and then the next time that they're at home and they know they're gonna be late, they might be like maybe I just won't go. And like that's snowballs and it's like that little thing that you did had a huge impact.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I will never assign shame for somebody trying to make it here, but they got here five minutes late ever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and like even arguments about being right or wrong is driven by this want to win, because it means more influence. So I love that he says like he gave this example with this chat that he had with his friend. But it was basically like you should ask yourself do you want to be happy or do you want to be right? Like, is this really worth me being right and screwing up this relationship?
Speaker 1:Probably not so every time I want to be right.
Speaker 2:We just have this like I must be right Even if I'm miserable. And it's actually really interesting because he even says he's like. Scientists found that people who say they're 95, 99% sure are usually wrong 40% of the time.
Speaker 1:So it's like a huge flag. Now, Once I read that, I'm like Me too. I'll never say that again.
Speaker 2:Me too. So many times I'm like I'm 99% sure. I'm like, yeah, I'm never saying that again.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because that's just silly. Then he there's a whole chapter about our need for more food and more food, and again it all goes back to our monkey brains and how we lived in the world. That didn't have a lot of food. And now food is literally made to be super yummy and irresistible and easily accessible and quick to eat, like snacks in particular. So this only this has only made it worse. Like, not only do we want food all the time, we now have access to this really tasty food that's so easy to eat.
Speaker 2:And one stat that I thought was really interesting is he said that during the peak of the pandemic, cardiovascular disease killed 250% more people than COVID. But we don't know that because the news doesn't talk about it. It's. There's a whole industry that needs us to be eating this type of food, so why would they put that on the news? So it's like we don't even pay attention to this stuff, which is which is insane. Like even says New York times and the Guardian. For example, they run nearly 10 times more headlines about cancer and 20 times more headlines about murders and terrorism. Yet, on average, an average American is 50% and 30 times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than cancer or homicide. Yet we still don't talk about how important it is to eat whole foods and not so much of this super ultra processed food.
Speaker 1:And this goes back to what we were talking about earlier, about how the news is a documented depressant turned up because it's rewarded to do so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so. It's like it's up to us to keep this stuff in mind and know that our brains function this way and, again, try to eat more wholesome foods, because it is having a huge impact on us and we can't we don't even notice that and now just to switch gears. Another thing we love as much as we love eating is accumulating things. Oh, we love to hoard things, like if you, if you drive around any street in Toronto, you're gonna see like one of those storage unit places they're literally everywhere which they didn't exist back then. But now we have so many things that we can't even keep them in our homes that we need to, we need to freaking rent an extra space to keep all these things that we don't use, because if they're there, you're not touching them.
Speaker 2:Okay, there's probably a couple of reasons why you would have that, but most of the time it's because you can't keep them in your home because you have so many things, which is that wasn't a problem back then, mainly because there was scarcity of resources to build all these things. But now, with, like the Industrial Revolution and all of that, we can just build, build, build, build, build. So we keep buying, buying, buying, buying because we have this need to have more things, because, again, back then, if we had more things, we could trade those things and that would help us survive. So our brains still function the same way and we still wanna keep hoarding things even though we don't have to. And I think a great example that he gave was the pandemic Like. Do you remember when there was a huge lack of toilet paper?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had it all. It was all in my house. I had it all.
Speaker 2:That caught me so off guard. I was like it never crossed my mind to hoard toilet paper. I was never like, oh, if there's one thing, I'm gonna buy a bunch of it's toilet paper. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I should heap, so I took it all.
Speaker 2:Like why I don't even. I still don't know. If you know, please tell me. Why was that a thing Like? Why did we think the thing that was gonna run out was toilet paper?
Speaker 1:And did you know that Ontario produces the most toilet paper?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's like on Dundas or something. There's like a huge factory of like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we make it here so like guys we had priority access to it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I still don't get that. He basically says that the did you have something you?
Speaker 1:wanted to add to the toilet paper. I did. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it.
Speaker 2:He basically says that the three main reasons why people love material goods is well, one it helped us survive back then because again we could trade it and it meant that we could have like tools for protection and stuff. The second reason is material possessions convey social status. So like having a fancy watch or a high end bag or cool rad shoes shows that, like I, must be high on the social rank because, you know, I was able to get online on time to buy this.
Speaker 1:I had this sick watch during the pandemic where it was just a watch band and a roll of toilet paper.
Speaker 2:Back then.
Speaker 1:So everybody knew.
Speaker 2:And then you stack on like a mask and like and yeah, rich. And then the third thing is that material goods can make us feel like we belong. So there's certain brand, there's this thing called brand tribalism, where we gain social status by being part of a brand. So like Patagonia is huge on this, or like something like Nike or Apple, like we get some social status from me from even owning things from that brand. And I think an interesting stat too is it says the average American home now has about 10,000 to 50,000 items, which is like insane.
Speaker 2:And it's interesting too, because we go through phases. We go through phases of we wanna hoard a bunch of things and then that gives us anxiety because we have so much. And then we go through phases of like minimalism and everyone's like must get rid of this. And then there was the whole like Mary condo thing that became huge and people were just trying to see if this thing brought me joy or it didn't bring me joy. Should I get rid of it? Should I not get rid of it? So it seems like we go through these phases of wanting so much and then feeling bad, and then we kind of wanna go through this phase of minimalism.
Speaker 1:You know, speaking of tribalism like brand tribalism and stuff, and also one of the companies I was thinking about before was this company, supreme.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, I know Supreme.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're one of the first people to ever really get like start this scarcity clothing thing. That gets everybody crazy. But it combines tribalism and scarcity into this like incredible thing of like I must have that. I am not happy unless I wear the Supreme collab that dropped. You can only buy it in New York City.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy how that works. It's even funny. Yesterday I mentioned this to someone I have these shoes. They're called, they're the Adidas Samba. I've had them for years, never gave him much thought.
Speaker 2:And then I went through. I saw an Instagram post that there was like a huge need and want for them and people were going crazy and there was like a shortage and you couldn't buy them anymore. And it was all because Kylie Jenner showed up to an event wearing them and everybody was like, oh well, she's wearing it must be cool, I must buy. So then suddenly it was like this thing went viral and sold out just because that one person was wearing it and raised the social status of owning that thing. And it's like you didn't need that in the past, but now you feel like you need it again because of this need to have things and this need for influence.
Speaker 2:But I think like a positive thing too is he says that although there is this increased need for want and this increased building of things in our world, there's also like an increase in efficiency of resource use and companies now use technology to reduce resource consumption, which is like you can think of this in a way of like before you would need to own a phone, some sort of like music player and a calculator. Now you have all that in one device. So, even though there is this increase of like things in the world, humans have actually been good in a sense that, like we are decreasing it too by being more efficient with what we have, which is like a positive way to look at it. And the advice that he gives is basically like to look at all this stuff that we keep buying as gear and not stuff. So, like whenever you feel like you need something, you should look at it from the lens of is this just random stuff or like does this add value to my life in some way?
Speaker 1:I think you do a really good job of this, by the way.
Speaker 2:I'm just like a big researcher.
Speaker 1:I'm so impressed by your ability to first like kind of like. You have this innate ability to be like hey, that might be good for me and I don't know why yet, yeah, I'm not sure and then go like research it only to fall in love with it and then get the right tool for the right job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I'm not gonna say I'm the best at not buying random shit. I do buy random shit, but when it is like a big purchase, like I just got the Garmin watch, I told you I spent like a week like watching YouTube videos reading about the different garments, seeing the features in the different garments Do I need this feature? Do I not need this feature? Like I could have literally gone with my instinct and been like well, it's a cool looking one Seems like it does the job, but like I hate buyer's remorse too. So I'm like I need a research to make sure. Like, yes, this is the one that I want. If it's a small thing, then I don't go that crazy, but when it's a big purchase, oh yeah, I'm gonna research the hell out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm like I'm like that with most things, like I'm like getting into running now and you can bet that I've watched and listened and read and bought a book just to like be super informed with that thing, I don't know Like I get. There are negatives to it, but if I'm doing something, I wanna know at least like the basic of that thing.
Speaker 1:I'm just so impressed always with your ability to just really get into something and arrive organized and really get the most out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's really cool to watch and I think my favorite example is just watching you approach your bike.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You got, like that, one of the best bikes you could. You paid. You got a really good price for it. You had tons of value. Then you got the right gear.
Speaker 2:It was all research.
Speaker 1:Like it's incredible to watch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I don't know what it is, like I need yeah, my friends call me crazy sometimes, but it's like I need to do the research to feel confident about that thing that I'm doing. Yeah, and sometimes it's bad. Like sometimes I definitely overthink it. Like I feel like you were saying that you're more of like you just jump right in and I'm like, yeah, just launch yourself and I'm like I feel like I should do that sometimes, and sometimes there's too much overthinking, but sometimes it does pay off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Not all the time, but I'm willing to guess if you were to compare us you would be at a much higher net positive. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The net negative.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So switching gears from like our need for stuff, we also have this need for information and that's basically due to like this human drive that we have for exploration.
Speaker 2:Like think about it, like humans have gone to the moon, like we have this need of like exploring. And that's again back to, like, our monkey brains, because the more we explore, the more chances we had of getting food, of meeting new people that could change our tribes, like there's all these evolutionary reasons of why we're such we crave this exploration so much, which leads to us craving information, which I guess goes back to exactly what my need for research. But so there is this like exploratory feedback loop that the author says, like the more we explore, the more resources we could get, especially from food, and that meant that our brains could develop more. And the more that our brains develop, the more we could figure out how to explore even more places. So there is this evolutionary like thing. So I guess it's okay that I'm big on research. It goes back to my monkey brain. Yeah, the more we did that, the more chances we had of surviving. So we're known as informavores, which is a kind of cool little name to put to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's even, like they discover this gene that we have. It's called the Wanderlust Gene, which is literally linked to exploration and risk taking and curiosity.
Speaker 1:Can I read your bullet here? Crazy example.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good one, that's a really good one.
Speaker 1:I, and the reason why I want to read it is cause I actually used this over and over and over after I read it in conversations with my clients. Okay, this one's a real personal one for me. So Ari summarizes after the 2013 Boston marathon bombings, researchers investigated two groups. The first group was made up of people who watched six or more hours of bombing coverage on their TV. The second group were people who actually ran the marathon. The finding people who binge watched the bombing news on TV from the comfort of their home had more psychological trauma than people who were actually bombed.
Speaker 2:Which is like, how does that even make sense? That, like those people who weren't even there, they didn't even experience it they felt more PTSD and trauma from watching it. And I guess you could say probably is because of how emotionally charged the news is and how it just keeps playing over and over and over you. I'm pretty sure at that time it's like you turn on your TV Boston bombing. You open your phone Boston bombing, like constant images of like of what happened, while the people that were there might have not even seen a third of that. And again it goes back to how terrible the news is. Yeah, uh, but.
Speaker 2:And then he also says that, which is what I was saying um, getting information is great, but it's not always better, because it does lead to this information overload where we might actually start making worse decisions, because we start to overthink it so much that there's like a certain limit, there's like a tipping point where it makes sense and where it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2:And I think a good example of this is he says we tend to overly rely on, like we research everything. So like we're going to a restaurant and it's like, okay, I'm going to look at the reviews online and, based off those I'm going to decide whether I'm going to go or I'm not going to go. And it's like, if you think about it, the people that are leaving those reviews are, it's negative a lot of the time because it's like you're so emotionally charged that you're like I must put this review online because they did this and they did that to me. And it's like you're going based off some extreme situations when it's like it would be a lot better to just be like I'm going to try that restaurant no thought, no research, and it's like and then it goes back to them predictability of rewards. It's like you had a great time and it's like it's going to feel that much greater than if you had read the review and gone and had a good time.
Speaker 1:And you know it's interesting, I have a personal connection to this point too. Is that like, uh, I've never been someone who read Google reviews and been like, boom, I'm going to go here now, Like, but I do understand that some people are like that answer does carry some legitimacy and some weight.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, now you know, being a being a CrossFit gym. Um, we don't always get it right.
Speaker 1:For sure we don't and, like I, I actually take pride in that. Like we, we are humans, we wear that on our sleeves and we don't expect our members to be perfect. And, and most importantly, like, the ethos of our gym is that, um, this is not the supposed to be the best hour of your day. This hour is to serve to the betterment of the other 23 hours of your day. So we're not that service, that polished service, first type of gym. We're that I care so much about you first and so so and what that?
Speaker 1:that kind of trips up every now and then for somebody who's really looking for that, like you know. Um, I don't know, uh, what's a fancy gym.
Speaker 2:Oh, a fancy gym, like CrossFit gym or just any gym, just any kind of gym. I think a fancy famous one is pure muscle.
Speaker 1:Pure muscle in Burlington that's like huge Right, like one of those fancier ones you know, like you know, downtown, um, like, uh, trying to think of like the Sonica berries. Yeah, something like that, right when it's all about that experience you know. So we're. We're more on the on, the on the uh, trying to, trying to be real with people, and that's what life is.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and like a lot of the time these gyms, like these berries and this and that, like they're built in a way because they know it'll look good on social media, so it's like it's going to look good on there. It's it's an influence thing, so I don't always go by that.
Speaker 1:And that sort of repels me, not in a not in a disgust way, just more like no, I'd rather go to the place where I don't know. The barbells have some rust on them, but the dude actually cares about my day.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And so the reason I bring this up is that, uh, we recently got a a pretty bad Google review, uh, and it's inaccurate and not true and, uh, I'm leaving it up and I'm not going to go and dispute it, because what I feel like it does is, um, it allows people to understand that, um, I don't want people to look at our Google rooms using me like, oh, they have a hundred and seven five stars. I want the person that's going to go oh, they have a hundred and six really positive reviews and one or two really like bad ones. These places probably be real.
Speaker 1:So I'm exactly, I agree, I'm hoping, right, like I'm hoping that people are going to be like okay, this, this has an air of authenticity to me and it matters. I'm going to check this place out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and I think that that's how it should be, cause, again, like a lot of reviews are emotionally charged for several reasons that we don't know about, so usually the the really bad Google bombs are they're, they're crazy, oh my God, they're like the ultimate crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, but yeah, he says that effort, effortful exploration and the journey itself should be more important than the destination. Um, basically, researching kills, uh, kills the joy of discovery. It is kind of nice to just randomly discover something you could probably think of several places you've been to or things you've tried that you had no idea were going to be good, and then they were incredible. Um, and then, lastly, in this series of examples of where we can find the scarcity loop, he talks about how we also have an endless pursuit for happiness, and I think this is one where it's kind of tough to see why, like why can't we be happy all the time? Why can't we reach a destination and just be happy and not go back down to anxiousness? And I think his way of explaining why this was so crucial to survival, to the survival of our species, is very interesting. He said we'd take an opportunity to improve our lives. We then feel the suspense about the unpredictable outcome, and then we experienced happiness.
Speaker 2:If we were successful, but this happiness was brief We'd again be shot right back into anxiousness and we'd once again seek something to make us happy. And we repeat this cycle for our entire lives, so as we evolve, sustained happiness would have killed us. It would have been more of a bug than a feature in our mental hardware. If anything permanently satisfied us, we had given up on tasks that were necessary for our survival and we would have died off. So like if we had found a huge herd of animals, gotten super happy eight and remained in that state of happiness. We wouldn't have gone looking for more food or anything, we would have just stayed in that state of happiness and we would have died off.
Speaker 2:So it's like I love how he says that like it's delusional for us to think that us being happy and going back down to the state of anxiousness or what it is, is like a fault in the system. It's not a fault in the system. It's literally what makes us human and it's what makes us. It's what made our species survive. So it's like we have this endless pursuit of like. Once I do this thing, I'm going to be happy, but it's like no, that's not how we work, because if that did happen, then you'd give up on life after that.
Speaker 1:I love this point so much Like I don't know if I've shared with you, but I have. I have a um a degree of alarm system with my own moods. Did I ever tell you about this?
Speaker 2:I think maybe you mentioned.
Speaker 1:You might not know this about me, but I'm a grump.
Speaker 2:You're totally not a grump.
Speaker 1:So I have three levels of grump. Okay, so there's grump, there's grump which is like and then I have stinker, which is like I'm grumpy, I know about it and I can't really stop it right now.
Speaker 2:It's just out of my control.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then I have steamer.
Speaker 2:Was that like the last stop? Yeah, that's when.
Speaker 1:I'm like, if I'm steaming, if I'm a steamer then I'm like yeah, then I'm like okay, I remove myself from something. So I would love this point so much because I think, um, when I realize stuff like this, when I'm like we're actually wired not really to be happy, I go okay, dude, you're just being human. Yeah, it removes the shame from being a stinker.
Speaker 2:Exactly it does, it does. I think like even just knowing that is it makes you just feel okay, I'm, this is normal, I, I'm going to be okay, like this is part of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a part of it. I read some really cool stuff about it. That talks about how many different moods the average human feels on a daily basis, and it's fucking enormous, yeah, the amount of shitty moods that flow through your body on the. It would blow your mind. I don't remember what the actual metric is now but it was. I was like, oh, how does anybody have a good day? But um yeah, being being moody and stuff is just part of human being.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly Like we wouldn't be motivated to do things if we didn't go through those crazy mood swings, um. And then he kind of says that there are some things that can help. Basically, like being aware of it is one thing, like we just said, that helps a lot. Um, also, gratitude is huge, um, being away, like which it's also huge in several religions, like a lent, where we give up something like we're so much more grateful for it after. So he says that that's like one way to shift that perspective of being more grateful for the things that you have. Like if you take those things away, like you can gain some appreciation for it more. Um. He also says there is something to say about meditation and prayer. They have done research on people that meditate and people that pray. Pray and there is like associated decrease of stress and more contentment among those people. So if one of those things do work for you, it is worth it.
Speaker 1:Um, I want to make sure that we respect your time, because I know you have a workday ahead of you. Um, but before we get into the what we do now, can you, can you just, uh, hit this one bullet point where you said one of my favorite quotes from the book?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. So, um, in the book he travels to this place where he lives with these monks Um, I think I don't remember exactly where, but it's our lady of Guadalupe and one of the guys that he speaks to says you risk so much by hesitating to fling yourself into the abyss. By not exploring that abyss, we may prevent ourselves from rich levels of happiness, meaning, connection and insight. And I know in the book he kind of meant this as like a way of of the importance of solitude and being on your own. But to me I took him more like the flinging yourself into the abyss Is like doing hard things and like there's like a certain fear of like, oh, I might fail at this, but it's like, but there's so much to gain from doing it, so it's like. It's so funny.
Speaker 2:I was listening to, um, what was it? Modern wisdom? Um, and he was interviewing Stephen Bartlett and he said that, like at the beginning of his career, if somebody had asked him, like I need you to go to the moon next week, he's like, and never crossed my mind oh, that's impossible. Like, I can't go, he's like oh, no, like I can probably figure out a way.
Speaker 2:And I'm like that's so interesting because that's how I feel in regards to like you know what, like next year I'm going to do a marathon, or like I'm going to do a triathlon. It's like it never crosses my mind that like, oh, that's impossible. Like like I can't get myself physically to like I had so many people say to me, that's insane. Like like you're crazy, like you don't even swim, and I'm like, true, I don't swim, but I'm like I can learn. Like it never crosses my mind, oh, that's completely impossible. So that one specific quote I was like like that's exactly how I feel. I'm like I think there's so much to gain from like doing those things and I'm like, whether I fail or I don't, it's like I would regret so much not going for those things. So I'm like that quote really got to me. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:I'm reading through your notes. I was like okay, I want to ask her about this yeah.
Speaker 2:I was like that perfectly summarized the way I feel about those things.
Speaker 1:So what did we do now with all this information?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, like, um, how can you like escape this is scarce, scarcity loop, I guess, is the question. And he says that there's a few things we can do. One, becoming aware that this loop exists in our brain and it's primal to us. There's no way of getting out of it. That alone you can catch yourself in those loops. Um. So he says, try to resist the pull of numbers like likes, follower counts, grades, salaries, rankings, by simply remembering that that's how our brain works and we value those things for a reason. But we don't have to put so much meaning into it like we do. Um, we can slow down this quick repetition of eating, eating, eating by trying to eat more whole foods, like, even though it's not as exciting as this ultra process stuff, it's like just remembering that how much more beneficial that is to us. And like one way to even do that is don't have junk in the house. So then you take away that quick repeatability part of it. It's like if it's not there, you're not going to grab it. Um, and then same thing goes with, like over buying things. If you're one to always purchase things on, like Amazon prime, maybe delete your saved credit card from that. So then you're not like you're taking away that little piece of the loop, cause this whole thing is like to get out of the loop, take a piece out.
Speaker 2:So, like social media, I don't know delete the app off your phone, or what I did. What made a huge difference for me was no offense to anybody, but I basically silenced 99% of the people on my Instagram because then it's like if, if it's not, um, like my feed. If you open my app, it's like you've gone through all your posts of the day because there's nothing to see, because I silenced everything. So I've only kept the things that I feel like add value. So that alone, like got me using the app way less than I was before, instead of just mindlessly scrolling.
Speaker 2:Cause like there's that whole thing. It's like in real life you don't want to see somebody, you just avoid them. But then on social media it's like they're right there, but like it's going back to like remembering that you do have control. You don't have to unfollow them, but you you can silence. Like it's it's your mental health, like it's your wellbeing. There's no need to feel so guilty of like well, I'm not looking at them. So like they're thinking of like, cause we do have that brain of like oh now they hate me, but it's like it's your mental health. Like, if you that's causing you harm, then why not try to take a step away from it? Yeah, like, I guess the main thing is just taking a piece out of the loop, whether it's the opportunity of having access to it, so deleting the app or taking away the quick repeatability of it all by I keep saying that word messed up.
Speaker 2:I don't know why taking that away even is like that's going to make it easier. If you can't have access to that thing over and over again. That's one way to do it. And he also says that you can use this in a positive way too, like with your kids. Like he says, if they do something well, you can give them like a little reward, and the next time you give a big reward, or once they get more accustomed to doing that thing, maybe you don't give a reward. So it's like that unpredictability. You can use that in a positive way as well. Yeah, like he says, exiting the loop is tough because we love immediate gratification, but improving our lives still requires going through short-term discomfort for long-term contentment and achievement, which is that whole thing. We want things now, but the good stuff is going to take a little while, longer than all this mediocre stuff.
Speaker 1:You know I love that last point too and, by the way, I think you did a really good job with these notes You're.
Speaker 2:I'm so terrible at summarizing.
Speaker 1:You guys can't see because you're listening to us, but we are. We are working through a 17 page dossier.
Speaker 2:Which started out 24. And I don't know how I got it down to 17, but I did.
Speaker 1:This is our first book review where we got through every single one of your pages. I know we crushed it, cause we never do.
Speaker 2:That's why I'm like I'm like I wanted 10 pages, but I'm like that's too ambitious. I'm not at that point yet, like, maybe in like 10 books from now we'll be able to do that, but not yet.
Speaker 1:And just your last point there. I just want to build on it real quick, and I think it's really important for people to stop living in denial that your life doesn't suck. Sometimes it does Like, and that is okay. Yeah, it's actually very human for everybody's life to go through periods of shit and stop piling on shame at how hard is that moment or that week or that month. Yeah, and sometimes that year, as you get older, you're going to realize that like wow, I've banked enough years at realize that year was really hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know as you, you know you start to have this ability to look back on on your years and understand that they're not all going to be great, but they are all going to teach you something. And you know, um, taking some of the awareness around this scarcity loop, I think, is so, so important and the the wisdom that Ari was telling you about, just like the little things that you can do, that means so much. Like, putting the silencing on your Instagram is something I never really thought of, but I'm going to. You know, do that. Yeah, you know so. Uh, I implore you to check out this book, michael East. There is an absolute um gem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Both books are incredible they are.
Speaker 1:We're so lucky to have him yeah.
Speaker 2:And he's also very sweet. You message him on Instagram, He'll actually reply, which is which is so cool.
Speaker 1:Who does that? Ari send me the screenshots of him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like I tagged him on like a post and he was like oh, thank you for reading the book. I was like, okay, who does? Nobody does that. But I'm like, okay, he's not like huge author, but the guy's like brilliant in my opinion.
Speaker 1:You know who does, that guy who actually cares about what?
Speaker 2:exactly, exactly. Yeah, he does care yeah.
Speaker 1:You know I, so I love it. So, um, this was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for coming down, thank you. This was a blast. So, um, scarcity Brain, my Michael Easter, go check it out. Thank you so much for being with Ari and I, this thing, uh, going through this book of yours. We really appreciate it, and if you have any feedback, um, I'm probably not going to care about that feedback. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, please do, let us know.
Speaker 2:And, uh, 10 out of 10 book definitely read. Exactly, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, thanks so much. We'll uh catch you guys on the next one.