The Dangerous “Scarcity Loop” That Keeps You Stuck, Miserable, & Always Wanting MORE

Michael Easter 

So Instagram has gotten into my mind and changed my behavior and even how I think. We live in this world where there’s SO much information, and yet, we still keep seeking it, seeking it, and consuming it. Once you understand how the machine works, you can decide to use the machine slightly differently. 

Intro 

Marie Forleo is a leader. One of the top life coaches on the planet. An award winning entrepreneur. She's an extraordinary woman Marie Forleo... Marie Forleo… Marie Forleo… 

Marie Forleo

Ever wonder why we can not seem to get enough? Why we keep eating even when we’re full? Why we keep ordering random s*** on Amazon even though we already have too much stuff? And why we keep rolling and scrolling through Instagram even though it makes us friggen miserable. Why do we go for momentary pleasure in the short-term when we know it’s gonna hurt us in the long run? And why do we keep repeating these counter productive behaviors over and over and over again? 

Spoiler Alert! It is NOT your fault! 

You’re about to learn the shocking brain science at the root of your worst habits. And how to rewire your brain to experience life in a much more fulfilling way. 

Michael Easter is a science journalist, professor, and bestselling author of, The Comfort Crisis. His new book, Scarcity Brain, sent him around the world all in search of answers to why we crave more. And how to rewire our habits in our brains to use this ancient circuitry to our benefit. 

Let's dive in…  

You wrote, “Decades of research have found that many of our biggest problems, both at the personal and societal levels, come from our modern ability to easily fulfill our ancient desire for more.” 

So let's start with this concept of a scarcity loop. You call it the serial killer of motivation. Tell us what the hell is a scarcity loop and how it evolved in our brains.

Michael Easter 

So it's a three part behavior system that basically pushes us into quick repeat behaviors that can end up hurting us in the long run. In the context of today. So I think you need some context to know how I discovered this. I live in Las Vegas. This is a town that is built on getting people to come in and just lose all ability to moderate and then leave town with their tail between their legs. Right?

Marie

Yes.

Michael
Now, in Las Vegas, the craziest thing that I think you see is the slot machines… 

Marie

Yeah.

Michael

…because people play them all day. They're everywhere. They're in like the gas stations, the bars, the restaurants, just everywhere. And so being an investigative journalist and someone who's interested in health psychology, behavior, how it impacts us, I wanted to know, like, why the how do people play these things?

Because it doesn't make any sense. All right. If you think about it, you're doing this behavior that you know is going to lose you money in the long run. But people play and play and play. And so long story short, and sort of chasing that question down, I end up at this casino lab in Las Vegas. So this is a real life casino, but it's used entirely for human behavior research, basically.

And I end up meeting with the slot machine designer there and he tells me about this scarcity loop, which is the language that I'm using. And it's got these three parts. So it's got opportunity. It's got unpredictable rewards, it's got quick repeatability. So opportunity, you have an opportunity to get something of value, right? In the case in slot machines, it’s money.

Two unpredictable rewards. You know, if you repeat the behavioral, you get that something eventually, but you don't know how good it's going to be and you don't know when you're going to get it. So at the slot machine, play the rails roll and you're like, Am I going to lose my money? Am I going to win $2? Am I going to win $2 million?

And that would be, oh, my God, amazing! That would be life changing, right? 

Marie

Right. 

Michael

There's just this crazy range of outcomes that can happen. 

And then three quick repeatability. You can play another game immediately. So with slot machines, people play an average of 16 games a minute, which is more than we blink. Now, what's important about this and the reason I'm talking about slot machines is this three part system that I just laid out. It's being put in a lot of other products, too.

So once it came up in the casino industry in the eighties and they realized, wow! If you use that, you can get people to do this behavior over and over and over and make money from it, basically. 

A lot of other industries went. Wow! Look at the casino industry. What's up with that? And so then you start seeing it pop up in different tech products, different industries…

So that's what makes social media work. That's what makes dating apps engaging. It's now being put in personal finance app. So there's that app called Robinhood that leveraged a lot of techniques. The rise of sports gambling. So sports gambling, it really started taking off one after legalization, but two, when they increased their quick repeatability and just all these different places in our life.

Marie

Yeah. And I also heard you tell a great story, too. When you walked in on your wife watching some reality TV. Right? It's like there's still some of those aspects to it. Can you break that down for us? Because I have a dear friend who actually is obsessed with housewives. And I was like, What are you watching that shit for?

But when I heard you, talked about… you kind of popped into living rooms like, Yep!  Not that I don't get sucked in… I just don't get sucked into that show. I just get sucked into different shows. But… 

Michael

Right. 

Marie

Yeah. So you walked in, you saw your wife watching reality TV. You're like…

Michael

It's the unpredictability. So… 

Marie

Yeah. 

Michael

…unpredictability sucks, not just humans in, but all animals in. But to answer the question about my now love of reality TV, so my wife has always been super into reality TV. Yeah. The gritty stuff. Yeah, the real, gritty stuff that you don't like to tell people you watch, you know? And so you know, I’m walking through the living room and she's watching…

I can't remember what Real Housewives one it was.

Marie

Like what flavor it was.

Michael
Yeah, what flavor, what city. But I kind of stop and watch for a minute. And there's, of course, insane stuff happening, right? One minute, like they're all sitting around the table smiling and the next it's like they're just going at it, you know? And you're like, Oh my God, I can't look away. But I'm like, okay, I can't watch this. I can't spend my time this way. 

Next day, same thing happens where you're kind of watching and then all of a sudden they're going at it. And I just had to admit that, like, I was very interested in it.

Marie

Yes.

Michael

So I sat down on the couch and I immediately get sucked in. And you can argue that reality TV really works on that same system. Because you're getting this opportunity for entertainment to basically escape, get some sort of, you know, thrill a lot of watching. And you don't know what's going to happen on any given episode of a reality TV show.

So now my personal favorite and I'll say this on the record is Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. I love them. I love them all. And what I love about the show is when they go on these trips again, you're like, they're going to Vegas. It's going to be good for a while and you know, it is going to go off the rails at some point.

Marie

You just don't know when or how.

Michael

You don't know when. And you don't know how far. And you don't know what's going to do it. 

So you're just sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting. And then, there goes the drink in the face. It's on.  

Marie

Right. 

Michael

Right. And then you just can repeat and repeat and watch all the seasons. And then you find yourself like me, knowing all the characters, backstories and…

Marie

Caring very deeply. Yeah, no, I know my friend Laura…

Michael

We might need to edit all of that out. My personal reasons.

Marie

No, but it it just to show the reason I brought it up was just to illustrate, like this notion of a scarcity loop and some of the mechanisms that you've outlined, it's everywhere. And so when we start to see it, I think that is where the real opportunity comes for us to start to perhaps reclaim a little bit of control.

And the next question I want to ask you is… just this understanding. So you explain the scarcity loop and the book is called Scarcity Brain. So can you help unpack what you would define a scarcity brain and how these two things interact?

Michael

Yeah, so scarcity brain, I would just call it the most simple. It's, you know, this feeling that we can never get enough. 

Marie

Yeah. 

Michael

And when you look at the things that humans can't get enough of, it tends to be things that in the past would have probably given us a survival advantage as a species. So it tends to be food stuff, information, status and influence, those sorts of things.

Now in the past all those things were scarce and hard to find. 

Marie

Yeah. 

Michael 

And so if you were the type of person who was always craving, always consuming, always felt like, I don't have enough of all these things — You probably would have survived and lived on. Now the issue is that we still have those ancient genes in a world where there's quite a bit of food everywhere. Where status and influence has been put on steroids with social media and quantified. Where you can buy stuff on Amazon Prime with lightning deals and any website, any given moment. There's not even a barrier to entry to go to a store anymore to buy something and on and on and on. 

So we now live in a world of where all these things that we are built to crave are now abundant and we don't really have a governor that tells us, Hey, you've had enough. So we just keep pursuing and pursuing and pursuing.

Marie
We were talking before the camera started rolling just about social media because you share a very relatable story in the book about your experience with Instagram, and I'll share a little bit about mine.

So tell us what happened and how you personally started to notice that scarcity loop and your scarcity brain at play.

Michael

Okay. So I, you know, a handful of years ago, I download Instagram because, you know, you download it and you're like, Oh, this is a good way to share photos of myself with my friends and family.

Marie 

Was this pre-author days.

Michael

This is pre-author days. 

Marie 

Okay cool. 

Michael 

So it's pre-author days and you know, you download it and you're like okay everyone that I actually know in person in the real world: Here's a photo of me at a concert with everyone. Here's you know 29-million photos of my dogs, type of thing. And I would also post things like photos of my runs… just random life stuff.

Now, what ended up happening and I use the runs as a great example… Is that, I start posting these photos of my runs. And I live out in the desert and it's it's pretty epic scenery. I mean, it looks like an Old Western movie. And I notice that these photos start getting more likes and followers, and they're not people I know, right?

This is random people. And I'm like, Oh, wow! So all of a sudden I'm like, That's what scores points on Instagram is this sort of thing. And now the problem is that running in the in the desert, trail running, was my time to just zone out. It was like my moving meditation, right? This was my time to totally escape and just like, let down and let figure out my life.

But the problem is, is that after Instagram, I love the word that you use, trained. Instagram trained me what works on Instagram. I start finding that as I'm running. I'm no longer having this sort of moving meditation. I'm going around a bend and I'm going, Oh, that would be a great photo for Instagram. So so Instagram has gotten into my mind and changed my behavior and even how I think and I don't think I'm alone in this.

Marie

So think about how many people you know, there's the reason we have a saying. You do it for the gram. 

Michael 

Yeah. Like people are behaving in such a way because the system has trained them to do so by giving them these like artificial points and likes and metrics. And it's scary when you start to think of that, you know, you're going, Oh wow, like this isn't a real thing.

And this is actually crept into my life and changed my life in a way that I don't think is better for me.

Marie

Exactly. And that was a similar thing that I saw happening for myself in terms of Instagram and just like finding my mind, thinking about, oh, how am I going to get dressed today? Might I take a photo later? It's like, what is that bullshit? And so I started watching all of these things in my brain that I was like, This is not good.

This is not good. We're going to talk about this a little bit more as we get deeper in the interview. But thank you for sharing that because, you know, this notion that we are being trained and that we have this ancient piece of our brain that's going to continue to crave more and continue to crave influence and continue to want to rack up these artificial numbers and metrics… Is just it's so important for us to separate ourselves from it and to have a little space and see the mechanical, the nature of it, and also the insidious nature of it and the damage that it. It's like everyone just accepts it. It's like, Oh, this is how we are now. It's like we don't have to be this way. 

There's another note that I had in there, a highlight from the book that was a surprise for me. The reveal that dopamine is not the pleasure chemical and that it doesn't make us believe or do something.

‍“Dopamine,” as you write, “is released when we're pursuing or anticipating receiving the pleasurable thing, not when we're actually receiving it.” 

What do you think is important about that distinction for us to know in terms of like trying to unpack this and kind of reclaim our own freedom as it relates to our brains and our emotions and our behavior?

Michael

Yeah, I mean, a couple of things. I mean, I just think that socially… It's kind of become popular to just blame everything on dopamine, but it's kind of a misunderstood chemical. It does a lot of things in the brain that are interesting. But I think when you when you think of pursuing so the system that does create pleasure is called the liking system.

Now, dopamine tells you to chase, chase, chase, chase, chase until you can get something you like. But especially in certain conditions, dopamine can still fire even if the liking center doesn't fire on. So you're getting pushed to do a behavior, even if it's not going to really reward you. And that's not a good thing. 

Marie

Yeah. No, that is that is not a good thing. 

Michael 

So, it’s the chemical of pursuit. Now, when you do something that you like, it will obviously, you know you're liking that the first time or first handful of times dopamine will fire along with the liking system to sort of train you to go, Oh, okay, that was a good thing. Do that again. But over time it mainly becomes the pursuing chemical.

Marie 

So a lot of people that watch our show, they are creative, they're hardworking, they're entrepreneurial, whether they have their own business that they aspire to. They have a job right now and they have a side hustle. They are constantly on the go and constantly have this desire for more and more and more and better. So I want to read this excerpt from your book.

So you say, “the takeaway from all these experiments,” which you'll unpack is this, “In the human brain, less equals bad, worse, unproductive, more equals good, better, productive. Our scarcity brain defaults to more and rarely considers less. And when we do consider less, we often think it sucks.” 

So I'm going to stop there. And there's more I wanted to read because I was just like, I can't tell you how many times in my career I've made the mistake of thinking more is better.

And it's like, Oh, we need to have more team members. We need to have more products. We need to have more offerings. We need to have more content. Do you know what I mean? 

Michael 

Yeah!  

Marie

…having some type of comparative thing where I may have looked out on the landscape and said, Oh, I'm behind. I should be doing X because so in…

All this stuff. And in practice when I've executed on those things and had “the more” it's been a shit show. So you know what I mean. And so I've learned thankfully how to keep at least testing for myself the inverse of going like… There's a mantra that I live by simplify to amplify, because I've seen it work a lot of times that when I simplify something, I can actually amplify an outcome that's really important to me, whether it's joy or freedom or peacefulness or something like that.

And it helps me at least challenge my own wiring and conditioning. So I just want to talk about this with you because I had never seen any scientific research, journalistic material around this before. 

What is it about us where it's like less f*** sucks or at least our brains equate that?

Michael

So I would wonder if… the times where you have been like, okay, I need to add. 

Marie 

Yeah. 

Michael 

…What might have happened is that you might have been measuring something that fell into the scarcity loop. And when it stopped delivering or when it went flat, you go, What's going on? I got to do something. And then your default is to more to add to more. 

So for example, like you're watching the income track up, track up, it's unpredictable. You're like, Oh, it went up this much, went up this much. And then when it started to go flat, you go, why’s the slot machine not working? We got to do something and then your default is to add. The default is to add.
So this study, it started really in a great just amazing way. There's this guy whose name is Leidy Klotz, and he's this he's one of the best engineering professors in the country, basically, long story short. And he is sitting down with his son, who is three years old.

Kid's name is Ezra, and they are playing with Legos. Now. They're building this bridge and they've got this bridge. And it's at a weird angle because one of the pillars is tall and one of the pillars is short. So it's at this crazy angle. And so they're going to fix it right now. The Mr. Ph.D., smarty pants engineer goes, I know how we can fix this.

And he turns around and he starts going through the bucket of Legos to find more Legos to prop the bridge up. And he turns around and he's got the Legos and his son has done something pretty awesome and that's that. He has fixed the bridge. He did it by removing some of the blocks. So now if you think about it, he goes, I didn't even think of that… one…

And two, it was the better solution because now we have more Legos to use to do an entire city. Right? And it's also more stable because it's not as high as off the ground. And he's like, Wow, I just got out engineered by a three year old. And he goes, I wonder if other people are like this, too, right?

I mean, my brain just immediately defaulted to this adding thing. So he starts taking the bridge around. He works at a University of Virginia, He starts taking it around the engineering department, and he will pull it out. And it's like wonkly shaped and he puts Legos on the table. And he tells his colleagues, he tells students and he goes, Hey, would you fix this?

Every single person fixed it by adding Legos to the bridge. So after he's got that, he goes, okay, this is a thing. You know, I'm not I'm not an idiot. All of us got bested by this three-year-old, Right? 

So he decides he's going to set up a bunch of studies, set up eight different studies. One of them, the participants had to stabilize the Lego bridge, as you might expect.

Others, there was another one where they had to make a mini golf course hole better and the hole was already just jam packed with like, features, like crap. Right? 

Basically, long story short, is that in all eight of these experiments taking away, subtracting was the right answer to improve the problem every single time. And even and in some of the experiments he even told people like, I want you to know that you can take items away to solve this problem.

Some of them, he would even charge people if they added things, right? All eight of these, every participant were trying to solve the problem by adding elements. So they would add Legos to solve the problem with the mini golf hole. They added all sorts of crap to the hole. So it's like this hoarder hole, right? Every single experiment.

And so his take away, it's like I wrote in the book, is that humans are sort of wired to add. To add resources, to do more, to just do keep doing and doing and doing and adding and adding and adding. Now, it would be one thing if people were looking at their problems and going, okay, maybe I'll add, but maybe I could subtract. Right? 

If we were weighing both options and we decided to add, fine. But the point is that most people are just going to default to adding and they're not even going to consider subtraction. And subtraction is often the best solution, and we just completely overlook it. And that probably goes back to what I was talking about in the beginning, is that for all of time, if you were a human evolving in this rough and tumble landscape where you didn't have enough made sense to add.

Marie

Yep.

Michael

Never made sense to subtract. 

Marie

Yep. 

Michael

Never until about 150 years ago for to, take food as an example, as it made sense to try to eat less. Now we literally have a country full of people being like, God, I need to figure out how to eat less.

Marie

I thought it was such a cool insight too. One of the other experts that you spoke to kind of laid out the fact that, wow, we are paying more money for food like diet food, and then also paying more money for supplements and to lose weight. It was like we're paying more for less. It was so twisted but so obvious when he laid it out.

I don't know if you can even articulate it. You probably can articulate it much better than I did, but it was like this thing like, what are we doing? And all of us are so blind to it.

Michael

Yeah, I mean, we… so one thing that was interesting about food, as I was reporting this, is that our modern food totally falls into that scarcity loop. 

Marie

Yeah. 

Michael

So there's a guy who was a, with the food industry, basically he's an executive and he basically said that to make a snack food sell a lot, it's got to have… He put it this way, it's got to have three V’s.

It's got to have value, it's got to have variety and it's got to have velocity. So value, it's relatively cheap – opportunity. It's got to have variety – unpredictable rewards. It's got to have all these different flavors. There's got to be a lot of different choices of flavors. So you go to the grocery store and you go to the potato or cereal aisle. It's a great one. 

Marie

Yeah.

Michael

There is an entire… entire aisle devoted to cereals. There's all these different flavors, right? And you can just try them all. And then velocity, and this is most important one, is that it's got to be quick to eat. So when they… when scientists will literally launch people in labs and give them diets that are either really processed or pretty much unprocessed, the people on the processed diet end up eating about 500 more calories a day.

And that's simply because junk food, really processed food, is so much quicker to eat. Like you just you eat a bunch and it takes it takes a while to feel full, but you've already eaten more than you really needed. Whereas with natural food, it tends to just take up more room in your stomach, frankly. And you can you get better signaling cues from hunger?

Marie

Absolutely. It takes longer to chew and longer to…

Michael

Longer to chew. 

Marie

…Everything. This understanding of scarcity brain and the scarcity loop, has it given you a better understanding of your own behaviors on your journey?

Michael

Oh yeah, for sure. 

Marie

Yeah.

Michael

Yeah, I think so. In the book, I talk about things that can help you get out of it.

Marie

Yeah.

Michael

And I think the first thing is just being aware of it.

Marie 

Yeah. 

Michael

Because when you become aware of and observe a behavior, it tends to change. This is what's called the Hawthorne effect. And so for me, it's like if I go on to say, Instagram, and I find myself scrolling, I can go, Oh, that's why I'm doing this. Like, I'm just more aware of what's happening.

Marie 

Yes.

Michael

Once you understand how the machine works, you can decide to use the machine slightly differently. 

Marie 

Yeah. 

Michael

Right. And I think too, if you know.. One of the messages that I want people to get from this book is if you have these behaviors that fall into this loop… which I argue a lot of modern bad behaviors do… It's not your fault because it's just your ancient brain doing this thing that it evolved to do.

But it is your problem to fix.

Marie

Yes, let's talk about that. I want to talk about numbers and gamification. You know, we hear a lot about how, oh, let's gamify this. It can boost people's motivation. It can help us build these habits. But your research shows a more troubling side. Numbers and figures are changing our thoughts and actions and sometimes hurting innovation and meaning. And I could not agree with that more.

You know, looking at it from a business perspective, I think we've all heard that adage, which I think is sometimes bullshit. You know, if it's if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. And it just has us quantifying everything and looking at the metrics of everything and missing so many important nuanced aspects of business and life and the things that really matter to us.

And so I was like, when I was reading the chapter about numbers and gamification, I want to do cartwheels around the room because it was like, of course. So I'm wondering if there's anything else you want to say about that. And we'll talk about Instagram. I know for me, one of the things I was so friggin happy that they did, Michael.  

Was when they gave us the users, what other industry besides the drug industry calls its customers, users? Which we are! The ability to turn off seeing numbers. So that was one of my happiest days with Instagram because I'm like, F*** this, I'm turning off all the numbers.

I don't want to see numbers of anything. If I go in, I just want to engage with our audience, our people, and the handful of my friends and colleagues are like, Oh my gosh, I can't wait to celebrate them, whatever they're doing, but I don't need to see numbers around it. For me, it's about the words. What do I want to say to my friend?

How do I want to interact with this beautiful human who's in our audience? What do I want to feel about the art, the music, the video, the image, whatever it is that I'm seeing, that I that I care about. So.  

I don't know if there's anything that you want to dive into about the gamification piece. And then we'll just talk about influence and emotions because I feel like these topics are connected.

Michael

Yeah, I think a good way to think about this is the example of Twitter that I have in the book. So I learned about this from a philosopher whose name is Thi Nguyen. It's T-H-I  N-G-U-Y-E-N. I'm probably pronouncing the last name slightly wrong. He's a philosopher. His job is to think really deep thoughts and he gets on Twitter and you starts using it like everyone else.

Kind of like I used Instagram, and one day he has a tweet go viral and when that happens, he's like, Oh my God, that was amazing! Because he could watch the lights just roll in and the retweets and he's looking at it, right? It's this scarcity loop. It's this unpredictable reward game. And then the problem is, is that, you know, this guy's job is to think deeply like all day.

And what he found is that once he had that rush of likes and retweets on Twitter, he started to find that when he would start to have an interesting idea, instead of going really deep down the rabbit hole. Like he naturally had to as a philosopher, he would start to think of, okay, well, how can I put this in 140 characters to get as many likes and retweets as I can?

And that is totally not what his job is. Right? So if you think of Twitter or, you know, whatever it is X now. 

Marie

X, Yeah. 

Michael

Yeah, the the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Marie

Yep. It's like Prince the artist formerly known as Prince. All the people. Yeah.

Michael

It pitches itself as a forum for discussion. So then you go, okay, well, what's the goals of a discussion? What are they? And the answer is that there's a lot of them. It's to be understood, it's to understand people is to empathize, it's to commiserate. It's to get to know like there's a million different things that can come out of a discussion.

But because Twitter puts likes and retweets and basically quantifies and gamified that. The goal becomes to get likes and retweets and get your numbers up. And that is often at odds with the goals of a discussion. So you miss all these different goals of discussion and you're chasing this one thing. And the way that you get that number up is usually in behaviors that you're probably going to look back on and regret.

So what tends to do well on Twitter is outrage. It's dunking on people. It's just it's being a dick, right? And I think that's problematic. And to to bring it over to business, it's… it's very satisfying to see a number go up. So humans, we love certainty. Now, numbers give us certainty. But the problem is, once we start to focus entirely on numbers, it changes the goal.

So if your goal and you know, why do you start a business, the answer is probably a lot of reasons. Like why do you want to make a living? Yeah, you want to make money, but that's probably not the only reason. You know, you want to help people, you want to serve your community. You want to do you want, I don't know… 

Your bakery. I want to make the best damn bread in… wherever you're located. And those things are much harder to measure. They are much harder to measure. But when you think of something like how much money we're making, that's easy to measure. And oftentimes what happens because that is easy to measure the goal shift to that and you go, Oh, we just need to get that number up because like I can feel certain I'm doing the right thing. If that number rises. 

But when you do that, you might miss out on all these other important things. Let's take our stupid my stupid bread example. Well, you could make that number go up if you, you know, maybe use different flour. Maybe you didn't make the bread as long you didn't use as much energy. And then in turn, you've missed out on that goal.

Right now, that's a silly example, but I think it stands for something larger that when we focus entirely on a number, we often lose all these more interesting, more complex, richer goals that we're after. And so I'm not saying that like, don't quantify anything. Of course you need to, but you need to always keep in mind that that is just one way of thinking about what a what your goals are.

Marie

I want to talk about influence, emotions and how our scarcity brains crave influence. So what is it about this ancient, ancient circuitry that makes us care so deeply about what other people think of us? 

Michael

Yeah. 

Marie

And I also found it fascinating, too, that you note that our drive for influence creates anxiety, because I'm sure you've seen this as a journalist.

It's like I just remember as a kid and even as a young adult, never hearing so much about anxiety and how anxious people were. And I'm sure portion of that is, and this is a good thing, is that we all now feel a lot more comfortable being able to talk about mental health issues. So that's awesome on the plus side.

But I was like, there's something else here that I think is different because I don't know if people were as anxious. You know, I grew up in the eighties and it was like it just things felt different. 

Michael

Yeah. 

Marie

So curious. Your perspective.

Michael

I agree. Now, the reason that we… so we… we all evolved to basically crave status and influence and the reason for that is that for pretty much all the time, if you had more influence over other people, if you had more status, it would give you a survival advantage. So it probably got you out of crappy menial labor, probably kept you off the front lines of battle, would have gotten you more food, probably.

It probably would have gotten you more mates so you could spread your DNA. And that served us for all of time and kept us alive. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't serve us today, but the issue I think today is that we've put it at scale, especially in the form of social media. And so we still have this drive to be liked and be the high status influencer influence person.

Right? But we've put it on this playing field where there's like a billion people on these platforms, and I think it can end up backfiring on us in many ways because it's always just this constant chase. Now, humans probably evolved in groups that were no bigger than 150 people, so you kind of knew where you were in the hierarchy.

Yeah, but you also couldn't quantify it entirely, right? And now it's like you can put a number on that and that can stress you out. And we also have far more interactions with people in this social world that I think can stress us out because human interaction tends to be one of the more stressful things that ever happens to us, right?

How you interact with your boss, how you interact with other people, where you live in a town. I mean there's all these different ways that status influences us that we didn't have, and it's a lot for us. And in terms of anxiety, I do think that social media, putting status and influence at scale and quantifying it, does mess with a lot of people.

I mean, especially for people because the brain is changing in such a way from about puberty to 25, where social acceptance and interaction are the most important they will ever be for people at that time. And then you give people a phone and you say, put a photo of yourself on there, and we're going to see how many of your friends like it.

And you can literally go, Well, I thought that was a good photo of me, but only 40 people liked it and there's like this this other person that's like my frenemy and they got 60 and you're like, Damn it. Right, That's stressful. Yeah. And we don't realize it's meaningless in the Grand scheme of time space because we're going to survive no matter if we get likes or not.

But it's just kind of our… ancient brain working against us?

Marie

Yeah, Yeah I think it's been it's been such a journey for me personally with all of that. And I am grateful that I've had like so many really low points and feeling like so broken and like, what's wrong with me? Why do I even care? And… 

Michael

What do you think is inside of that?

Marie

And I had just… I know my brain so well in that any time I fall into compare it is despair. That compare and despair thing is big and it's like I lose touch with what makes me me. And I think because I have the benefit and I always talk about this, I'm like so grateful that I started my business.

It was like 1999, 2000. So it was like I got to share ideas via email on a blog, you know what I mean? And like, video stuff is like, dude do you have a camcorder… like that that just it didn't exist yet. So I feel so grateful that I have the perspective and the memories of what it was like to create and then just to share, but not to have this kind of jockeying and constant [sound: bla…bla…bla] where I get very overwhelmed.

I've been ADHD brain, so like too much stimulation.. to like, I'm like this thing is going nuts already. And then you add on all of these other inputs and I'm like, Well, I need a nap. So for me now, I think it's been it's just I feel so much more connected to and maybe age does this too. It's like it's all meaningless bullshit at the end of the day, you know?

I have… my partner in life and many friends that are in the entertainment industry, and so I know so many talented creatives and so I get into these conversations where I can hear and see where certain folks are or aren't getting jobs based on will, how many people follow them on Instagram. And like I know their work as performers, you know what I mean? And I've seen the depth of how they execute their craft and they're stunning. And I was like, Holy shit, every industry has boughten into this. Book publishing is another one. It's like, What's your platform? It's like, well, what about your friggin ideas?

You know, it's like to your point of that incredible philosopher, it's like to think deeply and to create deeply is a completely other skillset than to build this massive mega audience that you're always feeding and interacting with. And just because someone has an enormous audience, which is beautiful and God bless and it's awesome, doesn't mean they necessarily have something, you know, that valuable to share.

I hate to be an asshole, but it's true.

Michael

Yeah. I agree.  

Marie

And so anyway… I just… I just like this conversation so much because I think the more… the reason that one of… the many reasons I wanted to talk to you is because I think the more people can wake up and at least see for what it is and then start to understand the circuitry of the brain.

And we'll get to this… like some of the cool things we can do to start to almost it feels like like turning that scarcity loop into an abundance loop and some of the things we can do to take control that will get there. But I just I find myself so much happier and more fulfilled when I started exiting that.

Michael

Yeah, yeah. It's really interesting, especially on the creativity front, because I think when you look at some of the best creative works of all time, it's usually a person who… spent a lot of time alone. Yeah, they went out and you know, whether it's, you know, they go to a cabin for a couple months and they write… whatever it might be.

They needed this time to only focus on that one thing and not have noise. And the idea that you have to perform for a machine every day, you know, whatever amount of times a day that… I think interrupts that necessarily real long stretches of deep thought that are required to do good projects. And that's definitely something I worry about too, you know, And so maybe there's a case for… I understand that, you know, some businesses need to be on it… but maybe there's a case for.

All right, we're taking a one month break every now and then, and we're going to really dedicate ourself to this one big project, because I do think it'll come out better if you have that just long time of only grappling with that.

Marie

Yeah, I as creative too… It's become again and I love having this perspective. It's like everyone feels like they need to be a media company and for solo creatives or folks starting their own business as a, you know, one person show. They're not necessarily going out to get venture capital and like, you know, building a big instant team, you know? Also be like, Marie, how the hell am I supposed to do this?

How am I going to be on the TikTok and Instagram and the YouTube and the podcast… and then actually work with clients or work with customers or bake the bread? You know what I mean? Figure out Bake the bread. So speaking of food, which I love, you know, we no longer have to forage for food like our ancestors did.

Food's everywhere. But of course, as we know, so much of what we eat is making us sick. I loved that you went to the Bolivian Amazon. Tell us a little bit about what you discovered there and how it relates to scarcity.

Michael

Yeah… So I think the first thing you need to know is that statistically heart disease is what kills people. 

Marie

Yeah.

Michael

…Kills 50% of Americans, and it's increasingly killing people at younger ages. So I think that I can't remember the exact stat off the top of my head, but I think it's over 50% of women over 20 have indication of heart disease right now.

Now, okay. We've just laid out that heart disease is probably what's going to kill you. But then when you look at what people actually worry about and Google trends and what the media most covers… heart disease is like, not even…

Marie

Doesn't even make the list.

Michael

Looks like no one talks about it. In the book, I describe it as people mostly worry about cancer and they worry about violence. And those two things statistically are much lower than heart disease. So I describe it as playing Russian Roulette and realizing you got a mole on your trigger finger and going, oh, no, what about that mole though?

So I kind of been thinking about this. And what I really started thinking about heart disease was when I learned those statistics. That it's the big killer that no one cares about. And then I come across a study and it found the group of people with the healthiest hearts ever recorded by science is this group called the Tsimané Tribe.

And they're in the Bolivian Amazon. Now, I'm an investigative journalist, so I go places. So I get on a damn plane and I fly to La Paz. And it was pretty funny because I was supposed to fly to La Paz, which is the highest highest altitude airport, international airport in the world. And then I was supposed to take this tiny little pack-of-gum-plane into the jungle.

And the day before I get there, my sort of handler fixer calls me and they're like, Oh, we got bad news. The plane company, they went under. They’re out of business. I'm like, All right. They're like, You're going to have to drive there with a driver. I'm like, okay, no problem. Now, the flight was supposed to be a half an hour.

This lady's like, Yeah, so the drive is 12 hours. I'm like, What? Oh my God! And it's down these crazy cliff roads and the driver is just blasting cumbia the whole time. So 12 hours of just like rocky roads and [Sound: boom, chicka, boom, boom, boom, chicka, boom, boom…] Like, just blast.

Marie

That’s a party, man. That's a party.

Michael

And then from there, I take this canoe up into the jungle. It's like this six hour canoe ride. And we get there walking in the jungle and like, there the tribe is, right? And the first thing we do is they welcome me with a meal. And so I'm there to figure out, you know, why are they so healthy?

And it goes back to what they eat, it turns out. So what they eat is is interesting because at some point in a given day, it's going to offend some diet that we've created over the last 40 years. Like it's not vegan, it's not paleo, it's not low fat, it's not low carb, it's not insert any diet you've heard of.

But the one commonality all the food has is that it has just one common ingredient. So they eat mostly like rice and potatoes and plantains. But they also red meat. They also eat fish. They'll even eat sugar. But the difference is that they have to hike into the jungle and cut down the sugar cane and then like process it themself, which… you know, all right… they're not going to eat that much.

And they've just worked it off. They’ll even eat chocolate. So it's really just that it has one ingredient. Now, when we sit down to eat, I will tell you that you're probably picturing like in this amazing jungle in the jungle was amazing with this like, you know, locally made source food that's like something that you get in Brooklyn.

Like hell, no. This food was terrible tasting like, I'm not going to lie. The plantains. Totally fine. The rice. Like it's just the really bland rice. 

Marie

Yeah.

Michael

Like every restaurant is like, dumping in butter and salt. But the chicken was, like, terrible, you know? Because in the U.S., we breed our chickens to be, like, really plump and they're usually like 10 pounds. Like a wild chicken is like 3 pounds and it's really stringy, so the food is not good. 

But what the takeaway is for the average person is not to eat terrible chicken and, you know, terrible food. But what it is is that… when we start to really process our food, like we start running all these schemes to feed a wide group of people, and that in turn requires a lot of ultra processing.

And now the average American eats 60% ultra processed food. That seems to lead us to overeat because it goes back to that scarcity loop that I mentioned, right? Our food is everywhere and we evolved to eat more food when we have the opportunity. We've got all these unpredictable, amazing flavors on every corner. I mean, we're in New York right now.

It's like, God it’s the best food city in the world. And we can eat it quicker. So when you hyper process food, people naturally just eat it much faster and they don't have that, right? It's all just single ingredient. It's not every meal is not an explosion of sugar, salt and fat, but that seems to lead them to not overeat. And in turn, they don't seem to get a lot of the diseases that kill us. 

So I think the takeaway for the average person is how can I find ways to remove that food scarcity loop? And I'm not saying like don't ever eat processed food again. I am saying that find as many meals as you can throughout the day that rely on sort of one ingredient foods.

So something like oatmeal and eggs for breakfast… You know, for lunch, it might be like rice and some meat and some vegetables. And then, you know, by the end of the day, you're like, okay, I think I'm pretty well today. Now I can maybe have a couple of things that are good.

Marie

Yeah. So you did it too. You ate that way. Was it for a month? 

Michael

Yeah, it was for a month. 

Marie

Yeah. And did you feel… any challenge is good… I love giving myself, like, little challenges, whether it's for a week or 30 days or something like that. But did did you notice were there any foods that you were… You know, I use the word addicted very lightly… like kind of favorite foods that you would go through in a scarcity loop that started to fall away?

Michael

Reese's Puffs.

Marie

Oh, yeah. Oh, cool. That’s one… the one that fell away.

Michael

That's my jam. But I did notice. So two things I really love is Reese's Puffs cereal and diet soda. And I did notice that after the month when I went back to and had my first Reese's puffs… I was like, Oh my God, this is so unbelievably sweet. Just because I was so I was so adapted to how sweet that food was.

Marie

Yes. 

Michael

That when I went off it and then returned to it, it was just like…

Marie

Shocking!

Michael

…like a smack in the face. It was shocking. And so really my takeaway is that it did change a lot of the meals and how I think about food and I think in a good way.

Marie

Yeah, I want to talk about possessions. This was a fun one. You write, “We have so much shit that we have an entire industrial complex designed to help us manage all our shit. There are now more storage facilities in the U.S.” This shocked me, “than McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks and Wal-Marts combined.” 

So obviously we know that minimalism is like a trend so much. But you suggested different approach. And I thought Laura Zerra's story was so fascinating. So maybe we can talk about that experience and kind of that takeaway as regards to our possessions. And then you got a good tactic too, which will I remind you of in a few minutes.

Michael

Yeah, Laura is the coolest, toughest human. I know that is for sure. So she… she was in college and she's very smart. She was going to be a doctor or a veterinarian. And the whole reason she wanted to do that is so she would have enough money to go on these adventures out in the wild… like she loves…

Just going out into the, you know, Montana wilderness or wherever it might be and just spending as much time as she can. 

And she has this epiphany that, you know, if you want to do that, you don't actually have you don't need to have money to do that. And so she goes, All right, I'm quitting college. And this is like right before she graduated.

So her parents wanted to kill her and she's got like six bucks and a backpack with a handful belongings. And she just starts traveling the world. And so now she still spends months on end out in the middle of nowhere. But I would say that she might sound weird, but she's probably like the most normal person I've ever met, just like, very sane, very centered.

And so I spent some time with her in Montana. And I think what I learned from her is that not only do you not need as much as you think, but also that by coming up with creative ways to use what you already have, that can be extremely rewarding. So she talked about these times where, you know, she would be… she wouldn't have any money left… and she'd be in some weird place and she would need a shelter.

And she's like, Yeah, one time I was… can't remember where she was, but she's like, I came upon this like big piece of Tyvek, and I used this as a tent for like three years. And that is the best tent I've ever had. It's my favorite tent. I just missed that tent. And she's like, Oh, God. Like, she got so much reward from that.

Marie

Yeah. 

Michael

And so this might sound like a, you know, sort of quirky person rambling, but there's actually research on this. That people get much more reward from possessions that they use creatively. Like if you can solve a problem creatively, that gives us more internal rewards than going out and buying whatever specialized thing is out there on Amazon Prime right now for the specific problem you have. And I'm sure we've all had this, like you go into like the Container store and there's just like a million items where you're like, Wow, I didn't I didn't know that was a problem…

Marie

But I need it and it's kinda…

Michael

But I might need it.

Marie

Exactly. Well I love this gear not stuff, right? Gear not stuff. This notion of is it something that I'm going to utilize and I'm going to use to produce or create or make things or enjoy things or function in my daily life rather than just a bunch of crap that that loads around. 

I often… It's funny. So I've lived in New York probably gosh, close to 30 years now, and I don't have a very big apartment. My partnere and I've lived there for a time and I kind of love it for that reason because we cannot hang on to a lot of stuff.

And I often laugh…I’m like, where the h***  does all this shit come from? And, and based on what I do, people send me a lot of stuff… and even like… there was like some DM it's like, oh, people want to… I'm like, tell, No, I don't want it. I just don't want any more stuff. And I have to like… it's just a friggin epidemic.

But gear not stuff is a really great mantra and I love… There's the tactic. The 60 second, I called it the 60 second rule. Do you have your share about that?

Michael

Yeah. So it's if you're trying to make a decision on whether you should buy something or even throw something away and make the decision in 60 seconds. If you go longer than that, it tends to be that people start to rationalize why they should buy something, why they should hang on to something. And I will say that one thing that was interesting for me in reporting this chapter is I talked to this psychologist at the University of Michigan, and she studies people who buy a lot of stuff, but then people who are really obsessed with like minimalism and organizing.

And she told me that basically it's all for the same purpose. It gives people a sense of control and a sense that they're doing the right thing and like they've… it's a… it's a stress response, effectively. And I had never really thought about that because I definitely acquire stuff. And I know that it is because I'll be like stressed about work and I'll be like maybe if I just buy this thing like, that'll fix my problems.

But my wife is complete opposite. The house is like a museum and except for my office. And when I was telling her about this conversation, she's like, Oh my God, yeah. The reason I like to keep the house so clean is that I get stressed out and I feel like I can control everything if everything is perfect.

Marie

Oh, I was… That's how I felt so wonderfully seen in that part. So I get it. I think there's actually… this doesn't necessarily have to be a gender thing, but I have so many female friends that have reported the same thing and have said and Josh and I talk about this and I'm like, clutter stresses me out even more.

And when it's clear and everything is in its place, like there is a sense of peace and calm, but it comes because I like to feel in control of something. You know, when everything else feels out of control. We were laughing or as we were driving around and it was like, we're like, life really comes down to like four things.

It's like, feel good, feel bad, get shit, get rid of shit. That's like, what? Like it's like this quadrant. Like we're going to the grocery store to get shit, and some of the shit that we get is going to make us feel good. Then we're going to feel bad for whatever reason. Then we're going to get rid of shit and we seem to just keep going…

Michael

That's great.

Marie

…around in this cycle. That's so funny.

Michael

Yeah, it's becoming aware of that cycle because I think what tends to happen is people buy and buy and buy, because that's our natural tendency. 

Marie

Yeah. 

Michael

And then you go, Oh my God, I have so much shit.

Marie

Like I need to get rid of the shit! 

Michael

People, purge it all. And then…

Marie

And then they start slowly acquire.

Michael

…buy and buy and buy. And they never question that this is a larger cycle…

Marie

Correct. 

Michael

…And so how do we start to unravel the cycle? And so to me it's more… instead of throwing away everything you have, okay, how can we use we do have better and just stop buying and realize the underlying reasons that you do buy.

Marie

Yes. So one more thing before we get to to some of the tactics for flipping it to an abundance loop. This was the other thing I really responded to, you know, information overload. We're talking a little bit about that. My brain… like sometimes I just feel so incredibly oversaturated with everything… and, you know, people that I really respect and admire can be like, Marie, did you see X, Y and Z.

And like, dude, no, like, I don't listen. I don't listen to podcasts. There's so many things that I don't do because I literally find as I get older, I need more and more spaciousness to feel at peace. And I'm fine with missing out. It's I guess it's called JOMO now, right? The joy of missing out rather than FOMO.

So you shared that in one day we're now exposed to more information than a person in the 15th century encountered in their entire lifetime. 

I’m gonna say that again, in one day we're now exposed to more information than a person in the 15th century encountered in their entire lifetime. 

And I love this notion that part of… at least how I interpreted it… was there are so many specialized experts and I can even find my own brain going like, Well, who the h*** am I supposed to listen to?

Because there are so many people telling me what I should be doing. And this is the newest research about X, Y, and Z. And if you don't listen… It’s like [pause] , do you? It's just, you know… I start to go numb and go like, I can't keep up. 

So let's talk about just all of this information, what it's doing to us, how it interacts with our scarcity brain, and if there's anything we can do to start to circumnavigate that.

Michael

Yeah, So we are… information is another thing that would have given us our survival advantage in the past, and so we still crave it.

Marie

Yeah.

Michael

Now the difference is that the information that we were going for in the past was pretty straightforward. Either found some food or you didn't. You made some kids and kept them alive or you didn't. You had shelter. You didn't. Right. But it always did improve our lives, like knowing that. We still have this drive to get more information.

So this one Harvard researcher called us informavores. So just like carnivores like to eat meat, humans are informavores that we just like to consume and consume information. But the difference today is that… to your point that you pointed out, is that we live in this world where there's so much information and yet we still keep seeking it, seeking it, and consuming it.

Right. And because we're wired to. It's our brain! It's like if you have a question where there's an uncertainty, you just want to seek and seek and seek. So think about like the last time you maybe had a pain in your side, right? You go, pain in my side...

Marie

Yes.

Michael

…WebMD and here's like five different things that could be. Maybe I pulled the muscle when I was working out. Maybe I just ate something weird or stage four cancer. That is it! That's stage four cancer! You know? And so you just keep seeking and seeking and seeking. And it stresses people out. Now, that's an extreme example, but that gets put at scale all the time, every single day.

And I think even though we have more information, I don't think that we necessarily have more understanding in day to day life necessarily. So one way that I think of handling this, and I'll give you a quote and a weird story. Is that, when I was… back in the day… when I was an intern at Esquire magazine. I had this assignment to figure out how much money the Pope makes.

So that's my assignment. So what I did is I did some Internet searching. Whatever I come up with this figure, I'm like, okay, here's how much money the Pope makes. I turn in the thing and my editor, like, calls me into this big conference room and sits me down. And he just goes, No, if you want to know how much money the Pope makes, you call the F***ing Vatican.

And so that was like a light bulb moment. Like going to the source is how you get the best information. 

So one thing that I've kind of been thinking about is this idea of slow information. Like if you really want to know something, put in the extra amount of effort to really figure out what it is. If you want to know something about someone, ask them. If you want to know a scientific finding, read the study.

If you don't know how to read a study, there's plenty of resources out there that will tell how to read a study. Only then can you really sort of start to get to the bottom of these things. But I think that we do live in a world where, you know, it's boom headline… and then you like start to read the whole story and you're going like, I don't even know if that should be the headline on that.

Marie

Right? 

Michael

And then if you read the study… that the story was about, you're like, I don't even know if that's what the story should have been about. Right? And so this can be definitely confusing and it is hard to navigate and it is also kind of falls into that 60 second rule. In the sense that, like, you’ve got to pick your battles, you can't you can't investigate, you can't call the f*** Vatican every time you’ve got a question in your mind. You'll go crazy, right? But I think that realizing that this drive, that we have for information can ultimately lead to anxiety and can ultimately lead to information that may not improve our life, is good to know.

Marie

Yeah, I've handled it in a fun way for me. Which is like… for so many things… like I’m letting Jesus take the wheel. Not particularly religious. I grew up Catholic, but I'm like, Jesus’ got this one, not me. I'm good!

Michael

Yeah. 

Marie

You know, I don't need to go down that rabbit hole. Okay. So give us some hope here, Michael.

Now that we've got a lot of awareness around the scarcity loop and scarcity brain and all of the different domains and where it shows up in our everyday lives. You say that we can flip this into an abundance loop. So any tips that we can take away if we to sense or feel that we're being pulled into one or nudged into one by some technological forces or big industry or big food or big tech. Anything that you've seen that helps?

Michael

Well, I think first figuring out how do you get out of the loops you don't want to be in. And then just that awareness and then you can take away the three parts of the loop that I laid out or change them. And I talk about ways to do that in the book. But in terms of flipping it into something good, that's what's really interesting.

So I think you had asked me this at the start of the interview, and I didn't answer the question, so I'm going to answer it now is. Okay, why do we find the scarcity loop in the first place? And that's because it evolved to help us find food when humans were, you know, evolving… ancient humans. Finding food is a random rewards game.

It's just like a slot machine. It sounds crazy, but I'll explain it so you need food or else to starve. So your opportunity is to not die by finding food. So you go to value. You go to point A no food. Okay, Play the game again. Point B, No food. Point C, Oh, Wow! Jackpot! We're going to survive and live on. So that's very exciting. And then, by the way, you got to find food tomorrow, so we got to repeat that cycle. 

So what you tend to find is that a lot of things that you can do in nature or even in cities that involve searching tend to fall in this loop and people tend to find them really engaging.

And the upside is that as you are doing this sort of game, you're doing a lot of things that are very good for you. So I'll give you an example of let's say you're really into birding. It's a great activity. You know, you're going to find a bird at some point and see this bird, but you don't know what kind. Could be one that you've seen a hundred times, or it could be that super rare one, right? And then be like, Oh my God, we just saw that one! And you continue that activity all day. 

Hunting falls into it like fishing falls into it, foraging for food falls into it. But even I argue if you are into, say, collecting records or something and you live in a city and you're like, I want to find this, you know, this one band I'm looking for original record and you're going to walk to different record stores all across New York along the way.

You're outside, you're moving, you're doing it with people, and it's just really engaging things that enhancing your life. Whereas falling into it and a slot machine or falling into it on Instagram or falling into it on some sports gambling app or whatever it might be, but it's probably not enhancing your life. It's hurting you in the short term.

And also just from a business perspective, I mean, we've we've just laid out how a lot of businesses are using it to influence behavior in a way that.

Marie

Not so good.

Michael

Yeah, maybe people would push back on. But if you can think about, like, how could I provide random rewards and value for people in a way that enhances their life? That seems like a good question to ask and a question to investigate. And think it can it can lead to good societal change. 

And I'll give you a great example of this is this guy John Hankey in the book.

He created an app called Pokémon Go, which everyone's heard of it because it's been downloaded a billion times. So people will… people who haven't played it will be like, Oh yeah, that annoying app. But here's the thing. The reason that he started it is because he had a son who loved playing video games, but the kid didn't go outside and he didn't exercise much and he didn't hang out with a lot of other kids because they're all at their own homes playing video games through their headsets.

So he goes, okay, I'm a game designer. He used to work for Google. He created Google Maps and then founded his own company. He goes, How can I make a game world that mimics video games but sneaks in all these things that we know humans that make humans healthy. So he creates Pokémon Go, and when people play Pokémon Go, it is this random search, but along the way you're outside walking, you're getting sun exposure, all these good things, and you often have to team up with other human beings and work with them in order to catch certain Pokémon, right?

So as you're playing this game, you're getting all these good things. Now, you know, some people would argue like, Well, why don't you just walk around outside with your phone? Like, That's better. It's like, Well, yeah, but we're not talking about a person who's going to go walk around outside without their phone or with their phone. We're talking about a person who's going to sit in a basement playing video games or is going to walk out side with their phone.

So looking for opportunities like that I think can be transformative, especially if you put them at scale because, you know, people might make fun of Pokémon Go, but the people have played it have walked, I think, to Pluto and back nine times collective amount of steps. And that's like, you know, whatever the number is, 20 billion steps more than any other video game.

Marie

Absolutely! Yeah, no, we're not mad at that at all. You said you discovered the ultimate happiness hack, and I love this in a Benedictine Monastery of all places. So research shows that monks are some of the happiest people in the world. And I think you found some surprising lessons. I love this, by the way. I loved reading that chapter.

What's some of the things that you learned from them that's really stuck with you?

Michael

I think that what I mainly… well, let me back up and just say that, you know, I think we live in a world where it's kind of a we've got a happiness industrial complex. There's all these things we need to do to be happy. And they're often backed by research. It's like you got to meditate, you got to gratitude journal and by the way, you got to be social. If you don't have enough friends, you are F-U-*-*-E-D 

Marie

That's absolutely right. Yes! 

Michael

And part of what I… what made me start thinking about this is I found in my own life… like some of my happiest moments are with my friends and people I love, like my wife. But a lot of them are when I'm alone. Doing, you know, writing, running out in the desert. And so I started looking into this and looking at, okay, what are some people who aren't doing all these things that we're told we must do to be happy?

And I landed on these Benedictine Monks. And the research, as you pointed out, does suggest that they are happier than the general public. And they live a pretty tough lifestyle. They have to wake up at 3:15 to pray every morning and they pray in the chapel seven times across a day. There's all these rules. They have to live by, like don't eat too much.

They can't talk to each other for significant portions of the day. They're in silence. They have to put in hard labor. But the greater purpose behind what they're doing is they want to get closer to this thing that is greater than themself. So for them it's God. But I think that there is a takeaway for the average person that they're not doing the sort of chase that we often do chase for a new title, a new car, a new salary, more followers on Instagram, the next meal.

That's what's going to make me happy. People get in this chase for things that they think are going to make them happy. And it's it doesn't work. They don't worry about happiness. They worry about doing the next right thing, finding something that is greater than them and subverting their own desires to that greater thing. And by doing that, they wind up happy.

So probably one of the worst ways that you can be happy is to try to be happy, right? You just got to do the right thing. And usually that comes from helping others. Time with people you love, of course, but not always. There's a lot of them that are totally alone out in the woods and they're some of the happiest people.

And you see this in all our ancient religious texts. Like when people need to figure out their shit, they go out and they spend time alone and they learn something about themself. And yes, it is hard. But they come back and they're a better member of society and they are happier because they've had to go through hardship to get something greater.

And I think that that is a story too. That runs throughout the book is that, you know, humans don't grow and get better and become happier through doing the next easy thing. Changing usually is tough. And you have to accept that and even embrace that. But on the other side of that, that short term discomfort is usually a long term benefit.

Marie

Yeah, that kind of takes me back to your first book, Comfort Crisis, which I love! Which if y'all haven't read that one, you need to get that one too. It was.. it was really something. I found it so refreshing because in my own life as well, times in solitude and times by myself can be really, really, really fulfilling. 

And. So I don't think that we talk about that enough. And, and it's important to because we're all wired so differently and so many of us get recharged by having that alone time.

Michael

Yeah.

Marie

And being able to go like, Oh, wow, that is a real source of happiness as well. And it's like, you don't have to choose one thing or force yourself to be a particular way or follow the prescription every single day of what's supposed to make you happy. To get there… is absolutely not. 

Michael, you’re a joy. If there was one thing that you wanted someone to really understand about this book, about their brain, about their ability to rewire their own habits, what would you want to leave people with?

Michael

I would want to leave people with that… if you feel like you're stuck or you want to enhance your life, I would tell you that there is a lot of paths to get there. Usually they're not always going to be easy, but there are a lot of options for people. And so part of the reason that my books that I don't lay out like: here is my five step simple plan for great success… is because the reality is, is that would work for maybe 10% of people and 90% would be like, Wow, that didn't work for me.

So I try and give people sort of the overarching mechanics and different ideas because there are so many possibilities and ways that people can improve, people can get better, people can improve the lives of those around them. And I think by experimenting and trying different ways. You ultimately learn more about yourself in the process, and that is ultimately much more rewarding.

So that's a long way of saying that, Yeah, I think you can really do anything if you just try a lot of different things and be willing to realize that it's not always going to be easy. But on the other side of that is growth.

Marie

Thank you so much!

Michael

Yeah, thank you. It was fun.

Marie

Oh my goodness! If you loved that episode, do me a big favor, hit that subscribe button now! Not only would it mean the world to me, but it’ll make sure you neve miss an episode. And more importantly, it’ll help us reach more amazing incredible souls just like you! So hit that subscribe button and I’ll see you soon.