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to explore. have the

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cheat code to succeed with people. Every

2:02

episode is jam-packed with actionable steps to

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Level up with us each week by

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business, psychology, and relationships. We distill thousands

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of hours of research in the most

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effective tools and the latest science so

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you can start winning today. Let's face

2:20

it. In order to be seen and

2:23

heard, your communication needs to cut through

2:25

the noise. And we're going to show

2:27

you how. I'm AJ, successfully recovered introvert

2:29

entrepreneur and self-development junkie. And I'm Johnny

2:32

Zubak, former touring musician, promoter, rock and

2:34

roller, and co-founder here at the Artich

2:36

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2:39

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settle for anything less than extraordinary. All

2:54

right, let's kick off today's show. Today we're talking

2:56

with Alex Hutchinson about why your brain

2:59

is literally wired to explore and how

3:01

to harness exploration for success. Alex Hutchinson

3:03

is an award-winning journalist who writes about

3:05

the science of endurance. He's a former

3:08

long-distance runner for the Canadian National Team

3:10

and he holds a master's in journalism

3:12

from Columbia and a PhD in physics

3:15

from Cambridge. He's the author of The

3:17

Explorers Gene, why we seek big challenges,

3:19

new flavors, new flavors, and the blank

3:21

spots on the map. The real secret

3:24

to happiness isn't avoiding hard things, it's

3:26

embracing them. Alex shares five dead simple

3:28

rules to make this work for you,

3:30

whether you're switching careers or just trying

3:33

to break out of a rut. You

3:35

know that feeling of wanting to know

3:37

what's around the corner? It's not random,

3:40

it's how you're built. But here's the

3:42

kicker. Modern Tech is hijacking that natural

3:44

instinct and it's costing you big time.

3:46

All right, welcome the show Alex, great

3:49

to have you. Thanks so much AJ,

3:51

it's really awesome to be here. I

3:53

know Johnny and I are very curious

3:55

what fascinated you about this topic because

3:58

as we dug into the book we

4:00

were just blown away by not only

4:02

the neuroscience but also just thinking a

4:04

lot about ourselves and exploration. Yeah this

4:07

was definitely a kind of personal journey

4:09

for me in the sense that part

4:11

of, but you know, part of the

4:14

reason I was interested in exploring is

4:16

that I found myself drawn to explore

4:18

for reasons that I, not only wasn't

4:20

sure what the reasons were, but I

4:23

wasn't sure whether they were good reasons.

4:25

And I, you know, I'm talking about

4:27

career decisions, even the decision to write

4:29

the book itself was an exploring decision

4:32

for me moving away from my entrenched

4:34

career path. So I had all these

4:36

questions and I was looking for answers,

4:39

but I got some. Are all humans

4:41

drawn to explore or are there specific

4:43

patterns or subsets of humans that express

4:45

this more than others? So I would

4:48

say that all humans are drawn to

4:50

explore. Now I know that that statement

4:52

will run into resistance and I, you

4:54

know, it runs into resistance. So if

4:57

I if I trotted out at a

4:59

cocktail party or whatever, people will say,

5:01

I hate exploring. I hate, you know,

5:03

the things that you like to do

5:06

in the back injury, I hate that,

5:08

trying new foods, I hate that. And

5:10

I get it. But there's a I

5:13

think you have to define exploring in

5:15

a very personal sense, in a sense

5:17

of when are you pushing out of

5:19

your own rut or your own path

5:22

or your own directions. And I think

5:24

we can make a strong case that

5:26

everyone has some draw to that. Some

5:28

people have it more than others, but

5:31

no one who's healthy and functioning is

5:33

doing exactly the same things every day

5:35

over and over again, kind of groundhog

5:38

day style. To clear this up for

5:40

our audience, should we define it as

5:42

stepping out of your comfort zone? Yeah,

5:44

I mean, metaphorically, it's like, are you

5:47

going to stay on the path that

5:49

you're on where you know where it's

5:51

headed and there's street signs and everything?

5:53

Are you going to step off the

5:56

path into the unknown? But so you

5:58

can think of it in terms of,

6:00

you know, as a gambling problem, are

6:02

you going to... take the bet that's

6:05

more uncertain where there's a there's a

6:07

risk. There's a chance of a higher

6:09

payout, but there's also chance of a

6:12

lower pay out or a failure of

6:14

going bankrupt. So exploring is accepting the

6:16

accepting risk. in some sense. I think

6:18

when many people think of exploring, they

6:21

think of sailors, astronauts, scientists, but I

6:23

would almost argue we all are with

6:25

these devices in our pocket and we're

6:27

looking at the usage of smartphone going

6:30

up and up and up and drawing

6:32

our attention and so many people I

6:34

talk to are falling into rabbit holes

6:37

with their device, exploring topics and things

6:39

that fascinate them. Do you argue the

6:41

same? Do you feel... That way I

6:43

do and I would say it's a

6:46

double-edged sword. So first of all I

6:48

would say yeah if we do a

6:50

word association test then you say explore

6:52

I say Christopher Columbus or whatever that's

6:55

that's how we think of it but

6:57

I think moments where we decide whether

6:59

or not to explore everywhere in our

7:01

lives it's like you go into a

7:04

restaurant you go to the restaurant that

7:06

you're familiar with do you order the

7:08

burger that you always order or do

7:11

you take a chance on the special

7:13

that's a decision whether or not to

7:15

not to explore. a spoken dumpster fire

7:17

of a controversy these days as to

7:20

whether they're good for us or not.

7:22

And I think social media and information

7:24

technology gives us opportunities to explore in

7:26

ways that we never would have had

7:29

access to before, but they can also

7:31

be, give us kind of the illusion

7:33

of exploration. They can tap into the

7:36

brain circuitries that are drawing us to

7:38

explore and keep us addicted to wanting

7:40

to find out what's down the next

7:42

link, the next link. without giving some

7:45

of the payoff that we get from

7:47

actively exploring in the real world. Now,

7:49

let's talk about that because title is

7:51

the explored gene. So is there a

7:54

gene that is regarded as the gene

7:56

that leads us to exploration or what's

7:58

going on neurologically and biologically there? Yeah,

8:00

I mean, so the title of the

8:03

book is, let's say, slightly tongue-in-cheek or

8:05

actually very tongue-in-cheek. There's not a single

8:07

gene that defines it, but it definitely,

8:10

very early in my journey in my

8:12

journey on this topic. I read some

8:14

stuff about a specific gene that's related

8:16

to how our brains process dopamine where

8:19

there are different variants, some of which

8:21

are sort of more or less sensitive

8:23

to dopamine which end up... that meaning

8:25

that some people need a bigger surprise

8:28

to get that same hit of feeling

8:30

like that feeling of discovery. And that

8:32

leads these people, it plays out in

8:35

the real world that these are the

8:37

people who are more likely to be

8:39

skiing out of bounds at a ski

8:41

area. They're more likely to be diagnosed

8:44

with ADHD, which is an interesting kind

8:46

of rather whole too, because then you

8:48

start to see. ADHD as one end

8:50

of a spectrum that has been very

8:53

useful for our species over time, people

8:55

who are drawn to always need to

8:57

know what's what's over the horizon. And

8:59

you can see that these differences, these

9:02

genetic differences, actually play out on a

9:04

population level too. So, you know, 100,000

9:06

years ago, our ancestors were all either

9:09

in Africa or somewhere near Africa just

9:11

coming out of Africa, and then over

9:13

the course of the next 50, basically

9:15

every habitable spot on the globe. And

9:18

if you look at how far different

9:20

populations traveled, the farther a population traveled,

9:22

let's say the southern tip of South

9:24

America is about as far as people

9:27

could go, those populations tend to have

9:29

a higher proportion of people with the

9:31

explorers version of the gene. So you

9:34

can see that exploring is wired in

9:36

us right from the start, and it

9:38

actually has, it plays a role in

9:40

how people go through the world and

9:43

live. So is that unique to our

9:45

species? The short answer is scientists disagree.

9:47

I talk to some who are like,

9:49

no man, like maple trees explore in

9:52

the sense of spreading across the globe,

9:54

like their seeds helicopter down in the

9:56

wind. And so that's not, the fact

9:58

that we spread into new territory all

10:01

the time, that's not unique to humans.

10:03

But we are in a way that

10:05

no other mammals do, we really spread

10:08

rapidly. and to everywhere, even in situations

10:10

where we had plenty of resources, where

10:12

we were. I think that's a key

10:14

point. Like, if you look... Looking back

10:17

at ancient migration, you sort of think,

10:19

well, I guess it was, you know,

10:21

maybe there was bad weather, you know,

10:23

not much food, it was too crowded,

10:26

so people had to leave, and that's

10:28

why we spread. But the history of

10:30

human migration also includes lots of situations

10:33

where resources were fine and humans seemed

10:35

to spread even, you know, it seemed

10:37

to want to discover what was over

10:39

the horizon, even when life was okay

10:42

where they were. So that it's not

10:44

scarcity driven. even in abundance we have

10:46

this innate desire to explore. Yeah, now

10:48

certainly Scare City is a good driver

10:51

to tell people to explore, but yeah,

10:53

I think this is this goes deeper

10:55

than just wanting to have enough food

10:57

for the winter. There's an argument in

11:00

neuroscience. There's something called the free energy

11:02

principle, which has become in the last

11:04

20 years a sort of new idea

11:07

for explaining how our brains are wired

11:09

and actually how all of life is

11:11

wired. And its fundamental principle is that

11:13

we want to be able to predict

11:16

the world accurately. And if you accept

11:18

that premise, then the best way to

11:20

predict the world, one way, the bad

11:22

way is you say, I'm going to

11:25

lock myself in the closet and turn

11:27

out all the lights. Because now I

11:29

know exactly what's going to happen all

11:32

the time. Nothing. And this is called

11:34

the dark room problem in philosophy and

11:36

in neuroscience. It's like, well, if we

11:38

want to predict everything, why don't we

11:41

just head into the closet? over the,

11:43

you know, you want to be able

11:45

to predict the future too, you want

11:47

to know what's going to happen. The

11:50

best way to predict the future is

11:52

to know as much as possible about

11:54

the world. So it turns out we're

11:57

wired to leave the dark room to

11:59

get out of the closet, go out

12:01

of the world and actually actively seek

12:03

out the things we know the least

12:06

about. So when we see, we know

12:08

what's down the road to the left,

12:10

but we've never been down the road

12:12

to the right. There's something in our

12:15

brains that says. Man, you really should

12:17

go down the road on the right

12:19

because we don't know anything about that

12:21

and that is the richest opportunity to

12:24

learn about the world. It seems to

12:26

me like there's this desire to map

12:28

then what's going on in these situations.

12:31

And I have a bit of a

12:33

silly anecdote, but my wife is pregnant

12:35

and we were scheduling a hospital tour.

12:37

And for me, the hospital tour was

12:40

more about getting to the hospital during

12:42

labor, where to park the car, and

12:44

how to actually get her inside the

12:46

clinic. And for her, she was remarking,

12:49

oh, you're not really taking any notes

12:51

during the actual tour. And I was

12:53

like, well, I'm trying to mentally map.

12:56

how to get us there when I

12:58

know there's going to be a spike

13:00

of adrenaline, I've never been to this

13:02

wing of the hospital, it's a big

13:05

hospital in Los Angeles, parking can be

13:07

quite hairy, and I felt quite relieved

13:09

once I had mentally mapped, okay, this

13:11

is our house and this is exactly

13:14

how I get you to the clinic,

13:16

and for her it was all, I

13:18

want to know what's going on after

13:20

I get to the clinic, like what

13:23

are the next steps, but both of

13:25

us at the end of that tour,

13:27

felt so much more relief, felt so

13:30

much more relief, Yeah, and I think

13:32

this this idea of mental mapping is

13:34

a really powerful one. I mean, you've

13:36

got a smartphone and that smartphone has

13:39

Google Maps on it and probably has

13:41

Uber on it and stuff. And so

13:43

on one level, you don't need to

13:45

know how to get to the hospital.

13:48

The all-seeing internet is going to tell

13:50

you how to get there. But if

13:52

you don't know, I mean, you can't

13:55

feel comfortable if you don't have some

13:57

sense embedded in your brain. And there's

13:59

a region of the brain called the

14:01

hippocampus. literal maps, like there's when you

14:04

see a new place, you're encoding it

14:06

in your hippo campus, such that at

14:08

every geographic point in that space, there's

14:10

a specific neuron that fires that says,

14:13

I'm at that space. And so to

14:15

learn a place involves actually physically mapping

14:17

it in your brain. And there's famous

14:19

studies with, for example, London taxi drivers

14:22

who they. at least in the past

14:24

had to basically memorize the entire city

14:26

of London in order to pass their

14:29

taxi tests and the so these taxi

14:31

drivers turned out their hippocampuses would physically

14:33

grow in order to incorporate this memory.

14:35

They knew London in a way that

14:38

you don't know if you just kind

14:40

of fly into the airport and type

14:42

into your phone, take me to the,

14:44

take me to the, you know, Tower

14:47

of London or whatever. Hey everyone, quick

14:49

break. Johnny, I need to talk about

14:51

something that's been bothering us. That's right.

14:54

After training over 11,000 professionals in the

14:56

last 18 years, we are seeing a

14:58

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at quince.com/charm. Well that brings up a

17:30

very good point. How can we feel

17:32

at ease if we're not mental mapping?

17:35

Right? So our cell phones now are

17:37

our biggest distraction. We have all the

17:39

world's information at our fingertips. We can

17:41

watch cat videos for the rest of

17:44

our life. And we don't need to

17:46

be bothered with expanding our hippocampus. We

17:48

don't need to be bothered with mental

17:51

mapping because, well, I'm just going to

17:53

ask ChatGBT and it gives me the

17:55

answer and I'm going to go over

17:57

here and I'm going to get the

18:00

answer on TikTok. So our exploration has

18:02

been significantly cut down. And if that

18:04

is a human need, well then that

18:06

is going to result in the symptoms

18:09

of feeling. on ease, anxiety rising, having

18:11

an overwhelming feelings of despair, because we

18:13

haven't settled that mental mapping. And to

18:15

go on with AJ was saying, for

18:18

myself, when I go on trips, vacation,

18:20

I like to stay in a city

18:22

as long as possible. And I'm usually

18:25

high with anxiety walking around the city

18:27

until the first day that I can

18:29

go out for a jog, and I'll

18:31

go out for a jog, maybe it's

18:34

five, maybe it's 10 miles, but that's

18:36

what I'm doing, a mental mapping, and

18:38

I feel so much better after that

18:40

jog about the rest of my trip,

18:43

what I want to see, what do

18:45

I want to investigate because of that

18:47

simple mental mapping. So again, this comes

18:50

down to our own well-being. if we're

18:52

unable to do the exploring that our

18:54

mind needs. I think that's a really

18:56

important point. There's a few scientists I

18:59

spoke to who are actually really concerned

19:01

about the decline of mental matter, the

19:03

decline of knowing spaces, not just knowing

19:05

how to get to a place by

19:08

pressing a button, but actually knowing these

19:10

spaces. I mentioned the London taxi drivers.

19:12

Their hippo campuses get bigger because they've

19:14

had to learn so many spaces. The

19:17

flip side of that is if you

19:19

don't use your hippocampus, if you never

19:21

need to navigate, there's now evidence that

19:24

your hippocampus starts to shrink. And that's

19:26

really bad news because a shrinking hippocampus

19:28

has been found to be an early

19:30

predictor of a bunch of different conditions,

19:33

including Alzheimer's and other forms of cognitive

19:35

decline and anxiety and depression. And so,

19:37

you know, You want to kind of

19:39

avoid being the little boy or your

19:42

chicken little who's always word that the

19:44

sky is falling. There's a lot of

19:46

alarmism about technology, but I came out

19:49

of writing this book committed to being

19:51

thoughtful about using the GPS. navigation on

19:53

my phone. So I mean, the phone,

19:55

I need to use it to get

19:58

places sometimes, but I try to turn

20:00

it off until I need it. And

20:02

you know, one of the researchers, a

20:04

woman named Vernique Bobo, who's in McGill

20:07

University in Montreal, who's one of the

20:09

world experts on this, her advice is

20:11

like, okay, you need to use it

20:13

sometimes. It's the modern world. But keep

20:16

it in the kind of bird's eye

20:18

view as much as possible so that

20:20

at least. you're following it along, but

20:23

you can see where you're going. I'm

20:25

going north and I'm going to go

20:27

left there, I'm going to go east

20:29

there or however you think of directions,

20:32

as opposed to being in the ego-centric

20:34

view where it's showing you what the

20:36

world looks like. And then you really

20:38

have no idea how where you are

20:41

fits into the bigger picture. So it's

20:43

not about giving up technology completely, but

20:45

it's about being aware, being willing to,

20:48

you know, going back to the idea

20:50

of exploring one of the... important

20:52

components of exploring is being willing to

20:54

be lost sometimes. Now you don't want

20:56

to be lost in the Sahara Desert,

20:58

but if you're in a new town

21:00

in the hotel, hey, maybe you get

21:03

off track by a few blocks, you've

21:05

still got the phone in your pocket,

21:07

you can always find yourself, but be

21:09

willing to wander because by being willing

21:11

to be lost or to find your

21:13

way, you have to be looking around,

21:15

you're seeing your surroundings. because you're trying

21:17

to not get lost. And so that's

21:19

engaging your hippo campus. And it also

21:21

means you're experiencing the city, you're experiencing,

21:23

you're experiencing, you're experiencing, or as you

21:25

explore, even in your own city. You're

21:27

seeing things for the first time, because

21:29

you have to, instead of just looking

21:31

down at your phone and having your

21:33

experience mediated by the screen. Yeah, I'm

21:35

really curious about that last point there

21:37

and VR and AR and how. that

21:39

might change our brain because a lot

21:41

of what we're talking about here as

21:43

humans is exploration of actual world, the

21:45

landscape around us, the tactile nature, understanding

21:47

directionality, whereas now we're getting to a

21:49

place where we're strapping screens on our

21:51

face and trying our best to simulate

21:53

that as much as possible, but is

21:55

there any science around the difference between

21:57

actually experiencing the place or putting on

21:59

the... Tower goggles. Yeah, so it's an

22:02

emerging world, right? So maybe if

22:04

you extrapolate out to the future

22:06

and the virtual reality is so

22:08

complete that it's just like being

22:10

in the real world and where

22:12

you actually can get lost

22:14

in this virtual reality and you have

22:17

to figure out which way you're oriented,

22:19

I don't know. Maybe at that point

22:21

it's the same. But at this point,

22:23

what I would say is there is

22:26

quite a bit of research

22:28

showing the difference between actively

22:30

exploring somewhere and passively exploring

22:32

it. So you might say, what's

22:35

the difference between going to

22:37

Mount Everest and climbing it versus

22:39

watching a documentary about going to

22:41

Mount Everest and climbing it? You

22:43

see all the same sites. You

22:45

hear all the same sounds. So

22:47

in a sense, you're experiencing the

22:50

same thing. But there's quite a bit

22:52

of research showing that you process

22:54

information differently. if you're actively

22:56

exploring something compared to if

22:58

it's just shown to you

23:00

past something, even if it's

23:02

exactly the same information, that if

23:04

you're just a spectator, you don't absorb

23:06

it in the same way, you don't learn in the

23:08

same way. And so to me, it's a sliding

23:10

scale of kind of autonomy in exploration from

23:13

I'm going to go into the wilderness

23:15

and climb Mount Everest all by myself to

23:17

I'm going to hire a guy to take

23:19

me up Mount Everest because I don't know

23:22

the way to Everest and I'm going to

23:24

dive. So this guy's going to make some

23:26

of the decisions for me, but I'm

23:28

still be moving through the world and make

23:31

choices to, I'm going to lie in the

23:33

sofa and watch a documentary. And each of

23:35

those has a role to play, but I think

23:37

we want to always be pushing to

23:39

the most active form of exploration that

23:42

we're comfortable with in a given context.

23:44

I've never climbed that ever. when I

23:46

went trekking in Nepal a decade ago

23:49

and trekked to the base camp of Everest,

23:51

we did it without a guide because

23:53

we wanted to be looking around and

23:55

having the adventure exploring for ourselves as

23:57

opposed to just following someone along and

23:59

how having the equivalent of a kind

24:02

of walking documentary playing in front

24:04

of us. Now looking at obviously

24:06

the difference there in exploration on your

24:08

own versus a guide and having support,

24:10

you know, what are the downsides

24:12

to just avoiding this exploration in terms

24:15

of engaging that side of your brain?

24:17

You talked a little bit about

24:19

shrinking hippocampus, but you know, what are

24:21

some of the other ways that this

24:24

can impact us negatively if we

24:26

aren't exploring? Yeah, you know, one of

24:28

the... The phenomena that I came across

24:30

that I hadn't heard about before

24:32

was something that's called the creativity crisis.

24:35

So there's an effect called the Flynn

24:37

effect, which is that IQ tests

24:39

have been going steadily up since about

24:41

the 1920s and 1930s, and modern life

24:44

requires a lot of abstract thinking,

24:46

so it seems like we're actually getting

24:48

better at it. But there's a reverse

24:50

effect that scores on standard tests

24:52

of creativity. have been going down since

24:55

about the late 1980s, early 1990s, and

24:57

going down even more sharply in

24:59

the last 10 years or so, it's

25:02

hard to distinguish between correlation and causation.

25:04

We don't know exactly what's causing

25:06

it, but the rise of everyone sitting

25:08

on their phone and social media is,

25:11

it seems to me a likely

25:13

candidate. So the thing is, if you're

25:15

just passively being fed whatever the algorithm

25:17

is giving you and not making

25:19

any active choices. You're not learning in

25:22

the same way and you're not even

25:24

learning how to learn. You're not

25:26

learning how to explore. You're not learning

25:28

the ways that you can follow your

25:31

own interests and have that become

25:33

a passion that you then pursue for

25:35

the rest of your life or whatever.

25:37

And so we seem to be

25:39

doing worse on scores of creativity. And

25:42

if you, that's kids, testing kids. Now

25:44

you zoom out and look at,

25:46

let's say. You can do these huge

25:48

big data analyses of US patents or

25:51

of scientific papers. And there's various

25:53

metrics you can use to say, how

25:55

many breakthrough papers do we have? or

25:57

breakthrough patents that really changed something as

26:00

opposed to just incrementally adding on

26:02

to previous patents or previous discoveries. And

26:04

the rates of breakthrough discoveries seem to

26:06

have been going down for the

26:08

last few decades. So, you know, these

26:11

are big trends and it's hard to

26:13

pinpoint an exact culprit, but for

26:15

whatever reason it does seem like. as

26:17

a society both kids and adults were

26:20

getting less creative and I think

26:22

that may have something to do with

26:24

the decline of exploration. Our institutions also

26:26

have been highly screwed up and

26:28

there's whole walls of fields that are

26:31

walled off due to political agendas and

26:33

everything else that goes along with

26:35

it which prohibits a lot of that

26:38

exploring and innovation which makes it difficult

26:40

and with the 80s I mean

26:42

We're now talking about more channels added

26:44

to television, right? This is now cable

26:47

TV, HBO, Cinemax, MTV. All of

26:49

those things led to longer television hours.

26:51

So all of those things have certainly

26:53

contributed to it. And if all

26:55

you're doing is being fed entertainment and

26:58

you're just consuming, well, yeah, all of

27:00

the creative flow. and areas of

27:02

your brain that helps with that are

27:04

going on at your feet. One of

27:07

the sort of correlations with the

27:09

decline of creativity is the decline of

27:11

free play. So kids are sitting watching

27:13

TV. They're also sitting in the

27:15

car being driven to this lesson and

27:18

that lesson. My kids are eight and

27:20

ten and I wrestle with this

27:22

all the time because I spend a

27:24

lot of time in the car driving

27:27

them to their soccer practice, driving

27:29

them to hockey, because we're in Canada,

27:31

driving them to various. formal opportunities to

27:33

learn, which feels like, oh, we're

27:35

giving them every chance in the book,

27:38

but it's like, I really struggle to

27:40

try and make sure they also

27:42

have six hours to sit, you know,

27:44

alone, hopefully outside wandering. around in the

27:47

backyard and learning to listen to their

27:49

own instincts for what's interesting because

27:51

I think one of the best pieces

27:53

of advice to follow in terms of

27:56

exploring is to trust your instincts

27:58

as to what you think is interesting

28:00

because your brain has this fine-tuned mechanism

28:02

to try and look for areas

28:04

of uncertainty or the unknown as we

28:07

were talking about this earlier. Your brain

28:09

is that's a... One of its

28:11

fundamental purposes is to look for areas

28:14

where there's rich opportunities to learn. So

28:16

if your kid says, I'm curious

28:18

about that, you might think, well, that's

28:20

stupid. You should be curious about calculus

28:23

because then you'll get a good

28:25

job. It's like, no, you should trust

28:27

their instincts about what they're curious about

28:29

and let them follow those roads.

28:31

So after writing this book and looking

28:34

at all the research, I'm really curious

28:36

to hear what changes you made

28:38

in your own life and maybe in

28:40

your parenting style to really tap into

28:43

this curiosity and exploration and exploration.

28:45

I talked to a researcher in Denmark

28:47

who studies play in the context of

28:49

these new brain theories and I

28:51

was asking him like, come on buddy,

28:54

give me some tips. You've got young

28:56

kids too. What do you do

28:58

with them is like, because we all

29:00

struggle with balancing risk with opportunity, right?

29:03

Nobody wants their kid to be

29:05

falling off the top of the playground

29:07

or falling in the raging river or

29:09

being abducted by the guy in

29:11

the white van or whatever. And his

29:14

main advice was just that he. tries

29:16

to say yes as much as

29:18

possible. And so I've, that tries to

29:20

respect. So if his kids think something

29:23

is worth pursuing, he doesn't try

29:25

and superimpose his adult perspective on that.

29:27

It's like, if they think that sitting

29:29

in the backyard and piling up

29:31

sticks is a great way to spend

29:34

six hours on a Saturday, they should

29:36

do that. Maybe they're gonna be

29:38

an architect, maybe not, who cares? The

29:40

point is right now they find that

29:43

interesting. So I've really tried to embrace

29:45

that. In my own life, you

29:47

know, these are very sort of amorphous

29:50

things because I was hoping when I

29:52

started this project that I would

29:54

come out with. the formula of when

29:56

to explore, when to exploit. Because exploring

29:59

isn't always the right choice, right?

30:01

Like if you do nothing but exploring,

30:03

that's the classic like, you know, you,

30:05

it's like, of dating, for example,

30:07

you're always wondering if the next date

30:10

will be better than the one you're

30:12

with. Well, 50 years from now,

30:14

you're going to be like, ah, maybe

30:16

I should have settled down with someone

30:19

at some point. So you need

30:21

to know when to exploit, when to

30:23

take advantage of the information. you already

30:25

have, and there's no good formula

30:27

for that, despite the attempts of many

30:30

scientists. But I'm definitely trying to leave

30:32

myself open to actually following some

30:34

of those mental rabbit holes of like

30:36

when I get interested in something, hopefully

30:39

not just to the extent of

30:41

clicking on a bunch of links, but

30:43

yeah, if I'm interested in some music,

30:45

let me get that album. Let's

30:47

listen to the whole album. Let's see

30:50

what that's about, as opposed to just

30:52

moving on to the next thing

30:54

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gold card. Build for business by

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American Express. What

33:24

we've noticed in our clients is there

33:26

is this paradigm around uncertainty. So a

33:29

lot of our clients will come for

33:31

coaching because they've encountered an area of

33:33

their life, whether it's dating or career,

33:35

where there's an immense amount of uncertainty

33:38

that's leading to anxiety. And then anxiety

33:40

creates fears and a lot of things

33:42

that negatively impact your behaviors and your

33:44

thoughts about yourself, self-worth. And what's so

33:46

interesting in our immersive experiences especially is

33:49

once we get them through some exercises

33:51

that walk them through the uncertainty and

33:53

show that the outcomes that we're creating

33:55

anxiety are very rare if ever to

33:58

happen. So let's say someone. rejecting you

34:00

socially or someone throwing a drink in

34:02

your face at a bar for asking

34:04

them for their phone number, a lot

34:07

of these heightened emotions that come with

34:09

uncertainty, once you recognize that those outcomes

34:11

are very unlikely to happen, then it

34:13

like flips and they get excited about

34:16

chasing uncertainty in their life and putting

34:18

themselves more into uncertain situations to experience

34:20

that, to learn what it's like to

34:22

feel that uncertainty and then they'll come

34:25

back to us years later and be

34:27

like, That led to a huge leap

34:29

in my career in a startup idea

34:31

that I'd been kicking around for years.

34:34

So what's going on with that uncertainty

34:36

and that paradigm shift from, okay, it's

34:38

so much uncertainty, I'm frozen, I'm stuck,

34:40

to now I'm chasing uncertainty and I'm

34:43

excited to explore it fully? It goes

34:45

beyond just recognizing that the negative outcomes

34:47

are rare. I would actually say the

34:49

negative outcomes are important. They're part of

34:52

the game and you have to learn

34:54

to embrace. illustrations of the Explorer exploit

34:56

dilemma is I mentioned before restaurant ordering.

34:58

You go into a restaurant, you order

35:00

the dish that you know is okay,

35:03

or do you to take a chance.

35:05

So for like half a century, scientists

35:07

have been talking about this. But now

35:09

in the modern air, we can actually

35:12

look at big data of how people

35:14

order in restaurants. So some scientists at

35:16

Harvard took data from a couple hundred

35:18

thousand customers of a delivery service called

35:21

Deliveroo. So food delivery service that's bigger

35:23

in Europe. they analyze their ordering patterns.

35:25

So to say, how often do they

35:27

go back to the same old restaurants?

35:30

How often do they try new restaurants?

35:32

And what happens when they do that?

35:34

Do they, is exploring this wonderful thing

35:36

that brings them happy joy and wonderful

35:39

meals? And the answer is in the

35:41

short term, no. Actually, when they try

35:43

a new restaurant, on average, they rate

35:45

that meal lower than if they go

35:48

back to a known restaurant. So exploring

35:50

comes with a cost. And it's not

35:52

getting the drink thrown in your face,

35:54

in your face. The flip side of

35:57

that is that over time, people's average

35:59

ratings, the more they order, the more

36:01

their average ratings of food go up.

36:03

They drift upwards because over time as

36:06

they explore, they're finding some dud, some

36:08

restaurants they don't like and they're leaving

36:10

those behind and never going back and

36:12

they're finding some restaurants they like more

36:14

than the ones they knew and they're

36:17

adding those to the rotation. So without

36:19

the failures, without being willing to have

36:21

some bad meals, you never discover the

36:23

places that have better meals. And so

36:26

I think this is like a... you

36:28

know, not to be too grandiose about

36:30

it, but it's like a rule for

36:32

life. If you're not failing, if you're

36:35

not having some negative outcomes, if you're

36:37

not getting the proverbial or the figured

36:39

of drink thrown in your face, that

36:41

almost guarantees that you're missing out on

36:44

chances to find stuff that's better than

36:46

what you're doing now. So you should,

36:48

when you do have, when you see

36:50

uncertainty, you know that's an opportunity, like

36:53

you're saying. And then when things do

36:55

go wrong, you embrace that uncertainty and

36:57

sometimes you get a negative outcome, you

36:59

should say, this is a sign I'm

37:02

doing things right to some degree. I

37:04

mean, look, if you're getting drinks thrown

37:06

in your face every night, you're not

37:08

doing it right. But the negative outcomes

37:11

are an important precondition to getting improved

37:13

outcomes. It's funny. It goes to the

37:15

same way of how we express ourselves

37:17

as well. We could do that safely.

37:20

We could do that with what we

37:22

know works. or gets the job done,

37:24

or we can find new ways to

37:26

express us that to get our message

37:28

out there farther from the language we

37:31

use to the clothes that we wear.

37:33

And certainly if you're exploring yourself an

37:35

expression of fashion, there's going to be

37:37

maybe days where maybe you over overshot

37:40

it, right? You maybe wore something, everyone's

37:42

like, that's not you. But again, and

37:44

helps you find out what does work,

37:46

what makes you feel incredibly good when

37:49

you're wearing it, and even things that

37:51

people other folks may not vibe with

37:53

but you feel incredibly good with it.

37:55

Well then you're gonna you're gonna change

37:58

how it is perceived in other people

38:00

by how well you feel in wearing

38:02

it. And I think that's a super

38:04

example of the ways in which exploration

38:07

is not just about Christopher Columbus or

38:09

about climbing Mount Everest that it's there's

38:11

a lot of dimensions on which you

38:13

can be exploring things and All of

38:16

us need to find some of those

38:18

dimensions where we're exploring and pushing our

38:20

limits, whether it's physical or mental or

38:22

creative or emotional. I've been fortunate to

38:25

spend some time traveling through Europe with

38:27

my wife, and one of our favorite

38:29

things to do is first the digital

38:31

exploration of, okay, what are some spots

38:34

you want to check out based on

38:36

some short form videos that the algorithm

38:38

tells us about? And of course, you

38:40

explore a little bit of Tokyo or

38:42

Paris online, and then it starts feeding

38:45

you all these other recommendations. and we'll

38:47

map some spots in different neighborhoods that

38:49

we want to explore. But what's been

38:51

really funny as we look back on

38:54

these trips almost nine times out of

38:56

10, the meals that stand out the

38:58

most or the experiences that stand out

39:00

the most are the ones where we

39:03

stumbled into exploring ourselves versus relying on

39:05

the digital explorers before us who created

39:07

these nifty little short form videos to

39:09

tell us this is the best sushi

39:12

in Tokyo. We always laugh. Our favorite

39:14

spots are the ones that we explored

39:16

on our own, just getting lost in

39:18

a neighborhood and stepping into a new

39:21

environment instead of the ones we relied

39:23

on that digital exploration. That phenomenon is,

39:25

you know, it's even, it's pre-digital too,

39:27

because I can remember backpacking through Europe

39:30

in the 90s, and of course I

39:32

had the lonely planet and the rough

39:34

guide, and you'd go from city to

39:36

city, and it's like, okay, which place

39:39

got like two stars, Okay, maybe these

39:41

are the same people I saw in

39:43

the last city, but they're basically the

39:45

same people. We're all the same. We're

39:47

all ticking off the same boxes. And

39:50

some of those boxes are pretty cool

39:52

to tick up. So, you know, it's

39:54

not that you never want to go

39:56

to any place that other people recommend,

39:59

but I'm 100% with you that the

40:01

real joy is sort of wandering through

40:03

the street, ending up in a place

40:05

where nobody else is speaking English. And

40:08

you're like, okay, so I'm not just

40:10

here because this place was not built

40:12

to serve people like me who are

40:14

looking for the illusion of a genuine

40:17

experience. This is actually just a place

40:19

where people in the neighborhood go and

40:21

I'm going to go. I can remember

40:23

I was backpacking through Spain and we

40:26

were in a small seaside fishing village

40:28

and we went to this little restaurant

40:30

and we were way off the beaten

40:32

track so I was like this is

40:35

this is awesome. The menu is totally

40:37

in Spanish. I didn't speak any Spanish.

40:39

I was like I'm an intrepid explorer.

40:41

I'm willing to try anything. I just

40:44

pointed something on the menu. I had

40:46

no idea what it was. I'm such

40:48

a cool guy. An hour and a

40:50

half later. my meal finally arrives but

40:53

we're like starving. Basically the guy had

40:55

gone to the, I think he might

40:57

have gone out in his boat or

40:59

something and caught an octopus because what

41:01

I had ordered was boiled octopus. He

41:04

on my plate was this entire boiled

41:06

octopus with no seasoning. I saw, I

41:08

always finished my plate but I always

41:10

finished my plate but I could not

41:13

finish this. I just needed for like

41:15

an hour of completely stuff that tasted

41:17

gross. So I was like, this is

41:19

an example of where maybe a recommendation

41:22

that Sometimes if you're just going by

41:24

yourself, you have to risk the chance

41:26

that you're just going to get a

41:28

whole boiled octopus on your plate. That's

41:31

not going to be that good. I

41:33

feel so much comes out of that

41:35

experience versus collecting the knowledge through the

41:37

digital exploration or the guidebook or the

41:40

word of mouth from friends and referrals

41:42

versus you actually going through that experience

41:44

and recognizing now. Okay, well, I know

41:46

exactly what octopus is in Spanish and

41:49

I'll steer clear of that on the

41:51

next menu. So I do a fair

41:53

amount of backcountry travel, like backpacking and

41:55

canoeing. And it's almost... It's very difficult

41:58

to find any place where there aren't

42:00

at least a few people who've done

42:02

like video logs or blogs with photos

42:04

about it. And so it's like, oh,

42:07

thank God, I know what's coming on

42:09

this. Now I can plan properly. I

42:11

know whether I need to bring crampons

42:13

or whatever. But on the flip side

42:15

is, there's no more surprises. There's no

42:18

more like coming around the corner and

42:20

seeing this amazing waterfall, because she's like,

42:22

oh yeah, this is the one that

42:24

I saw on the one that I

42:27

saw on the block. Nobody is trying

42:29

to pretend that we're discovering the world

42:31

that knew, like we understand the whole

42:33

world has been seen, but there's a

42:36

feeling of discovering something from yourself that

42:38

is different from having it spoon fed

42:40

to you. And there's also a gratification

42:42

that comes with mental and physical effort

42:45

that is tied to how our brain

42:47

works. So what's going on there where

42:49

we're putting this mental and physical effort

42:51

into exploration that leads to this payoff

42:54

or the paradox around effort? There's a

42:56

misconception that the effort or the difficulties

42:58

that are... required in order to get

43:00

somewhere are the price we pay. So

43:03

like you climb to the top of

43:05

the mountain and it was really hard

43:07

to climb there but it's all that

43:09

negative side was worth it because you

43:12

get to the top of the mountain.

43:14

And I think that's actually the wrong

43:16

side was worth it because you get

43:18

to the top of the mountain. And

43:21

I think that's actually the wrong way

43:23

of thinking about it. And it's actually

43:25

a crucial part of what makes it

43:27

worth going up going up the mountain.

43:29

Like, there's nothing special about that. So

43:32

this, there's, this is what psychologists call

43:34

the effort paradox, the fact that even

43:36

though effort is supposed to be a

43:38

negative, we actually value things more highly

43:41

in a lot of cases when they're

43:43

hard. And that goes, there's even research

43:45

on IKEA furniture, for example, the IKEA

43:47

effect is that if you order a

43:50

piece of furniture, you order that coffee

43:52

table and you spend time wrestling with

43:54

those stupid instructions and the little Allen

43:56

keys and stuff, and you put it

43:59

together. the coffee table off you, you'll

44:01

ask for a higher price than if

44:03

you had gotten the exact same coffee

44:05

table pre-made for you. having struggled with

44:08

it makes it more valuable to you

44:10

and I think that's it's a nice

44:12

reframing to remember when something is hard

44:14

you remembered your you have to remind

44:17

yourself this is what's making the whole

44:19

experience meaningful to me and worthwhile. Well

44:21

you brought up a very good philosophical

44:23

point which is the the fundamental question

44:26

of what life is about and for

44:28

there's going to be a lot of

44:30

people that who are on the side

44:32

of it's about struggle and what you

44:35

make out of that struggle. And there's

44:37

a lot of people who think it's

44:39

about avoiding struggle and staying comfortable as

44:41

much as possible. And our religious texts

44:43

explain these ideas fully. Yeah, this question

44:46

of the meeting of life is clearly

44:48

not one that I can solve in

44:50

a simple manner, but what... So I

44:52

spoke to one of the psychologists who

44:55

works on the effort paradox and I

44:57

was asking him about this like, what

44:59

is the goal? What is our point?

45:01

And he has developed what he calls

45:04

the meaningfulness of effort scale. So it's

45:06

a way of assessing people to find

45:08

out how much effort, how much meaning

45:10

they derive from when something is hard.

45:13

So some people, if something's hard, they're

45:15

like, yeah, this is really important and

45:17

meaningful to me. Other people. don't feel

45:19

the same way. And so one of

45:22

the questions I asked him was like,

45:24

okay, but like, what do you mean

45:26

by meaning of life? What is the

45:28

meaning of life? And he's like, dude,

45:31

I don't know what the meaning of

45:33

life is. And nor does anybody ask.

45:35

Nobody can define it, but everyone understands

45:37

what we're asking. They can tell you

45:40

what, which. which activities are more meaningful

45:42

or less meaningful. Bringing up a kid

45:44

is meaningful even though it's hard. You

45:46

know, eating a bag of popcorn is

45:49

not meaningful even if it's tasty. So

45:51

we have a sense of which things

45:53

give meaning in our lives even if

45:55

we can't articulate them. And what he

45:57

has found is that people who derive

46:00

meaning from taking on challenge, whether that's

46:02

bringing up kids. or climbing mountains or

46:04

you know, launching a business or whatever

46:06

the case may be. Those people tend

46:09

to actually score higher on ratings of

46:11

happiness. They tend to end up with

46:13

higher incomes, more so more professional success,

46:15

more greater mental health. So this idea

46:18

that gaining meaning from doing hard things,

46:20

it has some empirical support in the

46:22

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battery warranty details. So

47:26

looking at dopamine, which obviously is a

47:28

core driver of all this, there's this

47:30

popular phrase of a dopamine detox and

47:32

people looking to get away from devices

47:34

and things that simulate dopamine in their

47:36

lives, what do you recommend in terms

47:39

of strengthening this exploration and this curiosity

47:41

and how can dopamine influence it? This

47:43

idea of like dopamine detox or dopamine

47:45

fasting, it's fascinating because you read about

47:47

it and it's like, this kind of

47:49

makes sense. There's not a lot of,

47:51

I would say there's, but not a

47:54

lot, there's no neuroscience behind the idea

47:56

that you need to detox from dopamine,

47:58

but on understanding the role that dopamine

48:00

plays and also trying to avoid getting

48:02

kind of enthrall to the easiest dopamine

48:04

hit, I think is actually a useful

48:06

way of thinking about things. So I

48:09

think the important thing to understand about

48:11

dopamine is it's not like the pleasure

48:13

chemical, which is what scientists originally thought

48:15

back in the 70s and 80s. They

48:17

thought it's like when something feels good,

48:19

it's because you've got to hit a

48:21

dopamine. Dopamine is really about. predicting the

48:24

experience you're going to have. And you

48:26

get to hit a dopamine when something

48:28

is better than you expect. Not just

48:30

when something is good, but when it's

48:32

better than you expect. So think about

48:34

that in terms of taking a drug,

48:36

for example. You take a drug for

48:39

example. You take a drug for the

48:41

first, and I'm not recommending this, but

48:43

you take a drug for the first

48:45

time, and I'm not recommending this, but

48:47

you take a drug for the first

48:49

time, and I'm not recommending it. 20th

48:51

time, you know exactly what you're going

48:54

to expect. So you no longer get

48:56

any dopamine hit at all from taking

48:58

the drug. So you have to raise

49:00

your dosage. And that's how one of

49:02

the ways that addiction, the cycle of

49:04

addiction starts. You have to keep raising

49:06

the dosage in order to keep doing

49:09

something that's better than expected. So what's

49:11

a better way of getting these stimuli

49:13

that are better than expected or different

49:15

than expected? It's to do things you

49:17

haven't done before. It's to keep looking

49:19

for opportunities of testing your limits in

49:21

new ways. it remains surprising and good.

49:24

Like, I have this debate with my

49:26

kids, like, I make them waffles for

49:28

breakfast a couple times a week, and

49:30

they're my favorite waffle recipe. They love

49:32

the waffle recipe. They want it every

49:34

morning. And I'm like, you can't have

49:36

it every morning, not because I'm not

49:39

capable of making it every morning, and

49:41

it's actually a pretty healthy recipe. It's

49:43

all like cottage cheese and eggs and

49:45

stuff, so in some ways, I would

49:47

be happy for you to have it

49:49

every morning. But I want you to

49:51

enjoy it as much as, you know,

49:54

I want you to enjoy it in

49:56

six months as much as you enjoy

49:58

it now and in a year, because

50:00

it's a pretty convenient recipe and I

50:02

don't want to have to come up

50:04

with a new breakfast. So it's like,

50:06

I'm giving it to you twice a

50:09

week because I want there still to

50:11

be novelty and not just. to be

50:13

as expected every morning I get up

50:15

to get my waffle. So I don't

50:17

know, that's the waffle theory of not

50:19

dopamine detox, but of just being mindful

50:21

about ways of preserving surprise. That goes

50:24

along with, there's a, well, it's not

50:26

really a new term, but a term

50:28

that has sort of been brought back

50:30

and it's now edging its way into

50:32

the mainstream, which is this idea of

50:34

virile, right, this zest for life. And

50:36

that. When you're depleting your dopamine, it's

50:39

cutting out and limiting that virile. And

50:41

when you allow that dopamine to build

50:43

up, it's used to turn into virile

50:45

to have that zest for life and

50:47

that excitement. It's like the rats in

50:49

the experiments where they can hit the

50:51

cocaine lever. You just hit it over

50:54

and over again. That's not satisfaction. That's

50:56

not the meaning of life. It doesn't

50:58

matter. How great the supposed stimulus is

51:00

going to be, if you're doing it

51:02

over and over again, it's going to

51:04

lose its attraction. Yeah, I think a

51:06

powerful way to look at it is

51:09

everything we're talking about here is illustrating

51:11

all these different ways that you can

51:13

engage dopamine. It could be physical, it

51:15

could be mental, it could be consuming.

51:17

So I think it's more about adding

51:19

variety to the ways in which dopamine

51:21

is interacting with your brain than just

51:24

relying on the one. way that seems

51:26

to work for you every single day

51:28

to lose its impact. You can't keep

51:30

going back to the well over and

51:32

over again. And they're just, you know,

51:34

the world is a complex place. There's

51:36

a lot to discover about it and

51:39

it can be very satisfying and there's

51:41

not one path or one way you

51:43

should explore, but the more you open

51:45

yourself up to put yourself in situations

51:47

where you don't know the outcome. You

51:49

know, it's another example of a metaphor

51:51

for this is like sports. The point

51:54

of sports is not to know what

51:56

the final score was. If sports was

51:58

nothing but box scores, it would not

52:00

be that. exciting. It's to be in

52:02

that situation where you don't know what's

52:04

going to happen. And if it's,

52:07

you know, if you're cheering for

52:09

one team, it's not that interesting

52:12

even if your team is ahead

52:14

by 50 points, right? Like, it's

52:16

engaging only to the extent that

52:19

you don't know how it's going

52:21

to end. And that's, you kind

52:23

of want that in all your

52:26

activities. I'd love to share those

52:28

with the audience. Let's put the

52:30

air quotes around rules, let's say principles,

52:32

even though I call them rules in

52:34

the book. The first one I think,

52:36

or the first one was explored then

52:39

exploit. And that's going back to this

52:41

idea that there are times when you

52:43

should be exploring and gathering wool, you

52:45

know, looking around and there are times

52:47

when you should be exploiting. There are

52:49

times when you need to knuckle down,

52:51

get up early, and do the work.

52:54

And there's some really interesting research, I

52:56

won't go through the whole spiel on

52:58

it, but there's some really interesting research

53:00

saying that best combination, the best way

53:02

to actually be productive and accomplish things

53:04

is to have a period of exploration

53:06

followed by a period of exploitation. And

53:09

this is logical, right? Like the exploration

53:11

is a time when you discover, you

53:13

cast your net as widely as possible

53:15

to figure out what you want to

53:17

focus on. And then you have to

53:19

eventually stop wandering around, pick.

53:21

pick a topic, pick a goal,

53:23

pick an idea, and work hard

53:26

on it. So explore then exploit

53:28

is rule number one. The second

53:30

one is to look for the

53:32

uncertainty sweet spot. So I've been

53:34

saying, isn't it wonderful when

53:37

you don't know what's going to

53:39

happen? And you should seek

53:41

out opportunities where there's a

53:43

lot of uncertainty. That approach

53:45

has its limits. So it's like. If you were

53:47

to say, hey Alex, why don't you read this

53:49

dictionary in Norwegian? It's going to be, you're not

53:51

going to know anything about what's going on. Isn't

53:53

that going to be exciting? And I'm going to

53:55

say, no, it's not going to be exciting because

53:58

I have no freaking idea what's going on. So

54:00

there's a, if we go back to

54:02

this idea of wanting to learn about

54:04

the world, there's a sweet spot of

54:06

uncertainty that maximizes your ability to learn

54:09

about the world. If there's no uncertainty,

54:11

if life is very simple, if everything's

54:13

simple, you're not going to learn anything.

54:15

But if it's super complicated, if it's

54:17

the, you know, the dictionary in Norwegian,

54:20

you're also not going to learn anything

54:22

because you can't make head or tail

54:24

of it. So you're looking for intermediate

54:26

uncertainty. But you kind of have a

54:29

sense of the patterns and the possibilities.

54:31

And, you know, this is kind of

54:33

actually a segue to rule number three.

54:35

Rule number three is play more. And

54:38

the reason I say play more is

54:40

that the sense of play, the sense

54:42

of play, the sense of fun, the

54:44

sense that you want to do something

54:46

because it's interesting. That is probably the

54:49

most reliable guide we have to this

54:51

uncertainty sweet spot. So how do you

54:53

find this intermediate zone of uncertainty? You

54:55

listen to that internal voice that says

54:58

this is interesting. this is worth pursuing.

55:00

I'm curious about this because you're not

55:02

going to be curious about something that's

55:04

too complicated and you're not going to

55:06

be curious about something that's too easy.

55:09

So it's easy to say play more

55:11

and you know for our kids we

55:13

can say all right I'm gonna you

55:15

guys can play all afternoon but for

55:18

adults what play more means you can't

55:20

just force yourself to play you don't

55:22

like just buy a model train set

55:24

and sit on the floor and hope

55:26

that that works but you have to

55:29

give yourself time and space away from

55:31

the responsibilities that we all have, whether

55:33

it's with family or career or whatever,

55:35

give yourself some room consciously to just

55:38

sort of do something because it's fun.

55:40

The fourth rule is minimize regret. So

55:42

regret in this context is actually a

55:44

mathematical concept. The difference between the outcome

55:47

you got and the best outcome you

55:49

could have gotten if you'd made all

55:51

the right decisions. So you can think

55:53

about this in gambling terms. This is

55:55

one of the ways they study exploration

55:58

decision making is you're. choosing different slot

56:00

machines or whatever. And if you magically

56:02

knew always which bet was the right

56:04

one to make, you would make a

56:07

certain amount of money. And regret is,

56:09

you know, with the choices you made

56:11

in real life, not being clairvoyant, and

56:13

you're always going to be clairvoyant. And

56:15

you're always going to have regret. As

56:18

you go through life, you're going to

56:20

make decisions, and sometimes you're going to

56:22

be like, man, I kind of wish

56:24

I'd made that other decision. One of

56:27

the best ways to minimize regret is

56:29

to embrace what what scientists actually call

56:31

optimism in the face of uncertainty, which

56:33

is to be To look for the

56:35

best realistic upside. So Whenever we're facing

56:38

choices, we kind of have a range

56:40

of like, yeah, is this one I

56:42

might let's say I have a 40%

56:44

somewhere between a 40 to 60% chance

56:47

of getting a good outcome. And this

56:49

other one I have, let's say a

56:51

20% to 70% chance of a good

56:53

outcome. We don't, I know we don't

56:56

think about this, but just for the

56:58

point of illustration, there's these kind of

57:00

error bars where we don't know how

57:02

things are going to turn out. And

57:04

what this, what the math of optimal

57:07

decision-making tells us is that you should

57:09

take the one that has the best,

57:11

that the top of their error bar,

57:13

that the one that has a chance

57:16

of turning out well. So this is

57:18

a little abstract. So let me say

57:20

you're. considering two different job opportunities. One

57:22

is pretty stable, decent starting salary, not

57:24

a lot of opportunity for advancement, but

57:27

it's a good solid job and it'll

57:29

pay the bills. The other is maybe

57:31

less stable, less starting salary, but there's

57:33

a plausible path of advancement that will

57:36

lead you to the job you actually

57:38

really want, your dream job. And what

57:40

optimism in the face of uncertainty means

57:42

is take the second job, take the

57:44

one that gives you a chance of

57:47

you know, not panning out because that'll

57:49

minimize your regret. You'll all... wonder whether

57:51

you could have made it if you

57:53

take the safe but job that doesn't

57:56

have that upside. Sorry that's a little

57:58

bit of a complicated one to explain.

58:00

It's super helpful and I know many

58:02

in our audience have had that exact

58:05

choice between jobs and might be sitting

58:07

with it right now. It's worth thinking

58:09

about and just pursuing and the last

58:11

the last rule is embrace the struggle

58:13

which is really going back to this

58:16

effort paradox we were talking about before

58:18

that understand that when things are hard

58:20

let's say you take the the uncertain

58:22

job and it you know it doesn't

58:25

pan out in your back on the

58:27

you know on the sun for job

58:29

when things are hard that's part of

58:31

what gives the pursuit meaning so so

58:33

and I think that that mental framing

58:36

is important because the the the feeling

58:38

we get or the meeting we ascribe

58:40

to our experiences depends a lot on

58:42

the framing we give to it. And

58:45

so if you're telling yourself, this is

58:47

hard, it sucks, that's kind of, those

58:49

words help create your reality. Whereas if

58:51

you're telling yourself, this is hard, this

58:53

is good, you know, like, this is

58:56

the struggle I want to be on,

58:58

that makes it a much more positive

59:00

experience and helps maybe motivate you to

59:02

keep pushing. Well, thank you for stopping

59:05

by to motivate our audience and share

59:07

these great insights with them. Where can

59:09

they find out more about you in

59:11

the book? First of all, thanks so

59:14

much for having me. This has been

59:16

a fun conversation that has pushed me

59:18

in some interesting directions. I have a

59:20

website that is Alex hutchinson.net and that

59:22

has links to basically social media and

59:25

things that I write things that I

59:27

write things that I write as a

59:29

journalist. I write a lot for I

59:31

write once a week for outside magazines,

59:34

so I have columns there too. But

59:36

yeah, Alex Hutchinson. We'll get you all

59:38

your Alex Hutchinson needs. What

59:40

a great interview. And now comes

59:43

to part of the show, where

59:45

we showcase one of our X-Factor

59:47

Accelerator members. Take it away, Boris.

59:50

My name is Boris. I've seen...

59:52

software engineer. I was born in

59:54

Europe and moved to the United

59:57

States 10 years ago. There was

59:59

a time when I was lacking

1:00:01

sense of community and belonging. I

1:00:04

chose the art of charm program

1:00:06

because I wanted to advance my

1:00:08

career and build a personal circle

1:00:11

of people with similar values. The

1:00:13

program made me view people around

1:00:15

me as doors to new opportunities.

1:00:18

That person at a conference can

1:00:20

refer you to your next job.

1:00:22

That stranger at the coffee shop

1:00:25

is a gateway to your new

1:00:27

hobby. That passenger on a train

1:00:29

is a significant other if you

1:00:32

make the move. I recommend to

1:00:34

take a step and sign up

1:00:36

for the Art of Charm program.

1:00:39

I will see you as the

1:00:41

AUC family reunion. Thank you, Boris.

1:00:43

It was a pleasure and an

1:00:45

honor working with you too, and

1:00:48

good luck to all your future

1:00:50

endeavors. If you've gotten value out

1:00:52

of this, or any of our

1:00:55

podcasts, head on over to your

1:00:57

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find the show. All right, before

1:01:06

we head out, a huge thank

1:01:09

you to our producers Michael Harold

1:01:11

and Eric Montgomery. Until next week,

1:01:13

go out there and make it

1:01:16

epic. You

1:01:26

saw the