Category: Self-Improvement
Tags: avoidancegrowthhealthresponsibilityself-awareness
Entities: Dr. Andrew HubmanElementMark MansonNavalTim Ferriss
00:00
Personal growth is the process of learning to lie to ourselves less. Yeah.
I think you know these these simple truths that because they are so simple we but painful we find ways to avoid them and deny them and pretend
00:16
that they're not there. And like if you just take the selfworth piece, right?
like it's it's hard to accept that you're just not standing up for yourself, that you don't
00:32
feel like you deserve respect or trust or time or attention. That's a very painful thing to sit with.
So, you make up all sorts of stories and narratives and [ __ ] you know? It's
00:49
like, "Oh, well, women are all like this and it's the [ __ ] phones and well, the political thing and you know, schools these days." Like, it's whatever whatever your your like little pet thing is. You just start stacking these narratives on top of each
01:04
other just to hide that like simple fact of like like yeah, you don't feel like you deserve it. And um and so I I what I tend to find both with myself and with a lot of the
01:20
people that I talk to is is that you know especially you know coming from self-help which is the world that I'm I guess technically a part of um everything's marketed as you know here's the secret. Oh if you just come to this seminar learn these three things and
01:36
you're going to like fix all your [ __ ] And I just find it's never about learning something. It's about like unlearning things.
It's about like unwinding the [ __ ] you've told yourself. There's a idea I spoke about with Naval
01:52
which was uh cultivated selfishness or uh like holistic and um self- prioritization. But there's also another one of cultivated stupidity which is many of the problems are you
02:07
going it's the story of the alchemist, right? You you go around the houses to come back to the place that you were at the very start.
Yeah. And to realize, huh, the issue was that I had [ __ ] in my life and I just needed to stop talking to them.
The issue was that I just didn't love my
02:23
partner that much anymore and I needed to break up with them. The issue was that I wasn't that fired up at my job.
And so many of these are to do with quitting, right? They're to do with letting go.
Very few of them has to do with change in in taking on something new. Typically, you're letting go of something else.
I I don't like the town
02:40
or country that I live in and I need to just have the bravery to make the change and go somewhere else. Um, and you have lied to yourself and tried to justify and obfiscate as a way to escape from the difficult decision and
02:58
you've started to layer all of these different compensatory mechanisms on top and stories that you've told yourself and now you have to dig down through them all and go, okay, was it this thing? Was it was it was it the self?
I was therapy. I must go to therapy.
I must find out why I have this attachment
03:13
style. And it's like, no, you just don't [ __ ] love your partner that much anymore and you used to and you feel guilty.
Also, you start to see kind of these compulsive patterns show up in people because it's like so like a narrative I had for a long time, right, was just uh
03:32
I I lived as a nomad for about seven and a half years and uh I kind of I started to get in my head when I started living in all these different countries. I started getting in my head that there's like an optimal place to live.
And the only thing that that created for me
03:49
was a desire to constantly be somewhere else. Dissatisfaction.
Yeah. No matter where I was, it was like something's not optimal.
I should be somewhere else. And it really started to wear on me after a certain amount of time.
And really like all that was underneath all of that
04:04
was just simply a a fear of committing to a a place and a community like that was there the entire time is just like this fear of like I was in my 20s. It was time to be a grown-up, time to be an adult, you know, time to set roots
04:20
and like pick a path in life. And looking back now as an older man, like I can understand that I didn't have the courage to do that yet.
And so I created all this narrative around like well I got to go find like the optimal place before I sit down and but to find the place I really got to imsh the culture
04:36
and so I should probably study some languages and you know I should probably split my time between these three different continents maybe a year each and maybe pick the five best countries per continent and like let me start researching all that you know and it's like there goes like four years of my
04:52
life and uh don't get me wrong I had a great time. I learned a ton of stuff, but like a lot of it was driven by this avoidance of a very simple truth of like I wasn't ready to grow up and as long as I'm on the road and like always booking
05:08
a plane to somewhere else, I don't really have to grow up. The thing you said um you said something earlier uh uh strategic selfishness or Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Cultivated selfish cultivated selfish. So it reminded me of this.
Have you ever heard of this concept strategic incompetence?
05:24
No, I love this. Um, so it's like all the married guys listening will relate to this.
Uh, so I'm a terrible cook and uh want to look like someone that would be a good cook. No, I'm awful.
You have the hair of a good cook.
05:39
Well, thank you. Yeah, I don't know.
Yes, chef. I don't know what that means, but I'll take it.
I know. I could just see one of those white, you know, like high neck things like another 50bs on you.
You'd be great. You're too thin now.
Fat Mark Manson would have been fine. Thin Mark Manson's
05:56
a [ __ ] [ __ ] cook. I know.
Yeah, you're right. You're right.
That that ship sailed. Um the Okay, so one of the reasons I am a bad cook is uh uh my wife's an amazing cook and so if I ever start to become competent at cooking, it means that I
06:12
will have to start doing some of the cooking. And so it is better for me to just continue being bad at cooking so that I don't ever have to take responsibility for that in my house.
Pe people in relationships do this all the time. Like you just you you your
06:29
partner's good at iring the clothes incorrectly on purpose. Put a lot of creases in it.
Exactly. Especially Especially men working.
We're particularly bad about it. Um but it's like everybody does it.
People do it at work, too. It's like it's like, "Oh, can you go uh fax these 20 papers or whatever?" And people are
06:45
like, "Oh, I've never used a fax machine before." When it's like, it's easy. You could figure it out, but like you want to be dumb because it it it alleviates responsibility.
Um I love this concept because I think people do it in all sorts of different areas of their lives,
07:00
right? Like people people can be strategically incompetent at certain things because they don't want to deal with some of these harsh truths.
like they don't want to deal with their self-worth issues. So, they're like
07:15
they remain dumb in their relationships. Like it actually incentivizes them to continue to like be ignorant and clueless in the people that they associate with, right?
They um I'll give you another example. Like I
07:31
uh Well, you referred to Fat Mark. I was fat for a long time.
Dude, you got to own it. I do.
You have to own it, dude. You want to hear the You'll appreciate this.
So, uh, when I went on Tim Ferrris's show, um, I like mentioned
07:46
I was like, "Oh, yeah. I I'm like I've been on a health journey.
I used to have like a lot of health issues." And he like, of course, he got into this. He's like, "Well, have you tried this new therapy?" And he like starts explaining like all these like you feel electrodes trapped your head.
Exactly. He's like, "If you if you vibrate the muscle with electrodes and
08:02
like and put your foot behind your head and all this stuff." And he like goes on this whole 3 minutes feel and he's like he's like, "I don't know. Does any of that resonate with you?" And I was like, "Dude, I was just fat." I was just like, I was fat as [ __ ] I
08:19
just need to stop drinking. Yeah.
Um Yep. U but to to the health journey point um I was really unhealthy for a long time and I was really overweight and really out of shape and it was even when it was clear that it was a problem
08:37
um I kind of had I developed like a weird sort of like pride or identity around it because it's like you know everybody in this space is is all about optimization and you know you got to like get up at 6 a.m. and like stare at
08:53
the [ __ ] sun and and you know do 18 sit-ups and like do whatever your like morning routine is. And I just had this pride of like yeah I'm not that guy.
Yeah. You know like I I'm I actually relish in the fact that I
09:10
have no idea what your morning routine should be. And uh and the truth is is that that that was just like that was a strategic incompetence because I didn't want to deal with my [ __ ] Yeah.
I didn't want to deal with the fact that I I ate too much and I drank too much.
09:25
Before we continue, you've probably heard me talk about Element before, and that's because I'm frankly dependent on it. For the last 3 years, I've started every morning with Element.
Element contains a sciencebacked electrolyte ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium with no sugar, no gluten or artificial ingredients or any other BS.
09:42
It plays a huge role in reducing muscle cramps and fatigue while optimizing brain health, regulating appetite, and curbing cravings. That's why it's used by everyone from Dr.
Andrew Hubman to Dr. Mike Israel, Olympic athletes and FBI sniper teams and me.
This orange
09:59
flavor in a cold glass of water tastes like a beautiful salty sweet orangey nectar. And there's a no questions asked refund policy.
And you don't even need to return the box if you don't like it. That's how confident they are that you'll love it.
Plus, they offer free shipping in the US. And you can get a free sample pack of all eight flavors
10:15
with your first purchase by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinklnt.com/modernwisdom. That's drinklmnt.com/modern wisdom.
Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that clip, the full episode is available right here.
10:34
Go on, press it.