Category: Life Advice
Tags: careermindfulnessphilosophyspecializationwellness
Entities: James ClearMark MansonMomentousRenie GerardWill Store
00:00
If you're going to have an interesting life, you can't have all of the other interesting lives you would have had. >> What's that mean to you?
>> Well, I suppose it's that thing of like it's incredible the things you won't do. Like when you think about like the
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potential that we all have like we've all we're all privileged in a sense, right? Cuz we all get one life and then we get given, you know, different gifts, right?
So there's no there can be no equality because we're all born different, right? So, it's that thing of going and it's not better, worse, or the
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same. It's just different.
Everyone's kind of different. And I think that for me that the the idea of going um you can you can't have an easy life and a great character.
You can't you've got to kind
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of go out there and and decide what you want. That's the first great adventure.
And then getting it is the second great adventure. So, it sort of speaks to that thing of like wishing wells work, but they don't work when it's not the magic.
The magic is you going, "Oh, what
01:05
do I wish for? What do I want?" Being the fundamental like if you know what you want, that's incredibly powerful.
Most people don't. Mo most desires are mimemetic desires.
And you get into Renie Gerard and the idea of going, "Well, I want that watch cuz he's got that watch and I want that car cuz he's
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got that car and I'd love that girlfriend." It's like, how many guys are dating girls incredibly hot? They look amazing, very impressive.
They don't even like the guy. It's like it's a weird flex.
>> Yeah. They're they're in love with what other people think about them
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>> for having that. >> It's that Will Store thing, that status game book, which is again, I mean, it's just he's such a genius writer.
>> Uh I love him. He's got a new Substack by the way, all about storytelling.
>> Wonder book. He comes out this week on the show.
The uh A story is a deal. >> Yeah.
He's he's he's an outstanding
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outstanding human. >> But that idea of like you choose what status game you play, >> you know.
So So what status game and and again another thing from modern wisdom that idea of going well there's there's [ __ ] you money and there's [ __ ] you freedom and there's [ __ ] you family. I really I mean that really I took to
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heart as going oh that's very interesting. And the idea of going what are the things that you're not going to do because we live in a world that rewards specialization.
And it strikes me that our whole school system is like geared wrong to get you to do all the different things, you know, and and
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really, you know, young kids are like, "What are you going to get from being, okay, you're terrible at maths, but we're going to get you up to a C grade." >> Yeah. Because what the world needs is someone who's all right at maths.
>> No competent at maths.
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>> No, but but you're brilliant at English. Well, [ __ ] lean into that.
Spend all your time doing that, you know, specialize, especially as as the world changes. I think leaning into you know what it's that you often get I don't know what it is about age or my position in life but I often get asked like oh you know what you think I should do
02:58
>> and it's that thing of like what do you think about all the time that's the best indicator there's a at George's birthday this year in Austin Dicki one of the guys came up with a [ __ ] wonderful I haven't written about it yet but it'll be in a newsletter soon it's great idea he calls them shower thoughts and the
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shower being one of the very few places reliably believe that people don't have some sort of external input going on, >> right? >> And he said, you can tell what you care about by what you think about in the shower.
Tell what you care about by what you think about in the shower when there's no other inputs going on and you're in
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this liinal space between being unclean and then drying yourself off with a towel. What do you think about?
Where does your mind go? It's like that's what you care about.
>> Yeah. I think expanding that space to uh
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20 minutes, an hour, >> the answers you're looking for in the silence you're avoiding. >> That kind being alone with your thoughts is a that's a that's a lovely thing.
>> How do you think about that? Because you're spending all of this time on the road, airports, could watch a video, can listen to a
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podcast, can do the whatever thing. H how do you try and purposefully uh create that space when you're busy all the time?
>> I suppose that thing of like going if I do eight shows a week or be more than that on the American tour, but it's normally eight shows a week. So it's
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that thing of like going well I want to try new jokes at every show. Uh it's quite sort of stoic really.
I mean it's just like that thing of like going well there's I always think how hard you work is important but what you work on is essential. Like that's the key thing.
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You can work so hard on [ __ ] and distract yourself with it. And like my job's quite easy because it's easy to analyze and to to pinpoint what's the thing that makes a difference.
And it's for me it's jokes. It's the love language.
It's the the model. And the more that I spend time with them, you
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sort of go it's sort of like time in the gym, I suppose. So, when you're uh thinking about nothing and letting your mind wander, that's the that's when it comes up.
Or you're listening to something and it's outside of your purview. You're not listening to comedy.
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You're listening to someone talk about uh economics or politics or philosophy and you're then thinking, well, could I make a joke of that? So, everything's within you're seeing it through that the lens of >> be very careful.
If you are the average of the five podcasts you listen to the
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most, you got to be careful because that's going to shape your you listen to too much Gary Stevenson, you're going to be talking about Marxist economics and stuff like that. Be very careful what sort of algorithm holes you fall down in in particular.
>> Yeah. Good.
Right. Good.
Good. Be careful.
>> How do people know what they should be
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doing with their lives? People coming up to you and asking you for earnest, you know, sincere life advice.
How do you work out what someone should be doing with their life? >> I don't know.
I mean, it's uh it's very odd. uh to be like I I'm I'm quite uh taken with simulation theory.
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>> Um because I don't think it's true. I don't think we are in a matrix and this is a video game.
But if we are, I've definitely got a cheat code, right? Where I get to be a a touring international comedian with a, you know,
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lovely kids and a great life and great friends. Like that's an incredibly sort of privileged position.
I think thinking about the world as as if simulation theory is real and this is all a simulation is very interesting because if you imagine life as a game, what are you solving for? What's what are your
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metrics? And I think when you really kind of analyze it and went, well, if if this was going to be a scoreboard at the end and you're only really competing with yourself, there's nothing in being better than anyone else.
There's only um honor in being better than yourself last year. So the idea of going well, what
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would be the important things? what would be the you know it's and it's that thing of you go it's not the um the the achievement so much as the uh process enjoying the process seems to be it so that thing of like I you know what what
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should people be doing it's not for me to say it's all life is self assignment >> it's that thing of like what are you happy doing what where's the where's the flow state for you what's the thing that brings you joy it's not even like the 10,000 hours I slightly think misses a
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trick because although I buy yeah you got to work really hard and really long to get good at anything to get competent at anything is hard but what could you stand to do for that long because if it's I mean it's nal if it's play to you
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and work to them you're going to win 100% of the time >> yeah much better question to build on that what looks like play to you but looks like work to everybody else is what pain do you want in your life this is Mark Manson's twist on it he says any pursuit no matter how existentially aligned will regularly come with a huge
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side order of pain. Like it doesn't matter how much you love doing comedy.
If you want to be a comedian, that means you need to spend an awfully long time writing jokes that never see the light of day apart from one set where no one laughs. You go,
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>> "Yeah, >> [ __ ] I spent ages on that." >> No, no, for forget that. You can't enjoy taxi rides to the airport.
>> Correct. Yeah.
>> You have to enjoy the whole thing. >> Correct.
Correct. >> And and as soon as you go, "Oh, no.
No. just like the bit where I'm on stage.
Do No, it's not that's not how life is.
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>> You have to take the whole package. >> Mhm.
Yeah. Uh James James Clear has a [ __ ] unbelievable take where he talks about if you want the life but not the lifestyle, you guarantee disappointment.
>> Like if you're going to pursue this outcome, but you're not prepared to do
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what it takes to get it. Okay, you want to be a touring musician.
Sounds fantastic. You need to spend probably between five and 10 years just learning the instrument.
This is before you get to perform. You don't really get to perform on stage for that long.
And then when you start doing that, the first
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>> 10 tours that you do are maybe going to be in someone's borrowed van in the back of a van. You're not going to have enough money for hotels.
You're going to be playing to 100 people. No one's going to care about you.
You're not going to have any money. You're not going to know if it's going to work.
You have no promise of glory on the other side. You're going to be racked with self-doubt, constantly uncertain.
The
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whole experience is going to be tarnished in this like weird liinal like discontent about whether this is actually the right path to be on and then maybe you reach a tiny bit of escape velocity and perhaps get
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toward micro notoriety. >> Okay.
And then we maybe get a tour manager and then we start to get looked after. That is the process of becoming remotely great at anything.
>> Yeah. I always think that thing of like with young comics it's quite easy
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because you go if you're going out 300 nights a year to do open mics. It's kind of the same life as playing arenas.
It's not vastly different. You going out and telling jokes, >> you go out and do a show like where you go to and how whether it's an audience of 50 people or 15,000.
It really is a
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very similar process. >> So it's if you enjoy that, if you love it, then great.
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