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Sept. 29, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:23:43
ACHIEVING MAXIMUM PRODUCTIVITY!
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Time Text
Excellent. Alright.
Well, I will go ahead and get recording.
Alright, and we're rolling.
So this shouldn't take too long.
I've got a whole great list of questions, but I thought I'd start out with, I've got some ideas and thoughts, theories about how you're so productive, just from the outside and from my assumptions gathered over the years.
And so I figured I'd go through that, get your feedback, be like, yep, that's right, that's totally wrong, whatever, and then go into the more boilerplate kind of questions.
How's that sound? Sounds great. Awesome, awesome.
Okay, so my theory about how you are so productive.
One of them is, at this point, you're reaping the rewards of many, many years of good habits.
And so, of course, that begs the question, what are those good habits?
But I mean, that's a boiler point question, so we'll get to that later.
Next, I think, I believe your productivity is primarily a function of your self-engagement.
I've been reading a lot of productivity books, and some of them get this, in my opinion, they get it right.
It really kind of blends with philosophy, and some of them get it really wrong.
You've got to control and dominate your emotions.
I'm like, oof, good luck. No, no thanks.
Or control and dominate your thoughts.
And so some people call this dominating their thoughts, or sorry, controlling their thoughts.
But I suspect you have a kind of, it's, I imagine that what goes on in your inner dialogue is pretty much like the same kind of conversation we see in the show, in the world.
It'd be kind of weird if it wasn't like I'd have to develop an alternate personality or something like that.
So yeah. Yeah!
Yeah, no, exactly. It's sort of like, what's this mystery of how is Steph so productive?
It's like he's been demonstrating it for decades!
Well, no, but there's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff here, right?
So, I mean, there are some people who do shows, not dissimilar from what I do, who have like 10 or 15.
The most I heard was like 17 people working on it.
And, you know, more power to them.
I guess they have some higher production values and so on.
But I have between one and two people, right?
For most of the show, it's just been me.
I've had people, you're one of them, of course, and I had a producer a while back ago who was on for a couple of years, but it's been sort of five years since then.
So... The productivity is very high.
Now, the productivity in terms of show quality and so on, that's just to do with philosophy and reading and talents and so on.
But the productivity around how to get shows out, how to get things done, I think that's really what we want to focus on.
Because maybe there's a magic sauce in my brain that just generates a whole hamster wheel of ideas.
So it's the difference between can you write a hit song and can you produce a song?
Like be a producer, be an engineer and get it out in a reasonable way.
So we can't talk about the magic source of writing songs, but we can talk about how to get them out to the public, how to arrange tours and all that kind of stuff.
Yes, yeah. Okay, so those are very...
Hold on. Talk about how to get tours out to people.
Well, this is the mechanics of how to get things done.
So there's a certain magic source, which is just, you know, let's say you write a hit song.
Okay, you've written a hit song. Nobody can really teach anyone how to do that.
But in terms of how to get the song out to market, how to market it, how to produce it, and so on, I think that's kind of what I'm talking about.
And my productivity is actually just kind of simple and it always has been since I was a teenager.
I had a paper route as a teenager and I ended up getting a bike and getting a sort of custom knapsack so that I could bike my route and get it done faster.
So I've always been like Mr.
Optimization. In the software field, when I was a chief technical officer and R&D programmer, anything that I could conceivably automate, I automated.
So we had a system where we would sell a big environmental management information system to a corporation, and they'd want to change it.
And so there was a whole list of changes.
So what I did was I gave them a spreadsheet, told them what to change, and then I wrote a giant mammoth series of code that would bring in that spreadsheet and would make the changes to the database, to the queries, to the forms, to the reports, to the web interface, all automatically. When it came to checking the application that we were shipping to clients, I wrote a whole bunch of code to make sure every field matched, every field name matched, every data type was correct so that it didn't have to be checked by hand.
So whatever can be automated has to be automated.
And my general function around that, and this is going to sound insane but it's really worked for me, is that think that everything is perfect and instantaneous.
I think that everything is perfect and instantaneous.
I can think a show and it shows up on social media or something like that.
So I think that everything is perfect, everything is as efficient as it could humanly be, and then I get enraged at anything that detracts from that.
This is my basic thinking.
And that frustration, that anger, that rage at the gap between thought and manifestation, between having the idea and getting it out to the world, anything that gets in the way of that is an enemy to be destroyed.
It is combat with inefficiency.
Because it brings out my warrior instincts.
It brings out my Cossack, you know, ride down the peasants on your giant armored horse thing.
So for me, it's like everything's perfect, couldn't be any better.
That's my starting point.
And then anything that's in the way of that is a demon enemy to be destroyed with extreme prejudice, if that makes sense.
That is so... Okay, no, no.
That's wonderful.
Okay, so I'm going through some of the biggest, like, the most...
The productivity books that everyone's like.
These are the guys. They've been doing it for decades.
These are the experts. And there's good stuff.
There's great stuff in there.
But this is very different from what's in those kinds of books and also, like, something exceptional that, like, you bring to the table, that you bring to philosophy, you bring to any discussion.
Okay, because one of these books is largely around, like, you know, basically getting yourself into a positive attitude.
Like, avoid distractions, but also, like, handle the little nagging things in the back of your periphery in your mind.
But you're also bringing this passion towards, which makes sense because what we're doing, what we're working on is, like, world-changing and it's the most important, most meaningful stuff.
Oh, that's awesome. Okay, okay.
So I'll give you sort of other examples.
Anything which can be combined must be combined.
Everything that can be combined must be combined.
So for instance, I set up a treadmill and I wrote books.
I think the last couple of books outside of the novels I wrote while walking fast uphill on the treadmill and voice dictating the book.
So in this case, I'm obviously getting exercise in and writing a book at the same time.
And I know, again, that sounds kind of insane, but man, does it work.
It works because, you know, I've written a bunch of books hunched over a computer typing away.
Now, the problem with typing is that...
You make errors. And for those who saw me, I did release how I edited the book, The Present.
I'm not the world's best typist.
I'm a fast typist who makes a lot of mistakes, just to be frank.
I never learned touch typing, so I make mistakes.
Now, every time I make a mistake, I'm enraged.
I'm not going to be kidding about this.
If I'm walking around and my headphone cord snags on something while I'm listening to music, that enrages me.
I know this makes me sound completely mental, which is fine, but that rage has been incredibly productive for me because I've worked to minimize it.
So can I get exercise and writing combined?
Because if you can't do those two things together, then if I spend two hours writing and I'm not exercising, then I have to go and exercise.
So I've just lost two hours of my day.
Right? So anything that could be combined must be combined.
So in the past, I would do shows and then There would be some donation pitches at the end or something like that.
And now, of course, I do shows and the donation pitches are, if it's a live stream and so on, they're sort of interspersed into the show as a whole.
So yeah, whatever you can combine, you must, must, must combine.
So everybody has a need for movement, right?
Everybody has a need for movement.
If you don't move, you sort of die in your chair slowly, like sitting is the new smoking.
So everyone has a need for movement.
So can you combine movement?
With anything else.
So when I was in the business world and somebody would want a long meeting, normally, you know, what would happen is you'd go into a conference room and there'd be muffins and coffee and you'd sit there and slowly inflate, right?
And so for me, I'm like, you want a meeting?
Let's walk. We'll go for a walk.
I would even have meetings at the gym sometimes.
I would say, come to the gym, let's exercise while we have the meeting.
And that way, you know, two birds with one stone is about as efficient as you can get.
So if everybody needs at least an hour or two of movement every day, and you can't combine that with something else, you've just lost an hour or two of your day.
What that means, of course, is it's not an hour or two out of 24.
It's like, no, no, that's not the case.
Yes!
Yes! And bathing and all that kind of stuff.
So bed is like this big, big extended ritual that probably is 10 hours, right?
And I don't know how many people wake up and spring out of bed, but that ain't me.
I wake up like I'm coming back from the dead slowly with a resurrection spell that's only half taking.
So for me, I'm not a spring out of bed kind of guy.
And God love those people who get up at five and work out.
Like, good for them. That's not my thing.
So, when I look at my free time, that's something that's really, really precious.
So, in general, sleep is like 10 hours, and work, people think, oh, it's 8 hours at work.
It's like, no, no, no, it's not, because...
I mean, there's commuting, and then what's all?
You've got to fill your gas more.
You've got to keep your car maintained more.
You may have to have a separate car, so you're working for that.
You have to maybe dry clean and press your clothing.
You have to go shopping for business clothing.
So your work is not eight hours a day.
Your work, if you add it all up, is probably 10 plus, maybe 12 hours a day.
If you add everything together.
So you've really got to be aware.
Don't estimate. Don't estimate how your day is.
Know to a fairly high level of detail what your day is.
I had a roommate in college who tracked everything he did for six months.
I got into that habit for a while.
Everything he ate in literally lawyer-based six-minute increments, what was he doing?
If people don't track what they're doing, then how on earth could they get anything better?
You can't improve what you have not measured because how would you know whether you're improving?
Are you a good runner or a bad runner?
Well, you've got to time yourself.
And then if you want to get better, you've got to improve the time, right?
So you have to know what you're doing with your day.
And don't just estimate, well, it's eight hours of sleep.
It's like, no, no, it's not. It's not at all.
You've got to... Because, I mean, people start getting ready for bed usually an hour before they fall asleep or more.
Plus, you know, maybe you're watching a show in bed or something like that.
And so, yeah, that's 10 hours of your day.
And... You've got another 10 hours of your day, usually to do with your work, so that's four hours, right?
Now, of those four hours, okay, you'll get some eating done at work, like lunchtime and so on, but of those four hours, That you've got free a day.
Well, obviously you need to have relationships.
You've got to talk with people.
You've got to play with your kids.
You've got to do all of that stuff.
And there'll be other chores that will just kind of, you know, groceries and bills and all of that.
So when you whittle it down, like what is your free time?
It's not much. So if you, let's say, be really optimistic and say that you have two hours of free time a day.
Okay. So if I can exercise and write, I've just doubled my leisure time.
So that's the level of granularity that you have to work with.
Because otherwise, what's the motivation?
So for me, it's like, okay, doubling my leisure time.
Leisure time is, in some ways, the best time in life.
So if somebody came along and said to you, hey, man, if you can figure out a way to combine exercise and work...
You would get to live to 160 years of age.
Would you be interested? It's like, well, of course you would.
You'd do just about anything, I assume, to live to 160 years of age.
So if what I'm doing can double my free time, that's like doubling my lifespan because the free time is where your life, in many ways, really happens, right?
Because that's your relationship.
Because if somebody were to say to you, if you combine exercise With working, then you get to have twice as long a marriage.
You have twice as much time with your wife.
So what's not compelling about that?
What wouldn't I do to have twice as much time with my wife or twice as much time to play with my daughter or twice as much time to go and hang out with friends and make sure that we're staying close and I know what's going on in their lives?
Whatever. So, there's stuff in your life you can't choose, but if the stuff that you can choose, you absolutely, absolutely, absolutely have to double up wherever humanly possible.
Now, doubling up is a risk because sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
So, I have sort of gotten things down to a fine art now where I don't do call-in shows in the studio anymore.
I used to do call-in shows in the studio.
And now I do call-in shows while walking around.
Because walking is, I mean, certainly, you know, I'm going to be 57 in like a week and a half.
So walking is a pretty good exercise when you get older.
And if I could do it and swim, I'd probably do that too.
But that might be a bit googly for the audience.
So now I have combined...
Walking with call-in shows.
Now, call-in shows can last for like two hours.
I can also do them outside.
I actually have a notebook that has a Windows notebook that has a cellular data chip in it.
So I can actually go for a hike and do a call-in show.
And what that means, of course, is that when I'm done the call-in show, I don't have to do any more walking for the day.
And so I can spend more time with my family.
I can spend more time, whatever it is that I'm going to be doing.
But whatever you can do to double up these things is really important.
I mean, even just get a standing desk.
And the other thing, too, is that if you exercise while you are Working, your work quality improves because your blood is flowing.
You're doing something different.
You're not just hunched over in this sort of comatose cubicle question mark that characterizes most people's posture when they're working.
And I know that because I wrote novels sort of just typing away before voice dictation became a productive thing.
But yeah, so now when I started getting involved in voice dictation, which was at least 20 years ago, no more than 20 years ago, probably about 25 years ago, When you had to pause between each word.
And I've spent a lot of time training the productivity tool.
It's Dragon Naturally Speaking. I've talked to you about it before.
I spent a lot of time training it so that if I just say SBM, it types out my whole name.
If I say UPB, it types out UPB. Like, I've really got it fine-tuned so that I can rip text off very, very quickly.
So... So that has been important, investing in knowing how to have decent audio technology so that I can be outside and not have too much background noise and know how to clean up the audio so it sounds good.
That's also helped a lot, automating as much as possible the ways of cleaning up audio.
And now, of course, with AI, I have a website where I go to AI and say, I want a thumbnail for this.
And it generates a thumbnail.
So again, that's just more efficient.
It's faster. I reuse thumbnails because thumbnails, I mean, my old producer used to do them and he did a good job on them, but I'm not going to spend half an hour doing a thumbnail because half an hour of doing a thumbnail is also, you have to compare everything you do to your most productive time because that could be it.
I mean, I still remember I did a series of answers a couple of weeks ago to locals' questions and I did them at like one in the morning and I was just sort of pacing around the kitchen and it was just like perfect flow.
Like it was about as great as it could be.
I did another one this morning on the problem of vanity and the messianic complex and like that's just a perfect flow.
So if something is inefficient, it's taking away from your perfect flow.
Once you get in that flow, you want no interruptions.
And so you just want to have as much time as possible available for that flow, which means be as efficient as possible.
Because if you, you know, a lot of people, what they do is they slice and dice and atomize their day.
Well, I've responded to this email and I've reviewed this presentation and I wrote this short piece of text that I, you know, wrote this little module of code or something like that.
And that slice and dice stuff is just terrible.
I tell you, I used to hate it.
I used to hate it in school.
When I would really be getting into something, and what happens?
Brrrr, get to your next class, and you just interrupted and yanked and yeeted all over the place, and it's like, that's just horrible.
There was a story I read called The Person from Porlock.
It's a science fiction story, and it was about a guy, I think he was working on something atomic or something nuclear, and he was interrupted by someone, And that person ended up breaking his flow and his chain of concentration to the point where he was just utterly unable to solve the problem.
He got really mad at this person, and the person said, oh, no, no, no, I'm a space alien.
We actually track what people are working on, and if it looks like they're getting close to a dangerous breakthrough, we just interrupt them.
So there was a famous poet who wrote a poem called Kublai Khan, and it's beautiful.
But it's only the beginning, because he basically had an opium dream.
Coleridge, I think it was. He had an opium dream, and then he woke up and he started writing down this amazing poem.
And then a local bureaucrat from the town of Porlock knocked on his door about some inconsequential council business.
And by the time he'd gotten rid of that person, he sat down to finish his poem, but it was gone.
It's gone. Oh, the things that have been robbed by interruptions.
So I'm very ferocious.
There's a story about not being interrupted.
There's a story that Ayn Rand...
When she was working on, she spent two years on Galt's speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged, and she was just finishing it up, and someone came in to ask her a question.
She's like, get out! You know, like a demon, get out!
Don't interrupt! Because if the flow is interrupted, it's just brutal on you.
It's absolutely brutal. When I leave, I'm the kind of guy, like, say, because I work in various places in the house, I get a little SD card with something on it, And I actually have trained myself, and I still mess up on this, but I've trained myself.
You get the SD card. Let's say I'm going from the basement to upstairs.
I have a computer in the basement.
I have a computer upstairs. And I will pick up that SD card.
I literally have to make myself go upstairs to...
Insert the SD card, copy the file, and if I can edit it, great.
If I can't, I'll just bring it up and leave it there so I don't forget.
Because everyone's had this where it's like somebody asks you something, and then you've got to answer something, and then you get an email.
And then what happens is you're like, where the hell is that SD card?
It's not in my pocket.
It's not in the computer it was originally inserted into, and then it can be 10 minutes or more just looking for an SD card.
And so I really try to force myself to don't fragment a task.
Fragmenting a task is just like setting fire to everything.
It'd just be easier to start again.
Sorry, go ahead. No, no, no.
That's wonderful. I've had that experience a lot.
If you break it down into little bits and pieces, and when you come back to it, you've got to get yourself back into the mind, like, where the hell was I at?
What was I doing? It takes time to get back into the frame of mind that you're losing 10 to 15 minutes just to do that, where if you'd sat down and resolved the whole chunk at once, you don't got to lose that productivity coming in and out of a task.
So yeah, knowing when to, there was an old thing that you used to have to do, I guess you can still do it to SSD drives, but there was an old thing that was worth doing back in the old days of hard drives, which was defragment, right?
So when a file gets written to a hard drive, it doesn't get written in sequence necessarily, because when stuff gets deleted, the hard drive is just dissected and marked as available.
And then when you write stuff, it just fills them up.
And so files end up scattered all over the hard drive.
The operating system recognizes them as contiguous.
And so you'd run this program called the defrag, which would try and move all of the files in sequence.
So it'd be faster. Then the hard drive wouldn't have to skip all over the place to try and find the file.
And it's easier on the heads and the motors and all of that.
So defragmenting your day is really important.
Like, do not jump from task to task.
Now, there's one exception to this, though.
One really, really important exception to this.
Which you and I are currently working through on the Peaceful Parenting book, or at least I am, which is, for heaven's sakes, please, for the love of all that's holy, let complex things lie fallow for a while.
That's really, really important to me.
Because when you're working in something complex, as this book is...
You read it over and over again, and it kind of gets worn into these grooves in your brain, and it makes sense just through repetition.
I'm sure we've all had it where there's some song you don't like, but you hear it so much, it's like, oh, fine, I surrender to the brain virus of whatever summer song it happens to be, right?
And so, yeah, so with complex things, you know, work on it and work on it, and then let it lie fallow, like farmer's fields.
Like if you constantly plant them, the crop will get exhausted, the soil will get exhausted, and you'll lose the productivity for like half a generation.
So, letting certain complex things lie fallow is really, really important.
So if I have a complex text, it's usually text, can be audio, but if it's complex, and that doesn't necessarily mean long, but it's complex, then what I'll do, if I have the opportunity, and usually I do, is I'll write it, and I'll at least take a couple of days, and I'll set a reminder for this, I'll at least take a couple of days, let it lie fallow, read it with fresh eyes.
That's really, really important because otherwise things just seem to make sense because you've read them so many times and you understand things so well.
Obviously, of course, get someone else to read it too.
That's really important. But yeah, letting things lie fallow is really important as well because otherwise you send stuff...
And then you may have to do it again.
So you send some complex proposal or email or something because you didn't let it lie fallow.
The person's like, well, I don't understand this part and I don't understand this part.
And it's like, okay, well, without your own outside eyes of having it lie fallow or somebody else's outside eyes, you just end up having to redo a whole bunch of it.
So anything you can avoid having to redo is a godsend to your life.
Redoing stuff is just agony to me.
I've had it occasionally where I've messed up in recording a show for whatever reason.
Oh yeah, I remember once there was one at the Barbie review not too long ago.
I have a little portable Zoom recorder and I had used it for something else and it was
set to the built-in microphone rather than the external microphone that I was using,
but because I was holding it in my hand it was kind of muffled because I had the wrong
microphone selected.
So that's another thing, too.
If you have stuff that can change by duplicates, oh, this is another really important productivity tool.
So I have two Zoom recorders because a couple of times it would happen that I would have it set to the external microphone, And then I would attach, sorry, I would have it set to the internal microphone, then I would buy an external microphone, and use that without remembering to change it to the...
External microphone. And then the audio would be bad.
And when you're really in the flow and you do a great show and the audio is bad, it's just like somebody raking your heart with a cheese grater.
It's just horrible, you know? Yeah.
It's like, that was the greatest vocal performance and I recorded it on vinyl on an AM radio quality sound.
So what I did was I just bought another one.
And so there's one that I use for handheld, like where I'm just holding the mic up, and then there's one that I use for external.
Now, you can say, of course, and it's perfectly reasonable to say, well, just make sure that you have the right settings.
But realize that you, I mean, I'm old enough now to say, yes, ideally, I should always remember to change these various settings.
And it's like, but I don't.
I know that I don't. I know that I don't.
When I hit inspiration, I just want to grab it and record.
I just want to grab it and record.
So I use a custom headset for audio so that I don't have to hold up a microphone.
Holding up a microphone is not great for me, especially as you get older, having your hand in particular fixed positions.
And the higher quality of the microphone, the heavier it tends to be.
So if I'm going to do a two-hour call-in show and holding up a mic the whole time, I'm going to get a sore shoulder, and then I've got to waste time massaging it, right?
So that's no good. And I use a Logitech headset system, and I kept looking for the dongle, right?
So I just bought a couple of dongles.
And now the dongles are just scattered around.
So whatever you spend more than five minutes a week looking for or whatever is a critical point of failure, just buy duplicates.
Just buy duplicates. You say, oh, but that's expensive.
It's like, but it's an investment.
You could say that it's expensive for me to train Dragon, naturally speaking, to understand my voice to the point where it almost makes no mistakes other than homonyms, right?
It almost makes no mistakes.
So that's really, really important.
So spend money to save money is an obvious thing.
I have set it up now so that And this was a lot of work.
I run a recording.
I do a live stream. The live stream is broadcast.
It's recorded on a camera.
I can literally take the camera file and upload it directly.
I've now got the audio levels reset and the file size is not too extravagant.
And so I can literally just take that video file from the live stream and upload it and I don't need to do anything else to it.
And again, that's just a huge...
Time saver. I've got the audio stuff calibrated so that I don't need to usually run anything through additional audio processing.
Finicky and fussy and time-consuming.
So, yeah, just whatever you can do to just fire and forget.
Have it done. Move on. Have it done.
Move on. And I, again, start with I'm going to have a mind melt with the entire planet and anything that detracts from that is just an enemy to be destroyed.
It's in the way, you know?
It's like when you're trying to get to your favorite band and there's like roadblocks and detours and you're just enraged.
It's like, well, no, that's...
That's how it should be. All the productivity talk seems to be around conscientiousness.
We'll have this detail and keep this list and have this attitude.
And it's like, yeah, I think that stuff's all very nice.
But what does it for me is just rage and inconvenience.
I got so frustrated at software not working to record audio.
Because software to record Skype, there used to be an old program called Pamela, then it kind of went fallow, and then a couple of other programs, but either they don't record in WAV or they don't record in stereo or something like that.
So I just got so frustrated at having problems with recordings that I just bought a hardware recorder and I set everything up.
When I was doing these interviews and call-in shows in the studio so that it's a hardware recorder.
Like the audio goes through one hardware recorder and everything is recorded in beautiful stereo and it can't fail.
Because the other thing too is that every now and then there'd be crashes, right?
And when you've got software recording audio, if there's a crash, odds are you're going to lose the audio.
But if the computer crashes but the hardware is still running, you've got the audio, at least up to that point, and you can't lose it.
You can't lose it because if you lose the audio, then you sit there, oh, well, I could try and fix it.
I could try and repair it. That's going to take time.
I could re-record it, but I'm already annoyed.
And you need to be positive when you're recording stuff.
So if you just lost the recording and you have to re-record, it's hard to regain that sense of positivity.
Although sometimes there's some improvements in content because it's your second take.
So yeah, just anything that is just a repetitive problem is just something that has to be Smashed, torn apart, destroyed, set fire to with extreme prejudice.
You're great at combining things and getting the maximum value.
And so, like, a lot of the times I've witnessed it in the show, something comes up inconvenient, but you turn it into either an entertaining or, like, a topical, like, part of the show, which has been really great.
So now, you're saying, like, get that passion and just say, anything in my way, you know, I'm just going to crush it, get that thing done, but also keeping yourself in a positive frame of mind.
So what is that like for you?
Where, like, you want to be, like, you want to be a good host and having a good time on the show with the listeners and things like that, but also if something does, like, get in the way and kind of, like, get this.
And I'm... That impulse for rage, like, oh my god, who could do this?
How could this be this way?
How do you manage that? What is that like?
Well, a lot of times, a lack of productivity arises out of boredom.
Yeah. Yeah. So people who are not inspired by their jobs, they're not enthusiastic about what they're doing, they're just kind of putting in time and getting a paycheck and so on.
The only thing they're looking forward to in their day is some drip coffee and maybe a nice sandwich at lunch.
That's their day. And so if you have a big enough goal...
Then aligning yourself to that goal is really part of productivity.
So why...
I mean, I have this mania to produce great philosophical content for the world, and so anything that gets in the way of that is like...
Arson is standing for me by the Library of Alexandria about to burn down all of the classical ancient texts or something like that.
So they're like vandals and barbarians and visigoths that need to be fought back with at...
Metaphorical sort point and all of that.
So a lot of times people are just bored.
And why would you want to be efficient if you're bored?
You're unmotivated, you're uninspired.
So a lot of people who talk about productivity, the passion for productivity has to be based on what you're producing.
And if you don't have passion for what you're producing, then why would you want to be efficient?
I mean, that's like asking government employees doing useless paperwork, be more efficient.
It's like, it doesn't matter.
Nobody cares. It's just annoying for everyone.
So why would you bother?
Like the one time I did work in a government office as a temp, it was just horrendous to see just, you know, how many long breaks people took and two-hour lunches.
And they had no interest in being efficient because they had no particular passion for what they do.
They were just, you know, getting a paycheck and Killing time till retirement and all of that.
So, I mean, yeah, if you're passionate about what you do, then anything that gets in the way of that will be terrible.
I mean, if you're trying to get to the job interview and it's the job of your dreams and, again, there's some detour or whatever, then that inefficiency is appalling, appalling to you and just terrible.
And if you want to go on the date with the girl of your dreams and Your car is broken down.
I mean, you're frustrated and panicked because your goal is lofty and inspiring and exciting and you want it so badly.
And so the people who think that there's some trick to becoming productive is like, to me, 90% of becoming productive is just valuing what it is that you're producing.
And if you don't value what you're producing, productivity, I mean, there's no magic trick that is going to make all of that fall into place unless there's a particular goal.
You have to actually care, yeah. Now, you've got great ambition.
Have you always had that great ambition?
I think that's absolutely a big part of, like, what makes you so productive, what you're aiming at.
Has that always been...
And, like, to not be small, to be, like, I'm gonna, you know...
What is it you've said?
Like, the different writers, Shakespeare, Molyneux, you know, has that...
Oh, yeah.
So, yeah, Shakespeare, Dickens, Molyneux.
I have... Not before philosophy.
Pre-philosophy, I mean, I almost didn't exist as a personality that I would understand now.
I was just a bunch of reactions and social programming and, you know, educational propaganda and all the stuff that you would expect from somebody who had never been inculcated with rational values.
When I became, when I got into philosophy, oh yeah, no, then I, you know, was it the old thing about the Grinches?
Three sizes that day.
It's like my ambition scaled to infinity.
Once you're part of something great and grand and beautiful and traditional and so on, then it goes very, very high.
I remember, oh gosh, was it, I mean, when I was in undergraduate, so I probably was 19 or 20, I went to a seminar on screenwriting and I peppered the person with questions about If you sold a screenplay, how would you handle the rights both in North America and Europe and China?
And this is when China was still communist, so I was obviously thinking quite a bit ahead.
And so even back then, I was like, yeah, I mean, if I'm going to be a screenwriter and I did work on plays, I wrote like 30 plays at one point.
I finished about 30 plays.
And I was like, yeah, I'm a screenwriter, so I would always aim for success.
I mean, this is something Schwarzenegger said about the presidency.
He's like, well, yeah, I mean, if I was native-born American, I'd go for the presidency.
I mean, if you're into something, why not aim for the top?
Why not aim for the top? To not aim for the top is to say, I know ahead of time what my capacities are.
And that's just insane.
I mean, nobody knows what their capacities are.
But, I mean, if you limit yourself, then you're right.
If you say, I can only do X, then you're right.
But if you don't limit yourself and you say, I have no idea what I'm capable of.
I'm just going to keep working and keep expanding and fight off the inevitable problems.
Brain-pecking crows of self-doubt or whatever, and I'm just going to keep doing as great a work as I can, and I'm not even going to think about limits.
Why on earth would you think about limits?
I mean, life has enough limits as it is.
Like, you know, you have to sleep, you have to eat, you're going to die, you know.
So life has enough limits as it is.
Why would you want to add to those in your own mind?
That's just something that's never been particularly comprehensible to me.
So yeah, if I get into philosophy, it's like, yeah, I want to be...
And, you know, it sounds, because it's not about me.
It's like, I want to be the best philosopher.
It's like, well, you know, I'm probably not more than a couple of decades from dying.
So, in terms of, like, me, I, me, vanity, but it's like, I want to be recognized as a great philosopher, because that way people will...
Listen to my arguments or read my arguments or something like that.
And so, yes, you want to aim high because that's your best chance of spreading important information about virtue and knowledge and facts and reason and evidence and debate and all of that kind of stuff.
So while I say, well, I want to be great, it's so that the words spread.
Like if you want to be somebody who helps people lose weight and you have a great diet, then you want to be respected as a great dietitian Not because of your vanity necessarily, but because that's just a measure of how well you're going to spread.
Now, with philosophy, it's a little different because you have to annoy the living hell out of people in order to be recognized and respected as a philosopher.
So it's not exactly the same as marketing.
Nobody in Coca-Cola says, okay, for us to win the battle of soft drinks, people have to hate us viscerally and deeply for maybe a generation or two.
Maybe in 500 years, they'll love us, but we've got to be hated now.
Like, that's the weird thing about philosophy is you have to accept and absorb that hatred in order to provide real value for the future.
And we all know that looking in the past, but for some reason, people always forget about, like, all the people who wanted to end slavery, they were hated in their society.
They were mocked, attacked, ostracized, ridiculed, deplatformed at the time.
All the people who... It's so ridiculous.
The guy who figured out that it was a good idea for surgeons to wash their hands before surgery was mocked, attacked, driven out of his profession, ended up being beaten to death by an orderly in an insane asylum.
This is how we We treat people like Galileo and obviously Socrates, Jesus.
So this is how we treat people who try and advance the human condition and we wonder why the world is tough.
And everyone looks back in the past and says, oh, yes, well, you know, those people, boy, they were really vilified in that time, but they were really doing some great things and we should be thankful for them.
And then they see people being vilified in the present and they're like, yeah, that's totally fair.
That's totally just. Those guys probably are real jerks.
And it's just funny how...
Maybe stop and look around the room.
Yeah. So yeah, it's a little different.
You have to be willing to be low to do any good.
Particularly as a moral philosopher.
If you're a philosopher of language, like I guess that Chomsky was in his early days, if you're a philosopher, if all you're doing is like...
Maybe metaphysics, study of reality.
Maybe epistemology, study of knowledge.
But the moment you work into ethics and politics, I mean, it's just landmines everywhere you go.
And this is why so many philosophers...
I mean, I remember Ayn Rand mocking the American Philosophical Society in the 60s.
During the height of the Vietnam War, they had a symposium called, Are Nouns Technically Real?
What? And it's like, you know, we're in a death battle against global tyrannical communism and you're debating about...
The epistemological nature of syntax.
And it's like, well, yeah, because nobody's going to get that mad at you, but the problem is everybody forgets you, right?
So, yeah. Right, right.
Okay, now, that period of time when you were recording and writing everything down, like, I imagine that's not something you're doing in the days, but, like, what aspect of that did you learn from that, or is there some habit from that you've still held on to?
What did you learn from that?
And, like, yeah.
Yeah, I don't usually write things down unless I have an unbearable list.
And I sort of wanted to mention, just to circle back, and it's kind of funny that it didn't think of me at the time.
When I talked about combining two things to be efficient, the genesis of the show was me recording while I was commuting.
Right! So I was combining commuting with show production.
Yep. And so I got to do, because I had a long commute, so I got to do two hours of shows a day.
And at one point, and this is 2006 or whatever, I put a little 240p webcam on my dashboard so I could get videos as well.
And so, in terms of combining two things, if I hadn't been able to combine two things, this show probably wouldn't exist.
Because would I want to come home and then do two hours of shows?
Or would I want to spend time with who was then my relatively new bride and the love of my life, my wife?
Well, no, I'd rather spend time with my wife than doing shows, right?
So the fact that I was able to combine two things back in the day is why the show exists to begin with.
So I just sort of wanted to point that out.
As far as lists go, no, not really, because most of what I do is fairly spontaneous.
I get a good question, and most of the questions I get are good, but some of them are just real gold.
I get a good question, I get an impulse, and I, like this morning, I saw a good question about how do you avoid trying to become God.
It's like a pretty good question.
And so I grab my phone, and I've got a microphone that clips directly into the phone, and I just put it on my chest, and I wanted to go for a morning walk anyway, and so I I combined the morning walk with the video, with the audio, and also with answering questions from a donor.
So that's four things in one.
I got the audio, I got the video, I got my walk-in, which is my exercise, and I'm also helping, hopefully, the income of the show by answering questions from a donor.
So, again, if you can't...
And people, you know, they say think outside the box.
The box is usually your room.
The box is usually like, what can you do in the world?
That is going to be more efficient.
So I just wanted to mention that.
So I don't generally do lists because I'm kind of reactive.
I see a great question and you see this in the live streams.
Like I maybe have a topic for the live stream, but half the time I don't even get to it because the questions of the comments are so interesting.
And good that we just riff on that.
So because I do a lot of jazz, like jazz players don't have sheet music, right?
Improv jazz players don't have sheet music because they're just grooving with the band, right?
And they're just noodling through that, right?
Because most of what I do before, it used to be more books and pre-idea shows and debates and interviews and so on.
But now what I mostly do is I'm just surfing the creative jazz side of my personality.
And so I can't have lists because this morning I wasn't planning on doing a show, but I saw a really good question.
The surf began to rise within my brain and I just grabbed my surfboard and went and did a show.
So... I don't have lists for that.
Other people, I'm sure it's more advantageous.
In the past, of course, I would have long lists of, okay, I've got to read these three books because I've got this interview on this day, and then I've got to go and give a speech here, so I need to prepare.
I'm an obsessive practicer for speeches.
That's the one thing I don't leave to chance when it comes to speeches.
If I haven't done it ten times before I've gone on stage, I'm just not ready.
Speeches have to be really, really well prepared because I like to play with the audience.
So I don't want to be just like basically a live screen.
I want to play with the audience.
And I got that from Freddie Mercury, right?
Freddie Mercury would do his...
He's the guy who invented the singing and the audience sings back, right?
So he does his singing and call back.
And, you know, I remember there's one live thing where he's like, eh, let's just...
He sits down on the edge of the stave.
He's like, yeah, let's just sing like Aretha Franklin together and he sings and the audience sings back.
And so you've got to play with the audience.
Otherwise... They're just going to be on their phones.
Otherwise, why be there? Why be there, right?
So for speeches...
I'm going to have all of the points that I want to make, and I've got to make them.
I've got to make them, especially if people, you know, when we did Australia, the people had paid money to be there, and they'd given up two hours of their night or three hours with Q&A to be there.
So I've got to hit the points, because nothing's worse.
For me, nothing's worse than coming off the stage, and it's like, oh my god, that big point I completely missed.
That's just horrifying for me.
In fact, I've even done that with shows where I'm like, oh, I have to just pull this and re-record it or add a bit, because I forgot this sort of big...
Important point. So the speeches, yes, it's got to be very well structured.
That's not jazz. But the reason I have to rehearse so much is because I will play with the audience.
Questions will come up. Somebody will call something out.
I will also get an impulse to say something based upon what's happening in the room.
And I have to find my way back to the original speech.
And I don't use any...
Occasionally I've had some real brief notes, like a couple of bullet points, but for the most part I'm just free-balling it, so to speak.
And so I have to have that...
Memorized in the same way if you're on a GPS and you decide to go get a coffee and you go a street or two over.
The GPS will say, resume your route.
So I can go and take a due tour and a speech, but I have to get back to my 10 central points, because that structure is there for a reason, and people have paid for it, and there's no jazz in that sense.
Maybe a couple of flourishes here and there.
Queen has their songs.
If all Freddie did with Queen was to do the vocal improvs, then people wouldn't come.
So you've got the songs, and then you play around in between.
And that's sort of what I do with the speeches.
So that's just prep.
You just have to repeat, repeat, repeat until it's totally grooved in your head.
And I remember when I saw the playback on one of my speeches in Australia, one of the cameramen was like, because I think I did an hour and a half of detailed anthropological stuff and moral stuff about the...
The indigenous population of Australia and New Zealand.
And, you know, I had facts, data, arguments, history, and the guy's like, how is he doing this?
I remember the cameraman was just like, how is he doing this without notes or something like that?
It's like, well, that's just prep. That's just a massive amount of research.
So, yeah, the prep is really, really important because you really want to avoid regret of missing the big point.
It's like, oh, we're queen.
Oh, man, we forgot to do We Will Rock You.
It's like, you know, that's 50% of why people are there, right?
It's like, oh, we've got to come back, right?
Get back on the stage.
Now, you can see that come through in the show.
I was watching one of the 21 Studios speech you had done yesterday.
And yeah, you absolutely see it. All your speeches.
Stopping, engaging people, asking questions, getting answers, and then getting back on topic.
Yes, I remember that.
So that's the one where I talked about dry humping a wasp nest or something like that.
I remember that being quite a vivid analogy.
And then, yeah, you got to – and now there's one other thing too which I do in terms of productivity because people like to see you win or at least not lose badly, right?
And so for another thing in terms of productivity for me, if I'm going to do a debate, I never want to make the same point I've made before, like not one of them.
Interesting. And I think you've been involved in a couple of these calls where I don't do debates much anymore, but when people still wanted to play with me in that arena, I would always make sure, because when I am debating with someone, I'll go watch six to eight hours of their material.
I want to know how they think.
I mean, look, this is basic.
I mean, if you're an athlete, then you study how the other athletes play, right?
You always have these videos of, well, this football team does this under these circumstances and so on, right?
So I go... And I want to make it pointless for them to watch me.
No, I want to make it completely like, yes, go ahead, watch me.
Don't prepare yourself because either they're watching me or they're preparing themselves.
Don't prepare. Come watch me.
And then they're ready with the, oh, he's going to make these arguments.
He's made these arguments before.
And then they're ready with their rebuttals.
And I just don't make those arguments. Never let them know your next move is really important for me.
I do not make the same arguments.
And I'm sure it's happened occasionally, but my big goal is to not make the same arguments again.
So sometimes you win by making other people inefficient.
Everyone thinks that efficiency is just about you.
No, no, no, no. Efficiency is about making the other person inefficient as well.
So people will, if they're at all responsible with debates, they'll research what I've read and said.
And what I've written and said.
And I want to make that completely a huge waste of time for them.
So, yeah, it's really, really important for other people to be inefficient.
I was in a music video in my teens and there were a bunch of people carrying the singer in at the very beginning and some people were chosen to carry the singer in and that was the beginning of the video and obviously pretty prominent.
And I just went up there anyway.
Right? I just went up there anyway.
And then one of the guys said, oh, I got to go to the washroom, right?
And so he went to the washroom and I was just hanging around and they say, well, we got to go do this shot.
The guy wasn't back from the washroom.
And I'm like, I'll do it. And they said, get in there, man.
And so I ended up in the opening of the video and, you know, just be there.
But yeah, so working to make other people.
This is Sun Tzu, right?
Get your enemy to go over there and have him waste his time dealing with that, right?
To tire him out, to mess up his food supply.
So it's not just about being efficient yourself.
It's about making other people inefficient as well, and that's a fundamental debate strategy that I have.
So yeah, I guess because I'm not doing debates anymore, I can lift that kimono and just say, yeah, anybody who's debating me They're expecting me to make a bunch of arguments, but I'll be damned if I'll make them because I want them to waste their time researching stuff I'm never going to say.
Man, that sounds so...
Now you've got to come up with all of these original arguments.
But you know what? I suspect that's the world you live in.
You're in this flow state of engaging with what's important, what comes in the moment.
To not be distracted...
It's interesting. So, to not be distracted, you have to have passion.
And fear is a good passion to have.
There's an old saying, like, nothing sharpens the mind, like the prospect of an imminent execution.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
So... I remember when I listened to Harry Brown, a libertarian, he ran for presidency of libertarian, libertarian presidency, I think back in 04 or something like that.
Anyway, so Harry Brown, I used to listen to him, and he just had these same stories over and over again, same arguments over and over again, right?
So he'd say, they'd say, oh, how small should the income tax be?
He says, well, we'll get the income tax down low, then we'll get a big stadium, we'll all get together, we'll debate how low it should be, maybe it should be zero or something like that.
And he always had these same sort of stories.
And I mean, I liked Harry Brown.
I thought he was a good communicator, but you couldn't pay me to do that.
Like, there's no money in the world that would have me repeat that stuff.
Because everyone's been in this situation, usually with a boss or someone, or maybe a dad or whatever, and it's like, No, you already told me this story.
Like, I had a boss once just to tell me the same stories over and over again.
Yeah. With the same enthusiasm, the same, like, and never, oh, I've mentioned this before.
And so I try not to do that too much in the show.
And if I do, like, you recognize my story about the music video, say, I'll keep it brief because I've said this before.
So if you're repeating stuff, you're already dissociated.
Like, you're already on autopilot if you're repeating stuff.
Oh. And if you are going to repeating it, at least don't do it the same way.
There were certain phrases that I've heard people use over and over and over again, and it's their go-to statement.
It's their go-to position and all of that.
Now, if you're not present, you can't be efficient.
If you're on autopilot, you can't be efficient.
So if I'm in a debate and I'm making the same arguments I've made a hundred times or a thousand times before, I'm not present in the moment.
I'm not present in that situation.
Now, if I'm not present in that situation, I'm going to miss something because I'm on autopilot.
And when you're on autopilot, you're distracted.
You're thinking about other things. So you have to be creative in the moment so that you stay present in the moment so you don't miss something.
And so the reason I like going into debates with all new arguments It's so that I'm really present in the moment.
I'm not scripted.
I'm not autopilot. And some of this I learned, believe it, a lot from Marlon Brando.
So Marlon Brando, he was kind of made fun of, this famous American actor.
He was kind of made fun of for many years because he didn't memorize his lines.
He would have people stand...
Just behind the camera with his lines on big pieces of paper, like how they have the comedians auto-prompting on late-night TV. And the reason he did that was because he just felt it was the best way for him to be spontaneous in saying things.
Because he said the moment things memorize, they crystallize.
The moment you memorize things, it dies in your mind.
It's really hard to be spontaneous.
So he wanted to be as present as possible, and if he didn't know the line and he just saw the line behind the camera, And then the line would be alive for him because he hadn't memorized it.
And the other thing that is really terrible is when you are on that kind of autopilot, your creativity dries up.
Because you're either fertile in your mind or you're reading a script.
You're just kind of on autopilot.
And I really need to keep that alertness and that being present in the moment.
The other thing, too, is that if I've researched somebody else's arguments and I see them making those same arguments in the same way, I know that they're missing charisma because charisma is thinking in a lively fashion in the moment.
And you also, sorry, just to back up to the Marlon Brando example, I'm sure you've seen these videos of like the greatest ad-libs in the history of movies, right?
And there's so many great movie lines that just were completely ad-libbed and that's really cool and probably one of the reasons why they are.
So famous. You know, we're going to need a bigger boat from Jaws.
That was all ad-libbed. And, you know, you can think of millions of these.
And the famous scene from Taxi Driver with, you know, you talking to me was totally ad-libbed.
Scorsese just said to De Niro, just, you know, make up some dialogue and talk to the mirror.
And he just made it all up on the spot.
And it was just fantastic, right?
So, yeah, the moment that somebody's...
If they're rehearsed and they're on autopilot then they're not present and therefore their charisma is going to dip and that gives me a significant advantage.
So I don't want to make the same old arguments because I know it's going to cost me relatability because there's a certain level of aliveness that you just have when you're thinking on the fly or you're doing an argument for the first time that you're just not going to have with repetition and that aliveness and thinking in the moment is very interesting to people because What are people interested in?
Stuff that's different from the norm.
And most people are just saying the same stuff over and over again.
Most people just have the same phrases, the same...
Like, you know, these automatic statements, right?
How are you? Fine.
You know, how was your day?
Good. You know, like just automatic statements and so on.
And when you see somebody who's actually thinking originally and in the present and in the moment, it's really kind of fascinating because it's very different from how most interactions are, which are people...
Stifling yawn while waiting the return to talk.
And when you see improv comedians, that could be pretty great.
And I think Seinfeld was saying in one of the movies he made about being a comedian, He was just saying that every time he goes off script, it's a disaster.
Now, for other people, like Robin Williams, his ad-libs were just incredible.
I mean, half of the movies that he was in, everything was ad-libbed.
I mean, they did it like when he was his famous turn as the genie in Aladdin.
What? They had like, I don't know, nine or ten hours of his opening monologues that he just made up on the spot.
And it was all, you know, they cut it down to the opening part and it was just fantastic.
It was just brilliant stuff. So being alive in the moment, being on the edge rather than being rehearsed is really, really Interesting to people.
And again, I know that's a little bit different from the speeches, but the speeches stuff has to get hit.
You have to get to particular places.
So efficiency also has to do with just being alive in the moment, not missing stuff.
And especially if you're a communicator, what does efficiency mean?
It means that you get the majority of information across.
If you're transmitting electricity, you want as little loss as possible.
Right? And so I guess if you can get your cables down to absolute zero, you can get almost all of it across.
But you want as little loss as possible.
And you see this with the internet, right?
How many lost packets are there?
How many times did I have to resend stuff, right?
So if you're a communicator, efficiency is how much information can you get across as quickly as possible.
And that just means being alive in the moment.
So did I do any prep for this?
No. I did not because I didn't even sit there and think, oh, well, I've done these things to be productive and I've done those things.
I think we did talk the other day about, and I mentioned this on the show, about the rage I have against things that are unproductive.
But that's being alive in the moment, being present in the moment, thinking originally, thinking creatively and really working to make sure your points get across.
That is maximum efficiency.
That is maximum productivity because what I measured by and what I measure myself by is how many ideas do I successfully get across to other people.
That doesn't mean that they act on them, but at least they have the option, right, if they want to.
And the best way to do that is to not be a monotone guy, to not drone, to not use the same stories over and over again.
Like, that just didn't work.
Well, I mean, how many lost packets is that?
That's all of them. That's 100% lost packets.
So it actually enrages me when people have a speaking opportunity and they just get up there and drone.
It's like, oh my God, like not only are you wasting my time and your time, but literally the time of everybody here who would rather be doing anything else.
I actually get angry at people like that because it's very selfish and it's very lazy and it's very exploitive.
I think it was Elon Musk who has something in the room which tells you how much the meeting is costing per minute, like based on everyone's salary.
Yeah, be aware. Be aware.
And I remember learning this in – I wrote a scene about this in The God of Atheists because I learned this in business fairly early on that I was trying to deal with some esoteric installation problem on a particular flavor of hardware.
And the chief financial officer was like, dude, this company is costing us X amount of dollars per day.
Like, you have to get this software out.
We have to sell it. We have to cover payroll.
And it's like, oh, yeah.
Or like, you know, the story I've told before about when I had the job in the hardware store when I was like, I don't know, 14 or whatever.
And I lied about being able to fix blinds.
Oh, no, fix green doors.
And I'm like, oh, yeah, I've had experience with that.
And so I didn't.
I didn't go and fix any screen doors.
I was just cleaning up the store.
And the guy was like, how is he cleaning up the store?
How is that making me any money? Go fix some screen doors.
I'm like, oh, these look a little different from the ones I'm used to.
So then he took 10 minutes, told me how to fix a screen door, and then I fixed screen doors because then I was making money for the guy rather than costing him money.
And so being around small business owners and so on who just tell you you have to make money, you have to be productive, is really, really important to remember, to measure.
Because we all fall down these holes of...
Solving problems and you have to pop back up and say, okay, is this the most important thing I can be working on?
What's the actionable thing that actually produces an output, you know?
Well, I mean, everything's going to produce an output, but you have to...
So people fall down this rabbit hole and it's like, this is particularly true of engineers, or you fall down this rabbit hole and it's like, I will solve this problem without pulling your head up and saying, okay, how common is this problem?
What are the costs of it occurring?
And is this the most important problem that it can be solving?
And of course, the most fundamental problem you have to solve in a business is income.
And so you have to measure your time relative to income.
And so having that as a metric and, you know, this divide, just like the church estate divide, the divide between, you know, sales and engineering in business is very significant.
Very common that the sales want a product they can hand out, the engineers want everything to be perfect, and the marketers lie to both.
I'm just kidding. Well, to some degree.
And mostly lie to the customers and that everyone else has to fill in the gaps.
So, yeah, just lifting your head back up and saying, is this the most productive thing?
And you have to have a cutoff point.
I mean, you and I have had this conversation.
Like, okay, if you can't find something within 10 minutes, stop.
And maybe you'll find, like, I have this when I'm looking for something, right?
If it's not, like, I don't know, I've got to get somewhere and I can't find my car keys.
If I'm looking for something, like some cable or some whatever, right?
You know, I'll give myself maybe five or ten minutes.
And usually, of course, I can always strap on a headset and do a show while I'm looking for something.
But if I can't find it, and it's not absolutely essential, I'll find something else.
I'll find some other way to do it.
And I'll just say, you know what?
In life, don't spend too much time looking for stuff because you know how it is.
Tide comes in, tide goes out.
Stuff is like, oh, this is here.
You're just around in your house and you come across stuff.
I've certainly had things like, I remember I once lost a pen for a computer and it was like mildly annoying but not super important and I looked around it for a little bit and believe it or not, I found it a year later in the dishwasher.
It was in the dishwasher, and the reason it was in the—I don't know why it got in the dishwasher, but the reason it stayed in the dishwasher is it's a magnetic pen.
Nice. So it stuck to the roof of the dishwasher.
Now, it had been in there for about a year.
Believe it or not, it still worked, which was to me quite remarkable.
But I'm glad I didn't spend more time looking for that because there's absolutely zero chance of it.
Oh, let me grope around the top of the dishwasher and see if my computer pen is in here.
I assume it had just gotten on some plate and then latched onto the top or something like that.
But, and I've had, I remember once I lost some cash in an apartment and I looked around, looked around, and of course eventually I moved out of that apartment, and when you move out, everything's bare, right?
And I never found the money.
So I'm glad that I never looked that much for the money because it just was not there.
It literally was not in the apartment because I moved out and that's about as good as you can get as trying to find stuff.
So yeah, just give yourself a limit and just recognize that some things you're just going to have to wait for the tide to bring it into you in the way that stuff comes and goes in life.
You know, like, oh, yeah, I remember this.
I'd forgotten I even had this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
So I think as far as being efficient and being productive, just really cutting your losses and not getting tunnel vision is really important because sometimes there's no end to that tunnel and it can depress you the whole day.
Recognize the more time you spend looking for something that you can't find, the more depressed and anxious you get because it's just the more frustrated and annoyed you get and you've got to manage that stuff as well.
Something like that can ruin your productivity for the whole day.
Well, it can be rough, right?
The same way that you need to limit your doom scrolling on social media because, you know, that can be overwhelming and you need to limit your exposure to horror.
I mean, it's important to know where the dangers are in this world, but not to the point where, you know, your mood turns black as a storm cloud, right?
So really protecting your enthusiasm is very important as well because with that enthusiasm, I have no idea what you're measuring efficiency by other than maybe some stopwatch metric inflicted in you by your manager.
Okay, okay. Let's turn it back to something real quick.
We talked about anger as a driving passion.
Rage was the word, but yes, we can go with anger.
Okay, that's fair.
Rage. And that is a passionate, creative rage, getting something done.
But also, fear as an ally.
What is that like for you?
Because you did mention, before you were talking about doing the speeches, how fear can be a helpful component.
Oh, yeah. Fear is essential.
My question is, though, how do you balance that?
What is that like for you, internally, to balance that, like, enough fear that it's my ally, but not that it's, I don't know, like, takes away from the productivity, but could Well, no, no.
Fear is a great companion to be respected and never dissed, right?
So, I mean, we've all experienced it, right?
Like, you want to ask the girl out, but you're afraid she's going to say no.
Yeah. And the fear is really, really important.
So fear of failure is very...
The more you love something, the more you fear losing it.
That's just the natural thing, right?
You become a parent and you want your kids to do well and you fear them becoming ill or whatever, right?
And because this is my absolute ideal, perfect dream job, the fear of not being able to do it is...
It's huge, right? And that's part of what de-platforming is about, is to sort of hit you with that fear of who are you without reach.
Like I was just thinking about this morning, I woke up and I had like, I don't know, three comments on social media.
And I was sort of remembering back on the day, it's like I used to literally have a thousand comments a day that sort of gave me feedback.
And, you know, who am I with, you know, 0.3% of the comments?
Well, actually more productive in a way because I can more focus on What I think is right for the world rather than reacting to what the world is throwing at me.
Fear is essential.
Fear is how you measure how much you care.
Fear is the shadow side of love and passion because when you want something very badly, you're obviously afraid of not getting it.
If you have something that you treasure, you're afraid of losing it.
The idea that you can have passion without fear is incomprehensible to me.
Both passion and fear are needed to guide you In the right direction.
So if I've pursued a particular passion in the show and donations stopped for whatever reason, I would be afraid of low donations, which I should be afraid of low donations, particularly early in the show, because I had bills to pay.
And if I couldn't pay the bills with the show, I'd have to go back to being an entrepreneur, which in the software field, which is not the end of the world, but it's not as good as this.
So yeah, and so my fear would be like, gosh, People haven't donated.
I've been pursuing this particular topic and people haven't donated in a week or two, so I need to change my course.
So the fear is really important.
Like, why do you go hunting?
Because you're afraid of going hungry.
The negative things are what guide a lot of life.
Why do I get a drink of water?
Because thirst is uncomfortable.
Why do we diet and exercise often?
Because we're afraid of being fat and soft, right?
So the fear is really important.
And the fear is not just of consequences, like negative consequences in the moment.
If I have a level of potential that I fail to actualize, then I fear the depression that would result from that.
I fear if I can do all of these things and I don't, I chicken out, I don't say the important stuff, I don't make contentious arguments, then I fear that I will just look back at regret.
Like, I mean, if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, at least I want to have done the maximum I can in some reasonably safe scenario to avert that.
Whereas if I had kind of chickened out and not taken on contentious arguments and so on, and then the world goes to hell in a handbasket, I'd always sit there and say, ooh, what have I done more?
What if I, you know, would I have regret, right?
So fear of regret is really important.
People stop smoking because of fear of lung cancer, right?
It's not because they love not smoking.
I'm sure they appreciate it when it happens.
Yeah. Now, fear is a very important companion.
And people, I don't know, do they view fear as dishonorable or cowardly or something like that?
It's like, no, no, no. Fear is… Yes!
No, that's like saying that rage is murderous.
It's like, no, rage is just frustration and a desire to change things, which you should if things are inefficient.
But no, fear is really, really important, and you've got to accept and embrace that.
Can you imagine being a zebra and saying to your baby zebra, well, you know, when you see a lion over there, you might feel fear, but the important thing is to not be afraid.
And it's like, no, no, you should be afraid of the lion because he's going to chew your ass off.
So, no, being afraid is very, very important in this world and learning that your fear
is there to help you, it's there to guide you, it's there to alert you to dangers that
aren't immediately obvious and so that you can navigate and avoid certain disasters that
if you avoid your fear, you're just avoiding security and safety because your fear is there
to help you.
It's not like your anger is there to help you and your fear is there to help you.
It's not there to mess you up and I don't know, I've never quite understood this thing
of like, well, you should reject your feelings and your instincts in order to what?
What are you going to replace them with?
I guess that's the void you replace with propaganda or something like that.
But sorry, go ahead.
stoic idea of masculinity, where you don't show fear, don't have fear, deny, reject fear, and who does it serve if you have no healthy relationship with your fear, if your fear isn't an ally?
I remember when a big, big deal, life-changing for me in the show, was I'd grown up rejecting and avoiding my anger.
Yeah.
And it was until I directed it in the right place, understanding like, hey, the most likely way,
I forget it. I know I had gotten this from you. I don't know if you were citing a particular study
or not, but saying that one of the greatest ways to make sure you don't and won't hit your kids,
because I was thinking like, oh, I was raised this way. Can I not? Can I choose not to?
And was to be angry about it.
One of the greatest ways to make sure you don't, you know, do the same thing is to actually be angry about it being done to you, that emotional relationship.
I don't know what the same component is with fear, but I'm very curious and interested.
Well, you, I mean, to ignore your fear is to be put in dangerous situation to serve the rulers, right?
So... You know, there's this meme about this teenage boy who's like, well, I don't want to go and fight for X, Y, and Z, and his mom's like, yes, but mommy wants Hillary Clinton to be president, or something like that, right?
Yeah! So, no, the man's fear is really important, and the reason you short-circuit men's fear and tell them not to be afraid is so that you can order them to do useless, dangerous things, and the fear won't kick in and have them say no.
You can draft them, right?
Oh, you're just a coward.
The white feather of cowardice, you're just a coward if you don't obey your rulers and kill people who aren't harming you, or have no threat of harming you.
Yeah, it's an exploitive mechanism.
It's funny, too, because, of course, a lot of people who are more secular tend to be against instincts, and yet...
It's Darwinian evolution that has provided us these instincts.
Like, why would we have developed fear if it wasn't a benefit to us?
Why would we have developed anger if it wasn't a benefit to us?
I mean, these things, it's kind of weird that we would have these things, these counselors within, and then just de-platform them and silence them and censor them, right?
Censor your fear, censor your anger, censor all of your emotions, and then I guess it becomes a whole lot easier to censor other people if you've already censored yourself.
All right, do you want to do one more? Last question.
Last question. Because we were on 20-minute efficiency.
Just kidding. Go on. I'm the one talking, so no complaints.
But let's just do one more. I was about to say, I'm like, no, no, no.
We're taking this, like, we're flowing.
Things are going, you know, not going to interrupt.
Yeah, yeah. Sorry about that.
No, no worries at all. Hit me.
Alright, so now get back into the energy of that.
We're talking about fear and anger and productivity and all this stuff.
And my last final question, the biggest one.
You can't convince me that this isn't the case.
Well, virtually. I'll open our argumentation, but I feel very strongly of this.
One of the reasons you are so very, very productive is your good and clean conscience.
Huh. Interesting.
Well, I mean, there are lots of people who are kind of productive who don't seem to have a clean conscience.
Maybe that's one of the reasons.
I guess I'm thinking of people who have...
Everyone who went to Epstein Island seems to get a bunch of stuff done.
I have changed the definition of productive on you without telling you.
In this way, I see productivity is a greater superclass of not just economic productivity but also moral and, of course, biological productivity.
And look, I can see all these other people that are all productive in all these ways, but I don't want to be like...
I could care less about being like them in their lives, but I want to learn from you.
You're the kind of productive I want.
Yeah, so I think I can manage just a little bit.
So one of the reasons that I think I'm so productive is I don't have competing interests.
Right, so if you're a CEO of a Big corporation.
You have your customers, you have your advertisers, you have the ideologues.
I mean, look at all the stuff that Elon Musk is facing with regards to Twitter or X, right?
That he's got his shareholders, he's got these pressure groups, he's got his advertisers, he's got his customers, he's got the people who are happy to pay, the people who want everything for free.
And so it's really tough when you're being pulled in all these different directions.
To be productive. And for me, one of the things I think that's been very helpful with the show, and this is a pretty conscious decision, is to keep it as small, efficient, and lean as possible so that I'm beholden to no one and nothing except, obviously, donors and listeners to the show and my own conscience.
I've really tried to reduce the number of variables because in the past, when I was a chief technical officer and an entrepreneur, There were so many different things that you had to try and deal with and balance that it was pretty unproductive.
You know, like the more you please your customers, Maybe the less you please your shareholders.
The more you please your advertisers, the less you please your customers.
Because the advertisers want more ads, but the customers want fewer ads.
So for me, I've really worked to keep the variables as small as possible.
So if I had advertisers, I would be torn between wanting to keep my advertisers and wanting to take on contentious, important, and challenging topics.
If I had a big payroll...
Then de-platforming would have been a big...
I would have had to really studiously avoid that to be responsible to my employees.
And if I had a big income based on touring and speaking, then I would have those...
And then I would also have...
It's also been trying to avoid the vulnerable spots, right?
So if I had advertisers, then I could be targeted through my advertisers.
If the majority of my money came from public speaking, then the venues could be targeted, as of course has happened.
And so trying to reduce the number of variables to work with so that I can...
Simply focus on getting things done without having to balance too many considerations.
It's really important.
It's the difference between if you're a jogger, you can just go and jog, right?
But if you like playing soccer, you need a bunch of other people.
And so you're kind of dependent on a whole bunch of other people and so you're less in control of your athleticism.
You're less in control. When I played a lot of tennis as a teenager, Yeah.
find people to go play tennis with I could go hit the ball against the wall
and that would be my thing right? But it's you can't do that with pick a
ball or whatever right?
So if it's weightlifting, you could just go and lift weights.
I guess if you need a spotter, that's different.
So the fewer variables you have, the more efficient you can be.
if you have to wait for seven or eight or ten other people.
My friends and I, Saturdays we would play baseball and Sundays we would play soccer.
And we all had to show up, like Dungeons and Dragons.
You all have to show up, or at least the majority of you have to show up,
and so you're kind of not in control of that.
And one of the things that I've always been drawn to is areas where I have the most control
and the least need to compromise.
So, for instance, if you're a movie maker, then you need $100 million to make your movie, or $50
million, or $25 million.
You've got a whole bunch of stakeholders.
You've got to make sure you don't annoy the Chinese.
You've got to make sure that it's playable in India.
And there's all these various lobbies that want to have you inject all of this stuff into your movies.
As a novelist, I can just write the story.
And I can simply consult what I think is the most important and powerful and salient aspects.
Of the story and I'm not dependent on other people to get things done.
And that's important. And there's lots of people who are very good at collaboration, but to me collaboration in general dilutes the singularity of the message.
It's the difference between a mural that is decided on by a committee and an artist painting in his attic.
Based upon what he thinks is the most important.
And I think in particular when it comes to inspiration, inspiration just tends to be quite a singular thing.
And reducing the number of variables is really important to efficiency.
If you need to get the buy-in of 10 people to get something done, then you're going to spend probably more time getting the agreement of 10 people than it is actually doing the thing.
Yes! Amen! Now, who do I have to ask if I can do something?
Who do I have to buy in? What limits are there on what I can do?
I mean, obviously, I don't want to do anything illegal, so there's no particular problem there when it comes to that, but it's really just up to me and my conscience, and that's really efficient.
So, reducing the number of variables that you have to deal with is really important.
For efficiency. And again, I know you need big corporations to get things done at times and so on, and that's valid and fair, but the more variables you can reduce, the more efficient you can be.
So you have to look at your time. How much time are you spend actually doing something and how much time are you spend Getting buy-in, getting budget, getting approvals, getting checkboxes, getting memos of understanding.
And some of that stuff's important.
Again, I don't want to disagree with it in its entirety.
But the more you can do...
I mean, if you have a like-minded bunch of people as a whole, then you can get a lot of stuff done.
But even then, it still takes a lot of buy-in.
And there's also people have different varying levels of enthusiasm.
Like if I had five people I was continually doing shows with, well, on those days where I didn't get a good night's sleep or I have a headache or something, I can just choose to work on something else or take the day off.
And in any group of like the five or five people doing a show together, there's going to be different levels of enthusiasm and engagement.
In each one of those people on every day.
And again, there's nothing wrong with that as shows as a whole.
It's not my particular preference, though, to rely on other people to match the sort of ferocity of my energy and curiosity.
So for me, it just works better this way and it's about as efficient as you can be.
So yeah, reducing variables is really important.
I couldn't get... I would go slowly insane or maybe even quickly insane.
In a job where I had to get approvals from a whole bunch of people.
And I've gone through that process. Like when I was first an entrepreneur, just coding in my basement, I mean, I consulted with my business partner about what I needed to build, but how I built it and the interface and all of that, I just chose all of that.
Towards the end of my career, when I was managing the building of projects rather than building them directly myself, there was just so much buy-in and so many sign-offs and so many approvals.
And it just became like, oh my gosh, you know, I used to be a guy who built things myself and now I'm a guy who just tries to keep the paper blizzards of bureaucracy away from productive people.
And that was not super fun.
Yeah. Yep, yep.
When I was going to say that too, in the productivity books I read, the people, individual, like, yeah, hire executives, they pay to have people between them and distraction.
So in order to achieve that, but again, that costs that much more just to achieve that, in order to achieve that opportunity of distraction.
Okay, Seth, you've been so genish with your time already.
Thank you so, so much.
Wait, one last thing.
The last thing I would say as well, and this is not uncommon, so this is not a particular insight of mine, but be sure to delegate.
Absolutely be sure. If it's cheaper to have someone do something for you, pay them to do it.
That's really, really important.
It's the old argument that, like, Michael Jordan doesn't do his own typing, right?
He just pays someone to type.
So don't be afraid at all to offload work onto other people where possible and where viable.
If you can't automate it and you can't make it efficient in your own environment, just really be sure that you can concentrate on what you're doing by offloading things to other people or pay to have it automated.
Yeah, there's a freelancer.
There's somebody out there who specializes in knocking that job down.
And you both get to have your autonomy and your focus and not having the bureaucracy.
And you get to create value together.
That's awesome.
That's what you want. All right.
Well, listen, I really appreciate the questions.
I'll let you do the outro because it is, after all, your show.
Oh, it's my show! Oh, okay.
Thank you so much, Stephanie.
Thank you very, very much.
As usual, I didn't know exactly what to expect coming in to interview you on productivity, but everything you had to share.
I have my list of boilerplate stuff.
But as you're going off, like, on your own inspiration of explaining your productivity, you answered everything I had.
So that was nice.
Didn't have to go through that rote list.
But anyone who, or folks, check this out.
Thank you so much. And please don't forget to go to freedomain.com forward slash donate.
If you like this, you want more of this, that is kind of an important signal to find out.
Yeah, Steph, thank you so, so very much.
You're welcome. It's a great topic.
I hope that people find it helpful.
Oh, I'm certain they will. This is going to be second to the Peaceful Parenting book.
This is going to be the best thing I've ever done, or helping with the Peaceful Parenting book.
Best thing you've done so far.
Steph, yes!
Yes! Thank you, Steph.
Have a wonderful day, man.
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