Modern WisdomHow Shame-Based Motivation Backfires - Dr K HealthyGamer
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,012 words- 0:00 – 11:29
Toxic Fuel Motivates Us
- CWChris Williamson
Talk to me about toxic fuel.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Um, so if we look at motivation, a lot of the way that we motivate ourselves is using certain emotions, certain ideas of who we want to be. Like, I suck and I don't want to suck. I need to be better, so I'll motivate myself using toxic fuel. So these are motivators that will actually get you from point A to point B or maybe even point Z, but will cost you a lot in the process.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
So a good example of toxic fuel is I want to live up to the expectations that people place on me. Another excellent toxic fuel is anger. So a lot of people will feel really motivated when they're angry and then if the anger goes away, then their motivation declines. And so you sort- you're sort of stuck in this situation where the things that you need to motivate you are things that will cost you a lot in the process.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. (clears throat)
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
And the- the main reason that we sort of do that is because the sources of toxic fuel tend to be, neurologically speaking, the most powerful motivators. So if we look at like anger, right? Anger is a core survival mechanism. Even things like fear, people will be motivated by fear all the time but they don't really connect these dots. But if I think about I don't want people to be disappointed in me, I don't want to screw up, right? So if you- if you have those kinds of thoughts, I see this all the time in- in the medical students that I work with because they're very high neuroticism and they don't want to fail tests. So that fear pushes them to stay in the library on Friday night, Saturday night-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
... Sunday night for a test on Monday.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
So it gets the job done, neurologically really, really potent, but wires your motivational system in a way that will burn you out.
- CWChris Williamson
Why?
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Why- why- why does it burn you out?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Uh, because if you sort of look at the cost, right? So if I- if I'm utilizing anger or fear to motivate myself, I may do the job, so I may sort of end up on Monday morning with a- prepared for a test. But if you look at the effect on my physiology, it's drastic. My cortisol levels are through the loo- roof, my adrenaline levels are through the roof, um, my reticular activating system, which is like this part in the back of your brain-
- CWChris Williamson
Threat, threat.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Yeah, and also wakefulness, wakefulness, wakefulness. Like, we're in danger, we don't get a good night sleep, we don't want a good night sleep, we need to be able to wake up very, very easily.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
So I- I think when people utilize toxic fuel, it tends to run them ragged. Um, I think also they tend to be very unhappy. So here's the other problem. So if I am motivated by fear to get an A on a test, I bounce between terrified and relief, right? I'm moving from negative 100 back to 0. Now the test is over, phew.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
I feel relief, I feel a loss of the pressure, but I don't feel grateful, I don't feel happy, I don't feel content. In fact, the first thing that'll happen is I'll, "Thank God I have a break. When the next test rolls around, I'm gonna have to do this all over again."
- CWChris Williamson
Yep. What's a healthier way to look at this?
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Um, that is a long question. All right, it's not a simple question, but I would say setting up, uh, there's a couple ways to- to look at it. So one is like a more scientific approach, one is a more spiritual approach. I'm actually gonna start with the spiritual because I think that works really, really well.
- CWChris Williamson
Are you gonna use the accent?
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
I can if you want me to.
- CWChris Williamson
Not yet.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Early on. Just got- just got started.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Well, we'll- I'll- I'll- I'll- I'll whip it out at the appropriate time.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, cool. Very good.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Um, and then we can do the-
- 11:29 – 22:24
Why Men Go from Sad to Mad
- CWChris Williamson
the interesting thing when people start on their journey, and I wonder whether this is a mistake that gets made in advice giving online. When people begin, they tend to have a lot more fear, resentment, shame, bitterness, uh, uh, need for validation, and I think, uh, at least in my opinion, you need to work through some of that. I think it's important to prove to yourself that you can do a thing in the world, and maybe you do need to feel like, "Oh, I have got a bit of status. People do respect me. People respect me for the work that I do." And like, I'll get onto the, like, telic or atelic as opposed to exotelic, like, stuff in a little while. Um, so when people start, it's so difficult to begin doing anything, especially something that's a big project...I think using whatever motivation you've got is maybe not bad to get you off the launchpad, right? The first-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... few inches. Like, use the chip on your shoulder from the kids in school. Use the whatever it might be.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
It, it, it's, it's a great, great point and, and there's so much to say. Wow. I, I love talking with you, Chris. Um, so first of all, I completely agree. So if we look at... There's so many interesting examples of this. So if we look at, like, what's going on. You know, everyone's wondering, why are men so angry?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
You know? So if you sort of think about it, we live in a society where if you're struggling, right? So a normal human being when they struggle, they will express sadness. They'll do something like cry, right? So if you sort of look at it from an evolutionary perspective-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
... sadness and crying is the highest signal emotion.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Like, if you see someone crying, you can tell immediately that they're crying. They're, they're shaking. They're sobbing. They're emitting noises.
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, I read the best article on crying a couple of weeks ago.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
It-
- CWChris Williamson
It's fucking amazing.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
What, what, what was in it?
- CWChris Williamson
It was, uh, an, it was actually a study. Um, it was looking at the adaptive explanation-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... from an evolutionary perspective on why crying works. Um, it's a, a bunch of interesting things I never thought of before. Crying is very fast onset and offset.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Which is kind of unique for an emotion. Like, once you start crying, you have really begun, and once you stop crying, you've really stopped. That's not the same as something like anger or depression or anxiety, which is sort of more-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... a, a wide, long bell curve. Um, it is a costly signal because-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... we understand how important vision is.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
And if you've got water in your eyes, you can't really be doing much else at the same time. So very few people would choose to do this because it makes you unbelievably vulnerable.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, it's also happening on the face.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
Which means that it's ... and through the eyes as well. So it's this, uh, signal but that's not ... Like crying is ... The reason that we can create water out of our eyes is not to cry.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Right.
- 22:24 – 30:16
Are Porn and Video Games Making Men Useless?
- CWChris Williamson
It's an interesting one. I've got, uh, an idea. Have I told you the male sedation hypothesis-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
No.
- CWChris Williamson
... before giving me this? Okay, do you know what young male syndrome is?
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, uh, throughout history, if you have a surplus of sexless men, especially reproductive age sexless men, um, and they are unpartnered, they tend to cause problems.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
They are societal disruption. They set cars on fire and push over granny. They get together in mobs and try to cause uprisings-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Interesting.
- CWChris Williamson
... and, and such. It's called young male syndrome. It's pretty well studied throughout history, and you can look at a ton of societies. If they had, uh, an imbalanced sex ratio that skews male, really not good. This happened, uh, Portugal 1800s, the first, uh, sons were allowed to get married. Subsequent sons were permitted to go on galleon ships to explore the New World, i.e. exported from the country so that they would not stick about, be disruptive, and cause issues.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Interesting.
- CWChris Williamson
The question that I have is, where is all of the incel violence at? Given that we are living in a society which has the highest rates of sexlessness and uncoupled-ness, especially among reproductive age young men, we should see an in-kind rise in young male syndrome. There should be lots of antisocial behavior. There should be... This is not a request. This is not a demand.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
There should be more school shootings than there are.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
There should be more, uh, mass spree killers from dejected, rejected young men. And the question is, why is young male syndrome not manifesting in the manner that we may have thought it would've done, specifically in groups as well. Like, getting together, causing, um, uh, uh, uh, political uprisings, pushbacks and stuff like that. Uh, my belief is that men are being sedated out of their status-seeking and reproductive-seeking behavior through screens, porn, and video games, that they're getting a titrated dose of what they would have needed to get from the real world previously. And it's not enough to make them satisfied and happy in life, but it is enough to sedate them out of going to seek that in the real world. So porn is a titrated dose-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... of sexual satisfaction. Uh, screens are a titrated dose of what coalitional behavior might be like. Video games are a titrated dose of what status-seeking behavior might be like, also a bit coalitional too. And I think that men are sedated out of what would've ancestrally been a huge issue. We've created a generation of men who are no longer that dangerous but are largely useless, and it's like-... 51/49 that you would probably prefer useless men to dangerous men, and the only reason that you prefer it that way is because it's times of peace. But if you ever need those guys to actually be useful, you're fucked. Uh, so yeah, male sedation hypothesis.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Is that your hypothesis? I love it. So I, I, I think there's a lot there that I would totally hop on board with. Um, I, I like the way that you spoke about the titrated dose of pornography, video games, and, um-
- CWChris Williamson
Screens, social media.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
... screens, yeah. Right? So, and, and I think it's, it's lovely how you connected each of those technologies with the specific effects that they have. So, you know, titrated dose of sexual gratification, some sense of community, which we absolutely get, get through things like Twitch and Discord. Um, and then video games give us a sense of achievement, agency, power, identity. Um, and, and so it's really interesting 'cause I, I, I love hearing that from you, and this is why I respect you so much. Because in my case, I studied this stuff for years and years and years and years, and I know you're, you've basically almost done the same.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
And then I wrote a book about it to help their parents-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
... help parents of today's generation understand why kids are addicted to video games and understand these precise things.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
That if you understand why people are addicted to the stuff, then you can satisfy those things.
- CWChris Williamson
What are they getting out of it?
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Eh, you can give them that alternatively, and then the gaming behavior actually collapses.
- CWChris Williamson
Wonderful question that people can ask themselves. Uh, I learned this from Rick Hanson, did this podcast about rumination, and he asked this question. He said, "What are you getting out of your rumination?"
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- 30:16 – 40:09
Why We Need Different Fuel at Different Stages
- CWChris Williamson
So just to round out that, the toxic fuel, uh, talking point there. What I'm interested in is switching fu- fuel sources. So I've had this analogy in my mind for ages, I wonder if you think that this is cool. So you remember the old style rockets that used to take shit into space-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... before we had Falcon 9 stuff, and there would be s- the launch rocket, big, big guy in the middle-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and then once you got off the launch pad, you got to a certain altitude, and then they would switch to the booster rockets that were the ones on the sides-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and then once it got to a even higher altitude, then those would fall away. Typically, those are-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... those epic shots of the two things falling off to the side, and then there's another... Um, what I've been kind of fascinated by is different fuel sources at different altitudes of your journey-... and thinking about toxic fuel in the beginning get you off the launchpad, resentment, bitterness, anxiety, chip on your shoulder, depression, need for validation, social recognition, get the girl, get jacked, do the thing. It's like, okay. But what I'm particularly fascinated in is that timeline of trajectory-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... of switching from toxic fuel to, like, EV.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
So th- uh, uh, it ... Beautiful. Yeah. So there are ... So much to say. So let's start with science, and then we'll move a little bit to spirituality. So if we look at a human being who is despairing, sad, et cetera, oftentimes they need ego and they need anger to move forward.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
So depression, I mean, anger can get you out of depression. So-
- CWChris Williamson
Because that's so ossified, that's so sort of stuck.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Well, so, so usually what happens is if, if we look at depression, anger is turned against the self. And so if you're beating yourself up, that's not gonna motivate you. Well, actually, it can motivate you to do a lot, right? So if I, if I look at myself in the mirror and I think to myself, "Oh, this guy is pathetic," then I can go to the gym, I can do all kinds of things to, to start to feel better. Or you can get angry at other people. But generally speaking, we know that activating anger or redirecting anger can lift you out of depression.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
So oftentimes with my patients, like I said, if they come in depressed, I'll look for the anger. Where's the anger wanting to go? And you can sort of activate that anger. Um, and it is toxic fuel. It kinda gets you from point A to, to point B, let's say. Then what happens is, uh, I, I like the way that you're thinking about the booster rockets, because I think we sometimes think about motivation as if it's one thing. But motivation actually has its own developmental trajectory. So if you look at, uh, I think something like, uh, there was a study on LinkedIn that showed that 70% of people under the age of 30 feel like they're going through a quarter-life crisis.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
So if you, if you just talk to, like, people in their 20s, they're n- not gonna know what to do. They're sort of, like, in some career, but they're not sure.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
There's this existential threat of AI. So, so we used to see a lot more midlife crises, and we're starting to see a lot more quarter-life crises.
- CWChris Williamson
I think I had two in my 20s.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
V- very well. W- well, what happened to you?
- CWChris Williamson
I had one when I left university.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, you know, I was in full-time education for 18 years. I did five years at uni, two degrees, plus a placement, you know, so I was there for a long time, till I was 23. And then you just sort of get spat out into the world, and you're off these rails. I knew where I needed to be, at what time, I had a trajectory.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
And then I have to define my life for myself. That was a small one, and then I had a much bigger one at sort of 28, 29, where I realized that I probably wasn't m- being the person I was supposed to be. I was running this big events company, nightlife stuff. Everybody in this city of a million people knew who I was. I'd stood on the front door. I was, you know ... Like, I, I'd completed it. I'd, I'd achieved success in a lot of the ways that society tells a young man that he should do, like, uh, local fame, status, some financial freedom, girls, all of the thing. Like, you're the guy. You're the fr- You're the guy. You're the guy that runs the parties. And I found myself increasingly leaving the front door of a 1,000-person party to sit in my car across the street and watch School of Life videos from Alain de Botton explaining emotions, jammed into my car steering wheel with the window open in case someone needed something from me. We had a team of people that was running it, and I was like, "I think there's, I think there's something up here. If I'm leaving the party to go and ... If I'm leaving that thing to come and do this thing, maybe there's something in this thing." And that was kind of the initial, uh, genesis of me doing the self-discovery podcasty thing.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
W- uh, do you remember how you felt?
- 40:09 – 50:04
The Benefits of Beginning Again
- CWChris Williamson
You know what's fascinating about that?
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I learned about leverage-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... from Naval Ravikant, uh, that there are certain things that have, um... if you apply a little bit of, uh, effort to them, they give you an outsized return, leverage. Pfft, I got to, uh, the end of my 20s, m- about the time that I started the show which was when I was 30, and I learned about leverage from Naval. And I was so wistful. I was very disappointed in myself that I had deployed, like, an unbelievable amount of dedication and effort to this industry, a- and it'd become, you know, one of the biggest events companies in the north of the UK, maybe in the entire UK, Voodoo Events. And that I'd done it in an industry that had basically no leverage, the leverage was one-to-one. You can't make the market any bigger, there's a million people in the city, maybe 50,000 people in the age bracket on any one night, there's 10,000 that are out. It's a very small pie, and there's no way that you can lever that any higher. I can't pick my event up and move it to Carlisle. In Carlisle, there's a Chris Williamson doing exactly what I did. Fuck you, I know all of the people here. There was no leverage at all. I remember thinking, "Ugh, I've like... I've spent that fuel. I've blown my load prematurely in an industry that was wrong." And then that exact same force of nature, like make-a-dent-in-the-world energy came straight back around once the podcast, uh, became, like, a routine part of my life, and I just did the same thing again after a lull in between.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Yeah, so I'm conflicted because I wanna speak to that, and I wanna finish what I was saying, so I'm gonna speak to that first, if that's okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep, yep.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
How do you understand that?
- CWChris Williamson
There's an interesting intersection between passion and opportunity.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Say more.
- CWChris Williamson
That, uh, I ha- I still had lots of opportunity in the world of nightlife, but, uh, I'd spent my passion for that, and I wasn't that keen on doing it anymore. Then, I had a passion for a thing, which was, like, learning self-development, emotions, understand yourself and the world around you, but I didn't have an opportunity. Like, I could deploy it into this thing, but it was like the project wasn't big enough. It didn't have enough momentum, and I didn't understa- I didn't have enough mastery to really be able to get it going. And then after a little bit more time, in the podcast, I was able to put the passion that I wanted, and I had the opportunity to be able to sort of force that forward.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
How do you understand that on, like, a metaphysical level?
- CWChris Williamson
Alignment, I think-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Or is that-
- CWChris Williamson
... be- being true to myself, uh, understanding that, uh, playing a role, uh, a persona, um, even if it gives you objective metrics of success, subjectively leaves you feeling very hollow.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Okay. So let's... Uh, I think this is a beautiful example. So-One of the biggest mistakes that I see people make is they have this internal calling. And I, I use that term carefully because it tends to have certain associations that are kinda woo-woo.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
And I want those.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
So you have a calling, and then you have this conversation with Naval, and he talks to you about leverage. And you look at your situation, and you say, "Damn it, if only I had blown my load in an industry where there was leverage. If only I had blown my load in a thing where there, that I could do something and continue to grow upward." If that was a possibility, worst mistake of your life. Getting what you wanted in that moment, terrible. You get what I'm saying? So if you had the option, if in Carlyle there wasn't another Chris Williamson-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
... and then you could've gone to Carlyle, and then you could've had a million s- people there, and then you could've expanded somewhere else, and you could've expanded somewhere else, you would not be here. So one of the biggest challenges that I have when I sit with people is to try to help them understand that when you have a drive in here, your mind, based on your socialization and your conditioning, will want to express this thing in here in a certain way outside of you. "I wanna do more. I wanna enhance my leverage. I wanna reach more people." That is like an intrinsic sort of desire that you automatically apply to your current industry. Huge mistake. 30 to 40% of my patients make a career change within 18 months of stepping into, into my office.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
So I was really concerned that I'm, like, biasing them in some way. I don't really think so, so I, I talk to my-
- CWChris Williamson
Liberating them in some way, perhaps.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Yeah. Well, not liberating. So I was concerned about the opposite, that my, I, I think what I am doing is liberating them.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's what...
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
But what I was worried about, 'cause you g- you gotta be careful, right? So, like, maybe I'm, like, indoctrinating them.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Right? So, "Oh, your, your job is bad. Go find another job. Go find another..." Right? So you gotta be careful. So I, I sought a lot of supervision, and, and I think what I'm doing is liberating. I mean, it's a strong word, but...
- 50:04 – 1:04:18
Harnessing the Power of Meditation
- CWChris Williamson
need to say. First one, um, probably the coolest quote that came out over the last few years was, "The magic you are looking for is in the work you're avoiding." Uh, and my one this year is, "The answers that you're looking for are in the silence you're avoiding."
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And I think that that seems to be true with this. When it comes to the physical distance, that comports perfectly with what I did. 'Cause I had this ridiculously elaborate morning routine that lasted, like, two and a half hours. What was it? It was isolation and monk mode. It was me, um, uh, extracting myself from what was going on. Uh, I called it the manopause, which is this get toward the end of your 20s-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Love it. You love it.
- CWChris Williamson
And, uh, like-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
You love it.
- CWChris Williamson
... hav- it's so fucking sick. It, like, there it is, right? It's so, and it's, it feels, like, funny, chea- Anyway, I love the manopause. Um, getting, uh, like a crab that sort of grows up against its shell. David Deida talks about this in The Way of the Superior Man. He says, "The passions that used to light you up no longer feel exciting." And there's this sort of weird amount of shame that goes on around that. There's sort of a scarcity mindset. Well, I've got it. Like, for me, you know, the, the, I knew that I probably should've left nightlife three years before I did finally, and it was really only catalyzed by the fact that COVID came along. COVID was the best thing that could've happened to me, because it shut all of the nightclubs. It gave me a stable sleep and wake pattern for the first time in my entire adult life, and it taught me, oh, this is what life would be like if you weren't doing that thing, and I preferred it. I was like, "Fuck." Like, "Okay, this is, this is, this is definitely a, a something that I need to pay more attention to." But without the monk mode, or monk mornings I guess we could call it, um, without those I would've really, I would've really struggled I think. And this leads onto, like, my favorite idea from the last couple of years, which is the lonely chapter. So the lonely chapter being a time where you are sufficiently developed that you don't resonate with your old set of friends, but not yet sufficiently developed that you have found your new set of friends, and you're in this weird liminal space in the middle. You're sort of floating out in space. As of yet, haven't found the people that are around you. And to stick to the kind of altitude metaphor for today, um, if you can imagine that you're a rocket ship and there's other rocket ships around you, and they're all moving at different velocities-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and you can say that is maybe at pace of personal growth. This isn't a comment on who's better or who's worse, that someone who grows more is i- inherently better than other people. There are people who don't focus on personal growth at all that are wonderful humans-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that are w- way more satisfied than I am with life. Um, but if you have a high velocity of personal growth, IE if you are changing and developing very quickly, most people are not going to be like you. And the problem is there may be somebody that's ahead of you, and you're like, "Oh, brilliant, we're friend... Oh, fuck. Like, I've kept going, and we're just not asking the same sorts of questions. I can't resonate with them in the s- in the same way anymore." And you have this choice. Do I want to suppress this personal growth trajectory in order to fit back in with this group? To, uh, continue going to the same places? For me, uh, going out partying, that was something I needed to let go of. So I did six months sober three times and then 1,000 days sober. Not that alcohol was really a big problem for me, but it was a, a commitment that I made that muted partying and stopped me from doing that, because that was an area where I just felt out of alignment. It was like a chord that was played, and one note was out, and I was that note.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Everybody else was in resonance, and I was like, "Mm, oh, this isn't, this doesn't feel right." So this, and you're like, "Fuck, okay, I just kind of need to float on my own for a little while," and that is, again, this distance. And I think the reason that lonely chapter thing resonated so much with a lot of people that listen to the show is that I get the sense that podcasts like Modern Wisdom is kind of a safe harbor for people who feel like they're in the lonely chapter, that they do not have anyone around them that's into personal growth. Their friends still wanna get a bag in with the boys on a weekend, and they're like, "I, I, I, I've got this meditation streak. I'm six days in. I really don't wanna fuck it on Sunday. Like, that would be really cool for me to keep going, and I want it ch- I'm learning about all of this new stuff, and, like, I've got these dreams. Like, I might become an artist. Like, I might change. I might, I might go and study film." And no one around them resonates in that way. So yeah, it's a, a safe harbor for people going through the lonely chapter in that way.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Absolutely, and I, I think that there's, uh, s- once again, so much. I, I think the, the first thing I would say is that it can be painful, but I think we sometimes have to leave our friends behind. We have to leave our life behind. And the, in a sense, sometimes the more you do it, right, the better off you will be. And it's so interesting. I, I used to, when I was a degenerate gamer and failing outta college and, and stuff like that, I had a group of friends that I used to play a particular video game with, and then I sorta got my shit together, and then we reconnected after 20 years.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
And, and you know, they're doing well in life, but I, I, I think it was just interesting that I, I had to leave them behind.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
And I think so many people are afraid to do that, right? There's a lot of safety, because we, we don't wanna walk through that lonely chapter. We don't wanna go through that dark night of the soul-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
... right, where we are alone. But th- this is what's so important is that if you want, like, direction in life, if you want purpose in life-You sometimes have to do that, and there's a really interesting kind of neuroscience element to this, which is... So you kinda said you, the answers are in the silence, and I think silence is something that we are sorely missing in our society. And we see this in some elements. So we'll, you, we'll look at studies where they say that access to green space improves mental health. But if you look at it, what is it about the green space? What do people do in green space? They tend to be a lot more introspective. They spend time with themselves.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
We have such a society that pulls our attention outside of us constantly. We are getting notifications on our phone, and this is where, like, unfortunately, the productivity chads, they're really fucking themselves-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
... pardon my language.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
But if you're always listening... I love Modern Wisdom-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
... I make content on the internet, but if you're always listening to a podcast, you know? Like, it's fine to listen to a podcast. I think it's great to listen to podcasts, I listen to them every day, but I also have time with myself. The problem is for many people, time with themselves starts with something like boredom. Th- when you start spending time with yourself, the first thing that you're gonna feel is terrible, because all of the things that you have been suppressing will come out first. And that's because the brain has a really important bias towards the negative. So I can eat at my favorite restaurant 30 times in a row. If I get food poisoning once, ugh. Right? And the reason for that is because if we bias, if things were equal, we wouldn't be alive. Like, we have to be... If there's one watering hole that we used to go to that is now infected with bacteria, we can never go there again-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
... or we don't wanna go there for a long time, right?
- 1:04:18 – 1:17:06
Why We Should Stretch Ourselves
- CWChris Williamson
You mentioned before, in fact, before we move on, is there anything else to say about the, uh, transitioning of fuel from one to the other?
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Yeah. So, so there's one major neuroscience thing that I think is useful. So what a lot of people... So if we look at, like, you know, the developmental trajectory, people start out trying to make everybody else happy. Oh, God. Are you okay?
- CWChris Williamson
Got it.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
It's so weird. It was-
- CWChris Williamson
Saved it.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
... not moving at all.
- CWChris Williamson
I must have, uh, I must have shaken it up, or it's just so excited by this thrilling conversation-
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... that the mutonic just needs to come out.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Yeah. So, um, one last thing that I want to say. So if you sort of look at motivation, right? So you started out sh- looking for status, looking to make people happy, looking to make money. All of those things are things outside of you.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
So a lot of people struggle with, because they, they reach this point, especially in the quarter life crisis where they kind of feel burnt out, they don't feel motivated to chase these things anymore, it's not fun anymore. And then they start to ask themselves, "How do I get internally motivated? There's all this stuff that I want to do, but how do I do this stuff?" And they really struggle because they can't seem to get internally motivated. So here's the crazy thing. Internal and external motivation come from basically the same part of the brain. If that part of the brain is turned on, you're externally motivated. And if that part of the brain is turned off, you are internally motivated.
- CWChris Williamson
Whoa.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
So there's like the, uh, dorsal ACC, um, and there are a couple of other parts of, uh, parts of the brain that literally like, the same circuit, it, basically your motivation is flipped into one mode, external or internal.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
And what really confuses people is that if I'm trying to make everybody happy at work and my brain is flipped into an extrinsic motivation, uh, if the switch is flipped up, that brain I'll bring home with me.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
And so I won't feel internally motivated. And that's why the distance becomes so important, so you need to mentally check out.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
You need to get some time and space.
- CWChris Williamson
So you're saying that the lonely chapter is a feature, not a bug.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Absolutely. It is part of people's developmental trajectory. And once you are, once you're mentally checked out, this is the other thing is people don't know what to do then, right? We just kind of wander around.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
So I think this in- uh, internal practice that you did like breath work and yoga and whatever is great. The other thing, thing is that there are three major things that you can do. One is just make choices. And it's not about making the right choice or the wrong choice, just make choices. You decide in here, it doesn't matter what you decide. There's no right or wrong. What you're really trying to do is activate the part of your brain that exercises agency.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
And then that part of the brain, now that you're used to exercising agency, you'll start to a- exercise more agency in life. So just choose.
- CWChris Williamson
I happen to do life, life doesn't happen to me.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
Absolutely. Second thing that you need to do is stretch your capacity. So whatever i- i- this is where if we look at work, what do we do? We try to work just as hard to get what we want.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- KKDr K (Alok Kanojia)
We're not actually usually actively pushing ourselves. And so what we want to do is actively push ourselves, stretch yourself in terms of what you're capable of.
Episode duration: 2:53:05
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