How To Take Charge Of Your Life's Direction - Tim Urban

1. 0:00 – 0:19

   Intro

   1. TUTim Urban0:00

      ... the delusion is that just like we think we have an infinite amount of time, we also think that we don't have choices, that we're stuck where we are. Those two together are a dangerous recipe for complacency. It makes us think, A, I have all the time in the world, and B, what's the point, nothing's gonna change anyway. The opposite, you have limited time and it's totally in your hands. (wind blows)

2. 0:19 – 5:11

   How Sword-fights Are Legal in Texas

   1. TUTim Urban0:19

   2. CWChris Williamson0:19

      I just learned about the mutual combat law in Texas. Have you heard of this?

   3. TUTim Urban0:24

      No.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:24

      Dude, mutual combat is legal in Texas. To be legal, the fight must be overseen by a police officer. The f- police officer is supposed to act as a referee by breaking up the fight when an obvious victor has emerged. Consent to fight in Texas doesn't even need to be explicitly stated if someone's words and actions make it clear that they want to fight. This is considered consent under the statute. And considering that Texas law allows people to legally carry swords in public, it's hardly surprising that consensual fits- fistfights are legal.

   5. TUTim Urban0:58

      That's a remnant of, uh, what we would call honor culture.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:04

      What's honor culture?

   7. TUTim Urban1:05

      Honor culture is, um, is a conflict resolution culture, uh, that exists in a lot of places of the world today, in the Middle East, for example, it's very common and, and, and really, it exists, tends to exist in places where people don't fully, um, trust the law. Um, and, you know, uh, so the more lawless the place, and that's why, you know, obvi- uh, uh, often in slums or in places where it feels very lawless, you'll end up with a very strong honor culture. And honor culture says that, uh, it's defined by real sensitivity to slights, so thin skin. So, if someone insults you, you can't just let that roll off your back. You gotta respond and you respond with direct confrontation. You don't go to the authorities, you respond by fighting. So, in other words, if you insult me, you know, we must have a- we have to have a duel to, you know, I have to... you, you've to restore my reputation. Uh, you have, you know, you've, you've, you've made, um, uh, you know, you've, you've tarnished my reputation and I need to restore it, and I need to preserve my reputation as someone who, uh, can't be just, you know, you can't just walk over me. So, that's honor culture. That's why in honor culture you see a lot of fights, a lot of duels. Um, and the Wild West was very honor culture-ish. Um, you'll note it, you'll see it though in a bar of, you know, a bar, a Boston bar of high schoolers where I used to sometimes be. You know, you s- someone bumps into you and you, you s- you know, you just have to fight them. You know, it's, it's, um... so that's honor culture and, and, um, and I, I say it's a remnant because in pla- in the US today, it's much less common than it used to be. It's been replaced by dignity culture in most of the... you know, which is what happens in, uh, places where people do trust the law, is eventually, it often, um, it will, uh, morph slowly into dignity culture, which is much thicker skinned. It means, it's, it's, you know, sticks and stones may break my bones but words or names will never hurt me. Um, so that's... if you've been he- hearing that as a kid, you were raised with dignity culture which is, you know, let it roll off your back. It's, ignore them. It's not your problem, that's a them problem. But if the thing, i- i- if something gets so bad, um, you know, if someone's really hassling you, it doesn't say you should be a pushover to it. But it doesn't say go fight them, ever. It says go to the- go to the authorities. So, honor culture is thin skin and you, and you've go- direct confrontation. Dignity culture is thick skin but when it gets a certain level, you go to the authorities.

   8. CWChris Williamson3:37

      It's like procedural. But the two places that this is still legal in America are Washington DC and Texas.

   9. TUTim Urban3:45

      That's funny. It's-

   10. CWChris Williamson3:45

       I don't know what it says about those two places.

   11. TUTim Urban3:48

       I mean, there's also like, you know, I, I, you hear about like some of the southern states like outlawing lynching or slavery, uh, like, in like the last decade. You know, so a lot of times there are these really old, old, like, laws that are, you know, that seem like they're from an- from ancient history but are actually technically the legal code still.

   12. CWChris Williamson4:09

       This sort of vestige of a time gone by.

   13. TUTim Urban4:12

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson4:12

       I learned as well that, um, you know the House of Lords in the UK where the guys are going back and forth between each other and they're sat on those green benches and you've got the Speaker of the House? The distance between those two benches is precisely the length of two swords at arm's length. So, if a man was to hold it out, if somebody had, I don't know, scurried his good name, and he was to hold a sword out and the other one was too, that he would- they wouldn't be able to swing at each other and they wouldn't be able to hit each other.

   15. TUTim Urban4:41

       Yeah, I mean, and, and, and we, we can laugh at it 'cause it sounds insane, uh, but if you lived in an honor culture time, you would be like this. We all, we- I would too. You know, like if you lived in a time like that and someone insulted you, you would definitely wanna go fight them, and that's why duels happened. I mean, this is, you know, in early US, I mean, people would go and shoot each other. One would often die because of an insult which is so foreign to people living in a dignity culture today.

   16. CWChris Williamson5:10

       Yeah.

3. 5:11 – 12:44

   Life is Too Short to Waste Time

   1. CWChris Williamson5:11

      One of the conversations that I've seen you have a good bit recently is about the shortness of life. And given the fact that life is pretty short, how do you remind yourself not to waste it?

   2. TUTim Urban5:23

      Oh. Yeah, I mean, one thing I th- I've been thinking a lot about is when you, you know, so, you know sometimes I will... i- i- if I just sit and, you know, hang out at my apartment and work over the weekend or just do, you know, maybe I'll go grab a meal with someone and hang around, maybe it's raining and I watch TV. You know, the weekend flies. It's like it was Friday and like now it's Sunday night and like nothing happened. It just felt like a second. Versus, sometimes you take a weekend trip, you go somewhere really interesting or/and you, you, you fly somewhere, you know, or you take a train somewhere or...... and you go and you explore a new place, or you're with a whole new people, you're at a wedding, right, and all this stuff is happening, um, or even just you're, you're being really adventurous in your own, you know, city or whatever and you're actually going out and trying a bunch of different things. Um, you, by the time Sunday night hits and you're back home, it feels like an eternity since Friday afternoon. I mean, it's like-

   3. CWChris Williamson6:21

      Yeah.

   4. TUTim Urban6:21

      ... you can't believe that it's only been two days, think about how much happened in the last two days. And genuinely, it's like, who cares if the time between Friday and Sunday was the same in both cases? Your experience of the second thing felt much longer which, to me, is w- all that matters, is your subjective experience is all that y- your actual reality. So, you actually l- int- m- in- i- i- you lived more, you actually lived more time. If it felt like forever, it means that you actually lived a lot more in those two days. So that one of the ways to think about the shortness of life is, yes, the actual time is variable, is- is- is fairly constant, right? We all have, you know, at- at most, you know, 80 to 100 years, you know, and, uh, and that's if we're lucky and, you know, we can't really do much beyond that. But someone who lives f- full of novel experiences and they're always trying new things and they keep it interesting and they're- they're- they- they- they really have r- you know, they live their lives richly, I feel like they actually live, like, three h- three times the amount of subjective time that someone, uh, who, you know, who kind of just sticks to their routine, doesn't try anything new, um, and, uh, you know, I- I- I- I think, uh, novelty is- is- is a way to kind of triple your lifespan in a way. So, that's one of the ways I think about, um ... I- I try to, this is not quite your answer, I mean, in t- uh, your question which was, you know, how do I remind myself. But, you know, I remind myself with, um, I have, I make visuals about this all the time to try to remind myself and others. Um, I- I remember certain things stick in my head. I was like, think I was, like, 38 or something, uh, a couple years ago, and I was in the car with my grandmother who was 94. And she said, um ... I- I said, "Wow." You know, 'cause y- she just turned 94 and I said, "Man, 94." And she was like, "Yep." And I was like, "Wow?" I was like, "One day far, you know, long from now, hopefully I'll be there too." And she goes, "It's tomorrow." And then it just hit me.

   5. CWChris Williamson8:15

      (laughs)

   6. TUTim Urban8:15

      She was just like, she was like, "It's tomorrow." In other words, this seems to me, especially since, you know, when I think about my childhood it seems like forever ago, but time moves subjectively quicker as you go. And so I get what she was saying which is that it probably, when she looks at me, you know, in my late 30s, she's not thinking, "Oh, that was ages ago." She's probably thinking, "It feels like not very long ago I was right there and now suddenly I'm here." So I, that stuck with me and I'm like, "Damn it." You know? I'm like, I- I, you know, very quickly my, I- I'm gonna go from someone who's around 40 to someone who's around 60. That's gonna happen much quicker than 20 to 40 happened. It's gonna happen and it's gonna feel like, there's gonna be certain friends I see this year that aren't very close friends that I'm, the next time I'm gonna see them, we're gonna both be 60 and it's gonna feel like, "Oh, when, we, you know, it's been a while. When's the l- ..." It's not gonna feel like, "It's been ages." It's gonna feel like, "Oh, and when's the last time we saw each other?" Wa- you know, and realize it was when we were 40. So, anyway, I do a lot of this thinking to try to, um, to try to not, you know, look back later and say, "Oh man, I just, like, I let the time fly without appreciating it or thinking about it or, like, trying to maximize it and whatever."

   7. CWChris Williamson9:20

      I think you're right to look at one of the tools that I can use in order to slow down the passage of time subjectively. And, like, uh, talking about reminding yourself of the shortness of life, really it doesn't make any, i- i- there's no point in thinking about that unless it impacts the way that you move forward in life in any case. So going with a tactics first or a strategy first perspective, like how you answered it, is the right way to go about it, I think. And yeah, absolutely, novelty and intensity seem to be the two things that kind of slow down our subjective experience of the time that we're going through. Conversely, something that is routine means that our brain doesn't need to forge any new memory units. I always use this example of, I went to Africa for the first time about four years ago and the, after we got off, uh, a plane and then got on a safari truck and then we went on this little boat and then we finally got there and this guy met us at the front, Morris, I don't think it was his actual name, but Morris who was one of the guys in the Bwindi impenetrable forest huts that we were staying in. I remember the shoes he was wearing, I remember the book on ornithology from birds that he had in his hand. I remember the sound when he walked down the muddy track that we were going along. Dude, I've had the same credit card for four years and I can't remember the 16-digit-

   8. TUTim Urban10:32

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson10:32

      ... number across the front of it. But I recall this endless litany of totally arbitrary things because it was just full on novelty and intensity. I can hear gorillas in the jungle behind him, there's the sound of birds, there's different smells, I've been traveling for 24 hours. Like, that was maximizing the time. And yeah, I think i- it seems like we have a similar view of a life well lived which is one in retrospect you're glad that you lived.

   10. TUTim Urban10:58

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson10:58

       You look back and it seems to be quite rich.

   12. TUTim Urban11:01

       Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I- I- it's- it's f- at least for me, I mean, that's one of the f- you know, objective measures th- one- one of the measures that seems to me, um, like, uh, like, a v- a very valid metric for, uh, that- that you want to go up on which is just n- experiences. Um, and you know, I don't know that some people could argue why, you know? What's, why- why is that better than having a s- content, being content in your routine and just being with that, and, and I don't think there's necessarily a good reason but I think b- the fact that it slows down time alone is a r- is a good reason and I, then I happen to be a curious person who loves new experiences. Not that I do it all the time, you know, that's why sometimes I'm kicking myself for why, you know, when I go do something interesting I think about why don't I do this every, you know, weekend? And, and to be clear, you know, obviously traveling somewhere with gorillas. I mean, you're gonna, that's gonna be a great way to do this, right? But, i- it doesn't have to be, so i- i- it's much eas- it can be much easier than that. You can literally go to, like-... you know, I don't know, a hardware store and get some supplies and try a new hobby, try building something. You can go get a new musical instrument and try learning something. You can go to a museum you've never gone to in your city. You can go to a, you know, travel, you know, make a little destination, you know, that's, uh, a 45-minute drive away to this restaurant you've heard of. There's so many ways you can just do something that's special, that's different, that's like, you, suddenly it lights up this child in you, this, like, adventurous side in you and, um, and it's so e- this whole other part of us that just wants to resist effort. So, you know, that we're always, you know, if that side has too much power in our head, it's very short-term, it's in this exact moment, "Ah, I'd just rather hang around the h- I don't wanna go d- deal with the whole thing today, you know? Uh, some other day." And I think you have to kind of, um, that side isn't very wise and often makes some very short-term decisions that don't serve you very well. So, yeah, I think it's, it's just being aware is

4. 12:44 – 17:49

   Mistaking the Comfortable for the Enjoyable

   1. TUTim Urban12:44

      helpful.

   2. CWChris Williamson12:44

      We often mistake a comfortable activity for an enjoyable one.

   3. TUTim Urban12:49

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson12:50

      You know, the, the couch always just seems seductive and going out to do a salsa class on a cold Wednesday evening in November or something is like, "Oh, God, I know I said I'd go and do salsa, but no." Like tomorrow, what would you tomorrow look back and be glad that you did? Another... Uh, dude, I, I saw this, uh, article that looked at people's per- um, subjective perceptions of time when using their phones and basically what you're doing when you use your phone is speedrunning life.

   5. TUTim Urban13:17

      Mm-hmm. Yes.

   6. CWChris Williamson13:18

      Like you're, you're s- it's a speedrunning strat for life. It is fucking terrifying.

   7. TUTim Urban13:22

      Totally. If, if, yes, if I, if I lie, you know, I wake up in the morning and just say it's, you know, 8:15 and the obvious thing to do, the wise thing to do, um, is to get out of bed, get in the shower, don't touch the phone, just, like, let your mind percolate and get on with your day. You know, you know, start doing, you know, if you're gonna, if you're not gonna get started on work, that's fine, but go take a walk, do something, you know, rich, something good for you. Um, you know, do some writing, just do something, you know, make, make a good breakfast. If instead, what I often do is, I'll pick up my phone and it is 9:30 like that (snaps fingers) . Like an hour and 15 minutes passes and nothing happens. I mean, I text a little bit, I'm scrolling on Twitter a little, maybe I read a couple articles and it's just like, boom, there goes like a, there goes like 10% of my day. Like 10% of my day is gone on like... And, and it's not like I was enjoying it the whole time. I'm sitting there the whole time with a part of me in my head saying, "Get up, this isn't good." You know, that's why I call it the dark playground, when you're doing some leisure activity, you, big part of your head knows you're not supposed to be doing. You know, that, it's, it's anxiety-riddled time. It's not fun. Um, so the phone is the ultimate, it's the opposite of, like, the novel experiences. Even if you're doing something novel on the phone, somehow it just sucks the time.

   8. CWChris Williamson14:31

      It's framed in such a familiar environment, isn't it?

   9. TUTim Urban14:34

      Yes. But I like what you said about comfort. I mean, I think sometimes, it's almost inversely, inversely correlated with, like, um, discomfort, both physical sometimes, like you said, you know, maybe you're going to go climbing or something. But, but even more just, like, emotional comfort of, you know, it's very emotionally comfortable to do exactly what you're used to doing, with the exact people you're used to doing it with. Um, it's easy, you don't have to... There's no challenging yourself, right? There's no stepping out of your comfort zone at all and some, so often, even if, even if it's fun, often the really novel experiences can be uncomfortable. Not always, you know, sometimes you're just going and doing some incredibly fun tourist activity and, um, or you're doing something you love that you haven't done in a long time, but, um, I think in- inviting discomfort is very important. Uh, it's, you know, so many of the things that I love now started off as me venturing into what seemed like an uncomfortable place once, um, realizing I like something, getting addicted to it, and now it's a regular feature of my life. Um, I, I, you know, I use the example, like, I used to just write blog posts, just text. Now, um, my blog posts are all heavily illustrated with, you know, hand drawn stuff and, you know, stick figures and diagrams and I just love putting visuals in. That didn't just happen, right? Like it, it was binary. It went from it- there was no drawings to there were drawings and the, the, the, the, the transition point was a day when I did something icky. I took a drawing tablet that I saw and I plugged it in as... And I didn't know exactly how to even, whether I had the connector, how do I get it in my computer? Will it, is it compatible with my computer? What's the software? How do I get that? Do, do I need software for this? Once it's done, how do I get the thing onto my blog? This was earlier, you know, it wasn't as obvious, you can just obviously export something and upload it. So I was thinking, "Can I even get visuals onto this, like, primitive blog?" This was back in, I think, like, uh, 20- no, 2009, something like that. And so often, I just, there's, there's a hundred things still right now in the queue for me that are, that are like that. Where I'm like, I know I'd probably be good at it or I might be good at it and I'd like to try it, but it's just icky, so I haven't gotten over them, but that one I did. And because I did, I realized, oh, okay, suddenly the feel- all that icky kind of like I don't know how to do this, the ickiness went away. I was like, this isn't icky at all. You plug it in, you download this simple software, I, you know, you, you draw, you export, you upload, it's done. And from then on, I just, it became a staple of what I do, is I draw. And so, like, that's an example of something that is very comfortable for me now started out as me having to face discomfort.

   10. CWChris Williamson17:08

       That's the step that most people, I think, struggle with. Uh, i- increasingly, when I, when I first started this show, I was really, really interested in getting people from, uh, really struggling to just getting off the ground, and that's still a conversation I often think about. Like, how is d- that you just encourage someone to get past that very, very first piece of friction? But one, one of the things that we've referenced there is, um, like, a regret that I didn't spend the weekend in the most, uh, exuberant, fantastical way that I could've done and then also with this. People could look back on all of the opportunities that they've had to lean into discomfort, to maybe develop a new skill that now, three years hence, they would've been capitalizing on or really competent in or, or loving

5. 17:49 – 25:24

   How to Not Dwell on Painful Regrets

   1. CWChris Williamson17:49

      it. How do you avoid dwelling on the decisions that we didn't make in the past?

   2. TUTim Urban17:58

      Yeah. I mean, I, so, a- as, as I tend to, I make visuals that help me and sometimes others, um-... like, reframe, 'cause I- a lot of times what- w- the, the, the, the time a visual is perfect for something like this is, is not, you know, to make us believe something that's not true or, like, help us fool ourselves. It's the opposite. It's, like, there's a lot of... Our brain is not really a, a rational truth machine. It's not great at those things. It can be okay at those things. It's- it's can- You know. But its, its nature is to be very- to make all these assumptions and to, kind of, have this- to be in this, kind of, um, groove about various lines of thinking that it's just natural for it to be in, and they're often not mapped onto reality. Well, so, part of the reason I make the, uh, the life calendars and stuff is 'cause one of the things our brain, um, thinks about or, or assumes is that time is infinite. You know, and again, I know your rational brain doesn't think that, but, uh, like I said, you know, i- if the- If I see my friend, a certain friend who I like, but you know, we're not best friends, and I see- maybe I see him once a year and we get- we get dinner once a year and I think, "Yeah, this is great. This is a friend in my life." I think we- when I leave that dinner, I'm like, "Yeah, we have hund- hundreds, thousands more of these hangouts, you know?" I mean, there's- And it's like, no, uh, you know, maybe if, uh, it's- if the f- if, if the- one of us only lives til 78 and we're both 40 and we s- you know, do this and maybe even slow down a little bit, maybe we've got 30 of these left, maybe 25. Wow. Right? And so our- my brain- our brains are not thinking that way. They, they don't realize that this is one of the 25 hangouts I have forever with this person. N- you know, look, you can go crazy if you're thinking about that. You don't wanna be, you know, weird and emotional at your dinner with your friend all the time. But like, to just, A, to prioritize these things, and B, to enjoy it when you're there, to actually try to, like- You know, when you're with your family on Thanksgiving, uh, your whole family is there. Oh my God. There- How many more of those do you have? Ah, who knows? Don't be on your phone, you know? Like, go an extra day. Don't rush out, you know? Actually try to spend some time there. Do something novel with them. Don't just sit around, you know, watching the game. You know, pl- open a game, play a game, try doing something interesting, you know, you know d- starting an interesting convo at dinner, whatever. So that's one example. Now, you asked about, you know, uh, regret and how to, kind of, you know, not let regret about the past consume you, um, and so another visual I use, which is, uh, I think also helping us, kind of, see clearly through what is a natural delusion, um, is it's- I- it's, um... I- I- I, like, I think of it as, like, my green tree, um, uh, visual and, um, uh, I think if, if you Google, like, Tim Urban life paths-

   3. CWChris Williamson20:54

      Dean will be able to put it up on the screen.

   4. TUTim Urban20:56

      Okay. Okay. P-

   5. CWChris Williamson20:56

      So it'll be- it'll be up on the screen in a moment.

   6. TUTim Urban20:58

      Oh, good. Even better. Okay, so-

   7. CWChris Williamson20:58

      And for the people that are listening, you can, you can give them a, a rough explanation.

   8. TUTim Urban21:01

      Perfect. So yeah. So b- basically, when we're looking into the past and r- regretting, which we all do, right? We all are on a huge tilt about a hundred things that didn't happen or that we said that we shouldn't have said or that we didn't do that we should've done, or that we didn't do n- on- you know, till it was too late or whatever. That's true. Those things are real. That's not, it's not that that's not true. Yeah. I mean, but w- but, but we all have it. That's- there's no human that's gonna get to adulthood and not have that. So first of all, it's not like I did something wrong that I have these regrets. Everyone has them, right? It's just which ones are your- which ones do you happen to have? Okay. Um, and you can't do anything about those, and you couldn't have, you know, avoided having them, so you shouldn't beat yourself up about it, and the question is, like, how do you proceed into the future to minimize regrets in the future? 'Cause you can't avoid- You're gonna have some regrets in the future f- For- You know, future you's gonna have some regrets about stuff that you haven't yet made the mistake on, and that's also inevitable, but you can minimize these, right? You can get better at better. You can have a better good decision to future regrettable decision ratio as you get older. Um, and so, the left side of this diagram is all the paths that you- th- the- the road's not taken, the paths you, you, you, you could have with different decisions, some worse than your current life, maybe, and some better, right? So it's, you know, you, you also got lucky sometimes or you, you really made a good, wise decision, right? So it's a mix or it's a mixed bag, looking into the past. But the implicit assumption when we get upset about those is that I could've- I had agency back then, and I could've done something. I- if I had just been a little bit wiser or a little bit gutsier, you know, I could have had it differently, right? So that's this feeling of past agency we em- we feel. But then when we look into the future, I think we spend so much time looking at all those black lines that we then, kind of, think, "Well, but now this is just my life," right? "So I made those decisions and I, you know... and here's where I ended up and this is just what happened, and now here's my life for better or worse, and this is the life I'm living," which is kind of an assumption that you're on a green path, which is the life you're living, that just extends s- a singular green path into the future that you're stuck on, like you're in a tunnel. You can't get out of it now and that's just where you are. So that's exactly the opposite of the thinking you're doing when you're regretting the past, because you're not- you- you're suddenly removing all that agency, all that, "Oh, I could have done better. I should have," right? Which means you had- you had the ability to. When you look into the future, it's as if you're like, "Well, but now it just- I'm just beholden to fate, I'm beholden to my previous decisions and that's where I'm stuck. I'm handcuffed." No, you're not. You have... In 20 years, you will look back and all of the black lines, those are yet to happen. You- All- they're all open to you currently. So you have this big vast green tree stretching out into the future that will- when you're 80, will be black lines like the ones bef- you know, behind you now. They'll be all closed to you. But at the moment, they're bright green, right? And you have that agency and you can look back and instead of being upset about the regrets, you can say, "These are my... Oh, that's motivation and that's wisdom." So I'm gonna- What did I learn?... what of those regrets, what do I wish I'd did differently, amazing. So now I can go and crush the green tree because of what I learned in the black tree. So, I love that visual because the delusion is that just like we think we have an infinite amount of time, and somewhere in our heads, we also think that we, uh, we don't have choices, that, that we're kind of, uh, we're stuck where we are. And those are, those two together are a dangerous recipe for complacency. It makes us think, "Well, you know, A, I have all the time in the world, and B, what's the point? Nothing's gonna change anyway." The opposite. You have limited time and it's totally in your hands. (laughs) So if you can kind of use visuals like this, you can, you can, it just can be super empowering and exciting to go and grab those green branches.

   9. CWChris Williamson24:56

      That asymmetry of believing that we had degrees of freedom in the past but we've got lock-in for the future is so funny. Uh, hang on a second. (laughs) Is it literally couldn't... No, I, I chose, I'm right here, right now, therefore I didn't choose anything different in the past, and worrying about it can't change it, and I have the opportunity to do as much as I want in the future. All of these different options are open to me. There's such a, uh, like a head bang against the wall realization when you-

   10. TUTim Urban25:22

       Totally.

   11. CWChris Williamson25:22

       ... when you notice that you've been doing that.

6. 25:24 – 35:37

   Elon’s Takeover of Twitter

   1. CWChris Williamson25:24

      Obviously, another, another big piece of, of change that's happened recently has been Elon's takeover of Twitter. I know that you've spent a good bit of time studying him. Have you noticed anything interesting around the dynamic of the response to what Elon's been doing? Have you, have you observed anything that you thought was pretty novel or, or interesting?

   2. TUTim Urban25:43

      Yeah, I mean, I think, um, it's very early. Look, e- e- the way Elon tends to do stuff, and people forget sometimes this if, you know, if you, if you, that, you know, when SpaceX and Tesla started, it was, "Let's move. Let's try stuff. Let's buil- build prototypes. Let's make mistakes," right? And when you look in retrospect at a successful project and you see it started that way, it seems awesome. Wow, and they were just bold and they were making mistakes, and now look at, led to this success, right? We see it as just a purely good thing. But when it's happening, in that moment before the success happens, when it's in d- doubt that it might not, you know, when, when, when the success may or may not happen, all of that raw experimentation and failure and bumbling failure early on looks not good. Doesn't look-

   3. CWChris Williamson26:30

      Chaotic. Out of control.

   4. TUTim Urban26:32

      Yeah. It, it, it, you know, but if you take a big zoom out and you realize, like, this is how innovation often looks in the moment. Um, look at the, take the, your favorite songs in the world and go in a time machine back to when those songs were being written and look at the original verses and the original lyrics and the original chords and, and the playing around on the piano that, that this composer did, and it's gonna be a mess, right? And it got to this beautiful place eventually. And so anyway, what I see is, um, we are in month one still basically, month two, um, of Elon's Twitter. And so, uh, I see, um, a l- I see a bunch of early attempts. S- you know, um, some things that I think are, uh, um, uh, promising and some things that I think are, you know, pretty obvious mistakes. Um, and, um, so taking the long view, I'm like, "Great, good, go. Try shit. Make mistakes. Be, you know, you know, innovative, be ruthless, um, about your standards for this thing." And like, see, so I, I, I'm happy. But I, what I see is a ton of people spiking the football and being like, "Aha, see? Like, oh, so-and-so, you know, you were s- you know, you were pro-free speech and now you're doing this, or you're, you know, you were, you know, you're saying you wanted to be neutral, but now you're..." I'm like, yeah, you know, like, it's messy and s- someone... Well, I mean, I think that mostly it's, if you don't like him and you're rooting against the project, then this is a great t- you know, it's fun, a fun shot in front-

   5. CWChris Williamson28:04

      Air your dirty laundry.

   6. TUTim Urban28:05

      ... and, and look and see the things and act, you know, and, and seems like it's val- you know, validating your predictions. Um, no, n- not, no, not that everything I think... No, not, not that there are things that could have been done differently or better, for sure. Um, but I don't know. For me, I would bet on, I, I would bet on long-term Twitter. I bet in three years, my guess, and again, it could be wrong, and Elon's the first to admit this. He always says that his projects all have a high percentage of failure, you know? And, um, so, but I would, my guess would be that in three years, Twitter is doing, leading the way in a lot of ways and that a lot of other social media companies are copying, just like a bunch of rocket companies are now trying to learn how to land rockets, copying SpaceX to try to, you know, all, look at all the electric car companies now. Or l- all the c- all the big car companies who were cop- who copied Tesla essentially and started making electric cars after they did. So, that's my guess. But, you know, no one is gonna have a perfect track record. Maybe this is an area, this is gonna be one of Elon's big failures. Maybe he'll try it, it'll turn into a disaster. Maybe social media's unsalvageable. Um, and so I, I, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't put all my money down on it, you know, but I, but, uh, I would say if I had to bet on, you know, that Twitter being a big success story, I would give it more than a 50% shot at that.

   7. CWChris Williamson29:21

      It seems like there might be an element here that most of the stuff that happens in engineering companies, it seems like Elon is taking a more sort of engineering approach, even when it comes to the staff base. I think he sent out an email recently that basically warned everybody that was working there, there are going to be some changes, you are going to have to work a lot harder than you're used to. If you don't like this, then feel free to leave. Um, most of this stuff it seems like would be done in relative privacy. I- it, you know, the stories coming out of Tesla, you know, it's like a leaked memo from sev- half a decade ago or whatever that we see, that we see now. That's the sort of stuff that we see. Whereas pretty much everything that's happening at Twitter is practicing in public. Everything-

   8. TUTim Urban30:01

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson30:02

      ... seems to be, it's basically a, a total Glassdoor policy, not by design necessarily, although I'm sure that Elon is thinking to himself, "Anything that I decide to put out on the local company intranet needs to be visible to the press and it needs-

   10. TUTim Urban30:13

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson30:13

       ... to be acceptable by the press 'cause it's not gonna stay private."... but there is definitely, like, a more voyeuristic sense of the internal, um, iterations of what's going on within that company than there certainly wa- I didn't, I didn't know what, what SpaceX's first 20 versions of the rocket looked like, but I know what Twitter Blue and all of the debates about what's going on online. And everybody somehow feels like they're invested and they've got a say in how Elon should be running this company. But no one thought that when it came to Falcon 9 rocket design.

   12. TUTim Urban30:42

       Right. Of course. I also saw a jo- an interview with Joe Lonsdale the other day and he made a, a funny point where he was like, you know, when, when Elon was first started getting into rockets and cars they said, "What? The internet guy can't make rockets and cars. These don't happen in Silicon Valley." Now people are saying, "The rocket and cars guy can't (laughs) do, do internet." I mean, and it's just kind of like, it's, it's that, um, this is assuming that, um, you know, success has to be, you know, specialized. But I think if you look at what are the roots of what makes someone successful in any industry, they're often the same. It's, you know, um, being able to recruit the right people, um, w- having a clear goal, being able to reason from first principles and innovate. And it, it, sometimes in the direct conflict of conventional wisdom, um, being ruthless and, you know, persistent over many years. Um, and so, I mean, it's just, uh, it just, uh, I think none of this is, you know, uh, I won't say rocket science, but SpaceX is.

   13. CWChris Williamson31:43

       (laughs)

   14. TUTim Urban31:43

       But none, none o- none of this is, um, is, is, is, is, you know, specialized to one industry or another if you apply those principles i- in any industry. Again, you're not... The CEO isn't gonna be doing it all. You're gonna hire expertise, so you're gonna get the different expertise you need that you don't have. But, like, those, the same principles apply. Um, and like, as far as, you know, um, him saying you have to be hardcore and like work extra hours, I think it's totally valid to say, "This is, that's toxic, that's bad. That's not a good way to have a company. That's not a good way to treat employees." That's, that's a totally valid view. But it's also a free market. And so I think, you know, um, I think that, um, w- uh, it's, what's cool about it is he can do that and he'll attract the kind of people that are workaholics and that just are, they would love to go to a place where everyone is hardcore, right? Think about like, you know, are those same people criticizing people who want to play in the NFL? You think the NFL has chill work hours? It's the most hardcore, round-the-year, round-the-clock, demanding, punishing activity, right? Are those people saying, you know, uh, "The NFL is toxic for having all this offseason practice." Um, you know, no. Uh, th- they're, uh, you know, how about a tireless activist who wants to go work on a presidential campaign and is working round the clock? Are they criticizing those people and saying, you know, or criticizing the campaign for, "Wow, you're, you want, you wa- you want your people to work on weekends"? No. It's just, these are, there are certain things that are hardcore in life and military, right? I mean, there's certain things... And, and Elon's basically saying, "This is my... My companies are like the military and the NFL and the political campaign. That's just what we're like. And, um, it's not for everyone and we... It's gonna filter out the people who don't want that. They can go get a different job, and the people who do like it..." So I just... And, uh, a- a- again, you can say this is bad. That's a totally valid. Just like you can say it's unhealthy to join the military or to play in the NFL and you shouldn't do it. Totally valid opinion. But to say that he's doing something like, um, that something is like, like, you know, wrong with this, like they shouldn't be allowed to have... Or something. It's just like, uh, uh, it's like you don't have to work there. (laughs) It's like, you know, let, let him attract the people... I'm glad that hardcore people have companies like this to go work at 'cause they'd be bored and under-stimulated in a normal company. So anyway, I think it's great. I think it's like bring some of that into Silicon Valley 'cause Silicon Valley's known for being very cushy and, and, which is great. They've raised the standards. They, they have a philosophy that, that employees should be treated really well and have great work/life balance, and I think that's awesome, right? But bring some, bring some var- variety into Silicon Valley and say, you know, "There's also some really hardcore companies here and you can go do that if you want." Um, and, uh, let people choose.

   15. CWChris Williamson34:19

       There is a contingent of people out there who want a hardcore life. Like, I, I, it-

   16. TUTim Urban34:23

       Yeah, exactly. Like-

   17. CWChris Williamson34:24

       It seems to me that the, the people that are less passionate about the stuff that they do struggle to put themselves into the mindset of someone that's obsessive. Like if someone is absolutely obsessed-

   18. TUTim Urban34:33

       Right. They're applying your values to everyone and saying everyone should have your particular values. You know, like, um, y- you know, uh, no one would... It's like someone else could say, it's, it's, it's very popular in our society. It's, it used to be popular, I think, in, in older America to be like work hard, you know, work as hard as you can. You know, that was, that was, you know, a, a high value. Now that's looked down upon at least within like, you know, the kind of Silicon Valley type crowds. That's right. It's not, uh, or on Twitter. It's that, that, that's bad, that's toxic, right? Um, but if someone said, "You know what? I'm gonna... I only want to work four days a week and I want to retire early if I can because I want to spend a ton of time with my family. I wanna s- I just wanna dig in to my family." No one's like, "Wow, you're being too hardcore. That's toxic." It's like y- let people choose how they want to spend their one life. And s- for some people, nothing gets them going more than working hard with a team to build something they think is important. And that's their fun, and that's what they really enjoy. And maybe it's their stage in their life. Maybe they're 25, and maybe when they're 40 they're not gonna want to do that anymore, but they're 25 and they do. And so again, I just like variety. I like the idea. I like, I like having people get to choose what fits them the best.

7. 35:37 – 47:14

   Maintaining Motivation in a Big Project

   1. TUTim Urban35:37

   2. CWChris Williamson35:37

      How are you getting on with writing your book?

   3. TUTim Urban35:40

      Um, well, uh, the book has been... The, the book has been done for a while, but the fact-checking is a bitch. Uh, (laughs) it's, it's amazing 'cause, you know, I, I do this and I think I'm being so rigorous, you know. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm researching everything really carefully and I'm checking what I'm doing and I'm, I'm making sure I'm li-... And then you get a hardcore fact-checker, and I got two of them, to go through and read your book, and it's amazing what they can find problems with. I mean, and basically they're, they're... You're paying them to act like the most pedantic, annoying reader that will ever read the book. Someone who is trying to point out all the ways this book is wrong, and you shouldn't trust this author because this is wrong. And it's... I'm basically saying be that person and tell me everything that they could possibly say. And that sounds great when you're hiring them, except when you're actually going through, my god. It's like, "Uh," 'cause it's sometimes it's just so, you know, like, well, this is technically, you know, not what every one of the, you know-... you know, post-Marxists said. You know, there was this school," and you're like, "Okay, shit." You know? "I shouldn't say." You know, "I shouldn't generalize." And, you know, or, "This isn't..." You know, "Oh, actually," you know, "it wasn't just this law, you know, that did this because actually it existed in common law in England before that and, um, and this is a..." You know, and I'm like, (sighs) "Oh my God." And what you don't want to do is, you know, if you just do everything they say, you're gonna end up with a boring, overly detailed book. So if someone's like-

   4. CWChris Williamson36:59

      Copy edits everywhere.

   5. TUTim Urban37:00

      ... just put an end note in or cut a se- ... Someone's going to say, "You know what? This is too nuanced to... It's going to be boring if I do it, do it justice, so I'm just going to cut it or I'm going to put it in an end note, or I'm just going to change the wording and say, 'In part it was developed by... '" You know, so I'm, I'm getting better at, like, trying to do the right... You know, go, go through these fact checks efficiently. But I'm just about done with that process, um, and, and it's being copyedited by a different person. Um, and so it's in those final stages which is way easier than when it's being done but, you know, it's a drag. It, it drags on and, uh, getting close to being finished here.

   6. CWChris Williamson37:36

      As someone that's thought and written a good bit about procrastination in the past, is there anything that you learned from having such a single large project that you're working on for a good amount of time?

   7. TUTim Urban37:47

      Yeah, I mean, I learned that, uh, that a procrastinator who can learn how to, you know, be productive usually is relying on a lot of kind of, like, crutches. You know, one can be deadlines imposed by someone else, right? That's great. Or collaboration, when you're accountable to someone else. Or, um, uh, external pressure of different kind. Like when I was publishing blog posts every week, there was, like, this excitement of, you know, A, I owe this to readers because I told them it'd be out next week, but also, like, the excitement, the adrenaline that comes from this is about to go live, like, in two days, you know, would actually be something that would help ease procrastination because it was like, you know, dopamine just from, you know, working on the project. This long book project, um, without any, you know, feedback as I'm going from readers and without any... You know, has been taking away a lot of those crutches, so it's been very difficult. So I've done... Um, I've learned throughout the pro- I've actually... This, this has been a boot camp for me over the last few years of getting better at doing... I, I built a bunch of new devices to help me. Like, I will say, "Where would I want to be a week from today?" Like, "Where do I want to... W- where... It, it, w- what could I do in the next seven days where a week from today I'd be very happy with where I am in my progress?" Okay, that's my goal. Now I'm going to tell two friends, "This is my goal and, and either I have to do this ev- do a certain thing every day, certain prog- or just something by the end of the week. And either way I owe you and I have to Venmo you, uh, each, you know, a good amount of money each day I fail."

   8. CWChris Williamson39:21

      (laughs)

   9. TUTim Urban39:21

      Something where it's small enough that you will do it. It won't, like, be so ridiculous that you just say, "I can't, sorry." You have to actually be able to do it, but it hurts. You know, it's, it's like, "Oh God," like, "I can't believe I just lost that money." So I'm trying to f- you know, even finding the sweet spot with the amount of money and with, like, the rules and, and the... You know, um, and that works great if you can have an internal ethic where you say, "I doesn't... You know, they'll, they won't know. I can lie about what I did and I will not lie about this. I will be honest. I will send it if I didn't truly do it." So that... If you can't pull off that internal ethic and you find yourself lying, okay, that doesn't work. You have to come up with something new. So it's just what, what are the tools you can use to help push you forward when the ex- normal external pressures are not? And I've been working on a bunch of those.

   10. CWChris Williamson40:07

       Have some of your friends ended up profiting massively from your-

   11. TUTim Urban40:10

       Yes.

   12. CWChris Williamson40:10

       ... attempt at writing a book?

   13. TUTim Urban40:11

       Yes. I've, I've paid over a thousand dollars-

   14. CWChris Williamson40:14

       (laughs)

   15. TUTim Urban40:15

       ... (laughs) in different... uh, over- overall. Uh, uh, and, and, but I also got back some good ca- solid cash from them because they're also creators and they've been also-

   16. CWChris Williamson40:28

       Oh, it's like a cartel, a pooled thing.

   17. TUTim Urban40:31

       Yes.

   18. CWChris Williamson40:31

       Like a Deadpool, but it's for-

   19. TUTim Urban40:32

       Yes.

   20. CWChris Williamson40:32

       Instead of who's dying, it's who's going to hit the word count.

   21. TUTim Urban40:34

       Yes, and it's so fun when they fail and I get money. I'm just like, "Wow." (laughs) It's pretty funny. So...

   22. CWChris Williamson40:38

       (laughs) Do you ever find yourself trying to distract them or trying to sabotage their thing?

   23. TUTim Urban40:42

       Oh yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm rooting against them fully. Um, and, um, yeah, so I mean, that, that, that can be very helpful. Okay, here's another one I've been doing which is that I just, um, uh, if I'm left to my own devices, I will dick around for a big huge chunk of the morning. The morning's when I'm energetic, I'm feeling social. It's when I want to text my friends or call or play with my dogs or just... I just feeling like, you know, I don't have... Work is such a bummer. I'm like, I have all this fun energy but it's also the best time to work. The, the, the obvious, like, happy life and productive life is you get up, you're serious, you get your work done, and you're free. You're off. That's the school mentality. You know, the bell rings at 3:00, you're off for the day. Yes. Saved by the bell, right? And to me at least, I mean, I'm sure some people like to have their mornings free and then they s- they hammer down in the afternoon. Not for me. It's not good because I, because I... And, and I don't end up enjoying my mornings. I'm the dark playground. I have work looming over me. I'm self-loathing that I haven't done anything. So how do I get myself to actually, you know, not dick around till 2:00 and then work till dinner, but actually try to work till 2:00 and then take the time off? Um, uh, which kind of guarantees a productive day. You know, because if you, if you, if you mess around in the morning, you can end up actually just doing nothing that day and that's really miserable. Um, and so... And also, you know, uh, not drifting back with sleep. How do I guarantee that I'm, like, consistently working, up early, working... Early for me is waking up at 8:00, you know? I'm, uh... I know that's not for most people. Um, up early and working. So for me it was, um, I have, um, um, my colleague Alicia who's the way-bewide manager of lots of things and she and I have been working together for seven years. She knows exactly all of my fault- faults and flaws, like, be- probably better than anyone. She could write a book on them. And, um, and one of the th- But she's always, you know, willing to help in any way she can. And so, I was like, "You know what would help is it's... I'm not gonna sit at the computer and start dicking around the internet or texting if someone's looking at my screen."... that's embarrassing. A, you can see what I'm doing, it's weird. But B, it's also just like, it's so shameful to procrastinate in front of someone. It's so, like, mortifying to, like, for someone to watch you. And I realize that, like, it's, I don't need that big a push to do what I'm supposed to do. It's not like I'm, you need to drag me kicking and screaming. I need... It's like, you know, the old feeling of, "Oh, damn, class is starting. Damn, I, I, I had my free block." And it's not that I'm like scree- It's just like, "Okay, ugh, you know, it's Monday morning and you just gotta do it even though-"

   24. CWChris Williamson43:08

       Little nudge.

   25. TUTim Urban43:08

       "... you don't want to, but you have to." And so, suddenly having someone looking at my screen is that. It's like, "Ugh, I don't want to work, but..."

   26. CWChris Williamson43:15

       Are you saying that you've had, you've had your manager, Alicia, just sit and watch over your shoulder like a-

   27. TUTim Urban43:20

       Yes. What's so-

   28. CWChris Williamson43:20

       ... supervisory parrot?

   29. TUTim Urban43:22

       In person, but also she hurt her knee, um, and was, and was immobile for a while and we were, you know, Z- Zooming and we realized that that works really well too. I just sh- go on to, uh, Slack video. I share my screen, my whole screen, and she's working. It's not like she's sitting there staring, but at any given point, she might be looking at the screen and I don't know when that is.

   30. CWChris Williamson43:41

       Oh, you've got a panop- a virtual panopticon going on.
8. 47:14 – 53:00

   The Struggle to Choose a Partner

   1. CWChris Williamson47:14

      a, uh, article where you were talking about the person that you're supposed to marry, and you said, "Whatever you do, don't marry the wrong person." Given that young people at the moment are having less sex than ever, and both children and marriage are being delayed more than ever, plus there's more optionality than ever, it kind of seems like, uh, an increasingly difficult decision to commit to a partner. Do you think this is a, like a paradox of choice, Barry Schwartz thing going on? Like, what, what, what do you think are some of the issues that's happening here?

   2. TUTim Urban47:42

      Oh, man. So this is not something, this particular problem I've, I've, I've seen like the graphs and the stats on it, and, um, and I've heard theories. I don't have much original thought here. I've, I've heard theories about like, m- men are getting o- Like, there's more sexless men than there used to be. And the theories I've heard is not that they're... And, and it's not happening for women as much, right? And so why? And the theories are that it's the apps create this marketplace where, you know, in the old days, um, a woman would, um, you know, a, a c- uh, two people would start dating who met in the office, right? Just say, or they met in the local bar, uh, or they met through a friend, right? And so this is kind of like your local world would provide you with mates, and people within that world would match up just naturally. But now, it's like a, um, that same woman can go onto an app...... and select the most desirable guy that she can find. And maybe that person is more desirable to her than anyone in her little local world. And she can... And, and, and it's not like, "Oh, well, okay, but that guy is now taken." Because a lot of times there's casual sex, right? So you have that guy can have, you know, casual sex with 40 people in a year if he wants to, right? So, all these women are, you know, sleeping with the smaller pool of super desirable guys and it's leaving a bunch of the guys, um, in the local networks and the local groups, um, with no one. So, this is the theory I've heard which makes a ton of sense. It almost reminds me a little of, like, um, you know, in the old days if you were a, you know, good guitar player you could play for your, you know, friends and you'd be the one... You, you'd say, "I'm gonna put on a little concert tonight." And, you know, in your village the... 50 people would come listen and you had this gratification where you could provide this great gift you could give to people, your art, and other people would come listen. And that was it, and you had this... you, you know, you had your dreams, you know, "I'm playing guitar for people every..." Now, with the world of, that we're in now, I mean, uh, you know, 100, 150 years later, you've got... Everyone can go and listen to the best guitarist in the world on Spotify. So, you know, you're not gonna go and, you know, you're all gonna go to Madison Square Garden take, to that concert and not gonna go to your local thing as often. And so there's all these artists out there that have this gift to give that no one's taking because they're, they're pretty good. Um, and no one, no one needs... While... There's no need for pretty good art anymore because you have world-class art-

   3. CWChris Williamson50:06

      And cheaper.

   4. TUTim Urban50:06

      ... everywhere you look. It's so easy to create. So, you have this small number of artists having huge numbers of fans and you have most artists having no fans. And that's in some ways cool because for a consumer it's great, right? Everyone has a world-class entertainment. For the artists, most artists it sucks and, and it... You could... So that, uh, uh, to me it's the same kind of concept that, that's happening with dating. You know, and, and again, I, I don't know this from my own research, I know this from see- hearing other people say this theory. And, um, but of course the out that the, the, um, it's the, the consequent... This is not good, right? It's sad. Um, and there's a lot of people that are real mean to, like, incels. They're like, "Oh, you know, like, these incel men." It's like, well, but that's sad. They're not... They're like, they're lonely and they're not getting like a core human need that, that in 50 years ago, they, the same people would have gotten and that leads to... I think that's one of the things that makes people, you know, breeds anger and regre- you know, you know, I think sexually frustrated countries are gonna have more war probably. You know, not, not, you know, I don't, I don't wanna go overboard here but like... So, um, I'm always rooting for... Like when I see a stat like that there's no like schadenfreude or anything, I'm always just like rooting for as many people to be, like, satisfied in their lives and sexually happy as possible because it's just gonna, you know, even just selfishly it's gonna create a better society, um, if, if the more people there are. So I, I don't know what the answer is there, um, but in my general advice to someone if they are having, you know, if they wanna find a, a relationship. And, but by the way not everyone does, I think we should move towards a world where some people wanna stay single their whole lives or some people wanna date and not be married and it should be much more fluid than it is right now where it's like this binary thing. Like, "Why are you not yet married? You're supposed to be married from this age on." You know, and it's like that's a little bit un-nuanced. But, um, but I, I always say that, you know, it's like if you wanted to, um, uh... If, if you wanted to find, um... So, if- basically if you wanna get, you know, discover anything you wanna go try a bunch of things. You know, t- we talked about what Elon does, he tries a ton of things, sees what fails, sees what s- succeeds, right? You know, versus imagine if you're trying to create a strategy for a company and you sit there in the war room all day just talking and talking and discussing and trying to come up with the perfect, absolute perfect strategy before you execute, and then you execute it. That's not gonna be as successful as the company that says, "Let's come up with something, let's try it. Let's come up with something, let's try it. Let's learn, let's learn, let's get our hands dirty." So dating is the same, I feel like it's get out there and you... Rather than people sitting there and thinking about, you know, torturing themselves in their head, "What do I want? What do I need in a partner?" Go out there and go on 50 dates in the next year and, you know, maybe one of your points originally was that i- it's hard to find dates, and I don't know if that's true, but I just think, I always say, you know, like, just go on lots of dates if you can.

   5. CWChris Williamson52:55

      You also had a tweet that I really enjoyed asking ab- uh, looking at, uh, "An important life skill is recognizing

9. 53:00 – 1:01:55

   How to Deal with Criticism

   1. CWChris Williamson53:00

      the difference between criticism from people who don't care about you and don't root for you, and criticism from those who do. The first is best ignored and the second warrants attention and reflection." One of the issues that you have online is that it's very difficult to work out somebody's intentions and whether or not they do have your best interests at heart. How do you deal with criticism in this way?

   2. TUTim Urban53:24

      So, yeah, online I mean, a few... It's, it's... People say it's hard but I can usually tell online, I think. I've been pretty... First of all, most of the tweets that are, like, nasty towards me, right? And there's not too many, I mean, I feel like I'm lucky that I don't have too many, like, haters. But if I tweet something political, for example, or anything controversial you're gonna have hate, hate, um, hater tweets. The really nasty things I look and they almost never, they almost never follow me. So I'm like these... They don't know who I am. I am some dehumanized shitbag guy over there. They, they don't have no idea who I am, they just... And so they, they, they see someone they think they hate, they don't even know my, you know, they don't even know what I think about, you know. But they see one tweet, they put me in a box, they demonize me and I'm in a... I don't... First of all, I don't take that personally, I'm like this person doesn't know me at all. It's like they're... (coughs) Good thing to remember is that someone who's being real nasty to you online probably was, if you went and looked at their, their other tweets, they probably have been nasty to 12 other people that day in the same exact way. They're going around in this mood doing this. You're caught in the li- line of fire. So, I s- I don't give a shit about nastiness from someone who is not my follower 'cause they don't know who I am. Now when someone follows me, okay, I'm gonna pay a little more attention. If they're being nasty though, you know, really personal, I'm like, "This is not my kind of person."This is not my kind of person. Uh, I don't bu- fr- I don't make friends with this kind of person who makes a really kind of mean ad hominem attack, really kind of like, you know, cynical, sassy, you know, tone. I'm like, "This isn't my kind of..." So I'm not gonna worry too much about this kind of person, right? Like, um, and so I also usually don't pay too much attention to it. Um, then there's a comment from someone who does follow me, and y- I can usually tell that this is someone who likes me and likes my stuff, and they're disappointed in this particular tweet, or they, they usually resonate with me but they don't here, right? And that's super interesting to me. Now let's pay attention. Sometimes that hurts. Uh, those are the ones that might hurt because it's, it's the person, you know, who, you know, you're thinking, "Anything I do is going to create rando haters and is gonna get nastiness from the really cynical kind of ad hominem type people out there." I, th- that's just inevitable, but, but if, if, if I'm actually kind of like, you know, turning off people who'd normally like my stuff, that's interesting. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong. Sometimes I want to challenge people who like my stuff too, and sometimes I just... there's just a disagreement. But it doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong but it definitely warrants paying attention to. And s- and, and the nice thing about having a, a good-sized following is that it's not just one person, it's that I have a sample size. So, if I get th- you know, 400 comments, very quickly it's like I can start to see, there seems to be a decent frequency here of people who actually seem like genuine w- part of like the Way But Why community who really d- didn't like what I said or thinks, think I'm a- think I'm off on this. And that is, uh, that means a ton to me, and, and I'll reflect on it. Um, and I feel grateful that I get that. You know, a lot of, you know, I d- you have to have a sizeable following of people who do care about you and like your stuff to get that quality feedback from people who care about you. So anyway, these are some, like, little things I, I, I just kind of feel like I've developed a slight sixth sense for this over time, um, and then of course in real life it's much easier, you know. But it's hard to get constructive feedback from people who care about you in real life because most people who care about you don't want to s- hurt you. They don't wanna hurt your feelings, right? They want to be nice to you. They want to compliment you and...

   3. CWChris Williamson56:52

      It's almost like, uh, real life is the opposite of the internet. On the internet, it seems like people tune up their displeasure and decide to just throw shade or try and dunk on someone for no reason, and in the real world it's difficult to get criticism out of most of the people that are around you because they're concerned about hurting your feelings or they want to come across well or they care about you.

   4. TUTim Urban57:10

      Well, in general the paradox is that the more, online or in the real world, the more someone knows and cares about you, the less likely they are (laughs) to give you f- c- criticism. And that's exactly the criticism that you do want, and the criticism that you're more likely to get is from people who are rooting against you, who A ) don't, you know, often don't know you or are anonymous, and that's the criticism that's not as valuable because, because if you think about what has motivated it. The reason I say i- i- you should listen to the kind from people who care about you is not like that... You know, you can learn from any criticism but the people who are v- if... Especially in real life, if there's someone who you just think, you know, you know deep down who some of the friends you think just, you know, whether it's a stage in their life they are or just who they are or the kind of relationship you have with them, they're not rooting for you. They're happy when you fail, they're happy when you don't succeed. You know, it's a colleague at work, whatever. And the criticism from that person is just... You think about where it's coming from. Their goal, deep down, their, their hope is that you do badly, that things work out worse for you, right? So they're giving you this criticism, maybe they're doing it to boost how you feel about them so they're gonna give you good criticism so that you think they're a good person, but maybe they're literally doing something that they, that they think is going to somehow hurt you. Like why would you take help from someone, why would you, you know, who is whose goal is to push you off the cliff? You know, you're on the cliff and someone wants to push you further down it. Why would you take their hand? It doesn't make any sense. So someone who does care about you and gives you criticism, especially g- given that it's not fun to give criticism to people you care about, right? So they're going out of their way, they're doing something that's hard for them, that's not pleasant for them, and you believe that their hope is that you do better, right? That is, m- precious if you can get it. Uh, so and, and look, it, it's some of the nicest people I know, they're great a- at a lot of things, they're not gonna be good at giving criticism because they're too nice and th- th- those are some of the best people I know, right? And that's like one of their great qualities is that they're nice, but that happens to, to mean they're not gonna be great for criticism. There are certain of your friends who are in that sweet spot where they're good friends, they care about you, they're rooting for you, and they also are not shy, they're open, maybe they do it as a, you know, in a humor, humorous way or maybe they're just confrontational, and you really gotta treasure those, those, what those people can do because, uh... And seek it out from them. I mean, you know, it's, it's really, really valuable.

   5. CWChris Williamson59:29

      That's a really interesting point to think about how you curate your group of friends to not just be yes people that tell you what you want to hear, because it's actually rarer to find a friend who is both in the caring but critically able camp than it is to find someone who's caring and just comforting and tells you what you want to hear.

   6. TUTim Urban59:45

      Sometimes it's the people who care most about you. I mean, in some ways, if you're, you know, if you're dating someone that's not good for you and everyone knows it, right? The nice friend who says, "Yeah, you know, I love them. Good. H- It's going great? Oh, it's going good? Good." You know, it's not... that's not their shining moment is your friend right there. You know, they're not actually... You know, they're, they're in their head thinking, "Uh, this is bad but like I want them to feel good in this moment." That's a little bit almost like of a selfish act, um, versus the person who will kind of say, "You sure it's good? Like, I don't know," or, "I'm a little worried about..." You know or, or, or, you know, if you're doing, um, a... You know, if, if, um, i- i- i- if you're, if you're annoying everyone at a party or somewhere, you're, you're, you're, you're too drunk or something, a friend who will like kindly tell you, you know, "You know, the next day maybe you don't wanna..." You know, that person's doing something unpleasant to help you versus everyone else who's kind of thinking, "It's not my problem so I'm just going to be nice."

   7. CWChris Williamson1:00:40

      Oh, because the, the critic is paying a price personally in order to be able to advise you to become better, so they're actually paying more.

   8. TUTim Urban1:00:47

      Yeah, I mean, they, they, they care about you so much that they'll go and actually tell you versus p-If, i- it's, i- you know, if, uh, if you cared less, why would-- you wouldn't go through that. You'd think, you know, "It's ... I'll ..." You know. So, um, yeah. I mean, I think, um, e- especially, you know, we're really fragile about, you know, g- artists and creators and entrepreneurs and these people who create stuff. They can be very fragile, their egos, their self-esteem, their self-worth. And so, when, you know, when you're making something new and you're, you know, trying to be bold, um, you really wanna specifically seek out ... 'Cause there's, again, th- there's the person who's always gonna say, "That's great! I love your song!" Even if they hate it. Right? And that person's, you know, again, they're nice, but they're actually not helping you very much, and they can lead you to ... They can kind of, you know ... You can be going down a bad path, and they'll just let you go. Um, and then there's the person who's rooting against you. You gotta be very careful, 'cause that person will try to hurt you. Even if it's subconscious, they'll try to hurt your confidence, you know? And if it's good, they'll ... Whatever. And then, th- but it's like y- you know, to find that person who will just be honest with you, um, about how you're, you know, you know, w- what you're working on is just ... It's, it's ... Yeah. It's, it's hard to find.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:01:53

      Friendship's are a minefield, man. Look,

10. 1:01:55 – 1:02:54

    Where to Find Tim

    1. CWChris Williamson1:01:55

       Tim, let's bring this one home. Uh, Wait But Why on absolutely everything. Have you got any idea when your worst, harshest critic, fact-checker people are going to be finished? Have you got anything close to a release date?

    2. TUTim Urban1:02:10

       Yeah, should be ar- early February.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:02:12

       Oh, dude.

    4. TUTim Urban1:02:13

       Oh.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:02:13

       How excited are you for that?

    6. TUTim Urban1:02:15

       Very. Then I have to turn around immediately and work on another book. So ... (laughs)

    7. CWChris Williamson1:02:21

       My friend Douglas Murray says that once the book is published, that's when the real work begins, so you're gonna be doing a, a double job for a little while.

    8. TUTim Urban1:02:28

       Yeah. That's okay. I'll just be h- happy to have one under my belt.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:02:31

       All right, man. Dude, I appreciate you. Thank you.

    10. TUTim Urban1:02:34

        Yeah. Thanks for having me on.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:02:35

        (instrumental music plays) What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.

Episode duration: 1:02:55