Modern WisdomMental Models 101 - How To Make Better Decisions | George Mack
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,062 words- 0:00 – 3:00
Intro
- CWChris Williamson
George MacGill of Social Chain has joined me. So, what are we talking about today, George?
- GMGeorge MacGill
Mental models, almost like recipes for, like, regular decision-making. If you can imagine, like, your consciousness is like, uh, the OS, like, mental models are just various sort of apps that you, like, plug in for, like, various decisions or situations that you find yourself in.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So, on Instagram, you're scrolling through artificial lives that are meant to make yours look worse. Whereas walking round a hospital, you're looking at real lives who would do anything to change, like, positions with you. Let's say, for example, my life's an eight out of 10. When I'm on Instagram, I'm looking at 10 out of 10 lives, and I'm contrasting my eight out of 10 with a 10 out of 10, and feeling the minus two. The gaming industry is worth more than the music and entertainment industry combined, which is crazy, right? So, I'm immediately thinking, "The gaming industry have a greater understanding of human psychology better than anybody on the planet."
- CWChris Williamson
Can we do signal versus noise?
- GMGeorge MacGill
So, signal versus noise, like, how you go about establishing what's true and what's gonna be gone tomorrow. (branding flame whooshes)
- CWChris Williamson
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. George MacGill of Social Chain has joined me. How are you?
- GMGeorge MacGill
I'm not too bad. How are you?
- CWChris Williamson
Very good. Thank you.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Georgemc on Insta'.
- GMGeorge MacGill
(laughs) Twitter. No, no, no.
- CWChris Williamson
Twitter. Still-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... not, not transferred across on Instagram yet?
- GMGeorge MacGill
No, no, no. Need to.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I like it. So, what are we talking about today, George?
- GMGeorge MacGill
Um, so I guess we, it's more like a theme of what we've been chatting about for, like, the last six to nine months, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Um, which is, like, mental models. Um, and how you sort of interpret that is, like, up to you. Like, I particularly got it from, like, Charlie Munger, um, like, Naval Ravikant, a few other thinkers about, like, almost, like, recipes for, like, regular decision-making. If you can imagine, like, your consciousness is like, uh, uh, like the OS, like, mental models are just various sort of apps that you, like, plug in for, like, various, um, decisions or situations that you find yourself in. And it's almost like this, I think Charlie Munger calls it, like, a lattice work, like, from all the big, like, disciplines, whether that's, like, physics, whether that's business, whether that's microeconomics. 'Cause what a lot of people do will just specialize and go, "Okay, I learn biology, and then that's all I do," and they just go deep on that subject. Whereas that whole, like, Tim Ferriss strategy of taking the, the 10% that covers 90% of it, like, from biology, like, whether it's, like, evolution, whether it's homeostasis, um, and then going into, like, microeconomics and looking at, like, game theory, like, race to the bottom. Taking all these strategies and then almost trying to apply them instead of having to deal with, like, the overwhelm of everyday life. That's how I sort of interpret it. But then I... Now, it's much looser and just anything where it's, like, an analogy that helps me, like, explain things-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... is really, really useful.
- CWChris Williamson
Totally. So, you introduced me to mental models when I first came in here actually (clears throat) to do, uh, (smacks lips) the podcast with the guys from Social Minds.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, and we sat down, and you took me through it, and it was the first time that I'd heard of it. Uh, Charlie Munger appears to be kind of,
- 3:00 – 8:52
Using Inversion to Improve
- CWChris Williamson
like-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Should we say who Charlie is?
- CWChris Williamson
... Patient, Patient Zero for it. Yeah, so can you-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah, so Charlie is less, lesser known, but he, um, is Warren Buffett's business partner, who obviously, uh, uh, the guy who runs Berkshire Hathaway. So he's like-
- CWChris Williamson
Fourth richest man in the world, isn't he? Fourth or-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah, fourth official richest man in the world. There's a lot of, like, unofficial people out there, I imagine.
- CWChris Williamson
So, Marco, that's like-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... number one s-, one to 25, or-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Um, s- (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So yeah, he's Warren Buffett's business partner, and he's sort of been obsessed throughout his career of taking these ideas from the big disciplines. That's where I originally, like, got it from. Um, so, like, one, my favorite one from, like, Charlie was, like, just inversion, which was, like, this is, like, quite a nice introduction. This is probably, like, the most simple one-
- CWChris Williamson
This is an example of a mental model.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... that you can apply regularly. Yeah, example of a mental model, right? So, inversion is, almost comes from mathematics, when you try and reverse a problem on its head. So, for example, the best example I always use, 'cause it's so woolly, trying to figure out, is part- Inversion's particularly useful for those woolly conversations or those woolly questions. So, like, happiness, right? What is, like, how do I become happy? Like, people spend their whole lives, like, exploring that question. Like, "What's this purpose I've gotta find? Like, do I have to go to a spiritual retreat in India and sit and meditate for two years?" But instead, Munger would just say, you just flip it on its head and go, "How would I make a happy person depressed?" And it's, like, quite easy. The answer's there then, right? So, first thing you do is mess with their, mess with their sleep s- schedule. Like, completely flip it on the head, have them sleeping late, have them sleeping, like, awful, have blue light coming in. So, you do that. Second one you do is mess with their nutrition. Like, you have them eating awful food. You'd immediately isolate them from their friends. You'd put them in a shit job, um, and you'd just take away any form of meaning or hobbies from their life. So, you'd look at those five things there. If you avoid all of those five, you've basically achieved happiness, right? You're 95% of the way there. So, instead of, like, Munger basically looks at it as, instead of trying to seek excellence, just focus on avoiding stupidity. He says that's the success of his career.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- GMGeorge MacGill
Like, he's never gone out to seek, like, excellence, him and Warren. It's just always avoiding stupidity.
- CWChris Williamson
So, (clears throat) myself and my business partner, Darren, say something similar about club promo, that we're not fantastically talented club promoters. We've just m- made 10 years of mistakes that we've only ever made once.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Because it is really technically only a mistake, as far as I'm concerned, if you make it twice.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, if it's a l- strategic learning experience that you choose not to learn from, it's kinda your fault.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But the first time that it happens, you're like, "Well, if you didn't know it, you didn't know it. You can't know what you don't know."
- GMGeorge MacGill
So, let's use, let's, sh- look at, like, club promo as a good example, right? So, let's say I was starting my own night out. It's often very good to think about what would make a successful night out. So, you'd be, like, thinking about getting a DJ in, getting XYZ in. But instead, you should start from, what would, like, make this go, like, absolutely awfully, like, whether it's he- you wanna get your health and safety stuff in order, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So, focus on the stuff-
- CWChris Williamson
Poor queue management.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Too expensive drinks, poor service, bad smell, bad DJ.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah. Sh- It's that whole quote, like, "Show me where I'm gonna die, so I'll never go there."
- 8:52 – 18:00
Contrast & Our Hierarchy of Needs
- CWChris Williamson
So I spoke to Professor Rick Hanson, New York Times bestseller, um, writer of Hardwiring Happiness and his most recent book, uh, Resilience. Um, (smacks lips) and what I came to about that was I thought that if you take Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and you look at Paleolithic man, your grand, great-great-great-great-great times 100 grandfather, 100,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, (inhales sharply) the bottom of his pyramid would've been a lot more poorly serviced; safety, food, shelter-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... warmth, hydration, um, all of that sort of stuff. The bottom end would've been a lot more poorly serviced. But because he was doing exactly what he needed, his attention was his to command, um, the top end of the pyramid was looked after quite well. Whereas I think what's happened now is we've flipped that on its head, and you have very high degree of comfort. Most people in the 21st century in the Western world are not super concerned about their warmth-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... their safety, their food, their comfort. All of that's been looked after, which leads to this existential crisis that's self-referential, because the top has now been serviced less. Previously, you, you would've been your job. It would've been a job for life. Your job might have been a craft or a trade that you could've taken some pride in, Flow from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi-
- GMGeorge MacGill
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... like alludes to that.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Deep Work from Cal Newport also alludes to that. There's, um, neurologically, myelin, uh, m- creates around neurons that are continually firing. Neurons that fire together wire together. So in terms of the neuroscience behind it, it makes sense. Psychologically, it makes sense because you are able to feel some inherent degree of aptitude and, and prowess and finesse in doing something difficult that's challenging and worthwhile, and overcoming it. And then, uh, the just generally in terms of what that says about you socially as well. People think, "Oh, you, you are adding value because you have that." Whereas in the modern world now, (clicks tongue) a lot of knowledge workers have no feedback mechanism. Like you wake up, you had 100 emails. You go to bed, you've done 100 but received 103.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
I've got 103 emails. You're like, "Did I do a good job? Did I do a bad job? I have no idea."
- GMGeorge MacGill
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So I think that in the 21st century, one of the problems is that we don't have a effective feedback mechanism for when work is being done for a lot of people in a lot of jobs. Like if you're a smith or a carpenter or a farmer or anyone, you know when the field's been plowed, you know when the wheel's been made, you know when the car's been fixed, and there's an inherent amount of satisfaction that comes with that. And the same thing would have come from if your total, your, uh, uh, hierarchy of needs began and ended with keeping your family safe and having enough food to eat. Once you've achieved that, there you go. That's, your self-actualization has been made because that's how high-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... your hierarchy of needs goes. However, when you have looked after that, you start to look at things that are actually a lot more difficult for you to reach. So that was my hypothesis about why we have that in the modern world.
- GMGeorge MacGill
That, that makes a lot of sense. Um, I think f- like from a- an- like element of like contrast, about how we actually utilize contrast in particular, so I had a real word- this is where it all came from. I wrote to a friend on this.Like, last year, I was at Salford Hospital, which is like, uh, a couple of miles away from where we are now, um, and I had a family member that was ill. So, literally, four, five, six days of the week, I'd go in after work and go there. And i- going back to inversion before, it's like an inverse Instagram feed, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So, on Instagram, you're scrolling through artificial lives that are meant to make yours look worse.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Whereas walking round the hospital, you're looking at real lives who would do anything to change, like, positions with you. 'Cause I look at my life... So, let's say, for example, my life is an eight out of 10. When I'm on Instagram, I'm looking at 10 out of 10 lives-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... and I'm contrasting my eight out of 10 with a 10 out of 10, and feeling the minus two.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Whereas when you walk around the hospital ward where people are dying-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... you're contrasting your eight out of 10 with, you could argue, like, a zero out of 10 or one out of 10.
- CWChris Williamson
So, you, you told me at, I think it was around exactly the same time that you recommended I read The Last Highlander by Alistair Urquhart.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah, Forgotten Highlander.
- CWChris Williamson
Forgotten H-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Forgotten Highlander.
- 18:00 – 26:20
Clarifying First Principles
- GMGeorge MacGill
hear a lot about now mainly 'cause it's been popularized by Elon Musk, which is, like, first principles, which comes from physics. So, this is the i- like, the basically art form of deconstructing something so you can, in order to reconstruct it. So, like, a, um-A great example of that is where Elon talks about, I believe it's, like, the batteries for... It's either Tesla or SpaceX. And people would say... I know it was- it was particularly SpaceX. And it was like, let's say, for example, it was £1,200 of batteries. And everyone's like, "Reasons from analogy," so they just reason from the way it's been before, and just copy and paste that thinking. Like, really muddy thinking.
- CWChris Williamson
So they have a particular mode of looking at the world-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... which is called reasoning from analogy.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What's that?
- GMGeorge MacGill
So reasoning from analogy, so this is the example, right? So let's say with the batteries, it will, uh... An example of reasoning from analogy would be, it's always cost £1,200 to create this battery. There's no way you could do it on a, like, a- an affordable way to do it. So just breaking down from first principles would be to go, "Okay, let's deconstruct what this question actually is. So what is the battery made up of?" So, like, lithium, and you'd go, you go... It breaks down all the- the ingredients that are part of the batteries. And he goes, "Okay, how much would this cost to buy off the London Metal Exchange?" And it comes down to, like, a tenth of the price. And he goes, "Okay, so then all we need to do is find a cost-effective way of putting these ingredients back together to create the battery." So that's literally, like, first principles, um, thinking. Like, fully breaking it down to its core components. Paul Graham has, like, an unbelievable essay called, like, um, Why Not to Start a Startup. And he basically... Like, if you ask, like, people, like, for instance, you'll have mates who want to start businesses, right? And there's- there's this, like, conversation going on in their head. And often, whether it's like breaking up with someone or starting a new chapter in their life, there's, like, all this stuff going on in their head, and there's, like, 12 different reasons all into one that are all intertwining. So what Paul Graham basically recommends doing is, h- how can you even assess a situation until you've gone through every single reason, written them down, and then looked, is that valid or what's the truth about that? And break down the reality of each situation-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... um, that's stopping you from doing something. But first principles is a fascinating one. Like, I remember, we chatted about this before, but, like, where to actually apply it to. And maybe we could try that now. Which is a- one thing I'm obsessed with, is how can we completely destroy the modern education system? 'Cause I despise it with a passion.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Um, so let's just look at, like, education from, like, a first principles perspective. So, like, a great example, like, instead of talking about what subjects, let's just break it down to, what time should school start? 'Cause that's a huge part of it, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
The time they arrive and the time that they leave.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Um, so, like, Daniel Gross, who has, like, some amazing mental models, talks about this. He goes, "Why does school start at 9:00 AM?"
- CWChris Williamson
It's so that parents can drop the kids off before they go to work.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Right. But all the research suggests that kids start... Uh, you remember, right? When you were a teenager, you'd wake up, you wanted to wake up at 12:00.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So you have a whole nation of kids who are under-slept and sleep-deprived. No wonder they fucking hate school.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, that's why they changed the start time of high school in America in a particular state that I can't remember, but this is cited in Joe Rogan's Matthew Walker podcast number 1109. And what he says is they moved the start time for school back by, I think, an hour or an hour and a half, and they reduced the number of road traffic accidents down by 25% in people under the age of 21. Because the sleep deprivation that was being suffered was out, or the- the times that school was starting, was out of alignment with the natural circadian rhythm of people of that age. And by avoiding that, they, downstream from that, didn't need to change anything to do with crossings, didn't need to change anything to do with education. Just needed to give the people behind the wheel a bit more sleep.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So going back to... Yeah, I c- I completely agree. So going back to the first principles perspective, right? So let's look at, what time should school start? Then it's almost, how do we teach? So one thing that I find fascinating is, if I was learning a subject now, I wouldn't learn 10, 15 subjects at once.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So why are we doing this for kids? Like, would it be better to have a year where they go deep in biology or they go deep in a specific subject that they've chosen? Why is it you do, like, an hour of history and then an hour of psychology, then an hour of this? And as a result, you chase ten rabbits and get none.
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe a bit of that is due to low attention. Like, if- if all I had to do was, like, maths for a year, or even a week, probably get pretty bored. I think there's probably a refreshing cycle. You- the point that you're making, though, is that you can look at, as opposed to accepting the old guard and reasoning from analogy, which is copy and paste, you can actually just start scratch and look at it. So I think we do this with the relationship series.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
We look at, okay, so exactly what is supposed to be a relationship and why- why are we accepting of certain things? What are the best practices that you can move through? What are the component parts, the- the distilled down to its core elements, what are the actual individual parts of what a relationship should be and how you should interact with someone? Um, so yeah, first principles, anyone who's watched Elon Musk on Joe Rogan will have heard him talk about this a lot, and he's a big proponent of it, right?
- GMGeorge MacGill
100%. And like I was thinking about, I was away in Gran Canaria recently and it was like saying it's one of those holidays, like, where usually I'll go to, like, Amsterdam or Budapest with friends and you'll be drinking and going out and you come away from that needing a holiday. Whereas this, you were just isolated in the sun just thinking about stuff. And I was trying to break down, like, what's the first principles of my life? Like, what are the- the things that really matter? And I was thinking, all that I sort of want and I want to optimize is time and energy. So time as in how much, like, time I have in the day, what am I doing with my time, and then obviously energy as well. Because let's say I have 24 hours in a day to do whatever I want, but I'm really sick. Like, that's a pointless life, right? So if you... Every decision now I'm just trying to filter through, will this give me more time? Will this give me more energy? How do I want to spend my time? How do I want to spend my energy? Whereas-... beforehand, you have so many, like, analogies just rolling through your head of how you-
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... should be living your life. Like, should I be doing this because this person thinks that or should I be here at 25? Should I be doing this? Like, what should I, should I care about how many followers I've got here? Like, whereas now I'm go- I'm just thinking about time and energy. And you realize, that's all you've got and that's all you should ultimately optimize for. When you break it down to its core components, what's more important than time and energy?
- CWChris Williamson
So, Cal Newport talks about work done equals time times intensity.
- 26:20 – 30:40
Implementing Double-Think
- GMGeorge MacGill
from George Orwell's, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
1984.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... 1984, right, which is to hold two contradictory beliefs in your head at the same time. We were chatting about this, like, and it come s- you, you see these mental models elsewhere, right? So Nassim Talleb has, like, the barbell strategy where it's all the weight to either ends of the spectrum. So the way I was thinking about this on the drive down today, which is people say you don't want to think in black and white. I think you want... Sorry, black or white thinking. You want black and white thinking. It's the shades of grays where you go to die, so anything, like, in between. So we'll give, like, the perfect example of this. Like, the ability to do intense focused deep work with intense serendipity and socialization and all that stuff in the middle is where you go to die. Like, black and white thinking is so underrated and the perfect example... 'Cause I know Nick Szabo, uh, I heard a podcast with him and Naval where he calls it, like, quantum thought where he's sort of holding two opinions at the same time-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... and he's running through, running, running them through his head. Like Conor McGregor's coach, John Kavanagh, he talks about how during training he wants his fighters to be completely egoless and think they're basically losers and just constantly obsessed with improving and he wants them to get tapped by everyone-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... and learn what they're doing wrong.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
But as soon as fight week comes, he wants them to think they're completely invincible. So it's this weird, like, paradox that exists of, like, two polar end of the spectrums that you have to exist between. And Matthew Syed has a similar concept with, like, golfers. So let's say, for example, a golfer's about to take a swing. Um, before he takes that swing, he has to have extreme self-doubt where he's going, "Okay, what club should I be using here? What's the perfect swing?" But as soon as he's gone through all that self-doubt and gone through it all, he then needs to switch to a state of complete and total confidence. So it's that doublethink, two ends of the spectrum that you have to exist between. Whereas if you're sort of, uh, midway between it where you're a little bit confident but a little bit of self-doubt-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... those shades of gray is just where you go to die.
- CWChris Williamson
I totally get that, man. Matthew Syed, if you are listening, please reply to my email.
- GMGeorge MacGill
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
I would love, I would love to have you on the podcast but you're pying me harder than some girls do, so, um-
- GMGeorge MacGill
It's pretty hard.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it's pretty hard. Uh, yeah, I, I, I do, I do get that. Um, I like the idea of black and white thinking. I think what a lot of people will tend to do is allow cognitive biases to come in and they will do white and white thinking or black and black thinking-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah, yeah, of course.
- CWChris Williamson
... which is, um, another, uh... We were discussing last night over dinner about how steelminding another person's argument-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... can be a fantastic way to get around this.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So Charlie Munger has, he calls it his iron prescription, in that he refuses to have or state publicly an opinion on something unless he can state the opposing opinion better than the other side can. So, like, the best ex- Like, one of the best political experiments I've ever seen was on, um, we were chatting about this last night, was on the Jimmy Kimmel show. So what he did during the Trump and Hillary election would... He basically would go out in the street and interview a load of, like, Hillary supporters. Um, and I think they did the same for Trump supporters as well. But they would list, like, a load of policies that Hillary Clinton was planning on implementing and they'd be going, "Yeah, that's a, that's a great idea. That's absolutely..."
- CWChris Williamson
Classic Hillary.
- GMGeorge MacGill
"Yeah, completely agree. Great immigration policies, great economic policies." But at the end, he'd basically reveal to them that it was Trump's policies and you'd see, like, the cognitive dissonance where the MPC computers were just about to, like, explode, right? And that's, that goes back to another mental model which is, like, identity. And Charlie talks about this, about when you go around s- shouting publicly as you do with these students now, like, "I believe X, I believe Y, I believe Z," you, you think you're drilling it to the outside world but you're actually drilling it into yourself. And as soon as you identi- uh, identify as something, that's a... It can either be a superpower or, like, the death of you.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Like if you would, for example, identify as like a non-smoker, which James Clear talks about-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... it's a way of kicking smoking, right? But if you... Like, I know Robert Cialdini-He got to the stage where he wouldn't want to sign a petition for something that he believed in, because he then began to identify with that cause and would find it very difficult to think clearly.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
That identity's a really, really weird one.
- CWChris Williamson
It is a difficult one. Can we do signal versus noise?
- 30:40 – 43:00
Signal Vs Noise
- GMGeorge MacGill
...
- CWChris Williamson
This is one of my favorites, by the way.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah, like, how you go about, particularly in the 21st century, like establishing what's true and what's gonna be gone tomorrow. And you can almost tie in another mental model there, which is like the Lindy effect. Um, so the Lindy effect, I believe it was a load of comedians sat around in a cafe, and they realized that a comedian's lifespan was almost their ... Well, how, let's say for example they've been around for two years. You can assume they're gonna be around for two years more.
- CWChris Williamson
It's the minimum, uh, future lifespan, right?
- GMGeorge MacGill
Exactly. So if, let's say a book's been around, like The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, it's been around for a couple hundred years, you can assume it's gonna be around for a couple hundred years more.
- CWChris Williamson
At least.
- GMGeorge MacGill
But the fucking blog post you've just read on BuzzFeed-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... that, if it's been around for a day, it's probably not gonna be around there tomorrow.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
And David-
- CWChris Williamson
So, I mean, you'll hear, if you look on Twitter and you see the circles that George moves within. By the way, George is followed by some of the biggest dicks on Twitter. And by big dicks, I mean like honking, huge, throbbing, really impressive people. Naval Ravikant, uh, Rory Sutherland's-
- GMGeorge MacGill
He's bought, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... just, just recently done you as well, hasn't he? There's like, there's a, there's a nu-, there's a number of others.
- GMGeorge MacGill
(laughs) Like Christ alive.
- CWChris Williamson
But yeah, he has. He's done you.
- GMGeorge MacGill
(laughs) That metaphor.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, and the, uh, the circles that these guys move within, you'll see them talk a lot about read a Lindy book.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And what they mean by that is read something which has been around for a significant period of time.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So to inves- start on the head, David Perell has a great point, has, he has a great podcast, North Star one. Um, I think he was chatting to Kiefer Boye maybe about this? And if 99% of people, all the content they consume was made in the last 24 hours.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. This is what makes-
- GMGeorge MacGill
And if our social media ... And it's all, and then that ties into another mental model. You see how these are all links, right, which is like evolution, which by the fact it's only been around for a day, you can assume it's half-span, its, its lifespan's only gonna be another day more.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Like that is awful content. Whereas if something survived for 200 years-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... you know there's something like foundational-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... to that material that you should look to seek out.
- CWChris Williamson
That's why-
- 43:00 – 47:40
Developing a High Agency Trait
- GMGeorge MacGill
And I think this is like the most important personality trait. When I look at like friends who I know are gonna do shit and friends who I know probably aren't gonna do shit, um, high agency is by far like the single biggest factor. So the way Eric Weinstein talks about it is like, do you believe the story that's given to you? Like so let's say, for example, I go, "Uh, Chris, you can't set up an events company, you're t- you're 20 years old." Okay. Low agency people go, "Oh, right, okay, I'll just go and get a job X, Y, Z here." Whereas the high agency person is like, "Mm, fuck, fuck you, I'm gonna like figure out a way of doing this." And I ... there, there's some almost like core tenets of high agency when I see people. And I, I wanna get much better at this. I'm not an expert here. But it's almost the ability to have like a, a real high locus of control. So like Josh Waitzkin has, um, this metaphor where what he's doing to teach his son right now, almost like a, a locus of control, is whenever the weather's shit, like he goes out and plays in there, and goes, "Look how great the weather is."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Whereas the average person, whenever it's an awful weather day, it's like, "Oh, it's rubbish today." So never outsource your locus of control. You control your mental state. The second one is like going back to first principles earlier. So you almost have to reason from first principles and go, "Okay, everyone's doing this. Is that actually the correct way? Let's break it down." Um, the next one you're obviously gonna need like some like insane work ethic, and you're gonna need some like creativity. And if you ... if figuring out like how ... this is how you identify high agency people, it comes from Jeff Bezos, um, he calls it resourcefulness, but it's s- basically the exact same thing, which is if you was in a third world prison, what friends would you call to break you out? And like you can imme- immediately you'll think now, take 10 seconds, you go, "Which friends would I call?" And then you've got, "Oh, okay, that's a high agency person," because you, by their very nature, you're gonna have to be quite smart to do that, you're gonna have to reason from first principles, um, you're gonna have to use all the stuff that ... you're gonna have to have internal locus of control, right? High agent- ... I'll give you some examples, right, 'cause I need to do a thread on this. Like my, one of my favorite examples of high agency behavior, and I hope they make a film on this, was, you know, the whole Silk Road stuff, right? So Silk Road, the arguably the biggest drug empire certainly ever online, one of the biggest drug, drug empires ever. Do you know who took him, took, um, Dread Pirate Roberts down, the guy who was running it all? Do you know who took him, took, um, Dread Pirate Roberts down, the guy who was running it all? So bear in mind, the FBI was after him, couldn't do shit. DEA was after him, couldn't do shit. Um, the person who took Ross, um, Ross Ulbricht down was, um, a IRS tax inspector via Google. For me, that is mental. And then we can go into like asymmetry, right? So the fact that one individual on their booking computer with an internet connection-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... can outperform the FBI and the DEA-
- CWChris Williamson
All the resources.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Do you know how he, do you know how he found him? So he just decided, he started googling, went back through to the old forums, and found a post on a Bitcoin forum about it, um, contacted the forum about the email address that was registered, and it was rossulbricht@gmail.com.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
The ... And this is how it gets mental. So he then presents it to his superiors who didn't believe him for months.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
And then they beg- as they, as they finally began to ca- catch up with him-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... th- they actually realized he was correct all along.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
And this is like the power of high agency behavior, where like you have Mark Zuckerberg in his college dorm room who can take down the entire media industry, you have Jeff Bezos who's taking down all of commerce basically, you have Satoshi Nakamoto who's, uh, you could have ... is definitely in-
- CWChris Williamson
Redesigning the banking sector.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah, exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
You've Jo- you've got Joe Rogan who's completely taking over media and broadcasting.
- GMGeorge MacGill
PewDiePie gets more views, like four times as many views as CNN.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Right? So h- like high agency behavior is the most like important personality trait out there. Like another question that Peter Thiel has is, which is like he asks people like, "What's your ten year goal?" And they'll go, "Okay, so I want to build X, Y, Z." He goes, "How would you do that in six months?" And then, shit, you start like going, "Fuck, fuck, okay, I've got to figure out how to do this now." Like high agency behavior is probably the most important thing
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
And this explains why you have people who've read all these fucking books, um, and they don't do anything-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... because by its very ... And, and whereas you have like I know you chat about your, uh, business partner, Darren, right-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... who's not that book smart but I bet you could say is high agency, right? If he was in a third world prison, I bet he'd be one of the people you, you'd call to get you out.
- CWChris Williamson
He wouldn't. He, he'd be out immediately.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
He'd have done their accounts for them and they'd be-
- 47:40 – 56:23
Asymmetrical Opportunities & Risks
- CWChris Williamson
- GMGeorge MacGill
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
I know that asymmetry, I don't know if it classes particularly as a mental model, but it's something that you should-
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah. I th- I think you wanna be as loose as possible with these mental models and however it works for you. So this almost comes from like ... yeah, of course it is, it comes from mathematics, right, where it's like it's a very asymmetrical relationship, like the inverse of symmetry, right? So a g- way of looking at it is upside and downside risk, right? So asymmetrical risks are something where the upside is incredibly small and the downside is, is horrific.
- CWChris Williamson
Almost bottomless.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Almost bottomless. Perfect example, texting whilst driving.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Drink, uh, drink driving. Like there's, there's so many out there, um-
- CWChris Williamson
Unprotected sex.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Unprotected sex, yeah. 'Cause let's say, well, let's go back to the texting whilst driving one. The benefit that you get is probably responding lol to a group chat, which you, you'll not even remember that message in weeks-
- CWChris Williamson
Negligible.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... from now. The, the risk that you have is w-... maybe being paralyzed for the rest of your life. Ending up in prison.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Um, killing someone.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So that's like asymmetrical risk. But there's a flip side of that right, which is like asymmetric opportunities.
- CWChris Williamson
Inversion.
- GMGeorge MacGill
And we chat about this all the time. So you, so you flip it on its head. Um, a- my, one of my favorite ones for like asymmetrical opportunities is, um, just DMing people. Like anyone who you think is doing like something interesting. Just go, "Hey, love this." And particularly if you have a skill you can offer, just go, "Oh, you know, you could do X, Y, Z." And that's why, I guess that's how me and you are sitting here right now.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
That's how I met you, right? And then the, that took me. So the downside there was 30 seconds of my time.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Like say nothing happened, I've lost 30 seconds.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
If, if it goes well, you've met like a new good friend, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So the asymmetry, you can, yeah, you can see it everywhere.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. A- a- a- asymmetrical opportunities and asymmetrical risks are something that I try and map a lot of my life onto, as it is at the moment. Perfect example of that is someone tagged me in a tweet from Daniel Sloss saying that he was coming to Newcastle to do a live show. I replied and said, "Hi Daniel. Before you go and do your live show, do you want to come on a podcast? You've got a lad with a beautiful northern accent, uh, (laughs) and five million listen minutes over the last year. Are you up for it?" And he replied and said yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Downstream from that, me and Daniel speak on WhatsApp probably once a week now, I've got a good mate, I've probably got somewhere to stay when I want to go to Edinburgh. And we hit 50K views in like a couple of weeks on that.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Mm-hmm.
- 56:23 – 1:00:50
Lessons for Life from Video Games
- GMGeorge MacGill
up to you 'cause I had a few thoughts about it, right? So you have the music industry, you have the movie industry, and then you have the gaming industry. I've, I assumed, I wasn't sure which one would rank highest, but I assumed it was relatively the same value. The gaming industry is worth more than the music and movie, like entertainment industry combined, which is crazy, right? So I'm immediately thinking th- the gaming industry have a greater understanding of human psychology better than anybody on the planet. So what mental models can you take from the way they're designing video games to apply to real life? And I'm thinking, I know some people who are unbelievable at video games, like world champion level or like-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... elite level, and are absolute messes at their own life. And if you go down like, uh, don't wanna bore people, but if you go on like the whole simulation hypotheses, like th- this is a simulation, we're basically playing a big video game (laughs) , right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Like you're just immediately some character with some, uh, traits and some stuff and you've got some goals to aim to. It's basically a video game. So why are people succeeding at this video game, but then when it comes to real life are being like awful at it? Like what's the gap there? What, so what do video games have that r- that most people's lives are missing, in your opinion?
- CWChris Williamson
Sense of escapism, sense of belonging, sense of community.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, obvious feedback mechanism that shows progression. Um...
- GMGeorge MacGill
So one, w- I agree with lo- loads of points there. One thing that I thought was really like obvious is parameters.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Um, which you, i- if you ever do like basic programming, you need parameters to define a function, right? So you need like, let's say right now my, the parameters of my life or the everyday person, it could be so wide. Like I need to check Facebook, I need to check Instagram, I need to research five, 10 different careers, I need, I need to k- reach out to these people. There's so much stuff going on that no wonder anxiety in Google Trends, if Dean can pop that up there, right? Anxiety (laughs) in Google Trends is at its highest ever, because it's just unlimited parameters and people just-
- CWChris Williamson
Paradox of choice.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... people just melt in it, right? Whereas in a video, let's say me and you are playing FIFA or Madden or wha- whatever the kids play these days, right? I'm all for video games. Um, there's a clear parameter, I'm trying to get the ball in your net, you're trying to get the ball in my net. Whoever gets the ball in the net the most wins.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So that's the parameter. Whereas most people wake up with like 100 different things they have to do that day.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So having one or two clear things which are falsifiable against I think is one thing that video games have. The next thing that they have is levels. So an issue that, uh, I've seen this with friends who like start businesses or have goals, right? Is that they'll launch something and b- and their goal was to make 100 pound online in a day, and they don't make anything.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
And as a result, they immediately quit. And Daniel Gross has a unbelievable metaphor for this, which is, let's say for example right now I'm at level zero. And if you wanna learn anything, like if you do this framework, it's, it's the most powerful learning technique I've found. So let's say level 10 is making 100 pounds online every single day. I'm at level zero right now. So what a lot of people do, let's say they learn how to do like lookalike ads, they learn how to set up an online store, they learn how to research niches. They get to level four, right? They go, "I've not hit level 10. I quit."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
But whereas in video games you, you know there's little levels each way, so you're constantly stepping up the progress, right? And that's why CrossFit, like Daniel Gross talks about this, CrossFit is an unbelievable video game, um, because it has so many of those core components in there where you're always progressing each day. Another thing that video games have is, um, you know what the biggest one is? I think it's identity. So when something goes wrong in my day, likes, because I identify as me, it can ruin my whole day. Whereas as a video game, you look at the character as a third person.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So if you can almost do that with your own life, you can see things crystal clear. The same way when you see friends who are going through relationship issues or they're, they're in a job that they hate and they're not quitting it. You can see it so clearly i- in somebody else because you're completely detached from them. It's like Buddhism, right? You, detachment's key. When in a video game you have that, you don't, if the character fails, yeah, of course you're a bit pissed off, but you're not there three years later talking to a psychologist going, "I can't believe-"
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
"... I failed." You know what I mean?
- CWChris Williamson
Treat yourself as if you're someone you're responsible for helping.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Exactly. But look at, look at it from an e- like, go, look at other people, go, "What mistakes are they making?" And then go, "Okay, how am I making those mistakes?" Um, like identity's a, a huge factor as well as the sense of community. So what, whoever takes these psychology models from video games and applies them to real, real life is gonna, is gonna win big.
- CWChris Williamson
Awesome. Man, what have we got left?
- GMGeorge MacGill
Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Shall we do a quick fire round? What have you got?
- 1:00:50 – 1:07:35
Different Inputs for Different Outputs
- GMGeorge MacGill
basic one which is, um, inputs versus outputs. This comes from, like, computer science. I got this from an episode of Tim Ferriss where this guy called Samy, I can't f- remember his last name, he's like, one of the world's leading cyber security experts (laughs) . And he, uh, is... If you search MySpace Samy, like, he hacked into MySpace back in the day-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... and basically added himself to everybody's friends.
- CWChris Williamson
Ah, yeah, I remember this. He ran a thing which he added himself to 10, and then that person added 10 of their friends to him, and then 10, and then 10, and then exponentially.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And he got, like, all, all of MySpace within, like, a few days.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Yeah (laughs) . So, um, but it was interesting. Like, Tim Ferriss is asking, like, "What'd you learn from programming or, like, that you've applied to your own life?" So, like, a mental model from programming or computer science, which is inputs and outputs. If you want different... It's that whole Albert Einstein quote, right? "If you want different outputs, you have to have different inputs." Like, um, Sam Altman, who's part of YC, has this, like, great quote which is like, "Extreme people get extreme results-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... and normal people get normal results."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
I'm fascinated by how many people want to be cool or be normal, yet want completely different results to everyone else.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So embracing being weird as a way of life, I think, is, like, one of the most powerful things that you can do because if you're not weird, by the very diff- definition, you're regressing to the mean. You are average.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, man, I'm, I sing from the same hymn sheet as yourself. Why We Are Fated to Be Lonely by The School of Life, Alain de Botton on there, which is my most cited video by miles, considering it's four minutes long. In that, he says that loneliness is a kind of tax that we have to pay to atone for a certain complexity of mind. If you're a person who has contrarian thoughts or is different to the mean, different to the normal distribution, if you're out on the tails, it's natural for your thoughts to be too subtle, contrary, or alarming to be acceptable by society at large.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And given the choice between honesty and acceptability, most of us choose the latter. But to be uncommon amongst uncommon men and to achieve things that other people haven't, you need to presume that you have to do things that other people are not.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So this is it, right? So one of my favorite people for this is Yousef, right? 'Cause he's just, he's the niche guy amongst niche guys-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- GMGeorge MacGill
... a- as the uncommon amongst uncommon men metaphor would go. And if, uh, if Yousef's okay with it, could Dean put the video of him doing the, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
S- snatch.
- GMGeorge MacGill
... snatches in public?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. So, bing.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So that video right there, I think could say so much about the way to behave. And I've started, like, embracing this. So my favorite quote is that people think... We never even got onto this mental model, the map versus terrain, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Let's do that one after.
- GMGeorge MacGill
So people think they, people think they're going to rise to the occasion, whereas they actually sink to their level of training. So this is a mental model that comes from, like, Navy SEALs and Royal Marines, in that they drill everything into your fucking consciousness so you never make a mistake. Whereas most people think, "I'll read a book on, by Peter Thiel called Zero to One and I'm gonna be a billionaire."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge MacGill
No, it's about what you drill every single day.
- CWChris Williamson
Same reason that Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn't have a cover on his phone.
- GMGeorge MacGill
Exactly right. So if you want to be, if you want to stand out from the crowd, you can't wait till that moment comes along when Warren Buffett calls you up and goes, "Yes, I want to invest XYZ." No, you have to practice being fucking weird every single day. So the Yousef one there, what's great about it is that he's drilling people looking at him like he's a weirdo for a positive action.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
Episode duration: 1:15:21
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