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The Most Valuable Skill In The Modern World – George Mack

George Mack is a writer, marketer and an entrepreneur. If you found yourself trapped in a South American prison, who's the first person you'd call? The person you named is likely the highest-agency individual in your life. So, what exactly makes high-agency people so valuable, and what essential skills can you learn from them to apply to your own life? Expect to learn what high agency is and what makes people with high agency so special, who the apex example of a high agency person is, the one question you should ask yourself to find the person with the most high agency in your life, the 4 key skills of a high agency person, the core techniques of some one who is high agency and much more… 00:00 What Is High Agency? 12:25 Examples Of High Agency 19:29 High Agency People 24:50 The Education System Of Today 32:51 The Spectrum Of High Agency 40:37 Most High Agency Person In History 49:16 What Is The Opposite Of High Agency? 56:10 What Are Rumination Traps? 1:06:09 The Impact Of Specificity 1:14:12 Dangers Of Cynicism 1:18:03 Beliefs And Values High Agency People Focus On 1:24:25 The Key To Being Well-Liked 1:31:34 Strategies For High Agency Living 1:39:25 How To Overcome The Fear Of Rejection 1:46:27 The High Agency Story Of The Patels 1:49:28 Why George Is Passionate About High Agency 1:55:44 Where To Find George - Get $350 off the Pod 4 Ultra at https://eightsleep.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get the best bloodwork analysis in America at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get a 20% discount on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom - Read George's essay at http://highagency.com - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Chris WilliamsonhostGeorge Mackguest
Mar 24, 20251h 56mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 12:25

    What Is High Agency?

    1. CW

      This is a long time coming, I think. Agency, since we've been talking, is the topic, the thing that we've both been obsessed with the most. So introduce people to it. What's high agency?

    2. GM

      High agency is, in my opinion, the most under-discussed and most important idea in, let's say, the 21st century. It's one of those ideas that once you see it, you can't quite unsee it. It's- it's everywhere. But the problem with it is it's quite hard to define, and there's that, um, Justice Potter Stewart line of, around when he was trying to define pornography-

    3. CW

      (laughs)

    4. GM

      ... when he was asked in a government inquiry, "Can you define pornography?"

    5. CW

      (laughs)

    6. GM

      And he came back with the ultimate reply of, "Well, I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."

    7. CW

      (laughs)

    8. GM

      So in lieu of the episode today, I know you rent out all these beautiful studios. I wanted to be the first guest ever to bring some props-

    9. CW

      You brought props?

    10. GM

      ... to kind of get people to experience high agency, and then we can define it with words.

    11. CW

      All right, cool.

    12. GM

      So first off is high agency in a meme.

    13. CW

      Okay.

    14. GM

      So as you can see here, you have person A and person B, and essentially, for the people that are listening, you have two people trapped on a desert island, identical people, but with two different fundamental frames of reality. One is using the wood to get help. The other is using the wood to kind of escape the island.

    15. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    16. GM

      And you kind of see this idea that two people with exact same fundamental realities, but a completely different, like low agency, uh, here, high agency here. So you see high agency in a meme there. Then, and this one was quite difficult to get printed in London without people asking questions, is high agency-

    17. CW

      (laughs)

    18. GM

      ... high agency in a-

    19. CW

      Oh.

    20. GM

      ... in a moment. So again, for the people listening, you have a series of Nazis saluting to Hitler in 1936, and you have this guy in red here, who's believed, there's debate who it is, but he's believed to be a guy called August Landmesser. Well, what I love about his story was he originally, like most people have this idea that when Nazi Germany comes around, that they're going to be the one that puts Anne Frank in their house and stands up. But realistically, we're way more likely to be these individuals here. And according to the story, um, August was part of the Nazi party, kind of went along with the larp because it kind of made sense, um, fell in love with a Jewish woman, and very much, okay, began to hit an agency test with reality. And you see all these Nazis saluting at once, and he's the one guy with his arms crossed. He ends up, um, getting punished for marrying a German woman, ends up in a concentration camp. She dies in the concentration camp. But there's just that beauty of every single person saluting-

    21. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    22. GM

      ... as a Nazi, and him there with his arms crossed-

    23. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    24. GM

      ... just beautifully signifies high agency in a moment.

    25. CW

      Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

    26. GM

      Next thing I would like to run through is we have, um, two videos.

    27. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    28. GM

      So one which is high agency in a video, and another which is low agency in a video.

    29. CW

      Okay. So this is Sasquatch Music Festival 2009, guy starts dance party.

    30. GM

      So for the people listening at home, there's this absolute nut job on a hill dancing like a madman, and the whole crowd is looking at him like he's lost his mind.

  2. 12:25 – 19:29

    Examples Of High Agency

    1. GM

    2. CW

      What, what are some good examples of high agency? Like-

    3. GM

      Okay. So, using the spectrum, I've got two examples that you're gonna like.

    4. CW

      Here we go.

    5. GM

      So, on the right-hand side-

    6. CW

      (laughs)

    7. GM

      ... of the high agency spectrum, we have SpaceX. So, the recent chopsticks landing. So, SpaceX starts with Elon selling PayPal and deciding, as you do, to just get into rocket science, and rather than go to university, he decides that that's a painfully slow download process to learn, so just gets a load of rocket science books and starts, like, happening to life. Creates SpaceX, and one professor at SpaceX was this early startup, not the juggernaut that it is today, the best rocket scientist, um, professor I believe in America. He, uh, he goes, "I can't believe it. Like, five of my top 10 students are working at this company called SpaceX," he goes, "I need to meet the guy that runs that." So, Elon arranges the interview, and this guy has a load of questions for Elon, "What are you doing?" And immediately he realizes the reason why Elon's taking this meeting is to find out who the other five were.

    8. CW

      (laughs)

    9. GM

      Uh, boom. So anyway, it keeps obviously, goes through all the ups and downs, and you end up with a rocket reverse landing-

    10. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    11. GM

      ... catching with the chopsticks and reducing the legs that's needed, uh, the amount of repairs that's needed as a result of massively-

    12. CW

      Fewer failure points.

    13. GM

      Massively accelerates the human's ability to happen to life, to be able to escape the planet.

    14. CW

      Interesting. Just on the, the SpaceX thing, Bill Perkins introed me to one of the guys that works for Elon, and, uh, this guy bet his entire career on the belly flop maneuver. Have I told you this story?

    15. GM

      No.

    16. CW

      So, when these rockets reenter, because the purpose is for them to be reused, they're coming in to land, they're not gonna land sideways. You're not gonna put thrusters on the side of it. You're gonna land it upright, like this.

    17. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    18. CW

      But the problem with bringing it in to land like that is that this is aerodynamically the one that has the least drag. So, they thought, right, okay, how can we use air friction to reduce the speed of reentry whilst also still landing the thing upright so that we get to use the same boosters to slow it down that we used to get it to take off? And he created the belly flop maneuver. So, if you watch it when it comes in-

    19. GM

      Uh-huh.

    20. CW

      ... it's coming in sideways, like this-

    21. GM

      Yeah, yeah.

    22. CW

      ... but then only at the last moment does it rotate and it stops. So, this guy apparently, the first time that it ever happened, like, if it hadn't worked and he'd left, I can't remember where, NASA, some huge, you know, illustrious, uh, organization, bet his entire career, all of his reputation, and at this new company would have been the laughingstock of the entire industry, and makes it work.

    23. GM

      Damn.

    24. CW

      Fucking cool.

    25. GM

      Wow. All problems are solvable, right?

    26. CW

      Yeah.

    27. GM

      Ooh, I say that, let's now contrast that with, do you recognize this on the left?

    28. CW

      It's a train in the UK?

    29. GM

      Yes.

    30. CW

      A specific train?

  3. 19:29 – 24:50

    High Agency People

    1. CW

      What about, what about, uh, examples of agency? Like, you, both of us have kind of become addicted, I guess, to accumulating these stories of people that are high agency. For me, uh, Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart, the Unkillable Soldier. Um, Sir Ernest Shackleton, that attempted the first Antarctic crossing, 1914. Uh, The Forgotten Highlander, Aleister Urquhart. You know, Victor Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning in some ways too. Um, uh, that recent one, that Aimo Koivunen guy, the dude that took 30, uh, an entire platoon's worth of meth and outran Russians for a month. (laughs) When he stopped, his resting heart rate was 200 BPM and he weighed 50 kilos.

    2. GM

      (laughs)

    3. CW

      Um, who are some of yours?

    4. GM

      Well, brings me onto my, uh, my next one.

    5. CW

      Okay.

    6. GM

      So, we have two contrasts here. At-

    7. CW

      (laughs)

    8. GM

      ... one end of the spectrum, we have the US Department of Education-

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. GM

      ... on the low agency end. Which it, something around $20,000 to $30,000 they spend on, um, students per year, and they are ranked, so it's the highest in the world the US spends on education. Meanwhile, they're ranked, uh, between 20th and 35th, both for literacy and numeracy.

    11. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    12. GM

      So spending so much money, getting s- so little out of it.

    13. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    14. GM

      It's a wild start of something along the lines of over 50% of Americans have lower than sixth grade literacy.

    15. CW

      Yep.

    16. GM

      So on the right end is one of the best books I've ever listened to. It's about an hour long, and I'll just open up the question first 'cause it's completely reset this question for me, which is what is a 10-year-old capable of? And this book kind of answers that question, so it start- it's, uh, it's called Don't Tell Me I Can't!. It's written by a 14-year-old at the time called Cole Summers, and essentially, just to contrast it to the Department of Education, it starts with him very early on, around about five or six years old, and his dad, um, served in the military and had a issue in training that basically left him disabled and with injuries for the rest of his life. And one day, he's getting raised by his dad and he's about to hit the age of going to primary school, and they see these kids, like, misbehaving and saying some, like, awful shit outside of their house, and they decide, "You know what, we're gonna, we're gonna homeschool him."

    17. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    18. GM

      And he, he opts in for that decision, he goes, "I don't wanna hang out with those kids." Unfortunately, his dad then ends up needing lots of operations throughout his home, uh, throughout his homeschooling, and his, he one day is kind of sat there, his dad's recovering from, um, all these surgeries, and he says to his dad, "How do people get rich?" And his dad just replies, I imagine at the time on so much medication and just trying to keep his kid busy, he goes, um, "I don't know," 'cause they're a poor family. He goes, "Maybe go and watch some Warren Buffett videos on YouTube." So a six-year-old goes and start watching Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger videos on YouTube, consumes everything about Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. Understands, like, Munger's iron laws of prescription, um, starts learning everything about business and compound interest, all pr- for himself on YouTube. Then at the age of seven (laughs) , the age of seven, just goes, "Well, I'll just start my first company." Seven-year-old starts his first company, um, selling rabbits to the local restaurants. Gets it up to, uh, $1,000 in monthly recurring revenue, and that's real revenue, not like a Shopify bullshit screenshot, right? Uh, $1,000 for a seven-year-old. At the age of eight, he then learns about Amazon not paying, uh, tax. He goes, "How d- how is Amazon not paying tax?" So he starts just teaching himself the tax code on the, online at the age of eight. At the age of nine, he buys his first vehicle, uh, like, a car, um, so-

    19. CW

      What's he do with it? He's nine.

    20. GM

      ... so for the, uh, for the farm. So it's not him, but he owns the vehicle, but people are working on it, yeah. And, uh, at the age of ten, he buys his first house for $10,000, watches YouTube videos, learns, like, flooring, um, how to do the wiring, completely flips the house, makes a profit on the house, and, uh-

    21. CW

      Has he got any help? Is anyone assisting him with this?

    22. GM

      I, I, I don't, I don't know the ins and outs of that specifically, I've gotta, I'll probably do more research on that. But the book is, um, is incredible, and there's a bit in there where he goes to Scouts, 'cause he's still interacting with other kids, but what the crazy thing is, is he didn't know that that wasn't normal. He was just going online. And he goes to Scouts and he's chatting to the other kids about, like, what they've been up to that day, and they're saying, like, "Yeah, we've just been remembering the planets," and like, they go, "So we have Earth here and Mars and da-da-da-da-da." And he's like, "When are we ever gonna use this?" And he goes, he goes, "What about you? What've you been up to?" And he chats to them about, like, payroll, tax compliance.

    23. CW

      (laughs)

    24. GM

      Let's picture this nine-year-old at Scouts, but not that... Uh, I think the key asterisk on that story is not that everybody should...... not, not every 10-year-old should be buying their own house. But it makes you question the education model that we discussed earlier, and I think that's probably one of the biggest inputs of low agency into people. And his story in particular, yeah, makes you question, well, what is a, a young person capable

  4. 24:50 – 32:51

    The Education System Of Today

    1. GM

      of?

    2. CW

      Well, I suppose the education system in both America and in the UK, uh, um, I don't know if there's anywhere that it isn't, very much life is happening to you.

    3. GM

      Yes.

    4. CW

      There is no you happening. You're not... You know, until... When's the first time in the UK school system that you get to choose your sort of specialties? Sort of 13? It's after year nine, I think.

    5. GM

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      Remember, you're gonna pick your GCSEs that you're gonna focus on, and then from there you pick your AS, you pick your A levels, then you pick your degree. So up until that point, up until the age of 12, 13, 13, you're just on a set of train tracks. You don't even get to discriminate what you learn, let alone how you learn, uh, in broad strokes. And then in specific strokes, it's like, "Well, this is the sequence. This is how the curriculum is put together." And, um, yeah, what's your thing about, uh, the behaviors that you were rewarded for in early life are the ones that you get punished for in later life?

    7. GM

      Yes. Like, i- in, uh, in school if you copy people, you're punished and given a detention. In life, if you copy people, you're labeled a successful franchisee owner.

    8. CW

      (laughs)

    9. GM

      (laughs) But there's like endless amounts of those behaviors where a lot of adult life is about, from my experience at least, seems to be about unlearning behaviors that happened during school.

    10. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    11. GM

      When you actually go down the rabbit hole of the education system, like this Prussian model that came over, and it was primarily created for in- to create industrial factory workers, and it still looks like that to this very day.

    12. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    13. GM

      That you have bells that ring-

    14. CW

      They used the same bells in British schools that they were using in the factories. Like the most Pavlovian early on conditioning.

    15. GM

      It's fucking wild. You have, you have, um, somebody who's in charge of the classroom. You have people moved from cell to cell.

    16. CW

      Uniform or...

    17. GM

      Uniform.

    18. CW

      Yeah.

    19. GM

      And you also, you're told when you can eat. You're told when you can go to the bathroom. You have to ask for permission to go to the bathroom. Peter Thiel, I was thinking about this the other day, he has this question of what do, or what does, "What opinion do you hold that few people, um, agree with you on?" And this idea of trying to get you to become an independent thinker, which is quite a difficult question to answer. I certainly struggle with it. But like there's a flip of that question, which is, what do s- essentially most people agree upon, but nothing's changing? And I think it's the education system-

    20. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    21. GM

      ... is definitely not a good thing.

    22. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    23. GM

      It's o- it's obviously not necessarily, there's worse options, right, before, before it existed. But I can't think of anything that as many people agree upon that this thing's a... doesn't prepare you for real life. And a good indicator of a training system, I was thinking about this, a good indicator of a training system is how closely it mimics the actual thing.

    24. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    25. GM

      So driving lessons are incredible because you're literally driving-

    26. CW

      Yeah.

    27. GM

      ... and it's painful, but meanwhile, school... How much do you remember from school?

    28. CW

      Essentially zero.

    29. GM

      Of... I was thinking about, you know who I'd love to meet? Whoever is in charge of foreign languages in the UK, at like the department level. I've never met anybody who's learned Spanish, French from school, apart from like, "Bonjour." "Bonjour," or "Hola."

    30. CW

      Mm-hmm.

  5. 32:51 – 40:37

    The Spectrum Of High Agency

    1. GM

    2. CW

      Okay.

    3. GM

      It's good.

    4. CW

      What about... I, I mentioned some of my sort of real peak high agency people. You've accumulated one with this guy that was self-taught. Is there anyone else that comes to mind?

    5. GM

      Yes. Let me, um, let me skip ahead, so-

    6. CW

      Skip ahead.

    7. GM

      ... just before I go onto that one, we have... I just wanted to show you this 'cause it's just fucking cool to both of you.

    8. CW

      What is it?

    9. GM

      This is the Topography of Tears. Have you seen this?

    10. CW

      The Topography of Tears?

    11. GM

      Yes.

    12. CW

      Like from-

    13. GM

      So yeah, this, um, photographer... I will come back onto your question, but just quickly let me blast through this. Uh, this photographer took different types of tears and put them under a microscope. And here, for example, is tears of grief, here is tears of joy. They actually look different under a microscope.

    14. CW

      Wow.

    15. GM

      So this is j- this was just a way for me to try and get this into the show, 'cause it looks so cool.

    16. CW

      (laughs)

    17. GM

      But, like, the agency example here is being at a funeral and thinking, "Fuck, I never got in touch for the last few years and now they're gone."

    18. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    19. GM

      Tears of grief. At the other end, tears of joy of, "Fuck, I'm so glad that we did that holiday together."

    20. CW

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    21. GM

      Or, "I'm so glad that I arranged all those trips that I did with them." So I thought that was a, um-

    22. CW

      That's fascinating. I wonder why that's the case.

    23. GM

      ... beautiful one.

    24. CW

      I wanna know what those structures are made of. I want to know what those lines are. So for the people that are listening, the tears of grief, uh, much more sparse. Whatever the, uh, line, there's some kind of structure. It looks a little bit like, uh, halfway between little cells and electrical circuits. And then at the other end, the tears of joy have a lot more activity, a lot more structure in them. There's lines everywhere. And, um, I wonder what that is. We can dig deeper and, and come back to it, but-

    25. GM

      Let me go back to your question I rudely ignored.

    26. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    27. GM

      So essentially the... I wanna come on to the most high agency person, but I just wanna address like the, probably the YouTube comments at this point. So-

    28. CW

      (laughs)

    29. GM

      ... I wanted to steel- I wanted to steel man the other side, so-

    30. CW

      Okay.

  6. 40:37 – 49:16

    Most High Agency Person In History

    1. CW

      The most apex high agency guy, do you recognize this guy? Guy called Wilbur. No.

    2. GM

      Great name. So, um, uh, let's just start off with life happening to him.

    3. CW

      (laughs)

    4. GM

      So smart kid, Wilbur. He wants to go to Yale University, he's about to get in. He's playing hockey one day and gets his face smashed in so badly by a bloke. It's interesting studying history. (laughs) This bloke was clearly a nutter. And guess what they used to do for nutters? They'd prescribe them cocaine.

    5. CW

      (laughs)

    6. GM

      (laughs) I know a few nutters like that.

    7. CW

      Yeah.

    8. GM

      Mainly, uh, in Northern Rail over the years. So anyway, he gets prescribed cocaine, smashes this guy's face in, so much so he's bedridden for two to three years.

    9. CW

      Wow.

    10. GM

      So Yale University is canceled. Whilst he's bedridden his mom is terminally ill, so he's kind of in bed, I, I imagine caring for her while she's in bed-

    11. CW

      Mm.

    12. GM

      ... back and forth. So truly life is happening. Uh, Wilbur, this fucking guy, man. This guy sat there in bed, asked the question, "Why can birds fly but humans can't?"

    13. CW

      Yeah.

    14. GM

      What, like, why is that?

    15. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    16. GM

      So just sits there in bed getting book after book, and there's not many books back then about, uh, aerodynamics and how things can fly but he's studying birds. Uh, Wilbur teams up with his brother, becomes fascinated by the question, um, and starts to move over on the spectrum a little bit over here to like happen into life-

    17. CW

      Can we ask that his surname is Wright?

    18. GM

      Indeed, indeed. So Wilbur and, um, Orville, his brother, they reverse from first principles. Where is the best place with wind and sand, um, in America? Because they need to test flight, they need to find somewhere with a soft landing and with enough wind, um, to begin to test it.

    19. CW

      Right. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    20. GM

      So they get all the weather bureau consensus data, which back then there's no internet-

    21. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    22. GM

      ... so they're just reaching out to the local council and finding this shit. And he-... um, sorry, they, they have all this, uh, weather data, and they've realized it's 700 miles away in Kitty Hawk. And I realize, "Well, oh, they can just fly there." I go, "Oh no, they can't."

    23. CW

      (laughs)

    24. GM

      "They can't fly there," right? So this is the furthest they've ever been from home.

    25. CW

      Yeah.

    26. GM

      They go all the way down to Kitty Hawk, and the two of them ... talk about happening to life ... The two of them ... And by the way, back then, this is a key thing that people, I always forget about history, is that it w- it was a mocked thing. Flying was seen as everybody who tried it failed or died.

    27. CW

      Mm.

    28. GM

      And there was poems at the time of how ridiculous it would be, like, f- to even think you could fly. Like, it was a, it was a, a joke at the time.

    29. CW

      Mm.

    30. GM

      So the two of them, um, are seen in Kitty Hawk, right? These two. I- imagine this, so you're looking outside your window, and there's these two brothers. They're for hours at the e- tide, just, like, moving their arms like this, pretending they're different types of birds, just mimicking the way birds move their fucking wings. So they're there for ages. They then begin to design, like, a winn- uh, a wing system based off the way birds do. The next problem that they have is they realize that all the measurements around aerodynamics that they'd been given at the time from, um, uh, a German fella were completely incorrect. So they have to ... They build ... When they go back home, they build a wind tunnel in their garage, like, um, that can go about 27 miles an hour, and they're creating little objects and putting it through.

  7. 49:16 – 56:10

    What Is The Opposite Of High Agency?

    1. CW

      of high agency?

    2. GM

      Um, it would be, it would be low agency, um, it would be outsourcing your worldview to other people who are just outsourcing their worldview to you, and you just have this kind of reflexive mirror. What's your one around the, um, is it the Faberlein paradox? Is it that one?

    3. CW

      The Abaleen paradox.

    4. GM

      The Abaleen paradox, yeah.

    5. CW

      The Abaleen paradox, yeah, that, uh, somebody invites you to their wedding thinking that you want to go. You say yes despite not wanting to be there because you think that you w- they want you there. Um, it describes how in a system, especially a social system, people can arrive at a suboptimal scenario for everybody because everybody presumes that everybody else wanted it.

    6. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    7. CW

      It's not too dissimilar to the Keynesian beauty contest that you spoke about previously, which is where you make a judgment in a, uh, a- a beauty contest, not of who you think is the most beautiful, but who you think other people will think is the most beautiful. And then you can continue to scale this back, right? It's just an infinite regressive prediction-

    8. GM

      (laughs)

    9. CW

      ... all the way back. So, uh, when you're talking about low agency, you know, uh, both me and you, since w- we've ... y- you first came on the show six years ago, inversion is one of those really powerful tools. Uh, so half, maybe a third of what people should try to do is become high agency, but probably two thirds of what they should do is try to avoid being-

    10. GM

      Yeah.

    11. CW

      ... low agency. So, talk to me about how you come to think about that side of the equation.

    12. GM

      Yeah. Well, in the essay around high agency that I've written, which we can link to, essentially what I call them are low agency traps that are just easy, uh ... And I've documented maybe nine or ten, but I think there's infinite amount of agency traps just part of being a human being. So there's a few which I'll, I can read now. So, I ... One is called the midwit trap, and the way ... I was thinking, what's a fun way of actually explaining this without boring people? And it's a SMS message. So imagine you're in a third world jail and you've got somebody who's in the midwit trap and you text them, "Hey, any updates on breaking me out of this jail?" This is how the midwit trap would think. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, lots of updates from me. I'm on day 30 of my juice cleanse."

    13. CW

      (laughs)

    14. GM

      (laughs) "I've ... Thinking of doing a degree in criminology to specialize in how jails work so I can get you out. Um, and I've also watched 30 TED Talks on the topic." So the midwit trap, I've got a PhD in the midwit trap, is this, uh, idea of trying to be smarter than you are, um, and over-complicating things. So for the midwit trap, where it comes from is the midwit meme, so you have-

    15. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    16. GM

      ... the guy on the left, the guy on the right, the guy in the middle, two opposite ends of the IQ bell curve. And the guy on the left and the guy on the right often come to the same simple conclusion. The guy on the left can't overthink things, so he-

    17. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    18. GM

      ... just goes for the simple answer. The guy on the right is so intelligent that he's a- he's demystified everything and come back to the simple shit. And the guy in the middle is the one who's managed to over-complicate things and overthink things. So like, one meme that I made is, guy on the left makes something people want, guy on the right makes something people want when it comes to business. Then in the center, it's, "I'm gonna do this five-year consultancy program, and then I'm gonna watch all these TED Talks, and then once I've done these surveys, da da da, I'm ultimately gonna find the thing." So the guy in the midwit trap would never even get moving with the, any agency towards breaking you out of a third world jail-

    19. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    20. GM

      ... because he's constantly overthinking and trying to intellectualize things too much.

    21. CW

      Yeah. Uh, I think specificity as well is something else that me and you talk about a lot, avoiding vagueness.

    22. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    23. CW

      And, um, it's necessary but not sufficient to be in, to become high agency or to avoid low agency is to have intentionality-

    24. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    25. CW

      ... right? To choose what it is that you're going to do. If, if high agency is winning at the game, intentionality is choosing which game you're going to play.

    26. GM

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I, when I was thinking about high agency originally, I had four things that underpin it. So if you imagine high agency is like this table here-

    27. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    28. GM

      ... and then you have the, the four legs. The four things that I think underpin it are clear thinking, resourcefulness, bias to action, and disagreeability. So, if you even go back to the Wright brothers story there, the amount of clear thinking that they needed to do throughout of, "Oh, okay. Oh, the aerodynamics, let's actually take these to first principles and test it." Um, the amount of resourcefulness, of ... And I probably think resourcefulness, interesting to get your opinion on this, it's like creativity and persistence combined-

    29. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    30. GM

      ... like the ability to create new novel creative solutions. Um, bias to action is just like moving, moving, moving Napoleon style. And disagreeability is the guy earlier when Derren Brown rings the bell who sits there and goes, "Well, maybe there is ... Maybe I don't have to follow everybody else." And perfect example being the Wright brothers, rather than just carrying on their bike shop and trying to build that into enterprise, disagreed with the whole consensus-

  8. 56:10 – 1:06:09

    What Are Rumination Traps?

    1. GM

    2. CW

      You're fully fucked. Uh, what are some of the other low agency traps?

    3. GM

      Um, another one kind of related to what you mentioned there is the, uh, is the rumination trap. So, "Hey, any updates on breaking me out of this jail? Sorry for the slow reply."

    4. CW

      (laughs)

    5. GM

      "I've been thinking about it. I know I've spent the last year thinking about it. I think I just need more time to think. I'm trying to think about my overthinking problem. If I can solve that, I think I can start." So, the rumination trap is when I began to learn a lot more from doing cognitive behavioral therapy, and it's just this endless loop. I mean, we were chatting about this the other day, of if you could analyze the 50 to 60,000 thoughts per day and really see them. The problem with the human brain is you have these 50 to 60,000 thoughts, but because they're constantly in short-term memory, you don't fully... If you could see the graph-

    6. CW

      You'd love a dashboard.

    7. GM

      Yeah. If you could see the dash, but you go, "Fu- I've thought about, I've worried about that conversation with somebody 20% of the week-"

    8. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    9. GM

      "... for the last three years."

    10. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    11. GM

      And it's just ruminating around, but when it's there fresh in consciousness, it, you don't f- you don't see the dashboard. You don't see that. So you're just ruminating

    12. CW

      Well, there's two things going on there. There's the fact that you're in a new place, a new time of life, and you can always have an old thought in a slightly new way, gives it a sense of novelty. So, you kind of are kidded into believing that it's something new, and the other part is that we're creatures of habit, and old thoughts, even ones that are quite uncomfortable, are familiar to us. And that familiarity gives us a sense of comfort, and that comfort gives us a sense of sort of habituation. You know, you might not... Obviously not with this show, because it's fantastic, but-

    13. GM

      (laughs)

    14. CW

      ... many people will watch or listen to YouTube channels that they kind of don't really enjoy anymore, but they just know where they're gonna go.

    15. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    16. CW

      It's very predictive. It's like putting on an old comfortable leather pair of shoes, like, "Ah, slide my feet into these. I know what his opinion's gonna be. This is sweet."

    17. GM

      And the algorithm just keeps you in this-

    18. CW

      Of course.

    19. GM

      ... in this static loop.

    20. CW

      Of co- of course it does. So yeah, r- rumination trap. So, the rumination trap I'm gonna guess is, uh, diametrically opposed to bias for action.

    21. GM

      Yes.

    22. CW

      But i- i- the, it's the opposite of that.

    23. GM

      Yeah. So a p- a personal, a rumination story that I had was... And the problem with rumination is you try and forecast into the future constantly. That's the big thing from cognitive behavioral therapy is y- you're, they call it the crystal ball, or you're trying to forecast in the future ahead. And unless you can get a perfect outcome, you just kick the can down the road, and then ultimately you end up with not much road left and just a lot of cans.

    24. CW

      Yes.

    25. GM

      So, one that came to mind for me... So when I, when I was thinking about clear thinking, there's the three big decisions, right? There's where you live, who you're with, and what you're doing. And one thing I struggled with for ages was, "I'm in this location right now, maybe I could go to this other location." And what would happen in my head is I would have option A of me staying in current location, or option B, going to new location. And when I would think of option A, it would go nightmare mode, so everything that could possibly go wrong would go wrong-

    26. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    27. GM

      ... and the other option has worked out perfectly.

    28. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    29. GM

      And then I'd flip to the other option, and the reverse was true. When I, um, had left and gone to that location, everything's gone wrong and I've now missed out on everything. And as a result, it's this doom loop that then begins to occur, and the more you kick the can down the road, the more you ruminate-

    30. CW

      Yeah.

  9. 1:06:09 – 1:14:12

    The Impact Of Specificity

    1. GM

    2. CW

      What about some more traps?

    3. GM

      Some more traps. So the... We mentioned specificity there, so this is the, uh, the vague trap. So, "Hey, any updates on breaking me out of this jail?" "Yes, I've been working around the clock." "Amazing. Any specific updates?" "I don't have any timelines yet, or deadlines, or action items, but I'm working on it." And yeah, the vague trap is, I think, such an easy one to fall into because you're just trying to avoid falsifiable criteria. The biggest takeaway I took from, um, Musk's biography was it's just, it's just like endless anecdote of, um, we're gonna do this by X day at this time, and then there's a timer around the office to the second counting down to that specific thing, and then the gas, the, um, you know, the metaphor around if you have a container, the gas will just expand-

    4. CW

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    5. GM

      ... or decrease based off the size of the container constantly seems to happen.

    6. CW

      It's just got Parkinson's law written all over the...

    7. GM

      Yeah.

    8. CW

      ... the factory?

    9. GM

      W- there's a great line of, um, "General ambition gives you," um, "General ambition gives you anxiety. Specific ambition give you direction." And e- but I mean, specificity everywhere, um, is so important. Even, even in writing, the, or talking. The more specific that you are, the, the more impactful it, the more impactful it can be. And I actually find, the reason why specificity, we avoid it, people in the vague trap, um, or at least myself, the reason why we avoid it is because there's a failure point.

    10. CW

      There's no criteria for success, there's no criteria for failure.

    11. GM

      Yeah. And if you can just live in that generality, um, it's, it's impossible to ever have agency, I think.

    12. CW

      So, when I played cricket, uh, when I was getting towards 17, 18, I was on the Box to Durham, which is a top flight club team in the UK, would be equivalent to whatever Manchester United Academy or something like that. And I remember that on a Monday, uh, the coach would call and he'd ask how I got on. He might have checked the papers, he might not have done, 'cause my, uh, performance would have been in the papers in terms of numbers. But he would ring me and he'd ask how I got on. And I remember, the weeks where I was really low confidence, which would happen quite a lot, uh, the specific style of cricket that I played was, uh, kind of like a special match circumstance. So, the conditions needed to be very right. It was leg spin, which is like a complex type of bowling. And, um, if the game wasn't at the right format, if it was too short, you didn't tend to get bowled. If the, uh, pitch was too wet, if the ground wasn't gripping, if wickets were tumbling or weren't tumbling sufficiently quickly, there were... uh, you were very far down the list. You were very powerful, but only to be used in specific... break glass in case of specific circumstance. And, um, there's something on cricket called a TFC, thanks for coming, and it's when you don't bat, you don't bowl, and all you do is field.

    13. GM

      (laughs)

    14. CW

      TFC, thanks for coming. 'Cause that's what your captain would say to you at the end, "Thanks for coming, mate," as opposed to, "Well played," or, "We can do better next time." And, um, I remember, I would get these calls, and on the weeks when I wasn't confident, uh, a lot of the time I'd just have a TFC, and he would say, "How'd you get on over the weekend, mate?" And I was like, "Ah, dude, you know what it is? Like, I wish that I could have... I really wanted the opportunity." Secretly, I didn't. A lot of the time, I didn't want the opportunity to have done it, because by setting the potential for success, by having the opportunity for success, there would have then been a criteria for failure. So, a lot of it was fear of failure.

    15. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    16. CW

      And that was something that largely now I've managed to get o-... I mean, once you've done a live show in front of three and a half thousand people, the potential for failure is, you know, you've looked it in the face.

    17. GM

      Yeah.

    18. CW

      Uh, but I think I'm a good avatar for someone I think whose disposition would have been low confidence, low self-esteem as a kid. And now, largely that's, that's not the same sort of problem that I have anymore.

    19. GM

      Mm. And you think a large amount of that is down to specificity, or being less vague?

    20. CW

      Certainly being less vague, but, uh, largely it's just crushing volumes of testing yourself in the real world.

    21. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    22. CW

      Uh, because again, you can make it until you fake it. If you just keep on doing things and stuff goes well, there's only so long that imposter syndrome or low confidence or low self-esteem or a lack of self-belief or whatever can exist before it just gets Neutron Star-ed out of existence. And you're like, "I have this fucking super dense body of work." Uh, that self-belief is overrated, generate evidence, that Ryan Holiday quote. And, um, you just generate so much evidence that it sucks the living shit out of whatever it is that you were worried about. But, uh, talking about the vague trap, I was in the gym in-

    23. GM

      Yeah (laughs) .

    24. CW

      ... uh, London, I told you this story (laughs) , I was in a gym in London last week, the day of the show, and, um, it's the Kensington, the gym, unmanned, like, it, it's a, it's a cellar. It's a cellar that has a gym in it that's open 24 hours and there's no staff at all looking after it. Me and Z go in and a couple of people ask for photos, which is really nice. Uh, and one of the kids ask for photos, young guy, maybe 21, 22, something like this, and he comes up, take the, take the selfie or whatever. Uh, and then as I'm leaving, I'm on my way out, and he comes up and he's got a qu-... I think he was recording, maybe he had a mic in his hand or something, and he was recording it. And, uh, he said, eh, broke, slightly bro- broken English, "Hey," um, "I, I, I know that you're gonna be busy, but I just wanted to ask you a question. I want you to ask..." Uh, "You know, I, I really want to become, uh, rich, uh, and I'm 22 at the moment, I'm working in a full-time job, but I really want to have more self-discipline and I want to make more money. Can you teach me how to have more self-discipline and make more money?"

    25. GM

      (laughs)

    26. CW

      I remember thinking, as Zach stood there and Max Videographer stood there, and there's this kid, and I'm thinking, "Well, you know, he's asked..." This is obviously something that's important to him. He's come up and he a- asked this person and he's said that he appreciates that I've, you know, I've got, I've got places to be and such, so I don't want to just give a flippant answer. But I remember thinking, like, "That's a shit question."

    27. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    28. CW

      "That's a really bad..." Like, "Can you teach me how to have more self-control and make money?" Language barrier, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, I, I think I told you this and your response would have been...

    29. GM

      The, the question, look, I mean, the question's shit. Like, it's fundamentally shit.

    30. CW

      You would have said the first, the first thing I would do is ask a better question.

  10. 1:14:12 – 1:18:03

    Dangers Of Cynicism

    1. GM

    2. CW

      What other traps? Is there anything else?

    3. GM

      Let me see. Um, yeah, we have the, um, the final one, which is the- the cynic trap.

    4. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    5. GM

      So, "Hey, any updates on breaking me out of this jail?" Question mark. Um, "I posted my idea on Reddit for feedback. This user called TwatMonkey72 broke down why it was a dumb idea, and then I spoke to my cynical British friends, and they said people like us don't do big things. I don't think there's any hope, sorry." And just the reply is, "You've literally not attempted anything yet." I think the- the cynicism thing is def- that's one of the reasons I mentioned the British thing in there, it's definitely a- a close, uh, uh, one that's close to heart-

    6. CW

      Mm.

    7. GM

      ... just experiencing the, uh, difference between Britain and America that we've spoken about countless times.

    8. CW

      Yeah, it's, there's also a degree, I suppose, of, uh, lack of specificity. It's, uh, there's a vagueness to it as well that if you don't try-

    9. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    10. CW

      ... you don't have to fear the pain of failure.

    11. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    12. CW

      Right? If I tell myself that all women are shit, then I'm never gonna seek a relationship with a woman, and as a consequence, I never have to feel the pain of rejection. If I tell myself that things are ne- never going to get better, then I'm excused of ever having to try, right? Uh, the cope is framing hope as delusion and optimism as embarrassing. And if you know that things are bad and that they're never going to get better, then it's the people acting like things can improve that are dumb and delusional on the problem.

    13. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    14. CW

      Yeah, the- the- the upside of never trying is never having to feel the pain of failure.

    15. GM

      The upside of never trying is never having to feel the pain of failure (laughs) . Yeah, I th- I think that's par- that's partially true, but I think if you then, if you zoom out, so that's at the individual level, I think that's true, but if you zoom out, the kind of arrogance to be cynical when you look at just from the wheel to the horse and carriage, to the car, to the airplane, to the rocket. I think I tried to create a word for it once, you're gonna hate this 'cause it's terrible branding, but, um, like this Alzheimer's of the zeitgeist, like I call it zeit- zeitzel- it's fucking awful, I know. And it's, i- it shouldn't be on the podcast, but, um, we just have this weird cynicism around n- basically all the crazy ideas that have occurred, we now just completely take for granted. And then when we look at agency in the future, um, well, that's just absurd. So we're in this weird middle zone of never appreciating the, just the riper of it, you know, like back, like back-to-back...

Episode duration: 1:56:19

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