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Bad Values Are Ruining Your Happiness. Here's How to Choose Better Ones — Transcript

by Mark Manson · 46,551 words · 2,543 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00this is a very serious podcast Drew I can I can tell already Yes How can you tell well the jacket
0:06you're wearing I figured a blazer today I figured somebody needs to take this seriously around here
0:14Okay So uh it's you know we're doing values today It's a very deep philosophical topic
0:22It's a new podcast You know somebody's got to be a professional in the building
0:27I know you just woke up like 20 minutes ago I did Uh you know ran a a comb through
0:34your hair second You didn't even do that Uh you just a barbarian
0:40over here Well I'm glad you're keeping it classy for us You're welcome Yeah
0:54the inaugural episode of the Solve podcast My god we've been working on this thing for so
1:00freaking Seems like a very long time at this point while still doing the other podcast I
1:05know I know It's almost like six months of prep for this It's here It's here It is here No I'm
1:12excited for this episode It's in many ways this subject this podcast that we're about to record
1:19uh is feels long overdue Like I I don't think maybe not everybody realizes but you know the
1:26thing that I'm best known for is the book The Subtle Art and Not Giving a [ __ ] And that book
1:32did spectacularly well It was a huge bestseller all over the world And I think obviously you know
1:37people will flippantly kind of make comments of like oh it's because of the title It's because
1:41of the F-word First of all that's not why it did so well because many of the translations did not
1:46have the f- word in the title But I really think the reason that book resonated so much is because
1:52it was a little bit of a Trojan horse for the subject of values which is like essentially when
1:56you ask yourself what is worth giving a [ __ ] about what is worth caring about what is worth
2:02worrying and stressing and staying up late at night being anxious about that's essentially a
2:07question of what's worth valuing like what am I going to make important in my life and what am I
2:13going to prioritize and I really do think in this day and age in the 21st century that question is
2:18harder to answer than ever There's kind of like a a sick psychological side effect of living in such
2:24an abundant world and that when you have all these opportunities when you have all these options when
2:29you have all this information in front of you it becomes that much more difficult to distinguish
2:34what is worth pursuing and what's not what is worth listening to and what's not what's worth
2:40caring about and what's not and that book kind of started to tackle that question I think it at
2:48least identified the problem correctly and maybe pointed people in the right direction of like what
2:54they should be thinking about but in many ways it it never dove deep into the topic and it never
3:00got super prescriptive on the topic And I think those are two things that we're going to do today
3:06Um our goal with this is to be exhaustive on the subject That's kind of the whole basis of this
3:12podcast is the whole point of Solved is to give you everything you possibly need on each episode's
3:19topic so that you will never have to listen to another podcast about that topic ever again So we
3:25are going to go super deep We're going to get very philosophical We're going to go through probably
3:30half a dozen different psychological frameworks I also think that values is is a little bit tricky
3:36I I almost feel like we're starting on hard mode because it's such a slippery and abstract concept
3:43Like everybody kind of intuitively knows what it is but when you actually really start to try
3:48to define it it gets super broad and and abstract very quickly But all that said I think this is in
3:57many ways arguably the most important topic that we might cover on this podcast at least for a long
4:03time And the reason for that is that ultimately when you do look at psychological outcomes
4:10psychological well-being life satisfaction metrics like that living in accordance to one's values is
4:19arguably the most important thing you can possibly do It is the driver of so many positive outcomes
4:27in your life It orients you towards so many good things that can potentially happen I mean just
4:35within the body of research that we went through in preparation for this episode Um we found
4:40data showing that it lowers stress brings more peace and clarity into your life It creates more
4:46emotional resilience and stability Uh it makes people feel that their lives are more meaningful
4:52They experience more day-to-day happiness not just hedonic pleasure but like an actual long-term life
4:58satisfaction It helps with decision- making It helps with prioritization Uh it generates
5:05healthier more honest long-term relationships with more stability and less drama Uh and it also
5:12generates more motivation and drive in people Values it is not just a nice fun fluffy idea
5:20It is it is in many ways the cornerstone of modern day mental health and uh uh and well-being and um
5:28and honestly they're just drastically underd discussed It's it's funny because when you you
5:33know if you I don't know if you get on uh uh Tik Tok or if you watch cable news or if you listen
5:40to other podcasts like current events podcasts like with political topics or whatever you read
5:44read the news the headlines values are imbued in every single thing you're reading and listening to
5:50yet they are never discussed and in many cases I think a lot of what passes as like social issues
5:58or controversies or cultural problems s are really just two groups of people with diametrically
6:04opposed values who are arguing past each other They are both correct locally within their group
6:10of people of similar values but globally because they're misaligned with other groups of people
6:15they are basically arguing in in an empty vacuum you know just a little bit of an echo chamber
6:21So that's everything we have in store Is there anything you want to add before we dive into this
6:26well right alongside that what you just mentioned I think um you know there is the problem of
6:30there's so many options and so many things out there to give a [ __ ] about right to value um
6:35right now that we have a hard time with it There's also I think since the book came out this has
6:39gotten worse as well What you were just talking about was there's a lot of people trying to tell
6:44you what you should value Yes Um and it's kind of like the water that we all live in that we don't
6:50notice right we're like fish in water a little bit and there's values swimming all around us and we
6:53don't notice them to your point that you just made a lot of the whatever it is political discussions
6:58or big headlines controversies of the day are about values and we're not explicitly saying
7:03that and so I think just raising that awareness there and and realizing that there are just a
7:07lot of people now and everybody's got a platform to try to you know push their values onto you and
7:11being aware of that I think is going to be really important going through all of this I definitely
7:16want to come back to that because I think there is a much broader conversation to have around that
7:20around religion culture institutions whatnot We'll definitely get into that Yeah I agree
7:26It's It is I think that's part of the problem of confusion is what I'm talking about Absolutely And
7:31yeah I I agree with you Not only is it the water that we swim in but it it is like so much of the
7:36content that we consume is subtly pushing their values onto us without us necessarily explicitly
7:43realizing and and then we wonder why we're confused about our own values Yeah Yeah Yeah
7:46Totally Okay So th this is a long episode and I just want to lay out a little bit of a road map
7:52for the listener so that they'll be oriented uh as they go through the episode Now the first half of
7:58the episode we're going to talk about the theory behind values We're going to talk about what they
8:02are how we adopt our values in our lives where our values came from how they affect our relationships
8:09how they affect our decision-making how they affect our our happiness and our well-being And
8:13then in the back half of the episode we're going to get into all of the takeaways and prescriptive
8:18advice for the listener So we'll start out with some exercises on how to determine what your core
8:24values are We're going to talk about how to decide whether your values are harming you or helping you
8:28From there we'll talk about how to actually go about changing a value in your life There are a
8:32few different methods and they're probably not what you would expect And finally we're going
8:36to finish on this idea of practical wisdom or the idea of balancing your values throughout your life
8:42to maintain the most stable form of well-being that you can We'll finish the episode with
8:48our personal lessons and takeaways and of course we'll point the listeners to resources where they
8:55can learn more Just a reminder for the audience that uh there is a full PDF guide of this episode
9:01Uh if you go to solvedpodcast.comvalues you can download it All of the main points and principles
9:08are present in that summary uh as well as some of the the stories and anecdotes If you are concerned
9:14with like the fundamental points you want to review them later or as we go through the episode
9:19or if you want to look up all the citations check our work look at the research yourself look up the
9:24papers yourself they're all there as well So go to solvepodcast.com/values and on with the
9:32episode All right let's uh let's let's get into the nitty-gritty a little bit of like
9:40what is a value how do we define these things what do they look like how are they different
9:45yeah let's make it concrete Yeah How how is it different from like a need or a preference or
9:50u something you like you know what exactly is a value so modern value theory within psychology is
9:57primarily kind of the godfather of it is a Israeli researcher named Scholom Schwarz and he's written
10:03a few books on values He's written tons of papers He's the originator of pretty much all the major
10:09value surveys that are used in the field today And he defined it as quote beliefs about trans
10:15situational goals varying in importance that serve as guiding principles in the life of a
10:20person or a group That's a mouthful Sounds like a psychologist definition Yeah exactly Break
10:26that down for us Okay So there are really six key characteristics of a value that I think separate
10:33it from maybe other things that you might think or feel throughout your life So the first one is that
10:37they're linked with emotion Values are inherently very emotional things because by definition they
10:44are the things that you consider them to be the most important in your life If you think about
10:49I don't know protesters right protesters are never really chill Like they're there's a lot
10:54of emotion going on at a protest Or if you think about somebody who who has wronged you in some way
10:59like obviously your your emotional reaction is an intense amount of anger That's because a value of
11:04yours has just been violated by somebody So that's first one linked with strong emotion Second one is
11:09that they motivate action Generally they are not only the thing that define what you want to pursue
11:15in your life but they also drive the energy behind that pursuit as well So if you value uh status and
11:24a claim not only will it help decide what the goals are that you want to pursue in your life
11:30are but it will help get you up in the morning get you excited about the opportunities and the
11:36potential that you can experience The third one is is that they apply across context So Schwarz
11:41actually has a great term that I really like Uh he calls them trans situational Uh which means
11:47that basically they maintain their importance and relevance across contexts So if you value honesty
11:54it means you value honesty at work you value honesty in your relationships you value honesty
11:58with your friendships you value honesty with your family There's no situation where you're like "Oh
12:03well no I don't really care about honesty here." Like if it's a value it's a value No matter where
12:07you are what you're doing who you're with The fourth characteristic of of your values is that
12:12they are often the standards by which you make moral judgments So it's not just that we become
12:19emotional about our values We tend to use them as like the yard stick that we measure other people
12:26and we measure ourselves Right so if if I have a very strong value for say personal freedom uh I
12:34will judge I will measure myself by that value I will measure myself I if I have a lot of freedom
12:41in my life I will feel good about myself If I have no freedom in my life I will feel bad about myself
12:45And similarly I'll look at you and I'll say "Man Drew has all this fre freedom in his life That
12:50guy's killing it." Or I'll say "Man Drew has no freedom going He can't do anything What a loser."
12:56Right it becomes the the yard stick by which we measure progress self-worth worth of others etc
13:03etc So fifth characteristic they tend to be ranked We all have value hierarchies going on in our
13:09heads and in many ways it kind of defines who we are as a person and what we care about and why we
13:15make the decisions we make And then finally number six they involve trade-offs To care deeply about
13:20one thing you have to by definition not care about other things or devalue say the contradiction of
13:26the thing that you care about So if I care deeply about personal freedom then I'm probably going to
13:32care less about things like stability consistency routine um maybe commitments because all of those
13:40things are constraints on personal freedom in certain contexts And so if personal freedom is my
13:45highest value then I'm probably going to devalue those other things They're going to be lower on
13:50my value hierarchy Basically values answer the question what matters what is worth pursuing and
13:58what kind of person do I want to become these are really fundamental questions right really
14:05really fundamental I mean we're we're like beyond the bounds of personal development At this point
14:10we're like into philosophy Uh like what is my life here for what makes you you yeah Exactly
14:18like why are how are we separate people and what what is what is the distinction that separates us
14:25a couple important clarifications just just for clarity as we go forward There is such a thing as
14:31psychological need Um needs are different though from values in that they are a universal right
14:39like we all have the same psychological needs in different proportions Um and then secondly
14:46they are survival based right so a need for food is like the most obvious example Like
14:52if I don't get food I'm gonna die Everybody needs food Certain people like other certain
14:57foods more than others but like ultimately food is a need and there's like no negotiation about
15:02that There's no argument about it There's no like it doesn't shift over time And it's the same with
15:07psychological needs And so there are a handful of psychological needs There are a few different
15:12models and frameworks but like a super common one is just like social connection right everybody
15:16needs social connection Um everybody needs to feel a sense of belonging Uh that's non-negotiable
15:24What changes is like the strategy in which we go about fulfilling that psychological need
15:29And this is kind of an insight that I had and it's also it is part of the basis of of where Schwarz
15:36developed his framework is that values are in a sense strategies to meet our needs Some people
15:42meet their need for connection and and belonging through benevolence through helping others charity
15:49giving being generous showing up when they when people need you other people fulfill their need
15:54for belonging through you know group affiliation status markers um loyalty and hard work being
16:00part of the tribe whatever So it's like different values are different approaches to satisfying the
16:06same itches that we all have going on inside of our brains The difference is that psychological
16:12needs are permanent over time but values shift and change throughout our lives So chances are you
16:19have different values than you did when you were 20 And when you were 20 you had different values
16:23than you did when you were eight years old Very much so Yeah Values can change because of things
16:28that happen to us right life circumstances change Maybe there's a trauma or tragedy that happens
16:33We're going to talk about that a little bit later But we can also proactively shift and change
16:38our values as well through our behavior and the things that we focus on reflections that we have
16:43about ourselves and whatnot Yeah Finally there's kind of a pedantic difference between values and
16:49and preferences Preferences are essentially uh non-impactful tastes uh between things that you
16:58don't have a strong emotional attachment to uh that don't reflect on your identity that don't
17:04particularly motivate you in any significant way Like you know we can go to a restaurant and
17:11my preference is for steak over chicken That's not a value Like I'm not getting out of bed in
17:16the morning thinking about the steak I'm going to have tonight right it's it's just like it's
17:22choosing between apples and oranges It it doesn't really matter And so there are plenty of things
17:27that are are preferencebased Um preferences are are only exist within specific context Values
17:35exist crossontext and then needs are permanent and universal So that's the differentiation
17:42between those three Yeah I think um going back to the characteristics that that you outlined
17:47from Schwarz too uh I think I I hope people are starting to already get a sense of you know the
17:53first one on there was they're linked to emotions right it's an emotional thing that people have So
17:58you can't really try to change somebody's values especially based on like reason or rationale Yeah
18:04And not only that but there's so many different emotions that people can experience at any given
18:09time that people are going to be pulled in all sorts of different directions And hopefully you
18:13can just kind of step back a little bit and be like "Oh they're operating through their values
18:17at an emotional level." And it's not something like it I don't for me anyway that kind of takes
18:21away some of the judgment of these values Um when you're looking at other people maybe somebody is
18:26obsessed with success right and making money or or having all these outward uh markers of
18:33success So but the underlying emotion for that is that belonging right is that they they they have
18:39a deep value of belonging to a group or belonging to um other people that they respect And so that
18:46kind of takes a little bit of the judgment and the edge off of it for me Anyway I I agree with
18:50that I I've got marked somewhere in my notes for this episode uh to talk about empathy Yeah Um h
18:56how understanding these frameworks can increase empathy because you understand where people are
19:02coming from Even if they have a diametrically opposed value to you you can understand that
19:06like that is a life strategy that they developed to fulfill their needs and particularly based on
19:12the the culture and the environment that that they grew up in I do think it is helpful to view things
19:17that way I also think the the point you made about emotion is super important and probably
19:23important for the listener to think about too as we go through this episode Values inherently
19:27stoke emotion So that means not only does it stoke emotion when you are out there living out
19:32your values but it also means it's going to stoke emotion if something causes you to question your
19:37values So there might be a moment in this episode where you and I are talking about something and
19:41it causes the listener to question something that they value And as soon as that happens
19:47there's going to be a discomfort There might be a sadness There might be an anger There might be an
19:52anger towards us Yeah Uh it it is it's not an easy subject to wade through Like this isn't we're not
19:59talking about like time boxing your calendar here Like this is very this is as core to who
20:06you are as a person uh as you can really get psychologically speaking And so it's it's very
20:12I can't overstate like how sensitive some of these topics can be Not in the sense of like oh we might
20:19say something offensive but just like questioning one of your own values is one of the most deeply
20:25uncomfortable and and unsettling things that you can do I mean it that is essentially like
20:30what the work of the the best therapy and the best interventions is trying to do It's trying to get
20:37you to look at something that you care about and get you to question whether you should continue
20:41car caring about it or not Mhm And we'll talk about this more later but like all of my therapist
20:46friends say that one of the most common issues that that occurs when somebody comes in is there's
20:51a conflict between two values going We'll get more into that later but just to to to flag that for
20:56now Oh yeah there will be plenty of value conflict The other the other point you made um though in
21:01this section was about how values are a way to get our needs met M um and so maybe to just make
21:08that a little bit more concrete I think I have an example of this where um in my life anyway you
21:13know we all have you already mentioned this we all have a need for belonging um and for connection
21:18social connection with other people And I think I definitely you know I knew that early on I had
21:22this very strong need for belonging Everybody does I think to some extent but the way we go
21:26about getting that need met is very different That over the years translated into a value for
21:32me of of like friendships and and connection You know we've talked before a lot about like how I do
21:37value friendship and you're a much better friend than I am right we we've got to ask you how do
21:42you get your need for belonging met more is it is it by um making YouTube videos and podcasts
21:48and writing books and no I honestly believe that psychological needs are kind of like I was just
21:56going to say macros but that's a horrible analogy That's actually doesn't make any sense at all
22:04I see the thread there I see the thread Yeah The the idea is I think like everybody's born
22:08with a different amount that they need and and I definitely and whether it's it's genetics or
22:15just you know growing up feeling very isolated in childhood like I I I have a very low need
22:22for connection I do need it but like I I have noticed throughout my life that I am perfectly
22:28fine spending a lot more time alone than most people But there are other things that like I
22:34have a very high need for I have a very high need for novelty and and stimulation It's like constant
22:40experience Yeah Yeah I think everybody's like that Everybody and some people have a very high
22:43need for security and stability Some people have a very high need for um you know status and growth
22:51and development developing skill sets It it it's like everybody's a little bit different Yeah Yeah
22:57Yeah Is that Are you satisfied i see Yeah That's planting some seeds I think Planting some seeds
23:03Okay you're you're going to come back at me here in like 20 minutes I can tell Okay so we're gonna
23:08go through you know again because values it's such a abstract topic Um we're going to go through
23:15like four or five frameworks here um to help people like really get a handle on this And um
23:22hopefully by the time we get through all of them the listener is going to have like a really clear
23:26idea of kind of like okay I I can see myself in each of those I now I understand like why I care
23:32about these things and I don't care about those things or now I understand why I'm having this
23:35issue in my life So the first one I want to talk about it comes from Schwarz himself comes from the
23:40man himself So to give a little bit of background this so the first thing we're going to cover is
23:44Schwarz's values wheel and this is the result of dozens and dozens of massive cross-cultural
23:49surveys across more than 70 different countries And so this was unlike many things in psychology
23:54This is this has been replicated across many many cultures Um and it has been found it has
24:00indeed been found to be quite universal Um and essentially Schwarz narrowed the core human
24:07values down to 10 of them And these are universal So it's important to know that we all have all of
24:13these What changes is the proportion And he mapped these out in a wheel And we'll talk about why he
24:19put them in a wheel in a second So the first two are he called them the self-enhancement values
24:25First one is achievement which is self-explanatory Second one is power Then there's the conservation
24:29values He has tradition security and conformity And then there's the self-trcendence values One is
24:36universalism which is basically kind of feeling at one with everybody around you And then the
24:42second one is benevolence which you could think of as charity being helpful altruism things like
24:47that Then he has the openness to change values which is stimulation and self-direction You could
24:52think of self-direction as personal freedom or autonomy And then finally the 10th is of course
24:59hedenism which is I think it's interesting that I guess at some point he probably recognized he's
25:04like well yeah clearly people value pleasure right otherwise they wouldn't be sacrificing all these
25:09other things for it so you have to throw that in there right it's a category of its own but
25:13yeah exactly he placed these 10 values in a wheel because what he noticed is that certain groups of
25:20values are have an inherent internal tension with each other So for example the openness to
25:26change values of stimulation and self-direction have an inherent tension with the conservation
25:32values tradition security conformity And if you think about it think about think about a person in
25:37your life who most embodies somebody who's open to change and values stimulation and personal freedom
25:44You're probably imagining some hippie- dippy person who's like always traveling around and
25:49going to festivals and partying and you know just living life going with the flow with everything
25:55What is the complete and utter opposite of that it's somebody who's like super uptight
26:00very traditional demands conformity security all the time Uh and so like basically it's no matter
26:07where you are on the the values wheel there's something across from you that is there's an
26:12inherent tension with that right self-trcendence the craving to to identify with the group around
26:18you to help others to be supportive of others to give yourself up for others is diametrically
26:24opposed to the values of self-enhancement which is the achievement of status growth of power
26:31um the dominance o over yourself and others So all of these values exist within us And if you're
26:37watching on YouTube we're going to have the values wheel up on screen while I'm talking about it
26:42Um if you're listening you can we've got the values wheel It's in the PDF guide if you go
26:47to solvepodcast.com/values You can get it there Um not only do values across from each other on the
26:55wheel uh are at odds with each other but values that are next to each other they harmonize well
27:00with one another So you know universalism and benevolence will harmonize with one another The
27:07um self-direction harmonizes with hedonism stimulation same thing So everybody gets gets
27:13the idea Now I think the brilliant insight here is that Schwarz identified two inherent
27:17tensions that are always at play within each of us all the time So the first one is openness to
27:24change versus conservation The second one is self-enhancement versus self-trcendence Pop
27:30quiz Can you think of any framework that reflects these same two dimensions i mean it sounds very
27:39political to me So is there a political science framework or something that does this or Good
27:44guess Drew Bernie Okay So so a lot of people online have probably seen a thing called the
27:48political compass and there's two so there's the x-axis which is like left and right or it's really
27:54it's like group oriented versus individual oriented and then there's the y-axis which
27:59is libertarian versus authoritarian So it's it's like rigid controls and um uh personal liberty
28:05and freedom So chances are if you've been on the internet since the 2000s like old people like us
28:12uh you've taken a quiz at some point that's mapped you to this political compass And interestingly
28:18this I couldn't find any any information that like explicitly said that this political compass
28:22was based on Schwarz's research But I do find it absolutely fascinating that the two dimensions
28:27by which we measure people's political beliefs are also the same two spectrums that Schwarz found for
28:34people's fundamental values We're going to come back to this again as well This is not the first
28:39time we've heard of these two dimensions Right so I think it's it's hugely important to understand
28:43these inherent tensions in our values because for one it just normalizes internal conflict I can't
28:49tell you how many times I've gotten emails from readers and listeners over the years who they'll
28:54kind of go through like some problem in their life and really when you boil it down it's just
29:00that like they care about a thing caring about it is hard and it it's stressful and they feel
29:07really anxious and maybe upset over something like the price of caring about that thing and
29:12then they email me like asking how they can make the the struggle or the sacrifice go away I just
29:17think that like the thing that gets lost so often is that to care about anything deeply
29:24you are going to experience proportional internal conflict to caring about that thing right like
29:30the more you sacrifice for anything in your life the more difficult it's going to make other areas
29:36of your life Like because the more you're going to have to give up and the more you're going to
29:39have to compromise and the more you're going to have to let go of opportunities I think this the
29:43other reason this is super important is is that it it it helps us navigate difficult choices in
29:49our lives right like it it can clarify what the pros and cons of choosing a certain path might be
29:56if you've got a difficult decision in front of you and two different choices that both look
30:01good If you kind of think about like what are the values being represented by each of those choices
30:06um and which of those two values are you willing to compromise on or give up and which ones are you
30:10not can help you make that decision So if you're somebody who who is upset over a lost opportunity
30:16or something that happened in your past that you know you wish you could go back and change or you
30:20sometimes wonder about um understanding your values can help you look at that situation and
30:26and really come to terms with with being okay with that loss being okay with what you gave
30:31up because it was ultimately for something you cared about Now the second framework I want to
30:37bring up and we'll we we'll spend a little bit less time on this one comes from a researcher
30:42in the 70s named Milton Roichi Uh and he had this idea that I really like uh it's called
30:49instrumental values and terminal values Terminal values are the actual values that you are pursuing
30:56ultimately like it's the the it's terminal because it's the last value It's the last thing There's no
31:01there's nothing past it It's you're not using it to get something else You value it because you
31:05value it Exact That's it Is just inherent and unconditional Instrumental values on the other
31:11hand you value because they actually lead you towards a terminal value I think this is a really
31:16useful distinction and I imagine this is going to come up a lot in our discussions Um simply because
31:21I think a lot of people don't have clarity around that like they think an instrumental value is is
31:28the real value whereas they don't realize what the terminal value is that it's driving towards Yeah
31:33And I think when you confuse those instrumental values for the values themselves obviously like
31:38you're saying that gets you into a lot of trouble too Another I think common one too is people uh
31:43like making money right that's another one like they look around and like okay people are making
31:46money I should make money too Um and then they don't connect it to the terminal value at all
31:52Why are you making that money yeah And so it just seems like then you get a few years into it and
31:56you're like what am I I don't even know what I'm doing here I don't like what I'm doing Why am I
32:00doing this whereas if you have a why behind that you have a terminal value you know whether it's
32:04for your family or whatever almost any job could could be valuable to you right that instrumental
32:08value of that job serving the terminal value of your family or whatever it is actually takes on
32:14a completely different meaning once you connect those two And this framework is the second time
32:17that we kind of run into this idea that there are there's a hierarchy to our values that
32:21that there's this idea of like there are certain values that we're willing to give up or that are
32:26conditional that we're only taking on that we're only caring about because they lead us to some
32:31other deeper more important value So there's some super important values at the top of the
32:36pyramid and there's all these other values near the bottom of the pyramid that we're kind of just
32:42adopting because they get us closer to the ones at the top We're going to return this idea again
32:48and again with different frameworks and different perspectives but just want to seed that again for
32:53the listener because it is super important and uh we are going to come back to it Yeah Yeah I
32:59I just wanted to talk to just real quick go back to Schwarz's wheel right he he has this one pie
33:06in the wheel piece of pie in the wheel uh called benevolence right yes Uh so generally being good
33:12to other people helping out helpfulness that sort of thing That's one of that's a pretty high value
33:17of mine Another one though too is like there is kind of an achievement uh value that I have too
33:24Those are often times intension with one another right and I've seen this I see this play out all
33:29the time in my life because I do I really want to help people and then it always butts up against
33:33the ah but I need to get this other thing done that's going to benefit me as well Then there's
33:37another tension like as long as I'm doing well for myself then I can help more people too So there's
33:42there's kind of a benevolent tension between the two too right this is what people have to navigate
33:48a lot and this is what I think you find out when you get more explicit about your values You you
33:54are there is this hierarchy that starts to form and there's going to be times where you have to
33:57choose one or o over the other I think you made a point too about people would just want this to
34:02be pure I'm always going to um value this value over another one or I'm always going to put the
34:07importance on this value over the other one And that's just not how it works either Yeah Like
34:10there's going to be times you have to trade them off um at in different context different context
34:15different place Like obviously you don't want to be like focused on achievement in your marriage
34:20Like that's going to be a disaster right you want to you really want to bring benevolence
34:24to the forefront in your marriage whereas like you know maybe you don't want to be focused on
34:29benevolence in some other content like if you're at war right so it's it is it's not the values
34:36themselves uh are cross context but like you want to you can lean into them in different
34:42circumstances I'm curious have you taken Schwarz's value survey no I didn't I haven't did you I did
34:48you did you okay I do want to guess what my top three are um yes I do you probably will
34:53nail Hedenism No Um wait Power Power And uh yeah stimulation There we go Those are your top three
35:04I'm No Okay I'm going to guess Let's see Um Oh I'm coming up for a raise pretty soon I think So you
35:13you're very benevolent Mark You're an extremely benevolent person Um I I would say self-direction
35:21like the creativity freedom That's pretty high on yours Definitely autonomy is one of your top
35:25three I would say Yep Um I'm going to also say probably achievement That's got to be in your
35:31top three Yeah Yeah Okay And then the last one I got I'm going between the stimulation and between
35:39universalism Interesting Let me see I'm going to go with I'll go with universalism Neither Neither
35:50Okay What's What's your third one the third one actually is benevolence Oh it is benevolence Okay
35:53Oh okay Yeah Which kind of surprised me I thought stimulation might make it in there because I am
35:57just an ADHD dopamine junkie But but it's funny because I think what the survey caught is that
36:05I don't value the stimulation in my life I have a lot of stimulation in my life but it's like oh
36:12interesting I actually feel ambivalent about it I go through these phases where I like detox and I
36:19meditate and I try to get away from stuff Um so I thought that was interesting that that it came up
36:24that way But yeah I was I was self-direction achievement and benevolence I I I've found
36:29something similar too I mean I didn't go through Schwarzes I didn't go through any of them because
36:32I've been through value surveys before and they're always like they're always different
36:35Everybody kind of has a little bit they'll they'll use Schwarz on basically all of them but all of
36:40them kind of have a different configuration and I've taken them and they don't seem to
36:44But mine were or unless you want to guess I'll just tell you mine cuz I don't want you
36:48to guess Okay Okay What do you think about her uh definitely benevolence Yeah that was is up there
36:55I would say benevolence and achievement are like the two easy ones I would say uh I would go either
37:02universalism or self-direction Self-direction Yeah self-direction Okay Universalism was my fourth one
37:07Yeah Gotcha Yeah that was Yeah we're not hedenist Drew No No Not anymore at least Yeah that's true
37:13That's true I I found something similar though too because I do I like novelty in my life as
37:17well And I don't know if it's just because I'm I'm getting older now or just dep prioritizing
37:22it or whatever it is But yeah it just there I experience a lot of novelty still too Not
37:27as much as you probably or not I don't think I seek it out quite as much as you but um it's just
37:32not a value of mine even though it's in my life a lot And so that really made me think like oh okay
37:37Yeah I I definitely think if 15 10 15 years ago um novelty or stimulation would have absolutely
37:44been one of my top ones because I I I and I very consciously built a life around stimulation around
37:51novel experience and doing new things living new places you know proof that values do evolve and
37:58change Yeah Um and and it's funny because it's like everything else happens downstream of that
38:05value change Just that shift of like stimula like stim stimulation going from being you know
38:10probably my first or second down to fourth fifth or sixth is like a dramatic manifestation in my
38:18life in terms of like what I spend my time doing what my day-to-day life is like who I am friends
38:24with who I spend time with what sort of things I care about it's it's it is pretty remarkable
38:29honestly we can save some of that too for later when we talk about how values change so yeah
38:34Okay cool I'm actually curious before we move on The benevolence is the highest value Where does
38:41that create tension in your life m um everywhere Everywhere All the things all at once What what's
38:50the saying um it it creates tension when I want to help people Um I'm bad at saying no Mhm That's
39:03I think the primary one Yeah There's a tension between the benevolence the helping others and
39:09and I guess kind of taking care of yourself in a way too So whether it is achievement or mastery I
39:14think is another one of mine like environmental mastery is one of my values where I want to be
39:19a competent person We'll get into that one Yeah Yeah So there's there's a lot of tension around
39:24that I guess Does that make sense yeah totally And I mean also just you know working with you
39:29for over 10 years like that tracks Yeah Like you definitely don't say no enough or I want to take I
39:34want to do everything I want to do what's been really hard too like with as the business has
39:38grown and more people have come on and I just have to ignore parts of the business that I I've never
39:43had to do that before with you because we've always done it with a small team and now I'm
39:47just like I don't know what's going on over there and it's driving me nuts Yeah that's funny Yeah I
39:51definitely feel tension You know I my highest two these days I would say are self-directedness and
39:57achievement Yeah And it's funny because I think my value for benevolence like really gets fulfilled
40:04through my work Like so much of just what we do is driven by helping people and being useful to
40:10people Not to say that I'm not charitable to my friends and family but it's just like
40:14that doesn't I don't scratch that itch there right um or I don't scratch it as much But it
40:20is funny because it it is I would say connection community um social relationships like that that
40:29that's definitely been the the falling out that's been the sacrifice over the the last five or six
40:36years I would say is um it's almost like this is dramatic but I'm just imagine it's like you
40:42like sacrifice another value at the altar of the value that you are prioritizing You kind of do It
40:47kind of feels like that feels that way sometimes And I I I really like when I look at the last 10
40:52years of my life or actually what am I saying my entire adult life because I was a nomad for eight
40:57years Uh yeah social community social connections Um it it like that's really been the thing that I
41:07give up consistently for other things Mh Uh and it's usually that's usually where my I'm like
41:14stressed or frustrated or you know feel like I'm not operating at like a right like like Schwarz
41:23showed and said we have all of these values you know but we can't optimize for all of them at the
41:29same time Yes And that's where all of that kind of mental anguish comes in Again like my therapist
41:35friends say people come in all the time with a values conflict That's usually what brings them in
41:41And sometimes it takes a few sessions for them to figure out what's even going on and get underneath
41:45all of that But as simple as like a student comes in and say you know I'm really they're uh they're
41:50they're high in like a social justice They they they want to make a difference and they want
41:53to contribute in that way but they also want to achieve in their classes as well And uh you know
41:58maybe they have to skip class to go participate in some of these things And it causes a lot of
42:02tension And especially when you're younger those things can uh really cause a lot of mental anguish
42:07I mean it makes sense right like it's easy to give up things that you don't care about It's
42:12hard It's hard when you have two things that you care about and they are directly contradictory
42:17to each other Like you you they oppose each other and they they demand the sacrifice of one another
42:23Like that that is where difficult adult decisions come in Yeah That's Schwarz's framework That's
42:30the wheel Everything's a tension Everything's a trade-off We're we're going to keep hitting on the
42:34trade-off thing but I think it'd be interesting to discuss another framework of values uh that
42:41doesn't integrate the trade-offs that really just aims to find the best values possible that pay the
42:48most dividends in terms of happiness mental health well-being physical health all those things And
42:54that brings us to to Carol Riff's framework Okay so Carol Riff she basically asked the question you
42:59know what makes a value a good value all right She was doing research like in the 80s and up to that
43:05point in the psychological u research literature researchers have basically defined um good values
43:13or good what is well-being as happiness as that hydonic uh what feels good Do you feel good more
43:20than you feel bad that was an indication of how happy you were X - Y equals happiness She wanted
43:27to come up with a more uh I guess uh developed um idea of well-being Um and she came up with
43:35this idea of psychological well-being right she drew from some of the big names in the early 20th
43:40century people like Abraham Maslo Carl Young Carl Rogers uh Marie Jehood and she went and
43:47she found kind of the common threads that all of them talked about and she came up with these six
43:53different dimensions of psychological well-being So each one of these dimensions contributed
43:58to what she called psychological well-being or human flourishing basically Um what set us up to
44:04um basically achieve our potential Okay Yeah So what are what are her six dimensions um the first
44:11one was autonomy Okay So people who score higher in autonomy they typically will like resist social
44:19pressure to conform So um they're very aware of their values and they live them out based
44:25on their own autonomous will It's the people who don't give a [ __ ] It's the people who don't give
44:30a [ __ ] to to put it in Mark Manson's language Yes On the other side you have the low scores who
44:36they rely on others opinions They probably just look around to see what to do and they do it Mhm
44:41Um and so they don't have a very strong sense of auton autonomy and they probably don't even
44:46know it as well Okay so that's the first one Uh environmental m mastery is the second one Okay so
44:52things like competence If if you score high on this you you feel like you're competent You're
44:56you can manage daily life um very well You adapt to a lot of different environments um to get your
45:03needs met So you feel competent basically That's skillful you know how to get around things You're
45:10street smart maybe Yeah Common sense Low scores though they feel more powerless There's kind of a
45:16um there's a little bit of a um um internal uh versus external locus of control element to this
45:22as well Like you think you have some control over your environment Um and if you do that's
45:26more psychologically healthy than if you don't So other people uh who don't who score low on
45:31this they feel powerless They're they feel like they can't improve their circumstances Right Okay
45:37Third one personal growth People who score high on this dimension value kind of growth and learning
45:44in their life long-term lifelong learning even They're continually continually evolving open to
45:50new experiences around um growth They are they they strive for self-awareness in some degree
45:58um and again skill building as well that they're they're more uh attuned to that route in life
46:05Whereas low scores they're not really interested in learning or or evolving in any way It's
46:10interesting because I it's the environmental mastery I'm hearing a little bit of like the
46:15self-efficacy measurement uh which is like belief in oneself right belief in one's capabilities And
46:21then in the um the self-improvement I'm hearing like Carol Dwek's growth mindset right exactly
46:27Yeah Exactly Yeah Yeah So each one of these has kind of been as almost his own little area in
46:32psychology since then Carol Riff though was like she was the founder She's the OG Yeah Everything
46:37that came out like the positive psychology movement really drew on her a lot of her work
46:41and have everything since then basically is drawn on any area of human flourishing or well-being is
46:46really comes back to Carol for sure Yeah Next one would be positive relations with others So
46:52your social connections people who score high in this you know they they're social They're they
46:57have trusting bonds with other people they can uh form bonds fairly well with other people Um
47:04and they understand that relationships are a like a give and take right it's not a power struggle
47:10Um they see relationships as the end in themselves not the means right not an instrumental value Not
47:16an instrumental value It's a it's a sake I guess one way to think about all six of these dimensions
47:21is that they are the terminal values right 100% Yes Yes Definitely Or they should be Yes That's
47:27definitely how she formulated this And um you know the people who score low on the relational
47:32um scale will feel more isolated Uh it's difficult for them to connect And so you
47:38can see already that like that this is a huge one Yeah Um where if you people who don't value those
47:44sorts of things obviously tend to struggle a lot more than others especially as they later on in
47:49life Totally Uh number five purpose in life This is a big one for us Some big one we harp on quite
47:54a bit as well And the people who score high on this they generally set pretty clear goals or at
47:59least have a direction in their life uh a sense of direction in their life a strong sense And
48:05um they see meaning in both the past and the present Whereas low scores they seem to kind of
48:09just be drifting aimlessly They don't have a lot of direction a lot of purpose so on and so forth
48:16Last one is self-acceptance And this is a huge one too um high scores are they they have a a positive
48:25attitude towards themselves for the most part or very forgiving at least of themselves as too uh
48:30um they're very forgiving of themselves too They um but they're not delusional either
48:37I think that's an important point to make too They're actually very realistic They own their
48:41flaws Right Self-acceptance is not self-indulgence Exactly Exactly Or you know and self forgiveness
48:46is not self-indulgence either you don't lose Right Right Whereas the low scores they have a lot of
48:52regrets a lot of dissatisfaction with their past decisions current decisions Um they're just lot in
48:59life and they're very self-critical as well So if you put those six together and if you look at them
49:04as each kind of a positive value that contributes to um kind of psychological well-being as as Riff
49:10is defining it here with all six of these if you put those together and get the right mix of them
49:16you have what she says is a a mindset that's primed for human flourishing Yeah It's funny
49:22because when I think about Schwarz's values Yeah I can easily imagine contexts where I'd
49:29be willing to give one up right like security I can think of a million situations that I'd
49:34be willing security up benevolence I can think of situations I'd be willing to give it up with these
49:40with the the these psychological dimensions Like I I struggle to imagine context where I'm like "Oh I
49:46would give that up." Right Yeah Like it is really remarkable how hard to argue with these are Like
49:54you would think if you were if you're going to do a [ __ ] 4hour podcast on values Yeah Like we are
50:01and we're going to spend all this time talking about all these frameworks and dozens and dozens
50:05of different possible values that you can have Ideally the strongest values would end up being
50:10the hardest ones to argue against They'd be the ones that it'd be hard to think of counterfactuals
50:16Yeah Or exceptions to where they'd be useful And like I think out of all the frameworks that we
50:22talk about in this episode hers is like the most difficult one Like I can think of situations that
50:28I would give up autonomy I can think of situations that I would give up um you know say personal
50:34growth or development Um but it's really hard Like I have to like really reach and and get creative
50:42and imagine like a [ __ ] terrible scenario Yeah Yeah And you would only temporarily suspend them
50:49probably too You'd go right back to them as soon as you could Totally Yeah Totally Yeah This is
50:52this is definitely one of those where it's it's not easy And it um I I think she she wanted again
51:00this was kind of a basis for positive psychology that that came in the 90s and 2000s after this
51:06And um I think her real goal was creating this idea or or or creating the a good definition for
51:15psychological well-being because it had been so neglected for so long Yeah Right Everybody thought
51:20it was okay it's happiness All it is is positive emotions minus negative emotions That's how that's
51:26a an indication of how well you're doing And it's like well that is so naive and immature
51:31really when you think about it And she was like "Look Aristotle had it this this whole time If
51:36you want to put it in psychological terms here's here's a good little framework for you with six
51:41uh psychological uh components that'll make it well-being for you." So yeah And all six are worth
51:47sacrificing for All six are worth struggling for All six are you know difficult to give up Things
51:53that you would fight for uh and things that you obviously want to optimize It's funny Out
52:00of the six I think the one that most people have trouble with is probably self-acceptance Yes Which
52:09is really interesting Mhm Well it's it's so hard It's incredibly hard Going back to you just asked
52:16me you know what the tension and the values and one of those So when I when I did let this person
52:23when somebody asked me to do something for them I think I did a half-ass job for it and I let them
52:27down I just felt awful about it And so I thought about I was like "Okay this is a value of mine I'm
52:32going to like because we're going through this and I'm over inellectualizing all of it I just
52:36I get to the point where I'm like okay I want I don't want to feel like this anymore So how do I
52:43reconcile all this how do I resolve this tension this terrible feeling?" I finally got to the end
52:48of it I said "I think I just have to feel this way I think it's I'm going to feel this way because
52:52I it's it's a reflection of my value." Right Right And when you fail a value it's made very
52:59very clear to you through these terrible feelings Feeling bad about it is part of and I had to just
53:04accept that And I got to tell you it hasn't gotten any better So so it's really hard that
53:10self-acceptance is the hardest part of this You're absolutely right And it's I people don't want to
53:15do that especially in a culture like you know here in the United States where it's like no you can
53:20there's something you can always do about it You have control over this or that or the other thing
53:24Sometimes you don't have control over the way you feel especially when it's tied to a deeply
53:28embedded value that you that you um want to live out The irony too is that I feel like people who
53:34struggle with the other ones it likely is rooted in a lack of self self-acceptance right like when
53:40I when I think because there's a lot of people who you know say people who don't have a growth
53:44mindset people who don't think they can learn and get better whatever When you talk to those
53:48people it's really just like they kind of think they're a piece of [ __ ] and nothing's going to
53:52change right it's it's a lack of self-acceptance Similarly with you know people who struggle with
53:57autonomy you know like they feel like they don't deserve to to have control over their own lives
54:02or have make their own choices have freedom and uh disappoint people or do things that other people
54:09don't like So I'm sure we're going to do a episode on self-acceptance at some point because it is
54:14another super deep topic and it touches We'll talk about it more in this episode as well So many
54:19things Yeah Yeah Are is there one of these though the one of these six that you gravitate to more
54:23than others the autonomy one maybe I mean autonomy is obviously huge Uh growth is huge for me Yeah
54:31Even though I think we need all of them and we see them all as positive I still think we gravitate
54:35towards one or the other There's again there's that emotional pull towards one or the other Yeah
54:39you definitely prioritize you know getting the hierarchy right like pretty close to the top of
54:44my hierarchy is probably autonomy and personal growth which I think maps pretty well to uh
54:50Schwarz's self-directedness and achievement Yeah All of these actually map pretty well to Schwarz
54:54in some way or another Yeah Like the environmental mastery part too um was like there's a competence
55:00um component to that that I really gravitate to that I didn't realize um was such a high value
55:04for me I knew I valued that but it was a it was a higher value than I thought I don't like the
55:09name of that one environmental mastery Yeah Just it's bad Like she needs a brand consultant Mo most
55:19most university psychology departments do not have the budget Yeah No Oh my god Drew This is
55:24a this is a billion dollar business waiting to happen What's wrong with environmental mastery
55:28i I don't Well first of all I I I when I hear the word environment I just immediately start
55:34thinking like you know climate stuff Oh yeah And you hate that You hate the environment I
55:39that's I forgot you just you cut all the trees down Stop slandering me Drew This is We're This
55:49is being recorded No I just I I I associate that word with just an a completely different subject
55:57entirely I understand And then like mastery I mean I would almost even just call it mastery
56:03Just mastery Okay Yeah Yeah Green book mastery Yeah just like the developing being skillful
56:10right like um developing being good at things Yeah Yeah I don't know It is such an abstract concept I
56:19Yeah I don't I just I gravitate towards it because I do I like I like being I like learning about a
56:24lot of different things and I like getting good at them like very different things too You know
56:29everything from you know podcasting to whatever working with my hands or whatever Super handy like
56:34you are you can tell that you like you really enjoy using your hands and building things and
56:40fixing things and arranging things and organizing things and I am like so in my head and just I'm
56:46like in La La Land half the time So yeah that that's probably my lowest value out of those six
56:52Interesting Honestly I mean unless you considered writing like a form of environmental mastery but
56:59I I don't know Yeah I don't know about that Yeah I don't know Ah the last framework that I want
57:04to present I want to go back to the granddaddy of them all which is Aristotle and I don't want
57:10to get into his virtues He actually had a lot of virtues Uh I counted 17 and the Nikomakian ethics
57:18and uh there's debate as to whether he had more in other places What I like about his framework and
57:25what I think is true or useful for us to discuss is that he defined a virtue as not maximizing a
57:32certain thing as much as possible He defined it as a golden mean between two vices So Aristotle had
57:38this like a very novel approach to what a value was Like if you look at Carol Rift's framework
57:44or or Shalom Schwarz's framework it's like you either have a lot of benevolence or a little
57:49benevolence You either have a lot of autonomy or little autonomy Aristotle saw the virtue as
57:55being halfway between two extremes So Aristotle would say too much autonomy means that you're
58:03disconnected and isolated from the world and too little autonomy means you're enslaved And so the
58:08proper amount of autonomy is a golden mean or a happy medium between the two extremes Uh another
58:15example is too much courage means that you're reckless and irresponsible Not enough courage
58:20means that you're a coward and not able to stand up for the things that you care about Uh and so
58:26the proper amount of courage is actually the happy medium the golden mean You could go down the line
58:33uh not only with all of his virtues that he listed but you could kind of do this with anything Like
58:38take honesty right too much honesty you're just an [ __ ] right but obviously not enough honesty and
58:45you're a liar Generosity You can be too generous right like if you're just always giving things
58:50away you can be actually be very wasteful and you can enable all sorts of bad habits and behaviors
58:55in people Uh but obviously if you're not generous at all then you're you know a stingy Scrooge
59:00McDuck I I really like this idea and I wanted to include this idea in this episode because
59:07I actually kind of think maybe it applies to a lot of this stuff One of the three fundamental
59:12problems that people have is that they overindex on one value So you can overindex on any of this
59:18stuff And yes there will be tension and trade-offs with other values And but ultimately it's like you
59:25can take any good thing too far right too much self-acceptance just becomes narcissism Too
59:33much social connection becomes codependence Um too much achievement becomes just I don't know
59:41You're what's the word for somebody who tries to achieve too much try hard You Yeah you could
59:46be tryh hard You could you could be there's also a narcissism to that though as well I mean you could
59:52be a status [ __ ] That's I think that's I believe that's that's a technical ter that's the that's
59:57the research term status [ __ ] Um we'll have to look up the literature on that Uh well not only
1:00:04not only does it um kind of to takes care of that problem of overinvesting in one but it also helps
1:00:10a little bit anyway getting to this problem we keep coming back to where the tension between two
1:00:14values sometimes is because if there you do want to be uh what was it like um generosity um versus
1:00:24um what would be the opposite value of generosity or so the opposite of benevolence would be like
1:00:29achievement or something like frugality Frugality there Yeah there you go Um obviously you know that
1:00:35creates a little bit there's a tension there or you could find yourself in some tension there and
1:00:38you'll be like "Oh actually there's virtue in both of these." So that helps a little bit sometimes
1:00:44Yeah I I just kind of the conclusion I came to you know when you you look at all of these frameworks
1:00:49together it's ultimately values function in a kind of a network They're they they're like interlocked
1:00:59and interrelated And ultimately no single value is valuable in and of itself It is valuable in
1:01:07relationship to other values that you may have Right so it's like if the only value you have
1:01:12is courage then you have nothing to be courageous for If you if you're if the only value you have
1:01:18is generosity then you have nothing to give to because you don't care about anything else
1:01:25uh it's if you have if your only value is achievement you have no reason to achieve
1:01:29anything because nothing else is important right so it's like all all of these values only have
1:01:34significance and meaning because they interlock and interrelate and kind of like a a system Yeah
1:01:41And I think Aristotle was also aware of kind of the systemic nature of virtues because he he made
1:01:50an argument We'll come back to this towards the end of the episode but he made the argument that
1:01:54ultimately wisdom was the understanding Wisdom was the most important virtue because it was the
1:02:00virtue that had a broad understanding of that system of virtues of all the other virtues all
1:02:07the other virtues and and when they were out of balance when you were being too reckless
1:02:12or too benevolent or uh too achievementoriented and to like pull yourself back into balance So
1:02:20what about like whenever I hear these arguments for balance I always think there there's always
1:02:25isn't there always a risk of like watering it down you know like people say "Oh find work
1:02:30life balance." And it's like well then you just end up kind of blah in the middle right yes And
1:02:37what's the difference here i mean I I think you made a a good point earlier that uh even values
1:02:44that are intent in tension with one another can enhance each other right like the more power you
1:02:50accumulate personally the more benevolent you can be to more people right so I think that's a big
1:02:55one people miss sometimes Absolutely Oh I don't like Yeah The more money you have the more you
1:03:00can give away right it's great And like the more personal freedom you have the more people you can
1:03:04build social relationships with So it it's like they are synergistic even when they are in tension
1:03:10with one another and like they feel compromising I I do think there is a kind of just overall
1:03:18uh compounding effect that happens to the virtues right it's like the more of the more of any virtue
1:03:26you accumulate the more of other virtues you can you can begin to accumulate And uh and I think
1:03:33the question about balance I think that's it's a very individual thing You know a lot of it is is
1:03:39personality based right like what feels imbalance to me is probably going to feel out of balance to
1:03:44other people and same for you And so I think a lot of this comes back to self-standing and
1:03:48self-acceptance like understanding that you know like I said earlier like my need for connection
1:03:54I think is lower in most people's and uh my my need for you know novelty or stimulation
1:04:00is higher in most people So like what's going to feel in balance for me is going to feel off for a
1:04:06lot of other people And it's and it is similar for you similar to everybody listening to this
1:04:10And and I think just understanding the what your needs are what level your needs exist at
1:04:18and then also like what your primary values are and what proportion that you want to invest into
1:04:25those values is is useful and important Yeah But it it's like I guess the balanced equation like
1:04:31everybody's network is going to look a little bit different People's central nodes are going
1:04:35to be slightly different The emphasis is going to be different But like ultimately like you do need
1:04:40system of interlocking values that reinforce each other or support each other or counterbalance each
1:04:47other Yeah Right Like keep each other honest essentially Yeah I had thought about it that
1:04:51way That's Yeah that's very interesting where you the the interlocking values don't exist in
1:04:57a vacuum and that that's a big thing like within yourself but also with other people as well Yeah
1:05:06So I actually think this is a perfect segue I coincidentally I've got a friend in town
1:05:13Had dinner with him last night and he had been dating this girl for a while Last time I saw him
1:05:19was a few months ago and he was like super excited about her and everything and he had an interesting
1:05:24story which coincidentally dovetales perfectly with values and all the things that we've been
1:05:30talking about So let me set the stage for you and then I'm going to ask for a prediction Okay
1:05:36So he's been dating this girl for 3ish four-ish months They decided to take a trip together It's
1:05:41first trip Ah real test Yeah Real test And just to give you some background this friend of mine uh
1:05:50intellectual guy very bookish um loves to travel but like loves to travel in the like likes to
1:05:59find some obscure museum and spend the afternoon like reading about 13th century architecture or
1:06:05whatever Like very kind of nerdy travel guy Yeah a little bit uh hippie-ish like very low-key You
1:06:12know his idea of a a a great Saturday night is like a beer and a movie and going to bed at 9:30
1:06:22uh with a with a good novel or something Girl he's been dating owns eight Hermes bags
1:06:33wears like a $20,000 Rolex watch
1:06:36um spends half of her summer in St Barts in San Trope okay partying and they decide to do this
1:06:46trip together to Paris and she asks if she can book everything and choose everything Oh and by
1:06:53the way the guy very frugal very tight with money I want you to guess how long it took how many
1:06:59hours it took for for the first flight I wonder where this is going Yeah exactly How many hours
1:07:05do you think it took for the first fight to start okay Can I have a hint were they off the plane yet
1:07:13within arriving I'm going to say that was one to two days really started The first dinner Yeah Okay
1:07:20They had they started having a fight about money All right She's also very traditional right like
1:07:25grew up in a very religious family Okay Man is supposed to pay Man's supposed to take care of
1:07:30everything He's super liberal He's atheist He's very like you know split the check type of guy
1:07:36She's booking these like Michelin star restaurants 500 euros for a prefix menu He's like "What the
1:07:43[ __ ] dude i just want a beer and a novel in a museum Like this is not what I signed up for."
1:07:50And yeah Uh second question How long do you think it took for them to break up um well I hope they
1:07:58made it back home at least They did not Oh wow Really oh that's rough They broke up on the trip
1:08:04That is rough Okay They broke up on day three Oh Of like a weekl long trip or what was it yeah Okay
1:08:11Right in the middle of it He like he had to get a separate hotel room Oh no He had to spend money
1:08:16on a separate hotel room Oh god But then he told me he was like he was like "Yeah it really sucked
1:08:22the the first night but then it was great cuz I could just go to whatever museum I wanted."
1:08:30I'm sorry By the way if if this friend is listening I apologize that we're laughing on
1:08:34But I I actually I like you know I was at dinner with him last night I was like I have I have to
1:08:39bring this up on the podcast because it was really interesting talking to him about it I started to
1:08:44ask him I'm like clearly there are red flags dude Did you see this one coming yeah Like how how did
1:08:49you not see this coming and he was like "You know I have this really bad tendency in past
1:08:54relationships for being too judgmental and like like shutting off relationships too quickly over
1:09:00like small pedantic things." And he said that uh he's like "You know I I I really decided with this
1:09:06one like I'm I'm not going to judge you know if we have different interests or different preferences
1:09:11like I'm not going to like judge it too quickly you know because you can compromise on things."
1:09:15Sounds reasonable And I told him I was like "Yeah but the problem is is that these are not simply
1:09:21different interests These are different values and you can't compromise on different values."
1:09:26Like if she really cares about having expensive jewelry and Hermes bags and like going to the
1:09:33nicest restaurant and you like saving money like you're not going to negotiate that Yeah That's not
1:09:40a difference in interests Yes That's that's that is a fundamental difference in values the how they
1:09:45manifest is different obviously but it's a it's a difference in values Yeah And same thing with the
1:09:49traditional thing and you know her being very like old school religious and him being kind of liberal
1:09:55and atheist like I I I think uh I remember I was talking to a friend once and he said
1:10:00he was this is totally just a theory that kind of halfbaked theory by a smart friend of mine He said
1:10:07um he's been happily married for like 20 years and he said he was like I think there are really
1:10:11five categories that uh couples fight about like most fights in relationships happen over like
1:10:19value differences The first one was cleanliness Mhm Mhm Second one was religion Third one was
1:10:28politics Fourth one was raising kids and family And then the fifth one was money Mhm And he said
1:10:34"You can get away with being misaligned on one of those maybe even two if you communicate extremely
1:10:42well and like adapt well to each other but and his theory was if you're misaligned on more than
1:10:47two of those then you're probably fucked." Yeah Yeah Like you just can't come back from right i
1:10:54don't know if that's true or not but I thought it was interesting to think about And I do think
1:10:57you know when I think about values differences of values in relationships I think it's most of
1:11:04what attracts us to each other And I also think it's most of what drives couples apart Like if
1:11:12they break up it's usually because of a values difference Assuming like trust wasn't broken
1:11:17If couples grow apart it's usually because their values have shifted and they no longer see eye
1:11:22to eye or care about the same things or or find the same things important in their life Would you
1:11:27think values like differences in values attract us is that is that what you said or No no no I
1:11:31said I I think we're attracted by similar values Oh okay I got you Okay And then and then we're
1:11:35pulled apart by different values Okay Correct Yeah Okay Makes sense Um I will say this like I don't
1:11:41think you necessarily have to have all the same values as your partner Definitely Yeah I think
1:11:46you have to have complimentary values as your partner right like you you either have to have
1:11:51similar values that like resonate well with one another that harmonize or you need to have like
1:11:56counterbalancing values that make each of you a little bit better Like we were talking earlier
1:12:01about how it's easy for people to go overboard in a particular value in their life right like
1:12:08if you are uh uh way too self-sufficient or way too tight with money it can be actually be good
1:12:15to be with somebody who's like maybe a little bit more communal to counterbalance you and like
1:12:21uh uh make up for the downside of of how overindexed you are on a certain value I
1:12:28think a lot of what we experience as like a good relationship is that complimentary set of values
1:12:36It's like some people are making up for some of our deficiencies or some of the trade-offs that
1:12:41we make by by caring about what we care about Um by having a partner who cares about the
1:12:45opposite thing and and being able to get along with them we can kind of have the best of both
1:12:50worlds Yeah Yeah Yeah I think another way to put that is you shared values don't necessarily mean
1:12:55they're identical values right you can have a set of shared values together that aren't necessarily
1:13:00reflective of each one of your individual values but if they work together in a way you know it's
1:13:06not necessarily like do you agree on things but can we support each other's values right
1:13:10Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Which I I mean that is um I I think especially with like modern dating
1:13:17and dating apps and everything like that and I won't go on too much of a diet tribe here but
1:13:20um the they do try to match you more on what they think or call interests I think
1:13:27rather than values values and and I think it primes us to start looking oh this person likes
1:13:32whatever hiking or sports or you whatever it is and it's like there's no value necessarily
1:13:36behind that which you end up in a situation like my friend because I guarantee you what brought
1:13:41them together uhhu is that they both love travel so I have a shared interest in travel but they the
1:13:47value system underlying that travel the the desire and motivation to travel is completely different
1:13:52completely opposite not only opposite but like I think compatible Yes I think they like disgusted
1:13:59each other a little bit Ah yeah Yeah Yeah You ever been in that situation you ever been in
1:14:03the middle of a trip and I have That's happened to me before Rule Mexico even was even worse So
1:14:14yeah I have not that has not happened to me on a trip I I've been very fortunate and that the
1:14:18the trips that I've taken with girlfriends uh have generally gone well Um I it's a great way to test
1:14:24out the relationship and see your values because it is all those values that your your smart friend
1:14:28mentioned the cleanliness the everything it kind of happens on shows up all in a compressed
1:14:34condensed time and place and Yeah Yeah It's you can't get away from each other Yeah That's Yeah
1:14:42Yeah Yeah Also too I think what um values and relationships too when you argue with each other
1:14:50that comes out It's what values are what you actually arguing about So it's not about these
1:14:54other things It's not about the interest or it's not about you know you left the toilet seat up or
1:14:57it's not about what restaurant you booked dinner at or what hotel you're staying in It's it is the
1:15:03value underneath that It's the value underneath of that And so um arguments are a good way to
1:15:08bring out those values and figure out what's going on And going back to that like can you work with
1:15:12that are you able to you know this is one of the problems I have with uh a lot of people who are
1:15:17in the kind of attachment world you know they say "Oh find somebody who's secure enough right?" Well
1:15:21usually somebody who's avoidant say right they they value their independence or you know their
1:15:27autonomy maybe a little too much and maybe there's a little bit of whatever going on underneath that
1:15:33but they say well you should find somebody who's who's more secure in their relationships and
1:15:38doesn't value autonomy as much or whatever It's like no can you work with somebody's autonomy
1:15:42just like can you work with somebody's anxiety too somebody might value I value emotional
1:15:47availability right and if you're not emotionally available for them well obviously that's going to
1:15:51be a problem Without getting on too much of a tangent and maybe we do an episode one day on
1:15:56attachment I feel like attachment theory is it's a great descriptive model It's great at describing
1:16:03why certain people's relationships function or don't function I think it's a poor prescriptive
1:16:08model Yes And I think that's gotten confused this day and age especially on like Tik Tok and
1:16:14Instagram Like everybody's like "Oh you're anxious You should be doing this." And it's like I I don't
1:16:18know about that Like it's it's more complicated I do want to go back to what you said though about
1:16:22like the argument is not about the thing it's about the value underneath the thing And I think
1:16:26that like this is why this episode is this topic is so important Like because it talking to my
1:16:34friend last night he didn't understand that it was actually a value difference that like people will
1:16:39have an argument with a partner over a restaurant that was booked or uh a trip that was planned or
1:16:45um you know there's like they're squeezing the toothpaste tube on the wrong end or whatever And
1:16:51and they don't realize that it's the argument is not actually about the restaurant It's not
1:16:54actually about the toothpaste tooth Like there's a there's an underlying value underneath that that's
1:16:59in conflict If you're just arguing about the thing you're you're missing the real negotiation that
1:17:05needs to happen between the two value systems Uh and I I just think most people are unaware of that
1:17:11And if you're unaware of that then you're you're not going to be able to solve it very well No you
1:17:15escalate You're going to escalate right you're going to think it's it's about the restaurant
1:17:19And so it's um and it's funny too because you know my friend was telling me he's like they they went
1:17:25through this whole process where it was like "Okay well why don't we alternate like I'll go to we'll
1:17:29go to a fancy place for lunch and then we'll go to like a dive bar for dinner which just meant
1:17:35that they were both miserable right but they were just like dulling out the misery in equal
1:17:40proportions where it's like no there's like you have to address the underlying value of of like
1:17:44okay well why why does she care so much about this what what's like the the the itch that's
1:17:50being scratched by like booking uh spending all this money uh is it a need for status is it a need
1:17:56to feel important is it a need to um experience luxury you know enjoy your vacation to its fullest
1:18:04like what is the underlying value or or motivation and then see if you can address that in a in a
1:18:11way that that meets both people's needs And it's hard It's like those aren't easy First of all both
1:18:19people need to be self-aware enough to understand like what's motivating themselves And then second
1:18:23of all both people need to be mature enough to actually communicate those things to each other Uh
1:18:27and both of those things are rare So condolences to my friend although I think he's it's they're
1:18:33both better off It sounds like I think they both dodged a bullet honestly Yeah I also think
1:18:38relationships are an interesting mechanism for revealing your values Yes Right Yeah Like I look
1:18:45at an experience like my friends or maybe like yours in rural Mexico it reveals things about
1:18:51yourself that maybe you didn't know uh and that you didn't have a ton of clarity on Um right like
1:18:58I remember my girlfriend in my 20s we had a very overall I would say it was a good relationship but
1:19:04it was like very up and down Like it was kind of rocky A lot of like drama and fights and stuff And
1:19:10uh at the time I mean she was a huge party girl and I was a big party guy and so I think
1:19:16most we mostly bonded over that Yeah But it was interesting after being with her for a year or
1:19:22two there was like a self-destructiveness to her that was like a big turnoff to me and I used to
1:19:29try to communicate that to her and then she would look at me and she's like you're doing all the
1:19:34same drugs and drinking just as much Like what are you talking about you [ __ ] hypocrite yeah Yeah
1:19:39And I was like "Yeah but it's not the same." Like there's like the motivation is different I think
1:19:46the thing that the value that was underlying the experiences uh was was driven by different things
1:19:52And what do you think that was i think in my case it was kind of this compulsive need for novelty
1:19:57and excitement And I think in and I think in her case there was a lot of that as well I think her
1:20:02she had a real self-destructive streak that I didn't I I always kind of had this awareness in
1:20:09my mind that like this is a phase This is like I'm 23 This is the I'm doing this because I'm 23 and
1:20:16probably in a year or two I'm not I'm not going to do this anymore Like I don't want to be doing this
1:20:20in a year or year or two more And I definitely don't want to be doing this when I'm like 30 or 35
1:20:25And I I detected no sense of that in her Like in her it was just like "No man We're just gonna have
1:20:35fun." Like this is just life Like we're just going to go hard and all gas no breaks Yeah
1:20:40And that's fun for a night It's fun for a weekend It's fun for a month But like after a year or two
1:20:46being around that person you know it's like h this is this is there's there's a darkness here
1:20:51there's like a self-destructiveness here that like worries me and I don't want to take part in And
1:20:56ultimately I think that was a big part of ending that relationship It was a big part of like why
1:21:01I wanted to get out of that relationship And I didn't have the maturity to fully understand that
1:21:06or communicate that at the time But in hindsight it's very clear to me And I think at the time too
1:21:12it was clarifying for me because I think going into the relationship I kind of had the same
1:21:18attitude of just like "Yeah [ __ ] it All gas no break let's go You know and through the course
1:21:23of the relationship I I noticed that I started becoming uncomfortable with certain situations
1:21:27or certain decisions that were being made And uh and it was clarifying for me It was like
1:21:33it showed me this isn't who you are Like you're a tourist in this lifestyle You're not right You're
1:21:40not you're not a resident right so make sure you don't get trapped here Make sure you don't
1:21:45get stuck So that that's one experience that I've had but I mean there there have been quite a few
1:21:49I think your relationships force you to confront your most deeply held beliefs and assumptions and
1:21:54motivations Uh and you know ultimately that's it comes down to what you care about Like what do you
1:22:00find important because it's like when you try to imagine a future with somebody that future needs
1:22:05to be compatible with what you find important in your life like what you're optimizing for in your
1:22:10life And so if there's an incompatibility there right it's like if my future is you know I really
1:22:15don't want to I I really want to stop partying and stop doing drugs and get my [ __ ] together and
1:22:21build a business and be more ambitious and uh and I can't imagine my partner in that world then it
1:22:29becomes hard to stay with that partner Yeah Have you experienced that yeah definitely Um I I think
1:22:35too going back to like the revealed preferences I think is what like a a relationship will do
1:22:42Mhm to you Um you know if I value honesty and yet I don't I'm not honest in my relationship
1:22:49or I just I don't um communicate honestly with the other person like do I actually value honesty
1:22:53and so you're right It brings it to that But I I think the ones um the relationships where I've
1:22:59had value clashes it was the same thing where I I I thought it was like an interest thing or just a
1:23:03preferences thing when it came down to it but it was actually values And then what I've also
1:23:10noticed though too going back to what we talked about um where like can you work with somebody
1:23:15else's values i think that I've gotten better at that as well because I think before especially
1:23:21like my 20s and early 30s I was very much valued autonomy and independence and wanted that somehow
1:23:26in a relationship too but I wanted it way too extreme right and so that can clash that can show
1:23:31this clash of of values in a relationship as well and um basically like when when anything would go
1:23:39wrong in a relationship I would just be like well you know I'm independent and autonomous anyway so
1:23:44it doesn't matter and whatever just screw What I've come to get better at I think is to stop
1:23:49and slow down and look at what values are are driving anybody's behavior or motivation in that
1:23:55situation So yeah Yeah Yeah Any any grimy stories oh god Drama juicy drama Give us drama Drew Well I
1:24:04I mean give us the Drew Bernie show I mean I I've had um just like instances where I can I can point
1:24:13back to relationships and like that's the moment they fell apart Um and it's because I didn't I I
1:24:19was just I put my values above the relationship really too that I think that's another one Um
1:24:25somebody snaps at me in a certain way or something like that and I'm just like that you're violating
1:24:29my autonomy You're trying to get me to change who I am I'm done you know um where now it's
1:24:33like I step back I'm like "Oh okay They're not getting their need for emotional connection
1:24:36right now." That's what they value an emotional connection and I'm being very distant and that's
1:24:40why they're upset Yeah Um that's that's a that's been a common one for me I mean I just I don't
1:24:47know throughout my really throughout my adult life I've it's always been I have I have placed a value
1:24:55uh that is probably a a value that's to me higher than the relationship itself and I think if you
1:25:03want to be in a relationship you have to put some value on the relationship uh that will that can
1:25:10sustain you through those differences and those arguments and those fights and stuff like that
1:25:13and I just wasn't willing to do that for a long Yeah it brings up the question is what what is
1:25:18worth compromising on like we kind of said earlier like you can't really compromise on values You can
1:25:24a little bit I don't think you can compromise a lot or wholesale like there there comes a point
1:25:31in relationships that if you're compromising too much of your values you're literally losing who
1:25:35you are and what you stand for And so you're you are figuratively and psychologically kind
1:25:42of killing your own identity to plate your partner which is incredibly unhealthy and not sustainable
1:25:50But at the same time I I do think it is impossible to be in a long-term relationship
1:25:54without compromising on something or at least like deciding to let certain things go Deciding being
1:26:00like you know what this this is very important to me but I'm willing to back off a little bit
1:26:07for the sake of the harmony in my relationship I I think it comes back to that idea of like a values
1:26:12being like a network system And when you're in a committed long-term relationship or you could even
1:26:19say with like family relationships or with kids like they kind of become part of that network And
1:26:27if I'm you know if my wife holds a value super strongly that I don't uh I do need to find ways
1:26:35to accommodate that value Mhm And maybe it's not giving up my own values wholesale but it maybe
1:26:42it's just like turning the volume knob down a little bit on a couple things and ah okay
1:26:46Yeah You know instead of instead of being like a nine out of 10 on autonomy I'm a seven out of
1:26:5210 on autonomy and you you start to realize that you can be very healthy and happy that way We're
1:26:58actually going to talk later in the episode about how to change your values uh and how to do it in a
1:27:03way that like feels congruent and not like you're you're forcing yourself or murdering yourself Um
1:27:11so I do think some of that comes into this but it is an interesting question of just like how much
1:27:16compromise is too much compromise like what is a bridge too far yeah Yeah I think I I think one too
1:27:23about changing your values within relationships as well The I I I think a lot of people you and
1:27:29me included when you're younger you do kind of value novelty and excitement and fun and all of
1:27:33that and you want that in a relationship And then as you go through some relationships and
1:27:37you see how that can also blow up the excitement and the the novelty and the fun and you know oh I
1:27:43have such a strong connection with the person right away And usually that means okay things
1:27:46are going to get you know there's going to be some fireworks not not in a good way necessarily
1:27:50Um and over time you change more towards oh okay I I realize that valuing that is
1:27:56kind of it's a little bit counterproductive to the relationship at a certain point And so you
1:28:01start to value actually I value more stability in my relationships Um I think that's where I've like
1:28:07it took me a while to get there but I started you know because especially in my 20s I was just like
1:28:12no like novelty fun date around you know and you get a little bit addicted to that and then all of
1:28:17a sudden you wake up and you're like oh this is there's such a diminishing return to this Yeah
1:28:22So I don't know maybe we can save a little bit of that for the changing values too But that's
1:28:26we'll definitely come back to it I I think what you you the example you raised there is is very
1:28:31pertinent I think it's to have a healthy long-term relationship period You I think both people need
1:28:36to value stability and consistency to a certain extent which means you know stability and
1:28:41consistency is intention with personal autonomy novelty of experience stimulation I think there
1:28:47is an inherent trade-off there that that is probably just fundamental to relationships itself
1:28:52I do want to touch really quick before we move on uh about how relationships fit into the value
1:28:58hierarchy because I I do think there's something uniquely interesting about whether you want to
1:29:04call it romantic relationships love or just a a specific relationship in general But it basically
1:29:13for whatever reason if you make a relationship or your relationships the top of your value hierarchy
1:29:20it actually undermines the relationship Ah yes like there's something very subtle about if you
1:29:26make a a another person the most important thing in your life it actually is counterproductive for
1:29:36that person in the relationship with that person And I think it comes back to you're compromising
1:29:41too much right like if I'm giving up too much of myself to make my wife happy then I stop being the
1:29:47same person that she fell in love with I become this like half empty caricature of the man that
1:29:52she fell in love with And so I think this is where you see that that strange dynamic where like not
1:29:58compromising occasionally makes a relationship better like refusing to to be different or change
1:30:04like keeps the intimacy alive because you you are maintaining a certain amount of healthy
1:30:10autonomy and and individuality that that sparked the attraction to each other in the first place
1:30:16Anyway I feel like we could do an entire episode 100% Yeah Just on values and relationships I'm
1:30:22sure we're going to do many relationship episodes uh over the course of this podcast's life Um so we
1:30:29will come back to this at some point So wait what what would you recommend to your friend then going
1:30:33forward for looking for a new uh relationship so this is I I'll tell you the advice I gave him
1:30:38Okay I said uh the first thing I said was what I said earlier about interests versus values or
1:30:44preferences versus values I I said dude like it's this is not a preference for nice restaurants Like
1:30:49this is a difference in in values and you need to ask yourself like what's driving that and by the
1:30:54way dude like the fact that she showed up to your first date with like a $30,000 watch might have
1:31:00been a tip off of like this is who you're getting involved with It it just I love you man But it's
1:31:06uh I mean there are signals there There are clues People are sending out clues of who they are all
1:31:12the time I I I I think I actually uh I wrote in my dating book models years and years ago that
1:31:20the true self is always shining through like you you it is impossible for a person to hide who they
1:31:25are because if they're trying to hide who they are that says something about who they are Right Right
1:31:29Right So what I encouraged him is I said "Look obviously you want to know a person's preferences
1:31:35and interests and the things that you know that they like uh pretty early on in a relationship
1:31:40first couple days." I said "Move these values-based questions up to the front as soon
1:31:45as possible." Because one of the things that came up is when they had that first fight on their trip
1:31:51that was the first time he'd been dating her for almost 4 months That was the first time that they
1:31:55actually talked about the fact that she thought men should pay for everything Oh wow And I was
1:32:01like how do you get that far like you have to you have to have these conversations sooner You have
1:32:06to filter for these things really early on And I understand you don't want to bombard somebody
1:32:12with a bunch of philosophical questions and like asking them like what the meaning of their life is
1:32:18on the first date I don't or maybe you do I don't know But like I would definitely say within the
1:32:25first month you should have clarity around those big categories right like you should you should
1:32:30definitely learn what is their their attitude towards money Like how do they see money uh what
1:32:37are they motivated by like what what do they find most important what are what are the how are they
1:32:42getting their needs met what what do they think about religion what do they think about family how
1:32:47do they spend their free time not only like where do they travel on their vacations but like why do
1:32:51they travel like what's the motivation behind it just get a like start to get a clearer sense
1:32:56of of what they care about and what they find important and what they hope for themselves in 5
1:33:02or 10 years and see if that's compatible with what you hope for yourself And I get why people don't
1:33:08do it because when you have a beautiful stranger across the table from you and it's going well you
1:33:15don't want to [ __ ] it up Yeah But this is my last chance Oh no But at the same time you know
1:33:22you're you're just kicking the can down the road Like it's going to be more painful You'd rather
1:33:27break up with this person on on week three than year three Right Right If you can spare yourself
1:33:33that pain And you want to find out as soon as possible Yeah Well I I think too though is I
1:33:39it's not necessarily too that they have the right answers to those questions too but like how easily
1:33:43can you talk to them about it and how easily can you navigate that interaction with them so if it's
1:33:48is something you're like oh you you travel and you like to spend extravagantly why is that and if you
1:33:53can have an honest conversation with them and like kind of come to like oh a mutual understanding Um
1:33:58like you've said before it's not like respect is actually kind of the foundation of all this And
1:34:03if you can respect their values even if you don't necessarily share them or agree with them that can
1:34:09go a long ways too You can have again that goes back to the interacting uh values that you might
1:34:14have that actually are compatible with each other even if they're not the same I would actually Yeah
1:34:18I think respect you know earlier we were using the word shared values I would say it it would
1:34:23be respected values Respect for values Yeah And and I think what broke down in his case it wasn't
1:34:29that they didn't share the same values It was that they didn't respect each other's values
1:34:33M and because they didn't respect each other's values they weren't willing to compromise Right
1:34:37Right That applies to any relationship Yeah Yeah Absolutely Oh and before we move on from
1:34:43the relationship topic so you can buy these decks of cards that are have questions that are designed
1:34:49to help you know people who are dating for the first time to to get to know each other quickly
1:34:54and understand each other's values and understand if they're compatible or not Uh so I've never used
1:35:01one of them because I'm an old married man but you should You should try it out Yeah it could be fun
1:35:05It could be actually So I did a I did an event uh I think with I did I did an event with School of
1:35:10Life So School of Life has one of these decks and they gave me one they gave me the deck as a as a
1:35:15gift and um I brought it home This was maybe like six seven years ago and uh Fernando and I did a
1:35:21bunch of the cards and it it's funny cuz it's we it was like we already knew each other's answers
1:35:25right yeah Yeah Okay There's no mystery left in your marriage whatsoever anymore huh you're It's
1:35:31just all not I mean kind of It feels that way but in a good way In a good way It's funny actually
1:35:39So the other night uh or maybe like a month or two ago we were with we were at a dinner party
1:35:44with a bunch of other couples and all the other couples were either engaged or uh just recently
1:35:49married Like they'd all been together for like three four five years Uh and Fernand and I have
1:35:54been together for 13 going on 14 years And uh they they wanted to play this game I I don't
1:36:00remember what it's called but it's basically like you draw a card um and it will it'll say something
1:36:05like favorite breakfast and all the husbands have to answer guess what the the wife It's It's like
1:36:12um what's that old game show uh oh yeah Oh god I'm gonna mic on it too dude What is that old
1:36:19game show uh newlyweds Newly wed It's the newlywed game So it's exactly the newlywed game and it's
1:36:26but it's like a card game and it's you bring it out at dinner party So we're playing the newlywed
1:36:29game and uh it felt like it felt like FA and I had cheat codes Like it was so unfair because like all
1:36:36these couples have been together for like three years They had just gotten engaged and like I
1:36:41will say this there's a certain point that you hit I I I would say that when you adapt enough to each
1:36:46other's values uh like even though my wife and I like we don't share all the same values I think
1:36:52we're so well adapted and and now balanced in each other's values that um there is a a like there's a
1:37:00stability that you can't really find on your own I would say um and and a comfort like a security
1:37:09that comes that I I've never experienced on my own but um it's it's like extremely gratifying and uh
1:37:19profound and uh and it you you can kick ass at the new league game Yeah Yeah That's awesome Yeah So
1:37:30all right So let's do a quick section on where do values come from Um I don't want to dwell
1:37:37too much on this It's funny we kind of fell into a research rabbit hole on this one Oh very much got
1:37:41in the weeds Yeah cuz there's a there's actually a lot of interesting backstory and research on
1:37:46this Um I don't want to stay in it too long if we can help it just because I do want to get to the
1:37:51actual advice for people Um so this this whole idea that uh values vary widely across people
1:37:59and across cultures Uh it's a relatively new idea Um if you look back at like the colonial period it
1:38:07was I guess you would say not very pluralistic You know it was very much like Europeans showing up
1:38:12to other parts of the world and being like these people are savages We need to give them our values
1:38:17It really wasn't until the 20th century So in 1925 a young anthropology student named Margaret me
1:38:24went to a Samoan village to study a local tribe there And really the thing at the time you know
1:38:33obviously like female academics were a rarity Um it's there wasn't I I don't think there was as
1:38:41much wide traveled you know to the South Pacific and all these indigenous cultures uh back then as
1:38:47there is now And so what she was doing she was she was already a bit of a a an outlier in just
1:38:54in terms of who she was in her program And then she was also studying something in a way that was
1:39:00also a bit of an outlier So she goes to the Samoan village She starts observing the people and one
1:39:05of the first things that she notices is that the teenagers are a way less inhibited than European
1:39:13and North American teenagers and b they seem way happier They're like chilling enjoying themselves
1:39:20There's there's not they're not rebelling against their parents They're not uh getting angry and
1:39:25going out and drinking and like hurting themselves and getting in the fights with each other Um
1:39:32and the other thing that she noticed was that ironically they were way more sexually expressive
1:39:38and that sexual expression was seen as okay Like they weren't judged or shamed for it particularly
1:39:43the young girls And you didn't see as much you know teenage pregnancy or uh out of wedlock
1:39:51relationships like everything just seemed much emotionally healthier to her And this was a little
1:39:57bit shocking at the time Like if you imagine 1920s they were pretty buttoned up and strict in their
1:40:02morals and uh they weren't very open-minded especially around things like sex and uh young
1:40:07women being sexual right victorian hangover still Yeah a little bit A little bit So she came back
1:40:12to America She wrote a book called Coming of Age in Samoa where she essentially argued that
1:40:17uh most of our values uh around cultural norms propriety society sexual moors all this stuff
1:40:28all these sacred cows that the West believes very strongly And she argued that these were relative
1:40:34that they weren't absolute values that if anybody in the United States if they grew up on Samoa they
1:40:42would grow up with these other values and they actually might even be better off Now as you
1:40:47can imagine this set off an absolute firestorm like huge lightning rod for controversy What's
1:40:54impressive about me though is that she didn't back down She actually got back on a plane and then she
1:40:59went to New Guinea and she spent I think at the time people criticized her They said well this
1:41:04is just one tribe and like who knows maybe it was just the families that you hung out with like you
1:41:10can't really generalize this to wider populations So she went to New Guinea and she was like [ __ ]
1:41:15you all I I'll show you Mhm So she followed three tribes in New Guinea And not only did she find
1:41:22that all three varied drastically from American values and and morals all three varied drastically
1:41:31between each other So one was super aggressive and very violent One was very passive and very chilled
1:41:38out One was matriarchal which is uh basically like women had all the power in the tribe One
1:41:45was extremely patriarchal So again this informs her theory that ultimately most human values are
1:41:51culturally relative that we absorb our values from society around us and that most of what
1:41:57we believe to be important is simply the result of where we grew up and who we grew up around
1:42:04So all the controversy aside and all the arguments aside of you know Margaret me's research process
1:42:11and how scientific it was or what not I do think the takeaway from her that is extremely important
1:42:17is that there is a certain percentage of our values that are chosen by us that we kind of
1:42:22seek out ourselves and determine for ourselves through reflection and experience But there's
1:42:27also a large percentage of our values that we simply inherited right whether from our parents
1:42:32from the school we went to the neighborhoods that we grew up in the socioeconomic status that we had
1:42:38when we were young the values were handed to us They weren't necessarily built or or discovered
1:42:45for ourselves And and I do think that realization and just understanding what is what understanding
1:42:54like what you inherited versus what you've chosen Yeah I do think it's it's very important on an
1:43:00individual level And I also think it's it's it's a very tricky thing to figure out as a young person
1:43:06I know for me you know spending so much time abroad was extremely illuminating uh for myself
1:43:14because it really showed me I think it showed me a lot of values that I was flexible on and most
1:43:22importantly it showed me some values that I'm not very flexible on Like there was it didn't matter
1:43:26how much time I spent in other countries or how many places I went to Like there were there were
1:43:31a handful things where I'm like I don't [ __ ] care Like this is the way it should be and this
1:43:36is the way I always want it Give me a cold drink please I value cold drinks Like [ __ ] ice I need
1:43:41some [ __ ] ice in this drink Yeah Yes Or public trash cans Holy [ __ ] Right Right Uh no the the
1:43:51one the one thing I noticed around that was punctuality Like I I can't get over that one
1:43:55either Oh my god I live I understand it I get it You have a different cultural norm around it But
1:44:00my god I lived four years in Latin America I lived for over a year in Southeast Asia I get
1:44:07it You're on island time Life's easy Go with the flow yada yada Dude just like [ __ ] send a bus
1:44:14on time Like just just be within 15 minutes and I can I can deal with it right i think that sort of
1:44:22self-discovery is is very useful And I I think you know in the old podcast we did a couple episodes
1:44:29on travel and the value of travel and and for me like ultimately that was the value of travel is
1:44:34that it it clarifies for you what seems to really be deep inside of you like what are the values
1:44:43that are kind of non-negotiable for you and what are the values that that shift quite a bit when
1:44:47you alter your environment when you go to a new place and surround yourself by new people with
1:44:52different values like what naturally starts to change within yourself So what were some examples
1:44:57of that for you what what do you what did you find that could change more easily depending on where
1:45:01you were that's a good question Um I'll say this I think living abroad made me much more politically
1:45:08fluid Yeah it you know when I was young when I started traveling in my early 20s you know
1:45:14I was pretty far-left like most young 20somes of our generation And what's interesting is that you
1:45:21you go to all these countries and places and they have completely different systems and they have
1:45:24completely different political spectrums and they have completely different laws and and initially
1:45:29you know in week one there's a lot of things that just kind of upset you or you find distasteful but
1:45:34you spend a few months there and you realize like wow like yeah people get along fine here
1:45:39It's societies can work in many circumstances and under many systems and with many types of
1:45:45incentives So that's not to say that I don't hold strong political views I do But like I I do think
1:45:51that period being nomadic and living in a number of different countries I think it's made me much
1:45:57more politically fluid than most Americans Uh just because I realize how negotiable a lot of this
1:46:02stuff is Um and context dependent and location dependent they are too Right Absolutely And
1:46:08and and honestly that's been uh such a blessing over the last 10 years because it's like I watch
1:46:13everybody in the United States is like running around like their hair is on fire Uh both on the
1:46:18left and the right and um I I just kind of feel like this weirdo who's looking around and I'm
1:46:22like "Guys it's not that bad." Like you've been to Venezuela like it could get so much worse Yeah
1:46:28Yeah I I flew into Guatemala one time and three days later they arrested the president So it was
1:46:32like nothing There you go What about yourself well um I mean when I think about it this I I usually
1:46:42go back too because I grew up in a small town conservative area and I realize how much of that
1:46:48has influenced me that how much of that culture has really influenced me So it was a place where
1:46:53uh self-sufficiency was valued very highly Um and again that's contexting and location dependent
1:46:59there It's a small town There's not a lot of resources around you have to be self-sufficient
1:47:03Um and so they are going to lean more towards you know that kind of bootstrap mentality that
1:47:10you have out there and they're going to value things that support that And then you know I've
1:47:14lived in bigger cities and in other countries as well where that's not the case and you can
1:47:18be a little bit more hey we all need to get along a little bit better and help each other
1:47:22out a little bit more and contribute a little bit more Yeah In a collective sense So I I've had very
1:47:26similar experiences as well as when I'm navigating different cultures Yeah you definitely if once you
1:47:31embed yourself in those you're right You actually start to see why they do the things they do rather
1:47:38than just looking from the outside saying "That's stupid." You know that's dumb Why would you do
1:47:41that So yeah it is it is uh recognizing the water that you swim in I guess you could call it Yeah
1:47:49Um and understanding like what you've chosen and what's been chosen for you essentially Yeah Yeah
1:47:55For sure Um it was interesting because kind of the successor to Margaret me was another woman named
1:48:00Mary Douglas and um she really built on Margaret Me's research and work and um and she really tried
1:48:09to map out what cultural values there were and kind of place different cultures on that map or
1:48:16that grid And she came up with a uh twodimension framework that guess what it's gonna sound
1:48:25extremely familiar because it's almost the exact same two-dimension framework that we've discussed
1:48:30throughout the entire episode right so she called it the grid group framework So there's high grid
1:48:37cultures and low grid cultures High- grid cultures is very rigid rules-based um they prioritize order
1:48:45and authority um and respect for authority and low grid cultures are very libertarian
1:48:52independent individualistic individualistic And then you have the group framework So there's high
1:48:58collectivist societies you know where it's just very communal and you sacrifice yourself for the
1:49:03larger group And then there's high individualistic societies Individualism Yeah And guess what maps
1:49:08perfectly well onto the political compass that we talked about earlier um also maps extremely well
1:49:13onto Schwarz's two dimension tension of between the self-trcendence and self-improvement versus
1:49:21openness to experience and uh conservatism on the other on the other axis So so there
1:49:27there does seem to be these two inherent tensions just within the human mind period
1:49:32uh between the things that we value and they seem to show up fractally across all sorts of different
1:49:38things whether you're looking at an individual psychology which is Schwarz's value framework
1:49:43You're looking at a politics within a society which is the political compass or you're looking
1:49:49at cultural values across societies which is Mary Douglas's greatgroup framework So if listeners
1:49:56are interested in the grid group framework we've written a bit more in the PDF guide You can go
1:50:00to solpodcast.com/values and download it there U we've got some nice little charts and graphs and
1:50:07you can really nerd out on it You can you can nerd out on it All the citations are there as well So I
1:50:12think ultimately you know Mary Douglas's points are like individuals each cultural type chooses
1:50:18its own values and its own trade-offs and um these values become the norms and taboss of that society
1:50:24Right so you know within a individual you kind of have tastes and distaste I think within a society
1:50:32you have norms and customs on the one hand those are things that we are reflections of the things
1:50:38that we value and then you have taboos uh which are the reflections of the things we don't value
1:50:43right and I think just as with individuals we have a natural tendency to see cultures
1:50:49and societies with conflicting values to ours as immoral or wrong ultimately the fundamental
1:50:55point of cultural relativism is that there isn't any like absolute right or wrong But I do want to
1:51:00make a caveat here because the primary criticism of cultural relativism is like you know stuff like
1:51:07uh what about societies that have slaves or uh do human sacrifices or you know women can't leave
1:51:15the house or whatever It turns you an an apologist pretty quickly Yeah Yes Um what's interesting and
1:51:20I I didn't realize this but Margaret me was very aware of this issue and like struggled with it a
1:51:26lot Of course you did Yeah And to my knowledge I didn't read all of her stuff but like to my
1:51:30knowledge she didn't really find a satisfying answer to that question I read a little bit
1:51:35beyond this too and we won't get into this but like uh you know uh Sam Harris wrote a book on
1:51:39on morality right and um he he thinks that if we can find a more objective way to measure morality
1:51:46we would be able to then objectively compare cultures And and his was well-being much like
1:51:52Carol Riff like how do we increase well-being and does a culture or society increase the well-being
1:51:58of its individuals and its groups and all of that that's debatable though even too Yeah Right You
1:52:03know my intuition on this is that cultural values are very similar to what Schwarz talks about which
1:52:10is that you can overindex on a value Yeah Right And when you overindex on a single value it harms
1:52:16the other areas the other values Right And that's true within an individual We've already talked
1:52:20about I think that's true within a society as well Like if you overindex on order and authority
1:52:25like you are going to sacrifice a lot of other valuable things right similarly if you overindex
1:52:31on freedom and autonomy you're going to sacrifice a lot of other valuable things chaotic yeah so I
1:52:36almost see it as again to come back to my main man Aristotle like the virtue is the golden mean
1:52:43right the the optimal amount of freedom in a society is is it's not total and complete but
1:52:50it's also not lacking either right there's no there should be no enslavement or coercion or
1:52:56um oppression but there also just can't be like you know chains off run wild and free you know
1:53:04do whatever the [ __ ] you want consequences be damned Like you can't have that either So like
1:53:09again even within a culture like you have to make trade-offs between the things that you value You
1:53:14have to give up maybe a little bit of freedom in this domain to promote more social cohesion
1:53:20and harmony in this domain And I think as long as you're not going to any extremes on any dimension
1:53:29uh you're probably within the realms of morality which interestingly Aristotle is
1:53:35the only framework that we've talked about that like he did see this as a moral question He did
1:53:39see excess as a a failure of morality That becomes a little bit more apparent when you look at it
1:53:46on this like social scale Yeah I think another example you and I have talked about this before
1:53:51is like a lot of Latin American and Asian cultures put family as a very high value in their systems
1:53:57right whereas more individualistic cultures like the United States and Western Europe we don't as
1:54:01much And from the outside looking in a lot of us are like "Oh we wish we you know valued family
1:54:05more." And you get into those and you can see when it's taken to extreme right that you start
1:54:11uh maybe sacrificing things that you maybe would benefit you if you didn't sacrifice them for your
1:54:17family or you see this all the time especially in Latin America like there's corruption charges
1:54:21somewhere and what do they say well I was doing it for my family right dude it it took me so
1:54:26many years to to connect those two dots and and when I did it was like just such a mind-blowing
1:54:32moment But like if you look at those family oriented cultures and you look at corruption
1:54:36scales like they are pretty strongly correlated and and it wasn't until I lived in Brazil for a
1:54:41long time that I started to realize I remember actually having a conversation with a number of
1:54:44Brazilian friends and I was like if your brother killed somebody and the police came and knocked
1:54:50on your door and asked where your brother was would you tell him where he is and every single
1:54:55one of them was like no he's my brother right and of course as an American I'm like yeah he's right
1:54:59there like arrest the [ __ ] Yeah Yeah Yeah And it was so interesting because uh and I remember
1:55:06reading I I remember I forget where but I remember reading a book on corruption and it and it was
1:55:12it's exactly what you said It's like everybody who commits corruption they justify it by saying like
1:55:17well I'm just going to skim a little bit off the top here to like send my kid to college Well you
1:55:23know I'm going to skim a little bit over here because uh my aunt has cancer and she's going
1:55:28to have a lot of hospital bills Oh well you know I'm going to take a little bribe over here because
1:55:32uh you know my cousin just broke his leg and he can't work anymore You know like there's always
1:55:37a justification that feels very morally righteous and feels correct to them And when you scale that
1:55:45across millions of people and over a very large system across a population uh you you get a system
1:55:52that that just breaks down and and completely fails And uh so yeah it's that's a perfect example
1:55:58of how these value networks exist in a very tenuous balance and not just on the individual
1:56:05level but also on the social level and um so we would be remiss to talk about where values come
1:56:12from without talking about we've talked about the nurture side right it's like the environment you
1:56:17grow up in the people you grow up around We would be remiss to not talk about the nature side right
1:56:23how much is there a genetic component to what you value uh what you find important what you
1:56:28find moral and immoral It turns out there probably is right yeah Yeah This comes from Jonathan Height
1:56:36uh and his moral foundations theory Now obviously now he's moved on to social media Yeah Trying to
1:56:42save the kids Saving the kids from social media Um but he started out in moral psychology actually Um
1:56:48and he came up with this whole framework called the moral foundations theory Mh And essentially
1:56:53what he says is that we have evolved a set of moral foundations that are kind of like taste buds
1:56:59They're kind of like tastes for different moral configurations if you will And he came up with
1:57:06well there's six but they he said there's at least six basically and I'll just list them off real
1:57:10quick They are care fairness loyalty authority sanctity and liberty Okay Um the moral foundations
1:57:21theory basically posits that we each we all have these values those values okay those six values
1:57:28in some way It's just that we prioritize them differently And he said these these
1:57:34proclivities these foundations they evolved for specific purposes right like so care the the care
1:57:40foundation evolved so we would care for children right and then it got co-opted into a value system
1:57:45right same thing with like fairness and cheating If we're going to live in groups we need to be
1:57:48able to spot cheaters and um have have some sort of cheating detection mechanism and punish them if
1:57:54we uh if we find them cheating Authority we need to have group order all that kind of stuff Okay so
1:58:00essentially these helped us uh cooperate and live in groups uh survive thrive reproduce propagate
1:58:06the species right everybody has these It's just they come in different configurations that can
1:58:10be influenced by culture like we just talked about Um but there probably is some genetic component to
1:58:15it as well Um if we're we're talking about this from a political um standpoint then what he's
1:58:23found the multiple tests this has been replicated many many many times is that liberals tend to
1:58:29um prioritize the care it's the care versus harm foundation is what he calls it as well as uh
1:58:35somewhat the fairness and cheating foundation Okay Conservatives interestingly kind of use the whole
1:58:41pallet all five or six of these right they they do prioritize care and fairness like liberals do
1:58:48but they also prioritize these other ones So like loyalty to your ingroup or loyalty in general but
1:58:54mostly that's an ingroup type of thing Loyalty versus betrayal authority versus subversion
1:59:00sanctity versus degradation That's a big one for the conservatives as well It's kind of purity Yeah
1:59:04Um value And then liberty Interesting because I I feel like the last 10 years the left has been big
1:59:11on purity It's a different form of purity though isn't it yeah Yeah It's like a thought purity Yeah
1:59:15There's more thought purity or um Well there's always kind of been purity around like what do
1:59:20you eat right that's that's kind of a left thing too You shouldn't be eating these processed foods
1:59:25and stuff like that But but it's but more like big picture they're more concerned about care and
1:59:30harm Yeah Um conservatives more loyalty Loyalty sanity authority Yeah Liberty oppression What's
1:59:37interesting too I think the these are the these are all based in like an emotional reaction You
1:59:45have an emotional this is people argue about politics and they're always arguing about the
1:59:49facts and the ideas behind it But all of this is incredibly well the point the very good point that
1:59:57I'd love to hear an argument about a fact The very good point that it's been a long time that Hype
2:00:02makes is that he he has this analogy of the the elephant and the writer So he he wrote about this
2:00:06in the book called The Righteous Mind It came out in like 2012 I think All right And he thought "Oh
2:00:11my god political polarization is crazy." And we were all like "Hold my beer." Like this is going
2:00:15to get worse right dude I have such a good segue coming up in five minutes Keep going Okay But he
2:00:21he said um he has this analogy with the writer and the elephant He's like "Look the elephant is in
2:00:27charge." You've made similar similar analogies like this The elephant is in charge The writer
2:00:31what he calls the writer on top of the elephant comes along after the fact and justifies whatever
2:00:35the elephant is doing Right Right So the elephant really pulls us The writer is just there as a kind
2:00:39of our lawyer to be like "Well this is why I'm doing it." Obviously it's always after the fact
2:00:43though Okay And so these moral foundations are all emotionally based and emotionally tugging us in
2:00:50different directions What I kind of thought about was like okay if conservatives are using the whole
2:00:55pallet of these uh moral foundations it makes sense that they are conservative that they want
2:01:00to conserve and not change because they feel that pull in all these different directions Whereas
2:01:06liberals kind of just have this uh emphasis on care and harm That's kind of like their their main
2:01:13um their main moral foundation Then they're okay changing everything in order to optimize for care
2:01:18and harm Whereas liberals are like "No care and harm is important but so is you know liberty So
2:01:23so is being loyal to the people around you and and having a community and a group that
2:01:28can support you." And so they don't want to mess up that balance as much because they feel that
2:01:33emotional pull So I think that was that was kind of an unlock for me where it was like "Oh okay the
2:01:38there's this really deep-seated emotional um basis for these values and it's obviously because you
2:01:44know they've evolved over hundreds of thousands if not millions of years Uh and so you can't really
2:01:50reason with someone you can't reason them out of their values You can't convince somebody to stop
2:01:55caring for people they care about Right Or Exactly Exactly Or you can't you can't convince them to
2:02:03uh you know not want freedom not want freedom or not want fairness in in a system Yeah Yeah There's
2:02:09really no argument there's no logical argument against those things There's an interesting
2:02:14little thing too about the the fairness uh foundation as well Um he found that liberals
2:02:20are unsurprisingly they see fairness as equality Right they think a system is fair if it comes to
2:02:26roughly equal outcomes for people not necessarily outcomes but even opportunity as well Whereas
2:02:32conservatives are more concerned with fairness uh as it pertains to proportionality Okay So um
2:02:38if somebody contributes more well a conservative would think well they deserve more then you know
2:02:42that whereas a liberal will be like well yes I I get that but also at the same time too there's
2:02:47all these systematic disadvantages that they have and so there should be some equalizing mechanism
2:02:51there too So there's there's a butting head It's not that conservatives don't care about fairness
2:02:55It's just they have a different idea of what fairness means There's different definitions
2:02:59which both are totally justified and valid like 100% valid Yeah Yeah It is It's so funny that
2:03:06these like these contradictory and intention value systems like the more we talk about this the more
2:03:12it's it's so clear that these are baked in as a as a feature not a bug Like this is you are supposed
2:03:18to feel torn as a human right like that is I I almost think about it as like we all have like
2:03:25committees in our brain right like let's imagine that uh you know whichever values framework you
2:03:30want to pick here it could be nine people it could be six people it could be five people whatever are
2:03:34sitting in your brain and they're like arguing about each decision and sometimes every once in
2:03:38a while you'll get like a unanimous decision right it's like there's a six to zero vote it's like oh
2:03:43that's an easy that's a no-brainer decision this is the right thing to do but most big decisions
2:03:48it's like 3 to two or four to six or uh five to four or something and you just feel like so
2:03:55torn you're like this doesn't really feel fair but it's also good for the people I care about
2:04:01but it's like not really aligned with these other things I care about And and like you just kind of
2:04:06agonize over it It's super most decisions or most most situations Yeah it's most decisions Um so my
2:04:14my banger segue here Um the rider and the elephant Mhm There that's a fimile of of something that
2:04:22Plato talked about which was the writer in the chariot which which Jonathan Hay also mentioned
2:04:26in the happiness hypothesis So Plato allow me to nerd out a little bit here Um one of the if you
2:04:34read Plato's Republic one of the most interesting things about the Republic I mean there are there
2:04:40are all sorts of interesting political points that he makes uh and it it is kind of considered the
2:04:46foundational text of western political philosophy But what's fascinating about the Republic is that
2:04:52there's kind of this alternating uh organization to the to the book which is that each each chapter
2:05:00or technically each book within the book each chapter is like one will be about the
2:05:06individual and like what is right and wrong and how decisions are made and what are the what are
2:05:12what's virtuous and what's you know a vice and then the next chapter will address kind of the
2:05:18same topic but it'll it'll address it at the societal level And throughout the whole book
2:05:22Plato like you can tell he's bending backwards and pretzeling himself to keep this metaphor
2:05:30alive through the whole thing that like what is personal is also social and what is social
2:05:36is also personal So like towards the end of the the book like he sets up this whole framework of
2:05:43uh how our individual psychology functions and he he kind of talks about this of like
2:05:48you know he talks about the the writer and the chariot and how like we have these like competing
2:05:53um drives and and motivations and and how we have to like balance them properly with each other and
2:05:58if they get out of balance then we start making poor poor decisions and it's like very damaging
2:06:03and harmful for our individual And then the very next chapter is about the same thing for society
2:06:09and how we have all these conflicting interests in society and how we need to find mechanisms and
2:06:13systems to balance them properly and if anything gets out of balance then we're going to make bad
2:06:17decisions and it's going to be harmful for society So it's funny I I I was like kind of amused by
2:06:23this especially as an author I was like "This is a really interesting." Like he's really holding on
2:06:28to this very hard And then I started researching this episode Yeah And I was like "Motherfucking
2:06:34Plato man." Like it is really impossible to ignore the parallels and the fractal nature of how values
2:06:42exist within the individual and also within the society And you know obviously I don't think
2:06:46Plato's framework was perfect I don't think like his prescriptions were perfect but like he clearly
2:06:52was tapping into something very fundamental and and uh very true And it's interesting because I
2:06:59remember reading it I think I read it in like 2018 or something I found it absolutely fascinating
2:07:05Plato and Aristotle like you can really never go wrong going back and reading them again
2:07:09But I didn't take it super seriously and I didn't think about it on a day-to-day
2:07:12basis But like prepping for this episode and especially now that we're recording it and
2:07:16talking out all this stuff that you and I have been researching for months it it really is it's
2:07:22become it's kind of become impossible for me to not see you know the the the same way we talked
2:07:28about how like a healthy individual has a well- balanced network of values and opposing values
2:07:33that are counterbalancing each other effectively and other values that are harmonizing each other
2:07:37um it's impossible to kind of not see that play out within a society itself or across societies
2:07:43And I almost think you could kind of look at history as a series of societies getting out
2:07:50of balance or overindexing on one particular value it having dramatically negative consequences and
2:07:58then the corrective to that that out of balance right so you could almost you could look at
2:08:04uh you know sorry it's the internet we're going to get there eventually It's Hitler
2:08:07You know you could look at the Nazis right you could look at the Nazis as like just a insane
2:08:13overindexing on certain values that we all have within us And then there had to be like
2:08:20an intense corrective measure to counterbalance that to bring it to to bring balance back to the
2:08:26force as as Star Wars would say I think it can also work in a positive direction And so it's
2:08:32just like it's a very interesting thing I guess philosophically It's it's super interesting that
2:08:40that I feel like I can kind of see the matrix in terms of like how all this stuff functions
2:08:47and uh and it's super cool I mean we're going to the the in a minute we're going to start getting
2:08:52into like the the applications and you know how to change your values how to figure out
2:08:57your values and change them and work with them and alter them and all that stuff Um so we're
2:09:02wrapping up kind of the the philosophical and the theoretical portion of this episode but
2:09:08um I do have to say that like I feel like I've I've I've like reached a point on this subject
2:09:15that I feel like Neo I see the ones and zeros Yeah Yeah Well I I actually I'm dodging bullets
2:09:23True In slow-mo Yeah Um I I I I have an example of this actually too that illustrates this on a
2:09:32little bit smaller level but still illustrates this So um can I tell you my story about when I
2:09:37almost got in a fist fight at a taco truck yes Yeah Okay Yes This is what we're here for This
2:09:43is what we're here for This is where the values really play out is that the taco trucks Okay The
2:09:47taco trucks I mean there there's some truth to this as you'll see I think um it was years ago
2:09:52I was with a was with an old girlfriend of mine at the time and we went to this taco truck we go
2:09:55to although it wasn't too far from where we were living and um go to this taco truck We order our
2:10:00food We go sit down at the picnic table There's a guy sitting down at this picnic table already
2:10:04There's only one picnic table We sit down next to him He strikes up a little bit of just small talk
2:10:07with us It becomes clear very quickly that he's not um he he has some mental disabilities Yeah
2:10:13Okay And he's not all there Really nice guy He's being really sweet though Uh eventually he asked
2:10:18us he's like "Hey I just spent all my money at the taco truck and I'm trying to catch a bus You guys
2:10:22got any money for bus fair?" I'm like "Oh sorry man We're we're out of cash We don't have any
2:10:25cash Apologies." You know didn't think anything of it Few minutes later he gets up There's another
2:10:30guy ordering at the taco truck This guy gets up and goes up to to the um window and he reaches
2:10:37into the tip jar I think what happened was he tipped He realized he didn't have any money He
2:10:42went to go get his tip back so he could get on the bus That's what I think That's what I saw
2:10:47From my point of view that's what happened Yeah But the guy ordering just saw him reach into the
2:10:51tip jar and he lost it on this guy Just lost it Just started screaming at him cursing at him you
2:10:58know and obviously I don't he hadn't interacted with him at all to that point So he didn't know
2:11:03he was mentally disabled in some way And so I went up there to try to diffuse the situation Um told
2:11:08the guys like "Hey buddy I think you just need to leave You know we'll get you some money somewhere
2:11:12else or whatever." Then the other guy um pulled some money out of his pocket and threw it in his
2:11:16face Like pulled a couple bills Wow And I lost it right there Okay that's when I lost it And then my
2:11:22girlfriend's sitting over here like "Don't." She's like "Stop Drew Sit down What are just stop?" Okay
2:11:28And me and this guy get into a shouting match The guy who threw the money at this other guy
2:11:32Me and him get into a shouting match I call him an [ __ ] He calls me a lot of different names We're
2:11:37going back and forth He's getting physically threatening with me I'm like "Oh this is going
2:11:40to happen Here we go." you know boy Um and so it it was we we deescalated eventually He and
2:11:48I shook hands We parted ways I've thought a lot about that since then This was years ago but I've
2:11:52thought a lot about that since then And it really did play out with these values And actually the
2:11:56ones that that Jonathan Height played out here right he was he was violating my sense of care
2:12:02and harm He was like I I had an interaction with this guy I realized he was mentally disabled and
2:12:08probably needed a little extra you know leeway He didn't see that Obviously what he saw was
2:12:13the cheating the the unfairness and the cheating going on That um really set him off And then my
2:12:19girlfriend sitting back here she was more like I need peace and calm and order right now She
2:12:23came from a very hectic background and stuff like that so she really valued more order in her life
2:12:28Yeah Um and so all of these these values were competing at this and it all came to a head and
2:12:33none of us were necessarily wrong We were just all operating on different values at that point
2:12:38um because of what had happened in our perspective right i can look at it now from a more detached um
2:12:45uh point of view But at the time I mean I it was a very emotionally charged situation obviously Yeah
2:12:50And it was because of these value triggers these these innate kind of foundations that that Height
2:12:56outlined here They've been violated for each one of us in that situation And I don't know
2:13:01I just thought it was interesting But now I can look back at a detachment like "Oh okay This guy
2:13:04wasn't actually an asshole." Yeah He just saw that somebody was cheating the system and he didn't
2:13:08like cheaters Like okay that makes sense to me He didn't see that I had already seen this guy had
2:13:13probably needed a little extra care and a little extra tending to and and he violated that when I
2:13:18saw him treating him poorly and then my girlfriend was like "Okay this is just stupid basically." And
2:13:23she was probably right honestly at the time Yeah Your girlfriend was the wise one Yeah So I don't
2:13:28know I to me that is kind of a microcosm of I think of what goes on all the time People get
2:13:34into fights or they get into arguments and they think they're so right because one of their values
2:13:40has been violated or triggered in some way and they don't see that somebody else's has also been
2:13:46at the same time So I don't know I just thought that was yeah kind of interesting You know Plato
2:13:51called this the allegory of the taco truck He did Yeah that's true He's got the allegory of the taco
2:13:56truck Yeah that was that was in the the the the cut chapter of the Republicans That's actually
2:14:02what the chariot was It's actually a taco truck The writer in the taco truck Yeah New book idea
2:14:12The writer in the taco truck The allegory of the taco truck That's my taco truck story Um
2:14:16I thought you were going to say uh and this was all a metaphor for uh Trump administration 2.0
2:14:24Well I mean you could go there Yeah Yeah Um yeah all all the conspiracy bros are
2:14:28going to be dissecting that story for the next three months on Twitter Yeah basically
2:14:41Uh Drew I've come to a realization Okay The blazer was a bad idea Yeah cuz we're in hour
2:14:49three or four here and uh I'm sweating like a [ __ ] pig What I've discovered is that my
2:14:55value for professionalism is not very high on my heart Okay lesson learned Lesson learned
2:15:03You will change your behavior going forward Now I definitely value my own comfort That's good
2:15:07And uh lack of sweatiness a little bit more than You could shed it if you want to I think that's
2:15:13okay if you want Oh man Okay Keep it keep it classy How how how are we going to be credible
2:15:18if not neither of us is wearing a blazer i'm not going to help your cause at all That's for sure
2:15:23What are we talking about Mark what are we at now where are we going to So okay we've talked quite
2:15:30a bit about what are our values what do they do why are they important uh where do they come from
2:15:35it's finally time to get into the application like how do we figure out what our values are how do
2:15:42we change our values and how can we adapt to our values moving forward So from here on out we're
2:15:48getting into the nuts and bolts the takeaways the applications starting with actually determining
2:15:56your core values Yeah Figuring them out Yeah Because it's very ambiguous and and unclear
2:16:02And you know we've up to this point we've had a ton of these conversations We've had a bunch of
2:16:06little anecdotes and like oh yeah when I was young I used to feel this way And it's it's really hard
2:16:11to get actual clarity on like what are your values roughly what order that do they come in And so I I
2:16:25something called the desert island visualization One of the things that I find is really clarifying
2:16:30for people is that like a lot of people you know we talked earlier about how there's like a murky
2:16:35line between what our values are and what the people's values around us are And how do we know
2:16:40that we're actually doing something for ourselves versus just doing something to please other people
2:16:44and so I think one of the one of kind of the initial useful exercises is simply practicing a
2:16:50thought experiment of like removing those social pressures So the simple version of this is that
2:16:56imagine you're on a desert island and the desert island is absolutely abundant So it's everything
2:17:01you could ever want materially is there any like video games you enjoy or hobbies you might have or
2:17:09uh different foods that you might want like hypothetically you are capable of doing anything
2:17:14on this island that you can do off of the island Okay but you're alone on the island And so the
2:17:20question is what do you spend your time doing oh are you reading are you watching TV are you
2:17:28painting are you making music are you learning a new skill are you studying a language are you like
2:17:34What are you doing Right What would you do um I the when you said reading I was like "Oh I'd
2:17:40definitely bring a bunch of books because I just I I love that." I think I would I still
2:17:44think I would work out I actually think I would Even though I think I started working out to to
2:17:48look good for other people but I I still think I would because I feel so good about it Yeah So I
2:17:52think I would definitely still work on my health Um because even if you're alone there's a lot of
2:17:57value with that Yeah And yeah I would explore all sorts of creative stuff too Just anything
2:18:01and everything If nothing mattered if if nobody there was no social pressure around to judge my
2:18:05work or anything like that I think I would go nuts with that Yeah In an ideal world those are the top
2:18:10of mind for me anyway What what comes to mind for you first it's funny because I don't think my life
2:18:15would be that different Oh Oh Mark Wow That's a total Yeah that's a huge flex I I should say that
2:18:26in a lot of these exercises Yeah that is kind of the ideal response Right Right Yeah it's like if
2:18:32I was alone on a desert island I would probably spend most of my time reading and writing and
2:18:37playing video games which is basically what I uh and running on the beach which I also do now So
2:18:45so that's the goal That's the goal is that you if there is a large discrepancy if like all the
2:18:51things you would do on the island have nothing to do with what you're doing in your day-to-day life
2:18:55that's a sign Okay that's a sign that a lot of what you're prioritizing in your life is are not
2:19:00actually your values It's the values of the people around you Okay Uh another useful exercise is to
2:19:07imagine your funeral This is almost kind of the opposite of the desert island exercise because
2:19:11this is this kind of reintroduces the social pressure but it's also asking yourself what
2:19:18do you want to be known to other people for like it removes you from it It removes yourself from
2:19:22Exactly So the second exercise is imagine yourself at your funeral and what do you wish people would
2:19:28say for your eulogy what do you wish that people would say about you if you died yeah mine is I
2:19:35I hope they say he gave more than he took That's um I think I've heard that some that sounds like
2:19:41a Gary Vee thing or something I don't know But um that really rings true to me I hope everybody says
2:19:46"Yeah he he gave more than he took." That's like the core of benevolence Yeah Yeah Like all the way
2:19:52through That was an easy one for me Like that one came to me right away and I was like "Okay I hope
2:19:56I'm living that out too." And I feel like I am So there again I think I'm in in alignment with that
2:20:00which is good It's funny I'm trying to think I'm actually kind of having a hard time with
2:20:06this one Yeah I was about to make a joke of like I I don't have friends or I don't like people Um
2:20:15I don't want you like anyone Yeah I don't want you at my funeral Don't come You're not invited
2:20:21everyone go home I think what I would want people to say is that I was um authentic and I stood up
2:20:32for what I believed in and ultimately I was a net positive force in the world Right Right
2:20:39That I gave a [ __ ] essentially Right So what's that what's that underlying value then uh like
2:20:43a contribution or um um I think there's some benevolence I think there's some benevolence
2:20:49in there Authenticity is definitely that's kind of the first thing that came to mind Um a little
2:20:55bit of self-directed you know it's like I did it my way right right Like I it was I wasn't
2:20:59afraid to like strike out on my own path and try things differently Um that feels important to me
2:21:06And then yeah the contribution feels important as well like you know leaving some sort of legacy or
2:21:12So okay what if somebody has the answer to that i think I'm borrowing from something you wrote one
2:21:18time like uh he [ __ ] like a wild the beast and I don't had the best golf swing I've ever
2:21:22seen Yeah Right Got the word in two every time Yeah Yeah Yeah Well unless you're Tiger Woods
2:21:29Like I I I doubt that's that's realistic Um so that's a mainstay of the social media account Uh
2:21:36it's it goes uh nobody's going to stand up at your funeral and say he [ __ ] like a wilderbeast and
2:21:40had the best golf swing I've ever seen I I think the point there is that ultimately when you're
2:21:45dead you don't really care about impressing people anymore So what's the value you're really leaving
2:21:51behind like what's the statement you're leaving behind what's the legacy you're leaving behind i
2:21:56I think it's a useful thing to think about I do think ultimately the things we care about they
2:22:01should be greater than ourselves in some sense Like I think our highest values like the top of
2:22:07the pyramid are really things that we should put above ourselves Yeah Right like that there's the
2:22:13that everything we know from the philosophy and psychology kind of states that like that that is
2:22:19the optimal arrangement is that the self is high on the pyramid but it's not at the top Right Right
2:22:25Yeah So I think if you are like if for whatever reason I don't think very many people would think
2:22:31that like oh this is what I want people to say you know I [ __ ] like oil to be had the best
2:22:34golf swinger ever If th those kind kinds of things are coming to mind maybe reevaluate that a little
2:22:40bit Yeah it's a sign that you're looking for a lot of validation Yeah Yeah What's another one um this
2:22:47one was very clarifying for me Look to frustration in your life as clues to your values as well What
2:22:53what sets you off what what what's your pet peeve that you have one that comes up over
2:22:58and over and over again Like for me it was just I see incompetence in the world and it just oh
2:23:04it drives me [ __ ] insane right this goes back to my mastery Like I I want environmental mastery or
2:23:09competence in the work you do I I like I I value competent people I value competence in myself I
2:23:15I expect that in myself and in people around me And when I when I don't get it when it's around
2:23:19me when incompetence is in my environment oh just it drives me insane But it was like when I when I
2:23:26thought of this exercise like that one like went straight to it I was like yes that one You know
2:23:30what the first thing that came to my mind is it's actually kind of funny It this is similar to this
2:23:34is like my version of the allegory of the taco truck Okay Uh I hate line cutters Like yes that's
2:23:43another thing We We get it right in the United States Oh my god Everywhere else Come on you
2:23:47guys Like literally if you the the like if you if you add it up every time I've almost gotten in a
2:23:54fist fight like 80% of them are because somebody cut in line Yeah I I [ __ ] hate it Especially
2:24:01when you're at like a concert or something and you're like waiting in line for an hour and
2:24:04somebody just walks right in front of you lose my [ __ ] Absolutely lose my [ __ ] I'm always that
2:24:09guy who's like "No no no no no no no Back." Yeah Yeah Back You back Go back It's the fairness right
2:24:17absolutely comes down And fairness is a huge thing for me Fairness and and fairness justice
2:24:22integrity is like a big thing for me But it's um I do think for me it's fairness more it's less about
2:24:29equality and it's more about uh integrity Yeah Like integrity honesty and integrity are like
2:24:37huge things for me The rest of us stood in line You have to too Exactly That's that's how it works
2:24:42Exactly And and like the way this plays out in in my career is that like I just I mean as you know
2:24:49there's a lot of [ __ ] in this industry There's a lot of shortcuts There's a lot of things you can
2:24:54say to to get get some audience or get some money like a bunch of you know little hacks and stuff
2:25:01right shortcuts Yeah I can't do it Yeah I [ __ ] I can't do it because it's it's if it's not if I
2:25:08don't honestly believe it's helpful to people like I just can't bring myself to say it So that's a
2:25:12huge one for me Okay Yeah Yeah It's no taco truck but it's it's the best I got What else um Okay
2:25:21Ranking and prioritizing If you uh would just put two values up that you're trying to decide
2:25:27between I like this choice This is like Yeah Yeah What's the What's that movie Sophie's Choice you
2:25:34know where it's like I don't think I've seen that movie Oh it's it's I think it's about a mother who
2:25:38has to choose between two of her kids Like one she like has to decide which of her two kids dies Okay
2:25:44Um sounds great I should I should really check that movie Just a bundle of fun Take the whole
2:25:50family So I kind of imagine like a Sophie's choice arrangement here with like you put two
2:25:56values you know maybe uh in the gallows and like put a noose around their head getting a little
2:26:01sick here But and then you have to like pick one right so it's like you have to live the rest of
2:26:06So let's go with like honesty and competency Okay So like honesty and competence Oh yeah Gun to your
2:26:14head You you have to live the rest of your life without one of them Which one do you pick i'm
2:26:19going with honesty You That was a gut reaction You get rid of honesty No no no I would I would
2:26:24choose it I would choose Yeah Yeah I would get rid of competency I think And it would drive me insane
2:26:29Yes And I would hate it But I would rather live in an honest world that with a bunch of
2:26:33uh incompetent morons than like a bunch of lying [ __ ] who are highly competent Yes I totally You
2:26:41know what I just did there i just made all that up after the fact too Yeah I I did the whole
2:26:45This is the whole John Height thing right that was the writer Uh um your writer was justifying
2:26:50justifying my elephant there My gut reaction was honesty and then I made up a reason for why Yeah
2:26:55I'm with you though And actually I would you I think you could actually argue that dishonest
2:27:00competency is is like oh that's that's it's the definition of evil It's malignant Yeah Right Like
2:27:06that is that's like Darth Vader right like that's that's uh Yeah Yeah Of course in the real world we
2:27:12don't have to make those choices luckily I mean sometimes maybe or Yeah Yeah We could be in the
2:27:17Matrix once again I mean have you seen the recent elections good point Good fair point Fair point
2:27:25Typically we don't have to choose between those but yeah Yeah No that it is an interesting thought
2:27:29experiment of I mean you can get yourself in some really ugly situations right like uh if you think
2:27:36about um I don't know like uh uh community versus uh career achievement right gun in your head you
2:27:44can only have one Which one do you take i would probably take career achievement which is not the
2:27:51quote unquote Yeah correct answer but if I'm being honest that's what I would take That's a tough one
2:27:58for me I don't know if I don't know I might lean towards moral community on that one just because
2:28:03well I'm just I'm making up another reason for it I think it's the thing you can't think too much
2:28:08about I I think you're you're right that it's like the the gut there's a gut reaction there It's the
2:28:12gut reaction It's like the first thing that just seems right You just go with it because that is
2:28:17ultimately like these values exist at a very deep emotional level This brings up a question
2:28:21I wanted to ask in this section too was how much ho how how dispositional do you think values are
2:28:26versus aspirational right because I I think a lot of these like when you when I came down to
2:28:32it and when I was going through like okay really decide my values and I do this every couple of
2:28:36years like what am I valuing right now and this and that it's a gut thing it seems like such a
2:28:39gut thing to me but I don't know how much of that is like you know there probably is some
2:28:45mix of genetics and and culture and socializing and all of that I how much how much of these are
2:28:52dispositional versus aspirational and we'll get to the change part I guess changing of value too but
2:28:57um can you aspire to change a value I don't know I think you can yeah you think I mean there's
2:29:02there's some personality component to it though right there is because like for instance my mom
2:29:07and my sister were both social workers and they're like both of them like business just
2:29:11thinking about business kind of drives them nuts they're just like whatever you know and
2:29:14they're just both of them have hearts of gold and social work makes sense for somebody who's
2:29:19like more achievement based I was going to look at that like why would you be a social worker that's
2:29:23insane yeah right it's like well there's probably a very dispositional factor that went into there
2:29:29is I so I think you can be aspirational at the margins right okay I don't think you can wholesale
2:29:34so let's use the example I think achievement and community in my life is like a really good example
2:29:38of this right so uh I even if I [ __ ] you and said community here because that's the thing that
2:29:45you're supposed to say and you know whatever Uh it does not take a rocket scientist to look at my
2:29:52life over the last 10 years and be like clearly you value achievement more because you've like
2:29:57just worked like an insane person and designed your life around it Yeah Right And like foregone
2:30:01community and connection repeatedly through your choices That's part of it But that being
2:30:07said I can look at my life like understanding what everything I know about psychology and
2:30:13well-being and human flourishing and whatnot It's very clear to me that it's like yeah I could use
2:30:19more community in my life Like that would make me a more balanced better functional person if
2:30:24I like maybe de-indexed on achievement just a little Like maybe bring the volume knob down
2:30:30from 10 to a nine and then dial the community up from like a four to a six Okay Like if that if I
2:30:38can manage that trade-off that's probably overall a beneficial trade-off in my life But it's hard
2:30:43right so So I would say in that sense you value can be aspirational but I don't think you can
2:30:48go from like I'm trying to think of something like I genuinely just don't [ __ ] care So like
2:30:53uh formality or propri like we're making the jokes about blazers and stuff right
2:30:58if there's anything I just genuinely do give zero [ __ ] about it is it is like formalities
2:31:06propri like impropriety social like social like I do care about social norms but like
2:31:12uh you know stuff like your uh you know when you go to this sort of event you're supposed
2:31:17to wear your tuxedo like this and always touch this fork first Like I don't [ __ ] care Don't
2:31:22care Never will I'm with you on that dude I don't care whose princess you are Um I'm gonna eat with
2:31:28my job titles I'm from Texas I'm gonna eat with my hands I don't care So I don't think I can aspire
2:31:35to start caring about like it ultimately if I do aspire to start caring about that it's probably
2:31:40because it it's becoming an instrumental value in something else I'll give you an example about that
2:31:45So we were joking about Tiger Woods Woods earlier Yeah I almost had the ch I I had the chance to
2:31:50play golf with Tiger Woods Oh okay And I didn't st like unintentionally I didn't The the hilarious
2:31:58part about this is that I hate golf Just gonna say so the story behind this I was doing Will Smith's
2:32:06book and Will is a good friend of Tigers and Will loves golf He's like [ __ ] obsessed with golf
2:32:12And uh I was hanging out with him in Miami and um and we were like having dinner or whatever and
2:32:20Will just like very casually was like "Hey do you want to play golf tomorrow?" And I was like "No
2:32:23I don't really play." He's like "Oh okay cool." And then like Will's manager came over and he's
2:32:28like "Hey man I think you should go to golf with him tomorrow." And I was like "Dude I don't play
2:32:31I'm going to be and like I know enough about golf to know that if you don't play golf you're going
2:32:36to embarrass yourself and you are going to slow everybody down like you just you drag the whole
2:32:42game Like it just it makes everybody miserable And so I was like "No no no no I'm like it's it's
2:32:48not going to go well." Uh and and he was like he looked at me and he was like "You should really go
2:32:53to this golf game." And I was like "Uh I'm tired I I don't know." I was like "This is kind of weird
2:33:00This is a lot of pressure." I was like "No no no I'll just catch up with him after." Anyway come to
2:33:04find out the golf game was with Tiger Okay And uh the next day I found like I saw Will and he like
2:33:11comes in He's like "Man just had a great golf game man We were playing with Tiger Woods You
2:33:14should have come out." And I was just like "What the [ __ ] what the actual fuck?" And so I went
2:33:20through this minute phase in my life where I had this realization which is like "Okay uh really
2:33:29rich and successful people love golf right and uh I just I could have I I just passed up on like
2:33:37four hours of intimate facetime with Tiger Woods and Will Smith that if I just knew how to swing a
2:33:44[ __ ] golf club I would have had that right and then I started thinking I'm like how many other
2:33:48people are there in the world that if I knew how to swing a golf club I could have that sort of
2:33:52facetime and have that access and man like you're just out on this golf course by yourselves and
2:33:57like nothing else to do So you're just chatting and like you get to know each other and like you
2:34:00really build a relationship and all this stuff And I'm like "Wow knowing how to play golf like now I
2:34:04get it Now I get why all those [ __ ] corporate douchebags and CEOs and stuff play golf all the
2:34:09time cuz it's like the best networking activity there is period." So I was like "Okay I got to
2:34:15pick up golf." And so I went through this phase for like four months where I'm like I got to learn
2:34:19golf I got to like start liking golf And so I went to a driving range with a friend I was [ __ ]
2:34:24terrible And then I went to another friend's bachelor party and we played golf with a bunch
2:34:27of guys I got through like 10 holes and I was like I hate my life I want to go home And then uh I
2:34:32went I went home uh visited my parents My dad's obsessed with golf So I was like I told my dad
2:34:37I'm like you got to take me out play golf with you Like teach me how to play this game Teach me how
2:34:41I like this thing Anyway long story short after like a few months of this I'm like I [ __ ] hate
2:34:46this game Like what there's absolutely nothing redeeming about this for me There's nothing I
2:34:52like about it I'm absolutely terrible at it Uh and I realized I'm like what am I doing like this is
2:34:57not I don't actually value this game Yeah I value what this game gets me Mhm This is my achievement
2:35:04value at work right like the only reason I care about this is because I think it's going to like
2:35:10get me an end with people that I might want to have an end with I'm like that's stupid Like
2:35:17there's so many better ways to to meet people or like have an in with somebody right instead of
2:35:22trying to make yourself a hate playing So anyway that's my golf career Nobody will be standing up
2:35:28at my funeral and talking about my golf swing for sure Yeah I [ __ ] I hate golf too So I'm I don't
2:35:34know I I got nothing to add there because I've tried as well Yeah Yeah Any other uh fun exercises
2:35:40to discover values no there you know there's a lot of these you can kind of even come up with it on
2:35:45your own There's also you can go out and you can take these online tests for the values We kind of
2:35:48already mentioned that a little bit which you you can do that That's fine Shorts value survey That's
2:35:52I believe there's another one I think it's called the PVQ There's tons There's tons out there I
2:35:58found these exercises to be way more valuable for me though because it gets a little too analytical
2:36:04when you start okay what's my score on this values test and this and that and it's like oh these are
2:36:07real examples from my life that I immediately and emotionally connect with Like I was just saying
2:36:12you have these like immediate reactions when you do these thought experiments And those are way
2:36:16more clarifying than any test Yeah You get these and you're like you're like 42 on this and 33 on
2:36:21this And I'm just like what does that even mean it can be super abstract I mean I do think I I
2:36:26like these thought experiments better and and and kind of giving yourself time to debrief them a
2:36:35hierarchy idea a little bit and dig into it a little bit more We've referenced it throughout
2:36:40the episode at this point and I think it's one of those concepts that people intuitively understand
2:36:45like you hear that like yeah okay we all kind of prioritize our values and there's like a ladder
2:36:50right there's like my top value and there's values underneath it but I think it's worth
2:36:56considering a little bit more deeply uh what the significance of it is I also think this is really
2:37:02where the central message of subtle art comes in because if you think about the whole concept of
2:37:07not giving a [ __ ] like The the point that I make in the first chapter of that book is that there's
2:37:12no such thing as not giving a [ __ ] Really all there is is prioritizing things that deserve to
2:37:19be prioritized above the things that don't deserve to be prioritized Like generally when people are
2:37:23like "Wow I really I really wish I didn't give a [ __ ] about this." What they're saying is "I wish
2:37:29I didn't care about this as much as I do." Right like like you're always going to care about what
2:37:33other people think of you You're always going to care about uh obnoxious people hating on you on
2:37:38the internet You're always going to care about uh I don't know like whether your shoes are cool or
2:37:43not It's a very human thing That's not going to go away What does change or what does go away is
2:37:49your prioritization of that And it and if it's not properly prioritized on your value hierarchy if
2:37:55your highest value is something that is actually very superficial and unimportant then you're
2:38:01going to suffer pretty intensely because of it So really the value hierarchy is kind of the basis of
2:38:06the not give a [ __ ] framework And in the book you know I really tried to kind of outline what
2:38:12I saw as good values You know I I I said like you should value things that are ultimately
2:38:18within your control that are uh not tenuous or short-term or superficial that you should really
2:38:23focus on like long-term abstract principles Uh but it's it's one thing to just say that It's
2:38:29another thing to actually do it And I I do think to me the most important maybe the most important
2:38:36message of my career that I really stand by is is this idea of choosing your struggle because I
2:38:42think one thing we haven't really discussed yet is that uh generally speaking when people think
2:38:47about what's important to them and what they want in their life you're always thinking in terms of
2:38:51what you gain you're never thinking in terms of what you give up And ultimately I think that is
2:38:56actually what defines what where something is on your value hierarchy Like the thing at the top of
2:39:02your value hierarchy is not at the top because it's the thing you want the most It's the thing
2:39:07that you're willing to give up everything else for And if you want to nudge something further up your
2:39:14prioritization further up your value hierarchy the way to nudge it up higher is not by wanting
2:39:20it more it's by giving up more in the process Does that make sense yeah Yeah it does And it
2:39:26it's it's also no matter there's a cost to all of this Right Right It's the trade-off It's the
2:39:33trade-offs And it's it's what you are uh whatever pain you're going through now It's because of
2:39:39whatever value you have been prioritizing Exactly Right And you might not be aware of
2:39:44that You're like why am I why am I suffering this way i don't get it I don't understand
2:39:47it It's because of whatever you're choosing to value So if you value uh you know autonomy over
2:39:54uh comfort well get ready for some instability right and like you're like "Why is my life so
2:39:59crazy?" Well because you you value autonomy and freedom and refuse to compromise any of your own
2:40:05impulses Yeah So I love this idea that real value change actually comes from what you're willing to
2:40:11give up And I think it's not a coincidence that generally speaking the largest changes in people's
2:40:18lives occur not after a euphoric or great moment but actually after either a trauma or tragedy We
2:40:27see this over and over again So I'm I I'm curious Drew like what is it about these intense negative
2:40:34events in our lives that actually do open us up so much to change yeah Yeah There's this whole
2:40:40field in psychology uh this whole theory around it called post-traumatic growth theory Um it's
2:40:44been around for a few decades now There's lots of research backing it up Essentially um what the
2:40:52research finds is that somewhere between like 80 and 90% of people after they experience some sort
2:40:57of traumatic event a loss in their life and it can be big T trauma it can be little T trauma even too
2:41:03after they experience these traumatic events Somewhere between 80 and 90% of people report
2:41:08experiencing at least one positive change in their life Now this is not to romanticize trauma at all
2:41:15Okay this is not You don't need trauma to change Okay this you should not seek out trauma Do not
2:41:21seek out trauma Trust me life will come and give you some trauma It will deliver on its on that
2:41:26promise for sure That said trauma is incredibly common too I I think that's another point to
2:41:32drive home is that we all experience some degree of trauma Some people get it worse than others
2:41:36Yes And I want to acknowledge that absolutely But it's an inevitable part of life And um the
2:41:43the wild thing about humans is is not not only can we bounce back from trauma not only can we
2:41:48um endure these traumas but we actually can thrive and grow after these traumas It's a
2:41:54that's a very common thing too So not only is the trauma itself common but growing from
2:41:59that trauma is is an incredibly common thing There's there's five areas five domains that
2:42:04researchers have identified for areas of growth that people experience after a trauma Um you have
2:42:09improved relationships with others discovering new possibilities in life um increased personal
2:42:14strength a greater appreciation of life and spiritual or existential development You can
2:42:19see already those are like valuel laden domains of life right relationships and new possibilities
2:42:24and personal strength All of these are very very uh valuaden areas Yeah And what happens what what
2:42:31they think happens there's this kind of process that people go through You experience a trauma
2:42:35um and there's all these factors It depends on your personality depends on your coping
2:42:39strategies depends on your social network around you right but um what happens generally is you
2:42:45have this traumatic event and it it shakes up your worldview in some way or another right think
2:42:50of like an earthquake that happens or or like the fires in Los Angeles recently Like it's something
2:42:55like that happens Everybody kind of has this sense of oh something's different Something has changed
2:43:01My what I believed before no longer applies Yeah And so it forces you into this space of
2:43:08uh re-evaluating priorities in your life Um you ruminate on the event trying to figure it out
2:43:13trying to make sense of it That's our brains are just trying to make sense of the world all the
2:43:16time So it's trying to make sense of this trauma Um and what happens through that you go out to
2:43:23your social network you start talking to people you engage you try to come up with new a new
2:43:28worldview basically And through that your values change or at least they're rep prioritized right
2:43:34yeah The way the way I've always liked to think about this is that a trauma a traumatic event or
2:43:41a tragic event it is part of what makes it so painful is the experience of a value failing
2:43:49you Yes It's like you used to really care about this thing or you used to really believe this
2:43:54thing was true about yourself or the world and suddenly it that belief or that value fails you
2:44:00catastrophically and it leaves this like void right leaves a vacuum that needs to be filled
2:44:05inside you with some other value or some other belief And that process of like finding the new
2:44:09value or finding a new belief it it's difficult and uncomfortable but ultimately that vacuum is
2:44:17the opportunity for change and growth Right Right Yeah Like a classic example is um you know someone
2:44:23gets a terminal illness cancer or something like that um at some point in their life and all of a
2:44:28sudden they're thrown why am I spending so much time at work why am I so obsessed with status
2:44:32why am I so obsessed with validation from other people when I have my family right here that I've
2:44:37been neglecting or is something along those lines right a lower value value for a higher value Again
2:44:43it it puts that into stark contrast for you Now again I want to go back and just reiterate that
2:44:49you might have these positive changes or these these value changes that are in the
2:44:53right direction right alongside all the bad things about trauma too The they happen simultaneously So
2:44:59again not romanti romanticizing it or or saying there's only good things that will come out of
2:45:03this That's not what I mean at all It's one of those situations where like you have to hold the
2:45:07positive and negative in your mind at the same time Like I remember seeing a survey data that
2:45:11found that like cancer survivors something like 70 or 80% of them reported feeling more gratitude
2:45:18and and satisfaction with their lives in general after surviving the cancer And it's funny cuz I
2:45:24think the stupidest way to interpret that data is be like "Oh we should all go get cancer now."
2:45:28like it's like no no no you still don't want cancer but if you do get cancer and you manage and
2:45:33you're fortunate enough to survive uh chances are you're going to you're you're actually going to
2:45:38develop a lot of gratitude and and uh satisfaction for the for the people and things in your life
2:45:47What we're talking about is value change though and like it's undeniable that some traumatic
2:45:52events can change your values Now it depends again like on some personality traits that you have your
2:45:59coping strategies the event itself If it's like really horrible then it's less likely actually to
2:46:04have more positive effects than than not Um so there's all sorts of factors that go into that
2:46:10but there are some personality traits People who are generally optimistic um over pessimistic will
2:46:16experience this more Being open to new experiences too that that helps your coping styles like
2:46:21actively There's this thing in PTG in post traumat post-traumatic growth um called active rumination
2:46:29So you know a traumatic event happens and it's just natural for you to ruminate on it Right Right
2:46:33If you actively engage in that rumination though like the rumination is going to happen but if you
2:46:37actively engage in kind of cognitive reappraisal of it like okay this happened What value is it
2:46:44call calling into question in my life yeah Um how can I respond to this in a positive way um all of
2:46:50those sorts of things will will help increase the likelihood of some sort of growth I think
2:46:54one of the biggest ones and this comes up over and over again in all the studies I've read on
2:46:57post-traumatic growth which is your your social group um and which fits into the larger culture
2:47:04as well though So if if you are in a culture that's a little bit more um they're they're
2:47:10not open to the reinterpretation of the trauma or they don't want to hear you know it's more of a
2:47:13closed off keep that to yourself type supportive not supportive obviously that's not going to help
2:47:18but the social group in general has been shown to be one of the key factors in pro postraumatic
2:47:23growth and and to be clear not just social I mean it could be family partners like support network
2:47:29relationships essential relationships yeah you remember how like hipsters would always brag about
2:47:35how like they were their favorite band was one you never heard of right until you heard of them Yeah
2:47:40Yeah So my favorite psychologist might be the psychologist nobody's ever heard of This is my
2:47:48hipster psychology Okay So I'm a huge fan There was a guy named uh Casemir Drowski Oh which you
2:47:56know I know because of you I've written about you told me about Yeah Uh I I I've written about him
2:48:00multiple times But huge fan of Kazmir Drosski So nobody It's actually really fascinating I I love
2:48:06this dichotomy that happened during the cold war So cold war happens and western psychology pretty
2:48:13quickly by like the 1960s is really focusing on self-esteem and happiness and positive effect and
2:48:20self-actualization self-actualization And it's like everything's just like let's be great like
2:48:24how do we how do we be as happy and wonderful and great as possible and meanwhile in Eastern Europe
2:48:30Casemir Drowski who's Polish uh I believe he was working out of Warsaw they were in he was working
2:48:38in the aftermath of not only World War II but the Holocaust uh and and also working under Soviet
2:48:45occupation And so what did he decide to to study and and and work on tragedy Yeah And the effects
2:48:52of tragedy And to my knowledge he was actually the first researcher to actually find the case So he
2:48:58actually studied Holocaust survivors and Polish World War II veterans To my knowledge he was the
2:49:04first one to find this this idea of post-traumatic growth Because what he started to notice was that
2:49:10you know obviously in the immediate aftermath of the war and the Holocaust people were traumatized
2:49:15They were despondent They were there was despair They like didn't know where they're going to get
2:49:19their next meal Like a lot of people didn't have a place to live But as he kept following
2:49:24up with people pretty soon within a few years he noticed something really strange which is that
2:49:31a significant percentage of the survivors started to say that they had actually become better people
2:49:36And they would describe themselves pre-war as being ungrateful self-centered um untrustworthy
2:49:45uh not liking themselves not ambitious And then after the war they had actually felt like they
2:49:53really grew as a person They had become very grateful for the people in their life and they
2:49:56really valued their relationships with people and they like actually wanted to work hard and
2:50:01maximize their potential And so Droski actually called this positive disintegration and he meant
2:50:10it in actually like a very literal term because he meant disintegration as in like the disintegration
2:50:17of the ego He saw trauma and tragedy as like a way of your ego literally being destroyed Like all the
2:50:26things that you thought were true about yourself and true about the world become violated They they
2:50:31they have like been proven utterly and completely wrong And that ego destruction is like causes an
2:50:39extremely stressful and emotional response in people But if the ego is destroyed and that
2:50:45vacuum is then filled with more positive things if the lessons that the person takes from it are are
2:50:51more adaptive and more psychologically healthy then that becomes a positive disintegration
2:50:56And uh the fascinating thing about Drowski is that he did all of this work in the 1950s and
2:51:03then it just sat behind the Iron Curtain for like 50 years and nobody knew about it And it wasn't
2:51:10until like some like PhD students in Canada came across him revital translated his work
2:51:20revitalized it and then published some of his work in the early 2000s And then it's like that's the
2:51:25that's the only reason we even know any of this exists But it's like um you know Drowski was uh
2:51:32you know was was my favorite band that you've never heard of And uh I knew him before he was
2:51:37cool And um you're welcome So you're so cool You're the coolest nerd Mark that's all I Drew
2:51:45This is all I've ever wanted to hear from you This is this is this is all this podcast all the studio
2:51:51everything That's all I ever wanted to hear I'm the coolest nerd All right Um I have a story in
2:51:57my life about death and tragedy that has been ultimately been a very positive influence I'm
2:52:04curious if you have any story like that Yeah Well um I not as dramatic as the one you had definitely
2:52:11but there's been some I've recently I think my family has become more central to my value system
2:52:19um because of a few things around that Several years ago and I've talked about this before I
2:52:23guess but several years ago my uncle passed away and I was pretty close to with him He didn't
2:52:27have any kids and he treated all of his nieces and nephews kind of like his extended children
2:52:31basically you know extended family of children He was just a really good generous guy was somebody
2:52:38you really look up to I was actually the one who ended up calling the the ambulance for him Um and
2:52:42then the next day he passed away in the hospital And that was kind of a a wakeup call for me around
2:52:47like oh I haven't like I hadn't spent a lot of time with him the the previous couple of years
2:52:54even though he was like a big part of raising me and and a big part of my life And he's helped a
2:53:00lot of other people in my family and a lot of other people in his community as well And to me
2:53:04I was just like oh that brought into very stark uh contrast like the way I was living that I always
2:53:11said "Yeah I value my family and yes you know whatever." But it wasn't up until that point I
2:53:15was like "Oh we're all living on borrowed time a little bit and I need if I'm going to say that I
2:53:21I value family I need to start acting like it." So that was that was one for me anyway that was
2:53:26um you know that's not a huge like to me it's not a huge trauma per se to my my well-being
2:53:32necessarily but it did definitely shake things up So that's yeah I feel like death in general just
2:53:39it's a it's a slap in the face It's like dude this [ __ ] is precious and scarce and you have been
2:53:44taking it for granted and I I almost feel like it's almost impossible as a human to like not
2:53:49take people for granted to a certain extent It's very hard to remind yourself You know this is this
2:53:55is why the Stoics were all about momento mori Like it it's you have to actively try to remind
2:54:01yourself about your own death and the death of family members that are impending uh to stoke that
2:54:08gratitude Yeah Right It's uh Yeah Because we're so good at avoiding it Yeah Yeah Yeah What was yours
2:54:13then well it's in the book Oh okay Yeah Yeah Yeah It's it's in the book and I've talked about it uh
2:54:20quite a few times So I I'll go over it briefly but it's you know for people who are curious it's it's
2:54:24the last chapter of Subtle Art but um when I was 19 u a good friend of mine uh drowned at a party a
2:54:32lake party and um And you were there i was there And it was just like utterly honestly I think I
2:54:40just went in the shock Yeah When you're 19 and something like that happens what that's the only
2:54:43reaction really i think I spent about 24 hours in shock And um to this day kind of the deepest
2:54:49the the next couple months was like kind of the deepest depression that I've ever been in And
2:54:54uh but it's wild man Like I that rumination too Like I just remember my brain could not get off
2:55:01of it Like it kept trying to make sense of it And that's the thing about death is like there's no
2:55:06way to make sense of it It's just right There's no you try you keep trying to find like deeper
2:55:11meaning or reasons or purpose or like could I have done this or could this person have done that or
2:55:15like you know why did they deserve it and there's no answer to any of it like it's it's all just an
2:55:20open loop that never shuts but the the end effect of that I eventually kind of came out of that funk
2:55:27and um it was a real wakeup call especially you know when you're that young I mean first of all I
2:55:33was at 19 I was totally an entitled [ __ ] I like took no responsibility for anything in my life I
2:55:39smoked pot all the time I was like you know I was a a basically a failed music student Um and didn't
2:55:48really care Um sounds like every 19-year-old male I know but yeah go on But um no it it was a wakeup
2:55:57call It really kind of it was it was a it was a positive disintegration Like it was a shock
2:56:03treatment It was it was like a dude this could end at any moment and like what the [ __ ] are
2:56:08you doing like this is you are literally wasting your life And I was smart enough too to understand
2:56:15that I was I was so young and that my choices then were going to compound throughout my life
2:56:21right so it was I pretty quickly noticed that you know correcting my trajectory every year that I
2:56:29corrected my trajectory sooner was going to have like an outsized effect on everything else So it
2:56:35really changed my attitude towards a lot of things I quit smoking pot I started studying for my
2:56:39classes I uh got dropped out of music school and like went to a real university and started taking
2:56:46everything seriously basically taking myself seriously taking life seriously and and it's
2:56:51you know it's still a very sad uh experience in my life and obviously like I don't recommend it but
2:56:58um I can honestly say it's like one of the single most positive instigators of change
2:57:04in my entire life right like it it is the that single experience was worth reading 300 books
2:57:12and attending 20 seminars Yeah You know um again I don't recommend it but yeah no no an
2:57:21interesting little fact that I found in the research as well that I'll tack on here Um
2:57:25there's some there's cultural influences We've ted on it a little bit already but
2:57:30um what you find in more individualistic cultures like the United States Western Europe um you will
2:57:38typically find so the the five areas I listed before right you will typically find that people
2:57:43in those cultures when they experience a traumatic event will end up uh re-evaluating and revaluing
2:57:50things that are more achievement focused kind of individual focused Whereas in more collectivist
2:57:55cultures they'll they tend to uh value things like moral duty and family and society and stuff like
2:58:02that I just thought that was kind of interesting So um it it really does depend again it goes back
2:58:07to that whole socialization around you and the culture around you how this kind of shapes what
2:58:12you end up revaluing or re-evaluating as you go through this too So like in your case you
2:58:17know you being an American from Texas no less right you kind of doubled down like on the okay
2:58:22I need to the achievement and the like not taking life for granted and this is the one life we have
2:58:28and you know that sort of thing So I don't just thought it was interesting You know what's funny
2:58:31though i distinctly remember like a huge motivator for me at that time I had this very so my friend
2:58:39who died his name was Josh I had a very palpable sense that like I morally owed Josh Oh the duty of
2:58:49living well Yeah And and I mean part of it was the way he died because it was literally just
2:58:53I mean there was everybody there was drunk Bunch of people were on drugs Everybody was swimming in
2:59:00the same lake You know it it could have happened to anybody Like it it's the coroner said that his
2:59:06legs cramped up Yeah and he just went under and it was dark and nobody could see him and he just went
2:59:11under Right So it it was literally a situation It could have been any of us It it was very
2:59:15random and I think part of the randomness and and and part of the struggle with that was like the
2:59:22realization of like that could have easily been me Yeah Survivor guilt kind of Yeah Yeah Totally
2:59:26And so there there I'm I remember just feeling a strong sense of moral obligation of like I owe
2:59:34him a living well Yeah Right Like if I just sit on my couch and smoke pot for the next 5 years
2:59:41like I'm kind of doing him a disservice right that may be completely irrational but it it's
2:59:48what I needed to believe in at the time And that's part of the cognitive reevaluation that you did So
2:59:52there there's active rumination and that's the conclusion you came to That's the sort of thing
2:59:57that the the psychologists in this area would call like cognitive re-evaluation Yes And and you put a
3:00:03a positive spin on it in a way where you it could easily go the other way Well he died It was random
3:00:08Life is meaningless Right That's that's the other interpretation that you could have went down I'm
3:00:12glad you brought up the cognitive re-evaluation because there's an associated experience with any
3:00:17cognitive reevaluation which is popularly known as cognitive dissonance Yeah And I think as we
3:00:23were doing research for this I I kind of came to the realization that like I don't think you can
3:00:28really change your values without experiencing some cognitive dissonance Like I do think there
3:00:33is a requirement to change a value whether it is to just simply lose the value have it fail
3:00:38you through tragedy or trauma or to deprioritize it through sacrificing or giving something up Mhm
3:00:47you're g you are going to have to go through a period of cognitive dissonance where the
3:00:53actions and experiences in the world around you do not match up your prior beliefs And so
3:00:58I think it's worth digging into what cognitive dissonance is and kind of talking through what
3:01:04the experience is and like how people tend to respond to it because it's actually there's some
3:01:08funny stories fascinating around around how people respond to cognitive dissonance Uh but it's it's
3:01:15uh I think it's really important to touch on because I think anybody listening to this who's
3:01:20going to challenge themselves to change their values you're going to have to confront this at
3:01:24some point or cognitive dissonance is a concept uh invented by the psychologist Leon Festinger Is it
3:01:31Festinger or Festinger i've always said Festinger but I've always ever seen it written I guess so
3:01:36I don't know Okay Well let us know internet whether whether we're pronouncing this wrong
3:01:42Uh Leon Fessinger he he worked in the 1950s at the University of Minnesota And like I feel like most
3:01:49popular psychological theories you know they have like a little origin story Uh and some of them
3:01:54are cool some are kind of lame The cognitive dissonance origin story is [ __ ] awesome I
3:02:00love it I love it so much So Fessinger and his and his colleagues were uh they're working at
3:02:05University of Minnesota and one day they open the newspaper and they find a news story about a local
3:02:11cult And the cult was run by a woman who called herself Marian Keech And she believed that she
3:02:17was communicating telepathically with aliens who were going to come take over the world and uh and
3:02:24it was only through her group her cult and her uh I believe it was prayer um that they were going to
3:02:33prevent the world from being taken over by these aliens So this was uh this was a thing that was
3:02:38going on around Mini Minneapolis and uh Fessenger was like this is so interesting And so what they
3:02:46did which part of me thinks like this would never fly these days So part of what they did is they
3:02:51actually infiltrated the cult They actually like pretended to be cult members and pretended that
3:02:56they like believed all this [ __ ] because they actually wanted to observe because oh important
3:03:00detail Marian Kee she there was a apparently there was a specific date that the aliens were
3:03:06going to come and the world was going to end of course right like most good cult leaders right
3:03:10she sets up an end date um so the researchers were fascinated by this like let's join the cult let's
3:03:17pretend to do all their weird [ __ ] and then when the date comes let's watch what happens and
3:03:22let's like let's see let's just observe and see if we can learn anything So sure enough the date
3:03:29comes and goes No aliens invade Nothing happens And the psychologist's expectation was that you
3:03:37know once once the date came and went all the cult members would be like "What the fuck?" You
3:03:42know like I guess we can go home now Like clearly this was all a bunch of [ __ ] right actually the
3:03:48opposite happened The cult members became even more fervent because they believed that they had
3:03:54saved the world and they believed that there were going to be more dangers and threats to the world
3:04:00and they were the only ones that could save it So nobody left the cult nobody stopped believing
3:04:05in Marian Kee and she just kept going on like her merry way with zero problems And this absolutely
3:04:12fascinated the researchers that what Vesser went on to kind of explain is that when we're exposed
3:04:19to a contradiction in the world to our worldview right we believe the world is one way and then an
3:04:26experience goes the other way contradicts that we experience a certain amount of dissonance in our
3:04:32minds It creates discomfort and that discomfort can't exist for very long And so the only way to
3:04:41relieve that dissonance is to either deny reality and pretend it doesn't exist or it's to change the
3:04:48belief And generally speaking changing a belief is uncomfortable because it requires you to lose
3:04:53something It requires you to to lose something Something you used to think was important Now
3:04:59you have to lose it and and reorganize all your frameworks Reorganize your value hierarchy and now
3:05:05some of your needs go unmet right like so if you think about those individual cult members right
3:05:09this kind of comes back to the whole thing about like values are strategies to meet our needs
3:05:15When you ask yourself like who joins a cult and who like buys into this [ __ ] well the they're
3:05:20probably motivated to join a cult and buy into the ideas because it's meeting some fundamental need
3:05:25that's like not being met in another way First and foremost when you when you read anything
3:05:29about the type of people who join cults uh they tend to be very lonely individuals Like they lack
3:05:34a community They they don't feel like they're part of something right so a cult immediately
3:05:38you're given a sense of community You're given a sense of purpose and you're given a sense of
3:05:42importance right like oh my god we're the only ones who can save the world Holy [ __ ] like
3:05:47aliens are going to come I'm so lucky I found this guru Like she's so amazing She's so in touch with
3:05:52all this stuff So it it really is fulfilling a number of psychological needs And if you're
3:05:58somebody who's not who has historically cons and consistently not met those needs in other
3:06:03areas of your life then the cult's going to feel like a big upgrade The problem is though is that
3:06:10to break out of the cult you're going to have to break all of the values and belief systems that
3:06:16are not that are fulfilling your needs So you're going to have to like downgrade the things that
3:06:20you care about You're going to feel isolated again You're going to feel unimportant again
3:06:24And you're going to feel lack of purpose again And a lot of people the thought of that is just
3:06:28too painful And so they they don't want to go back to that And so when they're presented in a
3:06:34when they're presented a situation with cognitive dissonance they just double down on the belief But
3:06:39the reason I bring this up is for two reasons One is just a so that the listener understands kind of
3:06:45like what's going on in their brain when a value fails them or when a contradictory experience
3:06:51intersects with something that they believe or find important But B I think this is something
3:06:56that you can actually leverage to change a value And the way you leverage it is to actually like
3:07:02let's say I'll give a really simple example and it's it's kind of piggybacks on the example you
3:07:08just gave Let's say that I want to value my family more right like I have this realiz maybe somebody
3:07:14dies or maybe something happens and I I have this realization of like you know I've really taken my
3:07:21family for granted I've not been close with them I've not kept in touch with them My parents are
3:07:26getting older My aunts and uncles are getting older I don't know how much longer they're going
3:07:30to be around Like I should really take advantage of the time I have left and like really commit
3:07:35and and and you know put the time in Let's say I've decided that yet my my actions are still
3:07:41completely contradictory to that Like I don't call home I don't go home I don't do anything So let's
3:07:45say that I've intellectually decided that but like ultimately my actions don't reflect the values
3:07:51right like it's it's I've clearly not making them them a priority I can incite cognitive dissonance
3:07:59in myself by like simply taking action on a value as if it's much higher in my value hierarchy than
3:08:06it actually is Right so it's again it comes back to what are you willing to give up so before it's
3:08:11like I wasn't willing to take time off work to fly home and visit family or I wasn't willing to
3:08:17uh spend an extra holiday with my family or I wasn't willing to I don't know like call my
3:08:22dad every weekend or whatever You simply make the commitment to the action The action will feel like
3:08:27a waste at first It will feel like a waste of time It will feel like you're sacrificing something
3:08:32more important for it But and that will cause cognitive dissonance But if you proceed with the
3:08:39action eventually your mind will adjust itself and you'll start valuing the thing that you're doing
3:08:45proportionally to how much you're doing it Right i guess the the moral of the story here is that
3:08:51your values follow your actions And if you want to prioritize something higher on on your value
3:08:58hierarchy if you want to care about something more or care about something less it's literally
3:09:03just a matter of how much focus and energy you put into it and understand that it will feel weird at
3:09:07first It will feel like you are poorly investing your time and energy But eventually you'll start
3:09:16experiencing the benefits of the new value and then your belief systems will adjust themselves
3:09:22to relieve the cognitive dissonance and then your value hierarchy will shift Right Yeah So the super
3:09:28short version is like values follow your actions Right Yeah I think you also have to be very aware
3:09:34of of which value that you are addressing with those actions and that cognitive dissonance too
3:09:40right let's let's go back to the cult example The reason that these people double down is because
3:09:44they value the community right it's because they value uh that uh the social relationships and
3:09:51all the purpose and everything like that that you explained People from the outside look at it and
3:09:55say "Well they're wrong They don't value truth." No they don't They they value the community around
3:10:01it And so of course they're going to bend over backwards to to defend that right that's that's
3:10:05like such an interesting definition of a cult is that a cult is basically people who value
3:10:11community over truth Yeah Yeah Absolutely And this applies to like less extreme examples too If you
3:10:17um you know you know we talked a little bit about politics If you're having a a conversation with
3:10:21somebody about politics and this happens a lot where you try to induce cognitive dissonance in
3:10:25them by pointing out the contradictions in their beliefs Usually what you're doing is you're not
3:10:29you're reinforcing the belief you're reinforcing the belief because you're you're not targeting
3:10:32the correct value Like let's take a a a fairly common example abortion right so people liberals
3:10:40will point to conservatives and say "Well you guys you say you value life so much that you're against
3:10:45abortion and yet you're pro- death penalty too That that makes no sense There should be cognitive
3:10:49dissonance there." No those are two different values you're talking about So it makes perfect
3:10:52sense to somebody who believes that because on the one hand they value sanctity that that sanctity
3:10:57value of preserving life and then on the other they value fairness and authority and order on
3:11:03the other hand when it comes to like the death penalty So you're talking about two completely
3:11:06different values So turn that back on yourself if you're trying to use this cognitive dissonance
3:11:11framework for that Make sure you're like targeting the right value Yeah And it is interesting because
3:11:14the liberal in that situation those two things are are actually the same value for them right
3:11:20It's the it's the harm care right on both sides right on both sides right whereas for
3:11:24the conservative it's actually two different values that are that they're that's a that's
3:11:28that is a really interesting way And it it is so hard to remember that like if you're ever in an
3:11:33argument with somebody and you start using facts right you come up with all these facts It's like
3:11:37it's not about the facts it's about the values It's funny too because like the the biggest gripe
3:11:41that everybody has about political discourse or the news or whatever it's like oh it's not
3:11:45factual enough But it it is like no it's you're not understanding everybody's values is what is
3:11:49happening and yes there is misinformation and and a lot of [ __ ] out there but like all of that
3:11:54comes after the fact right like if so take the mainstream news right for the past 10 20 years
3:12:01um like CNN for instance or the New York Times is probably a better example like the New York
3:12:07Times has actually pretty consistently not gotten things factually wrong it is that they are only
3:12:14presenting facts that are reflective of certain values and not others right and so you're you
3:12:21are still getting a very biased perspective on a story but not it's not biased because the facts
3:12:28are wrong or that the facts have been fudged or that the statistics are not you know accurate
3:12:33or the study isn't referenced correctly It's biased because it's it's facts The framing of
3:12:39the story and the framing of the facts is only through the lens of a single value right that
3:12:44is reflective of one political leaning and not the other right so but that's such a hard thing
3:12:48to communicate right and you know and for years and years and years I would hear conservatives
3:12:53complain about the New York Times and I'm like what are you talking about it's like
3:12:55the most fact check publication in the country And eventually I started to get it I'm like oh
3:13:01yeah they're they're just hammering on like the same two or three values over and over again
3:13:06Um and it comes back to a healthy society has a diversity of values and they are allowed to
3:13:12counterbalance and counteract each other Mhm So the the researcher who came up with
3:13:17instrumental and terminal values Milton Roich he actually had he had this other concept called
3:13:23self-confrontation And he actually spent a number of years researching whether he could get people
3:13:28to change their values themselves just through reflection and and kind of interrogating their
3:13:35own reasoning and their own thoughts And he was actually successful at it in in a couple
3:13:40circumstances And the way he was successful at it is actually exactly what you're saying So what
3:13:45he did this was during he was doing this work during the uh civil rights era in the late 60s
3:13:50And he took people from both sides um you know the lefties who valued equality and then like
3:13:57the people on the right who valued uh uh fairness and autonomy and freedom And what he would do is
3:14:03he'd have them do a written exercise where they uh you know they chose between freedom and equality
3:14:09And then he would have them like write a short essay on like why they believe so strongly
3:14:14in it And then he would ask them a question that would essentially frame their value in
3:14:19terms of the other values So to give you an example he took like the the people the the
3:14:24right-leaning people who uh chose freedom They would write their essay on like why freedom was
3:14:30so important and why you know the the civil rights movement was potentially jeopardizing
3:14:34you know some of the freedom Well then he would give them a prompt that would basically
3:14:38say,"Well what if you have you ever considered that the civil rights activists are actually
3:14:44uh protesting in in in favor of freedom?" That actually the they're using the word equality but
3:14:49they're but their word of equality can actually also be understood in terms of of freedom And
3:14:55when he like and then he would have them make that argument and when he had them make that argument
3:15:01they would change their minds Yeah Yeah And it was it's exactly what you're saying is it's like if
3:15:06you can take your argument and package it in the other person's values they'll start believing it
3:15:12I guess this is like kind of at the root of persuasion Maybe we should do an episode on
3:15:16persuasion Oh that'd be a good one Yeah And we'll just persuade the audience to do things for us
3:15:24The other thing I want to touch on before we move on from this this and this this comes to this ties
3:15:32in a little bit with the cognitive dissonance Uh so I'm a huge fan of Charlie Munger you know
3:15:36the legendary investor Charlie both Charlie Munger and Warren So Charlie for people who
3:15:40don't know Charlie Munger was Warren Buffett's business partner And both Charlie and Warren are
3:15:45like almost philosophers like investment They're investors but they're also like philosophers And
3:15:50and both of them just have like so many amazing quotes and ideas and frameworks and mental models
3:15:55and stuff But Charlie has this uh great saying that I think about all the time which is "Show
3:16:00me the incentive and I'll show you the behavior." And you know we just talked about how cognitive
3:16:06dissonance teaches us that ultimately if you lead with the behavior even if it doesn't feel right
3:16:11your feelings will follow right so if you just act out the value you want to have then you'll
3:16:18start eventually feeling aligned with that action because your your mind will prevent the cognitive
3:16:24dissonance Well there's kind of another string in that chain is that if you can set up an incentive
3:16:30for action then your action will naturally just gravitate that direction as well because like
3:16:34another aspect of humans is that we tend to do the things that we're incentivized to do right
3:16:40and um so I I like the idea of kind of stretching this out Again like let's say I want to prioritize
3:16:49my family more and I just I I've been saying that for years and I don't do it One way to do it is
3:16:56to just I don't know book a bunch of flights and schedule calls or whatever you know with family
3:17:02members or whatever Another way is to incentivize myself in some way right like reward myself make
3:17:10an agreement with myself of like you know I'm not allowed to take another trip You know I I'm only
3:17:16allowed one trip somewhere else for every trip I take back home to see my my parents or something
3:17:21Basically create like rewards or punishments for myself that nudge myself in the direction of the
3:17:26value that I want to have The most obvious example here is is around like fitness and nutrition
3:17:32Um most people want to value health much more than they do right uh much a lot of
3:17:39people try to do the actions that embody the value of health and failed to do those actions
3:17:46And and in my own health journey one of the only things that I ever found was actually
3:17:51generating incentives for myself to do the healthy actions and actually uh uh you know
3:17:57follow through with them because then it's like you create the incentives to to nudge yourself
3:18:02towards the healthy actions So you sign up for classes and you do things with a friend and you
3:18:08um gamify things and track and keep scores and then that nudges you into the behaviors
3:18:14and then as you're doing the behaviors you start to experience the benefits and you start you stop
3:18:18like whining and complaining that you're wasting so much time like getting ready ready for the gym
3:18:22every morning and then your values start to align And because you're giving up the other things for
3:18:26your health to resolve the cognitive dissonance your mind starts to believe that health is
3:18:29actually more important And now that you actually believe that your health is more important it is
3:18:34much easier to do all the things that you want to do And goes back to your values are what you're
3:18:39willing to give up Yep Right Goes straight back to that Yep Yeah What are you willing to give up mhm
3:18:50All right So as we round this episode out I think I'd like to kind of get into like a
3:18:55summary of takeaways for the listener And I would actually like to frame this around Aristotle had
3:19:02this idea of practical wisdom And he argued that of all the virtues the most important was wisdom
3:19:09because wisdom was the one that allowed you to calibrate all the other virtues to know when you
3:19:14were overindexed on one and underindexed on the other and when when you should give something up
3:19:19and when you should take something on And so he he believed that if you didn't have wisdom you
3:19:24couldn't really maintain or or manage all the other all the other virtues So what what I'd
3:19:29like to do is go through these four elements of practical wisdom and just break down piece
3:19:36by piece what they are how people can practice them how people can get better at them and why
3:19:42they're so important and effective when it comes to uh discovering your values and also living out
3:19:47your values And I I'll start with self-awareness which is pretty self-explanatory I think so much
3:19:52of this episode probably 70 80% of this episode is really just been helping the listener around
3:19:58their self-awareness around their own values I mean the importance is pretty logical right like
3:20:02if you aren't aware of what you value then you can't adapt or change what you value So the first
3:20:14is effective for this I think ultimately a lot of the work that is done in therapy is around helping
3:20:19the patient understand what they're valuing and what they're prioritizing and maybe they should
3:20:23be prioritizing something else I also believe that meditation is useful for this as well that um you
3:20:28know by sitting and noticing your own thoughts and proclivities and and what you're focusing on
3:20:33u you start to develop a sense of um what you're valuing and what you're prioritizing in your life
3:20:39Yeah Um and then the next one to emotional regulation aligning your emotions with your
3:20:44values keeping those emotions aligned with the values so you can act in a way in accordance
3:20:48with your values Right There's also there was a psychologist Albert Ellis um who came up with
3:20:55this idea that between an event happening and your reaction is the interpretation Right and he
3:21:01has this there was the ABCs of what he developed this uh whole therapeutic model called rational
3:21:08emotive behavioral therapy Right He's got the ABCs here RBT RBT Yeah Uh ABC's was that there's the
3:21:15activating event Uh the B is the beliefs and C is the consequences of those Okay Yeah So I think as
3:21:21you as you navigate your own values and your your life and you have your values kind of front and
3:21:27center after being more aware of them you'll start to run into this quite a bit I think I I know I
3:21:31have anyway in relationships You know benevolence is a big value of mine right um and I would I
3:21:39looking back I think there have definitely been times where I haven't acted benev benevolently
3:21:45in situations people in my life Um close relationships in particular Those you know start
3:21:49pushing on your emotional buttons a little bit And what I noticed is like okay if I'm going to value
3:21:55benevolence then I need to act benevolently at some point Right But the thing is is that in the
3:22:01moment when your when your emotions are running high that's really hard Yes Right Yeah So uh uh
3:22:06learning how emotional regulation you mentioned meditation already That's one way to kind of um
3:22:11learn how your your your mind works in accordance with your emotions in certain situations This for
3:22:18me though I have been able to use this kind of ABC method here When I have a triggering
3:22:24event and an emotion pops up I've learned to like catch myself right there like okay I'm going to
3:22:29I'm going to act on this emotion or should I act on this emotion yeah and how is that reflecting
3:22:34my values or uh this situation this relationship right now it's it's hard to do and it takes a lot
3:22:41of practice and this is really a I mean therapy helps and it is a skill and I know we're already
3:22:47planning on doing a full episode on emotions and emotional regulation Three things come to mind
3:22:53like listening to you talk about this Three three ways I can see kind of emotions hijacking this
3:22:59process of living living out your values The first one you already mentioned is that being triggered
3:23:04by some lower value that inadvertently causes you to sacrifice you know a higher level value
3:23:09uh that you later regret or feel bad about That's one way Uh a second way is that when you
3:23:17are prioritizing a value say you are when you're trying to move something up the value hierarchy
3:23:24it means you're giving up other values which there there's going to be negative emotional reactions
3:23:28when you give those things up right like if if I am if I start taking time off work to spend more
3:23:33time with my friends and family I'm going to have negative emotions around having to give up time
3:23:38at work like I'm going to question it I'm going to feel guilty about it I'm going to feel stupid
3:23:43about it I'm going to you know whatever Um and so you have to be prepared for those emotions and and
3:23:48those those side effects and whatever Now this popped into my head when you were talking about
3:23:51the relationship thing because it's our values are not only the metrics by which we measure ourselves
3:23:55they're they're they're also the metrics by which we measure other people And so if you
3:23:59have a very strong value around say benevolence and you're dating somebody who very much is not
3:24:06being benevolent that will also probably trigger you Yes Yeah You'll be like what the [ __ ] is
3:24:11wrong with you like I can't believe I'm with this person right now And so you could see it pop up
3:24:17in relationships as well right like it's it's like if if my wife does something that like really goes
3:24:22against my values you can bet your ass we're going to have a fight about it So it's something else to
3:24:27be like very cognizant of because if your values are way out of alignment or you are prioritizing
3:24:33something that's like very stupid and not not serving you that's also going to show up in your
3:24:40relationships and you're going to start judging your partner for all these all the dumb stuff that
3:24:44you care about or your your best friend or your brother or sister or whatever like it's going to
3:24:49it will manifest in your relationships in not the same way it manifests in your own life but
3:24:55like probably in like uh symmetrical ways that it manifests in your own life Yeah Also with
3:25:00the social relationships you can leverage them as well to help you stay in line with your values So
3:25:06not only yeah are you judging the people around you um based on your own values but you can also
3:25:10choose those circles right of the values that you want to associate with Right It it's yeah
3:25:15your relationships almost like amplify your what's already there right reveal a lot of things reveal
3:25:21and yeah reveal and amplify yeah third one is relationships and I again I think a huge component
3:25:26of this is like you don't necessarily need the people in your life to have the same values as you
3:25:31you simply need to respect each other's values and trust each other to act on on your values
3:25:37and it's you actually kind of want a diversity of values in the people around you because it's going
3:25:45bring out the best of each other and you're going to counterbalance each other You're going
3:25:48to offer each other different perspectives like you know the fact that we have different values
3:25:52It's like we can compensate for each other's weaknesses and keeps us from running too far
3:25:56in one direction Exactly Exactly So it it is when when we talk about strong relationships it's you
3:26:02don't want to just find a bunch of many me and yesmen around you Like you want to find people
3:26:06who are different from you but you respect them and you respect those differences and you can have
3:26:12honest conversations around those differences Like that that's really what the key is Yeah
3:26:17Yeah For sure Yeah And then the last component of practical wisdom the the self-acceptance part that
3:26:23you already talked about the the non-judgment Um this one one of my favorite psychologists Mark who
3:26:28this is not as cool as yours but Carl Rogers he's much more wellknown He said the curious
3:26:34paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am then I can change Yeah Okay So accepting
3:26:39your ch self as you are without trying to change yourself allows you to change yourself It's it's
3:26:44one of those neat little paradox Yeah Love right um but it it's pretty hard So we we've
3:26:50talked about you know these other three three or four principles here of practical wisdom
3:26:55And you know yeah when you trade a lower value for a higher value or you're acting out one of
3:27:00your values that's in tension with another one of your values there is that uncomfortable feeling
3:27:05You do kind of just have to accept that that's what that is This this happened to me recently
3:27:09I already kind of alluded to it when I was I it was a benevolent thing I was doing but it
3:27:14caused a lot of uh issues with because I needed to get some stuff done and it ran
3:27:18up against my value of accomplishment and and achievement Yeah And it just it felt bad Just
3:27:24felt bad And and I was like "Okay how do I stop feeling bad?" That's immediately
3:27:28where I went How do I stop this feeling i don't want to stop this feeling And I kind of came to
3:27:31the conclusion "Oh wait I just have to accept that this is how I'm going to feel sometimes."
3:27:35It it's funny because self-acceptance I feel like out of all of the values that we've talked about
3:27:40at this point and at this point I think we're probably up at 25 or 30 different values in
3:27:45this episode of all the different values on this episode self-acceptance is probably the simplest
3:27:51and also the most difficult in many ways because it really is just what you said It's like being
3:27:57okay with feeling bad sometimes Like the fact that you you feel bad that you didn't achieve
3:28:03as much as you could have or you feel bad that you weren't as benevolent as you could have been with
3:28:07this person you care about or you feel bad that you wasted some time on something that didn't
3:28:12matter The fact that you feel bad about that and want that feeling to go away is the opposite of
3:28:19self-acceptance The self-acceptance is like I'm human I'm flawed I'm going to care about some of
3:28:25the wrong things at times I'm going to care about some of the right things at times And even the
3:28:29right things I'm going to care about I'm going to have to give up a bunch of stuff for those
3:28:32right things And it's going to be unpleasant and it's going to be intention And there's probably
3:28:36going to be uncertainty and there's going to be periods where like I don't even know if
3:28:38I'm doing the right thing or not That's all part of it That's all part of it And it's so hard to
3:28:47remind ourselves of that Yeah Just be like "This is this is what you signed up for man This is this
3:28:52is the human experience Yeah But there is that it does help when you realize that you're doing
3:28:57it for a value right it's instead of just this I feel bad and I don't know why That's what drives
3:29:02people crazy Yes And that's what I had to come to I'm just like I feel bad I don't like this
3:29:05Why and then I realized oh it's because I had to prioritize this value over another one And in a
3:29:10strange way of just accepting that I was going to feel bad I maybe feel a little bit better about
3:29:13it You know in a way it didn't relieve it I still feel you know I'm still like you know I still have
3:29:18a little bit of shame and guilt around it But I'm like "Okay that's the price I have to pay
3:29:22for this." So yeah Yeah I'm just trying to think like where people probably run into this the most
3:29:28Like I'm I'm just thinking about like the lack of self-acceptance I I'd say to me the the two
3:29:32areas that I see it the most Yeah I would say is like work and romantic relationships On the work
3:29:39side you see it a lot with workaholics who like they strive and they achieve and they achieve
3:29:44and they achieve and they achieve and it's never enough It's never good enough They've they could
3:29:48have always done more It could have it could have been better And they're just they drive themselves
3:29:53like they literally make themselves miserable and and there's all sorts of like really famous
3:29:57successful people that have done this and I've seen it a number of times among my friends I've
3:30:02fallen prey to it myself a number of times It's just really interesting that like I think we have
3:30:07this ideal sometimes that it's like if I work as hard as I can and if I do the best job and
3:30:12I get the best work out of myself then I I'll be satisfied and and and then when you're not you
3:30:18feel like something's wrong right and and that you there's something else you could be optimizing to
3:30:24do it better And and then I think when I see it with rel in regard to relationships I see it in
3:30:30regard to like there's just kind of this there's I would call it like the Disney delusion right like
3:30:36people's expectation of what a relationship is is just like not very realistic They kind of assume
3:30:43that if they fall in love that they're just going to live happily ever after Like you're not going
3:30:47to fight You're not going to there's not going to be any uncertainty and nobody's ever going
3:30:50to like you know get sad or depressed or angry at each other or you know you're never going
3:30:55to question the relationship Like these are all actually very normal things Like every long-term
3:31:00relationship goes through periods of struggle and stress and questioning and you know sometimes you
3:31:06grow a little bit distance and then you come back together and um sometimes you question whether
3:31:11you really want to be with the other person and then you like are reassured that yeah you
3:31:16do and it's like it's this organic process that like in uncertainty and and a certain amount of
3:31:23dissatisfaction is just kind of inherent to it and um again I think a lot of people It's the refusal
3:31:29to accept that that makes it so much worse Yeah Yeah Yeah Take take love as a as a value right if
3:31:35you're going to value that you also have to just accept that there's going to be some heartbreak
3:31:38along with that like you were just saying Like that's it's not that you can diminish it It's not
3:31:43that you can avoid it It's it's that it's just part and parcel of that value is that you have
3:31:48to put yourself out there and be vulnerable and you will get hurt Yes At some point And there's
3:31:52just no way around it No It reminds me of uh of something that a a brilliant man and philosopher
3:31:59and a hero of a human being once said Uh his name was uh wait let me look Oh Mark Manson Um he once
3:32:07said he once said a wise man once said um uh what you value determines what your problems are and
3:32:22what your problems are determines what your life is Oh I thought that was Aristotle Oh okay It
3:32:27was same thing right basically the same guy Um but seriously it's you know the quality of your values
3:32:35determines the quality of your problems and the quality of your problems determines the quality
3:32:38of your life Notice implicit in there that you never get rid of the problems The problems are
3:32:43always there And it's like if you the really the like the only benefit of choosing one better value
3:32:48over another is that you get better problems It's better to ask yourself if you could have been more
3:32:53benevolent than to ask yourself if you could like have cooler more expensive shoes or something you
3:32:59know it's that's a better problem to have So you chose that problem It's a better life Yeah And you
3:33:06just have to accept it Yeah All right So to wrap things up Drew um you and I we want to finish all
3:33:13these episodes with the what we call the 8020 of whatever we're talking about because God knows at
3:33:20this point we're so many hours in We've covered so much material that it's easy to get lost and it's
3:33:27easy to get you know lose track of what actually moves the needle So we're going to finish this
3:33:32off by talking about the 8020 of values This is for people not familiar the 8020 principle is
3:33:38that it's usually the 20% of the things you do generate 80% of your results And uh and so this
3:33:47section is just very much focused on like what's the 20% that's going to give you 80% of the result
3:33:51What should you be focusing on as you leave this episode and so I I'll start us off I'll just say
3:33:57you know the crux of all of this is just getting clarity on what your values are Whether that's
3:34:04doing some of the exercises that we talked about earlier in the episode whether it's uh thinking
3:34:09through your life and a lot of the major decisions that you've made um thinking through some of the
3:34:14the more uncomfortable experiences the tragedies or the the pet peeves um and and asking yourself
3:34:21what values are those reflective of and then just trying to get a little bit of clarity on you know
3:34:27what you care about and why you care about it and why it's important to you and whether it should
3:34:33be important to you Like I I just think these are all very very useful questions that we should all
3:34:38be asking ourselves and and if you're not in the habit of asking yourself about it um you know this
3:34:43is a great opportunity to sit down and and do that Yeah Yeah The self-awareness around your values I
3:34:49think is huge that that'll put you in front of 80% of other people I think is if you just know what
3:34:54you value because most people like we've talked about over and over again in this episode They're
3:34:58going through life and they're either absorbing the values of the other people around them or
3:35:01they're just not aware at all of what's going on And I think too the paying attention to the
3:35:07discomfort and the pain and the uh kind of you know the frustrations in your life that really
3:35:13was what points you to a lot of your values not the aspirational oh I want to I aspire to this
3:35:19and that No look at look at what's like what are your problems in your life we all want the same
3:35:24good stuff You know we all want to be rich and liked and have great sex and you know be king of
3:35:30the world and whatever Like it's values are found in the pain They're found in the problems that
3:35:34you have and like we already mentioned too the whatever problems you're having in your life right
3:35:39now are a reflection of the values you've chosen whether you are aware of it or not So just the
3:35:44awareness around it is key here So maybe that's actually the 8020 of clarifying your own values
3:35:50is looking at what what are like the three biggest problems in your life and then asking yourself
3:35:57what are those the results of the trade-offs for right like I already talked I talked earlier in
3:36:02the episode about how you know there's I've definitely felt like a lack of community and
3:36:06and connection in in my life over the last 5 or 10 years and it is not very hard for me to
3:36:13see the trade-off that caused that right and that is very much linked to my valuing of achievement
3:36:19and self-directedness So it's generally speaking whatever you're suffering from is on the opposite
3:36:26end of the the seessaw of whatever you're deciding is important Yeah Okay And related
3:36:31to that too looking at friction points in your relationships like where you're arguing say with
3:36:37your significant other or your family or friends or whatever it is looking at those and really uh
3:36:43kind of like okay what what is the value at work on my end what is the value on their end as well
3:36:48and we have that whole section on relationships right so identifying those values and and asking
3:36:53yourself can you respect those values or is there some sort of reconciliation you can do
3:36:56around these values can you at least respect them i think is the main question there Yeah
3:37:01Fernandez says "I fart too much." Okay So what's the value here flatulence Flatulence is the value
3:37:10I'm deeply passionate about my flatulence Maybe she values um you thinking about her a little
3:37:17bit I'm pretty sure she values her breathing Um cuz that's what she always tells me She says "I
3:37:25can't breathe." That's usually the manifestation of the conflict is I'm laughing uncontrollably
3:37:32and then she's telling me she can't breathe Okay maybe you should respect your values there Mark I
3:37:39think as an extension of that of of understanding your values is is also distinguishing between
3:37:44your higher values and your lower values right once you start to get a little bit of clarity
3:37:48on like what you care about in your life start pitting those those things against each other
3:37:54like in a Well that'll happen naturally It's like like in a Mortal Kombat tournament you
3:37:58know of like do I care more about uh community or or achievement do I care more about family or
3:38:05um you know taking care of myself right so it it's I think it's useful to ask yourself where
3:38:11the sacrifices currently are being made And again if you're not aware of your values then
3:38:16you're probably making sacrifices in places that you wish you were not making sacrifices And then
3:38:21once you have clarity around your values then you can start deciding where the sacrifices
3:38:25should be made right like which values should you be giving up or deprioritizing in order to
3:38:30prioritize something else right it goes back to the lower and the higher values Identify your
3:38:34lower values identify your higher values choose the higher value more often than not Yes Right And
3:38:40and recognize too that you're going to be pulled to your lower values that like that's the inertia
3:38:45that's out there being human Yeah That's that's very much a part of that Yeah Yeah Okay So all
3:38:50the values hierarchy stuff we we covered Um and we talked about that in Aristotle's the balance
3:38:56of all of your values keep that in mind when you are feeling bad and you just have to accept that
3:39:02you're going to have to feel bad about something That's because you're trading a lower value for a
3:39:06higher value and there's going to be some friction there for sure Yeah So we talked about developing
3:39:10practical wisdom which uh you know aside from kind of the nuts and bolts of self-awareness and
3:39:16emotional regulation and everything it really what it is is just developing once you've developed
3:39:23this awareness of what your network of values is being able to monitor it and and ask the right
3:39:30questions and notice in the right moments like oh I think I'm overindexing on this value or I think
3:39:34I've been like going way too hard in this area of my life for the last six months and starting
3:39:38to pay a price for that Just like ultimately that is what wisdom is is it's it's a an awareness and
3:39:45an understanding of of where you need to maybe dial the volume knob up in your life and where
3:39:51you need to dial it down in your life One of the things I've written before and I'm just going to
3:39:56wing this I'm probably going to [ __ ] this quote up Uh is that knowledge is knowing how
3:40:01to get something Wisdom is knowing what's worth getting Ah right Right Yeah And I think really
3:40:07as a virtue wisdom is just understanding like are your values properly aligned or not when is
3:40:14it time to push something up your value hierarchy push it down the value hierarchy right um it it's
3:40:21things happen in life you know career changes you move to new cities relationships end people die
3:40:28and as circumstances change it's going to make sense to adapt your values accordingly right
3:40:34like it's it's a if you are a a married parent of three small children your value hierarchy should
3:40:42look completely different than it did when you were like 25 and single and you know spending
3:40:46a year abroad Like that hierarchy should change It shouldn't be permanent It should be fluid based on
3:40:51what's going on in your life at the time And you know just as in 10 or 20 years when your kids are
3:40:56grown and have moved out of the house and you're thinking about retirement that hierarchy should
3:41:00shift again So the the hierarchy is always in flux It's always in motion And the skill here
3:41:06is the wisdom really is just getting adept at that at that flux in motion and and and learning
3:41:13how to maneuver it um throughout your life And I know that's super abstract and philosophical
3:41:17but really that is the basis of just everything we're talking about in this episode Yeah Yeah And
3:41:23part of the practical wisdom too we talked about was uh the emotional regulation right
3:41:28um uh at least emotional awareness around when you are acting out of your emotions and not in
3:41:34align with your values Yes that's a big one too So um you being aware of what triggers an emotion uh
3:41:42you have the consequence but in between you have the interpretation and that's I that's part of the
3:41:46practical wisdom too is developing that and that that comes with time and practice and experience
3:41:50and I've definitely noticed in my life and we can get to it a little bit more here in a second with
3:41:54how it um plays out But that's a huge one is just getting a handle on on those emotions and how they
3:42:02uh how how they're reflected in your values and the way you act Yeah Yeah the emotional
3:42:08regulation is it's key because any violated value whether high or low is going to trigger
3:42:15an emotional response And when you're triggered in that emotional response if it's a lower value
3:42:19you can easily sacrifice your higher values Give up honesty give up charity give up family
3:42:25for something stupid right um so it's important in that moment I would also say on kind of a if
3:42:30you zoom out in more of a macro way um emotional regulation is important because as you go through
3:42:36those periods of flux and life changes and tragedies happen and different unexpected
3:42:42challenges arise there is going to be emotional fallout to dropping and adding in new values
3:42:48like that It is a it is an emotionally stressful process of like rearranging your value hierarchy
3:42:55throughout your life and it's accompanied by a lot of self-doubt It's accompanied with uh a certain
3:43:00amount of uncertainty It can be sad at times because you you like grieve your lost value the
3:43:07thing that you used to care about and that used to really define you and now it doesn't anymore Um in
3:43:12some cases there's uh a lot of anxiety about a value that you're taking on You know it's
3:43:17like you just had your first child and you're not sure if you're ready to be a parent but it's like
3:43:21the most important thing to you now but you're not sure if you're ready for it to be the most
3:43:25important thing Like it could be [ __ ] terrifying So there's this emotional roller coaster that kind
3:43:29of accompanies the shifting and the flux of the value system And I think just the self-acceptance
3:43:35piece that we talked about is the understanding that that is part of the game Like there is there
3:43:41is a certain amount of that emotional stress and emotional turmoil that is going to be everpresent
3:43:46There's not really and I'm sure we're going to get into this very deeply when we do our episode
3:43:51on emotions Uh but the key is not to get rid of the emotion The key is to manage the emotion
3:43:56And it's like what you said with it's it's the key is to interpret the emotion positively and
3:44:01usefully in a productive direction or accepting it too just at the end of the day like I feel bad
3:44:07about this but that's because I've chosen this value because a lot of times what we do is we'll
3:44:11you know if you have the value of say I I have I want to be healthy right and instead you end
3:44:17up just staying on the couch what you're doing is you're kind of avoiding that negative emotion
3:44:21that's associated with getting up going to the gym it's uncomfortable I have to be selfconious ious
3:44:26about certain things all of that you're avoiding all of that right And so there's just there's more
3:44:33practical wisdom in just accepting that you're going to feel bad about that and be that's be
3:44:38directly because of the value you've chosen Yes Yeah Yeah Yeah A huge component of emotional
3:44:43regulation uh is our relationships right and our dark moments It's often the people around us who
3:44:49support us and help us through it Sometimes the people around us cause our dark moments So being
3:44:55very conscious of who you surround yourself with and the values of those people that you surround
3:44:59yourself with I will say you know I maybe we undersold it a little bit in this episode but like
3:45:05I I will say the consequences of having people close to you with awful values is significant
3:45:15right is very significant I think people underestimate how much the values of the people
3:45:20around them rub off onto them or influence them and their choices and their own value system Like
3:45:25ultimately our value systems are kind ofworked with the value systems of people around us And
3:45:32if we're surrounded with people with shitty values then it's going to kind of reset our baseline and
3:45:38our standards for ourselves Yeah Another one of those things you have to be very honest
3:45:41with yourself about right because it's easy to say well yeah they're like that but that doesn't
3:45:46affect me There's so many instances of this in every different parts of our lives and behavioral
3:45:50change and everything like that Like well that doesn't affect me It does Be honest with yourself
3:45:54You know you can't keep junk food in the fridge because you're going to eat it You also can't have
3:45:57a bunch of [ __ ] around you and not think that you're not going to be an [ __ ] at some point too
3:46:01So yeah I think it normalizes things right it's like think about it It's like if all your friends
3:46:06are drug addicts and alcoholics and you're and you're sober like you it's easy to be like "Well
3:46:11I'm I'm not doing drugs I'm not I'm not drunk all the time but it's like they they normalize it and
3:46:16they set a baseline expectation that uh they just put the bar extremely low Right Right And uh and
3:46:22so it it's even if you're not participating or doing the the the bad behaviors that they're doing
3:46:27you you are accepting the standards that they have set and you're setting that same standard
3:46:32for yourself Because again it comes back to like remember like you the way you measure yourself is
3:46:36the way you measure others and the way you measure others is the way you measure yourself So if you
3:46:39if you're accommodating uh a bunch of bad behavior and bad values in the people around you then you
3:46:45are unconsciously accommodating that in yourself or you're being tolerant of that in yourself as
3:46:49well I I think there's one thing too you want to be careful about is not to go too far the other
3:46:53way There's there's a self- sorting that goes on too that we just sort ourselves into people
3:46:57who have have our exact values And like we've said repeatedly throughout this is it's not necessarily
3:47:02uh like shared values aren't necessarily having the same values It's more a respect for values
3:47:08that you have for other people and that itself is a value like being able to tolerate and respect
3:47:13other other values um that complement each other within you know reason anyway Yeah If you yeah if
3:47:20you go the other direction and your standards are just so absurdly high that nobody can meet them
3:47:25then yeah you're going to be a miserable [ __ ] by yourself for a long time And a diversity of values
3:47:30is a great thing to have in any any group or even person Yeah And then the last thing uh we talked
3:47:36about cognitive dissonance and how ultimately our values and our belief systems follow action Um
3:47:43they are not action does not follow our values That values follow our actions And so the best
3:47:49way to rep prioritize your value hierarchy is to take action on the hierarchy that you want
3:47:55or force yourself into a situation whether it's through constraints or incentives to take the
3:48:00action that you want and understanding that it's going to be uncomfortable and difficult and maybe
3:48:05even unpleasant at first and that there's going to be all this self-doubt and associated guilt
3:48:11and sadness and anxiety and icky icky feelings But if you push through that then ultimately your your
3:48:19brain will resolve the cognitive dissonance by adopting the new value reassessing the hierarchy
3:48:25and then basing that hierarchy off of the way you're acting in the world Yeah Yeah This is I
3:48:31think I have a good salient example of this too If you're in a relationship with someone let's
3:48:35say it's your romantic partner um and you've been fighting a lot right and you say you value this
3:48:41relationship right but when you get into fights what you do is you just want to win the fight
3:48:46right yeah This is everybody has this This is you want to win the fight You actually value being
3:48:51right more than you value the relationship So next time you have an argument instead of like trying
3:48:56to be right with someone just stop and say "Okay what's really going on here?" Right and say "I'm
3:49:01sorry." First of all maybe just apologize right out of the gate even if you don't know what you're
3:49:05sorry for And try to understand the other person And this that that's a good like the action the
3:49:10value follows the action there because once you stop and then that other person their guard goes
3:49:14down You can sit here and it's okay we're we're we're both prioritizing the relationship now over
3:49:19being right over winning an argument which is stupid to begin with And the funny thing is is
3:49:24that like probably at least 50% of the time that is what the argument is about is just the the lack
3:49:30of prioritization of the relationship Like again it's it's not about the toothpaste tube It's it's
3:49:35about the thing underlying the toothpaste tube you know So yeah that makes sense This was one area I
3:49:41mean I had a lot of cognitive dissendence in my life that I never really resolved because with
3:49:46most people in my life I was benevolent and I was understanding and everything like that And then
3:49:49in closer relationships you know the ones that can really poke at your buttons more I was not And so
3:49:54there was that gap I had that values gap there And I had to realize at some point I was like "Okay do
3:50:00I value being right and like protecting myself and or whatever it was that I was prioritizing
3:50:06over a relationship." I was like "Actually no This relationship was way more important to me
3:50:10than winning a stupid argument." Yeah 99% of which I don't even remember from the past that have like
3:50:15derailed relationship I remember all the all the arguments I've I won Right because you can count
3:50:21them on one hand or what that was it was funny because when you were talking about like saying
3:50:26sorry even if you don't know what you're saying sorry for in my head I was like every husband is
3:50:31nodding along right now What it is is so many times you do you have you know partnered in I
3:50:39mean seriously there's been so many I've like you try to you get defensive you know you get
3:50:43defensive and you're like I'm not I like look I'm right I'm not trying to hurt you I'm not and it's
3:50:47that is completely besides I think any married person can relate to like you know just not like
3:50:53I don't know what I did wrong but I'm just going to say I'm sorry because and that's going to set
3:50:57the tone and you know you're going to be able to move on way quicker Yeah totally I think it it is
3:51:03uh interesting that for s like arguably the most philosophical topic in psychology
3:51:12uh ultimately I think that the the most efficient or highest leveraged solution around this is the
3:51:19simplest which is taking action and yet so many people struggle so often with taking action on
3:51:27the things that they want to take action on and I think a lot of It comes down to this is because
3:51:32the thing they want to take action on it's a thing they want to value but they don't value yet Yeah
3:51:38And that friction or that that distance between the wanting to value something and not valuing
3:51:45something and and summoning the motivation and the willpower to actually take action on it Uh
3:51:51I think it's it's like one of the most prevalent struggles and issues that everybody goes through
3:51:56and I think everybody's constantly going through Like I I speak for myself but I think every
3:52:01single person no matter how disciplined how much motivation willpower they have there's some area
3:52:05of your life that you're like "Oh yeah I wish I was doing a little bit better on that." Right so
3:52:10next episode and we're going to try to do this thing where each episode leads into the next
3:52:17episode So next episode is going to be about this question of like how do you take action
3:52:22on things that you don't necessarily feel like taking action on the next episode of Solved is
3:52:28going to be about procrastination and that'll be dropping on June 1st and it's a doozy It's a fun
3:52:34one Last question Drew What did you learn prepping for this episode and recording it yeah Yeah So I
3:52:42think one of the big takeaway the self-awareness thing really it was a big one for me I I have an
3:52:47I have had an idea of my values for a while and there is every few years I kind of like
3:52:52sit down and I'm like "Okay what is you know the value shift or whatever." What surprised
3:52:55me is how much my values have shifted over time honestly So going from some of these lower values
3:53:01you know when you're a little bit younger um you prioritize different things and as you age all of
3:53:07those things it becomes apparent that they're not important Yeah You know having fun and excitement
3:53:13and novelty and all of that going to just simpler values or maybe more the higher values really that
3:53:19was big for me So this the self-awareness piece around this I don't think it can be understated
3:53:24I really do think that if you are just aware and cleareyed about your values that's not the fix
3:53:30It's not going to change so much But especially for people who just haven't done this before Yeah
3:53:34It's a clarifying It's so clarifying and it can direct so many of your decisions going forward
3:53:39and you just understand like the you understand why you feel so bad about certain things Like I
3:53:44said I've I've just been able to accept that oh I'm just going to feel bad about this sometimes
3:53:48and that's okay And it's a side effect of you caring about it Yeah Exactly Exactly It's like "Oh
3:53:53this is actually a good sign right that I'm Yeah that I'm feeling bad about this because I value
3:53:57this relationship so much or this this value in my life." Yeah Yeah That's So I think self-awareness
3:54:04um I I I hesitate to like put that one up front because it I it's not the whole picture It's not
3:54:09the the fix all for everything but it will get you a long long way Yeah Um so right off the bat
3:54:14yeah the the self-awareness around my values and how much they've changed that was a big that was
3:54:19a big one for me Priority Priorities too Um I knew benevolence was pretty high in mine but I
3:54:24just didn't realize how just how central it was and just how much it butts up against the other
3:54:28values that I have too and trying to rec reconcile those Yeah So for me you know as you know I've
3:54:35been writing about values for like 10 plus years For me the I think the biggest the biggest aha
3:54:41uh prepping for this episode was really getting that broader understanding of like I guess the
3:54:46kind of the network of values like how values kind of interlace with one another And I guess the the
3:54:53potential danger of overindexing on one single value because I I I think my approach through
3:54:59most of my career was very much it was a little simplistic It was like find the thing that you
3:55:04care most about and go all in on it And I think on a surface level I think that's a good advice
3:55:09I I certainly think that's way better than just not knowing what you value at all So like if you
3:55:13take somebody who has no idea what their values are and are like feel pulled in 20 different
3:55:16directions and you tell them to like find the one thing and go all in on it I think that's going to
3:55:21be a significant improvement I think going back and and prepping for this episode and doing a
3:55:26bunch of the research and especially reading some of the the older philosophy around this
3:55:30like it really gave me an appreciation of of that actually going all in on one thing for too long
3:55:37uh can be problematic And it was interesting because it actually caused me to look at some
3:55:43of the decisions I've made uh over the last 10 or 15 years Like I definitely think that's an issue I
3:55:49have I have a tendency to go all in on one thing and there are a lot of benefits to that You you
3:55:57whatever that thing is it tends you get very very good at it and you get outsides benefits but it
3:56:02definitely harms other areas of your life So like I I've I've probably I've spent most of my life
3:56:07being a pretty unbalanced person in that sense Like I'm just like very overindexed on one thing
3:56:12So yeah for me it was gaining the understanding of like of like hey you you need to have a a small
3:56:21diversity of values You know it's probably optimal to have three or four things that you're all in
3:56:27on quote unquote that can harmonize together and counterbalance each other and rest on each other
3:56:34And that way you're a little diversified like kind of like a stock portfolio like
3:56:38you know if if one thing that you care about just suddenly goes south terribly you have a few other
3:56:44things to fall back on you're not putting all your self-esteem or self-worth in like a single basket
3:56:49Uh so so that was the biggest thing for me and then you know kind of that rediscovery
3:56:54uh of talked about in Plato's Republic of just kind of like the you know the individual is the
3:57:00social and vice versa like how that plays out on a social level as well like you don't want a society
3:57:05that's all in on one thing because you're going to pay the price for that you you really do want
3:57:11a a society that has a diversity of values and um and those values can harmonize and but also be in
3:57:17tension with each other and and also just the fact that some of that tension is is a feature
3:57:22It's not a bug It's that that tension is evidence that it matters and you're you you're care about
3:57:29it and you're taking care of it Yeah Yeah Yeah And along those lines too I guess another realization
3:57:34I had was um when you are in tension with other people's values or whatever it is if make sure
3:57:40you're talking on the same level right like are you having an intellect in intellectual
3:57:44conversation or is it actually about values or is one of you uh like on the intellectual level and
3:57:48the other one is talking on values like and I I feel like I've been pretty good about this most
3:57:53of the time but like um allowing people to kind of just have their own values and like be okay with
3:58:00it and not judging them for that A lot of times we just oh this person's stupid because of whatever
3:58:05view they hold or or thing they're doing or value they hold and it's really just comes down to they
3:58:10just have a different set of values So like you know the whole Jonathan height thing the moral
3:58:14foundations theory knowing that we all value kind of the same things but just in different
3:58:18proportions right that was a real that's if you need a more intellectual framework for that to
3:58:24like understand other people and their values that was that was helpful for me anyway Yeah
3:58:30And I like thinking of it in those terms as well because I I do think there is a tendency
3:58:35especially in like political conflicts like to to have this assumption that there are right
3:58:40and wrong values that there are there are certain values that like you should have or shouldn't have
3:58:46I like the understanding that most values are shared by everybody What changes is the
3:58:50proportionality and the emphasis Yeah Right And so when you look at maybe say tension
3:58:55between different cultures or different places on the political spectrum it's not
3:59:00that they value different things it's that they prioritize different things right and this this
3:59:06group of people over here sees you know harm and care as more important than say fairness
3:59:11And this group over here sees fairness and freedom as more important than harm and care So it's just
3:59:17that they have a different hierarchy and it's playing out in across the political world Right
3:59:22Right And it's it's the elephant Right Yeah It's an emotional tug It's an emotional world that
3:59:28you're dealing with And so you know when when you are trying to reason with people you need
3:59:32to speak to their values too And even if you're going to agree to disagree you need to understand
3:59:36someone on the the level of their values Yeah Yeah All right I'm excited because I'm gonna get the
3:59:43[ __ ] out of this blazer I'm never going to do this again Lesson learned Lesson learned Enjoy it
3:59:51audience while you have it Any epiphanies change behaviors anything you're going to go home and do
3:59:58differently next week or are you just going to sleep because you're tired i I mean the sleep
4:00:03I do need to value some sleep I think after this But um no I I mean like I was saying I knew that
4:00:10benevolence was like a core value of mine I just uh I didn't realize just how core it was and and
4:00:17how many times it bumps up against the others So I've really been thinking on that lately and
4:00:26i think we did it Okay I want to go home Let's go home Thank you everybody Be sure to like and
4:00:33subscribe on every platform If you enjoyed the show please leave a review Let us know what you
4:00:38thought And uh please check out the newsletter If you want to like be up todate on other stuff
4:00:44that I'm launching whether it's YouTube videos articles books go to markmanson.net/newsletter
4:00:51You can get all the updates there We also announce all the new episodes there as well Once again
4:00:56solvedodcast.com/values for the free PDF guide that goes along with this episode if you want
4:01:01to review everything or check our citations or whatever And we will be seeing you next month

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