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This Could Be The Most Life-Changing Video You Watch Today — Transcript

by Sandeep Swadia · 2,550 words · 374 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Modern life is a disease. [music] You
0:03want to get ahead. So why do you always
0:05feel behind? You want to be useful. So
0:09why do you feel unseen? The problem
0:12isn't you? Modern life is like a Trojan
0:14horse that arrives as a gift and then
0:18takes over from the inside. [music]
0:20I've lived as a monk in training, as a
0:22Wall Street banker, as a CEO and I found
0:26the same exact pattern everywhere. There
0:29are four symptoms, but one of them is
0:32probably ruining your life or even
0:35ruining it. So, by the end of this
0:38video, you'll know all four of those
0:39symptoms and what [music] to do about
0:41each of them. Let's get started. The
0:44hardest thing about modern life is how
0:46everyone wants to make your life easier.
0:49We have infinite feed, infinite
0:52calories, infinite streaming. Yes,
0:55somehow we're the ones being consumed.
0:58I'll give you my own example. I had a
1:01clear [music] vision of success when I
1:03was young. Walking out of Penn Station
1:04in New York City, I'm wearing a crisp
1:07suit and I'm entering a marble lobby of
1:11a top investment bank. And I got there,
1:14you [music] know, it was the right suit,
1:15the right lobby. But today, all I
1:19remember now is that I was sitting at a
1:22desk for 18 hours, eating [music]
1:24takeout, staring at numbers at 1:00 in
1:27the morning, sleeping for four or 5
1:30hours, and on [music] repeat every day.
1:34I rarely saw my friends. I rarely saw
1:37the sun. And that's the irony of modern
1:40life. We're surrounded by comfort, but
1:42we feel restless. [music] We now run
1:44faster than ever, but we still feel
1:48behind. We're connected, but we feel
1:51alone. We wonder if anything we do
1:55[music] matters. These are the four
1:57symptoms that I see everywhere I go.
2:00Restless,
2:01behind, alone, unseen. The real irony of
2:06modern life is that the dream and the
2:09disease look exactly the same. And to
2:12understand why that happens, we have to
2:14start with these symptoms and dig into
2:16the root causes of each of them from the
2:20inside. Let's do that. The first symptom
2:23is us feeling restless and anxious. We
2:26all live in this hustle and grind
2:29culture. No one believes in stopping or
2:32even slowing down. In 2018, a Harvard
2:35Business School professor named Michael
2:37Norton ran a study on more than 2,000
2:41[music] people. Every one of them had a
2:44net worth of at least a million dollars.
2:47Lucky ducks. Many of them were actually
2:50far beyond that. And he asked each one
2:53of them two questions. How happy are you
2:57on a scale of 1 to 10? [music] and how
3:00much more money would you need to move
3:02your happiness to a 10? The second
3:04question received the most [music]
3:07interesting answer. The person with 1
3:10million said they only needed [music] to
3:14get to 3 million to get their happiness
3:16to 10, but the person with 3 million
3:19wanted 10 million [music] and the person
3:22with 10 million wanted 30. No matter
3:25where they were on the wealth chart,
3:28they all wanted roughly three times
3:30more. So, it's never about that number.
3:34No matter where you are, there's always
3:37a bigger number. About a month ago, I
3:39was talking to a 24 year old and I asked
3:43him what do he wanted to be. His answer
3:46was rich.
3:49That answer really surprised me because
3:52I told him, you know, rich is not a
3:56career.
3:57But that's interestingly the entire goal
4:01for many people.
4:03Chase the number first and then hope
4:06that meaning will somehow arrive later.
4:10Our careers, our companies, our
4:13relationships, we all do that. We're
4:16incapable of feeling happy with what we
4:19have or who we have. We feel restless
4:24when we don't know our why behind the
4:27what. So, here's the action item. Take
4:31the thing you're chasing right now and
4:34ask, "What was it supposed to do for
4:37you? What's that number for? Is it so
4:40you can retire and you don't have to
4:42work? Is it about safety? Is it about
4:45security? Is it about a specific
4:48lifestyle that you coveret? Is it about
4:50giving your family and kids what you
4:53didn't have? All those are great
4:55reasons, but when you have that clarity,
4:58it helps you become more restful. But
5:01there is one more reason money can make
5:03us all restless. When you don't know
5:05exactly where you stand with your
5:07finances, I had that problem. My
5:11financial life was scattered everywhere.
5:14Old 401ks,
5:16IRA, bank accounts, brokerage accounts,
5:20credit card. So, my accountant suggested
5:24Monarch [music]
5:24and I started using that software and I
5:27loved it. They're sponsoring this
5:29segment, but I was already a customer
5:31before they leed out. Monarch pulled my
5:34bank accounts, my investments, my credit
5:37cards, my loans into one clean
5:40dashboard. So instead of jumping across
5:4310 different apps, I can see the full
5:46financial picture in one place. It makes
5:49me feel very zen. If you know what you
5:53have, what you spend, what you owe, the
5:56financial fog starts to lift. [music]
5:59And that matters because clarity creates
6:01sanity. You can try it for free
6:03yourself. The link is below. There's
6:05also a code to get half off your entire
6:08first year. Now, let's go to the second
6:10symptom, feeling behind. In 2019,
6:14Instagram research team found that their
6:17app was making body image issues even
6:21worse for one in three teenage girls. In
6:252020, Instagram also found that those
6:29teenagers were especially vulnerable to
6:33reward driven use and they had
6:36difficulty stopping even when they
6:38wanted to. So what did Instagram do?
6:42Nothing much. The company did not
6:44fundamentally redesign the product or
6:48even disclose the finding publicly until
6:51they were leaked in 2021 by a
6:54whistleblower. The problem was that the
6:57teenage girls who had body image issues
7:00were constantly exposed to perfect
7:03bodies. But it's a competition those
7:06teenagers could never win. Being ahead
7:10of everyone alive is an insane
7:13condition. And like those teenagers,
7:16there is no version of your life or mine
7:19where nobody is looking better or doing
7:23better than you and me. That's a game we
7:27can never win. So we tell ourselves
7:30stories about us falling behind because
7:32we're not enough. I did that for so many
7:36years. My dad and my aunts used to put
7:40me down all the time when I was a little
7:43kid. They didn't like the way I wore my
7:46glasses. I was too skinny. They made fun
7:49of my nose. And so I grew up with
7:53serious body image issues. But you know
7:56what? There is nothing wrong with my
7:59nose
8:01or with me. And there's nothing wrong
8:03with you.
8:06You are not behind or ahead. You're
8:08right where you are. That's what I
8:10realized later on. We forget that yes,
8:13success requires effort and yes, you
8:16have to run fast. But the folks who are
8:19ahead of you know that there are some
8:21people ahead of them. Someone who's
8:24faster or smarter is always going to
8:26find someone faster and smarter. That's
8:28just the way life works. You did not
8:30choose your comparison set. Just like I
8:33didn't choose my nose. It was there when
8:36I was born. It was what you inherited.
8:40We'll talk about what to do about all of
8:42that, but let's go to the third symptom
8:44now. Feeling alone. When I was younger,
8:47I co-ounded a band [music] with two of
8:50my buddies. And we played hundreds of
8:53concerts around the US, around the world
8:55actually. But the part we looked forward
8:58to the most was what happened after the
9:00concert. We would stay up until 3 or 4
9:04in the morning [music] and just talk. We
9:06would talk about music, about poetry,
9:09about neuroscience, astronomy, religion,
9:13atheism, questions none of us had any
9:16answers to. There was no audience,
9:20just [music] us and our stories. And
9:23those conversations are still what I
9:26miss the most about demand.
9:28That's what modern life takes away from
9:30us. It confuses us. There's nothing
9:33social about social media. They're just
9:36media platforms and algorithms who want
9:40you to stay on them so they can show you
9:43ads. Social media in fact makes you
9:46antisocial in many ways. Look around any
9:50elevator, any line, any train station,
9:53any checkout, and you'll see every head
9:55is down just looking at their phones.
9:57We're physically there, but our mind is
10:00living somewhere else in that digital
10:03world. But eventually, we come to
10:05realize that your thousand followers
10:08cannot replace the one person you're
10:10going to need who will sit down next to
10:12you when you're hurting. So, that's the
10:14third symptom. And by the way, if you
10:16like such ideas and frameworks, please
10:19subscribe to my newsletter where we go
10:22way deeper into these kind of topics.
10:25One insight, one tool, one practice
10:28comes out every Tuesday. It's totally
10:31free. And you can also take this episode
10:34with you on your morning run or commute
10:37because you can follow it on Spotify
10:39now, which is super cool. And now the
10:41fourth symptom is familiar to all of us
10:45and that is almost existential feeling
10:49unseen and unappreciated.
10:52We all want to be wanted. We all want to
10:57know that something changed because
11:00[music]
11:00we were here. You want your boss to
11:04appreciate your work. You want your
11:06spouse to pay [music] attention to you.
11:09You want your real or post to get
11:11eyeballs. You want your videos to go
11:13viral. All of that is about our want to
11:17be seen. We all want to matter. And this
11:21is also where AI creates the deepest
11:23fear. For decades, we've worked on
11:27building our intelligence, our
11:29expertise, so we can stand out, right?
11:32So we can be seen. But AI can now
11:35perform many of the skills we spent
11:38years building. And it can do it
11:40cheaper, faster, without getting tired.
11:43And it doesn't care about being seen. It
11:46doesn't care about recognition. So what
11:48happens to us when the skills that we
11:50spend years building become suddenly
11:54commoditized? Are we just disposable
11:57now? Will our value be repriced in the
12:02market? No one knows the answer to those
12:04questions yet. No one will know for next
12:085 years, I think. But that's why it
12:11feels a little more personal and
12:13existential than it used to because AI
12:17is this amplifier.
12:19So there they are, the four symptoms,
12:22the feeling that you're restless,
12:25behind, alone, and unseen. What's the
12:30underlying root cause for all of them?
12:33There are many causes, but one key one
12:36that I think is that we tend to
12:40substitute the real hero with a stunt
12:43double. And that's the problem. You
12:45measure the wrong metric, you drive
12:48wrong behavior. There is a principle
12:50called Goodart's law. When a measure
12:53itself becomes a target to optimize, it
12:56stops being a a good measure. Our modern
12:58lives are full of those broken measures.
13:01Money is a stunt double for security and
13:05freedom. A title is stunt double for
13:09being taken seriously. A company may be
13:12a proxy for building something that
13:15outlasts you.
13:17Now the stunt doubles are not
13:19meaningless. Money matters. Cash flow
13:22keeps your company alive. All that is
13:24good. But some of the stun doubles
13:26become so convincing that we forget that
13:30there is a hero that ever existed. So
13:33that's the pattern and here's how you
13:36break it. The disease called the modern
13:38life requires a four-step remedy and for
13:42that we have to go back to the 70s. John
13:45Bogle started Vanguard in 1970s and it
13:50became one of the largest financial
13:52institutions in the world. It still is,
13:55but he gave it a structure that's almost
13:59unheard of in finance. Vanguard would be
14:03owned by its funds and those funds would
14:06be owned by their investors. It still
14:09works that way. He built one of the
14:11largest financial firms in history and
14:14never owned any equity in that company.
14:17He wasn't confused by the stunt doubles
14:20and the fake measures. He knew the real
14:24thing. So, how do we do the same? Here
14:27are the four steps. First, name the
14:30symptom. What are you actually feeling?
14:34Restless, behind, alone, unseen. Now,
14:40this matters because you'll often
14:42misdiagnose the real problem. So, for
14:45example, when you say you need a
14:47promotion, are you feeling behind
14:50[clears throat]
14:51or restless or unseen or all three? You
14:57got to know the difference. Step two,
15:00find the need that's underneath that
15:02symptom. Each symptom has an underlying
15:07unspoken need. When you feel restless,
15:10your underlying need might be safety.
15:14When you feel behind, your underlying
15:16need might be adequacy. When you feel
15:19alone, it could be belonging. When you
15:23feel unseen, your underlying need could
15:26be significance.
15:29So, go for a walk. Figure it out. Write
15:31it down. What is it that you truly need?
15:34Step number three, expose the stunt
15:37double. What proxy are you chasing
15:39instead of that underlying need? Because
15:42it's easier to measure the proxy.
15:44Followers can be counted. Belonging
15:46cannot. You can measure how fast you're
15:49running compared to your peers. But your
15:51own sense of satisfaction is hard to
15:54measure. The stunt double is attractive
15:57precisely because it gives you a score.
16:00It tells you whether the number went up
16:03or down, but it cannot tell you whether
16:06the real need has been met or not.
16:10That's why you need the fourth and final
16:13step. Replace your stun double with the
16:16real hero. Go after the real thing
16:19directly. If you feel restless, write
16:22down what the pursuit was supposed to
16:25give you. When you get to the top of the
16:27hill, remember that all you're going to
16:30see there is another bigger hill to
16:33climb. And you can still keep climbing,
16:36but have the clarity on why you're doing
16:38that. If you feel behind, stop using the
16:41entire world as your comparison set.
16:43Compete with yourself. Define what good
16:46looks like to you for the life you're
16:49actually living. So, those are the four
16:51symptoms. But you see that whichever one
16:53that you're feeling, the move is the
16:56same. It's the same four-step process.
16:58One clear definition of enough when
17:01you're restless, one race that you run
17:03against yourself when you're behind, one
17:06person who truly knows you, and one life
17:09that changed because you were here. If
17:11you have those four things, there's not
17:14much else that would matter.
17:17And if you don't have those, well,
17:20there's still plenty of time. Modern
17:22life tells you happiness is waiting on
17:26the other side of success. It's like you
17:29see a a beautiful rainbow [music] and
17:32it's gorgeous. It's at a distance. So,
17:35you keep running like crazy toward it so
17:40you can get close, so you can get to the
17:42bottom of it, so you can touch it. But
17:45[music] you can run all day long and
17:48you'll never get there ever because no
17:52one does. The faster you move, the
17:55further it gets. [music]
17:57And the funny thing is the light that
18:00made the rainbow possible was coming
18:03from behind you all this time.
18:08Thank you and I love you.

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