Why Most Ambitious People Waste Their 20s — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00There's no perfect way to live your 20s.
2. 0:02You either live them up and become an
3. 0:04under-skilled 30-year-old, or you work
4. 0:07them up and become an under-lived
5. 0:0830-year-old. You just have to figure out
6. 0:10which you'd rather be, accept the
7. 0:12trade-offs, and know that there are no
8. 0:14do-overs.
9. 0:16>> And door three.
10. 0:19If you consider
11. 0:21work life, then you get to do both.
12. 0:27That one ruffled a lot of feathers.
13. 0:29>> [laughter]
14. 0:30>> Well, it's because people look back on
15. 0:33their 20s and realize that they are one
16. 0:35or the other.
17. 0:36>> All right, I'm going to lean into this.
18. 0:39I
19. 0:42I am okay. I had a conversation with my
20. 0:45team about this and I said, "I am okay
21. 0:46being a beacon of
22. 0:50relentless hard work. I'm okay being the
23. 0:53guy who says, 'Fuck your mental
24. 0:55health.'"
25. 0:56I'm okay with it. Because I've given it
26. 0:58a lot of thought. I think that there is
27. 0:59The other side is wildly
28. 1:01overrepresented.
29. 1:02And I'm willing to sit on the logical
30. 1:04extreme because I think it will help
31. 1:06more people.
32. 1:07And
33. 1:10there are more people that I have met in
34. 1:12my life who are dissatisfied
35. 1:14by their live-it-up 20s
36. 1:17than dissatisfied by their work-it-up
37. 1:1920s. Because most of the time in your
38. 1:2120s, you have no idea what you want. But
39. 1:25knowing what you need to do to work and
40. 1:26move ahead is fairly straightforward.
41. 1:28And so you can take the known and make
42. 1:31progress on the one that you have high
43. 1:32confidence that you can make progress
44. 1:34on. And then along the way, gain
45. 1:36perspective on what are the things that
46. 1:38are actually important to you in your
47. 1:39life. And you may find out, often, that
48. 1:42there are far fewer of those things than
49. 1:44you really originally thought. Because
50. 1:46what you thought live-em-up in your 20s
51. 1:47was was actually your mom and your two
52. 1:50homies who are both mediocre, and you
53. 1:52don't care about their opinion now when
54. 1:53you're 30 anyways. But what a waste of a
55. 1:55life it would have been to quote live up
56. 1:58your mom's dream or your friend's dreams
57. 2:01to then only get to your 30s and realize
58. 2:04you didn't live it up and you also
59. 2:06didn't work it up. And now you have
60. 2:07neither.
61. 2:15>> I think a lot about
62. 2:17you know,
63. 2:19the first day that I sat down
64. 2:21at university, my first ever seminar, I
65. 2:23sat next to my what would be future
66. 2:24business partner for 15 years.
67. 2:26So, I'm skinned. I say to him, "I'd
68. 2:29spent all of my money partying during
69. 2:30freshers week." The first week, I'd
70. 2:32spent my entire maintenance loan, which
71. 2:34was supposed to be food and everything
72. 2:36else for the rest of the term until
73. 2:38[ __ ] Christmas, and it's September
74. 2:40the 29th.
75. 2:41>> It was a good week.
76. 2:42>> It was I think it was a good week. Um
77. 2:45which I could not survive now. And
78. 2:49I think uh I think back to sort of the
79. 2:52the time that I spent and
80. 2:55and
81. 2:55the endless hours. Like, I'm not
82. 2:58kidding. And I don't talk I I don't
83. 3:00reflect that much on the the club
84. 3:02promoter stuff, maybe to my detriment. I
85. 3:05should do it more. Uh
86. 3:07I've spent between 5 and 10,000 hours
87. 3:09stood on the front door of nightclubs.
88. 3:12I've spent at least 3,000 hours stood on
89. 3:15the front door of the same nightclub
90. 3:17only on Saturdays.
91. 3:19Right? I didn't miss 202
92. 3:23Saturdays in a row. I took 4-day
93. 3:25holidays from Sunday to Thursday so that
94. 3:27I could come back to come and do this
95. 3:28thing. And I look back at my 20s and I
96. 3:30think, you know, was that
97. 3:32how much was living, how much was
98. 3:33accumulating skills, and
99. 3:36the grass is always greener with this
100. 3:37because in hindsight, you think, well,
101. 3:39you know,
102. 3:40you imagine that you could have gone
103. 3:41back and still accumulated all of the
104. 3:45insights and the skills that you really
105. 3:46value in yourself.
106. 3:48That would have still happened, but that
107. 3:50you would have got to maybe have more
108. 3:52variety or you would have maybe the fun
109. 3:54or the whatever the thing. And uh when I
110. 3:56look for me with my constitution at what
111. 4:00I value most in myself
112. 4:02almost all of those things have been
113. 4:04accumulated by having a 20s and now a
114. 4:0730s that has been dedicated to work it
115. 4:11up.
116. 4:12Not to live it up. To four-day holidays
117. 4:14in between those things. Now
118. 4:17remembering that now is not forever, I
119. 4:19think is really important.
120. 4:21Again, you're on the
121. 4:23outlier right-hand end of the
122. 4:25distribution for work.
123. 4:27Most people are going to pull themselves
124. 4:29back across in terms of balance between
125. 4:30work and play.
126. 4:32But
127. 4:33you can periodize what you're doing
128. 4:35right now.
129. 4:38You can accumulate all of that work, all
130. 4:40of that experience, all of that explore
131. 4:42time to work out actually I I don't like
132. 4:44doing admin stuff. It turns out I'm
133. 4:45really great at creative or I really
134. 4:47don't like traveling. It turns out I'm
135. 4:48really great at routine. All of those
136. 4:49things. There's like a buy-in. You
137. 4:51remember CrossFit? You do the you do a
138. 4:53buy-in thing you or it's a one-mile run
139. 4:55and then it's this workout. You have to
140. 4:57do that buy-in. Let's say everyone has
141. 4:58to do that buy-in. Doing that buy-in
142. 5:00when you're 25 is way easier than doing
143. 5:02that buy-in when you're 40, right? I
144. 5:05finally work out who I am in the world
145. 5:07because you start to accumulate all of
146. 5:09these better directional assistances.
147. 5:11You're moving in a more directionally
148. 5:12accurate way earlier, which means that
149. 5:14you make more progress over the long
150. 5:16term. So
151. 5:17in retrospect, I'm glad that I did work
152. 5:19it up 20s and I'm glad that I did work
153. 5:21it up 30s as well.
154. 5:24>> So I'll say two two things that are
155. 5:25might be helpful. Um
156. 5:28one is
157. 5:30you obviously know my stance if you're
158. 5:31listening to this on work-life balance,
159. 5:33but
160. 5:35maybe as a as a concession for you
161. 5:38your work-life balance obsession may
162. 5:41just be
163. 5:42too narrowly focused on the present and
164. 5:47not extended into seasons. And so you
165. 5:50can have work-life balance where I work
166. 5:52for 3 years and then I have a more chill
167. 5:55year.
168. 5:56And I think that most people think about
169. 5:57work-life in terms of their split of the
170. 6:00day rather than their split of the year
171. 6:01or the decade. So and I think that you
172. 6:04can have a much better outcome on both
173. 6:06sides if you were to split it up on a
174. 6:08longer time horizon.
175. 6:10>> So good. I mean everybody knows what
176. 6:12it's like to go through it. Every
177. 6:15January, intense period of diet. Five, I
178. 6:18[ __ ] it at Christmas again. Too much
179. 6:19chocolate, too much too much dinner. And
180. 6:23you go, "Okay, well
181. 6:25what are you going to do?" I'm going to
182. 6:26work hard. I'm going to focus on my diet
183. 6:28and my training for a while and then I'm
184. 6:29going to hold those gains for a period.
185. 6:32Or I'm going to build a business. Okay,
186. 6:34my health's probably going to take a hit
187. 6:35for a little while. Or I just got out of
188. 6:37a relationship. I need to go dating. All
189. 6:38right, well I'm probably not going to be
190. 6:39able to spend so much time at work. Or
191. 6:41maybe I'm going to be sleeping late or
192. 6:42something. My fitness is going to knock
193. 6:43off a little bit.
194. 6:45All of these things happen for periods
195. 6:47of time. And yeah, remembering that now
196. 6:50isn't forever is
197. 6:53And that's such a great frame. Like a
198. 6:55hyperbolic discounting, an inability to
199. 6:57be able to imagine that this is not the
200. 6:59way that it's always going to be.
201. 7:01And that's good.
202. 7:03For good things and for bad things. This
203. 7:05isn't the way it's always going to be.
204. 7:06So I better enjoy this win. This isn't
205. 7:08the way it's always going to be. So I
206. 7:09better not get too disheartened by this
207. 7:11loss.
208. 7:12You welcome, but that's the hit the
209. 7:14beautiful thing about the sort of
210. 7:15hedonic renormalizing. You go, "Good
211. 7:18things aren't as good as you think they
212. 7:20are. Bad things aren't as bad as you
213. 7:21think they are."
214. 7:22>> So if you if you use that extended frame
215. 7:25as a way to approach different types of
216. 7:26goals. So I'll I'll break a a very
217. 7:28standard one, which is that people
218. 7:30measure the amount of calories that they
219. 7:31need to eat per day.
220. 7:32But very few people measure the amount
221. 7:34of calories they need to eat per week.
222. 7:36And so people will blow the day and say,
223. 7:39"Well, screw it. I messed up today. I
224. 7:40might as well have a pizza on top of it
225. 7:42because I had chocolate and I went off
226. 7:43my diet or whatever. But if you have a
227. 7:45weekly outlook even, then all of a
228. 7:47sudden you're like, "Oh, well, I can
229. 7:48have a pizza tonight. I'll just like
230. 7:50skip most of my food tomorrow besides
231. 7:52protein."
232. 7:53Or I'll have a wedding weekend and know
233. 7:55that this whole week I'm going to be
234. 7:56light. And so I have, you know, 13,000
235. 8:01calories for the next 7 days that I can
236. 8:02work my way through, which gives me a
237. 8:04tremendous amount of flexibility. And
238. 8:06the thing is is that the further you
239. 8:08extend the time horizon, the more
240. 8:09flexible you can be with your
241. 8:10achievement of it as long as you only
242. 8:12get the few things that matter most. And
243. 8:14so it allows you to focus and prioritize
244. 8:16on those few things that move the needle
245. 8:18rather than be overly obsessive on
246. 8:21such a small narrow window of time that
247. 8:24is irrelevant anyways.
248. 8:26>> So there's a there's a
249. 8:28coordination problem that happens when
250. 8:29you try to balance too quickly. When you
251. 8:32try to have a little bit of fun and a
252. 8:34little bit of play and a little bit of
253. 8:35fun and a little bit of play, whether
254. 8:36it's task switching, whether it's just
255. 8:38sort of the cognitive effort of your
256. 8:40personality. Like your identity is I'm
257. 8:43gym guy for 3 months. Hooray. I'm work
258. 8:46guy for 3 months. Hooray. But when it's
259. 8:48I'm gym guy this morning, I'm work guy
260. 8:50this afternoon, it's tough. It's tough
261. 8:52to do that. So yeah, kind of the same as
262. 8:54you get diseconomies of scale as a
263. 8:55business grows because there's more
264. 8:57interconnectedness and communication
265. 8:58between each person, the more you use
266. 9:01there are going on inside. So this is an
267. 9:02argument for sort of aggressive
268. 9:04periodizing.
269. 9:06>> I'm a hyper proponent of one single
270. 9:09narrow focus.
271. 9:11I'll define two more terms since the
272. 9:13audience didn't ask for it.
273. 9:17Sadness is a perceived lack of options.
274. 9:20It's why it feels like hopelessness
275. 9:22because you don't know what to do. You
276. 9:24don't know what options are available.
277. 9:25You see none, which is why it feels like
278. 9:27there's no way out.
279. 9:29Anxiety is many options but no
280. 9:31priorities, which is why you feel
281. 9:33scattered but you can't decide. They
282. 9:35feel very different but fundamentally
283. 9:37those are the difference in the
284. 9:38conditions that make people feel like
285. 9:41they're anxious or they feel like
286. 9:42they're sad. And so, when we're
287. 9:45working through what you were just
288. 9:47talking about with, "Okay,
289. 9:48I want to be gym guy, and I also want to
290. 9:50be work guy." We have many options, but
291. 9:53a lack of priorities. And so, we have
292. 9:54anxiety over the fact that we're not
293. 9:56making progress on any of them because
294. 9:58we have not been able to say, "This
295. 9:59comes first." And so, if you think about
296. 10:01what priority means, it means prior. It
297. 10:03comes before everything else. And what I
298. 10:06think a lot of people have a hard time
299. 10:07doing is being okay with saying no
300. 10:12and saying, "Okay, I will
301. 10:15allow myself to just not get fatter
302. 10:18rather than get fitter during this
303. 10:20period." And what's interesting about
304. 10:23most skills is that the amount of effort
305. 10:25that it takes to maintain a skill versus
306. 10:27the amount of
307. 10:28effort it takes to grow a skill is like
308. 10:311/10 the amount of effort. And so, this
309. 10:33is where the effort arbitrage is so
310. 10:36important in terms of allocation. And
311. 10:38so, if you do a four out of 10
312. 10:40on 10 things, you will make progress on
313. 10:43none. You will make the same amount of
314. 10:44progress that you could have made if you
315. 10:46just did one out of 10, which is none.
316. 10:48You just don't regress. But the extra
317. 10:50three points that you save on the nine,
318. 10:52you could put on one other item and have
319. 10:55a 10 out of 10 or a 13 out of 10 in
320. 10:58effort. And then after every periodized
321. 11:00chunk of time, have a big W or win that
322. 11:03you can look back on and say, "I did
323. 11:05that, and therefore I am."
324. 11:08And so, I think that that's how you step
325. 11:10up the mountain of progress when you're
326. 11:12trying to work on many different skills,
327. 11:15{quote} at the same time. It's just that
328. 11:17the at the same time is over a year, not
329. 11:20over a day.
330. 11:21>> George told me told me this while we
331. 11:22were on mushrooms in Nashville.
332. 11:25[ __ ] brilliant. So, I'm now watching
333. 11:27>> [laughter]
334. 11:29>> Got to get Got to get people in the
335. 11:30door.
336. 11:30>> Yeah.
337. 11:31>> And uh
338. 11:324th of July uh George turned to me and
339. 11:34he said, "General ambition gives you
340. 11:36anxiety. Specific ambition gives you
341. 11:38direction."
342. 11:39>> Mhm.
343. 11:40>> There is nothing more anxiety-inducing
344. 11:43than I want to be better and I don't
345. 11:45know what at and I don't know how.
346. 11:48Like just think about that for a second.
347. 11:50Sort of embody that I I it it's sort of
348. 11:52a chasing, it's a lean in, and it's it's
349. 11:55tight and sort of your shoulders are up
350. 11:56and there's a ringing in your ears
351. 11:58and you have no idea. It's like a
352. 11:59threat. You've heard a noise in the
353. 12:02forest and you have no idea where it's
354. 12:03come from.
355. 12:04Specific ambition gives you direction.
356. 12:06>> And I think the concept of specific
357. 12:08versus general ambition ladders up to
358. 12:10bundle terms. I want this big thing, but
359. 12:13I haven't broken that thing down into
360. 12:15what I can actually do. Once you get
361. 12:17specific into the actions, you don't
362. 12:18have a lot of anxiety because you can
363. 12:20see what is required in order to get it.
364. 12:22And so, to circle the loop back on
365. 12:24sadness, which is cuz some people who
366. 12:26are listening to this may be sad, so
367. 12:27this is for you.
368. 12:30To get out of sadness, and I've been sad
369. 12:32many times in my life,
370. 12:33the thing that's helped me get out of it
371. 12:36is realizing that a perceived lack of
372. 12:39options is what causes sadness, not a
373. 12:41lack of options, a perceived lack of
374. 12:43options, which means that all I have to
375. 12:46do is figure out what I need to do, and
376. 12:49figuring it out becomes the option. And
377. 12:52so then, I have clarity on the one thing
378. 12:54that I need to do to pull myself out of
379. 12:56this moment of sadness, which is oh, I
380. 12:59just have to figure out what to do. And
381. 13:01that is how I get, at least for me, have
382. 13:03gotten out of my sadder periods.