Productivity Expert: Unlimited Options Are Making You Miserable! | David Epstein

Key Takeaway

Our brains aren't designed for unlimited options—they're designed to avoid thinking whenever possible. When you have total freedom and endless choices, you'll default to what's easy or familiar. But when you block the path of least resistance through constraints, that's when creativity emerges. Try this: write a one-page press release for your project before you start. Define what success looks like at the end. This simple boundary will prevent you from wandering and help you focus on what truly matters.

Episode Overview

David Epstein, bestselling author of 'Range,' discusses his new book 'Inside the Box' and explains how constraints—not unlimited freedom—fuel creativity and success. Through examples from NASA, Pixar, jazz musicians, and startups, Epstein reveals why too many options lead to paralysis and unhappiness, while strategic limitations force innovative problem-solving and clearer priorities.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Productivity Expert: Unlimited Options Are Making You Miserable! | David Epstein from The School of Greatness. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Our brains are not equipped to have access to everything everywhere all of the time. Since the introduction of infinite scrolling, people have gotten more bored. If you give people like 20 videos that they can scroll through, they'll be more bored than if you just take one of those 20, give it to them, and make them focus on it. If you have tons of options, you'll do something you've seen before or that's easy or convenient. If that's blocked, that's the only time you can start being creative.

He is an investigative journalist, a science writer, and a best-selling author of the book Rain, which fundamentally changed how top athletes and entrepreneurs think about success. We have the inspiring David Epstein in the house. Satisficing is a word created by this guy Herbert Simon. Satisficing means instead of trying to evaluate every option and pick the best, you set clear criteria for good enough, when that's met, you take it and you stop. Just the idea that there's something else potentially better spoils the feeling of the moment.

It's called maximizing. It's almost always bad to be a maximizer. Less happy with their lives, less happy with their decisions, all these sorts of things. So, how do we know when we have five or 10 great options to take action on something, which one is the right option to take? Well, I would I would have ahead of time. time. time. David, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Great to be back. Excited that you're here, man. Because range was something that when you came out with that book, I was like, man, he's speaking to my heart because in my my childhood, I played every sport and I feel like that's what helped me become successful in my future sports that I played because I had a range of skill sets.

But your new book almost talks about the opposite. It's about kind of having these constraints in our life. And one of the most common questions I get from entrepreneurs that I coach is they say, "Lewis, I have so many passions. I don't know which one to take action on and then therefore they don't take action on anything in their life because like well I have these 10 great ideas what do I do and they're just stop before they start. So if we have too many great ideas, if we have too much talent in many different areas, is that actually hurting us from being successful?

It can be because the challenge when you have a lot of options, the challenge of doing something, not everything becomes really really acute. And I have to say I think this gets is even more challenging the age of AI where there's like an ability to infinitely start things that you're not going to finish. Mhm. But I mean the the first chapter of this new book features a company that had all the talent in the world, all the resources. They were in the early '90s. They were the first so-called concept IPO ever where Goldman Sachs took them public without a product just based on an idea because they had so much talent, so many resources.

So what happened? They were basically building the iPhone like a generation before it existed, before the internet even existed. They could do anything. So they did do anything. Every cool idea that some engineer had, they did it. And the project just grew and grew and grew until it eventually just became this incoherent mess and they blew the deadlines and it it ended up really confusing to users and all this stuff and it was just a disaster because they just could not draw boundary. They they had this ethos of we're only limited by our imagination.

So they never drew a bounding box around their work. Meanwhile, they had a low-level engineer internally who started a website called auction web and told them like hey look this is facilitating commerce. You want this? No no too small. So he takes that out. That's eBay. Wow. So Pier Midiar was a low-level service engineer at this company called General Magic. They had another guy who was developing one app for their system. Again, too small. He took that out, became the Palm Pilot, which was a hit.

They just could not focus themselves in. And I think that's an especially acute challenge when you can do a lot to to limit yourself. There's something that I think a lot of people have heard about this idea that the the 10,000 hours and and if you do deliberate practice of something for 10,000 hours then you'll be great. Is that true or is that false? It's true for very certain domains only and those are mostly not the ones that you want to be in these days. It's true for domains that are what psychologists call kind learning environments where next steps and patterns are clear rules repeat uh not a ton of human behavior involved.

work next year will look like work last year and feedback is quick and and accurate. and accurate. and accurate. Most so chess for example, but that's why chess is so easily automatable. So if you're in an area like that, you may not want to be there that much longer. Most of the rest of us are living in what psychologists call wicked learning environments where you have to reinvent yourself, learn new things over and over. And in those domains, you actually want this broader skill set that that equips you to do new types of problem solving.

Like when you mentioned playing a lot of sports that gave you this broad skill, it's the same thing. You learn these general skills now called physical literacy that allow you to take on new challenges and learn new skills more rapidly. So if the 10,000 hours I think it gives people the idea that you should be too narrow and and those like the original 10,000 hours study, it was one study of 30 violinists in a world-class music academy who are already in a world-class music academy. It's been totally misunderstood.

Is not applicable to almost anything else that people do really. really. really. Yeah. I I think it's also not many people can focus on 10,000 hours on something for that long. Usually, what's that going to take? You know, 10 years at least to do that. T typically at least. I mean, that that'd be a pretty good pace, too. Yeah. But it's like the attention spans today, people don't even have that attention span. So, it almost gives you a hope that you're saying, "Oh, I don't have the ability to do something for 10,000 hours, which means you can still make it in something.

You don't have to spend that much time doing something to be great." Although I think if if the idea people take from that is that you don't have to be deliberate and focused, right? If I'm just going to pinball around and it's totally going to work out, I don't think that's the way to go about it. Like I think this is a deliberate broadening, exploring your interests and things like that. But again, again, again, I mean, one of the things that I'm writing about in this new book is you have to focus that into something at a certain point, right?

So there there's a tension between building a broad toolbox and then focusing it into achievement. So, how I mean we're we're both parents, you know, your your kids are a little older than mine, but how do we think about this in terms of either for ourselves or for our kids when there is so much distraction, there is so much range of opportunities to take on these days, but we also need to be focusing some deliberate attention on on fewer things and having constraints like you tell us.

You know, what should we be doing? Having a range or constraining ourselves? ourselves? ourselves? Yeah. Well, let me say since your kids aren't there yet, this will be useful for you. I write in the book about the Harvard study of adult development. That's the longest study ever that followed people 86 years. Followed multiple generations of people from childhood uh cradle to the grave. And one of the most important things they found for little kids was giving them chores. So you should give kindergarters chores because it gives them a sense of obligation uh a sense that their participation in the family in the group matters.

Do you want these kind of dense networks of reciprocal obligation? Right? The opposite of this is growing up online or what John the psychologist Jonathan height called the great rewiring of childhood where instead of having these obligations to real people, you're involved in online where it's like endless series of micro dramas with a revolving cast of people who may be bots, right? That that's not good. So the first thing for kids, grounding with real responsibility in the real world and then I think limiting the stuff somewhat.

I I see this with my own kid. If he gets too much stuff at once, it's almost like he bounces between objects taking inventory of what he got. Whereas, if we're outside and I give him a stick and a rock and like make up a game, all of a sudden, you see this this creativity. He will make up a game. It will happen. You'll see this soon as your kids get a little older. It's like exactly what the psychological research shows will happen that when you do what's called a preclude constraint, you block what's called the path of least resistance.

So, let me go back for a sec. As the cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham says, you may think your brain is made for thinking, but it's actually made for preventing you from having to think whenever possible. It wants to be lazy. And so, if you have tons of options, you will just go down total freedom. You'll just go down what's called the path of least resistance. You'll do something you've seen before or that's easy or convenient. If that's blocked, that's the only time you can start being creative.

Really? So, I think for kids, you want to make it a little inconvenient, inconvenient, inconvenient, right? not give them all of the stuff that's so easy for them just to like lazily consume, but actually put them in a spot where they have to create because otherwise we don't. We're programmed for laziness whenever possible because thinking is metabolically costly. Yeah. It's takes energy. Yeah. So what's the difference between kids and adults with this then? Adults I mean first of all kids we can mandate it a little bit easier for them.

I think but I think adults need this too, right? We are our brains are not equipped to have access to everything everywhere all of the time. So we're in this age of unprecedented options for everything. There's an Oxford professor calculated that our consumer choices have multiplied since before the industrial revolution by a 100 millionfold which dwarfs the difference in wealth which is like 400fold. And yet people are less happy there. In fact, since the introduction of infinite scrolling, people have gotten more bored. These surveys by psychologists show more bored.

Yeah. If you if you give people like 20 videos that they can scroll through, they'll be more bored than if you just take one of those 20, give it to them, and make them focus on it. It's just the idea that there's something else potentially better and you're never satisfied. Spoils the spoils the feeling of the moment. It's called maximizing where you want to evaluate all the options and pick the best. And it turns out that it's almost always bad to be a maximizer. They're less happy with their lives, less happy with their decisions, more prone to regret, all these sorts of things.

It's actually much better. I mean, I think one of the a strong recommendation I would give people that came out of some of the work for inside the box is to set satisficing rules. Satisficing is a word created by this guy Herbert Simon who's like one of the most brilliant people who ever lived. I think he he won the highest award in computer science, founding father of AI, highest award in psychology. To round it off, Nobel Prize in economics. Yeah. And and so you'd almost think when he said we should satisfy we should pick good enough rules, you'd almost think that he had low ambition if not for his trophy case, right, of winning everything imaginable.

And satisficing means instead of trying to evaluate every option and pick the best, you set clear criteria for good enough, when that's met, you take it and you stop. Maybe it goes beyond that to excellent, but that's that's like a recipe for not having this kind of choice overload. And it helps you avoid something called Fredkkins paradox where we spend the most time on the least important decisions because you you agonize when this when the options look similar. You're having trouble telling the difference. the difference.

the difference. That also means it probably doesn't matter much which one you pick, but that's where we end up spending our most energy. energy. energy. Interesting. So, how do we know when we have five or 10 great options to take action on something, which one is the right option to take? Well, I would I would have ahead of time though, let's say a simple example that everyone's like, you're shopping for something on Amazon. Set the three criteria of what this what are you hiring this thing to do?

Like what what's the job that you're hiring that item to do? What are the three things it needs to have? Once you see those, get it. Don't read all the reviews. Don't look at all the other options. Take good enough and move on. move on. move on. What about if it's more than buying something on Amazon? It's like, oh, this is something I'm going to take a job and I have three different options. I'm going to pursue a new hobby that could consume a lot of my life.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to get into a relationship and I have all these options. Like, how do you know that something is going to take more than just a few, you know, an hour of your time? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On something that's 50 bucks versus a lifealtering choice. I mean, one thing you know is once you're starting to really struggle with differentiating the options, that means you're probably you're probably not going to be any more accurate by spending more time. That's why you're having trouble.

You you might wish that if you think that you spend more time, you'll make a better choice. But once you get down to I can't really tell what I should do. You you got to do it and hope for some good luck basically. Um but I think you should have clear criteria for what it is you're looking for. Make sure those are met. If they're met by all those options, options, options, then you kind of pick and hope for intuition or Yeah. And and start small.

Start small, right? I'm I'm a huge fan of sort of low stakes practice like you mentioned a new hobby. Can you ease into it a little bit with a a little bit of a trial or you know in in dating? I think it's a real challenge, right? because you can just swipe endlessly now and have this incredible and that's produced this phenomenon that this psychologist named Scott Stanley calls sliding versus deciding where young people especially in the interest of keeping their options open will do what's called sliding.

They'll allow they'll say I'm not sure I'm committed but the relationship will keep going. So they will be in escalating commitment naturally, but they feel like they're they feel like they're keeping their options open, but they're actually not actually not actually not really. really. really. And eventually it becomes, you know, marriage. They've slid into it and they're much more likely to get divorced if you slide versus if you were like, I'm committed to this one. I'm not looking anymore. And so this sliding phenomenon has produced like a lot of bad relationships in the interest of keeping your options open.

How many how many people do you think are sliding into relationships rather than making definitive decisions about the people they want to be with? Yeah, I don't know a percentage, but I think it's more and more kind. I mean, I think the the ability to swipe endlessly is a really insidious factor in all this where you say you're always wondering like what's what could be around the next corner, right? And that's that's unfortunate because the the psychologist who coined the term flow, mihi, chicks and mi, for the the feeling of immersion in an activity, he wrote this beautiful passage where he talks about one of the great things about being committed to something.

and he was talking about a relationship, but it might as well been talking about anything. anything. anything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is that you can if you're committed, if you're actually committed, you can start living and stop spending all your time wondering how to live. And so I think it's really important that we make these that we decide, not slide for these big things and say, "I'm committed to this so I can live like this." If it's a job, you know, maybe you change, change, change, but keeping the door open all the time.

It's like keeping your options open can become an end unto itself. And I think that's it. It it's shown that that just like makes people unhappy. What do you think most people misunderstand about having total freedom? freedom? freedom? I think total freedom seems really attractive. I think they think it will make them happier. Like if only I had more choice. If only I had more freedom. But a mountain of research shows that people overestimate how what freedom will do for them. So there are all these weird examples like I mean this one's you know a little negative but if people get cancer say it's like more than around 2/3 I think of people say that if I got cancer I'd want to be involved in picking my own treatment but then if people who get cancer it's like 12%.

they don't actually want to be involved in that choice really. Or people think if you give them more entertainment options, they'll enjoy the experience of whatever they choose more and and they actually don't. They they people say they express a preference for reversible decisions, but then if they're given irreversible decisions, they're actually happier because it it removes the possibility of regret. And so I think um that we just overestimate what total freedom will will bring us. If someone is complaining about not having enough resources, not having enough time, not having enough options, what is actually happening for them?

If they if they think that they need more flexibility, more time, more freedom, more more resources, what are they actually saying? actually saying? actually saying? I think often times they're saying they they want more agency. like they think they're being limited by something external to themsel like I could blossom if only I had this other stuff you know and everyone needs some resources right there's obviously a line I mean there's all these invention studies where you can restrict people enough if you restrict people they usually get more creative until a certain point when when it becomes less if you're if you're telling them both the the the what to do and how to do it right then there's no ability for them to surprise themselves themselves themselves but but one of the things I want to do with inside the box is hopefully push this mindset shift of seeing constraints and obstacles from instead of limitations to opportunities to clarify priorities and to launch into productive experimentation.

So I think taking a different mindset to it and saying this is a chance to experiment. Yeah. In the book in page 49, you say total freedom then is the enemy of creativity and constraints its companion and and it sounds like, you know, my my brother plays jazz. He's actually the number one jazz violinist in the world. No way. No way. No way. So I grew up watching him at all these kind of jazz clubs and then he tooured the world and he's still doing it today.

And he grew up playing classical music, classically trained as one of the top in the country, violin, and then started getting into jazz. And I don't fully understand it, but I know there's a language of constraint even though it looks like this improvisational free flowing anyone's doing what they want to do at any moment, but there's actually a language and constraints within jazz. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And it's interesting because you think you want to you might want to be able to have total freedom, but if everyone is playing something totally free at the same time, you can't really understand it.

understand it. understand it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it it can be freedom in moments within the constraints. That's right. that makes beautiful harmony which I think is interesting. I don't know what have you covered around music in the book. Is there anything Oh yeah. I mean speaking of of jazz like one of the chapters opens with this story of something called the Kul concert. This concert by pianist Keith Jarrett who's improvising became the So basically he shows up to this concert in Germany examines the piano.

He's famously kind of orary like if he hears a camera click it's concert's off really. really. really. And he shows up it's the wrong piano out of tune. has fewer keys than the one that he that he normally plays. Yeah. Um and he says, "Concert's off." And this woman who was promoting the concerts is like begging him, "Please, like, we have a soldout theater. Please, she gets him to do it." So, he can't play with certain parts of the keyboard, right? The sound's not loud enough for the space.

And so he starts improvising using certain parts of the keys, only doing these very repetitive rhythms with one hand because he he's he he can only stay in a certain area, doing these loops. He starts banging his foot against the pedal to try to make a percussive sound. percussive sound. percussive sound. And it becomes the bestselling uh solo jazz piano album of all time, right? Too long to even be played on the radio, but it would be played in stores and people would just be like, "What is that?" And as he said later, it was this imperfect character of the piano that forced him to do something nobody had done before.

But you don't do that unless you're forced. There's actually there's actually a number of music stories uh in the book, but that's that's one of them. That's cool. So, how do we shift our mindset to see a lack of resources not as a disadvantage, but as the exact spark that we need to create a massive breakthrough or potential success? Start asking what you can do with this constraint. Instead again instead of this is keeping me down, how does this lead me to clarify my priorities? How does this lead me to launch into experimentation?

When I I gave the book to one of the early readers was this guy named Ed Hoffman. He was NASA's first chief knowledge officer. It's like the head psychologist at NASA. Wow. Wow. Wow. He stops at a point in the book and says, "I have to tell you about this mission called Elcross we had." That's just an acronym. And he says the team ended up with about half the time and half the budget that they wanted. And so first they whined a little and then they said, "Well, if we were going to get this done, how would we do it?" They end up borrowing imaging equipment from army tanks because they couldn't create from scratch.

They had to borrow. They take engine temperature sensors from NASCAR and they they put it on a probe and they discover water on the moon. And he said they never would have done this kind of repurposing except it forced them to say if we were going to get this done under these limitations, how would we do it? So then it became an exercise they would do even if they weren't even if they didn't have to. and say, you know, if we if we had to get this done in half the time, what would we do?

And all these ideas come out even if you're not forced to do that. And those ideas can be useful. useful. useful. The School of Greatness is brought to you in partnership with Airbnb. I had one of those travel days recently on a trip to Europe where everything just stacks up. The long flight, full schedule, back-to-back conversations, and by the end of it, you're just ready to slow down and take a minute. And I remember walking into the place that I booked and thinking, "This is exactly what I needed." Because it felt calm, it felt comfortable, and it was easy to get into and settle in.

Not just a place to sleep, but a place to reset. That experience stuck with me because I have another trip coming up soon. It made me look at a separate space I have differently. And I started noticing what's happening locally, and there are events that are bringing people in. And I thought about that feeling I had after a long day, walking into a space that just feels right. That's exactly what people are looking for in those moments. And listing your space on Airbnb is a way to be a part of that while also bringing in some extra income.

Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host. This is probably the greatest question every entrepreneur can ask themselves if they want to be successful. How can I get this done in half the time with no money? Or, you know, I think also having resources for entrepreneurs can be a big problem. You know what I mean? Like the more funding you get, you spend it. You just like burn a lot of stuff. You're not thinking resourcefully enough to say, "Hey, how do we make this better without this money?" You can't.

We are incapable of doing it unless you're forced to. It's just not the way our brains are programmed. And exactly to what you're saying, I quote in the book Bill Gurley, uh, fame venture capitalist, Uber, Zillow, all these other places. He said when I was talking to him about constraints, he said, "Yeah, we have a saying in venture that more startups die of indigestion than starvation, like from too much rather than than too little." Another prominent venture capitalist I was interviewing said his whole strategy is to go for companies that are like in a little bit of debt.

So, it's it's not they're not going to die, but they're getting really lean and scrappy. Um, and so I mean, yeah, the first the first chapter of the book is about a startup that uh had way too much of everything. Uh, and even though they had like the greatest collection of talent arguably ever assemble assembled in tech, they they were a disaster. You learn when you're small, right? You learn when you're small and and your expenses and and and risk don't explode until you you know I mean this is why like I write in the book about Pixar which will allow directors to stay in development of a story for years with a small team refining and simplifying the core of a story because the costs only explode once you move into production.

That's when learning becomes hard and story is the most important thing. And so in that small phase, they can be small and and learn cuz once once it gets big, it's it's hard to learn and pivot. Much harder. Yeah, that's interesting. What is the biggest lesson you've learned from researching and writing this book that has made you a better person? I have I have a really bad acronym for myself, but it involves like a couple of of of lessons. Um, can I share those with you even though it's a stupid habit?

So, I think of it as BCS press release, right? So, you think of like bowl championship series press release. B is batch batch your work. So, our attention, we need to structure our attention. It will be structured for us. So, an average this psychologist Gloria Mark found that people in an office check email on average 77 times a day. And if you have to do all your email, but you should batch it. You should do you can do multiple tasks over the day but you should do them in blocks so that you're not toggling all day long or your productivity will be lower and we now know that it causes your stress to skyrocket.

Batch your work so you're doing one thing at a time monotasking monotasking monotasking but it can be multiple amount of tasks over the day. C make commitments make all your commitments visible. Put them on post-it notes on the wall. Everything you're committed to right now so that they're visible. And what you're most likely to see is that you're overcommitted whether to the projects you have, personal things, whatever it is. and then say if I had to cut something in the next 90 days, what would it be?

It's called playing the subtraction game. We're we're hardwired to overlook subtraction as a way to get better. What are how many commitments should one have at one time to be successful at all of them? of them? of them? I don't have a specific number. I mean, I think it depends, but I think everyone I've seen this I I've mostly seen this done been doing this with like teams, but when they make them all visible immediately, people are like there's way more stuff right in process than we could ever finish.

Yeah. And so I think doing these like regular subtraction audit basically. I use this called subtractive neglect bias is the psychological term for we're hardwired always to add to solve problems. So always reducing. I mean my daily to-do list. I have multiple things but I put one thing on top that if that gets done it's a good day. Yes. One thing. thing. thing. So So So my my friend Rory says that you need to procrastinate on purpose and he calls he says pop it. Like if you have all these great ideas, great ideas, great ideas, like maybe it's a great idea, but if it's not one of the main focuses now, like put it to the side.

You can always come back in two years and say, "Here those postit and make it to the front." Yeah. Pop. He called it stop starting, start finishing. You got to like stop starting new things, start finishing. So make commitments visible and then you can have more clarity on which you really want to focus on and take some off. Yeah. So BCS um satisficing rules talked about that. Setting good good enough rules for yourself. And the press release, I got this one from Tony Fidel, who's known as the podf father.

Okay. Okay. Okay. He was the lead designer of the he led the team that created the iPod and then he went on and co-founded Nest. And the main advice he gives to entrepreneurs is to write the press release before they do anything else. Say, envision this thing is done on one page. Write the press releases if it's out. He says, "Even do the FAQ because this gives you your bounding box for what are the things I think are so important to focus on that I'll put them in the press release when it's done." He when at Nest, he made the team prototype the box, work inside a literal box before they had the product because he said, "This is what it's going to we're going to communicate to a customer at the end.

If it doesn't fit on this box, we've decided it's not a priority." And that's how you keep So, so how does this look for you if you're writing the press release for some project you're working on ahead of time? What would that look like? What type of idea or project is that? Yeah. Oh, I mean, I did it for this book. After interviewing Tony, he was like, "You got to write the press release." He did it he did it for his own book. You got to write the press release.

And this was very foreign to me because I typically sort of stumble into a book. And you're not a promoter. Okay. No, I mean, not not necessarily that. I I'm getting better at that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um but but you weren't sure about what it was going to be is what you're saying. Yeah. Is is I just feel like well how can I know but then I did it and I realized it provided these I mean one of the reasons the reasons the reasons that's right that's right that's right it's been like six years between my books is because I've been so bad at drawing boundaries around my projects.

So for the first two books I ended up writing 150% of the length of the book and then having to cut back to get the book. This was the first time I wrote one book to get one book very much because of that exercise where he told me on one page and I realized the main ideas that I would want to the stories I didn't know yet all those things but the ideas I wanted to investigate were were already there and it's not that you can't change things but you do have these these like guiding light so now I'm do it even for stuff in my personal life you know if I'm picking up a hobby or working out it's like at the end of this year if I were announcing announcing announcing my accomplishment to someone else.

What would I want to say on here? It's not that you can't change it, but it gives you some guidelines. So, did you do one for jiu-jitsu? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Because you're learning this new hobby, jiu-jitsu. jiu-jitsu. jiu-jitsu. Yeah. Yeah. And it's hard because I don't know where can I get in a year, but you can make goals and you know, this is a press release where it's like, who would I give it to? My friends and family, right? family, right? family, right? How consistent do I want to have been?

How many sessions do I want to have uh attended? Things like things like that. So, So, So, that's cool. So, you write like a one-page press release. I really like that cuz you're future casting the results you want it to be, you know, however you however you look like that. I used to do something back when I was playing, you know, in the 2000s, early 2000s, mid-200s around my sports goals, I would write like a certificate of accomplishment and then I would sign it and date it of like you have accomplished this, this, and this signed by me.

And I put it on my wall as a little visual representation that in a year or six months or two years, this is what I'm going to create. And it just reminded me looking at it on my wall every single day, this is a certificate. Your future self has created this. Now you need to go and take the actions to make it happen. It makes it a little bit real, right? It's like you've made you've made a commitment that makes it feel real and and a little more attainable.

I feel like when I see it on one page or like on the certificate, it it it gets condensed a little. It doesn't feel as overwhelming. This is it's clear, right? Yes, the goal is clear. clear. clear. I like that. I like that a lot. Okay, so the press release. Um, and then what else was there? BCS press release, batching, commitments, visible, satisficing rules, and the press release. Those are things that I've really applied to my to myself quite a bit. If if you want to if you want to be creative, I would say if people are struggling with creativity, the best thing you can do is block the solution you're familiar to.

At this next client meeting, if we weren't allowed to propose what we usually propose, what would we propose instead? M M M again it doesn't mean you have to do it but that mindset one executive actually I didn't make this one an executive told me I was talking about constraints and he used what he called the legacy constraint where he told his company let's say we were going out of business in two years and nobody knew it but us what what would we how would we change things and immediately people started saying well I'd stop focusing on that and I'd start focusing on this and he's like like like do that why would we do that we're not yeah yeah yeah right but it's it's because you know we we don't clarify I I think to to the amount we have to, right?

The right? The right? The we were talking about Ryan Holiday a little bit before and you know his work with stoicism and one of the most famous stoic prompts is momento mory like remember your mortality where where you're supposed to wake up every day and like remember that your life is on limited time and that that clarifies your priorities for for what you should do. Steve Jobs said this I think it was in his Stanford group commencement address. It's like the the the best thing you have is knowing that you're going to die because that's how you clarify your priorities.

And this is in a bunch of religions and philosophies. Um, Buddhism has like a similar concept and might seem a little morbid, but it does have a way of clarifying things. I think it's important because, you know, for me there's probably every day I think about my death. Not in a morbid way, but I think the stat is 150,000 people die every single day in the world. 150,000 people. And we weren't one of them today. You know, that that's a that should be something we're grateful for.

or we have another opportunity today to connect with people we love to create meaningful work to think to do things we're passionate about to explore the world but it also doesn't mean tomorrow's guaranteed you know 150,000 people die every single day we should be grateful and hopefully that gives us some constraints also of saying hey I had a really bad day today and maybe you went through something horrible in your life today but you're still here and I think that's something you can at least appreciate and be grateful for and give you some more relief from maybe the stress you might be going through in your life.

And I'm actually curious about the topic of forgiveness and what this has to do with restra uh with constraints in this new way of thinking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Should we feel, you know, guilty or shame around things or should we have this sense of forgiveness with constraints? constraints? constraints? Yeah, I think it's import very very late in the book and and it doesn't seem like an obvious topic, right? and so not obvious that you're literally the first person to ask me about it. Um, and the way I framed it in the book was in this in this discussion of what's called narrative values.

The last chapter gets kind of personal and philosophical and narrative values for some philosophers mean like the themes of the story of your life basically and we can all think of them like for me it would certainly be um curiosity would would definitely be one open-mindedness but you want some that are objectively valuable that like you find in all the great stories across cultures you know loyalty heroism all all these sorts of things um I'm sure for you there'd be things like self-improvement athleticism you know all these kinds of things um uh risk-taking and so I started I I think in this world where we're bombarded with news and everything you want to consolidate your caring like there's so much you could care about but it's so overwhelming that you want to pick some things some that you already have so you can tell a coherent story to yourself because we know it's really important for people's sense of wellbeing being to have a coherent personal story personal story personal story so I have mine but forgiveness was one that I did not have and I I created this relationship with a guy I write about in the book who was the only living Olympian to have survived a concentration camp, became a two-time British weightlifting Olympian.

And he was so forgiving, like he would he would take other survivors with him and say, "We have to go back to Poland and Germany and build bridges. It's not it's not their fault what happened to us, you know, we have to build those bridges." And I was not a very innately forgiving person forgiving person forgiving person really. really. really. And so I decided that I wanted to add that to my story. that that would be like one of those other things that I would try to add in my narrative values to give me sort of a guiding light of getting from who I am to to where I want to be.

to be. to be. Why weren't you a forgiving person? I've just always I just natural grudge holder, you know, just like often feeling slighted more easily than I should. I should. I should. And And And it's it it's like you're it's like you're poisoning yourself, you know? And so I think with him as the model, I said, "Gosh, if he can forgive some of this stuff, like he was, you know, his entire family was destroyed." And then the stuff that I hold on to looks so petty in comparison.

And so I picked this in instead of being overwhelmed by every news story and what things I could do, I picked a value that that I wanted to be something that would be a new guiding light for me. Why do you think you held on to so many grudges? grudges? grudges? I wish I could answer that. Um, I don't know. I I as as far as I know, it's just how I've always been. It's just something about me. I I don't know why. Um why. Um why.

Um you know, and and some sometimes I treat it as fuel, right? Like when I was a college runner and it's like if if someone uh I was an 800 meter runner, it's like someone tripped in a race or something, it's like I'd be so angry like I'd like want to throw up the next time I saw him get off the bus, you And so so maybe in some ways ways ways I viewed it as as fuel, but I I I don't think it actually really I think you can be that determined without the kind of fuel that also poisons you the rest of the time.

the time. the time. Well, it's interesting because there's a lot of athletes that talk about the underdog story, the chip on the shoulder, the being slighted, the being, you know, picked last, you know, or not drafted, whatever it may be, and it drove them to be successful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because they weren't picked on the team, because they weren't drafted, because they were made fun of. because they I was picked last on the team as well when I was in elementary school. And it drove me.

I said, "Never again will I be picked last." And it worked until it realized like, "Oh, this doesn't feel good." Once I accomplish all these things, maybe it felt good for a moment that I proved everyone wrong. You know, these imaginary people from middle school or something, right? Um who probably could care less about me at this point. But is it making me a happier human being? Do I feel more peaceful, harmonious inside? Do I feel like I have an enriching environment inside of me spiritually spiritually spiritually or has this fuel, this negative fuel driven me to accomplish?

And then what? Yeah. Have you researched and studied the differences between athletes, entrepreneurs, and individuals who've accomplished accomplished accomplished success in life who've done it from a place of hate, anger, and resentment versus love, passion, and purpose. Yeah. I mean, I think a a huge example that people would think of, right, if you watched like Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame speech where he was redressing all these grievances, some of which I think are invented. So, he obviously had a ability to create a feeling of being an underdog even if he really wasn't.

And I think that can be helpful. I mean, I've always felt like an underdog probably because I'm small, right? and was like in lots I mean I played football, basketball and baseball in high school before I started running and and I've always been small. Um but he also had a lot of love. I mean like he had that whole clause built into his kind I think it was called like the for the love of the game clause or something where he was allowed to play in the offseason where normally like they didn't want him to cuz he wouldn't get injured.

And so I think there was a lot of love there too. But I think most of the high performers that I've spent time around are resilient. Really resilient. And part of that resilience is being able to get over stuff and being able to work with people that they've been upset with sometimes sometimes sometimes really. really. really. And so I think you can be like strategic anger, but if it's like you can't get over stuff, including your teammates's mistakes, I don't think that, you know, is sustainable in the long run.

You don't have to say the person's name, but is there anyone that you've held a grudge with that you haven't forgiven yet in life? Um, Um, Um, there there's one that I'm still working through. Yeah. I mean, you know, because I think feelings of betrayal can be very difficult to um and you got to create boundaries as well. You got to create constraints in relationships. Absolutely. If boundaries are constantly crossed when expressed and communicated and communicated and communicated and and they keep being crossed and and I think you need to make those explicit because otherwise you move the goalposts.

This is like you know I'm pro trying out new jobs but I think you should have quit criteria that you write before you start. It's like if this thing happens that's a sign Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can't be anymore because you'll if you don't do that you'll move the goalposts and I think sometimes that can be true for relationships too like those those can be things that are really bad. Yeah, but that that you should have them. Um, so how do you come at peace with forgiving someone or just having peace within your heart even if you don't want to work with that person or see that person again?

Like have you learned that or how do you how would someone do that? I think I'm much better at it and I think some of it comes from first of all just the acceptance that things are going to happen that you don't like in life and you just have to move on from them. Like it's a sunk cost, right? It's like it's like if you already spent money I mean sunk cost fallacy, right? Is it sometimes if we spend money on something that doesn't work out, we're often likely to spend more just because we spend some even if it's clearly a bad idea.

And I think the same thing can be can be true in all other aspects of our psychology where it's just hard to move on from things when we've invested time and energy. Um but bad things are going to happen that you don't like. And we've all been at our worst at some point. And so I like to try to think what must this person's view of the world be to have done what they did. And it often comes to the fact that they were not trying to slight me as much as they felt.

Right? There's thing called the spotlight effect in psychology where you view think there's a spotlight on you. Like you think everyone's looking at you and thinking about you, but they're all busy looking and thinking at themselves, right? And so that kind of recognition that when someone did something that's really hurtful to you that they really weren't thinking about you. Maybe that sounds bad, but I think it's good because it means they they they were more careless than really like evil, right? And I think that's an important sort of adult thing to recognize.

There are some evil people that are intentionally evil though that that do slight people and and then I think you got to try to I've experienced that. It's not fun. Not be working with those people if you can. And were you able to forgive those those people eventually or at least to to to to Yeah. There's a lot of people that I've I've created peace with where I've just like created boundaries and I think that's that's helped me. You know, it's it's frustrating. Yeah. But it's pretty much everyone from my past I feel like I've created B.

It doesn't mean I like them or that I'm like think of them in a good light, but I'm like, okay, these are where these people are at in in the world for me and that's okay. I don't need to focus on them anymore. And uh yeah, anyone moving forward, it's like it's just you got to communicate clear boundaries. And that's what I've learned as opposed to allowing things to slip or slide or continue. It's like standing up to bullies. You have to face it and communicate this doesn't work for me.

That doesn't mean they're going to stop. So, it's learning how to do things when you create a boundary or constraint and they keep doing the negative things. That's what I need to figure out the next process because I'm not sure how to do that. I I think that that's really insightful. It's like this I think we need to do these things explicitly. As I've gotten older, I've gotten a lot more explicit about about about It maybe even sounds silly, but writing down like what are the values that are important to me?

Again, these narrative values. What are lines that can be crossed, which means, you know, this isn't somebody that I'm going to work with or this isn't somebody that I'm going to have a sustainable friendship with. That doesn't mean they're bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But just understanding myself better and what are the things that if I'm not explicit about them, about having these constraints and boundaries, I will move the goalposts, right? And just like being more explicit about those things. Yeah. you know, allow for bad behavior to happen and let it slip or whatever.

It's It's It's it's like maybe it won't happen again and things, but I think having those lines is is okay. And again, it doesn't have to mean that that person's bad, but but I think it's important to have your own own own 100% own. 100% own. 100% own. If someone watching or listening feels behind in their 30s or 40s and they haven't specialized on one thing yet, what does the science actually say about their potential for the future? Yeah. Well, the what do you I'm going to make you guess here.

So what do you think is the average age of a found based on a research by MIT Northwestern the census bureau that came out a few years ago the average age of a founder of a fast growing startup yeah which mean I think I think fast growing was like top one in 10,000 top one in 10,000 growth top like 1% or you maybe no it was more than 1% really yeah yeah one in 10,000 okay so what's the stat again what's the question question question what's the average age of a founder of one of those startups on the day of founding according to MIT in the Census Bureau in Northwestern.

It's probably like late 40s or something. something. something. Good for you. 45 really. really. really. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would think that most people would guess in 21 or something and and there are very famous examples of of hu right and and that model of uh you know promoting the young founders has obviously had some stellar successes. I just went right to the people that are in their 50s already that launched something from the past like I don't know KFC founder whatever it's like in his 50s or something and all these other successes in their 40s and 50s maybe even 60s probably because you have so much experience and wisdom you also have so much more relationship capital you've hopefully built reputation you have a broad range of skill sets that now you can now focus into one main thing because you can see the patterns differently exactly exactly exactly obviously there's a lot of talented young stars who've become million and built, you know, unicorn companies, but those are very rare.

That's right. And that that's that's the issue is we focus on the exception, not the norm. Like Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college, started Facebook, and he he famously said, "Young people are just smarter." He he he said that when he was 22. You don't hear him saying that anymore, surprisingly, anymore, surprisingly, anymore, surprisingly, right? So, I think it's not too late for you to take risks. I think you should be looking at all the things you've done. What are the skills that you've acquired? I mean, one of the things I think that makes these like 50-year-old founder more likely to succeed than a 30-year-old founder is they've identified specific problems.

This was another big Tony Fidel thing. So, in in this epic disastrous company that I write about in the book called General Magic, all the talent, all the capital, they said their customer was Joe Sixpack. And then they turned around after a few years and missed deadline said, "Nobody knows the guy. Who is Joe Sixpack?" So, they hadn't articulated a clear customer problem that they were solving. I think sometimes these older entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, they've done some things and they bump into something like here, here's something that's really annoying.

Let's go solve that problem. Yeah. Because most of these fast growing tech startups or most fast growing startups are band-aids, not vitamins. It's not something that's nice to have. It's something where you're relieving pain for somebody in their in their work or in their life. And so they identify and well-defined problems from because they've had experience. experience. experience. Yeah. I think the gift of Yeah. I think the gift of young successful entrepreneurs a lot of it is sure they had maybe talent and they were smart but I think a lot of it is the ability to just take big risks because they have nothing to lose because they are young they don't have the family yet they don't have the responsibility or whatever it might be like when I was in my early 20s I was like like like I'm already broke I might as well go for it I was like I got nothing to lose I'm already sleeping on my sister's couch payments okay let's just go for it you know and if I fail who cares?

I have nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think sometimes when people get older, they feel like I can't take that risk sometimes. You know, there's other people that are like still have the risk gene and they're like, "Oh, this is the moment I need to go do something now because I have all this experience and there is a pain here or problem. Let me go take action on this." But I think it's people get restricted when they're unwilling to take certain risks later in life. I feel like like like and you get used to things, right?

Cuz in some ways you'd feel like I agree with everything you said, but in some ways it feels like when you're older sometimes you might be better equipped to take like if you or I took certain risks now we might lose some of our money. Yeah. money. Yeah. money. Yeah. But like we're not going to miss any meals, right? meals, right? meals, right? You know what I mean? So actually as long as we're not instantly accustomed to to to our bank account or everything like that, like we're actually and and we have professional capital, right?

Mhm. So in some ways you you'd think that we'd be well equipped to take risk, but psychologically nobody likes to kind of go backward when you have stuff. Yeah. The emotional failure of something. You never know. So David, if you if you lo hypothetically if you lost all your money money money Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. tomorrow and in six months you had to make a million dollars and you had no money right now. How would you do it? Do I have to do it ethically or not?

Ethically. Yeah. Okay. Under your values, under your core values, values, values, because I was about to say like I used to do when I was at Sports Illustrated, I used to investigate some branches of the dietary supplement industry and realized like one could make a lot of money there, but but doing uh doing things that are as long as it's ethical, I guess. Yeah. But if you were given a constraint to make a million dollars in a year, let's say, and you had no money, at least what do you think you would do?

Where would your brain start to go if you had that constraint? Oh, what I mean I know the actual answer is I would just sign another book contract. Really? There you go. Yeah. I mean if you had but what takes you is let's say you had to finish it within a year which usually takes you four to five years to finish a book. It's not going to take me four to five years anymore cuz I my new process for this book this book this book really.

really. really. Yeah. I can write more books now. Whether you know whether that'll be smart because of like AI and all this stuff is a different question. But the press release I did a this time I did a one-page outline where obviously I ended up writing as small as possible. I was trying to fool my own system. But if it wasn't on that page, it isn't in the book. the book. the book. And so I didn't write over length this time. I ended up way less burned out.

My it was this partly came about because I became a parent and I was like, I can't be letting this swallow up my whole life the way I did in the past and dragging on for years and years. I actually turned it in early. I does anybody turn in books early? It's usually like last minute. Give me an extra week or two. So yeah, if you said to me, you know, this goes to this question that we were talking before. If you said, "David, you have to get this." So, I think my now my process would go down to two years.

And then if you said, "David, if you had to get a book done in a year, what would you do?" Immediately my mind starts turning to I could do it. It would be tough, but I could do it. If you had to do it in three months, what would you do? If I had to do it in three months, and it had to be a great book. It can't just be like some sloppy book. And I have no money, so I like can't hire a research assistant or anything like that.

like that. like that. What would you do? If I had to do it in three months, I would narrow into things where I already have like a significant body of research and then would start because I have a long history of research, right? So there are a lot of topics that I could dive into in deeper detail where I already have lots of contacts, things like that. I mean, I have I have incredible context in the sports world, right? So I could get within months very inside views into, you know, training facilities like lock, how do GMs make decisions?

I think if I had to, I could turn around a book in three months that would look at like the the the the psychology of personnel selection in in elite sports if I had to. Now, here's an even deeper one. If you if you had to write a book in three months and it had to launch in three months, it' be a New York time bestseller, how would you do it? Oh, man. I think I would. Man, you're really giving me my own medicine here. That's what I'm saying.

Because if you had to do it, you know, I think I would start making because there wouldn't be time for like doing it and then doing a launch process. I think I would have to make the recording of the book be the launch process. I'd have to be bringing people along to those places instead of just like notebook and recording for my own purposes. I'd probably be recording. Maybe I even bring film with me and things like that. So that people seeing the process of the book and then the end would just be like and you saw all that stuff and here it is now.

I think I'd have to do and just a smart thing to do actually. I like this idea. And what you could do is say, I'm launching whatever it be, six months or whatever. But hey, pre-order the book now. Here's the link. link. link. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to take you on the journey. It is coming out this date. I'm going to create my own restraints. And you can order it every day to pre-order leading up to this moment. I haven't finished it yet. And you're following the journey.

That could be an interesting This is not a bad idea. This is not a bad idea. Obviously, Obviously, Obviously, I think it's great. That's your next book. I think I think you should create your restraints. Maybe it's three months, maybe it's six months, but I think it should be extremely uncomfortable for you. I would love to see you, even just the way you were like, "Oh my gosh, what do I do?" Like, I would love to see you not have it perfectly with all the time in the world for yourself for yourself for yourself and be forced to say, "I need to sell 100,000 copies.

I need to be on your time as a seller. I need to be something like, and what would you have to do in order to make that happen?" It's interesting because I think having so much time in the past has been not good for me. for me. for me. I think it's um I think 3 months is not what I would choose. choose. choose. Yeah. But maybe whatever, you know, but given how slow my process has been, like I could and should get if I'm going to write more books, get them out more frequently.

Like there's no reason for it to have taken as long as it did. And does it have to be, you know, 300 pages? Does it have to be This one's 20% shorter than the other two. And I don't think it's worth soft for. It's my most economical writing for sure. There you go. So, I would love to see that. And maybe I might This is interesting because I just started doing video stuff. I may This is not a bad idea. I mean, I would give yourself six months personally because I think it'd be uncomfortable for you.

It would be uncomfortable. It can't be this like, oh, it's enough in the time. Yeah. I can do it into that. that. that. It has to force you to do things you wouldn't you wouldn't do otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And how would you use AI and how would you tap into resources and how would you build relationships or use relationships, whatever it might be to support that? I think it'd be fascinating. Would you have to traditionally publish, self-publish? You know, know, know, I think one thing that would actually be helpful, too, is sometimes when I interview people and I'm very early, I'm like, yeah, you may see this because I do a ton of interviews and a lot of them don't go in.

You you you may see this quote in quote in quote in two and a half years or something. In this case, where we're like, this thing is coming out in a few months. I think it actually might help with certain interviews where people feel a sense of urgency to urgency to urgency to you may do less interviews, too. I I say I'm only going to interview these people and, you know, nine out of 10 are going to make it. you know, maybe one, but it's like something has to make it it it as opposed to I'm going to interview 10 of the best experts on this topic.

I'm going to interview two and the trips would have to be really thought well thought out. Like my in my first book in the sports gene, I took a trip to Arctic Sweden that I cut from the book, right? And if I had done a little more think I mean the trip was super interesting. I don't not that I regret having taken it, but that's a tough thing to cut. And so I think had I put in a little more thought if I had understood the what the book like what I was if I had done the press release I would have realized that this was not going to fit.

Interesting. I would love to see that next book for you to give constraints and actually document it publicly. I'm launching a book on this date. I haven't started. I have six months and that that'd be so different from what I'm used to. So I think it would be interesting like cuz some there's some writers that write books very often. I'm not one of them. I think it'd be fascinating, you know, and I don't know. I'm going to give you that challenge. I just think it'd be really cool.

Um, you've studied a lot of the world's best in the world of what they do. Uh, what is one trait that every great person has in common that you found? Every great person. I mean, certainly resilience, right? Certainly resilience. There's no no matter how good you are, like everyone faces some setback that I think they would have considered devastating or unimaginable at some point and they have to pick themselves back up. And I think that often is because there's something in the process that they love, not only the the goal.

So So I think that's true about every every great person because I was going to say curiosity and I think that's a about getting, you know, curiosity about yourself, about getting better, about getting others. I think that's very common, but I wouldn't say that's true to every great person. Resilience though, Resilience though, Resilience though, but and I think that I think resilience that includes coming from enjoying some of the process. Like there's something in the thing that they're doing that they actually like that keeps them coming back even when it seems like the goal isn't making it.

What would you say is the most devastating thing you've had to overcome? overcome? overcome? In my in my own life? Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. I mean, I mean, I mean, it depends when you catch me, but I mean, I in the very beginning of the book, I write about something that I thought was like ruined my life at the time, which was I had this freakish injury when I was in eighth grade. Like, sports was the center of my life. I would wake up to watch Sports Center play twice in a row, right?

right? right? The same the same segment twice. And I threw a ball really hard playing in like gym class football as hard as I could. We we'd throw for kickoff at the time instead of kicking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And my arm snapped in a spiral on the throw throw throw and incredibly rare injury. I've only ever seen this once before. One other time with a major league pitcher and he had to have his arm amputated. Um like the arm What do you mean it snapped? snapped?

snapped? Totally snapped. Bone clean through right side. right side. right side. Oh my gosh. And I don't remember the exact moment cuz I must have got dazed on. I wake up seeing stars, right? Everyone's like, "Ah, your arm couldn't have broke. Nobody hit you." I knew like someone was wrong, nauseous, right? They take me to the hospital, lay me on an X-ray table X-ray table X-ray table and they say, "I'm laying on my back. I'm like nauseous." They say, "Put your hand up." You know, and I I do.

Put your hand up. I'm like, "I did." And then I looked down and I felt like my hand was here. And it turned out it's cuz it was totally separated. So I turned my shoulder and so my brain thought my hand was up here, but was still here. I had to have it strapped to my body and everything. So, everything. So, everything. So, oh my gosh, I that was the I couldn't play contact sports for a year. Um, you know, couldn't wear shorts shirts normally. I was like, this is the end of my life.

It ended up being this massive blessing in disguise. really. I mean, that's kind of what I write about where so there were I was taking French in middle school at the time and we had these tests where you had to listen to a recording and there were blanks and you had to write in the blank word, but like you had to hear the audio and fill in the blank with the right word that you heard. And when I did this, I didn't have my writing arm.

I started realizing I had to memorize them and then go back and write them all because I wasn't fast enough to keep up with my left hand. And I started using pneummonic devices like relating them to things in sports usually that would help me remember and I was doing better than I'd ever done. I I use pneumonic devices for everything now. Like I memorize an hourong keynote talk using pneummonic devices and like people think I have a photographic memory when I finish a talk and I'm like if I put my keys down and spin in a circle I lose them.

But I it's not a photographic memory but I use these pneummonic devices. Years later, I learned that probably the most famous study ever done of memory improvement involved taking a student at Carnegie Melon University who could only memorize seven digits and getting him up to 80 digits using sports related pneumonic devices. devices. devices. Really? Really? Really? Right. So, it's that constraint forced me to it also got me into running because I couldn't do contact sports. I ended up becoming a division one like all east runner.

And so something that I thought was devastating, it was devastating at the time in the long run paid these these incredible dividends. incredible dividends. incredible dividends. Wow. Wow. Wow. How about How about another one more recently? It's still it's always gone like this. So it tilts inward like this. So that was the end of baseball at the time had been my my best sport and that was was was I I still played a little in high school but I could never throw the same way again.

again. again. Yeah. Um but yeah, I mean I've had one more recently to I develop these um that runs in some of my family these kind of migraines that will affect my vision sometimes and the first sign I'll get is this disturbance in my vision basically and then you get this like blinding headache once it goes away and I didn't start getting these until the last few years and they seem to be very sleepreated to me and so I got super And it's like when it happens, you can't work.

Like you can't see, right? Like right? Like right? Like so is that like a headache or migraine? First you get this visual disturbance and then the visual disturbance expands through my visual field and then when it disappears I get the the terrible headache and it's really bad. Um and even even before the headache comes can't work cuz I can't see right. And so it forced me and since I other people in my family had had these, it forced me to get like fanatical about my circadian rhythm, right?

So I was like, I need to get active and wake up and get my body clock so that I'm asleep and awake basically same time every day. I started going, this sounds stupid. I started going to sleep in workout clothes because I want to be moving first thing in the morning. And that sounds dumb, but if you wake up in workout clothes, at least for me, my brain goes, am I really going to change out of these to get in a pajamas or am I going to go out?

Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. And so now I'm always working out. I was more of a night owl. Now I'm I haven't used an alarm in a year. Um, workout clothes, waking up first thing in the morning. Um, so since since I'm on East Coast time, I was outside today at 2:30 a.m. running, a.m. running, a.m. running, but it's 5:30 a.m. for me for my time. And you know, in the winter, I'll use like a sun lamp if I have to in the morning if it's not light enough.

Uh, and I have my phone an automation on my phone that turns it totally red at 8 p.m. So, I just got super serious about my circadian rhythm. And my energy overall has just never been I was doing it to try to get rid of these migraines, but I've never felt as energetic. Like, I just I thought napping was normal a lot of days. Don't nap. Don't use an alarm clock. more energy, better mood, more patient. more patient. more patient. Wow. Wow. Wow. So, it forced me.

It was really difficult. Like, it really impaired my work for a while. It impaired everything. impaired everything. impaired everything. Your relationships, everything. Everything. Everything. But it did force me to get fanatical about my circadian rhythm. And I'm And I'm now wish I had just done that years ago. Was separate from this. from this. from this. Wow. Wow. Wow. That's interesting. I mean, what are these pneummonic what is this? Pneumonic devices. It's like memory techniques where you you relate something to something else that helps you remember it.

So the simplest ones would be things like uh an acronym, right? But right? But right? But uh in cases of the numbers, this guy in the study, he was a runner and so he would relate it. Oh, that's kind of like a fast mile time. And then so what you want to do is so that you're not remembering every digit, you're remembering groups of uh of numbers, matching numbers. matching numbers. matching numbers. Yeah. Some people know if they hear of memory palace which is this technique that's different kind of monics where you eat them or whatever in your mind.

Yeah. So you you have a visualized space and you like attach certain memories to certain sparks. certain sparks. certain sparks. I've tried that but it hasn't worked for me that well you know it's like maybe I haven't priced it enough but I tried it once and I was like oh man that's tough too but too but too but yeah you got to do it a yeah you got to do it a few times and but I got clever with pneumonics and I bet you would be really good with sports related pneumonics too.

So give me an example of a sports related pneummonic that you would do to learn a speech of yours or something to memorize something. Well, I mean that that thing that I told you before where I was like you asked their tips. I said BCS press release, right? I think of it as like Bowl Championship Series a press release, but it's just a it's just letters that relate to something that I can easily remember, but it's another acronym like that. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Um, but when I'm doing my talks, I'm I'm often not necessarily using sports related pneumonics.

I'm kind of using other stuff that I attach it to. Yeah. Anything that's like really salient in your brain. Sometimes people use like really weird or really dirty images because they're easy easy to remember. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Um I'm fascinated by the book, man. This is really cool, David. It's called Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better. Make sure you guys grab a copy. Really inspiring work. And uh hopefully your next book, you can do it in six months. We can see those constraints in real time.

That'd be cool. But make sure you get a copy of the book, Inside the Box. How constraints make us better. And again, I think a lot of people want to have more options, more freedom, more flexibility. And I think when you create these constraints, you can actually have more flexibility within those constraints, which will make you better. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, couple final questions for you. I want people to follow you, david epste.com, and also social media. You're doing a lot more video now, which is cool, David Epste.

So, make sure you guys check out uh your video content. I really love the way you're editing it as well. well. well. Um, and you've got a newsletter as well on your website, correct? where people can get more upto-date information on this stuff. I also recommend range the other book which is really inspiring especially for parents. Um but this question I don't know if I asked you this before but I'll ask it again just in case. It's called the three truths. So imagine hypothetically you get to live as long as you want but then it's the last day on earth for you and you get to accomplish all these things you want to create and it all comes to fruition.

But on the last day you have to take all of your work with you. All of your books, all of your content, videos, messages that have been in the world, they have to go somewhere else. We don't have access to them. But in the last day, you get to leave behind three truths. Three lessons that you would leave behind to the world from all the things you've learned. What would those three truths be for you? Specific from my work, not just from your life. Could be anything from work, from personal lessons you have.

I think the first and obviously this is very uh topical for me is that optionality is overrated. I think to a certain extent preserving optionality has almost become like religious religious religious zealatry like people I will hear people make decisions say well I'll go with the one that preserves optionality that is just putting off making priorities. Um, and so I think that uh we need to be careful about that in a world of so many options. The other and this gets to that study I mentioned that I write about the Harvard study of adult development.

If I had to summarize that study in a sentence taking from the study director, it's happiness is love. Your relationships ultimately are the thing that provide lasting satisfaction. real world relationships um where you have obligations to other people. A dense network of reciprocal obligation where people have obligations to you, you have obligations to them is is what provides longlasting meaning. And I I think that can be tough when we have so many goals and so many things to do. We don't schedule that kind of stuff even though it's as important.

So I think scheduling it is is really really important. Um, important. Um, important. Um, and I think the last one that I would leave that again is very salient to me now because of the things I've been writing is that monotasking is a superpower. Multitasking is not exactly possible. Like you can talk and walk at the same time, but um things that involve cognitive engagement like switching between email and things, you can't actually do it. Your brain has to drop some set of rules and activate another one.

And what's really kind of scary is that that that we we now know that it the more times you switch a day, the higher your stress will be. And and there's even some evidence that it alters your immune function, function, function, right? So let me can I actually add on to this the scariest research from the book I thought from this woman, Gloria Mark, who found that we become accustom from all these notifications and everything, distractions all day, whether it's people, notifications, people, notifications, people, notifications, we become accustomed to a certain level of distraction.

And then if you say now I'm gonna put my phone away and focus. You can't you will self-interrupt with intrusive thoughts at the cadence to which you've become accustomed. Really? Really? Really? Yes. So Yes. So Yes. So it's almost like waiting for it to happen. happen. happen. It's like we have some distraction barometer. barometer. barometer. So if you say now I'm going to focus, you won't be able to. So you actually have to train your focus by by making blocks of work where you're not flipping between things all day.

The evidence for the fact that this constant toggling makes people miserable is eyeopening. And so I think I think there are a lot of things are important for human well-being, but I think this is one of the most overlooked the the the So that's why I'd want to leave that because I think it's something that I can uniquely trumpet that isn't trumpeted as much that it makes you less happy to be toggling. It doesn't mean you can't do these things. Monotask them one at a time and and you'll be happier.

Is there anything else you feel like we haven't covered that people should really understand to make them better? I mean, I think we were just talking there about structuring your attention span, which I think is in training your attention span. And when you do need to focus, focus, focus, related to that point I was making, there now studies showing that if you have a phone visible, it you'll do worse on cognitive tests if it's visible, even if you can't use it. And the more phone dependent you are, the uh greater that deficit is.

So sometimes when you really need to focus, put it put it out of the room. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um I think we should add certain types of constraints in your life where you you if something's important for you in work, you schedule it. But if something's important in your personal life outside of vacation, you don't schedule it. So I think we should add those those schedule those deadlines or personal things to as if those things are as important as our work which they are but we just don't add deadlines for them right or regular cadences or habits and things like that.

I think that's really important to structure our personal life the way we structure other things we want to get done. Maybe that sounds ownorous but I think it's not like once you get in the habit I need to call this person by that date. I need to block time to just be with my kid without any other distraction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it doesn't happen, right, if you don't schedule it with all the stuff that everybody has everything everybody has to do. I want to acknowledge you, David, for the constant innovation you have with the research you do to try to help people be better because I think a lot of us are struggling.

We're confused and your books and your work definitely gives us more clarity. So, I acknowledge you for the constant work you're doing and hopefully this next time you'll be able to create some constraints for yourself. Uh, yourself. Uh, yourself. Uh, I did just not to the level you're just you want to push me to the next level. See, we're both in the business of trying to make ourselves and other people better. people better. people better. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Final question. What's your definition of greatness? My definition of greatness is raising raising raising the level of other people who encounter you or your work.

I think that is a and I think that goes even for solo performers, right? There could be a solo performer who who's a musician and maybe they're working on their own, but other people that see that get elevated in a way. Other musicians that see it get elevated and want to do that. And so I think it's and with the things we're both doing, I think what we hope is that we're doing something at a certain level. Both our messages, but also the way that we're doing it leads people who want to do things like we do to to see a certain level of quality and say, you know, I'd like to do that, too.

Yeah. David, thanks for being here, man. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. It's a pleasure. I was working with a UFC fighter. He was aware that he would tighten up before he goes into the kick. I said, okay, when you're working to be at your best, like what's happening inside you? He looked at me, he's like, "Oh, I'm a tough." I said, "Well, I don't know. Can you back that up?" And he says, "Um, yeah. When I was 14, I wor my dad's apps. What we can all