Speaker 1: Episode three ninety seven, How cognitive biases cause us to
Speaker 1: overspend with Amanda Montel.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and live your life. Here your
Speaker 2: hosts Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
Speaker 1: my name is Jill, and we are bringing you a
Speaker 1: guest interview a little early. I know it shouldn't be
Speaker 1: till next episode, but our friend Amanda has a book
Speaker 1: coming out this week, and I don't know if you know,
Speaker 1: but the first week of publishing for authors is super important,
Speaker 1: and so we wanted you to hear about her book
Speaker 1: and her in the week it comes out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is another good one. I you all
Speaker 3: know that my favorite is guest interviews, and lately we've
Speaker 3: been doing a lot of interviews with people who aren't
Speaker 3: specifically in the personal finance space, but have really rich
Speaker 3: stuff to say pun intended that can absolutely positively impact
Speaker 3: our personal finances and the rest of our lives. Because again,
Speaker 3: we think we're whole people, so if we can improve
Speaker 3: ourselves in one area, it will by proxy eventually approve
Speaker 3: our financial situation as well. So this is another one
Speaker 3: of those, and I think really really helpful and kind
Speaker 3: of getting deep down into some of our mindsets that
Speaker 3: can help us rain in impulse spending.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but first, this episode is brought to you by
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Speaker 1: So we are writing a book if you haven't already heard,
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I was specifically writing
Speaker 1: in my part of the book we kind of like
Speaker 1: Divided and Conquered, was cognitive biases. How these and we'll
Speaker 1: get into what cognitive biases are in the interview. But
Speaker 1: when I found out Amanda was writing a book on it,
Speaker 1: I was flabbergasted because she wrote one of my favorite books,
Speaker 1: Cultish The Language of fanaticism, and if you haven't read it,
Speaker 1: highly recommend reading it. It is so fun and it
Speaker 1: talks about what modern day cults look like. So maybe
Speaker 1: we're not in the era of the Mansons and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, but it does not mean we are any
Speaker 1: less prone to a joining a cult like that or
Speaker 1: be our own modern day takes on cults. And she
Speaker 1: also hosts the hit podcast Sounds Like a Cult. And
Speaker 1: so this book that she has out, now, the Age
Speaker 1: of Magical Overthinking, is about all of these cognitive biases
Speaker 1: that we have that impact the way we make decisions,
Speaker 1: and that is all over our lives and so many
Speaker 1: spending decisions. So if you want to talk more, if
Speaker 1: you want to hear more about like spending decisions, some
Speaker 1: episodes like episode three fifteen, how to Build and Break
Speaker 1: habits that cause you to overspend, in episode two seventy four,
Speaker 1: how to Align your spending with your values, those are
Speaker 1: some good ones to up for after this. But I'm
Speaker 1: so excited for you guys to hear this interview with Amanda.
Speaker 3: Let's get with her.
Speaker 1: Amanda, Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. We are super
Speaker 1: excited and if anybody knows us and knows you, then
Speaker 1: they'll know why we're so excited.
Speaker 3: Just welcome.
Speaker 4: Yes, I've been looking forward to this. I've been on
Speaker 4: my finance curly game recently. I have a new accountant.
Speaker 1: I know. We love an accountant. We love an accountant.
Speaker 3: I love being a finance Gurly means you've hired somebody.
Speaker 1: I mean we haven't. We joke about being the same person.
Speaker 1: We do actually have the same accountant. I mean, that's beautiful.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 4: Actually, my partner and I now have the same accountant,
Speaker 4: and we like love to gossip about him.
Speaker 1: We love ours. He like has a little lake in
Speaker 1: the back, and he takes so few clients so that
Speaker 1: he can have more time to like fish between clients.
Speaker 1: He I've never met somebody who has so much disdain
Speaker 1: for the I R s as as our accountant and
Speaker 1: oh that's.
Speaker 4: In an accountant.
Speaker 1: Love him for this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you said that he had a pond and takes
Speaker 4: few clients. I thought you meant he'll only take as
Speaker 4: many clients as he can fit in his late bond.
Speaker 3: No opposite, and that would be a fun constraint.
Speaker 1: He doesn't want people around. He wants to see people
Speaker 1: around as possible, and I love that for him.
Speaker 3: Well, Amanda, you've got so much that you are an
Speaker 3: expert on your wealth of knowledge and wisdom, and I
Speaker 3: mean we know that we're excited because you do know
Speaker 3: a lot about cults and your podcast is about that
Speaker 3: and we eventually, Jenna and I would love to start
Speaker 3: a cult, but I can be able to tie it
Speaker 3: into personal finance real quick. You talk about cognitive biases
Speaker 3: and just curious to hear your thoughts on what are they?
Speaker 3: Why should we care about them?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Absolutely? Okay, So my new book is called The
Speaker 4: Age of Magical Overthinking, and it connects to cults actually
Speaker 4: because so much of the research that I was doing
Speaker 4: while writing that book, which is about the language of cults,
Speaker 4: from scientology to soul cycle, so the full spectrum of influence.
Speaker 4: As I was doing that research, I came across all
Speaker 4: this really fascinating psychology and behavioral economics research that made
Speaker 4: mention of cognitive biases and how things like confirmation bias
Speaker 4: and the sunk cost fallacy could explain so much of
Speaker 4: the cult behavior that I was looking into. But more urgently,
Speaker 4: I felt like these biases could also explain so many
Speaker 4: of my everyday irrational choices, and so many of the
Speaker 4: irrationalities that I was noticing that I was noticing in
Speaker 4: the zegeist at large. So a cognitive bias is basically
Speaker 4: this deep rooted mental magic trick that we play on
Speaker 4: ourselves in order to help us make efficient decisions as
Speaker 4: human beings. So we have limited mental capacity, we have
Speaker 4: limited time, we have limited memory, we have limited psychological resources.
Speaker 4: We need to be able to jump to conclusions sometimes
Speaker 4: in order to make everyday decisions, and in early human brains,
Speaker 4: these shortcuts developed to help us make sense of the
Speaker 4: world enough to describe it. But in my new book,
Speaker 4: I kind of make this argument that are ingrained mysticisms
Speaker 4: and irrationalities that were once so useful to us net
Speaker 4: positive and almost every capacity, are now disserving us because
Speaker 4: they're clashing with the overwhelm of information that we now
Speaker 4: are exposed to in the digital age.
Speaker 3: That was a really helpful and succinct definition. I think
Speaker 3: that's one of the things that has stood out to
Speaker 3: me about cognitive biases as well, is I think there
Speaker 3: can be this negative connotation to it, which they can
Speaker 3: certainly be proper, but they first exist as a way
Speaker 3: to kind of help us move through the world and
Speaker 3: make quick decisions and be able to kind of operate
Speaker 3: as a highly functioning human. But then they really can
Speaker 3: get in the way. How are you seeing this as
Speaker 3: being really important then to be aware of like what
Speaker 3: stood out to you in your research and in writing
Speaker 3: this book as the reason to well, let's really focus
Speaker 3: in on this. Why are they important?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, they help us make decisions that are sometimes
Speaker 4: not the best in today's society in a way that
Speaker 4: is completely unnoticed and unconscious by us. Cognitive biases were
Speaker 4: once purely helpful or at least mostly helpful, and now
Speaker 4: in our ever complicating, ever technologically driven world, they're not
Speaker 4: serving us so much, but they're doing that unconsciously, so
Speaker 4: we don't realize that these men any cognitive biases are
Speaker 4: at play. I mentioned confirmation bias in sunt cost fallacy.
Speaker 4: These are two of the most famous biases that get
Speaker 4: the most airplay and headlines and things like that when
Speaker 4: talking about politics or cults, but there have been hundreds
Speaker 4: described by psychologists and behaviorally economists. In my book, I
Speaker 4: basically chose my eleven faves, like the eleven that I
Speaker 4: found to be the most relevant. The most urgent for
Speaker 4: modern society, and I contextualize them to make them feel
Speaker 4: more personal, because these can feel like kind of abstract,
Speaker 4: heady concepts when you just read about them in an
Speaker 4: academic article or something like that. But the truth is
Speaker 4: that the sunt cost fallacy doesn't just apply to finances. This,
Speaker 4: by the way, describes our fallacious pensions to believe that
Speaker 4: resources already spent on an endeavor, whether it's money, time,
Speaker 4: or even emotional resources like hope, justify spending even more.
Speaker 4: And you could easily see how that would have a
Speaker 4: financial tie, but it also has a personal tie. And
Speaker 4: so the way that I chose to approach this sun
Speaker 4: cost fallacy in my book was from the position of
Speaker 4: this very sort of vulnerable story where I talk about
Speaker 4: this cult of one toxic relationship that I was in
Speaker 4: in my early twenties, actually from my late teens to
Speaker 4: mid twenties, so many of my formative years were spent
Speaker 4: in this relationship that I kept just sinking costs into,
Speaker 4: unable to accept that a win wasn't just around the corner.
Speaker 4: And so I was kind of treating this relationship in
Speaker 4: a way that you might treat a poker hand, where
Speaker 4: you've put so much on the table you can't foold now,
Speaker 4: or you know, in keeping, like doubling down on a
Speaker 4: bad stock because you've been investing in it for so long.
Speaker 4: There are so many parallels to be made, and so
Speaker 4: these cognitive biases are really important to be aware of
Speaker 4: and to understand because that awareness can drive your behavior
Speaker 4: and improve your decision making, whether you're talking about money
Speaker 4: or love.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I read the book and I really appreciated how
Speaker 1: you use that example for sunt costs because I've like
Speaker 1: read hundreds of articles, and anytime sunt costs comes in,
Speaker 1: it is always something financial, something money related, and so
Speaker 1: I thought it was really refreshing to hear like and obviously,
Speaker 1: like all of our relational you know, you know, decisions
Speaker 1: also have a money factor to them. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: really appreciated that that example.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Yeah, that chapter was challenging to write, as
Speaker 4: you can imagine, because it's vulnerable, more vulnerable than talking
Speaker 4: about money in a way. But also money is, as
Speaker 4: you know, better than anyone, like, such a touchy subject,
Speaker 4: and so it was cool to be able to in
Speaker 4: a way like personalize conversations that would ordinarily be seen
Speaker 4: as kind of crass and kind of like use the
Speaker 4: personal and the more practical in tandem to make a point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk about some of these biases that
Speaker 1: affect our money. Which ones do you believe have the
Speaker 1: most significant influence on overspending? Oh my gosh, or it
Speaker 1: can be all of them, but like fa choose how
Speaker 1: to choose?
Speaker 4: I mean, certainly the ones that come to mind are
Speaker 4: overconfidence bias, zero sum bias, the sun cost fallacy for sure,
Speaker 4: and related relatedly, this bias toward additive solutions, which I
Speaker 4: would love to talk about because becoming aware of that bias,
Speaker 4: which is similar or at least connected to the sun
Speaker 4: cost fallacy, Becoming aware of that one has really informed
Speaker 4: my decision making regarding spending. Those are and obviously confirmation
Speaker 4: bias is something that we can't avoid. It is like
Speaker 4: the invisible star of all our decision making. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I would love to talk about additive solution bias because
Speaker 4: that that one probably has had the most direct practical
Speaker 4: effect on my own spending.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, let's start with that one.
Speaker 4: Okay. So, as I was writing that sun cost fallacy chapter,
Speaker 4: I came across this fascinating study that spoke about how
Speaker 4: we as human beings, but specifically those of us who
Speaker 4: grow up in consumerist society have this inclination toward solving
Speaker 4: a problem by adding things to the equation, even though
Speaker 4: a more simple solution might involve just taking one little
Speaker 4: thing away. So the study involved presenting people with a
Speaker 4: spatial puzzle involving colored blocks, and the study participants were
Speaker 4: invited to solve the spatial problem by either adding colored
Speaker 4: blocks or taking away colored blocks. What they didn't know
Speaker 4: is that this block problem could have been solved in
Speaker 4: one move by taking one single colored block away, But
Speaker 4: the vast majority of these study participants went for an
Speaker 4: additive solution. They decided to add all of these colored blocks,
Speaker 4: and it's very like cumbersome. You could see how the
Speaker 4: consumerist parallels come into play. This like over the top,
Speaker 4: extravagant spendee solution. They were just spending blocks that they
Speaker 4: didn't have to pay money for. But the point is
Speaker 4: the vast majority of people decided to solve this problem
Speaker 4: in an overcomplicated, additive way. Now I was like mind
Speaker 4: plone when I came across the study, because first of all,
Speaker 4: it applied to my relationship. I was like, all I
Speaker 4: need to solve my miseries in this partnership that is
Speaker 4: not good for me. All I need is to add,
Speaker 4: you know, another vacation. We just need to go on
Speaker 4: another splashy vacation that'll solve everything. Or we need to
Speaker 4: get another cat. I don't regret any of my cats.
Speaker 4: What they do help you. Yeah, yeah, no, the more
Speaker 4: cats the better.
Speaker 3: That is my.
Speaker 4: Additive solution bias. But but what they put those cats
Speaker 4: did not do was solve my relationship problems. I thought,
Speaker 4: you know, we just need to add more and more
Speaker 4: and more and more variables to this equation and surely
Speaker 4: that will heal all of our woes, when really what
Speaker 4: we probably needed to do was just break up. And
Speaker 4: of course, not every relational problem should be solved by
Speaker 4: cutting the person out of your life, Like I do
Speaker 4: not believe in that whatsoever, and I think that actually
Speaker 4: there's too much cutting of people out of lives in
Speaker 4: today's society. Meet me on my soapbox. But I do
Speaker 4: think that that subtractive solution versus additive solution disparity has
Speaker 4: been really informative because now when I make smaller, lower
Speaker 4: stakes decisions in my everyday life I'm aware of it,
Speaker 4: and it can help me from making an irrational choice. So,
Speaker 4: for example, this is a really low stakes example, but
Speaker 4: I was recently looking at my junk drawer and I
Speaker 4: was like, oh my god, this junk drawer is such
Speaker 4: a mess, so embarrassing. If someone were to come over
Speaker 4: and look at this, they would think I was deranged.
Speaker 4: What I need to do is go online and order
Speaker 4: some really cute for organizers, like that will help me
Speaker 4: to act. I would tell you that, yes, yes, I
Speaker 4: need to go to the container store, you know, like
Speaker 4: that's going to solve my problem. Same thing with my office,
Speaker 4: Like you can't see my office right now, but there's
Speaker 4: a lot of chotchkeys going on. I was like, I
Speaker 4: need like a beautiful acrylic like desk organizer like some drawers. No,
Speaker 4: you know what the better solution is, throw the junk
Speaker 4: away pair down, scale back. And I find again that
Speaker 4: that awareness can help me make decisions, whether they're financial, consumerist,
Speaker 4: or more spiritual.
Speaker 3: It's such a good example, and I think ties into
Speaker 3: one of the things we briefly touched on before we
Speaker 3: hit the record button about the way parameters can create
Speaker 3: increased creativity, like untethered, no limits, no holds barred, we
Speaker 3: usually aren't as productive, efficient, creative as when we have
Speaker 3: some reasonable, realistic boundary is around us. And it seems
Speaker 3: like this is kind of touching on that where no,
Speaker 3: we don't have to add. In fact, maybe even taking
Speaker 3: away makes this whole problem simpler, more easy to solve,
Speaker 3: and provides better boundaries for us to play within and
Speaker 3: be creative within.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. Like it really highlights how the term
Speaker 4: behavioral economics is kind of like the perfect term to
Speaker 4: describe this field of study, because all of these biases
Speaker 4: are as applicable to finances and this play pertend economics
Speaker 4: system that we've created in society as they are to
Speaker 4: our interpersonal relationships and our social lives, and especially in
Speaker 4: the digital age, so much currency isn't actually monetary, it's cloud,
Speaker 4: its followers, it's you know, social relationships, it's these things
Speaker 4: that are more abstract, and so I think actually, now
Speaker 4: more than ever, as economics and capital become more abstract,
Speaker 4: more hazy, more confusing, learning about these biases is. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's just more helpful than ever. I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this isn't a business podcast, but I can't tell
Speaker 1: you how many times I've thought the solution to our
Speaker 1: business was adding more things to it, Like right, yes,
Speaker 1: the real things that have moved the needle have been simplifying.
Speaker 1: When we simplify the takeaway, that's when we're able to
Speaker 1: move faster.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Like businesses have gone bankrupt by people adding
Speaker 4: too many cooks to the kitchens, scaling too quickly, and
Speaker 4: in capitalist society, like we are taught that growth is
Speaker 4: you know, the ultimate goal, and you should be growing
Speaker 4: as quickly as possible. But then I always think of
Speaker 4: that quote, and I forget who said it. Was it
Speaker 4: Edward Albie, I don't know. I heard of this quote
Speaker 4: in the movie Triangle of Sadness when Woody Harrelson and
Speaker 4: that Russian capitalist are having their quote off. But the
Speaker 4: Woody Harrelson's character says, growth for growth's sake is the
Speaker 4: ideology of a cancer cell.
Speaker 1: Oo.
Speaker 4: Wow, yeah, I wish i'd coin to that.
Speaker 1: All right, there we have, yeah it take that one.
Speaker 1: That's a nugget.
Speaker 4: Yeah, slap that on a quote gram merchant by.
Speaker 1: It, Yes, exactly, and then we'll sell it perfect. Okay,
Speaker 1: So yes, additive bias such a good one. What was
Speaker 1: another one that you mentioned that we can dive into well.
Speaker 4: Zero sum bias for sure, and this describes our proclivity
Speaker 4: to believe that another person's gain directly means your loss.
Speaker 4: So if another person is thriving, successful, wealthy, attractive, this
Speaker 4: mental magic trick that we play on ourselves tells us
Speaker 4: that their wealth, their coolness, their beauty threatens our wealth,
Speaker 4: our coolness, our beauty, even though that's not how it works.
Speaker 4: Those things are not in limited quantities. But this bias
Speaker 4: stems from a time in human history where resources like
Speaker 4: food and mates really were zero. Some there really were
Speaker 4: only so many in a community, and so someone who
Speaker 4: was similar to you, similar in age, similar in build
Speaker 4: really was like a material survival threat to you. But
Speaker 4: because we don't live in those types of communities anymore,
Speaker 4: that zero sum bias no longer applies, is no longer helpful,
Speaker 4: doesn't you know? Inspire us to compete in ways that
Speaker 4: help us, it can actually set us up for psychological
Speaker 4: failure because we're applying that deep rooted shortcut to our
Speaker 4: social media feeds to like endless comparisons that we're making socially,
Speaker 4: and we're also comparing it to the broader economy. This
Speaker 4: modern economy, and so during times of socio political turbulence,
Speaker 4: when we start to feel more scarcity minded, that zero
Speaker 4: sum bias really kicks in, and that causes people across
Speaker 4: the political spectrum to oppose immigration more strictly. It's really
Speaker 4: fascinating to see how zero some bias applies to our lives,
Speaker 4: whether we're talking about like feeling threatened by another woman
Speaker 4: because she's attractive, or feeling like we want to close
Speaker 4: our borders because there's societal tumult.
Speaker 3: I could see this impacting our finances in two ways,
Speaker 3: one being you know, for the example you gave of, Okay,
Speaker 3: this woman's more beautiful than me, it could propel us
Speaker 3: to now I've got to spend more. That's exactly where
Speaker 3: I feel more attractive and feel better about myself. But
Speaker 3: what I also think can happen with this zero sum
Speaker 3: bias that you've just described, as we could pull back,
Speaker 3: we might not pursue the job, the goal that we
Speaker 3: wanted to because it feels like someone else did it.
Speaker 3: So now it's taken away from me and I'm not
Speaker 3: going to achieve what I'm actually capable of. This happened
Speaker 3: to me. I want to say, like two months before
Speaker 3: and we've not done this yet, but here's an example.
Speaker 3: About two months before remeat Sati's Netflix series came out,
Speaker 3: I was describing to Jen, how I want to have
Speaker 3: a TV show that is about personal finance where we
Speaker 3: get into the lives of people and kind of do
Speaker 3: this whole person look at what are some of the
Speaker 3: financial moves that can happen, but how does it touch
Speaker 3: on all the rest of life? And I'm so excited
Speaker 3: and I'm ramping up and I'm talking to a lot
Speaker 3: of people about wanting to do this someday. Jen's like,
Speaker 3: I'm never going to do that. But then that's how
Speaker 3: I know it's gonna happen, because she loves to say
Speaker 3: never and then do that never thing. We might need
Speaker 3: to dive into whatever that bias that's attached to. And
Speaker 3: then this re meet say tea thing came out and
Speaker 3: I'm like, he took it, he already did it, And
Speaker 3: I have to remind myself that just that only feels
Speaker 3: that way because no one else is doing this. There's
Speaker 3: a ton of organization shows, there's a ton of home
Speaker 3: renovation shows. There should be room then for a ton
Speaker 3: of financial shows, but they're just aren't. And because one
Speaker 3: person did it, it feels like, well, now we would
Speaker 3: never be able to do it.
Speaker 1: I told her I'd do it if it could be
Speaker 1: a financial dating show, and we were the laches of
Speaker 1: the of the.
Speaker 4: I love that which mat.
Speaker 3: Me, not it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I'm glad we're talking about this because
Speaker 4: I also want to make the point that the dare
Speaker 4: I say, the patriarchy sets up a very purposeful, intentional
Speaker 4: zero sum game for women in particular. I'll say this.
Speaker 4: Studies reflect that women make more upward social comparisons and
Speaker 4: downward identifications, so women wage their social bets differently than
Speaker 4: men based on conditioning. Of course, But when a woman,
Speaker 4: for example, scrolls through her social media feed or enters
Speaker 4: a room and you know, surveys everyone in it, she
Speaker 4: will only clock the perceived threats. She will only be
Speaker 4: comparing herself to the people that she perceives as wealthier,
Speaker 4: more attractive, superior in some way, whereas a man might
Speaker 4: scroll through his feed or enter a room and only
Speaker 4: identify the people that he perceives as inferior. And so
Speaker 4: that style of social comparison has a massive effect on
Speaker 4: your self esteem and on your ability to pursue opportunities
Speaker 4: or to make connections. So zero sum bias really plays
Speaker 4: into this reality and this narrative that like women are
Speaker 4: always pitted against each other. It's because we are conditioned
Speaker 4: by a society that only has say, one spot in
Speaker 4: the c suite for a woman, or only one spot
Speaker 4: or a couple of spots on the Supreme Court. And
Speaker 4: thus we view women, specifically women who we perceive as superior,
Speaker 4: as our competition because we're competing for these limited resources,
Speaker 4: and that really inhibits collaboration. I took great comfort in
Speaker 4: this notion called shine theory, which was coined in a
Speaker 4: viral piece in The Cut about ten years ago by
Speaker 4: Amy Natuso and Ann Friedman, which describes this sort of
Speaker 4: counter strategy to these really debilitating social comparisons, where when
Speaker 4: we see a woman who we admire, who we think
Speaker 4: is really cool or industrious or successful, don't get competitive,
Speaker 4: befriend her, align yourself with her. And it's called the
Speaker 4: shine theory because it's countering this idea that another person's
Speaker 4: light dims yours. If you can combine the light, it
Speaker 4: doesn't take it away anyone's light. Everyone burns brighter, and
Speaker 4: that's kind of corny, but I think it's a really
Speaker 4: helpful exercise and something that I've applied to my own life.
Speaker 4: You know, when I see another woman on social media
Speaker 4: who is, say, you know, doing something in her career
Speaker 4: that's similar to mine and is doing it well, my
Speaker 4: impulse is to feel threatened. She'll live rent free in
Speaker 4: my She'll live rent free in my head, or like
Speaker 4: scroll to see, like what are her accolades, Like what
Speaker 4: has she done that I haven't? As if those things
Speaker 4: would diminish what I've done, They haven't. They haven't diminished
Speaker 4: me at all. And like making that enemy when I
Speaker 4: could be making a friend is not helping anyone. So
Speaker 4: I have tried to combat those impulses by instead of
Speaker 4: like feeling threatened and you know, making an enemy in
Speaker 4: my mind too, instead like slide into that person's DMS,
Speaker 4: congratulate them, sincerely, make a connection. And I've actually forged
Speaker 4: a lot of friendships that way, like real, genuine friendships
Speaker 4: that I can't imagine not being in my life. And
Speaker 4: it was because I pushed past the zero sum bias
Speaker 4: that is in a way innate but is also encouraged
Speaker 4: and exacerbated by being a woman. In this society.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've thought about this so much in the past
Speaker 1: years and like really had to retrain myself to do this.
Speaker 1: But and then now something I'm coming across is having
Speaker 1: a bias like for women who are slightly more successful
Speaker 1: than me and feeling inferior and not wanting to reach
Speaker 1: out to them. So not even like they're an enemy,
Speaker 1: but that like that I can't reach out to them,
Speaker 1: and that yeah, that there's just like not enough of
Speaker 1: their time to go around, so I shouldn't even try.
Speaker 1: And so I've been like trying to take it a
Speaker 1: step further now. And I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: directly related to the bias, but like it was this.
Speaker 1: It was overcoming this and making more connections with women
Speaker 1: in the financial field that led me to like reach
Speaker 1: out to more women who are like just a little
Speaker 1: bit ahead of me in the road and trying to
Speaker 1: connect with them and appreciate them and glean their wisdom
Speaker 1: like not in a like clinging like muture sort of way.
Speaker 1: But and that's that's my biggest fear, right, is I
Speaker 1: don't want to be a burden and or respect right, Yes,
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's I've been like working through this bias
Speaker 1: like in this journey, in this path, it's.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's such a hopeful Oh sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 3: I just think it's such a helpful reframe that you've described, Amanda,
Speaker 3: to be able to say, here's the bias. Here's why
Speaker 3: it's important to be aware of biases, so that we
Speaker 3: can identify that the bias is at play, and then
Speaker 3: I and then see is it helping us or is
Speaker 3: it hurting us? Is the bias helping me to come
Speaker 3: to quick conclusions, make efficient decisions, get at the things
Speaker 3: that I want in life? Or is this diminishing me?
Speaker 3: Is it not helpful? And to be even able to
Speaker 3: describe some of these things that we can do instead
Speaker 3: as a result of identifying the bias that it doesn't
Speaker 3: have to even stop at identification. There can be next
Speaker 3: steps and actions taken that work in contrast to the
Speaker 3: bias that is actually now hurting us that hopefully you're
Speaker 3: not saying this, this is where I'm taking it can
Speaker 3: be come our own bias that we then begin to
Speaker 3: land on, Like if I say enough there is space
Speaker 3: for everybody here at the table because you're going to
Speaker 3: bring your own perspective, then hopefully that'll just overtake the
Speaker 3: bias that there's not enough space for everybody totally.
Speaker 4: I mean, yes, you're you're kind of referencing another bias
Speaker 4: that I bring up in the book, This thing called
Speaker 4: the illusory truth effect, which describes our proclivity to think
Speaker 4: that something that we've heard repeated multiple times must be
Speaker 4: true even if it's not. Like we mistake frequency for accuracy.
Speaker 4: And this is a bias that a lot of like
Speaker 4: political figures and you know, populists take advantage of, and
Speaker 4: it's very important to be aware of during times like
Speaker 4: election years and things like that. But you can also
Speaker 4: use it to your advantage, you know, like if I
Speaker 4: tell myself over and over again that you know, another
Speaker 4: person's light does not dim me, then eventually you will
Speaker 4: perceive that as accurate.
Speaker 1: Is there any other bias that you think has to
Speaker 1: do with our or will help us make better spending decisions?
Speaker 1: I think we have time for one more.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I would love to talk about overconfidence bias.
Speaker 1: Okay, I love that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because hold on, let me, let me just make sure,
Speaker 4: because this is actually the when I talk about this
Speaker 4: bias is like not typically in the context of money.
Speaker 4: So over confidence bias. It kind of tells on itself,
Speaker 4: you can imagine what it means, but it's basically this
Speaker 4: inclination that is defined by like three key features. Basically,
Speaker 4: people overvalue their actual skills, express excessive certainty in their evaluations,
Speaker 4: and overcredit themselves with positive outcomes. So altogether, this trifecta
Speaker 4: is known as overconfidence bias, and there have been amazing
Speaker 4: quotes stated about this. There's journalist named Roger Lowenstein who
Speaker 4: wrote a book called When Genius Failed, and in it
Speaker 4: he said, there is nothing like success to blind one
Speaker 4: to the possibility of failure. And what he meant by
Speaker 4: that is that if we just so happened to get
Speaker 4: lucky in an endeavor, whether it's a financial endeavor or
Speaker 4: something else, we will think that we're the exception and
Speaker 4: we're just amazing, and that we're actually not lucky, but
Speaker 4: instead the man and are going to continue succeeding over
Speaker 4: and over and over again. And so we might continue
Speaker 4: to make the same decisions even if they were not
Speaker 4: the most rational, not the most prudent. And this type
Speaker 4: of over confident bullishness is responsible for so many tragedies,
Speaker 4: from the Challenger space disaster to massive corporate lawsuits, to
Speaker 4: just feeling really smug when you scroll through your social
Speaker 4: media feed or watch reality TV and think that person
Speaker 4: is an idiot and I am brilliant and I would
Speaker 4: never make a mistake the way that that person is
Speaker 4: making a mistake. So over confidence bias shows up in
Speaker 4: so many arenas of life, including how we set up
Speaker 4: our lifestyle and spend our money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this one's This one might get some
Speaker 1: of our listeners. But I think over confidence bias comes
Speaker 1: up in sales, sales shopping. When we get a sale,
Speaker 1: we are conditioned to think that we are we're smarter,
Speaker 1: like I got I did not pay as much for
Speaker 1: this thing as it's worth. I got a great deal.
Speaker 1: I'm so good, And so we keep shopping sales even
Speaker 1: when we don't need the item that is on sale.
Speaker 1: Most a because our dopamine release, you know, triggers us
Speaker 1: to remember that smart feeling. But that can lead to
Speaker 1: an over confidence bias.
Speaker 3: Oh, and I think this is one that could really
Speaker 3: harm us. Beyond the clearance section. This is something where
Speaker 3: we could make big, take big risks, and gamble a
Speaker 3: lot with our big spending decisions, Like I'm thinking housing transportation,
Speaker 3: like our big purchases. One of the things that Eric
Speaker 3: and I noticed my husband, we used to live in
Speaker 3: an RV and through that process, there were a lot
Speaker 3: of people who were telling us I'd love to do that.
Speaker 3: I would totally want to do that, And some people
Speaker 3: then did just because well, you're doing it and it
Speaker 3: looks easy, I'm going to do it, and they really
Speaker 3: went all in. And we would try to advise people, hey,
Speaker 3: rent an RV, go on a two week trip, just
Speaker 3: to make sure that this is a lifestyle that you
Speaker 3: would want to do. But a lot of people we
Speaker 3: saw sold everything, broke off their lease, sold their house,
Speaker 3: moved into this thing, and three weeks later discover that
Speaker 3: this is not at all what I want to do,
Speaker 3: and that's a massive amount of money lost. It overconfidence, Yes, oh.
Speaker 4: My god, your example is reminding me so much of
Speaker 4: an example from my own life. First, I want to
Speaker 4: make the disclaimer that, like overconveidence, bias is one of
Speaker 4: these biases where you're like, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: this does not apply to me. I'm a reasonable person.
Speaker 4: I hate myself like I'm not overconfident. That can't possibly
Speaker 4: be true. This is a bias that other people enjoy.
Speaker 4: But with all of these biases that I write about
Speaker 4: in the book, I really try to invite us all
Speaker 4: to kind of like look in the mirror, and I
Speaker 4: try to do that by example. Like every time in
Speaker 4: that book that I really wanted to like apply over
Speaker 4: confidence bias to someone else, I tried to look in
Speaker 4: word and be like, no, I am completely susceptible to
Speaker 4: this as well. And oh my god, Jill, your example
Speaker 4: reminds me of my poor dad. I don't want to
Speaker 4: put him on blast, but yeah, my dad. My dad
Speaker 4: made a big overconfident financial decision. Get this. In two
Speaker 4: thousand and eight, he was in spir by a friend
Speaker 4: of his who'd made a killing by building and then
Speaker 4: renting out a beach house in the Outer Banks. So
Speaker 4: literally right before the two thousand and eight crash, my
Speaker 4: dad built a beach house in the in the Outer
Speaker 4: Banks and was like, this is gonna be an amazing
Speaker 4: financial investment. Meanwhile, he had absolutely no idea how to
Speaker 4: do that, like, regardless of what year it was, it
Speaker 4: was like a half baked, like amphisted idea. But then,
Speaker 4: of course you know what happened happened, and that was
Speaker 4: not the financial win he thought it was going to be.
Speaker 4: But same thing. He like saw this friend of his,
Speaker 4: you know, make a killing, and he was like, Oh,
Speaker 4: if he could do it, I can do it. It can't
Speaker 4: be that hard. Now, I will say, we've been talking
Speaker 4: about the pros and cons of all of these biases.
Speaker 4: Over confidence bias sounds like truly a net negative sort
Speaker 4: of phenomenon. But on the positive side, over confidence leads
Speaker 4: to innovation. You know, like every time someone makes a
Speaker 4: meaningful discovery or makes progue in any way, they unlock
Speaker 4: a new level of knowledge they don't have, and those
Speaker 4: gaps in understanding actually drive us forward. You know. It's
Speaker 4: like if I had to know absolutely everything I wanted
Speaker 4: to say perfectly in the book before putting pen to paper,
Speaker 4: I would have never started. I would have never finished.
Speaker 4: And so I do think that sometimes over confident delusions
Speaker 4: give us the nerve to like keep moving forward and
Speaker 4: keep sort of like gunning for progress in a better world.
Speaker 4: But that over confidence is a double edged sword, for sure.
Speaker 3: So true, it just highlights the importance of being aware
Speaker 3: of these biases, acknowledging them, and then making decisions rather
Speaker 3: than relying on the biases to inform us about our
Speaker 3: next decisions exactly. Okay, I'm going to take a hard
Speaker 3: left turn because it's our podcast, in our journey. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and this is really what we want to talk about.
Speaker 3: So you know a lot about cults, sure, yep? Is
Speaker 3: consumerism a cult?
Speaker 4: Yeah, dude, I think so. I keep unpacking my own
Speaker 4: cultish affiliations every single day, even after all of these
Speaker 4: years writing and talking about cults. I was just thinking
Speaker 4: of this the other day. I was like, it is
Speaker 4: really a massive false promise in our society that things objects,
Speaker 4: even just like owning a house, will offer you some
Speaker 4: kind of spiritual existential transcendence. Like I am so disturbed
Speaker 4: by how I have fallen prey to this consumerist lie
Speaker 4: that like acquiring materials, and my materials, I even mean
Speaker 4: like your own how like your own home dwelling? How
Speaker 4: nuts is this? It's like people weren't even as competitive
Speaker 4: and as individualists and as sort of like selfish and
Speaker 4: comparison oriented as we are now until we started living
Speaker 4: in our own separate doma siles. Like as soon as
Speaker 4: the agricultural revolution happened and people started settling in like
Speaker 4: these stagnant communities and building homes that only their little
Speaker 4: family lived in. That's when we started being like I
Speaker 4: want to be richer than you, I want to have
Speaker 4: better stuff than you. But it's not a natural or
Speaker 4: innate human state, Like we can be more generous, we
Speaker 4: can be more giving, Like it is not endemic to
Speaker 4: us to like hoard, you know, but in combination with
Speaker 4: just various advancements in the human species and also like
Speaker 4: light stage capitalism. Sorry buzzwords, buzzwords, but truly, like this
Speaker 4: combination of events has caused us to buy into this
Speaker 4: cultish promise that like having stuff is not just going
Speaker 4: to make life, you know, easier or more convenient, it's
Speaker 4: going to make you feel like you literally want at life,
Speaker 4: are existentially better than others and will even cheat death.
Speaker 4: Like that's how it feels. And it's so it's such
Speaker 4: a lie. It's such a cultish lie.
Speaker 1: Yes, And how can Jill and I who who is
Speaker 1: the cult leader? And who do we have to fight?
Speaker 3: How can we start a Yeah?
Speaker 1: Who do we have to fight to be the cult leader?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I don't know. I mean I think it's
Speaker 4: not that simple. Like that's what makes these really broad,
Speaker 4: sort of more loosey goosey cults. So sinister is that
Speaker 4: there isn't just one Keith Ranieri in the cult of consumerism.
Speaker 4: It's like you got Jeff Bezos over there, you got
Speaker 4: Elon Musk over there, You've got you know, Donald Trump
Speaker 4: over here. Like but but those are just like some
Speaker 4: really really big power players. But we're all sort of
Speaker 4: perpetuating this cult. Uh, you know. Influencer culture certainly is
Speaker 4: consumer culture in every shade and flavor is like self propelling.
Speaker 4: This could And then the comfort is that when people
Speaker 4: who are like radically on the other side, being like
Speaker 4: relinquish all your possessions and live a monastic lifestyle, when
Speaker 4: they come into the picture, they can start a cult too.
Speaker 1: They have so many cults they have in their own
Speaker 1: they have so many yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, lace extremes, Yeah, extremes, extreme, extreme, Yeah extreme.
Speaker 1: I do love yeah, And we talk about that. I
Speaker 1: do love your book Cultish that is already out, and
Speaker 1: well when this releases, your new book will be out too.
Speaker 1: But I do I love your where you like take
Speaker 1: it at the end, like what are the cults of
Speaker 1: our modern age? And really and thinking like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: not like the sixties and seventies, like we don't have
Speaker 1: stuff like that anymore, and and really diving into like
Speaker 1: what what is where we're going and how financially like
Speaker 1: how much money it will require of us if we
Speaker 1: continue down the way totally.
Speaker 4: And there was like a direct line between those ideas
Speaker 4: and the new book too, because for Coltish, I kind
Speaker 4: of had to like stick to the thesis and framework
Speaker 4: of Colds. But with this new book, I was kind
Speaker 4: of able to apply those same ideas to everyday life
Speaker 4: in a way that's a little bit more accessible and relatable.
Speaker 4: And the whole, that whole transition from Cultish to this
Speaker 4: project felt like really natural and really fun to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you want to know another transition that is
Speaker 3: really natural?
Speaker 1: And every week, Oh what great nice haway, really good
Speaker 1: one the week.
Speaker 2: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 2: entire week.
Speaker 1: Maybe a baby was born and his name is Williams.
Speaker 2: Maybe you paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died
Speaker 2: and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
Speaker 2: That's bills, butfalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill
Speaker 2: of the week.
Speaker 5: Whoa yeah, we said with you every yeah, Amanda, every
Speaker 5: week we yell at our guests to share with us
Speaker 5: their billy and we are so so here to hear yours.
Speaker 1: We've got a little taste of it before we hit record,
Speaker 1: so excited to hear.
Speaker 4: Let me preface my bill of the week by saying
Speaker 4: that in order to communicate it, I had to first
Speaker 4: google the difference between a beak and a bill, and
Speaker 4: a quickie Google search told me that they're synonyms. A
Speaker 4: beak and a bill are the same, So.
Speaker 1: We said we'd allow it. Yes, we will allow synonyms.
Speaker 4: My bill of the week akaa. My beak of the week,
Speaker 4: which is fun because it rhymes has to do with
Speaker 4: the bills of the peacocks that run free at the
Speaker 4: Hollywood Forever Cemetery near my house. So, this famous cemetery
Speaker 4: in Hollywood where like Burt Reynolds is buried and Marilyn
Speaker 4: Monroe is buried, is a very very beautiful place that
Speaker 4: I will sometimes go to. Literally just like sunbathe or
Speaker 4: chill out. You're surrounded by graves, but like there are
Speaker 4: also ponds, maybe not too similar to your accountant's pond.
Speaker 4: There are like beautiful buildings, there's a cafe. It's like
Speaker 4: a lovely, lovely place to lie. Also during the summer,
Speaker 4: they have movie screenings there, outdoor movie screenings, which is
Speaker 4: a vibe. It's a very very trending thing to do
Speaker 4: in LA. But my favorite thing.
Speaker 3: About parks you've got to hang out at the same ary.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: I love.
Speaker 4: As Macobb and Gallows humor filled as I can make
Speaker 4: my life the better. But I my favorite thing about
Speaker 4: the Hollywood Forever Cemetery is all of the peacocks that
Speaker 4: run wild, because it feels so sort of surreal and
Speaker 4: and peacocks are so beautiful and famously they have bills.
Speaker 4: So that's my bill of the week going.
Speaker 1: Do you think do you think NBC planted those there?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Do you think that's marketing?
Speaker 4: No, they've been That's that's a I like that conspiracy theory.
Speaker 4: But those peacocks have been there since long before any
Speaker 4: of these dim a dozen streamers.
Speaker 3: We do love a good conspiracy theory, Yes, we do.
Speaker 3: We do. We've got to do more spin off podcast.
Speaker 1: For us.
Speaker 3: We've not we've not peaked.
Speaker 1: But we peacocks, man, are so exotic, but they are
Speaker 1: so many places. My son's daycare is in a neighborhood
Speaker 1: where peacock peacocks just rome free in this neighborhood peacock
Speaker 1: at the l Yeah, Like it's just that the neighborhoods
Speaker 1: have peacocks, but they are so.
Speaker 4: Yeah okay, sorry, yeah, But I will relate this back
Speaker 4: to the sub matter at hand, because one piece of
Speaker 4: sort of more serviceable advice that I give in the
Speaker 4: book for combating some of the more negative consequences of
Speaker 4: the clash between these cognitive biases and the information age
Speaker 4: is to prioritize feelings of awe whenever possible, awe, aw
Speaker 4: aw aw on your accent and you know, being in
Speaker 4: nature and like really appreciating the like marvels of a
Speaker 4: peacock and a graveyard, or like roaming free through the streets,
Speaker 4: like stopping to appreciate the novelty of that, sorry, stopping
Speaker 4: to appreciate the novelty of that and the wonder of that,
Speaker 4: and to sort of like connect with the physical world
Speaker 4: is just such such a lovely way to reprioritize your
Speaker 4: mental stresses. And so my, I guess my ultimate point
Speaker 4: in like recommending the bills of Peacocks is that like it,
Speaker 4: it can you know, very literally ground you amidst like
Speaker 4: such a confusing.
Speaker 3: Time lovely tie in beautiful segue. If any of you
Speaker 3: all listening have a bill about peacocks roaming in a cemetery,
Speaker 3: it inspires, or your name is Bill, you own a peacock.
Speaker 1: Or just any don't do the show. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're allowed to own a peacock.
Speaker 3: Visits podcast dot com slash bill leave us your bill.
Speaker 3: We already and waiting for it. And now it's time
Speaker 3: for the lighting around pew.
Speaker 4: I love these segments. I really appreciate a segment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we we do too, And we do all of
Speaker 1: our own voice sound effect as realistic as they sound.
Speaker 3: Believe it or not. It's just our mouths on the mike.
Speaker 1: You would think that we were professionals in LA right, Like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I thought that was the sound designer. I thought
Speaker 4: it was this real spaceship and a real explosion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well so we're not. We're just here in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Speaker 1: You know, nobody's called us out there. Yeah all right,
Speaker 1: So for the lightning round, this is our vulnerability round.
Speaker 1: What's a purchase that you've made, or you make whatever,
Speaker 1: but it stems from a cognitive bias. Maybe you still
Speaker 1: choose to make it or you've chosen to stop.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I recently bought this one hundred and thirty dollars
Speaker 4: led candlestick lamp type thing. It looks like the type
Speaker 4: of candlestick that a tuberculosis ridden Victorian child would carry
Speaker 4: around at night. But it's led, and so you can
Speaker 4: like touch the wick and it will illuminate or de illuminate,
Speaker 4: if that's a word accordingly, And I'm obsessed with this thing.
Speaker 4: It was so overpriced, but it really allows me to
Speaker 4: live out a nostalgic fantasy of the eighteen hundreds of
Speaker 4: time that I certainly would not prefer to live in.
Speaker 4: But I do like to sort of delulu about that.
Speaker 4: And that relates to a cognitive bias called declinism, which
Speaker 4: is associated with nostalgia. Declinism describes our false perception that
Speaker 4: life is just getting irreversibly worse and worse and worse,
Speaker 4: and it's all downhill from there.
Speaker 3: I did not know about that one. You have diagnosed me.
Speaker 3: You have diagnosed me, Oh my.
Speaker 1: Gosh, are you going to take it to the cemetery?
Speaker 4: That is a genius idea.
Speaker 1: I hope that pictures That.
Speaker 4: Is the full starter pack. Like me, a cognitive bias
Speaker 4: text my led Wick lamp and a graveyard obsessed.
Speaker 1: I am looking forward to seeing that, Jill.
Speaker 3: So mine is something that causes me to not spend.
Speaker 3: I'm not a super spending person, but status quo bias
Speaker 3: leads me to not buy because I think the current
Speaker 3: state of affairs is fine. It's okay that our door
Speaker 3: scratches the floor every time we open it. We've lived
Speaker 3: this long. Why spend five hundred dollars on a new door?
Speaker 1: Fine floor scratch there's everywhere.
Speaker 4: I am completely with you. I am like so miserly
Speaker 4: when it comes to necessities and spendy when it comes
Speaker 4: to these like delusional fantasy items.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's I mean, that's all of us. I mean
Speaker 1: the things that cost a couple hundred dollars that would
Speaker 1: literally improve the quality of our lives. Can't afford that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we don't want to pay the dentist. We
Speaker 3: don't want to change the oil, we don't want to
Speaker 3: pay taxes.
Speaker 1: But I love event expects on a latte? Fully, can I.
Speaker 4: Just went to the dentist for the first time in
Speaker 4: five years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I got you beat?
Speaker 4: Oh really? Wow? Yeah? Okay, So let's say this. I
Speaker 4: went in there and I was like, I am so ashamed.
Speaker 4: I haven't been here since before the pandemic. I know
Speaker 4: that I'm going to need a mouth replacement. I am
Speaker 4: so sorry because because yes, yeah, honestly, but like she
Speaker 4: looked in my mouth and she was like, you have
Speaker 4: four tiny cavities that like barely need to be filled
Speaker 4: low key, and I was like, oh slick, yes, so that.
Speaker 3: Kind of I mean, maybe it's a myth, because you know,
Speaker 3: we love a good conspiracy theory. Maybe dentists or a myth.
Speaker 3: But also hardly anybody goes anymore because apparently medical insurance
Speaker 3: stams our eyes and our mouths not worthy. Okay, so
Speaker 3: we'll cover everything else but teeth.
Speaker 4: That is That is the medical system trying to dull
Speaker 4: our senses. They want to have unhealthy eyes and unhealthy mouth.
Speaker 3: Stop eating and you know a slow decline.
Speaker 1: No, not just soup soup, it's big soup. I think
Speaker 1: it's big soup.
Speaker 4: Okay, No, I actually do think that the dentist is
Speaker 4: a giant scam. Everyone's constantly trying to get me to
Speaker 4: take out my wisdom teeth. I'm like, yeah, the way
Speaker 4: that we all once had to take out our tonsiles
Speaker 4: for no reason, or appendix for no reason. I'm only
Speaker 4: taking it out if it's a problem. You ding dong,
Speaker 4: that's not happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so much passion, so much passion. Okay, for me,
Speaker 1: it is the overconfidence bias by a mile, so I
Speaker 1: would always and I don't do this as much anymore,
Speaker 1: just mostly because I don't have time. But I used
Speaker 1: to think that I could do any craft, like if
Speaker 1: somebody else can do it, I can do it. It's
Speaker 1: so funny because you're not craft I'm not craftzy, so
Speaker 1: I'm not a DII wire. I am not. But I
Speaker 1: would see calligraphy and macromay and I bought the things
Speaker 1: to do both of them. And guess what I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't do it, and I definitely don't enjoy it
Speaker 1: even if I could do it. Almost and this is
Speaker 1: most recent, I've been getting ads for adult paint by number,
Speaker 1: and it's been like if this woman in this ad
Speaker 1: can do it, And it turns like I can't paint,
Speaker 1: but I can follow directions and maybe that's all I need,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I can follow directions, And then I
Speaker 1: remind myself, you are not crafty. You do not enjoy it,
Speaker 1: and even if you could, you wouldn't want to, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't finish it.
Speaker 3: So that.
Speaker 4: I couldn't relate to that more. I'm basically Edward sisar hands.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's me just cutting things up, and they don't.
Speaker 1: They don't look like the or goat me they're supposed to,
Speaker 1: though treads.
Speaker 3: Oh, this has been some goodnerability and such an amazing
Speaker 3: episode of Miranda. Thanks for being here with us. If
Speaker 3: people want my work from you, where can they find it?
Speaker 4: Can I ask when this is coming out, because depending
Speaker 4: on that, I'm gonna plug different things.
Speaker 1: It is on April twelve.
Speaker 4: Okay, perfection amazing.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: My book The Age of Magical Overthinking, Notes on Modern
Speaker 4: Irrationality is now available wherever books are sold, even in audiobook.
Speaker 4: I recorded my own audiobook which was so much fun
Speaker 4: and actually fun. Fact, the little cue of like beautiful
Speaker 4: music that plays during the introduction of the audiobook, I
Speaker 4: hate the word fiance, but my engaged betrothed partner person
Speaker 4: composed yeah film a TV composer, so it's gotta check
Speaker 4: it out. And then I'm also on tour right now
Speaker 4: at the time that this is airing. I'm on this
Speaker 4: really over the top book tour. My inner theater Kid
Speaker 4: emerged in full force, and so if you live in Brooklyn, Boston, Philly, Portland,
Speaker 4: you gotta go to Amanda montel dot com slash events
Speaker 4: because I'm throwing this extravagant variety show called the Big
Speaker 4: Magical Cult Show, which is like magical like the new
Speaker 4: book and culty like the old book. And there are podcasters,
Speaker 4: special guests like Kelsey from Normal Gossip and it's just
Speaker 4: it's gonna be a hoot. So yeah, definitely get tickets
Speaker 4: a Manamaan Hilda cop such events.
Speaker 1: That's so sass. Thank you so much, Amanda, and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: go get that book. I had so so much fun
Speaker 1: geeking out over cognitive biases.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this interview just makes me smile. I think Amanda
Speaker 3: is so articulate, so wise in her own right with
Speaker 3: the things that she's expert on, and I think really
Speaker 3: highlighted for me just areas that I've never thought about
Speaker 3: before and how that can play into our spending and
Speaker 3: just all of life, the things that we can be
Speaker 3: aware of and how it can help us financially. I'm
Speaker 3: just excited and it's just fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, love to have we make so many assumptions about life,
Speaker 1: and yes, that's our brain protecting us from making too
Speaker 1: many decisions and making us far more tired than we
Speaker 1: already are.
Speaker 3: But it is.
Speaker 1: Required for us to question our assumptions and see if
Speaker 1: they are due to some of these cognitive biases. So
Speaker 1: I hope that you'll continue to think about and rethink
Speaker 1: about the assumptions you make in your life.
Speaker 3: Thank you everyone so much for listening. We are really
Speaker 3: loving to read your kind reviews. So some of you
Speaker 3: keep giving us reviews, which we love and we welcome
Speaker 3: and we ask for and we want to highlight this one.
Speaker 3: It comes from I love t dowg with a W.
Speaker 3: It says amazing, it's five stars, very helpful podcast, completely
Speaker 3: changed lives financially. Thank you exclamation work exclamation mark.
Speaker 1: I mean congratulate you and tea dog for making the
Speaker 1: changes you needed to make. And yeah, thank you, and
Speaker 1: please please leave us a rating and review. It helps
Speaker 1: us look legit, it makes us feel good, It gives
Speaker 1: us overconfidence bias like all all these good things that
Speaker 1: we need in our lives.
Speaker 3: Yeah and yeah, please leave us those reviews. Then we'll
Speaker 3: see you next time.
Speaker 1: Bye. Gorugle Friends is produced by Eric sirianni.
Speaker 3: Okay. I noticed my cognitive bias at play again yesterday.
Speaker 3: What did I say? Mine was status quo bias. Not
Speaker 3: wanting to change or disrupt anything.
Speaker 1: You were about to disrupt some things this morning. But
Speaker 1: we'll talk about another episode.
Speaker 3: So Eric and I usually do our grocery shopping at Walmart.
Speaker 3: You heard it, hear, folks not sponsored, because we can
Speaker 3: get our other toilet tree items that we need there.
Speaker 3: Like I love all the but oftentimes it's every two
Speaker 3: weeks at Walmart. And one of the things that we
Speaker 3: do only when we have to go to more so
Speaker 3: the toilet tree section, which we did. We needed more toothpaste,
Speaker 3: Eric needed face wash. That is where the clearance section
Speaker 3: is for all of Walmart. So we will often do
Speaker 3: around at the clearance section. This is about a once
Speaker 3: a month tradish for us. And you know, I guess
Speaker 3: just to like tempt yourself a little bit with a
Speaker 3: little yellow sticker, But I also, as you know, keep
Speaker 3: a running list of the things that I want to
Speaker 3: be purchasing, things that I need, and so if there
Speaker 3: happens to be anything in the clearance section, great, well
Speaker 3: there wasn't at least for me. Eric doesn't keep it
Speaker 3: running less, but he's like, there's so much stuff here
Speaker 3: that I want. They had all kinds of stuff for boats,
Speaker 3: like a new boat cover that could work for the
Speaker 3: boat that we have, new liner for the inside, like
Speaker 3: hatches that he wants to eventually redo. I think the
Speaker 3: boat trailer, the covers that the boat sits on needs
Speaker 3: to be recovered. But none of it people be done.
Speaker 3: That's so there's a saying the greatest day of your
Speaker 3: life is the day you buy your boat and the
Speaker 3: day you sell your boat. And like it's just the truth.
Speaker 3: We don't have anything fancy. Don't get it twisted. Don't
Speaker 3: be picturing like a yacht. We've got a small fishing
Speaker 3: boat that.
Speaker 1: Does the job they might row yacht.
Speaker 3: I think it costs, like anyways, it costs so much
Speaker 3: to maintain, especially with this one who wants to just
Speaker 3: keep doing stuff to it. We didn't because I'm just like,
Speaker 3: is the cover we have currently broken? Nope, but we
Speaker 3: are going to need one eventually in like two years
Speaker 3: something like that out savings, you know, we need to
Speaker 3: redo this and that it's just like all it really
Speaker 3: is going to do is take up space in the
Speaker 3: garage that he just cleaned out and we didn't. I mean,
Speaker 3: it wasn't like he was begging for it either, But
Speaker 3: that was my status quo bias, just it's not broken,
Speaker 3: don't fix it.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great bias.
Speaker 3: It does help me, but it does It doesn't necessarily
Speaker 3: mean that we're always fixing and maintaining things to the
Speaker 3: highest degree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, but it's it helped you with the
Speaker 1: boat person, with the boat guy. We help you with
Speaker 1: the boat.
Speaker 3: Guy status quo, even if it's broken
Speaker 1: Keeping it unremarkable, under promise, under deliver,