WEBVTT - How Small Changes Lead to Big Rewards with Michael Easter 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.120 You give a cave man of sleeve of oreos, they're 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:03.520 going to eat the whole thing. And that makes sense 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:05.360 because they're never going to see that again. Right. But 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:08.119 today we're just surrounded in food, and we still have 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:09.559 a brain that goes like, hey, if you have a 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.719 chance to overeat or eat food that is more calorie dense, 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:16.000 like junk food, like do that. And you see this 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:19.079 kind of manifests itself in people's waistlines today. You know, 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:21.880 people are obviously, on average, a lot heavier than they 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:22.560 were in the past. 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.040 Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.479 have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:41.200 like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:44.760 ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:46.080 don't strengthen. 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:46.599 Or empower us. 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:51.800 We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:54.080 see what we don't have instead of what we do. 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:57.440 We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.640 But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:05.080 takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.600 worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.960 themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:28.720 good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.479 episode is Michael Easter, a writer and speaker who focuses 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:36.960 on how humans can leverage modern science and evolutionary wisdom 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.360 to perform better and live healthier lives. Michael's work has 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:45.080 been implemented by professional sports teams, elite military units, fortune 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:49.000 five hundred companies, and leading universities. Today, Michael and Eric 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.480 discuss his book, The Scarcity Brain. 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:53.920 Hi, Michael, welcome to the show. 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:55.600 Thanks for having me, glad to be here. 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.040 I am really excited to have you on. We're going 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:01.160 to be discussing your book, Scared City Brain. But before 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:03.400 we get into that, let's start like we always do 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.120 with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:08.400 talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.120 are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.440 One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.360 and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.960 which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:23.160 the grandchild stops and they think about it for a second. 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.200 They look up at their grandparents. They say, well, which 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.400 one wins? And the grandparent says the one you feed. 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:30.919 So I'd like to start off by asking you what 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.600 that parable means to you in your life and in 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:34.480 the work that you do. 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.560 I mean, a lot of my work focuses on the 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.000 general theme that in order to improve your life, you 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.400 often have to do things that are challenging in the 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.320 short term to get a long term benefit and reward 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.200 in your life. And you know, I think the world 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.520 is increasingly set up that it's harder to feed the 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.359 good wolf if you will, It's so much easier to 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:58.360 feed the bad wolf, right, Like, that's an easy thing 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:00.760 to do. But I do think that, you know, we 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.359 all know that the reward of feeding the good wolf 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.760 is better for our long term health, well being, mindset, 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:08.720 all those things. 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.440 So yeah, so I'm going to ask you a question. 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.560 I've asked a lot of people and gotten generally unsatisfactory answers, 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:17.480 but I believe you are going to give me a 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:18.520 satisfactory answer. 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:19.560 No, no pressure. 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:25.160 But it's this. You know, I've exercised for a long time. 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.040 I'm not a young man. You know, I've got thousands 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:32.480 of reps of exercise under my belt. Every single time 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.680 I've done it, when I'm done, I'm like, that was great, 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.040 I'm glad I did that, And yet with that much 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:44.080 positive reinforcement, I still find it hard to do sometimes. 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:45.440 Why is that. 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:50.680 Humans evolved to avoid physical activity. We invented exercise basically 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:54.200 after the Industrial Revolution. So if you think about the 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.960 grant sweep of humanity, right, what we needed to survive 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.520 was always scarce and it was hard to find. So 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:04.280 energy was one of those things. Energy in the form 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.200 of food. So if you were the type of person 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:09.760 that wanted to burn energy for the sake of it, 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.920 that is to say, exercise, you would have died off 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.240 because there just wasn't enough food to do that. So 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:19.719 over time, humans basically evolved to be lazy and avoid 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:24.039 any extra activity that wasn't going to getting resources to 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.440 Like this larger point, right, A stat that I love 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:28.960 that highlights this, which I'm sure we'll talk about later 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:31.520 the podcast, is that two percent of people take the 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.560 stairs when there's also an escalator available. So what that 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:36.840 tells me and shows me is that we really are 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.440 wired to do the next easiest, most comfortable thing and 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:43.400 avoid extra movement. Right. We just do that unconsciously. So 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:45.720 long story short, It's like for two and a half 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:50.560 million years of time of generations, avoiding exercise or any 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:53.240 extra movement, it kept you alive. And we have all 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:58.839 these discomforts. Our body throws at us psychologically physically to 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.680 keep us away from moving any more than we have to, 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:04.000 and exercise is a form of that. So, like if 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.479 you went into every workout being like I absolutely want 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:08.360 to do this every single time, and you just kept 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:10.520 going and going like still today, that you'd probably incur 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.400 some downside's like you want some sort of resistance going 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:15.240 into that, or else the human species would not have 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:15.839 lived on. 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:18.039 So is it safe to say that things that take 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:22.599 that much energy expenditure don't end up becoming what we 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:27.599 would truly consider a habit, meaning it happens automatically every time. 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.120 Is it really a sense of these things that you 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.760 really have to summon a lot of energy for there's 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.080 always going to be some degree of resistance there. 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.200 Yeah, I think there probably will be some degree of resistance, Yeah, 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.720 if something is challenging. Exercise is a great example. Healthy 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.400 eating is harder than unhealthy eating because we're also wired 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:49.880 to value and crave foods that are more calorie dense 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:52.359 than those that are less calorie dense. Right, kind of 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:54.159 back like the exercise thing. For two and a half 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:57.600 million years of time, it always made sense to overread 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:01.360 if you had the opportunity, Right, you give a cave 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:03.160 man of sleeve of oreos, they're going to eat the 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:04.880 whole thing, And that makes sense because they're never going 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:07.720 to see that again. Right. But today we're just surrounded 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:09.680 in food, and we still have a brain that goes like, hey, 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.120 if you have a chance to overeat or eat food 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.400 that is more calorie dense, like junk food, like, do that. 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:18.600 And you see this kind of manifests itself in people's 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:21.719 waistlines today. You know, people are obviously, on average a 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:23.080 lot heavier than they were in the past. 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:25.599 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Listener, 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.560 while you were listening to that, what resonated with you? 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:32.360 What one thing to feed your good wolf comes to mind? 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.040 If the thing that came to your mind was more 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.080 time for stillness, or you've tried meditation before and you 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.560 really haven't liked it, then I want to give you 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:42.520 a quick tip that might make it better for you. 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.279 And it's simply to stop expecting that you're not going 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:50.680 to have thoughts. Nearly everyone has this expectation that they're 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:52.520 going to sit down and meditate and they're going to 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.440 stop having thoughts. And when they stop having thoughts, that 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.280 means they're doing it well. But no one does that, 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.159 and so we end up feeling like we're failing all 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:04.760 of the time. Every three seconds, failed again, failed again. 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:09.200 We develop a relationship with meditation that is aversive. So 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.240 if you want to stop dreading meditation and actually find 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.720 it relaxing, check out my free meditation guide at Goodwolf 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.320 dot me slash calm. In it, I walk you through 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.080 my process to engage with meditation in a new way, 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:23.640 and a lot of people have found it really helpful. 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:27.640 That's Goodwolf dot me slash calm. So you mentioned the 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.360 two percent stat You're wearing a hat that says two 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.560 percent that orients towards a way of approaching the world 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.720 that you call being a two percenter, And you say 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.280 this in your substack about this, You say, you know, 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.200 we all tend to think of the big things that 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.400 we do as being important, but you say what we 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:47.160 do in all our other moments is the most powerful. 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:50.080 The littlest choices make the biggest impact. I mean my 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.040 favorite phrase is little by little, a little becomes a lot, 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:57.800 both positively and negatively. Right, And so talk about other 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.720 ways besides taking this versus the escalator. What are other 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:06.280 sort of small choices that we can make that over 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.480 time are going to be very beneficial for us. 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.680 Yeah, that's a great question. So, yeah, the substack is 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.560 called two percent after that stat which totally changed my 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:18.480 thinking about humans and behavior. Ye. I actually have a 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:21.800 whole written piece that's called the two percent Manifesto up 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:23.520 on the site that'll dive into a ton of this, 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.800 and the site is twopct dot com. But to answer 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:30.120 your question, I think it manifests itself relationship wise. Right, 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.880 think of how many people text today instead of call 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:35.080 because a call is more intimate. Right, you have to 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:36.719 be more open. It might take a little bit more time. 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:38.320 You don't know what to expect. You can't control all 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.200 the variables. But there's plenty of research that says the 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.120 simple act of picking up the phone and calling someone 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:47.600 it creates better social bonds, more intimate connections. And when 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:49.360 you put that in the context of the fact that 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.280 we're facing a loneliness crisis, like pick up the phone 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.680 it'll be totally worth it, not to mention, you'll honestly 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:56.439 save time in the long run, especially if you're like 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.880 asking the person the question. So socially it affects us. 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.560 I would also say it affects us food wise. So 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:05.840 when you look at a lot of the research, most 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:10.040 eating decisions today are not actually driven by true physiological hunger. 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:12.360 So more than eighty percent of eating is not because 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.000 of real hunger. It's because it's a certain time at 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:15.840 a clock, and we always eat at that time. It's 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.520 because we're stressed out, like stress eating is a huge thing, 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.360 and it's because we're bored something like that. Right, So 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:26.600 I think that learning to be okay with hunger can 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:29.400 teach you something about physiological hunger and how much food 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:33.280 you actually need to feel well and perform well. I 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.080 think it extends to how we spend our time and attention. 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:38.880 So when you look at why people pick up their phone, 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.840 more than ninety percent of pickups things ninety six percent 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:47.280 are not because a person got a notification. They're because 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:51.480 they felt something internal, usually boredom. We've just become totally 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:55.080 boredom resistant today and we just have this easy, effortless 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:56.600 escape from it in our phone. But if you can 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:58.520 just sit with that boredom, if you can be like 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:00.880 the two percent mentality, right, I'm going to choose this 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:04.400 short term discomfort to get a long term benefit. There's 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.439 all this crazy research that shows that boredom is one 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.080 of the best ways to increase creativity. Some of the 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.960 best ideas come out of being bored. Not to mention 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:14.920 it gives your brain a break from all the screens 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:16.440 that we spend our time on. We spend more than 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:18.920 thirteen hours a day engage with digital media. This is 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.240 all new stuff in the grand scheme of time and space. 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.360 People spend ninety three percent of their time indoors, and 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.200 it's like, well, why the hell's that. It's like, well, 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.240 because the outdoors is cold or it's too hot, or 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:31.680 it might be raining or it's windy, and it's less 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.760 predictable than my you know, sanitary box that I live in. 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.240 And so even something as simple as going outside is 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.040 one of the best hacks for mental health and can 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:42.240 prove mental health. But we just don't do it all 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:44.480 that often. So it's like, how can I take this idea, 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.400 this two percent idea, like being the two percent of 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.360 people that's going to select that thing that's going to 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.120 be a little more uncomfortable in the short term, but 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.839 it's going to give me a long term reward. How 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:55.840 can I apply that just across the board, and you 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:58.080 can find tons of ways. I've written a lot about this, 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.559 so and then to answer your call up quest to that, 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:02.640 how do these things add up? And I'll give you 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:04.800 a really interesting stat So, when you look at how 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:08.280 people burn calories across the day, we think of exercises 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:10.920 like the big thing that's burning our calories. Right, if 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:12.840 you count out the calorie burn from just keeping your 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.920 body alive, which is called BMR, you find that actually 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.880 just the everyday movement you do in daily life actually 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:23.400 burns significantly more calories than workouts, like two to three times. 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.280 And so there's research from the Mail Clinic that basically 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.559 found that people who just move more throughout the day, 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.080 that's like taking the stairs, that's like parking the farthest 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:33.800 spot away every time it's like, oh, I need to 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:35.720 go down to get a coffee and the coffee shop 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:37.680 is a half mile away, Like I'm just gonna walk, 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:39.520 I'm not going to drive or whatever it is, Right, 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.360 they burn more than eight hundred extra calories across a day. 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:44.679 Let's equivalent to like an eight mile run. I mean, 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:46.360 how many people just go out for an eight mile run? 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:47.840 We don't, right, We go to the gym for like 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:49.719 thirty minutes, and we think that like that's going to 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.120 be enough. And it's like I'm not saying don't go 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:53.600 to the gym at all. I am saying go to 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.120 the gym, but I am also saying, how can you 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:59.600 weave in more incidental movement into your day because that's 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.520 going to have a larger effect on your health span 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:06.680 and lifespan and general fitness than just doing your whatever 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:08.480 amount of time in the gym and then sitting. It's 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:10.720 like we really just kind of have partioned off, like 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.080 we do this weird thing where we have like this 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.640 is the healthy part of my day and life and 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:18.920 then the rest of it is like sedentary or kind 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:21.640 of unhealthy, and or it's like January is my healthy month, 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:23.880 and then I fell off the wagon in February whatever 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:25.679 it is, right, And so I think we just need 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:27.640 to start thinking, like how can I find little wins 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:29.480 throughout the day rather than trying to take on these 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:32.240 heroics Because heroics don't seem to last. 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:36.960 Right, Right, Heroics don't last, and heroics aren't available for 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:39.520 a lot of people, right. A lot of people don't 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:43.440 have ninety minutes a day to say, go exercise, but 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.640 they do have lots of little five minutes and lots 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:49.840 of little on the way to places. It's interesting how 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.080 much environment plays a role too, because I was in 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.960 New York City recently and it was cold out and 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.480 we were outside walking all day every day, and then 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:02.360 I get home to and it's cold, and all of 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:04.280 a sudden, I'm like, it's a little bit too cold 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:06.079 out there, and I suddenly don't want to go out. 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:08.480 It's so interesting to me how, like you said, we 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:12.120 get into these sort of ways of being that need interrupted. 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:14.960 The other thing that you were saying there also is 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.000 you know, we had an exercise scientist on years ago. 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:20.360 I mean it's been probably seven years ago, but I 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:22.800 remember it clear as day because she basically said the 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:25.680 rule is move as often as you can in any 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:27.480 way that you can. I mean, that was it. That 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:32.080 was the whole sum of her overall research and everything, 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:34.160 was that that's the best way to go. Just move 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.120 when you can. However you can and ideally in ways 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:37.560 you like to. 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.600 Yeah, totally. In the comfort crisis, I talk a lot 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.600 about with environments changing. It's just our environments have changed 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.280 so much, so fast in the grand scheme of time 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.680 and space. It's like we've really engineered movement out of 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:53.280 our days. We've engineered more hyperchloric food into our days. 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:57.160 We've engineered connection out of our days. Like we've engineered 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:00.000 all the good stuff out of our days and engineered 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.839 in stuff that isn't necessarily good for us. And I mean, 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.760 if you just take a look at how much people 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:08.600 moved in the past compared to today. Since we're on the 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:12.000 topic of exercise, people used to walk at least twenty 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:15.320 thousand steps a day and about ten miles a day. 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:17.800 Now the average person is taken, you know, anywhere from 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.360 four thousand to seven thousand steps per day. And the 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:24.800 average person in the past used to do what the 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:29.240 government classifies as moderate exercise, and they gauge this using 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:33.000 accelerometers and all these different things. On Hunter gathers for 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:35.320 about three hours and twenty minutes three hours and twenty 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.200 minutes of exercise a day. Right now, the average person 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.200 is like thirty minutes three times a week, right, right. 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.160 I mean, it's just crazy how much less we move. 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.840 And it's not like you know, I think people sometimes 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:47.920 think of these people in the past and be like, man, 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:49.800 these are just like these heroic people. It's like, no, 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:51.520 you would do the same damn thing. It's just you 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:54.240 live in a built environment now, and so you don't do. 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:58.680 That, right. Yeah, environment is so hugely important in the 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.840 choices that we make. All right, let's change direction here 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.440 and talk about your latest book, Scarcity Brain. Yeah, and 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.360 you say that you've come across this concept of something 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.960 called the scarcity loop, and you say it's the serial 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:16.920 killer of moderation. Yes, I'm a big believer in moderation, 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.240 I guess, even though having been an addict, maybe I 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:23.240 recognize the importance of moderation. But I just loved that line, 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.480 the serial killer of moderation. Tell me about the scarcity loop. 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.040 Yeah. I learned about it interestingly enough, because I live 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.000 in Las Vegas and watching people play slot machines for 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:34.640 hours and hours and hours at a time and going 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:37.480 why would you keep doing that when everyone knows the 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.680 house always wins, Like, what the hell is going on? Right? So, 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:43.800 because I'm a journalist. When I ask a question like that, 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:45.840 I don't just go you know, and then move on, 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.480 like I actually try and figure out the answer. And 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:51.480 so I start talking all these different gaming researchers and 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.480 people in casino industry and blah blah blah. Long story short, 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:56.880 this leads me to this place on the edge of 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:59.760 town that is a fully working, brand new cutting edge 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.040 because you know, but it's used entirely for human behavior research. 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:05.960 So it is like a living, working casino laboratory, and 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.320 it's funded by the casino industry and a lot of 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.000 big tech companies. I think seventy two different companies are 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:14.360 on board providing all sorts of funding to this place. 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:16.200 And so this is where I talk to a slot 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:19.560 machine designer who explains to me basically how a slot 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.880 machine works, why it's so good at hooking people, and 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.680 by the way, they really are. Slot machines make more 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:30.800 money than books, movies, and music combined, those three industries 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:32.360 combined every single year. 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:33.240 That's amazing. 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:37.240 Yeah, it's amazing, and it's horrifying. So a slot machine 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:39.440 works by having these three parts, which is what I 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:43.560 call a scarcity loop. It's got opportunity unpredictable rewards and 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:48.040 quick repeatability. Think of it as a looping behavior. Okay, so opportunity, 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.760 you have an opportunity to get something of value. With 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.760 slot machines it's money, right, unpredictable rewards. You know you'll 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:56.640 get that thing of value at some point if you 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:58.720 keep doing the behavior, but you don't know when you're 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:00.320 going to get the thing of value, and you don't 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:02.280 know how valuable it's going to be. So with a 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:04.560 slot machine, you play a game and you could lose, 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.080 you could win some money, you could win a ton 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.840 of money, right, crazy range of outcomes, and then three 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.560 quick repeatability. You can just repeat the behavior immediately. There's 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.119 like zero pause in between repeating the behavior. So with 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.439 slot machines, people play about nine hundred games an hour. Now, 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.480 the reason that this is important and why the book 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:27.600 starts in the casino lab and learning this is because 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:30.920 once you understand this behavior loop, you start to see 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.320 why people get hooked on all sorts of stuff that 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:37.119 seems counterproductive and dumb. All these bad habits we have 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:39.879 a lot of them have elements of the scarcity loop. So, 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:43.160 for example, this is what makes social media work. Right, 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.320 It's got those same three parts. You got an opportunity 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.720 for some social likes, a boost to find something entertaining. 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:50.879 You don't know how many likes you're gonna get. You 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:52.600 don't know when you're gonna find the real that's gonna 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:54.600 make you crack up. And then you just keep scrolling 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:56.920 and scrolling and scrolling because of infinite scroll. Right. That's 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.560 in Instagram, It's in Twitter, it's in TikTok, and name 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.640 any social media app. The loop is being put in 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:07.800 personal finance apps so people will do more trading faster. 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:11.680 It explains the rise of sports betting and how that's 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.399 really just taken off. It was like this combination of 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:18.520 legality and then putting it in cell phones and leveraging 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:20.520 the loop, the mided tick off. It's what makes dating 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:25.000 apps work, right, opportunity to find a mate, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:27.280 Oh my god, I just matched with someone being jack 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.840 pot swipe swipe, swipe, swipespe Right. And so when you 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:32.520 start to look at how the world is constructed, like 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:34.640 it's even in elements of our food system. I talk 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:38.040 to a guy who's a executive for junk food companies, 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:40.720 and he talked about how Yeah, we totally use the 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:42.919 quick repeatability thing in our food. I mean it just 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:47.200 starts to show up everywhere and it is unparallel but 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:51.359 pushing people into these quick repeat behaviors that are usually 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:54.199 engaging in the short term or at least distracting in 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:56.720 the short term, but that can often lead to long 0:18:56.800 --> 0:18:58.960 term regrets or long term problems. Yeah. 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:00.920 You quote one of the people in the snack food 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:04.520 industry saying there's three v's in the snacking world, value, variety, 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.960 in velocity, which is exactly the three things of the 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.880 scarcity loop. So you're talking about all the modern applications 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:15.360 of this scarcity loop, but this is something that is 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:20.440 built into us right from evolutionary history. So explain the 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:22.840 origins of why we get so lost in it. 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:25.560 Yeah. So it's funny because after I talk to the 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.680 slot machine designer, like he's showing me how the slot 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.560 machine works and blah blah blah, and then I asked him, 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:34.000 I'm like, why do people find this so captivating? And 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:35.240