How to Get Ahead of 99% of People (Discipline Isn't Enough)

Most people think that the key to

success is being more disciplined

working harder, and getting more done.

And that stuff actually does get you

into the top 10 20% of most fields. But

if you really want to get into the top

1% or even the top.1%, then the rules

completely change. This video is about

those new rules, the success habits of

the top.1%. And I learned them from this

guy, Joe Hudson. He's the secret coach

that the biggest companies in Silicon

Valley, including Apple and Google and

Open AI, pay absolutely insane amounts

of money to help their CEOs and

executive teams level up and stay ahead

of the competition. Now, I discovered

Joe's work about a year ago, and I

binged everything he's put out online.

And then I had the privilege of

attending his invite only in-person

intensive retreat, and I haven't really

talked about it on the channel until

now, but Joe's work has completely

transformed my own life, and I hope that

it can do the same for you as well. Now

final thing before we start, a quick

warning. This is going to be a really

long video and you are going to be

tempted to skip ahead and look at the

timestamps in the comments and see if

anyone has summarized the video in a

tweetable bite-sized fashion. And I get

it. I'm all about trying to learn stuff

efficiently. But the habits that we're

going to talk about in this video are

not simple productivity hacks that you

can just read the timestamp for and then

think, "Cool. Yep. I already knew that."

The stuff in this video is deeper stuff

than what I normally talk about on this

channel. And what you might be used to

if you watch videos about productivity

or success. In fact, I can pretty much

guarantee that even if, like me, you are

a connoisseur of self-improvement

content, you have not yet mastered a

single one of these five habits. I also

guarantee that if you do apply these

habits into your life, you'll become

drastically more successful by whatever

metric you decide matters to you. But

also, more importantly, you'll

experience much more joy and fulfillment

along the way. All right, let's dive

into the first habit. Now, most people

when we are faced with a new project or

a goal, most of us believe that the path

to success involves meticulous planning

and endless research and waiting until

everything is perfect. We often get

stuck at that point and we are afraid to

start because there's all these other

things we might want to do and we don't

want to make the wrong move. But

actually the really successful people

the top.1% in Joe's experience, they

become much more successful when they

focus on something entirely different.

Yeah. So every successful CEO I know

cares more about the pace of the company

than they do about getting anything

perfect. They have a very iterative

mindset. And so what that means is that

um I don't care if we make mistakes. I

don't care if we um get it right as long

as we're actually moving forward. This

is worth emphasizing. I don't care if we

get it right as long as we are actually

moving forward. And this is the opposite

to how most of us think. We tend to

fixate on getting it right rather than

moving it forward. And the reason that

this is the case is because it's really

hard to steer a ship that doesn't move.

The other reason is because if you're

doing the forward momentum, then you

have an iterative cycle. It means that

you're actually changing the way you do

things based on reflection, based on how

the customer reacts, based on how the

world reacts, and therefore you learn

quicker. Whereas, if you're doing that

all through a mental model, you learn a

lot slower. Now, we're starting with

this point because this is something

that most people I know who are trying

to become rich or successful or

financially free or whatever, most

people need to hear this. You can in

fact just do things. You don't need to

wait until you are perfectly prepared to

do the thing. And in fact, instead of

waiting until you're like 80 or 90 or

100% prepared, start taking action with

like 20% preparation and focus on habit

one, which is the iterative mindset. You

start with a small amount of prep. You

do the thing and then you get data that

allows you to improve the thing over

time. And the way Joe describes it is

that it's about prioritizing pace over

perfection. The pace is more important

because you learn quicker and because

you have movement and you can steer your

ship more accurately. So that's why pace

is important. It doesn't mean that you

want to get everything wrong, but it it

does mean that you care more about doing

it than doing it perfectly. There's

actually the title of a book that I

really like titled Ready, Fire, Aim, and

that is really this iterative mindset

habit in action. And so, if you ask

yourself, to what extent do you operate

with an iterative mindset? To what

extent do you focus on taking action and

then figuring things out? or are you one

of those people like most people are who

gets stuck in analysis paralysis, who

gets stuck in overthinking and you have

all these things you could do but you're

not actually taking action on any of

them. And because this is such a common

struggle, this is something that I asked

Joe next. I asked, "Why do we stay stuck

in research mode rather than taking

action?" Um, there's a couple of

reasons, but I think that the the the

easiest way to see through it is that

you're still in research mode. You're

still researching how to do great

videos. You're still like you're the

research has never stopped. The only

difference is that the research is now

more public that you can be seen in your

research. And so which is what tells you

why most people don't want to do it is

because they don't want to make mistakes

publicly. But there is no CEO who hasn't

made public mistakes. So that's just

part of the deal. It's part and parcel.

This is worth emphasizing. Most people

don't take action because they are

afraid of making mistakes publicly. This

is something I used to really struggle

with. I had to get over it eight years

ago when I first started my YouTube

channel because obviously making these

silly internet videos is literally all

about being okay with making mistakes

publicly. And there was one quote that I

came across around that time that really

helped. It's a quote apparently from

Epictitus who was one of the ancient

Greek philosophers. And the quote was

something like if you want to improve be

content to be thought foolish and

stupid. Most of us are so afraid to be

thought foolish and stupid by the people

around us, by our friends, our family

our co-workers, our managers, that we

stay stuck in these situations that we

don't like just to avoid the feeling of

being judged. Now, one way of dealing

with this, which is what really worked

for me when I first started making these

videos, is to remind yourself that no

one thinks about you as much as you

worry they do. Everyone has their own

lives. Everyone's doing their own thing.

And so, whatever that thing is that

you're struggling to do right now

because you're worried about what

everyone will think, don't worry.

They're not thinking about you anyway.

They're just way too busy. But Joe

actually has a different way of dealing

with this fear. And that brings us on to

the heart of his teachings. And that

brings us on to habit number two. All

right. So we talked about this iterative

mindset, but the reason we struggle with

this is because when we think about

potential failure or making mistakes, we

generally try to avoid those situations

at all costs. We either suppress our

fear or we try to power through it with

like willpower or something or we just

avoid taking the risks altogether, which

is where most people are. But according

to Joe, the really successful people

the top 0.1%, these people understand

that the key is not avoiding failure

but fundamentally changing their

relationship with the internal

experience that failure triggers. Now

the caveat here is that this is going to

be a very long point and this is the

heart of Joe's teachings, but I promise

if you stick with this and you engage

with the idea and you maybe explore more

of Joe's content if you want to learn

more, this is an idea that completely

changed my life and I think has the

potential to change yours as well. The

question is, what's making us care about

that? And it's the emotional response.

If I told you, hey, you're gonna make a

whole bunch of mistakes in your

business. But at the end of the day

you're not going to care. You're going

to feel great about every mistake you

made, then making a mistake is not such

a problem. But if I tell you you're

going to make mistakes, you're going to

feel embarrassed. You're going to feel

miserable. You're going to think you're

a failure. And then you're just going to

fall off a cliff and say, "Fuck it. I'm

never doing this again." Well, then

you're going to care, but not because

you made the mistakes, because of how it

made you feel. So the key point here is

that it's not actually the judgment or

the criticism or the failure that we're

afraid of. We are actually afraid of the

feeling, the internal state, the

internal emotion that failure might

bring up within us. Now this is very

natural. So first we're going to explain

why it happens and then we're going to

talk about what you can do about it. Oh

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sponsoring the video. And let's get back

to it. We have a structure in our brain

called the habenula. And the habenula

is it's kind of like the switchboard of

the brain between the front and the

back. loosely speaking, some some

some neuroscientist is gonna have a

field day with that. But one of the

things it does, it says, "You failed. I

don't want you to fail again." Because

if I'm a tiger and I just fought for

dominance and I've lost, I shouldn't go

fight for dominance again. Or if I'm a a

fish and I just ate something poisonous

I don't want to go and eat that thing

again. And so that's what the heula is

built to do. All right. So it's been a

while since I studied neuroscience in

medical school, so I had to look this

up. Basically deep inside our brains

near the center there is this tiny

region called the habenula that acts

kind of like an anti-reward or

disappointment center of the brain and

neuroscientists have found that the

herbula becomes particularly active when

things don't go as expected when a

reward that we anticipated doesn't

arrive or when we experience some kind

of negative outcome. The herbenula then

it like it feels this failure and then

it sends out signal to the other parts

of the brain the parts of the brain

involved in motivation and it tells it

to suppress motivation for the thing and

this particularly involves the

neurotransmitter dopamine. Now at the

risk of massively oversimplifying this

we can think of dopamine as the

motivation molecule and so when the

herbenula dampens down dopamine after

this negative experience it biologically

reduces our drive or our motivation to

repeat that action whatever action led

to that outcome. And this is a very

useful survival mechanism like you know

if you step on a thorn and it hurts it

tells you don't step on that thorn

again. But in the modern world where

trying to become top 1% or top.1%

successful requires you to take risks

and run the risks of experiencing

failure. It's a very very unhelpful

biological survival mechanism that we

have. So the key point here is that

firstly if you do find that you like

everyone else work very hard to avoid

failure then don't worry. This is very

normal and it's literally what our

brains are designed to do. But if you do

care about being in the top 0.1% of

people, however you personally want to

define that, then it's obviously very

ideal if we can get over that fear. And

this is where Joe's teachings really

deviate from traditional productivity

advice. And so one way out is to really

fall in love with the emotional state

whether it's success or failure. And so

what I see a lot of uh or uh so a tool

that I use a lot with people is take

your time to really visualize your

success over and over again and feel

everything you have to feel with that.

Take your time to see your failure. and

visualize that. Feel all you have to

feel in that and then the action becomes

really clear. It becomes really easy to

do. Hold up. Fall in love with the

emotional state. What the hell is this

guy talking about? Now, I first heard

this stuff like 18 months ago when I

first discovered Joe's teachings. And

initially, the 20some tech bro within me

was like, obviously, this is total BS.

Like, emotions and internal sensations

and feelings. This is all clearly

And I was thinking, man, this

guy's such a scammer. like I can't

believe these billionaire CEOs and

founders and these sort of executive

teams of these massive companies. I

can't believe this guy is scamming them

out of so much money. But then I

decided, okay, let me take a step back.

Let me think about this. These

companies, these really big companies

are probably not like idiots. And so

there's probably some kind of value in

this guy's teachings. And then I

happened to meet Joe on some event that

I went to and I was like, "Oh, this

guy's actually really nice and he's very

warm and he's very friendly and he gives

really good advice and he works

one-on-one with Sam Alman." the founder

of Twitter literally said that Joe

Hudson changed his life and he coaches

the open AI team and he's worked with

all these teams of these companies whose

products I use and love every day. I

decided, you know what, let me have an

open mind and let me see what I can

learn from him. I started absorbing all

the teachings in the content. I took a

couple of Joe's online courses. I got

invited to his in-person retreat and

this emotion stuff has ended up

transforming my own life and my

productivity and my relationship with my

wife. And at these different events, I

have met insanely successful people

including literal billionaires, i.e.

people with a net worth of over $1,000

million. and their lives have been

transformed by this kind of work as

well. So, this would be my public

service announcement to my former self

or people like me before we continue

with this video, which is dude, you have

to take this stuff seriously. Emotions

are literally the heart of all of the

decisions that you make about your work

your business, your life, your

relationships. And if you actually care

about being in the top 1% of performers

or even if you don't give a about

that and you just want to live a

happier, more fulfilled, more peaceful

life, I'd really, really, really

recommend taking this stuff seriously.

How do we learn to love the emotional

state associated with like a negative

emotion? Like if I if if if I do the

thing and the thing fails, I will feel

bad and shame and like uh sadness and

like that everyone's judging me and

stuff that that seems hard to love love

that state. Yeah. So typically the thing

that's hard to love about an emotion is

the resistance to the emotion, not the

emotion itself. So sadness feels very

different if you don't want to be sad

and you're sad than if you want to be

sad and you're sad. They're very

different experiences. So the first

thing is to work on the resistances that

prevent you from actually feeling the

state in its

complete form instead of in this

resistive form. So for example, if I

don't want to be sad and I am actually

sad and then I'm resisting the sadness

because I don't want to be sad, then

that feels really bad. But

alternatively, and you might have had

this experience, if I'm like, you know

what, I'm sad and I'm going to

experience the sadness. I'm going to

luxuriate in the sadness. I'm going to

put on some sad music and I'm going to

like cry and I'm going to watch a

depressing thing on YouTube. And

actually, you know, when you luxuriate

in the feeling rather than resisting the

feeling, it doesn't really feel bad. It

actually feels kind of good. And so

really, it's the resistance to the

emotion that creates the uncomfortable

sensation, often not really the emotion

itself. So that's one of the things. Two

is just get very curious about the

state. Every emotional state has a

signal for you. If you're angry, it

probably means there's a boundary. If

you're anxious, it means there's

probably some way you're not caring for

yourself. If you're sad, it means that

there's something that has been true

about you that you don't want to have

true about you anymore. And there's some

there's some way in which you're being

asked to transform. All those things are

great signals. And so you can really

look forward to them once you understand

what the signals are. And when you look

forward to them, the other thing that's

less likely to happen is you're less

likely to be taken by them and thrown

around and tossed like you're in a

dishwasher or a washer and dryer because

it's the resistance that makes it a

really heavy experience. So, a really

easy way to do this is to when you have

your next emotional experience, instead

of running into your phone, oh my god, I

don't want to feel this or however you

do it, running into a YouTube video. The

other way to do it is to stop and get

really curious about how exactly it

feels in your body. Where exactly is it?

How high is it? How low is it? How dense

is it? Where's the center? How's the

center different than the outside? all

sorts of questions like that so that you

can really be curious about it the way

like a little kid would pick up a frog

and go, "Oh, what's going on there?"

It's the same thing. You do that with an

emotion. And pretty soon you'll realize

that the emotion isn't that scary. And

there's it's actually just a set of

sensations that is far less painful than

I don't know getting like hit in the

elbow, you know? It's like they do they

just pass and they change and they're

they're actually quite amazing. All

right. So, this has been one of the

realizations, as I said, that has most

changed my life. It's the recognition

firstly that emotions are underlying and

driving everything. And even though I

like to think of myself as a logical

guy, often the most difficult problems

or decisions I'm dealing with or that

we're dealing with, they can't really be

thought through. Like, you can't really

analyze them if there is an underlying

emotion underneath that we are not

acknowledging or feeling. And then when

I learned to actually feel the feelings

which is something I'm getting better at

over time, the second step was

recognizing that actually at the end of

the day, an emotion is just a series of

internal bodily sensations, usually

accompanied by some kind of mental

story. It's a series of sensations that

arises and passes away. And so what what

is the thing that I'm actually afraid

of? And so I asked Joe what his origin

story was and how he came to this

realization. So, uh, one of the most

acute experiences is I got kicked out of

a house for something that wasn't my

fault when I was, um, younger, like

early 30s.

And I noticed every time I drove by the

house, it just felt like getting kicked

in the stomach. And I got really

curious, like, what is that? Like, why?

I didn't do anything wrong. I know I

didn't do anything wrong. What what the

heck is that thing? So, I would drive

past the house on purpose so I could

feel that thing. And I just got more and

more curious because it it just was

strictly wonder. It was like what the

hell is going on here? Like what makes

this so? And and what I did in that

experience was just really get curious

about it, learn to enjoy it. And then

the more I enjoyed it, the less it

showed up. So I was like, "Oh my gosh

like this is getting rid of it. This is

fantastic. Like I don't feel that thing

anymore." And then as soon as I was

doing it to get rid of it, it came back.

And then I realized, oh right, if I

actually love the emotional experiences

it changes. If I love it to get rid of

it, it doesn't change because that's not

really loving it. And so in that

experience, I realized, oh, that that

phrase, what we resist

persists. I was just like, oh, right, I

don't have to resist these emotional

experiences. And then I looked around

and I said, wow, all my bad habits are

resisting an emotional experience.

They're all to not feel something. And

they're all avoidance of some emotion.

All my bad decisions are based on on

trying not to feel a certain way. I

don't want to feel like too much of a

success, tall poppy. I don't want to

feel like a failure. Like wow, I just

noticed everything around me was based

on these emotions. And then a little bit

later after that, I read a book called

uh Dart's Error. And Dart's error is a

neuroscientist who literally talks about

how our decisions are made in the

emotional center of the body. that if I

took that away from you, your IQ would

be the same, but you would fail to make

decisions. It would take

you half an hour to two hours to decide

like where to eat lunch and so your

whole life would fall apart and that

it's actually our emotions that are

driving the decision-m and then I was

just absolutely clear. I couldn't ever

make a logical decision, but what I

could do is make an emotional decision

without the fear of feeling some way.

And then that that just clarified

everything. And there's modern

psychology that backs up this kind of

stuff as well. So for example in the

field of psychology there is a branch of

therapy called act acceptance and

commitment therapy. And ACT kind of

emphasizes that when you are trying to

suppress or fight difficult feelings

paradoxically that actually makes them

stronger and it consumes huge amounts of

mental energy. Whereas if we go for

acceptance of the feeling which starts

with curiosity as Joe described that

lets the emotion be processed by the

body and it passes naturally. And so the

analogy I find helpful is that if the

emotion is kind of like a wave, you stop

like resisting the wave and you instead

just sort of surrender to the wave or

like surf on the wave or whatever.

Someone might be thinking it's not just

the feeling, it's that there would be

very real consequences to me doing the

thing. For example, as a professional

if I stop posting on LinkedIn, there's

the very real risk that my colleagues

will laugh at me and then dot dot dot

like I'll be viewed less favorably by my

peers, my salary would go down dot dot

dot. I've I'm not trying to avoid a

feeling. I'm trying to avoid real life

consequences of acting without thinking.

Yeah. So, I'm not suggesting not to act

without thinking. Obviously, I'm not

suggesting that. But what I am

suggesting is if let's take the worst

case scenario, you go homeless. And if

you knew for sure that if you went

homeless, you would be happier, more

content, feel more alive, feel a sense

of bliss and joy that was unrivaled on a

regular basis. What happens to your fear

of going

homeless? Like what's the what's the

problem all of a sudden? So you can tell

how much of its decision is being made

emotionally. The other way to really

understand it is how many missions I'm

sorry, how many decisions have you made

to uh feel awesome or to feel like a

winner or to not feel like a loser or to

not get rejected or to not have feel

guilty. Like if you just look at your

life that way, it's really hard to look

at any decision that isn't made

emotionally. And and then you say

"Well, where does logic come in?" And

well, you build bridges with logic.

That's great. But also, you're using

logic to find out how you're going to

feel. Oh, if I do X, Y, and Z, then I

will have a successful business and then

I will feel good. That's the way it

goes. And so, you watch these people and

they have a really successful business

and they're 50 years old and they're

miserable

as and it's because that what was

actually happening was their logic was

flawed. the thing that actually would

make them happy wasn't a successful

business or it might have been a

successful business run in a way that

was more heartfelt or whatever it is. I

realized that for me a lot of the

decisions I make around my business or

my work or my YouTube channel or my you

know whether to rush on writing my next

book I like to think that I'm

approaching these decisions logically

and so I'll write out all these like

logical thought patterns about like what

the best decision is. But really, if I

acknowledge the underlying fear, the

underlying emotion behind these, it's a

fear of going broke. It's a fear of

running out of money and ending up broke

and homeless and stuff. And this is not

a particularly rational fear. And I have

met people with net worths that are 10

100, a thousand times higher than mine.

And a lot of them also have this fear of

running out of money and ending up

homeless. But then when I imagine, okay

cool. So let's say in this world I end

up with no money and I'm broke and I'm

homeless. But let's say hypothetically

I'm at peace with it. I am, you know

I'm I'm super blissful. I'm tranquil all

the time. I'm absolutely loving life.

I've got a little backpack with my

little tent and I just sort of walk

around the wilderness and stuff. In that

world, the fear of running out of money

actually goes away. And so, the

conclusion that I draw from that is that

it's not the actual fact of running out

of money that I'm really worried about.

It's I'm worried about experiencing the

feeling of running out of money, which I

perceive to be a negative feeling. And

then I'm thinking like, no, I'm going to

do everything I can to avoid this

feeling at all costs. and not even

acknowledging the feeling. And then I

end up stuck in these patterns thinking

that I'm logically solving what to do

with my business. But really, I just

haven't accepted that there is this

underlying fear beneath it. So, let's

say you're working with one of these

like billionaire CEO type people. Um

what and and like are they having this

realization as well? Is this like news

to them that the decisions are emotional

and they can be okay with the emotions?

Like how how does that how does that

play out in like a coaching session or

if you're working with with a team?

Yeah. So typically people um they don't

buy into it right away. Typically people

are like wait my emotions are something

that I'm supposed to control or that

control me and I'm supposed to manage

them. And so it's not until they

actually get the power of it until they

actually see oh when I approach my

feelings this way I get clarity a lot

quicker. When I allow myself to feel the

feeling I then know what to do. And so

most people have had an experience of

either say like crying I think is the

most common experience. I'm feeling

really shitty. I cry and I feel better.

So if you've allowed yourself to cry

you're going to realize that emotional

experience actually creates clarity on

the other side of it. And it doesn't

create clarity the way logic creates

clarity, which is, you know, a plus b

equals c. Emotions create clarity like

this. Ah, that's how emotions work. They

don't make any sense, but when they move

through you, you all of a sudden have a

sense of clarity. As soon as a good CEO

sees that, immediately they're like

"Okay, I'm in." because that that's

another avenue to get to clarity. And I

know that the clearer I am, the more my

pace is going to be, the easier the pace

because decisiveness is part of what

decides pace and the more that I know

I'm going to be in the right direction.

All right, so at this point, if you are

still watching and you haven't switched

off because of all this nonsense about

emotions, then firstly, thank you. I

hope you are getting value from the

video so far. And to be honest, me a few

years ago would have not even remotely

bothered trying to engage with a video

like this. I would have switched off a

long time ago. But I genuinely think my

life would have been more peaceful and

tranquil. And I probably would have been

more productive and also ironically made

more money if I had embraced these

emotions and the underlying fears behind

the decisions I was making if I'd

embraced that stuff earlier in life. But

oh well, no time like the present. You

know, the whole best time to plant a

tree was 10 years ago. The second best

time is now. So yeah, I just wanted to

say a big thank you for being here. And

if you feel like dropping a like or a

comment on this video, then hopefully it

will signal to the algorithm that there

is some good content in here and

hopefully then more people will see it.

Okay. So, if I am in the throws of a

decision and my my default way of

approaching it is to just do a lot of

journaling and to try and write out the

logical thought process to make the

decision and then I end up in this still

with the same decision for like 3 to 6

months and I'm like yes what's up with

that.

Yeah. So that again that's a very much

an emotional. So we have this course

called the great decisions course and

what we're doing in every day of that

course is learning to explore the

emotions that we're trying to avoid. So

typically what's happening if you are

indecisive and you're doing a whole

bunch of SWAT analysises and you can't

figure out what it is is there is one or

more emotions that you are avoiding and

if you actually go into them then there

is nothing to avoid anymore. And the

most the most um

palpable exploration of this was done by

the samurai and by the stoics and by the

Tibetan book of living and dying because

so many people one of the things they

don't want to feel is death. One of the

things that they're scared of is is

death. And so all of these traditions

what they do is they visualize the

entire experience of death up until

death and then after death full

decomposition. and they feel every

single part of that experience and the

result is they they don't fear death

anymore that they actually aren't

controlled by that fear and that's a

perfect experience of how what's

happening. So whatever it is that you're

not deciding there's an emotional

experience that if you live through it

enough times the fear goes away and

you'll clearly the decision will make

itself really. As a matter of fact, the

other thing I would say is if you're

having a hard time making a decision

what's absolutely guaranteed is that

you're in fear because you make a

hundred choices a day. You just made a

choice to touch your keyboard. You're

making a choice to hang out with me. All

of those are choices that you make. But

decisions are ones where you go, "Hold

on a second. I got to really think this

through." Which means immediately we

know that there's fear involved. I'm

scared of a potential consequence here.

And so if you feel through that

consequence, then the decision makes

itself. just like all the rest of your

decisions.

One one tool I use I often use when it

comes to to decisions is I just Google

Tim Ferrris fear setting exercise where

he's got this blog post that's like you

know what's the worst case scenario how

bad is it really like what would you do

in that in that context but one thing he

doesn't say in that blog post which I

should sort of add as an addendum to

myself whenever I do this is like what's

the worst case scenario okay now really

visualize and feel the feelings of that

word worst case scenario rather than

just typing it out on like a notion doc

correct because the the the thing that

fear fear does this fear does two things

in the brain. The first one it does is

it makes us think binary. So it's either

if I'm scared it's either I'm going to

buy the car or I'm going to not buy the

car. But it's not I'm going to buy the

car but a lower model. I'm going to buy

a different color of the car. I'm going

to buy Honda instead of Toyota. I'm

going to negotiate for the price. All of

those go away and we're just like we're

going to do it or not do it. So we don't

see the the subtleties of it. And you

can see this happen in meeting culture

all the time. somebody gets scared and

all of a sudden there's a debate black

and white thinking instead of actually

brainstorming of a new way to do it. The

other thing that it does is it creates a

false end

like oh my business is going to collapse

or my marriage is going to end or

something that you don't see like what's

right next to it. So even in the uh

Tibetan book of living and dying it, you

don't imagine just your death. You keep

on imagining through your death. And so

that's a really important thing is it's

not just visualizing the worst case

scenario. It's visualizing what happens

afterwards and then I'm homeless and

then wow, I can still get a job. I still

have all these skills. Okay, I'm not so

scared anymore. And that's with

everything. That's that's every one of

our fear is you can go down and you can

just drive it. you you can just feel it

all the way down into the emotion that's

being avoided in it. And so with the

like CEOs that you coach, um do they

also have these sorts of things like I

don't I don't want to disappoint my

mother. I don't want my wife to yell at

me. All

humans. All humans, CEOs or otherwise.

Yes. Everybody has this. Yeah. And some

compartmentalize it and so that they've

learned how to just cut that part of

themselves off. And if they do that

they're far more likely to be very

discontent in their success. And then

some of them go and explore it and get

clarity and then they don't have to

compartmentalize anymore. Like the cool

thing about business is that failure or

success, it teaches you more about

yourself than almost anything except for

maybe marriage and child rearing. And so

you get to learn so much about yourself

if you take business in that way. Now

you don't have to be successful to do

that. meaning that like or you don't

have to do that to be successful.

There's a lot of people who are

successful who don't do that. But if you

want to be content and actually happy

with your success and not be the burn

burnt out, unhappy 50-year-old with a

Ferrari, then it's really a necess

necessary part of the process. And so in

some habit number two is about embracing

negative emotions. And the final

strategy for this, which I think is very

useful, is something that Joe talks

about, which is the idea of staying in

wonder. So the way I define wonder is

curiosity without looking for an answer.

So it's the way that you would look at a

sunset or the way a little kid would

look at an antill. It's just there's

some awe in it. And you don't need to

have an answer. You're just there. And

you know that you're going to learn

something, but you're just there in this

awe. And if you can do that either with

your emotional state or with a person

that you're close with, everything

changes. Because most of the time, if

we're in a conflict with somebody or

with ourselves, it's because we think we

know something about them or ourselves.

I know that I can't quit eating too

much. I know that I can't quit smoking.

I know that I keep on starting

something, but I always

procrastinate. And and so I and so that

what we say is, "Okay, stop

procrastinating." And then it doesn't

work. instead of huh I wonder what makes

me procrastinate. What's really going on

there? What would what would make it so

fun that to do this work I couldn't I

wouldn't want to procrastinate. What's

the emotion I'm avoiding by

procrastinating? All those questions

aren't get asked if you think you know

what the hell's going on. But even

though negative emotions might be

helpful to understand when they're

holding us back, they're probably not

the mode that we want to be in all the

time if we want to experience true

success. And that is where habit number

three comes in. All right. All right.

So, at this point, Joe likes to use the

analogy of a car and the difference

between speed and efficiency. So, a car

that is very fast is a car that moves

from A to B very quickly. But a car that

is very efficient uses as little fuel as

possible getting from A to B. Now, Joe's

insight here is firstly that top

performers are generally seeking

efficiency rather than speed. So, being

fuel efficient while working towards

your goal means that you are using less

energy doing the thing compared to

someone else for example. And because

you are using less energy, i.e. you're

more energy efficient at getting to your

goal. You're able to sustain that

progress for much longer and much more

consistently by doing it efficiently

i.e. without wasting energy. And so how

do we get to efficiency? Well, this is

where Hudson's first law comes in, which

is that enjoyment equals efficiency. So

typically the way people think about

efficiency is that they say, "Okay, I

know an efficient car is one that

doesn't use a lot of gas and a fast car

is one that goes from 0 to 60 really

quickly or goes 100 miles really

quickly." But somehow or another when we

think about productivity, we think that

efficiency is how quickly we did it, not

the amount of fuel that we used to do

it. So most people think about

efficiency as like I I got all that all

those emails done in an hour. That's

efficient. instead of, "Oh, I enjoyed

the hell out of that email process." So

the thing is, if you enjoy your process

then you're going to do it. You're going

to do it more. It's going to be easier

to do, and you get energy from it. So, I

would much rather think about, oh, I

made a YouTube video and I really

enjoyed it because I know I'm going to

make another one, and I know that the

next one I make is going to be better

and it's I'm going to do it quicker

because I enjoyed the process. But

mostly I'm going to have a crap ton of

energy at the end of it. So I'm going to

want to do the next one. And so

enjoyment is a great measure of

efficiency, not how quickly you did it.

And typically what happens is if you do

your emails, like it's a great

experiment to do. Do do your emails one

day or your any kind of communication.

Sit down for an hour. Do that email and

just do it for the dopamine hit. Bam.

Bam. I got it. I got it. Done. Done.

Done. Done. Done. And then do it the

next day with how do I enjoy the heck

out of this? And then at the end of

those two sessions, ask yourself which

one of those was was more productive.

And typically what you'll see is that

you went to press enter when you were

just getting it done just to respond.

When you're enjoying it, you're

thinking, "Oh, how do I make the most

out of this email? How do I how do I

take this question and move it two steps

forwards instead of one step forward?

How do I empower that person? Anything

like that. All those things come into

play when you're actually in enjoyment

that you don't think about when you're

just getting the dopamine hit of quick.

So the habit here, the reframe is habit

number three, the enjoyment compass. The

recognition that enjoyment is

efficiency. This is something I have

been talking about for a couple years

now. This is the whole thesis of my

book, Feelgood Productivity. You can

check it out on Kindle, hardback

paperback, Audible. It's been translated

into 35 languages. And if you've read

the book, I would love it if you can

leave a review on Amazon and or Good

Readads. Thanks. But this is a theory

that's been very scientifically

validated. There's a whole shtick around

the broaden and build theory that was

discovered by Barbara Frederickson back

in like the early 2000s. And I've got

loads of information of it back in my

book if you want to check it out. And so

when I discovered Joe's stuff, which was

after I wrote the book, I was like

"Ooh, yay. This is actually a really

strong validation for the stuff in the

book." Because Joe literally teaches

these concepts to these billionaire CEOs

at these like companies that whose

products you probably use every day. Al

also the other side benefit is that most

people want to hang out with other

people who are enjoying themselves

rather than people who are not. So your

ability to attract talent, your ability

to attract customers, everything like

that is much much better if you if

there's like oh that person's enjoying

life. I want to be around that person.

Okay. So enjoyment equals efficiency.

And the habit of highly successful

people is that they use enjoyment as a

compass. Now as I said I've been

peddling this idea for a long time but

there is always push back that people

have about this idea. When I was asked

on Chris Williamson's podcast, I

mentioned this whole like feel good

productivity stuff. And there were a

bunch of comments being like, "Fuck this

guy. It's all bullshit." Like, you're

telling me, "Tell the taxi driver to

just enjoy themselves. Tell the

dishwasher to just enjoy themselves.

you." Uh, what what's your take

on that? I love that. You kidding me?

Uh, yeah. So, apparently a taxi driver

can't enjoy themselves. Like, how? Like

prove it. That's the first thing I would

say is like prove that this can be done.

If Titchnot Han can teach somebody how

to enjoy washing the dishes, something

that I hated until I learned how

to enjoy it, you absolutely can learn

how to enjoy driving a taxi cab. So the

the quest that the reason that people

get confused by it is because they think

that enjoyment comes from what you do

not how you do it. And so I will give

you an example of it right now. Right

now you and I can sit here and we can

enjoy ourselves 5% more. So can the

entire

audience. Most people would have taken a

deep breath, felt their body a little

bit, right? It's just like boom. So

easy. So if I can enjoy myself 5% more

at any given time just by thinking, how

do I do it? So like what would stop you

from enjoying yourself driving a cab?

What would enjoy stop you from enjoying

yourself doing anything? How how did you

teach yourself to enjoy washing the

dishes? Yeah, I I I read titch not Han

and I thought to myself he was talking

about doing the dishes and he's like

it's warm water it's soapy it's really

quite lovely if you think about it and I

was like yeah whatever zen guy I like

they're dishes I hate doing the dishes

and uh but at some point I tried to

prove him wrong you know and that's the

way I did almost everything when I was

learning and it's something that I

highly recommend other people do which

is don't take my word for it go figure

it out go figure out how to like sit

down and do something that you say you

don't like doing and and really ask how

do I enjoy it? And if you can enjoy it

5% more, then you can probably enjoy it

10% more. Just like if I can grow my

business 5%, I can probably grow my

business 10%. And so that's what I did.

I just tried to prove him wrong and I

couldn't. And there was actually this

great I had this really great epiphany.

This was a great moment where I told

myself, I am going to do nothing except

for exactly what I want, what I enjoy

doing for a week. I'm only going to do

what I enjoy, what I really want for a

week. And at some point, the trash

really smelt bad. And I did not want to

take out the trash, but I also didn't

want to smell the trash. So, I sat

there. I'm like, well, I committed that

I would only do what I want to

do. So, and I only do what I'm going to

enjoy doing. So I I literally sat it was

just ridiculous. I was sitting in front

of the trash can for quite a while until

I realized, okay, there is a way that I

can enjoy taking out the trash and I did

I got fully present in my body and I you

know I was like oh like how do I lift

this thing in a way that feels good in

my muscles? Can I actually do a little

bit of a workout on the way? I had all

sorts of things and and so I enjoyed and

that was the moment that I realized oh

right enjoyment isn't about what you do

only. It's also about how you do it. So

I would say if you think there's

something you can't enjoy doing, the

only way you could prove it to me is

that nobody else on the planet enjoys

doing it. Right? So if you can sit still

for 9 hours a day and enjoy that, which

is what meditation people do, you can't

tell me you can't enjoy driving a car.

Oo, absolutely love this. With a bit of

creativity, there is always a way to

enjoy something 5% more or 10% more. And

a question I like to ask myself that you

guys might be familiar with if you're

fans of the channel is something I have

as my phone wallpaper, which is this

little thing of like, what would this

look like if it were

fun? Whenever you want, you can just ask

yourself or whatever you're doing, what

would the most enjoyable version of this

look like? But Joe actually takes this a

step further and he uses this with the

teams and the CEOs that he coaches. The

cool thing is that the the places that

you're not enjoying are exactly the

places where you can improve efficiency.

So for instance, I'm right now working

in one of the Alphabet companies and

we're making it so that you every person

in the company has to say how much they

enjoy a meeting at the end of the

meeting. It's like a zero to five star

thing and if you don't hit five stars

you have to say what it is they could do

to improve the meeting. And what this is

doing is it shows every place where

people aren't happy, where the

inefficiency are. Just by tracking

enjoyment, you can say, "Oh, this is

what's not working in the company." It's

a great diagnostic tool. This is what is

working in the company. It's also a

great predictor of what's going to fail

in the next quarter. Oh, man. A whole

sales team isn't enjoying themselves.

Probably not going to make their

quarterly. So, that's a good predictor.

So, there's so much that it can tell you

and and and it's such a diagnostic tool.

So if you're looking for what's wrong in

a company, just look around to see what

people don't enjoy and you focus there

and work and it'll and it'll prove

everything. To what extent can this be

applied to like our own solo work as

well? I'm kind of thinking that like if

at the end or during a work session I

would to be like hm how would I rate my

enjoyment of the work session and

then that might lead to interesting

insights and action points potentially.

I would say I think the important part

would be how do I enjoy it and if it's

not five

stars then what do I do what what's the

what's the iteration I can do next time

to to to learn how to enjoy it

more so I think the important part is

that second step analysis of oh well

what I could do next time is take a

break every five every 15 minutes I can

take a break and do 10 jumping jacks or

what I could do next time is to do it

with a friend or what I could do next

time is

be out in a cafe but always looking for

one little uh experiment that you can do

to improve it. When I talk about the

enjoyment thing, people have the

immediate like uh response to it at the

thought that like if I if I were to do

this task in a way that was

enjoyable, I either wouldn't do the task

at all or I would do it in a way that's

not professional or not right or not

correct or not good enough kind of

thing. Well, hopefully the second is

true. Um, meaning that right not not

professional is probably a great thing

to explore. Uh, most innovation is done

because it's not done the way other

people did it. It's not done in the way

that you're supposed to do it. So, if

you're going to innovate, you have to do

something that's not professional or

right. If you're going to do something

halfass, then I don't think you'd enjoy

it. And and and if you really enjoy

doing things that are halfass, like I've

never seen anybody wake up and go, you

know what I would really love to do

today? A whole bunch of halfassed.

That would be great. I'd feel great at

the end of that day. So I don't I don't

buy that. If that is the case, then you

really shouldn't be an entrepreneur and

you really shouldn't like work for

somebody because that's just stealing.

So So So I would say I Yeah, I don't

really buy into that that the thing as

far as I might not do it. Great. find a

way to not do it and still be

successful. And there's lots of things

that I do that are like that. Oh, I can

enjoy doing that. I don't want to do it.

Great. I'm going to find another way to

do it. As a matter of fact, I think a

great time management skill is to look

at your entire list of things to do and

say, "What are the two or three things

that I could do that make all of this

easier or irrelevant?" I think that's a

like a fantastic move to make. So, if

you if you can find a way around it

great. And if you can't then enjoy it.

Okay. So using enjoyment as our compass

helps fuel our engine of movement of

progress of success without that fuel

being dirty. It's very sustainable fuel.

But now we come on to habit number four

which is what the hell happens to all of

those things that we have to do or that

we feel like we should do even if we

don't particularly enjoy them. And so

habit number four addresses the internal

battle that we are all fighting every

single day. Most of us try to motivate

ourselves through sheer force of

willpower or obligation or guilt or this

constant internal monologue of I should

do this, I should be more disciplined, I

should do that. But what Joe teaches is

that actually the top 0.1% of performers

recognize that this approach of

shoulding yourself creates a huge amount

of internal friction and it often

backfires. And so this is the

anti-discipline method. I think the

thing that everybody forgets is that if

you force yourself, if you force

anything, counterforce happens. So if I

say to you

um, man, I told you, look at me. Look at

me. Right? What you, people do exactly

what you do, which is like, I don't want

to look at you. Like there's a

resistance that happens. And even if I

do look at you, I'm like, but it's not

like I'm looking at you. It's like

fine, I'll look at you. So when

we try to force someone to do something

whether they're a 2-year-old or whether

they're a different from somebody from a

different political party, there is a

resistance to it. So if you're trying to

force yourself to do something, there is

a natural resistance to it. There just

is there's going to be a natural

resistance and that's all friction and

that's all inefficiency. So I I don't

know if her methodology about I choose

easy world and then it all happens. Um

it would work consistently for people.

But what I do know is that if you

recognize that forcing yourself to do

something comes with external friction.

It comes with the cost. It comes with

the toll. It's dirty fuel. It's not

clean fuel. Then you start you can start

looking at what do I want to do? How do

I want to do it? And that's far more

efficient. Okay. So what Joe is saying

is that forcing yourself to do something

that you fundamentally don't want to do.

Yes, you can get it done and we've all

had that experience, but it's really

really inefficient in terms of the

amount of energy that's wasted. And the

metaphor that he uses is that it's like

working with dirty fuel. Now, I really

like that metaphor. And another one I

like to use with my students in my life

OS course is that it's sort of like

you're a boat and kind of the action

you're doing is like the rowing or the

engine of the boat, but the amount

you're enjoying your work is like the

sail of the boat. So, if you're enjoying

what you're doing, you're going with the

wind. Your sails are pointed in the

right direction and like it becomes

easier and you have to use less energy

to manually row the boat. But if you're

not enjoying your work, it's like your

sails are literally against the wind and

the wind is like buffeting you. And so

you can still get there. You just have

to row really, really, really hard

because you are rowing against the wind

because you're not enjoying what you're

doing. Isn't this what the whole like

discipline thing is about? like to what

presumably when when people think of

like you know top 0.1% CEOs or whatever

they generally imagine someone who's

very disciplined who like just you know

gets the thing done even when they don't

feel like it. Yeah. Most of this most of

the CEOs especially venture capitalists

that I know they are they're not highly

disciplined people. They are aligned.

They are invigorated. They love to do

what they do and they do it a lot. Most

of them some of them don't. Uh but they

all have things that they don't want to

do that they don't do. They all have

things that they delegate cuz they don't

like. They all have some version of

themselves where they are telling

themselves I, you know, I should be

doing this thing that I'm not doing. All

all of them. So yeah, if you are a

billionaire CEO of a Silicon Valley

company, then you can probably delegate

a lot of the things you really don't

want to do. But I imagine most of us

watching this video are not in that

position to be able to delegate

absolutely everything. And so the way I

think of this is that if there is

something you have to do but you don't

want to do it, firstly ask yourself

does the thing actually need to get

done? What would happen if I just didn't

do it? And for lots of things, you

realize, oh, you actually don't need to

do the thing. Someone else wants you to

do the thing, and there's not actually

that many bad consequences if you just

didn't do the thing. And then if it

turns out that you do in fact actually

have to do the thing, the next step is

to recognize that I don't actually have

to do anything, but I'm going to choose

to do the thing because I don't want to

face the consequences of not doing it.

For example, I don't actually have to

pay my taxes. No one is physically

forcing me, coercing me, compelling me

to pay my taxes right now, but I am

choosing to pay my taxes because I would

rather not face the consequences of

going to jail. You might think of this

as just a simple semantic shift, but

it's a simple semantic shift that

reasserts your own autonomy and your own

choice. It is not that someone is

physically forcing you to do the thing.

Most likely you have valition, you have

autonomy, and you're simply choosing to

do it because you don't want to face the

consequences. And then it's a case of

asking the question of like, okay, given

that I have chosen to do the thing, like

file my taxes, I wonder what I can do to

make the process 10% more enjoyable. But

then we have this whole category where

we're telling ourselves that we should

do the thing. What's your take on this

word should? Ah, yeah.

Should. Should is a motivation killer

more than anything else. So, there's a a

really cool experiment you can do. Just

pick anything like brush your teeth. And

if you say to yourself out loud, you

should brush your teeth. You should

brush your teeth. You should brush your

teeth. You should brush your teeth. And

you just say that for like a minute and

then feel how you feel in your body. And

then say, I really want to brush my

teeth. I really want to brush my teeth.

I really want to brush my teeth. I

really want to brush my teeth. And you

feel how that feels. One, you'll

probably go brush your teeth eventually

because you because you feel how good it

it is to want it. But two, what you

learn is that like all your energy is

sucked out of you by a should. And all

of your energy is given to you by a

want. And so using the self-t talk of

should is an

incredibly like uh it's demeaning. It's

like, think about it this way. If if you

had a boss and you were working and your

boss was just sitting over your shoulder

and they're like, "You should do this.

You should do this. You should do this.

You should do this." Either you'd punch

the boss or you'd rebel against the boss

or you quit. Like, it's one of those

things that's going to happen. But yet

that's how we're our own bosses. It's

just not effective. Okay. Objection. Uh

your honor, if I don't should if I don't

should myself into doing the thing, I

just wouldn't do anything. I would just

like watch Netflix and play PlayStation

5 all day. Like what's up with that?

Right. So, how did you learn how to

walk? You didn't sh yourself then. How

did you learn how to talk? You didn't sh

yourself then. How does a tree grow?

They don't sh themselves. Evolution is a

natural thing. It's just what we do

naturally. The reason that you would

hang out on the couch is cuz you're

burnt out by beating the out of

yourself for a decade. You'll eventually

get up off of it. And there's actually

these really great studies that have

been done. They call it unschooling

where they take kids and they're like

"Hey kid, you're burnt out in school.

We're going to take you. You can't you

can't like play video games. You can't

you know, get a dopamine fix someplace

else, but we're just you just basically

don't have to come back to school until

you're ready to learn." And those

kids usually do nothing for about 6

months and then they kick into gear and

then they learn quicker than anybody

else. As a matter of fact, there's a guy

who goes around who's a math teacher. He

won't teach any of these kids until

they're like, I'm interested in math.

And then he'll teach them and he'll and

he can teach them like calculus far

quicker than if they did it at school

because the kid actually really wants to

learn it at that moment. Like imagine

how how quickly it would take you to

learn to do what you did in if you

didn't want to learn it. Like if you're

like, I don't want to do

YouTube. I don't want to make videos. I

don't want to buy cameras.

Yeah.

You know, so so but as soon as you're

like, "Oh, I really want to do that."

You learn so quickly. Yeah. Like for me

with this YouTube channel, there was no

should in the early days. The should

started to come in a few years down the

line. And it definitely took away some

of the enjoyment that I got from making

videos. And this is a habit that I'm

still trying to master. It's a lesson I

keep on having to relearn and relearn.

And one kind of trivial area where it's

showing up in my life, which I kind of

ran Joe through as an example, is that I

feel like I should be posting on

LinkedIn. Yeah, I find that yeah, just

in in this world of like creators and

things, I I I I hear the should quite a

lot like, oh, I I I really should be

posting on LinkedIn. And I sometimes I

do I do that to myself as well. I'm

like, oh man, LinkedIn's popping off

like diversification, or I really should

be posting on

LinkedIn. And then what's really

unfortunate is that when I when I then

say to a team member, hey, hey, we we

really should be posting on LinkedIn, so

let's figure something out. And then

they go in, they figure something out

and they come back to me with a strategy

and I'm just like, "Oh, I'm not feeling

it." And I think it's it's because it

stemmed from the original should of like

I should be posting on LinkedIn rather

than I want to be posting on LinkedIn.

Yeah. Or what would make me love

posting on LinkedIn? Oh, that's a good

question. What would be so exciting that

I would that I would like spend time out

of my day to do this and I'd feel great

about it? That's that's a question cuz

that's what got you motivated in the

first place. Yeah. And this the other

thing that happens is there's a mental

loop where it's like, oh, I I I have

this idea, this impulse to do something

but I'm going to take all the joy out of

it by making it a

should. So, oh, I want like every if you

look underneath every should, I should

work out. If you look really really

closely, what happens is I want to work

out. There's an impulse to work out and

then I put a on top of it.

There's an impulse to to to move into

business. There's an impulse in you to

move into a more more mature audience in

business. That's the impulse. And then

as soon as like do you want to do

that? Yes or no? And and then the rest

of it is how do I do that in a way that

I enjoy it? But beneath every should

there's an impulse. I should work out.

There's an impulse to be healthy. Do you

want to be healthy? Yes. How do you want

to do that? There's lots of ways. You

don't have to work out. You can dance.

You don't have to dance. You can take

walks with people. You don't have to

take walks with people. You can have a

kid and throw them and try to keep

up. Or you can do jiu-jitsu. Or you can

you could literally write a list of

here's 50 different things I could do

that would keep me healthy and I'm going

to do each one of them for 3 days and

see which one I enjoy most and do

those rather than I should post on

LinkedIn, right? I should go to the gym.

Yeah, I want to I want to experiment my

business. LinkedIn is one experiment.

What are the 20 other experiments that I

can run? Let's Which one do I enjoy

most?

And then I'm going to run with that. All

right. So, habit number four is to

eliminate the shoulds. really really

easy one to say, a very very difficult

one to master, but it speaks to this

idea in the field of psychology like

this concept of reactance, which is kind

of our natural tendency to resist being

controlled or being told what to do. And

it's not just that we don't like other

people telling us what to do. We also

rebel against the internal voice in our

head telling us that we should do

something. The other thing here is that

there is a theory in psychology called

self-determination theory. And that

highlights our fundamental human need

for autonomy. And anytime you tell

yourself that you should do something

it undermines your sense of autonomy and

it completely kills your motivation

behind the thing, even if that

motivation was initially intrinsic. But

surely this can't apply in all

situations. I'm not going to let Joe get

away with this one so easily. On that

note, another objection like to your

Joe, is please.

Um, where does the concept of duty and

obligation fit into this narrative, this

sort of western liberal worldview that

like you shouldn't shoot yourself into

doing stuff? like you know sometimes I

might not feel like I want to go to that

like family member's house for the that

thing but you know society is held

together communities are held together

by sometimes people acting not in their

own self-interests but actually in duty

and obligation to a more a wider thing

and so like if I just didn't feel like

going and then didn't do the thing

eventually I'd have no friends and and

end up alone um dot dot dot yeah So, I

think that that's a great question.

The So, first of all, let's let's break

it down. Let's say my mom calls me and

says, "Hey, I want you to come over for

dinner." And I don't want to come over

for dinner. And that's I'm like, I feel

obligated. I feel like the only reason

I'm going to do it is because I have to.

I have some sort of obligation. So

first of all, I should be asking myself

what the hell makes it that I only want

to see my mom if I feel obligated? Like

I have that I don't want to see my mom

so much that I I can't actually get in

touch with my desire for it. and I can

only be in this obligation. And then if

I really have an obligation to my mom

isn't the better thing to do to to solve

that problem with her than to come to

dinner? Isn't the better thing to do to

say, "Hey, how do we have a relationship

where we really want to be together?"

Because otherwise, you're not really

with her anyways. You're just some

aspect of yourself is being with her.

So, if you're going to tell me about

obligation, then I would say break down

what you're actually obligated to do. Is

your obligation to show up to your mom

for Christmas or is your obligation to

have a great relationship with your mom?

And then and then in that same

thing, what is it that you actually

want? And what I notice is I want to

have a great relationship with my mom is

usually much closer to the want than I

want to have dinner with her. And so

what you'll notice is if you if you take

that obligation and you find out what

your actual wants are behind it, that's

actually probably the closer thing to

what you're really obligated to be

doing. And then is it an obligation or

is it a want? We all want to have great

relationships. All of us want that. All

of us want to have love in our lives.

All of us want to feel safe. All of us

want a good community. But the

obligation means that you are abandoning

some part of yourself to do it and

you're not actually addressing the real

problem. When I was at this um retreat

with Joe and he mentioned that this

should thing, I was like, "Come on, Joe.

Like you're telling me you never need to

experience a should? what what about

your kids? Like, you know, don't you

feel any kind of duty or obligation

towards like feeding your kids? And I

thought in that moment, I was like, aha

there's no way he's gonna get out of

that one. But then what Joe basically

said to me is that, yeah, you're right.

I don't feel an obligation to feed my

kids. I don't feel like I should feed my

kids. I just want to feed my kids

because I love them. I don't need to

feed them out of obligation or out of

duty. And what he kind of said

paraphrasing, was that duty and love are

very different things. and he feels like

duty and love cannot coexist. Now

depending on the culture in which you

have been brought up or raised in or

what your parents told you when you were

younger, you might be thinking of duty

and love as being inseparable from one

another. In fact, you might be thinking

that actually if you really love

someone, you would feel a duty to look

after them or visit them or do stuff for

them or whatever the thing might be.

This is something I haven't quite yet

figured out for myself. I want to talk

to Joe more about it. But definitely the

idea like with friends and family and

with my wife and my future kids, I don't

want to feel obligated to do stuff. I

would like to want to do the thing. I

used to always feel obligated to do

everything. And the what I mean that's

the that's the real deal is I would feel

obligated to do most of what I did was

out of guilt or a sense of obligation

and there was no joy in it. There was no

love in it. And when I stopped acting

out of it, what I found out is that I

became a much better

person. I I actually I'm openhearted. I

love people. I gave them the connection

that they actually wanted from me. So

that's the other thing is just if you

think about it this way, somebody comes

into your party and you're like, "Hey

come on in." And they're like, "Well

you know, I'm only here cuz I'm

obligated." The only reason I'm at your

party cuz I felt a sense of obligation.

Like what happens? You're like, "Fuck

off. Leave. You don't need to be here. I

don't want you at the party for that

reason." And and if and if my kid said

to me something like, "Oh, if I said to

my kid, the only reason I'm feeding you

is because I feel obligated to."

What is that?

It's just a trick we pay play on

ourselves to not allow for pleasure.

It's really obligation in it in its

essence is just pleasure

anxiety. It's saying like, "Oh, I can't

actually I to enjoy life this much makes

me anxious." So, I I'm going to put some

some blocker on it and call it

obligation. Now, one area in which the

should comes up a lot for me and my wife

Izzy is that we always feel like we

should be working right now. And and so

even if it's like the weekend, there's

part of me that's like hm maybe I should

be working. Why do we feel guilty when

we are not being productive? Usually cuz

it's a something that we learned from

our parents or our caregivers or our

teachers or something. We were just

taught early on that our they were happy

with us when we were valuable when we

were productive and therefore that's the

thing. Typically you have a typically

the background is that there's an overly

critical parent who's constantly not

nothing is quite good enough and then

that critical parents voice becomes part

of our own voice in our head and then

nothing that we do is ever good enough

and there's always something more to be

done and my value is in doing more stuff

so that one day hopefully mom/voice in

my head shuts the up and says

you're a good kid and it's fine to be

just you.

Nice

shortcut. Shortcut. It's fine to be just

you. Yeah.

Um, do you see this in the CEOs you

coach at all or the teams where I sort

of just need to compensate? Yeah. It's

all the time. Yeah. I was just I

literally was with a I was with one of

the people who work for me and there was

like these six things that we have to do

and and she was like, "Well, there's

these six things we have to do." I'm

like, first of all, we don't have to do

Like, like, these are six things.

We could do a different six things. As a

matter of fact, we do not even know if

these six things that we're supposed to

do are going to be the most effective

way of us spending time together. So

let's just give that whole thing up. And

then, let's say if we were to do these

in the most fun, enjoyable way possible

and we ended up doing something that she

thought was going to take 3 hours, we I

mean, sorry, 3 days, we did in like 3

hours. And she was dumbfounded like, how

on earth? And what had happened was she

had made it an obligation. She had made

it into something that she had to do.

And in doing that, it just became a

bigger, harder, more intractable

problem. And so I see CEOs make this

mistake all the time. All the time. They

instead of saying, "Oh, there's six ways

to skin this cat, so to speak. There's

six different ways that we can make this

phone.

What's the way that's gonna feel great

is usually gonna make a better phone

than what's the way that we have to make

the phone. All right, so this is a

lesson that I keep on having to relearn

as well. Again, one of these habits that

even though I've written a book about

it, I haven't yet mastered that if I

optimize for enjoyment as the compass

then actually the things I'm trying to

do, they often turn out better and

higher quality than if I was trying to

make them actually good. Let's say

someone has a

particular outcome they want. like I

want to be, I don't know, financially

free or something like that, but then

the process to getting there requires

them to like, you know, grind after work

and grind on the weekends and work on

the business and stuff and then there's

all this resistance to doing this thing

cuz they don't want to do the thing, but

they they don't want to do those

actions, but they want the outcome of

the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Two different

issues there. So the first issue is you

know what's the need behind the want? So

you can do a really simple exercise

where what I want is um to be

financially independent. What what

what's the need behind that want? Oh to

feel safe. And what's the need behind

that want? Oh so that I don't have to be

anxious. Okay. What's the need behind

that want? Oh I I want to actually have

a joyful life. So the financial freedom

is just strategy to get to the thing

that they actually want. So that would

be the first thing to really like

recognize. And the second thing to

recognize is you're in a knowing, not a

state of you're in a state of knowing

not a state of wonder, because you think

that the only way to get you there is to

grind. And the only and that means two

things. One, the only way to get you

there is to do something you don't want

to do. And the second thing is you have

to do a lot of what you don't want to

do. But look around the world and you'll

find a lot of people got to financial

freedom doing stuff that they wanted to

do and not doing a lot of stuff that

they don't want to do. I I am a example

of that. You are an example of that. So

we did stuff that we wanted to do. You

were supposed to be a doctor. You wanted

to be a YouTuber. Look what happened.

You're more successful than you could

have been as a doctor. So So there's

lots of examples where oh that's

actually that my thinking is

constricted. my my thinking is stagnant.

And if my thinking is stagnant, then

then that's a really good pointer that

shame is operating again.

What's the need behind the want? That is

nice. All right. So, the fifth and final

habit ties everything together. Most of

us operate in a state of time poverty

which is where we are constantly feeling

rushed and we are reacting to urgent

demands and we are struggling to keep

and we are struggling to keep up and

there's this general sensation that we

are working against the clock that time

is always running out. But according to

Joe the top 0.1% of people cultivate a

sort of relationship with time where

time becomes their ally.

Yeah. So the the last thing that I see

and this doesn't happen with all great

entrepreneurs, but the ones who do this

are incredibly effective. And most

people are running around going, I don't

have enough time. They have time

mentality. I'm sorry. They have time

poverty mentality. I don't have enough

time. I got to hurry. I got to rush. I

got to do everything and I got to do it

all right now. And so there's this huge

amount of stress and then eventually

there's a bunch of burnout that happens.

What I've seen people who are su

entrepreneurs who are successful over

the long run is they have a very

different mentality where they're not

working for time anymore but time is

working for them. And so what does that

mean? It means that little things like

oh I'm going to plant today I'm going to

spend time planting the seeds that will

bloom in next month next year. They have

like there was a famous head of Sony

back in the 90s who said, "I don't care

how we how we did in this year's

quarter. What I care about is how we're

going to do five years from now." And so

he was constantly focused on my time is

for the 5 years from now moment, not for

the this quarter moment. There's another

way that I think I mentioned, which is

looking at your to-do list and saying

"Oh, what's the one, two, or three

things I can do that will make

everything on this to-do list go away or

far easier to do?" So getting to-dos

done is a dopamine hit. We're naturally

wired to do it. And so there is a

a a I don't want to call it a

discipline. So we're naturally wired to

do it. And so there is a a capacity to

see through the dopamine hit and say

"Oh, getting getting things done isn't

the same thing as productive." And so if

you can say, "Oh, what's the one thing I

can do that gets 10 things done? what's

the thing I can do today that will solve

most of my problems in 6 months and I

don't require it doesn't require a lot

of effort. One example of this for

example is investing in yourself. If you

learn how to be a better speaker or if

you learn how to uh be in touch with

your emotions or if you learn how to

communicate better all of those things

are going to pay off for the rest of

your career. Those are seed planting

seeds. Right now when I'm doing some if

I'm like building a new product I don't

think about building the new product as

oh I'm building a new product. I think

about it as oh I am marketing at the

same time I'm building a product cuz I'm

interacting with my customer. And by

interacting with my customer they're

learning about my product and I'm

learning to make a better product. And

so I'm doing everything in a way that is

considering one year out, two years out

instead of just what's the thing I

checked off my box today. So if you can

master habit number five, which is to

escape time poverty, then all of that

energy gets put into stuff that can

compound and that leads to you having a

way higher impact with a lot less

frantic effort. The other thing that I

noticed generally is that you're just

going to miss a lot of things when you

rush. And so if you're working for time

you're constantly rushing. you're

constantly going from one thing to

another. I was recently in a company

where I did five meetings in that day

and every single one of them we didn't

finish the conversation because boom, we

had to go to the next meeting or and so

there's it was like why have the meeting

if the thing didn't get finished? um as

an example and so there's a great phrase

that I think is the military I think

it's the Marines and says slow is steady

steady is fast and there's great

research on this done that when people

are sleepd deprived and working really

quickly they are far less productive

than they think they are and they are

far less productive than the people who

are actually not in a rush and not

sleepd deprived and there is a quote

from Naval Rabikan that I really like

which is that the goal should be to play

long-term games with long-term people.

Now, if you got to this part in the

video, I would love to end with a few

personal reflections on what I have

taken away from from Joe's teachings. I

would say that the best way to get

started with them is to listen to his

podcast, which is called the art of

accomplishment, and just scroll through

the podcast, and you'll find it on all

the podcast platforms. Now, for me

there's a few other bits that I really

really vibe with in Joe's teachings. One

is the view framework, which is a

really, really good framework for how to

navigate conversations. And I found that

since applying that framework to my

marriage, um, my relationship has

improved drastically and we're having a

lot fewer arguments. And then one of the

main things that I apply to my work life

is this whole idea that if we are

struggling to make any kind of decision

it is because there is some sort of

emotion that we are not feeling. Cuz if

we feel the emotion, it wouldn't be a it

wouldn't be a decision we're struggling

with. It would be obvious what the next

answer is. But when we're struggling

with that decision, there's often an

underlying emotion and then approaching

that with curiosity and wonder to think

huh, I wonder what underlying emotion

this is and let me figure out a way to

feel the emotion. And then like

generally for me, I find it gives me a

lot more clarity when I follow that

process rather than when I try and

journal my way to it by trying to logic

myself into typing stuff out and talking

to chat GBT and things like that, which

would be my default tendency otherwise.

So anyway, I hope you got some value

from this video. And if you are looking

for something else to watch that will

also help you along your way to being a

top 1% person in success, however you'd

like to define that success, then check

out this video over here, which is a

video I made recently that's done super

well actually on how to actually achieve

your goals. So, thank you so much for

watching. Have a lovely day and I will

see you in the next video. Bye-bye.