Episode 550 Scott Adams: How to Reprogram Your Brain, and Other People as Well

Date: 2019-06-01 | Duration: 1:05:06

Topics

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Rough Transcript

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Transcript

[0:04]

[Music] pom pom pom Andrew how are you sailing come on in grab your beverages it’s time for coffee with Scott Adams the best part of the day it’s the part of the day that makes all the rest of the day go better you know that’s why you’re here you’re here for the for the dopamine you came to the right place and if you were prepared I think most of you are if you’re prepared you’ve got a cup or glass or a mug maybe a Steiner attacker Dora or a chalice possibly a thermos maybe a flask fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the simultaneous scepter oh so good I don’t know who invented coffee but they need the Nobel Prize and coffee that doesn’t make sense but I’m very

[1:06]

that doesn’t make sense but I’m very tired I’ll teach you later in this periscope how to get more sleep I should teach myself first of all let me give you an update on my ongoing experiment with blocking all trolls so the the idea is I started a bit ago instead of interacting to trolls and people who insult and start with start with crazy attacks on you instead of reacting to them because I thought it was fun and it was fun it was totally fun it would also ramp me up in a way that I wanted to see if over time the fun I was getting of interacting with the trolls was having maybe a bigger cost and it was invisible to me because I really was enjoying it you know no kidding I absolutely love the energy I love the you know the fight the competition I liked I liked guy just like winning because most of the trolls are not that

[2:08]

because most of the trolls are not that smart so usually you can get over on them pretty well then you’re doing it in front other people so you’ve got an audience that’s everything I like but I wanted to experiment with just blocking them ruthlessly on the first offense so no interaction one offense pong going forever not mute not mute mute is mute is like being agnostic I don’t mute well that’s not true I do mute people who I know to be mostly good people who had a bad day or they’re just spamming me too much but that’s the exception and the result so far or spectacular I have to say that my mental health is conspicuously improved now most of you don’t have as many trolls as I do so you wouldn’t have the same amount of impact oh man very successful all right let’s talk about some other things Laura Ingraham is in trouble for allegedly allegedly defending this is what bad

[3:09]

allegedly defending this is what bad people say if you talk about somebody that will be called defending them so Laura Ingraham is accused of defending someone who she didn’t defend she just talked now he and it was part of a group of people that she was talking about who were banned on social media one of them whose name I’m not even gonna say I won’t even say was accused of being a a white supremacist and I thought to myself huh I don’t know too much about this character I think I’ll read what is it about this character that you know how is this true because I’ve never met one and when I say I’ve never met one I mean I’ve never met one in my recent adult life I think when I was younger you’d find people who literally had white supremacist thoughts but I can’t think of anybody I’ve met in I know 10

[4:09]

think of anybody I’ve met in I know 10 years who had any kind of a thought like that and so I read what this character who was labeled a way supremacist what are his views and it turns out there’s no real word for what this guy is and again you don’t even need to know who it is but when you read his opinion he’s literally the opposite he’s a white inferior assist I’m not gonna tell you it is but when you read what what what he what he believes he believes that the white people will not be competitive with some other group that I’m not even going to name but he believes that if if we don’t block some of the group from coming into the country we won’t be competitive we meaning in his view white people so he’s literally someone who thinks that white people can’t compete is that it is that it is that a white supremacist you would think that the minimum requirement to be a supremacist is you have to think your group is

[5:10]

is you have to think your group is better if you unambiguously clearly and consistently say your group can’t compete I don’t know what do you call that a bigot you know definitely a bigot I’ll go with that racists sure sure racist making all of those things but supremacist nationalist yes white nationalist probably I think all of those words are perfectly you know acceptable and I condemn this individual totally so let me say this as clearly as possible I’m not defending this guy this is a guy who doesn’t deserve any defending so the the person I didn’t name when my words are taken out of context later let me say he’s not anybody that I would defend he’s probably all of those bad things but he’s the opposite of a supremacist if anything he’s got low self-esteem so that was just interesting there was an article in The New Yorker The New Yorker

[6:12]

article in The New Yorker The New Yorker being a high intellectual kind of a publication and the publication is talking about how people are easily fooled by things right so it’s an article about people who are easily fooled to believe things that aren’t true and somebody tweeted to me and said they mentioned the fine people hoax I’m like finally finally a you know a high-end magazine The New Yorker is finally writing a piece where they exposed the fine people hoax you know it took a while but I figured there would be more more high-end publications coming around to the truth turned out to be exactly the opposite when I read it there were some psychologists at Princeton Betsy Levi Appellate who just received a MacArthur Genius grant so it’s a Princeton University psychologist who is also a certified meaning she got a

[7:14]

also a certified meaning she got a MacArthur grant genius that’s actually the word they used on the grant she’s actually called the genius and the context is how easily people are fooled and she believes the fine people hoax so it’s just used as an example of something but it’s mind-blowing that somebody who’s an expert at identifying illusions believes the most easily debunked illusion in the world it’s literally a video you can just watch it you can read the transcript it’s the simplest most easily debunked thing in the world alright so that was interesting there is there was another shooting incident and I’m not going to name the person I’m not even going to name the location you know and by the way I’ve been I need some fact-checking on this I was watching fox news coverage first when the shooting happened the recent

[8:15]

when the shooting happened the recent one and they did not mention the name of the shooter is that true all over now is it true that all of the media is not naming the shooter does anybody have a confirmation of that and has anybody seen his name don’t mention it if you’ve seen his name I don’t want I do not want to see you here in fact I’ll block you if you mentioned it on this if you mention it in the comments and you know his name I’m gonna block you just so know that I think we’ve gotten to a smarter place now I don’t think that that’s the one thing that’s going to make it to stop happening because maybe we have to take it to the next level and not covered is news how many of you or somebody says they’ve seen it man god that bothers me you know it’s a free country free speech so certainly the news organizations have a right to publish it but overseas is that where you saw it you saw it in the Daily Mail okay so maybe BBC gave it out so

[9:18]

Mail okay so maybe BBC gave it out so there may be a different standard in the United States well if our primary United States now let’s don’t use his name I would say that’s progress all right but there’s a question that I asked myself is the is the problem with gun violence that doesn’t look like it’s solvable along normal political lines it seems to me that we’re not really close to having any kind of change with guns that would actually make any difference to this kind of crime and I wonder if this is one of those cases and I’ll give you some other examples in which technology can solve the thing which politics kidnapper solve let me give you some other examples there is a debate about whether climate change is a big deal or not such a big deal can’t be solved seems like we’ll never agree on whether it’s a big deal or not a big deal but technology can make the

[10:20]

deal but technology can make the question irrelevant because generation four nuclear and even generation three nuclear which we could do right away is the right path no matter what you believe so if you think climate change is a problem go nuclear as hard as you can if you think it’s not a problem go nuclear as hard as you can because as economic reasons it’s good for the poor it’s good for the economy it’s good for everything and the risk is this minimal so so yeah they are shutting down nukes but the point is we do have a solution we still have to you know be smart enough to use it I predict we will be smart enough it might take a little work to get there but that’s an example here’s example I think and another example oh this is more of a question than an example but it’s maybe an example it seems to me that we found a way to identify people who are self

[11:22]

identify people who are self radicalizing either would be easy to do that right somebody was looking at Isis sites people who are typing messages they have some kind of you know Pro terrorist thing in them it seems like anybody who’s got a digital footprint the government should be in a position to detect them you know there’s some of them might be using encrypted apps or whatever but even then I I sort of think maybe we have a backdoor even into the encrypted apps if they’re American based companies or even if they’re not so it seems to me that we may have already not a hundred percent salt but going a long way toward deprogramming radicals who were being radicalized by themselves essentially online I think we figured out a way to deprogram people in real-time now I can’t prove that because it’s sort of the absence of information I’m I’m not watching lots of terrorists being radicalized in the United States

[12:22]

being radicalized in the United States and then on top of that suppose I do get radicalized I think based on the fact that I’m not seeing a lot of terrorist attacks in the homeland and you have to assume I salute Eretz attacks in the homeland Isis has no reason not to do terrible things because they’re losing anyway it’s not like they’re winning but so they must not be able and that suggests that we have technology and systems in place that are more effective than maybe you guessed and knowing what people are doing and stopping them so here’s the question ask myself could there ever be a technology solution for identifying and stopping crazy mass shooters who are not terrorists so there’s no sense that these people care about terrorism they just want to kill a bunch of people they’re just crazy is there any technology that would identify them before they did it I don’t know the answer that but let me

[13:23]

know the answer that but let me brainstorm a couple things maybe you have some other ideas could you could you create a mental health detector could you could you if we and I’m not saying this is practical so we’re just going through a brainstorming process right now if you could force everybody and we were not but if you could force everybody to have an MRI every six months could the MRI ever learn to detect dangerous violent thoughts forming that could actually turn into violence maybe because we now have technology that can read your actual thoughts and form the picture in your mind if you didn’t know that you get a big surprise coming technology can now if they put you in a dark room and say imagine a coffee cup we have sensors we can put on your brain that will see the coffee cup you’re imagining in your head

[14:24]

coffee cup you’re imagining in your head did you know that we can do that now now what happens if that technology improves suppose we can do it passively what happens when you can do it passively let’s say you’re just walking through a doorway into the mall and the frame of the mall has a scanner in it it’s faster and you don’t need permission it’s just scheduled all the way through could we build scanners someday we’re not there but could we build scanners to actually identify violent intention in your brain yeah somebody’s saying what could possibly go wrong so if you’re saying it’s not practical it’s illegal it’s a violation of privacy those are all all true I’m not suggesting this is a practical idea I’m just talking about the field of things that are in play maybe somebody could find a way to satisfy our legal privacy personal rights and still get the information maybe I’m not smart enough to do it but the technology is

[15:26]

to do it but the technology is suggestive that we might be able to directly detect it alright let’s go to another so this is a separate idea suppose suppose you couldn’t buy a gun unless you had a robust social media presence think about you can’t plug on unless you have a social media presence and you’ve got some number of friends I don’t know what the number is 25 50 it would be easy to have 25 friends on Facebook it would be easy to have 25 yeah mostly Facebook let’s say yeah let’s look at it to Facebook we’ll keep it for that so let’s say you have to have a Facebook account to buy a gun now would that be a problem probably a lot of people would resist but I mean let me just fill out the thinking now for those of you are saying Second Amendment right it’s

[16:28]

saying Second Amendment right it’s absolute can’t do anything to infringe I hear you so you don’t have to tell me that again I understand that your interpretation of the Constitution is you just can’t do anything to infringe the right dog of God I get that we’re just walking through the possibilities right because there might be something that you would say oh okay that’s so harmless I could see that so just let me see if I can feel my way to something that is not offensive to your sense of freedom because I’m I’m completely cognizant of that here’s here’s the thought suppose you had a system in which if let’s say I’ll just pick a number randomly let’s say if 10 of your Facebook friends hit a secret button to report you as potentially dangerous meaning with a weapon you know crazy shooter kind of dangerous have you noticed the number of these crazy shooters were at least suspected

[17:30]

crazy shooters were at least suspected by their friends and family there were friends and family who did you know kind of get that these people might be a little dangerous now suppose we had a system where you could report somebody anonymously your friend you could say my facebook friend acting a little dangerous in my opinion Boop now the person who was reported would not know who reported them it’d be anonymous if one report comes in the police would say yeah could be a troll could be anything if perhaps three of them come in from different sources there might be some threshold where the police say okay that’s three separate reports that the same person might be a little dangerous maybe we pay him a visit but paying a visit might not be enough so I’m thinking there could be some kind of a detector which is human beings so the human beings would be like the drug sniffing dogs that would detect there’s

[18:30]

sniffing dogs that would detect there’s some reason to be concerned but it’s not until the police get involved it makes a difference now suppose and again I’m just all I’m doing is suggesting things so some people are saying there is a red flag law I think that’s slightly different from what I’m saying but but bear with me so I’ll say if three people report somebody as being dangerous the police are authorized to monitor their social media traffic and they have some algorithms which they figured out over time that people who do this and this of this are very likely to become shooters so then you’d have human beings who said this is dangerous then you’d have your technology and they would say yep all the behaviors are dangerous then maybe there’s another escalation in which again this is just brain storming so let me put this out there suppose the police came and said we know you have X guns because you bought them recently and you know you’re on you’re on our

[19:32]

and you know you’re on you’re on our database you need to put a tracker on your LSA you need to put a gun lock on your gun or something that maybe I don’t limits the number of rounds you know maybe you’re maybe you have to have some kind of a technology that gives you three rounds you know which would be enough of something comes into your house you know as a burglar it wouldn’t be enough if you wanted to go kill up people in an office so none of these ideas are good so those of you saying no no not all of your ideas are bad I know that I’m simply brainstorming could there be a technology they would accurately identify bad people there would be some the false positives any kind of a system like that would guarantee that somebody who was not going to be a shooter still got still got their rights infringed now

[20:35]

got still got their rights infringed now let me ask you this would you be willing suppose you can live in a world in which I’ll make up some numbers just for hypothetical so we’ll see in the comments what you’d say suppose I could and I know this is not possible but it’s just I pathetically suppose I could eliminate mass shootings with it with some kind of a system I could eliminate them but the price of that elimination is that point zero one percent of gun owners would have limitations put on their gun ownership I don’t know what those limitations look like could be a technology that tracks them could be their their communications or monitored it could be their location is monitored could be something like that but could you live in a world where 99.99 people who own guns have no restrictions beyond what we already have before that point zero one they

[21:36]

before that point zero one they definitely lose a little bit of Rights could you live with that you know those of you saying no I I respect it as a matter of principle I do I suspect no somebody says you said liberal and I used to say I was left at Bernie until he went bad I’ll talk about him so pretty much every law that we passed in this country makes something a little less free for somebody else and you have to ask yourself how much of a little bit of less free are you willing to put up with to eliminate or vastly reduce mass casualties think about it [Applause] speaking of birdie I have famously said for a long time that politically I call myself left of Bernie except I’m better at math so I know I know his programs are impractical because he can’t pay for

[22:37]

are impractical because he can’t pay for them and they would destroy the economy etc but I like the fact that he has a vision of you know free education he has a vision of everybody having yeah access to good healthcare at a reasonable price etcetera so I like his visions I’ve liked a lot about Bernie especially his honesty compared to other politicians you know I’m sure he’s got his issues but I have to admit until this week even though I didn’t think he would be a good president I respected him I respected his determination I respected how he’s moved our minds into you know sort of different priorities I respected a lot about him and indeed the last time he ran I I said that his campaign ad was the best ad of the entire election and it was it was a masterpiece do you remember the one with the Simon and Garfunkel song and everybody was screaming toward the you know the picturesque the speaker at the at the shore which was Bernie and

[23:40]

the at the shore which was Bernie and but he just put out his new campaign ad in which he actually pushes the fine people hoax again and I think to myself every bit of goodwill you had just went out the door when you became a racist because let’s be honest this is a sort of racist to to push that at this point now I’m using racist in the in the way that Bernie would use it which is it doesn’t mean you’re necessarily you know a classically racist but you’ve identified some group to demonize Bernie has identified Republicans as a group to demonize because of their support of this president and I don’t know how you can get around it even though he is a white guy it looks racist to me because he’s demonizing the group I don’t think he’d get out of it just because of your ethnicity all right let’s see how about

[24:40]

ethnicity all right let’s see how about Bill Maher said on talking about Joe Biden last night switching the topic yeah Bill Maher said I do worry I do worry Morris and Beau Biden like I’ve said about age it’s individual some people look pretty good Joe doesn’t look good it looks like he’s on a coin which is a pretty funny line so this is Bill Maher who’s concerned not only about Joe’s age and I have to say he does seem too old to me and say that for a while and then and then Bill Maher pointed out that he worries that Joe Biden will be you know touching a little girl the way he did a few days ago you know a week before the election and so in other words Bill Maher has correctly identified that Joe Biden couldn’t possibly win against Trump not under current condition something big would have to change for him to win I don’t

[25:41]

have to change for him to win I don’t think he has a chance and I think the people on the left are really realizing this and has something to do with what’s changing in the rankings you know you’ll see Elizabeth Warren is coming up because even she would be more electable than Biden and I don’t think she could get elected but she would be more electable let’s talk about Kanye West was on Letterman’s show and I’m gonna use this anecdote to launch into my little topic about how to program your own mind and had a program other people this is actually gonna be maybe some of the most useful things you’ve ever heard in your life so I’ll start with Kanye on Letterman so Kanye mentioned that he’s never voted in his life I too have never voted one of the benefits I say you get by intentionally not voting oh I’m sorry I have voted I just don’t vote now so I voted for Jimmy Carter a long time ago I guess

[26:44]

Jimmy Carter a long time ago I guess that’s what taught me I shouldn’t vote I’m too dumb to vote I learned that by voting for Carter but so Kanye is if it has not voted even more than I’ve not voted now I do it intentionally because it’s a it’s a trick I use to keep me from having a team mentality and just you know agreeing with my team all the time Kanye is one of the most famous people who is not on the side do you think he should be on you say hey Kanye you’re black so why are you not a Democrat why are you not hating on President Trump well it turns out that not voting as as predictable as as I think it would be helps Kanye probably probably it’s not the only thing that goes into his decision-making but not voting probably helps him a lot in being able to see the you know the good and both sides and sure enough that’s what he’s sort of famous for in addition to his you know

[27:45]

famous for in addition to his you know incredible career he’s also famous for being a trump at least personally support her as opposed to a policy supporter and he can cross lines partly because he’s an artist but partly too it definitely helps is not the full picture but it definitely helps to not vote now I think all of you should vote for different reasons you invest you in the system it makes the system work but just personally I’m a person who talks about politics and in public it’s better if I don’t but here’s what I’m getting to the interesting part so Letterman responds to Kanye saying he’s never voted by saying quote then you don’t have a say in this so Letterman saying if you don’t vote you don’t have a say in politics is that logical that’s not logical but I’ll bet a lot say I’m seeing it in the comments

[28:45]

a lot say I’m seeing it in the comments somebody’s agreeing with exactly says Richard Richardson’s exactly before you agree with that like I have to warn you I’m going to be mocking in a moment could you point to where in the Constitution where in the Constitution does it say that if you don’t vote you lose your right of free speech did I miss that line can somebody can somebody point to that part of the Constitution where people who don’t vote lose their freedom of speech I’ve I haven’t seen it is there a law did somebody write a law that says if you didn’t vote you you’ve lost your right to talk about things in public I don’t I don’t remember saying that nowhere and somebody made an interesting comment I’m gonna steal here in the comments sent proxy voting I’m a proxy voter meaning that at least 1500

[29:47]

proxy voter meaning that at least 1500 people have told me I mean I’ve actually did a poll online so I know it’s over 1500 people told me that I caused them to vote for jump because of the way I explained his persuasion framing now if I don’t vote personally for a party it doesn’t bind me to a party but I still influenced at least 1500 people my guess is closer to a hundred thousand because when you do a Twitter survey you’re just getting a you know some small portion of people we haven’t answered the question probably I influenced a hundred thousand people all right so I certainly voted I think I I think I voted about a hundred thousand times more than you did just saying so these things are not as simple as you you think but here’s my main point there are things which we learned and this is going to dovetail into my topic about programming your brain we are programmed at you in our youth to believe things

[30:50]

at you in our youth to believe things that are nonsense I remember when I was in sixth grade my my sixth grade teacher said come up to the board you know one at a time we’re asked to come up to the it was a blackboard at that and write down something you would be willing to die for and I still remember I went up and I think I wrote her freedom so I’m in sixth grade and I wrote that I’d be willing to die for freedom and I thought man I’m a star I’m kind of you know I’m making my classmates look sort of small because I don’t know what they said they’d be willing to die for but I said freedom I would be willing to die for freedom here’s what’s wrong with that I was 12 years old my brain isn’t even formed can I make a decision about dying for freedom at 12 years old I was just brainwashed in retrospect when I look back it’s obvious that my answer was

[31:52]

back it’s obvious that my answer was just brainwashing if you’d said give me the reason you know Scott 12-year old Scott can you give me the reason that you would die for freedom I didn’t have one I had literally been brainwashed and I couldn’t tell the difference between the brainwashing and something that seemed completely reasonable now somebody’s saying it’s the right answer had I been an adult had I been an adult I might have given the same answer I might have said as an adult I would die for freedom but as an adult I would at least have something like a reason I would say for example well our species has evolved so that that men have more dangerous lives because you know part of their role is to do dangerous stuff such as protecting and you know defending and fighting off intruders and stuff like that and I’m part of the class of human beings were somewhat expendable and if I have to die

[32:53]

somewhat expendable and if I have to die for the freedom of people who’ll be having babies and putting forth the putting forth the you know I know my genes then I’m willing to do that because I’ve evolved into into a mindset that makes me a creature that is willing to die for my tribe right so in other words there could some adult way of understanding that which you can say was logical but here’s my point at age 12 I didn’t have any thinking like that I had literally just been brainwashed that I should die literally died for a reason I didn’t even understand not at 12 and when Leatherman said that if you if you if you if Kanye didn’t vote he doesn’t have a say that’s not thinking that’s not adult thinking I don’t think he is of course you do you have a right to vote you have a right to free speech they’re just different things Letterman was

[33:54]

just different things Letterman was stuck on a child brainwashing I know would he call it a meme a belief so as an adult he still had a child brainwashing leftover a piece in his brain and I’m going to teach you how to make those productively that little bit of brain washing that Letterman still maintained as an adult if you brainwash yourself you can actually change your brain into a more effective orally or a less effective if you do it wrong creature so I’m going to teach you that in a moment let me give you an example for my dog and Snickers if you have ever tried to train a dog with treats you’ve learned a lot about human beings because humans are not that different from animals when you’re training them meaning that there’s a cause and effect hey I’ll do that for a treat until the habit is formed my dog Snickers it was

[34:54]

habit is formed my dog Snickers it was trained somewhat accidentally that if I hand her a treat with my fingers in my hand it’s delicious because when I trade her I use delicious treats in my hand that I give her by hand and she’s as learned that if sheets her regular food and of her dish that’s boring old dry food that nobody would do a trick for she trained herself accidentally I guess I trained her but I didn’t know I was doing it that she won’t we eat her dry food from the dish unless I first picks them up and handed to as a treat well she will stand next to a full dish of food while she’s hungry and won’t eat it until like in right in front of her I pick it out of the dish take it from the dishwashers watching and hold it in front of her transferring that same foods that dry food into my hand turns it into a treat and then she’s like all it’s it’s hand food now come on give me a ha ha ha ha give me some of that hand food right now

[35:56]

some of that hand food right now Snickers exactly like David Letterman is just trained Letterman statement that you don’t have a say if you didn’t vote there’s no logical connection to that it’s just hey if it’s in your hand it must be a treat that’s all the thinking Letterman was doing if it’s in your hand it must be a treat but he didn’t know it and by the way Letterman’s a smart guy right I’m not saying he’s dumb I’m saying that the way human brains work is they form associations and the association’s overwhelm your your logical faculties so I’m going to teach you how to program your own brain and also how to program other people now this would be a conceptual level all right but it’ll be enough to get you going and how to understand it and then maybe you could dig down a little bit maybe I’ll talk more about it if you want to follow up on it my two books cover all of this material have it

[36:59]

cover all of this material have it failed almost everything and still win big teaches you how to form systems essentially how to program yourself and then when Bigley is how to program other people instead of persuading other people but between the two of them you’ll see the framework that I’m giving you now but also a lot more detail all right so here are some rules on programming your own brain in no particular order number one what you focus on will become important to you and when it becomes important to you you will notice opportunities that you didn’t notice before so this is what the concept behind affirmations affirmations are you either repeat to yourself or you write down say 15 times a day it doesn’t matter how you do it it’s just the focus that matters it doesn’t matter if you’re typing it doesn’t matter if you’re writing it doesn’t matter if you’re humming you’re chanting it thinking the words whatever it is if you’re focusing on it it’s going to cause your brain to

[37:59]

on it it’s going to cause your brain to be programmed over time to start noticing things that can get you that thing so if you said to yourself I’d like to get have a career as a police dispatcher just a rear you know random weird thing let’s say that was your goal I wouldn’t be a police dispatcher but I don’t know how to do it so you start focusing on it thinking about it chanting it and then one day you’re gonna say what what what did I just hear I think I just heard somebody say that they were a police dispatcher all that let me go ask you a question and then you find out how to be a police dispatcher you can literally tune your mind to notice opportunities that were there all along but they weren’t they weren’t programmed into your filter so concentration and repetition of a very specific end state gives you a different brain it actually re-engineers your brain to make it a sensor to pick up

[38:59]

brain to make it a sensor to pick up opportunities that you couldn’t see before so that’s your first trick the things you focus on in terms of your intentions and your your your ambitions that Tunes your brain to get them what doesn’t turn your brain to get what you want is every now and then somebody says what do you like and you say well yeah I’d like sure like to win the lottery or you know I’d like to be like to be the CEO a fortune 500 company but then you don’t think about it again you don’t do anything about it the other thing that focusing on your goal does is it makes it a priority in a way that it wasn’t before you spend all your time thinking about it so if something is priority you’ll put more work into it you’ll take more sacrifice you will sacrifice you know you’ll you’ll arrange your schedule for it etc so making something are important to your own brain is reprogramming you can take something that you think is a pretty good idea and

[39:59]

that you think is a pretty good idea and talk yourself into thinking it’s a great idea just by focusing not obsessing on it writing you down and thinking about it that’s how you tune your brain that’s just part of what we’re what we’re doing so let’s rule on focus and intention by the way the the word intention I got that from Marc Benioff who founded Salesforce and is worth many billions of dollars he’s a user he’s a special kind of a mind anyway in a good way here’s another tip mental shelf space your brain can handle just so many things as a point of focus and just so many things you can think about during the day if you don’t fill it up with things you want to think about it will fill up with other things and those other things might be bad thoughts they

[40:59]

other things might be bad thoughts they might be counterproductive they might make you sad they might make you sick and so one of the things that I recommend is to always fill your own shelf space and don’t let it get filled accidentally if you don’t fill your own mind it will get filled because you can’t not think it is impossible to turn off your thoughts I mean in a practical sense during the day you can’t turn off your thoughts unless you’re a pretty drunk so fill it up with as many good thoughts as you can one of the things I try to do on this periscope is I try to give you some things that’ll make you feel good some things that’ll teach you something if you if you learn something you get this little dopamine hit or some kind of pleasurable hit I don’t know if it’s dopamine per se but learning something useful gives you a little ah so fill it up just pack it if you have trouble sleeping I’m going to give you

[42:01]

trouble sleeping I’m going to give you I’m going to give you a thought that you may wish you never heard because I might be reprogramming you here in a moment this might actually be so powerful that I’m almost hesitant to say it I’m gonna make a direct suggestion if you don’t want to hear this you probably want to turn off the sound I’ll tell you what I’ll raise my hand when I’m done saying it okay so if you don’t want to hear or you sort of do I’ll keep my hand up while I’m saying the thing that some of you might not want to hear all right if you want to be better as sleeping okay here it is when my hand goes down you can turn the you can turn the sound back on if you’d like to be better as sleeping here’s a thought here’s the thought I used to tell myself this at night when I

[43:03]

tell myself this at night when I couldn’t if I couldn’t sleep I would say if I can’t get to sleep I haven’t worked hard enough try that if you’re having trouble sleeping at night tell yourself while you’re laying there unable to sleep if I can’t sleep tonight I probably haven’t worked hard enough now when I say work hard enough I mean both exercise and you know the kind of work that your brain does you know brain work and hand em all right so those of you who had the sound off it’s such a powerful thought that I actually have a I have an ethical barrier there because that thought is so strong when you first hear it it might mean nothing but if you start thinking about it it’s gonna reprogram your brain and you’re gonna act in a way that I think is productive

[44:04]

act in a way that I think is productive but that’s up to you all right here’s another thought brains are Association machines they are not logic machines our brains can do logic sort of sometimes some people we have the the minimal ability to be rational but we’re not good at it mostly we are association machines so when I’m training my dog I say if you do what I want you get this delicious treat so the dog associated to the treat and there’s no thought pattern if you asked the dog why the dog is doing it if the dog could think like a human they would say well I’m just making this human happy it’s how I get a treat but it’s not like that that’s the rationalization after the fact we are simply association machines and pattern recognition machines as somebody’s saying in the comments so if you want a new kind of behavior you

[45:04]

you want a new kind of behavior you should treat yourself like a dog meaning give yourself a treat so I wrote about this in how to fail one of the habits that I’ve developed is that when I work out I always have a delicious protein shake and always give myself a little time in the snack bar at the gym to to read the news and enjoy my you know just enjoy my downtime it’s like my little very enjoyable private quiet time after I’ve just exercise so my body feels good my mind feels good I have this delicious flavor and that’s good and it’s not the only reason I exercise you know I don’t exercise just because I you know I have a nice treat at the end but it’s part of the package of things I do to make exercising palatable and easy and I work at it over time to make sure that it’s part of my habit so always give yourself

[46:06]

part of my habit so always give yourself some kind of treat for something that you want to get yourself to do so you’re actually programming yourself like a dog and you are this simple you don’t want to think you’re this simple but you are give yourself a treat you’re just an animal treats work next the other way we’re association machines is this is something I learned from my hypnosis instructor and I put it in my book and a lot of people said this really really made a difference there are those days when you don’t want to exercise but you know you should you have the time you you know you should exercise but your body just can’t do it but or really it’s your brain your brain can’t talk you into exercising so if you can’t talk yourself into doing something big like exercising talk yourself into the smallest thing you can do that will get you a little bit pregnant meaning something that will get you on a path toward changing your mind

[47:08]

toward changing your mind so don’t go from I don’t want to do it too I do want to do it it’s too big you can’t do that it’s too far go from I don’t want to do it too well I could do this and this is put on your exercise clothes when you put on your footwear for exercise you know your your sneakers your tennis shoes whatever when you put them on if you’re like most people and you don’t wear them every day just putting on your exercise clothing will cause an association just like the dog and the trait the association will instantly reprogram your mind into exercise mode you have to try this to know that it’s real now I’m not saying it’s like you know it’ll turn you into a zombie you can’t make decisions I’m just saying that we are Association machines and if you can’t get to the gym change your association put on the clothes that are associated with a gym and watch how

[48:08]

are associated with a gym and watch how quickly that takes you down the path now the next thing you do is if you somebody says is real I just did it yeah so a lot of people have gotten back to me and said oh yeah that totally changed my exercise ability just that one little trick now the next thing you should do is give yourself permission to do the smallest workout in the world here’s the smallest workout in the world and by the way I do this workout the exact one I’m going to explain maybe six times a year the smallest workout in the world you put on your gym clothes and in my case I go to a gym in my car and I go to my car and then I drive to the gym and I sit in the parking lot and I can’t get out of the car I’m actually too tired today it’s just not going to work and then here’s the important part I Drive home that’s it that’s the shortest workout in the world I just drove to I walked to my car and I walked back from my car that was in my garage that was my entire workout plus putting on my

[49:08]

entire workout plus putting on my working clothes now if you say to yourself I am now a failure because I wanted to exercise that night did not you’re in the wrong mindset right those of you know where I’m going you’re already handed me the right mindset is that you have a habit and your habit is you’re going to do what you can to get to the gym X days a week if you if you maintain might if that bell rings again I might have to shut this off do this if Christina doesn’t get the door but if I haven’t lost my train of thought oh so the point is that what you should be shooting for is a system and a set of habits about exercising if you can fix your brain to have a set of habits which is okay I always do this I know how to get myself in the mood by putting on my clothes etc and then I’m gonna drive to

[50:09]

clothes etc and then I’m gonna drive to the gym even if I don’t feel like I can workout allow yourself to just drive home and call it a victory because it is the victory is that you kept your habit intact that’s the that’s it get your system to work because if only six times a year I Drive to the gym sit in the parking lot and then say all right it’s just not happening today and drive home I never call that a bad day I call that complete success because it tells me my system is so strong it will actually get my lazy ass body to the gym across town what I really don’t want to it’s that strong so that’s what you want to shoot for for if you ever have that experience of going all the way to the gym walking in the front door and saying not today and turning around and walking out the door just know that I I think you’re awesome all right if you can ever have that day you are killing it and by the way ask I

[51:11]

are killing it and by the way ask I would challenge you to ask any exercise expert to validate what I’m telling you ask your exercises expert if you go to the gym once in a while and just turn around and walk back home will your exercise experts say that you are a failure that day guaranteed not not your exercise expert is gonna say you are a superstar because you went all the way to the gym with a body that didn’t want to workout and tomorrow you’ll go to the gym and you work out all right so developing habits however you can do it through repetition through giving yourself a reward we are we are association in sort of habit machines right so so usually use associations to create habits and let the habit reinforce itself here’s another thing that humans do is they create fake reasons we’re not really rational

[52:11]

reasons we’re not really rational creatures and you can see that on every political conversation the conversation is about politics sometimes or about different let’s say ethical standards sometimes about different information but most of the time we have the same standard standards for ethics largely and we have the same information and we still disagree on what we’re saying we’re seeing two movies on one screen as I say and we live in a world in which fake reasons for our own actions are common if you say why do you support candidate X somebody will give you a reason but once you’re a hypnotist and you learn you know persuasion you realize that the reasons that people give for their actions are made-up concocted fake reasons the they’re just papering over the fact that they don’t have reasons they have a feeling I feel like I’m on this team and

[53:12]

feeling I feel like I’m on this team and so I’m biased or thinking they’re candidate and what they do is all good that’s the real reason but if you ask them they’ll say some bizarre sounding rational reasons like well I’ve decided that the economy will go up to 0.2% because historically bubbeleh so people are full of fake reasons once you realize that you can program yourself with a fake reason you have a new tool you can actually convince yourself to do the right thing with fake reasons I call it the fake because and by the way science backs this so you so we know that if people give a fake reason that even other people will respond to it like it made sense and the book influence gives examples or studies to show that so if you don’t have a good reason to do something that you know you ought to do let’s say working harder all right so let’s say what you want to do is work

[54:13]

so let’s say what you want to do is work harder on some specific objective give yourself a fake reason I’m gonna work harder because it’s part of my exercise routine I’m gonna work harder because it’ll help me sleep I’m gonna work harder because I want to I want to impress my parents I’m gonna work harder because I think it’ll help me in mating I’m gonna doesn’t matter why give yourself a fake reason even one that you know is a little sketchy the weird part about this is I think most of you are resisting probably if this is a new topic to you you’re probably resisting you’re saying why would I lie to myself that’s the phrase some issues I lie to myself how’s that gonna work when I know it doesn’t make sense here’s the strange part it does work just as well if you don’t believe it you don’t even need to

[55:13]

don’t believe it you don’t even need to believe it you can say to yourself that’s a rational but I’m just myself I’m doing it for the afterlife and doing it to win in a war whatever doesn’t matter just give yourself a reason you will you will find that that fake reason is an organizing principle even if you know it’s fake it’s one of the greatest powers you can learn is that we’re not rational beings well we can program be programmed with this pseudo pseudo logic to get someplace you know you want to go all right repetition of course is important I’ve mentioned that and everything I’m doing so whether it’s filling your shelf space or developing a habit or going to the gym or giving yourself a treat or focusing on something it doesn’t matter what it is no matter what it is do it a lot the more you repeat it’s the repetition that makes it part of the programming of your brain you should have visual use of visual imagination to

[56:19]

have visual use of visual imagination to help you get what you want you want to try to imagine it in your brain the outcome you want as specifically or as generally as you can you will it’s probably better if you see all the variations and how you can get what you want when I was young I used to visualize that I would be presenting something I didn’t know what in front of large audiences now think about that I didn’t I didn’t do anything in my life for my entire you know college etc that would prepare me in any direct way to be a public presenter of anything but I focused on it my whole life and thought about it and thought of standing in front of a crowd usually on the stage but technology allows me to do it this way and and Here I am there’s a big coincidence probably not because you’ll find many many cases you know I don’t have a study to support it but the

[57:21]

have a study to support it but the people who focus on something and visualize it and the visual is the part I’m emphasizing here our visual sense is our dominant mental process were conscious of and if you can put into a visual the thing you want so much more powerful in route broke reprogramming your own brain to to be the filter you want it to be you want to do that it’s more powerful to have a vision of you in front of a group than it would be to have a concept such as I would like to have a one-to-many relationship in which my economic well-being is related to the number of people in my audience eyes right that would be a perfectly rational goal that would have no ability to program you okay here’s another example and I’m modeling this right now I showed you in my periscope yesterday that I’ve decided to monetize the YouTube feed of this when this gets downloaded it gets uploaded into YouTube in an hour so look

[58:23]

uploaded into YouTube in an hour so look for the phrase real coffee WA Scott Adams real coffee with Scott Adams just Google that you can find it easily but that small amount of monetization which I showed you it’s literally a few hundred dollars per month feels to me like a treat just like my dog gets a treat for doing the trick I get a few hundred dollars for doing a periscope and I really feel good about it and I tell myself Scott there’s no way that this small amount of money compared to my vast wealth will have any impact on me I mean I like to think maybe it would get bigger someday that’d be great but it doesn’t need to I mean I’m doing fine so the fact that my logical my logical brain says that this little bit of monetization this little bit of money that people give me on patreon this you know there’s these minor donations people make $1$5 that people make on my

[59:23]

people make $1$5 that people make on my own app interface by wind hub allows you to to donate those things absolutely programming so you people who are saying hey I would like to encourage you to do more of this stuff it works I swear to god people who give me a dollar and that’s actually the most donation is one dollar or one dollar a month on patreon or on my app interface by window that dollar absolutely changes how I feel because I get a notice for every every donation I get an email or a notice on patreon and I can look at it and I look at the name I see that a person a real living person took their time to find the app figured out how to donate push the button and gave me a dollar and I look at that person’s name and I get this little dopamine rush for a dollar for one dollar I get a dopamine rush like and and it causes me to have

[1:00:26]

rush like and and it causes me to have more enthusiasm to put a little more energy into this to to care more alright so you are programming me the same way my dog same way my dog is gets programmed by me alright so those are the ways to program yourself you want to any behavior that you want to do associate it with something positive and associated in your mind let me let me put this in concrete terms a lot of people have trouble sleeping here’s how you use all these techniques to sleep a better I mentioned before that if you can’t sleep there’s a phrase to say to yourself but I’m not going to say that now that was only for the people who wanted to hear here’s some other tricks the experts on sleep will tell you don’t do anything in your bed except sleep and have sex that’s really good advice because you are an

[1:01:27]

good advice because you are an association machine you’re not a logical machine you’re not a person who starts out with a lot of energy and gets tired you are that but that’s not the important thing here you you don’t go to sleep just because it’s time to go to sleep you go to sleep because the situation is right and if you train yourself that you watch TV or read a book or something do it for bet that’s what you’ll be training yourself to do you’ll be training yourself to stay awake and doing those things if you train yourself this sleep is nothing but sleep you can be asleep much faster they also teach you that if you can’t sleep let’s say if you can’t sleep and you know that it’s not happening don’t try to sleep because then you’ve associated sleeplessness with your bed never ever associate sleeplessness with your bed if you could have if you can do it the only thing you want to associate with your bed is sex asleep that’s it

[1:02:30]

with your bed is sex asleep that’s it so the experts say that if it’s if it’s 2 a.m. and you can’t sleep get out of bed walk around don’t have coffee you don’t wake yourself up don’t look at a screen if you can avoid it but just wake up just walk around and then 15 minutes later try it again alright and if that doesn’t work maybe you walk around another 15 minutes but don’t spend a lot of time not sleeping in your bed because not sleeping in your bed is training you to be in bed and uh sleep somebody’s prompting me about the dark yes complete darkness will trigger your body and mind to sleep light will do the opposite so the more you can darken your room the better darken it document document so that’s that’s an association but it has a very real biological cause and effect so always do that I have black at machines in my bedroom so and

[1:03:31]

black at machines in my bedroom so and then mental shelf space I know a lot of people who can’t sleep because they start thinking about all the things they have to do the next day do you know how and and I think women have this problem more than men although that might just be a sexist generalization because I see it in movies and on TV but regardless of gender I’m not going to assume that it’s more women than men with a sa that’s maybe that’s just a socially people say that I don’t know if that’s scientifically true but the point is if you’re worried about all the things you have to do tomorrow you’re going to have trouble sleeping but it’s hard to not think about things right how do you not think about shelf space you can’t not think about something the only thing you can do is fill your space with something more interesting so think of something that’s more interesting than what you’re doing tomorrow ideally something imaginary you know going to the beach maybe you’re thinking about your great future maybe you’re thinking about sex maybe you’re

[1:04:31]

you’re thinking about sex maybe you’re thinking about your favorite hobby think about something to fill your shelf space so that you can’t think about the things that are giving you sleepless thoughts so those are some of the some of the techniques not all of them I think that that’s probably all you need to know for now yeah somebody’s saying prayer and I would not be surprised if prayer worked I’ve never tried it but I’m sure it’s great all right I hope you like this let me know in the comments actually I’m going to turn it off now I got to do something else but I will talk to you later