Episode 886 Scott Adams: Swaddle up to Your Screen. It’s Time for Positive Thoughts Before Bed

Date: 2020-04-02 | Duration: 32:38

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Viewer questions

If you would like my channel to have a wider audience and higher production quality, please donate via my startup (Whenhub.com) at this link: https://interface.my/ScottAdamsSays

> [!note] Rough Transcript
> 
> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.

## Transcript

[0:15]

hey everybody come on in it's time for positive thoughts while swaddling in a soft blanket trying to feel good about things I have not watched the tiger King but I'm feeling like I just sort of have to everybody's talking about maybe I'll have to wait it into that
so yesterday I tweeted and I quote it's too quiet today something big is coming now I don't know if this was it but today the president announced that he's moving the military against the drug trade from Venezuela this is soon after he said that I think they put a price on Medora of Venezuela and it looks like they're trying pretty hard to get him out of there now this is sort of a twofer because number one I could maybe slow down some drugs and deny some drug money to the Medora regime it's very uplifting because their

[1:20]

regime it's very uplifting because their oil revenues down but the interesting thing is so here's the good news here's the good news
Venezuela and China were kind of big trading partners until all that all the stuff went down I guess so to the extent that China could be pushed out of this part of the world by by getting rid of their toehold in Venezuela that could be kind of good in the long run could be kind of good so I'm kind of feeling something is going to happen militarily that might be bigger than just going moving against the the drug trade I've got a feeling that maybe this is all about putting pressure on Maduro and getting some military assets a little bit too close if you know what I mean because I think we're negotiating with them it's always easier to negotiate if you have your entire

[2:20]

negotiate if you have your entire military within shooting distance yeah we're just in the neighborhood it's about the drugs you know you don't have anything to do with the drugs do we're just after the drugs yeah we do have a lot of warships here it's just about the drugs so it seems that it's now considered a fact you always have to be careful about these things but I think the news on both sides is now correct me if I'm wrong considering it a fact that China lied about their death tunnel which mislead our experts about how severe it was which caused them not to raise the alarm as loudly as they might have if they had accurate information and it looks like that's maybe the explanation for why we got a lay start now you can always argue we should have had more ventilators and stuff like that and that's conversation worth having but now that we know that

[3:21]

worth having but now that we know that China absolutely screwed the world on this by lying about how bad it was and they haven't even stopped the fentanyl trade how long has it been how long ago was it that they promised oh yeah we'll take care of that fentanyl stuff so you know it took me a long time to come around to the the idea that China's government was intentionally doing things to kill Americans but I don't know what they're thinking but the effect of it is a lot of damn Americans so I'm pretty sure that at the end of this there's going to be a serious reckoning I think the president's smart and you know downplaying it at the moment because he wants to sell some food sell some of foreign products to China so you know presidents in a tough place but I think in the long run China's got a lot to answer for now I promise you I would answer some questions and I will

[4:24]

questions and I will David Angeles do you think Joe do you think Joe Biden will get to the finish line in October or November and the answer is um I don't think so but you know you can only put the odds on these things so anybody says yes or no is is just kidding you but if I had to put the odds on it of Joe Biden actually being a candidate and being the candidate and still being in the race on Election Day
25% maybe that's a healthy odds maybe 40%
40% I'll give it 40% that he's still in the race for any variety of reasons that could change all right everything we knew as normal is over well that's not true government I don't know I don't know about that I think that there will

[5:24]

know about that I think that there will be some things that change a lot and other things that improve a lot some things get worse it'll be different but I you know 85% of life is going to be exactly the same
Rebecca says tell us more stories during our night time swaddling story time well I'm glad you asked Rebecca because I'm full of stories what kind of stories would you like the funny kind the embarrassing kind I use the story that a friend told me now this requires you to know what day oh I probably told this I think I don't listen before I don't want to give you the same stories so let me let me tell you one of my first jobs I was working on that my uncle's farm so my uncle had a dairy farm and it was sort of walking distance if he didn't

[6:24]

sort of walking distance if he didn't mind the long walk and so but my siblings and I would would work there mostly my brother and I and we would do every bad farm job you could do I mean literally shoveling manure and you know getting the hay and in the fields and piling hay bales and milking cows and cleaning the air cleaning everything basically so and all these terrible terrible jobs but one of the jobs was that you had to get the cows that's what we call it it was just called getting the cows and what it meant was that during the day the cows would be left at let out of the barn and there was a several hundred acres that my uncle had and it was you know forest and open parts and swamp and stuff it was pretty big and so the 40 or so cows I think probably around 40 would go out into the to the forest and they would mostly hang around within sight of each

[7:25]

mostly hang around within sight of each other because their cows cows and sort of have a herd instinct so they they tend to be not too far away from each other and so the process of going and getting them and gathering them up and hurting them back to the barn and across the street was something that everybody who worked at the farm had to learn it was it would be your turn eventually to go get the cows now this was easier than you think because there would be a trained cow and the dog would actually do all the work so the dog would learn from other dogs and I say you teach a cow dog the way you teach a cow dog had it heard dogs and get him back at night and stuff is you just introduced a puppy yeah I think some breeds are better than others but he just introduced a puppy to a situation where there's already a trained dog and the older dog just teaches it to herd cows it's kind of an amazing process so anyway we had a trained trained cow and it was my turn

[8:29]

trained trained cow and it was my turn for 25 cents which was the payment for this task I had to take my trained dog and a stick because you had to hit the cows often to get their attention it's not as bad as it sounds usually that the sticks were sort of switches you know a little bendy bendy ones and cows are literally made of leather so you you can hit him pretty hard before they'll even look at you like you you could hit a cow like really hard and the cat will just be eating grass it'll be like I I feel like there's a fly on my back or something so so I have my little stick in my cow dog and my 25 cents and I went out to get the cows and and you have to know there was like before a little bit before dark so I go out there and I I'm trying to sort of get around behind the you know the cows and the dog goes the other way and pretty soon as I've lost the dog so now not only if I now found the cows you

[9:29]

not only if I now found the cows you know I haven't gotten any cows back and they seem to be like dispersing like they've lost all of their cow instincts suddenly instead of hurting up and just sort of automatically going back to the barn as they've done every day of their life they decided when they saw me to just sort of separate and they just started dissolving into different parts of the the swamp and the forest and so I'm like oh my god yeah I've lost the dog I'm losing all the cows so I'm like going deeper and deeper into the swamp to try to sort of get around them because I think well if I get a few cows moving usually that's how actually you get a few cows moving in the right direction and then the other cows their herd instinct kicks in they're like Lulu can't let's go in that direction I guess I'm going that way and they'll just start going but I couldn't get behind the cows and then it's getting dark and now I'm lost and I'm gonna know which direction is the cows so now I'm in the middle of the swamp I have no cow dog I've lost all 40 cows

[10:32]

I have no cow dog I've lost all 40 cows and it's dark and I don't know which direction is home this is before cell phone so she could imagine and so I'm like oh well I guess I'm gonna be sleeping in the swamp or I'm dead or something so eventually I hear Scott Scott and it was my uncle who ran the farm and maybe my brother was somebody else was with him and they called out to me and I called back and they they found me with her flashlights and took me back to say but they're taking you back and I'm feeling really bad because I didn't get any cows and I lost the dog in the forest so I'm like ah I II we can't go back yet I don't know what to do I've lost all the cows and I've even lost the dog too and my uncle said oh no the the dog took the cows back to the barn an hour ago I got completely lost

[11:33]

barn an hour ago I got completely lost in the swamp and the dog just took care of it so the dog just went and rounded up all the cows took him back to the barn because that's what the dog does that was the dogs job the dog wasn't it wasn't the dogs job to follow me around the dog had a they had a job description took care of business true story so what are some more stories oh I got lots of stories you know I do one day by my grandfather who was my uncle's father and that same farm was working in the field and he thought he heard something it turns around this is an upstate New York on a dairy farm it turns around and there's an elephant standing behind it was like an actual live elephant standing behind him in his own field on the farm yeah as it turns out that a few

[12:37]

the farm yeah as it turns out that a few a few farms down the road was a company that would train elephants so they trained elephants for various circuses and their their main elephant and it's a name I forget some circusy they've got away they're just like what for a stroll so so my my grandfather was just like you know working on the farm and turns around there was an elephant so it wasn't wasn't much of a punch line to that story but but you know your standards are low let's face it if you're listening to this you have low standards honey shrooms you you see one here my taking mushrooms story I know you do alright so I told this story before only once have I ever done a loosen the gents and it was mushrooms it was I when I just got into college and came to San Francisco and there was somebody I knew from college I won't give you too many details but she and I decided to try

[13:42]

details but she and I decided to try some mushrooms now normally of course I wouldn't do that because I wouldn't you know how much do you take and do you go crazy and the oh so dangerous but she had done some from the same bag the day before was some other people so if you knew how much to do and she knew that this you know this particular bag was really what it was supposed to be so some of the main questions of risk were answered just because it was a known quantity so she talked me into it and so and so I gagged a few down and my god they taste terrible I knew that they really taste terrible and we decided that we would just take the streetcar the Jade Church streetcar to the beach and we would just watch the sunset and that was our plan and pretty much my whole life changed that night and the reason that my life changed is that was my first distinct experience of

[14:44]

that was my first distinct experience of a different reality that still worked and it's the the fact that it still worked was the part that changes you forever because you would you would see your reality like you had never seen it before like it was brand new so every part of it from your your hand to the cars to the trees were just brand new like you were visiting another planet and seeing things for the first time but you still do what they were they had to use them so you could navigate your world just perfectly now you know you wouldn't want to drive my car or something like that but in terms of you're just you know existing and going and having a snack and walking around the block and stuff you could do all that stuff but you are in a completely different world and in what you get from that that you keep forever is the idea that your reality there may be some base objective reality but it's not it's not available to you if there

[15:45]

not it's not available to you if there is an objective real base reality the odds that you can perceive it are low because we know that people could have completely different movies in their minds and they all work you can believe that Trump is a monster somebody else can believe he's the savior and you can both by totally a paper on a good day but maybe not lately so we went to the beach and every time somebody got on the streetcar I remember thinking it was the most entertaining thing I had ever seen because people's faces are so different yeah from from one to the other that everyone was just like a marvel and like I just couldn't stop looking at them just the way their faces look went to the beach and it may have been the best sunset of all time or it could have been an average sunset and I was really in the mood for it but the the other thing I learned is just how good you can feel

[16:49]

I learned is just how good you can feel because I had never felt that good before or even close the the amount of good you feel under those conditions is so good it doesn't map to any other experience it's a it's a sort of a multiple of the best thing you've ever felt but I've had only a passing interest in doing it again because it does feel like the sort of thing that once you've done it you don't need to do it if you know what I mean so once you've seen behind the door you already behind the curtain let's say you know once once you've looked behind the curtain you don't need to look a second time because you've already seen what's back there and what's back there is that reality is far more subjective than our normal experience would suggest so there's that you see what other questions you got thoughts about what the general said today well you the

[17:50]

the general said today well you the general was very persuasive if you saw the press conference I thought he was good at being the general you know who knows what's gonna happen there it's so early that nobody knows really what's going to happen did you ever finish watching a star was born I did not and and for those of you know the the newest version of a star is born with Lady gaga and Bradley Cooper the reason I didn't watch it the rest of it is that the first part of the movie was so perfect I didn't want to ruin it the movie was that good that I couldn't watch the second part because the first part was just too perfect I mean I liked it that much I've never had that experience before where I didn't want to ruin the movie but I watched it the rest of it because let's face it movies movies do sort of peter out after a while you know they're they're a little longer than they need to be I wanted you to see this it must be an old comic from oh yeah

[18:51]

it must be an old comic from oh yeah from way back interesting all right how would you make writing a book into a system it seems very goal-oriented well that's a very good question Rollie pollie and here's your answer if you tried to do something as big as write a book take it from someone who has written 11 books or whatever it is I've lost count every time it seems impossible every time I'm ready to write a book that you know on day one do you think how many words on a page how many pages do I have to write how many times am I gonna have to rewrite this how many chapters am I gonna throw away completely and just start over and if you if you play with the enormity of it you just can't start it will just stun you into submission but there's this weird thing that happens when you start just working out it in little chunks yeah if you can get going that they suddenly start adding up because you know time flies which is bad

[19:53]

because you know time flies which is bad when you're trying to enjoy yourself but it's good when you're doing something unpleasant like trying to finish writing a book so you can get to the end of that nine months or however long it's going to take you to do it that nine months just sort of always goes fast it's just the way of the world now everything goes fast so that what I would say is the main thing is to take the smallest smallest increment and then just do that and for me the smallest increment in the way I always start as I just open a blank page and I start writing titles you know this title this title this title this title an author a bunch of titles then I'll delete the ones I don't like you know and they'll get down to what I'll call a working title and the working title is what I need to make sure that everything I write can be tied back to that in some logical way so I'm not straining to make the title make sense but I almost always change the title so it's I don't know how many

[20:53]

title so it's I don't know how many times well I don't know if it's always but often I'll have a working title for quite a long time and then I'll change it at some point and my maybe my publisher and editor look at it and they say let's run this by the salespeople then the salespeople say you know this word would be better than that word so it tends to be an iterative process so start start with a title and then start writing your first sentence and your first sentence should be the sentence you rewrite the most so there'll be lots of sentences in your book they write and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite that's normal but the first sentence if you're doing if you're doing it right will be the one you rewrite the most if you write a good first sentence and you just look at it and that's the one that you you end up with when you're done with the book you probably have a bad book I realize that's harsh but that first

[21:54]

realize that's harsh but that first sentence has to just do a lot of work because it's the first impression the first sentence tells people if how they're going to feel for the rest of the book and you can kind of tell you know if you spend any time writing reading books pick up any book read the first sentence you kinda know how it's gonna go don't you I mean it's that important you can be a little sloppy later on when people have a sense of what the book is and they've decided if they liked it but that first sentence you got to rewrite that a lot so rolie polie I would say try for a working title open up a document try writing a few opening sentences and think in terms of rewriting the opening sentence twenty to fifty times and and you might actually have one you like write several chapters and then still go back and change it twelve 15 more times that's very typical

[22:57]

twelve 15 more times that's very typical for me anyway now everybody has a different process so that that has more to do with my specific process now you know I've told you that I studied persuasion for decades as as part of honing my writing talent and that's a perfect example because what a a writer would maybe not obsess about as much is that first sentence but I would obsess about it because I know the importance of the first impressions something you learned with persuasion that you might now learn with writing so much hypnotize you okay I'm going to hypnotize you but I'm not going to put you in a trance and it goes like this I know you're wondering if I can but part of the reason that you watch these periscopes is you think that I can do some things that other people can't do and as you're listening to me you're

[24:00]

and as you're listening to me you're wondering can you actually do that can he put a suggestion in my mind that will actually change my programming and the answer is yes I'm actually trained to do that I've been doing it for decades it's easy and all I really wires is that you be open to it so if I were to suggest something that you didn't want wouldn't work at all because you wouldn't be open to it and that's the most important requirement but I suppose I suggested that you had an unusually good night's sleep tonight how many of you would object to the idea no strings attached to simply having a really good sleep tonight how would you feel if as you're drifting off tonight you remember that I told you that you would and it starts making you even sleepier because you're thinking isn't

[25:04]

sleepier because you're thinking isn't working I can't tell if I'm sleepy because I was sleepy or I'm sleepy because the cartoonist who was also a hypnotist told me that I was and then you're gonna be starting to think am I doing this on my own or is it because he suggested it and that you didn't remember my voice exactly the way you hear right now and you're gonna hear my voice and you're gonna hear my confidence and you're gonna hear me tell you that suggestions when you're open to them always were and you are open to them because you like to have a good night's sleep you always feel better when you do and you associate that good night's sleep now with my voice and the suggestion that you're gonna have an amazing amazing night of sleep one of your best and if you don't have the best sleep tonight you might notice that it

[26:07]

sleep tonight you might notice that it happens tomorrow it could be the night after and you might notice that it's just the average that starts to improve so some of you will start right away with an incredible night's sleep the really refreshing kind with either no dreams that you remember or the good kind and you're gonna feel refreshed and relaxed when you wake up and you're going to wake up and you're gonna think to yourself I feel good today that doesn't look normal and then you're gonna think about the suggestion that I'm giving you and you're gonna say damn it is that why and the more you think about the fact that I suggested it and the more you realize that it could be a coincidence but you would notice that you can sleep better in the future is that a coincidence and as you associate your ability to sleep better with your memory of my voice as you hear it right now you'll be

[27:10]

voice as you hear it right now you'll be able to replay my voice in your mind almost perfectly and in fact if you wanted to feel it right now in a way that you could remember I'm gonna count to 20 and when I reach 20 only if you want to those are you don't want to experience this can just observe but if you wanted to you could close your eyes right now and just listen and you can listen to me account to 20 and you would find that there's something about my voice something about my cadence the way I talk that makes you more relaxed as I count up from 1 to 20 and as I count you'll find yourself getting deeper and deeper and more relaxed and with each count you'll go deeper but if I were to

[28:10]

you'll go deeper but if I were to reverse the count from 20 back toward 1 temporarily or permanently you would start to feel leslie be more awake but if i were to reverse it again and count back to 20 it would be much more profound and you would go deeper more quickly and so now you can feel yourself relaxed make sure that your feet are flat on the ground or your propped up so that you can you can support yourself without using any muscles and since my voice as you go deeper one going deeper um two going deeper three four five going deeper now more relaxed feel your arms having your legs heavy all your muscles one at a time as you think about them around your body each

[29:12]

think about them around your body each of them relaxing think of the muscle and it relaxes thank you for your nose neck muscles and they relax seven doesn't matter if I skip a number nine getting deeper ten going deeper and more relaxed listen to my voice and play it back when you want to relax in the future eleven twelve going deeper and now I'm going back the other way you'll be a little bit more awake ten nine eight seven you feel yourself waking up a little bit six and now back it feels better to go this way doesn't it seven more relaxed much deeper this time each time you go toward twenty you get deeper than the last time nine going deeper ten eleven

[30:15]

last time nine going deeper ten eleven going deeper thirteen deeper now twice as deep 15 twice as deep again sixteen seventeen eighteen now very deep very relaxed feeling very good almost floating eighteen nineteen twenty completely relaxed and going even further 21 and now very very relaxed 22 and you'll be able to count yourself into this relaxed state just by listening to my voice in your head and playing it back and if you want to take yourself out of the state well you could

[31:17]

yourself out of the state well you could just wake up anytime you wanted feeling refreshed or you could hear me counting you back as I will do now so from your totally relaxed state twenty nineteen eighteen starting to get a little bit more awake now sixty and fifteen starting to wake up twelve nine eight starting to wake up six seven it's gonna feel great when you when you come out of it five four almost completely awake now three to shake your muscles one totally awake and feeling better than you thought you could feel surprisingly better in such a short amount of time and now tonight when you go to relax and you close your eyes and all the weight of the day is off of you you'll hear my voice and you'll count to 20 in my voice and you'll drift off to

[32:20]

20 in my voice and you'll drift off to sleep and that is my little gift for you today and I will see you in the morning you know when 10:00 a.m. Eastern 7:00 a.m. Pacific for the simultaneous OOP goodnight