Episode 985 Scott Adams: A Bubble Reality I Recently Discovered, What I Learned About Learning

Date: 2020-05-20 | Duration: 35:54

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: My smart friend’s only news sources: CNN, MSNBC, NYT Joe Rogin is moving to Spotify How to nail a job interview

If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

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## Transcript

[0:13]

hey everybody come on in it's time for the evening edition I thought I was gonna take questions but once again I forgot to push the right button so we won't be taking questions but well we have just as much fun yes we will uh-huh I would love it if periscope could fix that bug so that once I started a live periscope I could remember to invite guests opposed to late all right well we got stuff to talk about for example let me tell you what I found out about drum sticks interesting huh I've been trying to learn drums and mostly online I had an online teacher for a while and now I'm going through online self teaching is through YouTube and here's one of the things I've learned man is it hard to learn anything from YouTube videos let me give you the beginning of every YouTube video and hi everybody and we've

[1:14]

YouTube video and hi everybody and we've got notes at the bottom and here you know ten years ago I heard this thing and and then I met a guy and in in 15 minutes after I'm done droning I might show you the one little nugget of information you want but probably not you'll probably give up so the first thing is that the people who make these very well they look well produced meaning the Lighting's good the sound is good the camerawork is good but they don't know anything about teaching I'm talking about the the full body of YouTube video is about how to play the drums now that just happens to be this one domain I dug into but imagine all the other domains are they this bad let me give you an example of how incredibly bad it is trying to teach yourself just by looking at videos so I found out after two years of noodling around and not being able to produce any kind of good sound and also never being able to drum fast enough I found out that

[2:16]

to drum fast enough I found out that there's a way to hold the sticks that's completely different than anything I've been exposed to so far and that if you didn't know how to do that nothing else works so for two years I've been holding the sticks wrong and if you do that you just can't progress it's not possible and all I knew is that you held them light you know sort of in your fingertips like this and that you know you were supposed to hold them light and I thought well there you go what else is to know I'm holding a light I'm hitting things but I would look at professional drummers and I think I don't know it just looks different whatever they're doing looks different and and I thought am I just old that I can't get the speed and I'd be like ah I'm drumming as fast as I can but I'm not I feel like I'm maybe a quarter of the speed of the people doing it on every YouTube video from at every age it's like everybody in the world is faster than me it turns out

[3:19]

the world is faster than me it turns out that it's not it's not a speed per se it's technique and specifically you you know if you try to hit it three times in a row let's say fast you sort of whip it down and then the the stick comes back but the next two hits you're not using your arm and your wrist you're actually just using your your fingertips to slap it down again as it as it bounces back to the other two times so using the bounce back and slapping it with your your two hands now I learned that today after two years of looking at videos in which this was never mentioned not once have I seen it and I even took lessons online for a while and not once was this critical thing which makes everything else possible it didn't show up anywhere I just I just I wasn't even looking for it I just chanced on it alright so the point is it's not about drumming it's not about me

[4:19]

not about me the point is do you know how much better online education could be if I could go right to the thing I wanted and it was in the order that I wanted to see it can you imagine do you know how much happier and faster it would have been happier I would have been and faster would have been than taking a lesson because with my human instructor you've got like the first 45 minutes is getting to know you and you're like you know 45 minutes I can learn quite a few things and you know then the next day it's how you do and you know my equipment let's get your equipment lined up and do you mind if I take a phone call and but if you could give me a bunch of really quick videos with no introductions emphasis on no no introductory material I just go right to the point where it says hold your stick like this hit it and then do this and you'll be three times faster than if you just try to hit

[5:21]

times faster than if you just try to hit it three times that's why you get is the speed so I don't know about you I mean everybody learns a little bit differently but if you could take me right to the thing I need and it's explained well by somebody who knows what they're talking about I could learn a lot of stuff really quickly it's only the boring stuff in between that keeps me from learning it's it's all the bloat it's the setup it's the it's the waiting it's the get to the point it's the I heard it already can he get to the new point if I could control the exact pace of the information just by you know forwarding and you know going right to it I think I could learn three times faster for a lot of tasks some things you need to practice anyway so I wanted to I saw a funny tweet today from Melissa Francis she said that she made a clever to me basically saying that Trump

[6:23]

clever to me basically saying that Trump has the right to choose what happens to his own body which made me think of abortion so Trump has the right to choose what happens to his own body whether it's hydroxychloroquine or whatever so of course that story continues the CNN acting as well you know I don't have to say any more but this will be the story that brings us all together so I called a friend of mine who is my smartest friend who also doesn't like Trump but meaning that he's smart and he doesn't like Trump and for a few years we haven't been able to talk we've sent messages back and forth but I sometimes I can't read them because he's just so he seems angry and deranged to me and I've never really understood it because he's not just smart he's like it he's Ivy League you know brilliant guy and yet we saw the world so differently and I never understood it and so I

[7:23]

and I never understood it and so I called him today and I found out why I I got to the bottom of it you know rarely rarely do you get to the bottom of things so here's what I found out he told me that his news sources are CNN MSNBC and New York Times pretty much just those three I probably don't even need to finish the rest of it right those are his three sources how much would you know about the world if those were your three sources and it turns out that he was unaware this somewhere around 2016 the news stopped even trying to be anything like news at least for the political stuff and it became just full-out you know teamplay he was unaware of that he just thought well there's crazy people on the right at Fox News and stuff and I don't look at that and then there's these completely reasonable people who just try to get it right the

[8:23]

people who just try to get it right the CNN MSNBC New York Times and he argued especially that the New York Times plays it right down in the middle for him and there they're like just good legitimate news and I tried to tell him Josh I'm sorry I shouldn't use his name I said I said hey guy you know you're a little bit behind the news because these major publications stopped being anything like new
new at 2016 or so so I asked them specifically some questions to test his knowledge and if you didn't see my pin to tweet on this it's a guy like now 3,700 retweets already so people are relating to it I guess so here are the following things that my friend and keep in mind he's well-informed this is somebody who reads the news every day follows the news you know follows those

[9:24]

follows the news you know follows those news sources and here are the following things they he'd never heard of okay he didn't know that you have to pair the hydroxychloroquine with zinc or it doesn't work and that the studies there were studies that were showing hydroxychloroquine by itself wasn't working shouldn't surprise you because it wasn't with the zinc which is the active part he had never heard that I'll bet every one of you has heard it right he had never heard that now if you had never heard that you would think that those studies were somewhat reliable but now here's another one he was unaware there's something like a quarter of doctors at least according to a poll said they would subscribe they would prescribe hydroxychloroquine and there's a through Meissen and zinc so he didn't know that a quarter of doctors would say yeah I'd do that didn't know that didn't

[10:27]

yeah I'd do that didn't know that didn't every one of you know that there are real doctors prescribing it every day well I literally didn't every one of you know that because the people who are sort of Trump supporters mostly that's who's watching this broadly you see the mainstream news but then you also see you know Fox News and other sources but if you're if you're only watching the left and you you just can't stand to look at anything else look at the things you wouldn't know here's what else he didn't know he had never heard of off-label prescriptions he didn't know that was a thing he didn't know that the doctor and prescribe something even though it was only approved for a different use as long as the doctor has you know some good rationale but legally ethically and even as a normal process of medicine it's very routine didn't know that I'll bet everyone of you knew that all

[11:27]

I'll bet everyone of you knew that all right how about he was not aware that a lot of the frontline health care workers are taking hydroxychloroquine and zinc I assume how many of you knew that that they were almost all of you right he didn't know had never heard this that the frontline workers many of them not whole are taking hydroxychloroquine and zinc here's the one that really blew my mind he was not aware that there are lots of other countries that are massively using the hydroxychloroquine and as I like to say they have doctors too have you heard of India it's a real big country they've got doctors and stuff there doctors think it's a good idea they're you know the the doctors in India didn't come out of you know the the bad doctor school and there's not all of them you know they've got a pretty good educational system over there and you know Malaysia there's a

[12:29]

there and you know Malaysia there's a bunch of other but imagine that you'd never heard that I mean seriously he'd ever heard that all right here's some more he had never seen the Russian troll farm memes so he still believed that it's definitely a fact that Russia interfered with the election so I had to agree with him that they attempted it so I had to find that that agreement place first because he was quite adamant but I found the place we could agree I said well we had agree they tried right he's like yeah okay we can agree that they tried and then I talked about whether they succeeded and I said did you see the memes like the actual memes that they ran on Facebook did you see them and he hadn't but but I have and I said nobody has seen them thinks that they influence the election because it looks like a sixth grade project that didn't

[13:30]

like a sixth grade project that didn't go well I mean you just have to look at him to know that they couldn't have possibly I mean not in your wildest imagination could these lame little it would be sort of like saying I influenced the election because I send somebody a Hallmark greeting card that one time I mean it's just so insanely not likely that that had any effect on even one vote but he didn't know it he thought that there was some evidence that I also asked him he also argued that if seventeen intelligence agencies say something's true although you can count on it I said what what how in 2020 could you make that statement that if 17 if 17 of our intelligence agencies agreed that that makes it credible it's almost the opposite because first of all not all 17 looked into it you know the

[14:31]

not all 17 looked into it you know the 17 wasn't real anyway they finally admitted it wasn't it was more like three but it was really like one and it wasn't the whole wand it was a few people and really it was the one guy so 17 intelligence agencies usually boils down to one or two people and then the others either didn't disagree or they said to how those guys are good they know what they're doing so I'll sign on to that but to imagine to imagine that that that is more credible the 17 intelligence agencies looked into it and and my friend actually believed and said so directly that he believes that they would not give their opinions the 17 intelligence agencies unless they had each individually investigated do you think that all 17 intelligence agencies independently investigated I don't think so I don't think so do you think

[15:32]

do you think two of them might have probably not if one of them did it I'd be a little impressed that anybody did it but but to imagine that seventeen intelligence agencies mean something he also believes it's a fact that Russia hacked the DNC it might be true it might be true that they hacked the DNC but we don't know it uh-huh meaning that I don't know it I didn't see it and I didn't hear it from anybody credible so if I didn't see it myself and I didn't hear about it from anybody credible which is the case well I don't know that they hacked it you know I think I saw a story in Politico somebody sent me they showed this of other countries tried to tried to hack that as well but they were less successful all right did you hear about

[16:32]

successful all right did you hear about Joe Rogan moving to Spotify how cool is that so well it's not cool if you're not a subscriber to Spotify I guess so here's what's fun about that so I guess he's taking his product off of YouTube and I think iTunes because he's going to be exclusive on Spotify so you get to hear just by being a member of Spotify I guess and you know people are estimating it's a hundred billion dollar deal etc and I'm really interested in this because I to realize that YouTube doesn't have an upside so you know I moved to the locals platform and it's also subscription so both Joe Rogan and I have moved to a subscription service because YouTube for different reasons I guess wasn't enough for getting it done so I think that's gonna be a trend I

[17:33]

so I think that's gonna be a trend I think the trend is going to be people don't want to see ads and ads don't work so both between the people who don't want to see them and the advertisers realizing they don't really work I think you can see a lot more subscription entertainment and you're going to be happier about it because no commercials so good for Joe for for nailing that down I'm I'm really happy that let that work down alright somebody says willing to bet you're intelligent friend can't change a tire either I bet he could I'll bet he could change a tire
somebody says wrong he's going to be on the free version of Spotify so is he gonna be on the free version so that that it drives people to Spotify and then they'll subscribe anyway Spotify is paying him apparently not not advertisements so maybe we'll find

[18:35]

not advertisements so maybe we'll find out more about that as time goes by all right I'm working on a few micro lessons and thank you for signing up change a tire so I'm working on a few micro lessons but not for tonight is there anything that you would like to hear I'm looking at your comments to see if there's anything you wanted me to talk about so it could be today or maybe yourself that you won't be to prepare so I know there's a little delay in the comments so podcasts are free unspotted fine hmm did my intelligent friend to bend it all oh yeah let me give you the punchline to that so he is you know mentally agile meaning that he can change his mind if

[19:39]

meaning that he can change his mind if the argument has been presented and it's solid the argument I presented was sort of mind-boggling in the sense that I was telling him that everything he thought he knew about politics was wrong because he'd been listening to sources that he trusted and were literally just lying to him for years and how how easy is it to accept that that's happened I did tell him you know after I filled in all that information I believe that he trusted me that the information I gave him was both available on other news sources and true and also highly relevant the conversation so I do think that I shook his confidence I do believe that he he will rethink the sufficiency of his news sources I don't know if he'll change them but I think you'll at least have that bug in his head that there was a whole bunch of stuff that was relevant

[20:40]

whole bunch of stuff that was relevant to the headlines that I knew and he didn't and I don't think he's going to forget that did I witness cognitive dissonance no because it was a phone conversation so I think you're asking about that that tell where you see somebody's face go blank there for a minute so now I did not detect that did you ever mention Elon Musk tweet about the red bill I didn't and other than it being a matrix the reference I don't know what to say about that all right the trouble otter meter I'll tell you I think the stock market has already voted don't you I feel as though that we're gonna see nonstop good ish news from now until victory so it's not that well it's not that we won't have any bad news of course because the death count is gonna rise etc but I feel like the the news

[21:43]

rise etc but I feel like the the news cycle went from one bad thing after another for a few months to were more likely to hear about a near new therapy or a new vaccine or a new technique I feel like the news is going to turn unambiguously positive I also feel that if we can get through this next two weeks without the death curve going up and I think we're going to actually because everything that we're hearing about where all the problems are I think we've largely identified so we know you don't want to be an acquire and a closed space you don't want to be a cruise ship you don't want to be in nursing home you know you don't want to be a done sweaty crowd and there are there aren't that many people are gonna be in those situations now so the the odds that we're gonna flatten this thing just by being smarter is really good it's really good and I got to say that the quality of the protests has been excellent

[22:44]

of the protests has been excellent meaning that you know people people have been pushing and I call it a you know I call the protests a productive friction I think it's productive for the medical community to try to push for as much shutdown as we can get away with I think is productive for the citizens to push back and say we need we need to live and eat and have jobs too so I like that fight because that's how you that's how you get to someplace that makes sense in the middle so I'm pretty happy about that somebody says I predict the normal flu season gets hugely flattened - that's a good prediction but the normal flu season as we've learned probably wasn't ever killing many people at all so the the whole thought that the regular flu was killing you know fifty eighty thousand people a year it just

[23:44]

eighty thousand people a year it just was never true the regular flu hardly kills anybody and if the flu kills you if the regular flu kills you you are probably really close to God anyway you know that's the the regular flu isn't killing 40 year olds somebody says the regular flu does kill it does it's just very rare it's not 50 or 60,000 and all likelihood because you you would know people who died of the flu if that were true
like clockwork experts are releasing news saying they were skeptical of modern modern errors and results well aren't there are over a hundred vaccines that are in some form of production not production but development and testing so you would expect that there are at least a hundred competitors who are willing to say that that other company doesn't have the answer because they

[24:45]

doesn't have the answer because they don't want all the money and attention to go to whoever gets there first you know they're they want to stall them a little bit so they can you know they can be up there in the final three or whatever pr1 went bankrupt somebody says that doesn't surprise me
micro lesson idea how to nail the interview I can I could do that you want to know that now how many of you would like to know how to nail a job interview I think I could do that right now so you're my here's my advice for a job interview first of all there's nothing better than just being the most prepared person so obviously if you've got a good talent stack etc that's the best thing you do the the next thing is you want to you want to show that you have a commitment to learning because the best employees are the ones that are going to

[25:46]

employees are the ones that are going to learn and going to take on new stuff so you want to you want to project the thought that you're a learning machine you've learned a lot of things you want to learn new things you want to you want to learn everything there is so when you talk about your desire to learn new things your employer just lights up cycle ok I guess somebody will be able to like really fill in a lot of things obvious promotion so learning is just a just a key the other thing is they want to be comfortable with you so you want to know that you're not a complainer so you don't want to say something like you know when he says why did you leave your last job the last thing you want to do is to say that your boss was a bad boy never say that never throw your old company under the bus if you're trying to get a job at a new company because it would quite rightly say that's the way you're gonna talk about me when you leave all right so you so you want to

[26:49]

leave all right so you so you want to always put the best possible spin on your last employer so that's important you also want to make sure that you've presented to them what's in it for them so you're not there for them to just ask you questions you were there to present a proposition they're hiring you is better than hiring the other people so you've got to make a direct proposition what you can bring them and it has to be direct so one of the things you could say is look you know I have all the qualifications for this job but I've looked into your company a little bit and I see you also have a little weakness over here that's something I can do because I have those skills as well so I can so you if you hire me you get a twofer I'll do the job and I'll be good at it I have all the qualifications you're looking probably a hundred other guys have them too but the other thing I'm going to bring you is I can do this other thing so if you find somebody else who can do these two things good luck so that's where your talents start the stack helps but more specifically you

[27:51]

stack helps but more specifically you you want to give them a concrete proposition of what your extra is because the other people won't do that the other people will just answer questions maybe ask if you but they're not going to be selling themselves so you don't want to be selling yourself too much but if you're saying you get me plus these extra benefits and you know that might be valuable to you then you've told told your employer what's in it for them so you want to you want to show that you're agreeable you're easy to work with and by the way sometimes I say that directly actually almost all the time I say this directly when when I get into a business arrangement with anybody for anything I generally tell them directly and upfront that it's my philosophy to give to give extra because this so you know if I have a you know a job description I would tell my

[28:52]

know a job description I would tell my boss look it's you know I'm not about the sticking to the job description I'm gonna I'm gonna do what needs to get done so you know you don't hire somebody who's just gonna slavishly do the do the job description I'll do that too but I'm gonna do what needs to get done yeah I'm I'm an adult and so you want to sell yourself as somebody who is bigger than the job but now so big that you will want the boss's job you don't want to threaten the boss's job that's not good but you want to look like you're so helpful that you're gonna be the easiest person to work with you know you'll be a self-starter you'll be teaching yourself new things you'll be volunteering to fill in places that that nobody even knew needed to be filled in so it's all about presenting the extra think about the extra and then also use pacing and leading so pacing is when you match the person in any way so if you let's say

[29:52]

person in any way so if you let's say you walk in and you see the person's got hunting paraphernalia you're not a hunter you don't even like anything about hunting let's say but you know you want this job so you might use language that's sort of hunting related because it almost certainly will work so you might say well you know I was locked and loaded and you know I was I was a you know I was just walking down the trail I was you know I got off a good shot or something like that those are terrible examples cuz they sound too violent but the point is if you can get a read on the person you can adjust your language to use the type of words that would be most comfortable to them and they say are you one of me yeah I talk like that just like me so you want to match your boss without being too obvious about it your potential boss one is gonna hire you somebody says psychological and manipulation is it you know

[30:55]

manipulation is it you know let's put yourself in the boss's position put yourself in the boss's position and I come in for the interview it's you know not me the cartoonist I'm just coming in for a job and I do everything I just recommended what would be your opinion of me if I did everything I recommended and you knew that I was doing it for the purpose of getting the job you knew that I was manipulating the situation to get the job what would you think of me well if you're smart you'd say how well am I doing it because if I'm manipulating him and I'm doing it well meaning that I have legitimately offered a value proposition I've explained it well I haven't made a mistake I hired that guy do I care that he's putting on a show no that's why I invited him here I invited him here to put on a show that's why you're here so

[31:56]

put on a show that's why you're here so if I put on a show and he knows I'm putting on a show and he knows it's part of the the theater and the psychological manipulation of it but I'm completely transparent there's nothing tricky going on I'm putting on a show that's why we're here and I do it well I got the job so that is what I recommend match your match your potential boss's breathing posture sit up straight use your body language take up space etc all right what are your best questions to ask them oh that's a good question to ask me actually first of all you should always ask them questions you should have some prepared and it should be a question that shows some insight about their company that's the best question you don't want to ask a selfish question

[32:57]

don't want to ask a selfish question such as and what kind of cubicle would I have wouldn't have a view those are not the good ones the good questions are such things such as I've noticed that your industry is starting to move in this direction but if you do does that put you in direct competition with Amazon and how are you gonna handle that you ask a question like that you got the job right because people just don't think strategically about what they're doing now that was sort of a big picture one it might have been a smaller question you can say you know I noticed that your productions almost at capacity and you in business is good what do you think is going to happen when you're at capacity at this plant because that shows you're thinking ahead and you're looking at the big picture and stuff so the question is not about getting the answer the question is a way to show that you can ask a damn good question all right if you can ask a damn good question that's

[33:58]

you can ask a damn good question that's a very impressive it's one of the most impressive things you could possibly do is ask a good question that really stands out because it doesn't happen a lot somebody talked about the the firm handshake being out you know that's true and it does make me wonder about the the awkwardness because the the value of the handshake is it was like punctuation you knew where the end of the sentence was and the beginning of the sentence it's like okay beginning of the sentence and then later end of the sentence so the ceremony of shaking hands you had a number of benefits but one of them was you could tell when it was over what's gonna happen when people can't tell if the meetings over because haven't you ever haven't you ever rushed a meeting up by by the handshake you know you be you'll be chatting at the door and you're just okay we're done we're done you're thinking in your mind but somebody needs to say we're done and since nobody can

[34:59]

to say we're done and since nobody can say well we're done now okay bye it's just awkward how many times have you ever just said took it put out your hand and said wow it was great to see ya because that's exactly the same as saying we're done here I gotta go now we need a whole new thing like actually a new thing a new standard for we're done here I gotta go
both palms on table you've got a lot of suggestions in the in the comments here alright I'm gonna go eat some dinner that's what I'm gonna do and I'll see you in the morning and you should look forward to good news top to bottom all good news tomorrow that's my promise to you and that we'll see you in the morning