Episode 989 Scott Adams: I Tell You How to Find Meaning For Your Life

Date: 2020-05-22 | Duration: 20:38

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Joel Pollack’s possibly best tweet and insight ever Naval’s perfect message for the times Micro Lesson: The Meaning of Life Whiteboard1: Meaning of Life Whiteboard2: Author the Simulation

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.

> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript

[0:09]

bumbum Kevin good to see you come on in everybody gather round this might be the biggest day of your life I say might I don't know what the odds are but it might right there are a lot of you here's some for some of you it's gonna be best day of your life it just follows well today you can learn the meaning of life for yourself you know people people may have different meanings but while we're waiting for people to stream in here so they can get the full goodness first some updates have you seen that the news has turned pure loser think one of the chapters of my book loser think is mocking people who say there's something good should have happened sooner because everything good should have happened sooner and that's gonna be the story of the coronavirus so it looks like the democrats are gonna settle on this specific chapter of loser think -

[1:13]

this specific chapter of loser think - it's funny that I have an actual chapter a chapter in a book called loser think and the Democratic strategy is to embrace it they don't probably don't know it's a chapter in a book called loser think I don't think you would matter if they knew but yeah so they could say if if it doesn't suit had better do you know what we all know if it'd been done sooner it would have been better no matter what it is doesn't matter what it is would be better if it been done sooner I mentioned earlier today that what the world needs is an app that lets you do really quick three second videos that you splice together automatically to make a lesson because lessons come in tiny little chunks yeah whether you're telling somebody how to change a spark plug or or anything just little chunks it turns out that there is one called REO a are IO and I guess it's a an app for training it looks like a big

[2:14]

for training it looks like a big you know big corporate kind of enterprise kind of adapt so it's a pretty serious app I don't know if it works for individuals but at least for companies that are looking to quickly train people up you know somebody on in the field can just apparently just take it out and say Bubba Bubba put in some text and words and video and suddenly you've got an instant tutorial so that's fun
fun did you hear that Don junior mentioned on Twitter that he's going to be joining the locals platform where I have moved much of my stuff so that's a big deal it's not every day that Don jr. joins a social media platform and of course a big part of the reason is that it's you know not subject to anybody's algorithm I get a give you one one great thought

[3:17]

I get a give you one one great thought followed by another great thought and then I'm gonna close it with another thought that's great and then I'm gonna give you the meaning of life already one that'll make your head explode one that'll just make you feel good and another one that makes you feel good here's one that'll make your head explode Joel tweeted this I I told him it was his best might be his best tweet because this will just blow your mind I love it when somebody takes something you've been looking at forever and then just turns it around and you go oh I didn't know that was on the other side of that thing I didn't look at a forever and look what he did here so this is Joel he says if if real Donald Trump had shut down the country two weeks earlier and remember that's what everybody's jabbering about shut about earlier if it only been 2 weeks earlier or Bolla so what would have happened so as Joel says if if Trump had shut

[4:19]

so as Joel says if if Trump had shut down the country two weeks earlier South Carolina and Super Tuesday would never have happened Bernie Sanders would have been the Democratic nominee for president and the media would be screaming about how Trump had interfered in the 2020 election [Laughter] right wasn't that like the smartest thing you see that you've heard today I swear sometimes if you just watch you know the regular broadcast news you know you're just getting Dumber as you watch it but how come nobody thought to thought to actually play back the tape you know what why was it Joel it was like the first person who thought of this like well if you want to go back two weeks let's rewind the tape huh let's take a look if that's what you want let's go take a look what that looks like that was a really clever insight all right Joel's got a new book

[5:20]

insight all right Joel's got a new book coming out I'm gonna talk to him about that when we scheduled that too so that'll be fun so this is a quote from an evolved replicant and it's just a smart little true statement very optimistic and it goes like this technology destroys jobs and replaces them with opportunities I like that because if you don't have a job a jobs a pretty good thing but if you do have a job what's even better is your own thing so technology it might take your job but it also makes it possible for you to do your own thing and I think a lot of people figured that out during the coronavirus so of all that was the exact perfect message for The Times so look for your opportunity there's plenty out there and the president has

[6:23]

plenty out there and the president has promised and before we do our micro lesson on the meaning of life the president has promised more good news coming in the coming weeks and fairly soon about therapeutics and vaccines do you remember when the president was saying I think we'll have a vaccine bye I forget what he was said but everybody said well that's crazy you're not going to have a vaccine by you know September October that's kind of crazy but and I think how she was saying that's more of a 12 month 18 month situation but I think the president's thinking and of course I can't read his mind so I'm gonna make an assumption here I think the assumption is that he just trusted American ingenuity and he trusted that in the context of an emergency that Americans would just do what needed to be done because we always do it's actually a pretty good bet and I was you're sort of

[7:25]

pretty good bet and I was you're sort of philosophically I'm completely with the President on that point that however fast you think something can get done we're gonna beat that and we'll probably beat it by a lot because it's the top priority and we're pretty good at this stuff so I'll just give you that little bit of optimism I think you're gonna see mostly good news of course the yeah the deaths are going to continue and that's that's the tragedy but on top of that you're gonna see an increasing amount of good news coming out and it's gonna feel good alright so how many of you would like to have a little lesson on the meaning of life and so it will begin right now all right this is your micro lesson on the meaning of life now this is going to be an individual meaning not a meaning that applies to everyone because you can take care of yourself

[8:25]

because you can take care of yourself in terms of the meaning that you find dental life there's not much you can do for other people they have to figure it out themselves so this is your personal journey and how to find meaning in your life and it's a two whiteboard situation that's how good it is that's a lot of goodness I don't know if you can take it so here's the basic idea the starting point and we'll get this more detailed on the other side if you were to live an ideal life that was compatible with your biological self what would it look like and here is my contention the you will you will have the sensation of and for all practical meetings for all practical purposes you'll have meaning in your life if you stay on this line which is the line of selfishness and the idea here is that you're born a baby and there's nothing you can do about it you didn't ask to be

[9:27]

you can do about it you didn't ask to be born and if somebody asks you to help out you couldn't do it if you wanted to you are 100% selfish baby now as you get older if you're doing things right maybe when you're a teen you can start to help out a little bit you're a little less selfish maybe by the time you're a parent you don't have to actually biologically have children but you're an adult and you're you find yourself giving back as much as you getting you know you've given back a lot could be to your family could be to anybody your company or whatever eventually once you've got everything that you need and you've taken care of the people who around you you enter some kind of a I'll call it a mentor mode where you're sort of a senior senior member of the tribe you know you're a tribal elder essentially and you're just trying to be helpful and then the last thing you do at least in our culture the the the last thing you do the moment your life is extinguished is you give

[10:27]

your life is extinguished is you give away everything you have so all of your material possessions just go away at the moment of death so this is a purely unselfish moment because you're literally dead so you start a hundred percent in selfish and you try to stay on the line to get to the point where you can be so unselfish that you die perfectly a perfect death is you've given everything there's nothing left to give if you do that or even if you feel you're on the line to do that so for example you're just in school are you doing the right thing if you're a teenager and you're just doing well in school and paying attention yes very rarely do young kids ask about the meaning of life because they're actually biologically doing exactly what they need to be doing so if you find yourself compatible with your biological nature for that point of life you will feel

[11:29]

for that point of life you will feel meaning if you're learning and then giving as much as you're getting and then eventually becoming more purely unselfish you will feel meaning in your life now how do you do this though well that's the hard part right how can you be sure that you can take care of yourself well enough which is really the key if you don't take care of yourself first you're not going to be in any kind of position to be helpful so you have to be selfish in the beginning until you've acquired enough safety knowledge financial assets Network family whatever to be safe for yourself and then you can start branching out this is the the basic belief behind this is that we evolved to take care of ourselves first because that's what survival would require but secondarily as soon as we take care of ourselves we brought that to the family the people close to you you know your tribe and then of course

[12:31]

you know your tribe and then of course civilization so how can you be helpful and make sure you're staying on that line well let's say you wanted to be an author of this simulation if you're new to this I like to call our reality a simulation because it feels like it you don't have to believe it's a simulation for any of these purposes it's just fun so when I talk about authoring the simulation what I'm talking about is not necessarily changing base reality because we don't have any access to base reality even if it changed we might not know the difference because we did not evolve to be able to know reality we evolved to live in these little worlds that we manufacture ourselves so to the extent that you can manufacture your own world you become the author of the simulation you're working in your living and working now the the process for doing that I'm going to give you the general outline but then each of these items

[13:33]

outline but then each of these items you'd have to work on individually so this would this would be how to understand your world the best in a way that helps you get to that that great line where you're becoming more useful all the time all right so I've broke it into three categories but before you can even get serious on this you need to understand the beginning point that these are filters not necessarily reality now what I mean by that is imagine if you would you go to the grocery store and I like to use this example you're standing in the grocery store and and next to you is somebody with a different religion and on top of that they also believe everything that the opposite political party from you whichever that is they believe the opposite are they living the same reality that you are probably not they might be worried that you know that the leader is going to do something horrible and you're not so you live in a world

[14:35]

and you're not so you live in a world where there's no risk for all practical purposes that's what you experience as you're really reality again independent from any base reality it's just what you experience is your reality once you understand that we're all walking around in these manufactured realities div frees you to author your own reality if you feel you're a victim of reality and it's just well I'm just the output you know I'm not the input I'm not the variables I'm just what guys courted at the end if that's your view of life that's exactly how your life will go if you believe that it's you who manufactures this filter unreality and then can live in it you could turn yourself into let's say a Buddhist if that was compatible with you know your thinking and you could live in that world sort of a Buddhist reality you could become a Democrat or if publican and independent you can author your own reality

[15:36]

your own reality now does that alone help you be more successful live better or be healthier or have better relationships well not by itself you need some technique here are the things which I recommend that you understand are your priorities if you have not developed people skills the odds that you will be successful enough to eventually give back and therefore have meaning in your life because you're learning and getting more powerful all the time in order to do anything useful in life that you know gets to the mentor stage anyway you know there really really is a well lived life you're gonna have to master people skills I just listed some example ones here so everything from working on your shyness which you can you can work on it's a technique I've talked about that before your networking your conversation your public speaking learning how to criticize people without hurting their feelings how to manage them etc so it's a long list but you know what it is if

[16:36]

a long list but you know what it is if you're not actually working on that list meaning you're not reading a book on something on this list you're not taking a class you're not practicing something then you're not quite getting ready to be an author you're still and you're still in sort of taking it as I comes mode I've talked too much about the talent stack but it's so powerful that if you're if you're not developing your skills that that layer well together in your case it's not the same skills for everybody it's just whatever is the combination that makes you powerful and unique and valuable in the market if you don't have a skill stack and some people skills you're just not going to be successful I mean you could it's possible the people without people skills can be successful but it's less likely which gets us to the last thing you should understand the math of life I'll call it the odds but it's really

[17:37]

I'll call it the odds but it's really sort of the math of life if you understand the math of life you have basically a strategy I don't like to use the word strategy so I prefer to say do you know the odds do you know that if you do this thing you'll have better odds than this thing here are just some examples events I talked about how it's very typical in the business world to try 10 different things before one of them works if you didn't know that you'd give up after 3 but if he knew it was almost sort of built into the texture of civilization I don't know why but it's a good rule of thumb that you probably tried 10 things and one of them's likely to catch on you try three things well your odds are less so understanding that about the world is important you should understand that if you sell your time there's a cap on how much you can make even if you're a lawyer there's a cap so maybe you should start your own business if you want an

[18:37]

start your own business if you want an uncapped potential the math of talent stacking is that just because you have let's say ten talents and you add one you don't go up just 10% in power you might double in power so the once you understand the the multiplicative you know geometric benefit of having skills you have a strategy just built into your your normal thinking understand about diversification yeah especially if you're investing don't put all your eggs in one basket as they say and follow the energy to go where there's the most luck most stuff happening if you go wherever there's the most stuff happening with most people you have more chances for luck that is the outline for finding meaning in your life now of course the details of how you fill out your various categories and stacks here will be personal and baby you're all on your own

[19:38]

personal and baby you're all on your own your own path but the idea is that that if you're following that path from completely selfish to completely unselfish you will have an internal feeling of meaning and that feeling will be just you being compared with your your most basic biological self because you were born to take care of your yourself first so if you're doing that especially when you're young you'll feel like you're doing exactly what you want to be and kids do kids generally feel like they're doing exactly what they should be doing learning playing growing so just keep on that path and you'll you will feel that feeling of completion and a feeling of meaning so that's all for tonight that's your micro lesson and I will see you you know when