Episode 991 Scott Adams: Taking Your Questions and Making Your Fears Disappear
Date: 2020-05-23 | Duration: 28:22
Topics
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Taking calls and solving viewer fears
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## Transcript
[0:05]
bum-bum-bum-bum-bum as we look down on the sleeping dog and the curtains come down another wonderful day in the age of coronavirus you're wondering what could make this day and in the perfect way bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum and it turns out that you came to the right place you don't have to let sleeping dogs lie no you don't because it's time for the best time of the night the time you've all been waiting for the time when I will be taking your questions in a moment and I will listen to your greatest fears and then I will make them disappear so think about what it is that's making you anxious what is that you're worried about about the future in a moment
[1:05]
about about the future in a moment I'll let you call in and I will remove your fears in front of the crowd yeah it's easy I am but first let me catch you up on a few things so the the Joe Biden gaff slash I guess I called the gap in which he says that if you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump then you ain't black so I guess the hashtag you ain't black has been trending and hashtag Joe Biden's racist it's true now what's funny about this is that there's just nothing here there's just literally nothing to this story it's just Joe Biden you know tried to be you know I know tried to be casual and obviously Joe Biden was thinking that when he said it that the actual meaning was of course I'm the best
[2:06]
meaning was of course I'm the best person for the black community which is what he meant to say and clearly that's what he meant but of course the the pro-trump people have turned that into well it definitely means what he means what he's thinking what he's thinking because I could read his mind what he's really thinking is that you know basically he owns your vote and of course you didn't say anything like that nor would he say anything like that and it doesn't make any sense but everybody's pretty darn sure that's what he meant so watching the Conservatives just use the the left playbook to just manufacture this ridiculous it's just ridiculous because there's nobody in the world who thinks Joe Biden's racist I mean not really and and Charlie mean the god I don't know if he's weighed in on it but I would care about his opinion because he
[3:07]
would care about his opinion because he was and he was there I'm not sure I care about my opinion about it or or anybody else's I heard somebody say that if you're not black you know it's not up to you to say that Biden did or did not insult anybody or should or should not have said anything differently or you know needs to apologize or doesn't need to apologize and I thought to myself yeah that's a pretty good standard I will accept that standard and watch purely as a spectator I'm out Joe you get you gotta work this without yourself so yeah he had to yet to apologize but it is a lot of fun watching the the politics of it all Geoffrey wonder when they discover some ancient ruins that they have to dig down to do you ever wonder how it all got covered up with sand in the first place who builds a whole ancient city and then is that do they not sweep is it they're
[4:11]
is that do they not sweep is it they're just bad at housekeeping and they just don't notice and I have for a few hundred years it just builds up and then their house is gone you know you should have dusted or or did they all leave town for a thousand years and I guess covered with sand back until the city on top of the sand I always wonder about that has nothing to do with anything's you know I wonder who built the pyramids - so it turns out that REM des aveer doesn't save any lives so it doesn't change the the mortality rate but it seems to reduce the virus a bit not enough to make any difference by itself so REM des vir doesn't make much difference by itself so they're going to test it with other things now let me ask you this just this will just be a test of how cynical you are if from does fear doesn't work by itself and REM does fear is like a thousand dollars you know per patient
[5:13]
thousand dollars you know per patient rise real expensive drug and they test it and they find out they do get a good result with some inexpensive drug they're talking about I think yeah I know some other kind of drug so they put it with an inexpensive drug and then let's say the two of them produce a good result what are they gonna do I think they're gonna pair them and charge a thousand dollars for the room does aveer and whatever the other drug is that's cheap you know a buck fifty and say you've got to take the two of these do you think do you think that after they test the room does fear with whatever the other drug is that they'll keep going and say all right now we have to test it with just the other drug without the REM does severe do you think they're going to do that test or are they just gonna say well all we know is that when you use it together it works it's all we test it so you could take your chances but all we've tested is the two of them
[6:14]
but all we've tested is the two of them together so wide-eyed shell outs a thousand dollars if I were you so all we know so that story is funny yeah I'd be funny this somebody says viagra it would be funny if it all right you're ahead of me
me somebody you stepped all over my great joke it was coming but apparently everybody in the Thomas had the same punchline as I did which is and that other drug that works with red and desert here is hydroxychloroquine so anyway CNN and everybody continues to act as though the hydroxyl chloroquine when given to people who only have a few days left to live makes things worse and I'm thinking probably everything does at that point all right I'm going to take some questions but specifically I'm going to take some questions about what's bothering you
[7:15]
questions about what's bothering you what's what kind of big worries you have for the future it doesn't have to be media future could be the long-term future and I'll give you the positive spin on whatever it is that's bothering you all right let's see who's who wants to play along we will take row is that an actual name row are you there hello row I can do you have a concern which you like me to erase from your mind I do it was a tweet that I saw from Katie Hopkins and she was saying that you know all of our statistics and death rates and models were hoaxes and we were being programmed to live a new way of life and I hadn't thought that I've stayed away
[8:15]
I hadn't thought that I've stayed away the conspiracy but for something I got off work and it hit me and I was like oh my god we're not using money we have to schedule the DMV you can't just walk in anymore ah well who would be benefiting from this globalists I don't think anybody's benefiting are they how would a globalist benefit from this well I guess ups got cut off well let me finish the answer I would not worry
about the the grand scheme to change the way everybody's living I don't think that's the thing so there's no evidence for other than people who like to talk about grand schemes so I would not imagine that anybody's sitting behind a closed door saying you know if we can just convince them to door - that we've got something I don't even know how that works if we can just convince them to
[9:17]
works if we can just convince them to work from home a little bit how does that work somebody says control nobody wants to control just for control people want control to get them things you don't want control just to control it who wants to control the DMV nobody all right let's see if somebody else has a concern that I can erase for them I think David looks like he has a concern
David are you there David David hello hey Scott how are you good how are you do you have a concern for me a worry that I can erase for you well actually yes I am in sales for a living and I'm hoping you're good with personal things as well correct sure you name it okay so I'm in sales for a
[10:20]
name it okay so I'm in sales for a living and it baffles me how in majority a majority of my life I'm very competent and in certain ways I can approach people with no challenge whatsoever but when it comes to certain sales calls I find myself crippled with fear and can't get any sort of real rationalization as why and do you know what kind of calls make it different why is it different sometimes that's a good question is there is there no obvious reason it's just some days you have it and some days you don't know I mean with with things primary related to work is when I when the fear comes up more often if it's things that don't matter you know how old you 31 31 so yes I imagined you
[11:27]
how old you 31 31 so yes I imagined you young because part of the solution to this is just experiencing a lot and realizing that doesn't not ever hurt you so the only solution to be able to do this is to put yourself in increasingly embarrassing situations and to learn that they don't really hurt and I don't think there's any other way to do it now the the ways that people do it is they sign up for let's say that Toastmasters or the Dale Carnegie course or you could just approach strangers and actually just practice now I gave some advice the other day that I was laughing after I gave it which is it's always good to match your your emotional and energy state to the task now part of the problem might be that if you're you're all wound up about a meeting or a sale you're in exactly the wrong point the wrong frame of mind to take a risk because you're just too wound up to take a risk but there are probably times when you think I've had such a bad day I just
[12:29]
you think I've had such a bad day I just had a fight with my girlfriend wife or whatever you know five things went wrong I couldn't find my pants there's nothing that could ruin this day because it's already so ruined plea right off and then you say to yourself I might as well try that thing I was going to try just hey let me do something to wake myself up today so I would think expansively about which state of energy can get you not afraid now I find in my life that the same situation can be say tense making if I'm at a certain frame of mind but no problem at all if I'm like really angry you know so sometimes you know it's just a case of changing your state until you find one that fits the situation and that if you've gone through enough of these situations and they don't they don't present the same issue now let me ask you this what do you imagine could go wrong what's the worst case they say
[13:31]
go wrong what's the worst case they say no and why is that bad because you know that nine or ten calls are gonna be a no here's you know look there is no problem
right there with my finger on the phone yeah have you have you read my book had it failed almost everything and still win big I have actually so I would try reframing your situation as trying to guess something out of every call it doesn't mean that you get a sale out of it but you get tougher you get a practice you try a new trick yours like I'll try this I'll try that you're keeping track maybe you're keeping a scoreboard you say alright I got I got one out of you know 18 yesterday I'm gonna get one out of 17 today but I think you could reframe it as almost a sport and it's not personal because none of these people know you they don't know you right these are basically strangers you're talking about um it's a mixture
[14:32]
you're talking about um it's a mixture Wow well there may be people who just haven't said yes yet so you know sales is sort of about wearing people down after a while isn't it you know you know say it that way but here here's a let me let me tell you a sales story is my favorite favorite sales story I had a neighbor who had gotten rich and asked about the story of his life know if his first Jobs was selling salt to grocery stores and I laughed I said how do you sell salt it's all the same like what's your competitive advantage he told me this story that one day one of his grocery stores was gonna be reorganizing his shelves and he said you have to be closed all day at the weekend and you know he's gonna be working all weekend reorganizing his shelves so the salt salesman without being asked just showed up on Saturday and said well I'm here to help you reorganize your shelves and the guys like really why you guys had Saturday off I thought I'd help you reorganize your
[15:33]
I thought I'd help you reorganize your shelves didn't it didn't even ask him about buying salt just helped him all day went home and the next item the guy did a salt order who did he buy from so basically he built a relationship and then he just waited and you know wasn't the only relationship he was building he was building relationships all over and waiting for them to bloom over time so he understood this kind of a numbers game and a question of what he was going to give them so maybe one way to think of it is when you're calling people say to yourself all right what am i doing for them and if you can if you can be honest about that and say alright I can really help these people I can help them save money you know I can help them do a thing they couldn't do before I can help them I don't know a product it is but you know I suppose if you don't believe in your product it would be harder but if you believe in your product then you would also believe that they could be better off and so think in terms of what you can give them yeah so you know the
[16:34]
you can give them yeah so you know the process of reciprocity somebody in the comments is saying that the the sole salesman basically gave the gave something for nothing and then just stood around until it paid off so though that is my advice and now watch this now that you've heard this reframing the next time you go to do this you're going to think to yourself wait a minute I can think of this as a scary thing in which I could get rejected or I could think of this as a process in which I come out ahead every single time because that's literally what's going to happen every call you make whether it works or doesn't work makes it easier to make a call because it didn't hurt you know you you know you were afraid the calls over your body feels the same you're breathing the same your days the same all you did is get one closer to a yes so everyone that's in now is one closer to a yes watch how well that works all right thanks for the call thanks Scott
[17:34]
right thanks for the call thanks Scott all right see who else needs a problem solved
possibly Mike Burt Mike Burt are you there
good do you do you have a a problem a worry a concern a fear that I can make disappear here's a Canada and with this China virus problem our Prime Minister our leading party is seizing power and it's very very concerning issue because we don't really have a opposition party to to work against him because he just refuses to even participate in the process now what we do is help to to train our politicians
[18:35]
do is help to to train our politicians to defeat this guy don't have anybody like that well you know but are you really worried about that or is it just a preference I mean really that is your is your life that much different depending on what political party is in in office well if they're allowing our national place to to throw together a sweeping gun ban without any legislative process it becomes a problem yes this is gonna be a very big problem coming into new well suppose suppose everything went the way you don't want it to go how would it affect you personally mmm we look a lot like China well that's kind of extreme don't you think you would just looked like Canada but with your guns no process is is no longer a thing and they're circumventing and dictating what can be allowed in the process then
[19:36]
what can be allowed in the process then it's not really the produced us anymore oh well you know the slippery slope is usually something you don't need to worry about so typically things go until they have a reason to stop and right now if something's going in that direction is because it doesn't have a reason to stop but but every in Canada has a reason not to become China whereas it's not true that everybody in Canada has you know some concern about guns that's the same as everybody else's so you could pretty much care on the sliding to stop once everybody is on the same side which is oh no we don't want to be a dictatorship with no rules we just want to you know clean up a few things that were our preferences but maybe not other people's preferences so you could well lose some basic rights so uh getting massive comments about my nose whistling so my nose isn't whistling but you are hearing a whistle it's not my nose so it's actually coming out of my mouth don't
[20:37]
actually coming out of my mouth don't know why actually I dunno why but it's a long story so now that we've cleared that up I would say I don't know a whole lot about the Canadian political process so I can't add too much in the details but I will tell you that I know I can't think of any reason there was any year of my life that I was less happy because of who was in power and I doubt that that will happen in Canada and I wouldn't worry about the slippery slope because it'll stop what it needs to stop maybe maybe a little bit after it needed to stop but not full China so thanks for the call yeah no problem all right I don't think I talked him out of that and if his fear I need to win all right Robert is coming in and Roberts Robert are you there Robert I know you're there Roberts not there all right let's try Tyler Tyler Tyler are you there do you
[21:46]
Tyler Tyler Tyler are you there do you have any kind of worry or fear that I could make disappear but I did want to ask you something else and that was you once talked about something called a humility fetish that the anti-trump errs have and I just noticed that there a lot of people say on my Facebook and on my social media family members and I don't think it has anything to do about politics when it comes to Trump there's something about him that they just cannot get over and I was wondering if you could comment on that because it's almost like I hate to use the word trigger because being overused I think but there is some thing that just drives them into irrational behavior well I have opined that Trump comes across as a bully and if you have been bullied in your life that's all you can see and and
[22:48]
your life that's all you can see and and everything is all about that and everything sort of emanates from we hate him because he's a bully and then we'll find all the other reasons if we look for him whereas people who have not been bullied or were the bullies themselves look at him as just a you know harmless and entertaining person who may or may not have the you know the skills that they're looking for so I think that's the biggest difference whether you've been abused by somebody that he reminds you of does that ring a butt is that ring true yeah that could be as I say it's that it doesn't seem to be about anything he's done it just seems to be strictly his personality like these are these aren't people who I consider stupid either they're like really smart people who have just been driven well you know thing hatred yeah you know anybody who's cocky has as many admirers as they as I have haters you remember when Muhammad Ali was you know you're
[23:49]
when Muhammad Ali was you know you're probably too young but he was famous for being you know bragging and being cocky and a number of athletes who have made a name the same way and of course people become super polarized people believe that you know this is a now they're genuine self they're not just putting on an act for the for that for the cameras so yeah people just hate any kind of confidence or arrogance or cockiness I don't think there's much of a mystery to that and because Trump has a lot of those things plus he's rich plus he insults me he is people a lot of reasons to get worked up I do have one more thing for you Scott yeah good thing on the affirmations I just took a chance on the affirmations this was a couple months ago and someone who I hadn't heard from in a long time I just picked them kind of randomly it's kind of an old friend of mine and I wrote down for a couple days this person will text me this person will text me over and over again so a
[24:50]
will text me over and over again so a couple of months go by and I basically forget about it and I kid you not Scott I'm at the gym I'm just about to close my locker and guess who I got a text from and I hadn't heard from this person for like a long time all right do you have to tell me how long are we talking years yeah I would say I would say years I went to university with them and so that was probably about four or five years ago that I graduated so this is absurd I'm not in contact with very often yeah it's funny because the very first time that somebody told me about affirmations it was exactly that story without the text he was a phone call and it was that somebody got somebody to call them out of the blue that they wanted to call that they hadn't heard from and you have years and years and years and then the phone rang so that was the the very first story I heard now of course as the people in the comments were saying you know coincidences coincidence and they're going to be
[25:51]
coincidence and they're going to be coincidences so as I was advised the first time I tried affirmations and it worked out so well and then I said well it's probably just a coincidence you almost have to try something it just couldn't happen on its own and it has to be more than one thing or you're not gonna do anything so that's why I picked this person because I didn't want to pick a person who I am in in normal contact with I wanted to pick someone who you know the odds of them getting in contact me weren't zero but they weren't nine percent either I wanted to be someone who you know bubi less than 50/50 yeah it was you only had one affirmation right it was the only what are you doing yes and I I I didn't say it over and over I kind of I kind just wrote it down and I did that fried saying three or four days all right so now damn it that's how I guess yeah so now you try it on something else
[26:54]
yeah so now you try it on something else maybe raise your sights from getting a text to getting something better well I'll tell you before I even heard you talk about this I got this idea from Jim Carrey an interview he was talking about how he wrote a check to himself right million dollars right no obviously mine wasn't a million dollars but it was it was an amount like I wanted in my bank account so I literally took a screenshot of my online bank account and I I wrote the number I want and it was a reasonable number it doesn't you know it wasn't crazy and of course I've far surpassed that no no no I don't want to say I don't want to sound too cocky now people hate you people hate you yeah have you watched the Michael Jordan documentary I mean there's a little bit I felt to be quite cocky no but that's that's a good suggestion I kept meaning to watch that so I'm glad you reminded me alright so thanks for the call thank you
[27:55]
alright so thanks for the call thank you Scott thank you all right take care all right I'm gonna wind it down for tonight I hope some of you had similar kinds of problems and maybe some of that helped you well I don't know and in the meantime I will see you I will see you bright and early in the morning