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15 December 2022

16 Lessons From 2022 - Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson & Jocko Willink - #565

5Frameworks
10Insights

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Frameworks in this episode

Mindset4 steps

Choose Your Regrets

Since regret is unavoidable, decide which regret you could live without

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Self-Mastery6 steps

Confidence Through Competence

Outwork self-doubt by stacking undeniable proof, then let it sink in

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Productivity4 steps

Contemplate The Price Of Inaction

Doing nothing is still a choice with a compounding cost

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Productivity4 steps

Decide In Advance What You'll Suck At

Pre-commit to your sacrifices so focus doesn't feel like failure

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Influence4 steps

The Hendersonian News Cycle

Spot the four-stage arc every narrative uses to deny, then reverse, a problem

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Myth Buster· 2

Myth Buster

Gwinda's bespoke bullshit: certainty is not evidence of rigour

Gwinda Bogle's theory of bespoke bullshit describes how people cobble together an opinion the moment they're asked, then defend it to the death. Williamson notes we wrongly read others' confidence as proof they've done the research, when introspective people actually hedge. The antidote is strong opinions loosely held: know what evidence would change your mind.

  • People often manufacture an instant opinion and then defend it fiercely
  • We mistake loud certainty for well-researched conviction
  • Thoughtful people tend to hedge and caveat
  • If nothing could change your mind, it's ideology, not a rational view
#opinions#epistemics#certainty#critical-thinking
Myth Buster

Jocko: you can't fake motivation, so stop waiting for it

Jocko Willink's view is that discipline beats motivation because motivation is fleeting while discipline is always there. Williamson adds that motivation is impossible to fake if you judge it by whether the work got done: feel unmotivated but do the thing and that was motivation. Just do the thing and you shortcut the need for it entirely.

  • Motivation is fleeting; discipline is always available
  • Judged by output, you can't fake motivation and don't need the feeling
  • Doing the thing despite terror is bravery; the parallel holds for action
  • You don't need to want to act, you simply need to act
#discipline#motivation#action#willpower

Hot Take· 1

Hot Take

Roy Baumeister: women set the price for sex and men meet it

Roy Baumeister's sexual-economics view holds that women are the gatekeepers to sex and men will do whatever is required to obtain it. Williamson argues that as the historical price of sex has fallen, from courting and asking a father's permission to simply being present at 3am, the standards men meet have collapsed, contributing to male listlessness.

  • Women set the standards for sex; men meet them
  • Historically the price was high: courtship, community standing, a father's approval
  • As the required price drops, so does what men will strive to become
  • Male listlessness is multifactorial but not unrelated to this dynamic
#sexual-economics#relationships#evolutionary-psychology#gender

Explainer· 4

Explainer

Rogan's Value-Difficulty Conflation: hard is not the same as valuable

Joe Rogan argued that people use the difficulty of attaining something as a proxy for its value. Because worthwhile things are often hard, we wrongly assume anything hard must be worthwhile, letting non-valuable but difficult goals slip into our desires. Real value fulfils you intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and lovingly.

  • Difficulty gets used as a proxy for value
  • Worthwhile things are often hard, but hard things are not always worthwhile
  • Mimetic desire makes us adopt others' hard-won goals as our own
  • Ask whether a goal actually fulfils you, or is merely difficult to get
#value#desire#mimetic#fulfilment
Explainer

Propaganda's real goal: controlling what you think other people think

Rob Henderson argues propaganda works not by brainwashing you directly but by convincing you that everyone else in your group already believes something. Because we are social creatures who don't want to be the outlier in the tribe, and because news is now segmented by identity group, this social proof is far harder to resist than a single article's argument.

  • Propaganda targets your perception of others' beliefs, not your beliefs directly
  • We forge opinions partly by observing what our group thinks
  • News is now segmented so each outlet serves a self-identifying cohort
  • Media figures occupy the old tribal-leader role we instinctively defer to
#propaganda#social-proof#media#conformity
Explainer

You can't think your way out of a feeling problem: use the body

Williamson stacks three quotes, from Dr Russell Kennedy, Andrew Huberman and George Mack, to argue that mind and body are one system. Applying more cognition to an emotional or overthinking problem often fails; walking, cold plunging, training, journalling or talking works better. He warns high-performers against praying only at the altar of cerebral horsepower.

  • You can't think your way out of a feeling problem
  • You can't control the mind with the mind; you have to use the body
  • Overthinking your way out of overthinking is like sniffing your way out of a cocaine addiction
  • Treat yourself and your environment holistically, not just cognitively
#mind-body#anxiety#overthinking#embodiment
Explainer

Happiness is choosing awareness of your afflictions over being ruled by them

From Robert Wright's Why Buddhism Is True, Williamson frames happiness as a choice between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them. Because we are largely driven by evolutionary programming, the rider atop an elephant, awareness of that programming is the first step to being less at its mercy.

  • We are mostly driven by programming: a rider atop an elephant
  • You cannot rule what you are not aware of
  • Awareness is uncomfortable but so is being unconsciously ruled
  • Understanding your predispositions is the first step to loosening their grip
#evolutionary-psychology#self-awareness#buddhism#happiness

Takeaway· 3

Takeaway

Talking about the thing and doing the thing compete for the same energy

Ryan Holiday's line is that talking about a goal and doing it draw on the same resources. Telling friends about a business you'll start delivers a hit of satisfaction that lowers your drive to actually start it. Williamson notes strategising is seductive and easier than executing, which is why most people default to it.

  • Talking about a task can trigger the same reward as completing it
  • That premature satisfaction reduces the drive to act
  • External accountability can partly reverse the effect via social pressure
  • Strategising is easier and more dopaminergic than executing
#execution#motivation#procrastination#focus
Takeaway

It's idiots all the way up: why you shouldn't fear others' judgment

Williamson describes deprogramming his self-consciousness by realising nobody has it figured out; even billionaires are 'idiots all the way up'. We judge ourselves from a front-row seat on our own doubts while seeing only others' polished exterior. People think about us far less than we fear, and most critics are simply miserable.

  • Everyone, at every level, is improvising more than they admit
  • We compare our inner turmoil to others' curated outer calm
  • The asymmetry: you forget others' stumbles but assume they'll remember yours
  • People with low self-esteem reverse-engineer any situation into misery

“It is idiots all the way up.”

Chris Williamson

“We would care far less about what other people thought of us if we realized how rarely they did.”

Chris Williamson
#self-consciousness#judgment#criticism#confidence
Takeaway

Find a pursuit purely for enjoyment, not in service of a goal

Williamson describes deliberately taking up pickleball as an embodiment practice: an activity that gets him out of his head and is done purely for enjoyment, not for measurable longevity or health benefits. He contrasts it with his exercise desk and bodybuilding, which he does for outcomes, and suggests dance, yoga or tai chi as equivalents.

  • Choose one pursuit done purely for enjoyment, not for a metric
  • Embodiment practices assess the body without thinking about it
  • Goal-driven exercise still keeps you in outcome-mode
  • The point is switching the mind off, not optimising it

“I'm assessing what I'm doing with my body, but I'm not thinking about it, and it's not in service of some greater goal.”

Chris Williamson
#embodiment#play#hobbies#flow