How to Find and Live by Your Values

This is a very serious podcast room. I can back and tell already. Yes. How can you tell well? Check it your way. I Feel we're a blazer today. I figured somebody needs to take this seriously. Okay. Okay. Yeah. It's you know, we're doing Values today. It's a very deep philosophical topic to new podcast You know somebody's got to be a professional in the building. I know you just woke up like I did A minute ago I did you know ran a comb through your hair You didn't even do that You just have a barbarian over here. Well, so I do keeping it classy. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah The inaugural episode of the solve podcast my god We've been working on this thing for so far. It seems like a very long time at this point while still doing the other podcast I know I know it's almost like six months of prep for this as here. It's here. It is here No, I'm excited for this episode It in many ways this subject this podcast that we're about to record Is feels long overdue like I? Don't think maybe not everybody realizes but you know the thing that I'm best known for is the book The Suttler and not giving a fuck and That book did spectacularly well. It was a huge bestseller all over the world and I think Obviously, you know people will flippantly kind of make comments of like oh, it's because of the title It's because of the f word first of all that's not why it did so well because many of the translations did not have the f word in the title But I really think the reason that book resonated so much is because it was a little bit of a Trojan horse for the subject of values Which is like essentially when you ask yourself what is worth giving a fuck about? What is worth caring about what is worth worrying and stressing and staying up late at night being anxious about That's essentially a question of what's worth valuing like what am I going to make important in my life and What am I going to prioritize and I really do think in this day and age in the 21st century That question is harder to answer than ever. There's kind of like a sick psychological side effect of living in such an abundant world and that when you have all these opportunities when you have all these options When you have all this information in front of you It becomes that much more difficult to distinguish what is worth pursuing and what's not what is worth listening to and what's not what's worth caring about and what's not and that book Kind of started to tackle that question and I think it at least identified the problem correctly and maybe pointed people in the right direction of like what they should be thinking about but In many ways it never dove deep into the topic and it never got super prescriptive on the topic and I think those are two things that we're going to do today our goal with this is To be exhaustive on the subject. That's kind of the whole basis of this podcast is the whole point of solved is to Give you everything you possibly need on each episode's topic so that you will never have to listen to another podcast about that topic ever again So we are going to go super deep. We're gonna get very philosophical. We're gonna go through Probably half a dozen different psychological frameworks I also think that values is is a little bit tricky I almost feel like we're starting on hard mode because it's such a slippery and abstract concept Like everybody kind of intuitively knows what it is But when you actually really start to try to define it it gets super broad and an abstract very quickly, but all that said I think this is in many ways Arguably the most important topic that we might cover on this podcast at least for a long time and the reason for that is that Ultimately when you do look at psychological outcomes psychological well-being, life satisfaction, metrics like that Living in accordance to one's values is arguably The most important thing you can possibly do it is the driver of so many positive outcomes in your life It orients you towards So many good things that can potentially happen. I mean just within the body of research that we went through and preparation for this episode We found data showing that it lower stress brings more peace and clarity into your life creates more emotional resilience and stability It makes people feel that their lives are more meaningful. They experience more day-to-day happiness not just hedonic pleasure, but like an actual long-term life satisfaction it helps with decision-making it helps with prioritization It generates healthier more honest long-term relationships with more stability and less drama and it also generates more motivation and driving people values It is not just a nice fun fluffy idea. It is it is in many ways the cornerstone of modern-day mental health and In well-being and and honestly they're just drastically under discussed It's it's funny because when you you know if you I don't know if you get on a TikTok or if you watch cable news or if you listen to other podcasts like current events podcasts like with political topics or whatever you read the news the headlines Values are imbued in every single thing you're reading and listening to yet they are never discussed and in many cases I think a lot of what passes is like social issues or controversies or cultural problems are really just two groups of people with diametrically opposed values who are arguing past each other they are both correct locally within their group of People of similar values, but globally because they're misaligned with other groups of people they are Basically arguing in an in an empty vacuum, you know just a little bit of an echo chamber So that's everything we have in stores or anything you want to add before we dive into this Well right along side that where you just mentioned I think you know There's the problem of there's so many options and so many things out there to give a fuck about right to value Right now that we have a hard time with it. There's also I think since the book came out This has gotten worse as well what you were just talking about was there's a lot of people trying to tell you what you should value yes and It's kind of like the water that we all live in that we don't notice right We're like fish and water a little bit in their's values swimming all around us and we don't notice them and to your point that you just made a lot of the Whatever it is political discussions or big headlines controversies of the day Are about values and we're not explicitly saying that and so I think just raising that awareness there and and realizing that there are just a lot of people now and Everybody's got a platform to try to you know push their values onto you and being aware of that I think it's going to be really important going through all this I definitely want to come back to that because I think there is a much broader conversation to have Around that around yeah Religion culture institutions what not we'll definitely get into that yeah I agree it's it is I think that's part of the problem of confusion is what I'm talking about absolutely and yeah I agree with you not only is it the water that we swim in but it is like so much of the content that we consume is Suttily pushing their values onto us without us necessarily Explicitly realized and then we wonder why we're confused about our own values. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Okay. So This is a long episode and I just want to lay out a little bit of a road map for the listener So that they'll be oriented as they go through the episode now the first half the episode We're going to talk about the theory behind values. We're going to talk about what they are How we adopt our values in our lives where our values came from how they affect our relationships How they affect our decision-making how they affect our our happiness and our well-being and then in the back half of the episode We're going to get into all of the takeaways and prescriptive advice for the listener So we'll start out with some exercises on how to determine what your core values are We're going to talk about how to decide whether your values are harming you or helping you from there We'll talk about how to actually go about changing a value in your life. There are a few different methods and They're probably not what you would expect and finally we're going to finish on this idea of Practical wisdom or the idea of balancing your values throughout your life to maintain the most stable form of well-being that you can Will finish the episode with our personal lessons and takeaways and of course we'll point the listeners to resources Where they can learn more just to reminder for the audience that there is a full PDF guide of this episode If you go to solvepodcast.com/values you can download it all of the main points and principles are present in that summary As well some of those the stories and anecdotes if you are Concerned with like the fundamental points you want to review them later or as we go through the episode Or if you want to look up all the citations check our work Look at the research yourself look up the papers yourself. They're all there as well So go to solvepodcast.com/values and On with the episode All right, let's uh, let's let's get into the nitty gritty a little bit like what is a value? How do we define these things? What do they look like? How are they different? Yeah, let's make it concrete Yeah, how is it different from like a need or preference or Something you like, you know, what exactly is a value? So Modern value theory within psychology is primarily kind of the godfather of it is a Israeli Researcher name showloam Schwartz and he's written a few books on values. He's written tons of papers He's the originator of pretty much all the major value surveys that are used in the field today And he defined it as quote beliefs about trans situational goals Very, and importance that serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or a group That's a mouthful sounds like a psychologist definition Yeah, exactly Okay, so There are really six key characteristics of a value that I think Separate it from maybe other things that you might think or feel throughout your life So the first one is that they're linked with emotion values are inherently very emotional things because By definition, they are the things that you consider them to be the most important in your life If you think about I don't know protesters, right protesters are never really chill like there There's a lot of emotion going on at a protest or if you think about somebody who who is wronged you in some way like obviously your Your emotional reaction is an intense amount of anger that's because of value of yours has just been violated by somebody So that's first one linked with strong emotion second one is that they motivate action Generally they are not only the thing that Define what you want to pursue in your life But they also drive the energy behind that pursuit as well. So if you value Status and acclaim not only will it help decide what the goals are that you want to pursue in your life are but It will help get you up in the morning get you excited about the opportunities and the potential that you can experience The third one is is that they apply across context. So shorts actually has a great term that I really like He calls them trans situational Which means that basically they maintain their importance and relevance across context So if you value honesty it means you value honesty at work you value honesty in your relationships You value honesty with your friendships you value honesty with your family There's no situation where like oh well No, I don't really care about honesty here like if it's a value. It's a value No matter where you are what you're doing who you're with the fourth characteristic of of your values is that they are Often the standards by which you make moral judgments So it's not just that we become emotional about our values We tend to use them as like the yardstick that we measure other people and we measure ourselves Right, so if if I have a very strong value for say personal freedom Uh, I will judge myself. I will measure myself by that value I will measure myself if I have a lot of freedom in my life I will feel good about myself if I have no freedom in my life I will feel bad about myself and similarly I'll look at you and I'll say man Drew has all this freedom freedom in his life that guy's killing it or I'll say And Drew has no freedom going he can't do anything or the loser right? It becomes the the yardstick by which we measure progress Self-worth worth of others etc etc so fifth characteristic they tend to be ranked We all have value hierarchies going on on our heads and in many ways it kind of defines who we are as a person And what we care about and why we make the decisions we make and then finally number six they involve tradeoffs to care deeply about one thing You have to buy definition not care about other things or devalue say the contradiction of the thing that you care about So if I care deeply about personal freedom then I'm probably going to care less about things like stability consistency routine Maybe commitments because all of those things are constraints on personal freedom in certain contexts And so if personal freedom is my highest value then I'm probably going to devalue those other things They're going to be the lower my value hierarchy Basically values answer the question What matters? What is worth pursuing and what kind of person do I want to become? These are really fundamental questions Right really really fundamental We're like beyond the bounds of personal development at this point. We're like into philosophy Like what is my life here for what makes you you yeah exactly like why are How are we separate people and what what is what is the distinction that separates us a couple Important clarifications just just for clarity as we go forward there is such a thing as psychological need Needs are different though from values and that they are A universal right like we all have the same psychological needs and different proportions Um, and then secondly they are survival based right so a need for food is like the most obvious example Like if I don't get food, I'm going to die Everybody needs food Certain people like other certain foods more than others, but like ultimately food is a need and there's like no Negotiation about that there's no argument about it. There's no like it doesn't shift over time And it's the same with psychological needs and so there are a handful of psychological needs There are a few different models and frameworks, but like a super common one is just like social connection right everybody needs social connection Um, everybody needs to feel sensitive belonging Uh, that's non-negotiable What changes is like the strategy in which we go about fulfilling that psychological need and This is kind of an insight that I had and it's also it is Part of the basis of of where Schwartz developed his framework is that values are in a sense strategies to meet our needs Some people meet their need for Connection and in belonging through benevolence through helping others charity giving being generous showing up when they when people need you Other people fulfill their need for belonging through you know group affiliation status markers Loyalty and hard work being part of the tribe whatever so it's like Different values are different approaches to satisfying the same itches that we all have going on inside of our brains The difference Is that psychological needs are permanent over time, but values shift and change throughout our lives So chances are you have different values than you did when you were 20 and when you were 20 you had different values than you did when you were Eight years old very much so yeah values can change because of things that happen to us right life circumstances change Maybe there's a trauma or tragedy that happens we're gonna talk about that a little bit later But we can also proactively shift and change our values as well through our behavior and the things that we focus on Reflections that we have about ourselves and whatnot. Yeah Finally, there's kind of a pedantic difference between values and in preferences preferences are essentially uh non-impactful pace Between things that you don't have a strong emotional attachment to That don't reflect on your identity that don't Particularly motivate you in any significant way like You know we can go to a restaurant and my preferences for stake over chicken. That's not a value like I'm not getting out of bed in the morning thinking about the stake. I'm gonna have tonight right it's it's just like It's choosing between apples and oranges. It doesn't really matter and so there are plenty of things that are our preference-based preferences are Only exist within specific contexts values exist cross context and then needs are permanent universal So that's the differentiation between those three Yeah, I think um Going back to the characteristics that you outlined from shorts to I think I hope people are starting to already get a sense of You know, the first one on there was their link to emotions right? It's an emotional thing that people have so you can't really Try to change somebody's values, especially based on like reason or rationale. Yeah, and Not only that, but there's so many different emotions that people can experience at any given time That people are gonna be pulling all sorts of different directions And hopefully you can just kind of step back in a little bit and be like oh, they're operating Through their values at an emotional level and it's not something like it I don't for me any way that kind of takes away some of the judgment of these values When you're looking at other people Maybe somebody is obsessed with success, right and making money or or having all these outward Markers of success, so The underlying emotion for that is that belonging right is that they they they have a deep value of belonging to a group And or belonging to Other people that they respect and so that kind of takes a little bit of the judgment and the edge off of it from anyway I agree with that. I've got marked somewhere in my notes for this episode to talk about empathy. Yeah How how understanding these frameworks Can increase empathy because you understand where people are coming from even if they have a diametrically opposed value to you You can understand it like that is a life strategy that they develop to fulfill their needs And particularly based on the the culture and the environment that that they grew up in I do think it is helpful to view things that way I also think the the point you made about emotion is Super important and probably important for the listener to think about too as we go through this episode values inherently Stoke emotion so that means not only does it stoke emotion when you are out there living out your values But it also means it's going to stoke emotion if something causes you to question your values So there might be a moment in this episode where you and I are talking about something and it causes the listener to question something that they value And as soon as that happens there's going to be a discomfort there might be a sadness There might be an anger there might be an anger towards us. Yeah. Yeah It is it's not an easy subject to way through like this isn't we're not talking about like time boxing your calendar here like this is very This is as core to who you are as a person As you can really get psychologically speaking and so it's it's very I can't overstate like how sensitive some of these topics can be not in the sense of like oh We might say something offensive, but just like questioning one of your own values is one of the most deeply uncomfortable and and unsettling things that you can do I mean it that that is essentially like what the work of The the best therapy and the best interventions is trying to do it's trying to get you to look at something that you care about And get you to question whether you should continue caring caring about it or not And we'll talk about this more later, but like all of my therapist friends say that one of the most common issues That occurs what somebody comes in is there's a conflict between two values going. Yeah. We'll get more into that later Yes to to to flag that for now. Oh, yeah, there will be plenty of value The other the other point you made though in this section was about How values are a way to get our needs met And so maybe just to make that a little bit more concrete. I think I have an example of this where In my life in the way, you know, we all have you already mentioned this we all have a need for belonging And for connection social connection with other people and I think I definitely you know I knew that early on I had this very strong need for belonging everybody does Yeah, to some extent but the way we go about getting that need met is very different That over the years translated into a value for me of like friendships and connection You know, we've talked before a lot about like how I do value friendship and you're much better friend. I am right We've stuck this I've got to ask you how do you get your need for belonging met more is it is it by Making YouTube videos and podcasts No, writing books. No, no. I honestly believe that psychological needs are kind of like I'm just gonna say macros, but that's a horrible That's absolutely I should know to make any sense at all I see the threat there I see the yeah the idea is I think like everybody's born with a different amount that they need and I definitely In whether it's it's genetics or just you know growing up feeling very isolated in childhood like I I have a very low need for connection. I do need it, but like I I have noticed throughout my life that I am perfectly fine spending a lot more time alone. Yeah, then most people Yeah, but there are other things that like I have a very high need for I have a very high need for novelty and and stimulation It's like concert experience. Yeah, I think everybody's like that everybody and some people have a very high need for security and stability some people have a very high need for you know status and Growth and development developing skill sets it it's like everybody's a little bit different Yeah, yeah, are you satisfied? I see yeah, that's plenty some seeds I planning some seeds. Okay, you're gonna come back at me here in like 20 minutes Like until okay, so we're gonna go through You know again because values it's such an abstract topic Um, we're gonna go through like four or five frameworks here um to help people like really get a handle on this and Hopefully by the time we get through all of them the listeners gonna have like a really clear idea of kind of like Okay, I can see myself in each of those. I now I understand like why I care about these things and I don't care about those things Or now I understand why I'm having this issue in my life So the first one I want to talk about it it comes from shorts himself comes from the man himself So to give a little bit of background this so the first thing we're gonna cover is his shorts is values wheel and this is the result of Dozens and dozens of massive cross-cultural surveys across more than 70 different countries and so this was Unlike many things in psychology. This is what this has been replicated across many many cultures Um, and it has been found it has indeed been found to be quite universal Um, and essentially shorts narrowed The core human values down to ten of them and these are universal so it's important to know that we all have all of these What changes is the proportion and he mapped these out in a wheel and we'll talk about why he put them in a wheel in a second So the first two are he called them the self-enhancment values first one is achievement Just self-explanatory second one is power then there's the conservation values He has tradition security and conformity and then there's the self-transcendence values one is universalism which is basically kind of Feeling at one with everybody around you and then the second one is benevolence which you could think of as Charity being helpful altruism things like that and he is the openness to change values Which is stimulation and self-direction could think of self-direction as personal freedom or autonomy And then finally the tenth is of course hedonism Which is I think it's interesting that I guess at some point he probably recognized he's like well yet clearly people value pleasure Right, otherwise they wouldn't be sacrificing all these other things for it. So you have to throw that in there right Our category of its own, but yeah exactly he placed these ten values in a wheel because what he notices that Certain groups of values are have an inherent internal tension with each other So for example the openness to change values of stimulation and self-direction have an inherent tension with the conservation values Tradition security conformity and if you think about it think about think about a person in your life who Most embodies somebody who's opened the change and values stimulation and personal freedom You're probably imagining some hippie-dippy person who's like always traveling around and going to festivals and partying and you know just Live in life going with the flow with everything What is the complete nutter opposite of that? It's somebody who's like super uptight very traditional Demands conformity security all the time and so like Basically, it's no matter where you are on the values wheel. There's something across from you that is at there's an inherent tension with that right Self transcendence the craving to to identify with the group around you to help others to be supportive of others to give yourself up for others Is diametrically opposed to the values of self-enhancment which is the achievement of status growth of power The dominance over yourself and others So all of these values exist within us and if you're watching on YouTube or we're gonna have the values up wheel up on screen while I'm talking about it If you're listening you can we've got the values wheel. It's in the pdf guide if you go to solve podcast.com/values you can get it there Not only do values across from each other on the wheel Uh or at odds with each other but values that are next to each other they harmonize well with one another so You know universalism and benevolence will harmonize with one another or the Self-direction harmonizes with hedonism stimulation same thing so everybody gets gets the idea Now I think the brilliant insight here is that shorts identified two inherent tensions that are always at play within each of us all the time So the first one is Openness to change versus conservation the second one is self-enhancment versus self-transcendence Pop quiz Can you think of any framework that Reflex these same two dimensions? I mean it sounds very political to me So is there a political science framework or something that does this good guess drew Bernie Okay, so a lot of people online have probably seen a thing called the political compass and there's two So there's the x-axis which is like left and right or it's really it's like group oriented versus individual oriented And then there's the y-axis which is libertarian versus authoritarian. So it's it's like rigid controls and Personal liberty and freedom. So chances are if you've been on the internet since the 2000s like old people like us You've taken a quiz at some point that's mapped you to this political compass and Interestingly this I couldn't find any any information that like explicitly said that this political compass was based on short This research, but I do find it absolutely fascinating that the two dimensions by which we measure people's political beliefs Are also the same two spectrums that Schwartz found for people's fundamental values We're going to come back to this again as well. Yeah, this is not the first time we've heard of these two dimensions Right, so I think it's it's hugely important to understand these inherent tensions in our values because for one It just normalizes internal conflict. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten emails from readers and listeners over the years Who they'll kind of go through like some problem in their life and Really when you boil it down? It's just that like They care about a thing caring about it is hard and it's stressful and they feel really anxious and maybe upset over something Like the price of caring about that thing and then they email me like asking how they can make the the struggle or the sacrifice go away I just think that like the thing that gets lost so often is that To care about anything deeply you are going to experience proportional internal conflict to caring about that thing right like The more you sacrifice for anything in your life The more difficult it's going to make other areas of your life It could because the more you're going to have to give up and the more you're going to have to compromise and the more you're going to have to let go of opportunities I think that's the other reason this is super important is that it it It helps us navigate Difficult choices in our lives right like it it can clarify what the pros and cons of choosing a certain path might be if you've got a difficult decision in front of you and Two different choices that both look good if you kind of think about like what are the values being represented by each of those choices In which of those two values? Are you willing to compromise on or give up and which ones are you not? Can help you make that decision So if you're somebody who is upset over a lost opportunity or something that happened in your past that you know You wish you could go back and change or you sometimes wonder about Understanding your values can help you look at that situation and really come the terms with with being okay with that loss Being okay with what you gave up because it was ultimately for Something you cared about now the second framework I want to bring up and what we will spend a little bit less time on this one Cups from a researcher in the 70s named Milton Rokic Any of this idea that I really like It's called instrumental values and terminal values terminal values are the actual values that you are pursuing Ultimately like it's the it's terminal because it's the last value. It's the last thing There's no there's nothing past it. It's you're not using it to get something else you value it because you value it Exactly. That's it. It's just inherent and unconditional Instrumental values on the other hand you value because they actually lead you towards a terminal value I think this is a really useful distinction and I imagine this is going to come up a lot in our discussions Simply because I think a lot of people don't have clarity around that like they think An instrumental value is is the real value whereas they don't realize what the terminal value is that it's driving towards Yeah, and I think when you confuse those instrumental values for the values themselves Obviously like you're saying that gets you know a lot of trouble too Another I think common one too is people Like making money right yes, that's another one like they look around and like okay people are making money. I should make money too And then they don't connect it to the terminal value at all. Why are you making that money? Yeah And so it just seems like then you get a few years into it and you're like one of my I don't even know what I'm doing here I don't like what I'm doing why am I doing this whereas if you have a why behind that You have a terminal value, you know, whether it's for your family or whatever almost any job could be valuable to you right that instrumental Value of that job A serving the terminal value of your family or what it is actually takes on a completely different meaning once you connect those two And this framework is the second time that we kind of run into this idea that there are there's a hierarchy to our values That that there's this idea of like there are certain values that we're willing to give up Or that are conditional that we're only taking on that we're only caring about because they lead us to some other Deeper more important values. So there's some super important values at the top of the pyramid and There's all these other values near the bottom of the pyramid that we're kind of just adopting because they get us closer to the ones at the top We're going to return this idea Again and again with different frameworks and different perspectives But just want to see that again for the listener because it is super important and We are going to come back to it. Yeah Yeah, I just wanted to talk to just real quick go back to Schwartz's wheel right He has this one pie in the wheel piece of pie in the wheel Called benevolence right yes Generally being good to other people helping out Helpfulness that sort of thing that's one of that's not pretty high value of mine Another one though too is like there is kind of an achievement Value that I have to Those are oftentimes in tension with one another right and I've seen this I see this play out all the time in my life Because I do I really want to help people and then it always butts up against the uh But I need to get this other thing done that's going to benefit me as well Then there's another tension like as long as I'm doing well for myself Then I can help more people too. So there's there's kind of a benevolent tension between the two two right This is what people Have to navigate a lot and this is what I think you find out when you get more explicit about your values You you are there is this hierarchy that starts to form and there's gonna be times where you have to choose one or over the other I think you made a point to about people would just want this to be pure. I'm always gonna um Value this value over another one or I'm always gonna put the importance on this value over the other one And that's just not how it works either yeah like there's gonna be times you have to trade them off um at a different context Different context different plays like obviously you don't want to be like focused on achievement in your marriage That's gonna be a disaster right you want to you really want to bring benevolence to the forefront in your marriage Whereas like you know, maybe you don't want to be focused on benevolence and some other content like if you're at war right so it's It is it's not the values themselves uh are cross-context but like You want to you can lean into them in different circumstances. I'm curious. Have you taken shorts as value survey? No, I didn't I haven't did you I did you did you okay? I do want to guess what my top three are um yes, I do you probably will nail it He didn't is um no um With power power and uh yes stimulation there we go I'm good no okay, I'm gonna guess let's see Um, oh, I'm coming up for a race pretty soon I think So you're very benevolent part you're an extremely benevolent person Um, I I would say self-direction like the creativity freedom. That's pretty high on yours Definitely autonomy is one of your top three I would say yep. Um, I'm gonna also say probably achievement That's gotta be in your top three. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, and then Oh the last one. I got I'm going between the stimulation and between universalism Hmm interesting. Let me see. I'm gonna go with I'll go with universalism Neither neither okay, what's what's your third one? The third one actually has benevolence. Oh it is benevolence Okay, yeah, which kind of surprised me I thought stimulation might make it in there because I am just an ADHD Dopamine junkie, but but it's funny because I think what the survey caught is that I don't value the stimulation in my life. I have a lot of stimulation in my life But it's like oh interesting I actually feel ambivalent about it. Okay. I go through these phases where I like detox and I meditate and I try to get away from stuff So I thought that was interesting. Yeah, that it came up that way, but yeah I was I was self-direction achievement and benevolence. I found something similar too I mean I didn't go through sources. I didn't go through any of them because I've been through values surveys before and they always like They're always different everybody kind of has a little bit They'll they'll use shorts on basically all of them, but All of them kind of have a different configuration and I've taken them and they don't yeah seem to but mine were or unless you want to guess I'll just tell you mine because I don't want you guys Okay, okay, what do you think might? Definitely benevolence. Yeah, that was because up there. I would take benevolence and achievement or like the two easy ones I would say I would go either universalism or self-direction self-direction. Yeah, universalism was my fourth one. Yeah, yeah Yeah, we're not heating this true. No, no, not anymore Yeah, that's true. That's true I found something similar though too because I do I like novelty in my life as well And I don't know if it's just because I'm getting older now or just De-prioritizing it or whatever it is, but yeah, it's just there I experience a lot of novelty still too. Mm-hmm. Not as much as you probably or not I don't think I see get out quite as much as you but um It's just not a value of mine and even though it's in my life a lot and so that really made me think like oh, okay Yeah, I definitely think if if 15 10 15 years ago, yeah novelty or stimulation would have yeah absolutely Been one of my top ones because I and I very consciously Built a life around stimulation around novel experience and doing new things living new places Proof that values do evolve and change yeah, yeah, and it's funny because it's like everything else Happens downstream of that value change just that shift of like stimulate like Stimulation going from being you know probably my first or second down to fourth fifth or sixth is like A dramatic manifestation in my life in terms of like what I spend my time doing what my day-to-day life is like who I Emfriends with who I spend time with what sort of things I care about right? It's it's it is pretty remarkable Honestly, we can save some of that too for later when we talk about how values change so yeah, okay cool I'm actually curious before we move on the Benevolence is the highest value. Where does that create tension in your life? Hmm Everywhere Where all the things all at once was it was the saying um it it creates tension when I want to help people um, I'm bad at saying no That's I think the primary one yeah, there's a tension between the benevolence the helping others and I guess kind of taking care of yourself on a way to so whether it is achievement or I come mastery. I think is another one of mine like environmental mastery is one of my values where I want to be a competent person We'll get into that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's there's a lot of tension around that. I guess does that make sense? Yeah, totally and yeah, I mean Also just you know working with you for over 10 years like that tracks. Yeah, like you definitely don't say no enough or I want to do everything I want to do Really hard to like with as the business is growing and more people have come on and I just have to ignore parts of the business that I I've never had to do that before with you because if we've always done it yeah with a small team And now I'm just like I don't know what's going on over there and it's driving me nuts. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah I definitely feel tension. You know My highest to these days. I would say our self-directedness and achievement. Yeah, and It's funny because I think my value for benevolence like really gets fulfilled through my work Yeah, like so much of just what we do is driven by helping people and being useful to people Not to say that I'm not charitable to my friends family, but it's just like that doesn't I don't scratch that itch there right Uh, or I don't scratch it as much, but it is funny because it is I would say connection community Mm-hmm social relationships like that that that's definitely been the the falling out that's been the sacrifice. I would have the last five or six years I would say is It's almost like this is dramatic, but I'm just imagine it's like you like sacrifice another value at the altar of the value that you are prioritizing Kind of do it kind of feels like it feels that way sometimes and I I really like when I look at the last 10 years of my life Or actually, what am I saying my entire adult life because I was a nomad for eight years Uh, yeah social community social connections It like that's really been the thing that I give up consistently for other things And it's usually that's usually where my I'm like Shrest or frustrated or you know feel like I'm not operating it like a right I mean like like shorts Showed and said we have all of these values. Yeah, you know, but we can't optimize for all of it Have at the same time. Yes, and that's where all of that kind of mental anguish comes in Again, it's like my therapist friends say people come in all the time with a values conflict That's usually yeah what brings them in and sometimes it takes a few sessions to further them to figure out what's even going on and get underneath all of that It's simple as like a student comes in and say, you know, I'm really they're They're they're high in like a social justice. They they want to make a difference and they want to contribute in that way But they also want to achieve in their classes as well and You know, maybe they have to skip class to go participate in some of these things and it causes a lot of tension And especially when you're younger those things can really cause a lot of mental anguish. I mean it makes sense right like it's easy to give up things that you don't care about It's hard it's hard when you have two things that you care about and they are directly contradictory to each other like you They oppose each other and they they demand the sacrifice of one another like that that is where Difficult adult decisions come in. Yeah, that's shorts is framework. Yeah, that's the wheel Everything's at tension. Everything's a trade-off We're gonna keep hitting on the trade-off thing But I think it'd be interesting to discuss another framework of values That Doesn't integrate the trade-offs that really just aims to find the best values possible that Pay the most dividends in terms of Happiness mental health well-being Physical health all those things and that brings us to to Carol Riff's framework Okay, so Carol Riff she basically asked the question, you know What makes a value a good value? All right, she was doing research like in the 80s and up to that point in the psychological Research literature researchers have basically defined Good values are good what is well-being as happiness as that hedonic What feels good? Yeah, do you feel good more than you feel bad? That was an indication of how happy you were X minus Y equals happiness. She wanted to come up with a more I guess developed Idea of well-being and she came up with this idea of psychological well-being. Right. She drew from some of the big names in the earlier 20th century people like Abraham Maslow Carl Young Carl Rogers Marie Jehoda and She went and she found kind of the common threads that all of them talked about and she came up with These six different dimensions of Psychological well-being so each one of these dimensions contributed to what she called psychological well-being or human flourishing basically what set us up to Basically achieve our potential. Okay. Yeah, so what are what are her six dimensions? The first one was autonomy, okay, so people who score higher in autonomy They typically will like resist social pressure to conform. So they're very aware of their values And they've lived them out based on their own Autonomous will it's the people who don't give a fuck. It's the people who don't give a fuck to put in In Mark Manson's language. Yes On the other side you have the low scores who they rely on other's opinions They probably just look around to see what to do and they do it And so they don't have a very strong sense of autonomy. They probably don't even know it right as well. Okay. So that's the first one Environmental master masteries the second one. Okay, so things like competence if you if you score high on this you you feel like you're competent You can manage daily life Very well you adapt to a lot of different environments To get your needs met so you feel competent basically. Yeah, that's skillful You know how to get around can you think about your street smart maybe yes common sense low scores though they feel more powerless There's kind of a there's a little bit of a Internal versus external locust of control elements of this as well like you you think you have some control over your environment And if you do that's more psychologically healthy than if you don't so other people Who don't who scored low on this they feel powerless there They feel like they can't improve their circumstances, right? Okay third one Personal growth people who high score high on this dimension Value kind of growth and learning in their life long-term lifelong learning even they're continuing continually evolving open to new experiences around growth They are they they strive for self-awareness in some degree And again skill building as well that they're they're more Attuned to that route and life whereas the low scores They're not really interested in learning or are evolving in in any way. It's interesting because it's the environmental mastery I'm hearing a little bit of like the self-efficiency measurement Which is like belief in oneself right belief in one's capabilities and then in the The self-improvement. I'm hearing like Carol duEx growth mindset right exactly. Yeah exactly. Yeah Yeah, so each one of these has kind of been as almost as own little area in psychology since then my Carol Rift Was like she was the founder of the OG. Yeah, everything it came out like the positive psychology Movement really drew on her a lot of her work and have everything since then basically is drawn out any area of human flourishing or well-being Is really comes back to Carol Rift sure. Yeah next one would be positive relations with others So your social connections. Yep people who score high in this you know they they're social there they have Trusting bonds with other people they can form bonds fairly well with other people um and They understand that relationships are a like a give and take right it's not a power struggle They see relationships as the end in themselves not that means right on an instrumental value Not an instrumental value. It's a it's a sake. I guess one way to think about all six of these dimensions is that they are the terminal values right 100% yes. Yes. Yes, they should be yes. That's definitely how she formulated this and You know the people who score low on the relational um Scale will feel more isolated. Mm-hmm. It's difficult for them to connect and so you can see already that like that. This is a huge one Yeah Where if you people who don't value those sorts of things obviously tend to struggle a lot more than others Especially as they met later on in life totally Uh number five purpose in life. This is a big one for us some big one We harp on quite a bit as well and the people who score high on this they generally set pretty clear goals or at least have a direction in their life Uh a sense of direction in their life a strong sense and um They see meaning in both the past and the present where as low scores They seem to kind of just be drifting aimlessly. They don't have a lot of direction a lot of purpose So on and so forth Last one is self acceptance and this is a huge one too um High scores are they they have a A positive attitudes towards themselves for the most part very forgiving at least of themselves is too Uh, um, they're very forgiving of themselves too they um But they're not delusional either. I think that's an important point to make to they're actually very realistic They own their flaws right self acceptance is not self indulgence exactly exactly or you know and eat self forgiveness It's not self indulgence either you don't give yourself right right Whereas the low scores they have a lot of regrets a lot of dissatisfaction with their past decisions current decisions They're just lot in life and they're very self-critical as well So you put those six Together and if you look at them as each kind of a positive value that contributes to Um kind of psychological well-being as as riff is divining here with all six of these If you put those together and get the right mix of them You have what she says is a mindset that's prime for human flourishing. Yeah It's funny because when I think about shortses values yeah I can easily imagine context where I'd be willing to give one up right like Security I can think of a million situations that I'd be willing to security up Benevolence I can think of situations. I'd be willing to give it up with these with the these psychological dimensions like I I struggle to imagine context where I'm like, oh, I would give that up right yeah like it is really remarkable how Hard to argue with these are like you would think if you if you're gonna do a Fucking four-hour podcast on values. Yeah, like we are and we're gonna spend all this time talking about all these frameworks and dozens and dozens of different possible values that you can have Ideally the strongest values would end up being the hardest ones to argue against They'd be the ones that it'd be hard to think of counterfactuals. Yeah or Exceptions to where they'd be useful and like I think out of all the frameworks that we talk about in this episode Hers is like the most difficult one like I can think of situations that I would give up autonomy. I can think of situations that I would give up You know say personal growth or development But it's really hard like I have to like really reach and and get creative and imagine like a Fucking terrible scenario. Yeah, yeah, and you would go temporarily suspend them brother to and you go right back to them as soon as you could totally Yeah, totally. Yeah, this is this is definitely one of those where it's it's not easy and it um I think she She wanted the again this was kind of a basis for positive psychology. Yeah that came in the 90s and 2000s after this and I think her real goal was creating this idea Or or creating the good definition for psychological well-being because it had been so neglected for so long. Yeah, right? Everybody thought it was okay. It's happiness. All it is is positive emotions minus negative emotions. That's how That's a indication of how well you're doing right? Well, that is so naive and immature and really when you think about it And she she was like look Aristotle had it this whole time if you want to put it in psychological terms here's Here's a good little framework for you with six psychological Components that'll make it well-being for you. So yeah in all six are worth sacrificing for all six are worth struggling for All six are you know Difficult to give up things that you would fight for Uh in things that you obviously want to optimize it's funny Out of the six I think the one that Most people have trouble with is probably self-acceptance. Yes, which is really interesting. Mm-hmm. Well, it's it's so hard It's incredibly hard. We go back to you. Just ask me, you know what the tension and the values And one of those so when I when I did let this person when somebody asked me to do something for them I think I did a half-ass job for it when I let them down I just felt awful about it And so I thought about was okay. This is a value of mine. I'm gonna like we were cuz we're going through it Yeah, I'm over intellectualizing all of it. I just I get to the point where I'm like okay I want I don't want to feel like this anymore. So how do I Reconcilo this how do I resolve this tension this terrible feeling? I finally got to the end of it. I said I think I just have to feel this way. I think it's I'm going to feel this way because I It's it's a reflection of my value right right and when you fail a value It's made very very clear to you Feel these terrible feelings feeling bad about it is part of Just accept that yeah, and I got to tell you it hasn't gotten any better So it's really hard that self-acceptance is the hardest part of this you're absolutely right and it's People don't want to do that but especially in a culture like you know here in the United States where it's like no You can there's something you can always do about it. You have control over this or that or everything Sometimes you don't have control over the way you feel especially when it's tied to a deeply embedded value of that you that you Want to live out the irony too is that I feel like People who struggle with the other ones it likely is rooted in a lack of self self-acceptance right like when I when I Well, I think because there's a lot of people who you know say people who don't have a growth mindset people who don't think they can learn and get better whatever When you talk to those people it's really just like they kind of think they're a piece of shit and nothing's gonna change that right Yeah, it's it's a lack of self-acceptance Similarly with you know people who struggle with autonomy, you know like they feel like they don't deserve To Have control over their own lives or have choices yeah make their own choices have freedom and uh Disappoint people or do things that other people don't like so I'm sure We're gonna do a episode on self-acceptance at some point. Yeah, because it is another super deep topic and touches We'll talk about it more in this episode as well. So many things yeah Are is there one of these though the one of these six that you gravitate two more than others maybe autonomy one maybe I mean autonomy is obviously huge Growth is huge for me. Yeah, even though I think we need all of them and then we see them all as positive I still think we gravitate towards one of the other there's again There's that emotional pull towards one or the other yeah, you definitely prioritize you know getting the hierarchy right right Pretty close to the top of my hierarchy is probably autonomy and personal growth. Yeah, which I think maps pretty well to Shorts is self-directing this and achievement. Yeah, all of these actually map pretty well to shorts. Yeah in some way or another Yeah, like the environmental mastery part to um was like there's a competence at um component to that that I really gravitate to it that I didn't realize Was such a high value for me. I knew I valued that but yeah, it was a higher value than I thought I don't like the name of that one environmental mastery Yeah, it's just it's bad like she needs a brand consultant Most most universities psychology departments do not have the money don't know oh my god true This is a this is a billion dollar business waiting that but what's wrong with environmental mastery? I don't know well First of all I I when I hear the word environment. I just immediately started thinking like you know climate stuff Oh, yeah, and you hate that you hate the environment. I forgot You just you stop all the trees stop slandering me This is where this is being recorded No, I just I I associate that word with Just a completely different subject entirely. I understand and then like mastery I mean I would almost even just call it Mastery's mastery okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, just like green book mastery. Yeah, just like developing Being skillful, right? Like Developing Being good at things. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It is such an abstract concept. Yeah, I don't I just I gravitate towards it because I do I like I like being I like learning about a lot of things and I like getting good them like and I'll a very different things too, you know everything from You know podcasting to whatever work on my hand you're super handy like you are You can tell you like you really enjoy using your hands and building things and fixing things out or Ranging things and organizing things and I am like so in my head and just I'm like In law-alliant times. Yeah, that's probably my lowest value out of those things. Interesting. Honestly. Yeah I mean unless you Consider writing Like a form of environmental mastery, but I don't know. Yeah, I don't know about that. Yeah. I don't know The last framework that I want to present I want to go back to the granddaddy of them all Which is Aristotle and I don't want to get into his virtues. He actually had a lot of virtues I counted 17 and the Nikomaki and ethics and There's debate as to whether he had more in other places What I like about his framework and what I think is true or useful for us to discuss is that he defined a virtue as Not maximizing a certain thing as much as possible. He defined it as a golden mean between two vices So yeah, Aristotle had this is like a very novel approach to what a value was like if you look at Carol Riff's framework or Shalom shorts his framework. It's like you either have a lot of benevolence or a little benevolence You either have a lot of autonomy or a little autonomy. Aristotle saw The virtue is being halfway between two extremes. So Aristotle would say too much autonomy Means that you're disconnected and isolated from the world and too little autonomy means you're enslaved and so the proper amount of autonomy is A golden mean or a happy medium between the two extremes Another example is too much courage means that you're reckless and irresponsible Not enough courage means that you're a coward and not able to stand up for the things that you care about And so the proper amount of courage is actually The happy medium the golden mean you could go down the line Not only with all of his virtues that he listed, but you could kind of do this with anything. Yes. Take honesty, right? Too much honesty You're just an asshole, right? But obviously not enough honesty and you're a liar Generosity you can be too generous, right? Like if you're just always giving things away You can be actually be very wasteful and you can enable sorts of bad habits and behaviors in people But obviously if you're not generous at all then you're you know a stingy screwed mcduck I really like this idea and I want to do include this idea in this episode Because I actually kind of think maybe it applies to a lot of this stuff One of the three fundamental problems that people have is that they over index on one value So you can over index on any of this stuff And yes, there will be tension and trade-offs with other values And but ultimately it's like you can take any good thing too far, right? Too much self acceptance Just becomes narcissism too much social connection becomes co-dependence too much achievement becomes just I don't know you're What's the word for somebody who tries to achieve too much try hard you yeah, you could be try hard You could you could be I there's also a narcissism or that though. Yeah. I mean you could be a status-hor. Yeah, that's what I think that's where you go Yeah, that's I believe that's a technical that's the type that's the research term status-hor We'll have to look up the literature on that But not only not only does it Kind of take care of that problem of over investing in one But it also helps a little bit anyway getting to this problem where you keep coming back to where the tension between two values Sometimes is because if there you do want to be What was it like a generosity versus What would be the opposite value of generosity or so the opposite of benevolence would be like achievement or something frugality frugality there. Yeah, there you go Obviously, you know that creates a little bit. There's attention there Or you could find yourself in some tension there and you're like oh actually there's virtue in both of these So that helps a little bit sometimes. Yeah, I just Kind of the conclusion I came to you know when you look at all of these frameworks together. Yeah, it's Ultimately values function in a kind of a network They they're they're like interlocked and interrelated And ultimately no single value is valuable in and of itself It is valuable in relationship to other values that you may have right? So it's like if the only value you have is courage Then you have nothing to be courageous for If you're all if the only value you have is generosity then you have nothing to give to because you don't care about anything else It's if you if you're only values achievement you have no reason to achieve anything because nothing else is important right? So it's like all all of these values only have significance in meaning because they interlock and interrelate and kind of like a a system. Yeah and I think Aristotle was also aware of kind of the systemic nature of virtues because he He made an argument and we'll come back to this towards the end of the episode But he made the argument that ultimately Wisdom was the understanding Wisdom was the most important virtue because it was the virtue that Had a broad understanding of that system of virtues of all the other virtues of all the other virtues And would and when they were out of balance when you were being too reckless or too benevolent or To achieve been oriented and to like pull yourself back into balance So what about like whenever I hear these arguments for balance. I always think There's always isn't there always a risk of like watering it down You know like people say oh find work-life balance and it's like well then you just end up kind of in the middle right Yes, and what's the difference here? I mean, I I think you made a good point earlier that Even values that are intent intention with one another can enhance each other right like The more power you accumulate personally the more benefit you can be to more people right? So I think that's a big one of people miss It's absolutely oh, I don't yeah right the more money you have the more you can give away right? It's great And like the more personal freedom you have the more people you can build social relationships with so it's like They are synergistic even when they are intention with one another and like they feel compromising I do think there is a kind of just overall uh Compounding effect that happens to the virtues right? It's like the more of The more of any virtue you accumulate the more of other virtues you can you can begin to accumulate and uh, and I think the question about balance. I think that's it's a very individual thing You know A lot of it is is personality-based right like what feels in balance to me is probably gonna feel out of balance to other people and same for you And so I think a lot of this comes back to self-understanding and self-acceptance like understanding that you know Like I said earlier like my need for connection. I think it's lower than most people's and uh My my need for you know novelty or stimulation is higher in most people So like what's gonna feel in balance for me is gonna feel off for a lot of other people and it's And it's similar for you. Someone to everybody listening to this and and I think just understanding The What your needs are what level your needs exist at and then also like what your primary values are And What proportion that you want to invest into those values is is useful and important yeah But it's like I guess the balanced equation like everybody's network is gonna look a little bit different People's central nodes are gonna be slightly different the emphasis is gonna be different But like ultimately like you do need System of interlocking values that reinforce each other or support each other Or counterbalance each other yeah right like Keep each other honest essentially yeah, I'm not about that way. That's yeah. That's very interesting where you the The interlocking mm-hmm values get don't exist in a vacuum and yeah, that's a big thing like within yourself But also with other people as well yeah So I actually think this is a perfect segue I Coincidentally, I've got a friend in town mm-hmm had dinner with him last night and He had been dating this girl for a while last time I saw him was a few months ago and he was like super excited about her and everything And he had an interesting story which Coincidentally dovetails perfectly with values and all the things that we've been talking about so Let me set the stage for you and then I'm gonna ask for a prediction. Okay, so he's been dating this girl for three-ish Forish months they decided to take a trip together first trip Real test. Yeah real test and Just to give you some background this friend of mine Intellectual guy very bookish Loves to travel but like loves to travel in the Like likes to find some obscure museum and spend the afternoon like reading about Thirteenth century architecture or whatever like a very kind of nerdy travel guy. Yeah a little bit Hippie-ish like very low-key, you know is idea of a a great saturday night is like a beer and a movie and Going to bed at 930 With a with a good novel or something girl he's been dating Owns eight or mes bags Where's like a $20,000 Rolex watch spends Half of her summer in St. Barclay and Trent Central Bay. Okay party and And they decided to do this trip together to Paris and she asked if she can book every thing and choose everything Oh, and by the way the guy very frugal very tight with money. I want you to guess how long it took How many hours it took for the first time? How many hours do they get talking for the first fight to start? Can I have a hint where they off the plane yet? Within arriving I'm gonna say that was one to two days. Yeah, we'll really start as the first dinner. Yeah, okay They had they started having a fight about money. All right. She's also very traditional Right like grew up in a very religious family. Okay, man is supposed to pay man's supposed to take care of everything He's super liberal. He's atheist. He's very like, you know split the check. Yeah type of guy. Yeah She's booking these like Michelin star restaurants 500 euros for a prefix menu He's like what the fuck dude. I just want a beer And a novel in a museum. Yeah, this is not what I did this form a card. Yeah Second question. How long do you think it took for them to break up? Um, well, I hope they made it back home at least They did not oh wow really. Oh, that's rough. They broke up on the trip. Yeah, it's rough Okay, they broke up on day three. Oh, I've like a week long trip or what yeah, okay Here's right in the middle of it. He like he had to get a separate hotel room. Oh no Oh god, but then he told me he was like he was like yeah, it really sucked the first night But then who's great because I could just go to whatever museum I want I'm sorry by the way if this friend is listening, I apologize You know, but I actually I like you know, I was at dinner with him last night I was like I have I have to bring this up on the podcast because it was really interesting talking to him about it I started to ask him I'm like clearly there were red flags dude. Did you see this one coming? Yeah, like how how did you not see this coming? And he was like, you know I have this really bad tendency and past relationships for being too judgmental and like Like shutting off relationships too quickly over like small Panatic things and he said that uh, he's like, you know, I I really decided with this one like I'm I'm not gonna judge, you know, if we have different interests or different preferences Like I'm not gonna like judge it too quickly, you know, because you can compromise on things Sounds reasonable and I told him I was like yeah, but the problem is is that these are not simply different interests These are different values and you can't compromise on different values like if she really cares about having expensive jewelry and Hermes bags and like going to the nicest restaurant And you like saving money like you're not gonna Negotiate that yeah, that's not a different set of interests. Yeah, yeah That's that's that's a fundamental difference in value. They have it manifest it different obviously, but it's a it's a difference in values Right and same thing with the traditional thing and you know her being buried like old school Religious and him being kind of liberal and atheist like I think uh, I remember I was talking to a friend once and he said he was This is totally just a theory that kind of half-baked theory by a smart friend of mine. He said um He's been happily married for like 20 years. Yeah, and he said he was like I think there are really five categories that couples fight about like most fights in relationships happen over like value differences The first one was cleanliness second one was religion Third one was politics fourth one was raising kids and family and then the fifth one was money And he said you can get away with being misaligned on one of those Maybe even two if you communicate extremely well and like adapt well to each other But in his theory was if you're misaligned on more than two of those then you're probably fucked. Yeah, yeah like you just can't Come back right right. I don't know if that's true or not But I thought it was interesting to think about and I do think you know When I think about values differences of values in relationships. I think it's most of what attracts us to each other And I also think it's most of what drives couples apart like if they break up It's usually because of a values difference assuming like trust wasn't broken If couples grow apart, it's usually because their values have shifted And they no longer see eye to eye or care about the same things or or find the same things important in the life Would you think values like differences in values of attractus is that as I always said no no no I said I think we're attracted by similar values. Oh, okay, okay, and then yeah, we're pulled apart by different values Okay, yeah, okay, make sense I will say this like I don't think you necessarily have to have all the same values as your partner definitely yet I think you have to have complementary values As your partner, right like you you either have to have similar values that like resonate well with one another that harmonize Or you need to have like counterbalancing values That make each of you a little bit better like we were talking earlier about how It's easy for people to go overboard in a particular particular value in their life, right like if you are Way too self-sufficient or Way too tight with money It can be actually be good to be with somebody who's like maybe a little bit more communal to kind of balance you and like Make up for the downside of of how over indexed you are on a certain value I think a lot of what we experience is like a good relationship is That complementary set of values. It's like some people are Making up for some of our deficiencies or some of the trade-offs that we make by by caring about what we care about By having a partner who cares about the opposite thing And being able to get along with them we can kind of have the best of both worlds. Yeah, yeah, yeah I think another way to put that is you shared values. Not necessarily mean their identical values, right? You can have a set of shared values together that aren't necessarily reflective of each one of your individual values But if they work together in a way You know, it's not necessarily like do you agree on things but can we support each other's values? Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, which I mean that is um I think especially with like modern dating and dating apps and everything like that and I won't go on too much of a diet trip here, but They do try to match you more on what they think or call interests. Yes, I think rather than values values And and I think it primes us to start looking. Oh this person likes whatever hiking or sports or whatever it is And it's like there's no value necessarily behind that it which you end up in a situation like my friend because I understand to you What brought them together? They both love travel. I was shared interest in travel right but the value system underlying that travel the Desire motivation to travel is completely different completely opposite. Yeah, yeah, not only opposite, but like I think compatible. Yeah, yes. I think they like disgusted each other a little bit. Ah, yeah, yeah. Yeah If we're in that situation you ever find a little of a trip and I have that's happened to me before Rule Mexico even was Yeah I have not that is not happened to me on a trip I've been very fortunate in that the the trips that I've taken with girlfriends If generally gone well It's a great way to test out the relationship and see your values Because it is all those values that your your smart friend mentioned the cleanliness the Everything it kind of happens on shows up. Yeah, I'll in a compressed condensed time and place and yeah Yeah, you can't get away from each. Yeah That's yeah Yeah, yeah, also too. I think what Values in relationships to when you argue with each other That comes out. It's what's values are what you actually arguing about so it's not about these other things It's not about the interests or it's not about you know, you left the toilet seat up or you're about what restaurant you booked Right or what hotel you're staying in it's it is the value underneath it's the value underneath of that and so Arguments are a good way to bring out those values and figure out what's going on and going back to that like can you work with that? Are you able to you know, this is one of the problems I have with A lot of people who are in the kind of attachment world and you know, they say oh find somebody who's secure enough right well Usually somebody who's avoidant say right they they value their independence or you know their autonomy Right, maybe a little too much and maybe there's a little bit of Whatever going on underneath that but they say well, you should find somebody who's who's More secure in their relationships and doesn't value autonomy as much or whatever It's like no can you work with somebody's autonomy just like can you work with somebody's anxiety? Yeah, somebody might value. I value emotional availability, right? Yeah, and if you're not emotionally available for them Obviously, that's going to be a problem without getting on too much of a tangent And maybe we do an episode one day on attachment. Yeah, I feel like attachment Theory is it's a great descriptive model. Mm-hmm. It's great at describing why Certain people's relationships function or don't function. I think it's a poor prescriptive model. Yes And I think that's gotten confused This day and age especially on like tic-toc in Instagram like everybody's like oh you're anxious You should be doing this and it's like well, I don't know about that right like it's it's more complicated I do want to go back to what you said though about like the argument is not about the thing It's about the value underneath the thing and I think that like this is why this episode is this topic is so important Like because it it talking to my friend last night he didn't understand that it was actually a value difference that like people will have an argument with a partner over a restaurant that was booked or A trip that was planned or you know, there's like They're squeezing the toothpaste tube on the wrong end or whatever and they don't realize that it's the argument's not actually about the restaurant It's not actually about the toothpaste, too like there's a there's an underlying value Underneath that that's in conflict if you're just arguing about the thing you're you're missing the real Negotiation that needs to happen between the two value systems And I just think most people are unaware of that and if you're unaware of that then you're not gonna be able to solve it very well No, you're escalating Right, you're gonna think it's it's about the restaurant and so it's um And it's funny too because you know my friend was telling me he's like they they went through this whole process where it was like Okay, well why don't we alternate like how go to we'll go to a fancy Place for lunch and then we'll go to like a dive bar for dinner Which just meant that they're both miser-brite Right, but they were just like dolling out the misery and equal proportions where it's like no There's like you have to address the underlying value of like okay Well, why why does she care so much about this what it what's like the the itch that's being scratched by like booking spending all this money Uh, is it a need for status? Is it a need to feel important? Is it a need to um Experience luxury, you know, enjoy your vacation to its fullest like what is the underlying value or or motivation? And then see if you're gonna address that in a in a way That that meets both people's needs and it's hard. It's like those aren't easy First of all both people need to be self-aware enough to understand like what's motivating themselves and then second of all both people Need to be mature enough to actually communicate those things to each other In both of those things are rare so condolences to my friend although I think he's It's they're both better off as sounds like I think they both dodged a bullet honestly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I also think relationships are an interesting Mechanism for revealing your values. Yes, right? Yeah, like I look at it and experience like my friends or maybe like yours in rural Mexico It reveals Things about yourself that maybe you didn't know Uh, and that you didn't have a ton of clarity on Um, right like I remember My girlfriend in my 20s we'd a very Overall, I would say it was a good relationship, but it was like very up and down like it was kind of rocky a lot of like drama and fights and stuff and At the time, I mean she was a huge party girl and I was a big party guy and so I think most we mostly bonded over that yeah But it was interesting after being with her for a year or two There was like a self-destructiveness to her that was like a big turn off to me and I used to try to communicate that to her and then she would look at me and she's like you're doing all the same drugs and drinking just as much like what are you talking about? You fucking hypocrite yeah, yeah, and I was like yeah, but it's not the same like there's like the motivation is different I think the thing that the value that was underlying the experiences Was was driven by different things and what do you think I was I think in my case it was kind of this compulsive need for novelty and excitement And I think in and I think in her case there was a lot of that as well, but I think her she had a real self-destructive streak that I didn't I I always kind of had this awareness in my mind that like this is a phase this is like I'm 23 this is the I'm doing this because I'm 23 and Probably in a year or two. I'm not I'm not gonna do this anymore like I don't want to be doing this in a year or year or two more And I definitely don't want to be doing this one. I'm like 30 or 35 and I detected no sense of that in her like in her it was just like No, man, we're just gonna have fun like this is just life like we're just gonna go hard and All gas no breaks. Yeah, and that's fun for a night. It's fun for a weekend. It's fun for a month, but like after a year or two Being around that person, you know, it's like, eh this is this is There's there's a darkness here. There's like a self-destructive this year that like worries me and I don't want to take part in and ultimately I think that was a big part of ending that relationship It was a big part of like why I wanted to get out of that relationship and I didn't have the maturity to fully understand that or communicate that at the time, but in hindsight It's very clear to me and I think at the time too it was clarifying for me Because I think going into the relationship. I kind of have the same attitude of just like yeah fuck you all gas no break Let's go, you know, and Through the course of the relationship. I noticed that I started becoming uncomfortable with certain situations or certain decisions that were being made and And it was clarifying for me. It was like it showed me this isn't who you are Like you're a tourist in this lifestyle. You're not Right. You're not you're not a resident right and so make sure you don't get trapped here. Make sure you don't get stuck So that that's one experience that I've had but I mean there there've been quite a few I think your relationships force you to confront your most deeply held beliefs and assumptions and motivations uh and You know, ultimately that's it comes down to what you care about. Yeah, what do you find important because it's like when you try to imagine a future with somebody that future needs to be compatible with what you find important in your life like what you're optimizing for in your life And so if there's an incompatibility there right it's like if my future is You know, I really don't want to I really want to stop partying Stop doing drugs and get my shit together and build a business and be more ambitious And uh and I can't Imagine my partner in that world then it becomes hard to stay with that partner. Yeah. Have you experienced that? Yeah, definitely I think to Going back to like the revealed preferences. I think it's what it really like a relationship will do to you um, you know, if I value honesty and yet I don't I'm not honest in my relationship or I just I don't Communicate honestly with the other person like do I have actually value honesty? And so you're right it brings it to that but I I think the ones um The relationships where I've had value clashes. It was the same thing where I I thought it was like an interesting or just a preferences thing When it came down to it, but it was actually values and then what I've also noticed though too going back to what we talked about um Where like can you work with somebody else's values? I think that I've gotten better at that as well because I think before especially like my 20s and early 30s I was very much valued autonomy independence and wanted that somehow in a relationship too But I wanted it way too extreme. Yeah, and so that can clash that can show this clash of of values in a relationship as well and Basically like when when anything would go wrong in a relationship I would just be like well, you know, I'm independent in autonomous anyway, so it doesn't matter in whatever just screw it What I've come to get better at I think is to stop and slow down and look at what values are Driving anybody's behavior motivation in that situation. So yeah, yeah Yeah, any any grimy stories Oh god drama juicy drama give us drama drew Well, I mean give us the drew Bernie show I mean, I've had um Just like instances where I can I can point back to relationships and like that's the moment they fell apart And it's because I didn't I was just I put my Values above the relationship really too that I think that's another one Um to snap at me in a certain way or something like that and I'm just like that you're violating my autonomy and trying to get me a change I am I'm done, you know, yeah, where now as I step back. I'm like, oh, okay, they're not getting their need for Emotional connection right now. Yeah, that's what they value an emotional connection and I'm being very distant and that's why they're upset Yeah, um, that's that's a that's been a common one for me. I mean, I just I don't know throughout my Really throughout my adult life, but it's always been I have I have placed a value Uh, that is probably A value high that's to me higher than the relationship itself. Mm-hmm And I think if you want to be in a relationship, but you have to put some value on the relationship Uh, that will That can sustain you through those differences and those arguments and those fights and stuff like that I just wasn't willing to do that for a long time. Yeah It brings up the question is what what is worth compromising on like yeah, yeah We kind of said earlier like you can't really compromise on values. You can a little bit I don't think you can compromise A lot or wholesale like there comes a point in relationships that if you're compromising too much of your values You're literally losing who you are and what you stand for and so you You are figuratively and psychologically kind of killing your own identity to Play Kate your partner Which is incredibly unhealthy and not sustainable, but at the same time I do think it is impossible to be in a long-term relationship without compromising on something or at least like Deciding to let certain things go deciding being like you know what this This is very important to me But I'm willing to back off a little bit for the sake of the harmony and my relationship I think it comes back to that idea of like a values being like a network system and when you're in a committed long-term relationship or you could even say with like family relationships or with kids like They kind of become part of that network and If I'm you know if my wife holds a value super strongly that I don't Uh, I do need to find ways to accommodate that value and Maybe it's not giving up my own values wholesale, but it maybe it's just like turning the volume knob down a little bit on a couple things and Okay, yeah, you know instead of instead of being like a nine out of ten on autonomy I'm a seven out of ten on autonomy and you start to realize that you can be very Healthy and happy that way. We're actually gonna talk later in the episode about how to change your values And how to do it in a way that like fuels congruent and not like your your forcing yourself from murdering yourself So I do think some of that comes into this, but it is an interesting question of just like how much compromise is Too much compromise. Yeah, what is a bridge too far? Yeah, yeah, I think I think one two about changing your values within relationships as well the I think a lot of people you and me included when you're younger You do kind of value novelty and excitement and fun and all of that and you want that in a relationship and then as you Go through some relationships and you see how That can also blow up the excitement and the novelty and the fun and you know Oh, I have such a strong connection with the person right away and usually that means okay things are gonna get You know, there's gonna be some fireworks Not a good way necessarily And over time you change more towards oh, okay I realized that valuing that is kind of it's a little bit counterproductive to the relationships at a certain point And so you start to value actually I value more stability in my relationships. Yeah, I think that's I Like it took me a while to get there, but I started you know because especially in my 20s I was just like no like novelty fun Date around you know, and you get a little bit addicted to that and then all of a sudden you wake up and you're like oh This is there's such a diminishing return to this yeah, so I don't know Maybe we can save a little bit of that for the changing values too, but that's yeah Well, we'll definitely come back to it. Yeah, I think what you you the example you raise there is is very pertinent I think it's to have a healthy long-term relationship period You I think both people need the value stability and consistency in a certain extent Which means you know stability and consistency is intention with Personal autonomy novelty of experience stimulation I think there is an inherent trade off there that that is probably just fundamental to relationships itself I do want to touch really quick before we move on About how relationships fit into the value hierarchy because I do think there's something uniquely interesting about whether you want to call it Romantic relationships love or just a specific relationship in general, but it basically For whatever reason if you make a Relationship or your relationships the top of your value hierarchy it actually undermines the relationship Ah, yes, like there's something very subtle about if you make a a Another person the most important thing in your life it Actually is counterproductive for that person in the relationship with that person and I think it comes back to You're compromising too much right like if I'm giving up too much of myself to make my wife happy Then I stop being the same person that she fell in love with I become this like half-empty caricature of the man that she fell in love with and so I think this is where you see that that strange dynamic where like not compromising Occasionally makes a relationship better like refusing to to be different or change like keeps the intimacy alive because You are maintaining a certain amount of healthy autonomy and an individuality that That sparked the attraction to each other in the first place Anyway, I feel like we could do an entire episode 100% yeah Just on values and relationships. I'm sure we're gonna do many relationship episodes Over the course of this podcast life So we will come back to this at some point so wait what would you recommend to your friend then going forward For looking for a new Relationship so this I'll tell you the advice I gave him okay. I said The first thing I said was what I said earlier about interest versus values from preferences versus values I said dude like it's this is not a preference for nice restaurants like this is a difference in values And you need to ask yourself like what's driving that and by the way dude like The fact that she showed up to your first date with like a $30,000 watch Might have been a tip off of like this is who you're getting involved with it just I love you man, but it's uh, I mean There are signals. Yeah, there are there are clues people are sending out clues of who they are all the time I think I actually I wrote my dating book models Years and years ago that the true self is always shining through like you you It is impossible for a person to hide who they are because if they're trying the hide who they are That says something about who they are right right right so what I encouraged him is I said look Obviously you want to know a person's preferences and interests and the things that you know that they like Uh pretty early on in a relationship the first couple days I said move these values based questions up to the front as soon as possible because one of the things that came up Is when they had that first fight on their trip That was the first time he'd been dating her for almost four months That was the first time that they actually talked about the fact that she thought men should pay for everything Oh wow and I was like yeah, how do you get that for like you have to You have to have these conversations sooner. Yeah, you have to filter for these things really early on and I understand you Don't want to bombard somebody with a bunch of philosophical questions and Like asking them like what the meaning of their life is on the first date. I don't Or maybe you do. I don't know but like I would definitely say within the first month you should have clarity around Those big categories. Yeah, right like you should you should definitely learn what is their their attitude towards money Like how do they see money? What are they motivated by like what what do they find most important what are The How are they getting their needs met what do they think about religion? What do they think about family How do they spend their free time and not only like where do they travel on their vacations? But like why do they travel like what's the motivation behind it? Just get like start to get a clearer sense of of what they care about and what they find important and what they hope for themselves in five or ten years And see if that's compatible with what you hope for yourself and I get why people don't do it because When you have a beautiful stranger across the table from you and It's going well. You don't want to fuck it up. Yeah, yeah, but this is my last chance Yeah, yeah, but at the same time, you know, you're you're just Kicking the can down the road like it's gonna be more painful. You'd rather break up with this person on on week three Year three, right, right? Right. If you can spare yourself that pain and you want to find out as soon as possible Yeah, but I think too though is I it's not necessarily too that they have the right answers to those questions too But like how easily can you talk to them about it and how easily you navigate? Yes Interaction with them. So if it's is something you're like, oh you you travel then you like to spend it Strabbingly. Why is that and if you can have an honest conversation with them and like kind of come to like oh a mutual understanding Like you've said before it's not like Respect is actually kind of the foundation of all this and if you can respect their values Even if you don't necessarily agree with them or share with them that can go a long ways too You can have again that goes back to the interacting Values that you might have that actually are compatible with each other even if they're not the same I would actually yeah, I think respect, you know earlier We're using the word shared values. I would say it would be respected respect for values And and I think what broke down in his case it wasn't That they didn't share the same values It was that they didn't respect each other's values And because they didn't respect each other's values they weren't willing to compromise right right back Apply to any relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Oh and Before we move on from the relationship topic So you can buy these decks of cards that are have questions that are designed to help You know people who are dating For the first time to to get to know each other quickly and understand each other's values and understand if they're compatible or not so I've never Used one of them because I'm an old married man, but you should Yeah, it could be fun. It could be actually so I did a I didn't event I think with I did a I didn't event with school of life so school of life has one of these decks And they gave me one they gave me the deck as a gift and I brought it home This was maybe like six seven years ago and Fernanda and I did a bunch of the cards and it's funny because it's We it was like we already knew each other's answer. Yeah, yeah Okay, there's no mystery left in your marriage whatsoever anymore, huh? It's just all Yeah, I mean Kind of it feels that way It's an a good way in a good way. It's funny actually so the other night Or maybe like a month or two ago when we were with we were at a dinner party with a bunch of other couples and all the other couples were either engaged or Just recently married and like they'd all been together for like three four five years And Fernanda and I've been together for 13 going on 14 years and They they wanted to play this game I don't remember what it's called, but it's basically like you draw a card Um, and it will it'll say something like favorite breakfast and All the husbands have to answer guests with the aunt the wife. It's like um, what's that old game show? Uh, oh yeah, I'm gonna buy kind of it too dude. What is that old game show? newlyweds newlyweds it's a newlyweds game so it's exactly the newlyweds game and it's but it's like a card game and it's you bring it out at dinner party so we're playing the newlyweds game and It felt like it felt like Fan I had cheat codes like it was so unfair because like all these couples have been together for like three years They just got engaged it like I will say this there's a certain point that you hit I I would say that When you adapt enough to each other's values Uh, like even though my wife and I like we don't share all the same values I think we're so well adapted and and now balanced in each other's values that Um, there's a he's like there's a stability that you can't really find on your own I would say um And in a comfort like a security that comes that you I I've never experienced on my own but um, it's it's like extremely ratifying and profound and uh and and it you you can kick ass at the newlyweds game. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah All right, so let's do a quick section on where the values come from Um, I don't want to dwell Too much on this it's funny. We kind of fell into a research rabbit hole. Yeah, I'm very much got the weeds Because there's a there's actually a lot of interesting backstory and research on this um, I don't want to stay in it too long if we can help it just because I do want to get to the Action will advise for people um, so this uh this whole idea that uh Values very widely across people and across cultures uh, it's a relatively new idea Um, if you look back at like the colonial period it was I guess you would say not very pluralistic, you know, it was very much like Europeans showing up the other parts of the world and being like these people are savages We need to give them our values It really wasn't until the 20th century So in 1925 a young anthropology student a Margaret Mead Went to a Samoan village to study a local tribe there and Really the thing at the time, you know, obviously like female academics were a rarity um, it's there wasn't I don't think there was as much wide traveled, you know to the south Pacific and all these indigenous cultures Back then as there is now And so what she was doing she was she was already a bit of a uh An outlier and just in terms of who she was in her program and then She was also studying something in a way that was also a bit of an outlier So she goes to the Samoan village she starts in observing the people and one of the first things that she notices Is that the teenagers are A way less inhibited than European and North American teenagers and B they seem way happier. They're like Chillin and join themselves. There's there's not they're not rebelling against their parents. They're not uh Getting angry and going out and drinking and like hurting themselves and getting in the fights with each other um And the other thing that she noticed was that ironically They were way more sexually expressive and that sexual expression was Seen is okay. They weren't judged or shame for it particularly the young girls And you didn't see as much, you know Teenage pregnancy or uh out of wedlock relationships like uh everything just seemed much emotionally healthier to her And this was a little bit shocking at the time like if you imagine 1920s They're pretty buttoned up and strict in their morals and uh they weren't very open-minded Especially around things like sex and young women being sexual right Victorian hangover still yeah Yeah, a little bit so she came back to America She wrote a book called coming of age in Samoa where she essentially argued that most of our values around cultural norms propriety society sexual moors all this stuff all these sacred cows that The West had believes very strongly and she argued that these were relative that they weren't absolute values that if anybody in the United States if they grew up on Samoa they would grow up with these other values and they actually might even be better off Now as you can imagine this set off an absolute firestorm like huge lightning rod for controversy What's impressive about me those that she didn't back down She actually got back on a plane and then she went to New Guinea and she spent I think At the time people criticized her they said well, this is just one tribe and like who knows maybe it's just the families that you hung out with like You can't really generalize this to wider populations. So she went to New Guinea and she was like fuck you all I'll I'll show you So she followed three tribes in New Guinea and not only did she find that all three varied drastically from American values and and morals All three varied drastically between each other So one was super aggressive and very violent one was very passive and very chilled out one was matriarchal Which is uh basically like women had all the power in the tribe one was extremely patriarchal So again this informs her theory that ultimately Most human values are culturally relative that we absorb our values from society around us and that most of what we believe to be important Is simply the result of where we grew up and who we grew up around So all the controversy aside and all the arguments aside of you know Margaret meets Research process and how scientific it was or we're not I do think the takeaway from her that is extremely important is that there is a certain percentage of our values that are Chosen by us that we kind of seek out ourselves and determine for ourselves through reflection and experience But there's also a large percentage of our values that we simply inherited right whether from our parents from the school We went to the neighborhoods that we grew up in The socio economic status that we had when we were young the values were Handed to us. They weren't necessarily Built or or discovered for ourselves and and I do think that realization and just understanding What is what understanding like What you inherited versus what you've chosen yeah, I do think it's very important on an individual level and I also think it's it's it's a very tricky thing to figure out as a young person. I know for me You know spending so much time abroad was Extremely illuminating For myself because it really showed me I think it showed me a lot of values that I was flexible on and Most importantly it showed me some values that I'm not very flexible on like there was it didn't matter how much time I spent in other countries or how many places I went to like there were do a handful of things where I'm like I don't fucking care like this is the way it should be This is the way I always want it give me a cold drink please I'm cold like fucking ice I need some fucking ice in this drink. Yeah Yes, or public trash can No, the one thing I noticed around that was punctuality yeah, I can't get over that one. Oh my god I understand it. I get it. You have a different cultural norm around it But my yes, I lived four years in Latin America. I lived for over a year in Southeast Asia I get it you're on island time life's easy go with the flow. Yeah, yeah, that dude just like fucking send a bus on time Yeah, just yeah, just Be within 15 minutes and I can I can deal with it right I think that sort of self-discovery is is very useful and I I think You know The old podcast we did a couple episodes on travel and the value of travel and and for me like ultimately that was the value of travel is that it it clarifies for you What seems to really be Deep inside of you like what are the values that are kind of non-negotiable for you and what are the values that that shift quite a bit when you alter your environment when you go to a new place and surround yourself by new people with different values like What naturally starts to change within yourself? So what were some examples of that for you? What do you what did you find that could change more easily? Depending on where you were that's a good question I'll say this I think living abroad made me much more politically fluid Yeah, you know when I was young when I started traveling in my early 20s, you know I was pretty far left like most young 20-somethings of our generation and What's interesting is that you go to all these countries and places and they have completely different systems and they have completely different political spectrums and they have completely different laws and And initially, you know in week one there's a lot of things that just kind of upset you or you find distasteful But you spend a few months there and you realize like wow like Yeah, people get a long fine here. It's societies can work in many Circumstances and under many systems and with many types of incentives So that's not to say that I don't hold strong political views. I do but like I do think that Period being nomadic and living in a number of different countries I think it's made me much more politically fluid than most Americans Just because I realize how negotiable a lot of this stuff is And context dependent and location dependent they are too right? Yeah, absolutely And and honestly that's been such a blessing over the last 10 years because it's like I watch Everybody in the United States is like right around like their hairs on fire both on the left and the right and I just kind of feel like this weirdo who's looking around and I'm like, I said it's not that bad Yeah, you've been in the Venezuelan like you should get so much worse. Yeah Yeah, I flew into Guatemala one time and three days later they arrested the president. So What about yourself? Well, um, I mean When I think about this I I usually go back to because I grew up in a small town conservative area And I realize how much of that has influenced me that how much of that culture yeah has really influenced me So it was a place where self-sufficient she see was valued very highly And again, that's context and location dependent. It's a small town. There's not a lot of resources around you have to be self-sufficient And so they are going to lean more towards you know that kind of Bootstrap mentality that you have out there and they're going to value things that support that And then you know, I've lived in bigger cities and other countries as well where that's not the case And you can be a little bit more. Hey, we all need to get along a little bit better and help each other out a little bit more and contribute a little bit more Yeah, in a collective sense. So I've had very similar experiences as well as when I'm Navigating different cultures. Yeah, you definitely if it once you embed yourself in those you're right you actually start to see Why they do the things they do rather than just looking from the outside saying that's stupid Don't why would you do that? Yeah, so yeah, it is it is Recognizing the water that you swim in I guess you could call it yeah And understanding like what you've chosen and what's been chosen for you essentially yeah Yeah, for sure It was interesting because kind of the successor to Margaret Mead was another woman. They married Douglas and She really built on Margaret Mead's research and work and And she really tried to map out what cultural values there were and kind of Place different cultures on that map or that grid and she came up with a two dimension framework that Guess what it's going to sound extremely familiar because it's Almost the exact same two dimension framework that we've discussed throughout the entire episode right right so She called it the grid group framework. So there's high grid cultures and low grid cultures high grid cultures is very rigid rules based They prioritize order and authority and respect for authority and Low grid cultures are very libertarian independent Individualistic and then you have the group Frameworks so there's high collectivist societies, you know where it's just very communal and you sacrifice yourself for the larger group And then there's high individualistic societies individualism. Yeah, and guess what maps perfectly well into the political compass that we talked about earlier also maps extremely well onto shortzes to Dimension tension of between the self-transcendence and self-improvement versus openness to experience and Conservatives right on the other on the other axis. So there there does seem to be these two inherent tensions just within the human mind period Between the things that we value and they seem to show up Fractally across all sorts of different things whether you're looking at an individual psychology which is shortzes value framework you're looking at a Politics within a society which is the political compass or you're looking at cultural values across societies Which is Mary Douglas's great group framework. So if listeners are interested in the grid group framework We've written a bit more in the pdf guide you can go to solopodcast.com/values Download it there. We've got some nice little charts and graphs and you can you can nerd out on all the citations are there as well So I think ultimately you know Mary Douglas's points are like individuals each cultural type Chooses its own values in its own trade-offs and these values Become the norms and taboos of that society right? So you know within an individual You kind of have case and Distaise I think within a society you have norms and customs on the one hand Those are things that we are reflections of the things that we value and then you have taboos Which are the reflections of the things we don't value right and I think Just as with individuals we have a natural tendency to see cultures and societies with conflicting values to ours as Emoral or wrong ultimately the fundamental point of Cultural relativism is that there isn't any like absolute right or wrong But I do want to make a caveat here because The primary criticism of cultural relativism is like you know stuff like What about societies that have slaves or Do human sacrifices or you know women can't leave the house or whatever it turns you know an apologist pretty quickly Yes What's interesting and I didn't realize this but Margaret Mead was very aware of this issue and like struggled with it A lot of course she did yeah and to my knowledge I didn't read all of her stuff But like to my knowledge she didn't really find a satisfying answer to that question I read a little bit beyond this too and we won't get into this but like you know Sam Harris wrote a book on on morality right and He thinks that if we can find a more objective way to measure morality we would be able to then Objectively compare Cultures and and his was well-being much like Carol Riff like how do we increase well-being and yeah Does a culture or society increase the well-being of its individuals and its groups and all of that That's debatable that we've been doing yeah, right? You know my intuition on this is that cultural values are very similar to what shorts Talks about which is that you can over index on a value yeah, right? And when you over index on a single value it harms the other areas the other values right and that's true within an individual We've already talked about I think that's true within a society as well like if you over index on order in authority Like you are going to sacrifice a lot of other valuable things right Similarly if you over index on freedom an autonomy you're gonna sacrifice a lot of other valuable things Okay, yeah, so I almost see it as again to Come back to my main man Aristotle like the virtue is the golden mean right the the optimal amount of freedom in a society is it's not total incomplete But it's also not Lacking either right there's no there should be no enslavement or coercion or oppression, but there also just can't be like you know Chains off run wild and free, you know do whatever the fuck you want Consequences right damn like you can't have that either so like again even within a culture like you have to make trade-offs Between the things that you value you have to Give up maybe a little bit of freedom in this domain to promote more social cohesion and harmony in this domain and I think as long as you're not Going to any extremes on any dimension You're probably within the realms of morality which Interestingly Aristotle is the only framework that we've talked about that like he did see this as a moral question he did see excess as A failure of morality that becomes a little bit more apparent when you look at it on this like Social scale. Yeah, I think another example you and I've talked about this before is Like a lot of Latin American and Asian cultures put family as a very high value in their systems, right? Whereas more individualistic cultures like the United States and Western Europe we don't as much and from the outside looking in a lot of us are like Oh, wish we you know valued family more and you get into those and you can see when it's taken to extreme, right that you start Maybe sacrificing things that you maybe Would benefit you if you didn't sacrifice them for your family or you see this all time especially in Latin America like There's corruption charges somewhere and more do they say well. I was doing it for my family, right? Dude, it took me so many years to connect those two dots And when I did it was like just such a mind blowing commitment But like if you look at those family oriented cultures and you look at corruption scales like they are pretty strongly correlated And and it wasn't until I lived in Brazil for a long time that I started to realize I remember actually having a conversation with a number of Brazilian friends And I was like If your brother killed somebody and the police came and knocked on your door and ash where your brother was would you tell him where he is And every single one of them was like no, he's my brother, right? And of course as an American. Yeah. Yeah, he's right there Like a rest of fucker. Yeah Yeah, and it was so interesting because And I remember reading I remember I forget where but I remember reading a book on corruption and it and it was it's exactly what you said It's like everybody who commits corruption they justify it by saying like well I'm just going to skim a little bit off the top here to like send my kid to college Well, you know, I'm going to skim a little bit over here because My aunt has cancer and she's going to have a lot of hospital bills Oh, well, you know, I'm going to take a little bribe over here because You know my cousin just broke his leg and he can't work anymore You know, there's always a justification that feels very morally righteous and feels correct to them And when you scale that across millions of people and over a very large system across the population You you get a system that that just breaks down and and completely fails and uh So yeah, it's that's a perfect example of how These value networks exist in a very tenuous balance and not just on the individual level but also on the social level and So would we would be remiss to talk about where values come from without talking about We've talked about the nurture side right and it's like the environment you grow up in the people you grow up around We would be remiss to not talk about the nature side right how much is there a genetic component to what you value Uh, what you find important what you find moral and e-moral It turns out There probably is right yeah. Yeah, this comes from Jonathan height And his moral foundation's theory now obviously now he's moved on to social media trying to save the kids Save the kids from social media But he started out in moral psychology actually um and he came up with this whole frame work called the moral foundation's theory And essentially what he says is that we have evolved a set of Moral foundations that are kind of like taste buds. They're kind of like tastes for different moral configurations if you will and he came up with Well, there's six but they he said there's at least six basically and i'll just list them off real quick They are care fairness loyalty authority sanctity and liberty okay um The moral foundations theory basically A posits that we each we all have these values those values okay those six values in some way It's just that we prioritize them differently and he said these These proclivities these foundations they evolved for specific purposes right like so care The care foundation evolved so we would care for children right and then it got co-opted into a value system right same thing with like fairness and cheating if we're gonna Living groups we need to be able to spot cheaters and um have have some sort of cheating detection mechanism and punish them if we If we find them cheating Authority we need to have group order all that kind of stuff okay, so essentially these helped us Cooperate in living groups survive thrive reproduce propagate the species right Everybody has these is just they come in different configurations that can be influenced by culture like we just talked about But there's probably is some genetic component to it as well If we're we're talking about this from a political standpoint Then what he's found the multiple tests has been replicated many many many times is that liberals tend to Prioritize the care it's the care versus harm foundation is what he calls it as well as somewhat the fairness and cheating Foundation okay conservatives interestingly kind of use the whole palette All five or six of these right they they do prioritize care and fairness Like liberals do but they also prioritize these other ones so like loyalty to your in group Loyalty in general, but mostly that's an in-group type of thing loyalty versus betrayal Authority versus a version sanctity versus degradation. That's a big one for the conservatives of what's kind of purity yeah Value and then it's interesting because I feel like the last 10 years the left has been big on purity It's a different form of purity though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a thought purity. Yeah. There's more thought purity or Well, there's always kind of been purity around like oh, what do you eat right? That's that's kind of a left thing to you You shouldn't be eating these Processed foods and stuff like that But but it's sent more like big picture. They're more concerned about care. Yeah, and harm. Yep Conserv is more loyalty loyalty to the authority. Yeah, liberty oppression. What's interesting too. I think the these are These are all based in like an emotional Reaction you have an emotional this is people argue about politics and they're always arguing about the facts and the ideas behind it But all of this is The point the very good point that I'd love to hear an argument about a fact The very good point spent a long time that makes is that he has this analogy of the the elephant and the writer So he wrote about this in the book called the righteous mind it came out like 2012 I think all right, and he thought oh my god political polarization is crazy and we were all like hold my beer like this is gonna get worse Right dude. I have such a good segue coming up in five minutes But he he said He has this analogy with the writer and the elephant. He's like look the elephant is in charge. You've made similar Similar in how it's like this the elephant is in charge the writer what he calls the writer on top of the elephant comes along after the fact and justifies Whatever the elephant is doing right so the elephant really pulls us the writer is just there as kind of our lawyer Be like well, this is why I'm doing it obviously. Yeah, it's always after the fact. Yeah, okay And so these moral foundations are all Emotionally based and emotionally tugging us in different directions What I kind of thought about was like okay if conservatives are using the whole palette of these Moral foundations it makes sense that they are conservative that they want to conserve and not change because they feel that pull In all these different directions whereas liberals kind of just have this Emphasis on care and harm that's kind of like their their main Their main moral foundation. Mm-hmm. Then they're okay changing everything in order to optimize for care and harm whereas liberals are like no care and harm is important But so is you know Liberty so so is being loyal to the people around you and and having a community in a group that can support you And so they don't want to mess up that balance as much because they feel that emotional pull So I think that was that was kind of an unlock for me where it was like oh, okay There's this really deep-seated emotional Basis for these values. Yeah, obviously because you know, they've evolved over Hundreds of thousands of that millions of years And so you can't really reason with someone you can't reason them out of their values. You can't convince somebody to stop right caring For people they care about right exactly exactly or you can't you can't convince them to You know Not want freedom now I want freedom or not want fairness in in a system. Yeah. Yeah. There's really no argument There's no logical argument against those things. There's an interesting little thing too about the fairness Foundation as well He found that liberals are Unsurprisingly, they see fairness as a quality right they think a system is fair if it comes to roughly equal Outcomes for people are not necessarily outcomes, but even opportunity as well whereas conservatives are more concerned with fairness As it pertains to proportionality Okay, so If somebody contributes more will conservative we think well they deserve more than you know that it whereas a liberal will be like well Yes, I get that but also at the same time too. There's all these systematic disadvantages that they have and so there should be some equalizing mechanism there too So there's there's a budding head. It's not that conservatives don't care about fairness It's just they have a different idea of what fairness means. There's different definitions which both are totally justified and valid like 100% Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is it's so funny that these like These contradictory and intention value systems Like the more we talk about this the more it's it's so clear that these are baked in as a as a feature not a bug. Yes. Like this is You are supposed to feel torn as a human right like that is I almost think about it as like We all have like committees in our brain, right? Like let's imagine that you know Whichever values framework you want to pick here it could be nine people it could be six people It could be five people whatever are sitting in your brain and they're like arguing about each decision And sometimes every once in a while you'll get like a unanimous decision, right? It's like there's a six to zero vote And it's like oh, that's an easy. That's a no-brainer decision. This is the right thing to do but most big decisions it's like three to two or four to six or Five to four or something and you just feel like so torn you're like this This doesn't really feel fair, but it's also good for the people like care about but it's like Not really aligned with these other things like care about and like you just kind of agonize over it Super in that most decisions are most most situations. Yeah, it's most decisions So my my banger segue here um The writer and the elephant There that's a facsimile of of something that Plato talked about yeah, which is the writer and the chariot Which would Jonathan hate also mentioned and the happiness hypothesis yeah, so Plato allowed me to nerd out a little bit here um one of the if you read Plato's Republic one of the most interesting things about The Republic. I mean there are there are all sorts of interesting political points that he makes Uh, and it is kind of considered the foundational text of western political philosophy But what's fascinating about the Republic is that there's kind of this alternating uh organization to the to the book Which is that Each each chapter or technically each book within the book each chapter is like one will be about the individual And like what is right and wrong and how decisions are made and what are the what's virtuous and what's You know a vice and then the next chapter will address kind of the same topic But it'll address it at the societal level. Yeah, and throughout the whole book Plato like you can tell he's bending backwards and pretzling himself To keep this metaphor alive through the whole thing that like what is Personal is also social and what is social is also personal so like Towards the end of the the book like he sets up this whole framework of uh How our individual psychology functions and he he kind of talks about this of like you know He talks about the the writer and the chariot and how like we have these like competing drives and and motivations and and how we have to like balance them properly with each other and if they get out of balance Then we start making poor poor decisions and it's like very damaging and harmful for our individual And then the very next chapter is about the same thing for society And how we have all these conflicting interests in society and how we need to find mechanisms and systems The balance them properly and if anything gets out of balance then we're gonna make bad decisions And it's gonna be harmful for society. So it's funny. I was like kind of Amused by this Especially as an author. I was like this is a really interesting like he's really holding on to this very hard And then I started researching this episode. Yeah, I was like I'm the fucking Plato man like it is really impossible to ignore The parallels and the fractal nature of how values exist within the individual and also within the society And you know obviously, I don't think Plato's framework was perfect I don't think like his Prescriptions were perfect, but like he clearly was tapping into something very fundamental and uh Very true And it's interesting because I remember reading it. I think I read it in like 2018 or something I found it absolutely fascinating play to an Aristotle like you can really never go wrong Going back and reading them again But I didn't take it super seriously and I didn't think about it on a day-to-day basis But like prepping for this episode especially now that we're recording it and talking out all this stuff that you and I've been researching for Month It really is it's because it's kind of become impossible for me to not see you know the the the same way We talked about how like a healthy individual has a well-balanced network of values and opposing values that are counterbalancing each other effectively and other values that are harmonizing each other Um, it's impossible to kind of not see that play out within a society itself or across societies And I will think you could kind of look at history as a series of Societies getting out of balance or over indexing on one particular value it having Dramatically negative consequences and then the corrective to that that out of balance right so you could almost you could look at you know Sorry, it's the internet. We're gonna get there eventually It's hit you know you could look at the Nazis right you can look at the Nazis as like just a insane Overindexing on certain values that we all have within us and then there had to be like An intense corrective measure to counterbalance that to bring it to to bring balance back to the world Forces as a Star Wars would say I think it can also work in a positive direction and so it's just like it's a very Interesting thing. I guess philosophically It's it's super interesting that that I feel like I can kind of see the matrix in terms of like how all this stuff functions and And it's super cool. I mean we're gonna the in a minute we're gonna start getting into like the the applications and you know How to change your values how to figure out your values and change them and work with them and alter them and all that stuff So we're wrapping up kind of the the philosophical and the theoretical portion of this episode, but um I do have to say that like I feel like I've I've like Reached a point on this subject that I feel like neo. Mm-hmm. I see the ones in zeros. Yeah. Yeah Well, I actually I'm dodging bullets true And slow mo. Yeah. Yeah Um, I I have an example of this actually to that illustrates this on a little bit Smaller level, but still illustrates this so Can I tell you my story about when I almost got in a fist fight at a taco truck? Yes. Yeah, okay. Yes This is what we're here for this is where the values really play out is that the taco trucks okay the taco trucks I mean there's some truth to this as you'll see I think um it was years ago as with the with an old girlfriend of mine at the time And we went to this taco truck we go to all there wasn't too far from where we're living and Go to this taco truck we order our food we go sit down at the picnic table There's a guy sitting down at this picnic table already. There's only one picnic table He's sitting down next to him. He strikes up a little bit of a just small talk with us. Yeah, it becomes clear very quickly that he's not He has some mental disabilities. Yeah, okay And he's not all there really nice guys being really sweet though Eventually he asked us he's like hey, I just spent all my money at the taco truck and I'm trying to catch a bus You guys got any money for bus fare. I'm like oh, sorry, man. We're out of cash. We don't have any cash apologies, you know Didn't think anything of it few minutes later he gets up. There's another guy ordering at the taco truck This guy gets up and goes up to the Window and he reaches into the tip jar. I think what happened was he tipped He realized it didn't have any money. He went to go get his tip back so he could get on the bus That's what I think that's what I saw The from my point of view that's what happened Yeah, but the guy ordering just saw him reach into the tip jar and he lost it on this guy just lost it Just started screaming at him cursing at him, you know and obviously I don't he had an interactative with him at all to that point So he didn't know he was mentally disabled in some way and so I went up there to try to diffuse the situation Told the guys like hey buddy. I think you just need to leave you know We'll get you some money somewhere else or whatever then the other guy Pulled some money out of his pocket and threw it in his face like pull the couple bills. Wow and I lost it right there Okay, that's when I lost it And my girlfriend sitting over here like don't she's like stop drew sit down where it's to stop okay And me and this guy get into a shouting match The guy who threw the money at this other guy me and him get into a shouting match I call him an asshole. He calls me a lot of different names We're going back and forth. He's getting physically threatening with me. I'm like, oh this is gonna happen here we go um and so It was we we de-escalated eventually he and I shook hands we parted ways I've thought a lot about that since then this was years ago And I've thought a lot about that since then and it really did play out With these values and actually the ones that that Jonathan height played out here, right? He was he was violating my sense of care and harm. He was like I had an interaction with this guy I realized he was mentally disabled and probably needed a little extra You know leeway. Yeah, he didn't see that obviously what he saw was the cheating the the unfair ness and the cheating going on that Really set him off and then my girlfriends and back here she was more like I need peace and common order right now She came from a very hectic background and stuff like that. So she really valued more Order in her life. Yeah, um, and so all of these these values were competing at this and it all came to a head and none of us were necessarily wrong We were just all operating on different values at that point. Yeah, because of what had happened in our perspective Right, I can look at it now from a more detached point of view, but at the time I mean I was very emotionally charged situation obviously yeah And it was because of these value triggers these these innate Kind of foundations that that height outlined here They've been violated for each one of us in that situation and I don't know I just thought it was interesting But now I can look back at a detachment like oh, okay, this guy wasn't actually an asshole He just saw that somebody was cheating the system and he didn't like cheaters like okay, that makes sense to me He didn't see that I had already seen this guy. He had probably needed a little extra care And a little extra tending to and and he violated that when I saw him treating him poorly And my girlfriend was like okay, this is just stupid basically and she was probably right honestly at the end of the day The wise one yeah So I don't know that to me that is kind of a microcosm of I think of what goes on all the time people get into fights or they get into arguments and they think they're so right because one of their values has been violated Or triggered in some way and they don't see that somebody else's has also been at the same time So I don't know. I just thought that was yeah kind of interesting You know playdoh called this the allegory of the taco truck. He did. Yeah, that's true He's got the allegory of the taco truck Yeah, that was that that was in the the the the cut chapter of the road public That's actually what the chariot was is actually a The writer in the taco truck Yeah New book idea The writer in the the allegory of the taco truck. That's my taco truck I thought you were going to say and this was all a metaphor for a Trump administration 2.0 Well, I mean you could go there. Yeah Yeah, all the conspiracy bros are going to be dissecting that story for the next three months on Twitter Yeah, basically Drew I've come to realization. Okay The blazer was a bad idea Because we're an hour three or four here and I'm sweating like a fucking pig. Yeah, what I've discovered is that my value for professionalism Is not very high on my heart That's a mark You change your behavior going forward. I definitely value my own comfort. That's good and Lack of sweatiness a little bit more you can shed it if you want to I think that's okay Okay, keep it classy How are we gonna be credible if not neither of us is wearing a blazer. I'm not gonna help your causes at all. That's for sure Why are we talking about mark? Where are we at now? Where are we going to? So okay, we've talked quite a bit about what are our values? What do they do? Why are they important? Where do they come from? It's finally time to get into the application How do we figure out what our values are? How do we change our values and how can we adapt to our values moving forward? So from here on out we're getting into the nuts and bolts to take away is the applications Starting with actually determining your core values. Yeah figuring them out. Yeah because it's Very ambiguous and in unclear and you know, we've Up to this point we've had a ton of these conversations We've had a bunch of little anecdotes and like oh yeah when I was young I used to feel this way and It's it's really hard to get actual clarity on like what are your values? Roughly what order do they come in and so I think it's probably useful to kind of go through a few exercises To help people clarify doing that and I should mention to that like we're gonna go through a few exercises here but we have a full 30-day Program based around this episode of values that help people break down their values discover their values Act on their values change their values It's in the momentum community So if people are interested in that they can get help with this they can learn to apply all these things They can get a bunch of useful exercises and journaling prompts and accountability So just go to find momentum.com/values You can find more info there. We're going to start with something called the desert island visualization One of the things that I find is really Clarifying for people is that like a lot of people you know we talked earlier about how There's like a murky line between what our values are and what the people's values around us are And how do we know that we're actually doing something for ourselves versus just doing something the police other people And so I think one of the one of the kind of the initial useful exercises is simply practicing a thought experiment of like Removing those social pressures So the simple version of this is that imagine you're on a desert island and the desert island is absolutely abundant So it's everything you could ever want materially is there any like video games you enjoy or hobbies you might have or Different foods that you might want Like hypothetically you are capable of doing anything on this island that you can do off of the island. Okay But you're alone on the island and so the question is what do you spend your time doing? Oh, are you reading? Are you watching TV? Are you Painting or you making music? Are you learning a new skill? Are you studying a language? Are you like What are you doing? Yeah, right? What would you do? Um I the when you said reading I was like oh, I definitely bring a bunch of books because I just like I love that I think I would I think I still think I would work out. I actually think I would even though I think I started working out to look good for other people But I still think I would because I feel so good about it. Yeah, so I think I would definitely still work on my health Because even if you're alone, there's a lot of value with that. Yeah, and yeah I would explore all sorts of creative stuff too I just anything and everything if nothing mattered if I did if nobody there was no social pressure around a judge my work or anything like that I think I would go nuts with that. Yeah, in an ideal world Those are the top of mind for me anyway. What what comes to mind for you first? It's funny because I don't think my life would be that different. Oh Oh, Mark wow That's a total. Yeah, that's a huge flex. I I should say that in a lot of these exercises. Yeah That is kind of the ideal response right right. Yeah, because it's like if I was alone on a desert island I would probably spend most of my time reading and writing and playing video games which is basically what I spend my time doing now so And running on the beach which I also do now So so that's the goal that's the goal is that you If there is a large discrepancy if like all the things you would do on the island have nothing to do with what you're doing in your day-to-day life That's a sign okay That's a sign that a lot of what you're prioritizing in your life are not actually your values It's the values of the people around you. Okay Another useful exercise is to imagine your funeral. This is almost kind of the opposite of the desert island exercise because this is This kind of reintroduces the social pressure, but it's also Asking yourself. What do you want to be known to other people for like removes you from it? They removes yourself in exactly So the second exercise is imagine yourself at your funeral and what do you wish people would say for your eulogy? What do you wish that people would Say about you if you died. Yeah Mine is I hope they say he gave more than he took That's um, I think I've heard that someone that sounds like a Gary Vee thing or something I don't know but um that really rings true to me I hope everybody says yeah, he gave more than he took that's like the core of benevolence. Yeah, yeah Like all the way through that was an easy one for me like that one came to me right away And I was like okay, I hope I'm living that out too and I feel like I am so there again I think I'm in an in alignment with that which is good. It's funny. I'm trying to think Actually kind of hard I'm in hard time with this yeah It's not to make a joke of like I don't have friends or I don't like people I don't want you like anyone. Yeah, I don't want you at my Don't come you're not invited everyone I think what I would want people to say is that that I was um Authentic and I stood up for what I believed in and ultimately I was a net positive of course in the world right That I gave a shit right, so what's that what's that underlying value then like a contribution or um I think there's some bit of an even I think there's some benevolence in their authenticity's definitely that's kind of the first thing that came to mind A little bit of self-directed, you know, it's like I did it my way right like I was I wasn't afraid to like Strike out on my own path and try things differently Um that feels important to me And then yeah the contribution feels important as well like you know leaving some sort of legacy or so okay What if somebody has the answer to that I think I'm borrowing from something you wrote one time like uh He fucked like a wildebeest and uh the best golf swing I got the world all in two every time yeah Yeah, well unless you're tiger woods like I doubt that's that's realistic um So that's a mainstay of the social media account uh it's uh it goes uh Nobody's gonna stand up at your funeral and say he fucked like a wildebeest and had the best golf swing I've ever seen I think the point there is that Ultimately when you're dead you don't really care about impressing people anymore. So What's the value you're really leaving behind like what's the statement you're leaving behind What's the legacy you're leaving behind I think it's a useful thing to think about and you think ultimately the things we care about They should be greater than ourselves in some sense Like I think our highest values like the top of the pyramid Are really things that we should put above ourselves. Yeah, right right there's the That everything we know from the philosophy and psychology Kind of states that like that that is the optimal Arrangement is that the self is high on the pyramid, but it's not at the top right right. Yeah, so I think if you are like If for whatever reason I don't think very many people would think that like oh this is what I want people to say You know, I fucked like a wildebeest and have the best golf swing or ever if that those kind of times of things are coming to mind Maybe reevaluate that a little bit Yeah, it's a sign that you're looking for a lot of validation. Yeah. Yeah. What's another one Um, this one was very clarifying for me look to frustration in your life as clues to your values as well What what sets you off what what what's your pet peeve that you have when it comes up over and over and over again And like for me it was just I see incompetence in the world and it just all that drives me fucking insane right This goes back to my mastery like I want environmental mastery or competence in the work you do I like I value competent people I value competence in myself I expect that in myself and in people around me and when I don't get it when it's around me and when incompetence is in my environment Uh, it just it drives me insane. Yeah, but it was like like when I when I thought of this exercise like that one We're like went straight to it. I like yes that one You know what the first thing I came to my mind is it's actually kind of funny It this is similar to this is like my version of the allegory of the taco truck. Okay. Uh I hate line cutters. Oh, yeah, that's another thing we get it right in the United States. Oh my god. I'll come on you guys like literally if you the like if you if you add it up every time I've almost gotten in a fist fight Yeah, like 80% of them are because somebody cut in like yeah, I I fucking hated especially when you're at like a concert or something yeah waiting in line for an hour and somebody just walks right in front of you Lose my shit. Absolutely. There's my shit. I'm always that guy who's like no no no no no no no back. Yeah. Yeah back you back go Back it's the fairness, right? Yeah, it absolutely comes down if and fairness is a huge thing for me fairness and and Fairness justice integrity is like a big thing for me, but it's um I do think for me. It's fairness is more It's less about equality and it's more about uh integrity. Yeah, like integrity honesty And integrity like huge things for me the rest of us didn't lie and you have to do exactly that's that's how it works Exactly and like the way this plays out and and My career is that like I just I mean as you know, there's a lot of bullshit in this industry There's a lot of shortcuts. There's a lot of things you can say to the get get some audience or get some money like a bunch of you know Little hacks and stuff right short cuts. Yeah, I can't do it. Yeah, I fucking I can't do it because it's it's if it's not If I don't honestly believe it's helpful to people like I just can't bring myself to say it. So that's a huge one for me Okay, yeah, it's no taco truck that it's it's the best that got What else um, okay ranking and prioritizing if you Would just put two values up that you're trying to decide between mmm I like this this is choice. This is like yeah. Yeah, what's the what's that movie? Sophie's choice You know where it's like I don't think I've seen that movie. Oh, it's it's I think it's about a mother who has to choose between two over kids Like one cheat like has to decide which over her two kids dies. Okay Sounds great. I should really check that just the bundle of yeah Take the whole family. Yeah, so I kind of imagine like a Sophie's choice I'll range me here with like you put two values, you know, maybe uh in the gallows and like put a news around their head Getting a little sick here, but and then you you have to like pick one right so it's like you have to live the rest So let's go with like honesty and competency, okay, so like honesty and competence. Oh, yeah, gun to your head You have to live the rest of your life without one of them. Which one do you pick? I'm going with honesty You that was a gut reaction you get rid of honesty No, no, no, I would I would choose it. I would you yeah, yeah, I would get rid of competency I think and it would drive me insane. Yes, and I would hate it But I would rather live in an honest world that with a bunch of Uh incompetent morons Then like a bunch of lying assholes who are highly competent. Yes I totally you know, I just did there. I just made all that up after the fact too. Yeah, I did the whole this is the whole john height thing right That was the writer Your writer was just the fun you're often my elephant there my gut reaction was honesty and that's I made up a reason for why yeah I'm with you though and actually I would you I think you could actually argue that dishonest competency is is like oh, that's that's it's the definition of evil pulling it. Yeah, right. Yeah, right like it that is that's like Darth Vader Yeah, like it's that's uh Yeah, of course in the real world we don't have to make those choices luckily. I mean sometimes we do we do we or do we We could be in the matrix once again. I mean have you seen the recent elections? Good point. Good fair point Typically we don't have to choose between those but yeah, yeah, no that it is an interesting thought experiment of I mean You can get yourself into some really ugly situations, right? Like uh if you think about um, I don't know like uh Community versus uh career achievement, right gun your head. You can only have one which one do you take? Mm-hmm I would probably take career achievement which is not the quote unquote yeah correct answer But if I'm being honest, that's what I would take. Oh, that's a tough one for me. I don't know if I don't know I might lean towards more community on that one just because well, I'm just I'm making up another I mean, I think it's a thing you can't think too much about yeah, I think you're right that it's like the the gut reaction It's the gut reaction. It's like the first thing that just seems right you just go with it because that is Ultimately like these values existed a very deep emotional level This brings up a question I wanted to ask in this section too was how much How how dispossitional do you think values are versus aspirational? Right Because I think a lot of these but like when you when I Came down to it and when I was going through like okay really decide my values and I do this every couple of years Like what am I valuing right now and this and that it's a gut thing it seems like it's such a gut thing But I don't know how much of that is like You know there probably is some mix of genetics and and culture and socializing and all of that How much how much of these are dispossitional versus aspirational and we'll get to the change part I guess changing of value too, but um can you aspire to change about you? I don't know I think you can yeah, you think that I mean there's there's some personality component to it through though Right there is because like for instance my mom and my sister were both social workers And they're like both of them like business just thinking about business kind of drives them nuts They're just like you know and they're just both of them have parts of gold and Social work makes sense for them. Somebody who's like more achievement based So it's gonna look at them like why would you be a social worker? That's insane. Yeah, right? Yeah Well, there's probably a very dispossitional Factor that one is there is I so I think you can be aspirational at the margins right now Okay, yeah, so let's use the example. I think achievement and community in my life is like a really good example of this right so I even if I bullshit you and said Community here because that's the thing that you're supposed to say and you know, whatever uh It does not take A rocket scientist to look at my life over the last 10 years and be like clearly you value achievement Right because you've like just worked like an insane person designed your life around it. Yeah, right and like foregone Community and connection repeatedly through your choices. That's part of it. But that being said I can look at my life like understanding what everything I know about psychology and well-being and human flourishing whatnot It's very clear to me that it's like yeah, I could use more community in my life like that would make me a more balanced Better functional person if I like maybe de-indexed on achievement just a little like maybe bring the volume that knob down from 10 to a nine and then dial the community up from like a Board to a six okay like if that if I can manage that trade off that's probably a overall of beneficial trade off in my life But it's hard right so so I would say in that sense that you a value can be aspirational But I don't think you can go from like I'm trying to think of something like I genuinely just don't fucking care so like Formality or provide like we're making the jokes about blazers and stuff right like if there's anything I just genuinely do give Zero fucks about it is It is like formalities Pre- like impropriety Social like social like I do care about social norms, but like You know stuff like you're uh, you know when you go to this sort of event You're supposed to wear your tuxedo like this and always touch this fork first like I don't fucking care Don't care. Yeah, never will I'm worth your on that theory. I don't care whose princess you are I'm gonna eat my titles So I don't think I can Aspire to start carrying okay, like it ultimately if I do aspire to start carrying about that It's probably because it's becoming an instrumental value and something else. I'll give you an example about that So we were joking about tiger words woods earlier. Yeah, I almost said the chance I had the chance to play golf with tiger woods. Oh, okay, and I didn't It's like unintentionally I didn't The the hilarious part about this is that I hate golf I So the story behind this I was doing Will Smith's book and Will is a good friend of tigers and Will loves golf He's like fucking obsessed with golf and I was hanging out with him in Miami and And we were like having dinner or whatever and Will just like very casually was like hey, you won't play golf tomorrow And I was like, no, I don't really play he's like, oh, okay cool And then like Will's manager came over and he's like hey man I think he should go to golf with him tomorrow And I was like dude, I don't play I'm gonna be And like I know enough about golf to know that if you don't play golf you're gonna embarrass yourself And you are gonna slow everybody down like yeah, you just you drag the whole game, right? Like it just it makes everybody miserable And so I was like no, no, no, no, I'm like it's it's not gonna go well And he was like he looked at me he was like You should really go to this golf game and I was like Tired I don't know. I was like this is kind of weird. There's a lot of pressure I was like no, no, I'll just catch up with him after anyway come to find out The golf game was with tiger okay, and the next day I found like I saw Will and he like comes in He's like man, just had a great golf game man. We were playing with tiger woods. You should have come out Just like what the fuck what the actual fuck? And so I went through this minute phase in my life where I had this realization which is like Okay Really rich and successful people love golf right and uh I just I could have I just passed up on like four hours of intimate face time With tiger woods and will Smith That if I just knew how to swing a fucking golf club right I would have had that right and I started thinking I'm like how many other people are there in the world that if I knew how to swing a golf club I could have that sort of face time and have that access and man like You're just out in this golf course by yourselves and like nothing else to do And so you're just chatting and like you get to know each other and like you really build a relationship and all this stuff I'm like wow knowing how to play golf like now I get it now I get why all those fucking corporate douchebags and CEOs and stuff play golf all the time Because it's like the best networking activity there is period. So I was like okay, I got to pick up golf And so I went through this phase for like four months where I'm like I got to learn golf I got to like start liking golf and so I went to a driving range with a friend I was fucking terrible and then I went to another friend's bachelor party and we played golf with a bunch of guys I got through like 10 holes and I was like I hate my life. I'm gonna go home and then I went I went home Visited my parents my dad's obsessive golf. So I was like I told my dad. I'm like you gotta take me out play golf with you like Teach me how to play this game teach me how to like this thing Anyway long story short after like a few months of this. I'm like I fucking hate this game There's absolutely nothing redeeming about this for me. There's nothing I like about it. I'm absolutely terrible at it And I realize I'm like what am I doing like this is not I don't actually value this game. Yeah I value what this game gets me. Mm-hmm. This is my achievement value at work, right? Like the only reason I care about this is because I think it's gonna like get me an end with people that I might want to have an end with I'm like that's stupid Like There's so many better ways to to meet people or like having an end with somebody right? Yeah instead of like Trying to make yourself play a game that you actually hate playing. So anyway, that's my golf career Nobody will be standing up in my funeral and talking about my golf swing for sure I fucking hate golf too, so I don't know I don't I got nothing to add there because I've tried as well Yeah, any other fun exercises to discover values. No, there you know There's a lot of these you can kind of even come up with it on your own There's also you can go out and you can take these online tests for the values We kind of already mentioned that a little bit. But you can do that. That's fine. Shorts value survey Yeah, that's a good one. I believe there's another one. I think it's called a pvq There's tons there's a bunch of there's tons out there I found these exercises to be way more valuable for me though because It gets a little too analytical when you start. Okay. What's my score on this values test and this and that and it's like oh these are real Examples for my life that I immediately and emotionally connect with like I was saying you have these like immediate reactions. Yes when you do these thought experiments and those are way more clarifying than any test You get these and you're like you're like 42 on this and 33 on this and I'm just like what does that even mean? It can be super abstract. I mean, I do think I like these thought experiments better and and and kind of giving yourself time to debrief them a little bit So since this is the first episode, I'm going to explain something really quickly which is These are very long episodes and there's a lot of content in them and there's a lot of takeaways and as we were putting these together We kind of realized this is this is potentially a little bit overwhelming for the listener and it would be nice if we could Package everything that we're talking about in each episode and break it down into like daily chunks or weekly chunks And then just give the listener a progression system of like how to move through all this stuff So it's like if you let's say you have decided that Values is a huge issue in your life and you really need to get this stuff figured out and you would love to spend say the next three weeks like Just 15 20 minutes a day working on this part of your life and really trying to get it solved Once and for all so we have created that track for people and what we're doing is we're doing this for every single episode and we're Putting everything in a community so that people can do it together and that people can keep each other accountable So the people who are if you want to work on your values you can connect with the thousands of other listeners who also want to work on their values And are also going through these exercises and are also like coming up with all sorts of questions and you know Stumbling through things and want to ask me something or whatever and we're putting this together in a community And we're calling that community momentum and the idea behind momentum is that Real life change it doesn't happen in a weekend. It doesn't happen in an epiphany It doesn't happen you know because like some guru like Told you to meditate for 10 minutes or something Real change happens slowly and gradually over a long period of time it compounds It's it is a bunch of small actions that slowly compound over the course of multiple months or or even years And so the community is built around that concept. It's built around giving people momentum Giving people little bite-sized things to work on every single day To implement all the stuff that they're learning on the podcast and then hold each other accountable build relationships meet like minded people etc So if you are interested in that you can go to find momentum.com/values That's where you'll find the values track We've dozens of prompts and exercises similar to the ones that drew and I just went through as well as plenty of supplementary content And there and not only will you be able to do this month's podcast episode and work on all the stuff that drew and I are talking about today But you'll be able to do it every single month with every episode so go to find momentum.com/values So before we move on I actually I'd like to return to the value hierarchy idea a little bit and dig into it a little bit more We've referenced it throughout the episode at this point And I think it's one of those concepts that people intuitively understand like you hear that like yeah We all kind of prioritize our values and there's like a ladder right there's like my top value and there's values underneath it But I think it's worth considering a little bit more deeply What the significance of it is I also think this is really where the central message of subtle art Comes in because if you think about the whole concept of not giving a fuck like the point that I make in the first chapter of that book Is that there's no such thing as not giving a fuck really all there is is Prioritizing things that deserve to be prioritized above the things that don't deserve to be prioritized like generally when people are like wow I really I really wish I didn't give a fuck about this what they're saying is I wish I didn't care about this as much as I do right like like you're always gonna care about what other people think of you You're always gonna care about obnoxious people hating on you on the internet. You're always gonna care about I don't know like whether Your shoes are cool or not It's a very human thing that's not gonna go away What does change or what does go away is your prioritization of that and if it's not Properly prioritized on your value hierarchy if your highest value is something that is actually very superficial and unimportant Then you're gonna suffer pretty intensely because of it. So really the value hierarchy is kind of the basis of the Not give a fuck framework and in the book, you know, I really tried to kind of outline what I saw as good values You know, I said like you should value things that are ultimately within your control that are Not tenuous or short term or superficial that you should really focus on like long-term abstract principles But it's it's one thing to just say that it's another thing to actually do it and I do think To me the most important maybe the most important message of my career that I really stand by is is this idea of choosing your struggle Because I think one thing we haven't really discussed yet is that Generally speaking when people think about what's important to them and what they want in their life You're always thinking in terms of what you gain You're never thinking in terms of what you give up and ultimately I think that is actually what defines What where something is on your value hierarchy like the thing at the top of your value hierarchy is Not at the top because it's the thing you want the most. It's the thing that you're willing to give up everything else for and If you want to nudge something further up your prioritization Further up your value hierarchy the way to nudge it up higher is not by wanting it more. It's by giving up more In the process. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, it does and it's it's also No matter there's a cost to eat all of this right right it's the tradeoff. It's the tradeoffs and it's what you are Whatever pain you're going through now. It's because of whatever value you have been prioritizing exactly right and you might not be aware of that You're like why am I why am I suffering this way? I don't get it. I don't understand it. It's because of whatever you're choosing to value So if you value You know autonomy over Comfort well get ready for some instability. Yeah And like you're like why is my life so crazy? Well because you you value autonomy and freedom and let's compromise right? You've your own impulses. Yeah. Yeah. So I love this idea that real value change actually comes from What you're willing to give up and I think it's not a coincidence that Generally speaking the largest changes in people's lives occur not after a euphoric or great moment, but actually after Either trauma or tragedy now we see this over and over again. So I'm curious Drew like What is it about these intense negative events in our lives that actually do open us up so much to change? Yeah Yeah, there's this whole field in psychology this whole theory around it called post-traumatic growth theory It's been around for a few decades now. There's lots of research bracket backing it up essentially What the research finds is that somewhere between like 80 and 90% of people after they experience some sort of traumatic event Lost in their life and it can be big tea trauma can be little tea trauma even too After they experience these traumatic events somewhere between 80 and 90% of people report Experiencing at least one positive change in their life. Now this is not to romanticize trauma. Right. Okay. This is not you don't need trauma to change Okay, this should not seek out trauma trust me life will come and give you some trauma it will deliver on its on that promise for sure Yeah, that said trauma is incredibly common to I think that's another point to drive home is that we all experience some degree of trauma Some people get worse than others. Yes, and when I acknowledge that absolutely, but it's an inevitable part of life and The the wild thing about humans is is not not only can we bounce back from trauma not only can we endure these traumas, but we actually can thrive and grow after these traumas It's a that's a very common thing too So not only is the trauma itself common, but growing from that trauma is it's an incredibly common thing There's there's five areas five domains that researchers have identified for areas of growth that people experience after a trauma I mean, you have improved relationships with others discovering new possibilities in life Increased personal strength a greater appreciation of life and spiritual or existential development You can see already those are like value-laden domains of life right relationships and new possibilities and personal strength all of these are very very Value-laden areas. Yeah, and what happens what they think happens There's this kind of process that people go through you experience a trauma And there's all these factors it depends on your personality depends on your coping strategies depends on your social network around you right, but What happens generally is you have this traumatic event and it It shakes up your worldview in somewhere or another right think of like an earthquake that happens or or like the fires in Los Angeles Like it's something like that happens Everybody kind of has this sense of oh something's different something has changed my what I believed before no longer applies Yeah, and so it forces you into this space of Re-evaluating priorities in your life You ruminate on the event trying to figure it out trying to make sense of it That's our brains are just trying to make sense of the world all the time. So it's trying to make sense of this trauma Um, and what happens through that you go out to your social network You start talking to people you engage you try to come up with new a new worldview basically and through that Your values change or at least they're reprioritized right? Yeah, yeah, the way the way I've always liked to think about this is that Atrama a traumatic event or a tragic event. It is part of what makes it so painful is The experience of a value failing. Yes. It's like you used to really care about this thing or you used to really believe this thing was true about yourself or the world And suddenly it that belief for that value fails you catastrophically, and it leaves us like void Right, at least a vacuum that needs to be filled inside you with some other value or some other belief in that process of like finding the new value or finding the new believe It's difficult and uncomfortable, but ultimately That vacuum is the opportunity for change and growth. Yeah, right. Yeah, like a classic example is um, you know someone gets a terminal illness Cancer something like that Um, at some point in their life and all of a sudden they're throwing a why am I spending so much time at work? Why am I so obsessed with status? Why am I so obsessed with validation from other people when I have my family right here that I've been neglecting or Is something along those lines right? A lower value value for a higher value again It puts that into stark contrast for you now again. I want to go back and just reiterate that You might have these positive changes the are these these value changes that are in the right direction Right alongside all the bad things about trying to these they happen simultaneously So again, not romantic romanticizing it or saying there's only good things that will come out of this Not what I mean at all. It's one of those situations where you like you have to hold the positive and negative in your mind at the same time Like I remember seeing a survey data that found that like cancer survivors Something like 70 or 80% of them reported feeling more gratitude and In satisfaction with their lives in general after surviving the cancer and it's funny because I think the stupidest way to interpret that data is be like Oh, we should all go get cancer out right. Yeah, it's like no, no, you still don't want cancer But if you do get cancer and you manage and you're fortunate enough to survive Chances are you're gonna you're you're actually gonna develop a lot of gratitude and and Satisfaction for the for the people and things in your life What we're talking about is value change though. Yes, it's undeniable that some traumatic events I can change your values now it depends again like on some personality traits that you have your coping strategies The event itself if it's like really horrible then it's less likely actually to have more positive effects than Than not So there's all sorts of factors that go into that but there are some personality traits People are generally optimistic Over pessimistic will experience this more being open to new experiences too that that helps your coping styles like actively There's this thing in PTG in poster em post traumatic growth Called active rumination. So you know a traumatic event happens and it's just natural for you to be ruminated on right right? If you actively engage in that rumination though like the rumination is going to happen If you actively engage in kind of cognitive reappraisal of it like okay this happened What value is it calling into question in my life? Yeah, how can I respond to this in a positive way? All of those sorts of things will help increase the likelihood of some sort of growth I think one of the biggest ones and this comes up over and over again and all the studies I've read on Post-traumatic growth which is your your social group And which fits into the larger culture as well though So if if you are in a culture that's a little bit more They're not open to the reinterpretation of the trauma or they don't want to hear you know It's more of a closed-off keep that to yourself. Yeah, or not supportive not supportive Obviously, that's not going to help but the social group in general Has been shown to be one of the key factors in pro-post-traumatic growth and in the big sense Not just social I mean it could be family partners like it support network Relationships absolutely absolutely relationship. Yeah You remember how like hipsters would always brag about how like I worked their favorite band was one you never heard of right until you heard of them. Yeah So my favorite psychologist might be the psychologist nobody's ever heard of this is my hipster Psychology, okay So I'm a huge fan. There was a guy named the chasmur de brosky. Oh, which you know I know because of you I've read you told me about yeah, uh I've written about him multiple times, but huge fan of chasmur de brosky so nobody it's actually really fascinating I love this dichotomy that happened during the Cold War so cold war happens and western psychology Pretty quickly by like the 1960s is really focusing on self-esteem and happiness and positive effect and self-actualization And it's like everything's just like let's be great like how do we how do we be as happy and wonderful and great as possible And meanwhile in eastern Europe chasmur de brosky was Polish Uh, I believe he was working out of Warsaw They were and he was working in the aftermath of not only world war two, but the Holocaust And and also working under Soviet occupation And so what did he decide to to study and and work on Tragedy. Yeah, in the effects of tragedy And to my knowledge he was actually the first researcher to actually find the case So he actually studied Holocaust survivors and Polish world war two veterans To my knowledge, he was the first one to find this this idea of post-traumatic growth Because what he started to notice was that You know obviously in the immediate aftermath of the war and the Holocaust People were traumatized. They were despondent. They were there was despair They like didn't know where they're gonna get their next meal like a lot of people didn't have a place to live But as he kept following up with people Pretty soon within a few years He noticed something really strange which is that a Significant percentage of the survivors Started to say that they had actually become better people and they would describe themselves pre-war As being ungrateful self-centered untrustworthy Not liking themselves not ambitious and then after the war they had actually felt like they really grew as a person they had become very grateful for the people in their life And they really valued their relationships with people and they like actually wanted to work hard and Maximize their potential and so Nebraska actually called this Positive disintegration and he meant it in Actually like a very literal term because he meant disintegration is in like the disintegration of the ego He saw trauma and tragedy is like a way of your ego Literally being destroyed like all the things that you thought were true about yourself and true about the world Become violated. They they they have like been proven utterly and completely wrong and that ego destruction is Like causes an extremely stressful and emotional response in people but if the ego is destroyed And that vacuum is then filled with more positive things If the lessons that the person takes from it are more adaptive and more psychologically healthy then that becomes a positive disintegration and The fascinating thing about the broski is that he did all of this work in the 1950s And then it just sat behind the iron curtain For like 50 years right and nobody knew about it and it wasn't until like some Like pH-D students in Canada came across him Revital translated his work revitalized it and then publish some of his work in the early 2000s And then it's like that's the that's the only reason we even know any of this exists, but it's like um, you know the broski was You know was was my favorite band that you've never heard of And uh, I knew him before he was cool and um You're welcome. You so you're so cool You're the coolest nerd my That's all they drew. This is all I've ever wanted to hear from you This is this is this is all this podcast all the studio I'm like that's all I ever wanted to hear I'm the coolest nerd all right um, I have a story in my life about Death and tragedy that has been Ultimately been a very positive influence. Right. I'm curious if you have any story like that. Yeah. Well um I'm not as dramatic as the one you had definitely but there's been some I've Recently, I think my family has become more central to my value system Because of a few things around that several years ago and I've talked about this before I guess but several years ago my uncle passed away and I was pretty close to it with him He didn't have any kids and he treated all of his nieces and nephews kind of like his extended Children basically you know extended family of children He was just a really good generous guy Was somebody you'd really look up to? I was actually the one who ended up calling the ambulance for him The next day he passed away in the hospital and that was kind of a wake up call for me around like oh, I haven't like I hadn't spent a lot of time with him the the previous couple of years Even though he was like a big part of raising me and and a big part of my life And he's helped a lot of other people in my family and a lot of other people in his community as well And to me, I was just like oh that brought into very stark Contrast like the way I was living it that I always said yeah, I value my family and yes, you know Whatever but it wasn't up until that point. I was like oh We're all living on borrowed time. Yeah a little bit And I need if I'm gonna say that I value family. I need to start acting like it So that was that was one for me anyway that was um That's not a huge like to me. It's not a huge trauma per se to my my well-being necessarily, but it did definitely shake things up. So that's yeah I feel like death in general just it well. It's a it's a slap in the face. Yeah, it's like yeah This should is precious and scarce and you have been taking it for granted I almost feel like it's almost impossible as a human to like not take people for granted. Yeah, yeah to a certain extent It's very hard to remind yourself You know this is why the Stoics were all about mental-morey like it's You have to actively try to remind yourself about your own death and the death of family members that are impending To stoke that gratitude. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's yeah, cuz we're so good at avoiding it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What was yours then? Well It's in the book. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's in the book and I've talked about it Quite a few times. I'll go over briefly, but it's you know for people who are curious It's it's the last chapter of subtle art, but um when I was 19 uh a good friend of mine Drowned at a party a lake party and um and you were there. I was there and it was just like utterly Honestly, I think I just went in the shock. Yeah when you're 19 and something like that. Yeah, it's what that's the only reaction really I think I spent about 24 hours in shock and um to this day kind of the deepest The the next couple months was like kind of the deepest depression that I've ever been in and uh But it's wild, man like I if that rumination to like I just remember my brain could not get off of it Like it kept trying to make sense of it And that's the thing about death is like there's no way to make sense of it, right? It's just right There's no you try you keep trying to find like deeper meaning or reasons or purpose or like could I have done this or could this person have done that or like You know Why did they deserve it and there's no answer to it? Like it's it's all just an open loop that never shuts but the In the fact of that I eventually kind of came out of that funk and um It was a real wake-up call especially you know when you're that young. I mean first of all I was at 19 I was totally an entitled toot I like took no responsibility for anything my life. I smoked pot all the time. I was like You know, I was a Basically a failed music student um and didn't really care Um sounds like every 19-year-old male. I know. Yeah, go on But um no, it was a wake-up call it really Kind of it was it was uh it was a positive disintegration like it was a shock treatment It was it was like a dude this could end at any moment and like what the fuck are you doing? This is you are literally wasting your life and I was smart enough to to understand that I was I was so young and that my choices then were gonna compound throughout my life, right? So it was I pretty quickly noticed that you know correcting my trajectory Every year that I corrected my trajectory sooner was gonna have like an outside of fact on everything else So it really changed my attitude towards a lot of things like quit smoking pot I started studying for my classes. I Got it dropped out of music school and like went to a real university and started Taking everything seriously basically taking myself seriously taking life seriously and it's You know, it's still a very sad Experience in my life and obviously like I don't recommend it, but um I Can honestly say it's like one of the single most positive instigators of change my entire life, right? Like it is the that single experience was worth Reading 300 books and attending 20 seminars. Yeah, yeah Again, I don't recommend it. Yeah, yeah, no Yeah, an interesting little fact that I found in the research as well that I'll tack on here There's some there's cultural influences. We've touched on it a little bit already, but um What you find in more individualistic cultures like the United States, Western Europe You would typically find so the the five areas I listed before, right? You will typically find that people in those cultures when they experience a traumatic event will end up re-evaluating and re-valuing things that are more achievement-focused Kind of individual-focused or as a more collectivist cultures. They'll they tend to value things like moral duty and family and society and stuff like that. I just thought that was kind of interesting. So It really does depend again. It goes back to that whole socialization around you and the culture around you How this kind of shapes what you end up re-evaluating or re-evaluating as you go through this too So like in your case, you know, you're being an American from Texas. No less, right? Oh, you kind of doubled down like on the Okay, I need to the achievement and the like Not taking life for granted and this is the one life we have and you know, that sort of thing. So I don't know It's that was interesting. You know, it's funny though. I distinctly remember Like a huge motivator for me at that time I had this very so my friend who died his name was Josh I had a very palpable sense that like I Morally owed Josh. Oh, yeah, of living well. Yeah, and I mean part of it was the way he died because it was literally just I mean there was Everybody there was drunk bunch of people were on drugs Everybody was swimming in the same like you know, it could have happened anybody like it It's the corner said that his legs cramped up. Yeah, and he just went under and it was dark and nobody could see him and he just went under Right, so it was literally a situation. It could have been any of us. It was very random and I think part of the randomness and the and and part of the struggle with that was like the realization of like that could have easily been me Yeah, and survivor of guilt. Yeah, yeah totally and so there there I remember Just feeling a strong sense of moral obligation like I owe him Living well, yeah, right like if I just sit on my couch and smoke pot for the next five years like I'm kind of doing him a Dessert. Yeah, right interesting that may be completely irrational, but it's what I needed to believe in right at the time And that's part of the cognitive re-evaluation that you did so that there's an active rumination and that's the conclusion You came to that's the sort of thing that the the psychologist in this area would call like cognitive re-evaluation Yes, and and you put a positive spin on it in a way where you could easily go the other way Well, he died. It was random life is meaningless, right? That's that's the other interpretation that you could have went down I'm glad you brought up the cognitive re-evaluation because there's an associated experience with any cognitive re-evaluation Which is popularly known as cognitive dissonance. Yeah, yeah, and I Think as we were doing research for this I kind of came to realization that like I don't think you can really change your values without Experiencing some cognitive dissonance like I do think there is a requirement To change a value whether it is to just simply lose the value have it fail you through tragedy or trauma or to deprioritize it Through sacrificing or giving something up You are going to have to go through a period of cognitive dissonance where the Actions and experiences in the world around you do not match up your prior beliefs and so I think it's worth digging into what cognitive dissonance is and Kind of talking through what the experience is and like how people tend to respond to it because it's actually There's some funny stories Around around how people respond to cognitive dissonance But it's it's I think it's really important to touch on because I think anybody listening to this who's going to challenge themselves to change the values You're going to have to confront this yes at some point yes cognitive dissonance is a concept Uh Invented by the psychologist Leon festinger is it festinger or festinger? I've always said festinger But I've always ever seen it written I guess so I don't know okay. Well Let us know internet whether or whether we're pronouncing this right Leon festinger he worked in the 1950s at the university in Minnesota and like I feel like most popular Psychological theories, you know, they have like a little origin story Uh and then some of them are cool some are kind of lame The cognitive dissonance origin story is fucking awesome. I love it. I love it so much So Festinger and his and his colleagues where uh, they're working at university in Minnesota and one day they open the newspaper and they find a new story About a local cult and the cult was run by a woman who called herself Mary and Keach and she believed that she was communicating telepathically with aliens Who were going to come take over the world and uh and it was only through Her group her cult and her uh, I believe it was prayer um That they were gonna prevent the world from being taken over by these aliens. So this was uh This was a thing that was going on around mini miniapolis and uh festinger was like this is so Interesting and so what they did which uh part of me thinks like this would never fly these days So part of what they did is they actually infiltrated the cult They actually like pretended to be cult members and pretended that they like believed all this shit because they actually wanted to observe Because oh important detail Mary and Keach she there was a apparently there was a specific date that the aliens were gonna come and the world was gonna Of course, right yeah like most good cult leaders right uh She sets up an end date um So the researchers were fascinated by this they're like let's join the cult Let's pretend to do all their weird shit and then when the date comes let's watch what happens and let's like let's see Let's just observe and see if we can learn anything So sure enough the date comes and goes no aliens and made nothing happens and The psychologist's expectation was that you know once once the date came and went all the cult members To be like what the fuck you know like I guess we can go home now like clearly this was all a bunch of bullshit right Actually the opposite happened the cult members became even more fervent because they believe that they had saved the world And they believe that they were gonna be more Dangerous and threats to the world and they were the only ones that could save it so nobody left the cult Nobody stopped believing and Mary and Keach and she just kept going on like her marry way With zero problems and this absolutely fascinated the researchers then what festinger Went on to kind of explain is that When we're exposed to a contradiction in the world to our worldview right We believe the world is one way and then an experience Goes the other way contradicts that We experience a certain amount of dissonance in our minds it creates discomfort and That discomfort can't exist for very long and so the only way to relieve that dissonance is to either deny reality and pretend it doesn't exist Or it's the change the belief and generally speaking changing a belief is Uncomfortable because it requires you to lose something it requires you to to Lose something something used to think was important now you have to lose it and reorganize all your frameworks Organize your hierarchy and now some of your needs go on met right like so if you think about those individual cult members right This kind of comes back to the whole thing about like values our Strategies to meet our needs When you ask yourself like who joins a cult and who like buys into this shit Well, they're probably motivated to join a cult and buy into the ideas because it's meeting some fundamental need That's like not being met in another way first and foremost when you when you read anything about the type of people who join cults They tend to be very lonely individuals like they lack a community They don't feel like they're part of something right so a cult immediately you're given a sense of community You're given a sense of purpose and you're given a sense of importance right like oh my god We're the only ones who can save the world holy shit like aliens are gonna come I'm so lucky. I found this guru like she's so amazing She's so in touch with all this stuff so it it really is fulfilling a number of psychological needs And if you're somebody who's not who is historically and consistently not met those needs in other areas of your life Then the cult's gonna feel like a big upgrade The problem is though is that To break out of the cult you're going to have to break all of the values and belief systems that are that are fulfilling your needs So you're gonna have to like downgrade the things that you care about you're gonna feel isolated again You're gonna feel unimportant again and you're gonna feel like of purpose again and a lot of people The thought of that is just too painful and so they they don't want to go back to that And so when they're presented in this when they're presented a situation with cognitive dissonance They just double down on the belief But the reason I bring this up is for two reasons one is just a so that the listener understands kind of like what's going on in their brain when a value fails them Or when a contradictory experience Intersex with something that they believe or find important But B, I think this is something that you can actually leverage to change a value And the way you leverage it is to actually like let's say I'll give a really simple example and it's it's kind of piggybacks on the example you just gave Let's say that I want to value my family more right like I have this real is it maybe somebody dies or maybe something happens and I have this realization of like you know I've really taken my family for granted. I've not been close with them I've not kept in touch with them My parents are getting older my aunts and uncles are getting older. I don't know how much longer they're going to be around like I should really take advantage of the time I have left and like really commit and and you know Put the time in let's say I've decided that yet my my actions are still completely contradictory to that like I don't call home I don't go home. I don't do anything So let's say that I've intellectually decided that but like ultimately my actions don't reflect the values right like it's it's I've clearly not making them a priority I can incite cognitive dissonance in myself by like simply taking action on a value As if it's much higher in my value hierarchy than it actually is right so it's again It comes back to what are you willing to give up so before it's like I wasn't willing to take time off Where to fly home and visit family or I wasn't willing to Spend an extra holiday with my family or I wasn't willing to I don't know like call my dad every weekend or whatever You simply make the commitment to the action The action will feel like a waste at first. It will feel like a waste of time It'll feel like you're sacrificing something more important for it But and that will cause cognitive dissonance But if you proceed with the action eventually your mind will adjust itself and you'll start valuing the thing that you're doing proportionally to how much you're doing it right I guess the the moral of the story here is that Your values follow your actions and If you want to prioritize something higher on your value hierarchy if you want to care about something more or care about something less It's literally just a matter of how much focus and energy you put into it and understand that it will feel weird at first It will feel like you are poorly investing your time and energy But eventually you'll start experiencing the benefits of the new value And then your belief systems will adjust themselves to relieve the cognitive dissonance And then your value hierarchy will shift right yeah, so The super short version is like values follow your actions right? Yeah, I think you also have to be very aware of Of which value That you are addressing with those actions and that cognitive dissonance to right Let's go back to the cult example the reason that these people double down is because they value the community right because they value That The social relationships and all the purpose and everything like that that you explain People from the outside look at and say well, they're wrong. They don't value truth. No, they don't They value Yeah, the community around it and so of course they're going to bend over backwards to defend that right that's that's like such an interesting definition of a cult Is that a cult is basically people who value community over truth yeah, yeah, absolutely And it disupplies that'll like less extreme examples too if you You know, you know, we talked a little bit about politics if you're just having a conversation with somebody about politics And this happens a lot where you try to induce cognitive dissonance in them I pointing out the contradictions in their beliefs. Yeah, usually what you're doing is you're not Reenforcing the belief you're reinforcing the belief because you're you're not targeting the correct value. Yeah, like let's take a A fairly common example abortion right? So People liberals will point to conservatives and say well you guys You say you value life so much that you're against abortion and yet you're pro death penalty too that makes no sense There should be cognitive dissonance there. No, those are two different values. You're talking about so it makes perfect sense to somebody who believes that because On the one hand, they value sanctity that that sanctity value yeah preserving life And then on the other they value fairness and authority and order yeah on the other hand when it comes like the death penalty So you're talking about two completely different values. So turn that back on yourself if you're trying to use this cognitive dissonance framework for that Make sure you're like targeting the right value. Yeah, and it is interesting because the liberal in that situation Those two things are are actually the same value for them right right? It's the it's the kick harm care right on both sides Right, right, right? Whereas for the conservative it's actually two different values. Right that they're that's a that's that is a really interesting way And it it is so hard to remember that like if you're ever in an argument with somebody and you start using that You're not all these facts is like it's not about the facts is about the values It's funny too because like the the biggest gripe that everybody has about Political discourse or the news or whatever. It's like oh, it's not factual enough But it is like you know, it's you're not understanding everybody's values is what right? And yes, there is misinformation and yeah, and a lot of bullshit out there But like all of that comes after the fact right like if so take the mainstream news right past 10 20 years like CNN for instance Or the New York Times is probably a better example like the New York Times is actually Pretty consistently not gotten things factually wrong It is that they are only presenting facts that are reflective of certain values and not others right? And so you're You are still getting a very biased perspective on a story But not it's not biased because the facts are wrong or that the facts have been fudged or that the statistics are not You know accurate or the study isn't referenced correctly It's biased because it's it's facts The framing of the story and the framing of the facts is only through the lens of a single value right? That is reflective of one political leaning not the other right? So But that's such a hard thing to communicate right right and you know and for years and years and years I would hear conservatives complain about the New York Times and I'm like what are you talking about? It's like the most fact-check publication in the country and eventually I started to get it. I'm like oh Yeah, they're they're just hammering on the like the same two or three values over and over again So yeah, and it comes back to a healthy society has a diversity of values right and they are allowed to counterbalance and Counteract each other So the the researcher who came up with the instrumental and terminal values Milton Rokie. Yeah He actually had to he had this other concept called self-confrontation And he actually spent a number of years researching whether he could get people to change their values themselves Just through reflection and and kind of interrogating their own reasoning and their own thoughts and he was actually successful at it In in a couple circumstances and the way he was successful at it is actually exactly what you're saying So what he did this was during he was doing this work during the civil rights era in the late 60s and he took people from both sides um, you know the lefties who valued equality and then like the people on the right who valued fairness and autonomy and freedom and What he would do is he'd have him do a written exercise where they uh, you know, they chose between freedom and equality And then he would have them like write a short essay on like why they believe so strongly in it And then he would ask them a question that would essentially frame their value in terms of the other value So to give you an example he took like the the people though the right-leaning people who chose freedom They would write their essay on like why freedom was so important and why the you know the civil rights movement was potentially jeopardizing you know some of the freedom Well then he would give them a prompt that would basically say Well, what if you have you ever considered that the civil rights activists are actually uh, protesting in in in favor of freedom that actually the they're using the word equality but they're but Their word of equality can actually also be understood in terms of of freedom And when he like and then he would have them Make that argument and when he had them make that argument they would change their mind. Yeah. Yeah And it was it's exactly what you're saying right is like if you can take your argument and package it and the other person's values They'll start believing it. Mm-hmm. I guess this is like kind of at the root of persuasion Maybe we should do an epsilon persuasion. I think I want you to and we'll just persuade the audience to do things for us The other thing I want to touch on before we move on from this this and this this comes to This ties in a little bit with the cognitive dissonance Uh, so I'm a huge fan of Charlie Munger. Yeah, the legendary investor Charlie both Charlie Munger and Warren but so Charlie for people who don't know Charlie Munger was Warren Buffett's business partner and both Charlie and Warren are like Almost philosophers. Yeah, investment their investors, but they're also like philosophers and both of them just have like so many amazing quotes and ideas and Frameworks and mental models and stuff, but Charlie is this a great saying that I think about all the time Which is show me the incentive and I'll show you the behavior and You know, we just talked about how cognitive dissonance teaches us that ultimately If you lead with the behavior even if it doesn't feel right your feelings will follow right? So if you just act out the value you want to have Then you'll start eventually feeling Aligned with that action because your your your mind will prevent the cognitive dissonance Well, there's kind of another string in that chain Is that if you can set up an incentive for action and your action will naturally just gravitate that direction as well Because like another aspect of humans is that we tend to do the things that we're incentivized to do right and So I like the idea of kind of stretching this out again Like let's say I want to prioritize my family more and I just I've been saying that for years and I don't do it One way to do it is to just I don't know book a bunch of flights and Schedule calls or whatever you know with family members or whatever Another way is to incentivize myself in some way right like Reward myself Making agreement with myself of like, you know, I'm not allowed to take another trip You know, I'm only allowed one trip somewhere else for every trip I take back home to see my my parents or something Basically create like rewards or punishments for myself that nudge myself in the direction of the value that I want to have The most obvious example here is is around like fitness and nutrition most people Want to value health much more than they do right? Much a lot of people try to do the actions That embody the value of health and fail to do those actions and in my own health journey one of the only things that I ever found Was actually generating incentives for myself to do the healthy actions and actually uh You know follow through with them because then it's like you create the incentives to To nudge yourself towards the healthy action. So you sign up for classes and you do things with a friend and you Gamify things and track and keep scores and then that nudges you into the behaviors And then as you're doing the behaviors you start to experience the benefits and you start you stop like Winning and complaining that you're wasting so much time like getting ready for the gym every morning And then your values start to align and because you're giving up the other things for your health to resolve the cognitive Dissonance your mind starts to believe that health is actually more important And now that you actually believe that your health is more important It is much easier to do all of the things that you want to do and goes back to Your values are what you're willing to give up. Yep right go straight back to that. Yep. Yeah. What are you willing to give up? All right, so as we round this episode out I think I'd like to kind of get into like a summary of takeaways for the listener And I would actually like to frame this around Aristotle had this idea of practical wisdom And he argued that of all the virtues the most important was wisdom because wisdom was the one That allowed you to calibrate all the other virtues to know when you were over indexed on one and under indexed on the other and when When you should give something up and when you should take something on and so he He believed that if you didn't have wisdom you couldn't really maintain or or manage All the other all the other virtues So what I'd like to do is go through these four elements of practical wisdom and Just break down piece by piece what they are how people can practice them People can get better at them and why they're so important and effective when it comes to Discovering your values and also living out your values and I'll start with self-awareness which is Pretty self-explanatory. I think so much of this episode probably 70 80% of this episode is really just been helping the listener around their self-awareness around their own values I mean the importance is pretty logical right like if you aren't aware of what you value then you can't adapt or change what you value so The first step to managing your own values is to simply get clarity and and awareness around your own values and Like I said earlier, we've got a whole 30-day track and the momentum community around doing this this whole episode is around doing this But there's all sorts of I mean you can journaling is effective for this I think ultimately a lot of the work that is done in therapy is around helping the patient understand what they're valuing and what they're prioritizing And maybe they should be prioritizing something else I also believe that meditation is useful for this as well that um, you know by sitting and noticing your own thoughts and proclivities and and what you're focusing on you start to develop a sense of What you're valuing and what you're prioritizing in your life. Yeah And then the next one to emotional regulation aligning your emotions with your values Keeping those emotions aligned with the values so you can act in a way and accordance with your values, right? There's also there was this psychologist Albert Ellis Who came up with this idea that between an event happening and your reaction is the interpretation Right And he has this there was the ABCs of what he developed this whole therapeutic model called rational emotive behavioral therapy Right he's got the ABC or already Bt. RBT. Yeah ABCs was that there's the activating event The B is the beliefs and C is the consequences of those okay, so I think As you as you navigate your own values and your your life and you have your values kind of front and center after being more aware of them You'll start to run into this quite a bit. I think I know I have anyway in relationships, you know benevolence is a big value of mine, right? and I would I looking back I think There have definitely been times where I haven't acted benevolently in situations people in my life Close relationships in particular those you know start pushing on your emotional buttons a little bit and What I noticed is like okay if I'm gonna Value benevolence then I need to act benevolently at some point, right? But the thing is is that in the moment when you're when your emotions are running high. That's really hard. Yes, right? Yeah, so learning how emotional regulation you mentioned meditation already that's one way to kind of Learn how your your your mind works and accordance with your emotions in certain situations This for me though. I have been able to Use this kind of ABC method here when I have a triggering event and an emotion pops up I've learned to like catch myself right there like okay. I'm gonna. I'm gonna act on this emotion or should I act on this emotion? Yeah, and how is that reflecting my values or This situation this relationship right now. Yeah, it's hard to do it takes a lot of practice And this is really I mean it is a helps and it is a skill and I know we're already planning on doing a full yeah episode yeah emotions yeah an emotional regulation Three things come to mind like listening to you talk about this. Yeah three three ways I can see kind of Emotions high jacking this process of living living out your values The first one you already mentioned is that being triggered by some lower value that inadvertently causes you to sacrifice You know a higher level value That you later regret or feel bad about that's one way uh a second way is that when you are Prioritizing a value say you are when you're trying to move something up the value hierarchy It means you're giving up other values which there there's gonna be negative emotional reactions when you give those things up Right like if I am if I start taking time off work to spend more time with my friends and family I'm gonna have negative emotions around having to give up time at work like I'm Question it. I'm gonna feel guilty about it. I'm gonna feel stupid about it. I'm gonna you know, whatever Um, and so you have to be prepared for those emotions and those those side effects and whatever Now it's popped into my head when you were talking about the relationship thing because it our values are not only the metrics by which we measure ourselves They're they're also the metrics by which we measure other people And so if you have a very strong value around say benevolence and you're dating somebody who Very much is not being benevolent. Mm-hmm. That will also probably trigger you. Yes. Yeah, you'll be like what the fuck is wrong with you Like I can't believe I'm with this person right now And so you could see it pop up in relationships as well, right? Like it's like if my wife does something that like really goes against my values You can bet your ass. We're gonna have a fight about it So it's something else to be like very cognizant of because if your values are way out of alignment or you are prioritizing something It's like very stupid and not Not serving you That's also gonna show up in your relationships and you're gonna start judging your partner for all these all the dumb stuff that you care about or your Your best friend or your brother or sister or whatever like it's gonna it will manifest in your relationships and Not the same way it manifests in your own life, but like probably in like some metrical ways And it manifests in life. Yeah, also with the social relationships you can leverage them as well To help you stay in line with your value. So not only yeah, are you judging the people around you? Based on your own values, but you can also choose those circles right above the values that you want to associate with right? It's yeah your relationships almost like amplify your right what's already there right? I reveal a lot of reveal and yeah Yeah, yeah, third one is relationships and I again, I think a huge component of this is like you don't necessarily need The people in your life to have the same values as you you simply need to respect each other's values and trust each other to act on it on your values and it's You actually kind of want a diversity of values in the people around you because it's gonna Bring out the best of each other and you're gonna counterbalance each other. You're gonna offer each other different perspectives like You know the fact that we have different values. It's like we can compensate for each other's weaknesses and keep system running too far in one direction Exactly exactly So it is when when we talk about strong relationships It's you don't want to just find a bunch of many means and yes men around you like you want to find people who are different from you But you respect them and you respect those differences and you can have honest conversations around those differences like that That's really what the key is yeah, yeah, for sure Yeah, and then the last component of practical wisdom is the the self acceptance part that you talked about the non-judgment This one one of my favorite psychologist Mark who this is not as cool as yours, but Carl Rogers he's more well known He said the curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am then I can change yeah, okay So accepting yourself as you are without trying to change yourself allows you to change yourself It's it's one of those neat little paradox. Yeah, love it right Um, but it it's pretty hard so we've we've talked about you know these other three three or four principles here Of practical wisdom and you know Yeah, when you trade a lower value for a higher value or you're acting out one of your values That's intention with another one of your values. There is that uncomfortable feeling You do kind of just have to accept that that's what that is this this happened to me recently Yeah, I already kind of alluded to it when I was I it was a benevolent thing I was doing but it caused a lot of issues with because I needed to get some stuff done and it ran up against my value of accomplishment and Achievement yeah, and it just it felt bad just felt bad and I'm and I was like okay How do I stop feeling bad that's a immediately where I went? How do I stop this feeling? I don't want to stop this feeling And I kind of came to a conclusion. Oh wait. I just have to accept that this is how I'm gonna feel sometimes It's funny because it is self acceptance. I feel like out of all of the values that we've talked about at this point And at this point, I think we're probably up at 25 or 30 different values as episode of all the different values on this episode self acceptance is probably the simplest And also the most difficult yes anyways because it really is just what you said. Mm-hmm. It's like Being okay with feeling bad sometimes like the fact that you You feel bad that you didn't achieve as much as you could over you feel bad that you weren't as benevolent as you could have been with this person You care about or you feel bad that you wasted some time on something that it didn't matter The fact that you feel bad about that and want that feeling to go away Is the opposite of self acceptance. Yes, the self acceptance is like I'm human. I'm flawed I'm gonna care about some of the wrong things at times. I'm gonna care about some of the right things at times And even the right things I'm gonna care about I'm gonna have to give up a bunch of stuff for those right things And it's gonna be unpleasant and it's gonna be intention and I'm there's probably gonna be uncertainty and there's gonna be periods where like I don't even know if I'm doing the right thing or not That's all part of it. That's all part of it and it's So hard to remind ourselves of that. Yeah, just be like this is This is what you signed up for man. This is this is the human experience Yeah, but there is that it does help when you realize that you're doing it for a value, right? It's instead of just this I feel bad and I don't know why that's where it drives people crazy Yes, and that's what I had to come to him. I'm just like I feel bad. I don't like this why and then I was oh It's because I had to prioritize this value over another one And in a strange way of just accepting that was gonna feel bad as maybe feel a little bit better about it You know in a way it didn't relieve it. I still feel you know, I'm still like you know I still have a little bit of shame and guilt around it, but I'm like okay. That's the price I have to pay for this Yeah, yeah I'm just trying to think like where people probably run into this the most like I'm just thinking about like the lack of self acceptance I'd say to me the the two areas that I see at the most yeah I would say it's like work in romantic relationships. Mm-hmm On the work side you see it a lot with workaholics who like They strive and they achieve and they achieve and they achieve and they achieve and it's never enough It's never good enough. They've they could have always done more they could have You could have been better, okay, and they're just they drive themselves like they literally make themselves miserable And there's all sorts of like really famous successful people that have done this and I've seen it a number of times among my friends. I've fallen prey to it myself a number of times It's just really interesting that like I think we have this ideal sometimes that it's like if I work as hard as I can And if I do the best job and I get the best work out of myself then I'll be satisfied right and and And then when you're not you feel like something's wrong right right and that you there's something else You could be optimizing to do it better and and then I think when I see it with relate in regard to relationships I see it in regard to like There's just kind of this there's only I would call it like the Disney delusion right like people's Expectation of what a relationship is is just like not very realistic They kind of assume that if they fall in love that they're just gonna live happily ever after Like you're not gonna fight you're not gonna there's not gonna be any uncertainty and nobody's ever gonna like You know get sad or depressed or angry at each other or you know Never gonna question the relationship like these are all actually very normal things like every Long-term relationship goes through periods of struggle and stress and questioning and you know sometimes you grow a little bit distance and then you come back together and Sometimes you question whether you really want to be with the other person and then you like are reassured that yeah, you do and it's like It's this organic process that like insert uncertainty and and A certain kind of dissatisfaction is just kind of inherent to it and Again, I think a lot of people like it's the refusal to accept that that makes it so much more yeah, yeah Take love as a as a value right if you're gonna value that you also have to just accept that there's gonna be some heartbreak along with that Like you were just saying like that's It's not that you can diminish it. It's not that you can avoid it. It's that the it's just part and parcel of that value Yes, you have to put yourself out there and be vulnerable and you will get hurt. Yes at some point and There's just no way around it No, it reminds me of something that a brilliant man and philosopher and a hero of a human being once said His name was wait, let me look. Oh Mark Manson um he once said He once said a wise man once said yes What you value determines what your problems are and what your problems are determines what your life. I thought that was Aristotle. Okay, it was Mark Same thing basically the same guy But seriously, it's you know the quality of your values determines the quality your problems and the quality your problems determines the quality your life Notice implicit in there that you never get rid of the problems The problems are always there and it's like if you did really they think the only Benefit of choosing one better value over another is that you get better problems It's better to ask yourself if you could have been more benevolent than to ask yourself if you could like Have cooler more expensive shoes right right, yeah, it's that's a better problem than half So you chose that problem It's a better life. Yeah, and you just have to accept it. Yeah. All right, so the wrap things up Drew You and I won't we want to finish all these episodes with the what we call the 80/20 of whatever we're talking about because God knows at this point where so many hours in We've covered so much material That it's easy to get lost and it's easy to get you know lose track of what actually moves the needles So we're going to finish this off by talking about the 80/20 of values This is for people not familiar the 80/20 principle is that it's usually the 20% of the things you do generate 80% of your results and so This section is just very much focused on like what's the 20% that's going to give you 80% of the result What should you be focusing on as you leave this episode and so I'll start us off. I'll just say you know The crux of all of this is just getting clarity on what your values are Whether that's doing some of the exercises that we talked about earlier in the episode whether it's Thinking through your life and a lot of the major decisions that you've made Thinking through some of the more uncomfortable experiences the tragedies or the pet peeves and asking yourself what values are those reflective of and then just trying to get a little bit of clarity on You know what you care about and why you care about it and why it's important to you and Whether it should be important to you like I just think these are all very very useful questions that we should all be asking ourselves and If you're not in the habit of asking yourself about it um, you know, this is a great opportunity to sit down and do that Yeah, yeah self-awareness around your values. I think it's huge that'll that'll put you in front of 80% of other people I think is if you just know what you want to care about because most people like we've talked about over and over again in this episode They're going through life and they're either absorbing the values of the other people around them or they're just not aware at all of what's going on and I think to the paying attention to the discomfort and the pain and the uh kind of You know the frustrations in your life. Yeah, that really was what points you to a lot of your values Not the aspirational. Oh, I want to yeah, I aspire to this and that now look at look at what's like what are your problems in your life We all want the same good stuff You know exactly we all want to be rich and like then have great sex and you know Be king of the world and whatever like it's now user found in the pain Yes They're found in the problems that you have and like we already mentioned to the Whatever problems you're having in your life right now are a reflection of the values you've chosen whether you are aware of it or not Yeah, so just so the awareness around it is key here. So maybe that's actually the 80/20 of clarifying your own values is Looking at what what are like the three biggest problems in your life and then asking yourself what are those the results of the trade-offs for Right like I already talked I talked earlier in the episode about how you know There's I've definitely felt like a lack of community and and connection and and my life over the last five or 10 years And it is not very hard for me to see the trade-off that caused that right and that is very much linked to my valuing of achievement and self-directedness. So it's generally speaking whatever you're suffering from is On the opposite end of the the seesaw of whatever your deciding is important Yeah, okay, and related to that too looking at friction points in your relationships Like where you're arguing say with your significant other your family or friends or whatever it is looking at those and really Kind of like okay, what is the value at work on my end? What is the value on their end as well? And we have that whole section on relationships right yeah So identifying those values and and asking yourself can you respect those values? There's there's some sort of reconciliation you can do around these values Can you at least respect them? I think is the main question. Yeah, Fernandez says I fart too much Okay, so what's the value here? Flaxula I'm deeply passionate about my flashlight maybe she values You breathing thinking about her a little bit I'm pretty sure as she values her breathing Because that's what she always tells me she says I can't breathe that that's usually the manifestation of the conflict Is I'm laughing uncontrollably and then she's telling me she can't breathe. Okay. Maybe you should respect her I think as an extension of that of of understanding your values is also distinguishing between your higher values and your lower values So once you start to get a little bit of clarity on like what you care about in your life Start pitting those those things against each other like in a that'll happen naturally Like in a mortal combat tournament, you know Like to I care more about a community or or achievement do I care more about family or You know taking care of myself right so it's I think it's useful to ask yourself where the sacrifices Currently are being made and again if you're not aware of your values And you're probably making sacrifices in places that you wish you were not making sacrifices And then once you have clarity around your values then you can start deciding where the sacrifices should be made right like which values should you be giving up or Deprioritizing in order to prioritize something else right goes back to the lower and the higher values Identify your lower values identify your higher values choose the higher value More often than not. Yes, right and and recognize too that you're going to be pulled to your lower values that like that's the inertia That's out there. Yeah, that's that's I'm very much a part of that. Yeah Okay, so all the values hierarchy stuff we we covered um and We talked about that in Aristotle's and the balance of all of your values Keep that in mind when you are feeling bad and you just have to accept that you're have to feel bad about something That's because you're trading a lower value for a higher value and there's gonna be some friction there for sure Yeah, so we talked about developing practical wisdom which uh, you know aside from kind of the nuts and bolts of self-awareness and emotional regulation and everything it Really what it is is just developing Once you've developed this awareness of what your network of values is being able to monitor it and and Ask the right questions and noticing the right moments like oh, I think I'm over indexing on this value or I think I've been like going way too hard in this area of my life for the last six months And I'm starting to pay a price for that Just like ultimately that is what wisdom is is it's it's a An awareness and an understanding of of where you need to Maybe dial the volume knob up in your life and where you need to dial it down in your life one of the things I've written before And I'm just gonna wing this I'm probably gonna fuck this quote up Is that Knowledge is knowing how to get something wisdom is knowing what's worth getting ah right yeah, and I think Really as a virtue wisdom is just understanding like Are your values properly aligned or not When is it time to push something up your value hierarchy push it down the value hierarchy right um it it's Things happen in life, you know career changes you move the new cities relationships and people die And as circumstances change it's gonna make sense to adapt your values accordingly right like it's it's a if you are a Married parent of three small children Your value hierarchy should look completely different than it did when you were like 25 and single and you know spending a year abroad Like that hierarchy should change it shouldn't be permanent It should be fluid based on what's going on in your life at the time and you know Just as in 10 or 20 years when your kids are grown and have moved out of the house and you're thinking about retirement That hierarchy should shift again. So The the hierarchy is always in flux. It's always in motion and the skill here is the wisdom really is just Getting adept at that at that flux in motion and and and learning how to maneuver it Throughout your life and I know that's super abstract and philosophical but Really that is the basis of just everything we're talking about in this episode. Yeah Yeah, and part of the practical wisdom too we talked about was the emotional regulation right the uh At least emotional awareness around when you are acting out of your your emotions and not in alignment with your values. Yes. That's a big one too So um you know being aware of what triggers an emotion You have a consequence but in between you have the interpretation and that's I that's part of the practical wisdom Two is developing that that comes with time and practice and experience. Yes. I've definitely noticed in my life And we can get to it a little bit more here in a second with how it plays out But that's a huge one is just getting a handle on on those emotions and how they How they're reflected in your values in the way you act. Yeah The emotional regulation is it's key because Any violated value whether high or low is going to trigger an emotional response and when you're triggered in that emotional response If it's a lower value you can easily sacrifice your higher values give up honesty give up charity give up family for something stupid right um So it's important in that moment. I would also say on kind of a if you zoom out in more of a macro way Um emotional regulation is important because as you go through those periods of flux and life changes and tragedies happen and Different unexpected challenges arise There is going to be emotional fallout to dropping and adding in new values like that it is it is it is an emotionally stressful process of like rearranging your value hierarchy throughout your life and it's accompanied by a lot of self-doubt. It's accompanied with A certain amount of uncertainty it can be sad at times because you you like grieve your lost value The thing that you used to care about and that used to really define you and now it doesn't anymore Um in some cases there's a lot of anxiety about a value that you're taking on You know, it's like you just had your first child and you're not sure if you're ready to be a parent But it's like the most important thing to you now But you're not sure if you're ready for it to be the most important thing like it could be fucking terrifying So there's this emotional roller coaster that kind of accompanies The shifting in the flux of the value system and I think just the self-acceptance piece that we talked about is the Understanding that that is part of the game like there is there is a certain amount of that emotional stress and emotional turmoil That is going to be ever present there's not really and I'm sure we're going to get into this very deeply when we do our episode on emotions But the key is not to get rid of the emotion the key is to manage the emotion right? It's like what you said with it's it's the key is to interpret the emotion Positively and usefully in a productive direction or accepting it too or just at the end of the day like I feel bad about this But that's because I've chosen this value because a lot of times what we do is will you know if you have the value of say I have I want to be healthy, right? And instead you end up just staying on the couch What you're doing is you're kind of avoiding that negative emotion that's associated with Getting up going to the jam it's uncomfortable. I have to be self-conscious about certain things all of that You're avoiding all of that right yeah, and so There's just that there's more practical wisdom in just accepting that you're going to feel Bad about that and be at speak directly because of the value you've chosen. Yes. Yeah. Yeah A huge component of emotional regulation Is our relationships right and our dark moments. It's often the people around us who support us and help us through it Sometimes the people around us cause our dark moment. So Being very conscious of who you surround yourself with and the values of those people that you surround yourself with I will say you know, I Maybe we undersold it a little bit in this episode, but like I will say the consequences of having People close to you with awful values is Significant right is very significant. I think people underestimate how much The values of the people around them rub off onto them or influence them and their choices and their own value system Like ultimately our value systems are kind of Networked with the value systems of people around us and If we're surrounded with people with shitty values then it's going to kind of reset our baseline and our standards for ourselves Yeah, another one of those things you have to be very honest with yourself about right because it's easy Well, yeah, they're like that, but that doesn't affect me Yeah, there's so many instances of this and every different parts of our lives and behavioral change and everything like that Well, that doesn't affect me. It does yeah be honest with yourself You know you can't keep junk food in the fridge because you're gonna eat it You also can't have a bunch of assholes around you and not think that you're not gonna be an asshole at some point too So yeah, I think it normalizes things. Yeah, right? It's like think about it. It's like if all your friends are drug addicts and alcoholics and you're in your sober Like you it's easy to be like well, I'm I'm not doing drugs. I'm not I'm not drunk all the time But it's like they they normalize it and they set a baseline expectation that They just put the barks extremely low, right? Right, and so it's even if you're not participating or doing the the bad behaviors that they're doing You you are accepting the standards that they upset and you're setting that same standard for yourself Because again, it comes back to like remember like you the way you measure yourself is the way you measure others And the way you measure others is the way you measure yourself So if you if you were accommodating a bunch of bad behavior and bad values in the people around you Then you are unconsciously accommodating that in yourself or you being tolerant of that in yourself as well I think there's one thing to you want to be careful about is not to go too far the other way There's there's a self-sorting that goes on too that we just sort of selves into people who have have our exact values And like we've said repeatedly throughout this is it's not necessarily Like shared values aren't necessarily having the same values It's more a respect for values that you have for other people and that itself is a value Yeah, like being able to tolerate and respect other other values That compliment each other within you know reason anyway Yeah, if you yeah, if you go the other direction and your standards are just so absurdly high that nobody can meet them Then yeah, you're gonna be a miserable asshole by yourself for a long time And a diversity of values is a great thing to any group or person Yeah, and then the last thing We talked about cognitive dissonance and how ultimately our values and our belief systems follow action um, they are not action does not follow our values that Values follow our actions and so the best way to reprioritize your value hierarchy is to take action on the hierarchy that you want or force yourself into a situation whether it's through constraints or incentives to Take the action that you want and Understanding that it's gonna be uncomfortable and difficult and maybe even unpleasant at first And that there's gonna be all this self-doubt and associated guilt and sadness and anxiety and Iki Iki feelings, but if you push through that then ultimately Your your brain will resolve the cognitive dissonance by adopting the new value Reassessing the hierarchy and then basing that hierarchy off of The way you're acting in the world. Yeah. Yeah. This is I think I have a good sailing exam example of this too If you're in a relationship with someone let's say it's your romantic partner And you've been fighting a lot right and you say you value this relationship right But when you get into fights what you do is you just want to win the fight right yeah, this is everybody has You want to win the fight you actually value being right more than you value the relationship So next time you have an argument Instead of like trying to be right with someone just stop and say okay What's really going on here right and say? I'm sorry first of all maybe just apologize right out of the gate even if you don't know what you're sorry for And try to understand the other person and this that that's a good like the action the value follows the action Because once you stop and then that other person their guard goes down you can say here and it's okay We're we're both prioritizing the relationship now over being right over Winning an argument, which is stupid to begin with And the funny thing is is that like probably at least 50 percent of the time that is what the argument is Yes, it's just the de-lack of prioritization of the relationship like again It's it's not about the toothpaste tube. Yeah, it's it's about the thing underlying the toothpaste tube Yeah, you know, so yeah, that makes sense This was one area. I mean, I had a lot of cognitive descendants in my life that I never really resolved because With most people in my life I was benevolent and I was understanding and everything like that and then in Closer relationships, you know, the ones that can really poke at your buttons more I was not and so there was that gap I had that value scap there yeah, and I had to realize at some point It's like okay, do I value being right and like protecting myself and or whatever it was that I was prioritizing over a relationship I was like actually know this relationship was way more important to me than winning a stupid argument Yeah, 99 percent of which I don't even remember from the past that have derailed relationship I remember all the all the arguments I've I-o-one Because you can count them on one hand Yeah, that was it was funny because when you were talking about like saying sorry even if you don't know what you're saying Sorry for in my head. I was like every husband is nodding along right now What is so many times you do you have you know I mean seriously there's been so many I'm like you try to you get defensive Yeah, like defensive you're like I'm not like look. I'm right. I'm not trying to hurt you I'm not and I think that is completely besides I think any married person it can relate to like you know Just not like I don't know what I did wrong, but I'm just gonna say I'm sorry, right? And that's gonna set the tone and you know you're gonna be able to move on way quicker. Yeah totally I think it it is Interesting that for set like arguably the most philosophical topic in psychology Ultimately, I think that the the most efficient or highest leveraged solution around this is the simplest which is taking action and yet So many people struggle So often with taking action on the things That they want to take action on and I think a lot of it comes down to this is because the thing they want to take action on It's a thing they want to value But they don't value yet. Yeah, and that friction or that that distance between the wanting the value something and not value and something and in Summating the motivation and the willpower to actually take action on it Uh, I think it's it's like one of the most prevalent struggles and issues that everybody goes through and I think everybody's Constantly going through like I I speak for myself, but I think every single person no matter how disciplined how much Motivation and willpower they have there's some area of your life to be like oh yeah, I wish I was doing a little bit better on that right So next episode and we're gonna try to do this thing where Each episode leads into the next episode. So next episode is going to be about this question of like how do you take action on things That you don't necessarily feel like taking action on So the next episode of solved is going to be about procrastination and I'll be dropping on June 1st And it's a doozy. It's a fun one Last question Drew. Hmm What did you learn Prepping for this episode and recording it. Yeah, yeah, so I think one of the big take away the self-awareness thing really Was a big one for me. I have an I have had an idea of my values for a while And then there is every few years I kind of like sit down and I'm like okay, what is you know the value shift to whatever What surprised me is how much my values have shifted over time honestly? So going from some of these lower values, you know when you're a little bit younger You prioritize different things and as you age all of those things It becomes apparent that they're not Important yeah, you know having fun and excitement and novelty and all of that going to just simpler values or maybe more the higher values really That was big for me. So this the self-awareness piece around this I don't think it can be understated. I really do think that if you are just Aware and clear-eyed about your values. That's not the fix. It's not gonna change so much But especially for people who just haven't done this before. Yeah, it's a clarifying. It's so clarifying It can direct so many of your decisions going forward and you just understand like the you understand why you feel so bad about certain things Like I said, I've I've just been able to accept that. Oh, I'm just gonna feel bad about this sometimes and that's okay And it's a side effect of you caring about it. Yeah exactly. Yeah exactly. It's like oh this is actually a good sign Yeah, that I'm feeling bad about this because I value this relationship so much or this this value in my life. Yeah That's that's so I think self-awareness Um, I I hesitate to like put that one up front because it's not the whole picture It's not the the fix all for everything, but it will get you a long long way. Yeah So right off the bat. Yeah, the the self-awareness around my values and how much they've changed that was a big Big one for me Priority priorities to I knew benevolence was pretty high in mine But I just didn't realize how just how central it was and just how much it butts up against the other values that I have too Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to record reconcile those. Yeah, so for me You know as you know, I've been writing about values for like 10 plus years for me the I think the biggest the biggest aha Prepping for this episode was really getting that broader understanding of like I guess the kind of the network of values like how Values kind of interlace with one another and I guess the the potential danger of overindexing on one single value because I I think my approach through most of my career was very much It was a little simplistic. It was like find the thing that you care most about and go all in on it Yeah, and I think on a surface level. I think that's a good advice I certainly think that's way better than just not knowing what you value at all So like if you take somebody who has no idea what their values are and or like feel pulled in 20 different directions And you tell them to like find the one thing and go all in on it I think that's gonna be a a significant improvement I think going back and and prepping for this episode and doing a bunch of the research and especially reading some of the The older philosophy around this like it really gave me an appreciation of of that Actually going all in on one thing for too long Can be problematic and it was interesting because it actually caused me to look at some of the decisions I've made Over the last 10 or 15 years Like I definitely think that's an issue. I have I have a tendency to go all in on one thing and There are a lot of benefits to that. You you whatever that thing is it tends to you get very very good at it And you get outside benefits But it definitely harms other areas of your life So like I've probably I've spent most of my life being a pretty unbalanced person in that sense like I'm just like very over indexed on one thing So yeah for me it was the gaining the understanding of like of like hey you you need to Have a small diversity of values, you know, it's probably optimal to have Three or four things that you're all in on quote unquote that Can harmonize together and counterbalance each other and rest on each other and that way You're a little diversified like kind of like a stock portfolio like you know if if one thing that you care about just suddenly go self terribly You have a few other things to fall back on you're not putting all your self esteem or self worth in like a single basket So so that was the biggest thing for me and then you know kind of that rediscovery uh Talked about Plato's Republic of just kind of like the You know the individual is the social and vice versa like how that plays out on a social level as well Yeah, you don't want a society that's all in on one thing because You're gonna pay the price for that you you really do want A society that has a diversity of values and um in those values can harmonize and but also be in tension with each other And and also just the fact that some of that tension is Is a feature. It's not a bug. Yeah, it's that that tension is evidence that it matters and your You you you care about it and you're taking care of it. Yeah. Yeah, and along those lines to another realization I had was When you are Intention with other people's values or whatever it is if make sure you're talking on the same level right Are you having an intellectual intellectual conversation or is it actually about values? Or is one of you like on the intellectual level and the other one is talking on values? Like and I feel like I've been pretty good about this most of the time but like um Allowing people to kind of just have their own values and like be okay with it not judging them for that a lot of times Which is of this person's stupid because of Whatever view they hold or or thing and they're doing or value they hold and it's really just comes down to they just have a different set of values So like you know the whole Jonathan I think the moral foundations theory Knowing that we all value kind of the same things with just in different proportions right that was a real that's If you need a more intellectual framework for that to like Understand other people on their values That was that was helpful for me anyway Yeah, and I like thinking of it in those terms as well Because I do think there is a tendency especially in like political conflicts like to That have this assumption that there are the right and wrong values that there are There are certain values that like you should have or shouldn't have I like the understanding that Most values are shared by everybody what changes is the proportionality in the emphasis yeah, right And so when you look at maybe say tension between Different cultures or different places on the political spectrum Something that they value different things is that they prioritize right different things right and This this group of people over here sees you know harm and care is more important than say fairness And this group over here sees fairness and freedom is more important than harm and care So it's just that they have a different hierarchy and it's Playing out in across the political world right right and it's it's the elephant right yeah It's an emotional tug. It's an emotional world that you're dealing with and so you know when you are trying to reason with people You need to speak to their values. Yeah, and even if you're gonna agree to disagree you need to understand someone on the level of their values Yeah, yeah, all right I'm excited So I'm gonna get the fuck out of this blazer I'm never gonna do this again Lesson learned Lesson learned enjoy it audience while you have it any Epiphanies change behaviors anything you're gonna go home and do differently next week or you're just gonna sleep I mean the sleep I do need to value some sleep I think after this but um Now I I mean like I was saying I knew that benevolence was like a core value of mine. I just uh I didn't realize just how core it was and and how many times it bumps up I can see others so I've really been thinking on that lately and I'm gonna continue to think on that yeah cool Well, if listeners of the show if you want to think on these things as well discover your own values Spend the entire month working through everything that we've been talking about peace by peace exercise by exercise Then we have a 30-day values track in the momentum community Ultimately what momentum is about is the idea that it's a series of small changes in your life that create momentum They get you pointed in the right direction and the reason we're building a community around this is because Ultimately taking action is about accountability So If you want to check that out if you want to implement everything you've heard in this episode if you're still fucking if anybody's listening still if you're still here I assume you care enough To want to implement this into your life So if you if you want a framework and a and a guide to help you implement it into your life And then you also want the accountability on the back end to make sure you're actually doing it Check out find momentum calm slash values all the information is there and like I said We're going to do this for every single episode every month It's right and so it it doesn't end with values when we do procrastination next month We're going to have a 30-day track for procrastination help you Solve procrastination in your life And then when we do the episode after that same thing on and on and on so please join us there I'm really excited about it I'll be dropping into the community here and there answering questions doing Life webinars so It'll be a great place to connect and actually Do shit. Yes do this stuff. Yeah, like take some action like stop talking about it and listening to it and like go fucking do it So I'm excited for that anything else true before we sign off. I think we did it. You want to go home? I think we did it. Okay. I want to go home Let's go home Thank you everybody's time be sure to like and subscribe on every platform if you enjoyed the show please leave a review let us know what you thought and Please check out the newsletter if you want to like be up to date on other stuff that I'm launching whether it's YouTube videos articles books go to markmanson.net/newsletter You can get all the updates there. We also announce all the new episodes there as well Once again, solve the podcast.com/values for the free PDF guide that goes along with this episode if you want to review everything or Check our citations or whatever and we will be seeing you next month (upbeat music)