 I like all the disclaimers, you've got your bases covered. Absolutely. So radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Brookshow. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Brookshow on this Thursday night. I'm excited to have Gina Golan back. It's been a while, I think. A little while. But Gina's always one of the more popular guests I have, and it's always a fascinating conversation. So since she's very popular, and she's limited in time because she's got two little ones. And she has to go save her working husband from them. If you have questions, ask them early. I'll get a sense of how many they are. And we'll go to Gina answering the questions earlier than usual, just so we make sure we cover everybody's questions. Thank you, Iran. Oh, absolutely. So that way we can get everything done and everybody is happy. Including the kids. Part of the goals here on the show is to make everybody happy. Indeed. And you're walking the talk. You are now in Texas at the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas in Austin. Yeah, I guess it has been a while. Yeah. Well, I think you were still at your shiva last time we talked. Likely so. Are you enjoying Austin? I am, although also missing New York so much so I just took a little whirlwind trip back for four days with the almost four year old. Oh, wow. Was a wild ride. But well worth it. But no, Austin is everything that we hoped and expected it would be for this stage in our life. And almost everybody's in Austin so it's a it's a great place to be if only for the company. So seriously, it's worth a lot. Yeah. All right, so you have a sub stack. The builders. So I highly recommend everybody. Go subscribe. It's builders.gina.golden.com. Builders.gina.golden.com. It's a sub stack. You can subscribe pretty easily there. You can upgrade to a paid subscription. You can do a free subscription. You're on well. Absolutely. I did not pay your on for this advertising. Incredibly valuable. I know they're paying me. That's okay. It works out fine. Win-win. Thanks everyone. Indeed. Yes. Win-win. All right. So a lot of exciting work you're doing there. I'm curious is the work you're doing at the university. In any way related to the work you do. On the sub stack and the work you do kind of consulting. Is it. What's the theme. I mean it's a good question and I would say I know it's related, but it wouldn't be obvious to any outside observer. How it's related and that I'm training. I'm a clinical psychology graduate students in therapy. That's what I'm doing. So I'm teaching them a classical intervention. But it's my very particular twist. On the topic of intervention at the. High level aim of the course is to. Introduce. Second year graduate students who are starting to do therapy for the first time. Introduce them to. The major empirically supported. The major empirically informed therapeutic approaches and treatments and what the evidence is for those treatments and. You know, and how to select among them. And I've put my own spin on that and in various ways. I can. Trace lots of through themes between. You know, my. Work. With founders, my sub stack, my approach to thinking about. Psychological. Ambitiousness and change broadly and how I approach teaching therapy. I think it's all basically, you know, it's all one fundamentally. And my students get to hear about it and have to kind of think through the lens of a high agency approach to. Empowering their patients through knowledge, through awareness, through. The kind of mutual exploration that is truth tracking. You know, so easily, you know, you would see those through lines, if you know what to listen for. But on the surface, I'm not teaching them how to coach founders and teaching them how to do therapy with, you know, patients who have various psychological disorders. So. You do a lot on, on the builders mindset. So can you tell us a little bit about what that is? What you mean by that? And then we'll go from there. Sure. Yeah. So the way that I, that I came upon this. Idea of this kind of shorthand of the builders mindset was in. The way that I came upon this. The way that I came upon this. Contrast was as a kind of positive alternative to what I. Saw again and again in the culture. As these two seemingly the opposite, but I think, you know, fundamentally. Fals in. Deeply similar ways views and sort of approaches, which I've come to call the drill sergeant and the Zen master approach. But I think it's a good idea for us to map them onto philosophical schools. And I think, you know, there's, there are ways to do that, but not perfectly. So I just want to stick to the psychological level for a moment of kind of how these manifest as think of them as almost like. Like psychological cultures. Like this is a way. So a mindset is, you know, shorthand for like your psychological profile, like, and how your, how your ideas manifest in your. Automatic for thought streams, your behavioral patterns and motivational tendencies, right? Like. Patterns of being. As a human that reflect the ideas you've internalized. And so the Zen, the drill sergeant is the kind of. Classic inner critic who. Beats you up. Or not ever doing a good enough job. Relative to whatever ultimately arbitrary standards you've internalized. Whether that's, you know, high status, whether it's religious, you know, like. Conformity to some religious or moral standard. Whether it's being, but even like, whether it's. Being a good enough. Founder or a good enough objectivist or good enough you, you name it, but like as defined by some. External standard. Irrespective of the needs of your life and flourishing. And so, you know, there's a bunch of psychological consequences of that you get burned out. And so, you know, it's not like you are constantly, you know, motivated by fear and guilt and. And kind of pushed from behind. You never actually get to enjoy your life, right? So all kinds of symptoms associated with that. And then on the other side of the correctives that are culture offers and especially startup culture offers is what I call the Zen master, which is to not. Attach yourself so much to outcomes. And not to be so perfectionistic, but rather enjoy the process. And so, you know, it's not like you're having done your best because you, it's not like you can control the outcome anyway. So focus on what you can control, which is your attitude, your effort, your. You know, moment to moment experience. Focus more on the present. Think less about the past and the future, et cetera. Which sounds nice on its face until you realize that. You've really lowered the bar on what you can actually. Strive for and hold yourself, you know, and it's really pretty demotivating and demoralizing. So the builder is the third alternative. Where, you know, who kind of. For whom the focus in life is not. On what we are trying to avoid or to not fail at, but rather what we're building, right? We built what we're building a life. So it's, it's that mindset on which fundamentally you view your life as a project that you're. In charge of and where the. And the ultimate end for which you need no further permission or justification is. To live your fullest and best and most joyful life. That's it, right? So might sound familiar. But that's what I mean by the builder's mindset. And then that gets cashed out into all kinds of implications for motivation at work for kind of how to. Lead and manage a team, et cetera, et cetera. So, so how do you, so is this something that you do with founders? Is this something you think that applicable. To people in their everyday life, or is it in particular people who are running companies. I think it's absolutely applicable. To all people everywhere at all times in their everyday life. But. Founders for me have been. Kind of. Paragon case, like an exemplar. That has. For various reasons, which I'm sure, you know, you can relate to as well. It's. Some of the truths that are in fact universal. You know, in human existence. You face them more starkly. Kind of with fewer. False. You know, security blankets with fewer kind of a fake intermediaries. When you're. Just building something that is yours. You're accountable. Ultimately, you know, to reality, to the market, to. The bottom line, right? In a way that ultimately you kind of can't hide from and you're naked before it, but also in the short term, there's no guardrail. To. Like. Constrain you from. You know, losing all your money and having to lay everybody off or from. Wasting a bunch of time and capital. It's really just your judgment, like you're the boss, right? It's, it's the final call kind of on is, you know, is this worth it? Is this the best way we could be spending our time and money? And are we actually getting there? Do we have product market fit? You know, so you have to use your independent judgment or pretty quickly fail and see the consequences. And. Also. Founders. Our incredibly ambitious and innovative and their, you know, showcase for us what's possible, right, in the life well lived. So that's why I focus on founders. Yeah, so you find it, so people who are not founders is and don't have that level of ambition and maybe don't have that level of originality or, or their ambitions lie elsewhere. Yeah, aren't monetizable, but that makes the bill less, you know, so how does the builders mindset lie to those people? In a sense, what are they building? Good question. So if, you know, if we really understand the core tenet within the builders mindset kind of framework, which is that you're building your life, then we pretty quickly see how this applies to everyone and everywhere, because part of the choice, for example, you know, if you're building your life, one of the things that you make your own autonomous choice about is, well, what kind of life do I, do I want? Like, do I want to be married to my work in a way that will probably alienate most of my friends who aren't also founders that, you know, where I can't really date unless they're, you know, either in the same world with me or they've already known me for years and years and understand that I'm just like this and they're already sold and they're willing to go through these years where basically I'm, you know, never there or we're co-founding together and that brings up anyway, right? So like not everybody wants that life and part of, and this is a conversation I have with founders sometimes is you do remember this is a choice, right? Like, you know, and there are founders who actually would be much happier and more energized and, you know, more alive doing something as like being a researcher in a lab where they get to really channel their strengths and their curiosity, their interest, right? They hate having to sell people on thing. They hate having to deal with investors. Like they would actually much rather focus deeply on one vertical, you know, or even just like be ahead of product somewhere. But their internalized social standard of excellence is no, you have to be a founder. So they're holding themselves to this, you know, arbitrary selfless ideal to their own detriment. That's not being a builder on my view. Whereas, like, Katie Caracow, who actually now has recently won the Nobel Prize, you know, I've been singing her praises since long before. Well, I guess by then she was pretty famous. But before she won the Nobel Prize on top of it. But this woman who just like was this anonymous, like research associate, she didn't even have a proper family. Immigrants from Hungary, right? Yeah. This is an incredible immigrant story. And like she stayed at Penn because she wanted her daughter to be able to go there for free. And so she put up with all their ridiculous bullshit, you know, like they never gave her proper title, they never offered her even a tenure track job, never mind tenure. They never paid her more than like 60 K a year. After 30 years, developing this, what we now understand to be completely world changing revolutionary technology for immunizing people against illnesses that, you know, could otherwise ravage humanity. And like she didn't know how to monetize it. She couldn't even get a grant. But she stuck to her guns because she could see the promise and potential of this this technique. And she kept finding people's labs to work like that woman built herself a life. I mean, like, that's a talk about like an exemplar, right? Of someone and looking back, like now it's easy for all of us to say like, wow, she's so great and look how great her life. But like, if we had looked at her life 10 years ago, most of us would have looked at it and said, what is she doing? Like, doesn't she want, I don't know, a promotion? Like, doesn't she want to go somewhere where she'll be appreciated? Like, it's probably totally like in some lullaland where she keeps like doubling down on this weird research idea that the whole field seems to think is, you know, either too far ahead of its time or just bogus. Like, she's stuck to it. Right. And that's just one example. I mean, and we can give examples of people who are plumbers and they're excellent at their craft and they love their work and they come up with new more efficient ways of doing their work. But even just like by trading off an old tool for a new one that they're super excited to geek out with, like I've had awesome plumbers and I've had crappy plumbers and I know the difference. And the awesome ones, they're not a lot of them. Seriously, like they're precious, rare, you know, fine. And they're the ones who are really great, you know? And then like they tell me stories of their kids or their grandkids and like they're constantly learning stuff and tinkering with new, you know, optimizations for like, they're building their life. They're not letting it be built for and around them. They're not sort of being carried by some current of happenstance or, you know, trying to just endure the pain and the tumble, like a Zen master or kind of being whipped into submission, like, you know, the drill sergeant, they're building. So. And in this building, I mean, it's kind of easy to think about it in terms of one's profession, one's career. Yeah, it applies to everything in life, right? Good. Yes. Thank you. Don't not mean neglect to mention, you know, and to really highlight that really being a builder means your whole, your scope applies to the whole of your life. So like, you're as intentional, thoughtful, principled in your friendships, in your romantic relationships, in your parenting, which, you know, is a big, you know, theme in my life, and obviously has been in yours and in many of ours, that, you know, you're approaching it with the same kind of seriousness and, and without the kind of compartmentalization that we see often in our cultural, you know, work, life balance, if you think, but wait, so there's work, and then there's life, and these are separate things? What's happening there? Right. And on one hand, like that really short changes your work, but it also really short changes the rest of your life, like life is just this trivial afterthought. Like, talk about how what the integration of work life looks like that, like, okay, so it's, they're not separate things, they seem to most people like separate things, what why are they not separate things? Yeah, I mean, so a big part of the decision around what you want to be doing professionally, I mean, if you think about like, what are the inputs to that decision making process, like, what is it you want to be earning your income or capital river for? Like, what are you, what do you want to build with that money with, you know, with those savings with those investments, whatever, and for who like, presumably it's a life you're envisioning for you and your loved ones, right? And often that's going to include, you know, like, when do you envision it? Do you want kids? And when do you envision having them? And how is that going to like people who don't think about that? I mean, nobody really gets far without thinking about that, because if you're going to start a company, like, that's going to be a baby that you're raising. So if you also have another baby, now you've got two babies. And like, you know, I've actually started to talk about it as like, twins or triplets, like, if you have a company, if you have a startup, and also like, you've just had a kid, basically you're raising twins. And so a lot of the same wisdom. But like, how are you going to, you know, but also what are you going to model for your children? But also, how do you have a partner who is going to be able to support you and be visible, you know, and give you the visibility of like, oh my gosh, here's what's happening in my, and who like understands and admires the things about you that make you you, which probably largely are going to be derived from your work, right? Not not entirely. But also, like, do you have the resilience of a social support network, you know, a network of loved ones, a community, you know, a group of friends, like chosen family or, you know, reaffirmed family, whatever of like, those people who are going to be part of your world, even through all the trials and prevails of you get laid off, you change careers, you know, which is now completely routine, you know, in our modern fast paced economy slash, you know, downturn, et cetera, et cetera. Right. And especially like with AI, everything is going to completely change in coming years and what kinds of jobs there even are, right? Like, are you building a life that is going to be resilient and flyable while retaining its core identity in the sense of like, there, there are the things that there are the kind of through lines of what brings you joy and often that's going to be who brings you joy, right? And who energizes you and who's with you on the journey. And then there are going to be all these ever changing, you know, work circumstances and you're going to be growing and evolving. But like, yeah, like who's with you on the journey? It's like, who are the characters in your life? And how do you relate to them? It's a huge part of the blueprint, right? And all of that requires your work requires you to, in a sense, build. Yeah, I think you have to build relationships. Yeah, you build relationships. And crucially, because this comes up again and again, you know, when people are dating, let's say, or not really dating and wishing they could be dating, but they don't feel like there's anything they can do because who else, you know, who's even out there for me or, you know, dating apps apparently just suck now, because now all of them have been reduced to the lowest common denominator of just scrolling, yes, of like the hot or not kind of screener system, basically where I remember like there used to be these long detailed profiles where you could really see somebody's written style, they've done away with it all anyway. But the point is that people will often, you know, and very understandably get discouraged, demoralize, you know, like I've tried going on a few dates and they were all disappointing. So who's out there for me? Or, you know, I just can't seem to meet anyone without realizing like, it's up to you. And it's way easier now than it's ever been in human history to meet a much wider range of people. Like, you know, it used to be that there was literally just one person who was already slated for you if you were lucky, you know, by your parents, like you just either were told who to meet, or you were going to just be, you know, like a support person, you're going to be like the wet nurse or the slave. It's such a recent development in human history that we even have the agency to like choose among people. But to do that, we still have to do the work. It doesn't, they don't, it's just going to come to us. We have to go on a bunch of dates. We have to be discriminating about our tastes. And that we learn only through iteration and experience and self reflection on what, what did I think about that? What didn't I, and by putting ourselves out there, which is really hard and courageous work and figuring out how to communicate for the win, you know, and how to ask interesting questions and how to, you know, going to present ourselves in the best light, all of that's work and all of its building, you know, all of it's part of the project, right? Like I'm building a dating docket. I'm building myself, a attractive, interesting person. I'm building a relationship. I'm building a character for that matter, right? And the attitude and the principles are the same across all these different areas in human life. Yeah. Fundamentally. Yeah, I'd say so. So I have a question on one of the builders out there, one of the most successful builders in history really, you know, and that's Musk, Elon Musk. I knew it. I knew it. I'm going to talk about him. Okay, let's do it. Yeah, we should talk about Elon. So there's a biography that came out about Elon, which, which talks about, I've read half of it. So I'm working my way through. You know, talk about the harshness of his, his father was pretty harsh with him. Any positive emotions was tough with him. And also gaslit him, right? And I think that's relevant, potentially, for whatever question. Yeah. So there's a lot of, a lot of people who talk about the fact that it's this difficulty in childhood. It's these challenges that he had that have made him great, right? In a sense, I see who says that. I'm sure there are people who say that, but I also hear some other narratives. I'm actually, for example, says biographer. Okay, that's actually a good point. Yeah, this is sort of part of Eisen's poll. Basically, what motivates Elon Musk is proving himself to his dad. That's true. So that's interesting, because when you said great, I kind of did a head, because there's a kind of, there's a tint to it. Like, what he's actually doing is he's proving his father wrong. So like, he's doing these great things, but he's doing it out of neurosis. Like he's doing it, like it's not necessarily great in the kind of virtue sense, but it's, you know, the output's really great for us all. We get to enjoy Tesla's and, you know, hopefully fly to or take a rocket trip to Mars one day. But yeah, like there's a kind of yeah, it's all kind of tainted in a certain way. And I forget the name of the who's the author Isaacson, Walter Eisen, same one, the road is suggesting and I've seen him in interviews, we suggest this, that to be great, you have to have that chip on your shoulder. You have to have some trauma that you have to overcome, right, prove to the world. So the motivation is always to prove to others that you can do it. I think I think he goes back to Leonardo da Vinci, who's father also is very difficult with them. By the way, that's a great biography, if you that Isaacson quote of Leonardo, it's really worth reading. He goes back Steve Jobs to some extent, which also had a father abandon them when he was when he was Yeah, Steve Jobs explicitly. Yeah. But anyways, there's a broader theme like artists have to suffer in order to achieve greatness. So what's your perspective on that whole line of Yeah, there's so many thoughts. Yeah. So, so let me so first taking Isaacson, like as a biographer with an approach. And I haven't read the Da Vinci biography or any of his biographies of people long dead. I've only read. Well, actually, that's a lie. I haven't even fully read the Steve Jobs biography, because I was sort of given enough reviews and descriptions of kind of how he approaches it. And I heard the many quotes about the reality distortion field, this and that, that I actually just write a different biography instead becoming Steve Jobs, which I love and highly recommend. And it's a very different take a different angle. And now, you know, I'm reading my way through the Elon Musk biography. And but I've also seen this without you're right, like this isn't a common kind of approach and perspective, this pathologizing of ambitiousness of achievement of outlier, you know, kind of greatness. And a, I think that what I actually think is true. So, you know, you're asking like, what do I actually think about that thesis? I think the opposite is true. In that, I think great people managed to rest greatness out of themselves and out of their lives, despite all the crap that's happened to them. And not by no means because I mean, think about like just the statistics of it. Like how would you validate this type that you couldn't possibly can so obviously false? How many people have had traumatic crappy childhoods? And how many of those people become very few? And on the whole, we know for a fact that having a traumatic childhood, having lots of stressful life events, overall makes you worse off, it does not make you better off. Like there's plenty of data to suggest that it does not help you. So to then tell a story where it's because of the trauma, it's because of these horrible things that he had to fight that that's why that if not for his abusive dad, he would have just been another middling, like Joe Schmoe, what individual contributor. So insanity. Like there's just something so twisted in that idea and something so like clearly you're coming to it with an a priori kind of perspective on human nature and motivation, such that you can kind of read that into any of these life stories, any of these narratives. So that's one thing, you know, and I do think it's relevant to understand their histories and their childhoods and the ways that they've internalized what they've internalized, partly because it helps us to understand where they go wrong. And you know, if we want to talk about there, probably some clear ways that must I mean, I almost like clear, you know, time will tell, but at least at the level of like his public communication style, public persona, like he doesn't always seem wise. Like there's a there's a whole mix there of different, you know, choices that he's making, some of which are more purely admirable, some of which are more questions. But yeah, but part of what I find so interesting about these stories is how great these individuals could become, even in the face of real flaws, which derive, you know, in part from horrible experiences that have, you know, that they haven't kind of processed in the healthiest ways or that they that they're still haunting them in some way, like and still like they've managed, you know, they haven't had to fix themselves. And I think that this is a preoccupation of a lot of people today and with kind of self improvement culture and, you know, and self help and like, it's all about the latest, you know, kind of hack, whether it's a productivity hack, or whether it's a meditation hack, but like, you don't have to do all that prior to going for the great project that is going to, you know, make your life better and the world better and will excite you so much that it's pulling you forward, even through all the anxiety and pain and, you know, and neuroses along the way. Do you think that there's a sense in which they do have to fix themselves, though, in order to have that integrated and I think it'll be better for me their success? Yes. I mean, it's, you know, my whole line of work is targeted toward leveling up the psychologies of the most ambitious people because I think there's plenty of room for growth there. You know, I've been describing my mission lately in terms of raising the psychological ceiling, raising humanity's psychological ceiling. I don't know, it has a ring to it that I like. But if you think about like, how much Bergeroff could Elon Musk be both in terms of just his own joy, which doesn't, you know, seem easy to come by just from even his Twitter, excuse me, ex, you know, account where he talks about how miserably overworked he is and how he's constantly in kind of emergency mode and doesn't know how to get out of it. And like clearly the guy could be way happier than he is. Right. And you see Steve Jobs on a journey where he became much, much happier, but like sadly toward what ended up being the last years of his life and didn't get as much time to enjoy it. And, you know, whatever decision making may or may not have contributed to that along the way, could be better. So absolutely, I think it could be better and it's worth pursuing, but not at the cost. And not just that, not just that you can do a lot of building prior to having fixed yourself, but ultimately it's the building that anchors the self improvement. Now, this is a piece I wrote a piece called the best way to build yourself is to build. So literally that this is kind of the thesis of it. You know, and I see it with clients I've worked with in there, you know, who come to me for therapy at points in their life where for one reason or another, they're not working. And sometimes that's that they're veterans who are 100% service connected and literally to keep their insurance from the VA for their service connected injuries, they have to continue to prove that they can't work. And it's the same thing with other forms of disability, you know, of benefits, like you have to be too impaired to work and you have to go to court and show how you're too impaired to work. And so you're incentivized not to work. And that's this phenomenon that I think a lot of therapists kind of witness on the ground and beat their heads against but like don't know how to talk about, you know, because it quickly gets political. But the fact is there's a whole population of people whom that's true. Or, you know, it's someone who's a recent college grad who went back to temporarily live in their parents' basement while figuring things out and then got really stuck and is struggling with, you know, OCD and with anxiety and with all these things but also has no tangible incentive to go fix any of it because there's no place to go. There's nothing to do that has any stakes whatsoever. It's like they play one more or one less video game that day and smoke one more or one less joint that day. Like what's going to be, you know, who cares if I fix this or if I fix it now or next week and like what's in it for me. And the this idea that like first I have to fix the same thing with the dating. Like it's a very common sort of mindset that like, well, I can't date until I've fixed myself because, you know, I've still have so much uncertainty in my life and I'm still so kind of, you know, neurotic and maybe I stutter especially when I'm nervous and I'm too overweight and this and this are like, how could I possibly date? Okay, so let me go try to change all these things, except that I am so burnt out from just having to get up in the morning like, why am I going to the gym for what for whom it's so much work and I still don't really feel that much better about myself and they're like, what is there to look forward to? Like maybe if you had a girlfriend or a boyfriend that would actually incentivize and energize your efforts to get better. So that's what I mean, like this is just something I've been on about. So probably why I'm kind of over indexing on it to use like tech speak. But yeah, that's what that's the sense in which I mean, like, don't let fixing yourself take precedence over actually building your life, which is really the only way we fix ourselves ultimately. So we're talking about the tech space, the big story is being the open AI drama, which was quite dramatic. Weird and strange and quite so incentives and all kinds of stuff going on. And I don't know Sam Altman. I don't know him, even as well as I don't know Elon Musk and these others. But what do you make of what was going on there? Psychologically, I mean. Yeah, so the biggest and most important thing to say, though it's kind of lame and a downer, is that we just, we at least I with the information I have available just don't really know. And it's really, really tempting and you can see like the feeding frenzy descend upon social media with all the takes that you could, you know, and like the poor board, I mean, yeah, they massively screwed up and there was some kind of serious incompetence and serious like, you know, system failure happening there on a pretty massive horrendous scale. So sure, like they deserve flak. But like, I mean, people were just tearing them apart. Like, truly, it's like a feeding party. It's like, you haven't met any of these people, you don't know what's actually making them tick. You don't know what they're doing. You don't know their personal demons and, you know, like what they're like, do they even want to be on this board? What, who put, you know, like, clearly there were mistakes made and there was a responsibility to be taken. But like, wow, were people quick to jump in there with their condemnations and with their, you know, like, comprehensive narratives. And I mean, for sure, it wasn't the people with the money that were yelling, but there was also a lot of money at stake. For sure. Yeah. And so, you know, the stakes were real. And the stakes were high. And that was part of the it makes sense that like, people needed certainty, they needed to know and I mean, I was stuck to the screen for those days. I mean, I will not claim to have gotten a lot of work done while that was all, you know, unfolding. Like I was constantly updating my, you know, X, whatever. And it was, and then people, the closer they are to it, the more different ways it's going to affect their lives. And they just, you know, can't think about anything else. So I get it. But also, Fog of War is a real thing. I'm sure a lot more about it than I do. And this was a real case of that. So that's number one is there, there's a lot we don't know. And I've seen enough with the founders that I coach, you know, with the kind of board founder relationships and dramas that I've seen ensue on the ground, like, it's frigging complicated. And there's just a lot of, and then the open AI governance structure makes it massively more complicated, right? It's just like, how did anyone in retrospect think this was ever going to work? But at the same time, like, if they had their reasons and seemed like a good idea at the time, and to some very rational people, including Sam Altman. So anyway, so there's lots to say about how it's about our psychology is in terms of like the need to jump to some kind of conclusion. So I just want to flag that ahead of time before I then go and give my takes, which are in fact speculative, and they're under determined by the available facts. That said, I mean, one of the most inspiring aspects of it for me actually was just seeing the tech world, not the tech world and open AI's staff, you know, so the kind of both microcosmically and macrocosmically just rallying around Sam Altman for the right reasons by and large, right? Like, this guy has made this thing happen. This thing that we now, you know, that now has been mainstream to the point where we can all play with it and just see how crazy like sci-fi future is now amazing. This technology is where you can just like ask the internet questions and it will answer them coherently. And you can like follow up and dialogue with it and it will teach you how to code and just there are so many we could maybe talk about, you know, interesting applications of mental health. But like this guy, he pulled it all together. He made it happen and people recognize that and they love him for it. And yeah, he's also extremely charismatic and sort of reckless at times, probably in ways that have may well, you know, still have their further ripple effects and we may learn about ways that he hasn't been forthright with this or that party, you know, but like, again, in the spirit of that same mantra as before, like that, what's fundamental, what's most interesting, what's most important is what you build. And then the other stuff sort of gets contextualized, you know, relative to like, this is my life. And these are the values I'm creating, like, I'm sure he's got his flaws. I'm sure he made mistakes. Time will tell what exact, you know, and clearly people on the board, you know, have plenty of flaws and made plenty mistakes. But like, these are people who are engaged in an endeavor that is making life astronomically rapidly better for pretty much everyone in the world in a visible way, you know, and it's being recognized, you know, through all the noise and through all the fog, like, I mean, I don't know, for any listeners who weren't following like 700, so out of what, like 770 employees, like 769, almost, presentation letter, something like that. And like, this is what the board, I mean, among other things, clearly the board did not, like, think about or anticipate, like, what effect this would have on company moral, like, what the chief would think or how to communicate, you know, again, we could get into some of the strange ways the board handled, but like, to a last person, these employees of this company that's been doing something great, and they've gotten to be part of it. And somehow, like, Sam Altman has, you know, and his team, like, have really created a living culture of, like, scrappy innovation, right, like, they're all doing this. And I think it's not irrelevant to, like, it started as a nonprofit and then became for profit, but it's not just for profit, like, there's something about it that's, like, holier, that right, like, this is a grand, important mission. And like, we're all in it, you know, we're all helping to create it and to make it faster and better. Like, they were willing to walk into, well, Microsoft. Like, they were willing to walk for him. It's like the modern equivalent of a battle field, the cozy Silicon Valley equivalent of a battle field. So that was a really, to me, that was one of the things that really stood out and really cool. Yeah, no, I agree that that was, it was fascinating. And I, you know, because of my background, I found the governance structure really weird and interesting and inevitably going to cause problems. And it's going to be interesting to see what happens now, right, to what extent they restructure, to what extent they keep this governance structure for a variety of reasons. It's going to be a story to follow in the years to come. Yeah, I mean, an afterthought of this, sorry, but just to, like, really drive home how good, how healthy the sort of tech culture's reaction was to Sam Altman's firing, like the things they were willing to overlook. He's got a crazy sister. Do you know about this? He's a crazy sister who's been accusing him of like horrible, awful, ongoing, like sexual abuse and internet abuse and all these different kinds of abuse. And like, nobody has given her the time of day, basically. I mean, it's also obvious she's a crazy raving. Like, it doesn't take long for an objective person to kind of read through some of the, you know, reports and quotes and realize like, yeah, this is no credibility. This is a crazy person. But like, that's true of many people in many places where that doesn't actually absolve the relevant, the accused from being canceled and, you know, and sued and censored in various ways. And like, none of that has happened here. Like, it's really, you know, there are some like side tweets, they're like, like threads within threads within threads where someone will try to like put Sam Altman can't be all good. I mean, look at all these, you know, shady things. And people just ignore them and just go right back to raving about how how much of a men she is and like how much how, you know, it's like, it's a rare show of genuine hero worship in our culture where, you know, we don't see enough of it. So anyway, I just wanted to highlight that. We got a ton of questions. So let's let's go to questions and see, see if we can get through these. Daniel says, so these are from all over the place, right? As all good, let's bring one basic era of evolutionary psychology, that it takes its own scientific conclusions as the prime as a primary of all human cognition, as as more basic than philosophy, ignoring the necessary hierarchical order of knowledge. Which is the question? Is that true? Yeah, is the basic era of evolutionary psychology is the basic error? Sorry, I just missed that part. So wait, is the basic error that it inverts? As a primary over all human cognition? I mean, I think that's one of its errors. I don't know if I would say it's the basic error more basic than philosophy and it ignores heretical order of knowledge. I mean, that's interesting. I don't like that strikes me as that's probably one of the things that's wrong with it. It doesn't necessarily strike me as the thing or like the most fundamental thing that's wrong that might be on a par. But like also it's extremely deterministic. Like it does have an implicit philosophy, right, as do most schools of thought within psychology and other applied fields, whether or not they explicitly articulate like here's the philosophy on which we're drawing to then, you know, present our code. But like, it has a philosophy underneath it. And sometimes it references various philosophical sources, but like the philosophy is one on which I mean, there are people, is it Plantinga, the philosopher who argues for God on this premise that otherwise it's so, it's so bad I can't even, is it? Yeah, there are philosophers who defend evolutionary psychology. So I don't think it's the case that like, it's just ignoring philosophy and trying to replace trying to do the work of it. Like, it has its philosophical arguments and there are philosophical arguments made in defense. So that doesn't seem unique to me as opposed to like a lot of other false, you know, or kind of confused mixed views. But like the particular philosophical school on which it's running is one that's, you know, extremely deterministic and also that I keep saying centers, it's funny, I got this, this terminology from I think it doesn't matter. Right. Like, this is live so I can't, you're not going to edit out that random aside, are you? Anyway, back to my regularly scheduled programming. It adopts a view of human nature on which all of our behaviors and all of our premises and all of our emotions, motivations, you know, kind of everything about us is like on an on a par, right? It's all kind of innate and modular. And all of it needs explaining by some biological mechanism, right? Versus there's this thing about us that's really radically different from, you know, prior organisms where we have this particular kind of faculty that then creates a lot of, you know, room, a lot of flexibility, right? A lot of kind of a lot more degrees of freedom over what the heck we choose to do from there, right? Like the choice becomes this irreduous and sort of our conceptual faculty, the fact that we can form, you know, abstract ideas about the world and then build on top of and build tools and build systems and build societies that were never determined to be this particular way that we built them to be right through our creative imagination. Like that completely like it just changes the nature of the game if you're trying to explain human behavior, right? The way that Darwin explains, you know, Finch's physiognomy or the way he's like, it's just you're going to have to think differently about if you want to explain the kind of the phenomenon that is chosen conceptually, you know, sophisticated human behavior. And that's not part of their model of human nature at all, right? Like it's just we're it's all just sophisticated, stimulus response, associative learning. And so if you're on that behavioristic model and that deterministic model of human nature, then it kind of makes sense to try to understand how we evolved to be, you know, pulled by this or that aspects of our environment to behave in this or that way. And then there are lots of other problems with it, like, you know, this kind of adaptationist idea that everything has to have about which even Darwin, like, didn't believe in which has been refuted many times within the kind of philosophy of biology. Anyway, so I think there's just lots of things wrong with it. But what you said seems like one of those things plausible as long let's keep going. All right, Nathan says I'm reading up on attachment theory. And psychologists often talk about getting our needs met. But they don't define what our needs are. What would you say our needs are? Are these needs a matter of life and death? Nice. Some psychologists really do go to some lengths to define our needs. They don't all agree on what our needs are. You know, and I wouldn't necessarily agree with all their conceptualizations of our needs. But one really helpful conceptualization that I've actually drawn from, which is adjacent to attachment theory, sort of intersects with it. And there are various common threads, though it's not that it's also distinct as self determination theory, which is the theory of motivation within psychology by these psychologists, DC and Ryan. And I'm using the thread realizing, oh boy, the question so. So needs is. Yes, thank you. So thank you. Thank you. So according to the wolf, so according to early dementia might be setting in. But so I better hurry. I better hurry and get off the bus. Anyway, build myself fast. But according to DC and Ryan, we have these basic needs as they describe them for here. Here are the needs according to DC and Ryan. We have a need for competence. We have a need for autonomy. And we have a need for relatedness, according to them. These are the three they've identified. And they cite a lot of empirical research and cross cultural research. And also some theory, regarding the need to experience ourselves as agents in the world who are able to get things done and the need to experience the kind of, and this is where they get, they have relationships with attachment research. And so far as belongingness and relatedness is this or need like in kind of scaffolding our own development of like self-esteem and self-nurturance, like being experiencing ourselves and nurtured and loved and valued as seen as this really basic kind of concomitant for developing our own kind of positive regard for ourselves and viewing ourselves as worthy of, you know, of effort and so on. And I think there's a lot too that theory and the identification of those needs. You know, it, I mean, Rand in Objectism also writes about needs. I don't remember the exact language she uses now, but I know like if you think about the cardinal, so self-esteem, so reason, purpose and self-esteem are what? The three cardinal values. So what are cardinal values? If you think about like, you know, there are things you have to act to gain and or keep. And if they're cardinal, like they're really crucial, right? Like you can't really do much without them. You can't, you can't live, you can't stay sane. You can't do anything. You can't be effective without a kind of some core conviction that you both, you know, can and are worthy of or that it is worth living, right? Like, so right self-esteem is the conviction that I am capable and worthy of living is, I think, how she just writes it in Alistar Act and the conviction that, you know, and then purpose, which if you think about, so in D.C. and Ryan's framework, you've got competence, which I think kind of maps on very loosely to like the self-efficacy part of self-esteem, the I'm capable part. You've got autonomy. So like the choice that they experience and they don't take a position on like, is it metaphysically that you actually could do otherwise, it doesn't matter whatever, but experientially at least, right? Like you've got to experience yourself as free to choose and as having your own reasons for the things that you do. And and then they talk about ways that different, like educational systems, different incentive structures, different environments can be more or less conducive to developing those needs. And I think there's a lot of commonality there with like, you know, the Comprichikos, right? If you grow up constantly either being thwarted in your efforts to do anything through your own agency, if, you know, mom and dad or teacher are constantly kind of micromanaging and swooping in and telling you what to do or fixing your mistakes without letting you kind of, you know, grapple and mess up and learn and and get the reward of the causal, you know, relationship between your actions and the task. So, yeah, so I think there's a lot of, sorry, was the was the final question like, how do we get the matter? What was the actual question? What would you say I need? Are these needs a matter of life and death? I think we checked that one off. But yeah, always more I could say, but let's go. Yeah, let's make them shorter answers. You can just like, you can do this when I've, you know, run out my time on a given question. This one should be quick. For years not reading Brandon was an unspoken objectiveist rule. You say you hadn't read him due to bad taste. But why aren't you curious about the content of the man of the main voice of psychology in the history of the movement? Fair question. I didn't know there was an unspoken rule. In fact, I've been like told and lectured about needing to read Brandon by any number of voices in my life. So if anything, I've heard it, you know, a very spoken rule that I should go read Brandon. And I've read Brandon now and, you know, kind of slowly gradually mean that part of the answer is just like opportunity costs. I have way too long a reading list at any given time and that every single item on that reading list is like crucial to my life and work. You know, like I mentioned, I've only just read half of Mosque's biography and that's ridiculous because I'm trying to write a piece that's timely that, you know, uses kind of that biography as a hook along with the Sam Altman thing, right. And like, ah, time is already like drifting through my fingers where that I'm no longer going to be able to kind of get that context in time. And there's a million things like that where I'm trying to like advise founders and I need to have, I'm basically educating myself on the whole history of business. So part of it is honestly just, yeah, I know that probably it would be valuable and I'll get around to it. But some of the reasons also have to do with some of my kind of informal understanding of where he fits within the history of the field. And I do have some sense of that. And he's a pretty sort of minor figure in mostly kind of outdated and refined and revised idea about actually self-esteem, which largely I know he got from Rand and which from the reading I have done, like, I have a sense of kind of the mix of what's new here and what's not and what's confused and, you know, and what's fresh. And my sense is like, yeah, I'll probably get some marginal insight and value. And it'll be kind of interesting, but not nearly as much so as like reading primary source Montessori, for example, or a lot of other things that are on my list. Okay, that's my answer onward. Richard says, a fun question. Do you know any support groups of people with mothers like Henry Reardon's? That's a good question. I'm sure there are support groups like that. I'm sure, you know, so here is where you can go and ask chat GPT. And it's uniquely well suited to like telling you where to find the thing you're looking for when you don't quite know what terms to use. If you say like, I mean, literally, you could just pose that question, because it, you know, it knows what Alastrug is, it's going to know who that character is, and maybe it needs a few more turns of clarification. Like, where are the support groups out there online? Or, you know, who can I talk to? What kind of forums is it? Like, what I want is to find some people that I can, you know, who would relate to me on having a mother akin to this character, you know, or having a really kind of guilting, shaming, you know, kind of insidious, subtly malicious mother who kind of saddles you with a lot of guilt and sense of obligation that you there out there. Okay, so there I outsourced it to chat on her and up for it. Cool. All right, Jennifer asked, do you think one can label oneself oneself as shy or introvert and then use that as an excuse to mid out on me? God, I can't read. To miss out on perfectly valuable relationships. Do I think someone can? Sure. Yeah, I mean, that sounds like something that could definitely happen. But I mean, people, you know, we're all very adept at rationalizing all sorts of things in all sorts of ways. And that sounds like a very plausible one. I'm sure I've seen it before. In fact, you know, like, well, this is my personality. I'm an introvert and but or like, look, I have ADHD or I have autism spectrum disorder. And therefore, I'm just naturally really not a people person. And so people just aren't going to get me. And so I might as well be a loner. Yeah, but I've seen every version of that kind of rationalization. And I think we should watch for it in ourselves because it's very easy to do. And it's easy for that to be some mix of like legitimate self education and, you know, rationalization. So good question. Right. Richard asked, Rand wrote art fulfills one needs one's needs to love their life. Would a romantic relationship do the same? I think a person experiences meaning to the extent that romantic art or relationships meet that need. What do you think? Wait, sorry. So the question maybe I should look at the questions. Should I open our romantic relationship do the same as art in the sense that art fulfills one needs to love their life? And then he says, I think a person experiences meaning to the extent that romantic art or relationships meet that need. I'm not sure I understand what the question really is. So, but the relationship between art experience one has with odd. Yeah, I mean, relationships. Yeah, I was like, this is somewhat miscellaneous. But I think relevant to the question. Like, one thing that just from a really personal standpoint that I've that I reflected on at a certain stage in my life was that there were certain ways that I needed art. I will always need art. I will always want art in my life and art will always, you know, be really important to me. But when I've been lonely, it's sort of like risen to a higher status for me of like, at least I get the one way visibility. Like, at least I get it's almost like there's something vicarious in it of like, I muted myself. Awesome. Okay, sorry about that. At least I get to experience through Dominique's journey, you know, like, the possibility and the hope and sort of, you know, the like emotionally visceral experience of learning how much is really possible or of like seeing that evil is impotent and of being part of this, like, really selectively kind of, you know, self design, self curated little community of friends who get you and, you know, like it was, I still go back and reread the Fountainhead periodically, but it's like, there's something kind of less desperate now that I have, you know, an amazing family life and have kind of best friends who all live around me, you know, like now that I'm really fulfilled in my relationships. And I get the kind of visibility where like, I get to hear my friends riff on their actual lives and get to hear how they think and then I get to share my thoughts and then we get to, you know, like, kind of stimulate each other's, you know, curiosity and push back on each other's kind of thinking and projects and laugh together and, you know, get Christmas gifts. Like, I'm living in that art, like art is life for me now. And there's something like that's much more three dimensional and full about the way, which is again, by no means am I knocking art. These things are fully, you know, mutually compatible and the more of both in your life, all things considered the better. But maybe this kind of speaks to like, what is that common need and, and in what ways does each of them fulfill it? Adam says, have you read, have you read The World's IC? It's an autobiography of Faye Faye Lee, an AI builder who left the industry for Stanford, so that her building medical AI would not be subject to FDA. The only autobiography of a great builder I know of. I have not seen. So now another book I have to add to my list. That's right. It's going to take time. But it sounds really interesting. I hope it's not the only autobiographical account of, I mean, probably there are others that I would consider, you know, great. But, you know, but in any case, it's always good to add one to a list. Thanks, Adam. Thank you for that. Another Adam, can you touch on the delineation between a builder found struggling with this, this standard versus second handedness building for the sake of others to benefit approval? So the struggle between the standard being their own standard and a certain second handed standard? Yeah. So I mean, this is kind of at the core of the whole distinction and what I'm trying to sort of help people with with this like metaphor of this framework. So the big difference between the drill sergeant and the builder, which often get conflated because builders can be really demanding and they want excellence and they have high standards, right? Like I think Steve Jobs and Michael Jordan, you know, right are both builders, but often they're characterized as these bullies and these like, you know, hard driving kind of maniacs, right? I think that the difference is are you driving toward a chosen standard and goal where ultimately the standard is your life, your fully lived joyful life, right? Reaping the rewards of this precious limited time that you have on this earth or is it something else? And usually the something else you've got in second hand, like where else are we going to get a standard that isn't anchored to our life, right? By default, there are a whole bunch of standards that are just like floating around in our culture that are aggressively on offer, right? And that are being constantly kind of shoved down our throats and that we're being lectured about or we're being judged on or we have our reared and ask mother, you know, reared or like guilting us about whatever it is. And so by default, you have these second handed standards and founders are no exception. I have to do a fund, you know, like I have to get to my series A, which is, you know, the fundraise after your initial seed fundraise within the first four years of running my company or else I've fallen behind the curve of this, like, you know, of B2C companies, whatever, like that's what you do if you want to be a great, like, why are you doing that? What, how is that like, explain that timeline to me in terms of what you're trying to build and how much money you actually need and what these new team members are actually going to add versus the added, you know, cost of managing and overhead. And like, are you sure that that's actually going to speed you up and not slow you down? And like, what are you, right? Like, explain it to me in terms of this thing you're building and how this is going to help versus the no, no, it's just like, I'm going to be seen as a bad founder. If I haven't done this by this time, right? Or like, if I haven't, if I haven't gotten into YCY Combinator, which was one of the big, maybe the most prestigious like incubator for founder, right? Or if I haven't gotten Sequoia Capital to invest, whatever it is, like, who says, well, someone, but not you based on an assessment of what will serve your life and goals. So Mary Ellen says, if you're honest and willing to be vulnerable, can you work on relationship skills within a relationship? Yeah, of course. Who's out there saying you can't? I will go after them and talk to them and I mean, I think it's a great place in which to work. I mean, it just, it depends on the nature of the relationship. Like if it's abusive versus if it's just, there are dynamics that are working very well in both parties, mostly have goodwill toward each other and are trying, but sometimes falling into bad patterns and both are committed to working on it. Like, why all means you can work on it? But if those things aren't the case, then there may be more of a question, right? So, but in principle, yeah, I think that's a great place to work on relationship skills. So, Len, let's see if I understand the question. He says he's reading Don's Effective Egoism and he's listening. It's just also still on my list. This is what I mean. Mine too, mine too. Sorry. And he's listening to Bean's Existential Science. Do you know that? Sorry, which listening? Existential Science, don't know that. And suddenly he says, I suddenly understand the free will determinism debate, which I find to be a annoying discussion of definitions. Interesting. That's it. I like Sabine as info and Don as instruction for action. Is that okay? I don't know. Neither of us are Sabine, so we don't know. I mean, he says, just trying to express my love of building a geek existence and enjoying fruits of other projects labor. Is there a question there? Yeah, I'm not sure there's a question there, Len, but thank you. But that sounds great. I mean, his instruction for action sounds good. I just don't know enough about Sabine to really comment. But I'll put her on my list. Richard says, I hypothesize, I hypothesize the one experiences meaning from fulfilling one's higher needs, like enjoying romantic art. What do you think? I mean, I think personal meaning is this word that gets thrown around a lot, but never much meaning is in search of a, yeah, sure. Or at least it's a bit of an amorphous diffuse meaning. Like it's a word in search of a definition of a clearer sort of conceptualization. Or often there are just the words that you can use in its place that will have a clearer meaning already. Meaning already has a meaning, but in this specific context of like meaning in life, meaning, you know, like this like specific need you're getting fulfilled. I mean, if what that means is like you are experiencing a kind of metaphysical like you're experiencing, again, so there are specific needs. There's visibility. There's inspiration, right? Like you're finding inspiration. So things I find in art. I find inspiration. I find solace. I find sometimes just like entertainment, but that is eyebrow in a way that works my, you know, my own kind of intellectual like muscles and that expresses that gives me a kind of forum in which to express and exercise my own style and my own sense of life. Right. I get just like knowledge, ideas. Right. So I think there's a bunch of ways there's a bunch of needs you get met. And you know, you could boil any of them down to like reason, purpose and self-esteem or to like kind of metaphysical value judgments about the world is a place that's worth living in and that is navigable and I am at home in it and my life is the standard of value, right? Like an affirmation of those core beliefs kind of felt in a really emotionally visceral immediate way is that that's meaningful. I would say there's meaning in that, right? So in that sense, sure, you get a ton of meaning, but it's not the only place you get meaning or the fulfillment of those needs, but in some ways it's uniquely suited. All right. Paulo says, how do anxiety disorders, which involve panic attacks, de-realization, depersonalization relate to a person's self-esteem and how to best deal with that problem? Well, so I can tell, so panic attacks can happen in the context of a lot of different mental health challenges and profiles, but I can tell you like the canonical and sort of most simple straightforward case of having a panic disorder where like let's say that's sort of what you have or it's a primary thing you have. I can tell you what we understand of its mechanisms and how we treat it and then I can say a word about what, if anything, that might have to do with self-esteem. So panic disorder, we now, we as a field of psychology, you know, have a pretty decent understanding of what's being tripped up that people with panic disorder tend to have sort of implicit beliefs about the dangerousness of certain physical sensations. So like if your heart is beating fast, if you're lightheaded, if you're winded going up the stairs, you feel a little bit of, you know, you feel that kind of flutter, like something's a little bit off and then you interpret that wordlessly, implicitly as something's really wrong. I'm out of control or like I'm doing something really wrong and I'm not realizing it or I'm really sick or I'm going crazy or I'm having a heart attack, right? Something is really wrong and then that revs up your fight or flight system, right? So it actually makes you a lot more anxious and it becomes a snowball where next thing you know, you're hyperventilating and like really feeling like you're having a heart attack and the treatment is A, education about the fact that that's what's probably happening and then B, what we call interceptive exposure where you deliberately induce the physical sensations like you breathe into a straw really fast so that you can be short of breath and winded and you experience, oh my gosh, yeah, my heart is beating and short of breath, I'm dizzy and everything's fine. And after you've experienced that a few times over and over and over, you get more and more comfortable with it and you realize and your brain really you kind of reprogram your brain, your subconscious into realizing, oh, actually these sensations are not dangerous, everything can actually be fine and this can just be a false alarm. So that's the kind of really like most straightforward case of panic attacks. The panic attacks can also happen in the context of trauma and other things and derealization, depersonalization can be a symptom that's when you're kind of, you feel yourself like not really in your body or kind of removed from the world that you're currently in or removed from yourself, that can happen just in the context of a normal panic attack or it can happen in other countries. So this isn't universal, but that's like a really common presentation of panic attacks and what it has to do with self-esteem, well, you can imagine that it can really be a drag on your self-esteem to the extent that it's like confining you to, you can't take the subway, you can't exercise, you can't go places because you're afraid of having a panic attack and suddenly like there's a lot less you're able to do and you feel really bad about yourself and about your prospects in your life, right? And actually it turns out there's a pretty quick actionable solution, which is really great news, right? So, okay. Right. Adam, do you have experience with narcissism? I find that term used as a synonym to selfishness, but I think a true narcissist would be very far from rational and very concerned with others and not honest with themselves. Indeed. Yeah. So I am glad you're raising this question because it's been a kind of bee in my bonnet recently. So somebody wrote a book called The Productive Narcissist, which very much argues for, I thought of it, you're on when you were asking about, you know, Isaacson and the whole notion that greatness comes from pathology, basically, because this is the ultimate thesis of, you know, greatness is pathology. Nevermind comes from, it just is. It's just a form of pathology, but it's okay because it's a useful form of pathology. So just lean on in, right? And it's amazing that the way he defines narcissism in that book, to be productive, at least not productive. Narcissism is two things. You have to have both things to be a productive narcissist. You have to not listen to other people. Like when you believe something is true, and you have to have a really strong vision of some kind. Those are the two things. That's what that makes you a narcissist. It's completely bewildering. Anyway, but like, there's a real phenomenon of narcissism. And yeah, I've encountered it. I've treated it. I've been face to face with, you know, I've been interacted with people whom I would formally or informally diagnose with narcissism. And yeah, it is definitely not selfish. It is definitely not confident. It is very much, you know, a pathological insecurity that then takes this really defensive form. Yeah. Richard says, how would you deal with an emotionally repressed person who loves their life and family only as a moral imperative? How would I deal with them? Well, it depends on the kind of like, if they're my client, like if they're coming to me for therapy, I would try to help them in respect and get connected to and build awareness of and willingness to feel their emotions to be a big part of what I do. And like, providing an education in part around how common a phenomenon this is and how, and the kinds of subtle costs that it has both for them and for the loved ones, students, so far as they'd actually on some level care about those loved ones, right? And how much more and better they could have in life. And, and I would help them sort of face and work through whatever real fears might be, you know, in the way of their depressing or kind of becoming more in touch with those feelings, whether that's, but I'll lose control and I'll never be able to reel myself back in or I'll be weak. Or, you know, there are usually lots of sort of assumptions, premises people have about showing emotion, feeling emotion. It'll make me irrational. It'll make me, you know, et cetera, et cetera. We kind of address those, work through those, look at the evidence, you know, or lack thereof. And then I would do various kinds of experiential exercises with them to help them get connected to and I get like really put words to and notice the physical sensations accompanying their emotional states. There are lots and lots of different ways to do that. All right. Let's say, let's do these, let's try to do them sentences or two. We'll see if we can. All right. Is Andrew Tate doing damage to teenage boys psychology? This one's easy because I have no idea. Oh, you don't know who Andrew Tate is. Lucky you. Oh, no. This is a total lapsing. He's one of these macho treat women horribly, but I'm a strong tough guy. Probably. So just from what you just told me, probably. I would say definitively yes. I guess so. I'm not a psychologist, but I would say. I'll defer to you, Ron, and this one sounds like he's got a pretty informed take. Just ask, isn't Somnia mental or physical? Yes. That's an easy one. It's absolutely both. And there's variation in how much of each and what's sort of fueling what and which comes first, you know, chicken and egg salad. Like sometimes there's a physical condition which then leads to initial difficulty sleeping. And then you start worrying about why you can't fall asleep. And now it's also mental because now that makes it way harder to fall asleep, you know, or it starts out with something meant. But like inevitably it ends up being both because we're a mind-body organism and sleep is the most mind-body of all phenomenon. So. Can a fellow philosophy like objectivism be a hindrance towards ironing out psychological difficulties versus say just having common sense? Can a cumbersome. Depending on how you relate to it. Yeah. And I say that from experience. I've seen many, many cases of it. Of how people hold it. Kind of acting as a hindrance. But that said, I don't think that's objectivism's fault. Like I think, you know, if they didn't pick up objectivism, they might have picked up Catholicism or Scientology or, I don't know, alt-rightism or alt-evoke leftism or whatever you want, right? That is another like comprehensive sort of like intellectual bludgeon to substitute for the really hard, messy, independent, individual work of, you know, kind of figuring things out and building yourself and your conception of the world. Justin asked, how does one quit fidgeting? Is it working? You ask as I hide my fidgets under the screen. Yes, you can. And it's a project like any other. I mean, this is a great example of how we build our lives. Like we have to decide where to put our limited time and energy and resources and prioritize accordingly. And if for whatever reason it's, you know, enough of a hindrance for you and it would be enough of a value add for you to get over some whatever particular fidget, there are very concrete, well-tested behavioral strategies for doing that. I'm happy to direct you to a source if that's helpful. Okay, Justin, I was asked, can you increase agency in structured jobs like law enforcement or the military? That's a really good question. I mean, yeah, I think by and large you can increase agency just about anywhere, you know, within the reason, kind of within civilization. And there are lots of different ways big and small, you know, that you can do that. Partly, you know, there's a concept of managing up where you can be more proactive about, you know, the questions that you ask your supervisory manager, you can like use interpersonal effectiveness skills to kind of really politely, respectfully, but assertively suggest changes or give feedback or, you know, or kind of just grease the wheels of bureaucracy in such a way that you're actually like, hey, I'll take that off your plate. Everyone wants things taken off their plate. So if that's what you're offering by all means, please go exercise your agents, right? So there's always things you can do, I'd say. Blackout asks, I became I become nervous in competitive context, especially for ranked matches like like tournaments. What causes can I act to view my opponent's competence as a win-win enabling virtue rather than a threat? That's a great question. Wait, sorry, what witches? So sorry, I got the kind of overall gist. What causes can I enact? What causes can I see? That's a good, I see. Do my opponent's competence as a win-win enabling virtue rather than a threat? I mean, that's already half the battle, that you know that that's the premise you're going for, right? That you you want to be able to see it that way, because presumably like at least intellectually, you know, like the, you know, it's true or you have some idea that that's a plausible possible plausible framework framing, right? So causes you can act. I mean, whatever makes you believe that that it's win-win, you want to make it real to yourself in the moments where it counts. So I have a whole article, remember what you know, it's called don't fake it till you make it. Instead, remember what you know. It's actually not on my subsec, it's in every, which is another publication where I have sometimes published, but I linked to it somewhere in my subsec, you can Google it. And it's about sort of there, I mostly talked about imposter syndrome, but also more broadly, how do we kind of make ourselves feel the thing that we want to feel that would align with what we believe? And like, and what is the mechanism by which we kind of retrain ourselves over time? So for this particular thing, you know, like maybe focusing on your longer term learning goals and the ways in which this person's, you know, awesome skill is going to level you up, you know, or whatever it may be. So that was in the details, but that's kind of, those are the principles. All right, Justin, can you talk about discoveries you've made while researching ruminations? Oh, that's like, that's like a planted question, because that's what my dissertation was about. Well, thank you. But also I have to keep it to a sentence or two. So that's really short. Let me pick a discovery. Sure, well, I'll just tell you the discovery of my dissertation, but in one to two sentences, I think I could actually maybe do it, which is that for people who tend to ruminate, having some structured prompts about the value of what you're doing and how to do it better is a game changer. For people who don't have a tendency to ruminate, just kind of letting themselves rethink, just kind of reflect is actually going to be as good or better, which is a pretty interesting finding, you know, that really kind of depends, you know, just important to know ourselves and what we're prone to. Okay, there, maybe three sentences. You did it. Yes. Competition. How do you know if you need coaching or therapy? I have a whole piece sort of on that sort of. Okay, the first paragraph of this on that, if you look up how builders guide defining a therapist, I think the first and or last paragraph, I talked about how to decide if you even want to go find a therapist, and a lot of the same principles apply to coaching. And basically it's, well, is this something on which you would benefit more from a thought partner and a domain expert versus figuring it out for yourself? Right? Or are you going to be, you know, are you going to have as good or better a time figuring out for yourself? And that's a kind of personal judgment call based on a bunch of different factors. Paulo, what are what are the most common problems brought up in therapy? And does objectivism offer some kind of advantage to solve these? The most common, I mean, I think it depends on the therapist and who they see, but, you know, overall, the most common psychological problems are depression and anxiety, just like in terms of prevalence. So that's certainly what I've worked with the most and seen the most. And does objectivism offer guidance? I mean, I am implicitly at least drawing on objectivism all the time. And I've found that it's almost surprising to, it's been surprising over the years, like how rarely I have occasion to like, bring it up explicitly and see that as a really like good therapeutic move versus like having it as a framework that informs my questions, that informs the possibilities that I, you know, present, that informs kind of how I refrain or reframe a situation for someone or what I try to sort of like alert them to within the context of their life, but like without foisting an explicit philosophical, like, no, school on them, because that's just often not within the scope of my job. So I hope that helps. All right, Richard asks, how would you counsel a founder who seeks refuge from their demons in this thought? Let's see, how do I coach all those founders? Well, first I would help them to gain some awareness that they're doing that. And then we'd help them sort out what are the kind of genuine reasons that they, you know, even if they came to the startup for these kinds of neurotic or pathological, you know, reasons, like, is there, are there things they love now? And the things they love genuinely legitimately love about the team that they've built, the product that they're shipping, you know, whatever it is, the capital that there may be on their way to actually, you know, cashing in if they stick with it for a few more years, like whether those things are genuinely valuable enough for them, you know, like apart from the whatever pathological need that they've been serving, such that they still want to continue. And if so, can they reorient their motivations to be about those things? And, you know, meanwhile, I work with them to fulfill, you know, to resolve whatever the demons that made them resort to the startup in the first place. All right, guys, no more questions. We're, I don't know, we'll see if we can make it through these, but questions. Right. I should have started the questions earlier. Richard asked, thank you for being here with your on this evening. May I ask, who is the lovely woman in the black frame over your shoulder there? Oh, that's my mom, who passed away, oh, geez, four and a half, five years ago. Yeah. Okay. This isn't very sick. It's actually right around the anniversary of her death. And apparently I've stopped being this traumatic date. But yes, so that is my mom. Nice. Thanks for asking. Papa says, is autism spectrum disorder overdiagnosed of people who you would call nerdy or eccentric 30 years ago now, now labeled as autistic? That's a fair question. I know that yes, in particular cases that happens for sure. And I also know of cases where it happens the other way around where, oh yeah, this person's clearly on the spectrum, but nobody's diagnosed them. So it's a little bit hard for me to say, you know, on whole, whether it ends up, you know, being over or under diagnosed, it's certainly often misdiagnosed, but it's a thing. How's that? Well, here's one we have direct expertise tips for 18 months, burn to regain focus. I mean, how many times have I literally lost my train of thought midstream in this conversation? 18 months, meaning like, you're burnt out and you have an 18 month old, I assume is what that means. I mean, what are my tips? Don't hesitate to ask for help and take the help that is offered, you know, assuming it's not with some weird strings attached. You know, don't take it from your, you know, from Reardon's mom, but like, from your friends who genuinely want to help or your family that generally wants help. Yeah, take breaks. I mean, honestly, the answer is just like, be selfish and realize that being selfish is also very much what your kid needs from you, because your kid needs a loving, energetic and happy parent. Your kid doesn't need a parent who feels burdened and resentful of them. So for both your things. That's good. All right. How do we adjust and ask, how do we ignore hunger? How to ignore hunger when we're on a diet? It's a good one. I mean, I feel like I would need more context to know if that's actually even the thing to be doing because why are, you know, like, it depends on whether by hunger you mean just like an, you know, you've just learned to kind of treat certain cues of like mild appetite or craving as hunger, in which case, be mindful of what you're feeling and check in with yourself about like, am I actually hungry? Or like, am I lonely or bored? Or, you know, are there other things that would fulfill this need? But also, like, don't just assume that the diet is good for you and working as it should without thinking critically about it. Paulo asks, I remember Brandon condemning clinical psychologists being guilty of negligent for not pronouncing mild judgments with their clients. What are your thoughts? I have feelings. I have strong feelings and thoughts. I mean, given that what we do know of Brandon is that A, he was pathologically moralizing of his clients and people more broadly in ways that really seem toxic from all of the stories I've heard and from things I've read and like, you know, people's accounts of actually having therapy with him, like there's some real horror stories of the ways that he unhelpfully judged and condemned and sort of jumped to conclusions about people's character based on like some emotional problem they were having. And the fact that he was actually morally repugnant, like those two things together make me discount his claims with some, you know, dismissal. Yep. So that particular claim at least. Yeah. Getting close. I know we're past your time. Sorry. But I should also say, I should also say like, that's not to say that in fact, there isn't an issue where clinical psychologists are afraid of morality. That's actually a real issue. I'm just saying that like, Brandon is not necessarily the most credible authority to speak to it. Okay. Afraid of morality. I mean, afraid of making, but would you make a moral judgment to your patient? Not in those terms, but we routinely, we do talk about like, is this right? Is this honest? Is it like, you know, do you want to hold yourself to a standard? You know, you've identified these values. Are you living up to those values? Yeah, we talk about those things all the time. And I do think that those are moral issues. Trying to ask, in the past, I've described your work as greatness studies. And the name is apt. What do you consider the most interesting questions around human ambition and achievement? The most interesting questions. Let's see. These are sort of going to be like current questions on my mind. But I think the question that kind of percolates for me is like, is there a difference between remediation and optimization? And kind of where does, where do we kind of draw that line? And how much does it even matter? Like at a certain point, you know, like for someone who would actually be functioning really optimally in almost any context where there's like, any sort of preexisting organizational structure and kind of, you know, playbook, like, they're still not going to be up to the task of, you know, like managing an ordeal like the Sam Altman open AI ordeal, unless they've also like hyper-optimized certain things. Unless they've like learned the kind of next level communication skills and next level introspection skills. You know, like, what are those next level skills that you need if you want to do the really hard and the really big stuff? And is there a ceiling on them? You know, because I'm sort of thinking at least that we are nowhere near the ceiling. But I am interested in like, is there a point where like, okay, you've got it, you're perfect psychologically. You've got all the things, you know, now go execute, so to speak, versus like, can you always do better psychologically? That's a big question on my mind right now. Hey, Mark asks, did you get to share your story and how you found objectivism? Where can we find more of your work if interested in any events for 2024 public events? Three questions, but they're good. I can do them quickly. Great. Have I gotten to share my story? I'm sure I have. I'm sure you're on, like, you must have heard my story before. I feel like there's got to be a podcast somewhere. So if you kind of just look through my, I have a YouTube channel of like public appearances, so I'm sure if you kind of dig through that, you'll eventually, it's not that, you know, it's a pretty standard story. I was a teenager. I found it. Happy to say more later. Where, I mean, so, you know, my subject, as your own mentioned, YouTube, if you just like search my name, and I mean, if you just Google me, like, you'll also find things I've written that are research papers, which are research, get my website, genogorlin.com, sort of links to all the different things that you can, you know, find that I used to have a Psychology Today blog, other things. And then I think I might be doing both a panel and like mini course at Ocon 2024, like a mini course based on the ARU course I'll be teaching this spring. So look out for those. Good. That's at Ocon in Anaheim. Disneyland. Yeah. Alice will be. All right. Raphael asked, how to stop holding a grudge? Good one. Communicate. That's probably number one. Because usually holding a grudge is the result of not actually like expressing and resolving the issue that has led to the grudge, like in a way that actually all parties are now, you know, aligned and satisfied or if not aligned, like meta aligned, I'm like, okay, we're all, we all mean well, we all want justice and fairness or fairness, terrible, you know, loaded concept. But like, we all like we are valuing each other, we've both, you know, made amends where necessary, we're on a track to having some sort of healthy relationship. And this isn't something that's going to like keep coming up in some, you know, like systematic way because it's not addressed. It's probably the biggest thing. So what about the people that you don't want to communicate with? Then you've got to just sort of be able to accept that this is the best you got with those people and then move on for your own sake. It's fair enough. Good point, Iran. Yeah. I wonder what affliction a person has who looks at you while you're talking but doesn't understand you. But a few minutes later, it finally sinks in. I don't know of any one affliction for which that's like the signature symptom. But I mean, if that person has, you know, an intentional issue, they might just have been kind of a little distracted. And then they kind of came back and processed what you had said. I mean, if a few minutes later, a few seconds, I feel like the devil's in the details on this one. Just to say, do many politicians have narcissistic personality disorder? I mean, I think some do. Yeah, I don't know if, you know, what counts as many, but I'd say at least some. See, I'm getting good at this. Okay, rapid fire. Can one manage bipolar without medications? Not well, generally. It depends on the bipolar and if it's mild or if it's, but like, it's definitely one of the, you know, disorders with known physiological, you know, substrate causes that most acutely benefits from medication and that can be most sort of. There's no therapy. There's no therapy. No, no, no, it's not exclusively medications. There's plenty of therapeutic work that can be helpful in skills and ways that you can, you know, build awareness and manage, but like not necessarily at the exclusion of medication. All right. People are not listening to me because they're still sending in questions. Okay, Maximus, but this has to be the last one, guys. We've kept Gina over what you committed to already. I'm not hearing screams of children. That's why I'm sort of still waiting for time, but yeah. All right. So we'll do this. How do I improve my career opportunities if I've struggled learning my entire life? I shy away from applying for most jobs because I'm convinced I won't be good enough. I mean, that sounds very much like, you know, there's a self-fulfilling belief that there's a self-fulfilling premise. So the first step is to check that premise and realize like there are tons of people. And this is where all the talk of neurodivergence and, you know, there being different learning styles that benefit from different sort of environments. Like there's something actually really useful in that kind of mantra in that narrative and something very legitimate, which is like our default learning environments, our default educational, you know, system is not actually good for a lot of people in terms of optimizing your learning and understanding. So just because you've been bad at school does not mean that you will be bad at life or work or different kinds of work. And that there's so many different kinds of work and different, you know, environments and structures that you can go and, you know, find that you're going to have one that you thrive, not one, there'll be more than one that you could thrive in. And it's a matter of going out and trying different stuff and talking and finding people who understand or who are like you and learning about what they do that, you know, where they thrive and not assuming by any means that you can't. That's a really short answer. All right. Thank you, Gina. My pleasure. It's always a pleasure. That was a marathon that you did well. And a storm. And we got all the questions answered. So everybody be happy. Yeah. Thank you for your questions, everyone. They were super interesting. And we will have you back. I look forward to it as always. Thanks. It was a blast. Have a good night and happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Yes. Merry Christmas. And bye everybody. I will see you guys tomorrow morning.