← The School of Greatness
The School of Greatness
The Science of Doing Less to Achieve More | David Epstein
01:08:35
David Epstein, investigative journalist, science writer, and bestselling author of Range and Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better, joins Lewis Howes to explore how strategic constraints unlock creativity, focus, and performance. The conversation covers the BCS Press Release framework, kind vs. wicked learning environments, the 10,000-hour rule myth, the Harvard Study of Adult Development, satisficing rules, the subtractive neglect bias, and research from MIT, Northwestern, and the Census Bureau on founder age and startup success.
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- [00:01]
Louis
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- [02:12]
David Epstein
Our brains are not equipped to have access to everything everywhere all of the time. Since the introduction of infinite scrolling, people have gotten more bored. If you give people like 20 videos that they can scroll through, they'll be more bored than if you just take one of those 20. Give it to them and make them focus on it. If you have tons of options to do something you've seen before or that's easy or convenient, if that's blocked, that's the only time you can start being creative.
- [02:36]
Louis
He is an investigative journalist, a science writer, and a bestselling author of the book Range, which fundamentally changed how top athletes and entrepreneurs think about success, we have the inspiring David Epstein in the house.
- [02:48]
David Epstein
Satisficing is a word created by this guy Herbert Simon. Satisficing means instead of trying to evaluate every option option and pick the best you Set clear criteria for good enough. When that's met, you take it and you stop. Just the idea that there's something else potentially better spoils the feeling of the moment. It's called maximizing. It's almost always bad to be a maximizer. Less happy with their lives, less happy with their decisions, all these sorts of things.
- [03:14]
Louis
So how do we know when we have five or ten great options to take action on something? Which one is the right option to take?
- [03:21]
David Epstein
Well, I would, I would have ahead of time.
- [03:24]
Louis
David, welcome to the show.
- [03:26]
David Epstein
Thanks for having me. Great to be back.
- [03:27]
Louis
Excited that you're here, man, because range was something that when you came out with that book, I was like, man, he's speaking to my heart. Because in my, my childhood I played every sport and I feel like that's what helped me become successful in my future sports that I played because I had a range of skill sets. But your new book almost talks about the opposite. It's about kind of having these constraints in our life. And one of the most common questions I get from entrepreneurs that I coach is they say, Louis, I have so many passions, I don't know which one to take action on. And then therefore they don't take action on anything in their life because like, well, I have these 10 great ideas, what do I do? And they're just stop before they start. So if we have too many great ideas, if we have too much talent in many different areas, is that actually hurting us from being successful?
- [04:17]
David Epstein
It can be. Because the challenge, when you have a lot of options, the challenge of doing something, not everything becomes really, really acute. And I have to say, I think this gets, is even more challenging in the age of AI where there's like an ability to infinitely start things that you're not going to finish. But I mean, the first chapter of this new book features a company that had all the talent in the world, all the resources. They were in the early 90s. They were the first so called concept IPO ever where Goldman Sachs took them public without a product, just based on an idea because they had so much talent, so many resources. So what happened? They were basically building the iPhone like a generation before it existed, before the Internet even existed. They could do anything. So they did do anything. Every cool idea that some engineer had, they did it. And the project just grew and grew and grew until it eventually just became this incoherent mess and they blew the deadlines and it ended up really confusing to users and all this stuff. And it was just a disaster because they just could not draw boundaries. They had this ethos of were only limited by our imagination. So they never drew a bounding box around their work. Meanwhile, they had a low level engineer internally who started a website called Auction Web and told them like, hey look, this is facilitating commerce. You want this? No, no, too small. So he takes that out. That's ebay. So Piero Mityar was a low level service engineer at this company called General Magic. They had another guy who was developing one app for their system. Again, too small. He took that out, became the Palm Pilot, which was a hit. They just could not focus themselves in. And I think that's an especially acute challenge when you can do a lot to limit yourself.
- [05:50]
Louis
There's something that I think a lot of people have heard about this idea that the 10,000 hours and if you do deliberate practice of something for 10,000 hours, then you'll be great. Is that true or is that false?
- [06:04]
David Epstein
It's true for very certain domains only. And those are mostly not the ones that you want to be in these days. It's true for domains that are what psychologists call kind learning environments where next steps and patterns are clear, rules repeat. Not a ton of human behavior involved. Work next year will look like work last year. And feedback is quick and accurate. Most so chess, for example. But that's why chess is so easily automatable. So if you're in an area like that, you may not want to be there that much longer. Most of the rest of us are living in what psychologists call wicked learning environments where you have to reinvent yourself, learn new things over and over and in those domains. And you actually want this broader skill set that equips you to do new types of problem solving. Like when you mentioned playing a lot of sports that gave you this broad skill. It's the same thing. You learn these general skills now called physical literacy that allow you to take on new challenges and learn new skills more rapidly. So if the 10,000 hours, I think it gives people the idea that you should be too narrow. And those like the original 10,000 Hours study, it was one study of 30 violinists in a world class music academy who are already in a world class music academy. It's been totally misunderstood. Is not applicable to almost anything else that people do.
- [07:13]
Louis
Really?
- [07:14]
David Epstein
Yeah.
- [07:15]
Louis
I think it's also not many people can focus on 10,000 hours on something for that long. What's that going to take 10 years at least to do that?
- [07:23]
David Epstein
Typically, at least. I mean that'd be a pretty good pace too.
- [07:27]
Louis
But it's like the attention Spans today, people don't even have that attention span. So it almost gives you a hope that you're saying, oh, I don't have the ability to do something for 10,000 hours, which means you can still make it in something. You don't have to spend that much time doing something to be great.
- [07:42]
David Epstein
Although I think if the idea people take from that is that you don't have to be deliberate and focused. Right. If I'm just going to pinball around and it's totally going to work out, I don't think that's the way to go about it. I think this is a deliberate broadening, exploring your interests and things like that. But again, one of the things that I'm writing about in this new book is you have to focus that into something at a certain point. So there's a tension between building a broad toolbox and then focusing it into achievement.
- [08:08]
Louis
So, I mean, we're both parents, you know, your kids are a little older than mine. But how do we think about this in terms of either for ourselves or for our kids when there is so much distraction? There is so much range of opportunities to take on these days. But we also need to be focusing some deliberate attention on fewer things and having constraints like you tell us, you know, what should we be doing? Having a range or constraining ourselves?
- [08:34]
David Epstein
Yeah. Well, let me say, since your kids aren't there yet, this will be useful for you. I write in the book about the Harvard Study of Adult Development. That's the longest study ever that followed people 86 years, followed multiple generations of people from childhood cradle to the grave. And one of the most important things they found for little kids was giving them chores. So you should give kindergarteners chores because it gives them a sense of obligation, a sense that their participation in the family, in the group, matters. Do you want these kind of dense networks of reciprocal obligation? The opposite of this is growing up online, or what the psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls the great rewiring of childhood, where instead of having these obligations to real people, you're involved in online, where it's this endless series of micro dramas with a revolving cast of people who may be bots. Right. That's not good. So the first thing for kids, grounding with real responsibility in the real world, and then, I think, limiting the stuff somewhat. I see this with my own kid. If he gets too much stuff at once, it's almost like he bounces between objects, taking inventory of what he got. Whereas if we're outside and I give him a stick and a rock, and like make up a game. All of a sudden you see this creativity. He will make up a game. It will happen. You'll see this. Soon as your kids get a little older, it's like exactly what the psychological research shows will happen. That when you do what's called a preclude constraint, you block what's called the path of least resistance. So let me go back for a sec. As the cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham says, you may think your brain is made for thinking, but it's actually made for preventing you from having to think whenever possible. It wants to be lazy. And so if you have tons of options, you will just go down total freedom. You'll just go down what's called the path of least resistance. You'll do something you've seen before or that's easy or convenient. If that's blocked, that's the only time you can start being creative, really. So I think for kids, you want to make it a little inconvenient. Right. Not give them all of the stuff that's so easy for them just to lazily consume, but actually put them in a spot where they have to create, because otherwise we don't. We're programmed for laziness whenever possible because thinking is metabolically costly.
- [10:41]
Louis
Yeah.
- [10:42]
David Epstein
It takes energy. Yeah.
- [10:43]
Louis
So what's the difference between kids and adults with this then?
- [10:47]
David Epstein
Adults, I mean, first of all, kids, we can mandate it a little bit easier for them, I think, but I think adults need this too. Our brains are not equipped to have access to everything everywhere, all of the time. So we're in this age of unprecedented options for everything. There's an Oxford professor calculated that our consumer choices have multiplied since before the industrial revolution by 100 million fold, which dwarfs the difference in wealth, which is like 400 fold. And yet people are less happy. In fact, since the introduction of infinite scrolling, people have gotten more bored. These surveys by psychologists show. More bored. Yeah. If you give people like 20 videos that they can scroll through, they'll be more bored than if you just take one of those 20, give it to them, and make them focus on it. It's just the idea that there's something else potentially better and you're never satisfied. Spoils the feeling of the moment. It's called maximizing where you want to evaluate all the options and pick the best. And it turns out that it's almost always bad to be a maximizer, really. Less happy with their lives, less happy with their decisions, more prone to regret all these sorts of things. It's actually much better. I mean, I think one of the, a strong recommendation I would give people that came out of some of the work for Inside the Box is to set satisficing rules. Satisficing is a word created by this guy, Herbert Simon, who's like one of the most brilliant people who ever lived. I think he, he won the highest award in computer science. Founding father of AI, highest award in psychology to round it off. Nobel Prize in Economics. Yeah. And so you'd almost think when he said we should satisfy, we should pick good enough rules, you'd almost think that he had low ambition if not for his trophy case of winning everything imaginable. Satisficing means instead of trying to evaluate every option and pick the best, you set clear criteria for good enough. When that's met, you take it and you stop. Maybe it goes beyond that to excellent, but that's like a recipe for not having this kind of choice overload. And it helps you avoid something called Fredkin's Paradox, where we spend the most time on the least important decisions. Because you agonize when the options look similar. You're having trouble telling the difference. That also means it probably doesn't matter much which one you pick, but that's where we end up spending our most energy.
- [13:00]
Louis
Interesting. So how do we know when we have five or ten great options to take action on something? Which one is the right option to take?
- [13:08]
David Epstein
I would have ahead of time though. Let's say a simple example that everyone's like, you're shopping for something on Amazon. Set the three criteria of what are you hiring this thing to do? What's the job that you're hiring that item to do? What are the three things it needs to have? Once you see those, get it. Don't read all the reviews, don't look at all the other options. Take good enough and move on.
- [13:30]
Louis
What about if it's more than buying something on Amazon? It's like, oh, this is something. I'm going to take a job and I have three different options. I'm going to pursue a new hobby that could consume a lot of my life. Yeah, I'm gonna get into a relationship and I have all these options. Like, how do you know that something is gonna take more than just a few, you know, an hour of your time?
- [13:49]
David Epstein
Yeah, yeah.
- [13:50]
Louis
On something that's 50 bucks versus a life altering choice.
- [13:55]
David Epstein
I mean, one thing you know is once you're starting to really struggle with differentiating the options, that means you're probably, you're probably not gonna be any more accurate by spending more Time. That's why you're having trouble. You might wish that if you think that you spend more time, you'll make a better choice. But once you get down to I can't really tell what I should do, you got to do it and hope for some good luck, basically. But I think you should have clear criteria for what it is you're looking for. Make sure those are met. If they're met by all those options, then you kind of pick and hope for luck.
- [14:26]
Louis
Tuition or. Yeah.
- [14:26]
David Epstein
And start small. Start small. Right. I'm a huge fan of sort of low stakes practice, like you mentioned, a new hobby. Can you ease into it a little bit with a little bit of a trial or. In dating, I think it's a real challenge because you can just swipe endlessly now and have this incredible. And that's produced this phenomenon that this psychologist named Scott Stanley calls sliding versus deciding. Where young people, especially in the interest of keeping their options open, will do what's called sliding. They'll say, I'm not sure I'm committed, but the relationship will keep going. So they will be in escalating commitment naturally. But they feel like, they feel like they're keeping their options open, but they're actually not really. And eventually it becomes, you know, marriage. They've slid into it and they're much more likely to get divorced if you slide versus if earlier on you were like, I'm committed to this one, I'm not looking anymore. And so this sliding phenomenon has produced like a lot of bad relationships in the interest of keeping your options open.
- [15:21]
Louis
How many, how many people do you think are sliding into relationships rather than making definitive decisions about the people they want to be with?
- [15:28]
David Epstein
Yeah, I don't know a percentage, but I think it's more and more. I mean, I think the, the ability to swipe endlessly is a really insidious factor in all this, where you say you're always wondering what could be around the next corner. Right. And that's unfortunate because the psychologist who coined the term flow, Mihaly Csiks and Mihai for the feeling of immersion in an activity, he wrote this beautiful passage where he talks about one of the great things about being committed to something. And he was talking about a relationship, but it might as well have been talking about anything.
- [15:59]
Louis
Yeah.
- [16:00]
David Epstein
Is that you can. If you're committed, if you're actually committed, you can start living and stop spending all your time wondering how to live. And so I think it's really important that we make these, that we decide not slide for These big things and say, I'm committed to this so I can live like this. If it's a job, you know, maybe you change. But keeping the door open all the time, it's like keeping your options open can become an end unto itself. And I think that's. It's shown that that just, like, makes people unhappy.
- [16:27]
Louis
What do you think most people misunderstand about having total freedom?
- [16:31]
David Epstein
I think total freedom seems really attractive. I think they think it will make them happier. Like, if only I had more choice. If only I had more freedom. But a mountain of research shows that people overestimate how. What freedom will do for them. So there are all these weird examples. Like, I mean, this one's, you know, a little negative, but if people get cancer, it's like more than around two thirds, I think, of people say that if I got cancer, I'd want to be involved in picking my own treatment. But then if people get cancer, it's like 12%. They don't actually want to be involved in that choice really. Or people think if you give them more entertainment options, they'll enjoy the experience of whatever they choose more, and they actually don't. People say they express a preference for reversible decisions, but then if they're given irreversible decisions, they're actually happier because it removes the possibility of regret. And so I think that we just overestimate what total freedom will bring us.
- [17:29]
Louis
If someone is complaining about not having enough resources, not having enough time, not having enough options, what is actually happening for them? If they think that they need more flexibility, more time, more freedom, more resources, what are they actually saying?
- [17:46]
David Epstein
I think oftentimes they're saying they want more agency. They think they're being limited by something external to themselves. I could blossom if only I had this other stuff, you know, and everyone needs some resources. Right. There's obviously a line. I mean, there's all these invention studies where you can restrict people enough. If you restrict people, they usually get more creative until a certain point when. When it becomes less. If you're. If you're telling them both the what to do and how to do it right, then there's no ability for them to surprise themselves. But. But one of the things I want to do with Inside the Box is hopefully push this mindset shift of seeing constraints and obstacles from. Instead of limitations to opportunities to clarify priorities and to launch into productive experimentation. So I think taking a different mindset to it and saying this is a chance to experiment.
- [18:37]
Louis
Yeah. In the book, in page 49, you say total freedom then is the enemy of creativity and constraints its companion.
- [18:45]
David Epstein
And.
- [18:45]
Louis
And it sounds like my brother plays jazz. He's actually the number one jazz violinist in the world.
- [18:51]
David Epstein
No way.
- [18:51]
Louis
So I grew up watching him at all these kind of jazz clubs and then he toured the world and he's still doing it today. And he grew up playing classical music, classically trained as one of the top in the country, violin, and then started getting into jazz. And I don't fully understand it, but I know there's a language of constraint. Even though it looks like this improvisational, free flowing, anyone's doing what they want to do at any moment. Actually a language and constraints within jazz.
- [19:20]
David Epstein
Oh yeah.
- [19:21]
Louis
And it's interesting because you think you want to. You might want to be able to have total freedom, but if everyone is playing something totally free at the same time, you can't really understand it.
- [19:32]
David Epstein
Yeah.
- [19:32]
Louis
But it can be freedom and moments within the constraints that makes beautiful harmony, which I think is interesting. I don't know. What have you covered around music in the book? Is there anything.
- [19:42]
David Epstein
Oh yeah. I mean, speaking of jazz, like, one of the chapters opens with this story of something called the Koln Concert. This concert pianist, Keith Jarrett, who's improvising, became the. So basically he shows up to this concert in Germany, examines the piano. He's famously kind of ornery. Like if he hears a camera click, it's like, concert's off.
- [20:00]
Louis
Really.
- [20:01]
David Epstein
And he shows up, it's the wrong piano, out of tune, has fewer keys than the one that he. That he normally plays.
- [20:09]
Louis
Yeah.
- [20:10]
David Epstein
And he says, concert's off. And this woman who was promoting the concert is like begging him, please, like we have a sold out theater, please. She gets him to do it. So he can't play with certain parts of the keyboard. Right. The sound's not loud enough for the space. And so he starts improvising using certain parts of the keys, only doing these very repetitive rhythms with one hand because he can only stay in a certain area doing these loops. He starts banging his foot against the pedal to try to make a percussive sound. And it becomes the best selling solo jazz piano album of all time. Right. Too long to even be played on the radio, but it would be played in stores and people would just be like, what is that? And as he said later, it was this imperfect character of the piano that forced him to do something nobody had done before. But you don't do that unless you're forced. There's actually a number of music stories in the book, but that's. That's one of them.
- [21:04]
Louis
That's cool. So how do we shift our mindset to see a lack of resources not as a disadvantage, but as the exact spark that we need to create a massive breakthrough or potential success?
- [21:16]
David Epstein
Start asking what you can do with this constraint again instead of, this is keeping me down. How does this lead me to clarify my priorities? How does this lead me to launch into experimentation? When I gave the book to, one of the early readers was this guy named Ed hoffman. He was NASA's first chief knowledge officer. It's like the head psychologist at NASA. Wow. He stops at a point in the book and says, I have to tell you about this mission called lcross we had. That's just an acronym. And he says, the team ended up with about half the time and half the budget that they wanted. And so first they whined a little, and then they said, well, if we were going to get this done, how would we do it? They end up borrowing imaging equipment from army tanks because they couldn't create from scratch. They had to borrow. They take engine temperature sensors from NASCAR and they. They put it on a probe and they discover water on the moon. And. And he said, they never would have done this kind of repurposing except it forced them to say, if we were going to get this done under these limitations, how would we do it? So then it became an exercise they would do even if they weren't, even if they didn't have to. They'd say, you know, if we. If we had to get this done in half the time, what would we do? And all these ideas come out, even if you're not forced to do that. And those ideas can be useful.
- [22:27]
Louis
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- [24:39]
David Epstein
You can't. We are incapable of doing it unless you're forced to. It's just not the way our brains are programmed. And exactly to what you're saying. I quote in the book Bill Gurley, famed venture capitalist, Uber Zillow, all these other places. He said when I was talking to him about constraints, he said, yeah, we have a saying in venture that more startups die of indigestion than starvation, like from too much rather than too little. Another prominent venture capitalist I was interviewing said his whole strategy is to go for companies that are in a little bit of debt, so they're not going to die, but they're getting really lean and scrappy. And so, I mean, yeah, the first chapter of the book is about a startup that had way too much of everything. And even though they had like the greatest collection of talent arguably ever assembled in tech, they were a disaster. You learn when you're small, right? You learn when you're small and your expenses and risk don't explode until you. I mean, this is why I write in the book about Pixar, which will allow directors to stay in development of a story for years with a small team. Refining and simplifying the core of a story because the costs only explode once you move into production. That's when learning becomes hard and story
- [25:50]
Louis
is the most important thing.
- [25:51]
David Epstein
And so in that small phase, they can be small and learn because once, once it gets big, it's hard to learn and pivot much harder.
- [25:59]
Louis
Yeah, that's interesting. What is the biggest lesson you've learned from researching and writing this book that has made you a better person?
- [26:08]
David Epstein
I have. I have a really bad acronym for myself, but it involves like a couple of lessons. Can I share those with you? Even though it's a stupid habit? So I think of it as BCS press release. Right. Think of like Bowl Championship Series press release.
- [26:22]
Louis
Okay.
- [26:24]
David Epstein
B is batch your work. So our attention, we need to structure our attention. It'll be structured for us. So in average, this psychologist, Gloria Mark found that people in an office check email on average 77 times a day. And if you have to do all your email, you have to do all your email, but you should batch it. You can do multiple tasks over the day, but you should do them in blocks so that you're not toggling all day long or your productivity will be lower. And we now know that it causes your stress to skyrocket. Batch your work. So you're doing one thing at a time, monotasking. But it can be multiple monotasks over the day. C, make commitments, make all your commitments visible. Put them on post it notes on the wall, everything you're committed to right now so that they're visible. And what you're most likely to see is that you're over committed, whether to the projects, you have personal things, whatever it is. And then say, if I had to cut something in next 90 days, what would it be? It's called playing the subtraction game. We're hardwired to overlook subtraction as a way to get better.
- [27:19]
Louis
What are, how many commitments should one have at one time to be successful at all of them?
- [27:24]
David Epstein
I don't have a specific number. I mean, I think it depends. But I think everyone. I've seen this, I've mostly seen this done. Been doing this with like teams, but when they make them all visible immediately people are like, there's way more stuff right in process than we could ever finish. Yeah, and so I doing these regular subtraction audit. Basically this is called subtractive neglect. Bias is the psychological term for we're hardwired always to add to solve problems. So always reducing. I mean, on my daily to do list I have multiple things. But I put one thing on top that if that gets done, it's a good day.
- [27:57]
Louis
One thing, my friend Rory says that you need to procrastinate on purpose. And he says, pop it. If you have all these great ideas, like maybe it's a great idea, but if it's not one of the main focuses now, like put it to the side, you can always come back in two years and say, here, I'm gonna
- [28:15]
David Epstein
post its to the end.
- [28:16]
Louis
Make it to the front. Yeah, that's right, Pop.
- [28:18]
David Epstein
He calls it stop starting, start finishing. You gotta like stop starting new things, start finishing.
- [28:22]
Louis
So make commitments visible and then you can have more clarity on which you really wanna focus on.
- [28:26]
David Epstein
And take some off. Yeah. So BCS satisficing rules. Talked about that setting good enough rules for yourself and the press release. I got this one from Tony Fadell, who's known as the pod father.
- [28:36]
Louis
Okay.
- [28:36]
David Epstein
He was the lead designer of the. He led the team that created the ipod. And then he went on and co founded Nest. And the main advice he gives to entrepreneurs is to write the press release before they do anything else. Say envision this thing is done on one page. Write the press release as if it's out. And he says, even do the FAQ because this gives you your bounding box for what are the things I think are so important to focus on that I'll put them in the press release when it's done. At Nest, he made the team prototype the box, work inside a literal box before they had the product. Because he said, this is what we're going to communicate to a customer at the end. If it doesn't fit on this box, we've decided it's not a priority. And that's how you keep.
- [29:17]
Louis
So, so how does this look for you? If you're writing a press release for some project you're working on ahead of time, what would that look like? What type of idea or project is that?
- [29:25]
David Epstein
Yeah, I mean, I did it for this book. After interviewing Tony, he was like, you got to write the press release. He did it. He did it for his own book. You got to write the press release. And this was very foreign to me because I typically sort of stumble into a book and you're not a promoter.
- [29:38]
Louis
Okay?
- [29:39]
David Epstein
No, I mean, not necessarily that I'm getting better at that.
- [29:42]
Louis
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you weren't sure about what it was going to be, is what you're saying.
- [29:46]
David Epstein
Yeah, I just feel like, well, how can I know? But then I did it and I realized it provided these. I mean, one of the reasons.
- [29:53]
Louis
Constraints.
- [29:53]
David Epstein
It's been like six years between my books is because I've been so bad at drawing boundaries around my projects. So for the first two books, I ended up writing 150% of the length of the book and then having to cut back to get the book. This was the first time I wrote one book, to get one book very much because of that exercise where he told me on one page. And I realized the main ideas that I would want to. The stories I didn't know yet, all those things, but the ideas I wanted to investigate were already there. And it's not that you can't change things, but you do have these. These, like Guiding Light. So now do it. Even for stuff in my personal life, you know, if I'm picking up a hobby or working out, it's like at the end of this year, if I were announcing my accomplishment to someone else, what would I want to say on here? It's not that you can't change it, but it gives you some guidelines.
- [30:40]
Louis
So did you do one for Jiu Jitsu?
- [30:42]
David Epstein
Yeah, absolutely.
- [30:43]
Louis
Because you're learning this new hobby, Jujitsu.
- [30:45]
David Epstein
Yeah, yeah. And it's hard because I don't know where can I get in a year. But you can make goals. And this is a press release where it's like, who would I give it to? My friends and family? How consistent do I want to have been? How many sessions do I want to have attended? Things like that.
- [30:59]
Louis
That's cool. So you write a one page press release. I really like that. Because you're future casting the results. You want it to be however you look like that. I used to do something back when I was playing in the 2000s, early 2000, mid 2000s, around my sports goals. I would write like a certificate of accomplishment. And then I would sign it and date it of like, you have accomplished this, this and this signed by me. And I put it on my wall as a little visual representation that in a year or six months or two years, this is what I'm going to create. And it just reminded me looking at it on my wall every single day. This is a certificate. Your future self has created this. Now you need to go and take the actions to make it happen.
- [31:40]
David Epstein
It makes it a little bit real. Right it's like you've made. You've made a commitment that makes it feel real and a little more attainable. I feel like when I see it on one page or like on the certificate, it gets condensed a little. It doesn't feel as overwhelming. It's clear, right? The goal is clear.
- [31:55]
Louis
I like that. I like that a lot. Okay, so the press release and then what else was there?
- [32:00]
David Epstein
BCS press release, batching commitments, visible satisficing rules, and the press release, those are things that I've really applied to myself quite a bit. If you want to. If you want to be creative, I would say if people are struggling with creativity, the best thing you can do is block the solution you're familiar to at this next client meeting. If we weren't allowed to propose what we usually propose, what would we propose instead? Again, it doesn't mean you have to do it, but that mindset. One executive, actually, I didn't make this one an executive, told me I was talking about constraints. And he used what he called the legacy constraint, where he told his company, let's say we were going out of business in two years and nobody knew it but us. How would we change things? And immediately people started saying, well, I'd stop focusing on that and I'd start focusing on this. And he's like, didn't do that.
- [32:46]
Louis
Why are we doing that right now?
- [32:47]
David Epstein
Right, but it's because we don't clarify, I think, to the amount we have to. We were talking about Ryan Holiday a little bit before and his work with stoicism. And one of the most famous stoic prompts is Memento Mori, like, remember your mortality, where you're supposed to wake up every day and, like, remember that your life is on limited time and that that clarifies your priorities for what you should do. Steve Jobs said this. I think it was in his Stanford commencement address. It's like the best thing you have is knowing that you're going to die, because that's how you clarify your priorities. And this is in a bunch of religions, philosophies. Buddhism has, like, a similar concept and might seem a little morbid, but it does have a way of clarifying things.
- [33:26]
Louis
I think it's important because, you know, for me, probably every day I think about my death, not in a Mormon way, but I think the stat is 150,000 people die every single day in the world. 150,000 people, and we weren't one of them. Today. That should be something we're grateful for. We have another opportunity today to Connect with people we love, to create meaningful work, to do things we're passionate about, to explore the world. But it also doesn't mean Tomorrow's guaranteed. 150,000 people die every single day. We should be grateful. And hopefully that gives us some constraints also of saying, hey, I had a really bad day today and maybe you went through something horrible in your life today, but you're still here. And I think that's something you can at least appreciate and be grateful for and give you some more relief from maybe the stress you might be going through in your life. And I'm actually curious about the topic of forgiveness and what this has to do with constraints in this new way of thinking. Should we feel guilty or shame around things or should we have this sense of forgiveness with constraints?
- [34:35]
David Epstein
Yeah, I think it's important. I mean, forgiveness comes up very, very late in the book and it doesn't seem like an obvious topic. Right. And so not obvious that you're literally the first person to ask me about it. And the way I framed it in the book was in this discussion of what's called narrative values. The last chapter gets kind of personal and philosophical and, and narrative values for some philosophers mean like the themes of the story of your life basically. And we can all think of them. Like for me it would certainly be curiosity would definitely be one, open mindedness. But you want some that are objectively valuable, that like you find in all the great stories across cultures, you know, loyalty, heroism, all these sorts of things. I'm sure for you there'd be things like self improvement, athleticism, you know, all these kinds of things, risk taking. And so I started, I think in this world where we're bombarded with news and everything, you want to consolidate your caring. There's so much you could care about, but it's so overwhelming that you want to pick some things, some that you already have so you can tell a coherent story to yourself. Because we know it's really important for full sense of well being to have a coherent personal story. So I have mine. But forgiveness was one that I did not have. And I created this relationship with a guy I write about in the book who was the only living Olympian to have survived a concentration camp, became a two time British weightlifting Olympian. And he was so forgiving, like he would, he would take other survivors with him and say we have to go back to Poland and Germany and build bridges. It's not their fault what happened to us. You know, we have to build those bridges. And I was not a very innately forgiving person, really. And so I decided that I wanted to add that to my story. That that would be like one of those other things that I would try to add in my narrative values that give me sort of a guiding light of getting from who I am to where I want to be.
- [36:22]
Louis
Why weren't you a forgiving person?
- [36:24]
David Epstein
I've just always. I had just natural grudge holder, you know, just like often feeling slighted more easily than I should. And it's like you're poisoning yourself, you know. And so I think with him as the model, I said, gosh, if he can forgive some of this stuff, like he was, you know, his entire family was destroyed. And then the stuff that I hold onto looks so petty in comparison. And so I picked this. Instead of being overwhelmed by every news story and what things I could do, I picked a value that I wanted to be. Something that would be a new guiding light for me.
- [37:02]
Louis
Why do you think you held on to so many grudges?
- [37:05]
David Epstein
I wish I could answer that. I don't know. I. As far as I know, it's just how I've always been. It's just something about me. I don't know why, you know, and sometimes I treat it as fuel, right? Like when I was a college runner and it's like if someone. I was an 800 meter runner, it's like someone tripped you in a race or something. It's like I'd be so angry, like I'd like want to throw up the next time I saw him get off the bus, you know? And so maybe in some ways I viewed it as fuel, but I don't think it actually really. I think you can be that determined without the kind of fuel that also poisons you the rest of the time.
- [37:43]
Louis
Well, it's interesting because there's a lot of athletes that talk about the underdog story, the chip on the shoulder, the being slighted, the being picked last or not drafted, whatever it may be. And it drove them to be successful because they weren't picked on the team because they weren't drafted, because they were made fun of, because I was picked last on the team as well when I was in elementary school. And it drove me, I said, never again will I be picked last. And it worked until it realized like, oh, this doesn't feel good once I accomplish all these things. Maybe it felt good for a moment that I proved everyone wrong. You know, these imaginary people from middle school or something, right? Who probably could care less about me at this point. But is it making me a happier Human being? Do I feel more peaceful, harmonious inside? Do I feel like I have an enriching environment inside of me spiritually? Or has this fuel, this negative fuel driven me to accomplish and then what?
- [38:39]
David Epstein
Yeah.
- [38:40]
Louis
Have you researched and studied the differences between athletes, entrepreneurs, and individuals who've accomplished success in life, who've done it from a place of hate, anger and resentment versus love, passion and purpose?
- [38:59]
David Epstein
Yeah, I mean, I think a huge example that people think of, right. If you watched like Michael Jordan's hall of Fame speech where he was redressing all these grievances, some of which I think are invented. So he obviously had an ability to create a feeling of being an underdog, even if he really wasn't. And I think that can be helpful. I mean, I've always felt like an underdog, probably because I'm small. Right. And was like in lots. I mean, I played football, basketball and baseball in high school before I started running. Always been small. But he also had a lot of love. I mean, he had that whole clause built into his. I think it was called like the for the love of the game clause or something where he was allowed to play in the off season where normally like, they didn't want him to because he wouldn't get injured. And so I think there was a lot of love there too. But I think most of the high performers that I've spent time around are resilient, really resilient. And part of that resilience is being able to get over stuff and being able to work with people that they've been upset with sometimes.
- [40:01]
Louis
Really.
- [40:01]
David Epstein
And so I think you can be like strategic anger. But if it's like you can't get over stuff, including your teammates mistakes, I don't think that is sustainable in the long run.
- [40:12]
Louis
You don't have to say the person's name, but is there anyone that you've held a grudge with that you haven't forgiven yet in life?
- [40:21]
David Epstein
There's one that I'm still working through, I mean, because I think feelings of betrayal can be very difficult to. Of course.
- [40:30]
Louis
And you got to create boundaries as well.
- [40:32]
David Epstein
You got to create boundaries.
- [40:33]
Louis
Constraints in relationships. Absolutely. If boundaries are constantly crossed when expressed and communicated, and they keep being crossed.
- [40:43]
David Epstein
And I think you need to make those explicit because otherwise you'll move the goalposts. This is like, I'm pro trying out new jobs, but I think you should have quit criteria that you write before you start. If this thing happens, that's a sign I can't be here anymore. Because if you don't do that. You'll move the goalposts. And I think sometimes that can be true for relationships too. Those can be things that are really bad, but that you should have them.
- [41:08]
Louis
So how do you come at peace with forgiving someone or just having peace within your heart, even if you don't want to work with that person or see that person again? Have you learned that or how would someone do that?
- [41:21]
David Epstein
I think I'm much better at it. And I think some of it comes from, first of all, just the acceptance that things are going to happen, happen that you don't like in life and you just have to move on from them. It's a sunk cost. Right. It's like if you already spent money, I mean, sunk cost fallacy. Right. Sometimes if we spend money on something that doesn't work out, we're often likely to spend more just because we spent some, even if it's clearly a bad idea. And I think the same thing can be true in all other aspects of our psychology where it's just hard to move on from things when we've invested time and energy. But bad things are going to happen that you don't like. And we've all been at our worst at some point. And so I like to try to think, what must this person's view of the world be to have done what they did? And it often comes to the fact that they were not trying to slight me as much as they felt. Right. There's thing called the spotlight effect in psychology where you think there's a spotlight on you. You think everyone's looking at you and thinking about you, but they're all busy looking and thinking at themselves. Right. And so that kind of recognition that when someone did something that's really hurtful to you, that they really weren't thinking about you, maybe that sounds bad, but I think it's good because it means they. They were more careless than really like evil. Right. And I think that's an important sort of adult thing to recognize.
- [42:31]
Louis
There are some evil people that are intentionally evil, though, that, that do slight people.
- [42:36]
David Epstein
And then I think you got to try to. I've experienced that it's not fun not be working with those people if you can.
- [42:39]
Louis
Exactly.
- [42:40]
David Epstein
And were you able to forgive those. Those people eventually? Or at least to me, yeah.
- [42:43]
Louis
There's a lot of people that I've. I've created peace with where I've just created boundaries. And I think that's helped me. It's frustrating, but it's pretty much everyone from my past I feel like I've created. It doesn't mean I like them or that I'm think of them in a good light. But I'm like, okay, these are where these people are at in the world for me. And that's okay. I don't need to focus on them anymore and anyone moving forward. It's like you got to communicate clear boundaries. And that's what I've learned. As opposed to allowing things to slip or slide or continue. It's like standing up to bullies. You have to face it and communicate. This doesn't work for me. That doesn't mean they're going to stop. So it's learning how to do things. When you create a boundary constraint and they keep doing the negative things, that's what I need to figure out the next process because I'm not sure how to do that.
- [43:40]
David Epstein
I think that that's really insightful. It's like this. I think we need to do these things explicitly. As I've gotten older, I've gotten a lot more explicit about it. Maybe even sounds silly. But writing down, what are the values that are important to me? Again, these narrative values. What are lines that can be crossed? Which means this isn't somebody that I'm going to work with or this isn't somebody that I'm going to have a sustainable friendship with. That doesn't mean they're bad. Yeah. But just understanding myself better. And what are the things that if I'm not explicit about them, about having these constraints and boundaries, I will move the goalposts. Right. And just like being more explicit about this.
- [44:18]
Louis
Yeah. And you'll allow for bad behavior to happen and let it slip or whatever. It's.
- [44:21]
David Epstein
It's like maybe it won't happen again and things. But I think having those lines is okay. And again, it doesn't have to mean that that person's bad. But. But I think it's important to have your own 100 minds.
- [44:34]
Louis
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- [45:58]
David Epstein
Yeah, well, the. What do you want to make you guess here? So what do you think is the average age of a found based on a research by mit, Northwestern, the Census Bureau that came out a few years ago. The average age of a founder of a fast growing startup.
- [46:13]
Louis
Of a fast growing startup.
- [46:14]
David Epstein
Yeah. Which means, I think, I think fast growing was like top 1 in 10,000. Top 1 in 10,000 growth.
- [46:19]
Louis
Top like 1%.
- [46:20]
David Epstein
Or you may know, it was more than 1%. Really? Yeah, yeah. 1 in 10,000.
- [46:25]
Louis
Okay, so what's the stat again? What's the question?
- [46:27]
David Epstein
What's the average age of a founder of one of those startups on the day of founding, according to MIT and the Census Bureau in Northwestern?
- [46:33]
Louis
It's probably like late 40s or something.
- [46:36]
David Epstein
Good for you. 45.
- [46:37]
Louis
Really? Yeah.
- [46:39]
David Epstein
I mean I would think that most people would guess in 21 or something. And there are very famous examples of huge. Right. And that model of promoting the young founders has obviously had some stellar successes.
- [46:50]
Louis
I just went right to the people that are in their 50s already that launched something from the past, like, I don't know, KFC founder or whatever, it's like in his 50s or something. And all these other successes in their 40s and 50s, maybe even 60s, probably because you have so much experience and wisdom. You also have so much more relationship capital. You've hopefully built reputation. You have a broad range of skill sets that now you can now focus into one main thing because you can see the patterns differently.
- [47:15]
David Epstein
Exactly.
- [47:15]
Louis
Obviously there's a lot of talented young stars who've become millionaires and built, you know, unicorn companies, but those are very rare.
- [47:24]
David Epstein
That's right. And that's the issue is we focus on the exception, not the norm. Right. Like Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college, started Facebook and he famously said young people are just smarter. He said that when he was 22. You don't hear him saying that anymore. Surprisingly so. I think it's not too late for you to take risks. I think you should be looking at all the things you've done, what are the skills that you've acquired. I mean, one of the things I think that makes these 50 year old founder more likely to succeed than a 30 year old founder is they've identified specific problems. This was another big Tony Fadell thing. So in this epic, disastrous company that I write about in the book called General Magic, all the talent, all the capital, they said their customer was Joe Sixpack. And then they turned around after a few years and missed deadline, said nobody knows the guy who is Joe Sixpack. So they hadn't articulated a clear customer problem that they were solving. I think sometimes these older entrepreneurs, they've done some things and they bump into something. It's like, here's something that's really annoying.
- [48:23]
Louis
Let's go solve that problem.
- [48:24]
David Epstein
Yeah. Because most of these fast growing tech startups, or most fast growing startups are band aids, not vitamins. It's not something that's nice to have. It's something where you're relieving pain for somebody in their work or in their life. And so they identify and, well, define problems because they've had experience.
- [48:39]
Louis
Yeah. I think the, I think the gift of young successful entrepreneurs, a lot of it is sure they had maybe talent and they were smart, but I think a lot of it is the ability to just take big risks because they have nothing to lose because they are young, they don't have the family yet, they don't have the responsibility or whatever it might be. Like when I was in my early 20s, I was like, I'm already broke, I might as well go for it. It was like, I got nothing to lose. I'm already sleeping on my sister's couch. Okay, let's just go for it, you know, and if I fail, who cares? I have nothing.
- [49:11]
David Epstein
Yeah.
- [49:12]
Louis
And I think sometimes when people get older, they feel like I can't take that risk. Sometimes, you know, there's other people that are like, still have the risk gene and they're like, oh, this is the moment. I need to do something now because I have all this experience and there is a pain here or problem. Let me go take action on this. But I think it's, people get restricted when they're Unwilling to take certain risks later in life, I feel like.
- [49:37]
David Epstein
And you get used to things. Right. Because in some ways you'd feel like, I agree with everything you said. But in some ways it feels like when you're older, sometimes you might be better equipped to take. Like, yeah, if you or I took certain risks now, we might lose some of our money.
- [49:52]
Louis
Yeah.
- [49:52]
David Epstein
But, like, we're not going to miss any meals. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. So actually, as long as we're not instantly accustomed to our bank account or everything like that, like, we're actually. And we have professional capital. Right. So in some ways you'd think that we'd be well equipped to take risks. But psychologically, nobody likes to kind of go backward when you have stuff.
- [50:12]
Louis
Yeah. The emotional failure of something.
- [50:13]
David Epstein
You never know.
- [50:15]
Louis
So, David, if you, hypothetically, if you lost all your money tomorrow and in six months you had to make a million dollars and you had no money right now, how would you do it?
- [50:29]
David Epstein
Do I have to do it ethically or not?
- [50:31]
Louis
Ethically? Yeah.
- [50:32]
David Epstein
Okay.
- [50:32]
Louis
Under your values. Under your core values.
- [50:35]
David Epstein
Because I was about to say, like I used to do when I was at Sports Illustrated, I used to investigate some branches of the dietary supplement industry and realized, like, one could make a lot of money there, but doing. Doing things that are.
- [50:46]
Louis
As long as it's ethical, I guess. Yeah. But if you were given a constraint to make a million dollars in a year, let's say, and you had no money least, what do you think you would do? Where would your brain start to go if you had that constraint?
- [50:58]
David Epstein
Oh, well, I mean, I know the actual answer is I would just sign another book contract. Really?
- [51:02]
Louis
There you go.
- [51:03]
David Epstein
Yeah. I mean, if you had.
- [51:04]
Louis
But what takes you. Let's say you had to finish it within a year, which usually takes you four to five years to finish a book.
- [51:10]
David Epstein
It's not going to take me four to five years anymore because my new process for this book. Really? Yeah. I can write more books now, whether, you know, whether that'll be smart because of, like, AI and all this stuff, it's a different question. But the press release, this time I did a one page outline where obviously I ended up writing as small as possible. I was trying to fool my own system. But if it wasn't on that page, it isn't in the book. And so I didn't write over length this time. I ended up way less burned out. This partly came about because I became a parent and I was like, I can't be letting this swallow up my whole Life the way I did in the past and dragging on for years and years. I actually turned it in early. Does anybody turn in books early?
- [51:47]
Louis
You do like last minute or give me an extra week or two.
- [51:49]
David Epstein
So yeah, if you said to me this goes to this question that we were talking before. If you said, David, you have to get the. So I think now my process would go down to two years. And then if you said, David, if you had to get a book done in a year, what would you do? Immediately my mind starts turning to I could do it. It would be tough, but I could do it.
- [52:05]
Louis
If you had to do it in three months, what would you do?
- [52:10]
David Epstein
If I had to do it in
- [52:11]
Louis
three months and it had to be a great book. It can't just be like some slop you put.
- [52:14]
David Epstein
And I have no money, so I can't hire a research assistant or anything. Like, what would you do if I had to do it in three months? I would narrow into things where I already have like a significant body of research and then would start because I have a long history of research, right. So there are a lot of topics that I could dive into in deeper detail where I already have lots of contacts, things like that. I mean, I have, I have incredible contacts in the sports world, right. So I could get within months, very inside views into, you know, training facilities, like, how do GMs make decisions? I think if I had to, I could turn around a book in three months that would look at like the psychology of personnel selection in elite sports. If I had to.
- [52:54]
Louis
Now here's an even deeper one. If you had to write a book in three months and it had to launch in three months, it'd be a New York Times bestseller. How would you do it?
- [53:03]
David Epstein
Oh, man, I think I would. Man, you're really giving me my own medicine here.
- [53:08]
Louis
That's what I'm saying. Because if you had to do it,
- [53:10]
David Epstein
you know what I mean? I think I would start making. Because there wouldn't be time for like doing it and then doing a launch process. I think I would have to make the reporting of the book be the launch process. Yes, but I'd have to be bringing people along to those places instead of just like notebook and recording for my own purposes, I'd probably be recording. Maybe I even bring film with me and things like that so that people seeing the process of the book and then the end would just be like. And you saw that stuff and here it is. Now I think I have to do.
- [53:36]
Louis
And they're just pre ordering.
- [53:37]
David Epstein
Smart thing to do.
- [53:37]
Louis
Actually, I like this idea. And what you could do is say I'm launching whatever it be six months or whatever. But hey, pre order the book now. Here's the link. I'm going to take you on the journey. It is coming out this date. I'm going to create my own restraints. And you can order it every day to pre order leading up to this moment. I haven't finished it yet. And you're following the journey. That could be an interesting.
- [53:58]
David Epstein
This is not a bad idea, actually.
- [53:59]
Louis
I think it's great. That's your next book. I think you should create your restraints. Maybe it's three months, maybe it's six months. But I think it should be extremely uncomfortable for you. I would love to see you even just the way you were, like, oh my gosh, what do I do? Like, I would love to see you not have it perfectly with all the time in the world for yourself and be forced to say, I need to sell 100,000 copies. I need to be a New York Times seller. I need to be something like. And what would you have to do in order to make that happen?
- [54:30]
David Epstein
It's interesting because I think having so much time in the past has been not good for me. I think it's. I think three months is not what I would choose.
- [54:41]
Louis
Yeah, but maybe whatever, you know, but
- [54:43]
David Epstein
given how slow my process has been, like I could and should get. If I'm going to write more books, get them out more frequently, there's no reason for it to have taken as long as it did.
- [54:52]
Louis
And does it have to be, you know, 300 pages? Does it have to.
- [54:54]
David Epstein
This one's 20 shorter than the other two and I don't think it's worth software. It's my most economical writing for sure.
- [54:59]
Louis
There you go. So I would love to see that.
- [55:03]
David Epstein
This is interesting because I just started doing video stuff. I may. This is not a bad idea.
- [55:09]
Louis
I mean, I would give yourself six months personally because I think it'd be uncomfortable for you.
- [55:13]
David Epstein
It would be uncomfortable.
- [55:14]
Louis
It can't be just like, oh, it's enough in the time. Yeah, I can do it into that.
- [55:17]
David Epstein
It has to force you to do things you wouldn't do otherwise.
- [55:19]
Louis
Yeah. And how would you use AI and how would you tap on the resources and how would you build relationships or use relationships, whatever it might be to support that. But I think it'd be fascinating. Would you have to traditionally publish, self publish?
- [55:31]
David Epstein
I think one thing that would actually be helpful too is sometimes when I interview people and I'm very Early. I'm like, yeah, you may see this because I do a ton of interviews and a lot of them don't go in. You may see this quote in 2 and a half years or something. In this case, if I were like, this thing is coming out in a few months. I think it actually might help with certain interviews where people feel a sense of urgency to.
- [55:49]
Louis
You may do less interviews, too. I would say I'm only going to interview these people and, you know, nine out of 10 are going to make it. You know, maybe one doesn't for some reason, but it's like something has to make it from these people that I choose.
- [56:01]
David Epstein
Yeah.
- [56:02]
Louis
As opposed to. I'm going to interview 10 of the best experts on this topic. I'm going to interview two.
- [56:06]
David Epstein
And the trips would have to be really thought, well thought out. Like in my first book in the Sports Gene, I took a trip to Arctic Sweden that I cut from the book. Right. And if I had done a little more thing. I mean, the trip was super interesting. I don't. Not that I regret having taken it, but that's a tough thing to cut. And so I think had I put in a little more thought, if I had understood what the book looked like, what I was going to do, if I had done the press release, I would have realized that this was not going to fit.
- [56:30]
Louis
Interesting. I would love to see that next book for you to give constraints and actually document it publicly. I'm launching a book on this date. I haven't started. I have six months.
- [56:41]
David Epstein
And that'd be so different from what I'm used to, too. So I think it would be interesting because there's some writers that write books. Very often I'm not one of them.
- [56:48]
Louis
I think it'd be fascinating, you know, and I don't know I'm going to give you that challenge. I just think it'd be really cool. You've studied a lot of the world's best in the world of what they do. What is one trait that every great person has in common that you found every great person?
- [57:06]
David Epstein
I mean, certainly resilience, right? Certainly resilience. There's no. No matter how good you are, like, everyone faces some setback that I think they would have considered devastating or unimaginable at some point, and they have to pick themself back up. And I think that often is because there's something in the process that they love, not only the goal. So I think that's true about every great person, because I was going to say curiosity, and I Think that's about getting curiosity about yourself, about getting better, about getting others. And I think that's very common, but I wouldn't say that's true to every great person.
- [57:43]
Louis
Resilience, though.
- [57:44]
David Epstein
But. And I think that. I think resilience that includes coming from enjoying some of the process. Like, there's something in the thing that they're doing that they actually like that keeps them coming back, even when it seems like the goal isn't making it.
- [57:57]
Louis
What would you say is the most devastating thing you've had to overcome in my.
- [58:02]
David Epstein
In my own life? I mean, it depends when you catch me. But, I mean, I. In the very beginning of the book, I write about something that I thought was, like, ruined my life at the time, which was I had this freakish injury when I was in eighth grade. Like, sports was the center of my life. I would wake up to watch SportsCenter play twice in a row, right? The same segment twice. And I threw a ball really hard. Playing in, like, gym class, football as hard as I could. We'd throw for kickoff at the time instead of kicking, and my arms snapped in a spiral on the throw. And incredibly rare. I've only ever seen this once before. One other time with a major league pitcher. And he had to have his arm amputated.
- [58:49]
Louis
Like, the arm. What do you mean? It snapped?
- [58:51]
David Epstein
Totally snapped. Bone clean through. What? Right side.
- [58:54]
Louis
Oh, my gosh.
- [58:56]
David Epstein
And I don't remember the exact moment because I must have got dazed on shot. I wake up seeing stars, right? Everyone's like, ah, your arm couldn't have broke. Nobody hit you. I knew, like, someone was wrong, nauseous, right? To take me to the hospital, lay me on X ray table. And they say I'm laying on my back. I'm like, nauseous. They say, put your hand up. You know, And I said, I do. Put your hand up. Like I did. And then I looked down and I felt like my hand was here. And it turned out it's because it was totally separated. So I turned my shoulder and so my brain thought my hand was up here. But still I had to have a strapped to my body and everything. So.
- [59:27]
Louis
Oh, my gosh.
- [59:28]
David Epstein
I. That was the. I couldn't play contact sports for a year, you know, couldn't wear shorts and shirts normally. I was like, this is the end of my life. It ended up being this massive blessing in disguise, really. That's kind of what I write about where. So there were. I was taking French in middle school at the time, and we had these tests where you had to listen to a recording and there were blanks. And you had to write in the blank word. But like you had to hear the audio and fill in the blank with the right word that you heard. And when I did this, I didn't have my writing arm. I started realizing I had to memorize them and then go back and write them all because I wasn't fast enough to keep up with my left hand. And I started using mnemonic devices like relating them to things in sports. Usually that would help me remember and I was doing better than I'd ever done. I use mnemonic devices for everything now. Like I memorize an hour long keynote talk using mnemonic devices. And like people think I have a photographic memory when I finish a talk and I'm like, if I put my keys down and spin in a circle, I lose them. But it's not a photographic memory. But I use these mnemonic devices. Years later I learned that probably the most famous study ever done of memory improvement involved taking a student at Carnegie Mellon University who could only memorize seven digits and getting him up to 80 digits using sports related mnemonic devices.
- [60:46]
Louis
Really?
- [60:46]
David Epstein
Right. So it's. That constraint forced me to. It also got me into running because I couldn't do contact sports. I ended up becoming a Division 1, like all east runner. And so something that I thought was devastating, it was devastating at the time, in the long run, paid these. These incredible dividends.
- [61:02]
Louis
Wow.
- [61:03]
David Epstein
How about another one more recently? It's still. It's always gone like this. So it tilts inward like this. So that was the end of baseball at the time. Had been my, my best sport. And that was. I still played a little in high school, but I could never throw the same way again. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, I've had one more recently too. It's. I developed these, that runs in some of my family, these kind of migraines that will affect my vision sometimes. And the first sign I'll get is this disturbance in my vision basically. And then you get this blinding headache once it goes away. And I didn't start getting these until the last few years and they seem to be very sleep related to me. And so I got super. And it's like when it happens, you can't work, you can't see. Right.
- [61:49]
Louis
So it's like a headache or a migraine.
- [61:51]
David Epstein
First you get this visual disturbance and then the visual disturbance expands through my visual field. And then when it disappears, I get the terrible headache and it's really bad. And even before the headache comes. You can't work because you can't see. Right. And so it forced me. And since other people in my family had had these, it forced me to get like fanatical about my circadian rhythm. Right. So I was like, I need to get active and wake up and get my body clock so that I'm asleep and awake basically same time every day. I started going, this sounds stupid. I started going to sleep in workout clothes because I wanted to be moving first thing in the morning. And that sounds dumb, but if you wake up in workout clothes, at least for me, my brain goes, am I really going to change out of these
- [62:33]
Louis
to get into pajamas or am I
- [62:35]
David Epstein
going to go work out?
- [62:36]
Louis
Interesting.
- [62:37]
David Epstein
And so now I'm always working out. I was more of a night owl now. I haven't used an alarm in a year. Workout clothes, waking up first thing in the morning. So since, since I'm on East coast time, I was outside today at 2:30am running. But it's 5:30am for me, for my time. And you know, in the winter I'll use like a sun lamp if I have to in the morning if it's not light enough. And I have my phone and automation on my phone that turns it totally red at 8pm So I just got super serious about my circadian rhythm. And my energy overall has just never been. I was doing it to try to get rid of these migraines, but I've never felt as energetic. Like I just, I thought napping was normal. A lot of days. Don't nap, don't use an alarm clock. More energy, better mood, more patient. Wow. So it forced me, it was really difficult. Like it really impaired my work for a while. It impaired everything. Your relationships, Everything, Everything, Everything. But it did force me to get fanatical about my circadian rhythm. And I'm. And I'm now wish I had just done that years ago, was separate from this.
- [63:42]
Louis
Wow, that's interesting. I mean, what are these mnemonic.
- [63:46]
David Epstein
What is this mnemonic devices? It's like memory techniques where you, you relate something to something else that helps you remember it. So the simplest ones would be things like an acronym. Right. But in cases of the numbers, this guy in the study, he was a runner and so he would relate it. Oh, that's kind of like a fast mile time. And then, so what you want to do is so that you're not remembering every digit, you're remembering groups of numbers, batching numbers. Yeah. Some people know if they hear of memory palace, which is this Technique that's different kind mnemonics where you have kingdom
- [64:19]
Louis
or whatever in your mind.
- [64:19]
David Epstein
Yeah. So you have a visualized space and you like attach certain memories to certain sparks.
- [64:24]
Louis
I've tried that, but it hasn't worked for me that, that well, you know, it's like maybe I haven't priced it enough, but I tried it once. I was like, oh man, that's tough too.
- [64:29]
David Epstein
But yeah, you got to do it. You got to do it a few times. But I got clever with mnemonics and I bet you would be really good with sports related mnemonics too.
- [64:39]
Louis
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- [66:21]
David Epstein
Well, I mean that thing that I told you before where I was like you asked their tips. I said BCS press release. Right. I think of it as like Bowl Championship Series a press release. But it's just a, it's just letters that relate to something that I can easily remember, but it's another acronym like that. Interesting, but when I'm doing, when I'm doing my talks, I'm, I'm often not necessarily using sports related Mnemonics I'm kind of using other stuff that I attach it to. Yeah, anything that's like really salient in your brain. Sometimes people use like really weird or really dirty images because they're easy. Those remember?
- [66:51]
Louis
Yeah. Interesting. I'm fascinated by the book. Man, this is really cool, David. It's called Inside the How Constraints Make Us better. Make sure you guys grab a copy. Really inspiring work. And hopefully your next book, you can do it in six months. We can see those constraints in real time. That'd be cool. But make sure you get a copy of the book inside the box. How Constraints Make Us Better. And again, I think a lot of people want to have more options, more freedom, more flexibility. And I think when you create these constraints, you can actually have more flexibility within those constraints, which will make you better.
- [67:26]
David Epstein
Absolutely.
- [67:27]
Louis
Couple final questions for you. I want people to follow you, David epstein.com and also social media. You're doing a lot more video now, which is cool, David Epstein. So make sure you guys check out your video content. I really love the way you're editing it as well. And you've got a newsletter as well on your website, correct? Where people get more up to date information on this stuff. I also recommend Range, the other book, which is really inspiring, especially for parents. But this question, I don't know if I asked you this before, but I'll ask it again just in case. It's called the Three Truths. So imagine, hypothetically, you get to live as long as you want, but then it's the last day on earth for you and you get to accomplish all these things you want to create and it all comes to fruition. But on the last day, you have to take all of your work with you, all of your books, all of your content, videos, messages that have been in the world, they have to go somewhere else. We don't have access to them. But in the last day, you get to leave behind three truths, three lessons that you would leave behind to the world from all the things you've learned. What would those three truths be for you?
- [68:28]
David Epstein
Specific.
- [68:28]
Louis
From my work, Just from your life. Could be anything from work, from personal lessons you have.
- [68:42]
David Epstein
I think the first, and obviously this is very topical for me, is that optionality is overrated. I think to a certain extent, preserving optionality has almost become like religious zealotry. I will hear people make decisions, say, well, I'll go with the one that preserves optionality, that is just putting off making priorities. And so I think that we need to be careful about that. In a world of so many options. The other, and this gets to that study I mentioned that I write about, the Harvard Study of Adult Development. If I had to summarize that study in a sentence, taking from the study director, it's happiness is love. Your relationships ultimately are the thing that provide lasting satisfaction. Real world relationships where you have obligations to other people, a dense network of reciprocal obligation where people have obligations to you, you have obligations to them, is what provides long lasting meaning. And I think that can be tough when we have so many goals and so many things to do. We don't schedule that kind of stuff, even though it's as important. So I think scheduling it is really, really important. And I think the last one that I would leave that again is very salient to me now because of the things I've been writing, is that monotasking is a superpower. Multitasking is not exactly possible. Like you can talk and walk at the same time. But things that involve cognitive engagement, like switching between email and things, you can't actually do it. Your brain has to drop some set of rules and activate another one. And what's really kind of scary is that we now know that the more times you switch a day, the higher your stress will be. And there's even some evidence that it alters your immune function. Right. So can I actually add on to this the scariest research from the book I thought from this woman, Gloria Mark, who found that we become accustomed from all these notifications and everything, distractions all day, whether it's people notifications, we become accustomed to a certain level of distraction. And then if you say now I'm going to put my phone away in focus, you can't, you will self interrupt with intrusive thoughts at the cadence to which you've become accustomed.
- [70:59]
Louis
Really?
- [71:00]
David Epstein
Yes.
- [71:01]
Louis
So it's almost like waiting for it to happen.
- [71:03]
David Epstein
It's like we have some distraction barometer. So if you say now I'm going to focus, you won't be able to. So you actually have to train your focus by making blocks of work where you're not flipping between things all day. The evidence for the fact that just constant toggling makes people miserable is eye opening. And so I think, I think there are a lot of things that are important for human well being, but I think this is one of the most overlooked the, the, the. So that's why I want to leave that because I think it's something that I can uniquely trumpet that isn't trumpeted as much that it makes you less happy to be toggling. It doesn't mean you can't do these things. Monotask them one at a time and you'll be happier here.
- [71:48]
Louis
Is there anything else you feel like we haven't covered that people should really understand to make them better?
- [71:55]
David Epstein
I mean, I think we were just talking there about structuring your attention span, which I think is entraining your attention span. And when you do need to focus. Related to that point I was making, there are now studies showing that if you have a phone visible, you'll do worse on cognitive tests if it's visible, even if you can't use it. And the more phone dependent you are,
- [72:13]
Louis
the
- [72:15]
David Epstein
greater that deficit is. So sometimes when you really need to focus, put it out of the room.
- [72:22]
Louis
Yeah.
- [72:24]
David Epstein
I think we should add certain types of constraints in your life where you use. If something's important for you in work, you schedule it, but if something's important in your personal life outside of vacation, you don't schedule it. So I think we should add those. Schedule those deadlines for personal things, too. As if those things are as important as our work, which they are. They're more important, but we just don't add deadlines for them. Right. Or regular cadences or habits and things like that. I think that's really important to structure our personal life the way we structure other things we want to get done. Maybe that sounds onerous, but I think it's not. Like once you get in the habit, I need to call this person by that date. I need to block time to just be with my kid without any other distraction. Because it doesn't happen. Right. If you don't schedule it with all the stuff that everybody has, everything everybody has to do.
- [73:11]
Louis
I want to acknowledge you, David, for the constant innovation you have with the research you do to try to help people be better, because I think a lot of us are struggling. We're confused. And your books and your work definitely gives us more clarity. So I acknowledge you for the constant work you're doing, and hopefully this next time you'll be able to create some constraints for yourself. I did.
- [73:31]
David Epstein
Just not to the level. You're just. You want to push me to the next level. See, we're both in the business of trying to make ourselves and other people better.
- [73:37]
Louis
Exactly, exactly. Final question. What's your definition of greatness?
- [73:44]
David Epstein
My definition of greatness is raising the level of other people who encounter you or your work. I think that is a. And I think that goes even for solo performers. Right. There could be a solo performer who's a musician and maybe they're working on their own. But other people that see that get elevated in a way, other musicians that see it get elevated and want to do that. And so I think it's and with the things we're both doing, I think what we hope is that we're doing something at a certain level. Both our messages, but also the way that we're doing it leads people who want to do things like we do to see a certain level of quality and say, you know, I'd like to do that too.
- [74:27]
Louis
Yeah, David, thanks for being here, man. I appreciate it.
- [74:30]
David Epstein
It's a pleasure.
- [74:31]
Louis
I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.
- [75:27]
David Epstein
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- [75:43]
Louis
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