Episode 792 Scott Adams - Impeachment Stains, Some New Reality Filters to Ease Anxiety

mmm hey everybody come on in do you ever wonder why I do the simultaneous sip before my periscopes well some of it is a bonding experience of course but I do it also somebody asked about this I do it also because it gives time for people to stream in before I get into these serious content so I don't have to repeat myself and so because you're all here so early it's time for the simultaneous sip and all you need is a cup of mud or glass of tanker chalasis tying the canteen jerker flask a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me down for the unparalleled pleasure that the dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes everything better the simultaneous it go - ever said first time to come on time for the simultaneous sip well now you know the pleasure oh yeah that's good all right so yesterday I was given the telling you that I saw a clip where a Conor Mc.

Gregor he's one of the top MMA fighters the world has ever produced his coach mentioned me and the idea of systems / goals as part of the training process for Conor Mc.

Gregor and I was sort of bragging about a little bit on periscope yesterday that that I'd done something useful that crossed into a domain that I know I would not have expected actually and then I realized that Conor Mc.

Gregor was going to fight last night I didn't realize that the reason his is his coach trainer was talking is because the fight was coming up and suddenly I thought to myself uh-oh what if he loses here I've been telling everybody well I think I've had some influence maybe indirectly or in a small way in the process he's using to train but if you don't already know Conor Mc.

Gregor one in 40 seconds let me say that again he won the fight in 40 seconds I believe the total tally of punches that the other guy landed was zero I think in fact checked me on this but I think I heard that I think I heard that the other the the guy the cowboy or whoever he knocked out who was a top-level fighter he it's not like he was beating up people who were just starting this was a top competitor and the the outcome was certainly in question encounter Mc.

Gregor beat him in 40 seconds and the other guy didn't land a punch so I guess you want to breed and read my book had it failed almost everything and still win big where I talk about systems are better than goals if you can't remember the name of the book just go to Amazon and Google my name and law pop up let's talk about my most ridiculous prediction I suppose I've made some predictions that are pretty ridiculous but none more ridiculous than the one I made about who will be the nominee for the Democrats now a year and half ago I said well it's gonna be Harris because she's got all the tools but it turns out she's a terrible just a terrible campaigner like a really really bad campaign so she's suspended her her run but here's what I think's gonna happen would you agree that Joe Biden is sort of the I guess you'd say he's the establishment Democrats that's choice but I think we'd all agree they're not terribly comfortable with him because of his age they kind of like where he has policy-wise and his connections to things but maybe not a full confidence in his current abilities it looks like the plan is this now by the way did you know that Harris had one of the the most endorsements from established people that's important did you know that Harris also I believe had the most Hillary Clinton associated people working on her campaign did you know that that's important because it does seem that Harris was who the let's say the Clinton holdovers who you imagine have deep state kind of influence it looks like they wanted her but she wasn't getting any traction and she was doing a terrible job of campaigning but she's almost a perfect complement to Joe Biden because he's older she's young so that that gives you a little confidence that if something happened to him you'd say well at least there's a young person with Senate experience you know it's not going to be the end of the world if Joe had to exit the job a little early so that's a good compliment secondly she's a person of color now so is cory booker cory booker very solid capable public servant senator Cory Booker would be great right except Cory Booker's a man if you have a choice of having your running mate let's say you're Joe Biden a choice of having someone who is only a person of color but unfortunately a man versus someone is a person of color but hey a woman which is better which is a better compliment no question about it there's no question about it the best compliment to the ticket is Harris now I have a second theory that part of the reason the hair has disappeared is that it was a way to close down the campaign and get rid of her sister as her main advisor because if you're the part of the let's say Clinton shadow government deep state democrat establishment people you kind of needed to get rid of Harris's system in order to make Harris useful I'm gonna say that she may be undergoing some kind of coaching mentoring practice situation and I think that if she were to be nominated for a vice president or or picked as a running mate I mean by Biden that the next time you see her she's going to come back stronger meaning more charisma a better presentation a little more crisp message you know on point and so that's what I would look for because I believe she's very coachable Harris is unique in that she doesn't have any she doesn't seem to have any problems that I would consider unsolvable natural problems it all seems like technique now some have pointed out you know hey Harris does not have a lot of popularity in the african-american community doesn't matter because Joe Biden does Joe Biden's popularity in the african-american community is so high he doesn't really need to bring more in by his vice presidential pick he just needs to show that he's being you know open to diversity and he's being inclusive and that's why she'd be a perfect complement either them individually is a little weak but together do they actually fit pretty well and better than anybody else at least who's a name and the name in our consciousness right now so the other part of the the prediction is that by Election Day if it turns out it's a Biden Harris ticket the by Election Day either literally or in kind people will be talking about here says the top of the ticket now they might be saying hey let's flip them before Election Day because Joe Biden looks like he's falling apart or they might say well let's get through the election the way it is but at least we've got our emergency spare ready so I think you're gonna see Harris this is my most unlikely prediction of all time I believe that there's not one person here who would agree with me is it probably not one of you and that's what makes it fun all right so we'll just track that one if I'm wrong I'm wrong I've got a theory about Mexico there was a story that the Mexican military stopped a big crowd of Guatemalans who were trying to penetrate the southern border of Mexico if I understand this right and Mexico is doing a good job for the United States being a good good neighbor and partner by stopping it before it gets to our border and I say to myself you know why is it that the government of Mexico was so good on this point but not good on let's say fighting cartels because I look at what the government of Mexico is doing they're putting a lot of money and resources and it feels like they're doing it almost entirely for the benefit of the United States does that seem in character does it make sense given the other things they're doing so how does it make sense that they're so flexible and really more than flexible they're putting major effort and resources into doing something we want stopping people coming through their southern border before they get to our border but at the same time it feels like they're doing absolutely nothing about the cartels at least in terms of how much we've offered to help them and they've said no let's go with the hugs not the guns how can you explain those two things well unfortunately there is one way to explain it now I'm not going to say that this is a truth I'm going to say that it would explain our observation in a way that nothing else does and it goes like this the cartels effectively owned the government of Mexico the cartels make a tremendous amount of money helping small groups of mostly Mexican citizens across the border so it's a gigantic profit Center for the cartels to let the onesies and twosies across the border lots of them I mean it's a big volume but they're coming across in small groups the reason that the Guatemalans form up into large convoys is so that the cartel can't abuse them and can't take their money and can't profit so it seems that the government of Mexico is very very flexible and willing to work with us when it helps the profit of the cartel now it helps us so I think we're pretty happy that Mexico is stopping the the caravans but the caravans were the one way that the cartels couldn't make money because they form cartels for that purpose so the cartels could not you know blackmail them and threaten them it was it was a security reason that's why they do it so my guess is that the reason that there may be perhaps even some kind of understanding with our government that we're really dealing with the cartels and that if we can get them to stop the massive immigration at least we got something and we're gonna have to figure out what to do about fentanyl later I saw on news I don't know who is talking about it that we have some kind of process where we check the incoming I guess once a month we randomly check incoming shipping containers or goods coming in from China in our recent checks something like 15 percent of all the goods coming in from China are contraband 15 percent 1 5 15 percent of everything that's coming in from China is either counterfeit goods that are can meeting with American products or other products could be European and and fentanyl and drugs 15% and apparently that's the way we'll it's one of the ways we can tell if they're cooperating over time so once a month they'll do a survey and if it's still 15% it means that China is not cracking down on intellectual property they're not cracking down on fentanyl because they have the ability we know they have the ability and so I'm looking at all this and I'm thinking I don't know if we've done enough working with China to stop the fentanyl I hear there's something happening you know that there's there's noise about them being successful but I'll say it a million times as long as the top known fentanyl dealer in China is still free which I believe he is somebody can fact check me on that but I believe he's just shopping and walking around and selling fentanyl by the by the barrel as long as that guy is still alive and free China's not doing anything that's not real alright Scott Jennings had an interesting opinion piece on CNN which I took some inspiration from for for a tweet and Scott's Scott Jennings his point was that well here's the way I summarized it in my tweet so these are my words I said it's starting to look as if the permanent stain of impeachment will be on Pelosi for trivializing the process well at the same time it confirms that Trump is directly over the target he was elected to destroy now Scott Jennings point which I basically stole to reword into a tweet because I wanted the the crisp version because it's it just transmits better small his point was that Donald Trump was elected to break the parts of the government we don't like right that's pretty true with nobody elected Trump to be a steady-state to keep it the same keep this ship going just the way it was he was brought in to just break stuff he was he was brought in like a wrecking ball to just you know just wreck all the stuff that was frozen and broken and corrupt now of course he can't get rid of all corruption and all all problems in the government but what would you expect the world would look like if he were successful in doing what his voters asked him to do well that looked like well one of the things that I think you could predict is that the other side would try everything they could to stop him they would try all the easy stuff first let's try to beat him in the election okay that didn't work let's try to beat him and the in public opinion okay he's really good at that that's not working let's beat him by controlling the press oh he just deal agenda Mize the entire press let's use our our deep state and people we have him maybe the FBI or the Department of Justice oh they got caught think about it the Democrats have thrown every everything you could throw at this president what would be the most natural result of here's the key point and this is what I'm stealing from Scott Jennings what would be the natural outcome of Trump succeeding at what he promised his voters impeachment given that the given that the house is controlled by the other party you would expect and in fact we should have been able to predict that the better Trump did in terms of destroying the things that people wanted him to destroy everything from the press to the every old way of doing things apparently he was calling his generals idiots I'm not even sad about that he came in to break stuff he's breaking stuff and he's not breaking the stuff I didn't want broken he's only breaking the stuff I thought needed to get a little bit broken please shake the box right so this weird thing is is forming which is that the impeachment is starting to morph or or evolve from the worst state a president could have to wait for it the the clearest signal that he's doing what the voters asked him to do you could not have a more clear signal that he's right over the target because he's getting all the anti-aircraft fire they're unloading the clip all right they're throwing everything at him it's all they had left and it looks desperate does not impeachment is starting to look like a death rattle for the Democratic Party and it's starting to look not even starting to look oh I can stay I can state this as as a firm statement of fact Pelosi is going to wear the stain of impeachment forever because she broke one of the most important parts of the Constitution she broke impeachment by mistreating it by by trivializing it by using it as a as a base political tool instead of the last resort she's gonna have to live with that forever every time in the future there's another impeachment and you know there's going to be a lot of them gonna be a lot of them every time you your president is a different party from the House impeachments just automatic and what will every story say about that they're going to say Pelosi did this they're going to say Pelosi broke this this used to be a process that would get rid of a Richard Nixon now it's not now it's just a broken partisan thing and that stain will be on Pelosi forever but what about the stain on Trump well here's the thing if you get impeached because you did let's say what Richard Nixon did well that's a stain forever if you can impeached for what Bill Clinton did it's kind of a mixed bag isn't it how many of you think back to the Clinton administration and think well let's say if you're a Democrat how many look back to the Bill Clinton administration say you know he did a whole bunch of good things it was a very successful administration from from my perspective as a Democrat and by the way I would agree that Bill Clinton had a successful presidency but I have not once not one time have I thought back and said to myself you know I think less of Bill Clinton because he got engaged no once I don't believe dole Clinton has a stain on his presidency as big as the stain he left on Monica's dress you know certainly as part of the story everybody's heard of it he would prefer that didn't happen his supporters would prefer didn't happen but if you're talking about the impeachment itself which did not remove him from office is he stained by the impeachment not really I mean he might be stained by the event itself but his presidency looks completely intact to me am I wrong how many people think less of a Bill Clinton because of impeachment I don't think I've ever met one person have you tested on yourself Bill Clinton actually did something that both parties thought was worthy of impeachment or at least enough of them thought it was worthy of impeaching and there's no stain there's a stain on what he did but not on the impeachment part so I think Bill Clinton I'm so tells us what's going to happen with Trump is that it's going to look like a badge of success by the time he's done with it you know troubled better than anybody at grabbing the gun out of the the muggers hands and turning it around you know fake news was originally a complaint about Trump and then he turned it around now it's a complaint about the entire media business which he is he's ruined the credibility of completely they've done a good job of that of themselves alright let's talk about cell phones I in some Twitter feed the other yesterday I guess I was supporting Bernie's version of events with Elizabeth Warren so it doesn't matter the details but I was I did a a supportive tweet about Bernie saying essentially that I believe his version of the story and the number of Bernie's supporters jumped in to say they were grudgingly agreeing with me as their Bernie supporters but and they hated it because I'm such a terrible person and that I'm the worst person in the world and that agree with me is as hard because I'm so terrible and I thought to myself I don't know too many people I would call terrible people I know a lot of people I disagree with I know a lot of people who have done specific things I don't like but I don't really think of too many people as just terrible people and I think what kind of fake news are you reading like I don't even even know where it comes from what exactly have I done that would qualify me to be a terrible human I mean not just somebody you disagree with not somebody who said a stupid thing that dumb thing now some of you whose opinions don't make sense none of that but horrible human being which is the most common thing that people were saying about me yesterday on Twitter at least the critics now none of that bothers me of course but I'm sort of amused by it because Bernie's supporters are more toxic than I had imagined you know you probably saw the project Veritas the thing with one of the Bernie supporters who has just had some things to say didn't he you all saw that and probably made you think ah these Bernie supporters are an interesting group of people you know I'm sure most of them are you know just you know have a preference for him as a politician but there's some bad people in that group I'm not going to paint the entire group by the bad ones but there's a really some rough characters in that group now here's a here's a frame for you then maybe you haven't heard yet correct me if I'm wrong it's possible somebody who said this or maybe lots of people at that I haven't even heard it do you remember the old days when IBM had personal computers they were competing against Apple Computer and Apple came up with this great way to frame the situation the competition now I don't know exactly how true it was but it was a terrific way to frame it and it went like this that you know there are people who go from IBM pcs this is back in the day they would switch out and they become Mac users it was fairly common but what Apple realized is that people didn't go back in other words you didn't see or at least it was rare that happens of course but it was rare for somebody who was a Macintosh user to say now I've decided to change my mind I'll become an IBM PC user but it was very common for somebody to go the other way and just stay there and that's a really powerful frame as soon as you hear that you say to yourself okay that tells me everything I need to know that it's it's just a one-way trip now let's take that analogy and again analogies are now for persuasion they're just to make points here's my point we've been talking about Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Bernie Sanders having similar voters and that one of them needs to shrink in order for the other to grow because it's the same pool you know that neither of them can grow until one of them declines in popularity because the voters are going to go to the other one let me ask you this after this Elizabeth Warren incident with Bernie how many Bernie voters could go to Elizabeth Warren after she stabbed their candidate candidate in the back according to that how many none maybe none how many the Warrens supporters let's say she started falling in the polls and they wanted somebody who had similar policies how many Warren supporters would be psychologically primed and ready and willing to go to Bernie maybe all of them maybe all of them because it's similar policies and who are you going to go to if Elizabeth Warren isn't going to work out where are you gonna go because Bernie Bernie didn't stab Elizabeth Warren or at least it doesn't look like that I mean some people might think that but I think it's a one-way trip so at this point if if all of the let's say the progressives or the socialists Democratic socialists who want one of those two the decisions already over let me say that again if you're wondering which way it's going to go will Bernie's people go to Warren or Warren's people that go to Bernie that's over you don't have to wonder anymore there's only one way it can go at this point it can only go from Orange Bernie the Bernie to warren path is closed by what warren did to bernie it's closed so if you're going to predict that's an easy one Bernie will rise and Warren will fall because Warren can never get enough of Bernie voters after what she did to him you know I'm right I saw an article that probably needs some more studies to back it up that the birth control pill shrinks a part of the brain in women or there might be a Korell it might be a weird correlation but women who have been on birth control pills at one specific part of the brain that shrunk 6% on average compared it was smaller so let me let me correct what I just said the study did not show that being on the pill shrunked that part of the brain it only showed that people on the pill had on average a smaller part of that brain could be some other reason but it's hard to know what that would be however I ask you this have you ever had this experience just anecdotally of seeing somebody who went on birth control and their personality changed have any of you seen that I've seen it twice I saw so people who basically became different people fairly quickly after going on birth control pills now I don't know if that's a causation or correlation because it's just two people right it's just anecdotal I'm not aware of any studies that would back that up except this one that I was just talking about it's hard for me to imagine that you could put a any kind of pill in a human being male or female oh my god I'm seeing a lot of yeses here okay I wasn't expecting that court really frankly now I don't know if all the yeses are coming from men now be aware this could be confirmation by us right this is sort of the the perfect confirmation bias you know topic and domain so I'm not gonna make a claim it's a question and I ask you this what are the odds that putting a powerful hormone altering substance in your body be you male or female or whatever whatever gender flavor you like what are the odds it wouldn't change your personality because without being a doctor it feels to me like the odds would be zero any any change to your your hormonal structure it almost certainly is gonna have an effect on your on who you are at some fundamental level well I've never seen this many guesses that was okay how many so I'm wondering if this is mostly men because I it's hard for me to tell the genders of the people who were responding but I worry that it's all men because though I worry is confirmation bias but if the women are seeing it then I'd feel a little more suspicion that this is something that needs to be dug into a little bit deeper but just in general changing your hormonal structure should change how you think if it doesn't but be surprised so let's talk about the constitutional or the strategy for impeachment it looks like the the Republicans primary strategy I don't know if we can tell for sure Oh somebody mentioned the prednisone yeah when I was in prednisone just a few weeks ago I was quite aware of a personality alteration I was definitely a different person for the few weeks I was on it so that's the same same point so it looks like the the Republican strategy for impeachment is rather than to argue the details which would be a gigantic mistake and it's the mistake that they've been taking from the start it looks like especially with Alan Dershowitz on the team they're gonna argue that it doesn't matter what the details are because there's nothing that's alleged that's impeachable so if the Republicans are planning this approach I like it a lot I like it a lot and what it would look like and here I'm just you know playing the game through I'm not suggesting that I'm predicting this but one way that they could go is that the the Republicans controlling the Senate will say we're going to open up with discussions on whether or not any of the any of the allegations to fit the constitutional test of even being something appropriate for impeachment before talking about whether it happened or didn't happen who said what who did a quid pro quo we didand what you're expecting what left partners said before getting tuned to any evidence just say here are the two charges and here's the basis for them does the Constitution say this is a peach bowl and the answer is no not even close so I think that's going to be a good strategy and what I would expect is this I would expect that the Republicans will hear the constitutional arguments and then they'll put it to a vote now can they have two votes can they vote and say okay let's say that the against all odds let's say that the majority of the Senate and I don't think this could happen let's say they voted and said yeah I'm the question number one of whether these charges if they're true charges would be impeachable we say yes that's possible right but then separately they'd have to have some other vote I guess to determine whether their charges are actually true so that would be a separate thing I don't think they'd have to get into the facts I think they'll probably just dismiss it after the constitutional argument which by the way would be the best way to defend the Constitution best way to defend the Constitution is to not let them talk about the details because if you let them talk about the details you're going to be missing the whole point and it becomes exactly what the founders didn't want it to be a purely political process even though we know the outcome why would you not try to defend the Constitution while you could if you're a Republican senator by saying you know let's say that the victim here's the Constitution so let's let's try to revive the Constitution a little bit there was a disturbing video of a crowd in Baltimore who are sort of attacking a policeman who had a suspect on the ground you may have seen it's a viral video now so the police officer was trying to get control of a perp on the ground and other people were coming up and looked like they were kicking the policeman etc and so there's of course a call for those people who were assaulting the policemen to be punished and you say to yourself well good luck with that because these were you know random people who cake the policemen and ran away like what are you gonna do but it's on video alright but still what are you gonna do it's hard to identify people just because you have on video right well not anymore remember I told you yesterday there's a a tool an app called Clearview AI it was the front page of the New York Times because it's a gigantic controversy about privacy and whether this is going to go too far and it's going to cause a dystopian everything we're losing all our privacy so those issues are important all worth talking about I think the ACLU is getting involved I mean it's really it's becoming this big deal but here's my point that app all it needs in all likelihood all of these is a screen grab from the video of the crowd and a couple of screen grabs that get the faces and and and law enforcement will probably have immediately the social media and real names of the perpetrators in the crowd because they have the technology now they probably won't have to ask people they probably won't have to ask the public they probably won't have to go door to door they probably won't need any witnesses they probably just take the security camera video run it through the clear view AI app it's gonna spit out their names think about that I've been man it's a new world all right I know what you want to talk about yesterday at the end of my periscope I ran those of you who were here I ran you through an exercise to reduce your anxiety in life whatever the source of your anxiety is whether it's an actual mental problem something temporary is something you're worrying about and I wanted to reinforce that so I'm going to give you a little bit of reinforcement on top of that this is a cumulative process the first time you're exposed to it you might not have a deep you know a deep feeling of change some of you actually did I heard from a lot of people yesterday who told me that the exercise immediately released their anxiety now I assume that's temporary but if you can find a way to temporarily release your anxiety and do it as often as you can because that's how you get to eventually you know a place where you have a stable lack of anxiety and you give you some more tricks and tips on this in a moment but I didn't want to tell you that based on the feedback it was completely successful now completely successful doesn't mean it worked with every person because I told you it wouldn't you're all different but completely successful and that a lot of people said it changed something it changed something deeply meaningful to them so I'm gonna do it again and the the big thing I introduced and by the way I I cut out just the the part of my periscope from yesterday and made a separate clip that's just the last part of the periscope so you can just see the the anxiety solution technique so that's on You.

Tube right now just search real coffee with Scott Adams on You.

Tube it'll pop right up so just look at the the quick one if that's all you want what I talked about on that and it won't make as much sense unless you saw the other video so I save this for the end if you need to see it in in order see that first come back to this I talked about seeing the world through different filters and I'm going to give you some more filters so you get a let's say a deeper understanding of how how this concept works one of the things that people ask me about is how do you deal with the fact that you know you're gonna have some bad news in the future you don't know the details but you know for example that somebody's gonna die before you do do you know that there will be you know various problems in life and I'll gonna give you a technique that I use I've had a lot of pets and I've had a lot of pets who passed and I give very attached to my pets and so when a cat dies for example it's it's a big deal I the cat for 19 years there was my constant you know workplace companion and when she passed it was a big deal I have now a dog most of you know Snickers who's at that age where if she's if she's got another two years in her I hope she has more but you know the average for that breed would be a couple more years she seems to be perfectly healthy now but here's how I deal with the fact that when she passes it will be like losing a limb yeah I've heard that I've heard that analogy before I've heard people who won't get a second dog after the first one because the trauma of losing it is so extreme that they can't go through it again I see a lot of you talking about the pain and you see on social media people posting their painful situation if they have an animal that's that's about ready to pass so let me tell you the filter I put on this if you focus on the loss and the badness of it you will feel anxiety and you will feel bad but you do have the risk you had you have the option of reframing this and let me tell you how I reframe it for my pets and how I reframe it for Snickers so that I don't spend the next two years worrying about how I'm gonna feel when when her natural life comes to an end and here's how I reframe it i reframe it as a privilege and an honor for me the ability to be there at the end of her life my dog Snickers is going to be an honor it's going to be a privilege and I wouldn't have it any other way and when I think of it that way it changes how I process it now I know I'm going to feel terrible when the day comes but until then I'm just honored I actually feel a sense of duty at a very deep level and commitment and I felt the same way with my cats and they're in their final moments of life I felt honored that I could be part of it so I give you that let me give you a couple of their filters have you ever worried that there's something you know big that you need to do that there's really giving you anxiety let's say you're trying to buy a house but you've never done that you're like how do people buy a house how do they afford it have it how do they work out all the details and the repairs and the contracts and all this or are you thinking about moving and you think how do people do this like moving is let's say to another state it's a big deal you think about getting married you think about having families you think about and any one of these things you think about they seem like really hard if you've never done those things they seem really hard here's the filter I put on that there are a lot of idiots in the world and they can do all of those things the world is built for people of average capabilities so if your average or above-average and most of you are probably above average if you're listening to this periscope especially and just tell yourself there are millions and millions of idiots who figured out how to buy a house millions of idiots who learned how to move to another state millions and millions of any it's who had kids got married you know changed jobs millions of idiots learned to do a job that you wish you were smart enough to do guess why you are you are smart enough to do it because millions of idiots did it the million idiot filter on life immediately removes your anxiety about things you haven't done before now if the only people who had done the thing you want to do were geniuses well I guess you should worry about that you know unless you're a genius like well the only people who can pull this our geniuses do you know how many people pulled off buying a house not just the smart ones all right so that's a filter I like to use it immediately makes me feel comfortable because almost anybody can do these things that look scary here's another one you've heard this one before the Adams law of slow moving disasters throughout history when humans can see a problem coming from far away we have a hundred percent track record of solving it for example we're all going to run out of food because our population is growing well we figured out birth control we figured out fertilizer we figured out better farming methods we got food we're gonna run out of water because well turns out we drilled for more water and we built more canals we figured out how to get one or two everybody we're certainly gonna run out of oil and nope we figured out how to frack we figured out how to make windmills and and stuff so if you look at something such as the threat of climate science I think a lot of you on this periscope are not worried about it but let's say you were remind yourself the society is genius as solving problems as sees coming from far distance this will be no exception whatever problems come from climate change could be little could be locked I've no I'm no scientist and I don't believe anybody can really predict that stuff but no matter what you think about it the worst-case scenario is that it is a problem but we're really really good at solving this stuff we have companies coming online that can scrub the co2 out of the air if it ever becomes necessary and then others if you say wait we can't be scrubbing the co2 out of the air because it's plant food it's plant food you'll destroy the earth by scrubbing all the co2 out of the air now you won't you'll just unplug them if you get too much co2 just unplug it so don't worry about these big problems that we can see coming from miles away those are the ones we solve every time the ones you need to worry about are the ones that came out of nowhere you know you didn't see it coming so we're very consistent about that all right here's another one sometimes when I feel really down and it happens I have to admit it hasn't happened in a long time but in my past there have been times when I just felt beaten down by life and you know I sometimes you just don't want to wake up the next day here's a filter that I put on my life that I find really useful curiosity it turns out that we humans are really motivated by curiosity some more than others it's the reason that a good author will will put at the end of a chapter a little mystery it's like and then someone knocked at the door and it's the next chapter you look ha ha I can read a whole other chapter about another character before I find out who was knocking at that door so it turns out that curiosity is a tremendous motivator for people and here's a filter I put on things when I'm feeling depressed and down and I just you know my purpose for life seems to be extinguished temporarily I say this I wonder how this is going to turn out and I and I just treat it as a curiosity what if I'm just watching this life like a spectator I also use the combine this with the no freewill filter now I believe that we don't have free will because I think physics the laws of physics don't stop when you get to your skull whatever is happening inside your skull is also subject to the laws of physics so whatever causes and effects are coming into your head you know there's only one thing that's going to come out of that because of the structure and the exactness of your of your brain and its architecture so sometimes when things are going not going my way I just sit back and say what if I just watch now I still do all the things that I would do I still brush my teeth go to work get my car I still do everything but instead of saying I'm deciding to do this I say I'm not deciding to do this I don't have free will I'm I'm actually a spectator in my own life I'm just watching I'm watching myself brush my teeth I'm watching myself go to work I'm just watching and I wonder how does this game end what happens tomorrow given this current situation where am I going to be next week and what you'll find is that can immediately take un of your depression and into a mode of curiosity and a mode of just feeling like you're a spectator and you don't have to have great distress because things are going the way you wanted them to go instead you can say well they were gonna go that way there's no free will I'm just along for the ride I wonder how it turns out now until you try it you might not believe that that will take you into a different mindset but my experiences that it does here's another filter on life god I told you that one of the reasons that hallucinogens might be so effective for curing the whole range of mental problems most of them anxiety related I think is that it takes your ego that the the hallucinogens take your ego and of your worldview and once you feel that you that you personally are not that important or that you're just part of the whole then you start with you stop worrying so much about what you and your ego we're going to experience tomorrow because you're just not that important you're you're not the main reason of the universe it's just lil you and you'll be fine and another way to get there is by belief in a higher power belief in that god of one type or another because the the God model the way most people practice it is that God is great and you're not it kind of puts you in your place believing in religion puts you in your place it takes your big ol ego well I'm pretty special and it just says no you're not God is special you're you're you're just a follower yes it teaches you humility by giving you a contrast to something that needs no humility right a non nip it in power humility would make no sense at all because it would just be a lie so when you compare yourself and contrast is one of the great principles of managing your psychological state and persuasion and everything else anytime there's a contrast it helps focus you and understand things in their place so I'm believing there's a God who is great puts you know put you in your place so I think that could be a good filter and here somebody just said exactly what I was going to say next Alcoholics Anonymous uses this technique so if you go into an a a meaning to try to quit alcohol or drugs there's a drug version of it they recommend that you sort of put yourselves in the hand in this in the hands of a higher power now they're not too specific about you know I have to be a Christian you don't have to be a specific kind of belief but whatever you believe is the higher power if you're not a believer you could say well the higher power is physics I don't have free will I just release myself to to freewill or if you believe in God you say I just release myself and less sort of God work through me now that's a filter we don't need to decide whose religion is right or if God even exists you don't need to it's a filter that works because the alcoholic anonymous process apparently from everything I've learned is one of the few things that does work and I think that the active part of the process is removing your ego by putting yourselves in the hand of a higher power the other thing that that does to remove here is it part of the process part of the steps yeah and again somebody knows more about this than I do just chime in but part of it is essentially apologizing to all the people you hurt which again is ego it's all ego if you go into a any kind of a rehab situation you you give up you know sort of all the other parts of your life you're stripped down to just your biological entity you're put into your place your ego is removed or at least reduced so that's one filter belief in the higher power here's another filter optimism the way the way you should see optimism in other words simply just telling yourself that there are some good things ahead because you can dwell on the bad stuff and it can change your whole mental state or you can do what Tony Robbins suggests in his own way and I'm going to suggest in my own way same same idea that your brain is only capable of thinking about so much in any in any single time we're not real good in multi Pro multitaskers if your brain is focused on one thing it doesn't have much left for other things you know you can find out if there's a train coming at you while you're doing your taxes but mostly you have a certain amount of shelf space I call it in your brain you have some control actually a lot of control over what's on the shelf if you don't take control of it and you just say well I'm just gonna wake up today and go on with my life all I'm gonna do today is whatever comes up I'll do my tasks I'll do my job you know I know what I'm supposed to do your shelf space will fill up without your control it will just fill up with whatever thoughts we're gonna bubble up what kind of thoughts tend to bubble up if you don't manage your shelf space the good ones now you could probably confirm this from your own experience if you are idle and you don't have much to think about do you automatically drift - happy thoughts sometimes but far more often the negative is what you what bubbles up because we're designed that way humans are designed to find problems and then fix them we're not designed to dwell on things that are going well look around your atmosphere or your environment how much your your environment are you actively processing very little of it because it's going well I've got a table over there that's not bothering me at all it requires no attention at all it's not my consciousness so actively learn to fantasize and imagine positive outcomes in a variety of ways so that whenever you feel your shelf space is starting to get a little room in it fill it fill it consciously directly intentionally fill it never let your shelf space fill itself you control that you get to think about what you want to thank I mean if you have some terrible tragedy it's gonna be hard to keep it out of your head but for most of us our just daily life you can fill that thing with anything you want in my twenties trying to crowd out bad memories of my childhood which was pretty horrific I would fill it with work so I would just work myself to exhaustion fall asleep and then get up early in the morning and work myself to exhaustion again and it really worked now not everybody can work themselves to exhaustion for a year after year but I filled by by a shelf space and whenever I felt it starting to fill on its own I would very actively crowd it out with optimism you see president Trump operating on this principle and he got it he came to it honestly and really exactly the same way I did through the impact of Norman Vincent Peale who wrote the book the power of positive thinking coincidentally or not was the Trump family pastor or Minister I forget which is the right word at their family church where they went to church they saw the king of positive thinking the most famous positive thinking promoter in the United States ever and you see Trump do it all the time he's very much filling his shelf space with optimism and ours too here's another technique if you want to work on your ego put yourself in situations in which you embarrass yourself often and survive how many times have you seen me embarrass myself right here on periscope and then the next day well I'm back again here's my coffee tastes good have you ever seen embarrassment changed my behavior or even my attitude probably not and I wasn't always that way I used to be you know easily embarrassed and it would ruin my whole day ruined my week ruined my month the feeling of embarrassments like aha I'm reliving it in my mind that time I did that but how many times if you see me have to like blow my nose on camera because you know I just had to how many times I was rewatching one of my periscopes I watched some of them just to see if what I'm doing to make sure I'm doing what I want to be doing and I'm replaying it I realized that I went in this extended discussion of Iraq but I kept referring you to it as a ran and when I watched it I was like oh I can't believe I had this extended discussion of the wrong country just because my mind mixed up the words my first thought was just sort of a flash of anger I was just mad that it happened so sort of mad at myself but I never once felt embarrassed not even a little and it takes a lot of practice to get there so I recommend putting yourself in situations maybe join Toastmasters where you have to talk in front of people do something that's outside of your comfort zone just embarrass yourself and then find out just track it wake up the next day hey food tastes the same same to have the same friends nothing really changed so the embarrassment filter is a good one just practice embarrassing yourself until it just doesn't feel like painful anymore it's very doable here's another filter that's more similar to the one that I talked about in my prior periscope every now and then I like to imagine that I'm in a video game now that's very much what I was telling you to visualize visualize that you were sort of in a you know virtual reality rendered environment what that does is it puts you in the moment because you're you're forced to think about your immediate situation because you're imagining it rendered and that takes your ego and things because you're you're not focusing on yourself and your needs for a while so I helped a lot of people relax but here's another here's another way I think of it there are days when I say to myself today was just like a video game and I feel like I I captured a resource or I learned something that allowed me to go up to the next level of the game and here are a few levels which I would like to suggest that some of you have already passed through one of those levels toward the bottom is understanding that people are fundamentally irrational now I wrote my book when Bigley to reinforce that idea if you are going through life thinking that other people are rational you will be frustrated and that and happy every day because people are not rational and if you try to imagine that they are your understanding of what should happen next won't match what happens next because you'll say well here are my 10 good reasons why you should agree with me and then you think well now you'll agree with me but then you don't because we're irrational so expecting people to act rationally is a formula for stress and anxiety so the first time that you move up a level in this let's let's call it the video game of life you can't move up a level until you get that and you really have to get it and I don't mean saying that sometimes other people are irrational I mean that it's the base code of our existence it's our operating system we operate on confirmation bias and the subjective kind of reality which leads me to the next level is one thing to say that people are irrational but it's next level in terms of a video game it's next level thinking to say that maybe our entire reality is subjective which doesn't mean there isn't something real but understanding that our human evolution was never directed at giving us understanding of reality we did not evolve or at least there's no reason to believe we evolved to understand the nature of reality wasn't important a clam can reproduce without understanding reality a cat can reproduce without understanding nearly as much as we understand understanding reality and like really understanding it completely optional and maybe even unproductive for evolution so we did not evolve with that capability and indeed you can see that we don't have it just observe how people act so once you really realize that we're all in a different movie that we're looking at the same document and seeing a different reality you've got a different religion than somebody else once you understand how a subjective our our experience is you move up to the next level right so the first level is understanding that people are fundamentally irrational and the level after that is that that irrationality is related to the fact we're not even seeing the same world we exist in it and we interact but we keep getting confused and tense in our interactions because we don't understand why you're not seeing what I'm seeing and the reason is different realities and then here's here's the next level above that because I believe a lot of you have already passed through those two levels the level above that is to understand that your brain is programmable and not just a little bit you all know that you can learn something and that's in a sense that's programming your brain but it's much deeper than that you you can fundamentally change your preferences yes you can change your preferences I have experimented with this over the years I'm not going to give you examples because I don't want to get into the details but I have actually experimented trying to like something I didn't like and to see if I could do it until I loved it and I've also experimented taking something I loved let's say eating Snickers candy bars and turning it into something I didn't like and I can succeed it's completely doable you can rewire your preferences now you have to understand that if you think the only thing you can do is add memories or maybe you can add a little skill you don't get to go to the next level you have to understand that you can change your basic personality if you know how to do it that's the highest level I've done it a whole number of times I've watched other people do it so and it takes a little trial and error to do it but what we're talking about today is exactly that it's reprogramming your your brain let me give you my favorite example of programming a brain I've been watching Cristina and my fiancee learn wealth not learning but recovering her piano skills from when she was younger she took piano lessons when she was younger and I've watched her recently go from somebody who who had some basic piano skills and knew how to play the piano better than most people but you know just sort of a you know a good piano player to last two weeks she learned one of the most complicated Chopin what would you call it I don't know pieces that you've ever heard in your life and if you don't play the piano Chopin apparently is extra hard extra-hard in terms of where your fingers go at what time is just really hard if you hear somebody playing the piano on say a rock song they're doing something called an accompaniment by the way I just learned this so if you if somebody is playing an accompaniment with other instruments of the singer in a band that's relatively easy piano playing because that sort of Bing Bing Bing Bing Bing Bing Bing Bing you know somewhat simple patterns that's all you need to accompany a band if you're a solo artist and you're playing Chopin both of your hands are operating completely independently each of your fingers is operating independently and you're putting together hundreds thousands I don't know how many notes are are in in a Chopin piece thousands but at least as many hundreds right and I'm walking by you know and I'm hearing her practice and in just in the last few weeks she got to the point where she's memorized the entire piece and now she's just you know honing it and I think to myself what the heck happened inside her actual physical brain she rewired her brain in two weeks I mean a pretty substantial rewiring because none of the skills that she is she is demonstrating at a near virtuoso level didn't exist two weeks ago yeah it's all we call a muscle memory but of course it's it's in the brain it's not in your muscles and so when you see people fundamentally rewiring I mean something insanely impressive in two weeks you know she practiced a lot but it's just two weeks you start to realize how programmable your brain is so everybody who's got a loop in their brain that's not working you might be able to reprogram that and I have lots of experience of doing it myself now let me give you a fun analogy if you are a computer programmer do you ever write programming code for a computer in zeros and ones do you sit down and say all right I'm gonna write the program 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 and then 1 1 1 0 0 well no you don't now there may be special cases where some somebody's doing some deep engineering and they are actually looking at the zeros and ones but that's not typically the way you write a program the wrote the way you write a program is with something that's analogous to but different from a language like an English language or a French or Spanish or whatever you have words with letters and you use some numbers too but you know brackets and words and they stand for something that the computer translates into zeros and ones here's my analogy when you hear language or you have experiences the the language and the experiences of just hearing things in the spoken word is being translated into your brain into the equivalent of zeros and ones now your brain doesn't work on zeros and ones it works on you know connections that get strengthened and built and some are emphasized and de-emphasize and stuff but the point is that when the programmer is writing the program they don't see the zeros and ones that I don't know exactly what the zeros and ones are doing they just know what the outcome will be when a hypnotist or or somebody doing what I'm doing taking you through a guided visualization I'm having you imagine something that you're imagining in pictures and you're hearing and words but these are symbolic tools that are actually rewiring your brain so when you hear me just talking and you say how can you rewire my brain just by talking well the answer is it's the same way a programmer can program a computer without knowing what zeros and ones are happening I don't know which neurons are firing I don't know which connections are being made but through trial and error and experience I can make general assumptions that effectively become the user interface for your brain so find the user interface for your brain you're getting close you've gone up two levels you're you are on the cusp maybe some of you there of reaching the next level in the game where you can intentionally reprogram your own brain and then love left of that is you can reprogram other people's brains so check out the anxiety let me ask ear how many people on here experienced the anxiety exercise the anti-anxiety exercise I did and tell me what experience you had how many of you had experienced something like a reduction of anxiety it's going to take a while for the comments to catch up so I'll stall until all right so I'll read you the comments as they come in it helped me nothing but I tried made me feel sad remember I said everybody will have a different experience there's a yes yes I did I tried it nothing happened and a body experience some people have that no change no change somebody said read my brain thumbs up yep I did me totally relaxed no yes yes it helped somebody said it didn't help yes no yeah on You.

Tube is where you'll find the the stored thing a calming I definitely did I felt like it I felt like it was being in denial it was very unusual it reframed things definite reduction good good reminder no change definitely relief me no husband yes felt like floating etc alright here's remember what I told you actually this is actually more of a response than I was actually expecting but remember that this is cumulative so in the example of there was a there was a husband wife where what I think the husband fell something and the wife didn't remember you're all at a different starting place it could be that the people who found who felt something profound we're right at the cusp of moving up to the next level and just easily move to the next level could be the some of you need a little more understanding of frames and that's what I did for you today so you'll find that this needs to be reinforced but the more I reinforce it for you the closer you're going to get to feeling something like that but of course everybody's different we should not expect that any solution medical or physical or otherwise will work the same way for for other people alright and here and let me let me do it for you again right now find a place on your floor wherever you are look at the floor in wherever the floor is the largest area now it doesn't have to be you know you don't have to get it right but just look at what it looks to you in your opinion like the largest floor area you can see and now imagine using yesterday's technique that is rendered it's not real you're in a video game you're at a level and everything here is artificial just think about that today I'll let you do that on your own and what do you feel in the moment because that this exercise will just bring you to the moment you'll feel your environment moving in between being what you thought was real and what you can easily imagine is not and that will keep you in the moment it will reduce the effect of your ego tapping on your shoulder and it will calm you the more you you exercise your ability to calm yourself the better you'll be and that's all for today

[Music]

mmm

hey everybody come on in do you ever

wonder why I do the simultaneous sip

before my periscopes well some of it is

a bonding experience of course but I do

it also somebody asked about this I do

it also because it gives time for people

to stream in before I get into these

serious content so I don't have to

repeat myself and so because you're all

here so early it's time for the

simultaneous sip and all you need is a

cup of mud or glass of tanker chalasis

tying the canteen jerker flask a vessel

of any kind fill it with your favorite

liquid I like coffee and join me down

for the unparalleled pleasure that the

dopamine hit of the day the thing that

makes everything better

the simultaneous it go - ever said first

time to come on time for the

simultaneous sip well now you know the

pleasure oh yeah

that's good all right so yesterday I was

given the telling you that I saw a clip

where a Conor McGregor he's one of the

top MMA fighters the world has ever

produced his coach mentioned me and the

idea of systems / goals as part of the

training process for Conor McGregor and

I was sort of bragging about a little

bit on periscope yesterday that that I'd

done something useful that crossed into

a domain that I know I would not have

expected actually and then I realized

that Conor McGregor was going to fight

last night I didn't realize that the

reason his is his coach trainer was

talking is because the fight was coming

up and suddenly I thought to myself

uh-oh what if he loses

here I've been telling everybody well I

think I've had some influence

maybe indirectly or in a small way in

the process he's using to train but if

you don't already know Conor McGregor

one in 40 seconds let me say that again

he won the fight in 40 seconds I believe

the total tally of punches that the

other guy landed was zero I think in

fact checked me on this but I think I

heard that I think I heard that the

other the the guy the cowboy or whoever

he knocked out who was a top-level

fighter he it's not like he was beating

up people who were just starting this

was a top competitor and the the outcome

was certainly in question encounter

McGregor beat him in 40 seconds and the

other guy didn't land a punch so I guess

you want to breed and read my book had

it failed almost everything and still

win big where I talk about systems are

better than goals if you can't remember

the name of the book just go to Amazon

and Google my name and law pop up let's

talk about my most ridiculous prediction

I suppose I've made some predictions

that are pretty ridiculous but none more

ridiculous than the one I made about who

will be the nominee for the Democrats

now a year and half ago I said well it's

gonna be Harris because she's got all

the tools but it turns out she's a

terrible just a terrible campaigner like

a really really bad campaign so she's

suspended her her run but here's what I

think's gonna happen

would you agree that Joe Biden is sort

of the I guess you'd say he's the

establishment Democrats

that's choice but I think we'd all agree

they're not terribly comfortable with

him because of his age

they kind of like where he has

policy-wise and his connections to

things but maybe not a full confidence

in his current abilities it looks like

the plan is this now by the way did you

know that Harris had one of the the most

endorsements from established people

that's important did you know that

Harris also I believe had the most

Hillary Clinton associated people

working on her campaign did you know

that that's important because it does

seem that Harris was who the let's say

the Clinton holdovers who you imagine

have deep state kind of influence it

looks like they wanted her but she

wasn't getting any traction and she was

doing a terrible job of campaigning but

she's almost a perfect complement to Joe

Biden because he's older she's young so

that that gives you a little confidence

that if something happened to him you'd

say well at least there's a young person

with Senate experience you know it's not

going to be the end of the world if Joe

had to exit the job a little early so

that's a good compliment secondly she's

a person of color now so is cory booker

cory booker very solid capable public

servant senator Cory Booker would be

great right except Cory Booker's a man

if you have a choice of having your

running mate let's say you're Joe Biden

a choice of having someone who is only a

person of color but unfortunately a man

versus someone is a person of color but

hey a woman which is better which is a

better compliment no question about it

there's no question about it the best

compliment to the ticket is Harris now I

have a second theory

that part of the reason the hair has

disappeared is that it was a way to

close down the campaign and get rid of

her sister as her main advisor because

if you're the part of the let's say

Clinton shadow government deep state

democrat establishment people you kind

of needed to get rid of Harris's system

in order to make Harris useful I'm gonna

say that she may be undergoing some kind

of coaching mentoring practice situation

and I think that if she were to be

nominated for a vice president or or

picked as a running mate I mean by Biden

that the next time you see her she's

going to come back stronger meaning more

charisma a better presentation a little

more crisp message you know on point and

so that's what I would look for because

I believe she's very coachable Harris is

unique in that she doesn't have any she

doesn't seem to have any problems that I

would consider unsolvable natural

problems it all seems like technique now

some have pointed out you know hey

Harris does not have a lot of popularity

in the african-american community

doesn't matter because Joe Biden does

Joe Biden's popularity in the

african-american community is so high he

doesn't really need to bring more in by

his vice presidential pick he just needs

to show that he's being you know open to

diversity and he's being inclusive and

that's why she'd be a perfect complement

either them individually is a little

weak but together do they actually fit

pretty well and better than anybody else

at least who's a name and the name in

our consciousness right now so the other

part of the the prediction is that by

Election Day if it turns out it's a

Biden Harris ticket the by Election Day

either literally or in kind people will

be talking about here

says the top of the ticket now they

might be saying hey let's flip them

before Election Day because Joe Biden

looks like he's falling apart or they

might say well let's get through the

election the way it is but at least

we've got our emergency spare ready so I

think you're gonna see Harris this is my

most unlikely prediction of all time I

believe that there's not one person here

who would agree with me is it probably

not one of you and that's what makes it

fun all right

so we'll just track that one if I'm

wrong I'm wrong I've got a theory about

Mexico there was a story that the

Mexican military stopped a big crowd of

Guatemalans who were trying to penetrate

the southern border of Mexico if I

understand this right and Mexico is

doing a good job for the United States

being a good good neighbor and partner

by stopping it before it gets to our

border and I say to myself you know why

is it that the government of Mexico was

so good on this point but not good on

let's say fighting cartels because I

look at what the government of Mexico is

doing they're putting a lot of money and

resources and it feels like they're

doing it almost entirely for the benefit

of the United States does that seem in

character does it make sense given the

other things they're doing so how does

it make sense that they're so flexible

and really more than flexible they're

putting major effort and resources into

doing something we want stopping people

coming through their southern border

before they get to our border but at the

same time it feels like they're doing

absolutely nothing about the cartels at

least in terms of how much we've offered

to help them and they've said no let's

go with the hugs not the guns how can

you explain those two things well

unfortunately there is one way to

explain it now I'm not going to say that

this is a truth I'm going to say that it

would explain our observation in a way

that nothing else does and it goes like

this

the cartels effectively owned the

government of Mexico the cartels make a

tremendous amount of money helping small

groups of mostly Mexican citizens across

the border so it's a gigantic profit

Center for the cartels to let the

onesies and twosies across the border

lots of them I mean it's a big volume

but they're coming across in small

groups the reason that the Guatemalans

form up into large convoys is so that

the cartel can't abuse them and can't

take their money and can't profit so it

seems that the government of Mexico is

very very flexible and willing to work

with us when it helps the profit of the

cartel now it helps us so I think we're

pretty happy that Mexico is stopping the

the caravans but the caravans were the

one way that the cartels couldn't make

money because they form cartels for that

purpose so the cartels could not you

know blackmail them and threaten them it

was it was a security reason that's why

they do it so my guess is that the

reason that there may be perhaps even

some kind of understanding with our

government that we're really dealing

with the cartels and that if we can get

them to stop the massive immigration at

least we got something and we're gonna

have to figure out what to do about

fentanyl later I saw on news I don't

know who is talking about it that we

have some kind of process where we check

the incoming I guess once a month we

randomly check incoming shipping

containers or goods coming in from China

in our recent checks something like 15

percent of all the goods coming in from

China are contraband 15 percent 1 5 15

percent of everything that's coming in

from China is either counterfeit goods

that are can

meeting with American products or other

products could be European and and

fentanyl and drugs 15% and apparently

that's the way we'll it's one of the

ways we can tell if they're cooperating

over time so once a month they'll do a

survey and if it's still 15% it means

that China is not cracking down on

intellectual property they're not

cracking down on fentanyl

because they have the ability we know

they have the ability and so I'm looking

at all this and I'm thinking I don't

know if we've done enough working with

China to stop the fentanyl I hear

there's something happening you know

that there's there's noise about them

being successful but I'll say it a

million times as long as the top known

fentanyl dealer in China is still free

which I believe he is somebody can fact

check me on that but I believe he's just

shopping and walking around and selling

fentanyl by the by the barrel as long as

that guy is still alive and free China's

not doing anything that's not real

alright Scott Jennings had an

interesting opinion piece on CNN which I

took some inspiration from for for a

tweet and Scott's Scott Jennings his

point was that well here's the way I

summarized it in my tweet so these are

my words I said it's starting to look as

if the permanent stain of impeachment

will be on Pelosi for trivializing the

process well at the same time it

confirms that Trump is directly over the

target he was elected to destroy now

Scott Jennings point which I basically

stole to reword into a tweet because I

wanted the the crisp version because

it's it just transmits better small his

point was that Donald Trump was elected

to break the parts of the government we

don't like right

that's pretty true with nobody elected

Trump to be a steady-state to keep it

the same keep this ship going just the

way it was he was brought in to just

break stuff he was he was brought in

like a wrecking ball to just you know

just wreck all the stuff that was frozen

and broken and corrupt now of course he

can't get rid of all corruption and all

all problems in the government but what

would you expect the world would look

like if he were successful in doing what

his voters asked him to do well that

looked like well one of the things that

I think you could predict is that the

other side would try everything they

could to stop him they would try all the

easy stuff first let's try to beat him

in the election okay that didn't work

let's try to beat him and the in public

opinion okay he's really good at that

that's not working let's beat him by

controlling the press

oh he just deal agenda Mize the entire

press let's use our our deep state and

people we have him maybe the FBI or the

Department of Justice oh they got caught

think about it the Democrats have thrown

every everything you could throw at this

president what would be the most natural

result of here's the key point and this

is what I'm stealing from Scott Jennings

what would be the natural outcome of

Trump succeeding at what he promised his

voters impeachment given that the given

that the house is controlled by the

other party you would expect and in fact

we should have been able to predict that

the better Trump did in terms of

destroying the things that people wanted

him to destroy everything from the press

to the every old way of doing things

apparently he was calling his generals

idiots I'm not even sad about that he

came in to break stuff he's breaking

stuff and he's not breaking the stuff I

didn't want broken

he's only breaking the stuff I thought

needed to get a little bit broken please

shake the box right

so this weird thing is is forming which

is that the impeachment is starting to

morph or or evolve from the worst state

a president could have to wait for it

the the clearest signal that he's doing

what the voters asked him to do you

could not have a more clear signal that

he's right over the target because he's

getting all the anti-aircraft fire

they're unloading the clip all right

they're throwing everything at him it's

all they had left and it looks desperate

does not impeachment is starting to look

like a death rattle for the Democratic

Party and it's starting to look not even

starting to look oh I can stay I can

state this as as a firm statement of

fact Pelosi is going to wear the stain

of impeachment forever because she broke

one of the most important parts of the

Constitution

she broke impeachment by mistreating it

by by trivializing it by using it as a

as a base political tool instead of the

last resort she's gonna have to live

with that forever every time in the

future there's another impeachment and

you know there's going to be a lot of

them gonna be a lot of them every time

you your president is a different party

from the House impeachments just

automatic and what will every story say

about that they're going to say Pelosi

did this they're going to say Pelosi

broke this this used to be a process

that would get rid of a Richard Nixon

now it's not now it's just a broken

partisan thing and that stain will be on

Pelosi forever but what about the stain

on Trump well here's the thing if you

get impeached because you did let's say

what Richard Nixon did well that's a

stain forever if you can impeached for

what Bill Clinton did

it's kind of a mixed bag isn't it how

many of you think back to the Clinton

administration and think well let's say

if you're a Democrat how many look back

to the Bill Clinton administration say

you know he did a whole bunch of good

things it was a very successful

administration from from my perspective

as a Democrat and by the way I would

agree that Bill Clinton had a successful

presidency but I have not once not one

time have I thought back and said to

myself you know I think less of Bill

Clinton because he got engaged no once I

don't believe dole Clinton has a stain

on his presidency as big as the stain he

left on Monica's dress you know

certainly as part of the story

everybody's heard of it he would prefer

that didn't happen his supporters would

prefer didn't happen but if you're

talking about the impeachment itself

which did not remove him from office is

he stained by the impeachment not really

I mean he might be stained by the event

itself but his presidency looks

completely intact to me am I wrong

how many people think less of a Bill

Clinton because of impeachment I don't

think I've ever met one person have you

tested on yourself Bill Clinton actually

did something that both parties thought

was worthy of impeachment or at least

enough of them thought it was worthy of

impeaching

and there's no stain there's a stain on

what he did but not on the impeachment

part so I think Bill Clinton I'm so

tells us what's going to happen with

Trump is that it's going to look like a

badge of success by the time he's done

with it you know troubled better than

anybody at grabbing the gun out of the

the muggers hands and turning it around

you know fake news was originally a

complaint about Trump and then he turned

it around now it's a complaint about the

entire media business which he is he's

ruined the credibility of completely

they've done a good job of that of

themselves alright let's talk about cell

phones I in some Twitter feed the other

yesterday I guess I was supporting

Bernie's version of events with

Elizabeth Warren so it doesn't matter

the details but I was I did a a

supportive tweet about Bernie saying

essentially that I believe his version

of the story and the number of Bernie's

supporters jumped in to say they were

grudgingly agreeing with me as their

Bernie supporters but and they hated it

because I'm such a terrible person and

that I'm the worst person in the world

and that agree with me is as hard

because I'm so terrible and I thought to

myself I don't know too many people I

would call terrible people I know a lot

of people I disagree with I know a lot

of people who have done specific things

I don't like but I don't really think of

too many people as just terrible people

and I think what kind of fake news are

you reading like I don't even even know

where it comes from what exactly have I

done

that would qualify me to be a terrible

human I mean not just somebody you

disagree with not somebody who said a

stupid thing that dumb thing now some of

you whose opinions don't make sense none

of that but horrible human being which

is the most common thing that people

were saying about me yesterday on

Twitter at least the critics now none of

that bothers me of course but I'm sort

of amused by it because Bernie's

supporters are more toxic than I had

imagined you know you probably saw the

project Veritas the thing with one of

the Bernie supporters who has just had

some things to say didn't he you all saw

that and probably made you think ah

these Bernie supporters are an

interesting group of people you know I'm

sure most of them are you know just you

know have a preference for him as a

politician but there's some bad people

in that group I'm not going to paint the

entire group by the bad ones but

there's a really some rough characters

in that group now here's a here's a

frame for you then maybe you haven't

heard yet correct me if I'm wrong it's

possible somebody who said this or maybe

lots of people at that I haven't even

heard it do you remember the old days

when IBM had personal computers they

were competing against Apple Computer

and Apple came up with this great way to

frame the situation the competition now

I don't know exactly how true it was but

it was a terrific way to frame it and it

went like this that you know there are

people who go from IBM pcs this is back

in the day they would switch out and

they become Mac users it was fairly

common but what Apple realized is that

people didn't go back in other words you

didn't see or at least it was rare that

happens of course but it was rare for

somebody who was a Macintosh user to say

now I've decided to change my mind I'll

become an IBM PC user but it was very

common for somebody to go the other way

and just stay there and that's a really

powerful frame as soon as you hear that

you say to yourself okay that tells me

everything I need to know that it's it's

just a one-way trip now let's take that

analogy and again analogies are now for

persuasion they're just to make points

here's my point we've been talking about

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Bernie

Sanders having similar voters and that

one of them needs to shrink in order for

the other to grow because it's the same

pool you know that neither of them can

grow until one of them declines in

popularity because the voters are going

to go to the other one let me ask you

this

after this Elizabeth Warren incident

with Bernie

how many Bernie voters could go to

Elizabeth Warren after she stabbed their

candidate candidate in the back

according to that how many none maybe

none how many

the Warrens supporters let's say she

started falling in the polls and they

wanted somebody who had similar policies

how many Warren supporters would be

psychologically primed and ready and

willing to go to Bernie maybe all of

them maybe all of them because it's

similar policies and who are you going

to go to if Elizabeth Warren isn't going

to work out where are you gonna go

because Bernie Bernie didn't stab

Elizabeth Warren or at least it doesn't

look like that I mean some people might

think that but I think it's a one-way

trip so at this point if if all of the

let's say the progressives or the

socialists Democratic socialists who

want one of those two the decisions

already over let me say that again

if you're wondering which way it's going

to go will Bernie's people go to Warren

or Warren's people that go to Bernie

that's over you don't have to wonder

anymore there's only one way it can go

at this point it can only go from Orange

Bernie the Bernie to warren path is

closed by what warren did to bernie it's

closed so if you're going to predict

that's an easy one Bernie will rise and

Warren will fall because Warren can

never get enough of Bernie voters after

what she did to him you know I'm right I

saw an article that probably needs some

more studies to back it up that the

birth control pill shrinks a part of the

brain in women or there might be a

Korell it might be a weird correlation

but women who have been on birth control

pills at one specific part of the brain

that shrunk 6% on average compared it

was smaller so let me let me correct

what I just said the study did not show

that being on the pill shrunked that

part of the brain it only showed that

people on the pill had on average a

smaller part of that brain could be some

other reason but it's hard to know what

that would be

however I ask you this have you ever had

this experience just anecdotally of

seeing somebody who went on birth

control and their personality changed

have any of you seen that I've seen it

twice I saw so people who basically

became different people fairly quickly

after going on birth control pills now I

don't know if that's a causation or

correlation because it's just two people

right it's just anecdotal I'm not aware

of any studies that would back that up

except this one that I was just talking

about it's hard for me to imagine that

you could put a any kind of pill in a

human being male or female oh my god I'm

seeing a lot of yeses here okay I wasn't

expecting that court really frankly now

I don't know if all the yeses are coming

from men now be aware this could be

confirmation by us right this is sort of

the the perfect confirmation bias

you know topic and domain so I'm not

gonna make a claim it's a question and I

ask you this what are the odds that

putting a powerful hormone altering

substance in your body be you male or

female or whatever whatever gender

flavor you like what are the odds it

wouldn't change your personality because

without being a doctor it feels to me

like the odds would be zero any any

change to your your hormonal structure

it almost certainly is gonna have an

effect on your on who you are at some

fundamental level well I've never seen

this many guesses that was okay how many

so I'm wondering if this is mostly men

because I it's hard for me to tell the

genders of the people who were

responding but I worry that it's all men

because though I worry is confirmation

bias

but if the women are seeing it then I'd

feel a little more suspicion that this

is something that needs to be dug into a

little bit deeper but just in general

changing your hormonal structure should

change how you think if it doesn't but

be surprised so let's talk about the

constitutional or the strategy for

impeachment it looks like the the

Republicans primary strategy I don't

know if we can tell for sure Oh somebody

mentioned the prednisone yeah when I was

in prednisone just a few weeks ago I was

quite aware of a personality alteration

I was definitely a different person for

the few weeks I was on it so that's the

same same point so it looks like the the

Republican strategy for impeachment is

rather than to argue the details which

would be a gigantic mistake and it's the

mistake that they've been taking from

the start

it looks like especially with Alan

Dershowitz on the team they're gonna

argue that it doesn't matter what the

details are because there's nothing

that's alleged that's impeachable so if

the Republicans are planning this

approach I like it a lot I like it a lot

and what it would look like and here I'm

just you know playing the game through

I'm not suggesting that I'm predicting

this but one way that they could go is

that the the Republicans controlling the

Senate will say we're going to open up

with discussions on whether or not any

of the any of the allegations to fit the

constitutional test of even being

something appropriate for impeachment

before talking about whether it happened

or didn't happen

who said what who did a quid pro quo we

didand what you're expecting what left

partners said before getting tuned to

any evidence just say here are the two

charges and here's the basis for them

does the Constitution say this is a

peach bowl and the answer is no not even

close

so I think that's going to be a good

strategy and what I would expect is this

I would expect that the Republicans will

hear the constitutional arguments and

then they'll put it to a vote now can

they have two votes can they vote and

say okay let's say that the against all

odds let's say that the majority of the

Senate and I don't think this could

happen let's say they voted and said

yeah I'm the question number one of

whether these charges if they're true

charges would be impeachable we say yes

that's possible right

but then separately they'd have to have

some other vote I guess to determine

whether their charges are actually true

so that would be a separate thing I

don't think they'd have to get into the

facts I think they'll probably just

dismiss it

after the constitutional argument which

by the way would be the best way to

defend the Constitution best way to

defend the Constitution is to not let

them talk about the details because if

you let them talk about the details

you're going to be missing the whole

point and it becomes exactly what the

founders didn't want it to be a purely

political process even though we know

the outcome why would you not try to

defend the Constitution while you could

if you're a Republican senator by saying

you know let's say that the victim

here's the Constitution so let's let's

try to revive the Constitution a little

bit there was a disturbing video of a

crowd in Baltimore who are sort of

attacking a policeman who had a suspect

on the ground you may have seen it's a

viral video now so the police officer

was trying to get control of a perp on

the ground and other people were coming

up and looked like they were kicking the

policeman etc and so there's of course a

call for those people who were

assaulting the policemen to be punished

and you say to yourself well good luck

with that because these were you know

random people who cake the policemen and

ran away like what are you gonna do but

it's on video alright but still what are

you gonna do it's hard to identify

people just because you have on video

right well not anymore remember I told

you yesterday there's a a tool an app

called Clearview AI it was the front

page of the New York Times because it's

a gigantic controversy about privacy and

whether this is going to go too far and

it's going to cause a dystopian

everything we're losing all our privacy

so those issues are important all worth

talking about

I think the ACLU is getting involved I

mean it's really it's becoming this big

deal but here's my point that app all it

needs

in all likelihood all of these is a

screen grab from the video of the crowd

and a couple of screen grabs that get

the faces and and and law enforcement

will probably have immediately the

social media and real names of the

perpetrators in the crowd because they

have the technology now they probably

won't have to ask people they probably

won't have to ask the public they

probably won't have to go door to door

they probably won't need any witnesses

they probably just take the security

camera video run it through the clear

view AI app it's gonna spit out their

names think about that I've been man

it's a new world all right I know what

you want to talk about yesterday

at the end of my periscope I ran those

of you who were here I ran you through

an exercise to reduce your anxiety in

life whatever the source of your anxiety

is whether it's an actual mental problem

something temporary is something you're

worrying about and I wanted to reinforce

that so I'm going to give you a little

bit of reinforcement on top of that this

is a cumulative process the first time

you're exposed to it you might not have

a deep

you know a deep feeling of change some

of you actually did I heard from a lot

of people yesterday who told me that the

exercise immediately released their

anxiety now I assume that's temporary

but if you can find a way to temporarily

release your anxiety and do it as often

as you can

because that's how you get to eventually

you know a place where you have a stable

lack of anxiety and you give you some

more tricks and tips on this in a moment

but I didn't want to tell you that based

on the feedback it was completely

successful now completely successful

doesn't mean it worked with every person

because I told you it wouldn't you're

all different but completely successful

and that a lot of people said it changed

something it changed something deeply

meaningful to them so I'm gonna do it

again

and the the big thing I introduced and

by the way I I cut out just the the part

of my periscope from yesterday and made

a separate clip that's just the last

part of the periscope so you can just

see the the anxiety solution technique

so that's on YouTube right now just

search real coffee with Scott Adams on

YouTube it'll pop right up so just look

at the the quick one if that's all you

want what I talked about on that and it

won't make as much sense unless you saw

the other video so I save this for the

end if you need to see it in in order

see that first come back to this I

talked about seeing the world through

different filters and I'm going to give

you some more filters so you get a let's

say a deeper understanding of how how

this concept works one of the things

that people ask me about is how do you

deal with the fact that you know you're

gonna have some bad news in the future

you don't know the details but you know

for example that somebody's gonna die

before you do do you know that there

will be you know various problems in

life and I'll gonna give you a technique

that I use

I've had a lot of pets and I've had a

lot of pets who passed and I give very

attached to my pets and so when a cat

dies for example it's it's a big deal I

the cat for 19 years

there was my constant you know workplace

companion and when she passed it was a

big deal I have now a dog most of you

know Snickers who's at that age where if

she's if she's got another two years in

her I hope she has more but you know the

average for that breed would be a couple

more years she seems to be perfectly

healthy now but here's how I deal with

the fact that when she passes it will be

like losing a limb yeah I've heard that

I've heard that analogy before I've

heard people who won't get a second dog

after the first one because the trauma

of losing it is so extreme that they

can't go through it again I see a lot of

you talking about the pain and you see

on social media people posting their

painful situation if they have an animal

that's that's about ready to pass so let

me tell you the filter I put on this if

you focus on the loss and the badness of

it you will feel anxiety and you will

feel bad but you do have the risk you

had you have the option of reframing

this and let me tell you how I reframe

it for my pets and how I reframe it for

Snickers so that I don't spend the next

two years worrying about how I'm gonna

feel when when her natural life comes to

an end and here's how I reframe it i

reframe it as a privilege and an honor

for me the ability to be there at the

end of her life my dog Snickers is going

to be an honor it's going to be a

privilege and I wouldn't have it any

other way

and when I think of it that way it

changes how I process it now I know I'm

going to feel terrible when the day

comes

but until then I'm just honored I

actually feel a sense of duty at a very

deep level and commitment and I felt the

same way with my cats and they're in

their final moments of life I felt

honored that I could be part of it

so I give you that let me give you a

couple of their filters have you ever

worried that there's something you know

big that you need to do that

there's really giving you anxiety let's

say you're trying to buy a house but

you've never done that you're like how

do people buy a house how do they afford

it have it how do they work out all the

details and the repairs and the

contracts and all this or are you

thinking about moving and you think how

do people do this like moving is let's

say to another state it's a big deal you

think about getting married you think

about having families you think about

and any one of these things you think

about they seem like really hard if

you've never done those things they seem

really hard here's the filter I put on

that there are a lot of idiots in the

world and they can do all of those

things the world is built for people of

average capabilities so if your average

or above-average and most of you are

probably above average if you're

listening to this periscope especially

and just tell yourself there are

millions and millions of idiots who

figured out how to buy a house millions

of idiots who learned how to move to

another state millions and millions of

any it's who had kids got married you

know changed jobs millions of idiots

learned to do a job that you wish you

were smart enough to do guess why you

are you are smart enough to do it

because millions of idiots did it the

million idiot filter on life immediately

removes your anxiety about things you

haven't done before

now if the only people who had done the

thing you want to do were geniuses well

I guess you should worry about that you

know unless you're a genius like well

the only people who can pull this

our geniuses do you know how many people

pulled off buying a house not just the

smart ones all right so that's a filter

I like to use it immediately makes me

feel comfortable because almost anybody

can do these things that look scary

here's another one you've heard this one

before the Adams law of slow moving

disasters throughout history when humans

can see a problem coming from far away

we have a hundred percent track record

of solving it for example we're all

going to run out of food because our

population is growing well we figured

out birth control we figured out

fertilizer we figured out better farming

methods we got food we're gonna run out

of water because well turns out we

drilled for more water and we built more

canals we figured out how to get one or

two everybody we're certainly gonna run

out of oil and nope we figured out how

to frack we figured out how to make

windmills and and stuff so if you look

at something such as the threat of

climate science I think a lot of you on

this periscope are not worried about it

but let's say you were remind yourself

the society is genius as solving

problems as sees coming from far

distance this will be no exception

whatever problems come from climate

change could be little could be locked

I've no I'm no scientist and I don't

believe anybody can really predict that

stuff but no matter what you think about

it the worst-case scenario is that it is

a problem but we're really really good

at solving this stuff we have companies

coming online that can scrub the co2 out

of the air if it ever becomes necessary

and then others if you say wait we can't

be scrubbing the co2 out of the air

because it's plant food

it's plant food you'll destroy the earth

by scrubbing all the co2 out of the air

now you won't you'll just unplug them if

you get too much co2 just unplug it so

don't worry about

these big problems that we can see

coming from miles away those are the

ones we solve every time the ones you

need to worry about are the ones that

came out of nowhere

you know you didn't see it coming so

we're very consistent about that all

right here's another one sometimes when

I feel really down and it happens I have

to admit it hasn't happened in a long

time but in my past there have been

times when I just felt beaten down by

life and you know I sometimes you just

don't want to wake up the next day

here's a filter that I put on my life

that I find really useful curiosity it

turns out that we humans are really

motivated by curiosity some more than

others

it's the reason that a good author will

will put at the end of a chapter a

little mystery it's like and then

someone knocked at the door and it's the

next chapter you look ha ha

I can read a whole other chapter about

another character before I find out who

was knocking at that door so it turns

out that curiosity is a tremendous

motivator for people and here's a filter

I put on things when I'm feeling

depressed and down and I just you know

my purpose for life seems to be

extinguished temporarily I say this I

wonder how this is going to turn out and

I and I just treat it as a curiosity

what if I'm just watching this life like

a spectator I also use the combine this

with the no freewill filter now I

believe that we don't have free will

because I think physics the laws of

physics don't stop when you get to your

skull whatever is happening inside your

skull is also subject to the laws of

physics

so whatever causes and effects are

coming into your head you know there's

only one thing that's going to come out

of that because of the structure and the

exactness of your of your brain and its

architecture so sometimes when things

are going not going my way I just sit

back and say what if I just watch now

I still do all the things that I would

do I still brush my teeth go to work get

my car I still do everything but instead

of saying I'm deciding to do this I say

I'm not deciding to do this I don't have

free will I'm I'm actually a spectator

in my own life

I'm just watching I'm watching myself

brush my teeth I'm watching myself go to

work

I'm just watching and I wonder how does

this game end what happens tomorrow

given this current situation where am I

going to be next week and what you'll

find is that can immediately take un of

your depression and into a mode of

curiosity and a mode of just feeling

like you're a spectator and you don't

have to have great distress because

things are going the way you wanted them

to go instead you can say well they were

gonna go that way there's no free will

I'm just along for the ride I wonder how

it turns out now until you try it you

might not believe that that will take

you into a different mindset but my

experiences that it does

here's another filter on life god I told

you that one of the reasons that

hallucinogens might be so effective for

curing the whole range of mental

problems most of them anxiety related I

think is that it takes your ego that the

the hallucinogens take your ego and of

your worldview and once you feel that

you that you personally are not that

important or that you're just part of

the whole then you start with you stop

worrying so much about what you and your

ego we're going to experience tomorrow

because you're just not that important

you're you're not the main reason of the

universe

it's just lil you and you'll be fine and

another way to get there is by belief in

a higher power belief in that god of one

type or another because the the God

model the way most people practice it is

that God is great and you're not it kind

of puts you in your place

believing in religion puts you in your

place

it takes your big ol ego well I'm pretty

special and it just says no you're not

God is special you're you're you're just

a follower yes it teaches you humility

by giving you a contrast to something

that needs no humility right a non nip

it in power humility would make no sense

at all because it would just be a lie so

when you compare yourself and contrast

is one of the great principles of

managing your psychological state and

persuasion and everything else anytime

there's a contrast it helps focus you

and understand things in their place

so I'm believing there's a God who is

great puts you know put you in your

place so I think that could be a good

filter and here somebody just said

exactly what I was going to say next

Alcoholics Anonymous uses this technique

so if you go into an a a meaning to try

to quit alcohol or drugs there's a drug

version of it they recommend that you

sort of put yourselves in the hand in

this in the hands of a higher power now

they're not too specific about you know

I have to be a Christian you don't have

to be a specific kind of belief but

whatever you believe is the higher power

if you're not a believer you could say

well the higher power is physics I don't

have free will I just release myself to

to freewill or if you believe in God you

say I just release myself and less sort

of God work through me now that's a

filter we don't need to decide whose

religion is right or if God even exists

you don't need to it's a filter that

works because the alcoholic anonymous

process apparently from everything I've

learned is one of the few things that

does work and I think that the active

part of the process is removing your ego

by putting yourselves in the hand of a

higher power the other thing that that

does to remove here

is it part of the process part of the

steps yeah and again somebody knows more

about this than I do just chime in but

part of it is essentially apologizing to

all the people you hurt which again is

ego it's all ego if you go into a any

kind of a rehab situation you you give

up you know sort of all the other parts

of your life you're stripped down to

just your biological entity you're put

into your place your ego is removed or

at least reduced so that's one filter

belief in the higher power

here's another filter optimism the way

the way you should see optimism in other

words simply just telling yourself that

there are some good things ahead because

you can dwell on the bad stuff and it

can change your whole mental state or

you can do what Tony Robbins suggests in

his own way and I'm going to suggest in

my own way

same same idea that your brain is only

capable of thinking about so much in any

in any single time we're not real good

in multi Pro multitaskers if your brain

is focused on one thing it doesn't have

much left for other things you know you

can find out if there's a train coming

at you while you're doing your taxes but

mostly you have a certain amount of

shelf space I call it in your brain you

have some control actually a lot of

control over what's on the shelf if you

don't take control of it and you just

say well I'm just gonna wake up today

and go on with my life all I'm gonna do

today is whatever comes up I'll do my

tasks I'll do my job you know I know

what I'm supposed to do your shelf space

will fill up without your control it

will just fill up with whatever thoughts

we're gonna bubble up what kind of

thoughts tend to bubble up if you don't

manage your shelf space the good ones

now you could probably confirm this from

your own experience if you are idle and

you don't have much to think about do

you automatically drift

- happy thoughts sometimes but far more

often the negative is what you what

bubbles up because we're designed that

way humans are designed to find problems

and then fix them we're not designed to

dwell on things that are going well look

around your atmosphere or your

environment how much your your

environment are you actively processing

very little of it because it's going

well I've got a table over there that's

not bothering me at all it requires no

attention at all it's not my

consciousness so actively learn to

fantasize and imagine positive outcomes

in a variety of ways so that whenever

you feel your shelf space is starting to

get a little room in it fill it fill it

consciously directly intentionally fill

it never let your shelf space fill

itself you control that you get to think

about what you want to thank I mean if

you have some terrible tragedy it's

gonna be hard to keep it out of your

head but for most of us our just daily

life you can fill that thing with

anything you want in my twenties trying

to crowd out bad memories of my

childhood which was pretty horrific I

would fill it with work so I would just

work myself to exhaustion fall asleep

and then get up early in the morning and

work myself to exhaustion again and it

really worked now not everybody can work

themselves to exhaustion for a year

after year but I filled by by a shelf

space and whenever I felt it starting to

fill on its own I would very actively

crowd it out with optimism

you see president Trump operating on

this principle and he got it he came to

it honestly and really exactly the same

way I did through the impact of Norman

Vincent Peale who wrote the book the

power of positive thinking

coincidentally or not was the Trump

family pastor or Minister I forget which

is the right word at their family church

where they went to church they saw the

king of positive thinking the most

famous positive thinking promoter in the

United States ever and you see Trump do

it all the time he's very much filling

his shelf space with optimism and ours

too

here's another technique if you want to

work on your ego put yourself in

situations in which you embarrass

yourself often and survive how many

times have you seen me embarrass myself

right here on periscope and then the

next day well I'm back again

here's my coffee tastes good have you

ever seen embarrassment changed my

behavior or even my attitude probably

not and I wasn't always that way I used

to be you know easily embarrassed and it

would ruin my whole day ruined my week

ruined my month the feeling of

embarrassments like aha I'm reliving it

in my mind that time I did that but how

many times if you see me have to like

blow my nose on camera because you know

I just had to how many times I was

rewatching one of my periscopes I

watched some of them just to see if what

I'm doing to make sure I'm doing what I

want to be doing and I'm replaying it I

realized that I went in this extended

discussion of Iraq but I kept referring

you to it as a ran and when I watched it

I was like oh I can't believe I had this

extended discussion of the wrong country

just because my mind mixed up the words

my first thought was just sort of a

flash of anger I was just mad that it

happened so sort of mad at myself but I

never once felt embarrassed not even a

little and it takes a lot of practice to

get there so I recommend putting

yourself in situations maybe join

Toastmasters where you have to talk in

front of people do something that's

outside of your comfort zone just

embarrass yourself and then find out

just track it wake up the next day hey

food tastes the same same to have the

same friends

nothing really changed so the

embarrassment filter is a good one just

practice embarrassing yourself until it

just doesn't feel like painful anymore

it's very doable

here's another filter that's more

similar to the one that I talked about

in my prior periscope every now and then

I like to imagine that I'm in a video

game

now that's very much what I was telling

you to visualize visualize that you were

sort of in a you know virtual reality

rendered environment what that does is

it puts you in the moment because you're

you're forced to think about your

immediate situation because you're

imagining it rendered and that takes

your ego and things because you're

you're not focusing on yourself and your

needs for a while so I helped a lot of

people relax but here's another here's

another way I think of it there are days

when I say to myself today was just like

a video game and I feel like I I

captured a resource or I learned

something that allowed me to go up to

the next level of the game

and here are a few levels which I would

like to suggest that some of you have

already passed through one of those

levels toward the bottom is

understanding that people are

fundamentally irrational now I wrote my

book when Bigley to reinforce that idea

if you are going through life thinking

that other people are rational you will

be frustrated and that and happy every

day because people are not rational and

if you try to imagine that they are your

understanding of what should happen next

won't match what happens next because

you'll say well here are my 10 good

reasons why you should agree with me and

then you think well now you'll agree

with me but then you don't because we're

irrational so expecting people to act

rationally is a formula for stress and

anxiety so the first time that you move

up a level in this let's let's call it

the video game of life you can't move up

a level until you get that and you

really have to get it and I don't mean

saying that sometimes other people are

irrational

I mean that it's the base code of our

existence

it's our operating system we operate on

confirmation bias and the subjective

kind of reality which leads me to the

next level is one thing to say that

people are irrational but it's next

level in terms of a video game it's next

level thinking to say that maybe our

entire reality is subjective which

doesn't mean there isn't something real

but understanding that our human

evolution was never directed at giving

us understanding of reality we did not

evolve or at least there's no reason to

believe we evolved to understand the

nature of reality wasn't important a

clam can reproduce without understanding

reality a cat can reproduce without

understanding nearly as much as we

understand understanding reality and

like really understanding it completely

optional and maybe even unproductive for

evolution so we did not evolve with that

capability and indeed you can see that

we don't have it just observe how people

act so once you really realize that

we're all in a different movie that

we're looking at the same document and

seeing a different reality you've got a

different religion than somebody else

once you understand how a subjective our

our experience is you move up to the

next level right so the first level is

understanding that people are

fundamentally irrational and the level

after that is that that irrationality is

related to the fact we're not even

seeing the same world we exist in it and

we interact but we keep getting confused

and tense in our interactions because we

don't understand why you're not seeing

what I'm seeing and the reason is

different realities and then here's

here's the next level above that because

I believe a lot of you have already

passed through those two levels the

level above that is to understand that

your brain is programmable

and not just a little bit you all know

that you can learn something and that's

in a sense that's programming your brain

but it's much deeper than that you you

can fundamentally change your

preferences yes you can change your

preferences I have experimented with

this over the years I'm not going to

give you examples because I don't want

to get into the details but I have

actually experimented trying to like

something I didn't like and to see if I

could do it until I loved it and I've

also experimented taking something I

loved let's say eating Snickers candy

bars and turning it into something I

didn't like and I can succeed it's

completely doable

you can rewire your preferences now you

have to understand that if you think the

only thing you can do is add memories or

maybe you can add a little skill you

don't get to go to the next level you

have to understand that you can change

your basic personality if you know how

to do it that's the highest level I've

done it a whole number of times I've

watched other people do it so and it

takes a little trial and error to do it

but what we're talking about today is

exactly that it's reprogramming your

your brain let me give you my favorite

example of programming a brain I've been

watching Cristina and my fiancee learn

wealth not learning but recovering her

piano skills from when she was younger

she took piano lessons when she was

younger and I've watched her recently go

from somebody who who had some basic

piano skills and knew how to play the

piano better than most people but you

know just sort of a you know a good

piano player to last two weeks

she learned one of the most complicated

Chopin what would you call it

I don't know pieces that you've ever

heard in your life

and if you don't play the piano Chopin

apparently is extra hard

extra-hard in terms of where your

fingers go at what time is just really

hard if you hear somebody playing the

piano on say a rock song they're doing

something called an accompaniment by the

way I just learned this so if you if

somebody is playing an accompaniment

with other instruments of the singer in

a band that's relatively easy piano

playing because that sort of Bing Bing

Bing Bing Bing Bing Bing Bing you know

somewhat simple patterns that's all you

need to accompany a band if you're a

solo artist and you're playing Chopin

both of your hands are operating

completely independently each of your

fingers is operating independently and

you're putting together hundreds

thousands I don't know how many notes

are are in in a Chopin piece thousands

but at least as many hundreds right and

I'm walking by you know and I'm hearing

her practice and in just in the last few

weeks she got to the point where she's

memorized the entire piece and now she's

just you know honing it and I think to

myself what the heck happened inside her

actual physical brain she rewired her

brain in two weeks I mean a pretty

substantial rewiring because none of the

skills that she is she is demonstrating

at a near virtuoso level didn't exist

two weeks ago yeah it's all we call a

muscle memory but of course it's it's in

the brain it's not in your muscles and

so when you see people fundamentally

rewiring I mean something insanely

impressive in two weeks you know she

practiced a lot but it's just two weeks

you start to realize how programmable

your brain is so everybody who's got a

loop in their brain that's not working

you might be able to reprogram that and

I have lots of experience of doing it

myself

now let me give you a fun analogy if you

are a computer programmer do you ever

write

programming code for a computer in zeros

and ones do you sit down and say all

right I'm gonna write the program 0 0 0

0 1 1 1 1 0 0 and then 1 1 1 0 0 well no

you don't now there may be special cases

where some somebody's doing some deep

engineering and they are actually

looking at the zeros and ones but that's

not typically the way you write a

program the wrote the way you write a

program is with something that's

analogous to but different from a

language like an English language or a

French or Spanish or whatever you have

words with letters and you use some

numbers too but you know brackets and

words and they stand for something that

the computer translates into zeros and

ones here's my analogy when you hear

language or you have experiences the the

language and the experiences of just

hearing things in the spoken word is

being translated into your brain into

the equivalent of zeros and ones now

your brain doesn't work on zeros and

ones it works on you know connections

that get strengthened and built and some

are emphasized and de-emphasize and

stuff but the point is that when the

programmer is writing the program they

don't see the zeros and ones that I

don't know exactly what the zeros and

ones are doing they just know what the

outcome will be when a hypnotist or or

somebody doing what I'm doing taking you

through a guided visualization I'm

having you imagine something that you're

imagining in pictures and you're hearing

and words but these are symbolic tools

that are actually rewiring your brain so

when you hear me just talking and you

say how can you rewire my brain just by

talking well the answer is it's the same

way a programmer can program a computer

without knowing what zeros and ones are

happening I don't know which neurons are

firing I don't know which connections

are being made but through trial and

error and experience I can make general

assumptions that effectively become the

user interface for your brain so find

the user interface for your brain you're

getting close you've gone up two levels

you're you are on the cusp maybe some of

you there of reaching the next level in

the game where you can intentionally

reprogram your own brain and then love

left of that is you can reprogram other

people's brains so check out the anxiety

let me ask ear how many people on here

experienced the anxiety exercise the

anti-anxiety exercise I did and tell me

what experience you had how many of you

had experienced something like a

reduction of anxiety it's going to take

a while for the comments to catch up so

I'll stall until all right so I'll read

you the comments as they come in it

helped me nothing but I tried made me

feel sad remember I said everybody will

have a different experience there's a

yes yes I did I tried it nothing

happened and a body experience

some people have that no change no

change

somebody said read my brain thumbs up

yep I did me totally relaxed no yes yes

it helped somebody said it didn't help

yes

no yeah on YouTube is where you'll find

the the stored thing a calming I

definitely did I felt like it I felt

like it was being in denial it was very

unusual it reframed things definite

reduction good good reminder no change

definitely relief me no husband yes felt

like floating etc alright here's

remember what I told you

actually this is actually more of a

response than I was actually expecting

but remember that this is cumulative so

in the example of there was a there was

a husband wife where

what I think the husband fell something

and the wife didn't remember you're all

at a different starting place it could

be that the people who found who felt

something profound we're right at the

cusp of moving up to the next level and

just easily move to the next level could

be the some of you need a little more

understanding of frames and that's what

I did for you today so you'll find that

this needs to be reinforced

but the more I reinforce it for you the

closer you're going to get to feeling

something like that but of course

everybody's different we should not

expect that any solution

medical or physical or otherwise will

work the same way for for other people

alright and here and let me let me do it

for you again right now find a place on

your floor wherever you are look at the

floor in wherever the floor is the

largest area now it doesn't have to be

you know you don't have to get it right

but just look at what it looks to you in

your opinion like the largest floor area

you can see and now imagine using

yesterday's technique that is rendered

it's not real you're in a video game

you're at a level and everything here is

artificial just think about that today

I'll let you do that on your own and

what do you feel in the moment because

that this exercise will just bring you

to the moment you'll feel your

environment moving in between being what

you thought was real and what you can

easily imagine is not and that will keep

you in the moment it will reduce the

effect of your ego tapping on your

shoulder and it will calm you the more

you you exercise your ability to calm

yourself the better you'll be and that's

all for today