Warum die Suche nach dem Warum Zeitverschwendung ist

0:00When we say, "Oh, I figured out why." In my opinion, for the vast majority of people, when they figured out why, it means that I have crafted a narrative that I accept, which may or may not have any bearing on reality. And so, I focus purely on the observable because they are far more predictable in terms of predicting your own behavior and predicting other people's behavior. And so with regard to the relationship, it's like people have many counter controls that they do and so because of that you change your behavior and then all of those things are removed at once. Now were there other things that are also variables in your life that occur during that period of time? Of course. Do we know them all? No. And so I take the position that there are so many variables. Why do I need to know why?

0:47>> And I never will anyways. And so why would I waste my time trying to figure out whether do you think you're this way because your father didn't hug you enough? I don't know. I know that I am this way. Period. And might be 20 different things because we're going to generalize work ethic to your dad didn't hug you enough when it might be like I write because I've had enough reinforcing contingencies around writing that I'd write and that's different than when I'm willing to speak which is different than when I do podcast which is different than all these others. And so when we get into the basically we extrapolate out reasoning by analogy works really well. When we get really down to what are the behaviors that changed when you were in the relationship versus not in the relationship. And if you can get isolating on that which you can be specific about not necessarily why it happened but that it changed and what behaviors changed then you can look at your laundry list of okay these are the changes in my behavior that I have continued to keep post relationship. Are any of these uh conducive to me getting a more attractive or better partner in the future? Now, if the person that I was with got me to go to the gym because they went to the gym and then the gym itself became reinforcing because uh basically totems of reinforcement can shift uh over time in terms of the work itself can be reinforcing. I might say this was a laundry. This is one of the items that changed when I was in this relationship and I am okay with it. And so if we have that laundry list then again why do I need time?

2:07And so I anyways I I push back on this very hard because me discovering why I did something >> gives me zero value. >> That's interesting. I I would class myself as a uh understanding why especially around myself is one of the greatest sources of pleasure that I've got in my life. >> Okay. >> This be maybe where me and you differ. >> Oh no. I'm gonna we're gonna [ __ ] jam on this. I love this. Okay. So I will give you I think a perfect analogy for this and the reason that I'm in general uh somebody who's not the biggest fan of therapy as is traditionally practiced.

2:44If I were playing tennis, right, and I went to a coach and they said, "Hey, I need you to change your grip from this to this straightforward." Would I spend the vast majority of that session with the coach being like, "Let's try to discover why you hold the grip that way. Who [ __ ] cares? I do.

3:07Now, when we get to why I used the word control before, if we can understand the dependent variables, then it means basically if you can predict, it means you can control, which people don't like that. But if you can predict what's going to happen, it means that you know what the variables are and you can influence those variables, which you can influence the outcome, which means you can control the system. And so knowing why um from a narrative perspective, I think again You'll never know why. You will have a narrative that you've accepted.

3:38>> And so what? Because then what do I want to do next? I only want to ch like we have a set of behaviors or skills that will increase the likelihood of goal achievement. Whatever that goal is, being spiritual, being a good husband, whatever it is, >> these behaviors will do that. >> To increase the likelihood of me doing these behaviors, then I have to have more good stuff, less bad stuff. I will I will die down that hill. Beyond that, what does anything that happened prior to this matter at all in so far as it only works if I can use that same variable? And then and then use it again to change my behavior yet again to be conducive to the goal.

4:15>> What if I love this [ __ ] >> Yeah, I can [laughter] tell. I can tell. I can tell it's either the nicotine or or the debate. Uh [laughter] so what if the actual outcome that you wanted was the pursuit of trying to work out why? Because for me, and tried to word that relatively carefully, >> not finding out the actual why, >> but the pursuit of trying to work out why. >> Uh it's the reason that I fell in love with evolutionary psychology because to me it started to explain why we are the way we are.

4:46>> It's one of the common themes in this podcast over 900 and something episodes. It is a place for people to come to try and get some approximation of why they are the way they are. And even if that's wrong, >> yeah, >> even if it does not fully explain, partly explain, the process of that discovery for me is fascinating. I have a a a journal entry from a long time ago when I was on mushrooms and I was it was post post party or post whatever and I was back at the house and I had some music on and I was just thinking through ideas like this and I could feel this game of tennis occurring in my mind as I thought a thing and then I asked why and then I asked why and then I asked why and then I asked why and it felt like this sort of movement almost probably certainly was default mode off and you know hemispheres talking and all the rest of And I wrote down not what I was thinking about, but I wrote down the sentence. I love the way that my mind works because I like that conversation of tighter and tighter spirals of sort of deeper and deeper questions. And for me, I enjoy the why such. It's something that in and of itself brings me joy to try and work out why we are the way we are or why I am the way I am. I I wholeheartedly accept that learning things is enjoyable. And I think what you described more or less was that the um I I come purely from the perspective of changing behavior and the why is super important and not always knowable. And so I I push back on narrative so heavily because in a way and like take this not as a as a slight. I see a lot of that as mental masturbation.

6:43>> I would agree. >> And I do not decry that in any way. If someone wants to do something with their time, awesome. Play video games. Do whatever you want. Mhm. >> If we want to say this increases or decreases the likelihood that we achieve a goal, then that is where I will because that we can know. Does this increase or decrease the likely that we achieve a goal and the difficulty with ascribing why is that we cannot know because we cannot relive the same circumstances again. And so in any equals one situations, it has and I and I say this as somebody that um obsessed for a a long period of my life.

7:20Um, and this is not to say that now I'm better or different or anything like that. Um, over the wise, but when I the reason I have two two two three statements on on on my wall, the good day and those three. What does that mean? How do you know that? And why does it matter? And so if we say these are the changes that occur in this relationship. Okay, that's what it means rather than like I'm stressed now or you know what, she rubbed off on me because she was really anal. What does that mean? Okay, it just means that she counted her calories and uh I now, you know, when I go to a menu, I order like a diva. Whatever, right? Like these are the two behavior changes. When I say anal, this is what I mean. Great. Okay.

8:00How do you know that? Well, did I do that two or three times or is this every single time that I go out? And so, okay, now I know the extent to which this thing that I have now defined. And who cares? Why does that matter? I'm anal now. Well, anal just means I change the way I order. Does that matter? No. Okay. And so instead of trying to maybe I maybe it was because I sought out approval from her and other people because I have this hole inside of me and I I wanted to gain um some sort of you know in-group outgroup. I wanted to be accepted by her and her friends who also do that. I think maybe that's what

8:37>> who cares. And so it was that that's [snorts] does me counting my calories and being a diva when I order decrease the likelihood that I find the next mate? If the answer is yes, then I'll change the behavior. If no, [ __ ] it. Real quick, I'm going to show you the exact 10stage road map from zero to 100 million plus that less than 1% of companies finish I've now done multiple times. And so I can say with a lot of confidence that these are the stages as headcount increases that you need to get through.

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