Why Doing THIS Instantly Lowers Your Stress

All right, Mr. Michael Easter, how you doing, buddy?

I'm good, man. Thanks for having me here.

Yeah, thank you for joining me on the show. For those of you that are tuning in and you're not somehow familiar with Michael, uh, he is the author of The Comfort Crisis and Scarcity Brain, and he's really a guy that's made a career out of asking why modern life is quietly making us weaker, a little bit more comfortable. Uh, and I like your work because it kind of pushes an edge a little bit. And so, let's start with that. I've noticed that more and more people are distracted, numbed out, overwhelmed. How does comfort sort of fit into that and how can modern men grapple with the onslaught of what life is bringing them?

Yeah. So, I would answer that this way. Humans evolved to do the next easiest, most comfortable thing. That kept us alive for all of history when the world was harsh, uncomfortable, but we've engineered our environment now where we just have endless access to comfort, everything from delivery food to the fact that anytime we feel a twinge of boredom, we have a million different ways to alleviate that, to the fact that we move literally 14 times less than our ancestors on average. And so, this is really a mismatch. It's like if you're doing the next most comfortable, easiest thing in a very comfortable environment, you're going to have some problems that pop up. So, if you look at the things I think that most plague modern people, chronic diseases, mental health issues, even feeling a bit stuck in life, it all kind of ties back to the fact that we live in comfort all the time and we do the next most comfortable thing, but it's Oftentimes doing things that are going to be challenging, whether that's physically challenging, psychologically challenging, whatever it might be, that is what tends to move the dial for people in their lives. And yet we avoid that.

Why? I mean, okay, this kind of— it seems kind of paradoxical because isn't comfort the aim?

Well, we'd like to think it is. And I would say that, I mean, there's a reason we want to do the comfortable thing. And as I mentioned earlier, it's like if you— let's say it's 1,000 years ago. Well, you didn't want to walk more than you had to because there was never enough food. You wanted to avoid spending too much time in the elements because you're out there all day. It's like you're just wired to do the easy thing. And so we still have that. Comfort is great. I'm not saying any of it is bad. But my point is that when you're always doing the comfortable thing, that's going to cause some problems. Hmm.

How do you think that some of these— like, is it social structures? Is it institutions? Or is it just modernity that is sort of infringing itself on men's ability to go out and do hard shit?

I think it probably, if I had to pick one, it would be— I would just say it's technology generally. So the role of technology is to make our lives easier. Like, that's what a technology does. It removes some sort of effort we have to put forth. And so that means, you know, our jobs are now sedentary. We can communicate with people behind screens instead of actually having to go to them and speak face-to-face. That has some social consequences. Our food has been engineered to be calorie bombs. You know, like 70% of what people eat is ultra-processed, highly caloric food, and just on and on and on. So if I had to point to one thing, it would just be this ramping up of technology, which again, let me say, that's good in the grand scheme of time and space. We're living longer. We're less likely to, you know, fall off a cliff while we were out hunting because we needed food. But it also comes with some downsides. So it's one of those things where it's like, this is a good problem to have, but we— it causes problems nonetheless. Everything is going to have an effect.

It feels like when I talk to the average guy, I mean, just men in general, it feels as though they're inundated with situations that are causing overwhelm, right? Shit's more expensive than ever before. There's different challenges that are popping up. It seems like you're just— if you're online in social media or media, you're inundated with a barrage of like World War III is imminent and taxes are being raised and your food costs more than ever before. And, I feel like for a lot of guys, they are maybe living in this kind of baseline of overwhelm. And so, the response to that is to seek comfort. How does maybe pursuing things that push your edge and push you out of your comfort zone support with that? Does it help you deal with the overwhelm that maybe a lot of guys are experiencing? Or, is it that the movement towards more and more comfort is sort of making individuals more fragile and unable to bear the weight of modern society?

Yeah, I think it— here's how I'd answer that is when you do something that's hard and challenging, it often shifts your perspective about what hard and challenging are. I'm going to give you an example. For my book, The Comfort Crisis, I spent a month in the Arctic. So if I wanted water, I had to hike down to a stream to get it. I'm sitting in the dirt the entire time. I'm freezing the entire freaking time. If I wanted to go to the bathroom, I had to hike out onto the tundra and bring a rifle because there's grizzly bears everywhere. Now, to get up to the tundra, though, I had to take a flight, right? I fly in a 747, a few different flights to get up there. And I hated that experience of flying because the plane is hot. Like, the drinks all suck. The movies suck. Everything sucks. But then when I spend a month in the tundra and I have to fly back to Vegas, my experience of that flight is entirely different. The flight is like the greatest thing that's ever happened to me, right? The chair, actually the most comfortable chair I've ever sat in. The fact that I can just, you know, ding a bell and water will arrive, someone will bring it to me. Oh my God, it's unbelievable. The movies all of a sudden, I mean, I'd been sitting around in complete boredom because I don't have a working cell phone up there. The movies are all of a sudden amazing. And then when you go into the bathroom and the hot water comes out of a faucet, which is inside a tube of steel that's hurtling through the air at 600 miles an hour, you're like, holy shit, this is unbelievable. Those are all things that I would never even consider how amazing they are in the grand scheme of time and space.

Hmm.

Because we adapt to our surroundings. And so if you're always in an environment that has ease, convenience, comfort, your brain is still going to look for, well, what is the big problem in my life? And you're going to focus on that, and it's going to create negatives. It's going to create feelings of overwhelm because you haven't pulled yourself out of that environment to go, you know what? Things are actually pretty good. Gave you an example. You mentioned rising food costs. Food currently takes up about 10% of people's budgets. Well, like 100, 150 years ago, It was like 40 to 50% of a family budget. So like, you look at it that way and you go, I don't know, yeah, it kind of sucks that my Doritos are now, you know, $5 instead of $4. That's a pain in my ass, but could be a lot, could be a lot worse. And you can start to apply that thinking across the board. You know, like World War III is imminent. Terrible. I hate to see it. At the same time, when you look at war deaths over the grand scheme of history, they're lower than they've ever been. So it's just kind of— and I think you don't necessarily— you know, there's 2 ways to understand something. There's intellectual understanding where you kind of, you know, sit around and read. It's great. But then there's experiential understanding where you put yourself in a different environment and you pick up new information that you couldn't have got from the one you're in by just, you know, reading it or listening to it. And I think that experiential understanding is fundamentally what changes a person's worldview. And so my case is, all right, I think we got enough of this intellectual understanding in our modern world with how much time we spend on screens. Like, let's go out in the world and try some shit and do some shit, see what happens. Because I can tell you, you're, you're probably not going to die. Whereas in the past, if you just like went out and tried stuff, like you might die. Like we have the best opportunity ever to go out and like kind of push the edge, see what's out there. But we often don't take it.

You were up in the Arctic hunting caribou, yeah?

Yes, sir. Yeah.

And, I mean, a month up there, that sounds pretty wild. And, you kind of alluded to what you experienced when you came back from that. What shifted in you psychologically or physically or emotionally after that type of experience?

Well, I'll say physically, I mean, my health was never better. Turns out you lose a lot of weight when you have to pack in all your food, so you don't pack enough, and then you're walking around with a pack all day. But I think psychologically, that was the bigger shift in the sense that I had a newfound appreciation for things that I had never thought of in my— like hot running water. When's the last time you thought of that? It's like, well, I hadn't for 30-whatever years until I got back, and I'm just like, oh my God, this is unbelievable. I would say I was more creative too, because I had kind of new perspectives and experiences that I could pull from that improved that. I was more focused at work. I think that's— I think a lot of that comes from just spending extended time outdoors. That seems to do good things for people's focus and in turn productivity. And then stress levels. My wife put it this way. She basically said, Ever since you got back from the Arctic, you are impossible to ruffle. Like, things don't stress you out. And it's like, okay, well, why is that? It's because what would normally stress me out before that trip would be like, oh, Bill came in, that sucks. Or, oh, we had to get, you know, we had a landscaper coming to fix something and they showed up late. That son of a bitch. What a personal injustice to me. But then I go to the Arctic where, like, the problems are actually real and legitimate. Like, oh, we have a storm and we need to take down our camp right now and move it or else it's going to get swept away. And like, that's actually really dangerous. So then when you go back into normal life, you're like, I figured out that storm and I didn't die. I can probably figure out this little problem in my life right now.

Hmm. I remember— oh man, this is like 2015. I did my first solo camping adventure and I did a 5 or 6 day— I was living in British Columbia at the time. And I just decided I was going to take a week off work and I was going to go do a solo adventure. And I'd never done anything like this before. And I was like, okay, 5, 6 days, no big deal. I can do that. You know, I've camped before, blah, blah, blah. And I went off in the wilderness by myself. And I remember, this is so ridiculous. I like packed cans of soup in my fucking backpack, you know, like in my rucksack. So I got like my tent and all the heating gear and stuff like that. And I was like, you know, I brought all the packaged stuff, but then I was like, hey, I'm going to want to eat something nice. And so I brought some, you know, soup and some some beans and stuff like that. And so, my backpack was just so freaking heavy.

Yeah.

And, I went at the time of the year, it was just spring. So, I wanted solitude. And so, I camped out into, I think it was Lake Garibaldi in British Columbia, absolutely stunning. There's nobody else out there. And, I remember having to contend with when I got to the place where I was going to camp, there was still snow on the ground. And so, I had to dig out a place for me to put my tent. And then, I saw bear tracks. And so, the bears, I thought I had beat the bears, but they had already come out of hibernation. And so, I saw bear tracks in and around the camp area and I was like, this is not great. And, I realized, and to your point, those problems, the first one was just stupid, right? I'm like, oh, my shit's way too heavy because I put cans of soup in my backpack, which was ridiculous.

Not recommended.

Rookie mistake, right? Don't do that. And then, it was more real-life issue in terms of how am I going to secure my food to make sure that the bears don't come around and cause trouble. And, I think to your point, that type of perspective is something that in a modern life you just don't really get. And so, the things that feel hyper-stressful like the bills or the unexpected, I got a flat tire last Thursday as an example, those things can get blown way out of proportion.

Yeah.

And I think it's valid and sort of ties into something that you wrote. I pulled just like a little section from your book, a little quote. You said that people are living progressively sheltered, sterile, temperature-controlled, overfed, underchallenged, safety-netted lives. And I remember reading that and being like, yeah. And I think a lot of men would read that and they would probably nod, but they won't necessarily Use that to change. And so, what's actually standing in between a man who's listening to this conversation, who's agreeing with, yes, the level of comfort and maybe complacency or stagnation that I'm experiencing in my life is somewhat problematic, how does that man then begin to actively propel himself towards the confrontation that you and I are talking about? Because it does feel like a type of confrontation with discomfort.

Yeah, the way I'll answer that is, uh, there's this study I love, and it found that 2% of people take the stairs when there's also an escalator available. Only 2%. You're one of those, I think.

I'm that guy with the suitcase in the, in the airport, is like trudging up the stairs.

I've seen you there. Um, now 100% of people know that taking the stairs is going to be better for them in the long run. Right? But 98% of people choose to do the easier, more effortless thing that could actually harm them in the long run, given how little we move today. So to me, that stat, it really is not just about the stairs. It's kind of a metaphor for the question you asked and a metaphor for living. You want to be one of the 2% of people who are willing to do the thing that is slightly more uncomfortable in the short term, but will get you a long-term benefit.

Yeah.

Benefit. That's what we're after. So every single day in life, we have to face decisions, right? Where it's like, I know I need to get to that metaphorical second floor. I can either do it the easy way, it's not going to serve me in the long run, or I can do it the slightly harder way. And yeah, it's going to be a little hard now, but it's going to move the ball way more downfield. And it can literally be as simple as like, I'm going to take that mindset and I'm going to try to apply it across the board. I mean, this to me is kind of The big unlock because once you start looking for those opportunities, you can start to take them. And then that sort of expands what the comfort zone is. And then the next big thing comes up and that doesn't seem as scary. You're just kind of pushing that edge. I mean, this is like— I think this stat is so important that my Substack newsletter is literally called The 2% Newsletter. My podcast is called The 2% Newsletter. And we talk about all these themes twice a week with different guests. And it resonates. I mean, the reason I called the 2% Podcast that and the newsletter that as well is like I had just posted something on Instagram where I was like walking up the stairs at the Las Vegas airport, walking up to them, took a video. There's like 100 people on the freaking escalators all waiting. And I walk up the stairs and I just put 2% of people take the stairs and there's also an escalator. Be a 2%er. And that like triggered something in people, right? It kind of had this viral moment and it was this aha for me that it's like, yeah, people all sort of understand this stuff fundamentally, but no one actually does it. So like, what would happen if you just started doing it? I don't know. Go find out. I can guarantee your life is going to be better, though.

It's so interesting. I mean, do you Do you think that that— what— okay, where my mind goes initially in this is what drives people like you or myself to choose to go and do that versus those who don't go do that? Is that something that you think is ingrained? Do you think that's because they're actively consciously choosing it? Do you think that it's because of upbringing? Like, what pushes people towards wanting to pursue some type of discomfort? Like, you know, short-term discomfort for long-term gain?

I think it's part— I think it's like everything. It's like part nature, part nurture. There's probably going to be some people who come out of the womb and they're just like, hey, I heard this little piece of information, I'm going to use it immediately. There's some people where, you know, they're going to be more resistant to it. But I find with most things that benefit us, they fall into that pattern of where it's going to be hard in the short term, but you get a long-term benefit. And you just have to trust the process long enough that you start to see, oh, like I've actually changed in the process. And then that reinforces doing that again. So for some people, you know, they might need the extra nudge, but once they actually start doing it, I think they start to do it more often.

I think, like, I'm curious about— I mean, I know not a lot about your story. I know a little bit about your story, but I know from myself, I kind of had to do those things to try and catch up in a way. Since learning a lot about developmental psychology and what grows kids to be really functional adults, it's a combination of the high support, high standards. And, I didn't really get either of those things. There wasn't really standards for me growing up and there definitely wasn't support. And so, I think one of the things that I've noticed in myself is I have had to push myself to go and do a lot of things simply to try and catch up or get ahead of other people because at an early age, I realized that I was way behind. I didn't go to college or university until I was 23, and I worked construction, and I was shit in academia. I didn't do very well in high school or just in school in general because it just wasn't my forte. Didn't have a lot of support, didn't have a lot of expectations. And so, I've kind of had to push myself just to keep up. But, what I've noticed is that that's had compounding effects as I've continued to do that. It's had compounding effects throughout my life. And, it's become a kind of, I don't know, a way of being that I think has served very well. I'm curious for you. I know that you—

Yeah.

You struggled with alcohol for a while and then quit, or maybe not struggle is the right term, but you decided to quit alcohol at some point. And I know that that's kind of changed the game for you. I'm curious if you feel like you've had to get out of your comfort zone as a pursuit of meaning and purpose in life, or you've faced discomfort as a means of trying to build yourself into somebody that's as functional, or if not more functional than other people.

Yeah, I think it's both. So with alcohol, I like to say a good sign that you have a drinking problem is that all of your problems are caused by your drinking.

Hmm.

And that was definitely me in my 20s. Both my— my mom's been sober 40 years. She got sober maybe 2 years before she had me. My dad never gotten sober. I don't know him. So I had the genes working against me. And then, you know, once I started drinking, I was like, oh, this is like— immediately you just feel better about life. Like, it's just immediate comfort, right? Didn't matter what problem was in my life. If I just had a drink, things are good. Now, the problem is, is that, you know, if the first drink is this great, what would the next one and the next one and the next one be like? And, you know, that starts to cause some problems. So I had tried to quit a lot of times. Um, but I was Look for like, what's some easy way that I can fix this problem? Like, let's, you know, try and make it simple and comfortable along the way. We don't want this to suck. But then I just had a morning where I realized like, hey, if you don't get sober, you're probably gonna die early. And then a realization that, hey, this is probably gonna be really freaking hard and uncomfortable, and you're gonna have to go through that. And it was the hardest thing I've done. But after kind of going through the short-term hell of it, all of a sudden my life had started to improve across the board. Like every single thing starts to get better. And I think that insight of like, oh, I had to do something really hard that was hard for a while, but then things started to get better. That was like an aha moment. And when all that happened, I was actually working at Men's Health magazine as a writer and editor. I understand the irony if you're Listening and raising your eyebrows. But every single thing that I would write about in that magazine, it followed the same trajectory, right? It's like exercise is a good example. Exercise is the number one thing you can do to improve your health. And yet exercise sucks when you do it, right? Like, no one really likes to exercise. The people who do have been doing it so long that I think they've just deluded themselves into thinking exercise is super fun. For most people, it's hard, but by doing that, you improve your health. I think you also learn something about your potential, like that ripples out to the rest of your life. And so then a lot of my work looks at, okay, well, how do we put that principle of embracing short-term comfort, short-term discomfort for long-term gains? Like, where else does that arise in life? And it arises in so many different areas. I don't know if I answered your question, but—

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's interesting, we share some parallels. My mom struggled with alcoholism for a long time until she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and then got sober right at the very end of her life. And, I got sober years ago in 2020 actually as a pandemic had hit. And, I'm thankful that I did because I was able to support her in that sort of transition. That's great. I'm curious, for the guys that are the sober curious, what did it take from you? What did you find to be useful as you decided to quit alcohol?

So, I'll delineate between— I do think there's a difference between alcoholism and I just like to drink. Sometimes I drink a little more than I should, but overall, my life is fine. We actually had an episode on my podcast recently where I talked to this guy who's a reporter for GQ, and he was sober curious. He quit alcohol and his life got worse because he wasn't going out into social situations anymore.

Hmm.

He was like, started doing morning workouts with people. Well, it turns out like people are a lot different in morning workouts than they are at bars. And he was having these really important social functions in bars, at events. And he was like, you know what, this is making me less happy. And he didn't have a big problem, right? That's the important thing. Like, he'd have a couple drinks, good time. So we started drinking again. He's like, yeah, it improved immediately. I don't have a problem with this thing. Me, on the other hand, I had a problem with that. So if you're the type of person where you can't just have one and you're racking up all these big life problems because you just can't have one, what I did in that situation— Is I reached out to people for help. So first person I called was my mom, and she had no idea I drank like I did. I like to hide that from her because she's nervous about me. And she basically just said, "Hey, here's what I did when I was in your situation." And you know, she's like, "It's going to be hard as shit, but I can guarantee your life will get better." And I started. Talking to other people who were sober, and that was super helpful because, like, I really just kind of had to relearn life and how do you live it. And I had just a million questions about it. It's like, so what do I do if I'm at a party and someone asks me if I want to drink? What if I do— what do I do if I'm at a wedding and blah blah? You know, people would be like, well, if someone asks you if you want to drink, you just say, no thanks. Try that one. It's like, oh, that had never occurred to me, you know? And so I think having a support system along the way becomes really important. But it does take the uncomfortable act of going, hey, I have a problem, telling someone that, and then listening. Because the thing is, is if you have the problem and you've put yourself there, you don't know shit.

Yeah.

So like, you have to actually listen to the person and realize like, hey, my own ideas are probably not serving me well. So why don't I offload this to someone who seems to have their life more together and actually do what they say? That is hard. But in my case, by doing that, it just opened things up. And yeah, that was 11-something years ago. So.

Yeah, it's interesting. I sometimes joke about how I didn't have one intense addiction. My addiction was spread over multiple behaviors that I kind of like dabbled in. I dabbled in all the addictive behaviors, you know, just like testing them out, but not actually diving into Just dip your toe in the water of everything. It's like a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B, just see what happens. But that sort of proposed it, that put forth its own challenge because I wasn't like an alcoholic per se, but I also sometimes I would have a beer or a drink or 2 and that would be totally fine. And other times it was just like getting blitzed. Often.

Yeah.

And then it was just a bunch of different— sometimes it was substances or women or porn or whatever it was. And so, it was an act of— really, for me, it was a lack of impulse control in a lot of different categories and some pretty deep attachment issues, which I had to work on. But, I think that this is a common thing for a lot of men is that they are trying to get sober even though they might not necessarily be what's considered an alcoholic or having alcoholism. And, it's become such a part of their life or their social standing that they It's like, what do I do and what do I say? And so, I think those simple things that you're saying are super helpful because that's usually where a lot of guys get stuck. It's like, well, what do I do if I'm at a work function and somebody offers me a drink? I remember having that happen. I went and did a leadership training for an executive team in Washington and I had a co-facilitator with me and he came and they afterwards brought us out for dinner and they're wine sampling. And I said, oh, no thank you. And it was a big thing. You know, like they made a big thing out of it. They're like, what do you mean you don't want to have a drink? You know? And I'm like, I just don't, I just don't drink. And they're like, oh, did you have a problem? I'm like, no, I didn't have a problem. I just don't want to drink anymore. And so, but I think it's becoming more commonplace. And maybe to your point on this facing discomfort like that, can that be an avenue where men can lean into facing discomfort?

For sure. Yeah. I mean, in my experience, Most people haven't given a shit. And it also starts with me, how I'm gonna act, right? Am I gonna change my behavior around them because, oh, they're drinking and I'm not? And like, people can get in their own damn head. If I just get out of my head and it's like, the situation hasn't changed beyond the fact that you're drinking a Diet Coke instead of a Diet Coke and Jack, you know, like, it's really no different. I think the person who's not drinking overthinks things. My experience has also been that if I say I'm not drinking and someone makes a big deal out of it, that typically points to something about them more than it does me. Like when I was drinking and had a problem, and if someone wouldn't drink, I would all of a sudden be like, shit, if I act like an asshole, they're gonna notice. It's gonna be more apparent, you know? And I almost needed people around me drinking too to feel okay with like, all right, I'm off to the races.

Mm-hmm.

That's been my experience. I can't speak for everyone, but—

Talk to me a little bit about low-friction activities because it seems to me that in our culture now, it's really designed and sort of set up that men are just constantly battling off these sort of low-friction activities that are really designed to sort of hijack our dopamine, social media, porn, weed, whatever it might be, you name it. How does a man start to confront some of those things? Like, maybe just defining what a low-friction activity actually is for the listener.

Yeah. I mean, I think you're talking about basically all the quick rewarding things we can do that are fun and rewarding in the short term, but that hurt us in the long run. That ultimately to me is what people get in trouble with. It's stuff that's like, This feels great now, but I pay consequences somehow later. So that could be from, you know, my case, if I have a few drinks, it's like life gets better immediately. But then the next morning, I'm like, Jesus Christ, Michael, what have you done? You know, like, now I have these long-term consequences to deal with. Could be scrolling social media way too long, getting worked up about nonsense. on social, and then you've lost an hour when you could have been doing something more productive. There's all these different things. So in my book, Scarcity Brain, I basically looked at, okay, what is like the fundamental architecture behind things that people tend to get hooked on? And so to tell that story, I went in this laboratory in Las Vegas that is a living, breathing real-life casino, but it's used entirely for human behavior research. And I talked to this guy there who's a slot machine designer. And he was like, look, if you want to get someone hooked on something, you need, you need it to have 3 parts. It's got to have opportunity, unpredictable rewards, and quick repeatability. So opportunity means you have an opportunity to get something of value. Okay, something that is worthwhile, gives you short-term pleasure, something. Unpredictable rewards is, you know, you'll get that thing of value, but you don't know when, and you don't know how good it's gonna be. And then quick repeatability, you can immediately retry to get the thing of value. So if you think about a slot machine, you have the opportunity to win money, but the rewards are unpredictable. You could play a game and lose. You could play a game and win a dollar. You could play a game and win $2 million. You don't know. And then once you play, you can immediately hit the spin button again. So that, that architecture, it hooks humans, it hooks all animals. It's used in studies. Like, if you want to get a rat addicted to a slot machine, it's very easy. You just set up that architecture. It's not an actual slot machine, but it's a slot machine-like game. To clarify. And then what happened is, so that really blew up in Las Vegas in the 1980s. And then you started to look at a lot of other industries. A lot of other industries started to look to Vegas and go, wait a minute, why the hell are all those people playing slot machines now? Everyone knows the house always wins in the end. So like, why are these people doing something where it's like, you know, you're losing money, but still you're doing it over and over and over?

Hmm.

And it was that architecture. So then it got placed in social media. That is exactly what makes social media work. You're gonna see something interesting. You don't know when, you don't know how good it's gonna be, and you just keep scrolling infinitely. It got put in dating apps. So the reason why Tinder really blew up— and there had been dating apps before— but why Tinder took off is the slot machine nature of it. It's swipe, swipe, swipe. Oh, I got a match. How good is it? Nah, she's not that good looking. Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, bing, match. Oh my God, this girl's amazing, right? It's just like a slot machine. It gets put in financial apps. It's what makes the rise of sports betting work. Sports betting was really smart with it. Problem with sports betting is there's not the quick repeatability because the games are long.

Hmm.

So you start to see the insertion of, hey, you can bet on this play, you can bet on, you can do this crazy bet mid-game. And that's when sports betting really starts to take off. So it really just gets inserted in all these different areas of life, online shopping everywhere, and you start to just see this skyrocketing of these behaviors that are rewarding in the short term, but we tend to regret later.

It's interesting because I'm— as I'm listening to you talk, it almost sounds like high friction, activities have become things like being bored or going out in nature and having an hour without an audiobook or music or your phone and social media or another person and being out in that type of environment. So, can you maybe give some examples of what we might define as high high-friction activities that are actually beneficial for men, like beneficial in a way that they need in order to psychologically build resilience?

Yeah. And so my book, The Comfort Crisis, goes over a lot. Scarcity Brain does. I write about this stuff 3 times a week on my Substack, 2%. But a few I'd highlight is, yeah, time in nature. You look at the research, most people go out into nature and at first they go, this is uncomfortable. It's kind of boring. What am I doing? But then in the long term, they get better. That wears off and they start to go, oh, I'm calmer. My attention is better. Time in nature tends to reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, even improves health markers. Time in silence. Most people cannot sit in silence for long. They find it uncomfortable. Only at first, though. And then productivity tends to rise. Creativity also rises and stress levels tend to go down. Boredom is another one that I write about in the book because when we were in the Arctic, it was like boring as hell. Like, I can't even begin to describe how boring it is. And it's uncomfortable. And boredom is like this evolutionary discomfort that basically just tells you, hey, go do something else. In the past, that something else was productive, right? It would sort of tell us in our hunter-gatherer days, like, what you're spending your time on right now, it's not paying off, it's not going to help you survive, go find something else to do. And we would go find something else productive. Now when we feel that, we just have an easy, immediate escape from it, whether it's cell phones, Netflix, computer, whatever it might be. Like, so many people put attention on using the phone less. The problem becomes is, is if a person takes 2 hours off their phone screen time and then they get bored and they go, oh, this sucks, and they turn on Netflix.

Right.

It's the same damn thing. It's the same. You want to be able to sit with it and see where it takes you outside of media, I would argue. And usually that's somewhere interesting and creative. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes you're just thinking of crazy shit. We all do. But sometimes you get really good ideas like A lot of the greatest thinkers and inventors used boredom. They would literally schedule in times of boredom in order to come up with big projects. And obviously, physical activity is a painfully obvious one. You know, it's really been engineered out of life, and we don't have to move as much as we once did. But that's not only what makes us healthy, it also tends to make people happier, tends to reduce improve mental health, and we don't have to be physical anymore. In the past, you had to. To live was to like work all day somehow, and we don't have to anymore. And so you start to— I think like big picture, sometimes people say, well, like point to the one thing that's changed us the most. It's like, well, it's not one thing. It's the fact that all these things that humans had to do for all of time that were part of us, that we're adapted to do to be healthy, happy, communal species, they've all been slowly chipped away over time. And now, here we are. Yeah.

I mean, it's funny because I feel like part of my parenting style with my son especially is just letting him be bored. And sometimes that means he goes actually squirrely. And there's a threshold that I've now come to realize is like, okay, you're overboard and now you're just causing havoc and chaos because you need something to do. But, we live on land. We've got like 5 acres here. And so, I'll just kick him outside and I'm like, here's some sticks. Go figure out what to do with them. And sometimes, that means that trees get smacked and destroyed. But, really instilling into him boredom's okay. And sometimes, I'll say to him, what do you want to do? What should we create? Because he's not allowed to have screens and shit like that. And so, it's like, what do you want to do? Use your imagination.

Yeah.

Figure it out. And so, you know, and I had a ton of that as a kid. You know, sometimes it was, here's a hatchet, go outside, and it would, you know, just like take the hatchet and go chop shit, which was so much fun. But it's sad that in our modern-day life, it seems as though we've been fed these products and services that are meant to steal away those moments of boredom. And, it's funny to see that it was a problem that didn't necessarily need to be solved, that boredom actually serves a function and a purpose for us as a human being in terms of fulfillment and purpose. And, I've given that assignment to men where I'm like, I want you to plan out time to just go and do nothing and be completely bored.

Yeah.

And, it's amazing how confronting that little activity is of just, okay, you've got an hour to go do nothing. And, to be out in nature and out in the wilderness. Are you okay to talk about your dad a little bit? I know that you don't have a relationship with him. I'm curious as to what that's been like for you and how you have tried to reconcile with that because I think statistically speaking, something that we've talked a lot about on the show is how much of an impact that can have on a young boy and a man.

Yeah.

eventually. And, I'm curious what your journey has been like on that front and whether or not some of the endeavors that you've gone on have been an attempt to kind of initiate yourself into manhood in the absence of having a father.

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, here's what I'll say about my dad is that I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and basically just say, He probably knew he was incapable of being a good, productive dad. And so he was like, you know, if I'm in this person's life, it's probably going to hurt him more than it helps him. So I'm just going to sit this one out.

Hmm.

So thanks for that. That's— I would prefer that. Um, he was never around, so I didn't ever have like, oh, my dad left me. I have these, you know, I've been left. Um, haven't ever felt that way. I had a really good mom. I also, not having a dad around, like, I had to figure shit out.

Hmm.

You know, my mom would also travel about a third of the year. So I had this rotating cast of nannies. I'd have a new nanny every year or two. And if you look at my work now as a journalist, I have to read people. I have to deal with a lot of different personalities, and I have to learn to ask questions. I learned to have to deal With new situations. When I look back on it, having a new nanny every year with me for a third of the year, that was a hell of a training ground. Like, you just have to be adaptable. So I think that served me. As far as like, is the stuff I do because I don't have a dad? I think I'm just wired for— I'm one of those people who needs Needs to kind of explore things. Always have been. I think that's what alcohol gave me, because if it's Friday night and I don't drink, I know how that night's gonna go, right? It's gonna be like, okay, we're gonna hang out, watch Netflix, we'll have some conversation. If I did insert alcohol, well, now we're rolling the dice. I don't know what's gonna happen. I just know it's gonna be interesting. Could start drinking and end up here or here or Or here, or the possibilities are totally open. I'm definitely a person who, I like new situations. I like to have to figure things out. I like things being unpredictable. I like the metaphorical dice rolling in my life. And I think that a lot of my work going to different places like the Arctic, one of my books sent me into the middle of the Bolivian jungle for a while.

Yeah.

I've had to go to conflict zones like Iraq and whatever. That almost gives me that thing to explore the edge. But it turns out that it— like, if you apply it to that and you write about it in books and Substacks and podcasts, it turns out you can make a buck on it. Whereas with alcohol, you just end up with your car parked on the front lawn and you feel like shit the next day, right? So big picture there is I think it can be useful for people to look at what quirks do you have. I actually talked to a psychologist on my podcast the other day named Julie Gerner. She's awesome. And she works with all these like billionaire types. She's like a real-life Wendy Rhoades from Billions.

Cool.

Wall Street Journal called her. And she, she said like figuring out what your quirks are and leaning into those can be a really big unlock for people. And also, like, if you inherently totally suck at something, can you just offload that to someone else? Like, lean into what you're good at and lean into what your quirks are, because that is what ultimately is going to make what you're doing in the world unique. You don't want to kind of be like everyone else. Like, if you got this weird thing about yourself, just go for it. See what happens.

Yeah, it's interesting to, like, lean into the quirks part of things. I mean, I think for a lot of guys, sometimes they're afraid to follow that thread, like to pull on the thread of, okay, I have this unique ability or talent or quirk or like, you know, character within my nature and to pursue that. I think we often over-index rational linear thought process. And so a lot of guys will prevent themselves from moving forward if they don't know what the logical outcome is going to be. And when you follow your quirks, it's almost impossible to determine what's going to happen at the end of that.

Yeah, totally. I mean, if you look at like who— if you look at like big figures in history, a lot of them had quirks and they were able to leverage those. Like I read a stat that people with dyslexia, there's a 5-fold greater occurrence of dyslexia among CEOs.

Hmm.

That's surprising. Why is that? Because they've had to think in different ways. They've had to learn to navigate things, think in different ways. I mean, Elon Musk, clearly somewhere on the spectrum. And you see that in a lot of like founders and people like that because they, they just think a little bit differently than everyone else and they're able to sort of chase that and see where it goes.

I was going to go down the dyslexia path, but I'll leave that one alone for right now. Talk to me a little bit about— I'm going to probably say this wrong, but misogyny.

Misogyny.

Misogyny. Yeah. Just maybe outline what the concept is for guys and what implementation might look like.

Yeah. So the, I mean, the big setup is that the reason why is that in the past, for most of time, people had to do really hard things all the time. You know, this could be from a big hunt. It could be from having to move your family from your summering grounds to your wintering grounds, whatever it might be. And those things were hard. And they were part of life. And each time we would take on like a really big challenge, we would usually kind of get thrust out to the edges of what we were capable of. And we would realize that we actually had more on board than we thought. You know, we'd have moments where you're like, I got to quit. I'm not going to make it through this. But you had to keep persisting. And in that process, you go, oh, I actually have more on board than I thought. And it only expressed itself because you got put in a moment that forced that. Right? That's not something you can understand intellectually. You have to go there experientially. Theme of my work. So the idea of misogi is you're trying to recreate these hard moments that people used to face all the time that used to be some of our greatest teachers. So the rules are pretty simple, just a big challenge you take on once a year. Rule 1 is you have to make it really hard. So that gets defined as a 50/50 shot at finishing whatever your misogi is. So the reason for that is because most people, even when they take on challenges, tend to keep it in the safe zone, like, you know, 90, 95% sure we're gonna finish. The good example I'd like to use is marathons. When people enter marathons, no one is saying, I don't know if I'm going to finish this marathon.

Hmm.

It's more, I don't know if I'm gonna finish this in 3 hours and 30 minutes, whatever my arbitrary time goal is, right? We prepare for things and we get ourselves ready so we have the certainty of Completion. But Masogi throws that out the window because when the 50/50 chance framework, like, you're going to have those moments where you're like, I think I'm done, like, I'm cooked. But if you kind of just keep going, you get that moment of insight where you go, oh, I have more on board than I thought. And I wonder where else in my life this same thing is happening where I'm selling myself short when I actually have more in the tank. And that fundamentally changes how you behave in the world from then on. And then the second rule is pretty straightforward. It is don't die, which is be safe, carry some water. I have a post on my Substack because I think part of the process of misogyny is figuring out what your 50/50 is, like having to go through that mental exercise. Like, what is this thing gonna be? You could do it in business life. You could do it some big physical task. That's what most people do. But I got so many damn people who are like, well, I don't even know where to start. Just tell me what I should do. So I polled a bunch of my readers and I have a big list of all these different things people have done. And they range from, you know, I did a rim to rim to rim and I had never even hiked up one rim before. To one lady told me her misogyny was trying sushi, which I just freaking loved. She was like, tell me about that. She's like, well, I was always just totally afraid of it.

Hmm.

And I thought of misogyny and I said, this is it. And I tried it. She goes, you know what? I— she's like, it was fine, but it didn't kill me. And it made me realize I had a lot of other irrational fears in my life around Stuff that I had never even tried. So she started trying more stuff. Now, that wouldn't have come had she not had that experience of like, my misogyny is sushi. Dips the roll into the soy sauce and wasabi, places in mouth, goes, why the hell have I been afraid of this for 30 years? And then what else am I— have I been afraid of for 30 years? I'm gonna start trying stuff. And that like, you just need those things that get you unstuck.

Yeah, I think it's funny because I think in a lot of ways what we've kind of been talking about in this conversation is how does a man move closer towards his edge, his psychological edge, emotional, physical edge, relational edge. And I do think that there's something to be said for a man that's able to continually push or meet his edge. Whatever that might be and look like, is going to find some type of meaning or function, fulfillment, purpose in life. And there's there's just something almost alchemical about having to face and confront hardship in life that is counterintuitive to our modern culture. Like we're I think I know for myself I grew up in I grew up in northern Alberta, which you know kind of. feels like the boring Arctic in a lot of ways. There is not a lot going on there. But, I think I remember growing up and a big part of the push was to find comfort. I watched my parents do it and a lot of people around me where I grew up. It was just pursue comfort. And, there's something to be said for continuing to meet your edge and build a life that is pushing you towards that. And, as an example, I love adventure and I have all these plans to travel with my family and take my kids and go adventure with them. And, I sort of have that. I've always had a vision since I was younger to take my family and to go travel with them. And, I know that that's pushing an edge a little bit for my wife and even for myself. And next month, I'm taking my son to Ireland. He's 5. And there's, you know, there's— I was like, okay, this is gonna be so much fun. And then I met the first barrier, which is that there's no daytime flights from New York to Ireland. And there's only red-eye flights. There's only overnight flights. And I'm like, am I actually gonna put a 5-year-old onto a plane and do a red-eye? And I was like, fuck yeah.

Yes, I am.

Like, let's go. Let's go do this. Like, let's not make that the barrier. But you kind of describe the edge as this interface between what is known and what is yet to be discovered. And I'd love for you to just continue to articulate, like, how does a man figure out where his personal edge actually is, especially if he's been sort of trapped in seeking comfort for so long?

Well, you got to go out and find it. You got to take action. That's the first step. The first— to begin, begin. Go try shit. You'll figure it out. And like, once you get out there, I think you'll think, oh, this is it, I'm done. And then you keep going and you learn something in that process. Like, you know, unfortunately, I can't prescribe exactly where it is for people, but it's in that process of, of trying. And it's like, that's what makes life interesting. And then you come back and you're, you're different for it. And I think when you also have moments where you're deprived of these things that are super comfortable that we all love, and I think that modern comforts are great. I don't want anyone to misconstrue my message that I, you know, live in a yurt and heat my house with the firewood I've—

Walrus blubber.

Yeah. But it makes coming back to normal life So much more interesting and you're more appreciative of it and you enjoy it more. It's like you— when you— I'll give you an example of your hike. So you go 7 days in British Columbia, you're hauling around Campbell's Soup cans. It was a miscalculation on your part, I'll say that.

Yeah.

When you came back into, let's say, Vancouver, whatever the town is, and you sat down and you had a real meal, how did that taste?

Insanely good. Yeah, I actually, I actually remember it because I came back at night and the next morning I went to my favorite breakfast place called Slickety Jim's and had a massive breakfast in Vancouver. And it was like, oh my gosh, I haven't tasted food like this in, you know, so long.

Exactly. And like, when's the last time you had that experience after eating a breakfast? It doesn't happen often. Yeah, it's that deprivation and that removal from the confines of normalcy and comfort that made that so much more interesting. And that to me is sort of— that's a metaphor for living. It's like if you're always leaning into the comfort, it's like the breakfast doesn't taste as good. I mean, it might— it could be really good, but you're just like, you adapt to it. It's just not as good. But you remove yourself from that for a while. You did something hard. You're outside. You're worried about bears. You get back into that. restaurant where there's walls so no bears are coming in, you've dropped the soup cans, and now you have a real meal. It's like, holy shit, this is amazing.

Would you, would you say that it's fair that in order to meet our edge, we have to move towards our fears and the things that we're afraid of, that that can be a kind of guiding light that we can move towards?

Yeah. I mean, I think that's a Really good sign that there's something there worth exploring. And I mean, this isn't just me pontificating this like mythical stuff. It's— there's years of psychological research that show that avoiding things that we are afraid of that make us anxious, that tends to only amplify those anxiety and those fears, whereas moving towards them.

Hmm.

tends to decrease them over time. Now, it's a balance. You can't, you know, if your major fear, let's say, is public speaking, like, maybe don't take the speaking gig in front of 5,000 people for your first one. But it does suggest, okay, I need to start small and start moving into that and see what happens. And it will be hard, but like, you grow in that process and you learn something from it.

I think I'd love to kind of wrap on this notion of Of the 2%. I love the idea of choosing the stairs over the escalator. Are there other examples? I know you've got a ton of them on your show and Substack, but I'm wondering if you can give some other examples for men that are like, okay, I like this idea, I want to go execute on it. What are some other ways that I can execute on the 2%?

Yeah, I'll give you some examples from people who've read my work or who I've worked with that have used it. I had one big, big corporation, more— we'll just put it that way. Um, they were always taking their meetings inside sort of these drab office buildings, and everyone's on their phone half the meeting checking email for the millionth time. And they started to do their meetings outdoors while walking. So no phones. Now we're getting in some movement. Yeah, the temperature isn't as perfect as the office. It's a little harder. But the best ideas that they came up with for their company came from those meetings. And there is research that shows walking meetings tend to be not only more productive, they're also more efficient. So the ideas that come out of them are better, and they also take less time. Another person A guy I heard from, he would have to sit at his desk all day and take phone calls. He's only getting like 3,000 steps a day. He was like, well, I do have to take the phone calls for work, but I don't have to take them while sitting. So he just popped in headphones, started walking around his house, walking around his neighborhood while taking the phone calls. And now all of a sudden the step count is up past 10,000. He was still able to get all the work done. But when you look at the data on going from 3,000 steps to 10,000 steps a day, It's like a 50% decrease in all-cause mortality. Like, it's, it's insane. One I love, there was the, the Azerbaijani combat sports team. They were very talented, very talented. Now, the problem, though, is that all of the athletes were staying up until like 2, 3 a.m. on like TikTok and shit. So they're not sleeping enough, they're not recovering. Um, guy I know who worked with him was like, oh yeah, I use this concept. He's like, I shut the internet off at 8 PM. He's like, I brought him in. I'm like, hey guys, this is gonna suck in the short term, but we're gonna do it because we have a bigger long-term goal. Did that, guys started sleeping. They ended up winning like 16 medals in that, that, uh, Summer Games. So it's like these are small things. They're all a little bit hard, but they move the ball farther downfield for these larger goals we all have. And I have a whole list, my Substack, which is twopct.com. At the very top bar, there's this thing, the button, 2% Manifesto, and it just lists a bunch of these things and just talks about the concept generally.

Very cool. Very cool. Yeah. I mean, we've implemented some some of those types of things around the house, you know, like no phones at the dinner table. We try and have dinner as a family every single night that we can. I mean, even like small things. I started playing music during dinner. So we have like the Sonos system and it's just like playing music during dinner is like change, change the game. And so, yeah. And then shutting off the internet at night is, I think, underrated. I think very underrated. Like we've started doing that as well. And at first I had resistance to it. I was like, oh, This seems like a pain in the ass, shutting it off and plugging it in in the morning. And then, I just automated it, got a timer, and away it went. But, I think those types of things are very important. The last thing I do want to touch on is you've talked a lot in your work and writing about how powerful something like solitude can happen, how powerful solitude can be. Sorry. And, I think it's interesting because I think when Some men hear that, they struggle because they feel very isolated and lonely. And, I know that obviously there's a delineation between solitude and isolation. And, I'd love for you to maybe flesh out how can a man create some intentional solitude that is different from being isolated. And maybe if you have any insight into how can a man start to combat that isolation because I think as we're talking about meeting your edge as a guy who maybe is disconnected, doesn't have a lot of friends, maybe a little bit isolated. That can be an edge to start to go out and actually be more social. So I'd love for you to talk about those 2 things.

Yeah, there's a quote one of the guests on my podcast reminded me of. We had Ryan Suave on, who's like one of the world's best therapists. He works with a lot of people in addiction. And he quoted the philosopher Pascal who said, all of man's problems stem from his ability to sit alone in a room. Just like, damn. But it sounds about right. So loneliness, big picture, is I want to be with people and connect with people, but I can't for whatever reason. And that causes me trouble. Solitude is I want to be alone. Yeah. On purpose, and I'm choosing that. And I think you know there's so much attention on we need to connect with more people today because there's like you know quote unquote this loneliness epidemic. But to me, you need to build the foundation to be alone with yourself because people are going to come and go. But if you can't sit with yourself and be okay with that, you are. Fucked. So I think like the practice you did where you're like, I'm going to go out in the wilderness alone for a week, like, that's going to be hard. You're going to be alone. But I think you learn something with that. Some of my personal greatest insights have been on like these trips I do alone for my reporting. And you're in just like some wacky place and you have to figure it out on your own and you're in your head for a lot of the time. And but you learn something there. And it gets you okay with like, all right, you know what, I got this. You kind of build some confidence. And then it also makes the interactions you have with others, I think, a lot more precious and important. So I'm not saying like, hey, people in your life don't matter. It's like, of course they do. But you also have to start with yourself, and it's going to be uncomfortable at first, probably. And then from there you can ripple out and go, all right, here's what I'm going to do to build this like strong network of ties.

Yeah, I mean, the, the solo expeditions I've done a number of times, like I've tried to do it every single year since then. I think I've only missed one year during COVID But like another example is on, for my 40th, before I turned 40, it was for my 40th birthday, I went to Scotland and I went back to the Isle of Skye where my family is initially from. And I spent a week there hiking and exploring and just like, you know, doing my own thing. And those, I think those moments have been so formative, because it always puts my life into perspective. And it's something that I both really crave, but also something that is confronting. You know, I remember being on the Isle of Skye, and I'm like, what am I going to do today? Like, I don't have my kids with me, my wife's not here.

Yeah.

I'm not hanging out with friends. You know, I had like a loose plan of, I had An itinerary of places that I wanted to go hike or climb, places that I wanted to go, you know, take photos of. But then I just left a lot of room for the adventure, you know. And I remembered like the second morning that I was there, I had nothing planned for that day. And I walked outside in the morning, I'd make coffee and I walked outside and I'd rented this like little cottage right, right by, right on the ocean. And I walked out and I just got the urge. I'm like, I'm just going to go get in the ocean. So I stripped down to my boxers and like went and sat in the ocean. Freezing cold. And, I'm sitting there and a little seal just pops up out of the water probably 15, 20 feet away from me. And, I direct eye contact with the seal and then just went and had an adventure for the day. And, I think it's one of those things where I've had to learn to move back into solitude and yet it seems to be such a formative teacher in a lot of ways. And, I think because I'm able to do that, I always come back more capable for my family and more present for my friends. I want to come— I just want to double-click on one thing, though. You said the loneliness epidemic, quote unquote. Do you think that there is not one, or do you think that it's sort of like overblown or overmanufactured?

I think it's a hard question. I mean, I do think people need to work on getting good with themselves. Hmm. Because there's kind of a pushing of some of the advice, I guess I would say, that's come out of that. Okay, we have a loneliness epidemic, like go out and join a softball team, go do X, Y, Z. It's like, are you going to— are you always going to meet the type of people that are like fundamentally going to be important to you? I think it's more important to have and I think the data supports this, it's more important to have like a fucking ride-or-die crew. You know, you got 3, 4, or 5 people you can lean on rather than like, I'm just going to go gather this random assortment of friends because the CDC told me I need to not be lonely.

Yeah, fair. I'm always— yeah, I'm always a little wary when the government steps in on things like that. It's like the UK has like a minister of loneliness. I'm like, that sounds like government bloat and spend. That's not going to do jack shit for the problem. You know, it's, it's— yeah, I always— it's, it's always, you know, the programs that they institute are always sort of minimal at best.

But yeah, there's a— So for my book Scarcity Brain, I lived in a monastery, a Benedictine monastery for a while, and the monks all live together. But they're silent most of the day, just kind of doing their, their thing. So it's kind of— it's like a very sort of solitary life, even though they're with others. And this researcher I talked to who studies them, because they're very interesting in the sense that they have some of the highest self-reported happiness and well-being scores, but you look at what they do day to day, and it's like very at odds with all the happiness advice. And he said, what they have is what's called anticipatory support. That's a dorky way of saying what I just said. You need a ride-or-die crew. They have a handful of people that they can go, hey, if some stuff comes up, I can count on that person. So I think you need those people in your life more than you need this like giant network. And I think there are some people who are inherently less social. And when you look at them, They tend to be just as happy as people who have a giant network of friends. There's like, it's kind of like knowing yourself. I'm one of those people where I don't need to go out and have drinks with like this guy who knows a guy who told me to talk to this guy. Like, I'm not a huge fan of that. But if it's like, okay, here's my crew, like, let's go out. Great. Not have drinks because I don't drink.

I got you, man. I'm more, I'm more of a hermit in nature. So I understand that. Well, listen, Michael, this has been a blast. I really appreciate you and your work. Where can people go to learn more about you? We'll have all the links for it in the show notes, but I'd love for you to just give it to them.

Yeah, you can. The show, the podcast is 2%. We're on YouTube, we're on Spotify, Apple, all the podcast places. And then my Substack is twopct.com, called 2% as well.

Beauty. Beauty. Well, for all those listening, links are in the show notes. Do not forget to man it forward. Share the podcast with one person that you know will enjoy it. This might be one of those ones that you're like, you know, you get somebody to hold you accountable to an edge that you are going to meet. So, thank you so much for tuning in. As always, Connor Beaton signing off. We'll see you next week.