Episode 158: The Power of Mindset in an Accelerating World

Hi everybody, it's Dan Sullivan and this is Exponential Wisdom with my technological guide to the universe, Peter Diamandis. And Peter, we've been at this now for more than a decade and the big thing is how do you open yourself to all the changes that are going on and being cool and calm about it? Yeah, you know, I can tell you're about the age when you deserve the right to be cool and calm about how you've spent your life up until now. Yeah, because I'm at my coolest calmest that I've ever been in my life right now, and I'm enjoying it.

Yeah, it's like, how have I spent the first 20% of my life? Yeah, um, you know, we're in a period of time where the speed of change is not slowing down, it's accelerating, right, on the back of AGI and soon ASI. And we're sort of on the edge of feeling this change. We're about to see in the next 2 years AI begin to make our lives feel very different. And I think what enables me to stay cool and calm is the mindsets I've developed. You know, I think about it, I think for an entrepreneur, your mindset is the single most important thing you've got. You know, it's more important than your friends, your money, the tech you have. The way that you see opportunity and challenges is your mindset. You know, I first got into this thinking back in 2012 when I co-authored Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think, which is how you and I connected on that book. And it helped me create an abundance mindset. And that abundance mindset, which was, oh, there's nothing truly scarce, that in fact technology takes whatever was scarce and makes it abundant. More and more and more. And that came out of a conversation I had with Ray Kurzweil and Neil Jacobstein at Singularity University. And then I partnered with Stephen Kotler to write that book. And then I kicked off TED that year. And then Joe Polish helped us blow up the book to number 2 on the New York Times list. And that began me thinking about, oh, that's interesting. I can flip my mindset in that way. And what other mindsets do I need to actually transform? And so I talk a lot about a curiosity mindset, a gratitude mindset, a purpose-driven mindset, an abundance, longevity, and moonshot mindset. And I think the mindset that you have helps you remain cool and calm and even excited about the future.

Yeah. On the walls of our coach centers, I have a term, your eyes only see and your ears only hear what your brain is looking for.

I love that.

So you have to program your brain to be looking for certain things and ignoring other things. Okay, so if we go back to when we first met, what do you concentrate on more today that you didn't concentrate on in 2000? It was actually 2011 when we met, I think. And you had just had twins. I remember that because that was my sales hook. I said, Peter, I'm sure you're gonna walk on Mars, but if you don't do a good job with your sons and your family, you're not gonna feel good about it. So that was my hook. I just hooked you in and got you in Strategic Coach. But I think the big thing is that I've got a new time system. I wanna share it with you because it's my next quarterly book. And I said that yesterday creates tomorrow. So every day when I get up in the morning, this is my latest mindset. My goal for today is that I create a great yesterday.

Okay, tell me, what does that mean?

Well, it means that you have control over today. All of us, you know, being who we are and what we have, we have today's schedule. How can I do what I need to do today so that tomorrow morning that was a great yesterday? And I've done 140 days in a row. So this is a new experiment. And my sense of momentum and my sense of focus, and that is the best it's ever been in my life after 140 days. So I have 140 great yesterdays. And my sense is that your yesterdays really establish who you actually are. But there's a price you have to pay, and the price you have to pay is not get emotionally engaged with things that don't exist yet. Okay, so I'm ADD. I went to the Amen Clinic and I'm clearly ADD, and I've discovered that ADD is getting more and more emotionally connected at things that don't exist in the future, but at the price that you're not paying attention to what you're supposed to be doing today. And so every night I say, that was a great yesterday. This is a great yesterday. I had 2 hours with Peter Diamandis. That makes it a great yesterday, you know. And I had a new book. I did 2 chapters of the book. I'm interviewed on the chapters, and then I have a writer and an editor that puts it into Dan speak. Okay, so the interesting thing about this is what I've noticed, we always knew that people get trapped in the past. That's what we talked about. People aren't making the necessary mindset changes that they're going to need for the future. So they're trapped in the past. But I've seen people who get trapped in the future too, that they're always sacrificing today that does exist for something that doesn't exist in the future. I mean, at a certain age, we realize there was yesterday, there's today, and there's tomorrow. But we're always trying to get away from yesterday and we're fixated on tomorrow, but we're not paying attention. We're not taking advantage of today. So my time is not speeding up. My time is actually slowing down because I just have one goal, and that is tomorrow morning, make this a great yesterday.

I love that. I love that. You know, just to get back to the issue of the mindsets needed to navigate this supersonic tsunami coming our way. So I wrote Abundance in 2012, and I just—

then you wrote Bold.

Bold. Yeah. And then Future is Faster Than You Think. And then Steven Kotler and I just published our fourth in the series. It's the best one yet. Hopefully when you read it, you'll enjoy it. It's called We Are as Gods: A Survival Guide for the Age of Abundance. Just came out. And in the book, we do three things. Number one, we paint the picture of, yes, exponentials, that we talked about in 2012 have just skyrocketed and accelerated, right? All of it has materialized and it's going farther and faster than ever before. And by the way, abundance, which was not a buzzword in 2012, is now a buzzword that every tech CEO is talking about. We then talk about the fact that there are negative elements of abundance, increasing microplastics and carbon and teen depression. In obesity. All of these things are the negative adjacencies to the positive side of abundance. But then the second half of the book, I think, is relevant to this conversation here, which is how do you navigate this that's coming our way? And it really is your mindset you bring to the table. And I think about mindset as the mechanism that how you deal with opportunities or how you deal with challenges is your mindset. It's the way that your brain 100 billion neurons, 100 trillion synaptic connections. Your brain is your neural net and you train your brain the same way an AI neural net, a large language model is trained by the examples you show it over and over again. And so, you know, what we talk about in the book, and I think about this for everyone listening, if you've got a strong curiosity mindset and you have a purpose-driven mindset, enables you to engage with AI, to learn as much as you can, to implement your purpose. You know, you're self-intrinsically motivated. AI is your partner there. Those are critical, important. And if you think AI is happening to you instead of for you, that's a big problem.

Yeah.

And Steve and I talk about agency, that you now have more agency than ever before. An agency, I think, is a core word for entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

Build to do more than ever before.

Yeah. There's a very famous psychologist by the name of Martin Seligman. He teaches at Penn University.

Yeah.

And he's the longest continual professor at any American university. He started in the late 20s and he's in his late 80s, 60 years. And he created a whole branch of psychology called positive psychology. Mm-hmm. His whole basis was that generally speaking, Psychology as it's taught is based on all people who are unhappy, they're not productive, and they're down on themselves in almost the entire psychological realm. And he says, why don't we just study the people who are happy? Okay. So his was always happiness. What is happiness? So I did a Zoom call with him because we have the concept, the gap and the gain. That's how you measure.

I love it. Yeah.

Measure your progress. And he really liked the book. That's how we got in connect. One of his students who's a client of Strategic Coach, set up the Zoom call. So at the end of the hour that we had, I said, is happiness at the center? And he says, no, he says, it's not at the center. I think that happiness is a byproduct. It's not the central goal.

Byproduct of what?

Agency.

Yeah.

And he says, agency, it doesn't matter whether you're happy, you just have the attitude regardless of what comes, I'll be able to handle it. You know?

Yes.

So I'll take ownership of anything that comes my way, you know, and I'll use all my previous skills, I'll use all my previous knowledge, and then I'll acquire new skills, new agency, but I always have the feeling that I'm on top of what's happening. He told me an interesting story that almost everybody he was a professor with and who he knew and all his friends, they're all dead. He said, I got about 8 of them that we talked for 40, 50 years, but they're all dead. So what I did is I took all their writings and put it into AI, and now I have conversations with them.

Mm-hmm. Yes.

He does podcasts where people can interact with him on AI, and he gets letters saying, you know, you're a lot more interesting in AI than you were in person. So he said, at 80, he says, I'm excited again. He said, it was starting to wear out a little bit, but I'm getting more excited. The sense of agency is the number one skill that you have to have.

Yes. But I think I talked through some of these other mindsets with you, Dan, to get your bounce on them. So, you know, a curiosity mindset, I think, is really important because AI is the ultimate teacher and your ability to be sufficiently curious where you dive into, into what's possible. You know, I live in a gratitude.

Well, it introduces you to new.

Yes.

Oh, I hadn't seen that before.

Yeah. And I think the speed of change is so rapid today that remaining curious is critically important.

Yeah. So at 90, you're going to have a greater sense of agency.

Oh, for sure. I mean, I have that growing all the time because I have a— I don't give a shit what you think of doing what I want to do. Which is an entrepreneur's mindset, right? I was an older father, kids that were born age 50. They're— I'm turning 65, they're turning 15, and right now they are my priority. So, you know, if I've got a call with somebody scheduled and they're like, Dad, can we go do this? I'm like, sure, I'll cancel the call because, you know, I get to prioritize what I want. The purpose-driven mindset, I think, is really important. To have in this period of time. Because if you're aimless without having true purpose in your life, I think you're confused and you're lost. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I totally agree. Taking your cue from a couple of years ago, my whole thing is impact. You know, what is the impact? And what I mean by impact, I'm doing stuff that other people find very valuable. And not just anybody either, but, you know, talented, successful entrepreneurs, ambitious entrepreneurs.

I think when you are fulfilling your purpose, there's so much emotional positive energy that it fuels you to want to do more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then an exponential mindset. You know, we are such linear thinkers in a linear world from a societal and government standpoint. You know, being able to see that the world we're entering is nonlinear, that exponentials, as AI drives breakthroughs in math, physics, chemistry, biology, material sciences, The world's gonna change in such dramatic fashion.

Mm-hmm.

And being able to be, you know, you might call it a 10x thinker versus exponential thinker.

I've gone to 100x now.

Nice.

Yeah.

So what are your thoughts about the importance of being an exponential thinker?

Yeah, well, I think it's great. I mean, you used a good phrase just a minute or two. Again, I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do. I know I don't give a shit of whether people like that or not. I'm gonna do that. I mean, you can say that in a rebellious way or you can say that in a creative way. There's a big difference.

Of course.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's the creative way.

Most people are seeking freedom. And I says, is it freedom from or freedom to? And that makes a big difference. Freedom from, you're being controlled by your past. Freedom to, you're being controlled by your imagination and your curiosity.

Yeah, I love that.

And then the big thing is that has a tremendous impact on your health. I think our body takes our cues from our brain.

Yes. And one of the things that is very numerically demonstrated there, and I quote this in my, some of my books, that a study published in National Academy of Sciences that optimists live 15% longer than pessimists. Right. And you and I have that very much in common. If you have a purpose in life and if you're optimistic about the world, you wanna see as much of this as possible.

Yeah. And things are always getting better. That's the other thing. I have a sense that this year it's a lot better than last year. I'm 82 and the day after you're 65.

Yes.

And I said this was the greatest year. I've never had a year like this.

Yeah. I love that, pal. You know, the next mindset I think about is an abundance mindset. And you know, I think this is the most difficult one. Yeah, it's difficult for people in part because we compare ourselves not to our actual neighbor, but to everybody. Compare ourselves to Elon or to Kardashians or whatever the case might be. Because Dunbar's number has gotten confused. Dunbar's number, the 150 people used to be the people in your community, the people in your backyard. Now it's a virtualized number and—

Well, everybody's got 150.

Yeah, you know, so an abundance mindset, you know, and we forget the extraordinary abundant world we're living in. We take it all for granted. But, you know, having an abundance mindset, and part of that means that, you know, next year is going to be better than this year.

Yeah, it's compounding.

It's compounding.

Yeah.

Yeah. Why do you think it's difficult for people?

Well, they haven't had the experience. For most people, they haven't had a compounding experience. They had an enormous compounding pounding from birth till age 6 or 7 because their brain was adjusting to the reality that they came in. But the biggest thing that probably— and this is a subject that we've talked about a lot— I think that people are at their most creative, most curious, most alert, most responsive, most resourceful before they start their formal education, and then all that gets educated out. Yes, because I don't think the teaching profession has an abundant attitude.

It's sad. I think about that and I see this happening where some of the best entrepreneurs are 18, 19, 20 years old, dropping out of college versus getting into or not going to college.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the whole notion of the connection between yourself and who you're going to be as an adult used to absolutely include you had to go to college.

Yes.

I mean, Would you go to college today if you were 18?

No, 'cause you can self-educate.

And you had AI, would you go to college?

No, because you've got the ability to self-educate and you've got more power to do extraordinary things than ever before. You know, and the idea of going to graduate school slays me, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're just extending childhood.

Yeah, I mean, listen, there is an element about college which is valuable, which is being on your own. And interacting with people and building social connection and building network. But I think I, for one, am going to build a new type of college, and it's not college that exists today. In my version of college, it's basically an incubator entrepreneurial studio where you're building companies and you're creating and you're learning from an intrinsic standpoint, making things up, where you're learning what Yeah, for sure. The next mindset on abundance is a moonshot mindset, which ties to the 10x. It's that you can go 10 times bigger than anybody else. And I think one of the things that's interesting is most everybody self-limits what they think they can do. And how do you let go of those self-limitations?

I wrote a book called Always More Ambitious, and I said it's an interesting thing. That when most people are born, they have an idea that ambition is a gas tank. And some people get big gas tanks, some people get small gas tank. But whatever the size of your gas tank, when you hit 60 or so, you run out of gas. Okay. Everything you have to do, you have to do before you run out of gas. And I said, it's the wrong metaphor. It's a metaphor, but it's the wrong metaphor. Ambition is a muscle. And every time you acquire a new capability, your ambition gets better. And I've noticed that in the last 3 years, entrepreneurs, you know, are very successful. They're very talented, but they haven't been acquiring new capabilities. And they get engaged with AI and all of a sudden they come back and they're talking about, oh, I can do this, I can do this. And now I have team members who can do this and do that. And all of a sudden their ambition grows because it gets exciting. It's exciting again. Yeah. Yeah.

Which brings me back to my 10-day work week.

Yeah.

Dave Erickson is talking about 3 and 4-day work weeks and I'm going, no way. It's like I can't sleep. I'm getting up, you know, at 6:00 AM, 5:00 AM and like hopping on the idea I had last night and seeing what my AIs have done while they've crunched overnight. It is the most exciting time ever and it's accelerating.

And your brains are growing. You know, your brain grows if you do this. You know, on average, most people lose 0.4% of their brain volume after around 50 years old. So I just gained 12% back. So that reverses me back, you know, what's 12 times 4?

You know, it's 48 years. Yeah.

Yeah.

0.4 goes into 12. So it's, yeah, 30 times. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

30 times. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's good. We learned math at the right time. Didn't have to go to a calculator. Yeah.

Yeah.

But, you know, AI is a great amplifier. And if you don't have any purpose in life, it'll amplify your no purpose in life. If you have a purpose, that's a great point. Amplify. That's why I said the spread between smart and not so smart is going to grow.

Interesting, right? Intelligence may not be the driver of how successful you are.

No, no.

I think more important than your actual IQ or intelligence is your mindset elements, your purpose mindset, your level of ambition, your level of gratitude, your level of curiosity. I think those are far more important than your actual inherent intelligence, than your IQ. I know a lot of super intelligent people who are wasting their lives.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

They were told that they had enough intelligence that they would always be number one. Yeah, and they're not.

Well, you know, a human with AI amplification is vastly more capable than a super intelligent human by themselves. Yeah, for sure.

Another mindset is don't compare yourself to other people. Compare backwards. Always be comparing with who you are.

Well, this is the gap in the game.

Yeah, the gap in the game.

And I love that, right? You know, just quote you here. If you compare yourself against all of your views of everything you could possibly be, or compare it to Elon or to Steve Jobs or whomever, the gap between where you are and that infinite is infinite, and you're never gonna win that. If you compare yourself to how far you've come in the last year, the last 10 years, last 30 years, then that's a gain that you've made. And I love that mindset. And that is critically important for people to have. Otherwise, if you're living in the gap, it can destroy you.

Oh yeah, yeah. One of the issues you were talking about, mental illness among teenagers. Yeah, it's far higher among girls than it is among boys because of social media. Social media. Yeah, yeah. I noticed Australia just passed legislation that you can't have social media. I mean, how they're going to enforce this, I have no idea. They're cutting off social media, but I said, how do you cut it off? I mean, the horse is out of the barn. How do you actually cut it off? It's interesting times, you know.

It is. You haven't had a chance to read We Are as Gods yet, have you?

Not yet. I've got— all right, I'm reading detective stories right now. They're really interesting.

Well, this is a detective story about where we go in humanity.

So you mentioned something on our previous podcast, and I've given a lot of thought to this, that there's going to be more artistic blooming than there has been before.

They're going to get more artistic.

Artistic people are going to go into more since practical things are going to be taken care of by technology, you know. And I have an example. I haven't driven for 25 years, you know, so people are always talking about their self-driving cars. I've had limousines. I married one of my limousine drivers. Babs has a Tesla X and I don't know how to drive it yet.

All you should do is say, go here.

Yeah, yeah, let's go here. And I have time to think and everything. I count flags, I count cranes. You know, I've got all sorts of tricks acquired from childhood. How do you make a long trip interesting? You play a game with your brain when you go on it. What I'm seeing is that AI is totally unpredictable because I think every human who engages with AI does something different with it.

Of course, driven by their passion and their purpose.

Yeah, everybody doubles down on something.

You know, I think the people who don't double down on something, it's a sad situation.

Well, you can double down on the wrong things.

True, true.

Yeah.

Anyway, my view is, and the point we make in the book, is that we're going to have an insane, you know, people have no idea how fast the world is going to change. And it's accelerating in a way that's going to transform every aspect of our lives. Not in 20 years or 10 years. This is the next 5 years.

Today, right now. Yeah.

And the only tool you have to deal with this successfully is going to be your mindset. It's the only thing you can control is how you think about this, right? There are going to be other tools like, you know, connecting your brain to the cloud, uploading yourself, all these other things about how do you couple with AI as it's accelerating. But right now, it is your mindset as a father, mother, CEO, entrepreneur, or investor, wherever you are in life, your mindset is what's going to differentiate you to survive and thrive, right? Or to be crushed by it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the gunfight at O.K. Corral.

1000%. Yeah, 1000%.

Yeah.

So I'll put a plug in. If you're interested in this conversation, go and read the book We Are as Gods. I'd love to hear people's feedback.

Yeah, I will.

Yeah.

Good.

All right, buddy. Always a pleasure.

Yeah, always a pleasure. Thanks, Peter.

Thank you, Dan.