Invisible Shackles & Life Scripts

Ali

My name is Ali. I'm a doctor and YouTuber.

Taimur

I'm Taimur. I'm a data scientist and writer.

Ali

And you're listening to Not Overthinking the weekly podcast where we think about happiness, creativity and the human condition.

Taimur

Hello, welcome to another episode of Not Overthinking. Ali, how are you doing this week?

Ali

I am doing absolutely fantastically. Thank you very much for asking. Have I done anything anything interesting this week? And I think I have. It has been standard life at work coming back home filming videos, the usual hustle, the usual grind. What about you?

Taimur

It's been a it's been an emotionally taxing week for me actually.

Ali

Why is that?

Taimur

We're in the process of like, finalizing fundraising for for the startup. And yeah, it's just a very emotionally laborious process and difficult decisions and stuff like that.

Ali

And why is it emotionally laborious? What is difficult about asking people for money?

Taimur

It's just that yeah, it's the classic problem of like, it's not clear, it isn't, it's not, it's not a no brainer, what the right option is. And there's like, pros, there's like a few options. And there's pros and cons to each. And there are people and personal relationships involved in each. And it's like, you have to weigh all these things up, and then make a decision. And, yeah, I just worry that like, whatever does it you know, even though this is like a win win, I think we're very fortunate in that we have a lot of good options. It feels it sometimes feels like, Ah, no matter what decision we're gonna make, we're gonna like, think about the opportunity cost and think, oh, man, what if what if we go with the other one or something, you know, this kind of thing. Okay.

Ali

And how much money have you raised so far? Are you comfortable with sharing that information publicly?

Taimur

We, no, no. And we can talk about that kind of stuff later. I think it's not really. Yeah.

Ali

Why are you cagey about how much money you've raised?

Taimur

Sorry?

Ali

Why are you cagey about how much money you've raised? I thought you were all about financial transparency and all that stuff.

Taimur

I'm all about financial transparency. I'll be happy to talk abo t this after we actually wrap up the round, but we're still in the process. S -

Ali

Okay, so it'd be poor form for you to sort of count the chickens before the eggs are hatched?

Taimur

Yes.

Ali

Anyway. Okay. So once you put the money in the bank account, then we can talk in great deal in great detail about how much money your startup has raised.

Taimur

I'll have to think about it.

Ali

Okay, I think that'd be an interesting topic for another time. But you had an idea of what you want to talk about this week?

Taimur

Yeah. So this week has one thing I've been thinking about a lot. And I think it's it's probably best summed up by probably the phrase Invisible Shackles, I would say. I think, I think I've certainly been going through life over the past couple of decades, or whatever, bounded by various invisible chains that I'm not really aware of. And I think that a big part of the process of personal growth and personal development over the past few years. And it has, it has been like noticing different sets of invisible chains that I'm wearing, and sort of taking them off, you know. And I think like, it's one of the best feelings when you find one of these, and you're like, Whoa, what's that doing there? You know. So I'll give you a couple of examples that are interesting to see whether this idea sort of makes sense to you. So maybe about a year ago, I discovered that having a light lunch every day, actually makes me significantly happier than having a heavy lunch. And, you know, for the past two decades, or whatever, my my sort of conception of what it meant to have lunch was like, you know, lunches are proper meal, you have a hot cooked thing, probably with some oil in it, ideally, with some meat in there. And that is what lunch is. And so you know, I'd add Yeah, well, I had a back around real job, whatever, I'd go out to the local market, we will go there for lunch. And there's a bunch of options. I'd go for like the Indian curry thing, you know, very heavy, oily, meaty kind of lunch or something like that. And then about a year ago, I realized, whoa, let me try this salad thing. And all these all these cool white folk are having salad for lunch. Let me let me try this. And it was great. And I realized that like, eating Yeah, being really full and eating like oily, heavy food just makes me quite tired and lethargic and makes me feel a bit unpleasant. And I feel amazing after having like a light salad for lunch every day. And I started doing that. And that's been a massive boost to my life. Another example, which is more recent, probably started noticing this about three weeks ago, is that I spend I spend an enormous amount of time in coffee shops, because that's often where I do a lot of my work these days. And so I go to go to a coffee shop, I order like a latte or a mocha I had I had a phase where I was ordering white americanos. But I've realized recently that most of the time, I actually prefer tea. Most of the time, I don't want some like heavy coffee thing. I just want like a light tea to sort of sip on while I do my work. And I think I would prefer previous that was sort of caught up in the ritual of like, I'm in a coffee shop. I need to order coffee at it to like, sit down with a latte, you know, this was like a strange ritual thing for me.

Ali

Okay.

Taimur

And I didn't really like it. It wasn't really making me that happy.

Ali

But you thought you would do the latte thing anyway, just because it's the thing that you did in a coffee shop.

Taimur

Well, it's like, yeah. I'm in a coffee shop. Ladies, just ask me what I want. I'd have a latte please. Whereas, yeah, I just I realized, wow, I actually don't really like that that much. And I liked it a lot more. And I started, you know, ordering tea at coffee shops.

Ali

So that's revolutionary.

Taimur

It is. And these are these are both, like fairly trivial examples. But there's others that like, I think I have noticed over the past few years. It's very good to hear it. Do you understand what I mean by these these like random things and ways that you live your life for no reason at all, that aren't really serving you very well. But it's hard to notice that actually, you know, I feel bad after a heavy lunch. It's hard to notice that and and do something about it.

Ali

Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. I wonder if invisible shackles is, is a way of describing this because I feel like I have read about this sort of thing before. Almost like the default scripts that we have in our heads just cause it's the way we were raised. And it kind of, it's kind of linked to this idea of, you know, everyone gives you the advice, you shouldn't be yourself. But actually who you are is just a series of accidents over your upbringing that you've had really no control over. And so I guess you and I are big fans of the choose yourself movement, where it's actually you know, what, I'm gonna make a conscious decision as to the sort of person I want to be like. I'm not necessarily just gonna, you know, going to be low energy and unconfident just because that's what I've always been. I have the option of not being that way.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

On the note of light lunches. I'd magically discovered this like three weeks ago, after you pointed out over dinner, you're like, Oh, my God, like lunch is the best thing ever. I think I might even mentioned in last week's podcast.

Taimur

Yeah. I think you mailed it in an email newsletter.

Ali

Oh, my God. My Siri has just been recording absolutely everything we've been saying. And it actually got most of the transcription right. Anyway. Yeah, I mentioned it in an email newsletter and then I was in I was in Edinburgh this weekend. Staying with my friend Callum and Callum has been doing this light lunch thing for years, where he just has a cheese sandwich, a ham sandwich and a carrot for lunch every single day, 364 days a year. Christmas Day is the only day he does not have his cheese and a ham sandwich with a carrot. And he was really annoyed. He was like, look, bro I've been having this light lunch thing for the last six years. Why is this suddenly been a revelation to you? And I was like, Oh, yeah, you're right. You have a big light like this. Because prior to seeing Callum in the way Callum lives his life, I was also big on like, you know, if a meal doesn't have meat in it, it's not really a meal.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

Because that kind of would be like when you just get a sandwich from M&S and be like, you know, cause they're not halal, he was like, why don't you get vegetarian sandwich from M&S? I mean, I was like, whoa, no way. If yo say I'm getting cheese, Ploughman's sandwich and that would be a solid meal i self. And he was like, yeah, why does the meal need to have meat in it. And tha just completely blew my mind. I was like, oh my god, this is completely hanged the game. There's a few other areas in which I think these sorts of i visible shackles default processes do exist. Actually on on the coffee shop ote, back in the day, like in like first and second year o When I used to go to coffee shops and things. I'll be ordering a hot chocolate or a mocha. And I was just being you know, I quite liked enjoy it. I quite quite enjoyed those. And then one time I was hanging out with a friend, he ordered a latte. And I was like, all right, that guy's cool. And then from that point on, I started like training myself to enjoy lattes. And then like two years later, when I had another coffee with him at the same coffee shop Fitzbillies in Cambridge, he ordered a flat white. And I was like damn, he changed the game. And I was like, exactly. I started doing flat whites for about a year. And now I've gone back to the latte. And I think a lot of tastes like a good, a good kind of middle ground. But I wonder what other examples there are of these invisible shackles default processes in non trivial domains?

Taimur

I think like, I think a big part, a big sort of category for me is sort of the stuff that's sort of specific to, you know, Pakistani, or Desi culture, which is sort of how we've grown up, right. And I think, I think one of the big differences between sort of Indian Pakistani culture, and, for example, you know, English, British culture, or whatever it is that I think social ties for brown people extend a lot further. And that also means that the sort of the, the feeling of social obligations also extends a lot further. And this is something that my mom and I talk about fairly often these days where, you know, I feel like, you know, when I'm growing up and stuff, there were various sort of people who, you know, we used to hang out with or whatever, at least in large part out of like, social obligation. And looking back, like there are plenty of people who, I don't know, I didn't, I didn't feel like we really, you know, enjoy spending time with them that much. And likewise, I didn't feel like they really enjoyed spending that much time with with us either. But because of this, like, social obligation thing, it was like, oh, you know, we should we have to go to their house because they've invited us or whatever, or like, oh, it's so and so's like, wedding and we're talking to like another cousin of ours recently. And they were saying that, you know, they want to have like a really small wedding. But, you know, because of like family and stuff, they're gonna have to end up inviting a bunch of people, even if they don't really know them or care about them just because these people have like, invited them to the wedding. And so there's a lot of these like social obligations, things where it's like, oh, we have to hang out with them because they've invited us or we have to invite them because, you know, to our wedding or something because they invited us to 10 years ago, even if you don't really necessarily like these people that much, or, or vice versa. And so I think, I think like being more choosy about, like, who, who to engage in with the, in these social contracts with is something that I've been thinking about a lot recently where it's like, actually, it's, it's perfectly acceptable for me to say that, you know, we see this, we see so and so people like, once or twice a year, I don't get I don't really get much value out of it. I don't think they get much, much value out of it. Like there's no point me sort of keeping this thing alive, just out of this sort of social obligation thing. You know what I mean?

Ali

I kind of know what you mean, I'm not sure I fully agree. So firstly, for the record, a lot of white people have existed, I have this exact same structure of social obligations. It's just that from what I've seen, it kind of extends to first cousins, and that stops at that.

Taimur

Yeah, what I'm saying is like (unclear)-

Ali

Second cousins, third cousins, family, friends, this, that, and the other. And a lot of my white friends who are now in the process of getting married also have this kind of guest list. That's already half of it has been preset. And because in general, white people tend to have fewer people at their weddings than brown people do. They're also like, you know, after all the social obligations are taken care of, I can only invite 20 of my friends.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

And then that becomes a huge political nightmare as to who you But on the note of social obligations, I mean, I think there is value to be had in maintaining in putting a modicum of effort in to maintain existing invite. Which is why, you know, having a wedding in Malawi seems to be the ideal relationships purely because they are existing relationships. Let's say you've solution. Yeah, my friend really nailed that one. been, let's say, you've got a university friend that you've kind of lived with for about five years, and you don't really see each other and stuff, it doesn't take very much effort to maybe every Christmas, send him a Christmas card. And that is, you know, a five minute activity that, you know, results in a relationship continuing for the next 30 years plus, and let's say further down the line, you happen to then move to the same city at that point, you've got that friendship that you can rekindle. And that's a lot harder to do when you've completely tied off the contact.

Taimur

And I back that i'm not i'm not i'm not suggesting at all that like, it's all or nothing, you know, you're allowed five friends. And that's it. You can't talk to anyone. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that. Yeah, I think in the situation that you've just brought up where like, you have sort of like a distant University friend, and it's worth, you know, following them on Instagram, liking their page occasionally, occasionally, like replying to a story or something if you think it's cool. That's, that's basically what you're

Ali

hat's the 21st century version of sending them a Christmas card. saying is.

Taimur

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think that's great. But I think there are also plenty of situations where, you know, genuinely, neither party see s particularly interested in maintaining the thing. And there's no like, yea , I think there are situations where an example you gave, the, the level of con act is like proportional to like, the level of actual investment where it's lik , you know, you kind of know each other, you kind of like each other, but you know, you haven't hang out that much. And so, you know, you exchange a Chr stmas card once a year. But I think there are also situations that people end up in where the level of sort of investment is, the level of like, emotional inv stment is extremely low. Like neither party really cares that much about the other one. And yet, the level of like, physical investment is disproportionately higher, where it's like, you know, I have to invite them to my wedding because they invite us to theirs, even though like, we don't really talk.

Ali

Yeah. So this kind of makes me think of this concept that I first came across via my new friend Derek Sivers, fantastic guy, sivers.org, we'll put a link in the show notes. He's got a great blog and a good book. And that's this idea of hell, yeah, or no which is essentially the idea that, you know, at some point in life, where you're sort of inbound, inbound requests for your time and attention exceed the amount of time and attention you're willing to allocate. At that point, you have a philosophy that either that something is a no, unless I think it's a hell yeah. So unless you're super, super keen about it, then it ends up being a no. And the way that he I think the example that he used was it, you know, some friend invited him to some conference in Australia, he lived he lived in America at the time of Singapore or something. A conference in Australia, like six months further, don't like down the line. At that point. It was like, Okay, yeah, I guess, I guess so. Why not? Then, as it go to the time he realized, oh, no, I shouldn't. That really wasn't a hell yeah, I should, I should have completely said no to this, and felt the sense of obligation, having made that commitment in advance. And I think that's sort of what you're sort of loosely what you're getting at.

Taimur

Yeah, I'm actually not really getting at the specifics about the social obligation thing. I'm just saying that, like, understanding and seeing this sort of social obligation dynamic is one of the ways that that is one of the like, the invisible shackles that I think I've grown up with and I'm starting to sort of think more intentionally about.

Ali

Okay, yeah, I see your point like as a an example of an invisible shackle.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

It was to just a an issue and -

I think the main invisible shackle for me now that I kind of think back, is when I first read the four hour workweek and came across the the parable of the Mexican of the Mexican fishermen, which are I'm going to find on the internet and read out for our listeners because I don't think anyone I don't think everyone is familiar with this and I think it's worth revisiting even if it's not the case. Okay, so here it goes. An American investment banker was taking a much needed vacation in a small coastal Mexican village on a small boat with just one fishermen docked. The boat had several large fresh fish in it. The investment banker was impressed by the quality of the fish and asked the Mexican how long it took to catch them. The maximum the Mexican replied only a little while. The banker then asked why he didn't stay out longer and catch more fish. The Mexican fishermen replied that he had enough to put to support his family's immediate needs. The American then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time, the Mexican fishermen replied, I sleep late fish a little or play with my children and take siesta with my wife stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play the guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life senior. The investment banker scoffed. I'm an Ivy League MBA, and I could help you, you could spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat. And with the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats until eventually you would have a whole fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your cat to the middleman, you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening up your own cannery, you could control the product processing and distribution. Then he added, of course, you would need to leave the small coastal fishing village and moved to Mexico City, where you would run your growing enterprise. The Mexican fishermen asks, but Senior How long will this will take to reach the American replied 15 to 20 years. But what then asks the Mexican, the American laughed and said that's the best part when the time is right for you. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you could make million. Millions in your then what towards the investment banker replied, then you would retire you could move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep like fish a little play with your little play with your kids. Take a siesta with your wife and stroll into the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your amigos. And I first read this in the four hour workweek. And that was like one of the paradigm shifting moments of my life where I was like, Oh my god -

Taimur

eah, yeah.

Ali

This script that I just been subconsciously following that, you know, get a job, you know, go to school, get good grades, get a good university, get a decent job, make money, sort of like loosely retire further down the line.

Taimur

Yeah, renovate your kitchen, when you're thirsty kind of thing, you know.

Ali

Yeah, all of that sort of stuff was just completely unnecessary, and that there was an alternative way of living.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

And that was the main idea that I got from the rest of the book. And I say that that's a book that meant that most changed my life, because that completely changed the trajectory, the trajectory of where I was heading, and made me much more interested in actively doing the whole entrepreneurship thing, because I saw the value of, you know, work being like this optional thing, rather than just this thing that you did. Equally, there's another book called your money or your life, which again, kind of flipped the script, and made the point that actually kind of almost using the phrase invisible shackles, where it talks about how, like work and employment, society feeds us this myth that there there is more to work than just making money. That work is actually about you know, contribution and about fulfillment and And therefore if we split the money from the work bit, we realize that actually, about bonding with your work colleagues. And this, that and the other end that there are so many social benefits to work other than just making money. And the point that this book makes is that actually, you can get every single one of those benefits outside of work by like volunteering at your local church or doing other things like that, or just having more time to hang out with your family, your friends and your kids. You don't need to do the work for that. And in fact, it argues very convincingly that the only point of work is the money part. in an ideal world, I wouldn't need to quit work for my money. I would spend that time volunteering in the church and stuff. And then it tells us that essentially, all we were going to work for is to make money. And if you don't need to do that, or if you build businesses and stuff that mean you don't need to do that anymore, or whatever. You can choose to opt out of the work thing and spend your time in the ways you want to spend it while still also having all this fulfillment stuff. So that kind of changed the game for me as well, when, because I'd fully just bought into this notion that, you know, work was fulfilling -

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

In itself.

Taimur

So you're saying the invisible shackle here was like the broad life script of like, do this, then do this and do this and do this. And if you do all the right things, then you'll be like, I don't know a 40 years old, with like, a nice detached house and a family of two kids and a dog and stuff.

Ali

Yeah, very much. So. I think that's Yeah, I think that's a huge invisible shackle. Yeah. And I think even now, with our mom, that is the sort of invisible shackle that her kind of script seems to say it's, it seems, seems to operate on and having, at least the way I think of it, having could've been enlightened by all these various things. I just -

Taimur

All right, steady on.

Ali

I find it almost laughable that she still follows follows the script and kind of espouses espouses me to follow the script, and I don't need to follow the script the same way.

Taimur

I think she's more hands off with me because I'm not in the medical profession. But I don't know, I still I still think for a parent, the right move is maybe to just they still perpetuate the scripts, you know. Like if the kid wants to break the script. They'll do it on their own. If The kids isn't isn't like fully bought into breaking the script. And the parent is like that man, it's all good, do whatever you want, you know, whatever it could end badly is what I'm saying. And I think for a parent, you know, you could do a lot worse than perpetuate the script.

Ali

Yeah.

Taimur

And like, ultimately, the kids want to, if the kid wants to break the script, they will break the script. And, you know, the parental influence should not be the deciding factor as to -

Ali

Oh, God. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I fully agree. Like, I don't hold anything against our mom for you know, perpetuating the script. I recognize that it is the really the only viable strategy as a parent. But equally, it's very much an invisible shackle until the point where it becomes visible. And then you're like, Okay, hang on.

Taimur

Yeah, yeah.

Ali

No, it's suddenly the world sort of makes sense in this (unclear)

Taimur

Yeah, yeah.

Ali

Sort of like Neo matrix type, situation that oh, my God, I don't need to work.

Taimur

Yeah, yeah, I was having an interesting conversation with a friend of mine, you know, Adrian, my friend from from uni. And I've always seen him as someone who's very, who doesn't have any shackles, like he truly seems to live life, completely free of any kinds of shackles. And I, you know, I when I sort of spent time with various parts of his family and stuff, and it seems like they all live a very unshackled life in general. And I was sort of talking to him about this and trying to understand how things ended up that way. And I, and there was a good metaphor that we ended up sort of arriving at, which was that I think I said something along the lines of, you know, you seem to do everything kind of outside of the box. And, you know, his parents have just, you know, left that jobs for years to go on a gap here in Japan, where they've just been like living on a farm and doing some farming or something and stuff like that. And obviously, it takes an immense amount of privilege to do that. But I think plenty of people have that privilege, but they wouldn't do something like that. Because it would just be weird, right? As I feel like Adrian and a lot of his family are very shackle free. We're talking about this. And he said, he said something really interesting, which was actually that it's not that he is living, particularly out of the box with regards to his own upbringing. It's just that so many different people in his family have just done so many random things, that the the box that he's grown up in is just quite a big box. And so he's you know, compared to like, a normal person, you know, most people that we know, Adrian is probably living quite outside of the box, but compared to the boxes grown up in, he might be on the edge of the box or something, he's probably still within the box. And so he's saying that like just by the diversity of life scripts that he's been exposed to growing up, you know, through his family and friends and moving around and things like that. His box is actually just quite big. And so he's still probably in the box. And so I think like, the most useful thing that I have, I've also found for like, noticing invisible shackles, is spending time with people who are playing different games, playing by different life scripts have very different upbringings and stuff like that. And then you can sort of look at them and see like, Whoa, that wouldn't happen. You know, I wouldn't think that turn of events. Yeah, that's Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But why didn't, It's not about-

Ali

Here it is. Here we go.

Taimur

It's not about thinking outside of the box. But what about widening the box?

Ali

Yes.

Taimur

I think you've got it.

Ali

Okay. So that's sparks your idea. So there's a podcast that I listened to fairly regularly called, Deviate by Rolf Potts. He is a travel writer, he wrote a book called Vagabonding about 20 years ago, in which he went on a long, sort of like a year plus long trip around the world. You know, he could work if you wanted to, but chose not to, which is the definition of a vagabond, just kind of traveling around the world. And at that, at the time, this wasn't a very mainstream thing to do. And his book sort of brought it out into the mainstream-ish. And there was an interview with with a guy who lived in Japan for like, 23 years. And this guy had written these, like two books about living in Japan. One, was like a beginner's guide to Japan. And the other one was, like, just, you know, Japan, 23 years. And, and what he was saying is that he realized just how many like, in a way how many different life scripts, how some some Japanese people just followed an inherently different life script. So the example that he gave was when it comes to the field of competitive sports. Apparently, in like Japanese culture and things with the way the sporting scene is set up, you're not really trying to win, you're, you're trying to, like, you know, have a good experience overall. And if a match results in a draw, then that's like a really ideal, ideal scenario. And so there was some Japanese volleyball tournament or something, and some coaches brought in from the US, and he made his team win, like, you know, win all their games and win the trophy at the end. And then he got fired subsequently, because he was like, what, but I've won all your games, and they were like, Yeah, exactly. It's it's not about winning. It's about having fun.

Taimur

In the way for real.

Ali

Yeah.

Taimur

So this is like a professional like volleyball thing.

Ali

Yeah, yeah, professional volleyball thing where the objective was not to win the object like or like the, the implicit objective was to kind of let everyone have a kind of a good time.

Taimur

Oh, wow.

Ali

And he was the guy was saying that when I heard about that, that was just like, Damn, that blew my mind. Yeah, it's just completely different to the life script that We just implicitly follow even though we never really specifically talk about it.

Taimur

Yeah. I mean, yeah, that one's so invisible, that it's like, you know, it always doesn't, doesn't add up that you're saying it's a volleyball tournament. And the goal isn't to win, you know, it's like, yeah, yeah. So I think there's just like, loads of stuff like that. And, yeah, I mean, we've talked about this in the podcast before by I've reached the conclusion that I have spent at least like, two years out of the next six to eight years of my life living in a completely different country with a completely different culture to like, Western culture, essentially. Because it's really the only way you can notice these individuals. Now, maybe you'll get lucky sometimes. And you'll try a salad for lunch, just out here completely randomly and be like, whoa, I like lunches. But for the most part, that I think the only way to actually notice these things is to see them and other people and that kind of stuff.

Ali

Okay, so I agree that that's probably a good idea. But I think a lot of people listening to this. And from other people, it's, it's, it's not, it's not a trivial thing to go off and live in, you know, Hong Kong for two years -

Taimur

Fine.

Ali

And so one way I think of it, that it's very easy to expand the box is just to read books, who are written by people who have different life scripts, because that is a an easy way of expanding the box, like, you know, I don't have to meet Tim Ferriss in person or, you know, nomadic traveler, digital person to appreciate that that is a sort of lifestyle, it could be living. I don't have to meet an olympic power lifter to figure out you know, how to how to eat well. I can read a book written by them, or I can listen to podcasts where people who, for example, travel the world using the single bag, how they do it, why they do it, all this sort of stuff. I think that is an easy, low commitment way to expand the box. And just generally very, very useful.

Taimur

Yeah, no, I back that. I think that's, that's pretty good. And yeah, I think like, if you're very lucky, and you work in something like tech, and you have the freedom to sort of travel around, then it is doable for but like, if you're a doctor, or whatever right. If you if you weren't doing the YouTube stuff, and if you weren't planning on taking the year off to do that, you couldn't really just move to a random country for a year.

Ali

I mean, I could move to a random country, but you had to do something medical and preferably english speaking. But like, even as a doctor, you have lots of a lot of flexibility. And in fact, most like 80% of doctors now between sort of their f2 and f2 year and applying for training, end up taking a year out doing various things, going to Australia is a common destination stuff like that seems to be a slightly different way of life, although essentially there's the UK. It's not, it's not quite as rogue as like going to Southeast Asia. But you know, you've got the english thing.

Taimur

Yeah. But I think on the topic of like books and podcasts as a means of expanding the box, I think it's definitely true. But actually, maybe this is a different, just a difference in you and me. When I sort of, I find it hard to sort of internalize, I mean, we've talked about this kind of stuff, or internalize things that are at a distance. So if I read like a Tim Ferriss book about this thing, or whatever, and Tim Ferriss is like, you know, living a different life script or something, I would think, oh, this were Tim Ferriss guy's doing that. All right, fine. Or like, for example, if at university, I wasn't friends with Adrian I was, you know, I just like, you know, chatted to him once or something, then it will be like, Oh, yeah, that, that, that that guy, Adrian is doing this thing, or whatever. And I wouldn't really identify enough with myself to feel like, it wouldn't really expand my box, it would be like, oh, there's, there's another box. There's another box out there somewhere that someone else is living in. But I find that for myself, like, it's, I need like a lot more of a close relationship with these other scripts. Did you know what I mean? Like, I can read a book that's like, that presents a different life script. But that will have like, 10% of the impact of, for example, being friends with someone who's living a different life -

Ali

Okay.

Taimur

Probably like 5% sure.

Ali

What I would say to that is that if you were to read 20 of those similar books that have different life scripts that could probably add up. And so, you know, for example, I've listened to several 100 episodes of the Gary V's podcast by this point, I consume this content to the point where I know everything he says is pretty much second nature. And it's baffling to me how people can not understand that creating content on the internet is just the way you move forward in this attention economy that we live in, come on. It just seems absurd and and that I think the more I've been exposed to that, the more it's just kind of expanded my books. That just becomes the new normal. Equally listening to hundreds of episodes of Tim Ferriss show listening to loads of episodes of like travel writers and things. I agree it's not as good as having a close friend who is living that script. And I think it's that that sort of relevant to how a lot of mine and your friends are now starting up their own podcasts and blogs and thinking about YouTube channels and stuff like that just because they have close friends who are doing that. But I think you know, the multiple podcast multiple book exposing yourself to this various stuff is a substitute is a meaningful subject.

Taimur

Yeah, I actually back that and like to be honest, I yeah, I t ink like the way that's kind of happened in my life is that I sort of started c nsuming all this like tech and startup stuff from like the age of 16. I'm r ading all these blogs and that's like the main thing that my sort of main i terest, I suppose. And yeah, just after doing enough of it, you know, quitting y ur job to start a company is just seems like such a standard thing.

Ali

Yeah.

Taimur

Like, I know so many people who've done it who I don't know. And like, having that interest meant that I ended up meeting people at university who are also doing it. And so just like, yeah, I do agree that just consume j st immersing yourself in in these other things will actually have significant e fects in the end.

Yeah, yeah.

Ali

Yeah. And I think this is something that, you know, more people should actively espouse. Like, I think, actually, there's, everyone says that it's, it's not about reading about the stuff, it's about actually doing the thing, like, you know, you don't learn entrepreneurship by reading about it. But I think we've actually gone too far the other direction. And now the sorts of emails I get from people are like, oh, have you got any tips for entrepreneurship? And I'm like, have you read the four hour workweek? And

Before you then just start kind of going off on your own. And I they're like, no, I should probably read, I'm like, come on, man. Like, it just seems like so obvious that you should just do the basic reading and stop consuming, consuming the Kool Aid. agree that there isn't value in just kind of going off on your own. But given that there is so much Kool Aid, you might as well drink it first. And then you can do all the exploring that you like,

Taimur

Yeah, I think like, yeah, once you've said it, immerse yourself in, in a different scripts, you know, for you know, half a year of reading books, and just listening to podcasts or, you know, longer or shorter, whatever, it just makes it easier. It makes it sort of normalizes that script for you. And it's not like, I'm doing this like, insane thing by like, you know, starting a YouTube channel or starting a company or something, it's like, yeah, that's a normal thing.

Ali

And like, if even just to go back to the food example, if if I actively wanted to become vegan, I would just, you know, the quickest way to do that I just listened to 20 podcasts that are vegan themed. And it would then become like, so normal, and I just gained so much more kind of ideas about the sort of stuff you can eat as a vegan and like this, and the other that haven't I don't have that, you know, my books isn't expanded enough to include veganism in it.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

And therefore, it seems so out of the box.

Taimur

I suppose.

Ali

It's like, oh, that's another books over there that Lucy and Ravi are living in.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

Whereas if I just listened to some podcasts, I could expand my books to then, you know-

Taimur

Yeah, yeah.

Ali

And include that within it. And actually, one thing that I find that any, anytime I discover a new sort of blogger on the internet, or a new writer, that whose stuff resonates with me, and I think this is potentially game changing, I just listened to all of the podcasts they've ever been on.

Taimur

Oh, yeah (unclear).

Ali

Yeah. You know, like, a few a few months ago, I mentioned this in a podcast, I discovered a guy called Nathan Barry, who runs this, you know, a software business called ConvertKit. But turns out in like, 2015, he was big on the E-book publishing scene. And he's released 15 episodes, where he's talking about publishing ebooks and selling them on Amazon, Kindle and stuff like that. Now, having listened to all of those, this idea of publishing an E-book, and selling it on Kindle is now within my box, and it seems like a standard thing to do.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

To the point that it's now you know, it's now like, it's almost like when you're playing a video game, and you you've got these trade skills with these different like spells that you can just draw upon in different circumstances, when you unlock like the grimoire of intellect, or something before Warcraft. And now you learn the shadow board spells, and you're like, Oh, my God, I can use a shadow board spell and so many of these -

Taimur

Yeah, yeah.

Ali

These different scenarios. And it's sort of like, you're sort of like going around the world and picking up these grimoires to learn different spells, and break away from the scripts that you've initially just been using. You want to do a basic flip, and don't move at a boar at.

Taimur

Wait, wait to make this really cool, Ali. Thanks. Thanks for that.

Ali

I think on on that note, I've been thinking a lot about how life is like a video game. And there are so many analogies that can make video games from it. But I think that'll be a chat for another time.

Taimur

That's interesting.

Ali

Yeah, to make like a list of ways in which life is a video game.

Taimur

Yeah. Another idea that I think I've come across that really resonated with me, that's sort of related to this is that like, I can't remember who said it, but someone, someone, someone said something along the lines of the things that like we end up believing. Yeah, the things you end up believing are mostly down to like the quantity of how much you hear them. It's not like if, for example, if one person presents an extremely good argument for you to go vegan.

Ali

Yeah.

Taimur

And like, intellectually, it's a no brainer for us now go vegan.

Ali

Yeah.

Taimur

That is not going to have as much effect as you just listening to two people on a vegan podcast for 10 days straight or so.

Ali

Yeah.

Taimur

You know, like it really, in a lot of things. It's just about the quantity of being exposed to an idea that that actually makes a difference, not like, not sort of like the quality of the thing itself.

Ali

Yeah. Which kind of relates to I think, what we discussed in the previous episode about how, on average, it takes someone seven, seven hearings of the same piece of advice in order to actively start to internalize that advice. And is the main reason why I'm totally okay with as we discussed last time, this whole information arbitrage thing, just a repeating key ideas that other people have already hashed out, because, you know, for some listeners is going to be the first time they're hearing it for others, it's going to be the seventh time they're hearing it and that might be the point which kind of tipped them over the edge.

Taimur

Yeah. So I think a good general strategy for like expanding the box is like, yeah, just exposing yourself to a diversity of different like, life scripts and ideas, essentially. How have you kind of found, yeah, what was your pathway to finding the various other life scripts that you ended up exposing yourself to like sort of content creation entrepreneurs? So entrepreneurship was like the Tim Ferriss stuff.

Ali

Yeah. I think the main, like the first one was, I think was, I think the tech thing. It was in like year eight, or something where he maybe in year seven, when I was like, 11, I was in the computer room, and I saw some guy, right click view source on the Google homepage.

Taimur

Whoa.

Ali

I was like, Whoa, man.

Taimur

He's a hacker!

Ali

Exactly, it's a notepad. And he was like, doing some stuff and typing some stuff. And I was like, damn, that's really cool.

And because I'm massively identified as a nerd, I was like, damn,

Taimur

Yeah. you know what, that would be like a really cool thing to do to be like a hacker of some sort.

Yeah.

Ali

So then I started kind of exploring the Learn Coding, and that, that sort of thing. And, you know, it was it was it was very fledgling back in the mid 2000s. And like, web 2.0, was just coming about, and there was all these, like, sort of all these kind of forums on the internet, I think we talked about before our forums on the internet are a great way to get this diversity of thoughts.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

That was like, number one. And number two was when to my friends, James and Godwin got into the whole pickup artistry thing.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

And then I read the game by Neil Strauss. And because I was, you know, just got stuff done more so than Jeremy Corbyn did, I ended up consuming about 50 of the pickup artist books at the time. And a lot of people in that stuff, like, regardless of the whole pickup artist thing, thing, they all have these semi alternative lifestyles, and I think one of those was what got me to the four hour workweek and so oh, okay, that ended up being a catalyst for a lot of sort of being exposed to different scripts in my life. But even now, I don't think I exposed myself to nearly enough.

Taimur

Yeah, yeah. Because it seems like I think for both you and I like we both started off in vague tech tech scenes online and kind of have exposed ourselves to adjacent live scripts to that which is like, you know, content creation, sort of yeah, entrepreneurship, that kind of stuff.

Ali

Being a digital nomad.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

Passive income, that whole spiel that you get very much associated with the tech Bros.

Taimur

Yeah, exactly. But I yeah, I think you're talking about I don't I'm not really I mean, outside of having a few friends like Adrian who are being really alternative. I'm not really exposing myself to the new lifestyle. I haven't really exposed myself to any new life scripts for a while and I think I need to and I should.

Ali

So one thing I've been thinking recently is that there is a big life script that people a lot of white people that I know seem to follow which is the outdoor activities life script.

Taimur

Yeah, yeah.

Ali

The you know, going on a cycling holiday with my family, like what the hell is a cycling holiday? Like, oh, you know, we'll we'll drive to but we'll we'll drive to London. Take our bikes on the Eurostar go to Paris and just cycle around France. Wait, what? That's the thing? Like, where do you sleep? Oh, that's like caravan sites and we carry tents and about. And you're doing this for how long, for two weeks? And this is your idea of fun? Yeah. We've been doing it like twice a year since I was like five. I was like, No Way! That is just completely insane.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

And a totally different life script. And actually, I was talking to Callum this weekend in Edinburgh, like his his dad is full on this outdoor plumbing he life script thing.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

So like, apparently the things he enjoys doing are long cycles, climbing, sailing and his little boats. And he like chops down trees that are in the middle of the road, cuts them up with his chainsaw into firewood and his axe, use wood into firewood, like put up by the fire and reads like the washington post or something. And he you know, Callum's dad used to be an Anesthetist. He retired recently. And for him, apparently, from what I asked Callum, work was exclusively a means to an end in order to fund his lifestyle, his outdoor lifestyle where he could just do more climbing.

Taimur

Oh Okay.

Ali

And so I asked him a question that if your dad won the lottery, they did 25, would he have still done medicine? And he was like, oh, no, absolutely not. He would spend all of his time doing climbing and hiking and cycling and outdoor stuff. And I was like, damn. That's just so unusual. That's so interesting that that is a viable lifestyle.

Taimur

Yeah, exactly.

Ali

And so now I kind of want to explore the outdoorsy stuff a little bit more.

Taimur

Yeah, I think holiday formats are also like an invisible kind of thing. Because like, you're right, I've never really tried an outdoorsy kind of activity sort of holiday. I mean, through your friends. I have now experienced the cottage holiday. Go to the Lake District or whatever went to your cottage for a few days through the through -

Ali

Our friends Taimur.

Taimur

Sorry, our friends. Thank you. That's not something I would have. Yeah. tried before, before that, and it was it was great. And I'm, yeah, I do it reasonably often now. But, yeah, I think like, trying different kinds of holidays is a good good exposure to different experiences. But I guess that's sort of like a very narrow script. It's like a holiday spray script rather than life script. Well, I don't think we've actually come up with any ideas for how to find true, actually normal life scripts.

Ali

What does it less mean to be that normal?

Taimur

Okay, fine. I think you're completely fine -

Ali

To expand the box, you know, an inch at a time rather than trying to leapfrog and create a new box.

Taimur

Okay, sure. But like, the whole holiday thing is just a very constrained thing. Like it's like, you know.

Ali

I mean, not necessarily, if you generally want to expand the thing, you could do it a hiking holiday, for example, which is not really something that we've ever done. And then that would be kind of an introduction to the world of the hiking holiday. If you were to go with a group of people that you're then in the low social optionality.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

You know, hat tip to episode five, three, or whatever it was.

Taimur

Five.

Ali

Episode Five. Low optionality holiday where you're not talking to these people who are all into hiking and outdoor holidays, suddenly you are now exposing yourself to the sort of person.

Taimur

Yeah, exactly.

Ali

That sort of thing. A very, very easy way of doing it. I think as well, like one thing that comes to mind is the first time I discovered the board game Articulate.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

And realized that, you know, just like sitting around the circle and playing board games, that's really really fun.

Taimur

Board games are fun and not lame.

Ali

Yeah, exactly. Because prior to that point, anybody on that team was like monopoly, which I always felt like, I mean, you're just rolling the dice or Ludo, which is literally just.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

You know, you get a random number generator on a computer, computer can play it.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

But like, you know, social board games, like particularly, and then kind of expanding that a little bit more into these more talking deception type board games like Mafia and Avalon.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

I was like, there's this whole world of board games. And then kind of that expands a bit further into this like eight hour long strategy board game where you're like, super nerdy about it and analyzing every detail.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

Just kind of expanding the box a little bit at a time from Ludo at the age of five, all the way up to through the ages that lasts until four o'clock in the morning. You're building a civilization and all that stuff.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

That was a big, a big change in my life. When I discovered that.

Taimur

I'm quite curious as to like how life scripts have changed over time and stuff. And like, I when did this current sort of broad life script of being focused around institutions of like, you know, school, university, then you join a company and like, can't work your way up and all this kind of stuff, this sort of institutional life script. I want to how long that's actually been going on? I mentioned in the previous podcasts that I've been reading a biography of the Wright brothers. And then sort of late 1800s, early 1900s.

Ali

You finished it. Yeah.

Taimur

No, I've been about halfway through it for a few months now. Yeah. And yeah, like the amazing thing, one of the reasons I really liked it was that it just seemed like these guys, you know, were completely free from any script at all. Like they were such trailblazers, like, not not affected by the rest of society in the slightest. Like, we all thought they were absolutely insane. People didn't believe them, like, and they were just like doing this thing completely unfazed. And even when they started getting attention, and lik social validation and stuff, they're still completely unfazed by it. They wer just doing their thing from day one, and making it their own thing And like this, this what seems to be a very independent life scripts. I thought that was really cool. That I thought that was like a really cool part about them. But I wonder like, what would what the prevalent life scripts would have been in their day? And I think probably in their day, things were, things were probably less scripted. And it wasn't like,

Ali

No, they weren't because I got the impression they were quite industrial revolutionary type. Where it was all about kind of working in the factory moving to the city, very much defined life script.

Taimur

Yeah, maybe. I don't know too much about it. But I think I'd be very interested to learn about the life scripts of the past

Ali

How life scriptable over time. And this is sort of like, there was an episode of The Art of Manliness podcast. I was listening to it yesterday on the train. It was about a guy who wrote a book about life hacking, and this whole life hacking movement, talking about the industry of self help and self improvement and how that's changed over the years. And apparently, the whole self help thing was started in like the late 1800s, as like a movement by the church in order to make people more spiritually aware. So self help as a genre was all about how you can get closer to God.

Taimur

Oh.

Ali

And then in the kind of Rockefeller and Carnegie era of like the mid 90s, early 90s. It was all about how you can kind of get rich through productivity and through the railroad system and all this stuff. And then kind of approaching the early 2000s it then it became more about how you can use digital tools in the 21st century in order to kind of improve your life in inverted commas. And that kind of a morphed into the quantified self movement, which you've recently joined for trying to count your calories.

Taimur

Yeah.

Ali

Though, about, you know, life improvement through numbers. And it was really interesting hearing how just, you know that that particular genre of self improvement, which is the thing that I'm super into, as everyone knows, has changed through the years.

Taimur

Yeah, it's not enough is a way to get close to God.

Ali

Who would have thought?

Taimur

We'll, probably find ourself full circle, in maybe a decade where, where everyone is trying to get back into religion.

Ali

Exactly, religion is gonna make a comeback. Like blogs have been making a comeback.

Taimur

Yeah, exactly. Cool. I think there's a lot to think about there with regards to life script. I, I want to, I want to find out more about historical life scripts. I'm going to try and do some digging. And if any listeners know any good sources for this, that would be very interesting to know about.

Ali

Okay, so you know, I like to end with actionable stuff. So I suppose the thing that we said here is that widening, it's not like stepping outside the box is about expanding the box. You can expand the box by exposing yourself to different experiences, different sorts of people, or, you know, by proxy, you can do that by just listening to a lot of stuff, or reading a lot of stuff by people who live alternative lifestyles. And that then brings it within your own realm of what becomes what is normal. And something that's normal is then so much easier to do. Like, you know, if it was normal, that you would just learn to code and start a business, you wouldn't be emailing me or Taim, being like, how do I learn to code and start a business you would just you just do it because it becomes a very, very normal thing. So yeah, one way of doing that is just expose yourself to lots of these ideas. And I suppose one thing that we're trying to do is expose ourselves to more novel ideas out side of the immediately adjacent sphere of tech bros and associated movements.

Taimur

Yeah, I think that's a good summary. Do we have any insights this week? I think I had, I think I said this last week as well. I had one. And I was like, Oh, that's a really good insight for the podcast. I didn't write it down and -

Ali

You didn't write it down. Why? Why did you not write it down?

Taimur

I can't remember. All right?

Ali

Okay, I think our insight of this week can be the importance of quick capture, which is anytime you have an idea, you just like figure out a way to get it out of your head and onto a device of some sort. Some people carry around these little pocket notebooks of them. You know, we all have our phones with us at all times. I use the app Bear, because, you know, even if you can shave off, like five milliseconds of the process of getting an idea from your head into your phone, it just like makes the process so much nicer. And I think I might have mentioned this before, I bought like a little audio recorder thing for the car so that I don't have to open up voice notes on my phone. I can literally press a button on a physical voice recorder. If I listen to something interesting in the car, and I just be like, okay, I'm listening to Episode 349 of the Tim Ferriss show. This is roughly at this timestamp there just talked about this, this is the idea that I've had.

Taimur

Oh, wow nice.

Ali

Every every so often, every few weeks, I would just like go through them and just transcribe those into Evernote.

Taimur

That's very cool.

Ali

And that is like, you know, it is all about quick capture.

Taimur

Yeah, I've actually started using Bear. And I've started doing this thing where like, in my sort of in the buffer in between different activities, a lot of which are like meeting with people, I'll sort of make notes about it. So like, after a social event, you know, on like, train home or something I'll like, make notes about my thoughts during that event, you know, things like that, or after like a business meeting, I'll sort of, you know, make notes immediately on Bear afterwards. And actually, I have remembered the insight that I was thinking of, and it's kind of productivity related. I realized that like, most of the time that I waste happens in between other things. And so, you know, for example, I'll come back from the gym. And instead of going straight into the shower, I'll just sit around for, you know, I've just, I've just had a workout or whatever, I'm not going to sit sit around. And yeah, that is very easy to turn that sitting around for a couple of minutes, it's like half an hour wasted on your phone doing nothing. And so for example, coming back from the gym, having a shower straightaway, kind of like gets rid of that buffer in between. And then I think it's I think there are some activities, which are useful buffers that are time boxed. And so like making a cup of tea, you know, because I think in between activities, it's weird to go straight from one like intense thing to another different kind of intense thing. Like straight from the gym and then like getting back to work immediately or something that's where you do need a buffer. Right? And I think like, time box buffers are a really good solution. And I realized that that's actually what I've been doing for the past few years. Whenever I make a cup of tea, it's not really about the tea. It's about like the ritual of just spending a few minutes, not really doing anything, and just, you know -

Ali

Like having an activity to do rather than you know what, I'm just gonna sit on the sofa and browse Instagram for a few few -

Taimur

Yeah, yeah. That's not timebox. Whereas making a cup of tea, it's going to take like, two to five minutes or something, right. And at that point, it's like you've sort of reset yourself and you can do the next thing and so like, forcing yourself, you know, it, I think it's important to have buffers in between activities, but forcing them to be timeboxed. like, okay, I'm gonna go to the gym and then have a shower and then do my work. Like the shower is like a pleasant kind of thing. And that's like timebox to 20 minutes. In my case. Yeah. I didn't have any sort of the shower. But it's time boxed. And yeah, time box buffers in between activities is something that I've been thinking about.

Ali

Okay, that's a good idea. That might be the topic of today's newsletter.

Taimur

All right. I think that's it. Thanks a lot for listening everyone and see you next week.