Lazy and Unmotivated
When you think of dollars, euros, bitcoin ethereum, winning and losing in sports, life and relationships, something in our brain and body has to go with it. you won you lost what is disappointment, what is celebration? And I think one of the most important findings in neuroscience in recent years is that the dopamine molecule is linked to reward? It's more a matter of motivation and momentum. When I say the common currency is dopamine, I mean the dopamine molecule as it's secreted in the brain, let's get down to business. When we build things, create things, we want new things that we don't have now. It's a way of tabulating where we are in our lives. We are fine or we are bad and it happens very short term but you wake up and feel
good or you wake up and feel a bit depressed or in long delays when you are halfway through a long college or halfway through your life behind you, how are you? So a good reading has everything to do with how much dopamine you've released over the past few days, weeks, and years. which is cool. If you become aware of these processes, if you understand a little bit about how dopamine is released and how it changes our perspective on our behavior, then you can actually work with it. For example, a motivated person who can't get up on the couch doesn't want to do anything. Well, that's the problem. You're effectively a rat with no dopamine, but you can still find pleasure in consuming excess calories through social media. And listen, I'm not judging. I do that too, right? Search social media. If you've ever
I attacked social media and loved it, I don't even know why. It doesn't really do anything. And I remember a time when you saw something just as cool. Do you see anything online? I remember when TED Talks first came out I thought this was amazing. It's the minimum. Some of them are really smart people sharing, really cool. Knowledge. And now that there are about a billion of them. TED Talks, I remember spending the winter in my office when I was younger, the teacher ended up tidying up my desk and thinking about TED Talks in the background. My time will soon be put to good use. They were all mean to me. I didn't like it. So we have to stop looking. TED talks for a while, waits, then it gets interesting again, and the balance between pain, pleasure, etc. For people who don't feel motivated, the problem is that they're not motivated, they
they just have enough or too much to eat , so they get a little soft. Opioid hits become the opioid system. And if you think about opioid drugs versus ponies, dopamine drugs, dopamine drugs that drive people crazy about everything, you know, drugs like cocaine, amphetamines, they make people incredibly outgoing, they see almost nothing but what I want, more, more , more, more , more. It's a big bad thing because these drugs release so much dopamine that it becomes a reward. It's very cumbersome, the only drug that can deliver that much dopamine. Nothing they could track would give them as much dopamine as the jet itself. So, that's it. And then there's the kind of opioids like the effects of constant sedation from social media, video games, or food or whatever, to the point where it doesn't inspire motivation or desire anymore. And it's really a new development in
neuroscience's understanding of dopamine, which is dopamine itself. It's not a reward, it's an upgrade to a reward, and the reward has more of an opioid kind of bliss. As a trait, that's not bad in and of itself. When it's released endogenously from within, but when we can just sit there, like rats, they're dopamine free and gobble up pleasure. That's how you end up with someone who really doesn't feel motivated, so to speak, and those joys don't fuel the feel-good circles anymore, so there's no reason to go out and chase something you don't have, and it's a pretty grim picture. So the key is tracking the rewards, but understand that tracking is actually the reward if you want it. Victory. Agreed, celebrating should be less than striving, and some people find that difficult. When they can begin
to recognize desire as their own internally released dopamine, that's motivating. Then you realize that chasing a prize is great, but associating dopamine with the prize is actually a bit dangerous because you're celebrating the wind more than the chase. In fact, it sets you up for failure in the future and puts us right in the game. They called it dopamine reward, prediction error, and reward prediction error. Basically when you expect something to be really great and it's not that great. It lowers the baseline level of dopamine. And now we understand what we know about dopamine. It means that not only have you failed, but you also feel lost because it wasn't as big a party as you thought. But it also means you're starting from a lower level, which means you're less motivated. Whenever you're on dopamine and you're in Pursuit Pursuit Pursuit when you win. It could be a business win, a
relationship win, or any win, but inevitably there will be a touch, the bottom tier of the pain side, and that pain side will always be a little bit higher than the dopamine side. So that's how we feel, if we pursue a goal like building a big company, big sales will come. And then there's the fountain, huh? Well, it's kind of frustrating when you wait, wait and hold the dopamine for a little while while the scales start to settle down. The problem is that many people go straight back to the next pursuit. And then what happens when the scales begin to tip on the pain point. A little more, a little more, a little more and now. No amount of research will allow you to experience this dynamic and motivation. What does that mean
in relation to the actual instrument? Well, first of all, if people can do what you do, they'll be in a much better position. in life it doesn't matter. If it's a cool sports attitude, any area of life. If you can start to register, ah, this desire and this friction in this desire, this almost low, sometimes high, excitement, that's all. I try to benevolently impose my will on the world. I hope it's dopamine. It works with, it's a close relative, that's epinephrine, that's adrenaline, they're very close. Epinephrine is actually the cousin of dopamine. Many people don't know this, but adrenaline is actually made from the dopamine molecule. OK, so both of them. Going out together makes you feel like you're at work. Wanna work, Craven week, Craven week, Craven week. And then you get a win and some people allow the big jump and dopamine
that comes with wins and smart people learn to internalize their celebration, right? It's all internal, you can throw the biggest party in the world, but as long as you keep calm and watch and don't freak out, you won't necessarily crash early and the system will recover soon. So you take the day off, do the dishes, relax, you know what? Now I'm feeling a little depressed instead of going out and pumping up your dopamine. Just wait and understand that Libra will recover. Give yourself back a few days of feeling inferior like things aren't going to be that interesting. It will be difficult to trigger this big exit since you only have one spike. Well, if we get used to relaxation, understand that there is always postpartum depression. Sometimes we hear
about postpartum depression. It's a clinical thing, but hmm, today isn't as exciting as the day before. What am I supposed to do with my life but when you then start flashing it then you realize your ability to use dopamine as motivation not just to seek dopamine rewards it is endless and I can say with great certainty that It's how you could build and sell a great business as you could build and sell a successful podcast as you keep looking, because research is the reward. And I think most people think price is the finish line. So the key is to get the end line walk into the end zone, but without the end zone dance. It's like me And now I will do it again. That's really the key. The key is
to do it over and over again, and when I see great athletes or academics or whoever or musicians and they rise and fall, it's clear that they've lost touch with the dopamine-triggered motivation.
