FOMO, FOBO and How To Make Great Decisions with Patrick McGinnis
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I'm your host, Chris Hutchins, and I'm excited to have you on my journey to find all the hacks. Now, in today's world, we are constantly surrounded by photos, videos, and more of all the amazing things everyone else is doing. And I'd be surprised if you don't often feel the FOMO that comes with it. I know I do.

And if you're an optimizer like me, you might also find yourself facing a fair amount of FOBO as well, which is a new term I learned from today's guests and sort of like FOMO's cousin. It's the fear of a better option. And it often manifests itself for me as analysis paralysis, and it can take a toll on even the smallest decisions.

So that's why I am so excited to be talking with Patrick McGinnis, because in 2004, he actually first coined the terms phone.

FOMO and FOBO. Since then, he's been featured in the New York Times, Politico, and more. He's given a popular TED Talk on decision-making. He's written two best-selling books, The 10% Entrepreneur, Live Your Startup Dream Without Quitting Your Day Job, and most recently, Fear of Missing Out, Practical Decision-Making in a World of Overwhelming Choice. Finally, he's the host of the hit podcast, FOMO Sapiens, where I will be joining him next week as a guest.

In our conversation, we'll talk about the history of FOMO, ways to overcome the toll it can have on our lives. We'll talk about FOBO and hear Patrick's framework to vastly improve your decision-making. And finally, he'll share some of his favorite life hacks.

One quick thing before we get started. I'm considering working with a few sponsors to support the show. They'll only be brands I believe in, and you'll be able to fast forward the ads if you're not interested. But I just want to let you know in advance, and hopefully you understand that it's all in service of continuing to deliver an amazing show to you each week. All right, so let's jump in.

Patrick, thanks for being here. It's my pleasure. How are you? You know, I fractured my foot last night on the Dance Florida wedding, which was not fun. But, you know, I'm here. If you're going to break your foot, there's a good reason to do it. You know what I mean? It's either going to be athletics or dancing. Those are the only two excuses.

Yeah, although at the hospital, I was telling people, I was like, oh, they're hedges. I was like dancing. They're like, oh, are you a professional dancer? It's like, no, I was at a dance. I was at a wedding. We were drinking. The floor was slippery. Anyways, so you've got a word in the dictionary. I never even thought to put that on my bucket list. And now I'm a little jealous. Did you ever imagine FOMO becoming such a major part of our culture when you first coined the term? I did not. In fact, I...

wrote this article back in 2004 and I put it in the humor section of our school newspaper over at Harvard Business School, which, I mean, the fact that I was writing for the newspaper at a business school tells you that I was not the usual person, I guess.

Yeah. And how long did it take before you kind of realized that you'd created this thing that you'd be hearing every day and in the media and just in casual conversation? Yeah. So I did a forensic analysis, actually. I actually hired a person like a web, I don't know, forensic expert.

to try to understand what the heck happened because I missed out on this whole thing. I was not aware of FOMO's prominence actually until a reporter called me one day and he said, you invented the word FOMO. And I said, yeah, that's true. Why do you care? And he said, well, it's in the dictionary. And I was like, what? This was in 2014, 10 years after I wrote that article.

And so when I got more involved and was working on a book about the topic, I decided to really get into it and try to figure out what happened and what I was able to reconstruct through my own research and then the work of the forensic person.

is that, you know, my article came out in 2004. It was the first time it was used anywhere in an article called McGinnis's two foes, social theory at Harvard business school. And then it stayed on in the school because it was, it became very popular and it became a term that was used there. And then it spread to other MBA programs. And in 2007, three years later, business week wrote an article about FOMO at business schools. And so that was kind of a moment and it's, it's sort of popularity spreading. And then in 2009, a woman called, uh,

Katrina Fake, who is the founder of Flickr, wrote a blog post about it in reference to South by Southwest. And sometimes people credit her with being the creator FOMO. And, you know, it's just the internet doesn't lie. She used the term and popularized it for sure, but it was not her creation. And then from there, it really took off and it was admitted to the dictionary in 2013. Wow.

And what was the premise of the original article? So the article was, it's actually, I think it's a funny article still. I like when I read it, I'm always like, I'm pleased that I wrote it. I was like, wow, he's a much better writer than I think I imagined at the time. But it's this satirical piece about the day in the life of a typical student in an MBA program and how they struggle to

to do all of these things. And I actually give somebody's calendar. Sort of like at six o'clock, you go to drinks with friends. At 6.45, you go stop by a lecture. At six, you know, for seven minutes to say hello to this one girl you met. Then five minutes later, you're off to dinner. And then, you know, I sort of take you through. And then there are four birthday parties.

And you're out until three. And so it's sort of because that was the life that we led. And I always, I'm from a small town in Maine called Sanford, Maine. It's really simple. People don't live that way. It's a kind of place where you do like one thing a day. And then to find myself in this really uber social environment, which was very much fueled by the fact that we had just come out of 9-11 and people were sort of like, you know, realize the fragility of life and how you have to live life to the fullest.

And because it was so different than the life I had known before, I decided I had to write an article about it because it was this, you know, I started using this word FOMO and I was like, I got to write about this because it's like, I'm going to leave this place and go back to the normal world and I'm not going to have this craziness in my life anymore. Of course, now we all have FOMO because of social media. And funny enough, when I wrote that article, Mark Zuckerberg was a mile away from me on the other side of the

Charles River inventing the first version of Facebook. And I credit sort of him and Facebook and social media with making FOMO much more than a sort of high class problem, but something that all of us feel. Yeah. And just so we're all on the same page, you know, as the term creator, do you have a definition that you prefer for FOMO? I'm sure there are many in different dictionaries. It's a great question. Nobody's ever asked me that before. And it's true. So when I decided to write this book,

I did a ton of research because I'm not a psychologist, nor did I ever claim to be a psychologist, but psychologists love to write about FOMO. And there have been so many journal articles. Like it's quite amazing to me. Then you have a bunch of PhDs writing articles about FOMO. It's just mind blowing.

And so I read all of them and I realized that there was no consistency in how the academic world and the clinical psychology world was defining FOMO. And then I read all of the dictionary versions, obviously, and the urban dictionary definition as well, which is, you know, one of the first times it was written about actually in about 2007, I believe. And I realized that it was all over the map. And so I formulated a definition that is my standard definition. And the definition is this FOMO is an anxiety disorder.

often fueled by social media based on the perception that other people are having more beneficial experiences than you. And it is a fear of being excluded from a beneficial collective experience. And you said a perception. So obviously it doesn't have to be reality to be FOMO.

Exactly. So that's where the rubber hits the road in terms of the pathology of this whole thing is its perception. So you see something and that's why social media is so insidious. You see something, it looks amazing.

But we all know that it's filtered and that it's a moment in time and that the things that we're being served up, especially on Instagram, for example, they do not correspond to reality, but we don't think critically about that. And so you see something that isn't even real, but it provokes feelings of inadequacy and of anxiety and stress. And so you're spending a lot of energy focused on something that's not even possible. And that's where the perception comes in. I often, you know, the way I think about it is perception is often deception, right?

I have to think most people know this, right? Most people, if you ask them consciously are like, yeah, of course, I'm only seeing the best of this. I'm seeing my friend with three kids on a vacation and they're all smiling and having fun. And a vacation with three kids might have those moments, but it certainly has other moments as well. Is there a reason that people are just kind of unable to process that reality when they see these images, when they hear about these things? And is there a way that they can avoid it?

There is. And I think the reality is that people know, but these companies that make social media networks and other things, and not just social media, of course, it can be in things you see on television or things you hear about in the real world, but focusing particularly on social media is these companies are extremely sophisticated and they are creating habit forming applications that

are designed to manipulate you. You know, this is the, you're like, this is all, you know, the attention economy as it's been referred to. It's all about stealing your attention and presenting you with things that manipulate you. So, you know, it's not your fault. It's not like we're all idiots. It's that the system as it's been created is so powerful and so well done. Now, what I tend to think and what I recommend people to do and what I do for myself, because I know a

highly susceptible. I'm the first FOMO sapiens, right? I am the creator of FOMO. I feel FOMO like cripplingly and I've had to really learn how to manage that. And so what I have done is I'm very mindful about when I use social media, how it makes me feel.

And for example, say I'm following some person on Facebook or something and they put a post up, it makes me feel inadequate or it makes me want to devalue what I have in my own life. I unfollow that person. If I'm using Instagram and it makes me feel stressed, I close it down. I think that's the critical thing is understand why you're opening that app, understand what you're getting from it and understand the unintended consequences of the use of that app. And if you do that,

It's great because it's kind of like eating food, right? Like if you eat something, you just stuff it in your mouth and it doesn't make you feel good, you're not gonna eat more of it. So why would you do the same thing with...

social media. Yeah. I mean, if you want to get to the end of the feed, you want to finish the plate. I grew up in a clean plate club household. So even if you don't like it, I feel like I have this burning desire to finish a meal without any control. And so does that mean that you... Are you someone who doesn't sleep with the phone on the side of the bed? Or do you treat your phone differently in your household to try to avoid some of these things? Yeah, absolutely. It's such a good question because

I remember I read some stat when I was researching and the number of people who sleep with their phone by the bed is mind-blowing. It's north of 80%. It might be north of 90% these days. And I remember, I mean, we all know these people. Maybe it's you who's listening who sleep with their phone under the pillow. Do you do that? No, no. I mean, I do keep it near the bed.

So here's the thing. Not good, but. About the phone, right? So the phone, they're smart. Like, again, it's like really well-designed kind of stuff. Like the phone manufacturers and designers put an alarm clock on the phone and that's the Trojan horse because you're like, it's very reliable. And so you want to have the phone near you so you have the alarm clock. That's why a lot of people started the culture of bringing the phone into the bedroom.

And once you do that, then you've let it into your personal space and then you're done. And so what I learned

I used to do that myself. And then I decided a number of years ago to leave it in the other room. And I found it had a tremendous benefit for me. And then I was given this phone bed. Ariana Huffington actually makes these phone beds. Like you tuck your phone into a little bed at the end of the day. It's really cute actually. And so she gave me one of those. So I use that now for my phone. Are there other habits to adopt that help you?

lighten, I guess now that I have a noun for it, since FOMO is an anxiety, to lighten that anxiety? Yeah. So a couple of things that I would recommend people to do. Number one is you need to monitor your phone use. And all of our phones have these digital wellness suites now that are built into them. And so I take a good look every week at how I'm spending my time online. It's just helpful to be mindful of like, oh my goodness, why did I spend...

43 minutes a day on Instagram. What did that give me and why did I pick that up? So just thinking about the root cause of why you engage in social media, it's really important to do. Another thing that I recommend people to do is if you find that you're unable to control your use of a certain site, like there's a site called Political Wire that is very addictive and I love it, but it makes me feel bad. So I have a rule that I'm only allowed to look at that site when I'm at a desktop.

and not on my phone. And that really helps me to cut down on my usage. It's just like a rule I have. I'm not allowed to look at Twitter either on my phone, and I don't do that. And when I slip up, I notice that my quality of life goes down dramatically. And then there are some other hacks that I don't have any distractive apps on my front page. I have to go into a folder to find them. And so I create sort of a barrier and that makes it a bit hard to use them. And the other thing that some people do, which I have not chosen to do, but some find helpful is to put your phone in grayscale.

And I'm actually going to try, I have a little hack I'm going to try now. I'm announcing this to the world today on your show. I'm going to buy the iPhone mini because it's my view that if you have a smaller phone,

you are less likely to want to pick it up all the time and look at stuff because it's just, you know, it's less of a in your face kind of thing. Like the bigger the screen, the more the temptation is to watch a video and, you know, all that sort of stuff. I don't want, I want less phone in my life, a lot more. And so I'm going to get a smaller phone. I like that. I mean, you could go all the way back and get an old like Motorola Razr that can't do anything. I'm not interested in that. It's a fascinating concept because I know people who've done that.

My view with all of this stuff is it's not about abstinence. It's about sort of having a healthy diet. Like if you're trying to lose weight and you just don't eat anything for days and days, that's not sustainable. It's not healthy. And also it's not fun, right? And so I would much more be interested in

changing my diet to something that I can learn to enjoy. I lost 50 pounds in high school. I used to eat bacon double cheeseburgers every Friday night and a Boston cream pie. I mean, that was what I thought I liked. And nowadays, I have a much healthier diet and I enjoy that. And I don't want Boston cream pie, actually. If you gave me Boston cream pie, I would say, I'm good. And so I think it has to be that with the way that we think about how we engage with technology. Yeah.

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You did a lot of research for the book. Is this a new phenomenon, right? You talked about it before there was social media. How do you think the concept of FOMO has evolved? So FOMO is part of the experience of being a human. It goes back to the earliest humans. And I did a bunch of research on sort of evolutionary biology. The fact that the earliest humans were keenly aware of what they needed and what they didn't have.

in order to survive. So they ran with the pack. You stayed in the group because if you weren't in the group, you didn't get the information about where the best water was, where the best food was, where you should do your migratory pattern, where there's good shelter, and also you're more vulnerable to attack. And in fact, if you've ever been to Africa and seen the migration of the wildebeest, or just Google it if you haven't had a shot to go there because it's really quite incredible. And

The wildebeest migrate across the Serengeti and they stick in a herd. And it's called a swarm migration because if one gets separated, then it'll get attacked and the predators will eat them. But if they stick together, maybe they get one, but they don't kill them all off. And so it's part of their evolutionary biology to stick with the craft.

So it was part of how we survived physically. It has evolved into something much more emotional over time. And one of the cool things that I realized in my research, this is like one of the most crazy things that ever happened to me in my life.

which is that the term keeping up with the Joneses, that is sort of analog FOMO. It was a comic strip from 100 years ago in the New York Globe newspaper about this family that lived next to this Jones family and they were trying to keep up with them all the time. And it was like, you know, oh, Mr. Jones is like wearing a red tie. Dad, you gotta get a red tie. It's not like the most humorous thing I've ever read, but the name of the family that's feeling all this FOMO is the McGinnis family.

So I have a fictional ancestor who invented FOMO. Somebody wrote that in a paper, actually, and they tied him to me, which was... I couldn't believe it. It still kind of blows my mind. But I guess the point of all that is that it is something that we've always had. The difference is that...

We think about core drivers of FOMO. It's things like information, the quantity of information you're receiving, right? So that you have more data points. It's the ability to compare yourself with others. The more interconnected we are, the more we can see what other people are doing. And so...

Over time, just the amount of people that are in your daily sort of experience has gone through the roof, especially with social media. And so, you know, if you were living a hundred years ago in my hometown in Maine, you didn't really know what was going on outside of there. You were served up very specific elements of FOMO, like a cigarette commercial or something where celebrities are like smoking so beautiful. Like, isn't this great? Like we love cigarettes and maybe you were susceptible, but now it's like everything you do, you're being served up.

this content. You said something earlier about the abundance of information. And it reminded me that

Your original article was actually about two things. It wasn't just FOMO. It was this thing FOBO, which since getting to know you, I'd learned as a thing. And I actually think could possibly, and I'm curious your perspective, be an even more difficult or bigger strain on people's days, especially when it comes to work and not just social life. How do you compare the two and especially the relative impact they have on society and people's lives?

- So FOBO stands for fear of a better option. And it's the idea that when you have to make a decision and you have perfectly acceptable things in front of you, that you are sort of holding out for the riskless option, like the perfect thing. And so you're like, well, you know, I'm just gonna wait until, it's so clear to me that this thing is the right decision. And so people, you know, sort of delay. And it's really, it's an affliction of abundance. In an affluent society,

where you have everything you need, then you can get stuck in this place. Like if you don't have options, whether it's food, if you don't have sufficient food, you're not going to be like, well, let's see, I don't know what to have today. You're going to be like, I'm going to eat whatever I can get, right?

If you live in a place where the economy is terrible and there's no jobs, you're not going to be like interviewing for 17 jobs and waiting for the, it's just, you're not going to do that. And so I think it's much more damaging than FOMO for the simple reason that FOMO does have positive aspects. FOMO can be a tremendous and powerful motivator of human behavior if used in the right ways.

FOMO is just bad because you don't decide on things and you are, once again, sort of mired in the perception that there's something better that's going to come for you. And as you wait for that perfect thing, the exceptional options that you have in front of you right now may disappear and you'll end up with nothing. And so I always think of FOMO like drinking wine. A little wine is great, loosens you up, maybe try something new, dance on that dance floor.

Don't break your foot. Too much wine, you know, you're not going to feel good the next day. FOBO is like smoking cigarettes. Bad for you. Bad for everybody around you. Feels good, sure, but nothing good for you. And is FOBO directly linked or maybe even a synonym to analysis paralysis? Or how do you, are those similar? They are. So the paradox of choice, which if any of you have read it by Barry Schwartz,

is a fantastic book. I love it. And I didn't read that book until actually, I think I read it. His book came out in 2004. So I'm not claiming that I invented the paradox of choice. He clearly did. He's been doing that his whole career. But I think that they have a lot of things in common. The idea that

The more choice we have, the less happy we are is very much in the realm of the FOBO sort of situation. Yeah, so I have a lot of FOBO issues. And my wife and I used to struggle trying to figure out where we'd go for dinner. And my solution, which I'm sure is not the best solution was,

I printed off a list of like 12 cuisines and we would just pass it between each other and we each had to cross one off. And then finally we'd get to the end and we were like, okay, tonight we're having Indian food. And I feel like when I go to a restaurant, I'm in a similar mindset where sometimes if it's like a single use menu, I asked for a pen and I start crossing things off until I try to land on something. And rationally, I'm like, you know what?

If I just looked at what I thought were the top three things and just picked one, I would probably enjoy this dinner experience better because I didn't spend my whole time stressing out about what to pick. But I have this burning desire that I think, you know, unfortunately is coupled very heavily with my optimization personality and probably why I started this podcast. But to get the most optimal outcome, to save the most money, to have the best experience and...

There are probably circumstances where that matters and some that aren't and circumstances where it doesn't matter at all. How can you help me? Okay, this is really good. And by the way, I love that we're having this conversation because optimization is a good thing, but it can be incredibly crippling. And I am also an optimizer. I also have a crazy amount of FOBO. Like that's the reason I came up with the word because I was like, that is me.

And I have seen, though, when FOBO gets out of control and it gets really messed up, it can ruin people's lives. And I'm happy to tell you some stories about what I've seen. But here's the thing. And I did a TED video about this, a TED Talk video about my decision-making methodology that I've been using now for my entire adult life. When I make decisions, I classify them into three areas, three buckets, high stakes, low stakes, and no stakes.

High stakes decisions are ones that need real due diligence and real work and a structured process. You know, it's like, where should I go to college? What should I change a job? Things like that, you know?

Low stakes decisions are things that, you know, require some judgment, but I won't remember really having decided about these things in about a month's time. So it's things like which printer should I buy, right? Which hotel should I stay at? Stuff like that. So, you know, it's like there is some money involved. There's an investment. You want to work well, but, you know, you don't need to like spend your whole life making a decision.

And then there's what's called no stakes decisions. Those are things that you literally won't remember having decided in three days. Like, could you tell me what you had for dinner three nights ago in your decision-making process? Could you do it? Probably not. There you go. Okay.

So when you have a no-stakes decision, and I used to be that guy, I'd go to a restaurant. I mean, you know how New Yorkers are too. Everybody's like, well, they try to customize their order in every way. Like, can I have a salad, but like hold the kale? And also, can you add back the kale? And all that sort of stuff. When I have a no-stakes decision, I simply outsource. When I go to a restaurant, I will say, I don't eat this and this, but I eat everything else. You decide what we're going to have. If I had a strong feeling about it, I would express that opinion.

But if I'm in the FOBO space, then I take myself and the drama out of it. So that's how I deal with that. When it's a low stakes decision, which is something that has some relative importance, I outsource it to people. So I will say, you know, say I'm buying that printer. Like I have a friend who knows all about that stuff. I'll say to him, I want to buy a printer. I need basic functionality. I want it to be less than $300. What do you think? And this is the guy who sends you three links to Amazon, you know, and then basically decides for you.

Because when you go on Amazon, there's like 973 printers and they all look the same. So I just find a person who has some expertise and I outsource to them. It's kind of like having a travel agent if you're doing travel, stuff like that.

And then for the high stakes, I do it myself. But I engage with other people and I have a whole structure process that I write about in the book. But that outsourcing piece, and people notice it. It's funny. People are like, Patrick, you always go with the flow. You don't make decisions about these things. And I'm like, yeah, it's not that I'm not decisive. It's that I am freeing up my time and space and energy for things that matter. And these just don't. And if they did matter and I did have an opinion, I would know it and I would express that opinion. But I just don't care. Are there any other...

tactics if you're in that middle ground. I think the low stakes decisions seem like the toughest ones for me. You know, I'm thinking the hotel is a great example and I have the exact problem you're talking about where it's there are so many hotels and they're probably all fine above a certain category and

I could outsource that, but I still have this feeling of, gosh, the person I outsource this to, what if they didn't think about this? What if they didn't think about that? And it's still tough. Is there like what's level two remedy for people who find it very difficult to even outsource those decisions? Yeah, well, part of it is you need to sort of do the work of accepting the fact that you're being incredibly obstructionist to your own happiness.

You really are because, again, this is all perception. You go on a website, there's three hotels. You start worrying about all of these things. You have no idea whether even these things, like even if you asked every question in the book, you would never really know until you got there, right? So like you are creating a mental model that is flawed because you somehow assume that by doing it,

additional research, you are somehow going to make a better decision. And what is interesting about that, and the research shows this, this is a really fascinating point from Barry Schwartz's book, is that people who, there's what's, there's terms that are called maximizer and satisficer. Maximizers are people who do all the research and they, you know, spend a crazy amount of time and energy to make the perfect decision. It's

Satisficers are people like me who say, you know, it's good enough. Like once we get to good enough, I'm going to move on with my life because I got stuff to do. In the end, maximizers actually make better decisions. They are able to, through their additional work, make a better decision. However, they are less happy with their decision

Because they spent so much time researching every aspect that they spent a lot of their time focusing on the other road they didn't take. And so a big part of why you're feeling FOBO is because you are feeling anticipated regret at what you didn't choose. And so, you know, I think that's where you start in terms of the work. And it's not like a hack per se, because it's more about being in the mindset to recognize like, I am...

engaging in a type of behavior that is at the end of the day, extremely unproductive. And once you do that and you start to think like, will I even remember this? Then, you know, then you will be free. And the reality of decisions and the thing that people don't think about is decisions are like doors. If you never walk through the first door, you can't see what's inside the room and then go through the next door and so on and so forth in your life.

With decisions, if you can't make a basic decision, you don't open the door to the next set of things you're going to have to deal with. And so that's really important. But I think, you know, in terms of like a specific thing with hotels, again, I think it's about,

Trying to think of the people that you know or the sources that you know that are going to offer you the best advice and then going with them and recognizing that you are taking the thing about decision. Every decision is a risk. You are taking risks, but there is no perfect decision. It doesn't exist. And I think realizing that going in is really helpful. Yeah, that makes sense.

You mentioned earlier, one of the abundance of choice is in the job world. There's so many jobs and that is a high stakes decision. I think right now there are a lot of jobs

There's a lot of, you know, I've driven by, you know, at every level of the spectrum, there are people dying to get workers. And there's a thing going on right now, at least that I've read a little bit about the great resignation that all these people who have been locked up in the one job for, you know, the last year or two because it's been COVID and they haven't really made a lot of change. They're all going to go find something better. Is that something you think is driven by...

this kind of FOBO and FOMO all kind of meshed into one? Do you think this is a real thing? I've read that up to 40% of people are going to change jobs this next year. I'm curious to get your thoughts. I have been thinking a lot about the Great Resonation as well. In fact, I did a whole podcast episode on it because it is...

a fascinating trend. I think in the month of April alone, 4 million people quit their jobs. And I just see it in my, I'm sure you have friends too. Like I have all these friends who are unemployed right now and they're like living their best life. And you know, why do all unemployed people go to Joshua tree? That's a mystery to me, but I've noticed it. And so maybe somebody can write us the answer, but, but it is, I think what's happening there is a couple of things. If I put on my sort of like demographics, sociologist hat,

Number one is, I think a lot, and there's a really good episode of This American Life that actually looked at the great resignation. So I'm sort of taking a page out of their notes. People recognized during the last year and a half if their company really, truly cared about them. And this kind of reminds me in 2008, I was in the middle of a financial crisis and it was awful. I was at AIG and my whole career blew up.

And what happened to me in that moment was I realized that my company didn't care about me at all. And it was incapable of caring for me for so many reasons. And I lost faith in the company and kind of in the corporate world in general. Like I was...

I was like as good, I was like, you know, like the way that somebody is like a good Catholic. I was like a good corporatist and I believed in the whole institution. And then I didn't anymore. And I thought it was deeply flawed and bad for me. And I think people feel that way about employers, the ones that didn't show, you know, much caring for them. I think people also recognize the fragility of life much as I did after 9-11 when I went to business school and, you know, felt all the FOMO people, you know, we have been through such a deeply scrupulous

scarring experience as a society that people are just like, life's too short to put up with this malarkey as like Joe Biden would say. Now, all of that aside, here's the problem. And this is where it gets nasty. Um,

Chris, have you ever been unemployed for like a long period of time? Yes. I actually also 2008 got laid off, tried to find a bunch of different side hustles and part-time jobs. I wouldn't say I, I was like necessarily looking for a job, but I was not working for, for about a year. Yeah. So it's similar. Okay. So you'll, I think you'll appreciate this. I quit my job on wall street. I had saved like every dime I ever made. My parents were great in teaching me to save. So yeah,

I had like years of runway. And so I felt like, I was like, this is going to be chill. I'm going to quit my job. I'm going to be chill. It's going to be great. As I started spending my money that I had saved and watched my bank account go down, it's stressful. I felt bad. It's like, I don't want to have a muffin. That's

living out of your savings is like, it's very scary and awful and you don't enjoy anything. And I was told that by a friend and I was like, that won't be me. And it was me. And so I found it really difficult. And so that was from the very privileged position of having savings. Like if you don't,

then you're in a, it's even worse. Right. And so what I fear for people, it's like when you quit your job, I remember I felt joy, like a deep and abiding joy every day. I'd wake up and I'd like, like, it was like out of like a animated movie, like a bird would land on my shoulder and I'd like sing to it. I was so happy. You know, like it was just, I was like, I feel so free. And that feelings, they last for a while, actually. They're shockingly powerful. But then eventually over time they fade because, you know, you get used to it like anything else.

And then the fear and the insecurity and the, oh my God, what am I going to do? Am I going to find another job? All that sort of stuff comes in. And that is what I fear for people who quit. And so what I encourage people to do rather than up and quit your job is to

find a way to, you know, if you want to try something new, if you're like, I always want to be a chef and right now I'm a programmer. And instead of just quitting your job and going to cooking school, do some diligence into whether you even like, this is FOMO, like perception or deception. Maybe you like cooking at home. Do you want to cook every day? 946 people come to your restaurant. Like a lot of the things that feel so attractive to us, if we actually dug into them,

we would not enjoy professionally. And I remember reading this article in the New York Times about this woman who was a lawyer, a corporate lawyer, and all she wanted to do was bake.

And she quit her job and opened a bakery. And you know what she realized? She hated it. And she would dream about being a lawyer again while she was baking her cookies. So you just want to know that. I think it's really, and if you are going to quit, have a very structured plan about how you're going to live and what you're going to spend money on and how you're going to sort of manage the finances. Because if you go in with a solid plan, I think you're much better positioned.

Yeah, that makes total sense. And I've actually read that a massive number of kids nowadays say that they want to be entrepreneurs. And you wrote a book about this 10% entrepreneur concept, which I think is fascinating because...

Most people don't realize what it really takes until you experience it. And I know I kind of saw entrepreneurship with rose-colored glasses before going full force into running a company and managing a team and trying to find customers and trying to make it work and ultimately realizing it didn't. Do you think that is a framework for people who...

have something they want to pursue, but feel they need to pursue it full time because that's just the norm? Is there a way to kind of overcome that feeling of, I have to quit my job to go bake, but is there a way to just kind of adopt this 10% lifestyle easily? Or what's a process for doing that? So we're all sold this bill of goods that, you know, unless you're suffering and in pain, as an entrepreneur, you can't succeed.

And you see it all the time. Like it's, there's a whole like entrepreneurship porn kind of industry, like grinding really hard. And that's kind of people, people are realizing that's, that's like kind of all BS, but it is still like a cultural thing that unless you're like, unless you're bleeding, like somehow you didn't play hard enough. And I just, that's just not me. And so when I left wall street, um,

I was like, oh man, I should be an entrepreneur because it's the way to go. And I have a lot of friends who are entrepreneurs, but I didn't have the guts to just jump into one thing. Especially after the AIG debacle, I was like, I will never, I want to be diversified. I want to have a much more portfolio approach. And as I started to

do all these things on the side, I realized actually this is pretty amazing because you can have sort of like a steady income stream from stuff, but then you can kind of up, you know, sort of put 10% of your time, money and energy into very high risk things that, you know, potentially have high reward.

And it's also a great way to try an idea. And then if you like that, you could then scale up. You don't have to stay at 10%. You can go 50, 100. In fact, many of the people that I interviewed for my book started at 10%, figured out the idea worked. They did their minimum viable product. They got some paying customers. And then they went to their company and said, hey, I have this startup. Can I work one day a week on it? Or can I work three days a week on it? And you know,

companies need good people. So they were pretty amenable. And then over the course of a period of time, then they ended up going full-time. So I think it's a really sensible thing to do. It also, the statistics show us, there was a study out of University of Wisconsin that people who start something on the side and then go full-time are 50% more likely to succeed than people who just jump in because they give themselves the runway to fail and make mistakes before they have to live off the business.

So it makes a lot of sense. I mean, it doesn't work for every business model. If it's super capital intensive, like that's not going to make a lot of sense for you because you need to raise money and investors aren't going to back you if you're a part-timer. But I think it's really sensible. And the reality is that many businesses that we all know were started as 10%. You know, Apple was started as a 10%. Jobs in Washington, D.C. were working at HP and they started it in their cubicle. You know, the garage story is a lie. It's like it was made up.

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I just want to thank you quick for listening to and supporting the show. Your support is what keeps this show going to get all of the URLs, codes, deals, and discounts from our partners. You can go to all the hacks.com slash deals. So please consider supporting those who support us. Okay. So you've got hacks for FOMO. You've got hacks for manifesting entrepreneurship without having to quit your job. I know you'd emailed me and said, Hey,

you've got lots of hacks. What else is in your arsenal of things people can use to improve life, improve work or anything around that area? Yeah. So I have a funny hack. Well, I think it's funny. You might not, but I'm going to say it anyway, because it makes life just a little more interesting and fun. And I think it has some benefits.

Whenever I go to a restaurant and I put my name down, I say my name is Pierre. Now, can you guess why I do that? I don't know, because French people are great at food. Yeah, I just, I always think that like if my name's Pierre, they'll assume that I have higher standards than the average person and treat me better. And do you think it works? I do. I feel like I get tables much more quickly. The only downside of it is that nobody knows how to spell Pierre. They spell it P-I-E-R, Pierre.

So that's kind of weird, but it's not that offensive if your fake name is misspelled. Yeah, that's one. Another one that I really love, this has actually been a transformative hack for me, is do you meditate? It's one of those things that

I've seen value from and I've gone off and on, but I've never been able to make it a habit that kind of lasts. Why do you think? I think, I mean, I had Laura Vanderkam, who's written a lot about productivity, came on the podcast and kind of challenged the idea that you don't have time for something. It's like, no, you haven't prioritized it. So I can't say I don't have time for it, but I'd say I haven't continually prioritized it. And it's one of those things that I think it's,

It's hard to see the tangible immediate benefit, but it's easier to see the long-term benefit. So on any given day, it's like, well, if I don't do it today, it's probably going to be fine. And then that just kind of snowballs into not doing it for weeks at a time. And then it kind of just stops being a routine. Totally. That's exactly right. That's exactly how I was. My brother has been meditating for like...

a really long time. And I saw the effect on him. I was amazed. His resilience, his ability to deal with when bad things happen. Like he just was like, so, I don't know, like grounded. And I wanted that.

And I couldn't get it. I tried. I even went to like this thing with him and I didn't like the style or the people. So it wasn't for me, but I would start going to classes and I realized like many other things in the world. Like there's no one way to do things. Like if somebody tells you you're meditating wrong, like they've missed the, there's not, it's not like that. There's many different ways to achieve that objective and many different styles of meditation. So I thought that was like a good thing to know.

But still, I couldn't do it. I would do it once a week or something. And then I recognized that I really needed it. And about three years ago, I was at brunch with a friend of mine, this guy, Ajay Kishore, who was an entrepreneur. And he and I were kind of new friends at the time. And it was right at the end of the year. And he was like, do you have any New Year's resolutions? And I was like, no, I don't actually believe in New Year's resolutions. I think they're

They're not for me. In fact, anytime I start something new in the beginning of the year, I start it on the 2nd of January so that I've already broken my resolution. It's a little thing I do. I've done that since I was a child. But I said, I really want to meditate. And he said, me too. And so what we did is we created an accountability pact. And every day for the last three years,

I go on this app called Habit Share. It's like not, it's just, it's, I love the app. I have not, I should reach out to them actually. Cause like, it's not a fancy app. Like it is, it is so no frills, but you just go and you create a habit pact with somebody and you both sign up. And then every day when you check in that you've done the thing, it sends a notification to the other person. So I started that.

And I started at five minutes a day. So I didn't try to go hardcore. Five minutes a day, and then it was 510, 520, 430, so on, up to 10 minutes, which is what I do today. And I have done that now. I have missed three days in the entire...

year so far. I didn't miss a day last year. I'm also very competitive. So I call it competitive meditation because it's sort of like, I mean, it's ridiculous, but it's true because I don't want to, I want to have my stats be perfect. But even though that's kind of whack and not in line with the spirit of why you meditate, I'm

I will say I do it every day. And I think it's much more important to be every day than to worry about how long you did it for. I had this friend who started meditating and he was like, well, you don't, you know, you don't do it long enough. You have to do this much time. And I was like, okay. And then of course he doesn't meditate ever. He's completely fallen off the wagon because it wasn't sustainable. And I also plan it into my day. I have it on my calendar. I look in for a spot of my day and I know going into the day when I'm going to do it.

So I encourage you, by the way, you can join my accountability group if you want, Chris, if you want to take it on, because it will, especially you, I can tell, you're not going to be cool having crappy stats, right?

And so you will make time for it. And it is amazing because at the end of the day, what it has done for me, and I'm not like some new agey guy. That's just not me. I'm just like a practical person, but it is really sapped me of my ability to freak out and get angry about anything. I just can't like, I'm much more low key calm. I'm still outgoing and fun, but I just can't get mad at somebody. Like I don't freak out. So that's good.

That's amazing. Yeah, it's funny. I was I can actually see my Peloton in this room. And I was thinking about how the Peloton, the reason that I used it for so long. And now, of course, I'm going to have to take a break here was to be competitive with people. And I loved the feeling of texting someone after and being like, I just beat your record on that ride.

And then I was like, oh man, Peloton actually does meditation. Why haven't they come up with their version of competitive meditation? But I feel like maybe it takes away the spirit. But if I need to use Habit Share, competitive meditation sounds like a great way to get back into it. It is. You're very welcome. Anybody listening is welcome. If you reach out to me at Let's Connect with Patrick McGinnis, you can join my group. But if you join me and then you don't do it and you're always like missing it, I will kick you out.

Because I'm not here to see bad stats. I want excellence. That's awesome. Any other final hacks?

Oh, man. Well, this is not so much of a hack, but it's something that I did that really was life-changing as well for me that I would encourage everybody to do, which is get yourself a proper setup for your home office. I have been working for myself for a decade. I worked off of a laptop for nine years. And then when I moved into this new place that I moved into this year, I got myself an extra large screen. I got the trackpad, the wireless one. I got the wireless keyboard. I got the

I got a really good webcam, much better than the one that's on my laptop. I got, you know, a nice light, a ring light, because, you know, it's 2021. So I want to look good. And I invested in all of that. And what it has done for me is radically improved my productivity. And also I enjoy sitting at that desk.

you know, working off a laptop. And now when I do it, by the way, like I hate it. If I'm like at a coffee shop on my laptop, I'm like, how did I do this for so many years? And so it's just better for your health, but it also just makes your work better. And so I encourage people to make that investment. And by the way, I was actually, this was kind of crazy. It was so much cheaper than I could have ever thought to get all of this stuff together. You know, stuff is just really cheap now. And so it, you know, you're not going to break the bank to do it.

Yeah, I have a setup and now I can't really work on a laptop, which actually is good. While I might not leave my phone out of the bedroom, I often never use my computer in the bedroom because I'm like, no, no, I want to work at my desk. I don't want to work on a laptop in the bed or on a couch. So I totally agree. I just think like, I'm like, I really want to look at Twitter. That's what I run over there. It's so sad. Yeah.

But I will say there are a lot of companies and they may or may not publish this. You may want to reach out. But I've heard of a lot of friends whose companies were willing to help pay for something to make their office setup good. So even if there's not a formal policy, I would reach out to your manager, your HR team and say, hey, is there any room in the budget for me to upgrade my desk, upgrade my chair, get a monitor, get a light? And I would be surprised if most people couldn't

get someone to pay for something to make their experience better, especially because a more productive employee is a better employee for the company as well. That's a smart idea. All right. This is awesome. Where, gosh, you have so many things going on. Where should people find everything you're working on right now? All right. So first of all, everybody, this is a momentous week in the history of podcasting because me and Chris are going on each other's shows. So Chris kindly had me on his show and he is coming over to FOMO Sapiens.

which is my show at FOMOskipians.com. And so you can find that wherever you get podcasts and smash that subscribe button for all the goodies.

That's number one. Number two, if you want to learn more about my work, you can also check out patrickmcginnis.com and I'm, you know, the links to all the socials. I have a really, um, I think it's pretty cool Instagram at Patrick J. McGinnis. And as you, you've probably just heard a million times, I love Twitter. So I'm at PJ McGinnis. So all of those places. And, and you'll also be able to, if you're interested in 10% entrepreneur, I've released an, um, an audio course, like in a podcast format with a company called Himalaya. So if you go to himalaya.com slash, um,

part-time, you can get a free trial subscription and check it out. Awesome. I will link to everything here that we talked about and some of the books you mentioned all in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on. And I'm excited to swap sides and be on the other side of the table. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure being here. And yes, we will continue the conversation over at FOMO Sapiens.

That was fantastic. I hope you all enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. And I'll make sure to put links to everything we discussed in the show notes.

I'm about to kick off the process of finding the guests, scheduling, and recording the next few months of episodes. So if there's a topic or person you have in mind, please send me a note and I'll do my best to try to make it happen. My email is chris at allthehacks.com. You're also welcome to send any questions you have for me or any feedback you have on the show. I love getting all your emails and I'll do my best to respond to every single one. All right. Thank you so much for all your support. See you next week.

Thank you.