Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Call It Like I See it presented by Disruption Now, I'm James Keys and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to take a look at Facebook's recently announced ban on all vaccine related misinformation and try to see what's going on in there. And and later on we're going to discuss the nature of procrastination and why we do it and what we can do about it.
Joining me today is a special guest from Disruption, from the Disruption now family, a man who can dig rapping and can dig scrapping, but he can't dig that backstabbing, Rob Richardson. Rob, are you planning any big paybacks that we should be looking out for?
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Not yet. I'm moving silently.
When it comes, people will just be hitting and they just won't know what happened.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: But hey, that's the way to go, man. That's the way to go. All right, now we're recording this on February 9, 2021 and in the last few days we've seen Facebook announce as part of their policy on COVID 19 related misinformation, that they're going to now remove posts with false claims about vaccines.
And apparently this will apply to all vaccine related misinformation, not just about COVID 19.
Now the COVID 19 pandemic has been with us for about a year at this point and has wrecked our society and, and countless lives throughout the world.
So many have been excited by the possibilities offered by a lot of the recently released vaccines.
And so as a result of that, people are worried that vaccine misinformation will extend the pandemic, will cause people to be more hesitant about taking vaccines and so forth. But bans on information are always a drastic step for a media company or a social media company or any large scale organization.
And Facebook is so large and so pervasive whenever it announces any type of large scale ban on something like this, it's certainly worth taking a second look at. So Rob, do you see this as something that is or has been necessary or is this a slippery slope and a cause for concern?
[00:02:15] Speaker B: I see it as a pretty complex problem just starting from a big picture.
Facebook itself has made money and I would argue has really made a lot of its model based upon the emotional response to the user and misinformation? Yeah, so I find it just disingenuous that they would do this and that I trust them to do it. Just given their, the context of their business model over the, over the years, it's kind of Like a company, it would be like to me, a company whose whole existence has been based upon racism, but now it's become unpopular. And so now all of a sudden they're going to say, from now on, everyone in our company has to say black lives matter. And we believe, and we believe in equality.
But here's the issue with that.
You don't change the culture. You don't change going with this metaphor, anybody at the top, and you don't really do things to make it. So there's a different stance in your culture and what you stand for because this is how you made your money.
So you're just saying something or maybe focusing on one area, like, okay, there's not gonna be any KKK members in here. So as long as you don't openly say you're a KKK member and as long as you don't use the N word, then you're allowed.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Don't show up wearing a hood.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Yeah, don't show up wearing a hood. Right.
We're gonna keep it there and then we're gonna say that we're a company that promotes equality. No, you're still a company that promotes intolerance. I would argue that Facebook is still a company that promotes disinformation because the model of how they've been making their money is off of creating an environment where people are creating their own, like many worlds, reinforcing what they want to believe. And Facebook is still taking away things that you may not want to see. So as long as that model stays there, I think this does nothing for disinformation, which is a problem, which will be a problem with the vaccine will continue to be a problem. I think it's a lazy approach.
It's not a well thought out approach. What it's going to do is I think, just make people more suspicious. It's gonna probably make people double down. Cause people like. I think if you just. The problem with doing something like this, misinformation is a problem.
Misinformation with the vaccine is a problem. I think it needs to be addressed just like propaganda we've talked about needs to be addressed. But as we've dealt with propaganda, when you just tell people that's a lie, we're taking that away and you're not gonna. People are gonna hold onto it more because they feel like something's being taken away from them even if it's not true. So I believe there needs to be a more thought out process to this. You need to look at all the layers to this. People believe the disinformation for different reasons. The black community believes it for reasons because. Not because of disinformation per se, because of things that happened to the black community with testing and vaccines in the past. There is a reason why many in the black community have hesitancy on this. There are others that just don't trust government. There are others that have rightfully so. Some anxiety and some caution about dealing with pharmaceutical companies. So a real approach to this would be how can we create an environment within the ecosystem we've created to make sure we're addressing this in intentional ways? I feel like when you do this, it's just like, okay, this is something. I think this is. Doing this more has to do with Facebook trying to look good. And really, I think it has more to do with setting itself up against the war. It has coming up with Apple, and I don't want to go too far down that line, but I'll just say
[00:05:49] Speaker A: that's a topic you and I are very interested in.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I'll just say very quickly, Apple is just making it. Apple is making it harder for Facebook just to use data, and now Facebook is trying to figure out ways to fight back. I think some of this is more of a PR than an actual. Really trying to look at the misinformation. So I view it with a lot of skepticism.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: I think you're right. I think that. Well, I'll say this. I think that the.
I do think this is a good step overall. Your overall impression and feeling, I would agree with. But I do think this is a good step in the sense that I think we have seen that a certain level of de. Platforming does turn down the temperature of a lot of this.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: That we've seen that with Trump.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: Exactly. Like, things get hot with this misinformation and all these conspiracies and things like that. And Facebook, because the point you make, because they've geared their whole system around trying to create and capture engagement based on misinformation. Well, they've learned that misinformation creates more engagement. And so therefore, they gear their whole platform towards misinformation. And because that's gonna keep you in front of the screen, real information is just. You're less likely to sit there all day on Facebook if all they're telling you is just the facts. And so because they've geared everything towards that, it definitely is a part of their business model to allow you to be deceived, to present information in a way that only concern is not whether it's True, but just whether it's going to keep you in front of the screen. But I do think, while this may be, and I wouldn't disagree with you, that this is probably about PR more than anything, I do think it's a good step, though. I mean, anything we can do, because misinformation is a big deal.
We have to like, there has to be steps they can take. And I would say probably the comprehensive approach has to be bigger than Facebook because as you pointed out, to get to the root, the root of why people are so susceptible to these things, the root to why this type of stuff creates so much engagement is not necessarily with Facebook. Facebook just figured that out. They figured it out, but that's not why necessarily that's the case. Some of it's human nature, but then other things, there's things going on in society that would increase people's susceptibility to want to find these type of answers and so forth. And so I would say, though I am concerned as well. And so I would say my answer to the question is it's both. It is a good step. Obviously we want to. If there's low hanging fruit, if people are out there saying obviously false stuff, then yeah, well, let's take that down. If you're willing to do that, you're not willing to do that in most scenarios. But because you're not willing to do that in most scenarios, I will say, okay, great, if you're willing to do it in one, which, you know, so that's good. But the amount of power that Facebook wields on these things always comes up. And Amy Klobuchar even, I think, introduced a bill last week talking about the antitrust concerns we have here. They're so big, they're so powerful that they make. It's a decree they make. And it's like it influences half of the world, you know, or whatever. Three billion people on there.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: And it's like, wow, Facebook is almost a utility at this point. It's almost, at that point bigger than any utility.
There you go.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: Three billion people are a customer of.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: There you go. I mean, it's bigger than a utility. So there are a few things that have to be considered. One, are they too big? And I think the answer to that is yes, particularly actually, the answer to that is clearly. Yeah, clearly, Absolutely. Without a doubt. Right.
And so where I saw some light at the end of the tunnel when people got upset with some right wing folks being kicked off the Facebook platform and some other services getting kicked off, there was this There were antitrust claims come up. And I just found it just as a side point, wholly ironic that people that are against any government regulation suddenly start going to government regulation when things don't go their way.
But I do think if there is an alignment between the left and the right here to see that, we need to figure out a way that we get this under control, otherwise it could and will implode our society. Because that is true.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Think about it. Cuz we're subject to the whims of Mark Zuckerberg and that's not to comment on whether he's a good guy or a bad guy. I don't want to be just stuck on the whims of anyone, you know, any person. Like just their whims. Oh, I'm feeling like this today. I think I'll ban this or I'll ban that. And it's like, well, hold on. Like the whole point of a lot of the systems we set up, whether it be antitrust with competition or whether it be a government with checks and balances or all those types of things, like, is to make sure that we don't concentrate too much power in one place.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Absolutely. And the fact that it's not just Facebook. You're talking about Facebook, you're talking about Instagram, you're talking about WhatsApp.
And I'm probably missing another application that they own and they can buy up others as they come along.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: And they have, and they have.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: And we have to say is this, do we want this much control over our communication and information? And what this does is different than, you know, even AT&T had to be broken up right when they created the phone. You had to create up. Think about this now, this is larger than the influence of AT&T. Because you're not talking about now just, okay, how can you control who gets a phone and how much it costs? This is.
How do you control who sees what information and how much information they see?
[00:10:57] Speaker A: Excellent point.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Way more powerful. And how people communicate. It's both. It's both.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: AT&T was just plugging in cords and connecting lines. You know, they weren't actually saying, no, no, no, you can't talk to this person. Oh no, no, you can talk to this person. Like they weren't deciding who you could hear from. That's a good point.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And so it's just way more dangerous. And I know people are unaware of the emotional pull that Facebook is using and other algorithms are using. And I'm not anti algorithm. I believe in innovation. I just think we have to balance all of this stuff out and make sure that, okay, just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. And if we're going to do it, what are the considerations and trade offs? Are we willing to trade off our civilization and our communication and how we work together? Are we willing to do what we've seen happen here on January 6th with the storming of our capitol? I mean, we know what can happen with the pushing of disinformation and when it's incentivized and we have to. So I think we have to figure out a way to deal with this. It is multi scaled.
It's not just the government coming in and saying we have to do a regulation.
We need the private sector to work and say we need to work through this and have solutions, that we're going to figure out how to tame this beast we've created. It is not going to be.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: You sound a lot like Tim Cook. Actually that was a lot of what Tim Cook, Apple CEO was saying. Because your point, and just to kind of add a little clarification, when you said you're not anti algorithm, when we talk about the algorithms, that's how Facebook makes the system, the computer makes its decisions as far as what's going to show up on someone's newsfeed and so forth. And so it's not the idea of an algorithm that people are attacking. It's not like, oh, we're anti algorithm. It's saying the issue is, and we talked about this a couple episodes back when we did the Social Dilemma, when we did a streaming between line series on the Social Dilemma. And a lot of the creators of these algorithms were interviewed there. And the algorithms have been finely Tunde to take advantage of weaknesses in our human nature. That's the way. And so that's the profit model basically is to rope you in in ways and suggest things to you in ways that have been demonstrated over millions of people to be effective ways to control people or to manipulate people. And so the algorithms themselves, they're not the issue. It's that they've been the way, they've been finely Tunde to take advantage of people.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: And to even add to that a little bit if I can, it's also figuring out how we're going to address technology and algorithms on the front end.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: So what are we going to let people do?
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Right? Well, not only that, the processes that we do on the front end.
Let me give you a quick example.
Microsoft famously created this racist bot. And how did it do it?
You would say how could you create a racist algorithm? How does that happen? Very simple. People are racist. Right?
[00:13:45] Speaker A: Learn from people.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: Right. Learn from people.
And went to Twitter and it took conversations and drew from there, and it was actually an accurate bot. The issue was that on the front end, they didn't have people in the room. I'm sure they didn't have many black people in the room. They didn't have many people of color in the room to say, well, have you considered maybe tempering it and making sure that we are thinking about the biases on the front end? That's one example of many. I mean, bias is an example. There's another example. Like, have we thought about what are the other effects on the front end versus just, let's just create this algorithm that will just make it more efficient for us to understand people and not really have the human point of view of what's the impact of this and what do we want to maximize and minimize on the front end. So there has to be a process to our technology on the front end. We have to begin to appreciate that that's going to be more important because
[00:14:36] Speaker A: these things are so impactful. They're so impactful once they hit. And so. And that's difficult, but the effort at least has to be there. And that's really what you want to see. The other thing I wanted to talk about on this before we moved on was just that the nature of bans themselves. So we talked about the nature of social media, but we live in a society where, generally speaking, we do like to refrain from restricting information too much, from stopping people from saying things before they say. And then both of us are attorneys, so we're familiar with all this constitutional law and stuff, but just in general, in the marketplace of ideas, beyond saying whether someone goes to jail for saying something, which is a free speech issue, but just saying in commercial context in general, we like people to be able to make claims and so forth. Would like to have some type of basis for that. But by and large, because the concern I have also here is that once Facebook says we're going to ban misinformation, is that ban skepticism as well? Like saying, oh, hey, I'm not sure about this? Or does that, like, where's the line there? Because being skeptical of things, of official things, is not a bad thing necessarily. There are a lot of. If you look back in history, there are a lot of stories that people originally believed and then there was a skepticism like, hold on, that doesn't sound right.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: And then further investigation revealed actually There was more to the story and the official story that was given was a cover story. And so I don't want. I don't think we want large scale social media institutions to completely eliminate our ability to do that, you know, and to be able to ask questions, ask tough questions like that is actually in a lot of cases the role of the media is to ask questions and then publish things and scrutinize things. And so I don't want this to become a situation where once something becomes the anointed as the official position of something, then nobody else can say anything contrary to that, because that takes us in a very dangerous direction as well. And so I think that's a concern as well that we'll have to really monitor with things like this also. So go ahead, give me your thoughts on that.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: I'll just say very, very quickly on this point.
The issue is overreach and we've seen Facebook overreach or not have complete understanding. So they.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: Hold on, let me jump in real quick. It's overreach, but it's also just like what you had just said as far as the lack of foresight. Sometimes when you set up something, you can't see the unintended consequence that it may have. And so you may actually design something in a way that's pretty neutral.
But in practice, what ends up happening is it gets applied in a certain way. So it could be overreach, intentional, but it could also just be, we're imperfect beings. When we try to do stuff, sometimes it doesn't work out exactly how we.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: I think that's better stated. Right. The process on the front end is not dealt with in a way to consider the unseen consequences because you also don't have enough people in the room to consider those consequences.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Usually it's enough as well.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Exactly. With the same mindset, the same say, let's just build the damn algorithm. I don't care about bias, let's build the algorithm. I don't care about other stuff. Let's just build it, get it out there, and let's get it done. I mean, Facebook's model, literally this is Mark Zuckerberg's word, is to move fast and break things.
That is the model of Mark Zuckerberg to do stuff. And so that's how they come up with their policies, which can be a good policy for innovation sometimes, but can be a bad policy when you consider the implications of something like this. And we've had examples from Facebook in the past where they took, for example, they banned hate speech and then they considered that. They consider sometimes that people were talking about racism, sometimes that would get banned in the process as well.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: Those two are not the same thing. But the algorithm saw them as the same.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: Yep, yep, yeah. Cause it's looking at it, it's trying to implement something on a large scale and it's a lot of these things have nuance to them and it's hard to just cover things with a broad brush. And so I think that recognizing some of these problems and kind of bringing them to light is helpful because as you point out, there needs to be thoughtfulness on the front end to try to see things before they happen. But that's going to inevitably fail in some respects. And so you also have to be responsive to when you see these gaps emerge, how you're going to address them.
I also wanted to ask you, just as we were discussing this recently, in the past few months, we saw social media companies restrict election related misinformation and then they outright banned the now former President Trump for his incitements of violence and so forth in the social media sphere. So big picture wise, what role should these companies be playing? I mean, we've touched on this a little bit, but I want to know, what do you think? What role should they be doing as far as like they are a place where people, the public can publish information, but they also curate the information, they also prioritize what you see and so forth.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: No question.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: But what role should they have in regulating the content that's posted?
What should they be doing? Again, your opinion as far as how they are curating it?
[00:19:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, this is a tough thing to answer, but I think, yeah,
[00:19:33] Speaker A: man, if you answer this, maybe you'll be the next billionaire.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
But I believe that they shouldn't just do it based upon what people want to see. They should also provide other information to help people see a broader picture and not in a way that forces them. And I don't know how you do this exactly, but I wouldn't just. Okay, because they want to just see things like this. We're going to do that. We're going to perhaps introduce things that have a different point of view in a way they can understand it.
Because having this point of view where you can just have an alternate reality fed to you day in and day out is not healthy for anyone. It's not healthy for the brain, it's not healthy for society.
So whatever we do, it has to be something that gives people a complete sense of information and to let them know that look, this is one part of the conversation, not the whole. Now there are people that just want to be entertained and let them go on Disney, Fox News or wherever they need to go to get completely entertained all the time.
But if you're there, at least give them the option of putting things up. And they may not see, they may never click on it, but at least it's there. But some people will. If we can convert, if there's 40% of the population, we can convert 10% of that population to see, okay, some of this is a little bit crazy. We've done our job. Like there's some people that you're never going to be able to convert. But we can get more and more people to not be at this extreme level to entertain these extreme conspiracy theories and understand that they are conspiracy theories.
I think that makes a lot of sense. Social media companies would be well positioned to do that.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: And one thing that I took from what you said that I think is very, very insightful is that you can't try to design something that's going to work for a hundred percent of the people like that. Everybody's going like, is this going to work for everybody? Like, you have to understand that certain, a certain percentage of people are going to, no matter what system is set up, no matter what's done, they're just not going to get on board, so to speak, or it's not going to be effective. And so a lot of times you'll get bogged down and be unable to solve any problems. If you're trying to figure out how can we reach that 20% that's super fired up about this and that, that thinks that Jewish space lasers are causing forest fires, you know, like, what do we do to convince them? And it's like, well, if you're trying to convince them, you will throw your hands up and just say we're screwed. But you don't have to reach everyone. It's not a thing where you have to reach 100% of the people. One of the things that I think that we have to ask is really what the social media companies are trying to do. What if they're going to be fully profit making machines and that's it, then I think it's gonna be really difficult to ask them to do anything if they're not going to have any responsibility to society at large, because and society at large, I should say, and to the people, to their users, you know, are they gonna have any responsibility to their users to not exploit them, to not try to prey on Them from a psychological standpoint. And so that's a big question, a large scale question, a question that Apple recently brought up and said, hey, Facebook, this isn't cool, like what you guys are doing to people now. Apple's in a position of strength to do that. And again, we keep dancing around this, but, you know, we're not gonna go all the way. And we'll probably get into this in a future show. But Apple, Dan, Apple's in a strong position to do that because they actually sell a product that people want. Like, Facebook needs you to go onto their platform and sit there for them to make money on you, whereas Apple says, hey, just we'll give you a great phone for X amount of dollars. And that's how Apple makes their money. You know, so they don't need all your data every day and to keep your attention nonstop. So they're coming from a position of strength to be able to say, hey,
[00:23:09] Speaker B: guys, people have to go on their marketplace too. I mean, they.
Apple's not completely innocent, but they have. People have to go on their marketplace and use that. But I respect their privacy concerns more so.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: But what. The point I was making was that they're able to do that because they sell you something beyond just their business model. Yeah, their business model is different. So. But needless to say, I think that that's a question as a society we should be looking at, because the answer to that question would determine how we choose to regulate the social media companies and regulate what they can do. Because right now, I think they found, as in capitalism and free market systems, as it tends to do, they found the path of least resistance to making money. They found it.
The path to least resistance to making money is to say, okay, how can. Let's get some psychologists in the room, let's get some coders in the room, and let's figure out how we can keep people in front of their screens, how we can make them feel like drug addicts and on their screens, like, how can we do that? All right, boom, we got it. That's the easiest way to make money using this. But the easiest way to make money isn't always necessarily what's best for society. You know, the easiest way for a coal company to make money is to dump all their waste on the street.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: And then as we move past this point, because I know we got to go to the other part, I just want to end. I want to make this final point here.
The consumers will have to make a decision at some point, too. I believe there will be A change of perspective with data.
And some people will decide and have the option to. Do I want my data to be sold?
Do I want to have free access to this platform? If so, then my data will be used in a way that I may not love or like. But I understand that going in with informed consent. And then there are others who, okay, well, if you don't want to do that, then you can pay on your own. And I do think people will do that at some point and there will be more opportunities in the future. But that's what I think is going to happen.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: No, no, that's true. I mean, I think there's also one other issue that I want to touch on. And then, yeah, we'll move on to the procrastination topic. The other issue that we have in society is that this, the phenomenon we're speaking about, isn't a purely social media thing. Like, we see the same thing with news media, where news media are trying to cater their certain news media at least, but they're trying to cater the news that they report to please their audience so that their audience doesn't get mad and turn the channel and watch something else. And so you can look at that from multiple perspectives, but just from the perspective of the viewer, which I think you make a good point. People have to vote with their wallets or in the attention economy. You vote with your attention, where you give your attention. And so if you don't like the way someone does business, then you have to try to reduce your engagement with them, reduce the attention you give them. And if you do like the way somebody does business, then you have to consciously do that. So the consumer always plays a role in the market system. But right now we do have a large number of people that seem to believe. And this manifests itself in a lot of ways, by the way. But right now, what we're talking about, but there's a lot of people who believe that they're entitled to being told what they want to hear all the time. Like, that that's something that they deserve to get. Like, if you don't tell them what they want to hear, then they have a problem with you.
And that is a problem. Like, that's not how the world works. You know, it's almost like. And this is kind of. This will mix it up for you because this will kind of mix up the sides of people arguing stuff. But what it looks like, what it seems like to me, is that we've created an environment where we have participation trophies for news. And so like, people just say, I just want you to tell me I'm a winner. Tell me I'm a winner. I don't care what really happened. Tell me I won the election. If you don't tell me I won the election, I don't care what the votes say, Tell me I won the election, or I'm turning the channel and I'm going, I'm gonna watch somebody else. And so, like, with the problem, though, with that, I mean, people probably have always been like that, but the problem is that the economic spoils are going to those who can give people that affirmation.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: And that's just not limited to social media. So social media is caught up in this whirlwind, in a sense, because they're so large and so pervasive. But this is same thing's happening with news media right now, where reporting the news has always been boring and not made money, but now people are like, hey, well, we'll report things that look like news, but we'll actually make it an entertainment package complete with superheroes and villains. And, you know, you watch certain cable news programs, and it's like, yeah, there's. There's literally, it could be a Marvel movie. There's the villains. The villain has these superpowers, and then your hero's coming in and he's going to save the day. It's like, well, this isn't how news works. You know, things are complex. As you pointed out, even when we talk about the Apple Facebook dichotomy, it's not like Apple's perfect. We don't need to put Apple on a pedestal to say that, hey, they have a point about this or that. And so, no, I mean, we can get your final thoughts on this and we can wrap to the next part.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: I mean, this is the toughest part of what we're doing right now and what we're dealing with, because people now have been socially conditioned to believe this is news.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: And I have no idea how to get people out of that.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: I mean, the new Smart Tech and Dominion Voting systems have an idea. Those lawsuits.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Oh, they do.
Those lawsuits help, right? Yeah. I mean, it got to the point of just being ridiculous there. Right. You got to the point of just creating a whole new universe, and they just really stepped over the line. But there were a lot of things that were outrageous, that were done way before that that didn't cross the line to people. Right. I mean, and so the fact that it went on so long just empowered them just to be able just to get to the point of being ridiculous. And I bet their argument for we're talking about Fox News is going to be that they're not actually news. Like, I believe one of their defenses, that they're partly entertainment.
Yeah, but people take them as news, though. This is the thing, though, right? People take them as news. Yeah, but then even, I mean, MSNBC is nowhere near as it's not equivalent, but they do something at a smaller level where they focus and get people engaged in a way that they want to be engaged. It's the reason why all the news media loved, whether they said it or not. They love Trump because he helped them. He helped the right.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: He's good for business.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: He helped the left news make money. He helped the right news make money. Because they can both frame it. They can both. You know, the right could frame him as a hero to be the savior to the country and the world, and the left could make him out to be this crazy villain all the time. And that was the focus all day, every day of the hour, the mid hour.
So I hold them both responsible because they were both empowering Trump in a way. Because you said this before, you mentioned somebody's name so much, you give them power.
And they would talk about things that just like every tweet, every word we would hang onto as if it was news and it really wasn't. It wasn't news for msnbc, CNN or Fox. But people would make it news because this is what people wanted to hear.
[00:29:50] Speaker A: Even people that didn't watch it, even
[00:29:52] Speaker B: people didn't like it. So I made a point to say I wasn't going to sit there and watch this all day, every day. Like, I'm pulling myself away from that. So viewers at some point have to realize that how they're being manipulated, too, in this process.
[00:30:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, and that's always the tough message at the end, personal responsibility. But it's a part of it. I mean, it's. Again, if there were easy answers, then we would have solved this stuff a long time ago. A lot of times it's just difficult answers. So. No, I mean, it's a good discussion, man. There was. We kept putting it off, but I also wanted to have this conversation on procrastination. You know, we saw an interesting piece that discussed procrastination, and kind of now everyone does it. You know, I thought this was something that, you know, it was interesting because everyone procrastinates. But a lot of times we feel like we're the only ones when we do it, but. And it really, the premise of this piece, and we'll post this in the show notes, was just that procrastination, most of the times or oftentimes when you really. When they really study it is more about mood management, how you feel about something, as opposed to time management. It's not like you don't have enough time to do something. It's more so you just don't feel like doing it. And so you put it off and put it off and put it off. And so my question for you is like, are you a procrastinator, Rob? And you can kind of talk about what you got out of the article and anything like that, but, you know, what's your idea? You know, on the idea that. Excuse me, what's your thought? On the idea that procrastinating is more about your mood than about how much time you have?
[00:31:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I am a procrastinator.
And there are things like small stuff I need to put off. I need to stop the renewing this subscription I have that I don't use anymore to renew.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: Auto renew.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: Auto renew.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: The auto renew is there because we procrastinate.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: That's exactly right. Right.
So it's in our brain to do that. Because procrastination is. Is actually natural. It makes sense. It's the human reaction to how can I do the least? That actually makes sense. And so there's nothing inherently wrong with procrastination. I mean, the issue is when you're procrastinating for things, after a while it adds up. So it's really about understanding that you're going to procrastinate and you are the makeup of your habits and systems. So a book I read on this is called Atomic Habits. And I want to read this line that I think that really applies to this says if you're having trouble changing habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your systems. You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.
[00:32:19] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: So this is really about understanding that it doesn't matter what your goals are. What matters are the systems you have in place to reach your goals.
And you do this over time, like compound interest. Give you a quick lesson in this. I'm sure you guys know about it, but compound interest, over time, you put a little money in, a little money in over time, over 10 years, it makes a huge difference.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: Einstein calls it the most powerful force in the universe.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: It is the most powerful force in the universe. And it applies to more than money. It applies to your life. It applies to you procrastinating, working out, right? You just do a little bit. You say you put a time you're going to do every day. You put a system in place where you have a habit loop that this is something you're going to do at a certain time in a certain way. And you make sure you do everything possible to make it easy. Here's the trick, right? Make it easy. If it's hard for you to do at first, you're never going to do it and you're going to procrastinate forever. So the goal with anything is to start small and build up 1% improvement over maybe one day, over a week. And after that that makes a huge difference.
Something else that I do for just my professional life is I have, you know, I take a small journal every day about my top three tasks to complete what I have to do in the morning. And then I have things too. This is the most important part with procrastination and with the goals.
Because when we do these things, we don't usually build in. We start when people. I don't do resolutions anymore, but when people start with resolutions, they have these grand ideals in their head, James. They're like, I want to do these things, I want to change, I want to lose 50 pounds. Forget all that, right? I don't do any of that. Right.
Because you don't really realistically build in systems and think about what are going to be the obstacles that I'm going to have to encounter to make this a reality. And so when I build in, I think about what's going to get in my way from that happening. And so I do something small every day. I took my three tasks and then I do my morning priorities. And then I also go, what are the things I need to avoid?
For my list, I talk about just scrolling on Instagram and TikTok, having too many browsers up and not doing too much texting. Because what? Because that will distract me from the things I need to do, my main goals. And then at the end of the day I just say, how did I do? Was I able to avoid things? What can I do better the next day?
[00:34:35] Speaker A: Interesting, interesting.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: These things help with. And I do procrastinate. Then I'll talk about a little bit while procrastinating, doing this today, today. And I get to see my progress. This takes all of a few minutes, all day, every day. But I found it's made incrementally a huge difference.
So yes, I procrastinate and the way I try to Reduce it being something that is not going to get in the way is that I. I have systems in place. And then when you want to do some of these things, like scroll the Internet, build that into things into time.
When you want to just do nothing or you're just going to watch tv, build that into your plan.
And build into your plan about how much time. I'm not saying don't do any of these things, but have it mapped out. Otherwise it'll draw you out and you'll end up procrastinating on things you really care about. That's kind of my.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: No, no, that's cool. I mean, as fortune would have it, I got the master of avoiding procrastination today, the day we talk about procrastination. But no, I'm a procrastinator as well. I think you had a lot of good insights and I think there's some overlap in what jumped out to me. And then as far as how I approach it, I definitely think that the mood piece is a big part of it.
And just that a lot of times we procrastinate things on things that aren't very difficult or don't require a lot of time or just little things, and it's really unexplainable. So the biggest thing I've taken away and that I try to live with is to not beat myself up about it. And they mentioned that, like, you get in this loop of where you procrastinate about something, then you feel bad about it, then you feel bad that you're feeling bad, and then you end up in this terrible place. So if you just give yourself some grace, a lot of times it can be very helpful to just to manage your mood, to not sit there and put yourself in a bad place mentally or emotionally, because you procrastinate. Procrastination happens. And like, we live in the greatest time of all, you know, ever for procrastinating. You know, like the Internet is like the.
If you sit around on your computer, on your phone nowadays, you probably wonder how people used to procrastinate.
You could do anything. You could play video games on your phone, you could do this and that. Like, it's easy to procrastinate, so it's easier now than ever.
But the way I address it personally, and I've worked on this for years now because it's being productive is important to me. You know, trying to get stuff done is important to me. And so I think the way that I go about that is really with breaking things up into smaller Tasks.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: And I saw a video, actually, I think it was Will Smith a while back, when he had talked about how a lesson he learned in life was it was given through the analogy of building a wall. And then if you set out to build a wall, then it's incredibly difficult. You know, to build a wall is actually very difficult, but to lay a brick is not. And so you don't focus on the wall that you're trying to build. You focus on each brick. I'm gonna lay a brick, and then I'm gonna lay another brick, and then you'll look up and you'll have a wall. And so a lot of times with the procrastination, and I think your point about the. With the resolutions and stuff, and how people would set grand resolutions, or oftentimes will set grand resolutions and so forth, and how that can be counterproductive. Cause, again, that'll put you in a bad emotional state. If you set a goal that's super far away without the ability to appreciate the incremental progress you can make towards that, then you actually don't give yourself the positive reinforcement to keep going. If you set smaller goals, accomplish those, then you'll feel good that you accomplished those smaller goals, and it'll motivate you to do more, to continue along the path, because you'd be like, yes, I accomplished my. I laid a brick. Boom. I'm amazing. This is great. I'm going to lay another brick. Boom. That. Oh, man, I'm the man. Can you imagine that? I just laid two bricks. Boom. I'm gonna lay another one.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: Like compound interest, it compounds on itself. And you become more and more encouraged as you build each brick.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: Exactly. So instead of trying to lose £50, which when you. If you. If you set out to lose £50 and then you lose 10, you're gonna feel terrible. You're like, exactly. I'm a failure. I only lost 10 pounds. But if you say, hey, I'm gonna lose 10 or I'm gonna lose 5, you know, and then you lose the 10, and it's like, oh, man, I'm amazing. And so how you view things oftentimes will define the experience that you have with them and what you get out of them. So a lot of times, yeah, the focus on smaller objectives or smaller tasks is a way to manage your mood.
[00:38:53] Speaker B: I would like to talk to mood as well before we close out, because mood is something that is going to change.
The hardest part, really, though, is to understand that you're not gonna be motivated a whole lot of Times like motivation is also false. Motivate people think like you have to be in order to achieve something. People go out every single day and they're feeling great about it. I get up usually at 5:45 in the morning. I never want to get up. Like I don't feel motivated to get up at 5:45 to do this. But then I have a process in place to where it makes it easier for me to do this and I do it and I get into my system and my groove.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: You make it look easy, man.
[00:39:31] Speaker B: Well, but you get to this point though, that you have to have a. You have to have systems in place and put yourself in an environment where you can achieve these things. Like everybody. It's not for everybody to get up early in the morning. I'm not saying do that. What I'm saying is some people, if you have to write a book and you don't have the environment and you're not in the environment where you can do it, then you have to go to a quiet place and do it. Or you have to go put on headphones and listen to music and say, between this time and this time, I'm going to do it. And then you make it easy for you to do that. You put up reminders and trigger yourself to do it. And you start little by little. Don't try to write five hours in a day. Just write. Start with writing 10 minutes a day and say you're going to do that no matter what at this time.
And just do that day in and day out. And know that, hey, you might miss a day. Just make it so I'm never going to miss two in a row, no matter what.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's again, that's about managing. That's about managing your mood, your impression. If you set that smaller goal, then you'll feel better about yourself more often than not. You know, it's very similar. We last week we did a Tunde and I. We discussed the book the Subtle Art of Not Giving a. I love that book.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: I've read that.
[00:40:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's dope. And one of the pieces in there was about writing and about, you know, you write one sentence and then that gives you inspiration or motivation to write more sentences, to write another sentence. But if you start out trying to write the whole thing, then you sit there and just look at a blank screen and so, yeah, something else to
[00:40:54] Speaker B: that I remember very quickly, before we get ready to wrap up, I forgot I wanted to say this thought. Like, I think Drake, as you mentioned, Will Smith Drake said this too. When you're starting off in the process of anything, you almost have to detach yourself from that greater goal because you will get discouraged. Right. And you have to focus on the process. The process is almost everything. The proceeds are like 3% of life. The process is all of it. Yeah, it is. Right. And we get focused on journey. We gotta. It's the journey, not the destination. We're like, we gotta get there. We gotta get there. And it's really the process, which is the journey. Yeah.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: I mean, and I think procrastination, in large part, it plays a role in that, you know, like. And that's the. It is the looking too far ahead or. But some of it, like you said, is just is us, our humanity. And that's why I say all. Another part of this as well. Part of it is setting up.
[00:41:41] Speaker B: Looking too far ahead or focusing too much on the past is one of the.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: Or another one. Yeah, yeah. So part of it, as you pointed out, I think very well, is setting up an environment. But the other part is understanding your humanity and not looking at it. That, oh, if I slip today, then I'm just the worst. And you start that downward spiral.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:41:59] Speaker A: Well, yeah, man. Well, I appreciate you joining me today, man, and it's good. Always a pleasure, man. Always a pleasure. And we thank everybody for listening to the podcast. And so until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: I'm Rob Richardson.
[00:42:10] Speaker A: All right, subscribe, rate, review, and we'll talk to you next time.
Sa.
