patrick maginnis, venture capitalists, and the 1st of fomo saplings known to science as he calls himself, patrick rates, have you in our show? hi. hey sophie, it's a great to be here. all right, so even though the word is catchy and quite famous by now, it would still be nice to fill our here zane. so briefly, what exactly is firma which stands for fear of missing out? is it a syndrome? is it a condition? what is it? so was an anxiety that is caused by the fear that there is something better happening out in the world than what you're doing right now. combined with a fear of being excluded from a beneficial collective experience and sort of group thing going on that you're seeing happening and you're not a part us. all right, and you are saying that you're the 1st thermo sapiens known to men. how come before you there were non well, the word fomo didn't exist before i came along. so i actually invented the word for mo, when i was a student at harvard business school way back in 2003,

if you can believe it. of course, these feelings are part of the human experience all the way back to the earliest humans. but we didn't need the word fomo until, i guess social media came along and my word was just invented and it sort of perfectly synced up with the, with the spread of the internet and social media. ok. just a question that just came up in my had did you make any money on formal? wow, yes, i admin. thankfully i have made some money on bubble i. i do a lot of speaking to companies, individuals. i've written a book called pier missing out of a podcast called homo sapiens. but i, you know, even though i have trademark the term almost happy. and the reality is that like when you coin a word you, nobody sends you checks in the mail. so you just have to get the joy, the, the, the actual joy of just seeing your word used, i guess is sort of has to be the reward for you. a lot of that. so here is another

one, some of really just a fancy word for and we, and you just came up with a, i mean, what's the difference between n, v and soma? so the difference is that when you have pho, you know, i think it's envy is one of these things. it goes all the way back to like the earliest human to think about like the bible right. like can enable, that was murder because of envy. so it's part of our human condition. the difference is phone is that formal is really about the fact that we live in a time now where we receive so many inputs on a daily basis that are completely unrelated to reality. so think about how and social media people put filters, and they basically represent themselves in a very unrealistic way. and so when we come down a photo, no, there is envy involved. but more than that, it's about being sort of envious or something. it may not exist and is also really tied to the fact that as humans, we want to be part of the crowd. and we want to be part, you know, you think about the lines out of the apple store or the lines outside of, you know,

like the, the most popular restaurants are shows. we feel uncomfortable when we're being left out. so there is an element of envy, but i also think that the difference between fomo and envy is that there's a deep sense of wanting to belong to something. and not wanting to be left out of something that's happening. even though if that's something is just illusion. right? yeah, i mean the problem with fomo, the thing that so messed up about it. and the reason why i decided to spend so much time trying to help people with it is because when we are full mo, what's happening really is we're not thinking about the world around is for thinking about the fact that like something exists or doesn't exist in the real world work we're, we're basically inventing a story in our heads. we are sort of filling in the blank and saying like, ok, well my friends are at a party. i been 1000000 parties. i know what a party is, but yet my head starts to spin and i start imagining it's the greatest party of all i'm. and so i'm sitting there thinking like my life isn't good. i'm the valuing

what i actually have in favor of something that probably doesn't even respond to reality. and i say i catch myself doing that lately because i've just had a baby. so it was like my decision that during pandemic i would just sit at home. the president, home deliver the baby at home. i'm actually talking to out of my own garden because i know i'm still scared to go out a lot. even though like i got a vaccine. and now that i've been so a social because everything that's going on, maybe in corona and everything, i find myself scrolling, the instagram, which i never did before and like, oh my god, look at this wonderful lanes that this people have. and having said that, that's at a period of my life when i'm the happiest man. i think i've ever been this happen before because i've become the mom. so yeah, it is kind of a weird thing. i'm not sure how to deal with it though. well, so he, so 1st of all, congratulations and crazy is 2nd of all is i'm going to tell you something is not

your fault. ok. so here's a day to 2 things are happening. number one is when you did quarantine, slash sort of maternity time you left the world behind and you entered a very small bubble, but you brought something with you, which is your friend here, the front, right and the phone, we were all spending more time on our phones than we ever have. i look at my stats, especially during the deep quarantine of last year. it's like it was a coping as a mechanism for not having human contact, right. so that's number one. number 2 is instagram is designed from the base to drive your full mo, notifications, idealized images. all of these people mixed with celebrities. it's like you mix your friends with celebrities. and so you start to sort of confuse everything together and start to compare your life. not just to the people around you, but to people that you know, are living, you know, you are celebrity already, but people are even more fantastic than you. and so these things all come together

to basically manipulate you. and so it's something that all of us have to deal with, and i think when you start to realize that the deck is stacked against you and that the game is, is aligned in a way that is unfair to you. and that plays upon your, your sort of psychological weakness is, is all of us have you start to realize that, ok, i can fight back against this is flow part of the herd mentality. i was gonna say immunity 1st herd mentality. absolutely. in fact, what i talk about homo, so love homo, is when we have fomo, our decisions are being affected by external factors. it's like you would think about like a great artist, right, like chikavsky or kavinski or something. i'm anyways, good russian artist. they didn't get up in the morning and say like, well, what's everybody else there? i'm just going to copy them. no, they absorb the world and then created new things. they were just followers. when we have fomo, we are capturing tapping into the, the instincts of the herd mentality. like, you know, when you see the, will,

the beast going and cross the serengeti, they stay in a pack because they don't want to get attacked by a predator. and in fact, you know, that's part of human instincts is a survival is being in the group. but when we have formal, we are making decisions from what we truly want to do. we're being part of a group, we're being followers, and therefore we can't truly do anything great because polymers can't original. they can't come up with new things. they're simply going along in the crowd. that's what fomo for me is, is why it's so problematic. but, but are you saying those who actually create and you know, do stuff in terms of like, i don't know, come up with new programs for computers or write amazing music or do you mazing films, they don't suffer from fomo? i think there is no more in the artistic world because artists are competitive and when they see their friends getting recognition and they don't, i mean i, i see it in the world of authors. it's like when you're, when you know somebody who is booked as really well, you sort of feel like,

but mine didn't do as well. there's this natural sort of, there's a natural human instinct to compare ourselves with other people. of course, as we talked about before, that may not correspond with reality. but i would argue to be a truly great artist, creator, business person. you have to let the formal go and recognize that greatness comes from being an original and doing new things. and not worrying about what the crowd is doing, but that's easier said than done. do you agree? because i wonder, like if i spend my day scrolling instagram and checking out all the great stuff that other people do, does this necessarily mean that i'm dissatisfied with my own life? yeah, it's so much easier said than done. and in fact, what we, what we know is that, for example, when it comes to social media, research shows us. and when i was writing my book it was incredible. i found that there were hundreds of pages of sort of psychological journal articles about

boma. so there are people who are dedicating parts of their career to studying fomo, and they have found that there is a clear correlation between social media use, depression and fomo. so the more you use social media, the more depressed you feel, the more phone you feel, the more you actually use social media. so there is a vicious cycle. and so, you know, i think that goes back to the question of when you are trying to do anything original or create or lead, you have to be careful about the inputs that you're taking in. where are you getting stimulation and ideas? and if it's simply from comparing yourself to other people, you're going to limit your potential. are you completely fomo free? 00. i think i'll admit it right here. i mean, especially right now i live in new york city. and we are in this phase where i live in the try back in neighborhood. we are like 90 percent vaccinated. we haven't had a case and like a month. so we're getting back to real life and i am receiving so many opportunities. invitations, things to do, to the point where i realize, you know,

i, i'm very in touch with my family because i recognize that it's something that, that is unavoidable. but what i try to do is i monitor it. i do a bunch of things around, you know, i'm very careful about how i use devices and i think about why i do things and therefore why i recognize that i have a lot of phone. what i try to do is manage it. so i don't spend all of my time running around doing things that, you know, i don't really want to do just because everybody else is doing that patrick and take a short break right now when we are back, we'll continue talking to the man who coined the term the fear of missing out patrick, begin to stay with us. with blue,

frances mc chrome recently said quote, the europeans must stop being naive when we are under pressure from powers, which at times harden their spans, we need to react and show. we have the power and capacity to defend ourselves, vold words, but does europe have the political will to actually defend itself? and the lack of universal health care makes america the country of every man for himself. we have a retirement crisis in this country and we have a health care crisis for seniors in this country as well. so private business has come up with a special mechanism for that. it's called the life settlement market. we are a life settlement provider, which means that we buy life insurance policies from primarily seniors throughout the united states who are no longer want or can't afford their life insurance policies. if you're sick and full, to want to live a few more years,

you consillio life insurance. that way you get more money right away in the company, collects your insurance payment off to your death either there's a group of people out there, i guess, hoping that people die soon. what kind of motivation does that give them? when i start crying about him dying, that's usually what it's about. it's just the sheer unfairness of it all. oh, if you had expecting be of non government would be in the image. oh, chris lippert, a seat and i'm sorry, this is a wrong expectation. you will have to see if you want me to go with julie entities. you've got to impose the estin, a democratic system on both on sunday, and he will and then political order ah,

[000:00:00;00] with and we're back with patrick mcginnis, venture capitalists, and a guy who coined the term the fear of missing out patrick confirmed will be actually justified. i may have a list of checkmarks when you write about boma and one of them goes something like, i'm afraid that others have a more interesting life than i'm having. so what do i do if that's true? i imagine i'm stuck paying back my student loan in some kind of a boring 9 to 5 nightmare job. and my college roommate is on a book tour in europe and, and they really having

a much better life than i am. well, so i think the reality is probably not because book tours are exhausting but, but it looks good on instagram. but there is a more fulfilling than, you know, being in an office 9 or 5 doing something that you have no interest in doing. because, you know, i don't know how to present, and this is the beauty of fomo, that promo isn't always a bad thing. and in fact, fomo can tell us where we emotionally want to be, the things that we, which we are doing. so for example, if you see that your friend is starting a company and you're working in a 9 to 5 in the corporate world, and you say, wow, i really wish i could do that. or if your friend is running a marathon and you see that on instagram, you say, wow, i'd love to run a marathon. listen to that. the important thing to do though, so when you feel those feelings are fomo, what you want to make sure you're doing is you're not just gimme into the perception that something is good, right? so that, that's the temptation all it looks so great. i want to do it. i'm going to pine after i'm you know, wish i could do that. ok,

great. that's step one. now let's get serious people. ok, can you do this? is it is good is it looks, do you even like doing it? and so what i recommend people to do is start slow. like if you think you want to do a marathon, don't start training for the marathon the next day, train for the 10 k or the 20 k. if you want to start a business, don't just quit your job and try to figure out what to do, start aside business. and that was, you know, right about that a lot in the book. it's about demystifying taking this thing that so great. and then actually experiencing in the real world and figuring out is it is good as it looks or not. and once you do that, then you can make a much more rational decision about whether or not this thing is actually worth all of the phone. and you think about immigration, right? immigration, you know, around the world when people were, you know, i think about, like hundreds of years ago, traveling from europe to the new world or, you know, wherever the people went around the world and different times they were stimulated by phone when they saw this world that looked amazing,

they signed all of their friends leaving to go to a country, and it wasn't easy, of course, but these people were ambitious. and i think anybody with ambition will take risks in order to go after something that looks amazing and good. and i just encourage people, you know, recognize there's formal, recognize that it can be an incredible motivator. but don't go in feet 1st, try to learn as much as you can try to figure out if the dream is real because you don't want to. for example, move to another country only to find out that you hate the climate. you hate the people you wish you were back home now that's not the place you want to pay. you sat somewhere that fomo actually reduces what age is that thanks to wisdom, that generally breeds the same attitude towards one's life or, or something. let's say, let's say i am 65 and my immune to comma. so the way that it works is a promo is really driven by a couple of things. number one, it's the amount of time you're spending comparing yourself to other people. number 2 is the amount of life experience you have to be able to determine whether what

you see is as good as what it sort of looks like when you, when you, when you receive those sort of external impulses, right? and so when you're young, every party looks amazing once you've been to a 1000000 parties, you're sure like, well, i know what a party is. ok, fine, i can go or i can go, but i know what it's going to be. similarly, when you are young, you have a lot more time to absorb the world around you. when you get into your thirty's and forty's, you're just busy. you sort of like, i don't have the time to focus on all this stuff. i'm just trying to get to my day, my work, my family, all of these important responsibilities i have now was interesting. you mentioned the 65 year old. so what happens is you get older actually is you do have that wisdom and wisdom is powerful, but you also like we have more time on your hands. and more importantly, you have begun to realize that you're not going to live forever. so the things that you want to do in life, whether it's take that trip and see some part of the world that you've always want to explore or whether it's sort of spend time with your grand kids. you recognize

like time is of the essence. and so actually almost starts to increase because you recognize that life is precious and scared. and you need to do as much as you can before you know, you're not able to do the things you want to do anyway. there's more to this than just one funny acronym. there's also some obo fear of a better option. so where does photo come from and how is it related to so mo, yes, so photo, i actually invented them. at the same time when i was at harvard business school and i wrote this article in our school newspaper that was called social theory as h p. s. mcginnis is to focus all of our fomo, which is a word celebrity. now in the dictionary, you know, you look it up on google there, 50000000 hits, and then bobo, which unfortunately has not become as famous, which is unfortunate because i think it's a bigger problem. photo stands for fear of a better option. it's the idea. so for you that, for example, you go on to instagram or sorry, you go to amazon and say, you're trying to buy

a pair of white shoe laces. and there are more than 1000 possible options. and they're all perfectly fine. but there's so much information, you just don't even know what to do. it's like overwhelming. and so you don't end up choosing anything because maybe you'll find something better later on. and so it's the, the, it's this idea that we are waiting for the perfect thing to come along and until it comes along, we're not going to decide until we just delay decision making and get stuck. all right. so it should just always pick an option quicker and be more decisive. and if that means we don't always make the best choice for ourselves, just for the sake of you know, staying sane and avoid info. we should do. and in fact, there's a really interesting book called the paradox of choice by barry schwartz. and his book actually came out the same year. i invented bobo, but they have a lot in common. and the idea he writes about it, which is so powerful, is that people who are super picky people who are looking for the perfect optimal

decision. they spend a lot more time and energy and in fact they do make better decisions. ok. but the reality is that they have spent so much time and energy that they tend to regret the road and taken the things they couldn't choose more than people who just choose something, say this is good enough and choose it. even though it might be slightly not as good as the person who spend all the time and energy they don't have all the regret. and so these people who chose more quickly are more satisfied in the end with what they chose. because yeah, your advisor training, ferber learned to choose what you really want or choose and all of back along those lines. that's good advice, but how exactly do you do that? i mean, how do i know what i really want come on? i mean, this is the eternal human challenge, right? but the reality is that there is a process. so, you know, and i did a ted talk on this call how to make faster decisions because i have suffered this myself. and so the stead talk, which is i think,

done like 1500000 views. clearly people are enjoying it. and what i tell people is, you know, there are 3 types of decisions in life. there are high stakes decisions, low stakes decisions, and no stakes decisions. no snakes decision is something like, am i going to have the chicken or the fish? it doesn't matter either is fine. so i literally just flip a coin and because i don't want to spend time deciding something unimportant, i do all the time. should i go for run today? i don't know, heads or tails, but the coin done. i save myself a lot of time because i could spend 20 minutes agonizing. the 2nd are low stakes decisions. those are things that require a little bit more work. it's sort of like, well, you know, watch which tv should i buy. and what i do there is, you know, i make some basic criteria, well, you know, i know i want a certain size and i want to spend about x, y, z. and then i find somebody who knows more than me and i out sources to that. so i literally say to them, you know, i'm just, i can't decide, can you tell me what you think i should do? and i'd been doing that for years. and so i,

i basically save myself time and energy and i don't have all that regret. now the big things in life are the high stakes decisions and there you need to sit down and thoughtfully come up with criteria. so like what are my basic criteria? and then you need to think about ok, which options meet this criteria. study all of them actually write everything down on paper because when you write things down, they become more concrete. and then what i simply do is i take, i pick a, a nominal front runner. so this seems like it could be the best one. i compare it with all the options, one by one, and i eliminate the one of the 2. you know what i compare them side by side, eliminate one and keep the other. and i do that until i have just one. and the power of doing that. the reason why that works is because when we do that, we convince our brain that we're always getting the better of 2 options. and by eliminating the other one permanently, we have no temptation to go back to the one we just got rid of. because the pathology is when we keep going back without eliminating anything we keep going back to the same things over and over again. and so by doing that process, actually we come to

a decision that we can live with. and the good news is when you have photo, all your options are perfectly fine so you can never lose. that's the power of photo is that you're just trying to take your brain and remove the fear. and just based on facts, all the decision making that you do. photo and fomo ain't isolation, are exhausting. but if combines they produce an even bigger, more, bigger monster. and that's soda fear of doing anything you say. right? that's right. buddha is the ultimate. yeah, that is when you literally can get out of bed in the morning and you see this with people, especially people who have lots of options in their life. so the older you get, the more successful you become people's are offering you things all the time and you also have more money to spend on things, right? and so you start to see that some of the most successful and wealthy people actually are the ones who are least successful in making decisions because they have all this homo, their friends are fabulous,

are doing amazing things. and so they're like, wow, i could do, i could spend my summer traveling around the world. i could go to capri, i could go to south brands, i could go to new york, moscow, whatever that is, when at the same time they have so many opportunities and options that they're overwhelmed and they can't decide. and so they end up doing nothing. i've seen this or friends of mine, they have can ideas for vacations, they end up going nowhere. okay. so my feeling is that fomo and photo are exasperated by the fact that we live in a society where there's a cult of success rate. success is everything success. i mean, i thought we're heading to are, you know, more like happiness is more important than success, but not really. success is everything successful. people look at you from every billboard and tv, and they tell you, be like me and may sound like b. s. but it's kind of cool to sleep for hours a day and break out about working your brains out. do you see someone for bo as

side effects to this ideology where success is everything? so i think you've nailed, you've nailed in something i hadn't thought about before, but if you think about how sole culture, right. the idea that we have. so you are mosque, for example, you unmask is portrayed as a super human that never sleeps, it just makes money all day long. that gets all the beautiful women that has 19 children. i mean, he does it all and he does a lot of things. but of course, that's all my mom to can imagine that you know that to, that's amazing. and she, it's, and she's awesome, but it's sort of like we can all be like you line. in fact, if you met the guy you, i'm sure that parts of what you see a real but parts aren't. and the thing about nowadays, so crazy is that we're all many influencers, even like a teenager with their instagram in their tech talk. they're creating a false world for the world around them, their, their reality and what they portray on line are not very connected. and so yes, we have created this world where all of us are marketing success and the rest of

the world bills. they need to compete. patrick, it's been such a delight talking to you about photo hope you come with a new come up with a new term soon, so we'll get to record another program. thanks a lot and good luck with everything. thank you so much. take care with ah, join me every posting on the alex simon. sure. i'll be speaking to get us in the world politics. small business. i'm sure business. i'll see you then.

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i look for everything i can to make this pass. and i end up doing is passing the road to the american dream paved with dead refugees. it's this very idealized image of this older america, native americans look past debts that happen every single day. this is a modern history of the usa, my america, on our t financial from. i'm a guy today with all the money laundering 1st aid to visit this cash to 3 different . oh, good start. well, we have our 3 bags all set up here and maybe something in europe, something in america, something overseas in the cayman islands. you know, all these rights are complicit in their to proceed with. hey, i'm ready to do some serious my laundry. ok, let's see how we did. well, we've got a nice laundry watch for max and for stacy. oh, beautiful jewelry. and how about ha ha. luxury automobile again for mag,

you know what? money laundering is highly legal. don't watch as a record. ah . just concerns gray for us and faith this go on hunger strike. martin got his foul to serving time for launching cyber attacks against the hospital. he says mystery to the teenager. we hear from his wife and the last time in person in september 23rd to that place. so scary. i spoke to a lawyer the other week that told me that it's the worst president in the united states. i teach stands for instagram, but it also stay in speak, read exploiting kids for profit us lawmakers roast facebook or after the company's