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Speaker 1: [gentle serene music] This is Seeking
Minima.

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Speaker 1: So I'd like to talk about a concept
that I call the dopamine ladder, and I have used

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Speaker 1: this concept to dramatically improve
my life and catch myself before

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Speaker 1: engaging in some really destructive
behavior. So here's how it works.

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Speaker 1: Imagine a ladder, right? And every
rung on this ladder represents a

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Speaker 1: level of stimulation. Okay? So at the
highest level of the ladder, you're gonna

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Speaker 1: have activities that are incredibly
stimulating, and at the lowest rung, you're

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Speaker 1: gonna have very low-stimulating
activities. So here, let's run through some

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Speaker 1: examples. So at the very top, you're
gonna have something like drugs, sex, rock 'n'

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Speaker 1: roll. Ideally, all three at the same
time, right? Right down from that, I don't

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Speaker 1: know, roller coasters with
supermodels. Right? You can walk down from here.
Below

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Speaker 1: that, I don't know, TikTok. [laughs]
Somewhere beneath that, um, you have

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Speaker 1: other things. By the way, by, by I
mean stimulating, I mean dopamine-stimulating,
so

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Speaker 1: not necessarily sensory-stimulating.
Right? So the prospect of a winner-

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Speaker 1: winning lottery ticket is incredibly
dopamine-stimulating, but it's just a piece of

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Speaker 1: paper, right? It's not
sensory-stimulating. So that's what I mean.
Dopamine is the

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Speaker 1: craving chemical, essentially. It has
a lot of purposes in your body, and I'm not

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Speaker 1: gonna pretend to know everything
about it or go into great detail. But the
purpose

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Speaker 1: is it's the chemical that makes you
want things. It's the ma- it's the chemical that

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Speaker 1: makes you want to do things.
Specifically, it's also the chemical that makes
you

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Speaker 1: crave things. So this wanting is not
always good. Craving, in this case, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: say is wanting something addictive or
not being able to stop yourself from wanting,

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Speaker 1: even when it's self-destructive.
Okay. So a little farther down the ladder,
written

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Speaker 1: down a couple here, we've got

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Speaker 1: chatting online, you know, maybe
cheap, vapid text chat. Then we have web

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Speaker 1: browsing, TV shows, maybe trashy TV,
and then, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: something less trashy. Game of
Thrones, right? It makes you pay attention. And
then

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Speaker 1: you've got really artsy TV. We've got
movies. Then beneath that, we've got podcasts.

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Speaker 1: Then beneath, on a rung beneath that,
we have passion work. On a rung beneath that,

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Speaker 1: we have fiction audiobooks,
nonfiction audiobooks, really important

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Speaker 1: fiction audiobooks that you know you
should be listening to, but, eh, you can't

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Speaker 1: quite bring yourself to do. Beneath
that, you got a physical paper book. Maybe we

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Speaker 1: got the Kindle right above that. You
can kinda see where this is going. So you've

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Speaker 1: got a big spectrum. Super stimulating
at the top, really low stimulation at the

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Speaker 1: bottom.

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Speaker 1: I have found

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Speaker 1: that human beings will rise to the
highest permissible rung of the dopamine

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Speaker 1: stimulation ladder all on their own.
Now, those of us with ADHD [laughs] will

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Speaker 1: tend to rise higher, faster, um, and
that is a, that is a separate

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Speaker 1: conversation. But this is a problem
that all of humanity has. Now, what

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Speaker 1: stops you from getting to the
simultaneous drug, sex, and rock 'n' roll ladder
is

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Speaker 1: perceived penalty, right? You can't
do that very long before you're dead, [laughs]

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Speaker 1: a- as evidenced by lots of musicians.
So

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Speaker 1: there's a negative incentive not to
go higher, but that's often not enough. So let's

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Speaker 1: go ahead and remove the things that
are obviously either unattainable or completely

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Speaker 1: unsustainable, or we're just not
willing to do them for some other moral,
ethical,

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Speaker 1: or it feels bad reason.

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Speaker 1: All right, so now you're kind of,
like, a couple rungs down. We tend to

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Speaker 1: rise to the highest permissible rung
of the dopamine ladder.

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Speaker 1: By default, this is what we do as a
species. This is just how we work. I'll go into

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Speaker 1: a little bit more why in a second
now, but just take me at my word for now.

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Speaker 1: So what does that mean? It means,
left to our own devices, we will rise to the

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Speaker 1: TikTok rung, and we will do TikTok
for as long as it is stimulating dopamine.

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Speaker 1: And then when it's not, or we just
can't take it anymore because it's hurting us in

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Speaker 1: some way, then we'll move on to
either something on the same rung if we can, or
if

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Speaker 1: we have to, something a little bit
lower.

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Speaker 1: Okay. Why does this matter? Who
cares?

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Speaker 1: Here's why it matters. The way
dopamine works, and by the way, Andrew Huberman
has a

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Speaker 1: fantastic dopamine episode. Most
people have watched it who care about the topic.
If

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Speaker 1: you haven't, I highly recommend it.
The podcast is Huberman Labs. That's, I don't

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Speaker 1: know, rung three or four on the dope.

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Speaker 1: When you do something that's really
highly stimulating, what happens is your

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Speaker 1: dopamine spikes, and then it goes
down. Way down. In fact, below

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Speaker 1: your average, below your baseline.
Remember, this is the chemical that makes you

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Speaker 1: want to do things, makes you feel
motivated. When it dips below the baseline, you

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Speaker 1: feel like trash. You will feel
depressed, completely unmotivated. Um, it just

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Speaker 1: feels bad. A lot of things start
going wrong. And what you will want is another
hit

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Speaker 1: to get you back up because you feel
bad. You will literally have to stimulate

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Speaker 1: yourself from the outside in. You
can't really make enough of it on your own. You

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Speaker 1: have to go do things in the world.
You have to, to push the button. Your brain
can't

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Speaker 1: push the button itself. It has to
have some external stimuli push the button for

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Speaker 1: you. It has to have TikTok. It has to
have a text message notification.

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Speaker 1: Or, you know, ideally, it has
something on the lower part of the, the ladder.
So

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Speaker 1: when you partake of things that are
very highly stimulating of dopamine, you crash

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Speaker 1: your dopamine well below the
baseline, baseline. The more you whipsaw back
and

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Speaker 1: forth, the lower your average
baseline dopamine gets. It gets lower and

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Speaker 1: lower and lower and lower till you're
just sort of bouncing off rock bottom here.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of people stuck in
that, just sort of smacking off the rock bottom

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Speaker 1: over and over again. TikTok,
depression. TikTok, depression.

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Speaker 1: [laughs] I gotta go to work. I guess
I'll go to work.

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Speaker 1: What's interesting is the moment you
remove the highest rung of the ladder,

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Speaker 1: what happens is ... Say you remove
TikTok from your phone. "I'm done with this
crap.

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Speaker 1: I'm not doing it anymore."

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Speaker 1: What happens is

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Speaker 1: trash TV is now suddenly very
appealing. [laughs] "I guess I will watch this

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Speaker 1: reality TV show. I just didn't have
the motivation to watch it before, but now I

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Speaker 1: will." Until you remove that rung.
[laughs] You move one lower,

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Speaker 1: right? I don't know, it's Game of
Thrones, right? Cool. Finally. I'll go watch Mad

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Speaker 1: Men. Something like it, right? I
don't know. I'll watch Breaking, Breaking Bad.

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Speaker 1: Until you remove that rung of the
ladder. "Well, fine. I guess, I don't know, I'll

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Speaker 1: go listen to a funny podcast." If you
just keep taking away the rungs of the ladder,

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Speaker 1: you cannot climb any higher. This is
by self-restraint, essentially,

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Speaker 1: for those of you who have it. And for
those of us who don't, we have lots of other

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Speaker 1: tricks that I will not go into in
this episode. Suffice to say, if you are not

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Speaker 1: allowed, for some reason, it's not
permissible to climb higher on the dopamine

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Speaker 1: ladder, the highest rung becomes very
appealing to you. This principle is

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Speaker 1: true no matter how low the highest
rung is. That is why this is a

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Speaker 1: fascinating tool and concept. So if
you remove all the rungs above

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Speaker 1: passion work, audiobook, thoughtful
podcast, reading a physical book,

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Speaker 1: doing my job,

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Speaker 1: suddenly those things become
incredibly pleasurable and very desirable.

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Speaker 1: Because before, when TikTok was
available way up here, you could not even dream
of

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Speaker 1: doing those things until the penalty
for not doing them was so high that, "Fine, I

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Speaker 1: guess I'll do my job."

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Speaker 1: That's how that happens. When you
have things lower on the dopamine ladder, they

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Speaker 1: don't spike your dopamine very much.
Whoop, whoop. It's very sustainable.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't harm your baseline
dopamine. In fact, that level of stability

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Speaker 1: tends to make your baseline dopamine
go up or recover to a healthy amount, to the

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Speaker 1: point where you're just kinda
motivated and happy and chill and good, like,

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Speaker 1: basically all the time.

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Speaker 1: So when you start taking those rungs
out of the top, you can't climb any higher. You

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Speaker 1: never spike your dopamine, so you
never crash, so you're never totally exhausted.

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Speaker 1: Your baseline dopamine's pretty much
always good. You're never bouncing off rock

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Speaker 1: bottom. You have a very chill, happy
existence.

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Speaker 1: But this isn't happen- this doesn't
happen by default. Now, a lot of people have

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Speaker 1: enough self-control to be able to do
this, where they can have TikTok on their phone

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Speaker 1: and not completely fall apart. Many
of us cannot do that. So for those of us who

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Speaker 1: can't, that's today's lesson. This
worked really well for me. I just

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Speaker 1: remove all the top rungs of the
ladder. Not only, I remove the middle rungs of
the

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Speaker 1: ladder. I don't even, like, listen to
podcasts except on weekends. I have rules for

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Speaker 1: everything, and it seems insane from
the outside, but this is why.

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Speaker 1: Because my highest rung is so low,
it's so low that the thought of practicing
violin

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Speaker 1: actually sounds kind of fun. Reading
a book about the history of humanity or

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Speaker 1: agrarian societies, oh, okay, I could
do that. I never would have dreamed of doing

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Speaker 1: those things before I removed the
other rungs. Because if they were there, I would

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Speaker 1: be chatting online. I would be
watching a TV show. I would watch, I would just
do

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Speaker 1: vapid web browsing. Sure, I'll use
social media.

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Speaker 1: Until you get to drugs, sex, and rock
and roll, and it's all over. Because that's

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Speaker 1: the kind of brain I have, and a lot
of other people are like this sometimes, even if

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Speaker 1: they're not like it all the time.
Think about this principle the next time you
find

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Speaker 1: yourself just feeling, like, trash,
unmotivated. Start removing rungs from the

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Speaker 1: dopamine ladder. You know what the
higher rungs are. Here's how you know.

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Speaker 1: If you're thinking, "Ugh, I really
don't wanna do exercise, cooking,

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Speaker 1: chores, read that book, do that
homework. I really don't wanna do those things,"

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Speaker 1: that's because you have too many
rungs above it. Just start knocking them out.
How

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Speaker 1: do you know what the higher rungs
are? It's what you want to do instead. [laughs]

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Speaker 1: Pretty much. And, uh, yeah, that's
basically it. Whatever it is you want to do

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Speaker 1: instead of the thing you wish you
could do, that is a higher rung on the dopamine

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Speaker 1: ladder. Just remove it, and keep
removing them until, "Well, dang, this homework
is

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Speaker 1: actually pretty interesting. That
book was pretty cool. I'm glad I read that." It

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Speaker 1: works for me. It works for my kids. I
see this every time with them.

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Speaker 1: They will

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Speaker 1: If video games are available, they'll
play video games. If video game time is up,

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Speaker 1: they will watch TV, like vapid TV
shows. If they're not allowed to watch vapid TV

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Speaker 1: shows, they'll watch longer, more
thoughtful TV shows. If those are removed, they

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Speaker 1: will watch movies, the kinds of
movies they've seen before that are super
familiar

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Speaker 1: because they spike that dopamine. If
I remove the Minions and more movies

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Speaker 1: and I force them to watch something
with a long plot line and characters that

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Speaker 1: actually talk, they'll watch that. If
I remove all electronics,

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Speaker 1: suddenly playing with toys inside
seems like fun. If I say, you

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Speaker 1: can't play inside. I'm not going to
play with you. You've been inside for too long.

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Speaker 1: Get out of here. Suddenly, playing
outside seems like a lot of fun. What's very

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Speaker 1: interesting is whether it's them or
me, we cannot even enjoy

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Speaker 1: things on the lower rungs of the
dopamine ladder. And that is really what you're

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Speaker 1: giving up. If you insist on keeping
your higher rungs, and if you don't have a brain

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Speaker 1: like me, congratulations, I guess you
don't need to worry about this video. But when

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Speaker 1: I have higher rungs available to me,
I cannot even enjoy the lower rungs.

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Speaker 1: Sitting down with a book is painful.
It's just straight up misery, right?

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Speaker 1: But when reading a book is the only
thing available to me, it's that or stare at a

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Speaker 1: wall. Reading a book is pretty
interesting. What's more is I

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Speaker 1: actually enjoy it again. And not only
is it healthier for me, but I like being

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Speaker 1: able to enjoy reading a book. I like
being able to practice the violin without it

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Speaker 1: being painful to start, painful
during, watching the clock. When can I be done?

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Speaker 1: I just want to enjoy it. And I have
found that removing all the rungs above where

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Speaker 1: I want to spend my time to be one of
the most effective methods of controlling my

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Speaker 1: own motivation and happiness. I hope
it works for you.