Shawn Ryan

If we perceive authority, that will kind of overrule us.

If you go back to our tribe days, if I disobeyed my tribal leader,

That means no food, no sex, and no kids, no DNA survival.

So that's a big deal.

Second, and one that they didn't talk about, and this is my theory, is novelty.

So when something breaks from what we expect to happen, so like you've done a shitload of podcasts in here, but like if this wall started opening up and this was a garage door and you didn't know it until just now,

you would freak out.

No matter how much I kept talking, you would keep looking at that, right?

Because it's brand new and it's unexpected.

So when things happen that are new and unexpected, all of our focus is generated, which is the first part of the fate model.

Anything new generates focus.

So for our tribal ancestors, this is when they're walking past a bush every day and one day there's a big stick that snaps behind that bush.

All of their focus goes onto this unexpected new information.

So in the Milgram experiment, this is a person responding to an ad they've never responded to, driving to a building they've never been in, in a situation they've never been in, meeting people they've never met, sitting in front of the shocking machine they've never seen before.

Every single aspect of it was brand new, which maintained a ton of focus.

So focus is, you can manufacture focus with novelty.

Anything unexpected kind of breaks you out of your script and tells your brain to say, whoa, I'm not able to predict what's happening next.

I need to pay attention.

So like we have a little script for driving our car.

And the moment something unusual happens, all of our focus kind of drifts back.