How to Think Like the 1% Elite | Dr K

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Dr. K, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and former monk, challenges modern self-help narratives by arguing that most people are not psychologically stuck but are intentionally holding onto

Key takeaways

Dr. K argues that most people are not stuck but are holding onto attachments; wanting something you believe is impossible causes the mind to bury motivational circuitry to avoid failure.
The host notes that copying Elon Musk's business playbook is useless without first diagnosing your own skill sets and desires, a point Dr. K validates by emphasizing personal karma over replication.

Main topics

Psychology of success and motivation
Limitations of modern talk therapy

Notable quotes

Difficulty is not created by the world. Difficulty is created by your response to the world.

Conclusion

Listeners gain a practical framework for diagnosing their own psychological

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Why do people stay stuck? Because they believe it is impossible. 90 % of people that I've worked with are fucking losers. What is it that allows them to move forward? They believe that what they want is possible. Difficulty is not created by the world. Difficulty is created by your response to the world. Speaker 2 (0:15) My guest is Dr. K, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist who is breaking down the most common psychology myths behind success and failure and then how to build a feedback loop that improves you instead of eating you alive. The Speaker 1 (0:27) difference between hard and easy is not the size of the task. It has to do with your understanding of the thing. If I take some dude off the street and I'm like, can you... make a million dollar business in a year, they would say no. Speaker 2 (0:38) So where do you start if you want to start achieving the things that you want out of life? Speaker 1 (0:43) So... Speaker 2 (0:47) So many people feel like they're stuck, like they can't move past some sort of mental block. They're struggling in their lives in some way. And even if you're a winner, you go through these moments. So I guess my question that I want to start with is like, one, do you see a lot of people who are stuck today? Speaker 1 (1:03) Yes. And Speaker 2 (1:03) two, what do you tell them? So Speaker 1 (1:05) I think the number one problem that I see just on the internet today is everyone is asking how to fix problems. Whereas what they should be asking is what is the actual problem? So if you ask me, like, how do you help someone who's stuck? I don't know. I guess you get behind their car and you start pushing. That'll help if they're stuck, right? Isn't that the solution? If they're stuck, if they're like in a wheelchair and they're trying to get up the stairs, like you wheel them over to the elevator or is it – are they psychologically stuck? Are they stuck with alcohol? So right now what's going on – and this is an effect of kind of how the internet is morphing. We're morphing to 60-second segments where there's no room for diagnosis. So a lot of the work that I do, and this is hard to describe, is I don't help people find solutions. I help people dissolve problems. Because even your problem is not exactly what you think it is. And most of what we do, if we talk about like kind of the work that I do is just like enabling people, it's like helping people understand what the problem is. If you are unable to fix your problems, you're trying to solve the wrong problem. And one of the crazy things, I'll just give you an example, is I would say 50 % of people that I work with that are stuck aren't stuck. They're holding on. They're attached to something in their life. Simple example is let's take addiction. So I did a bunch of addiction psychiatry many years ago. And, you know, like if you think about why is someone addicted to alcohol, it's not because alcohol is a problem. It's because alcohol is a solution. What are you staying attached to that is preventing you from moving forward? Speaker 2 (2:39) So then what do you do? So if you figure out, okay, you're not stuck, you're holding on, you're choosing to hold on, then what's the next question? Speaker 1 (2:46) So I think that depends on – so I'm a clinician, right, first and foremost. So I work with individuals with individual problems. And so we can still generalize certain principles. So I'll give you like an example. So I've worked with a couple of billionaires, but 90 % of people that I've worked with are what would be described as fucking losers. So someone who's 26 years old, lives in mom's basement, doesn't do their own laundry, doesn't cook for themselves, jerks off all day. Like this is the people that I work with. And there is like literally millions, if not hundreds of millions or billions of young men who like no one is even bothering to help. No one is even aware of. So that's what I set out to do. So I'm going to tell you a story about one of these people. So I have a friend, for example, who's stuck and his basic problem is that he doesn't allow himself to want. Speaker 1 (3:36) Wanting is the basic thing that gets us to move forward. Okay. But if you don't believe you can get what you want. And I see this with like founders and people who are super successful as well. They are really good at like, oh yeah, like I can build a billion dollar company, but I can't get my kids to love and respect me. So then if there is a problem in your life that you don't think that you can solve, what your mind will do is fucking bury it. And so what feels like stuckness is actually an intentional burying of your motivational circuitry. Because if I don't want anything, then I can never fail. If I don't want anything, then I don't have to try. If I don't want anything, and this is the most crippling thing, if you think about like the most crippling source of suffering for a human being, it is to want something that they cannot have. This is something that human beings try to avoid at all costs. So stuck is absence of want. Why do we have an absence of want? Because we believe that we cannot achieve it. When people want something and they believe it's possible, they will move towards it. Okay. And there are even studies on things like mice that are depressed that you can drop a mouse in a bucket that has one like subsurface, like place that they can stand on a bucket of water. And so they'll swim around and they find the panel. Then what happens is you take out the panel so there's nowhere for the mouse to sit. And you drop it in a bucket and it swims around. It can't find anything. And eventually it's going to run out of energy and drown. So a depressed mouse is one that gives up trying to find the panel faster. So when we believe something is not possible, we stop trying. Okay, so this is what's really, this is, forget about whether it's really possible or not possible. What we're talking about here is motivation. We're talking about what gets people unstuck. That has nothing to do with outcomes. That has to do with are you moving from zero steps to one step? Speaker 2 (5:43) So Speaker 1 (5:44) my goal is to teach people a healthy relationship with wanting. Right, so like my mission, I spent years studying to become a monk and then, you know, became a psychiatrist and all that stuff and did neuroscience research. And my... My hypothesis or my thesis is that if you understand and can master the most basic instrument that you have, which is yourself. Speaker 1 (6:13) then everything in life becomes easy. That the difficulty is not created by the world. Difficulty is created by your response to the world. Speaker 2 (6:23) So where do you start? Like if you want to start achieving the things that you want out of life, where's the first place you tell people to go to start figuring out themselves? So Speaker 1 (6:35) step one is not go. Step one is understand. And the really scary thing is if you look at like some of these Eastern contemplative traditions, they make a bold claim, which I think is correct, which I've been dragged to kicking and streaming. I've tried to argue against it, and I think I'm just wrong, which is that you don't need to do anything. Speaker 2 (6:56) All Speaker 1 (6:56) you need to do is understand. And that understanding is actually not only sufficient for change, but is the only thing that is necessary for change. Which I know is like a crazy idea because we're all about motivation and doing. But like what I realized recently is what is the difference between something that is hard? So if I asked you, Cody. Speaker 1 (7:22) Let's say you're starting from scratch. We wipe out all your net worth, wipe out all your social connections. Can you make a million-dollar business within – how long would it take you to make a million-dollar business? Speaker 2 (7:33) I think you could do it in a year. Speaker 1 (7:35) Okay. So is that hard for you? Speaker 2 (7:38) I would say it's not easy, but it's simple. There's a straightforward path to it. Speaker 1 (7:44) Great. Right? So if I take some dude off the street and I'm like, can you make a million-dollar business in a year? They would say no. Speaker 2 (7:50) Yeah. Speaker 1 (7:51) So what is the difference? And it's a beautiful. Speaker 1 (7:56) nuance that you added. It's simple. You're not, and now what you're doing is you're moving away from effort. You see what you did there? Like you're moving away from, yeah, it'll take effort. Speaker 1 (8:05) But it's simple. You know how to do it. Speaker 2 (8:07) And Speaker 1 (8:08) so this is the key thing. The difference between hard and easy is not the size of the task. Speaker 2 (8:14) It Speaker 1 (8:14) has nothing to do with effort. It has to do with your understanding of the thing. Speaker 2 (8:20)