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The Last Easy No: Why the 9:40 Food Fight Starts at 5:15 · Connor with Honor: AI, Real Estate and Real Life

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's nine forty at night and the sleeve is open on the counter, and you're standing there in the kitchen, light, having a fight that you were never gonna win.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I know that room.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I lived in it more nights than I can count.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Three hundred and sixty-five pounds with the refrigerator humming, like sixty-five-inch waists and nobody else awake in the house.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I'll tell you something, it took me most of 20 years to see.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: That fight at 9 40 was already over before it even began.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I got actually decided.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: It got decided at 5 15 that afternoon in aisle 7 by a guy who wasn't even thinking about it.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hold a number for me in your head for just a moment, 11.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's my own count and not a study, and I'll come back to it.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whenever you happen to be tuning in.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is thelastaddiction.com, and everything I talk about is at that same site.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a doctor, I'm not a therapist.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a man who carried 365 pounds and now carries a lot less.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm walking this with you out in front of you.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I mean by this chain between a thing sitting on a shelf at the store and the thing being in your mouth.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's a whole line of separate decisions, and we only ever talk about the last one.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Do I walk down that aisle?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do I pick it up?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do I put it in the cart?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or do I leave it in the cart of the register?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do I carry it into the house?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do I put it somewhere I can see it?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do I open the cabinet at 9 40?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do I open the package?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do I eat one?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do I deserve one?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do I eat four?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do I deserve a treat?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, do I eat the sleeve?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's 11 by my count.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing about those 11.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Ten of them happen when you're actually tired.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: When that day already took everything you had.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: When the lights are low and the house is quiet and nobody's watching, and there's no version of you left that wants to negotiate.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: One of them happens at 5:15 in the afternoon under fluorescent lights, standing up with a cart in your hands or some kind of a shopping basket, then a receipt about to be printed.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's the one in that one.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're the most capable person of yourself that exists all day.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we spend every bit of our energy fighting the wrong tin.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I call that first one the last easy no.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: There is exactly one moment in the chain where the saying no costs you almost nothing.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: No withdrawal, no white knuckles, no negotiating with yourself at midnight.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: You just do not put it in the cart.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing happens.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody notices.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't even feel like discipline, which is probably why nobody respects it.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Every no after that one costs more.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: By the time it's in the house, no costs you real effort.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: By the time the package is open, no costs you everything you've got, and you're going to lose more of those than you win.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so am I.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So the entire game, and I mean the entire game, is finding your last easy no and moving it earlier.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before you turn into that one more reason to believe nothing's wrong with you, understand the room you're standing in.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: The story is designed, the in-cap at the end of the aisle is rented.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: The rack at the register is rented.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: The shelf at eye level costs a company more than a shelf at your ankles.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody paid that difference on purpose.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't a conspiracy.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's just merchandising.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's taught in every business school in this country, and it works.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: A very large amount of money and a very large amount of talent has been spent making your 515 decision much harder.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're not weak, you're just outnumbered.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Standing in a building that was actually built for it, which is actually good news because the answer to being outnumbered is never more willpower.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's different ground, different surroundings, changing the environment.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So here's some different ground, and it's three pieces: the list, the perimeter, and the hour.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: The list is not a diet plan.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's a list written before you leave the house when you're not hungry.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: That list is your 515 self giving orders to your 940 self, and you follow it like a man following orders, because that's precisely what it is.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: The perimeter is outside the walls of the store.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Produce, meat, eggs, dairy, most of what a body actually needs is standing outside around the outside of that building, the center aisles.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's where the engineering lives.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not telling you to swear off this center.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you to notice when you're in it, because most people walk around those aisles in a kind of a trance and blame themselves at midnight for something they did at 5.15 with their eyes half open.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the hour.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Never shop hungry.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not once.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: A hungry man in aisle seven is not making good decisions.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's taking dictation.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Eat first, then shop, and it sounds too far simple to matter, and it's the single highest leverage thing on this entire list.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let me put that harder edge on the house part because this is where people fight me.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And they fight me because I'm describing them.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: What is in your house is not a temptation.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a decision you already made and are pretending you haven't made yet.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: When I was 365, I would have told you with a completely straight face that the food was in the house for my people, for my company, for whomever may stop by.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that was true.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: But it was also not the reason.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: The reason is that some part of me wanted the options sitting there at 940 and wanted to keep believing I would be the kind man who refused it.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: The kind of man, the the different one, the one with strength and intestinal fortitude and drive to accomplish his goal, that type of man.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the deal people make with themselves, and it's a rigged deal because the part of you making the purchase is well rested, and the part of you refusing it is exhausted.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: You stacked the whole game against your own worst hour and then called yourself weak.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when your worst hour actually lost, then you're not required to keep making that deal.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's holding you to it.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: The weak this actually clicked for me, I did something small that felt stupid at the time.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: I went to the store after I ate, full.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Not a little full, but actually done eating.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I walked in the same store I had walked a thousand times, and I want to tell you that the aisles looked a little different, not because I was strong that day, but because the signal was off.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's a version of that building that only exists when you're hungry.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I had never once in my adult life seen the other version of it.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'd been fighting that same fight for 20 years.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Probably more.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And had never tried walking in from the other side.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: People ask me where fasting fits into this, since that's most of what I do now, and it's the part that gets misunderstood constantly.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Fasting didn't hand me willpower, it just handed me fewer decisions.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the entire mechanism as far as I'm concerned.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not eating between dinner and 1 p.m.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: tomorrow.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's the whole stretch of the chain.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Not a series of judgment calls anymore.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's closed.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's no option, no negotiation, there's there's nothing.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: I promise myself and I execute.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's nothing in there to negotiate anymore.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say that out loud, some people, well, they hear a restriction and some people hear a relief.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And ones who hear the relief are almost always the ones who were exhausted by the negotiating.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't have options.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't, you know, give in to, you know, I deserve something.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Moderation for me is it just doesn't work.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that was me.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm not tired of the food.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I was not tired of the food.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was tired of deciding.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not telling you to fast.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you what it actually did.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you can judge whether you want that.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of judging whether you are disciplined enough for it, those are two completely different questions, and only one of them is useful to you.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, somebody is already arguing with me, and it's a fair argument, so let me take it.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: You do not live alone.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: There are other people in your neck of the woods, potentially.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us don't, and some of us do, and we're very happy with it.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: But in that house, they didn't sign up for your program.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have people around you, well, you're not going to strip that kitchen bare and make everybody miserable because of a fight that belongs to only you.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do not do that.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: I never did.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a difference between a house that has things in it and a house arranged around your worst hour.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to throw anything out.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to stop putting it at eye level in the open.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: On the counter, you walk past 40 times at night, move it up, move it back, put it behind a door instead of under a light.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's not deprivation.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's four seconds of friction.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And four seconds of friction at 9.40 p.m.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: is worth more than every motivational thing anybody has ever said to you.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Same chain applies when you eat out.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it runs very much faster there.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: So watch it.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: The menu is designed too.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: The decision, not made when the plate arrives, it's made when you're reading hungry and people talking at you as a server stands there waiting.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Decide in that parking lot.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hell, decide before you go.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: If it's scheduled, don't knee-jerk into anything.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: But look it up before you walk in and pick the thing then.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: You do not, you will not be the most capable version of yourself at that table.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's fine because you've already decided.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's Friday, and I'm not going to pretend I don't know what Friday is.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Friday is when a week's worth of discipline goes looking for a receipt.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: You earned something.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not a lie, and I'm not going to take it from you, but you did earn something.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: You look hard at what you're about to spend it on and ask whether it's actually the reward or just the nearest available thing, because I want you to answer something and please don't skip past it.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: When you picture the reward at the end of a hard week, how much of it is the thing and how much of it is the permission?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: In my case, it was almost never about the food.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was 20 minutes of me not being at war with myself.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: The food was the receipt for a ceasefire, and I would have paid nearly anything for a ceasefire.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Once I saw that, I could go find other ceasefires.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: A drive with nowhere to be, a shower with a light off, sitting in the truck in my own driveway for 10 minutes before I walked into the house.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Those are free.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And not one of them costs you a Saturday morning.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: One more thing about the numbers, because I get asked about the scale constantly.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: 365 to 231 is 134 pounds.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it took years to get to 365.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then getting back up to 280, 285, 300 back down to 280 to 65, 270, 280 again, not a season.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't come down to a straight line.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this still bounces around.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: There were months, it went the wrong way.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Long stretches where nothing moved at all while I did everything right.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Those were actually harder than the bad weeks, because a bad week at least makes sense to you.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're measuring this in weeks and you're going to quit, the scale is a slow instrument reading, a fast, noisy system.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the number it gives you on a Friday morning is mostly water, salt, sleep, and timing.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: The thing you can actually measure this weekend is not how the scale, not what's on the scale.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's how many times you got to the last easy no and took it.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Count that instead.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: That number is genuinely yours and nobody can argue with it.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the weekend is two days.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's six meals if you eat three of them, and somewhere between 10 and 20 real chances to choose.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And not every one of them is the whole fight.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one is its own separate moment with its own separate door out.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's the part that saves people, not the plan the door.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if you end up at 9.40 p.m.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: anyway, standing in the kitchen light, here's what I want you to do.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not what you are expecting.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Don't fight it standing there.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: You already know how that ends.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so do I.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Leave the room.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Put your shoes on, go outside for four minutes.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Not a workout, not a plan.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Just four minutes of different air, a different space.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're not trying to win the argument.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying to move your body out of the room where the argument's happening.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because the argument is built into that room.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if it goes badly anyway, you did not blow it.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And there is no Monday.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is the next decision.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: It shows up in about four hours and it doesn't know one single thing about the last one.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Eleven decisions, 10 of them in the dark, and one of them in the light.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Fight the one in the light.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's the only one where stay saying no is actually free.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to out argue a thing at midnight that you invited into a house at 5 15 p.m.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: So stop scheduling the fight for midnight.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Connor with Honor.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Be safe out there.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great weekend.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you in the next one.