Spencer Greenberg | The only 12 proven self-help tools for a meaningful life and improving the world

[00:00] Spencer: Well, sometimes people don't have hope in the future because they think civilization is gonna collapse. But sometimes hopelessness is much more mundane than that. It's more about feeling a lack of self-efficacy. Like, I can't do things that produce what matters to me. And I actually think that depression is deeply linked to a lack of feeling like you can produce what's valuable to you.

We've got decisions in life, like, you know, do I buy a house, do I marry this person? But we also have hundreds of little micro-decisions every day, like, okay, do I buy a salad or do I buy a burger? Do I take my dog for a walk now, or do I scroll on my phone? These micro-decisions actually are a way to reflect our values, because each time we make these micro-decisions, we can take one that moves us towards what we deeply value, or not.

[00:52] Beatrice: I'm very happy to be joined today by Spencer Greenberg. Spencer, you're a mathematician, I believe, and you also run the organization Clearer Thinking, which does a lot of really interesting work in how we can basically be smarter in a lot of ways. And right now, you've written a book called The 12 Levers, together with psychologist Jeremy Stevenson. And that's the book we're going to be talking about today. So let's dive straight into it. In this book,

you guys analyzed, I think it was like 459 different self-help techniques, and sort of tried to narrow it down to twelve. And these are the ones you call the twelve levers. How did you land on these twelve levers?

[01:36] Spencer: Yeah, thanks so much for having me today. The basic idea is that Jeremy Stevenson and I wanted to figure out all of the psychological strategies for improving your life. So we went through over a hundred different self-improvement books, over 20 different types of therapy, and extracted every single method and technique that they give. And that's where we got this database of almost 500 techniques. And then our approach was to classify each of them by asking, well, what is the psychological strategy underpinning each of these techniques?

And that's where, much to our surprise, we found just 12 high-level psychological strategies that we could use to describe the full set of techniques. And of course, under each of those strategies there are many different techniques, sometimes dozens. And in the book, The 12 Levers, our goal was to explain what each lever is, how you can use it, and also teach what we believe are the most effective versions of that lever — the different techniques put into application. And we also reviewed the evidence looking at

how well the different levers work and how well it's proven.

[02:36] Beatrice: The reason I wanted to do this interview is that I think self-help can be really important — it can genuinely matter, because it can connect us so that we're capable human beings, so we can take care of ourselves and act on our values in the world. And the existential hope part of this podcast is sort of trying to create the future that we want to see. But there's also just so much — I mean, to your point, you had to go through all of these examples.

There's so much stuff out there, and a lot of it is maybe not very evidence-based. I know that you built your career on making sure that what you do is quite evidence-based, or that that's an important part of it. So how do you think about that in terms of self-help? Is it something you think really matters — that if you're going to try out a new technique, you want to look up that it's actually an evidence-based technique?

[03:34] Spencer: It's a good and complex question, because you can have something that works really well but there's not much evidence for it. And you could have things that don't work, but there is evidence for it. What evidence does is increase our confidence that something is effective, or increase our understanding of when it's effective and when it's not. So it's really an issue of: the more evidence something has, the more confident you can be that you're gonna get something out of it, or the better understanding you can have of when it would apply and when it wouldn't.

I tend to try to be a Bayesian about these questions, which means I'm trying to think, given everything I know, how likely is this thing? And that includes things like randomized control trials and high-quality studies. But I also try to incorporate other evidence. A lot of times the other evidence is weaker, right? Like anecdotes are a very weak form of evidence — like, your friend Joe said this worked. That's not a very good form of evidence. But I do think we want to incorporate a bit broader and include all the different types of evidence we have,

not only narrowly focus on randomized control trials, because unfortunately, often we don't have the highest-quality studies for all of the things that we would want to try.

[04:40] Beatrice: Do you agree with my theory that if people are more self-aware and able to act in line with their values, that can ripple out and also affect how we shape our community and the direction of the future at large? Or is that hoping a bit too much from self-help?

[04:59] Spencer: Well, understanding what you're really after — which I would think of as your intrinsic values, the things you care about as ends in themselves, not because they get you something else, but because you fundamentally care about them — the deeper understanding you have of that, the more it can help guide not just goals in your personal life, but goals in your work life, and the ways you want to transform the world.

And so I think that when people operate under that mindset of, well, what are my deepest values, I'm trying to reflect — it can affect everything they do, including the nonprofits they found, the companies they found, and the policies they push for. So I do think it actually has an effect on the world broadly, outside of oneself.

[05:42] Beatrice: Yeah, I know you say in the book that most people live by values they've absorbed rather than chosen for themselves. Why would you say that is, and what can we do to change it?

[05:55] Spencer: It's really common that that happens, because when we're trying to figure out what matters, one thing we could do is look inside ourselves and really try to understand that. But another thing we can do is look to the people around us and see what we're being rewarded for. What do other people say matters? What do my parents want me to do? And I have a funny anecdote about this, where a friend of mine came to me one day and she was feeling really depressed.

And she said, you know, I don't really know why I'm depressed, but I think it has something to do with my boyfriend. He's a really great guy, though, so I don't really understand — something seems wrong in our relationship. So I sat her down, and I asked her to do an exercise where she wrote down what her values are. And then after that, I asked her to write down the positive qualities of her boyfriend in terms of what values they reflect. And she did that exercise. And the shocking thing was that he had all these great qualities, but they were

almost completely different from her values. And then I had her write down what her parents' values are. And when she did that, it was like a near-perfect match to her boyfriend. And so suddenly it was pretty clear what was going on: she was dating the person her parents would want her to date, not the person who reflects what she actually cares about. And yeah, it's just really common, because we absorb ideas from what's around us.

[07:11] Beatrice: Yeah, but so how do you figure out — like, you mentioned that your favorite way was to figure out your values. How do you figure out what you value?

[07:22] Spencer: In our book, The 12 Levers, we go into this in a lot more detail. So if you're interested in this topic, definitely check out the book, which should now be out. Or we actually offer a free test on our website, clearerthinking.org, called the Intrinsic Values Test, where you can explore your values. But I think one of the easiest methods for a lot of people is to look at a list of common values, because there are certain values that many people have, and go through it and for each one ask, hmm, how much does that really matter to me? Would I be willing to sacrifice something for that?

Would I be willing to experience pain for that? I think that can be a really helpful question, because if we're willing to lose something or experience pain for something, it usually means there's a deep value of ours underneath it.

[08:03] Beatrice: Yeah. I guess one thing that often comes up, and that I was reflecting on when I was reading your book, is this distinction — there's all these great tools, and that's one thing I really enjoyed about the book, that you do emphasize the values part. But a lot of self-help, I feel, there's this distinction between feeling good and living well, and the difference between a life that's pleasant and a life that's actually really meaningful.

Yeah, I'd actually love to hear how you think about that, because when you think about someone really using these twelve levers well, what kind of life do you think they end up with?

[08:41] Spencer: So for almost everyone, one of their values is pleasure — feeling good and not feeling suffering. There are some exceptions. There are some people who actually don't mind suffering, and even want it to be part of their life. But for most people, they want to reduce suffering and increase pleasure. So that is generally reflective of many people's values. However, it's a very narrow set. Almost everyone has many other important values as well, whether it's truth, spirituality, nature,

love and connection to others, or acting with virtue, et cetera. And so the problem with that kind of lifestyle isn't that it's bad per se, it's that it usually isn't reflective of a person's full set of values, or anywhere close. So it's a very superficial life, because it's just this narrow set of values being focused on over the others. And I think if you really take into account your full set of values, you'll get a much richer, more meaningful life, where you're not just in the narrow pursuit of pleasure and reduction of suffering.

Yeah.

[09:39] Beatrice: I also liked one of the things you mentioned, which I think relates to this — you were talking about productivity in the book as well. And I think when most people think of it, they think of how much time you're able to put in, times how efficient you are with that time. But you also add importance as a really important part of that algorithm. Is it the same formula there? Like, based on your values, figuring out what's important to you is the same as

figuring out how to be productive, really?

[10:13] Spencer: People often frame productivity in a very narrow way — like how much literal output you produce in a day, or per week, or per month. And the problem with that is that not all output is equally valuable, right? The easiest way to value something is to put a monetary value on it. But the problem with that is that monetary value doesn't reflect what we value. It's just one thing we can use to create things we value. Money can be useful for creating what we value, but

it's just one part of it. So I like to think of productivity in terms of producing what you value, considering all your values. It's also a better definition, I think, because it allows you to capture things like — let's say someone is a stay-at-home parent, they're still doing something of value, right? It's just that it doesn't necessarily produce monetary value. So it's just a broader definition of productivity. And when you think about it that way, it's not enough to just think about the number of hours you work or the efficiency

per hour — you really have to also think about the amount of value produced as you move toward your goal. And if you have a goal that isn't at all valuable to you, it doesn't matter how many hours you work or how efficiently you work, you'll produce nothing of value, right? Because zero times anything is zero. So it's funny, because you can actually prove the formula mathematically. It's not just a BS formula — the way we define these terms, the productivity you have is literally the number of hours you work

per week, times the efficiency per hour, times the importance of it.

[11:46] Beatrice: Yeah, yeah. I'm sure there are a lot of people who have jobs where they feel like they do the time and the efficiency, but there's none of the importance. So, yeah. Another thing, as I was reading it, that was interesting or resonating with me was the part where you talk about optimism, and the fact that you can actually train yourself to be more

optimistic. I think the term optimism is interesting, since I've worked on this existential hope project. One of the things I've come across often is that people really want to distinguish hope from optimism. I don't know if this is something you've come across — where they say that hope is connected to action, basically. Like, you have hope, and then there are pathways you can take to realize your hope. Is this something you've come across too, in relation to the term?

[12:37] Spencer: Yeah, no, I haven't heard about that way of using the term. But I absolutely see what you're saying. Like, you could be optimistic and just think good things are gonna happen to you no matter what, without it actually spurring you to action. Whereas if you have hope, that suggests, okay, there's a possibility of a good thing, but you might have to work at it. So I can understand what you're saying.

[12:55] Beatrice: And do you think it's generally helpful to have a more optimistic outlook on the world?

[13:01] Spencer: Well, the problem with the opposite of an optimistic viewpoint, which is a pessimistic viewpoint, is that it often makes things worse no matter what happens, right? With a pessimistic viewpoint, you tend to feel bad about the future, you tend to focus on the bad side of what happens, and so you kind of just get less out of life no matter what happens, right? Optimism has the reverse effect — it can benefit you regardless of what happens. It can make you feel better about the future, regardless of how the future turns out.

Now, of course, we don't want to delude ourselves — that's not a good goal. But often there are different frames we can have on reality, neither of which is truer, but some of which are more helpful. And so one challenge I'll say to people is: is there a way to see this situation that's at least as true, but more helpful? Right? You don't want to pick one that's less true, but is there one that's at least as true as the frame you're using? So if you have a really pessimistic viewpoint,

there might be an optimistic viewpoint that's at least as true, but more beneficial.

[14:02] Beatrice: Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. It's one of the main reasons I think I'm running this Existential Hope project — I don't see the point of not thinking that way, or not planning for a better future, even if things could turn out not to go great. You should still aim for that. And yeah, the helpful point really points it out.

[14:26] Spencer: It's also useful having not just optimism, but having more concrete optimism. Like, what are you actually hoping will happen? What is a good vision of the future? And I think this connects to your work. There's an exercise — it's actually the most proven exercise for increasing optimism — where what you do is you imagine a specific future where things have gone well. But you've worked hard and used your strengths to help them go well, and then you actually visualize in vivid detail what

life is like at that point. And you can do it at different time frames — six months in the future, six years in the future, twenty years in the future. And you vividly visualize: what are you doing? What is the world like? What are you seeing? What are the people around you like? Et cetera. And just creating that concrete, vivid vision of the future actually can help people be more optimistic, because they have something to look for in the future.

[15:21] Beatrice: Yeah. Yeah. And that's probably — I mean, I use hope and optimism intermingled here. I feel like it goes the same for both of them. I mean, I asked you how you wrote the book, but I didn't really ask you why. What made you want to write this book?

[15:36] Spencer: Yeah, for me, I have found incredible benefits from specific self-improvement techniques throughout my life. But I also spent so much time reading self-improvement material that I didn't think was that helpful, or that was just kind of repeating stuff I'd already heard. So it felt to me like a bit of a mess. And I was really interested — what is all the good stuff? How do I find all the good stuff? And my co-author, Jeremy Stevenson, who's a clinical psychologist, had a similar experience, where

some self-improvement stuff, and some stuff in therapy, he found incredibly useful, but there's just so much to go through, and so much of it he didn't feel was that useful. So we both had this passion for finding all the good stuff. And that was kind of the fundamental reason we teamed up. And just to give you an example — when I was young, I had really bad social anxiety, especially in specific situations. Like, if I was gonna go talk to a stranger at a party, my heart would start pounding in my chest. I felt like I was gonna die — it was very disruptive, very unpleasant.

If I was organizing an event, like having people over to my place, I would be so stressed out all morning, I couldn't enjoy life until the event was over. So finally, in my early twenties, I was like, okay, I've gotta do something about this. I went to a therapist, and he taught me about exposure therapy, which is one of the most proven techniques for helping cure excessive anxiety. He would give me homework assignments where, on the weekends, he'd say, okay, you're gonna go to a bar this weekend, you're gonna start conversations with five strangers, you're gonna go alone.

And I found it absolutely terrifying. But we started small. I would first go up and just say, excuse me, what time is it? And even that I found really frightening. But I was able to do it, and then I would build up. The next week I might say, your drink looks good, what are you drinking? So it was slightly harder for me, and then I'd build up. And by the end, this culminated in kind of an almost silly level, where I went up to men at bars, strangers, and said, hey, would you mind giving me a hug? Which my brain predicted would cause them to punch me in the face or scream at me or something, but nobody

did. Those things — people just either laughed, or they gave me a hug, or whatever. It was really not a big deal. And so through this technique, which was very powerful for me, I was able to bring my social anxiety way down, to the point where — not that I have no social anxiety today, but to the point where I feel like I'm less socially anxious than the average person, which is kind of amazing given where I started. So that was really transformative for me, and it got me really interested in, well, what is all the good stuff? And it's kind of part of the journey of this book.

[17:57] Beatrice: Yeah, that must have been a really empowering experience — to actually feel like you can change yourself, because that's probably where a lot of us get really stuck sometimes.

[18:07] Spencer: Yeah, absolutely. And it showed me that real transformation is possible, and fairly quickly, if you're using good techniques.

[18:14] Beatrice: Yeah. Are there any of the levers that you still struggle with yourself? Or, like, once you work on one lever, do you feel like you have to maintain it? With, for example, your exposure therapy — is that something like, now I have the social anxiety done, I don't need to address that again, or is it something you also have to maintain in your life?

[18:34] Spencer: Yeah, so thankfully, mostly my social anxiety is gone. I do still have some lingering social anxiety, but I'd say mostly it's gone. And the way to maintain that is to simply not withdraw, right? As long as I continue doing the things — continue going to events, continue starting conversations with people — then I think I'm good, and I don't need to do anything else, it just kind of keeps it going. If I were to withdraw from the world, then maybe it would come back. It's an interesting question. But I view self-improvement as sort of a never-ending process.

It's not like I've reached the pinnacle and now I don't need to work on myself. I have lots of things I want to improve about myself. And I think I'm a better version of myself than I was five years ago, and I hope I'll be a better version of myself five years from now. So one thing, for example, that I work on now — I notice there are some kinds of tasks that I'll want to avoid. I think it's because the task is kind of stress-inducing. So I have a natural tendency to want to push it off. And eventually I'll get around to it, but often I'll push it off longer than I would want.

So that's actually one thing I'm actively working on now — when I notice that there's a task I'm avoiding because it brings up anxiety for me, I'll just sit with that. I'll notice that's happening, I'll sit with the anxiety, I'll literally just pay attention to the anxiety in my body. And then I will just do the task anyway, even while I'm paying attention to the feeling it's giving me. Now, I'm not perfect at that — it's an ongoing work — but that's an example of what I'm working on right now. And that's an edge I think I could improve at.

[20:01] Beatrice: Yeah. I mean, that actually brings me, I guess, to another question, which was — when I read the book, I was like, my gosh, these are so many useful tools, to some extent I feel like I should be doing all of them, you know? How do you recommend someone manages this? Where do we start?

[20:18] Spencer: Yeah, so at the end of our book, we actually have a mapping to help you figure out which lever might be most useful for you right now. Because the reality is, every one of these twelve levers can be really useful in specific circumstances that depend on the situation you're in, but they also depend on who you are as a person and what you need to work on. So there's no one-size-fits-all. For example, our first lever is about figuring out the deep causes of the problems that you have.

And people often anchor on surface-level causes. Like, they think, well, yeah, I get in fights with my partner, and that's the cause of my relationship difficulties. And it's like, okay, but why do you get in fights with your partner? Well, we get in fights because she wants me to do this thing, but I don't want to do it. And it's like, okay, well, that's interesting — you think that's the explanation for your problems? But other couples have that exact same situation and they don't fight.

Right? And then it's like, well, so why is it that you're actually fighting? And it's like, okay, well, it's because whenever I bring it up, then we end up in an argument. Okay, well, that's interesting, but why do you end up in an argument? And so you can keep going deeper and deeper. And often we don't actually understand the deepest causes of our problems. And that's actually an issue, because without understanding the deep causality, you can often misdiagnose it, or just not be able to produce very effective solutions. So why do I bring this up? Well,

that lever is incredibly powerful. It can be really useful to a lot of people. But it's not applicable in every situation. There are situations where you really understand exactly what's going on, and you just don't yet know how to fix it. And then you're gonna need a different lever, right? But for many people, that's a good place to start, if you may not fully understand the problem at a deep enough level. Anyway, hopefully that illustrates why you need twelve levers. You don't just need one lever. Yeah.

[22:08] Beatrice: Yeah, and probably for different phases in your life — you're going through different things, and these sort of things. So they're probably applicable at different stages, basically.

[22:18] Spencer: Exactly. And our goal was to give you a toolbox of levers you can come back to again and again, through all the different challenges life throws at you.

[22:26] Beatrice: Yeah. I guess one other thing I appreciated, which is one of the levers I'll spoil also, is the one that says to take action in line with your values. I keep coming back to the values point, because I think a very common question people ask is, what's the meaning of life, I guess? And I feel like it's really interesting if you frame it a bit differently and just say, how do I create meaning in my life? And acting in line with your values can be one of those things.

What do you think about that question — how can we bring more meaning into our lives, and how can we act more in line with our values?

[22:59] Spencer: So the idea of meaning in life — obviously philosophers have debated this for a long time, and there are different schools of thought. If you're religious, you might think meaning comes from God, or through spirituality. If you're not religious, then meaning has got to come from human psychology, or your beliefs about the world, or something like that. From that perspective, I think one of the best ways to produce meaning is to figure out your values and then try to live in alignment with them.

Because I think that's actually where a lot of meaning comes from — seeking to produce the things you most fundamentally value. And obviously, if you can't achieve those at all, then often you won't get meaning even if you're seeking it. But if you seek it, and then you actually can bring those values to some extent into your life, I think that typically will produce a life that feels meaningful. Now, is it objectively meaningful? Well, that's a philosophical question. But it's meaningful to you, which is often what matters, right? It's meaning for you, based on what you

care about. And one of the levers that talks about this is what we call Actualize Your Guiding Foundations. This is about what are the things you can actually concretely do that cause you to act in alignment with your values. And people often don't realize just how many opportunities there are to do this. One idea I think is really useful here is this idea of choice points.

So we've got decisions in life — like, you know, do I buy a house, do I marry this person? Those are decisions. But we also every day have hundreds of choice points. These are little micro-decisions, like, okay, do I buy a salad or do I buy a burger? Do I call my mom back or not? Do I take my dog for a walk now, or do I scroll on my phone? These micro-decisions, or choice points, are actually a way to reflect our values.

Because each time we make these micro-decisions, we can take one that moves us toward what we deeply value, or not. And by trying to move more of these choice points in the direction of our values, that's actually a way to start creating more value in our life, and potentially more meaning, through very basic, mundane, everyday decisions.

[25:08] Beatrice: It seems like it's one of those things too — if you're able to get those micro-decisions rolling, you get into a very positive spiral, and that pays off in the long run as well.

[25:21] Spencer: Absolutely. Yeah. It's like you're farming value without having to do anything big or grand — you just kind of get it on a day-to-day basis, which I think is really beneficial. But also, these are the things that are deeply meaningful to you. So why not seek what's deeply meaningful to you, rather than just what your impulses tell you to do, or what the defaults tell you to do, et cetera.

[25:44] Beatrice: Yeah. Yeah, when you're able to act in line with your higher self, to some extent.

[25:50] Spencer: Yeah, exactly. It's interesting, because sometimes we think of our higher self as reflecting our logic or rationality. But I would also place — if we want to place things into lower and higher — I would also place your values into that, which I think are the thing that your rationality and logic ultimately should be guiding you toward — the things that are most deeply important to you. Rather than, let's say, you might have an urge to scroll social media, but that might not be reflective of your values. It's just reflective of, say,

the urge to reduce the stress you're feeling right now from thinking about something stressful. So you're trying to get that out of your mind, and you go to social media.

[26:26] Beatrice: Something that I come across quite a lot, I guess, in my work is just young people feeling quite hopeless about the future. Is there any of the levers, or things you came across, that you would recommend as a tool for people to feel like they're able to participate more in creating the future, or feel like they have agency, basically?

[26:48] Spencer: Well, sometimes people don't have hope in the future because it's a broad-scale thing — like they think civilization is gonna collapse, or, you know, it's more about what's going to happen that feels out of their control. But sometimes hopelessness about the future is much more mundane than that. It's more about feeling a lack of self-efficacy — like, I can't do things, or I can't take actions that produce what matters to me. And I actually think that depression is deeply linked

to a lack of feeling like you can produce what's valuable to you. I like to use this metaphor of a cave. Imagine you go into a cave, and the entrance of the cave collapses, and you're stuck in the cave. You can drink water and eat mushrooms to survive, but there's literally nothing else to do. You're just in this cave, there's nothing of value to produce. Well, you'll tend to go into a really low-energy, depressed state, because you don't have motivation, since there's nothing worth doing. You're just gonna lie around and wait and hope to be rescued. And I think that can be the state of

young people today especially, but people in general — they can end up feeling like there's nothing to do, there's nothing here for me, there's nothing I can create. And I think the unlock for that is recognizing ways that you can actually produce what you value. And as you learn ways to produce what you value, you can pull yourself out of that state. For example, in the cave, let's say you discover, wait, there's actually another tunnel here I haven't explored — maybe that will help me get out of the cave. And then suddenly you have motivation again, because there's something of value for you to work on.

[28:15] Beatrice: If you could design the perfect AI assistant for helping us live in or use the twelve levers, what would it do? And what would you not let it do, maybe? Because you've also designed an AI tool for this, right?

[28:28] Spencer: Yeah, exactly. So people who pre-order the book get access to our AI tool. Even if you don't pre-order, you can get access to our AI tool. And basically, what the AI tool does is it helps you figure out how to apply the twelve levers to any situation. So you put in a situation, and it's gonna help you figure out what lever to apply, and what are the specific techniques, and walk you through that. So that's partly an answer to your question — yeah, that's what we would have an AI do.

However, I think that's a very pragmatic, focused tool. But if you want to think broader about how you create an AI assistant that empowers you, I think, in an ideal world, if it operated really well, it would deeply understand your values, and then it would help — not just be sycophantic, doing what you want, but also nudging you towards what's aligned with your values, even if it's not what you explicitly say at that moment you want.

Right, like you might say, I just want you to tell me the answer, and it might nudge you to, well, maybe you want to figure it out, because one of your values is around learning, and if I just tell you the answer, it actually might undercut that learning experience. And it'd be better for you, for your values, if you actually go deeper on this rather than just having it spit out the answer. Yeah.

[29:48] Beatrice: I think it's really — it's like tough love, right? Is one way of putting it. It's interesting, I feel like the LLMs already, in my experience, have gone more in this direction. Like, they'll tell you to maybe talk to someone, like a human, about it, or things like this — this is something I've noticed, at least, that my LLM has started telling me more when I ask it really difficult questions. Not things it could easily answer, of course, but more like relationship questions, or things like that. But it would be

nudging you towards, you know, not trusting it as the ultimate replier.

[30:25] Spencer: Yeah, I think it depends on the company, and there also might be a liability question there — that they don't want it to answer certain types of questions. But I think different AI companies care more or less about how much it helps you live by your values. But I still think there's a big gap between what LLMs do today, where they basically, for the most part, will just try to do whatever you tell them and tell you whatever you think is correct, and what an ideal tool would be. One thing I use heavily is custom instructions — I have permanent custom instructions that

instruct the LLMs I work with to behave differently than normal. An example of that is I tell them, when something is debated, to actually show me the arguments on each side. Don't just give me the answer right away — show me the arguments on each side. And then I can come to an all-things-considered view. But I actually want to see the arguments rather than just the answer. So I find that really valuable. Another example is I tell it specifically to call out my misconceptions and tell me when I'm wrong, which I think by default they tend not to do.

If the LLM senses that you have a strong belief about something, it will tend to support it. And I think this is because of the way they're trained, where the training process involves people rating whether they like the answer or not. And the reality is people just like answers more when they don't contradict them.

[31:39] Beatrice: Yeah. Have you thought about this at a more societal scale? Like, if people across the board were able to use these tools better and self-fulfill better, I guess, is one way of putting it — flourish, thrive, I don't know what term one would choose — what could that mean for society? Like, for example, is this something we should teach everyone in school about, these twelve levers? Or how do you see it

sort of rippling out into the world in the best-case scenario?

[32:10] Spencer: My hope is that we can provide this toolbox of powerful techniques that people can come back to again and again, and that it would become well known — hey, you have a challenge, go look at the different levers you have at your disposal, pick the lever that's best for you, learn how to use it properly, and then go apply it. So that would be my dream — you have a challenge in life, here's the toolbox. Right? Sort of like the way you might go to

a literal physical toolbox, and you've got a hammer in there, and a wrench, and a ruler, and you're not gonna use them in the same situation. I would like people to have that level of knowledge about psychological challenges — like, yeah, you've got this lever and this lever and this lever, which one do you want to use? And then have an easy way to go learn how to use it properly.

[32:56] Beatrice: Yeah, I think that would be amazing. I feel like some of the tools I picked up along the way really change the quality of your life, I think, if you're able to implement these techniques. So yeah, let's hope we can get the word out more. I just want to ask you a question around acceptance, because I think existential hope often — at least the way I think about it — is about

refusing to accept a mediocre future and really trying to aim for a very positive future. But I know you also talk in the book about how sometimes acceptance is also the right choice. When do you know when to accept something versus when to fight for change?

[33:36] Spencer: Yeah, and this is a really subtle idea that's easily confused by many people. So, first of all, you should accept something if you cannot change it. Why should you accept it if you can't change it? Well, you should accept it because you're doing psychological damage to yourself by not accepting it if you can't change it, right? So that already tells us, okay, if you can't change it, you should accept it. However, acceptance does not mean liking it. Acceptance does not mean

that if there was a way to fight against it, you wouldn't take it, right? And I think this is where it's easily confused. Acceptance doesn't mean thinking it's good. Acceptance means you're no longer rebelling against reality — you're saying, this is reality. Take an example of someone who loses an arm, right? Their arm is lost. There's no way to get it back. Technology doesn't allow it to be repaired. They have no arm, right? So what does it look like to not accept it? What does it look like to accept it? To not accept it would be

continuing to try to do things you can't do with only one arm, right? To not accept it would be saying, this isn't fair, this can't happen to me, I can't believe this. That would be not acceptance. Acceptance would be to say, hey, this isn't what I wanted, I wish I had another arm, but the reality is I have one arm, and I've got to make the best life I can with one arm. What can I do with one arm? I can still do lots of stuff, and I'm going to do those things, right? So it's that distinction of not rebelling against reality.

Try to deeply accept reality as it is, but that doesn't mean you want reality to be that way. The last thing I'll say about that is that a key aspect of psychological acceptance is moving the baseline mentally. When things happen, it can take time for us to adjust what we consider the default, or the baseline. So suppose, for example, that you have $10,000 in your bank account, and you get robbed, and you lose $3,000. So now you have $7,000 in your bank account, and when you log in, you're gonna say,

that sucks, I only have $7,000 in my bank account, that feels awful. But imagine instead you had $4,000 in your bank account, and you had a windfall of cash, and then got up to $7,000. Then when you check your bank account, you're gonna say, that's awesome, I have $7,000 in my bank account. That could be the same exact person — the only difference is where's the psychological baseline. Is the psychological baseline $4,000? If so, then $7,000 feels great. Is the psychological baseline $10,000? Then $7,000 feels shitty, right?

[35:56] Spencer: So acceptance is about trying to move the psychological baseline so that it's at reality. So you're no longer paying a psychological price for reality being exactly as it is.

[36:06] Beatrice: So, yeah, yeah, no, those are great points. I guess the really tough part is when it's debatable whether it's changeable or not, which is more on the societal scale, I think, in terms of coordination and these sort of things.

[36:24] Spencer: Well, even if it is debatable whether it's changeable or not, if there's nothing you can do to change it today, then you want to accept it. And you can still work on changing it tomorrow, right? But if you can't change it today, you can accept it as it is today, and say, I'm still gonna work to make tomorrow, or next year, or ten years from now, different.

[36:42] Beatrice: Yeah. Is there anything else you want to make sure to mention about the book, or any of the levers you think we should have talked about? I mean, there are way more levers in the book — there's twelve — than the ones we got to mention today, basically.

[36:55] Spencer: Yeah, I guess the one last thing I'll say is that, fascinatingly, depending on what kind of school of thought you end up getting into — let's say you've read self-help books before — you may have already been exposed to certain levers, but be completely lacking in others. And I think this is kind of interesting. Depending on how you come into the self-help world, you might be in an area where certain levers are, of course, well known, but others are fully absent.

So, for instance, if you got interested in self-improvement through more of a meditation lens, there might be levers around the way you use attention that are very obvious to you, but that many other people who haven't gone that direction would never have heard of. So I think that's kind of an interesting thing — very often people's knowledge of all the different psychological options is kind of spotty, and it depends on what school of thought they happen to encounter.

[37:50] Beatrice: Yeah, like I said, I really enjoyed the book, and I think it's really great. I'm really happy to have this evidence-based encyclopedia now of things you can do for self-cultivation, or whatever you want to call it. And yeah, I just really recommend the book, and we'll make sure to link it in the description as well.

[38:10] Spencer: Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

[38:13] Beatrice: So, my rapid-fire questions for you. The first one is just, what is your existential hope vision for the future?

[38:20] Spencer: Well, I'm definitely worried about the effects of AI on society. So my existential hope vision would be that humanity gets its act together, gets better at coordination around the development of technologies like AI, and works towards building an AI that supports human flourishing, rather than takes away autonomy, rather than destroys the world, rather than concentrates power.

[38:48] Beatrice: What's a technology that doesn't exist yet that you really want to see built?

[38:52] Spencer: Well, one of my personal life's missions is to help turn psychology into a more robust science, and then spread the fruits of that. So that's what I'm working on. And I think it's possible to have much better psychological research that helps us understand human nature and understand ourselves. So that's the kind of technology I'd love to bring into existence.

[39:14] Beatrice: Yeah. And if you weren't doing this, what would you be doing?

[39:17] Spencer: Man, that's — I'm already doing a lot of stuff. One of my side hobby passions is throwing social experiments. So every so often, when I have time, I'll throw a social experiment. We have a group called Ergo, through which I throw social experiments with my co-organizer. And we have a rule for the group that we're never allowed to use the same format twice. So once we've used a format, it's dead to us forever. So I'd say that's maybe something I'd explore more if I wasn't doing any of the

main things I'm doing now.

[39:48] Beatrice: That's interesting. So even if you had super interesting results, you wouldn't go back to that format.

[39:54] Spencer: Correct, yeah. So it pushes us to always be doing something new.

[39:58] Beatrice: Yeah. Okay. Well, last question is what's the best piece of advice you ever received?

[40:02] Spencer: One of the best pieces of advice I received was about not letting people who are bad people — and I can unpack "bad" a little bit — but not letting people who are bad people be a lasting influence on you, or be a substantial part of your life. Obviously, you can't avoid meeting a bad person ever — you're gonna encounter them — but you don't want to let them into your life and have them be a lasting influence on you. And here, by "bad," I mean something like

people who have ill intentions toward you, people who would be willing to hurt you for a small benefit to themselves, people who mainly see the world through the lens of what they can get out of others, with indifference toward the flourishing of those other people.

[40:45] Beatrice: That's some really good advice. Thank you so much, Spencer.

[40:50] Spencer: Thanks so much for having me on. Really appreciate it.

‍