Maximizer's vs. Satisficer's

The concept of a Maximizer vs. a Satisficer is something I came across recently via Brian Johnson and Optimize. It’s from psychologist Barry Schwartz in this book “The Paradox of Choice— Why More is Less.”

According to Schwartz:

“The fact that some choice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that more choice is better. As I will demonstrate, there is a cost to having an overload of choice. As a culture, we are enamored of freedom, self-determination, and variety, and we are reluctant to give up any of our options. But clinging tenaciously to all the choices available to us contributes to bad decisions, to anxiety, stress, and dissatisfaction—even to clinical depression.”

The big idea is that the amount of choice we have is a negative thing and leads to indecision and sometimes even suffering and according to Schwartz we “would be better off if we embraced voluntary constraints on our freedom of choice, instead of rebelling against them.”

Further, from Schwartz, “if you seek and accept only the best, you are a maximizer and need to be assured that every purchase or decision was the best that could be made. Yet how can anyone truly know that any given purchase or decision is absolutely the best possible? As a decision strategy, maximizing creates a daunting task, which becomes all the more daunting as the number of options increases.”

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Embracing Rejection

I’ve written often about how sales has been my profession for over twenty years. During that period I’ve moved from selling fax machines (door to door!), copiers and printers, and eventually enterprise software for over a decade. I’ve learned an incredible amount about subjects such as emotional intelligence, negotiation, human interaction, champion building, and a host of other things during that period. I’ve also learned a lot about the concept of rejection.

A sales career is all about rejection. Early on, in my twenties, my job was to make cold calls, both in-person and over the phone, all day long. The occasional positive conversation was dwarfed by the number of hang-ups, awkward conversations, and the endless times the prospect told me to “never call them again.” Very quickly I learned to not take the rejection personally— to realize that the prospect wasn’t rejecting me as a person, but rather was rejecting the role I was playing. My ability to separate the person from the role was effective and a tool that I often used to coach young salespeople over the years. I would often relate the story that they could be in line at the grocery store after work and the very person that became hostile with them on the phone might line in front of them and they wouldn’t even know it. In fact, in a different setting, that person most likely would be pleasant. It was a great tool to tell them that the rejection isn’t personal, it was just business.

More importantly, in a sales setting, it was easy to understand that the rejection wasn’t permanent. It didn’t define me and there was always another prospect I could call. As long as I kept a positive attitude and kept working towards the goal, I’d very soon be talking to an engaged prospect and my mind would immediately forget all the rejection that happened right before. I think as humans we understand this. My sales job was just that, a job. It was a way to earn money and support my growing family.

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"If I Don't Have Red, I Use Blue."

Pablo Picasso is one of the most well-known and prolific artists of all time, with the total number of artworks he produced estimated at 50,000, comprising 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, roughly 12,000 drawings, many thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs. He was a painter, sculptor, illustrator, ceramicist, printmaker, and theater-designer known for constantly experimenting with different mediums and styles, with his massive output often categorized into periods.

I recently came across a quote by Picasso that defined his ability to create such incredible output, day after day, year after year.

“If I don’t have red, I use blue.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of resistance lately and how it’s often paired with the feeling that things need to be perfect before action is taken. Often this resistance occurs because we feel we need the ideal environment to sit down and create something, whether it be art, a short story, or a big project at school or work.

So what is Picasso telling us?

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How I Just May Have Found Equanimity

The word equanimity is defined as “the ability to let sensory experiences come and go without self-interference.” It’s characterized by “mental calmness, composure, and an evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation.”

Now that I’ve defined equanimity, I’m going to elaborate on how I may have, finally, found it.

A warning: This is yet another dude on the Internet writing about how meditation just may have changed his life.

Anyone who consistently seeks wisdom through books, podcasts, videos that focus on mindfulness gets inundated by the “superpower” of meditation. By now it’s universally accepted that a consistent daily practice of meditation has a profound impact on how an individual can process the world. It helps you become more awake and more purposeful in your actions. It teaches you how to respond, rather than react, to situations in your life.

For years I tried and tried. I bought apps, like the wonderful Calm app. I read books on the subject, both modern and ancient texts. I listened to podcasts with a meditation focus. I’d go through streaks where I was meditating every day and start to notice small improvements in how I processed the world. Yet I never truly got to the point that the practice was having a profound effect on how I interacted with those around me. Inevitably I’d get busy in my personal life or fall into a streak of bad habits away from my daily routine, then I’d enter a “stressful” phase in my corporate sales job and everything I learned about staying calm and centered would get tossed out the window.

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How Your Morning Routine Can Impact Happiness

In June 2019 I, along with some friends, hiked to the summit of Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states at 14,505 feet. Because of the sizeable amount of precipitation California received that year, the “hike” turned into a climb, complete with crampons, ice axes, and uneasy footing at the highest elevations. For someone with no experience as a mountaineer, it was a real accomplishment, the hardest physical task I’ve completed in my life.

In looking back on the climb, sixteen months later, what sticks out is not the happiness of reaching the summit, but the memories of the journey to make the climb and the preparation that went into making the climb. Our group of friends worked out together for months, hiking lesser peaks and regularly meeting in Laguna Beach to complete “Thousand Steps” weekly.

The Mt. Whitney experience recalls the concept of “The Happiness Archetype” as defined by positive psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar. According to Ben-Shahar, well known for teaching one of the most popular classes at Harvard, “Happiness is not about making it to the peak of the mountain nor is it about climbing aimlessly around the mountain; happiness is the experience of climbing toward the peak.”

So why was the Whitney experience so memorable?

It was because of ritual, or the “process” of getting prepared to climb Whitney. As the group met weekly in different places in Southern California, we formed strong bonds and connections in the shared experience of being in nature together. We would couple long hikes with cold beers after, and many laughs in the car ride there and back. This highlights the importance of “process” as it relates to happiness. Studies have shown that happiness compounds through consistency and ritual. It’s part of the human experience to feel untethered adrift in a complex and unforgiving world. Ritual and routine can tether us to that world.

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The Reversal of Desire

“If there is a key to influencing the future, it’s through bold action.”
— Phil Stutz and Barry Michels

I’m a massive fan of Brian Johnson and his work with Optimize. The content he puts out for a small fee monthly is simply remarkable. I recently took his “Optimizing for the Modern Hero 101” course and it was the single best course/book I’ve come across in years. The course was so full of wisdom that it’s nearly impossible to distill within a single article. Johnson has a remarkable ability to marry timeless wisdom from the ancients with the latest research by the top experts in the field. Of all the gems that stood out, one in particular resonated with me.

Johnson’s use of the abbreviation OMMS. Obstacles Make Me Stronger. Of course this phrase is nothing new, we’ve all heard it. What resonated with me is how Johnson tied it in to the broader concept of Arete, which meant “excellence of any kind” in ancient Greek. The basic idea of OMMS is that obstacles shouldn’t stop us, they should accelerate us. Johnson ties the concept of OMMS with the idea of aggressively seeking to get past mediocrity. In fact the antonym for the word “excellence” is “mediocre”, with the etymology of the word mediocre coming from the Latin ‘medius ‘middle’ + ocris ‘rugged mountain’. The origin of the word literally refers back to being “stuck in the middle of a rugged mountain.”

Isn’t that how life often feels? We all feel “stuck” at times. I’m often “stuck” my own mind, caught in between where I am and where I want to be, governed my self-limiting beliefs.

Here’s a real life example of how being stuck can cause real life stress. It has to do with a boat. A beautiful boat that I’m really proud of that sits down in the harbor in Newport Beach. For a guy from rural Northern Wisconsin buying the boat and leasing the slip was a big moment in my life. It meant the promise of many happy days spent exploring Newport Harbor and Pacific Ocean.

There’s been a problem though— one that exists in my head. I would constantly find reasons NOT to take the boat out.

Too windy.

Too many people.

Not enough time.

These excuses were part of something bigger. The night before I would constantly run scenarios through my head. The motions I would take, my plan of action and strategy to get it back into the slip, etc. This included obsessively checking the weather leading up the the event.

I was psyching myself out, making a normal act much bigger than it needed to be.

The more I thought about it the bigger it became. I was avoiding the perception of pain, the perception of potential embarrassment, and as a result I was missing out.

Then Brian Johnson clued my in on the concept of OMMS and the ideas of Phil Stutz and Barry Michels.

OMMS…OMMMS…OMMS…OMMS....

The bigger idea, according to Stutz and Michels, is that our infinite potential exists on the other side of our comfort zones. Too often we stay within our comfort zones, not straying due to a variety of factors. Embarrassment, lack of confidence, etc. As a result we never challenge ourselves. Stutz and Michels call this concept the “Reversal of Desire”.

How do we get to the other side of our comfort zone? According to Stutz and Michels we take that apprehension and turn it into positive energy by moving forward with the mindset of “Bring it On”. Bring on the challenge, bring on the potential uncomfortable situation. Lean into it.

Brian Johnson’s advice? Rather than internally say “I’m nervous or I’m uncomfortable” we need to turn that anxiety on its head and say to ourselves strongly and confidently, “I’m excited!”.

So this past Sunday when I arrived at the harbor I avoided obsessively checking the weather report. I didn’t show up at the slip and procrastinate. I arrived early with my son and had the boat ready to go when my friends and family arrived. The engines were warmed up and we were ready to go! Was the flag on top of the Marina moving a little bit? Of course it was? Was there a current in the Back Bay? There always is. Who cares? I was ready and excited to take the boat out. And we did take the boat out, having a wonderful day in the harbor as a result.

OMMS…OMMS…OMMS…

According to Stutz and Michels the ability to fight through this discomfort is one of the secrets that makes the super successful just that:

“A few rare individuals refuse to have limited lives. They drive through tremendous amounts of pain—from rejections and failures to shorter moments of embarrassment and anxiety. They also handle the small, tedious pain required for personal discipline, forcing themselves to do things we all know we should do but don’t—like exercising, eating right, and staying organized. Because they avoid nothing, they can pursue their highest aspirations. They seem more alive than the rest of us.”

This isn’t about BIG THINGS. It’s more about the little things. Doing that little thing that you always avoid. Going to that restaurant and eating the food that you tell yourself you don’t like. Having a difficult conversation. It’s about looking out in the harbor and seeing boats of all sizes out on the water, taking advantage of that beautiful day…with boat captains not letting what might happen get in the way.

More importantly it’s about recognizing that life is always going to provide uncomfortable situations. A life lived within a comfort zone isn’t a life fully realized, and that’s something that took me way to long to understand.

A Complaint Free World

I have the luxury of working remote for my job. I work in an office with a good friend that owns another company. I like to think that one of the huge advantages of not working in a corporate office is that I have the opportunity to avoid the office gossip and chronic complainers that can sometimes occupy our places of work.

This past week was a more stressful than a normal week. Towards the end of last week I caught myself. I was becoming that guy. Every conversation I had involved me complaining about something. It dawned on me that every time I’d talk to my boss or a co-worker I was complaining about something work related. This made me decide to try to be more aware of this and start tracking how often my conversations turned to the negative. This includes even the small and seemingly minor things.

I quickly realized it was every conversation.

Which got me thinking. How often does the average person complain about something in a day? Studies show an incredible amount. In fact virtually every conversation involves some level of complaining, as much as one complaint per minute according to research. Want proof? Next time you have a conversation with a friend see how often the conversation turns to complaints. Better yet, spend a little time scrolling through your Facebook page. Or the NextDoor app. They’re a veritable smorgasbord of complaints.

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Bigfoot, Pascal's Wager and the Cosmic Viewpoint (Seriously)

Last month I was on vacation with good friends. After dinner we were sitting around the table engaged in great conversation. As can happen, the conversation turned to religion.

Do you believe in God?

I had downed a couple glasses of wine so my answer than really wasn’t as concise as I wanted it to be. I said something about being spiritual and believing in a higher power— to be honest I don’t really remember.

But it did get me thinking. What should my answer to that question be? I didn’t grow up in a religious family, but I’m not an atheist. I don’t attend church on a regular basis but my children do attend Catholic school. I know I want to believe. As I often do I turned to the great thinkers for advice, this time getting a perspective on the question of religion.

This is how I came across a Blaise Pascal, a French philosopher that I was familiar with but hadn’t read in great detail. Pascal is famous for the concept of Pascal’s Wager. The purpose of Pascal’s Wager was to give French citizens who had left the Catholic Church (known as libertins) a reason to return to the church. Pascal wrote that the idea of belief is a matter of decision. You can choose to believe or not believe. Pascal accepted that it is not possible to give good rational ground for religious belief, but he did try to give rational grounds for wanting to have such beliefs. These consist of weighing the possible profit and loss of making a bet on the existence of God. Pascal argues that betting that God does not exist risks losing a great deal (infinite happiness in Heaven), while only gaining a little (a finite sense of independence in the world)— but betting that God exists risks little while gaining a great deal. Thus, according to Pascal, it is more rational to believe in god.

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James Stockdale Part II: Resolve and the Concept of Memento Mori

This past week I wrote about The Stockdale Paradox, coined by Jim Collins in his seminal business book, Good to Great. The Stockdale Paradox is based on the experiences of Vice Admiral James Stockdale during his time as a POW in the Vietnam War. In the past couple of days I’ve thought quite a bit about Admiral Stockdale and his profound experience as a POW, so I decided to dive deeper into some of his writings and speeches.

Stockdale was a modern living example of the power of Stoicism. What attracted me to Stoicism initially was based on how Stoics approached philosophy as an actual way of life, as a set of guiding principles and spiritual techniques to build character and overcome the obstacles that we all face. On the surface the idea of meeting adversity with calm dignity makes sense, but in practice it is much more difficult because it requires significant effort and discipline to not be enslaved by false beliefs. I’ve battled this for years and continue to battle daily. It’s arguable that today the biggest challenges that many of us face are psychological in how we deal with our perceptions of reality. A big part of that reality is the biggest thing that is out of our control— the past. All too often our minds constantly go back to negative thoughts related to events that have already occurred. We can’t control what happened in the past and we surely can’t change it, yet we often let it control our relationships, mindset and emotions.

I find inspiration in stories like Admiral Stockdale. Sure, his story is truly remarkable and very few people will ever have to deal with the hardships he faced. Why I feel his story resonates with so many people is he overcame the ultimate hardships, including mental and physical torture, all the while separated from his family and loved ones. The lesson of stories like this is that anything can be conquered, and the huge obstacles that we build up in our heads can be overcome, provided we recognize them for what the really are— temporary barriers. The beauty of Stoicism and it’s use as a personal philosophy is the realization that getting out of our circumstances and overcoming obstacles is solely up to us, and if anything is dependent on someone else or external circumstances it is not up— thus pointless for us to obsess over

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The Stockdale Paradox

I’m in my mid-forties and the first presidential election I ever voted in was the fall after my senior year in high school, when Bill Clinton defeated incumbent George Bush and Independent candidate Ross Perot. That election, which seems so quaint compared to recent presidential elections, is remembered for Clinton playing the saxophone on Arsenio Hall and Ross Perot and his crazy charts and graphs buying up TV time to talk about the “giant sucking sound” of jobs being lost to Mexico. One of the minor players of the 1992 election was Admiral James Stockdale, who uttered the famous line, “Who am I? Why am I here?”, as he introduced himself in the VP debate. A public that knew little about Stockdale and his amazing story turned the Admiral into late night comedy fodder, with Phil Hartman on SNL with one of the more memorable impressions.

As an 18-year-old at the time I was unfamiliar with Stockdale’s bravery during the Vietnam War. It wasn’t until later in college at the University of Arizona that I became familiar with his incredible story. At a different stage in my life, as I become a fan of Stoic philosophy, I was introduced to that side of Stockdale.

Like many I learned about Stockdale’s time as a POW in Vietnam through the story of John McCain. The future Presidential candidate was an Arizona Senator during my time in Arizona as a college student. While McCain’s fame greatly surpassed that of Stockdale, it was Stockdale who was the highest ranking POW in Vietnam, commanding the rest of the POW’s during his time in captivity. In all Admiral Stockdale spent nearly 8 years in captivity, over half of those years in solitary confinement. This included two years in leg irons. In all he was tortured fifteen times. For his bravery and leadership Stockdale was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

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Changing Your Happiness Set Point

Every spring the United Nations releases the World Happiness Report and each year, since 2012, the United States has fallen in the rankings with both adults and adolescents reporting significantly less happiness than they did in the early 2000’s. While the economy has improved dramatically since the recessions of 2008, and with unemployment the lowest in decades, Americans get less and less happy as a whole each year.

This is not a worldwide trend.

Global poverty rates are falling. Now 87% of people in the world have access to electricity. Global literacy rates have been increasing for decades with 90% of people over the age of 15 able to read. Infant mortality rates are falling, as are teen pregnancy rates. TB and malaria rates have also fallen dramatically. It is unarguable that the quality of life in the world has increased in a measurable fashion over the last two decades, yet in the west we get more and more depressed. According to a Harris poll only a third of Americans report being happy.

This decline in happiness is indicative of the Easterlin Paradox, named after Richard Easterlin, the first economist to study happiness data. Easterlin disovered that at a point in time happiness varies directly with income both among and within nations, but over time happiness does not trend upward as income continues to grow. Essentially as the broader measure of the standard of living improves, we are not getting happier as a nation.

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Don't Let One Bad Minute Ruin Your Day- Positive Mental Muscle Memory

Stephen Curry is the greatest three-point-shooter in the history of the NBA. His efficiency and ability to shoot from all over the court is a wonder to watch. He has perfect shooting mechanics because years of hard work have given him the ability to hit nearly 44% of his three-point shot attempts. In just ten-years he’s become the most prolific three-point shooter in league history.

Curry’s consistency is based on thousands of hours of practice and the confidence and ability to rise to the occasion in tense situations. Those thousands of hours of practice have honed his muscle memory to always get to the perfect shooting position and release, no matter how much pressure the defense is putting on him. From a technical standpoint, muscle memory is a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition and in Curry’s case, thousands of hours of repetition.

Of course Curry’s incredible shooting skills are not just physical, the mind plays a massive role in his success. Great athletes have bad games, Curry included. The key is how quickly they can forget the bad game or situation where they didn’t perform in the clutch and move on to the next possession. There are many incredible athletes that never made it to the NBA not because of their lack of physical abilities, but because of their lack of ability to handle the mental side of the game.

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We Live in a Perception of a Perception of Ourselves

I’m a fan of the Jay Shetty podcast, discovering it about six months ago. He has a fascinating backstory, which includes spending three-years as a monk. During a recent episode Shetty used a quote that really stuck with me:

“I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am.”

As Shetty puts it, we “live in a perception of a perception of ourselves. If we think someone thinks we’re smart, we feel smart. If we think someone thinks we don’t look good, we think we don’t look good.” As I often do, I immediately wrote the quote down and really pondered it. Over the span of a several days I thought deeply about this statement. While out socially or in sales meetings in front of clients I thought of the concept and how it holds so much insight into how we build out identity.

The quote is attributed to American psychologist Thomas Hart Cooley, who coined the term “looking glass self” in 1902. The Looking Glass Self is comprised of three main components, which are all unique to humans:

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Working Through the Resistance and Find That Juice

I’ve been dealing with writer’s block lately. Since I started writing articles and putting them on the site I’ve been pretty consistent in my output. There have been times when I’ve been busy, both in my personal life and with my day job and I haven’t been able to turn out content as often, but I’ve still been productive. Over the past weeks I’ve turned out nothing. I’ll find myself thinking of a good idea during the day, writing it down, and then getting up the next morning and not being able to write on the subject. I’ll make excuses, push it off until the next day, and then the self-doubt will seep in.

I’ve essentially been dealing with what Stephen Pressfield calls “resistance”.

My solution? Write about my writers block.

Dealing with writer’s block is no different than dealing with the resistance we face every single day. That thing that’s stopping us from finding time to exercise during the day, or stopping us from completing that deadline looming project at work, or responding to those emails that are piling up in our inbox.

According to Pressfield these resistance points are based on fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, and a whole host of other demons that everyone faces to varying degrees.

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Why You Should Cultivate Indifference to the Unimportant

This past weekend saw multiple instances of fans running onto the pitch during English football matches. The worst instance, and one that went viral worldwide, was when a Birmingham City fan invaded the pitch in a match vs rival Aston Villa and punched the captain of the opposing team, Jack Grealish. He will now do jail time and has been banned from attending any football match in England for the next ten years. His name and face have been plastered on every newspaper and television station in England, not a good scenario for his future job prospects. Likely fueled by alcohol, and the passion for his team, he made a regrettable, split-second decision, a decision massively important as it relates to his future, but based on something completely unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

A big lesson of Stoicism is to cultivate indifference to unimportant things. This is something that has taken me a lifetime to truly understand.

The reason I used the example football of the football fan invading the pitch as an example is that, in the past, I’ve often let meaningless things like the performance of my favorite sports team ruin my day and impact how I interact with my close friends and loved ones.

To understand the concept of indifference in the Stoic sense, it’s important to understand the context of the term when Epictetus was writing, since it has a different meaning to modern audiences. The modern interpretation of indifference leans more toward someone who is aloof or uncaring. Epictetus’s use of the term was something different.

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The Only Time You Feel a Cruise Ship Turn is When It's In Port: The Power of the Compound Effect

I was in Seattle last week for work. It was a great visit, a time to connect with co-workers I hadn’t had the pleasure to meet before, as well as a time to re-connect with co-workers from all over the world.

While at dinner on Tuesday night one of our executives stopped by our table and made a statement that really resonated. It was in response to a question from one of my teammates regarding the pace of change at the company.

“The only time you feel a cruise ship turn is when it’s in port.”

The quote is really about incremental change. There is a context. The company I work for is in the middle of a merger with one of our biggest competitors. The comment really made me think about the pace of change, but more specifically incremental change.

The gurus will tell us to “take massive action”, but massive action isn’t always the solution. Sometimes massive action can create more problems in the long run.

Real, long-lasting, change is accomplished via small, daily, improvement.

This small and seemingly insignificant daily improvement can compound and becomes massive over time.

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Take the Restrictor Plate Off Your Mind: Dealing With Self-Limiting Beliefs

Take the restrictor plate off.

One of my favorite scenes from the movie Old School with Will Ferrell is the scene when his character, Frank “The Tank” is working on his muscle car, “The Red Dragon”

“Took the restrictor plate off to give the Red Dragon a little more juice. But it's not exactly street legal, so keep it on the down low.”

I’m one of those guys that loves to quote movie lines and Old School has too many of them to count. Yesterday I was thinking of self-limiting beliefs and for some reason the quote popped into my head. For those that don’t know, the restrictor plate is a device you install at the automobile engine intake to limit its power. In auto racing they use the restrictor plate to equal the level of competition. Another example would be the “governor” on a riding lawn mower— essentially different technology but the same idea.

Yesterday I found myself in a contemplative mood in the afternoon. I just started a new sales year in my software selling job and I was putting my plan together for the coming year. Like so many people I find myself often fighting a constant battle to overcome the seeds of doubt that fester in my head— essentially those times when I’m restricting my own success through self-limiting beliefs. It dawned on me that all too often I’m letting fear and doubt literally restrict my performance.

How often are we limiting ourselves by putting a restrictor plate on our efforts?

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Cal Newport: On Joining the Attention Resistance

Note: This article is the fourth in a four-part series that covers the key themes in Cal Newport’s new book Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. The first three articles can be found here , here, and here, covering in greater detail the four key areas of focus according to Newport: 1) Spend Time Alone, 2) Don’t Click Like, 3) Reclaim Leisure and 4) Join the Attention Resistance. Today I’ll be focusing on the concept of joining the attention resistance.

Newport’s thesis on digital minimalism:

Our current relationship with the technologies of our hyper-connected world is unsustainable and is leading us closer to the quiet desperation that Thoreau observed so many years ago. But as Thoreau reminds us, ‘the sun rose clear’ and we still have the ability to change this state of affairs. To do so, however, we cannot passively allow the wild tangle of tools, entertainments, and distractions provided by the internet age to dictate how we spend our time or how we feel. We must indeed take steps to extract the good from these technologies while sidestepping what’s bad. We require a philosophy that puts our aspirations and values once again in charge of our daily experience, all the while dethroning primal whims and the business models of Silicon Valley from their current dominance of this role; a philosophy that accepts new technologies, but not if the price is the dehumanization Andrew Sullivan warned us about; a philosophy that prioritizes long-term meaning over short-term satisfaction. A philosophy, in other words, like digital minimalism.

The fourth key component of digital minimalism, according to Newport, is the idea of joining the attention resistance. The key to the attention resistance is understanding that social media, smartphones and their associated apps are designed to capture and keep your attention while creating addictive patterns. Newport makes the point that these apps are free for a reason. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram make money by monetizing advertising and user data. The more clicks and views the they receive, the more revenue they make. For this reason they are motivated to create addictive patterns in the user base.

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