Greenberg approaches this discussion from holding your beliefs losely. So approaching any belief from how much time you’ve put into thinking about it and holding it in proportion to that.
Sivers has this notion that most of what we believe is not objectively true and that we should feel free to question it. Greenberg states that this can’t be maintained when decisions are to be made.
Greenberg on another podcast talks about self-help books and how they can be a remedy for some people but you should always think about solutions that work for you. That any panacea in these books is not a general solution.
Sivers uses the analogy of animated characters in a reinforcment learning type set up. They’re trying to learn to move, one of the keeps falling over, another bumping into a wall continuously etc. You want to give the one on the floor a helium baloon. That will fix its problem. It won’t fix the other characters problems though. Even though the character with the baloon might now say: “Look, this fixed my problem, it will fix all of yours too!“.
He then goes on to assert that a helium baloon might be a way of perceiving something. Say the Jocko mentality might work for some to get them out of their problems but not for others. What I found interesting here is that we could look to reshape what we believe in to align with our goals. He uses an example of if you’re a bit of a loner but you want something that requires sociability, you have to reshape how you think about being social, that getting out and about during the day is the right thing to do etc. findingyourheliumbaloon