Dopamine. The missing piece of the success puzzle. (Improve Locus of Control, Motivation, Self-control)

[ChrisV]

Okay, we’re going to get into some deep and really cool stuff here. I bounced back and forth for almost a year on this forum as to whether I even wanted to post about this, since I’m planning on saving the materials for a book. But the more I think about it I think it's such an essential thread that I'd feel like a dick for not posting. Plus putting things out there helps you refine your ideas.

I know there's a lot of info here but this post is going to go over ways to actual, scientifically validated ways to improve Locus of Control, increase Motivation, boost Self-Control and build all the traits that are core to building wealth. Again, this is all scientifically validated, evidence-based approaches. Not the stuff you hear that have you feeling motivated for a week, then once the effect wanes you’re back in the same boat.



Understanding this stuff can have a whopping effect on your bottom line, health and happiness. This is often the 'missing link' to success. If you’re already wealthy, this can help make you wealthier. If you havent yet achieved success, this may be the magic ticket. It may also improve your happiness, your relationships and other major areas. This stuff took me a good 10+ years to piece together out and it’s the info I wish I had when I was 21.

A lot of this comes from my personal battles as well as other things. Up until the age of around 25 I was a chronic underachiever. My IQ was in the top 5%, but what was I doing? Working at a Water Damage Removal company. People would tell me ‘dude you can do so much more… why are you cleaning water out of people’s basements?’ I honestly didn't know the answer to that.

It made me not only want to figure out my own life, but figure out why some people were successful in life and why some weren’t in order to reverse engineer it for anyone. So I did what I always do… pour over the data and connect the dots.

This post will be broken into two sections: what causes people to be successful according to data, and how you can potentially use that info to become even more successful.

So before we even go into anything, we have to very briefly define the personality traits a little bit, since personality traits play an enormous role in any type of life success. Big 5 personality is somewhat similar to the MBTI, it just has a lot more scientific validity. So bear with me if there are any complicated technical terms as everything will be explained. There’s no need to memorize any of these terms, just get an idea of the different traits.







So okay, what makes somebody successful? Well, of course, to find out we’ll look at the data. This is a chart I made from data taken from a study on how personality traits and intelligence predict career success:



Data from: THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS, GENERAL MENTAL ABILITY, AND CAREER SUCCESS ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN, (T Judge et al)

How to read the chart: basically the higher the number and the darker the box, the bigger the correlation. A 1.0 correlation is a perfect correlation but those are virtually nonexistent in Social Science research. .3 considered is big, .4 is really big, .5 is enormous. Even .2 is a pretty decent finding. So don’t look for any perfect 1.0 correlations. They’re unicorns. They don’t exist except when measuring the same exact thing.

So what does this tell us? Again, the darker the color, the higher the correlation. So for Extrinsic Career Success, the most notable correlations are with g-Mental Ability (general intelligence) and a trait called Conscientiousness, both coming at whopping .5 correlations. From Wikipedia:

Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being careful, or diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to easy-going and disorderly. They exhibit a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; they display planned rather than spontaneous behavior; and they are generally dependable. It is manifested in characteristic behaviors such as being neat, and systematic; also including such elements as carefulness, thoroughness, and deliberation (the tendency to think carefully before acting.)

Going back to the chart, Conscientiousness predicted Extrinsic career success even better than intelligence. I’m not going to focus on Intelligence here, since there aren’t many reliable methods of improving it as of now. Maybe we’ll go into it in another post, but for now, Conscientiousness is the biggest thing we can improve and this trait has a whopping effect on success. Learning to harness it will give people pretty much whatever level of success they want.

Conscientiousness also predicts success in a number of other areas:

Our findings suggest that conscientiousness is the trait most broadly associated with marital satisfaction in this sample of long-wed couples.

Personality traits and marital satisfaction within enduring relationships - Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

People with high Conscientiousness were also found to earn better SAT scores, have higher educational attainment, have a lower BMI, have better health, are less likely to divorce or become single mothers/fathers and a number of other important measures.

This article investigates how personality and cognitive ability relate to measures of objective success (income and wealth) and subjective success (life satisfaction, positive [emotion], and lack of negative [emotion].) Thus, the benefits of conscientiousness may be remarkable more for their ubiquity than for their magnitude.

Who Does Well in Life? Conscientious Adults Excel in Both Objective and Subjective Success - Frontiers in Psychology

According to Dr. DeYoung’s model Conscientiousness has two facets (subcategories) - Orderliness and Industriousness. Orderliness is organizational skills and Industriousness is essentially being a hard worker. Industriousness is a much better predictor. In other words, Being hard working is an enormous predictor of success. May sound obvious, but we need ways to boost that trait.




Conscientiousness also a very good predictor of overall happiness:

In general, conscientiousness has a positive relationship with subjective well-being, particularly satisfaction with life, so highly conscientious people tend to be happier with their lives than those who score low on this trait. Although conscientiousness is generally seen as a positive trait to possess, recent research has suggested that in some situations it may be harmful for well-being. In a prospective study of 9570 individuals over four years, highly conscientious people suffered more than twice as much if they became unemployed.

So let’s go back to the chart because there are a number of other interesting insights here.



One interesting thing here is the string of negative correlations between success and the trait Agreeableness. But also note that with the exception of Job Satisfaction, the correlation is very small only explaining ~1% of the variation. But for Job Satisfaction, we get a somewhat large .26 negative correlation. This means that being too agreeable is harmful to Job Satisfaction.



Agreeableness is a personality trait manifesting itself in individual behavioral characteristics that are perceived as kind, sympathetic, cooperative, warm, and considerate. People who score high on this dimension are empathetic and altruistic, while a low agreeableness score relates to selfish behavior and a lack of empathy.

This is likely because being a pushover is bad for success. Especially when it comes to Job Satisfaction. It seems that the data backs up the old “nice guys finish last” adage. But, I think there’s a balance you have to attain, and you want yourself to be somewhere in the middle. If you’re too Agreeable, you’re a pushover who gets stepped on. If you’re too Disagreeable, you’re basically a sociopath, willing to step on anyone or anything to get what you want, who will likely go to jail with Bernie Madoff pretty soon.

Those who score very low on agreeableness show signs of dark triad behavior such as manipulation and competing with others rather than cooperating.

So finding that balance is important. Other research cited in Barking up the Wrong Tree showed that the ideal strategy is to be nice to people in general, but if they mess with you, don't hesitate to put them in their place. Be nice, but have boundaries.

How Openness relates to career success. Openness very strongly relates to creativity. Open people are significantly more creative.

The Number One Predictor of Creativity? Openness to Experience | InformED

Openness indicates how open-minded a person is. A person with a high level of openness to experience in a personality test enjoys trying new things.

So in the data, this tells us that Creativity does not contribute to Income or Job Satisfaction at all. But Openness does contribute to Occupational Status and Extrinsic Career Success. It also contributes to subjective well-being. So it may not make you rich, but it will make you happy and potentially give you a higher status position. This is true of Entrepreneurs as well.

We also see that professional success has a relatively strong link with Neuroticism (opposite of Emotional Stability in the chart.) Neurotic people perform poorer. The correlation with Emotional Stability are as follows - Job Satisfaction: .26, Income: .32, Occupational Status: .27, Extrinsic Career Success: .34

Individuals who score high on neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody and to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness. People who are neurotic respond worse to stressors and are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening and minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult. They are often self-conscious and shy, and they may have trouble controlling urges and delaying gratification.

The last trait is Extraversion. We see some pretty decent sized (.24 and .19) correlations with Income and Extrinsic Career Success, respectively. The reason for this is likely because Extraverts are expert networkers. They make friends everywhere they go, they make people like them, and they usually have a pretty good sales ability. They meet people and sell themselves well. I posted my personal techniques on Networking here a while back:

Fastlane Forums - How To Build An Ungodly, Mind-Blowingly Amazing Network.

[...to be continued]

 

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[ChrisV]

Thanks guys.

So let’s look a little deeper at Conscientiousness. Since Conscientiousness is the trait of being careful, diligent and thoughtful, the polar opposite of Conscientiousness is impulsivity.

In psychology, impulsivity is a tendency to act on a whim, displaying behavior characterized by little or no forethought, reflection, or consideration of the consequences. Impulsive actions are typically "poorly conceived, prematurely expressed, unduly risky, or inappropriate to the situation that often result in undesirable consequences," which imperil long-term goals and strategies for success.

From MSN.com:

"If you want your kid to grow up to be financially successful, a new study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry says you should pay close attention to how they behave early on in life, particularly if they have trouble focusing.

Researchers at the University of Montreal examined the link between the behavior of 2,850 Canadian kindergarteners in the 1980s and the salaries they made once they were in their 30s. The researchers looked at personality traits such as attention span, hyperactivity, physical aggression, obedience, anxiety, and sympathy levels—and they found that several factors influenced their annual earnings later on in life.

Among both boys and girls, the personality trait that was linked with making less money as adults was inattention, i.e. the inability to focus on tasks and the tendency to get easily distracted."

[Impulsivity and Inattention of course go hand in hand]

MSN: This childhood personality trait influences how much money you'll make as an adult

Original study:

In this large population-based sample of kindergarten children, behavioral ratings at 5-6 years were associated with employment earnings 3 decades later, independent of a person’s IQ and family background.

Association Between Childhood Behaviors and Adult Employment Earnings in Canada - JAMA Psychiatry

Impulsivity is important. Catholicism warned almost 2000 years ago about the seven deadly sins of greed, lust, envy, pride, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. What do all these have in common? Immediate pleasures with detrimental long-term consequences. Impulsivity. This is in contrast to the seven heavenly virtues of prudence (holding back,) justice (fairness,) temperance (self restraint,) faith, hope, charity, and courage (fortitude.) What do they mostly have in common? The holding back of immediate pleasures (or facing tough circumstances) for long term gain.

But of course Catholicism in the 400th century didn’t have the technology we have now. While there is some free will involved, we now know that this trait of impulsivity is largely determined not by choice, but mostly by a chemical called dopamine:

Scientific American: Dopamine Determines Impulsive Behavior

Note: I have to warn you. Most people are used to thinking of success as "do X, get Y." For people who are used to that way of thinking, this is going to be a paradigm shift. If you've been human for more than a few years, you've probably noticed that a lot of behavior is not under our direct control. That sometimes our attempts at self-development seem to get thwarted by a less controllable part of ourselves. This will explain why this happens in certain areas.

More specifically the Industriousness (predisposition to work hard) aspect has a lot to do with dopamine (r) in three key areas:



Now when I talk about brain chemicals. I'm not suggesting that there’s nothing you can do about it. I say that because when people hear anything about brain chemistry, genetics, etc. they get all defensive. They think that you're saying that it's just destiny and there's nothing you can do. That's not true. There are plenty of things you can do to alter your brain chemistry and while you’re stuck with your genes, there’s plenty you can do to change the expression of those genes. So this isn’t to take the wind out of anybody’s sail it’s to look at the reality of this all and then come up with a realistic plan for fixing it.

Despite popular opinion, since motivation originates in a part of the brain that we have no conscious control over, you can’t boost your motivation for more than a very short amount of time, and then it’s depleted. This is why most Self-Help fails. For long terms gains more than a few days, you have to do it indirectly. It’s not a matter of moral superiority. It’s not a matter of willpower. It’s not a decision. It’s not in the thinking part of our brain, it’s in the reptilian part of our brain, where we have almost no control.

We’ve already established that hard work is instrumental for almost any type of success. Common sense tells you that, and more importantly, the research also tells you that. What it doesn’t tell is why some people are hard workers, and some aren’t.



"If you’ve ever felt lackadaisical to start a new project […] say University of Michigan researchers. Both are a function of dopamine, which explains the motivation to start and the satisfaction of finishing work, they say."

Neuroscience News - The Role of Dopamine in Motivation and Learning

"Yet dopamine is also a key modulator of motivation, invigorating current behavior. Existing theories propose that fast (phasic) dopamine fluctuations support learning, whereas much slower (tonic) dopamine changes are involved in motivation."

Mesolimbic dopamine signals the value of work - Nature Neuroscience

In one of my favorite studies (sorry for the cruelty,) researchers artificially induced dopamine signaling deficiency in mice by injecting a selective neurotoxin in the midbrain. What happened? The mice with dopamine signaling deficiency were so unmotivated that they starve to death even when food is literally right in front of them (r).

“After extensive destruction of ascending dopamine neurons, animals become oblivious to food and many other rewards.”

"Rats typically are aphagic and adipsic after 6-OHDA lesions, and will starve to death unless nourished artificially, even though food may be readily available”

What is the role of dopamine in reward: hedonic impact, reward learning, or incentive salience? - Journal of Brain Research Reviews

A known side effect of antipsychotic medications that block dopamine is a lack of motivation.

Ideal dopamine levels are associated with motivation, determination, grit. It’s one of the most important things you can have for success.

Grit in psychology is a positive trait based on an individual's perseverance of effort combined with the passion for a particular long-term goal or end state (a powerful motivation to achieve an objective). This perseverance of effort promotes the overcoming of obstacles or challenges that lie on the path to accomplishment and serves as a driving force in achievement realization. Distinct but commonly associated concepts within the field of psychology include "perseverance", "hardiness", "resilience", "ambition", "need for achievement" and "conscientiousness". These constructs can be conceptualized as individual differences related to the accomplishment of work rather than talent or ability.

The overall takeaway here is that dopamine tone is absolutely critical for success.

(Dopamine tone refers to the general average baseline amount of dopamine signaling going through certain pathways. ie is your dopamine tone 'high' or is it 'low')

Role of Dopamine Tone in the Pursuit of Brain Stimulation Reward

New York Times: A Molecule of Motivation, Dopamine Excels at Its Task

How to tell if you have a poor overall dopaminergic tone:

• Is your motivation, drive, or enthusiasm, on the low side?
• Are you low on physical or mental energy?
• Do you have to push yourself to exercise or do things you know are good for you?
• Do you eat (or drink) a lot of sugary substances?
• Do you have poor self control?
• Have you struggled with addictions of any kind (alcohol, drug, gambling, sex, porn)?
• Do you have problems taking action to do things that you know would benefit your future?
• Do you sometimes feel apathetic and lifeless?
• Do you have issues with focusing or concentration?
• Do you increase your motivated by consuming stimulants? (ie Adderall, Energy Drinks, large amounts of caffeine, or even sugar)
• Do you tend to prefer immediate rewards to larger future rewards (ie $100 now vs $200 in two weeks)

Any of these things can indicate a less than optimal dopamine tone. And these issues exist on a spectrum. You may have slight issues, you might have severe issues, or you might not have any issues at all.

Now, the necessity of motivation to success is obvious, but there’s more subtle ways that Dopamine Tone affects success. In one of my other threads, an Author took a survey of 177 self-made millionaires and compared them to people who were not multimillionaires. The differences are clear.

"Corley conducted a survey by interviewing 233 wealthy people who make $160,000 or more in annual income and hold at least $3.2 million in net liquid assets (177 of whom were self-made, coming from poverty or the middle class) and 128 poor people who make less than $35,000 per year and have less than $5,000 in assets. Over five years, Corley posed 144 questions in 20 categories to each person and saw distinct patterns emerge.”

Fastlane Forum - FEATURED! Author Spent 5 Years Interviewing 177 Selfmade Millionaires To Find Their Secrets. Findings Inside.

I picked out a select few in order to illustrate my point, but feel free to check out the whole list. When reading these keep a few key aspects in mine: Conscientiousness, Self Control (sacrificing now for a better tomorrow,) Impulsivity (sacrificing tomorrow for a better now,) planning for the future, ‘hardworkingness’:

	Rich	Poor	Self-Made
DELAYED GRATIFICATION - BETTER TO SACRIFICE NOW FOR A BETTER TOMORROW	82%	48%	100%
DISCIPLINE - CONSIDER MYSELF DISCIPLINED	86%	11%	96%
DREAM: THOSE WHO PURSUED A DREAM	61%	3%	82%
GAMBLING - PLAY THE LOTTERY REGULARLY	6%	77%
GOALS - FOCUS ON GOALS EVERY DAY	62%	6%	79%
GOALS - FOCUSED ON ACHIEVING SOME GOAL	80%	12%	95%
GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO MORE TO HELP PEOPLE FINANCIALLY	9%	79%
HABITS - BAD HABITS CREATE DETRIMENTAL LUCK	76%	9%	90%
HEALTH - COUNT CALORIES EVERY DAY	57%	5%	72%
HEALTH - DRINK MORE THAN 2 GLASSES OF BEER, WINE OR ALCOHOL A DAY	16%	54%	18%
HEALTH - DRUGS ONCE OR MORE A WEEK	8%	32%	1%
HEALTH - EAT CANDY MORE THAN TWICE A WEEK	28%	69%	16%
HEALTH - EAT LESS THAN 300 JUNK FOOD CALORIES PER DAY	70%	3%	78%
HEALTH - EXERCISE AEROBICALLY 30 MINUTES PER DAY, 4 DAYS PER WEEK	76%	23%	95%
HEALTH - FAST FOOD RESTAURANT THREE OR MORE TIMES A WEEK	25%	69%	7%
HEALTH - FLOSS EVERY DAY	62%	16%	50%
HEALTH - GOOD HEALTH IS CRITICAL TO FINANCIAL SUCCESS	85%	13%	95%
LUCK - GOOD HABITS CREATE OPPORTUNITY LUCK	84%	4%	97%
LUCK - GOOD LUCK NEVER HAPPENS TO ME	13%	54%	12%
LUCK - WEALTH COMES FROM RANDOM GOOD LUCK	8%	79%	5%
MARRIAGE: DIVORCED DUE TO INFIDELITY	4%	24%
READ - LOVE READING	86%	26%
READ 2 OR MORE EDUCATION, CAREER-RELATED OR SELF-IMPROVEMENT BOOKS PER MONTH	85%	15%
READ 30 MINUTES EACH DAY EDUCATION, CAREER OR SELF-IMPROVEMENT	88%	2%	96%
READ FOR ENTERTAINMENT	11%	79%	3%
T.V. - WATCH EDUCATIONAL TV	9%	1%
T.V. - WATCH REALITY SHOWS ON TV	6%	78%
WORK - DO MORE THAN MY JOB REQUIRES	81%	17%

The multimillionaires were motivated, limited alcohol and drugs, ate well, exercised. In other words, they had none of the symptoms of low dopamergic tone.

Also As @Kak also pointed out in the thread:

I see a lot of examples of locus of control there.

	Rich	Poor	Self Made
THINKING - BELIEVE FATE DICTATED THEIR FINANCIAL CIRCUMSTANCES IN LIFE	10%	90%
THINKING - I AM THE CAUSE OF MY FINANCIAL STATUS IN LIFE	79%	18%
THINKING - MOST RICH PEOPLE INHERIT THEIR MONEY	5%	90%
THINKING - OPTIMISM IS IMPORTANT TO SUCCESS	54%	22%
THINKING - RICH PEOPLE ARE GOOD, HONEST HARDWORKING PEOPLE	78%	5%
THINKING - WEALTH IS USUALLY ACCIDENTAL	4%	52%

Interestingly enough, we again find that an internal Locus of Control is a major predictor of success

Fast Company - How Your Locus Of Control Impacts Business Success




Source: Nurturing parenting capability: the early years [Wider Benefits of Learning Research Report No. 30]

Even from @MJ DeMarco ’s book:

THE LAW OF VICTIMS
People who don’t take responsibility are victims. Some of them are born victims and, instead of trying to improve their hand, they fold and give up. For them, everyone has the solution to their problems but them. And their problems? Not their fault. Nope, someone else is to blame. Instead of looking within, they look outward and project responsibility to some other entity. Victims are Sidewalkers who refuse to take the driver’s seat of their own lives and live under a dark cloud of “theys” reflective of a “me against them” attitude.

“They laid me off.”
“They changed the terms.” “They cheated me.”
“They didn’t tell me.”
“They raised my rent.”
“They raised my interest rate.”

Invariably, all these “theys” are self-imposed."

People with a poor dopaminergic tone have a more external locus of control.

It has been suggested that tonic dopamine relates to trait-perceived internal locus of control. Pharmacologically augmenting tonic dopamine restores exploratory behavior in individuals with an external locus of control characterized by reduced tonic dopamine (Kayser et al., 2014).

In other words, giving people medications that raise their tonic dopamine gave them a more internal LOC.

Perceived control can be broadly defined as the belief in one’s ability to exert control over situations or events. We highlight the role of dopamine within corticostriatal pathways shared by reward-related processes and perceived control.

A Reward-Based Framework of Perceived Control - Frontiers in Neuroscience

Sense of agency refers to the feeling of control over one’s own actions. The strength of this sense varies inter-individually. This means that people differ in their perception concerning the intensity of their intentions and actions. The present results confirm prior hypotheses that dopamine seems to play a crucial role in perception of agency.

Dopamine and sense of agency: Determinants in personality and substance use - PLOS ONE

A possible role of central dopamine metabolism associated with individual differences in locus of control | Request PDF

People with a better dopaminergic tone feel more in control of their lives. People with a poor dopaminergic tone feel that they’re victims.

[...to be continued]

 

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[ChrisV]

So most importantly, what can you do about all this? That's the biggest thing of course.

Well this is not medical advice and you should talk to your doctor before making any changes… but of you’re really serious about fixing this, I highly suggest getting a genetic test and seeing where the problems are. Your dopamine tone is critical and largely genetically determined. There are a lot of things that can go wrong genetically with dopamine neurotransmission. I'll list them just in case anyone wants to do further research, but certain genes make it hard for the body to synthesize dopamine (MTHFR, Tyrosine Hydroxylase,) dopamine may break it down too fast (SLC6A3, MAOA, MAOB, COMT, DBH,) your brain might not produce enough dopamine receptors for it to attach to (DRD1-DRD5, opioid receptors,) among other issues.

There’s a different solution to each of these genes.

If you have the MTHFR gene, I’ve heard L-Methylfolate is a miracle (in some cases can completely fix dopamine issues)

View: https://youtu.be/efFtviwOTaI?t=15


Genetics is a complex topic. You’re going to have to research it yourself or post questions here.

Diet can be a factor too. Dopamine is synthesized from a protein called Tyrosine. So if you don't get adequate intake of Tyrosine, it can make it hard for your body to produce it.



After watching the Ending Addiction video series, I’ve since made friends over email with Dr. Howard Wetsman, and he has a genetic analysis company that does just this (figures out problems with Dopamine neurotransmission.) The link is: Products – GenEd Systems While his products focus on addiction, and is only in it's early stages, the same solutions apply to the issues we’ve spoken about here.

Otherwise, here are some other tactics than may help regardless of genetics. I'll treat it into "probably will help" and "might help."

Probably will help:

Exercise - Not only does it boost DA, but in addition exercise increases the number of receptors in the brain which actually has very very pronounced effects.. it essentially raises DA neurotransmission in two separate ways [1] [2] [3]
Meditation [1] (This study found a SIXTY-FIVE PERCENT increase in dopamine release after meditation, although that high of a number may not be typical) [2][3]
Getting 8 hours sleep is just good for everything
Reduce sugar (sugar causes a dopamine spike, but down regulates receptors.. causing really bad long-term effects, switch to fruits which don't cause spikes) [1]
Plenty of sunlight! [1] [2] Sunlight
Setting Small Goals (breaking your big goals into chunks) [1]
Setting S.M.A.R.T. Goals - Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, Time-related – specify when the result(s) can be achieved.
Eating Protein (foods high in phenylalanine/tyrosine) [1]

Might help:

Listen to music [1] [2] [3]
Reducing Saturated Fat [1] (saturated fat is NOT as evil as the media made it out to be so wouldn’t go crazy,) but one study found that rats that consumed 50% of their calories from saturated fat had reduced dopamine signaling in the reward areas of their brain, compared to animals receiving the same amount of calories from unsaturated fat
Probiotics [1] [2] [3]
Supplements: L-Tyrosine, L-Phenylalinine, L-theanine, Phosphatidylserine, Curcumin, Ginkgo Biloba, Mucuna Pruriens,

More: 54 Supplements & Drugs/Agonists to Increase Dopamine - Selfhacked (Selfhacked is, in my opinion, a great resource for stuff like this)

But still, I think getting genetic testing is the single biggest thing if there are any serious issues. Genetic testing and analysis is a full blown solution to this. The other biggies are Exercise, Meditation, Diet, Hydration, and proper goal setting (S.M.A.R.T. goals.)

You can also do your own searches on this stuff, just make sure the information is from a reliable, mainstream or scientific source. If the website uses a bunch of emotional, bombastic or excited language, be very careful. Real scientists are boring lol. They use really boring big words and rarely make grand statements. I find this custom search engine to be helpful, and has a Pro-science option in the drop down.

Search News based on Highly Factual Reporting

Search High or Very High Factual News Sites only and ignore the fake news propaganda on the net. Only sites with High or Very High reporting are included. Each site is classified into the following biases: Left, Left-Center, Least (or Center), Right-Center, Right and Pro-Science.

factualsearch.news

If you feel like you have serious attention issues, get tested for ADHD because Inattentive Type ADD and Low-Conscientiousness correlate at the .8 level and if you remember, a .8 correlation is astronomical. They’re essentially synonyms. Your doctor can help you with this. And get tested of all the subtypes of ADHD (ADHD-Combined, ADHD-Primarily Inattentive and a related new disorder called SCT)

You’re going to have to do some research on your own or post your questions here. If you want me to cover any of the other personality traits, I’d be more than happy to.

For now here are a few basic tips regarding the other traits:

If you’re too high in Agreeableness (you’re a pushover) Assertiveness Training is a great solution.

If you’re too low in Openness to experience, I’m not going to condone drug use, but I’ve heard (*cough cough*) a single LSD has been shown to improve that trait - Live Science - A Single Psychedelic Drug Trip Can Change Your Personality for Years. Google “LSD and Openness” for more info

For Neuroticism, therapy may be helpful.

For general personality change, check out this article: Psychology Today - Can an Introvert Ever Change?

Any questions, feel free to post here.

Hope this is helpful!

 

[ChrisV]

Nice work man. Did you happen to take any adderall for writing this all out? Jokes aside, tons of good information.

Lol, that's actually a great comment because Adderall works by releasing, of course, dopamine.

(Start at 1:27)

View: https://youtu.be/MeJRBsghMt8?t=88


But I'm not going to really recommend Adderall use (except as a last resort) because the long term effects aren't really sustainable. There are usually better things you can do that don't involve prescription medication.

I also don't want to get too hung up on ADD or ADHD, because I think it goes deeper than that. ADD/ADHD can definitely correlate with all this, but not all low dopamine issues manifest themselves as ADD. The rest of the post about Conscientiousness, etc still applies.

The problem is much deeper than one single diagnosable condition.

So back to the post...why are some people so short-sighted, while others seem to have a better life by planning for the future? Why wouldn't everyone want a better future? Well it goes back to dopaminergic tone. Low dopamine tone tricks your brain into thinking you're in danger, and all your resources are devoted to right now. Planning for the future is ridiculous, because to your brain, you're in danger. Dr. Wetsman has a great explanation is here (starting at 2:12, although the full video is great):

View: https://youtu.be/KWabTRPr91s?t=132


Let’s compare what Dr. Wetsman just said to what the Rich Habits survey said:

	Rich	Poor	Self-made
READ - LOVE READING	86%	26%
READ 2 OR MORE EDUCATION, CAREER-RELATED OR SELF-IMPROVEMENT BOOKS PER MONTH	85%	15%
READ 30 MINUTES EACH DAY EDUCATION, CAREER OR SELF-IMPROVEMENT	88%	2%	96%
READ FOR ENTERTAINMENT	11%	79%	3%
CHARITY/NONPROFIT - ON BOARD OF DIRECTORS/COMMITTEE	52%	4%	61%
CHARITY/NONPROFIT - INVOLVED IN A CHARITABLE/NONPROFIT GROUP	67%	6%	72%
DELAYED GRATIFICAITON - BETTER TO SACRIFICE NOW FOR A BETTER TOMORROW	82%	48%	100%

It’s very clear that they’re talking about the same thing.

When your brain thinks it's in danger, it's not going to devote resources to reading, or self development or helping.

(btw, thanks to @mdivljina for posting that series)

The series was originally about addiction, but I find it to be a great explainer for this thread since the causes of addiction and poverty are closely related. People think that addiction causes poverty (and to a slight extent it exacerbates it,) but it does NOT cause it. Addicts and people in poverty have a root personality trait in common that causes both issues: Both drug addicts and people in poverty seek immediate fulfillment at the expense of a better tomorrow. The low dopamine tone causes them to seek out dopamine-releasing activities in order to maintain homeostasis. This goes back to Conscientiousness and (it’s polar opposite) impulsivity (instant gratification.) So addiction, impulsivity and ADHD research can tell us boatloads about success.

I HIGHLY suggest checking out that entire video Ending Addiction series because at the level of the brain, addiction and poverty are closely related. The reason is, when people have a low dopaminergic tone, 2 things happen:

1) The lack of dopamine (motivation chemical) makes them lazy:

http://blog.idonethis.com/the-science-of-motivation-your-brain-on-dopamine/

and

2) the uncomfortable feelings associated with low dopamine tone causes them to self medicate with things that stimulate dopamine (drugs, alcohol, nicotine, food, sex, gambling, and other immediate pleasures) which goes into impulsivity.

This video is optional but Dr. Wetsman makes an amazing point here.

This is why people in poverty are more likely to be short-sighted and focus on immediate pleasures. Having a low DA tone causes you to do all sorts of things to release dopamine in order to feel better (again drugs, food, gambling, driving fast etc.) The brain’s bias toward immediate pleasures makes it so they don’t do things to make you plan for the long term. The rich person would rather read self-improvement materials, while the poor person would rather read 50 Shades of Grey. It’s a battle between long term gain, and immediate pleasure. Who wins that battle is determined not by moral superiority, or a decision to do so, but how much dopamine is floating around between synapses.

Again, I highly suggest checking out Dr. Wetsman’s entire series on this, even if you don’t struggle with addiction, because the same solutions for addiction will apply for curbing the impulsivity to help people to be wealthier. They simply don’t have enough of the chemical that’s responsible for motivation.

[...to be continued again lol]

 

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[Bertram]

Thanks guys.

So let’s look a little deeper at Conscientiousness. Since Conscientiousness is the trait of being careful, diligent and thoughtful, the polar opposite of Conscientiousness is impulsivity.

In psychology, impulsivity is a tendency to act on a whim, displaying behavior characterized by little or no forethought, reflection, or consideration of the consequences. Impulsive actions are typically "poorly conceived, prematurely expressed, unduly risky, or inappropriate to the situation that often result in undesirable consequences," which imperil long-term goals and strategies for success.

From MSN.com:

"If you want your kid to grow up to be financially successful, a new study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry says you should pay close attention to how they behave early on in life, particularly if they have trouble focusing.

Researchers at the University of Montreal examined the link between the behavior of 2,850 Canadian kindergarteners in the 1980s and the salaries they made once they were in their 30s. The researchers looked at personality traits such as attention span, hyperactivity, physical aggression, obedience, anxiety, and sympathy levels—and they found that several factors influenced their annual earnings later on in life.

Among both boys and girls, the personality trait that was linked with making less money as adults was inattention, i.e. the inability to focus on tasks and the tendency to get easily distracted."

[Impulsivity and Innatention of course go hand in hand]

MSN: This childhood personality trait influences how much money you'll make as an adult

Catholicism noted almost 2000 years ago the seven deadly sins of greed, lust, envy, pride, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. What do all these have in common? Immediate pleasures with detrimental long-term consequences. This is in contrast to the seven heavenly virtues of prudence (holding back,) justice (fairness,) temperance (self restraint,) faith, hope, charity, and courage (fortitude.) What do they mostly have in common? The holding back of immediate pleasures (or facing tough circumstances) for long term gain.

But of course Catholicism in the 400th century didn’t have the technology we have now. While there is some free will involved, we now know that this trait of impulsivity is largely determined not by choice, but mostly by a chemical called dopamine:

Scientific American: Dopamine Determines Impulsive Behavior

More specifically the Industriousness (predisposition to work hard) aspect has a lot to do with dopamine (r) in three key areas:

View attachment 26214

Now when I talk about brain chemicals. I'm not suggesting that there’s nothing you can do about it. I say that because when people hear anything about brain chemistry, genetics, etc. they get all defensive. They think that you're saying that it's just destiny and there's nothing you can do. That's not true. There are plenty of things you can do to alter your brain chemistry and while you’re stuck with your genes, there’s plenty you can do to change the expression of those genes. So this isn’t to take the wind out of anybody’s sail it’s to look at the reality of this all and then come up with a realistic plan for fixing it.

Despite popular opinion, since motivation originates in a part of the brain that we have no conscious control over, you can’t boost your motivation for more than a very short amount of time, and then it’s depleted. This is why most Self-Help fails. For long terms gains more than a few days, you have to do it indirectly. It’s not a matter of moral superiority. It’s not a matter of willpower. It’s not a decision. It’s not in the thinking part of our brain, it’s in the reptilian part of our brain, where we have almost no control.

We’ve already established that hard work is instrumental for almost any type of success. Common sense tells you that, and more importantly, the research also tells you that. What it doesn’t tell is why some people are hard workers, and some aren’t.
View attachment 26216


"If you’ve ever felt lackadaisical to start a new project […] say University of Michigan researchers. Both are a function of dopamine, which explains the motivation to start and the satisfaction of finishing work, they say."

Neuroscience News - The Role of Dopamine in Motivation and Learning

"Yet dopamine is also a key modulator of motivation, invigorating current behavior. Existing theories propose that fast (phasic) dopamine fluctuations support learning, whereas much slower (tonic) dopamine changes are involved in motivation."

Mesolimbic dopamine signals the value of work - Nature Neuroscience

In one of my favorite studies (sorry for the cruelty,) researchers artificially induced dopamine signaling deficiency in mice by injecting a selective neurotoxin in the midbrain. What happened? The mice with dopamine signaling deficiency were so unmotivated that they starve to death even when food is literally right in front of them (r).

“After extensive destruction of ascending dopamine neurons, animals become oblivious to food and many other rewards.”

"Rats typically are aphagic and adipsic after 6-OHDA lesions, and will starve to death unless nourished artificially, even though food may be readily available”

What is the role of dopamine in reward: hedonic impact, reward learning, or incentive salience? - Journal of Brain Research Reviews

A known side effect of antipsychotic medications that block dopamine is a lack of motivation.

Ideal dopamine levels are associated with motivation, determination, grit. It’s one of the most important things you can have for success.

Grit in psychology is a positive trait based on an individual's perseverance of effort combined with the passion for a particular long-term goal or end state (a powerful motivation to achieve an objective). This perseverance of effort promotes the overcoming of obstacles or challenges that lie on the path to accomplishment and serves as a driving force in achievement realization. Distinct but commonly associated concepts within the field of psychology include "perseverance", "hardiness", "resilience", "ambition", "need for achievement" and "conscientiousness". These constructs can be conceptualized as individual differences related to the accomplishment of work rather than talent or ability.

The overall takeaway here is that dopamine tone is absolutely critical for success.

(Dopamine tone refers to the baseline amount of dopamine between neurons at all times.)

New York Times: A Molecule of Motivation, Dopamine Excels at Its Task

How to tell if you have a poor dopaminergic tone:

• Is your motivation, drive, or enthusiasm, on the low side?
• Are you low on physical or mental energy?
• Do you have to push yourself to exercise or do things you know are good for you?
• Do you eat (or drink) a lot of sugary substances?
• Do you have poor self control?
• Have you struggled with addictions of any kind (alcohol, drug, gambling, sex, porn)?
• Do you have problems taking action to do things that you know would benefit your future?
• Do you sometimes feel apathetic and lifeless?
• Do you have issues with focusing or concentration?
• Do you increase your motivated by consuming stimulants? (ie Adderall, Energy Drinks, large amounts of caffeine, or even sugar)
• Do you tend to prefer immediate rewards to larger future rewards (ie $100 now vs $200 in two weeks)

Any of these things can indicate a less than optimal dopamine tone. And these issues exist on a spectrum. You may have slight issues, you might have severe issues, or you might not have any issues at all.

Now, the necessity of motivation to success is obvious, but there’s more subtle ways that Dopamine Tone affects success. In one of my other threads, an Author took a survey of 177 self-made millionaires and compared them to people who were not multimillionaires. The differences are clear.

"Corley conducted a survey by interviewing 233 wealthy people who make $160,000 or more in annual income and hold at least $3.2 million in net liquid assets (177 of whom were self-made, coming from poverty or the middle class) and 128 poor people who make less than $35,000 per year and have less than $5,000 in assets. Over five years, Corley posed 144 questions in 20 categories to each person and saw distinct patterns emerge.”

Fastlane Forum - FEATURED! Author Spent 5 Years Interviewing 177 Selfmade Millionaires To Find Their Secrets. Findings Inside.

I picked out a select few in order to illustrate my point, but feel free to check out the whole list. When reading these keep a few key aspects in mine: Conscientiousness, Self Control (sacrificing now for a better tomorrow,) Impulsivity (sacrificing tomorrow for a better now,) planning for the future, ‘hardworkingness’:

	Rich	Poor	Self-Made
DELAYED GRATIFICATION - BETTER TO SACRIFICE NOW FOR A BETTER TOMORROW	82%	48%	100%
DISCIPLINE - CONSIDER MYSELF DISCIPLINED	86%	11%	96%
DREAM: THOSE WHO PURSUED A DREAM	61%	3%	82%
GAMBLING - PLAY THE LOTTERY REGULARLY	6%	77%
GOALS - FOCUS ON GOALS EVERY DAY	62%	6%	79%
GOALS - FOCUSED ON ACHIEVING SOME GOAL	80%	12%	95%
GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO MORE TO HELP PEOPLE FINANCIALLY	9%	79%
HABITS - BAD HABITS CREATE DETRIMENTAL LUCK	76%	9%	90%
HEALTH - COUNT CALORIES EVERY DAY	57%	5%	72%
HEALTH - DRINK MORE THAN 2 GLASSES OF BEER, WINE OR ALCOHOL A DAY	16%	54%	18%
HEALTH - DRUGS ONCE OR MORE A WEEK	8%	32%	1%
HEALTH - EAT CANDY MORE THAN TWICE A WEEK	28%	69%	16%
HEALTH - EAT LESS THAN 300 JUNK FOOD CALORIES PER DAY	70%	3%	78%
HEALTH - EXERCISE AEROBICALLY 30 MINUTES PER DAY, 4 DAYS PER WEEK	76%	23%	95%
HEALTH - FAST FOOD RESTAURANT THREE OR MORE TIMES A WEEK	25%	69%	7%
HEALTH - FLOSS EVERY DAY	62%	16%	50%
HEALTH - GOOD HEALTH IS CRITICAL TO FINANCIAL SUCCESS	85%	13%	95%
LUCK - GOOD HABITS CREATE OPPORTUNITY LUCK	84%	4%	97%
LUCK - GOOD LUCK NEVER HAPPENS TO ME	13%	54%	12%
LUCK - WEALTH COMES FROM RANDOM GOOD LUCK	8%	79%	5%
MARRIAGE: DIVORCED DUE TO INFIDELITY	4%	24%
READ - LOVE READING	86%	26%
READ 2 OR MORE EDUCATION, CAREER-RELATED OR SELF-IMPROVEMENT BOOKS PER MONTH	85%	15%
READ 30 MINUTES EACH DAY EDUCATION, CAREER OR SELF-IMPROVEMENT	88%	2%	96%
READ FOR ENTERTAINMENT	11%	79%	3%
T.V. - WATCH EDUCATIONAL TV	9%	1%
T.V. - WATCH REALITY SHOWS ON TV	6%	78%
WORK - DO MORE THAN MY JOB REQUIRES	81%	17%

The multimillionaires were motivated, limited alcohol and drugs, ate well, exercised. In other words, they had none of the symptoms of low dopamergic tone.

Also As @Kak also pointed out in the thread:

	Rich	Poor	Self Made
THINKING - BELIEVE FATE DICTATED THEIR FINANCIAL CIRCUMSTANCES IN LIFE	10%	90%
THINKING - I AM THE CAUSE OF MY FINANCIAL STATUS IN LIFE	79%	18%
THINKING - MOST RICH PEOPLE INHERIT THEIR MONEY	5%	90%
THINKING - OPTIMISM IS IMPORTANT TO SUCCESS	54%	22%
THINKING - RICH PEOPLE ARE GOOD, HONEST HARDWORKING PEOPLE	78%	5%
THINKING - WEALTH IS USUALLY ACCIDENTAL	4%	52%

Interestingly enough, we again find that an internal Locus of Control is a major predictor of success

Fast Company - How Your Locus Of Control Impacts Business Success


View attachment 26215

Source: Nurturing parenting capability: the early years [Wider Benefits of Learning Research Report No. 30]

Even from @MJ DeMarco ’s book:



People with a poor dopaminergic tone have a more external locus of control.

It has been suggested that tonic dopamine relates to trait-perceived internal locus of control. Pharmacologically augmenting tonic dopamine restores exploratory behavior in individuals with an external locus of control characterized by reduced tonic dopamine (Kayser et al., 2014).

In other words, giving people medications that raise their tonic dopamine gave them a more internal LOC.

Perceived control can be broadly defined as the belief in one’s ability to exert control over situations or events. We highlight the role of dopamine within corticostriatal pathways shared by reward-related processes and perceived control.

A Reward-Based Framework of Perceived Control - Frontiers in Neuroscience

Sense of agency refers to the feeling of control over one’s own actions. The strength of this sense varies inter-individually. This means that people differ in their perception concerning the intensity of their intentions and actions. The present results confirm prior hypotheses that dopamine seems to play a crucial role in perception of agency.

Dopamine and sense of agency: Determinants in personality and substance use - PLOS ONE

A possible role of central dopamine metabolism associated with individual differences in locus of control | Request PDF

People with a better dopaminergic tone feel more in control of their lives. People with a poor dopaminergic tone feel that they’re victims.

[...to be continued]

OK so you are doing great here when you examine the science yourself, primary sources, with your incredible eye for data, and then map out behaviors that are conducive to success. You do this mapping by creating a legend of the values recognized as good business practices or more generally good social values. Man I want to read how you connect personality theories like the Big 5 to business through neurobiology. And I wanna read about motivation and reward systems in this configuration. THAT'S NEW. You're cooking.
You surf neurosci on personality structure. THAT'S NEW AND BALLSY. Stay there and dig deep. Stay with the primary research. If not, you will face plant.
This is where it happens:
First, how to turn neuroscience into reasons for behavior and choices:
1. There is no 'should' in human science. There is behavior, that's all. You translate primary research into helpful insights by imposing intelligent values on it. Like extraversion is conducive to business success because .... Or dopamine insufficiency is a predictor of struggle and failure because... Read and take leaps of faith because chance favors the prepared mind (Louis Pasteur). Stay with the primary research because you have the capacity for it and it awaits your synthesis.
2. Once you have the neuroscience research, use your values to create a good framework for optimal behavior that is based on your own evaluation.
3. Propose behaviors and choices.
4. Have nothing to do with US World Report and WaPo and fluffy light science journalism. Keep away from it.
Why:
You will faceplant right into neurotrash. The popular fluff can't add anything to your research or add anything to primary research either. It's pure junk food, unicorn poop.
Example:
Dopamine and 'tone.'
No. No. No.
There are six distinct dopa pathways. You're dealing with two.
There is no steady state for neurotransmitters.
There is no steady state for neurotransmitters and no distinct optimal state that has a 1:1 relationship with behavior.
So there is no such thing as neurochemical 'tone.'
The metaphor, or analogy, is scientifically illiterate. This is what comes of reading neurotrash.
Smart drugs operate mostly in the dark. Pharma does not need to reveal mechanisms, but only chase down drug effects.
The myth of balanced chemistry is invented by Pharma and its folk science as a marketing tool.

I hope this critique is encouraging.
I hope you can stay focused on the NEW neurobiology narrative you have glimpsed. That"s cool.
Don't use neurotrash to work out the science. This can't be over-stated. If you read something interesting in Men's Health it is very likely misusing the primary or actual research. So look at the biblio, find the actual study that was cited, and read it for yourself, for your book. Never trust secondary sources. You know this most likely, but it should be common information.
What's next?

 

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[ChrisV]

@Bertram

Thanks for that man.. Definitely appreciate that...

I totally 1000% agree with you regarding pop science. If I post the popular articles (Scientific American, New York Times, etc) it's because I feel like they're more digestible for people who want to look into it here. The complexity of this topic is already above what's usually on business forums and I usually try to stay away from that, but for this I think the topic is so essential that I have to.

But I agree. Half the time people should barely trust the primary research (flaws, biases, errors) but to have that filtered through another set of biases from popular media reporting, yea just no. They get so much shit wrong. Although certain outlets are pretty good (SciAm, NYT.) You know? I don't know that anyone on this forum is going to care to read papers in Nature Human Behavior. If anybody does let me know. But I think there's a sweet spot in knowing your audience, and not having people get bogged down with too much technicality.

So like Dopamine 'tone.' Yea it doesn't make sense fully. Dopamine where exactly? DA in the PFC has a totally different effect than DA to the NAc. But I think that's too much detail to go into here and it's not essential for a business forum. I already threw enough crap around to start going into Mesolimbic pathway, or MAOA, or COMT, etc. So yes, it's an oversimplification. But I think a useful one. This is already 4 posts long. And I think tone is a useful metaphor.

And Dopamine Tone is a term that's used in the literature as well:

Role of dopamine tone in the pursuit of brain stimulation reward - PubMed

Dopaminergic neurons contribute to intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) and other reward-seeking behaviors, but it is not yet known where dopaminergic neurons intervene in the neural circuitry underlying reward pursuit or which psychological processes are involved. In rats working for electrical...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Dopamine Tone

Tonic Dopamine

It just refers to the baseline transmission. Of course there's no steady state, but you can make generalizations like "this persons transmission, on average, is lower than normal." It's like you were looking at a map of traffic in a specific city. It's so complicated and certain streets are full, some are empty. But sometimes you have to generalize like "traffic is heavy tonight" or "the traffic is usually bad in LA" where you have to sacrifice specificity for usefully communicating a message. That's where broader abstractions are useful.

No-one except you and a few people are even going to understand this reply lol, so that's why I try to shy away.

Thanks for your thoughts

 

[Bekit]

So I'm basically exactly like Gary Fritz in this post. This has been the case for me ever since I was a kid. My dad is the same way. His dad is the same way. Several of my siblings share these traits with me, at varying levels of severity.

Funny thing, I excelled in school, not because I wasn't distracted all the time (which I was), but because I was academically bright and grasped concepts quickly enough to pass with high grades without much study.

However, in the workforce, I did very poorly. My average yearly income was about $10,000 a year for the first 10 years after graduating from college. People who knew me would shake their heads and say, "What gives? You're capable of so much more than this! It doesn't make any sense that you're working a part-time, minimum-wage job."

I was at my sister's wedding in 2011 and got into conversation a guy I only knew slightly. I asked him some advice about a Master's Degree I was considering at the time. Very quickly, he started guessing things about me that were startlingly accurate.

"I bet it's hard for you to keep your apartment clean, too."

"Yes!"

"And I bet it's really difficult to motivate yourself to do mundane things."

"Yes!"

"But when you're really engaged in something, you get carried away and you don't have any trouble focusing on it."

"Exactly!"

"But pretty soon, after the thrill of starting wears off, you have trouble continuing."

"Yes! But HOW do you KNOW?"

He laughed. The father of the groom, who was also participating in the conversation, also laughed and gave him a poke in the ribs. "Tell her," he said.

The man looked all bashful and self-deprecating, so the father of the groom filled me in. "Dr. _ spent his entire career dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of ADD and ADHD."

From there, this retired doctor spent some time discussing the brain's executive function and giving me some rudimentary tools that I could use to self-treat if I didn't want to go the route of using medicine. He suggested that I experiment with caffeine and exercise. Right before I needed to do something I knew I would struggle with, either drink some coffee or exercise to the point where I was breathless and sweating.

So I started experimenting with these things, and wow! They worked.

Just a little bit of caffeine, 20 minutes before I had to do something rote, mundane, and boring, and I could suddenly "decide" to do it. It was effortless. I could suddenly just set my mind to a task and carry it out. Wow! What is this? It's like an upgraded version of me! It's like a version of me that's more like other people.

Without the caffeine, it was like dragging myself, kicking and screaming, to the place of execution. No amount of punishments, rewards, threats, or pep talks could achieve anything. My journals going back to my teenage years are full of lamentations to the effect of "But WHY won't I just ACT? I know WHAT to do. I know HOW to do it. But how in the world do I get myself to actually DO it?" This single factor has been the biggest deterrent in me reaching my goals.

My caffeine intake began slowly. It started as a thing every once in a while that I would use to give me that "edge" that would enable me to choose to engage in a task that I didn't want to do.

But when I gained full-time employment, the coffee became an everyday thing, just to produce anything. I didn't really want to get addicted to caffeine. But I figured, "I'd rather keep my job than stay unaddicted to coffee."

So caffeine became a crutch. I needed more and more of it to function. Eventually, it just stopped working.

As I have researched this for myself and experimented on what works and what doesn't, it does seem that it all comes back to dopamine (and possibly other neurotransmitters & chemicals) and their activity.

This not, for me, a disempowering thing. It's not a matter of, "I want to just pass the buck and shirk personal responsibility and chalk it all up to chemicals." Looking into the dopamine connection, I find that there is an extremely productive source of possible connections to pursue to make real progress. And the more we find out about the actual genetics and mechanics of the way these things work in our systems, the more exciting it is to think that we will be able to specifically target our own personal deficiencies with precision tools rather than the old rudimentary ones (stimulants and exercise).

@Leo Hendrix is right on when he mentions "Basically - a tech product that sort of keeps your dopamine levels at a healthy level and rewards structured habits and tasks which lead to certain results, sort of a process gamification reward system." I have used a self-invented system that does exactly this, based on the hypothesis that if I hack my dopamine to associate 'artificial" rewards with the exact work behaviors that I struggle with, eventually I will create a new pathway where the difficult behavior feels rewarding. This model has been one of the most amazing, results-enforcing things I have ever tried. It's the opposite of disempowering. It's super effective and transmits a tremendous amount of hope. It's like getting glasses for poor eyesight for the first time.

Lately, I've gone through a period of extreme burnout thanks to a very stressful job. Towards the end of my employment with them, it was like I mentally disengaged from everything.

Now, I'm in a different job, and circumstances are better. Objectively, by any measurement, this is the best job I've ever had, and it's better than any other comparable job I could hope to land. (Of course, one day my side hustle will take off and I won't need a job at all, but for now, this is how I earn a living.)

But since June, my brain has been like, "Nope, you can't call on me today. I'm not home."

"Excuse me, brain, but YOU are my main work tool. I need you to show up."

"Sorry. Can't make me."

So whereas before, I was able to manage myself (in a haphazard, chaotic way) to hold down a job and lead a self-sufficient life, the burnout took this to a whole new level.

For three months, I dragged myself to work kicking and screaming. I was lucky if I could force myself to put in two hours of work in an 8-hour shift. Some days, I would sit down to work from 8:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night and get 30 minutes of work done all day.

That really scared me. I knew I wouldn't keep the job long if I couldn't get this sorted out. I was shocked they didn't fire me.

I also knew that my behavior didn't make any sense. It went completely against my best interest. I was absolutely disgusted with myself for being such a dysfunctional human being.

But my mindset in the whole thing was not, "Let me just find a pill I can take to fix this." My mindset was, "This is confusing, there's something weird going on here, but I have choices, I'm looking for solutions, and I am confident that I will find them - and the sooner the better, so that I don't pull down unpleasant consequences onto my head."

And the dopamine connection was the one that made the biggest impact on my ability to function.

This was separate from and unrelated to @ChrisV posting this thread. But Chris's research and articles helped to put language and substance to what I was already exploring for myself in a rudimentary way.

@Bertram, what you're saying doesn't make any sense to me. I don't think you have any clue of what it's actually like to live with this issue. It's almost like you're a person who doesn't acknowledge that blindness exists, and you're saying that "if all those 'blind' people would just open their eyes, they'd be able to see." It's like you're projecting a neurotypical, normal human range of distraction and loss of focus onto the situation and saying, "All you people who are chalking up your issues to ADD and ADHD, it's just a cop-out. If you would only change your mindset and observe what is happening, you'd be fine."

@ChrisV keep up the good work - I think what you're doing is helpful and beneficial.

 

[ChrisV]

Completely related:

 

[Bertram]

Thanks I think I skimmed over that post. And forgot the most important part ( getting a genetic test done and speaking to pros and specialists.)

What I was getting at was more a product that can assist with maintaining healthy dopamine levels which would be non-medicinal, nor anything to do with human biological systems.

Basically - a tech product that sort of keeps your dopamine levels at a healthy level and rewards structured habits and tasks which lead to certain results, sort of a process gamification reward system. But anyway that's nothing new really, but in combination with specific knowledge, research and testing ( as demonstrated in the post) you could come up with a new system.

This is the most disempowering solution in the whole thread. I was worried this would happen @ChrisV, to ignore the effective approaches in favor of woo, product developing a pill to ingest or app or a guru solution, promoting the attitude of just going out and BUYING something, like a DNA test which is nowhere shown to make the real change, @ChrisV.
Yaysus.

The brain in your skull is not driven by neurochemistry. Rather, thoughts drive your effin neurochemistry.

Guess what, fellow human mammals, we can and do change our temperament (resilience, susceptibility to maladaptive behaviors) just by UNDERSTANDING.

The wrong understanding causes rebound behavior and sharpens cravings.

The wrong understanding designs the addictive mindset.

The brain is designed to respond to new knowledge. Thoughts reconfigure temperament.

Read "Indistractible". Learn about the kind of thinking that primes addictive and self-sabotaging behavior.

@Fox 75 Hard, is impossible to complete as long as you have the wrong concept about will power, or can which be fantastically life-changing if you understand what you're doing another way.

Drop the no-brainer pill-popping mindset and dreaming of a crutch, a temporary fix.

The perpetual addictive mindset wants to believe that chemicals are the (temporary) answer and that personal agency can simply disappear because ... chemistry happens.

All due respect, it's a self-imposed delusion. We who have struggled with addiction know of this. We can default to delusional powerless behavior. Depending on your mind, on what you think.

Human mammals do rely on consciousness. Rats don't. You have more going on, more power to change, than lab rats genetically altered to extremes for neurobiological experimentation.

You are free, rat is not, to change your neurochemistry,

Nothing works better to permanently change behavior than what you understand and feel about what you are doing in a particular moment.

Everyone please get out of this clown car.

 

[ChrisV]

Great post @ChrisV!

I really need to stick to my lifestyle changes, including meditating, exercising, and sleeping better.

What do you think is the mechanism behind the effect of sunlight?

Is it Vitamin D related?

Yep. Vitamin D is related. It mat help with Dopamine release.

It also may protect Dopamine Neurons.

Vitamin D protects dopaminergic neurons against neuroinflammation and oxidative stress in hemiparkinsonian rats

The deficiency in 1α, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (VD3) seems to increase the risk for neurodegenerative pathologies, including Parkinson’s disease (PD). The majority of its actions are mediated by the transcription factor, VD3 receptor (VD3R).The ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Vitamin D3: A Role in Dopamine Circuit Regulation, Diet-Induced Obesity, and Drug Consumption

The influence of micronutrients on dopamine systems is not well defined. Using mice, we show a potential role for reduced dietary vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) in promoting diet-induced obesity (DIO), food intake, and drug consumption while on a high fat ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

In addition to vitamin D metabolites, vitamin D receptor (VDR) proteins are also found in the brain. The highest density of VDR is in substantia nigra, one of the primary areas of dopamine production.

Aside from the Vitamin D, bright light also improves our mood. Some people get a seasonal (winter) depression called Seasonal Affective Disorder. Bright Light Therapy is very helpful for that.

Dopamine and light: dissecting effects on mood and motivational states in women with subsyndromal seasonal affective disorder

Despite evidence that bright light can improve mood, the neurobiology remains poorly understood. Some evidence implicates the catecholamines. In the present study, we measured the effects of transiently decreasing dopamine (DA) synthesis on mood and motivational ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I really need to stick to my lifestyle changes, including meditating, exercising, and sleeping better.

Here's what I've noticed. You need a certain baseline amount of dopamine transmission just to have the self-control and motivation to stick with your plans. So I recommend trying the easiest DA fixes that require almost no self-control first, which is why I recommend the genetic testing (you can get everything done for under 200 bucks.)

Again, I've since found better solutions than Adderall to combat this so I'm not really recommending adderall except as an absolute last resort, but I want to tell the story to make a point. When I was on Adderall (had higher DA transmission) it was so easy to hit the gym. It was basically natural. It actually felt uncomfortable when I didn't go. But when I was off the adderall I would literally have to push myself, and often missed days. Again, that's not to suggest Adderall as a solution but I say that to show: when your DA transmission is high, it's way easier to stick with your goals like exercise, which then further improves your DA transmission. Then use your "self-control profits" to invest in the other activities that further boost DA transmission.

If you do it right it creates an Upward Spiral.

 

[ChrisV]

One of the people who sent me questions, I want to answer here because I think it will be of benefit to other people:

Just read it, really good...

Is there a specific genetic test I should go for?

I can't seem to focus on the day to day, and need extreme circumstances to fire me into action.

I took Modafinil for almost a year straight and it worked amazingly for about a quarter of that, pretty well for another quarter. By the third quarter I just felt normal on it, and by the last it seemed to have almost no effect at all.

I stopped taking it in December, but I do miss it and am thinking of restocking. I mean don't get me wrong, I do shit, but am always feeling like I could be doing more.

Okay before I explain Modafinil, I just have to reiterate with everything in this post, nothing is medical advice. This is all stuff to speak with your doctor or specialist about. Do your homework, check citations, etc. I just want people to be educated consumers so they're not at the whim of Big Pharma. That being said... there are typically a handful of common things that go wrong with DA transmission, which have different corresponding genes.




1 - MTHFR rs1801133 and rs1801131, and to a lesser extent rs4846049 - Problems with the MTHFR gene, cause problems with Dopamine (and Serotonin) production. DA and 5-HT (Sero) need Folic Acid in order to be synthesized. If you don't have enough Folate, you generally don't have enough Dopamine. MTHFR inhibits Folate metabolism. If you don't have enough, it can't be released. Also note that a deficiency in dietary tyrosine can also contribute to this problem. (see this thread for more info)
2 - Various - many of the other genes and environmental circumstances 'conspire' together so there's just a general lack of DA in the vesicles (vesicles are kinda like Amazon Prime boxes delivering packages to the synapse... just sometimes the box is empty or underpacked)
3 - DAT (SLC6A3) - Some people have a genetic variant that makes the DAT pump run faster than normal, which sucks Dopamine back into the presynaptic neuron, leaving less for the next neuron.
4 - MAOB - rs1799836 - this enzyme breaks down Dopamine and Serotonin. Some genetic variants cause it to work overtime and break down Dopamine and Serotonin much faster.
5 - COMT - rs4680 - this enzyme breaks down Dopamine, and is more active in the Prefrontal Cortex (thinking planning part). Some genetic variants cause it to work overtime and break down Dopamine much faster.
6 - DRD2 - rs2283265, rs1076560 - certain variants of these genes cause underexpression of Dopamine Neurons, so whatever Dopamine is there has less receptors to 'bump into'

Misc:
HTR2A - rs6311
HTR2C - rs6318
POMC - rs1042571

Think of it like Netflix DVD Deliveries. Many things can go wrong. Okay let's say there's this DVD on Netflix, that's not available for streaming. There are a number if things that can go wrong causing that customer to have a bad experience.

First, what I'd there aren't enough raw materials to make the discs in the first place (MTHFR, Tyrosine intake). Second what if there's a problem on the website where people can't put their order in (Various genes and environmental circumstances). Third what if Netflix was forcing certain people to send their DVDs back too quickly before they got a chance to watch them as many times as they wanted to (DAT.) Fourth and Fifth, there's a system for checking if discs are damaged, but there's a problem with the system and it throws out too many discs (MAOB / COMT.) Sixth, that if many of the customers aren't home to sign for the delivery (DRD2.) Then there's some other stuff like Opiate receptors I won't get into right now.

We have to solve the specific problem or everything is going to go to shit.

So which genes you have can guide you to which interventions will work best. That said, using an intervention for a different genotype will work. But it will be temporary or with side effects. That's what you saw with Modafinil. Modafinil was overloading the wrong system. Or it was multiple genotypes that Modafinil ignored.

When I took Modafinil years ago I had a similar experience. Worked well for a few months, then the effects slowly died off.

We're not really 100% sure how Modafinil works, but for now it appears to be a mild Dopamine Reuptake Inhibitor but also acts on other systems (histamine, orexin.. both having to do with wakefulness.)

So back to the right tool for the job, if (for example) you actually have the MTHFR and MAOB genotype, then you plug up the DAT with Modafinil you're overloading one system to compensate for another. It will work temporarily, but something bad is likely going to happen. Your body is always trying to maintain homeostasis (balance) and when it sees one system overloaded it will take action to ramp up other systems to compensate for that. It's how drug tolerance works. So you probably saw a gradual decline in the effectiveness of Modafinil because it was the wrong solution for your genotype.

Re: which genetic test? I like 23andme and it's only 99 bucks.

 

[ChrisV]

Yup. That is me in a nutshell. And this is not a conscious decision to be a slacker or a failure, any more than it's a conscious decision to be hungry when I haven't eaten. It's just a mechanical/biochemical response. I have equally little control over both processes.

Yea it's becasue humans have almost no conscious control over anything going on in the reptilian brain or limbic system. No doctor would ever tell you to just to control it either. It would be like telling a diabetic that he needs to consciously control his insulin.

I've had a few projects that absolutely captivated me -- like when I launched a commodity fund about 20 yrs ago -- and then work was fun! I couldn't bear to put it down! I had no trouble focusing on the job at hand and grinding away until 2am. But for me, that kind of work fascination is ultra-rare, and more so as I age.

I'm naturally the same way, until I did the right things to handle my DA system. Certain projects excite the f--- out of me. Data Science is one. Love it. But when it came to boring stuff that I knew I needed to do, couldn't do it. Again, until I handled this. I would literally do Data Science projects then forget to bill my clients. Why? Crunching the Data was fun. Administrative stuff like billing? Horrible.

That's the problem though. Then you're limited by the types of projects that are exciting... and life involves boring things. It's not a sustainable model.

 

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[Raveling]

Interesting stuff Chris it is mostly common sense and personal responsibility that these are the traits successful people have, but both of them are too much like work for most people to want to stick to. They crave the easy and miraculous silver bullet, which doesn't exist, and so stay on the SlowLane.

Now that you've told us the good and bad news, please share the gene expression and behavioral and cognitive things we can do to improve what so far, seems like a hopeless affliction if we're not on the lucky side of this equation.

"I will climb this mountain or die upon it." ( Paraphrased fro Jim Rohn or Brian Tracy, I forget which ;-)

I gotta' comment on the Adderall thing. I admit I haven't read this section or watched the video...because:

a) I know WTF I'm talking about, yet aware I have everything left to learn.
b) I have finite time and choose to manage and put said time toward my FastLane.

In short Adderall DOESN'T work if you're talking about helping normal people focus, be more motivated and get things done. Take Yours Pills

What it DOES DO is increase peoples PERCEPTION and CONFIDENCE that they are more motivated, sharper and more brilliant, kinda like how hypnosis causes people to BELIEVE recall efficacy is increased by hypnosis, but it's not. It increases your belief in the accuracy and efficacy of your REAL AND IMAGINED memories.

If you mean for ADHD, it MAY work, but the cure is for most people worse than the "disease" or "disorder" of ADHD.

I say this as someone with ADHD who's NEVER USED MEDS FOR IT.

If it helps you, use it, but when the most stoned person I met at Burning Man 2005 told me the only drugs he'd taken was his ADHD meds ( he'd just arrived shortly before I met him ), I saw with my own eyes just how F*cked-up and destructive ADHD meds are for people's mental functioning. Sure, he was calm... and wasted out of his mind, yet unable to sleep most nights.

I BEG ANYONE who's been told they or their child should take ADHD meds to do excessive research and deep soul searching before messing up a perfectly good brain that probably just needs to learn self-management strategies.

Everyone should be aware that THERE IS NO objective physiological diagnostic test for ADHD so any "diagnosis" is really you doctor saying "My best guess based on a list of symptoms for ADHD which I as a doctor I know VERY little about ( unless they're an ADHD specialist ) is that it SEEMS the patient MAY HAVE ADHD and we have drugs that'll make them so blitzed as to seem to be paying attention and they will stay calm".

Sorry to get off topic Chris ( I'm ADHD;-), but it's also relevant and important.

Back on topic, ok Chris give us the good news if you found any because most appearances in this post so far make motivation seem largely outside our control:-?

timbgreen

 

[ChrisV]

I'm such a dumbass. I forgot to link to a Personality test.

You can take this personality test for free

This page has moved

Here's how they break down:



Also something instersting I found. Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street) on Impulsivity and Delaying Gratification and how it relates to success (and failure - 8:58 in video)

View: https://youtu.be/iKMpLFCbLz4?t=538

@ChrisV Thanks for the knowledge.

Would you recommend reading The Craving Cure instead of The Mood Cure because it’s newer?

I’m actually just realizing that you mentioned the book in the diet thread, not the dopamine thread. My bad.

Ha.. it's cool. I started reading The Craving Cure and I wasn't that impressed, but it's gotten good reviews on Amazon. But Mood Cure is a bonafide classic, and even I have some issues with that book, it's still great for the most part.

Re: Adderall - I said a few times in this thread i do not recommend Adderall, whether or not you have ADHD. It's a Dopamine releasing agent, which means it can (and will) deplete the tank. Usually what happens with Adderall is people have to keep upping the dose for it to keep working until they're at like 90 mgs and run into toxicity issues. Adderall is Amphetamine. It's not a good long term solution, or even a good short term one. The only reason I even mentioned it was to illustrate the effects of dopamine on motivation, focus and performance. By getting your DA levels in check in healthier ways, you can have the effects of Adderall without the major side effects of Adderall.

 

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[garyfritz]

Start by doing everything YOU can which is a lot. To be clear, anything that help you live a better life is worth pursuing, it's just that most of those things take work and come from you and the evidence of that is exhaustive.

Whatever you do eliminate all your own excuses and take it as far as you can before succumbing to surrendering your own responsibility for any "weaknesses" to causes outside your control.

Do you think I haven't been TRYING to do that for over 50 years?? Some people (maybe including you) don't have this problem. That doesn't mean ALL people can "fix" the problem with a simple application of will. People are different. You may be very disciplined/motivated but I've had very little success with "deciding to" be that way myself.

(My brother, a typical type-A hyper-productive type, just doesn't understand this. It's easy for him, so obviously it's just easy, so if you don't do it, obviously you're lazy or not trying. He typically asks me questions like "Well why don't you just ..." One time I shot back "Well why don't you just read a damn book?" (He's fairly badly dyslexic.) That shut him up fast. It started to dawn on him that maybe other people have different challenges than he does.)

Yes, I *CAN* work hard at it and change my behaviors, and I do it frequently. I can hold my breath, too. But it's unsustainable and I can't keep it up. Sooner or later I have to breathe. Sooner or later I fall off the wagon and revert back to my "normal" behaviors, and I have never found a way to prevent that.

And I have a pretty solid internal locus of control. I don't blame anybody else for stuff unless it's clearly out of my control, like the weather or something like that. I would not have survived 30 years as a self-employed contractor/consultant if I didn't have a fairly good lock on that. My failings are my own. My focus and my productivity suck, but my **discipline** is pretty good. It's very common for me to plant my a$$ in my office chair 16 hours a day to get a job done. During the day I'm rabbit-holing and shiny-objecting (?) all over the place, so my time efficiency sucks rocks -- I might charge for only 4 hours of productive work. But my discipline keeps me in the chair until the job is done. The really maddening thing is that I can WATCH myself doing this, and think "you idiot, there you go again." I might pull myself out of it for the moment, but I seem nearly powerless to prevent it from happening again and again and again. I can't hold my breath forever.

Yea it does matter. The regular 1 mg L-Methylfolate the they sell does nothing for me (and many people.) But the 5mg one with cofactors? Holy shit. Motivation for days.

I titrated up to 20mg/day, if I remember right, using a very high-quality recommended supplement, tons of B12, lots of Mg, etc. Zero effect.

But that's when I was still trying to isolate the source of all/most of the problems I was having. Since then I've removed my mercury fillings and I'm chemically extracting deep body stores of mercury, and most of my problems have vanished. (Except focus/productivity/etc, which are very common mercury behaviors.) Maybe it would be worth giving folate another try.

The inability to produce dopamine comes together to create a form of metabolic syndrome, that leads to lethargy, reduced activity and even overeating.

I've always had a big appetite and I'm fairly lethargic & don't exercise much, but fortunately weight is not a problem. I'm actually UNDERweight in spite of eating whatever the **** I want. And in spite of having almost every symptom of low thyroid EXCEPT weight gain.

 

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[Dan_Fastlane]

that's a big Thread here Chris

But in my opinion, Dopamine alone is not the problem when having ADHD, its more a GABA problem.

GABA relaxes your body and inner chatter and gives you more inner peace. Dopamine is not calm down neurotransmitter. I would even say its the opposite. The Problem with Dopamine is that people abuse too much Dopamine pushers, like caffeine, sugar and so on. It's like being addicted to coke or any other drug.

For more focus i would increase these areas in my life:

1. Sleep, check out Shawn Stevenson. People so stressed these days, they don't even realize having bad sleep and bad sleep habits.
2. Supplements: Omega 3 500mg, VitamindD3 with k2, Magnesium 400 to 600mg a day and L-Theanine is my top weapon, it increases the GABA production. Some people say in combination with coffee its really super focus. I don't drink any caffeinated things, so i can't say, you should try.
3. Check for Food allergies, it can cost your energy and focus all-day. It was so funny, after some food i was so restless, unbelievable. Blood sugar goes here hand in hand!
4. Breathing to control your nervous system, everyone with low focus and can't sit still breathes way too fast. i recommend the ocean breath 10mins a day. Begin with 2min. (check on youtube)

What i covered here is: Regeneration and Control of your nervous system. If I go in detail here it would fill 5 sites. But you can be sure it affects your Mental health massively.

100 years ago people used more their body then their brain. Today people use way to much their brain(inner chatter, worries and so on) and not enough their body. Let that sink in and start moving more. We are not built to sit all day.

If you do my recommendations for just 2 weeks you will be happy you read my post hahaha

 

[Bertram]

Keep going Brainy One.

 

[Tapp001]

This is great stuff, please keep going! And if your magic brain chemicals could effect my Conscientiousness I would indeed consider giving you money dollars.

 

[drpeppehr]

Nice work man. Did you happen to take any adderall for writing this all out? Jokes aside, tons of good information.

 

[ChrisV]

Just saw your PM... that's awesome.. I'd be interested in checking out whatever published work you have and I appreciate the compliments. The thing with PubMed is that basically any journal can publish to it.

But damn, you really don't like that 'tone' term huh lol. But when I hear tone I don’t think muscle tone, I think like a... music tone. Like an overall background noise. Or how it's used in linguistics. Now that I see you're thinking of it as like muscle tone I can see why you'd hate it, because that implies there's some ideal level for 'strength' and that you should go work it out. lmfao… yea, no. I think tone in the sense of music is okay, but tone in the sense of muscles is cringeworthy. So yea, knowing that makes your critique makes sense.

A lot of psychiatrists I know use the term so I don’t know if it’s fully fair to damn it to the eternal flames of neuromania poop land. But I'd be interested if you have alternative ways of conveying what I'm trying to convey, but we'll talk about this via message since I don't want to get too in depth here. This on the other hand:

Man I want to read how you connect personality theories like the Big 5 to business.

So they found a really good predictor of Entrepreneurial success (as opposed to general success) is Openness. Why? Creativity is huge for business. You have to go out on a limb and try something that noone has ever tried and create something new. People who like Vanilla Ice Cream and want to live in a house with a white picket fence with 2.3 kids don't make great innovators. You have to be open to new experiences and experience different things so you can later connect the dots and combine them in new ways.

Steve Jobs on creativity: "If you're gonna make connections which are innovative ... you have to not have the same bag of experiences as everyone else does, or else you're going to make the same connections as everybody else, and then you won't be innovative, and then nobody will give you an award." (Full talk is great too)

And recent research corroborates what Jobs said in 1982:

Openness to Experience and Creative Achievement

Openness to experience– the drive for cognitive exploration of inner and outer experience– is the personality trait most consistently associated with creativity.

blogs.scientificamerican.com

If you'd rather read the primary source, here:

Opening up Openness to Experience: A Four-Factor Model and Relations to Creative Achievement in the Arts and Sciences | Request PDF

Request PDF | Opening up Openness to Experience: A Four-Factor Model and Relations to Creative Achievement in the Arts and Sciences | Openness to experience is the broadest personality domain of the Big Five, including a mix of traits relating to intellectual curiosity,... | Find, read and cite...

www.researchgate.net

Openness is important because open people always seeking out new experiences so they can create things in new ways. They take a cool idea from here, and a cool idea from there and combine it in a way the world has never seen.

Entrepreneurs actually have a similar personality profile to Artists and Musicians. Because they are artists. Except their canvases are more like Technology and Products rather than paper and sheet music. They're essentially Product Artists. And artists combine things in new ways.

You'll be a free bird along the ocean synthesizing endless sparkling data.

This literally just made me spit out my drink. Literally.

 

[ChrisV]

Yea, I still need some kind of term that encompasses everything, even if it's not that.

Some people just say 'low dopamine' but that's misleading. You can have high dopamine, but downregulated receptors, so you'd have the same symptoms of low DA, without low DA. Or a COMT or MAOA gene working overtime, so your dopamine would be high, but the signaling would be low. So it needs some metaphor that encompasses all of that.

 

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[Raveling]

Oh lord this is so me. I hardly know where to start.

I've long suspected dopamine issues -- in addition to the motivation/etc behaviors you mentioned, I had RLS (restless legs, often associated with low dopa levels) for most of my life until I got my mercury fillings removed 2 years ago. I tend to be phlegmatic, low-energy, low-competitiveness. I have trouble staying focused on tasks, even tasks that are critical for my success. I show 7 of the 11 behaviors on your "How to tell if you have a poor overall dopaminergic tone" list. I'm not formally diagnosed but I'm almost certainly Inattentive ADHD. Same with my son, and most likely my mom and her dad too. I'm +/+ MTHFR (A1298C and 4 other variants) and MAOA, +/- COMT. L-methylfolate didn't help at all.

The list goes on, but you get the idea. This is why I gave up on the idea of any serious entrepreneurial pursuits -- these personality traits are just not compatible with it. I think I did pretty well to be self-employed (mostly computer consulting) for 30 years.

Your "what to do about it" list is helpful, but you realize some of the major ones (e.g. exercise) are damn difficult for someone with these challenges. I'd like to hear any other suggestions.

I have a lot of gifts and strengths. But this one issue has handicapped me for my entire life. And my son has it much worse than I do. I would really REALLY love to get a handle on it.

Start by doing everything YOU can which is a lot. To be clear, anything that help you live a better life is worth pursuing, it's just that most of those things take work and come from you and the evidence of that is exhaustive.

Whatever you do eliminate all your own excuses and take it as far as you can before succumbing to surrendering your own responsibility for any "weaknesses" to causes outside your control.

Also be wary of ANY list of symptoms that ( from time to time) apply to EVERYONE.

As humans (at least those who survived to modern-day) almost without exception inherited a negativity, a confirmation and for lack of a better word a "laziness" ( energy conservation ) bias.

Simply put, virtually everyone focuses on the negative (to ensure survival), think is that a lion colored rock, or a lion, better to assume the worst and avoid being eaten , avoid expending energy that doesn't contribute to immediate short term survival ( "laziness " ). Think if I do cardio and lift weights regularly, I'm likely to die of starvation before we kill our next bison, so better not to work out. This was true for most of human history and is the number one reason for skyrocketing obesity in ALL wealthy nations. I live in Japan and have SEEN it manifest before my eyes over the past 14 years in Asia. We're also are biased to "confirm" whatever the F*ck we are paying attention to no matter how irrelevant to our life or wellbeing.

Combined together, most modern humans have a natural propensity to laziness, negatively and confirming the validity of whatever they are thinking about, like making excuses about why we're fat, why we smoke, don't exercise, and why none of it is our fault.

News flash MOST OF IT IS OUR FAULT!!! And our choice.

To that point notice the excessively high correlation between success and internal locus of control Chris referred to. People who are the most successful tend to make EVERYTHING their fault and responsibility whether it's true or not. Check out Jock Willink on Extreme Accountability or just refer to MJ and either of his books. Paraphrased "it's my fault of I hired a contractor who ripped me off"

An excellent book on overcoming inertia, and understanding it's the RULE and NOT THE EXCEPTION read Nudge or Switch by Chip and Dan Heath, better yet read both. Or read Charles Duhiggs The power of Habit or Smarter Faster Better

A super easy hack is to get a physical calendar ( I used a dry erase monthly that cost less than $5 ) and put an X or O on every day you exercise, meditated, eat healthily... and put is in your face, on your ceiling, bedroom door, the door you exit your house EVERY DAY.

Unless you've actually tracked your suspected behavior objectively all you can honestly say is " I SEEM lazy, I SEEM to have a dopamine issue..."

Hold yourself accountable BEFORE selling out you accountability to the medical or BIG PHARMA industries.

IFF after TRULY doing ALL YOU CAN, by all means, look for outside causes.

Remember successfully people aren't much different than anyone else except that they ( like MJ did ) did what he hated, or at least what was necessary IN SPITE OF a lack of motivation.

Anyone telling me I'm just naturally driven, have a gifted dopamine response or anything like that is laughable.

It's taken me well over a decade of HARD WORK to develop what I and most other people would probably rate as average drive and discipline. In fact, that's EXACTLY how I was rated on an extensive personality inventory for a job interview.

If it weren't for my obsession and LOVE of inventing, I would have given up trying to make inventing my career long before the approximately 13 years it's been, with not a dime or license to show for it YET.
My first income for inventions will start coming in the next few months to year.

"I think I did pretty well to be self-employed (mostly computer consulting) for 30 years."

Strongly suggest you have no such issue.

Look I don't know you, we've never met, but MOST people NEVER succeed or even attempt self-employment because they lack the self-discipline.

I'm not NEARLY as disciplined as I know I should be and many days I have to push myself to get started, even when I LOVE what I do.

Imagine this. Aliens appear an abduct you, taking you to their spaceship. They tell you they'd eat you children, dog and wife, AND remove your genitals to make hors d'oeuvres if you didn't:

1) meditate daily
2) exercise at least 3X a week
3) eat healthier
...

I'm betting that all or most of your dopamine issues would disappear overnight, if not, you'd obviously want to head to the doctor and do all the other stuff outside your control lest you lose all that is precious to the alien's digestive tracks

 

[ChrisV]

The brand and dosage of l-methylfolate matter. 800 mcg barely did anything for me. The success rate is impressive when I am on between 1.6 to 3.2 mg. Co-factors also make a difference. I supplement with B12, potassium, magnesium, etc.

Your MTHFR could be B2 deficiency, too.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp6u82coOYE

Yea it does matter. The regular 1 mg L-Methylfolate the they sell does nothing for me (and many people.) But the 5mg one with cofactors? Holy shit. Motivation for days.

The problematic MTHFR gene makes it so that people can't metabolize Folic Acid correctly, and therefore can't produce dopamine



The inability to produce dopamine comes together to create a form of metabolic syndrome, that leads to lethargy, reduced activity and even overeating.

Obesity, dopamine and the metabolic syndrome: potential of dopaminergic agents in the control of metabolism

Dopamine is involved in the control of food intake, energy expenditure, glucose and lipid metabolism, blood pressure and insulin release. Dopaminergic (D2 receptor) neurotransmission is diminished in the brains of obese animal models and humans. D2 receptor activation facilitates glucose metabolism, lowers blood pressure and stimulates resting energy expenditure in non-diabetic obese individuals.

Activation of dopamine D2 receptors simultaneously ameliorates various metabolic features of obese women

The metabolic syndrome comprises a cluster of metabolic anomalies including insulin resistance, abdominal obesity, dyslipidemia, and hypertension. Previous studies suggest that impaired dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) signaling is involved in its pathogenesis. We studied the acute effects of bromocriptine (a D2R agonist) on energy metabolism in obese women; body weight and caloric intake remained constant.


Going back to the last study I cited, researchers were able to induce metabolic syndrome and 'laziness' by altering Dopamine transmission, and then reverse it by altering dopamine activity again.

Researchers looked at the genetics and brain chemistry of mice to see how a specific genetic mutation (a variant of the SLC35D3 gene) influenced body weight, food intake, metabolism and physical activity levels.

The mutation seems to disrupt dopamine signalling. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with physical pleasure and reward. The disruption in this gene appears to make affected mice "lazy" – they quickly developed symptoms associated with metabolic syndrome in humans (a series of symptoms linked to obesity and inactivity).

Affected mice given a drug designed to improve dopamine signalling became more active and lost excess weight.

“In mice that had a faulty SLC35D3 gene, the dopamine receptors were trapped inside cells; therefore, these mice became couch potatoes,” says Paul.

I have the MTHFR gene, and when my folate levels are low I don't want to do anything. But when I get them back to normal, BOOM, I kill every aspect of life.

 

[Bertram]

Oh lord this is so me. I hardly know where to start.

I've long suspected dopamine issues -- in addition to the motivation/etc behaviors you mentioned, I had RLS (restless legs, often associated with low dopa levels) for most of my life until I got my mercury fillings removed 2 years ago. I tend to be phlegmatic, low-energy, low-competitiveness. I have trouble staying focused on tasks, even tasks that are critical for my success. I show 7 of the 11 behaviors on your "How to tell if you have a poor overall dopaminergic tone" list. I'm not formally diagnosed but I'm almost certainly Inattentive ADHD. Same with my son, and most likely my mom and her dad too. I'm +/+ MTHFR (A1298C and 4 other variants) and MAOA, +/- COMT. L-methylfolate didn't help at all.

The list goes on, but you get the idea. This is why I gave up on the idea of any serious entrepreneurial pursuits -- these personality traits are just not compatible with it. I think I did pretty well to be self-employed (mostly computer consulting) for 30 years.

Your "what to do about it" list is helpful, but you realize some of the major ones (e.g. exercise) are damn difficult for someone with these challenges. I'd like to hear any other suggestions.

I have a lot of gifts and strengths. But this one issue has handicapped me for my entire life. And my son has it much worse than I do. I would really REALLY love to get a handle on it.

You sound so self-aware and full of promise. And doubt.
I think the book, "Indistractible," and its aids and workbook could completely change your life.
Currently you can pre-order it and have immediate access to the free PDF version.
Just give it a try.

 

[garyfritz]

After mercury amalgams removal, within a few months, there's gonna be mercury dump phase.

Yeah, "the Dump" is supposed to start 3-6 months after removal. For me, I chelated up to the maximum recommended ALA dosage (3 mg per kg of body weight, every 3 hours) in a year without seeing any changes. After consulting with some of the experts on Cutler's forum I decided it was safe to boost the dosage, so I went up to 2x the normal recommended max. After 3 months at that level I finally got some of the old symptoms back, so I'm pretty certain I'm in the Dump now. That's been going for 4-5 months now. The symptoms are veeerrryy slowly diminishing. Hopefully once everything clears out (soon!!) I'll feel lots better. That's the way the Dump is "supposed" to work. But so far my process has not followed the standard schedule very well, so we'll see.

I removed one root-canal, but I replaced it with a ceramic implant. Obviously it's not as good as a good live tooth, but I think it's better than metal implants. Even metals like titanium can sensitize you and cause allergic issues, but ceramics seem pretty safe. I saw big improvements when I got the amalgams out, but I didn't notice any change after the root-canal came out.

I follow Cutler's protocol. I'm glad Quicksilver worked for you, but in Cutler's forum we saw a lot of people who followed QS and had very bad experiences. (Though I haven't followed the forum for 2 years so I don't know what they've seen recently.) Cutler's method seems very gentle, if you don't try to be "macho" and push too hard, and with an extremely high success rate.

 

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[garyfritz]

So here's what happens... you sit at your desk, but your midbrain is always trying to create dopaminergic homeostasis. So the unexciting project in front of you seems so boring... but that YouTube video with the ninja cat? That should provide 2 minutes of dopaminergic homeostasis. But shit, I have to get back to work. You focus in on the project, which doesn't stimulate much DA, and the 'boredom' is driving you nuts.

Yup. That is me in a nutshell. And this is not a conscious decision to be a slacker or a failure, any more than it's a conscious decision to be hungry when I haven't eaten. It's just a mechanical/biochemical response. I have equally little control over both processes.

But what if there were a way to keep DA transmission high naturally? Then you would be intrinsically excited and the previously boring work in front of you would no longer boring. On top of that, you'd have more energy and be able to deal with previously 'boring' things. And they would excite you!

And THAT is why I gave up trying to launch any kind of business venture. People who are successful at that are excited by it, which keeps them motivated and productive. I don't have that level of excitement in the work, which means it is nearly impossible for me to stay focused and productive. It's been my biggest handicap since elementary school.

I've had a few projects that absolutely captivated me -- like when I launched a commodity fund about 20 yrs ago -- and then work was fun! I couldn't bear to put it down! I had no trouble focusing on the job at hand and grinding away until 2am. But for me, that kind of work fascination is ultra-rare, and more so as I age.

 

[ChrisV]

For the rest of the people here, if I had to stress one thing, it would be this:

It's short. I started it at the correct Timestamp.

The solutions I listed allows you to sidestep that.

 

[ChrisV]

Amazing. Wow i haven't workout for months. It's a bit technical so i might have to read it again several times but this is amazing. I must try it.

Apologies. This stuff is very hard to communicate in a simple way while still maintaining accuracy.

I wrote a post a few years ago about how exercise has been shown to enhance motivation and cognitive ability

On top of it’s other benefits, exercise may make you a better worker.

Want to be smarter in 30 minutes? Nope, Were not asking you to crack open a book, although that’s never a bad idea… this type of…

medium.com

 

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[ChrisV]

@Leo Hendrix is right on when he mentions "Basically - a tech product that sort of keeps your dopamine levels at a healthy level and rewards structured habits and tasks which lead to certain results, sort of a process gamification reward system." I have used a self-invented system that does exactly this, based on the hypothesis that if I hack my dopamine to associate 'artificial" rewards with the exact work behaviors that I struggle with, eventually I will create a new pathway where the difficult behavior feels rewarding. This model has been one of the most amazing, results-enforcing things I have ever tried. It's the opposite of disempowering. It's super effective and transmits a tremendous amount of hope. It's like getting glasses for poor eyesight for the first time.

@ApparentHorizon sent me this, and I think it's an interesting approach. He basically took the fact that he had a predisposition toward addiction and focused it toward his business. So rather than the video game being an addiction, he made his business an addiction.

A different approach than I take, but perhaps useful to people, similar to what @Leo Hendrix suggests

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrf489UDXMU

 

[PapaGang]

@ChrisV This is amazing, thanks for posting. This really lines up with my personal findings, as I took some time to analyze myself and found that I probably had some issues with low dopamine. Exercise, diet, meditation, and tyrosine have all been very helpful, and when I have them all working together, I'm unstoppable. The problem is getting them all working together. It's pushing a boulder up a hill. When it's working, it's really working.

I agree 1000% on your analysis of dopamine. For so long I thought I had a character flaw, once I reasoned that I might have a chemistry / neurobiological problem, it really set me straight.

I can't wait to see you make something out of this.