Meta-Work: How Do We Know We’re Making the Right Choices?

Nate and Jason are back in Portland, which means we no longer have excuses not to record new episodes! 😅

How do people make choices? What mental models, frameworks, and other factors go into making those choices. And more importantly, where the hell do those mental models come from?

In this episode, Nate and Jason talk about how they built their own decision-making frameworks by borrowing ideas from business, doing concentrated exercises to help them identify what they’re especially good at, and doing the meta-work to decide what they really care about in the first place.


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Give Yourself The Opportunity To Continue — Tactics and Strategies For a Resilient Life and Career

When the shit hits the fan and your back’s against the wall and you’ve run out of other dramatic cliches, what habits, mindsets, and material things do you need to have in your life to continue on your path and be successful?

That’s what this episode is all about.

Although we go on our normal huge philosophical rants, this episode of 2FTAT is extremely tactical.

We talk about:

  • how much money is enough, and how much debt is acceptable
  • investing in yourself by building skills and networking
  • defining your own version of a “successful life”
  • getting rid of unnecessary things (both physical and mental)
  • and a lot more


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What Are You Optimizing For?

According to Derek Sivers, you should be optimizing your life for one thing — but that one thing is a different thing for each person.

In this conversation, Nate and Jason discuss what they’re currently optimizing for, what they’ve optimized for in the past, and how those decisions have evolved over time.

Additional topics (tangents?) include:

  • giving yourself the freedom to continue
  • avoiding mediocrity
  • the unexpected side benefits of optimizing our lives


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Tony Feels Stuck and He's Ready to Quit

Tony is just about ready to close his business and start working at Starbucks.

After ten years in the fitness industry, he feels like he’s lost the spark, and he’s not sure what he should do next — he just knows that what he’s doing right now isn’t making him happy.

In this conversation, Nate Green and Jason Lengstorf talk with Tony about what we can do to find direction without having to burn it all down and start over. How can you tell if it’s time to make a major change? If something feels wrong, what would make it feel right? We cover all this, and in the end come up with a surprising experiment for Tony that just might set him back on the track to happiness.

NOTE: The audio on this call is a little janky, with some background noise and lag, since everyone was calling in from different corners of the world. If you can forgive the quality of the recording, we hope the quality of the content makes up for it.

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Lindsay Got Fired — Now What?

Lindsay always thought she’d eventually know what she wanted to be when she grew up.

But after changing majors, grad school, getting married, and working in a job for three and a half years, she’s still not quite sure what “grown up” means, or what she wants to be — and the fact that she just got laid off is making that question a little more pressing.

In this conversation, Nate Green and Jason Lengstorf talk with Lindsay about building skills instead of putting in time at a job, creating routines to keep us on track, and whether or not knowing what we want to be when we grow up is actually a good thing. At the end, the three of them devise an experiment for Lindsay to try that will help her keep the good stuff going, even when she starts a new job.

NOTE: The audio on this call is a little janky, with some background noise and lag, since everyone was calling in from different corners of the world. If you can forgive the quality of the recording, we hope the quality of the content makes up for it.

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Adam Is Successful...but He's Not Happy

Adam’s daughter thinks he sleeps at his office.

On paper, he’s got it made: multiple degrees from prestigious schools, an enviable career, and a comfortable salary. He’s got a wife, two daughters, a nice house in a good neighborhood — this dude’s life seems pretty charmed.

But Adam’s not happy. Long hours and no work-life balance — Adam calls it more of a “work-work balance” — have left him feeling stuck, and contemplating quitting it all in search of something more meaningful.

In this conversation, Nate Green and Jason Lengstorf talk with Adam about what balance, perception, and success really mean. Then the three of them come up with an experiment that just might change Adam’s life — without requiring him to ruin his career.

NOTE: The audio on this call is a little janky, with some background noise and lag, since everyone was calling in from different corners of the world. If you can forgive the quality of the recording, we hope the quality of the content makes up for it.

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