Patrick McGinnis on FOMO: "I wanted to do everything."

We live in a time of overwhelming choice. Even during extended quarantines, most of us are faced with lots of options. Some decisions seem totally simple, but are overwhelming. (Please let me know if you have any good Netflix recommendations, because I'm stymmied.) 

Others are critical: what college should I attend? What kind of job should I apply for? It gets even tougher when we have to decide between two pretty good options? Sometimes wit so many choices, it gets hard to make any decision at all.

Today I’m talking with Patrick McGinnis. He has a new book out. It’s called “Fear of Missing Out: Practical Decision Making in a World of Overwhelming Choice.” 

When Patrick was in business school, he came up with two terms to describe these types of decision fatigue. One is FOMO, or fear of missing out. I’m sure that’s one you’ve heard of it, and you've perhaps also suffered from it. The other is FOBO, or fear of a better option. I bet you haven’t heard of that one, but you’ll get it immediately. 

You can download the episode to hear about it. Then, please, share your own thoughts and tag them #HelloMonday so I can jump into the conversation.

Here are some highlights….

Defining FOBO, or Fear of a Better Option: "We want to choose the best thing for us and we are willing to wait around until that shows up. The problem is, of course, we never know if and when it's going to show up. But in waiting and waiting, we procrastinate and don't make any decisions at all."

On choice: "More choice doesn't mean that we actually make the choices we need to make."

On decision fatigue: "We spend too much time on the little choices that don't matter."

Where FOMO came from: "I actually invented the word FOMO as my own personal response to living through September 11th in New York City. Overnight I realized all the things that I felt were pretty secure in the world, like my safety economically and physically, were illusions. I felt that I had to make the most of every moment. It caused me to want to do everything. And that's where the FOMO came from."

On the impact of quarantine: "We should all be very, very keen to learn as much as we can from this experience so that we can make more out of our lives and, and choose the things we actually want to do and miss out on the rest."

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🎧 Office Hours

Join us for a mid-afternoon coffee break, every Wednesday at 3pm EST. Producer Sarah Storm and I will choose our favorite mugs, sit back in comfy chairs, and chat with listeners about everything from the week's episode to the things that are keeping us motivated this spring. This week, we'll be discussing decision hacks--tricks we all have for making decisions when they're really tough. Patrick has a good one in this week's episode. I bet you have one to share, too.

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