"You're always using the instrument of yourself and once you start teaching people those things you see an astronomical improvement in basically all dimensions of their life — happiness, income, life satisfaction." — Dr K
Dr K (Dr Alok Kanojia), on the episode
Dr Alok Kanojia, psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, and founder of HealthyGamerGG, sits down with Jack Selby, Graham Stephan, and the Iced Coffee Hour crew for a wide-ranging conversation that goes well past the usual self-help fare. The pop framing of someone like Dr K is a mental health expert who helps gamers. The actual operating system underneath is a clinician who trained at Harvard and spent years in an Indian ashram trying to understand the one instrument nobody ever gets a manual for: themselves. Where Western science tells you what works for a population of ten thousand, Dr K wants to know what works for you specifically, and how you can find that out. This protocol pulls from his frameworks on EQ versus IQ, the nature of desire and happiness, the attention crisis driven by technology, and what the science of connection actually says about dating.
Tactic 01
Dr K (Dr Alok Kanojia), Iced Coffee Hour
Teach Yourself EQ Before You Optimize Anything Else
The play
Pick one unexplained habit of yours and explore why it happens, without judgment.
Dr K (Dr Alok Kanojia) says
IQ is relatively fixed, so the most transformation comes from teaching people EQ skills. A lot of super smart kids run into problems because they never developed study habits, so when it comes to college or landing a job, or they end up socially isolated. Networking is a huge part of success, along with self-awareness, knowing when to keep your mouth shut and when to talk, and being able to regulate your emotions. No matter what you do, you are always using the instrument of yourself, yet you never get formal training about it, things like why you can't wake up in the morning, why you get dependent on coffee or pornography, or why you feel uncomfortable presenting in front of your bosses. You can figure out most of this stuff by yourself, it's just probably going to take a lot longer.
Try this
Pick one behavior you cannot explain about yourself and ask why it happens, without judging or trying to fix it yet.
