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Yesterday, we explained this phenomenon we’re seeing everywhere:
The Clarity Recession.
It’s what’s making everyone think, rethink, and then overthink every decision in their lives:
- “Should I ask for a pay rise?”
- “Should I start running, lift weights, or try HYROX?”
- “Which job out of the 24 I researched in the last week should I apply for?”
- “Is it time to buy a house or should I carry on renting for a couple of months?”
- “Which side hustle should I start? Dropshipping? Ghostwriting? Relationship coaching?”
We’re faced with decisions (big and small) every single day of our lives.
But in a world where we’re consuming 34GB of content every single day (that’s like reading over 100,000 words!), we’re swamped with more and more information.
Which ultimately means we’re making fewer decisions & constantly trying to gather MORE information before choosing—all in a desperate attempt to make the “right” decision.
The problem is, though:
In trying to make the “right” decision, we end up making no decision at all—and missing out on a lot of growth and momentum as a result.
Now, to be clear…
None of this is your fault.
It’s not because you’re:
- Broken
- Indecisive
- Or don’t know how to make a decision
It’s because your brain has been hijacked by the brightest minds of our generation to keep your attention focused on everything OUTSIDE of you (rather than giving you the SPACE to find clarity through your own personal reflection).
Now, let’s dig a little deeper—and look at WHY this Clarity Recession is happening.
There’re 3 specific reasons:
Reason 1: We're Outsourcing Our Decision-Making To AI
First off, don’t get us wrong: we love AI and think everyone should take an AI-first approach:
But what we don’t believe in doing is outsourcing our decision-making to our AI overlords.
How many times have you asked ChatGPT what to do?
- "Should I take this job?"
- "What business should I start?"
- "How should I approach this conversation?"
Sure, AI might give you a reasonable answer.
But here's the problem:
AI doesn't know YOU.
It doesn't know your values, your context, your gut feelings, your past experiences, and your unique situation.
It knows patterns, statistics, and probabilities—but guess what?
The best decision for "most people" is rarely the best decision for YOU.
The more we outsource our thinking to AI, the weaker our own decision-making muscle becomes.
It’s eroding your critical thinking. We're literally training ourselves OUT of trusting ourselves.
So, who does know you well enough to make these decisions?
Well, we hope the answer is obvious…
It’s YOU—and you need a system to rebuild that trust (and muscle) in your own decision-making.
Reason 2: Social Media Has Become A 24/7 Distraction Machine
Remember when social media was just... social?
- You’d add a friend on Facebook
- Write “Happy Birthday!” on their Wall
- Flick through the pictures from last night’s house party
But now?
It's an endless stream of:
- "5 Habits Successful People Do Before 5AM"
- "Why You're Doing Everything Wrong (And Why My Product Will Fix You)"
- "If You Don’t Make This One Tiny Mindset Shift, You’re Going To Lose Millions!!!!"
Now, some of this information can be useful (after all, we’re content creators ourselves!).
But what isn’t useful is how social media has hijacked our dopamine systems so we’re addicted to FLOODING ourselves with new information every single day:
- Every scroll introduces 47 new "shoulds" into your brain.
- Every video makes you question your current path.
- Every post plants another seed of doubt.
No wonder you can't decide—you're being bombarded with everyone else's opinions 24/7!
Instead, you need a simple system which you can use to take the time to sit with your own thoughts (rather than those forced into your mind through your eyes or ears) and act on the information YOU know.
Reason 3: The Information Tsunami Never Stops
Humanity is constantly creating new information.
Every single day:
- 500 million tweets are published on X
- 95 million posts are uploaded to Instagram
- 10s of millions of news articles, blog posts, and newsletters are published
So when you're trying to make a decision—any decision—there's ALWAYS more information to consume.
- More podcasts to listen to.
- More YouTube videos to watch.
- More Reddit threads to dive into.
The result?
People stay stuck for YEARS, spinning their wheels between hundreds of different options.
- Can't decide on a career? Research for 6 more months.
- Can't choose between partners? Analyze every possibility to death.
- Hell, people can't even pick a coffee bean without reading 73 reviews.
(Both of us are guilty of that last one lol)
There's always ONE MORE PIECE of information that might make everything clear.
(Spoiler: It won't.)
These systems weren't designed to help you make better decisions.
The technology is literally designed to keep you distracted.
AI companies need you to keep prompting to feed their models more data.
Social platforms need you to keep scrolling to sell your attention for ad revenue.
So, again, we want to drive this point home:
You're NOT broken, indecisive, or lacking something fundamental.
You're just operating in an environment literally ENGINEERED to keep you confused, consuming, and stuck.
So, what do you do about it?
You can't control the 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created today—or make social media less addictive.
But you DO have a choice.
You can step out of the Clarity Recession by no longer outsourcing your decisions to others (human or otherwise) and instead build your own clarity—regardless of what the "Information Economy" is doing.
However, you won’t accomplish that by just consuming less (though that helps) or by deleting all your apps (that might help too).
But by fundamentally changing HOW you make decisions.
And this is something we’ve been working on ourselves for the last couple of years.
Tomorrow, we’re going to explain some of the potential solutions to the Clarity Recession—so keep your eyes peeled for that!
Speak tomorrow,
—Dickie & Cole
PS - In tomorrow’s email, we’ll also share more about OUR solution for escaping the Clarity Recession.
It’ll have this subject line and will hit your inbox at 8 AM EST—so be on the look out for it:
[Day 2] Why the usual fixes don’t work
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