Ep. 125: Courage Casts - The Problem With Easy Dopamine

In this short episode of the Courage to Live Podcast, Josh talks about the hidden cost of “easy dopamine.” From endless scrolling on social media to quick distractions that feel good in the moment, many of the things that give us instant satisfaction require little effort and often leave us feeling less fulfilled. Josh contrasts that with the deeper satisfaction that comes from hard work, whether it’s training for a physical challenge, building strength over time, or finishing a meaningful book. The takeaway is simple: the things that require effort often deliver the most lasting fulfillment. 

Transcript

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Welcome to the Courage Lib Podcast. My name is Josh Pitsco and I'm a retired police captain with 24 years of experience out of Las Vegas. Currently, I travel the country and I teach people about courage, accountability, and leadership. So in today's short podcast, I want to talk about uh something I heard recently where they were talking about how easy dopamine is very destructive to our health and mental health. And what I mean by that is getting that dopamine rush, getting that like feeling of you know happiness or satisfaction without putting in the work to get it is one of the easiest tracks to addiction and really just overall lower life satisfaction. And there's so many ways this happens. Like every time you open up your phone and you start scrolling on social media, you're giving yourself a dopamine rush, but you're not putting work into it. It's just it becomes an addiction, it becomes an escape, it becomes a distraction to what you're meant to be doing with your life. And all I mean, and I'm just as um guilty of this as anybody else. Come contrast that to training to work up to competing in a marathon, or like I can say, I've trained and trained and trained to compete in a jujitsu competition. And then after it's over, especially if I did well, I have this rush of dopamine and feeling proud. And I also am proud because I had all of that work that went into it. So I think that's what you lose if it's just that easy dopamine rush. It's that easy um, you know, scroll doom scrolling. You didn't have to put in work to do that. You just literally had to reach over and open your phone. And I think we get addicted to that easy pleasure, that easy um, you know, distraction and feeling feeling good, but without putting in the work. It's the same thing with fitness. It's, you know, when you put time into building muscle, it gives you a sense of pride, it gives you confidence, it carries over into other parts of your life. Um, you know, it's uh there's a coach that I've I've followed and followed some of his workouts. He does a 10,000 kettlebell swing workout, which are challenge over a month. It's like 500 kettlebell swings a day, five days a week for a month, and you end up at 10,000 swings over a month. It is brutal. Um, it is more a game, a mental game than it is a physical, but it's also difficult on that. You can look it up. His name is Dan John. Um, but he made a quote talking about how fast you can lose muscle. And he was talking about, you know, if you he what I think his quote is muscle, muscle gained over time, or muscle honestly gained, you lose slowly. I'm sure he said it more eloquently in a different way. Um, meaning if you rely on chemicals and you know, steroids or a bunch of testosterone or whatever to build muscle, then you'll lose it fast. But if you build that over years and years of consistency, if you have to take a break, you have to take time off, you don't lose it as fast. And I really like that. And I think that applies to other parts of life too. It's the difference between, you know, scrolling on Instagram and reading a book. Uh, I always try to read uh as much as possible. I mean, there's times in life that I fall out of it, but I follow a cadence where I try and read something that is, you know, like I call potato chips for the brain, like whatever, like a spy thriller or something like that. Then I read a nonfiction leadership, something educational, and I try and read a classic and just kind of go through that that cycle to keep myself interested in it. And you when you finish a book, you always have like a sense of pride compared to you know, watching a TV show or looking at social media. So really just think about that as it is very destructive to have that dopamine rush without having to put any kind of effort into it. Appreciate you listening today. Um, if you like the podcast, share it with a friend, subscribe, leave a review, and I appreciate you spending time with me today.