Author, investor, and podcast host Patrick J. McGinnis, who famously coined the terms 'FOMO' and 'FOBO,' discusses how to beat the 'fear of' missing out on a great deal in order to make strong decisions, plus, what he learned from the guests on his podcast 'FOMO Sapiens.'

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Patrick J. McGinnis, Who Created the Term 'FOMO,' Explains How to Beat It

joining us now in studio is Patrick Mcguinness who famously coined the term fomo. He also hosts the Fomo Sapiens podcast, wrote the bestselling books. Fear of missing out and the 10% entrepreneur and he's also an angel investor and venture capitalist. Patrick, good to have you here. Thanks so much for getting up early this morning. Now we all use the term fomo a lot. You actually coined that term which of course is fear of missing out, but there's also another one I actually just learned a fobo, fear of a better option. How do you sort of notice this phenomenon to sort of make that acronym? So I was a student at Harvard Business school when all of this happened, I basically showed up at the school and for the first time in my entire life I was in a choice rich environment where I was overwhelmed with opportunities and Fomo and Fobo are basically phenomena that come out of an affliction of affluence. You have so many choices out there. And so I saw what my classmates were doing, I saw these opportunities, I found myself going to company presentations for companies and industries, I didn't even care about and I really after going to five parties on friday night that this was a place where I couldn't control my desire to try to do everything and I also didn't want to really choose anything, I was waiting for the better option. So I wrote an article in the school newspaper. The harvest was about 18 years ago now and I wrote about Fomo and Fobo 10 years later, Fomo made the dictionary fobo? It's not quite as famous but it's more important. And by the way, how do you almost feel like social media has made fomo and fobo worse because I feel like we've learned those terms more generally because of social media most definitely. And the thing about both of them is they're about comparing yourself to others. And so what happened was what I actually I met Fomo before social media really was a thing. But about an eight minute walk from my student apartment was this guy called Mark Zuckerberg who was an undergrad, inventing this thing called facebook which brought to all of us and that's really been the accelerate the trigger that's made a thing across the world, okay we need to get rid of this in our vocabulary at least stop letting it control our lives. So what's one thing we can do to kind of get rid of the fomo that we're experiencing? So we have fomo what we're feeling is really two things we have aspiration for more and better and we're also fearful of being left out of the herd, Everybody's running in one direction. We don't want to be left behind. This is a big part of our D. N. A. From the earliest days of human so what we need to do is think critically this thing that's giving me fomo. Does it really live up to the billing and also why am I doing this? Am I doing this because I really want this thing or is it because I'm following the crowd once you stop think critically and try to sort of separate the fear from the facts, the fomo from the reality. You can make better decisions now in addition to creating fomo fobo and other acronyms. You also uh, you know, analyze businesses and you're a venture capitalist as well. Earlier in the show, we told everybody that amazon is having their massive prime day event today. How do you sort of spot a good deal from a normal deal and which one should you sort of ignore? So the great thing about prime day is that there is a good deal for everyone. It may just be that that deal is not the best deal for you. So when you see that Roomba on sale, if you're living in a 200 square foot apartment on the lower east side, probably not the thing you want to buy. Right? So what you have to do is decide like what is the re reason behind why I want to buy this? Is it aspiration? Is it the herd, is it just because it's on sale? Exactly. Get behind the feelings, remove the fear and then make a better decision that's based on cold hard facts. You know inflation is high and there's a good chance that a recession is coming also. So how can people sort of separate the very real need to shop smart because that's the difference, shopping smart, my wife says, but it's on sale, it's on sale and how do they separate that from fobo? So it's kind of like dating, you know like the swipe, swipe, swipe swipe, that's fobo. If you just think the more you search the better you're gonna do, the reality is that you're never gonna choose anything. The same thing goes with any situation with fobo. Recognize the fact that just because you have more choice doesn't mean you're gonna make a better decision and really think about your criteria in order to choose something that meets your actual needs. Don't just keep swiping. Alright, Patrick, we mentioned your podcast, it's called Homo Sapiens and you talk to a lot of really people in the business industry, jay Shetty, Rebecca Minkoff, Have you noticed sort of a common thread with a lot of the people you chat with most definitely. So Homo Sapiens is the show for entrepreneurial thinkers who don't just follow the crowd and if you think about these types of people like jay Shetty who became a monk and then became this massive influencer. J was the kind of guy I imagine. Imagine a lot of people said, what are you doing? Like this is insane and he said, no, I have this vision, I'm not worried about following the credit To do my own thing and that led to his greatness. So what I'd like to do is talk to entrepreneurs who are thinking differently and as a result they succeed in ways that others don't. All right, well, thank you so much. I don't have any more after this. Like I am good to go, I'm like trying to read through all this book, make sure you check out his book, fear of missing out and as well as 10% entrepreneur or listen to his podcast for mo SAPIEN for more expert insight. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.