Transcript
0:00 You're already lying to yourself. You're just picking the wrong lie. Have you ever noticed [music] the word belief in the middle of the word? It's right there. Lie. Suppose I'm swinging to the most important pitch of my life. I'm nervous. How do I rewire this belief system? Ask yourself, what belief, what story do I need in this situation [music] to get the outcome I want, even if it's not true. I'm not so concerned about AI being too smart. [music] I'm concerned about us getting too dumb. Across these three books, how has your view of technology changed and what and what's one belief that you had when you were writing Hooked that you don't hold now? When I first wrote Hooked, I had to convince people these Silicon Valley tech companies didn't just get lucky. They understand what makes you click and what makes you tick better than you understand yourself. I had to convince people that. That's changed. So, I have faith.
0:48 He needs no introduction, three-time best seller. I'm super, super glad and thanks to Ganesh from Think School for doing this. Three books, Hooked, Indistractable, Beyond Belief. Uh the three themes that he's covered in these uh books, attention, distraction, and beliefs. I think the key premise of the new book is that two people, same set of circumstances, same set of tools, you put them in the same situation, outcomes can vary. And the only invisible variable between them is the belief.
1:15 So, let's do a practical study or a practical live example. Suppose I'm sitting here with you as a founder, I'm going into the most important pitch of my life. I'm nervous. Uh how do I rewire this belief system to be more confident or get the desired outcome? Or do I not think about the outcome and just do the process? That's the Mhm. From a founder's perspective. From a founder's perspective, most important day of your life tomorrow. You're pitching the You're pitching You're pitching the board, like Yeah, go ahead.
1:44 Which Which I've done. I've been in that situation. And I think the the most important lesson is that your brain, I'll give you three. This is This applies to any situation. This is kind of the the the summary of my 3 years of research on this book. I actually 3 years of Sorry, 6 years of research on this book. Number one, you don't see reality as it is. Number two, you're capable of far more than you believe.
2:11 And number three, your beliefs become your perception of reality. And the most useful of those three in that specific situation is asking yourself, what belief, what story do I need in this situation to get the outcome I want, even if it's not true? Even if it's not true. >> Even if it's not true. Is saying visualizing success as simple as >> I'll give you an example. So, uh there was a a year when Serena Williams was in Wimbledon.
2:44 And she was not doing well at all. And her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, saw what was happening. What was happening was she was hesitating at the net. She was not rushing the net. And if that level of tennis, every millisecond counts. And so he called her over and he said, "Serena, I've got some amazing news for you. I was looking at the numbers and did you know that 80% of the time that you rush the net, you score a point?"
3:12 She says, "What? I I thought I sucked at the net." He says, "Well, look, I got the statistics right here. The statistics don't lie. So, it's the best news of the day." Except it's true that statistics don't lie, but he did. It was a complete fabrication. Totally not true. But when he told her this lie, it became reality. He unlocked what was always within her. Is there Is there a difference between facts? Facts are objective truths.
3:40 They're things that are true whether or not you believe in them. The world is more like a sphere than a flat. That's a fact. Doesn't care what you believe. Beliefs are something different. Beliefs are convictions that are open to revision based on new evidence. Convictions that are open to revision based on new evidence. Coach Mouratoglou had evidence. He knew what Serena was capable of. And by telling her this untruth, it became reality. She ended up performing much better.
4:10 She ended up actually scoring 80% of the points at the net, and she took Wimbledon that year. Now, what what am I telling you? Am I saying, "Well, just lie to yourself, [snorts] be delusional, right? Gaslight yourself?" Well, I would argue you're already lying to yourself. You're just picking the wrong lie. All right, look, it's it's in the word. You ever notice the word belief? The middle of the word is right there, lie. That what we do ourselves, we adopt either liberating beliefs or limiting beliefs. So, if you walk into that pitch meeting with the VC with the limiting beliefs, "Who the hell am I? You know, I came from a small impoverished place. What am I even doing here? I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not prepared. I'm There's people who are better than me." Guess what? You're going to project that.
4:54 And the lie that you told yourself will become reality. Whereas, if you say, "I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. And I choose to believe that whether or not I have the facts to prove it, but I have enough evidence to have a conviction around it, I'll perform that." So, we cannot change facts. Can't change facts. You can't You almost never change fate. Fate are convictions that do not require evidence. But in between fact and faith is this very special conviction that we call a belief.
5:22 And so, the whole premise of the book is what's possible when we adopt the right beliefs. And it turns out that beliefs shape what we see, literally what our eyes perceive, what we feel, not just our feelings, but also our physical state, how we interpret pain and suffering, and finally what we do, our sense of agency, and ultimately who we become. So, that's kind of the the big premise of the book. And your quote praying in the book as well. Like what are your thoughts on prayer? Yeah. On praying. Okay. So, prayer um So, when you write a book about belief, you're going to come across prayer. And I do I I talk a a lot about different different elements of of belief, how they affect our physical health, how they affect longevity. Some fascinating studies about about that. And one of the things that I kept coming across was the power of prayer.
6:10 And uh for me you know, I came across this research that finds that prayer increases lifespan. It uh people who pray have more friends, they make more money, they have less incidences of depression and anxiety disorder. All these good things happen to people who pray. The problem was that I I didn't pray. >> [laughter] >> I haven't prayed since I was 6 years old. I remember praying when I was 6 years old because my my family, when they moved to America um got scammed out of almost every dollar they had. They they they were financially ruined by the these con artists.
6:44 And I remember them fighting and they were on the verge of divorce and um it was a really really tough time. I remember that's that's when I last prayer prayed. And I remember I had these conversations with a voice that I called God and the voice was very comforting to me. But then as I got older and I I'm I'm a very evidence-focused person and I I thought, "Well, if I can't prove that anyone is listening who am I talking to?" I needed it to be a fact.
7:09 And so, when I came across all this research about the power of prayer I was kind of jealous. I thought, "Well, that doesn't apply to me cuz I don't I don't have any kind of faith tradition. So, you know, what good is it?" And then I uncovered a study that blew my mind. The study was they took three groups of people. One group of people were people who had some kind of faith tradition and they already prayed. So, they were Catholic >> of them were near by the way? Yeah. Your faith in God. Sure. So, you know, whether it's Hindu or um Catholic or Jewish, they had some kind of faith tradition. Another group were people who didn't pray and they told them, "You don't have to say the word God, just substitute whatever is meaningful. Some higher power or being, something you the universe, mother nature, a higher power, say whatever is meaningful to you."
7:54 The third group they said don't do anything, no prayer. No prayer at all. And what they found was that the group that prayed with faith and the group that prayed without faith both had statistically significantly more pain tolerance. They did the standard pain test and they both these groups had way more pain tolerance. So, prayer seems to have psychologically protective effects. So, that kind of led me to this this question of, well, do you have to have faith in order to pray?
8:25 And what is it about prayer that has these psychologically beneficial effects? Like, I actually went to five religious leaders. It sounds kind of like a set up of a joke, but this is literally what I did. I went to a priest, a rabbi, an imam, a swami and a monk. All five walk into a bar, right? And I asked them all the same question, "Can you pray even when you have doubts about the supernatural?" And I expected them to kick me out, honestly. I don't know if anybody in the history of the world have ever done what I did and asked five religious leaders, "Can I pray even if I don't have a belief in the supernatural?"
8:57 None of them kicked me out. None of them did. In fact, what they all said was some form of, "Yeah, doubt is part of the process. That that's not a requirement. The requirement is the act." And so, what I've learned to do in my very skeptical way of seeing the world is that I can still pray without certainty. That you don't actually have to have faith in order to pray. So, now every time I walk by I live in Singapore and every time I walk by a temple uh or mosque or church, if the door is open I'll walk in and I'll say a pray a prayer. I keep saying it sorry cuz just a little jet-lagged.
9:37 And I'll say a prayer because it's it serves me, it's protective, and it helps me be a better person for those I love. And so if it's free, if it has all these psychological benefits, why not? I was hanging on to it being a fact. I will not participate unless I know it is a truth, everything they say in that book. >> But for some people in India, like I think a lot of people in India, I think it becomes a part of their identity.
10:00 Yeah. Where they're all about just that. Like, how do you differentiate between doing it as an act versus it becoming a part of your identity? I think that's Well, if it's if if you have a >> for belief system. Like, I mean, a belief I mean, you believe in something so much that it becomes your reality to the point where you're disconnected from reality. So if something's work if it's working for you, whatever's working, do it.
10:24 >> [laughter] >> Right? So I'm the last person to say change your life if if [clears throat] if you figure it all out. I know I hadn't figured it all out. That uh I would say I was going to do something, and yet I wasn't. I was writing you know, I was I was I was I was making commitments. I would say I was going to exercise. I would say I was going to, you know, stay focused on that task at work. I'd say I was going to be fully present with people, and yet I wasn't doing what I said I was going to do.
10:49 Even when I knew exactly what to do. I think that's the problem we have in the modern age, is that we are drowning in information. Right? We have access to infinite amounts of information. We all basically know what to do. >> I'm a new dad, like many other people in this audience who are going to be new dads also. Uh I think the idea that we all wrestle with from time to time is our kids are going to get a device very soon. Like, how do we keep them away from it for a long time? Like, how do you balance this identity of paranoia and permissiveness when it comes to your own kids? Like, what is the right way to look at this? I mean, you written this book in 2012. So I'm going to ask you in a in the next question that what are you going to change in that book if you were to rewrite it? But let's start with the parenting question first. Okay, so now we're we're shifting a little bit between the books, which is okay. That's But back back to the arc, starting of the arc.
11:41 >> Yeah. So, there's a uh section in Indistractable about how to raise indistractable kids. And uh we need to start with what is really the problem. The problem is not tech use. The problem is over use. That's really what is the problem. And so, before we start legislating and regulating and bossing our kids around, I think it's important to ask ourselves, what is really the problem? That studies find that 3 hours or less of extracurricular screen time has no deleterious effects if it's age-appropriate. There has not been even one study that says 3 hours or less has any deleterious effects. Again, if it is age-appropriate. Lots of stuff on the internet you don't want small children to see. But if it's age-appropriate, 3 hours or less is fine.
12:25 So, why do kids overdo it? Right? Why do we find kids that are do using a a device 3, 4, 5, 6 hours a day? We can't just stop with this surface-level analysis. It's it's very stupid. Because what you know, just saying it's screen time. Well, what the heck is screen time? Is is talking to grandma uh on on FaceTime, is that the same as playing a video game? It depends what they're doing. It's not such a simple argument of well, just get off your device.
12:51 So, when we look at why kids overuse their device, we need to ask why. And the reason why is they are lacking in what's called psychological nutrients. Psychological nutrients is a term I use for this 50-year-old research that every psychologist on the face of the earth has known for quite some time that explains what we need for psychological nourish- nourishment. So, you know how we have uh the three macronutrients for our bodies, we need fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. Those are the macronutrients for our bodies. Well, did you know that there's three things you need for a healthy mind, for a healthy psyche?
13:26 Those three things, according to what's called self-determination theory, is that you need a sense of mastery, you need a sense of autonomy, and you need a sense of relatedness. It's called self-determination theory. Every psychologist on the face of the earth knows this theory. It's been around for over 50 years. Now, when you look at children today, they are severely deficient in those three psychological nutrients, more than ever. That is why they are overusing their devices. It's called the needs displacement hypothesis. When I don't get something in the real world, I look for it in the virtual world. Mastery.
13:59 When I'm constantly tested every single day and asked to perform on an exam, and when I don't perform well on that exam, guess what my reward is? I got to take another exam. Either way, I got more exams. If I do well, I got more exams. If I do poorly, I got more exams. I'm constantly told, not everybody, but there's a segment of the of of the population that is constantly told, "You're not good enough." And so, that sense of mastery that we all need, we all need a sense of mastery, every single one of us, for psychological nutrition.
14:27 When we don't get it online, I'm sorry, when we don't get it offline, we look for it online. So, when I play a video game, when I play, you know, uh Minecraft or uh Candy Crush or one of these games, I get a sense of mastery. I feel like I control this online world. Okay? Next is autonomy. We know that this is the most regulated generation in history. I don't know exactly about India versus the United States. I don't think it's that dissimilar.
14:52 But, when you think about how much we schedule our children, right? If you have the means, what do you do after school? You've got test prep, and you've got ballet, and you've got Chinese lessons, and swimming lessons. We are constantly telling children what to do all day long. They don't have that sense of autonomy that past generations used to have. I mean, when I was growing up, after school, we would play. We would hang out. We would be children.
15:15 Can't do that anymore. And guess what? If you if you tell people what to to all day long, they they will rebel. And if you put people in cages, then they become animals. And that's what we do with our children. Right? Did you know that there's only two places where you can tell people what where to go, what to think, how to dress, who to be friends with, what to eat, and that's school and prison. Right? And so it's no surprise when they come home from school, they they want to be autonomous. They want to make decisions. Well, you take out your phone, you go to this online world, you're the god of this world.
15:52 You feel in control. You feel autonomous. And finally, relatedness. We know that the amount of time that children play with other kids is at an all-time low, at least in America. Again, I'm sorry. I don't know the the statistics in India. But it used to be that playgrounds would sing with the sound of children playing. You don't see that anymore. Right? They're indoors all day long. And so what are they supposed to do when they're indoors? When they don't have their friends? You know, there's something that something very special that happens when kids play with other children, away from parents and teachers and coaches constantly telling them what to do. It's one thing if a friend tells you, "Hey, when you act like that, I don't want to play with you. When you're not being nice to me, I don't want to play." You need to hear that from a friend.
16:35 And when you don't get that kind of interaction, that social interaction to learn your place in the world, again, if you're not getting it online, I'm sorry, if you're not getting it offline, you're looking for it online. So you think Fortnite is a video game? No. Fortnite is a way to connect with other people. It's a social network disguised as a video game because kids are so desperate for social connection. So none of this excuses the tech companies. None of this means we don't need tech regulation. That's a whole 'nother conversation.
17:03 But I don't think that forcing our kids not to use devices solves the real problem because I'm telling you That's what the That's not the root cause. It's a proximal cause. So okay, long-winded way of answering. First, figure out what is the real problem. By the way, in all of us, did you know that 90% of the time that you check your phone, 90% of the time, it's not because of a beep, buzz, or boop? It's not because of an external trigger.
17:27 90% of the time, and we've done time studies on this, 90% of the time you check your phone, it's because of what's happening in your head. It's because of a feeling. I'm bored. I'm lonely. I'm uncertain. I'm indecisive. I'm fatigued. That is why you check your phone 90% of the time. It's called an internal trigger. So, unless we understand, "Hey, if I can't sit and have a conversation with my kid over lunch without checking my phone every 5 minutes, if we can't have a meal as a family without constantly checking our devices, I'm telling you guys, it's not the devices.
18:00 It's that we don't know how to deal with discomfort. It's that we don't know how to deal with these icky feelings that we don't want to admit are our responsibility. Not your fault. Not your fault. You didn't invent Facebook. You didn't invent the iPhone. You didn't Maybe some of you did actually in this group. But, it is your responsibility because who else's responsibility could it possibly be? Right? The government's not going to fix it. The tech companies are certainly not going to fix it. We're going to say, "Hey, Netflix, stop making good shows.
18:26 Apple, your phone is way too user-friendly." Look, the price of progress is that we need to learn how to use devices better. We don't want to go back to the age before these things. We just need to figure out how to use them better. And that's what Indistractable's all about. So, the way you raise an a a an Indistractable kid is that you fulfill their psychological nutrients. You give them a place to play. I have never met a child who when given the opportunity to play with other children doesn't want that opportunity. Unless they've been Unless it's, you know, there's some there's some exceptions, rare exceptions. But, most children, if they have the opportunity to play in the real world with other kids, they would prefer that versus their devices. It's just that we don't give them those opportunities.
19:04 >> Nir Eyal Nir Eyal was the founder of Indistractable. So, I was talking to him about parenting. And one thing he said, the rule that he follows, he has three kids now, is he let I mean, the only rule that he has for parenting, him and his wife, is "If my kids, daughter or son, just give me 1 hour of reading in a day, they can do whatever the hell they want. Like, if they want to eat like 3 liters of ice cream every day of the week, they're okay." And it has to come out of the system. I think our job as parents is to educate them on the benefits, pros and cons of everything. Yeah. And then, it's up to them to pick it up all these things. And sometimes they have to explore that journey and go through that journey on their own. I think come to that conclusion. That's a big part of it. I think the worst thing you can do >> it's the French way of parenting as well. Good. Well, I think It is. It is.
19:52 There are there are books about this. I don't know what the philosophy is called, but yeah. Yeah, bringing up baby is what they call it. Yeah. The uh I I has to be age-appropriate, right? There's some things you won't let a 3-year-old do that you would let a 16-year-old do. But, I think the basic concept that you're talking about here of involving your child. I think one of the worst things you can do is give me that phone.
20:13 Stop it. Right? Well, how would you feel if somebody did that to you? >> [laughter] >> It's terrible. It's like you punched in the face. It's a terrible thing to do to somebody. And what you don't realize is that you are stealing something from your child. You're not just taking the phone. You are stealing your child's ability to develop self-regulation. You are taking You are robbing that phone. So, when my child was 6 years old, when Jasmine was 6 years old, she was getting a lot of iPad time. And we could see she was starting to overdo it a bit. This was back when the iPad was still relatively new. This was 11 years ago.
20:47 And um we sat down with her. And we said, "Honey, you know, the the cost of using the iPad, the reason it's bad to use iPad too much, we didn't say it's melting your brain, we didn't say cuz she sees us using our phones. You can't lie to your kid if you're a hypocrite and say, "Oh, you can't use the device, but I can." That's ridiculous. Instead, we said, "No, what what happens here is that you are giving up something else, right? You're giving up time with your friends. You're giving up time with me, time with going to the pool, time to do fun things. That's the price of using the the screen. So, how would you like to spend your time?" So, one of the best things you can do is plan time for the distraction.
21:29 When you plan time for the video games, for the YouTube, for whatever it is, as long as age appropriate, you're turning a distraction into traction, cuz you plan for it. And as Dorothy Parker said, "The time you plan to waste is not wasted time." So, if you plan to play the video game, fantastic, right? That's fine. So, sitting down with your kid and saying, "When do you want to do that? Okay, here's when you come home from school.
21:54 When in your day would you like to play with your device?" That's totally fine. And how much time would you like? And so, we told Jasmine, we said, "How much time would you like on your iPad?" And you would think she'd say, "All day." That's not what she said. She said, "Two episodes." Two That's what she did with her iPad. She watched, you know, Netflix kid shows. Two episodes, about 45 minutes, well below the 3-hour threshold that has any deleterious effects. So, we said, "Fine.
22:17 Fine. You can have your two episodes." But here's the thing. We don't want to be the police officers. So, how will you know that your 45 minutes are up? Well, she said, "You know, I I Back then, uh we lived in Palo Alto, and we had this microwave that was below the counter top." And she said she saw that we would use that sometimes as a timer. So, she said, "Here's what I'm going to do, Dad. I'm going to go to the microwave, and I'm going to set it for 45 minutes, and when it beeps, I'll know I'm done."
22:46 You see, we're not raising children. You're not raising a child. You're raising a future adult. What she did was learn a way to self-regulate. And still to this day, she will tell her Siri, "Set a timer for 45 minutes." And that's her YouTube time. Cuz you think, you know, you're going to be there to take your phone away from the from your kid when they're off to college or starting their first job? No. They have to learn the skill for themselves. So, that's exactly what she did. So, step number one is master the internal triggers. That's step number one.
23:14 Step number two is make time for traction. Make time for the games, the whatever, but put it on a schedule. Step three, hack back the external triggers. So, the real cost of these devices, when we say about how kids mental health issues are increasing because of devices, I don't think it's actually what's on the devices, it's what is coming at the cost of the devices. So, primarily, sleep. So, anything that beeps, buzzes, or boobs has no place in the bedroom. Okay?
23:40 Take it out of the child's room. If they want to use a device, if they want to use a laptop, they can All adults can use that. >> Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Set a good example. Like, I don't think TVs need to be in the bedroom. I don't think any any radios, anything that makes any kind of sound, we need to protect our child's sleep. We have to prepare >> That says a lot about other triggers as well, environment. Yeah. I think environment is key to controlling external triggers as well. Like, if you can't if you can't self-regulate, don't have self-control, then just change your environment.
24:09 To some extent. Well, it's not possible in every >> That only accounts for 10% of distractions. Remember, the environment, those external triggers, that's only 10%. What's much more important, the other 90% is the internal trigger. So, this is what I did at first. When I thought, you know, when I started writing Indistractable, when I wrote this, I was crazy distracted. I wanted to solve the problem for myself, and I took, you know, conventional advice, just get rid of your device, right? That's the problem. I keep checking this. This is the problem. Duh. So, that's what I did.
24:35 Got rid of my phone. I got an old flip phone from the 1990s on eBay. I got a word processor that had no internet connection. I thought, that's it. I I've cured my distraction problem. I got rid of the apps. I got rid of the internet. Now, I can focus. I can write my next book in peace. Except, you know, there's that book on the shelf that I've been wanting to read. You know, oh, you know what? Look at my desk. I need to organize my desk. It's such a mess. You know, the garbage really should be taken out right now.
25:02 And I kept getting distracted because the problem is not out here. That's only tapping the problem. 90% of the problem is the inability to deal with discomfort. That's why we scroll it away, drink it away, eat it away. It's a feeling. It's an internal trigger. And if you keep blaming the device, you never get to the root cause. 2012, you wrote Hooked before, I mean, all of us became junkies on short-form content. India is big on micro-dramas right now. I don't know if you Have you seen the micro-dramas? Yeah. I mean, they're like these 1-minute episodes, basically. So, we're frying our dopamine. I read a statistic which said that watching a 30-second clip on starting a business actually gives you the same effect in terms of your brain receptors getting charged up as to actually starting a business. So, that's why these learning apps in India are doing so well at night.
25:53 So, if you were to go back to 2012, everything that you've seen in the last 14 years now in the world products and technology and social media and micro-dramas and short-form and all of that stuff, what is that one aspect of Hooked that you would rewrite? Well, let let me just correct a couple things if I may. So, there is no such thing as dopamine squirts and dopamine firing and dopamine uh whatever, right? It's uh the brain doesn't work that way. It's It's very good vernacular and people like to say that stuff, but if you talk to a neuroscientist, there's no such thing as getting high on dopamine. Dopamine is not cocaine. It's not how the brain works. Dopamine fires every time your brain wants you to pay attention. Okay?
26:30 When you're playing tennis, you're receiving dopamine. When you give someone a hug, when you learn to play the piano, dopamine just tells you to pay attention. It doesn't feel good. So, there's no such thing as dopamine squirts. Uh and there's definitely no such thing as, you know, you watch YouTube and you're frying your brain. That's That's That's not how it works. Um doesn't mean we can't become unhealthily distracted by it. Absolutely. That's why I wrote Indistractable.
26:56 But also, you know, the the the books aren't opposing. I didn't write Hooked and Unhooked. The idea is that we want to get the best out of technology without letting it get the best of us. So, Hooked was me stealing the secrets with Ryan Hoover's help. I was the secrets of Silicon Valley, right? I I didn't make up variable rewards and and all these techniques that I talked about in Hooked. I looked at what works and I tried to amalgamate them in a model that people could remember and use. So, that Fitbod uses the Hook model to get people hooked on exercise.
27:31 Uh uh Kahoot! uses the Hook model to get kids hooked on on learning. So, those are the kind of companies who were built from the ground up with the Hook model. So, we want to use the Hook model for helping people do things that they wish they would do, right? Exercise more, eat right, connect with family, save money. These are all healthy habits. We also want to use the same psychology to help us not get distracted, but they're different products, right? We want to get hooked to the good stuff and we want to disconnect and and and not be succumbed and not succumb to the distractions for the bad stuff. So, what would I change? I actually just did a a second edition of the book. The psychology didn't change. The same four steps of the Hook model, trigger, action, reward, investment, they're universal across culture, across time, across socioeconomic conditions. They don't change. What changed in the book was some examples.
28:19 So, I took out uh you know, when I first wrote Hooked, there weren't any companies that were built from the ground up with the Hook model. I was I was uh I was guessing based on patterns that I'd seen repeated again and again and again at these, you know, very successful companies like Amazon and Google and Facebook, etc. Uh what changed in the second edition is that now, since the book was published, I have real-life stories of companies that were built from the ground up with the Hook model, but the same basic psychology hasn't changed. The one thing I did highlight and I actually called it on a blog post but didn't put in the book back in 2012 was that AI supercharges the hook model.
28:58 That the what will have so this the hook model just very quick. Hook model has these four steps of trigger, action, reward, investment. And the investment phase was the hardest to nail until now. The idea of the investment phase is that a habit-forming product should do something that very few products can do. That most products in the real world, your clothing, your car, your couch, they depreciate, right? They lose value with wear and tear. Habit-forming products, because of this principle in the investment period of phase that I call stored value appreciates. That the more you use the product, the more data, the more uh uh skill you acquire in the product, the more followers you accrue, the more uh you shape the algorithm to get better with use. That is a defining trait of a habit-forming product. That the more you use it, it should get better and better and better. Should appreciate because of this concept stored value. So the A what AI now does is that it supercharges that. Because now every interaction, if you don't do it, your competitors certainly will, your customers are going to expect you to customize the product based on their past behaviors. Customers have no tolerance for telling you the same information every single damn time.
30:12 Why don't you remember? So your competition will start altering the interface in real time based on the past interaction. Because AI makes it possible. Right? This is a TikTok-ification of everything. This will have It's already happening. Right? That we're giving people unique experience, personalized experience in a way that was never economically feasible before and now we can do it. And so this is what your your customers are going to start expecting from you. Okay, sorry. What was the next question?
30:39 Habit-forming versus is Few had that you've seen. Habit-forming I think is very obvious, but manipulative So, manipulation is a charged term, but it's not a bad thing. If you think about what manipulation actually is, so manipulation has two kinds of manipulation. There's what we call persuasion and there's coercion. Persuasion is helping people do things they want to do. And I think if you have the opportunity to persuade people to do something that they themselves want to do, it's unethical not to do it.
31:08 You have a technology that can help them exercise more, save money, live better lives, be smarter, whatever it is, connect with their family. It's your ethical imperative to do something with that. That's what this is all about, persuasive technology. That's persuasion, getting people to do things that they themselves want to do, but for lack of good product design, don't do. The opposite of persuasion is coercion. Coercion is getting people to do something they did not want to do.
31:32 That's unethical. Right? Nobody can ethically coerce you other than the government. Government makes you pay taxes, makes you pay parking tickets. That's coercion, something you did not want to do. In business, we can't do that. All right? Not only is it ethically wrong, it's bad business. If somebody does business with you and then feels coerced, they regret doing business with you. Not only are they not going to do business with you, they're going to tell all their friends not to do business with you, either.
31:56 So, that type of practice is not good for long-term business. So, we always want to stay on side of persuasion, not coercion. But I think the question you're asking might be, what's the difference between addiction and habituation? Probably be, yeah. So, a habit There's no So, so addiction, we use those terms uh intersperse, but they're not the same thing. An addiction is always bad. There's no such thing as a good addiction. An addiction is a persistent compulsive dependency on a behavior or substance that harms the user. We never want to addict people, because addiction by definition is harmful.
32:29 Habits, on the other hand, are impulses to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought. And unlike addictions, which are always bad, habits we have good habits and bad habits. Persuasion and coercion. So, we always want to stay on the side of good persuasion. That's the the big idea. And across these three books you've written Hooked, Indistractable, and now Beyond Belief. How has your view of technology changed and evolved and what's one belief that you had when you were writing Hooked that you don't hold now?
33:00 What technology specifically? >> Yeah, when I first wrote Hooked, I had to convince people that that these Silicon Valley tech companies didn't just get lucky. Right? I had to convince people, "No, no, they understand what makes you click and what makes you tick better than you understand yourself." I had to convince people of that. I don't have to convince anybody of that anymore. That's changed. So, I haven't changed. I think the world's understanding has now changed.
33:26 That these people aren't getting lucky. They have psychologists on staff. They know what what what attracts you. They constantly test. That That that's not necessarily a bad thing, per se. It's again how we use them. And you think that Chinese apps, especially ByteDance and many others, Pinterest, and many other innovations that have come out of China have used Hooked or at least embodied it much better than the Silicon Valley apps? Have you looked at >> Good question. It is my second best-selling market. It's a very good question.
34:01 It's crazy how many books I sold in China. I don't know where they go. Um I don't know. I don't know. I think I mean, I will tell you that I cannot think of an app that is better designed from a habit formation perspective than TikTok. It It as is It is as if they used Hooked as the playbook. I mean, the fact that they have reduced the friction to bring you right into the video, right? So, immediately when you feel the internal trigger of boredom, that's the internal trigger. The action is to open the app.
34:32 And immediately when you open the app, you're given a variable reward at the very first video. Then as soon as you swipe, the the product is collecting information about you based on your dwell time, how long you watch the video, did you like the video, all these different factors, and they're building the psychographic profile of you to then load the next trigger, store value, and make the product better and better with use. I mean, it is it I I when I wrote Hooked, I couldn't have imagined that a product like that could be so well-designed.
35:01 Um Yeah, so I don't know. I don't know who's been using it. I I other than the ones who tell me they use it for good, I don't know. >> their memory is portable in the world of AI, I'm just like sidetracking for a bit. I mean, you can export your history from ChatGPT to Claude now. Uh you think those products follow that same model? I think I think uh these LLM models are very hooky. They are I don't know about you, but I mean, talk about a habit. I I I it it's not an addiction. Addiction is always bad, so I can't call it an addiction, but I am definitely hooked onto building stuff with Claude code. I mean, you you see it, right? Like, think about it, it's all it's exactly the Hooked model.
35:39 It's the internal trigger of I have this problem, right? I need to fix this thing. It's causing me stress. How do I fix this thing? Well, I fire up Claude code. Uh with just a few words, I can describe what I want. The variable reward, that's slot machine of can it do it? Can it actually make it happen? And then the investment of it learns over time all about you, and it gets better and better the more you use it. The classic.
36:01 Right? It loads it. If you build it If you build something the first time, it'll it'll send you the next trigger of telling you, "Hey, here's this this thing I ran through you overnight." Or, you know, uh "here's a scheduled task." Bringing you right back to use the app again. And that's what scares me. Like, I mean, of course, AI is enabling us to do so many workflows differently in our own companies, and maybe even taking jobs away, unfortunately. But we're entering this productivity theater, where I think I mean, I speak to any of these founders in the room like I mean some of these VCs they've automated like team flow automation and like all of that stuff.
36:33 This productivity theater I feel like I'm being left behind. And that's why I start doing random stuff on AI just to feel important and feel busy and like busy work this thing. I'll give you some words today. I got lots of So that's what I think he's got extra time and brains. I have enough time but I think the issue is that I'm using it to build I mean random which nobody is going to use like I mean this white boarding phenomenon that we've all experienced over the last year or so.
37:01 Where does this all go? Like I mean it's just we directly do it but is it really solving anything except like burning uh something that Spurs has to solve by removing carbon from air? I mean I'm having a great time. I I think it's leading us to an amazing future. I I I don't you know Paul Virilio said when you invent the ship you invent the shipwreck. True. Is the internet good? Yes. Is the internet bad? Yes.
37:29 Is social media good? Yes. Is social media bad? Yes. Is AI good? Yes. Is AI bad? Yes. It's complicated. It's nuanced. It's never going to be this black and white good guy bad guy. Anybody who says they know what the future of AI is going to look like is making it up. We have no clue. It's way way way too early. But I can already see the empowerment that gives everyday people. I mean we we can you can find stuff in an instant. You can do things today that I wouldn't have dreamed of. I mean the amount of time that I spent researching my first two books and reading academic papers and going to the library and just hunt down stuff and read boring boring academic papers.
38:09 You know, in seconds now I can do that kind of research. I think what we're starting to learn is that the real danger, I'm not so concerned about AI being too smart. I'm concerned about us getting too dumb. That's what I'm really concerned about. And I can see it myself. I mean, this is totally autobiographical. When I use AI incorrectly and I try make it do the important stuff for me. When I When I'm lazy and I just say, "Well, let me just ask what AI thinks." It always is a bigger waste of time.
38:38 Whereas, if I give a thought my first draft, right? If I force myself to have the discipline of time boxing, back to this technique in Indistractable, of time boxing, I'm going to write these thoughts down. I'm going to, you know, learn through the writing process where are the flaws in my argument, maybe flag a few things I should look back on. And then go to AI. That's how I learned to use it correctly. Whereas, I think I want to write an article about such and such, terrible. One, AI by definition, LLMs, are derivative machines, right? They're trained based on >> They're always I mean, the output will always revert to mean. Like, everyone will be coming closer to average if they're all using AI. And that's why we can tell what AI writing sounds like because it uses the same boring studies, right? If I hear about the marshmallow study one more time or the Eisenhower matrix. Like, you know, that that's what AI will spit out. You know, ask AI, the best model and this doesn't mean it's going to be forever, but for right now, ask Claude or or OpenAI, ask them to tell you a good joke. Not a pun. AI is amazing at puns, but an actually funny, like, can't control your laugh type of joke, it's it can't do it because it's it's derivative. It's not it doesn't understand creativity yet. I'm not saying it can't happen, it very well might happen, but as of the current state, whenever I ask it, you know, surprise me, teach me something that I that I didn't know about a field I know a lot about, it it's can't it can't put it together. It can't be quite creative yet. That's thank goodness still something I have to do myself.
40:05 You've done neuroscience, you've done human psychology. So, I'm going to ask you a question that might be important for founders. You've written Indistractable as well. So, founders always have something to deal, sensory overload. There's always some fire to fight in that company is in that funds in that basically every day is life like personal professional. How do they deal with all of this stuff? Uh How do you like stay in your lane? Sure. So, one is dealing So, there's four steps to becoming indistractable. It's master internal triggers, make time for traction, hack back external triggers, prevent distraction hacks.
40:41 The first step is the most important. I I had a a uh very well-paid lawyer hire me one time. And he told me that, you know, he read my book, but you know, he believes it can't work, but it's not working. And the reason it can't work in his organization is because as a lawyer, he needs to be constantly available. He's just always interrupted. He always gets it urgent messages, you know, phone calls, interruptions. People always need his attention. And so, I said, "Let's run a little experiment here. Okay?"
41:12 You have a VA. All right. I'm sorry, not a VA. Uh a secretary. Yeah. So, he had a person who An executive assistant. That's what I was looking for. He had an executive assistant. And I told him, "I want you for 1 week to carve out time in your day to do focused work. Okay? 3 hours of thinking, right? Without emails, without or just think about the business. Work on what's really important to move your business forward." And he said, "I could never do that. There's just too many urgent things." I said, "Try. Just try for just 3 hours a day. And in fact, your EA will If there is something that is actually urgent, as you said it is, she's going to come in and interrupt you if it's really important. But all You're going to give her your cell phone, she's going to have your email account, and if something is really urgent, she's going to interrupt you."
41:57 First day goes by. He goes out. He tells his EA, "Hey, did you not understand the instructions? Did you check my email? What what's going on? How come you haven't interrupted?" She said, "No, sir. I've checked every email. Nothing is that urgent. It can wait for 3 hours. It's It's okay." Okay, fine. I guess I don't All right. Day Day one, day two, day three, the entire week, there was nothing actually that couldn't have waited a few hours for him to get back to. It was in his perception. It was his belief that I that something might be waiting for me, right? That that somebody might need me.
42:28 It wasn't an objective truth. It was his perception. It was a feeling. It was an internal trigger. It was fear. Right? Fear is this thing that constantly makes us less than we can be. It limits our potential. When we're scared, when we're fearful. And his fear of somebody might need me was was false. It was just made up. And so that's the most important first step for anyone, especially founders and as somebody who started three companies, it's separating the objective truth from the belief in my mind.
43:01 That internal trigger of I'm scared that someone might need me. That's why I have to check my device every 30 seconds. That's not helping anybody. Especially not your business. Then step number two is make time for traction. So planning that time. There's two kinds of work. We have what's called reactive work. Reacting to emails, reacting to notifications, reacting to meetings, you know, taps on the shoulders. We have to have that time in our day. So you want to schedule that time for reactive work.
43:26 But what most people don't realize, you also have to schedule a time for reflective work. The time to think. The time to process. The time to be creative. If you don't make that time, it's not going to happen. Right? And so if you want a leg up on 90% of people in your industry, make time to think. Cuz nobody else is doing it. Right? We don't make time to think. And if you don't make time to think, I promise you you're running real fast in the wrong direction.
43:51 You have to have that time for for for reflective work. Protect that time. Keep it safe. Put it on your calendar just as if you were going to meet with, you know, Satya or or Bill Gates or somebody, you know, Elon, somebody you admire. You Are you going to not show up to that meeting? You're going to show up to the meeting. And yet the meeting with yourself, the most important person in your world, you're going to flake on?
44:10 Why? You have to schedule that time and keep it sacred. Then we uh hack back the external triggers. Even though they only account for about 10% of our distraction, that's where we make our phones indistractable. We make our company That's easy stuff. That's easy peasy. The harder stuff are the stupid meetings we didn't need to attend. The emails that we didn't need to receive and reply to. Did you know that 50% of the emails that the average knowledge worker receives, they did not need to receive, and 50% of the emails they send, they did not need to send.
44:40 But it feels productive, right? It feels like I'm getting stuff done. I'm sending a bunch of emails. That's part of my job, right? But if it's not what you said you were going to do in advance, it's just as much of a distraction as playing Candy Crush. Just because it's a work-related task doesn't mean it's a distraction. That's the worst kind of distraction, because your brain tricks you into not realizing that checking email when you should have been making customer calls, when you should have been pitching the VC, when you should have been raising capital, whatever it is, what you really needed to do is what you said you were going to do, and you didn't do it because you were checking email. Email is still a distraction, even if it's work-related.
45:12 And then finally, the last step is to prevent distraction pacts, which is where we erect a firewall against distraction. And so, with those four steps in concert, anyone can become indistractable. All right. Uh I think I'm going to let the smarter people in the room than me ask the questions. Now, but what is one question that you wish that I would have asked you, but I didn't? One question I wish you would have asked me, but you didn't. Ooh, I don't know.
45:39 I don't know. I'll have to think about that. Let's Let's open it up and see what kind of questions you >> to you. Love you. So, what's been like finding the reading quite difficult writing for the last few years? Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm going to cut your commission check in half. I bought like 100 copies. >> Really? Okay. Really? You just had to go there. He's probably importing it from China as well. They're all copying it.
46:04 that's bad. But just curious to see from a personal perspective, the Hooked is all about building habit-forming products, and Indistractable is all about preventing ourselves getting addicted from that. So, from your perspective, is it like evolution of competition or what are your thoughts? It's definitely evolution. So, it's not competition because we can have we can get the best out of a technology, but while making sure it doesn't get the best of us in Indistractable. So, it's not to use the same products. We want to get hooked to Fitbod and to Duolingo, to these apps that help us live a better life, which are the vast majority of apps, right? When you look at sheer quantity in the App Store, most apps are building or trying to build healthy habits. Like, should you be so lucky that anyone is getting addicted to your product?
46:48 Right? That's a problem almost nobody has. The problem most companies have is they don't have a product. That's the real problem. Even when it would greatly benefit them, they don't care about your product. That's what Hooked tries to solve. It's for the entrepreneurs who are building something that really could improve people's lives if they would just use it, but they don't. That's what I who I wrote the book for. Indistractable was cuz I needed right? It wasn't for the companies that use this. It was for the companies that I stole this information from, right?
47:19 Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp and Slack and Snapchat, they don't need Hooked. They're already using this stuff. The video game companies, the social media companies, that's where I learned this stuff. So, that's what this is for. So, Indistractable is for uh for anyone who's struggling with doing something that is not what they said they were going to do, whether it's checking email when I said I was going to work on that presentation, whether it's, you know, uh it's staying at work as opposed to hitting the gym or whatever it might be.
47:45 Whenever I say I'm going to do one thing and I do something else, whether it's technology or not, that's what Indistractable seeks to solve without saying, "Well, just stop checking email." Thanks, stupid. Like, that's not Only a tenured professor gives that of advice. That's who writes these books that say, "Oh, you should stop checking email." All right. Like, I'm not going to have a life if if that happens. So, how do we make sure that we we we get the best of these tools without letting them get the best of us?
48:10 Sure. Yeah, I have one more I'm sorry. I have a question about what you mentioned right up front about the key. Yeah. Uh both examples that you started with the Siri and the and also the one with the assistant, there was an external party that made me realize that I believe in all of these things. But a lot of us don't really have the uh Here you go. Yeah. So, how does I mean, when I read it, of course I know I have to be positive and of course I need to follow it, but how do you actually implement Uh And I'm not asking you to give it up like what are your thoughts on that? Great question.
48:43 Really good question because the trouble So, why did I write Indistractable? I wrote Indistractable because um I do these consulting calls and and and every once in a while we get a call from someone who would tell me, "Hey, I I read Indistractable, but I need your help because uh it didn't work." Didn't work? I'd say, "Well, you know, I I I spent five years writing Indistractable. It's got 30 pages of citations to peer-reviewed studies. Changed my life.
49:12 It changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. I really want to know like why why didn't it work? I want to sit here and let's go step by step. We're going to work through every step of Indistractable and see where it broke down for you. So, let's start step one, master internal triggers. How did it go for you? You know, Near, I I read the book. I read the book. It's just that I I didn't do step one.
49:34 I didn't do step one. Okay. Okay, no problem. I understand. Maybe you skipped that one. That one was hard for you. Let's let's let's go on. Step two, make time for traction. How did that go for you? Did you do step two? Yeah, you know what? I I read step two. I definitely read it. I just didn't um do that one either. So, people would wait for months sometimes to ask the author of a book that they had read to tell me that the thing that they didn't do didn't work.
50:01 Right? Don't we all do this though? I got it first it was my book, but actually I do it all the time. All the time, right? I have a book that I know is going to help me that I don't put into practice. I've seen the YouTube video. I've listened to the podcast. I've hired a consultant, and yet I don't put it into practice. Why? Because we don't understand motivation. I didn't understand motivation. That's why I wrote The On Belay because I was doing this to myself. I was just like my my readers who were calling.
50:28 And what I learned was is that our traditional model of motivation is incomplete. You know, I was an econ major in college and they taught us that it's all about incentives, right? Which is which is true. That if you want a certain benefit, you have to do a certain behavior. Right? That's how our jobs work. If you pay somebody X, they'll do Y. But if it was that simple, if all we needed to get a benefit was to do a behavior, then why do we all have six-pack abs and multi- and we're multi-millionaires?
51:01 Right? If if that's all it took. Because don't we already already know? Right? We know what it takes to get in shape. We know how to build a business. We know how to do We all know it. If you don't know, Google it. Ask ChatGPT. Buy a book. It's all out there. And what I learned was is that motivation's not a straight line. It's a triangle. That in order to sustain motivation, you need not only the behavior, knowing what to do, you need not only the benefit, why I'm doing it, but you have to have the hope.
51:29 You have to have the hope. For example, if I'm working for somebody and I don't believe in their leadership. I don't believe they know what they're doing. I don't believe they have my best interests at heart. I don't believe I'm going to get that promotion. Am I going to sustain motivation to work for them? So, can you manufacture belief? That's >> You're saying but like it's How do you do that? Yeah. Right. So, now that we have Well, yeah. Yeah.
51:49 So, I'm building I'm building the case. So, in order to if if we know how important beliefs are to sustain motivation in the long term, how do we recognize what beliefs are keeping us motivated versus sapping our motivation? And so, we have two types of belief. We have what's called a limiting belief and a liberating belief. A liberating belief I'm sorry, a limiting belief decreases your motivation and increases your suffering. That's the definition of a limiting belief. Decreases your motivation, increases your suffering. A liberating belief increases your motivation and decreases your suffering.
52:25 And to answer your question, how do we recognize these limiting beliefs and why is it so hard? It's because limiting beliefs, by definition, are hidden. It's like your face. I want Let's do some audience participation here. I want you all right now, please look at your face. Go ahead. Do it. Look at your face. You all have a face. Yeah. Okay. He says, "A camera." Of course, that's the answer. A mirror. You need something outside of yourself to reflect. My daughter calls this the mirror.
52:58 You have to use something outside of yourself in order to see your limiting beliefs. Just like you can't see your own face, you can see everybody else's face, right? Right? Just like you can see everybody else's limiting beliefs. Your employees limiting beliefs, your mother's limiting beliefs, your spouse's limiting beliefs, your kids. You can see everybody's limiting beliefs. But you can't see your own. They're always hidden to you. So, to answer your question, the first step is to see those limiting beliefs.
53:23 And we all have them, right? We know the person who's super successful in business, doesn't take care of their body. The person who's amazing uh at work, but you know, has a terrible relationship with their with their wife or their husband, whatever. We all have these limitations in our life. So, step number one is ask yourself, where are you stuck? Where is something that is causing you suffering in your life? Maybe it's that New Year's resolution you've had year after year. Maybe it's that relationship that needs repair. Maybe it's that goal you've had for years and years, but for whatever reason you haven't done.
53:51 That's step number one. What's causing you that suffering that you know you want to do something that you haven't? Step number two is ask yourself why. What's the reason? There's no time. It's too late. I'm too old. I'm too young. I'm too fat. I'm too thin. I'm not good at this. This is too hard. What is the reason? Okay, that's step number two. Then what we're going to do is we're going to do what's called inquiry-based stress reduction. This is a technique that's been scientifically validated now for several years, and we're going to ask ourselves a few questions. I can I can show you how I changed one of my limiting beliefs.
54:26 So Yeah, good job. Yeah. Yeah, you really going to acknowledge the question and the answer when you said like wife's self-limiting beliefs. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um So, this is a big This was a big belief change for me. So, for years, my whole life that I can remember, my mother, to me, was a very judgmental person. Okay? She's always been very judgmental. And a few years ago, it was her birthday. And for her birthday, I wanted to send her some nice flowers. The problem was I was in Singapore, and she was in Central Florida, where I grew up.
55:02 So, that wasn't easy to send her flowers from Singapore, but I I stayed up late. I called the florist. I found the best one. I made sure that I sent her just a perfect bouquet that I knew she would love. And I was convinced that I would wake up the next morning, and I'd call my mother, and she would tell me what a wonderful son I am. That's not what happened. What happened was I called her up the next morning, and I said, "Hey, happy birthday, Mom. Did you get the flowers I sent?" And she says, "Yes, I did.
55:30 But just so you know, thank you, but just so you know, those flowers you sent, they were half dead. So, don't order from that florist again. To which I said, "Well, that's the last time I buy you flowers." My wife was sitting right next to me, and we work together. She's my editor. And she turns to me, and she says, and she heard this whole call, and she says, "Here, would you like to do a turnaround on this?"
55:55 To which I said, "No." I do not want to do your touchy-feely hocus-pocus nonsense. I need to vent, right? Did she not just hear what my mom said to me? I need to tell you I need to complain here, right? I need to get it off my chest. That's what we're told what to do, right? If If someone offends us, we not supposed to hold our feelings inside. We supposed to tell them how we feel. Speak your truth, right?
56:19 Well, thankfully, I knew enough research at the time to know that that's exactly the opposite of what we should do. That when we vent, when we complain about others, what we are doing is reinforcing our belief about them. Remember I told you the three lessons? That we don't see reality as it is. It's a fact. I can I can prove it to you a little later. We don't see reality as it is. We don't see people as they are. We see people as we are.
56:46 We see people as we believe them to be. So, every time you vent, every time you complain about somebody, you are reinforcing this effigy of them. Not real. You're reinforcing your beliefs about them. That's so like her. She always does this. There she goes again. Right? We don't see people clearly, especially the people we know best. So, I didn't do that. Instead, I took my wife's advice. I sat down, and I wrote down the belief that was causing me suffering.
57:16 The belief that was causing me suffering was that my mom is so judgmental and hard to please. Okay? By some of your faces, I think we might share a mother. I think next time we're inviting wives, partners, husbands, everyone who like this talk, just so that they believe by the belief system of the Yeah. I think we might be siblings. Some of us might be siblings and have the same Yeah, we have the yours absolutely. Yes, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
57:42 >> [laughter] >> Yeah. So, I wrote down a belief and now I did what I mentioned earlier, inquiry-based stress reduction. This is a technique that was pioneered by a woman by the name of Byron Katie, but actually she was channeling a technique that's over 2,500 years old. It comes all the way from Aristotle. What she does is she gives us four questions. Okay? Four questions. The first question is for this belief, my mother is too judgmental and hard to please, is it true?
58:07 Is it true? Is it true? Yes. Maybe. Yes. Of Who said no? Of course it's true. God damn it. Didn't you just hear what my mom said? Who does that? If somebody sends you flowers, you say thank you, right? You don't complain about the flower. Stupid question. Let's skip question number one. Question number two. Is it absolutely true? I don't know. Slightly different, right? Sounds like the first question, slightly different. Is it absolutely true? Absolutely means it is the same in all cases, no exceptions.
58:39 Could there be any other explanation other than my mother is too judgmental and hard to please? Any other explanation? Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. At least one, which means it's not absolutely true. Okay? So, now with that second question, I took something that I believed was a fact. Okay? I believed it was absolutely true. And now I realized it wasn't a fact. It wasn't an objective truth. It was a subjective perception. It was just a belief. It was a conviction.
59:10 That's it. Okay, third question. Who am I when I hold on to this belief? When I believe that my mother is too judgmental and hard to please, I'm impatient. I'm not very nice. And I become this 13-year-old version of myself that really like. Okay, fourth question. Who would I be without that? If I had a magic wand and poof, that belief disappeared. It never existed. Who would I be if I just let it dissolve?
59:43 Right? Well, I'd be much happier. I felt lighter instantly. And I realized that I could be more of who I really am. So in just four questions and maybe 30 seconds, I learned that this thing that I thought was a fact wasn't a fact, it was just a belief. That holding onto that belief was causing me suffering. And that letting it go made me feel way better. So now I was ready for the turnaround. The turnaround is when we collect a portfolio of perspectives. Okay, just like we have a stock portfolio or we collect Pokémon cards or baseball cards. We're not going to change our mind. Why? The brain hates changing its mind.
60:23 Your brain hates changing its mind. Why? Your brain, why does your brain have limiting beliefs? Your brain has limiting beliefs because it's trying to protect you. Your brain is constantly pulling you towards whatever you did in the past because your brain's primary job is not to make you happy, it's not to fulfill you, it's not to help you meet your full potential. Your brain's primary objective is one thing, to keep you alive. That's it. The best way to keep you alive is to keep you doing and thinking whatever you did yesterday.
60:51 Because your life today. So your brain is constantly pulling you back into whatever you did before. Constantly pulling you to passivity. So your brain is going to fight this tooth and nail. So whatever that that thing that you're stuck on, when you do this exercise and I hope you will try it, your brain is going to tell you, "Nah, that guy's crazy. That's not going to work for me. He's never met my mom." Right? You're going to find a million different reasons why it won't work for you. That's your brain doing exactly what it was designed to do, what it evolved to do, pulling you back into your old ways. Okay? But do this exercise anyway. Ask yourself, how could the exact opposite be true?
61:25 Just for the sake of discussion. You don't have to change your mind. Just collect a portfolio of perspectives. So, how could it also be true that my mother is not too hard to please? Could that be true? Well, she did thank me for the flowers. She did say a statement of fact that the flowers were half dead. Right? That's just a statement of fact. They weren't so nice. So, maybe she was actually trying to help me, not hurt me.
61:51 Maybe she just didn't want me to get scammed from that florist. Maybe. Could be true, right? So, now I have two beliefs. Let's do a third. The opposite of my mother is too judgmental and hard to please could also be I am too judgmental and hard to please. Could that be true? How could that be true? Well, I had rehearsed the night before exactly the words that I deserved to hear from my mom.
62:22 And when she didn't say it exactly the way I wanted to hear it, I lost it. So, who exactly was being judgmental? I was. Okay, here's a fourth turnaround. The opposite of my mother is too judgmental and hard to please could also be I am too judgmental and hard to please towards myself. That actually turned out to be the most true because what had really happened, the more I thought about it, here's this thing I put a lot of time and money and effort into and when it didn't work out the way I had planned, I felt incompetent. I felt like I screwed up.
62:53 And this is what we call a misattribution of emotion. A misattribution of emotion is when I feel crappy on the inside and so I'm looking for a reason to attribute it to from something on the outside. He said this. She did that. The AI is taking all our jobs. Geopolitics this, that. This whatever all this stuff outside of us that convinces us that that's why we feel crappy on the inside. And that's exactly what I did to my mom.
63:20 So, out of these four beliefs that I just shared with you, which one is true? Which one is false? They're all of them? None of them? Who cares? Who cares? Beliefs are tools, not truths. That is the most important message I can leave you with. Beliefs are tools, not truths. We spend so much time arguing with each other, "No, when you said this, you meant to do that. You meant to hurt Who cares?" That one belief that I was absolutely convinced was a fact, "My mother is too judgmental and hard to please." In order for me to stop suffering, what had to happen?
63:57 She had to change so I could stop suffering. Now, you don't know my mom, that ain't going to happen. All right? That's not going to happen. When we wait for something to change outside of us so we can feel better on the inside, if you hold your breath, you're going to suffocate. It's not going to happen. The other three beliefs, I didn't have to wait for anybody. I could stop suffering right now. So, why the hell would I keep holding on to that limiting belief?
64:23 What did it do to my motivation to work on that relationship with my mom? If I believe someone is too judgmental and hard to please, do I am I motivated to work on that relationship? No. What does that do to my suffering? It increased even when she was halfway around the world, I was suffering from what she had said. She wasn't even there, and I was suffering. So, that's the definition of a limiting belief. Decreased my motivation, increased my suffering. These other three beliefs increased my motivation to work on that relationship and decreased my suffering. Now, does it mean I have to be best friends with her? Does it mean we have to hang out every day? No, it doesn't mean any of that. It just means I don't have to suffer cuz I've adopted a liberating belief that frees me from this cage that I invented in my own brain.
65:03 Is that helpful? What does the book say about this one? >> [laughter] >> It does. It really really does. Oh, I have to actually tell you the answer. I have to actually tell you what I have funny you should say that because after I wrote this chapter I had to share with her right I wasn't able to read it in the book that you know that even I had to tell him what happened and so I thought this isn't in the book but this is what happened I thought she would read this chapter I sent it to her over email and I thought she was going to tell me I I can't believe I actually thought this I thought she was going to tell me wow you know you really reflected on this one you know wow you you really took responsibility for your feeling you know what she says to me I told you those flowers were terrible >> [applause] >> so so now my liberating belief as opposed to I mean I it still hurts right I still feel the pain of that that gut reaction that hurts the pain never goes away the suffering is gone the suffering is gone because now what's my story what's my belief it's not there she goes again she's so judgmental she's so hard to please that's what I would constantly say instead you know what I say to myself this is my new liberating belief which I have to tell myself all the time we're working with the tools we have we're all working with the tools we have it's like asking my mom to speak Latin my mom can't speak Latin she will never learn to speak Latin she can't so why would I expect her to behave and speak and say the words exactly as I want her to speak them it's like me asking her to speak Latin she doesn't have those tools she only has the best tools that she has and so that's exactly the same thing I say to myself when I feel that pain with my wife with my daughter with the jerk who cuts me off in traffic or whatever we're just working with the tools we have that's what's helped me so far in my life all these three books are working on yourself you talked about beliefs you gave the example of sitting with your coach how do we learn to believe those who are close to us more Mhm or sometimes at workplace I have a venture capitalist Mhm So, we have to believe people with judgement.
67:13 And I think what happens is when we are very young, we believe everyone. And then as we get older, we get skeptical. Your survival instinct keeps kicking in. How do you overcome that? Because the payoff of believing in others is very massive. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. Do you know Mike Maples? You heard of Mike Maples? Mike Maples is a Yeah, it's Floodgate. He's a friend of mine. He actually Now he's a friend of mine. He He was one of my first investor in my last company. Uh and uh he we were talking the other day and he he was he was telling me about how he he missed Airbnb.
67:49 Uh he was pitched Airbnb. He had the opportunity to invest. Brian Chesky, right? Is that Brian Chesky? Pitched him and he passed and he regrets it every day. And you know why he passed? He wrote Brian an email that said, "You know, travel just is not an industry that we want to we want to invest in. We don't do travel." Out of hand, right? And what a missed opportunity. That's what kills them, right? It's one thing You can only lose so much on a deal, but oh my god, the infinite upside, that's what really hurts.
68:18 And why did that happen? Because he had a belief. He had this lens. Travel equals bad. And he couldn't see it any other way. He could I I'll I'll give you an example here, actually. Do you guys like riddles? Okay, I'm going to tell you a riddle. It illustrates a There is a father and a son on a dark deserted highway. A dark deserted road. And as they're driving on this road, a deer jumps out in front of the car.
68:50 The car smashes into the deer. The father is instantly killed. Instantly killed, okay? The son is in critical condition and he's rushed to the hospital. As soon as the boy gets to the hospital, he's wheeled into the operating room, the surgeon takes one look at him and says, "I cannot operate on this boy. He's my son." Okay? If you know the answer to this riddle, please don't shout it out. Don't ruin it for the rest of us, okay? But if you've never heard this riddle before, think about that for a minute. Okay, please don't say it if you know the answer. How can that be? I'll say the last part again.
69:24 The boy is rushed to the hospital. He's wheeled into the operating room, the surgeon takes one look at him and says, "I cannot operate on this boy. He's my son." How can that be? Okay? Now, this riddle, 87% of people can never get the riddle. They never find the answer. 87%. So, if you don't know the answer right now, you're in good company. 87% of people will not get the answer to this riddle. Do you know the answer to it? Don't say it. Don't say it. Do you know the answer to the riddle? No, no, not you.
69:52 Do you know? Was it the stepfather? Stepfather? Close. Close. There's a similar answer. There's a similar No, don't say it. Don't say it. I know you're dying, too. It's the mom. It's the mom. The surgeon was the boy's mom. Right? 87% of women don't get the answer. 87% of feminists don't get the answer. 87% of of of people who have a mother who is a surgeon don't get the answer to this question.
70:26 Do you see what happened here? It's so obvious that the boy's mother was the surgeon, but your brain won't let you see it. Why? Because 80% of surgeons are men and 20% are women. And so, your brain doesn't see reality clearly. Your brain makes a prediction of reality based on priors, based on what happened in the past. And so, it won't let you see reality any other way. And so, is it any any surprise that when Mike says, "Well, every other for I've invested in a travel company, it doesn't work." But the one time he gets something across his desk that will work, he says, "Nope, not going to work." He couldn't see it.
71:02 He couldn't envision it in his mind's eye. Just like 87% of people can't see that the mother can be the surgeon. So, what we have to do is to realize fact number one, your brain does not see reality clearly. Your brain sees a prediction of reality based on your beliefs, and you constantly have to remind yourself this over and over and over again. We all do, and we we do that through practice. So, I completely agree with you on many fronts. One question that I have is as you say the knowledge can help you, and the question is that I keep on moving from phases of indistractable to distractible. Uh-huh. So, the question is in spite of knowing what to do many times, and in spite of knowing and let's say I go and manage my beliefs in the right way, but I keep on shifting. So, how do I move on from a phase where I'd be more indistractable? And I'm assuming that I will be distractible at some point.
71:56 Yeah. So, Yeah. Can you speak a little bit about that? So, I will tell you uh I have to take out my books from time to time and reread them. Because remember, it's not about information. Knowing what to do is is good. It's not you need it. That's not the bottom neck. That's not the constraint. The constraint is our beliefs. Right? And so, we have to practice those liberating beliefs again and again and again until they become our real beliefs. Until we we actually default to those versus our limiting beliefs.
72:34 Um and so, it's it's a lifelong practice. It's it's and it's it's not necessarily easy, but everything worth having in life is on the other side of hard, right? And you you want to you build businesses. Is that easy? No, it takes a lot of work. Building a great family, building a uh uh uh, you know, a venture, anything you're building is going to take some hard work. And especially [clears throat] when it comes to these ingrained habits, the the biggest limiting belief that I used to have when it came to my distraction is that those internal triggers are bad.
73:04 That feeling bad is bad. It sounds so basic. Of course, feeling bad is bad. No. No. Feeling bad is information. You know, right now your brain, remember I told you your brain doesn't see reality clearly? Why is that? It's because your brain right this second is taking in 11 million bits of information. 11 million bits of information is like reading War and Peace every second twice. Okay, it's like 2,000 pages of information every single second. It's a tremendous amount of information. The light entering your eyes, the sound of my voice in your ears, the ambient temperature of the room, your brain is absorbing all that information. But your conscious awareness can only process 50 bits. So 11 million versus 50. War and Peace twice versus one sentence per second. That's all you can process. What you think is reality is a simulation, this tiny pinhole of attention that you think is the real world. It's not the real world.
74:01 It's this this predictive model, this simulation running in your mind filtered through your beliefs. So this belief that if I feel discomfort, that's bad. That's an interpretation. The signal is the emotion, right? Emotions are not feelings. Emotions are physiological states. Emotions are psychological. So when I would feel bored, lonely, uncertain, fatigued, fearful, I interpret it as that's bad. I got to get out of that. That I can't feel that.
74:32 Let me scroll something. Let me click something. Let me eat something. Let me drink something. Cuz I'm not allowed to feel bad. But that's just information. That's just signal. Right? That's not suffering. Pain is not suffering. Those are two separate things in the brain. And so constantly reminding yourself of that, to me that's a breakthrough. To me that actually changed my life. You know, I used to be clinically obese. Like not just overweight, clinically obese. And that's how I lost the weight.
75:00 It was not finding the perfect miracle diet. It was realizing that, you know what? What's wrong with being hungry sometimes? Because before, every time I felt hunger, I got to eat. I got to eat. I got I can't feel this feeling. Now it's information. So I took what used to be a limiting belief of it's bad to feel bad, that this is this is, you know, uncomfortable. This is pain. This is suffering. I replaced it with a simple liberating belief.
75:25 My new liberating belief is this is what it feels like to get better. This is what it feels like to get better. Same stimulus, same emotion, same physiological response, completely different interpretation. And you have to repeat it again and again. So I what I would encourage you to do, feel free to steal some of the the the liberating belief I've shared with you today. Feel free to take them, make them your own, but even better, come up with the ones that are meaningful for you. And I used to put post-it notes in in like near my desk cuz I I would feel that same those same limiting beliefs when I was writing. I wanted to check email or sports scores or stock prices, everything but doing the writing. I would I changed my home screen on my phone to remind me of that that liberating belief I was working on.
76:07 Um before a call with my mom, I would remind myself of that liberating belief I was working on to until it becomes your new belief. And the nice thing about beliefs is that because they're malleable, because they can change, we can try them on. Right? You don't have to think that they are facts. Beliefs are tools, not truths. You can try on this new belief. Try for example, this is what it feels like to get better.
76:28 Even if it's not a fact, it actually doesn't matter. You try it on for a week. You'll see if it increases your motivation, decreases your suffering. If it doesn't, you can always try a different one. Is it interesting? I I don't I don't, you know, I'm I'm going to tell you something that you don't hear that often from like expert. I don't know. I wish I did. I don't know what's I don't know if there's somebody who's uh uh more cutting edge in China or United States. I just don't I just don't focus on that as much anymore.
76:57 Um but I will tell you like there's no doubt it is changing our brains. Everything changes our brains. Everything changes our brains. Um we don't know whether it's for good or bad. Yeah. I'm I'm sure it's both as we mentioned earlier, right? When you That's a ship you let the ship wreck. What I I do think will happen is what we've always done with with new technological innovation is that we will adapt and we will adopt.
77:24 So every time there's a technological shift we adapt our manners. We adapt our norms. And we adopt new technology to fix the last generation of technology. This always happens, right? So you know, uh when cars came out um it took years and years. I think it was I think it was 7 years between when manufacturers started putting seat belts in cars in the United States and when the government mandated seat belts. 7 years before. Why? Why did car manufacturers put seat belts in cars before they had to? Well, because people like safer cars. Okay? Your phone comes with Google wellbeing. It comes with um uh Apple screen time. That helps you use the product less. Can you name any other product that is designed to help you use it less?
78:12 I can't think of any, right? We don't ask the the alcohol manufacturers to help us drink less or the news companies to help us watch less TV. And yet our technology comes with ways to consume less of it. Why? Because people want devices that are less distracting. And there's thousands of apps as well and the apps are there to help you do something similar. So I think what we're going to see is exactly what you're talking about. And this is what we've seen, you know, in the years since I published Indistractable in 2019, is that consumers want things that uh help them manage tech use. So, if you see, you know what, I it's important for me to watch old black and white movies, which, you know, reasonable enough. Maybe that's a medium you want to consume more of. Becoming aware of it and doing something about it is in your control.
78:58 You know, uh uh Paulo Coelho said, "A mistake repeated more than once is a decision." I hate that quote. And I also love it. Because it acknowledges that even though it's not our fault, right? We didn't create these tools, it can only be our responsibility. So, if we say, "Ah, this technology keeps distracting me." Okay, first time, you're right, it's tech's fault, right? It's tech's problem. But if it happens again, and again, and again, at what point do we say, "Okay, enough. I'm going to do something today to stop getting distracted tomorrow." And so, if it's important to us, the good news is that there are so many tools out there to help us regain our focus, to regain our attention.
79:40 We just got to do it. >> [laughter] >> Right? It's all It's all out there, I think. All right. Thank you so much, Nir.
Summary
- Beliefs are central to our perception of reality; they can be limiting or liberating.
- Changing one's internal narrative can significantly influence outcomes, as demonstrated through examples like Serena Williams' coaching.
- The concept of "internal triggers" highlights that many distractions stem from our feelings rather than external stimuli.
- Eyal emphasizes the importance of making time for focused work and reflective thinking to combat distractions.
- He introduces the idea of inquiry-based stress reduction to identify and challenge limiting beliefs.
- The relationship between technology and distraction is complex; while tech can be distracting, it can also be used to enhance productivity if managed properly.
- Eyal encourages individuals to adopt liberating beliefs to improve motivation and decrease suffering.
- The ongoing evolution of technology requires us to adapt our behaviors and beliefs to maintain focus and well-being.