Latest / Books4Guys / Nir Eyal on Focus, Distraction, Habits, and Building a Meaningful Life in a Distracted World

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Nir Eyal on Focus, Distraction, Habits, and Building a Meaningful Life in a Distracted World · Books4Guys

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Before we jump into today's episode, I want to thank our executive development partner, Standard Pursuit.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Founded by Hunter Didrickson, Standard Pursuit is a coaching community built for founders, entrepreneurs, and high performers who are ready to step into the next version of themselves.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Through one-on-one coaching and the Standard Training Club, Hunter helps people strengthen both their physical and mental operating systems so they can think more clearly, lead more effectively, and perform at a higher level.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I appreciate most about what Hunter is building is that he understands success isn't just about business.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's about health, mindset, discipline, leadership, and becoming the type of person capable of achieving the goals you set for yourself.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you're looking to sharpen your performance, improve your habits, and operate at a higher level, both personally and professionally, I encourage you to check out standardpursuit at standardpursuit.com.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's get to today's episode.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I did spent some time in Atlanta.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, I just moved up to Nashville from Atlanta.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: No way.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: For being there for about seven years.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Were you are you from Georgia originally?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: No, I grew up in Orlando in Central Florida.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then I went to Emory for undergrad.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I did I did a year of service in AmeriCorps there as well.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got some some roots in Atlanta.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't been there for a while, but yeah, yeah.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, I saw that.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I went I went way back down your LinkedIn and I was like, oh, Nier spent spent a few years in Atlanta, which is pretty cool.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: But no, Nier, this is uh man, it's a pleasure to have you on the Books for Guys podcast, especially as someone who has you've sold over a million copies of your books.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's incredible, man.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And congratulations to you.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it has it has hit home and struck a nerve with a with a lot of people who are finding value in it and wanting to read it and then hear what you have to say.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll dig in a little bit to your books as we've got them all posted on the Books for Guys website and spotlighted for you.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I was wanting to ask you a question, Nier.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was sitting uh, so I go to a sauna most nights, and I was sitting there and I I like to call it my sauna thoughts.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh one question that came to my mind last night, I was like, oh, this is perfect for Nier, just kind of based off everything you write about and everything you speak about and whatnot.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking, just as I'm, you know, I'm building books for guys, and I know a lot of friends that are building companies and stuff right now, and I was thinking, it's never been a better time to create something.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you have all these tools that can help you do it faster, you can get in front of people easier, but it's also maybe not been a more difficult time because of all the distractions that can pop up in a lot of different areas.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I was sitting there last night, I was I was getting work done, and then my phone was going off, and I had YouTube on the screen in front of me, and I was like, okay, this is exactly what Nier's talking about as far as distractions goes.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would just love for you to have the mic for a second and just talk about your work and especially the recent, you know, talking about how to how to maximize your life.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: But you also have a book about minimizing distractions, which is a part of that.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would just like to know just your thoughts on the current state of where we're at and just kind of how we do balance that, but also be very successful in in a time where it's never been easier to build a business or, you know, a brand.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I think um the most important thing when it comes to managing distraction is understanding what distraction is, that we tend to blame the devices, but that's kind of a lazy interpretation, that there's a much deeper psychology to what's going on.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the best way to start is to understand what is distraction.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Really, the best way to do that is to ask yourself what is the opposite of distraction?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: So the opposite of distraction is not focus, the opposite of distraction is traction.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: They're opposites, traction and distraction.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: They both come from the same Latin root, trahare, which means to pull.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll notice that both words end in the same word, A-C-T-I-O-N, that spells action, reminding us that distraction is is excuse me, it's not something that happens to you.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: It is an action that you yourself take.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: So traction, by definition, is any action that pulls you towards what you said you were going to do, things that move you closer to your values and help you become the kind of person you want to become.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Those are acts of traction.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: The opposite of traction, distraction, is any action that moves you further away from what you plan to do, that pulls you away from your values, pulls you away from what you said you were going to do.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: So the most important thing to remember here is that it's not about the activity itself.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of guys out there get wound up in, oh, I shouldn't be playing video games, I shouldn't be on social media, I shouldn't be doing this, that, or the other online because that's bad.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I would argue anything that you do out of conscious thought, plan for before, like Dorothy Parker said, the time you plan to waste is not waste of time.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: So if you plan to do it in advance, it's traction.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing wrong with it.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: If you plan time to putz around, to play video games, to do whatever you want, to have a few beers, whatever.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: As long as you decide to do it in advance, that's fine.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so now we understand traction and distraction.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what prompts us towards distraction, here's where we have our triggers.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: So you can think of it two arrows going uh left and right, and then two arrows pointing to the center.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And those represent external triggers and internal triggers.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: External triggers, these are the usual suspects, the pings, the dings, the rings, all those things in our outside environment that we tend to blame.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Turns out, however, that your external triggers only account for 10% of your distraction.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: 10%.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Did you know that?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: That 10% of the time that you check your phone, it's because of a notification.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: So what's the other 90%?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Turns out that 90% of the time that we check our devices, it's not because of something in our outside environment, it's because of what's happening inside our heads.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: These are called internal triggers.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Internal triggers are uncomfortable emotional states: boredom, loneliness, fatigue, uncertainty, anxiety.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: That is the source of 90% of our distractions.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't care if it's too much news, too much booze, too much football, too much Facebook, it doesn't matter.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: You are always going to get distracted by something unless you know the root cause of the problem.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the root cause of the problem, at least in 90% of the time, is feeling crummy.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that is the root cause of the problem.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: If we just keep planning blaming our devices, and they are certainly built to uh to take advantage of those uncomfortable sensations, but that's not the root cause.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's the proximal cause.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the root cause of the problem.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: The root cause of the problem is that we don't know how to deal with discomfort.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what you have to start with.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Step number one is mastering internal triggers so they don't become your master.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Then we make time for traction, we plan our day, then we hack back the external triggers.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, the fourth step is to prevent distraction with pacts.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so using those four steps, anyone can become indistractable.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is there any scientific?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've studied this, so I'm curious.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm thinking again in just myself and friends who are at this stage where we're building different things.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I've noticed over the past two or three years, I don't, distractions don't affect me as much because I have purpose and I'm locked in on what I'm doing.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I don't care.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm such a big football fan, and I find myself like with it on in the background, and I don't even care.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I'm so excited about what I'm building that that's not even taking an ounce of my attention, which I never thought was possible because I am such a huge football fan.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: But it's as I was thinking about it, I was like, I'm building something that means more to me than this game.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I have friends too, will text each other and they won't respond for days because they're like, oh man, sorry, I was locked in doing this and this, and but it's such a positive thing.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is there something to that as well as having something that you discover that you're like, okay, this is my thing.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna run and focus.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems like seems like there's a lack of that a little bit too.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like people are letting the distractions keep them from finding that thing that they should be focused on.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, look, when your life feels out of control, without purpose, is uninteresting, you feel unimportant.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Football.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's a ball, you know, that's being passed around a field.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Who gives a shit?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Not that it's bad.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not bemoaning it, right?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a beautiful thing.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pastime.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's not your life.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: We we love to blame the technology, the social media companies, the AI, the algorithms.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Bullshit.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's just another distraction, okay?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Sports, and now with the advent of online gambling, are far worse than social media because it's socially condoned, right?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you're putzing around on YouTube all day, you look like a loser.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: But if you wear a jerk jersey and go to the bar and get blitzed and watch sports all day, that's okay.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Just because it's older.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's not as new as playing video games and and and you know, social media.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now, again, not that any of this stuff is bad.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's why you're doing it.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you're doing it because you can't handle discomfort, right?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you're doing it because drinking wallows away your sorrows.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And look, football can be just as addictive as drugs or booze or social media for sure.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's why you're doing it.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you're doing it to escape those internal triggers, that's where you got to start.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so one solution to this is having something in your life that that gives you purpose, that gives you meaning, where you see progress, where you have control, those are the antidotes for a lot of that malaise that leads people to kind of self-medicate, self-intoxicate.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's just things I things you think about as you get into this, and it's super cool.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I love, I love following your work because I'm just just a big proponent of self-development, reading, learning, and a lot of my friends are too.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I follow closely a lot of the things you post, and I'm like, yes, yes, yes, because it's very direct and it's very simple.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's things that I think most people, I I hope, know.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you when you post something, I think most people are like, yeah, that's right.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's the action part of it to implement it and be real with yourself about it.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: That seems to be the struggle.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like we don't like these hidden truths.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's so much easier to say, oh, it's Mark Zuckerberg, it's the algorithms, it's the AI, it's what's happening in the news, it's the economy, it's the inflation, it's my girlfriend, it's my boss, it's my parents, it's my kids.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's called the misattribution of emotion.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very important psychological concept that when we feel shitty on the inside, we look to attribute it to stuff that's happening on the outside.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: But pain and suffering doesn't happen out here.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: What's out here?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is just air.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Pain and suffering happens up here.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a thing we don't like to acknowledge.
• 11:29
  unknown: Yeah.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: That there's a difference, first of all, between pain and suffering.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Pain and suffering are two separate things.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Pain is signal, pain is information, pain is data.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Suffering is the interpretation of that data.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so how we deal with that suffering determines who we become.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, 100%.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Nier, I was gonna ask you this question too, because I was looking through like your book trans, your book journey.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've got them pulled up here, and it's something I've kind of I don't know, and maybe maybe I'm wrong here, but so you wrote the book Hooked, uh, about 12 years ago.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And essentially, how it's how companies can get the consumer hooked to their product and basically grab our attention.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then it seems like you kind of transitioned and you've got the book Indistractable, which is basically how to, as me, don't give products or things as much attention as they're trying to get from me.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, and then it transitioned into beyond belief, which is maximizing your life, change your mind, change your your your habits.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about your progression because it seems like over the last, again, 14, 15 years, obviously you're starting out, you've built companies, then you're you're consulting with companies, and then you've kind of it's almost like you've come over to helping the individual be successful rather than that.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: What what just talk about your progression, kind of just your mission through throughout your career, especially over that time frame.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: So so I don't write books because I have the answer.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: I write books because I'm looking for the answer.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the reader is following me along that journey.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I think one of the um most effective ways to learn something is to write about it.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: That you can talk nonsense and sound convincing if you sound very confident.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard to write in a convincing way and be persuasive without making logical sense.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so writing is a wonderful way to learn.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so what I love about writing is that, you know, you can become a have a PhD level understanding about a topic.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you spend five years or six years on a topic, as I have for my books, you kind of become the world expert at it, right?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm kind of the world expert in how to build habit forming products based on hooked.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, I'm I'm one of there's many of us, but I'm one of the world leading experts on the psychology of distraction and now the psychology of beliefs.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I think I have one of the best jobs in the world because I get to learn about something deeply that I am struggling with.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: So with Hooked, I was looking for how do you make a product sticky?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I wrote that book, Stealing the Secrets of Silicon Valley.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at the timeline, Hooked came out in 2014.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's well after Facebook and Google and Amazon and all these companies were started way, way before.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly, the video gaming companies, certainly the gambling companies were started before that.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: I stole their secrets.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I stole them for you.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: I stole them so that you can build products to improve people's lives more than just gambling and video games and social media.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't write the book for them.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: They already knew those techniques, right?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: I democratized those techniques so that Duolingo can use habit forming technology to help people learn a language.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Fitbod uses the hook model to get people hooked to exercising.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible app uses the hook model to get people hooked on scripture.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you can use this stuff for good.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I wrote it.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: The gambling companies and the video gaming companies and social media companies didn't need the book.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: They never read it.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't know, they don't need it.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I learned it.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, indistractable is about the other side of the story, right?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to get hooked to the personal finance app, to the fitness app, to the scripture app.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: We want to get hooked to those things.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Those are good habits, you know, per the user.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: But we want to disconnect from things that distract us.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: So they're not contradictory, they're complementary because we can have our cake and eat it too.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: We can get hooked to the good stuff, and we can we could disconnect, we can, we can uh excise distraction from our life as well.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting here, I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job then because your examples really hit home as uh I used the Bible app last year to read the Bible for the first time.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in conjunction, I deleted my sports betting apps as just uh and I was like, well, I'll just put this into my investment accounts.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, all right, this is a big boy move, you know, or we're making moves weird.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So your examples I was like, you're talking to me.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly why I wrote it.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like, you know, the brain will trick you into thinking, well, I just like it.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just like this stuff.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's true, right?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: That that's not wrong.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: You do like it.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: But for me at least, when I realized how the sausage was made, right?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: When I looked at, hey, how are these products built based on an understanding of what makes you click and what makes you tick better than you understand yourself?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: When you realize what's happening, not that it's sinister, by the way.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, we want these products to be engaging.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Are we going to say, hey, Netflix, stop making interesting shows?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, hey, Apple, your phones are too user-friendly.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, we want these things to be engaging.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: When I when I watch a YouTube video, I want it to be good.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: I want the algorithm to feed me good content.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, because it's amazing, you know how much I've learned on social media.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, here we are connected.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: You probably saw one of my videos or me on a podcast or something, and here we are talking right now.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is all enabled through this technology.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's too simplistic to say, oh, it's the algorithm hacking our brains.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's what a lazy mind says.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Rather, I think what a sophisticated mind says is what appears to be, or was it Upton Sinclair who said that the mark of a first-rate intelligence is holding two contradictory ideas at the same time.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: That we can see it seems like a contradiction, but it's not.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: We can get the best out of technology without letting it get the best of us, if we know how.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that you said too that you have the best job in the world, because I was literally thinking that.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, what Nier does is it is probably the most fun thing is being able to study, learn, teach, work with people, and and see the transition, see the light bulb come on, be able to have an impact.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Which leads me to one of my next questions for you, Nier.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking about this is what really led you, or when did you find out, or when did the light bulb click for you that that, hey, I have a platform here?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm what I'm learning and what I'm speaking, people are grasping.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you just continue to build on that over the last 10 to 14 years.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're speaking, and the books just keep getting bigger and bigger, and more and more people are leaning into what you have to say.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: But what what really got you interested into human behavior to start with?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then just talk about how when did you realize that, hey, I'm gonna, this is what I'm called to do.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm called to put this out there.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and and you mentioned too being curious.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's a big part of it, and a lot of high achievers just being curious and continue learning, but just from your words, what did all that look like?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think maybe the inspiration was uh, you know, I always write books not about what I wouldn't know, but what I want to know.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: And they're based on some kind of challenge that I'm struggling with.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that probably started pretty young.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: You see, I I used to be clinically obese, uh, not not just not just overweight, but actually clinically obese since since I was a young child.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um I remember thinking from a very young age that food controlled me, that uh I wasn't in charge of my own decisions, that it felt like, you know, the that I I I I didn't I didn't have agency.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um I used to kind of blame the food for being delicious.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's McDonald's that's making me fat, it's the fast food companies, it's the food industrial complex.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, to be honest, it didn't get me anywhere.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't, it didn't help me lose the weight.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if I think, I don't mean to speak out of turn, but I think if if obese people are honest, what what what we'll tell you, or even formerly obese people will tell you, is that I didn't eat too much because it was delicious.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I ate my feelings.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: I would eat when I was bored.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: I would eat when I was lonely.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: I would eat because I felt ashamed about how much I had just eaten.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: And the the the escape from that was more food.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that fundamental understanding and being honest with myself about that's why I was doing that, and it was my inability to deal with discomfort that made me eat so much.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: That uh you know, I I I constantly had this belief, and that's a big part of what Beyond Belief is about.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Separating uh I constantly had this belief that being hungry was bad, right?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: That you know, we call it food noise, that I want, I want, I want, I want, I want.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it took me a long time to understand so, right?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it sounds simple, it's not, it's not, and uh but but I think that was uh an experience in my life when I figured that out, that uh I kept you know feeling out of control because I wasn't in control of my feelings.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: And once I had that that mind shift, it was a massive unlock.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I became fascinated in not only how do products leverage that human weakness in a way, because look, every product you use, every product you use, uh, you use for one reason only.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care what it is, whether it's dog food, whether it's your car, whether it's your clothing, everything you use, you use for one reason to modulate your mood, right?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: To feel something different.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're not you're not buying things, you're buying feelings.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And once you understand that, that it's just a feeling.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's all it is.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a feeling.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's incredibly empowering.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've kind of looked at that from different angles of how do we how do we that's kind of been what what what ties all my work together is how does emotion regulation affect what we consume, we know what we buy?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, how does it affect what we over consume?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then how can we follow through with what we really want in our lives based on separating pain from suffering?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's powerful stuff, man.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I love the message you're putting out there because it does seem like the blame game is the one that keeps coming up.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And whether it's in the pharmaceuticals or food, I mean, there's lawsuits, everyone wants to say it's not my fault, and a lot of people don't want to look within.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to do, like you said.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to look in the mirror and say, I need better discipline, I need better habits, I I take personal responsibility.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it's so freeing and such a good feeling when you figure that out.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I again, it takes a lot of practice and probably takes a lot of you speaking to people and again putting this work out there just to keep hammering it home.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I love the message.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: I want I want to clarify that it it may sound like what I'm talking about is preaching self-discipline and self-control.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not exactly that because look, as as someone who used to be clinically obese, it it wasn't always in my control.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't my fault, right?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: That that it's not your fault.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you you didn't choose your limiting beliefs.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Those were installed in you.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a big part of what Beyond Belief is about.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, our limiting beliefs come from our upbringing, come from our childhood, come from our culture, come from our past experience.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: We don't always choose our beliefs.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: We almost never choose our beliefs because very few of us actually take them out and examine them.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's not your fault.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because who else's responsibility could it possibly be?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody's gonna save us.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And if you if you stand here and hold your breath, you're gonna suffocate.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so the idea here is to figure out where there is some kind of agency.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not always there.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you have schizophrenia, you're not really in control uh and discipline may not work for you, at least when you're having uh an episode.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of people would recover from schizophrenia.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're having an episode, you may not have that self-control for sure.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I think far too many of us give up the control.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: We let go of the wheel and give up because it's very seductive.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's very seductive to say, well, that's who I am, right?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no more dangerous words have ever been spoken than whatever follows I am.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I am not good at this.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not ready for this.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, I am someone who suffers from ADHD, which I also have.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I am whatever.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Very dangerous because our labels can become our limits.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's very, very seductive.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think we we can all agree that there's probably some amount that is self-control, that is uh due to choice and and and our belief set that is malleable.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's some that isn't.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Where that line is, is a lot more malleable than we give credit for.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for example, with ADHD, I meet a lot of people, and I used to say this to myself too.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: I have a chronic brain disease.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: What am I gonna do?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I was convinced that 100%, right?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Let let's say there's like a ruler, you know, like all the way the entire scale was just my ADHD.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now that can't be true.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: There has to be a placebo effect there, that if I keep telling myself I can't, I can't, I can't, can we all agree that probably has some kind of effect?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: At least to some degree.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: 1%, 1% effect?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what about 2%?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: 10%?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: 20%?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: 50%, 80%?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: You see, there's so there's some kind of degree.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: So what I'm trying to preach for is finding the beliefs that serve you rather than hurt you.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: That telling myself I have a chronic brain disease, I have a chronic brain disease, I have a chronic disease, it wasn't serving me.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the same with my obesity.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, people, you know, obese people have a tough time exercising.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: The food industrial complex is trying to make us fad, you know, like was it actually making things better for me?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: What was it changing my life in a way that that gave me agency and control over my my existence?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Not really.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: So even if it's even if it's true, it wasn't useful.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's that's a big part of why I wrote Beyond Belief is to help us examine and take out which one of those beliefs hurt us, which ones serve us, because beliefs are tools, not truths.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this actually leads perfectly into one of my last questions for you, Nir, is and and you made this statement.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: We it's not always our fault.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I was sitting here thinking, I was like, you know, not everyone plays sports at a young age and has good coaches who install, you know, good things, or or maybe your parents weren't the best, maybe you're on your own.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm curious to know for for maybe those individuals who who haven't had the structure needed to help form those thoughts properly, but they pick up your book beyond belief in in some way.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Someone gives it to them, they find it on the street somewhere, whatever.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: What do you hope is maybe that one piece of information?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's a tough question, but if they take nothing else from the book, what do you hope it is that they do take away from it so that they can start to change their life for the better?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'll give you I'll give you three.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, you don't see reality clearly.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: None of us do.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you see reality filtered by your beliefs.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: Second, you are capable of far more than you know.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And third, your beliefs become your reality.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Not everyone's reality, but your perception of reality is dictated by what you believe.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: What you see, what you feel, what you do, and ultimately who you become is determined by what you believe.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Love that.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Love that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Nir, last question for you.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's uh just a specific books for guys.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: I ask every guest that comes on the podcast this question because usually everyone's got different answers, and it's a tough one because you could answer it differently based off where you were at 15 years ago versus now.
• 27:56
  unknown: Yeah.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm always curious to know what is a book or two that has meant a lot to you personally or professionally, and what's a book you love to recommend to others?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll tell you I uh a great book that I recommend to everyone is A Factfulness by Hans Rosling is a great book, um, especially when it comes to what we think we know about the world.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh basically the the quick premise, I'll get I'll tell you real quick what it's about.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh have you read it, by the way?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, I haven't.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, great, great book.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: So basically, uh he he was a researcher who gave the so-called smartest people in society, college professors, a simple exam.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was an exam about the state of the current world.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: So questions about uh the state of democracy around the world, the environment, uh female empowerment, uh uh education, uh uh life expectancy, health, all kinds of questions about the state of the world.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: How is it in different places in the world?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: So these were the most educated people in the world, you know, college professors.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: They're supposed to know this kind of stuff.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out that college professors did worse on this test than if monkeys had taken it.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's what this shows us is that we all have a much more negative perception of the state of the world than is true.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: That because we have this constant media diet of gloom and doom and war and death and suffering, we don't understand how wonderful the world is.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we believe it to be far worse than it actually is.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that has some pretty severe consequences.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for example, a lot of people don't want to have babies anymore.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: We are going through a population apocalypse right now because they're saying to themselves, not everyone, but a lot of people say, well, the world, you know, the environment's getting worse, the economy's getting worse, people are getting poorer, there's war, there's conflict.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: I can't bring a baby into the world.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the exact opposite is true.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: The exact opposite, this is the best time to be alive in all of human history.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Name any time in human history in 200,000 years of our species that was ever better.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Never.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: Never.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Even with all our problems, it doesn't mean the world doesn't have problems.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: It does have lots of problems.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And also, it is true that it's better than ever.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want a complete mind reset about the current state of the world, read Factfulness by Hans Rosling.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great recommendation.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: No one has recommended that, but I'm adding it to my list as I know I'll find that fascinating.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh no, thank thank you, Nier.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: But man, this has been fantastic.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I it's such an honor to have you on the show.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's an honor to spotlight your work.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be I I can't wait to see what you continue to work on.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: You've got so much more to do.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: You've got so much, I can't wait to see your next book, whatever you decide to lean into.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just what the message you're putting out there, Nier, is needed.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's great.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: People, and again, people are are they're interested in it.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: They're hungry for it.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can see that just from your from your content engagement.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh, man, just super proud, super honored to have you on here and really appreciate it.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Chris.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Means a lot to me.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing my work.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's because of people like you that people can hear about what I'm working on.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it means a lot to me that you've uh taken an interest of it in it and uh and shared it with others.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you sincerely.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Nir.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, buddy.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.