BJ Fogg

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] Experts on expert.

[2] I'm Dan Shepard, joined by miniature modmin.

[3] Hello.

[4] Hi.

[5] Hi.

[6] You're wearing a cape today.

[7] A dress.

[8] Yeah.

[9] It's real pretty.

[10] It looks kind of like...

[11] Handmaid's tail.

[12] Yeah.

[13] That's right.

[14] I was going to say Amish, but yeah, same world.

[15] Yeah.

[16] It's great looking.

[17] Thank you.

[18] Today we have, first of all, what a great name he has.

[19] B .J. Fogg.

[20] Can you think of a better name?

[21] No. He's a doctor, I believe.

[22] Dr. B .J. Fogg.

[23] Yep.

[24] BJ Fogg is a social science research associate at Stanford and author.

[25] He is the founder and director of the Stanford Behavior Design Lab.

[26] He has a new book called Tiny Habits, The Small Changes That Change Everything.

[27] Now, this is a very useful, pragmatic episode.

[28] It is.

[29] It really can teach you how to trick yourself into doing things you normally wouldn't want to do.

[30] Yeah, how to achieve your goals little by little.

[31] Mm -hmm.

[32] I've already started to implement some of the...

[33] tactics.

[34] Attaching a behavior to something you already do.

[35] Yeah, it's really genius, to be honest.

[36] He was fascinating.

[37] So B .J. Fogg's going to blow your mind.

[38] He's going to help you achieve all the things you've ever dreamt of.

[39] Also, we are live in Los Angeles on April 4th.

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[42] Please enjoy BJ Fog.

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[46] So I kind of fantasize.

[47] I already have, you know, by all measures, one of the greatest jobs someone can have, which is I say lines in front of this camera and then they pay me too much.

[48] It couldn't be better.

[49] And then this job.

[50] And then this job's even better and more preposterous that there's money associated with it.

[51] But I do fantasize about being a professor because it does seem like you can kind of craft your world that a lot of other occupations don't allow you to do.

[52] Is that, is my fantasy accurate?

[53] Maybe.

[54] Maybe.

[55] I'm a really weird breed.

[56] Okay.

[57] So I'm not full time.

[58] Oh, okay.

[59] Well, that's helpful.

[60] And so by design, because I was trying to craft my life, I have a foot in academics, run a research lab at Stanford.

[61] teach frankly whatever I want whenever I want I have tons of flexibility and then I have a foot in industry and I...

[62] That pays for everything.

[63] Right, we got to pay for everything.

[64] Well, I like to think of it it informs my research questions and academics.

[65] It helps me understand what's going to really move the needle in the real world?

[66] Yeah.

[67] And so let's bring that in and the things that need to be studied more rigorously academically I can do it within Stanford and I love teaching.

[68] Oh, my gosh.

[69] I am just crazy about teachings.

[70] Do you do like huge intro classes or you just do very specific kind of?

[71] Small ones.

[72] Small ones.

[73] Like graduate student stuff?

[74] I want to get a big mix of students.

[75] Okay.

[76] A wide mix of students.

[77] So typically classes, 12 people.

[78] About 50 students will apply.

[79] So you have to apply.

[80] I made an addition up.

[81] Monica wants to apply.

[82] I want to be in this class so bad.

[83] Flying up, it's fast fly.

[84] And then I pick, and it's hard.

[85] Oh, I would hate this part.

[86] I pick 12 that I think are the best fit for the class.

[87] Yeah.

[88] And I don't really distinguish if you know, are they graduate students or not.

[89] And I want a balance of that.

[90] Yeah.

[91] But, you know, the undergraduates can just be rock stars.

[92] And maybe more and more as a pattern is that a lot of people bail at some point during their undergrad, right?

[93] There's now a lot of famous cases of entrepreneurs.

[94] Don't even maybe make it.

[95] I think that's been sort of.

[96] exaggerated in the media.

[97] Yeah.

[98] Yeah, there have been cases, but the few that have been publicized make it look like bigger than it really is.

[99] One of my students called me two days ago.

[100] He's doing a thing in South Africa, interning down there.

[101] And he called me and he basically said, oh, I want to do blah, blah, blah, blah.

[102] And it wasn't about coming back to Stanford.

[103] And I just said, look, there's so much still waiting for you at Stanford.

[104] Come back, do the work, get it done.

[105] And then you have your whole life to do these other things.

[106] Yeah.

[107] Plenty of time.

[108] Just helping them understand.

[109] Well, what we learned from Sam Harris is that you can virtually just leave Stanford for 10 years and then just return as if nothing ever happened.

[110] They seem to have a very liberal policy on coming and going.

[111] What's one of the great things about Stanford is they're really about the students and helping the students succeed.

[112] The students actually don't know how much power they have.

[113] Yeah.

[114] If students want something, it can happen.

[115] Wow.

[116] It's amazing.

[117] We love colleges.

[118] We really do.

[119] We're sort of obsessed with them.

[120] Come up and guest lecture.

[121] guest lecture.

[122] At Stanford?

[123] Yeah, there you go.

[124] Oh, my God.

[125] What a waste of everyone's time that would be.

[126] But not ours.

[127] On our deathbed, we go.

[128] We taught a class at Stanford.

[129] Yeah, we both have the fantasy, Monica and I of when we retire, just taking classes recreationally and just never writing the papers, just kind of, you know.

[130] Just learning.

[131] That's what I did.

[132] I was an undergraduate.

[133] So I was at Brigham Young.

[134] So I was raised in a Mormon family in California and did the good Mormon boy thing.

[135] And I went to Brigham Young.

[136] And I was in no hurry to get through.

[137] So I would just, every semester, I'd open the course catalog and say, oh, I like this, this, this would know.

[138] You don't have a career trajectory in mind.

[139] Yeah.

[140] I felt really lucky because then I took some time off and traveled literally around the world of the backpack.

[141] And I'd just come back and say, oh, I want this music class.

[142] I want to take this art class.

[143] And, you know, technically I was pre -med English major, technically.

[144] But I made so little progress toward the major that I ended up with twice the number of units you would need to grow.

[145] graduate with no regrets but also no debt because the university was so inexpensive and I was also running my own little business and working.

[146] Uh -huh.

[147] So it worked.

[148] Now, Stanford students can't do that, you know, because it's great.

[149] The workload is expensive.

[150] Well, it's expensive.

[151] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[152] What are we looking at now?

[153] Is it, is it in the 80s?

[154] It's probably something like Oh, my goodness.

[155] But the good news, here's the good news.

[156] Okay, it's really awesome.

[157] And a lot of people don't know this.

[158] Based on your parents' income, and I don't want to give the exact numbers here, but I'll just make one up.

[159] If your parents make less than $60 ,000 a year, so you can fact -check me on this.

[160] But it's something like this.

[161] Then Stanford pays all your tuition and other costs.

[162] So basically, you can go to Stanford for free.

[163] And then there's another tier higher up at about $100, $110 ,000, and there's another tier.

[164] So in other words, and for me is somebody who, I just want to work with the most interesting young people, that just opens the door.

[165] And a lot of people don't know this.

[166] It is cheaper for some people to go to Stanford than, like, I started at Fresno City College.

[167] It is cheaper to go to Stanford than Fresno City College.

[168] Yeah, they don't know that.

[169] Yeah, they don't make that a part of the headline.

[170] And it should be, because I am hearing that increasingly, we just did an event at UCLA, and kind of, you know, there's a lot of that going on there as well.

[171] And yeah, I guess it is a nice way to kind of redistribute the opportunity.

[172] Well, in Stanford, as I see it, it's all about let's create the leaders of the future who will solve the big, hard problems.

[173] Yeah.

[174] And the assumption there is the solutions are between the disciplines and you've got to have a whole bunch of different perspectives.

[175] So let's bring people together with all these perspectives and backgrounds to tackle the hardest problems.

[176] I like that.

[177] I was looking at your background.

[178] And as you just said, you were Mormon.

[179] You went to BYU.

[180] You got your undergrad there and your master's, yeah?

[181] Yep.

[182] and you published in some kind of Mormon swaying outlets, right?

[183] Yeah.

[184] So when I go to Utah, and then just even speaking from the data, not my own anecdotal thing, lowest rate of smoking in Utah, right, generally, very low levels of obesity compared to the national average, low levels of drinking compared to the national average.

[185] There seems to be within the Mormon Foundation a kind of a group goal of betterment.

[186] Is that fair to say?

[187] You're right on.

[188] Yeah.

[189] It starts well before the university.

[190] It starts when you're like this big, tiny.

[191] Yeah.

[192] I've been friends with several Mormons over the years, and there is this kind of valued sense of industry and just kind of this self -improvement.

[193] So the fact that you would have gone into behavioral science and specifically how to create habits that...

[194] Yeah.

[195] But let me build on that a little bit, because you're right on.

[196] You're exactly right on.

[197] I think that's why that's built into me. Now, fast forward to today.

[198] I'm a gay man. I've been partnered for 25 years.

[199] I'm obviously not an active practicing Mormon.

[200] But growing up, I grew up in a super faithful Mormon family in Fresno, California, the most glamorous of places in California.

[201] It truly is.

[202] And there's a saying, it's not in the scripture, I don't think, but there's a saying among Mormonism, and this doesn't get publicized, but here we go.

[203] As man is, God once was, as God is, man may become.

[204] So from the beginning You're instilled with the sense of You can progress and reach perfection That's part of it Which has a real downside You know like oh you've got to just keep Doing better and you've got to be perfect People blazing perfectionism All these things and in some ways tiny habits Is a reaction to that Because you don't have to be perfect Right and so part of that It's like no push that aside And do you think that notion that as man is God once was and as God is man can become, my education on the incredible success of the Mormon faith was one that empowered people individually more than the other religions did, that you were, do I have this right?

[205] Your average parishioner can receive a message from God, which kind of differs from some of the other religions.

[206] And they credit that for being one of the reasons it spread in the way that it did because it was an empowering relationship with God, maybe.

[207] Yeah, you know, there is that sense, I think, but also you have the missionary effort.

[208] And so good Mormon boy and doing the thing that my ancestors had done and all my relatives, I want to, to your mission.

[209] I went to Peru, to the poorest parts of Peru, which even now I so value, you know, I'm not active practicing leaving Mormon, but I so value that two -year experience serving people in Peru who were totally different from me. sure and just seeing the world from their perspective and it's not like two weeks it's two years when i returned home the culture shock was coming home not going to peru just the opulence just the indulgence and i just could not believe carpet on the floor and the size of the homes and whatever so it really was a wonderful way to broaden my horizon well i'm going to add to that of my Mormon friends who went on mission, the conversion rate is horrendously low, right?

[210] I mean, you're knocking on hundreds of doors.

[211] And being rejected.

[212] Yes.

[213] So I'll say on top of it that you probably pick up some grit in that two years.

[214] That's kind of a good character builder, yeah?

[215] Yeah, it is.

[216] And it's no accident that a lot of Mormons are great salespeople.

[217] Uh -huh.

[218] And I mean, they also train you young to get up in front of people and speak and give these little talks.

[219] Okay.

[220] And that benefits me now, because I love speaking.

[221] I love speaking.

[222] I love teaching.

[223] Yeah.

[224] I mean, if I had to give a keynote at a moment's notice, like you have a 60 minute speech, you get up there.

[225] I would love it.

[226] Right.

[227] Love it.

[228] Right.

[229] Yeah.

[230] And I think it comes from that, but also, you know, having a passion, cheering it, and not getting set back if people say no. Sure.

[231] Yeah.

[232] Monica, buckle up.

[233] Are you ready for this?

[234] Oh, boy.

[235] I'm ready.

[236] Dr. Fogg was a teacher aide or assistant to Philip Zimbardo who created the famous Stanford Prison Experiment.

[237] Whoa.

[238] Is that accurate?

[239] Yes.

[240] What a juicy.

[241] That's amazing.

[242] Tutelage.

[243] Just remind people.

[244] So the Stanford Prison Experiment famously was they made some students' guards and some students' inmates and then they just observed them for some.

[245] Put them in a basement.

[246] It wasn't a true experiment.

[247] It was an experience.

[248] Yes.

[249] It became under all kinds of critique and whatnot.

[250] And my favorite part of the whole thing that was pointed out is that the orchestrators of the experiment, he too, is an experiment that he's not realizing.

[251] Or maybe he was realizing.

[252] But he, too, is a, he is a guard in this experiment, ultimately, because he's in, he's the god of this whole thing he's created.

[253] So he, too, is probably making decisions he wouldn't normally make.

[254] Yeah, and it's in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford.

[255] And it starts going a ride quickly.

[256] And he's so absorbed in it, it took his wife to go, ah, Phil.

[257] Really?

[258] You're crossing some.

[259] Phil, this is, this is not going well.

[260] And so they had to call it off.

[261] Wow.

[262] There was violence, right?

[263] There was, like, people got physical with each other.

[264] Yeah, I don't know the details, but people adopted these roles, and they played these roles, and it just grew and grew and grew and expanded and had this dynamic so quickly that nobody expected.

[265] It was like a micro, a Lord of the Flies, like a micro version.

[266] And what were the big takeaways of that?

[267] Like, was it that if you're labeled something, you become that thing?

[268] Is that part of it?

[269] Identity and context has surprising power over how we behave.

[270] and we don't even recognize that, you know, that the context around us, the roles were given, and the identity, the way we think about ourselves, then leads to a whole bunch of behaviors.

[271] Now, there's an upside of this and in tiny habits in some ways, that's what you do.

[272] You unlock your positive potential by shifting your identity, but in this case, it was quite negative.

[273] But that was how dramatic it was was the big surprise.

[274] Yeah, well, I think all of our egos would tell us, no, no, I'm me, and I know who I am.

[275] I mean, you could put me in any situation and I would do as I normally would do, but in fact, none of us pretty much would do what we would normally do if the context radically changed or our role radically changed.

[276] Yeah, and when it comes to changing your behavior, there's only three ways.

[277] One, have an epiphany, which you can't design really for yourself and others.

[278] Two is tiny habits, tiny changes.

[279] We'll talk about that.

[280] But three, the third way, is to redesign your environment or your context.

[281] Yeah.

[282] And that reliably works.

[283] Now, if you need a big, fast change, that's what you've got to do.

[284] But not all of us can go, oh, I'm going to move.

[285] I'm going to change my friends.

[286] I'm going to be wearing a suit and a tie and a name badge and, you know, be a preacher in Peru, right?

[287] Yeah.

[288] So I've watched over 15 years, tens of thousands of people attempt sobriety.

[289] And then I've watched certain things result in certain, you know, outcomes.

[290] Geographical Cures is what we call it.

[291] A lot of addicts.

[292] will try a geographical cure.

[293] So they just can't break their addiction.

[294] They're not ready to admit that they are powerless over it, but they'll do some radical thing.

[295] I'm moving to Texas and I'm going to be a rancher.

[296] These are grandiose schemes that are going to shake them out of this pattern.

[297] So at least in sobriety, the geographical cure rarely bears any fruit.

[298] When I was reading about your three ways in the environment changing being one of them, I was thinking of this interesting thing I read about the London tube being shut down and that all these people that would normally commute to work on it were forced to either ride bikes or walk and that when it resumed service they lost a ton of passengers because all these people discovered oh i like walking to work or i like biking and then i stop at this thing so in that case it did radically shift people's behavior yeah to and from work well the key of redesigning your environment whether you actually move or just readjust and stay in the same place is to do it in a way that it makes the new behaviors you want to do really easy or It's the only way you can get it done.

[299] Oh, I can't ride the tube now.

[300] I have to bike.

[301] I have to walk.

[302] And then the unwanted behaviors make them harder or impossible.

[303] So it's not just go to a new place.

[304] It's you've got to have that in mind.

[305] What new behaviors do I want to facilitate or make mandatory?

[306] And the flip side of that.

[307] Right.

[308] Because if you're an addict and you go somewhere else, there's still substances in that place.

[309] Sure.

[310] And probably the same amount.

[311] Yeah.

[312] And there's scumbags in every city.

[313] You can find them.

[314] They know where shit is.

[315] Yeah.

[316] Well, and you can do it even in the smallest of ways where you turn off notifications, right?

[317] Or you put water by you.

[318] And in part, tiny habits is an interplay with environment change because you can do a very simple thing like turn off notifications, which is tiny.

[319] That then leads to a big impact because then you're not getting interrupted or pouring water put it around in your work test.

[320] So part of the fun of change, and I know people aren't going to think change is fun, but it can be.

[321] It's almost like this puzzle or this challenge.

[322] Like, how do I redesign this to make it so easy to do the things that I want to do?

[323] Yeah.

[324] Help me. And so just in general, I think most people can relate to wanting to change.

[325] Yeah.

[326] As New Year's proves, people make resolutions.

[327] And quite often people pursue a goal and they fail at that goal.

[328] And then it lowers their self -esteem and everything else.

[329] It kind of results in, you know.

[330] It's not good.

[331] maybe a worse place than you started and there's so many errors in the way that we pursue goals that you've discovered in your lab you've studied how people change you study behavior and then you study habits and so you have a very different approach than the conventional i'm stopping all calorie intake that you know i'm going to work out six days a week all these things that i think we can all relate to you have a much kinder softer approach which you have you have proven is more effective.

[332] So in behavior design, which is what I describe my work as, behavior design, behavior is defined as a certain type of person doing an action in a given context or environment.

[333] So it's not just the action.

[334] It's the type of person in an environment doing a specific action.

[335] Like this morning, for example, I didn't do my usual surfing workout that I'd be doing in Maui.

[336] Every morning in Maui I go surf and that's my workout.

[337] This morning, I did three sets of push -ups, right?

[338] And so...

[339] After you peed?

[340] Yes.

[341] Because I know your habit steps.

[342] Yes.

[343] After I peed, you have just really investigated me. So, so well done.

[344] Yes.

[345] So sometimes when I travel, I won't do any workout.

[346] Now, it's not that I failed in the habit, but it's a different habit.

[347] So the habit I have in Maui is different than the habit I have in California, the workout habit.

[348] And then when you travel, it's entirely different because you're in a different context.

[349] Yeah.

[350] And so behavior is that.

[351] It's not just the action.

[352] It's a certain kind of person in a context doing an action.

[353] And if you change any one of those things, it's a different behavior.

[354] Right.

[355] And the ultimate goal is, if I understood everything correctly, is to have behavior that then becomes habit.

[356] Is that the nirvana?

[357] In tiny habits, yeah.

[358] That's what we're talking about that.

[359] Now, there are 15 ways behaviors can change.

[360] And of those 15, one of them is to create and sustain a habit.

[361] So I've mapped out here.

[362] Fifteen ways behaviors can change.

[363] But if you want to boil it down to be quite simple and helpful, there's a one -time behavior, something you do one and done.

[364] Okay.

[365] Give an example of that.

[366] Kidney replacement?

[367] That's one.

[368] That's one.

[369] That's hopefully a one and done.

[370] It could be you sign up to work with a trainer.

[371] Okay.

[372] It could be you buy a steamer for vegetables.

[373] One and done.

[374] Boom.

[375] Next habits, forming habits.

[376] And then the third bucket is stopping habits.

[377] So those are the most practical ones that people mostly care about.

[378] Yeah, and you break them down into dot, span, and path, right?

[379] The behavior grid outlines the 15 ways behaviors can change, and it's a three -by -five matrix.

[380] And it's kind of like the periodic table of elements, but for behaviors.

[381] And so I mapped this out because it didn't exist, surprisingly.

[382] Yeah.

[383] I mean, we've worried about behavior for thousands of years and more rigorously 130 or 30 or so, but there had been no mapping of here are the different ways behaviors can change the behavior types.

[384] And I tried to get a graduate student in Europe to do it, you know, in my mentoring role, helped them, and they didn't do it.

[385] So I just did it myself.

[386] And started out.

[387] Well, if you want something done right.

[388] So now there is this, it's called the Fog Behavior Grid.

[389] There's 15 types.

[390] Each one has a name.

[391] So like a new behavior you do one time is called a green dot behavior.

[392] green that it's new, dot one time, whereas habits are blue path.

[393] Blue familiar, path means you keep doing it.

[394] So each of those 15 types has a name.

[395] Now, I used to share this in keynotes and stuff, and the audience would just start snoring.

[396] It's not a good model for designing behaviors.

[397] It's good for analyzing behaviors.

[398] But it's good we have it working on the behavior grid.

[399] We're in my lab about 2009.

[400] We started writing a guide for each one.

[401] one of the 15 behaviors.

[402] And we finished that in 2010.

[403] Yeah.

[404] Then we created this tool called behavior wizard that you can still find behavior wizard .org.

[405] And it's like, tell us what behavior you want to change.

[406] And here's the guide.

[407] Yeah.

[408] And it was at that time where my lab shifted dramatically away from the previous work looking at what we called persuasive technology.

[409] It was that exact project.

[410] It was like, we're not going back looking at technology.

[411] We're interested in human behaviors.

[412] Right.

[413] And these 15 types in helping.

[414] people learn how to create any behavior you want, but the starting point is understanding what type.

[415] Because each of those 15 cells, there's a different way to design for each one.

[416] Yeah.

[417] Now, so quitting something's one thing, right?

[418] But just looking at a healthy behavior, and I think in your TED talk, you use this as an example, which would just be like overall health, right?

[419] So instead of trying to pursue overall health, which might include exercise or weight loss or I don't know blood pressure reduction all these things right if you pursue that as a goal it's nearly impossible but if you create a swarm of little habits around this goal that they in turn will lead you to that goal so you can kind of almost just scrap that huge top of the mountain goal and focus more on the little tiny things that would ultimately lead up to that yeah right on and so the good news is the way you change your behavior there's a reliable way to do there's a process, there's a system, and in tiny habits, I outline the system.

[420] And this is not obvious.

[421] It's something we had to discover and test, and it's like, boom, now here it is.

[422] They're set this way.

[423] But you do start with, first, what's my aspiration?

[424] Right.

[425] Some people call it a goal.

[426] I either call it an aspiration outcome.

[427] What is it that I want?

[428] Next step is to do what you just said, Dax, is then figure out what are all the different behaviors that can take me to my aspiration or my outcome or my goal.

[429] And you explore that in a method that I can.

[430] called magic wanding.

[431] And it's a fun, creative method where you say, okay, if I want strong relationships with my siblings, then you could come up with a whole bunch of different behaviors that could help you.

[432] Now, you're not committing to any of them at this point.

[433] And then later in the process, you pick which of those options that you actually want to do.

[434] And there's a way to pick the best ones.

[435] Right.

[436] I was just going to say, so this is really, really key because this technique requires some honesty with yourself, which I love, which is you say that people are, you aren't going to do behaviors that either, A, require an incredible amount of sustained motivation, right?

[437] So people feel very motivated on December 31st.

[438] They have a lot of gumption on that day.

[439] Yeah.

[440] But over time and workload and all this stuff, your motivation is going to ebb and flow.

[441] Yep, exactly.

[442] So not ideal.

[443] You're aiming for the bleachers if you're going to rely on motivation to create a behavior.

[444] Yeah, if you're within, you know, the military or some way, you know, if you go to the CrossFit box, you're going to be super motivated for that hour.

[445] Yeah.

[446] But human motivation goes up and down.

[447] Yeah.

[448] And the surprise to me is when you go and look at the academic work, who's studied this?

[449] This has not been studied for very long.

[450] Even the acknowledgement that motivation fluctuates over time.

[451] There's not a rich literature on that.

[452] In fact, it hadn't been named these shifts.

[453] And so in one of my boot camps, professional training I was doing, we named it.

[454] We called it.

[455] the motivation wave.

[456] Now, the fact that our motivation goes up and down doesn't mean we're bad.

[457] It just, that's human nature.

[458] That's how it works.

[459] Yeah, that's the reality.

[460] As your motivation is going down for one thing, it's going up for a different thing.

[461] And that's how it should be.

[462] Because if you're motivated to do everything all the time, that's not very adaptive.

[463] So the way you circumvent that is you design for yourself at the lowest point of motivation.

[464] And that's, and this is why when like, so as I, as I, I started teaching tiny habits in 2011 after a year of hacking my own behavior and it's like, oh my gosh, this has changed my life because I was in a really tough spot.

[465] I mean, I was, so many things were going wrong in my life and found this way to create habits.

[466] What year were you tweeting your weight?

[467] Oh my gosh.

[468] I don't remember, but by the way, people hate it when you tweet your weight.

[469] I learned that very quickly.

[470] Yeah, that was really early, early Twitter days.

[471] You were tweeting every day.

[472] As a potential motivation.

[473] Until 15 seconds ago, I'd completely forgotten that.

[474] I'd suppress that from my memory.

[475] I learned quickly, people don't like that.

[476] Yeah.

[477] But every morning he'd get on a scale and he would tweet it, and I would assume your operating theory at that point was, I'm going to kind of shame myself in a easy way, right?

[478] Or I'll be accountable to this big group of people.

[479] Yeah, it didn't work.

[480] Well, see, this was before I'd figured things out.

[481] This was, you know, I was a behavior scientist.

[482] I was believing all the old stuff worked, okay?

[483] this is before the breakthrough and behavior design and tiny habits and oh okay if i just do this if i track it if i put myself on the hook and public exposure yeah i will then naturally be shamed into eating differently or the positive spin is that you would have created an artificial motivation yeah and sometimes that works but some you know there's just it's so hard to create a way to sustain high levels of motivation.

[484] So as a behavior scientist, studying all this stuff, and understanding how human nature works and humans work and so on.

[485] And then the real breakthrough, I think in my work, did not happen in the research laboratory.

[486] It was me deciding to teach this quirky thing I called Tiny Habits, just to anybody that wanted to sign up.

[487] And I had no idea this would keep going for years and it would add up to be over 40 ,000 people.

[488] But what I learned about 5 ,000 people, in.

[489] So I was a few months in, so in 2011, a woman wrote me and she said, I now see I've endured a lifetime of self -trash talk.

[490] Thank you so much, BJ, for helping me flip this and embrace the positive feelings and celebrate it.

[491] We were talking about celebration.

[492] It was Wednesday of the five -day program that I was teaching.

[493] And that, I mean, I guess I was just so naive or so sheltered, I didn't realize that's where everyday people are at, where they are defeated, discouraged, they beat themselves up, self -trash talk, and so on.

[494] And it was that moment.

[495] I remember exactly where I was sitting when I read her email.

[496] I refer to her in Tiny Habits to call her Rhonda.

[497] That's not her real name.

[498] I changed her name.

[499] And I was just like...

[500] That says a lot about you that you picked Rhonda, and not to derail you.

[501] I like it.

[502] Interesting.

[503] Yeah.

[504] It's just very...

[505] It was a very specific.

[506] Yeah, yeah.

[507] I knew it came from somewhere.

[508] And it was just like, okay, so this is a quirky little side thing I was doing.

[509] I need to bring this out bigger.

[510] Right.

[511] So I just kept doing it and kept doing it for years.

[512] So the fact that I then interacted with thousands of people and thousands of people after that, real people in their real lives with real habits and real struggles taught me so much about what really works and what doesn't work.

[513] Then you combine that with that academic rigor.

[514] And that is the thing that I just feel so, well, I want to say fortunate, but also I have a huge duty to share.

[515] Sure.

[516] Because I've had this opportunity to queue up.

[517] I was able to learn these things, learn this method that's transformative.

[518] And now I'm delighted to share it.

[519] But I also feel like I must share this.

[520] Well, what I love about it and I'm here to help you as a non -Stanford professor do that is it's actually not.

[521] abstract.

[522] So it sounds a little abstract, I think, on the surface, like habits and behaviors and how they differ from resolutions and all this stuff.

[523] But what I'll say is there are actual steps.

[524] There are actual concrete actions you take that have a result.

[525] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[526] We've all been there.

[527] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers and strange rashes.

[528] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[529] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[530] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[531] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[532] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[533] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[534] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon Music.

[535] What's up, guys?

[536] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[537] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[538] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[539] I mean just friends.

[540] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[541] The list goes on.

[542] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[543] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[544] But the thing that I really, really like, I'm going to have you explain it to Monica.

[545] Talk about your goal of, or you would say aspiration, of doing more push -ups and what you decided to do to create that outcome.

[546] Oh, wow.

[547] Eight years ago, I never thought I'd be talking about this publicly.

[548] But so, I'm now 56.

[549] So I was probably getting toward 50.

[550] And I thought, oh, you know, look at the research.

[551] I'm going to lose muscle mass and bone density.

[552] So I want to do strength training every day.

[553] Well, what can I do?

[554] Well, I'll do push -ups.

[555] Okay, I'll do push -ups.

[556] So in tiny habits, what you do is you take whatever did you want, strength training, and you make it really, really small.

[557] So push -ups, but not 20, not 10, but I picked two, super, super -tiny.

[558] Then it's like, okay, that's tiny.

[559] Then next, you'd say, where does this fit naturally in my day.

[560] Where do I place this?

[561] What can it come after?

[562] And I figured out after a few trying a number of things that it fits after I pee.

[563] And so then, but really quick, this is key.

[564] This is the breakthrough.

[565] So he has what's called what can trigger a behavior.

[566] So he has this statement.

[567] I love this statement.

[568] It's after I blank, I will blank.

[569] So you're building on something you already do, as opposed to introducing an entirely new way of life.

[570] It's like, well, we are.

[571] already know the things we're going to do throughout the day.

[572] I'm going to drink coffee.

[573] I'm going to go pee.

[574] For in my case, 25 plus times a day, I'm going to go pee.

[575] For me, I'm going to take a couple hundred milligrams of nicotine.

[576] I'm going to watch TV.

[577] I'm going to put the kids down.

[578] I know what things I'm predictably going to do on any other day.

[579] Okay.

[580] So for me, I figured it out after I pee, I will do two pushups.

[581] Yeah.

[582] Okay.

[583] And that was it.

[584] I got a little bog down in the particulars of that.

[585] I'm like, are you doing them in the bathroom?

[586] Yeah.

[587] None of my business?

[588] No, no, no. You have been so forth coming on this podcast, Zach.

[589] I'm willing to go there.

[590] So I work mostly from home.

[591] So half of my body is in the bathroom.

[592] Half of it's in the hall.

[593] Oh, perfect.

[594] And my little dog is looking at me right here.

[595] That's how it typically goes.

[596] When I'm traveling, like in a hotel, I'll put towels on the floor.

[597] When I'm at Stanford, no, I don't do it.

[598] I look in the mirror or maybe I do squats.

[599] but so mostly you know the mechanics of it do it at home now i can do more than two if i want right almost all the time i do more than two but the habit is two and if i do two that's a success and i move on but that's to your earlier point this is so important every routine you already have is like real estate where you can place something after it so after you start the coffee maker what new habit would you put there after you buckle your seatbelt what new habit could go there After you walk in the door after work and put your back down, you can add a new habit there.

[600] So sometimes you start with the tiny habit and look around where does it fit.

[601] And other times, you could just say, what routines do I have and what new thing can I place just after that?

[602] So a really good one for that is after I start the shower, what new habit could fit there?

[603] Because we all do that and we have a few seconds to do something.

[604] thing.

[605] For some people, it's longer than a few seconds.

[606] I have a gratitude habit that I do about my body, some weird aspect of my body.

[607] One of my MD friends does pull -ups.

[608] He put pull -up bar in his bathroom.

[609] He does pull -ups.

[610] Some people do squats.

[611] But I do have a question because I feel like a lot of people, let's say they did yours, peeing, two push -ups after peeing.

[612] And then like you said, so when you're at Stanford, you're like, no, I'm not going to do that.

[613] Yeah.

[614] Right?

[615] I feel like a lot of people will just get derailed and say like, well, I didn't do it earlier day when I peed at Stanford and then it just all like goes to shit.

[616] How do you combat?

[617] I mean, the shower is good because you're always normally in one position.

[618] Well, there's a mindset that goes and it goes against the tradition.

[619] So so much of what I'm sharing here is just not what people have heard before.

[620] Part of it is a mindset.

[621] You know, there's a mindset to change.

[622] And part of it is, hey, when I do what I intended, awesome, good for me. go keep going and when you don't do what you intended you just let it go that i like there's nothing about guilt or shame where i messed up you just let it go and move on he also has he encourages people to celebrate right i'm awesome yeah i'm awesome so if you do you pee yeah and then you pop pop two push -ups and then you go i'm awesome oh i like that or whatever you know i'm awesome fist pump little dance Anything that causes a positive emotion, and you do that to why you're in the habit.

[623] So that's what creates the habit.

[624] It's the emotion you feel.

[625] So when your brain associates a positive emotion with this behavior, the behavior becomes more automatic.

[626] So it's not repetition.

[627] It's not a number of repetitions.

[628] It's the association.

[629] Oh, so interesting.

[630] I got to say my knee jerk to all this was like, no way, I'm cold turkey guy.

[631] I'm an extreme.

[632] I'm so addicty, you know, I'm like, no, no, we got to go ballistic on everything.

[633] But then it just, it's ultimately, most of those things are completely unsustainable in my experience.

[634] Like the nuclear option can be done for some months for me, but it really can't be done in perpetuity.

[635] You know, and going tiny and just, in fact, I say it in the book, hey people, lower the bar, lower your expectations, which is like kind of the opposite of what we're hearing.

[636] Yeah.

[637] But the key, I mean, there's two keys.

[638] One is help yourself do what you already want to do.

[639] And the second is help yourself feel successful, feel, not be.

[640] And part of setting yourself up to feel successful is lowering the bar, lowering your expectations.

[641] And when you exceed it, extra credit, I'm a rock star, I'm a plus student.

[642] But man, you can pretty much always floss one tooth or do two push -ups or pour a glass of water.

[643] Yeah, I advise this all the time.

[644] will go, oh, I'm going to get a champ.

[645] I'm going to go to the gym for an hour every other day or whatever.

[646] And I'm like, what if you just committed to like 10 minutes just to start there for something to build on?

[647] It's just such a big swing to, like, say you're going to do four hours of strength training a week, and you're likely not achieved that.

[648] And then you'll end up doing nothing.

[649] So, you know, the black and white thinking, you know, that's not very helpful, the perfection.

[650] Like, I have to be perfect doing this.

[651] And this is why I don't advocate tracking, you know.

[652] Oh.

[653] tracking if it helps so back to the two I call them maxims if it helps you feel successful do it but if tracking is going to make you feel unsuccessful it's not right for you or it's not right for you with that particular change accountability does it help you feel successful or not setting a goal as a lot of people talk about does that help you feel successful so you can take everything I think that you've heard about behavior behavior change and those two things are your litmus test.

[654] Is it helping you do what you want to do?

[655] And is it helping you feel successful?

[656] Well, Monica's a type A overachiever.

[657] That's right.

[658] So what do you think, what method lends itself to that personality type?

[659] This one.

[660] Yeah.

[661] So yes.

[662] So for sure, where you're energized and you're used to focus and I mean, I think all of us in the room are this, right?

[663] Yeah.

[664] But when motivations high, take that energy that you have and focus on redesigning your environment now do the one -time behavior before the motivation drops and invest in training yourself to do stuff getting the equipment you need and so on so then future good behaviors are super easy because you've skilled up you have the equipment and the know -how and so on yeah and that is the best investment of a motivation peak like when the motivation wave goes up don't go out and and run for five hours because that doesn't then have, I mean, you're going to be sore the next day.

[665] Take that time and put in the work you need in order to create a sustainable system.

[666] Yeah, exactly.

[667] I think I'll find the exact quote and say it on the fact check, but I think Stephen King had some tip about this for reading because people are like, I don't have time, which I'm so guilty of.

[668] And he has something about don't wait until you have a half hour to read.

[669] If you have five minutes, take that five minutes.

[670] Like reading two pages is better than waiting to read 50.

[671] Read for three hours, right.

[672] Yeah.

[673] And then that's how you actually finish a book is two pages at a time.

[674] Lower the bar.

[675] So in my own life, one summer when I wanted to do a lot of reading, all I had to do was open the book.

[676] Yeah, I know.

[677] And then I had a bookmark in there with a smiley face that was all happy.

[678] That helped me feel successful.

[679] And so open the book and I would usually read.

[680] more than just a sentence or two, but the habit was just open the book.

[681] Right.

[682] Yeah, I at one time had a goal or a rule, which was just all you got to do is put on your workout gear.

[683] Perfect.

[684] And I just put it on.

[685] Then you can lounge about if you want.

[686] But most times, once that gear was on, I'm like, yeah, I'll fucking walk.

[687] And then I'll get into it.

[688] Now, you don't state this, or maybe you do and I just didn't do enough research.

[689] But as I was thinking about all this, I couldn't help but imagine that the nirvana for all this would be, someone just illustrated the greatest example of this i wish i could credit them but they were trying to explain like the subconscious versus the conscious and the example they gave was when you're operating a car on the highway at 80 miles an hour it's actually a very complicated task it takes people years to get good at that and often some accidents but you are in that car and everything that's happening in a subconscious like you're just you're turning the wheel when you need to you're accelerating, you're braking, you're signaling, but you are, your conscious brain is thinking about God knows what, like, you know, in fact, I think it was Sam that was pointing some, but your conscious brain is so busy thinking of other things that you're mostly completely unconscious of what you're doing to operate the vehicle.

[690] And I would imagine that these habits, the best version of them would be like, you just do them and you're not even aware of them.

[691] The analogy I've used to describe this because a lot of people said, hey, BJ, what are the tiny habits you use to lose weight or be more productive or whatever and it's like they've become so seamless in my life that it's i could think hard and pull them out but they don't feel like things i created it i used to be the president of the pottery club at stanford when i was a graduate student and the analogy is that so when you're hand -building with clay and you want to add to a pot you take a piece of clay and you add it and you rub it in and eventually the seams go away and it's indistinguishable from the rest of the vase and that's how it feels when these habits are just so part of your life you kind of forget you actually create it as a habit it's just what you do and so you can do many of these and it doesn't feel like oh i'm sustaining 200 habits it's they just become part of your life part of your routine yeah it just kind of fades away into the background so yeah you changed your so originally he was tweeting his way not ideal he went from i want to say like 182 to 194 how did you find that also it's just the fact that people were upset.

[692] Like, it's his Twitter.

[693] If he can catalog as well, people need to relax a bit.

[694] That was one of the reason.

[695] That was, I, oh my gosh, I'm going to go look that up.

[696] Yeah, that's a bad idea of people.

[697] Do not do that.

[698] But kind of, if you could, and again, as you just said, you'll probably, they've been filed into the white noise of your brain, but what are some of the things that you change your approach, you took a tiny habits approach, and now you've reached a weight that you like, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of it.

[699] It's one you like.

[700] So what was the swarm of bees that surrounded that?

[701] A big part of it was dialing in what foods were healthy for me. And I hesitate to say those aren't because people to take that as a prescription.

[702] And I think it's different for different people.

[703] Yeah.

[704] But certainly.

[705] Monica does best on cookies and cakes.

[706] Oh yeah.

[707] Really sustaining on that.

[708] I'll give some that I think are applicable to everybody had the habit of filling up a water glass and putting it on my work desk.

[709] Not drinking the water, just putting it there.

[710] And there's certain supplements that I think are good for me. I had a habit of putting them on a dish and putting on my work desk.

[711] When I travel, I have the habit of packing my travel food because I can't rely what's going to be in the plane or I got in the hotel last night at two in the morning.

[712] And so there's certain foods I bring nuts and I bring boiled eggs and some vegetables ready to go and so on.

[713] So it's just figuring out, I think, the foods that work for you and then making it really easy to do and wiring those in as habits.

[714] So really quick, what is your habit or your routine to prepare your food?

[715] Is that happen on the same day every week?

[716] Does it happen in preparation for a trip?

[717] Well, it depends.

[718] But on a day -to -day basis, my partner loves cooking.

[719] And most of the times, yeah, I know.

[720] Step one.

[721] Get a partner who will work.

[722] And he will not let me in the kitchen very often.

[723] I get to fix lunch once in a while, but he fixes breakfast.

[724] We've dialed in the breakfast exactly what it is.

[725] And so he fixes the breakfast.

[726] And but the fridge is designed in a way once a week.

[727] We call it super fridge where everything in there is on our game plan.

[728] There's nothing in the fridge that's off limits at any time.

[729] So anytime I can open the fridge, eat whatever I want, as much as I want, that is such a good feeling.

[730] Right.

[731] And then for lunch, often I get to do my own lunch, of course, which will be fresh grains.

[732] sardines I'm gnaughty, a little rascal My partner doesn't like sardines I kind of love them And then for example Then I'll bring something in like mustard Or a cilantro pesto or something like that Which I know is on my game plan And then there's some things I go back and forth On like cheese Cheese wasn't and it is and it's not Yeah I know it's bad for me Just for my own body Not everyone else's but for mine Yeah I get tons of flam All kinds of disturbing things from day and then I go off it for long enough that I remember.

[733] No, I don't think that did give me all that stuff.

[734] And then I go back for a long time.

[735] Yeah, I'd like to relearn lessons over and over again.

[736] That's kind of my hobby.

[737] But I think one of the most helpful things people can do in this domain.

[738] And if the aspiration is lose weight, stop and pause and say, is that really what you're going after?

[739] Well, the first step is clarify, is it really weight loss or is it more vigor or energy or whatever?

[740] And so the first step in your design is it get clear on your aspiration.

[741] And that might mean revising it.

[742] Okay, great.

[743] So this is the getting honest with yourself part.

[744] So you say that behavior needs to have impact.

[745] It needs to be a behavior you can do.

[746] And it has to be a behavior you actually want to.

[747] Yeah.

[748] So this is all crazy key.

[749] So the example I think of all the time as I get in debates with a couple different friends in mine who have expressed goals of they want to family.

[750] Okay.

[751] And I will say to them quite often, either you don't really want a family.

[752] What does that mean?

[753] Like, have kids?

[754] Yeah, a partner in kids.

[755] But all the behavior is demonstrating the opposite pursuit.

[756] Yeah.

[757] And I will say to them, you should feel no obligation to want a family.

[758] It's fine if you don't want a family.

[759] If you just in theory want a family, we have to first figure out, like, do you really?

[760] Because if you really want one, then these behaviors are antithel.

[761] to that so you just got to be honest about one or the other in my opinion it's like you're free to live however the fuck you want pursue whatever you want i'm so great with it but if you're telling me you have this goal and i'm your friend i feel obligated to point out these aren't the steps you take to get to that goal and this is just a circular debate that happens quite often but i don't think people are dreadfully honest about what they actually want they want some things in theory maybe and then tiny habits the way i break it down is wants versus shoulds you know like i should have a family because my parents want grandkids and da -da -da -da -da or somehow I just should.

[762] Yeah.

[763] The shoulds are very hard to turn into habits and they don't reliably become habits.

[764] The wants is what you focus on.

[765] Yeah.

[766] That's why that first statement, help yourself do what you already want to do.

[767] And if it's not that, then don't do the shoulds.

[768] But it's hard to, it's hard sometimes to differentiate should and want because you think you want that because you've been ingrained to feel like you should.

[769] It's on the same.

[770] Continuum is want and need.

[771] Like we often say we need this and it's like, no, no, you want that.

[772] But what about the person that's driving?

[773] By the way, if I had heard this when I was 27 and just leaving 7 -Eleven to have my second set of hot dogs that I would get there almost every day hungover and then making plans to get fucked up soon, I would think, well, what if you don't want anything that is on the healthy spectrum or the productive spectrum?

[774] Some people must be sitting with themselves going there's nothing I want that is healthy.

[775] Well, but there's other domains.

[776] So tidiness, creativity, relationships, right?

[777] So there's other areas in the...

[778] Even if you're a party animal, you want relationships.

[779] You want a cohort.

[780] Be more creative.

[781] Let's take music.

[782] So I'm a huge fan.

[783] So in tiny habits, I only prescribe one habit.

[784] And everything else is about a system to do any habit you want.

[785] Okay.

[786] If I were pressed to prescribe other habits, because, like, who am I, to tell people what habits to have?

[787] Well, there's one.

[788] But if I were pressed, I would say create a habit of playing a musical instrument daily.

[789] Oh, wow.

[790] I think that there's just so many reasons.

[791] And what's worked really well for people, the guitar, just play three chords on the guitar.

[792] That's all.

[793] So find where that fits in your day.

[794] Play those three chords.

[795] And if you want to do more, do more.

[796] And if you don't want to, don't time?

[797] Set it aside.

[798] Celebrate.

[799] I'm awesome.

[800] I did the habit.

[801] and so on.

[802] Why, why is that the one that you think is, by the way, Monica, are you so impressed?

[803] No, I'm like going to buy keyboard right now.

[804] Okay, but I know three chords.

[805] Oh, good for you.

[806] It could be piano, it could be ukulele, it can be guitar.

[807] It could be recorder, which I love and everyone hates, but I love it.

[808] You'll be single if you pick that one.

[809] No one's living with someone that's fucking blown on a recorder.

[810] Oh, how do I talk about this?

[811] The vibration, the creativity, the experience.

[812] expressing yourself, the fantasy that maybe you'd perform for somebody someday.

[813] There's just lots of things.

[814] I had a voice disability growing up.

[815] Oh, you did?

[816] And in the audio version of my book, I recorded a special preface where I talked about that disability because it was not guaranteed I would narrate my own book.

[817] Okay.

[818] I had to audition for it.

[819] Sure.

[820] And I tried to negotiate.

[821] I'm going to be the narrate.

[822] I went back and forth and finding my agent said, B .J., they're not going to guarantee you.

[823] narrating this because they're investing in the book.

[824] Can I kind of quickly ask, was it a physiological thing?

[825] Did you have a vocal cord issue or do you have a speech issue?

[826] I talk like this until I was 18.

[827] Oh, no kidding.

[828] I had no lower register.

[829] We call that in academia mini -mouseitis.

[830] Yes.

[831] And that's what I was off.

[832] That's new.

[833] I'm going to have to back check that.

[834] But it was painful.

[835] Oh, my God.

[836] So all through high school, having a voice like this.

[837] this.

[838] I was made fun of.

[839] I was bullied and so on.

[840] And so as I was narrating the book and I was getting to the end of it, it was last day.

[841] I thought, I'm going to write a preface just for this, just for this, because it doesn't really, you know, print versions done and out.

[842] And so I told the story.

[843] And I wrote it up, oh, if I can get through this, I wrote it up, and then I went out to read it to my partner.

[844] And I said, okay, I'm going to be narrating this or recording this, but let me read it to you to make sure it works and as I started reading it I broke down and started crying and I was like hold on I gather myself and like three times I couldn't get and he was also crying and he hadn't heard a lot of this yeah and how hard it was and I wanted to share this because here was the struggle I had that I felt like I had no control over zero control I couldn't fast forward puberty and change my voice and all of that.

[845] And then how I felt so ashamed and embarrassed and how that baggage carried with me. Even now, my voice is weird.

[846] But then when it came to the opportunity to narrate my book, then I wanted it even more.

[847] Yeah.

[848] And then it was like, no, you can audition.

[849] So it says it in agreement.

[850] I can audition, but there's no guarantee.

[851] So taking all that baggage and all that, this would be a major victory for me. I went into Tiny Habits mode, and for a year, I would go.

[852] go to a room all by myself, close the door, and record and narrate and narrate.

[853] So I used all the stuff I knew about habits and practice over the years to get better and better and better.

[854] I'd listen.

[855] I'd da -da -da -da -da.

[856] And then the day came for the audition.

[857] Fast forward.

[858] I got it.

[859] And I was able to narrate my own book, which is massive victory.

[860] It's obviously bigger than that.

[861] So I have to imagine your voice coupled with the fact that you're probably hiding the fact that you're gay at that age.

[862] And I didn't know it.

[863] And so you're trying to already hide.

[864] Signals that you're gay.

[865] Yeah, this masculinity.

[866] This whole trope.

[867] Yeah, absolutely.

[868] And then there's these moments.

[869] So I tell a story in the preface, but when I didn't tell.

[870] So at the end of the year, the girls club chooses, you know, the guy they like the best.

[871] And they pick me. So I go up to get this award in front of the entire high school.

[872] In Fresno, let's add.

[873] In Fresno.

[874] And the football player's like, fag it, bag it.

[875] Yeah.

[876] And nobody protects you.

[877] No. You go get their work.

[878] You sit down, and it's all combined, you know, and it's sort of like, okay, Karen, I'm trying to be involved in student government.

[879] I didn't run for student body president because I would have to speak every week.

[880] So I can't do that.

[881] I'll run for vice.

[882] So it was always, it was a real limitation.

[883] Yeah.

[884] But I wanted to share that in the preface to help people to understand, like, I've been in a spot where I felt helpless and I felt ashamed and I felt persecuted for something I had no control over.

[885] Right.

[886] And so I get it.

[887] But then also, you can take these challenges and you can use what's in this book to achieve something that you never thought would be possible.

[888] Yeah, they can become your superpowers, and quite often they do.

[889] And that's what I do now.

[890] I teach, and I love speaking.

[891] Still an odd voice and it gets weak.

[892] But I've embraced it.

[893] It's like, that's the quirky part of me. It breaks in a weird ways.

[894] It sounds funny, but it's who I am.

[895] It's distinctive, which is good.

[896] And so now I own it rather than feel bad about it, but it was a real process.

[897] But what is so often, the benefit of sharing your, quote, shameful moments or the things you're embarrassed about, the benefit of it is you've created this story in your head, that this is the worst thing ever.

[898] And then it's so shameful and so embarrassing.

[899] And so often, in fact, I've never seen it go the other way.

[900] You share that with a group of people or a person.

[901] And the result is always like, oh, yeah, I totally, I get that too.

[902] That feels normal.

[903] This is the human condition.

[904] Like, it's so empowering to bring it out into the light, I think.

[905] And I think my sense that morning when I woke up was I was, I just wanted.

[906] So right now, yes, my life is great.

[907] I've dialed in so many things, you know, live half time in Maui and teach when I want.

[908] You know, it's great.

[909] But people might see that and think, well, you're just super lucky, BJ.

[910] Well, I am lucky.

[911] but I wanted to share that everybody has struggles and everybody has problems and nobody's perfect and I wanted people to understand that part of me so they don't just see this perfect picture because often that's all people see they don't see all the failures, all the mistakes, all the twists and turns, all the emotional baggage.

[912] The best part about you is that you tweeted your weight every morning and you gained weight.

[913] I mean that's the one thing that people will go, oh yeah, that's probably exactly what would happen to me. It's like the most human part of your story.

[914] But also it's showing that luck is tied to behavior.

[915] That you don't just get lucky, that you're doing things that put you in the position to have opportunity.

[916] Luck doesn't just fall on you.

[917] Well, and you can make these steps forward, right?

[918] You can design for this change, not in a guesswork way.

[919] There's a system, and it's way easier than people think.

[920] And it's not hard to get started.

[921] It's not hard to maintain.

[922] pain, the hard thing is having that leap of, I guess I'll say faith, that this is what gets you to the big outcomes.

[923] It doesn't feel painful enough.

[924] I think people have this paradigm in their head where it's like, no pain, no gain.

[925] And you're like, I can do two pushups after I pee.

[926] Like that's not even worth it, two push -ups.

[927] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[928] Yeah.

[929] Yeah, so your first plan, one thing that you really, and you've already said it, but I just want to really drill into it for folks is that specificity is everything here.

[930] So about, I guess, 10 years ago, I recognize I have an incredible road rage issue.

[931] Like out of the car at stoplights once every couple months, you know, just terrible.

[932] My wife hates it.

[933] Everyone feels dangerous.

[934] I'm not proud of it.

[935] I get an adrenal dump.

[936] It's not healthy, all these things.

[937] So I want to say two New Year's Eve's in a row, I set as a goal no more road rage, right?

[938] And I did not succeed those two years.

[939] And then so the third year, I said, just one rule.

[940] You cannot get out of your car.

[941] You can scream.

[942] You can yell, fuck you, you can do everything.

[943] You are no longer allowed to exit the vehicle.

[944] And that was achievable, right?

[945] So I did a year of that.

[946] And then the next year was no more hand signals to people.

[947] So no more flipping people.

[948] No, no, nothing, right?

[949] That worked.

[950] And then the final thing was I can't use my horn unless literally someone's going to hit me. Once I broke it up into all these components that made this one huge characteristic, yeah.

[951] Yes, of road rage.

[952] Within that road rage, there was about nine things I did that I would say fell into the road rage.

[953] Then diagram, and one by one, once I parsed them out, I was able to approach them.

[954] They weren't so big.

[955] To your point, don't make your goals so enormous that they can't be achieved.

[956] Here's what you did exactly right from the tiny habits, behavior design perspective.

[957] So in the book, I draw this cloud, which is your aspiration.

[958] Put it in the cloud.

[959] You can't design for this abstract thing directly, but then around the cloud.

[960] cloud, you put specific behaviors.

[961] Now, normally you do this for creating habits.

[962] Right.

[963] Right.

[964] You can also do it for untangling.

[965] So inside is like stop or reduce road rage.

[966] That's an abstraction.

[967] What you did exactly right is you broke it down into specific behaviors and you started untangling it behavior by behavior.

[968] So rather than just obsessing or trying to motivate yourself toward this abstract, tangle a behavior.

[969] So in tiny habits, I talk about untangling.

[970] unwanted habits, not breaking them.

[971] You specified what those tangles were, at least in your mind, but there is a graphical way to do it in a step -by -step process, and then you picked the one that was the easiest to do.

[972] Yeah, the hardest, the easiest.

[973] You got that one done, and you went to the next one, and the next one's exactly right.

[974] Now, my practice on that, and I don't know if this works for you or anybody else, but when I get frustrated in that situation or somebody in line, I use it, and this technique is called a pearl habit.

[975] you take something negative to create a positive habit from, like a pearl, create something beauty from an irritation.

[976] So in that case, what I say in my mind, I say, everyone is doing the best they can, no one tries to screw up.

[977] Oh, see, that's a hard one.

[978] That's a hard one.

[979] So you take something negative, and there's a section in tiny habits, and we're going to expand on this, actually, because people have really resonated with the idea of pearl habits because you take something negative that you cannot control, maybe something you do or somebody else and then you use that to prompt you so that becomes the thing after somebody annoys me i will say something positive so that negative thing that irritation becomes this beautiful thing and at least for me it gives me empathy at least a moment of empathy and understanding and it calms me down or at least stops yeah just presses pause on the escalation of the anger or whatever you're feeling now what happens and this happens with other habits that you deliberately form, it will then start happening in other aspects of your life, even without, you know, we're going back to the automaticity where it's just autopilot.

[980] So then when you're going along with something just kind veritates you, that feeling of empathy will crop up more readily, just like if you have a tiny habit of meditating, the meditation will pop up in other parts of your life when you need it.

[981] So this is part of the beauty.

[982] So tiny gets big because it multiplies.

[983] It finds other places.

[984] is in your life where it pops up, even without you designing for it.

[985] Yeah.

[986] But you've got to start, wired in, get that habit nailed, and then it grows like a plant that's propagating others.

[987] So, try it, Dax.

[988] I love after I blank, I will blank.

[989] Yeah.

[990] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[991] Okay, my immediate question is, why have brains evolved this way?

[992] Do you have an evolutionary take on any of that?

[993] Well, I'll answer it this way.

[994] So one of the things in tiny habits that I think is very important, but I know I'm going to have a lot of controversy around, is I say, emotions create habits.

[995] It's not repetition.

[996] It's emotions.

[997] We've evolved to be that way.

[998] And it makes total sense when you look at it from a more evolutionary perspective.

[999] So where I live in California, there's a bunch of wildfires.

[1000] Let's imagine there's a bobcat mom that's now foraging for food in the new landscape, and she goes to a ravine.

[1001] in the hills of Sonoma County and finds a mouse, boom, something's going to happen in her brain to make that more automatic.

[1002] Now, does she have an emotion or not?

[1003] I don't know, but let's say she does.

[1004] But she gets a serotonin dump, right?

[1005] Or some kind of reward.

[1006] Something happens that rewires her brain to make that more likely in the future.

[1007] So it's that feeling of success that then changes the bobcat moms have it.

[1008] And it's the same thing that works for us.

[1009] So when we do a behavior and feel successful, and it can't be 30 days later, your brain has to associate that behavior with that feeling of, and that's what the celebration thing and tiny habits is about.

[1010] Now, some people think that's goofy, but you're hacking your emotion in order to wiring the habit.

[1011] And I think that's why, I mean, it's adaptive.

[1012] When you get good at celebrating, you also get good at welcoming positive emotions.

[1013] And I'll give an example from this morning.

[1014] So this is what you have to look forward to.

[1015] So this morning, I'm getting ready to come here, and I'm all excited.

[1016] And, wow, how frank shall I be?

[1017] Very, very, yeah, yeah.

[1018] So, if you've heard some of the stories of told us.

[1019] Okay, so usually I don't wear deodorant because I'm always swimming or I'm in the water.

[1020] I'm in the water twice a day.

[1021] I'm not a guy that sweats a lot, whatever.

[1022] So, but I'm coming here and I'm like, this is big time.

[1023] So I'm going to put on deodorant.

[1024] So I pull up my deodorant and it crumbles.

[1025] Ah.

[1026] And it falls on the counter.

[1027] Now, my reaction was, oh, just pick a little bit, put it on.

[1028] Way to go, Beach.

[1029] it was positive.

[1030] It could have been, oh my gosh, I packed lousy, low quality.

[1031] So my reaction to that moment, 10 years ago, before I started Tiny Habits, would have been like one at negativity.

[1032] But instead, the immediate reaction was, good for me. I made it work.

[1033] Let's move on.

[1034] And that's happened in other parts of my life where that habit or that reaction, the positive reaction rather than the negative reaction.

[1035] And that is what the subtitle is about.

[1036] The small changes that change everything, it's that.

[1037] It's not 200 habits.

[1038] It's that processing of the world.

[1039] I don't, yeah, I don't think in general people give enough credit to this that your experience on planet Earth is so often a perception issue, right?

[1040] Like a lens you're looking through.

[1041] Yes.

[1042] And this goes to the one habit that I suggest, there's only one that I prescribe, and it's the Maui habit.

[1043] I give a TED Talk, why I name it that, but it's basically it.

[1044] after my feet touch the floor in the morning you're getting out of bed you say it's going to be a great day seven words and it's for that very reason that you're talking about tax it then helps you process your morning differently which means you're reacting to setbacks or opportunities differently your trajectory is different and so on so I feel a hundred percent confident in suggesting that one to everybody well and I'll say what people also aren't always aware of is that we have an uncanny ability to confirm our own theories, right?

[1045] Confirmation, yeah, confirmation bias.

[1046] If you think the world is against you, you will a thousand percent see ten times in the day that that is confirmed.

[1047] It's just the nature of us we want to confirm our beliefs.

[1048] So if you can really convince yourself, today's going to be a great day, then you'll only see proof of that.

[1049] Right.

[1050] It's just the way your brain...

[1051] And you even can be skeptical about that.

[1052] I mean, there are frankly, so I've done this for eight years now, probably.

[1053] And there are mornings that are like, this day's going to be hard, or I'm afraid to face this day, or you're just not eager.

[1054] I still say it, but I say it, I say it authentically.

[1055] It's going to be a great day somehow.

[1056] You know, so I'm real about it.

[1057] Yeah.

[1058] But that works too.

[1059] We just interviewed Jared Cohen.

[1060] He even furthered that with the help of Adam Grant, which he just has to win the week, right?

[1061] So four of the seven days have to end in a positive.

[1062] And better than they started.

[1063] And better than they started.

[1064] Oh, I love that.

[1065] Yeah.

[1066] Yeah.

[1067] And so, like, again, to your point in making it flexible enough that it actually is a system you create that plays on your strengths and probably, you know, your weaknesses, you don't pursue that.

[1068] That for him worked.

[1069] He figured out a way that ultimately it's a positive experience.

[1070] Well, and that's right on.

[1071] Let's go back to the example of somebody who doesn't want to change how to eat or exercise.

[1072] or whatever, and I said relationships, tidiness, creativity, music, find your strengths and build on those.

[1073] Yeah.

[1074] Invest in a lot.

[1075] So where you want to change what you want to change, and often it's where you're strong, the mistake is to go to your very weakest point.

[1076] That's like the middle of the knot.

[1077] Yeah.

[1078] Build on those.

[1079] And the good news here is habit formation is a skill.

[1080] It's a set of skills.

[1081] And you can learn those skills on any type of habit.

[1082] So why not learn those on habits that you want and are in your strong points?

[1083] There's 26 different skills of habit formation that I unpack in tiny habits.

[1084] And it's just like if you were to learn to play a musical instrument, don't start with hard songs.

[1085] Right.

[1086] You want to create habits.

[1087] Don't start with the hardest habits.

[1088] And then pick songs that you like, just pick habits that you like.

[1089] So if you take what you know about creating skills or building competency and then shift that over to habits.

[1090] it maps very, very closely.

[1091] For example, often it's helpful to have a coach.

[1092] Like if you're learning to do improv or act or play a musical instrument, and same thing with habits.

[1093] You know, there's tiny habits coaches or have a guide like a book rather than just guessing.

[1094] And so one of the nice, wonderful parallels and I think it comes later in the book and I don't think it's quite dawned on people that habit formation is a skill.

[1095] And we could set up like a merit badge system where it's like here are the 26 skills boom boom boom boom you're going to learn all the skills and in this way working on habits where you're strong then you take those skills and apply it where you're weaker or you have more emotional baggage just like you would like here's a really hard piece i have to play let me work up my skills on pieces i love and now i'm going to play it to this apply it to this harder one yeah you increase your ability and you increase your motivation right and then from another perspective you might call it self -evocacy but the way i look at any behavior is is motivation ability prompt and so as you increase your motivation and you increase your ability then the only thing you're lacking is the prompt and that's how do you remind yourself so there's this really nice upward spiral that can happen yeah but start where you want to start i mean we have different identities we wear different hats at different times and as an actor you totally know that.

[1096] But even as everyday people, in a certain point, I'm a teacher, a certain point, I'm a research lab director.

[1097] Another point, I'm a brother.

[1098] And so these identities, and we shift among the identities.

[1099] Now, in tiny habits, what I saw early in my data is that these tiny changes people would make would have ripple effects.

[1100] And within five days, well over 80 % of people would do other habits, and about 20 % of people reporting they made a big change in their life.

[1101] And I was like, what's going on here?

[1102] I didn't understand that result.

[1103] And I just saw it week after week in my data.

[1104] And it's like really quickly, about fifth the people are making this big leap.

[1105] And then I added, I started reading the emails carefully because that's how I coach people, it's personally through email.

[1106] And what I saw was a hint.

[1107] It was identity.

[1108] So I started asking an identity question.

[1109] It's like, fill in the blink.

[1110] I know after doing tiny habits, I now see I'm the kind of person who, I'm the kind of person who, and they could say anything they wanted.

[1111] Then, so that isn't quantitative, it's qualitative, but seeing there's thousands of those, what I saw was people say, I now say I'm the kind of person who can change.

[1112] I now say I'm the kind of person who can stick to something.

[1113] I now see I'm the kind of person who can that.

[1114] So the identity shifted before it was like, oh, I'm the kind of person who can't change.

[1115] I'm the kind of person who drops the ball, but by seeing evidence, not by watching a video or rah -rah, they saw evidence that they did start drinking water, flossing them on tooth, doing push -ups, opening the book.

[1116] They saw that they were changing, which then gave them a new identity or a stronger identity that they can change.

[1117] I would say a virtue everyone should have is the ability to change.

[1118] If ever that was an essential quality to have a good time on planet Earth, It's now.

[1119] So we're doing another 10 episode podcast about relationships and dating me and this.

[1120] I heard about that.

[1121] And it's exactly that because at the end of each episode, we get a challenge and assignment to complete before the next episode, unlinking these habits basically, these bad habits that haven't been working, these patterns.

[1122] And now we're about halfway through.

[1123] And both of us are like, wow, it's working.

[1124] The mentality is shifting of, yeah, the switch from I'm the kind of person who, I'm the kind of person who doesn't like people who are this or I'm the kind of person who's a workaholic.

[1125] I'm the kind of person who chooses this.

[1126] It's starting to change based on these like little challenges, these behaviors that have shifted.

[1127] It's so fascinating.

[1128] Okay, so this is what I've heard from people for years and this is what kept propelling me to teach tiny habits.

[1129] I didn't know where this was going.

[1130] I just knew it was helping people.

[1131] And so I just, of course, I had to keep going.

[1132] I mean, even on vacations and family reunions, I'm coaching people.

[1133] But there is this thing that happens that so many people are skeptical about.

[1134] How would you explain it?

[1135] Well, I think it's weirdly today.

[1136] I was getting in the car and I saw someone who was physically attractive to me, who I normally, that is shut off.

[1137] Okay.

[1138] And I've sort of like been in this pattern of I'm the kind of person who's not attractive to the physical only, I say it every day.

[1139] And I saw this person and I was like, oh, he's attractive.

[1140] I saw him.

[1141] He wasn't.

[1142] But I saw him and I was like, oh, and I mean, this is so weird to say out loud.

[1143] But I also said, I'm the kind of person people don't like just seeing me on face value.

[1144] And then today I was like, I think people like me. Oh yeah.

[1145] Yeah.

[1146] Yeah.

[1147] When you walk On the street, this is a sound you can hear all around you.

[1148] As soon as you embrace that.

[1149] But it's the behavior that shifted the mentality.

[1150] It wasn't just like us talking about it.

[1151] It was these little challenges, making yourself break these little habits.

[1152] And then it can feel so surprising when you recognize it.

[1153] You wrote the book Persuasive Technology using computers to change what we think and do.

[1154] And you were at Stanford where a lot of the people that have turned out to be designers of apps that are hugely addictive, I would say.

[1155] What I'm wondering is, do you see yourself moving away from that?

[1156] It sounds like you do.

[1157] You even stated it earlier.

[1158] You're like kind of maybe getting away from that and getting more just to the humans.

[1159] Yeah.

[1160] So, yeah, I wrote the book Persuasive Technology in 2002.

[1161] Right.

[1162] It was based on a series of experiments I did as a doctoral student where I basically took Chaldini's influence principles to see if computers could use those.

[1163] It's a laboratory experiments.

[1164] And it's like, oh, yeah, they work.

[1165] Flattery works from computers.

[1166] Teammates works from computers and so on, personalities and things like that.

[1167] And so publish that.

[1168] And in the book, I give a warning, like, hey, people, this is coming whether we like it or not.

[1169] Oh, yeah.

[1170] Here's the ethics of it.

[1171] Here's what we need to do.

[1172] And in my dissertation, I give 10 pages of, here's how we can use this in a positive way.

[1173] And I draw cartoons as a storyboard of a woman named Sue.

[1174] And I was so delighted my committee, which included Zimbardo.

[1175] Phil Zimbardo, Terry Winnegrad, Cliff Nass, and Byron Reeves, dream team.

[1176] They allowed me to draw cartoons in my dissertation because I wanted to show, here's the future vision.

[1177] And so now think Peloton plus a health system.

[1178] That's basically what I've, here's a device, it would encourage you, you'd have virtual characters, to help this person be healthier.

[1179] So certainly persuasive technology, publishing that I was hoping at the time that, people would read it and policy makers would start making policy around it.

[1180] Sure.

[1181] Crickets.

[1182] Nobody really cared about that book at that time.

[1183] Yeah.

[1184] Well, it's interesting because we all, well, I shouldn't say we all, many of us are using these apps.

[1185] They're pleasurable while we're using them.

[1186] So no one's really upset with the technology while it's happening to them because it's been designed to be pleasurable, you know?

[1187] And I was just wondering, do you think that these.

[1188] technologies should have the same warning that cigarettes would have or some of them the medicine that you get which is like this is an addictive thing yeah absolutely some of them absolutely when people say addicted to the mobile phone i don't like that because it's not the phone it's experiences we have through this device okay so this is some of the pushback i've had with journalists and other people it's like no don't just call it addiction to the mobile phone let's get specific because if we can shine a spotlight and name it accurately, then we can take steps to deal with it.

[1189] Well, again, it's kind of in lockstep with tiny habits, which is don't try to sum up this global thing, get granular because we can grain by grain probably alter some things.

[1190] Yeah, and certainly for certain people, certain kinds of experiences on the phone, whether it's gaming or some types of social networking, is a problem in their lives.

[1191] And it was then in 2006 where I did a formal testimony to a subcommittee of the FTC saying, hey, and I couldn't go to D .C. in person, so I recorded this video.

[1192] It's awful.

[1193] My head is huge, and my head is shaved.

[1194] And ironically, at that very moment I was recording the video, I was teaching the class at Stanford that had Mike Krieger, the later co -founder of Instagram, and Tristan Harris, who went on to do time we'll spend all these awesome things.

[1195] So I recorded this video saying, Here, policy makers, here are the three areas that we should be worried about and do things about.

[1196] And I got crickets.

[1197] What were the three areas?

[1198] Number one, I called it persuasion profiling.

[1199] Okay.

[1200] I said companies are gathering our data right now and they're going to use it to exploit our vulnerabilities.

[1201] And this information will be bought and sold just like a credit report.

[1202] And I didn't realize this until 2016, just after the election.

[1203] I watched the video again.

[1204] and I do, I say it's going to be used in elections.

[1205] I go, it's going to be used, boom, bam, bam, boom.

[1206] Next, I talked about video games, that assumptions will be built into video games that will convey a worldview that's not entirely accurate because you get involved in this world and the way the cause and effect relationships work can be modeled in the video game and people that play it a lot will then take those cause and effect relationships into the real world.

[1207] So this very subtle way of not just persuasion and rewiring your cause and effect relationships in your brain.

[1208] And then the third way, I said, videos are going to be manipulated that won't be true, but we're going to not be able to believe our eyes.

[1209] Now we call those deep fakes, but back then there was no name.

[1210] Right.

[1211] So those were the three things I was highlighting.

[1212] And again, I thought policymakers would call me or get in touch.

[1213] Nothing.

[1214] I'm kind of discouraging.

[1215] My immediate theory on that is that it is the ego.

[1216] It's that none of us really think were that personal.

[1217] I think we all think like we know true north and we stick to it and we don't like to acknowledge that we're highly persuadable.

[1218] I think you're right.

[1219] You know, and the way we described it in my lab.

[1220] So we did a lot of work about the ethics of this and what the implications were and the simple way, you know, are we sitting ducks or are we robust?

[1221] Are we sitting ducks and completely vulnerable?

[1222] And that would be a debate I would have my students have and would.

[1223] talk about it, and there's not a clear answer.

[1224] Now, there are other thinkers out there that will have a clear, strong answer on that.

[1225] And the practical implication, the way I see it from my perspective, I've summarized it in just a few words, which might be too simplistic, but it's people believe what they want to believe.

[1226] Right, right, right, right, right.

[1227] Okay, and if you just, you might resist that, but just recognize the reality of that, everybody.

[1228] You believe what you want to believe.

[1229] Your people on the other side of a political spectrum are believing what they want to believe.

[1230] Yeah, we all are.

[1231] But then that also, if we look at behavior change, it also means that information alone does not change our behavior.

[1232] Okay?

[1233] And that's one of the reasons.

[1234] And that's one of the things that I highlight and call out.

[1235] And in part when people blame themselves that they can't change, what they need to understand is, yeah, maybe you saw data and statistics and information, but informational alone does not change behavior, in part because we believe what we want to believe.

[1236] Oh, the very best example is I have several friends who read the phone transcripts with the Ukraine president.

[1237] We're looking at the same information.

[1238] I'm getting one thing.

[1239] They're getting the polar opposite thing and they're not lying to me. I recognize they are truthful people and hopefully they're looking at me going, I'm truthful too.

[1240] So wow, what an impasse to have the same info and have such dramatically different experiences with it.

[1241] I'm going to go on a limb here.

[1242] Okay, right.

[1243] Now more than ever, we need an interoperable.

[1244] prevention to help people feel positive and optimistic and deal with the fear and I don't want to say the word depression, but the feeling bad and the self -trash talk and whatever.

[1245] And my hypothesis or hope is that through tiny habits and people seeing they can change, it will build hope, which will counteract the fear.

[1246] And I think with more hope, this is where I'm going on a limb, you are then open to more possibilities and looking at the world in a different way.

[1247] I think fear shuts you.

[1248] down so you see it unlimited way i could not agree with you more i think so many of the solutions that get thrown out there are so downriver they're so past us reading that document having different conclusions and they don't start with why any of us have an opinion to begin with like yes i think starting much further up river can have better results and so my aspiration i mean the timing of the book yeah people asked me to bring it out years ago and there are reasons i didn't and it's here now but now more than ever, if this can help bring hope to people's lives and then help us open our minds to other perspectives, it's a terrible divide that we're experiencing right.

[1249] And I'm hoping it can have some role in helping people have more empathy and perspective and understanding and dialogue with each other that makes sense.

[1250] Well, Dr. BJ Fogg, what a blast.

[1251] Thank you so much for leaving your Eden to come talk to us.

[1252] and this addict on the construction site.

[1253] What a delight.

[1254] And thank you, well, thank you for unearthing that about my background, tweeting my weight mistake.

[1255] Don't do that anybody.

[1256] But super fun to talk about this in this format.

[1257] And thank you for giving, I guess, me and other guests permission to just really share in a detailed, vulnerable kind of way.

[1258] Well, look, we said we want to go to college when we retire.

[1259] So we've packed this whole fucking system.

[1260] Professors are coming to us.

[1261] Bringing college to us.

[1262] Yeah, we took tiny little steps and tiny habits and now the professors are coming here.

[1263] So thank you so much and look forward to all the work you do in the future.

[1264] Thanks so much.

[1265] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1266] Before we start, it's March.

[1267] It's a new month.

[1268] It is.

[1269] And we've turned over a new page on the calendar of men.

[1270] and it is Wob McElhenney And he's looking very, very fit What a specimen March is going to be a good month How's your droopiness going?

[1271] So since we met last Yeah I saw a neurologist Right And he said That if you're an adult And you have more than one seizure They consider it epilepsy You didn't like to hear that I didn't like to hear that, which is ironic, because I've spent so much time feeling like, I have everything.

[1272] And then when he tells me there is something wrong, I really fought that.

[1273] You were like, no, there's not.

[1274] I was like, I don't have epilepsy.

[1275] And I don't think I have it.

[1276] Uh -huh.

[1277] But it doesn't matter if I have it or I don't have it.

[1278] I have to be treated as if I do.

[1279] Yeah.

[1280] It's like, you've had two, so the chances of you having another are pretty high.

[1281] Mm -hmm.

[1282] So you need to take this Medicaid.

[1283] for two to five years, minimally.

[1284] Ooh.

[1285] What are the side effects of this medicine?

[1286] Other than your kind of groggyness.

[1287] Groginess, fogginess.

[1288] B .J. fogginess?

[1289] Uh -huh.

[1290] I'm extra tired on it.

[1291] Mm -hmm.

[1292] I just general, like, out of it, kind of.

[1293] Kind of hard to focus.

[1294] Mm -hmm.

[1295] But it's getting better.

[1296] and he said there's an adjustment period.

[1297] So that's probably what's happening.

[1298] And it is slowly getting better.

[1299] So I am inclined to believe him that that's the case.

[1300] It's kind of a lot to process.

[1301] I can feel some old anxiety symptoms.

[1302] Old anxiety.

[1303] I can feel some of that cropping up.

[1304] Right.

[1305] I haven't found, though, that you've been, like I've been around you the whole time since you got back.

[1306] eight days now, 10 days, something like that.

[1307] And you're still very stimulating to talk to and debate with.

[1308] Thank you.

[1309] Thank you.

[1310] Kristen said at the hospital, maybe your dad forgot to pay his dues for a simulation this month, which was really funny.

[1311] Anyway, yeah.

[1312] So that's the update for that.

[1313] So I'm taking this medication now.

[1314] Do you hate living in her house or is it going?

[1315] I'm living at the house still.

[1316] It's great.

[1317] Do you don't have to lie?

[1318] No, I'm not lying.

[1319] Okay.

[1320] Do you hate that I live there?

[1321] I love that you live there.

[1322] We've been trying to get you to live there for the last three years.

[1323] I know.

[1324] So what are you talking about?

[1325] It took a seizure.

[1326] We were cheering.

[1327] You don't know is that when we found out you had a seizure.

[1328] We were cheering.

[1329] Yeah.

[1330] We're like, oh my God, we're finally going to get our daughter to move home.

[1331] No, it's good.

[1332] I'm starting to feel like I'm wearing out my welcome.

[1333] What on earth could make you feel that way?

[1334] don't know.

[1335] I just do.

[1336] You have such a busy brain.

[1337] I'm that's part of your superpower.

[1338] It's probably part of my seizure.

[1339] Well, it's the other side of the sword, though, is that what on earth, all the signals we're sending is, uh, were so excited to have you there.

[1340] It's something you're doing.

[1341] Well, then what do you think, how do you're wearing out?

[1342] You're welcome.

[1343] I just have been there.

[1344] You're pooping in the house, which makes me so happy.

[1345] It's something I've been, hey, I've been wanting you to do for a long, long time.

[1346] Because that's the ultimate sign of comfort and relaxation and trust in foundational friendship.

[1347] It's true.

[1348] I agree, but I'm.

[1349] Afraid.

[1350] Yeah, baby steps, just like BJ Fogg.

[1351] Tiny habits.

[1352] Tiny habits.

[1353] I do feel a little bit, which I think will go away.

[1354] And I don't actually know if it's because of anything.

[1355] I don't know if it's because of the medication or what.

[1356] But I kind of feel like a little just, eh.

[1357] Eh.

[1358] Like.

[1359] Ma 'am about life?

[1360] Yeah.

[1361] Yeah.

[1362] Which depression and anxiety is a symptom of this medication.

[1363] so I have been sort of monitoring that a little bit.

[1364] But it's also so hard to tell.

[1365] Like, of course I'm anxious.

[1366] I just had a seizure.

[1367] Do you want me to just listen and be compassionate?

[1368] Because I can do that.

[1369] Or there's a part of me that's like, we should pick up your exercise to combat that side effect.

[1370] I need to.

[1371] I'm also scared of exercise.

[1372] You are?

[1373] A little.

[1374] Did they say that it was dangerous?

[1375] No. But this intensity.

[1376] Well, it doesn't have to be an intense workout.

[1377] You could run at like five and a half miles an hour.

[1378] You could just trot along for a few miles.

[1379] I should.

[1380] I just feel a little bit nervous about doing that.

[1381] Exerting yourself?

[1382] Yeah.

[1383] That's fair.

[1384] But I do need to.

[1385] I do need to.

[1386] I just think if one thing you're on is a depressant, then we need to, you know.

[1387] Yeah, work extra hard in the other direction.

[1388] Which is probably doubly hard to do right now, given your feeling of blah.

[1389] The last thing I want to do is work out when I feel blah.

[1390] Yeah.

[1391] But that's when you got it, right?

[1392] I know.

[1393] Anyway, it's fine.

[1394] Wow.

[1395] It's fine.

[1396] Listen, the mouse is miniature.

[1397] Okay, so BJ.

[1398] I was incorporating some tiny habits.

[1399] Oh, tell me. One was after I turn on the shower, I'm going to do my.

[1400] stretch.

[1401] What's your stretch?

[1402] I have a stretch.

[1403] I'm supposed to do.

[1404] I actually have a bunch I'm supposed to do.

[1405] One is one that you've shown me. But Allison, my friend, who's a PT, the one that took me seriously about the peeing.

[1406] Yeah.

[1407] She gave me a whole bunch of stretches a long time ago from back stuff.

[1408] Mm -hmm.

[1409] But one stretch I do, I'm supposed to do every day, is you go into a doorway.

[1410] Mm -hmm.

[1411] And you put your hands on basically the sides.

[1412] of the door.

[1413] You open the door and put your hands on the side.

[1414] And then you just kind of lean through.

[1415] Okay.

[1416] So you're stretching your pectoral muscles.

[1417] Sure.

[1418] And you're stretching out your shoulders.

[1419] Yeah.

[1420] And so I'm supposed to do that every day and I don't.

[1421] Okay.

[1422] Now, but I'm trying to make that a habit.

[1423] So after I turn on the shower.

[1424] That's a good idea.

[1425] Those ones feel pretty good, don't you think?

[1426] Yeah.

[1427] If I was your PT.

[1428] Uh -huh.

[1429] Okay.

[1430] You have big boobs.

[1431] Okay.

[1432] So I would think that you you need to do a lot of back strengthening exercise in general to pull those shoulders back because you have this enormous force pulling them forward.

[1433] That's part of it.

[1434] That is part of why I have to do that stretch.

[1435] And when Allison told you to do that stretch, did she tell you why she wanted you to do that stretch?

[1436] Did she mention your boobs?

[1437] Well, it was my other PT friend, Gina, who actually told me to do that.

[1438] Oh my God, you have so many PTSD.

[1439] I actually do.

[1440] Of all the professions in the world, I know the most PTs.

[1441] That's interesting.

[1442] I would say even more than actors.

[1443] Wow.

[1444] I mean, that's a close call, but I do.

[1445] I know so many.

[1446] It's so interesting.

[1447] None of them are MDs, which obviously I need.

[1448] Well, you already have a personal doctor, Eric Topol.

[1449] I know.

[1450] When I keep forgetting to tell Eric Topol my update, he needs to know, and I keep forgetting.

[1451] Okay, so I'm very, very tight up in the shoulders and back and all that stuff.

[1452] But a lot of it is boobs, yeah.

[1453] Mm -hmm.

[1454] Very heavy.

[1455] Yeah.

[1456] 30 % of your body weight is your boobs, probably.

[1457] I don't know about 30%.

[1458] That seems extreme.

[1459] I think you're probably 70 pounds and your boobs weight 30 pounds.

[1460] Oh boy.

[1461] That's why I have so much low back problem.

[1462] So I've got about 30 pounds a dog tugging on my hip flexors.

[1463] It's a very common problem.

[1464] Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

[1465] So I want to do those stretches after I turn on the shower.

[1466] Are you going to do any?

[1467] I need to stretch more.

[1468] So maybe I'll do that too.

[1469] Yeah.

[1470] Wow, wow.

[1471] After you turn on the shower, the problem is, I will be honest, at your house, that hot water goes quick.

[1472] You better believe it does.

[1473] You don't have time to do that stretch.

[1474] You've got to get in that shower immediately.

[1475] There's no time.

[1476] There's no time for extra anything in there.

[1477] You've got to just clean quickly.

[1478] And I've never washed my hair.

[1479] What do you mean you've never washed your hair?

[1480] In that shower.

[1481] Until recently.

[1482] No, I've never.

[1483] You've been there eight days and you haven't washed your hair?

[1484] No, I washed it at my house when I went home on the first day.

[1485] And then I washed it again when I stopped by my house.

[1486] So I haven't washed my hair at your house because I don't think there's time.

[1487] What do you mean time?

[1488] Because it gets cold.

[1489] What do you mean it gets cold?

[1490] It gets cold.

[1491] Yeah, I only have time.

[1492] It should never get cold.

[1493] Oh, it gets.

[1494] It's a tankless hot water heater.

[1495] It should be endlessly warm.

[1496] It's endlessly warm in my shower.

[1497] Oh my gosh.

[1498] What's going on?

[1499] I don't know.

[1500] But it's been getting cold, but it's kind of perfect because I tend to linger in the shower for a while.

[1501] Dilly, Daly.

[1502] Yeah, I like to dilly in there.

[1503] What do you do, just think?

[1504] No, I just like to, like, feel the hot water on me for kind of a long, long time.

[1505] And I like it to be pretty scalding.

[1506] Oh, okay.

[1507] Same with mother.

[1508] She likes it scalding?

[1509] Yeah, I can't do it.

[1510] You can't?

[1511] No. Okay, so I will say one day.

[1512] you guys are both gone and I did shower in your shower because I was wondering if it was going to stay hot longer.

[1513] Yeah.

[1514] But you guys have your set.

[1515] You have like a knob that sets the temperature separate from the knob that like turns it on.

[1516] Yeah, there's a thermostatic valve.

[1517] Yeah.

[1518] And I was kind of afraid to adjust that.

[1519] Oh.

[1520] Because I figured you had it set to something you like.

[1521] No, no, no, no. She cranks it and I uncrank it.

[1522] Yeah.

[1523] That's good to know.

[1524] Because it was too cold for me. Oh, okay.

[1525] And I thought maybe I would definitely blame Kristen for that, but now it's your fault.

[1526] Yeah, it's my fault.

[1527] You got it opposite.

[1528] She loves it hot.

[1529] I think it's bad for your skin.

[1530] I love it.

[1531] Yeah, I think it makes your skin dry.

[1532] No, but it opens up your pores, like a steam room.

[1533] Well, okay.

[1534] Yeah.

[1535] All right.

[1536] We've got to get those pores open, I suppose.

[1537] Anyway, I'm really grateful you guys for letting me stay.

[1538] We love having you.

[1539] It's really nice of you to open up your house like that.

[1540] Yeah, I hope you'll stay.

[1541] I'm going to stay for a while.

[1542] How much longer do you think I should stay for real?

[1543] Like medically speaking?

[1544] I guess.

[1545] I think you should just stay with us until you move into your new house personally.

[1546] Okay.

[1547] All right.

[1548] But, you know, when are you out of the woods?

[1549] What the neurologist say?

[1550] He didn't say.

[1551] You didn't ask him?

[1552] Well, he doesn't.

[1553] He doesn't care.

[1554] I mean, I think, I think obviously on this medicine, you're not going to have a seizure.

[1555] That's what I think.

[1556] So, I mean, probably you could stay at home at any time, but I don't want you to.

[1557] So don't do that, okay?

[1558] Okay.

[1559] Let's play it safe for another couple months.

[1560] Also, I'm not supposed to drive for a month.

[1561] So.

[1562] That would be the hardest thing for me to, to accept.

[1563] And I don't even like driving.

[1564] And it is hard.

[1565] Because I bet you, me driving while having a seizure is still 10 % better than your average driver.

[1566] How dare you?

[1567] Tell people what happened.

[1568] What happened?

[1569] Oh, I thought I scraped the front of my car.

[1570] I'm going to get you.

[1571] Yeah.

[1572] I did.

[1573] I did.

[1574] You're not infallible.

[1575] I know.

[1576] I know.

[1577] Oh, so hard.

[1578] It's so hard.

[1579] I'm sorry.

[1580] I know.

[1581] I also had a big episode the night before with the Lincoln.

[1582] Last day of working on Bless this mess.

[1583] I was really excited.

[1584] I drove the Lincoln.

[1585] I don't normally drive it all the way up there.

[1586] I felt very cool all day long.

[1587] I love that car.

[1588] People were complimenting me. Great, great, great.

[1589] Driving home, going 90 in the left lane.

[1590] Fucking brake caliper ripped off.

[1591] Shred the tire broke the rim.

[1592] Oh, my God.

[1593] What a disaster.

[1594] or had to take a flatbed.

[1595] I was like, I was speeding home.

[1596] Like, I'm off work.

[1597] I'm wrapped for the season.

[1598] Let's party.

[1599] Remember?

[1600] I was like, text to you guys.

[1601] Like, let's watch some fucking TV, all caps.

[1602] And then I'm sitting at a mobile gas station waiting for a guy in a flat bed truck for about an hour.

[1603] You know, whatever.

[1604] Thank God I had money to get a flatbed truck.

[1605] There was a lot to be grateful for, but still inconvenient.

[1606] Anyway, then the next day I scraped the front of my station wagon.

[1607] I was very bummed.

[1608] But, you know, I just, I have to have higher standards in it.

[1609] Let some material object ruin my.

[1610] sense of well -being.

[1611] You didn't.

[1612] Yeah.

[1613] You did a good job both times.

[1614] It's more the, it's actually not the car.

[1615] It's the disappointment that I, I misjudged the height of that curve.

[1616] I know.

[1617] I know.

[1618] Yeah.

[1619] The infallibility.

[1620] Yeah, that's what it is.

[1621] It's the identity.

[1622] You gotta not make that your identity, okay?

[1623] A little late, a little late.

[1624] Okay, BJ.

[1625] So first of all, he's so cute.

[1626] He, a couple days later, he sent me a spreadsheet of facts.

[1627] Oh, he did.

[1628] Yes.

[1629] Oh my God.

[1630] That's adorable.

[1631] He's so clearly a researcher.

[1632] Yeah.

[1633] Which I loved you.

[1634] Was it about tuition?

[1635] So actually no, but then he said, what else can I help with?

[1636] And then I asked about that.

[1637] And then he sent a link.

[1638] It said, so below 65 ,000 Stanford pays for housing food and maybe more.

[1639] Oh, that's nice.

[1640] So that's great.

[1641] And so yeah, and he said there's like a tiered system.

[1642] So that's good.

[1643] If you want to go to Stanford, go go i wonder what the hardest like you could probably figure out what would be the hardest bracket like if your parents made 125 maybe and you're still 50 you know it's got to get somehow oh yeah it'll be a real rough spot probably yeah yeah that's true so yeah go to stanford is fact one fact two is okay so you said the lowest rate of smoking is Utah and levels of obesity Utah is the lowest percentage of smokers, 10 .6%.

[1644] California is second lowest, 11 .7%.

[1645] Uh -huh.

[1646] I believe that.

[1647] You almost never seen anyone smoke here.

[1648] Yeah.

[1649] Montana is the least obese state in the U .S. Oh, no kidding.

[1650] 19 .6 % of residents qualifying as obese.

[1651] That was in 2013, but I haven't found any updated info.

[1652] Let's just really sit on that for one second.

[1653] The lowest rate of obesity in the country.

[1654] tree is 20%.

[1655] I know.

[1656] I'm sure medically they say it's like 30 % body fat or more.

[1657] Obesity occurs when a person's body mass index is 30 or greater.

[1658] There we go.

[1659] BMI.

[1660] When your BMI is higher than 30.

[1661] Previously Colorado.

[1662] Oh, okay.

[1663] Well, so mountains.

[1664] Yeah.

[1665] Outdoor lifestyle.

[1666] Because it's so cold.

[1667] They're just burning off that fat.

[1668] Sure.

[1669] Reducing that BMI.

[1670] So the Stanford Prison Experiment.

[1671] How exciting that he worked with that guy.

[1672] So cool.

[1673] Zimbardo.

[1674] But I just, we kind of brushed over it kind of quick.

[1675] So I wanted to give people a little rundown of what was going on.

[1676] Stanford Prison Experiment SPE was a social psychology experiment that attempted to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power, focusing on the struggle between prisoners and prison officers.

[1677] It was conducted at Stanford on the days of August 14th through the 20th, 1971.

[1678] First of all, so six, seven days.

[1679] That's a long time.

[1680] by a research group led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo using college students.

[1681] In the study, volunteers were assigned to be either guards or prisoners by the flip of a coin in a mock prison, with Zimbardo himself serving as the superintendent.

[1682] Several prisoners left mid -experiment, and the whole experiment was abandoned after six days.

[1683] Early reports on experimental results claim that students quickly embrace their assigned roles with some guards enforcing authoritarian measures and ultimately subjecting some prisoners to psychological.

[1684] torture, while many prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and by the officer's request actively harassed other prisoners who tried to stop it.

[1685] So interesting.

[1686] The experiment has been described in many introductory social psychology textbooks, although some have chosen to exclude it because its methodology is sometimes questioned.

[1687] Yeah.

[1688] Yeah.

[1689] But I think people did it say in there, I think there was some physical abuse.

[1690] I think there was like people peed their pants.

[1691] They weren't allowed to use the bathroom.

[1692] There's all kinds of things people did.

[1693] I think they called that psychological torture.

[1694] the time sitting in your yarn stained garments let's do the experiment you're a prisoner I'm the guard ask me if you can go potty can I go potty please no yon yourself okay okay they might not understand what that meant if I was a guard you would be trying to like make catch phrases and stuff yeah no one would take you serious I probably would fuck up a whole experiment like that because I would just be making jokes the whole time probably everyone would be in a good mood and nothing would be learned I wonder I wonder I wonder if you'd get power hungry?

[1695] Psychological torture.

[1696] I don't think you need to wonder that because I'm in a position to exploit my power in some way.

[1697] And I don't think I do.

[1698] Yeah.

[1699] There's long to agree on that one.

[1700] Well, I'm just thinking.

[1701] Pregnated pause.

[1702] Well, we've talked about it.

[1703] Sometimes I do feel that you don't abuse your power, but I sometimes think you don't recognize it.

[1704] And then in some ways, it does get pushed, but not because you're doing it on purpose, but because you're not paying attention to the fact that you have some.

[1705] That's true.

[1706] I admitted to that the other day.

[1707] I was arguing with the director.

[1708] But I was just arguing on the merit of our arguments.

[1709] Right.

[1710] And I was failing to recognize that I did have the power in the situation.

[1711] As far as if someone was going to get fired, it wouldn't be me. And that is power.

[1712] Yeah.

[1713] But, yeah, I wasn't thinking of that.

[1714] I was just, like, having a merit -based argument.

[1715] Right.

[1716] Yeah.

[1717] Maybe I do then.

[1718] I do.

[1719] We all do, probably.

[1720] Okay, so the Stephen King quote that Anthony was telling me about reading.

[1721] Reading is a creative center of a writer's life.

[1722] I take a book with me everywhere I go and find there are all sorts of opportunities to dip in.

[1723] The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as long swallows.

[1724] Which I liked.

[1725] Yeah.

[1726] I like a long swallow.

[1727] I knew you were going to.

[1728] say that.

[1729] Wouldn't you be bummed if you couldn't predict, predict me?

[1730] Well, yeah, I would.

[1731] I like being able to predict.

[1732] Yeah.

[1733] Makes the world feel safer.

[1734] Sure.

[1735] So when they act unpredictable or it gets scary.

[1736] That's true.

[1737] So every time I'm predictable and repetitive and cliche, you should say, thank you for making me feel safe.

[1738] I will.

[1739] Okay, thank you.

[1740] Um, anyway, he's so cute.

[1741] Anywho, he is very cute.

[1742] I really enjoyed him.

[1743] I loved everything he had to say.

[1744] Yeah, me too.

[1745] It felt empowering.

[1746] Yeah, I like it.

[1747] I believe it.

[1748] I believe in change.

[1749] You're the best example of that.

[1750] Well, thank you.

[1751] But I'll try to stay predictable so you feel safe.

[1752] Okay.

[1753] Okay.

[1754] Yeah, don't change.

[1755] I'm like to do the same dumb voices, the same catchphrases.

[1756] I'll do it all.

[1757] Good.

[1758] All right.

[1759] I love you.

[1760] Love you.

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