Build Products that go VIRAL: How WhatsApp, Instagram & Uber Hook BILLIONS | Nir Eyal

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:03]Is there a framework to crack engagement? There is. It's the hook model. Trigger, action, variable, reward, and investment. If you don't have all four steps, it's risky. The guest at today's podcast is so special that Fortune 500 CEOs pay him $50,000 to spend one hour in their boardroom. And we flew all the way to Singapore so that you could attend this lecture for free.

[00:00:23]Meet Nir Yal, >> New York Times bestselling author, revealing the psychology behind habit forming products.

[00:00:30]>> Today, Nir Yal is going to teach you a framework so powerful that using this framework, you can make your product so irresistible that your customers will keep coming back and you can finally stop playing the acquisition game and start playing the retention game. In fact, today Instagram, Tik Tok, Slack, Pinterest, and even Fortnite use this exact same framework that N has taught to become the greatest product stories ever told. So grab a notebook and start taking notes because this is something that no business school in the country is teaching you. How do I build a routine for my customer?

[00:01:00]>> Opening an app, scrolling a feed, pushing a play button. The simpler that action becomes, the more likely the user is to do that.

[00:01:08]>> Can we help people become a healthier version of themselves?

[00:01:10]>> There's a study done at Yale that found that people who had positive views about aging lived on average 7 and 1/2 years longer. That's more than the effect of diet. It's more than the effect of exercise. It's more in the effect of quitting smoking.

[00:01:23]>> 99% of the people know what to do. Even then, how do they feel >> based on your prior beliefs? You can't see it any other way.

[00:01:31]>> Can we change beliefs?

[00:01:33]>> The biggest lie is that we see things as they are. We do not see things as they are, >> don't we?

[00:01:37]>> So, I want you to take a look at this image. Which square is darker?

[00:01:40]>> Square A.

[00:01:41]>> The thing is it's not. You can see that they're in fact the exact same color.

[00:01:45]>> Do you understand how profound this is?

[00:01:46]But how is that possible? Why?

[00:01:51]>> Before we jump in, I want to thank Odo for supporting this podcast. Now, listen to this very carefully, especially if you're a business owner, founder, freelancer, or just someone with big dreams. Because what I'm about to tell you could be the difference between closing your next big deal or watching it slip through your fingers. Let's be real, guys. In today's fast-paced world, a single missed follow-up can cost you lacks. That is why you need to know about ODO CRM. The tool that's changing the way India is doing business. So whether you're managing 10 leads or 10,000 leads, ODO helps you track every lead, every deal, every call, all in just one place. With sleek KBIN view, you will always know what's moving, what's stuck, and what needs your attention instantly. And with ODU's chatter system, you will never lose an activity or an email or a client update ever again. But wait, it gets better.

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[00:03:26]For today's podcast, I have a very specific agenda. India is at a very very interesting time right now. We are a population of 1.4 4 billion people and we are touted to be the next China. So in the next 5 to 10 years, India's per capita income is about to shoot up by at least 3 to six times and that is about to give rise to a huge consumer economy because of which today there are thousands of consumer startups popping up in India and as always some of them fail in spite of having a great product.

[00:03:56]You know, as a person who's watched these kind of revolutions very closely, why do you think companies even with great products sometimes fail?

[00:04:04]>> There's three pillars to every successful startup that uh every successful startup has to be a gem. Gem stands for growth, engagement, and monetization. So growth, how do you acquire users? Engagement, how do you keep them coming back? And monetization, how do you do this sustainably? So you have to have all three, but a startup never has all three. If you have all three, you're not a startup anymore.

[00:04:26]You're you're a validated company. A startup needs to have at least two with a plan for the third. So, um you know, no one product makes a company. Many companies have products. Some fail, some succeed, but to to to for a product to seed, you have you have to have all three. Um and so what I specialize in, I don't focus on growth. I don't focus on monetization. My specialty is really engagement because for a few reasons.

[00:04:50]One, I think it's the most interesting of the three. But also, I think it's the one that you have to nail first because what we oftentimes see, especially in in high growth companies where there's a lot of hype, there's a lot of anticipation, there's a lot of money slloshing around in the in the venture capital universe, is you see people buying growth and funding what's called a leaky bucket. A leaky bucket is when users come in and users flush out. Well, that's pointless. You're just throwing good money after bad because you one thing you cannot buy is engagement. You can buy growth. You give some money to Meta or to Google or to uh billboards or to television commercials. You can buy growth. You can always buy growth. You cannot buy engagement. Engagement must be built into the product design. And so until you have nailed user retention and engagement, it doesn't make sense to grow. So I think that has to be one of your first steps is to make sure that whatever product or service you're building, you can keep people coming back.

[00:05:50]>> Is there a framework to crack engagement?

[00:05:53]>> There is. It's the hook model.

[00:05:56]So that's what I spend most of my career uh researching and working on. That was my the subject of my first book, the subject of my class that I taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, which is this this hook model, this four-step process that uh where where tastes are formed, where preferences are shaped, and where these habits take hold. Can you tell me about this framework?

[00:06:13]>> Sure. Do you want to you I don't know.

[00:06:15]Do you want to do it?

[00:06:15]>> You know, at this point, I just have to be very honest with you. I've been recommending Hook for 10 years now. So, I'm just going to pretend that I don't know the hook model so that Neil can put it out.

[00:06:24]>> Actually, why don't you do it? I I would love to. I've never sat This is the first time I've ever sat across from somebody that I think knows it very very well. And and maybe I'll relax. I'll You'll do my job for a bit. I'd love to hear it.

[00:06:35]>> So, guys, there are four steps on how to crack engagement.

[00:06:39]trigger, action, variable reward, and investment. Now, there are two types of triggers. There's an external trigger and there's an internal trigger.

[00:06:47]External trigger is when you see a billboard and you decide to use an app.

[00:06:50]But internal triggers are triggers that come from within that then push you to use an app. For example, when you're hungry, you use Zumato in India. If you're not able to see, you might visit a lens cut store. So, that's an internal trigger which pushes you to then use your product. So these are all internal triggers and the moment a company goes from being an external trigger to an internal trigger that's when the company becomes gamechanging. Did I do that right?

[00:07:18]>> Amazing. Very very well done. Yeah. And and of course the other benefit is that from an ROI perspective as opposed to having to spam people with annoying messages and emails and paying for expensive advertising people are coming back on their own not because of external triggers but because of internal triggers. That's that's the the the hallmark of a habit forming product is that the customer triggers themselves.

[00:07:40]>> Mhm. Neil, my question to you over here is when it comes to a D2C brand, you know, when it comes to an app, I can still understand. But when it comes to a D2C brand like let's say a skincare brand, >> the internal trigger is obviously let's say pimples or rashes because of which they might use the product, they might buy the product. But then when it comes to a product like salicylic acid, you will have to use salicylic acid for 7 days to see a result and that requires discipline. So how do you think a brand like minimalist become an internal trigger for people to use their product consistently to see an evident result?

[00:08:17]>> The benefit of a physical product, right, a consumer package good is that the product itself becomes the external trigger.

[00:08:24]>> Okay? So when I wake up every morning and I see that product, well that reminds me to use it. That becomes the external trigger. It reminds me I worked on a case uh for uh an asthma inhaler, right? An inhaler for for asthmatics.

[00:08:37]And they had a big problem because this particular medication didn't work like most asthma inhalers. Most asthma inhalers, you have an asthma attack and in order to provide relief, you have to take a puff. That's how they typically work. But this wasn't something that you used when you had acute symptoms. It's something you used as a preventative measure. So what this company had to do was to get people to take a puff twice a day when they didn't experience symptoms. And this was really difficult to do because here's what happened.

[00:09:06]People had this existing habit of when I have an asthma inhaler, I need to keep it in my backpack. I need to keep it in my purse so that when I feel symptoms, I can take it. But that's not how this product worked. They had to establish a new habit. They had to take two puffs a day. when they didn't feel symptoms. So, what was the solution? We had to get it out of the backpack, out of the purse.

[00:09:26]And so, what they did, it wasn't some multi-million dollar app. It wasn't some, you know, rebranding, reformulation of the product. What it was was this 50 cent stand where people were told, "Take the ear inhaler and put it near your toothbrush."

[00:09:44]>> Wow.

[00:09:44]>> So, that every time you brush, people brush twice a day. They brush in the morning. They brush before bed. that's when you take a puff.

[00:09:51]>> So the the the the external trigger wasn't some notification. It wasn't some spammy messaging. It was the physical product itself. So that's actually a huge advantage of a physical product is that it becomes the external trigger in and of itself. Now we we talked about really only one stage of the hook model, the trigger phase. But there's four as you mentioned, the trigger, the action, the the variable reward, and the investment. So you need all four to have a sustained hook. The second step of the hook model is called the action phase.

[00:10:17]The action phase is defined as the simplest behavior done in anticipation of a reward. The simplest thing the user can do to get relief from that psychological itch. Right? So, uh when I'm feeling bored, I open Tik Tok or Instagram. Instantly, I'm entertained.

[00:10:34]When I'm feeling lonely, uh I call a friend with, you know, by pushing their face on my phone. Now, I can talk to a friend. Or, uh if you're a different kind of lonely, you open Tinder or or a dating app. Uh so we always want to connect that e that action as simply as possible to relieving that internal trigger. Uh opening an app, scrolling a feed, pushing a play button. The simpler that action becomes, the more likely the user is to do that behavior. So simplify simplify simplify. When it comes to the action phase, the next step of the hook model is the variable reward. The variable reward is the engine of the hook model. And in in order to understand variable rewards, we have to start in the brain. And in particular, what causes us to engage and re-engage.

[00:11:20]The best way to understand it is through an experiment that took place over 75 years ago uh by a psychologist by the name of BF Skinner. And Skinner did this famous experiment where he took pigeons and he put them in a little box. We call this today a Skinner box. And he allowed the pigeons in the box to peck at a disc and receive a little reward. So peck at the disc, get a little food treat. Now, at first, the pigeon would peck at the disc whenever it was hungry. Peck at the disc, get a food treat. But then one day, Skinner had a problem. He comes to the lab and he checks his pockets and he realizes he doesn't have enough of these food pellets. So, he can't afford to give it to the pigeon every time they peck at the disc. He could only afford to give it to them once in a while. So, sometimes a pigeon would peck at the disc, nothing would come out. The next time the pigeon would peck the disc, they would receive a reward. And what Skinner observed to his amazement is that the rate of response, the number of times the pigeon pecked at the disc increased when the reward was given on a variable schedule of reinforcement. Why does that happen? Because variability, mystery, uncertainty caused us to engage. It caused us to focus and it is highly habit forming. So in all sorts of habit forming products, whether that's cricket, you mentioned earlier how much you enjoy cricket. Why do we like watching a ball bouncing around on a pitch? Because there's variability.

[00:12:42]We're not sure what's going to happen.

[00:12:44]Who's going to win? What's going to happen? What's the next play? Why do we like to read interesting books? Why do we watch the news? The first three letters of news, NEW. So, what's new?

[00:12:52]What's different? Gambling, right? Why why do people get habituated or addicted to gambling? It's because there's variability. There's uncertainty around what you might win in one of these games of chance. When you think about social media, when you're scrolling that feed, you're not sure what you're going to find next. So in all habit forming products you will see some element of variability either curing an internal trigger that that is there. So boredom, loneliness, fatigue, uncertainty uh or bringing certainty where it currently isn't. And then finally the fourth most important and most overlooked step is called the investment phase. The investment phase is where the user puts something into the product to make it better with use. And this is a revolutionary concept that we've only seen with the dawn of digital technology, at least on a massive scale, where a product instead of depreciating, when you think about most products, your clothing, this this chair, your car, things in the physical world depreciate.

[00:13:52]The more you use them, the less valuable they are. Wear and tear. Habit forming products do the opposite. A habit forming product doesn't depreciate. a habit forming product appreciates. It gets better and better the more you use it. And so that's what makes it so sticky. So when you think about data, uh followers, uh uh uh any kind of algorithm that improves the more you use it, skill acquisition, the more you learn about it, the better you become at using a product. All of those things build investment into it and make it better and better with use. Now, why is this so important today versus when I first wrote Hooked back in 2014?

[00:14:31]And I predicted this back even back then when I wrote it, I I wrote several articles about it that as technology improves, we are now able to provide mass customization because of the dawn of AI. So now smart entrepreneurs are realizing that every product can now bolt on some kind of investment phase.

[00:14:53]that if you're able to connect customer information and improve the product with use, you're going to make your product more habit forming and more sticky. So products that didn't have any kind of investment phase. For example, if you uh you know, you mentioned a skincare brand, how does a skincare brand get better with use? It's very difficult. So what they would do is build a brand affinity. So the only way to build investment was, hey, I've tried it before and look, my skin looks good, so I'm not going to take a risk. And that is a form of investment. It's through a kind of skill acquisition of, "Oh, this is how I apply this. This is my brand. I have a brand affinity. I'll keep using it." But that's pretty weak. A competitor can come in and say, "Oh yeah, well, we can do it better or cheaper." In the future, what I think will happen, and we're already starting to see this, is mass personalization. Is this is exactly the skin care product for you, and here's how to apply it in exactly the right way. And now send us the results. let you know AI is going to analyze your skin or something and tell you here's what the next step here's what you need to keep doing and here's our next product line that's tailored just for you. So I think in the future every product will have some kind of investment phase bolted onto it that improves the product with use because customers are going to demand it. So that's the overview trigger action variable reward and investment and it's through successive cycles through these hooks that habits are formed. M we spoke about internal triggers and internal triggers usually stemming out of a negative emotion. Now is there a limit to the number of emotions that we can actually capitalize on?

[00:16:19]>> Yeah. So I get this question sometimes of why does it have to be a negative emotion?

[00:16:23]>> Yeah.

[00:16:23]>> Right. Like when I check social media, isn't it because I want to feel good? I want to connect with my friends. I I you know I want to feel pleasure of of doing things. Isn't that what motivates us?

[00:16:34]No. that all human behavior is spurred by one thing and one thing only. And this is a huge misunderstanding about how people conceive of motivation. They think motivation, the traditional dichotomy is carrots and sticks, right? You've heard this metaphor that we're all motivated by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Jeremy Bentham said this, Sigman Freud said this. Turns out it's not true. that we now know by actually seeing blood flow in the brain through fMRI technology, we can actually see how the brain decides. And it turns out that we are not motivated by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, but rather the carrot is the stick.

[00:17:16]>> Okay, >> get your head around this. The carrot is the stick. What does that mean? That it's not about the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. that in fact everything we do, everything you do, all motivation is about the desire to escape discomfort. Everything even wanting to feel good.

[00:17:35]So craving, lusting, hunger, desire, even wanting to feel good is itself psychologically destabilizing. So the carrot is the stick. The way the carrot gets us to act is because we want it.

[00:17:50]And wanting is uncomfortable.

[00:17:53]So why back to product design, why is it so important for us to only think about the negative internal state? Why do we not look for the positive emotion? I'm going to explain through a little anecdote that that occurred to me. I was on a transcontinental flight, a long flight, and um I was sitting in the aisle seat and across from me was a gentleman who was clearly asleep, totally sleeping. He had the blanket up to his chin. He had a big pillow under his his head, very much passed out. And the flight attendant comes down the aisle and she stops at his at our row and she looks at him and she says, "Sir." And he's asleep. He doesn't wake up. So she says it a little louder. She said it again. She says, "Sir again." He he doesn't wake up. Finally, she says it a third time and this time everybody can hear. She says, "Sir." And he wakes up.

[00:18:39]He says, "Whoa, whoa, what is it? What is it?" And she says, "Sir, what would you like to drink?" You laugh, right?

[00:18:45]It's funny, right? Why the heck would she do that? And yet, you know what? We do this to our customers all the time.

[00:18:54]Try our product. Here's an offer. Here's an email. Here's an ad campaign. Look at this. Look at this. Pay attention.

[00:19:00]All the time. Just like this flight attendant was doing. Did that guy want to drink? Yes. When he was thirsty, not when he was sleeping. So, the reason we want to always look for the negative internal state is because that's when people are looking for a solution. I don't want your drink when I'm sleeping.

[00:19:18]I want the drink when I'm thirsty. So, as product designers, the way we design an external trigger that is magic, that works, that is appreciated versus one that's annoying and spammy is one word.

[00:19:32]And that one word is context. that the closer together you can couple the internal trigger, that moment when you feel that itch, boredom, anxiety, loneliness, fatigue, uncertainty, whatever that internal trigger might be, the closer together you can couple that feeling with the solution, the external trigger that says, "Hey, here's the relief for that problem, that's when it's magic. That's when the user says, "Oh my goodness, that's exactly what I need right now." So, that's that's how we design a good external trigger. Don't send those messages and emails and uh notifications on your schedule. send it when the user is most likely to feel their internal trigger on their schedule.

[00:20:08]>> And then how do we ace timing? And in fact, this is a function of two questions. Firstly, how do we choose a trigger to associate with? And number two, how do we ace timing?

[00:20:18]>> If we are building a habit forming product, we have to ask ourselves what is the consumer itch, right? Not not just what is the functional need. Most product builders can tell me, oh, the product does this, the product does that. I'm using AI. I'm using this technology >> to do this thing for the customer. And they don't think about the deeper level of why. What's the itch? You're building a consumer finance product, but why would I use it every day? Right. Well, well, it's because you want to make money. That's not exactly right. Go a layer deeper. What's below that? Why do I want to make money? I want to make money because I feel insecure.

[00:20:54]That's the feeling, not the benefit.

[00:20:56]What's the uncomfortable sensation? And so then when we keep asking why, right, that's this test called the five W's that was developed in the Toyota production system. Asking why, why, why, why why until we get to an internal trigger. Loneliness, fear, uncertainty, anxiety.

[00:21:13]What that does for us is then open up the aperture of what the product should look like. So for example, day trading, you know, day trading is a wonderful way to lose money. It's not a good model to make money, but it's a slot machine.

[00:21:26]It's gambling and people play it not to necessarily get rich, not because of financial insecurity. It's because it's entertaining. It's fun. It's a variable reward. It's just like a slot machine.

[00:21:34]But that product, understanding that internal trigger is going to look completely different from a product that's there to help people feel secure, right? That's the the cure for uncertainty is security. So even in the same industry, it's so important to understand your internal trigger because that will guide every single step you make. Every single product decision, every user interface decision stems from is it scratching the user psychological itch.

[00:21:58]>> Is there a limit to the number of internal triggers we can associate with?

[00:22:01]>> There is this idea of an emotion wheel and this has kind of been developed in the psychology community for quite a while that there's these core emotions and then each one of those core emotions, it's like a color wheel. You know, you can blend different colors together and you will get different types of uh of emotions. And so when you look at the negative side of that color wheel, there's many many many I mean there's hundreds of different flavors.

[00:22:23]Yeah. Sure. Hundreds of different flavors of emotion, right? And even you know if you think about how um you know in different cultures uh we can solve for those internal triggers differently. So for example uh in in United States if someone is feeling bored maybe they turn on the TV and they watch football but in India they want to watch cricket. So it could be same internal trigger but different solution based on the cultural context based on the individual preference. So the core needs the hook model doesn't change trigger action reward investment does not change but how that itch is satisfied might be different based on the culture socioeconomic strata the individual even >> understood. So find your customer's itch and then put your product in the context of solving that itch and all you have to do is ace timing. Well, that's we're still on step one, >> right? We're just talking about internal triggers. What we want to do, the most important thing is to make sure it's a frequent internal trigger. So, Larry Pageige from Google used to call it the toothbrush test. That he only wanted to design products at Google that a customer would use as frequently as a toothbrush because what he understood was that the more frequently a product is used, the more likely it is to become a habit. So, why do we find these things so habit forming? It's because the average smartphone o owner looks at their home screen 150 times per day.

[00:23:45]That's why when we don't have our phones with us, we feel anxious and lost because we have built these habits with these products to solve so many of our problems, so many of these internal triggers because we use it so often.

[00:23:56]Now, Larry Page says twice a day. I think that's you don't have to rise to that bar. Very few products are used twice a day. If that if you do have a product that's used that frequently, that's great. I think the minimum is at least once a week. that in my experience, if a product is not used at least once a week, it's very, very difficult to change that consumer habit.

[00:24:14]It's not impossible. There are exceptions, but by and large, if your product is not interacted with at least once a week, it's going to be pretty tough to change a habit.

[00:24:22]>> How do we do that without annoying our customers?

[00:24:24]>> Well, the idea is that eventually you're not using the external triggers at all.

[00:24:27]The way you will have succeeded to build that habit is that you use those training wheels of an external trigger, the pings, the dings, the rings, the notifications. That's temporary, right?

[00:24:37]You're just using that to get them through the four steps of the hook.

[00:24:40]Trigger, action, reward, investment enough times so that eventually they don't need the external triggers.

[00:24:45]They're triggering themselves based on the association of the product with the internal trigger.

[00:24:49]>> Can you give me an example of a client of yours who were able to actually go from being external triggers to becoming associated with the internal triggers?

[00:24:59]>> So, Fitbod uh was a interesting case study. So, I wrote the first edition of Hooked and then a few years later, a friend of mine sent me a text message and said, "Have you seen this exercise app? It's really interesting. You should check it out." Because I had written an article uh shortly after Hooked was published uh called Why Your Fitness App is making you fat. And uh I took a look at Fitbot and I was really impressed and it seemed like it really fit the Hooked model perfectly. And so I I went to the app and I found the customer support button and I sent a quick message and I said, "Hi, I'm near AOL. I I wrote this book Hooked. Has anybody in your team by chance read it?" And within 30 seconds, I'm not kidding you, 30 seconds later, I get a reply. I said, "Yes, we read your book. We loved it. We designed the product based on it."

[00:25:42]>> Wow.

[00:25:42]>> Yeah. Amazing. And uh here's what they did. Fitbot has a very specific customer type. It's not the person who's on the couch. It's not the person who's obese.

[00:25:51]It's the person who goes to the gym and has no idea what to do, which was me. In fact, several when I found FitBod, I would go to the gym. Sometimes I would hire a personal trainer, which was very expensive. So, I I wouldn't do it for very long. But I would go to the gym and I would look at all these, you know, muscle heads and they all seem to know what they were doing. And I had no clue.

[00:26:10]So, I do a little bit of this, a little bit of this. I didn't have any idea.

[00:26:13]Well, FitBot doesn't want to cater to, oh, I want to get in perfect shape. I want a beach body.

[00:26:20]They decided their internal trigger is uncertainty in the gym. That's their internal trigger. Every time you go to the gym and you don't know what you're doing, uncertainty. Uncertainty feels uncomfortable, right? That's an a a negative veilance state. I don't like that internal trigger of uncertainty. It feels bad. The solution is I open the app. The action phase is to, you know, press one button and I instantly have a variable reward showing me what is my workout of the day. So, it tells me what exercise to do, how much weight to lift, how many reps and sets to do. It tells me exactly what to do. And it changes every time I use the app. It's a variable reward. Now, what's the investment phase that nobody else in the fitness industry had had understood at the time was that every time I enter in the information of my sets, my reps, my weight, my exercise, I'm making the product better with use. Why? Because the next time I step foot in the gym, based on what I did last time, it tells me exactly what I should do next time.

[00:27:20]So yesterday I worked out shoulders.

[00:27:23]Today I should work out my legs, for example, right? Give my give my shoulders a rest. Now it's time to do a different exercise. And it counts how many days I should rest until I do that exercise again. So based on what I did in the past, right? What's the right level of weight? What's the right exercise, how much rest to get, how many reps and sets, all that stuff I don't have to think about anymore. Now it's a habit. I'll pay whatever they ask me to pay for the annual subscription because I I I can't go to the gym without it and in fact I've gotten in the best shape of my life because of it.

[00:27:50]>> So don't try to solve a completely new problem. Solve for the people who are looking for a solution and are right now scrambling with the solution >> who feel for who have this internal trigger that occurs frequently and the current solutions stink. That's where you will find the biggest opportunity.

[00:28:06]Don't try and create, you know, new behaviors from thin air. Especially when ask yourself, is the behavior I'm trying to change something that can be done with little or no conscious thought.

[00:28:16]That's the definition of a habit that people forget. A behavior done with little or no conscious thought. Because there's unfortunately a lot of confusion about what habits are. You know, we've kind of reached peak habits that when you think about all the books about habits and I and I write hooked is about habit forming products, but when you think about in the personal development space, I'm going to start an exercise habit. I'm going to start a meditation habit. I'm going to start an a writing habit. Those are not habits by definition. Think about it. If I'm trying to break my personal record in the gym or running or swimming or whatever, how do I do that out of habit?

[00:28:49]It requires a lot of effort. It requires a lot of conscious thought to get better at at difficult exercise. Now, I could go for a walk. Okay, walking can be a habit. You can talk on the phone or listen to a podcast as you're taking a walk. So, yes, maybe that's a form of exercise. But if you're trying to push yourself further, if you're trying to get better, that's not a habit. That's a routine. A routine is a series of behaviors frequently repeated, which requires a completely different behavioral change set. And so what happens is after a certain number of days, they try and create this habit and it still sucks. It's still hard. So what do they do? Do they blame this stupid technique or a guru who told them that you could turn everything to a habit which you cannot? No, they blame themselves. But Neil, you've just thrown away all definitions of habits I initially had.

[00:29:33]>> Yeah.

[00:29:33]>> Because to me, writing was a habit.

[00:29:35]Going to the gym was a habit. Running was a habit.

[00:29:38]>> No, it's a routine.

[00:29:39]>> But now, how do I redefine habits?

[00:29:41]>> 40% of your behavior every day, according to researchers, according to Wendy Wood, is done out of habit. You're driving in your car while you're having a conversation with your wife. Okay?

[00:29:50]Driving the car is something that you can do with little or no conscious thought. You're paying attention, but not 100%. Right? But now when you first learned that behavior, when you first learned to drive, you know, you were probably white knuckling it, right? You were paying attention to everything. You couldn't do anything. Don't talk to me.

[00:30:04]I can't listen to the radio cuz I have to concentrate because I can learn how to drive. But as you learned how to drive, it became a habit. It became something that you can do with little or no conscious thought. Now it's easy peasy. You can listen to the radio. You can have a conversation. You can have a telephone call as you're doing this behavior. It's become a habit. It's something you can do with little or no conscious thought. With habits, what you're doing is making the easy thing easier. Right? You're making it easier to do that behavior. With a routine, you need to expect it to be difficult.

[00:30:33]>> The technique is coping with the discomfort. Exercise is going, this is actually the subject of my third book, the one that just came out, is this completely different technique that we need where habits fail us because, you know, it's almost like flow. Do you know the concept of flow by Miho chicks at Mihi? A lot of people use flow and habits. You know, you can always tell when someone doesn't know what they're talking about when they start talking about flow and habits typically because flow and habits typically are difficult to apply to difficult behaviors.

[00:31:03]>> Yeah, people and I actually had a 10-minute discussion on this and it's a little technical. So, I will explain this in very simple words. You see, habit is something you do with conscious effort. You schedule it, remind yourself and you sometimes skip it. But routine is something that you do without thinking. It happens automatically. You would feel weird if you're not doing it.

[00:31:24]That's the entire difference. One needs willpower and the other needs zero willpower. And it is completely subjective and varies from person to person as to what exactly is a habit and what exactly is routine. The best example for this is the difference between chai and gym. For 90% of Indians, they don't set an alarm for chai. They don't write it on a to-do list. They don't need motivation to drink chai. They simply make it because every morning when they wake up their brain says we need child. So that is a routine. Now think about going to the gym. You set an alarm for it. You lay out your clothes the night before. You motivate yourself to go to the gym. So that is a habit that needs to be formed according to Nir. So do you realize for the exact same portion in the exact same morning one behavior is permanent and the other is fragile. Why? Because chai has an internal trigger which is the feeling of groggginess when you wake up and your brain automatically feels the need for chai. But gym needs an external trigger an alarm or a friend or a notification to remind you to go and n says that every great habit forming product was first built on top of an existing routine. For example, Instagram did not create a new behavior. It hijacked the routine of checking the newspaper in the morning and turned it into a habit of checking the feed 96 times a day. WhatsApp did not invent communication. It hijacked the routine of calling family on a Sunday and turned it into a habit of messaging family multiple times a day. So the formula is to find a routine that your customer is already following and then to attach your product to it and eventually engineer the trigger rewards and investment loops and slowly and steadily the habit will become a part of the routine. That is how you build habit forming product. Now let's move to variable reward. Yeah.

[00:33:10]>> Is there a framework for every company to think about their own form of variable reward?

[00:33:15]>> So there's three types of variable rewards. We have rewards of the tribe, rewards of the hunt, and rewards of the self. Rewards of the tribe are things that feel good that have this element of variability and come from other people.

[00:33:28]This is actually the longest lasting of the three types of variable rewards.

[00:33:31]It's uh uh it's feeling good because someone else feels good. We call it empathetic joy. So the joy of doing something together, of of being with others, that need for belonging. You know, we're a social species. We we all crave desperately to understand others and to be understood ourselves. And so rewards of the tribe provide that. So a an online community, uh a an offline group, right? A bowling league, a kijana's club, you know, any kind of a church group, any kind of engagements that people are seeking to connect through. Uh there's all kinds of variable rewards that come from rewards of the tribe. Then we have rewards of the hunt. Rewards of the hunt uh are things that feel good that have this element of variability that are all about the search for material rewards for information for uh monetary incentives. Uh so that's that's you know when you think about slot machines, when you think about uh why do we pursue our year-end bonuses, right? Why does a company say, "Hey, if you perform well, you you know, you you may get some kind of performance bonus." That's a a variable reward. That's an a engagement device to keep you working. Uh and then you have rewards of the self, which are things that feel good who that have this element of variability, but don't involve monetary rewards or information rewards or even other people. So, this is all about the pursuit of mastery, consistency, competency, control. So, when you think about gameplay, why do we play video games? We're not necessarily playing with other people. We're not winning anything in terms of monetary incentives. But why do you see people constantly playing these games? Well, because there's something about getting to the next level, the next accomplishment, the next achievement.

[00:35:08]Those are called rewards of the self.

[00:35:11]So, we can mix and match these three variable rewards. You don't have to have all of them. Almost no company has all of them, but you need to have at least one if you're going to build a habit forming product.

[00:35:19]>> Okay. Um do you have an example amongst your clients who have actually used these three principles tribe, hunt and self to help the users cultivate a great habit and eventually become a healthier version of themselves apart from um the brand that we spoke about Fitbot.

[00:35:38]>> Yeah. Well, if you think about you know very few products have all three but if you think about the mother of habit forming technology what's a technology that we all use even though we don't really like it. Think about email. Email is the mother of habit forming technology, right? You've got tribe.

[00:35:52]Who's the email from? You've got hunt.

[00:35:55]What's in the email? Sometimes it's spam. Sometimes it's something very important. And then self. There's this need to get to this mythical place, inbox zero where we're trying to constantly keep up with this stream of replies uh so that we can get order from this chaos in our life. So, email is one of the few products where you see all three, tribe, hunt, and self-displayed, which is part of what makes it so sticky. It's an it's a very old technology. We've been using it for decades and decades. Yeah.

[00:36:21]>> But it it sticks around because it is so habit forming.

[00:36:25]>> Why does Coca-Cola spend billions of dollars on advertising? You know all about Coca-Cola. They're doing that to not for people who are thinking about drinking Coca-Cola. They're they're marketing to the people who already drink Coca-Cola to keep them consuming or to get them to consume more >> to keep themselves associated with the internal trigger of thirst >> to to keep them associated with the identity of the product. So that when I drink, I drink. I'm a Coke drinker.

[00:36:50]That's who I am. I don't drink Pepsi.

[00:36:52]That that stuff's crap. I only drink Coke. That's who I am. That's what it's associated with. And so it's creating that brand identity. I anticipate what I'm going to feel. The brand incepts through their commercials. This is what most people don't understand about advertising. They think that advertising is just about consumer awareness.

[00:37:09]Telling people you exist. Come to my restaurant. Try my dry cleaner. That's that's low-level advertising. Genius advertising, brand advertising incepts the very experience of the brand. I'll give you an example. There was an experiment done at Stanford by a former uh colleague of mine uh Baba Shiv and he took people and put them into an fMRI machine. An fMRI machine scans blood flow in the brain during the experiment.

[00:37:37]And he gave them two kinds of wine. The first wine was a cheap wine. He gave them a they had a little tube in their mouth and they gave them a little spritz of wine and they said, "Tell us what you think of this wine and the people said, "Ah, you know what? This wine is okay.

[00:37:52]It's it's all right. It's a little bit harsh on the finish. Nothing special."

[00:37:55]Okay, that was the cheap wine. They told them, "This is cheap wine." Then they they rinsed out their mouth with water and they said, "Okay, now it's time for the second wine." The second wine is a very expensive wine. It's a chateau de something something. You know, they made it sound very expensive. They told them it's a very expensive wine. And now they asked them, "What do you think of this wine?" Oh, this wine is very delicious.

[00:38:14]I can taste the hints of blackberry and the hints of oak. You know, all the stuff that wine snobs say. And then turns out the trick was there's always a trick in these studies. It was the same wine. Same exact wine. Now, what's fascinating is not only did the people in this experiment say that the more expensive wine tasted better, they they said, "Oh, yes, it's more much tastier this more expensive wine, even though it was the same wine." We could see in their brains that blood flow increased in the reward centers of their brain indicating that they actually enjoy the wine more. They weren't faking. They weren't lying. It was in their head. But of course, everything is in your head.

[00:38:53]All perception is in your head. Where else is perception? Perception isn't out here. All perception is here. So, they actually enjoyed the wine more simply because they thought it was better because it was more expensive. And that's what brands do. So, are you telling me that brands can actually instill placebo and benefit from it?

[00:39:12]>> That's what all brands do.

[00:39:13]>> Okay.

[00:39:14]>> You know, when you buy a Gucci bag, is it a hundred times better than a cheap bag? When you buy an expensive car, right? When you buy I don't know what's an expensive car. We're not really a car. You buy a Ferrari. Is it a how is it 100x? It's 100x the price of a of a Honda. Is it actually a hundredx value? You enjoy it more because of that increased price, because you paid more for it, because of the brand cache, because you think there's something special about it, right?

[00:39:46]>> Because you know the story.

[00:39:47]>> You know the story. You you have a belief.

[00:39:49]>> You feel like this is the car that Enzo Ferrari sat on.

[00:39:52]>> Yeah. It's a whole But it's just a belief. And that's what bomb belief is all about. It's exactly about these placebo effects in uh as they affect our health, as they affect our perception, as they affect our behavior. And I think I used to think, well, it's kind of a lie, right? That we're lying to people by creating these brands. You're such a sucker, right? If you believe that wine is that different, one wine to the other or one car for the other, you're such a sucker. I don't believe that anymore.

[00:40:16]Now, what I'm convinced of is that actually this is the value that if I can tell you that this kind of shoe because it has this kind of funny logo versus that kind of logo or this sports jersey that's associated with a sport I like or a team I love, that's a that shirt I would never wear. That's a terrible shirt.

[00:40:35]Don't I I would pay money not to wear that team's jersey. But this one with these pretty colors of this university that I went to or this state that I happen to be from. That's where where none of the players have actually have any affiliation with me whatsoever. But that's what I associate with. That's the brand I choose to affiliate with. That's the joy. That's actually what people are paying for. And they'll pay a lot for it.

[00:40:57]>> So belief, anticipation, and confirmation.

[00:41:00]>> It's believe, anticipate, feel, and then confirm.

[00:41:04]>> Feel and confirm. So there are four steps.

[00:41:06]>> There's four steps. But first I have some kind of belief about that experience that causes me to anticipate what I will feel. The feeling is the actual subjective state. This tastes better.

[00:41:19]This feels better. This is you know whatever the case might be. I actually feel it as differently and then I confirm it. So the goal of advertising is in fact to incept what you want the person to feel. That's actually the the the role. People don't realize that but you're actually creating that very experience that you're paying for.

[00:41:38]>> Neil, now my question is as a human being and this is again a question that I have from beyond belief.

[00:41:45]>> Everybody knows what to do but even then they somehow fail. For example, I know that I have to hit the gym. I know that I have to eat healthy and eventually in 6 months I'll get a six-pack abs. But even then I have consistently failed and so have 99% of the people in this world.

[00:42:01]Why does that happen? And is there a way to reverse that? And the reason why I'm asking you this is because if I can find a way to reverse that as a consumer, then I can also as a business think about helping my consumers reverse their habits in order to help them become a better version of themselves.

[00:42:17]>> So going to that so I want to go to that root cause and understand when 99% of the people know what to do >> even then how do they fail and why do they fail?

[00:42:28]>> You know what the number one reason people don't achieve their goals is? The number one reason, the number one reason we don't achieve a goal, it's very simple. We quit. Of course, we quit.

[00:42:38]That the most important factor on whether you achieve a goal, any life goal, is whether you persist because persistence doesn't guarantee success, but quitting guarantees failure. So, if we know that the number one reason you won't achieve your goal is because you quit, we should probably learn a lot about quitting. Why do we quit? Turns out we quit because of a lack of motivation, right? That that for whatever reason we lose steam. Well, what is motivation all about? How do we understand motivation? Well, motivation we used to think is a straight line.

[00:43:10]Now, the economic model of motivation is if I want this benefit, if I want this reward, I will do this behavior, right?

[00:43:16]If I if I want this, I do that. Classic economics, right? If I if you I want you to do a job, I pay you a salary. Want this, get that. But there's something missing. It's not that simple. that motivation is not a straight line.

[00:43:28]Motivation is a triangle. That not only do I need to know the behavior, what I need to do. Not only do I need to know why I'm doing it, the benefit, but I also have to have a belief that holds it all together and sustains my motivation.

[00:43:42]>> So, behavior, benefit, >> and belief, right? So, let me give an example. If I don't believe that my boss will give me that promotion, will give me that raise, this benefit that I want, if I don't trust them, if I don't believe in my boss to have my best interest at heart, am I going to work hard for them? No. I'll I'll slack off.

[00:44:02]I'll find another job. I'll do my minimum effort in order to to to to get that benefit maybe. Who knows, right? If I don't believe that they're going to give it to me. Conversely, if I don't believe in my own ability to sustain a behavior, I don't believe I can stick with the gym, I don't believe I deserve love, I don't believe I can succeed in business, whatever it might be, will I sustain my behavior if I don't believe in my own ability to do the behavior?

[00:44:26]Even if I know exactly what I need to do, I need to go to the gym. I need to start that business. I need to write my book. I need to whatever. If I don't believe I can do it, I won't. So, sustained motivation isn't just about knowing what to do and why you're going to do it. It's about having the belief that holds it all together.

[00:44:41]>> But why do people believe that they can't do something?

[00:44:44]>> Yeah.

[00:44:45]>> Like I can imagine people believing they can do something. But why do people fundamentally believe they cannot do something? Like to think you don't deserve love, something terrible must have happened to you.

[00:44:55]>> Well, here's here's the thing. So, we have what's called there's two kinds of beliefs. We have what's called a limiting belief and we have a liberating belief. A limiting belief is a belief that saps your motivation and increases your suffering. A liberating belief is a belief that increases your motivation and decreases your suffering. So why do we have limiting beliefs? Right? Don't we all want to flourish and be happy and achieve everything? Well, here's the thing. Goes back to evolution.

[00:45:23]Evolution doesn't care if you're happy.

[00:45:26]Evolution doesn't care if you're happy.

[00:45:27]Evolution doesn't care if you've met your goals, if you're flourishing, if you uh if you're rich and have six-pack abs and you accomplish your dreams and you have a a successful podcast.

[00:45:39]Evolution doesn't care about any of that stuff. Evolution cares about two things.

[00:45:43]Are you alive? And can you procreate?

[00:45:45]That's what evolution optimizes for. So, in order to do that, your brain wants to keep you safe above all things. It just wants to keep you safe. So if you have a belief that has served you in the past, these are called our priors. If you have a prior belief that has served you in some way in the past, if that's how you think the world should work, that is what you're going to continue to believe. And here's the kicker. There was a study done uh in the 1960s where two scientists had this revolutionary theory that was called learned helplessness. Now learned helplessness is this theory that if we try and try again and we fail we eventually learn to be helpless. And these two scientists Seligman and Meyers they were incredibly wellknown and everybody in psychology believed in learned helplessness. It was gospel. In fact Seligman became president of the American Psychological Association. It was a very very well-known theory. Now a few years ago not many people heard this. A few years ago, Seligman and Meyers decided that in fact what they had called learned helplessness not only was wrong, it was 180 degrees wrong. The exact opposite is true that we do not learn helplessness, helplessness is our default state. We are born helpless. If you think about a little baby, a baby is born helpless. A baby needs help from its caretakers. A baby can't survive without other people to help it. So our default state is passivity, is helplessness. Why? Because it's safe. If my belief served me before it got me here, didn't it? I'm alive right now. So whatever the safest thing for me to believe, the safest thing for me to do is what I did yesterday.

[00:47:25]Even if it doesn't serve me today because the brain doesn't care about flourishing, doesn't care whether you're happy, doesn't care whether you're meeting your full potential. It just wants to keep you alive. So it keeps you believing and doing what you did before because it worked before. So, it's maximizing for survival rather than benefit. But of course, for many of us, that's not good enough. We know we're capable of more and yet we don't do it.

[00:47:46]And the reason that our default state of helplessness is constantly repeating in our ears, you're not ready for this. You can't do this. This is too hard. This is going to hurt. And so, we make that assessment of our experience and we turn it into suffering. So, I don't want to go to the gym. I don't want to go to the gym. It hurts.

[00:48:08]it sucks. I'd much rather stay home and watch Netflix. Right? That's your limiting belief saying that that that feeling of going to the gym is suffering. And so the big revelation in my book and and this is this is not a new thing. In fact, the ancient traditions like Buddhism have known this for quite some time is that pain is not suffering. And we all we've heard this before that pain doesn't have to be suffering.

[00:48:29]>> Pain is not suffering.

[00:48:30]>> Pain is not suffering. Oh, is this new?

[00:48:31]>> Yeah, this is new for me.

[00:48:32]>> Amazing. Pain is not suffering.

[00:48:34]>> Okay.

[00:48:34]>> Pain is signal. Okay, >> suffering is the subjective interpretation of signal >> of what happens when it pains, >> right? So like let's say for example, if right now you're suddenly found that your heart was beating quickly and that your arms were super tired and that they were they were a little painful and sore. If that happened right now, we would rush you to the hospital. There'd be something wrong with you. But if you were in the gym and felt that way, that'd be perfectly normal, right?

[00:49:07]That's what you would expect to feel when you're exercising.

[00:49:09]>> In fact, the soreness after the gym feels good, >> right? Feels good. But if all of a sudden you became sore for no good reason, oh my god, disaster.

[00:49:18]So, it's not the signal.

[00:49:20]It's not the sensation. It's the interpretation of the sensation that turns it into suffering. It's the context.

[00:49:28]So, what does that mean? that if you can change the interpretation of that signal, it doesn't have to become suffering. Why does this all happen?

[00:49:36]Well, it's because your brain cannot see reality. None of us can. We all think the biggest line the the that the brain tells us, the biggest lie is that we see things as they are. We do not see things as they are, >> don't we?

[00:49:47]>> No, we don't. You can't. It's impossible because right now your brain is absorbing 11 million bits of information. 11 million bits of information are currently entering your brain. the light entering your retinas, the sound of my voice in your ears, the ambient temperature of the room. Your brain is aware of all this information.

[00:50:02]By the way, 11 million bits of information, that's the equivalent of reading every word in war and peace twice per second. Okay? It's a tremendous amount of information. But your conscious awareness can only process 50 bits of information. Okay? 11 million bits, war and peace every second, twice versus 50 bits. 50 bits is the equivalent of one sentence per second. So what you call reality, what you think is the real world, is the way things are is 0.000045% of what actually is. Your brain just can't handle that amount of information.

[00:50:39]So we see reality, what we think is the real world is a simulation in our brains defined by this little keyhole of attention that we see reality through. M is that where Daniel Conaman's thinking fast and slow comes in?

[00:50:53]>> Partially partially that the brain has to have all kinds of tricks and biases and uh uh ways to to process information quickly. But it's it's the way this affects us practically speaking is that that keyhole of attention, what we're able to focus on determines what we see literally what we're able to see, not figuratively, but actually what we can see in real life. That I can show you an image, maybe you can put it up on the screen for the viewers, called the coffer illusion. And based on what you see, oh sorry, based on where you are from, you will either see rectangles or circles.

[00:51:27]>> What?

[00:51:28]>> Same image. Same image that if you are from subsaharan Africa, if you grew up in a rural environment, you'll tend to see circles. If you grew up in an industrialized environment, you'll see hard edges. You'll tend to see squares.

[00:51:42]>> But why is that?

[00:51:43]>> Same image. because of your prior beliefs, because of what your brain is expecting to see.

[00:51:49]>> But how's the brain expecting to see only squares?

[00:51:51]>> Because that's what it saw in the past.

[00:51:53]>> Okay.

[00:51:54]>> I'll give you another example. There's another illusion. Actually, let me see if I can find it real quick. Let's do a little test. Okay. So, I want you to take a look at this image. Okay.

[00:52:02]>> Okay.

[00:52:03]>> Which square is darker?

[00:52:04]>> Which square is dark?

[00:52:05]>> Square is darker, square A or square B?

[00:52:07]Which square looks darker?

[00:52:08]>> Square A.

[00:52:08]>> Square A. 100% right. Square A is definitely definitely darker.

[00:52:12]>> 100%.

[00:52:13]>> Okay. The thing is it's not square A and B. If I put a line through square A and B, you can see that they're in fact the exact same color. Okay.

[00:52:22]>> Can you show me again?

[00:52:23]>> Sure. No, wait one second. Do you agree with me here?

[00:52:25]>> Yeah, I agree with you.

[00:52:26]>> Square and B are in fact the same exact color, right?

[00:52:29]>> Yeah.

[00:52:29]>> No doubt about it.

[00:52:30]>> No doubt about it.

[00:52:31]>> Same color.

[00:52:32]>> Okay. I've shown you the evidence.

[00:52:34]>> Okay.

[00:52:34]>> Without a doubt, square A and B, and that's this is true. I'm not I'm not joking here. It is definitely the same color.

[00:52:40]>> Now, I want you to look at the first image again.

[00:52:43]Look at square A. It still looks darker, right? Square. Which which square looks darker to you?

[00:52:48]>> Square A looks darker.

[00:52:49]>> 100%. Square A still looks darker. Do you understand how profound this is?

[00:52:53]That what this proves is that even when you know the truth, even when I give you incontrovertible evidence about the way reality is, you cannot see it accurately.

[00:53:04]>> But how is that possible?

[00:53:06]>> Because your brain can't deal with reality.

[00:53:08]>> But what's happening over here? because of which in spite of you telling me I'm still not able to see the reality.

[00:53:12]>> No one can. No one can. Why? Because your brain doesn't see reality. Your brain sees a simulation of reality based on your prior beliefs that every time you've seen a checkerboard, it's always dark light, dark light. That's the way checkerboards work. It doesn't make any sense for it to work any other way. So because it doesn't make sense for it based to work any other way based on your prior beliefs, you can't see it any other way.

[00:53:36]So this is why when you say why do people have limiting beliefs? Why don't people believe in themselves? Why don't people deserve think they deserve love?

[00:53:43]Why don't people just start businesses?

[00:53:45]They can't see it.

[00:53:47]They can't see it. Just like you can't see that square A is the same color as square B. Even when you know the truth, people can't see it. Their beliefs won't let them.

[00:53:58]>> So then can we change beliefs?

[00:54:00]>> Yes. Thankfully, we definitely can.

[00:54:02]That's what the book is about.

[00:54:05]That's what it's all about. Can you give me a brief and it's going to blow your mind.

[00:54:08]>> It's it's about identifying these limiting beliefs in our life where our beliefs are causing us suffering in whatever area, unpacking those limiting beliefs and deciding to do what's called a turnaround where we ask ourselves, could something else also be true? Now, there's kind of a lot to this, but I'm I'm kind of shorting it up here. And the reason this is so important is that recognizing two facts. Number one, you don't see reality clearly. I just proved it to you. You do not see reality as it is. It's impossible. And two, that you have hidden potential that you don't understand. That you have no idea what you're capable of. We're all quitting at 15 minutes when really we have the 60 hours within us. We are capable of so much more than we ever imagined. But our brains are trying to keep us safe.

[00:54:53]They're trying to keep us alive. They're trying to protect us. So, we give up far too soon. So knowing those two facts, what you have to do is to reflect. You have to follow a process in order to uncover your limiting beliefs. It doesn't mean you have to sit there and think about all the trauma that was done to you and how your parents, you know, were were not nice to you and somebody bullied you. That's not not what I'm talking about. In fact, that has been shown to have some dilotarious consequences as well. That's not what this is all about. It's about asking yourself to take out the reasons you think you are suffering. What's keeping you from what you think you're you you actually are capable of doing? It's almost like our face. So, we all have a face. But if I said look at your face right now. Go ahead. Look at your face.

[00:55:37]Go ahead.

[00:55:38]>> How do I look at my face?

[00:55:39]>> How do you look at your face? You can look on the screen.

[00:55:41]>> Maybe on the screen, right? But how do you look at yourself on the screen or in a mirror? You have to reflect.

[00:55:46]>> You need something outside of yourself to see your very own face. Even though it's right there, >> right? You can see everyone else's faces >> just like you can see everyone else's limiting beliefs. You can see your parents limiting beliefs, your spouse's limiting beliefs, your kids limiting beliefs, your co-workers. You can tell them all their problems.

[00:56:01]>> Yeah, that's true, >> right? But you can't see your own. Why?

[00:56:05]Because your beliefs feel like facts.

[00:56:08]But what's the difference between a belief and a fact? A fact is an objective truth. It is something that is true whether or not you believe in it.

[00:56:15]The world is more like a sphere than it is flat. Sorry, flat earthers. Doesn't care what you believe. That's the way it is. You cannot change facts. Faith is a conviction that does not require evidence. God rewards the righteous.

[00:56:27]There's no amount of evidence that could change someone's mind about their conviction. Nor should it. It's a matter of faith. But between fact and faith is what we call a belief. A belief is a conviction that is open to revision based on new evidence. And what's so unique and powerful about beliefs is that unlike faith which people almost never change and unlike facts which you cannot change, beliefs are tools not truths.

[00:56:56]Beliefs are tools not truths. So we can use them and change them based on what serves us. And I think that most of our problems in life, our personal problems, our interpersonal relationship problems, our company corporate problems, our geopolitical problems, if you look at the state of the world today, are caused because far too many people take their faith as a fact and don't realize that the things that they think are facts, many of them are just beliefs.

[00:57:28]So if we want to flourish, if we want to meet our full potential, if we want to save the human race, we have to understand the power of beliefs. We have to understand how to use our beliefs as tools to improve our lives, to meet our full potential, and to stop suffering.

[00:57:43]>> But how do I change my belief?

[00:57:45]>> I'll tell you how I changed one of the most difficult to change beliefs in my life. Uh and this this is my has to do with my relationship with my mom, which a lot of people have difficult relationship with with their parents.

[00:57:57]So, I'm not alone there. So, here's what happened. A few years ago, it was my mom's 74th birthday, and I decided I wanted to do something very nice for her. So, I decided that for her birthday, I was going to send her some flowers. Problem was, I was in Singapore. She was in central Florida where I grew up. And getting flowers to her wasn't so easy. So, I had to make a bunch of phone calls, find a local florist, make sure they deliver on time, exactly the flowers I thought she'd like. And I went to bed that night at 1 in the morning thinking, you know what?

[00:58:23]Tomorrow, my mom's going to call me and say, "Wow, you're such a good son. very nice. Thank you so much. That's not what happened. What happened was I called her the next day and I say, "Hey, Mom. Happy birthday. Did you get the flowers I sent?" And she says, "Yes, I got your flowers. Thank you. But just so you know, those flowers that you sent were half dead, so don't order from that florist again." To which I said, "Well, that's the last time I buy you flowers."

[00:58:50]Or something like that. Didn't go over very well. And I remember that my wife Julie was on the call as well and she was sitting right next to me and she looks at me and she says, "Nar, would you like to do a turnaround on this?" To which I said, "No, I do not want to do your touchyfey hocus pocus mumbo jumbo. I need to vent."

[00:59:13]Because venting is what you do when someone hurts your feelings. You're not supposed to take it. You're supposed to tell them how you feel. You're supposed to speak your truth. You're supposed to get it off your chest, right? Well, it turns out I knew enough about what the psychology literature says and that is exactly not helpful. That when we vent, when we complain about others, we reinforce our beliefs about them, right?

[00:59:35]Believe, anticipate, feel, confirm. The same thing that makes you taste wine that's more expensive as better. The same thing that creates a brand about around a product. We brand people. We do not see people as they are. We don't see reality as it is. We don't see people as they are. We see people as we believe them to be. So every time you vent, you're reinforcing your belief about them. She always does this. He's always like that. There she goes again. That's what we're doing when we're venting. So I didn't vent. And instead I did what's called inquirybased stress reduction.

[01:00:08]Inquiry based stress reduction is a technique that was developed by Byron Katy. She deserves credit for this. And she was really ch channeling a technique that's actually thousands of years old that in fact Aristotle used a very similar technique. So Byron Katy gives us four questions. Here's the questions.

[01:00:23]The first question is, is this belief true? Okay. So you can do this with any belief. What you want to do is give me the belief that is causing you suffering. Right? Whatever it is that you want to do in your life that's not happening. You said I'm not exercising.

[01:00:38]Why not? What's the belief behind that?

[01:00:40]I have a crappy relationship with my mom. Why? What's the belief behind that?

[01:00:43]Uh I can't start this business. I there's no time. Uh it's too late. uh whatever the case might be. Whatever is that? Think of that that thing that got you stuck. Why are you stuck? What's in your way?

[01:00:54]>> Let's say there is no time.

[01:00:56]>> There's no time. Let's let me finish this example with my mom and then we can do another example.

[01:01:00]So, I wrote down the belief. My belief was that I'm stuck in this relationship with my mom. She's causing me suffering.

[01:01:07]She is causing me suffering because she is too judgmental and hard to please.

[01:01:12]That was my belief. So, I wrote that down. First question, is it true?

[01:01:16]>> It's true. Duh. Right. Who does that to their son? I mailed her these flowers.

[01:01:21]She should have just said thank you and called it a day. No, she has to tell me the flowers weren't good enough. What a stupid question. Is it true? Obviously, it's true. It's a fact that she's too judgmental and hard to please. Second question. Let's skip the first. Second question. Is it absolutely true?

[01:01:37]>> No.

[01:01:38]>> Is it absolute? Absolutely means 100% of the time. No exceptions. There could be no other possible explanation.

[01:01:48]I don't know what the other explanation could be, but okay, fine. May maybe there's another explanation. Okay, fine.

[01:01:52]Maybe it's not 100% absolutely true.

[01:01:56]Third question, who am I when I hold on to this belief? When I believe that my mother is too judgmental and hard to please, who do I become? How do I feel?

[01:02:06]>> An annoyed son.

[01:02:08]>> Yeah. I feel I feel short-tempered. I feel impatient. I feel like I'm this 13-year-old version of myself that frankly I don't even like. Fourth question, who would I be without this belief? So, if I didn't have this belief, if I had a magic wand and poof, that belief suddenly disappeared. I never even knew it existed.

[01:02:27]How would I feel? Who would I become?

[01:02:29]>> You'd be happy.

[01:02:30]>> I I instantly felt lighter. I felt more patient. I felt a bit relieved. I felt like myself.

[01:02:38]Okay. Now with just four questions, writing down this belief and it could be anything. I don't have time. I'm not ready. This is painful. I hate this.

[01:02:46]She's not. She's this and that. Whatever the limiting belief, whatever is causing you suffering that you wrote down, you will discover as I did that with just four questions in about 30 seconds that this thing I thought was a fact was just a belief.

[01:03:00]And that that belief was causing me suffering, was causing me harm. Didn't I didn't I didn't like it. and that if I could actually get rid of it, I'd be much better off. Okay, so now it's time for the turnaround. The turnaround asks us to come up with what I call a portfolio of perspectives. A portfolio of perspectives isn't trying to change your mind. Because if there's one thing we we've learned is that the brain hates changing its mind. Remember the how your brain is constantly pulling you back to what you did before, constantly towards pacivity, constantly towards helplessness. Your brain hates changing its mind. So, you're not asking it to change its mind because it will resist.

[01:03:38]You're asking it to just come up with a portfolio of perspectives, other potential viewpoints. How do you do that? You ask yourself, could the exact opposite be true? You don't have to believe this, right?

[01:03:51]You're just asking yourself to consider other possible perspectives. So, what's the opposite of my mother is too judgmental and hard to please?

[01:04:00]>> Maybe you are too judgmental to judge her.

[01:04:03]>> Yeah, could be. So the first one could be the easiest is my mother is not too judgmental. Right? Let's start with that one. My mother is not too judgmental.

[01:04:12]How could that be true? She's actually not too Well, she did say thank you.

[01:04:18]She did uh she was just saying a statement of fact that the flowers weren't so great. Right. So maybe she was actually just trying to protect me.

[01:04:26]Maybe she was trying to make sure that I didn't get scammed from this florist.

[01:04:29]And so she was trying to be helpful, not hurtful.

[01:04:31]>> She was trying to be protective.

[01:04:32]>> Right. Could be. Could be. Okay. So, now I have two beliefs. Let's do a third.

[01:04:36]Let's do yours. Not my mother is too judgmental and hard to please. The opposite. I am too judgmental and hard to please. How could that possibly be true? Well, when I had planned to do something nice for her the night before, I had rehearsed in my head that if I was going to do something nice for her, I deserved eusive praise. I deserved to be told what a good son I was. And when I didn't hear the exact words that I believed I deserved, I lost it. So, who was being judgmental?

[01:05:06]I was. Okay, here's a fourth belief.

[01:05:09]I am too judgmental and hard to please towards myself.

[01:05:14]This one actually was the hardest to swallow, but turned out to be the most true because here I was, I did something nice and kind of simple, right? Just buying her some flowers. And when it didn't work out the way I had planned, I felt incompetent. I felt deficient. I felt like I'd messed up. And this is called a misattribution of emotion. And we do it every single day. When we feel crummy inside, we look for who do we attribute to? Who's at fault? Somebody's got to take the blame. It's not me.

[01:05:41]Somebody out there made me feel this way. And of course, I took it out of my mom. So now I have four beliefs. Okay.

[01:05:47]Which one's true? Which one's true?

[01:05:49]Which one's false?

[01:05:51]>> Um, >> it's a rhetorical question. They're all true. They're all false. Who cares?

[01:05:56]Beliefs are tools, not truths. The first belief, my mother is too judgmental and hard to please. The thing that I was convinced was a fact, required that she changed so I could stop suffering so I could be happy. She had to change. You don't know my mom, but I'm telling you that's not going to happen. Okay? It almost never does. If you hold your breath waiting for someone else to change so you can stop suffering, you're going to suffocate. It's not going to happen. The other three beliefs I could control. I could do something with. Now, does it mean I have to be best friends with my mom? Do I have to spend tons of time with? No. All it means is that with that first belief, my mother's too judgmental, and hard to please. What happened to my motivation level to be with her, to work on that relationship?

[01:06:36]I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who's too judgmental and hard to please. So, my motivation decreased to work on that relationship with that limiting belief. What happened to my suffering? I kept suffering and thinking and and being aggravated even when she wasn't in the room. I was creating my own suffering because of this cage of my limiting belief that she had to apologize because she done something wrong for how I felt. The other three beliefs I could be responsible for. The other three beliefs I became more motivated to work on this relationship with my mom because I realized I was doing this to myself. So I decreased my suffering. I increase my motivation to work on the relationship and my life is so much better for it.

[01:07:19]And that's how we change these beliefs.

[01:07:21]We identify the limiting belief. We examine it. We reflect on it just like we would look at our face in the mirror.

[01:07:26]And then we collect this portfolio of perspectives that we can choose from that we can try on. Now, it doesn't matter if it's true or not. That's that's what blows people's minds. That was what blew my mind because I was trying to prove about, you know, when we get into arguments. No, but when you said that, that's what you meant. We don't even see our own realities clearly and we think we can see someone else's reality. Yeah, right. You can't. You can't even see your own reality. How can you possibly see someone else's? So, if you can take out your limiting belief, examine it, turn it around, and then try it on for size. Just try on that new liberating belief.

[01:08:04]>> Neil, my last question to you is, can we use this to become a healthier version of ourselves? Because I think that's problem with 90% of the people that they want to become healthy, but they have limiting beliefs. Can we quickly walk through this framework and help people become a healthier version of themselves, >> in fact, it is the most important thing you can do for your longevity? There's a study done at Yale that found that people who had positive views about aging, positive views about aging, lived on average seven and a half years longer. To put that in perspective, seven and a half years longer, that's more than the effect of diet. It's more than the effect of exercise. It's more than the effect of quitting smoking.

[01:08:39]Seven and a half years. Tremendous. What does that even look like? a negative view of aging. We hear it all the time.

[01:08:44]Uh uh that's, you know, I'm having a senior moment. Uh that's my old age.

[01:08:48]Something to the effect of aging involves inevitable decline. That's what a negative view of aging. Aging involves an inevitable decline. A positive view of aging in this study might be something like I can grow at any age.

[01:09:02]Growth is possible at any age. Negative view, aging involves inevitable decline.

[01:09:07]Positive view, growth is possible at any age. Which one is true? They're both true. But if your instinct, if your if your impulse is to go to the negative versus the positive, you will live on average seven and a half years less just because of your belief. Now, is it magic? Is it because the beliefs are have some kind of cosmic vibration changing your mitochondria? No. That's rubbish. That's None of that is true. It's because beliefs do actually change biology, but not because of cosmic vibrations, not because of good vibes. This is not positive thinking and manifesting. It turns out that stuff actually backfires.

[01:09:42]It's because beliefs change biology through behavior.

[01:09:48]What kind of person who believes that growth is possible at any age? How does that person live? A person who believes growth is possible at any age versus aging involves inevitable decline, how do they behave? Well, the person who has a positive view of aging takes better care of their body. They're more likely to go see friends. They're more likely to volunteer in their community. They're more likely to eat better, to exercise, they do the things that are more likely to change their biology, but it's all upstream of beliefs. So, if you really care about longevity, if you really care about living healthier, the first place to start is with your beliefs.

[01:10:24]>> That's beautiful. N, thank you so much for your time. This has been fantastic.

[01:10:28]I could go on for another two hours, but thank you so much. This has been wonderful. What's your closing message to the audience? Yeah. The closing message is that uh you don't see reality as it is. You see just a tiny pinhole of attention and that you are capable of far more than you can imagine.

[01:10:44]>> And to uncover your true potential, you must read the book, guys. This is fantastic. Thank you so much, Le. I've been a big fan. I must say this on camera. I've been a big fan. And u you have practically changed my life. So, thank you so much for writing these amazing books and you know, you have no idea what kind of impact you've had on millions of people. And you know, I just feel like I'm a representative of those million people to tell you that you're changing lives with each book. So, please continue your work. Thank you so much.

[01:11:10]>> I will. I appreciate that very much.

[01:11:11]Thank you.