The Art of Manliness - #329： Stick With It — The Science of Behavior Change

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast if you're like

00:00:18.580 most people you've probably got some habits you'd like to change maybe you want to quit smoking or

00:00:22.260 eat better or check your phone less and if you're like most people probably tried making those

00:00:25.940 changes but failed and after failing again and again you just gave up we've all been there my

00:00:30.600 guest today is a psychologist who specializes in helping people make real lasting change in their

00:00:34.760 lives his name is sean young he's the director of the ucla center of digital behavior and the author

00:00:39.120 of the new book stick with it a scientifically proven process for changing your life for good

00:00:43.760 today on the show sean explains why most of our approaches to personal change fail in the

00:00:47.540 scientifically proven process he and his team have developed to help people make lasting change

00:00:51.980 sean shares several tactics that when you used in combination with each other can help you finally

00:00:56.880 make those changes you've long desired we discuss why creating small wins is important in habit change

00:01:02.020 and what we can learn from cults on how to effectively change ourselves we then discuss how we can alter our

00:01:06.520 environment to facilitate transformation as well as neuro hacks that can shortcut the brain's hardwired

00:01:11.260 instincts at the end sean ties all these concepts together to provide the listeners with a roadmap to

00:01:16.000 finally sticking with a habit change that you've been trying to do you're gonna love this show a lot of

00:01:19.320 practical takeaways after the show's over check out the show notes at aom.is make it stick

00:01:24.640 all right sean young welcome to the show thanks for having me here you recently published a book

00:01:31.740 one of the best books i've read this year i gotta say stick with it a scientifically proven process for

00:01:37.280 changing your life for good that is a that's a that's a big promise there man so we're gonna see if

00:01:42.500 you if you can deliver on it today because we were talking earlier on the show that you know changing

00:01:47.340 habits whether you want to eat better quit smoking start exercise like this is something that people

00:01:52.820 struggle with you know for for since for time immemorial and there's like a new diet book or new workout or

00:01:59.560 new book that promises change but doesn't deliver i'm curious why why is it all these ideas we have about

00:02:06.660 how to change habits traits etc why do they typically fall short usually yeah thanks and and thanks for

00:02:15.300 the the kind words about the book i mean it's it took two years of my life to write and and you know

00:02:22.220 15 years of of research and and so i've just put heart and soul and so much into it so it means a lot

00:02:28.440 that that you said it's uh that it really resonated with you so the the book you know i started doing

00:02:35.140 research in this area because there were personal and professional things going on in my own life

00:02:41.100 that had me questioning why people don't stick with things and in the book i talk about you know my

00:02:46.500 brother has crohn's disease and and was in the hospital and and there were i was in a band and and i mean

00:02:52.980 there were a lot of questions that were getting me to ask why people don't stick with things so i started

00:02:58.340 studying this scientifically um and i realized that a lot of other people who were asking the exact same

00:03:06.540 questions and and struggling with it also um and uh and what i noticed is that so much in this space

00:03:14.800 because we don't have the answers there's there's two things that happen one is we put the blame on the

00:03:20.800 person we put the blame on the individual and we say you know if we can't get ourselves to go to the gym

00:03:25.620 it's because we're not motivated enough we don't have enough discipline or if i work with patients

00:03:32.880 i'm a professor in in the medical school at ucla and if patients can't take their medication it's

00:03:39.380 because we're told they're not disciplined enough or there's something wrong with them but that really

00:03:45.520 didn't make sense to me to just put the blame on people it also makes us feel bad about ourselves

00:03:51.540 and i found through this process of studying it it's it's really not the right science you know

00:03:57.740 instead of putting the blame on the person and telling the person you have to change who you are

00:04:03.820 which we really can't change that much of who we are i learned it's really about just tweaking little

00:04:09.860 things in our lives and changing the process of how we do it and so this book you know it's it's a

00:04:15.940 scientific process that i've used i've studied it in research i've put it together from decades of

00:04:23.140 scientific research i've applied it in my own life and in my own work and business and it's really just

00:04:31.080 a process for for being able to stick with things and the other thing so so that's that's one reason you

00:04:39.780 know one issue is we put the blame on other people but but the other thing is since these solutions

00:04:47.740 aren't out there often we fall back to motivation um we fall back to to inspiration i can talk more

00:04:56.000 about that in a minute and unpack that but but generally we think i'm going to solve the problem

00:05:01.840 by reading a self-help book or i'm going to solve the problem by going to a motivational speaker

00:05:05.880 but that's not going to last it's a temporary feeling and so what we really need is a process

00:05:12.000 we can stick to no matter how we're feeling right and that that reliance on sort of the feeling of

00:05:16.520 motivation is why people often buy another self-help book after they read one and sign up for another

00:05:21.780 motivational speaker or a course or a conference etc is because they think that's going to be the cure

00:05:26.200 but it's not yeah exactly you i mean you mentioned um before when we were chatting your time you know

00:05:33.000 every day there's a different diet book there's a different motivational book i mean that stuff's

00:05:39.020 out there because people really hurt you know it's when you're when we're trying to change something

00:05:45.540 and we can't change it people really suffer i mean i see this with patients i see it with with the people

00:05:52.100 that we work with and so if there's something out there that will make us feel good at least temporarily

00:05:59.480 and make us feel like we can change people want to get that and unfortunately that's that's been

00:06:05.200 the books and that's been the the solution just temporarily make people feel better but it doesn't

00:06:11.240 last and in the reality is there is a science out there that that we can follow that will get us to

00:06:16.620 stick with things and so that's why i wrote this book yeah and another approach i see a lot of those

00:06:21.440 type of books or things try to use to help change is giving people information right like here's

00:06:27.340 here's all these things you you need to do to you know get on a program or here's why you need to

00:06:32.520 quit smoking like i think everyone who wants to quit smoking knows why they should quit smoking

00:06:36.980 but that information is not helping them change yeah that's one of i mean that's probably the biggest

00:06:43.460 thing the biggest you know misinformation that we have about behavior change that if you just

00:06:48.980 just educate people more and then they'll change and and it's not you know these aren't

00:06:55.180 uneducated people even who are saying this i'll work with doctors who will say

00:06:59.480 my patients aren't taking their medication they are just not educated enough about it and until they

00:07:06.160 start reading more about why they need to take their medication i don't want to work with them anymore

00:07:10.780 and it's it's we've learned you know decades of of psychology research we've learned like you said

00:07:18.520 people know they shouldn't smoke but they still smoke there's in a lot of cases people don't they

00:07:25.000 aren't educated enough and their education helps but in so many cases people know what they should

00:07:30.240 and shouldn't be doing but there's a lot of underlying psychology and other things in there

00:07:34.540 education is not the only thing and it's and it's often used as just the fallback is well if the

00:07:41.800 person's not doing it they're not educated enough or they're dumb and that's just not true

00:07:45.560 well let's talk a bit about you mentioned a little bit about your background of where this

00:07:49.120 process came from you're currently the director of the ucla ucla center of digital behavior and the

00:07:54.640 uc institute of prediction technology how is your work there or even your research before then i mean

00:08:00.800 what what have you done with that research that or this process you developed to help people in

00:08:04.680 these capacities yeah i so my background i'm a social and behavioral psychologist did uh went to

00:08:13.340 graduate school and that i was i started off i i played in bands i was uh actually studied music

00:08:20.100 and was in you know punk funk bands and playing music because i saw growing up that the musicians

00:08:27.460 i looked up to really influenced you know had a big influence on the world and that's something that

00:08:31.980 i've always wanted so i started studying psychology just kind of fell into it actually to go to grad school

00:08:38.580 but but found that psychology and behavior change was a way of really connecting with a lot of people

00:08:45.920 and and leaving a mark on the world hopefully and so that was my goal and why i ended up rather than

00:08:52.240 just going into psychology theory i went off to ucla in the medical school where i'm a medical school

00:08:59.720 professor like you said i lead two organizations one's the center for digital behavior and the other is

00:09:05.880 the institute for prediction technology and what we do there we look at behavior and we it's since

00:09:14.340 we're in the medical school most of it's focused on improving people's health broadly so we'll work a lot

00:09:20.460 on hiv trying to get people tested for hiv we work in prescription drug abuse we i work with ucla

00:09:28.420 patients who have chronic pain trying to get them less reliant on their opioids so that they're not

00:09:34.720 addicted or or risk for overdose we'll work with cyber bullying among youth you know all kinds of

00:09:42.420 different broad public health problems crime and in politics and and you know what what we'll do is

00:09:49.960 incorporate technologies and how can we use technologies and in other methods of behavior change

00:09:55.880 to change people's behavior so so we've come up with you know study after study that incorporates

00:10:03.180 insights and psychology and i describe a lot of those in the book one thing that we've done we

00:10:08.580 created an online community called the the hope intervention which stands for harnessing online

00:10:13.660 peer education it's like a peer-driven community that we find time and again in multiple studies

00:10:21.080 gets people just in you know a short period of time just 12 weeks we can get people to change their

00:10:27.180 behavior and and make it last and that's something i talk a lot about that and how to build how to how

00:10:33.620 do you create an organic community for behavior change and and that's the focus of uh one of the

00:10:39.480 chapters of the book yeah i love that because oftentimes when people think about personal change

00:10:43.440 they're thinking about themselves typically but as you point out the book like this has you know

00:10:47.800 public policy ramifications this costs taxpayers lots of money trying to change behaviors of you know

00:10:54.340 large amounts of people who are costing taxpayers lots of money to treat like opioid addiction or

00:10:59.920 hiv etc etc so i thought it was really interesting how you're trying to apply these principles not just

00:11:03.960 on a micro level but also you know looking at a macro level yeah that's i mean as a as an academic as a

00:11:12.480 public health person as why i got into this was i mean every day i wake up and i think about

00:11:19.740 what are problems either in the world or just locally down the street and i want to try to solve

00:11:25.900 them and that's what that's honestly i mean that's what gets me excited every day when i wake up to try

00:11:32.280 to feel like i'm helping to solve some problems and and bring some good in the world and and you know i

00:11:39.040 also i found that the same methods that i've learned through trying to solve these social problems can also

00:11:45.540 be applied in my own life i'm definitely doing that in applying the science i do consulting work

00:11:51.840 and apply it with business i've always been involved you know for a long time i've been involved with

00:11:57.060 startups either helping to found companies or advise companies and the same principles apply there it's

00:12:02.740 really the science of behavior change is just applies everywhere and the root of everything right all

00:12:10.120 right so we know that you know just blaming the person doesn't work or relying solely on discipline

00:12:15.360 or willpower motivation isn't going to cause lasting change and information is not going to cause lasting

00:12:22.540 change so what is this framework that you've developed through your years of research that you found

00:12:27.560 actually produces lasting change in individuals so what i found is that there's behaviors aren't all the

00:12:34.980 same we there are different types of behaviors and we've got to understand the different types of

00:12:42.340 behaviors there's three of them what i call a b and c behaviors once we know those three different types

00:12:48.580 of behaviors there's a set of tools that we can use and you know just like just like you might use a

00:12:55.440 wrench for something you might use a screwdriver or something else there's of those set of toolkit

00:13:00.980 of that toolkit and the set of tools we use some of them for changing a behaviors others for b and

00:13:06.380 others for c and um and i think that's that's been a limitation in the past you know a lot of people

00:13:13.280 have just lumped behaviors into this one big category but they're actually different types of behaviors um

00:13:20.120 and you know it reminds me of i remember reading about there's there's uh indigenous people in in sweden

00:13:29.840 in finland and norway and in scandinavia i remember reading the these people there's there's like 300

00:13:36.020 different words related to snow um in in their language and for us we just we have behavior or we have

00:13:46.320 habit and that's it and people consider habit to be a just repetitive behavior but to psychologists

00:13:55.140 habit has a very specific definition and that's important because the way you change habits is

00:14:00.880 different than you change other types of behaviors gotcha so let's talk about some of these approaches

00:14:06.500 for these different types of these abc behaviors and you start off talking about you have like what

00:14:11.060 you i think it's an acronym science right the science framework and uh the that s in science stands

00:14:17.640 for step ladders what's the step ladder and why is it an effective tool and when would you

00:14:23.980 use that tool step ladders is the idea that we got to do things in small steps incremental steps we we

00:14:32.780 shouldn't we shouldn't uh plan to do something that we're not going to be able to achieve then we'll

00:14:39.920 fail at it um but when i say this this obviously this is intuitive people will say okay sure i i know

00:14:48.380 that i'm supposed to do this in small steps and a lot of us most of us do but we still plan steps

00:14:54.340 that are way too big so the question is how do you get people to plan smaller steps i was i ran into

00:15:02.300 to uh someone i was at the market and i ran into to someone he had run cross country in high school

00:15:09.600 so he's a runner and he had a good training but he hadn't run since then it had been you know 15 years

00:15:16.180 since then and he decides i'm gonna go run a marathon and since i knew how to run in cross

00:15:21.080 country i can just i can go nail this i'm gonna make this marathon i'm gonna finish it i don't

00:15:26.180 even need to train for it and um he actually did really well he got to mile 19 but then he just

00:15:33.220 collapsed he fell down and he he couldn't finish the marathon he told me you know what i'm couldn't

00:15:39.520 finish this one and i'm probably never running another marathon again after that experience and it

00:15:45.160 really resonated with me because it's i mean i know i couldn't run a marathon without doing a lot

00:15:52.860 of training for it and and i think that that's something that the marathon example i think probably

00:15:59.600 a lot of people can relate to but we all do things like that in our own life we may plan a new year's

00:16:04.900 resolution and say you know last year i didn't really exercise much but this year i'm gonna go to

00:16:10.740 the gym every day or i'm gonna go for a run every day for 30 or 45 minutes a day um and you'll see

00:16:17.880 the gyms pack up for the first week or two because people are motivated to do it but then then they

00:16:24.200 they stopped and they stopped doing it and the the problem is they planned a goal or actually what i call

00:16:31.720 a dream they planned something that was way too difficult for them to obtain and it was too big of a

00:16:37.700 step so the question is how do you figure out what's the right size step when when all of us

00:16:44.280 you know it makes sense to plan things that are small and incremental so in the book i created

00:16:48.580 a figure which i call steps goals and dreams and it breaks up things based on how long it takes to

00:16:55.900 achieve them so if we're planning something that takes more than three months to do like for me i can't

00:17:02.980 just go run a marathon right now it's going to take me a few months of training that's not a step

00:17:08.540 that's not a small thing it's what i call a dream and then a goal is kind of medium term that's it takes

00:17:16.080 about a month to three months to achieve and a step is something that takes less than less than a week

00:17:23.100 to do so a day or two so like go get some running shoes if i've never had those or just go walk if i have

00:17:29.060 no experience running that's a step and we've got to gradually build up so this figure will teach us

00:17:34.680 how to plan steps that are the right size for us to stick with it and not fail right so get as

00:17:40.420 discreet as you can like a lot of people like yeah they don't go small enough on this if they try

00:17:44.680 they yeah like you said people understand it intuitively but they don't go small enough with

00:17:48.660 the steps yep yep exactly so this this helps because i mean it's tough with words we understand the

00:17:56.360 idea of small but what does that actually mean quantifiably how do you actually you know apply

00:18:03.480 that into your life so this chart helps people actually have a recipe for what is small yeah

00:18:10.260 i've even heard like you know one habit that or yeah habit that someone wants to develop like

00:18:14.980 flossing your teeth you know like so they don't get the the tis tis from the dental hygienist when they

00:18:20.720 check your gum pockets i hate that anyways um but like they said like instead of just saying i'm

00:18:26.020 going to floss my teeth every night you'd say well just sort of like floss one tooth right like get

00:18:31.040 just get that going like make it that small because oftentimes you think oh man floss all my teeth that's 0.62

00:18:35.820 going to take forever but if you just get one like that can sort of snowball until where you're getting

00:18:41.300 to do all of them yeah or even even i mean if you don't floss at all just first buy some floss

00:18:47.740 second put it next to your toothbrush so that whenever you brush your teeth you're going to

00:18:52.760 see it and it will remind you like even that just even if you're not actually flossing just seeing

00:18:58.520 your floss next to your toothbrush every time you grab your toothbrush um and like tape it to your

00:19:04.160 toothbrush even so that it's you can't you can't not see your floss you know things like that they're

00:19:09.420 intuitive actionable steps but they come from this larger science and are is there a type of behavior that

00:19:15.500 the the step laddering works best for like the abc behaviors yeah yeah yeah great question so so we

00:19:22.700 can we can get get into so step ladders works best for c behaviors um so a behaviors are are uh automatic

00:19:32.440 behaviors these are things that happen unconsciously we're not even aware of them um b behaviors are

00:19:39.620 are uh behavior they're burning behaviors behaviors where we're aware that we're doing them

00:19:45.200 um but uh but we feel like we can't stop and c behaviors are common behaviors they're more due to

00:19:53.640 motivation um so an a behavior example of an a behavior is like um i'm forgetting to stand up

00:20:00.820 straight i'm forgetting to keep good posture or you know picking my nose without even realizing it

00:20:07.640 that would be an a behavior it's unconscious um hopefully b behavior is a burning behavior

00:20:14.400 um example of that is wake up in the morning and i gotta check email or i gotta check my phone to see

00:20:22.200 what's going on i've i know what i'm doing i know i'm grabbing it but i feel like i just got to do this

00:20:27.980 um addictions are often b behaviors and c behaviors are are you know things like um going to exercise

00:20:36.960 wanting to exercise where i know i should go for a run right now i'm aware of it but i've got work to

00:20:44.240 do or my buddy's called me up and said let's go grab some food or a drink other things get in the way

00:20:49.980 and we just decide not to do it so step ladders is works best for addressing c behaviors common behaviors

00:20:59.040 motivational things because because it's the idea like we said of doing things in small steps so if we

00:21:04.920 take if we take the exercise example we know we want to exercise we can put put some running shoes

00:21:13.540 next to the door or just put running shoes on right now that'll be a small step to get me to go for a

00:21:20.980 run or do something it's not going to work as well for a and b behaviors like if you want to let's say i

00:21:28.600 interrupt all the time and i'm not even aware that i'm doing it you can't you can't incrementally stop

00:21:35.300 interrupting i can't say i'm gonna only interrupt you part of the time or i'm gonna i'm gonna stop

00:21:42.880 myself from interrupting or i'm gonna take certain steps to not interrupt as much it just doesn't even

00:21:48.340 make sense because i'm not aware that i'm interrupting first thing that we have to do is

00:21:53.380 be aware of what we're doing and then you can use step ladders to to gradually address that

00:21:59.160 gotcha so the the c in that science framework stands for community and i gotta say this is what

00:22:03.780 i thought this is the most fascinating chapter about community and it's important in change because

00:22:08.840 basically you're taking like lessons from cults and figuring out how we can harness the power of

00:22:16.160 what cults do to promote i guess positive social change so what is it about what what what have

00:22:23.760 cults figured out that help people make lasting change in their lives that we can apply in our own

00:22:28.260 lives yeah cults are so interesting i think you know whether it's doesn't have to be terrorist cults

00:22:35.200 or doesn't have to be you know cults for bad things but um even like star wars cults or cult movies or cult

00:22:43.560 classics you know um i love the movie super bad and there's a cult you know cult following around

00:22:50.760 that so so what is it about cults i mean they they're able to get people to do things that they

00:22:58.960 wouldn't normally do in the in the opening chapter i talk about a woman who she's a smart woman she's 1.00

00:23:06.640 really educated and um and she somehow finds herself just like burning burning her old thing she finds

00:23:16.160 herself where she's not seeing her family and people from her old life and she's in like a para

00:23:23.600 military organization a full-on cult um that's that's looking to do bad things and that's endorsing

00:23:32.240 um and supporting other cults that have had mass suicides so how did she even get there and and the

00:23:41.860 the science behind that and how cults work it's it can be applied for social good too and and so that's

00:23:48.900 that's what i unpack in there um that we want to be we want to be different from other people and we

00:23:55.580 think we're different from other people and we think um you know if if other people are are wearing

00:24:03.240 certain clothes if they're talking in a certain way that we can be different but we're actually

00:24:09.460 really influenced by other people and that's cults are good at leveraging that force that that science

00:24:16.140 um but we can that tool of community is just a tool so it can be used for good or bad things and in

00:24:23.980 the book i try to show people how they can hopefully use it for good things right and that's interesting

00:24:29.520 because a lot of people when they think about changing or improving themselves i think it's a

00:24:32.960 solo affair and that's probably why one of the reasons why a lot of people fail at those changes

00:24:37.440 because as you say that the power of community is is is amazing because it you have this group that

00:24:43.100 reinforces positive change they'll hold you accountable to things you shouldn't be doing

00:24:49.180 um so you kind of leverage some of that i don't know primordial shame that we feel when we don't

00:24:55.080 you know conform even though we think we're a bunch of non-conformists like it still feels it feels bad

00:24:59.240 to be rejected or kind of look down upon in a group but that can all be used for positive

00:25:04.240 positive uh positive change in your life absolutely i and and i think community is the one that's

00:25:12.200 most powerful in the research that i do at ucla we like i mentioned this this hope

00:25:18.820 community this online community i mean we built this and we uh take the case of hiv we've got

00:25:25.380 we recruited african-american and latino gay men to uh to online community we recruited them because

00:25:33.620 they're at high risk for hiv and we wanted to see could we get them to get an hiv test they didn't

00:25:39.720 want to get an hiv test necessarily i mean who who who wants to get an hiv test but they we

00:25:46.740 recruited them into this community saying complete a survey and we'll you know we'll give you a little

00:25:51.840 bit of money to take this quick survey join our online community then once you join it you can drop

00:25:57.280 out you don't have to be in it anymore and you've already gotten paid so you're you're done with what

00:26:03.120 you need to do for the study and then then it was up to us to make the community engaging enough so

00:26:09.800 that they wouldn't want to leave and that they'd stay in it so that's what we did we built this

00:26:13.960 community it's a 12-week online community and we found you know over time we were able to get these

00:26:21.320 men who didn't want to get an hiv test to actually get tested and to care about getting tested and care

00:26:27.540 about changing their health and it i mean just 12 weeks to do it and we found that these changes last

00:26:35.260 over time you know the the first one that i did of these was like seven years ago and it's still

00:26:40.660 on its own it's still working people are still using it on their own and we've built these

00:26:47.520 communities in a bunch of different areas not just hiv but like i said for opioid abuse for general

00:26:52.480 health and well-being for for all different all you know drug use all different kinds of areas so

00:26:58.260 community is really powerful in getting people to do things even if they don't care to do it

00:27:05.080 themselves initially is it just a matter of like just joining a running club or you know a fitness

00:27:11.360 class or joining aa or is there something about the way the community is organized that allows for

00:27:18.560 that change to happen because i've seen lots of people get together try to sort of sort these start

00:27:22.200 these self-improvement groups and they just don't go anywhere yeah yep exactly so so most

00:27:27.700 a lot of social media they've tried a lot of social media studies or or community studies and

00:27:35.060 actually about about only 30 percent of people actually stay in about 70 percent of people just

00:27:42.560 drop out we found in our studies that after 12 weeks we had 94 percent of people were still actively

00:27:49.160 involved a year and a half later over 84 percent of people were still involved and and we haven't

00:27:55.500 checked since but i mean i see the activity going on like three four five seven years later so so

00:28:01.960 what is it i mean there's this there's a special science about how we did it and it involves having

00:28:07.600 peer role models be involved so we we recruit role models in a certain area like if it's prescription

00:28:14.700 drug abuse we recruit people who were suffering from prescription drug abuse but have been able to

00:28:20.720 overcome it and who are respected peer role models and we then train them we bring them in to our to

00:28:27.760 ucla to our institute train them on the science of how do you reach out to strangers people who don't

00:28:34.100 even know you and how do you connect with them and get them to trust you and ultimately follow your way

00:28:40.060 of doing things and it's that science that's that's the way to to build community gotcha you gotta you

00:28:46.940 yeah yeah exactly you spike it and there's uh you know for art of manliness here so in the in the

00:28:54.380 chapter i talk about um two two different beers so i'll bring this up in case uh in case people would

00:29:01.400 like the so so you know the answer to this from from having read it brett but it's question i ask is

00:29:08.340 who do you think sold more beer about a year and a half ago was it sam adams or dos equis and when i ask

00:29:16.100 people this question almost everyone says dos equis the reason why they say dos equis is just the most

00:29:23.520 interesting man in the world ads um they're hilarious ads everyone talks about him or was talking about

00:29:29.660 him and it just got so much buzz so much word of mouth that it seems obvious that that's going to

00:29:37.040 lead to more people buying dos equis beer and they'll continue buying that beer but if you go and look at

00:29:43.280 their facebook pages you'll find something you'll you'll see okay the on the dos equis page

00:29:51.040 there's a few million fans that they have there are a ton of fans whereas in the sam adams page

00:29:56.520 you've only got about a million so still makes sense people like dos equis but then if you look at

00:30:02.580 the actual conversations those are different conversations so in the dos equis page there's like

00:30:08.260 a picture of the el senor guy um he's wrestling with a tiger or something or he's scoring a touchdown

00:30:16.080 and people are talking about it and they're they're talking about making other jokes of their own

00:30:21.980 or they may even be making fun of the beer like there was one of someone saying you know i i don't uh

00:30:29.560 i don't always drink alcohol but if there's nothing else around and i can't find anything else then

00:30:35.580 i'll drink dos equis or you know they're they're just kind of ripping on the the beer but they're

00:30:41.620 they're making these jokes but they're talking about it whereas in sam adams what they're talking

00:30:47.300 about is i live in canada and we don't have the new type of sams we just got them and i just

00:30:55.600 stockpiled them to invite all my friends over or when i go to the u.s i pick up extra ones to bring

00:31:02.180 them back and so people are even though it's a smaller following they're talking about the beer

00:31:07.880 and they're talking about how much they love it and that's where community really matters so it's

00:31:13.060 not about oftentimes we think just marketing advertising will get people to change or

00:31:19.100 information like we said earlier will get people to change that's not it it's about having a strong

00:31:24.400 community is what gets people to to keep on doing something and that's why sam adams sold more beer

00:31:30.140 than dos equis yeah i love that example the other example when i read that it made me think of uh

00:31:34.560 burger king's chicken fries they had they had some really funny commercials a couple years ago

00:31:39.820 and but i never like i never had the desire to buy chicken fries i mean i watched the videos chuckled

00:31:45.340 but yeah didn't buy any chicken fries so anyways all right so the the the next i in science framework

00:31:52.180 i thought was really interesting because it seems so like obvious that it's trite but when you think

00:31:57.560 about it's like no actually that's a really important point and that is important like the

00:32:01.640 change you're trying to make has to be important to you and i think people understand on an intuitive

00:32:06.800 level like of course like it's this thing's important to me like you know losing weight so i can reduce my

00:32:12.920 blood pressure that's important um quitting smoking so i don't get cancer that's important but it's

00:32:19.380 oftentimes really not that important to a person because they're not doing it um so the trick is i

00:32:25.300 wonder what's the here's the rub like how do you make something you know should be important in your

00:32:29.820 life whether it's quitting smoking or saving for retirement actually important in your life yeah the

00:32:37.500 there's a concept so there's a book the the lean startup based on this lean startup methodology

00:32:44.740 of learning learning your customer you can't just build a product and expect that people will

00:32:51.460 start using the product you can't just start a podcast and expect people are going to come and

00:32:56.900 listen you know you built up this podcast probably from talking to you know from talking to a lot of

00:33:03.420 people figuring out what resonates with them and and knowing your customer and knowing what they need

00:33:08.560 well the same kind of approach applies in behavior change and it you know whether for products or for

00:33:14.620 our own behavior if we want to be able to change something either in ourselves or in others getting

00:33:21.120 other people to listen to a podcast or buy a product it's got to be something that's important to them or

00:33:27.080 important to us if we're changing so so how do you how do you figure that out you know it's it's a

00:33:33.660 it's a pretty simple concept of people should be motivated and and to keep doing it but people have

00:33:42.000 different motivations so in the in the chapter i talked about and i give a short list of things

00:33:48.000 you know money's often off obviously important to people as an incentive health is important for a lot

00:33:54.720 of people social approval is important for a lot of people different things are important to different

00:33:59.640 people and so really knowing what knowing yourself enough or if you're trying to change others like

00:34:06.520 get a family member to be healthy or knowing them enough and knowing what is it that motivates them

00:34:12.740 and and in the chapter we talk about that but i think what's what i think is interesting is that

00:34:19.140 like you said it's pretty intuitive that if people are motivated to do something they'll do it

00:34:26.420 but we often think that if you're not motivated to do something there's no way you'll do it

00:34:31.720 and what we've learned is that important is just one of these seven tools or forces but there's six

00:34:38.280 others and so even if i don't care about changing something like in the hiv testing example i gave

00:34:43.960 even if i don't want to get an hiv test doesn't mean i'm not going to get it because these other

00:34:49.340 forces if we use these other tools we can still get ourselves or others to do things even if we don't

00:34:55.500 have the motivation even if the inspiration's gone away and i think that's what's really exciting that

00:35:00.980 it doesn't we often think and that's that's why people go these self-help seminars or motivational

00:35:08.040 talks because they think i've got to have that motivation to change otherwise i'm not going to do

00:35:13.720 it fortunately and actually science shows no you don't have to be motivated all the time and you're

00:35:19.780 probably not going to be motivated all the time as long as you use these other tools you can still

00:35:24.860 change behavior and once you are changing behavior it'll actually get you more motivated so you don't

00:35:32.080 have to necessarily start with motivation motivation and inspiration can come after you've already changed

00:35:37.920 your behavior yeah we'll talk about a little bit with the neuro hacks section but another chapter i thought

00:35:42.660 was uh really had a lot of profound insights was the idea that the change itself has to be easy or

00:35:48.840 we we should make it easy for ourselves for ourselves to make that change because as you talk about in

00:35:53.800 the book humans are pretty lazy right like and it makes sense like it's efficient right we just want

00:35:59.080 to go with the flow we want to put things on autopilot so we don't have to think about them and waste

00:36:03.300 energy or resources about on those things and you mentioned a few ways that we can make things easy for

00:36:10.140 ourselves with the step laddering with the floss like you know buy dental floss and keep it by your

00:36:14.720 toothbrush like that i guess in that way you're you're changing the environment to make the change

00:36:20.600 stick is that what you're doing there so that makes it easy because when because you're changing your

00:36:24.760 environment and therefore you're you're relying less on willpower and just relying more on your

00:36:30.040 natural inclination to be lazy and you're like well it's already there so i might as well do it

00:36:34.100 there's a the story that i tell about uh there's a grocery store chain that was not doing well and uh

00:36:43.340 so the the person who was running it he mortgaged his house and just put everything on the line to

00:36:48.420 try to save it but he was competing against 7-eleven which had just started in other stores which were

00:36:53.720 offering so many different types of products for people they could get anything that they wanted in

00:36:58.240 all hours of the day and so the guy joe columbie he takes off and he goes to the caribbean and in the

00:37:04.620 caribbean he decides i'm just going to relax and have a chill vacation listen to calypso music and sit and

00:37:11.800 drink cocktails and he realizes it's really easy to be to be on vacation here what if i take some of

00:37:18.700 this back to my grocery store and make it easy for people to keep shopping and so instead of offering

00:37:26.040 a ton of products for people to buy instead of having 10 different types of mayonnaise to choose

00:37:31.500 from or 13 types of breads like you know most stores he says i'm just going to have one main product

00:37:38.460 for each of them i'm going to have you know one store brand bread i'm going to have you know one

00:37:44.020 store brand of type of chips and that did it it that store ultimately became trader joe's became a huge

00:37:52.240 lasting success and it's because he made it easy for people to shop they didn't have to sit there and

00:37:58.640 figure out which type of tortilla chips do i want of these 15 types you know it's just it makes it pretty

00:38:04.860 clear and pretty easy yeah and i'm curious with your work in helping people make change in their

00:38:10.760 lives like how much does their environment hinder than making those changes because their environment

00:38:16.940 sort of guides their behavior right if you're just hanging around a bunch of opioid addicts like that's

00:38:23.660 probably what you'll end up doing it's like what do you do for those individuals who are in an

00:38:28.600 environment that's not conducive to lasting change is it you have to completely get out of there or do

00:38:34.780 get to rely on some of these other tools we've been talking about yeah that we've we have the

00:38:40.440 ability we have the ability to make change by changing our environment that's that's uh it gets

00:38:47.700 into almost like a larger conversation about free will and choice and stuff i mean i i believe

00:38:53.000 and the research has spoken to me and said once we're in a certain environment it's really difficult

00:38:59.260 for us to change but we do have the ability to change our environment and once we do that

00:39:05.800 that can allow us to change our behavior so that's why i call it forces like this because there's

00:39:11.600 constantly these forces acting on us but we have the ability to change our forces that are acting on us

00:39:17.880 so give an example i used to to go to the gym on campus at ucla and i was pretty good about it and then

00:39:25.640 i moved offices to a little bit off campus about a mile down the road and i didn't go to the gym as

00:39:32.680 much i wasn't exercising as much it wasn't because i wasn't motivated wasn't because you know my

00:39:39.640 inspiration to exercise had changed or anything like that it just was not easy for me anymore to walk

00:39:45.340 the mile up the street or to you know i couldn't drive i was it just took 30 45 minutes for me to now be

00:39:53.200 able to just arrive at the gym so what i did is i switched gyms and i i chose a gym so first i i bring

00:40:01.480 my gym bag with me to work every day and i when i leave work i've got my gym bag on me and my um as

00:40:09.300 i'm walking on the way to the parking lot to my car i passed the gym where i signed up for so now i feel

00:40:16.400 like i can't walk by this gym and pass it on the way to the car because i'll feel guilty i'll feel

00:40:22.600 like i should be doing this and it's just too easy to go to the gym it's too i it's almost more

00:40:29.560 difficult for me to not go than to go and that's what gets me to go so changing my environment by

00:40:35.900 and we can all do this in the case of if we want to exercise if it's a gym that we go to pick one that's

00:40:43.920 walking distance from our home or work don't pick one that's 15 minute drive we're not going to be

00:40:48.600 doing it if there's if we want to read more books get the book and put it next to your bed so that

00:40:54.120 it's easy to do just little little tweaks like that where we change our environment make us more

00:40:59.560 likely to be able to stick with things and it could also mean something more drastic like dumping all

00:41:04.280 your friends that are bringing you down who are encouraging opioid use or whatever yep yep and

00:41:09.680 that's we talk about that in um there's a guy named charlie a really um really nice guy who

00:41:15.480 had a digital addiction and he was able to overcome his digital addiction and that was one of the main

00:41:21.860 um the main parts of it you know just getting getting some time away she said we'll get into this with

00:41:27.960 neurohacks getting some time away and knowing that he's capable of being away from his digital devices

00:41:34.180 but also not being around the people who are gaming anymore and not being around people who are

00:41:39.700 reinforcing that behavior for him to be using his digital devices so you mentioned earlier that okay

00:41:45.160 the importance the idea of motivation it can work i mean it's sort of like uh it's a tool it's not the

00:41:50.500 one it's not gonna it's not a silver bullet but uh one tool that works in a lot of cases for change

00:41:57.160 is this idea of neurohacks what are those and how can they help in the change process

00:42:01.200 neurohacks are quick mental shortcuts that we can do to change our brain and be able to do things that

00:42:10.140 we were never able to do before so i'm sitting in front of my computer right now and if a program

00:42:17.280 crashes i can hit control alt delete and reset it and now the the programs reset well we have the

00:42:24.140 ability to do that with our brain we can get ourselves it doesn't matter how many times we've failed

00:42:30.200 that something we can reset our brain so that we have a fresh restart and we're now able to do things

00:42:38.000 we've never done before and that's what i call a neurohack and and with with neurohacks you know

00:42:45.260 there's a there's a story that i i tell of a guy named mauricio who did a quick neurohack from just

00:42:52.440 changing his password something as small as changing his password he was able to get himself to to get out of

00:42:58.920 a funk he was in from a recent divorce and to quit smoking overnight yeah that's crazy yeah you're like

00:43:04.440 he i think he changed his password to forgive her or something like that talking about forgiving his

00:43:08.180 ex-wife but yeah it's it's the idea i mean what you're you're tapping into is this idea that it's

00:43:13.280 the mind the the body doesn't follow the mind the mind follows the body or so this is like embodied

00:43:19.460 cognition right that how we behave or things we do that that affects how we feel or even you know

00:43:26.720 yeah it can even affect how we change things i think this neurohacks is i think the most

00:43:31.580 counterintuitive or the most going against the grain of conventional wisdom of all the forces you know

00:43:37.920 a lot of them are pretty they they make sense intuitive we talked about step ladders we know

00:43:42.940 we should do things in small steps important which people should be motivated it makes sense but but most of

00:43:49.400 us are taught that if you want to change something and you want to be different in in your life or in

00:43:56.400 the world it starts in your brain it starts by telling yourself i can do this if i want to get myself to

00:44:03.640 learn a new instrument then we're taught visualize myself playing and tell myself i'm going to learn this

00:44:11.460 instrument and i can do it but what the science has showed is that those feelings or things that we we

00:44:18.260 tell ourselves it doesn't last we need first we need to start with behavior and we need to teach

00:44:24.540 ourselves teach our brain that we can actually do it we can't have our brain convince our body to do

00:44:30.260 something we need our body to teach our brain hey i already did that i can totally keep doing this this

00:44:35.520 is not a problem this is i may have thought that i wasn't capable of doing it but i already did it um i mean

00:44:42.420 i took i took uh my daughter swimming yesterday and she's two and a half and she's been afraid of

00:44:50.100 of the water and i i really want to teach her to swim i grew up along the beach and was was at the

00:44:55.300 beach all the time and i took her in the pool she'd been afraid of the ocean but um but i put one of

00:45:00.260 those swim vests on her and was able to i started off holding both her hands and and showing her how she 0.88

00:45:07.060 could stay afloat then i removed one hand then i removed the other hand and she realized she didn't 0.97

00:45:13.520 need me she didn't need to hold on to me she had been she had been you know in her mind thinking

00:45:19.560 there's no way she could swim it's just not capable she's too scared of it but within 15 minutes of

00:45:25.820 this she now realizes i'm capable of swimming i can do this and she's now super excited you know

00:45:33.260 let's go out and swim let you know today come on let's go swim let's go swim it that's a neuro hack

00:45:38.840 it just changes how we think of ourselves because it starts with behavior right so even if you don't

00:45:43.280 feel like getting up and exercising if you don't feel like flossing or whatever just like make an

00:45:50.140 appointment and just do it treat it like a job pretty much in the beginning and then the process

00:45:56.120 of doing will basically you'll start to feel like doing it because like what's happening is you're

00:46:00.920 changing your identity right you're once you see yourself as a you're you're once you see that

00:46:05.540 you're running on a regular basis you start thinking well i'm a runner and because i'm a runner

00:46:10.460 what i do is i run so i feel like running today because that's that's who i am you don't want to

00:46:15.080 break that uh identity you've developed yourself by doing the thing because you didn't feel like it

00:46:19.740 that makes sense yeah i think one of the biggest problems or a disservice in behavior change is all this

00:46:27.300 self-help and motivational stuff that says we have to be inspired to change so if you want to exercise

00:46:34.540 look at richard simmons look how much he loves exercising he just runs around and and wants to

00:46:41.780 talk about exercise all the time and so if we want to exercise we have to be like that and i think it's

00:46:47.280 just kind of a a downer to us because i mean i exercise i exercise like four five six times a week

00:46:56.180 and most of those days i probably don't there's at least some portion of the day where i don't feel

00:47:01.500 like doing it but i get myself to do it and then i end up feeling good and i'm glad i do it and it's

00:47:07.800 healthy for me and i think one of the problems that we have is that we think we have to be motivated

00:47:13.760 in order to do things but but it's really oftentimes about just doing that first step getting ourselves

00:47:20.580 to do it and then the mind will kick in and say i'm glad i took that first step i'm not turning

00:47:25.720 around i'm going to keep on doing this and and that's what we need and going back to the different

00:47:30.740 behaviors automatic burning and common where does the neurohacks how does that which one does that help

00:47:36.180 the most or what tool would be best for those so neurohacks neurohacks is one that actually you know 0.58

00:47:43.600 helps all of them but it's especially important for the the b and c behaviors so for b behaviors which

00:47:51.220 are often addictions people can they've failed many times at something you know like the example of

00:47:57.680 of uh digital addiction or you know any kind of addiction people feel like i'm just stuck to a life

00:48:07.240 of always having this endless cycle of not being able to break free and i'm i'm gotta be

00:48:13.380 gaming all the time or whatever it is you know looking at porn videos or or drug use whatever

00:48:18.940 it is but once they see that they're capable of not doing that for a portion of time it lets them

00:48:25.800 know i'm maybe you know maybe i'm not the person that i thought i was and i am capable of doing this

00:48:31.340 so it's neurohacks is really important for you know especially b behaviors well sean this has been a

00:48:36.960 great conversation we still didn't get to captivate captivating and ingraining habits so we'll let our

00:48:42.080 readers go get the book so they can learn about that because that was really great but i think yeah

00:48:45.240 the big takeaway i got from this book what i loved about it was that there's no silver bullet for lasting

00:48:50.920 change right like you have to you have to have a whole like quiver full of arrows and apply the right

00:48:57.400 arrow for the right behavior yeah absolutely and i think that's that's a mistake that we think

00:49:06.600 that behavior is just all lumped together and it's it's one thing we think that motivation or

00:49:14.060 willpower or something like that will be all that we need to change behavior we think that if we change

00:49:19.520 our habits which are a behaviors unconscious behaviors that that'll allow us to change all types

00:49:25.700 of behaviors but but behaviors are different there are different forces that are acting on us all the

00:49:31.540 time to be who we are and act the way we are and we need to be aware of those forces and then we can

00:49:37.960 use the right forces to help us change so we've got like you said we've got you know a bunch of arrows

00:49:44.640 that we can use for different things and the book hopefully sets up a framework for when to use which

00:49:50.940 ones and and how to use it and and hopefully it also leaves people with um you know don't rely on

00:49:59.200 having to feel like you're inspired all the time because inspiration is just a temporary thing if we

00:50:05.100 first change our behavior we can get inspired to do things by by seeing the change that we have

00:50:12.060 through neurohacks i'll i'll leave a with a story my you know i mentioned my my daughter i so i grew up in

00:50:21.620 in orange county where i was it was very relaxed lifestyle and in newport where i grew up

00:50:28.780 and i'm i love that relaxed feel of playing music of of liking reggae music things like that but

00:50:35.840 but as i got older and i went to grad school and working in medicine and doing all these things

00:50:40.380 life has gotten pretty crazy it's just there's so much going on it's pretty high speed fast paced

00:50:47.520 and i can get sucked into things where i'm non-stop working and so i wanted to change my own life and

00:50:54.740 apply these kinds of things to give myself a break sometimes and and go back i don't want to forget

00:51:01.140 who i was and how i grew up i'm still that same person of of wanting to be able to relax and and so

00:51:07.340 you know rather than so what i did is first with making it easy i i made it so that on fridays saturdays

00:51:16.380 i put my ukulele next to the bed so i wake up and and i pick up my ukulele and i play that for for my

00:51:25.780 daughter i play her some songs on ukulele and it's like ukulele just sounds like the beach so it's

00:51:30.460 relaxed i taught her even though i was in punk funk bands and i you know played it yeah i played punk i

00:51:38.360 love rock music all different types of music i taught her jazz reggae and classical music and

00:51:44.940 now when i ask her what kind of music she wants to listen to she's picking one of those three types

00:51:49.700 of music she's like play reggae music so when when you've got someone asking to put on reggae music

00:51:55.700 all the time it's pretty hard to not get yourself in that mindset of let me just sit down and have a

00:52:01.460 drink or relax and so things like that and making that a routine of every weekend and and night time

00:52:09.140 of playing music to her things like that is how i've been able to apply these forces in my own life

00:52:14.560 change my own life around and make sure to have a good work-life balance i love that well sean is

00:52:18.920 there some place where people can go to learn more about the book yeah absolutely so website is

00:52:22.980 seanyoungphd.com same thing twitter twitter handle seanyoungphd books available on amazon barnes noble

00:52:31.240 um support your your local independent bookstores and and definitely you know get a hold of me i love

00:52:38.460 talking with people meeting new people and and got into this to to try to uh connect and help people

00:52:44.280 so if i can share anything else um hit me up and and would love to chat more all right sean young

00:52:49.820 thank you so much your time it's been a pleasure thanks a lot brett my guest name is sean young he's

00:52:53.940 the author of the book make it stick it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere to find out

00:52:57.960 more information about michael's work go to seanyoungphd.com also check out our show notes

00:53:02.560 aom.is make it stick we can find links to resources we can delve deeper into this topic

00:53:06.820 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:53:22.700 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy this show

00:53:26.280 i've got something out of it i'd appreciate you take one minute to give us a review on itunes or

00:53:29.480 stitcher that helps us out a lot thanks to everyone who had to give us reviews we really do appreciate

00:53:33.660 it as always thank you for your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you

00:53:37.560 to stay madly

00:53:38.700 you

The Art of Manliness - August 10, 2017

#329： Stick With It — The Science of Behavior Change

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