The Art of Manliness - #84： Shock Yourself Into New Habits with Maneesh Sethi

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. So we've

00:00:19.680 written about habits a lot on the website. We've had experts on habits on the podcast before. And

00:00:25.520 the reason why I talk about habits so much because I'm a big believer that forming good

00:00:31.280 habits and breaking those bad ones is an integral role in becoming the man you want to be, the

00:00:37.420 person you want to be. Because the more you can offload those things you're supposed to

00:00:42.360 do and make them go on autopilot because of habit formation, the better you are. It frees

00:00:47.200 up mental RAM space for more important things, more high level things. So I brought on today's

00:00:53.940 guest. And he's Manish Sethi. He's the founder of a new company called Pavlok. And what

00:00:59.240 Pavlok is, we'll talk about it in more detail in the podcast, but it's a wearable device that's

00:01:03.740 connected to an app that's designed to help you form good habits and break bad ones. And

00:01:10.280 one of the ways it does that is that the wearable device shocks you. So it's kind of wicked, but

00:01:15.840 it's pretty cool. Anyways, in this podcast, we're going to talk about what the research

00:01:20.220 says the best way to form habits are. And one thing that Manish emphasizes that a lot

00:01:25.600 of people who write about habits don't really talk about is the power of the stick, the power

00:01:31.220 of punishment in helping us get motivated to do things we're supposed to do and stop

00:01:37.180 doing things we're supposed to. A lot of times when people talk about habit formation, it's

00:01:40.160 all about the rewards because you give yourself a little reward when you form that habit, which

00:01:43.900 is an important part. But the stick can also be very powerful. We're going to talk about

00:01:49.900 the role that social pressure plays in habit formation. We're going to talk about the

00:01:53.760 power of micro habits. And we're going to talk about the differences between men and

00:01:57.580 women and how they form and break habits. So it's a really fascinating discussion. Oh, 0.65

00:02:02.340 and then we'll talk about Pavlok because it's pretty cool. Looking forward to see how that

00:02:06.020 shakes out. Anyways, great podcast. So let's do this.

00:02:13.080 Manish Sethi, welcome to the show.

00:02:15.160 Hi.

00:02:15.440 All right. So give us a little bit of background on yourself for those who aren't familiar.

00:02:20.440 You've got a blog called Hack the System where you write about life hacking, productivity

00:02:28.140 hacking, hacking habits. What's your focus on with your website and your work?

00:02:34.620 Yeah. Well, the irony is that it's super not focused and that's kind of what happened.

00:02:38.600 That's been like my background was always being very, very good at coming up with ideas,

00:02:43.980 but being very bad at focusing. And so my background started with this website, Hack the

00:02:47.680 System, which involved a multitude of different hacks, unfocused, but pretty good content, in

00:02:53.540 my opinion. Things like travel hacking, getting free plane tickets, things like productivity

00:02:58.580 hacking, how to get, how to improve your productivity instantly. Social hacking, how to become a famous

00:03:04.400 DJ in Berlin. Lots of stuff about breaking into new environments and improving yourself.

00:03:09.880 But it was all focused on kind of, the main focus was travel and how to do things with

00:03:16.840 yourself, like hack your body while you travel, was the main focus. And I noticed the weird

00:03:21.980 thing about it was that the more I traveled, the harder it was to actually focus on anything.

00:03:28.300 And that's why we started doing these productivity hacks, which became popular in Hack the System,

00:03:32.460 um, trying to identify what makes people and particularly myself become focused. That's

00:03:38.840 what, that's what, uh, Hack the System has been about.

00:03:40.980 All right. So this, this naturally, uh, brought you, um, to start focusing on habits, like what

00:03:47.240 gets people to do good habits and how can you break bad habits? Um, is that, yeah, what

00:03:55.300 happened was like, as I was traveling, I was trying to do more, but the irony is that I'm extremely

00:04:01.380 ADD. That's, that's obvious it's open. Um, and for someone like me moving to a new city

00:04:07.200 and traveling is beautiful, but it's extremely difficult to keep any sort of routine or any

00:04:11.800 sort of focus. So, uh, when I started doing these productivity hacks, I started to see what

00:04:16.400 would work, what could I do in a new city? What could I do anywhere in the world that regardless

00:04:20.840 of where I was would help contain my ADDness and help me execute. Um, my, my most well-known

00:04:27.880 example, uh, was when I hired a girl whose job was to sit down next to me. And every 0.92

00:04:32.900 time I use Facebook, she slapped me in the face. Uh, it's called a why I hired a girl 1.00

00:04:38.540 off of Craigslist to slap me in the face or something. Um, and I wrote an article about

00:04:41.620 this because I tracked my productivity during this time. And usually I'm 28% productive.

00:04:47.220 That means 28% of my time is spent in productive apps or on productive websites.

00:04:52.540 How do you, how do you measure that?

00:04:53.420 And I use a website called rescue time, which knows what apps you're in and websites. And

00:04:58.160 then it comes up the calculation based on what other users have voted that site to be how

00:05:02.720 productive it is. Um, so I noticed that when she was with me, my productivity skyrocketed

00:05:07.980 to 98%. And I found it really interesting because the act of having a girl sit down next to me

00:05:13.200 and every time I use Facebook, she slapped me in the face was motivational from two different

00:05:17.600 aspects. First of all, the fear of the, of the slap motivated me, but also she was kind

00:05:24.340 of an accountability buddy. Like when I wanted to write an article, one of my, my assignments was

00:05:30.080 to write a guest post for someone. And I asked her to like, Hey, could you look up an image while

00:05:35.220 I'm typing out this article? How does this paragraph sound? And I found that by having the fear of,

00:05:40.680 of her hitting me, if I was bad and the benefit of having a friend to work on a project with me,

00:05:46.300 like an accountability partner, I had managed to skyrocket my productivity as long as she was with

00:05:51.500 me. That's awesome. I want to get more into detail about the negative reinforcement here in a bit,

00:05:56.380 but based on your research, uh, what does the research say on the best way to form or break

00:06:03.700 habits? Sure. Uh, the research has shown that the best way to form habits is, uh, I mean,

00:06:10.600 you've made a bunch of posts about it. The Q routine reward system is really powerful for forming good

00:06:15.600 habits. I have some side analyses that use more physiological information that I'm happy to talk

00:06:21.780 about. It's really interesting. Yeah. I'd love to hear that. Um, yeah. So if you're not familiar

00:06:25.200 with like the Charles Duhigg Q routine reward method, I think we should talk, uh, take a second

00:06:29.640 and define what a habit is. Okay. Um, a habit is, uh, when a trigger, when something triggers you,

00:06:36.620 be it an internal sensation or, uh, like a, or an external trigger, like a notification on your phone,

00:06:42.460 when this trigger causes your brain to go into an automatic mode. So for example, as soon as you,

00:06:49.880 uh, get into the bathroom in the morning, the trigger of walking into the bathroom causes you

00:06:54.200 to reach for your toothpaste and automatically put the toothpaste on and automatically start

00:06:58.120 brushing your teeth in almost the same way every day. When your brain experiences this trigger in

00:07:02.840 the same context, it goes into this automatic mode where essentially your prefrontal cortex stops

00:07:07.800 activating your thought process stops activating. And you just go into this basal ganglia habit motion

00:07:13.440 where you just do what you've always done. Um, that's what a habit is. So the research has found

00:07:18.380 that the best way to change a habit is by identify or to, I'm sorry, to form a habit is to identify

00:07:25.260 what trigger is going to form this habit. And you can, uh, depending on what the habit is,

00:07:30.320 it could be a, it should be easy, like a trigger that's automatic in your day. And, uh, and it's very,

00:07:36.680 very easy to do the action. So, um, explain that if you want to go to the gym, for example,

00:07:41.020 you might make the trigger after I leave my house on my way to work, I will walk by my gym

00:07:47.620 because it's already on my path. For example, that trigger of seeing the gym will, will be my trigger.

00:07:54.360 Now, the next step is the routine. So the, the, the cue or trigger or reminder are all the same.

00:08:01.860 That's just, those are just synonyms. Um, the next step is the routine. So that's the action

00:08:06.380 you want to do, uh, the action of exercising at the gym. And then the third step is the reward.

00:08:12.320 It often starts off with a external reward. Like if I go to the gym, I'll get a cookie. Or if I go

00:08:17.740 to the gym, I'll earn money. And it eventually becomes, and it's most powerful when it's an

00:08:22.660 internal reward. I want to go to the gym because I want to feel good. The science, the science has

00:08:28.780 shown that if you can identify a trigger that you can constantly do every day, you continue to go,

00:08:36.380 and do the routine. And you reward yourself somehow that the habit will after 30, I'm sorry,

00:08:43.520 after 20 to 84 days, average 66 days, the habit will become formed in your brain to the point where

00:08:51.180 it requires more willpower to not do the action than to do the action. When that happens, then the

00:08:58.680 habit is a habit. It's actually become so encompassed in your brain. You can't not do it.

00:09:05.120 What role does dopamine play in? Cause I know that that plays a big role in habit form or is,

00:09:10.040 does it not, you know, I don't want to answer what I'm not a hundred percent sure about my

00:09:15.240 thinking is that dopamine acts as a reward. It acts as a reward pathway. So, uh, when you

00:09:21.540 experience like the rush of success, you can activate a dopamine pathway. Yeah. Uh, but I don't

00:09:26.900 want to, I don't want to be, I don't want to go there if you're not sure. Okay. Okay. So,

00:09:30.640 okay. That's how you form habits, but how do you, what does the research stage on research say on

00:09:34.860 breaking habits? Like, what do you do? Sure. And so this is where I differ from the masses.

00:09:40.500 Okay. Um, people have shown, I mean, if you read Charles Duhigg's books, you read a lot of books,

00:09:45.680 they say continuously, there's only the only way to break a bad habit is to substitute,

00:09:50.140 to, to, to, to change the habit. You can never break a habit, but you can change it. So every

00:09:55.480 time that you get up to smoke a cigarette, if you start to, the trigger is around 3 PM,

00:10:02.200 the action is I go outside and smoke a cigarette. And the reward is the burst of chemicals that,

00:10:07.700 uh, of pleasure from the nicotine. Um, if you wanted to change that habit, you would start off

00:10:13.180 by identifying the trigger, which is about 3 PM. You would change the routine. So instead of going

00:10:18.460 to smoke a cigarette, you might take a walk in the park. Instead, a lot of smokers tend to

00:10:24.860 replace it with an oral fixation of eating. So they'll go and eat the sandwich rather than

00:10:29.960 smoking the cigarette. And then the reward is whatever the reward is. Uh, if it's for smoking,

00:10:35.460 a lot of times the reward is based on the act of, of going out and actually taking a break from work.

00:10:40.940 That's the reward. So the walk might satisfy that. Uh, it sometimes is the act of putting something in

00:10:47.160 your mouth that eating might satisfy that. Um, so the, the research has said that if you identify

00:10:52.900 the trigger, you substitute a routine and you attempt to keep the same reward or a similar reward

00:10:59.860 after a while, you'll just start doing the proper action. Now there's another type of conditioning

00:11:07.360 that's been shown in scientific textbooks and with animals to work called Pavlovian conditioning.

00:11:13.840 And I conjecture that this is the system, the best type of conjunction, the best type of conditioning

00:11:19.580 to break bad habits at its source in the, in the, you know, deep recesses of the brain.

00:11:26.040 And so this is where my product Pavlov, my company comes from. Um, it's similar to having a girl slap 0.97

00:11:32.580 you every time you go on Facebook, but instead of it being a girl slapping you, it's just a wristband

00:11:36.620 that shocks you every time you go on Facebook. Right. And essentially Pavlovian conditioning, uh,

00:11:41.400 for most people, uh, if you're not familiar, it's, uh, from Pavlov, Ivan Pavlov, who had Pavlov's dogs.

00:11:47.340 He noticed that when he showed them, uh, meat at the same time as ringing a bell, that they would

00:11:54.240 start to associate the idea of the bell with the view, the visual, um, hue of the meat. And they

00:12:01.820 would start to salivate. Even if he removed the meat, they would just get ready for lunch. Even when he

00:12:06.120 started during the bell, kind of like when your cat, if you like turn on the two, the, the food

00:12:09.960 dispenser, the cat rushes over, even if he hasn't seen the tuna, he's associated those two stimuli

00:12:14.320 together. What I've, what we found is that if you start to add a negative punishment, a negative

00:12:20.360 stimulus, and you add that to the moment you do an action, uh, and this is important. The moment you

00:12:25.920 do an action, like you're not, not a little bit later, but instantaneously, your brain will start

00:12:31.900 to confuse the signals. And it starts to think that the act of the bad habit is causing the negative

00:12:39.200 stimulus. So it starts to stop doing that negative action in the first place. So, um, let's look at a

00:12:46.160 good example of this. If you have your mother over you when you're a kid and every time you are trying

00:12:52.020 to put the dishes away, she reminds you, Hey, put it away this way. No, that goes there. No, that goes

00:12:57.820 there. After a while, you'll start to put it where it's supposed to go because each time it's shaped the

00:13:04.200 way you, you make your motion. On the other hand, if you go to Taco Bell, it tastes great tonight.

00:13:09.620 It feels horrible tomorrow morning because those are so distant apart, you know, from a human

00:13:17.560 rational perspective that the Taco Bell is causing the sickness, but you don't, your brain, your habit

00:13:23.460 brain doesn't associate those two. So it won't break the habit. Now, experimentation has been done

00:13:29.000 with alcohol and tobacco where they'll associate a shock or a chemical that makes you vomit

00:13:34.780 instantly at the moment of the cigarette smoke or the moment of drinking alcohol, you'll begin to

00:13:39.300 get sick. And that has extremely, extremely high success rates on breaking the habits of alcoholism

00:13:45.440 and tobacco cigarette addiction. Isn't there some sort of like drug to overcome tobacco addiction

00:13:50.360 where like it makes you nauseous? I think I have a friend that, that took that. Like he just felt sick

00:13:55.120 every time, like he smoked a cigarette, he got sick. And then he just like, he just stopped smoking

00:13:59.040 because he's tired of feeling sick. Exactly. Exactly. There's actually a treatment center called

00:14:03.740 the Schick Shadel treatment center that does aversion therapy, this kind of therapy. And, uh, they did a

00:14:09.000 study where they took a bunch of people who were addicted to cigarette smoking for many years. And, uh,

00:14:13.940 they're, they're treating the method is a couple of weeks, a few weeks of, uh, about half an hour or so a

00:14:18.740 day. They'll smoke a cigarette, a bunch of cigarettes in a chamber. And every time they put the cigarette to

00:14:24.280 their lips, the doctor shocks them every time they, then they'll look at some cigarettes and they'll

00:14:28.560 get shocked every time they, uh, and then they'll, they'll essentially train them with this period

00:14:33.820 over a period of a few weeks to, uh, administer shocks. And then they actually go home and self

00:14:38.400 administer shocks for a few weeks where they'll smoke a cigarette and shock themselves. And the,

00:14:42.640 the treatment group had a greater than 50% quitting cigarette smoke at rate after a year. So a year

00:14:48.720 later, less than half the people had smoked a second cigarette, which is higher than any form of

00:14:53.420 smoking cessation therapy in the world, including, uh, nicotine patches or cold Turkey or meditation,

00:14:58.900 nothing at all has been as effective as, uh, as a version therapy for cigarette addiction.

00:15:04.520 Very interesting. So, yeah, I mean, that's what's it. So yeah, you're right. Like the literature on

00:15:07.760 habit formation, they're always focused on like rewarding yourself, right? Like whenever you read

00:15:11.380 a blog post or a book, it's like, you know, go to the gym. And if you go to the gym, you know,

00:15:15.720 give yourself a cookie or something like at the end of the week. Um, but you, uh, seem to focus on

00:15:20.220 this, this stick aspect of habit formation. I mean, what, why are, why are sticks so effective?

00:15:27.920 Right. I mean, I guess it just, it feels bad. I mean, is that what, is that the effectiveness

00:15:30.940 of it? Cause it, we don't like feeling bad. So we will do whatever we can to avoid feeling

00:15:35.340 bad. Is that the power of the stick? The power of the stick comes from your brain. Essentially it's,

00:15:41.800 um, the part of the brain that's ignited when the action occurs. So let me give you an example,

00:15:48.980 Brett, um, would you run a marathon today? I would not. If I said, Hey, I have your wife 0.71

00:15:56.440 and kids and I'll only give them back to you. If you run a marathon today, would you run a

00:16:00.400 marathon? I would, I would indeed run a marathon at that point. In fact, if I said something

00:16:04.860 as simple as, Hey, Brett, I have $50 of yours and I'll only give it back to you. If you run

00:16:10.080 a marathon, you're infinitely more likely to do it for that fear of losing the $50 than, uh,

00:16:16.300 than not the fear of missing out the fear of losing what you already have motivates your

00:16:23.420 ape brain. The act of potentially winning a reward activates your human brain. The trick

00:16:30.220 is to identify how those work and how to best utilize that, that fact to form and break the

00:16:36.520 best habits. Um, I'll give you an example from my own life. So I started implementing a system

00:16:42.300 to, um, to make me do stuff. And I noticed that I tend to get lost. I tend to use Facebook,

00:16:48.920 whatever I get lost in the middle of the day. And I don't even know what I'm doing at some

00:16:51.480 point. And I decided to say, I noticed that bets worked really well on me. So if I say,

00:16:55.940 I'm not going to eat any cookies today, if I see a cookie, sorry, man, I'm going to eat it.

00:17:00.640 If I say, I'm not going to eat any cookies today, or I will give James 50 bucks for every cookie I eat.

00:17:07.400 Suddenly the conversation in my brain switches from maybe I can just have one. It changes to,

00:17:14.240 I'm not going to pay James 50 bucks for that cookie, right? There's no way. But what's

00:17:18.500 interesting is from a willpower perspective, your brain utilizes it in a completely different way.

00:17:23.960 When you're having to make a decision, like, should I have a cookie? Should I have a little

00:17:27.680 bit? Is it okay? Does it meet my carb goals? You're using up willpower with all of those decisions.

00:17:32.980 It's called decision fatigue. When it's, I don't want that cookie because it's not worth 50 bucks

00:17:38.680 to me. I don't want to lose it. Then you'll instantaneously just not, it doesn't use willpower.

00:17:44.440 So, um, one, one really good example of this is an experiment I ran on myself where I said to myself,

00:17:48.660 okay, every day that, uh, I did a one month experiment, um, saying if I finished my three to

00:17:57.180 do's each day, I get to give myself this reward, um, which is irrelevant. And then I said, um,

00:18:05.100 and I noticed that every single one of the, uh, so if I'm sorry, it was, um, what was it? It was,

00:18:09.420 if I do this action every day, uh, if I finished my three to do's, I get to give myself a reward.

00:18:14.400 What happened was I got it like twice in the whole month. Then the second month I said,

00:18:18.960 if I don't finish my three to do's, I have to pay. It was like $50. It was, if I, if I do three to do's,

00:18:27.380 I earned $50 that worth like twice or three times. If I don't finish all my to do's, I have to pay

00:18:33.780 $50 and I finished it every single day. It was fascinating. The difference was not, was just a

00:18:42.160 name, just a word. It was the difference between me getting $50 versus me giving $50, but the result

00:18:47.100 was astronomical. And that had to do with the act of willpower and, uh, and the, and utilizing your

00:18:53.640 basal ganglia, you know, your ape brain rather than focusing on rewards. Now, one thing, Brett, 0.97

00:19:00.320 that's interesting is, um, we found, we've done a lot of research with negative and positive rewards,

00:19:05.120 and we, in no way focus on negative reinforcement. We do come across as focusing on negative

00:19:12.960 reinforcement. So Pavlok Shoxi, that sounds really negative. Yes, it is. Um, Pavlok also

00:19:17.060 rewards you though. So it's, what we found is that negative reinforcement is extremely powerful

00:19:22.040 to get you started and get you going. Positive reinforcement is important to make that habit

00:19:27.640 stick. If you utilize the two in conjunction, for example, every day I don't go to the gym,

00:19:33.320 I get charged $50. But if I go to the gym every day for the week on Friday, I get to give myself

00:19:39.700 a massage. Suddenly you're getting negative and positive rewards. And after a while, you'll notice

00:19:46.100 that you'll not, you'll never miss the negative it's, or it's very rare that you'll miss a

00:19:51.480 negative punishment because you just don't want to suffer the punishment. So you stop thinking about

00:19:55.960 it. You're just like, obviously I'm going to go. I hope I can go all five days this week. So I get

00:20:02.420 that, uh, I get to get myself a massage and, uh, the negative punishment can actually be removed at

00:20:08.100 that point. Then keep the positive or don't, it doesn't matter. The habit has become formed in your

00:20:14.120 brain. Yeah, that's really amazing. Um, and I I've, I've noticed this in my own life as well.

00:20:18.540 Um, because I think, yeah, the problem, like you said, the problem is as human beings, we have a

00:20:22.040 hard time imagining what obtaining whatever reward is would actually be like, right? Like you can think,

00:20:28.800 okay, you know, if I do all this work, I can make a million dollars one day, but it's like,

00:20:33.500 I did so ethereal that it's like, it's not very motivating because you just forget about it.

00:20:39.180 But that loss aversion, right? Studies after say, if you said, have shown like, we are loss

00:20:43.940 averse creatures. We'd rather lose, uh, you know, we, we'd rather like, well, there's a study about

00:20:49.640 like a coffee mug where like people, like researchers gave people like a chintzy coffee mug. Um, and like

00:20:55.700 people got really protective of this chintzy coffee mug. They would do all these things to avoid losing

00:20:59.760 this coffee mug. But if they said, Oh, if you do this one thing, you get this coffee mug and people

00:21:04.980 like, eh, whatever. I don't, I don't need a coffee mug, but once you have it, like you want to keep

00:21:09.620 it. Um, so yeah, I've done that before. Like with writing, if I, I've had like, there's like a, an

00:21:14.540 article that I just like, I don't want to do like, I'll, uh, put, you know, money on the line and say,

00:21:20.540 if I don't finish it by this time, then I'm going to give this money to such and such person. And man,

00:21:25.520 I get it done without fail. So Brett, you and I had a call, a podcast interview a few weeks ago,

00:21:31.680 and that podcast interview really like changed what I do. I've been planning to two habits almost

00:21:36.780 every single day since we had it. And I started to think a lot about the last few days while I was

00:21:40.500 prepping for this interview. Um, so we mentioned on our call flossing and we mentioned on our call

00:21:46.160 journaling. And I mentioned that I really wanted to start journaling. I think I added you on the,

00:21:50.620 on the Pavlok app and you got a download or something. You reported me as not having journaled.

00:21:55.640 And I totally journaled, but, uh, but, um, what happened was interesting because I started to

00:22:01.860 focus on that as a habit. And I actually have journaled every single day in the last 40 days,

00:22:06.940 with the exception of two since then. And I found it interesting to see how I fit that in because

00:22:11.640 it came after our call. Uh, and it was different than the way I added the, the, um, flossing habit.

00:22:18.060 So those two were formed, those two habits formed using two different mechanisms that I think are

00:22:22.560 interesting. And I want to tell you them because I think you're like, um, the first one about

00:22:26.540 journaling started off with our call. It was an accountability bet. I will journal, or if I don't,

00:22:33.220 I will be, you know, Brett will see that I promise to send him the picture. And that was motivational

00:22:38.780 because I, because I respect you and I wanted to actually get it done. After that happened, I started

00:22:43.760 to, um, I noticed that I made it very simple. It was just right. One page, very easy. You can't fail

00:22:50.160 a few times. I should show you this a few times. I went, I went out for drinks and I came home at

00:22:54.980 like 1148 one night and I had like totally not journaled. And it was 1148. And I was like out

00:23:00.980 of my mind and I'm like, Oh God, Oh God, I got a journal. And I fell asleep with my journal on my

00:23:05.080 chest and I woke up and it was 1.5 pages. I can't read a single word, but it was done. So at least

00:23:13.580 like the habit was formed. The journal might've sucked, but it was done. Um, so that started off with a

00:23:19.740 negative reinforcement bet with the positive benefit of accountability. Um, and it led to a

00:23:25.440 very clear cut goal that formed over time. The second one, uh, flossing was really interesting

00:23:30.640 because flossing we both know has actually really, really positive benefits, like an average of four

00:23:35.920 to seven extra years of lifespan, causally not, not correlative. It's bizarre. Um, and also what's

00:23:42.240 interesting about it is that we already brush our teeth. Flossing is a natural second step. So what I

00:23:49.200 started to do was I wrote this list right here. It's my morning ritual for the morning. And I wrote

00:23:55.500 down 13 things that I've always wanted to do. And I, and the first one was wake up and, uh, HRV

00:24:01.740 doesn't matter. Second was brush. The third one was floss. And then I stuck this in my bathroom and I

00:24:08.080 got up and I said, all right, for the first few days, I'm just going to try to follow the list,

00:24:11.820 all 13 things, noting that journaling is on the list as well. And what happened was because it was laid

00:24:17.860 out for me in a very automatic plan that required no decision, wake up and just go through the

00:24:23.020 checklist. And because brushing was targeted next to flossing. And then thirdly, because I had a friend

00:24:28.920 who was good at flossing, teach me the secret to easy flossing, which is like, I just flossing was

00:24:36.160 hard to me. I just didn't really know if I was doing it right. And he, he bought me the right

00:24:41.980 contraption that makes flossing easy. And now suddenly dude, I floss like twice a day. I feel that weird

00:24:47.700 feeling where I need to get that like piece of something left in my, uh, left out. Uh, and also

00:24:53.600 I managed to do like all 13 of these habits at the same time by chunking, which is a technique that I

00:24:58.440 don't think enough people ever do with their habits. Um, morning routines are really good

00:25:02.400 examples of chunking. You can, I formed four habits I've been working for working on for a year

00:25:07.400 at the same time, because I actually only formed one habit, the habit of doing this list.

00:25:13.200 And because one of them is journaling, you know, there's a bunch of things I wanted to do.

00:25:16.520 So I've managed to incorporate all of that into one chunked habit, uh, starting off with the pain

00:25:22.320 of losing money. If I didn't do all of them and ending up with the positive of just internal

00:25:26.800 feeling being great. That's awesome. That's really cool. So let's, let's talk a little

00:25:30.920 more about that. Let's talk about Pavlok. Cause it's like this, that's what it Pavlok gets a lot

00:25:34.800 of attention. All right. You guys were on the Colberry pour. Uh, it's cause it's a, it's a device

00:25:39.980 you wear around your wrist, sort of like a fitness tracker. Um, and it shocks you, um, if you don't

00:25:47.500 do something that you're supposed to do. Right. Um, and so there's that whole idea, like if you

00:25:53.060 don't journal, so like, how does that work? I mean, so how does it know if you haven't done your

00:25:57.860 things? Do you have to have an account? Is there like an app with it? Like where you have an

00:26:00.900 accountability partner? How does that work? Sure. Um, so for Pavlok, what we found is that

00:26:06.140 operant conditioning or rewards and punishment are extremely powerful for forming new habits.

00:26:12.020 Pavlovian conditioning is extremely powerful for breaking bad habits. So they, it works in two

00:26:16.980 different ways. It kind of tangents with it. Let's, let's know. So what you, what you just

00:26:20.320 mentioned about, um, about, uh, about forming a new habit about, uh, it might shock you if you do

00:26:25.900 something, but if you don't do something good, what this does is it allows you to form a new habit

00:26:30.560 by committing to do something. Anything that's measurable is a really good use case. Like

00:26:35.600 GPS, if you want to go to the gym or 10,000 steps tracked by your wristband or, um, going like

00:26:43.100 writing a thousand words in, in a, in an app each day or, uh, going through a Duolingo class each day.

00:26:50.720 All of those are very trackable habits. So what we do is we have an open API that lets you commit to

00:26:55.380 doing something. If you do it on time, you earn a reward. Uh, it can be points. It can be money. It can

00:27:02.120 be, um, gift cards. If you don't do it, you're charged a larger, a larger penalty. So you might

00:27:08.440 say every day I don't go to the gym, I lose 10 bucks. Every day I do go to the gym, I earn 25 or

00:27:13.620 50 cents. And if I go to the gym for 30 days, I earn a big bonus. Um, and what we found is that the

00:27:20.000 fear of losing money really gets people to get there. The act of making it, uh, the act of adding

00:27:26.220 rewards makes them stick now. Uh, so that, uh, the, uh, the penalties can range. So the first thing

00:27:32.000 we said was money. Another penalty might be a post on your Facebook wall. A third one might be that it

00:27:36.600 lets your friends shock you from across the internet and the fear of the shock might get you there or

00:27:41.780 help helps reinforce you getting there. The fear of the shock is more powerful than the shock. And this

00:27:47.240 is negative reinforcement. Taking away a negative thing is negative reinforcement. On the other hand,

00:27:56.200 if we're trying to break bad habits, we use positive punishment, which is the act of adding

00:28:01.860 something negative to the task that you don't want to do. And this is classical, uh, Pavlovian

00:28:07.100 conditioning. So every time I open my refrigerator door, it beeps and shocks me. Every time I go on

00:28:14.340 Facebook, it shocks me. Uh, every time I open up 10 tabs, it vibrates 11 tabs. It beeps 12 tabs. It

00:28:21.020 shocks me. And what happens is because we've added this instantaneous negative stimulus to an action

00:28:25.980 that's trackable and measurable. And I don't want to do anymore. My brain at the beginning gets a

00:28:31.020 little annoyed and pissed off. Like every time I'm biting my nails, it's vibrating and beeping in the

00:28:34.580 chalking, right? Every time I'm doing that, it's getting annoying. But after a while, it's so annoyed

00:28:38.500 that it just stops thinking about doing it at all. When the punishment continuously is occurring,

00:28:46.480 your brain stops thinking about doing it at all. Let me clean that up because that's a really

00:28:52.880 important point. Um, I measured my Facebook usage and my Facebook usage is very, I never go to

00:29:01.640 Facebook. I always find myself on Facebook. You know, I like, I just sit down and my brain just

00:29:08.100 moves me to like, I open tab F enter something chatting. What we're trying to do is reverse

00:29:14.080 that in the brain. So every time I opened up Facebook for about a week and a half, the wristband

00:29:18.780 shocked me instantly. It just shocked me and stuff. Every minute I was on it, there was shocking again

00:29:22.920 and it became annoying. So I, at the beginning, I got shocked over and over again, over and over

00:29:26.900 again. Then I started to go off a little less than less because I'd remember it. I'll, I'll use it

00:29:31.160 later. But then a week later I took a trip and I went to California and I checked my Facebook and I

00:29:37.900 realized I hadn't logged in in like three days. That's unheard of for me. What had happened is my brain was

00:29:43.600 so used to being shocked when it checked Facebook that it just stopped thinking about ever going to

00:29:51.060 Facebook again. You start at, so does that make sense? Yeah. You don't even like think you don't

00:29:57.400 obsess about, cause I think that's one problem that a lot of people have when they're trying to break a

00:30:00.780 bad habit is that you try to, it becomes the white elephant, right? It's like the, like even when you're

00:30:05.780 trying not to do it, like you think about it because you're trying not to do it. Um, and, but so you

00:30:10.920 end up doing it, like you become obsessed with it. And that's the decision fatigue too. The act

00:30:15.220 of thinking about not doing it is using up your willpower reserves and it makes it harder each

00:30:20.260 time to resist doing it. It's like, uh, it just, you're like the more often you have to think about

00:30:26.200 it and say no, the more often you're likely later on in the day to do it. Um, this is a side note,

00:30:32.960 really interesting for, uh, for, uh, for tricking yourself into not doing something or doing something.

00:30:38.660 They did a bunch of studies where they asked people to like eat gummy bears or not eat gummy

00:30:42.320 bears when they were just left out on the table. And, um, what they found was that if the person

00:30:46.740 made the decision to eat the gummy bear, it used up willpower. If they made the decision to not eat

00:30:51.720 the gummy bear, it used up willpower. The only time it did not use up willpower was when they said,

00:30:56.880 ah, I will eat it later. What they had done was close a loop in their brain where they said,

00:31:02.900 I'm allowed to eat that. I don't have to not eat it, but I'll just eat it later.

00:31:07.720 It closes the white elephant loop in your brain. So if you ever have anything that you're thinking

00:31:11.820 about that, you just can't stop thinking about, and, uh, you're trying to quit and you're just

00:31:16.980 like feeling like you're about to give in one secret is just to tell yourself, I'll do it later.

00:31:20.420 It's okay. I can have it later. Just not right now. And your brain will stop thinking about it.

00:31:24.000 Yeah. That's really interesting. So, so there's, um, so with the Pavlov, there's, there's shocking,

00:31:27.920 um, beating vibrations, there's the money aspect. And I guess that works with an app,

00:31:32.960 right? So you sign up on it with an account and, um, you know, you can connect it to something or

00:31:39.280 other word. Yeah, actually we have a, what we realized is for the operant conditioning,

00:31:43.100 uh, the forming new habits angle, the wristband is really, really, really, uh, it's a, it's a great

00:31:49.660 next step and it's really effective, but it's not necessary. Um, breaking bad habits. You need the

00:31:55.200 wristband. It's important because you need that instantaneous feedback forming new habits. You can make the

00:31:59.120 penalties, things like posting on your Facebook wall or, uh, losing money. And so we're trying to,

00:32:04.000 we're about to re releasing the app early. Even if you don't have the wristband, you'll be able to

00:32:09.320 use it to get accountability partners and form new habits. Um, I'm going to see if I can make a page

00:32:14.180 for you guys that like, uh, it'll be padlock.com forward slash AOM. And, um, I'll try to get an early

00:32:20.780 access app to as many people as I can. That'd be awesome. That'd be really cool. And then I think,

00:32:25.180 I think what's really interesting is that, that sort of, it's like that public shaming aspect

00:32:29.420 of Pavlok where like it posts to your Facebook that you didn't go to the gym. Uh, how effective

00:32:35.940 is public shaming to getting you to do what you want to do or supposed to do?

00:32:41.920 This is a crack me up yesterday on the Colbert report when we have this three minute segment and

00:32:46.100 he tells about a shocking and people in the audience were like, Oh, and then he talks about

00:32:50.620 like a charge of you money. And they're like, Oh, and then he said, and then it posts on your

00:32:54.980 Facebook wall and the crowd erupts in laughter. And like, I'm like, really, is that what motivates

00:33:00.080 you people more than anything? Apparently different people are motivated by different

00:33:04.160 things. In our own research, we found that, uh, men are more motivated by money and women

00:33:10.960 are more motivated by, um, accountability of being seen for their failure. But I think at

00:33:16.880 its core, it's the idea of people knowing that you said you're going to do something and

00:33:23.660 you didn't do something that can be very, very motivational. I honestly believe that

00:33:29.060 teams or a single accountability partner are more effective than a generalized Facebook

00:33:34.360 posting. That said, it's posted on my Facebook wall three times. And dude, the comments are

00:33:39.980 just like, so, ah, like they jump on me. Like, you should be, I'm like, I'm testing the app,

00:33:46.520 bro. It doesn't actually, I went to the gym.

00:33:48.800 That's really funny. So yeah, like, uh, that, that, the fear of being known as a failure

00:33:55.300 at your goals, it can get you to do what you're supposed to do.

00:33:59.540 And this is like the, one of the most depressing things about, about people who are trying to do

00:34:03.920 something new is a lot of research shows that when they talk to other people about what they're

00:34:08.340 doing in their brain, it's actually closing the loop on the reward. It's like the act of telling

00:34:13.820 somebody that they are going to do something. The person's like, Oh, that's awesome. You totally

00:34:18.080 should. They are like, that is awesome. I'm going to go smoke a bunch of pot now. Like it,

00:34:23.120 it doesn't, it doesn't actually make them, uh, do the, it doesn't actually make them clean up and

00:34:28.480 finish up the loop. But being a motivation is a very, uh, precarious slope because it disappears

00:34:34.620 quickly. Uh, what I've tried to do is identify that when you, instead of relying on motivation and

00:34:41.260 willpower to form a new habit or make a new behavior, if you rely on using that motivation and

00:34:47.360 willpower to create the system that won't let you fail that system that won't let you fail.

00:34:53.480 I think that the accountability aspect of, uh, posting your Facebook wall, for instance,

00:34:57.800 is extremely powerful there because you're continuously reminded when you fail.

00:35:01.660 Yeah. If you focused all of your motivation and willpower on that, on, on, uh, sometimes it's not

00:35:07.740 even that hard. It's just pressing the button in the Pavlok app, you know, I commit. Um, or,

00:35:11.980 but for some people it's about finding the accountability partner, then you've suddenly created,

00:35:15.960 uh, you've actually used your willpower effectively and that's the correct way to process a new

00:35:21.700 behavior. Gotcha. Well, that's really cool. Um, so I, I, our time is running up. Um, and yeah,

00:35:27.640 I would love if you can create like a link for our listeners to check out, get an early access

00:35:31.500 to the app. That'd be awesome. Uh, but besides, you know, downloading Pavlok, um, what can, I mean,

00:35:36.900 we've kind of hit on some really great tips that guys can start using today to start making and

00:35:42.220 breaking habits, but if there's like one or two things you would recommend guys do start doing

00:35:47.200 today to, uh, form or break bad habits, what would that, what would those be? Sure. I mean,

00:35:51.980 honestly, man, I want everyone who's watched this podcast to just think about themselves.

00:35:56.200 What's something they know they could do that they know they should and could, but just haven't

00:35:59.980 been. And I want them to tell their friend or loved one, dude, I'll give you 10 bucks tomorrow.

00:36:05.160 If I don't do this act and just watch what happens. It's actually freaking fascinating.

00:36:11.640 Your brain, it's, you're going to wake up tomorrow and all you're going to do is think

00:36:14.820 about, Oh, I just got to do that. I got to do that. I got to do that. I got to do that.

00:36:17.520 I got to freaking do that. And you'll do it. And then you'll be like, Oh, I did it. And

00:36:23.360 that's it. And you'll be like, Oh, and then you'll probably forget about it and be like,

00:36:26.380 Oh, I'm going to go back to my old lifestyle. But then if they started to make that bet more

00:36:30.120 constant, in fact, pre-organizing and pre-engineering a second bet or a week of bets,

00:36:34.920 or three weeks or four weeks of bets, they'll find that after a while, it'll become such

00:36:39.580 a habit that they can't not do it. And, um, the beauty of these things, man, the beauty

00:36:43.980 of habits is that you are what you repeatedly do. And if you take a single person who for

00:36:49.520 the net for one year, his habit of after he comes home, he watches TV and you take a second

00:36:53.860 person whose habit is after he comes home, he writes two pages to a novel. If you look at

00:36:58.460 them a year from today, the first person will have watched every episode of friends once.

00:37:02.320 And the second person will have written a novel of 700 page length and the difference

00:37:07.000 in there. But the interesting part is that neither of them use more willpower than the

00:37:12.340 other person. The first person had the habit of TV. The second person had the habit of writing,

00:37:18.440 but the person they become is astronomical. So starting small, make a bet, see what happens.

00:37:24.460 Um, as for, um, for Pavlok though, we also have an Indiegogo campaign going, I believe right now,

00:37:29.920 if you head over to Pavlok.com, you'll be able to see it and Pavlok.com forward slash AOM. I'll put

00:37:36.000 a bunch of links and resources and an ebook for everybody to read. Awesome. Well, Manish Sethi,

00:37:40.140 thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure. Sure, man. I can't wait to, uh,

00:37:43.800 to shock you across the internet. Yeah, I know. I'm, I've, I've, I've got one pre-order and I'm

00:37:47.380 looking forward to checking it out. All right. Thanks a lot. All right. Thanks, man.

00:37:50.660 Our guest today was Manish Sethi. He is the founder of Pavlok and you can find out more

00:37:55.840 information about, about Pavlok at AOM.IS slash Pavlok, P-A-V-L-O-K. That's AOM.IS slash Pavlok,

00:38:06.420 P-A-V-L-O-K. And also make sure to check out Manish's blog at Hack the System. Uh, some

00:38:12.580 interesting content there as well. Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness

00:38:20.040 Podcast. For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website

00:38:23.980 at artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy the podcast, again, I'd really appreciate it. If

00:38:28.800 you'd go on to iTunes or Stitcher or whatever else it is you use to listen to the podcast,

00:38:33.880 give us a rating. Uh, that would really appreciate that and help us out a lot. And until next time,

00:38:38.700 stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - October 03, 2014

#84： Shock Yourself Into New Habits with Maneesh Sethi

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