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Speaker 2: See you there.
Speaker 3: The reality is like one person may have no trouble
Speaker 3: remembering to do the thing, but they find that they
Speaker 3: lose motivation. And another person may be really motivated, but
Speaker 3: they literally are just forgetful. And then I just keep forgetting.
Speaker 3: So I would just ask for your own behavior, chang,
Speaker 3: what do you find the most difficult, and then that's
Speaker 3: the stuff you need to build a strategy around.
Speaker 4: Wow, welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great
Speaker 4: thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 4: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 4: you think ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 4: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 4: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 4: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 4: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 4: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 4: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 4: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 4: the right direction, how they feed their good wolfs for
Speaker 4: joining us. Our guest on this episode is Spencer Greenberg,
Speaker 4: an entrepreneur and mathematician with a focus on improving human
Speaker 4: well being through social science. He's the founder of Clearer
Speaker 4: Thinking dot org, which provides more than seventy free tools
Speaker 4: and training programs related to topics like decision making and
Speaker 4: cognitive biases used by hundreds of thousands of people. He's
Speaker 4: also the founder of Sparkwave, a startup foundry that creates
Speaker 4: novel software products from scratch designed to solve problems in
Speaker 4: the world. Spencer has been featured by numerous major media outlets,
Speaker 4: including The Wall Street Journal, The Independent, The New York Times, Life, Hacker, Gizmoto,
Speaker 4: Fast Company, and others.
Speaker 2: Hi Spencer, Eh, good to see you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we are doing this collaborative episode, but will start
Speaker 1: the way I normally start my show with the wolf
Speaker 1: parable as a way of kind of just jumping into things.
Speaker 1: So in the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with
Speaker 1: a grandchild and they say, in life, there are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us that are always a battle. One
Speaker 1: is a good wolf, which are presents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the others a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandchild stops think about it for a second. They
Speaker 1: look at it their grandparents. They say, well, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandparents says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: love to just know a little bit about how that
Speaker 1: parable applies to you and your work and your life.
Speaker 5: It's funny.
Speaker 3: I expected you might ask that parable, because you do
Speaker 3: in all your episodes, and I was curious what chat
Speaker 3: gipt would say, so I plugged it in and how
Speaker 3: to generate ten different interpretations and then that I use
Speaker 3: that as food for thought as I was thinking, well,
Speaker 3: which interpretation speaks to me the most? And I think
Speaker 3: that for me, the interpretation of that parable, I like
Speaker 3: is thinking about what are the underlying values that lead
Speaker 3: to our decisions?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so when you're operating, are you operating out of fear?
Speaker 3: Are you operating out of trying to help others? Are
Speaker 3: you operating out of trying to make yourself happy? And
Speaker 3: these underlying values that actually guide our decisions to me
Speaker 3: seem incredibly important and relate a lot to my own
Speaker 3: life philosophy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I may have to do that to chat GPT myself.
Speaker 1: How did you phrase the question?
Speaker 3: I think I just said in the famous parable about
Speaker 3: which Well, if you feed, what are ten different interpretations
Speaker 3: you have? And you know, just generated them?
Speaker 1: So we could probably spend the entire conversation on AI,
Speaker 1: but I don't think we will. So you mentioned values,
Speaker 1: and you've got a philosophy you call valuism, And I
Speaker 1: think values are really interesting because, as you mentioned, we
Speaker 1: often don't think about them, and then also often they
Speaker 1: are in conflict with each other and the other problem
Speaker 1: I often find with them is that I have too
Speaker 1: many of them, right, Like I went through and took
Speaker 1: your values test, right, and you know, I'm going along
Speaker 1: fine till it's like, well, pick the most important one
Speaker 1: out of my list of like forty, and then I'm
Speaker 1: just stumped. Right, And so when you are sort of
Speaker 1: at that point, how do you narrow?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question. And for anyone interested, we
Speaker 3: have our intrinsic values. You can take on our website
Speaker 3: Clearer thinking Dot'll work. Yeah, So people tend to have
Speaker 3: quite a lot of values. If we look at the
Speaker 3: most important values they have, they usually will have like
Speaker 3: something like ten to fifteen of them, which is still
Speaker 3: quite a decent number. But then people might have dozens
Speaker 3: more that are sort of somewhat important to them. One
Speaker 3: thing that I think about is that the values won't
Speaker 3: all equally be activated in your life, Like you might
Speaker 3: find some of them come up a lot and others
Speaker 3: maybe don't come up that much. And so one thing
Speaker 3: that I feel in my life that I'm trying to
Speaker 3: balance three things a lot of times. One is my
Speaker 3: own happiness, which is one of my intrinsic values. A
Speaker 3: second is the well being of my loved ones, which
Speaker 3: is another intrinsic value of mine. And the third is
Speaker 3: reducing suffering in the world broadly to all sentient beings.
Speaker 3: And so sometimes they come in tens because like, well,
Speaker 3: do I spend another four hours working, or do I
Speaker 3: go relax, you know totally, you spend more time with
Speaker 3: my girlfriend, or do I take on the extra project? Right,
Speaker 3: So I'm wondering for you, when you think about your
Speaker 3: own values, do you feel like that certain ones come
Speaker 3: up more for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the core is the one you've just
Speaker 1: sort of illustrated, which is, I've got certain values around
Speaker 1: things I want to do in the world. Reducing suffering
Speaker 1: is one of my top values just broadly speaking, obviously
Speaker 1: our loved ones.
Speaker 2: I have a son, I've got my partner.
Speaker 1: Jinny, good friends, and then wanting to have pleasurable experiences
Speaker 1: and enjoy my own life. And I find that core
Speaker 1: tension between what I would call, on one hand, my
Speaker 1: time and then the time that I give to the
Speaker 1: world is the core tension I feel in values, and
Speaker 1: I feel like it's just once upon a time I
Speaker 1: would have dreamt of a state where these things get resolved,
Speaker 1: but I actually think the act of being a human
Speaker 1: is continuing to be something I have to think about
Speaker 1: and live into and wonder is it shifting? Am I
Speaker 1: too far over?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I am a little too far over that way. Okay,
Speaker 1: I need to move back this way. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's my core challenge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that's probably one that many people
Speaker 3: face work versus self, versus family or loved ones. But
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people also will have additional
Speaker 3: ones too. So, for example, I have an additional intrinsic
Speaker 3: value that's really strong around truth. So whenever there's something
Speaker 3: where it's like, well, I could lie to protect someone,
Speaker 3: but then I'm lying, that really bothers me, Or like,
Speaker 3: oh if I said this thing perfectly accurately, it wouldn't
Speaker 3: be as persuasive, you know, But then that's going to
Speaker 3: bother my truth value be like no, no, no, I need
Speaker 3: to say it accurately. So I'm wondering, besides those three,
Speaker 3: do you see other kind of big intrinsic values for
Speaker 3: yourself that come up?
Speaker 1: I think freedom is one that comes up a lot.
Speaker 1: But as I think about freedom, I actually kind of
Speaker 1: mean it on a couple different levels, which then I
Speaker 1: just go, well, since I value both of these things,
Speaker 1: I'll just group it and say freedom is a big value.
Speaker 1: I mean, one is, you know, either freedom to be autonomous,
Speaker 1: to do the things that I want to do, assuming
Speaker 1: they don't harm other people. But then more is freedom
Speaker 1: and internal freedom from being sort of shack to the ego,
Speaker 1: the part of me that's very focused on protecting and
Speaker 1: enhancing Eric as a character in a sense, you know,
Speaker 1: I want freedom from that. In the AA Big Book
Speaker 1: they call it bondage of self, you know, and so
Speaker 1: that's one for me. It's like, you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: an important freedom to me.
Speaker 3: Could you impact that, because it seems like there's a
Speaker 3: lot there like freedom from self.
Speaker 5: As I meant you.
Speaker 1: Well, in the Buddhist tradition, there's an idea that's known
Speaker 1: as anata or no self, which posits that this thing
Speaker 1: that seems really solid in us, Eric is a collection
Speaker 1: of all these different things. You know, we're just a
Speaker 1: collection of processes that are running right being too attached
Speaker 1: to Eric, and I primarily mean ego wise. You know,
Speaker 1: some of the biggest freedoms I've had in my life
Speaker 1: have been when all of a sudden through one mechanism
Speaker 1: or other, the concern about how I am perceived in
Speaker 1: the world, about how others see me, about how much
Speaker 1: myself is being protected. When those have fallen away, I've
Speaker 1: experienced a great deal of freedom. But also, and you
Speaker 1: talk about this in your values work, that there's these
Speaker 1: different things that impinge upon our values, right, are traumas,
Speaker 1: and even if we want to talk about lowercase tee trauma,
Speaker 1: like just the conditioning our families, you know, So some
Speaker 1: of being freedom of the bondage yourself is being free
Speaker 1: from any of that that I kind of been dragging
Speaker 1: around with me.
Speaker 3: I had an interesting experience where a friend of mine
Speaker 3: was feeling very depressed, and she had a sense that
Speaker 3: it has something to do with her partner, that there's
Speaker 3: something wrong in her relationship. And she's like, I don't understand,
Speaker 3: and I'm so unhappy. But he's such a great guy.
Speaker 3: And so we did this little exercise. I had her
Speaker 3: sit down and I had her list out the ways
Speaker 3: that he's a great guy, and then I had her
Speaker 3: list out her own values. And the funny thing is
Speaker 3: that there was like no overlap.
Speaker 2: Interesting and she was right.
Speaker 3: He was a great guy, just not a great guy
Speaker 3: according to her own values, and then I had her
Speaker 3: write out her parents' values, and he was just perfect
Speaker 3: according to our parents' values exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, such a great point.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious how you think about this, because our values,
Speaker 1: we want them to be as much ours as we can.
Speaker 1: But we are just a combination of all the conditioning
Speaker 1: that we've had before us. Right, everything we are is
Speaker 1: a result of past causes and conditions, countless ones figuring
Speaker 1: out the me and all that. Like, what do I
Speaker 1: really believe? I find to be an interesting exercise? How
Speaker 1: do you think about that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't think we choose our values. I think
Speaker 5: we have values.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can go through this process of understanding them
Speaker 3: better and you know, exploring them. But I think that
Speaker 3: there's something that sort of is a part of us,
Speaker 3: like our personality, for example, And I think they come
Speaker 3: about through a combination of genetics, Like you know, our
Speaker 3: genes make it possible to have values at all, right,
Speaker 3: and may make it more likely to as or's others.
Speaker 3: And then obviously our upbringing and then our culture and
Speaker 3: all these things. And I think by the time people reach,
Speaker 3: you know, mid adulthood, I think their values have often
Speaker 3: solidified pretty strongly. They could still shift a little bit.
Speaker 3: But I don't really think of it as like, Okay,
Speaker 3: you're going to go, you know, try to change your
Speaker 3: value to something else, right, because well, why would you
Speaker 3: do that unless you had maybe you had a meta
Speaker 3: value of changing your values or something like that. But
Speaker 3: normally it's more about, Okay, let me try to figure
Speaker 3: out my values and then try to live according to them.
Speaker 3: And this sort of gets to my life philosophy, which
Speaker 3: I call valueism, which is very simple lif philosophy, but
Speaker 3: there's a lot of interesting implications of it. So very
Speaker 3: simply stated, it says, try to figure out what your
Speaker 3: intrinsic values are and then try to live in such
Speaker 3: a way as to effectively create more of the things
Speaker 3: that you intrinsically value. And by effectively I mean using
Speaker 3: effective methods. And just to add a little clarification here,
Speaker 3: why do I say intrinsic values? What do I mean
Speaker 3: by that rather than just a value? Because I think
Speaker 3: you know value intrinsic value, it's actually an important distinction.
Speaker 3: So there are tons of things that we value. For example,
Speaker 3: like cash. We almost everyone values having cash because you
Speaker 3: can do a lot of stuff with it. But you
Speaker 3: don't value cash intrinsically because you wouldn't value it if
Speaker 3: you couldn't do anything with it. So intrinsic values we
Speaker 3: value for their own sake, not as it means to
Speaker 3: an end, whereas values, there's just things that we care
Speaker 3: about for any reason, right, just to clarify for the listen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's an important distinction because often
Speaker 1: what we think we value, if we go a couple
Speaker 1: levels deeper, starts to transform. And I think part of
Speaker 1: the freedom in that is My partner Jenny said it
Speaker 1: well in relation to food and emotional eating, and she said,
Speaker 1: you know, if I think that what I want is
Speaker 1: a cupcake, there's only one answer for that, It's a cupcake.
Speaker 2: If what I.
Speaker 1: Recognize that I really want is not to be bored
Speaker 1: or not to be sad, or there's a lot of
Speaker 1: ways to get to that. And I think to your point,
Speaker 1: if we can get underneath to what the intrinsic value is,
Speaker 1: there's lots of different strategies there versus being stuck on
Speaker 1: its money. Okay, well, why you know, oh, it's freedom. Okay,
Speaker 1: there are other ways towards freedom, you know, So I
Speaker 1: think that's a really important point.
Speaker 3: That's a really great way to say it. And I
Speaker 3: think that goes to one of the reasons why I
Speaker 3: can be useful think about your intrinsic values, because they're
Speaker 3: the underlying kind of why why you want the stuff
Speaker 3: that you want, and then that means that you have
Speaker 3: the strategies to get them. And I think it is
Speaker 3: very common for people to anchor on a particular life strategy.
Speaker 3: Maybe they learned when they're young, Oh, you should, you know,
Speaker 3: go get a degree because that's the way to have
Speaker 3: a good life. Where you should, you know, get this
Speaker 3: type of career because that's respectable whatever. But it's like, wait,
Speaker 3: but why are you doing that? Because if you realize
Speaker 3: why you're doing that, maybe there's a different strategy. It
Speaker 3: gets even more of what you want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I do think untangling some of are
Speaker 1: I'll use the word because you used at traumas, but
Speaker 1: we could just say psychological baggage is really helpful because
Speaker 1: I've been driven in my life a lot of times
Speaker 1: towards certain things that felt like that's what I wanted
Speaker 1: more than anything in the world. Heroin being one example
Speaker 1: of that in my life, right, But it could be women,
Speaker 1: it could be any you know where that's just the
Speaker 1: whole focus, and it seems so clear and real, you know,
Speaker 1: But it's being driven out of a wound. I think
Speaker 1: it can be difficult as we are, and I think
Speaker 1: we're all on some part of a healing journey to
Speaker 1: separate those things.
Speaker 2: You know, what do I.
Speaker 1: Really value versus what am I sort of being pushed
Speaker 1: towards valuing because it makes me feel better safer.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm glad that you brought up heroin as an example
Speaker 3: because I think it's such an interesting example because people
Speaker 3: might want to dismiss it and saying, oh, it's completely
Speaker 3: out of a line with your values. But I think
Speaker 3: in practice what's happening is it's taking one value like
Speaker 3: pleasure or another value like the alleviation of suffering of
Speaker 3: your own suffering, Yeah, and putting them in front of
Speaker 3: all your other values.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
Speaker 3: So it's giving you something you want, it's just a
Speaker 3: destroying everything else in the process, right.
Speaker 2: I mean the.
Speaker 1: Value that drugs and alcohol gave me was a value
Speaker 1: I really have, which was to feel connected to people
Speaker 1: and the world around me, to have an experience of
Speaker 1: being alive, of being here, of being present. And that's
Speaker 1: what drugs and alcohol, at least in the beginning did,
Speaker 1: was they brought the world to life. For me, it
Speaker 1: was in the beginning deeply tied to some values of mine,
Speaker 1: you know. Carl Jung made the point to Bill Wilson,
Speaker 1: the founder of AA, that isn't interesting that the word spirits,
Speaker 1: you know, for alcohol, is the same word we use
Speaker 1: spirit for this deeper, more meaningful connection to something bigger
Speaker 1: than us. And so, yeah, I think you're right. But
Speaker 1: then over time, yeah, that crowds out every other value.
Speaker 1: And that's a pretty good example of what addiction is.
Speaker 3: That's really interesting that the motivation was less around pleasure
Speaker 3: and more around like feeling alive. What was that like
Speaker 3: for you when you were doing drugs originally, and how
Speaker 3: did that contrast with how you felt not on them.
Speaker 1: There's a line in an old movie. I think it's
Speaker 1: called Days of Wine and Roses. I could be wrong
Speaker 1: about this, but it's a movie and there's two alcoholic
Speaker 1: lead characters and one of them goes on to get
Speaker 1: sober and he's trying to get his wife to do it,
Speaker 1: and there's just this very memorable scene where she's describing
Speaker 1: to him, and she says, it's like life is in
Speaker 1: black and white, and when I drink it turns to color.
Speaker 1: That's the best way I can describe it. Now, why
Speaker 1: did I feel that way? I don't know. My guess is,
Speaker 1: if I run it all through psychology and different theories,
Speaker 1: is that my home environment wasn't a particularly safe place
Speaker 1: to have feelings or emotions, and so I deadened everything.
Speaker 1: And while deadening the bad, I deadened the good everything.
Speaker 1: You know, by the time I was like nine, I
Speaker 1: was like a kleptomaniac. And it wasn't because I wanted
Speaker 1: all these things that I stole. I mean occasionally I did, sure,
Speaker 1: but it was I felt alive. So something in my
Speaker 1: life I think it caused me to sort of deaden,
Speaker 1: and for whatever reason, alcohol and drugs brought it alive.
Speaker 1: The tragic cycle of addiction is after a certain amount
Speaker 1: of time, as we said that alcohol or drugs crowds
Speaker 1: out all your other values, you start to feel bad
Speaker 1: about that. And as you feel bad about that, the
Speaker 1: only way you know to cope with that feeling bad
Speaker 1: is to drink or get high, which then causes you
Speaker 1: to crowd and that's the downward spiral. So over time,
Speaker 1: I think it morphed from connection to just deadening pain,
Speaker 1: the pain of being the person I was at that
Speaker 1: point of having basically given everything that I had once
Speaker 1: valued over to getting high then starts to cause such
Speaker 1: feelings of self loathing and shame that you begin to
Speaker 1: have to medicate those.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think this touches on a really useful point, which
Speaker 3: is that unhelpful behaviors almost always are doing something helpful.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it's.
Speaker 3: Like, to just treat that behavior as totally pointless or
Speaker 3: ridiculous is to miss the point. Now you're actually doing
Speaker 3: it for some reason, very likely, Yeah, and then actually
Speaker 3: identifying that reason, like if somehow you could identify Oh
Speaker 3: wait a minute, drugs are peeling to me because I
Speaker 3: don't feel alive otherwise. I wonder if there's another way
Speaker 3: to feel alive. Right, And so I'm wondering, does life
Speaker 3: feel like it's in color now for you? And if so,
Speaker 3: how did you get there without drugs?
Speaker 1: I will say that it doesn't feel in color to
Speaker 1: me the same way that certain drug experiences did. But
Speaker 1: those were as they I think when they talk about like,
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of like, this isn't the right
Speaker 1: word superfoods, that's not yet super stimulus, Yeah, super STiMi right,
Speaker 1: so it was even beyond right. But I would say,
Speaker 1: in general, yes, life does feel more alive and I
Speaker 1: do feel more connected. But what I realized of coming
Speaker 1: out of addiction was that I think I had depression.
Speaker 1: And my depression shows up not as sadness but as deadness.
Speaker 2: So that's been.
Speaker 1: An ongoing thing that I've worked with throughout my adult life.
Speaker 1: But yes, I would say that I'm at a point
Speaker 1: where I'm fifteen years sober now, and I had been
Speaker 1: sober eight years before that. So the vast majority of
Speaker 1: my adult life and life feels in color enough that
Speaker 1: I've not felt any need and I'm not tempted to
Speaker 1: go back there. And how did I do it? I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I just to go back to what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. I think I try to live by my values,
Speaker 1: you know, and recognize the satisfaction in that, you know.
Speaker 1: I think we both share an interest in behavior change, right,
Speaker 1: And I think one thing that really helps in behavior
Speaker 1: change the maintenance of it, is to recognize that the
Speaker 1: behavior feels good, you know, whether it's the direct result
Speaker 1: of the behavior or the way you feel about yourself
Speaker 1: because you're doing what you said you were going to do.
Speaker 1: There's a quiet satisfaction to that that I think I
Speaker 1: got better at tuning into. And then I've just learned that,
Speaker 1: you know, things like creating art make me feel alive.
Speaker 1: Being around art and beauty makes me feel alive. So
Speaker 1: I've found the places that it's there for me and
Speaker 1: learn to tolerate better the periods where it doesn't.
Speaker 2: Feel that way so much.
Speaker 1: You know, where a depressive mood or episode comes in
Speaker 1: and I just don't react to it and I just
Speaker 1: go all right, Well, for whatever reason they seemed to
Speaker 1: come from time to time, I think it's going to pass,
Speaker 1: you know, not making such a big deal out of it,
Speaker 1: not making it worse, I guess would be the way
Speaker 1: to say it.
Speaker 3: This reminds me of something I've observed, and I wonder
Speaker 3: if you've observed the same thing, where if one of
Speaker 3: your really important values is not getting satisfied, it tends
Speaker 3: to pull more strongly. Yeah, it can become almost like
Speaker 3: overpowering because it's sort of missing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Whereas if.
Speaker 3: You kind of get enough of it, then it kind
Speaker 3: of will shut out, it will be satiated.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, I'm curious to hear your experience around that.
Speaker 1: Well, maybe all put that back to you a little bit,
Speaker 1: which is like, it seems to me that that phenomenon
Speaker 1: is very real and what can happen what I've seen
Speaker 1: happen in others and myself, is this big pendulum swing.
Speaker 1: So it gets over prioritized, and the pendulum swings way
Speaker 1: over and then the other one and it swings back.
Speaker 1: And I think for me, a lot of it has
Speaker 1: been like how do I not have that pendulum swinging
Speaker 1: so much, you know, from one extreme to the other
Speaker 1: extreme of my values, but that I'm honoring them all
Speaker 1: a little bit. And that's one of your key strategies
Speaker 1: that you talk about, is like you got to keep
Speaker 1: them all in mind, and you've got to recognize where
Speaker 1: the conflicts are. And I think that's often what we miss.
Speaker 1: We aren't conscious of the value conflict that's coming up.
Speaker 1: We're not making it explicit enough in our own minds
Speaker 1: so that we can sort of take it head on.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I've been using this technical a lot lately, both in
Speaker 3: my own life as well as like when a friend
Speaker 3: brings a problem that they're grappling with. And that's my
Speaker 3: thoughts on it is try to just sit down and say, well,
Speaker 3: what are the values that staycare?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Right, and then once you figured out the values at stake,
Speaker 3: and they have to be the values for that person, right,
Speaker 3: because different people are different, Yeah, intrinsic values. So once
Speaker 3: you figure out the values for that person that are
Speaker 3: at stake, then you can say, okay, so really this
Speaker 3: choice you're making is a trade off between you know,
Speaker 3: value A and B versus value C and D, And
Speaker 3: I found doing that for myself and others it could
Speaker 3: be incredibly clarifying. It's like, oh, hey, that's why this
Speaker 3: is such a hard decision, because I actually really care
Speaker 3: about both of those you know, sets of things. So
Speaker 3: an example of this would be a friend of mine
Speaker 3: came with a challenge she was having with a friend
Speaker 3: of hers and basically she could either help that front
Speaker 3: of the project, which she wanted to do because you know,
Speaker 3: she cares about her friends. She wants her friend to succeed,
Speaker 3: but in doing so, it would kind of be giving
Speaker 3: up on one of her own goals that she cares about.
Speaker 3: And it's like, oh, yeah, of course that's a hard
Speaker 3: decision because you genuinely really value both of the things.
Speaker 3: And then that doesn't mean that the decisions automatically made,
Speaker 3: but at least now you know it's at stake, you've
Speaker 3: really clearly identified it, and now you can say, well,
Speaker 3: in this particular case, which of these do value more?
Speaker 5: On the margin?
Speaker 1: How do you in your own life and in people
Speaker 1: that you're talking to, then go about trying to resolve
Speaker 1: that conflict, because even have to clarify and it's still like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, well.
Speaker 3: The first thing I like to try to do is say, hmm,
Speaker 3: could there be some third option that's missing that actually
Speaker 3: satisfied both sets of values at stake? Maybe there's not
Speaker 3: as much of a trade off as it seems, right,
Speaker 3: And we've actually done some research on this week. We've
Speaker 3: run a lot of psychology studies and we were building
Speaker 3: this tool called the Decision Advisor. It's a tool on
Speaker 3: our website where you can walk you through a difficult
Speaker 3: life decision. And in developing it, we ran some studies
Speaker 3: and one of those studies, we asked half of the
Speaker 3: people to just use the tool as normal, and we
Speaker 3: asked the other half to come up with an extra
Speaker 3: option for what they could do in their decision that
Speaker 3: they had never thought of before. Yep, And we just
Speaker 3: said you're not allowed to proceed until you've come up
Speaker 3: with more options, and something like. It was a small studies,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't generalize too much, but something like twenty or
Speaker 3: twenty five percent of the people ended up choosing that
Speaker 3: new option as their preferred one, And it just really
Speaker 3: got me thinking, Wow, we often just get stuck on
Speaker 3: our first two options we're considering.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I mean I talk about this in the
Speaker 1: Spiritual Habits program, but I talk about two scenarios in
Speaker 1: my life where a third option was the right choice.
Speaker 1: In the first was when I wanted to start a
Speaker 1: solar energy company, but I still worked full time in
Speaker 1: the software business, and I felt like my options were
Speaker 1: either start the solar energy company or give up that
Speaker 1: dream and stay in the software business. Right, Neither of
Speaker 1: those choices felt palatable to me, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: the third way was like, Okay, I'm gonna just have
Speaker 1: to find a way to kind of do both, which
Speaker 1: is going to have its own set of sacrifices and challenges,
Speaker 1: but it was a path forward for me, whereas before
Speaker 1: that I got stuck in that dichotomy in that apparent
Speaker 1: only one or two choices, and always defaulted to the
Speaker 1: choice that there was the most pressure on me to do,
Speaker 1: which was to sort of stay in the job, right,
Speaker 1: But then the other thing was in a really difficult marriage.
Speaker 1: I was so fixated on go or stay, go or
Speaker 1: stay what we eventually did and I don't have the
Speaker 1: foggy st idea quite how we got here. I feel
Speaker 1: extraordinarily fortunate. We got to a point where we said,
Speaker 1: you know what, we value the home we have for
Speaker 1: our kids, her son and my son. We're you know,
Speaker 1: we value this home there in high school, and we
Speaker 1: want them to get through high school. So we're going
Speaker 1: to remain as a family unit, but we're not going
Speaker 1: to be a couple anymore.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying everybody can do that, right, but
Speaker 1: we were able to and it turned out to be
Speaker 1: an incredible solution that got me out of the stay
Speaker 1: or go which we had been mired in for years
Speaker 1: because we didn't see that there was any other option.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's such a good example, because I think we
Speaker 3: have most peop wouldn't even consider that because it's so standard,
Speaker 3: like you're either with the person that you're now with verson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it turned out great.
Speaker 1: We got the kids through high school and everybody did well,
Speaker 1: and then we completely separated and went on with our
Speaker 1: lives and the boys are good.
Speaker 2: We're good again. I don't quite know how we made
Speaker 2: that happen.
Speaker 1: It feels very fortunate, but it was a way of
Speaker 1: getting out of what had been a very stuck place
Speaker 1: for a number of years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so coming up with a third option. Obviously
Speaker 3: that can be a great approach, and I think people
Speaker 3: under use it. But another interesting approach is that you
Speaker 3: could say, well, in this particular case, maybe I will
Speaker 3: sacrifice some of one of my values for another, but
Speaker 3: there's a larger game here. Maybe I can promote that
Speaker 3: other value in a different way in my life. Right,
Speaker 3: So you can kind of view it as part of
Speaker 3: a bigger picture. It's not just you know, this is
Speaker 3: the only decision in my life, right Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: As I was looking through your writings on valueism in
Speaker 1: this conflict, that was one of the things that struck
Speaker 1: me was, you know, taking a longer view of it,
Speaker 1: because in the moment, there may not be a resolution
Speaker 1: right here, there may be a resolution down the road,
Speaker 1: you know. So for me, eventually the problem went away
Speaker 1: between solar company and job or podcasting job where you know,
Speaker 1: for now it's the podcast and I can do that
Speaker 1: full time. That went away, but it took a while
Speaker 1: of doing that sort of third thing.
Speaker 2: So one of the things.
Speaker 1: I admire about the work that you do is you
Speaker 1: are very good at categorizing things. We were talking about
Speaker 1: this before the interview. You've choosen to take this applied
Speaker 1: mathematics background PhD and apply it to psychology and so
Speaker 1: on the topic of values. You know, you've got your
Speaker 1: Intrinsic Values test. There's a lot of different ways that
Speaker 1: people propose going about finding out.
Speaker 2: What your values are.
Speaker 1: Did you, when you create that test, go out and
Speaker 1: look at a lot of the different ways that people
Speaker 1: do and kind of try and boil it down. You know,
Speaker 1: what's salient about trying to figure out our values because
Speaker 1: there are lots of different ways in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we started that project looking at the ways
Speaker 3: that values have been categorized before. So we looked at
Speaker 3: the way philosophers have categorism because they think about them
Speaker 3: with regard to ethics.
Speaker 5: We looked at the way political scientists had done it.
Speaker 3: They think about it in terms of different countries have
Speaker 3: different values that they tend to promote. We looked at
Speaker 3: how even human resources and career counselors categorize them because
Speaker 3: they want to think, well, what job would you be
Speaker 3: appropriate for based on what you care about.
Speaker 5: So we looked at all of.
Speaker 3: These we kind of tried to merge them together, and
Speaker 3: then we ran our own study. And the way it
Speaker 3: worked is we put people through a little mini module
Speaker 3: that explained to them what is an intrinsic value? Has
Speaker 3: it different from instrumental value? And then we said, okay,
Speaker 3: just generate some of your values, just write them down,
Speaker 3: and then we went through and we ended up with
Speaker 3: like three thousand and we duplicated them. So we tried
Speaker 3: to find ones that were unique, and then we started
Speaker 3: to trying to categorize them and say, well, how many
Speaker 3: different categories of them are there? And we came up
Speaker 3: with twenty two categories.
Speaker 5: So it's a lot.
Speaker 3: It's a little it's hard, you know, it's not the
Speaker 3: certain thing you can just say, you know in the
Speaker 3: sound by, but yeah, so we have twenty two categories
Speaker 3: and everything from caring about like longevity, like living a
Speaker 3: long time, to pleasure, to justice, to quality and so on.
Speaker 3: So there really are a lot of things that the
Speaker 3: humans value. And it really helped me appreciate just what
Speaker 3: a wide range of different sorts of people there are
Speaker 3: in the world, because for any one of these there
Speaker 3: are people well that is their big, most dominant value.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got a values wheel on the website, and
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like there were twenty two categories.
Speaker 5: There are There are twenty two on there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was twenty two values, but you actually then
Speaker 1: further categorize them into like preserve or ah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so we do like a hierarchical categorization. So
Speaker 3: I think if I call correctly, there's sort of four
Speaker 3: meta level categories. Yeah, then there's twenty two categories, and
Speaker 3: then in each category there can be multiple different in
Speaker 3: terms of values, like take the value of longevity. You
Speaker 3: might care about yourself living a long time, but you
Speaker 3: also might care about your loved one's living a long time,
Speaker 3: and so on, so you can apply that value to
Speaker 3: different things.
Speaker 1: This happens to me every time I try and do
Speaker 1: values is I get a really big list and this
Speaker 1: is entirely coherent with my personality. Like if you ask
Speaker 1: me to take any test, I just tend to fall
Speaker 1: right in the middle, Like it just seems to be
Speaker 1: I encompass a lot of different things, and so longevity
Speaker 1: came up as one for me. But then I started
Speaker 1: thinking that that can.
Speaker 2: Be an intrinsic value.
Speaker 1: But I started reflecting on what about longevity feels important?
Speaker 1: Is the chance to experience more pleasure? Right, which would
Speaker 1: then be back to sort of the value of pleasure
Speaker 1: is it to relieve more suffering in the world.
Speaker 2: Well, in that case, it's more so.
Speaker 1: Even thinking about it in that way caused me to
Speaker 1: sort of dial deeper into even what is an intrinsic value,
Speaker 1: to try and understand a little bit more about what
Speaker 1: about that feels important.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great point because while longevity might be
Speaker 3: an intrinsic value for some people, it might be instrumental
Speaker 3: for others. Yes, like they only care about because it
Speaker 3: gets some more pleasure. Well, that's not intrinsic. It just
Speaker 3: a means to an ad to get pleasure, So then
Speaker 3: pleasure would be the intrinsic value. It can be tricky
Speaker 3: to think about the difference between what our own instrumental
Speaker 3: values are versus intrinsic, because that's not the way our
Speaker 3: brand naturally codes them. And there's this idea that I
Speaker 3: like to think of a value trap, which is when
Speaker 3: you pursue an instrumental value as though it's an intrinsic value.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Class example, someone just pursuing money mindlessly because it was
Speaker 3: sort of rewarding, and they thought of it as like
Speaker 3: how they get ahead and so on, and they pursue
Speaker 3: it way past the point where it's like giving them
Speaker 3: the things they care about because now they're wealthy, but
Speaker 3: their family life is shit and they have no friends,
Speaker 3: and you know whatever, all these other parts of their
Speaker 3: life are not working the way they would want.
Speaker 5: So I think that is useful clarification.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think you're pointing to something there which is interesting,
Speaker 1: which is we often get our values sort of I
Speaker 1: don't want to say set, because it's not even that conscious,
Speaker 1: but that we sort of get on a track and
Speaker 1: we just sort of stay on that track, you know.
Speaker 1: Living a values based life, or valueism, as you say,
Speaker 1: I think does take a certain amount of consistent and
Speaker 1: ongoing reflection about what really matters.
Speaker 2: Do you find that true for you?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I think it does take a lot of
Speaker 3: reflections really parse out your values. We created the Interesstic
Speaker 3: values test to try to make a bit easier, but yeah,
Speaker 3: reflection is definitely a big part of it. And you
Speaker 3: can get into subtle situations like hmm, but do I
Speaker 3: really care about that thing, like you were dealing with longevity.
Speaker 3: Do I really care about longevity or just do I
Speaker 3: just cared about as it means to an end? Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's no way around it. I think a lot of
Speaker 3: self understanding can only happen through this kind of deep reflection.
Speaker 2: Do you think that values change over time?
Speaker 3: I think they can shift. So sometimes they shift you
Speaker 3: to change about our beliefs. So for example, someone who's
Speaker 3: deeply spiritual, let's say they one day become an atheist,
Speaker 3: Like that can cause a sudden change in their values
Speaker 3: because they had different beliefs about the nature of reality.
Speaker 3: So sometimes that caused it. Sometimes I think that social
Speaker 3: forces can change our values kind of slowly over time.
Speaker 3: So let's say you were like isolated on a desert
Speaker 3: island with people who all, like you know, deeply cared
Speaker 3: about equality, and that was like the one thing they
Speaker 3: all cared about. Maybe after ten years maybe you would
Speaker 3: find that had seeped into your value SYSM, even if
Speaker 3: you didn't start caring about equality. So I suspect that
Speaker 3: we kind of like will observe them, and when we're young,
Speaker 3: we observe them a lot. I think as we get older,
Speaker 3: we become more previous to other people's values.
Speaker 1: But why do you think that is? You know, why
Speaker 1: do you think as we get older? Sort of the
Speaker 1: term I often use is calcify, which is one of
Speaker 1: the things about getting older that I feel to talk
Speaker 1: about values feels important to me, which is to not
Speaker 1: sort of calcify, to remain in a state where life
Speaker 1: can influence and change me and that I can evolve.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean that's something I care about deeply
Speaker 3: as well. And actually one of the more common intrinsic
Speaker 3: values we found when we survey people is values around
Speaker 3: continuing to learn and grow. Like that is really common
Speaker 3: in the US, especially as a value. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think I go back to biology and evolution here. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think evolutionarily, you know, if you're a baby, there's
Speaker 3: just an incredible amount of stuff you need to learn
Speaker 3: in order to not die. And then as you get
Speaker 3: more and more of that knowledge. There's less incremental value
Speaker 3: in learning relative to doing stuff in the world, and
Speaker 3: so we, you know, go from a baby that's learning
Speaker 3: constantly and doing almost nothing to a child who's, you know,
Speaker 3: learning a lot and doing a little bit, and then
Speaker 3: eventually we're an adult who's learning a little bit and
Speaker 3: doing a lot. And you know, from the point of
Speaker 3: view of the survival regienes that probably makes sense. But
Speaker 3: from our personal fulfillment, I think there's a great deal
Speaker 3: of value in continuing to learn and ground not necessarily
Speaker 3: changing our values. I don't think that's something you should
Speaker 3: purposely trying to do. But in terms of learning about
Speaker 3: the world, learning about yourself, like deeping yourself understanding Sean.
Speaker 1: Yep, I heard somebody want say, and I'm just curious
Speaker 1: what you think of this general idea. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to attribute it to anyone because I think I know
Speaker 1: who said it. But I'm not going to attribute it
Speaker 1: because I'm not sure said basically like self development is
Speaker 1: about learning to want better things. I think I can
Speaker 1: interpret it on a couple levels. On the level that
Speaker 1: we've been talking about, I think it means that I'm
Speaker 1: getting clearer on what my real values are, and I'm
Speaker 1: seeing through the values trap, I'm seeing the conflicts. I'm
Speaker 1: reflecting more deeply on what really matters. I'm not on autopilot, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not grasping for what's the most easy and satisfying thing,
Speaker 1: necessarily so that over time I'm beginning to, you know,
Speaker 1: want better things. So like for me with addiction, right,
Speaker 1: it was that process of going from well I want
Speaker 1: heroin to what do I really want?
Speaker 2: And then you know, trying to aim at that what
Speaker 2: do you Yeah.
Speaker 5: It's interesting.
Speaker 3: I don't like the phrasing want better things because I
Speaker 3: worry people get confused and think, oh, want better things,
Speaker 3: like I want the highest things in life or the
Speaker 3: you know, I want the fancy things or something.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I think that they would mean it more
Speaker 1: along a more moral, deeper sense of things.
Speaker 3: Right, you want the sort of things that you more
Speaker 3: fundamentally care about, not the things you kind of superficially
Speaker 3: care about. Yeah, And from that point of view, I
Speaker 3: think that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: One thing we haven't touched on, which I think is
Speaker 3: quite interesting is the difference between values and principles. And
Speaker 3: I've been thinking about this recently because We actually for
Speaker 3: our website clear thing dot org, we made a new
Speaker 3: module you can explore your principles.
Speaker 2: Ah. I would love to hear the difference.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so I think of it as a principle
Speaker 3: is like a rule of thumb, or like a decision
Speaker 3: making strategy. Okay, where's the intrinsic values? Are like the
Speaker 3: thing that you're ultimately seeking? Okay, right, for exam One
Speaker 3: thing that I might be, you know, fundamentally seeking is
Speaker 3: like helping people, and a strategy to do that might
Speaker 3: be that I always tell the truth or something like that. Right,
Speaker 3: So the principle would be always tell the truth. It's
Speaker 3: like a heuristic, but there's an intrinsic value I'm trying
Speaker 3: to get under that, which is like trying to help
Speaker 3: people not harm them or something like that. So I
Speaker 3: think it's interesting thinking about what principles you have. Essentially,
Speaker 3: there are things you've predecided, right, so you could go
Speaker 3: about your life and every decision you could, like from
Speaker 3: first principles, try to.
Speaker 5: Figure out what am I going to do?
Speaker 3: But it's a lot easier if you sort of have
Speaker 3: a preset set of principles that are like, ah, well,
Speaker 3: these are rules of thumb how I live my life,
Speaker 3: and so some examples which I think can help clarify.
Speaker 3: You know, one principle I have is that in so
Speaker 3: far as I'm able, I should always be trying to
Speaker 3: help the world, right, And so that's just like something
Speaker 3: that I'm like, that's just the life principle I try
Speaker 3: to live by it. Or another example would be that
Speaker 3: I try to always tell the truth unless I think
Speaker 3: that it's going to bump up against my other values
Speaker 3: too much, right like, because you know, I don't infinitely
Speaker 3: care about the truth. At some point it would destroy
Speaker 3: my other values too much. But in so far as
Speaker 3: it's not bumba al ma against other values, I always
Speaker 3: try to help truth. So I'm curious if you have
Speaker 3: other sort of principles that you try to live by,
Speaker 3: sort of rules of thumb for a living.
Speaker 1: That's interesting because I don't think up till now I
Speaker 1: made that distinction. I would have thought of principles and
Speaker 1: values as sort of two ways of saying the same thing.
Speaker 1: But interestingly, like so a principle I generally live by
Speaker 1: is it sounds so kindergarteners, But I try and leave
Speaker 1: each situation, person, or place that I encounter better than
Speaker 1: when I found it. It's a great principle, you know,
Speaker 1: And there's almost always some way to at least make
Speaker 1: that attempt. I don't think it always happens, like have
Speaker 1: I made Gotham Production Studios better for being in this week?
Speaker 1: I've been friendly, I've been kind, you know. Did I
Speaker 1: make it better? I don't know, but I tried, you know,
Speaker 1: I was oriented in that way. I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: of other principles that's really interesting, Other rules of thumb.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're essentially decision making strategies, so that rather
Speaker 3: than have to deal with all the details and complexity,
Speaker 3: you can just say, well, my principles do this, so
Speaker 3: they allow you to make your decisions faster.
Speaker 5: But they also actually can often.
Speaker 3: Make it easier to live by your values. So, for example,
Speaker 3: if you have a principle like don't lie, then well
Speaker 3: that's going to support your value of like honesty, right,
Speaker 3: And then when you're in a situation.
Speaker 5: You're like, hm, try lie, No, I don't lie, that's right.
Speaker 3: Right, So you're you're trying to predecide so that temptation
Speaker 3: and all these other factors don't push you over into
Speaker 3: doing something that's not aligned with values.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So values are you know, we spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time talking about it, and that living according to your
Speaker 1: values is really important. And the way that we live
Speaker 1: out many things in our life is through our behavior, right,
Speaker 1: And so oftentimes we may have a value that we
Speaker 1: haven't yet figured out how to live into. I may
Speaker 1: value physical health, but I haven't figured out how to
Speaker 1: exercise regularly. Right. So that sort of leads us into
Speaker 1: another air that you and I both are really interested in,
Speaker 1: which is behavior change. Talk to me about what got
Speaker 1: you interested in behavior change?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So as I thought about the kind of effects
Speaker 3: someone to have in the world, like the kind of
Speaker 3: values I have of trying to increase happiness or do suffering,
Speaker 3: I started to realize that so many of those values.
Speaker 5: Actually have to do with behavior.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: Whether it's mental health, which is something that I've worked in,
Speaker 3: or it's reducing cognitive biases and irrationality, so many of
Speaker 3: these things are actually fundamentally behavioral. And then I started thinking, well,
Speaker 3: changing human behavior that's really hard. People you know want
Speaker 3: to go to the gym and then they don't do it.
Speaker 3: People you know want to spend more time with their
Speaker 3: family and then they don't do it and so on.
Speaker 3: So many challenges we face in our life are because
Speaker 3: we can't get ourselves BacT the way we want to act.
Speaker 3: So then I started really systematically investigating this, and so
Speaker 3: we ended up looking at sixteen different behavior change frameworks
Speaker 3: they are out there, studied them, tried to really understand them,
Speaker 3: and then we said, okay, where do we see a
Speaker 3: gap here?
Speaker 5: And what we realized is that.
Speaker 3: We tended to find a few different types of behavior
Speaker 3: change frameworks out there. They're really simplified ones which can
Speaker 3: be really useful to provide some basic guidelines, but they're
Speaker 3: not trying to be comprehensive. So the Hook framework would
Speaker 3: be an example of this. So the idea that like,
Speaker 3: you know, you're trying to make a behavior change, well,
Speaker 3: here's two things to keep in mind, or here's three
Speaker 3: things to keep in mind.
Speaker 5: Right, So that's on the one hand.
Speaker 3: The other hand, we found these academic frameworks that are
Speaker 3: much more comprehensive, but.
Speaker 5: They're hard to apply on the step by step out yes, right,
Speaker 5: so it's like, how do you use this?
Speaker 3: So we wanted to do is try to create a
Speaker 3: framework that was comprehensive, so all behavior change strategies can
Speaker 3: fit in it somewhere, but also gives a step by
Speaker 3: step process that you can go through. And so we
Speaker 3: create this framework we call the Ten Conditions for Change.
Speaker 3: You can find on our website, but basically the general
Speaker 3: idea is it's trying to identify ten conditions where if
Speaker 3: they're all met, a behavior change is very likely to occur.
Speaker 3: So you know, you get the ten the conditions in place,
Speaker 3: the behavior change is likely. What what that means is if
Speaker 3: the behavior change is not happening, so the person is
Speaker 3: not engaging in that behavior, then one or more of
Speaker 3: the conditions it's not met.
Speaker 5: Therefore you can go kind.
Speaker 3: Of use it as a diagnostic diagnostic exactly, you go
Speaker 3: through and you try to pinpoint well which the conditions
Speaker 3: are not matt So that's what I say, concept.
Speaker 1: YEA, hold that for a second. I want to jump
Speaker 1: back to something you just said a minute ago, which
Speaker 1: was that your values around increasing happiness and reducing suffering
Speaker 1: do you see those as the same thing?
Speaker 3: You know? I don't necessarily. I think that some people
Speaker 3: care a lot more about reducing suffering. For example, they
Speaker 3: view it as very charitable to try to help alleviate
Speaker 3: pain and people who have disabilities, right, But they wouldn't
Speaker 3: necessarily view it as, you know, that important to take
Speaker 3: people who are like neutral and make them really happy.
Speaker 3: They just view it as a Yeah, that's not as
Speaker 3: motivating for me. I think I'm genuinely motivated by both.
Speaker 3: I'm really motivated by like, when someone suffering, it's really bad,
Speaker 3: and I think it's really good to help them not suffer.
Speaker 3: But I also am really motivated by Okay, someone's doing okay,
Speaker 3: but they could be really joyful, and that's really inspiring
Speaker 3: to me too. So I think I care about both
Speaker 3: of those things, and not everyone does. Sometimes people just
Speaker 3: care about one more than the other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting, I would have said. Earlier in my life,
Speaker 1: I was more on the reducing suffering side, having been
Speaker 1: an addict, that was where I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: my early time was with other people who were sort
Speaker 1: of at the low levels of human functioning, you know,
Speaker 1: life sort of burned to the ground, you know. But
Speaker 1: then as I've gotten healthier, you know, I've started to
Speaker 1: broaden that to also like, Okay, well how do we
Speaker 1: also increase happiness? So, like you, I feel like I
Speaker 1: value them both. I've tried to tweeze a part so
Speaker 1: I value one more than the other, and I end
Speaker 1: up sort of in a place where I'm like, I
Speaker 1: think I value them fairly equally.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there really are just a huge number of people
Speaker 3: who are doing okay, but they're not flourishing yep. And
Speaker 3: that seems to me like a very important problem. I mean,
Speaker 3: I was saying it's more important than preventing basic disease
Speaker 3: or poverty or you know, really bad things that are
Speaker 3: causing on of suffering.
Speaker 5: I don't think it's more important that, but I do
Speaker 5: think it's important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to ask a more fundamental question about
Speaker 1: behavior change and tie it back to values. We said
Speaker 1: that one of the things that can be problematic is
Speaker 1: when our values are kind of in conflict with each other.
Speaker 1: So I value health and going to the gym, but
Speaker 1: I also value the time I spend with my kids
Speaker 1: in the morning. So in your framework for behavior change,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming there's a way of recognizing that tension between
Speaker 1: values and trying to figure out which you want to prioritize.
Speaker 3: So we approach behavior change in the framework not starting
Speaker 3: with values, but starting with the behavior right. So it's
Speaker 3: sort of like, Okay, you've decided that this behavior is
Speaker 3: good according to your values, you'll be better off living
Speaker 3: with it, now what right. So that's sort of the
Speaker 3: starting point. I think of it as like sort of
Speaker 3: coming in stages. There's like okay, figuring out what you value,
Speaker 3: and then figuring out what you want to do based
Speaker 3: on what you value, and then getting yourself to do
Speaker 3: the thing, or you know, actually creating the behavior. And
Speaker 3: so this is sort of the latter step where it's
Speaker 3: like you figure out your values, you figure out what
Speaker 3: you want to do and how you want to behave
Speaker 3: based on the values, and now but you're not living
Speaker 3: up to them.
Speaker 5: Now we get into the behavior change component.
Speaker 1: When I look at your framework and I don't have
Speaker 1: it in front of me. There were in the early
Speaker 1: phases of it there was clarification around why this is
Speaker 1: important to me, right, and clarification around intention, which seems
Speaker 1: like it is a little bit of the reflection on values,
Speaker 1: because I do think that a lot of behavior change
Speaker 1: problems are competing commitment idea, which could be said competing
Speaker 1: value idea, And like we've said earlier, I think the
Speaker 1: more we can surface that the better off we are
Speaker 1: because they're often unstated, unknown, ununderstood, but they exert a
Speaker 1: tremendous pull.
Speaker 3: Right, And I think one of the points of tension
Speaker 3: here is that our framework can be used sort of
Speaker 3: a sidle level, like oh, how do we help people
Speaker 3: exercise more who want to exercise more? Or can be
Speaker 3: apply at the individual level. I think you're coming from
Speaker 3: more the individual level and self applied, but I also
Speaker 3: thinking keeping my mind of the societal level. It's like
Speaker 3: you're trying to create positive outcomes in society, but as
Speaker 3: you point out, values does come into it indirectly because
Speaker 3: if we kind of go through the beginning of the framework,
Speaker 3: the framework divides behavior change into three phases. The first
Speaker 3: phase is about the decision to engage in behavior. The
Speaker 3: second phase is about taking a series of actions over time,
Speaker 3: and the third phase about maintenance, like keeping up with
Speaker 3: the conditions and not letting them laps. In the decision phase,
Speaker 3: when you're deciding to engage in behavior, let's say you know,
Speaker 3: going to the gym five days a week. Let's say
Speaker 3: that's the behavior in question, the first condition is have
Speaker 3: you considered it?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: If you've literally never considered going to gym, you're almost
Speaker 3: certainly not going to do it right right. The second condition, though,
Speaker 3: is desiring it, and that's where now you're starting to
Speaker 3: get values coming into play. If you don't desire to
Speaker 3: go to the GM, you, of course you're not going
Speaker 3: to do it, okay, But well what kinds of desire
Speaker 3: are there? And now we unpack that into two types
Speaker 3: of desire. We've got intuitive desire like I want to
Speaker 3: eat that cupcaate it looks delicious, and reflective desire like, oh,
Speaker 3: I've weighed the pros and cons and decided that I
Speaker 3: really should do this thing because it's good for me.
Speaker 3: And so that's where a lot of the value stuff
Speaker 3: will come into that second condition of the desire's condition.
Speaker 3: So an example why someone go to the gym is
Speaker 3: that they actually just don't desire it, and then there'd
Speaker 3: be an exploration there of like, well, but do you
Speaker 3: desire being healthy? And you know, you could start to
Speaker 3: unpack that and like and reflect on that, and it's like, well,
Speaker 3: maybe if you really desire being healthy and you also
Speaker 3: believe that going to the gym will make you healthy,
Speaker 3: and you won't be healthy otherwise, Like any of that
Speaker 3: could stoke that desire, and now you have.
Speaker 5: A desire to go to the gym.
Speaker 1: Yep, And I think that, you know, for me, part
Speaker 1: of maintenance particularly and I'm jumping ahead to maintenance a
Speaker 1: little bit of a behavior though, is is there a
Speaker 1: way to shift that from entirely reflective to also being
Speaker 1: sort of intuitive. So, for me, a huge shift in
Speaker 1: my ability to stay consistent with exercise was when I
Speaker 1: realized the very short term benefit of my own mental
Speaker 1: health and my moods. When I made that connection really solidly,
Speaker 1: exercise went from reflective it's good for me down the road,
Speaker 1: it's going to prevent these conditions, Da da dad, to
Speaker 1: intuitive I want to feel better now this actually works
Speaker 1: to do that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's such a great point.
Speaker 3: And so the way we think about this is you
Speaker 3: really need the desire condition to be met. There's the
Speaker 3: two types, intuitive or reflective. It's really best to have both, right,
Speaker 3: That's that's the best.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So an example is, if you're going to go exercise
Speaker 3: and you don't like going to the gym, pick a
Speaker 3: different type of exercise. Pick the type of exercise it
Speaker 3: gives you the most immediate reward. Yes, And also, you know,
Speaker 3: remind yourself that doesn't making you healthy. So you're going
Speaker 3: to spend time with your rank kids, right? You want those?
Speaker 3: You want both the reflection pulling on it and the
Speaker 3: intuition pulling on it, because with just a reflection, well
Speaker 3: maybe I don't feel like going to the gym today,
Speaker 3: and it's you know, maybe you're just not going to
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of psychological studies and I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be able to quote them or reference them.
Speaker 1: And maybe you've heard of this or maybe you haven't,
Speaker 1: but I've always wondered about them ever since I heard them,
Speaker 1: which was that multiple motivations in doing something could actually
Speaker 1: weaken your overall desire to do it, and that has
Speaker 1: always felt deeply.
Speaker 2: Counterintuitive to me. What do you think about that?
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of that sort of research? And
Speaker 1: if so, what do you think? And if not, what
Speaker 1: do you think?
Speaker 3: Well, so it does remind me of something I think
Speaker 3: is true, which is that if someone's trying to convince
Speaker 3: you of something and they give you like the ten
Speaker 3: reasons why they're right and you should do this thing,
Speaker 3: that cofa be weaker. Then if they just focus on
Speaker 3: sort of the two most perspective reasons and really having
Speaker 3: on those yep. So I think in an interpersonal communication
Speaker 3: we're talking about mother, they another person.
Speaker 1: But this is more internal. Their point was that if
Speaker 1: you suddenly go to the gym because it helps your
Speaker 1: mental health, it contributes to your long term health, it
Speaker 1: makes you look better. When you start layering those on
Speaker 1: top of each other, you actually end up with a
Speaker 1: weaker case than if you were just very solidly motivated
Speaker 1: by one thing. Again, to me, that's always felt deeply counterintuitive.
Speaker 3: So let's say you know you've got five reasons go
Speaker 3: to the gem. The first one is a ten out
Speaker 3: of ten, and the other ones are one out of
Speaker 3: ten importance. I don't think having those extra one and
Speaker 3: times is going to make you less likely the gem
Speaker 3: as long as you got the ten out of ten there.
Speaker 3: But if we're talking about comparing one ten out of
Speaker 3: ten versus you know, ten one out of ten, well
Speaker 3: maybe that one ten out of ten will get you
Speaker 3: the gem more. Yeah, so one really strong reason may
Speaker 3: be better than a lot of weak reasons. But I
Speaker 3: don't think adding extra week reasons is going to demotivate you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I've always just found that, like you said
Speaker 1: there's these two types of desires, right, I think that's
Speaker 1: the term you used, you know, the intuitive and reflective
Speaker 1: is I've just found that, like, on different days, I
Speaker 1: need to pull on different reasons. Like one day, it
Speaker 1: might be the fact that, like, for whatever reason, I've
Speaker 1: been to the doctor recently and I've seen my cholesterol levels,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I'm more motivated than I
Speaker 1: normally am by long term health. That's one that sort
Speaker 1: of drives me, and I can pull in that. And
Speaker 1: then there are other days where I'm like, well, it
Speaker 1: doesn't even seem to matter right now. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know it does, but I don't feel it. But knowing
Speaker 1: that I'll feel better in an hour does matter. And
Speaker 1: so I've always found having a menu of them more helpful.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 2: So there's the decisional.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe I was just mentioned the third condition,
Speaker 3: the third and file condition and the decision phase, which
Speaker 3: is intending to engage in the behavior. Yeah. And this
Speaker 3: was a really interesting one and it comes up I
Speaker 3: think a lot in addiction as well. So you might think, oh, well,
Speaker 3: if someone's considered a behavior change and they desire it,
Speaker 3: they're going to do it not so not so people
Speaker 3: often have considered something in desire but don't actually intend
Speaker 3: to do it, and you know why am I not?
Speaker 3: They intend, well, oh, I'm so busy right now, I'll
Speaker 3: get that next month, or I don't know where to start,
Speaker 3: and so they just never, you know, take that first step.
Speaker 3: So the attention part is when it goes from just
Speaker 3: an abstract idea to a concrete Oh, I'm going to
Speaker 3: start this on Monday, or I'm going to go to
Speaker 3: this particular Jim.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I often in talking with people about behavior change, you'll
Speaker 1: say you're not even at the point where you're procrastinating yet,
Speaker 1: because you haven't actually decided what you're going to do.
Speaker 1: Like to your point, you say that you want to
Speaker 1: exercise more, that that's a value, but we've gotten nowhere
Speaker 1: near an actual plan yet. So I wouldn't even say
Speaker 1: you're procrastinating on an activity because you're still in, as
Speaker 1: you would say, that intention setting phase where I get
Speaker 1: specific about what I'm actually going to do. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the things I find so helpful about that specificity,
Speaker 1: at least in the beginning of Monday morning, I'm doing this,
Speaker 1: and I'm doing it for this long. It pushes us
Speaker 1: to that point where we have to make an actual choice.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And on the negative side, in cases where a behavior
Speaker 3: is harmful, we could take suicide where people start to
Speaker 3: get really concerned when someone said that that's a suicide plan, right, right,
Speaker 3: It's like a lot of people have just thought about suicide.
Speaker 3: Almost everyone thought about it at some point. But what's
Speaker 3: scary is and someone's like, no, no, no, I have a
Speaker 3: plan to do it exactly.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna do it on Monday.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's when you really need to be concerned.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, So we get through the decisional phase. Now
Speaker 1: we're into the action phase.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: So now you've okay, decided you're going to go to
Speaker 3: the gym. You're gonna start on Monday and so on.
Speaker 3: Now you have to take a series of actions across time.
Speaker 3: You've got the gym membership. You gotta you know, go
Speaker 3: on Monday, you gotta go on Tuesday, you gotta go
Speaker 3: on Wednesday, and so on. And there's a whole bunch
Speaker 3: of conditions here that are important to meet to make
Speaker 3: the behavior change likely. And so the first is you
Speaker 3: have to remember to do the action. Very simple but
Speaker 3: if you literally Monday comes around, you literally don't think
Speaker 3: about going to the gym. You know, you're not going
Speaker 3: to go the problem of forgetting exactly, and that's a
Speaker 3: really common problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Fortunately there really simple solutions, everything from get a buddy
Speaker 3: who's also going and then you're not going to forget,
Speaker 3: you know, or they're going to call you like where
Speaker 3: are you? You know, write a reminder to yourself on
Speaker 3: your ticket, on your you know, computer, set up an
Speaker 3: alarm and so on. So a lot of like very
Speaker 3: basic strategies, but often these can actually increase compliance even
Speaker 3: though they're so basic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think they definitely do. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: curious what you think about when you're trying to So
Speaker 1: this isn't exactly behavior change.
Speaker 2: This is where it's sort of morphs. But let's say
Speaker 2: that what you want is to be more self compassionate
Speaker 2: towards yourself. Right. It's funny.
Speaker 3: I was we're making a self compassion module and I
Speaker 3: was literally just at this morning sky very top of mind. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so you know, in the Spiritual Habits program,
Speaker 1: what I talk about is basically what you're saying here,
Speaker 1: we need some sort of trigger to actually remember to
Speaker 1: be self compassion Now, the ideal trigger is sort of
Speaker 1: what I would refer to as like an emotional trigger, right, Like,
Speaker 1: when I find myself being hard on myself, I remember
Speaker 1: to be self compassionate. But that feels like a more
Speaker 1: advanced one, right. Whereas if every time I go in
Speaker 1: the kitchen for the next two weeks I reflect on
Speaker 1: self compassion, it's more likely that it's going to be
Speaker 1: top of mind when I kind of need it. So
Speaker 1: it's a way of sort of trying to thread ideas
Speaker 1: or reflections into our day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's a it's a really interesting point. So
Speaker 3: it reminds me of this idea of implementation and tentions, yep,
Speaker 3: which is so the concept is you're making a plan
Speaker 3: that when a certain thing occurs, you're going to take
Speaker 3: a certain action. So yeah, the next time I, you know,
Speaker 3: being hard on myself, I'm going to then think the
Speaker 3: following thought that you know, you.
Speaker 5: Are a worthwhile person or whatever.
Speaker 3: Right, And there been a lot of studies on them
Speaker 3: that found them helpful, but as you point out, they
Speaker 3: can be quite difficult to create. So we ran a
Speaker 3: study where what we did is we had people pick
Speaker 3: an object in their home environment yep, like a mirror
Speaker 3: or something like that. And then whenever they pass that thing,
Speaker 3: they would have to take a certain action so they
Speaker 3: be mindful or have gratitude.
Speaker 5: And actually we study them for three days.
Speaker 3: We found that people actually were happier after three days
Speaker 3: of doing this, yeah, relative to a control group that
Speaker 3: was just as to kind of count how many times.
Speaker 5: They saw that object.
Speaker 3: And so, yeah, I think this really can work as
Speaker 3: a basic starter plan yep. And then as you say,
Speaker 3: you can do more advanced ones that are more situational.
Speaker 1: Right, because I think ultimately what we want is i'll
Speaker 1: call an emotional based trigger. You might have a more
Speaker 1: precise word for it than that, And we almost always
Speaker 1: have them. They just tend to be for the negative,
Speaker 1: and they tend to be unconscious. When I get bored,
Speaker 1: I grab my phone. You know, there's an unspoken implementation
Speaker 1: and tension in there that generally leads us in a
Speaker 1: direction we don't want to go. And so I think
Speaker 1: it's learning to catch that moment board and then how
Speaker 1: actually do I want to respond when I feel that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this actually speaks to another important point
Speaker 3: we haven't touched on, which is that it's often easier
Speaker 3: to replace a habit than to just erase something.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So it's like, if you find that you're, you know,
Speaker 3: engaging in an unhealthy habit, like constantly checking social media even
Speaker 3: though it's not bringing you joy, it's like, well, maybe
Speaker 3: you can't get yourself to stop, but can you replace
Speaker 3: that with something like right, oh, next time you have
Speaker 3: a really strong temptation to do go pay your dog,
Speaker 3: you know, or go take a walk outside. That's often
Speaker 3: actually a more effective strategy.
Speaker 1: Certainly, you know, with addiction, that is a big piece
Speaker 1: of what we have to learn to do, right, because
Speaker 1: the trigger isn't going to go away, at least not
Speaker 1: for a while, right, The trigger of I want a
Speaker 1: drink is just going to continue to return for a while.
Speaker 2: So it's what do I do? Then?
Speaker 1: You know, what action do I take that's not a drink?
Speaker 1: And having thought those out in advance is a really
Speaker 1: good strategy because oftentimes what I find, and I'd be
Speaker 1: curious your thought on this, is that when those things arrive,
Speaker 1: our emotional activation levels tend to be fairly high, and
Speaker 1: our ability to cognitively think, well what should I do now? Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this, and then I thought I
Speaker 1: was going to do that, like we almost just need
Speaker 1: like that implementation instruction of very simple when this, then.
Speaker 3: That absolutely And it's also ideal if that new behavior
Speaker 3: satisfies the same goal as the original behavior. Right, So
Speaker 3: if you're trying to avoid boredom, then whatever you're replacing
Speaker 3: that with should avoid boredom.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Otherwise you're just kind of forcing something but it's not
Speaker 3: actually hitting the underlying need.
Speaker 1: We're getting near the end of time, so I'd like
Speaker 1: to maybe move to the end of your framework, which
Speaker 1: is maintained, because this is a phase I'm really interested
Speaker 1: in because for some people, getting started is really hard,
Speaker 1: and there are lots of ways to do that, and
Speaker 1: I actually find that an easier problem to solve with
Speaker 1: clients that I've worked with, like getting started, the long
Speaker 1: term maintenance seems to often be the challenge. What have
Speaker 1: you found and codified into your framework that helps us
Speaker 1: do that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that we think about this is that each
Speaker 3: of those ten conditions, and we've gone through a few
Speaker 3: of them, but you know there's ten in total, they
Speaker 3: can disappear so they can be met and then.
Speaker 5: Stop being met.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so the analysis I do is I think about, well,
Speaker 3: which of these is most likely to stop being met?
Speaker 5: Is it that you're gonna.
Speaker 3: You were remembering to go to gym, but then you're
Speaker 3: gonna start forgetting because you move somewhere else now your
Speaker 3: schedule is all different. Or is it that you used
Speaker 3: to desire the thing, but you actually lost the desire
Speaker 3: and you need to reconnect with the same reason that
Speaker 3: you care about it.
Speaker 5: And so that's the lens source.
Speaker 3: I do the analysis of which condition is going to
Speaker 3: fall away, and then how do we boost that back
Speaker 3: up to make sure that doesn't disappear.
Speaker 1: That's interesting because, as I recall, from the trans theoretical
Speaker 1: model of behavior change, there was an idea that you
Speaker 1: do the actions that are right for the category, you know,
Speaker 1: the stage that you're in. And I felt like, at
Speaker 1: least what I took from it, and you've probably read
Speaker 1: it much more closely than I have, given your nature,
Speaker 1: was that like, at a certain point you aren't stoking motivation,
Speaker 1: you know, but it sounds like you're saying all of
Speaker 1: these ten things need to be kind of up to date.
Speaker 5: It's a really good point.
Speaker 3: What can happen over time is certain of them can
Speaker 3: become unnecessary because of, for example, habit, let's say brushing
Speaker 3: your teeth.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: You know maybe when you're a child, like your mother
Speaker 3: needs to remind your father needs to remind you to
Speaker 3: brush your teeth. But then once you've done it like
Speaker 3: a hundred times, now you're just like doing it without
Speaker 3: thinking about it. So the memory thing is no longer
Speaker 3: a problem, right, because it just gets locked in place.
Speaker 3: So some of them will get locked in place, but
Speaker 3: other things could then disrupt that. So you know, maybe
Speaker 3: with toothbrushing, that's not gonna be a problem. But suppose
Speaker 3: you had an oral surgery and you weren't able to
Speaker 3: brush your teeth for three weeks m h. And then
Speaker 3: it's like, oh, haven't brush my teeth in three weeks?
Speaker 3: Maybe you actually will now need to like actually remember again.
Speaker 5: Which you haven't done since childhood. Right.
Speaker 1: You know where I find so many people and myself too,
Speaker 1: get off track is when something significant change. We're going
Speaker 1: along great with my daily exercise habit or my daily
Speaker 1: meditation habit or whatever it is, and then I go
Speaker 1: on vacation and when I come back, it's like, well, it.
Speaker 2: Seems to have just sort of faded away.
Speaker 1: You know, or the school year starts, or any number
Speaker 1: of different things. And there's certain ideas around behavior change
Speaker 1: that I think get oversimplified into pick the thing you're
Speaker 1: going to do, get specific about when what you're going
Speaker 1: to do, and then just stay with it, right, But
Speaker 1: I think that ignores the complexity of most people's lives.
Speaker 3: Right, And the reality is that forming habits is a
Speaker 3: never ending thing we have to do because our habits
Speaker 3: always will get eventually disrupted, whether you have kids, or
Speaker 3: you move, or you change jobs, your schedule changes. So
Speaker 3: it's like the skill of recreating the habit is actually
Speaker 3: incredibly important. You're never going to just get it once
Speaker 3: and be done for life, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think part of the reason that habits is such
Speaker 1: an alluring thing to people is they feel like they
Speaker 1: could just make this thing automatic and never have to
Speaker 1: think about it again. And I've found that for most
Speaker 1: complex behaviors, things that take a significant amount of time
Speaker 1: or energy, like going to the gym, that like you said,
Speaker 1: it's more a matter of a constant recreation than it
Speaker 1: is like you just get this thing locked in and
Speaker 1: it's not a problem. Now, there does seem to be
Speaker 1: something of momentum right there does seem to be something
Speaker 1: like when I've been going to the gym pretty much
Speaker 1: every day, it's much easier to go than it is
Speaker 1: if I haven't been going at all. But I wouldn't
Speaker 1: go so far as to say it's exactly a habit,
Speaker 1: particularly if it has to be very varied. You know,
Speaker 1: I travel enough with different things that like nothing ever
Speaker 1: gets baked into stone enough that it's just like, I mean,
Speaker 1: besides brushing my teeth, you know, maybe as an example,
Speaker 1: all the rest of it, I kind of have to
Speaker 1: keep figuring out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's such a good point. I totally agree.
Speaker 1: So is there anything else from your ten conditions for
Speaker 1: change that you feel like we might want to hit
Speaker 1: with our last couple minutes here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, just to kind of give an overview of
Speaker 3: the way I think about it, Basically, you've got this
Speaker 3: decision phase, action phase, and the maintenance phase, and then
Speaker 3: in any given behavior change situation for any given person,
Speaker 3: which conditions are going to be the key ones are
Speaker 3: going to differ. So the thing that I would ask
Speaker 3: people to reflect on is like, for you, what's mostly
Speaker 3: to get you to not engage the behavior or to
Speaker 3: stop and I think that a thing that can often
Speaker 3: happen is people try to take a one size fits
Speaker 3: all approach, right, But the reality is like one person
Speaker 3: may have no trouble remembering to do the thing, but
Speaker 3: they find that they lose motivation. And another person may
Speaker 3: be really motivated, but they literally are just forgetful, and
Speaker 3: they just keep forgetting and it's like the strategy is
Speaker 3: going to be really different. So I would just ask
Speaker 3: for your own behavior change, what do you find the
Speaker 3: most difficult, and then that's the stuff you need to
Speaker 3: build a strategy around.
Speaker 2: Right, Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a big part of you know,
Speaker 1: when I've done coaching with people's we get through this
Speaker 1: very great plan what we're going to do on and
Speaker 1: then it's like, all right, well, what's going to go
Speaker 1: wrong here? Like let's think about his dorically what's gone wrong.
Speaker 1: But I've also heard you say you can also reflect
Speaker 1: on what's gone right, Like what has worked for you
Speaker 1: before is also a very useful reflection when we talk
Speaker 1: about behavior change.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that because we ran a
Speaker 3: study on habitformation where we randomize some people do in
Speaker 3: the control group and some people to get habit interventions,
Speaker 3: and one of the interventions we found particularly good, very simple.
Speaker 3: It's you think about a habit you've done in the past.
Speaker 3: You think about what you did that helped you succeeded
Speaker 3: that habit, and then you write down how to apply
Speaker 3: that to the current habit. We call it habit reflection,
Speaker 3: and it's essentially saying, well, what worked for me, and
Speaker 3: then how do I adapt it to this situation. And
Speaker 3: so yeah, I think that's an especially good strategy. That's
Speaker 3: like very simple, it takes two minutes but can help
Speaker 3: you excellent.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's a good place to wrap up.
Speaker 1: I feel like we could do this in another couple hours,
Speaker 1: but we are at the end of our time. But
Speaker 1: it's been really fun to talk with you and get
Speaker 1: to know you, and so thank you.
Speaker 5: It's been really great. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Eric.
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