← Radical Candor: Communication at Work
Radical Candor: Communication at Work
Why We Don’t Do What We Know We Should: Beliefs, Habits, and AI Practice with Nir Eyal 8|4
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- [00:01]
A
Spring is here, and there's a whole new way to chai at Starbucks that's made perfect for you. Choose your sweetness, dial it up or keep things light. Add a touch of pistachio, a hint of strawberry or vanilla, or make it a spring classic with lavender. Because this season there's endless ways to chai at Starbucks.
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B
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Radical Candor podcast. I'm Kim Scott. Scott, author of Radical Candor and Radical Respect. And with me is the fabulous Nir Eyal. Welcome, Nir.
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C
Thank you so much. Great to be here with you, Kim. And my name is Nir Eyal. I'm the author of Hooked how to build habit forming products and Indistractable how to control your attention and choose your Life.
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B
And you have a forthcoming book, are you allowed?
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C
I do. I have another book coming out in March. Yeah. Called Beyond Belief.
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B
Excellent. Well, I'm excited to hear about all three things, but first, let's talk about AI because you can't avoid AI in this moment in time. So I want to talk about your portrait. You recently launched a portrait? I recently launched a portrait with Google. So I have all my reasons and I have some new reasons as well. But what are your reasons for launching your Google portrait?
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C
Yeah, big picture. It was a way to help me reach more people to kind of scale the research I've done. Right now the way to get that research is to read the books, of course, or you could give me a call and we could talk, but that sometimes will take a while or is expensive. So this was a way to kind of scale out so that if you have a quick question or you want to run something through one of my models, you can ask that question. And it's been great, actually. I've really enjoyed the, you know, we get feedback on what kind of questions are being asked and it's really nice to see what topics keep coming up. It's a good source of new writing and new inspiration. It's been pretty great. What's been your experience?
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B
Same. I. I have loved it. I initially was really excited about doing it ever since Radical Candor came out. I mean, in some senses I wrote Radical Candor because I'm a human being and human beings don't scale. And I was coach to a couple of people here in Silicon Valley and some of them talked about it in the press. And then I had a lot of requests to be coach and I, I couldn't, I find that you can't really coach more than three to five people at the same time without neglecting somebody. And so I decided I would just write a book and publish that. And that would scale. That was my first effort to scale myself. And then I found that at first it seemed to work and then it actually quadrupled the problem. I had a lot more people asking me a lot more questions and I wanted to have all the conversations with all the people, but I found I was neglecting my husband and children if I did that, and I didn't want to do that. So in some senses, the portrait answers questions about my past writing so that I'm free to live my present life and to go write a new book. Yeah, that's a great point.
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C
How has the refinement been for you? I know I worked quite a bit with Google on not only refining the tone of the content so that it answers correctly, but also like the tone of my voice. We had to go several times through several iterations around getting my voice because it speaks to you just like I would. But it wasn't great at first. Yeah, I would have like this teenage, like everything ended on an iteration and I kind of did this a lot. And for some weird reason, so now like my AI has escaped puberty and it speaks like, like a grown adult.
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B
So it's interesting. People hate the sound of my voice. Hate it. If you look at, it is true. If you look at, if you look at the Amazon reviews, all the negative, all the extremely negative reviews were, you know, how, how dare she read her own book? You know, and I hate this. Like most people, when I hear recordings of me, I also hate this. So I was very, I was maybe too receptive to this feedback.
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C
And I think your voice sounds great.
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B
Yeah. So, so like the second edition of Radical Keener, we actually hired an actor to read it because really.
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C
Okay.
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B
And then I thought more about it. I'm like, you know what? People don't like the sound of my voice because I am a female. I have a high pitched voice and I'm not gonna get this, you know, I'm not gonna lower my voice. So I don't know, maybe that was an example of some feedback I should have, I took on board that I should have rejected. But the long and short is that that Google kind of tweaked things so that my voice was less annoying to me. And I, I, I love that.
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C
Really. And you tweaked the content itself as well. You, you made sure, how did you quality control? The content was what you wanted it to be.
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B
Yeah. So luckily my co founder is Jason Roff and he was before he and I started Radical Candor together, he led product at Khan Academy. So he's. He's dangerous technically. And he had already actually built an AI that was trained on our podcast and our blog posts. And so. So we already had kind of an API for Google to plug into, which is why I got to go first, because Jason. Jason had already built this. And then we. We've tweaked it a couple of times. I find as new models come out for a while it was getting bit to how does that make you feel? And I'm like, look, you can ask that once. You can't ask that four times in a conversation.
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C
So.
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B
So. And Google's been very, you know, they've been very true to their launch and iterate culture. They've been very willing to. To try new things and experiment.
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C
Yeah, fantastic. Very cool.
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B
Here's the coolest thing that I've learned since the Google portrait. And then I want to move on to your books. The coolest thing that I have learned is that in this world where everybody's sort of anxious about AI, AI, AI replacing human relationships, which I think is kind of a misplaced anxiety, it's. I mean, it might be a little bit addictive and it might prevent you from having human conversations for a little while, but I do think that. That we know when we're talking to an AI that's not a real relationship. But here's what it can't. So it cannot replace human relationships. But what it can do in a way that nothing else I have found can do, is it can help you practice how to have conversations. To a certain extent, Radical Candor is all about putting your phone in your pocket, shutting your computer, and having real human conversations. But reading a book maybe can help a little bit with improving your human conversations. But even when I coach people one on one, they're not willing to do role plays, they're not willing to practice conversations, but people are willing to practice with the AI, you know, on the right side of the uncanny valley, and they don't feel judged by the AI. They'll try new things with the AI that they won't even like. We. We've worked with Second City doing improv exercises. Even with improv exercises, people won't really try new things in conversation, but they will with the AI. And so in some ways, I think it may be one of the. One of the first great ways to practice a conversation you're nervous about.
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C
Yeah, that's. That's a beautiful insights actually in. In Hooked, I wrote about this in terms of how do you build products that are engaging, that are habit forming. And one of the key principles is if you reduce friction. Right. The, the less, the less taxing a behavior is, the more likely that behavior is to occur. Right. It's the first rule of interaction design. And so this is, this is a great point, right. That in front of another person I feel a little self conscious and what if I mess up and here's this expert and they're going to judge me as you know, this is not a person. You know, it's an AI. Nobody's keeping tabs on how you do. And so it gives people the freedom, lowering that what we call cognitive load and therefore they'll do more of the behavior. I think that's a beautiful example.
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B
Yeah. And I think it's so important because if you think about these important interactions that we have with other people, whether it's the elevator pitch or this impromptu two minute conversation that you're going to have with someone after you notice them do something awesome or do something not so awesome and you want to talk about it. These conversations, there's not, there hasn't been a good way to practice these conversations. But these, these moments of interaction are incredibly impactful to both the work we do and the relationships that we have.
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C
Maybe we'll jump ahead, actually, if it's okay with you. You know, I have this new book coming out, Beyond Belief, which is all about. Yeah, the power. This, I think it's a good segue here. So the new book is about, all about the power of beliefs to change your perception of reality. So how beliefs change what you see, feel and what you do. And I wonder also if there's, you know, with the AI angle, one of the things that the book is really trying to do is to help people find their limiting beliefs. We all have these limiting beliefs, these scripts, these lenses that we use to view the world that keep us from being our best selves. And that's, you know, we see that in spades in the workplace. And I think maybe there's a potential for AI to tease out. I've been experimenting and I'll work with Google on this as well to, to find ways to bring out those limiting beliefs so that we can first recognize them and then choose between that limiting belief or what I call a liberating belief.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And so I'm curious, kind of in your experience, what, what do you see in the workplace? What are the most common limiting beliefs? What are the scripts that people repeat to themselves and how could we get rid of those?
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B
I think that a limiting belief that that gets in the way certainly of radical candor is something that, that I. It was very funny when my kids were little, when my K2 and 3, I would go to work and I would teach people, you know, you're not saying what you need to say because you've been taught since you learned to speak, if you don't have anything, anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. And then I go shopping with my kids and they would point at someone and comment on some aspect of that person that they shouldn't be commenting on out loud. And I would, I would find myself saying, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Even though I was teaching people that this is a huge problem. So I don't know if it's a belief really, but it's this sort of devil on our shoulder that says, you'll get trouble. You'll get into trouble if you say that. And, and the thing that I love about. I got a sneak peek at your book, which I love. I'm very excited about it. But the thing that I love about your book is that you're telling people how to silence that devil on their shoulder and how to give a bullhorn to the angel on their shoulder. Because we all have the devils and the angel on our angels on. I don't know if this is good metaphors, but these limiting beliefs and these empowering beliefs on our shoulder, and I think the beliefs that silence us, this is what, what. When Audra Lord said, your silence will not protect you. There's this belief that you can remain safe if you remain small and silent. And that is just not true.
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C
I love it. That's so great. And it's one of those things that unless someone points it out to you, unless you take the steps to do what Byron Katie calls a turnaround, where you ask yourself the exact opposite, that your limiting belief is when I speak up, I get into trouble. When I speak up, people get offended. When I speak up, when I say something, bad things happen. And to actually ask yourself the exact opposite, right? The exact turnaround of actually, when I speak up, good things happen. Actually, when I speak up, people appreciate those things. And for many of us, I mean, that's really the hallmark of a limiting belief. Because the first reaction when you are confronted with the idea that you have a limiting belief is, no, no, no, this is the truth, right? This is a fact. That's always our first reaction but of course it's not a fact. Right. That there's something in between a fact and faith and that's called the belief which we can choose those beliefs.
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B
Yeah, it's cognitive behavioral therapy. Right. In some, just to a certain extent is, is, you know, I, I, I, this thing happened. I had this belief about this thing that happened and therefore I took this action that was ultimately self destructive. You know, a ABC action. Behavior consequences belief, not behavior. And, and I think that those like learning how to recognize those beliefs is incredibly powerful and also maybe a little bit dangerous sometimes. So I was, as you and I were chatting earlier, I was raised as a Christian Scientist, which is all about belief. It's about like your beliefs can change everything and the fact of the matter is they, they can't change absolutely everything. So I, I believed growing up. So I didn't go to the doctor from the time that I was to in maybe third grade until I went to college. And I believed for example that I could straighten my teeth if I just believed strong enough and my teeth did not straighten. I eventually got braces and, and so it's really interesting. I'm very interested in and at the same time I feel like a lot of my beliefs that a lot of the things that I believed about myself were incredibly useful. Like when I went into an exam, the belief that I focused on is that God is mine and I reflect God. Like that was really helpful to doing well on an exam. So like probing how powerful these beliefs are I think is incredibly one of the important.
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C
The, the biggest takeaway for me in writing the book. It took me six years to write it. And the, the, the key takeaway and the title of chapter one are the, the, the title of the chapter is Beliefs are tools not Truths. Yeah, that I think we put too much. We think a belief is a fact.
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B
No, it's not.
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C
A fact is something that is true whether you believe in it or not. Yeah, right. The, the world is round. Doesn't matter if you're a flat earther. That's very nice, but it is what it is. It's a fact. Beliefs, however we can choose that beliefs are. The definition of a belief is a conviction, a strongly held conviction that is open to revision based on evidence.
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B
Yes.
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C
So beliefs can change, but not. There's so many things in life we don't have that kind of certainty. We don't know it to be a fact and so we have to choose it. So the nice thing is that we can use these beliefs when they serve us. And most Importantly, let them go when they hurt us. And so. Yes. So a big part of the book, I went down a very deep rabbit hole on placebos, and it is unbelievable how powerful placebos are and how misunderstood they are. So placebos, for example, or, you know, prayer or whatever the case might be, faith healing. Turns out the evidence shows that placebos don't fix anything. Placebos do not fix a broken arm. Placebos do not cure cancer. Placebos do not, you know, align you with the quantum fields and that. Yeah, the evidence just doesn't show it. What placebos do extremely well is that they change your perception of illness. Right. There's a difference between sickness. Sickness is in the body, illness is in the mind.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Illness is your perception. Pain doesn't happen here. It doesn't happen here. It happens here. All pain is in the brain. And so it's absolutely your example of, I have an exam and I say a prayer before that exam, or I'm having trouble with my. With my spouse and my child, and I'm asking for wisdom and patience, and I'm praying towards that, actually. That has an amazing effect.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Because that is a perceptual issue versus some kind of, you know, medical diagnosis or a sickness.
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B
Yeah, yeah. And the interesting thing about Christian Science is it wasn't exactly even a prayer that I said. It was a. I was like, addressing my belief. Like, the devil on my shoulder was telling me, you didn't study hard enough, you're too stupid, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And. And I was giving a bullhorn to the angel on my shoulder, which was saying, God is mind, infinite intelligence, and you are a reflection of this infinite intelligence. And that was very soothing, confident. It was a little bit of a Wonder Woman pose or something.
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C
It's so interesting. Actually, one of the. Some of the research I did was that around the psychology of religion, and there are some attributes that are almost universal around various religions. You know, religions have wildly different interpretations, but one of the. One of the common elements is this idea of a Satan, of some kind of devil, that almost universally, almost every religion has some kind of an external party that's causing mischief in the world. It's a very common trait. And when you think about how powerful that is, that the good things are in my control.
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B
Right.
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C
I'm going to handle the stuff I can handle, and yet there's going to be this other party that I'm fighting against that is trying to fight against me, but that's over there, not me. And I think that's. That's A very powerful message. Now, whether you believe in the supernatural, whether you have a faith or not, actually doesn't matter. That that tool, that belief set can be incredibly powerful.
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B
Yeah, yeah. Totally. Totally interesting. And, and, and the thing that I love about your new book, and then we'll. I want to talk about your other book. All your books are great, but the thing I love about your new book is how it helps people understand their beliefs. One of the quotes that I, that I used in Radical Respect came from Robertson Davies, one of my favorite writers of all time. And he said, be sure you choose what you believe and know why you believe it. Because if you don't choose your beliefs, you may be certain that some belief, and probably not a very credible one, will choose you. And I think that that's also one of the things that your book helps people do, is understand what. What do you believe? And then help them question it. Like, do you really believe that or do you not? Or is that something you don't actually believe?
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C
It's a wonderful quote. It really encapsulates what I'm trying to do with this book and how the book has changed my life. It took me six years to write it, and this is my third book. No book that I've worked on has ever changed my life this much. Because even on the way over here, coming to do this interview in the car, I started getting nervous about, am I prepared enough? And what if there's a question I can't answer? And what if the technology doesn't work? Or what if I'm sweating? I mean, all these doubts and questions that have plagued me forever. And since writing this book, I think my attitude, my perception has completely changed that. Now I realize that all those things were just beliefs. They were just perceptual filters around what could happen. And somewhere along the way, I. I picked up that set of beliefs was serving me. But now I look into those beliefs, I ask myself, wait, is that helpful? Is that a good thing? And let's say all those bad things do happen. My prior belief was that's bad. That's just a belief. I was choosing to believe that if something goes wrong, it's bad. That's also a belief I can choose to say. Actually, that's a learning opportunity.
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B
That's wonderful.
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C
Now I get a new experience.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. Kara writes that limiting beliefs generate from a very specific spot under my ribs. I love what Kim said about the false comfort that bad things don't happen if we stay small. They happen no matter what. So why not fly I love that, Kara.
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C
Love it.
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B
So good.
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C
Wonderful.
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B
Where, where do your limiting beliefs exist? I was sort of saying on my shoulder.
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C
Oh, so you put it physically.
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B
They're either on my shoulder or they're in the backs of my knees.
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C
I think if I had to put a spot in my body, it would be my solar plex. Right, like right under my chest.
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B
Yeah.
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C
That crowding out feeling.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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C
And I've learned to, you know, that that's actually another example. So I earn my living as a public speaker and an author. And for the longest time, I was driven on stage by the message I was delivering, that it was so important that I had to get on stage. But Kim, I hated it. I would have the worst stage fright and I would get on stage and I would have these sweaty armpits and this heartbeat racing a mile a minute and this sweaty, you know, the, the, the, the cotton mouth. And I still get those things. But what changed was, is that back then when I had stage fright, I would interpret it as stage fright. Right. I have anxiety, I. Something's wrong with me. If I was a real public speaker, if I was a professional, I wouldn't feel these. Must be bad. That was a belief set.
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B
Yes. Yeah.
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C
And then I started reevaluating. Now I still feel that heartbeat. Right. I feel it right now. But now I completely change the script. So to me now, when I feel those same physiological sensations, I have a completely different story now I say, oh, my heart is beating so fast because my brain needs more oxygen so I can deliver my best possible talk. So it's just a complete reinterpretation of that. Now whether that's true or not, does it matter? Not really.
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B
It serves me, but it probably is true. Actually, it seems more.
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C
I think I started in a weird way. You know, I used to be extremely analytical, extremely rigorous, and I still am to a large degree. Right. I don't like a lot of the hocus pocus stuff. I want, I want the facts, I want the studies. But I become much more relaxed about that and much more compassionate around beliefs that don't require a hundred percent certainty that maybe it doesn't actually matter all that much because we, A lot of things, we just won't know who has time to run the studies?
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's. When I was, when I was much younger and I felt down, I would spend a lot of time trying to understand why I felt down and, you know, slightly depressed or whatever. And then I realized, oh, what I should do is quit asking that question. And just ask a new question, which is, how can I feel better? Like, I need to take a walk, take. Do I need to sleep a little more? A little chocolate. Maybe that will help.
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C
Yeah. Have you come across, what have you come across in terms of motivation? And a question I get a lot from a lot of folks is around workplace motivation that for one reason or another, they're just, they've lost that spark. They're feeling burned out. And that's full of all kinds of limiting beliefs. I'm curious to hear your experience.
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B
So one of the best moments I had around workplace motivation because my whole business career was really one job giant plan to subsidize my novel writing habit. And, and, and so there were times when I felt a little cynical about the work I was doing. And I had a coach, Fred Kaufman, who's a wonderful human being. And he described a moment to me where he was with his four sons. He had four sons under the age of six or something. So a lot of young energy. And for whatever reason, his spouse wasn't with him, his wife wasn't, and they were flying somewhere and they, and the plane went out onto the tarmac and stopped and, and they were stuck on the tarmac for six hours ahead of a eight hour flight or something. And there was a moment where things were, were feeling very dicey for Fred and he was starting to wish himself off the plane like I wish I were any. Like I wish I were here. And then he said, you know what, what I'm gonna do, this is where I am. Doesn't matter where I wish I were, this is where I am. And I'm gonna bring all the things that I care most about in life to this moment. I'm with my sons. I love my sons. We may not be where we want to be, but I am with them, you know, and I'm gonna be with them and I'm gonna try to make this experience as good as it could be. And so there were times when I, when we were. The work we were doing, you know, was maybe boring. There was a big part of the work that I did at Google, for example, that was, that was answering the same 35 questions over and over and over again. And, and I remember feeling like, does this work matter? And then I felt, the thing that matters is I'm. I'm with this group of people who I care about and we're going to build the best possible environment for ourselves and for our customers, and that matters. And all of a sudden, what felt like being stuck on the tarmac was something that had meaning and that. That turned it around. So you can bring your best. You're stuck in traffic, but you can. You can exhibit some aspect of yourself that you really care about in that moment.
- [26:19]
C
I love it. I love it. So you're bringing. You bringing those aspects of meaning, the things that. That are important to you, and that becomes why you're doing your job. Not necessarily. I mean, I think something I see a lot is that there's almost an expectation that things should never hurt.
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B
Yeah, things are gonna hurt.
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C
Yeah, yeah, that. Like that. That pain somehow is. Is a moral judgment that if something is. Is hard and I don't like it, I shouldn't do it. And it's certainly a signal, right? All pain is a signal. But when I went very deep into the science of pain, it really blew my mind. There's a chapter in the book in indistractable. Sorry, in beyond belief about this guy who has surgery without any anesthesia. And I thought this was, like, one rare case. He had screws. Yeah, yeah, screws. Pulled from his leg. After he had a surgery a few years before where he broke his leg, he had a surgery, and then he had to get the screws pulled out. And he had this. This. In that time, he learned hypnosudation. And I thought this was one really weird outlier. Turns out tens of thousands of people have done this. It's really popular in Switzerland and France and parts of Italy. And it was amazing. Like, I actually watched his surgery, and he was zero anesthesia. Not. Not topical, you know, not general anesthesia, nothing the whole time. Or. What's that?
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B
Was he biting a bullet? Like, what was he.
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C
No, no. He had learned how to hypnotize himself. He had a. A coach, which he was a fellow student in a course he had taken on how to do this, and he was able to go through the entire thing. Now, I'm not going to do that. Let's be very clear. I'm not advocating for it. I'm not going to do it. I'll take the anesthesia, at least in this point in my life. But I thought to myself, wow, like, if we can learn to manage discomfort to that extent, if the human mind is capable of suppressing that pain response of metal cutting into flesh and bone, wow. What else can we do? Because it's all pain management. Right? This was a big lesson for me and indistractable. The big lesson of my second book was that time management is pain management, because the way the brain motivates Us is not by carrots and sticks. It's in fact, that everything is about the desire to escape discomfort, that the carrot is the stick. Everything we do is about a desire to escape discomfort. Even wanting to feel good, right? Craving, lusting, desire, hunger are also psychologically uncomfortable. And so that really blew my mind. Like, how. How far can we push it if you can moderate such a. Such a visceral pain response? Where else can we moderate our pain response? Where else can we say actually, that discomfort that I might feel about my job being boring or parenting being hard or this relationship being difficult, like, maybe that's. Maybe that's part of it. Maybe that's part of the learning.
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B
You know, it's so interesting. I think somebody told me once that the best physical sensation is the cessation of pain. And I think part of addiction is that you're now giving into the craving. You're no longer resisting. And I recently had a terrible case of poison oak. And one of the. What. I mean, it's not the end of the world, but it was. It was a bigger deal than I thought it was, actually. And. And so my whole arm is covered in poison oak, and the itching is intense. And. And. And it's like every bit of willpower I have not to scratch. And I learned if I put my arm in hot water for a moment, it would make the itching go away. And it was like it was euphoric feeling. And. And then when the poison oak went away, I was. There was part of me that was actually kind of sad because I couldn't get that euphoria by sticking in my arm. And it's like. It's so interesting how. How not only these beliefs, but also the. How pain drives us.
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C
It's an amazing point that I think, actually, I certainly didn't know before I started studying addiction science. You hit the nail on the head. And just to reemphasize it, that addiction, you know, most people who haven't struggled with addiction think that people get high to feel good. That's not addiction.
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B
Make the craving go away.
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C
That's exactly right. That's an addiction. An addiction is. Is when the solution becomes the problem. Where. Where. What made you feel good? Now you're just trying to get back to baseline to not feel bad. That's the hallmark of addiction. And. And thankfully for the vast majority of people, we have this circuit breaker that says, okay, you've drunk enough. You scroll too much, you watch too much tv, you're eating too much. And most people have a circuit Breaker that says, okay, enough. Now, about 1 to 5% of the population at different points in their life that that circuit breaker stops working, and then they fall into that addictive pattern. But you're absolutely right. It's not about, oh, this is so much fun. It's about getting back to baseline.
- [31:22]
B
Yeah. Or not even getting. I think so. I have struggled with alcohol various points in my life, and for. For me at least, it wasn't even getting back to baseline. I never drank so much so often that I. But I had this desire. It was like this fight in my head, like, should I have the drink? Should I not have the drink? And. And it became painful.
- [31:46]
C
Yeah.
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B
And the fastest and easiest way it was like sticking my arm into hot water when I had poison oak was to just have the drink. Like, then I should stop having the conversation.
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C
And we see that same exact phenomenon, it's called psychological reactance. That when you are told what to do, you want to rebel. Now, that makes total sense when you say, oh, when your boss micromanages you when you were a kid and your mom told you to put on a coat because it's cold outside, you know, don't tell me what to do. Right. That's psychological reactance. Now, the crazy part is that the human brain will elicit reactance.
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B
Yes.
- [32:25]
C
Even when you are telling yourself what to do. And so that's exactly it. So the carrot is the stick. So I want to smoke that cigarette, but I shouldn't. I want to, but I shouldn't. I want to, but I shouldn't. Okay, let me just have the cigarette. Let me just scroll Instagram for a minute. Let me just check the news. Let me just look at stock prices or sports scores or have a drink. It's exactly this. It's not the substance itself as much. And this is. I think this really blew my mind because the easiest thing for me to blame for my own bad habits was the thing, you know, oh, technology, it's melting our brain. It's because of these things. Right. That's why.
- [32:58]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:59]
C
No, it's not true that.
- [33:02]
B
It's.
- [33:03]
C
It's not exactly. Exactly. It's not the external triggers, it's the internal triggers. With. With. If you don't have the internal triggers, if you don't. If you're not escaping some kind of discomfort, you don't need those products and services. So that's. That's the first step in Indistractable is all about mastering those internal triggers or they become your masters. The boredom, the fatigue, the uncertainty, the Anxiety, the loneliness. That is what we are looking to escape.
- [33:28]
B
Yeah, yeah. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Right. Halt. So what about Hooked? So talk to me about the connection, like, because you could use these tendencies for good, I guess, and that's the idea of Hooked. So talk a little bit about hooked.
- [33:47]
C
That's right. Yeah, sure. So that. So my first book was all about stealing the secrets of Silicon Valley. What I wanted to do, you know, the video game companies, the social media companies, they were doing this long before my book. My goal was to figure out how they do what they do so that the rest of us could benefit. So Hooked came out of a class I taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where what I was hoping for was that people would use the Hooked model model to build healthy habits in people's lives. So fitbod uses the Hook model to get people hooked to exercise. Duolingo, one of my very early clients, uses the Hook model to get people hooked to language learning. So that's the real idea. The video game companies and the social media companies, they've known this stuff forever. I was trying to democratize the psychology of engagement so that we can use these habits for good. Because I think if people are not doing a particular behavior because it's too hard, it's too expensive, it's too difficult, and technology can solve that problem for them. It can help them do the thing that they themselves want to do. That's great, right? That's what I call persuasive technology as opposed to coercive technology. Persuasion is about getting people to do things they want to do. Coercion is the opposite. Coercion is getting people to things that they don't want to do. And that's clearly unethical. So Hooked was about how do you build good habits with technology? And then indistractable is about how do you break the bad habits to different products. Right. We want to build the good habits with the language learning app, the app that helps us save money, the fitness app. But we want to break the bad habits to the distractions.
- [35:13]
B
And so how would you describe the principles of Hooked? They're not the principles of addiction. How do they differ from the principles of addiction, or are they? Am I right?
- [35:27]
C
That's a great question. So it's very definitional. So addiction is a persistent compulsive dependency on a behavior, substance that harms the user. It's a medical term. There's no such thing as a good addiction. When people say, oh, I'm addicted to running or addicted to something positive That's, That's. That's. That's a. You're using the word incorrectly. It's a medical term. And addiction is. Is a. It's a diagnosis. So it's. It's not something you'd ever want to create in a user, however. Habits. We have bad habits, but we have a lot of good habits. In fact, 50% of what you do every single day is done because of a habit, which is an impulse to do behavior with little or no conscious thought. So driving your car while you're listening to the radio or talking to the person next to you, you're doing that with little or no conscious thought. That's a habit. And we can build many, many of these good habits. And that's what hooked is for. It's about how do we get people hooked to these positive behaviors. Saving money, learning something. Learning how to. How to be more effective at work, whatever the case might be.
- [36:26]
B
Yeah, love that. And so it seems like there's also maybe a little a good habit and. And a good bias seems somehow related to me. Like, the reason why I can listen to the radio and drive the car at the same time is that I have these unconscious reactions if something jumps in my path. Is that. Where's that? Have you explored that?
- [36:54]
C
Did you say a good bias?
- [36:56]
B
Bias? Yeah. Like these. On these. Thinking fast and slow. In some senses, thinking fast is. Is hooking into this whole unconscious body of thought. So. So something jumps in my path. My bias is that it's dangerous.
- [37:15]
C
Right, right. You have these. Yeah, these reflexes as well. Right. Yeah. So we can. So the, the idea is that we can build these. These habits so that we're replacing these other behaviors. Right. That. That our behaviors don't live in a vacuum. Many times it's, you know, we. We. We see ourselves on our phones all day long and we think, oh, that's somehow bad. You know, we used to spend our time doing a lot of other bad things. Right. When I was a kid, I was. I was a couch potato. I was clinically obese. I was eating potato chips and, And. And Twinkies while I was scrolling on. Or channel surfing, not scrolling. And so we are hopefully moving, I think, to an age where people are becoming more conscious of how they're spending their media consumption. I mean, that's, you know, the media's goal, whether it's social media, whether it's legacy media, whether it's the New York Times or CNN or the media has one job, and that is to harvest your attention.
- [38:08]
B
Yes.
- [38:08]
C
All of them. Do the same thing. We're doing it right now.
- [38:12]
B
Yeah. That.
- [38:13]
C
That is the business model. Right. That we're turning attention, we're monetizing that. Now, that's not necessarily a bad business model. That's not a bad thing. It's not unethical per se, because we're giving value. Right. So when you're reading a newspaper, you're becoming more informed. When you're engaging with friends on a social network, you're connecting with people, it's not necessarily a bad thing unless we are doing it in a way that harms us as users. If. And so that's why I think the majority of the responsibility is really on, on us users. Because, you know, the New York Times is never going to say, hey, you've had enough. And by the way, the media has terms for this. We call them news junkies.
- [38:50]
B
Yes.
- [38:51]
C
And the news is written in a way to get us to engage, engage, engage. First rule. If it bleeds, it leads.
- [38:56]
B
Yeah.
- [38:56]
C
Right. So all form of media wants to suck up your attention. So it's really up to us as consumers, I think. And I think the good news is it's so easy. It's really not that hard.
- [39:07]
B
Right.
- [39:07]
C
There's really four steps that anyone can take to make sure that we are controlling the technology as opposed to the technology controlling us. Now. It doesn't feel that way, by the way. It feels like we're out of control. And that's actually what led me to beyond belief. And that's exactly what the connection was, that I have these weekly office hours, or I have one hour every week where anybody can call me if they read one of my books and ask me a question about anything about their business.
- [39:37]
B
For your office hour?
- [39:39]
C
Yeah, it's on my website. You email me and I send you a link and you can book it. You get priority access, though, Kim. I'll give you the VIP link. But anyway, so I do this every single week. I talk to four people every Wednesday night, and every once in a while I would get a call that sounded like this. Something like near. I've been waiting to talk to you, by the way. Sometimes there would be a waiting list of a month or two to find the slot and they'd say, I read the book. It was great. It didn't work. Oh, wow. You. Tell me more. I spent five years writing Indistractible. Tell me more. How did step one go for you? What did you do in step one?
- [40:12]
B
Tell me what the four steps are, quickly.
- [40:14]
C
Oh, so step one is master internal Triggers.
- [40:17]
B
Okay.
- [40:18]
C
Step two is make time for traction. Step three is hack back external triggers. And step four is prevent distraction with pacts. So those are the four big strategies. So I said, okay, how'd step one go? Master internal triggers. Tell me what you did. Ah, you know what? I didn't do step one. I skipped that one. Okay. I'd say no problem. Tell me about step two. How did step two go? You know, near. I read step two. I read it. I just didn't. I just didn't do it. I didn't. So. And at first I said, what's going on here?
- [40:48]
B
Right.
- [40:48]
C
I spent five years fixing this problem for myself. By the way. I was the most distracted person you've ever met. That's why I wrote the book. I know the techniques work. There's 30 pages of citations to peer reviewed journals. It changed my life. I know this stuff works. It's helped thousands and thousands of people. And they were waiting months to tell me that they didn't do the thing I told them to do already. And they were looking for some magic answer and I thought, well, are they idiots? What's going on? And in fact, I was the idiot that what I learned was actually when I took a step back, I realized, wait a minute, I've got lots of books from experts that I haven't implemented. I've talked to coaches and gurus and paid for advice that I haven't put into practice. And I know what to do, but I don't do it.
- [41:26]
B
Why?
- [41:27]
C
It's such an interesting question.
- [41:29]
B
Why?
- [41:29]
C
When we know what to do, we know why we should do it. Why don't we do it? And what I concluded was that it was beliefs that if I don't trust the person who's giving me the benefit. Right. You see, in this, in the workplace every day, if I don't trust my employer that I'm going to get that promotion or that bonus or that we're going to do what we say we're going to do as a company. If I don't trust you, it's okay, I'll slack off. I'm not going to work that hard if I don't believe in myself. That's the big one. If I don't believe that I will do the behavior.
- [41:58]
B
Yeah.
- [41:59]
C
Then I'm not going to do it either. And so that's what led me to beyond belief, was that there was a missing link that I can know exactly what to do. How many books do we have telling us exactly what to do? And I can even want the benefit. But if I don't have the belief, I lose motivation.
- [42:12]
B
Yeah. So interesting because I often say about Radical Caner that people really want to do it. They want to solicit feedback, they want to give praise and give criticism. They want to gauge how it lands. But. Or I. I should say they want to want to do it, but they actually don't want to do it. And in fact, I myself sometimes don't want to do it. Like, I don't. I want to want to do it. But like, when it comes to saying the thing in the moment, I don't want to do it. I was talking to one. It was one person I was coaching, and I was saying, you've got to tell. Tell the person this. And he said, not I frog eye. I'm not going to do that. And. And I think you're right. That comes down to peop. What people believe is if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. They believe that safer for them and helping people understand that actually that's not safer for them. Change that belief is what gets people. That's what unlocked it for me anyway.
- [43:22]
C
What do you think is the biggest point of leverage? Is it saying, actually you should try believing something different about the benefit, or is it something different about the behavior itself? I mean, clearly you've made it way easier for people to know what to do. That's a big part, right, that people don't know, how am I supposed to do this? Well, you've handed that to them on a silver platter. Where do you think is the bigger point of leverage?
- [43:46]
B
I think the biggest, for me at least the biggest unlock was telling myself and then telling other people the story about what happened when I thought I was being so nice. But then that results. So there's a story in the book about Bob, and I liked Bob. I didn't want to hurt Bob's feelings, so I didn't say to Bob what needed to be said. And he wound up. I wound up firing him as a result. Not so nice after all. And that was such a devastating. I mean, it was much worse for Bob, obviously, but it was also bad for me. It was bad for the whole team. And telling that story has helped me. When I'm tempted not to say the thing, thinking I'm being so nice, remember that I'm not being so nice. I think that's the biggest actually belief is I'm not going to say this because I'm a nice person. And that and confronting the fact that I'm not going to say this because it makes me feel uncomfortable, and it's actually. Would be much kinder to the person to say the thing is what helped me say the thing, you know, that's not going to help the people who truly don't care, but I think most people actually really do care.
- [45:01]
C
That's wonderful. Is there a test that you can use around what's the. The petty stuff versus what's the stuff that's so important that I have to tell you?
- [45:12]
B
The test that I use is leave three unimportant things unsaid every day. So almost flip it by the most important thing, because then it's like you. It generates all kinds of resistance. But, yeah, leave the three unimportant. It's okay to leave the unimportant things unsaid every day.
- [45:34]
C
Oh, that's really good.
- [45:35]
B
Another.
- [45:36]
C
My wife and I.
- [45:37]
B
Go ahead. Your wife and you?
- [45:39]
C
Yeah, we have. So we've been married now for 20. Almost 25 years. Wow. 25 years this September. And we learned this super early in our marriage. I don't know where we learned it from that we only bring things up when it's so important that I have to.
- [45:57]
B
Yes. Yeah.
- [45:59]
C
Right. And it sounds like, well, that's kind of squishy. That's not very.
- [46:02]
B
That makes sense.
- [46:03]
C
I need a more defined filter. But somehow, after 25 years, we almost never complain about each other. Somehow, either as individuals, we figured out how to cope with things that the person may not have the ability to change one way or the other, or we figured out those really, really big issues. Because when my wife comes to me and says, hey, we need to talk. Okay, that's so rare that I know I really need to listen.
- [46:27]
B
Yes. Yeah. I was at a friend's wedding, and. And the wedding was on a. An island that had a very weak septic system. And there were signs over the toilets that said, if it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down. And her. Her godfather at the rehearsal. Rehearsal dinner stood up and he said, these are words to stay married. If it's yellow,
- [46:59]
C
I love it. We're ending our conversation, talking. That's awesome.
- [47:03]
B
That's. That's what we should do. But that. But. And there are times when you're like, this is. This is a stinking pile of. And I need. I gotta get rid of it because it's gonna. It's gonna get in the way of my marriage if I don't flush it down, you know?
- [47:19]
C
Right, right.
- [47:21]
B
And so. Yeah, that's my. That's. That's my rubric.
- [47:26]
C
I love it. I love it. This is great. This is advice anyone can heed.
- [47:29]
B
Yeah. Well, such a great conversation. I love your books. Hooked and indistractable. And I'm so excited for your book about belief.
- [47:40]
C
Thank you so much. This is a real pleasure. Thanks so much for asking me to be here today. Loved it.
- [47:44]
B
Thank you. Really enjoyed the conversation. Take care.
- [47:47]
C
Thank you. Bye. Bye.
- [47:48]
B
Bye. The Radical Candor podcast is based on the book Radical be a kick ass boss without losing your humanity by me, Kim Scott. Episodes are produced with thanks to Podium production company with script editing by Amy Sandler. The show features Radical Candor co founders Jason Rosoff and me. It's hosted by Amy Sandler. Nick Persimmi is our audio engineer. The Radical Candor podcasting music was composed by Cliff Goldbacher. Follow us on LinkedIn, Radical Candor the company and visit us@radicalcander.com.