Why You Know What to Do, But Still Don’t Do It

Summary

Detailed Summary of "Why You Know What to Do, But Still Don’t Do It" – The Dr. Hyman Show

Release Date: May 19, 2025
Podcast: The Dr. Hyman Show
Host: Dr. Mark Hyman

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1. Introduction

In this episode of The Dr. Hyman Show, Dr. Mark Hyman delves into the intricate relationship between knowledge, behavior change, and health. The discussion explores why individuals often fail to act on their understanding of healthy practices despite knowing what to do, addressing psychological barriers, mindset shifts, and practical strategies for effective behavior modification.

2. Human Adaptability and the Power of Malleability

Timestamp: [00:02] – [17:04]

The episode begins with an assertion that humans are "the ultimate adaptation machine," highlighting our extraordinary capacity to change and improve our lives by focusing on our malleable traits.

Quote:
Unknown Speaker 1: “Humans are the ultimate adaptation machine. And if you focus on the amount that's malleable, the amount that you can change your life is so extraordinary.” ([00:02])

Dr. Hyman emphasizes the biological and psychological flexibility that allows humans to adapt to various challenges, underpinning the possibility of significant personal transformation.

3. Chronic Stress and Magnesium’s Role in Health

Timestamp: [00:13] – [01:35]

Dr. Hyman discusses the pervasive impact of chronic stress on the body, affecting systems from sleep and mood to energy levels and inflammation. He introduces magnesium as a crucial mineral often depleted by stress, necessary for maintaining calmness and overall nervous system health.

Quote:
Dr. Mark Hyman: “Stress often depletes a critical mineral your body needs to feel calm and at ease. And that is magnesium.” ([00:13])

He recommends Magnesium Breakthrough by Bioptimizers, highlighting its comprehensive formula containing seven different forms of magnesium to support stress regulation and improve sleep quality. Personal testimonials and positive reviews underscore its effectiveness.

4. Mindset Shifts and Overcoming Negative Loops

Timestamp: [07:41] – [18:44]

The conversation shifts to the challenges of changing one’s mindset. Speakers discuss how negative self-talk and ingrained belief systems create mental "bubbles" that impede personal growth.

Quote:
Unknown Speaker 1: “Your mindset is the water. It is the thing in which you exist. It is the Matrix.” ([02:25])

David Foster Wallace’s speech, "This is Water," is referenced to illustrate how individuals often remain unaware of their limiting beliefs, likened to fish oblivious to water. The dialogue explores how social circles and core beliefs significantly influence one’s health and behavior patterns.

5. Behavior Change Models: Beyond Repetition

Timestamp: [52:10] – [61:15]

BJ Fogg and David Foster Wallace introduce and critique traditional behavior change models, emphasizing that mere repetition does not effectively create lasting habits. Instead, emotions and feelings of success are pivotal in wiring new behaviors.

Quote:
David Foster Wallace: “It's emotions that create the habits. That's one of the myths.” ([55:12])

BJ Fogg adds that behavior change should focus on specific, manageable actions rather than abstract goals, advocating for precise behaviors that are easy to implement and sustain.

6. Empowering Individuals: Trusting Yourself Over External Experts

Timestamp: [24:29] – [37:15]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee joins the discussion, highlighting the paradox of increasing health knowledge yet rising chronic illness rates. He argues that individuals have outsourced their health expertise to external sources, diminishing self-trust and personal agency.

Quote:
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee: “Instead of asking which expert should I trust, I think the more useful question is why do I no longer trust myself.” ([25:00])

Chatterjee introduces a framework to empower individuals to listen to their bodies and personalize their health decisions, advocating for self-awareness and practical exercises to align actions with internal signals.

7. Overcoming the Poverty Mindset and Embracing a Growth Mindset

Timestamp: [18:39] – [22:46]

The discussion transitions to the pervasive poverty mindset, rooted in early reinforcement of fixed traits over growth-oriented beliefs. Carol Dweck’s research on fixed versus growth mindsets is referenced, emphasizing the importance of praising effort over innate ability to foster resilience and adaptability.

Quote:
Unknown Speaker 1: “The only belief that matters is that you can improve.” ([20:37])

This section underscores how societal and familial messages contribute to self-limiting beliefs, creating a "death spiral" that impedes personal and professional growth.

8. Practical Strategies for Behavior Change: The Three Fs

Timestamp: [29:08] – [37:15]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee introduces the "Three Fs" framework—Feel, Feed, and Find—as a simple yet powerful exercise to address cravings and emotional eating.

Quote:
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee: “The first F feel, the second F is feed, and the third F is find.” ([29:08])

1. Feel: Identify what you’re feeling (e.g., stress, loneliness).
2. Feed: Understand how food is addressing that feeling.
3. Find: Discover alternative behaviors to meet that need (e.g., yoga, calling a friend).

This method encourages self-awareness and provides actionable alternatives to unhealthy habits, promoting sustainable behavior change.

9. The Role of Emotions in Habit Formation

Timestamp: [57:36] – [61:37]

David Foster Wallace elaborates on how positive emotions associated with small successes can lead to lasting habit formation and identity shifts.

Quote:
David Foster Wallace: “The feeling of success also changes how they think about themselves.” ([59:26])

Highlighting the importance of celebrating small wins, Wallace explains that positive reinforcement fosters a new self-identity, making behaviors more automatic and integrated into one’s lifestyle.

10. Integrating Health Behavior Design

Timestamp: [42:03] – [50:21]

The conversation returns to the design of health behaviors, emphasizing that successful change is not about willpower but about designing environments and routines that support desired actions. Techniques such as "Tiny Habits" and specific behavior triggers are discussed as effective tools for implementing change without relying solely on motivation.

Quote:
David Foster Wallace: “Instead of motivating yourself towards something abstract, you can wire in habits really, really quickly.” ([58:12])

This segment underscores the necessity of structured, design-focused approaches to health behavior change, moving beyond traditional motivational strategies.

11. Conclusion: Empowering Personal Agency for Lasting Change

Timestamp: [56:25] – End

The episode wraps up by reinforcing the importance of personal agency in health and behavior change. Speakers advocate for trusting oneself, utilizing practical frameworks, and shifting from external dependencies to internal empowerment.

Final Quote:
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee: “When you are able to look after yourself, you are better equipped to change the world.” ([42:03])

Dr. Hyman and his guests conclude with a call to action for listeners to take ownership of their health by implementing the discussed strategies, fostering a mindset of growth, and embracing the malleability that defines human adaptability.

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Notable Quotes with Attribution and Timestamps

1. Unknown Speaker 1: “Humans are the ultimate adaptation machine. And if you focus on the amount that's malleable, the amount that you can change your life is so extraordinary.” ([00:02])

2. Dr. Mark Hyman: “Stress often depletes a critical mineral your body needs to feel calm and at ease. And that is magnesium.” ([00:13])

3. Unknown Speaker 1: “Your mindset is the water. It is the thing in which you exist. It is the Matrix.” ([02:25])

4. Dr. Rangan Chatterjee: “Instead of asking which expert should I trust, I think the more useful question is why do I no longer trust myself.” ([25:00])

5. Unknown Speaker 1: “The only belief that matters is that you can improve.” ([20:37])

6. Dr. Rangan Chatterjee: “The first F feel, the second F is feed, and the third F is find.” ([29:08])

7. David Foster Wallace: “The feeling of success also changes how they think about themselves.” ([59:26])

8. Dr. Rangan Chatterjee: “When you are able to look after yourself, you are better equipped to change the world.” ([42:03])

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Key Takeaways

• Human Adaptability: Emphasizing our innate ability to change and adapt, highlighting the potential for significant personal transformation when focusing on malleable aspects of ourselves.

• Magnesium and Stress: Chronic stress depletes magnesium, a vital mineral for maintaining calmness and nervous system health. Supplementation with comprehensive magnesium formulas can alleviate stress-related symptoms.

• Mindset Shifts: Overcoming ingrained negative beliefs and self-talk is crucial for personal growth. Recognizing and altering these mental patterns can lead to improved health and well-being.

• Behavior Change Models: Traditional models focusing on repetition and motivation are less effective. Instead, leveraging emotions and small successes can lead to sustainable habit formation.

• Empowering Individuals: Trusting oneself and developing self-awareness are essential for making informed health decisions, moving away from over-reliance on external experts.

• Overcoming Fixed Mindsets: Cultivating a growth mindset by praising effort and resilience fosters greater adaptability and personal success.

• Practical Strategies: Implementing frameworks like the Three Fs (Feel, Feed, Find) and focusing on specific, manageable behaviors can effectively address cravings and promote healthier habits.

• Emotional Reinforcement: Positive emotions associated with small successes reinforce new behaviors, leading to lasting changes in identity and lifestyle.

• Designing Behaviors: Creating environments and routines that support desired actions, rather than relying solely on willpower, enhances the likelihood of successful behavior change.

• Personal Agency: Taking ownership of one’s health through self-trust and practical strategies empowers individuals to achieve lasting improvements and contribute positively to society.

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This comprehensive episode offers valuable insights into the psychological and biological barriers to behavior change, providing practical strategies for individuals to bridge the gap between knowledge and action. By focusing on mindset shifts, emotional reinforcement, and personalized behavior design, Dr. Hyman and his guests empower listeners to take control of their health and foster sustainable, positive changes.

Transcript

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman Show.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Thing I always lead with is humans are the ultimate adaptation machine. And if you focus on the amount that's malleable, the amount that you can change your life is so extraordinary.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

As a doctor, I've seen how chronic stress impacts nearly every system in the body, from sleep to mood, energy and even inflammation. But what many people don't realize is that stress often depletes a critical mineral your body needs to feel calm and at ease. And that is magnesium. And not just one kind. Your body actually requires seven different forms of magnesium to function optimally. That's why I recommend Magnesium Breakthrough by Bioptimizers. It's the most complete magnesium supplement I found, combining all seven forms your body uses to regulate stress, improve sleep quality and support a healthy nervous system. Personally, I noticed the difference within days, falling asleep faster, waking up more refreshed and feeling more grounded throughout the day. Over 15005 star reviews back it up and it comes with a full 365 day guaranteed. Head to bioptimizers.com hyman and use code HYMAN10 to save 10%. Now, before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help everyone by my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand. Well, you if you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function Health for Real time lab insights. And if you're in need of deepening.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Your knowledge around your health journey, check.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Out my membership community, the Hymen Hive and and if you're looking for curated and trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, visit my [e-mail] for my website store for a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested products.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Teaching People how do you get people to shift their mindset? Because it's a hard thing, you know it is.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I think the big thing is you have to get certain core beliefs. So there's one one people come to me because they're in an emotional painful point. They know they can do more, be more, but they don't know how to get there. And oftentimes people say stuck in this.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Neg inner dialogue and loop of negative thinking and it's habitual and they're almost inside of it like a bubble they can't see. It's like a fish swimming in water, doesn't know it's in water.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Dude, do you Know the talk that. Oh, God. I'm blanking on his name. It's called this is Water by something. Wallace. Oh, God. I'm gonna punch myself in the mouth.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Don't do that.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Anything. A doctor.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

I'm gonna have to use my techniques.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

David Foster Wallace.

[David Foster Wallace]

There we go.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That was really gonna bother me. He gave a speech called this is Water. And to your point, about, like, the fish is the last one to realize that they're swimming around in water, which is an amazing way to explain your mindset. So your mindset is the water. It is the thing in which you exist. It is the Matrix. And to finally get your head around the fact that you've constructed it, that it's a belief system, it's your identity, it's your values. It's the very reason that who you hang out with is going to determine your health level. I heard you give a stat of something like, if your friends are obese, then you're more likely to be obese. And if your family is obese. Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

You're 171% more likely to be overweight than if your siblings are overweight. You're about 40% more likely to be overweight.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That's so crazy, man.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Yeah. Because our friends influence our behavior. Peer pressure works for good or bad.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And I will hypothesize that the reason is our friends help establish our values and our belief system. And so I'm writing a book now which is like the tentative title. This will never be the real title, but it's called Build Yourself. Like, how do you construct a mindset that actually lets you go forward? So I'm a freak for looking at the human animal as a biological entity. And so understanding how thoughts wire your brain. Your brain has certain things that it's going to do. Like, good luck ever, not ever thinking. It's just one of the things your brain is. Is hardwired genetically, Right? Exactly. Like your brain is going to cough up thoughts. That just is its nature. Humans are an active species. Humans also balance out that active nature of wanting to explore and control their environment with a deep laziness designed to conserve calories. So it's like you have this weird push, pull. So just if you really accept that the human is this biological creature, that thoughts become lazy, like literal physical wiring in your brain, and that your brain wants to think. The thoughts that are easiest. Whatever you repeat then becomes the easiest. It goes into what's called the default network in the brain. And that's just where you always default. So you talk about these people being stuck in these loops. They get stuck in these loops.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

You know, you talk about the default mode network, which is this part of the brain where the sort of the ego lives and it's, it's this sort of more rigid sense of little self that separates you from the world and things like meditation. Like you look at these monks who've been meditating for 40,000 hours in a cave. These default mode networks are shut down and they just are connected in one.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

With everything and that becomes their default. Right. They can psychedelics do the same thing?

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Right.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Have you done psychedelics?

[Unknown Speaker 3]

I have.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, Mark Hyman, we've got to talk about that. So I am intrigued and completely chicken.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

What can I say?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I'm really interested in psychedelics. Really interested. I've micro dosed psilocybin. I didn't find it very interesting, so it felt like a low grade buzz, but without the fatigue. So if I were going to drink it actually probably would be slightly more pleasurable maybe to be, to have that, a micro dose of psilocybin because there are no sort of after effects that I find unpleasant. But I didn't find I was more creative. I certainly didn't find that I could focus. I found myself sort of drifting in and out of like attentive focus. So I was like, this isn't for the people who say that it really helps them be creative or more productive. Not, not me. But I've never, I've never done like a full on.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Psychedelics are generally designed to, in full doses be a place for more creativity. It's more insight and connection and understanding, I think.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yeah, I haven't done that yet. I am, I'm keenly interested. The one that I would do literally this afternoon if I had access to it legally would be mdma. To sit down with my wife and do MDMA together I think would really be extraordinary.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Well, they're using it for post traumatic stress and to shift people's hardwired patterns that come from trauma and it's having extraordinary results.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

It's crazy how fast people talk about it having that kind of impact. So this is one of those things that like I can't come out and vouch for because I haven't done it. But I will say that if I had some sort of trauma that I was trying to get over, I would do that as a protocol very fast. I would fix my diet first, admittedly to get my microbiome in line to deal with depression, anxiety, whatever. But if I had something that was intractable Whether ptsd, depression, anxiety, I would really give it a shot. The studies are just too crazy.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

It's pretty cool. So when you help people shift their mindset, other than taking psychedelics, what do you do to help them transform their thinking and shift out of it? Because, you know, I just see people stuck in loops and they have a story that they tell and they have a narrative for their life, and they, they live into that narrative in a way that often is dysfunctional and impedes their ability to be happy, to have happy relationships, to be successful in life. And for whatever reason, I. I sort of was. Was also in that state when I was younger. But I worked really hard to learn how my mind operated and change the narrative to be one of. I could do anything. Why not?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

So here is the. My deepest trauma in life is that you can't want it for people. So I was wired. And I will say that this is. We're not blank slates. So all of us have sort of preset things that we're more into or whatever that we're a bigger responder to. So just like some people respond. Respond to one food and some. Another. Some respond to certain emotional states or ways of connecting with people. And for me, I love seeing other people win. And so like I. I pretended not to see Easter eggs in an Easter egg hunt because I knew My sister was four years older than me, so I was like five or six, and my sister was 10, and I knew it meant more to her to win than it did to me. So I would pretend not to see them so she could find them. Like, that's my natural state. I've been like that since I was a little kid. And.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Well, explains why you're doing what you're doing right now.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Truly does. And that's a huge driver for me. And meeting people that I've impacted their life is always amazing. But my big trauma is that I can't want it for people. So people that I love can't make the change. And it's crazy because they've watched me like there are people who've watched me my whole life. They know how lazy I was. They know that they didn't expect me to do anything. And yet seeing what I've been able to do and change in my mind, how much I've been able to learn, how I've been able to just take a new frame of reference, which put me on a new path of behavior, which is actually how you get people to change. The things you do must be different.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

So can you do the behaviors that then change your mind.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Definitely it is, it is a loop that you can change either first. So one, I'll finish the loop on the fact that it is very difficult to get people to change. And then I'll tell you the people that do change what they all have in common. So the reason that it's hard to get people to change is if you don't want it, you're not gonna have the energy to see it through. And you can give people all the tools and tactics in the world. If they don't want it, then they won't have the energy to make the changes. Okay? So now set that aside. The thing that people have in common that all end up making the change. So first of all, they want to make change. Second of all, they understand that at the end of the day, the name of the game is to change your behaviors. And whether they start with the mindset shift or they start with a behavior shift, almost doesn't matter. When you understand humans as a biological entity and you know that things like the following are true. If you fake a smile, like they would have people, they did a study, they had people put a pencil between their teeth and bite down on it. So it sort of forced your face into a smile just like you're doing now. And then rate their levels of happiness. They rated them higher than when they had them make a console just because it activated those muscles. Now I. I have felt this very keenly. So I will use like crest whitening strips on my teeth. And so I keep my mouth closed, which forces me into this sort of non smiling thing. And I find myself while I'm whitening my teeth with this sense of like just kind of mopey a bit. And I'm like, whoa, this is so crazy. And so I wrote a letter to myself. So when my wife and I were first married, first couple years of our marriage, we would arg and like dumb stuff. And I just thought we end up often losing like an entire Saturday to some stupid argument. And at the end of the argument, when my neurochemistry has changed and I'm no longer upset, I think, wow, why did I waste all that time? Like, I know she loves me. This is really stupid. And so I wrote myself a letter and I said, hey, me, it's me, you know, you have no ulterior motives. And I gave it to my wife to read to me. I said, the next time I get annoyed about something and I'm not letting it go, read this to me. And did she do it yeah. She only had to do it once because it was so profound that I realized, whoa, you can shift your.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

What was the letter? What did you say to me?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

So the reason that I addressed me is when you're in an argument with somebody, a lot of times you think they're trying to calm you down because they have an ulterior motive. They don't want to feel bad or whatever. When someone upsets you, unless you're unreasonable, they probably actually did something wrong. Like they really did do something that hurt your feelings, and you really do feel justified in being upset. I will assume you're not flying off the handle. I'll assume they really did misstep. And so they have misstepped, and now you're annoyed about it, and you think that them trying to talk you out of it is because they. They just don't want to feel badly. And so I was like, that never ends up feeling true. What's that?

[Unknown Speaker 3]

They don't want to feel guilty.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Right. But that never ends up feeling true once you've calmed down. And you always then can have the compassion and see from their perspective. So I thought, let me just remove that, because I know two hours from now or whatever, I'm not going to feel like it was a good use of time to be pissed. So, hey, me. It's me. You know, you don't have any ulterior motive other than, you know that, like, there's energy behind neurochemistry, and once you get in a flow, it gets hard to get out of that. But there are physiological hooks into breaking that. So right now, no matter how you feel, I want you to laugh out loud. I want you to laugh out loud until you feel better. And you will find, you know, you've read the studies, that if you do that, you won't be able to maintain the sense of frustration. And I did it. I laughed out loud. I was so annoyed. She read it to me, which was courageous. And I said to myself, you told her to read you this letter. So even though it's really annoying that she's reading this letter, when you're annoyed.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

It'S your own medicine.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Do it. Yeah. And so I laughed out loud. And I was like, oh, my God, literally in like, seven seconds. It's absurd how rapidly that's true.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

When you. When you change your physical state, you change your mental state. So whether it's going for a run, whether it's taking a steam or whether it's jumping up and down or whether it's dancing, whatever you can do to change your physical state, it'll change your mental state. And I've learned how to do this because, you know, if I have a really tough day and got stressed, like, I had a really challenging, you know, few situations at work recently, and I, you know, I. It was really upsetting me. So I just went to a hot yoga class and I came out completely transformed. And I didn't change my thinking, I just changed my body, which then changed my thinking.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Dude, right? Like, if people really hear what you just said, because then you know that it can go either way. So if you can't get yourself there with reason and logic, jump in an ice bath, laugh out loud, watch a comedy, go for a run, lift weights. Like, there is this feedback loop that you get into with your thoughts and your body and your body and your thoughts. So the vagal nerve, of course you're going to know this, but the vagal nerve is something like 80% telling the body, telling the brain what's going on, versus the brain just instructing the body what to do. Like, as a kid, you think, oh, the brain tells the body, breathe, digest, blah, blah, blah. But in reality, it's like the brain is getting more input from the body. And I am so grateful that there's this reciprocal feedback loop. So I know when I'm in a negative place that all I need to do is smile. Like, literally, I can even think smile without actually smiling. And it makes me feel different. It is so weird. So that's super useful. Music can shift your state, channeling aggression, which is something I do to, like, do hard things. Like, there are all these feedback loops. So I try to get people to understand that. But the most important thing, the thing I always lead with is humans are the ultimate adaptation machine. So we are the ultimate apex predator for one simple reason. We adapt to change better than any other animal. And I'll say that at a physiological level, like the ability to turn white adipose tissue into brown fat, where it's more thermogenic. There was a woman who swam the Bering Strait. So think about that. The Bering Strait is the space between Russia and Alaska. That shit is cold, man. So the fact that somebody can swim that, it's bananas. So she slept with the window open in Alaska for a year, which you can imagine how cold that would be. She took only cold showers. So basically all of her fat cells became more thermogenic and she could insulate herself. So we're adaptable on that level. She had a wetsuit. Yeah, she. Or, sorry, the. So you have that level of adaptation, which is like, sort of purely biological, but then you also have the ability to learn. So there's a reason, like, a horse is born, it's walking that day. It is not that way for humans. So the prefrontal cortex, which is like all your executive functions, doesn't finish developing until you're 25.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Yeah, they don't rent cars to kids who are under 25 years old.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And it's. It's not like it's more complicated, biological material. It. It's the same, but it allows you to soak up your environment and learn and figure out, okay, in this environment, these are the values, the norms, the beliefs, the way that you act here. Because it could be different based on time, based on circumstance, whatever. So humans are designed to be malleable. Now, again, we're not blank slates. This is not like you can become anything you want. Like, it is. You have a certain amount that's hardwired, and then you have a certain amount that's malleable. And if you focus on the amount that's malleable, the amount that you can change your life is so extraordinary.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

So whether you play out.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Well, the example of how it's played out in my own life is I don't have any entrepreneurial instincts or whatsoever. So I am not a born entrepreneur. And the whole, like, are entrepreneurs born or made? As a debate is hysterical.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

You created a billion dollar company.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Exactly. So it's like, I don't know what else has to be true in my life for people to realize I was so bad at being an entrepreneur that so as a kid, I had a newspaper route and I didn't collect half the money because I was too afraid to knock on people's doors. So you get stories of people who, like, rip the flowers out of somebody's front yard and sell them back. Dude, I was not that kid. And yet I realized, oh, there are principles of entrepreneurship. I can learn them. And a lot of this stuff is teachable. Look, maybe it was harder for me to learn than most people. Maybe this is. Some people really would have an easier time. I don't doubt that. And I'll say that verbal ability comes easier to me. So every ounce of energy I put into getting better verbally has paid dividends. So, yeah, the way I've always thought of it is I get, let's say, a 1.3x return on my verbal. And so for me, I've been practicing speech and debate and all of that since I was 12. So I am the result of not 10,000 hours, not even 20,000 hours. At this point it's got to be 30, 40,000 hours. I used to stand in front of the mirror with a hairbrush. I wanted to be a stand up comic. Like I've put in the time and the energy. I did speech and debate all through middle school and high school. So it's like great. What I want people to see in that is that you can put deliberate practice into any area. Now if you can find areas where you get a disproportionate return, amazing. But if not, don't worry about it. If it's something that your goals demand, then you're going to have to learn that thing.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

So why do we all have this poverty mindset? Why, why is it so?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Well, it really to me the food.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

I get, you know, because the we're all obese and, and it's the food environment. But what about the mindset? How does that become such a poverty mindset for so many millions of people?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

There one it I think it is to keep you alive. The brain is going to make sure that you don't get yourself ostracized from the group. So you don't. The brain isn't designed to maximize your status in the group. It is designed to keep you alive. So doing things like pushing yourself, holding yourself to a high standard, taking risks, learning from the failures for a long time, that was a high risk endeavor because if you didn't understand how you fit into the group, you alienated yourself. Let's say you were on a ship and they're like, yeah, forget this guy, we're leaving him on this desert island. It could quite literally mean death. Or if you were in the tribe and they kicked you out, you were getting eaten by a lion, you're dead. So there's a reason we are social being. Yeah, for sure. There's a reason from an evolutionary standpoint to have that be high stakes. But in a modern context, it becomes a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. So Carol Dweck has a brilliant book on the subject called Mindset. And she said, with all the good intentions in the world, when you do something well, people are going to reinforce the behavior as if it were something based on an innate trait. So if you get good grades, your parents are like, you're so smart, look how clever you are. And the worst part is that feels amazing, but it builds in this fragility of what happens when I encounter something that I don't understand. So then you try to hide from it you try to always do things that are easier for you. So she said, better to praise the process. So instead of saying, hey, you're so smart, you say, wow, you must have worked really hard to get grades this good. So it's a fundamental belief pattern around whether you're born with intelligence and talents and they are fixed, or whether no, no, no, we all have some talent and intelligence, but they're actually malleable and you can improve them all.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

The problem is, most of the way we grow up, we're getting the wrong messages from our teachers, from our parents, from our environment.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Correct. And then your brain kicks in and you've got what you hear different numbers. But I don't think anybody thinks that there's less than a one in five ratio. So for every one negative thing I say to you, I'm gonna have to say five positive things to balance it out. I heard a study that said 1 in 17. So it's like we all get it. Like one painful you're not good enough comment is really hard to overcome with a lot of you're good enough. So the mind goes to these survival mechanisms to keep you alive, which I'll say oftentimes means keeping you small. If you don't take it seriously, that people think that you're doing something wrong. And if you don't back off, there were times where that would have been deadly. Now you just get in these negative loops. You get in a negative loop and people have taught you that, hey, it's all, it's just what you're born with. And you get this like death spiral of this is who I am and I'm never going to be any better. And so you don't have what I call the only belief that matters. Yeah, the only belief that matters is that you can improve. That's it. So it's like if somebody goes pretty simple, it is deadly simple. And it's why it's the only belief that matters. Because if you don't think you can improve, why would you put in the effort to get better? Because if you believe that you will get nothing out of that, there really is no point to putting in the time and the energy to improve. Whereas if you believe, whoa. The time and energy that I put into getting better, I'll actually be rewarded with skills. And as a doctor, you're going to understand this immediately. But this is one thing that I think people really struggle to understand. They think that skills are about checking a box or pleasing your parents. Skills are about, in the case of a doctor Being able to save somebody's life, going from C Diff and thinking, whoa, I'm actually going to die from this to no, no, no. I understand this well enough. I have a skill set that allows me to figure this out and now I can reverse all of that. So skills are insanely powerful. But people think about reading a book as being able to say, oh, I read the book. It's not about that. It's about being able to say, I can now employ this skill in my life in a way that shapes the world around me.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

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[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

I believe that every single human being can and wants to make change. And I have seen people in the darkest of places in my practice over the years make transformative change. So I want society to change and maybe it is starting to change. At the same time, I want to help the individuals be able to go, yeah, whilst I'm waiting, these things I can do. And that's what Make Change at last is about. It's about my 23 years of experience as a medical doctor, having seen tens of thousands of patients. And one of the key things I wanted to crack Mark, which I don't feel we talk enough about in this health and wellness space in which we both operate. A lot of the advice is about what you need to be doing and that, of course, is useful. Many people need to know, well, kind of, what should I be eating? How much should I be moving? And you've written some wonderful books over the years helping people with that. But I was thinking over the last couple of years, why is it. And I know there's structural components to this, but I was thinking, why is it that despite all the increased knowledge, all the health books or the health podcasts or the blogs online, why are.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

We getting sicker and sicker?

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Why are we getting sicker? Go more and more, there's more knowledge, but we're getting sicker. I'm like, what's the gap here now? Yes, there's external issues like the structure and the food environment and the farming system. I accept that. But it isn't just that. For me, it's also because I feel, I mean this, you know, chapter one in this book is called Trust Yourself. And I feel that we've outsourced our inner expertise to external experts. And I say that as a so called expert myself, 100%.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I would say the smartest doctor in.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

The room is your own body.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Exactly. And so this book, I think is going to really empower people to know, look, I don't know if you get this or not, but I get this on my podcast. I've had it several times where one week I'll talk to a medical doctor with all the credentials, maybe they went to Harvard Medical School and they'll, let's say, come on and talk about a particular diet, let's say a ketogenic diet for specific mental health problems. And they will quote four or five research studies to support their perspective and will tell us about lots of patients that, you know, they've used that approach on and they've got better. And then you might get two months later a different expert and nutrition expert or a medical doctor, well, credentialed, talking about the Mediterranean diet or a whole food plant based diet and quoting research to support their perspective and patients who improved when they followed their advice. And then I would often get people contacting me online saying, hey, Dr. Chachi, I'm a little bit confused. Like, that expert sounded great. They had research and patient studies, but this, this other expert also sounded great and they said the opposite. And they have research and patient studies. I don't know which expert to trust. And Mark, I believe, I'm not saying don't listen to experts. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is instead of asking which expert should I trust, I think the more useful question is why do I no longer trust myself?

[Unknown Speaker 2]

So I say, how do I listen to my body?

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

How do I listen to the signals it's saying and actually see what's working, what's not working. Some people say dairy is bad for you, but some people do fine on dairy. Other people say, you know, you know, it's good for you and you know, it may not be good.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

We want the black or white. Is dairy good? Is it bad? It's like, well, it depends for who and in what context. Is fasting good? Is it bad?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Well, your body will tell you.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

It kind of depends, right? If, if, if, for example, you've got type 2 diabetes and you're carrying A lot of excess weight on your body. Fasting, if done in the right way, might be helpful for you, right? If, on the other hand, you're an undernourished teenage girl with anorexia, it may not be. But we want to know, is fasting good or bad? It depends, right? And so with that example on my podcast I shared, I would say, well, listen, if you resonate with both of those people's messages, why don't you do this for four weeks? Try this expert's diet and pay attention. Those are the two key words. Pay attention. How do you feel? What's your energy like, your vitality, your sleep? How much focus do you have? What is your gut like? You know, how are your bowels? Right. Pay attention. And then for the next four weeks, try the other one, and at the same time, pay attention. Now, I'm not saying that will work 100% of the time. Yes, we need advice from experts like yourself or me to help guide us, but ultimately, neither one of us know for sure which is the perfect diet for that individual. We can provide frameworks like, you have your Pegan diet, right? It's a framework.

[BJ Fogg]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Basic foundational principles, but it's highly flexible.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Exactly.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Personalized.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

And I feel the problem, Mark, when it comes to making change that lasts, is if you have outsourced your inner expertise to external experts, what ends up happening is that we start to feel like failures. Oh, I followed that person's diet. It didn't work for me. It can't be the diet. It must be me. There's something wrong with me. Like, I'm a failure. And then guilt, shame, all these things start coming in, which mean that actually we don't make any changes or we actually feel worse about ourselves than when we started before. So this book is really my attempt to go, listen, I submit to you, Mark, and let's see what your perspective is on this. I imagine that people who follow you and people who listen to your podcast each week, I reckon 95% of them already know that excess sugar is not helping them.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

100%.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

They already know that. So if they still got an issue with excess sugar, it's not more external knowledge they need. It's like, oh, why is it, despite the knowledge, do I keep going to sugar? And so can I just share a really simple exercise that I've used for many years with patients? It sounds really simple, but it's very, very powerful. I call it the three Fs. The first F is feel, the second F is feed, and the third F Is find. Right. I'll go through it. So I imagine that a lot of your listeners, Mark, are trying to reset their relationship with sugar. Right. So what people often say is, Dr. Chatty, I was fine in the day, but at 9pm I was on the sofa, I was watching TV, and I really wanted ice cream. Okay. Have you ever felt like that before?

[David Foster Wallace]

Me?

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Never.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Okay. It's really common now. They want to make changes.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

They know my wife is terrible, by the way. She buys. She loves me and she thinks it's love, and she buys me my Achilles heel, which is Sicilian Van Leeuwen's pistachio ice cream.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Well, it sounds delicious.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Amazing. And I don't do it very often, but I know exactly that moment where.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Like, yeah, and I'm not saying you should or shouldn't have it. It's up to you. Right? But if you're trying to reduce your sugar intake, yet you still find yourself with half a tub of ice cream every evening, perhaps this exercise will help you. So I would say to my patients, okay, next time you're on the sofa and you have a craving for the ice cream, take a pause just for a few seconds and ask yourself, the first F feel. What am I feeling? Is it physical hunger or is it emotional hunger? Oh. Because many people don't even know that they haven't taken a pause. They feel, oh, I need sugar. The ice cream's in my mouth. Right? So it's just, let's create a gap between stimulus and response just for a moment. Then you go, ah, well, maybe I'm a bit stressed. Oh, I've just had a row with my partner and this is just a way of making me feel better. Okay, go ahead and have it. You're just now starting to build up that awareness. Next time it happens, do the first F and go to the second F, which is feed. Okay. Next time it happens, you take a pause. What am I feeling? Oh, I'm feeling really stressed. You know, I've been on zoom calls all day and I didn't go out for a lunchtime walk. Okay, then the second F is feed. How does feedback food feeds that feeling? Oh, ice cream helps me feel less stressed. You're starting to build up this awareness, this inner self awareness. Oh, that's why I'm going to the ice cream. And then the next time you go to the third F. So now that you know the feeling, now that you know how food feeds the feeling, the third F is find. Can I find an alternative behavior?

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Yeah.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

To feed the feeling. So it could Be I'm stressed instead of going to sugar. Oh, I love yoga. Maybe I'll go on YouTube and do a 10 minute yoga sequence. Or if you feel lonely, because many people go to sugar, they feel lonely. How can you nourish yourself in another way? Maybe you run yourself a bath for 15 minutes or you phone one of your friends or your parents. Right. So it's a simple exercise. It's so true that you can apply to anything. Alcohol, social media, online pornography, online shopping too. It's very, very simple but very, very powerful.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

I love it. And I, I, you know, I've been doing this forever like you and came up with a very similar framework for my patients which is one, not it's not what you're eating, it's what's eating. You exactly have to figure that out. And two, always ask yourself, what do I need, what am I feeling and what do I need?

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

There you go.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Am I hungry, do I need food, am I lonely? Do I need ice cream or doing to call a friend, you know, am I tired, do I need a nap or do I need sugar? Like and so there's a very simple set of non judgmental questions you can ask about what am I actually feeling right now and what do I need? And we often don't stop to make that distinction. That's what you're asking people to do is inviting them to go, gee, I had this earthy ice cream. What's really going on with me right now? Am I depressed? Am I sad? Am I tired? I need energy. Have I been, you know, just eating too much carbs and I'm craving carbs like what's going on? And I think it's a very powerful tool to sort of create self awareness around the choices you're making and then, yeah, then figure out what you, what you really need in that moment and, and then go reach out for that. If it's calling a friend, if it's, you know, taking a nap, if it's whatever it is that's going to sort of deal with what you need rather than the food which becomes our default. And we've, you know, we've created a.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Culture with this is what happens when.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Your kids shut up here, ate this candy. If you're screaming, eat this ice cream. Here, you know, have, have some treat as a way of kind of mollifying kids. And it becomes this sense of, of our reliance on things that are really bad for us to make us feel better rather than understanding how to actually feel better.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Yeah, this stuff is game changing for People. Because I imagine, Mark, that there, there's many people out there who know what they should be doing now for health, particularly people who listen to health shows like yours or mine. Right. These are people who are really interested, said, yes, for sure. The general public, we need to help keep. Help educating them on what are the healthy choices to make. But that external knowledge is not enough. I opened my new book with a very powerful story of a GP colleague of mine, a medical colleague, an expert in type 2 diabetes. You know, she'd always send me the latest papers with her own informed commentary on them and emails. And then one day she actually sent me a text message saying, hey, Rongan, are you around this weekend? I really need to chat. So I arranged to meet her and what happened is that she basically said that there was a patient that week in her clinic with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. And she was trying to educate the patient and said, listen, look, excess sugar, too many ultra processed foods, it's going to cause your body to be inflamed, it's going to affect your gut microbiome. And she was, you know, trying to educate this patient and the patient just stopped her and said, why should I listen to you? You're fatter than I am.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

That's what the diabetes doctor.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Yeah, the patient said it to the doctor.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

That's crazy.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Yeah, but. But what's really interesting, right, is because we can debate whether it was the right thing for that patient to say or not. But the point of me opening this new book with that story is to demonstrate a really important point. I met my friend for a coffee that weekend and she said, you know what, Rongan? The truth is the patient was right. The patient was absolutely right. What the patient doesn't know is that in my drawer I have big bags of Cadbury's giant buttons. Wow. Right. So the point is, she had all the knowledge. Many of us have the knowledge, we have the external knowledge. But that's not inner awareness, that's not wisdom.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

No.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Right. And I think this is the missing piece. Very disconnected from themselves, we're disconnected from ourselves. You know, you've talked about how we're disconnected from our food environment, and we are, but we're also disconnected from ourselves. And again, in that chapter called Trust Yourself, I write, I really, really enjoyed reading this account of this American scientist who went to see this Aboriginal tribe and was explaining to this tribe how Americans think with their heads. And the tribe were really confused. I said, oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, we think with our guts.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

And again, gut feeling and Even the word, the word for mind in Chinese is heart.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Exactly.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

It's your heart, mind. So it's really, it's interesting how language.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Is exactly but it's not about who's right or wrong. It's, it's all we need. All of these things in balance. You want the head, but you also want the heart. You want your gut feeling. And I feel that society has changed a little bit too much where we're being bombarded with more and more information which is good up to a point but we need to become our own experts. And that's really why I'm so proud of this book. I think it's going to be incredibly helpful for people because I think it's going to give them a self awareness that they may not already have.

[David Foster Wallace]

That's all right.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

I mean I think you and I are on the same track. People need to be empowered the knowledge and the tools to both know what to do, know how to do it and with the information that allows them to be informed about their own biology. And I think most of medicine has been paternalistic and patronizing and has created a firewall between you and your own biology. And the doctor and the insurance companies and the healthcare system are standing in that firewall and your work is breaking that down. And I, you know, I co founded a company called Function Health and empowers people to get their own lab data and learn about their own health in a deep way that they never were able to before without having to go through the system then be empowered with that knowledge and say, you know, I'm not crazy, you know, like, you know, I have these things going on. My doctor didn't check for my vitamin D level, it didn't check for my iron level, didn't check for my inflammation levels, didn't check my metabolic health, didn't check my insulin. And these are what's making me feel bad. And they're not things that are abnormal and normal tests. So we had this moment where we're shifting sort of agency back to individuals and, and realizing that 80 of health does not happen in the doctor's office. I can't cure diabetes in my office. Right. It's cured in the kitchen. It's kind of a farm like all the way from the field of the fork, not, not in the.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Exactly.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

And so this, this moment where we actually can once it recognize that we live in a structural system that promotes disease. But two that we have agency and now can use tools and products and books, things like yours make change that lasts is Fabulous book. Everybody definitely has got to get it. It's out nine simple ways to break free from habits that hold you back. I mean, you know, I think, I think there's so much pain that people suffer and shame and we have such a culture of blame. And I think, I think, I think that's something I'd like you to dig in and address because right now what's happening is as, as the, the threat to the food industry is coming from the current American administration. They're freaking out and they're coming out with their talking points and they're very clear this is discriminatory to tell people not to eat ultra processed food. It prevents them from getting access to affordable food that's safe, the shelf stable, that they can, you know, prepare easily. It's convenient that it's really about taking away, you know, people's, people's choice to not give them that. And it's all about personal, you know, agency and, and, and it's, it's a bunch of propaganda to justify them continuing with what they're doing without actually the, the public actually having the ability to understand that they're being manipulated by these messages. And the truth is, when you, when you do the things that you write about in your book, I want to go through more of them. You start to, you start to have the agency and the sense that you can be the CEO of your health and that you have to really listen to your inner signals to guide you and not be kind of manipulated by the propaganda out there, both from the food industry and the medical system.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

And the way to not get manipulated by it on an individual level is to learn to trust yourself, right? Because if it's always about what are you hearing outside this external noise, you're going to get confused. You're going to get confused by maybe what the food industry are saying. You're going to get confused by experts who have different opinions. So if you, for example, for 10 days just eat whole foods, right, let's say you're struggling with it and you know this full well, Mark, and you've written books on this, if for 10 days you cut out all those ultra processed foods and you just eat whole foods in whichever form you want to, that, you know, minimally processed, pretty close to how they're found in their natural form, you are going to feel like a different person. It is still one of the most impactful things that I could do with a patient is just for two weeks. You find it hard. Okay, let's find the right two weeks or Ten days. Let's clear out the cupboards. Let's make sure you've got a plan. You don't have many social engagements. Whatever it is, do it for two weeks and then come back and tell me how you feel. If you, as most people do, feel more energy, more vitality, you're sleeping better, your skin is better, your relationships are often better. This is what people don't realize. It's not just about their weights. It's the whole being. When you're healthy and luminous and light and free and happy, yeah, you're less reactive. All these things are different. Then you're better equipped to go into the world and you can hear what your friends have to say or the media have to say, but you have this inner knowing that, yeah, I know what. Because the truth is, some of us, some of people listening now will go, look, I can't really influence the governments right now. You may argue that you can through your choices, of course, right through where you spend your dollars.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Use your voice. Call your congressman, Call your senator. See, you care about these issues. I don't want to be poisoned anymore.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

But I would also argue, Mark, that we're better able to change the world when we are able to look after ourselves.

[David Foster Wallace]

If you focus on new habits that you want, there's a way to design them into your life. And that's what Tiny Habits is all about. That's what the book's all about. The book is doing two things at once. Number one, it's presenting an absolutely new way of thinking about how big it works. A new model and a new set of models, which I think is really groundbreaking. Your model is a big deal. And then it's also telling people how to apply this in a really easy way in their everyday lives. So I'm writing the book. I'm trying to do both at once. I hope you did.

[BJ Fogg]

It's very good. But you talk about what's different about it and other behavior change models have been studied. And it's one of the banes of existence. If you go to your doctor and he gives you a prescription, there's only a 50% chance that you'll fill it. And if you fill it, there's probably a 50% chance that you'll take it. And so doctors do all these great things. Unless you're a surgeon, you have the patient lying unconscious on the table. You can do whatever you want to them to get patients to do what you think is right for their health or what you think will help them, whether it's take A pill. I mean, taking a pill is pretty easy, right? Forget eating better, exercising, meditating, getting eight hours of sleep, building your social network relationships. You know, all those things are so challenging. And it is why we're seeing this incredible global epidemic of chronic illness.

[David Foster Wallace]

Yeah. Well, right now there are two medical doctors who are part of my boot camp this month. And one of them is from Ireland. And he, after class read, I think, or after class two, he emailed me and said, BJ, I now see for the last 20 years, I've been doing this exactly wrong, and I felt kind of bad. But also, he is creating a behavior change program for his patients and other physicians. So now he can do it. Right. One of the systematic problems is focusing people or yourself on something abstract, like, oh, I got to exercise. That's an abstract thing. It's not a behavior. Well, often called those things behavior, but they're abstraction. And then the next thing that goes wrong is people say, I just need to motivate myself. That combination of trying to motivate yourself towards something abstract does not work very well at all, whether your own behavior is somebody else. In fact, with this kind of an oversimplification within my work in tiny habits, rather than motivating, the distraction makes something very specific really easy.

[BJ Fogg]

And so that's like do three jumping jacks, right?

[David Foster Wallace]

Yep. They make it really easy to do. And so you're not worried about motivation and you know exactly what the behavior is. One of the differences between. And I think this, doctor, this would be one of the issues. An expert, when you say, you know, eat more leafy grains. An expert in his or her mind knows what that means, but an amateur might go, I don't know what that means.

[BJ Fogg]

Grass.

[David Foster Wallace]

Eat grass. So experts that are prescribing like, hey, you need to change your diet. Eat more leafy grains. They're not understanding that perhaps their patients are totally confused. So instead, they need to be very, very specific. Here's what I want you to do now. Eat bok choy.

[BJ Fogg]

Broccoli and 17 leaves of kale.

[David Foster Wallace]

Yes. Every evening. And steam it or saute it and.

[BJ Fogg]

Cook it this way.

[David Foster Wallace]

Right. So really it's what is exactly the behavior, and here's how to do it. And that is a much more successful approach than, geez, well, no wonder, no.

[BJ Fogg]

Wonder we have such a problem, because all doctors say is eat less and exercise more and lose weight. Good luck with that. I'm working so much.

[David Foster Wallace]

I don't know if you want to go that I'm going to go here and you can change it if you want, but just everyday people don't even have the right guidance. I mean, for most people, if I were to walk out on the street, say, oh, how do you lose weight? I would wager 90% plus would say, oh, I just have to exercise more. And that's the understanding, you know, that's what.

[BJ Fogg]

Which is actually a false idea.

[David Foster Wallace]

Right, right. And so, so people, so they're like, oh, if I only get myself to exercise more, I can lose weight. Well, they're headed in the wrong direction. They haven't been given the right behavior, which is mostly nutrition behaviors, as you know, and the right way to make those into habits. So there is. And why that idea that exercise is a key to weight loss, why that keeps living on and on, I have, I'll tell you. Why is that so persistent?

[BJ Fogg]

Well, because it's, you know, the, the, the mantra of the government and the food industry is calories in, calories out is the secret to weight loss. And it has nothing to do with nutritional quality. And so it doesn't matter whether you have a soda or broccoli, as long as they're the same calories, it's the same amount of energy. And if you can exert more exercise to expend that energy, as long as you're in calorie balance, you'll stay the same weight. If you're exercising more than the calories you're taking in, you'll lose weight. But scientifically that's just not true because all calories are not the same. And some calories like sugar and starch actually cause you to spike insulin, which makes you store fat. So I've written about 16 books on this, but it's really extraordinary. And one of the things I read in your book that I really liked and I use it all the time, which is, you know, people internalize this message of it's it's your fault, it's your fault you don't exercise, it's your fault that you're overweight. Shame on you. But you're, you said, I'm here to say it isn't your fault and changing your behavior isn't as hard as you think. And I think that's really an essential message because people are stuck in this idea of self loathing, self hate and discouragement because they're not having the willpower, the motivation, and they beat themselves up about it. How do you address that with people?

[David Foster Wallace]

You know, I didn't understand that's where everyday people are until about coaching with probably two or three thousand people. This would be 2011.

[BJ Fogg]

So you're a slow learner.

[David Foster Wallace]

Well, I was in my little bubble of Stanford and high achievers and CrossFit type people. Right. So I'm in this very selective kind of world and I'm coaching, you know, 300 people a week about in tiny habits through email. But there's email exchanges and about 2,3000 people in. Somebody wrote me and she said, oh my gosh, bj, thanks to you, I now see that I've endured a lifetime of self trash talk. And in tiny habits what we do is we teach people to say good for me and feel successful and embrace it. And so she wrote to thank me. She says, this boom has changed my life. And I paused. This was a huge moment for me, Mark. It's like that is where people are really at. And then I started reading all the emails and my interactions with them were different. And I was like people, they have so many ways to say I did a bad job, I'm insufficient, I black willpower. Which is, and that's why in the book when I say that that was in some ways a little bit risky because it's just inviting a lot of criticism. But it's true and it's accurate. And so to say, look, if you haven't changed, it's not your fault. You just didn't have the right way to do it yet. That's right.

[BJ Fogg]

Now you do.

[David Foster Wallace]

Welcome to tiny habits. Now you do not. You can do it. And it's not about willpower or discipline. It's about design. You design new habits into your life. You don't force them or you don't use just plan motivation or willpower. It's a design challenge, not a test of somebody's character.

[BJ Fogg]

I think that's so important to say that because I see this all the time as a doctor. People beat themselves up, they trash talk, they're self loathing, they get discouraged. And I just love this part of your book, 100 Ways to Celebrate and feel shine. And you have like 100 ways to celebrate yourself and to celebrate the little successes and the tiny habits and builds and builds on a positive feedback loop. And I think, I think that's a really key part of behavior change is these positive feedback loops. So it's like, oh, by the time I could do 10 push ups and I wasn't in pain for a week in my chest muscles, I was like, oh, this is fun. And then I want to do more. And it's like, and you just, I felt good And I want to do more. So I think there's. There's these little. These little tiny strategies you have throughout the book that really help people to break free from some of these really discouraging and debilitating beliefs about themselves that limit themselves in their lives, that limit themselves from actually doing the things they want to do. And it's so important. And you talk about this idea of behavior design, so it's not just random. You're actually thinking about this, the sort of, you know, if you want to do certain things, like if you want to, I don't know, build a house, you have to put the foundation in, you have to put the framing in, you have to put the, like there's a design feature of how to get things to work. And we've been going about it all wrong when it comes to behavior change, which is why we're not changing our behaviors at a scale that we need to. Because many of the problems we're facing in our society, our behavior change problems. And you're pointing this out so well. So what are the other strategies that aren't working that people do that aren't working? Yeah, because I think it's helpful when people understand you've talked about this model. It seems pretty obvious you have a motivation to do something, you have the.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Ability to do it, and you have.

[BJ Fogg]

A trigger or a prompt. And that seems like a very simple model. And it is. It works. I've used it. But on the other hand, what is pushing against people that is limiting them?

[David Foster Wallace]

Well, first we talked about the idea of people even focusing on the wrong thing. Like if your aspirations, weight loss, and you think it's about walking on the treadmill at the gym focused on the wrong behavior. So that's one of the systematic problems. Another one of the problems is the idea that you set this really lofty goal and then you just have to keep yourself motivated toward that lofty goal. Now, in my work, I don't use the word goal. In fact, in the book, I talk about why I think it's a bad idea to use that word.

[BJ Fogg]

Are you going to put a whole bunch of goal setting people out of business? I know well make their lives out of helping people set goals?

[David Foster Wallace]

Not totally opposed to the goal thing, but it's not a winning strategy. The fact that I've even written down a goal and I'm like, now I'm going to just keep myself motivated toward this goal. If it's hard to do, you're not facing the reality that your motivation is going to Shift over time. The idea. And we can come back to that if you want. The goal setting, people don't get super upset with me. I break it into aspirations and outcomes. There's a type of goal that's an aspiration. There's a type of goal that's an outcome. So rather than using an ambiguous word, because I'm really big on precision, when it's an aspiration, like earlier Mark, you said you wanted to get stronger. That's an aspiration. And then you find behaviors, specific behaviors that will take you there. An outcome might be. Somebody might say, wow, I want to lose £20. That's an outcome. Then you find specific behaviors that will take you there. In either case, you start with what you want to achieve. This is part of the system in the book. And then you figure out what behaviors are the right ones for you to take you there. You don't guess at the behaviors. There's a way to figure out what are the best behaviors for you. You go to that aspiration or the outcome, and you. I'll go to a slightly different spot. Another one of the misleading ideas is that repetition creates the habit. So if you can just keep yourself doing the behavior, it'll become a habit. And that's not true at all. When you look at what the research. So the people that are advocating this, and they're very popular books, and there's a lot of the culture that's saying repetition creates habits, and that's not true. You're being misled by those books and that thing. When you look at the research that most people cite, it shows that repetition correlates the strength of habit. It gives no evidence whatsoever that repetition causes the habit to form the correction. In my book, what I try to make very clear is it's emotions that create the habits. That's one of the myths. Mythbusters in the book, other things include, like, you have to set a goal.

[BJ Fogg]

Why doesn't reputation repetition cause habit change?

[David Foster Wallace]

Well, I have quite a long. So I'm training the tiny habits coaches. We go through this thoroughly. And the reason. I mean, the question really is, why do people think it creates habit? Habit change. Right. That's really the question. Why do people think that? Well, because they've been told that for years. So when you look at the research, it does not say that.

[BJ Fogg]

So I'll give you an example. Like, for me, just to be a little devil's advocate, I. I had back surgery recently, and I. I really, you know, don't like swimming long distances. I never really done It. I love swimming, but I just, like, go out for a little bit, but I had to, like, you know, swim for half an hour. And, you know, at first it was like. And, oh, it's so far, and I have to swim back. And because I swim in the lake and it's like, it was. It was. I was resistant to it, but I knew I had to do it because I couldn't do anything else.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

But.

[BJ Fogg]

But over time, the more I did it, now I look forward to it, and now I can do it, and I don't have that mental resistance that I have.

[David Foster Wallace]

Yeah. And the way to think about that, it wasn't a function of repetition. It was a function of your feeling successful. You're seeing progress.

[Dr. Rangan Chatterjee]

Right. Okay.

[David Foster Wallace]

Notice it resulted. Like, if you had to do the swimming and you never felt successful, you would not have. Eventually, once you bailed, you would not have created the habit out of that.

[BJ Fogg]

Okay.

[David Foster Wallace]

All right. So people are first. They're misleading you in these books and blogs. But when people think that repetition is the key to creating habits, they think, oh, I've got to. One of the memes is, it's 66 days. Not true. But that's what's out there. So they think, okay, in order to create an exercise habit, I have to repeat it 66 days. Oh, I don't have time for that. I'm going to wait till I have time. They look at behavior change as something to dread, something to endure, something that might be painful. And none of this is helpful. Instead, you can change your behavior by feeling, like, happy and joyous. Now, when you look at what has worked, like your example is a great one, Mark. When it has worked, what will always be true? That there was an emotional component felt more successful, or it relieved some negative emotion.

[BJ Fogg]

Yeah. Or pain or. That's great.

[David Foster Wallace]

That's what it is. And so in tiny habits, we don't leave that to chance. I mean, I have a chapter that's like, emotions, great habits. And then we give in the book specific techniques, and the coaches, the coach, people in tiny habits help people find exactly what techniques do you use so you can feel that emotion at exactly the right times. You can wire in habits really, really quickly. And the better you are at feeling that emotion, that positive emotion on demand, the better you will be at wiring and habits.

[BJ Fogg]

So that's an interesting piece. So it's the B, which is behavior equals motivation, ability, and prompt. But there's also the emotion in there.

[David Foster Wallace]

Yeah. Well, let me sketch it out. So when I say behavior, I mean all types of behavior. Habit is a subset. So within, like if I were drawing a diagram within the big circle that is Behavior, motivation ability prompt applies to all behavior types. It applies to habits, it applies to stopping behaviors, it applies to one time behaviors, it applies to temporary behaviors like taking an antibiotic. Then when you get down to the subset of habits, those are behaviors you do quite automatically. Those are different than the other types of behaviors. What creates the automaticity in the emotion, the positive feedback emotion? I have people focus on the emotion of success, the feeling of success. That's what makes that behavior automatic and puts it in the category of what we call habit powerful.

[BJ Fogg]

And you talk about how this starts to change people's identity, their way they think about themselves and see themselves. Tell us more how that happens.

[David Foster Wallace]

I can't say this is the magic. I'm a scientist, but this is awesome. What happens, and we see this in our data week after week, is when people do something small and feel successful about it. Like they're flossing one tooth or doing two pushups or steaming broccoli for dinner. That feeling of success also changes how they think about themselves. Oh, I'm the kind of person who can take care of my teeth. I'm the kind of person that eats steamed vegetables. So when they don't change their identity by like going and listening to motivational talk, at least in tiny habits, they change because they see evidence that they are changing and they're seeing the effects of that. And that identity shift can happen really quickly. We see a lot of evidence that within five days. And it seems to be a function of people seeing evidence and feeling successful in their quest to change. So it's. And it doesn't have to be like running a marathon.

[BJ Fogg]

So it's like a feedback loop. It's a positive feedback loop.

[David Foster Wallace]

Yeah. And when people acknowledge that and see that, and part of the program and part of the book is like, hey, look, recognize you are succeeding. I might be tiny, but you're still changing. That then shifts people away from self trash talk, the thinking that they don't have enough willpower to seeing themselves in a whole new light. And the phrase that come back to us is like, now see, I'm the kind of person you can change. I can follow through, I can achieve whatever goal I have. And it goes on and on.

[BJ Fogg]

So it's a positive feeling feedback loop.

[David Foster Wallace]

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't talk about it exactly in those words as positive feedback, but that's exactly what it is. I mean, we talk about his emotions and positive feedback that affirms you're succeeding. So it's the feeling of success that wires in the habit and also motivates you to continue. So it has those two functions.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

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