Journey to the Sunnyside

Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable, and he has a new book out called Beyond Belief. What I liked about this conversation is that it gets at why so many people stay stuck, even when they already know what to do. We talk about what belief actually is, how it shapes what we notice and feel, how labels can quietly become identity, and why some forms of positive thinking can actually keep people stuck instead of moving them forward. At the center of the book is this idea that beliefs are not just thoughts in the background. They shape what we think is possible, and often they are doing a lot more to drive our behavior than we realize.

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Mike Hardenbrook
#1 best-selling author of "No Willpower Required," neuroscience enthusiast, and habit change expert.

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Speaker 1:

Today, I'm joined by Nir Eyal. Nir is the bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable, and he has a new book out called Beyond Belief. What I liked about this conversation is that it goes deeper than just behavior change on the surface. We talk about what belief actually is, why knowing what to do still often is not enough to change. How labels can quietly become part of identity, where positive thinking and manifesting can go off track, and what it really looks like to build belief in a way that is honest and grounded.

Speaker 1:

At the heart of the book is this idea that beliefs are not just thoughts floating around in the background. They shape what we notice, what we feel, and what we think is possible. Today, we're here with Nir Eyal, and we're gonna talk about his new upcoming book, Beyond Belief. But first of all, thank you for coming on today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. My pleasure. Good to see you again.

Speaker 1:

This is gonna be a great one. We're gonna pack as much into this as possible. And I read this book and I personally really liked it. And it got me thinking actually, which I'll share in this episode about some things in my own life that were affected by the concepts in your book. So let's start out with, you argue that knowing what to do and why still isn't enough to change.

Speaker 1:

So what's that missing piece? Why do people still stay stuck even if they know better?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. This is this is really the key question that drove my curiosity in writing this book was, you know, why is it that in an age where we have so much information, we basically all know what to do to improve our lives. We can figure out the answer to our questions with just a few taps of our screen. Why don't we do it? We know what to do.

Speaker 2:

The information is all out there, and the question is why not? Well, because it turns out that our concept of how we think about motivation is incorrect. That we think about motivation as if I want this benefit, I will do this behavior. It's kind of classic economic incentives. Problem is if it was as easy as that, we would all have six pack abs and be multi millionaires because the answers are out there.

Speaker 2:

We know what to do, it's that we don't do it. Well, why not? Well, what's missing, I think, is not knowing what to do. It's not even having the right resources or the right skill set. You can learn skills.

Speaker 2:

It's not even about intelligence, that helps, but that doesn't determine your long term success in life. I think what determines whether you meet a goal is persistence. Turns out that that's what the psychological literature shows, that those who keep trying are the most likely to succeed. It's not persistence guarantees success, it's that quitting guarantees failure. So the most successful people in every goal turns out to be the losers.

Speaker 2:

The people who lose again and again and again, but keep trying, keep persisting. Those are the ones who eventually meet their goals. So how do we do that? Well, turns out what underlies persistence, what keeps us going, are our beliefs. That even if I know exactly what to do, the behavior, but I don't believe in my own ability to sustain that behavior, maybe I don't believe in myself enough to continue what I know I should do, I'm gonna quit.

Speaker 2:

Conversely, even if I want the benefit and I don't believe I'm gonna get it, I'm also gonna quit. So maybe I have a boss who I don't believe has my best interest at heart. Well, how hard am I gonna work for that boss if I don't think I'm gonna get that promotion or I don't think I'm gonna get that raise? If I don't believe in them, I'm also gonna quit. So motivation is not a straight line, motivation is a triangle, that we need to have the behavior, the benefit, and most importantly, the belief.

Speaker 2:

The belief is what holds it all together.

Speaker 1:

I love the way you take simple concepts that we kinda basically know, and yet we're still stuck within those concepts. Like, there's something not linking those, like you just said, the triangle there. And in the book, you opened up with a really good example that I think paints a picture for the rest of the book so you can kinda grasp the difference. So there was this experiment that had about rats and water cylinders which I'll let you tell. Can you tell that story and what you think it says about people, especially when it comes to things like hope and endurance?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I think this this study really demonstrates, the power of belief. So what happened in the nineteen fifties, there was a researcher by the name of Kurt Richter. Was He a biologist, and he had a very simple question. The question was, how long could a wild stressed rat swim for?

Speaker 2:

Turns out, bit of trivia, a wild stressed rat can swim for about fifteen minutes before it gives up, drowns, and dies. Now he he saw this, and he wanted to see could he extend the amount of time that the rat swam for? Could he make the rat more persistent with some kind of intervention? So here's what he did. At about the fifteen minute mark, when he saw the rat was was starting to struggle, Richter reached into this cylinder of water, he pulled out the rat, dried it off, let it catch its breath, and then plunk back into the water the rat went.

Speaker 2:

Now you can't do this kind of study anymore, It's pretty unethical, but the rat's already dead. The experiment's already done. Might as well learn So from here's what we found. What Richter found was that by doing that, by teaching the rat that if it just kept swimming, if it just stayed persistent a little bit longer, this magical hand might reach in and save it. That persistence might lead to salvation.

Speaker 2:

And the results were incredible. Now you know the answer, but when I tell people about this study, they know that there's some kind of remarkable result, and here's what happened. The rats started out swimming for fifteen minutes. They extended that swim time not by double, not by triple, not by four times, which imagine if you think about it, right, how amazing. If you could go from fifteen minutes of persistence to sixty minutes, four times longer, imagine that, that'd be amazing, right?

Speaker 2:

If I could study four times longer in a test, if I could do my sales calls for four times longer, if I could exercise four times longer, that would be miraculous, that would be incredible. I remember they were swimming for their lives, right? They died after fifteen minutes of swimming. He didn't make them just four times more persistent, they didn't just swim for sixty minutes. They swam for sixty hours.

Speaker 2:

Sixty hours of nonstop swimming. So what does this study shows us? It shows us that nothing changed in the rats' bodies. The rats didn't get suddenly more stronger bodies. Nothing changed in their environment, same cylinder, same experiment.

Speaker 2:

We can't ask the rats, obviously, but we think something must have changed in their minds, that there must have been something going on in their heads that was suddenly unlocked because of this experiment, because of this intervention. Now what's incredible is that that power to swim for sixty hours was always in them. They always had the sixty hours. But by changing their beliefs somehow, by showing them that salvation was possible if they just didn't quit, they unlocked this sixty hours of nonstop swimming. So, of course, the question for us is, what's our potential?

Speaker 2:

When do we think that we're at our limits, that we can't go any further, that we have to take another drink, that we have to give in, that we have to stop because it's just too much for us, well, the fact of the matter is that we quit far too soon than is good for us, that in fact, have way more power to persist than we think we do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. The study is very well, it was eye opening. Pretty crazy kind of study, you know. But what do you think from that study that and your conclusions that most people misunderstand about why people keep going and why people give up?

Speaker 2:

I I think it it demonstrates that without a belief, we give into pain. That what I think the biggest myth that the brain pulls on us, the biggest trick that our brain pulls on us is that it tricks us into believing that what we see is a fact, that people don't understand the difference between fact, faith, and belief. Fact is a objective truth. It is something that is true whether or not you believe it. The world is more like a sphere than it is flat.

Speaker 2:

Sorry, flat earthers. It's a fact. It doesn't care what you think. That's a that's a fact. Faith is a conviction that does not require evidence.

Speaker 2:

God rewards the righteous. There's no amount of evidence that I can present to somebody who holds that as a matter of faith that I could convince them otherwise. And no evidence is required. That is a matter of faith. Beliefs are neither of those things.

Speaker 2:

A belief is not a fact, it's not faith. The definition of a belief is a conviction that is open to revision based on new evidence. And I think that most of our problems in the world today, our personal problems, our interpersonal problems, our geopolitical problems, all coincide with this unfortunate situation we find ourselves in where far too many people are convinced that what they think is a fact or sorry, that what they call faith is a fact and that what they think are facts, in actuality, are nothing more than beliefs. And what they don't realize is the thing that they hold onto, these facts that we hear all the time, these limiting beliefs that we tell ourselves, I can't do this. This is too hard.

Speaker 2:

I'm not ready. I'm not good enough. My past dictates my future. This happened to me. She's like that.

Speaker 2:

There she goes again. All these limiting beliefs we keep hearing to ourselves, they feel like facts. And they're not facts. They're beliefs. And what's so special about beliefs and why we don't utilize them enough is that beliefs, unlike facts and faith, are tools, not truths.

Speaker 2:

Most of us, we hold our beliefs up to the standard it needs to be a fact, and we have arguments with each other about, well, when you said that, that meant this, and I'm gonna prove to you why you were wrong and I was right, and we hold it to the bar of facts. But most of the things in life that matter are not based on facts. You know, should I take this job? Should I marry this person? Should I go to this city?

Speaker 2:

Should I buy this product? These aren't based on the laws of physics. These are beliefs that are up here. And so so much of what what unlocks human potential isn't a matter of fact or faith. It's about picking the right tool for the job.

Speaker 2:

It's about deciding which beliefs serve us and which beliefs hurt us.

Speaker 1:

And how do you do that? How do you know when a belief is either helping us versus trapping us?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. You look for suffering. You ask yourself, where is the muck? The muck is those areas of your life where you're stuck. It's that relationship that refuses to heal, that continues to annoy you, that makes you into a person you don't like.

Speaker 2:

It's that project, that goal that you still haven't finished. It's that ambition that you've told yourself can wait and year after year on New Year's resolutions list, it keeps coming back up and doesn't get done. That's the muck. It's those things that you know you could do, you know how to do, you want the benefit of doing them, but you don't do it. And what you will find invariably is that if you keep digging, you will find a limiting belief and you will always find some kind of fear that's preventing you from being the kind of person you know you can become.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. That's powerful. You know? You know, one of the things about beliefs, you said it can go do both directions. Like, directionally, that's just how she is or that's just how

Speaker 2:

I

Speaker 1:

am. You talk about beliefs. Many times people think that they're fixed. That's who I am. That's my identity.

Speaker 1:

Do you think that beliefs are fixed?

Speaker 2:

No. Definitely not. I mean, there's there's those are facts. Right? This is what's so dangerous about, in the in the psychology community, you know, I'm very cautious about these labels.

Speaker 2:

When, you know, in the psychology, know, we don't use in the rehab community, we don't call people addicts anymore because we find that's very counterproductive. We call them people struggling with an impulse control issue. I don't even like diagnoses. I really am very careful. Not that diagnoses don't serve a role.

Speaker 2:

It's just that when we see ourselves through a particular identity, I'm not a morning person, I'm an addict, I, I am a Sagittarius. Right? You know, the the the labels go on and on and on. What what most people hear is that's who I am, and you can't change who you are. Right?

Speaker 2:

I can't change my eye color. That's part and parcel of me. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the psycho speak that's out there that's been that's gone mainstream, not necessarily just for the medical community, but the stuff you see on TikTok, the stuff you see in the vernacular, I have impostor syndrome. No you don't. There's no such thing.

Speaker 2:

There is no such thing. It's it's not in the DSM. It's completely a myth. But yet we glob onto these labels because they're very comforting. It's called the Rumplestiltskin effect.

Speaker 2:

Remember that story from Grimm's Fairytale where the princess has to name the the little gnome guy? Yeah. Yeah. Find his name Rumplestiltskin? And that's the only way that she has power over him.

Speaker 2:

Well there's something incredibly intoxicating about having a label, having a diagnosis, having something that you can say, Ugh, this explains everything. I'll tell you my life. When I was diagnosed with ADHD it explained so much, Oh I have ADHD, that explains why I keep getting distracted, that explains why I have so much trouble, that explains so much. But it became a curse. That label became my limitation because you know why?

Speaker 2:

Every time I struggled with distraction, and who doesn't struggle with distraction these days? Everybody does. Even the diagnosis was how often do you struggle with distraction? And it's a Likert scale. Never, sometimes, a lot, a little.

Speaker 2:

Well, compared to who? I've only been in my brain. How do I know how much you struggle with distraction? So compared to what? What do I how do I know how much is a lot?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. Your mountain might be a hill to somebody else and vice versa.

Speaker 2:

What do I know? Exactly. But of course there's a whole industrial complex that's gonna give you a diagnosis. If that's what you're looking for, you're gonna get it. So, and it was funny, one of the doctors I interviewed for this book, he told me, you know, one day medical science will advance to a point where we're all sick.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And it's heading in that direction.

Speaker 2:

No. It's already there. You know, The United Kingdom, the majority of people the majority of people are neurodivergent. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2:

Well, now, am I saying that diagnoses don't exist? Absolutely not. Am I saying that they're not useful? Absolutely not. Am I saying that these diseases don't really exist?

Speaker 2:

I don't really know. I'm not a doctor. This isn't medical advice. I will tell you what though, we are over medicalizing and we will look back in five, ten years and note that this was a huge mistake, that we're doing it too much because we're not telling people the downside. When you call yourself I'm an addict, that is who I am.

Speaker 2:

I understand why it's comforting and why it does provide power. It also can become a limitation. If you use it appropriately as a met, if you use a diagnosis or a label as a met that I'm here and I'm trying to get there, it's very useful. That's when it's great, it's great. So when I use my ADHD as hey, I'm on this map, I want to get over here, I'm here on this map.

Speaker 2:

Now maybe people are, some people are at different places, and so I'm gonna use this diagnosis to help me get from point A to point Where it became harmful was when I believed I was the MAP, I was the diagnosis. And so this is the same thing you hear around addiction, right? Some people say I'm an addict, I'm not touching alcohol whatsoever. Other people say I'm an addict, there's nothing I can do. Right?

Speaker 2:

It's my genes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's my predilection. It's my it's it's cast in stone. Well, neither of those are really true. Now, what's what's important here is that a belief doesn't have to be true. A belief doesn't have to be true.

Speaker 2:

A belief just has to be useful. A fact is a fact. You can't change facts. You can change beliefs. So what what I'm trying to implore people to consider is, is that belief serving you?

Speaker 2:

If it serves you to have a label, if it serves you to have a diagnosis, if it serves you to have an identity, do it, awesome. But if it's not serving you, like for me, every time I was distracted I was thinking there's my ADHD and there it goes again, I'm never gonna get over this, and maybe I need a new treatment protocol, and what if I don't meet my deadline, and I go down this spiral and I'm thinking about my ADHD and I'm not thinking the thing I got distracted from. Nor am I thinking about the plus sides, right, that when I am really into something, I've written three bestsellers, when I'm really into a topic and I care about it, I'm not distracted, I love it. It's just I get distracted when I'm doing boring shit. So, you know, like, this is this is, I think, how we have to back take a step back away and ask ourselves what is helpful?

Speaker 2:

Where is this serving me versus where is a belief hurting me?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, this resonates so well with me in so many different levels. Obviously, here on the podcast, we talk about labels, and and it really comes down to what you were saying there. Is it serving me?

Speaker 1:

And I don't think anything of your ideas are saying that diagnosis is bad. I think it's saying just what I said. Is it serving me? And I also identify the fact with the ADHD comment because I grew up kind of with that diagnosis, and I didn't even really think about this until I read your book in this way anyways. And one of the diagnosis with me was that because I had ADHD, I could get out of classes that related to foreign language and certain math because it was too difficult for somebody like me.

Speaker 1:

And so I went through college and into adulthood thinking, well, I I can't really learn a language and, you know, to be honest, in my twenties, I was kinda glad to get excused from those classes. But then I really wanted to learn Spanish. And I basically, kinda similar to how you you started with diet and everything, my entire bookshelf was just covered in every Spanish book, Pimsleur, every single, like, Rosetta Stone, everything. I was talking, doing Skype lists, and everything. It turns out, I was like, I'm actually pretty good at doing foreign languages.

Speaker 1:

My accent's good. I pick it up fast. People are really surprised at how long I've been doing this. But that limiting belief until I really, like, released myself of it and saying, I'm ADHD. That's the label.

Speaker 1:

I can't really learn a language or it would be really difficult. That was bullshit.

Speaker 2:

And I think I mean, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more to, to to the book that I've been writing for the past six years, but I think it's it's the one of the more important chapters where I talk about what's called the nocebo effect. Many people have heard about the placebo effect.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Let's get into this because I thought this was fascinating. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So what what I what I was trying to show was that our beliefs can have a an immense physical reaction. So let demonstrate. There was a guy who was a documented case of a gentleman who had a really bad breakup with his girlfriend. And he decides after this bad breakup that he wants to end his life. So he goes to his medicine cabinet and he takes out an entire bottle of antidepressants and he takes every single pill in the bottle and he wants to end his life.

Speaker 2:

Now after he flushes down the last pill, he decides at the last minute he's gonna change his mind. He wants to live after all. So he goes over to the neighbor's house, he knocks on their door, he tells them I took all my pills, rushed me to the hospital, they take him to the ER. As soon as he gets to the ER he collapses in the middle of the floor, the nurses are rushing to come get him, they put they put him on a gurney, they figure out that his blood pressure is dangerously low, his heart rate is falling, and he's drifting in and out of consciousness. Thank goodness he brought this bottle of pills with him because now they are trying to figure out what did he overdose on.

Speaker 2:

They look at the pill jar and they see that it doesn't say the name of the the the medication. It doesn't say the name of the antidepressant. It says a phone number. And so they call this phone number and person picks up, they give him the person's name, they say quick, tell us what this person overdosed on, we need to figure out what to do with him. They look in the computer and they find that oh, mister A was in a clinical study for a new brand of antidepressant.

Speaker 2:

And guess what? He hadn't taken an antidepressant. He was in the placebo group. He had taken a bottle of nothing, a completely inert substance. And yet here he was dropping blood pressure, dangerously low heart rate, in and out of consciousness, full physiological symptoms of a complete drug overdose.

Speaker 2:

And yet he hadn't taken anything. He just took a bunch of placebo pills. They tell mister a this, that nothing he took could have possibly caused these physiological symptoms. And within fifteen minutes, his heart rate is back to normal, his blood pressure stabilizes, he walks off the gurney, leaves the hospital, totally healthy, maybe a bit embarrassed. So there's no way you can't tell me that if someone believes that they took a pill that's going to harm them, and they feel these physiological symptoms with such intensity, there's no way you can't tell me that telling someone that they have a diagnosis, whether they have it or not, that if you implant suggestions of you are this and you have that, that will change their biology.

Speaker 2:

It will change their behavior. There's no way you can't tell me that doesn't happen. Now we don't know to what degree, etcetera. But absolutely, there is a huge effect to telling somebody these are your limitations. This is what has happened to you.

Speaker 2:

This is what's going on inside your body. This is a chronic illness. There's nothing you can do about it. That is gonna have some serious nocebo effects as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. It was really quite interesting. And I mean, I've I've had little bit of this effect to myself before. Like, thought, you know, am I feeling a certain symptom? And then, like, I went and got blood work done.

Speaker 1:

Everything came back fine. All of a sudden, no symptom. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Like, oh, okay. Well, I guess that was in my head in some way or another. Yeah. You know, give another example of this, but instead, can you do it where it's a it's a group that is influenced by their beliefs, not just a single person?

Speaker 2:

That's yeah. We we see every couple years, you will see something in the news that displays exactly the same phenomenon. In Portugal a few years ago, on one night there was a flood of teenage girls who all went to the emergency rooms all around the country all at the same time. One evening thousands of teenage girls showed up in hospital ERs and they all had the same exact symptoms. Intense intestinal discomfort, they were vomiting, they had diarrhea, all kinds of terrible symptoms.

Speaker 2:

But only teenage girls. The disease control authorities are rushing around trying to figure out what was in the water, what was in the food, who got contaminated, what kind of disease might be causing this. It turns out there was an episode of a television show, a telenovela, like a soap opera type of thing called Strawberries and Cream that was a television show, a dramatic soap opera type of thing, where the lead character on the show was a teenage girl who had some kind of intestinal disease, some kind of rare tropical disease. And that created this mass hysteric response where all these people got the same exact symptoms if they were watching the show and turns out that only teenage girls were watching the show. So we see this time and time again throughout history, dancing illnesses and disappearing penises and all kinds of crazy This diseases that people come up is just the latest phase.

Speaker 2:

This is just our genetic, our historical legacy of creating diagnoses that create physical symptoms because of fear. That we feel what we fear. In the book, I talk about this guy by the name of Daniel Gisler. And Daniel is in his 50s, very analytical guy. He's a commodities trader.

Speaker 2:

You know, nothing woo woo or spiritual about him. The opposite. He's incredibly analytical. And in his early fifties, he has a freak accident. And he slips and he breaks the bones in his ankle.

Speaker 2:

And in order to heal his broken bones, they have to put pins, metal pins, in his bones. Now a few years later the bones have healed and it's time for him to get these screws removed. In the meantime he stumbled upon a video on YouTube about what's called hypno sedation. And he decides to explore it. And he learns and he studies and he practices.

Speaker 2:

And it turns out that over about a year's time, he prepares himself to undergo this surgery where scalpel is cutting through flesh, where metal screws are yanked from bone over a fifty five minute procedure, and I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it with my own eyes. I've watched the tape, I watched the video of him doing this surgery with zero anesthesia. No local anesthesia, no topical, no general anesthesia, nothing. He's totally awake. He hypnotized himself but he's completely awake.

Speaker 2:

Now why do I tell this story? I'm not advocating for people to go do hypnosegation. But what does this tell you? Just like those rats who quit after fifteen minutes, this power is already in you. If Daniel can do it, so can you.

Speaker 2:

Everybody actually has this power. Some people say, oh, no. I could never do that. I'm not saying you have to do it, but you should know it's there. It's there.

Speaker 2:

And if people can undergo surgery without anesthesia for fifty five minutes, like Daniel did, and his heart rate, by the way, was totally stable, all his vital signs completely normal throughout the whole procedure, he had separated successfully the pain of the surgery, the signal, the data, from the interpretation, from the suffering. And he was able to go through the entire procedure totally fine. So if he can do that, what can we do when we really crave a drink, When we feel like we need to quit? When we feel like, there's no way I can stand this discomfort, this pain, this this this, suffering that I'm feeling right now? The message is, in fact, it's just signal.

Speaker 2:

Just signal. It doesn't mean that every signal needs to be acted on. So if we can learn that, I think that's the most powerful thing that we can possibly learn in our lives, that we can in fact disconnect pain from suffering. And if we can do that, we can sustain ourselves 240 times longer, maybe 240 times longer, like these rats who went from fifteen minutes to sixty hours. What else can we do?

Speaker 2:

What else could we be capable of?

Speaker 1:

Yes. And I think that's such a powerful distinction. Now I wanna turn to something because you pushed back pretty hard on manifesting and positive thinking. Where do people get this wrong?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah. So here's the thing. Beliefs change what you see, literally change what you're able to to see. They change how you feel, for sure.

Speaker 2:

We know chronic pain patients demonstrate this, that beliefs will make you feel differently. Beliefs will even change what you're capable of doing. What beliefs can't do is change what happens. They can change what you see, feel, and do, but but just thinking about things won't change things in the outside world. So this is why manifesting is stupid.

Speaker 2:

Now why am I so passionate about this? Because there is a preponderance of evidence. When you look at the studies, we know that it's not only bullshit, there's no good evidence that manifesting works. It's actively hurting people. It's actively harming people.

Speaker 2:

That's why I'm so passionate about this and I I can't tolerate fools about this kind of stuff because it is really hurting people. How does it hurt people? Gabrielle Otogen did a study, well she did several studies, that found that when she asked people to manifest, when you sat there and you think about my future, you know, I want a beach body and so I'm gonna picture myself on a beach with six pack abs, and I want wealth in my life, so I'm gonna vibrate at the frequency of the quantum vibrations of the such and such so that I can have money and a Lamborghini, and I'm gonna have love in my life, and so I'm gonna picture myself on a date with my soul mate. When people did that, their blood pressure dropped, their heart rate dropped, they became more relaxed, and then when she followed up with them later, it turned out they became less likely to do what's required to get what they want. And she did this in study after study.

Speaker 2:

For example, students who manifested an A on their exam became less likely to study for the test and they got worse scores. So that's why I'm so passionate about killing manifesting, Because if all you do when you manifest is ask for the universe to give you things, the universe doesn't give a shit. You're not gonna get that thing. And in fact, you're less likely to get it because you're less likely to do the behaviors that get you what you want. But here I am telling you about the power of beliefs and how, you know, this stuff works.

Speaker 2:

Well, here's the thing. Visualizations do work. They do work. But the way you've been taught, the way the self help industry has taken good science and turned it into bullshit, is that they left out a key portion of this. So you think about athletes.

Speaker 2:

Athletes do visualization exercise. That's absolutely true. That's where this whole technique comes from. Athletes do in fact visualize. They don't visualize, you know, getting on the podium and getting that gold medal or the trophy.

Speaker 2:

That's not what they visualize. What they visualize are the obstacles in their way and more precisely, what they will do physically and mentally when those obstacles arise. And this is why manifesting and visualizing and vision boards don't work. Because when you are on the path to getting those things and you invariably hit a bump in the road, something is difficult, something is hard, if you're not mentally prepared for that difficulty, you're gonna quit. And you're gonna think the universe doesn't love me and I'm not manifesting hard enough, and then you're gonna buy some bullshit course from somebody for thousands of dollars that's gonna try and convince you that you just need to buy another course.

Speaker 2:

That's what's gonna happen. Instead what you need to do is to psychologically prepare for the pain. Pain is not suffering, and so if you know what beliefs to hold in your mind so that you know that when that difficulty arises, you will know what to do with that discomfort, then you can overcome it. So I'll make this very personal. So I used to be clinically obese.

Speaker 2:

Not just overweight, but actually clinically obese. So what worked for me, what changed my life, was not visualizing that I'm someday gonna be thin, that I'm someday gonna be healthier and have a beach body. It wasn't the visualizing. It was preparing myself psychologically that when I go to a party and someone offers me a piece of chocolate cake or another drink after I've had enough, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do when I feel uncomfortable and I want that drink or I want that piece of chocolate cake, I want to consume it and that feels uncomfortable, right?

Speaker 2:

I want it, I crave it. Am I gonna do? How am I going to deal with that discomfort, that craving? And two, what am I gonna say to the person who offers it to me? Because that's uncomfortable socially.

Speaker 2:

So that's the right kind of visualizing. It's called mental contrasting. You're contrasting what you want with how you're gonna prepare psychologically when something gets in your way. That's the right way to do it. You're sitting there thinking law of the universe, law of attraction, and I'm gonna sit here and wait.

Speaker 2:

It's not gonna work. You have to psychologically prepare for the pain. That's the most important thing, prepare for the pain, the pain will come. And if you're not prepared for it, you're not gonna get those things. Because everything worth having in life is on the other side of discomfort.

Speaker 2:

The money from a good career is not gonna just come, nobody's gonna just come and give you money. You have to work for it, right? You have to provide something to the world that the world is going to pay you back in kind. Love in your life. Look, I've been married for twenty five years.

Speaker 2:

Having a great marriage is hard work. It doesn't just happen. Raising kids, that doesn't just happen. Starting a podcast, it doesn't just happen. It's hard work.

Speaker 2:

And if you're not prepared for the pain, you're gonna say, Ugh, this is too hard, I don't like it, I'm gonna quit. And then if you quit, remember, the number one determinant of success is persistence. Right? It's not intelligence, it's not knowing what to do, not the universe vibrating for you, it's persistence. And so the only way to persist is to know how to deal with the pain.

Speaker 2:

And you're a great example of that. Mean, you're a super fit guy. I know you've overcome a lot in your life. And you did that by making peace with the pain. That like if you're in the gym and you feel your muscles burning, you know that's a good thing, right?

Speaker 2:

That that's what it feels like to get better. That's what it feels like to get stronger. And so having that mindset, understanding that you know what, that craving that I have for another drink right now, that's okay. It's just a signal. I'm not gonna die.

Speaker 2:

Nothing's gonna happen. I just have a craving. So? Right? But that mindset, I think

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Because medical science has advanced so much, we expect instant solutions, we expect to be pain free, we expect not to struggle. And in many ways when we do have pain, when we do have discomfort, we're not prepared for it. We don't know what to do with it. And so that's why, at least for me in my life, it's really, really helped me to constantly remind myself that things aren't happening to me, they're happening for me. That when something is difficult, good.

Speaker 2:

You know, this morning I was making a cup of coffee, I dropped a cup of coffee, coffee all over the place. Before that would have really pissed me off. I dropped the coffee, what a crappy day, this always happens to me. I don't have to suffer anymore. My mom pisses me off.

Speaker 2:

Right? She says something I don't like. I don't have to suffer anymore. The the news. Oh my god.

Speaker 2:

The wars. The the look who's the politicians did this and knew that. I don't have to suffer anymore. Right? Isn't that what Yes.

Speaker 2:

It's all Like for me, gaining that peace, I'm so much happier, life is so much better. When I realize what can I control, what am I gonna do something about, those are the things that I can have my goals and my dreams around, and then the rest of the stuff, it's just an opportunity to practice patience? Right? That's all it is.

Speaker 1:

I love that so much. I wanna keep talking, but I know you gotta go. Anybody

Speaker 2:

I'll go to go.

Speaker 1:

That's listening though that likes these concepts, wants to learn more, wants to reach out, obviously, might wanna buy the book. It's excellent. I definitely recommend it. Where can they go, Nir?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So the book is called Beyond Belief, and it's available where books are sold, and my blog is nearandfar.com, where you can get a free five minute belief transformation guide as well.

Speaker 1:

Amazing. Well, totally enjoyed it as always. So thanks for coming on today.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, buddy. Great to see you. Thank you.