Habits and Hustle - Episode 57: Dr. BJ Fogg – World-Renowned Behavior Scientist and Best Selling Author of “Tiny Habits”

Episode Date: March 31, 2020

Dr. BJ Fogg is a world-renowned Behavior Scientist at Stanford University. He wrote the best-selling book, “Tiny Habits” based on his 20 years of research. This book was a breakthrough in the behavior change (habit) world. Dr. Fogg discusses how we can approach routines/habits during the coronavirus pandemic, his time at Stanford, and dives into the Fogg Behavior Model! We’re truly grateful to be able to have Dr. Fogg join us on this episode. Youtube Video to this Episode BJ’s Instagram  BJ’s Website ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the Habits and Hustle Podcast. A podcast that uncovers the rituals, unspoken habits, and mindsets of extraordinary people. A podcast powered by habit nest. Now here's your host, Jennifer Cohen. Today on Habits and Hussle, this is the first podcast where we're not face-to-face. We are doing it via a squad cast. I did not know that.

Yeah, this is like a fight. Am I just totally interrupting your intro here? Sorry, I'll be back. No, it's okay. Yeah, I know like a story. Am I just totally interrupting your intro here? Sorry, I'll be back. No, it's okay. No, you don't have to be quiet, actually. I like the voice from the Pena gallery over there. I was just going to say that we have the OG of creating habits on the podcast,

BJ Fog, his new book is called Tiny Habits. I loved your TED talk. I used to do a couple of TED Talks though, right? Like this is... And I've watched both, but I have to say, I really, really enjoyed the first one. Thank you. And your new book, Tiny Habits.

The thing is, this is what's gonna be very difficult about this podcast. You have so many amazing tips, tricks, processes, and how to gain a good new habit, how to lose a bad habit, and everything in between. I don't know if we're going to even have enough time to cover everything. I feel like we'll do a series. We should. 52 parts series once a week for the coming year. 52 part series once a week for the coming year Because I'm telling you like there's like I'm going through your walk. I'm like, okay, this this one piece can be literally entire podcast and so

Listen, well, I guess we'll just kind of see where we have far we can get and kind of take it from there But thanks for being on half this in hustle. Thank you for inviting me Well, this is gonna be I mean how I why the way you live in Hawaii or you kind of just there? Yeah, part time in Maui. And so you didn't escape what's going on here right now. We were already here and just made a decision to stay here. Wow, so in a time like this, when everyone's basically on lockdown, especially in California, New York, building habits, new habits is extra tricky and it has a whole other layer of difficulty, with chaos and kids and everything in between. I don't even know where to begin. I guess the first place to begin is how do you in a new normal, it's going to be, I don't know, one that could be months that were all

in our homes, how do we kind of shift and create a new set of habits that, you know, it's kind of foreign to all of us. Yeah. Well, with the environment around us changing, all of us are creating new habits. It's probably, I'm quite sure, in the history of the world, we have more human beings changing their habits right now than ever before. And it may never happen like this again, I hope. And so the environment, so much of our behavior and our habits are driven by our environment or our context. And right now that's changed. There's an environment of fear, environment of lockdown like today and Maui and Hawaii was the day that everybody stays home. And so people aren't doing their normal things. They aren't in their normal work environments.

And so whether people design for it or not, whether they want it or not, your habits are changing. And there'll be some habits that stay the same and some to change. And maybe a lot to change. My own habits haven't changed that much because what I do is I do mostly remote work, but there'll be some shifts I need to do, and some of them might be bigger than others,

but most people are probably making really big shifts right now, and I think the key is to maintain the good habits you have. And then for the habits that you have to shift around like how you work out or how you eat or how you work, then design for the best habits that you can and be proactive about that. And that's really what my work in tiny habits is about. Here's how you design habits into your life. But you do that deliberately. And it's not as hard as most people believe. And you just do the best you can, especially in this environment, because there are so many

distractions. Oh God, this is, I mean, it's very, for people who, I know you hate the word motive, but not hate the word, but motivation isn't really enough to change a behavior or to create a better behavior, right? And I wanna talk about that actually a little bit. I mean, what are the ways people, the real one ways, how people shift to behavior? Because at the end of the day, to be able to have it, it's actually about changing a behavior, right? Yes, yeah.

So as I've mapped it out, habit is one type of behavior. There are other types of behaviors like doing things one time, or doing things for a limited period of time, or doing something more intensely, whereas habit is a behavior you do quite automatically. And motivation matters, yes it matters. I though understand through my research and through coaching over 40,000 people in habits,

that motivation is not the key to creating habits. Yes, you have to be motivated to have a particular habit. So focus on habits you want, not those that you feel like you should have. But instead of focusing on motivation, which shifts up and down, you really focus on ability, making it really easy, and then the third component of behavior is the prompt. What's going to remind you to do that behavior? So from the outside, you pick habits you want. So motivations built in, like if you want to serve, well, that's great. Awesome. Then make it really easy to do and make sure there's a prompt.

That's kind of what I've done. That's why I live in Maui for a time. Right. I do not have to motivate myself to go surfing. I have to, in fact, do the opposite. On days where I'm really busy or maybe the weather is really terrible, I have to stop myself from going on. I still go out and look at least. So if you, I know, it sounds crazy, but I'm not the only one in this situation. So if it's

a habit that you want, then it's really about making it easy to do and finding a prompt and that, in essence, is tiny habits right there. But let's just let's just stand the motivation because people ask me all the time just on the and I also saw that you worked with Weight Watchers for with Dave Kerkoff which is one of yeah I was with Weight Watchers for so many years and so that's I was reading your book and I'm like oh my god I know I know that guy. Yeah, I'm a big fan of that from me. Yeah, me too. Actually, I haven't just, I'm not just saying that because I was involved with him for many

years, but it was because it actually does work. I mean, there's a reason why, I mean, there is success to it. But anyway, I get asked a lot about motivation. Like, well, I'm just not motivated to work out. I'm just not motivated. How do I get asked a lot about motivation. Like, well, I'm just not motivated to work out. I'm just not motivated. How do I get motivated? And people always think that it's motivation. And you really talk a lot about the different types

of motivation. You can have a surge in motivation, and then you have a drop off. Can you, let's talk about the different kinds of motivation. And well, you're the expert. You tell us. You know, let's just, let's just categorize it this way. There are aspirations that we have, like I want to be healthier, I want to lose weight, and there's motivation for that abstract thing, that aspiration. And then there are specific behaviors, oh, I want to serve for, I want to eat three

carrots every day, and there's motivation for that specific behaviors. Oh, I want to sorry for I want to eat three carrots every day and there's motivation for that specific behavior So motivation applies in both contexts So yes, you need to be motivated for that aspiration I want to be more fit or I want to be more productive But then you need to find the behavior the specific new habit that will take you there and you need to find a new habit that you're motivated to do. So in terms of fitness, I think all of us are motivated to have more energy and be more fit. And so that's there.

Then the challenge is to find the exercise or the new habit that will get you that you also want to do. So if you came to me and said, okay, BJ, we're going to have you walk on a treadmill and a gym for an hour a day. That's how you're going to be fit. It's came to me and said, okay, BJ, we're going to have you walk on a treadmill and a gym for an hour a day. That's how you're going to be fit. It's like, no, I'm not on board. Like I might be able to get myself to do that for a limited time. But no, I'm not on board with that. But then you say, oh, go surfing. I'm totally on board, which is harder than walking on a treadmill. So motivation applies to the

aspirations or outcomes that we want, but it's really important to also connect it with the new habit that you're doing and find one that you want to do. So if it's not walking on the treadmill, look for exercise or fitness habits that you do want. And don't just assume because you watch a TED talk or you saw some TV show or a friend told you that something is great that that's right for you. So part of the method that I outline in Tiny Habits is a way to figure out which specific new habit is a good match for you and that includes something that you're already motivated to do that you want to do and that you like doing. Well you talk about that I believe in like like, you know, the steps to change

or the design your behavior, right? Like what not to do and what you do, right? So like, what, why are you laughing? Well, because I, it's just, there's just so many people that just assume all this stuff they've heard for decades is right. And they're like, okay, I don't really want to go to the gym, but I guess I'll go do that. And that's part of what my work and my books about is to say, hey people, so much of what you've heard about Habits is wrong. So stop believing it. And there's some way. And I don't laugh out of the division. It's just it's so commonplace. And once people see it,

it they're like, of course, of course, if I don't wanna walk on this rhythm and that's not gonna become a habit. So there's kind of this nice moment of insight people can get, where it's like, oh, help myself do what I already want to do. There it is, can it really be that easy? Yes.

And so it's so true, like people always say, like what's the best thing I should do to lose weight And the best thing is the thing that you're actually going to do like there's like well, do I have to run? Well, no, you don't have to run if you're not if you don't like running You're not gonna run so don't pick that activity pick something different, but I know like when I you're very It's very what you talk about is so contrary to what everyone always hears because you don't like in your whole book and what you talk about you've never used the word like goal like here's your goal. It's about like you never like the word go or rewards right like everyone always talks but well if you want it do this and you'll get this or have this goal and you're like, people that's not at all how it works, right?

Yeah, I mean, you don't have to set goals. There are times when those are helpful. You don't have to be set up an accountability partner. There's times when that could work. The really the key, the two key takeaways, and I call them the maxims, and it everything falls under these two statements.

One is, help yourself do what you already want to do. That's maxim number one. And maxim number two is help yourself feel successful. So if goals, setting, helps you feel successful. Do it. But there are so many people where it doesn't, and it scares them, and they know if they set a goal, well, they won't even do it,

because they've done it before, and it helps them feel unsuccessful. If accountability partner helps you feel successful, let's do it. But if it doesn't, don't do it. So there's a lot of techniques and approaches that it's hard to say, yeah, that's good or bad.

The overriding principles are those two. Help yourself do what you already want to do and help yourself feel successful. So anything you look at, whether it's a specific technique like accountability partners or an overall program like Weight Watchers or Palatine or what have you, ask yourself, is it doing those two things for me? And yes, go ahead and dive in. If you know, then avoid it because it's not going to work in the long term. So in a situation we're in right now, right, where a big motivation would be, you know, where stuff we're going to like figure out what we're stuck in a home and we have lots of work

and we have screaming kids now and out of school. Isn't that a big enough motivation to start a different behavior or to eliminate a bad one? We're in a very unusual time. Usually motivation will, if it surges, it will go down fairly quickly. And I've called that name that with the help of Dr. David Sebel. Thank you, David. Wow. We call that the motivation wave. It goes up, and then it will come back down. We're in a period that's more like a tsunami. It goes up, and it doesn't come down quickly.

It will come down, but it's not doing it quickly. So we have a period of weeks and certainly months, hopefully not years, months of where we're going to be in an unusually high state of motivation for certain things to protect ourselves from virus transmission, first and foremost. And so in, when motivation is high, we're able to get ourselves to do difficult things when it drops. We can't do those difficult things.

So we're, and we've seen this globally where the people we're all doing these really hard new behaviors and we're keeping them up because the motivation is so high right now. This is a really unusual period. It's a tsunami. It's a motivation tsunami rather than the motivation wave that goes up and down. So how did you become such a, you're a behavioral scientist, but as a lot of your, I guess, your research is based on like practical experience, you try these out of people and you kind of trial and error on yourself, and a bunch of friends or?

Well, yes, of 40,000 or 50,000 friends. Yeah, right, right. It is a combo of academic work and doing research and looking at the research and hands-on experience in coaching, I stopped counting at 40,000 people. So I saved that. All right, I think that's. But it's more like 50,000.

Personally coaching, 40,000 plus in habit change. And I did that through email. So it wasn't like they showed up at my home or whatever, but it was individual emails, year for starting back in 2011 week after week after week after week people, hundreds of people. And I got really fast in it. And I automated parts of it,

but I would look at everybody's email that would, I mean, it was a daily thing where I would spend time of every day, quote, for years. And after a while, you see the patterns of what works and what doesn't in a way that an academic study cannot teach you because it's people in the real world creating real habits and you're just, you eventually see patterns and the patterns are overwhelmingly clear. And that really helped me then look back at the academic work and go, oh, yeah, this could have worked in a laboratory setting. This doesn't work in the real world. And so on. And even help focus my own research. So I was studying not the tradition, right? If I just picked up on the academic tradition, I'd be studying things that may not matter very much, but instead looking at things that actually matter, that's where the maxims

came from. It was a combination of what do I know as a behavior scientist and what do I know as somebody who's hands on for, you know, week after week for years, and it really boils down to those two maxims. And I, at first, even though I had a sense, those were right, I almost didn't say them even to myself. No, it can't be that simple. It can't boil them to those two things. And after all, I just undupt, I said, yeah, it really boils down to those two things,

helping yourself do what you already want to do, and help yourself feel successful. And any product or program should do the same thing. If you want it to work in the long term, now for temporary things, there's lots of ways we can get ourselves to do things temporarily, but for lasting change, those things really matter. So what did you find out in all your study, in all your research and practical? Like, what were the things that on paper looked like they would work, but didn't work at all? Like in practical experience, what are the things that people took to the most? The easiest ways. You would think that making a big public commitment, announcing on Facebook,

from now on, I'm going to work out an hour a day, or I'm going to lose 15 pounds in the next 90 days, and you hold me to it everybody, and if I don't do it, so you would think that would work. It doesn't work very well at all. It works to set you up to be really nervous and anxious, and to maybe who humiliate you in front of your friend. maybe who humiliate you in front of your friend. So it's not, you know, finding a way to put yourself on the hot seat in front of others works temporarily, but it doesn't work effectively for lasting change. So that's one thing that you often see and you're often shown and you think, oh, if I just, you know, in this moment, I'm so upset. One of my students did this and when he posted it, I was like, oh, no. He had a drinking problem.

This was after he left Stanford, but we were friends on the Facebook. And he announced, hey, everybody, I now commit to all of you. I'll never drink again to do this. I was like, I really, really, really, really hope that's true. But this is not a method that reliably works just making a proclamation on Facebook. Now what I might have done is bring him support and empathy and guidance and help from others. So that might be good. But just putting yourself in a difficult situation socially to change your behavior in the long

term, I just don't see evidence that works reliably. What happened to the guy? I don't know actually. I mean, I didn't follow up and say, what are you doing? I hope he's okay. I mean, see, so we're now, you have no idea. Maybe a dimmer. I've seen things since, and I'm pretty sure it didn't work.

But it's things like that that people are led to believe or they even like to think, okay, if I just read all the academic studies on behavior change, I'll be able to change my behavior. No. If I just understand neuroscience, if I read up on what's going on chemically in the brain, then I'll be able to change my habits. No, if that were true neuroscientists would be the fittest, most prosperous, most grounded people, they're not. So it's the other thing that adds up to information alone does not change behavior reliably. So it's not about a lack of information or even a lack of having enough motivation. It's about having a easy to

do approach that you can do even on your worst days, even on the days that you are stressed out. You can still do the habit. You can still make progress. You can still feel successful. And a way of designing those habits. And that's, you know, that's what tiny habits is all about. It's like, here's a system. Here's how you design for any habit that you want. And it's, yes, you have to design the habit. There's some pieces to it. You say, OK, let's make it really tiny.

Let's find where it fits in my day. Let me wire it in by celebration. And that's not hard to do. But people, I don't want to say there's a learning curve. There's a very gentle learning slope. Like, what's the difference between doing 10 pushups and two? There is a huge difference. What's the difference between flossing on your teeth and one? It's a huge difference. It's just like when e-commerce was really new, there were different places you could buy stuff. Amazon did one click, bam, they won because of one click,

because they made it so easy. There was a big difference between five clicks and one click. And so simplicity, there is a third maximum that I don't share in the book. There's only three, and it's simplicity changes behavior. So just understanding that the easier you make the new habit for yourself, the more likely you're going to succeed on it.

So yeah, you talk about simplicity, but isn't that simplicity and ease the same thing really? I mean, yeah, to some extent, sure, sure, to some extent. Yeah. Now you, but I break it down and I say there are five links in this ability chain. How much time does it take? How much money does it take? And so on. So I break it down. So I take things like motivation, I break it down, and I take ability, and I break it down, and I take prompts and break it down.

So these three really important components that comprise any behavior, then to go further within that, like what are the types of motivation? What are the factors in ability, and what are the types of motivation, what are the factors and ability and what are the different ways you can prompt yourself. So I love systems. Okay, so it was super natural for me to map out the system of behavior and then the subsets and then the process and create flow charts that are back to the box that I kind of had to argue to get in

the book because really? Well, because some to get in the book because really fine. Well, because some people get intimidated, I guess, by flow charts. So. Yeah, I mean, I do a little bit. Like I have to tell you when I was reading it, I was like kind of going through those charts a little bit. Like I was kind of like, you know, scrolling pretty quickly to get to the information because I'm bad with it.

But like, you know, the thing that you're okay. So will power and discipline are also things, right? Like people who are like really successful, like a lot of people who maybe listen to this or not, people who are, okay, you know, I have a lot of discipline. So I'm not, I'm gonna, I'm gonna work out at 4am or I'm gonna not check my email, they are very, very structured.

And now throwing in this new normal for them, their whole structure is obviously a lot. It's very thrown off. And they'll say, well, I'll use myself. Like, OK, I'm going to be disc, I have a lot of discipline. I'm going to be so disciplined. I'm not going to eat that chocolate cake that my kids are eating, because it's constantly around my house now.

And of course, it's like, it's discipline and willpower don't work long term. Right. And I've said that for a while that you know, it's not about focusing on discipline. I mean, yes, you can exert willpower and you can use discipline in moments. And there are times we really need to do that. but to use it day in and day out to get yourself to work out or in a certain way or resist certain foods. It's a very unusual person that can do that. And so great, it's nice those are those kind of people in the world, but for the rest of us, which is the vast majority, let's not fool ourselves and think we can rely on discipline or willpower to make lasting change

Because we're just deluding ourselves And I'm not even by the way I don't need to only talk about like weight loss or working out It's just something an easy thing to talk about just you know, but it's also about being productive It's about you know Having getting it being productive productivity is huge. Let me give an example from an hour ago in my own life. So here I am. My life hasn't been that appended because I do so much from home and so on, but still the distraction of the news and everything.

So I just found myself not really settling into work. I was like, okay, and I was wandering around the hustle of it. I was like, this is weird for me. So what I did, I did a tiny habit. I set a timer for seven minutes and the habit is to set the timer. And then it was like, okay, during these seven minutes, I'm just going to prioritize what I need to do today. And so then I prioritized for seven minutes and it became really clear to me about what I was doing and what I was not doing And then I just dove into the next project

So the habit that I've learned is one that works really well for lots of people because I've shared it a lot And people have probably figured this out on their own is by setting a timer for when you find yourself procrastinating or spinning your wheels or whatever You can trick yourself into or spinning your wheels or whatever. You can trick yourself into being productive and getting started by just setting a timer. It can be three minutes, seven minutes, twelve minutes, whatever. And you just set it and you tell yourself,

well, I still just want to wander on the house after seven minutes this time. I will. But guess what? Once you start getting some momentum, it's so much easier just to keep going. So that happened to me today. And I think it is because there's so much easier just to keep going. So that happened to me today. And I think it is because there's so much going on in the news and then within tiny habits, we've launched this global training series that is just taking off big time and I was thinking a

lot about that. And so boom, but I was able to fall back on this habit, get myself back to work and back to being productive. Now, it wasn't a matter of discipline or willpower. It was just, maybe it was a matter of discipline for like three seconds to set the timer. It's like, okay, set the timer time. Yeah, get yourself to do it. Yes. And so it wasn't long-term.

It was just in one single moment, take the next step and get on my way. And so that wasn't long-term. It was just in one single moment, take the next step and get on my way. And so that worked well. But did you, so in that seven minutes, you wrote it to do lists? Well, I have a way of prioritizing. Yeah, I have a way of prioritizing. So I just dove it back into my, I thought it already kind of done it this morning, but I realized I didn't do it very effectively.

So I had to do it. I wonder the, how do. And how do you prioritize? So I use stickers on cards. So I, yeah, so I have a whole, this is, oh my gosh. Oh, that's how I do it. I wouldn't have a master prioritize is that's why I know. Well, I'm sure there are people who are better, but for me, the way it works for me

is anything that I want to do for sure. I write it down on one of these little stickers. Yellow is just for a normal task. And then I have cards that are devoted to specific projects. So one is to my Stanford lab and one is to this global training series and I have a boot camp coming up. And so I put each sticker on the card. And then if if I see that again, can you show it? Yeah, I mean, they might have confidential information on it. I think it's okay. Anyway, I want to tell anybody. There we go. So the yellow ones are tasks. The pink ones are things I must do today. So for example,

if you want to get into this, it's funny. I have a really good friend here in Maui. She's 91. And I just feel like I should call Dorothy. And so that's not productivity, but it's important to me. Yeah, yeah. So that's pink, that means I gotta do it today or it's gonna be bad. And then my Stanford colleague from school of medicine, we got, as of at 6 this morning, planning research

to help older adults with coronavirus her name's Nancy. So I needed to follow up with Nancy for sure on her email today because she summarized our research meeting. So I already did that. So once it's done, I set the sticker aside. And so the blue stickers are things I can do really, really quickly. Like my colleague Tanna, I needed to ask her about something. So blue means these are just gimmicks.

These are so easy. So it's a way of arranging stickers and having projects on cards and then I just sort and then the color coding as well. So if there's a time of my day where I feel like, I just do the blue ones. I'm going to do all the blue ones. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And that feels good. I mean, you know that. And people listening, you succeed on a bunch of small things.

You get them off your plate. Bam, bam, bam. And I try to be the hardest thing. I mean, prioritization's really hard. But I work really hard on my systems for it. And I found that a digital solution just won't work like a physical ones with these stickers. And I try to be realistic like I don't have 10 pink stickers. I have three maybe in a day. And then I try to make the key for me is make progress on the most

important projects. It's not just getting things done. It's, although I do like that system, GTDI, I like it. It's, it's know what is important and then make progress on those things. And that means there's a whole bunch of things you're not going to do. And that hurts a little bit. That hurts a lot sometimes. But that's just what you got to do in order to have impact in the world and to move things forward is you got to say no to stuff or just send it aside or say maybe someday I'll get to this. Like here's a colleague from Stanford. I won't name the name but that's somebody that's a nice to do reach out. He's a neurologist. He's a neurologist. Stanford is like oh one of my lab members said oh you should reach out to him. I'm like, sure. But it was an urgent and maybe I'll get to it someday.

But at least with the stickers and writing things down, now I don't have to have any anxiety around this being undone. I know it's not going to get lost. It's there. And. So if you don't do it, that's no. So you do that only when you have your seven minute time run,

like what to do that usually at night. I do it twenty. I do it in the morning. And I think this morning I just didn't do a thorough enough job of it because I was really looking at our global program and just trying to make sure that the wheels were staying on because it's growing like crazy. So I do it in the morning. I prioritize and then again, after lunch.

And then anytime I feel like I'm losing traction or I just have a sense I'm not on track, I just go back and say, okay, what are the top projects? And it really only takes a few minutes. But then when I dive in, I have confidence that I'm working on the most important things. If you love the Habits and Hustle Podcasts and are looking to add more podcasts to your weekly routine, I have the podcast for you. I know you're going to love the millionaire university podcast because they dive deep into how to actually run a successful business. So you can escalate from just breaking even to making your business and

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Vitamin water's zero sugar, nourish every you. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of glass O. Because for productivity and being busy, people think because they're doing busy work, they're being productive a lot of times, and that's not really the case. But you are probably saying, with your blue stickers, for example, that you do, they're not really, they're not important, but they're at least you're getting something done, right? Yes, they can be blue and pink. Okay. It's like there are many vital things that could be both, but yes, there are some blue stickers that are not that important.

So they're just blue. But why don't I pick the colors that you don't like to do? They come in a set like this. I'll just share an example. Gosh, I shouldn't share this. There's somebody in my life who called me and she's been having panic attacks. So I wanna follow up with her and it won't take long to do. Let me reset that. See, you wanna answer your phone? Is that a phone?

I thought I went on airplane mode. That's okay. Yeah, it's, I've done everything I know to Stopping coming calls and spam call So they they so the tasks can be really really fast to do but also very very important So there's somebody in my life that reached out and she's having panic attacks and It's not hard to reach back out to her and it is super important. So I put a So it's pink, but then I put a blue one over it.

So I know this is really fast, it's vital, but it's fast. So just get this done and move on. And so I'm glad you mentioned your friend with the panic attacks. Just not because she's having panic attacks, but that's not good. But what, because I'm sure you're getting called a lot, if you're a behavior scientist, people are probably calling you off the hook right now, you're both quite, you know, being blown up because how can you, would you tell people who are super scared or super panicky or having a really hard time had a shift their mindset or shift their behavior in a realistic way, right? I mean, what do you tell your

friends when you talk to her? Well, I'm actually connecting her to one of our tiny habits coaches that can help her. But it's funny you would ask me this question though because today I'm talking about exactly this. So I'm doing a little pilot program. I call it, let's talk about habits and it's for people over 60 and I started it last week. It's no accident, it's for people over 60. They're feeling very targeted and very afraid. But the, it's kind of a show.

It's a Zoom thing where they show up and it's light and it's goofy. Like yesterday I wore my bathrobe and I have show and tell and stuff like that The purpose is very very serious, but I want to make a light and fun And today it's tiny habits for those moments of a cute anxiety and that's what we're gonna be talking about today Now I'm gonna have some suggestions for them, but I Like to have a very interactive teaching style

I'm gonna break them into rooms and small groups and have them share interactive teaching style. I'm going to break them into rooms and small groups and have them share with each other and then come back to the group. So I'm going to pull from the wisdom of these older adults. What can you do in a single moment or in a short burst of time if you have, bam, surging anxiety and mine are, go out to nature, get out to nature, do anything related to nature. That's one. Another one is to play a musical instrument. I'm not a good musician, but I know that playing a musical instrument matters and I have

a range of instruments I can play from the guitar, the ukulele to the recorder, which not everybody loves, but that's my instrument of choice right now. So, that hanging out with your dog for a while, if you have a dog or a pet is great. And then, those are three that are go-to ones for me, for sure. But some of us just managing it from the beginning, from the very start of this series. I was telling older adults, stop watching so much TV news. I understand that TV news, sorry, networks, TV news. My mom said it's a design to bring you the most sensational stuff.

And my dad used to watch it at night before I went to bed. I was like, Dad, that's like the worst thing you could be doing. Exactly. So yes, there are things you can do in the moment. And this is what I want to help the older adults today connect with. So they have a game plan. So they know, boom, in those moments from my anxiety, just off the charts, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to play the guitar or I'm going to water my houseplants or I'm going to go outside for a walk or I'm going to play fetch with my dog. Now, there's, I expect to hear things around meditation and listening to music and there'll be other things. But the key I think especially now and especially for older adults or anyone

who's going to have these moments and I'm not talking something like panic attacks like this person in my life where I think something physiological, there's a history here, it's not just coronavirus. But what I want people to have is a history. It's not just coronavirus but what I want people to have is a game plan because we're all going to feel super anxious and we isolated I think too right like a lot of like my mom she's by herself in Canadian or she's by herself in Canada she's isolated she doesn't play at the ukulele or any kind of instrument she can't walk outside because it's minus 40 so she has no nature She's not gonna meditate what do you like what do people like that do when they don't have those options to them today And by the way, she's one of those people that listens to the news 24 hours a day and then call me with like

You know basically with every like spike of things, you know, anxiety because you heard that this person's dying or this is happening. Or what are they? What are those people do? Well, three hours from now, I will be much, much smarter on this because I will have all these suggestions from all these people. But let me give some examples. Here's some things that I used to do.

I don't do these anymore, but I did because there was a time in my life before I figured out tiny habits. There's a time in my life when I was really stressed. Things at Stanford, I was under a lot of pressure for global conferences, I was organizing. I was doing a startup that had raised a bunch of money for, including for work. Which one? It went under, it's called the Yacht Pack.

It was a voice messaging service, sort of like Marco Polo is today. And it was ahead of its time and I couldn't make it work, but I'd taken money from investors, including my family, big mistake, and on and on. So I would, I was just anxious. And so what I would do is I would, you know, if I was up at night, I would watch videos of puppies playing on the internet and that super calm to me. I would, in my home office, I put up, I got these life-sized, I don't know where I found them, life-sized pictures of people's heads, of all like ages and nationalities and races and they're all smiling. And I'm like wallpapered the top of my office with all these smiling faces because I know that if you have smiles around you, it's going

to like effect you. And so I was doing all these things to cope. Then I also got, and I think this is a good one. I mean, not everybody's going to watch. Yeah, you can watch puppy videos and you can't get the faces. But I got those coloring books. This is before they became like popular, where I would get coloring books and I would color very slowly. And I would purposely not try to finish the picture. I would go as slow as I possibly could and just be in the moment. It was a kind of meditation. So that, for me, worked really well. So I can suggest these things, but

and this goes along very much with my book, and Tony Abbott's, people need to find what works for them. And so they might have heard, oh, if I watch his puppies, well, that may or may not be the right solution for you. There is a systematic way to find the right things for you. And it's not as hard as you think, but just set about doing it. And part of it is just trying it. Does coloring barely slowly work? Does watching puppy videos work? Does,, um, does turning my bonds, I treat, reduce my stress and so on, just, but have a game plan. So, but you can figure out what that game plan is. Well, I, okay, first of all, I want to say everything you always say, what you're saying, it seems like is pretty common sense, but people have to kind of be in touch with, have some self-awareness. I think the whole root of everything you're talking about is like

having enough self-awareness to know like what kind of person you are, what's possibly not going to work and what's going to work. And that's what we're setting the beginning of this podcast is that like you don't go listen to a Buddhist monk talk about meditation and think that meditation is going to be the panacea for your problems right because you've heard someone else do it. If you know that you're not that person. So like, you know, and for me, like people are always saying to them, it's podcasts or wherever, like, oh, I, I meditate every day to keep me focused and calm. And I, I always say, I get, I, it doesn't work for me. I, that yoga, I'm such a type of a people are like, oh, you even need

it more. You need it more. And I'm like, actually, I don't have tried it 70,000 times. Doesn't work for me. But my point of even bringing that up is for people who don't even know where to start, what you basically are telling people just to start, right? Like just to kind of show. I would make a list.

See, if I could, in my systematic class, how do you make this a demand? So the steps are mapped out in tiny habits. I'll give you a really brief version. Just make a list in a moment when you're not stressed. Think, wow, if I'm super stressed and I could get myself to do any behavior, I could magically get myself to do any behavior. I call this magic one.

What would I have myself to? And don't just list one list as many as you can. Listen to money or 30 Oh, I would call my best friend from high school. I would Tidy the kitchen counter. I mean tightiness does reduce it. I would boom boom boom boom boom and list as many options as you can Even if you think there's no way I'm gonna tidy the kitchen counter when I'm stressed, but but if There's no way I'm going to tidy the kitchen counter when I'm stressed. But if somehow you were to do it and it didn't really stretch, so list many, many options. And then there's a way to prioritize or sort the options that I call focus mapping.

And I'll just give a summary. It's not the whole method, but it's like, what things could you actually get yourself to do? So of the 30 options, which ones would you really do? And then pick three or four, and then try them. And so don't just guess on one like meditation. And I'm with you on that. There's just been too much meditation as an answer for everything. And yes, meditation is great for lots of people. But in my experience, helping people create the habit of meditation, it's mostly just, they just get frustrated.

It just highlights how busy they're really is. It does not reduce their stress. It doesn't the opposite. So explore many, many options and then get realistic and say, which one of these would I really do? And then try it. And if it works, keep going. It doesn't.

That's okay. It's not a failure. It just means try something else. And then but have a game plan. Like I even when writing tiny habits, there were times in writing the book where it's like, whoa, I need a break. And I found myself just naturally picking up my recorder and playing it. And my partner learned, oh, when BJ's playing the recorder in the middle of the day during work hours, that means he's chilling and he's getting ready to go back to work. So that was natural. Nature, this is why in California, I live by a river in Maui. I live by the ocean, getting in the water. For me, that's transformative. So, but not everyone can do that and that won't

work for everybody. So final works for you. More from our guest, but not everyone can do that, and that won't work for everybody. So, find what works for you. More from our guest, but first a few words from our sponsor. So, anybody who knows me knows that I love to wear my gym clothes as much as possible. But of course, there are those times when I have to look like an adult and wear nice work clothes. And that's why I'm happy to tell you I found M.M. LaFlore.

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Let me hit some of them might surprise people. Okay. Yeah, first thing in the morning, after you pee and do the bathroom stuff, I play the recorder. I sit cross-legged on my couch in the dark because we got up this morning. It's embarrassing. We got 430.

And that's not like a virtue. I'm not bragging. I'm just saying, why? Just because we want to get up. It's like, I don't know. At 430, are you like, that's just one of your habits? Is that what you do to behave? Yeah, I know a lot.

It's just like, I'm looking at the clock at about 358. I'm like, uh, wins five o'clock coming, so I can get up and go surfing. Yeah. It's a surfing. Well, I don't know what it is. My partner, he wants to go do rowing, but anyhow, um, it's, so I get a, he's a record.

Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I get up and he's in his seventies and he loves it. Anyway, I get up. I just said on 57. So we're 19 years apart. So I think you've been talking about him a lot, by the way.

He's a huge part of my life. I mean, we will get back to my habits, but the interesting thing is now with couples being like together so much, my partner and I have been like together 23 hours of the day for less 25 years. So this is nothing new for us to be like always, almost always together. Really? Yeah, and you know, you learn how to do that.

There are habits of how you make that work. Well, you have habits for relate. I'm sure you have really good ways of developing good habits for relationships, for productivity, for weight loss. You should have a book on habits for relationships, for productivity, for weight loss. You should have a book on habits for each one. Like, you know, I have habits for love a lot. The whole series. Well, but that's what my tiny habits coaches are doing right now.

You know, tiny habits to reduce anxiety, tiny habits to endure lockdown. So they're taking the method and they're applying it to their areas of expertise. Tiny habits to keep the kids entertained and so there are 40 different sessions coming up just this week and so yeah, I have some experience but it's would be presumptuous of me to say I'm a relationship expert or a way lost expert and yes, I've had success in my own life But there are other experts in the world who really know how to help lots

of people. And I don't want to just say, here's what I've done. So do what I did. Because as a researcher, as a scientist, I know the limits that approach is very, very limited. You can't just take what worked for you and prescribe it for everybody. But there is a method that I'm 100% confident and prescribing for everybody. What the specific behaviors are for a relationship on lockdown, I'm not going to claim to meet the expert on that. Well, I would imagine, not even from your own, I mean, yes, you can obviously pull from your own practical experience, but what I'm thinking is, if you're talking to or dealing with over 50,000, as you said, people, you're like, you're like, you basically have the behavioral lab in Stanford.

You're not exactly a slouch. I would imagine with all those people's experience, you would be able to like say, okay, from everything I've kind of like picked up on, here are the five things that I've learned from making a good relationship, being more productive, being more of this, being more of that. You're right, I could, but I'm also very, very careful about being clear. This is what my area of expertise truly is, and then not making claims around things that maybe I have some really strong personal experience, but I don't really consider like I'm a world's

expert on relationships, because there are people who are that and too often those type of people write blog posts and even the box and they miss lead people. Okay, so I'm not I have to be very very clear about what I know for sure and then in my own personal life of people come to me, I'll give you some. So one of my partner's grandkids is getting married. And we gave them advice, and I'm comfortable doing that. And it's one of the pieces of advice is, guess what? In your relationship, you've got to find who's doing what?

It's not about how attractive you are or anything or how much fun you have or you laugh together. It really boils down to what do you have to do on a day-to-day basis to make a household work and manage finances and get on the world. And for every single required task, somebody has to be happy to do that task. And so you really are looking,

this is how we think about it, for complementarity. So the good fortune is my partner loves to cook. He's awesome at cleaning. He loves to do laundry. He loves to go grocery shopping. Love it. I don't do any of those things, but then on the flip side when it comes to taxes and technology and I do all of that. So one of the keys, and this isn't about habits, but it's designing a successful lasting relationship, and we tell people in our lives this, is you got to figure out who's doing what, and you can't be fighting about who's taken out the trash. It's got to be very, very clear. You can't have those fights and so you got to

Either find somebody who's your compliment you're they're being or you know negotiate and be very happy with that. Yeah, I'm the trash person or I'm the tax person or what have you and when you have that then the day-to-day of life goes really pretty well. So he makes me breakfast every morning. Oh He cleans up. He won't even really let me in the kitchen. But then there's a whole bunch of things that I do that help the household move forward. So that works out pretty well. And I just, and I'll say one thing and stop. And then so as we're explaining to his granddaughter and her fiance, it's like, and I wish somebody would have told me in my 20s, that this is what you're looking for.

You're not looking for the most attractive person of the one that makes you laugh the most. Yeah, that's nice. You got to be able to live day to day, minute to minute in harmony. And so you're looking for a complimentary person in that regard. I told him. A blank page holds infinite possibilities. It stirs our passions and is a space to become. Papier takes all the wonder and potential of a blank page

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Moves these magazines, there's so much again, so much conventional wisdom that sets people up for sale. And that's why I just look back and say, why can anybody tell me this in my 20s? That this absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I agree with you.

I'm sorry, I interrupted you. You're a tell. I was like, I was like, I was saving you earlier that, like the reason why I brought your, brought him up, which is named anyway, I keep saying, Danny. Danny, I thought it was Danny, is that you brought him up and everything I've seen

and the both TED talks I've watched, the book, a couple other interviews, a couple other podcasts. You always mention, it's very subtle, but he always comes up. So I can tell by just that, you obviously have a very nice relationship and a very complimentary relationship because he's obviously very much in your life. I just noticed that.

I have a ton of respect for him. We in some ways, on paper, would never be a match. He's 19 years older than I am. He finished high school and that's it. I have three or four graduate degrees. I mean, it's just, I travel, I mean, I speak three, like he speaks one. I mean, there's just travel I mean I speak three languages. He speaks one I mean, there's just so many differences like that, but I've come to admire different ways of being smart and different ways of being intelligent Yeah, I'm book smart. I'm really gonna test. I'm good academically

But I'm really stupid in some ways that he's brilliant in He is in the Other master bedroom right now, repop, while pay for him. And he's good at it. And he can just kind of do anything. So it's helped me respect different kinds of intelligences that academics typically wouldn't. I mean, and it's really helped me understand and value different kinds of people. So they may not speak standard American English or even know how to spell, but I'm not going to discount them as not an intelligent person because they may have gifts, musical gifts, gifts of

crafts or art that are way beyond what I could ever do. And so I've come to understand that my kind of gift, yes, it gets celebrated, and yes, you get degrees and awards for it, but it's very limited. And it's really overvalued to be honest. And the kinds of gifts my partner has, you don't get awards or degrees for it, but they're crazy valuable. And I really respect that.

That's really nice. I mean, you're right. People who are very, I know people who are academically really smart, but they are so stupid in life, like emotionally street smart. And it's usually the people who are the most wise tech to fit. Usually are people who are not necessarily

book smart, but have experience and have to like develop it other ways, you know? Well, and, you know, it's been a learning experience, but, um, let's see, habits in our relationships. Well, one is that might surprise people. Um, is we set up every week, he does most of the work. Sometimes I'll do it, but he sets up what we call super fridge. And super fridge is a once a week cut up the cell, we put it in a glass container, cut up the cell reputed in a glass container

cut up the onions put in glass container steam the quinoa get it ready so during the week like usually I cruise our my own lunch I can go just open the fridge anything in there is ready to go I'm ready to fix something or he can fix something really easily for dinner so we're designing our environment in this case the fridge environment. We make eating on our game plan really, really easy to do. So that's one of the habits that we have and it's kind of awesome. In fact, that's a good way. I included it in the book. It was a really weird thing to include, but my editors heard me talking about it like, oh, that's got to

go in the book. And it's like, well, it doesn't really fit. And I'm like, find a place for it. So I did. And it's just the idea of design your environment to make good behaviors easy to do. And by the way, the fridge is bullseye for helping you eat on your game plants of design. It's just that. So it everything in there you can eat eat and it's easy to do it and there's no willpower discipline to resist anything in the fridge or the freezer. So and together we evolved

that. We had different ways of doing super fridge and I had one way, he had a different way and we figured it out. We went with this way But it works It's called I'd also food prep. I mean yeah You're like basically creating an environment where you're not gonna trigger that that would make you fail that you would Otherwise fail that basically another thing I would encourage people to do and I don't know Again, I haven't taught thousands of people to do this, but aspire to this in your closest relationship. Have a way that you can explore new habits and new ways of being without your partner saying,

oh, you're going through a phase. Oh, you tried that before. This never works. Support each other in exploring and developing their lives. And if you can do it together, and if you can't do it together, at least don't get sabotaged by the other person. I'll give a quick example. Two years ago, oh how far shall I start? Two years ago, so was 18. Yeah, our home in California is up in the wine country. And we were not wine drinkers till we moved there 20 years ago. And then I was like, oh, it's wine country.

So we developed at first we couldn't drink wine at all. We developed taste for it. And then it became drinking wine was pretty much a daily practice for us. It wasn't like we're alcoholics or we were losing our livelihoods over it, but there was a point two years ago where I was like, you know what? I think I'm done with this. It's over. So we would sit on our patio in California and every evening just to chill.

And there was one night I didn't have one. I just had sparkling water. And he's like, wow, what's going on? And I'm not drinking tonight. It's like, okay, the next night, same thing. I just have one. I just had sparkling water and he's like, wow, what's going on? I'm not drinking tonight. It's like, okay, the next night, same thing. I just have water. And he's like, wow, what's going on? You're not like going back to Mormonism on me. Are you? We both grew up.

Oh, he also grew up Mormon. Are you dead? Yeah. Oh, no, no, I just, I'm just, I'm just not going to drink for a while. I just don't want to. And I didn't put any pressure on him, but he didn't, other than that remark, he said, fine, well, two weeks later, he's like, you know what? I think I'm going to join you. I said, awesome. If you want to, that's great. So from then on, we stopped drinking entirely.

There's really no temptation to drink. There's no, it was easier than I thought. The benefits were way bigger than I thought. But my point is, he supported me and he did not sabotage me. And it was sort of when he joined in, but I didn't pressure or nag him. Right. So that was a pretty big shift. And then last week, we're watching a show about being purely plant-based. So we've been vegetarians plus fish for 15 or 20 years. We watched the show and I was pretty convinced in one of my academic colleagues. It was on the show. So I thought, okay, I really admire this. What show? What show was it? I forgot. It was David Katz with the academic colleague.

I forgot the name of the show. I think David's very, very, very smart when it comes to nutrition. And I didn't even I know it. Yeah, he's great. He's for me. He's great. And so, I didn't even say much to my partner. I was like, oh, this is really interesting. Well, guess what happened immediately? We stopped fish. We stopped all plant products. He started cooking just vegetables. Now, and I was like, awesome. I, you know, even eggs would have in the morning that became all like mushrooms and vegetables and all that. So my point there is to- Irvigin now? Now we're going to try it and we might go back, but the point is to be able to evolve together.

And if one person doesn't want to allow the other person to explore and expand, and that's, I think that's been one secret of our relationship is that supporting each other in, um, in exploring and becoming a, you know, figuring out new things in your life that you would like to do. Like if he wants to quilt awesome by quilting frames, set up a quilting thing, go for it. I want to play the record every morning. He's going to endure it and he's okay with that. Right, right, right, right. But those are the points. Yeah. And also it sounds like you're not like shoving something down someone's like the rope. Like you I'm doing this, you have to do it. Like you leave by example. Yeah. I leave by example. And this is not my academic work and I'm sure somebody knows this who studied it scientifically. But in my experience, it doesn't work.

Nagging doesn't work. Now, when it came to coronavirus, yes. I was a little ahead of him in understanding handwashing and social distancing. So there's probably a week there where I was like, watch your hands. Oh, you touched this where I really felt unusual like, God, I'm such a nag. I never touch this where I really felt unusual like, I'm such a nag. I never do this. But it was just vital. So in that case, and then now we're both on the same page

with this. But there's a week there where it was kind of naggy. And I didn't like it. But it was like, well, what am I going to do? He's at risk. And I'm at risk, but he especially is. So I'm going to do it. So but in most cases, don't nag.

Yeah. That doesn't work. Yeah. You're telling me. I know. That's more trial and error. So then let me make. So let's talk with the coronavirus for a second here,

because you just brought it up again. Now, what do you make of this whole thing? Because I know you have a lot of colleagues who are probably much more into know than, you know, I am or even the media talks about. And would you say that we were just too, as a, as a whole, would you believe that the whole social distancing? Do you think it's over? A piece of people are like, oh yeah, they're they're they're blowing up to be bigger than is or some are saying no, it's way worse than it is. What is your opinion? My amateur opinion. So I'm not a scientist on this. No, I know, but we must take this really seriously, really seriously. And they effectively shut down Hawaii today. So if you arrive in Hawaii today, you have to be quarantined for 14 days,

whether you're a resident or a tourist. And when they announced that, I was counting down the days to that. I could not wait. And I woke up this morning and thought, okay, now we're contained. And we'll deal with the ones here. And it's going to, they shut down the Grand White Leia. Maui is the number one destination. The Grand White Leia. Maui is the number one destination.

The Grand White Leia is the number one hotel that people up. They shut it down. Yeah. It's going to hurt lots of people. But what's the alternative? I'll just even work. So that's my view. It's like, yeah, this is really painful. But the faster people take it seriously, the faster we'll get through it and get back to something better. That's my view. And so we're taking it really seriously. And we're social distancing. In fact, one of our friends walked up to our alumni this morning and we waved him back. We're like, no. And he probably was, he's not taking

the seriously as we are. And he was like, wow. But right. So that's what we're doing. And just, yeah, just what we have to do. I think we have to do it. Well, you've been noticing about this whole toilet paper frenzy, right? People are like, people's behavior has been, I mean, I feel like maybe it's kind of like tempered a little, but as a behaviorer, your behavior of scientists, why do you think people, it's at a panic and fear, right? That people are like, are buying all the toilet paper and like, and hand sanitizer and these stores, these, the shelves are obviously, as you know, completely empty. And I have to stand an hour in line to go inside a grocery

store where there's literally no brand or no eggs for a week. Yeah. Like, where does that like, is it just because it's just human nature that people do that? Yeah, I think so. I mean, fear is a motivator. It will get you to do hard things and it will get you to do unusual things. Like take a bunch of toilet paper, or a hard hand sanitizer, or, and it's especially when you are responsible for somebody else, like a mother, or a baby, or a family. Fear is a very effective

motivator, very, very effective. If it's just you alone, there are people as I ask whatever, you know, but the fear in my sense of how it works is if you are responsible for another human being, especially a baby or someone you love a lot, then you're going to do things even extraordinary things to protect that person. And I think that's what was driving that mostly. It's like, oh, my family have to be prepared for my family. I don't think people are hoarding, you know, yes, probably individuals living alone were hoarding it, but I would wager if you measured who was, you know, buying all the hand sanitizer and toilet paper and panic mode.

It was probably people who were responsible for others, and they were driven by that sense of duty or obligation. I think it also is people who, it gave them a sense of control. And the whole world was kind of like falling apart. People felt like if they were that gay, it's like when people have an eating disorder, same thing, right, like they can control one element. That's what they're going to control a lot of the times, right? Like the food intake or the amount of toilet paper I can, I can take from office of a

shelf or feel like that type of thing is taking care of. Yes, we have human nature and there are vulnerabilities in human nature like fear, but we also I want to put some of the blame on our national leaders who did not, we're not clear about here's the situation, here's what to do to prepare, here's what you don't need to do. So in that vacuum, people just grasp for straw. So I think some of the blame is clearly at the national leadership level. Now, I agree with that.

I'm sorry, I also interrupted you because I was talking about your partner, but your own personal daily habits. What do you do daily besides the, you say, why do you wake up, but you go to, you go surfing, you play a recording recorder. Let me give a rundown of morning habits. I do think morning habits are the most important. So I get up, my feet hit the floor and I say, it's going to be a great day. Yes, the Maui habit.

The Maui habit. Seven words. And it's funny because I look out and I can see if the moons out I can actually see the moon on the water and I say it's going to be a great day and I'm kind of laugh because like oh that's the Maui have it up to thousands of people. Then once I'm done how long have you done that for that how have you done that Maui have before? Six years six or seven years probably. Yeah it really works. And I know it sounds like woo, woo, to some people,

but try it. Then the next thing is I sit cross-legged on the couch and it's in the dark, usually, and I play my recorder. And that for me is a kind of meditation. And I play a tenor recorder. So it has a pitch that's very much like a man's voice. So it's like, mm, mm, mm,, or mmm, and I'll just play long tones and then maybe I'll move into some songs or I'll tell Alexa to play James Taylor and I'll play along with James Taylor. So I'll play anywhere from five

minutes to 30 minutes. Whatever strikes me, I play the recorder. Oh, I didn't say I take a big drink of water before all of this with with some electrolytes. I delay my coffee because one of my sleep expert friends, Michael Bruce, advise me. If you can delay coffee, it's better for you. So I delay the coffee for an hour or so. He's one of my good friends too. Okay, so I really respected my room and we gave me that advice. Very good. Yeah, I can do that because I know how to create habits. I know how to delay the coffee. So I did.

And then my partner comes out and will like read news on iPads and talk and stuff. And then I get ready to go surfing and have a way of putting everything in this little plastic carry all and then I walk out and get my Honda Element, and I go surf. On the way to the waves, I'm shaving. So that's when I shave. Is there a very specific moment? In fact, when I pass the Grand Walea, that's the moment when I start to shave, because I hate shaving.

And if I could shave your home, sometimes I won't do it. So while I'm driving and shaving, and then that allows me to put on sunscreen, if I could save your home, sometimes I won't do it. So while I'm driving and shaving and then that allows me to go in sunscreen, if I need it that morning, serving. So motivates me to shave. So I got to surf for a while and then on the way home, I called in, I said, I'm coming home, he starts making breakfast, then we have breakfast together. And then I worked day by day. At what time is that?

What time do you start your work day? Well, this morning, it was day begins. At what time is that? What time do you start your work day? Well, this morning it was 6 a.m. But that was the meeting with the Stanford medicine people. That that that was unusual. I would say about 830, 830 or 9, I'm seriously into work mode. So then I come in and there's a process that I do of going through a bunch of emails. And then I prioritize. So I do of going through a bunch of emails and then I prioritize. So I kind of clear the decks, I prioritize, and yeah, there's a lot of emails I need to respond to, but I just kind of get clear on that because I have to see the incoming emails and demands to know what before I prioritize.

So I have to see what's on deck, prioritize, and then just start knocking it off. Do you have a time when you stop work altogether to matter if you're in Hawaii, if you're up here in California? What time do you finish? It would probably be in Hawaii it's earlier. I mean, it's nice because it's five o'clock here, and then it'll be eight o'clock in California and 11 in New York. Nobody expects me to be responding It's usually around five if I'm California might be 630 and at that point I then go out to the ocean and swim

I'll get in the ocean again. I'll go in and just hang out on the beach and I almost always get in the water because that provides me. And at the point, my partner starts cooking dinner and then maybe I'll call somebody or text somebody. I'll do some social connecting with friends and family. And then we just, I don't go back to work. Once I stop work, I don't check email. I mean, I'm done.

And so I think that's really helpful. Just like, when I, my partner has learned to say, are you done with, he's learned to not say, are you done with work? It's like, Danny, I'm never done. A researcher, an innovator, a person's work is never done. What you should say is, are you ready to stop?

Yeah. So when I stop and sometimes we'll go to the beach together. And then at that point, it's not professional work. It'll be more you know right thank you know to play the flute some more or whatever so then it's been and I don't feel like this nagging sense of I should be doing work because I just checked out of it until the next morning when I get back to it. Yeah. So, do you think a night routine is important as well or not as important as a morning? Morning is more important, but a good night routine matters as well. But I think, I mean, part of having a great morning is doing the right thing, is a night.

And so we got to bed pretty early. It's embarrassing how early. Well, there's this thing, for some Maui, like eight o'clock is called Maui midnight. So the culture here is you go to bed early. Once it gets dark here, there's nothing to do. So you go to bed so you can get up early and play. Yeah, you're right.

At four thirty in the morning, like you do. Well, did you go to bed at 8 o'clock? Sometimes 7.30, sometimes 7.15. That's embarrassing. That is just embarrassing. But it's sort of like, OK, it's dark. We can just watch stupid TV. And we do watch a little.

We like the voice. We like the cooking shows. He loves cooking. And so we'll watch some very lightweight TV because we laugh together. So it's not like we're zoning out. We're laughing. We're talking. We'll stop or replay things like what do you so it's a time for us to interact around what lightweight things going on in TV. But then at some point one of us says let's go to bed. And it can be pretty early and usually it's like man man, are we really going to go bed this early? Yeah, don't tell anybody we're going to bed. That's early, but not your day person, obviously.

Yeah, I didn't use to. Now, I would be very surprised years ago if I said, oh, you're going to be happy to get up to 430 or 5 and it would be effortless. Yeah, so things change. Absolutely. I'm going to, I will wrap it up. I want to ask you a couple more things, and I'll let you go, but because I have a cool don't worry. I want to know what of all your experience. What is the most common thing that people wanted to either, a behavior that they wanted to either obtain or lose both. Yeah. Well, I've actually done a variety of research in my Stanford lab on this. And it turns out for different types of people, it's very, very different. Parents, the number

one thing that pops in at least self-report kind of research with parents is I want to help prepare my child to succeed in the real world. And that's better than I want to be a good parent. Yes, they want to be a good parent, but when it's phrased, I want to help my child succeed in the real world, they of course, parents want that. But what we found is the actual phrasing of that matters. Many, many people want to lose weight, but the express it is get fit or eat better, and then I think if you push on that further and we didn't do it in the research, I think it's not actually what shows up on the scale. This is part of what I try to get across in tiny habits and elsewhere. It's like, is it really about what the scale shows or is it something else?

Is it more energy? If so, design to have more energy. If it's a look better to your friends, then design for that. And so just don't assume that weight loss is the thing. Look at that hard and see what you really want. Almost everybody wants to be financially secure. Okay, so I want to be financially secure or advance their career. That's widespread.

And then you have people who have leading or substance issues that they want to stop or decrease. So I would consider those are four of the big areas that have applied a lot of people. But you seem to be dealing with a lot of companies and going into corporations like you did with Weight Watchers. Is there usually like one through line that you see a lot that companies are trying to improve upon or? Yeah, it depends on the companies who have financial companies, the good ones. And I only work with companies that I think are doing good things in the world. So, I worked with two really good financial, very large organizations. And what they both had in common, rightly, was to help their members, slash customers have a $500 emergency

fund. Yes, there's many, many, many things that people, maybe not many, many, many, there are a variety of things that people should be doing to be financially secure. But was they rightfully understood without that emergency fund of about $500? When something goes wrong, then it's a domino effect of so many other financial problems. So in both organizations, they they then prioritize let's help our members or in other case customers. Let's help them create habits so they will have this emergency fund and that's first and foremost. And I didn't do this research. Somebody did or I forgot the exact percentage but it's a massive

number of Americans do not have that. They don't have $400 to draw on if it could get sick or they blow a tire or whatever. So that was thematic within financial services. Within employers 10 years ago, it used to be about diabetes and helping people pre-diabetics, not become diabetes, and then that shift did five or six years ago to stress, anxiety, and mental health, or resilience. I'm using those all as synonyms. And what happened really quickly, and I think it happened first in Silicon Valley, and then I've just heard it from so many wellness, I work with a lot of wellness leaders. It's like, we have resilience. We want our employees to be resilient. We need its mental health. It's as people are stressed out and that became far more important than what somebody weighed or what they ate or the cost of somebody

with diabetes as an employee because that just swamped on everything else. And I think we're still there now with coronavirus even more. So within the employer population, that has emerged as just super, super important. I'll stop there. So financial is huge. And then so much of our wellness programs get administered through large employers. And that was a thing that they were just asking for and asking for.

Right. Well, I'm also because I think a lot of entrepreneurs who might be listening to this, I think those are true, right, for companies like stress, resilience, all of these. Would you, how do you give them a probe? is it the same behavior model that we find in your book that you, that you give people, or how do you work with people like that? Well, the good news is there is an answer, but it's a process. It's not just a single answer, like all employees must meditate. No, we know that, but those are some of the answers they've been given. It's like, no, not everybody's meditative. Or journal. Journalism, everyone.

There are powerful things like journaling and gratitude and so on, but the processes help employees find what works for them. So again, we're back to matching people with, now I've long been an advocate of, let's hate people, create programs, some employees can work from home. Well, bam, that finally happened, not because of me, but because of coronavirus. And I'm hoping that many, many people who are learning to work from home won't go back to the stressful commute or the mindless meetings that they would have to do if they were on site and that their lives will be improved because they work from home, they're not driving, they're not stressed out from all that time.

And so I'm hoping that through this crisis, there will be habits like that that emerge that will be helpful and will hang on to those. Yeah. Well, I mean, I've kept you on the phone for a long time, but I can go on and on, but I have a whole other, I'm not even going to get into it right now, but I'll leave you promise to come back and I have a whole other than the question to ask you. But where do people, okay, first of all, your book is available everywhere right now, right? It's available. Tiny habits It's available tiny habits.

Yes, tiny habits. So yes, if you can, might be impossible right now, get it at your local bookstore. If you can. Yeah, if you can. And then yes, it's at Costco, yay. And it's at airports. We're not going there either. And you can get online. We're not going to Costco either these days.

That may tell you my neighbor That's what you approach me a little night to say it's like I'm going to Costco. It's like no stay away Oh, yeah, so yeah tiny habits it brings together So much of my work over the last 20 years in a way that I think is really approachable and what took you so long to write this book for God's Thanks, it took I mean you've been a long time long time. Your first TED talk was eight years ago. No, well, I'll tell you the truth, the true answer. The true answer is because I felt I was innovating and discovering things so much. I didn't want to turn off that faucet of innovation to spend the two to three years to write the book, because it's like, oh, here's this, here's this, here's this, and I was

busy with projects and with this. And in some ways, it's kind of selfish, because it's really intoxicating. Here's the next piece of the puzzle around human behavior. So I just felt like that kind of stuff was going so well that I didn't want to pause it for the two years. It really does take two years to write a book. But then I had this dream that I talk about in the last chapter of the book that got me created the mode and the dream is this and it's in the last chapter. I'll give it away. So in the midst of doing the research and teaching and feeling like I was

innovating a lot, I had a dream one night that I was in a plane and the plane was going to crash. And Denny was not with me in the dream. And I was 100% convinced I was going to die any moment. And the reaction to dying at any moment was not it's going to be painful or i'm going to miss denny or what's going to happen at my little dog milley it was regret it was deep deep regret for not sharing my work widely in in in a way like a book can share it and i woke up from that. I was like, oh, I'm so glad it's a dream, but I was like, oh my gosh, that was my reaction. Regret for not putting this together in a way that a kid in Peru could use it

or somebody who was trying to change eco behavior in China could use it. So in the morning, I told Daniel, I said, I had this dream and here was my reaction. And then it was about two weeks later, I mean, I'd been approached by agents and publishers and I was like, no, no, time is not right. But then this guy named Doug Abrams,

God, hold it me. Turns out to be exactly the right agent for me. I didn't know that until we met and then it's like, bam, here it is. And so it just lined up and then Doug has a great process and we mapped out the book and we wrote the proposal and We set a schedule for the writing and everything went exactly as planned and Bam so so it was a dream. It was a dream and a just a recognition

That really woke me up to I've got to get this book. I've got to get my stuff out in the world. And so, so I feel like a lot of this, what you find in tiny ambits was, well, I grew up in Mormon culture. And as a Mormon, the way I was raised, was where much is given, much is expected. I know that's not unique to Mormons, but that was really, really, really drilled into me. And that we're here on this planet to serve other people. And so that, I think that's why that was my response in the dream. And I really have felt over the years that this is, you know, I haven't discovered the behavior model in tiny habits and all these things, because I'm so smart, I think these things were given to me.

And I have a responsibility to share them. And that's what the dream was waking up me up to. It was like, you have not shared this, and you better get with it. And so that's, so I was able to pause and set aside innovation projects and research projects. I said, no, I gotta focus on this. I just, I gotta do this.

So that's what finally got me to do it. Windies is open till midnight or later, so you can give in to the craving and go night mode. Now all of your favorite menu items just got their bedtime extended. You can get what you want even later, like the baconator with six strips of bacon. Or the perfect fries and frosty duo. If you're up later, then so are we. So go ahead and pull through the drive-through. When the craving hits, go night mode at Wendy's. Open till midnight or later.

All right. See you later. I'm participating in US Wendy's hours may vary. Because I was surprised because you know your tetcha have like a million and a half views or something like that big time. And the other book came out, the power of habit, right? And the guy wasn't even a scientist or had your pedigree. So I found that to be very curious. And I was curious when that was like, after I watched it, I was like, I really, really liked you. I was like, why hasn't he like done anything? I don't understand. Yeah. Well, I mean, it was just that sense sense of I don't want to stop the innovation. I don't want to stop the learning and discovery until that happened and it's like yep you got to.

Now the good news is the learning and innovation discovery turned back on. So it's not like I hit it not like a weld that had run dry. It was a faucet that I turned off and I turned it back on. And so I really, really, and thank you for inviting me to talk to you because it is a responsibility I have to help people understand that yes, you can change your behavior. It's easier than you think. There's a process for it, and you do it by feeling good, not by feeling bad. And all that stuff you heard about behavior change,

a lot of it you should just forget about anything that made you feel bad or guilty, forget about it. That's not how you really change your behavior in the long term. And that's what I really, what I loved about your book and what I like about you is that it's very, it's, it's anybody can do it. It really is. Anybody has the ability to have a small, it's a small little win, small little changes.

And, you know, it's as easy as doing two pushups after you pee or waking up by doing the Maui habit, which is saying today's gonna be a great day, right? And these tiny things transform you. And maybe in the next, when we get back together, we'll talk about how that works and how I know that works. But what essentially happens is, even as you feel successful in these tiny things,

your identity shifts the way you think about yourself changes to be much more positive, the way you deal with challenges or opportunities in your life shifts. And it doesn't have to be massive changes that get you there. It's these tiny things as long as you feel successful at them that then leads to all these other positive things. And that's what the subtitle's about.

The small changes that change everything. It's the way you process the world, the way you feel emotions, the way you experience an emotion that I call shine. And you do that by just closing one, two, doing two pushups, pouring a glass of water, not by running marathons or, you know, taking 20,000 steps every day. No, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well,

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it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's well, it's their identity within five days because that's what the program was I launched in 2011 was a five day tiny habit program. And I had to look more carefully. It's like, yep, people are thinking about themselves differently. And then that leads to perceiving the world and acting in the world differently with the, and as these much bigger ripple effects. Is that why when you say the whole, you know, today's, when you, the Maui habit, you've named after your friend about stepping, stepping on the floor and saying, today's going to be a great day. Does it, does it change the synapses or neurons in your brain to be more positive or what is it? Well, I think I'll just, I mean, I think you set an intention and or if you're feeling doubtful, you at least you open the possibility that you will have a

great day. So it's just seven words, but I'm some of my friends who are really into intentionality that's like, oh, you're setting and tension. It's just exactly right. And that, some of these things, like the practice of celebration, the mile I have, it started as techniques, and then we can look back and explain why they work. And that's totally a legitimate way to discover stuff. You don't have to do an experiment. In fact, it's really have to do an experiment. In fact, it's really hard to do an experiment. The tiny habits method came out of hacking stuff. And I like, let's hack the behavior. Let's hack what the prompt is. Let's hack emotions. And it worked.

And then you can explain why later it worked. It didn't start from reading theory and deriving a method. Okay. So academics are not going to like me for this. But Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram, Zoom does not start as theories and they started as practical hands-on things. And then we can look at them and say why they worked. That's how tiny habits evolved as well. It was like it was a set of techniques that worked. It did not get derived from theory. And so many people think, oh, we have to read all the theory and then we'll know how to do the techniques. That's like, let's read everything about plants in the world. And then we'll be great cooks. Now learn great cooking techniques. And you can explain those maybe conceptually. But you actually work with people who know the techniques that lead to great cooks. No, learn great cooking techniques and you can explain those maybe conceptually,

but you actually work with people who know the techniques that lead to great dishes. Let's start with theory and then try to derive a method from theory. I hope I could not have him if you're saying that, but that's how you create things that really work. I mean, look at everything, you know, things that are really popular people used did not get derived by reading theoretical papers. Right. But no, you're not offending me. Just any academic that might be. Yeah. Some people will be maybe David Katz would be upset or someone would agree with me probably though. I mean, but nutrition and where you can actually measure physiology is kind of a different thing.

Absolutely. Social science, social science is way harder than physical sciences. Social science can do. Not get the credit for that, but it's way harder than now chemistry or astrophysics or whatever because you're dealing with human beings and you're dealing with all these variables. You can't fully control. Absolutely not. I mean, that's what I mean, that's why I love you because you said, you can't fully control. So absolutely not. I mean, that's why I love you because you said,

we're very honest and you're real, and I really love having you on this podcast. So thank you for taking all this time out and talking to me and everybody. And I'm gonna harass you again, though. I'm gonna tell you, this is not the- To talk to you again, you have such great questions and you put me totally at ease. And I shared things I haven't shared before so

there you are. I'm so happy to hear that that's like a huge compliment for me you have no idea I'm so happy to hear that I really am I mean I I loved your book and I honestly what if you say in that too if it wasn't true and I really do think that everybody can get something out of it and it can really tweak and help people's habits and behavior, ship for the better, especially in a time like now. Let me tell you. Yeah. Right. So thank you, tell Danny. I get email saying, I need a Danny. I do as good as it may be. You can come to LA after this whole quarantine thing is all over. I love it. I would love to meet Danny. Let me tell you.

Remember, everything I've heard. He sounds amazing. I'll go tell him he was featured in the show. He definitely was. He was a star, actually. There we go. How do people find you if they want to know more about... About you. ...about your website, bjfog.com and tinyhabits.com. Those are probably the easiest ways.

And you also have these tiny coaches, tiny habit coaches. Yeah, so yeah, and people can certify with me and train and become certified coaches. The starting point there is still tiny habits.com. And so those coaches are just an amazing community. Man, they're stepping up to the play right now. I'm so proud of them. That's amazing. That's a whole other podcast right there.

But all right, we'll take you. I think this is it. Aloha. Aloha. Hello, Ha. Hello, Ha. This episode is brought to you by the YAP Media Podcast Network. I'm Holla Taha, CEO of the award-winning Digital Media Empire YAP Media, and host of YAP Young & Profiting Podcast, a number one entrepreneurship and self-improvement podcast where you can listen, learn, and profit. On Young & Profiting Podcast, I interview the brightest minds in the world, and I turn

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