Leap Academy with Ilana Golan - Behavioral Design Expert: The Hidden Belief Blocking Your Growth | Nir Eyal | E149

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

Nir Eyal grew up clinically obese, ashamed of his body, and convinced that food controlled him. He tried every diet: low-fat, keto, vegetarian, and intermittent fasting. Each one worked until it didn���t. What finally changed his life wasn’t a meal plan; it was his belief. When he believed a plan would work, it worked. When that belief cracked, the weight returned. And he realized this pattern doesn’t just apply to weight; it shows up in every area of life. In this episode, Nir joins Ilana to reveal the hidden force behind your success or stagnation. He unpacks the science of belief, how it shapes what you see, feel, and do, and the practical framework to break limiting beliefs before they break you. Nir Eyal is a bestselling author, behavioral design expert, and former Stanford lecturer known for his work on habit formation, psychology, and human behavior. As an entrepreneur and angel investor, Nir has backed multi-billion-dollar companies including Canva and Kahoot!. In this episode, Ilana and Nir will discuss: (00:00) Introduction  (03:14) Childhood and Weight Loss Struggles (07:34) Why Affirmations and Vision Boards Don’t Work (09:18) Facts vs Faith vs Beliefs (10:59) His Journey from Founder to Bestselling Author (16:01) The Power of Belief in Success and Failure  (24:49) The ‘Messy Middle’: Knowing When to Persist vs Quit (32:06) Skills Gap vs Belief Gap in Leaders and Teams (34:0) The Four Questions to Rewire a Limiting Belief (46:51) Q&A: Crafting a Memorable Pitch Story Nir Eyal is a bestselling author, behavioral design expert, and former Stanford lecturer. He is the author of Hooked and Indistractable, which have sold over one million copies worldwide and been translated into more than 30 languages. His latest book, Beyond Belief, explores how hidden beliefs shape our limitations and how to replace them to unlock personal and professional growth. An entrepreneur and angel investor, Nir has backed multi-billion-dollar companies including Canva and Kahoot!. Connect with Nir: Nir’s Website: http://nirandfar.com Nir’s Instagram: instagram.com/neyal99 Nir’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nireyal Resources Mentioned: Nir’s Books: Beyond Belief: The Science-Backed Way to Stop Limiting Yourself and Achieve Breakthrough Results: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593852036 Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life: https://www.amazon.com/dp/194883653X Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591847788 Nir’s 30-Day Belief Transformation Journal: nirandfar.com/beyond-belief Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW WAY for professionals to fast-track their careers and leap to bigger opportunities.  Check out our free training today at https://bit.ly/leap--free-training

People, when they believe, they can't do it. I'm too old. I'm too young. I'm too fat. I'm too thin. I'm too rich. I'm too poor. These are all limiting beliefs.

When you believe that limiting belief, you begin to look for the evidence to make it true. So you literally see the reality that you are looking for. Our next guest is Nura Yad. He's former Stanford lecturer who devoted most of his life to the intersection of business behavior and the brain. We used to think you're born hopeful. You learn helplessness.

No, no, no. You're born helpless. You have to learn hope. So how do you teach people hope? You change your beliefs. Positive beliefs about aging at age 30 can increase your lifespan by seven and a half years. So quitting isn't wrong. Quitting too soon is wrong.

So how do you know when it's time to quit? It's a good time to quit when it meets three conditions. First. Welcome to the Leap Academy with Ilana Golan Show. I'm so glad you're here. In the Leap Academy podcast, I get to speak. to the biggest leaders of our time about their career, how they got where they are today,

the challenges, the failures, and countless lessons. So lean in, this episode is going to be amazing. I'm a mission to help millions reinvent their career and leap into their full potential, land their dream roles, fast-track to leadership, jump to entrepreneurship, or build portfolio careers. This is what we do in our Leap Academy programs for individuals and teams.

And with this podcast, we can give this career blueprint for free to tens of millions. So please help my mission by sharing this with every single person you know because this show has the power to change countess of lives. Deal? Okay, so let's dive in. Okay, so here is a story for you. The year is 2015.

And I go with a tech startup that I just founded back in the days to a Stanford pitch competition. I win and I receive a book. It's called Hooked. by Nira Yal. By the way, I have it here. If you're on YouTube, I'm showing it here. And I never heard of the book before. I didn't hear of NIR prior. But the more I read the book, the more I learn about NIR, the more I need to meet this guy. So I have enough Gutsba to write to him on LinkedIn. And I go to a talk he was giving in San Francisco. By the way, proximity and getting in the room is critical folks. So if you're hearing this, do that. And he was gracious enough to meet me after that. And I've since been following him when he launched his second book, Indistractable. We're going to talk about that too. And now he's coming out with a book beyond belief.

And I can't wait to drill deeper because in Leap Academy, belief is a huge reason for people to stay stuck in their career or a fraction of who they could be. So let's dive in. So great to have you, Neer. Thank you, Ilana. Great to be here. And thank you for such a kind introduction. I appreciate it.

It's very kind of you. I definitely am blushing. You are amazing. And thank you for always being there and letting other people rise because that's what leaders do. And I want to take you back in time because I think from time of time you allude a little bit to your childhood and how that formed the near that we see today. Who is near? And what are some memories that formed your perception of the world today? Probably the most memorable thing about my childhood.

I had a great childhood. I know complaints. The only thing that was difficult for me was that I was that. I was very overweight. I was clinically obese, not just overweight, but actually obese. I remember my mom taking me to the doctor. Which I have to stop for a second because if you see him on YouTube right now, like something doesn't gel.

Okay, now continue this story. I'll show you pictures. It's the truth. But yeah, I went to fat camp. I had the whole nine yards. You know, I remember my mom taking me to the doctor. The doctor's saying, this is the green zone on the chart. Here's the red zone.

That's overweight. here's you, you're all the way in this orange zone. You're definitely obese. And that was a real challenge for me. I grew up in Central Florida, and we had a community pool in the condominium complex. We had one pool for everybody to jump into. And I would be the kid who never took off his shirt because I didn't want anybody to see my belly rolls and my man breasts.

And so I would go into the pool, even with my shirt on because I didn't want anybody see it. And it was a big challenge for me. And I think the upside of that, at least I choose to tell this story, was that I think that's where my fascination with how things control us. Like I definitely felt controlled by food. And it wasn't until I broke down why that was happening that I got control over it. And in fact, with Beyond Belief, what I learned many years later was that when I started to get control over my diet by buying diet books. And, you know, at first I would go on the, I think in 1994 or so it was

the low-fat craze. Everything was low-fat. And so I bought books on that. And then, And it worked for a while. And then after low fat, I became vegetarian. And then after vegetarian, I went the other way, went keto. And so we got rid of all the potatoes and tofu, and then it was all meat. And then after that, it was intermittent fasting. Then I would tell everybody about why that was the new religion, my metabolic flexibility. And I'd be the annoying guy at parties to tell everybody about the right way.

And every diet worked for a while until it didn't. What happened to me time and time again, and the reason my weight loss journey was like a roller coaster ride, was that when I believed in the diet, it worked. But as soon as I had a break in my conviction, as soon as someone told me otherwise, I would abandon the diet and the weight would come back on. And it wasn't until I learned after many, many years, that what really worked was sustaining a conviction

for a long period of time. That's when I could sustain my motivation. And that it wasn't the one true diet that I was looking for, because science is constantly telling us something else about how to diet. In fact, what works for some people doesn't work for other people. But what worked for me over the long term was seeing myself as a person who makes smart choices about food and exercise. That was more important. That belief in myself became a liberating belief as opposed to limiting belief that, oh, if I'm not on the perfect path, then what's the point?

I would constantly have what we call it today. We know it's called the what the hell effect. The what the hell effect is when you fall off the wagon, you know, I would cheat with a pizza or something. And as opposed to doing the right thing, which is what I do now, to realize that, hey, I can always get back on track with the next thing I eat, I would say, well, I already had the pizza. Let's chase it with some fries and a beer, right? Yeah, what the hell? I'll start tomorrow. That was a limiting belief. And so that's really what Beyond Belief is all about, is how do we identify those limiting beliefs that sap our motivation and they're everywhere. Of course, they're hidden. We don't see our own limiting beliefs.

It seems like that's reality. How do we find those limiting beliefs and turn them into liberating beliefs that supply motivation that make us more likely sustain our efforts and achieve our goals? That's fascinating. And again, I can't fathom that you are obese, but let's play along. How do you build the confidence? I mean, at some point, you're also like in video gaming and advertising and you could found companies, but take me a little bit to that journey of NIR and how did you build yourself?

Because I want to understand where did you fall in love with behaviors and the brain and all of that? What happened? I think it probably started from when I started to lose weight, when I started to see results. Now I know the science behind it that just platitudes and positive affirmations don't work unless you show the brain with evidence that your actions matter. That's That's what's very important. It's very important that you believe that you can make a difference, but if all you do is talk about positivity

and affirmations and manifesting that actually has been shown to backfire unless you see the obstacles in your way and do something about them to show your brain, yep, this actually works. So if you just say, I'm thin, I'm thin, I'm thin, I'm thin, you're not going to lose weight.

You're not going to lose weight if you say I'm vibrating at the quantum level of the universe mumbo-jumbo. That also doesn't work. Vision boards don't work unless you are visioning the obstacles in your way. That's actually the right way to do this. So I was always fascinated from a

young age when I could see, hey, my actions matter. I built this high sense of agency that I think was very helpful later in life. Now I can put the terminology in place. Now I can look backwards and see, okay, I think this is what made a difference. And of course, for me, what really matters, I'm very skeptical. I need to see the science. So I'm one of these people who if I can't see the study, I don't want to share it with others. I think you called it endless positivity or whatever you called it, which I agree, right? It's not the rah, rah, rah. It's, is this actually helpful for where I'm trying to go? Like, is this actually surveying my goals, right? Versus looking at it, I think you say, more of as belief as experiments versus commitments. Tools not truth. That's the big revelation of

this book is that there are facts. Facts are objective truths. The world is more like a sphere than it is flat. Doesn't care what you think. That's a fact. Okay. Then there's faith on the other end of faith is a conviction that does not require evidence. So what happens in the afterlife? God rewards the righteous. No amount of evidence is required for faith. Then there's something in the middle. These are called beliefs. A belief is a strongly held conviction that is open to revision based on evidence. So it's something you choose to believe because it is useful, not necessarily because it is true, that we can choose our beliefs. And so many of us, we just carry around these limiting beliefs that we never evaluate, that we never take out and look because we can't see them.

They're hidden to us because we know that our beliefs shape our reality. They literally shape what you see. We see this time and time again that people who are in a diet see food as larger. People who are afraid of heights see distances as further away. People on opposing teams will see a play on a game as completely different based on their alliance, based on their beliefs about who they support. So we know time and time again that we don't accurately perceive reality. We perceive reality through our beliefs. As far as I'm concerned, belief is probably one of those things that I did not respect enough. I didn't think it's important. I just thought that you can just plow your way through anything until I realized that that was probably one of the biggest

blind spot that I personally had. So we're definitely going to go a lot deeper. But tell me how do you start from co-founding companies, advertising, et cetera, to start writing books? What is that path? Because I think our audience, they want more, they want change. They want to create not just a paycheck, but the life that they want with a paycheck. And they have no clue how to even take that step.

And you took that step multiple times because even your books are not on the same topics. They're very different. My rule has always been to follow my curiosity. That's always been my rule, at least with writing. When I needed to make money, I didn't write books because books are a great way to not make money. Now I can make money on books,

but that was never really my goal when I started. I didn't even know how you could become a writer, frankly. So I started two companies. We sold them. The last company was in the advertising and gaming space. That was okay. We didn't make any money on that one. But the first company put us on our feet.

And then after the second company was sold, I had some time on my hands, and I went back to something I love, which is to learn. I write based on what I want to know, not what I know. A lot of authors write what they know. And those books, sometimes they're okay, sometimes they're a little boring because the author kind of already knows the conclusion. I like to write because I'm looking for the answer. You know, we say research is me search. And so I take problems that I have and I look for solutions. Now, most of the time when I have a problem, I'll read about it and I'll read somebody else's book and look at what they say. And if that solves the problem for me, then great. But every once in a while,

there isn't a good book on the topic, right? So indestructible is a great example. I read books. I was very distracted at the time. I was really having trouble concentrating and focusing. And the books on the topic either said that I was broken somehow, my brain was broken. I had some kind of diagnosis, or that the world was broken, that technology is the problem and stop using email. and some professor with tenure who can't get fired is telling me to stop using email. Well, thanks, stupid. That's not helpful. I have to use email.

That's reality these days. So when I couldn't find books on the topic that worked, I had to go back to basics. So I went to first principles, really went into the psychology of distraction in the case of indestructible. And the same when it came to Beyond Belief, that the frustration with Beyond Belief was that I would get these calls from people. You know, I make time for office hours where anybody can call me if they have a question, if they've read one of my books. I'm happy to answer questions about it for 15 minutes every week. I do four calls. And so every once in a while I get this call that sounded something like this. Somebody would call me and say, hey, Neer, I read indistractable. It was really good. I enjoyed it,

but it didn't work. I said, oh, my goodness, you know, I spent five years writing this book, 30 pages of citations to peer-reviewed studies. It changed my life. Here it is. I wrote it down, and I try to make it very, very clear. Tell me how it could be better. I want to learn. Let's start with step one. How did step one go for you? And they'd say, you know, Neer, I, I read step one. I read it. I read it. I just didn't do it. I'd say, oh, okay, no problem. Okay, I understand. Maybe you skipped step one. Step one was, maybe you didn't understand it. Okay, let's go with step two. How did step two go? Yeah, you know, I didn't do step two either is the problem. So I'd say, wow, you know, what the heck is going on here? These people would wait for

months to ask me a question so I can tell them the answer that was in the book already that they could have read a long time ago. And I thought, what was going on here? Like, are these people stupid? What are I missing here? And then I realized, wait a minute, no, I'm stupid. because when I look behind me and I look at my bookshelf and I'd say, wait a minute, I have all these books that I haven't put into practice. I've hired gurus and experts to tell me what to do and I haven't done it. Why? Why is it? Why is it that when we, despite knowing what to do, we don't do it? And what I realized after researching this topic is that it's not good enough to just know what to do. It's not good enough to even want the outcome that there's something missing. That you can know what to do

and you can want the outcome, but there's still the missing piece is the belief. That if I don't believe I'm going to get the outcome, maybe I don't trust who's giving me the outcome, like if I don't believe I'm going to get the promotion or the salary bonus or whatever, if I don't believe I'm going to get the benefit,

or what is very often the case, I don't believe in my own ability to do the behavior. I'm not going to get it. So motivation is not a straight line. It's not do this, get that. It's not behavior to the benefit. It's a triangle. You have the behavior on one side. You have the benefit on the other side. And then holding it all together is belief. That's the missing piece. That if you don't believe in your efficacy or the outcome, no motivation. You won't sustain yourself long enough to get the results. We need to pause for a super brief break. And while we do, take a moment and share this episode with every single person who may be inspired by this because this information can truly change your life and theirs. Now, I want to check in with you. Yes, you.

Are you driven, but maybe feeling stuck in your career or a fraction of who you know you could be? Do you secretly feel you should have been further along in your income, influence, or impact? Do you ever wonder how to create not just a paycheck, but the life you want was a paycheck? The thought leadership, the legacy, the freedom. Because that was me, and that's exactly why I created the Leap Academy program, which already changed thousands of careers in lives. Look, getting intentional and strategic was your career is now more important, than ever. The skills for success have changed. AQ, adaptability, reinventing, and leaping,

are today the most important skills for the future of work. Building portfolio careers, multiple streams of income and ventures are no longer a nice to have. It's a must have, but no one is teaching this except for us in Leap Academy. So if you want more from your career in life, go to leapacademy.com slash training. Check out this completely free training. Check out this completely free about ways to fast-track your career, and you'll even be able to book a completely free strategy call with my team. That's leapacademy.com slash training. And I think what you're saying is incredibly important

because we see it in Leap Academy all the time. It's exactly what you said. Somebody wants more, but they don't truly believe that it's coming, right? Or they don't believe they can be successful, they believe they're going to fail, and now they don't take action. Guess what? they don't see results.

And now it's almost this self-propathy that's like, see, I didn't make it again. So now you're building this opposite evidence of I can't do it. Because there are three powers of belief. Okay, the research shows there's three powers, three things that beliefs do to our motivation. They affect motivation by changing what we see, what we feel, and what we do.

We call this attention, anticipation, and agency. To your point around how, hey, I can't do it. And so what people, when they believe, they can't do it. I'm too old. I'm too young. I'm too fat. I'm too thin. I'm too rich.

I'm too late. I don't have enough time. These are all limiting beliefs. All limiting beliefs. What happens is when you believe that limiting belief, you begin to look for the evidence to make it true. So you literally see the reality that you are looking for. You see, that's why I couldn't do it.

I told you I couldn't do it. See how I couldn't do it? You begin to see the reality that you believe you will expect. Oh my God, this is so true. There's a quote from Ford, whether you think you can, you think you can't, you're right. There's so much reality into that. It's true. I look at myself in all the places where I was wrong, but where did you see that near? So how did you start coming out with attention, like how belief are filters, right? And anticipation, like expectation. Like how did you start coming up with that? What are those moments that built you to start creating this kind of? of a book. A lot of very boring reading. It took me six years to write this one because there's a lot of research out there. There's a lot of psychology studies. Some of them are interesting. Some of them are good. Some of them are terrible. It took a lot of research, but putting things into frameworks that can be useful. Because something can be true, but if it's not useful, I don't really care.

You know, like if it's just, and a lot of academic research, you know, they say that a PhD is someone who learns more and more about less and less. And that could be very true, that oftentimes you read these academic studies, like, okay, that's amazing in a laboratory, but what does that mean for real life? I don't like those kind of books. I want to write a book and I want to read a book. And again, I wrote this for me more than anyone else. I wanted to read something that could change my life. And so I really wanted to get down to basics around this research. and when I uncovered all these studies, the important ones blew my mind. For example, did you know

that positive beliefs about aging at age 30 can increase your lifespan by seven and a half years, that people who have a positive view about aging. So for example, the difference between this belief, a limiting belief like, decline is inevitable. Okay, that's a limiting. belief. Whether it's true or not, that's not the question. Remember, beliefs are tools, not truth. Decline is inevitable in old age. That's a belief. The other belief, empowering, the liberating belief, growth is possible at any age. See the difference? Both are true and maybe both are false. Doesn't matter? It doesn't matter. It turns out that people who have a positive view about aging, positive beliefs about aging, lives seven and a half years longer. You know what that means? That is a bigger

effect than diet, then exercise, then smoking. But we never talk about it. You never hear the surgeon general saying, hey, everybody, it's important that we all have positive beliefs about aging. You don't hear that. We only talk about, of course, diet, exercise, all those things are important. Now you think, okay, well, why is that? Why do beliefs have such a positive impact? It's not magic. It's not that, oh, if I sit here and manifest, I'll live longer. No, there's no cosmic vibrations. The universe doesn't give a shit. That's not how it works. It's not about the secret and vibes and quantum mumbo-jumbo. That's not how it works. Turns out that people who have positive beliefs about aging, if you believe growth is possible at any age, you get out more.

If when something hurts, you don't say, oh, I'm having a senior moment, you say, okay, I'm going to do it anyway. I don't care if it hurts. I'm going to get out there. I'm going to go see my friends. I'm going to garden. I'm going to take a walk. I'm going to go play golf. I'm going to do something as opposed to people who have negative views about aging. And what do they do? They look for the confirmation. Ah, you see, decline is a net. inevitable, oh, here it comes, you know, here, I'm having a senior moment, right? Why do we say that? Why do we say to ours? I'm not a morning person. Why would you say that to yourself? Even if you're not a morning person, why would you say that to yourself? It does nothing but

decrease your motivation to have the life you want. I know why we say it. We say it because it's comfortable, right? We say it because it feels so good to be in stasis. And in fact, one of the things that blew my mind was that we used to believe the scientific consensus was about learned helplessness. you probably heard, learned helplessness, that these researchers, Seligman and Meyer, they took these dogs, they put them in a cage, and they trained these dogs to every time that they were in this cage, they would shock them, a painful electrical shock, and they wanted to see if they could train them to jump over a shuttle box. So when these dogs were trained to be in a hopeless situation, when there was nothing they could do to get out of this electrical shock, they never learned

to jump over the box. For years and years, we thought that helplessness was learned. That you learned helplessness. And this explained all kinds of socioeconomic conditions, that people in certain socioeconomic strata, that they have learned, it's not worth trying, so they give up. Turns out the theory is completely backwards.

The study was completely the opposite. Here's what happened. One of the researchers, Meyer, later became a neuroscientist. He was originally, I think a psychologist. then he started doing fMRI studies. He remembered that in his original study, some of the dogs never quit. They never learned helplessness.

They would keep jumping and jumping and jumping and jumping. They would keep doing the behavior they weren't expected to do, and they never learned to give up. And he never figured out why. And he kind of excluded them from the data. They were kind of insignificant. Turns out that those were the dogs who had some type of experience, we think,

with hope, with salvation. That in fact, the default reflex that what we are born with is helplessness. We are born helpless. We have to learn hope. That's a complete reversal. That we have to teach ourselves hope. That is not something that we are born with.

We used to think you're born hopeful, you learn helplessness. No, no, no. You're born helpless. You have to learn hope. So how do you teach people hope? You change your beliefs. That's what you do.

So what we do is realize that that is our default state, that we are constantly looking for affirmation about why there's nothing we can do. And if you talk to most people, I hate to say it, most people out there who achieve mediocre results in life, right, the things that they do are okay. They're bummers, right? Like you talk to folks, they have a lot of limiting beliefs. They give you excuses about why this is the case, and that's the case, and this is why I'm unable, and this is why I'm down. The people who succeed in life, what's interesting, they don't fail less. You think, okay, successful people are successful because they fail less. No, it's the opposite.

Maybe sometimes opposite, yeah. No, it definitely is the opposite. I've met many billionaires. I've met many, many, many rich people. When you look at their life story and you literally count up the number of failures they've had and you think, oh, successful people fail less. No. Unsuccessful people fail less.

Why? Because unsuccessful people don't try as much. They're the ones who have fewer failures. They had a few failures and they quit. I can't do it. Because that's their default. All of ours are default. Successful people keep trying and trying and trying and trying.

So they rack up more failures because they just take more shots on goal. And so the key, I think, is what separates success from failure is not intelligence. It's not luck. We know that the average person gets the average amount of luck. It's not that some people are just lucky in life. There is one huge luck, which is who you're born to. There is kind of a cosmic lottery of who you're born. If you happen to be born to a rich family, you're more likely to be wealthy.

But for the vast majority of people, it's not luck, it's not intelligence, it's perseverance and adaptability. That turns out to be it. Those who keep trying, keep trying, keep trying, keep trying, keep trying, and keep eating shit and keep, you know, keep failing, knows the people who are more likely to succeed. Simple as that. I love that you said that near because I think it is the victor versus the victim, right? Victim or victor.

You get to choose. And it's so funny because I think I talked about the podcast with somebody literally a few days ago. And I said, if I need to summarize in one word, hundreds of biggest leaders of our time and what made them in their career, it's, yeah, perseverance, tolerance, call it whatever, right? But it's that. And I think one of the things that I want to take you there, the messy middle, sometimes we feel like we're trying, we're trying and we're actually like in motion and we're trying different things. and we're not seeing the results, right? And it's, we're not as excited anymore. And now it's just starting and the finish line is not there and we're not getting the evidence that we need. And it's so easy to give up. It's so easy to lose that belief at that messy middle, right?

What do you do when it is hard? People are sending resumes and they're getting rejected or they're trying different things and they're getting passed over or they're trying entrepreneurship. And let's be real. Entrepreneurship can really suck, right? So they're trying all these things and what makes people give up or how do you not give up? So I'm not saying not to give up. This is a super important point. It's not that quitting is bad. I'm not saying quitting is bad.

I've quit all kinds of things. I've quit businesses. I've quit relationships. I've quit book projects, many book projects. I've quit lots and lots of things. It's not that quitting is wrong. If that quitting too early is wrong, that quitting before persistence would have made a difference, that's when it's bad.

may actually illustrate with a study. In the 1950s, there was a researcher by the name of Kurt Richter. And Richter took these rats, and he put them in a glass cylinder that was filled up about halfway with water. And he put these wild rats inside the cylinder. And he allowed these rats to keep swimming. And he timed them to see how long they could swim for. And he found that the average wild rat would swim for about 15 minutes before it gave up. Then he did something interesting. He put in new wild rats into these beakers, and he allowed them to swim. Then right before 15 minutes, right before he knew they were going to give up and die, he reached in, he pulled out the rat, dried it off, let it catch its breath, and plunk back into the cylinder of water. It went.

And he allowed it to keep swimming. Have you heard this study before? No, this is fascinating. Okay. Awesome. At first, the rat swamined for 15 minutes before it gave up. Let me ask you, Ilana. How much longer? You know there's a trick here. How much longer did the rat swim for? What do you guess? Double. Imagine if you were, you know, you ran a marathon and now all of a sudden, poof, you can run too.

Imagine if you were taking, you know, a hard test or working on a big presentation and, wow, you're about to give up and, boom, you could do double the time. That would be amazing, right? It wasn't double. It wasn't 30 minutes. It wasn't 45 minutes. It wasn't 60 minutes. After this intervention, after they took the rat out, dried it off, plunked it back in the water. a couple times. The rats swam from 15 minutes. They could persist for 60 hours. Not 60 minutes,

60 hours of swimming. They became 240 times more persistent. Okay, what changed? Experiment, exactly the same. Same cylinder of water, same tools. The body was the same, right? The same rats, Nothing physically had changed in the rat's body. The only other variable was what was happening in the rat's mind. We can't ask the rat what they believe, but it's the only variable left. What we think happened was that now the rats believed that salvation might be possible, that they were conditioned to believe that there might be a better future. And so they kept going and kept going and kept going.

So is quitting wrong? No, sometimes you have to quit. Sometimes it's the right idea. But quitting at 15 minutes. when you had the metaphorical 60 hours, how many things have we quit in life that we could have persisted way, way longer? Because what happened in this experiment

is that something that was always in these rats, they could always swim for 60 hours. But when their beliefs change, suddenly something was unlocked. That's amazing. That's the power of belief. That's what my research has been all about the past few years, is how do we unlock that?

So quitting isn't wrong. Quitting too soon is wrong. So how do you know when it's time to quit? There's a good time to quit. It's a good time to quit when it meets three conditions. First is when you meet your checkpoint. What is a checkpoint? A checkpoint is when you say, I am going to try on a new belief.

A new belief is like a new set of glasses. You're going to look through these glasses on purpose, whether it's true or not. Okay? Doesn't matter. Thinking I am going to succeed, damn it, doesn't matter if it's true. You don't know. It's not fact. It's not faith.

It's a belief. It's based on current. evidence. I'm going to succeed. And I'm going to put on those glasses for 60 days. I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to work on this project 60 days, six months, six years. Doesn't matter. You're going to create a checkpoint, not a deadline. Deadline means I will finish by that date. No, no, this is a checkpoint. And then at the end of that checkpoint, whatever it is you say you're going to do, I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to have this belief for 60 days or whatever the amount of time. I'm going to check in with myself to see, would I start the same experiment again?

right? Would I keep going if I were to start from fresh? But you're not going to quit until you get to the checkpoint. Because if you don't have that checkpoint on day two, on day three, on day four, remember, our biological system, our default is hopelessness. Your default will always pull you back to hopelessness. That's what these learned hope studies reveal, that your default state is always, ah, this hurts, this sucks, I don't want to do it, and retreat back into losing, right? Retreat back into giving up. So you have to have a checkpoint. That's number one. number two, are you still learning? So failing doesn't mean you should quit. Again, the most successful people are the ones who fail the most because failing can lead to learning. So if you're failing,

that's great. In fact, you know, if you knew, hey, if I failed 10 more times, how quickly would you want to fail? You'd be like, yeah, bring on the failure. Bring on the failure. If you knew, guaranteed you'd succeed in the 11th attempt, you'd be like, great, let's fail 10 times so I can get to the 11th. So if you are still learning, that's not time to quit, even if you're failing, even if the experiments aren't working. The third criteria, and the most important, is asking this, does persistence make a difference? Some things, persistence does not make a difference. Let me give an example. If you work in a toxic company environment, which I've worked at, persistence doesn't matter. You're not going to outlast the crappy toxic culture. It's going to be

there. As long as that company is alive, it's going to have a crappy company culture, unless there's some kind of major reorg or people quit, you're not going to outlast that. So persistence in a toxic culture, you may want to quit the company. However, with other goals, many times, most goals, there are oftentimes plateaus. You want to be a better public speaker. You're going to suck, you're going to get better, and then you're going to plateau, and then you're going to get better after a long time. You want to lose weight. You want to get into shape. You want a business. Oh, my God. Great example. A podcast. It's going to be platyoteau. It's going to be plateau. Plateau, plateau, plateau, plateau for a long time, and then breakthrough, once you figure it out.

Okay, once something awesome is going to happen, if you just persist long enough, there's a good chance that persistence will make a difference. Those rats kept swimming because they know a hand might come out and pluck them out. There's going to be some kind of hope in the future. So those are the three criteria for when to quit. Did you meet your checkpoint? Are you still learning? And does persistence make a difference?

So if somebody's listening to this and he's a leader or she's a leader, right? And she's basically thinking, okay, so I have this team. How do I know if I have a skills gap or I have a belief gap? How do I know what is going on? Do you have any thoughts around it? Well, I think it is very difficult to change people's beliefs. I get asked this a lot in terms of interpersonal relationships. You know, how do I change someone else's belief?

I don't know if you can't. I don't even know if that's the right goal, frankly, because changing someone else's beliefs is very difficult. Changing your own beliefs is a different story. So I would ask yourself, why do you feel the need to change others' beliefs? That's the question I would ask, because that's in your control.

As opposed to the frame of how do I change those beliefs, a much better perspective is why do I feel like I have to? Maybe it's easier to hire somebody who already believes, who is already on board. Now, I wouldn't be very clear, because there's many examples of companies, many, who had faith in the company. blind faith in the company, and that can have disastrous consequences many, many, many times

where we hire for people who are zealots, who they have faith no matter what. That's very dangerous, right? Yes, people or people who it becomes a cult. That's not belief. A belief is not blind faith. A belief is a conviction that is open to revision based on evidence. Now, if you hire somebody who is not willing to change their mind based on evidence, that's a problem. That's a person who is not adaptable. I don't mind if someone disagrees with me.

In fact, I love when people disagree with me. I love it. I mean, that is literally my love language. Like, when someone can change my mind, that's the best. I can think a few gifts someone can give me than changing my mind about something. It is truly a gift. So one, I would say, why do you feel like it's your job to change someone's belief versus hiring someone who may have that open minds already? Yeah, please. Can we go there for a second? So there's a reason why in Leap Academy, I think we hired some of the top mindset results, coaches in the world, because I think we do run into a lot of people that lost the belief. So usually when we catch them, they're already tried different things.

They tried to land a job or they tried to switch an industry or they have no clue what's where they even want to go and they tried different thing and nothing excites them. And they're in this, it's not lack of belief. there's almost like sometimes it's lack of hope or like loss of hope a little bit. Eliminately. Like is there a better, is there a better second part of my life out there? Or is this all there is to my life, right? There is a little bit of that belief.

So now we need to instill hope that there is a new possible. So I think there is a stretching of belief that we, at least as an entity, want to try to take people on a journey. So I do think we're shifting people's beliefs. Here's what I do for myself. First, you look for those limiting beliefs in the areas you are stuck. That's where they always lie. Whether it's that New Year's Resolution that's been on your calendar year after year,

whether it's that thing you've been trying, I want to start this course, this podcast, this business, write this book, find love, start a business, whatever is that thing that you keep feeling like you're banging your head against the wall. For me, relationships I write about in the book about my relationship with my mom. very personal about how I change my beliefs around that relationship, a relationship that was difficult and kept being difficult. That's where you want to go. Okay, so that's number one. How do you find your limiting beliefs? Because limiting beliefs are always hidden to the person

with the limiting belief. So that's where you start. So where's the trouble? Where is the difficulty that doesn't seem to get better? Okay, we zoom in there. Then we articulate the belief that keeps us there. Okay. Maybe you have a limiting belief of your own. Do you have that criteria that I just gave you, maybe a New Year's resolution that keeps coming up, maybe a limitation that something you've always wanted, that for some reason you've tried again and again, it's not working or a relationship. Is there any limiting beliefs that come to mind for you? My limiting belief that without hiring the proper executives in the company, I can't focus on the podcast and the book and all the things that I want to do. Let's make it broader. Without the right

staff, I can't focus on the tasks I want. Okay. Can you write that down somewhere? Without the right staff, I can't focus on the tasks I want to. Now, what we're going to do is this is a four-step method from Byron Katie, who's in her 80s now. She's fantastic. But she actually distilled this technique that comes all the way from Aristotle. It's like a 2,500-year-old technique. And so what we're going to do is we're going to follow these questions. Okay, step number one, is that belief true? I wouldn't have said that if I didn't think it's true. Okay, terrific. Let's go on to question number two, is it absolutely true? What is the meaning of absolute? Absolute means it's always true. 100% in every circumstance there is zero exception, not even one percent chance there might be.

Okay, say more. Why don't you know? There's doubt now. Maybe I have all the stuff I need. I don't know. Okay. Is it absolutely true? We don't. I don't know. You don't know or no? Er. Can you think of any circumstance where it might not be true? Maybe, yes. Okay. Okay. So is it absolutely true? Maybe not. Okay. Maybe not. Okay. Question number three. Who are you with that belief? Without the proper staff, I can't focus on what I want. Who are you? Like, what do you feel? What comes up for you? Like, think of in your body right now. What are you feeling emotionally? Maybe physically. Maybe you feel somewhere in your body.

What do you feel when you believe that? It's a little sad because I can't create the impact that we want on millions of people. Amazing. So you feel limited. You feel sad. What else? Held back. Held back.

Disappointed. Wonderful. Okay. Fourth and final question. We're doing this very quickly, but we're going to get, you know, this is good. I want everybody to follow along. This is great. This is so fun.

Number four. Okay. Who would you be without that belief? Let's say I could reprogram your brain. I put neuralink in your brain and I rewire your brain and you no longer have that belief. It is non-existent in your brain. Who would you be?

Stephen Bartlett, The Diary of CEO. But how would you feel? I mean, great. No, I'm kidding. How would you... Not that it is solved, not that you get the staff, but that you don't believe you need the staff anymore to do what you want.

I mean, it gives you hope again, I guess. Okay, hopeful. What else? The belief doesn't exist. Does not exist in your brain. How do you feel? I feel great, but I don't know if I'm still going to double down on the podcast and the book without it. It doesn't matter.

Yeah. But it feels good. It feels good. What else? Good. Optimistic, hopeful. Optimistic, hopeful. Empowered.

Empowered. Awesome. Awesome. Okay, great. So here's what we have. established. You have a belief. Holding the belief feels crappy, okay, saps your motivation, makes you feel hopeless, you said, ineffective. Not having the belief makes you feel hopeful, makes you optimistic, you said. Okay, great. Now, here's the last step. We're going to do a

turnaround. A turnaround is not to convince you to believe differently. A turnaround is to collect different perspectives. It's called a portfolio of perspectives. Okay, the current belief, we have one already. Current belief is, without the right staff, I can't focus on what I want to focus on. That's the current belief. What's the exact opposite of that belief? I'm in the exact opposite. I have exactly the staff I need and I can focus on whatever I want. Okay. Now I want you, Ilana, to think of any way that that could be true. Give me at least three ways that could be true. Doesn't have to be true. Could be true.

I need to staff the company a little different. Okay, that's one. So you already have the existing staff. You just need to organize them differently. What's another one? Maybe batch some of my activities around podcasts and a book so that I can accommodate both and they don't take as much. I don't know. Help me out, Mir.

How about this is what you want? How about this is what you really want? That's true. Could it be? true? Oh yeah. Okay. So maybe you're doing exactly where you're supposed to be doing. Doesn't mean it's true. It means it's a possible perspective. So why is this important? We just did one turnaround. You can do many other turnarounds, by the way. And I'm sure you can think of a hundred different other perspectives, but now we've collected four different points of view, four different beliefs. When I tell you

one of your beliefs back to you that I have exactly the staff I need to do to do. To you, I have exactly the staff I need to do exactly what I want. And you say, that could be true. And you try that on for size. How does that feel? I'm not saying it's true. Maybe you want more, you have dreams, I want to be Stephen Bartlett,

but what if I told you, Ilana, I have a time machine and I looked into the future, and it turns out you're exactly where you need to be. You just have to do it for longer. You just have to persist with continuing to work on the things you really want to work on,

things you're already doing, just keep doing them. just keep getting better. That I believe you, because that's where I am. Yeah. What does it do to your motivation level? Yeah, I think it gives you, like you see the end of the tunnel to some extent.

Even if it's far, you still see it, right? I think you see that hope. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. This is good. So as opposed to, by the way, I see this all the time, all the time. I would love to build my app.

I would love to start my business. I would love to do that AI thing of a jigger. I would love to do my podcast. I just don't have the right help all the time. As opposed to, you know what? I'm supposed to be doing it without help. I'm supposed to be figuring it out so that I understand the entire business,

front back, forwards, backwards, so that even if I get someone who doesn't know what they're doing, I can teach them because I've done it. Maybe this is exactly what you have to be doing. You have to be cleaning the toilets, so to speak, in the entrepreneurial world, so that you understand the full stack of what needs to be done so that you can teach it to anybody.

And then you're no longer beholden to having the right staff. You could essentially hire anybody and teach them exactly what to do. Because guess what? No one's coming to save you. Until you are a success, nobody more successful than you is going to come work for you. So maybe what you have to do is to suffer through the pain of learning before you can hire world-class talent.

You have to be world-class talent yourself. Now, is that true? I don't know, but is it more motivating? I think so. Wouldn't you agree? I love that. Because now you're doing it with purpose. You're not sitting there,

until I get the right talent walking through the door, I can't do anything. I can't work on my book. I can't work on my podcast. Versus, you know what? I got to work on this myself 100% so that no matter who comes to the door, when the time comes,

I'll be ready to tell me exactly what to do. I like that near. This is really good. This is a great framework. I am grateful for where we built both. Leap Academy and the podcast, and the book is already in, you know, with an agent and all the things.

By the way, this is your script, right? I didn't come up with those limiting beliefs, nor did I come up with how you feel about them. And by the way, since we first met, this is exactly what you've been doing. I know. Like, what else is new? You've, like, been shoveling and shoveling and shoveling,

and you're getting there. It's just that it takes longer than you want. It's always going to take longer than you want. And I think it's high achievers. We also move the bar all the time. For sure. And I think this is another thing. Like we always move the carrot one more step.

So it's like, ah, but I had the carrot. Where did it go? Because if you would have described this life to me a decade ago, that wasn't even in the stars. No way. What on earth? And did anybody come save you, by the way? Did you hire the right Messiah that brought you here?

No, but I did start leaning on help, which I haven't done in the first few decades of my life. And now I literally pay for all the help I can get to get there faster and hire. Hey, now we have a fifth belief. From I need to hire the right help so I can do what I want, to I need to lean on people, part time, whatever, contractor, who knows what, friends, family. So now we have a fifth belief. Yeah. Yeah.

That is true. Oh, Neil, you're so good. It's incredible to watch your journey since we met because we met when you only had hooked. And by the way, I could see where the indestructible is coming from because you told me this beautiful story that later became part of the book was your daughter. So you told me that over coffee in San Francisco about being distracted with your daughter, if I remember correctly. Yeah, yeah.

It did make in the book. You're right. And that went in the book. And since then, now there's a third book. And clearly going to be another bestseller. Near. Amazing to have you on the show. My pleasure.

Thank you so much for having me back. I appreciate you calling me up. This was a lot of fun. And yeah, for folks out there, by the way, if you're interested in the book, it's called Beyond Belief. If you go to my website near and far.com forward slash beyond dash belief. There is a tool there, a 30-page belief transformation journal. That's part of the book.

Make sure you get that there. That's free as part of the book. So make sure you go near and far. com forward slash beyond dash belief. Amazing. So we'll have it in the show notes. And how do they find you or I guess you have a newsletter and all the things? Yeah.

What else? Near and far. That's the place to go. Near and far like my first name, NIR and FAR. Oh, you're the best. Neer, thank you for being here and continue to enjoy whatever it is that you're doing. And we will probably need to do something together because a lot of people need beliefs in our ecosystem. So thank you for being on the show, Neil. My pleasure. Thank you so much,

Ilana. Good to see you. Hey, so I am so excited. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. And now I'm going read the review of the week. And remember, I look at the reviews. And right now I'm looking at Apple Podcast from Magnolia. Thank you, Magnolia so much. And she busy says, hey, Ilana's podcast is a gift. The episode was Dr. Josh Axe, oh, he's going to love to hear this, was not only informative, but came at the perfect time. My close friend is facing an IBS and cancer scare. And this conversation gave us both so much hope and perspective. We both leaned towards holistic wellness, and this episode really resonated. I'm looking forward to exploring more episodes highly recommended.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This made my day. And I'm sending a ton of love and health to you and your friend and everybody around you. And now it's time to pick a question. So remember every week, we go to our YouTube channel and we pick a question that is asked there. So feel free to add your questions. And we have a question from Iris.

And she is asking, how do you make a very memorable story of yourself in interviews and pitches, et cetera? So in every kind of story, whether you're in an interview, you're doing a pitch for your company, you're trying to get clients. There are three things, only three, that you need to follow. Why you? Why this? Why now?

That's it. So why are you the perfect person to solve this problem? Why this is a solution? And why now is the perfect time. The biggest killer of dreams is actually delay in procrastination. So the why now is really, really important. So why you, why this, why now? And if you're going to stick to making sure that every,

part of your story has these, you're going to crush it. So I hope this helps, Cyrus. I'm looking forward to looking at more of your questions on YouTube. And don't forget to subscribe, download all the things, share it with friends. It really helps us bring amazing guests your way. So let's quest a week, everybody. Remember this episode is not just for you and me. You never know whose life you're meant to change by sharing this episode with them. And if you love today's episode, please click the subscribe or download button for the show and give it a five-star review. This really means the world. Join me in helping tens of millions of individuals reinvent their career and leap into their

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