Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - The Power of Habit with Charles Duhigg

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

How does a routine become habit-forming? One important part is figuring out a reward for the routine itself. For example, as Charles Duhigg (best-selling author of “The Power of Habit”) explains, the reward for brushing your teeth is not necessarily what you think it is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Hill With a Motley Fool Money Extra, I'm Chris Hill. Everybody has habits, but we probably don't think about our habits as deeply as Charles Duhigg does. Charles is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and in 2012, he wrote his first book, The Power of Habit, Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. When we talked, he explained how every habit has three parts to it. And to demonstrate, he used one of the most common habits that we have, brushing our teeth. Though it turns out that particular habit was not always so common.

So 100 years ago, almost no one in the United States brushed their teeth. It was basically something that rich people did once a week. And it was such a big deal. It was kind of a status thing, right? And it was such a big deal that in World War I, when they were recruiting troops, The military actually said that dental hygiene was a national security risk because so many soldiers had rotting teeth. And nobody could solve this problem until this marketer named Claude C. Hopkins, who's totally forgotten today but was kind of famous 100 years ago, until he decided that he was going to take on Pepsodent in exchange for a bunch of stock in the company. And what he did was he created a habit around it.

Every habit has three parts. There's a cue, a routine, and a reward. He found this cue, the film on people's teeth, right? If you run your tongue over your teeth, you feel that film. Nobody had ever minded it before, but Hopkins taught people, that's bad. If you feel that, you've got to brush your teeth. But most importantly, he delivered a reward. In Pepsodent were these chemicals that made people's gums tingle.

And it's probably still true today, right? When you brush your teeth, I'm sure your gums and tongue tingle afterwards. Oh, sure. Once a week when I brush my teeth. Right. Exactly. Whether your teeth need it or not, once a week. that reward revolutionized toothpaste and it revolutionized toothbrushing because suddenly

people started feeling like their mouth wasn't clean if they didn't have tingling gums when they walked out the door or went to bed and that made it a habit that was enough of a reward to spur this daily pattern of behavior and in fact right even today toothpaste companies add a chemical to make your gums tingle that have nothing to do with cleaning your teeth it's just to create a daily habit. I'm not saying we won World War I because teeth brushing caught on, but it definitely helped.

The Power of Habit is Charles Duhigg's first bestseller, and it's definitely worth a read. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.