The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Nir Eyal, WSJ Bestselling Author of “Hooked” and “Indistractable.” Investor, Consultant, and Public Speaker

Episode Date: November 17, 2022

Nir Eyal, WSJ Bestselling Author of "Hooked" and "Indistractable." Investor, Consultant, and Public Speaker NirAndFar.com "Indistractable provides a framework that will deliver the focus you need to get results." —James Clear, author of Atomic Habits "If you value your time, your focus, or your relationships, this book is essential reading. I'm putting these ideas into practice." —Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind NATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE OUTSTANDING WORKS OF LITERATURE (OWL) AWARD INCLUDED IN THE TOP 5 BEST PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY AUDIBLE INCLUDED IN THE TOP 20 BEST BUSINESS AND LEADERSHIP BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY AMAZON FEATURED IN THE AMAZON BOOK REVIEW NEWSLETTER, JANUARY 2020 GOODREADS BEST SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY OF 2019 FINALIST You sit down at your desk to work on an important project, but a notification on your phone interrupts your morning. Later, as you're about to get back to work, a colleague taps you on the shoulder to chat. At home, screens get in the way of quality time with your family. Another day goes by, and once again, your most important personal and professional goals are put on hold. What would be possible if you followed through on your best intentions? What could you accomplish if you could stay focused? What if you had the power to become "indistractable?" International bestselling author, former Stanford lecturer, and behavioral design expert, Nir Eyal, wrote Silicon Valley's handbook for making technology habit-forming. Five years after publishing Hooked, Eyal reveals distraction's Achilles' heel in his groundbreaking new book. In Indistractable, Eyal reveals the hidden psychology driving us to distraction. He describes why solving the problem is not as simple as swearing off our devices: Abstinence is impractical and often makes us want more. Eyal lays bare the secret of finally doing what you say you will do with a four-step, research-backed model. Indistractable reveals the key to getting the best out of technology, without letting it get the best of us. Inside, Eyal overturns conventional wisdom and reveals: • Why distraction at work is a symptom of a dysfunctional company culture—and how to fix it • What really drives human behavior and why "time management is pain management" • Why your relationships (and your sex life) depend on you becoming indistractable • How to raise indistractable children in an increasingly distracting world Empowering and optimistic, Indistractable provides practical, novel techniques to control your time and attention—helping you live the life you really want.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm ready. I'm ready. Just like I said, I'm ready. Where's the host? Oh, wait. Hey, the card says it's me. Hi, I'm your host, Chris Voss, thechriss voss show.com

welcome to the show everyone it's wonderful to have you uh people yell at me when i don't sing it the chris voss show.com you know it's really funny how you guys send me messages if i don't sing it it's really i don't know i love you guys but jesus after 13 years i gotta come up with something else man anyway guys welcome to the. We certainly appreciate you coming by. We have a brilliant multi-book author on the show today. He's going to blow your mind. Nir Eyal is on the show with us today, and he's got two amazing books he's written. He might have had more than that.

We'll check in with him and find out. But we're going to be talking to him about his amazing books. I was friends with him on the old LinkedIn over there. You may have heard of it. Microsoft bought it a couple years ago, tried to destroy it it and they're trying their hardest, but it's still not working. Um, it's, uh, it's kind of like Microsoft is kind of like the Elon Musk of LinkedIn. So that's what I think about that. But, uh, still, I made, I recognized that I was friends with them and I've been friends with them for several, I don't know, however, I've been on LinkedIn for 2008, since 2008, for 2008, it seems like for 200,008 years. And I was like, hey, man, we should have you on the show. And he's like, hey, man, that sounds like a good idea. I'm not

sure that's the language you use, but I'm paraphrasing. Anyway, he is on the show with us today. He's going to be talking to us about his amazing book and business insights, and you're going to learn so much, it's going to make you sexier, guaranteed to help you in the bedroom. Your wife still won't like you, but you will be sexier. Nir Eyal is the best-selling author of Hooked, How to Build Habit-Forming Products, and Indistractable, How to Control Your Attention and Choose Life. At least that's what I read when I was between my Instagram messages. He has taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. I may get yelled at for that one.

He is writing on technology, psychology, and business. Appears in the Harvard Business Review. We love the authors we have from them on the show. The Atlantic, Tech Crunch and Psychology Today. I'm going to ask him, I'm going to show him my brain and ask him if it looks infected. Welcome to the show, Nir. How are you? Hey, man. See, I do talk like that. How are you? Yeah, you got the whole hey man thing going on. All right. Hey, so Nir, give us your, Nir, give us your, did I get the Hasso, right? Is that Hasso?

Hasso Platter, yeah. He's the founder of SAP. So you went to Stanford and I went to public school. So that's how that worked. I also went to public school. No, did you really? Oh. Yeah, I did. I went to one where it was pretty much just FFA, Future Farmers of America, the whole time.

Yeah. We had that, too. I grew up in Central Florida, so yeah, we had that, too. I went to public school and then shipped off from there. From what I understand, they still do that in Florida. That's like a Florida man thing, isn't it? That was a big club in my high school.

Future farmers. You know, I also learned welding, wood shop, and leather working and metal shop. And none of those. Those are real skills. Not like what I do. I just click on keys all day.

They are. Well, I'm either going to, I mean, the great thing about my podcast is if things don't work out with this whole thing, I can always fall back on either my strip club days of being a Chippendales dancer, or I can go back to my welding career. Probably my welding career at this point, because I don't fit in those songs very well. Anyway, welcome to the show. We certainly appreciate you coming by. GiveUsYour.com. Did we get the.com from you? Yeah, it's near and far. Near, like my first name, N-I-R. So it's near and far.com. I just wanted to cement that in and make sure we got it,

because I was in between jokes and thinking of the next one. So welcome to the show, my friend. You've got two amazing books. Is it just the two? Two. Two for now. Sorry to make that sound like, is it just two? Like, is that it?

That's all you can write? So you've got the two books on, and they've got amazing reviews. You really kicked ass on these books. So congratulations. The first one, let's start from the top. Well, let's do this. Let's play a foundation and sell you to the audience. That's always good.

Tell us a little bit about yourself, how you grew up, what you ate for breakfast, and how you got here. What got you into the business of writing books and business consulting? Yeah, so I'm a behavioral designer. So what that means is that I help companies build the kind of products and services that build good habits in people's lives. So I work in healthcare to help people make sure they take their medicine or use a medical device.

I work in education to help people learn new languages or learn online, for example. I work with financial services companies to help people make a habit out of saving money. So anywhere where you need a repeat behavior, those are the kind of businesses that are my clients. And my research in the field has extended back to over a decade now,

looking at the deeper psychology of why we get hooked and how we can use the same psychology that Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp and Slack, all these companies use to get us hooked to their products, sometimes for frivolous reasons, right? Sometimes just for entertainment. But how can we use that same exact psychology for good? How can we use it to help people learn a new language or get fit or live healthier lives through the products and services we use? So that was my first book is Hooked, How to Build Habit-Forming Products. That's what I still do professionally. Most of my time is speaking, consulting, and teaching around that topic.

And then my second book is called Indistractable, which looks at the other side. So Hooked is about building good habits. Indistractable is how to break bad habits. Now, it's not the same habits, right? We can have good habits that get us to the gym and help us eat right, et cetera. But then we also have these bad habits that we want to know how to break around, oh, spending too much time on social media or watching too much TV or whatever the case might be. So I want to look at both sides of the equation, how to build good habits with the products we use and then how to break those

bad habits that can lead us towards distraction. What were you saying? I was looking at my phone. No, I'm just kidding. Indistractable is the title of the book. How to control your attention and choose your life. it's always best to choose life i find i wake up every morning i go death life i'm gonna go with life thing today work work so far i don't know about that but uh anyway so give us a rundown of indistractable how to control your attention and choose your life. What are some of the things that people run into and how do we, how do you help them overcome it? Sure. I mean, I think there's a real bifurcation today going on that there's a division between

the kind of people who let their time and attention be controlled by others, right? As you said, they're not choosing their life. They're letting other people choose their life for them based on the media they consume, what they do with their time, whether they're able to, to focus on the values and priorities that are important to them. And then there are the people who say, no, I will not let my life be manipulated and controlled by others. I will choose how I spend my time and attention because this is truly how we choose our life. So those types of people are people who I call indistractable. Now indistractable doesn't mean you never get distracted. I wrote the book and I still get distracted from time to time. What it means is that you're the kind of person who knows why they got distracted and they can do something about it

in the future. So Coelho had a wonderful quote. He said, a mistake repeated more than once is a decision. A mistake repeated more than once is a decision. So, okay, let's say you get distracted once. Damn you, social media, Mark Zuckerberg, you make these products so good we want to use a mistake more than once is a decision so okay let's say you get distracted once damn you social media mark zuckerberg you make these uh products so good we want to use them all the time okay he got you once are you gonna let him keep getting you again and again and again and again or are you gonna stand up and say no no i know why i got distracted i'm gonna take actions today to prevent getting distracted tomorrow so indistractable is not just about the tech distractions it's about all the distractions we see in our world today. It's, you know, the television, it's our kids can

be a distraction. Work can be a distraction. All kinds of things can be a distraction if it's not what you said you were going to do with your time and attention. There you go. So national bestseller, winner of Outstanding Works, multiple awards for this. Is social media the biggest problem of distraction these days? Definitely not. In fact, it depends on the context. So when we did surveys of what's the biggest distraction in the workplace, the number one distraction was not email. It wasn't Slack.

It wasn't any kind of technology. It wasn't phones. It was other people. That was the number one source of distraction in the American workplace. It's your boss coming by your desk while you're working on a big project saying, hey, can I have that TPS report? Or your friend saying, hey, you want to hear some office gossip? That turned out to be the number one source of distraction at work. At home, there's all kinds of other distractions, right? Today, now that many people are working at home, post pandemic, the number one

source of distraction tends to be their kids, right? We love them to death. But they can also be a huge source of distraction if you haven't found ways to deal with what we call these external triggers in our environment. But here's the interesting thing. If you look past the tools we're using, okay, it's silly to just look at the tool. Because remember, distraction has been with us for at least the past 2500 years, Plato, the Greek philosopher talked about distraction 2500 years ago, and he complained about how distracting the world was back then. So it can't be caused by social media, right? It's been around way too long for it to be caused by people have always been distracted. So we have to look deeper than just what tools are we using, and realize that the number one

source of distraction, and studies have found this, that the number one source of distraction, in fact, 90% of the distractions that come from our phone don't originate from the phone. Think about this. 10%, this is what studies have found, 10% of the distractions that come from our phone are from the pings, dings, and rings. The other 90%, 90% of the distractions that come from our phone start from within us. What are these called? These are called internal triggers. Boredom, loneliness, fatigue, uncertainty, stress, anxiety.

This was a big revelation for me is that it's not the tool, okay? It's not the thing outside of us. It's these uncomfortable sensations these icky sticky feelings that we don't want to deal with this is why we look for distraction here's the thing doesn't matter if it's too much news too much booze too much football too much facebook you will always find a distraction if you don't first deal and process those uncomfortable sensations you know uh uh that was one of the jokes I had, that drinking and booze is one of them,

because, you know, then you start text messaging all sorts of stuff, and you wake up the next morning going, ah, I didn't mean to send that DM to my mom. On Snapchat, I don't know, there's a joke you can figure out. You know, what about, one of the big problems I see with addiction and social media addiction, because I, you know, you and me, well, I don't know about you. You're much younger than me, I think. But I grew up in the age where, you know, you didn't, if you wanted to walk around with a phone,

you had to carry the rotary with you and it didn't work because it was unplugged. But, you know, I grew up in the age where you met people, talk to them, you know, call them and stuff. And so it's still weird to me when I see people walking around like this, just like, and they never look up. You're like, I don't know how you've not wandered into traffic with the way you're going. Uh, it still bugs me when I go to, uh, I'll go out to eat and I'll see like a whole family of like, you know, four kids and two parents. And like every single one of them is like this. It's like robotic.

And one thing I see that's really big is validation online. Needing a lot of women, needing validation. Most of the apps have turned into these dating apps or validation apps where it's like, look at me, tell me how beautiful I am. There seems to be an addiction to that. I don't know. Am I wrong? Well, I think some people can get addicted to technology and social media. Some people can get addicted to all sorts of things, right? But certainly not everyone who use these things are addicted, not even close, right? Not everyone who has a glass of wine with dinner is an alcoholic. Not everyone who has sex from time to time is a sex addict, right?

So it turns out that about 3% to 5% of the population is addicted to one thing or another. So that means that there's a 97%, 95% chance that's not you. So for the vast majority of people, we're not addicted. We are distracted. But, of course, we don't want to use that language, right? We want to think that we're puppets on a string, we like to believe that this is something that's out of our control. Why? Why would we like to think we're out of control? Because then there's no responsibility. Right? If Zuckerberg is doing it to me, well, nothing I can do. We're all addicted. And even if you're not thinking this consciously, subconsciously, you see these kind of behaviors.

Well, people say, oh, yeah, it's hijacking my brain. BS. Hijacking is what they did to us on 9-11. Hijacking is not candy crush, for God's sakes. Get a grip. Okay? We need to stop using this language that disempowers us. And this is my big beef with, I think, tech critics.

Like, I don't know if you saw the movie, The Social Dilemma movie. That movie could have been produced by the tech companies because that accomplished their goal their if their goal is to get you to keep using these devices more than you'd like the best thing you can tell people the best lie is that it's hijacking their brains and there's nothing they can do about it so i'm here to tell people that yeah there are negative repercussions to overuse of everything. Watch too much TV. Hey, listen to too much Chris Voss podcast. Yeah, do that.

That's a good addiction. It's a healthy addiction. That's a good addiction. All right, that's fine. Do that. But anything you overconsume is gonna have negative repercussions. So the problem is, here's what's interesting too,

is that there have been studies that showed that there is no connection between depressive symptoms and the amount of hours spent online. But there is a connection between depressive symptoms and whether you think spending time online is bad for you. Think about that for a minute. The perception, the moralizing, the guilt that, oh my God, I'm spending too much time online, that's bad for you, can actually be worse for you than the time online. There's nothing wrong with spending time on social media. There's nothing wrong with watching Netflix. There's nothing wrong with any of these things. We need to stop moralizing and medicalizing these behaviors. Rather, we need to say, look, anything in excess has negative repercussions. How can I get the best out of these tools without letting them get the best of me? And that's what becoming indistractable is all about. It's about empowering yourself,

not to be some professor that says, oh, stop using social media, stop using email. Thanks, stupid. My job relies on those things, right? I can't just stop using email, right? I'll get fired. So instead of saying, let's cut it out of our lives, we have to figure out how do we use it in a way that serves us as opposed to us serving the tech companies. And these tech companies, they really play on our emotions, as you said. You know, the emotions, you know, they, for a long time, I think they're trying to dial back, but for a long time, they played on your emotional stuff. So they would, you know, hit you with some news or some posts that somebody made

that was really emotional and would enrage you maybe or trigger you. And they would make sure that those posts were shared actively. And it was real gamification of your emotions. Yeah, all media does that. All media. I guess that's true.

When you watch Fox News or CNN or The New York Times or whatever, name or podcast, it has to play on your emotions. Look, I went to journalism school as an undergrad, and the first rule of journalism is if it bleeds, it leads. That's true. That's what journalism is all about. If it bleeds, it leads. That's true. That's what journalism is all about. It doesn't matter if the news they're giving you has any impact whatsoever on your life. They don't care. Fox News will never tell you you've had enough. Please go have a life.

Okay. They will tell you stories of people suffering 5,000 miles away so that you can take your mind off of your problems at home. That's what they do. Okay. All media, not just social media, all media folks. Does anybody not know that the media business sells your eyeballs? That's what they do. They sell it to advertisers.

Wake up. That's always been their business model. Now, that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. It's fine. I'm very happy to have access to the news, which most of it, by the way, I can get for free. It's a miraculous age we live in that I can get access to that stuff. So just because they're playing on our emotions doesn't mean it's a bad thing. That's their job.

We want them to tell us stories. That's why we tune in. The question is, what are we going to do about it? We need to stop blaming and shaming and start claiming responsibility for how we use these products. That's true. Is half the battle recognizing that? Absolutely. Absolutely.

I mean, I think it's the whole battle is that, you know, here's what happens when people think that there's nothing they can do about a problem when it's being done to them, which is a beautiful narrative. We like that. There's always scapegoats. If you look at throughout history, right? It's in the Bible. Scapegoating is what we do, right? We never like to assume responsibility for our own problems unless we're absolutely forced to.

It's always easier to say, oh, it's that country over there doing it to me. It's those people over there. It's that guy doing it to me. There's always the other that causes our problems because people don't like to think, wait a minute, what can I do, right? That's a very uncomfortable question because now I have to change my life

and do something different. And it's much easier to incite people and to make money on selling fear, much easier than when you sell positivity and personal responsibility. Well, now it sounds like you're selling something. As opposed to if you're selling fear, you're trying to protect people. But the truth of the matter is that most of our problems can be solved by us. By us.

We need to claim responsibility for the things we do and don't do in our life. What, you want me to be self-accountable? What? What kind of thing is this? I'm going to go watch TV. Yeah, write that down gen z years um so uh yeah recognizing that i think recognizing what's being gamed against you yeah i always love in the news they do those promos where they put the fear of god into you like did you know that hangnails can cause cancer and if you don't watch at 11 you'll die by 12 and you're like

I better watch at 11 because I got a hangnail clearly they make it sound like you will die tomorrow if you don't watch this show in fact I just came up with a title

for the podcast listen to this podcast or Nir will kill your grandmother. Nir tells us why your grandmother is dumb. Anyway, I'm just kidding. He didn't do that. Trust me, folks. You don't have to skip around the podcast to try and figure out where he said that. I made that up.

Right now, somebody's going, let's skip to six and see where that was. Anyway, I just got a CND from Nears Attorney. Anyway, so this is pretty insightful. I love this. I love this because, you know, it's amazing to me how many people don't recognize the play. They don't recognize the play of politicians who, you know, do the straw man and go, that guy is, it's, it's always that person

over there who's trying to rip you off. Not me. I'd never pick your pocket, pick your pocket. Um, you know, and, and the same thing with media and, and I'm always like just sitting around going, you know, this has been going on since the beginning of time, politics and media and control of ideas. It's like, why haven't we evolved as a species enough where we go, hey, I see what you're up to there. For me, I grew up in religion, in a cult. And so for me, I was being force-fed a lot of crap at an early age, and I was like, wait, I don't know about this.

And for some reason, I had this brain that would just be like, so why does, I need to know why. And I was one of those stupid ones. And they're like, just shut up and have some faith. And I'd be like, you know, I got to have a little bit more to build on here. And so I was, you know, one of those heathens or whatever, Satan's child. But so I've always kind of taken that approach in life where i look at them from a very analytical thing and when i look at stuff whether it's news or um you know gamification when i play video games

or you know politicians or anything that comes at me uh you know people in my life i'm always i always like looking at them and go what's your angle what's your motivation i'm like some guy from brooklyn or something i don't know't know. What's this guy's angle? What are you coming at me and why are you coming at me for it? And what are you trying to achieve? And why should I give a shit, I suppose. But, you know, there are things that I agree to that I go, okay, well, I'll buy your thing.

You know, gamification is a big one, of course, with video games. But, you know, you bring up a good point. How do we deal with those emotions? Like, do we need to sit down and go, why am I insecure about something or feeling insecure? And so I'm using, you know, I'm doing something to watch some TV or Netflix or doing some sort of behavior to do that. Well, it starts from defining what is distraction. So let's start there. So the best way to understand what distraction is, is to understand what distraction is not. So most people, if you say, what's the opposite of distraction? They'll tell you the opposite of distraction is focus.

Not true. The opposite of distraction is not focus. The opposite of distraction is traction. It's right there in the word. Traction and distraction. Both words come from the same Latin root, trahare, which means to pull. And they both there in the word. Traction and distraction. Both words come from the same Latin root, trahare, which means to pull, and they both end in the same six letters, A-C-T-I-O-N, that spells action. So traction, by definition, is any action that pulls you towards

what you said you were going to do, things that move you closer to your values, help you become the kind of person you want to become. Those are acts of traction. The opposite of traction is distraction. Distraction is any action that pulls you further away from what you said you were going to further away from your goals further away from living out your values. So that's really, really important, because I would argue, any action can be traction or distraction, based on one word. And that one word is forethought. Okay. The time you plan to waste is not wasted time as Dorothy Parker said. So if you want to play video games, do it. There's nothing wrong with playing video games. Do it though on your schedule, not someone else's. And don't do it because you're trying to escape some kind of uncomfortable emotion. So now that

we have detraction and distraction, now we can plug in our external and internal triggers. The external triggers we talked about earlier, those are the pings, dings, and rings, those things in our outside environment that can lead us towards distraction. But again, that's only 10% of the reason we get distracted. The other 90% of the time that we get distracted, it's not because of what's happening outside of us, rather it's about what's happening in our own heads. So that's the first place to start. The first step to becoming indistractable is understanding what are those internal triggers and learning ways to master those uncomfortable sensations or they will become your master.

If you look at why people do things that they later regret, right? Why do they drink too much? Why do they spend too much time watching TV? Why do they, you know, whatever it might be, things that they later look back and say, oh, that is not how I wanted to spend my time on earth. You will always find that there's an uncomfortable emotion that they are trying to escape. And so that is step number one is how do you cope with that discomfort? You don't need to see a psychiatrist, nothing wrong with it. But if you, it's something you can do by yourself. I give over a dozen different techniques that you can use to start mastering those internal triggers so they don't become your masters. And we can talk about some of those techniques as well. Nice. Let's do this. Let's force people to buy the

book to pick those up because I want to move to your second book and get a few more jokes in. One thing that was interesting is, did you find that a lot of people have, one of their biggest emotions that they're having about just getting distracted is FOMO, fear of missing out. I find a lot of my friends that that's half the reason they grab the phone off the table as soon as it buzzes is because they're, and I'm guilty of it too, there's a fear of missing out, which is an emotion I suppose too. it too, there's a fear of missing out, which is an emotion I suppose too. Is that an official emotion? I don't know if it is.

Yeah, no, that's a big one. Fear of missing out is, yeah, it's fear, exactly. And of course, you know, fear is a powerful motivator. The question is, is it real? Is it justified? And that fear of missing out is the reason we act more than the reality that we are missing out. That's a really important insight. So when many people resist, okay, I can't be indistractable because what if my kids need me? What if my boss needs me? What if my friends need me? It's more often than not, I'm talking 99% of the time, it's a fear versus a reality. Guess what? Your kids can wait a little while so that you can finish that big project. Uh, your boss can, can hang on for 15 minutes so that you can finish that priority. Uh, what, you know, you can go to the gym real quick. Nothing's going to happen.

If you do the things you say you're going to do, uh, in that time, the world's not going to fall apart, but people have the fear. It might, they might miss out that somebody might need them. And real in reality, it's an excuse at the end of the day, it's a feeling, and feelings can be managed. And nine times out of ten, when you go look at what the notification is, it's something that wasn't worth distracting. Exactly. Especially when it comes to the expense. The cost of this is the time you could have spent doing the things you really want to do.

Exactly. Like you said, I see people in restaurants all the time with their family, having a beautiful family dinner, and all the kids are on their devices. Why did you go to dinner to spend time with your family if everybody's on their phones? Why are you sitting there? You could all just be home looking at your own screen. Yeah. And I'm not judging anybody, right? If you want to live your life the way you want to live your life, do it, right? I'm not going to tell you what your values should be. What I want to do is to help people live out the values they set for themselves.

So if you say exercise is important to me, great. If you become indistractable, you're going to go exercise. If you say family time is important to me, great. I'm going to help you spend time with your family 100 percent and really be there for them. If you say work is super important, I really need to work on my business. Absolutely. I'm going to help you do that without getting distracted by all those stupid trivialities that take you off track. Because Chris, the problem today is not that we don't know what to do. We all know what to do, right? We don't need to listen to some guru to tell us how to lose weight. We know how to lose

weight. You eat right. Your exercise. There's no secret to it. Uh, we don't need to listen to some guru to tell us how to lose weight. We know how to lose weight. You eat right, your exercise. There's no secret to it. Uh, we, we don't need to listen to some business guru to tell us how to be better at work. You know how to be better at work. Do the fricking work, especially the hard stuff that other people don't want to do. That's how you get a relationship advice. You want to know how to have a better relationship, be fully present with people. They're not your phone. Exactly. If, and if you don't know how to do something, Google it. Everything you want to know is right there on Google. Just Google it. The problem is not that we don't know what to do. The problem, Chris, is that we don't know how to stop getting in our own way. That's the problem. We don't know how to stop getting distracted. And so that's exactly what becoming indistractable

helps you overcome. I'm going to put that in my phone. Hang on one second. No, I'm just kidding. But no, that's brilliant. You know, I love, I love how you've, you've defined this foresight. It sounds like what you need to do is you need to sit down and make a plan. Is that right? You sit down and make a plan and go, okay, how am I going to start responding to these phone messages? How come, you know, I get the emails from the kids that are at military school till 18 and somehow they want to still talk to me. They can't wait. I don't know what that's about. You know, how do I deal with news?

How do I deal with politicians, you know, trying to fire me up? How do I keep people from playing my emotions? Is it good to write it down, a master plan? That's part of it. It's about knowing what tools you'll have in your toolkit when you feel these emotions. Okay. And what I found in my study of indistractable people, when you look at high performers in every industry, whether it's top athletes, whether it's people in business, whether it's artists, whatever the case might be, people that are high

performers, they actually feel the same internal triggers everyone else does. They also feel lonely and bored and sad and stressed and anxious. They feel the same emotions, but they respond to them differently. They have a different set of habits around how do you respond to this uncomfortable sensation. What many people do, distractible people, when they feel that discomfort, they immediately look for escape. I can't deal with this boredom. I can't deal with this stress. I can't deal with whatever anxiety I'm feeling. Let me go escape it with something, whether it's too much news, booze, Facebook, football, whatever. They're going to find something to escape it into. High performers don't do that. High performers leverage that

discomfort. They use the insecurity, the stress, the anxiety as rocket fuel to propel them towards traction, right? This is why you hear so many people who have really tough upbringings and they're incredibly motivated. They're incredibly productive because they're using, they have something to prove, right? They use that discomfort like rocket fuel towards traction rather than trying to escape it with distraction. And so that's what we see with these high performers. So the good news is anyone can learn those habits. So what you do in response to those uncomfortable sensations, this is a really important point.

People think you can control your emotions. You can control your urges. You cannot. You cannot control your urges, okay? What you can control is how you will respond to those urges. So it's like the urge to sneeze. If you feel the urge to sneeze, it's too late. You've's like the urge to sneeze. If you feel the urge to sneeze, it's too late. You've already felt the urge to sneeze. We can't control the urge to sneeze. Just like if you

control the urge to eat that piece of chocolate cake, if you're on a diet or scroll your cell phone or whatever the case might be, if you feel the urge that is not in your control, don't try and claim response. Don't try and get control over it. What you can do is that you can claim responsibility for how you will respond to that sensation. So when you feel the urge to sneeze, are you going to sneeze all over everyone and get them sick? No. You take out a tissue and you cover your face. That's the responsible thing to do. Yeah, but it's better if you share, though.

Exactly. They won't be very happy with that. My grandma told me that. In that case, sharing is not caring. But whether it's your phone or a cigarette or a piece of chocolate cake, the idea is how you will respond to that sensation. So what I do is to teach you different techniques that you can use starting day one about how to respond to that discomfort in a healthier way. There you go. There you go. So here's the thing.

If I can make one more quick point. There you go. There you go. not true neurologically. In fact, when you look inside the brain through fMRI studies, we know that the human brain is motivated by one thing and one thing only. And that one thing is the desire to escape discomfort. That's it. The desire to escape discomfort, even get this, even the pursuit of pleasurable sensations, right? Even wanting to feel good, craving, lusting, desire, all these things are psychologically destabilizing. We know, you know, there's that, there's that song, love hurts. And it's true that that's exactly right. Craving something, desiring something is the propensity to want to feel good is itself uncomfortable. So what does that mean? That means therefore, if all human behavior is spurred by a desire to escape discomfort, that means that time management is pain management. Money management is pain management. Weight management is pain management because all human behavior is

spurred by a desire to escape discomfort. So once you realize that fact, it's incredibly empowering because it's just feelings. And once we can control those sensations, we can master our wellbeing. That explains my first six divorces. It might actually. Get away from pain. Yeah, there you go. Just a joke, people. There's only been seven. So H uh hooked how to build habit forming products you guys can order up wherever that books outlets or i'm sorry i just read the one i'm leading into so we're going to talk about hook now how to build habit forming products the prior thing we were i was trying to plug there was indistractable how to control your attention and choose your life um so let's talk about hooked and uh your your prior book. And tell us about this one and what

motivated you to write it. Yeah. So my first book was about how do you use technology products primarily to change behavior for good, for healthy habits. So what I did was look at how do you break down the psychology of TikTok and Instagram and Slack and Snapchat and all these products that are so good at keeping us hooked. I wanted to figure out their secrets. And I wanted to steal those secrets so that the rest of us are entrepreneurs can use them for good to help people exercise more, save money, connect with loved ones, be more productive at work. And that's exactly what's happened. So so hooked is a is a how to guide indistractables for everyone. Right. Anyone who finds themselves distracted. distracted, everyone feels that these days.

So that's for everyone. So you wrote a book on how to get companies to make products to distract you, and then you wrote a book for people to not get distracted. I see you're playing both sides here, aren't you? That's the marketing spin that gets people to see what you're up to. Wow, that's a self-serving cycle of – Yeah, but of course it's not the same products, right? I've never consulted for Facebook and Twitter and these guys.

They already know these techniques. That's – guess where I learned them? I stole their secrets and put them in my book so that the rest of us can use these techniques for good. There you go. And I've never worked for the gaming companies or any of these guys. The idea here, they already know these techniques. The idea is how can we build businesses to help improve people's lives by building good habits? And the good news is we can have our cake

and eat it too, right? We can be hooked to that exercise app and also become indistractable to not overwatch the news or other distractions in our life. There you go. There you go. Yeah. It's, it's really important that we identify this stuff. It's really crazy how pretty much, you know, we're so manipulated. And so many people buy into it. They're just like, yeah, you know, the news said this. You know, and there's a lot of people that whatever the news is or what's worse is the people who see a meme on Facebook and that's what they determine their political slant is or the political narrative is the people who who see a meme on facebook and that's what they determine

their political slant is or the political narrative of the day is and you know it's it's from russia or something you know and people are buying into it and they don't look at it and go what's the play here what's being what's the you know the good news is that we adapt right that human beings are i think there's there's kind of this perception that we're all like idiots. Not me, of course, right? I'm not the idiot. Everybody else is the idiot. It's everyone but you and me. And of course, that's not true, right?

We've seen the enemy and it's us, right? We're the idiots. But we're also amazing. We need to give ourselves more credit too that we can change. And we're seeing this already, right? We're seeing that people get smart over time. This is what people do when there's a technology that has a massive impact on society. We do two things. We adapt and we adopt, right? Every new technology has negative consequences, right? So as Paul

Virilio said, when you invent the ship, you invent the shipwreck. Okay. But when was the last time you heard about a shipwreck? Almost never. You almost never hear about shipwreck. Did we stop sailing ships? Did we say ships are evil? They hijack your brain? No. You know what we did? We made ships better. We improved the technology around how we use, how we build and sail ships so that they crash less. And guess what? That's what we're doing with technology right now. So, you know, Facebook was a dumpster fire a few years ago. So built an opportunity for tiktok to now come in which is a i think a much more moderated healthier environment it's not perfect there's lots of problems there's potential threats of course but it's a lot healthier because people got sick of this dumpster fire of politics and advertising on facebook i don't know anybody under 40 who's still on facebook they're all

on instagram or or are on tiktok and i know anybody under 40 who's still on Facebook. They're all on Instagram or are on TikTok. And I know Facebook owns Instagram. Yeah, I got that. But it's a case in point of how consumers, they're not stupid. They look for a place that makes them feel better, that helps them deal with the problem that they're facing in a healthier manner.

And that's exactly what we're seeing now. People didn't want all the politics and ridiculous Russia stuff that was infecting Facebook. They didn't trust it anymore. And so they went to look for other places, which proves my point that you can't addict people to these problems, to these products. They're not mindless zombies. People will eventually, have written apps and tried to make, you know, Facebook copies and social copies, social community copies. You know, even I've been good at building communities, but I never really thought about how that it's the pleasure of emotion that people are searching for. You know, they'll be really good at designing their product. And they're like, if you push this button, you go over here. And if you push this button, it goes over here. And it's like, yeah, but how did they feel during this whole thing? You really opened my mind up to that in, in, uh, the feeling aspect of it. Is it, is it giving me that dopamine, you know, reward hit?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's less about the, the, the dopamine stuff than it is the, is it solving my problem plain and simple right if you go to the grocery store and you look at the fruit section and uh half the produce is rotten guess what you're not going to buy it yeah and if a product doesn't doesn't make you feel the way you you you uh came to to help if it doesn't solve the problem the way you came and expected it to then you're not going to use it that's another thing I've looked at some of their products. I'm like, what does this solve? Like in there and it's got, it had gotten so kind of crazy.

There was people made so many apps that it just became really niche-y to make like an app. And you're like, Hey, I, I, I've got a new app. And you're like, what is it? And it's like, I've got a Uber for mosquitoes. And you're like, I'm not sure that's going to work out because they're too small to carry wallets. And they can't get credit cards because everyone knows the mosquitoes have bad credit.

They're horrible at paying their bills. Those bastards. Those bastards. And, you know, giving you whatever that, what is that disease they carry? Anyway, yeah, so this is really important. So is Hooked a good book for, I mean, I guess both parties, to see how people manipulate and companies can manipulate, but also if you're a product builder to see how to build good habit-forming products.

Yeah, so Hooked is written for people who are making products that they want to turn into a habit. Of course, that's very important for many businesses, not all businesses. Many businesses can be profitable with a one-time transaction. But if you want your customers to return, if you want to build those healthy habits in your customer's life, then Hooked is written for you. Whereas Indistractable is for anyone who's struggling with distraction at work, at home. If you're not fulfilling your full potential, if you know you can do better but for some reason you keep getting in your own way, then that's written for you. You need to do a third book, and it's between being hooked and indistractable, what to do in the meantime when you're bored.

And that way you will complete the whole circumference of the infinite loop you've created. But no, I love the idea. People need to realize this. Like, even when I play video games, you know, I'll start, like, a new video game, like Call of Duty or something. And, you know, I can see the matrix. And I go, okay, gamification, okay, you're programming me to learn how to play the game properly and enjoy it. And you're giving me these little rewards up front, you know, and then eventually those rewards start spacing out and become less and I'm chasing the more, you know, and, and, you know, I can see the whole game of it and I buy

into it and it's cool. Um, but you know, a lot of people don't see that. They're just like, you know, my friends will be like, uh, well, I don't understand what is crap going on. I'm like, this is the gamification part. You're being trained. Trust me. It'll work. And you know what? We pay for the privilege.

It's not that different from what movies do. When you go to see a movie, it's made to have that cliffhanger of what's going to happen at the end. It's what makes books fun. Sports. What do you think sports is all about? Sports is a slot machine. Why do we watch a ball bouncing around? It's because we like uncertainty. We want mystery. It's called variable reward. And so these type of products are not

necessarily bad. It's about how we use them. We pay for the privilege to go to watch a sports match. We pay for video games. We pay for movies because they're fun. They're engaging. They're entertaining. There's nothing wrong with it. As long as we don't do them as a distraction, as a distraction, as long as we, we plan for here is when I'm going to play video games. Here's what I'm going to check social media. Here's what I'm going to watch sports on TV, as opposed to using these tools, uh, as an analgesic, right. Using it as a way to relieve pain in my life and not have to deal with what's really happening in reality. There you go. I know a lot of friends that use gaming to tune out. I use it sometimes to tune out.

I've been known to just go, I'm just going to game all day long. I just really don't care right now about anything. And just kind of, that's my little vacation day. I'll just, like on a Saturday, I'll just be like, ah, fuck it. And I probably shouldn't do that. I mean, sometimes I get bored with it and I'm just like, I'm not doing this anymore today. But sometimes it's fun just to go do whatever you want for a day.

But, you know, I like getting into this stuff because people need to realize the things that are out there. They need to create better habits because, like you say, the successful people, they've just learned to manage their emotions and learn how, you know, it's always about how you respond, right? That's right. Yeah. And it's a learnable skill, just like any other. And again, there's nothing wrong with playing video games all day on a Saturday, if that's what you want to do, right? In advance, not in the day. Don't wake up Saturday morning and say, oh, I'm going to game all day because I feel like crap. Plan that time, right? If you plan it on Friday and say, hey, you know what? I've got no obligations. I'm a grown adult. I can do whatever I want with my time. Enjoy it, right? It's your life.

The problem is when you say, oh, my life sucks. I don't want to deal with my problems. Okay, I'm going to go escape in my cocoon. Yeah, and then your life will suck more because you're not doing things you're supposed to. And that's this vicious cycle that can lead us from distraction sometimes towards addiction. Now, addiction has other roots. It's not just the video game that caused people to get addicted, right? Typically addiction has some other comorbidity almost a hundred percent of the time, you know, nobody steps on a heroin needle and

becomes addicted to heroin. It's not how it works. There's always some kind of past trauma. There's some inability to deal with the pain in their life. And they're using the drugs, the booze, the video games, the porn as an escape from reality. Um, but, but that's, you know, But many of us, even if we're not addicted, can use this as a distraction. So that's what we need to be very careful of. I use coffee to distract myself from reality. Yeah, that's a lot of coffee. Enough caffeine and you're fine. Anyway, this has been wonderfully insightful, Nir, to have you on the show.

Anything more you want to touch on or tease out before we go? No, I appreciate it. Yeah, my website is nirandfar.com if you want to check out my writing. And the book, again, is Indistractable, How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. And that's available at wherever books are sold. But if you go to my website, indistractable.com, there's actually an 80-page workbook that we couldn't fit into the final edition of the book. So it's a supplementary, completely complimentary workbook to get you started. Again, that's indistractable.com.

It's spelled I-N, the word distract, A-B-L-E, indistractable.com. There you go, guys. I highly recommend it. He's got a million reviews on the Amazon. You definitely want to understand how to control your life better and manage your life better because otherwise you just end up a zombie. A lot of people go through life and they just wake up one day at 40 and go,

what the hell have I been doing? It's what they call a midlife crisis. You want to understand what's going on. You want to be able to watch media and everything that's coming at you and go, what's the angle? Why are they trying to do this? You just don't want to understand what's going on. You want to be able to watch media and everything that's coming at you and go, what's the angle? Why are they trying to do this? And,

you know, you just don't want to be someone who's, who's just some zombie that they're just running around with me going, you know, which is, I don't know. I don't have a joke for that. So near,

thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. There you go. And we got your.coms guys. Be sure to check it out. There you go. We got your dot coms. Guys, be sure to check it out. Order up the books wherever fine books are sold. Say away those alleyways

because I got a tetanus shot I needed to have after going on one last weekend. The books are called Hooked, How to Build Habit-Forming Products. You can order it wherever fine books are sold or go to can you tell I always say that

at the end of the show? Indistractable, how to control your attention and choose your life. You always want to choose life, people. That's always a good thing. Wake up every day and choose that life thing. I hear it's fun. You should try that. Anyway, I think we lost Neer. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.