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Dr Rangan ChatterjeeDr Rangan Chatterjee

The Fastest Way To Transform Your Entire Life - One Tiny Step at a Time | Charles Duhigg

My philosophy as a doctor has always been connect first, educate second. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And this goes for all relationships, not just doctor-patient.

Dr. Rangan ChatterjeehostCharles Duhiggguest
Mar 20, 20242h 15mWatch on YouTube

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  1. 0:00 – 3:49

    Why new habits don’t stick: forgetting cues and rewards

    1. RC

      I thought, Charles, that we would start talking about habits.

    2. CD

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      A lot of people want to improve their health, and often I'm trying to recommend new behaviors.

    4. CD

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      Right? Which hopefully they can turn into long-term habits.

    6. CD

      Right.

    7. RC

      But what I often find is despite people's best intentions, they really, really want it, but despite that, you know, that, that strong intention, often they can't make those new behaviors stick in the long term.

    8. CD

      Yeah.

    9. RC

      In your view, why is that?

    10. CD

      I think it's usually because, it's usually because they're so focused on the behavior that they're not thinking about the cues and the rewards that are, that have to change over time as their relationship to that behavior becomes deeper. So a- and, and for anyone, y- you know this, but for anyone who's listening who hasn't been exposed to, to some of these ideas, one of the things that we've learned is that every habit has three components. There's a cue, which is like a trigger for this automatic behavior, and then the behavior itself, and then a reward. Every habit that exists in our life has a reward, whether aware, we're aware of it or not. And I think what happens is that oftentimes when we start a new behavior, we focus on the cue and the reward, right? We say, "Oh, I'm gonna meet my s- my friend Steve at the gym every Wednesday night." That's the cue, a certain time of day, and in a certain place. And when I'm done, I'm gonna, like, let myself have a beer with Steve, or I'm gonna give myself a-

    11. RC

      Mm

    12. CD

      ... a, a piece of chocolate or take a nice long shower. And then over time, as the behavior becomes more regular, we stop thinking about those cues and those rewards, and the reward stops being rewarding, right? We get to the place where we're like, "I can't have a beer every single time I work out," right [laughs] ? But instead, we don't supplement it with anything else. Or, or we get so accustomed to running that we, we go in the morning for a jog, and instead of, instead of letting ourselves relax afterwards, we're, now we're late for work, and so we're rushing to get to work, and we're rushing to take the kids to school, and we're stressed. We're actually punishing ourself for that behavior. And so I think what happens is that when we first start a behavior, it's so novel that the novelty of it is a reward in and of itself, and we feel so good about doing that behavior that we give ourselves something we can enjoy. The reward becomes even more rewarding because we're giving it to ourself.

    13. RC

      Mm.

    14. CD

      And then over time, we, we almost, it's almost like a form of stoicism. We think that we don't have to, we shouldn't have to reward the behavior anymore, and so we stop paying attention to the cues and the rewards. And once they're gone from your environment, the habit just crumbles.

    15. RC

      This whole idea around reward is really interesting. What we're all trying to do, and of course, New Year is the classic time when many people try and do this-

    16. CD

      Yeah

    17. RC

      ... is bring in the new behavior, the desired behavior, the behavior that we believe is what we need in that moment to improve the quality of our life, whatever that might mean to the individual, and we want to turn it into a long-term habit. Now, you're saying there's this habit loop there that, that there are these three components. But at some point, a new behavior that we're trying to introduce becomes an automatic habit-

    18. CD

      Right

    19. RC

      ... that we're not even thinking about.

    20. CD

      Yeah.

    21. RC

      So presumably, when you're not thinking about a reward, could we make the case that that's because it's become automatic? Or are you saying that because we're not thinking about the reward, or we're not actually doing something to give us that reward, that's why the behavior falls by the wayside?

  2. 3:49 – 5:47

    Automatic habits still rely on reward signals in the brain

    1. CD

      That's exactly right. I think it's the second thing. So, so take, um, there's been these interesting studies looking at, at, so 40 to 45% of what we do every day is a habit. We're not aware of that, right? We think of it as a decision, but it's actually just a habit. And think about the habits like backing your car out of the driveway.

    2. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CD

      So the first couple of times you do that, the first week or two that you're living in your new house, you have to really concentrate on it, right? You're looking in the wi- mirror. And then at some point, it becomes much more automatic. You can do it almost on autopilot. And what's interesting, though, is that in neurological studies, what we find is that when someone, even once it's on autopilot, once they back the car into the driveway, we see a small reward sensation in their brain. We see actually, oftentimes a re- a, a release of some dopaminic a- agent or serotonin agent that is causing some type of reward. Now, you don't feel a reward sensation when you back your car out of your driveway. You're not aware of this. But your brain is designed to pay attention to those reward sensations. And when it comes to bigger behaviors like exercise or, um, or, you know, eating more healthily, sometimes those intrinsic rewards emerge on their own. You learn that you feel really good after going for a run.

    4. RC

      Mm.

    5. CD

      Right? Again, you have this, that sort of a, the brain chemistry release. But sometimes you don't. And, and sometimes that, that reward process does not take hold, and in those situations, you have to give yourself a reward. You have to jumpstart the reward system.

    6. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    7. CD

      And that means that initially I need to give myself a small piece of chocolate whenever I go and exercise, and eventually I'll learn that exercise makes me feel good, and that's enough of a reward in itself. But at some point, that reward may become less rewarding, and if I'm not aware of that, and I don't supplement it with a new kind of reward, then that's when the habit crumbles, is because my brain, my brain is no longer getting a reward for this behavior, and so it just l- it l- allows itself to discard it.

  3. 5:47 – 13:26

    Building a journaling habit: choosing cues and designing rewards

    1. RC

      Let's say, for example, someone wants to take up, I don't know, journaling, for example.

    2. CD

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      Okay? Um, maybe they've heard me say on a podcast how beneficial I think journaling is, or they read it somewhere else, and they think, "Okay, I want to bring in a practice of journaling into my life, perhaps first thing in the morning." What would you say to that person as you think about that habit loop?

    4. CD

      Absolutely. Okay, so let's start with the cue. So, uh, almost all cues fall into one of five categories. It's usually, um, a certain time of day, a certain place, certain other people, um, a certain emotion or a b- preceding behavior that's become ritualized.

    5. RC

      Okay.

    6. CD

      So for journaling, let, let's say, let's say... Do you journal? Do you-

    7. RC

      I do journal, yeah.

    8. CD

      Okay. So let me ask you, w- do you journal at the same time every day? Do you journal at the same place? Like, what's the, what's the consistency?

    9. RC

      Yeah, same time, same place.

    10. CD

      Okay. So and you can have more than one cue, right?

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. CD

      And that, that cue, so just choosing that, just saying, "I'm gonna journal for, you know, every morning, 10 minutes after I wake up, I'm gonna get a- my cup of coffee. I'm gonna go sit down in this one chair. I'm gonna journal for 20 minutes." So that's the cue. Now, the behavior we understand is journaling. Now we have to choose a reward to give ourself. And when you first started journaling, what was the reward? What is the thing that you looked forward to?

    13. RC

      Yeah, what's interesting here, Charles, is that I have a morning routine which has evolved over the years. So I've been, um, putting into practice things in my life to make this morning routine happen for over five years now, maybe even longer, right? So it started off as a five or 10-minute routine, and it's now sometimes 30 or 40 minutes.

    14. CD

      Yeah.

    15. RC

      Okay. So it's hard for me now to unwind right towards-

    16. CD

      Right. [laughs]

    17. RC

      ... the back of that. But let me try and simplify for you. I have these three M's of a morning routine that I often talk to people about. Mindfulness, movement, and mindset. Now, I do it at the same time every day, and I do it in the same place every day, which for me is very, very important.

    18. CD

      Yeah.

    19. RC

      Okay?

    20. CD

      So consistent cues, consistent pattern.

    21. RC

      100%. So currently how that looks is that I wake up. I live in a house, so I wake up upstairs. In my pajamas, I go downstairs, and I sit in my living room, and I meditate for 10 minutes.

    22. CD

      Hmm.

    23. RC

      That's my mindfulness practice. I then walk out of my living room into my kitchen, where we've just been sitting, and I very mindfully prepare my coffee. I weigh it out, I put it in the French press, I pour the boiling water in, and I put a timer on for five minutes. In those five minutes, I do a five-minute strength workout-

    24. CD

      Hmm

    25. RC

      ... in my kitchen. And then at the end of this, I get the reward of a gorgeous cup of coffee exactly the way I want to make it.

    26. CD

      Yeah.

    27. RC

      And I do my journaling at my kitchen counter while sipping my coffee. So it's interesting. As I explain that to you, it's not so much, although I'm sure there are some mini rewards around journaling, but you could also take it on a much more macro level and go halfway or two-thirds of the way through my morning routine, the reward is this hot cup of coffee that I enjoy-

    28. CD

      Yeah

    29. RC

      ... with my practice of journaling.

    30. CD

      Yeah. A- and, and that, that makes a ton of sense. And my guess is, how do you feel after journaling? Like, do you feel differently after than before?

  4. 13:26 – 19:45

    You can’t ‘break’ a habit—replace it by testing what reward you’re really chasing

    1. RC

      And let's say I said, "Okay, you know what? I wanna try a couple of months without coffee."

    2. CD

      Right.

    3. RC

      Right? But coffee is actually a crux. It's, uh, it's almost like a foundation that this routine hangs off.

    4. CD

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      Right?

    6. CD

      Right.

    7. RC

      So knowing what you know about habit loops, how might I maintain that routine, not have caffeine or coffee, but still keep it going?

    8. CD

      It's a great question, and, and there's this basic principle in, in... We think of it as breaking a habit. This is, there's this phrase, right? I wanna break this habit, and that's the wrong way to think about it. Because breaking a habit, you cannot extinguish a habit. It, the, the neural pathways associated with that habit still exist in your brain. What you need to do is focus on changing the habit by finding a new behavior that corresponds to the old cues and delivers something similar to the old reward. So let me ask you this. Let's take apart the coffee as a reward. What is it about the coffee that you enjoy so much?

    9. RC

      I like the fact that it's hot.

    10. CD

      Okay.

    11. RC

      I've always found hot drinks comforting. So when, let's say I'm on a book deadline, as I am at the moment, right, trying to finish my next book. I notice that my emotional crutch is coffee, so my coffee intake starts to go up, and I convince myself, "Yeah, I need to stay focused 'cause, you know, I've-

    12. CD

      Right

    13. RC

      ... gotta get the book in." That's a story I'm telling myself-

    14. CD

      Yeah

    15. RC

      ... 'cause I know it's not helping me, right?

    16. CD

      Right. Right.

    17. RC

      So what I'll do then is I will just have hot water.

    18. CD

      Okay.

    19. RC

      Or I really like, uh, chopped ginger in hot water. That's one of my favorite drinks. So in terms of answering your question, I like the, the fact that it's a hot drink. Yeah, there's probably a little bit of a buzz from coffee 'cause it, you know, it's a psychoactive stimulant, right?

    20. CD

      Yeah.

    21. RC

      So it gives us, it gives me that little buzz. Um, I don't know. What else? You know, I, I guess I-

    22. CD

      Do you like the taste?

    23. RC

      Yeah, I do, I do like the taste.

    24. CD

      Do you?

    25. RC

      I love the taste.

    26. CD

      Yeah. Yeah. I think people who love coffee, they love the taste of coffee.

    27. RC

      Yeah.

    28. CD

      So I hear, I hear, I hear three rewards that coffee is delivering to you. Taste, um, uh, a hot drink, a hot beverage, and a little bit of a buzz. And so if we need to, if we wanna find a new drink for you to consume that, that is healthier than coffee, um, and coffee's, coffee's pretty healthy, so I don't know [laughs] that you need to do this, but let's use it as-

    29. RC

      This is more-

    30. CD

      Yeah

  5. 19:45 – 30:38

    Sugar cravings, emotional cues, and the ‘three Fs’ awareness framework

    1. RC

      One thing many people who are trying to improve their health are working on all the time these days is reducing their sugar intake.

    2. CD

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      And, you know, I've been... What? It's been over two decades now since I qualified and started practicing, so I've seen a lot of patients in my time. One thing that became clear to me a few years ago is that it's not just knowledge that people need. It's self-awareness.

    4. CD

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      It's insight. And this little exercise I created to help some of my patients who were, despite their best intentions, ending up on the sofa at 9:30 in the evening stuck in a tub of ice cream-

    6. CD

      Yeah

    7. RC

      ... right? Even though they- they'd managed to stick to what they wanted to in the day, even though they were trying really, really hard. They were pre-diabetic. They knew the knowledge that actually this is not helping me, but they were still doing it. So I created this little exercise, and I'm... I wonder how you would assess it through the lens of the habit loop, right? It was called the three Fs, basically, the freedom exercise, and I'm gonna say, okay, next time you're on a sofa and you feel the urge to have ice cream, just take a pause and ask yourself what you're really feeling.

    8. CD

      Mm-hmm.

    9. RC

      Is it physical hunger or emotional hunger?

    10. CD

      Yeah.

    11. RC

      Okay? Then if you wanna have it, go ahead and have it, but you're starting to build in that awareness. Oh, actually, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a bit stressed, or I've just had a row with my partner, whatever it might be. Okay, next time, then you do the first F, then you do the second F, which is, okay, now that you know the feeling, how does food feed that feeling? Oh, okay, so I'm, I'm feeling stressed. I've had a row with my partner. When I have the ice cream, I feel less stressed-

    12. CD

      Right

    13. RC

      ... at least for a few seconds, for a few minutes.

    14. CD

      Yeah.

    15. RC

      And then the third F is, okay, now that you know what the feeling is, now that you know how food feeds the feeling, the third F is find. Can you now find an alternative behavior to feed that same feeling? So-

    16. CD

      This is gr- oh, I'm totally gonna steal this. This is so good. [laughs]

    17. RC

      Oh, you're like, okay, good. So it was kind of like you're feeling s- stressed, so maybe instead of going to sugar, you know, maybe you can do 10 minutes of yoga.

    18. CD

      Yeah.

    19. RC

      Or maybe you run yourself a bath.

    20. CD

      Yeah.

    21. RC

      Or maybe you're feeling lonely, and instead of going to sugar, maybe you phone your mom or you phone your best friend. So I don't know. Maybe you could unpack that with me through the lens of-

    22. CD

      Well-

    23. RC

      ... your work

    24. CD

      ... absolutely. And what I love about that is w- another way I think of saying this, and tell me if you think this is wrong, is so what we know is that if we just give people knowledge, all of us know that we should eat more healthy and exercise more, right? Just knowledge does not actually solve the problem.

    25. RC

      Yeah.

    26. CD

      And when I write my books, what I do is I take these ideas, and I always try and embed them in stories. Because the thing is, if you tell someone an idea absent e- everything else, either they, they'll forget it, or it... They won't see how the application. But if you tell someone an idea embedded in a story, then we remember that story.

    27. RC

      Yeah.

    28. CD

      Our brain latches onto that story. It's the thing that we carry in our pocket, and it reminds us of the idea when we need to be reminded.

    29. RC

      Yeah.

    30. CD

      And what I hear you saying is you're telling your patients to create a story for themself. Like, here's the three Fs. This is a story. It's not that I am just sitting on a couch. I'm actually someone who's feeling something, right? And, and that feeling is prompting me to look to food.

  6. 30:38 – 35:51

    Creating new habits: stacking cues, intentional rewards, and ‘small wins’

    1. CD

      Now, that, so this is for changing behaviors. The other question often is, how do we create-

    2. RC

      Yeah

    3. CD

      ... a new habit? And in that case, it's very similar, but a little bit different in that we need to choose a cue, right? So for me, it was-

    4. RC

      Mm

    5. CD

      ... running. I would like, I was never athletic before I started writing The Power of Habit, and I really wanted to get in better shape. And so my goal was I was gonna run a half marathon.

    6. RC

      Okay.

    7. CD

      So I needed to choose a cue. So what I would do is I'd put my running shoes next to my bed, so I saw them as soon as I wo- woke up, and that became a cue for me. And I would, I would run before, before work.

    8. RC

      So that's a visual cue.

    9. CD

      I was using a visual cue.

    10. RC

      Okay.

    11. CD

      Also time of day. Also, I would lay out my s- my clothes, so it was very easy to get into my running clothes.

    12. RC

      Okay.

    13. CD

      And, and you can... A- It's good to have more than one cue. One of them's really gonna be the powerful one, but you don't know ahead of time what it might be.

    14. RC

      Oh, so you're... I like that. So you're peppering in a few cues-

    15. CD

      Right

    16. RC

      ... to see just one of these is gonna stick, basically.

    17. CD

      One of these is gonna stick. One of these is gonna stick. And it turns out it was the shoes. Um, like-

    18. RC

      Really? Wow

    19. CD

      ... when I'm traveling, if I put my shoes next, my running shoes next to my bed, that gets me just, that gets me going. Like-

    20. RC

      Wow.

    21. CD

      And then I needed to choose a reward for myself. So instead, I didn't run every day. Instead, I only ran on days when my wife was gonna bring the kids to school that day. So that I knew that when I got home from the run, I could take a nice long shower. I could have a nice smoothie with breakfast.

    22. RC

      So did you intentionally think about the shower and smoothie as rewards?

    23. CD

      Absolutely.

    24. RC

      So th- it wasn't just, "Oh, I'm sweaty after the run. I need to shower." It's like, "I'm gonna be sweaty, and I'm gonna really enjoy that shower."

    25. CD

      That's, I'm gonna take-

    26. RC

      Okay

    27. CD

      ... I'm gonna give myself an extra three minute. Like, normally I'd rush through the shower. I'm gonna let myself enjoy the shower.

    28. RC

      And this really makes a difference, doesn't it?

    29. CD

      Makes a huge difference, 'cause if we decide something is rewarding, it becomes more rewarding.

    30. RC

      It's like when we d- [laughs] You can think of stress a little bit like this, can't you? You know, it, it's how we perceive things that often determine whether they're stressful or not.

  7. 35:51 – 40:26

    Momentum and identity: keystone habits that trigger cascading change

    1. CD

      I, a- and here's how I think about it. I think of it as we are convincing ourself to believe in another version of ourself. So there's this idea known as keystone habits.

    2. RC

      Mm.

    3. CD

      That some habits are more powerful than others because when they, when we build a new habit, it triggers a bunch of other changes in our life.

    4. RC

      Yeah.

    5. CD

      For some people, exercise is a great example, right? And, and probably everyone who's listening has had this experience. You exercise in the morning, and for some reason, you also eat healthier that day, right? Like, it's easier to, like, eat a salad rather than the hamburger when you walk into the cafeteria.

    6. RC

      Yeah.

    7. CD

      We also know that when you exercise, other things happen. You procrastinate less. You tend to use your credit cards less often on the day that you exercise.

    8. RC

      Wow.

    9. CD

      We're not aware of that. But I think what's happening is that for many people, exercise is a keystone habit. It changes other patterns like eating patterns and spending patterns. Because even if I think of myself as someone who's disciplined, there's a part of my brain that isn't listening to what I tell myself until I prove it-

    10. RC

      Yeah

    11. CD

      ... to myself. And so you m- I might know that meditation is great. I might say like, "Of course, I've read all the studies. Meditation is so good. I should definitely do that." But until I prove to myself that I can meditate and that there is some reward, that it's giving me something-

    12. RC

      Yeah

    13. CD

      ... my brain basically thinks I'm a liar, [laughs] right? It's very skeptical until I prove it, and that's... This is what keystone habits do. They change how we see ourself. We start thinking, "I'm the kind of person who runs in the morning." And the kind of person who runs in the morning, they eat a salad for lunch.

    14. RC

      Mm.

    15. CD

      Right? They don't pull out their credit card for anything. They, they make wiser decisions. I'm the kind of person who meditates in the morning, and that kind of person, that's someone who can find five or 10 minutes, right?

    16. RC

      Yeah.

    17. CD

      They're, they're mindful.

    18. RC

      What's one of your keystone habits?

    19. CD

      Exercise. Exercise is a big one for me, and what's interesting is for people who were not athletes, the, the reason why exercise is so powerful as a keystone habit for some people is because it... If you weren't an athlete and you start running or you start exercising, it forces you to think of yourself as a new kind of person. It forces you-

    20. RC

      Mm

    21. CD

      ... to see yourself in a new light. Now, for people who were athletes as, as kids, and then they take some time away, and then they start running again, oftentimes exercise is less of a keystone habit for them.

    22. RC

      Mm.

    23. CD

      Because, because it just conforms to their mental image of themself.

    24. RC

      Yeah.

    25. CD

      But for me, exercise is a huge part of it. Going to bed. I, I am someone who used to stay up till midnight, you know, every... And, like, my wife-

    26. RC

      You're a writer, hey?

    27. CD

      Exactly. Exactly. And my w-

    28. RC

      That's what writers do.

    29. CD

      That's... Right, I'm supposed to.

    30. RC

      [laughs]

  8. 40:26 – 46:08

    When does it get easier? The 21-day myth and the role of rewards in meditation

    1. RC

      ... so for me, that's, that's one of my keystone habits. But a lot of people find this stuff uncomfortable, right? So I wonder, Charles, what you would say to someone who goes, "Okay, I know what I want to do. Am I gonna find it hard forever, or is it just gonna be hard for a few weeks? At some point, will it no longer feel hard and it will become automatic?" You know, h- how, how would you-

    2. CD

      Yeah

    3. RC

      ... help them think about that?

    4. CD

      So, so I'd say two things. Number one is trying to figure out what your keystone habit ought to be. One way that you can do that is ask yourself, what kind of change seems irrationally frightening to me, [laughs] right? Like, when I... Before I became a runner, when I thought of running, it was a little ta- Like, I was like, I'm gonna look terrible in those, like, spandex, right? [laughs] Like, I, I, I look so goofy when I'm running. Like... So it was irrationally scary. That's a sign that this kind of change is, will be meaningful to you.

    5. RC

      Mm.

    6. CD

      It's gonna change how you see yourself. Then the second part of your question, which is h- will it be hard forever, the wonderful thing is, again, and back to the basal ganglia, our brains exist. There's a part of our brain that literally exists to make that pattern easier and easier and easier.

    7. RC

      Mm.

    8. CD

      So is it gonna be really easy on day three? No. But it's gonna be easier than it was on day one. And by the time you hit day 21 or you hit day 30 or day 45, at some point it's gonna become a habit. You won't even think about it anymore.

    9. RC

      Yeah.

    10. CD

      You'll just do it automatically. You'll, you know, you'll put on your, lace up your shoes, go out for a run, and you'll be looking forward to the podcast that you're listening to.

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. CD

      And it won't even occur to you to think about, like, oh, this is hard.

    13. RC

      It's like brushing teeth, right? It w-

    14. CD

      Exactly

    15. RC

      ... brushing teeth was not a habit when you were three or four or even five years old. I mean, my kids are a bit older now. Sometimes I'm not even convinced it's a habit-

    16. CD

      Yeah

    17. RC

      ... yet.

    18. CD

      Yeah. [laughs]

    19. RC

      Right? So, but I think, I hope for most people listening, it is now a habit, right? So at some point it does change.

    20. CD

      Abs... And, and like I get out of the shower now, and even if my teeth are clean, I have to brush my teeth. I don't feel clean unless I brush my, unless I have that minty feeling in my mouth.

    21. RC

      Yeah.

    22. CD

      You're exactly right. Our brains exist to create as many habits as it possibly can. It wants to conserve all the cognitive energy it can by making these behaviors automatic. So if you give it these cues and the rewards, it will make that behavior easier and easier.

    23. RC

      What about some of these, uh, memes that you often see? In fact, I saw one literally yesterday on Instagram- I personally haven't seen any science to support this. I think I know where this comes from, but someone... I read a post yesterday saying it will take you 21 days-

    24. CD

      Yeah

    25. RC

      ... to form a new habit. What's your take on that?

    26. CD

      The, I mean, there's, unfortunately, there's no science behind it.

    27. RC

      Yeah. [laughs]

    28. CD

      It, it, it, different habits and different people. So if you wanna form a habit involving chocolate, like I wanna eat chocolate every day, you can probably do that in a day, right? [laughs] Like, it's not-

    29. RC

      I think most people know-

    30. CD

      Yeah

  9. 46:08 – 51:27

    Replacing morning phone scrolling: match the reward, then taper off support

    1. RC

      I know I'm focusing a lot on the mornings with these habits. That's, I guess, because it's what's worked for me, but I've also seen it change the trajectory of people's days.

    2. CD

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      You know, what they do for the first 10 or 15 minutes in the morning I think can have significant downstream consequences. For example, if the first thing you do is look at your phone, look at how many emails you've got to answer, you go on the news and see the state of the world, you're bringing in negativity.

    4. CD

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      You're reacting to what the world is saying to you rather than actually having a think about how you want to be that day, what you want to do that day. You're, you're starting to react rather than to be proactive-

    6. CD

      Exactly

    7. RC

      ... as opposed to having some time to yourself each day. So let's think about someone who gets up in the morning, and they come into their kitchen, make a hot drink, and they sit and they scroll the news and Instagram or TikTok or whatever for 10, 15 minutes. And they go, "Okay, you know what? I don't wanna do that anymore. I would like to meditate instead."

    8. CD

      Yeah.

    9. RC

      Can you walk that person through-

    10. CD

      Sure

    11. RC

      ... what might be going on and how they can start to change that?

    12. CD

      So the first question I'd ask them is what reward is scrolling through the news or scrolling through Instagram giving you? And the reward might be that you feel informed, right? You feel a sort of a self-congratulation that like I'm-

    13. RC

      Mm

    14. CD

      ... responsibly learning about the world. It might be just the novelty. Like there's something-

    15. RC

      Mm

    16. CD

      ... something kind of pleasantly mindless about scrolling through Instagram.

    17. RC

      Yeah.

    18. CD

      So it's delivering some reward, and your new behavior, meditation, has to deliver something similar to that. So it might be that when you're first starting with your meditation practice, what you should do is you should meditate for two minutes and then meditate for two minutes while listening to a podcast, or meditate for two minutes, or you leave the TV on in the background. Y- if there, if novelty is what's driving you, then don't say, "I'm gonna extinguish this craving for novelty." Say, "I'm gonna use this craving for novelty to, to facilitate a new behavior."

    19. RC

      Mm.

    20. CD

      And then at some point you're gonna be meditating, and the podcast will be on in the background, and you'll be like, "This is kind of distracting. Like the podcast-

    21. RC

      Mm

    22. CD

      ... is distracting to me," because there's an intrinsic reward that comes from meditation. But you have to con- you have to learn it, right?

    23. RC

      Yeah.

    24. CD

      It's y- your body has to learn to enjoy this activity.

    25. RC

      Totally.

    26. CD

      And then at that point, you're actually gonna turn off the podcast and you're gonna be like, "Okay, I just wanna spend four minutes meditating, because, because it just feels good to do this."

    27. RC

      I love that. You're meeting that person where they're at-

    28. CD

      Exactly

    29. RC

      ... and saying, "This is what you're getting. Don't suddenly think you can get rid of that and become a monk- ... overnight, which is what I think we often think.

    30. CD

      Yes.

  10. 51:27 – 56:27

    Modern habit challenges: devices, kids, and shaping the environment

    1. RC

      It's who we are. It's how, you know, we're wired essentially. If you were writing the book today, what would you add to it?

    2. CD

      So the thing I would add, I think, is probably talking about digital devices, which were less of an issue in 2013, um, than they are today, particularly with kids and teenagers. And you know, I... You have kids. I have kids. Uh, uh, does your son use his phone obsessively? Like, does he, does he have a phone?

    3. RC

      He, he does. Um, but he does not use it obsessively.

    4. CD

      Okay. Okay.

    5. RC

      And I, you know, perhaps later I can share why, why I think that is. But we... Yeah, I mean, look, the, the truth is, is that I, I passionately believe that the most important thing or one of the most important things for our children is what they see us doing.

    6. CD

      Yes.

    7. RC

      So one of the big drives for me to be a lot more mindful with my phone use, especially in the house, is I want to model really good behaviors and habits around digital screens.

    8. CD

      Yeah.

    9. RC

      So it is very, very rare for me, and I don't... I'm not saying this to make anyone else feel bad, okay? I'm doing what I feel is right for me, as I think all parents are.

    10. CD

      Right.

    11. RC

      But I very rarely use my phones or scroll social media or anything in front of my children.

    12. CD

      Yeah.

    13. RC

      Very, very rarely, 'cause I don't want them to ever think... And maybe I'm over the top about this, but I, I never want them to think that what's on my phone is more important than them.

    14. CD

      I think that that's really important. And, and, and if I was writing The Power of Habit today, it would have an extra chapter talking about our... One of the hard things is that our children have these devices that we didn't have in our youth that, that is designed to become habit-forming, right? They design social media to become... A- addiction's maybe too strong a word, but they, they design it to become habitual.

    15. RC

      Mm.

    16. CD

      And I think the more that we can model for our children that we are in control of our habits, that it's something we can choose in our life as opposed to something that happens to us, the more that we can teach them to recognize what's happening. Like, do you really feel good after you look at TikTok, or is it just that, like-

    17. RC

      Mm

    18. CD

      ... it's, it changes so fast that the novelty is interesting to you and, and you don't feel great afterwards? Do you feel better having a conversation with a friend than, than watching social media? The more that we help them understand their own habits, the more we empower them, because these devices are gonna be around, right?

    19. RC

      Yeah. It's interesting. We, we haven't really spoken about how our environment influences our behavior, but one conversation currently going on in my household is whether we should have a smart TV or not.

    20. CD

      Oh, interesting.

    21. RC

      Now, you know, maybe I sound like a Luddite and stuck in the Dark Ages, but I am often quite slow to adopt new technologies, and I'm quite happy with that approach, right? We've got a very old-fashioned television, okay? That takes ages for things to load onto it.

    22. CD

      [laughs]

    23. RC

      Now, most other people in my immediate family would like us to upgrade, and we're, we're having a, a constant dialogue about this. My own view, and of course everyone's view is important in the family, but my view is I don't want one of these flash big LED smart tellies where everything can happen instantaneously.

    24. CD

      Yeah.

    25. RC

      'Cause I think how on earth- Are we gonna be able to self-regulate and control our behavior? Of course we can do, but it's... You're making it easy to basically engage in behaviors that perhaps you don't want to be engaging in.

    26. CD

      That's exact- right. The reward, you're making the reward even more rewarding.

    27. RC

      Yeah.

    28. CD

      If, if it takes 30 seconds to, to get, like, Netflix to show the show-

    29. RC

      It does

    30. CD

      ... right?

  11. 56:27 – 1:18:08

    From habits to Supercommunicators: connection, deep questions, and ‘connect first, educate second’

    1. RC

      Well, let's talk about communication.

    2. CD

      Okay.

    3. RC

      Okay? Um, I'm sort of halfway into the new book. I really, really like it.

    4. CD

      Oh, thank you.

    5. RC

      I guess we're gonna talk about why communication is so important. I guess it's at the heart of literally everything we do is good quality-

    6. CD

      Yeah

    7. RC

      ... communication. But, uh, I'm, I'm thinking about what you said earlier on in our conversation, Charles, that... Is it 40 to 45% of what we do is habit-

    8. CD

      Yeah

    9. RC

      ... right? It's automated. I suspect you could put communication into that category.

    10. CD

      Oh, absolutely.

    11. RC

      The way we communicate, most of the time we're interacting with our partner or our kids. It's just, we're just repeating the way we've always done it, right?

    12. CD

      Yeah. It's just habitual. Yeah, no, uh, and it... Now, that being said, when it becomes meaningful, right? When we have a conversation with our spouse or our kids or with a patient and, and that conversation is more than just let's exchange information-

    13. RC

      Mm

    14. CD

      ... then it stops being a habit, right? That's... Then it becomes something that we think about and we really find a lot of meaning and sustenance from. And in many ways, that's kind of the point of Supercommunicators, is to tell people h- how to have those more meaningful conversations because it doesn't take any more energy. That's the interesting thing about conversation, is our brain has evolved to be good at communication, and so it doesn't take more energy to have a meaningful conversation than it does to have a, an automatic sort of thoughtless conversation.

    15. RC

      Mm.

    16. CD

      But the meaningful conversation makes our life so much better.

    17. RC

      I went to your TED Talk yesterday in Manchester, which was fantastic.

    18. CD

      Oh, thank you.

    19. RC

      And you said something to the effect of this. All of us are hardwired to be excellent communicators.

    20. CD

      Yeah.

    21. RC

      Maybe you didn't quite phrase it like that, but it was something to that effect. What did you mean by that?

    22. CD

      So if you think about it, communication is Homo sapiens' superpower, right? It is the reason why our species has succeeded so much better than every other animal species. It's why we're at the top of the heap, is because our ability to communicate allows us to form families. It allows us to form villages, towns, cities. It allows us to share information so you don't have to experience it yourself. It allows us to-

    23. RC

      Mm-hmm

    24. CD

      ... to connect with each other in a profound way. And because of, because it's been so beneficial to us, our brains have evolved to be very good at communication. In fact, our brains have evolved to be communication machines.

    25. RC

      Mm.

    26. CD

      Now, of course, we evolved in a very different time, right? We evolved before computers, before phones, before... But our brains have this ability, have this craving to connect with other people through language, through conversation, and part of it is just learning the basic rules, reminding ourselves of the basic rules of how communication works. And then once we are reminded of those rules, our brains will actually make these rules into habits very, very quickly because we're hardwired. We're hardwired to grasp onto good communication tactics, it, because they're inherently rewarding.

    27. RC

      Yeah. Did we always need to learn the rules of communication?

    28. CD

      That's a really good question. Well, can I ask, can I ask you a question in return?

    29. RC

      Sure.

    30. CD

      So as a physician, if one of your family members was sick and you couldn't treat them yourself or if you were sick, would you rather go to a physician who clinically had learned an enormous amount but was terrible at communication or a physician who was middle of the road clinically but really, really good at communication?

  12. 1:18:08 – 2:15:13

    Vulnerability, difficult topics, online conflict, and the core goal: understanding

    1. RC

      But this idea of a deep question is something I was thinking a lot about yesterday evening. You, you spoke about it in your TED Talk yesterday, and the deep question you recommended to people, which m- perhaps I can ask you now, is when was the last time you cried in front of somebody?

    2. CD

      Right. And, and, and I'm, uh, I can absolutely answer that. Um, before I do, let me tell you why I think the answer is meaningful. I, I will say something vulnerable, and if you respond with vulnerability of your own, then we will feel connected to each other, and that's hardwired into our brain. That's, that's known as emotional reciprocity. It's almost impossible to, to avoid. So I'll tell you, um, the last time I really cried, uh, was when my father died about six years ago, and I've, I've weeped a little bit since then, like when I'm watching movies on airplanes.

    3. RC

      Mm.

    4. CD

      But the real cry, um... And I, uh, both your parents are still alive, or they-

    5. RC

      No. First of all, I'm s- really sorry to hear that.

    6. CD

      Yeah.

    7. RC

      My dad died just over 10 years ago-

    8. CD

      Yeah

    9. RC

      ... which is, uh, you know, obviously a really-

    10. CD

      It's massive, right?

    11. RC

      Yeah, huge moment.

    12. CD

      Yeah, and it's, and it, and it's, it's complicated. Like, it was, it was obviously sad, but it's also interesting, right? Like, you, you experience these things that you don't anticipate, and you, your relationship with, with your father, at least in my case, continues after they-

    13. RC

      Yeah

    14. CD

      ... they pass, right? It changes and it And, and it w- so that's the last time, um ... You know, the evening that he passed away I was in the hospital room with him, and then I came home to a hotel i- it was where I grew up in Albuquerque, and I called my wife and just, like, like, so- like that, like, ugly sobbing cry [laughs] right where it's... you're powerless against it. And, um, yeah. And, and honestly, like, in this conversation, like mentioning that, being vulnerable that way, even if I don't... When I say that, I, I put myself in a place where you could judge me, and I might not care about your judgment, but being authentic and being vulnerable that way and you mentioning that your father had passed away 10 years ago, and it obviously affected you, that is how we connect with people, is we share, we share some vulnerability or some authenticity, and we see each other really as, as fellow humans.

    15. RC

      Have you ever cried in front of your kids?

    16. CD

      At his funeral. Yeah. How about you?

    17. RC

      Yeah, I have. And it's interesting. I, I think for much of my life I would want to display a front to the world. You know, be very careful about what signals I'm giving to the world outside of me or the immediate family. I think that... Well, I know that came from a huge feeling of insecurity-

    18. CD

      Yeah

    19. RC

      ... and a desire to be, uh, liked by other people. Like, not a healthy desire.

    20. CD

      Yeah.

    21. RC

      Like, almost change who you are so that you fit in and you're accepted, and I think there's multiple reasons for that, including coming from an immigrant family-

    22. CD

      Yeah

    23. RC

      ... and growing up in a very white neighborhood. Um, I think you would... I, I, I think there's multiple reasons for that, but I think many people face that, to, to be fair.

    24. CD

      Absolutely.

    25. RC

      But I do remember about just over a year ago, my mom was really badly unwell on Christmas Day night.

    26. CD

      Oh.

    27. RC

      Uh, ended up in, uh, the ER basically for, for three days.

    28. CD

      Oh my gosh.

    29. RC

      It was touch and go for a while, but after three weeks Mom did come out, but she wasn't the same person.

    30. CD

      Mm.

Episode duration: 2:15:13

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