The Hidden Habits That Run Your Life

00:00:00What if most of what you consider yourpersonalityis actually just coping strategies thatyou forgot about? Like you think you'reout there being authentic and sharingyourself with the world, but it turnsout you're just sharing your survivalstrategies from childhood. So I want tostart off this chapter by talking aboutmaybe the most famous psychologicalstudy. I I don't like if it's not themost famous, it's top five for sure.It's known popularly as the Marshmallowtest, right? So Walter Mischel was aprofessor at Stanford. He brought in afew dozen preschool kids into a room,placed a marshmallow on the table, andtold them that if they could wait 20minutes, they would get a secondmarshmallow for free.He then tracked how long the kids waitedand if they could wait the full amountof time. Now, follow-up check-ins withthose children found that in general,the children that waited the longesttended to have the best outcomes whenthey became adults. So they scored thehighest on the SAT, they had the bestgrades, they had the most confidence,they had the best relationships, so onand so forth. Now, the reason this studygets broadcast so much is because it'ssimple to understand and it's a veryneatly packaged conclusion, which isthat delayed gratification

00:01:15in many waysis the key to life. If you can justlearn how to delay gratification, thenyou'll have better outcomes at work, inyour relationships, and so on and soforth. Now, what's fascinating, whatnever gets talked about is the fact thatWalter Mischel, the lead researcher onthis study, did not believe thatconclusion himself. Because it turns outhe had been running variations of theMarshmallow test in a variety ofdifferent places for many, many years,and the outcomes were not at allconsistent with what happened atStanford. For example, one of the firsttimes he ran it, he was in Trinidad andTobago, and he brought children into aroom, offered them candy, and promisedthem the double amount of candy if theycould wait for a certain amount of time.And what was interesting in Trinidad isthat the one variable that correlatedthe most with the children who couldwait versus the ones that couldn't wasthe children who had fathers in thehome.So, the conclusion that Walter Mischelhimself came to was that delayedgratification and self-discipline as weknow it, it's not a personality trait,it's not something you're born with ornot born with. It doesn't necessarilydetermine your future the way that thebig five do. He saw it as anenvironmental

00:02:31adaptation. His argumentwas that the children in Trinidad whoare not able to wait for the secondpiece of candy, on some level, they werebeing rational because they had grown upin a chaotic environment where thingswere not dependable, where they didn'ttrust people, where they didn't know iffuture rewards were actually going tocome or not. And so, they were justifiedin taking the original piece of candy.Whereas, if you go to Palo Alto,California, and you bring in a bunch ofprofessors' children from Stanford,which is what he did, and kids growingup in very wealthy families in extremelystable environments, and then you offerthem double the reward if they can wait,they're growing up in a high-trustenvironment. They've only known ondependability of what is promised todayversus what they get tomorrow. And so,of course,they're going to be more likely to beable to wait for the second marshmallow.>> Yeah, so actually there was a moredirect test of this about 55 yearslater, too, um in 2013. Celeste Kidd,she um replicated this study on a smallscale, but still she what she varied inthis study was the actual reliability.Cuz that was the hypothesis. Are thesekids Are they really just makingdecisions based on how reliable theythink the adults in the room are? Andthat's exactly what she found. So, shehad a reliable and an unreliablecondition, and the kids who were in theunreliable condition where the adultslied to them first and then

00:03:46and then they did the marshmallow testor the adults uh made good on a promisefirst and then they gave them themarshmallow test.Nearly all of the kids in the unreliablecondition took the marshmallow rightaway. Nearly all of the kids in the morereliable condition didn't. So, rightthere is just the anexperimental setting right in themoment. There's no There's nopersonalityuh to to the very here. There's no traitthat the really the kids have. It's justDo they trust this adult or not? Seemedto replicate. And then on top of that,in 2018 was really when this kind of allfell fell apart or that story fell apartanyway. It was this big study of about900 kids, a study by Watson colleagues,where they found that if you controlledfor socioeconomic status, incomes,everything like that, right? There wasno association between delayedgratification and any sort of outcome inin the child's life and at that point orlater on.>> Wow.>> It really is just these kids are basingtheir uh strategies on on their worldviews, on the narratives that they'vecome up with, their experiences, andit's not necessarily set in stone.>> I feel like there's two takeaways fromthe debunking of the marshmallow test.The first is is that what we largelyconsider self-discipline is verydependent on the external variablesaround us, which we're going to comeback to that in

00:05:01the next chapter when wetalk about behavior and behavioralchange. I think people vastlyunderestimate how much the factorsaround them uh play into how well orthey're able to change their behavior ornot. But, the second piece of this is islike you said, a lot of this is issimply happening on an unconsciouslevel. These kids are not sitting downand like calculating the expected valueof waiting 5 minutes. From a scale from1 to 10, how trustworthy is this adult?Like, oh, a seven. Okay, then myexpected value. No, it's just a vibe.And it turns out that most of ourdecisions, beliefs, world views, weexperience them as vibes. They arehappening below the surface. Like, ifthis This a trilogy, this is where atthe unconscious strikes back becausewhat happens in our three-layer cake ofwho you are, right? At the base layer,we are our personality traits. Ourpersonality traits are a range ofexpected behaviors that tend to happenmore often than not. When thosepersonality traits interact with theworld, we develop certain if-thenpatterns to adapt to the environmentaround us. If I'm a very lowextraversion person, right? I'mintroverted. I'm a little bit sociallyanxious. And I keep being

00:06:16thrown into anenvironment with a lot of people aroundme. I'm going to develop certain if-thenpatterns in my behavior, in my thoughts,in my emotions that help me adapt to theenvironment around me. And because I'mintroverted, those adaptations areprobably going to look very differentthan, say, an extroverted person in thesame situation. So, let's say you're areally highly agreeable person. Thatmeans that you're probably going to beconflict-avoidant, right? You're goingto You're going to be very uncomfortabledealing with confrontation. And let'ssay that you are in a workplace that isvery confrontational. It's very a lot ofstatus games going on, a lot of peopletalking [ __ ] a lot of office politics.You're going to develop an adaptation tothat environment as a highly agreeableperson. You're probably going to try tostay out of things. You're probably justgoing to try to keep the peace. You'renot going to stick your neck out. You'renot going to take sides in anyconflicts. And not only are you going tobe predisposed to that behavior, but youare going to develop beliefs andemotional patterns that reinforce thatbehavior for yourself. So, you're goingto tell yourself things like, "I don'tstoop to that low of like talking badabout my coworkers." Like, "I don't wantto get involved." You're going to tellyourself things like, "I'd rather justfocus on my tasks." You know, maybe whenpeople in the office

00:07:31start arguing, youlike put your headphones in. Like,that's a behavioral adaptation. Like,when people are shouting or arguing orthings get awkward, it's like you justcheck out. Or I can give you an examplefrom my own life, right? So, I'm lowextraversion, so I'm an introvert, butI'm extremely high in openness to newexperiences. So, I crave novelty. Icrave adventure. I crave excitement. Andso, when I was younger, I wanted to goout and party. I wanted to go onadventures. I wanted to travel. I wantedto do all these things that required meto be around other people quitefrequently. But as an introvert, thesocial aspect ofgoing out all the time felt quiteexhausting. And so, I developed anadaptation to help me with that, tofulfill my my need for openness to newexperiences, my need for novelty, whilealso quelling my my introversion. Andthat wasalcohol. I started drinking a lot,right? At first, it was really helpfulbecause not only did it make meless introverted when I was around otherpeople, but alcohol itself is a novel,unique experience, right? It'sspontaneous. It's exciting. All sorts offun. Adventures happen when you'redrunk. It helped me fulfill my need fora lot of novelty seeking and adventure,but at the same time, it

00:08:47kind ofmade it easier to do it as an introvert.>> I can identify quite a bit with that,too, actually. Because I feel like I'm Ilike I always wanted to go out and haveadventures. I want to see the world. Iwant to do all that. But you're right,I'm just around people, I'm like, butthat requires a lot of being aroundpeople. It's interesting, too, becauselike when I quit drinking, I was like,well, now I'm boring, and I just want tostay home, and I want to introvert. So,>> Yeah, we'll we'll get into get intochanging adaptations later, but I thinkfor now>> one though, because that's differenttraits. The tension of those two thingslike comes to a head, and you reconcilethem in some way, and it's not alwayshealthy. That's interesting.>> Here's another example. So,I am relatively low inconscientiousness. Not not super low,but like pretty like average. But I'mextremely low in neuroticism. Very verylow. It takes a lot for me to like getworked up or upset or like superstressed out. And so the result of thatwas that throughout school, I was highlyunorganized. I rarely did homework andbecause I had so muchneed for novelty seeking, I foundhomework boring and I just wouldn't doit. But because I had low neuroticism, Ididn't stress out about tests.So I was actually a really good testtaker. So I was always that kid thatwould get like an A minus or a B plus onthe test without having

00:10:02to study verymuch, but like didn't turn in half ofhis homework assignments. Interestingly,I kind of developed an identity as anunderachiever even since I was probablylike eight or nine years old. Like mywhole life I remember teachers tellingme like you could do so much better. Youhave so much potential if you justcared, if you just tried.And eventually that just became how Isaw myself, the underachiever. Andinterestingly, the beliefs that wedevelop about ourselves in particularare some of our most potent adaptationsbecause our beliefs about ourselvesimpact so many of our other motivations,goals, and behaviors. It really wasn'tuntil I got out of school and I was ableto like self-direct the things that Iworked on that I realized that it waslike,"Oh, I'm I'm not actually lazy. When Iwas in school, I just never was in asituationwhere there was something I wanted towork on.">> Right. And that's the point that bearsrepeating here, right? Is that the whatwe think of as oh these this is us. Thisis our base trait that we can't doanything about. It's fundamental. It'swho we are. Nothing we can do about it.These are actually really justadaptations. This episode is brought toyou by Quo.>> You don't notice your business changinguntil something breaks. One day you'rerunning everything off your personalphone and it's totally fine

00:11:17and then thenext day your team's in a Spider-Manmeme all pointing at each other aboutwho was supposed to answer that emailand customers are sitting there like,"Hello, what the fuck?" And that's howyou quietly lose your business. Now atsome point you just hit the wall and go,"All right. Let's [ __ ] Kwo."Get it? Kwo, Q U O. Yeah. See, Kwo isthe number one rated business phonesystem used by more than 90,000businesses, from solo operators togrowing teams. Kwo isn't just a phonesystem, it's also a smart one. AIautomatically logs calls, generatessummaries, and flags next steps so thatnothing will fall through the cracks.Now, you can either upgrade how youcommunicate or you can let the way youcommunicate decide how big you get.Money is on the line, so always sayhello with Kwo. Try Kwo for free, plusget 20% off your first 6 months when yougo to kwo.com/solve.That's kwo.com/solve.>> Yes, and to a certain extent, it's likeadaptations all the way down, right? Um,so I think it's it's probably worth likegetting into like what are the differenttypes of adaptations. So, I think wetalked a little bit in chapter one abouthow personality uhmanifests in different ways in kind ofthese if-then situations, right? And Ithink you

00:12:32can see adaptations is thesame way. So, the simplest version ofthis is just behavioral habits, right?You develop certain behavioral habitsbecause it is an adaptation to yourenvironment. You take a job uh that youneed to be up super early in the in themorning, so you develop habits aroundwaking up early to help facilitate yourability to get to that job, and thennext thing you know, those habits justbleed over into the next job you haveor, you know, you keep them for yearsand years, and they just kind of becomea part of who you are, even though youdon't really think about them. You don'treally put a whole lot of emotionalstock into them. It's just like, "Oh,yeah, I had this job for a few yearswhere I had to get up at 4:00 a.m., andI just kind of never stopped." Thebehavioral habits are kind of thesimplest and m-I think most obvious form of adaptationthat happens. Very if-then in that inthat case, right? Super if-then, and itand it becomes unconscious relativelyquickly. It operates at the the levelbelow awareness. So, the next form ofadaptation is emotional patterns.And this is something thatI think anybody who's gone to therapyhas probably picked up on. Often timeswhat happens is you grow up in a familywhere certain emotions are encouraged ordiscouraged. And because they'reencouraged or discouraged, you develop ahabit

00:13:48or a pattern at a young age ofdefaulting to a certain emotion incertain situations. Like in thehousehold I grew up in, anger wasn'treally seen as appropriate. So, it wasseen as as unnecessary, just causingproblems. Uh and so I learned at a veryyoung age to just not get angry. Like II'm definitely one of those people likeI just bottle [ __ ] up for a long timeand then, you know, lose my mind aboutonce every two or three years. That's anadaptation. Like I developed that in mychildhood as a way to interact with myenvironment and I probably adopted itbecause I too am an agreeable person.And uh and I didn't want to upset myparents and I didn't want to causeproblems in in in my house. And so thatthat's just operated, you know,unconsciouslybeneath the surface for for a long longtime.>> I would say too, one of the deeperemotional patterns that we have is ourattachment style as well, too. Andyou're kind of touching at that, Ithink, a little bit. But this is whereattachment styles live, is in theemotional patterns layer. So, how yourelate to other people is very deeplydeeply emotional and you learn that froma very young age.>> Yeah, and if you think back to theattachment theory, insecure attachmentis very much an if-then thing, right?It's like right, mom and dad were notthat stable base, right? Was notavailable consistently.Therefore,

00:15:03I have learned not to rely on it.Therefore, intimacy makes meuncomfortable and my natural tendency isto run away from it, right? So, it's>> Yeah, would be an avoidant attachmentright there, yeah.>> Yeah. So, it's like it's happening at asuper super low level. The nextadaptation layer is is belief systemsand I think this What's interestingabout beliefs is that they're not ifthen reactions themselves. They're morelike kind of the cognitive reaction toour if then they're like thejustifications for our if thenreactions. Yeah. Well, I'll use my wifeas an example like she grew up very poorin Brazil and so she grew up with somepretty strong views about money and thesignificance of money and what moneymeant in relationships and what moneymeans just in general in life andobviously that's just a product of theenvironment that she grew up in. Sheneeded to have those beliefs to surviveher childhood to get out of povertyessentially, right? And then what sheran into is that once she became anadult and became successful and wasfinancially stable and secure a lot ofthose same beliefs about money were nowholding her back, right? Because nowthey're no longer adaptive. And so thishappens all the time to us. I mean I canprobably think of likea dozen times in my life wheresome belief that

00:16:19I hadyou know, made a lot of sense at acertain time in my life and then 10years later I'm like, oh, this isstupid. I should stop believing this,you know.>> Yeah, I think all adaptations probablyat some point, right? That if we havethese adaptations when we're younger anypoint in our life really and then atsome point they become they don't becomehelpful anymore or even they becomeunhealthy.>> I feel like a lot of listeners have beenasking recently like what I've changedmy mind about. It's funny I've alwaysgotten that question but I feel like itjust in the last two or three yearspeople are asking it a lot and I don'tknow why that is. I don't know. I feellike I change my mind quite often.>> Yeah. Yeah. I see you do. Yeah. I meanand you think it's some of your beliefsystems even too? Do you think it's thatdeep?>> Well, it's funny cuz I feel like I havea meta belief which is that you shouldbe able to change your mind frequently.>> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. See that okay, that'sa good one. Yeah. We probably shouldhave covered some of the healthier ones,right?>> adaptation, right? And it's probablyalso an adaptation that is enabled by myhigh openness to experience.>> Ah.>> Right. Right. Because if if you'rehighly open to new experiences, you'regoing to have a lot of flexibility inyour beliefs, and you're probably goingto develop a meta-belief>> Okay.>> that beliefs should be interchanged aswhen they're useful, yeah.>> Okay. What are some other beliefs, Iguess, like with These are more globalwe're talking, right? They're

00:17:34They're alittle bit like you said, they're notif-then. They're more like almost likeprinciples that we we view the lensesthat we view the world through.>> Yeah. Or yeah, or just kind ofassumptions, right? Like, you know,sometimes they they often do a surveywhere they ask people they say, "Do youDo you trust your neighbors?" Right?>> People can be trusted, right?>> Right. Yeah. People can be trusted,right?>> Can Can the average person be trusted,right? And it's um and a shocking amountof people say no.>> Or like beliefs about luck, too, right?Like some people are lucky or somepeople are not, right? Um or I'm luckyand and>> Right, which interestingly like has somereal effects. We talked about on theresilience episode, we talked aboutself-efficacy, which is basically simplythe belief that like I am capable ofdoing the thing I want to do. And sureenough, in the research, they find thatone of the most significant variables tosurviving hardship or overcoming achallenge is believing you're capable ofsurviving hardship or overcoming achallenge. So, beliefs do have a veryreal impact, and they really areadaptable. Like they I think they arisein as a response to adapting to ourenvironment, and I think they fall apartwhen they start to fail to adapt to ourenvironment anymore.>> How hard do you think beliefs are toidentify, though?>> Sometimes it's pretty easy, I think,right?>> So, I think there's two kind ofdifficulties here. One isone is kind of a definitional thing.Like some things are very

00:18:49relative,right? So,your idea of trustworthiness might bevery different from mine. You know, yourun into this a lot whenLike I remember years ago, I remembertalking to a woman who was very likevery driven by money. And I remember hertelling me, she was like, "I'm worriedbecause I want to have kids, but I don'tfeel like it's responsible to have kidsuntil I'm financially secure." And and Iremember thinking to myself, I'm like,well, that sounds very reasonable andmature.And she said, I'm I'm I'm afraid thatI'm running out of time. And I was like,okay. And then she and I started talkingand I was like, okay, so what doesfinancially secure mean to you? And itwas like having $2 million in the bankand like a summer home andyou know, likebeing essentially in the top 0.1%of financially of the entire population.And I was like, okay, timeout here. Likelet's let's look at this definition offinancial security becausethe the belief that you should befinancially secure is not a problem.Like that's very rational.Your definition of financial security isabsolutely irrational. Right. So I thinkthat's one area where like it can beveryeasy to kind of be misguidedum or belief can kind of lead youastray. That woman I remember like grewup in poverty,

00:20:04right? So like thatbelief was an adaptation. Her definitionof security was also probably anadaptation that was not serving heranymore. The secondform of this, I think there's just a lotof beliefs and assumptions that weadopted early in our lives and we forgetthey're there. You know, there it's thewater we swim in and it it really isn'tuntil one of them fails uscatastrophically that we even considerto like stop andask ourselves like, oh,is this true?>> Mhm.>> Right.>> Right.>> I never thought I never considered thisbefore.>> it, never questioned it, yeah.>> So the final category of adaptationthat we're going to talk aboutis honestly, I mean, this is you couldeven say this is kind of a subset ofbeliefs, but it's basically our egoidentity, which is largely a narrativethat we tell ourselves about who we are.And there's a lot of different aspectsof that narrative. So there's kind ofthe the basic factual level of thatnarrative, right? It's like my name isMark Manson. I was born outside ofAustin, Texas. I'm 42 years old and I'ma podcaster, like all these things, butthere's some narratives that that weadopt and we hold on to that arehighly intangible and very abstract,right? You know, it's liketelling myself that

00:21:19I am a selfishperson, right? A lot of us internalize anarrative like that at some point and weoften forget that we did. Yeah. Ortelling myself that I shouldn't everwaste my time. I should like optimizeevery moment that I'm awake every singleday. Like there's a lot of kind ofvalues based identity based beliefs andconcepts that we like become veryemotionally invested in. Freud definedthe ego as an adaptation to ourenvironment. Freud was not aware ofpersonality research at the time he waswriting, but it is still, I think,conceptually is still correct. That likethe ego forms as a way for us tonegotiate the gaps betweenwho we actually are, biologicallyspeaking, and then like and how we getour needs met from the environmentaround us.>> I've had, still probably have to somedegree to, a narrative around likegrowing up poor,you know, coming from the trailer houseand all that.And then it didn't matter no nothing Idid. Like whatever I achieved, whateverrelationships I had, whatever successcame my way, whatever it was, it was alljust like still viewed for through thatnarrative of yeah, but at the end of theday,you know, I'm still back in the trailerpark, you know.Um so

00:22:35I think that's part of the thenarrative and I've worked really hard atlike trying to change that and we'llwe'll get to this here in a bit, butthat disconnect you have between realityand your story, that can cause there's alot of like friction there that pops up.>> Yeah, it's it's a lot of thesenarrativeswe age out of them, but it's hard to letthem go. Yeah. It's really hard to letthem>> hung on to mine about for about 10 yearstoo long at least. Yeah.>> That narrative probably served you verywell. It was probably a very usefuladaptation for many yearsuntil it wasn't. And then it's, youknow, then you have to go through thatwhole process.>> Well, what's interesting, you know,Damion Adams who did a lot of thisresearch around like the the layers andstuff. He has a slightly differentsystem. We kind of came up with our own,but he talked a lot about likenarrative, the narrative layer wasreally where he spent a lot of time. AndI think that's where it really wherelike a lot of the work happens for a lotof people. And he came up with this ideaof redemptive versus contaminationnarratives, right? So a contaminationnarrative is a narrative where youthink, okay, everything was going rightand then it all went to ruin, right?Redemption is everything was goingright, something bad happened and Ilearned from it. And this is what Ilearned from it and I grew from it. Fora long time my I think my narrative wasyou know, these things are everything'sgoing well and whatever, just waitingfor the other shoe to drop. And wheneveranything bad

00:23:50would happen, I could fallback on that narrative and say, "Well,see." What I think I've successfullydone most of the time at least anyway isturn that into more of a redemptivenarrative where I say, "No, actually,yeah, that sucked. Went through a lot ofharrowing [ __ ] because of it and cameout the other side. And like I wouldnever want to go back to that, but Iknew if if something like that happened,I know I can go through those sorts ofthings. That's a redemptive arc thatI've narrative that I've reconstructedoveragain probably a years if not decade ormore to to really finish that narrativeor to solidify it. And who knows, thatnarrative will probably fail me someday,too, right? And and that I hope I'm alittle bit more um prepared fornow that I know how this works. I don'tknow, that's how I'm kind of looking atit right now anyway.>> It's interesting because if you look atthe different therapeutic modalities,like they they all seem to kind oftarget certain adaptations more thanothers, right?>> Right, like the habits and the emotionsand yeah.>> Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's>> So, would you say too before we get intothat, sorry. Would you say too, are wekind of like going down in depth witheach one of these, do you think? Likelike you have the habits like you saidare pretty simple, then you have theemotional layer, then you have the Is itDo you see like that or is that toosimplistic?>> I think that might be too simplistic.

00:25:05>> Okay. Okay.>> Yeah, it to me it feels more like anetwork, right? Like it'slike there's a network of emotion,beliefs, emotion. It's all It's almostlike the CBT framework.Cuz it's like they all reinforce eachother and you can't really pull at onewithoutdealing with the others. Depending onthe person and depending on theadaptation, it might be more useful topull at one or another.>> Yeah, start with the one.>> You know, there are therapeuticmodalities that really just focus onbehavior, right? It's just like changethe behavior, you know, exposure therapyis like the most obvious one. It's justlike put yourself in the hard situationrepeatedly until it stops feeling hard.You know, like do the behavior first,the emotions and the beliefs willfollow.Other forms of therapy, you know, if youthink about like the psychodynamictradition, it it is all about let's digup your narratives, let's dig up thestories you've been telling yourself andlet's like pick them up and analyzethem, look at them in every differentway, ask ourselvesis this true? Is it useful? Is itserving me? What else could be truepotentially? And then putting it back.And then you look at something like CBTand it's it's kind of it's more of aholistic model. It's kind of addressingeverything at once, you know, and thensome therapies really focus on theemotion, right? It's like it's it'sabout likehelping you access

00:26:20that emotion, reallyfeel it, and then once you're feeling itinvite you to kind of reinterpret whatit means in your life.>> Are there other things we can do besidestherapy? I mean, I I would encourageanybody who is like struggling with thisto start there, honestly. It's the mostreliable. Yes, it takes a long time, butit's the most reliable way to um kind ofcome change your adaptations around anyof this, whether it's emotional, whetherit's behavioral, whatever. I don't know.What about like meditation? Where doesmeditation fit into this?>> So, I think a fun way to view meditationactually is training yourself to simplyobserve your adaptations without relyingupon them.>> Anybody who's been on like a meditationretreat, like what happens when you'rejust sitting on the pillow for hours andhours and hours is like a lot of yourmental and emotional tendencies start tolike feel separate from yourself. Youget a little bit of distance from themand you can observe them and kind of askyourself like, "Oh, that's interestingthat I'm like sad. I wonder why I'msad."You know, I I always get sad in thissort of situation. I wonder why that is.Like, is that useful? I don't know. Youknow, it it allows you to kind ofdetach to a certain degree and look atit a little bit more objectively.>> Yeah, I I would definitely agree withthat. That that disidentification withthought and emotion. Yeah, thatdisidentification, I think it's it'slike>> If you can think about a time

00:27:35where yourealized something you believed waswrong.In that moment that you realized it waswrong, it suddenly doesn't feellike it's yours anymore, you know? Italmost feels like this thing you'relooking at on the table in front of youand you're like, "I can't believe Ibelieved that.">> I've gotten pretty good aboutdisidentifying with my thoughts.Disidentifying with emotions is harderfor me, I would say. I can do it, itjust takes a little more effort. Ittakes a little more focus and patienceand time, but ultimately that is kind ofthat's kind of one of my goals, too, isto I think that's part of what they meanby integration, too, right? When peopletalk about integrating all of these inyour integrating our adaptations orintegrating whatever. I think part ofthat is being able to separate from youremotions, but identify them and reallysit with them.>> This is part of what makes changingadaptation so difficult is that it'sSometimes it's hard to know why they'rethere and and what they're doing there.To zoom out on the whole episode again,right? When people say, "I want tochange." What they're usually referringto are their adaptations, right? They'vegot some habit, some emotional pattern,or some narrative identity that is notserving them anymore, but they don'tknow how to stop doing it. And then thebehavioral side effects of that isdownstream, right? It's like the theovereating or the

00:28:51inability to sleep atnight or not exercising enough. Like allthat stuff is happening as a consequenceof the faulty adaptation. What peoplemean when they want to change, like thissection is generally what they'retalking about, but I don't think it'spossible to completely understand thissectionuntil you understandthe personality piece and and like thetraits that arelargely immovable. The goal withpersonality is to simply understandyourself and understandthis is who you are and come to termswith it, accept it.The goal with adaptations is to find themost useful adaptations possible. We'regoing to talk about William James alittle bit later, but you know, WilliamJames had a philosophical school calledpragmatism, which he basically arguedthat you should only believe in thingsthat are useful. I think the approach toyour adaptations should be verypragmatist. It should be very much likeis this emotional pattern serving me?If it's not, I should probably find away to replace it. Or is this beliefabout the world serving me? Like isassuming that everybody's untrustworthy,is that really serving me? Probably not.So maybe I should find a way to like bemore trusting of people.>> It's a belief that you're not sure aboutanyway, you may as well justbelieve what's the most useful and not>> Like I don't know about you, man.

00:30:06LikeI've just seen myself be wrong about somuch [ __ ]>> yeah.>> Nothing makes sense.>> Nothing makes sense. You're wrong abouteverything.>> I'm like I've been wrong so many times.Like the older I get>> I think that's probably one of thereasons why people tend to get happieras they get older is is is one is thatthe older you get the more you've seenyourself bounce back from hardship. Soyou're like, oh, I can do this. I'vebeen through worse, right? And I thinkthe other piece is just that like onceyou've seen yourselfbe a [ __ ] idiot literally your wholelife, like you just kind of startassuming like I'm probably an idiot now,too.>> Yeah. Yeah.>> And everybody else around me is an>> And everybody else>> It's idiots all the way down. All theway down. But here's the rub, right?This is where everybody gets stuckbecauselet's say you can name your pattern inreal time. You can watch yourself doingit. You can understand exactly where itcame from, what childhood trauma causedit, what, you know, that time that yourmom you know, didn't hug you after shepicked you up from school. Whatever itis.Yet you still can't stop doing it. We'veall been through this. It's it's theclassic likeI know I shouldn't do it. Why can't Istop doing it? In many ways insight isjust one ad- adaptation talking aboutanother adaptation. Our ability to sithere and talk about our adaptations isjust another adaptation.>> Right. It's just another

00:31:21set of beliefsystems that we've developed forourselves to make our other beliefs alittle bit more functional.>> Kind of puts them in a little box. Youcan compartmentalize this way and>> Yeah. Oh, yeah. But there's a limit toit, right? Insight can only take you sofar. It can't actually make you behavedifferently. It can't make you feeldifferently in and of itself. So why whyare adaptations so difficult to change?Well, the the first reason is that theyrun on autopilot. So they're>> yeah.>> They're automatic. Like you can'tyou don't sit around, you know, and askyourselfwhat adaptation should I use in thissituation? Like you your body just hasalready developed that if-then patternand habitand then acts it.>> Well, and it's just that's that'sefficient, too, right? It's like from anevolutionary standpoint. You're borninto this environment, so you like therule should be if this happens, then dothis. And that's super efficient foryour brain and body and metabolism andeverything like that, yeah.>> I've always seen it as likemuscle memory but within your mind. Thesame way you develop muscle memory forlike riding a bike or brushing yourteeth, like you develop muscle memoryaround relationships, around conflict,around goals and ambitions, aroundeverything. I think the other reasonadaptations are so hard to change isthat there's a little bit of an illusion

00:32:36that comes with gaining information. So,for example, like let's say somebody'slistening to this right now and likesomething we've said is like triggeredan insight in their mind, that dopaminehit of like, "Oh my god, I I now Iunderstand something I didn't understandbefore." That feels like changewithout changing.And this is I mean this is just theself-help trap in general is like peopleget addicted to insight because it itconstantly feels like they're doing workeven though they're not really doingwork. They're not There's noimplementation happening and if there'sno implementation happening then nothingis actually permanently shifting orbeing changed.>> It's like you always say, learning isthe smart person's favorite way toprocrastinate, right? Like>> It is.>> Yeah.>> It is. Speaking from experience.>> Yep.>> And then I think the last reason thatadaptations are so hard to actuallyaddress and change is because they don'texist in a vacuum. They do exist in thisvast network of belief systems,emotional patterns, and behavioralpatterns, behavioral habits. So,when you're trying to change your eatinghabits for instance, right? You thinkabout a diet, you think about maybetracking your calories. What you don'tthink about is all of thesocial meals that you have with peopleand how that's going to affect yourability to eat well or not, how maybe

00:33:52the way your family connects with you isby like bringing over desserts or goingout drinking together, that it's goingto alter your social life, how much yousee certain friends, the capacity thatyou're able to see those friends,>> how much you emotionally regulate withfood maybe? To>> That too, right? It's like maybe you'vegot someunderlying anxiety that you've likenumbed yourself with food constantly.>> notice it, yeah.>> There's like all these knock-on effects,all these dominos going out in differentdirections thatit's very hard to conceptualize whenyou're trying to attack a specificadaptation in isolation.>> Right, cuz it disrupts the others. Isthat what you're saying, right? Justbecause you've taken taken care of thehabitual part doesn't mean you've takencare of the emotional part or the beliefpart, or yeah.>> My heavy drinking was an adaptation tomy need for novelty seeking, my highopenness to experience, and my relativeintroversion. And that served me reallywell when I was young. I had all theseamazing experiences, and I really likedeveloped a lot of better social skillsand relationship skills, and met a lotmore people.But, by the time I got older, drinkingthat much alcohol was starting to tohold me back in a lot of ways. So, itwasn't a functional adaptation anymore.And so, I quit drinking about 3 and 1/2years ago. And this is exactly whathappened is like initially I I stoppeddrinking. I was like, "I'm doing this to

00:35:07to lose some weight, to get healthy."And I felt so good, and it was sotransformative that I justdidn't go back to it. But, what I didn'texpect is that I had been using alcoholto manage a lot of like my restlessness.I was using it to kind of likequell a lot of boredom that Iexperienced. The big thing I noticedwhen I stopped drinking is that like alot of the hobbies and activities that Iused tothink I loved,when I stopped drinking, I stoppedloving them. My wife and I we used to goout to like fancy restaurants all thetime. It was like one of our favoritethings to do. When I stopped drinking, Irealized I didn't enjoy it as much.>> You just like the wine or theexperience?>> [ __ ] getting drunk, yeah.>> Right. Okay. Interesting. Okay.>> Yeah. And so, it's like you you removegetting drunk, and it's like, "Okay,well, that was good. Was it worth $800?"Like, yeah, probably not. Some concertsand music uh it kind of went through thesame thing.>> A lot of social situations in general, Ithink. Likesocial gatherings.>> a lot of parties that went to and waslike, "Wow, I'm bored.I'm actually not having fun here." Itactually created a little bit of anidentity crisis in thatI didn't really know what I found funanymore, and I didn't know what I wantedto do anymore.And a lot of the things that I curedwith alcohol,

00:36:22I started curing withother things. So, I started working morecompulsively. I started playing videogames more compulsively, I start workingout more compulsively.And it there were all these knock-oneffects in my marriage, in myfriendships, my social life, my calendarthat I was completely unprepared for.Like did not expect. I've talked to somesome recovered addicts and a lot of themhave told me, they've said, you know,it's quitting the substance isn't thehardest part. It's the staying off thesubstance, right? It's It's thosesecond-order effects of like, "Oh, well,how am I going to relate to my friendsif I quit and they're still using?" Or"What am I going to do for fun if Ican't be drunk?" Like I don't know whatI enjoy doing anymore. So, I think Iwent through a lot of that to like amuch lesser extent, like with you know,less extreme, but it does make it veryvery challenging.>> So, you you addressed kind of thehabitual behavioral part, not drinking.>> Mhm.>> But the other kind of adaptations thatwe've gone over, the emotional part, thebeliefs, the narratives, you felt likeyou you didn't address those. Have youaddressed those, I guess? Or>> I think I have by now.>> you have, okay.>> The The other interesting thing too isthat it kind of unearths a lot of stuff.You know, I was diagnosed with ADHD. Ikind of stopped thinking about it orworrying about it. It It kind of

00:37:38It feltlike it stopped being a problem uh in myearly 20s.And I thought it was because I startedmeditating a lot. Like I I kind ofconvinced myself that. What'sinteresting is when I stopped drinking,my ADHD got more severe. Oh, really? Oh.It's interesting.>> So, you might have been self-medicatingand not even knowing it.>> Yeah. And when And it turns out like I Idid some research on it and it's like,yeah, it's like people with ADHD arelike more likely to be alcoholics orsomething like that. I I don't rememberthe exact percentage.Right. Right. And so, it it's I waslike, "Huh. Yeah, maybe I wasself-medicating to a certain degree.">> Yeah, but okay, but you feel like you'vehad a you've got a better handle on thatnow for the most part.>> a lot more awareness around it.>> Okay. You've built new adaptations.>> Built new adaptations, new habits. Ithink I've come to terms a little bitmore. I mean this is the tricky thingwith emotions, like emotional patterns.Like it it's not that they go away. Youjust kind ofmake peace with them.Like they stop controlling you. I thinkthat's kind ofkind of like what what you go for. Ithink the process here isyou identify the adaptation, right?Youbreak the adaptation. You stop doing theold adaptation.The key is you need to replace it with anew adaptationthatfulfills

00:38:53like can help you get yourneeds met in a similar way. But thenwhat's interesting and this this came upin the research for this episode is thatthat old adaptation never completelygoes away. It's almost like it just kindof gets written over by a newlike a new piece of software orsomething.>> Patched.>> Yeah, it's patched, right? And peoplelike intuitively you've you've probablyexperienced this a lot. Like if youthink about I don't know, like emotionalissues that you had when you were young,it's not that they're gone. You stillfeel them down there,but the it's just very mild. It's likethe volume knob's been turned way downand there's like all this new emotionalmachinery that's been built on top ofit.>> I'm kind of in the middle of one ofthese right now, I guess. If if we candive into that cuz I that's where I'mat. I'm like, "Well,where do I replace I have thisadaptation I've identified and I don'tknowwhat comes next?" A little bit, okay?This is all kind of weird, too, and I'ma little disoriented around it, solet me know if I'm just going off therails here, okay? A little bit.>> We'll call this segment off the railswith Drew Berry.>> That's okay. Here we go, okay?I I've talked pretty openly um about myavoidance. Like I haven't I'm anavoidant attachment. This is why Ibrought it up earlier. I was like,"Emotional level, this is a thing.">> All your female fans in the commentshave noticed.>> Yeah, okay.

00:40:09I was an emotionally or avoidant for along time. I even knew about it earlyon. I mean, I studied psychology. I evenstudied a little bit of attachmentscience like early on in my early 20s.So, I knew about it. So, there's thatinsight problem. I I was like, "Oh, Iknow about this, so it's okay." But, theway I was behaving was still consistentwith being avoidant and it was causing alot of problems in my life, okay? And itreally wasn't until just a few yearsago, probably five-ish years ago, that Ireally got serious about like, "Okay, Ireally need to do something about this."And so, what I did is I started withkind of the the habit, the thebehavioral part of it. Which was when Ihad like a partner who would come to meand they have, you know, a bid forattention or a bid for affection of somesort. Usually, what I would do is kindof shut down and be like, "Oh, you'regetting too close. That's not like mhm,that's scary. Don't do that, right?"What I learned to do was kind of flipthat on its head like, "Okay, wait,catch myself." Like we talked about, Icaught I caught that adaptation in themoment and I could then respond to them,okay? I could not be not behave in anavoidant way.I was prepared to come into this podcastand tell you about how, "Oh, that was mytransformation and I have I'm no longeravoidant."And then it really hit me when we werepreparing for this. I'm like, "Oh, I'mactually no more secure in my attachmentthan I was before.

00:41:24I have just addressedthethe the habit, the behavior associatedwith the avoidance. I haven't addressedthe rest of it. It's kind of bled intothe emotional stuff. One thing I noticedlike with a partner that I had who wasanxious, she was also she had apsychology background, so we could talkabout this in a nerdy, disconnected way,right? And so, okay, we said, "Allright, we're going to work on this,okay?"And we did and I was like, what I what Irealized was, "Oh, these bids forattention and affection,they're really not that bad. You justyou give them a little bit and they'refine and then you can return back toyour homeostasis, right?" That's kind ofbleeding into the emotional adaptationlayer a little bit. I can handle thoseemotions, but that's just like in thereceiving of it. I still don't expressmy needs very well because of that'sscary to me and I so I avoid them.That's the avoidant part of it. I havenot addressed the underlying beliefsaround this. I have not addressed theunderlying narratives around this atall. I'm no more secure than I wasbefore, but I felt like I was for a longtime. But I've had this like recentrealization. So I'm in this space rightnow aroundwhat do I replace those adaptationswith? And I'm not really even surebecause I just identified it. Like thebeliefs/narrative that I have, I thinkthat's underlying all of this is just afear of abandonment. That's that's whatit is. I I don't want to be abandonedand so I close myself off. I don't evenget involved

00:42:39in that way you can't leaveme.I will keep you at a distance so youcannot leave me. Now I'm sitting herelike, okay, well I've replaced thebehavior.But that behavior was a coping mechanismfor me. And so now I'm sitting in thisspace where it's like it's feels unsafe.I'm almost feeling anxious. I think Imaybe even told you a few times like Ithink I'm actually more disorganizedthan I was, but I think what that reallyis is I'm just feeling the anxiety thatwas already there. That's always beenthere.>> Probably.>> But I was avoiding it before. And now Idon't avoid it anymore and now it's likeI don't know what's going on.>> But you but you don't know what to dowith it.>> I don't know what to do with it. Whatand likewhat I want to do, you know, I talkedabout the contamination versusredemptive arcs. That's recently that'swhat I've been thinking is like, okay, Ineed to return this. I need to turn thisinto a redemptive arc. Because right nowit's a contamination one. It's like umpeople leave. People aren't to betrusted. I'm a very independent That'swhy I'm an independent person. I waslike I can take care of myself becauseyou can't rely on other people. And sowhat do I replace that with? What do Iyou know, do I do I try to make aredemptive arc where it's like no, no,no.Those things happened to me like I didwith the being poor and all that. Thosethings happened to me. I survived themand I'll survive them again. I can'tjust tell myself that obviously, right?And have it be true. So I I don't know.That's where I'm at right now. I'm inthe middle of one of these right nowwhich is

00:43:54just ironic and yeah.>> It's tough, man.>> I'm going to work through it. I know Iwill. That's the other thing is thatI've I've decided like no, I'm going totake this on and not turn away from it.I think that's one of the problems thatpeople see that and they're like no, I'mrunning right the hell back." Which Ialmost did that with this time around,too.>> And it's like I I would give yourselfmore credit as well because like youchanged the behavior, but it you didn'tactuallychange the adaptation, right? Like we'regoing to get to this, but you know,behavior is the entry point. It is thatchange in behavior that is even openedyou up to be able to talk about this andthink about this in the first placebecause it was prior to that behavior,you weren't even This was not even adiscussion.That in and of itself is a certainamount of progress, but I mean, this isThis is the difficult part withadaptations in general. Especially thedeep-seated ones and the emotional ones.Likethey're not changed inmonths. They're not changedeven in year Like some deeper seatedones like this, I mean, it it is yearsand years and years and years and yearsto likeactually get to the other side.>> Yeah, it's been it's been weird.Wait, it's it And I think I've kind offelt itbut I like building up a little bit andthen this is all just kind of you know,it'sit's coming out now and I'm like, oh,[ __ ]It's like a realization a little bit,

00:45:09yeah. And I just don't know like, oh,what's the new story I need to buildaround this? What are the new beliefsand emotional patterns I I want to have?And can I be intentional about thateven?>> I was pretty avoidant when I was youngerand I I remember I mean, even up untilthe second year I was with my wife, likeI had this belief, this operatingassumption that like I was never goingto get married.Every relationship was temporary.Um and be be ready to leave at anymoment when it's necessary, right? Andit just seemed like and and myex-girlfriends, like they got it wayworse than my wife did. By the time Igot to my wife, I kind of realized I'mlike, "No, I actually like I like havinga girlfriend and I should probably notbe a [ __ ] deadbeat, you know, whenI'm with them." So, that was progress.But it then I think that progress likeopened me upto when I was with herto at leaststick around long enough that it it itstarted challenging some of those otherunderlying beliefs of like, "Okay, well,maybe yeah, maybe Imaybe I'mI am capable of this. Maybe I likemaybe this is okay." But, I would saythose those beliefs fell away slowlyover the course of years with her.The other thing that fell away, too, Ihad a bad tendency

00:46:24in my earlierrelationships of just sabotaging things.I was definitely that guy who would likestart a fight over like like somethingvery stupid. And I did it unconsciously,but I think what it was is it was kindof a triggered avoidant reaction, right?It's like>> do this too, yeah.>> It it's like oh>> point something out that just you couldjust let go, right? Or yeah.>> And the worst thing is is that it tendedto happen at like the most intimatemoments. And umand I remember actually so Fernanda, itwas one of her birthdays. I planned awhole day for her.It was an amazing day. We were dating.We had been together for I think two orthree years.Amazing day together, and she was sohappy. And we went to this like nicesushi dinner. And I don't remember what,but I just started being such a [ __ ][ __ ]>> I don't care.>> For no reason.>> I've done this.>> reason. And it's, you know, it took meyears to realize that like that wasan adaptation that was stuck.>> I I think you said something therethough that rang true with me nowanyways that you decided that you weregoing to you were going to stick with itthis time. You were decided you weregoing to actually look at this. And ifthere's anything I'm good at, it'sdenial. So, that's what I've learned,too, is that like even me saying thatlike, "Oh, I I'm afraid of abandonment."

00:47:40That to me I would like I I that makesme just curl up inside and likeI don't like that at all. But, becauseit just seems so weak and it seems so Idon't know immature.>> But, the fact that it makes you want topuke>> And that's what I'm saying is now I haveto turn to it.>> it's true. And it and it and it ismotivating a lot of this.>> Um which unfortunately that's the way itusually works.>> I don't know, that's where I'm at. Thatdoes help though and and like I said, Imean I am a temp just playing aroundwith the stories now, too. Meditationhas as actually helped me a little bitwith this. Um probably need to do somemore therapy around it. Umbut yeah.>> Probably the most useful thing for me isI justyou know, I was kind of in a similarplace when I met Fernanda that like Iwas aware I had thisI knew I still had itbut I was also like I kind of don't wantto have this.And I remember with her I just made anagreement with myself cuz I like with myex before her I just likeI was such a shitty boyfriend. And sowith her I was likeit's okay if it ends, but just make sureit ends for a good reason. Like don'tdon't be a [ __ ] Again, and it wasbehavior, right? So it was like I stillfelt a lot of the things that I used tofeel in my old relationships. I still Ihad a lot of

00:48:55thoughts and beliefs that Ihad in previous relationships. I stillThere were still times I wanted to breakup with her for no reason andgo party and sleep with a bunch of girlsrandomly, but likeI had an agreement with myself of likejust don't [ __ ] this up for a dumbreason. Like you can break up with her,but it has to be for a legitimatereason.And putting that constraint on myselfI guess just likeeventually made me stop>> Yeah.>> being such a wuss.>> Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at withmy girlfriend right now. I think Ithought that I was like Mr. Romantic inthis. I thought I was like this is themost expressive I have ever been andjust part of the impetus of this wholething is we've we had a big conversationand a bit of an argument about this andshe was like, "You're not thatemotionally expressive." And I'm like,"What the [ __ ] are you talking about?"Like I feel like I'm just being>> You're just gushing your feelings allthe time. Yeah.>> it's like, "Oh, that's how uncalibratedI am." And it comes back to like therel- how the relative definitions,right? So, it's like in your head you're10 out of 10 expressive and in her headyou're like a three out of 10.>> Sending heart emojis, come on, man.Like come on. What else>> I'm pouring my heart out into my iPhoneright now, likeduh.>> What else

00:50:10>> What else could a woman want?>> Women, what do they like come on. No, Iget it. I get it. Heart emojis aren'tenough for them.>> Well, I guess this is I mean this is aperfect segue into our next sectionwhich is about relationship asadaptation machines. I mean we talkedabout in the emotions episode how humansco-regulate each other and also ouridentities, right? How we identifyourselves and our egos are also mutuallydefined. None of us define who we are ina vacuum. We largely define ourselvesrelative to the people around us and itis those social relationships that kindof add like create the raw material forus to like define who we are and how wesee ourselves.So, it makes sense thatone of the most effective ways to alteradaptations is toput yourself in relationships withpeople who maybe have more functionaladaptations than you, who perhaps canspot some maladaptive adaptations inyou. I mean there's a real healing powerto relationships. Relationships can alsobe destructive in this sense. So, like,you know, you can almost define a toxicrelationship as a relationship thatamplifies your unhealthy adaptations oritself becomes an unhealthy adaptationum between you and the world.>> I think you make a good point that thisis like where it all plays

00:51:25out is in ourrelationships and this is where youactuallylike you can change. Like we're we'recalling these adaptation machines.Relationships are adaptation machines.We can sit here and we can talk likewe're just saying. We can talk, you canget all this insight, you caninternalize all of this, but likeputting it into practice throughrelationships is really where theseadaptations will will shift around andthey're You're malleable,>> Yeah. think.>> Relationships>> so powerful because it is one of the fewplaces that you are able to catch allthree of the cognitive, the behavioral,and the emotional simultaneously. If youand I hang out for a weekend and I dosomething annoyingand you're like, "Dude, that'sannoying." I'll be like, "Oh, sorry."Right? Whereas if I'm like living withmy wife for 10 years and she's like,"You really need to cut this [ __ ] out."Like this is [ __ ] up, right? It'sThere's There's an emotional investmentin that relationship that is very deepand powerful that when something isdisrupted with her, like I'm way moreemotionally invested in in actually likelooking at and addressing, you know,some sort of behavior or or assumptionor belief.>> Yeah, there's stakes. There's There'sskin in the game, yeah.>> You know what this reminds me of? Haveyou ever seen that documentary aboutflat-earthers called Behind the Curve?>> No, I haven't, no.>> It'sIt's so fascinating. There's aflat-earth convention.

00:52:40>> I Yeah.>> Yeah, I knew of that, yeah.>> That people get on planes and flyacross time zones?To attend?Um so this documentary and like startedfollowing a bunch of these flat-earthersand it is so fascinating because whatyou really notice as the documentarygoes on is that these are intenselylonely peopleand it's really like the flat-earthbelief very much an adaptation to allowthem to get some of their basic needsmet. Like they are probably veryneurodivergent, they're probably somelike extreme personality traits goingon.>> Maybe some trauma for some of them,yeah.>> A lot A lot of them probably have a lotof a lot of embedded trauma and likethey are just not super functional in inthe day-to-day world, but somethingabout this belief system and comingtogether online around it like allowsthem to feel accepted and admired andappreciated and special and some degreeof status or whatever, but it is Thedocumentary is extremely well donebecause it's just the way he shows theirstories and and how they describethemselves. Like it is so clear thatthey they're they're just lonely andthey just want to feel like they'redoing something that matters.And>> That's a hell of

00:53:55an adaptation.>> Yeah.>> Yeah.>> So there's a version of working onyourself that is perfectly designed tofeel like progress,but it produces no progress. And this iswhy you're still stuck. It's not becauseyou don't understand yourself.It's because understanding yourself andchanging yourself are two completelydifferent skills. Interestingly, there'suh some research around how changeactually takes place. This is verycommon in the clinical psychology world.So Prochaska and Di Clemente have amodel. It's the five-stage model ofchange. So there's precontemplation,contemplation, action, maintenance, andrelapse. And precontemplation isbasically the moment before there'sconscious awareness>> of an issue, right? It's just you'relike something's off.>> Something's off, but you don't know whatand you keep doing a thing and you don'tknow why and it's you're not sure whatthe problem is. Contemplation isyou think you've identified the problem.I think I know what why I you know, whydo I keep doing this?This is what I need to change. Action iswhen you try to change it. Maintenanceismaking sure that that action issustainable over a long period of timebecause as we're going to discover isthatchange itself is hard. Maintaining

00:55:11change is exceptionally hard. Mostpeople are able to change theirbehaviors quite often.Most people are not able to maintainchanges in their behaviors over a longperiod of time. It is it isexceptionally difficult. So it's themaintenance phase and then there's therelapse phase, which I kind of love howit's just baked in here.>> I love how they put it in there, yeah.>> You're going to [ __ ] up. You're going to[ __ ] up. Nobody nails the landing on thefirst try.It's going to take a few swings andyou're going to have to like get back onthe horse. How many metaphors can I usehere?>> No, it's like they say in recoveryprograms, relapses are part of theprogress, right? It's part of theprocess. It is is learning how you reactin these situations and when you dofail, how are you going to bounce backor are you going to bounce back even?>> So, where would you say you are with thethe avoidance stuff?>> Uh,I think I'm between the contemplationand action phases right now.I'm trying to move myself into theaction phase a little bit.Well, it feels like>> taken some action.>> Okay, yeah. Oh, no, you're right. You'reabsolutely right. But, I think there'smore action that needs to be taken. I Ithink what I've realized is I've put insome other work. I haven't put inall of the work.>> I think the the issue is is that you'velearned how to perform reciprocation.

00:56:26You're not actually emotionallyreciprocating that bid for affection.And so, yes, you are technicallybehaving in the correct way, butactually the behavior that you need tochange has not been accessed yet.>> That's Yeah, that's probably true.That's probably a good point. Yeah. Ijust think I This is the story I have inmy head right now, okay? Is that if Ican get through this and I can kind ofaddress those what I'm seeing right nowas the underlying issue, which is fearof abandonment, right? If I can somehowremove thatbarrier, I see it as a barrier at thispoint to something deeper. I don't knowwhat. It's just like if I can removethat, it feels like something's going tocome flooding in or out and something'sgoing to break wide open.>> The fear you mean?>> If I can remove that fear ofabandonment, yeah. It feels like it'slikeit's blocking me. Because another thing,and I think I've mentioned this to youbefore, just about every girlfriend I'vehad in my adult life, they've asked mewhat I want, of course, like everybody,you know, at some point they're going toask you that. And I just go blank. Ijust like I'm just I'm like, I don'tknow. I don't know what I want. Like,this seems fun. I like you.What more do I need, right? And so whatwhat I think what I think is going onwhat it feels like is going on. This isthe story I'm telling myself currently.Again, if I can remove

00:57:41that,then I can finally figure out what Iwant. And that will at least give mesome clarity. I'm not going to saythat's going to fix everything, but thatgives me some clarity aroundwhat new narrative do I want to build?What new beliefs do I want to build?I don't know. Maybe that's Maybe that'sat the same time too systematic and tooabstract. I don't know, but>> Can I be obnoxious andsay a thing that you probably know, butdon't want to hear?>> When have you ever asked me thatquestion before?>> You know this. I know you know this, butit's>> good at denial, like I said.>> Well, and it's one of those things thatit's when it's you, it's easy to likemiss it.You're not going to get rid of a fear ofabandonment.>> Mhm.>> Likeyou knowyou don't get rid of emotions. You youlive despite the emotions. And so Ithink the issue here isn't that youremove the fear of abandonment and thensome long-term desire replaces it. Thetrick here is is that you need to findsomething thatis worth wantingenough that you're willing to live withthe fear despite it.>> Okay. Okay.You're right. I do know that.>> Yeah.>> Yeah, I think I was Yeah, I Yeah, Ithink you're right. I think I'm lookingfor somewhere around it. Like no Nope, Ican remove that, too.>> Which

00:58:56we all do.>> I can I It's like I just got to gothrough a little bit more pain and thenI can get that. We're good.>> Yeah.But yeah, we we we all do.>> I mean, talking to you about it. And bythe way, thank you for being willing toshare this on the podcast. It's almostlike knowing all these things can atsometimes be a handicap, right? Cuz it'slike knowing all this stuff, it givesyou all these little escape routes.Like these other things to think aboutso that you don't have to think aboutthe main thing. You can kind of obsessabout all these details and it's like,"Oh, that one study in 1983 said this.So like let me let me go read aboutthat.>> Okay, now you're just attacking me, butokay. All right.>> Sorry.>> Sorry. Sorry. That was not That was notpersonal.>> No, no, no.>> This is what makes this layer so hard.You're almost like pulling at strands ina very complex knot. And not only do youhave to know what strands to pull, butyou need to know what order to pull themin sometimes. And so, you can spendyears just like pulling the wrong thingat the wrong time and not knowing whynothing's changing and then you suddenlystart pulling on a different one andit's>> like, boom, you know, half of it comesundone.>> I actually think this is a nice place tosegue into the new chapter because Imean, at this point we've talked aboutthe personality traits, the things thatyou're not really going to change. Thissection we've talked all about theadaptations, right? All these likemultiple layers of ourselves

01:00:11and our egoand our beliefs and all this stuff. Wecan change them, but it is verycomplicated and difficult. Andultimately, the access point to changingthose adaptations is our behavior.Getting ourselves to do the thing thatwe don't necessarily want to do or wedon't know how to do consistently.And that is so much of what we strugglewithin terms of changing ourselves. Like,there's so many of uswhowe know exactly what we want to changeand then we just try to get up and do itand it doesn't happen. So, in the nextchapterwe're going to dive into all the ins andouts of behavioral change. How does itactually happen? How do you make itconsistent? How can yougive yourself the highest likelihood ofsuccess?And what's interesting is that most ofour intuitive assumptions about behaviorchangeare not accurate. Because understandingyourself and changing yourself areactually two completely differentskills. They're two different problems.And pretty much everything in thepersonal development industry, theself-help industry, isselling you solutions to the firstproblem, promising that it's going tosolve the second one.But the next chapterwe're going to solve the second problem.And the answer is so simplethat it's probably

01:01:27going to strikepeople as insulting.What's up, everybody? Thank you forwatching. This video is just one chapterof a much larger podcast episode aboutchange, where Drew and I covereverything from specific ways to changean annoying behavior to deep identitylevel changes. We'll be releasing newchapters every few days on YouTube, butif you want to watch or listen to thefull episode right now, click on thelinks in the description to watcheverything on Spotify. And if you likethe show, please don't forget tosubscribe. And if you want to work onthe topic at your own pace, we have afree PDF guide and workbook with all ofthe resources, citations, and exercisesat solvepodcast.com/change.So, I will see you soon.