225: Why Willpower Doesn’t Work, And What To Do Instead

Benjamin Hardy 00:02
It's not confidence that create success, but it's success that creates confidence. You know, that breakthrough probably could have been, should have happened six months ago, and where could he be, but also, had I not been there, that breakthrough still wouldn't have happened.

Introduction 00:19
This is the Happen To Your Career podcast, with Scott Anthony Barlow. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what does and make it happen. We help you define the work that's unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you're ready to make a change, keep listening. Here's Scott. Here's Scott. Here's Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:43
When you're doing something hard, like training for a half marathon or trying to lose 50 pounds, or get rid of a bunch of debt or change careers, it turns out willpower isn't enough. We know it's not, a lot of us know it's not, but most of us still don't know what helps instead when you're making a really big life change, or you're chasing down a goal.

Benjamin Hardy 01:05
Whether you're pursuing your dreams or whether you're pursuing mediocrity, it's actually just as challenging.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:12
That's Benjamin Hardy.

Benjamin Hardy 01:13
I am a writer, PhD student, and I run an online course. I'm a foster parent, just adopted our kids actually. So parent, and just love learning and writing and sharing and teaching.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:28
He's been studying why some people reach their version of success and why others never ever make it even though they want to. In fact, he just wrote a book on the subject called "Willpower Doesn't Work". I was super curious about his experiences and his learnings with high performers intentionally putting themselves into difficult situations to experience growth. In fact, Ben experienced this himself when he and his wife had adopted three kids. How long of a process was that for you?

Benjamin Hardy 01:55
For us it was heinous. It was over three years. Yeah, it's painful and expensive. So...

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:02
Yes, that is what I've heard from other people that have adopted in any capacity.

Benjamin Hardy 02:06
Yeah, it was rough. But, you know, we're good. I mean, we did it through the foster system, you know, so that's kind of it. It was intense.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:15
Intense sounds right. But I guess most things that are worth doing are intense to some degree.

Benjamin Hardy 02:21
Yeah. But I definitely recommend it, man. I definitely recommend it. Oh, yeah. I have no regrets about it. Without question.

Scott Anthony Barlow 02:27
So everybody that I've talked to, that has adopted, says that, but I'm curious, why that is for you?

Benjamin Hardy 02:32
I mean, you don't regret the things that are the most meaningful in your life. You know what I mean? When you take a kid in your life, and you start to invest huge in them, and you start to see yourself as their parent, and you start to see them change, and you start to watch yourself become more caring, and loving, and you just become a better person, you start to kind of realize that a lot of the other stuff that you're pursuing doesn't matter that much. So I mean, it's the most fundamental thing. I mean, all this stuff is fun. I love being on the podcast, I love writing, I think I get a lot of meaning, and I think a lot of people get a lot of use from my writing. But being a foster parent of these kids was a lot of what inspired me to do what I've done. So you know, I don't think I'd be where I'm at had I not done it, you know, and I would give up everything I've got to be these kids' parents at this point. So to me, there's no regrets at all. It's more in line with my value system. So, you know, I'm not thinking about all the things I could have done and the time spent. I forget who said it, I think it was Peter Diamandis, he didn't say "either or", but "both", you know, and so I think you can have a successful career and you can have a great family. And that's kind of the life I've chosen. I would choose the family over the career if I had to.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:36
What would you say is the hardest thing about adopting?

Benjamin Hardy 03:39
Yeah, no. I mean, it really wasn't the adoption component that was the hard part. I mean, we wanted to adopt for a long time. For me, it was just becoming a foster parent in the first place. It was early in 2015, it was actually January of 2015, that we got the first two children. So there was a three year old and a five year old, they were siblings, and they were rough. They came from a horrible environment. Their parents had totally neglected them. They didn't go to school, they just had horrible manners, a long laundry list of psychological diagnoses. A young girl who had anger issues, she throw and break stuff, and we just couldn't control these kids. We found out that they had a seven year old fully blood brother who was in a group home. We found out about him a couple months later, and we decided felt inspired that we wanted to get him as well. And so for the first several months of being a foster parent, I was in my first year of a Ph. D. program, so I was avoiding being home. Honestly, it was just not fun. And the kids didn't love me, I didn't really love them. There was no mutual respect or connection. And, you know, the challenge with kids who come from this level of trauma because not only did they not have any foundation because of their home environment, but then they got ripped out of their home environment, no matter where you come from, there's an enormous amount of confusion and loss. Oh, yeah. And so we had to overcome ourselves, you know, you can't just get angry and upset, you know, with these kids. I'm a huge fan of Dr. Gabor Maté's work. And he talks a lot about how you can't change a person through judgment and through criticism only through compassion. And he talks a lot about addiction specifically, and he says, "You can't help someone through judging them, you have to have compassion for them." And Joe Polish, who's a mentor and a friend of mine, he owns Genius Network, which is mastermind of a part of, he talks a lot about how you can't punish the pain out of people. He's specifically talking about addicts. But I think that's true of all people, you know, especially anyone with suppressed pain and trauma, you can't punish the pain out of them. And a person is as sick as their secrets. So what happens is, when a person goes through a traumatic experience, they usually isolate themselves, and they seek to withdraw whether or not anyone in pain. Yeah, I mean, if you think about all of us. So in the book, "The Body Keeps the Score", which is one of the best books on trauma, he talks a lot about how we all have multiple personalities, most people in Western psychology think that we have one fixed and permanent personality, the truth is, we have multiple, there's certain areas of your life that are well developed, and there's certain sides of you that are completely underdeveloped, and that have been halted or frozen, based on some pain or trauma. And when that side of you is triggered, then you start to cope in unhealthy ways, whether that's eating, technology, some way to distract yourself from the pain, or the thoughts or the emotions, the feelings. And so basically, you know, with being these kids foster parents for a while, you have to get to a point where you let go of your own frustrations with their horrible behavior. And you've got to figure out how to love them and be patient with them and sit with them through their terribleness. And that took a lot of time.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:42
I'm sure that was an understatement.

Benjamin Hardy 06:44
Yeah, it was rough. You know what I mean? It was, I mean, this is an example– these kids didn't know how to put themselves to bed because their parents gave them cough syrup to go to bed every night. You know what I mean, just put them in front of a TV and they would just doze themselves off, whenever they were fried. They didn't actually know how to just put themselves to bed in a healthy way. And so we had to spend at least six months with each child, laying with them, helping them through the process of literally putting themselves to bed. And that was not easy. And the kids naturally are a lot more inclined to my wife, Lauren, than they were to me, probably just because she's a lot more nurturing, caring, loving, as a person, you know, I think they could sense that I didn't love them. And I didn't for a long time. And so they were very resistant toward me for a while. And so that made even trying to help them even more difficult. But yeah, I mean, over time, you just get to the point where, you know, you start to love them more and more. And we started to fight in court for the kids and try to adopt them. And the court case was really complicated. But in the end, we ended up having to fight in court for a long time. And ultimately, laws had to be changed in the state of South Carolina for us to be able to adopt them. We have an amazing attorney, his name's Dale Dove. And he's represented foster parents trying to adopt for years. And he's taken a lot of cases to the Supreme Court. And one of his cases finally kind of finalized in January of this year, and it changed the laws in the state, allowing foster parents the right to proactively seek adoption, if the parents rights have been terminated. And so after that happened, the legal system saw us as having more rights than they saw us having before. And so almost immediately after that happened, we were granted adoption, which happened actually, very suddenly, just the laws changed, we went to court, and they just said, "Alright, you can have the three kids and..."

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:27
Here you go.

Benjamin Hardy 08:28
Yeah, it was really interesting. So at this point, we're still kind of getting used to it, the kids had to have their final visit with their parents, which obviously was traumatic saying goodbye. And then even though we've had them for three years, we have to, like, readjust to what it means to have this be a permanent family. So there's a lot. What I've told other people is that, having kids especially like this– and it's one of the concepts I talked about big and willpower doesn't work– is that it's so much better to learn on the spot in a really demanding environment, in a tough situation where you're forced to figure things out, forced to adapt, forced to learn. And that's so much better than kind of a non consequential situation where you can kind of learn in an apathetic or in a passive way, like we had to learn in a very active way and there was huge consequences for ourselves, for these kids. And just as kind of one story, even just like two weeks ago, these kids still have problems and they're probably gonna have challenges their whole life as a result of this, but the 10 year old boy and he was 7 when we got him, his name's Caleb, he still has a lot of learned helplessness when it comes to learning. When we got him, he was probably two years behind, he was like in the fifth percentile but he's a smart kid, he just never was given attention and help. He's actually advanced insanely.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:43
Smart but not developed.

Benjamin Hardy 09:44
Yeah, as a product of a bad environment.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:46
Yeah, absolutely.

Benjamin Hardy 09:47
And so anyways, he's still sometimes hits these walls where I think he's got this like fixed mindset where as soon as an obstacle comes, he just zones into his learned helplessness but we're trying to get him to write in his journal more because his teachers, we have him at Montessori school, we've got all three of them in Montessori, which is awesome for them. But they're saying that his writing is still way behind. That's one thing he avoids. So we're trying to get him to start writing in his journal, and we give him a topic. And a few nights, it was probably a week or two ago, at this point, probably two weeks, he was sitting there trying to write in his journal, and we gave him the topic of just writing about the seven months he was in the group home. And he had only written about two or three sentences. And then he just said, "I can't remember anything else." And I was kind of just sitting there, and I was kind of in proximity to him, I was sitting next to him, but I was kind of just zoned out whether on my phone or something, just while he was writing. And he kept just complaining, saying, "I can't think of anything else." And I'm just like, "Alright, Caleb. Like, you were there for seven months, like, what kind of food did you eat? Like, who are the kids there?" He's like, "I don't remember anyone that was there." I'm like, "What kind of stuff did you do? Like, what did you like about it? What did you not like? What were some of the activities you did?" He just, like, "I can't remember any of it." And he's just start crying and just coming up with any excuse to not do it. One of the challenges, I think, with kind of like, a willpower approach to growth is, like, when a parent just says, like, "You just need to do this." And for me, the opposite of willpower is connection, just like the opposite of addiction is connection. So like, rather than trying to force this kid to do something, and staying aside and staying withdrawn, it's like I needed to connect to him, I needed to sit, help him have a break through. So I put my phone down, we walked over the table, I pulled out my journal, and I just sat with him for like 30 minutes and really, like tried to help him and he needed a little help getting through those first few sentences. I had to help him more than I wanted to get through a couple sentences, but eventually he started to kind of just get a little confidence. You know, there's a lot of research that says, "It's not confidence that create success, but it's success that creates confidence." Little wins move you forward. And so, like, I helped him get a few little wins, helped him get a few sentences, and I was sitting there with him fully engaged. And eventually he started writing. And he just started writing, and 30 minutes later, he had a full page done. And he was so excited. And he did something he didn't think he could do, he did something hard, and I was there to help him have that breakthrough. And ever since then he's been able to write easily a page a day. And that's kind of what he needs to do to get better at writing. But that experience showed me a lot of things. One, it showed me that I've spent a lot of time away lately, trying to do this book launch, trying to build my career, and I realized how many opportunities I've probably missed. And like the fact that, you know, that breakthrough probably could have been, should have happened six months ago, and where could he be, but also, had I not been there, that breakthrough still wouldn't have happened, you know, and he would still be blocked in. So it just shows the power of environment and connection and people. And it made me really, ultimately grateful that I have this situation around me that it forces me, it's like, what I call it as a personal development hub. Being a parent of these kids, like every day, my home environment challenges me to be more present, figure out how to help these people. So that was a really long way of kind of sharing what I've gotten out of this experience.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:47
Well, let me ask you a couple questions about that. First of all, everything about it, in some way, is traumatic. So I'm curious, as you're very much into personal development, very much into psychology, so I'm curious, what you feel the opportunities are here for yourself, and for the kids to experience post traumatic growth? And, as you said, that built in hub, to some degree, where you've got the force discomfort, force development and a lot of other, what can seem on the surface undesirable situations, but I also think are continually forcing you and them to grow as human beings too. But I'm curious, from your perspective, what do you really see as the overall opportunities to take these traumatic situations, potentially traumatic situations, very traumatic situations, in some cases, and experience that growth from it?

Benjamin Hardy 13:39
Yeah, I mean, one of my favorite quotes, and it's actually a poem. The poem is by Douglas Malloch. And I actually have kind of like engraving of this on the wall in my house, but it's, "Good timber does not grow with ease, the stronger wind, the stronger trees, the further sky, the greater length, the more the storm, the more the strength, by sun and cold by rain and snow and trees and men good timbers grow." And so it's kind of the idea that, if you look at trees, the ones that are really strong are strong because of the environment around them. Whether it's rough terrain and stuff, they've got to shoot for deep roots, they've got to like, you know, evolved to have intense park, whatever it is, like trees that are in easy conditions can easily be blown over. And so for me, it's very desirable. And there's a high level of meaning, you know, from a philosophical perspective, it's the difference between what people would call "hedonistic perspective" versus "eudaimonic". The hedonistic perspective is to avoid pain and to seek pleasure which is really what sadly most of psychology, even positive psychology is rooted in. I talked about that a little bit in the book, it’s just, most people think that only positive emotions are what create positive outcomes. And from a eudaimonic perspective, which is a lot more in line with things like, you know, religion or things like stoicism, things like that. Usually, it's the most challenging things that lead to the greatest growth, which, when you say it, it seems so obvious, but most people, you know, are buying into this hedonistic perspective, which is to avoid pain. And in my opinion, that's what suppresses it. That's what keeps you stuck and frozen. And so for me, it's not like, well, one of the things I've recently had a big epiphany on, I recently reread "The Alchemist" and at the beginning of the book, the boy in the book– I don't know if you've read it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:18
I haven't read "The Alchemist", I've had recommended to me a number of times, and I haven't moved it up far enough on my priority list to read it yet. So...

Benjamin Hardy 15:27
It's such a short book. Oh, yeah. It's like probably a two hour read if you listen to it on an audio book.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:32
Oh, perfect.

Benjamin Hardy 15:32
But in the beginning of the book, there's this boy who wants to be a shepherd, and he wants to go out and travel the world. And his father's trying to convince him not to do it. And ultimately, kind of the point that his father actually had always wanted to travel the world as well, but he ended up living his life struggling day to day just to kind of stay where he was. And kind of the big concept is, whether you're pursuing your dreams, or whether you're pursuing mediocrity, it's actually just as challenging. It's not easy to not pursue your dreams. It's not easy to just live day to day, like you still have to get up, go to work, you still have to make a living, you still have to grind through the day. It's never easy. It's always a struggle, whichever path you choose. But one path actually makes, it's a difference between paying rent versus investing big. Either way, you've got to like, pay rent, or you either way you got to pay for where you live. But the difference between one is that you're continually advancing forward versus the other one where you're just kind of staying stuck.

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:28
So let me ask you about that really quick, because I fully believe that to be true, and that's what I have experienced, but I'm not sure that everybody really understands the difference between that, in terms of, they are different, both are hard. But what is the difference between hardness if you will? I'm making up words here.

Benjamin Hardy 16:49
Yeah, I mean, I think obviously, the hardness of not doing what you believe you should is primarily internal conflict and regret. You know, I mean, you've got this conflict, this belief of what could have been, what should have been, whereas when you're advancing forward, obviously, there's lots of highs and lows– you go through big wins, you go through big failures. I mean, even myself, yesterday, I wrote an article about failure. And it's doing extremely well on medium right now, actually. But I invested almost everything, like literally, I over invested myself in the book launch that just occurred for "Willpower Doesn't Work." And it didn't end up hitting the New York Times list, it hit none of the lists, even though it had the numbers because of a few of the mistakes I made. But I don't really regret having almost invested, like, literally, I made a bunch of money and invested all of it into this launch, freaked my wife out, and I look back, and I learned a lot, I'm not going to make the same mistakes again, but I don't regret it. And I've learned a ton and advanced and a lot of ways as the process of going through this huge failure. And a lot of people would not consider it a failure. To me, it was a huge failure. And I think one of the beauties of failure is that it kind of wakes you up, especially like, if you fail in such a way that, I'm kind of thinking about the movie, The Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith. I don't know if you've seen that one.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:02
I have.

Benjamin Hardy 18:03
You know, where he's sitting in the bathroom, like with his kid laying on the ground, and he's crying. Anyway, and he's just, like, hit rock bottom. I think that feeling where you have to like figure things out, or else, like there's big consequences for you and your loved ones. And it's not, like, people talk about failure, I published 20 blogs, and no one saw them. And I think the failure that I'm talking about is where you really put everything into it, and if you don't figure something out, like you might be on the streets. Obviously, that most people they've got family and stuff to support, but I think feeling that pain, and that you never want to feel what you feel again, and then just obviously the big wins and learning from other people. So I think that the difference of pain is different when you're growing. But in my opinion, you're happiest when you're growing. And even when you're losing along the way, you're being congruent with yourself, and you're figuring things out and you're living in alignment. So I think that that's kind of the big difference– it's either you're in alignment, even if you don't necessarily know where you're going. It's kind of like when the "why" is strong enough, you'll figure out "how" but the opposite is just the pain of never really being in your power because you're never fully aligned with yourself. And so all of your relationships are kind of weak, and you're, kind of, you're unhealthy mentally, physically, spiritually relationally like everything in your life is kind of not really that real, even if life seems okay.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:21
You know what, I have done it both ways. And that's how we ended up with this show. And that's how we ended up with this company and everything else, experiencing it on both sides. I think actually, in some ways, even though it's harder, at least for me as a person, it's much harder, it's more intense work, it's harder in some ways, I feel much more at peace, probably is the best way to put it. I'm struggling for words a bit in order to describe it. But when you're putting everything into something, and even if you're going through the roller coaster of it being the success and less success or book launch failures or whatever it might be in anybody's world, it still feels easier in some ways. It still feels more, and I think it is that alignment that you're talking about.

Benjamin Hardy 20:08
Yeah, no. I'm with you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 20:09
Yeah. Well, let me ask you another question. Let's go back to the Will Smith situation for just a second here. So not everybody necessarily is forced to figure things out. Not everybody is in that situation where they absolutely have to, or else, essentially. And I've become fascinated over the last few years with the idea of creating those stakes or creating those situations to essentially force you without having to hit rock bottom or without having to have that and reproduce that potential situation. So one of the things that you mentioned in the book is talking about how to proactively shape your environment for success. And you talk about the concept of creating layers of accountability. So one, curious if you can define that a little bit and how you think about that. And also explain a little bit about how people can get started doing that.

Benjamin Hardy 21:02
Yeah, absolutely. So there's a quote, I put in the beginning of the book, and it's from William Durant, the historian, and he basically says that, "Genius is basically a product of rising up to a demanding situation, and that the ability of the average person could be doubled if their situation demanded it." And so there's an idea in psychology called the Pygmalion effect, where basically, a person rises up or falls to the expectations of those around them. And then it just dovetails into the quote from Jim Rohn, that "you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with." So basically, this whole idea of creating situations that demand you to rise up. In the book, I call them, "enriched environments", you know, either you have an enriched environment of high stress, and then you've got one of high recovery. And in order to be in an enriched environment, you must be fully engaged, fully absorbed in what you're doing, non distracted. And in order for that to happen in a high stress environment, or high stakes environment, there's got to be some form of accountability for what you do. I actually quoted the book, "The Millionaire Next Door", where the two researchers, they did all this huge scale study. And they found that the people who are most affluent and successful are the ones with the most courage. And those with courage are the ones that get paid based on performance, it's incentive based. If they don't show up and don't produce results, they don't get paid, whether you're a CEO, or an entrepreneur, or just someone who gets paid based on the work you do. So in the book, I also talked about commitment about what commitment is, and in order to actually have true commitment, you're not relying on willpower, you're not just relying on your own internal strength, but you're actually true commitment involves creating external defense systems around your goal or around your commitment, you have to create conditions that make your goal happen. So if you're really committed to something, you're willing to do whatever it takes to make that thing happen. Part one would be removing everything in your environment that actually conflicts with that commitment. Part two would be, I think, embedding several layers of accountability around it to ensure that you're there. You want other people invested in you, and in your results as well, you know, whether that's hiring a personal trainer, or whether that's being in competition with someone, or whether that's investing in mentorships, or other types of relationships. If you don't have someone that's accounting, that is also counting on you to produce results, and who is continually following up with you and checking in with you and who's calling you out when you're not showing up, if you don't have those types of people or situations in your environment, then you're probably not moving forward as much as you can, you know, it's just an example. Like, my book didn't do what I wanted it to do. And I was on the phone with my agent today talking about it, you know, and talking about what we need to do next, like, I'm very accountable to her, she's accountable to me, I'm accountable to my publisher, like, that's kind of just the situation I've put myself in, I'm also accountable to my wife and kids, you know, and like, I have 750 clients who are in a course of mine, that if I don't show up and create stuff every week, like, literally lose everything. And so I think that it's just one of the things that they talked about that's a flow trigger, is that you get feedback immediately based on your performance. And in the book, I talked about context based learning, which is more real world style learning, where you get immediate feedback on your performance, then you get coaching, and you'll get help to kind of show you where you went wrong and how you can quickly course correct.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:18
So hold on. Let me ask you about that for just a second. Because I mean, I get that and the example that you provided in terms of, we've created a lot of courses and a lot of programs over the years and things like that. In those situations, it's relatively easy to be able to force to show up and get feedback and get contacts and everything else. But what's a different example of that for somebody who is in a different situation that is not necessarily an entrepreneur or author or something else? What can somebody do in their everyday lives?

Benjamin Hardy 24:48
Yeah, I'm just thinking about like any person, you know, whose job is not highly demanding, and whose life isn't forcing them to kind of show up, which I would say, is most people actually. Most people don't have an enriched environment. Their work isn't requiring them to show up every single day and show up. They still have to come and they've got to do their job, but it's okay if they spend half their time distracted either on their phone or on the internet, like, and then at home, you know, they're pre distracted as well, they never actually fully rest and recover, they don't prioritize, like weeks off or focus days or just being home. But I think that the first thing that I talked about in the book to kind of creating these things is to start investing in something. You know, like, you have to proactively seek the changes you want, and one of the best ways to get increased commitment is to start investing actual money into whatever it is you're trying to develop. So you could still stay in your job, but if on the side, you know, you're investing in advancing your education or skills, or even if you're seeking greater responsibility, or even if you have projects assigned to you, and you're telling your manager, whoever it is, that you'll have them to them at a sooner date, you know, you're setting shorter timelines to kind of create a little bit of external pressure. Or if you're asking how you can get paid in an incentive based way. And one of the things that Greg McKeown talks about in `Essentialism` is actually having conversations with your superiors about the types of projects you think you should be working on. And telling them, actually, like, trying to set up the conditions in your workspace where you're working in the way you want to, where you're working on what you want to, and setting up the expectation that they're not just going to throw stuff at you, but they're going to actually give you stuff that's meaningful, because you're expected to show up. And so I think some situations literally will never allow for it, you know, like some jobs are just, you just have to show up. I mean, you can try to, like, rise your way up the ladder, but the world is becoming more freelancer based and entrepreneurial. And so the sooner that more people kind of recognize that fact, and I think a lot of the people who are listening to this show probably already kind of have inclinations that they want to do more and be more, it doesn't mean they can't work for someone else. But the best thing you can do is put yourself in a situation where you're trying things you've never done before, where you're forced to adapt and learn things. And the truth is just a lot of jobs can't allow for that. Some jobs will, if you start showing up more proactive, if you ask for more opportunities, if you start actually producing a result faster, and showing up and then asking for more responsibility. I don't really have a clear cut answer, sadly, I'm just thinking about your environment. That's what mindfulness actually is, it's just being aware of the context and being aware of how you're showing up in that environment. And if your job's not demanding a lot of you right now, you know, or if your life isn't, "how can you make that?" So, I mean, what can you remove that's kind of keeping you stuck? And how can you take on greater responsibility with what you've currently got? Go have a conversation with your boss and tell them that you're not being challenged. Tell them you either want different or harder or more different, whatever it is, work, or start pursuing something on the side, you know, if you've got some side project that you want to do, start investing in those skills and abilities, start investing in whatever it is you "really want to be doing" once you get invested, you become committed, it's this idea of sunk cost bias where, once you have ownership over something, you start to wrap your identity around it, and that can often be a negative thing. But I also think it's a very positive thing if you're intentional about it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 28:14
The sunk cost bias. I want to go back to that for just a second. Because I think that is so fascinating by itself. Because in reality, logically, if you're talking to an economist, or somebody who is not looking at the emotional side of it at all, then sunk costs really don't matter that much. But it doesn't feel that way, in any way whatsoever. So I love some of the things that you have talked about, and I've leveraged this heavily over the last 10 years. When you have sunk cost, you feel some kind of obligation. I don't know if that's the right word for it, necessarily, but you definitely feel something and you can leverage that to your advantage. And I'm super curious, what you recommend for people that are... most of the people that are listening right now are in the place where they want to make a change. And a lot of times what is stopping them is the perception of time, the perception of what it's actually going to take to be able to make the type of change that they desire, change from one career to a completely different career, one career to start in the side hustle, lots of different things along those lines. But what would you recommend? How can they leverage that sunk cost bias?

Benjamin Hardy 29:27
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's precisely what I've been studying throughout my doctoral dissertation, or really my whole doctoral degree. I've studied the difference between wannabe entrepreneurs versus actual entrepreneurs, but really, I just defined it as dreamers versus doers– doesn't have to be in the entrepreneurial spirit, could be with anything. It's living a dream. What it's really, just doing what you want to do versus always kind of wondering if you're going to do it never actually acting and it really does go back to this concept of, once a person starts investing money into whatever it is they want to do– whether it's their health or whether it's mentorship or whether it's a relationship– once you start investing money in it, then you start to get more invested and it goes back to sunk cost idea. Another kind of way of describing it is escalation of commitment. But what's interesting is again, in my reading of "The Alchemists", the young boy in the story, he's trying to decide if he wants to go and kind of like, live out his life purpose, and he meets this African king. And so the boy already was told, and he already had this impression that he needs to go to the pyramids in Egypt, because that's where his "treasure" is, he needs to go there. And he meets this African king, and the African king says, "I will tell you where your treasure is, but it's going to cost you 1/10 of your flock", because this boy was a shepherd. And he had 60 sheep. And so the boy decided he would do it. So he gave the king six of his sheep, which was 1/10. And the king said, "Alright, so you've paid me 1/10 of your sheep. Now, I'll tell you where your treasure is, it's actually at the pyramids in Egypt. You already knew that, however, I had you pay me 1/10 of your sheep, so that you would make the decision." And it's just this idea of, there's something like really powerful in starting to invest, and there's different angles, whether it's donating to charity, or whether it's just investing money in your own skills and abilities or relationship, but once you start putting money towards causes that you believe in or towards skills or towards goals, you start to have this shift in identity, you start to be less, I guess the word would be scarcity minded, but you stop holding on so tightly to what you have, you start to have a healthy level of detachment, and you're willing to give up what you've got for what you want, and on a subconscious or psychological level. There's a really good book called "Letting Go" from Dr. David Hawkins. It's one of my favorite books. And one of the things he says in that book is, "the unconscious will allow you to have only what you believe you deserve." And so if you look at a person's life, generally, it's a product of their subconscious belief systems value standards, which are then conditioned over and over and over by their environment, because almost all behavior is subconscious. And it's all outsourced or triggered by the environment. And so the environment holds the person together. And in order to shatter your subconscious belief system, about what you can have, what you can be what you can do, or what you believe you deserve, once you start investing money in that thing, and once you start reshaping the context or the environment, your brain starts to sync up with that which is around you, I don't know the exact term, but in neuroscience, your brain is so plastic. And basically what it says is or the research says is that, your brain, like, syncs subconsciously with the brains of the other people around you. There's a really good book called "Spontaneous Evolution" all about the collective unconscious.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:44
You're expanding my book list by the minute here. I love this.

Benjamin Hardy 32:48
You know, I'm sorry, I'm going so many directions and trying to pull all this together. But I just think zoning this back in, once you start investing money in what you want to do, you become committed, and you start to reshape your identity around that thing. And you also expand your perspective of this whole scarcity versus abundance mentality. So there's a quote from the "One Minute Millionaire", which is a good book. But basically, the quote goes like this "Giving as you get acknowledges the universe as truly abundant. Giving taps into the spiritual dimension that multiplies us, our thinking and our results, there's an ocean of abundance, and one can tap into it with a teaspoon, a bucket or a tractor trailer, the ocean doesn't care. And so I think what happens when you start being less stringent about what you have, you're willing to give it but also you're willing to invest it, you have the ability to expand. And obviously, you need to be wise and intelligent about this. But from a very simple perspective, it just allows you to get committed this whole idea of sunk cost bias, once you start investing, you become committed, and you start to reshape your identity around that thing, you start going from seeing yourself as I want to do this thing to seeing yourself as "I'm doing this thing." And there's an idea in psychology called "Self Signaling", which basically means that how you define yourself is based on your behavior. So when you start changing your behavior, you start changing how you perceive yourself, which is really cool, because basically what it means is that it's not your personality that guides your behavior, but it's your behavior that creates and guide your personality. It's not your personality that determines who you are, it's what you do that determines what your personality is. So you're very fluid. You know, that's one of the ideas I tried to heavily convey in the book is that Western culture has very limiting and fixed views of what people are because they ignore context. And because you ignore context, you isolate variables, and you isolate people and you put them in a box and you say, "This is what you are. You've got this personality type. This is what we love. Like, we love that stuff. And we ignore context, we ignore environment." But once you actually recognize environment, which is really the definition of mindfulness, you realize that who you are in one situation is different from who you are in a different situation. And that once you start to create the context of the environment that you can actually design yourself, and that's really what Darwin said all along.

Scott Anthony Barlow 35:02
In what way?

Benjamin Hardy 35:03
Well, he said that there's two types of evolution. He said, there's domestic evolution and then there's natural evolution. And natural evolution is the type of evolution that occurs out in nature when the environment shifts, the species within that environment respond to the shifts. And so it's reactive and unplanned process, whereas a domesticated style of evolution, is where you've specifically shaped external... can create external constraints or variables to seek a specific result. So if you want to have small mushrooms, for example, you've shaped the type of soil and the lighting and stuff like that or if you want a big mushroom, you'd have to change those variables. If you want a fast horse, you do X. If you want a big horse, you do Y. It's just this idea of shaping traits. And there's a really good book, another one called "Altered Traits", you know, the science of how to reshape your biology and psychology. That's kind of where neuroscience and epigenetics are going. But, and then I'll just kind of give this last quote, because probably, this was a big mess of ideas, but Marshall Goldsmith said in triggers, "You do not control your environment, your environment creates and controls you." So all of this is really just around the idea of when you start investing in yourself, you change your identity, you change your psychology, but you also change your environment.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:12
But here's what I absolutely love about it, and we went a lot of different places. And I really very much enjoyed, not just in the book, but our discussion, particularly about how you have control in a lot of places where people don't perceive that they have control, or at least you have influence if you do not have control. And your environment is one of the places that I see so often that people don't think they necessarily can influence it in the way that we're talking about here. And everything that you've discussed, is ways to be able to influence that. And I so appreciate that. And let's see if we can spread that message far and wide

Benjamin Hardy 36:54
Awesome, man. Well, I appreciate you having me on the show. And yeah, this has come at me differently today than, you know, it often does. But it was a lot more, kind of, fluid. But yeah, I mean, if you just look at what's around you, you have to realize that that's what's shaping you. What you put in your body food wise, what information you can see, what type of music you've listened to, what kind of people you listen, I mean, what kind of people you're around, like all of those things are outside of you. Everything, you are in an environment as we speak, wherever you are, whoever's listening to this, like you're in your car, you're at a house like that is influencing your inner world, you know, and so once you start to really think about that, you start to think, "Okay, if I shaped what's outside of me, then I shape what's inside of me. Then I shape who I am and who I become." And that's exactly what Winston Churchill said, he said, "we build our house, and then our house builds us."

Scott Anthony Barlow 37:41
I've never heard that quote. I've heard a lot of Winston Churchill quotes. I love that. That is fantastic.

Benjamin Hardy 37:46
Yeah. So I just think, in my opinion, that's kind of where freewill really comes in. It's not free will or determinism, it's not choice or environment, we all have the ability to make choices. But what you need to make the choice of is which environment is going to shape you because the environment will shape you. So you just need to make the choice, who do I want to become? And what environment will create that? That's kind of the essence of the book and how I've come to, kind of, portray it.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:10
Well, the book is "Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success". And I so appreciate you sharing the messages that you are, I think there's something that needs to be spread far and wide. Because unfortunately, they are not yet popular belief. But that's why we have you on the show today. And that is what I'm so appreciative for you making the time and taking the time to come on and share them with us and our audience.

Benjamin Hardy 38:34
Oh, absolutely, Scott. This has been fun, man.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:36
Where can people find out either about you or where can people get the book?

Benjamin Hardy 38:42
Yeah. So, you can obviously get the book anywhere books are sold– Amazon, Barnes and Noble, independent bookstores. If you want to, you know, depending on when you hear this engage in a competition, right now you can just go to willpowerdoesntwork.com. And right now we've kind of tried to gamify the opportunity people have to learn this book. And basically what the competition is, you can sign up for free, but then you've got to buy the book, read the book, and then change your life in one of four categories, whether that's income, health, side project or addiction. And then by June 6th of 2018, you submit just a small, you know, essay, like, a page long of how you've transformed your life. And you've got to provide some evidence that you've actually done that. And the person who changes their life the most by June, will actually win a Tesla.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:30
You heard it here first. Win a Tesla. And that's not the most exciting part, any changes that are going to come from you making them in your life are probably much more beneficial than any Tesla but there's a Tesla too, so nothing wrong with that. Love it. Why not?

Benjamin Hardy 39:46
Yeah, why not? You know what I mean? No, it's about incentivizing it. But, yeah, so there's that going on. So just willpowerdoesntwork.com or if that's not interesting to you, just go grab the book, you know, anywhere on Amazon or Barnes, wherever.

Scott Anthony Barlow 39:58
If you want more on using your environment to change your life, check out "Willpower Doesn't Work", or if you've been particularly struggling with perfectionism or the imposter syndrome, and those are holding you back, one of the things we consistently do with our students is help them create a plan for inevitable success, which involves stacking everything you can possibly get in your favor.

Speaker 2 40:21
The prospect of trying something new that, understandably, you might not be that good at, because you're a beginner, it's at best, really uncomfortable for us. And at worst, the fear of failure prevents us from even taking those steps.

Scott Anthony Barlow 40:39
Join us next week right here on Happen To Your Career to learn how to take what we taught you today and use it to set yourself up so that you can't fail and you can move past perfectionism and imposter syndrome. See you next Monday, right here on Happen To Your Career. And by the way, if you're listening to this from the UK, we've actually set up a HTYC camp right now in the UK. Myself, Alyssa, my kids, we're actually living over here for about a month. We'd love to meet you and be able to get to know you if you're a listener of the podcast. If you're in the area, or even if you want us to come to your area, drop us an email at hello@happentoyourcareer.com and we can send you info on the events and meetups we've got going on in the UK or when we come to your area. Until then, head on over to happentoyourcareer.com/225 to download the transcript, see the steps that we talked about during this episode, like how to use sunk cost to your psychological advantage and sign up for all of our other free resources. All right, we'll see you next week. Adios. I'm out.