The Diary of a CEO Full Audiobook (Part 1)

Steven Bartlett the Dairy of a CEO the 33 laws of business and life dedicated to everyone that listens to and watches the Diary of a CEO thank you for allowing us to live the greatest dream we never had introduction who am I to write this book I've been the CEO founder co-founder or board member of four industry-leading companies that collectively at their peaks reached to Cumulative valuation of more than $1 billion I'm currently the founder of flight story an Innovative marketing agency third web a software company and an investment fund called flight fund my companies

have employed thousands of people in every corner of the world I've raised almost $100 million of investment for my companies I'm an investor in more than 40 companies I'm on the board of four companies two of which are currently at The Forefront of their respective Industries and I'm 30 years old being the founder of two successful marketing groups that have risen to the top of their industry within their Market has meant that I spend much of my professional life in boardrooms working with and Advising the CEOs CMOS and leaders of the biggest brands in the

world on how to do marketing and how to tell their story online Uber Apple Coca-Cola Nike Amazon Tik Tok Logitech You name it they have been my clients additionally I've spent the last four years intervie interviewing the world's most successful individuals from business Sports entertainment and Academia I have 700 hours of recordings where I've interviewed your favorite authors actors and CMOS the world's leading neuroscientists the captain of your favorite sports team the manager of your favorite sports team the CEOs of the billion-dollar companies you Use every day and more of the world's leading psychologists than

I could possibly name I published these conversations in the form of a podcast called The Diary of a CEO and that podcast quickly became the most downloaded podcast here in Europe and one of the top business podcasts in the USA Ireland Australia and the Middle East it is arguably one of the fastest growing podcasts in the world right now increasing its listenership by 825 per Or last year alone I've been lucky enough to be exposed to some unique experiences and a few years ago it dawned on me how much valuable and Powerful information I've gained

and only a handful of people on earth have access to that information I also realized that at the very heart of all the success and failure I've seen both in my own entrepreneurial journey and the hundreds of interviews I've conducted were a set of laws that could Stand the test of time transfer to any industry and be used by anyone who is trying to build something great or become someone great this is not a book about business strategy strategy changes like the seasons this is a book about something much more permanent this is a book

about about the fundamental enduring laws of building great things and becoming great yourself these laws can be used by anyone regardless of your industry or Occupation these laws will work now or 100 years from now these laws are rooted in Psychology science and centuries of research and to further validate these laws I surveyed tens of thousands of people across every continent every age group and every profession the design of this book is based on five core beliefs I believe most books are longer than they need to be I believe most books are more complicated than

they need to be I believe pictures paint a Thousand words I believe stories are more powerful than death but both are important I believe in nuance and that the truth is often somewhere in the middle in short it aims to embody a quote often attributed to Einstein everything should be as simple as possible but not simpler to me this means giving you the fun mental truth and understanding of each law in the exact number of words necessary to do so no less no more and Using powerful imagery and incredible real stories to bring the key

points to life the four pillars of greatness becoming great and building great things requires Mastery within four pillars I call these the four pillars of greatness pillar I the self as Leonardo da Vinci asserted one can have no smaller or greater Mastery than Mastery of oneself you will never have a greater or lesser Dominion than that over Yourself the height of your success is gauged by your self-mastery the depth of your failure by your self-abandonment those who cannot establish dominion over themselves will have no dominion over others this pillar is about you your self-awareness self-control

self-care self-conduct self-esteem and self- Story the self is the only thing we have direct control over to master it which is no easy task is to master your entire world pillar two the story everything That stands in your way is a human science psychology and history have shown that there is no graph data or information that stands a greater chance of positively influencing those humans than a truly great story stories are the single most powerful weapon any leader can arm themselves with they are the currency of humanity those who tell captivating inspiring emotional stories rule

the world this pillar is about storytelling and how to harness the laws Of Storytelling to persuade the humans that stand in your way to follow you to buy from you to believe you to trust you to click to act to hear you and to understand you pillar three the philosophy in business Sports and Academia an individual's personal philosophies are the single biggest predictors of how they'll behave now and in the future if you know someone's philosophy or beliefs you can accurately forecast how they'll behave in any Situation this pillar is about the personal and professional

philosophies that great people believe and live by and how those philosophies result in behavior that leads to Greatness your philosophy is the set of beliefs values or principles that guide your behavior they are the fundamental beliefs that underpin your actions pillar four the team the definition of the word company is group of people at its Essence every company Project or organization is just a group of people everything the organization produces good or bad originates from the minds of the members of your group of people the most important success factor in your work is who you

choose to work with I've never seen anyone build a great company project or organization without a group of people and I've never seen anyone reach personal greatness without the support of a group of people this pillar is about how to assemble and Get the best out of your group of people assembling any group of people is not enough for your group of people to become a truly great team you need the right people bound together by the right culture when you have great people Bound by a great culture the whole team becomes greater than the

sum of its parts when 1 + 1 equals 3 great things happen pillar ey the self law one fill your five buckets in the right order this law explains the five buckets that Determine your human potential how to fill them and crucially in which order you should fill them my friend Dave David was in the front garden of his home enjoying his morning espresso as a sweaty confused looking panting man in tired Jim attire jugged towards him slowly the jogging man paused in his stride and greeted my friend David as he struggled to catch his

breath he cracked an unintelligible joke appeared to laugh frantically at it then began erratically Talking about the spaceship he was building the microchips he was going to put in monkeyy brains and the AI powered house robots he was going to create moments later the jogging man said goodbye to David and continued his slow sweaty trudge down the street that sweaty jogging man was Elon Musk billionaire founder of Tesla SpaceX neuralink open AI PayPal zip 2 and the boring company before I revealed the identity Of the sweaty jogging man you may have understandably assumed he was

an escapee of the local psychiatric facility or suffering from some psychotic break but once you heard His Name all those extraordin AR aforementioned Ambitions suddenly became believable so believable in fact that when Elon tells the world of his Ambitions people will blindly give billions of dollars of their children's inheritance to Back Him they'll quit Their jobs and relocate to work for him and they'll pre-order his products before he's even created them this is because Elon has filled his five buckets in fact all of the people I've met that possess the power to build truly great

things have five brimming buckets the sum of these five buckets is the sum of your professional potential the fullness of these buckets will determine how big believable and achievable your dreams are to you and to Those that hear them those that achieve great things have spent years often decades pouring into these five buckets someone fortunate enough to have five full buckets has all the potential needed to change the world when you seeking employment selecting the next book you want to read or deciding what dream to pursue you must be aware of how full your buckets

are the five buckets what you know your knowledge what you can do your Skills who you know your network what you have your resources what the world thinks of you your reputation at the start of my career as an 18-year-old startup founder I was haunted by a moral question that I couldn't seem to shake is focusing my time and energy on building a company which would ultimately enrich me a more noble Pursuit than going back to where was born in Africa and investing my time And energy in Saving even one life this question remained at

the front of my mind for several years until one chance encounter in New York granted me some much needed Clarity I attended an event hosted by renoth Swami a world-renowned guru Monk and spiritual leader at an event he was holding in New York as I squeezed in among a sea of the Swami's mesmerized followers who were star-eyed and hanging on to his every word in a perfectly still appreciative silence the Guru asked if anyone in the crowd had a question for him I raised my hand the guru gestured at me to deliver my question I

asked is building a business and enriching myself a more noble Pursuit than going back to Africa to try and save lives the guru stared at me as if he could see into the depths of my soul and after a long blinkist pause he proclaimed you cannot pour from empty buckets almost a decade on from that moment it's never been clearer what the Guru meant he was telling me to focus on filling my own buckets because someone with full buckets can positively bend the world in any way he or she desires having now built several large

companies worked with the biggest organizations in the world become a multi-millionaire managed thousands of people read hundreds of books and spent 700 hours interviewing the world's most successful people my buckets are Sufficiently full because of this I now possess the knowledge skills network resources and reputation to help millions of people all over the world which is exactly what I intend to spend the rest of my life doing through my philanthropic work the donations I make the organizations I create the media companies I build and the school I'm working to launch these five buckets are interconnected

filling one helps to fill Another and they are generally filled in order from left to right we usually start our professional life acquiring knowledge school University Etc and when this knowledge is applied we call it a skill when you have Knowledge and Skills you become professionally valuable to others and your network grows consequently when you have knowledge skills and a network your access to resources expands and once you have knowledge skills a valuable Network and Resources you will undoubtedly earn a reputation with these five buckets and their interconnected relationship in mind it's clear that an

investment in the first bucket knowledge is the highest yielding investment you can make because when that knowledge is applied skill it inevitably Cascades to fill your remaining buckets if you truly understand this you'll understand that a job that pays you slightly more cash resources but Gives you far less knowledge and fewer skills is a lower paying job the force that clouds our ability to act upon this logic is usually ego our ego has an incredible ability to persuade us to skip the first two buckets convincing us to take a job simply for more money bucket

four or a job title status or reputation bucket five without the knowledge bucket one or skills bucket two to succeed in that role when we succumb to this temptation we're Building our career on weak foundations these short-term decisions your inability to delay your gratification be patient and invest in your first two buckets will ultimately catch up with you in 2017 a very talented 21-year-old employee called Richard walked into my office and told me he had some news to share with me he told me that he had been offered a job as CEO of a new

marketing company halfway across the World and that he wanted to leave my company where he had been flourishing to take it he told me the role offered him an enormous pay rise almost double what we paid him an equity package and a chance to live in New York City a far cry from the dreary Village he was raised in an inapparent step up from Manchester England where he worked for my company to be totally Frank I didn't believe him I couldn't fathom that a legitimate business would offer a junior Employee with no management experience such

a prominent role nonetheless I accepted his claims and told him that we would support him in his transition out of our company it turns out I was wrong Richard was telling the truth the job offer did exist and a month later he became CEO of the company moved to New York and started his new life as a seae executive in the Big Apple leading a team of more than 20 people in a rapidly growing marketing start up unfortunately That is not where the story ends as life would come to teach both me and Richard there

is no skipping the first two buckets of Knowledge and Skills if you're playing for long-term sustainable results any attempt to do so is equivalent to building your house on Sand within 18 months the once promising company Richard had joined had gone under lost its key employees run out of money and become shrouded in controversy relating to management practices after The company closed Richard was unemployed far from home and searching for a new more Junior role in the same industry that we had employed him in when deciding which path to take in life which job to

accept or where to invest your spare time remember that knowledge when applied skill is power priorities filling those first two buckets and your foundations will have the long-term sustainability you need to Prevail regardless of how life's tectonic plates Move and Shake beneath you I Define a professional earthquake as an unpredictable career event that adversely impacts you this could be anything a technological innovation that disrupts your whole industry being fired by your employer or if you're a Founder your company going under there are only two buckets that any such professional earthquake can never empty it can

take away your network it can take your resources it can even impact your Reputation but it can never remove your knowledge and it can never unlearn your skills these first two buckets are your longevity your foundation and the clearest predictor of your future the law fill your five buckets in the right order applied knowledge is skill and the more you can expand and apply your knowledge the more value you'll create in the world this value will be repaid in a growing Network abundant resources and a robust Reputation make sure you fill your buckets in the

right order those who hoard gold have riches for a moment those who hoard Knowledge and Skills have riches for a lifetime time true Prosperity is what you know and what you can do law two to master it you must create an obligation to teach it this law explains the simple technique that the world's most renowned intellectuals authors and philosophers used to become the masters of their craft and how you Can use it to develop any skill Master any topic and build an audience the story it felt like the entire population of planet Earth had gathered

to watch me melt on stage that evening but in reality it was just a handful of my fellow Secondary School pupils their parents and a few teachers I was 14 years old and had been tasked with saying a few closing remarks at my school's exam Awards evening as I walked out onto the stage the auditorium Fell into an anticipatory silence and there I stood Frozen terrified and mute for one of the longest minutes anyone has ever endured staring down at the trembling piece of paper clasped between my clammmy nervous hand on the verge of urinating

into my own underwear experiencing what people refer to as stage fright the script I had planned to deliver was shaking with such ferocity that I couldn't see the words eventually I blurted out some Improvised cliched nonsensical remarks before darting off stage and out of the door as if I were being followed by a firing squad fast forward 10 years from that traumatic day and I'm speaking on stage 50 weeks a year in every corner of the globe I'm headlining alongside Barack Obama in front front of tens of thousands in sa Paulo I'm speaking in soldout

arenas in Barcelona I'm touring the UK and speaking at festivals from Kiev to Texas to Milan the explanation I went from being a train wreck of a public speaker to rubbing shoulders with some of the very best to ever do it and there is one simple law that I credit with this transformation this law is not just responsible for my onstage composure performance and delivery my skills it's also the reason why I have something interesting to share while I'm on stage my knowledge I created an obligation to Teach the late spiritual leader Yogi ban once

said if you want to learn something read about it if you want to understand something write about it if you want to master something teach it at 21 years old I made a promise to myself that every day at 700 p.m. I would write a tweet or make a video delivering a single idea and then post it online at 8:00 p.m. of all the things done in my life to advance my Knowledge and Skills to fill my first two buckets this is the Thing that made the most difference it's no exaggeration to say that it

has completely changed the trajectory of my life and consequently it's the piece of advice I urge most strongly upon anyone looking to become a better thinker speaker writer or content creator the key factor here is that I made learning then writing SL recording and sharing it online a daily obligation not just an interest skin in the game soon after creating this obligation I Got feedback in the form of comments from my audience and analytics from the social platforms this helped me to improve and in turn created a community of people that were following me purely

for this daily idea this started as tens of people and almost 10 years later that Community has grown to almost 10 million followers across all channels from the first idea I shared I created a social contract with my audience essentially a social obligation To the people who were following me specifically for this daily idea which motivated me to continue posting and gave me something to lose their attention in my reputation if I stopped having something to lose is fundamentally what an obligation is and having something to lose is sometimes referred to as having skin in

the game skin in the game is an important psychological tool to harness if you want to accelerate your learning curve In any area of your life having skin in the game raises the stakes of your learning by building deeper psychological incentives to perform a behavior the skin can be anything from money to a personal public commitment you want to learn more about a specific company buy a few shares of the stock you want to learn about web 3.0 buy an nft if you want to be consistent in the gym make a WhatsApp group with your

friends where you share Your workouts every day in these three examples either monetary or social currency is at stake skin in the game works because across several Global Studies it's been demonstrated that human behavior is more strongly driven by the motivation to avoid losses than to pursue gains which is what scientists call loss aversion give yourself something to lose the Fineman technique revised so if you want to master something do it publicly and do it Consistently publishing your written ideas forces you to learn more often and to write more clearly publishing a video forces you

to improve your speaking skills and to articulate your thoughts sharing your ideas on stage teaches you how to hold an audience and tell captivating stories in any area of your life doing it in public and creating an obligation that forces you to do it consistently will lead you to Mastery one of the most valuable Elements of this obligation was having to distill any idea I wanted to share down to its 140 character Essence so that it could fit within the constraints of a tweet being able to simplify an idea and successfully share it with others

is both the path to understanding it in the proof that you do one of the ways we mask our lack of understanding of any idea is by using more words bigger words and less necessary words this challenge of simplifying an Idea to its Essence is often referred to as the Fineman technique named after the renowned American scientist Richard feineman feeman won a Nobel Prize in 1965 for his groundbreaking work in Quantum electrodynamics he had a gift for explaining the most complex baffling ideas in simple language that even even a child could understand I couldn't reduce

it to the Freshman level that means we really don't understand it Richard Fineman the Fineman technique is a powerful mental model for self-development it forces you to strip away unnecessary complexity distill a concept to its purest Essence and develop a rich in-depth understanding of whatever discipline you seek to master the findan technique follows a few key steps which I've simplified and updated based on my own learning experience step one learn first you must Identify the topic you want to understand research it thoroughly and grasp it from every direction step two teach it to a child

secondly you should write the idea down as if you were teaching it to a child use simple words fewer words and simple Concepts step three share it convey your idea to others post it online post it on your blog share it on St or even at the dinner table choose any medium where you'll get clear Feedback step four review review the feedback did people understand the concept from your explanation can they explain it to you after you've explained it to them if not go back to step one if they did move on as we look

over history this is the one thing that every great speaker renowned author and prominent intellectual I've ever encountered or interviewed has in common when Prospect magazine released their list of the top 100 Modern intellectuals every name on The list followed this law when I researched the pre-eminent philosophers from history every single one of them embodied and were often staunch Advocates of this law at some point in their life through intention or accident they had created an obligation to think write and share their ideas consistently whether it's leading modern authors like James Clear Malcolm Gladwell or

Simon sinck who write tweets online blogs and create social media Videos or ancient philosophers like Aristotle Plato and confucious who wrote on Papyrus Scrolls and spoke on stages they all abide by this crucial law all of them have created an obligation to teach and in turn they've become masters of both knowledge and delivery the person who learns the most in any classroom is the teacher James clear the law to master it you must create an obligation to teach it learn more simplify more and care more your Consistency will further your progress the feedback will refine

your skill and following this law will lead to Mastery you don't become a master because you are able to retain knowledge you become a master when you are able to release it law three you must never disagree this law will make you a master of communication negotiation conflict resolution winning arguments being heard and changing people's minds it also Explains why most of your your arguments are never productive the story for most of my childhood I witnessed my mother shouting heatedly at my father as he sat watching TV apparently completely oblivious to her presence these earpiercing

screaming marathons were like nothing I'd ever witnessed before and nothing I've witnessed since she could shout at him for five or 6 hours about the same thing using the same words without any Apparent reduction in volume or enthusiasm on occasion my father might try an you back for a brief moment and when he inevitably failed to land his rebuttal he would either continue to ignore her or flee to another part of the house lock himself in his bedroom or jump in the car and drive off it took me 20 years to realize that I'd learned

this exact conflict resolution strategy from him while I was lying in bed at 2 a.m. as my Angry girlfriend badgered me On repeat about something she was unhappy about I rebutted her with I disagree and attempted to make a convincing counterargument needless to say I failed like throwing petrol onto a bonfire she carried on shouting at me with increased volume making the same point using the exact same words eventually I got up and tried to leave and she followed me so I locked myself inside my walk-in wardrobe where I remained until almost 5:00 a.m. being

shouted at through the door about the same thing using the same words like a broken record player without any apparent reduction in volume or enthusiasm she's now my ex-girlfriend unsurprisingly that relationship didn't last the explanation the truth is in every interpersonal conflict in your life business romantic or platonic Communication is both the problem and the solution You can predict the long-term health of any relationship by whether each conflict makes the relationship stronger or weaker healthy conflict strengthens relationships because those involved are working against a problem healthy conflict weakens a relationship because those involved are working

against each other I sat down with taayi Shero professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London and MIT to understand what the science of the brain can teach us about the laws of effective communication and what she shared with me changed my personal life romantic relationships and business negotiations forever Shero and her team's study published in Nature Neuroscience recorded the brain activity of volunteers during dis agreements to find out what was happening inside their minds the experiment was based on asking 42 people grouped into pairs to make a financial evaluation each pair lay separated by

a glass wall in a brain Imaging scanner their reactions to the experiment were recorded they were shown pictures of real estate and asked individually within their pairs to guess its value and to place a bed on the accuracy of their valuation each volunteer was able to see the valuation of their partner on a screen when the couple agreed on evaluation They each placed higher bets on its accuracy and the researchers monitoring their brain activity saw their brains light up indicating that they were more cognitively receptive and open however if they disagreed about evaluation their brains

seemed to freeze and shut down causing them to turn off to the others opinion and value that opinion less shero's findings shed light on some recent Trends around contentious areas of political discourse an example being Climate change despite scientists presenting more and more irrefutable evidence over the last 10 years showing that climate change is man-made a survey conducted by the P Research Center indicates that the number of us Republicans who believe the scientific evidence has decreased in the same 10-year period Furious arguing regardless of evidence is clearly not working so here's what needs to be

done if we want to increase our chances of Being heard by someone on an opposing side according to Shero if you want to keep some one's brain lit up and receptive to your point of view you must not start your response with a statement of disagreement when you find yourself disagreeing with someone avoid the emotional Temptation at all costs to start your response with I disagree or you're wrong and instead introduce your rebuttal with what you have in common What you agree on and the parts of their argument that you can understand the strength of

any carefully reasoned logical argument isn't likely to be recognized when you open with disagreement regardless of how much evidence you have or how objectively correct you are instead if we start from a place of agreement of Common Ground we increase the chance that the strength of our arguments the accuracy of our logic and the weight of the evidence will be Received at all this third law to never disagree is the critical skill that will allow you to become an effective negotiator speaker salesperson business leader writer and partner when I interviewed Julian treasure the speaking and

communication coach whose Ted Talk has been viewed 100 million times and Paul Brunson the matchmaking and relationship expert known as the love doctor they both explained that the art of becoming a Great communicator conversationalist or partner is first listening so that the other person feels heard and then making sure you reply in a way that makes them feel understood ta Shero studies in Neuroscience now provide clear scientific evidence that shows why this approach of making someone feel heard and understood is so crucial in changing someone's mind it's no surprise that the people who are most

likely to change our Minds are the ones we agree with on 98 per Center of topics we feel that they fundamentally understand us so we're more open to listening to them the law you must never disagree in the midst of a negotiation debate or heated argument try and remember that the key to changing someone's mind is finding a shared belief or motive that will keep their brain open to your point of view our words should be bridg briges to Comprehension not barriers to connection disagree less understand more law four you do not get to choose

what you believe this law will teach you how to change any belief that you have whether that's your self-belief beliefs about others or beliefs about the world while also showing you how to change the stubborn beliefs of others think of someone that you absolutely love your mother your father your partner your dog the most important person or animal in Your life now visualize them tied to a chair being held at gunpoint by an aggressive terrorist now imagine that the terrorist says to you if you don't believe that I'm Jesus Christ right now I will pull

the trigger and kill them what do you do the truth is the most you could do is lie the most you could do is tell them that you believe their Jesus Christ in the hope that your loved one would be spared but you couldn't genuinely make Yourself believe it this thought experiment illuminates a profound and controversial point about the true nature of our beliefs in my hypothetical scenario when everything was on the line you still couldn't choose to believe something that you don't so what makes you think you can choose any of your beliefs to

investigate this concept further I surveyed 1,000 people and asked them all the following question do you think you choose your beliefs Incredibly 857 85.7% % of them said that they did on the next page of the survey when I asked people if they could genuinely believe a terrorist holding their loved one at gunpoint was Jesus Christ if it meant it would save their loved one's life 98 percenter of people admitted that they couldn't choose that belief the most they could do was Lie the fundamental beliefs you hold about yourself the fundamental beliefs you Hold about

others the fundamental beliefs you hold about the world you've chosen none of them when people hear this they tend to have a visceral negative reaction because it sounds disempowering and attacks our sense of Free Will control and Independence if I can't choose a belief how can I ever change a belief does that condemn me to the current beliefs I have about the world others and myself thankfully it doesn't your life Is a testament to the fact that your beliefs do continually change and evolve I'm assuming you don't still believe in Santa Claus Society to continues

to change its beliefs at an increasing speed in the 1700s people thought tobacco was healthy and doctors would blow tobacco smoke up the ARs of a drowned person in an attempt to revive them in the 1800s we believed clitoral orgasms were a sign of insanity and doctors would medically Treat people who had them as recently as the 1970s people believed space aliens were sending us coded messages by flattening our crops on farms in Middle America and medieval doctors pulled their cures out of their Ares literally poop was believed to be a cure for everything from

headaches to epilepsy thankfully beliefs change our brains consume a huge amount of energy and have therefore evolved strategies to preserve energy in order to survive Because one of the brain's main purposes is to predict by spotting patterns and making assumptions based on those patterns it must do so as efficiently and in as little time as possible beliefs allow the brain to make such forecasts quickly having stubborn beliefs is a useful survival tool for humans because beliefs Drive Behavior your ancestors who stubbornly held the belief that lions are dangerous fire is hot and deep water is

to be avoided Survived long enough because of these beliefs to have babies who possess the same stubbornness going back to the example of the terrorist holding your loved one hostage under threat of execution now imagine the terrorist grabbed a glass of water and turned it into wine an act Jesus is known for would this change your beliefs about the terrorist would you now believe that the terrorist is in fact Jesus Christ in my survey 77 percenter said that this would be enough to convince them that the terrorist was in fact Jesus Christ and in total

82 per Center said their beliefs about the terrorist would change the act of witnessing someone turn water into wine was strong enough evidence to cause them to change their belief this thought experiment and the corresponding survey reveal a fundamental truth about the nature of All of our beliefs the things you believe are fundamentally based on some form of primary evidence however scientific Studies have repeatedly proved that whether that evidence is objectively true or false doesn't actually matter we subjectively accept evidence to be true based on our experiences and biases there are still 300,000 Americans who

believe the Earth is flat in a recent ipsos survey 21 percenter of Adult Americans said they believed Santa Claus is real a disturbing number of people believe King Charles is a vampire one in three Americans believe Bigfoot exists and one in four Scottish people believe there is a giant monster living in a lake near iness to change their beliefs simply telling them they're wrong as we've seen in law three won't work showing a flat Earth or a legitimate picture of around planet Earth also doesn't work and Despite what motivational coaches might say telling someone who

had their confidence destroyed at s years old by vicious playground bullies very strong evidence to Simply believe in themselves or to repeat affirmations in a mirror won't do anything to change their underlying beliefs about themselves either seeing is believing just showing a flat Earth or a picture of the spherical Earth taken from space by NASA doesn't work because In order to believe what they're seeing they have to trust not only the picture but the credibility of the source from which the picture came NASA flat earthers trust neither they believe NASA is fraudulent astronauts are actors

and the scientific Community is in on it in Dr Robert Chon's renowned book influence he explains that if we trust someone's Authority on a matter if Lionel Messi tells us that Adidas football boots are better than Nike if a personal trainer Tells us we're lifting a weight incorrectly or if a doctor tells us we need to take a pill we're very likely to defer to their Authority adopt their belief and do what they say for some of our most important beliefs we have no evidence at all except that people we love and Trust hold these

beliefs considering how little we know the confidence we have in our beliefs is preposterous and it is also essential 2002 Nobel Prize laurate Daniel conoman authority figures are powerful forces for belief change but the most powerful force of all is first party evidence from our own five physical senses as the phrase goes seeing is believing because the Flat Earth Community is so distrustful of science astronomy and really anyone qualified the only conceivable way that you could upend their stubborn beliefs is to send them to space to have a look for Themselves this need to see

evidence with our own eyes explains why so many crazy conspiracy theories withstand the test of time why people dismiss climate change believe the Earth is flat and question the efficacy of vaccines these things are impossible for most of us to see for ourselves likewise someone lacking confidence in their speaking abilities is unlikely to become confident just because their mom tells them they're a Good speaker they will need to acquire first-party evidence themselves by speaking on stage and getting positive feedback from bias-free sources they trust We Believe ourselves in our own eyes to be trusted sources

making it important for scientists to involve our five senses to make their insights accessible to us with this principle in mind climate change educators are now trying to translate scientific insights about the occurrence and speed of Climate change into local lessons for example showing the impact of climate change on things in our local area so that we can go and see it for ourselves confidence in existing beliefs I ask T Shero who we met in the previous law how do we change our or someone else's belief she has spent years researching and conducting multiple studies

on why beliefs exist why they're hard to change and how to change them she told me that the brain Considers any new evidence alongside the current evidence it has stored so if I told you I had seen a pink elephant flying in the sky your brain will compare this new evidence to your existing evidence that elephants aren't pink and they can't fly and likely reject it how however if I told a three-year-old that I had seen a pink elephant flying in the sky they would likely believe me because they have yet to form strong opposing

beliefs about Elephants Aviation and the laws of physics Shero asserts that there are four factors that determine whether a new piece of evidence will change an existing belief a person's current evidence their confidence in their current evidence the New Evidence their confidence in that new evidence and as we learn from the wi L discussed phenomenon called confirmation bias whereby humans tend to search for Favor and recall information in a way that confirms or supports their existing beliefs or values the further the New Evidence is from their current beliefs the less likely it is to change

their thinking we change our minds if it sounds like good news all of this means that strongly held false beliefs are very hard to change but there is one important exception when the counter evidence is exactly what you want to hear you are More likely to change your mind for example in a 2011 study in which people were told that others see them as much more attractive than they see themselves they were happy to change their self-perception and in a 2016 study in which people learned that their genes suggested that they were much more resistant

to disease than they thought the participants were again quick to change their beliefs what about politics back in August 2016 900 American citizens were asked to predict the results of the president election by putting a little arrow on a scale that went from Clinton to Trump so if you thought Clinton was highly likely to win you put the arrow right next to Clinton if you thought the odds were 50 50ths you put the arrow in the middle and so on they were first asked who do you want to win to which 50 percenter said they

wanted Clinton to win and 50 Percenter said they wanted Trump to win when they were asked who they thought was going to win both groups of supporters put the arrow closest to Clinton indicating that they believed she would win then a new poll was introduced predicting a trump Victory and everyone was asked again who they thought was going to win did the new poll change their predictions indeed it did but it predominantly changed the predictions of The Trump supporters because it was exactly what they wanted to hear they were elated that the new poll was

suggesting a trump Victory and were quick to change their predictions the Clinton supporters didn't change their predictions much and many of them ignored the new poll altogether don't attack beliefs Inspire new ones T Shero concluded that in order to change beliefs the secret is to go along With how our brain works not to fight against it which is what most people try and fail to do don't try and break or argue with someone's existing evidence instead focus on implanting completely new evidence and make sure you've highlighted the incredibly positive impact this new evidence will have

on them one example of this is of parents reaction to the false link drawn up between the MS measles and rubella MMR vaccine and autism in a now debunk Journal article that was published in 1998 as news of the article Theory spread many parents refused to vaccinate their children and held on to their beliefs stubbornly eventually a group of researchers changed their minds not by trying to break their existing beliefs they didn't focus on their existing beliefs at all but by offering offering the parents new information about the very positive benefits of the vaccine True

information about how it prevents kids from encountering deadly disease and it worked parents agreed to have their children vaccinated detailed self-review can reduce any belief interestingly people won't lower the conviction of their beliefs when you attack them or try to convince them with data but they will lose conviction when asked to explain or analyze the details of their beliefs this is a technique Cognitive behavioural therapist know well the New Yorkers Elizabeth Calbert described a study conducted at Yale where graduate students were asked to rate their understanding of their own toilet at home they were then

asked to write detailed step-by-step explanations of how the device Works once they'd attempted to explain the inner workings of a toilet they were asked to rate their understanding again their belief and their understanding of toilets Dropped significantly in a similar study conducted in 2012 people were asked about their stance on political proposals relating to healthc care as Colbert describes participants were asked to rate their positions depending on how strongly they agreed or disagreed next they were instructed to explain in as much detail as they could the impacts of implementing each proposal most people at this

point ran into trouble Asked once again to rate their views the conviction of their beliefs decreased and they either agreed or disagreed less vehemently asking someone to explain the detail and logic underpinning their strongly held beliefs is a profoundly powerful way to reduce their conviction this works for limiting beliefs too if someone is struggling with their self-belief and believes they're worthless having them explain in as much detail as they can why they feel that Way and questioning their responses is an effective way to get them to relinquish that belief the growth zone is where New

Evidence exists as you learned in law to when I was younger I struggled with awful stage fright which itself is underpinned by a set of limiting beliefs telling me it was all going to be okay was not enough to change my preconceptions about speaking on stage how I would perform and what the reaction would be my Beliefs were too stubborn the reason my stage fright eventually vanished to the point that now I feel 99.9% less nervous when speaking in a packed Arena or live on TV is simply because I carried on speaking on stage and

doing so gradually gave me new positive first-party evidence that replaced the existing evidence had about my onstage abilities the more I spoke on stage the stronger my confidence in this New evidence became and with it the belief in my inability and the fear it created diminished do the thing you fear and keep on doing it that is the quickest and shest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear Dale Carnegie this for me is maybe the most important fundamental truth about belief change and how to increase a person's self-belief even our own beliefs change when a

person gets new counteracting Evidence that they have a high degree of subjective confidence in if a friend of yours has a limiting belief about themselves or you have a limiting belief about yourself the best chance you have of changing that belief isn't by reading self-help books inspirational quotes or watching motivational videos it's by stepping out of your comfort zone and into a situation where that limiting belief will be confronted headon with new first-party Evidence this is how you change even the most stubborn beliefs this is how I went from being deeply religious to agnostic in

the space of 12 months from low confidence to self-belief in my transition from childhood to adulthood and from being a terrified public speaker to having unshakable confidence on any stage the law you do not get to choose what you believe beliefs are stubborn but they are malleable to change a belief a Person must find a way to attain convincing new evidence that they can trust they're more likely to believe the validity of this new evidence if it's Source agrees with their other existing beliefs evidence that offers positive outcomes is the easiest evidence for someone to

believe if you interrogate the validity and detail of one of your own limiting beliefs your conviction in it will weaken if you want to change someone's belief don't attack it make Them a direct witness to positive new evidence that will both Inspire them and counteract the negative effects of their old beliefs unchallenged limiting beliefs are the greatest barrier between who we are and who we could be stop telling yourself you not qualified good enough or worthy growth happens when you start doing the things you are not qualified to do law five you must lean into

bizarre behavior this law is responsible for Every successful company I've ever built it teaches you how to stay at the Forefront of the rapidly changing world we live in how to capitalize on change and how to avoid ever being left behind by any of the incoming technological revolutions the story people love music that's why we'll always be in business these were the Fateful words uttered by the former CEO of one of the world's largest music stores as he peered over the second floor balcony out Onto his bustling shop floor years later his Global Music store

was out of business he was right people do love music but they don't love traveling for an hour in the rain wrestling through a busy shop floor to get a plastic disc and then queuing to pay for it he misjudged what his customers wanted they wanted music they didn't want CDs iTunes the digital music platform built by Apple had emerged in the spring of 2003 allowing his disc buying Customers to get what they wanted music without all the inconvenience I'm told on good authority that this particular CEO was so cynical about digital music that he

wouldn't even entertain conversations with his senior leadership team about its introduction or the threat it posed one of his professional Associates told me that he had leaned out because he didn't understand it he thought the space was Rife with piracy and that it Wouldn't directly impact people's love of CDs I believe writer Clifford stall had also leaned out when he made the following scornful prediction about the future of the internet which was published in Newsweek in February 1995 I'm uneasy about this most trendy and oversold Community Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers interactive libraries

and multimedia classrooms They speak of electronic Town meetings and virtual communities Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and moms baloney the truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper Newsweek would end up discontinuing their print magazine and moving their entire business onto the internet in 1903 the president of a leading bank had certainly leaned out when he told Henry Ford the founder of Ford Motor Company the horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty a Fed in 1992 Andy Grove the CEO of Intel had

clearly leaned out when he said the idea of a personal Communicator in every pocket is a pipe dream driven by greed and the former CEO of Microsoft Steve Balmer had certainly leaned out when he laughed at Apple and said there's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share at 19 years old I had a meeting at The beautiful London offices of one of the world's leading fashion brands it was 2012 and social media had caught on among consumers but Brands were lagging behind as they always seemed to do with new

technology my mission that day was to persuade the Brand's marketing department namely their marketing director to take social media more seriously to lean in and more specifically to launch their own social Media pages I failed I was berated mocked and dismissed the marketing director I was pitching to was visibly terrified so people will be able to comment on our posts and criticize us he questioned I don't want our brand to go viral how would we control that he continued magazine advertising is doing well for us and social media is just too dangerous he ended the

meeting Midway through my presentation and needless to say he never called me back my company Would go from strength to strength arguably becoming the most influential marketing company in its Market the brand I met that day filed for bankruptcy in 2019 the explanation leaning out as I Define it isn't about being wrong it's about being so arrogantly sure that you're right that you refuse to listen learn and pay attention to new information this isn't just a symptom of Arrogance unfortunately it's often a symptom of Being Human the psychological reason why people lean out of important

potentially Vital Information is because of the incredibly well-studied psychological phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance coined by the American psychologist Leon festinger in the 1950s cognitive dissonance describes the tension you experience when your thoughts conflict with your behavior being a smoker for Example is dissonant it conflicts with the evidence that smoking is incredibly harmful to resolve this tension the smoker must either give up or find a way to justify their behavior we can all think of the excuses smokers use from I only smoke on occasion to there are far worse things you can do to your

body to why shouldn't I be free to behave as I choose for festing or cognitive dissonance helped explain why so many of us live with contradictory ideas or Values but it can also stop us from changing our minds when we should even when it could save careers jobs businesses or lives research has shown that cognitive dissonance is most painful for us when we encounter facts or evidence that destabilize or conflict with how we see ourselves that undermine our identity and confidence in ourselves or that make us feel in some way threatened in business anyone who

is too Rigidly fixed to an ideology probably won't provide the solution because resolving a problem often requires enough humility to disregard your initial hypothesis and listen to what the market is telling you we would rather be dead than wrong making a public statement about your views on something as the CEO of Intel did about mobile phones or the CEO of Microsoft did about the iPhone risks put putting an additional nail in your coffin Because once we've made a commitment to a belief our brains will fight tirelessly to prove that we were right even when we're

clearly wrong time and time again research shows that as soon as we make any decision I will vote for this party I'm going to buy a house in this area I think covid-19 is serious no I'm sure the risks are being exaggerated we automatically begin justifying and rationalizing it quite quickly any doubts we initially had will Disappear the American psychologist Elliot arenson who studied this phenomenon famously assembled a discussion group of pompus dull people some of the participants were made to Ure an arduous selection process others were allowed to join immediately without expending any effort

those who were given the runaround reported enjoying the group far more than the ones who were simply let in arenson explained what was happening here whenever we've Invested time money or energy into something and it ends up being a complete waste of time this creates dissonance which we try to reduce by finding ways of justifying our bad decision Aronson's participants focused unconsciously on what might be interesting or at least bearable about being part of a deliberately boring group the people who had invested very little effort in joining therefore had less dissonance to reduce and more

Readily admitted what a waste of time it had been we won't listen to the other side it wasn't just that fashion brands marketing director that dismissed me for the first three years of my social media marketing company's existence we were attacked berated and criticized daily commentators called us parasites said our business was a fat and predicted we'd be bankrupt in a few months I remember consoling my tearful co-founder Hannah Anderson in 2015 when BuzzFeed news wrote a critical article challenging our character practices and credibility unsurprisingly the attacks always came from people from the traditional media

and Market World TV print and radio they viewed us as the annoying New Kids on the marketing block one commentator said we were mysterious social media hackers and another journalist wrote that we were making millions from our less than Savory advertising Practices the truth is we weren't doing anything that revolutionary they just didn't understand it and on some level it threatened their sense of identity that a group of 20s something in Manchester was taking over marketing as one journalist described it when we don't understand something someone a new idea or technology and when that new

thing challenges our identity intelligence or livelihood instead of listening and leaning in in An attempt to ease our cognitive dissonance we too often lean out and attack them this might make us feel good but an ostrich with its head in the sand is at Great risk of being eaten this explains why the most important Innovations in our lives received the most criticism when they were first introduced they threatened to disrupt people's sense of identity intelligence and understanding for this very reason I've long held the belief That passionate criticism of a technology is usually a positive

indicator of its potential it's a sign that there's something worth leaning into someone is threatened and Innovation is coming this is why I leaned into what is known as web 3.0 blockchain technology or crypto and founded a software company in this space called third web because all the right people were dismissing attacking and angry about it this wave Of ISM gave me flashbacks to 2012 when I first launched a Web 2.0 social media company and so I reserved judgment and did my own research beneath all the nefarious money grabbing and short-sighted behavior which is common

when a new technology emerges I found an underlying technological revolution in blockchain that I believe will make many functions of Our Lives easier better faster and cheaper third web was recently valued at $160 million in our Latest investment round and we now have hundreds of thousands of clients using our tools even if a new innovation doesn't beget a wave of critics it's important to remember that Innovation disrupts because it's different by definition it should look weird it should feel unconventional it should be misunderstood and it should sound wrong stupid dumb or even illegal I interviewed

advertising Legend Rory Sutherland Vice chairman of the ogal V advertising group on this very topic and he told me all too often what matters to people is not whether an idea is true or effective but whether it fits with the preconceptions of a dominant convention or incumbent new things put ego status jobs and identities at stake you see this cognitive dissonance and avoidance everywhere you look whenever we feel in Affinity with an ideology politician Newspaper brand or technology that very Allegiance distorts evidence that conflicts with those loyalties if we believe someone is on the other

side there is dissonance before they've said a word how to become a lean in person to quote the education entrepreneur Michael Simmons if someone is 40 years old today the rate of change they experience in 2040 when they're 60 will be four times what it is now what feels like a Year's worth of Change by today's standards Will occur in 3 months when someone who is 10 today is 60 they'll experience a year of today's rate of change in just 11 days to summarize the profundity of this extreme acceleration of change rakers while arguably the

world's preeminent futurist says we won't experience 100 Years of technological advance in the 21st century we will witness in the order of 20,000 years of progress when measured by today's rate of progress or about 1,000 times greater Rate of change than what was achieved in the 20th century change is only going to get faster so expect your feelings of cognitive dissonance the feeling that something doesn't make sense and conflicts with what you already know to increase as discussed in laws three and four admitting we're wrong rather than reflexively jumping to self-justification or dismissal requires self-reflection

and at least temporarily Dissonance you don't want to be the entrepreneur that misses the next technological Revolution you don't want to be the CMO that dismisses the next Big Marketing opportunity you don't want to be the journalist that dismisses the next Frontier of media you don't want to be a lean out person with the aforementioned rate of change in mind there's going to be a lot more things that tempt you to lean out thankfully there are a few practical and mental Techniques we can adopt to reduce this dissonance and the lean out Behavior it creates

one technique is to default to believing that two seemingly conflicting ideas can be true at the same time and having a bias to keep them separate a technique Elliot arenson and his fellow social psychologist Carol Tavis referred to as the shim Paris solution former prime minister of Israel shiman Paris was angry when his friend Ronald Reagan the American president made an official Visit to a cemetery in Germany where former nazzis were buried Paris was asked how he felt about Reagan's decision to visit the cemetery he could have chosen one of two ways to reduce dissonance

renounced the Friendship dismissed Reagan's visit is Trivial and not worth worrying about yet Paris resorted to neither of these responses instead simply saying when a friend makes a mistake the friend remains a friend and the Mistake remains a mistake Paris managed to hold the dissonance and resisted the urge to force two things to make perfect sense it's a lesson in avoiding easy knee-jerk responses or being pressured into a binary choice and instead accepting nuance and recognizing that two apparently conflicting things can be true at the same time despite what passionate online tribalism might tempt you

to believe your most important Beliefs should not be binary leaning people can see the Merit of the old way and the new way at the same time without the compulsion to reject or condemn either in moments of dissonance when we're faced with ideas Innovations and information that we don't understand which challenge our conventions or threaten our identity web 3 zero AI virtual reality social media opposing political ideologies and social movements the key is to reserve the Temptation of judgment which is often just an attempt to ease our cognitive dissonance to lean in to study and

to ask honest questions why am I believing what I believe is it possible that I'm wrong do I know what I'm talking about am I leaning out because I don't understand am I following the party line are these my own beliefs or the beliefs of the people like me those that have the patience and conviction to do this will undoubtedly own the future those That don't will continue to be left behind the law you must lean into bizarre behavior when you don't understand lean in more when it challenges your intelligence lean in more when it

makes you feel stupid leaning more leaning out will leave you behind don't block people that you don't agree with follow more of them don't run from ideas that make you uncomfortable run towards them taking no risks will be your biggest risk you have To risk failure to succeed you have to risk heartbreak to love you have to risk criticism for the Applause you have to risk the ordinary to achieve the extraordinary if you live avoiding risk you're risking missing out on life law six ask don't tell the question SL Behavior effect this law reveals one

of the most simple and effective psychological tricks that you can use to motivate someone to do something form a habit or perform a desired Behavior you Can use it on yourself or someone else it's 1980 in America Ronald Reagan is running for president against Jimmy Carter who'd been elected in 1976 the economy is in a horrific State and Reagan must convince voters that it's time to kick Carter out of the White House in the last week of the 1980 presidential campaign on October 28th the two candidates held their one and only presidential debate and 80.6

million viewers tuned in to watch making It the most watched debate in American history at the time going into the debate incumbent President Carter had an eight-point lead of according to polls Reagan knew he needed to use Carter's abysmal economic performance against him but instead of doing what every presidential candidate before him had done and stating the economic facts he did something that no one had ever done but every presidential candidate seems to have done since he asked a Simple but now legendary question are you better off now than you were four years ago he

said next Tuesday all of you will go to the polls you'll stand there in the polling place and make a decision I think when you make that decision it might be well if you would ask yourself are you better off than you were 4 years ago is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago is there more or less unemployment in the country than there Was four years ago is America as respected throughout the world as it was and if you answer all of those questions

yes why then I think your choice is very obvious as to who you will vote for a televote poll carried out by ABC News immediately after the debate received about 650,000 responses and almost 70 percenter of respondents said Reagan had won the debate 7 days later on November 4th Reagan defeated Carter by 10 points in a historic Landslide Victory to Become the 40th President of the United States just a question no political magic backed by science why questions unlike statements illicit an active response they make people think that that's why researchers at Ohio State University

have found that when the facts are clearly on your side questions become extremely more effective than simply making a statement the power of the question SL Behavior effect we all make commitments We fail to honor how many times have you said I'll eat better this year or I'll exercise every morning this week only to fall short of your plan of course we intend to follow through but good intentions aren't enough to create meaningful change a well-designed question however might be after combing through more than 100 studies spanning 40 Years of research a team of scientists

from four us universities discovered that asking is better than Telling when it comes to influencing your own or another's Behavior David sprout a co-author of the research from Washington State University said if you question a person about performing a future Behavior the likelihood of that behavior happening will change questions prompt a psychological reaction that is different from the reaction to statements this means for instance that a sign that says please recycle is much Less likely to increase its viewers chance of recycling than a sign that says will you recycle telling yourself I will eat vegetables

today is less likely to increase your chances of eating vegetables than asking yourself the question will I eat vegetables today astonishingly researchers found that turning a statement into a question could influence a person's behavior for up to 6 months the question SL Behavior effect is even More powerful with questions that can only be answered with either yes or no the question SL Behavior effect is at its strongest when questions are used to encourage behavior that fits the receiver's personal and social Ambitions when answering yes to the question would bring them closer to who they want

to be starting the question with Will implies ownership and action and causes the question SL Behavior effect to be even stronger than starting your question With a word like can or could which imply the question is about ability rather than action it's also stronger than starting your question with W which is conditional and implies possibility more than probability using cognitive dissonance in your favor in law five I explained how harmful the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance can be I'm now going to tell you how helpful it can be cognitive Dissonance describes the mental discomfort you experience

when the best you the person you really want to be doesn't match up with the person than you currently are let's say you aspire to be an expert in taiichi and a friend asks whether you practice taichi daily answering no would create cognitive dissonance because it would highlight a disconcerting mismatch between who you want to be and who you actually are to remove that mismatch you are likely to Answer yes and once you've done that your aspiration is more likely to become a reality because the question has reminded you of not only who you want

to be but the path to becoming that person and you've set an intention to walk that path all in the form of one small but powerful question the reason this works even more effectively when answering a yes or no question is because these binary choices don't allow for justification and excuses both of which Allow us to wriggle away from confronting the reality of who we want to be and what we need to do to get there if you've read my first book you'll know that my wonderful PA Sophie likes to announce every week that she's

going to the gym on Monday on occasion when I've been naive and gullible enough to ask her if she went to the gym on the afores said Monday she'll respond with a long elaborate reason why it wasn't possible and follow that with a new Announcement that she's going to go next Monday instead she's continued this routine every week for eight years now the great thing about a yes or no question is it doesn't give you any wiggle room to deceive yourself it forces you to commit one way or the other so if you start making

excuses for your behavior or want to lecture someone about what they should do differently try this instead ask yourself or them a simple question to which the answer can Only be yes or no it works really well when focusing on an area that could benefit from some additional motivation will I go to the gym today will I order healthy food for lunch allow no explanation just yes or no recently I went for a run near my girlfriend's house in Porto Portugal the area is known for its steep hills but as I approached one particularly terrifying

Hill that was so steep at appeared almost vertical the question SL Behavior Effect came to my rescue I asked myself will you keep running without stopping until you've reached the top I told myself yes I can't really explain it but for some reason it really helped I made it to the top without stopping it killed any possible excuses I might have used to stop and it created a promise to myself that I didn't want to break use the question SL Behavior effect to help others ask a friend or loved one will you eat more healthily

or will you go For that promotion this gentle confrontation has been repeatedly proven to lead to Reliable meaningful change and encourages people to be their best selves use it in your job if you're a waiter in a restaurant serving a table of happy customers instead of telling them I hope you enjoyed your food when you are collecting their plates instead ask how was the food just as you handing over the bill right before it's time for them to decide on the tip as President Reagan taught us when the facts are clearly on your side questions

become extremely powerful tools for encouraging the behavior you want the law ask don't tell the question SL Behavior effect if you want to create positive behavior don't make statements ask binary yes or no questions people are more likely to answer yes if it will bring them closer to who they want to be and once they answer yes that yes is more likely to come true ask questions Of your actions and your actions will answer law seven never compromise yourself story this law introduces a concept you've probably never heard before called your self story it shows

you how your self story determines your success in life and gives you the secret strategy for writing a better self- story about yourself so you can achieve big Ambitions a lot of people don't know this Chris Eubank Jr said as he leaned Forward ominously in his chair Chris Eubank J R championship boxer and Son of the international Boxing Hall of Fame Legend Chris Eubank had stopped by my house to be interviewed by me in preparation for this book he continued but 80 percenter of being a fighter is mental the balls the guts and the grit

that you have to have to walk through crowds of thousands of people and while you are walking knowing that once you get to that ring and walk up Those stairs you going to have to take off your jacket the bell's going to ring and you are going to have to fight somebody you're going to have to get hurt and you're are going to have to hurt somebody in front of millions of people watching around the world that in itself that walk most people on the planet cannot do that just the walk let alone the fight

part it takes huge mental strength me do you think you can train Someone to have that mental strength you Bank Jr I think you can I've seen Fighters develop it and you need it and at the end of the day there are going to be times in training in sparring and definitely in fighting where you are going to get really hurt you're going to be in a position where you're questioning yourself what am I doing here am I going to be okay can I beat this guy should I give up should I find a way

out this is too much every Fighter experiences that moment you know me have you ever seriously considered quitting in a fight long pause you Bank Jr there was this one time where I was close to giving up I went to Cuba before I turned Pro out there the guys are animals they're monsters I get in the ring to do a casual sparring session and then the Cuban Olympic heavyweight representative walks up the stairs and gets into the ring I thought he was coming into the Ring to shadow box and warm up for his sparring session

with somebody else and they said no no no no you guys are going to spar I was uh he's about three times the size of me what do you mean and they said no no he'll work with you just a casual Spar so I thought sure that's fine let's go the Bell goes for the first round and this guy Sprints over to me and just starts laying into me the biggest shots I've ever taken bang bang bang I'm Dodging moving out the way running around the ring and he's just coming at me and I can't

get this guy off me bang bang bang he knocks me out of the ring it's a 4-ft drop out of the ring onto solid concrete my knee hits the concrete and my leg goes completely dead I tried getting up and my leg is completely gone I'm looking up and this Cuban heavyweight is leaning over the ropes looking down at me I'm at a mental Crossroads and I have a decision to make Do I say listen my knees bad you're too big or do I get back in I'm sad there on the concrete looking around everyone's

looking at me my dad is there I made a decision I was like you know what let's go I got back in and the Cuban just started laying into me again for another two painful rounds but the only thing I could think was I have to finish the three rounds because I said I was going to do the three rounds I'm not leaving this gym with everybody knowing That I quit because I couldn't live with myself I've got to go home and go to sleep I can't go to sleep knowing that another man made me

quit so I got back into that ring and I took my beating like a man and from that day on I was never scared again it was the worst experience of my life but it was also the best experience of my life because I now knew what I was capable of I knew I had it inside me to not give up if he can't make me quit who's going to make Me quit nobody and that belief stayed with me for the rest of my career me that's incredible you're talking about a story you're writing about

yourself for yourself and how important that story is in determining how you behave in the future you Bank Jr exactly in training it happens the most there are times I'll be on the treadmill where I'll be running and I'll get cramp in my calf and I've still got 8 minutes to go because I've set the timer for 40 Minutes and I'm on 32 minutes the cramp starts and I will run with one leg literally limping because if the treadmill can make me quit what happens when I get into the ring with a guy who's hit

me and I'm hurt he's going to make me quit too it's hugely important because it teaches you to believe that no matter how hard things get you are the type of person that will find a way it doesn't matter if people are watching or if nobody would know I quit you can't Quit when no one is watching you don't ever want to put that that spirit inside yourself you've got to keep those demons out they are demons and if you let them in often enough they will take over I hated every minute of training but

I said don't quit sewer now and live the rest of your life as a champion Muhammad Ali your self story creates mental toughness the US military is the most powerful on Earth each year roughly 1,300 Cadets join its famously demanding Military Academy at West Point part of their initiation involves a series of extremely difficult challenges called Beast barracks these according to researchers who studied West Point Cadets are deliberately engineered to test the very limits of cadet's mental capacities when I read about this study I like most people assumed that the cadets with the most stamina

Intelligence physical strength and athleticism would be the most successful but when Angela Duckworth a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania studied their achievements and more specifically how mental toughness perseverance and passion impact ability to achieve goals she found something very surprising Duckworth tracked almost 2,500 Cadets spread across two initiation classes she compared several Metrics including their high school rank SAT scores physical aptitude test results and grit scale which measures perseverance and passion for long-term goals with a grade from 1 to five it turned out that it wasn't physical strength intelligence or leadership potential that gave

the most accurate indication of whether a would make it through Beast Barracks it came down to mental toughness matched with determination to reach a long-term goal Perseverance was the most important thing Believe It or Not Cadets who were just one standard deviation Point higher on the grit scale were 60 perent are more likely to make it through Beast Barracks research continues to reveal that your self story in the mental toughness grit or resilience that you have is more important than anything else for achieving your goals in business and in life that's very good to know

because while you can't do much About your physicality or the innate abilities you are born with you can do a lot to develop your self story unfortunately our self story isn't just influenced by the first party evidence we've collected about ourselves it's also influenced profoundly by the stereotypes around us for instance if the society you live in holds The Stereotype that black people are less capable than white people and you are a black person you will likely internalize That belief and it will become part of your self story the science shows how this stereotype alone

can significantly impact your self- story your performance and ultimately your results at 8 years old I was eagerly putting on my swimming shorts in the school changing room ahead of my first swimming lesson when a fellow pupil turned to me and casually said did you know black people can't swim their bodies are different so it won't be easy For you today I am of English and African Heritage so in that moment with that one casual comment not only did my EXC M evaporate but so did my belief that I would ever be able to swim

needless to say that swimming lesson did not go well I flapped around like a drowning dog and ultimately gave up halfway through the lesson it would take me 18 years and someone credible convincing me that this wasn't true for me to finally learn how to swim a Remarkable study published in 1995 used something called priming to demonstrate the effects that this type of stereotype threat can have on your self story research ERS gave a group of students a difficult vocabulary test but before the test began they asked some of the black students questions about their

race astonishingly the black students who were asked about their race performed worse on the test scoring lower than both the white students and The black students who had not been questioned importantly when students were not asked these questions the scores were comparable the Insidious impact a negative stereotype can have on someone's self story isn't just observed in matters of race in another study researchers wanted to test the pernicious myth that says women aren't as good at maths as men before setting both male and female Undergraduates the test some of the participants heard the researcher say

that as a rule men and women scored differently on this test others were told that men and women had previously scored equally the women who heard the researchers negative comments performed significantly worse reported greater anxiety and had lower expectations about their performance than the men this experiment confirmed earlier Studies by Finding that when participants were exposed to a comment about their gender a stereotype threat kicked in and their performance deteriorated so what would happen if a woman could Escape her identity change herself story and pretend to be someone else while writing the test a researcher

called Shen Jong set out to test this Jong gave 110 female undergraduates and 72 male undergraduates 30 multiple choice maths questions before the test Each of them was told that men do better at maths than women in addition some of the volunteers were then told to take the test under their real name but others were to complete it under one of four invented names Jacob Tyler Scott Lions Jessica Peterson or Caitlyn Woods the men outperformed the women in the test but astoundingly women who assumed an alias whether it was male or female outperformed the women

who didn't and importantly the women adopting an Alias did just as well as the men this demonstrated once and for all the merits of tests and interviews using alternative identification methods that avoided names in the researchers words this would potentially allow stigmatist individuals to disconnect their self from a threatening situation and crucially disarm negative stereotypes the science of developing a strong self- story in your health work and life the self story Chris EU Bank Jr Was describing is a theory scientists and psychologists know well and refer to as your s concept it is our personal

belief of who we are encompassing all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves physically personally and socially it includes our beliefs about our capabilities our potential and our competence your self story develops most rapidly during early childhood and Adolescence but it continues to form and change as we collect more evidence about Ourselves throughout our adult life your self story creates mental toughness psychology Professor fway tenta States that individual resilience is influenced by having a positive self story individuals with a positive self- story will be more optimistic persevere for longer in the face of adversity handle stress

better and achieve their goals more easily individuals with a low self-concept will believe and view Themselves as weak incompetent unwelcome lose interest in life be pessimistic about life and give up easily Laura poke scientist and Leadership expert one study on students conducted by eka Aran a scientist at maruu University of yag yakarta in Indonesia sought to understand the relationship between self story and resilience and concluded that self- story is almost 40 percenter of what makes a student mentally tough the other 60 percenter of Factors that can affect individual resilience include actual abilities family factors and

Community factors so how do we improve our self story so that we can be resilient and optimistic achieve our goals and persevere in the face of adversity creating a stronger self- story you've probably heard this quote by legendary college basketball coach John Wooden the true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is Watching this is true but according to science it's also true that a person's character is created built or destroyed when no one is watching everything you do with or without an audience provides evidence to you about who you

are and what you're capable of as we discovered in law four first party evidence that is Everything You observe with your own senses is by far the strongest evidence when it comes to creating or changing a belief you're in The gym alone lifting weights you're on your last set and you've got to do 10 repetitions to complete the workout you get to the ninth rep and your muscles are burning what do you do your choice in this moment may seem inconsequential but every decision we make writes another line of powerful first party evidence about who

we are how we respond to adversity and what we're capable of into today's chapter of our self story that evidence will not only become Self-fulfilling in the gym it will permeate the rest of your life and relentlessly influence your behavior that evidence will whisper to you when things are difficult just drop the weight just give up remember you can't do this and science shows that in the face of adversity negative self-evidence will cause you more stress more worry and more anxiety than a Story full of perseverance overcoming and victory what we believe about ourselves Creates

our thoughts and feelings our thoughts and feelings determine our actions and our actions create our evidence to create new evidence you must change your actions choose to do the 10th rep when it would be easier to stop at 9: choose to have the difficult conversation when it would be easier to avoid it choose to ask the extra question when it would be easier to stay silent prove to yourself in a thousand tiny ways at every Opportunity you get that you have what it takes to overcome the challenges of life and if you do only then

will you actually have what it takes to overcome the challenges of life a robust positive evidence-based self Story the law never compromise your self story mental toughness is required for enduring success and it's principally derived from having a positive self story to build your self story you need evidence and that evidence is derived From the choices you make in the face of adversity be wary of counter evidence and the Insidious long-term impact it can have on your self-belief and behavior if an 8-year-old tells you that you can't swim tell him to off the most convincing

sign that someone will achieve new results in the future is new behavior in the present law eight never fight a bad habit this law reveals some surprising truths about how to make and break any Bad habit you have it shows you why fighting bad habits is a failing strategy which often leads to rebounding and what you should do instead I grew up worrying that my dad was going to die at some point before I turned 10 my siblings and I discovered that dad was a secret smoker presumably he'd hidden it from us to stop us

replicating his habit but once we'd found his miniature cigars he began smoking in front of us surprisingly to me he only ever smoked In the car never at parties never at home never at work only in the car I made a few subtle attempts to get him to quit but nothing worked until one day 10 years later when I inadvertently led him to finally quit his 40-year Habit in order to explain what happened I first need to briefly explain how habits are held in place the concept of habit Loops was introduced by Charles duhig in

his book The Power of Habit in which he explores How and why habits develop why they stick and how we can break them simplified a habit Loop consists of three key elements Q the trigger for habitual Behavior example a stressful meeting or negative event routine the habitual Behavior example smoking a cigarette or eating chocolate reward the result SL impact on you of the habitual Behavior example a feeling of relief or happiness when I was 18 years old after Dropping out of University to build my first tech start up I read a book called hooked by

near y all which explains how big social media companies and tech companies get their users addicted to their products by exploiting this habit Loop while I was reading the book I happened to stop off at home and accidentally left it in my dad's bathroom my dad loves to read while he's on the toilet and picked the book up it taught him about his habit Loop and he Finally understood the que his car routine reaching into the car door grabbing the cigarettes and lighting one and reward nicotine creating a dopamine release in his brain that were

causing him to smoke the next day he went to his car took the cigarettes out put miniature lollipops into the cigarette case and never smoked again The Habit Loop had been interrupted a new less addictive habit had taken its place and with that my Father's Health outcomes had drastically improved whether my father realized it or not the science shows that the most important thing he did was not trying to fight the habit but replacing the final step of the Habit loop with a much less addictive reward the lollipops some incredible new scientific research has revealed

just how foolish it is to try and fight your bad habits and why people always seem to rebound when they do have you ever noticed that when you Focus too much on stopping something you ultimately end up rebounding and do it more this is because we are action-oriented creatures not inaction oriented creatures tayi Shero who we met in law 3 said to me to get something good in life whether it's a chocolate cake or a promotion we us ually need to take action and do something to earn it consequently our brain has adapted to understand

that action is related to reward so when we expect something good A go signal is activated which makes us more likely to act and act fast Shero describes an experiment where volunteers were told they could either press a button to get a reward $1 or press a button to avoid a negative action losing $1 perhaps unsurprisingly the volunteers who pressed the the button to get the reward did so much more speedily than the volunteers who pressed the button not to lose the dollar the brain Associates rewards with action so you Need to pair an action

with a reward additionally some Studies have shown that the more you try to suppress an action or thought the more likely you are to take the action or think about that thought this is great evidence for the power of manifestation you get what you think about but it's also further evidence that trying to fight or not think about a habit is a foolish strategy a 2008 study in appetite found that the Group of volunteers who tried not to think about eating ate more than the group who didn't the first group exhibited what is called a

behavioral rebound effect similarly a 2010 study in psychological science found that the group of smokers who tried not to think about smoking actually thought about it even more than the group who didn't this reminds me of a small piece of advice my driving instructor said to Me when I was 18 Steven the car will go where your eyes are looking if you want to avoid crashing into the cars on the side of the road don't focus on the cars on the side of the road because you will Veer towards the parked cars on the side

of the road look forwards into the distance where you want the car to go this seems like a fitting analogy for breaking and making habits you will end up doing the thing you're focusing on so don't focus on stopping smoking don't Fight it focus on the behavior you want to replace it with the director of of the University of Oregon's social and effective Neuroscience laboratory Elliot burkman says that if you're a smoker and you tell yourself not to smoke your brain still hears smoke conversely if you tell yourself to chew gum every time you want

a cigarette your brain has a more positive action-orientated goal to focus on this explains why those miniature lollipops caused my dad to Quit smoking he didn't just take the cigarettes out of his car door he replaced them with a new action for his brain to focus on sucking l pops if you want to break a habit get some sleep when do you sleep is a question that I've been asked almost weekly for the last 10 years by more interviewers panel moderators and journalists than I can remember the implied assumption behind this question which has always

Perplexed me is that I can't have accomplished extensive professional success while also getting a sufficient amount of sleep the truth is very much the opposite I've always slept well I don't allow any meeting call or appointment to be scheduled before 11:00 a.m. and I rarely use an alarm clock because I've always known that sleep is the foundation of success not an inhibitor of it you're more likely to do the thing you don't want to do when You're stressed out said Russell Paul dra a psychology professor at Stanford University I.E you more likely to search out

a dopamine hit in the form of sugar processed food Drugs porn or alcohol if you're stressed therefore one of the most important things you can do to make new habits stick and perform enough repetitions in that early phase to make the neurons in your brain fire together and wire together is keep your stress Levels low especially in that critical early phase while you are forming the new habit one of the most effective things you can do is also the simplest get a good night's sleep whatever you are trying to improve from your social life to

your smoking habit sleep will help if you're trying to get fit getting enough sleep improves your speed your strength and your endurance if you're trying to perform better at work a lack of sleep Will lead you to be less productive and if you're a manager less attentive less focused less cheerful and even less ethical if you're trying to lose weight or eat more healthily sleep deprivation will decrease leptin the hormone that gives your body the signal that you are full it also leads to a corresponding increase in grillin known as the hunger hormone which causes

a surge in appetite and fat storage and can lead to you making unhealthy food Choices so if you want to break old habits and make new ones forget all the complicated tips tricks and hacks and focus on the basics you'll succeed if you feel good if you're not overstressed and if you've had a good night's sleep do not take on more than one habit at a time we all know that willpower is key to success but until about 25 years ago we had a pretty simplistic view of it as a skill that once developed remains

constant this all changed when during His PhD Mark Maven now professor at the University at Albany New York argued that willpower appears to diminish the more we use it in 1998 he conducted a now famous experiment in his lab he set up a bowl of radishes in a bowl of freshly baked cookies then brought in two groups of people who were led to believe the experiment was about taste perception the first group was told they could eat the cookies and ignore the radishes while the other was asked to Ignore the cookies and eat only the

radish dishes 5 minutes into the experiment a researcher entered the room and after a 15-minute break gave both groups a puzzle that was impossible to complete the cookie eaters with their unused reservoirs of willpower were incredibly relaxed and would continue to try and solve it over and over and over again some of them for over half an hour on average the cookie eaters spent Almost 19 minutes trying to solve the puzzle before giving up the radish eaters who' had to restrain themselves from eating the delicious cookies depleting their willpower couldn't have behaved more differently they

became frustrated and expressed their annoyance some put their heads on the table hopelessly others lost their temper and took against the entire thing complaining it was a waste of their time on average the radish eaters worked for Around 8 minutes less than half the time the cookie eaters persevered for before they gave up since the cookie / radish study several researchers have tested and proven will power depletion the idea that rather than will power being simply a skill it is more like a muscle and as with any muscle in the body it gets tired as

it works harder in one participants who were asked not to think about certain things during a first experiment were unable to suppress Laughter when the researcher tried to make them giggle another experiment asked subjects to watch a tearjerker without giving into their emotions in a subsequent test of something physical rather than something emotional the subjects just like the unfortunate radish eaters gave up more quickly so if the science here is correct and willpower is a limited resource it's obvious that the more pressure restrictions and strain you put on Yourself while trying to make new habits

and break old ones the less chance you have of achieving them and the more chance you have of rebounding fighting habits is a bad idea it will drain your willpower and increase your chances of yo-yoing back into the Habit this is why unsustainable crash diets do not work anytime you feel like you're depriving yourself of something that you really want you nearly always fail for instance in a 2014 study almost 40 percenter of people said they failed to keep their New Year's resolutions because their goal was too unsustainable or unrealistic and 10 percenter said they

failed because they had too many resolutions this is why making sure your habits are small and achievable enough to be sustainable without the need for major sacrifice which will deplete your willpower reserves is incredible important rather than giving up every Unwanted habit you have at the same time you should aim to have fewer goals which increases the likelihood that you will complete any of them with too many big unrealistic sacrifice Centric goals your willpower will be under too much strain it will run out you'll fail and you'll rebound and this is also why so many

psychologists and scientists have found that the best way to create a new habit isn't by fighting an old one or depriving yourself of rewards which is Counter productive it's by finding new rewards healthier rewards and less addictive rewards but nonetheless making sure you are still rewarding yourself along the way the law never fight a bad habit if you want to overcome a habit do not fight against it work with your habit Loop and use positive action to replace it do not take on more than one bad habit at once the more you try and change

the less your chances of changing anything while you're creating your new Habit make sure you take care of yourself and get as much sleep as you can sleep lift move smile laugh listen read save hydrate fast build create your habits are your future law nine always priorities your first Foundation this law makes the case that most of us have the wrong priorities and it urges you to reprioritize your health so that you can live long enough to enjoy all your other Priorities Warren Buffett formerly the richest man on earth sat in front of a small

group of college students in Omaha Nebraska and gave them his most important piece of advice when I was 16 I had just two things on my mind girls and cars I wasn't very good with girls so I thought about cars I thought about girls too but I had more luck with cars let's say that when I turned 16 a genie had appeared to me and that Genie Said I'm going to give you the car of your choice it'll be here tomorrow morning with a big bow tide on it brand new and it's all yours having

heard all the genie stories I would say what's the catch and the genie would answer there's only one catch this is the last car you are ever going to get in your life so it's got to last a lifetime if that had happened I would have picked out a car but can you Imagine knowing it had to last a lifetime what I would do with it I would read the manual about five times I would always keep it garaged if there was the least little Dent or scratch I'd have it fixed right away because I

wouldn't want it rusting I would baby that car because it would have to last a lifetime this is exactly the position you are in concerning your mind and body you only get one mind and you only get one body and it's got to last a lifetime Now it's very easy to let them ride for many years but if you don't take care of that mind and that body they'll be a wreck 40 years later just like the car would be it's what you do right now today that determines how your mind and body will operate

10 20 and 30 years from now you must take care of it I spent the first 80 percenter of my life priori thesing work girls friends family my dog and my material possessions until that is I was 27 years Old when I in the rest of the world watched a global virus called covid-19 sweep through civilization tragically killing more than 6 million people because of the privilege of my youth and the naive te that instilled up until then being healthy was something I took for granted if I'm totally honest I didn't care about my health

I cared about looking good trying to get a six-pack but actually being healthy was something I'd fortunately never had to Think about I think the global pandemic was psychologically traumatic for most of us but if there was a silver lining for me it's that the trauma of those two years etched the unarguable truth into my mind that my health should in fact be my top priority an international team of researchers announced that pulled data from scores of peer-reviewed papers capturing almost 400,000 covid-19 patients found that people with obesity Who contracted covid-19 were 113 percent are

more likely to fall so ill that they would need to be Hospital Al least unhealthy individuals were significantly more likely to die I have a strong enduring belief that none of us actually believe we're going to die this is so clearly evidenced by how we live our lives the petty things we worry about in our attitude to risk however covid-19 brought death to my doorstep I got to see death up close and All too personal for the first time in my life I was able to ponder its terrifying liberating and uncertain features staring into the

clarifying face of death I could see how poorly I had priorthe my life I could see that my work my girlfriend my friends my dog my family and everything I owned were all just items placed on a fragile table called my health life could take any of those items off the table as it often does and I would still have everything else on the table you could remove my dog God forbid and I'd still have everything else on the table you could take my girlfriend off the table and I would still have everything else but

if you removed the table my health everything falls to the floor I would lose it all everything is contingent on the table everything is contingent on my health my health is my first Foundation therefore my health logically must be my first priority every day forever and crucially by embracing this Reality by having Health as my first priority my life is extended so I can enjoy all of my other priorities my dog my partner my family even more there is no no greater form of gratitude than taking care of yourself this one realization changed the trajectory

of my life and for the past 3 years I have made radical dietary Changes cutting down sugar processed food and refined grains I began exercising 6 days a week without missing a week and I have drastically increased my consumption of water plants and probiotics I'm objectively healthy which is great but I also feel amazing which is even better the postive impact on every part of my life my business productivity sleep relationship mood sex life confidence has been so profound that I couldn't write this book without Including taking care of your first Foundation as an unavoidable

law of greatness those who think they have no time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to end time for illness Edward Stanley the law always priorities your first Foundation take care of your body it is after all the only vehicle you get to own the only vessel you'll use to explore the world and the only house you Can ever truly call a home your health is your first Foundation e e e e e e