Hey, it's friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbinspodcast.
Have you ever had one of those days where you wish you had a magicwand?
Youknow, you could just point it at the people that you love and wave the wand at them andboom, they wouldchange.
Suddenly, the person that you're dating or married to were one of your kids or maybe one of your parents would magically become the person that you would love for them tobe.
Suddenly, they turn off the TV and head to the gym or they're doing the dishes without beingasked.
They're not only looking for a newjob, they found thejob.
Stopoverspending, drinkless, they're more exciting in thebedroom.
Well, today you're going to learn that you don't need a magic wand because the number one neuroscientist from MIT and University College London is here to teach you how to make other peoplechange.
I am so glad that you tuned intoday.
I'mMel. I'm so excited about this conversation because you and I are going to be learning from a world-renowned neuroscientist whose research focuses on how you can change other people's behaviors andopinions.
You know how I always say that you should share these episodes with the people that youlove?
Well, this one you are really going to want to share because you're going to learn whyguilt,pressure,fear,crying,pleading,threats, ultimatums are not working with the people in your life and they're not working when the people in your life use them onyou.
And there's a scientific reasonwhy.
By the end of thisepisode, you're going to understand exactly what to do to motivate someone and yourself to change anybehavior.
And our expert is also here with brand new research that will convince you that change is not just a part oflife.
Change is an essential part of your life because it is connected to your happiness andjoy.
Dr. Talley Sherrett is a behavioral neuroscientist and the director of the effective brain lab at University CollegeLondon.
Her research integratesneuroscience, behavioraleconomics, and psychology to study how emotion and motivation influences people's beliefs anddecisions.
She's also a professor at both University College London and here in Boston atMIT.
And she's also the best-selling author of threebooks, including the brand new book LookAgain.
Dr. TalleySherrett, welcome to the Mel Robbinspodcast.
I am so excited to behere.
Thanks for havingme. I was super excited to have you come on because every single one of us has somebody in our lives that welove, but we would love to have themchange.
Whether it's to have them be healthier and exercise more or be better with money or maybe clean up after themselves or get motivated and find anotherjob.
And no amount of pressure or wanting or wishing isworking, at least not in mymarriage.
So I'm just going to paint a scenario for you so that everybody who'slistening, whether they're dealing with the situation ornot, can start to apply it to thatdynamic.
So let's just say you have somebody that you love and they're sitting on the couch and it's a Sunday afternoon and they're happily watchinggolf.
And as you see them sittingthere, you feel this judgment frustration rise in your body and you start tothink, why don't they outsideexercising?
And why are they not like all the things that you would like for them to bedoing?
And I think we know in our minds that the eye roll orthe,hey, it's niceoutside.
You should go for arun. Is probably not going towork.
And so what are we getting wrong based on the research about trying to change otherpeople?
So there's a lot that we're gettingwrong, but maybe just the premisethat, youknow, when you want to try to changesomeone, obviously what they're feeling is you want to try to controlme.
And that is really the worstthing.
Imean, once someone feels like you're trying to controlthem, you're trying to restrict theiragency, that lowers theirmotivation, that causes us to feelanxiety.
Why do we have this desire to want to control what somebody else isdoing?
So the desire to control is the main desire of a humanbeing,right?
We want to controleverything.
And the reason it's kind ofhigh, hardwired into us is because it isadaptive.
If we cancontrol,imagine, imagine ascenario, you can controleverything.
Well,then,right, you can get all therewards, whether it is social rewards orjust, youknow,money, foodthat, youknow, and avoid all the harms if youwere.
So we have thisinstinct,right, of the need tocontrol.
We have aneed. And then that's true for everything aroundus,right?
And ofcourse, there'slike, there's individualdifferences,right?
You have these like highly controlling people and people that are morerelaxed, but it is this need that we all have to someextent.
And particularly in certainsituations, like in apartnership,right?
You have to learn that it's nothelpful,right?
And I think it's not helpful in a partnership partially because when you do those kind ofthings, it makes also the other person feel not only you're trying to controlthem, but that they're notenough,right?
That you're kind of like seeing the negatives rather than the positives in this otherperson.
So I think in somesituations, perhaps what we need is to work onourselves.
That's howwe... How do we just letthem, youknow, watch whatever they'rewatching?
So Imean, you have to pick yourbattles,right?
First ofall, thank you for explaining this because you're makingme, and I hope the personlistening, to stop and actually think about the bigger dynamichere.
So on onehand, every single human being wants to feel a sense of control overthemselves.
You use the wordagency.
Is that what that means that I'm in control ofmyself?
Right.Okay. So you want to feel in control ofyourself, the person that is in yourlife, whether it's a partner or a parent or a child or acolleague, anybody that you kind of would like them to changesomething.
You both are feeling this need to control your ownworld.
And basically what you'resaying, and I've never thought about it thisway, is that my desire to want other people to just be a little better because it's going to help theirhealth.
It might help them with theirmoney.
It might make themhappier.
That's myopinion. My desire to control them is in direct conflict with their fundamental need to be in control of themselves and their own life and theirdecisions.
Part of the reason why we have a desire to change others is because it's part of our need to control everything in our ownlife.
Can you explain more aboutthat?
We want to change people in ourlife, whether it's our partner or our kids or our parents or our employees or people colleagues partially because by doingthat, we can control ourworld, to someextent.
It could be subtle and it could be not even something we're consciousof, but that's part of what's goingon.
We also have a responsibility to helpothers, to alterothers.
In manysituations, definitely when it's about ourchildren, so we definitely want to help them figure out what is goodbehavior, what is not a goodbehavior.
If you havestudents, if you're a doctor interacting withpatients, helping in whateverclients, in many situationjournalists, socialmedia, you go on socialmedia, you're saying something that is going to influence otherpeople.
Even if we think we're not doingthat, we are doingthat.
The way youbehave, the emotions that you show toothers, that what youdo, your choices are going to affect people aroundyou.
We need to think about what is our influence and is it a goodone?
We have more of it than wethink, because infact, you're actually influencing just people around and we aroundyou.
If you sit on the subway and you're eating anapple, you don't realizeit, but that actually is going to influence what other people around you feel like eating or what they chooselater.
To someextent, it has someinfluence.
Don't you feelthat? You see someone eating an ice cream and you'relike, a lot oftimes, you see someone eating and I waslike, I want an ice creamtoo.
It has someinfluence, but let's take anotherexample.
If someone'sstressed, you don't know thisperson, they're just sitting or just in front of you on asubway.
They will have some impact on your emotionalstate.
There's many studies showing that people are stressed or make people around them morestressed, even if they don't knowthem, even if they're not actual people in theirlife, just randompeople.
If you're happy andjoyful, thatalso, it's called emotionalcontagion.
That willhappen. It happens for a good evolutionaryreason, which is if you're fearful orstressed, there might be something around us that is a reason that I should be fearful and stressed aswell.
I pick thisup. The little facial clues thatsay, you'reafraid.
My brain issaying, she'safraid.
Maybe there's something dangeroushere.
I then have this fear aswell.
This all happensreally, really fast andreally, reallysubconsciously.
If you're veryexcited, maybe there's something around us that I should be excitedabout.
Again, it's notconscious, but our brain does thisvery, veryquickly.
It's important for people to just considerthat.
We have a lot of impact on people aroundus, and much more when it comes to people who are actually in ourhome,right, our family or in ourworkplace.
I already have a coupletakeaways.
I want to pause and highlight them to make sure that I am tracking because you're making me see things at a deeperlevel.
I think I've everconsidered.
First ofall, I'm learning that of course we have influence over the people aroundus.
Ofcourse, you have the power to influence somebody's behavior for better or forworse.
That's onething. I think that's good news because you hear a lot ofthat.
You can't change somebodyelse.
I'm also realizing that the need to control your own life and your own surroundings is what's pushing you to push other people to dothings.
That may never goaway. What I'm hoping is that you can teach us how to be more effective with the influence that we have on other people so that we can influence them for thebetter.
Let's go to the scenario where your significant others sitting on thecouch, they're happily watching golf on aSunday.
You come in and you see them and you immediately have the sense of judgment and you have an opinion and you have this desire tocontrol.
I'm also going to say in thatscenario, I'm typically somewhatstressed.
So my stress in thesituation, even though I think I'm a loving person and I really care about this person and I'mright, I'm certain that my significant other on the couch happily watching golf is picking up on my stress either through the tone of voice or the eye roll or some hormone I'm omitting and I would imagine that they then respond withstress.
Is that also kind of part of what's going on that you're escalating it without realizingit?
Absolutely. And perhaps what you're trying to do is reduce your ownstress.
Ohwait, by changing the otherperson.
That's right because change your emotionalstate.
There's a lot of reasons why this couldbe.
But if you're stressed and now I'm able to impact myenvironment, perhaps change the behavior of mypartner, that can actually reduce mystress.
So maybe some consciously what you're trying to do is reduce yourstress.
Or maybe your stress because you are concerned about yourpartner.
Maybe they have a heart condition or that causes youstress.
Andagain, what you're trying to do is reduce your stress by altering the otherperson.
It's so true because if you're worried aboutsomebody, because you're worried about their spending or you're worried that they're not taking care of themselves or you're worried that they're in a dead end job that causes youstress.
And so you think the solution is make that other person change and then this problem that I'm feeling goesaway.
And then we call itlove.
So maybe we can dig into why exactly this doesn't work because it is my mission that after this conversation that as you listen tothis, you not only have epiphanies andinsights, but you've got a deeper understanding of why the way you've been approaching this for yourself and other people isn'tworking.
And that should inspireyou, Ihope, to try a tactic that will based on theresearch.
Yeah,absolutely. Does fear ever motivate somebody tochange?
Okay, so it depends what kind of change youwant.
And here's adifference.
Okay. Do you want someone to start acting in a certainway, going to thegym, workinghard,right?
Or do you want them to stopacting?
And thatmatters.Like, forexample, do you want someone not to share confidentialinformation,right?
Do you want to induce action orinaction?
Okay, so I want you tolisten.
And as you'relistening, I want you to think about whateverscenario.
And does this work with both other people andyourself?
Yeah,yeah.Okay,great.
So are you trying to make yourself start to do something new like exercise or stop doing something likegossiping?
Okay. So it is especially fear is especially not effective if you're trying to get someone toact.
Okay,gotcha. So if theyproactive, you're going to go do this newthing, fear does notwork.
Right. So forexample, tellingsomeone, if you don't go thegym, you'll befat.
Right?Okay. That's a fearstrategy.
And you're trying to use a fear strategy to get someone to dosomething.
Okay. And the reason it doesn't work so well is because of something known as the approach avoidanceprinciple.
So what isthat? To get the good stuff inlife, whether it's a promotion or chocolate cake orlove, you need to dosomething.
I'mthirsty. I need to move my arm to get this water and have adrink.
Right. So to get the good stuff onaverage, we need toact.
And so our brain has evolved in this kind of environment where there is a connection between every word and anaction.
Okay. And so when we concentrate about thereward, are we expect somethinggood, a go signal is activated deep in our brain and it makes us more likely toact.
That'scool. On the otherhand, to avoid the bad stuff inlife, whether it's untrustworthy people or deep waters or poisonoften, notalways, but often what we need to do is not toact.
Yes.Right. And so there's a connection that kind of evolved in our brain where when we expect somethingbad, there's a no go signal deep in our brain goes all the way to our motor cortex and makes inaction morelikely.
It reducesaction. Ofcourse, we're sophisticatedcreatures.
We can overcomethis. So that meansif, youknow, if you think something bad is going tohappen, mostly you firstfreeze.
Only then you dosomething,right.
So a reward I'm running bad thing I'm standingput.
Right. And so you can see why to motivate someone toact.
It's better to kind of highlight thereward, not thefear.
Because fear causesinaction.
That'shuge. You're basically saying anytime that you use fear or a make wrong on yourself or someone that youlove, it causes you as a human being tofreeze.
Yes. It is completely backfiring as atactic.
If you're expecting somebody to go proactively be better with money or to look for a job or to have healthier habits or to get out of bedearlier, or to help out more around thehouse.
If you're using fear and makewrong, the immediate reaction internally is paralysis fearhesitation.
Yeah. That's immediatereaction.
Wow. And ofcourse, you can overcomethis.
Youknow, so I'm not saying anytime that people are afraid or anytime that you use fear is not going towork.
But that's kind of the basicmechanism.
We've done really simple experiments where we ask people they have to press a button to getmoney.
Yeah. That's areward. Actionreward.
Right. And then we have a condition where they have to press a button to avoid losingmoney.
So they have to act to avoid apunishment.
They're much better at pressing the button to get themoney.
Right. And pressing the button to avoid losing themoney.
That makes a lot ofsense.
Let's just take an example like somebody that you love is vaping or smoking or doing something that we know has a very negative impact on yourhealth.
And you getfrustrated.
And you're justlike, I'mjust, you need to quitvaping.
I'm reallyscared. You're going todie.
Your lungs are going to blow up like whatever you end up saying and erupting atsomebody.
Why does that kind of like scaring tactic notwork?
One of the reasons is that we tend to think automatically it won't happen tome.
Right.Yes,people, other person who willsmoke, youknow, they're going to dieyoung.
They're going to have lungcancer.
But I'm probably going to be okay because I have these specialgenes.
Often what we find is that actually reframing the message and making it about positive and progress worksbetter.
So I have a few girlfriends whosmoke.
Andsure, they are concerned aboutcancer.
But I see that really was driving them to try to stop smoking is that they want to have a nicerglow, betterskin.
Right. So you want to reframe this to highlight what is a positive outcomes instead of saying tosomeone, if you take routeA, you will lose time andmoney, which is the negativeframe.
Right. You wouldsay, if you take routeB, you will gain time andmoney.
So does this work in both the situation where you want to motivate yourself and in situations where you're trying to motivate someone else tochange?
Yes,absolutely. In manycases, the kind of things that help us in changingothers, we can also use onourselves.
In yourresearch, you say that there are three different types of way that you can motivate someone or yourself tochange.
What are the three and then let's walk through them one byone?
So one is socialproof,right?
Socialincentives. What are other peopledoing?
It is a relatively easy way to changebehavior,right?
Highlighting the positive action ofothers.
And let me give you an example of how this isdone.
Maybe we'll start kind of like on a large level than we go into our personallife.
Great. So the Britishgovernment, they used to send a letter to people who didn't pay their taxes ontime.
And theysaid, youknow, it's really important to pay yourtaxes.
And that didn't help verywell.
So then afterthat, they added onesentence.
And that sentencesaid, nine out of 10 people in Britain pay their taxes ontime,right?
They are highlighting the good behavior ofothers.
And that increased compliance by15% and fought to bring the government to 5.6 billionpounds.
So that'samazing.Okay.
Now let me ask youthough, because here's thething.
If I listen to thatexample, I think tomyself, if I were to march in and say to myhusband,Chris, youknow, to all these husband is exercising every day of theweek.
And he looks reallygreat.
That would probably not motivateChris.
I don'tthink, but that's the socialproof.
Like, how do you use social proof when you're trying to nudge somebody else in a positiveway?
The other kind of thing to think about when it comes to social incentives and social proofs is that if you're trying to change abehavior, it's really helpful to model thatbehavior,right?
So if you want kids not to be on theirfilms, and you're on the phone half thetime,right?
That's notgood.Well, you want them to eatwell.
Butthen, youknow, you're not eating theapple.
Well, that's notgood. So you need to model thebehavior.
And so with like getting your husband to go out andrun, you can come in and like melike,oh, ready for arun.
Andthen, youknow, try to convince him to come along withyou,right?
Maybe it's more like foryou,right?
Gotit. Youknow, the joke of the example that I gave you is that Chris is the one thatexercises, and I'm the one sitting on thecouch.
Another one of the three ways to motivate people is immediatereward.
Can you give an example of how you can create an immediate reward from somebodyelse?
And how do you even figure out what's a reward for someone else that they might respondto?
So one clear immediate reward that everyone loves is kind of like reinforcing them social feedback when they dosomething.
So a friend ofmine, anytime when I ask him aboutlike,oh, how are your kids aredoing?
Or we are I asked him about something that he told me that he was having troublewith.
He was trying to get overit.
There'slike, sometimes a colleague that he was having aproblem.
And then like a weeklater, I wasasking,oh, how did whathappened?
What he always says islike,oh, thank you forasking.
And by saying thank you forasking, that causes me to want to do that kind of thingagain,right?
To be kind of perceptive about what what what what what people are telling me to ask aboutit.
So he's basically reinforcing this behavior by giving me an immediatereward.
The moment I didthis, hesaid, thank you forasking.
And that's myreward,right?
Yes. This is sofascinating.
And I think it's reallyimportant.
And so I want to see if I am tracking with you and go back into our living room where that unsuspecting person is sitting on thecouch, having only watching golf and you walk in the room and you're really stressedout.
And if we take what you just told us to do based on theresearch, if you were to do something negative and you were to pressure that you shouldgo,no,no, orwhatever.
I'm not going to let you turnon.
I'mnot. That you're basically saying the brain doesn't even absorbit.
They just tune you right out and they are notmotivated.
But if you were togo,hey,honey, youknow, it's beautifuloutside.
And if you go outside and you actually get your run in after this golf match isover, you're going to be so much more energized tomorrow morning that that would be a betterway.
Yes,absolutely. I had someone tell me that they learned about this and then they went back to their teenageboy, which usually they had a lot of struggles in the evening about when to go tosleep.
And they usuallysaid,well, if you don't go to sleep by 10pm, you're going to be tired the next day and soon.
It didn'twork. But then after reading thebook, she went back and shesaid, if you go to sleepearly, you'll look better and be more energetic for yourgirlfriend.
And shesaid, that worked perfectlywell.
Well, Imean, it's such a simpletrick, but it makes so muchsense.
And I'm even thinking about it withmyself.
Like, I'm constantly shamingmyself,oh, I should getup.
I should do this thing versus thinkingabout,well, what do I actually careabout?
Absolutely.Dr.Sherritt, I am so grateful that you are here because I am learning so much about what I'm doing wrong and why it hasn't beenworking.
And I feel empowered to try newstrategies.
And so I want to take a quick break and hear a word from oursponsors.
And while you're listening to our sponsors and they bring you this show at zerocost, I also want you tothink, who in your life can you send thisto?
Because maybe it's somebody it's naggingyou, maybe it's somebody that you really want to get this information to so that they have the research and they can better empower themselves tochange.
So go ahead and share this episode with someone that youlove, take a listen to our sponsors and do not goanywhere.
Please, and let me tell you about the reward because we're not only going to keep inspiringyou, we have so many specific takeaways coming up that you're going to be thrilled that you stuck around to learn and we'll be waiting for you after a shortbreak.
Stay withus. Welcomeback.
It's yourfriend, Mel and we are here with the remarkableneuroscientist,Dr.
TalleySherritt. She is teaching us all aboutchange.
The things that we're doing wrong when it comes to trying to change other people and what we need to know about the research so that we can better inspire ourselves and power other people in our lives tochange.
SoDr.Talley, we all know what we could or should bedoing,right?
You know that if you want to behealthier, you need to exercisetoday.
You know that if you want to write thebook, you need to be writingtoday.
You know that if you'd like to be in a different job in ayear, you better dust off your resume and do ittoday.
Why is it so hard to make ourselves do thosethings?
Why do we procrastinate when we know what that positive thing is that we dowant?
So that positive thing in all the examples that you justgave, they're in thefuture.
While the good stuff is just in front ofyou,right?
So the chocolate cake isthere.
I can have a bite now and immediately I'll get a sugar rushimmediately.
It's certain or the drink isthere.
I'll drink it and for the immediate time it will make me feelgood,right?
Or I can sit on the couch and watch golf or Netflix show or whatever and that will be an immediategratification.
The joy isimmediate. For all the other things that yousaid, I will do the actionnow, but mostly the rewards will be in thefuture.
So I write the booknow. It'll be published in twoyears.
I exercisenow. I will eventually fit into myjeans, but it's not going to happenimmediately.
So there's this problem between it's a temporal gap between what we need to do which we need to do it now and the reward that we will get which be in the future versus the stuff that's probably not good forus, but the reward isimmediate.
So that's aproblem. And part of the problem is what's known as temporal discounting or presentbias.
What istemporal?Oh, temporal is justtime.
Okay,great. So there's a huge gap of time between the action I need to take and the long-term benefit of taking this action rightnow.
Right. And there's this thing called temporal bias or temporal discounting which is basically this phenomena which makes sense by which we value things in the present more than things in thefuture.
It's not that we don't care about thefuture.
You care about thefuture, but if for example I tell people what would you rather have $100 now or 110 nextweek, most people will take $100now.
We discount the future to somedegree.
Which if you think about it makes sense because the future isn'tcertain.
Yes. Maybe I'll go the gym and I won't actually end up being able to get into myjeans.
Maybe I'll write thebook, but it'll be a failure in thefuture.
You've also taught us that we have this imperative personally to stay incontrol.
And so what is also in my control right now is the $100 that you're about to hand me or the Netflix show that's on rightnow.
And so that is that playing a role in thistoo?
Yes. I think because we have more controlnow.
At least a perception ofit.
Infact, if I do somethingnow, it will impact thefuture.
So I do have some control over thefuture, but because it's relatively uncertain because there's so many days and everything canhappen.
Maybe I'll dietomorrow.
So I put all this work in and then I'm dead in aweek.
So it's easier to just go with theimmediate.
It's moreattractive. And is there a trick to get yourself to act now and do things now that are hard that actually make your life easy in the longerrun?
The number one trick is to give yourself immediaterewards.
What do Imean? Let's say usually when you think about going to thegym, yousay, I want to go thejob.
I don't wantto, but I need to go the gym so I can get these futurerewards, which I'll be skinny and healthier and whatever in thefuture,right?
But think about what will you get immediately or you can do that for someoneelse,right?
What will you get immediately if you go now for the future to thegym?
Not only what we get to thefuture.
So let's say foryourself, it might be someone told me they anytime they go on thetreadmill, they allow themselves to watch like a trashy show that usually they don't allowthemselves,right?
That's immediatereward.
Or you go for a run and you listen to apodcast,right?
immediatereward. And you can also give it to someoneelse.
There was a woman who came to me after a talk and she said she wanted to get her husband to go to thegym.
And he didn't really likeit, but then eventually he went one day and when he gotback, I don't think he wasintentional, but she kind of like touched his arm and waslike,oh, I can really feel yourmuscles,right?
And shesaid,well, that didit,right?
He that caused him to go back the nextday.
So that was the immediatereward,right?
You know what else I'm gaining from your research is that if the mistake that we've been making by pressuringjudging,gilting, all that other stuff highlights the badbehavior, then when you give your love and attention appreciation to calling out the goodbehavior, you are really now helping them move toward that instead of creating thatparalysis, you're actually fueling thetanks, so tospeak.
That's supercool.Yeah.
And make sure to do that for somereason.
Our kind of automatic reaction is kind of to focuson,oh, they're not doing thatenough.
And whenthey, when people dodo, we justlike, we might in our headsay,oh, that'snice, but we have to actually verbalizethat, youknow, mydaughter, forexample, she in general doesn't eat much or doesn't like to eat anything that's healthy forsure.
We went out and she ordered a sandwich that had like vegetables init.
And I waslike, and Isaid,oh,Livy, like welldone.
I'm so proud ofyou. So you have to highlight that when people do do thesethings.
Yes. A lot of people readthat.
A lot of people read that like condescendingthough.
You know how like sometimes if somebody like is I don't know if there's any advice or research onthis, but I find that sometimes when people are really defensive or at least I've that scenario with the kids when our son finally started eating things that were green and sort of a chicken nugget in a frenchfry.
And I'mlike,finally, that'sgreat.
That'sgreat. That's theone.
Double digits atleast.
Imean, getlike, we were way into the doubledigits.
One one is eatingfine, but the other one'snot.
But solike, there's probably before you let it out of your mouth and it's kind of calling out the finally you're doingit.
It's I'm really proud ofyou.
Exactly. I'm really proud ofyou.
But the way that you did withadults, forexample, like my husband has this new thing where he getsup.
He doesn't wake meup. He gets the kids ready toschool.
He takes them to school and I just get tosleep.
And how amazing isthat?
I don't know why he decided one day to startthat.
And he knows I don't likemornings.
And youknow, if I can sleep just like another hour without anyone waking meup, that'sgreat.
But I make sure to saylike, oh mygod, thankyou.
That was sogreat. And I think that's that's good foreveryone.
Ofcourse. Ofcourse. The third way you can motivate people to changeit, we've talked about is progresstracking.
How do you use that if you're trying to help somebody get better withmoney?
Okay. So a lot of progresstracking.
Imean, there's a lot of apps for all of thesethings.
There's a reason why lots of theseapps, whether you're tracking your steps or you'retracking, youknow, yourexpenses.
There's apps for all of thesethings.
And maybe itdepends. Maybe you don't want to need to trackeverything.
I don't know what itis. Like thegoal, but think about what the goalis.
And then you can track the specific elements that are related to thatgoal.
How does the progress fuel into your motivation to keepgoing?
Because there must be a connection based on theresearch.
Right. So itbrings, it's just the joy that we feel fromprogress.
Right. When we see that we'reprogressing, that is really what's causing us thejoy.
When we dowell, that is alsojoyful.
But it is doingbetter.Right.
That is even morejoyful.
Like imagine like you're running a marathon and you're doing reallywell.
You do like free30, like threehours, 30seconds, 30minutes.
And then the nextyear, you do three hours for aminute.
It's still verygood. But imagine it'slike,oh, now it's three hours and 28minutes.
Right. It's so much better because there's some kind ofprogress.
Right. But infact, if we kind ofjust, even if we're in the top of ourgame, if we are notprogressing, we're just like justmaintaining.
Yeah. That can actually be extremelydemotivating.
We always need some progress in ourlife.
And it makes sense that our brain has evolved to be likethat.
Right.Right. Because what thatdoes, it causes us to tryto, toprogress.
Right. It causes us as anindividual, but also as aspecies.
Goahead. And then because imagine likeit, think about your first entry leveljob.
When you gotit, you were probablyreally, reallyhappy.
But ofcourse, after awhile, you kind of are hoping for somethingelse.
You're hoping for thatpromotion.
You want to see someprogress.
And Imean, it's just a way that we are wiredup.
And there's a good reason forit.
Gotit. One of my favorite experiments actually that show this is abouthandwashing.
Okay. So we all know that handwashing is reallyimportant.
Right. And especially important to avoid the spread ofdisease.
And that's especially important inhospitals.
And inrestaurants, so in a hospital in New Yorkstates, a camera was installed to see how often medical staffs actually wash their hands before and after entering a patient'sroom.
And theyfound, I don't know if I want to knowthis.
They found that only one in10, only10% of the medical staff washed their hands before and after entering a patient'sroom.
Now, this was before thepandemic.
Okay. Hopefully numbers are differentnow, but still10%.
And also to beclear, the medical staff knew that the camera wasinstalled.
Right. So it's not like it was a nanny camerasituation.
They knew the nanny camera camera wasinstalled.
And yet it was only10% that actually washed theirhands.
And then they made onechange.
They put an electronic board that told the medical staff how well they weredoing.
Every time they washed their handsimmediately, they got positive feedbacksaying, welldone, goodshift.
They could seeit. They'll try and what was above the patient'sdoor.
Right.Wow. And they saw the numbers going up of the current shift rates and the weekly rate of people washing theirhands.
And thecompliance. So the number of people who from washed their hands went from10% to90%.
Holycow. Which ishuge.
And it stayed there for quite awhile.
Imean, it was such a big effect that they wanted to make sure that it wasreal.
So they replicated it in another division in thehospital.
And here they found something verysimilar.
It started at30%. Put the electronic board with the feedback that welldone, goodshift, and it went up to90%.
Again. And so why does thatwork?
It works for all the reasons that we justdiscussed, which is the normal approach is just to tell the medicalstaff, if you don't wash theirhands, there will be bad things in the future illness anddisease.
So you have to wash theirhands.
Right. And A is in thefuture.
B is somethingbad. So it doesn't cost me toact.
So now they flip itover.
And now you're washing your hands to get a positivemessage, which isimmediate.
And it'spositive. And how about the fact that you're also seeing that other people are doingit?
Does that impact your desire to move toward it and adopt this positivebehavior?
Right.Absolutely. So there's two other really important thingshere.
One is it's socialproof.
Yeah. I'm seeing that60%,70%,80% are doingit.
I don't want to be the one whodoesn't,right?
I want to do the goodstuff, which is what other people aredoing.
This is veryhelpful. I know that sometimes when you take one of these like citybikes, there's actually a little electronic board telling you how many people have taken these bikes today in thecity.
Okay. That makes you feellike,oh,A, I'm part of this biggroup.
Yep. And be like a lot of people are takingbikes, youknow, beinggreen.
Yep.Yeah. That motivates me to do to do thesame.
So that's socialproof.
And the other nice thing aboutit, the numbers keep goingup.
So that's verygratifying.
Yes. And same thing with the handwashing.
You wash thehands, numbers goup, you see it goingup, there'sprogress.
Dr.Sherrett, I am eating up every singleword.
And this right now feels like a great moment to take a quickpause.
We can hear a word from oursponsor.
So don't you love what you're learning fromDr.
Sherrett? And did you notice your lastname?
Sherrett. So how about you share it as in this episode with somebody that you love while you're listening to oursponsors?
Don't goanywhere. We'll be rightback.
Welcomeback. It's your friendMel.
We are here withDr.Sherrett.
She is teaching us so much about the latest research related to how you can inspire yourself to change it moreimportantly.
What not to do and what to do when you're trying to empower the people in your life to change theirbehavior.
SoDr.Sherrett, yourparent, how the heck do we apply this to ourlife?
Like how do I use this to maybe get the kids to do chores to get everybody to helpout?
How do we applythis? So infact, I would say with kids is the easiest thing todo.
So first ofall, let's start with the verybeginning.
You don't want to control or give them a sense that they'recontrol.
Yeah. That you are telling them what todo.
So forexample, let's say you want them to eat vegetables instead of saying here eat yourcarrots.
Say do you want carrots or what youlike?
Cucumbers. So there's achoice.
Or even better make your ownsalad.
So they're incontrol.Right?
Or youknow, a lot of times you may ask do you want me to choose what you'revegetable?
Do you want to chooseyourself?
Oh, that'ssneaky. I like thatone.
I like thatone. Sometimes they prefer youknow, like especially I mean my kids are now and they're not thatold.
They're eight and10, but they youknow, dress themselves asthat.
But like when they wereyounger, sometimes I would choose theiroutfits, but I wouldask,hey, do you want me to choose your outfit or do you want to choose ittoday?
And so sometimes they want me tochoose, but it's telling me that they want me to choose is achoice.
So now I'm not taking the control out ofthat,right?
Yes. They're giving it tome.
It's a bitdifferent. So they're still maintaining theiragency.
This comes to play alot.
Right? Instead of tellingsomeone, let's say it's like an employee instead ofsaying,okay, this is what you're going to workon.
Right? That's what you need todo.
Give peopleoptions.Right?
Yeah. Same thing withclients.
Even if you're adoctor, you couldsay,well, this is a treatment I think or you couldsay,well, here are a fewoptions.
Gotit. Let's talk them through and see what'sbest.
Right? So you're kindof, and you don't want to give toomany, this is alsointeresting.
You don't wantto, ifyou're, whether you're adoctor, giving the options to people or whatever itis, you don't want to give too many options because that can beoverwhelming.
There's the famous study where people are given an option to choose between 60 different jams in a store and some people are sooverwhelmed, they just leave emptyhanded.
Right?Right. But two or threeoptions.
That's an easyway. Giving people a choice is an easy way to maintain their sense ofcontrol, agency and theirmotivation.
Forexample, so I bite to work and I don't always put a helmeton.
And so you're theexception.
Right. Comeon,Doc. What are youdoing?
You're not following your owneyes.
It's notgood.Right. And so what I do is Isay,okay, anytime that I get to work and I have my helmeton, I'mallowed, youknow, I can have a little Hershey chocolate or something likethat.
Somethingsmall.Right?
So that's areward.Right?
Can I just underscoresomething?
You're one of the number one neuroscientists in theworld.
If anybody's brain needs to beprotected, it'syours.
So I love the fact that you just admitted after trying to teach all of us how to change other people that you yourself believe you're the exception and you have to reward yourself to put a helmeton.
Yeah, I have to sayprobably, Imean, it's probably true that like it's partially because I think I'm in theexception, but it is an oddthing.
And it's more aboutconvenience,right?
Iwon't.Well, so inLondon, where Ibike, I had this really badhelmet.
So I did put it on everytime, but it was obvious that it's not going tohelp.
Right? It was just like not evenfitting.
And I knewliterally, and I knew I finallydid.
Finally, don't worry thehelmet.
No,finally,no, I waslike, I was wearing thehelmet.
No, I was wearingit. But I knew that it was just to take abox.
Yes. It wasn't like it wasn't evenfitting.
If somethinghappened, itwouldn't.
It was like wearinghats.
The helmet was sobad. And it months and months and months until Ifound, and I kept tellingmyself, I have to go buyit.
Butfinally, Idid. But this was months and months and months of biking in London with a helmet that absolutely wasn't protecting me atall.
Here's what I'velearned.
You needed to attach an immediate reward to that helmet and to the wearingit.
Otherwise, you're going to avoid doing it at allcosts.
Right.Well, Imean, I did this in this specificexample.
I was wearingit. It wasn'tgood.
I had to what what what I was trying to do is get myself to go to a store to buy something that'sbetter.
Right? And I waslike,well, I don't have time when I'm going togo.
Right? Ofcourse. I'm immenselyrelatable.
And I think what I'm really hearing over and over is that we are naturally wired to move towards thepositive.
We are naturally wired to move toward the immediatebenefit.
And so much of the way that we approach change with ourselves and certainly the way we approach change in the people that we love or other people around us is with negative reinforcement with threats with pressure withfear.
And so you're really highlighting over and over and over again to start thinking about helping people move toward what's good versus trying to shove them away from what'sbad.
And we all have that person in our lives with our terselles or somebody that we love that is so resistant tochange.
Is it human nature to be defensive or to not want to take accountability for the changes that are going to make our lifebetter?
Soagain, there's a lot of individualdifferences.
Right? So you have you actually have people who reallylike, youknow, trying different things and soon.
But it is difficult to change because what we're doingnow, this statusquo, that's the easiestthing.
Right? It's easy to just go ahead and continue doing what you'redoing.
Making a change meansefforts.
And there's all thisuncertainty.
If I continue doing what I'mdoing, at least I know what the outcomeis.
If I try somethingnew, I don't know what the outcomeis.
It'suncertain. People don't likeuncertainty.
We like topredict. And infact, that's what our brain is trying to do all thetime.
We're predicting the nextthing.
We'repredicting, youknow, you're predicting my nextword.
You're not even noticingit.
It's predicting what's goingon.
So that's what we're trying todo.
And we don't like it when we don't know what's going tohappen.
And change meansuncertainty.
But it turns out that onaverage, change actually tends to do usgood.
So there's a great study by the economist StephenLevit, where he had people go online and write something that they wanted tochange.
And it could be somethingsmall, like just change yourhair, or it could bebig, like entering or exiting arelationship, entering or exiting ajob.
So they wrote down what they wanted tochange.
And then he asked him to flip a virtualcoin.
If the coin hidheads, goahead, make achange.
And if it was ontails, then stick with the statusquo.
And then he came back to them two weeks later and six monthslater.
First ofall, he found that there were more likely to make a change if they gotheads.
So25% morelikely.Well, holdon, which one was headsever?
Has it make achange? But basically whatever the coinshowed, it actually had in fact25%.
Imean, it's nothuge,huge, but it'ssomething,right?
Yeah. Which soundscrazy.
It does sound like I would have predicted theopposite.
I would have predicted that if the coin flip was don'tchange, people would belike, don't tell me what todo.
I'm going to gochange. You watchme.
Okay. So if you got the cointoss, you're more likely to make achange.
You're probably going tochange.
Which is actually it's a really interestingquestion.
Whythen? We can talk aboutthat.
Why do that evenwork? Which wasn't the point of astudy, but it's an interestingquestion.
I'd like toknow, why does thatwork?
So it's like giving someone else the responsibility or it'slike,well, I think about it somuch.
And now it's as if it'slike, youknow, the someone has toldme,right?
It'sfate. Youknow, I have to go withit.
It's like beyondme. Butokay.
So25% more likely tochange.
Butimportantly, when he came back two weeks and six monthslater, when he found was it onaverage.
And there's like a lot of people in this study thousands and thousands of people onaverage, those people that made a change werehappier.
Right. Ofcourse, some peopleweren't.
But onaverage, a change was related to an enhancement in your wellbeing.
And I think there's at least two reasons why thisis.
Oneis, if you're really thinking about achange, there's areason.
What's thereason? That something needschanging.
Okay. Like if you're thinking about changing a job or you're thinking about movinghouse, youknow, there's probably a reason that you're thinking aboutit, which is that there's something that's not great that could bebetter.
Right. And so that's one reason why a change ends up being good because it probably is time for a change to beclear.
This doesn't meanthat, youknow, it's recommended to always change ifyou're, youknow, leave yourrelationship.
It doesn't even say what the changeis.
Perhaps you're thinking about a change regarding yourrelationship.
It doesn't say breakup.
It says a change isneeded.
So maybe you have to go therapy is achange.
Maybe it's like change yourroutines,right?
But it changesneeded. And the second reason I think why it change on average ended up being a good thing is because a change means more variety in yourlife.
It puts you in a newstate, a state oflearning.
If you make achange, you're now in some kind of different situation in a differentenvironment.
You need to learnsomething.
Maybe you're movingjobs.
So you need to learnsomething.
Andpeople, although they don't necessarily predictit, they really enjoylearning.
When we are in astate, this is why people would listen to yourpodcasts.
This is where what podcasts areso, youknow, why they're sopopular.
That's why you'rehere.
People lovelearning. And whenthey, theylearn, it makes them reallyhappy.
There's a simple study conducted by twoneuroscientists,Rutledge's, Rutledge andBlaine.
And what they found is that they had people do atask.
And if they didwell, they gotmoney.
And they like gettingmoney.
They were happy when they gotmoney.
But it turned out that they were even happier when they learned something about thetask.
So learning really brings youjoy.
And learning is basically achange,right?
That'strue. And so I think a changebrings, youknow, diversity to yourlife.
Variety puts you in a state oflearning.
So I want to ask for your advice based on theresearch.
For how somebody might approach asituation, because I'm sure as they're listening toyou, they'rethinking, I feel veryinspired.
I feel veryhopeful. And I really want to have a conversation with a person in my life that I do want to support inchanging.
Is there a certain way to approach a conversation or specific things to say or not say to somebody when you want to talk to them about like a touchysubject, youknow, finding a newjob, taking better care ofyourself.
How would you approach that to set the dynamic up for success with anotheradult?
Yeah.Okay. So I think there's a few things that you kind of want to avoid that we talkedabout,right?
Not seeming like you are giving them aprescription,right?
Okay. Butwhat,rather, what you're doing is kind of exploring differentoptions.
Andalso, I think the focus has to be on what theywant.
Not what you think they shouldwant.
Because maybe what they want is different from what you want foryourself, what you want forthem, what you think they should want forthemselves.
And what you've taught us that we will never get away from is that at the end of theday, you want control over yourself and the person that you love wants to feel like they're in control of theirlives.
And so this is a conversation to walk into that really is why eyes wide open that you may be worried or stressed or care about this issuedeeply, but what really matters is what this personwants.
Right. And what I found interesting is that when you ask people about how they're feeling aboutthings, you just askthem.
Right. You get really a lot ofinformation,right?
That's when they start kind oftalking.
So I think maybe that's a good startingpoint,right?
Yes. Somethinglike, so how are you feeling about whether what is you wanted to talk about like thework?
How are you feeling about yourjob?
Do you likeit?Right. Imean, that is veryhelpful.
I've seen it with myteam.
So we have a discussion at least once ayear, if notmore, where I'm just askingthem,okay, tell me how you'redoing,right?
And that's simplequestion, which I don't think we askenough.
You get so muchinformation.
And from thatpoint, you can really kindof, you really want to focus on the other person about what is it that they do that they like and what is it that they want tochange,right?
Where are they trying togo?
That'strue, because if somebody doesn't wantto, they're not goingto.
And it doesn't matter how much you wantit.
And so getting them to start to talk about how they feel about their health or their financial situation or where their career is going and what they would actuallywant.
That's how you start to tap into some of the fundamental things you've been talkingabout.
What do you do though if you have somebody that's just like extremely resistant tochange?
Is there anything that you would recommend based on the research that you try with somebody just is whether it'sscared,anxiety, digging their heels andstubbornness?
Is there an approach that's more effective than anotherone?
So I think often people who are very resistant to any kind of change is because they have negative expectations of how they will feel or what the outcome will be if they change or they think it's notpossible.
I'll try and I'llfeel. Often it's about ourexpectations.
So I think it's helpful to think about what isit?
How can I get to this positiveplace?
If it's really about people having negative expectations of either what they could do or once they getthere, what would be the thinkabout,okay, maybe we can get there by making a specificplan?
So I think changing theseexpectations, which in fact means making people more optimistic about something is motivation foraction.
I also think I know I feel like I know a bunch of couples that the dynamic is really more about thecontrol.
It's not about thehealth.
It's not about like the issue at all of finding a newjob.
It's that the second that one partnersays, I would really like you to take better care ofyourself.
The other person feels like they're beingcontrolled.
And as long as they don'tchange, they're now in control of their ownlife.
And their spouse can't tell them what todo.
And so I think oftentimes you get in these standoffs with people where you're arguing about health or you're arguing about a job or you're arguing about somethingelse.
And it's really that this person doesn't want to be controlled byyou.
Yeah,absolutely. So we've focused a lot on otherpeople, but what are the best ways to motivate yourself tochange?
So first ofall, I think that we have a lot of focus and we focus a lot about the things that are not goodenough,right?
We need tochange. We need to becomebetter.
I suggest as a firststep, maybe let's take some time to think about the great things that we havedone.
A lot of very difficult things and every one of us has done really difficult things and obstacles and a lot of things that we do are quite hard and they all have greatskills.
And let's focus on that for a while because I knoweven, and it's true foreveryone, but even if you look atthis,like, Uber successful people have done greatthings, they also focuson, this could bebetter.
And the reason that's helpful is because that gives you confidence andstrength.
When yousay,look, I've done this and this and this and this andthis.
That gives you strength to kind ofsay,okay, maybe I have what it takes to do whatever the next change is that I want todo.
And then reallymotivation, a lot of the motivation comes from the belief that you can dothat.
And so to havemotivation, we need to think through what are thesteps, what is aplan?
So maybe I want to write abook.
Well, that's quitehuge.
How do I getmotivation?
Well, then maybe think about the specific steps that I need todo.
Right? The outlinefirst.
Let's do 10 pages atime.
So all these things are just focus onthose.
And then start to think about what is it that I've already done in my past life that suggests that I can dothis?
And it could be things that arerelated.
So we're thinking about writing abook.
Well, there's maybe you wrote articles or it could be things that areunrelated.
You'relike,well, I gavebirth.
That was quitehard.Yes.
Or I raisedkids. That was quitehard.
So there's a lot of things that we've done in our life that are hard and we overcomethem.
And that's good to have in the back of ourminds.
So I love that because you'reright.
A lot of the change comes from a make wrong and from ashould.
And if you stepone, do an assessment andsay, let me just give myself a little bit of credithere.
Yeah. I've done a lot of hard things in mylife, whether it's related to this ornot.
And I've also shown up in major ways for otherpeople.
All of that is evidence that I'm pretty amazing and that I can apply that to this new thing that I want todo.
So if you can wrap your mind by using past experience around the belief that it is possible for you to showup.
It is possible for you to chip away atthis.
What is the second kind of most important thing to add in to keep you movingforward?
You know what's very helpful is have other people who believe inyou.
Right? So it's nice to know that like other people have trust in you because it changes your confidence in yourself aswell.
Ofcourse. But I want to just make sure that the person listening to you who is somewhere in the world right now and does not have that support because I get a ton of questions from people that are listeners to this podcast that one of the biggest challenges is I feel like I want to make all these changes and I'm not getting the support from myfamily.
And I'm getting kind of the side glance from my friends about starting this new real estate business or my family is busy drinking while I'm you know trying notto.
And so if you don't have that support and you've done step one and you've really looked for your own life at your own life for evidence that you can dothis.
What else can you focus on because it's really discouraging when you're trying to change and you don't feel like the folks around you are supportingyou.
Yeah and I'll tell you what else you can do but before that I suggest you go and find it and I think it'spossible.
So for example if you're wanting to you want to start a real estate let's say you're you know a woman you want to start your own real estatecompany.
Well they are kind of groups that you can find probably on socialmedia.
So I think even if you're saying well in my family I'm not getting support you could find that support elsewhere just try at least to look for it because I think it's possible and it is superhelpful.
I am so glad you said this because here is what I learned toolate.
I have looked to my family to support me through experiences that they do notunderstand.
Chris is wonderfullysupportive.
He doesn't have a clue what I deal with day to day in my business because he doesn't run a business like this and either do my kids and so the I love that you said that because also looking at people who have never been where you're going or don't understand where you are means you will feel misunderstood and not supported and the best thing that you could do is seek out the people that are doing what you're doing or who you think are competing with you because they'renot.
They're the people on the planet that actually understand what you're upagainst.
So thank you for reminding us that there's support all around us if we're willing to look for it and go findit.
Yeahabsolutely. WellDr.
Tolley shared thank you so much for being here and I also wanted to thank you for spending time with us today and in case nobody tells you I wanted to tell you that I love you I believe in you and I believe in your ability to not only create a better life but to takeDr.
Sherritz words to heart stop pressuring the people in your life to change because they don't want to hear it from you and focus on changing yourself and your own life for thebetter.
Alrighty I'll talk to you in a fewdays.
Okay great youready? Here wego.
Tracey's like let's talk about magicwand.
You are mypuppet. Here wego.
Did you notice I didn't even look at mycards?
Hold on and changeit. Hold on let me do this for moretime.
Oh mylordy. Okay here wego.
Is thatgood? Why did you do it one moretime?
Also my strings are out of mypants.
That was a very low budgetlook.
Okay here wego. You think that'sit?
Okaygreat. Okay Ilove.
Wrap itup. Oh and one morething.
I know this is not ablooper.
This is the legallanguage.
You know what the lawyer's right and what I need to read toyou.
This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainmentpurposes.
I'm just yourfriend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of aphysician, professionalcoach, psychotherapist or other qualifiedprofessional.
Gotit?Good. I'll see you in the nextepisode.
