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The 100 Percent Rule That Will Change Your Life | Benjamin Hardy | TEDxKlagenfurt - YouTube
Channel: TEDx Talks
[0]
Transcriber: S Ying
Reviewer: Hiroko Kawano
[22]
This is my friend right here.
[24]
His name is Tom Hartman.
[27]
Tom is over 400 pounds,
[29]
just barely got divorced,
[31]
has very little confidence
of what we're just talking about.
[34]
And he has a very persistent brother.
[37]
His brother has been trying
to convince him for a few years
[41]
to come to a motivational conference,
actually by a person named "Zig" Ziglar.
[46]
And this is a couple of decades ago.
[48]
After a lot of prodding,
Tom finally gets convinced,
[52]
and he goes to this "Zig" Ziglar
motivational conference,
[55]
and he is not comfortable
in that environment.
[58]
It's the last place he wants to be.
[60]
He's around all sorts of people
who are motivated and excited.
[63]
He sees this guy up on stage,
cheering, rah-rahing.
[67]
And he's just very uncomfortable.
[70]
And he's very resistant, actually,
to what's being taught.
[74]
But over time,
[75]
just listening over the first 90 minutes -
[77]
Zig is up there,
teaching about self-image
[80]
about how you see yourself
[81]
and about how most people
view themselves in a very powerless way.
[84]
They have a very negative
story about themselves.
[87]
And how your story about who you are
and how you see yourself
[91]
is generally a direct correlation
with how you perform in the world.
[94]
How you see yourself is how you act.
[97]
And he was listening to these ideas,
[99]
and he was hearing about
how Zig was talking about
[101]
how it's important to go
from powerlessness to powerful,
[105]
where you see yourself
not from your current circumstances
[108]
but from the circumstances
that you hope to have.
[112]
And a lot of his shells got broken down
during those first 90 minutes.
[117]
And actually after the first session,
he asked his brother, he said,
[120]
鈥淚s it alright if we go and buy
some of the tapes that are in the back?"
[124]
Because there were tapes
that he could buy near the end.
[127]
And he couldn't afford it;
he had no money.
[129]
He was pretty much out of a job,
just got divorced -
[132]
his whole life was kind of in shambles.
[134]
His brother really liked the idea
of him getting the tapes,
[137]
and so his brother got him the tapes.
[138]
After the conference,
[139]
he ended up listening
for five hours that day,
[142]
seven hours the next day,
[143]
and ended up listening
over and over and over.
[146]
He was listening to the things on repeat,
essentially rewiring his belief system.
[151]
There's a really good idea
that your input shapes your outlook
[154]
and your outlook shapes your behavior.
[156]
And so he was changing his input.
[158]
Rather than listening to the radio,
[160]
rather than listening to things
that were kind of low energy, low level,
[164]
he was just listening to stuff
[165]
that was completely retraining him
to see himself differently.
[168]
Because of this input,
he decided to do something very bold.
[171]
And the bold behavior that he did
[173]
ultimately led him
to having a peak experience.
[175]
And that peak experience
altered his identity.
[178]
And there's a lot
of really interesting science
[180]
behind the bold behavior that he did.
[182]
So ultimately what happened was
after about a week of the Zig conference,
[188]
he got the idea that he wanted
to go and buy some suits.
[191]
He bought two very nice fitted suits -
[194]
he actually had to put a down payment
on these suits, over $700.
[198]
And he had them fitted -
[200]
obviously, he couldn't have them
fitted on himself -
[202]
but he bought two smaller suits.
[204]
And the person selling the suit said,
"Tom, who are you buying these for?"
[209]
And he said, "Well,
I'm buying them for myself."
[211]
And the guy who was selling the suits
had to hold back the laugh
[214]
because he just couldn't believe it.
[217]
You know, Tom was still
over 400 pounds at the time.
[221]
But what's very interesting
about this behavior
[223]
is that Tom was investing money
into his future identity.
[228]
He was not investing money
into his current identity.
[230]
And he was actually saying
in a very real way, with his words,
[234]
what he was going to do.
[236]
There are a few things
that are very powerful about this.
[238]
Number one is the story
he was telling to the clerk
[241]
was a story based on his future,
[243]
whereas all of the stories
he'd previously been telling people
[246]
were based on his past.
[247]
He was explaining himself
in former conversations,
[250]
"This is why I am the way I am."
[253]
Now his story was
"This is who I'm going to be."
[256]
And there's a lot of really
interesting science behind the idea
[260]
of spending money on your goals.
[263]
So for the last four or five years,
[265]
I've been getting my PhD
in organizational psychology,
[268]
and one of the research studies that I did
[270]
was studying the difference
between want-to-be entrepreneurs
[273]
and actual entrepreneurs
who had been successful.
[275]
And I asked a bunch of questions,
[277]
trying to figure out what's the difference
between these two populations.
[280]
And one of the questions that I asked
[282]
the want-to-be entrepreneurs
and the actual entrepreneurs was
[286]
"Have you ever had
a point-of-no-return experience?"
[290]
And almost all of the want-to-be
entrepreneurs said, "No."
[293]
A lot of them hinted to the idea that they
hoped to have that experience one day.
[298]
Almost all the entrepreneurs said, "Yes."
[300]
And not only were they entrepreneurs.
[302]
I asked lots of authors,
professional people at all scales.
[306]
And they all said, "Yes, I've had them,
[309]
and at multiple stages have I had
a point-of-no-return experience."
[314]
So my follow-up question was
"What happened after that experience?"
[318]
And actually, I was interested firstly
in "What was that experience?"
[321]
"What was the point of no return?"
[323]
"What created that shift?"
[324]
Then my next question was
"What happened after?"
[326]
But I was kind of surprised.
[328]
What often created
a point-of-no-return experience
[331]
was making a financial
investment in the goal.
[334]
So I interviewed like a 17-year-old
entrepreneur, for example,
[337]
and his point-of-no-return experience
[339]
was when he and his friend
were both seniors in high school
[343]
when they put their money
together, their savings.
[345]
They invested $10,000
into a huge shipment of shoes
[348]
because they wanted to sell shoes.
[350]
He said his point-of-no-return
was, first, when they spent the money
[353]
but, second, when a huge truck came
[356]
and offloaded basically
a mountain of shoes.
[358]
He said he realized that at that point,
he couldn't go back.
[361]
He couldn't give the shoes back.
[363]
He had this mountain of shoes
now completely filling his garage,
[366]
and basically, at that moment,
his identity shifted.
[370]
He said at that moment, he realized
that he was running a company,
[374]
that he was leading a company.
[376]
And from that moment forward,
he acted from that leadership role.
[379]
So he put himself in, essentially,
a position where he had to move forward.
[383]
That's why it was a point of no return.
[385]
Because in a lot of ways,
he couldn't actually go back;
[387]
he couldn't actually give the shoes back.
[389]
But what was more important
about the point of no return
[392]
for this 17-year-old and for Tom Hartman
[394]
was that there was an identity shift.
[397]
There's a really good quote
from Oliver Wendell Holmes, and he says,
[401]
"A mind stretched by a new experience can
never go back to its former dimensions."
[405]
So this episode of Tom led to, actually,
a more profound peak experience
[411]
that gave him the realization
that his identity had shifted,
[414]
that he was no longer the person
he had formerly been,
[416]
but now he was this person
who he envisioned himself to be.
[419]
So Tom was hanging out in a grocery store.
[423]
He was actually in an aisle,
looking for food.
[425]
And a four-year-old girl
walked by with her mom,
[428]
and the four-year-old girl said,
"Mom, look there's a fat man."
[431]
And Tom swung around, and he looked,
not sure who she was talking about,
[435]
and he realized that there was
no one else on the aisle.
[439]
And it very quickly kicked in:
"This girl is talking about me."
[442]
And he just started laughing.
[444]
Like this was the first moment
where it just hit him.
[446]
And he was just laughing, laughing ...
[448]
and then, eventually,
a tear came to his eye.
[451]
And he realized at that moment
[453]
that he no longer identified
as a person who was overweight.
[456]
And at that moment, he realized
that he was going to succeed.
[459]
Fast-forward 18 months.
Tom Hartman has lost 175 pounds.
[464]
He now weighs 225 pounds.
[466]
He has started and successfully created
a company and is becoming very successful.
[472]
He's become far more spiritual.
[473]
He's changed in every area of his life.
[475]
He's a totally different person.
[477]
How you do anything
is how you do everything.
[479]
And in a lot of ways,
[480]
Tom Hartman's example
is pretty much a very clear case
[486]
that things like fad diets, a 30-day diet,
[489]
trying something for a year,
[490]
is not a way to change your behavior,
[492]
because changing your behavior
has to be first a shift in identity.
[495]
When you shift your identity first,
[497]
then the behavior that is up here
where your goals are
[500]
is in alignment with your identity.
[502]
If you keep your identity down here
and are trying to act up here,
[506]
then you're acting in conflict
with how you see yourself.
[508]
And that doesn't work.
[510]
So kind of to portray this example
or to take this idea a little bit further,
[514]
I want to introduce you
to a person named Elko.
[516]
Elko is an entrepreneur from Amsterdam.
[519]
He's 38 years old, and he, as well,
has struggled with weight his entire life.
[523]
And he's always had a bad diet.
[526]
And he's always had a story in his head
that was planted in there from his mom.
[530]
His mom told him when he was a teenager
[532]
that they are the kind of people
[533]
who always are going to struggle
with weight and with food.
[536]
That was the idea he had in his mind.
[538]
He actually also had the idea in his mind
[540]
that he was going to be able
to potentially willpower his way
[543]
to holding off just
self-destructive behavior
[546]
until about his 40s, 50s or 60s.
[548]
But then at that point,
it would just go all downhill.
[551]
And because of his bad eating habits,
he actually struggled to sleep.
[557]
He couldn't sleep very well.
[558]
And so one night, he was up all night,
struggling to sleep,
[562]
and a thought came to him.
[564]
And he said, "What would happen
if I went back to eating nature?"
[568]
What if I just went back to nature
and just ate clean?
[571]
And then a second thought
popped into his head.
[574]
And that thought was "What would happen
if I did this for the rest of my life?
[579]
Rather than thinking,
"What if I did this for like 30 days?"
[582]
or "What if I did this for a year?"
[584]
The question that really seized him was
[586]
"What would happen if I did this
for the rest of my life?"
[590]
And as soon as he had that thought -
he's sitting there, laying in his bed -
[593]
all of a sudden, he has like this vision,
this picture in his mind,
[598]
of himself in his 90s.
[599]
Totally vibrant, totally healthy.
[601]
He sees himself
with his kids, his grandkids.
[605]
And at that moment,
he just makes the shift.
[608]
From that moment,
he saw what was possible.
[611]
And so he just committed to it.
[612]
This was over a year ago.
[614]
And Elko has not touched any bad food.
[616]
Literally, he's one
of the healthiest people I know.
[618]
He hasn't touched any bad food since then.
[620]
He lives under the mantra
[622]
"100% commitment
is easier than 98% commitment."
[627]
That's actually a quote from Harvard
business professor Clayton Christensen.
[631]
But that idea is also actually backed
[633]
by a lot of very interesting
science and psychology.
[635]
So again, the quote is
[636]
"100% is easier than 98%."
[639]
And the reason why this is so important
[641]
is because if you're only 98%
committed to something,
[644]
what that means is that you're not
actually truly committed.
[647]
You're not actually fully there.
[648]
You haven't actually made the decision.
[651]
And if you haven't made
a decision about something,
[653]
what that means is that you're not
actually sure what you're going to do.
[657]
If Elko was only 98 percent committed
[659]
and he was in an environment
where his favorite dessert was served,
[664]
then he would have to play a tug-of-war
in his mind about what he was going to do:
[667]
"Do I eat it this time? Do I not eat it?"
[670]
And that, right there,
[672]
that mental tug-of-war
is called "decision fatigue."
[676]
Basically, the idea
of decision fatigue is -
[678]
it's another word for willpower -
[680]
but it means you haven't
yet made a choice
[683]
and you're not actually sure
what you're going to do,
[685]
and because you're not sure
what you're going to do,
[688]
often the situation wins.
[689]
One of the most consistent things
that's found in social psychology
[693]
is that, generally, people
are the byproduct of their situation.
[697]
And the reason for that
is because people are not decided.
[700]
Michael Jordan actually
had a very powerful quote.
[703]
Michael Jordan said,
[704]
"Once I made a decision,
I never thought about it again."
[708]
And kind of the Latin root
of the word "decision"
[711]
means that once you make a decision,
[713]
you have to actually
cut off alternative options.
[715]
And so because Elko made a 100% commitment
rather than a 98% commitment
[720]
and he also shifted his identity
by asking himself -
[724]
he didn't ask himself the question
[726]
"Could I do this for the next 30 days?"
[728]
Because if you think about it,
if you want to do something for 30 days,
[731]
then you definitely haven't changed
how you see yourself.
[734]
You're saying, 鈥淚 think
I can do this for about 30 days.
[737]
But once 30 days or a year is over,
[739]
I go right back what to doing what I was,
[741]
but maybe then I'll have
a little bit more control."
[743]
That's not what happened to Tom Hartman.
[745]
That's not what happened to Elko.
[747]
And as a result, those two people -
[748]
they made a fundamental,
a permanent shift.
[751]
And because of that permanent shift,
their behavior just went in line.
[755]
I actually told the story
of Elko to my friend.
[758]
His name is Nate Lambert.
[759]
He was actually one of my professors.
[761]
And Nate has also struggled
with his weight his entire life.
[765]
And Nate and I were doing
a one-year sugar-free fast
[769]
because Nate wanted to go sugar-free.
[771]
Again, he'd struggled
with his weight his whole life.
[773]
And I knew it's a lot easier
for me to do something
[776]
if someone like him is already doing it -
he's a very motivated individual.
[779]
But it's also easier to do
something like that in twos.
[783]
But after hearing Elko's story,
I talked to Nate and said,
[786]
"Nate, why would you
do something for a year -
[790]
for someone like you,
[791]
who knows this is going
to potentially plague you
[793]
for the rest of your life?"
[795]
He's like 38 years old.
[796]
He struggled with this his whole life.
[799]
I said, "Why would you
just do this for a year?
[801]
What's going to happen a year from now?"
[803]
And I told him
[804]
about the idea of 100% commitment
is easier than 98% commitment
[807]
and the difference between
decision and decision fatigue.
[809]
Decision is the opposite
of decision fatigue:
[811]
once you've made the decision,
[813]
you no longer have to play
the mental tug-of-war.
[815]
For example, if you make a decision
about when to wake up the next day,
[819]
you don't push the snooze button.
[820]
If you haven't made the decision
the night before,
[823]
when the alarm goes off,
you're not really sure what you'll do.
[826]
Willpower often does not work.
[828]
And so because
of that epiphany, that idea,
[832]
Nate just sat with his wife,
[834]
he made a list of the pros and cons
of going refined-sugar-free
[837]
for the rest of his life.
[839]
He asked himself,
[840]
"What would happen
if I did this the rest of my life?"
[845]
The list of cons was there, you know.
[848]
There were certain social gatherings
that he would miss,
[851]
miss on some of the things,
[853]
but the list of pros was fundamental.
[856]
And the biggest pro
[857]
was that he would no longer
have to think about it again.
[860]
Psychologists have found that, on average,
people have about 50,000 thoughts a day.
[865]
And Nate said that about 40,000
of those thoughts were about food.
[870]
He couldn't stop thinking about it.
[872]
And that's, essentially,
the nature of addiction.
[874]
You can't stop thinking about it.
[876]
And he was very addicted to food.
[878]
And that's why the Michael Jordan
quote is so important:
[880]
"Once you make a decision,
[881]
you no longer have to
think about it again."
[883]
That was the biggest benefit
of Nate just making this shift, saying,
[887]
"I'm no longer going to do it;
[888]
I don't want to think
about this ever again."
[890]
And once he let that go, and once Elko
and Tom Hartman let that go,
[894]
all of a sudden, they were able to be
exactly who they wanted to be.
[898]
The problem with them
trying to control their behavior,
[902]
willpowering their way to change,
[904]
maybe setting short goals,
[905]
is that they never
actually were able to let go
[908]
of that thing they wanted
to get rid of that whole time.
[910]
Once they can just make the shift
in who they where,
[913]
in how they saw themselves
the rest of their lives -
[915]
once you make a decision
and cut off the alternative option
[918]
by committing 100%,
[920]
all of a sudden,
their mind was completely free
[922]
and they felt so aligned
with who they were,
[924]
they started doing
what they'd procrastinated for years.
[928]
Elko started a business
that he had wanted to do for three years.
[931]
Within a week of having
that vision of seeing himself,
[934]
he had already started.
[935]
Since then, he's done all sorts
of things that he's always wanted to do.
[938]
Nate's the same way.
[940]
Ever since he's been able
to let this thing go,
[942]
and he's stopping, no longer avoiding,
the behavior that he hates,
[947]
and he's now pursuing the life he loves
[949]
because he's so aligned
with who he is and where he's going
[952]
and the story he's telling himself
is based on that future,
[955]
not based on "Well,
this is why I am the way I am."
[958]
Then all of a sudden,
[959]
he could be more courageous;
he could be more confident.
[962]
The scientific definition of confidence
[964]
is actually that confidence
is the byproduct of prior performance.
[968]
Once you start acting confidently
or once you start acting powerfully,
[972]
then you develop confidence.
[973]
And confidence then allows you
to have imagination,
[976]
allows you to see a bigger future,
allows you to believe in yourself,
[979]
and confidence allows you
to be courageous.
[983]
So now,
[984]
I'm kind of pushing this question on you.
[986]
What are some things
that you've potentially been resisting?
[989]
What have you been thinking about doing?
[992]
And maybe they've been
on your mind for a long time.
[994]
It could be an addiction
that you've been thinking about,
[997]
weighing in your mind for years.
[1000]
Maybe you've tried it
for 30 days at a time,
[1002]
maybe you're going off of it for a year,
but you haven't had that shift.
[1006]
On the flip side,
[1007]
what things have you
wanted to do for years
[1009]
that you've been thinking about?
[1011]
What are those things - going back
to my want-to-be entrepreneurs -
[1014]
a lot of want-to-be entrepreneurs
whom I interviewed
[1017]
had been thinking about this for years.
[1019]
It actually took me years to get
to the point where I jumped off the cliff.
[1023]
And it all starts
with a financial investment.
[1025]
It all starts with shifting your story
and shifting your identity.
[1028]
You can't do it through willpower;
[1030]
you have to do it
through who you're going to be.
[1033]
Thank you.
[1034]
(Applause)
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