[Music]
Thanks
let me introduce you to someone who had
a clear vision in life who had clear
goals who wanted to make an impact in
life that’s right I’m talking about
myself about seven years ago when I had
just finished high school and it’s quite
obvious that I was at a great place in
my life I knew what I wanted to achieve
within the next few years and I had good
grades in school I was basically good at
anything I was doing sounds like a
remarkable girl right unfortunately
that’s really not true it’s more like
the opposite was true I had no idea what
I wanted to do with my life
I was at best average at most things and
my core competencies were partying
chillin and I was trying to be a cool
guy so to be honest all this didn’t make
me happy I felt empty I felt shallow and
most the time I felt pretty miserable it
slowly changed when I started studying
in South Africa and at the same time I
started reflecting on my life who did I
want to be what did I want to do with my
life fast forward three years now here
you can see me with my dad and I just
graduated with a Bachelor of Science
laude fast forward another two years now
this was taken about a week ago on the
Harvard campus in Cambridge where I’m
currently doing research and I can
honestly say that today I’m actually
pretty happy so what happened in between
here how do I get from this guy all the
way over there before I can answer this
I need to talk about a topic that might
seem very unrelated at the beginning but
we will get back to this the topic of
habits the we humans are without a doubt
creatures of habit
Wendy wood is a researcher from the
University of Southern California and
she found that forty to forty five
percent of our daily behaviors or habits
I mean that’s a lot that means almost
half of everything you do every day is
actually a habit let me give you some
examples the time you get up it might be
early in the morning for me it’s very
early that’s a habit that you have
computer games my habit used to be I
would come home from high school and I
would play computer games right away
horrible habit but I had that cell
phones
how often do you take out your cell
phone check messages notifications it
horrible habit everyone has it and we
have more driving a car that might not
seem like a habit but we’re only capable
of driving as we do because it has
become a habit to us and there are many
mores eating fast food it’s super
unhealthy habit so many people have it
exercising two three four or five times
a week one of the best habits you could
imagine and there are many more it took
me just a few hours to come up with a
lot of examples but you might ask
yourself what do all those behaviors
have in common how can I talk about
habits and name all those behaviors well
habits are by definition automated
behaviors that we repeat over and over
again always in the same context or
environment and that run in our
subconscious mind what I mean by that is
you’re not really consciously aware of
it anymore you have done it so many
times that you don’t have to pay
attention to the behavior your mind is
wandering you’re thinking of the past
you’re planning into the future but
you’re not really there let me give you
an example like driving a car it has
probably happened to you that you were
driving somewhere you would arrive and
you couldn’t even remember how exactly
you got there it’s because driving has
become so habitual to us habits are
usually triggered by some form of a cue
that’s like a person you run into on a
regular basis it’s an environment that
you are in very often and they’re
rewarded at the end that could be a
piece of chocolate taking a small break
could be basically anything
as long as there’s dopamine released in
the brain it’s a little chemical it’s a
neurotransmitter that signals the brain
oh this is pleasure
this is reward we like this for example
the cell phones every time you get a
message or notification a little bit of
dopamine is released in the brain let’s
like companies like Facebook Instagram
snapchat they program their software so
dopamine is released in the brain that’s
because that’s why cell phones are so
habitual to us we put this together and
we get the so called habit loop EQ
triggers the behavior behavior carried
out rewarded in the end dopamine
released because of that reward and
dopamine we do it again the next time
the queue comes around that’s the habit
loop and we go through this many many
times and we have many habits and in the
background all our habits run through
this loop over and over again so let me
give you a real life example make it a
little more descriptive and lively an
example from my life when I got asked to
give this talk I was at the same time
riding my master thesis then I was
researching in Harvard and I was working
part-time for a startup company I was
juggling with a lot of tasks and I had
to be really productive when I was
working there and there were so many
distractions out there Facebook
Instagram snapchat so what I needed was
a behavior of working focused now I
needed a cue I found an app on my phone
called the forest app you plant a little
seat on this app and when you don’t
check your phone for a set amount of
time you plant a tree on your phone so
Mike you would be put my phone on flight
mode and work focused plant a little
tree now in the end I would actually
grow a whole forest at the end of the
day I would have 7 8 10 trees I called
the whole thing my new deep work habits
and it worked perfectly
well I’m standing here and I hope I’m
doing a fairly alright job ok
so by going through this habit so many
times for several
I was actually changing certain
mechanisms and structures in my brain
and to make this talk a little more
scientific I think we should actually
look at the human brain now this is the
human brain and you can see it’s fairly
complex and if I was going to tell you
that about here there is some change
occurring when you’re doing something
over and over again it probably wouldn’t
really help so what I did was I
simplified the whole thing just a little
bit and I draw us through a scratch
sketch of my brain now that’s my brain
and anding is fairly simple now and
after going through the deep work habit
let’s say for one or two weeks this is
what you would see you would see a
network of neurons that start being
connected together and you can see that
they are connected by pretty weak
connections at the beginning now after
several weeks of me repeating this
behavior over and over again you would
see that the connections are slowly
getting thicker and stronger now after
four or five six weeks of me repeating
this behavior seven eight ten times
every single day this would happen the
connections would even get stronger
there would be a layer of fat wrapped
around it which is called myelin now you
might wonder what does that mean how
does that help me
why does my brain do this what you need
to understand our brains are energy
consumers they eat energy the human
brain weighs 2% of our body weight but
it consumes 20% of our whole energy
supply and to make this consumption as
efficient as possible our brain makes
very important behaviors cost very
little energy meaning the thicker the
connections between neurons the less
energy is needed to perform a behavior
and to activate the neurons in this case
my brain has realized that my deep work
habit was really important it needed to
be repeated so many times
meaning we shouldn’t invest a lot of
energy to go through the behavior now
let’s go back to the real human brain
it has almost 100 billion neurons they
are connected by tens of trillions of
connections it’s vastly complex but
despite this complexity the simple
principle I just described to you still
applies
whatever your daily behaviors are
whatever you repeat over and over again
that’s what the brain decides is
important repetition is what the brain
decides is important and that’s crucial
so let me be very clear here it doesn’t
matter if it’s something that’s good for
you like exercising or whether it’s
something that’s bad for you like
smoking or whether it’s something that’s
just needed like driving a car whenever
there is a lot of repetition and
dopamine released in the brain the brain
decides oh this is pretty important we
will need this the very very famous
psychologist William James said more
than 100 years ago
make your nervous system your ally
instead of your enemy and he was talking
about exactly this about this problem so
how do we do this how can we make our
brains our allies and don’t let it
become our enemies it’s definitely not
easy but I think we can make it simple
and the first piece of advice I want to
give you is to be aware and to explain
what I mean by that I’m actually gonna
play you a little a little clip from a
podcast that I listened to recently and
it’s called the finding mastery podcast
and the guest is dr. Judson Brewer a
psychologist from Yale University who
studies addiction and how to use
mindfulness training to treat addiction
and addiction is actually nothing else
than a very strong overexpression of a
behavior that turns into something
negative let’s do so if we can see those
processes in action this is where
awareness comes in we can learn to
change them if we can’t see them like
you say we’re dead in the water
so I think awareness is the basis for
both learning good habits or
quote-unquote good habits but also let
go of habits that don’t help us and
absolutely crucial
what Judson says here you have to see
what you do every day
you got to observe you got to be honest
with yourself take out a piece of paper
and a pen whenever and just write down
for one week everything you do and be
honest with yourself be very detailed
about the small behaviors that you have
and then look at the list and be like do
I want to be that person if that’s what
I want to do everyday and if that’s not
the case if you would like to change
something on it my second piece of
advice is go small steps small steps
will let you achieve big things it will
maybe take a little longer but it’s much
more likely that you will keep moving
the motto that we already talked about
is just getting 1% better each day so be
consistent start by reading for 5
minutes a day a difficult book meditate
3 minutes a day but keep going keep
doing it for one week three weeks four
weeks five weeks it will get more
eventually at the beginning a new
behavior will definitely feel like I
really hate this behavior they don’t
want to do this eventually will be
something like okay I can tolerate it I
can probably do this and eventually it
will feel like okay I actually missed
this when I don’t do it and that’s the
point you want to get to that’s when you
have formed a new habit so let’s talk
about four questions that I really
wanted to address in my talk today to
you all of you guys the first one was
what are habits well they are automated
behaviors that we repeat over and over
again in the same environment and that
run in our subconscious minds they are
triggered by a cue and there are
rewarded by some form of dopamine
releasing reward why did I want to talk
about habits and why do I think that
there is a problem with habits well 40
to 45 percent of our daily lives that
should say at all but the problem
actually is that our brain can’t
differentiate between what’s good for
you what’s bad for you and what’s just
new
the brain just says oh repetition oh
dopamine this is probably very important
we should do this over and over again
that’s not how it is though smoking or
drinking a lot no no no can’t be good
how can we solve this I think awareness
is the key to so many things Johannes
just talked about it embodied cognition
awareness what do you do every day
what are your behaviors really the small
things that you don’t get you’re not
aware anymore because they are so
subconscious so be aware and if you want
to change something take very small
steps something that might seem tiny in
a day will turn into something bigger
and real change does take time so be
patient and be consistent and where can
solve in all this actually get us how
powerful our habits okay well we’ve been
here before and now we’re back here
changing my habits has not only changed
what I do every single day it has played
a big part in Who I am today so my
change of habits has completely changed
the course of my life and it has changed
what I thought my boundaries what I
thought I was capable of but I’m not
standing up here today to tell you you
need this habit or this habit to achieve
something alive or to become the person
that you want to be because that differs
from every single one of you but I am
standing here today to tell you that you
have to seek and you have to cultivate
those habits that are good for you
the ones that get you closer to your
goals closer to who you want to be and
be very very careful with the habits
that are very bad for you the ones that
take you further away from the person
that you want to be and from your goals
your brain cannot differentiate between
them so habit shape who you are
habit shape what you will very likely
keep on doing in the future so ask
yourself what bad habits do you have and
what good habits do you have what small
step can you take today to change who
you are
so let me leave you with the words of a
wise man we are what we repeatedly do
excellence then is not an act but a
habit thank you
[Applause]
Thanks
let me introduce you to someone who had
a clear vision in life who had clear
goals who wanted to make an impact in
life that’s right I’m talking about
myself about seven years ago when I had
just finished high school and it’s quite
obvious that I was at a great place in
my life I knew what I wanted to achieve
within the next few years and I had good
grades in school I was basically good at
anything I was doing sounds like a
remarkable girl right unfortunately
that’s really not true it’s more like
the opposite was true I had no idea what
I wanted to do with my life
I was at best average at most things and
my core competencies were partying
chillin and I was trying to be a cool
guy so to be honest all this didn’t make
me happy I felt empty I felt shallow and
most the time I felt pretty miserable it
slowly changed when I started studying
in South Africa and at the same time I
started reflecting on my life who did I
want to be what did I want to do with my
life fast forward three years now here
you can see me with my dad and I just
graduated with a Bachelor of Science
laude fast forward another two years now
this was taken about a week ago on the
Harvard campus in Cambridge where I’m
currently doing research and I can
honestly say that today I’m actually
pretty happy so what happened in between
here how do I get from this guy all the
way over there before I can answer this
I need to talk about a topic that might
seem very unrelated at the beginning but
we will get back to this the topic of
habits the we humans are without a doubt
creatures of habit
Wendy wood is a researcher from the
University of Southern California and
she found that forty to forty five
percent of our daily behaviors or habits
I mean that’s a lot that means almost
half of everything you do every day is
actually a habit let me give you some
examples the time you get up it might be
early in the morning for me it’s very
early that’s a habit that you have
computer games my habit used to be I
would come home from high school and I
would play computer games right away
horrible habit but I had that cell
phones
how often do you take out your cell
phone check messages notifications it
horrible habit everyone has it and we
have more driving a car that might not
seem like a habit but we’re only capable
of driving as we do because it has
become a habit to us and there are many
mores eating fast food it’s super
unhealthy habit so many people have it
exercising two three four or five times
a week one of the best habits you could
imagine and there are many more it took
me just a few hours to come up with a
lot of examples but you might ask
yourself what do all those behaviors
have in common how can I talk about
habits and name all those behaviors well
habits are by definition automated
behaviors that we repeat over and over
again always in the same context or
environment and that run in our
subconscious mind what I mean by that is
you’re not really consciously aware of
it anymore you have done it so many
times that you don’t have to pay
attention to the behavior your mind is
wandering you’re thinking of the past
you’re planning into the future but
you’re not really there let me give you
an example like driving a car it has
probably happened to you that you were
driving somewhere you would arrive and
you couldn’t even remember how exactly
you got there it’s because driving has
become so habitual to us habits are
usually triggered by some form of a cue
that’s like a person you run into on a
regular basis it’s an environment that
you are in very often and they’re
rewarded at the end that could be a
piece of chocolate taking a small break
could be basically anything
as long as there’s dopamine released in
the brain it’s a little chemical it’s a
neurotransmitter that signals the brain
oh this is pleasure
this is reward we like this for example
the cell phones every time you get a
message or notification a little bit of
dopamine is released in the brain let’s
like companies like Facebook Instagram
snapchat they program their software so
dopamine is released in the brain that’s
because that’s why cell phones are so
habitual to us we put this together and
we get the so called habit loop EQ
triggers the behavior behavior carried
out rewarded in the end dopamine
released because of that reward and
dopamine we do it again the next time
the queue comes around that’s the habit
loop and we go through this many many
times and we have many habits and in the
background all our habits run through
this loop over and over again so let me
give you a real life example make it a
little more descriptive and lively an
example from my life when I got asked to
give this talk I was at the same time
riding my master thesis then I was
researching in Harvard and I was working
part-time for a startup company I was
juggling with a lot of tasks and I had
to be really productive when I was
working there and there were so many
distractions out there Facebook
Instagram snapchat so what I needed was
a behavior of working focused now I
needed a cue I found an app on my phone
called the forest app you plant a little
seat on this app and when you don’t
check your phone for a set amount of
time you plant a tree on your phone so
Mike you would be put my phone on flight
mode and work focused plant a little
tree now in the end I would actually
grow a whole forest at the end of the
day I would have 7 8 10 trees I called
the whole thing my new deep work habits
and it worked perfectly
well I’m standing here and I hope I’m
doing a fairly alright job ok
so by going through this habit so many
times for several
I was actually changing certain
mechanisms and structures in my brain
and to make this talk a little more
scientific I think we should actually
look at the human brain now this is the
human brain and you can see it’s fairly
complex and if I was going to tell you
that about here there is some change
occurring when you’re doing something
over and over again it probably wouldn’t
really help so what I did was I
simplified the whole thing just a little
bit and I draw us through a scratch
sketch of my brain now that’s my brain
and anding is fairly simple now and
after going through the deep work habit
let’s say for one or two weeks this is
what you would see you would see a
network of neurons that start being
connected together and you can see that
they are connected by pretty weak
connections at the beginning now after
several weeks of me repeating this
behavior over and over again you would
see that the connections are slowly
getting thicker and stronger now after
four or five six weeks of me repeating
this behavior seven eight ten times
every single day this would happen the
connections would even get stronger
there would be a layer of fat wrapped
around it which is called myelin now you
might wonder what does that mean how
does that help me
why does my brain do this what you need
to understand our brains are energy
consumers they eat energy the human
brain weighs 2% of our body weight but
it consumes 20% of our whole energy
supply and to make this consumption as
efficient as possible our brain makes
very important behaviors cost very
little energy meaning the thicker the
connections between neurons the less
energy is needed to perform a behavior
and to activate the neurons in this case
my brain has realized that my deep work
habit was really important it needed to
be repeated so many times
meaning we shouldn’t invest a lot of
energy to go through the behavior now
let’s go back to the real human brain
it has almost 100 billion neurons they
are connected by tens of trillions of
connections it’s vastly complex but
despite this complexity the simple
principle I just described to you still
applies
whatever your daily behaviors are
whatever you repeat over and over again
that’s what the brain decides is
important repetition is what the brain
decides is important and that’s crucial
so let me be very clear here it doesn’t
matter if it’s something that’s good for
you like exercising or whether it’s
something that’s bad for you like
smoking or whether it’s something that’s
just needed like driving a car whenever
there is a lot of repetition and
dopamine released in the brain the brain
decides oh this is pretty important we
will need this the very very famous
psychologist William James said more
than 100 years ago
make your nervous system your ally
instead of your enemy and he was talking
about exactly this about this problem so
how do we do this how can we make our
brains our allies and don’t let it
become our enemies it’s definitely not
easy but I think we can make it simple
and the first piece of advice I want to
give you is to be aware and to explain
what I mean by that I’m actually gonna
play you a little a little clip from a
podcast that I listened to recently and
it’s called the finding mastery podcast
and the guest is dr. Judson Brewer a
psychologist from Yale University who
studies addiction and how to use
mindfulness training to treat addiction
and addiction is actually nothing else
than a very strong overexpression of a
behavior that turns into something
negative let’s do so if we can see those
processes in action this is where
awareness comes in we can learn to
change them if we can’t see them like
you say we’re dead in the water
so I think awareness is the basis for
both learning good habits or
quote-unquote good habits but also let
go of habits that don’t help us and
absolutely crucial
what Judson says here you have to see
what you do every day
you got to observe you got to be honest
with yourself take out a piece of paper
and a pen whenever and just write down
for one week everything you do and be
honest with yourself be very detailed
about the small behaviors that you have
and then look at the list and be like do
I want to be that person if that’s what
I want to do everyday and if that’s not
the case if you would like to change
something on it my second piece of
advice is go small steps small steps
will let you achieve big things it will
maybe take a little longer but it’s much
more likely that you will keep moving
the motto that we already talked about
is just getting 1% better each day so be
consistent start by reading for 5
minutes a day a difficult book meditate
3 minutes a day but keep going keep
doing it for one week three weeks four
weeks five weeks it will get more
eventually at the beginning a new
behavior will definitely feel like I
really hate this behavior they don’t
want to do this eventually will be
something like okay I can tolerate it I
can probably do this and eventually it
will feel like okay I actually missed
this when I don’t do it and that’s the
point you want to get to that’s when you
have formed a new habit so let’s talk
about four questions that I really
wanted to address in my talk today to
you all of you guys the first one was
what are habits well they are automated
behaviors that we repeat over and over
again in the same environment and that
run in our subconscious minds they are
triggered by a cue and there are
rewarded by some form of dopamine
releasing reward why did I want to talk
about habits and why do I think that
there is a problem with habits well 40
to 45 percent of our daily lives that
should say at all but the problem
actually is that our brain can’t
differentiate between what’s good for
you what’s bad for you and what’s just
new
the brain just says oh repetition oh
dopamine this is probably very important
we should do this over and over again
that’s not how it is though smoking or
drinking a lot no no no can’t be good
how can we solve this I think awareness
is the key to so many things Johannes
just talked about it embodied cognition
awareness what do you do every day
what are your behaviors really the small
things that you don’t get you’re not
aware anymore because they are so
subconscious so be aware and if you want
to change something take very small
steps something that might seem tiny in
a day will turn into something bigger
and real change does take time so be
patient and be consistent and where can
solve in all this actually get us how
powerful our habits okay well we’ve been
here before and now we’re back here
changing my habits has not only changed
what I do every single day it has played
a big part in Who I am today so my
change of habits has completely changed
the course of my life and it has changed
what I thought my boundaries what I
thought I was capable of but I’m not
standing up here today to tell you you
need this habit or this habit to achieve
something alive or to become the person
that you want to be because that differs
from every single one of you but I am
standing here today to tell you that you
have to seek and you have to cultivate
those habits that are good for you
the ones that get you closer to your
goals closer to who you want to be and
be very very careful with the habits
that are very bad for you the ones that
take you further away from the person
that you want to be and from your goals
your brain cannot differentiate between
them so habit shape who you are
habit shape what you will very likely
keep on doing in the future so ask
yourself what bad habits do you have and
what good habits do you have what small
step can you take today to change who
you are
so let me leave you with the words of a
wise man we are what we repeatedly do
excellence then is not an act but a
habit thank you
[Applause]
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