Tom Facchine – The Supernormal Stimulus & Law of Attraction – Atomic Habits
AI: Summary ©
The transcript discusses how animals, such as humans, can produce reward and motivate behavior. It uses the analogy of "overcome from a craving" and emphasizes the importance of anticipation and not giving in one's thoughts. The speaker explains that "opering", a common pattern in people, can lead to new habits, such as linking actions with activities they like, like studying Arabic or working out. The "opering" concept is discussed as a way to create new habits.
AI: Summary ©
The law of attraction, make it attractive.
Now he starts this chapter with a science
experiment where there's a type of gull, seagull,
right?
A bird that it has a beak and
the beak has a red spot.
The chicks in the nest will start pecking
at the red spot and the mother or
the father will then give food to the
chicks.
So check out how crazy this like experiment
is wild.
So somebody decided to make a very, very
poor imitation of a seagull, like cardboard basically,
and make a red spot on the beak,
but make it huge, make it larger than
normal.
Now, when he held up that fake, very,
very obviously fake bird to the nest, what
the chicks did, the chicks started pecking at
the dot very, very vigorously, more vigorously than
at the mother, which had a normal size
red dot.
What they found from this is that when
any sort of creature is exposed to a
stimulus or used to a stimulus, there's an
anticipation of a reward.
And if the stimulus is increased, then the
motivation is even higher, even if the delivery
of the food is still the same.
Now, this is really, really interesting.
We live in, they call this by the
way, super normal stimuli.
It's basically exaggerations of reality.
And once you understand that there's a term
for this, you'll see that our modern culture
has this everywhere.
Every single bad habit that people are addicted
to, it essentially comes down to a super
normal stimuli, some exaggeration of reality, temptations that
previous people of earlier times never had to
face.
The food industry, okay?
You've got food that has no nutritional value
whatsoever, but it's got more sugar than any
food has ever had.
It's got more fats and more, you know,
this and that and salts and hydrogenated oils
and all these sorts of things.
That it produces cravings for these foods that
are exaggerated cravings.
We also fall into this with body image,
right?
And this is why many people get addicted
to *, that the images or the body
images that people are exposed to through the
media are exaggerations.
They're not real.
They're exaggerated stimuli.
And so people, they get addicted, like their
anticipation of the reward.
They are super stimulated because of the exaggeration
of the cue that's being thrown at them.
Social media is also another one that he
points out.
Go throughout your whole day at home and
count how many times someone compliments you or
like praises you.
Then go online and make like two posts
on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or something
like that.
And compare how many likes and comments of
praise you get.
Social media is essentially a super stimuli.
It exaggerates how much praise and thanks that
you get.
And so all of these super stimuli cause
addictions, whether it's addiction to junk food or
addiction to * or addiction to social media
or addiction to other things.
How does this work when it comes to
your body and anticipating things?
And what does this mean for our habits?
We can actually, if we realize what's going
on, we can harness it for our own
uses.
So this is about dopamine.
Many of you are familiar with this idea.
It's this hormone called dopamine that your body
produces when it anticipates a reward.
What happens?
When you're first exposed to a cue, but
you're not aware of what that cue is.
Second, you start to get a craving.
You see a commercial.
Let's say you see a Pepsi commercial.
That's the cue.
There's people.
They're young.
They're attractive.
They're having fun on a TV.
And that's how they make you want this
drink.
You start to get a craving.
Next time you go to the store, the
Bacala, you pick up a Pepsi.
You drink it.
You're blasted with sugar, right?
And so your dopamine spikes.
Now, that was the first time.
Check out what happens the second time.
The key at the level of the cue,
you see the commercial and you're already getting
your blast of dopamine because you're anticipating.
You're not even given the Pepsi yet.
Now, this anticipation drives you to go to
the store.
Maybe you go out of your way to
go to the store and get that Pepsi.
Now, but notice what happens with the dopamine.
You don't get it when you actually experience
the thing.
When you get the reward this time, you
actually experience the dopamine early when you're anticipating
the reward.
Number three, they said, well, what happens if
somebody sees the cue and anticipates the reward,
but then they don't get it?
So let's imagine you see the Pepsi commercial.
You have this incredible craving for Pepsi.
You go out.
That's your response.
But there's no Pepsi at the store.
You crash.
Your dopamine levels actually tank.
Then what's going to happen in the last
scenario?
The next time you see the cue, the
Pepsi commercial, you experience the craving.
You want one.
You go out and get it.
You're not sure.
Your body's almost preparing you for disappointment.
But this time they have it.
Another spike.
And this is how habits are formed.
This is the dopamine loop.
And the author points out that this distinguishes
the difference about between wanting something and liking
something.
And he argues that wanting something is far
more powerful than liking something on the body.
Anticipating a reward is actually better than getting
the reward itself.
So what does this mean for us and
our habits?
Well, that brings us to something that the
author calls temptation bundling.
Temptation bundling is basically linking an action that
you want to do with an action that
you have to do.
Okay, so there are things that you're doing
that maybe they're not the best things that
you're doing.
Let's say you're watching television.
You watch Netflix.
Is it haram?
No.
Is it the best thing to do?
No.
But you want to do something like study
Arabic or you want to do something like
push-ups.
You want to get in shape a little
bit.
All right.
How can you use temptation bundling to form
new habits?
Well, you basically link the action that you
want to do to the action that you
need to do.
So if I'm watching a television show and
it's got commercials and I want to also
get more fit, I'm going to say I'm
going to do 20 push-ups every commercial
break.
So I get the show that I'm watching
and I also get the fitness or the
exercise that I'm trying to go for.
Okay.
What happens when you link these two things?
Your body begins to associate.
The thing that you kind of don't want
to do, which is push-ups in this
case, it begins to associate it with the
thing that you actually like to do.
So it gets a positive association.
And corporations use this type of thing all
the time to manipulate you and to sell
you their products.
But if you recognize it, you can see
when it's being used against you and you
can also attempt to use it for you.
Think about something that you're currently doing that
you like to do.
It's fun.
It's a TV show or it's a snack
that you enjoy.
You sit down and you have a bar
of chocolate or whatever.
Tie something that you need to do, whether
it is reciting Quran or something physical exercise
or it's reading more or whatever it is,
tie it to that thing.