Dr. David Eagleman

So, for example, I'm guessing you and I both do this, you know, going to the gym is something we enjoy, but it's really useful to have a buddy where you say, hey, I'll meet you at the gym at 8 tomorrow morning, and then even if you wake up, you're a little tired, your shoulder hurts or whatever, you got to go because he's going to be there.

So getting social pressure involved is a good idea.

I found this thing where it's a boot camp where you sign up for it, and every morning –

You know, go jogging together, do pushups, whatever.

But if you don't show up, the group jogs to your house and they stand on your front lawn and they do jumping jacks and they scream your name until you come out.

Amazing.

Yeah.

It's really good to get that, to commit to that sort of thing so that you're really going to show up.

There are ways to do this where you put money on the line.

So you can say, for example, there was a woman who was trying to quit smoking and she tried for years to quit smoking.

So what she did is she wrote a $10,000 check and gave it to her friend and said, if you catch me smoking, I want you to donate this check to the KKK, which to her was the most aversive thing that could ever happen with her money.

And that's what prevented her from smoking because the sting of knowing that she gave her money to the KKK was the worst thing that she could imagine.

So there are a million ways to do these Ulysses contracts.

But what they have in common is how do you lash yourself to the mask so you'll keep the good behavior you want?

Yeah, it's a kind of wisdom that we come to understand how we will behave when we're not in our present, you know, sober, rational moment.

We come to understand, for example, people who are trying who are alcoholics and they're trying to break that.

The first thing they're told at Alcoholics Anonymous is clear all the alcohol out of your house because you might think, okay, I'm done.

I'm firmly going to not drink anymore.

So you put the alcohol away up in a high shelf, but on a festive Friday night or a lonely Sunday night or something, you might go up there.

Your future self might do that.