Nir Eyal

Helplessness is our default state.

That when you think about it, a baby is born completely helpless.

And what we have to learn as we grow up is we learn hope.

We don't learn helplessness, we learn hope.

So I'm guessing that somewhere in this boy's background was this sense of agency, the sense that they can do something about this problem.

That's how they actually discovered in the Seligman and Myers study where they got wrong because some of the subjects in the experiment never learned helplessness ever.

They always stayed persistent.

And it tends to be because there's something in your background that told you that persistence pays.

Sure.

So let's put it in perspective, first of all, that the people who do that, not only are they the tiny minority of people who run marathons, they are the infinitesimal number of people in the entire population.

What happens with those examples is that the rest of us think, well, I better not run a marathon.

Yeah.

And so what we talked about earlier about how we don't learn helplessness, we have to learn hope that our default state is helplessness.

Why do we have this?

Why do we even have limiting beliefs?

What's the point?

Why does the brain limit us?

Well, the brain is trying to protect us.

Any of our limiting beliefs, this is hard.

I'm not ready.