Nir Eyal

That's amazing.

And so that's kind of the kicking off point of this research.

When I heard that study, I wanted to figure out, well, how do we do that for ourselves?

Because what changed?

If we think about it, why would that happen?

Same rat bodies, nothing changed physically.

They didn't suddenly get stronger.

They had it in them all along.

The circumstances, the environment, as much as we complain about what's happening outside us, the circumstances in that experiment had not changed.

Same cylinder of water.

We can't ask the rats obviously, but we think the only remaining variable was that something changed in their minds.

That suddenly with salvation being possible, with hope as a possibility,

they persisted, they became more motivated to keep swimming for 60 hours until they reached their actual limit.

Now, I think what's so fascinating about this study and what we should all remember from it is that that ability to swim for 60 hours was always within them.

It wasn't some magically imported power.

It was there.

They just didn't believe there was a reason to persist.

And so that made me think in my own life,

Where am I quitting at 15 minutes?

Where am I giving up on things that I could otherwise achieve because I just quit too soon?