Why We Fight the Changes We Know We Need | Jonah Berger
episode
The One You Feed | Personal Growth, Emotional Resilience & Purpose
46 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 1 hour ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What does the “two wolves” parable reveal about feeding our good habits?
I say that I want to be more diligent at work and achieve this particular goal, yet I'm doing this other thing that's inconsistent with it. Drawing attention to those inconsistencies encourages us to do the work to change them.
Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Jonah Berger asked thousands of people to name something they wanted to change and what they had tried.
98% described some version of pushing, trying harder, more facts, more reasons, one more email, one more lecture to yourself. Pushing works on a chair. It slides across the floor, but people dig in their heels. Jonah teaches at Wharton, and his book The Catalyst asks a different question. Why hasn't this changed already? What is in the way? It's a question that I use with coaching clients all the time and on myself, and it always opens up things the pushing never did. I'm Eric Zimmer, and this is The One You Feed. Hi, Jonah. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. It is a pleasure to have you on. We are going to be discussing your book, The Catalyst, How to Change Anyone's Mind. And we might even get into a little of your previous book, Invisible Influence, because there's some great things in there also.
But we'll start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He said, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. He looks up at his grandfather. He says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.
I like this parable a lot. I think we always have a choice about how to spend our time, what we spend it doing, who we spend it with, and how we use the limited amount of time we have every day and every week. And I think the more we spend time in good areas of our life, as I think the parable sort of says, we feed that aspect. It becomes more focal to us, more central to us. It becomes what we think about and where we devote more attention. At the same time, the more we feed that other side of us, whether it's greed per se or other aspects, the more it becomes focal, the more it becomes what we think about, and the more it becomes the way we orient ourselves. And so it's a good reminder to make sure to feed the thing you want to orient yourself towards, I think.
Yep, makes sense. I want to start very broadly with you because you're talking about in your work how people change. And an underlying element, I think, through all of it is the extent to which the people around us and the environments around us are shaped by that. And, you know, which of the decisions that we make in life are shaped by other people? I think an interesting question to ask is which decisions
we make are not shaped by other people. It's hard to think about it. And there are some, right? But it's hard to think about something that isn't shaped in some way, shape, or form by others. Our product choices, obviously, but... even think about more consequential things like who we end up marrying, what jobs we end up taking, or really not important things like what toilet paper we buy at the grocery store.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What does the “two wolves” parable reveal about feeding our good habits?
0:00–7:07
2
Why does pushing harder on change often create resistance instead of results?
7:07–13:21
3
How do catalysts in chemistry illustrate the role of barriers in personal change?
13:21–18:56
4
What causes people to push back against public‑health measures like masks and vaccines?
18:56–24:38
5
Why are small, choice‑driven steps more effective than big “should” statements?
24:38–29:26
6
How does the “endowment effect” make minor problems feel more painful over time?
29:26–34:36
7
What is the cost‑benefit timing gap and how does it affect our willingness to change?
34:36–39:11
8
How do identification and differentiation shape the influence of groups on our choices?
39:11–46:02
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The One You Feed | Personal Growth, Emotional Resilience & Purpose
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