Interview - Superhuman by Habit with Tynan

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time.

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living Interview series. Today I'm going to chat with Tynan. Super excited to chat with him about his really, really, really good book Superhuman by Habit Subtitle A guide to becoming the best possible version of yourself, one tiny habit at a time. It's a really good book, packed with wisdom. I've been raving about it and I'm really excited to chat with you today, Tynan. Thanks so much for taking the time.

Yeah, happy to be doing it. Thanks for having me.

All right, so let's start with what is a habit generally? And then why are they so powerful?

All right, so habits, just any repeated action you take generally on a daily basis or weekly basis or something that is triggered by some event in your life or something that happens and kind of your go to thing that you do when that happens.

Nice. And you also say in the book it's an outfit a nun wears, right?

Also. Yeah, I shouldn't leave the nuns out of this podcast.

Very important point. Yeah, that's awesome. So why are habits so important?

You know, habits are so important because we all have them and they basically dictate most of what we do on a daily basis. And so people can say they're not into building habits, but the truth is any other person has just as many habits as you or I do, just maybe they haven't thought about them as much. And so what makes them so powerful is that you can tweak these little responses you have and how you go about your day, and it ends up being just as easy to do good habits as it is to do bad habits. But at least in my experience, the quality of your life really, really improve when you're conscious of these things.

Yep. Yeah. And then what I love about your book is that you just break it down and, you know, kind of joking about where you used to be. And then as you built these habits and such a concise, simple model. And I want to talk through some of your ideas, starting with consistency. So tell us why consistency is so important.

Yeah, you know, I mean, a habit is something you're doing on a repeated, hopefully long term basis. And if you don't have that consistency, it's going to be something you do for a week or something you do for like a month. And that's not a habit, it's just something that you're doing. And so consistency is really just a fundamental part of habits. You don't have Habits, unless you have that consistency also makes it being very consistent. Doing your habit on a daily basis is the easiest way to build it as well. So it's an essential part. And by focusing on it, it makes it easier.

Yeah, totally. And then you make a really big point about. Well, tell us about why consistency on a daily basis beats weekly or beats every other day or beats whatever other schedule you want to put on the board.

Yeah, you know, I think there's a few reasons. I think for one, you just. Momentum is a powerful thing. You know, if you've done something every day for the past 30 days, it's going to be really hard for you to not do it today. It's going to be your default to do it. And, you know, when we're building a new habit, it's something we aren't doing naturally by default. So to have that momentum is huge, Ally. It also just makes it easier to integrate into your day. So it's like, okay, I wake up and then I do X rather than having to think a lot about it. Thinking is actually sort of one of the biggest enemies of habits, because you can talk yourself out of requires this conscious thought rather than a subconscious action. So the key is you just do an easy habit. You do it every day. It's a manageable chunk. And then before you know it, it's just part of your day and it's an automatic thing.

So then define. There's so many different ways we can go there. I'm actually going to continue the thread with this. You talk about the fact that. And I think that just to underscore what you just said, that 30 days in a row is so much better than four Saturdays in a row. There's a mojo to it and a power to that. That is important, but I think, easy to overlook. I'll do something five days a week. But then you allow that little negotiating voice to come in and say, oh, today's the off day. Right, Exactly. And you have that great point on both the daily and then you stress, don't miss a day. Tell us about that.

I mean, I think that's one of my biggest things. And I think, you know, I'm really good at keeping habits. And people always ask me why or how, and I'm like, I just don't miss a day. Like, I just. I know how important it is to never miss a day. Because when you have that pristine track record of doing something every single day, the one day you don't do, it really stands out in your mind. And it Feels like a big deal. And so as soon as you, but as soon as you do miss that day, you now know that you're not sticking to your word to yourself and you've got this leeway and you're like, well, you know, I didn't, I didn't do it yesterday. I guess I don't really have to do it today either. And in my experience, people argue with me on this sometimes, but in my experience, if you miss like two or three days, your habit's basically gone. I mean, you're basically starting over. It's just as difficult. So I think when you go through the deliberate process of building habits a few times and you see that happen and you see how big of a deal it is when you miss two or three days, you never want to start going down that slippery slope. So you just never miss a day.

Yeah, I agree with that completely. And this ties to the other idea, which is one of the best ideas I've read in all the willpower and habit building and self discipline stuff I've read. You tell a story about a friend of yours who is asking you how you create habits in the book, right? And he says, okay, well, you're like, well, don't miss a day, you know? And he's like, well, what happens if you do miss a day? And you're like, well, if I miss one day, then I'm absolutely certain that I don't miss another day. And he says, what happens if you miss two days in a row? And you said, I don't tell us how you make sure that doesn't happen.

I think that it's easy to give yourself a lot of credit when you're doing something every day and you deserve it too. It's like, hey, I've done this every day. I'm really proud of that. Once you miss a day, I see it in my own little world. I've now broken a promise to myself. And that's like a huge deal. Breaking a promise to anybody is a big deal, especially to yourself. And so I also realize, okay, I thought I could do this every day. It's not going to be as easy as I thought. And so I need to be really deliberate because if I say I'm going to do it tomorrow, well, I've already broken my trust. How do I know I'm going to to do it tomorrow? So I take that literally. And I think, okay, even if it's a small habit, maybe it's something like I'm going to do five push ups a day. Or something. I'm going to set an alarm for 10am and the alarm is going to have a little note on it. It's going to say do five push ups before you do anything. And I just make sure that that is my number one priority for the day. Because you have to compare that little five push ups or whatever not against the other important things in your day. But you have to think like, okay, how does having that habit compare to those things in my day? So even if you have something else that's maybe more important than doing five push ups, it's probably not more important than a health habit or a working out habit. I just make it priority number one and I'll cancel things. I'll organize my entire day over doing that habit if I have to.

That's so cool. So don't miss a day. If you do happen to miss a day, absolutely. Don't let yourself miss two days or you might as well restart. And you do that by literally making it the number one priority in that day. That's really, really cool. You mentioned if you're creating an easy habit and I'm kind of jumping ahead. I was going to ask this later, but tell us about when you're creating a new habit and you're thinking about the size of that habit and you use a great phrase of starting with the or focusing on the starting line, not the finish line. Getting in the game rather than trying to be where you want to be long term. Can you tell us about that?

Yeah, you know, I think, you know, a lot of people, I think a lot of it is that people want to have these big ambitious habits. Right? It's like I'm going to work out every single day or you know, do like a huge workout every day or I'm going to, you know, I'm going to write a thousand words a day or whatever. And when you're motivated and when you're excited about the habit, it's easy to do that. And you know, the other side of that coin is that it doesn't sound that motivated. Say, I'm going to write for two minutes every day. Like that doesn't seem like a big deal. However, if you do just that, hey, I'm going to write for two minutes a day or five minutes a day or whatever, or I'm going to work out for five minutes a day. You'll stick with the habit. You can grow with it. Everything you do in your life, you start off small and then you grow. That's sort of a natural progression. And so when I think about sizing a habit, I get excited about the small ones because I think, oh, I can't ever get out of doing this one. This is like. What would be an example? Like, I work out. This actually isn't an everyday thing because my trainer told me not to, but I work out, you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for just 30 to 45 minutes. Like, that's pretty easy. You know, it's not like an hour and a half in the gym. It's, you know, whatever. And, like, I just know I can do it because it's not that hard. So you almost have, like, less of an excuse to break, you know, for your one day or two days in a row because you're okay. This is an easy habit. I know I can do it. And then as your baseline, you know, as it becomes easier and easier for you to complete that habit, you can make it harder. So you can say, instead of writing for two minutes, I'm going to write that 500 words or 1,000 words. And because you have something to build on, those bigger habits then become easier.

That's awesome. So starting with kind of consistency and a nice solid base of actually habitually showing up for the small thing, and then build your load on top of that, well, then let's kind of step back, and I'd love for you to share what habits you've built into your life. So using the tools that you teach and walk us through in Superhuman by habit, share some of your daily habits. Maybe we can unpack how you created one of those.

Sure. Yeah. Let's see. So every day I write one blog post or one equivalent of blog post. I kind of have some rules for that on myself. I drink tea every morning, which doesn't seem like a big deal, and it's kind of fun to do, but I find it helps me a lot. I turn my computers off at midnight, kind of no matter what, unless it's like a real, real emergency. And that fixed my sleeping schedule. Eat the same exact food every single day, just for consistency. One less decision to make. I don't know. I could probably go on if you.

Have to go on. Dude. No, this is good. This is the essence of Superhuman by habit. You do all these things without having to think about it. So if you wouldn't mind sharing, I'd love to hear.

Yeah, it's funny. It's actually hard for me to think.

Of them because they're just who you are.

So I just kind of think of what I do in the morning. I work out every Single Monday, Wednesday, Friday when I'm at home. I haven't missed that for two or three years. Haven't missed a single day.

One.

The way I go about my work is fairly systematic where I, you know, I try to do little stuff before between tea and workout and then I have like my big chunk, you know, in the middle of the day that I work every time. I try to answer high priority emails every single day. Although that's one that I'm not super, super good at. Yeah, I don't know.

Well, this is good. This also lends itself well to the distinction you make about new versus old hab. Can you describe that for us? Where you've done these things for so long now that you're like, oh yeah, there was a time when I actually had to install this habit. Can you tell us about that?

Yeah. So the first month, it kind of depends on the habit, but maybe rule of thumb, first month or two, it's going to be really difficult because it's not this subconscious automatic habit. It is actually like an effort you're making every single day to try to do an action. So it's difficult because that's where like if you miss one day or two days, you're kind of screwed. So, you know, when you're building a new habit, you just have to treat it with a lot of care, a lot of respect, a lot of attention. However, once things become automatic, you can kind of, you know, you can lean back a little bit if you have to miss one day because some other habit needs to be prioritized, you don't have to freak out quite so much about it. And you know, I find that you can really only build one or two habits at a time. A lot of times people are like, you know, I'm going to start my new life. It's January 1st, I'm going to be working out, I'm going to be eating healthy and all these different things. And very soon it becomes overwhelming because it does take so much concert, so much brain power. But if you just kind of do one or two at a time, you focus on that loading phase, then you can coast after that and these habits become so automatic and so easy.

That's awesome. How do you recommend people figure out what one or two habits they should do?

I find it kind of depends. If you're good at building habits and you have a good track record of it, then I'd say just pick whichever one you think is going to have the best ev, the highest expected value, the biggest impact. If you're newer to building habits or you don't have the best track record of building them. I'd say just do whichever one you're most excited about because it is going to take some excitement and momentum, motivation to get through that first month. So even if maybe you need to quit smoking and you need to eat healthy and you need to work out, but you're kind of excited about drinking tea every day, which obviously isn't as important as those other ones. It's maybe more important just to get that track record of building these habits.

That's really cool. I love that ev versus excitement and, and you talk about this as well, but just the idea of you're kind of building the muscle to be able to build habits, right?

Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. People don't think of building habits as a habit. It's almost like this meta habit. But I used to have a lot of trouble building habits. It was really hard for me. I'd say, hey, I'm going to wake up at this time every day. And then I just wouldn't do it. It's difficult. But now that I've been doing this for years and have really built up a lot of self trust where I know I can do these habits, I actually have to be careful because I know that now if I say like, hey, I'm going to do this ridiculous thing every day, I just kind of know I'm going to do it. And I'm very resistant to quit those habits because I know what a good, big impact they've had on my life. And so, yeah, it's this muscle you build and eventually you just get so good at building habits. It's almost like you just pick them from a list and it just happens automatically.

That's so cool. And then reflecting on your own path of struggling to create the habits and now being at a place where you can just essentially create whatever you want to create, what's the biggest thing that you'd say you've learned in that whole process?

So the biggest thing I've learned, and I think this actually applies beyond habits too, I just think this is a really important thing in general. I think that people are generally pretty good at keeping their word to other people. So if I tell you I'm going to do this podcast at 11:15, I'm going to show up and I'm going to do it. And I think most people are like that. Like people make mistakes, but people generally, if they don't do something, they tell someone they're going to do they feel bad about it or it's like a big deal. But I find most people, if they tell themselves they're going to do something, it's kind of like a 5050 whether they're actually going to do it. And if they don't do it, they let themselves off the hook really easily. And so I found something to be something that's been really valuable in my own life is to just develop that self trust where I think like, hey, look, I'm going to keep my word with everybody, but I'm going to include myself in that. Like, if I break my word to myself, that is a huge deal. I mean, that's sort of like the bedrock of how I operate is I need to be able to trust myself that if I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. And so you have to build that slowly, just like you have to build trust slowly in any relationship. But I think it's a very powerful thing to think about and to focus on as you do build these habits. Because eventually, you know, you just know if you trust yourself and you really make that decision to do something, you're gonna stick with it.

That's awesome. And in that context you mentioned, you know, just relationship. Did you take like, how many did you take years off of dating? You made that commitment to yourself and you just stuck to it?

Yeah, I took three years off from dating. I felt like it was just, you know, I had like a lot of work to do. And basically what I realized was I sort of hit this point in my life where I was like, hey, if the next girl I date was the one, she was the last one. I'm like kind of ready for that and maybe I'd prefer that. But at the same time, I was working so much, I realized I didn't have time in my day to make time for someone else. So I thought, hey, let's just be logical about this. Rather than getting into a frustrating situation where maybe I want to date someone but don't have time for it, why don't I take three years off, get this work out of my system, and then start dating again?

And that's exactly what you did.

Yeah, and so I did that.

That's just amazing. And this is obviously on the other side of you cultivating yourself trust and getting to a place of if you say you're going to do something, it's done. You don't even need to think about it, right?

Yeah. It makes you think about your decisions a lot more too. Because, you know, for me to say, like, oh, I think I'm just not gonna date for three years. But then, like, in the back of my mind, I know maybe I'm going to. You know, you don't have to think about it that much. Like, oh, let's give it a shot. But if I know I'm really not gonna date for three years, if I say that, it's like, all right, well, let me think. Like, is this really the best thing for me? Like, what are the pros and what are the cons? And it's. For me, at least it's helped me make a lot better decisions because I have to be a little bit more deliberate.

That's so cool. And just to speak to that a moment longer, the idea of how often we tell people. And I think that I completely agree with your point of sometimes you let things slip, but people are good and they want to follow through on their commitments. And I think oftentimes we'll say, oh, yeah, I'll send you an email about that, or I'll send you this or I'll send you that. And it's kind of a 70% commitment, even when you. Or I'll call you, you know. Yeah, it's like a 70% max commitment.

Right, exactly.

And I think bringing awareness to that and noticing just how often we make those commitments to other people and then to your point, to ourselves and just slowing down and not making any of those commitments or promises unless we're 100% absolutely committed to doing it. Right.

Yeah. Because, I mean, it's just. It's like a not. It's not a great place to operate from where you're quickly making decisions, you're not sure if they're right, and then you don't stick to them anyway. It's just such a rocky foundation to live your life on. And so when you start really firming that up and you're like, okay, look, if I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. You just have a lot more certainty and you feel like your decisions matter more. So you put the effort. It's like this really good virtuous cycle you get into. One example is actually, this is another habit that I have. I'm always on time for error. Everything. Like, even if it's like, hey, you know, if it's like a good friend of mine who doesn't care if I'm late, it's like, hey, let's meet somewhere at noon, I'm there at 11:50.5. And I'm waiting for him just so that I give the impression of being exactly on time every time. And what's interesting is you do that, and for one, like.

You'Re a lot.

More careful about how you schedule things, but it also makes everybody else be on time. So I've had friends tell me, like, yeah, when you're in town, everybody's on time for everything because they know you're gonna be there. Whereas if you have everybody operating on this sort of flimsy thing where it's like, well, maybe I said noon, but he's kind of late, so maybe I'm going to be late. But he knows that, so he's definitely going to be late. It's like, oh, let's just respect our time and respect each other and respect ourselves and just, let's stick to what we say we're going to do.

Yeah, that's awesome. The theme I keep on hearing and feeling as you describe this is just simplifying things so we don't need to think about things. If we can just get to the point where we say we're going to do something, it's done, and save that, like you said, with your food, you know, I love that you see the same thing. One less decision to make. You make the point in the book really well, too, that willpower is finite. Let's use it wisely to install our habits. And the more we can do that, the more we come across as superhuman. Right?

Yeah. I mean, you know, it's. I think that our habits are maybe one of the most defining characteristics about who we are. When you think about what a person is, you describe him in his habits like, oh, yeah, he's really diligent. He's really smart. But even smart is like, he makes good decisions. He's really on time. He's really respectful. These are all habits. And the tool you have or one of the resources, the inputs to these is your willpower. You only have a certain amount of it. And I think a lot of people are just spreading it really thin where they don't make it easy to focus their willpower on one or two key areas. And then all of a sudden, it doesn't take willpower to be on time anymore because you've spent it, you've invested it. Now you have that subconscious habit. So just really focusing that willpower and using it wisely, I think it's just like. It really does kind of. It can make you seem superhuman.

So good. Okay, cool. So then a few other big ideas. I wanted to hear you, your thoughts on it. So you talk about how to use your mistakes, talk to us about the best way to use mistakes, how you don't want to respond when you make a mistake, and how you can optimally respond.

Yeah, you know, I think, you know, I think I wrote maybe in the book or a blog post somewhere that, you know, you should learn from your mistakes because you've paid a lot for them. You know what I mean? It's like, you tried to do something, it didn't work. You failed. You know, that sucks. Like, nobody wants to fail. You can say fail fast and like, you know, whatever, but nobody wants to fail. And so it's like, hey, you have failed. Now, what's the silver lining? Like, what can you get out of that? And so, you know, I kind of. I don't remember what I wrote in the books or what you're talking about specifically, but, you know, like, when I fail, what I think is like, okay, for one, this doesn't. This isn't me. Right? Like, I know I can succeed at things, so this is my process, or, like, some misassumptions. You know, what do I need to change here so that I can minimize my chance of failing next time? And, you know, I. I kind of have this paradox where I don't take it personally at all. Like, I don't get down on myself, like, oh, you're so stupid. You messed that up. But at the same time, I do kind of tell myself, like, hey, look, it's, you know, if it's something I did wrong, like, that's not acceptable. Like, the whole point is I'm trying to fix these things. And so I try to take it, like, if I'm late for, you know, something, to use a previous example, it's like, okay, that's not all right. Like, I said I was going to be on time. What went wrong here? How can I fix that in the future?

Yeah, that's awesome. And you hit on it. Exactly. And I want to share a phrase that you used that is another one of the gems in your book. You said, use your mistakes to focus. They draw attention to an area that needs more attention. So give it that attention. Challenge yourself to do better next time. And then I love this. Instead of saying, I'm so bad at this, say, I'm better than this. That's how you use mistakes to your advantage. Forgive yourself easily. But remember the lessons you learned from mistakes. You've earned them after all.

Right?

That's super good. Right on. Okay, so then speaking of mistakes, and kind of general things. You talk about negative habits and how important it is to address them. Tell us about that.

Yeah, so I think, you know, I think, you know, maybe we each have a million habits. I don't know what the number is, but these habits are dictating everything we do. So whatever you have for lunch today was actually the product of your habits, whether they were good or bad. And I think there are certain negative habits that are just overpoweringly negative. So, you know, I have my own ideas about what the. Maybe people disagree, but for me, I think, like healthy eating fitness, you know, sort of social skills. I think a big one is sort of how you react to new information. Do you look at the positive? Do you look at the negative? And so if you're negative in one of these things, like, these aren't habits where you either don't have it or you do have it. It's like it's going from negative 10 to positive 10 or something. If you have. If you're in that negative range, you're hurting yourself every single day, right? You're bringing yourself to a lower place. And, you know, you're either your life's getting worse or you're really having to overcompensate with other habits. However, if you can turn one of these negative habits to just like a slight positive now, you're moving up in the right direction. And so you can kind of put that on the back burner. So, you know, for diet, for example, like, I'm kind of nuts about diet. I like to eat a really, really clean diet. But, you know, like, let's say you're going to McDonald's and you're eating fast food. And, you know, if you can just cut that out and just don't eat sugar and flour, you know, don't worry about other stuff. Now you're on, like, a slight positive. Probably you're getting a little more healthy every year. That's great. And now you can go work on another one. And so if you don't eat healthier, if you smoke, that's going to affect everything you do. Your brain's not going to be at 100%, your sleep's not going to be 100%, your energy is not going to be at 100%. So I think it's really worth looking at those negative habits, especially the ones that cascade into other things and saying, hey, look, this is number one priority for me. I got to fix this. Just get it to a bare minimum positive at least.

So how would you coach someone on the kind of. The negative habit that we know is addictive. Smoking, for example, whatever other thing you want to fill in the blank, what would you advise?

You know, so smoking is not something I've dealt with personally. So, like, I don't know exactly what I do. I know there's. There's a book by, I think, Brian Carr that's supposed to be very good, but I would. I think a lot, you know, baseline advice is like, realize how bad it is. Realize that, like, I actually find it hard to, like, relate to smokers sometimes because. Not because they started smoking, because I'm sure I could have made that same mistake, but because they don't make that their number one priority in life. Like, I would live, like, I would literally, like, live in a box on the side of the street and not have a job and focus 100% of my energy on not smoking. Because to me, it's just, like, such a big net negative. You're like, it's always gonna affect, you know, there's successful people that smoke. I'm not saying there aren't, but, like, it's such a big negative that you're fighting against. And so I would say, like, you know, I guess I don't have a good example for smoking because I know it's a real addiction. And I don't want to, like, give, you know, medical advice or whatever, but say, like, diet, because I think that's another big one. Or sleep is a big one. I would just say, like, let's say sleep, because that was a big one for me. I used to. I'd stay up till 5 or 6 in the morning every night, or like, I'd kind of start at 2, and then the next day it'd be 3, next day it'd be 4, next day be 5. Then by the time I got to, like, 6 or 7, I would, like, stay up all day and just do a reset. And it was kind of a disaster. And if you go back through my blog and you look at my New Year's resolutions for years, that was like, my number one. It was like, fix my sleep schedule because it was really disruptive. I couldn't schedule anything with anybody. A lot of times I'd be sleeping so late that by the time I got out of bed and took a shower and ate breakfast, stores were closed, so I couldn't go to the bank. So if you're doing something like that, it's like, number one, realize that it's a big deal, which I did. But I still felt powerless. And I Thought, okay, what's actually causing me to do this? What's the underlying trigger for this habit? And for me it was turned out it was using computers late, easy to keep using computer. You lose track of time even if you're working and it feels like you're being productive. And so what I'd recommend someone else do is say, look, from now on you turn your computer off at 2am, which anybody can do, right? That's easy. And then after that you say, okay, you turn your computer off at 1:00am, okay, now midnight. And you know, you get it set to where you want it to be and you just do it on a daily basis. You never miss, make it an easy habit and just focus and just kind of give it the attention and respect it deserves. Realize it like sounds stupid, you know, just go to sleep, sleep at a normal time. But it's impacting my whole life. And so if I can do that, it's a big deal to fix.

That's great to see the why have it strong and then be willing to put your energy into it 100%. And I love that trigger. I'm a nerd. On the other side of the equation, I'm so about the circadian rhythms and that's kind of my number one thing is sleep. It's digital sunset for me. Sun goes down, all electronics go down. And I used to be up until 2, 3, 4. Now it's getting up at the super early time and be able to crank it. So I love that powerful it is.

It's really surprised me.

It's crazy, right? And how it's that one variable of oh, wow. So if I keep my computer on or my iPhone on beyond sunset, then yeah, I'm going to be watching shows late at night or whatever, or going back into email and working just to identify that key trigger cue and optimize it is great. So one other question on the kind of big ideas from Superhuman. Then I want to talk a little bit more about your number one kind of overall tip, but process versus results. I really like the way you describe focusing on progress rather than outcome. Can you tell us about that a bit?

Yeah. So I used to be a professional gambler. For about seven years I was a professional gambler. And the way it works when you're a professional gambler is you know what you're supposed to do and whether you know there's some variance in gambling or nobody would gamble unless they were really good at it. And so your outcome is not necessarily going to be directly correlated in the short Term with your process. So I can play exactly right. You know, I play poker still. You know, I can play every hand exactly right. And I might still lose. And, you know, I saw a lot of my colleagues doing this. We had like a little community of gamblers. And you'd see the people that were really obsessed with whether they won or lost, and they would eventually lose because they would lose track of the process. And so from that, what I got was, okay, I need to just focus on the process. And if I play correctly and I lose thousands of dollars, I'm going to be really happy and I'm going to feel good about that. And if I play poorly and I don't do good process and I win, I'm going to, like, I'm going to be down on myself a little. I'm going to be like, you're an idiot. You shouldn't have done that. And so that really served me well when building habits, because the same thing is true. You start working out. You could work out perfectly every single day for a month. Get your diet right, and maybe you're not going to lose weight yet. It takes time for the process to set in motion. Same with a lot of productivity habits. You start blocking off time and you have your tea before you work, and you keep a to do list or whatever, and it takes time for your results to match your process. However, in the long term, I don't know if I've ever seen an example of somebody really doing the process right and not getting good results. So I think it's just like, it's kind of a different kind of trust, where you just have to trust. Like, I'm going to trust the process. I know if I do the right thing, it's worked for other people, it's going to work for me, too. And eventually I'm going to get those results, and that's going to be great. But you really need to grade yourself on the process.

Right on. Well said. All right, so then. And in all the habits you've created, which is the one that you think has been the most positive for you?

Wow. I think probably eating a healthy diet, I think that for one, it just like, you know, it's your mood, like when you cut out flour and sugar especially, that was huge for me. It really, like, I feel like my thinking got a lot better. I feel like my, like, my mental state, like, my emotional state got a lot better. It also, I feel like it sort of has this cascading trigger where you just. You feel like you're like Fueling yourself with like high octane gas. And you start like, you know, I've seen this with a lot of people where you're like, you're treating yourself right. And so there's sort of this, this virtuous cycle of like, hey, I deserve this. Hey, like, what else should I do right? For myself? I just feel like diet is like this very far reaching thing that, you know, for me, but also for other people. It has like an enormous, enormous effect.

Yeah, I love it. I love how you simplify it. Again, it's sugar and flour. We don't need to get complicated about this. Start there. You can argue about a lot of details, right? But no one's going to argue that you should be consuming more sugar and more refined flour. Just eliminate that and then the cascade occurs not just in your nutrition, but in every aspect of your life.

Exactly. Yeah. I think it's huge. I think people don't realize how huge it is. I know I didn't. I used to love McDonald's fish filets. That was like my favorite. And I remember I had this friend who, like, you know, this is in college and he was, he got on a healthier diet. He was losing weight and I used to make fun of him. I was like, this is so pointless. It's so stupid. And like, I feel like such a big idiot now because, like, then I did it and I was like, oh my God, this is like the biggest thing I've ever done in my life. So I think like, sometimes when you're on the other side, it's hard to realize what a huge impact it is because, you know, you think about the superficial things like, oh, you know, my waistline will trim up a little bit or, or whatever. And you know, good food is expensive, so there's like this trade off and it doesn't always feel like it's worth it. And it's kind of a hard habit because there's emotional attachment. But man, when you do it, it really is. It's huge for, you know, I think it's just like a no brainer. It's huge.

Yeah. And the benefits are immediate. I mean, I think that's the thing. This morning I interviewed a woman named Michelle Seeger who's at the University of Michigan. She wrote a book called no Sweat on the Science of Motivation and whatnot. But she talks about logical reasons to do something and then the feeling sense. And most people say they work out or eat well because they want to lose weight or feel good over the long term. It's not even feel good. Be healthy over the long run. 75% of people say that, but they exercise 30% less than the people that say I work out or eat well because I want to feel good. And so to be able to make that connection to, no, you're going to feel great. You remove sugar. Sure, you're going to have a few days of. Of getting off of it, but you're going to feel so good, your energy is going to be so much better. As you said, your mind's going to be clear and just do the experiment and see the benefits come into your life.

Yeah. And what's interesting is that eventually it becomes easier for that very reason, because it feels so good. I remember when I first started, it was really weird. I wanted egg rolls. I never ate egg rolls. But for some reason, when I cut sugar and flour and unhealthy foods, like, all I could think about was egg.

Rolls all the time.

But, like, you know, now I've been doing it for years and years, and when I travel, I go off my diet a little bit because I'm like, somewhere for a day or two. It's like, I just don't want to deal with trying to find perfect food. And I found, like, for a week or so, I kind of enjoy it. I'm like, ooh, like, this food's kind of fun. And then after that, like, my brain goes into panic mode where it's like, dude, eat some healthy food. Like, what are you doing? Like, it just. And then I get home and like, I eat, you know, my, like, sardines or Chipotle or whatever. And I was like, oh, it's like that feeling when you get into a hot bath. It's just like, oh, God, that feels so good.

Yeah, I love it. Okay, so you might have already covered your answer to this question, but I like to ask at the end of these chats, what's your number one general tip? We talked about habits right now, but when you look at optimizing our lives in general and actualizing our potential, what's your number one? If you can only share one kind of big idea or piece of wisdom with our community, what would that be?

You know, I think obviously, I think habits are, like, the number one most important thing, or I probably wouldn't have written a book about it. But I think, like, the subset of that is, like, okay, if it is so important, how do I maximize my chances of actually doing them? And I think, like, you know, it's not very sexy, and we have already talked about it. But it's like just pick something super easy that like if you don't do it, you're gonna feel like the biggest idiot in the world because it was just the easiest thing to do. And then just do it every day. It's like, don't try to go for the big life sweeping change at first because then you're probably, you know, it's probably not gonna work and you're gonna be in a worse place than you started. Start with a super easy habit. Just pick something that you know you'll, you're like embarrassed to tell your friends because it's so easy to do. And then, you know, take pride in the consistency, not in the magnitude of the habit. And I think somebody who just like anybody who's listening to this, if you decide to do that like just today maybe if you don't have a good track record of building habits, you decide you're going to do that today. I think that's going to set a cascading series of events in your life where you're then going to do a bigger habit after that or you're going to increase that habit. And I think that's just the start of building a really big snowball. So to me, that's the number one big one.

That's fantastic and I love that juxtaposition. Again, consistency versus magnitude. Build the momentum. Right on. Well, superhuman by habit. As you can tell, I'm a huge fan. It's a really good book. We'll have links to pick it up next to this interview. Tynan, where can people connect with you and what else are you up to that you think our community might be interested in?

So I've got my blog is tynan.com, t y n a n.com been writing there for about. Actually it's about to be my 10 year anniversary pretty soon and I write about this sort of stuff or you know, whatever I'm excited about at the time. Also, if you like cruising, Cruising is like one of my favorite things in the world. Cruise Sheet.com is my new cruise site. Some blog posts about that and I haven't really talked about it yet, but I am coming up with a new book soon. I don't have a title yet, but it's going to be basically a very analytical view of social skills, how to communicate with people, how to make friends and then also how to build a really good supportive friend group. So that's going to be out in the next few months. I'm editing it now.

Right on. All right. Well, send it over to me when you get it done. Would love to check it out and support you however I can. So Tynan T y n a n.com I checked out your cruise company or website. It's awesome. Cruisesheet.com if you're into cruises, go find some great deals there. And once again thank you dude. I really appreciate how you approach life and how you captured some great ideas in your book and just overall rocking it superhuman style.

Hey, thank you so much for having me man. Really enjoyed the conversation.

All right man.

Hi, this is Brian.

I hope you enjoyed that interview.

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