237. Michael López | Change: Six Science-Backed Strategies to Transform Your Brain, Body, and Behavior.

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, we interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better.

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books.

In today's episode, we have the pleasure to interview Michael Lopez, author of Change: 6 Science-Backed Strategies to Transform Your Brain, Body, and Behavior. Michael is a leading expert in behavior change, a consultant, speaker, and former intelligence officer with a background in business, civil service, military leadership, and athletics. He has spent decades studying human transformation and developing strategies that help individuals and organizations create lasting change. As a LinkedIn Top Voice and As a trusted advisor, Michael has worked with some of the world's top companies to accelerate performance through science-backed change methods. In this episode, you'll learn why most people struggle with change, the neuroscience behind building new habits, and how to reshape your relationship with stress to achieve peak performance. Michael also breaks down 3 ways the brain learns, the power of repetition, and how to create momentum that sticks. Now, get ready to learn and enjoy this incredible conversation with— Michael Lopez.

Michael Lopez, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. I'm excited to chat with you about your book Change. And here's where I'd like to start. Right in the introduction, you talk about while writing the book, someone asked you an incredibly powerful question. The question was this: who do you want the reader to be when they finish reading the book? How did you answer that question?

Yeah, you know, it's funny, I just started writing. Um, I've accumulated a lot of knowledge for my— in my professional life, in my research life, in my coaching life. And so I just started, and it never— it didn't occur to me until I was a fair bit of the way into the book. And, you know, the answer is pretty simple. I, I, I want you to be someone who not only believes change is possible, but that change is necessary. And I think so many of us, as we progress in life, become fixed in certain habits, behaviors, environments, beliefs that hold us back. And, you know, a big part of my life has always been built around challenging those, either from myself or from events outside of me. And so that's really what I was hoping, is that, is, is that people would demystify this idea of change. Learn some skills, and then be the kind of person that induces change in their life for their own growth.

At what point in your life, Michael, did you realize that our brain— our brains, excuse me— are plastic and that we aren't fixed? We are. We have the opportunity to grow.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's interesting. I've I've been pretty growth-oriented my whole life. I'm I'm so I'm fifty-one. So the if you look at the you know the Carol Dwecks and the Hubermans and the folks that have started to talk. about this, I would say, in the last 5 years. That's really when my journey began and the research that those trailblazers have put out. And so I think I put it in 2 epics. I guess the first epic of my life was always built around what I think was a natural orientation towards shifting, towards moving into new spaces. I didn't have a language for it. I've always, as my mom said, I was born 2 weeks early and I've been bored ever since. So I think I have a certain natural inclination towards finding new paths. But it's been really the last, I'd say, 5 to 7 years where, as the research has moved forward and really understanding what's, what's available and diving into that in my own journey as a change practitioner, that I really started to kind of match the, the kind of the nature part of myself with the nurture part of learning more about the science.

Oh, it's amazing. Good for you. I was not always growth-oriented. It wasn't until my early 20s when I was listening to a podcast— I don't think it's on anymore, but it was called The Science of Success— and I was listening to it to and from my internship one summer in college, and the host was talking about neuroplasticity, and I had never heard about neuroplasticity. And it gave me language to understand that we can change. We are in control. We have more agency than maybe our school system conditions us to think we have. And so why don't you tell us a little bit about the 3 different ways, right, that our brains can change and update?

Yeah, yeah. It's, it's something that I learned. I mean, you've heard this phrase, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, right? And, and of course, that's, that's not true. We retain the ability to learn new things for our entire life. And as I tell people, I hope that I learned something new, you know, the day before they close the casket, because that's really— your brain is like a muscle, right? It is a use-it-or-lose-it kind of organ, just like a muscle. And so there's, you know, there's 3 ways. And when we're younger, we, we develop brain cells through neurogenesis, right? Which is this idea that that our brains are building new cells that are learning through experience and exposure. And, and that is the predominant experience we have. It's why teaching kids new languages at a young age is so much easier than trying to learn it as an adult. You, you really do learn through exposure and experience. Turns out that as we get older, over the age of about 25, not exactly, but, but you learn through repetition or through lack of repetition. So there's 2 fancy phrases called long, long-term potentiation or long-term depression. And it's not depression from the emotional term, but what it means is I learn by repeating actions, which is potentiation, or I learn by not doing things. And that is really where, as a strategy, as an adult, you have to kind of shift your thinking about what's required. And it's one of the reasons change is so hard. It takes repetition. It takes a lot of repetition, and it takes something really important. Which is deciding not to do something, unlearning behaviors that we have. And I, I tell people one of the big misconceptions about this idea of rewiring the brain, it's not really how it works. Your brain is— think of your brain as a map of roads that you travel on a pretty regular basis, right? It's like deer in the forest. They, they travel the same paths, right? And they wear paths into the earth. Well, you don't make new paths. What you do is you repurpose a path that you have. And so instead of using that path for behavior A, I'm going to use it for behavior B. Well, in order to make space for behavior B, I have to stop doing behavior A. And that's one of the big things that makes change so hard, is stopping that behavior that's kind of holding you back.

Hmm. You're incredibly articulate, which I want to ask about in just a couple of minutes. But before I do, let's go back to neurogenesis. You mentioned 25 is when that has maybe fully atrophied. I've heard over the years of reading and listening to so much content that the first 6 years are when most of that mapping takes place, right? The deer in the woods. Is that what you've read as well? Is that what you've come to understand?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's, you know, it's still an emerging part of the research, but yes, early on your brain is, uh, and actually I talk about this in the book, your brain is sort of hyperconnected when you're, when you're born. So we both have small babies, yours 4 months, mine 9 months. And the way that your brain actually wires itself is there's connections everywhere and you start to form your own habits and behaviors by stripping away unuseful connections. And, and that's again through repeating behavior. So, so yeah, you can— there's some science around neurogenesis later in life. I think a lot of the research says it's possible in places like the olfactory system, which is where you smell. Which I think is sort of our oldest sense system in, in the brain. But, you know, that's still an emerging area that a lot of people are working on. But, but yeah, the first part of your life is just built around— kids are sponges and it's how your brain really learns everything. And it's why, it's why I'm critical of a lot of adult learning methods, because as an adult, right, we— you don't go to a 30-minute training session online and pretend to be different.

Right.

Right? You might acquire new knowledge, but that's not the same as building new behaviors. And so, it's one of the reasons I wrote the book is, you know, a lot of what I do in the consulting space, a lot of people have it wrong and we're not helping adults shift in ways that they really need to.

Oh, you're speaking my language. I have been waging a silent war against the book summary apps for a long time because they'll get you excited and you'll cross the book off the list and then in a few months, you haven't retained anything and you haven't changed any behaviors because you never developed a meaningful or emotional relationship to what you learned enough to actually implement it and then repeat that action.

Right? Right.

Repetition does lead to retention and change because of what you talked about, long-term potentiation and long-term depression.

Yeah.

It's also interesting. I've always told people that momentum works in both ways. And so what you're describing is sort of the science behind how that happens to people.

Well, and yeah, you know, you sort of brought up this idea of repetition and, you know, take someone who goes to a seminar on a weekend and gets a big spike of motivation, right? And maybe it's a health goal, maybe it's a career goal, maybe it's a financial goal. And you walk away from that 8-hour session just jazzed, right? And that night you're writing down goals and things you're going to change. And the next day you start to implement that and maybe the next day And by the end of a week, you find you're starting to struggle with repeating the behavior. It's getting frustrating. You're not accomplishing your goals at the timeframe that you wanted. You realize, wow, I got to get up and do this again the next day. And a big part of that, and what I talk about in the book, is this idea of building our relationship with stress. And, and most of what stops people from their goals, really, there's 2 things. One is poorly articulating the goal in the first place. And we can talk about that in the book. And the second one is, is misunderstanding the stress relationship required to accomplish that goal. And so, you know, motivation's pretty transient and, and we know a lot about the science of motivation. I talk about it in the book, but if you really want to accomplish your goals and change, you've gotta really rebuild that relationship with stress.

Yeah, I found this area of the book fascinating, and as you'll see in my Amazon review for your book, which Sometimes takes a few days for them to approve.

I appreciate it.

I talked about how I was reading your book on the plane, on a plane ride recently, and I can imagine everyone around me like, what the heck is this guy doing? Because I was feverishly taking notes and then reflecting and stroking my chin, and then I'm back in the book because you talk about it in a very easy-to-understand way. So let's start first with the science of goal motivation. Can you tell us a little bit about the goal gradient hypothesis?

Well, so the goal gradient hypothesis is basically this idea that the closer you get to accomplishing a goal, the more, the more motivated you are. Um, and that's sort of a, sort of an asymptotic relationship, right? So, so it's imagine running a mile on, uh, on a track, right? And so, uh, it's 4 laps around a standard track to get to a mile. Well, when you take off that first mile, what do most people do, right? They get out of the gate pretty hot, right? I'm jamming, I'm excited, let's go. And you make it past the first turn. Let's assume you're not a, you know, mile runner or something. And you get to that first goal and you go, wow, I got to do this 3 more times. And that second and third lap get pretty difficult. But by the fourth lap, if you keep going, what you find is at the back end of that second turn, you see The finish line, and you start to be less tired. You start to be able to pick up speed. This happens to marathon runners all the time, right? That's a long—that's 26 miles, right? And so part of what we need to do as we build our our our goal framework is understand how to make my goal a set of sequential goals that always give me the sensation that I'm approaching the next win, right? And so that's a big piece of what most people struggle with is. You know, most people's goals are what? I want to lose 30 pounds. Well, you know, you don't lose 30 pounds in one workout, right? You have to approach that incrementally. And so these are things that I try to help even not just individuals but companies with, right? Companies make the same mistakes, uh, and they don't understand the incremental progress that's required.

Yeah, Michael, that kind of explains Parkinson's Law a little bit, which is a task will expand to the amount of time that you give it. And we always remember Getting a homework assignment in grade school that's due in 2 weeks on Monday morning, and the Sunday before it's due, we're scrambling to get it done. And that's because a narrow focus on a close-in goal is the key to generating motivation, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, that's, you know, from the book. And we talk about this idea of focus and, and, uh, you know, you could take a very, uh, kind of Buddhist approach to it and have— one of my favorite quotes is, you know, uh, what we stare at gets bigger, right? And it's this idea that, that what you attend to Particularly visually, and we, we talk about this in the book, and this is straight out of the research from, from Andrew Huberman, is this idea that your visual system, which is, you know, something like 60% of your brain space is dedicated to your visual system. Your ability to focus is a huge piece of your ability to learn. And we could get into the, the, the issues around distractibility, but, but there's a lot of strategies I talk about, which is, which is how to train your visual system. Uh, to, to then attend to your mental ability to learn. And I, I use this phrase like, you know, our eyes are in the front of our head for a reason, right? We're hunters, we chase things, and, and that visual focus is a huge part of the learning experience. And, and if you can learn that, and there's techniques around it, you'll learn a lot faster.

Yeah, I think so too. I, as it relates to reading and implementing books, I love to teach people to set a SMART goal for each book that they read so that they're leveraging that reticular activating system a little bit more. They say something like, I'm looking to find and implement at least one strategy from Change so that I can feel less anxiety when I step on stage. And I would like to do this by the end of next week or something like that.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's specific, it's measurable. That's a realistic goal.

Yeah.

It's relevant. I'm emotionally connected to it and I gave myself a timeframe. To induce that extra motivation a little bit.

That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. No, it sounds like you're already, uh, well on your way. So you're, you're, you're putting into practice some of the things I've been talking about. That's great.

So as far as, uh, the running piece, give us an example. How would you restructure a 4-mile run so that you don't start hot and finish hot and lag in the middle?

Yeah, I actually— this was one of the things that I, I talk about in the book as an example of just a mile, but we can extend it out. I'm not a big runner. I'm big into fitness, but I've never historically been a big, like, distance runner. And I knew I needed to up that level of my performance for my heart and, you know, all of that sort of stuff. So really working on my VO2 max and all of these good things.

Me too, by the way, which is why I'm asking about this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I've, I've become a little bit obsessed by it, but So what I do in a mile run, which is sort of a different way to think about it, we could extend it out, is I break up the increments in terms of time. And then about 60% of the way through, I shift it and I think about it in terms of like percentages and distance, or I kind of do that and sort of flip-flop. So I'll start the first 5 minutes and I treat it as a warmup. So if we're doing a, you know, a kind of a 4-lap run around the track, right? We would say, all right, so I'm gonna take the first 5 minutes, and I really don't count that as my run. I count that as the start of my run. And what that does is if you start, if you frame the start of something as a goal, you actually have a really big spike in motivation. So I just have to run for 5 minutes and I've started. What I then do is I say, okay, I only have to do another 10 minutes and I'm 25% of the way through my run. And so if I think about that in terms of time and space, if I was running for an hour, I kind of treat it that way. And then what I do is I break up the next thing is, well, if I do what I just did, which was 15 minutes, I'll be halfway done if I'm thinking about a 60-minute run. And then at the end of that 60, I go, wow, I'm 50% of the way through the run. Okay, if I run just another 10 minutes, which is a third of what I've just completed, I'm 66% of the way through my run, and then I only have 20 minutes left. And then what I do is I say the last part of my run is just 4 5-minute increments. And if I treat each of those as kind of 4 quarters of a game, football game, I played football, so that's my analogy, then I only have to knock off 4 small increments. So you could take that and extend it to anything, right? You can take it in terms of time or take it in terms of distance. But instead of treating my, you know, weekly hour-long run as some boring hour-long thing that I'm not looking at the time I've completed but the time I have left. I, I break it up into a series of small wins, and what that allows me to do is keep my motivation. And what ends up happening without fail is I usually run that kind of run about— it's very easy, like a 5-mile-an-hour. I'm just keeping it. But the last 10 minutes, I'm like 7.5 8, right? I'm sprinting. I've run for 50 minutes, and yet I seem to have more energy at the end than I did at the beginning. And that's all by sort of regulating and creating gates to my motivation along that process.

Wow. Well, thank you for taking the time to explain that.

Yeah, a little bit of detail there, but, uh, yeah, it, it actually works.

So, yeah. Well, that, that's what's useful for the audience. It gives everybody listening or watching today's show something to go out and practice and It reminds me of that, that old adage, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And how do you run for an hour? You chunk it down into these small kind of like Christmas morning moments where you're constantly feeling excited and energized to complete the next task.

Yeah. Yeah. And look, let's be clear, you're not always ready for that experience. You're not always motivated as much as you try to trick yourself. You're still a human being, right? And, and, but I go back to this idea of rebuilding your relationship with stress, right? And so So, it's a big piece of the conversation and maybe we'll get there, but it's also about rebuilding your relationship with effort, right? And so, a lot of what we talk about in the goal space is less about accomplishing goals and more about pursuing goals, right? And we know from the science of motivation that the brain is in its most heightened state when it's striving, when it's pursuing, when it's chasing. And so, that's part of what I help people try to also figure out is to be in a perpetual state of pursuit. That'll keep you a lot more motivated, a lot more dopamine spikes that are really good for you and all that sort of stuff.

Well, you're a good example of that. Before we press record, we're sharing each other's calendars a little bit, and you are always slightly overcommitted. And I would imagine that's because you are always in pursuit. You're always leveraging the art of anticipation. You've always got something else going on, and that's how we compound progress, right?

That's right. That's right. And I mean, you know, there's a lot of this 1% better every day, you know, kind of methodologies. And I'm a big believer in that and, and for a lot of things. And so, you know, this idea that, that I've made myself in some way, shape, or form just a little bit better, and it's kind of the point of the book, right? And the point of the book that you asked me at the beginning is to be someone that's constantly in a state of finding improvement opportunities in whatever aspect. It doesn't mean being relentlessly focused on improvement in such a way that you're not enjoying the life you're living. It means enjoying the pursuit of progress, right? And so, so, so much of our change goals are built around trying to avoid things we don't want to do. And a lot of my job is rebuilding people to focus on chasing the things they do want to do. And, you know, it's, it's one of the quotes I put in the book, right? Which is, you know, you are what you repeatedly do. And, and it's one of the classic Aristotle quotes of all time. And, and I think there's some really important wisdom in that. And, and so be someone who's always pursuing change, and you'll be really amazed at what you'll accomplish. You'll accomplish goals you didn't even know you had, and that's really kind of the point.

Yeah, yeah. Progress is happiness, and we're always either running away from pain or towards pleasure, and it's more fun to run towards pleasure, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or just making running the pleasurable part.

Yes, yes.

That's right, that's right. Yeah.

I love it. So you, you mentioned, and I wanna make sure we touch on it quickly, you mentioned rethinking our relationship to stress. What did you mean by that?

Well, I think, you know, uh, there's a lot of, um, I, I think there's a lot of layers to stress and we, we tend to lump all of those layers into one big category. And I think it's important that we understand the nuance of stress. And I talk about this in the book and I, I say this disclaimer, this disclaimer every time. You know, long-term emotional, traumatic, detrimental, you know, big effect stress is bad. It's always bad. It needs to be attended to by professionals, and people should get the support that they need in those circumstances. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about short-term acute stress that is really productive for the human body, right? That stress serves a purpose. It's designed to get you to move. It's designed to get you to act. And so even the conversation around cortisol, which I, I find really interesting, right? This idea that cortisol is bad and you should never have cortisol in your system. Look, cortisol is a fuel, right? And it, but you should have it in your body. It just needs to be there in the morning, right? Early in the day to get you to move and get you to act. And so finding ways to induce short-term acute stress keeps you healthier. It triggers the immune system. And so I take a cold shower every day, right? That's the, you know, the cold plunge experience is built around that. That's one way. There are other ways. High-intensity effort is another way to induce stress. This idea of doing things you don't want to do, right? So there's a part of your brain called the anterior midcingulate cortex. It's, it's one of, I think, in my mind, the most revolutionary discoveries of the last 20 years. And they see in athletes, right, you have a— this is a part of your brain that actually gets bigger. The more you do things you don't want to do, this section of your brain actually gets bigger. And it turns out the bigger it gets, the more you can do things that you don't want to do, right? The less you experience the stress and discomfort of small, you know, you know, inconvenient or, you know, uncomfortable moments. And so, you know, I'm a big believer that, that the more you self-induce stress, the more you will accomplish in your life because the big things seem less big. And so it's just a big part of what I think is so central to accomplishing your goals.

Yeah, so well said. I often— so I, I jumped into the cold plunging, cold shower, uh, you know, I guess you would call it hype a couple of years ago.

Race.

Got a cold plunge for— yeah, got a cold plunge for my house, did it every day, posted about it a lot on social media. And I found that what you're highlighting is very true. Willpower is transferable. The ability to get in the cold plunge also made it easier for me to do other activities unrelated to cold exposure that I didn't want to do. So is that a good example of what you're talking about?

Yeah. I mean, look, I get up in the morning and, and I, I sort of say to myself, the worst part of my day will be over in 5 minutes if I can just get up and do it. And it's done. And you get out and you look— there are real dopamine effects from cold water exposure, and, and it, it's been well studied. And there's still some controversy around it— how much, how long, those sorts of things. But But for me, it's less about the sort of the hormonal effects that I get, and it is really that conversation you have with yourself before you do something you don't want to do. And what I tell people who are maybe hesitant to step into these moments, particularly difficult moments, fearful moments, is on the other side of this experience is a version of you that you haven't yet met but can't wait to meet. And and and if you can do it, and you can do it, you know the world opens up to you in some really amazing ways.

Yeah, it's it's uh I would say I've met a very interesting version myself that you're totally right wouldn't have existed if I didn't do that every day. And by the way, kudos to you. I did I did 75 hard phase one at one point, which was 30 days of cold showers, five minute minimum every day, and I found cold showers. More difficult. They are way hard.

They are way hard. I will have that debate with anybody. But because you because it's it's much harder to get numb, right? Because you the water is always moving around. And so yeah, yeah, it is. It's my wife does it, and we kind of you know we hold ourselves accountable. We have a little accountability partners, and it's always a test to who goes first because you never want to listen to the person go before you because then you're like oh man, it's even worse now. So we actually race to go first. It's And then it's fun, right? And then it becomes something that is both difficult, but it's the pursuit of the uncomfortable that actually makes it worth it. So, it's great.

Yeah. I got a little speaker for my shower, a little waterproof one, and I found a number of songs that were at least 5 minutes long that were upbeat that I'd have fun with. And same thing, my wife hears a mixture of screaming from the shower as well as, like, you know, maybe some rap music or something.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, man, I mean, we all have strategies to get through it. I'm, I'm, I'm just more of a breather. Uh, but you know, you just, it's, yeah, it's just become something that we've really enjoyed. Look, there's a lot of ways, uh, you know, uh, saunas are great ways. It's a different kind of stress response. Exercise, you can induce a lot of that stress response just through breathing. And there's a lot of great strategies around breathwork that can actually induce the adrenal glands to create that similar response. So, a lot of options available. I would just encourage people to Do their research. You know, don't jump into cold water without someone around if you've never done it. You know, those sorts of things, all the appropriate disclaimers about safety and that sort of thing. And I talk about those in the book.

Yes. And by the way, not only would I argue cold showers are harder than cold plunges, but a cold shower at 45 degrees is harder than a cold plunge at 33 degrees. So there's like a very big difference I've found.

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Before we move into the next part of the conversation, which is going to be about the process of writing your book, I think we've done a great job highlighting some of the principles that you teach in here. Where can people go to find a copy of the book if they're, if they're like, oh, I want to learn more about what this guy Michael has to offer?

Yeah, it's, it's, uh, you know, it's available at all the major retailers— Amazon, Barnes& Noble, Ingram. Uh, all you need to do if you want to go to Amazon and just, just, just go ahead and search Michael J. Lopez Change and it'll come right up. Uh, on my website, michaeljlopez.coach, there's a link right there at the top. Um, you can find it on my Instagram, so it's pretty easy to get a copy. And, uh, it's kind of everywhere you would find a book that you want to find, so Okay, well, we will link everything in the show notes.

Great. So going back to the front half of this process, when did the moment strike where you said, I'd like to consolidate everything I've learned and everything I've been researching into a book? Why a book?

Well, you know, I've worked in big consulting for a long time, and I talk about this a little bit in the book. I actually started writing the book about companies and organizations, but I shifted partway to writing about individuals because I knew I needed to go back to this foundation of, you know, the science of change is kind of the unit of measurement is the person, right? No 2 brains are the same. No 2 brains will ever be the same. And so when you take a group of people, if you want to change a group of people, you got to change the people and then let them do their work to change, you know, the broader organization. So I had just started my company and I was trying to take a lot of what I had learned as a consultant, talk about it differently. And I realized that the only way to do that was to put it in one place. I had been encouraged by folks to kind of, you know, write a book for a while. And so it really became a little bit of a perfect storm between moving into this new phase of, you know, building my own business, building my own brand, and then trying to have a conversation differently around change that wasn't just about the, what I'd call the pop culture version of the change conversation. I have a very strong belief that we were selling people the easy button. And I knew, given my life as a coach in sports, working with the military, working with organizations, that there is no easy button. And so I wanted to put everything in one place. And so right around this time last year, actually January 3rd, I think, or 4th of 2024, I started building my outline and I finished the first draft on July 15th. So, it took me about 7 months.

Yeah. And that's amazing. What did you learn about yourself in the process of writing the book? Did anything surprise you about your own habits or behaviors or thoughts?

Yeah. Wow. It's funny. Well, this is going to sound a little bit, you know, I've always enjoyed writing and I've always been a pretty good writer, and, and I've enjoyed the process of writing. Um, writing a book is different in the sense that I've written, you know, in college you write a paper. It's, uh, it's about the discovery of, of what you learn as you're writing that I think for me was the biggest insight.

Yeah.

Like I said, I started with a plan, and having a plan is good, but it's a lot like change in the way I talk about it. Uh, what you learn about yourself is, uh, A, what's possible, but I think B, I changed a lot of my, my beliefs and some of my hypotheses and some of my frameworks along the journey. So I was educating myself in the process of this, going back through the studies, rereading the research, relitigating my own experiences and thinking differently about what I had gone through. And then, and then letting the creative process kind of pull all that together. I think the last thing that has been really— I've been very flattered by the feedback you mentioned at the beginning. As people have said, it's very easy to read. And I, I first thought of that as like, oh, it must mean I'm kind of a boring writer. It's kind of simple. And what people have said is that they feel like I'm talking to them, that I'm just telling them stories about my experiences. And, and so that conversational part of the book for me was fun because I think I was talking to myself along the journey, telling the stories the way I'd want to hear them. And so it was just really fun. fun to kind of have that all come out, uh, along that, that sort of journey. And then, and then being done and looking back and sort of re-experiencing that was, was really, really part of the fun.

Well, kudos to you for having that awareness. One major mistake I see a lot of authors make is they say things like, I am writing this book for a younger version of myself, but they don't write a book that would attract Or retain the younger version of themselves. And so it sounds like you did do that. It sounds like you would've enjoyed reading this book and it would've accelerated your learning if you had read it when you were younger. And that's exactly what the book is supposed to do.

Yeah, no. Yeah, no, that's true. I mean, I, you know, look, I've done a lot of research, I've done a lot of homework, I've done a lot of, you know, consulting, a lot of coaching that's all kind of come together and, and I really wanted to make it accessible for people. So they didn't have to go back through all the studies and go through all of that and kind of read, you know, 100 pages worth of stuff, but, but also give them a place to understand why that happens. I actually tell this story a lot. I probably should have put it in the book. I remember being in geometry class when I was a, you know, whatever, sophomore in high school, being very frustrated with my teacher that we had to do all of the proofs. You know, you had to prove that sine is 1 over cosine or whatever it is. And he said something to me that was really, really impactful, not at the time, but it is now, which is it's not just understanding the answer, it's understanding why that's the answer. That's more important than just knowing the answer. And I think for a lot of us where we can Google anything and find, you know, the outcomes that we want, it's about the process. And so for me, I wanted to give people a chance to, to learn a little bit of that without having to go all the way back. to the beginning, but, but kind of have that available to them. So that was important for me. And by the way, I guess the last thing I'll say is somebody asked me, did you do any AI work on your book? And it— and the answer is no. I wrote every word of that book. I don't have a ghostwriter. And for me, it was important to earn the right to call myself an author and to go through that process. And so back to Effort is the goal and effort is the reward. And so I just really— that was meaningful for me.

I have so many things to reflect on there. I'll just share one, which is that back to the book summary piece, understanding why and how an author gets to where they are instead of just the main summary point, that is the value of reading a book. You know, the information that you tell, the stories that you tell, they build on each other. The book grows over time with you, your relationship to that information. gets stronger and deeper, and that's how we create change. There's a wonderful book called The Art of Learning by Joshua Waitzkin. He's a chess champion and a martial arts champion, and he talks about a form of learning. He calls it numbers to leave numbers or form to leave form. And the idea is that you study a subject so intensely that it becomes part of you, and then your subconscious can act on your behalf.

Yeah.

But until you've studied the game of chess for 10,000 hours, shout out Gladwell, you're not going to see 12 moves ahead. You can't just read about the moves and then expect to use them, right? You need to build and build and build and study. And so I love that you built the book by yourself, and I love that you're an advocate for these longer forms of learning and for things like repetition. And, uh, I think it's all beautiful. I do.

I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

I mentioned that I would, I would call back to this later, and I want to make sure that I squeeze it in. You're incredibly articulate and easy to understand verbally. And so I'm wondering selfishly, where did your ability to speak come from? Is this something that you have studied yourself? Did it come through practice? Have you always had the gift of gab? Tell me a little bit about that.

Well, ironically, the funny part, my wife, Thinks this is silly. I actually had a really bad stutter when I was a kid, probably from the age of 7 till 11. I never went to speech therapy or anything like that. But I— it's really through practice and repetition and, and doing it. And I think, again, practice is the biggest form of, of, of learning that you can have. And so You know, I, one of my first jobs, I, I talked about this in the book. You know, I spoke at my college graduation. I've always, I think, been comfortable speaking and sharing and thinking and, you know, shortening the distance between a thought and a word. I've certainly screwed up more than, you know, more than I'd probably like to report, but a very distinct memory working in the Pentagon. At a very early age. I'll, you know, I won't spoil the whole book, but, uh, you know, I've been in some rooms in front, you know, at, at, at 23 years old in some pretty high-pressure situations, to the point where my voice cracked in front of, you know, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at 23 years old. And, and really kudos to those individuals for giving me the grace and the space to just sit and work through that. But, but after that, you just kind of go You know, if I can do this, it's like the cold shower, right? If I can do this, I can do anything. And, and, you know, that's always been really helpful. And then I got a really great piece of advice once that I would share with folks that are coming up and speaking and maybe nervous about speaking, right? It's one of the biggest fears people have. I talk about in the book, right, that like more than death, some people are afraid of, of public speaking. Is when you're going to give a presentation, right? Very few people know more about what you're about to say than you do, right? You understand what you're preparing for. You see the mistakes other people don't. But the courage to stand up in front of a room and, and command that space, it's something that a lot of people will, you know, kind of critique but be afraid to do themselves. So just the idea of starting, framing the start as a goal, the courage to stand up in a room Have an opinion, share a thought, start a conversation. That's the goal, because a lot of people aren't willing to do that. And so, you know, I've just, I've just been fortunate to have a lot of opportunities to do that, to have people that have given me space to do that, to try it, to mess up, and just repeat that over and over and over again.

Well, thank you for sharing that. I love the idea. Your goal is just to get out on stage, you know, and open up the presentation or whatever the case is. It's to get to the gym and lift one weight. And by the way, while you're there, you'll probably lift a couple more, right? Yeah. And, uh, it's just getting that process started. And one other callback to something you mentioned about how the book is easy to read. I think that's a beautiful thing. I think sometimes authors overcomplicate what they're trying to communicate so that they sound intelligent, and oftentimes they'll scare away the people they're best positioned to serve.

Yeah.

Alex Hormozi, who's a former guest on this podcast, shared that he tries to write everything at a 5th or 6th grade reading level, and it takes time to simplify and then articulate in a way that is easily digestible. So kudos to you for the way that you speak, because you speak in that manner, and for the way that you write, because this was a great book.

I appreciate it. Thank you, Nick.

All right, as we wrap up, a couple of rapid-fire questions for you, and then we'll let you go, Michael. Who is one online personality, one online mentor that you aspire to be, or that you aspire to be like or communicate with? Who do you look up to?

Well, we talked about one of them. I'm a big Peter Attia fan, not just for what he's accomplished in terms of his his online presence, but what he's doing in the field of health and longevity. We happen to be the same age, so I have a vested interest in learning from him, and I think he creates a conversation. I think he's willing to be provocative. You'll probably see behind me on the screen his book Outlive, which I think is just, you know, he's challenging long-held beliefs about the field that he's an expert in. And I just think that's a gift. I'm a big fan of Huberman and what he's done. A lot of his early episodes in the 2021 timeframe were part of what inspired me to build on a lot of the research that I've then done that, you know, came from him. And his early episodes were a big piece of that. So And you know what I love about— we just talked about this, but what I love about them is they're taking complicated concepts and they're not afraid to bring that to people. Because look, this is difficult. It is science. There are, you know, complex dynamics at play, but, but people can learn them. We can talk about them and we can simplify them so they're accessible. And so I've just really been impressed. You know, hopefully I end up on their podcast someday because that would be, you know, just this kind of a big fanboy moment for me. But yeah, those are, those are, those are 2 big I'm a big fan of the both of them. Sorry.

I am too. What is one book that inspired you? We mentioned Outlive already, so let's move that off to the side. Do you have any mentors in the author space, people that have written books and you thought, wow, like that was mind-blowing? What was the last time that happened in your life?

Yeah, actually one of them is I reference in the book. So there's a great book called How Emotions Are Made by Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett. It has— there aren't that many books that have, I think, in my mind, fundamentally changed our understanding of how we experience the world. And that, I think, really is one of them. I mean, it really just was mind-blowing, pun intended. And I'd say the other one, if people haven't read, but I try to at least once a year read Man's Search for Meaning. It is— it never gets old. It is timeless. It's probably one of the most powerful books that I think exist in the world. And so for me, those 2 ends of the spectrum, right? This idea of understanding how our brains operate and yet our deep, intense desire and search for understanding who we are and why we're here and what we're here to do. Those things for me are just really powerful.

Yeah. Well, thank you for the recommendations. Man's Search for Meaning was a subject of conversation with my wife today when we were on a walk with my dog and talking about that space between stimulus and response. And, uh, what a beautiful book. I, there are a handful of books that I try to read on a yearly basis, and that's not one of them, but it should be. I've only read that book once or twice.

Yeah. And what's so great about that is that, that idea of man, you know, the, the, this, this space between stimulus and response. If you read his book and then you read How Emotions Are Made, it's actually the same conversation, one on the philosophy of meaning and, and purpose, and the other is actually the science of what's happening in that space. It's a fascinating juxtaposition of those 2 experiences. And maybe we should have a whole conversation about that someday.

Yeah, we might have to after I read the emotions book. Okay. Final question for you, and then we'll let you go, Michael. If your book was deleted, but you could leave the world with just one message from it, what would that message be?

Change is possible. And it's not just possible, but as I mentioned about who I want the reader to be, it's necessary. Um, you should seek change for your entire life. This is our one shot and, and you're not done and you're never done. I reinvented big portions of my life at the age of 50, and I hope I keep going. And, you know, I feel like I'm just getting started. And my own conception of who I was at 30, 35, 40 to now being 50 and looking at the back half of my life, I hope that people embrace this idea that you should never stop growing until the day they shut it down. And so, uh, that's my hope.

Mic drop moment. All right. We'll end it there. Thank you, my friend.

I appreciate you.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers, Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, Go read something.