070: How To Permanently Change Your Habits with Maneesh Sethi

Published: April 22, 2019, noon

b'Maneesh is the founder of Pavlok and Shock Clock, products designed to help people change their habits for good. In 2008 Maneesh took a 2 year break from studying at Stanford to travel and start hackthesystem.com, a travel blog about credit card hacking/digital nomads. In 2012 his article, titled “Why I Hired A Girl On Craigslist to Slap Me In The Face \\u2014 And How It Quadrupled My Productivity” on HTS went viral.
\\nNaturally in 2013 he took that slapping idea to start a company that has earned almost 8 figures in revenue, building devices that use psychology and sensory stimuli to help you change habits and wake up early.
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\\nPlaces to Find Maneesh:
\\nPavlok website
\\nFollow on Facebook at Maneesh Sethi
\\nInstagram @Pavlok
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\\nShow Notes:
\\n[2:30] minute: Set the stage for us, what was life like for you growing up and what beliefs around money and success were ingrained in you early on?
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\\nGrew up in suburb of Sacramento with immigrant parents.
\\nEntrepreneurial at a very young age with multiple businesses during his school years.
\\nTells the story of his idol telling him a person his age could never write a programming book and then Maneesh going out writing a bestseller.
\\n\\u201cMake money but don\\u2019t worry about having stuff\\u201d
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\\n[6:30] minute: What did you take from your hero telling you something like that, that had to build some self-confidence, has that served you well?
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\\nHow we respond to negative criticism.
\\nNegative reinforcement vs positive reinforcement.
\\nExamples of why people respond to different cues.
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\\n[9:45] minute: I think the accountability piece is so crucial there. Take me back to when you wrote this article about hiring a girl on craigslist to slap you, how did you get that idea and what was that like?
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\\nPreviously wrote a blog called hackthesystem.com where he wrote about experiments he was doing on himself to try to create habits.
\\nWould ask followers to pick a random thing for him to go figure out how to do, and this turned into an interest in biohacking.
\\nWent viral for a blog about him paying someone off of craigslists to hold him accountable for writing all day long.
\\nUsing the app RescueTime his productivity score went from 38% productive to 98% productive.
\\nBecame famous for a 3 day news cycle. Decided he should try something else interesting, so he built a shock collar for himself to help form new habits, and that turned into his business, Pavlok.
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\\n[15:20] minute: Dorothy tells the story of her first interaction with Pavlok.
\\n[16:00] minute: What is the psychology behind Pavlok that makes it work so well in breaking these bad habits?
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\\nBehavioral training device that can vibrate for positive reinforcement, beep for warnings, and zap for negative reinforcements.
\\nThree areas they work in: breaking bad habits, creating good habits, and helping people wake up in the morning.
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\\n[17:00] minute: Walk me through breaking bad habits.
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\\nAversion therapy explanation, history, and benefits.
\\nExplanation of one of the biggest aversion therapy experiments conducted on heavy cigarette smokers.
\\nTested their product on cigarette smokers first to large success.
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\\n[21:45] minute: How does the component of self policing play into it? How do you make sure people stay accountable to themselves and zap themselves?
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\\nEveryone goes through a course that is training your brain. It\\u2019s a 5 day course, and the success rate for those who do the full course are very high.
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\\n[24:15] minute: Eliminating bad habits with Pavlok makes a lot of sense so talk to me now about creating good habits, does there have to be the negative reinforcement involved...'