How To Control Your Attention & Choose Your Life - With Nir Eyal
Nir Eyal has spoken on some of the world’s biggest stages and his expertise focuses on the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. He is a behavioural designer who works with companies to build the kind of products that build good habits in people’s lives.
He discusses how distraction and traction can be applied to anything in life and how anyone can learn the habits and tactics that mean they can be "indistractable".
What do you think is distracting you? Nir shares great content about why it might not be what you thought, and how to build habits and tactics that focus on traction, in a fascinating episode that every entrepreneur should listen to.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
Focus is one of the things people struggle with the most but we can all build good habits. You can’t buy customer retention and engagement it has to be designed into the product. You need to understand the fundamentals of how to bring people back and the psychology of habits. The opposite of distraction is traction. Traction is an action that pulls you towards what you said you were going to do, things you do with intent, things in line with your values that help you become the person you want to become. Distraction is any action that pulls you further away from what you planned to do, further from your intentions and values, and the person you want to become. Distraction and traction can be applied to anything in your life. We allow ourselves to be distracted by prioritising the urgent and easy over the important and hard work because we rationalise it all needs to be completed anyway. Anything that is not what you planned to do with your time in advance is a distraction. Traction is what you have planned to do. 10% of distraction comes through external triggers, 90% are internal triggers - an uncomfortable internal feeling that we want to escape such as boredom, loneliness, stress, anxiety, and fatigue. If you don’t learn how to control your emotions so they are serving you not controlling you, you will always be distracted. Learn to master your internal triggers, make time for traction, hack back your external triggers, and prevent distraction with pacts - making a pre-commitment to not be distracted. The human species is not designed to be happy all the time. We are designed evolutionarily to be perpetually perturbed. The solution is to move towards traction and away from distraction. The way we talk to ourselves is absolutely critical. Visualise and affirm not the outcome but what you will do when you are potentially distracted from doing the thing that will get you the outcome.BEST MOMENTS
‘We have a whole generation of entrepreneurs, who have all the intellect, the insight, and know exactly what they need to do; who are running real fast in the wrong direction, spending all their time with busyness not business.’
‘Everything is a distraction unless it’s something you have planned.’
‘It completely changed my life. Now I have personal integrity and I’m indistractable.'
‘Time management is pain management.'
VALUABLE RESOURCES
Scale Up Your Business – scaleup.vip/podcast
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RESOURCES FOR THIS EPISODE
Link to the book "Indistractable": http://geni.us/Indistractable
"Indistractable" summary article: https://www.nirandfar.com/skill-of-the-future/
Distraction guide: https://www.nirandfar.com/distractions/
Habits vs Routines article here: https://www.nirandfar.com/habits/
Why schedules are better than to-do lists: https://www.nirandfar.com/todo-vs-schedule-builder/
Timeboxing article: https://www.nirandfar.com/timeboxing
Values article: https://www.nirandfar.com/common-values/
The schedule maker tool mentioned in the interview: https://nirandfar.com/schedule-maker/
ABOUT THE HOST
Nick Bradley is a renowned entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and business growth expert.
His background is growing and scaling Venture Capital and Private Equity backed businesses globally.
Over the last decade, he has completed 117 acquisitions and 25 business exits with a combined valuation of over $5bn dollars.His mission is to help business founders build valuable businesses and create life-changing exits so they can realise freedom, wealth, and impact.
CONTACT METHOD
Work with Nick: https://highvalueexit.com
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Nick’s LinkedIn: https://highvalueexit.com/li
Nick’s Instagram: https://highvalueexit.com/ig
