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THE ANTIDOTE TO DESPAIR: THE EUPHORIA OF THE LIFE-CHANGING MOMENT

There are opportunities even in the most difficult moments.

—WANGARI MAATHAI

On the schoolyard field of battle known as gym class, I made the geeks look good. I was such a klutz, I was always picked last when teams were selected. I often came out of dodgeball with head trauma.

In college, I got the “freshman fifteen”—those pounds one tends to put on during their first year—factored by three. I was twenty-two and felt my life was circling the drain. As mentioned before, my health, finances, and scholastic situations were a mess. There was no fall from grace; my life had always been blah, and it was my fault.

I wasn’t just a bad athlete growing up, but a bad student. I was smart but lazy. I squeaked my way into an easy postsecondary program with half a percentage point to spare, then promptly began failing. I went to the campus pub instead of class. The credit-card companies were calling. Things were bad and looking worse; I was about to be kicked out of school because of my poor grades.

I was in a hole of my own digging; Joan Baez pulled me out.

The folk singer’s words appeared in the school newspaper, and my life changed in a moment.

“Action is the antidote to despair,” the quote read.

I sat in the food court at my alma mater, reading the comedic highlights of the paper’s section referred to as “Three Lines Free.” It’s a place for students to publish quotes and witticisms and proclamations of undying love or temporary lust. Partway through reading, Joan smacked me in the face. It was so simple to realize that, as bad as things seemed, they could be fixed via concerted effort.

In that instant, my life switched tracks.

Because, you see, there was a woman.

Her name was Heidi. I loved her like no other. You know stories of finding “The One”? This is such a story.

She was a straight-A student destined for medical school; I knew flunking out spelled the beginning of the end. I say this not to ever speak ill of her. But you must know that she, an amazing woman, deserved a good man; a man I had yet to become.

I was in a state of despair, and taking action—working hard for something for the first time in my life—was the antidote.

And suddenly I felt so much better. Even though no effort had yet been expended, the anticipation of having these problems and this beer belly no longer weighing on me was euphoric. It’s like when you hear your parole has been approved and you’re getting out of prison but you’re still in prison. I’ve never been to prison. I got some speeding tickets when I was younger, but I paid them. Anyway, euphoria and stuff …

Instead of hitting the pub as I’d planned for a few barley-based beverages to wash down a plate overflowing with fries and gravy, I got up and booked an appointment with the appeals committee to beg my way out of my failing report card, allowing me to continue as a student. It was the first step of many, and it felt right.

When it comes to experiencing a life-changing epiphany, the way things feel is critical. It involves, as mentioned earlier, unleashing one’s inner quadruped.

The concept began with the classical Greek philosopher Plato. In the fourth century BC, Plato wrote a “dialogue” titled Phaedrus, which contains an allegory about the charioteer. In it, the driver of the chariot represents a person’s more rational self, the guiding force based on intellect and reason. (Because those guys doing the death race in Ben-Hur were totally reasonable.) Conversely, the horses pulling the chariot represent a person’s emotions; they are what provide the power to move forward. And if they want to run wild, the driver of the chariot can do little to control them.

Let’s ignore the part about Plato’s horses having wings, so as not to confuse the issue.

It is important to note that the horses are not like-minded. According to Plato’s tale, one is more virtuous in its passion; the other has a dark side driven by baser appetites. One wants to train for a marathon; the other wants to down tequila shots then go in search of a chili cheese dog to later throw up.

The goal of the charioteer is to obtain the help of the noble horse to overcome the desires of the troublesome one. Otherwise, you’re blowing your groceries in the gutter. I’ve done that. It’s not fun.

The allegory was adapted some millennia later, in 2006, with the publication of The Happiness Hypothesis by New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who referred to the rational, conscious mind as the “rider” and increased the size of the emotion-driven, unconscious-mind quadrupeds to a solitary elephant. Part of the upgrade involved increasing the intelligence of the beast, asserting elephants are smarter than horses. As we’ll see when we examine the neuroscience of attaining sudden insight, Haidt is right. In most cases, the unconscious driver is the correct one; the conscious needs to learn to listen.

A short time later, the rider-vs.-elephant analogy became a core component of the 2010 book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, by brothers Chip and Dan Heath. Chip is a professor of business at Stanford, and Dan is a senior fellow in entrepreneurship at Duke.

A determined elephant will go where it pleases, regardless of the urgings of a more rational rider. To achieve a desired destination, one must appeal to both rider and elephant.

The elephant is the passion and the drive. Whereas the rider may prevaricate and overanalyze, the elephant is the part of the human spirit that can change directions in a flash, and with powerful determination, because it is driven to get shit done. Rather than needing to ponder, it is compelled to act.

Let’s try an experiment in which you talk to your four-legged friend.

How do you feel about changing?

In the introduction, I asked you to awaken your thirst for adventure. I expect you generated some ideas of songs unsung, mountains unclimbed, finish lines uncrossed. And now you’re faced with the opportunity to sing your way across that finish mountain, or something. Have you got it? It doesn’t have to be concrete. Big picture is fine for now. Is it in your brain? Are you thinking about it?

Good. Now stop.

Stop thinking.

Instead, start feeling.

Don’t rationalize this change. Don’t try to think about all the reasons why you should stop doing a thing (like sitting all day, drinking too much, smoking, being angry, overeating treat foods, doing drugs, staying in a dead-end job or relationship, wasting money on stupid crap) or start doing a thing (going back to school, exercising, eating healthier, being kinder, working at your career, spending more quality time with loved ones).

I want you to stop thinking, because of paralysis via analysis. If these goals you imagine—things to stop and things to start—have been around in your brain for a while, you’ve already thought them to death. And yet here you are. Still struggling. You rationalized your way out of change. Well, crud.

Time for a dramatic change of tack.

Ask yourself: How do I feel about this change? You don’t completely cut thinking, but alter the focus. Instead of thinking about this new path, you’re examining your emotions. It’s not about making a list of reasons why and why not. It’s opening your mind to what your heart is saying, metaphorically. I know the heart doesn’t literally control this. It’s still in the brain, just a different part. Enough semantic blather. Let the feelings flow and listen to what they tell you.

Why are you reading this sentence?

You’re supposed to be examining your feelings. Examine your change! You go feel it now. I’ll wait. I’ll even put an extra space between paragraphs to make it easier to pick up again.

Welcome back. How did it go?

Was there a twinge? Did you have a moment? Was there a positive rush of emotion? Did you gain some special insight or wave of motivation to change because you quested to understand your emotional drivers rather than rational ones?

Was the grizzly released from its cage?

Don’t fret if it didn’t happen. We just began and will work through exercises like this at appropriate times throughout the book. And hopefully lightning will strike.

Hopefully.

There are no guarantees. But the harder you work at these exercises, the more you strive and the more you believe epiphany can happen, the greater the likelihood it will.

It’s like that song by Journey, the one about the mythical place called South Detroit we’ve all heard way too many times: “Don’t stop believin’.”

It’s in your head now, isn’t it? My bad. But take something good from it.

Believe. Believe it’s possible to unleash your beast. In The Eureka Factor, Kounios and Beeman write, “Insights are like cats. They can be coaxed but don’t usually come when called.” You must learn to coax your elephant. Or grizzly. Or a really determined kangaroo, if that’s your thing.

Conscious thought rarely incites life-changing epiphanies. Instead, the snap revelations to change in a moment are based on what is often an overwhelming feeling that it is right, arriving from the unconscious. As Plato and subsequent authors revealed, it is such an emotion that gives epiphany its power. I was in fear of losing a beautiful and brilliant woman who let me see her naked, and I felt quite emotional over the impending loss of love. She was not threatening me in any way, but I knew deep down that such a driven woman (she had a perfect GPA and completed medical school at the top of her class) wouldn’t stay for long with a drunken dropout who was letting his health go to hell.

I got my shit together, and we made babies. Told you she was The One.

Beyond ancient philosophy and its modern interpretations, we have the scientific insights of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman. Known as the Father of Behavioral Economics (which we learn more about in coming chapters), Kahneman, an emeritus professor of psychology at Princeton University, is the author of Thinking, Fast and Slow. The “fast” way of thinking is the elephant. It happens when an unconscious idea pops into consciousness. It can also be that emotional driver one needs to effortlessly change. Kahneman refers to this as “System 1,” writing that it “operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control.” Conversely, “System 2” is the rider. It “allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations.”

Kahneman explains that System 2 is where we make our rational choices, our conscious decisions. His description is telling: “Although System 2 believes itself to be where the action is, the automatic System 1 is the hero of the book.”

You’re damn right it is. System 2 is the supporting character, and an inherently lazy one at that. Kahneman writes that System 2 engages in the “law of least effort.” But that doesn’t mean it’s useless in this regard. Far from it. As the Heath brothers explain in Switch, you have to appeal to both elephant and rider. Kahneman says System 1 constructs the story, and System 2 believes it. System 1 “is the source of your rapid and often precise intuitive judgments.” It is a “mental shotgun” allowing us to answer, in an instant, those tough questions about our lives.

Time for a wee task.

I thought about calling these tasks “Action Items,” but I didn’t want you to have a full MBA Bingo card by the end of the book (being that I have an MBA, the risk is real). Implement these Action Items to proactively synergize an optimized epiphanic paradigm! Just, no.

Give us a kiss. Except all caps: KISS. I’ve interviewed both Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons. Paul is nice….

Man, my System 2 is all over the place right now. KISS = Keep It Simple, Stupid. A 2011 study published in Personality and Social Psychology Review looked at “feelings as information.” The study asserts feelings are a “sensible judgment strategy,” but don’t overthink it, especially in terms of the advantages of change. That’s because when you create a comprehensive list of all the benefits of something, the study showed, it becomes less appealing. This is System 2 overanalyzing what System 1 came up with. Your task is to not let that happen.

When System 1, the fast-acting hero of your life, says, “This is it!” the supporting character of System 2 will come up with a couple of confirming rationalizations as to why, yes, we can agree that this is likely the thing. Then STOP! Once you have that confirmation, just go with it. You don’t need to keep drilling down into the benefits, or it actually becomes less compelling. This doesn’t apply to using System 2 for enacting the vision. Being detail oriented in that regard is important.

The Gap between Thinking and Doing

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

William Shakespeare wrote of the stage and players and how life is one big performance in a monologue from As You Like It. But the speech also refers to seven stages of a person’s life.

I only know of this play because it was quoted in the 1981 hit song “Limelight” by my favorite band. Beyond that, I possess mere high school knowledge of Montagues, Capulets, Macbeths, and whatever the last name of that Danish lad was, the one who pondered if he should be or not.

Speaking of Hamlet’s act 3, scene 1, soliloquy, crossing the gap between thinking and doing is making the decision to “take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them.”

You may be facing a sea of troubles, but what could your life look like if you took up arms and charged fearlessly ahead, fierce and furious in your determination to take not a single prisoner but emerge victorious?

Hamlet’s oft-quoted scene begins with, “To be, or not to be?” At the darkest period of his life—dad dead due to the dastardly deeds of his dick uncle—the young Danish prince ponders his future actions, struggling with the decision that lay before him. Should he accept his outrageous fortune, or get in its face?

Oh, wait. It’s Shakespeare. Everyone dies. Bad example. Let us move back a space to the moment before the decision to take arms was made. Some centuries after Shakespeare laid down his mighty pen, James Prochaska, a psychology professor and director of the Cancer Prevention Research Center at the University of Rhode Island, developed a different model for the stages a person goes through when experiencing life change.

Along with his colleagues, Professor Prochaska developed the transtheoretical model (TTM) of behavior change, which is one of the most studied lifestyle transformation models ever created. Since its initial development in the 1970s, more than $80 million and 150,000 study participants have contributed to its peer review. It’s no longer used much for designing psychological interventions, but it’s still useful as an examination tool.

There are five stages to TTM:

1 Precontemplation—People in this stage are not even thinking about altering their behaviors, as they do not see their current lifestyles as problematic. This couch is ever so comfy. Never shall I remove my bottom from its padded glory and proximity to the rectangle of glowing time waste.

2 Contemplation—This is when a person is thinking about changing their behavior, but not quite ready to act. Hmmm. Is there such a thing as a “couch sore”? Perhaps if I repositioned a little. Dammit, I emptied the DVR of all the good stuff. Is there anything new on Netflix? I suppose I could go outside….

3 Preparation—In which the person is focused around planning for acting toward behavior change, which is intended to be imminent. Outside it is! I just need to wiggle myself out of this massive ass groove I’ve created in the couch first….

4 Action—When a person is engaged in behavior change. It is a challenging time, when fragile habits are formed. Later, couch! Fresh air, bitches!

5 Maintenance—In which habits from undergoing the action stage are more ingrained and the new behavior becomes sticky as the person gains self-confidence in their abilities. What’s a couch?

Under the TTM model, where is the lightning strike? Where does the critical moment that divides a person’s life into before and after take place? We can see it in the gap between thinking and doing, between stage 2 and stage 3. It happens after contemplation and before preparation. Although the stage that follows is called “Action,” preparation is still a form of doing, a form of action. It is a giant leap forward toward a new life, which happens in an instant. It requires bravery and force to leap this chasm; hence the need to ensure that the emotional grizzly-elephant-horses are shocked into wakefulness and pointed in the right direction. They have taken up arms, roared defiantly, and the sea of troubles trembled at the might of such a battle cry.

Sometimes the movement from contemplation is a mere step, but that’s not what you’re after. What you seek is a giant leap. Because if this moment that prompts the advancement to stage 3 is a powerful one, if it is a true epiphany that enlightens and inspires, you’ll have little fear of relapse.

The new behaviors stick.

The Decisional Balance Sheet

“Reaching a tipping point to move toward action involves a change of focus,” James Prochaska told me. “One goes from the balance favoring the ‘cons’ of adopting a new behavior to giving more weight to the ‘pros.’”

Unfortunately, people tend to slide back into old habits, which is why it is important to ensure the decisional balance sheet is well stacked in favor of acting.

“A person is going to be a lot better prepared to stick with the new behavior if the pros significantly outweigh the cons,” Prochaska said. If the pros only slightly tip the balance when you start down the path to changing your life, you will still be experiencing those cons. If you just barely decide to change—if, exasperated, you throw your hands in the air and say, “Fine! I guess I’ll do it”—you’re going to feel the suck of that change; it can overpower any benefits. The balance teeters around ambivalence; you are more inclined to give up and slide back into old behavior.

In 2010, Jennifer Di Noia, a professor of sociology at William Patterson University in New Jersey, worked with Prochaska on a meta-analysis of twenty-seven different studies of how TTM was used to evaluate decisional balance; they were specifically looking at dietary changes to affect weight loss. Published in the American Journal of Health Behavior, they came to some fascinating conclusions.

During the precontemplation stage, cons rule the synapses, but something interesting happens during contemplation: The balance begins to shift. And it shifts in a way that explains why so many fail in their efforts to change their lives.

In the contemplation stage, the reduction in thinking about cons is small; the balance shifts because the value of the pros increases by a significant margin. The cons are still there, still powerful. The fear of pain or boredom from exercise, the financial worries over pursuing a different career, or “You can peel my wine glass from my cold, dead hand!” remain palpable. And to overshadow such fear, the pros need to “Hulk Smash!” them into insignificance. The ratio revealed in Di Noia and Prochaska’s research of pros to cons is enlightening. They discovered the pros must outweigh the cons by almost a 2 to 1 ratio to be truly effective!

It stresses the importance of the great leap forward achieved via some form of epiphany; it’s not a simple tipping of the balance sheet to 51–49 in favor of the pros. Again, it’s not a small step forward toward successful and sustainable change; it works better if you take a giant leap.

“Pros and cons of decision making is not a conscious, rational, empirical process,” Professor Prochaska said. “It is very emotionally based.”

What can make someone passionate about a new direction? What gives them the drive to charge ahead with an unstoppable “no-prisoners” attitude? Prochaska explained that a dramatic event could cause someone to reevaluate pros and cons.

Such a dramatic event found its initial spark for Chuck Gross in January 2008. He sat in an Irish pub in New Orleans, called Boondock Saint, having a quiet beer or five. The bar was named to pay homage to a cult-action film of a similar name.

“My brothers-in-law are twins. My wife and I took them barhopping on Bourbon Street for their twenty-first birthdays,” Chuck, a computer programmer in Pittsburgh, told me. The Irish-style pub was dark and somewhat gloomy. A mirror advertising Guinness hung on an aging brick wall. Being it was a twenty-first birthday event in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Chuck was in no shape to walk a straight line.

That night, Chuck had a chance meeting that would be the first step on a journey that would change his life.

“Back then I was not a social person, being as fat as I was,” Chuck said. He described two seats at the far end of the bar, and how he ended up sitting next to an average-looking man who practically forced Chuck to speak with him.

The man was in his fifties, clean-shaven, plain-faced, and wearing glasses, Chuck recalled. His hair was gray-white, he had an outgoing personality, and it seemed like he couldn’t help but engage in conversation. Because Chuck had consumed a few drinks, he began to loosen up.

The two men talked for a time of things inconsequential, and then the man informed Chuck of his profession as a photographer, which he proclaimed gave him the ability to read people. “I see the fear in your eyes,” the man told him.

Chuck admits that his memory was hazy due to alcohol consumption, but insists the stranger never brought up Chuck’s weight. Rather, the man told him he could see there was something Chuck wanted to do, and that the fear he felt soon wouldn’t be a problem in this quest.

Chuck Gross was taken aback that a random stranger would speak to him in such a way. I advocate against poking one’s nose into the body weight of others; people should mind their own business. Even though Chuck’s obesity was not mentioned, it was obvious what the man was talking about. The conversation ended abruptly but still had a profound effect.

Two months later, Chuck Gross was dead.

Lightning Strikes

The life-changing epiphany seems rare because people aren’t forthcoming about it.

William Miller and his coauthor write in Quantum Change: “people who experience such events are often reluctant to discuss them openly.” In their research, they uncovered that many had told only one or two people, and some never told anyone. I’m kind of a big deal on Facebook, so when I asked, people came forward.

Bragging over one’s social-media following is the epitome of pathetic, but if you want to “Like” my page, it’s facebook.com/bodyforwife.

During the interviews, Miller and C’de Baca write, “the words came tumbling out like a great unburdening.” Yep. That’s what happened with my interviews, too. It’s because such an event changes how people feel, what they think, how they experience the world. It is a Big Deal. Life will never be the same.

Freaked out a little right now? I mean, Chuck Gross died, right?

It’s a good kind of lightning strike, however, like when Luke learned he was to become a Jedi, except without having your aunt and uncle burned to a crisp by Imperial Stormtroopers.

Of the fifty-five people interviewed for Quantum Change, the authors explained that for 80 percent of them, it “took them completely by surprise.” And for half, nothing special was happening leading up to it. This reinforces Beeman and Kounios, who say lightning strikes during diversion after getting stuck.

To repeat: keep working at it, follow the steps in this book, then take a break and let the unconscious do its thing.

Let’s get back to Chuck.

As forward as the stranger’s words were, it nudged him from the precontemplation stage to the edges of contemplation. Cons of change became slightly minimized, and pros garnered more investigation and emphasis.

“During those two months, the conversation was eating away at me both subconsciously and consciously,” Chuck said, explaining that many of the things one experiences when they are that heavy are buried because they’re constant: back pain, aching feet, always being out of breath. Before, they were facts of life, but after the meeting, he became more aware of them. Chuck’s brain was becoming primed for lightning to strike.

It was March 11, and the Pittsburgh winter edged toward spring, a time of rebirth. Rather than forget his chance meeting at Boondock Saint the previous January, Chuck dwelled on it.

Then it happened.

“My wife Denise came out of the bathroom with a positive pregnancy test,” Chuck said. He explained this was not something planned for. They’d talked about having children, but it was always for the future, when he was healthier and had lost weight.

“The lightning bolt was instantaneous,” he said. It first hit him with overwhelming joy that he was going to be a father, but he also knew with absolute clarity he had to do something about his condition. He described it as though someone hit him in the back of the head with a baseball bat, full swing.

The bat to Chuck’s skull was what ended his life, metaphorically speaking. “I tell people I died that day. The old Chuck is dead. I killed him.”

Chuck’s realization that he had to change happened in an instant, when he knew he had to become not just the father his child needed, but the husband his wife deserved. Yet Chuck didn’t stop thinking there. The powerful “Aha!” moment brought additional clarity to who he was and how he needed to change.

“I realized that a big part of my identity was wrapped up in me being fat,” he said. The emotion of the moment was clear; years later he struggled to tell the tale. Voice thick, Chuck explained he was always the fat kid growing up; people made fun of him for it. His identity was as the funny fat guy; the guy girls wanted as a friend, but never to date. People knew him for being able to eat and drink a lot, and that was all. With the pregnancy announcement, Chuck had a new identity thrust upon him, that of a father, making his values pivot hard in a new direction.

In 2016, researchers from the University of Oregon published a study in Psychological Inquiry about the “identity-value model” of self-regulation. The authors theorize that “behaviors that are connected to identity are more likely to be enacted because they hold greater subjective value.” They examined the dieter’s dilemma, investigating how people struggle with eating healthfully, and how self-control is about two opposing processes: impulsively eat the doughnut, for example, because it’s yummy, or strive to regulate that behavior and resist the treat in favor of vegetables?

When someone’s identity is one that places high value on healthy eating, there isn’t much struggle. It’s not a matter of exerting willpower; it’s acting in a way that is in direct relevance to who they are. At the beginning of this book, I mentioned awakening the grizzly, but it’s more about becoming the grizzly.

The final part of Chuck’s process to destroy that old identity and create a new one involved stepping on the scale. Technology lent him a hand.

“The scale was only rated up to 400 pounds and always gave me an error message, but this time it worked and read 410.” That’s what made it real; it reinforced for Chuck what he had to do. He needed to embrace the identity shift.

Chuck described hating exercise; he hated watching what he ate, hated trying to lose weight only to fail again and again. “Before, I never felt like I’d be able to change.” But this time was different. This time, it was not the rational thought prompting him forward, but a new sense of being filling him with emotion. That lightning strike / baseball bat to the head doesn’t come from a considered weighing of the pros and cons; it’s an overwhelming sensation in which an internal spirit awakens and proclaims: This will happen!

Chuck’s transformation was so total that I had no idea of his amazing story when I first met him in 2015. It was at a fitness conference in Kansas City, in a hotel room after-party. I assumed he was another fitness aficionado and was surprised when he replied to my call for stories. We met again in 2017 and 2018 and shared a big hug each time.

I told Chuck’s story to Michael Inzlicht, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a longtime critic of the idea that willpower is some depleting resource we need to ration in order to change behavior.

“Chuck sounds like he had this experience that didn’t change his self-control,” Inzlicht said. “He changed his identity.” Being a good dad was something Chuck would hold in high value, and this was the identity push he needed because of his concerns about his ability to be active with his children and even live long enough to see them grow. As a result, “The value of losing weight dramatically increased.”

Chuck described his old identity as an anchor that needed to die for him to move forward. This was the defining moment that divided his life into before and after. “The person I am now was born that day,” he said.

From ashes gray, a phoenix arose.

But what does this all mean? How did this one moment help Chuck lose over two hundred pounds and keep them off? The first part to understand is that insight, driven by emotion, unlike rational analysis, is something possessing the power to crush doubt.

“There was an overwhelming sense of joy and relief,” he said. “I didn’t need to struggle with my motivation; it came built in.” Chuck described a sense of inner peace; there was no question he would do it. There were still struggles to overcome, but he had momentum that began that day; it pushed him forward.

I want to repeat something Chuck said, because it’s damn important. Let’s bold, italicize, and center it to draw attention:

“I didn’t need to struggle with my motivation; it came built in.”

This is what we’re going for, dear reader. Right there is the reason I’m writing this book. Dropping over two hundred pounds and keeping them off takes tremendous effort, but having it feel like destiny, that you have an endless fountain of desire to achieve, after years of trying and failing, can only be attained by a sudden, transformative experience. I’m not saying amazing accomplishment can’t be attained by way of baby steps, but that way sucks, and the failure rate is high.

Rapid transformation of desire to succeed is so much cooler! Wouldn’t you rather do it that way?

Maybe not. Maybe that identity-shift stuff freaked you out.

But I want to alleviate that fear, because you’re going to change anyway. We are, all of us, changing all the time. I’m quite a bit different from the man I was ten years ago, and way different than the one from twenty-five years ago. While a life-changing epiphany is something that feels like it is something that happens to you, the preparatory work, along with your life experiences and deepest desires and understanding of your true self, help ensure it was something coming from you. This isn’t an outside agency acting upon your brain; this is your brain.

Yes, if this happens, you’re going to change. A lot. Quickly. Sounds scary, but it comes with an overwhelming feeling of rightness. And that’s why it drives you. We’ll examine the neuroscience behind this shift in coming chapters, but for now I ask you to trust in the power of your unconscious and conscious processing systems to find the correct path.

Time for another mental activity.

Think of what happened to Chuck, and why it happened. The overwhelming epiphany seemingly came out of the blue—but did it? The seed was sown back in that New Orleans bar. He became more aware of the negative consequences of his current path. He also talked with his wife about how children were for “later,” when he got healthy.

And then it all came crashing down in an instant with a pregnancy announcement. Chuck received an overwhelming vision of the man he must become, for his wife, and for his unborn child.

Chuck was suddenly “pro” focused.

The cons of changing didn’t matter; all that mattered was becoming.

Your next task is to maximize the pros. Imagine one or three of the things you’d like to do. Create a basic vision of the You, Part 2, that I spoke of earlier.

Now imagine what it’s like to be that person.

Focus on just a few of the major benefits you will receive from this change. As I showed earlier, don’t overanalyze, but ponder some of what will be awesome about that new career, new body, new location, or new life. What are the big things that make it so desirable?

Are these good things not just good, but amazing? Are they inspiring? Do they make you desire this change so much that you must achieve them? If not, perhaps the problem is you’re not being ambitious enough in your vision. But don’t be so ambitious that you choose an objective which is unachievable.

This is called the “expectancy-value approach,” a behavior-change theory dating back to 1967. It dictates that we engage in those behaviors we both expect to be successful at and have high value to us.

Think on this: What kind of benefits would it take to inspire you to action? Merge this with consideration of the feasibility of the goal. You can still dream big, because implausible does not mean impossible.

Create another vision. Think of a new you so incredible it becomes irresistible. Push the boundaries of realism. No one gets to be Batman except Batman, but you can still achieve awesome. There’s only one Wonder Woman, yet you can become a wondrous woman.

What does the limit of your potential look like? More important, how does it feel to imagine the benefits of standing in those shoes?

Don’t expect this will cause lightning to strike now. It’s information for percolation. But it might happen soon, so be ready, just in case. A transformative moment might happen in chapter 1, or it might happen in chapter 9. It might happen three months after you finish this book. Work the problem until you’re stuck, engage in diversion, and you could have a transformation like Chuck did.

Chuck went from despair to joyous determination in an instant. Joyous determination. This sense of elation Chuck described is a parameter of the transtheoretical model called “dramatic relief.” It can take place when one moves from the contemplation stage and into the preparation stage, from thinking to doing. It is because the anticipation of resolving one’s weighty problems generates a sense of euphoria. You’re like, Hell, yes! I see light at the end of the tunnel now, and I will run toward it. Nothing will stop me.

How does the feeling last? What keeps you on the new course, besides the shift in values and identity? The secret is in the synapses.

James Prochaska explained that such dramatic relief could involve either negative or positive arousal. Positive arousal involves being inspired to chase something good. But negative arousal, unlike the name might imply, is not a bad thing: it’s about removing a negative feeling, such as conquering an addiction.

I was in a state of despair, and taking real action, working hard for something for the first time in my life, was the antidote. In that moment, I understood that solid effort could change everything. The enlightenment, the realization that I was about to take action, cured my despair that day, and step-by-step, progress was made toward a new and better life.

The emotional arousal from a momentous epiphany is like a hit of a powerful drug, and it is because pleasurable neuromodulators are activated. A new path is created in the mind, and each step forward in that better direction provides a little rush of positive reinforcement that whispers, This is right.

At a simple level, how these neuromodulators work for ongoing motivation can be described via operant conditioning, as outlined by psychologist B. F. Skinner early in the twentieth century. It’s stimulus-response; the epiphany is such a positive experience that every additional step taken (the stimulus) that stays true to the vision allows the recipient of the vision to continue to feel that sense of rightness from its pursuit (the response). More details are in chapter 4, but it’s this neurochemical boost that makes you take the next step, and the next one.

The quest comes to rule the synapses.

Self-Compassion vs. Self-Loathing

If you hate your body, you’ll be less inspired to change it. Because passion for health rarely comes from a place of self-loathing. Same goes for hating your life.

There are those who lose weight because they were filled with disgust over their bodies. It can work for some, but research indicates shaming and self-loathing over obesity leads to comfort eating and immobility far more often than generating action.

In a 2013 study, researchers at Florida State University assert that not only does stigmatizing obesity lead to poorer mental-health outcomes, but the authors state, “Rather than motivating individuals to lose weight, weight discrimination increases risk for obesity.”

And a 2003 study by University of Texas at Austin psychology professor Kristin Neff revealed the importance of self-compassion in boosting one’s psychological function. It “involves being touched by and open to one’s own suffering, not avoiding or disconnecting from it, generating the desire to alleviate one’s suffering and to heal oneself with kindness.”

It contrasts with efforts to boost self-esteem, which have come under criticism. Self-esteem often means judgments and comparisons, evaluating personal performances in comparison to a set of standards, as well as examining how others view you. And while low self-esteem can have negative psychological outcomes, boosting it is not a panacea for the psyche. The first issue is that it’s hard to raise, and the second is that targeting self-esteem can lead to self-absorption and even narcissism.

Part of the benefit of focusing on self-compassion is that it’s not just about you. It “represents a balanced integration between concern with oneself and concern with others, a state that researchers are increasingly recognizing as essential to optimal psychological functioning,” Professor Neff wrote. Winning at life need not involve competition. You may have a sudden insight that the best thing for your future is to dedicate yourself to helping others. Look at Chuck. He wasn’t thinking about looking in a mirror or strutting on a beach. He wanted to be a good dad.

We will examine self-compassion meditation techniques in chapter 9.

The body is often a source of one’s self-loathing, so I’ll share the words of Taryn Brumfitt, a body-acceptance advocate and director of the documentary film Embrace. She told me of the need to not descend into negativity: “I have never met a single human being that has made lifelong, meaningful change that came from shame or guilt.” Conversely, she has seen much positive change resulting from self-care, self-love, and self-respect. “I’m asking people to embrace their positive qualities.”

I gained a lot of weight in my early 20s and I hated myself, but the harder I tried, the less possible it seemed to lose weight. Finally gave up in my 40s. But then something clicked. I decided I needed to be kinder to myself, love the body I had, and love what it could do. Before I knew it, I had the confidence to get a trainer…. I feel the best I’ve felt and looked in years!

—Victoria

I bring this up because all this talk of unstoppable desire to succeed and motivation and willpower can send the wrong message.

Sticking to weight loss as the example, we live in an environment that manufactures body fat. With over two-thirds of Americans being classified as having excess weight or obesity, and the fact it happened in a few decades, it’s clear there has been a major societal shift contributing to it.

Obesity is not a personal failing. It’s not a choice people make. It’s not something to be ashamed of. Just because this book is about exploring the mystery of generating a massive leap in motivation does not mean those who don’t experience it are somehow lesser.

Losing weight or changing your life in other ways is complex. That’s because human motivation is equally complicated. A big problem with the weight-loss industry is a lot of the strategies are built on suffering, which are not effective for the long term. People feel the failure is their own rather than due to a corrupt industry that failed them.

I spent years unhappy with my weight…. I would hide food and opt out of gym whenever possible because I had been told so many times at that point that my body was flawed, I didn’t believe it was capable of anything…. In my late 20s, joining the body-positivity movement helped me see value and worth in my body and what it’s capable of … and I will be completing my 4th half marathon next month. —Amanda

You may have an epiphany that you’re done with worrying about your weight and decide to focus your energies on things more important to you, and I am 100 percent cool with that. It’s your life; you have the power to choose your own road.

If you’re guilty of beating yourself up, it’s time to ditch the self-loathing and accept yourself for your faults and your capabilities. Use your newfound self-respect as part of the process to energize your desire to find the best way forward for you.

Accept your humanity and that all humans are flawed. Being a perfectionist gets in the way of self-compassion. There will be detailed steps later, but for now, endeavor to ditch shame and guilt, and, in so doing, try to better understand yourself. Take some time to analyze what makes you unique. What are your strengths? Where do your capabilities lie? What could you accomplish if you were truly determined? Why would you be able to accomplish these goals? What is it that you bring to the equation that makes these goals attainable? Focusing on your qualities and your potential, imagine what your post-epiphany journey might look like.

You need to know yourself better, because there is no cookie-cutter approach to creating an optimal life outcome. It is unique to you.

I like cookies.

Exceeding Expectations

There are people for whom life has been criminally unfair. The cards they’ve been dealt are a puddle of cat puke.

It is possible, dear reader, you are one such unlucky feline-vomit recipient.

When it comes to body weight, myriad factors can add fat to your frame: genetics, environment, finances, abuse, mental illness, medical conditions, medication…. Regardless of a dream of getting in shape and/or bettering one’s life, there can be preexisting problems that will hamstring efforts.

People who proclaim anyone can achieve anything if they just work hard enough need to shut up and go far away, then shut up some more.

Life isn’t fair, and because it isn’t fair you must not feel shame or a need for comparison. Some have immense privilege. Others, their lives suck, and it is not of their own making.

And yet they are told to “Just do it.” They are shamed for their weight and shown photoshopped models on magazine covers as the “ideal” they should aspire to. Beyond that, there are the societal expectations to have fancier cars, nicer houses, bigger paychecks, better-looking spouses, and smarter children.

I’m calling bullshit on all that.

This is about you and bettering your life by playing the hand you’ve been dealt to the best of your ability. Yes, you can achieve a great deal by being passionate and inspired to succeed; you can exceed all expectations not just with your body, but with your career, happiness, relationships, and more. But it is still worth comprehending the reality of your situation.

There is merit in aiming high, because if you only make it three-quarters of the way to your goal, you’re still overjoyed at how much you’ve accomplished. But do not aim so high—do not quest for the unattainable—if failure to become Batwoman or Wonder Man would crush your will to continue.

Seek greatness on your own terms.

Fulfilling Life’s Purpose

Lee Holland had a “sit-down job,” something her family envied.

Living in Chattanooga, Tennessee, she came from poverty and was one of the few to finish high school and the first to go to college. She worked in a small cubicle as a customer-service representative for a major health-insurance company, which was seen as a big step up from working in fast food or doing manual labor. But her life felt unfulfilled, like she was going through the motions. Lee felt destined for more. All that was missing was the drive to figure out her purpose in life and then to chase it.

The drive arrived in fall 2007.

She took a call from a man who worked at a carpet mill in rural south-eastern United States. He was calling because his young son had been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. The man was so relieved because he had just been recalled to work after a layoff and had medical insurance again.

Unfortunately, Lee had to tell the man his policy had a “preexisting-condition clause,” and any new diagnosis in the first year was not covered. This was prior to the Affordable Care Act, when the law changed, requiring policies to not have such restrictions for children.

Lee wanted to help. She had previous experience working for a state Medicaid contractor and saw a chance to get the boy coverage. She called the Medicaid office and was told they would cover the child, but only after they received a denial explanation from the insurance company Lee worked for. Prior to her company being able to issue such a denial they needed to send the boy to a pediatric oncologist. The problem was, the only such specialist within one hundred miles of the client refused to see the boy unless they knew they’d receive payment. Her company wouldn’t cover them. Medicaid wouldn’t guarantee payment until they received a denial explanation from her company. It was a catch-22: her company couldn’t provide denial until the boy saw a pediatric oncologist, but the oncologist wouldn’t see the boy unless payment was guaranteed.

But she’d done her job. In fact, she’d already gone above and beyond. Company policy was to end the call and move on to the next customer.

“At that moment, something in me broke,” Lee Holland told me.

Not caring that it was against the rules, she blocked calls on her phone and walked into her manager’s office. “I told him he could fire me at the end of the day, but I was going to get that child on Medicaid and in to see a pediatric oncologist.” Her manager replied with, “Do what you have to do.”

It required several phone calls, a discussion with her company’s legal department, and signing of privacy release forms, but she got the boy approved for Medicaid and scheduled to see an oncologist by the end of the day.

It was all buildup. After her shift, Lee’s life-changing moment came in the parking lot as she walked to her car.

It was a gray November day; a light drizzle fell. Then a question popped into her head: What are you doing working in customer service when you can help people like this? There was a sudden snap decision to change careers. It came so fast, she didn’t even break stride as she closed the final steps to her car. “I didn’t know what it was yet. It was just between me and the universe that I was going to do something. I felt I had potential to help people through the chaotic mass of the American health-care system.” The realization, Lee said, was like a dislocated bone suddenly popping back into its joint.

“I had instant drive to do it,” she told me.

The moment she got home she logged on to her computer to look at what education programs she would need. Thirty-six years old and possessing a degree in cultural anthropology, she began by upgrading her science and math courses at a community college. There were many challenges over the next decade, but for Holland, there was never any doubt she was going to make a difference in the world. She recently graduated with a doctorate in pharmacology and a master’s degree in public health, and has accepted a research fellowship in D.C. that ensures pharmaceutical quality for Medicare and Medicaid recipients. She has won prestigious grants, awards, and scholarships, conducted important research, delivered numerous presentations, and mentored other students.

At first, Lee was leery of pursuing a doctorate as part of this new path in life, because it was a four-year commitment and she was already in her forties at that point. But a friend explained the time would pass anyway, and in four years she’d be four years older either with or without the degree, and her mind was made up. “There were a lot of challenges in between,” Lee said. If one path didn’t work out, she had to find another. “Even though I had suddenly become singular in my determination, I had to be flexible about the way I did it.”

And it all changed in that parking lot in 2007. “Since then I’ve met so many amazing people. My social life exploded. I got to travel the world.” She also met her husband and has been married for eight years.

“Now I feel like I’m really fulfilling my life’s purpose.”

Tuning In to Being Turned On

In the introduction, I discussed the “magic moment” and how you might need to meet it partway by engaging in traditional methods of behavior change for a while and hoping epiphany strikes somewhere along the way. It’s also important to not let the magic moment pass you by. This is your final task for chapter 1: I want you to envision what it’s like to seek the magic moment.

Lee Holland might have missed hers. It wasn’t anything jarring like a sudden pregnancy announcement. She had done her job and could have ended the call, but in her mind, there was an opportunity to really help, to make a difference on that one day. She was somehow attuned to that opportunity, and it primed her brain for that epiphany in the parking lot.

Imagine what it’s like to be attuned.

Now that you know a life-changing epiphany can come from anywhere, it’s important to be able to recognize it. Yes, it is powerful; usually so much so that there is no denying the experience. But perhaps it needs a nudge. Perhaps it doesn’t take place in a microsecond, but over several seconds. So instead of squashing down the beginnings of overwhelming emotion because you’re too cool for that, imagine what it’s like to embrace the feeling, explore it, and let it flow.

Because in the first second or two you could lose it by ignoring the sensation or even crushing it. Society conditions us to not show too much emotion, but screw that. You must feel this experience and feel it deeply. This book is about learning how to experience something so powerful it changes you down to the bone marrow. I want you to experiment with breaking with your conditioning and seek.

Seek meaning from your sudden insight.

Too often we tune out, seeking constant entertainment to distract from what our unconscious is trying to tell us. Break from that and examine these moments when the brain goes off on a tangent and, rather than try to snap out of it, explore it. Feed that sensation some fuel.

What kind of fuel? The kind that understands that, as humans, we seek experiences that allow us to be comfortable, and by attuning yourself to a life-changing insight, you must be willing to get uncomfortable. Lee had that comfortable sit-down job her family envied, and she knew that rejecting it to chase opportunity would involve struggle.

“One does not become fully human painlessly.”

These are the words of twentieth-century psychologist Rollo May. In his 1950 book The Meaning of Anxiety, he wrote of how such negative emotions can be a good teacher, because while we can avoid the reality of certain problems, the feeling of disturbance is something we carry with us: it gnaws. Suffering, said May, is an integral part of growth. Take that pain, pull it like a sword from its scabbard, and wield it!

That being written, please don’t go off your prescribed anxiety medication. This is just about using your negative emotions to spark personal evolution. Mark Beeman explained that anxiety triggers analysis, and analysis is the opposite of insight. But it’s still part of the process. Remember: Work until you get stuck. Analyze, then engage in diversion. As we will learn later, it is during a positive mood when epiphany is most likely to strike.

This book is not all “Think positive and you can live your dreams!” ad nauseam.

There is an adage in motivational speaking and internet memes: “Dream it. Wish it. Do it.” And it is bullshit, because this is not an easy road of endless happy thoughts in which if you keep your eye on the prize and always think positive, you’ll miraculously attract what you desire.

You must rethink positive thinking.

Gabriele Oettingen is a professor of social and developmental psychology at New York University and the author of Rethinking Positive Thinking. She explained to me it’s beneficial to have these lofty goals you wish to pursue, but not to daydream about your achievement, because it creates complacency. If you fantasize about how wonderful life will be after you’ve attained your goal, it fakes a sensation of already achieving it, so you no longer strive. Instead, focus on overcoming obstacles to achieving the goal. (Details on how are in chapter 8.)

Changing who you are can be frightening. As a concept, it may fill you with dread. But it’s not some scary Jekyll and Hyde personality shift. You’re still you, just an improved version. It’s about change for the better, not worse.

When you learn to control fear of change, you open yourself to becoming more.

Priming Directives and Quantum Leaps

“Mount St. Helens blew up in a single moment.”

Sherry Pagoto told me this as an analogy of a life-changing epiphany. She’s a full professor at the University of Connecticut and a clinical psychologist specializing in behavioral counseling for obesity. “But the explosion was years in the making.”

We may not even see the pressure building, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t there, simmering away, ready to explode like a Diet Coke with a dozen Mentos dropped in.

Thinking about the future is but one action helping prime a brain for change, Pagoto explained. Often, for people to be able to make a massive leap of behavior change, they must have been pondering it in some way. It can involve a feeling of malaise, depression, or dissatisfaction. Conversely, such thinking can revolve around a desire to improve, to transform from good to great. Such thoughts may reside in the back of our minds for years before we’re ready to act upon them.

Contemplation can be subtle. It can build and build, but still, there is resistance to change because it is both fearful and challenging. And yet one day a time may come to pass when one cannot hold it in any longer and the emotional volcano erupts. A specific life event can bring it about. But what control do we have over these dramatic, triggering events?

That is not an easy question to answer, because life, and our approach to it, is often chaotic in nature.

Chaos theory can help us understand the dilemma better. A branch of mathematics examining complex systems sensitive to small changes in initial conditions, chaos theory has been referred to as the “butterfly effect,” a metaphor that lets us imagine the minor air disruption of a butterfly’s wings culminating in tornado formation weeks later. Slight alterations at an earlier juncture can end up yielding widely different results farther down the line in a person’s life.

I first learned of chaos theory from actor Jeff Goldblum in the 1993 film Jurassic Park. While seductively placing droplets of water on costar Laura Dern’s hand to show how minor alterations in initial conditions would affect which way the drop would roll, Goldblum explained that the theory “deals with unpredictability in complex systems.”

The human brain is a complex system. Life is a complex system.

About those “minor alterations” in initial conditions: Subtle changes in where the droplet was placed or how Laura held her hand or even the way the breeze was blowing could cause the droplet to go in a different direction. Such is the case with life as well. What if Lesley never picked up a sword? What if Chuck and his family had chosen a different bar? What if Lee hadn’t gotten that call? What if the person who decided to quote Joan Baez in the school paper picked Judas Priest lyrics instead? How would all our lives have turned out?

Such questions are difficult to answer because behavior change is not always a rational, linear process.

Sometimes it’s a quantum leap.

Act Now!

 Take a break from rationalizing change and instead examine your feelings. Get emotional and listen to what it tells you.

 Remember that song by Journey and “don’t stop believin’.”

 Let the fast, intuitive System 1 be the hero, and make the slower, rational System 2 the supporting character. Don’t let System 2 overanalyze the benefits of the story System 1 constructs. Get the confirmation, then stop.

 Forget worrying about the “cons” of change and instead imagine how powerful the “pros” will be. Endeavor to become pro focused.

 Again: Work till you get stuck, then divert and let the unconscious do its thing.

 Accept that this is about change both in identity and values, rather than a change in behavior. The altered identity-value construct makes new behavior adoption automatic. Lose the fear of becoming a new person, because this is a critical component.

 Aim high, but realistically so. Choose goals that have a high value to you but are deemed achievable via concerted effort.

 Embrace self-compassion. Don’t hate yourself or what you see in the mirror. Realize positivity is the path.

 Don’t daydream overmuch. Keep your fantasizing of achievement to a minimum so as not to sap energy. Rather, consider the primary obstacle to success and how to overcome it.