Nir Eyal
Author & Consultant, Nir & Far. On 4 shows, 5 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
authorfounderinvestoracademicother@nireyal ↗LinkedIn ↗nirandfar.com ↗Wikipedia ↗Instagram ↗
Nir Eyal is a behavioral design consultant and author who writes and speaks on consumer psychology and habit formation. He authored the bestselling books Hooked and Indistractable, and formerly taught as a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
4shows
5appearances
84statements
22resolved
12supported
5contradicted
55%fully supported
5said about them ↓ Everything Nir Eyal said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Eyal: Tech companies are not causing clinical addiction
“I know all their tricks and I will tell you they're good. They're not that good. They're not causing addiction.”
Eyal: 'Spiritual but not religious' people have higher depression risk
“Turns out those people are much more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety disorder than people who do affiliate with some kind of religious community.”
Eyal: Beliefs should be treated as functional tools rather than truths
“Beliefs are tools, not truths. And so I can have this conviction that is open to revision based on new evidence because it serves me.”
Eyal: Technology is not hijacking our brains; we surrender our focus
“The flip that we need to change in people's minds is this ridiculous belief That technology is hijacking our brains. There's nothing we can do about distraction. That our focus is being stolen. It's not being stolen. We're giving it away.”
Eyal: Measuring uninterrupted focus time produces better output than to-do lists
“People who measure themselves the way I espouse of people who say, I'm just going to measure myself based on, did I do what I said I was going to do for as long as I said, I will without distraction, regardless of whether I finished the kicker here is they act…”
Eyal: All human motivation stems from escaping discomfort, not pursuing pleasure
“We know that the only reason we do everything and anything from a neurological perspective Is not about the pursuit of pleasure. It is all about the desire to escape discomfort. Everything you do, even the pursuit of pleasurable sensations, the carrot is the s…”
Eyal: Ego depletion only affects people who believe willpower is limited
“And it turns out that these studies around ego depletion could not replicate. We couldn't find the effect. And so there was one exception to this, and that exception was in a study done by Carol Dweck. She's one of my research heroes. She wrote the book Mindse…”
Eyal: Ask managers to prioritize your calendar instead of saying no
“The worst piece of personal productivity advice is, if you want to be better at time management, you need to learn how to say no. What kind of stupid advice is that? Only a tenured professor who can't get fired would give you that kind of stupid advice. If you…”
Eyal: All human motivation is driven solely by escaping discomfort
“Human motivation is not about carrots and sticks. It's not about pain and pleasure, but rather it's just about one thing. All human behavior is spurred by the desire to escape discomfort. Everything we do for just one reason, the desire to escape discomfort, e…”
Eyal: 'The Social Dilemma' is sloppy to the point of negligence
“My take on it is that it's equivalent of if Steven Spielberg called Jaws a documentary.
It's you really have to see it.
It's so, it's sloppy to the point of negligence.
It's so silly.”
Eyal: Distraction stems primarily from internal triggers rather than external devices
“What I discovered was that distraction, the leading cause of distraction and research bears this out. The leading cause of distraction is not what we call external triggers. It's not the stuff outside of us. But rather distraction begins from within what we ca…”
Eyal: Time management requires pain management to resolve emotional discomfort
“Time management requires pain management. Time management requires pain management. You'll always be distracted by something, right? If it's too much news, too much booze, too much football, too much Facebook, it doesn't matter. Something is going to distract …”
Eyal: Trader underwent 55-minute surgery with zero anesthesia via hypnosedation
“He goes into the operating room, and the doctors, for 55 minutes, cut into flesh and bone, pull out metal screws from his body with zero local anesthesia, zero general anesthesia, All through the power of his mind.”
Eyal: All time, money, and weight management is fundamentally pain management
“If all human behavior is spurred by a desire to escape discomfort, that means, therefore, That time management is pain management. Money management is pain management. Weight management is pain management. It's all about managing discomfort.”
Eyal: Traditional news organizations share social media's attention-monetization business model
“How exactly do you think the New York Times makes money? Or Fox News or CNN? They're all in the same business. They're monetizing your attention.”
Eyal: Positive aging mindsets extend life by 7.5 years
“There's an amazing study done at Yale where they found that people who have positive views about aging at age 30 live seven and a half years longer. Now, to put that in perspective, Cody, seven and a half years longer, that is more than the effect of exercise,…”
Eyal: Internal locus of control always outperforms victimhood
“What's fascinating is that even if you objectively have all the reasons to claim victimhood, It still serves you more to have an internal locus of control. You still will go farther and be happier, have less depression, less anxiety, all the good things come f…”
Eyal: Non-physical chronic pain lasting over six months is neuroplastic
“Chronic pain, you know, pain that doesn't have a physical cause that lasts for more than six months. So we're talking fibromyalgia, we're talking insomnia, we're talking chronic back pain, all these things. Turns out they are what we call neuroplastic pain.”
Eyal: Resting and immobilizing is bad advice for non-physical chronic pain
“The standard advice is if you have some kind of pain, ice it, heat it, don't move, immobilize, rest, right? Don't stress it. Turns out that's not always the best advice. Now, if there is an actual physiological cause, different story, but if it's chronic pain …”
Eyal: Evidence disproves ego depletion unless people believe willpower is limited
“Well, it turns out it's not true. That when we try and replicate those studies, and this happens in the social science, this is how science works. Science doesn't say anything. Science is the process of doing repeated experiments and seeing if they replicate, …”
Eyal: Research shows 90% of distraction is triggered internally, not externally
“We have external triggers. These are things in our outside environment, the usual suspects, the pings, the dings, the rings, all this stuff in our outside environment, which we tend to blame for distraction. But studies find that's only 10% of the reason we ge…”
Eyal: Writing habits are impossible because writing requires conscious effort
“Like, I hear people say, like, oh, just form a writing habit. I think that's ridiculous. I don't know what they're talking about, right? A habit is defined as a behavior done with little or no conscious thought. I don't know how to write out of habit. Writing …”
Eyal: An activity isn't a distraction unless you planned your time
“You cannot call something a distraction unless you know what it distracted you from. I'll say that again. You can't call something a distraction unless you know what it distracted you from.”
The other half of the tape: Nir Eyal's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 5 times in 3 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Sean Ellis 2Lenny Rachitsky 2Georgiana Laudi (Gia) 1
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
Lenny's Podcast 5
2024 2 mentions in 1 episode
2022 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Nir's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 KNOWLEDGE PROJECTLEDGER | Author & Consultant, Nir & Far | 2 | 30 | 57% 4/7 | full record on the Knowledge Project → |
| LENNY'S PODCASTLEDGER | Author & Consultant, Nir & Far | 1 | 24 | 25% 1/4 | full record on Lenny's Podcast → |
 BIGDEALLEDGER | Author & Consultant, Nir & Far | 1 | 23 | 64% 7/11 | full record on BigDeal → |
 a16zLEDGER | Author & Consultant, Nir & Far | 1 | 7 | — | full record on the a16z Podcast → |