The reason I send you TikToks is because of the two-system model of the brain.

Some swear words in a few of today’s “TikTok Tuesday” in case you are listening at work. ___ Quote a [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( Some swear words in a few of today’s “TikTok Tuesday” in case you are listening at work. ___ Quote about being present. [Process life as it is, not as you want it to be](. ___ Positive self-talk. There is a popular meme on TikTok that is also a catchy earworm that you can use for positive self-talk. This example of the meme is for those of [you staying sober during holidays](. Listen to it even if this isn’t your particular goal. The way TikTok works is that the soundtracks to a video are shared by many other videos. So when you click on the soundtrack you often find other similar videos. [In this case](, they mostly have a similar vibe of celebrating progress. ___ How do you talk about aging? Most of my older relatives read and subscribe to this newsletter and I think they know that my generation has started worrying about their health. It’s out of love. And as a result, there is some debriefing that’s not quite as bad as [this debriefing]( after we see them. So a question to all of you: how do you talk about aging in your family? How do you want people to talk about your own aging? ___ A genius is just a person with a lot of great habits. I think genius is often just mastery of the basics. You develop so many great habits that you free up your entire brain to focus on creative and novel solutions. Genius is less about having a big brain and more about having a clear brain. So this is a pretty interesting clip of Tom Brady, who is probably the greatest quarterback of all time, [showing the depth of his mastery](. ___ Value is not defined by cost. A goal of mine is to keep the value of things separate from their dollar value. I once saw a clip of a student asking Warren Buffett if he would pick a $5 bill up from the ground and Warren excitedly answers, “Hell yes! $5 still buys a hamburger and I’ve never stopped loving hamburgers.” This clip of NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo talking [about Oreos reminds me of that sentiment](. ___ Two just for fun. - [Not an actual life hack](. - A lot of the TikToks I see make you scream WTF. This one isn’t gross, scary, or offensive, but it’ll probably shock you: [snorkeling in the everglades](. ___ I once went to a dinner for professional behavior designers. Half of us worked for the forces of good, helping to design products to improve your life. Mostly that meant working in healthcare. But I count myself and my coaching work in that group. The other half worked for the forces of evil, using the psychology of behavior design to manipulate you into spending more money. Both groups use the same set of psychological tactics and so it’s easy for both groups to talk shop. One of the questions put to the dinner was “what books do you recommend?” There were a lot of books. But every single one of us included the book [Thinking, Fast and Slow](. That’s the Amazon link with my affiliate code. So now you have to wonder if there are psychological tricks at play to get you to click that link. Don’t stress over that. You only need to click the link if you want to do a deep dive. But you don’t need the book to get my point. All of us behavior designers thought that the central idea of the book was one of the most important concepts in successful behavior design. That central idea is that most of our decisions are made subconsciously and emotionally. Rationality is a rarity — normally that part of our brain is fast asleep. In these two systems of the brain, your emotional system is active much more often than your rational system. Thus most of my strategies are either finding ways to wake up your rational brain at key moments in your day or finding ways to reach your emotional core. These TikToks are about reaching your emotions. Once you become open to this strategy to embrace the need to manipulate your emotions, mantras like the “B*tch, you doing a good job” look a lot more valuable than a mere academic paper on positive self talk. Don’t miss out on the other issues by Coach Tony [Become a member for $5 per month]( Did you enjoy this issue? [Yes]( [No]( [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( Tips, inspirations, and knowledge on productivity, happiness, health, and making an impact on our world. Official email of the Better Humans publication on Medium. (@bttrhumans) You can manage your subscription [here](. In order to unsubscribe, click [here](. If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe [here](. Created with [Revue by Twitter](.