The thought-awareness bracelet and the latest straw that broke the camel’s back.
“This $@#&ing Mac will be the death of me. Intuitive, my ass.”
It just slipped out, and I don’t think I can be blamed. I was ready to leave the PC behind and take my mac overseas for the first time when I couldn’t figure out how to resize photos. On a friggin’ mac? I felt swindled. I also now had to move the bracelet.
For the last four months, I’ve been experimenting with a few types of thought experiments. The two most notable are Radical Honesty, which is 100% guaranteed to get you slapped or worse, and anti-complaining, which I’ll explain here. The latter started in my book agent’s office, where I spotted a pile of purple bracelets on his desk…
“What are these?” I grabbed one and it was inscribed with ‘acomplaintfreeworld.org.’
“Another author of mine. Interesting story, actually.”
And it was. The author was Will Bowen, a Kansas City minister who had recognized — as I have in a previous post — that word choice determines thought choice, which determines emotions and actions. It’s not enough to just decide you’ll stop using certain words, though. It requires conditioning.
Will designed a solution in the form of a simple purple bracelet, which he offered to his congregation with a challenge: go 21 days without complaining. Each time one of them complained, they had to switch the bracelet to their other wrist and start again from day 0. It was simple but effective metacognitive awareness training.
The effects were immediate and life-changing.
The bracelets spread like wildfire as others observed these transformations, and, to date, more than 5,900,000 people have requested the little devices.
“Can I have one?” I asked my agent.
It all made perfect sense. Fix the words and you fix the thoughts. I’m not a negative person, but I wanted to cut out the commiserating most of us use for 30-40% of all conversation (if you don’t believe me, keep track of how many people start conversations with you in the next 24 hours that center on a complaint or criticism).
I made it 11 days on the first attempt, then I slipped. Back to zero. Then it was two or three days at a time for about a month. Once I cleared 21 days at around month 3, I no longer needed the bracelet. I’m using the bracelet again now because I’m preparing for some large projects I expect to be challenging enough for Cornholio-style meltdowns.
But what is a complaint?
This is where I disagree with some of the rules set by Will. He asks you to switch wrists whenever you gossip, criticize, or complain, and the definitions can be a bit vague. He also requires you to switch wrists if you inform someone else they are complaining. I think this is counterproductive, as I’m big on constructive criticism.
I defined “complaining” for myself as follows: describing an event or person negatively without indicating next steps to fix the problem. I later added the usual 4-letter words and other common profanity as complaint qualifiers, which forced me to reword, thus forcing awareness and more precise thinking.
Following the above definition, both of the following would require a wrist switch:
“Man, I went into the post office and had to stand behind this rude jerk for 30 minutes. What a waste of time.”
or
“John can be such an a**hole. Totally uncalled for.”
The following variations would not:
“Man, I went into the post office and had to stand behind this rude guy for 30 minutes. It was a waste of time. From now on, I’ll go in the mornings before 10am to avoid the crowd.”
“John was a bit of muppet in there, wasn’t he? I suppose I’ll just send the e-mails directly to Mary in engineering for the next two weeks to get buy-in, then he’ll have to agree.”
Here are a few of the changes I noticed then and am noticing again now:
1) My lazier thinking evolved from counterproductive commiserating to reflexive systems thinking. Each description of a problem forced me to ask and answer: What policy can I create to avoid this in the future?
2) I was able to turn off negative events because the tentative solution had been offered instead of giving them indefinite mental shelf-life (and “open loop” in GTD parlance), resulting in better sleep and more pleasant conversations with both friends and business partners.
3) People want to be around action-oriented problem solvers. Training yourself to offer solutions on-the-spot attracts people and resources.
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For those interested in the more sophisticated applications and results of the the no-complaint thought experiment, I recommend you order a copy of A Complaint-Free World. I received an advanced copy and finished it in one afternoon, ending up with two pages of notes.
Want to take the 21-day no-complaint challenge for a test drive now?
Last a friend checked, the bracelets had a 3-5-month waiting period, but a rubber band or other bracelet will suffice. If you want the real deal, I have four bracelets that I will mail (might take a bit, as I’m leaving the country Friday) to the best four commenters below who answer the question:
What other behavior, besides complaining, do you think people should stop? How could train themselves to stop?
The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than 900 million downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.
Tim
People need to stop procrastinating.
It’s a terrible habit which always ends badly.
Other behavior- not listening when someone is talking and interrupting.
In addition to no complaining, which i have been working on without a bracelet (not as fun), i am working on eliminating the thought “I can’t because”. Whenever i think the thought “I can’t”, i immediately try to think “I can, because”. It would be a lot more fun with a bracelet 😁
Self Victimization.
People tend to victimize themselves in front of the world in order to portray the tasks and projects they are doing are very hard and they might fail in that project. This repetition of victimization prints itself in our mind and eventually we actually become a victim. Low productivity, low drive become the result which combines with the fear of the challenge of the task.
To solve this, you need to be conscious about this habit of yours fundamentally. This can be done in various ways like the bracelet, but fundamentally- you need to be conscious.
Sooo, are there any of those 4 bracelets left?!? :o)
I have 2. First, dumping on people, as in: “Ugh, I’m going to be honest with you, Bob is a bit of a doofus. He’s not especially bright, but he’s good at getting meetings.” That sort of side-bitch to someone that could be partially true, but is not necessary and functions to prop you up as the most important. Second, explaining. Mini-excuses, mini-explanations, the pointing out of your failures/insecurities that are also not necessary, but act as a sort of preemptive garbage dump of insecurities. The second half of the “never complain, never explain” idea.
I think another great experiment for change is to ask ourselves “what else could be true” about a situation more often. I recently used this regarding the student loan relief government program. As a 57 year old woman who paid off her student loans and tends to lean more Republican, my immediate thought was “no way, that’s crazy”. But I decided to educate myself on the specifics of the program and what problem we were hoping to solve by introducing the idea and I found myself way more pro debt relief. Let’s all be more curious and educate ourselves before flying off on social media with guoulish behavior.
Although cliche, being present can be a challenge. Finding the good in anyone or anything is a gift you give yourself. Enjoying the moment is all there really is to life. The “no complaining” game is an ingenious method to becoming present by recognizing the words we chose and the thoughts we entertain.
Most annoying of all for me is those opining or judging others without having any background knowledge of circumstances of individuals
This idea came from many decades ago. I first read it in a book referred by Emmet Fox called the 7 day mental fast. I guess this new book took the concepts of Maxwell Maltz’s idea that a habit is formed in 21 days (since disproved) and combined it with Fox’s concept bringing old ideas into the new! Still, despite hoping that he acknowledges these wonderful authors, It is good to see this concept coming to a new audience.
One other negative behavior people/I could stop is self-doubt. In any area. Ability to change a habit, stick to a workout schedule, speak opinion, stand by a conviction, etc. The focus could be on positive affirmations that support and encourage.
Thank you so much for this – I really enjoyed reading it and it feels so apt as I have just ended a toxic friendship over this and other incompatible traits.
I think another behaviour we could do to examine and lose are our distraction techniques. These are the unhealthy behaviours we fall back on when we don’t want to process our emotions and tack action from their message. There are many things we all do, but common ones are drinking, shopping, scrolling etc.
A world free of distraction techniques would be a world full of compassion, understanding, integrity, connection and kindness.
Do you agree?
Great article thanks tim!