How Monkeys, Jam and Fencing Can Help You Make Decisions Quickly and Confidently
Equinox Gym has 18 locations in New York City, and I have an all-access pass, which means I can go to any of them. This offers fantastic variety for mixing up my workouts but also means that planning my workouts each week can become a logistical nightmare.
In addition to choosing between my eight or nine regular classes, I have to factor in whether one of my favorite instructors is teaching, travel time to the gym, proximity to a business meeting and whether there are two classes I can take back-to-back — the permutations are mind-boggling. On days that my brain is overloaded, I have been known to waffle over the possibilities until I have no choice but to scramble to the last available class of the day!
This is a pretty typical example, I think, of how our options in the information age have multiplied exponentially. More choice means more decisions: Who and when to marry, when or if to have children, whether to take the overseas job promotion, rent or buy, Mac or PC, sparkling or tap – the sheer volume of decisions we face can be overwhelming, to the point that we can’t decide at all.
Have you heard of the famous jam study? In The Art of Choosing, Columbia University professor Sheena Iyengar tells about the experiment she and her research assistants carried out at a local San Francisco supermarket. Posing as reps for Wilkin & Sons, they set up a table where they presented various jams for sampling. Periodically during the day, they switched between offering 24 flavors and six flavors; everyone who stopped by the table was given a $1 coupon.
Now, this wouldn’t be the ‘famous jam study’ if the results had turned out as expected. And in fact, more of the people who had seen the small assortment — 30% — decided to buy jam. Only 3% of those who saw the larger assortment did. Interesting: even with something as basic as jam, people are more likely to buy when there are fewer choices.
Of course, not making a choice is also a decision. But decision by default rarely produces meaningful satisfaction. So, gym quandaries aside, here’s my cheat sheet for making decisions more quickly and confidently:
Determine what’s important to YOU. Too often, we try to make a decision without first getting clear on what we actually want. You may know very little about camera technology and still find yourself standing in front of the store display comparing megapixels, optical zoom, vibration reduction and countless other features that you didn’t even know existed. That’s backwards. First, determine what criteria are important to you (not the manufacturer, not the salesperson), and stop evaluating the ones that aren’t.
Decide and commit fully. Olympic fencer Jason Rogers says: “Indecision weakens your skills. Better to do the wrong thing with 100 percent of your effort than the right thing with 50 percent.” How often do you play it safe rather than going all out? Strong conviction in your decision can very well compensate for any flaws in your reasoning. While a habit of tentative execution — though it may not get you poked in the eye with a saber — will steadily gnaw away at your confidence. As Byron Katie says: “When we try to be safe, we live our lives being very, very careful; and we wind up having no lives.”
Factor in human nature. The collapse of the financial markets in recent years demonstrated, on a large scale, the human propensity to take greater risk to avoid loss than to achieve gain. Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale University, was curious to see if she could trace the roots of our irrational economic behavior and created an experiment in which she taught monkeys to use money and engage in marketplace trading. Turns out, monkeys also demonstrate loss aversion, just like humans. It’s in our genes!
Elsewhere, humans are consistently inaccurate in their assessment of perceived vs. actual risk. As security technologist Bruce Schneier asserts: “People exaggerate spectacular but rare risks and downplay common risks. They worry more about earthquakes than they do about slipping on the bathroom floor, even though the latter kills far more people than the former. Similarly, terrorism causes far more anxiety than common street crime, even though the latter claims many more lives.
The take-home message: Knowing how our evolutionary tendencies can trip us up, we can compensate and consciously make smarter, more rewarding choices.
Make decisions from where you want to be. Consider this: Your best thinking got you where you are now. So if you want to improve an area of your life, you need to make different decisions. To start thinking like the person you want to be, adopt a role model (or two) — someone whose achievements or behavior you admire. When you’re feeling stymied, ask yourself: “What would [my role model] do?”
Make decisions quickly. Face it, you will never have complete information before making a decision. Three things that can make it easier to take the plunge: First, it’s easier to change the direction of a boat that’s already moving – the sooner you take action, the sooner you can course-correct. Second, though no-one enjoys making mistakes, that is where the most valuable learning is. The sooner you screw up, the sooner you know what doesn’t work.
Third, in his TED talk on what really makes us happy, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains how, thanks to our “psychological immune system,” we overestimate the effect that events – positive or negative — will have on us. It stands to reason, the consequences of our decisions won’t affect us as long or as much as we think.
The bottom line? Successful people make more decisions.
[Book Review] 8 Ways To Great: Peak Performance on the Job and In Your Life
I love lists. And the book, 8 Ways To Great: Peak Performance on the Job and In Your Life, by Dr. Doug Hirschhorn, is my favorite kind of list: what successful people do to stand out from the crowd.
Dr. Doug, as he is known among the Wall Street elite, offers no earth-shaking surprises in his eight core peak performance principles. But that’s not the point. Because, for the most part, we know what to do to achieve excellence, just like we know what to do to lose weight. What we need is a shift in perspective that will galvanize us into action.
From abstract to concrete. What a relief to find that, unlike plenty of other self-help books, this one is free of glib platitudes. Dr. Doug makes every point with precision and backs it up with specific examples and illustrations so you understand exactly what he means.
Principle #1, for example, is “Find your why.” Now that could be kind of daunting if you’re thinking you have to come up with some grandiose mission statement for your life. But with examples like: “I’m a marketing executive because I get a kick out of figuring out how to influence people to buy,” you get it: it’s about articulating what’s meaningful to you in a down-to-earth kind of way.
Flipping your perspective. I read fast and I know I’ve hit gold when I hear the figurative screeching of tires in my head. With Principle #2: Get to know yourself, Dr. Doug reassures us that we don’t have to change who we are. We just have to develop greater self-awareness of our strengths and weaknesses. Then he throws in a subtle twist: get a grip on how your strengths can be potential weaknesses, and vice versa – the ability to remain calm, for example, becomes a liability when we don’t communicate the urgency of a situation.
This to me is the mark of a “self-help” book that is truly helpful. It presents what you may already know with a fresh, often subtle spin. And this time, you really “get” it.
For example: winning is not everything, I know that. As a performance coach myself, I’ve always advised my clients to “love the process” (Principle #3). And yet, in reading this book, I realized that I hadn’t fully understood the profound truth in committing to “measure success in terms of how well you performed, not only the outcome.” The greatest traders and athletes would rather play their best and lose rather than make stupid mistakes and win. Any attachment to the outcome will, paradoxically, keep us from achieving Principle #5: “Be all that you can be.”
Dr. Doug writes with such credibility and authority – earned from working with thousands of trading professionals at financial institutions and hedge funds around the world – it melts any resistance to accepting the truth of what he says. Oh, so I can stop waiting for the perfect moment before making a decision? (Yes, Principle #7: Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.).
Keeping it real. Still, all of this advice-giving would be kind of dry if Dr. Doug didn’t weave in plenty of colorful anecdotes and stories to drive home his point. There’s the one about the multi-millionaire client who could afford to lose $150,000 in a trade but couldn’t bear the idea of throwing $600 in the East River if he didn’t follow his game plan – and so, stayed accountable (Principle #8). Or the client who called in a panic because he was literally losing millions in one of the crashes of 2009. Without coddling – “If you want a hug, call your mother” – Dr. Doug sent him back to the trenches to look for the opportunity emerging among the chaos (and the client thanked him later).
Anyone looking to step up their game needs to read this book. Take notes, do the exercises and keep it handy so you can refer back to it regularly. Do that, and you can’t help but become great.
Dancing Cop Gets Into Traffic “Flow”
Often, what keeps us from getting in the flow is a mismatch between the challenge of an activity and our ability. Either the challenge is too great and we feel anxious; or not stimulating enough, and we are bored. The trick is to find a way to raise or decrease the challenge to better correspond to our ability.
Watch how Tony Lepore, the “Dancing Cop,” does it.
Effort Is Not A Dirty Word: Five Ways You Get A Big Payback
“Lose 10 pounds in 10 days — without diet or exercise!” “Win the lottery, live a life of ease!” “Click here to meet the man of your dreams!
Poof! Just like that, we’re rich, thin, in love and, presumably, happy. Except we’re not. And yet, each time we fall for – or are at least tempted by — the lure of the quick fix because we want to believe that we can have it all, instantly, without breaking a sweat.
Why We Avoid Effort
Just like Charlie Brown believing that, this time, Lucy will hold the football so he can kick it, you’d think we’d know better by now. So why are we so attached to the illusion of gliding through life, no effort required?
Well, for one, changing the status quo means we have to leave the familiar comfort of inertia. We have to acknowledge that there is no quick fix and whatever we want to achieve is going to require time and energy.
Next, there’s the discomfort of uncertainty: the nature of effort requires that we persist without a guarantee of success or that we’ll even get the result we’re striving for. We might even, ugh, make mistakes. Not committing full effort provides a handy fall back: “Well, I could have done it if I had really been trying.”
Then there are those who believe in the power of talent — that you either have natural ability or you don’t and there’s not much point in making an effort if you’re not naturally gifted.
Finally, effort is not glamorous; typically, it involves mundane repetition and attention to detail. And in our highly automated, consumerist culture, where the media depicts models looking vaguely bored and above it all, it’s simply not cool to look like you’re trying that hard.
Why Effort Is Worth It
Before you settle back into the couch with your remote though, let me point out a few things that make effort worthwhile.
Effort gives life meaning. In her book, Mindset: The Psychology of Success, psychologist Carol Dweck says: “Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it. It would be an impoverished existence if you were not willing to value things and commit yourself to working toward them.”
Effort forges connection. That’s what Boing Boing founder Mark Frauenfelder and his family thought. Suffering post dot-com bubble burnout, they set out to cut through the absurd chaos of materialistic modern life and find a path that was simple, direct, and clear. In his book Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World, Frauenfelder tells the story of keeping chickens in his own remote-controlled chicken coop, making a guitar out of a cigar box and keeping his own bees. The reward for their self-induced labors? Greater perceived value and lasting enjoyment.
Effort is more important than talent. Benjamin Barber, an eminent sociologist, once said: “I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures…I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners.” A growth mindset – the commitment to stretching beyond where you currently are — is, in fact, what matters more than natural ability, says Daniel Coyle, author of The Talent Code. It’s what drives desire and creates “the energy that fuels the engine of skill acquisition.”
Effort is essential for mastery. Despite our cultural bias toward instant gratification, there’s no way to reach a high level of excellence — in anything — without hours of effort. Want an exact number? In his latest book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell says that “10,000 hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again.”
Effort leads to flow. Although a state of flow is often associated with a feeling of effortlessness, initially it requires focused effort to get there. Once in the flow, you can enjoy an activity for its own sake, not the external rewards it might bring. Daniel Chambliss, author of Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmers, notes: “The very features of the sport that the “C” swimmer finds unpleasant, the top-level swimmer enjoys. What others see as boring-swimming back and forth over a black line for two hours, say-they find peaceful, even meditative, often challenging, or therapeutic.”
Growth, mastery and meaning: Sounds to me like an excellent return on investment.
Feed Your Mind, Think Different
Imagination is like a muscle: if we exercise it, it will grow more powerful and agile. Being imaginative, however, is not just about being artistic or creative – it’s having the ability to see alternative possibilities beyond the current “reality” or what’s immediately apparent.
Actually, we all already have pretty lively imaginations. How often do we tell ourselves, or allow someone to convince us, that something is not possible? There’s no lack of creativity, it seems, when it comes to making excuses why we can’t do something.
No question, it’s difficult to resist years of conditioning, peer pressure and our immediate environment. Studies show that people’s bodies deteriorate as they get older not so much because of actual loss of capability but because they see their peers aging and complaining about their aches and pains.
Some people, however, are able to imagine a dramatic alternative. Take Sister Madonna Buder, for example. A 78-year-old Catholic nun, she has competed in 37 marathons, 300 triathlons and 31 Ironman Triathlons, all after the age of 50. Apparently, she didn’t get the “you’re too old to do that” memo.
So, how do you develop your imagination? By feeding your mind as regularly as you do your body. Just as advances in biotech and agriculture have provided us with a greater range of nutrition options – both natural and artificial – thanks to the Internet, we also have unprecedented access to information and opinions, both negative and positive. Used judiciously, you can find a wealth of material to fuel your goals and expand your belief of what’s possible.
Here are three ways to start:
1. Activate your antenna. Be on the lookout for role models and examples for what’s possible. Reading a magazine, I ran across an ad for Keen shoes featuring Jessie Stone, a medical doctor who went to Africa to participate in an extreme kayaking competition; shocked by the malaria outbreaks she saw there, she now lives in Uganda and splits her time between kayak training and teaching malaria prevention. That led me to the Hybrid Lives community spotlighting dozens of people pursuing their dreams with inspiring and unconventional lives. Hey, you can join too.
2. Watch what you put in your mind. At the same time, be vigilant about your information intake. Just like eating junk food, the effects of regular gossip sessions with friends or constant negativity will insidiously seep into your consciousness and contribute to – how far I can take this analogy? – flabby energy. (Tell me that watching the catty back-biting on some of those reality TV shows doesn’t feel pretty much the same as scarfing down a bag of Cheetos.)
3. Stray from the beaten path. Most of us have a prescribed routine for what we eat, wear, read and watch. Why not develop the habit of exposing yourself to new influences on a regular basis: buy a magazine you’ve never read before, check out a provocative lecture at your local museum or author reading at the local book store, download TED talks by the most brilliant and innovative people in the world, branch out from your usual movie genre or even just take a different route to work. The only adventure sport I practice these days is jumping on the subway as the doors are closing but I pore over National Geographic Adventure magazine’s annual Best Trips list and start dreaming about the vast possibilities for exotic travel.
Creating an exceptional life starts with an active imagination: just as you nourish your body on a daily basis, feed your mind a steady diet of new ideas and inspiration, and you’ll learn to think differently – and bigger.
Why Not Sleep While You’re Still Alive
“Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer
Here, in New York, where there’s a bravado culture — especially among lawyers and investment bankers — of who can survive on the least sleep, I’ve always felt a bit wimpy because I’ve always made sleep a priority and have even been known to take naps mid-afternoon. (Apparently some Tokyo-ites feel the same way.)
But now with a rash of articles about the dangers of sleep deprivation, I feel smugly vindicated.
The National Sleep Foundation recommends eight hours of sleep and if you’re getting less than that on a regular basis it will affect your:
1) physical health (digestive disorders, high blood pressure, weakened immune systems, weight gain)
2) mental functioning (ability to concentrate, multitask, pay attention, retain information, problem-solve, react quickly, and make good judgments) and, ultimately,
3) quality of life (you’re cranky, irritable, hyper-sensitive)
From a work standpoint, sleep deprivation threatens our ability to focus, the key element necessary to get into the flow. As Ariana Huffington notes in her sleep challenge, “Work decisions, relationship challenges, any life situation that requires you to know your own mind — they all require the judgment, problem-solving and creativity that only a rested brain is capable of and are all handled best when you bring to them the creativity and judgment that are enhanced by sleep.”
If you constantly push yourself to get by on less you will never know what that peak performance — or flow state — feels like.
Five Habits of High-Achievers
When Shannon Bahrke won bronze in women’s moguls at the 2010 Winter Olympics, in her excitement she “hugged first-place winner Hannah Kearney so tightly that she almost knocked her U.S. teammate over.” Next to them on the podium, however, Canadian skier Jennifer Heil looked crestfallen after taking silver.
From our vantage point as a spectator, it might be hard to imagine feeling disappointed at “only” winning a silver medal. On the other hand, we can kind of understand how, after years of training and sacrifice, being so close to the gold — and falling seconds short — could feel like failure.
That crucial difference in perspective is why “on average, bronze medalists are happier than silver medalists,” says Victoria Medvec, a psychologist and professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Illinois. Research shows a disconnect between performance and satisfaction, she says. “Those who perform objectively better can actually feel worse than those who they outperformed.”
Of course, there are high-performers in all arenas – business, medicine, performing arts – who are never quite satisfied with their impressive achievements. They zone in on the flaws, lament their missteps and don’t really seem to savor and enjoy the fruits of their labor. Makes you wonder, what’s the point of achievement again?
The secret to happy goal attainment comes down to focus. Here are five ways Happy High-Achievers – let’s call them HaHAs – play hard and stay content:
1. HaHAs keep their balance. Come on, there’s no glory in pushing to the edge, sacrificing proper nutrition, sufficient sleep and movie night, if it means you’re going to collapse, be out of commission and have disgruntled friends and family. HaHAs keep an ongoing cost-benefit analysis and remember their core values (that trophy isn’t going to come visit you in the hospital!) to make sure they don’t sacrifice what’s really important.
2. HaHAs enjoy the process. Yep, that ol’ chestnut. But isn’t most of the time we spend in pursuing a goal considered “process?” To focus on the fleeting moments on the podium (the stage, the finish line) and expect them to feel like sufficient reward for your hard work is a recipe for dissatisfaction. For HaHAs, the purpose of a goal is for what they’ll learn and the joy in striving for it – actually achieving the goal is just icing on the cake.
3. HaHAs pursue excellence, not perfection. Can we just agree already that perfection does not exist? And if it does, it’s subjective and a constantly moving target? HaHAs know this and refuse to hold themselves up to some impossible standard. They don’t compare themselves relentlessly to others or pay attention to the inner critic. Instead, they prefer to focus on the more satisfying challenge of simply doing better than they did the day before.
4. HaHAs focus on what they can control. And they spend minimal time focusing on what they can’t. When results fall short, HaHAs don’t blame the weather, their neighbor’s barking dog or the dry-cleaners. They don’t constantly look in the rear-view mirror and beat themselves up for a result that is past and done. Whatever happens, HaHAs forgive (themselves and others), show gratitude and find a way to reframe the situation so they can feel good and move forward.
5. HaHAs are doin’ it for themselves. That’s because working toward a goal solely to satisfy someone else’s expectations – whether your parents, fans or society – is destined to create a feeling of gnawing emptiness and “is this all there is?” Conversely, no matter how “unimpressive” or inadvisable a choice of action might seem to an outsider (“What do you mean you don’t want the promotion?!”), HaHAs have figured out which accomplishments give them the greatest satisfaction in practice – not just theory – and they stay true to themselves.
Navy Seals: The Ultimate Test of Mental Toughness
This MSNBC video goes behind the scenes of Navy Seals training, the stage for extreme fitness.
Only 20 – 25% make it through the training and it’s not always the biggest and baddest: What psychologists studying the results have found is that more than physical fitness, mental toughness and “mission focus” are the number one indicators of success.
How important is mental toughness in the business world?
[WORKSHOP] Full Speed Ahead: Shift Your Life Into High Gear
Looking For A Competitive Edge?
I’d like to help: I’ve taken all the techniques and insights I’ve gained from years of studying peak performance, and designed a workshop to help you reinvigorate your goals, jumpstart your motivation and make 2010 your best year yet.
Here are a few things you’ll learn:
· The #1 obstacle that is keeping you from achieving your goals and how to overcome it
· The few simple changes you can make in your daily routine to reduce stress and increase energy
· Why you don’t have to beat yourself up for not having enough willpower, and the subtle mental shift that will increase your discipline
· The technique guaranteed to shorten your time from procrastination to action
· Do positive affirmations work for you? If not, I’ll show you what I do instead.
· Would you like to know the one crucial habit that will help your life go more smoothly? (It’s just as, if not more, important than advance planning – and most people skip it.)
· How to minimize the top-three time-wasters and free up pockets of time (and still watch TV if you want to!)
DATE: Wednesday, February 24, 2010
TIME: 7:00 – 8:30 PM
PLACE: In Good Company Workplaces, 16 W. 23rd Street, 4th floor (New York, NY)
INVEST: $35 ($30 if you sign up with a friend)
REGISTER: http://shiftintohighgear.eventbrite.com/
No Excuses
Too old, too young, too stressed, not enough time, not enough space, not enough energy, too cold, too hot, too early, too late…we are incredibly resourceful in coming up with reasons why it’s never quite the right time to change the status quo. The fact is, there will always be some condition that is less than ideal.
Watch this Nike ad with Matt Scott, and then let me ask you: “What’s your excuse?”
