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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Shawn Achor
Read between
December 11 - December 16, 2018
After all, if we believe nothing we do matters, we fall prey to the insidious grip of learned helplessness I described in the last chapter.
People with an external locus don’t just duck the blame for failure, though; they also miss out on the credit for their successes, which can be equally maladaptive because it undermines both confidence and dedication.
They are also more attentive listeners and more adept at social interactions—all qualities, incidentally, that predict success at work as well as at home.
our actions are often determined by the brain’s two dueling components: our knee jerk-like emotional system (let’s call him the Jerk) and our rational, cognitive system (let’s call him the Thinker).
Is this “fast” & “slow”?
The Thinker’s purpose is simple, but it reflects a huge evolutionary leap: think, then react.
Psychologist Daniel Goleman, author of the groundbreaking book Emotional Intelligence, has extensively studied the toll this emotional hijacking can take on our professional lives.
Neuroscientists have found that financial losses are actually processed in the same areas of the brain that respond to mortal danger.
the more active the limbic system is in the brain, the more likely the stingy offer will be rejected.
As Jason Zweig points out in his book Your Money and Your Brain, “Everyone knows that panic selling is a bad idea—but a company that announces it earned 23 cents per share instead of 24 cents can lose $5 billion of market value in a minute-and-a-half.”
The first goal we need to conquer—or circle we need to draw—is self-awareness.
So whether you do it by writing down feelings in a journal or talking to a trusted coworker or confidant, verbalizing the stress and helplessness you are feeling is the first step toward regaining control.
Once you’ve mastered the self-awareness circle, your next goal should be to identify which aspects of the situation you have control over and which you don’t.
The point is to tease apart the stresses that we have to let go of because they’re out of our hands, while at the same time identifying the areas where our efforts will have a real impact, so that we can then focus our energy accordingly.
identify one small goal they know they can quickly accomplish.
By tackling one small challenge at a time—a narrow circle that slowly expands outward—we can relearn that our actions do have a direct effect on our outcomes, that we are largely the masters of our own fates.
psychologists who specialize in goal-setting theory advocate setting goals of moderate difficulty—not so easy that we don’t have to try, but not so difficult that we get discouraged and give up.
The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle discusses how the strategy of “finding and improving small problems” has helped businesses flourish.16
With kaizen, in other words, companies use the Zorro Circle to transform incremental change into mammoth results.
I had her make two lists—what she could control and what she couldn’t.
The point: Small successes can add up to major achievements. All it takes is drawing that first circle in the sand.
“A tendency to act,” he wrote, “only becomes effectively ingrained in us in proportion to the uninterrupted frequency with which the actions actually occur, and the brain ‘grows’ to their use.”
the initial spark needed to catalyze a reaction. The same energy, both physical and mental, is needed of people to overcome inertia and kick-start a positive habit. Otherwise, human nature takes us down the path of least resistance time and time again.
In the world of marketing, the term is “opt-out”—a genius invention, really, that takes supreme advantage of human psychology.
Lower the activation energy for habits you want to adopt, and raise it for habits you want to avoid. The more we can lower or even eliminate the activation energy for our desired actions, the more we enhance our ability to jump-start positive change.
But information is not transformation, because every morning I would wake and ask myself, Do I want to exercise? And my brain would reply, No I do not.
Barry Schwartz explains how setting rules in advance can free us from the constant barrage of willpower-depleting choices that make a real difference in our lives.24
when we encounter an unexpected challenge or threat, the only way to save ourselves is to hold on tight to the people around us and not let go.
The most successful people take the exact opposite approach. Instead of turning inward, they actually hold tighter to their social support. Instead of divesting, they invest.
Vaillant wrote his own follow-up article that analyzed the data in great detail, and his conclusions proved the same: that there are “70 years of evidence that our relationships with other people matter, and matter more than anything else in the world.”
The point is, the more social support you have, the happier you are. And as we know, the happier you are, the more advantages you accrue in nearly every domain of life.
When set adrift, it seems, those of us who hold on to our raftmates, not just our rafts, are the ones who will stay afloat.
So in essence, investing in social connections means that you’ll find it easier to interpret adversity as a path to growth and opportunity; and when you do have to experience the stress, you’ll bounce back from it faster and better protected against its long-term negative effects.
Studies show that the more team members are encouraged to socialize and interact face-to-face, the more engaged they feel, the more energy they have, and the longer they can stay focused on a task.26 In short, the more the team members invest in their social cohesion, the better the results of their work.
they found that the more socially connected the IBM employees were, the better they performed.
Not only do company cafeterias stay open well past the hours of the traditional workday, making it easy for employees to dine together as much as possible,
Google employees have access to on-site day care and are even encouraged to make time to visit their kids throughout the day.
They know that this social interaction pays out in the long run, not just for the individual drivers, but for the organization as a whole.
Sadly, these policies are often the first to go when companies find themselves in financial straits—another example of our tendency to divest when the going gets tough.
A longer, 15-year study even found that employees who had a difficult relationship with their boss were 30 percent more likely to suffer from coronary heart disease.33 It seems a bad relationship with your boss can be as bad for you as a steady diet of fried foods—and not nearly as much fun.
Unfortunately, in today’s harried and fast-paced workplace, far too few leaders put in the time required to forge strong bonds with either their colleagues or their employees.
I wonder how this relates with the circles of influence/friendship from “The Power of Who”?
And yet the more they ignore the power of social investment, the more they undermine both their company’s performance and their own.
Ask interested questions, schedule face-to-face meetings, and initiate conversations that aren’t always task-oriented.
I spend a fair amount of my time making introductions, providing referrals, providing connections, and generally engaging with the breadth of the community to benefit the business and personal lives of others.”
The winning response is both active and constructive; it offers enthusiastic support, as well as specific comments and follow-up questions. (“That’s wonderful! I’m glad your boss noticed how hard you’ve been working. When does your promotion go into effect?”)
For example, when new hires enter an organization, leaders can take the time to introduce them to everyone, even—and especially—people in other departments with whom they might not be working directly.
the more chances for employees to meet one another, the more chances they have to forge high-quality connections.
This kind of information—or even a few simple details like where a person lives, what his or her favorite hobby is—cuts through the red tape to get somewhere more meaningful, and it can more immediately and effectively forge a connection between two people.
The best leaders give their employees the space and time to let moments of social connection develop on their own.
Forging a connection requires active listening—giving someone your full attention and also allowing them to have their say.
As Dutton explains, “many people listen as if waiting for an opportunity to make their own point.” Instead, focus on the speaker and their opinion, and then ask interested questions to learn more.
