Smarter Faster Better Quotes

“Internal locus of control is a learned skill,” Carol Dweck, the Stanford psychologist who helped conduct that study, told me. “Most of us learn it early in life. But some people’s sense of self-determination gets suppressed by how they grow up, or experiences they’ve had, and they forget how much influence they can have on their own lives. “That’s when training is helpful, because if you put people in situations where they can practice feeling in control, where that internal locus of control is reawakened, then people can start building habits that make them feel like they’re in charge of their own lives—and the more they feel that way, the more they really are in control of themselves.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“A student with a strong internal locus of control, for instance, will attribute good grades to hard work, rather than natural smarts. A salesman with an internal locus of control will blame a lost sale on his own lack of hustle, rather than bad fortune.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“élan vital”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“If you want to make yourself more sensitive to the small details in your work, cultivate a habit of imagining, as specifically as possible, what you expect to see and do when you get to your desk. Then you’ll be prone to notice the tiny ways in which real life deviates from the narrative inside your head. If you want to become better at listening to your children, tell yourself stories about what they said to you at dinnertime last night. Narrate your life, as you are living it, and you’ll encode those experiences deeper in your brain. If you need to improve your focus and learn to avoid distractions, take a moment to visualize, with as much detail as possible, what you are about to do. It is easier to know what’s ahead when there’s a well-rounded script inside your head. Companies say such tactics are important in all kinds of settings, including if you’re applying for a job or deciding whom to hire. The candidates who tell stories are the ones every firm wants. “We look for people who describe their experiences as some kind of a narrative,” Andy Billings, a vice president at the video game giant Electronic Arts, told me. “It’s a tip-off that someone has an instinct for connecting the dots and understanding how the world works at a deeper level. That’s who everyone tries to get.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive

“learn to see our choices not just as expressions of control but also as affirmations of our values and goals.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“If we pay attention only to good news, we’re handicapping ourselves.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“knowing what you don’t know is a huge advantage—something that can be used against other players.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“We’re not accustomed to thinking about multiple futures,” said Barbara Mellers, another GJP leader. “We only live in one reality, and so when we force ourselves to think about the future as numerous possibilities, it can be unsettling for some people because it forces us to think about things we hope won’t come true.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“how teams work matters, in a lot of ways, more than who is on them,”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“Motivation is more like a skill, akin to reading or writing, that can be learned and honed.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“Researchers who have studied SMART goals and other structured methods of choosing objectives say this isn’t unusual. Such systems, though useful, can sometimes trigger our need for closure in counterproductive ways. Aims such as SMART goals “can cause [a] person to have tunnel vision, to focus more on expanding effort to get immediate results,” Locke and Latham wrote in 1990. Experiments have shown that people with SMART goals are more likely to seize on the easiest tasks, to become obsessed with finishing projects, and to freeze on priorities once a goal has been set. “You get into this mindset where crossing things off your to-do list becomes more important than asking yourself if you’re doing the right things,” said Latham.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“Laszlo Bock, the head of the People Operations department at Google, walked onto the stage and thanked everyone for coming. “The biggest thing you should take away from this work is that how teams work matters, in a lot of ways, more than who is on them,” he said.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“To create psychological safety, Bock said, team leaders needed to model the right behaviors. There were Google-designed checklists they could use: Leaders should not interrupt teammates during conversations, because that will establish an interrupting norm. They should demonstrate they are listening by summarizing what people say after they said it. They should admit what they don’t know. They shouldn’t end a meeting until all team members have spoken at least once. They should encourage people who are upset to express their frustrations, and encourage teammates to respond in nonjudgmental ways. They should call out intergroup conflicts and resolve them through open discussion.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“In Edmondson’s hospital studies, the teams with the highest levels of psychological safety were also the ones with leaders most likely to model listening and social sensitivity. They invited people to speak up. They talked about their own emotions. They didn’t interrupt other people. When someone was concerned or upset, they showed the group that it was okay to intervene. They tried to anticipate how people would react and then worked to accommodate those reactions. This is how teams encourage people to disagree while still being honest with one another and occasionally clashing. This is how psychological safety emerges: by giving everyone an equal voice and encouraging social sensitivity among teammates.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“I hand out a number of compliments, and all of them are designed to be unexpected,” said Sergeant Dennis Joy, a thoroughly intimidating drill instructor who showed me around the Recruit Depot one day. “You’ll never get rewarded for doing what’s easy for you. If you’re an athlete, I’ll never compliment you on a good run. Only the small guy gets congratulated for running fast. Only the shy guy gets recognized for stepping into a leadership role. We praise people for doing things that are hard. That’s how they learn to believe they can do them.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“Studies show that someone’s locus of control can be influenced through training and feedback. One experiment conducted in 1998, for example, presented 128 fifth graders with a series of difficult puzzles. Afterward, each student was told they had scored very well. Half of them were also told, “You must have worked hard at these problems.” Telling fifth graders they have worked hard has been shown to activate their internal locus of control, because hard work is something we decide to do. Complimenting students for hard work reinforces their belief that they have control over themselves and their surroundings.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“In recent decades, as the economy has shifted and large companies promising lifelong employment have given way to freelance jobs and migratory careers, understanding motivation has become increasingly important. In 1980, more than 90 percent of the American workforce reported to a boss. Today more than a third of working Americans are freelancers, contractors, or in otherwise transitory positions. The workers who have succeeded in this new economy are those who know how to decide for themselves how to spend their time and allocate their energy. They understand how to set goals, prioritize tasks, and make choices about which projects to pursue. People who know how to self-motivate, according to studies, earn more money than their peers, report higher levels of happiness, and say they are more satisfied with their families, jobs, and lives.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“This is a useful lesson for anyone hoping to motivate themselves or others, because it suggests an easy method for triggering the will to act: Find a choice, almost any choice, that allows you to exert control. If you are struggling to answer a tedious stream of emails, decide to reply to one from the middle of your inbox. If you’re trying to start an assignment, write the conclusion first, or start by making the graphics, or do whatever’s most interesting to you. To find the motivation to confront an unpleasant employee,”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“If you can link something hard to a choice you care about, it makes the task easier,”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“Self-motivation, in other words, is a choice we make because it is part of something bigger and more emotionally rewarding than the immediate task that needs doing.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“I hand out a number of compliments, and all of them are designed to be unexpected,” said Sergeant Dennis Joy, a thoroughly intimidating drill instructor who showed me around the Recruit Depot one day. “You’ll never get rewarded for doing what’s easy for you. If you’re an athlete, I’ll never compliment you on a good run. Only the small guy gets congratulated for running fast. Only the shy guy gets recognized for stepping into a leadership role.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“We praise people for doing things that are hard. That’s how they learn to believe they can do them.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“began. And some norms, the data indicated, consistently correlated with high team effectiveness. One engineer, for instance, told the researchers that his team leader “is direct and straightforward, which creates a safe space for you to take risks….She also takes the time to ask how we are, figure out how she can help you and support you.” That was one of the most effective groups inside Google.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“It always struck Julia as odd that those two teams felt so different. Her study group felt stressful because everyone was always jousting for leadership and critiquing each other’s ideas. Her case competition team felt exciting because everyone was so supportive and enthusiastic. Both groups, however, were composed of basically the same kinds of people. They were all bright, and everyone was friendly outside of the team settings. There was no reason why the dynamic inside Julia’s study group needed to become so competitive, while the culture of the case team was so easygoing.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“camaraderie among his colleagues was disappointing. No one seemed motivated to excel. So in 2015, he reenlisted. “I missed that constant reminder that I can do anything,” he told me. “I missed people pushing me to choose a better me.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“Moreover, to teach ourselves to self-motivate more easily, we need to learn to see our choices not just as expressions of control but also as affirmations of our values and goals. That’s the reason recruits ask each other “why”—because it shows them how to link small tasks to larger aspirations.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“Every choice we make in life is an experiment. Every day offers fresh opportunities to find better decision-making frames. We live in a time when data is more plentiful, cheaper to analyze, and easier to translate into action than ever before. Smartphones, websites, digital databases, and apps put information at our fingertips. But it only becomes useful if we know how to make sense of it.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“Some of them are as simple as looking at our past choices and asking ourselves: Why was I so certain things would turn out one way? Why was I wrong?”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“Good decision making is contingent on a basic ability to envision what happens next.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

“Many of our most important decisions are, in fact, attempts to forecast the future.”
― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business