Just Say "I Don't"

You've heard it before.

"If you just believe in it and tell yourself that it will happen, it will eventually happen."

And if you're faced with temptations, it's easiest to resist if you immediately tell yourself that you can't and shouldn't do that. Right? When it comes to self-help through self-talk, things might actually be a bit more complicated than that.

Contrary to self-help lore, there's little evidence that positive self-talk works like magic. Telling yourself you're beautiful, a confident public speaker or a future billionaire won't make you any of those things; if anything, it's liable to have the reverse effect. The true impact of self-talk is more subtle.

This is from a column by Oliver Burkeman of The Guardian, who believes his short article will change your life ;-) For example, according to him it's better to phrase something as a question if you need to motivate yourself for a challenging task. "I will talk to my boss about that promotion" might sound better in your head, but "Will I talk to my boss about that promotion?" will lead to more intrinsic motivation to actually go and have that tough conversation, because it reminds you of all the reasons you have to ask for said promotion.

Stop Wearing Those "Ray-Bans"

Why do we dress the way we do?

If you're willing to believe Dan Ariely, it has a lot to do with how we want other people to perceive us. In his recent book The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, he writes the following: "Although our current sartorial class system is not as rigid as it was in the past, the desire to signal success and individuality is as strong today as ever." (p. 121) Interestingly enough, we don't just try to signal those things to other people -- we tend to self-signal as well. Ariely gives the example of helping a beggar on the streets. Instead of just walking by or giving him some change, you decide to buy him a sandwich. You now interpret this good deed as proof for your amazing character and believe more intensely in your own benevolence, even though this sole act does not define who you are.

So what happens when we deliberately choose to wear fake products, like the "Rolex" watch you bought for 10 Euros at that Italian beach last summer? We're obviously signaling success and wealth to ourselves and those around us, but does it make us more dishonest people if what we wear is a fake rather than the real deal? Ariely and his friends wanted to find out and decided to conduct an experiment using Chloé designer sunglasses (you can read all about it in the book). The results of the experiment...

Phonebloks - The Future of Smartphones?

We live in a throw-away-world. When your TV stops working you toss it out and get a new one. When your shoes are a few years old, you decide to buy a new pair (even though the old ones are still working just fine). When your smartphone's battery doesn't last as long anymore as it used to, you throw it away and get the latest version. Right?

Well, maybe you won't have to do that anymore in the future. At least if Dave Hakkens gets his way. On his website phonebloks.com, Hakkens presents a new way of thinking about -- and buying smartphones. Instead of throwing yours away when you're not satisfied with its features anymore, you simply upgrade: a new camera, more storage, a longer lasting battery... How will it work? I'll let Dave explain it to you. Go to the website and check out the video he's posted there. Will his idea ever become reality? We don't know and it's way too early to make any predictions about it. But I like it when someone comes up with a concept that would not only make smartphone consumers happy, but also make our world a less "trashier" place. Good stuff, Dave.

Links of the Week XIX

More links for your start into the new week :-)

German:
Man kann nie früh genug anfangen für die Profi-Karriere zu üben.
Wir haben leider Ihr Auto geschmolzen.

English:
Jon Stewart is back (and so are the sounds he makes)...
And you thought you know how to ride a bike ;-)

Links of the Week XVIII (Football Edition)

Special edition of my links this week, to celebrate the start of the European football (aka soccer) and the American football season.

German:
Kaiser Franz erklärt den ersten Spieltag ;-)
Die Pferde, die immer mit Jermaine Jones durchgehen...

English: 
The Manning brothers can do more than just throw the football ;-)
An American Coach in England...trying to understand European Football

Links of the Week XVII

A couple of interesting/funny/insightful/absurd/etc. links for you to start the new week...

German:
Islam ist ein Land und Juden folgen Jesus Christus... noch Fragen?
Sie wollen zahlen? Einmal in die Kamera lächeln, bitte :-)

English:
Ok, South Koreans are geniuses...helping you to park your car
Ok, what's next? Someone in Latin America naming their child Jesus? Oh wait...

Links of the Week XVI

They're back.... and better than ever ;-) Hope you enjoy!

German:
Eine außergewöhnliche Hommage an den sterbenden Nelson Mandela
Ein ungewöhnlicher Versuch die Freundschaft zwischen zwei Ländern zu fördern

English:
The Louvre's statues get a modern makeover
Please don't try this at home!

A Woman's Worth

You may have noticed that my blog is sort of on summer break right now, but the other day I read an article that I just couldn't resist writing about. As a man, I have no problem whatsoever appreciating a woman's worth -- I won't go into any details, but life would simply be very boring without them. ;-)  But one aspect that I had never considered (until now) is a woman's influence on a man's generosity.

According to Adam Grant, men are more generous when women are around. In his article "Why Men need Women" for the New York Times, Grant writes: "The mere presence of female family members -- even infants -- can be enough to nudge men in the generous direction." And cites an interesting study to back up his claim. A couple of researchers found that when chief executives become fathers they often lower their employee's wages, explaining they need more money to take care of their growing family. But there was a twist. This only happened when the newborn child was a boy. Grant's conclusion?

Daughters apparently soften fathers and evoke more caretaking tendencies. The speculation is that as we brush our daughters' hair and take them to dance classes, we become gentler, more empathetic and more other-oriented.

And it's not just daughters. A sister, a wife, a mother... they all can have a "generous" impact on men. Bill Gates says that his wife and his mother always pressed him to do more for others. Today the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation plays a big role in enhancing healthcare and reducing poverty worldwide. It's not just generosity though:

...Professor Van Lange's team pointed to another study showing that the more sisters a father has, the more time he spends raising his own children. After growing up with sisters, men who have opportunities to give are more likely to do so.

It's really starting to look like we desperately need women in our lives if we want to be better men. Ok, let me just think about that for a minute... I don't have any sisters, I don't have a wife. So guess who's to blame if I'm not a generous enough person? ;-) Love you, mom!

Prepaying for Happiness?

A while ago I posted a video by my favorite behavioral economist Dan Ariely about the pain of paying. Now I've come across an article by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton that is related to said video. In "Happier Spending", they argue that "...we derive greater happiness from goods we pay for immediately, but don't use for some time, than we do from goods we use now but pay for later." Or as I like to call it: prepaying for happiness :-)

There are mainly two reasons for why this works. First of all, it doesn't take away the pain of paying, which helps you to not overspend as you might be tempted to do if you can delay payment until after having used/enjoyed the purchased good/service.

Just as the sensation of burning tells you to pull your hand from the stove, the pain of paying can keep spending in check. This isn't just a metaphor. Paying high prices for goods and services activates the region of the brain associated with the anticipation of actual physical pain.

The World At Our Fingertips, But Far From Our Hearts?

Not too long ago I was browsing the New York Times website when I stumbled upon this interesting article by Jonathan Safran Foer. It's about technology and gadgets and their influence on how (or if) we interact with our fellow human beings. Foer believes that "technology celebrates connectedness, but encourages retreat." And he seems to have the field of psychology on his side regarding this assumption:

Psychologists who study empathy and compassion are finding that unlike our almost instantaneous responses to physical pain, it takes time for the brain to comprehend the psychological and moral dimensions of a situation. The more distracted we become, and the more emphasis we place on speed at the expense of depth, the less likely and able we are to care.

What's The Deal With Fiction?

Some of you may remember that I blogged about the positive influence of fiction almost exactly a year ago. The argument was that fictional stories stories shape us for the better and make us more understanding of other people, since the majority of these tales teach us that crime doesn't pay and that the good guys ultimately win.

But the other day I read an article in the New York Times by Gregory Currie that basically says: "Not so fast. Where's the evidence for that?" Of course we like to tell ourselves that it's true, especially if we count ourselves among those that enjoy reading great literature. Yet Currie makes an interesting and important point regarding the correlation of being a good person and reading good fiction:

Motivate Me!

At the end of his book Drive. The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Dan Pink lists nine things you can do to motivate yourself. Because, as he says, Type I's (intrinsically motivated people) aren't born, they're made...

1. Give Yourself a "Flow Test." Here's how it works: Set a reminder on your cell phone or computer to go off at forty random times in a week. Every time it does, write down what you're doing, how you're doing and whether you're in "flow" or not (check this post for an explanation of the concept of flow). Look at the patterns of your observations and think about how you can incorporate more moments of "flow" into your life. 
2. Ask a Big Question... What is the one sentence that should define your life? To make it easier, here are a few examples: "He preserved the union and freed the slaves" (Abraham Lincoln). "He raised four kids who became healthy and happy adults." "She taught two generations of children how to read". What's your sentence?
3. ...Then Keep Asking a Small Question. To ensure that you're continually improving, ask yourself this every night before you go to bed: Was I better today than yesterday? You don't have to be flawless every day, but try to look for small measures of improvement that show you that you're progressing towards your goal.

So What's The Purpose?

If you've read my recent blog entries, you may remember that the first two "nutrients" of intrinsically motivated behavior are autonomy and mastery. But if you're willing to believe Daniel Pink and his bestselling book Drive. The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, there's one more element that should not be overlooked: Purpose.

Autonomous people working toward mastery perform at very high levels. But those who do so in the service of some greater objective can achieve even more. The most deeply motivated people -- not to mention those who are most productive and satisfied -- hitch their desires to a cause larger than themselves. (p. 133)

One example that Pink uses to prove this is the sharp rise in volunteerism, i.e. ever more people working for free, doing something that gives them purpose. While making money is still important to them, it seems to not be enough to really motivate:

When Brotherly Bonds Become "Brotherly" Bombs

I suscribe to the Freakonomics Podcast and every once in a while an episode comes along which fascinates me so much that I feel the need to share it. That's what I'm doing this week with "Running to Do Evil", an episode about the relationship between brothers, inspired in part by the Boston Marathon bombers and a 14-year old interview with... well, I'll let you find out for yourself.

The Pursuit of Happy... eh, Mastery

Merriam-Webster calls it the "possession or display of great skill or technique." The dictionary on my computer says it's the "comprehensive knowledge or skill in a particular subject or activity." And Daniel H. Pink, in his bestselling book Drive. The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us defines it as "the desire to get better and better at something that matters." According to him it is the second (the first was autonomy) vital element of intrinsically motivated behavior: mastery.

In other words, if you want someone to be motivated about a task or a job, give them a chance to get better and better and better at it. Pursuing perfection, you might call it. But is that really such an important attitude to have? Pink is convinced it is:

Solving complex problems requires an inquiring mind and the willingness to experiment one's way to a fresh solution. Where Motivation 2.0 sought compliance, Motivation 3.0 seeks engagement. Only engagement can produce mastery. And the pursuit of mastery, an important but often dormant part of our third drive, has become essential in making one's way in today's economy. (p. 111)

More On The Hiring of Smokers

Since I recently posted about an article regarding the hiring of smokers, I thought I'd add the (very short) Freakonomics Podcast episode that tackles the same subject. Fun fact: Seventh-Day Adventists are mentioned.

Teaching in the 21st Century

I recently came across an article by Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times (online edition) that caught my eye. The title: "Need a Job? Invent It". The content: mainly about education (schools) and intrinsic motivation. So naturally I was curious.

For the most part, Friedman quotes Harvard education specialist Tony Wagner, who has written a book entitled Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World. This is what Friedman writes about his main argument: "...the goal of education today, argues Wagner, should not be to make every child 'college ready' but 'innovation ready' -- ready to add value to whatever they do."

What does he mean by that? Friedman wondered the same and asked. I particularly find the parts I highlighted in bold interesting. These are Wagner's words:

"Spiritual Smokers" In The Church?

A recent article on health care organizations refusing to employ smokers got me thinking about how we sometimes refuse to "employ" people that have committed certain sins ("spiritual smokers") in our churches. In The Ethics of Not Hiring Smokers, Harald Schmidt, Kristin Voigt and Ezekiel J. Emanuel argue that the whole point of health care organizations is to care for those with health problems.

...it seems paradoxical for health care organizations that exist to care for the sick to refuse to employ smokers. [...] It is callous -- and contradictory -- for health care institutions devoted to caring for patients regardless of the causes of their illness to refuse to employ smokers.

Doing It Your Way

According to the dictionary on my Macbook, autonomous means "having the freedom to act independently." Synonyms include self-governing, independent, sovereign, free, self-ruling and self-determining. For most of us, those are words that we associate with positive emotions. So I think it's safe to say that we like to have autonomy in our lives. And according to Daniel Pink in his book Drive. The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, it is a vital component to being motivated and successful at the workplace.

Blessed Are The Givers

Adam Grant likes to help people. He's a professor at the Wharton School and author of the new book Give and Take. A Revolutionary Approach To Success. And according to him, helping other people is the best thing you can do, if you want to be productive and successful in life. I recently came across an article on Grant written by Susan Dominus in the New York Times that is well worth the read (even though it's quite long). Below are just a few highlights:

"Grant might not seem so different from any number of accessible and devoted professors on any number of campuses, and yet when you witness over time the sheer volume of Grant's commitments, and the way in which he is able to follow through on all of them, you start to sense that something profoundly different is at work. Helpfulness is Grant's credo."

Altruism at Work

Click here for a comical look at altruism at the workplace. Enjoy! :-)

I'm Just Not That Type of Person

You've heard it before. "I don't feel attracted to him. He's just not my type." Or maybe "I would definitely not feel comfortable doing that. I'm just not that type of person." But what do we actually mean when we label someone as "not our type" or announce that "we're not that type of person"? Are we talking about their personality, character, looks (not attractive), worldview (distinct from our own), etc.? Or maybe a mixture of all of the above?

How about someone being a Type X instead of a Type I? Never heard of them before? According to Daniel Pink, who wrote the New York Times bestseller Drive. The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, these two terms stand for people who are generally either extrinsically (Type X) or intrinsically (Type I) motivated. And he has pretty strong opinions on what we need to do in regards to our motivation in order to make our world a better place:

Be Smart When You Reward

There are some things in life that are black and white. Either right or wrong. Good or bad. Helpful or not. Achieving its objective or not. And then there are situations where it depends. According to Daniel Pink, author of Drive. The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, using extrinsic rewards as motivation is one of those things. He's generally not a big fan of the so-called "carrots and sticks" approach: rewarding for good and punishing for bad behavior in order to get the behavior you want. There are just too many things that can go wrong, leading him to sum it up in his seven reasons why carrots and sticks usually fail*:

Paying Your Kids To Take Out The Trash

Ok, so people are complicated creatures. Sometimes they do what you expect them to do and sometimes they don't. And then every once in a while they totally surprise you... by doing the exact opposite of what you expected them to do. Need an example? In 2000 a couple of economists studied a child care center in Haifa, Israel for several months. It opened at 7:30 a.m. and closed at 4 p.m. every day and parents were asked to pick up their children by this closing time, or a teacher would have to stay late. During the first month, the economists observed how many parents arrived late to get their kids. Then, with the permission of the day care center, they put up a sign announcing a fine of 10 Israeli shekel (about 3 U.S. dollars at the time) for each child that was picked up after 4:10 p.m.

When Extrinsic Rewards Fail... Or Worse

It's one of the most popular exercises that psychologists like to use when it comes to testing someone's ability to solve a problem: in this case, the "candle problem." The subject is given a candle, some tacks in a box and matches (see the image). They are then asked to attach the candle to the wall in such a way that the wax doesn't drip onto the table. Most people take about five to ten minutes to find the solution. How long does it take you?

Painting Fences and Drawing For Rewards

Sometimes things can backfire on you. Your actions may have unintended consequences that you really didn't expect. Maybe you gave someone an incentive to do something and it didn't work. Or even worse: he did the exact opposite of what you wanted him to do. When an attempted solution to a problem actually makes the problem worse, economists call this the cobra effect (for an interesting podcast on the subject, click here). And as Daniel Pink notes in his book Drive. The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us something similar can happen when it comes to motivation:

Mechanisms designed to increase motivation can dampen it. Tactics aimed at boosting creativity can reduce it. Programs to promote good deeds can make them disappear. Meanwhile, instead of restraining negative behavior, rewards and punishments can often set it loose -- and give rise to cheating, addiction, and dangerously myopic thinking. (p. 35)

How a Group of Volunteers Beat Microsoft

In the early 1990s Microsoft had a great idea: create a digital encyclopedia to be distributed on CD-ROM and online. There would be hundreds of well-paid employees working on this important project. It looked and sounded like a great idea at a time when people still connected to the internet via dial-up modems and the thought of having the information of twenty of more heavy books (think Encyclopaedia Britannica) on one CD was truly revolutionary. But less than twenty years later, in October of 2009, Microsoft pulled the plug on MSN Encarta. What had happened?

Special Deal

Everybody likes a good deal, right? What about 100 deals? Sounds too good to be true? It's not. The Book Depository, my favorite place to get new reading material, is starting a special campaign this Thursday: 100 different books on offer during a time period of 25 hours, starting at noon (GMT) and ending on Friday at 1 p.m. Every 15 minutes a new book will be on offer. Sounds like something you could enjoy taking part in? Just click on the banner below and find out everything you need to know about this special offer!

When Cash Hurts

Dan Ariely on the "Pain of Paying". Very interesting and practical video. Some of the highlights include:

• What's more painful? Cash or credit card? Prepayment or paying after the event?
• How to increase the pain of paying (and when that might make sense)
• How to decrease the pain of paying (and when that might make sense)
• Method and timing of payment matters more than you think
• What's an ideal gift?
• And the interesting case of America Online (AOL) and its modem users

Source: danariely.com

Are You Homeless?

Something I recently read...

     The first thing you notice when you're homeless is how long the nights are. It's hard to realize that a night can be so long; but in time you get used to it. You don't really sleep, especially in the beginning, because you wake up every fifteen minutes worried someone will come upon you. Your imagination runs wild with what terrible things would happen if you fell asleep and let that happen.
     The world at night when you're without shelter feels like the Twilight Zone, another dimension, another planet, where the normal laws of time and space don't apply. When the sun comes up, you're so happy knowing that soon people are going to be out and you'll be back in the world again, on terra firm, although you're tired and worried about how fast night comes again.
     Before you know it, you're seeing the shops close down, lights diminishing down streets, cars becoming fewer and fewer; on residential blocks you enviously watch working mothers and fathers pulling into driveways, arriving home to their families; and you stand outside talking to them in your head, saying, Don't go inside, not yet, stay out a little longer!
     Your hearing changes as the general noise of the workaday world goes silent and other sounds become more pronounced. A car engine sputtering. Tires squealing around turns. Even sounds that are far away: distant trains, speeding cars, gunshots, police and ambulance sirens.

Play Offense Instead of Defense

The annual Superbowl (championship game of the National Football League) is approaching fast, but don't worry: this will not be a post on American Football strategy or on what my team needs to do on Sunday night in order to win the title. Instead it's a summary of what I have learned from the reading of Willpower: Why Self-Control is the Secret to Success by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney. I have made a list of 15 things you should keep in mind and rules you should follow if you want to improve your willpower and self-control. If it's not all clear, post your questions in the comments section or go and read the book for yourself! ;-)

Receiving Help From Above

The famous English guitarist and singer-songwriter Eric Clapton was an alcoholic and drug addict. "Drinking was in my thoughts all the time," he writes in his autobiography. All the time... until, that is, he started praying. Here's how he describes the night he finally sank to his knees and started asking for help from above: "I had no notion who I thought I was talking to, I just knew that I had come to the end of my tether. I had nothing left to fight with. Then I remembered what I had heard about surrender, something I thought I could never do, my pride just wouldn't allow it, but I knew that on my own I wasn't going to make it, so I asked for help, and, getting down on my knees, I surrendered." According to Clapton, he's never again even seriously considered taking another drink.

Where did all the willpower to quit (which he didn't have before) all of a sudden come from? Even Clapton can't really explain it, but he now prays for help every morning and night. Telling his story in their book Willpower, it becomes clear that Roy Baumeister and John Tierney aren't quite sure how to explain it either and since neither is particularly religious it's understandable that they have decided to focus on the social component of religious denominations in order to explain how faith benefits people looking for more self-control in their lives. Put simply, being alone sucks:

Getting Into The Habit...

Does the name Henry Morton Stanley ring a bell? I'm impressed if it does, since Mr. Stanley is not quite as well-known as the man he found in the African jungle in 1871 after months of searching: the great missionary Dr. David Livingstone. But according to the authors of Willpower. Why Self-Control is the Secret to Success, it is hard "to name any explorer in history who endured such sustained misery and terror so deep in the wilderness" as Henry Stanley. How did he do it?

Stanley was actually a journalist (not a scientist or explorer primarily) and definitely didn't get his willpower from his upbringing: Born to an unmarried eighteen-year-old woman who abandoned him to her father, he never knew his own father and ended up in a workhouse by the time he was six years old. But for some reason he saw the benefits of having self-control early on and worked on improving his own continually. So by the time he went on his first expeditions to the interior of Africa, he was well prepared - mentally probably even more so than physically.

Taking A Good, Hard Look At Yourself

It's one of our most important traits as human beings. Most animals don't have it, so it's one of several things that sets us apart from them. And as it turns out, it's a key factor when it comes to exercising willpower: self-awareness.

As humans, we start developing self-awareness at an early stage, usually being able to pass the "mirror test" by our second birthday: the forehead of the baby is dabbed with a spot of odorless dye and the child is set before a mirror. Most animals reach for the mirror in order to touch the spot, but even as babies we are capable of realizing that the spot is on our own body and reach up to touch our own forehead.

On Making Plans And Decisions

So, what's the plan?

Maybe you've been asked this question before. Usually in situations where some guidance is needed as to what the next step should be. What now? Where do we go from here? What do you think we should do? It's always good to have a plan. It's not a bad idea to make a plan. Know where you're going and what you're trying to achieve. That's why Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney stress this important point in their book Willpower: "The first step in self-control is to set a clear goal." (p. 62) And in order to reach that goal you need a plan. Just make sure it allows for some flexibility, which is why you should probably avoid making daily plans: