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50 Shades of Happiness

Habits, Happiness, Psychology, Uncategorized

TL;DR: Click here to download the summary of all learning and action items from this article on happiness.

What makes happy people happy? What if there was a single key to unlock happiness? One solution that everyone could use to gain unlimited joy. Wishful thinking when researchers for centuries have been searching for this key. The reality is that happiness has several shades and hues. It is often defined as “a state of well-being and contentment.” If there was an exact system to becoming happy then everyone would be happy. Right? Wrong. I wish it were that easy.

I first studied happiness in business school. Yes, business schools try to teach people more about happiness. The scientific mind trying to reverse engineer happiness. An attempt at bringing structure to something that didn’t exist before. I confess it did fascinate me. Research has since advanced and a lot has changed about what the world now knows about happiness. 

So I asked myself the question “What makes a person happy?”. 

This is what I learned.

To understand happiness I need to first need to introduce you to the prefrontal cortex. It is a part of the brain located at the very front of the frontal lobe. It turns out the prefrontal cortex does a lot of things. One of the most important things being that, according to Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, it is an experience simulator.

This simulator allows humans to have experiences in their heads before they try them out in real life. Super cool right? Think of it this way. If you had two scenarios to choose from:

 a. Living the life of a billionaire or 

b. Living the life of a homeless person. 

Your experience simulator leads you to choose Option a. even if you have never experienced either.

The next thing is what Dan calls the Impact Bias –  the tendency for the simulators to work badly. When it works badly the simulator makes you believe that different outcomes are more different than, in fact, they really are. What researchers found is that when people suffer a traumatic event like losing their limbs their happiness levels are nearly identical six months after the event as they were the day before the event. Why? 

Learning #1: Because there are two kinds of happiness: Natural happiness and Synthetic happiness. Happiness can actually be synthesized. You tend to best synthesize happiness when you feel “stuck” or “trapped”.

We synthesize happiness every day and do not realize it. We are programmed to believe that happiness is a thing to be found.

So what are these two kinds of happiness? 

Natural happiness is what we experience when we get what we want. 

Synthetic happiness is what we make when we don’t get what we want. 

A great example of this is the story of Moreese Bickham. Moreese spent 37 years in jail for a crime he did not commit. He was released on good behaviour halfway through his sentence. When asked about his experience in jail this is what he said –

“I don’t have one minute’s regret. It was a glorious experience.” 

Glorious is an odd word choice here. But it isn’t all that weird now that we know what synthetic happiness is. It turns out that freedom is the friend of natural happiness. Because it allows you to choose from among several appealing futures. You pick the one that you would most enjoy. But freedom to choose, to change and make up your mind, is the enemy of synthetic happiness. So what we should keep in mind is this:

Learning #2: Your brain can synthesize happiness even when events don’t go your way. Honour your preferences, but don’t worry about the difference in outcomes. 

Pleasure and emotions

Humans are born pleasure-seekers. A baby loves the taste of sweet and hates the taste of bitter. They love to touch smooth surfaces rather than rough ones. We are all born with a lot of innate pleasures. And according to Dr Sigmund Freud, the human emotion system has both a positive and a negative system. Our negative system is sensitive. 

This sensitive negative system led cognitive researcher Nancy Etcoff, to say, that

Learning #3: The formula for a happy marriage is five positive remarks, or interactions, for every negative one. Life-saving advice aside, the actual learning here is that at least 50% of our happiness is because of our genes.

We are born with it. Genes, unfortunately, don’t care much about whether we are happy. They do care, however, about whether we replicate and pass them on. So if you look at the reproductive systems there is lust (want for sex), desire (romantic attraction) and attraction (long-term bond). The problem is that, as humans, these three can separate. So a person, according to Nancy, can be in a long term attachment, become infatuated with someone else, and want to have sex with a third person. Another way our genes lead us astray is through social status. As humans, we always seek to further and increase our social status. One way humans do this is through prestige. Someone has expertise and knowledge and knows how to do things, and we give that person status. So genes wire us to different levels of happiness. 

According to Sonja, author of, The How of Happiness, 10% of your happiness is attributable to your life circumstances. Are you rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy, married or divorced? This leaves a surprising 40% of our capacity for happiness within our power. How we view and understand the other 40% then makes all the difference to our well-being. 

So to better understand happiness we need to also understand emotions. Even for Aristotle, happiness entailed experiencing the right emotions.

We tend to think of emotions as only feelings. Emotions are, in fact, a physiological alert system. It changes what we remember, the kind of decisions we make, and even how we perceive things. Better managing our emotions then could impact happiness.

So how do we do this? We need to look again at the brain. It has two more systems:

  • the reward system – it makes something look so attractive that you have to go after it. We rely on this system to change our habits for example. Primary reward examples include survival needs, such as water, food, and sexual contact. Secondary rewards, such as money, derive value from the primary rewards.
  • the pleasure system – it makes you say, “I like this.”

The reward system consists of wanting, learning, and pleasure liking. Pleasure is the most relevant to happiness. Dopamine drives reward-driven behavior and pleasure-seeking. Studies have revealed that reward-seeking behaviour increased dopamine transmission in the brain.

Learning #4: So one way to drive happiness is to increase your levels of dopamine naturally. Sonja, in her book, lists out 12 activities of happiness. You can use these activities to boost your dopamine. They are: 

  • Be grateful
  • Stay optimistic
  • Don’t overthink
  • Be kind
  • Become social
  • Learn to cope
  • Forgive others
  • Seize the moment
  • Be joyful
  • Become goal-oriented
  • Become spiritual
  • Stay physically and mentally fit

These activities can boost your happiness when put to work in your daily life. 

Growing research has also shown that people are born with a “happiness set-point”. It is a baseline for happiness to which you are bound to return, even after major setbacks or triumph. The set point for happiness is like the set-point for weight. Some people are skinny irrespective of what they do. Others have to work hard to keep their weight at a desirable level. The moment they slack they creep back to their baseline.

Learning from the longest study on happiness

This wouldn’t be a worthwhile article if I didn’t reference the longest study on happiness. For over 80 years Harvard tracked the lives of over 750 men. 268 of them were Harvard sophomores in 1938. (Fun fact: President John F. Kennedy was one of those men) 19 of them are still alive and in their 90’s. The study expanded in the 1970’s to include 456 Boston inner-city residents, 40 of whom are still alive. Later, the scientists also expanded their research to include the men’s offspring. A decade ago the Harvard Study of Adult Development started including women.

The study tracked everything about the lives of these subjects. These were the biggest learning from the study:

Learning #5: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier.

A big surprise was that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships have a powerful influence on our health.

Learning #6: Social connections are really good for us, and loneliness kills. 

People that are more connected to family, friends and their community, are happier and healthier. They also live longer than people who are less well connected. It also turns out that loneliness is toxic. People who are more isolated than they want to be from others are less happy. Their health declines earlier in midlife. Also, their brain functioning declines sooner and they live shorter lives. Here’s the scary thing –  three in five Americans (61%) report feeling lonely, compared to more than half (54%) in 2018. (Check this Infographic)

Learning #7: It’s not about the number of friends you have, or whether you’re in a committed relationship. It’s the quality of your close relationships that matters.

Living in and around conflict is bad for our health. High-conflict marriages, for example, turn out to be very bad for our health. It is even worse than getting divorced. Living in a good, warm relationship is protective.

Learning #8: Good relationships don’t just protect our bodies, they protect our brains. 

The study identified that if partners could count on one another in times of need then their memories stay sharper longer. Those good relationships didn’t have to be smooth all the time. Some of the couples could bicker with each other all day every day. But as long as they felt that they could count on each other during times of need it didn’t take a toll on their memory.

Also, the people in the study who were the happiest in retirement were the people who had worked to replace workmates with new playmates. Most started as young adults believing that fame and wealth and high achievement were what they needed to go after to have a good life. Throughout the study, it was clear that the people who fared the best were the people who leaned into relationships. Relationships with family, with friends, and with the community.

Money and happiness

“Money can’t buy happiness.” How many times have you heard or read this sentence? 

Here is what I found about why that sentence is wrong. 

A 2010 study by Deaton and Kahneman found that “emotional well-being” peaks at $75,000. This is the origin of the popular belief that money can’t buy happiness. “Emotional well-being” is an indicator of people’s moods. The study captured it by asking people about their emotions the day before. Do you think that is an adequate measurement of happiness?

The other holistic measure of happiness is “life satisfaction” or “subjective well-being”. If you look at data for life satisfaction you do not find a plateau. Check out this solid analysis that Dylan Mathhews did of the study results.  So there is strong evidence that proves life satisfaction goes up with each rung of income.

Learning #9: The notion that money can’t buy happiness isn’t true.

So apart from the use of money for materialistic happiness how else can having more money make us happier? The answer lies in how you choose to spend your money.

Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton (co-authors of Happy Money) found that the right spending habits can change a person’s physical and emotional well-being.

They go on to recommend five principles to follow that can assist with translating your purchases into happiness. They are:

Learning #10: Buy experiences – Buying material goods runs you the risk of suffering from buyers remorse – the worry that you could have made a better choice. Opt instead of spending money on experiences. They don’t have to be elaborate. Look for experiences that connect you with others and reinforce your self-image.

Learning #11: Make it a treat – The way to find renewed pleasure in your activities is to introduce novelty. For example, spice up your relationship by engaging in activities that you have never done in the past. Bought a new Rolex? Don’t use it every day.

Learning #12: Buy time – The amount of money you have has little influence on your happiness. But “time affluence” does impact your sense of well-being. Turn decisions about money into decisions about time. For example, you can choose to book a more expensive direct flight to reach home earlier.

Learning #13: Pay now, Consume Later – There is pleasure in anticipation. Monthly subscription services like Birchbox, built its entire business around this. For $10 a month, Birchbox sends its customers monthly boxes with samples. Fans take to social media as soon as announcements on new boxes. So practice delayed gratification.

Learning #14: People who spent money on others got happier. People who spent it on themselves, nothing happened. It didn’t make them less happy, it didn’t do much for them. Also, the amount of money or the context under which you spent on others doesn’t matter. 

Being grateful

It was all too common for me growing up. Interacting with the poorest of poor people in India. I saw firsthand how even a poor person seemed so happy. A big reason for this is because the poor person practices grateful living. What does being grateful mean? We have all experienced the feeling of being grateful in our lives. Two things, according to David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, need to happen to be grateful. You have to receive something valuable to you and it has to be a real gift. 

Learning #15: To be happy, we cannot only have grateful experiences. We need to live in gratitude.

We can live in gratitude, according to David, by recognizing that every moment is a gift. If we didn’t have this moment we would never have an opportunity to do or experience anything. The opportunity then becomes the gift within the gift of a moment. If we miss the opportunity of this moment, another moment is given to us and on and on. How we choose to view and avail the opportunity is where happiness then lies. It is a fact that not every moment is positive. Bereavement being a case in point. It’s a challenge to rise to that opportunity, and we can rise to it by learning something. This process is sometimes painful. Learning patience, for example. How do we do this? According to David, we must

Learning #16: Stop, look and go – Take time to pause. Be grateful for everything you have in your life. From small things like access to running water to larger things like shelter, food and family. 

In conclusion, studies on happiness will continue to evolve. The learning laid out here can transform how you choose to live your life. Barring clinical depression which requires medical intervention, happiness is attainable. Through some diligent effort and practice, you can upgrade the quality of your life.

Knowing what you know now about happiness, what did you find most surprising? Which of these learning will you experiment with first? Leave a comment below.

TL;DR: Click here to download the summary of all learning and action items from this article

Note: The Univ. of California Berkeley has a popular free course on happiness called The Science of Happiness if you want to learn more about happiness.

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10 practical things to do when under quarantine

Habits, Happiness, Health, Psychology

The pandemic is real and we are all under quarantine. You could continue to waste your time monitoring the news for COVID-19 updates. You could also seize this opportunity to do something constructive and practical. 

Here is a list of 10 practical things, beyond work, that you can start immediately when under quarantine (assuming that you are well):

1. Reinforce or refine your daily routine

One of the easiest things to let slide when you have time on your hands are your daily habits. This is a great time to force yourself to think about what you do everyday. Reinforce it or customize a fun new routine.  

What you could do: Start by thinking about all the tasks you do. Write down what do you do when you wake up in the morning. Then write down what you do before you leave the house. Repeat the same for things you do when you return.

List everything down.

Tick everything that you want to continue. Add in or substitute things you want to try or change. Practice. Doing this gets you to be more mindful of the things you do everyday. You also get the opportunity to get prescriptive with your routines.

What I am doing: I have decided to stick to the major things in my routine. For e.g. waking up and sleeping early (same times as I usually do) and drinking a liter of warm water on waking. I have substituted a few things too. For e.g. I have replaced my regular small snacks throughout the day with a glass of water.

2. Learn something new

Having some downtime is a great opportunity to learn something new. Always wanted to master a magic trick? Or practice a musical instrument? What a perfect time to start. You can even learn the Science of Well-Being for free.

What you could do: Again start with a list. It could be a new thing for every day. Make sure you choose something that would be easy to learn. An alternative could be picking one task and practicing it everyday for the entire time you are at home.  Good thing about this is you can continue doing this once normalcy returns. Quick wins are what you are after.

What I am doing: One thing I am doing is refining my cooking skills using the instant pot. I am taking over cooking duties for a few meals for the entire family. I went further and have recruited my kids to play sous chefs.

3. Play a multiplayer game (that forces you to think)

Think chess or games that requires an opponent or collaborator. Keeping your mind active is key. What better way than to engage in a game that requires mental agility. If you have family around, get them involved. If you live alone, get online.

What you could do: For those of you that live alone, try games like chess or words with friends (aka scrabble). For parents, get the kids involved. Board games are fun too (if you have any lying around).

What I am doing: I have created my own games that I play with the kids. This gets me to first figure out a game that would keep my kids entertained.

4. Sleep (turn off the netflix, disney+ and get shut eye)

This is not the time to stay up late. Get your 8 hours in if you can. The only reason why you would break this is if you are doing things that are income generating. Everything else can wait.

What you could do: Build a daily timetable for the day before sleeping the previous night. This gives you something to look forward to for the next day. Set a goal for your sleep time and try sticking to it. Turn off all your electronics. Having trouble sleeping? Youtube “Sleep Meditation.” Hit play. Flip your screen to avoid glare. I promise you’ll be sleeping within the hour.

What I am doing: I have a target sleep time programmed to my fitbit. It gives me an advance reminder of when it is time to hit bed. This is usually the time I try to stop using my technology. I often use sleep meditation tracks to help me get my Z’s.

5. Exercise everyday

At least do your 10K steps a day. No excuses, you can do it. To make things easier plug in your headset and play an audiobook, podcast or music to help you. A step counter helps. If you don’t own one there are plenty of free apps on your phone that can do the same (for all your droid users in particular). Take this one step further. Use Youtube online guided exercise tutorials and get things moving.

What you could do: You don’t need to have a full fledged gym at home to get your workout on. Run in place or do squats. Do push ups on a chair, or fill trash bags with water and use a broom to make a barbell. This last one is usually practiced in prison so please don’t go to this extreme. But you get my drift.

Feeling trapped indoors? Take a step outside for fresh air. Go biking or for a run or walk. Needless to say, avoid crowds.

What I am doing: Dance hour – We play a guided dance routine on Youtube and everyone in the household follows. We do this till we get bored. Exercise routines: My gym posts free workout at home routines daily on Youtube. Check them out here. Apart from this I don’t sleep before my Fitbit buzzes telling me I finished my 11K steps for the day.

6. Do a financial health check

I recognize this could be a source of frustration and worry for many. That said it is a good time to take stock of everything and perform a quick audit of all your finances.

What you could do: Comb through your expenses first. If cash is tight, start looking at unnecessary costs that you could cull. For e.g.: review all your subscription services to start. For example, you won’t be using your gym membership for the next few weeks. Explore options of putting that on an immediate pause. How many streaming services are you subscribed to? Can you make do with one? Next, if you are investing, take stock of performance levels of your portfolio. This isn’t a time to panic. Remember why you invested in the first place and always take the long term view.   

What I am doing: A complete net worth calculation. I am mapping and tallying all income streams, expenses and cash in hand. All this while keeping in focus my medium and long term financial goals.

7. Try your hand at writing

Great time to get your creative juices flowing. If nothing else, think of writing as therapy. Writing not your thing? Don’t let that stop you. Record a podcast or a video. Use your time to create and/or capture.

What you could do: Remember the words you put down could help and heal others. You could also catalog your thoughts and feelings through this period. All you need is a laptop or phone.

What I am doing: Putting my advice into practice.

8. Start or complete a side project

This is broad. You may have things around the house that need fixing. Pet projects that you have been meaning to get to but haven’t yet found the time. You could clean a room. Or you could start reading again and work on a side hustle. Whatever it is, this is a good time to start.

What you could do: Make a list of all things you have been meaning to do and not gotten to yet. Next rank order them by complexity and time needed. My advice would be to start with the projects that would take you the least time to complete. For each project you choose, break things down into sub tasks. Rank ordering by time needed and complexity help here again. Celebrate your win once you complete major milestones. Work your way down the list.

What I am doing: Spending more time helping people through Betterment Academy. Reach out if you want to chat.

9. Execute “social closening” (Check in on friends and family that you haven’t chatted with in a while)

This isn’t a time to mend broken relationships. You are dealing with enough drama already. Instead reach out to old friends and family members that you are fond of but lost touch with. I used this time to send check-in messages to my long lost high school and college friends. They are all a message or video chat away. Skip your social media and make a call. I also got creative and combined Step 3 and Step 9 by playing an online game with my cousins. (Check out the game ‘Psych’ from Google Play store).

10. Set goals for the future

There is doom and gloom around us. Great! Perfect time to get positive and to look ahead. Time to set goals that you can look forward to achieving 3 year from now.

What you could do:

Start with a few categories (I have used Zig Ziglar’s Wheel of Life):

– Physical / Health,

– Family,

– Spiritual,

– Personal and Social,

– Mind / Intellect,

– Business / Career,

– Financial.

Setting goals in each category allows you to bring balance to your life. Start off with goals in areas you feel that you spend very little time on currently.

What I am doing: I’ll pick an area Mind / Intellect. My goal this year is to read 35 books (down from my goal of 50 last year). I am using quarantine time to catch up on some extra reading to hit my goal quicker.

I know this isn’t an exhaustive list. If you had to add something else what would it be? If you had to pick one from the list above what would it be and what concrete action steps will you take?

Hit my comments below or shoot me a direct message with your answers.

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One powerful skill you can learn from watching FRIENDS

Habits, Skills

I was out for lunch a few weeks ago with a business acquaintance. Through the course of our lunch the conversation drifted from current project work to family, to passions, to discussing important skills that we thought well.. make successful people successful. I engaged him further by asking him this: “What, according to you, is the most important skill that differentiates a successful salesperson from the rest?”

His answer was simple: The skill of LISTENING

Listening!? Not exactly the response I expected but the answer resonated. The thought of successful salespeople conjure up images of the famed Alec Baldwin’s ‘Always Be Closing’ scene from Glengarry Glen Ross or Leo’s outstanding phone skills in  ‘Wolf Of Wallstreet’. Hell! if I asked you to name me someone successful I’m pretty certain that you would reference someone who ‘talks’ eloquently. In reality, however, one of the best kept secrets of successful people (not just salespeople) is their ability to ‘listen’ effectively.

If you want to become great at interaction you need to first acknowledge and understand the importance of listening and then learn how to become great at it. Have you ever really taken the time out to become aware of how you listen? I wouldn’t be surprised if you said “No”. I can tell you this, ever since I recognized its importance a few years ago I have used listening to 10x my ability to have deeper interactions. But more on that later. First, lets see how good of a listener you are:

The ultra quick listening test

  1. Do you find yourself interrupting a person a lot when she is talking? (Yes / No)
  2. Do you find that your mind wanders 10 – 15 mins into a presentation, talk or discussion? (Yes / No)
  3. In conversation with a spouse (relative) or client (business partner) do you find yourself doing a majority of the talking? (Yes / No)

If you have answered ‘Yes’ to the above questions you know you have room to become better at listening. I can almost hear many wives (girlfriends) saying YES to question 3. Husband’s (boyfriend’s) kindly re-visit Question 2 if you have answered NO to Question 3. Busted!

So, what does it really mean to be a good listener? It pays to remember that we are blessed with two ears and one mouth. The human body is telling us something – ‘Listen more talk less’. It is by design – let’s not fight it. When I embarked on trying to make myself a better listener, I started first by observing people and noting key traits in good listeners. Here’s what I found all good listeners to do:

  • Always give you the sense that they are in the moment with you: When you are talking to a good listener they are always respectful and let you complete your thoughts. They give you the sense of being present and engage with you with their eyes not their mouths.
  • Asks more questions than give opinions: If you want to be the most interesting person at a party – ask the best questions and then shut up. That and ‘bust out your funky dance moves’ (NO! I am not going to get into the specifics of how good listeners do the ‘Gangnam Style’!). Dance moves aside, good listeners ask more questions and speak when they feel they have earned the right to comment.
  • Are great with empathy: Good listeners tend to have a better handle on their emotions overall and are strong at being empathetic. They are quick to put themselves in your shoes and get a sense of where you are and respond accordingly. They engage in conversation with an open-mind.

So why, you may ask, is being a good listener so important? It is simple really. A MAJORITY OF SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE ARE GREAT LISTENERS! If that isn’t enough I am diarizing a few more benefits below. Being a great listener allows you to:

  • Respond better to the needs to the person you are interacting with
  • Establish deeper more meaningful relationships
  • Rapidly develop a trusted advisor relationships with colleagues, clients, suppliers and business partners. (Think about how Leo won over the client’s trust over the phones)
  • Become the “<insert name>, only you seem to get me” person
  • Become a confidant that people come to in times of need

…the list goes on.

So how does the TV Show F.R.I.E.N.D.S figure into an article on Listening skills?  Let me show you. First, If you have never watched the TV Show F.R.I.E.N.D.S (arguably the most successful TV sitcom) – Shame on you! If your excuse involves your age – Shame on you for giving excuses! Go watch this ‘Funniest Friends Moments’ (Warning: It is an hour long and seriously addictive) and if you really want to geek out a little then check out the character profiles at ‘Friends Characters’ If that isn’t enough geek for you then here you go ‘All Episode Summaries On A Single Page’

Having grown up watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S episodes on repeat I grew to love the characters and storyline. When I learned that psychologists have conducted investigations around the cultural impact of the show, it only seemed fitting and fun to explore the listening prowess of these famed TV show characters. So here we go:  

CharacterKey listening traitsMy rating
Monica
She likes to talk but not always about herself. She balances
out her talking with playing the supportive friend when
called for. She is more mature (not to mention her interest
in ahem! mature men).		Fair
ChandlerHe is a good observer of his environment and reads
situations well. This lends to his good listening abilities. But
think about it he almost has to be a good listener because
how else would he have been able to get with Monica and
marry her? He listens and makes sure he responds with quick
wit and humour.		Good
Rachel
 Her listening skills has a direct correlation to her questionable
basic life skills. This means that most things spoken in
conversation was ‘news’ or ‘information’ for her – so she
listened. That and there was no way she could handle the
Gellar siblings if she was a poor listener.		Fair
RossHe is an intelligent, hopeless romantic who wallows in self
pity. If you are thinking too much about yourself the chances
of you being a good listener are almost slim. He loves talking
more about his problematic situations instead of listening to
others. But I’m glad he is who he is as there would be no
F.R.I.E.N.D.S without Ross.		Poor
Joey Joey’s listening abilities need little explanation. From his
funny pick up lines to the infamous ‘How You Doin?’
Trademark, if there is one thing Joey can do it is ‘talk’.  But I
must commend him on the marked improvement towards
the end of the series. He didn’t get there without some serious
effort.		Poor
Phoebe
Phoebe is empathetic. Ignore her constant need to burst into
uncontrollable laughter and what you see is a woman with
strong emotional intelligence and a problem solver. She is also
kindhearted and puts the needs of others before her own.		Good
Gunther Who doesn’t like this barista? One look at him and you know
that he is an exceptional listener (almost bordering on creepy).
It is almost as if his ears were designed for eavesdropping.
Gunther’s flaw, however, lies in his inability to respond and
take action.		Good

So there you have it – my F.R.I.E.N.D.S character debrief (Listening special).

How can I become as good as Phoebe (or Gunther..uhmm) you may ask? I encourage you to use my LISTENING CHECKLIST to 10x your listening skills and deepen your interactions:

  • Take Notes: Few people do. By taking down notes when talking to people you move from being a passive listener to an active listener. The practice of writing things down during conversation also allows you to draw connections quicker. Fringe benefits include always having a record of a conversation as a reference tool. Good note taking immediately sets you apart from the crowd.
  • Ask Genuine Questions: Start by asking genuine open-ended questions and listen actively for responses. The key here is asking genuine questions. Be authentic and not flaky. On getting responses drill down further using more open-ended questions e.g: Why do you think that…? What do you think about…? etc.
  • Use The ‘I’m Sorry’ Technique: Always wait for the other person to complete her entire thought before you respond. This is hard. You will almost instinctively feel the need to interject – DON’T. One technique I have adopted to make myself more self aware of interrupting is by apologizing to the person I am talking with e.g: “I am sorry I cut-in there but..” While there is no excuse to interruption the I’m Sorry Technique allows for you to move the mic back to the other person mid-conversation. Using this technique has made me self aware and allowed me to drastically drop the number of times I interrupt someone’s thought or sentence. If you feel the urge to interrupt refer back to Point 1 (Take Notes). Put your questions down on paper.
  • Observe Emotions: Be sensitive to the emotional state of the person you are conversing with. Is she happy, sad, tired etc. Being aware of a person’s emotional state allows for you to change the questions you ask and allows for you to set the empathy notch to the right levels.

So tell me……Which F.R.I.E.N.D.S characters do you think you represent (be honest here)? What is the one thing you will you do to become a better listener?

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How my traffic tickets unlocked the best kept secrets of habit change

Habits, Psychology, Skills

I consider myself somewhat of an expert at habit change. After all, I have been successful at it ever since I was a kid. I beat the incessant nail-biting, reduced my overuse of the word ‘no’ and conditioned myself to wake up early (4 am!) to study. All this, I figured then, was the result of some mysterious subconscious drive. I was happy to have it.

Fast forward 15 years. As a licensed driver in North America, you must adhere to several rules and regulations. Having grown up in the Indian subcontinent this was alien to me at first. Not to say there are no rules in India but no one seems to follow them. So my success then, I gathered, was again due to subconscious awareness (that and my Schumacher-like driving skills).

“If you can drive in India, you can drive anywhere in the world.”

If you are non-Indian and have ever ridden in a car with an Indian driver you have most likely heard this already. Let’s just say that if I heard a defendant use it to plead ‘not guilty’ to a traffic violation it wouldn’t be a surprise. That’s how overused the sentence is. Alas, this posts’ title reveals the real truth as much as it speaks to my Schumacher-like skills.

I remember zipping through fields in backcountry Ontario on a bright sunny afternoon. I was on my way to the mall to pick up something inconsequential. It was a beautiful day. Fields on my left, large farmhouses with tall hedges lining driveways on the right. No speed sign insight. Pedal to the metal! What happened next happened in slo-mo. Ironic given the speed I was at. It was too late to slow down. I spotted him behind one of those beautiful hedges. I think I saw him smile as he went to flip on the flashing lights while I zoomed by almost certain of our eye to eye contact. Busted! Sadly that was the first of a few more tickets I received over the course of the year.

Winds of change

Something had to change. These tickets were beginning to get expensive.  My subconscious which seemed to serve me so well when I was a kid had vanished. I needed to change and needed to change now! To do this I had to rely on my ability to dissect problems. This combined with wisdom from The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg set me on an informed path of recovery. Here’s what I learned about the science of habit change and I hope you can use this too.

The Habit Loop

Habits form as a result of a three stepped habit loop:

Cue (you have to find this) – Routine (you need to change this) – Rewards (you need to define this). Habits work like this – When I see a CUE, I will do a ROUTINE to get a REWARD. Habits create neurological Cravings. As you associate a cue with a reward, a subconscious craving emerges in our brain that starts the habit loop spinning. So to change a habit, you must:

  • recognize and keep the old cue,
  • deliver the old reward,
  • but insert a new routine.

It’s that simple! Not! but you can transform almost any behaviour can if you follow the loop. Let’s look at how I tried to change my driving habits with this newfound knowledge.

Tear down of my Need For Speed

To start off I knew I had to first become aware of what I was actually doing during normal driving situations. In essence, I needed to become more aware of my ROUTINE. These were some of my findings:

  • I would always speed up when I saw the traffic signal change to Amber. The hope was I beat the signal.
  • On seeing a speed sign I sometimes lowered my speed. The rest of the time I would ignore it.
  • I always drove in the high-speed lane and felt the constant need to overtake. This meant that I was always driving above the speed limit (within the generally accepted max limit of course)

So what were the CUES here? At signal stops it was the changing of the lights. While driving along a road speed signs formed the next cue. The third cue for me was a slower moving vehicle that was adopting the speed limit. What I was CRAVING for was getting to the destination on or ahead of time. So if I reached a destination ahead of or on time I was happy. This was my well-defined REWARD.

To change my habit I had to recognize the cues and change my routine to achieve my reward. Here’s what I did:

  • When I saw the amber light I hit the brake, not the accelerator. There were many times I kept going back to the old habit.  But with constant awareness, I started to change.
  • Whenever I saw a speed limit sign I would drop my speed down to the number posted on the sign (in all honesty I’d go to max 10 kmph above the posted limit).
  • My car has cruise control so I went a step further and used it to curb my need for speed. For those of you without cruise control, you need to beast mode it.
  • I have forced myself to use the middle lanes. I now only use the left lanes to overtake cars in front of me without increasing speed
  • To make sure I reach my destinations on time I now leave at least 5 to 10 minutes earlier whenever possible.

Read the list above again and notice I changed my routine when my old cues showed up.

What I learned about habit change

Here’s what I learned:

  • To change a habit you must cultivate a craving. Cultivating this craving helps drive the habit loop
  • Your reward needs to be well defined. Your brain needs to start expecting this reward when you complete a routine. That’s when you know you are on the right path.
  • A cue needs to trigger both the routine and the craving for the reward. If you don’t crave the reward you won’t change your habit.
  • Habit change takes time. You are not going to change habits over a week. It could take months sometimes years. Be realistic.
  • Habit changes quicken when in a group environment. Looking to become a first-time marathon runner? You would have a higher chance of success running with a group.
  • For other habits, I have found just talking to people about it often helps.

So what habit do you want to change this year? Can you identify the Cue, Routine and Reward?

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