Version: 201611 | Status: Complete
| *Audible: 0:00-23:30 | Page: xi - xx* |
Lisa - an individual who was a mess, but got her life together after changing her habits
Her keystone habit - quitting smoking, changed all other aspects of her life
Situation:
Violence was proceeded by crowd in open space - food vendors, spectators appear and once violence started, all hell would break loose.
Request: Keep food vendors out of the plaza.
Result: Crowd in open space. At dusk, the crowd got restless and hungry. With no food vendors, the spectators left, the chanters became dispirited, and everyone was gone.
| *Audible 23:30 - 1:27:00 | Page 1-30* |
Eugene Polly (EP) - Due to health issues, gained short term memory disability.
HM - Seizures throughout his life. Gave permission/consent to do risky surgery, which reduced his seizures, but his memory had been erased. He couldn’t retain any new information for more than 20 seconds.
Rats going through maze
Basil Ganglia - stores habits, converts actions into automatic routine (called “chunking”).
Habits emerge because the brain is looking for ways to save effort (allowing the mind to ramp down more often), allowing our brain to think less.
Habits look for a cue / trigger to start, then starts the routine (which is physical, mental, or emotional) and ends on the reward. This helps our brain figure out if this is worth remembering in the future. Enough of this causes a craving, which creates a habit.
Habits reduce decision making.
The brain cannot determine the difference between good and bad habits.
Both good and bad habits cannot change - but you can override habits.
Game of cards (face down), laid out in the same spots. Eugene had to guess which were the correct cards. He couldn’t remember what the exercise was, but due to the habit loop (cue - card placements, and reward - “correct symbol”), he got close to 100% after time.
| *Audible 1:27:00 - 2:32:22 | Page 30-59* |
Claude C. Hopkins - Advertiser
Best known for Rules to create new habits
Craving creates the habit loop
Find a simple and obvious cue - then clearly define the rewards (e.g. Tooth film -> Beautiful teeth)
Exercise is more successful if there is a cue and reward
Research on dieting requires cue (meal plans) and rewards (guilt free TV watching)
Drake Stinson - a rising executive for selling Fabreeze
Fabreeze failed because the cue, bad smell, was hidden from the people that needed it most.
Monkey that got juice from trigger.
When the juice did not arrive/was watered down, it created a craving.
Habit Loop: Cue -> Routine -> Reward -> Craving that restarts
Cravings production addiction like reaction: Wanting evolves into obsessive craving that can force our brains into auto pilot, even in the face of loss of reputation, job, home, family
Cinnabon - want the smell to travel, uninterrupted
Exercise habits start on a whim - but the reward has to be positive and an individual has to crave the reward.
| *Audible 2:32:23 - 3:51:30 | Page 60-93* |
Dungy + Football + Habits to success
Bill Wilson (1935) + Drinking + Religion + Alcoholics Anonymous
Nail-biter + Notecard to replace habit
Drunk guy + kids injured
| *Audible 3:51:30 - 5:00:00 | Page 97-126* |
Paul O’Neill & Alcoa
Keystone habits - a habit that changes other habits
Michael Phelps
Grit - The tendency to work strenuously towards challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity and plateaus in progress
Grit emerges from a culture that people create for themselves, and that culture is created through keystone habits
Westpoint - A hard school. Group of guys where, in the morning, they get together to ensure everyone is feeling strong. Go to them if you’re feeling worried or down and they’ll pump you back up. Cadets who are successful arrive with mental and physical discipline. To but succeed, they need a keystone habit that creates a culture (such as a daily gathering of like minded friends) to help find strength to overcome obstacles
Keystone habits creates cultures, that, in the face of a difficult situation/moment, we might otherwise forget
| *Audible 5:00:00 - 5:59:30 | Page 126-153* |
Travis and his drugged up parents, a high school dropout and couldn’t hold a job at McDonalds
Starbucks trains individuals to improve willpower
What did Travis learn?
Children who can resist the temptation of a marshmallow (eat one now or hold off and get two later) do better later in life
Willpower is a learn-able skill
Cookies & Radishes experiments - some kids ate cookies and some kids ate radishes
Then, they did the impossible tracing exercise.
Cookie eaters spent around 19 minutes
Radish eaters spent around 8 minutes
Willpower is a muscle - how far does this analogy extend?
Willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success
Self discipline predicted
Academic improvement program focusing on study habits - students also smoked less, drank less, watched less tv, and ate healthier
Forcing yourself to do something - is changing how you think. Your brain is practiced at focusing on a goal.
Signing kids up for piano lessons/sports is so important because - when you force yourself to do something, you build self regulatory strength
A 5 year old who can follow the ball becomes a 6th grader who can start is homework on time
Entry level workers face a common problem - even if they want to do a great job, many will fail
Starbucks is not in the coffee business, serving people. They’re in the people business, serving coffee.
Boost willpower of people resistant to change - write down their plan
Willpower becomes habit -> by choosing certain behavior ahead of time and following that routine when an inflection point (change/issue) arise
Howard Schultz - Chairman and CEO of Starbucks
Mother asked questions: How are you going to study tonight? How do you know you’re ready for your test? Trained to set goals.
Students’ willpower muscle had been fatigued by brusk instructions (unkind instructions). Key difference was the sense of control they had
| *Audible 5:59:31 - 7:02:30 | Page 154-181* |
Rhode Island hospital: Nurse VS Doctor and doctor operates on the wrong side of the brain
Small inputs interfere with people’s decisions, opinions, until there is a consensus
Routines create truces between warring groups
Nelson & Winter - companies aren’t big happy families, executives compete for power and credit
Divisions compete for resources and sabotage each other for glory.
Organizations have civil wars - but there are often truces
How to be successful at work - who is trustworthy, who has more power - are the habits you rely on.
If you were to create a map and overlay it with your colleagues would create a map of the firm’s secret hierarchy - who knows how to make things happen and who doesn’t
Fire in Train station - all the departments aren’t in charge of Fire Safety
Reform is only possible one crisis has occurred
Good leaders seize crisis to remake organizational habits
| *Audible 7:02:31 - 8:10:10 | Page 182-212* |
Data expert for Target and asked: “Can you figure out which customers are pregnant, even if they don’t want us to know” ?
Grocery Store: Healthy stuff = Buying unhealthy stuff later on
Shopper turn right after entering = More expensive things on the right
Cereal and soup categorization = if things are unorganized, you linger and search the shelves
Hey-ya! It was a potentially successful pop song - but it wasn’t familiar or sticky (a person will not change the channel if this song comes on).
To make it familiar - wrap in between familiar songs
Gym - wrap exercise with something familiar (the need for social interaction). If the gym remembers your name, or you go in a group, you’re more likely to go
| *Audible 8:10:11 - 9:20:25 | Page 213-244* |
Rosa Parks, an African american, wouldn’t give up her seat for a Caucasian individual
Social Habits: 3 Part Process
| *Audible 9:20:26 - 10:29:35 | Page 245-274* |
Angie Bachmann - Gambler - Lost her money. Was aware of her habits.
Thomas - Killed his wife while asleep. Found not guilty for killing his wife because he did not make a choice to kill his wife.
You can choose habits once we know how.
Any habit can be changed if you understand how they function
Each have a different queue and offer a unique reward
To modify a habit, you must decide to change it
You must consciously accept the hard work of identifying the queues and rewards that drive the habit’s routines and find alternatives
You must know you have control and be self conscious enough to use it.
Once you know a habit exists, you have the responsibility to change it.
Once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom and responsibility to remake them
Once you understand that habits can be rebuilt, the power of habit is easier to grasp and the only option left is to get to work
The will to believe is the most important ingredient to believe in change
Two fish swimming and a fish swims by and asks “How’s the water?”. One fish asks the others: “What’s water?”. Water surrounds you but you don’t notice it. Once you notice it, you have the power to swim.
| *Audible N/A - N/A | Page 275-286* |
| *Audible 10:29:35 - 10:52:55 | Page 287-298* |
Thousands of formulas for changing habits
Each person’s habits are driven by different cravings.
Identify the a habit loop: Cue, Routine, Reward. Implant old vices with new routines.
e.g. Eating a cookie every afternoon while socializing at the cafe
Change the loop with experiments
After each activity, jot first 3 things that come to mind when you get back to your desk
Set an alarm for 15m and ask yourself - do you feel the urge for that cookie?
Writing down forces momentary awareness for what you are thinking/feeling. Your words will give to recollection.
The point of these tests is to determine the reward you’re craving.
Environmental cues that say “we’re friends”, they misremember what they’ve heard (to please the questioner)
The Framework for changing habits: