Saving the New Year - Megan McArdle

This post by Megan McArdle doesn't at first glance appear to fall in the category of self-development and yet I feel it's worth sharing for her basic advice. 

Saving the New Year - Megan McArdle - Business - The Atlantic

The important thing is to pay yourself first. Savings should be the first thing you do, not the last. After you've saved, then you budget your consumption. I won't tell you what to cut, because when you confront your new, slightly leaner budget, you'll be perfectly able to calculate what's no longer worth the money to you. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that after a few weeks or a few months of initial pinch, you won't remember that you miss the money much.

Practical Wisdom: The Master Virtue | The Art of Manliness

This article nicely handles the subject of practical wisdom.

Practical Wisdom: The Master Virtue | The Art of Manliness

Willpower

This article in the Boston Globe nicely summarizes a book I just finished reading, Willpower: Rediscovering The Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney.

He and others have also identified a host of things that can drain our willpower, including hunger and fatigue, while neuroscientists are struggling to understand exactly how the brain’s higher reasoning center - the prefrontal cortex - manages conflicting wants and needs to help us make the right decisions. The reason for all this interest? Willpower, it turns out, is one of the most important predictors of success in life.

I found this book interesting because it says something different from the self-help books I’ve recently read. Several books I’ve read talk about making change easier by offering tricks, tips and tactics to accomplish the desired change. However these books don’t explicitly say that you still need to by exert willpower to initiate whatever actions you do take. Applying their tips still starts with a decision to do something and the will to actually do it enough to see a change.

Video Critique: Steve Jobs (Stanford Commencement, 2005) Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

Because I give many presentations as part of my job I've read a number of books extolling Steve Job's style, and rightfully so. Here is an interesting critique.

Video Critique: Steve Jobs (Stanford Commencement, 2005) Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

Winning Body Language Review

I've read a number of books on body language so when I started to read Winning Body Language I expected just more of the same. I was wrong. Mark Bowden, author of Winning Body Language, offers some different advice than the usual based on his own approach called the TruthPlane.

Bowden divides our body into different planes, each of which is best suited for different kinds of communication. For most presentations (and communication) Bowden recommends that our gestures stay in the TruthPlane, the horizontal plane extending from the navel.

If you can concentrate on sending out nonverbal messages that are easy for the receiver to interpret correctly – clearly coded, with congruent images and sound – then the audience’s brains stand a far greater chance of relaxing and getting your meaning in the way you intended.

The navel is indeed the control center of your physical balance and the center of your biological mechanism for coping with stress.

Placing your hands in the TruthPlane is the single most effective way for the business communicator to fight back effortlessly against the natural stress reaction and send out a clear signal to the audience that there is no problem.

While most of our gestures would occur in the TruthPlane Bowden also proposes other planes: PassionPlane at chest level for adding excitement, DisclosurePlane at the mouth level, ThoughtPlane (eye level) and EsctaticPlane (above the head).

All of these planes can be used at appropriate times while there is one plane, the GrotesquePlane (below waist level), where he says we should avoid placing our hands. Bowden claims this lowers energy. This contradicts advice I've seen in a couple other nooks which recommend dropping your hands to your sides when not gesturing. As a test I've paid attention to TV hosts who don't work behind a desk, politicians and actors. Many of them gesture mostly in the TruthPlane. I don't know if they were trained to do this or if they just do it subconsciously but my informal survey showed that many people use Bowden's TruthPlane.

He also suggests we use symmetrical gestures to make your message easier to process.

For a message that you send to stand the optimum chance of being interpreted correctly by the audience, it must be taken in coherently by both the left brain’s linguistic logic and the right brain’s nonverbal image processor. This means gesturing with more symmetry between the left side and the right side of the body.

Winning Body Language covers more than just giving presentations. It also talks about how to establish your territory in a room, how to break down barriers to communication and how to structure a presentation. While all of this information is good and useful I found the TruthPlane concept, the core of Winning Body Language, the part I apply the most. And that's the plane truth about the TruthPlane.

A Loser's Winning Moment by Jason Gay

I like this article on the Nadal-Djokovic Wimbledon final. After his introduction which says how easy it is to handle winning Gay says: "But do you really want to prove yourself, to be all-time and great? Learn to lose. Lose beautifully, with class and humility. Lose like Rafael Nadal."

Further on he says:

One of the great aspects of the Nadal-Federer era is that it demolished the myth that nice guys finish last. This isn't to say the rivals don't possess bountiful egos—they do—but there has been an encouraging layer of generosity and civility to the competition. It's a little pathetic how refreshing this is. Too often, antisocial behavior in sports is excused as a side effect of championship determination.

I agree. This was one of the things that bothered me when the Williams sisters were dominating woman's tennis. When they lost they often didn't give credit to the play of their opponent. I remember seeing at least one victory speech in which one of the Williams didn't even acknowledge their opponent. I have to say that this was several years ago. I was pleasantly surprised more recently when Serena graciously handled a loss.

I'm not saying we should like losing. I certainly am not happy when I lose a tennis match. But there is nothing to be gained by belittling your partner or concocting an excuse for losing. If my goal is to improve (which it is) it won't help my effort if I deny why I lost. I'm preventing learning important lessons that could help me play better. And I also do believe my opponent is a partner at least at the level of social sports which for most of us is what we're engaged in. We're not earning our living, landing endorsement deals or vying for trophies when we play sports with friends and colleagues. This is why I used the word "partner" earlier in this paragraph. We're testing each other, partly in order to grow and improve while also enjoying the battle. The fact that Nadal, Federer and others can handle losing as well as they do supports the sentiment expressed in the first quote from Gay.

Healthy Mind Platter

Siegel offers a somewhat different model than others. Other self-help authors talk about balancing different aspects of our external life: work, family, health, and etc. His turns the focus inwards towards what it takes to keep our brains healthy. Here is a summary from Siegel’s web site of the different dishes on the platter.

Focus Time: When we closely focus on tasks in a goal-oriented way, we take on challenges that make deep connections in the brain.

Play Time: When we allow ourselves to be spontaneous or creative, playfully enjoying novel experiences, we help make new connections in the brain.

Connecting Time: When we connect with other people, ideally in person, and when we take time to appreciate our connection to the natural world around us, we activate and reinforce the brain's relational circuitry.

Physical Time: When we move our bodies, especially aerobically, we strengthen the brain in many ways.

Time In: When we quietly reflect internally, focusing on sensations, images, feelings and thoughts, we help to better integrate the brain.

Down Time: When we are non-focused, without any specific goal, and let our mind wander or simply relax, we help the brain recharge.

Sleep Time: When we give the brain the rest it needs, we consolidate learning and recover from the experiences of the day.

Bounce, Clutch and Choke: Reviews

Why do some people perform well under pressure while others don’t? Why do some bounce back from adversity or come through in a clutch while others choke? That is the subject of three books, each of which tackles the subject from a different angle. Each author has different credentials as well.

The books are:

Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To by Sian Bielock

Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success by Matthew Syed

Clutch: Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Other Don't by Paul Sullivan

Sian Bielock is a professor who conducts research in this field. Matthew Syed, the author of Bounce, writes for The Times of London, is a commentator for the BBC and was three time Commonwealth table tennis champion and a two-time Olympian. Syed can speak from direct experience about performing under pressure. Paul Sullivan writes “Wealth Matters” column for The New York Times. So you have someone whose career studies performance, someone who performing at the world class level of table tennis and a financial columnist. As you can imagine each one looks at this issue a bit different and each author finds different reasons why we come through in a clutch or choke.

Bielock concludes that practicing under pressure enhances performance, even cognitive performance. She tells us the ability to control our thoughts and images play a crucial role. Bielock lists several tips to help us prevent choking such as reaffirming our self-worth, meditating, pausing before acting and reinterpreting our reactions. As an example of this last tip she encourages us to reframe a reaction such as “I am freaking out” about facing a challenge to “I am pumped for this test!”

Bounce also talks about the importance of practice. Syed draws on the research of Anders Ericsson, psychologist at Florida State University, who coined the term “deliberate practice.” Ericsson noticed that world class performers practiced in a different way than others. “When most people practice, they focus on the things they can do effortlessly. Expert practice is different. It entails considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you can’t do well – or even at all. Research across domains shows that it is only by working at what you can’t do that you turn into the expert you want to become.” Syed calls it purposeful practice. Why? “Because the practice sessions of aspiring champions have a specific and never-changing purpose: progress. World-class performance comes by striving for a target just out of reach, but with a vivid awareness of how the gap might be breached.”

This emphasis on purposeful or deliberate practice parallels Bielock’s recommendation to practice under pressure.

Bounce also ties in works I’ve reviewed here: Colvin’s Talent is Overrated, Coyle’s The Talent Code and Dweck’s Mindset.

Syed introduces another term as well: doublethink. Unlike many writers who urge us to focus only on the positive, Syed tells us we need both positive and negative thoughts. We need a positive focus to protect our self-belief while also noting our weaknesses that need to be improved.

He also explains how our brain has explicit and implicit systems. When we learn a new skill we operate on the explicit, conscious level. As we become proficient and develop mastery of a skill the brain hands over the performance to our implicit, subconscious system. It takes thousands of hours of purposeful practice to cement a skill into an unconscious mode. We choke when under the intense light of pressure we try to push the skill back into the explicit, inherently slower and more error prone system. As soon as we start to try to consciously control something we had automatized we run into trouble and can choke. Golfers call this a case of the "yips."

Sullivan’s Clutch draws some general conclusions by using examples of high performers in various fields. He believes people who choke share three traits: 1. They don’t take responsibility for choking, 2.They over think what they’re doing, and, 3. They fool themselves with overconfidence.

He then identifies five key traits of people who perform well: focus, discipline, adaptability, presence and being motivated by fear and desire. Sullivan’s last trait is similar to Syed’s recommendation to properly use both positive and negative thoughts.

So where does all of this leave us? Each book lays out somewhat different approaches. Are there common denominators? I think there are. While none of the ideas appeared in all three books there were several that popped up in two of them.

1. Practicing purposefully and under pressure.
2. Proper use of positive and negative thinking.
3. Being fully in the present while performing. This allows us to focus on the outcome instead of worrying about how we going to get to our goal. However we need to sharply focus on technique during purposeful practice. The combination of these ideas helps us avoid over thinking and overconfidence.
4. We need to be adaptable and use judgment when applying our principles.
5. When performing we can lessen the pressure by telling ourselves we’re not, say, serving for the winning game of the U.S. Open. We’re just serving any other game.

If forced to choose one of these books it would be a tough one but I’d lean towards Bielock’s Choke. I’d do so partly because her career is dedicated to learning why some people choke and why others don’t and because she offers more practical tips. Having said that any one of these books will help learn how to perform under pressure.