In the two previous posts in this miniseries, we’ve learned how to use The Diderot Effect in a positive way to our advantage, and how to create a chain of new habits by stacking them all together.
Since the secret to success lies in the selection of the right cues to kick things off, today we’ll be talking all about cues.
First, as obvious as it may seem, it’s important to realize that the timing of the cue must be relevant and realistic to the new routine you want to create. James Clear writes:
“When and where you choose to insert a habit into your daily routine can make a big difference. If you’re trying to add meditation into your morning routine but mornings are chaotic and your kids keep running into the room, then that may be the wrong place and time. Consider when you are most likely to be successful. Don’t ask yourself to do a habit when you’re likely to be occupied with something else.”
Second, the frequency of the cue should be the same as of the new habit you want to instill. “If you want to do a habit every day, but you stack it on top of a habit that only happens on Mondays, that’s not a good choice.”
To find the right trigger for creating your new habit stack, the author suggests brainstorming a list of your current habits. You can download a free “Habit Scorecard” from his website, or simply create a list with two columns.
On the first column, you write the habits that you do every day, no matter what. For example, “get out of bed, take a shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, brew a cup of coffee, eat breakfast, take the kids to school, start the work day, eat lunch,” etc. Your list is going to be much longer than that, but you get where this is going.
On the second column, you write the things that happen to you always. For example, “the sun rises, you get a text message, the song you are listening to ends, the sun sets,” etc.
With your two-column list handy, then you can start looking for the best places to insert the cues to form your new habits. It’s important to note that the cue must be highly specific and immediately actionable, says Clear, otherwise, you run into ambiguity, which is certain to derail your habits. Let’s learn a lesson from the author:
“Many people set cues that are too vague. I made this mistake myself. When I wanted to start a push-up habit, my habit stack was ‘When I take a break for lunch, I will do ten push-ups.’ At first glance, this sounded reasonable. But soon I realized the trigger was unclear. Would I do my push-ups before I ate lunch? After I ate lunch? Where would I do them? After a few inconsistent days, I changed my habit stack to: ‘When I close my laptop for lunch, I will do ten push-ups next to my desk.’ Ambiguity gone.”
And there you have it. The more specific, precise, and clear on your cues and your instructions to act, the more the new habit will stick, as there won’t be room for inconsistency or confusion. “The specificity is important… After I close the door. After I brush my teeth. After I sit down at the table… The more tightly bound your new habit is to a specific cue, the better the odds are that you will notice when the time comes to act.”
Leave yourself no choice but to act in favor of establishing your new habits by setting up specific, timely, and relevant cues where they will give you the highest possibility of success.
So, what cue will you use to trigger the action for your new habit? Where will you stack it? Let me know in the comments here. As for myself, just as the author, I’m developing a push-up habit, so my cue will be “when I take a long break from my pomodoros, after setting the break time in my timer, I will do 12 push-ups right next to my desk.”
ACTION
TODAY: Make your two-column list of habits and things that happen so that you can figure out where you can insert your cues to trigger the new habit you want to build.
FUTURE: Set cues and stack habits where you will have the biggest possibility of success. Og Mandino said, “If I must be a slave to habit, let me be a slave to good habits.”
Know someone who would benefit from learning about cues and habit stacking? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
I’m thrilled and very proud of my friend, Scott Perry, who just published his second book, Endeavor, with tremendous success. Bravo Scott! In his words, “This is not a self-help book. It’s a help-others book.”
And no better day to help others than today, Giving Tuesday, the international day of charitable giving during the holiday season.
The book is a quick read, and it focuses on developing or furthering what Perry refers to as an Endeavor:
“It’s more than a hobby, but not necessarily your job or role. It is a vocation found at the intersection of who you are, what you’re good at, and where you belong. An endeavor is work that you are meant to do now. An endeavor cultivates gratitude because you don’t have to do it, you get to do it. It also generates appreciation in others because it is a gift generously shared with those who need it. Endeavors shun the status quo. These efforts intend to transform. Endeavors strive to help people get from where they are to where they want to be.”
The book is beautifully written, and Perry takes the time to distill to the very essence some key concepts to bring clarity to one’s endeavor. So, in the spirit of Giving Tuesday, I want to share some of the thoughts that the author writes in the book about gratitude, generosity, grace, compassion, and empathy, as they are the basis for doing work that helps others.
Gratitude is the appreciation for what you have and receive. You may be grateful for a tangible object or an intangible concept. Regardless, when you mindfully and genuinely practice gratitude, there is science that points to profound benefits, not the least of which is a feeling of happiness.
Expressing gratitude acknowledges the goodness in your life. […] Gratitude encourages you to contextualize yourself, your circumstances, and your surroundings within a broader framework that acknowledges others. Appreciation inspires a feeling of belonging and supports an unselfish perspective. This all leads to a more sustainable approach to what is “enough.”
Generosity is the expression of kindness, understanding, and selflessness. […] It requires the recognition of others and therefore cultivates empathy and compassion. It leads to a feeling of “oneness” with others, which enhances the experience and emotional health of both the giver and receiver.
Developing your generous nature enables you to move beyond need and desire. Generosity helps you recognize that you are and have “enough.” You already possess an abundance of gifts. These gifts only have meaning through developing and sharing them.
Grace is the act of extending forgiveness or mercy. The word itself comes from the same root as that of gratitude and is embedded deeply into the practice of generosity. […] Grace is central to many of the world’s most impactful social movements. […] Nothing is more challenging than the pursuit and practice of grace. That’s why it’s so valued and worth your persistent effort. […] And grace begins with you. […] Be kind to yourself, and it will be much easier to extend kindness to others. Be full of grace.
Compassion is often conflated with empathy, but they are very different impulses. Empathy is the ability to feel and understand the state of mind of another. Compassion is feeling compelled to act on that recognition and to assist. Empathy requires effort; compassion demands action. Indeed, compassion is empathy in action. But there are still several important distinctions. Empathy is subjective; compassion is objective. Empathy is exhausting; compassion is energizing. […] Empathy is the gateway; compassion is the way.
I had the honor of appearing in Scott Perry’s wonderful podcast Creative on Purpose earlier this year. We had a fantastic conversation and would love to invite you to listen to it here.
ACTION
TODAY: This Giving Tuesday, pick a charity that resonates with your endeavor and give one (or more) of your three Ts: Time, Talent (skills) or Treasure (money). Being grateful for what you have and sharing it generously with others brings enormous benefits to both the giver and the receiver. (For more on the benefits of gratitude see this miniseries.)
FUTURE: If your time, talent and/or treasure allows, make it a habit of giving periodically. Your heart and soul will feel good, and the cause that you pick will benefit from your kindness and generosity.
Know someone who is a great giver? Please share this post! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
In parts 1, 2, and 3 of this miniseries we’ve been learning from A.J. Jacobs how to be more grateful and the importance of actively practicing gratitude towards our wellbeing. In today’s video (below), A.J. shares the importance of teamwork and seeing ourselves and what we do as part of something bigger, and he tells two great stories to illustrate this point. “We don’t do anything completely by ourselves,” he says. And that is true: we always have help and we can—and should—get it when we get stuck.
In the book, Jacobs mentions how we’re all interconnected and illustrates this point by mentioning the enormous efforts and logistics behind his cup of coffee:
“By the time I take a sip, the [coffee] bean has been on a nine-month-long journey of 2,500 miles across the equator. It has traveled by motorcycle, truck, boats, vans, pallets, shoulders, and forklifts. It’s been stored in buckets, bags, tubs and metal containers the size of a small apartment. It’s come down a tree, descended a mountain, docked in ports, navigated Customs, been loaded into a warehouse, rattled around in trucks.”
The author went on to thank virtually everybody in this supply chain. And when he realized that a lot of these efforts required steel, he decided to follow that trail and thank the people involved in making steel at the ArcelorMittal steel mill in Indiana.
“My coffee wouldn’t exist without steel. The ships and trains and trucks that carry the beans are made of steel, as are the stop signs and bridges and docks on their routes. Steel is in coffee scoopers and roasting machines, refrigerators and spoons […] brewing machines, and so much else necessary for my favorite drink.”
What struck Jacobs and made him realize that the loop was closing, was a conversation that he had during one of his final interviews with an engineer involved in forging steel. The engineer said, “Well, I’m grateful to coffee.” And then he went on to explain, “You have to thank the coffee itself. Because the steel workers drink a lot of coffee.”
Jacobs wrote that he loved the engineer’s point: “So meta, so recursive, and so true. You need coffee to make coffee. Coffee begets coffee.”
And he closes with a beautiful quote (both in the book as well as in the video) that recognizes how we are all interconnected. Our paths overlap and intersect everywhere. If we take the theory of the six degrees of separation—or the six degrees of gratitude that A.J. applied—we will see that it is, indeed, a very small world and that we need each other’s help all over the map to produce something as simple as a cup of coffee.
Today’s video (4:21 min) is the last in this miniseries on gratitude. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! Let me know which was your favorite part in the comments here.
And if you are in New York, please join me on December 4 at the Business Library for a fireside chat on gratitude and business with the wonderful A.J. Jacobs. Here are the details.
ACTION
TODAY: Something fun to do: As part of the recent launch of his Thanks a Thousand book, A.J. decided to send 1,000 handwritten thank you notes to his readers. If you’d like him to send you one, simply go to ajjacobs.com/thanks.
FUTURE: Pick something that you really like and go on a gratitude trail. It doesn’t have to be as extensive as A.J.’s, yet you can make it as interactive and fun as you wish. Involve your loved ones, friends or colleagues. They’ll have fun too and you’ll build beautiful memories together. Spread gratitude and it’ll come back to you many times over.
As part of the research A.J. Jacobs did when he was working on his gratitude project, he got in touch with author and researcher Scott Barry Kaufman at the University of Pennsylvania. Kaufman taught a course on positive psychology and gratitude, and told Jacobs the following:
Gratitude has a lot to do with holding onto a moment as strongly as possible… It’s closely related to mindfulness and savoring. Gratitude can shift our perception of time and slow it down. It can make our life’s petty annoyances dissolve away, at least for a moment.
Jacobs then, aptly says, “It’s hard to be grateful if we’re speeding through life, focusing on what’s next.”
While life tends to be a whirlwind for most of us, we should really give a second thought to slowing down and taking in both the small and big moments. In today’s video (below), A.J. shares that the very act of stopping to smell the proverbial roses is what seems to be one of the keys to gratitude.
However, as much as we’d like to change our crazy, fast-paced present for what sometimes seems to be a much more peaceful past, A. J. warns us not to long for a false illusion of a better time. “The good old days were not good at all,” he says.
And in the book he backs this up by emphasizing, “I firmly believe most nostalgia for the glorious past is delusional thinking.” He mentions that he used to write a monthly magazine column in which he would research “just how horrible the previous centuries were… disease-ridden, dangerous, cruel, racist, sexist, smelly, superstitious, and poisonous.”
He goes on to explain that he focused on food, but he also wrote about “childrearing (opium lozenges to calm kids), clothes (iron corsets to shape women’s waists, and jobs (nightmen, the eighteenth-century workers who would haul manure from houses).” And, both in the book as well as in the video, he shares a mantra that will make you cringe and be happy that we live in this day and age.
While there are indeed enormous challenges today that we must overcome, “the solution doesn’t lie in a return to yesteryear.” Nor does it lie in pinning our happiness to the other side of the spectrum—the future—via the so-called hedonic treadmill that he explains in the video.
Check out the 3rd video (4:03 min) in this miniseries to learn more about cultivating gratitude from A.J. Jacobs (here are videos 1 and 2 in case you haven’t seen them).
Which is your favorite way of practicing gratitude so far? Let me know in the comments here.
ACTION
TODAY: As you are still enjoying Thanksgiving leftovers with your family—or simply during a family meal—do what A.J. did last year: “We held a family competition to see who could come up with the most obscure person on our dinner’s supply chain. My 12-year-old son thanked the farmer who grew the cranberries for the sauce (Not bad). Another relative thanked the trucker who drove the cranberries to the factory (Decent). Someone thanked the designer of the logo on the stop sign so the truck didn’t get in an accident (Getting there). My nephew thanked the miner in South America who got the copper for the wiring in the traffic lights. (Pretty good).” How fun is that?!
FUTURE: Whenever you feel overwhelmed by all the negativity in the news, take one minute to recognize something that goes very well in your life and truly savor the gratitude for such a wonderful thing.
Know someone who would like A.J.’s tips? Please share this post! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
In yesterday’s post, we saw three habits of generosity that author and leadership guru, John C. Maxwell, suggests we develop to be more effective leaders. Today we’ll talk about one more habit, as well as specific actions we can take to improve our generosity and add value to others’ lives.
Develop the habit of giving. In 1889, Andrew Carnegie wrote, “The life of a wealthy person should have two periods: a time of acquiring wealth and [a time of] redistributing it.” Maxwell agrees with this point of view and says, “The only way to maintain an attitude of generosity is to make it your habit to give—your time, attention, money, and resources.”
Tomorrow we celebrate Thanksgiving in the U.S. And as we reflect on the upcoming season of gratitude and generosity, here are a few questions that Maxwell poses to make us think about our generosity as leaders:
Are you a generous leader?
Do you continually look for ways to add value to others?
Are you giving money to something greater than yourself?
And to whom are you giving your time?
Are you pouring your life into others?
Are you helping those who cannot help you or give anything in return?
A few years back I heard the concept of the three Ts:Time, Treasure (money, material possessions), and Talent (wisdom, knowledge, expertise, advice, help). While it would be fantastic if we could give something from all those three areas, think of giving, at least, from one of them (time, money, or knowledge/help). Research suggests that making generosity a regular habit may influence long-term wellbeing and happiness, so there’s a clear win-win for both the giver and the receiver.
At this point, you are probably wondering if there’s any way of improving your generosity. Maxwell offers the following three things that you can do to add value to others:
Give something away. “Find out what kind of hold your possessions have on you. Take something you truly value, think of someone you care about who could benefit from it, and give it to [him/her]. If you can do it anonymously, even better.”
Put your money to work. “If you know someone with the vision to do something really great—something that will positively impact the lives of others—provide resources for [him/her] to accomplish it. Put your money to work for something that will outlive you.”
Find someone to mentor. “Once you reach a certain level in your leadership, the most valuable thing you have to give is yourself. Find someone to pour your life into. Then give [him/her] time and resources to become a better leader.”
To be generous you don’t have to be a billionaire, simply start where you are and give of what you have. Sow seeds of generosity on fertile soil, and they will take root and provide value now and many times over in the future as they are replanted and harvested by others.
If you celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, I hope you will join me in this new lovely tradition that one of my favorite authors, Seth Godin, started: The Thanksgiving Reader. It’s been used by more than 100,000 people to date. And because I want even more people using it around the world, whether for Thanksgiving or for the upcoming Holiday Season, my sister and I translated it into Spanish (with Seth’s permission, of course) and you can download it here: The Thanksgiving Reader-ESPAÑOL.
ACTION
TODAY: Give some thought to improving your generosity by giving something away, putting your money to work, and/or finding someone to mentor. Alternatively, create your own “Project Generosity” with a specific goal and outline the steps you need to make it happen in a near future.
FUTURE: Put into action the thoughts from today. What steps do you need to take to accomplish the generous actions or improvements that you thought of? Whose generosity and help can you count on to make it happen? Don’t hesitate to do something bigger than yourself, simply consider doing it along with someone else: you’ll build a lovely experience and memory together.
Know someone who is very generous? Please share this post with that person. Thank you! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
“True generosity isn’t an occasional event,” he points out. “It comes from the heart and permeates every aspect of a leader’s life, touching his time, money, talents and possessions.”
Further, the author states that leaders don’t gather things just for themselves. Instead, they do it with the intention of sharing those things or giving them to others.
An effective leader, in Maxwell’s words, is someone that people want to follow. And one of the qualities of effective leaders is generosity.
So, how can we cultivate generosity to be an effective (or a more effective) leader?
Here are the habits that the author suggests we develop and nurture:
Be grateful for whatever you have. “It’s hard for a person to be generous when he’s not satisfied with what he has. Generosity rises out of contentment, and that doesn’t come with acquiring more.”
Maxwell shares a quote from one of the richest men in history, John D. Rockefeller, who said, “I have made millions, but they have brought me no happiness.” To which Maxwell replies, “If you’re not content with little, you won’t be content with a lot. And if you’re not generous with little, you won’t suddenly change if you become wealthy.”
Put people first. “The measure of a leader is not the number of people who serve him, but the number of people he serves. Generosity requires putting others first. If you can do that, giving becomes much easier.”
Don’t allow the desire for possessions to control you. Maxwell quotes a friend of his who says that people are divided into three groups: “Haves, have-nots, and have not paid for what they have.” The author points out that a growing number of people are “becoming enslaved to the desire to acquire.” This obsession comes out of a false illusion of control (owning) and the anticipated happiness that people hope the purchase will bring.
Happiness, as we know, comes from within. So, Maxwell says, “If you want to be in charge of your heart, don’t allow possessions to take charge of you.”
Regard money as a resource. Maxwell shares with us the unfortunate, yet popular view that when it comes to money, you can’t win. “If you focus on making it, you’re materialistic. If you try to but don’t make any, you’re a loser. If you make a lot and keep it, you’re a miser. If you make it and spend it, you’re a spendthrift. If you don’t care about making any, you’re unambitious. If you make a lot and still have it when you die, you’re a fool—for trying to take it with you.”
Fortunately, we don’t have to see money that way. There is, indeed, a way to win with money: “hold it loosely—and be generous with it to accomplish things of value.”
“Money is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. If it gets on top and you get under it, you will become its slave.” – E. Stanley Jones
Come back tomorrow for Part 2 where we will continue looking at habits to develop and practical ways to improve our generosity as a leader.
In the meantime let me know in the comments here: Who has done something generous for you lately?
And I’ll share my answer to that question with you: I am grateful for the generosity of my friend Andre Piazza, co-host of Octanage Podcast, for having me on his show this week. The podcast shares the life and success of entrepreneurs in Brazil and, thus, it’s in Portuguese. Yet since it’s been years that I don’t speak it, I’ve forgotten most of it, so Andre kindly allowed me to speak in Spanish instead. The result? An awesome bilingual podcast where we had a ton of fun! 🙂 If you understand either Portuguese or Spanish you’ll be able to follow along. Check it out!
ACTION
TODAY: Think about what generosity means to you. Who has done something generous for you? How can you pay it forward in the same way or differently?
FUTURE:John Bunyan wrote “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” What can you do for someone who can never repay you?
In the spirit of generosity, please share this post with someone who has shared something of value with you. Thank you! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
TODAY’S IDEA: New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 3
