by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Productivity, Tools
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 1
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 3
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 13 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 2
— From Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
Yesterday we learned about The Diderot Effect: how to use it positively to create new habits and to make sure they stick via habit stacking.
But I told you there was more to this, and this is what I want to share today. The concept is simple: if habit stacking increases the likelihood that your new habits will stick, then you can actually create a chain of new habits by stacking them all together, using one habit to cue the next one for the whole routine you want to implement.
The author offers the following routines as examples.
Morning routine:
- After I pour my morning cup of coffee, I will meditate for sixty seconds.
- After I meditate for sixty seconds, I will write my to-do list for the day.
- After I write my to-do list for the day, I will immediately begin my first task.
Evening routine:
- After I finish eating dinner, I will put my plate directly into the dishwasher.
- After I put my dishes away, I will immediately wipe down the counter.
- After I wipe down the counter, I will set out my coffee mug for tomorrow morning.
You get the idea. Very simple but immensely powerful.
There are also a few iterations of this basic stacking principle to further help you achieve a particular goal. One of those iterations, says Clear, is to “insert new behaviors into the middle of your current routines.”
For instance, he points out to a routine like this:
Wake up > Make my bed > Take a shower.
What if you wanted to instill in you the habit of reading every night? You could modify your habit stack by adding the following:
Wake up > Make my bed > Place a book on my pillow > Take a shower.
That one change would mean you’d have a book waiting for you to enjoy in the evening before you go to bed.
Another tip that Clear shares is that of creating rules to guide your future behavior. “It’s like you always have a game plan for which action should come next.” And he gives the following examples to illustrate this point:
- Exercise. When I see a set of stairs, I will take them instead of using the elevator.
- Social skills. When I walk into a party, I will introduce myself to someone I don’t know yet.
- Finances. When I want to buy something over $100, I will wait twenty-four hours before purchasing.
- Healthy eating. When I serve myself a meal, I will always put veggies on my plate first.
- Minimalism. When I buy a new item, I will give something away. (“One in, one out.”)
- Mood. When the phone rings, I will take one deep breath and smile before answering.
- Forgetfulness. When I leave a public place, I will check the table and chairs to make sure I don’t leave anything behind.
The most important thing is picking the right cue to initiate the action. Over time and repetition, the habit will be built. And by virtue of having stacked it, it has no choice but to stick.
And just as I promised that there would be more info on new habits today, tomorrow this miniseries will continue with how to set the cues for best results. So, please come back to continue learning about creating new habits and creating the optimal conditions for them to stick.
ACTION
TODAY: Look at your routines and determine when would be the best step to stack that new habit.
FUTURE: Start a document with your own set of rules to guide your behavior. As you run into a situation where you’d like to stack a habit, make a note of it in your document, so that you can have one repository of all these rules. You’ll eventually have them in your mind, yet initially, having this document as a backup will come in very handy.
Know someone who would like to read this?? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Tools
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 2
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 3
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 41 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 1
— From Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
As this year comes to an end, I’ve started thinking about the New Year, and the new habits that I want to establish for myself. With that in mind, I’ve taken a dive into books about habit formation.
I came across a new term, The Diderot Effect, via a story that James Clear, habit guru and author of Atomic Habits, tells in his book. In a nutshell, it goes like this: French philosopher, Denis Diderot, was the co-founder and writer of Encyclopédie, during the time of the Enlightenment. Despite this, he lived in poverty most of his life. His daughter was about to be married and, seeing that he could not pay for the wedding, he struck a deal with Russian Empress Catherine the Great, who bought his personal library for an enormous sum at the time and paid him a salary to act as her librarian.
Suddenly Diderot had money. He paid for his daughter’s wedding and bought himself a scarlet robe. His robe, apparently, was so beautiful, that it made every other one of his common possessions seem even more humble and out of place. Thus, he started replacing and upgrading his stuff: rugs, sculptures, furniture, etc.
“Diderot’s behavior is not uncommon. In fact, the tendency for one purchase to lead to another one has a name: the Diderot Effect… [and it] states that obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases. You can spot this pattern everywhere. You buy a dress and have to get new shoes and earrings to match. You buy a couch and suddenly question the layout of your entire living room. You buy a toy for your child and soon find yourself purchasing all of the accessories that go with it.”
However, this does not necessarily have to be seen in a negative light. Clear writes, “Many human behaviors follow this cycle. You often decide what to do next based on what you have just finished doing. Going to the bathroom leads to washing and drying your hands, which reminds you that you need to put the dirty towels in the laundry, so you add laundry detergent to the shopping list, and so on. No behavior happens in isolation. Each action becomes a cue that triggers the next behavior.”
Why is this important?
Because, “when it comes to building new habits, you can use the connectedness of behavior to your advantage. One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top.”
The author calls this habit stacking, and offers the following formula for it:
“After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
Here are a few examples from Clear that will make it clear (Ha! I couldn’t resist…):
- Meditation. “After I pour my cup of coffee each morning, I will immediately meditate for one minute.”
- Exercise. “After I take off my work shoes, I will immediately change into my workout clothes.”
- Gratitude. “After I sit down to dinner, I will say one thing I’m grateful for that happened today.”
- Marriage. “After I get into bed at night, I will give my partner a kiss.”
- Safety. “After I put on my running shoes, I will text a friend or family member where I am running and how long it will take.”
“The key,” the author says, is to “tie your desired behavior into something you already do each day.” And this is how you ensure that the new habits you create will stick.
But there is more to this! Come back tomorrow for Part 2, as we will see the augmented, edited, and revised version of new-habit formation for even better results. You’ll love it!
In the meantime, what are some new habits that you’d like to establish in the New Year? Let me know in the comments here!
See you tomorrow. 🙂
ACTION
TODAY: Think about how The Diderot Effect can work in your favor. What new habits would you like to establish?
FUTURE: Whenever you want or need to establish a new habit, try habit stacking to ensure that it sticks. Come back for the next installments in this miniseries, as I will share some of Clear’s simple-yet-effective methods to make this happen.
Know someone who wants to make sure the new habits stick? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Collaboration, Creativity, Leadership, Mindset, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 46 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Giving Tuesday: Let’s Endeavor to Help Others
— From Endeavor: Thrive Through Work Aligned with Your Values, Talents, and Tribe by Scott Perry
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.
So, what is your favorite charity and why? Let me know in the comments here.
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.
by Helena Escalante | Collaboration, Creativity, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 55 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: One question every leader must ask when facing a challenge
— From Out Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes by G. Shawn Hunter
In his book Out Think, author G. Shawn Hunter shares lessons in business leadership and teamwork via interviews with renowned leaders. In one of his interviews, the author recalls asking Lincoln Crawley, Managing Director of ManpowerGroup (a leading staffing and recruitment company) if he could recall a watershed learning event in his career.
Crawley pointed to a time, about 15 years earlier, when one question made an enormous difference. He was trying to win a service contract for the firm for which he worked back then. He was the lead for this project, and he felt like David competing against Goliath in his industry. Everything pointed to him losing, as he was out-infrastructured (yes, I just made that word up…) and there was no way his firm could replicate the infrastructure of his competitor in the time required for the proposal.
“In discussions, during the proposal process, the people around Crawley described the technical and financial the company faced as insurmountable,” writes Hunter.
However, Crawley had a conversation with an external mentor, where the latter said he understood the issues and concerns raised, and then asked, “If it were possible, what would the solution look like?”
That one question is what unleashed possibility.
“That simple phrase, ‘if it were possible,’ gave the team permission to speculate and open up a whole new conversation. It was an invitation to dream.”
Crawley and his team then got to work, came up with a plan, and gave it to the prospective client.
The result?
They won the contract.
“I’ve taken those few words with me all through my career,” Crawley says. The author goes on to note that this phrase has been especially important when Crawley “can’t see his way around a particularly difficult situation [or] when the competitor seems unbeatable.”
Asking, “If it were possible, what would it look like? [Puts] you in a completely different environment where you’re not now talking about why you haven’t done something,” Crawley states. Instead, “You’re actually talking about how can we make this happen. It changes the conversation.”
Crawley pointed out a curious thing during the in the interview with the author: He didn’t fully recognize the power of asking this question in the face of a challenge until many years later, when he had a team of his own.
“Only then,” writes the author, “did he recognize that these four words opened up the capabilities and imagination of his team.”
To conclude, Hunter writes, “When we see that our teams are stymied, we should try asking them to use their imagination.”
The phrase, “If it were possible…?” is the one question every leader must ask when facing a challenge. It produces a mind-shift that enables both, the leader and the team, to focus on what’s possible. And by focusing on the possibility set amongst the constraints, and not on the obstacles themselves, this question lets the answers and solutions flow freely.
ACTION
TODAY: What challenge are you facing where you seem to be stuck? Ask yourself and your team, “If it were possible what would it look like?” and let your imagination run wild. A few answers will be crazy and undoable, but you’ll also come up with one or more that will reveal how it can, indeed, be possible.
FUTURE: Make it a habit of asking, “If it were possible…” whenever you are facing a challenge that seems insurmountable.
Know someone who would like this one question? Please share this post! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Tools, Wellbeing
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 7 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: The 10 Es of great customer service
— From Woo, Wow, and Win: Service Design, Strategy, and the Art of Customer Delight by Thomas A. Stewart and Patricia O’Connell
As we get closer to Thanksgiving here in the U.S., I’ve been seeing more and more offers from retailers who have started their Black Friday sales early this year.
Thinking how much people like to buy stuff, I was surprised recently when I read, “people derive more happiness from new experiences—a day by the sea, a night at the opera—than from new things.”
It makes perfect sense in light of the fact that “the pleasure of a new object diminishes over time (as every child knows on December 26), while the pleasure of experience grows (as every adult knows, enjoying those warm holiday memories).”
So, knowing this, how can we create great customer service and a memorable experience, no matter how big or small a product or service we sell?
The answer for designing great service that is delivered expertly, according to Thomas A. Stewart and Patricia O’Connell, authors of Woo, Wow and Win, is to find “alignment among your strategic goals, your customer’s wants and needs, and what actually happens between you.”
And that alignment is a function of the following 10 E’s working together:
1. Empathy: “Developing products, services and experiences from the customer’s point of view; taking full account of how your customers use and interact with you.”
2. Expectation: “Ensuring that customers know what to expect from their interaction with you.”
3. Emotion: “Knowing the emotions your customer brings to your relationship, and guiding customers to a satisfied feeling about working with you.”
4. Elegance: “Providing offers that are clean, simple, easy to work with, and complete—nothing superfluous, nothing omitted.”
5. Engagement: “Communicating with customers—and they with you—at every point of contact, to understand their experience and how to improve it.”
6. Execution: “Reliably meeting all the expectations you have set.”
7. Engineering: “Possessing technical excellence (for example, compared to peers, but also general business standards) and eliminating waste of materials, time and effort, so that no extraneous effort is necessary on the part of you or your customer.”
8. Economics: “Pricing your services appropriately, so that the customer gets value for money and you the profit you expect.”
9. Experimentation: “Building processes for improvement and innovation into the daily work of your business; developing capabilities to develop and roll out new offerings.”
10. Equivalence: “Managing the customer, your team, and partner organizations so that you, the seller/service provider, are satisfied too.”
As you can see, the first five Es are focused on the customer’s side of the equation, and the last five ones are focused mostly on you.
These elements come together to create a system to build great customer service. But, “To what end?” the authors asked an expert in service design.
The answer?
Relationships. The goal of great customer service is to build a relationship with the customer; otherwise it’s merely a transaction.
“It is difficult to think of a transaction between a buyer and a seller that cannot be made more valuable to both parties by adding at least the possibility of a relationship beyond the transaction itself.”
What’s an instance of great customer service that you have received where you were happy to create a relationship with the seller? Please let me know here in the comments, I always love to hear these kinds of stories!
ACTION
TODAY: Think of the role you play in selling your products/services. How many Es can you apply toward creating great customer service in your business?
FUTURE: Study the customer’s journey and look at every touch point. What kind of relationship would you want to build (or strengthen) with your customers?
Want to build great customer service? Please share this post with your colleagues so that all of you can be in alignment: Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 15 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: 10 Tips from Seth Godin on how to be remarkable
— From Seth Godin’s blog post titled “How to be remarkable,” (in turn from Godin’s post on The Guardian).
I’ve always enjoyed Seth Godin’s definition of remarkable: in a nutshell, something to make a remark about.
And as I was looking for that specific quote for a project of mine, I came across this great post and news article that Godin posted over a decade ago, that is as valid today as it was back then.
I’ll leave the whole piece below for you. Enjoy it – it’s remarkable! 😉
How to be remarkable
You’re either boring or you stand out. You’re either invisible or remarkable. And, all your life, everyone has been pushing you to fit in. All your life you’re told to keep your head down, work hard, don’t make waves and get it done. What rubbish. Here, in 10 easy steps, is how to grow. How to stand out. How to get noticed, make a difference and have a shot at the big time.
1.Understand the urgency of the situation. Half-measures simply won’t do. The only way to grow is to abandon your strategy of doing what you did yesterday, but better. Commit.
2.Remarkable doesn’t mean remarkable to you. It means remarkable to me. Am I going to make a remark about it? If not, then you’re average, and average is for losers.
3. Being noticed is not the same as being remarkable. Running down the street naked will get you noticed, but it won’t accomplish much. It’s easy to pull off a stunt, but not useful.
4. Extremism in the pursuit of remarkability is no sin. In fact, it’s practically a requirement. People in first place, those considered the best in the world, these are the folks that get what they want. Rock stars have groupies because they’re stars, not because they’re good looking.
5. Remarkability lies in the edges. The biggest, fastest, slowest, richest, easiest, most difficult. It doesn’t always matter which edge, more that you’re at (or beyond) the edge.
6. Not everyone appreciates your efforts to be remarkable. In fact, most people don’t. So what? Most people are ostriches, heads in the sand, unable to help you anyway. Your goal isn’t to please everyone. Your goal is to please those that actually speak up, spread the word, buy new things or hire the talented.
7. If it’s in a manual, if it’s the accepted wisdom, if you can find it in a Dummies book, then guess what? It’s boring, not remarkable. Part of what it takes to do something remarkable is to do something first and best. Roger Bannister was remarkable. The next guy, the guy who broke Bannister’s record wasn’t. He was just faster … but it doesn’t matter.
8. It’s not really as frightening as it seems. They keep the masses in line by threatening them (us) with all manner of horrible outcomes if we dare to step out of line. But who loses their jobs at the mass layoffs? Who has trouble finding a new gig? Not the remarkable minority, that’s for sure.
9. If you put it on a T-shirt, would people wear it? No use being remarkable at something that people don’t care about. Not ALL people, mind you, just a few. A few people insanely focused on what you do is far far better than thousands of people who might be mildly interested, right?
10. What’s fashionable soon becomes unfashionable. While you might be remarkable for a time, if you don’t reinvest and reinvent, you won’t be for long. Instead of resting on your laurels, you must commit to being remarkable again quite soon.
“But wait!” I hear you say. “My boss won’t let me. I want to do something great, but she won’t let me.”
This is, of course, nonsense. Your boss won’t let you because what you’re really asking is: “May I do something silly and fun and, if it doesn’t work, will you take the blame – but if it does work, I get the credit?” What would you say to an offer like that?
The alternative sounds scary, but I don’t think it is. The alternative is to just be remarkable. Go all the way to the edge. Not in a big thing, perhaps, but in a little one. Find some area where you have a tiny bit of authority and run with it. After you succeed, you’ll discover you’ve got more leeway for next time. And if you fail? Don’t worry. Your organisation secretly wants employees willing to push hard even if it means failing every so often.
And when? When should you start being remarkable? How’s this: if you don’t start tomorrow, you’re not really serious. Tomorrow night by midnight or don’t bother. You’re too talented to sit around waiting for the perfect moment. Go start.
ACTION
TODAY: Start today at being remarkable! Start small, where you are and with what you have.
FUTURE: Keep this tip sheet handy and frequently refer to it. Start the habit of becoming remarkable in little things first, as Godin suggests, and then run with larger projects! Rinse and repeat.
Know someone who is remarkable? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
