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Need to make a change? Hack your willpower and habits. (Part 1 of 2)

We all struggle with willpower at times, both in doing things that are good for us (self-discipline) and stopping things that are bad for us (self-control). I have done extensive research on habit change and have used these tricks to change many of my own habits. I would love to share them with you…

Understanding how willpower and habits work can help us be more successful. The truth is we spend a big chunk of our time on autopilot. Habits drive 40% of our activity each day. Art Markman (Ph.D.), author of Smart Change, describes the two behavior systems at play: the go system and the stop system.

The go system is made up of behaviors we automatically do – basically the habits we already have. The go system takes no willpower; it consists only of things we automatically do when we are triggered. For example, you might have developed the habit of automatically brushing your teeth (behavior) when you wake up in the morning (trigger) or grabbing a glass of wine (behavior) when you arrive home from work (trigger). The stop system, however, takes willpower to activate. This is when we consciously decide to do something different, when we override the go system.

Understanding habits, triggers, and rewards is essential to changing behavior. So what is the anatomy of a habit?

• Habit = Trigger causing a Behavior leading to a Reward (H = T -> B -> R)
• Trigger = A trigger is a condition that occurs in your environment that causes you to engage in behavior. This can be event based (someone cuts you off on the freeway), location based (arriving at your workplace), time based (when your alarm goes off in the morning), or even something in your environment (like a note that says “stay calm”). Here is a great talk on effectively using triggers in your life.
• Behavior = A behavior is the action you automatically do in response to a trigger.
• Reward = A reward is a benefit you get from the behavior.

Adding new habits is actually easier than changing an old habit. Research shows when changing a habit, you will be more successful if you replace the old habit with a new one. Research has also found that it takes 20 repetitions of the new behavior for it to become a habit. So what does habit change take?

• Habit Change (repeat 20x) = (Motivation + Ability + Stop Activation when the Trigger Happens) -> A New Behavior -> A New Reward
• Motivation = A reward you really want.
• Ability = You must have the ability to do the new behavior.
• Stop Activation = You have to use willpower to activate the stop system when the trigger happens.

To have motivation, you need to really believe the new reward is worth changing for. There must be clear benefits that you really want. You also need to choose to make the change. Others choosing for you undermines motivation. Said another way, you need a strong “why.” You also must have the ability to do the new behavior. Finally, you have to know what triggers the behavior in order to activate your stop system. Then you can do the new behavior and get the new reward. When you change a habit, you are really creating a new if-then statement. This is actually an extremely compact way to describe what you want to do, and it is easy to remember.

• if trigger then new behavior then reward

It is important to have an immediate reward when making a habit change – even if that is giving yourself a simple “I’m awesome” high five. Some rewards that are further out (like the benefits of losing weight) miss the small successes that lead to the big success.

So now you understand the power of habit, how habits work, and how to plan a habit change. In the next part of this series, we will discuss how to hack your willpower to be more successful at changing your habits.

Written by Guy Bieber

Inspire ✦ Be Inspired ✦ Create Amazing Experiences 

When you need “The Guy”: @theguybieber theguybieber@karmas.co bookings@thepotentialbook.com

The secret of happiness is learning to enjoy the passage of time. – James Taylor

In studying the science of human performance, some of the best research has come out recently on a state called flow. What is flow? Flow is that state when athletes are at in the zone at the top of their game, where developers are their most creative, and where musicians are in the groove. A 10-year McKinsey study of top executives found that executives in the flow state were 5x more productive. Think about what that means; that means they could come in two days a week and they would be twice as productive as their competition. You have probably been in a flow state before, but just had no name for it.

There are some excellent books out on flow and even an organization that is aggressively helping people hack their flow states:

• The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler
• Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• The Flow Genome Project

These books describe the essential conditions of the flow state as:

• Clear Goal – You must have a clear goal to go after. If it is a goal you selected that is even better.
• Ability – You have to have the ability to achieve that goal. This is a fine line between too easy (boring) and too hard (anxiety). Typically, it is 4% harder than your current ability, i.e. you are stretching to achieve the goal.
• Immediate Feedback – Without immediate feedback, you cannot tell if you are going in the right direction, which causes a lack of clarity.
• Presence – You are fully engaged in what you are doing in the current moment.
• Turning off the Self-Critic – Your energy is all about doing, not about doubting whether you can or judging yourself.
• Lose Sense of Time – People in a flow state often wonder how time passed so quickly. They essentially lose track of time. This is a key indicator you are in a flow state.

The other great benefit of flow, besides high performance, is that people that spend more time in flow are happier. They are doing something they enjoy. An interesting paradox of this is that people have more flow in work than in leisure. We want more vacations and yet are happier at work. We actually get more joy out of planning a vacation than taking one.

In sports, you see people that try to disrupt the flow of their opponents or to put it another way, they try to lower the performance of their competition. In football, they call a timeout when the other team is making progress. In tennis, John McEnroe intentionally disrupted his opponents’ flow by having an outburst. However, flow is not just for sports. I recently hosted a Future of Work conference that Jamie Wheal from the flow genome project attended. He made an interesting comment that technology workers’ performance should really be measured by how long they spend in a flow state. That is the idea that flow management is performance management. Put another way, manage your flow instead of your time.

This diagram best describes the flow state (based on Yerkies Dodson Law of performance versus arousal):

So, what should you do if the task is far beyond your current ability? In a growth mindset, you would add it to a list of things to learn, offload the work, or perhaps get a mentor. If the task is too easy, it is probably a problem not central to your contribution, and you should consider offloading it. Then you can focus on the things you are best at and stay in a high-performance flow state. Just remember the flow conditions above and try to create them for what you are working on. This is precisely what the karmas service will give you the ability to do. It will allow you to find ways to learn, offload (automate or delegate), and get mentoring from many services based on your particular goals, projects, and tasks. To learn more about reaching your potential, check out the potential book. I wish you flow, happiness, and success.

Written by Guy Bieber

Inspire ✦ Be Inspired ✦ Create Amazing Experiences 

When you need “The Guy”: @theguybieber theguybieber@karmas.co bookings@thepotentialbook.com

Part 3 of 3: Maximizing Insights Per Minute (IPM)

So what are the factors that can maximize your Insights Per Minute (IPM)? We have identified 4 key factors:

1. Content Selection
2. Content Insight Density
3. Content Format
4. Rate of Consumption

In the previous segment we discussed how content format (audio and video) and adjustable rates of consumption were keys to maximizing our IPM. So let’s talk about content selection and content insight density.

Picking the best content is the number one way to learn the right things faster. Remember there are over 300k books published in the US alone each year. We only have so much bandwidth. So say you got some great recommendations for learning about finances. The next thing to consider is the content insight density. If a book only has one or two core ideas, do you really need to read 300 pages? This is where the magic of layering comes in.

Layering helps both with content selection and content consumption. You can eliminate many books just by reading descriptions and reviews. Maybe it is an idea you already understood or just doesn’t seem worth the time. If it is worthy, you can often find a summary of the book that gives you the key insights in under 10 minutes (services like Getabstract and Blinkist). That is a huge time saving. Perhaps you want to go deeper. You can often find a talk by the author and listen to it at 2x speed. Finally, if the book has really high insight density or you need more explanation, grab it in audio format and listen at 2.5x speed. That takes an 11 hour book down to 4.4hr. These time savings allow you to consume a lot more insights than you ever imagined.

So to be sure you get the most out of your time you want to be able to remember it. Here are the key pillars of memory.

1. Externalize memory: By summarizing the information you have an external format that can be used for a quick review later.
2. Do something with the information: Summarizing is a great activity to put content in your own words and capture the insights that are most important.
3. Relate the information to other information: This leverages other memories to make the new memory stronger.
4. Get enough sleep: We form long-term memories when we sleep. The best science says you need somewhere between 7 and 8 hours of sleep to do this effectively. You will be surprised at how much more creative you are when your subconscious mind can parallel process over a larger set of long term memories.

In summary, to gain a personal learning advantage, focus on insights per minute through content selection, content format, content insight density, and content consumption rate. Remember the magic of layering to consume more insights faster. Remember your ABCs: Always be Capturing, Connecting, and Compressing. Use the 4 pillars of memory to your advantage (externalize, do, relate, sleep). These tools together can make you a 10x learner and help you gain a personal learning advantage. If you would like to find out more check out the book and the service that implements the book.

Written by Guy Bieber

Inspire ✦ Be Inspired ✦ Create Amazing Experiences 

When you need “The Guy”: @theguybieber theguybieber@karmas.co bookings@thepotentialbook.com

Part 2 of 3: Why Speed Reading Sucks: WPM versus IPM

Speed reading isn’t the answer to a personal learning advantage. There are two things that most speed reading courses have in common: reduced eye movement and learning to skip unimportant words. If you’re just after reading more words faster, you can be a speed reader with no training right now. Spritz takes eye movement out of reading by centering words for you to read. You will be amazed at the Words Per Minute (WPM) rate you can achieve with Spritz.

Are more words per minute what you really want or do you want to get more insights/knowledge per minute? Insights per minute (IPM) is a far better measure of learning. Let’s face it, most content has a lot of fluff in it. Why is every meeting an hour, every class a semester, and every PowerPoint about 30 slides? We put fillers in the dead space. In a classroom lecture you cannot speed up or slow down the instructor, but with audio and video recordings you can adjust the consumption rate to insight density. Did you know you can listen to Audible books at up to 3x the rate, Udemy classes at 3x the rate, and YouTube videos at up to 2x the rate (with the right player). That alone can double or triple the amount of insights you can consume in the same amount of time.

So what is the fastest rate you can consume insights? That is really driven by the ABCs: Always Be Capturing, Connecting, and Compressing. That is how fast can you reasonably do something with the data (capture it and connect it to other ideas) and externalize your memory in a more compressed format (your notes). The fastest readers and speakers operate at over 600 wpm. Listening instead of reading has some huge advantages.

• It takes eye movement out of the equation (the biggest thing that slows us down).
• It frees your hands and eyes to capture and connect the information.
• Who doesn’t like to be read to?

Speech recognition is one of the fastest ways to capture your thoughts. However, when listening you don’t need to capture at a high rate. You are summarizing remember. There is magic in being able to listen anywhere on a smartphone and take notes in real time. Of course if you are sitting in front of your computer a keyboard is a better choice. Having a medium like audio or video where you can adjust the speed of consumption relative to how fast you can capture insights maximizes your consumption rate. In our next segment we will show you other ways to increase your learning rate.

Written by Guy Bieber

Inspire ✦ Be Inspired ✦ Create Amazing Experiences 

When you need “The Guy”: @theguybieber theguybieber@karmas.co bookings@thepotentialbook.com

Part 1 of 3: What is a Personal Learning Advantage?

In the age of information, learning quickly is one of the only sustainable advantages. Today we have so much content available to us literally at our fingertips that we often take it for granted and are overwhelmed with choice. Information becomes stale much faster today as new discoveries, tools, and innovations happen more rapidly. To keep up in the age of information, we need to become extremely efficient, continuous learners. Education is no longer primarily an event of youth. Information doubles every 1.5 years, yet our minds have not evolved to consume more information. In the US alone, there are over 300K books published a year.

We know that the average person only consumes 1 book a year, while the average millionaire consumes 24, and the average CEO over 60. By capturing more knowledge, insights, and perspectives we are able to be more creative and effective in our endeavors.

Learning is changing from an instructor/student format to an automated format where you learn at your fastest personal rate instead of the instructor’s fixed rate. Services like Udemy, Coursera, and others are making the best content available in formats that allow students to have customized learning experiences.

In today’s job market where many types of jobs go away and appear, automation driven by machine learning and robotics will continue to change the job market at an alarming pace. A personal learning advantage is driven by our ability to learn new things quickly. It allows us to adapt to this new reality. In the next segment we will dig into creating your own personal learning advantage.

Written by Guy Bieber

Inspire ✦ Be Inspired ✦ Create Amazing Experiences 

When you need “The Guy”: @theguybieber theguybieber@karmas.co bookings@thepotentialbook.com

In doing research for my upcoming book “Potential”, I read hundreds of books on behavioral science, performance science, productivity, etc. There was one skill that stood out as a starting point for wherever you are at. That skill is the superpower of curiosity. The book that best describes this superpower is “A Curious Mind” written by the Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer. Brian used curiosity to inspire movies, work through problems, and even to manage employees. Brian Grazer produced Splash, 24, A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, Arrested Development, 8 Mile, Empire, and many other movies.

For Brian curiosity opened many doors. He used his job as a delivery boy to ask questions to people few people had access to. He was famous for having curiosity conversations with famous leaders, physicists, actors, astronauts, politicians, artists, etc. These conversations allowed him collect more perspectives on the world, which he then used in his movies. He believes we are in the golden age of curiosity, because we now have access to more information than any other time in the history of mankind. Brian sees curiosity as an essential companion to creativity and innovation.

Curiosity at its core is about asking good questions. It helps you understand the world better and build better mental models of how things work. There are many benefits to being curious:

• Curiosity is free, humble, and provides the courage to admit you don’t know something.
• Curiosity conquers fear more than bravery.
• Curiosity clears confusion and brings understanding.
• Curiosity helps you understand your customers and competitors.
• Curiosity about others shows genuine interest and builds relationships.
• Curiosity helps you be a better manager. Questions engage and empower employees. Questions eliminate hierarchy.
• When something goes wrong don’t panic, get curious.

The secret to curiosity is capturing that awe of discovery and converting it into good questions.

So if you haven’t quite figured out what you want to do in your life, get curious, explore, and see what really sparks your interests.

Written by Guy Bieber

Inspire ✦ Be Inspired ✦ Create Amazing Experiences 

When you need “The Guy”: @theguybieber theguybieber@karmas.co bookings@thepotentialbook.com

I am somewhat of a Halloween buff. Halloween is a great time of year to experiment with new technology in a fun way. Last year I automated my Halloween Haunt and wrote an article for Make Magazine on how you can do it. Check it out here. 

Happy Haunting and Happy Halloween!!!

Written by Guy Bieber

Inspire ✦ Be Inspired ✦ Create Amazing Experiences 

When you need “The Guy”: @theguybieber theguybieber@karmas.co bookings@thepotentialbook.com

Last year we attended the O’Reilly Next:Economy Future of Work conference. The above image describes how we see the Future of Work in one slide. We also did the best summary of last years Next:Economy conference here. Definitely check that out!! So what are we doing about the Future of Work. We are helping people reach their potential through 10x doing, 10x growth, 10x creativity, and a 10x mindset. Checkout the Potential book and the service that implements the book Karmas.

Written by Guy Bieber

Inspire ✦ Be Inspired ✦ Create Amazing Experiences 

When you need “The Guy”: @theguybieber theguybieber@karmas.co bookings@thepotentialbook.com