Better's Blinkist

The author first discovered the miracle equation in his early twenties.

After listening to Elrod’s presentation, she commented on what a lucky coincidence it was that he’d turned up at just that moment. She and her husband had agreed to buy a new set of knives after their US trip, and they were also looking for a present for her brother, a keen amateur cook. She bought two of Cutco’s "Ultimate Sets" on the spot. That was enough to push Elrod over his $20,000 target!

1 August, 2019 09:54 Share

Establishing unwavering faith is a conscious choice that both mentors and spirituality can support.

Well, it’s what people sometimes call a "leap of faith." That has two aspects. First, it’s a leap because there’s no other way of getting there – neither reason nor evidence provides a clear route to your destination. Secondly, it doesn’t come naturally. As we’ve seen, there are all kinds of obstacles to self-belief. That means it has to be consciously established in a moment of decision.

1 August, 2019 09:55 Share

What keeps miracle mavens going when they’re faced with rejection and setbacks is unwavering faith: the unshakeable belief that they possess the ability to make miracles. But where does that faith come from?

1 August, 2019 09:56 Share

Then there are mentors. Before discovering the miracle equation, the author struggled with confidence issues. His Cutco mentor Jesse Levine, however, had an unshakable belief in his protégé’s abilities. At first, Elrod thought Jesse had simply made a mistake. But over time, that unwavering faith began to rub off on Elrod. Maybe, he started thinking, Jesse was right after all. Eventually, he became convinced that he really was capable of doing anything he put his mind to!

1 August, 2019 09:57 Share

Learning to define yourself can help you overcome biological and social limitations.

That’s partly down to the way the adult human brain functions. When you get down to it, it’s a pretty ancient piece of our wiring. Like our prehistoric ancestors, we’re constantly scanning our environment for signs of danger. That’s rational enough if you’re a caveman – after all, if you’re not on your toes you might just end up being mauled by a mountain lion. Unfortunately, our brains aren’t very good at telling the difference between the anxiety triggered by a charging mammoth and, say, the prospect of moving to a new city for a job. That means we end up irra

1 August, 2019 09:58 Share

That’s partly down to the way the adult human brain functions. When you get down to it, it’s a pretty ancient piece of our wiring. Like our prehistoric ancestors, we’re constantly scanning our environment for signs of danger. That’s rational enough if you’re a caveman – after all, if you’re not on your toes you might just end up being mauled by a mountain lion. Unfortunately, our brains aren’t very good at telling the difference between the anxiety triggered by a charging mammoth and, say, the prospect of moving to a new city for a job. That means we end up irrationally rejecting opportunities.

1 August, 2019 09:58 Share

So how can we break out of these self-limiting patterns? Well, we need to start defining ourselves. That’s not so much about rejecting social labels as it is about refusing to see them as brakes on our capabilities. The author, for example, has been diagnosed with ADHD, but he refuses to let this diagnosis limit him. After all, ADHD makes focusing on tasks harder, but not impossible. And far from being a limit, it even has its upsides – after all, bouncing from one idea to the next can also be a highly effective creative strategy!

1 August, 2019 09:59 Share

The five-minute rule can help you achieve emotional peace when things go wrong.

That’s something he learned from his Cutco mentor Jesse Levine. By the time of the crash, Elrod had been applying it every day for nearly two years. Here’s how it works: it’s okay to feel bad when things go wrong, but not for more than five minutes. When you suffer a setback, you set a timer and do whatever you need to – scream, cry, kvetch or punch a wall. Then, when the time’s up, you say, "Can’t change it" aloud and move on.

1 August, 2019 09:59 Share

Wallowing

1 August, 2019 10:00 Share

emotional pain isn’t caused by external events that are beyond our control, but by our responses. Wallowing, in other words, is a choice that keeps us trapped in experiences we’re powerless to alter. Letting go and accepting them, by contrast, lets us move on. In Elrod’s case, it meant he could fully focus on his recovery and, eventually, regain the use of his legs.

1 August, 2019 10:00 Share

Extraordinary effort is all about consistency and commitment.

Consistency pays. Rather than using newfangled sales hacks, they were hitting their phones every day at the same time and making the same number of calls.

1 August, 2019 10:04 Share

Final summary

And that’s where the miracle equation comes in: unwavering faith plus extraordinary effort equals miracles. In everyday terms, that means learning to overcome inborn cognitive limits, embracing your true gifts and putting in the hours necessary to realize your desires and ambitions.

1 August, 2019 10:06 Share

Optimists have a better immune system and are generally healthier.

Also, optimists encounter fewer negative life events than pessimists do, a phenomenon that researchers explain in terms of a pessimist’s passivity due to their conviction that they can't change anything. So if you're a pessimist, encountering an abundance of negative events, your body will have to suffer a lot of stress, which in turn can lead to disease. Thirdly, optimistic people find it easier to sustain friendships, and friendship is beneficial to our health. This is because having a friend that you can confide in and discuss anything and everything with actually eases the stress generated by negative life events.

9 September, 2019 11:07 Share

Optimism is also very useful in your professional life.

An important part of a sales agent's work is cold calling, which typically ends in a lot of refusals. Only those agents who continued to call at least ten leads a day, no matter how many rejections they received, became successful. The others usually quit. In addition to the already extensive selection process, Seligman measured the optimism of prospective sales agents. He proceeded to hire agents that underperformed slightly on the standard industry tests (which measured the applicant's "aptitude" to become a sales agent) but scored very highly in optimism.

9 September, 2019 11:10 Share

You can change your self-talk by using the ABC technique.

Once you have found a few ABCs in your life, you are then in a position to change them. It's crucial to realize at this point that the beliefs you've recorded will largely determine the consequences.

9 September, 2019 11:11 Share

Try to understand the connection between A, B and C, and change where appropriate.

Our beliefs about a situation will determine both its consequences and how we feel about the situation. So, by changing our beliefs, we also change these consequences and our feelings. While it's difficult to ascertain which of our beliefs are "true," it's clear that how we think about negative events greatly influences how they affect us.

9 September, 2019 11:12 Share

What’s in it for me? Learn a better, fairer way to analyze risk.

The first is the symmetry, or balance, of the interaction

5 August, 2019 11:31 Share

The second factor is risk. In many situations in our daily lives, whether a visit to the doctor or an interaction with a salesperson, we rarely stop and ask ourselves about the risk.

5 August, 2019 11:32 Share

Any asymmetry of information between buyer and seller is morally wrong.

Well, this myth establishes an important lesson that the fisherman learned the hard way: it's immoral to disguise a sales pitch as well-intentioned advice.

5 August, 2019 11:33 Share

But is there really something wrong with this? After all, their behavior was legal, and we’re all familiar with these sales tactics. Interestingly though, while this behavior may be legal in many secular countries, it’s much less acceptable under some religious legal systems.

5 August, 2019 11:34 Share

This term refers to an asymmetry of information between two agents. If one agent, the seller, has much more information about the transaction than the other agent, the buyer, then the seller could be said to have too much certainty about the outcome of the transaction, and the buyer too little. In this case, Gharar would exist in the transaction, and thus it might be forbidden from taking place until the information asymmetry was redressed, and the buyer was given more information.

5 August, 2019 11:34 Share

For instance, Sharia law, the Islamic legal code, contains the concept of Gharar. This term refers to an asymmetry of information between two agents. If one agent, the seller, has much more information about the transaction than the other agent, the buyer, then the seller could be said to have too much certainty about the outcome of the transaction, and the buyer too little. In this case, Gharar would exist in the transaction, and thus it might be forbidden from taking place until the information asymmetry was redressed, and the buyer was given more information.

5 August, 2019 11:35 Share

Many people fail to understand that the minority rules the majority.

Minority rule refers to the fact that it only takes the existence of a tiny, yet inflexible, minority – as little as 3 percent of the total population – before the whole population must go along with their preferences.

5 August, 2019 11:35 Share

Companies condition their employees to accept a loss of freedom.

By hiring employees rather than getting freelancers or contractors to do the work, employers can curtail workers’ personal freedom. Controlling them ensures the company can depend on them. For example, if forced into a rigid 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule, five days a week, the worker will be available to do the work – unlike a freelancer, who might have a better offer and who has the freedom to take it. By hiring employees, organizations buy themselves peace of mind. But what about the employee? Why don’t more of us resist being treated like a pliant pet, having our freedom removed for eight hours a day, Monday to Friday, for the sake of the company’s convenience? Well, the uncomfortable truth is that many of us have been psychologically conditioned to obedience.

5 August, 2019 11:40 Share

Conditioned employees are individuals whose personal identities are intrinsically tied to the companies for which they work. They dress as their company expects them to and even use the language of their organization, speaking in company jargon. These workers have been conditioned to have skin in the game, that is, they themselves have something to risk. If they walk away from their constricting jobs, they’ll lose part of themselves, too.

5 August, 2019 11:41 Share

Success is based on your competence or your image, depending on your profession.

Imagine you need to choose one of two surgeons to perform surgery on you. The first surgeon looks exactly as you might expect a surgeon to look. He has a slim build, delicate hands and is highly articulate. The second surgeon is very different. He is badly dressed, overweight and looks more like a butcher than a doctor.

5 August, 2019 11:43 Share

Surprisingly, the author would choose the second one. He doesn’t look like a surgeon, and provided he has had some success in his career, he must have had to overcome a lot of negative perceptions. In other words, he has probably had to jump over more hurdles to prove himself than the surgeon who looks more like a surgeon.

5 August, 2019 11:43 Share

Therefore, with so much less to risk, those who recruit chief executives don’t bother evaluating their actual competence. Instead, they evaluate their image. Just consider that Ronald Reagan, a Hollywood actor, was elected to the presidency – America’s highest executive position. His victory was made possible because, just like other CEOs, presidents are elected on people’s opinions, rather than by an objective measure of their competence.

5 August, 2019 11:44 Share

Rich people care less about their spending and are exploited as a result.

or instance, when many people become rich, they move into big mansions set in large, secluded grounds. However, the author is convinced that most only do so because they are pressured by real-estate agents and marketing that advises them how to live. In reality, most people are far happier living in lively neighborhoods with plenty of company and fellow human warmth than in silent, vast mansions. Perhaps you won’t be taking pity on them anytime soon, but these lonely rich people are the victims of an elaborate scam – all because they don’t have enough skin in the game

5 August, 2019 11:46 Share

Final summary

Therefore, in any given situation, we should examine the knowledge that each stakeholder has, and who has the most to lose if we want to truly understand why people behave as they do.

5 August, 2019 11:46 Share

Givers are driven by the desire to help others and create success for the group.

The keystone trait of the giver is that in most transactions they give far more than they get. They are generous with their knowledge and time, and they will often forgo personal credit for the good of a common goal. Their main focus is to provide value for others; having their help reciprocated is either irrelevant or a bonus. The way givers see it, helping other people is its own reward as it makes the givers themselves feel good too.

30 December, 2019 23:34 Share

Somewhere in between givers and takers, matchers strive for equal, fair exchanges with others.

To matchers, the world should be a level playing field where people exchange knowledge, skills and resources equally. Matchers are uncomfortable when exchanges are unbalanced, so if they help someone, they expect reciprocation or else they feel disgruntled. This works both ways, however: if a matcher receives a favor, they will feel obliged to promptly return it. This desire for reciprocity also means that if a matcher offers to help someone, there is usually an agenda to "cash in" the favor later, which they believe is entirely justified. Because matching seems fair to most people, the majority of us are in fact matchers. Matching is a logical way to deal with others, especially in the workplace where matchers will help themselves and their colleagues by trading skills and expertise. Matching is also the most common interaction style on websites such as Craigslist, where users exchange goods, money and services in an equal fashion.

8 July, 2019 10:56 Share

How much we give or take is shaped by who we interact with.

, it is likely that both you and those around you considerably shape their behavior according to who they are with – without even realizing it.

8 July, 2019 11:29 Share

Persistent takers lose respect and damage their reputations.

Common knowledge insists that to succeed, you must take what you want. However, historical examples show that when people take excessively, they lose respect. When this happens, their reputations sour, endangering their further chances of success as others no longer wish to interact with them

8 July, 2019 11:31 Share

During an infamous press conference announcing the achievement, Salk failed to thank those who had worked with him, upsetting his team to the point of tears.

8 July, 2019 11:32 Share

Revered architect Frank Lloyd Wright also had a reputation for excessive taking: He did not pay his apprentices and made them cite his name on all their work. Even more shockingly, when his own son worked for him and requested payment, Wright invoiced him for all the living costs he had accrued as his son. One of Wright’s clients even stated that he preferred hiring his apprentices rather than Wright himself due to his disregard for those who worked with him – thus costing Wright business.

8 July, 2019 11:33 Share

Taker tax involves spreading the word of a taker’s bad behavior, which in turn damages their reputation – a common method people use to punish takers.

8 July, 2019 11:33 Share

Persistent takers lose respect and damage their reputations.

8 July, 2019 11:34 Share

Some claim it was his failure to acknowledge others that contributed to him not being considered for these honors.

30 December, 2019 23:41 Share

Givers often achieve the top positions in society because they focus on the greater good.

Many believe that when it comes to achieving professional success, taking is more effective than giving. This is particularly true in traditionally cutthroat professions like business and politics. Interestingly though, it turns out givers often succeed in such environments, as their interest in helping others benefits them too.

8 July, 2019 11:46 Share

Givers take interest in the greater good. Because of this, they can rise to the top, achieving powerful and influential positions.

8 July, 2019 11:47 Share

Successful givers cultivate and use their vast networks to benefit others as well as themselves.

But Rifkin’s keen interest in helping others through building networks also benefitted himself. Because he’s so highly regarded for his generosity, he was easily able to get advice for a new company he wanted to start from Excite co-founder Graham Spencer – someone he hadn’t seen in 5 years. This is a typical benefit for givers: when they need help from even a seemingly dormant network, re-connecting is easy because the other party knows the giver isn’t after reciprocation or selfish benefits.

8 July, 2019 11:48 Share

Successful givers cultivate and use their vast networks to benefit others as well as themselves.

8 July, 2019 11:48 Share

Givers see potential in everyone they meet, making them formidable at finding and nurturing talent.

Renowned NBA basketball manager Stu Inman provides an interesting illustration of a successful giver in the way he chose players for his teams. Although Inman passed up on some basketball legends including Michael Jordan, he found massive success in drafting the previously overlooked Clyde Drexler, who later made the Basketball Hall of Fame, ten All-Star teams and the Olympics. Inman was deeply respected for his ability to find undervalued players and for his dedication to those he helped develop.

8 July, 2019 11:49 Share

By recognizing the greatness in everyone, givers provide fertile ground for the success of others, which also creates success for the giver. Givers see potential in everyone they meet, making them formidable at finding and nurturing talent.

8 July, 2019 11:50 Share

Powerless communication puts givers at a powerful advantage.

Powerless communication involves focusing on the other person; for example, by seeking advice and asking questions. Rather than being domineering, which evokes resistance, this softer approach has a remarkably persuasive effect. This technique comes easily to givers, as they are naturally interested in others.

8 July, 2019 11:50 Share

For example, optician Kildare Escoto differs from most salespeople in that rather than pitching a sale, he asks customers about their needs and lifestyle. Asking questions instills trust in customers and enables him to better serve them. As a result, Escoto is LensCrafters’ number one giver and salesperson.

8 July, 2019 11:51 Share

Annie sought advice from her HR manager, asking, "What would you do?" Annie was a valued employee, and this powerless approach resulted in her gaining unlimited access to the company’s private jet so she could transfer to the new location while still studying at the old location.

8 July, 2019 11:52 Share

Powerless communication can be extremely advantageous. Rather than forcing demands on others, this classic giver approach persuades others to be more receptive to us.

8 July, 2019 11:52 Share

Givers are only successful if they can avoid burnout or being abused by takers.

Surprisingly, recent investigations show that the remedy for burnout lies not in reducing the hours spent helping others but in being able to witness the impact they have.

8 July, 2019 11:52 Share

In addition to burnout, givers can feel "walked over" by takers who abuse their generosity, hence the term "doormat". To avoid this, givers must find a strategy that allows them to indulge their instinct to give but also protects them from abuse. Mathematical biology identifies such an interaction strategy as generous tit for tat. That is, "never forget a good turn but occasionally forgive a bad one." In practice this means givers match takers’ behavior most of the time, yet indulge their own generous disposition by offering the takers the occasional kind gesture. This provides givers with a sense of control while encouraging positive behavior in others in response to their kindness.

8 July, 2019 11:54 Share

The freedom of individualism makes many people feel adrift, leading them to focus on the pursuit of material success.

Feeling driftless in the open sea of an individualistic society, many young Americans feel desperate to find something to which they can anchor themselves. And that something often ends up being their professional lives. They try to find positions in companies that will provide them with a clear sense of structure, like the one they experienced at school. Go to work, put in long hours, please your bosses, gain promotions and achieve higher levels of status and wealth. This is the way of life that they embrace – a life of workaholism. And in pursuing status- and wealth-oriented ambitions, people are climbing the first mountain: the mountain of worldly success. Climbing the first mountain gives people a sense of purpose and direction, but it’s an unreliable path to fulfillment that ultimately comes at a great cost, as we’ll see in the next blink.

7 June, 2019 05:37 Share

The pursuit of material success eventually hits a dead end.

summit

7 June, 2019 05:38 Share

Maybe you get knocked off the slope by some terrible event in your personal life, such as losing your job, getting divorced, developing a disease or experiencing the premature death of a family member. Or maybe you just get weary and decide to jump off the mountain rather than continue trudging onward. Perhaps you’re one of those people who reaches a breaking point with a meaningless-seeming job and simply walks away from it, never to return. Either way, you end up in the valley between the first and second mountains. The valley is a place of loss and suffering. Whether you lose a job, a loved one or some aspect of your health, you also lose your sense of direction, meaning and stability in life, which further deepens the pain you feel as a result. How do you ease your suffering? Well, some people try to blot it out with palliative activities like drinking, but these are only temporary solutions that create further problems of their own. A healthier response is to lean on friends and family members for support, whether by way of a sympathetic ear, kindly words of advice or simply a nice meal together.

7 June, 2019 05:40 Share

As an ultimate goal of life, happiness is a flawed objective.

from the standpoint of individualism, the precise answer to that question depends on the individual’s personality. For one person, it could be a life of adventure. For another, it could be fame. But there’s a general desire that underlies most answers: in one way or another, we all just want to be happy. That might sound like a reasonable motive, but there’s a problem with it, and the problem lies at the heart of the phenomenon of happiness itself. Basically, when you feel happy, it’s because you’ve achieved one of your goals or fulfilled one of your desires. You earned that diploma. You got that promotion. You ate a delicious dinner. Happiness ensues, but not for long, because the afterglow of achievement and fulfillment soon fades away. Happiness is a temporary state. You achieve a goal or fulfill a desire, you feel happy for a little bit, the happiness dissipates, and then it’s time to move on to the next goal or desire. Thus, a life dedicated to the pursuit of happiness becomes a life of ceaselessly hopping from one short-lived episode of satisfaction to another, with long stretches of dissatisfaction in between.

7 June, 2019 05:42 Share

Instead of self-centered success and happiness, a life of service leads to self-transcendence and joy.

transcendence

7 June, 2019 05:45 Share

But it gets even better. To the limited extent that you’re giving up on happiness, you’re also replacing it with something far more fulfilling: joy. What’s the difference between the two? Well, joy is a deeper, more permanent emotional state than happiness. And unlike happiness, it’s not about self-satisfaction or self-aggrandizement. On the contrary, it’s about self-transcendence. That means forgetting about yourself, focusing on others, finding delight in them, giving your time and energy to them, and making their lives better in the process of doing so. This will amplify your delight even further, since you’ll feel uplifted by seeing other people get uplifted.

7 June, 2019 05:45 Share

The Dalai Lama provides a vivid image of what joy looks like. The author was once at a dinner with him, and the most striking aspect of the man wasn’t the wisdom of his words, but his laughter. Periodically, he’d just start laughing for no apparent reason; he was simply so full of joy that he couldn’t contain it. And his laughter was contagious. The author couldn’t help but laugh along with him, even though there didn’t seem to be anything to laugh about!

7 June, 2019 05:46 Share

Living a life of service requires hard work, and a love for humanity alone is not enough to pull you through.

And whether it’s maintaining deep, healthy and loving relationships with our friends, family or romantic partners, there are many additional problems to be solved in our personal lives as well, such as working through communication issues and finding the time for others in today’s hectic world. If you believe in a monotheistic religion, you’ve also got another problem on your plate: living a life of service to others while simultaneously living a life of service to God and your religious community. No pressure, then!

7 June, 2019 05:49 Share

Deep practice consists of "chunking up" the task, i.e., repeating it and looking for difficulties.

Second, deep practice requires time, since increasing a particular skill demands a lot of repetition. The more we repeat a task, the more precise and quick the action will become, because the myelin layer surrounding the relevant circuit thickens. Third, engaging in deep practice means making things a little difficult for yourself while practicing. Because repeating something you already know inside out doesn’t improve your skill. Instead, you must always practice just beyond the limits of your ability.

5 September, 2019 02:56 Share

We need an external cue – ignition – to motivate us to develop a skill over the long term.

While we might believe that a person’s talent must’ve stemmed from their innate interest in their skill early on in life, usually, their initial motivation to acquire that skill was triggered by some external force. As we’ve seen, to become skilled at something, we need to engage in deep practice. Because this practice is very difficult, it requires us to be extremely motivated to improve. One such motivator is ignition, an external cue that triggers our desire to become skilled at something, and convinces us that it’s possible to achieve if we work hard for it.

5 September, 2019 02:56 Share

Some types of coaches serve ignition and some serve deep practice.

One study has shown that many talented people (especially pianists, tennis players and swimmers) had just average coaches in their early years. While this might seem unusual, it makes sense. For example, if you’re learning to play piano as a child, you need – above all – motivation to keep practicing hard. While a teacher who focuses on deep practice can be effective for already skilled and motivated players, beginners would do better with, say, a friendly teacher who makes them feel good about themselves, rewards them with treats for working hard, and encourages them to learn their favorite songs. This type of approach is far more likely to ignite a person’s motivation in their early years.

5 September, 2019 02:58 Share

Master coaches need a vast knowledge of their field and the ability to meet the individual needs of their students.

A master coach – that is, one who can successfully connect deep practice and ignition – must connect their technical knowledge with the needs of the individual student. The goal of all coaches is to assist the student in reaching a state of deep practice, yet every student is unique and requires an equally specific coaching style.

5 September, 2019 02:58 Share

In his research, the author noticed that most coaches didn’t yell or even talk very much, but rather provided simple, precise instructions, e.g., "adjust that movement" or "try this instead." Clarity of information is crucial to deep practice because, by following such instructions, the students’ nerves are fired, thickening the myelin layer and thus strengthening the circuits involved in executing the skill. Without such clear and precise instructions, any technical knowledge a coach has can’t be translated into concrete results. Just as the instructions of a physical trainer must be clear for their knowledge to lead to you building stronger muscles, coaches in any given field must be clear and precise in their directions in order for their technical knowledge to result in your myelin growth.

5 September, 2019 02:58 Share

Stop making excuses and take logical, informed decisions about what to keep and what to chuck.

Is this something I need; is this something I love; and is this something I use? If the answer to all three is no, then the solution is clear – throw it away

26 July, 2019 11:08 Share

Don’t delay in bringing order to your home because decluttering gets harder as you get older.

When you’re considering where something should live, bear in mind this simple piece of wisdom: Something you can’t get to is something you won’t use. Therefore, it’s more important to consider how accessible an item will be in a particular place as well as whether it can be stored there. And if you find yourself thinking that storage is more important than accessibility? Well, chances are that you should throw that thing out now because it doesn’t sound like you’re planning on using it.

26 July, 2019 11:12 Share

These troublesome items often include keys, chargers for your mobile phone, the book you’re currently reading and sunglasses. Pinpoint your elusive possessions and then find a way to solve the issue. For instance, if you can never locate your car keys, install a hook on the wall in your hallway. Or if you struggle to find a phone charger when you need one, then purchase a few, plug them in at convenient points around your home and resolve never to remove them from the plugs again.

26 July, 2019 11:15 Share

A sense of urgency is important when it comes to decluttering because it’s often an emotionally, intellectually and physically taxing job. And unfortunately, demanding jobs don’t get easier with age. Indeed, this is probably why David Ekerdt, a professor of gerontology, reports that, once we pass the age of 50, the likelihood that we will discard any of our possessions decreases with each decade.

26 July, 2019 11:15 Share

Self-knowledge is a valuable weapon in the fight against mess.

When it comes to self-knowledge and decluttering, another valuable question to ask yourself is: am I trying to make myself feel better by letting things get messy?

26 July, 2019 11:16 Share

But in the same way that consuming a tub of ice cream or a big glass of wine can harm our wellbeing in the long-run, treating ourselves by avoiding clearing up can make us feel even more anxious, out of control and overwhelmed. So if you really want to do yourself a favor, don’t skip your weekly clean-up. Remember, an orderly home is much more of a privilege than a chaotic one.

26 July, 2019 11:17 Share

Adopt simple, effective habits to maintain an orderly and clutter-free home.

Pay attention to any wardrobe door you now have to fight to close, books you’ve started to store one in front of the other, in multiple rows, and piles of things that are still there after several days, either on kitchen surfaces or the floor. Remember, clutter is not something that happens overnight. Instead, mess creeps up on us. Watch out for the telltale signs and nip it in the bud.

26 July, 2019 11:20 Share

Don’t enter a shop unless you already know you want a particular item. If you must enter a store, be as quick as you can, because the longer you’re in there, the more clutter you’ll buy. And try to say no to free samples in stores; the sensation of tasting or touching something sets off our impulse to purchase it.

26 July, 2019 11:21 Share

you can stop clutter from even entering your home by adopting good habits when you go out shopping. Don’t enter a shop unless you already know you want a particular item. If you must enter a store, be as quick as you can, because the longer you’re in there, the more clutter you’ll buy. And try to say no to free samples in stores; the sensation of tasting or touching something sets off our impulse to purchase it.

26 July, 2019 11:21 Share

We are often conflicted about what we want from our homes, but they can still be beautiful.

Although there’s often nothing better than the sights and sounds of your children running around and enjoying themselves, it can be challenging to feel that all-important inner peace when you’re watching them do it 24/7. Try to make one area, your bedroom, for example, a place where kids must gain permission before entering. This way, your children can still carry on with their noisy activities, but you’ll have carved out a little oasis of calm for yourself.

26 July, 2019 11:23 Share

Final summary

To keep a tidy home, follow this one simple rule: if you come across any task that can be completed in less than a minute, do it immediately. For instance, if you come across a toothpaste tube that needs the lid putting back on or you find your coat lying on the floor next to its hanger, then put the situation right straight away. The beauty of this habit is that, because these things can be done so quickly, you won’t resent sticking to it. After a month or so, you’ll be amazed at how tidy your home is.

26 July, 2019 11:24 Share

Adopt the one-minute habit. To keep a tidy home, follow this one simple rule: if you come across any task that can be completed in less than a minute, do it immediately. For instance, if you come across a toothpaste tube that needs the lid putting back on or you find your coat lying on the floor next to its hanger, then put the situation right straight away. The beauty of this habit is that, because these things can be done so quickly, you won’t resent sticking to it. After a month or so, you’ll be amazed at how tidy your home is.

26 July, 2019 11:24 Share

Reading is a skill that we learn as our brains develop rather than an innate ability.

To answer that question, we need to get into the nitty-gritty of neuroscience. As we learn to read, the brain develops a new network specifically designed for that task. That’s a product of the brain’s neuroplasticity – its ability to rearrange and reroute existing neuronal networks to create entirely new ones.

28 July, 2019 08:29 Share

The brain is always linking up cell clusters in novel ways. Each cluster within these configurations simultaneously works to support a budding skill like reading. That, in turn, creates a new network. That process is expedited by the brain’s ability to draw on established networks which perform adjacent functions. Reading, for example, draws on cell clusters associated with language and vision.

28 July, 2019 08:30 Share

because networks are created in response to specific needs rather than being drawn from some kind of mental masterplan, we all develop slightly different neuronal networks. What they end up looking like depends on what we’re reading and which language we’re using. That means the circuitry in the head of someone who reads in characters like a Chinese speaker will be wired differently to that of someone who’s used to an alphabet, like an English or Arabic speaker.

28 July, 2019 08:30 Share

Our deep-reading abilities are being altered by the digital age, and we need them more than ever.

That kind of empathy is unique to reading – a practice which allows us to see the world through different eyes and empathize with what someone else is going through. That’s rounded off by what Dunne dubs "coming back." Once we reclaim our habitual first-person perspective, we find that our sense of empathy has been enlarged by our experience of having tried out someone else’s point of view.

28 July, 2019 08:33 Share

Our attention is ever-more fragmented, which hinders deep reading.

Unsurprisingly, that’s not good news for our ability to read – and think – deeply. The author has witnessed the shocking effects of that loss firsthand. As she struggled to keep pace with the amount of digital data she had to produce and consume every day, she found herself spending more and more time dealing with emails. The pile of books on her bedside table, once a source of joy, began gathering dust.

28 July, 2019 08:33 Share

The outcome? Failure – she couldn’t finish the book on her first attempt. Its old charms had dissolved: the plot was infuriatingly slow, the language was far too complex, and the overall effect was one of impenetrable density. Sentences which she’d once taken in stride suddenly flummoxed her and required patient rereading. That wasn’t the book’s fault, though – her deep-reading skills were simply shot to pieces. But here’s the silver lining: after two weeks of perseverance, she eventually managed to adjust her brain and rediscover her old skills!

28 July, 2019 08:34 Share

Parents who read to their children do more for their development than screens ever could.

So how does that work? The first thing to note is that it’s a comforting, tactile experience to sit in a parent’s lap and let their words wash over you. That, in turn, cements a positive emotional association in a child’s brain with aspects of reading like attention, memory and language. Then there’s something called shared attention – the ability to focus on the same object as another person without curtailing your own curiosity. Listening to a story being read out loud is a great way of establishing that skill.

28 July, 2019 08:36 Share

Over time, kids who’ve heard the same tale again and again build up a storehouse of new words and concepts. All that accumulated knowledge comes in handy when children begin reading for themselves around the age of five. That’s because repetition allows them to focus their attention fully on different aspects of both the story itself and the language in which it’s being told. Eventually, they’ll begin making connections between the sounds and shapes of letters as well as the patterns of letters in distinct words.

28 July, 2019 08:36 Share

Adults also play an additional role which devices can’t replicate: by guiding their children’s attention, they help them join the dots between spoken and written language.

28 July, 2019 08:36 Share

There is a crisis in reading in the United States, which is why it’s crucial children of all ages receive support.

Cinthia Coletti, a philanthropist and the author of Blueprint for a Literate Nation, points out that there’s a clear causal relationship between fourth-grade reading levels and the likelihood of students dropping out of school later on. That link between literacy and social outcomes in later life is so well-established that state Bureaus of Prisons all over the United States use statistical data on reading levels to determine how many prison beds it’ll need!

28 July, 2019 08:40 Share

One of the reasons that fourth grade becomes such a sticking point for so many pupils is that the educational bar is raised at that point. Children are suddenly confronted with more challenging material which teachers assume they should be able to read without assistance.

28 July, 2019 08:41 Share

Take it from the author. Her son, Ben, was an intelligent and creative fourth-grader but he had dyslexia. Ben’s teacher took it for granted that he and his classmates had been adequately prepared to read by their previous teachers and didn’t devote class time to working on reading skills. As a result, Ben and other struggling students felt frustrated and started acting out. The situation could easily have been averted if the teacher had been adequately prepared to deal with literacy issues. That, however, wasn’t the case. In the end, most of these kids’ parents decided to send them to different schools where greater attention was paid to their individual needs. Unfortunately, millions of parents and children just don’t have that option.

28 July, 2019 08:42 Share

To prepare for the future, we should nurture children’s brains with the best of both worlds.

When it comes to reading, for example, non-digital sources are much more effective at giving kids the tools they need to think for themselves. Physical books, the author argues, should be the principal focus during the first years of schooling.

28 July, 2019 08:42 Share

One way of encouraging that is to revert to pen and paper and have kids write down their thoughts by hand – a nifty trick which forces them to take things slowly and take the time to consider their ideas about what they’ve read.

28 July, 2019 08:43 Share

Protecting our third life as readers preserves our ability to turn knowledge into wisdom.

Like members of Aristotle’s ideal society, readers must also balance their three lives if they wish to be their best selves. Here’s how it works. The first life is all about learning and gathering knowledge – think of looking something up on Google or in a dictionary. In the second mode, readers relish the things which entertain them like testing their wits as they follow with the deductions of a sleuth in a murder mystery or discovering fascinating historical facts. This is ultimately where we find an escape from the pressures of everyday life. Taken together, these two lives lead to the third: the life of contemplation. This is a deeply personal realm where we let the things we read – whatever genre they are – guide our thoughts about the world around us. Spending time in this third zone allows us to translate the knowledge and experiences gained in our first and second lives into wisdom.

28 July, 2019 08:45 Share

The third life is a delicate flower that needs to be carefully cultivated, and that takes time, patience and effort – all things in desperately short supply in our fast-paced, digital world! It was this realization which led billionaire investor Warren Buffet to tell Bill Gates that he should leave plenty of free space in his calendar. After Gates credited him with this discovery, Buffett pulled a small calendar out of his pocket. "Time," he said, "is the one thing no one can buy."

28 July, 2019 08:46 Share

Revolutionary ideas come in new boxes.

Tunnel vision occurs when you lose the awareness that your individual perception of the world is merely an interpretation based on a subjective sample of information. After all, it’s your perception – you can’t have anyone else’s. What you perceive is not some objective reality, nor is it even the best guess at what an interpretation of our complex reality should look like, and believing your box is the right one constrains the realm of the thinkable.

5 June, 2019 12:17 Share

Step one: Don’t trust your gut feeling!

Start with the simple understanding that sticking to the familiar will always feel right. The human mind tends to cling to its existing set of boxes, unconsciously accepting information that confirms our worldviews and discarding contradictory information. This, of course, makes it difficult to adjust our perspective.

5 June, 2019 12:22 Share

Second, realize that the human mind has an unreliable default setting. We’re all routinely fooled by a phenomenon called cognitive bias, i.e., the subconscious programming that causes us to favor simple intuition at the expense of objective analysis. As a consequence, we make logical errors and often miscalculate probability, value or risk.

5 June, 2019 12:23 Share

In the new organization, employees follow an advice process to ensure efficient decision making.

holacratic

19 April, 2019 11:22 Share

If everyone is their own boss within an organization, wouldn’t that lead to chaos? Well, no. Ultimately, the TEAL model relies on an advice process to ensure efficient decision making. Anyone within a TEAL organization can make decisions, as long as they first seek advice from affected parties and those with expertise. It’s important to note that even if one of these advice-givers opposes the idea, the final decision lies with the person seeking advice.

24 August, 2019 00:27 Share