The Trouble With Troublemakers

WHEN SOMEONE AT WORK talks badly about you behind your back, puts you down, interferes with your work, makes you mad, or otherwise makes trouble for you, the natural tendency is to focus on them. You want to get back at them. You want to talk badly about them behind their back, put them down, make trouble for them in some way.
But I want you to consider the possibility that returning like for like is a mistake. Look at the three practical steps below — all of them effective ways to deal with troublemakers — and notice: None involve talking about, thinking about, or speaking with the troublemakers themselves, because that doesn’t work. Here’s what does work:
1. Do your work extremely well. Think of your level of excellence as a sliding scale, from doing-as-little-as-you-can-do-without-getting-fired all the way up to doing-your-very-best-every-second-you-are-at-work. At any given moment, you are somewhere between those two extremes. Move yourself further up the scale and you will feel more confident of your position. Doing your work well counteracts the feelings of insecurity a troublemaker can cause.
2. Keep your integrity level high. Doing anything unethical will increase the insecurity you feel. Conversely, the more you act with honesty and fairness, the better you will feel about yourself and about your position at work.
3. Stay in good communication with everyone else. A common response to feeling that someone is out to get you is to withdraw. But that’s a big mistake. The universe of human opinion abhors a vacuum, and if a troublemaker says something bad about you and the listener hears nothing from you, guess what? The slanderous information will tend to hold the floor from lack of any other viewpoint. Your bosses and coworkers may be mature, rational people, but human emotions still influence their decisions, opinions, and conclusions. Stay in communication with people — not trying to prove anything, but just being yourself — and the reality of who you are will help negate any rumors about you.
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DO THESE THREE and the threat from the troublemaker will be minimized. You can’t really get rid of such an element for good. That’s the trouble with troublemakers. They are bound to crop up now and then, as inevitably as a bad storm. If you try to argue with them or fight with them or use their tactics on them, you will lose. They’ve been at it longer than you.
Do your work to the best of your ability, conduct yourself honorably, and stay in good communication. Your position will be solid and the storm will pass over you without so much as a shudder.
Do your work exceptionally well, keep your integrity level high, and stay in good communication with everyone else.

The Bad Apples
WHEN DALE CARNEGIE WROTE his classic book on human relations, How to Win Friends and Influence People, he left out a chapter; it wasn’t finished on time, so the book was published without it. The chapter was supposed to cover the subject of dealing with people you cannot win with.
For most people, when you treat them fairly, they treat you fairly in return. But as you know, there exists in this world a small percentage of people who will simply take advantage of you when you try to treat them fairly. There are people who will play games with you, deceive you, and some who will actively prevent you from making your relationship work. Carnegie’s unwritten chapter was for the times when “somebody has to go to jail, be spanked, divorced, knocked down, sued in court.”
Even beyond those extreme cases, every once in awhile you’ll get stuck working with or having to interact with someone who continually brings you down or in some way makes your life difficult. They may seem to be very nice people. They might smile and come across with a lot of charm. But the end result of your interactions are: You’re worse off. You try to make things work, you try to be fair, and you get the short end of the stick every time. You’ve tried to talk with them, perhaps, and it doesn’t make things better, and they probably make you feel bad for saying anything.
I have no fancy methods for dealing with these people. You can’t really deal with them. If they’re doing something illegal, you can certainly call the police, but most are too clever to do something illegal. My wife uses a good analogy in her speeches. She says trying to make things work with these people is like trying to wrestle with someone who is covered with mud: You’re going to get muddy. No matter what you do or how well you do it or how noble your intentions, you’ll get muddy.
So instead of trying to make things work out with these people, the goal is to avoid dealing with them at all. Go for minimal impact. Have as little to do with them as you can get away with (without causing yourself trouble). Ideally, you would eliminate them from your life completely. Stop calling, stop visiting, stop being nice. You don’t have to be mean about it. Just fade them into the background and then all the way out of the picture.
I know this isn’t a perfect world. Sometimes you’ll have to keep interacting with someone who won’t let you make things work. So go as far as you can to minimize their effect on your life. Talk to them as little as you can, look at them as little as you can. Focus your attention on your purpose and on the rest of the people around you.
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When you come across someone and nothing works with him, cut your losses. Don’t waste any more effort trying. This is a big world full of wonderful people and a few bad apples. Concentrate your attention on the good people and waste as little of your attention as you can on the ones who bring you down. You can do it a little at a time and it will improve your attitude. And if it improves your attitude, it’s good for your relationships with your family and friends, and it’s good for your health.
Try not to waste too much of your attention on people who bother you.

Argue With YourselfAnd Win!
WHEN SOMEONE MAKES you angry, it may seem that the cause of your anger is the other person’s actions. But what really makes you angry is what you think the action means. If you look closely at the meaning of an event, your certainty about it will fade. You’ll realize it doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means. This uncertainty will make your anger diminish.
Suppose, for example, someone interrupts you while you’re talking and it makes you mad. You “know” the person is being disrespectful. On closer look, you see that: 1) an event happens, 2) you figure out what it means, and then, 3) you feel an emotion in response to the meaning you created.
Step number two happens very fast — so fast it seems the event directly caused your feelings. But that isn’t so. And you can prove it to yourself.
Wait until the next time you get mad at someone. Then try to discover one thought you have about what they did. You may have to backtrack — do a slow-motion replay. Ask yourself, “Why am I mad?” Your answer is probably, “Because he did such-and-such.” Ask yourself another question: “Why would that make me angry?” Your answer to this second question is probably a statement about the meaning of the action. Now you have something to work with.
Take your statement and look at it scientifically. In the above example, someone interrupted you. You thought, “He doesn’t respect me.” Looking at that thought scientifically, you realize it’s a theory to explain why he interrupted you. Once you look at it, you also realize it isn’t the only explanation possible! Try to come up with other explanations: “Maybe he never thought much about interrupting, and no one ever said anything to him about it, so he’s in the habit of interrupting people — those he respects and those he doesn’t.” Or “Maybe he interrupted me because he has a poor memory and didn’t want to forget his thought, so he blurted it out.”
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You can never really be sure why another person does something. Sometimes the person himself doesn’t know why he’s doing it.
After you create two or three good theories (this will only take a few moments), your anger will fade, you’ll feel better, and you’ll deal with the situation more rationally. Argue with yourself this way and everyone wins!
When you're angry, argue with yourself first.

Interpretations
I WAS RECENTLY VISITING a friend of mine at his workplace. He looked at me with a smile that obviously wasn’t full of happiness. “I hate this job,” he said, “I’m getting to the place where I can’t stand these customers!” He was no longer smiling. “There’s no place for me to vent. I can’t tell off my customers. I’d lose my job!”
“John,” I said, “Let me tell you a true story. Once upon a time, a team of researchers wanted to find the best way to deal with anger. They experimented with children at school. In one group, whenever a child got mad at another child, they had him act out his anger with toy guns. With another group, they had the child express his anger verbally. In the third group, the researchers merely gave the angry child a rational explanation for why the other child did what she did. And you know what? The method that worked the best was the last one.”
“The rational explanation?” asked John, obviously needing a rational explanation.
“Yes. There’s been a lot of research showing that anger isn’t really something that ‘bottles up’ inside you, and that ‘venting’ doesn’t help — in fact, venting increases your feelings of anger. Isn’t that surprising? I didn’t believe it at first. But pay attention next time you ‘vent.’ It makes you more angry! Anger is caused by the way you’re thinking at the moment you’re angry, and it seems like it’s building up because you’re running those thoughts through your head over and over, getting madder and madder. But it’s the thoughts that make you mad, not the event itself.
“Imagine you’re in a restaurant with a friend,” I continued, “and you order dinner. Your waiter takes your order and goes on about his business. After awhile, you wonder where your food is. You look for your waiter but don’t see him. You’re getting angry. By the time your waiter walks up (empty handed), you’re really mad. ‘Where have you been!’ you demand, ‘And what happened to our dinner?
The waiter says, ‘I’m sorry. I forgot to give the cooks your order until only a few minutes ago. I’m really sorry. The hostess just had an epileptic seizure, and I was calling the paramedics and trying to keep her from hurting herself.’
“On hearing this, what happens? Your anger disappears — almost instantly. Where did it go? If anger really bottled up inside you, it would still be there, right? You’ve had no way to ‘vent it.’ But you’re suddenly not the least bit angry. The idea that anger builds up and needs to be released is just another generally-believed idea that’s been proven wrong.
“The reason you’re suddenly not angry is that your anger was being produced by the thoughts you were thinking, and you’re no longer thinking those thoughts, so the anger is no longer being produced.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” asks John. He isn’t smiling, but he isn’t frowning, “When a customer is being a jerk, do I think to myself, ‘My customer is a nice person; I love my customer?’”
“Good question,” I said. “No. I doubt if that would work, because saying things to yourself you don’t believe doesn’t do much good. Have you ever tried it?”“Yeah.”“Did it work?”“No.”
“Right. Sometimes it does, but not very often. What you need to do is question your interpretation. Don’t try to pump yourself up and tell yourself a bunch of positive stuff you don’t believe. Tear apart the negative. When you’re angry, you take your thoughts for granted. If you thought it, it must be so, right? You can trust your own thoughts, can’t you? But if someone else came up and said exactly the same thing out loud to you, you could take the statement apart no problem. But you said it, so you just accept it.
“You should treat the thoughts in your head with as much skepticism as you would treat the words of a fast-talking salesman. ‘Hold on there, buddy,’ you might say, ‘Slow down and say that again...(let him say one sentence)...Can you prove that? Who says? Has a study been done? Who conducted the study?’ You don’t take everything a salesman says at face-value. You question it. You should do the same thing with the thoughts you have that bring you down.
“As soon as you start arguing with your own thoughts, you’ll find it pretty easy to tear them to shreds because the thoughts you think when you’re angry are almost always exaggerations and distortions and unprovable interpretations. Almost always. Like 99 percent of the time. And when you take your thoughts apart, your anger disappears.”
John looked unconvinced.“Give me one,” I said, “Tell me something you were thinking about a customer.”“Let’s see...” John recalled, “This lady was being really condescending and the other people...”“Wait,” I interrupted, “Let’s take one at a time. ‘The lady was being condescending.’ That’s a good one. Do you think you could argue with that?”“Well...I don’t know.”“Was she being condescending?”“Yes. She was.”“Are you sure? Can you read minds?”“No. I guess it’s possible she wasn’t being condescending.”
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“Maybe she wasn’t. How could you know for sure? Maybe you misread her tone of voice and body posture. It happens, you know. Don’t you hate it when someone misreads your tone of voice? It happens. Maybe you misread her’s. Are there other possible explanations for the way she was talking to you?”
“Yeah, I guess. Maybe she was in a bad mood when she came in and I had nothing to do with it.”
“That’s a good one. That’s certainly possible. Give me another one.”
“Uh...I remind her of her son, and she’s in the habit of being condescending to him.”
“That’s pretty good. You’re good at this. Both of those explanations have nothing to do with you. In other words, with either of those explanations, you don’t have to take it personally. And if you don’t take it personally, you’re probably not going to get angry. Can you think of another one?
“Let’s see...How about: She was actually strongly attracted to me and had a hard time controlling herself and her effort to control herself looked like ‘condescension.’”
“Okay. Good. Now which explanation do you settle for?”
“Hmm...let me think...”
“None!!!” I say a little too loudly. “You have effectively destroyed your original interpretation—the one that was making you angry. You’ve proven to yourself that there are other equally possible theories to explain what you experienced besides, ‘She’s being condescending.’ Since you don’t know what the ‘real’ explanation is, you can just leave it at that. It is unknown. And when there are several equally possible theories to explain things, you won’t be too upset by any one of them. And you’ll feel better. And you’ll act more effectively because of it.
“This is good,” he says, looking a little hopeful.
“It works really well. How do you feel now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you feel angry?”
“No.”
“See, it’s working already!” MOST OF THE MEANINGS we make automatically are given to us during our upbringing. We’re using the meanings we’ve been given without ever suspecting we have a choice. We’re somewhat passive receptacles of the culture we grew up with.
We don’t realize our power to make meanings, so we don’t exercise it. But the meanings we make have a tremendous impact on our lives.
If you think when you and your spouse get mad at each other it means your marriage is on the rocks, that meaning will affect the outcome of your life. It will affect how you feel. If you become afraid of conflict because you think it means The End, and you avoid conflict (maybe you don’t speak the straight truth in order to avoid conflict), you’ll create misunderstandings. Things s/he doesn’t know about you will start accumulating. Confusion and distrust will accumulate right along with it. This, in itself can lead to what you feared: the eventual demise of your marriage.
The meanings you make have an impact on your life. By experimenting with different meanings, you can improve your attitude and ability to handle problems in your life because a different meaning gives you different feelings and different actions, and that gives you different results in your life.
Meanings are not facts. When a meaning causes you dysphoria or ineffectiveness, question it. Make up other meanings. You’re in the driver’s seat.
Positivity is needed and wanted in this world. Negaitivity, pessimism, and defeatism are counter-productive and self-defeating. They don't accomplish anything worthwhile. In fact, they PREVENT worthwhile accomplishments. If you'd like to share this message with a friend, it's easy.

The Conflict of Honesty
WE'RE AFRAID TO BE HONEST. I’ll admit it, I am too. And we should be afraid of it. Honesty can cause conflict — uncomfortable, gut-wrenching, upsetting confrontations with people. We hate those and try to avoid them. One of the main reasons we try to avoid conflict is because we’re not very good at it. And because we avoid it, we never have a chance to become good at it.
Luckily, many people have gone before you. Some of them have risked honesty and gotten good at the conflict it can create, and some of them have even written down what they’ve learned.
It seems that there are some basic rules you can follow, and with a little practice, you can learn to deal with conflict in a way that helps other people and yourself at the same time. Here are the two main rules to follow when you find yourself in conflict with someone:
Listen well. Interruptions block the flow of communication and prevent progress. Sometimes an interruption jars or upsets the speaker. Give people your attention. Let them finish. Do your best to understand what they’re saying. You don’t have to agree with what they’re saying, but try to understand it from their point of view—try to understand why they think that way. And let them know you understand.
Speak only what’s strictly true. This sounds a lot easier than it is. Try it. Try going a day only saying what you know is true. I’m not talking about philosophical, airy-fairy stuff, either; I don’t mean getting into a debate about whether or not your chair really exists. I mean, in a practical sense, see if you can go a whole day only saying what you know is true. It’s tougher than you’d think, so don’t treat this one lightly. During conflict, concentrate on saying only what you know is true.
IMPOSE THESE TWO disciplines on yourself. You will be able to be more honest and you’ll have more control over your life. This is no small accomplishment. Honesty sounds kind of corny, but more honesty means more freedom and more personal strength. And no lasting peace can settle in your heart without it.
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Be honest. If it causes conflict, listen well and only say what is strictly true.

As Good As Gold
ONE FUNDAMENTAL FORCE allows you to make changes in your life and turn good ideas into reality. The greatest idea, the finest resolution, the best plan are all useless without it.
What is this fundamental force? It is the power of keeping your word. It’s the attitude of honoring the promises you make as sacred — even (or maybe especially) the promises you make to yourself.
The good news is you can increase your ability to keep your word. You can make this power more available to yourself.
First, understand the fundamental role it plays. Recognize its power.
Next, don’t commit yourself lightly — treat each promise you make as something you will do no matter what. Be very selective about what you commit yourself to.
And finally, renew your commitment every time you break your word.
Each of us has what Abraham Maslow called “choice-points” every day. These are moments when we have to decide, “Am I going to do the thing I promised myself and move forward? Or am I going to do the easy thing and break my promise and move backward?”
And if you break your promise, you arrive at another choice-point: Will you renew your commitment to be a person who keeps your word? Or will you give up on yourself and adjust your self-image downward? The decisions you make during these choice-points determine the direction and quality of your life.
The most important starting point is to make a promise to yourself that, from this day forward, when you come to a choice-point, you will choose to keep your word. The more often you make the choice to keep your word, the more your word is worth. Eventually, your word is as good as gold.
Keep your word.

Master the Art ofMaking Meaning
YOUR MIND IS A meaning-making machine. Without even trying, you “know” what things mean, at least most of the time. When someone treats you rudely, your mind interprets that. It makes some meaning out of it. And it’s completely automatic. That is, you don’t stop and think about it. You don’t try to make an interpretation. It happens without any effort on your part.
The meanings you make affect the way you feel and determine how you interact with people and circumstances. The interpretations you make about the events in your life have a significant influence on the amount of stress you experience in your day.
For example, let’s say someone cuts you off on the freeway. And let’s further postulate, just for fun, that your automatic interpretation is “What a jerk.” The interpretation would probably make you upset, at least a little bit. But realize that it doesn’t feel like you’re making the interpretation “What a jerk.” The way it feels to you is that your assessment of the person is obvious, and anyone in their right mind would make the same assessment in the same circumstances. But believe it or not, your interpretation was your own doing, and it wasn’t the only possible interpretation you could have made.
The important thing about this is that your interpretations change the way you feel, and those feelings change the way you interact with the world.
The good news is: You’re not stuck with the interpretations your mind makes automatically. You can come up with new ones. You wouldn’t marry the first person you met after puberty, would you? You wouldn’t take a job at the first place you saw a “Help Wanted” sign, would you? Well, you don’t have to use the first interpretation that pops into your head, either.
In the example above, the possible ways to interpret someone cutting you off are virtually unlimited. How about this one: The person had unexpected car trouble and now is running terribly late to an important appointment. If the driver is a woman, maybe she’s in labor and needs to get to a hospital now. If it’s a man, maybe he was called at work and told his wife is in labor. Maybe his brakes went out. Maybe he’s having heart trouble.
None of those interpretations are better than any others in an absolute way. But which one leaves you able to go on about your day feeling fine? Or, if it’s a situation that keeps repeating itself and requires action, which interpretation will make you most effective at dealing with that situation?
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Challenge yourself. Don’t settle for the first interpretation that comes to mind. Say to yourself, “Okay, it might mean that...what else could it mean? What’s another way to interpret this?” You will feel better, treat people better, and handle situations better. Do you know what this could mean to you? You tell me.
Come up with alternative ways of interpreting an event.

Here Comes the Judge
YOU ARE KIND AND GENEROUS most of the time. But occasionally you judge, label and disapprove of people — sometimes silently in your mind, sometimes aloud, sometimes for significant reasons, sometimes for petty reasons. Judging people causes an underlying resentment that puts you in a bad mood and makes you tired. And it strains your relationships with people. The stresses from different sources in your life accumulate, and this is a source you can do without.
And no matter how you do it or what the circumstances, when you pass judgment on someone, you are very likely making an error — usually committing at least one of these three forms of what cognitive scientists call distorted thinking:
Jumping to conclusions. We rarely know the motives or full story behind the actions a person takes, and yet we come to conclusions quickly and easily that “he’s a jerk” or “she’s a fool” or “how rude” or “what a freak.” We condemn people far too easily.
Overgeneralization. A judgment normally involves summing up a complex human being in simple terms based on a few or even one instance. That’s poor science and faulty thinking.
Overconfidence in one’s own assessment. You don’t really know why other people do things. And yet you hold your judgments with excessive confidence. We all do it. Overconfidence in our conclusions is a fallibility of human nature.
THESE THOUGHT MISTAKES can be corrected with practice. The technique is simple: Pay attention to your assessments of other people, and then question and criticize your judgments. Are you jumping to conclusions? Are you over-generalizing? Do you have enough knowledge to be able to make such an assessment?
Think about it rationally. Maybe you’re being too hasty. Maybe you’re being unnecessarily harsh. Haven’t you yourself done something similar? Sure you have. But there were extenuating circumstances that at least partially excused you, weren’t there? Maybe this person has reasons too, but you don’t know about them. It’s not only possible, it’s very likely.
Question your judgments and you’ll find that many of them aren’t worth much, and you’ll stop holding them.
And what will happen? You’ll feel less stress. You’ll find your relationships gently blossoming in a new way. You’ll be able to talk to the person more freely. You’ll be more relaxed. Conflicts will be easier to resolve because you’ll be able to communicate without anger (no judgment, no anger) and without making the other person defensive (when you’re not judging, people don’t feel attacked, so they don’t get defensive). And in the long run, less stress, anger, and frustration adds up to better health too.
Once you start paying attention to it, you may find out you’re in the habit of judging people a lot. Does this make you bad and wrong? No. Only human. Judging yourself is faulty thinking too.
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Question and criticize your negative judgments of people.


You Can Change
STANLEY SCHACHTER WAS PUZZLED. A researcher at Columbia University, Schachter was well versed on the studies of weight-loss and smoking-cessation programs. According to the research, only 10 to 30 percent of the people who participate in those programs are still slender or nonsmoking one year later. Ten to 30 percent. That isn't much.
These studies prompted some researchers and therapists to assert it’s nearly impossible to stop smoking or control one’s weight permanently.
What puzzled Schachter was that most of the people he knew who wanted to lose weight or quit smoking had somehow been able to do it successfully. He conducted some interviews of his colleagues and friends, and it confirmed his hunch: Those who had tried had succeeded.
He has now spent over twenty years doing research on this, and he has concluded that the key to success in changing long-standing habits is practice. According to his research, people who have successfully quit smoking have tried and failed a number of times before they finally succeeded. The same was true about losing weight. Apparently you have to learn how to keep the change, and after you learn how, it begins to become a new part of yourself that eventually requires very little active effort to maintain.
That’s why the studies of weight-loss programs and stop-smoking studies look so bleak: Each is a study of only a single attempt. Schachter found that the more times you go through one of these programs, the more likely the change will be permanent.
So if you have tried to change and failed, try again. And keep trying. You can change...and you can learn how to keep the change. All you need is practice.
Keep persisting until the change you want happens.

Refuse to Flinch
EVERYBODY KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS to flinch. Example: You pretend you’re going to slug me, and I twitch or blink. I flinched. Now let’s expand and extend that idea in a useful way: Let’s say flinching is any form of shrinking back, pulling away or turning aside, when it’s done to avoid discomfort or difficulty.
Have you ever noticed that you have a strong desire to put your hands in front of your body when you’re standing up and talking to several people who are all seated? Most people do. If you succumb to your desire to put your hands in front of your body, that’s a flinch.
Or say you’re telling someone something she doesn’t want to hear. While you talk, maybe you shift your body’s weight from one foot to another, pick at your fingernails or cross your arms. You flinched!
If you look at someone and they then look at you and you quickly look away, you flinched. Mumbling or speaking quietly is a form of flinching. Someone who is avoiding going to night classes because he’s afraid he might not do well is flinching.
Flinching is an attempt to protect yourself, and it’s very natural. Everybody does it. But there is one major problem with it: Flinching makes you weak. Notice I didn’t say it was a sign that you are weak. The act of flinching itself makes you weak.
But when you have the urge to flinch and you don’t, you gain a kind of strength. And when you look people right in the eyes with your arms hanging by your sides where they naturally hang and you speak truthfully without flinching, you have an unnervingly powerful personal presence.
And you don’t have to spend years getting good at this; you can do it the very next time you talk to someone. It’s easy to do (once you decide to), but when you do it, you will notice a temptation, a craving, a desire — almost an ache — to fidget or look away or at least put your hands in your pockets.
Refuse to flinch.
Make up your mind — as soon as you notice yourself flinching — that you will not flinch. You’ll like the result. A fear just goes out of you. This is especially true if you consider yourself shy to any degree. Don’t flinch, and suddenly the sense of shyness becomes somewhat wispy and transparent, and you’ll start to wonder if there has ever been anything there but a shadow.
Don’t flinch, and feel the power.
Then go on and expand this power by extending the practice into the psychological arena. When someone is “in denial,” it means they are mentally or emotionally flinching; they are looking away or shrinking back or avoiding something real — some truth, some reality — and always in order to avoid discomfort or difficulty.
But always and forever, wherever you flinch, you will be weak. And wherever you refuse to flinch, you will be strong.
This is the “how” of courage. It’s not that during a courageous act a person doesn’t want to run away. What makes it courageous is that the person wants to run away but doesn’t. Courage is refusing to flinch.
Extend your unflinching psyche into any area where you want more personal power.
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If you want to be socially strong, don’t flinch in social situations. If you want to be emotionally strong, don’t flinch at emotional feelings or situations. You would benefit if you made this a lifetime practice, a spiritual regimen, a holy discipline.
Wherever you refuse to flinch, you will have power. This will, of course, increase your impact on people. People will admire your courage and look up to you. When this happens, don’t flinch.
Resist the temptation to flinch.

Personal Propaganda
WHEN THE EXPERTS want to change the way people think, they use slogans. Why? Because it works.
Since early in this century, observers have pointed out that political propaganda campaigns have the tendency to use short, easy-to-remember phrases that encapsulate and symbolize their message. These brief phrases are then repeated over and over again until their meaning becomes part of the thinking habits of the population.
Advertisers do the same thing — It’s the real thing, Just do it, Your true voice, I like what you do for me, Like a rock — short, pithy, memorable phrases take advantage of the way the human mind works naturally. It’s practical. The short phrases focus the mind, simplify the issue and stimulate action.
Our minds don’t handle complicated formulas or doctrines very well unless we concentrate our attention. That’s fine when we’re reading or listening to a lecture. But when it comes down to our daily experiences — when we’re late for work, the kids are crying, and we’re trying to remember where we left the car keys — we find it distinctly difficult to concentrate our minds on any complicated concept, no matter how beautiful or perfect the philosophy seemed to be when we read it. In the heat of everyday life, we need to focus on what’s happening. We don’t have extra attention to spend philosophizing about it. That’s true for everyone: rich or poor, genius or average, in free countries and in communist countries. That’s just how the human brain works.
When a ruthless dictator uses short phrases to focus ideas and make them easier to act on, it may be bad for the people. But you can use the same tool to produce some good for yourself. You, too, can take advantage of the way your mind works.
When there’s something you want to change about yourself — some habit, some way you deal with others — think it through and then encapsulate your conclusions into a short, easy-to-remember phrase. Say that phrase to yourself often. Use it to focus your mind. Use it to direct your thoughts. Use it to channel your actions in the direction you want.
The source of most of the habits you want to change are habits of thought. Change the thought habits and your behavioral habits change too.
For example, when I feel out of my element or I’m dealing with a task that feels too big for me, I often use the principle from the chapter Adrift. I tell myself: “I can handle it.” With those four words, I remind myself that others have been through worse and it immediately puts my situation in perspective.
Slogans can really help at times like that — times when you’re too busy or too emotional or too overwhelmed to do much thinking about it. Say the slogan to yourself and get right back on track in a good frame of mind without skipping a beat.
Make your own propaganda campaign in your head. Use some of the principles of this book, or encapsulate a change you want or an insight you’ve had into a short phrase and repeat it often. Encapsulate and repeat. Encapsulate and repeat. It’s a practical technique for improving your life.
Encapsulate your insights into shortphrases and repeat them often.

The Samurai Effect
YEARS AGO I READ the book Shogun, by James Clavell, about the Japanese samurai (professional warriors). A samurai gave total allegiance to his liege lord and would die for him without question. The whole system was filled with honor and loyalty and was very beautiful in that respect.
While reading the book, I started treating my boss like my liege lord. What a difference it made! My attitude toward my boss changed and my boss’s attitude toward me changed dramatically. The working relationship became smoother, more friendly and more efficient. I did everything my boss asked me to do, to the best of my ability and without question. Of course, if my boss asked me to jump off a bridge, I wouldn’t have, but usually bosses don’t ask employees to do anything but their jobs.
I’ve often seen a different kind of attitude in the workplace, however, and I’m sure you’ve seen it too. It can be stated as “I’m not going to kiss anyone’s ass!” This attitude is characterized by arguing with the boss when asked to do something or trying to get away with not doing it very well. These people, even more than the rest of us, don’t like being told what to do, and actively resist it, which forces the boss to bear down to maintain control, turning the working relationship into an unnecessarily antagonistic contest of wills.
I’ve worked with people who got along great with everyone except the boss. And I’ve worked in places where I had a great boss, but my coworkers had a supreme jerk for a boss — and it was the same person. My “samurai” attitude had changed my boss for me.
In a way, your attitude toward a person creates that person. Interact with someone with a chip on your shoulder and the person will usually respond defensively. Approach someone with friendliness and cooperation and the person is likely to respond in kind. We play a part in creating the way someone treats us.
Do you want to stand out? Treat your boss like a liege lord and do what she or he asks you to do — cheerfully, without question, and to the best of your ability — and you will stand out. In your boss’s mind, you will contrast sharply with the people who don’t want to be told what to do. And it’ll be more enjoyable for you to be at work.
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Create a boss you enjoy working with. In actual behavior, the difference isn’t much. You won’t be any more tired or worn out by it. But you and your organization will be better off when you adopt a samurai attitude.
Treat your boss like a liege lord.

Unnatural Acts
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED why your coworkers complain so much? Or why you find fault with people so easily? Or why you watch the news even though it’s depressing? Why?
Our species evolved during the Ice Age (the Pleistocene epoch). In the last one or two million years, there have been four glaciations — four times when the ice advanced southward for a hundred thousand years or so, and then receded, changing the climate dramatically again and again. These ice invasions caused the extinction of many animals. But not humans. Our species lived through the harsh and radically-changing weather, famines, floods, fires, plagues, and the threat of deadly carnivorous animals walking around hungry. Lots of people died. Natural selection had a field day.
Let’s speculate for a moment. During dangerous times, what kind of human do you suppose would evolve? Would a happy-go-lucky, everything-is-groovy attitude help one survive? I don’t think so. Under those conditions, the best survivors would be those who compulsively noticed what was wrong and were constantly on the lookout for possible danger. In other words, conditions would have selected for a critical, negative, worry-wort. A relaxed, easygoing positive thinker probably wouldn’t last one winter. Those people who survived are our ancestors, so those traits are built into our brains and hormonal systems. Even yours.
It is completely natural to notice what’s wrong, what doesn’t work, and what you don’t like. It’s somewhat unnatural to see what’s good, what’s going well, and what you like and appreciate. But it’s also unnatural to be toilet-trained. It’s unnatural to have good manners. It’s unnatural to delay gratification. What comes naturally (like being negative) is not necessarily best. It might have been absolutely essential for survival a hundred thousand years ago, but times have changed.
Luckily, we are capable of doing things we don’t naturally do — if we know it’s in our best interest and if we firmly and definitely make up our minds to do so. One of the greatest talents of our species is that we’re capable of doing what we don’t naturally do.
You can learn to notice what’s going well. It takes a deliberate, conscious effort. It’ll probably never come naturally (that is, without thinking about it). No matter how many years you make that conscious effort, whenever you look around, chances are the first thing you’ll see is what’s wrong. And that’s perfectly okay. It’s useful to be able to see what needs fixing. But it also helps to notice the good stuff.
Today, deliberately notice something you like about the company you work for and tell somebody. Then take a good look at your coworkers and find something you honestly appreciate about someone and tell that person you appreciate it. Then talk about someone behind her back — talk about what you admire and respect about her. Make this effort a couple of times a day and your relationships will work better. You’ll also be in a good mood more often.
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Set a goal at the beginning of the day. How many sincere acknowledgments will you give today? Don’t make your goal too big — you have work to do too. But create some way of keeping track. For example, you could put five pennies in your left pocket and every time you make a good acknowledgment, move one penny to your right pocket. Try to move all of them that day.
Make a regular practice of this and the atmosphere where you work will change. The people around you will feel more noticed and appreciated and liked. And they will treat you with more appreciation in return. All you need to do is commit some unnatural acts.
Notice something you appreciate and tell someone.

Burn Your Own BTUs
MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI has been doing some fascinating research into creativity and enjoyment at the University of Chicago for over thirty years now. He invented a new way to study enjoyment. It’s called the Experience Sampling Method.
Basically, subjects are given a pager and a booklet, and then they go about their normal lives. At random intervals eight times each day, the pager goes off. The subjects immediately stop what they’re doing and fill out the questionnaire in the booklet.
Each questionnaire is identical. It asks what they’re doing, where they are, and who they’re with. Then it asks them to mark where they are on several scales of experience, such as one to seven to indicate where they are from “happy” to “very sad.”
After collecting over a hundred thousand of these samples, Csikszentmihalyi had a huge fund of raw information. He began to wonder, “Are people happier when they use more material resources in their leisure activities? Or are they happier when they invest more of themselves?” In other words his question was, “If I spend my day off going to a movie and out to dinner (or using resources and electricity in some way), will I have a more enjoyable day off than I would if I spent the day gardening or reading or talking or doing something requiring just my own effort?”
Which is ultimately more enjoyable? Using energy outside yourself, or using your own energy?
What would you guess? To answer the question, Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues went back through the data and sorted each experience sample by the amount of energy being used. They measured the material resources in units of energy called BTUs (British Thermal Units, the energy it takes to raise one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit) and sifted the data in search of an answer.
What they found surprised everyone. The fewer BTUs a person used in his leisure, the more he enjoyed it. Those time-off activities like watching TV, driving, boating, or anything that used electricity or expensive equipment were less enjoyable than self-powered activities like conversing with a friend, working on a hobby, training a dog, or gardening. This goes against the prevailing notions of what’s enjoyable. “Everybody knows” it would be more fun cruising on a yacht drinking margaritas than building a bookshelf in your basement. “Everybody knows” it would be more fun to go to the movies than it would to sit home and read a book. But according to the research, that’s not the case. Certainly those high-BTU activities are easier and more immediately appealing. But not more enjoyable.
When the pager went off and the participants stopped and checked how much they were enjoying what they were doing, they discovered something truly illuminating: The most fun things don’t cost much.
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Is this true for you? Test it. On your next two days off, do something that uses up material resources the first day, and the next day, have a friend over and converse or do something powered by your own energy. You’ll see a difference. The activity might not be as titillating at the moment, but when your day is done, you’ll be more satisfied with the self-powered day.
Do you want some first-class leisure? Find an interest and pursue it. Turn off the TV and use your own energy. You may be surprised to find it doesn’t wear you out but fully refreshes you.
This is extremely good news. It’s good for your pocketbook, it’s good for the planet, and it’s good for your own enjoyment. Use more of your own BTUs on your time off and the world will be a better place.
Use your own energy during your leisure time.

Do You Want to Give Up?
WE HAVE GOALS — things we want to accomplish. And we really do want to accomplish them; we’re not trying to fool anyone or pump things up. But sometimes we give up on our goals. Why?
All goals have obstacles to their achievement, things in the way. These are problems or difficulties we meet on the way to the goal that we must handle in order to achieve the goal.
What makes us give up is when it looks like we won’t be able to overcome the obstacles. They seem too big or too numerous. When we feel sure we can’t do it, we tend to give up.
What are the alternatives to giving up? Below are three. They are stated simply. Please do not discount them because of their brevity or simplicity. The fact that they are stated simply and briefly merely makes them easier to use and therefore more powerful, not less.
Get help. There are people who want to help you. Enlist their aid. The more help you get, the sooner you’ll succeed.
Tackle the obstacles one at a time. When you try to tackle all the obstacles, or just look at all the obstacles at the same time, it can overwhelm you. The feeling of being completely outgunned can take the wind out of your sails before you even get started. Pick one obstacle — an easy one — and tackle that first. Don’t even think about the rest of them. It’s likely that after you’ve tackled one obstacle, you’ll be in a better, stronger position to handle the next one, and so on.
Get some training or knowledge that will make you more able to deal with the obstacles. Read, study, practice. As you gain in ability, the obstacles shrink in comparison.
NEXT TIME you are overwhelmed by obstacles, try one, two, or all three of these alternatives to giving up. You’ll find they work. Using them, you’ll discover new strength and zeal to keep your dream alive and accomplish your goal.
Rather than give up:Get help, tackle the obstacles one at a time, and get some training.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest.
— Ecclesiastes


A Terrible Thing to Waste
DO YOU SOMETIMES feel tired? Listless? It might be boredom. Some tasks are just plain boring, and when your mind is bored, it starts shutting down or drifting off and going to sleep. To stay awake, you must engage your mind. Here are a couple of ideas to help you:
Move faster.This makes your mind pay closer attention in order to avoid mistakes. This demand for increased attention wakes you up, focuses your mind and makes the task more challenging. You can speed up without feeling unpleasantly stressed: Make it like a game. How much can you get done in the next half hour? Set a target and see if you can reach it. This makes a tedious task less boring and, as a bonus, frees up more time for things you like to do.
Listen to something.Everyone knows it’s more fun to do physical work while listening to good music than it is working in silence. Music engages your mind to some degree. But there is something that engages your mind more completely: talking. There has been a virtual explosion in the publishing industry of books and seminars on audiotape. Many people who commute to work have converted that boring and otherwise unproductive time into a mind-engaging education. The amount of material available on tape is staggering. In the next few years, using only the time you spend driving and doing household chores, you can learn a foreign language, listen to countless great books read to you by the best readers in America, and transform boring routines into an opportunity to expand your mind.There’s another kind of value to tapes. Often it doesn’t matter what you have learned. Even if you could recite it, some practical knowledge matters only if you have it in mind. Ideas about human relations are like that. I have pretty much memorized the principles in Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People, but when I am face-to-face with a real human being, I often forget it all. It isn’t fresh in my mind — it’s stored away somewhere. For this kind of knowledge, it’s better to listen to a little every day. Then the ideas will be in the front of your mind when you need them.
USE THESE two ideas to make boring tasks more interesting to your mind. Move faster, listen to something, or both. A mind is truly a terrible thing to waste. Brains are made to be constantly interested. Brains aren’t like muscles; muscles get tired when they are used too much. Brains get tired when they aren’t used enough. Brains not only get tired, but over time, they can become smaller and more feeble.
Research is now showing that it is a myth that people lose their mental ability with age. What they have found is that people who don’t continue to use their mental abilities — people who don’t continue to learn and grow — lose their mental ability with age. Learning and growing is for everyone, young and old alike. Even during a boring task, you can find a way to engage your mind.
During a dull task, move faster or listen to something.

Forbidden Fruits
HAVE YOU EVER HAD the experience, during a power outage or on a vacation, of finally having the time to really enjoy a conversation or read a good book and find yourself thinking, “Why don’t I do that more often?”
Why? Because the easy entertainments and products of our modern world are always enticing, and, of course, there are always chores that need to be done.
Some famous authors have written their books while in jail. I’ve often thought what a great opportunity they had. They lived in circumstances highly conducive to writing (because there wasn’t much else to do). And here I am, stuck in civilization with all its temptations. Poor little me.
But there is a way to create some of the same kinds of experiences without power outages or jail time. Human beings have been successfully using a simple and very effective method for thousands of years. It is simply to forbid things.
Today, for example, I have forbidden TV for myself. And I’ve already written more today than I have in the last week. It works. And there’s nothing forced about it. I don’t feel I have to write. I want to. Once I take away the nonstop seduction of the television, the most interesting and fun thing available is writing. Forbidding a distraction simply opens up the time I have available to do the things I really want.
Try it. Take the thing you do that wastes the most time or creates the lowest-quality experience and forbid it for a day. You don’t have to make it permanent. Simply forbid it for tomorrow or for the rest of today. I think you’ll like the result.
Forbid something for the day.

Zoning Out
AT ONE EXTREME, work can be overwhelmingly stressful. At the other end of the spectrum, work can be completely boring. Somewhere in the middle, the work is challenging enough to compel your attention and yet not enough to completely outstrip your ability. When you hit that perfect middle zone, work becomes a pleasure.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at the University of Chicago discovered that people reach this zone more often at work (54 percent of the time) than in leisure (18 percent of the time). When in this zone, people feel creative, active, concentrated, strong and happy — more so than when they’re not in that zone.
Work has gotten a bad reputation, probably from the beginning of this century when working conditions were horrible. But those days are over and clearly we have the opportunity to experience a lot of satisfaction while working. The key is matching our skill to the challenge confronting us. When challenges and skills are well matched, we enter the zone. When they are not matched, it’s unpleasant — too much challenge is stressful; not enough is boring.
If you are experiencing stress and tension at work, the solution is to increase your skill until it matches your challenge. For example, a typist buried in a backlog of unfinished work feels overwhelmed and tense. The feeling of tension tells him something: He has too much challenge. The solution is more skill, so he asks himself, “What skill could I improve to help me catch up on my backlog?” Maybe his answer is “Typing speed.” He buys a typing-tutor program and practices after work. His typing speed increases (and his stress level decreases) until eventually his skill level matches the challenge of the job, and his work enters The Enjoyment Zone.
To cure boredom on the job, you go the other way: Increase the challenge. The way to increase the challenge is to set and pursue goals beyond what is required by the job. Get the job done well and attain some other targets simultaneously. Let’s say our typist’s program of self-improvement worked so well that it’s now a year later and he no longer has any backlog. In fact, he’s getting all his work done ahead of time! His job is no longer stressful. Now it’s boring.
Boredom makes you feel tired and even apathetic. You feel like you need rest, but what you really need is more challenge.
There are hundreds of ways our typist could increase his challenge. I'll give you two. First, he could try to make his typing as perfect as possible: using the correct finger for every letter, never looking at the keyboard, making no spelling errors, etc. And then, keeping these high standards, he could try to continuously increase his speed. Second, he could look around and see what other challenges (related to the job) he could tackle — reorganizing, making systems more efficient, etc.
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Now here’s the catch. You knew there was a catch, didn't you? In the pursuit of The Enjoyment Zone, your skills keep increasing. So you need to keep increasing the challenge to keep up with it or you slip out of the zone and into boredom.
But keeping a good match between skills and challenges isn't as hard as it sounds, and the result is more enjoyment, so it’s worth the trouble. And since increasing skills are usually associated with increased opportunities for promotions and raises, there is another possible side effect you might enjoy: More money.
If you’re bored, increase your challenge.If you’re stressed, increase your skill.

Complaint Compunctions
YOU'VE HEARD PEOPLE COMPLAIN. Everybody does it at least some of the time, and many people do it a lot. A person who is complaining usually thinks he is perfectly justified because everybody knows how healthy it is to express one’s anger (or annoyance or disgruntlement). It’s called “venting.” It is a very common and widespread belief that venting is healthy.
But psychological research has shown that the expression of anger actually makes people angrier. The idea that somehow people store up anger in their bodies that then needs to be released is an inaccurate theory. It is a “common sense” idea based on a Freudian theory and seemingly backed up by the everyday observation that some things do seem to get rid of anger: exercise and airing grievances. And it’s true. Airing a grievance makes anger disappear. But complaining does not.
“But,” you might be saying, “isn’t airing a grievance and complaining the same thing?” The answer is that they are almost the same thing. The only difference is who you’re talking to. If you have a grievance with George and you tell it to me, you are complaining and it won’t help to dissipate your anger. In fact, it has a very good chance of making your anger worse. But if you tell your grievance to George, your anger or feelings of annoyance are likely to vanish.
If the person who is “venting” really wants to feel better, he needs to communicate with a person who can do something about his complaint.
Therefore, I heartily recommend that you instigate this as your personal policy: All complaints should go to the person who can do something about it. That means when someone is complaining to you about someone else, you can kindly direct them to the person who can do something about it. This may seem a rather rough thing to do, and you can surely be as courteous and friendly about it as you are able, but it is the most sane and productive way to deal with those complaints. And if you have a complaint, turn it into a request and then talk to the person who can fulfill that request.
All complaints should go to the person who can do something about it.
Write that statement on a card and hang it on the wall. Post it at work. Memorize it. Print it on business cards to hand to people who complain to you. Tattoo it on your back. Perhaps I’m getting carried away.
But I’ll tell you why that statement makes a good personal policy. If you have to listen to Alice complaining about Sam, you are forced by social pressure to side with Alice against Sam, sympathizing with her. This will weaken your relationship with Sam (or make you two-faced). Another option you have is to defend Sam, thereby perhaps straining your relationship with Alice.
A third alternative is to say, “I think Sam is the one you ought to be talking to about this.”
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People will naturally complain to someone who isn’t involved because it’s easier than complaining to someone who can do something about it. But it doesn’t improve anything.
If the complaint isn’t important enough to take it to someone who can do something about it, then it isn’t important enough to bother you with, either. If it is important, it should probably be said—to the person who can do something about it.
This simple policy can take a negative, unproductive expression and turn it into a force for positive change.
Direct all complaints to the person who can do something about it.

Maybe it's Good
I'D DONE A LOT OF WALKING in the last two days and my feet hurt. Of course, I didn’t like it. It’s obviously a sign I’m getting old. It’s a bad thing. “But maybe it’s good,” I said to myself, “in fact, maybe it’s perfect. Maybe it’s strengthening the bones in my feet and when I’m old I’ll be able to walk a lot longer.”
I don’t know how it’ll turn out. But since sore feet cause pain, I was automatically against it. But if I knew the pain was doing something good, I would feel different about it. It wouldn’t be so bad.
We don’t know what the future holds. It is always a possibility that the thing you hate so much right now is something you’ll be happy for later. You don’t know. Therefore it is counterproductive to ever pass a negative judgment on anything that happens to you.
It’s counterproductive for several reasons: First of all, you don’t really know if it will turn out in your favor, so passing a negative judgment is putting confidence in an improvable and possibly false guess. And that, of course, is not straight thinking.Second, it puts you in a bad mood to pass a negative judgment like that and bad moods are bad for your health, bad for your relationships, and no fun.
Third, according to research at Cornell University, our minds find it easier to confirm a judgment than to disconfirm it. When you conclude something is bad, your judgment will alter the way you perceive your life in a way that confirms your conclusion.
The good news is, when you judge something as good, your mind works to confirm that judgment also. When you decide “maybe this is something good in disguise,” you release the creativity in your brain to find ways it’s good — not only thinking of new ways to look at the situation, but thinking of ideas you can put into action that will make lemonade out of this lemon. When you conclude it’s bad, you slam the door on those ways, and they become unavailable to you.
When something happens — anything — before you pass judgment, consider this: It may be good.
No matter what happens, assume it’s good.

Why Ask Why?
A QUESTION THAT NATURALLY comes to mind when something goes wrong is “Why?” But it’s a question fraught with danger. Research has repeatedly shown that the human brain is designed to answer a question with whatever knowledge it has (no matter how little) and come up with a plausible answer (however wrong). Self-blame or victimhood is a frequent side effect.
For example, you can ask why you’re overweight and, without any problem at all, your mind will come up with answers. But all it can give you are theories. What’s the “real” answer? Is it because you weren’t loved as a child? Is it a genetic weakness in your family? Is it an evolutionary holdover precaution against famine? Is your mouth simply bored?
The problem with a why question is that you get too many answers you can do nothing about. You can’t change your childhood or a genetic weakness.
There is only one good thing about asking why: It can be entertaining. It’s intriguing. It’s like a mystery and mysteries capture our attention like nothing else. But if what you want is to handle the situation well or solve the problem and get on with the business of living, ask how not why. It’s more efficient.
Since your mind will try to answer any question you put to it, the kind of question you ask makes a big difference. So ask what you really want to know: “How could I get slimmer?” Or “How can I avoid this problem in the future?” Or “How can I solve this problem now?” Or “How can I make things a little better?” Let your mind go wild on one of those questions. The answers will be more productive.
With how, you go straight for a useful answer. You avoid getting sidetracked into what can become an endless search for “understanding.” With how your answers lead to actions. And it is actions that solve problems and produce real change.
Instead of asking why you have a problem,ask how you can get what you want.

Adventure
IN HIS MEMOIR, Education of a Wandering Man, Louis L’Amour wrote, “As I have said elsewhere, and more than once, I believe adventure is nothing but a romantic word for trouble...What people speak of as adventure is something nobody in his right mind would seek out, and it becomes romantic only when one is safely at home.”
If adventure is only a romantic word for trouble, then it follows that you can see trouble as an adventure. In other words, trouble isn’t a reality; it’s a judgment. And “adventure” would be an equally valid judgment.
I was once in an argument with my wife, for example, that was getting too heated, so I took a break, went down to the library to calm down, and thought about what L’Amour said. And I asked myself, “How is this fight like an adventure?”
“Well,” I replied to myself, “I’m doing something I don’t do very often — hanging out at the library. And doing something I don’t normally do must be one of the prerequisites for an experience I can call an adventure.”
Musing over this question, I thought, “The fight itself is like a jungle. Can we find our way through it to the River of Love? I think so. But we may get temporarily lost in the tangled valley of Being Right. We may sink in the quicksand of Hurt Feelings. We may miss the shortcut of Forgiveness and have to take the long way around.
“There are predators to look out for: We can get eaten alive by Dredging Up Past Injustices. The Unwillingness to Exercise Self-Control is somewhat like a swarm of mosquitoes that can inject us with malaria and make us sick for a long time, slowing down our progress through the jungle.
“We must somehow get across the chasm of our differences. One of us can cross it alone or we can meet half way.”
And after thinking about it this way, I went home and talked to Klassy with a different attitude. A better attitude. Try it. When you run into trouble, ask yourself: “How is this like an adventure?”
Ask yourself, “How is this like an adventure?”


Be All You Can Be
YOU USE ONLY 10 PERCENT of your brain. Have you ever heard that? It’s nonsense. You and I use our whole brains. Ask any neurologist. There are no idle parts of the brain, no brain cells sitting around unused. For example, there are neurons in your brain stem whose job is to immobilize your body while you’re dreaming so you don’t physically act out your dreams and get up and run into a wall. Every part has its function.
Idiot-savants can be a genius at one thing, like mathematical calculations or music, but they pay for it with a corresponding deficit in other useful attributes, like getting along with others. What happens is that one function, like mathematical ability, takes over a larger percentage of brain tissue — commandeers it, so to speak, usually as a result of a brain injury at birth — but whatever other ability that part of the brain is normally used for goes wanting. What you often get are geniuses that can’t have a decent relationship or tie their shoes or control their emotions.
All those abilities require brain space, and there’s just barely enough with none to spare. Nature did not equip us with a bunch of extra brain cells. As it is, the brain is as big as it can get and still (barely) make it through the birth canal. If it were any bigger, normal births would be impossible.
You could learn more, do more, be more, for sure. But there is always a trade-off. You could use every spare moment, for example, listening to language tapes, and thereby learn ten more languages in your lifetime. But it would have consequences. You’d have less time to socialize, for one. And that would have other, possibly negative, consequences.
You could work all the time, always improving yourself at every moment of the day, but no play makes Johnny a dull boy. It’s a trade-off. Balance is the key.
So don’t feel bad that you’re not “maximizing your full potential.” Devote some time to your betterment, but also relax and enjoy the ride. You’re alive on the planet, breathing air and capable of communicating with other fellow travelers. Enjoy it.
Improve yourself, but also relax and enjoy the ride.

Use What You Get
I WAS AT A PUBLICITY SEMINAR recently and the speaker said something very useful. She suggested that when you do a TV interview, you decide beforehand what message you want to communicate to the viewers, and then, no matter what the interviewer asks you, make sure you answer with your message.
Of course you have to acknowledge the question somehow and make the transition to your answer smooth, but, she said, no matter what, you must stay on what you want to say and not get sidetracked by the interviewer.
She was an expert in her field and said this was good advice. Some interviewers are downright hostile. Even if they aren’t, they often have a different purpose than you do for being there. So the question becomes: “Whose goal will be achieved? Yours or theirs?” Of course, if your two intentions are not wholly antagonistic, it is possible that both of you can be satisfied.
The same principle operates not only on TV interviews, but in regular life too. The first and most important principle is to know what you want. Know what you want. It doesn’t mean you have to step all over everyone to get it. But your wishes are at least as valid as anyone else’s, and from your perspective they are more valid than anyone else’s. That’s the way it ought to be.
So take whatever you get from the world — your circumstances, the people in your life and what they’re trying to accomplish — and use it to accomplish your goals.
To do this you have to focus on what you intend to accomplish, and go after it like a hungry lion stalking her prey. No matter what happens, keep trying to accomplish your purpose. It takes some concentration and a little practice. But you’ll be able to achieve your goals with more certainty. And you won’t be drained as much by things unrelated to your purpose.
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Your goals are honorable and valuable. Don’t let them get shunted aside by pushy people or less-than-ideal circumstances. Take whatever the world presents to you and use it to accomplish your purpose. No matter what.
Whatever happens, use it to accomplish your purpose.

Taking Credit
WHEN YOU DON'T TAKE CREDIT for things you do right or well, it can cause a mild but debilitating form of depression. You might not mope around, but you won’t feel as enthusiastic toward life as you could.
When you don’t acknowledge yourself for what you’ve accomplished, you get the feeling that you haven’t really done anything, and since you know you spent the day doing stuff, your efforts seem pointless and futile.
The solution is to make it a practice to ask yourself this question: What can I take credit for? Think of anything in your life that you’re glad happened, and look to see how much of it you can take credit for. What part of it was because of what you did? Until you’re in the habit, force yourself to do this every day. Ask yourself that question several times a day, and try to start noticing this simple fact: Much of the good stuff that happens in your life is a result of your choices and your effort.
If you’re not already in the habit of doing this, here’s what will happen: Over time, your level of energy and feeling of power and effectiveness will experience a resurgence. Your estimation of your own self-worth will rise up to match your actual worth. You will become more enthusiastic toward life. You’ll have the feeling that you have been spinning your wheels for a long time and suddenly the wheels are gripping the solid ground firmly and you are moving.
Take credit where credit is due. It may be impolite to brag to other people, but it is sane and healthy to acknowledge your own accomplishments to yourself.
Ask yourself, “What can I take credit for?”

Make It Happen
IN THE REMOTE JUNGLES of Southeast Asia on the Malay Peninsula, aboriginal tribes were studied in the 1930s and ‘40s. Two of the tribes — the Negritos and the Temiar — were very similar. They both paid a lot of attention to their dreams.
The Negritos’ attitude was passive. They felt they were the victims of evil forces. If they had a bad dream about a tree, for example, from that point on they would be afraid of the tree and its evil spirit.
But the Temiar taught their children that aggression in dreams was good. The child should not turn away from dream monsters, but attack them. They were taught that if they run away, the monsters or evil spirits will plague them until they turn and fight.
The two tribes were similar in many ways, but this one difference made the Temiar psychologically healthy, according to Kilton Stewart and Pat Noone, a psychologist and an anthropologist who studied them, and it made the Negritos psychologically unhealthy.
In any situation, you can have the attitude of reaching, of trying to accomplish what you want, or by default you will become a victim, the effect of circumstances and other people’s goals. If you aren’t actively trying to cause an effect you want, you will be forced by the aggression of others to respond, to react, to be the effect of their initiations. It isn’t the perfect design by my standards, but that is the way it works out, whether we like it or not.
So make it a practice to think about what you want, what you think would be good, and then try to make that happen. You’ll run into resistance sometimes. That’s okay. No need to resist the resistance. It’s just someone else trying to make something happen too (or trying to prevent themselves from being a victim). Don’t get caught up in it. Keep in mind what you want and continue taking steps toward it.
In other words, become less passive and more aggressive in your attitude. Aggression can be a good thing. If it’s aggression without anger or judgement, it can create a lot of good in the world. In fact, it has already.
Think about what you want and try to make it happen.

You Create Yourself
I WAS TRYING TO WORK yesterday, but I was tired. I had stayed up late and gotten up late and I felt “off.” When I realized what was happening, I decided to get back on track. I started paying attention to my work. I looked people in the eye and spoke with purpose. I decided to be a person I respect — not some victim to my feelings or circumstances, but a creator of who I am. I set a standard for myself and then lived up to it in behavior. And my feelings came around. I stopped feeling so tired. I started feeling more purposeful. But even if my feelings didn’t come around, and they sometimes don’t, it wouldn’t matter. I can look people in the eye even when I don’t feel like it.
You can do this too. It’s not like I have any great amount of self-discipline or willpower. You can set standards for yourself and then live up to those standards, even when you don’t feel like it.
Let’s not be the effect of our feelings. They change too much. Set physical standards for yourself: What you will DO, not what you will feel. Act ethically. Speak with intention. Exercise even when you don’t feel like it. You cannot choose how you will feel voluntarily, but you can always choose what you will do.
Then, regardless of your upbringing or past habits or how much you drank the night before or the argument you had with your spouse this morning, take the actions you want to take. Be who you choose to be. It’s up to you. You are what you decide you are at any given moment — not how you feel, not how you were raised. Those are defaults, like the defaults on a word processor, and can be overridden at any time by a conscious decision. On some days, your defaults may be perfectly good because the circumstances and your feelings line up to make you act exactly as you wish. But the rest of the time, you’ll have to take over the controls.
Decide how you want to act, and act that way. You create yourself.
Decide how you want to act and act that way.

Interest is Life
PEOPLE WHO ARE FULLY VITAL and alive and full of energy are interested. They’re pursuing an interest. The stronger the interest, the more vitality emanates from it. People without any interests at all are bored, tired and lifeless. Interest is everything.
Here’s the problem: You can’t fake or force yourself to be interested in something. You can gently open yourself to be mildly interested, but you’re either strongly interested in something or you’re not, and it’s not up to you. It’s either there or it isn’t.
There are subjects and activities which, if you pursued one of them, would awaken your sleeping vitality. But you may be ignoring them for “good reasons.”
A woman I know liked to draw and was very good at it while she was still only in kindergarten. When she told her father she wanted to be an artist when she grew up, he said, “You don’t want to be an artist. Artists don’t make any money.” He dismissed the idea with so much certainty, she dropped her interest immediately. She cut it off, turned away from it.
Many of us have had a similar experience. We turned away from what really interested us and now we don’t really know what interests us. We look around at our options and don’t see anything interesting because the thing that interests us is behind us, so to speak — we’ve turned out backs on it and can’t see it any more.I know a man who liked to sail as a youngster, but let it fade out of his life when he became an adult. He thought about it once in a while but figured he would do some sailing “later” when he had a lot of money and extra time (dream on dude).
He recently decided to take up sailing, even on a small scale, and he has come alive.
Boredom is death. Interest is life. Dig up that dormant interest. You know the one — you’ve dropped it or laid it aside for perfectly sound reasons. You might even feel it’s childish to pursue it. That’s the one. Pursue it, even a little, and your awakened interest will brighten your whole life.
Pursue the interests that make you come alive.

How to Like Yourself More
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO LIKE yourself much when you’re doing something you think is wrong. It doesn’t matter how much rationalization you do, or how thickly you try to cover it with justification, if you think it’s wrong or bad, and you keep doing it, you cannot like yourself. So the way to like yourself more is to clean up your integrity. You may not like to hear that, and I don’t blame you. It sounds like a horrible burden. But it’s not. It lightens your load and makes it more fun to be alive. Here are three steps to a self you like and respect.
Make a list of what you’re doing that you think is wrong and stop doing those things. You might keep backsliding for awhile, but if you keep at it, you’ll make it. Also make a list of things you should be doing and aren’t. Never mind what others think you should or shouldn’t do or what you’ve been told is right or wrong. Just pay attention to what you feel is right or wrong. And make sure you write it out. This, by itself, will give you some relief, because we are never as bad as we think we are. When you write it out, you’ll see that. The list will be finite. Work on one thing at a time. Then cross it off your list.
Make amends for anything you’ve done in the past that you feel guilty about. Some situations only need an apology, or just an admission that you did it. Other situations will require you to take some action to make up for the damage you did. Before you get started on this, you should know that it’s never as bad as you think it will be. It’s easier to make amends than it first may seem. Be creative. Make it fun. You may come up with a wild idea, but if it seems right to you, try it.
Forgive yourself for all the “bad” things you’ve done. This should be fairly easy since you’ve already taken responsibility for your past and present action. But to finish the job, you need to forgive yourself. To forgive yourself simply means to give up resentment against yourself, or give up the desire to punish yourself. Since you have taken and are taking responsibility for your actions, to continue to punish yourself or resent yourself is just silly. You are human. Humans make mistakes. You’ve recognized that and corrected your mistakes. That’s something to feel good about. So forgive yourself. A decision is all that’s required. Simply decide to stop resenting yourself and give up any intentions of punishing yourself
TAKE THESE THREE steps to a self you really like. You’ll gain strength and confidence and the peace that comes from knowing you do what’s right.
Fortify your integrity.

We've Been Duped
PEOPLE FELT RICHER in the 1950s — when houses averaged 1100 square feet — than they do now, when they average 2000 square feet. There were no VCRs, no microwaves, no cable TV, no PCs, no video games, hardly any dishwashers, and in most homes only the father brought in an income. Yet according to surveys, our reported level of happiness peaked in 1957 and has gone down as our level of wealth has gone up.
The reason is simple: You and I don’t need much to be happy. Most of us are doing too much, working too hard, trying to make “enough” money. But it costs us time. And after a certain point — a point we have all passed a long time ago — you get less and less happiness for more and more expenditure of time to earn money. And that is time taken away from time spent with your loved ones, where a good deal of happiness does come from. Those moments of simple human interaction — talking, playing a game, taking a walk, cooking together — those are the real riches of life.
You’ve been exposed to barrage of advertising, something like a million ads by the time you’re twenty. And those advertising people are experts on human nature. They’ve read all the studies showing what influences people, and they carefully design their advertisements to pull your attention and then to convince you their product would make you happy. They have been trying to manipulate your values since you were a kid. They’ve been trying to get you to believe having things is what will make you happy.
Most of us are way too busy, and that’s just perfect as far as the advertisers are concerned. We’re out working to earn more money so we have more to spend on products. If we would learn to curb our desire for so much stuff, we wouldn’t have to work as much, so we’d be able to spend more unscheduled time with our loved ones.
You already know this, I’m sure. But the more you hear something the more of an impact it will make on your feelings and behavior. Ask any advertiser.
You want more time? You want more enjoyment? There is a way, but it will require a little discipline: Do without. You’ll be a lot richer.
Remind yourself you don’t need much to be happy.

where to tap
EVER HEAR THE STORY of the giant ship engine that failed? The ship’s owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure out how to fix the engine. Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a youngster. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom. Two of the ship’s owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!
A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.
“What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!” So they wrote the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemized bill.”
The man sent a bill that read,
Tapping with a hammer...................................$2Knowing where to tap................................$9998
Effort is important, but knowing where to make an effort in your life makes all the difference. And here’s something I’ve learned from experience and study: If you want to improve your life overall, the best place to tap is exercise.
I injured a tendon not too long ago and didn’t exercise for about a month. I’ve started again, and I’ve become a born-again exerciser! I’d forgotten how good it is for my sense of well-being. I have more energy, a better attitude, a gentler disposition. It’s easier to be the kind of person I want to be.
Our bodies need daily exercise, and when we don’t exercise, it makes us feel bad. I think it’s our natural state to be energetic and feeling good. But the lack of exercise prevents that.
A consensus is building among doctors, psychologists and those trying to help others become saner, happier and healthier: Exercise is the place to start. If you were in a position to give advice, and someone unhappy or unhealthy came to you for guidance but you were allowed to give only one word of advice, the best thing you could recommend is: Exercise!

Exercise regularly.

think strong
SOME PEOPLE ARE EMOTIONALLY stronger than others. They can take a lot of stress and strain without falling apart, while others collapse into a whimpering heap at the smallest things.
The main difference between an emotionally weak person and an emotionally strong person is what they think when things go wrong. When troubles come along, the weak one is in the habit of thinking: “This is more than I can stand.” A tough one thinks: “I can handle this.”
It doesn’t matter what specific words a person puts to the two different kinds of thinking. But the thoughts that make people weak are feeble and impotent: “I can’t take it, it’s too overwhelming, it’s too much to bear, I can’t stand it, I’m not up to this, I’m not emotionally ready for this,” etc.
The thoughts that make you strong are capable and resolute: “I can take it, everything is going to work out, I’ll get through it, maybe there’s a lesson in it for me, adversity builds character, I’m tough, people have been through worse, if I try I can find an advantage in all this, when this is over I’ll be wiser,” etc.
To become stronger, change your thoughts. It’s as simple and uncomplicated as that. There’s nothing to it but to do it. Start saying something different to yourself during tough times. When you feel stress, coach yourself, “Come on, [your name here], you can handle this. When this is over, you might even be a stronger person because of it.” Think strong thoughts and you will be tougher, braver, and more resilient. Just like that.
The stronger thoughts are truer than the weak thoughts. You can take it. Human beings, including you, can withstand a tremendous amount of strain without cracking, as any cursory perusal of war stories, survival accounts, and reports of disasters demonstrate.
These kinds of thoughts won’t be habitual at first, of course. The way you think is as much a habit as the way you tie your shoes. But keep deliberately thinking stronger, and after awhile it will become habitual. Eventually, you’ll wonder how you ever thought differently.
Would you like to be stronger? Would you like to have more emotional calm during the stressful times? Would you like to stand as a pillar of strength when those about you are crumbling? Sure you would. This is the way. Change your thoughts. Make them stronger. Don’t think you can do it? That’s the first thought to change.

Think thoughts that give you strength and make you tough.

blind spots
COVER YOUR LEFT EYE, put your face close to the screen, and look at the X. As you slowly pull your face away from the screen, at some point the 0 will disappear. Or cover your right eye and look at the 0, and pull away, and the X will disappear.
X











0
You have a blind spot in each eye where the bundles of nerve fibers go back into your brain. But notice something: You don’t see the blind spot. It doesn’t show up like a dark, empty spot. Your brain fills in the emptiness.
In a similar way, when there is information you don’t know, your brain fills it in, giving you the feeling that nothing is missing. In other words, when you feel certain, it doesn’t really mean much. Your feeling of certainty doesn’t necessarily have any relationship to your actual correctness or knowledge. Your brain produces a feeling of certainty at the drop of a hat because it’s wired up to do so.
All human brains tend to jump to conclusions and then feel certain about those conclusions, so it pays to be somewhat skeptical of your own mind. That may seem like a negative goal, but it isn’t. Feeling certain has caused more problems for people than skepticism ever did.
For example, when you’re arguing with your spouse, the thing that keeps the anger intense is that you’re both certain you’re right. If each of you had a little more skepticism about your own ability to remember and reason, it would be easier to work out your differences.
To take another example, depressed people would get depressed less often if they became more skeptical of the pessimistic assumptions they make. The feeling of certainty depressed people have about their own pessimistic view of the world does them harm.
Don’t place much importance in your feelings of certainty. Be skeptical. Recognize you have blind spots and act accordingly. You’ll be saner if you do.
Be skeptical of your feelings of certainty.

Fighting Spirit
MARTIN SELIGMAN, PHD, and his research team tested the swim team of the University of California at Berkeley to find out who were optimists and who were pessimists. Then they created a setback for the team members: The coach told each swimmer his time after he finished a heat, but the coach didn’t give the swimmer an accurate time — he gave a time much slower than the swimmer’s real time.
How did the swimmers respond do this setback? Seligman says, “The optimists responded by swimming their next heat faster; the pessimists went slower on their next heat.”
Optimists fight back when they hit a setback. They are resilient in the face of the rejections and disappointments we all face at one time or another in our lives. Optimists pick themselves up quickly and go on. They bounce back.
Pessimists succumb. They give up. They get depressed. They throw in the towel and let life run them over. And the only thing that separates optimists from pessimists is the way they think — called their “explanatory style.” When optimists have setbacks:
They assume the problem or its consequences won’t last very long.
They don’t indulge in self-blame. Instead they look to see if there’s anything they could do to prevent the same thing from happening in the future.
They don’t jump to the conclusion that this setback will ruin everything. An optimist will try to see how much of their lives the setback won’t affect.
YOU CAN BECOME more optimistic by practicing these three ways of thinking about setbacks, and every inch you move toward optimism means another inch of resiliency. It means you’ll bounce back sooner from the inevitable setbacks of life. It means you’ll have greater personal strength and persistence. It means more of your life will go the way you want it to go.
Look at those three optimistic ways of thinking. Find the one you’re weakest in and work on it. Practice on the little setbacks you experience — the small disappointments, frustrations, annoyances, interruptions in your everyday experience. Learn to think the optimistic way. Practice until that way of thinking is habitual.
When it seems like life is trying to beat you down, fight back with optimistic thoughts.
When you hit a setback in life:Assume the problem or its consequences won’t last long, see how you can prevent the same problem in the future, and don’t jump tothe conclusion that this setback will ruin everything

Thoughtical Illusions
YOU'VE SEEN OPTICAL ILLUSIONS. They always show up in psychology textbooks. There’s a famous one that looks like an old witch or a young lady, depending on how you look at it. There’s the simple three dimensional box — look at it one way and it seems you’re looking up at it; look at it another way and it seems you’re looking down on it. There is a new kind of optical illusion, generated by computers, that give you the impression you’re looking into a three dimensional object when your eyes refocus, even though at first it looks like a flat, random pattern.
Psychology students are often introduced to optical illusions, not because most psychology students become eye surgeons, but because the illusions aren’t created by our eyes; they’re created by our brains. It has nothing to do with your childhood or your personality. Everyone with a normal brain sees the same illusion because it’s caused by the way our brains are designed. The specific design of the human brain is very good for some things, and not very good for other things. It is by no means perfect. For example, you’ve probably seen the optical illusion of the two lines next to each other, one with the arrows pointing out, one with the arrows pointing in.
The lines are the same length, but it doesn’t look that way. Even when you know they’re the same length — even when you go get a ruler and measure them — they still look like different lengths. What you’re experiencing is a flaw in the way your brain perceives.
Our brains are not designed perfectly. We don’t perceive perfectly and we don’t think with perfect reason. We can call our mistakes in thinking thoughtical illusions.
All human brains tend to make certain mistakes in the same way. In this chapter, we’ll explore some of these common mistakes. There is no technique in this chapter. I’m simply trying to show you why it’s in your best interest to be sceptical of your own mind. That may seem like a sadistic goal, but it isn’t. The feeling of certainty has caused more problems for people than skepticism ever did.
When you’re arguing with your spouse, the thing that keeps the anger intense is: you’re both certain you’re right. If each of you had a little more skepticism about your own ability to remember and reason, it would be easier to work out your differences.
The scientific method has made so much progress because the theories are provisional — good until something better comes along. When a scientist comes up with an idea of how things work, she doesn’t call it a Law or a Fact, she calls it a theory. And she fully expects other scientists who come after her to test it and improve it (or trash it if it turns out to be wrong). That attitude allows progress. And it’s extremely hard to do. A scientist has to impose the discipline on herself, just as you and I would be wise to do, to prevent herself from thinking of something as a truth.
We have a tendency to come to a conclusion and then close our minds on the matter. Probably for most of our evolutionary history this tendency served us well. Now we are rarely in a life-or-death, you-must-make- a-decision-now situation, and it’s usually best to hold off from drawing a conclusion. This has to be done deliberately, however, because your brain just naturally clamps down on the theories you come up with (or get from others) and labels them Facts.
Cover your left eye and hold your face close to the screen (or the paper if you've printed this out, and look at the X. As you slowly pull away from the screen, at some point the 0 will disappear. Or cover your right eye and look at the 0, and pull away, and the X will disappear.
X
0
YOU HAVE A blind spot in each eye where the bundles of nerve fibers go back into your brain. But I want you to notice something: you don’t see the blind spot. It doesn’t show up like a dark, empty spot. Your brain fills in the emptiness.
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In the same way, when there are things you don’t know, your brain fills it in, giving you the feeling that nothing is missing. In other words, when you feel certain, it doesn’t really mean anything. Your feeling of certainty often doesn’t necessarily have any relationship to your actual correctness or knowledge. Your brain produces that feeling of certainty at the drop of a hat because it’s wired up to do so.
This tendency to come to a conclusion quickly and to feel certain about it even when we’re wrong is compounded by some other thoughtical illusions. For example, in numerous experiments, researchers have found that our brains automatically seek evidence to confirm (rather than disconfirm) an already existing conclusion — whether we have any personal stake in it or not.
When you allow yourself to come to the conclusion that you aren’t very organized, for example, you’ll see and remember everything you do that confirms your conclusion even if you don’t want it to be true (and ignore the times you were well-organized — because they don’t confirm anything; they disconfirm). When you decide your spouse is a slob, you’ll notice and remember (clearly) all the times when your spouse acted like a slob, and you’ll ignore or explain away all the times when your spouse acts neatly.
Premature conclusions — especially negative conclusions — alter your perception and your reason along those lines. And telling other people makes it even worse.
In one experiment, people were asked to determine the length of a line. One group was told to decide it in their heads; another group was told to write it on a Magic Pad (those pads for children that erase when you lift up the sheet) and then erase it before anyone saw it; and a third group was told to write their conclusions on a piece of paper, sign it, and give it to the researcher. Then the subjects were given information indicating their first conclusion was wrong, and they were given an opportunity to change their conclusions. Those who decided in their heads changed their conclusions the easiest; those who wrote it on the Magic Pad were more reluctant to change their minds; and those who declared their conclusion publicly were convinced their first conclusion was correct and were unwilling to change their minds.
Their feeling of certainty was an illusion; it wasn’t related to the correctness of their conclusions. It was being influenced by another factor, in this case, how public they had made their conclusions.
Thoughtical illusions are flaws in your brain. You can’t get rid of them, but you can work around them — if you know they exist. If you know you tend to come to a conclusion too quickly, then you can slow yourself down when you find yourself concluding something. Just the fact that you know your feeling of certainty might not mean anything — just that understanding — will allow you to place less confidence in your conclusions. When your conclusion is making you unhappy, your skepticism can make you feel better and act more sanely.
Another aspect of the tendency to come to a conclusion too quickly is our tendency to generalize from too little information. One of the greatest things about your mind is its ability to generalize: to see a pattern from only a few examples. Little Johnny sees the flames in the gas heater and touches it. Ouch! From only one or two such experiences even a child can generalize: “Every time I touch that heater, I will burn my hand.”
Your ability to generalize allows you to make your actions more effective because it allows you to predict what will happen. But our tendency to generalize is so pervasive that we sometimes overgeneralize, and this gives us unnecessary limitations and unnecessary misery. Little Johnny may avoid touching the heater even when it’s off on and there is no danger of being burned. He has overgeneralized and it limits him unnecessarily.
Have you ever heard these (or made statements like these yourself?):
It doesn’t do any good to try.Women are too sensitive.People can’t change.Men are pigs.Politicians are all crooked.Our situation is hopeless.I’m not that kind of person.It’s a crazy world.Human beings are a violent species.
ANY OF THESE generalizations, with enough qualifications, might have some validity. But as they stand, every one of the statements is an overgeneralization. The ones that’ll really make a difference to you in your daily life, though, are the ones you make when you’re experiencing dysphoria. I’ll tell you why in a few minutes.
Thoughtical illusion number three is that some things are more noticeable than others, so they register in your memory more clearly and strongly. For example, let’s say your child is goofing around and breaks a vase. All the memories of similar times when he goofed around and broke something come easily to mind. All the times he was careful and didn’t break anything don’t come to mind, because when he doesn’t break anything, what is there to notice?
Another thoughtical illusion is our human tendency to think in all-or-nothing, black-or-white, one-extreme- or-the-other terms. It shows up in hundreds of different ways, and it will be especially apparent (if you’re looking out for it) when you’re experiencing dysphoria.
Sometimes one-extreme-or-the-other thinking causes dysphoria. For example, Jeff thinks if he isn’t a millionaire, he’s a failure. It’ll make him feel bad if he isn’t already a millionaire. If Becky thinks she must be either her ideal weight or she’s a fat slob, the extremist thinking will cause her misery when she’s not at her ideal weight.
Not many issues are truly cut-and-dried. But thinking in an all-or-nothing way makes it easier to think about things. You can separate issues cleanly, and then simply position yourself on one side or the other. It’s a way to simplify an issue. But reality is full of shades of gray, so although you’ve made your task easier, you’ve increased your chances of being wrong. It’s like what the congressman said on the issue of whiskey:
If you mean the demon drink that poisons the mind, pollutes the body, desecrates family life, and inflames sinners, then I am against it. But if you mean the elixir of Christmas cheer, the shield against winter chill, the taxable potion that puts needed funds into public coffers to comfort little crippled children, then I’m for it. This is my position and I will not compromise.
THERE'S HARDLY AN issue that isn’t like that. But the way our brains are designed keeps pulling us to one side or the other. Our brains polarize issues. It would be in our best interest to avoid getting pulled to one side of an issue, although this is admittedly very difficult to do. But if you aren’t perfect at doing it, the effort is still worth your while. Just because you aren’t perfect at it doesn’t mean it’s a complete waste of time.
The last thoughtical illusion is that dysphoria itself warps your perception. Research shows that when someone is in a bad mood, he’s more likely to believe negative statements about himself, he remembers more times he was punished for failure and remembers fewer times of being rewarded for succeeding, and when you flash two pictures at the same time (one to each eye with a divider between the eyes), he’ll see the negative picture but not the positive picture more often when he’s feeling bad than when he feels good.
In other words, feelings affect your perception in a way that reinforces the already existing mood.
And each emotion warps your perception in its own way. When you feel angry, you tend to see the world in terms of enemies and allies, and you’re more sensitive to trespasses — or what could be remotely construed as trespasses.
When you’re experiencing anxiety or worry, you tend to see the world in terms of threat and danger. You’re more likely to notice potential dangers; more likely to see what might go wrong, and more likely to interpret what you see as dangerous, even when it isn’t.
In depression, you’re attuned to loss. You see what you had once and is now gone. You’re more likely to doubt your abilities and your chances of success. You feel helpless, and you notice all the things about the world that seem against you, and you don’t notice your own strengths or the circumstances that might work in your favor.
An emotion affects what you see and exaggerates what you see in the direction of the emotion. When you’re angry, for instance, you’re likely to take an innocent remark someone made and read into it an insult or a threat. When you’re anxious, you see what might go wrong and consider it quite possible even when the chances of it going wrong are extremely remote. When you feel depressed, you remember all the things in your life you’ve lost, and you remember them easily, and you forget all you’ve gained.
When you feel bad, things aren’t as bad as they seem. It’s just a thoughtical illusion.
When you know how your brain makes mistakes, you can watch out for it. You can’t fix it, but you can learn to work around it. Like someone who is blind in one eye, you can learn to compensate for it. I urge you to go through a mental checklist — especially when you feel dysphoric:
• Have I jumped to a conclusion too quickly?• Have I placed too much confidence in a mere theory?• Am I thinking it’s one-extreme-or-the-other?• Have I overgeneralized?• How is my dysphoria coloring my perception?
ANY TIME YOU ask those questions when you’re feeling bad, you’re probably going to find two or three thoughtical illusions messing up your thinking. Suddenly becoming aware of them can return you to sanity and evaporate the bad feeling. And your improved mood won’t be any illusion!

R-e-s-p-e-c-t
IT'S NICE TO BE LIKED, but it is even more satisfying to be respected. And although it takes some effort, you can attain that desire. Here are three places your effort will increase the respect you get from people:
Increase your competence. People respect ability and skill, as long as you are noticeably good. This means trying to be a jack-of-all-trades doesn’t work. Concentrate your efforts. Choose a useful ability and hone yourself into the Mozart of that ability. If the skill is used at your job, your increasing competence may bring you a new pay level too. Work on improving your ability whenever you can. Become a master.
Use good manners. Without using please and thank you and would you mind, without saying hi to people and learning their names and interests, you will not earn people’s respect. Even if you’re competent, you will be resented rather than admired.
Speak up rather than smolder. Do it with good manners, but speak. It takes courage to speak up, and people know that and respect it. But when you speak up, make requests rather than simply complaining. Don’t say what you don’t like about what’s already been done; say what you’d like to see in the future. And think it through beforehand so you say it well.
DON'T WORRY about whether or not people like you. Concentrate on competence and good manners and saying what you need to say, and you’ll get more than liking. You’ll get even more than respect from others. You’ll earn the reward that might matter more than any other: You’ll respect yourself.
Increase your competence, use good manners, and speak up rather than smolder.

Be More Energetic
ENERGY IS A BEAUTIFUL THING. A person with a lot of energy can accomplish twice what someone without much energy can and have more fun doing it. You get more life with more energy. And here’s a way to crank up your engine: Act more energetic. That sounds like shallow, positive-thinking hype, but it’s actually based on solid evidence: It works.
When you act more energetic, it stimulates your body. Lying down is relaxing. Moving around is more stimulating. Moving around quickly is even more stimulating. It gets the heart pumping. It puts the mind in gear.
Our biology has evolved to fit a different kind of world than the one in which we now find ourselves. There were plenty of times in our prehistory when food was scarce. People who wantonly used up energy would be the first to die, leaving no offspring. The bodies following the prime directive conserve energy passed their genes to us.
But times have changed. It’s no longer difficult to find food. If anything, food is difficult to avoid. Calories are everywhere, hugely and abundantly available. As a matter of fact, now a major concern for people in America is being overweight. Times have changed dramatically. There’s no longer any need to conserve energy, but your genes don’t know it. They’ve still got their orders, like a soldier in a jungle who was never told the war is over.
You can be more energetic, but you’ll have to override your feelings. And you can do this. You’ll have to essentially ignore the natural laziness we all share.
The way to override your body’s prime directive is to act energetic whether you feel like it or not.
The truth is, you are energetic when you act that way, regardless of how you feel. Listen to what I’m saying here. You want to be more energetic? By simply acting more energetic, you immediately become more energetic in reality, in the same way that when you act ethical, you are ethical, regardless of whether or not you were tempted to do the wrong thing.
You can become more energetic in ten seconds. Simply start acting more energetic.
You don’t have to feel energetic to be energetic. A nice bonus, however, is that often when you act energetic, it will rev you up and make you feel energetic too.
Experiments show that when people walk quickly, it speeds up their metabolism, making them feel more energetic, and this energetic feeling lasts for several hours after the activity. Acting energetic physically changes your body into a more energetic body.
So don’t wait until you feel energetic before you act. Act first. The feelings will follow.
Act more energetic.

How to Earn More Money
WHETHER YOU OWN YOUR OWN company or work for someone else, you can earn more than you now earn. The first question to ask yourself is “Am I providing a product or service that is both wanted and needed?” When the answer is yes, you can earn more money by increasing either the quality or the quantity of your service.
The hardest part of increasing your service is thinking up ways to do it. Sure, if you work faster and put in more hours, you will increase your service. And if you take more care and pay more attention to your work, you will certainly increase the quality. Those are obvious. But there will come a time when these things cannot be increased any more: There are only twenty-four hours in a day, there are physical limits to how fast you can move, and you can give no more attention to your work once you are giving it all your attention.
But it is possible to think of other ways to increase your service. It will only take some thinking. Sit down ten different times in the next month and each time think up three different ways you could increase your service. Allow your imagination to go wild. At the end of the month, pick the best one and do it.
Another thing you can do to increase your earnings is to read books and listen to tapes related to your line of work, your health, or your ability to deal with people. Learn more about these three topics and it will help you earn more.
The first subject to study is the specific area or industry you work in. Every field has a history. How did it start? Who were the principle originators? And that’s just the beginning. The libraries and bookstores are full of books and tapes and videotapes on every conceivable subject. Study not only background, but also information that will make you better at your job. Take night classes. Listen to tapes in your car. Educate yourself. As you learn, you become more of an expert. Generally speaking, the more of an expert you are in your field, the more useful you are. And the more useful you are, the more money you can make.
Learning ways to increase your level of health will help you in two ways: First, your level of energy is closely tied to your level of health, and you can do more work with a high energy level. Second, when you have better health, you tend to have better relationships with people. Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to be nice to people when you feel like hell? Our health affects our moods, and our moods affect our relationships with others. And people who get along well with others, according to the research, make more money than those who don’t. Their relationships are better with their bosses and with their assistants. They get more cooperation and consideration. In the long run, this adds up to more money.
Which brings us to the third area to study: people. As far as I can tell, there is no final attainment in this area. I’ve been actively improving my ability to deal with people for about twenty-two years now (and I was pretty good when I started), and I’m nowhere near as good as I could be. In other words, I can profitably continue to improve my ability to deal with people for the rest of my life, and I’ll bet the same is true for you.
Learn about your line of work, read up on how to maintain good health, and constantly practice the fine art of dealing with people. These are lifetime studies. And do the hard work of thinking up ways to increase the quantity and quality of the service you provide. Do these things and you will earn more money.
Increase your service, and continue to learn about your work, good health, and people.

Speedy ReadingOne Chunk at a Time
THE ABILITY TO READ FAST is made up of lots of little skills. You can use as many or as few of those skills as you want. The more of those individual skills you use, the faster you’ll be able to read. Add all the skills together, and sure, it’s dramatic. But who needs dramatics? A small improvement is cool enough.
Of course, when you learn to read faster, you can read more. But there’s another benefit that’s not so obvious: Reading will become more interesting. You find the same difference between hearing a lecturer who speaks too slowly versus one who speaks at a comfortable but lively pace. It’s more interesting. It’s more fun. It keeps you awake. And by reading faster, you’re making the process more challenging in a controlled way. And a challenge that is under your control is enjoyable.
Below are three basic techniques for increasing your speed. Pick one and try it in the spirit of fun. When you’ve got that one going pretty well, come back and add another one. After awhile, you’ll have increased your speed...and probably your comprehension too (studies show speed alone can increase your comprehension).
Here are the techniques:
Don’t let your eyes regress. Keep them moving forward. They will have a tendency to go back a few words occasionally. That continual little movement backwards adds up. If you stop doing it, your speed will increase a little. Studies indicate that rereading words like that doesn’t increase comprehension anyway.
Constantly practice “picking up speed” as you read. Reading is a skill, and like any other skill, the constant effort to do it a little better keeps you getting better and better at it as time goes on.
Take in more words at a time. If you normally see two words at a time when you read, your eyes look at two words, move to the next two and stop to look at those, move to the next two, etc. Begin taking in three words at a time so your eyes make fewer stops, increasing your speed. Increase your challenge only as your skill increases. Keep it fun. Don’t push yourself so hard it becomes stressful.
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WHEN YOU FIRST practice a technique, you’ll be conscious of using it and that may very well distract you a little from comprehending what you’re reading. But keep practicing and the technique will become automatic, no longer requiring your conscious attention, allowing you to put your full attention on the content of the written material. At that point, you will have gained an increase in reading skill to enjoy for the rest of your life.
To read faster and increase your comprehension: Don’t let your eyes regress, practice picking up speed, and take in more words at a time.
Self-Help Stuff That Works

The Shortest Distance
WHEN IT COMES TO SOLVING problems, using a formal procedure works better than letting your mind wander, so I have one for you. It involves four steps, and you do them in order. These steps are ancient. You could almost say this is the method to solve a problem. Anything else is less efficient and less effective. When you look them over you may think this is all very obvious and you can easily see why this method will work. But the important thing is using it. When you are confronting a problem, use this method:
1. Clarify the problem. Attempt to write down what the problem is, specifically. Writing it down is better than doing it in your head. Use a lot of paper on this one; it’s an important process. Write something down, then try to improve on it. Keep working until you have a clear, simple statement of the problem.
2. List the causes. What has caused this problem? Usually a problem has more than one cause. List them all.
3. Create possible solutions. This is where you can use your imagination. During this stage, first come up with all the ideas you can think of. Then kick back and relax. Use your imagination. Let your mind ponder the problem in its own way, as if you were daydreaming about possible solutions. Look at it from different perspectives. How would an old sea captain look at this problem? How would Gandhi look at this problem? You don’t know how those people would actually look at the problem. But you can use your imagination and that will get you out of your habitual point of view. Let your mind wander, but keep bringing it back to the problem. Don’t work at it. Do it in a way that is playful and fun. And stop every once in a while and jot down some ideas.
4. Select your favorite solution and try it. You have a collection of possible solutions, and reading through them probably sparked some more ideas. Write them all down. Then look over your ideas and choose what you think is the finest solution among them. Now put it into action.
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YOUR SOLUTION won’t always work. No big deal if it doesn’t — you have others to try. Take this step-by-step approach and you’ll gain traction and equilibrium and a feeling of control — something that really helps when you’ve got a problem to deal with.
Problems are an important part of life, and it’s always in your best interest to improve your ability to create good solutions. Mastering this formal procedure will help. It may be the shortest distance between a problem and a satisfying solution.
To solve a problem:Define the problem, list the causes, think up possible solutions, and pick the best one.

Vocabulary Raises
AS ONE CLASS GRADUATED from a large university, a group of researchers gave them an English vocabulary test and then tracked those people for twenty years. Strange as it may seem, those who knew the definitions of the most words were in the highest income group twenty years later. The researchers discovered that the people who, in the beginning, had the worst vocabulary scores were in the lowest income group twenty years later. There wasn’t a single exception. Does that or doesn’t that strike you as utterly astounding?
Could this really be true? And can we extrapolate the conclusion that if you started now and increased your vocabulary, your efforts could eventually put you in a higher income group than you would have been in otherwise? Let’s look further.
In another study, the executive and supervisory personnel of thirty-nine manufacturing plants were given extensive testing. All of them, from the lowest level of supervisor to the top of the executive elite rated higher than average on leadership qualities. Between all the leaders, there was a close similarity in leadership ability. But there were striking differences on the vocabulary test. Basically, the higher the person’s score on the vocabulary test, the higher their position in that company. The presidents and vice presidents of the companies had an average score of 236 (a perfect score was 272). The average score for superintendents was 140. Foremen averaged 114.
Why? What’s going on here?
Let’s look at it this way: When you were young, you didn’t know the definitions of very many words, so you didn’t understand much of what people around you were saying. As you learned more words, your understanding grew. Knowing the definition of even one more word makes a difference because if there is only one word you don’t know, you’ll often miss more of what’s being said than that one word. The word is part of a sentence that you won’t completely understand. The sentence is part of a paragraph. One unknown word can create a small gap in your understanding of the entire subject.
The most obvious way to prevent that gap is to always look up a word you don’t know. The bad news is that you can’t really do that while listening to a lecture and most people don’t like interrupting themselves when they’re reading to stop and look up a word. I know I don’t. So the word doesn’t get looked up, and some of the ideas are only partially understood because of it. The larger your vocabulary, the less that happens and the more you understand what you read and hear.
The good news is that after you know a word, you are more likely to understand any sentence with that word in it for the rest of your life. Any effort you make to increase the number of definitions you know will have a far-reaching and long-lasting effect. Here are three ways you can improve your vocabulary:
1. When you read a word you aren’t sure of, look it up. Then create two or three sentences with that word in it. Using the word in your own self-created sentence is the quickest way to cement that word in your memory.
2. Get vocabulary tapes for your car and listen to them while driving, speaking the words out loud (it makes it easier to remember how to pronounce them).
3. Buy or make vocabulary flash cards and keep some in your pocket to test yourself in spare moments — while waiting in line, for example. You can pick one every morning and carry the card with you to work, trying to use that word in several sentences that day.
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TAKE THESE THREE steps and, in an adscititious manner, you may just see your income go from a flat line to an upwardly pointing falciform in the vespertine years of your life. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words may get you a promotion.
To increase your vocabulary:Look up words, listen to vocabulary tapes, and use vocabulary flash cards.
adscititious: added, supplemental, additionalfalciform: in the shape of a sickle, curvedvespertine: pertaining to the evening— Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary