The Achievement Habit (4 page)

What happens when someone does something aggressive on the highway? Well, most people respond in exactly the wrong way. They decide to
fight
. They yell, curse, honk their horns, or even chase and attempt to confront the offending driver. Meanwhile, the best option for survival is
flight
. I have discussed this with people from many different backgrounds, and it always brings the same response. We all agree that if someone is driving aggressively or dangerously, the best thing to do is stay as far away as possible. Yet a lot of us admit to behaving in the opposite manner: we pursue the other car. Where does that come from? In this situation there are two options. The first is the initial knee-jerk reaction triggered by our brain, which is out of our conscious control. The second is our reasoned response, which can be brought under control.

The first reaction is often called a
limbic-abduction reaction
or an
amygdala hijacking
because it is triggered by the amygdala, a small organ within the brain’s limbic system. The amygdala’s primary function is to immediately signal the adrenal glands when a fear stimulus is received. It has a secondary—and slower—connection to the cortex and the other reasoning centers of the brain.

It is important to realize that the secondary “reasoned” reaction is not a voluntary one. Many of us just follow what we have seen our friends and family do, and that can brainwash us into thinking that dysfunctional behavior is the normal or honorable thing. With a bit of effort you can easily change your secondary reaction. All you have to do is decide you want to change, and then work on it. If you are willing to ignore the initial limbic impulse, you can get your cortex to calm down, take charge, and calm your whole body down.

Admittedly, some people have to work harder at controlling themselves than others. It does not matter if you’re a hothead by nature or nurture (or both), you can learn to control your secondary reaction, and it’s important to do this, so you don’t end up blowing up at people. Some powerful people—politicians, actors, singers, CEOs, even a book publisher—have ruined their careers because they didn’t get their limbic impulses under control. Momentary temper flare-ups can cost you everything.

Harvard University neurology professor Rudy Tanzi recommends a four-step process to handle situations in which we are in the thrall of a
limbic abduction
:

•
      
Stop yourself from doing what your initial reaction dictated.

•
      
Take a deep breath.

•
      
Become aware of how you are feeling.

•
      
Recall a past event that gave you a feeling of happiness and peace.
⁶

In terms of design thinking, you’re breaking down the fight response and looking at it as a problem to be solved, then using ideation to bring you to a better place. These steps bring you
into a state of emotional well-being, in which you regain control over your behavior.

In most cases you only need to take the first three steps to get the situation under control. It takes practice (i.e., in terms of design thinking, making prototypes), and if you keep at it every time a negative behavior presents itself, it eventually becomes easier and easier to gain control and stop doing it. In any event, taking a deep breath in any situation never hurts.

What about other, less immediate situations? Can these techniques help us respond more positively to a more general stressful state? The answer is yes. If you take time to be aware of your current mental state and then deliberately alter it, you can force your brain into more balanced activities. Eventually, this de-stressing becomes automatic.

Various types of dysfunctional behavior are associated with a lack of balance in the use of different parts of our brains. So, for example, pathological eating is associated with the reptilian part of your brain (the brain stem). Narcissistic or overly dramatic behavior is associated with being stuck in the emotional (limbic) part of the brain. Overintellectualization is associated with being stuck in the part associated with higher intellectual functions (the neocortex).

We can stop ourselves from getting stuck by practicing self-awareness. In this way we can train our brains to give us greater sensory awareness, body awareness, and social awareness. This is generally referred to as mind over matter, the main principle behind cognitive behavioral therapy, a school of psychology that believes if we can change our thinking, we can change our behavior. Though it doesn’t always work for everyone, it’s a
method I encourage. No matter what got you to the state you’re in, consciously changing the way you think about it can help solve the problem.

Who am I? What do I want? What is my purpose?
Ask yourself each of these questions repeatedly and respond with whatever comes to mind. You can write out your answers in a journal or notebook, or just say them to yourself. Don’t overthink; just answer the questions. It’s okay to repeat yourself, and it’s okay to say things that don’t make a lot of sense. Each question should be repeated for at least five or ten minutes. If you have someone available to work with, you can take turns where one person repeatedly asks the same question and the other person answers. Of course, if there are two people, the questions need to be rephrased: “Who are you?” “What do you want?” “What is your purpose?” (I might answer: I am a father, I am a husband; I want to finish my book, I want more time; my purpose is to teach, my purpose is to live. All of these are, for me, on a superficial level. Usually it takes a little while to come up with insightful rather than mundane answers. Do it! You might be surprised with what you come up with, and how it contributes to your achievement habit.)

The effect of this exercise is to get you to devote time to thinking deeply about the meaning of your life. What matters more than your specific answers is that you open yourself to these questions. Doing this exercise generally promotes relaxation, builds internal energy, and nurtures an increased sense of aliveness.

Similar benefits can be derived from other types of meditation. Experiment to see which works best for you. I rarely
meditate in a formal manner; instead I do things that are meditative. I take walks. I ride my bike. I make time to be alone in nature when I need to quiet my mind. Another thing that works for some people is repetitive activities that require little focus. Knitting, crocheting, gardening, and doodling can all be meditative. Or make it even simpler! If you’re feeling scattered, you can just take a few minutes to be still and focus on your breathing. Be mindful of each breath: in and out, in and out. Try to make your exhalation last twice as long as your inhalation. Pay attention to a fixed object around you—books, a picture on the wall; don’t analyze, just ground yourself. Ultimately you will benefit from increased concentration, decreased anxiety, and a general feeling of happiness.

In life we will often find ourselves playing the game of right and wrong. The rules
seem
quite simple: I win if I am right—and you are wrong.

I once had a heated disagreement with my wife, Ruth, about something silly just as I was leaving to walk over to my friend Doug’s house. As I was walking, I was consumed with thoughts of how right I was and how wrong she was. She was worse than wrong. She was downright pigheaded and stupid about it. I was consumed by such thoughts for about two blocks. And then I looked up.

It was a beautiful clear winter day, and the bare trees had a fantastic presence. I was awestruck. I felt a surge of wonderment and joy. Still consumed by my feelings about the argument, I shook my head and descended back into my self-righteous annoyance. I put my head down and kept walking and thinking about how stupid she was being. Then I looked up again, allowed
myself to experience the wonderment, and again shut it down. I couldn’t seem to let my feelings go.

Finally enlightenment came. By continuing to play my solitaire hand of right and wrong, I was being downright pigheaded and stupid. The world was offering me a magic moment, and I was turning it down. With that realization I was able to laugh at my stupidity and enjoy the moment. I arrived at Doug’s house in a euphoric state. That incident took place over twenty years ago. I have no memory of what the argument was about, and each winter I again feel the wonder of that experience when I look up at the bare trees.

This whole situation is kind of like gambling in a card room. The room gets its percent off the top the minute you start to play each hand—it’s how it makes its money. Clearly, regardless of whether you win or lose specific hands, at the end of the night the players’ total worth will have been diminished—it is the price of playing. If I had continued playing the right and wrong game that day, I would have lost a peak experience, and the card room would have gotten much more from me than its usual fee.

Whenever I find myself challenged to a game of right and wrong, I stop playing. Next time you find yourself playing right and wrong, remember: You give everything in your life its meaning, so you can choose to end the game. It does not matter how right you are or how wrong they are; you lose just by playing.

S
IMILARLY, YOU CAN MODIFY
the way you react to experiences. One little trick is that by exaggerating your reaction, you can make the experience better. For example, if you are at a boring meeting, just tell yourself that it is the most boring
meeting you have ever attended. It is in fact
so boring
that it is amazing. If you are depressed, do not get depressed at the idea of being depressed. Get off on it. Admire the fact that you are having this amazing depression.

It’s the opposite of wallowing; it’s allowing yourself to become amused by the terribleness of your situation. You know how some dogs are so ugly they’re cute? This is like that. Think of the metaphors a comedian would use to describe just how bad the meeting is. Write your troubles into a comedic country song. Deliver your own stand-up routine about depression.

It’s incredibly empowering to realize that you have the power to change your attitude toward anything. Do you hate washing dishes? If you think about it, there is a lot that is nice about washing dishes. Putting your hands into warm water is soothing. Rinsing and soaping can be a pleasure. And getting rid of a mess and admiring your clean kitchen is always satisfying. Try out a new attitude toward dish washing. You might just find enjoyment in it.

O
NCE YOU LEARN THAT
it is possible to change your habits and develop new attitudes about things, you have a new tool to use in both your professional and your personal life. For most people it is probably easier to change their attitude toward dishwashing than their attitude toward depression. Yet if you start with the small stuff, you will find it easier to tackle the harder stuff in life.

CHAPTER 2

Obviously the truth is what’s so.
Not so obviously, it is also so what.

—Werner Erhard

The problem with reasons is that they’re just excuses prettied up.

I always used to be late to the board meeting of Working Machines, a corporation located in Berkeley, an hour from where I live. Invariably, after a frantic hour of aggressive and dangerous driving, I would arrive with an apology, explaining that the highway was unusually congested. The board chairman always graciously assured me that the main thing was that I had arrived safely. Still, I had held things up, and the other board members, who had arrived on time, were clearly not thrilled. Deep down I knew that the highway traffic was not the real issue.

Yes, the traffic on highway 880 was often heavier than I had hoped it would be, and the traffic getting out of Palo Alto and into Berkeley was excruciatingly slow. Yet how unusual was heavy midday traffic, really? I merely failed to allow enough time. I
tried
to leave earlier. Yet I would always squeeze in a
few last-minute e-mails and phone calls. Then, after leaving my office, I would see a colleague at the elevator and get caught up in a discussion.

It all came down to this: I did not see the meeting as a high priority in my life. It was that simple. It had nothing to do with the traffic. Although there were no negative business consequences, it was bad for my self-esteem: I felt guilty for always being late. I didn’t like how it felt to have all eyes on me for the wrong reason when I walked into the room. I gave it some thought and realized that there were other people in that room facing the same traffic and the same “life happens” stuff that I was, yet they managed to be there before me because they cared enough to do so.

Once I had that insight, I decided that from then on I would give the meeting the priority it deserved. Thereafter, I gave the meeting the
attention
it required and left early enough to get there on time. No more last-minute e-mails or phone calls, no cutting it close. I stopped waiting until the last minute, and decided that it was worth it to stop everything else early and get in the car ten minutes before I “had to.”

If I was lucky, and the traffic was very light, I had time to enjoy a little of the Berkeley scene before I went into the meeting. If traffic was normal, I was a little early and could schmooze with some of the other board members. If traffic was really ugly, I was just on time. The positive effects of eliminating the stress associated with getting to the meetings on time were life-changing.

And it didn’t end there. I began to change my attitude toward time overall. I used to be late to most things in my life. Now I am known as the pain in the ass who is always on time and expects others to be. I make it a point to start every class and every
workshop session on time. It turns out that my life works better when I do not need to come up with reasons for why I am late.

Our society loves reasons. Perhaps the illusion that there is a single known reason for each thing we do is comforting. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. There’s the story of the man who is standing in the middle of Times Square in Manhattan, snapping his fingers. A woman comes up to him after some time and says, “Pardon me, sir, why are you snapping your fingers?”

He replies, “I am keeping the tigers away.”

She says, “Sir, except for the zoo, there’s not a tiger for thousands of miles.”

“Pretty effective, isn’t it?” he says.

This joke uses what is called a causal fallacy. The fallacy comes because the finger snapper mistakenly believes that
correlation implies causation
. This is just one of several logical fallacies in which two events that occur at the same time are taken to have a cause-and-effect relationship. This version of the fallacy is also known as
cum hoc ergo propter hoc
(Latin for “with this, therefore because of this”) or, simply, false cause. A similar fallacy—that an event that follows another was a consequence of the first—is described as
post hoc ergo propter hoc
(Latin for “after this, therefore because of this”).

Reasons are bullshit. I know it sounds harsh, however, it’s a good categorical stand to take, as you’ll see. Reasons exist because if people didn’t explain their behavior, they would seem unreasonable. So we are faced with a paradox: we need reasons so we appear reasonable, yet when we use reasons we are not taking full responsibility for our behavior.

Let’s say I walk up to a stranger and punch him in the face. He’ll ask why I did that. If I say, “For no reason,” I am clearly
unreasonable. If instead I say he reminds me of the man who abused my sister, I am now a (somewhat) reasonable person.

Reasons are often just excuses, however. We use them to hide our shortcomings from ourselves. When we stop using reasons to justify ourselves, we increase our chances of changing behavior, gaining a realistic self-image, and living a more satisfying and productive life.

Many reasons are simply excuses to hide the fact that we are not willing to give something a high enough priority in our lives. For example, a student might come into my class late, saying, “I’m sorry I’m late. I got a flat on my bicycle.” Even if it is true that her bicycle has a flat tire, the bottom line is, getting to class on time is not a high enough priority in her life. If I had a rule that any student who came in late would fail the class, she would have made sure to be on time, flat tire or not. If the rule was you got expelled from school for a single lateness, she would have been there even earlier!

In the Design Group at Stanford University, most colleagues have participated in my workshops, and they all know how I feel about “reasons.” So anyone who starts to give reasons at a meeting—say, for example, “I could not do that because the dean . . .”—is often treated to a sarcastic chorus of “That’s a
goooood
reason,” after which he gets a bit embarrassed. However, he has received, as a gift, the insight that the dean is not the reason.

Letting go of the need for reasons to justify your behavior is useful in every part of the design thinking process. It can get you unstuck from dead ends, and lead to new approaches and insights.

This exercise ideally involves a partner, though you can do it alone, playing both roles. One partner gives a statement, starting with “The reason I . . .” The other partner responds, “That’s a
goooood
reason.” Do this for about five minutes, then reverse the roles so that the second partner starts the conversation with “The reason I . . . ,” and the first partner now affirms each such statement as being a
goooood
reason. (To get the most out of this exercise, use your current behaviors. For example, this morning I might say, “The reason I am writing this book is that I want to share my knowledge.” My partner would respond, “That’s a
goooood
reason.” Then I would say, “The reason I am tired is that I got up too early.” My partner would respond, “That’s a
goooood
reason.” And so on.)

You won’t have to search within your answers very long to find the bullshit. If you find that you resist the idea that all your reasons are
goooood
reasons, it will be useful for you to think of several additional reasons for each behavior. Many factors contribute to a given behavior, so the entire concept of emphasizing one particular reason for something becomes muddled. In assigning relative importance to our reasons, we introduce a lie into our analysis—we add a high weighting factor to the reasons that most support our version of the story or our self-image.

Sometimes people hide behind heart-wrenching reasons. It is important to understand that this doesn’t make them any more useful.

Steve, my oldest son, was born with cerebral palsy, which in his case meant both mental retardation and muscular spasticity. Although he has a tough time doing things that others find easy, he can manage most everyday things. When his mother reprimands him for bad manners, such as not using a knife to cut
his food, he gets angry and says, “I can’t help it. I was born that way.” Whenever he says that, my heart goes out to him. Still, it is in his best interest to realize that he is giving us a
goooood
reason.

Studies have shown that people are selective when it comes to recording what really happens to and around them. No matter how strongly you feel you have the true picture, you are probably wrong. You can’t know the reason for anyone’s behavior.

To complicate matters further, sometimes we are actively dishonest about the reasons for our behavior.
¹
A classic example comes from a Japanese professor in one of my workshops. He claimed he wanted to spend more time with his family, but he was too busy at work. When I asked a few questions and elicited some details about his daily activity, it was clear that he wasted a lot of time at work. He chose to stay late at the university, socialize with his colleagues during the evenings, and then appear macho by having it known that he went home later than everyone else while receiving sympathy for not being able to spend more time with his family. Clearly he had made a choice, and being too busy at work was, of course, bullshit as a reason. This was immediately obvious to everyone in the workshop, yet it took me a full half hour to get a glimmer of recognition out of him.

Things happen; we do things, and others do things. If you like what happens, keep doing what you are doing and hope it keeps working well. If you do not like what happens, do it differently next time. Reasons get in the way of this simple pragmatic approach.

We are far better off without reasons. They provide people
with excuses to keep behaving dysfunctionally. The world would be a much better place without reasons, right?

Okay, yes, not having reasons would lead to a strange existence. Without reasons, you would look like an unreasonable person to everyone else. So where does this leave us?

I have a twofold approach to the problem: one for the external persona, and one for the internal self.
Externally
you use reasons in everyday conversation when you need to, and thus appear to be perfectly normal and reasonable.
Internally
you look at the reasons your external self offers, and question each of them. The internal self also looks at the reasons given by the people you are interacting with. Simply by noticing how reasons are used, you can gain insight into your own behavior and your relationships with others.

This approach works well to change your own actions. It can’t be used to change others, however! It is not your job to tell anyone else her reasons are bullshit unless she is actively seeking your advice (like taking your class or, say, reading your book); doing this would make you a pretty unlikable person pretty quickly. The best way to fix the world is to fix yourself. As I always caution my students and workshop participants, do not try this (on anyone else) at home!

Make a pact with yourself to not use reasons unless you have to. This is actually an incredibly empowering position to come from. Be confident enough in your actions not to need to explain yourself. Trust yourself and act.

I get a lot of requests from students around the world who want to join my research group at Stanford. If I know I will not accept them, I simply thank them for their interest and say I am sorry that I will not be able to accommodate them. This invariably ends the conversation. I get at most a thank-you note.
However, if I justify my action with a reason, then the conversation drags on as the student attempts to work around my reason. In the past I have given a bullshit reason; it feels like I’m being nicer somehow. Sure, it may be true that I’m too busy or going on sabbatical soon, or whatever else I’ve told the student, yet if I felt strongly enough about that person, I’d make it happen. In truth, it is difficult to think of a
goooood
reason I could not work around if I really wanted to.

Actions speak louder than reasons. Don’t give reasons unless you have to!

Often we say the opposite of what we really mean when faced with beliefs or behavior we find troubling. I recall a very aggressive young colleague of mine who had developed a grievance against a prestigious and long-standing robotics conference. He launched a new conference meant to be in direct competition with the original one. When I asked what his motivation was, he said, “The last thing I would want to do is undermine the existing conference, but there is a need for a new conference.”

It had not occurred to me that his motivation was to undermine the existing conference until he said that. Once he denied the unmade accusation, it was clear that undermining was indeed what he intended. He had projected his own guilt onto me in the form of an accusation that I had never made.

Have you heard the expression “He doth protest too much”? Often, if someone goes to great lengths to tell you that he is not a liar, a crook, a troublemaker, or green with envy, he probably
is
those things.