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The Psychology of Steve Jobs

Learn about the secrets of how Steve Jobs thought about himself, other people, and the world. Discover the importance of attitude, simplicity, focus, spirituality, intuition, and purpose. Understand how reality distortion field works.

The Well-Being Star

Well-being is a term that we use to determine the quality of our life. It includes not only wealth and employment, but also our environment, physical and mental health, education, recreation and leisure time, and social belonging. When you think about your own well-being, what comes to your mind? Is it happiness, health, money, love, or positive emotions? How do you measure your well-being?

There is no one definition of what well-being means but there are models that can help us understand how we are doing in life. One of the models that I find to be simple and comprehensive is The Well-Being Star, which was created in neurotransforming (1). This model can be described using this formula:

Well-being = Effectiveness + Happiness

You overall well-being consists of your effectiveness combined with your happiness. Effectiveness means that you are able to produce desired results in business, finance, relationships, and other areas of your life. Happiness means that you are satisfied with what you already have. Being effective does not mean being happy just like being happy does not mean being effective. You can be effective and unhappy, and you can be happy but not effective. Effectiveness is a necessary component of well-being, whereas happiness is a sufficient part of well-being.

The Well-being Star consists of five major parts of life that include

Health

Physical Health – when this part of your health does not bother you.

Psychological Health – when your thoughts and emotions are balanced.

Spiritual Health – when you have purpose in your life and know why you wake up in the morning.

Love and Sex
Work
Finance
Relationships

Download PDF version of The Well-Being Star.

Take a look at The Well-Being Star and rate each part of your life on a scale of 1-10 where 1 = very bad and 10 = excellent. The areas of your life, which are less than 7 can be improved and areas, which are less than 5 require immediate attention.

The main idea in this model of well-being is to achieve balance in all areas of your life. If you are not successful in any one area of your life this mens that overall you are not successful.

The Well-Being Star is based on the principle from-inside-out, which means that everything that was created by people in this world, first originated inside the mind in a form of idea, vision, plan, or thoughts, and only then things materialized into existence. Thus, most of what you have and don’t have in life is a reflection of your own thoughts.

If a person does not know what a computer is, not only will he not buy the computer, but he may even not recognize it in the store. Everything that you have in your life is a reflection of what you have in your mind, and if something in your life is missing than it is probably missing in your mind.

One of the main principles in neurotransforming (1) is the law of actualization, which states that your thoughts become your reality. If health, wealth, and success are not included in your thoughts then they will not become part your reality. Why do the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? Because rich people occupy their mind all day long with how to get richer whereas poor people occupy their mind with how not to get poor.

What determines your well-being?

Your well-being consist of mental maps and programs that tell you how to interact with these maps. The foundation of your mental maps and programs are acquired during childhood and is fine-tuned during the rest of your life (1).

Mental maps consists of four major maps about yourself, other people, the world, and God.
Mental programs determine how your interact with your mental maps.

What is the next step?

The first step you should take is to use The Well-Being Star and determine your level of well-being in each area of your life. Once you identify the areas of your life which have the lowest score, answer these questions:

What do I have and don’t want to have? (Your problems).
What don’t I have and want to have? (Your desired goals).
What do I have and want to have? (Your resources).
What don’t I have and don’t want to have? (Your fears).

Once you have a better understanding what areas of your life require attention, you can take the next step and start making positive changes in your life.

Bibliography

[1] Neurotransforming.

January 31, 2012 No Comments Short URL

Quantified Self Experiment

What is quantified self?

Quantified self is a discipline of self-tracking for the purpose of self-awareness and personal improvement. The Ancient Greek aphorism “Know thyself” is one of the common ways to explain quantified self movement. People who are interested in self-knowledge through self-tracking usually want to change or improve something about themselves. One of the best ways to do this is to understand where you are now and where you want to be.

People have been tracking themselves for hundreds of years through journals, introspection, and observation. For example, Benjamin Franklin improved his character by reviewing his day to see if he has followed one of his 13 virtues, which he developed at age 20 and continued to practice in some form for the rest of his life. While Franklin did not live completely by his virtues, he believed the attempt made him a better man contributing greatly to his success and happiness (1).

Purpose – Why I am interested in tracking myself.

“Who we are is but a stepping stone to what we can become.” – Deus Ex (2)

I enjoy life and everything that it has to offer. I believe that one of the main drives in human beings is to strive for self-actualization or the motive to realize one’s full potential (3). I want to travel the world, connect with people, improve myself as a human being, and continue contributing to the evolution of our society even when I am 90 years old. This is why one of my goals is to live longer by taking care of my mental and physical health.

Joining the quantified self movement allows me to take better care of my well-being and help me achieve my goal of living a healthy, long, and meaningful life. Self-tracking allows me to see where I am now in relation to where I want to be in my life.

Intention – What I want to achieve by tracking myself.

Physical Health

Fitness is an important part of my life. There was a time when I used to go to the gym and take martial arts classes, today I keep things simple. I work out 3-4 time a week mostly using my own body weight, jog, and walk as often as I can. After doing my own research and trying different things, I came to a conclusion that to maintain a fit body I do not need a gym membership. What I need instead is a clear understanding of why fitness is important and how to use basic exercises to keep myself fit. Nowadays, it usually takes me 25-40 minutes to complete my exercises without a whole gym “ritual”. Think of it as a minimalistic approach to fitness (4).

Another simple but very important part of my physical health is walking. It is hard to explain in just a few sentences how crucial walking is for our body and our brain, and yet very few people in America walk the recommended minimum every day.

Not only does exercise improve your physical healthy, but it also boosts your brain power. Our brains were built for walking 12 miles a day! If you want to improve your thinking skills, you need to move. Exercise gets blood to your brain, bringing it glucose for energy and oxygen to soak up the toxic electrons that are left over. It also stimulates the protein that keeps neurons connecting (5).

I recommend these resources to learn more about physical fitness:

Mental Health

My quantified mental health consists of working on my goals and tracking my reading. My goals are divided into five areas of my life: health, love & sex, work, finance, and relationships (see the well-being star above). Every week I spend some time analyzing where I am now and where I want to be. By focusing my attention on the most important parts of my life, I am able to track changes and make improvements. As for reading, I mostly read non-fiction books during the day and fiction before I go to sleep.

Spiritual Health

We live in a time of great innovation and technological achievements. It is also a time when many people are stressed and depressed because they are unable to adapt to changes around them. During the time of Jesus Christ an average person probably had to make 5-7 important decision during their lifetime. Today, people have to make 5-7 important decisions during the day. Facebook, Twitter, Email, TV, news, books, work, family problems, traffic, and many other things contribute to a stressful day.

Many people in America come home overwhelmed by all the information they have received during the day and stressed out by all the little problems they had to deal with. Most people take care of their stress by watching TV or eating food, both of which can make you feel good. However, stress management through TV and eating can lead to bigger mental and health problems. After all, being distracted from a problem is different from solving a problem.

The alternative is to use 20-30 minutes a day to meditate or use any other form of focused attention exercise that helps you relax. I practice The Key Method to help me relax, clear my mind, and find solutions to problem in my life. If you already have a method to help you relax then start using it, if not, then now is a good time to learn one, and start practicing.

Instruments – How I am tracking myself.

A growing number of cheap consumer gadgets are providing data for people interested in “quantified self”. In science, politics, medicine and many other spheres, data is collected to improve effectiveness and efficiency of something that works well or change something that does not work. Similar concepts can be applied to yourself.

I collect and use data to improve my self-awareness and make positive changes in my life. By collecting my own personal information I am able to better understand myself and make positive changes in my life.

Physical Health

I track my fitness activity using an iPhone App called Fleetly. “Fleetly is the best app to reach your fitness goals. Earn points for logging your workouts, connect with friends and join challenges at all levels, from beginner to pro.” I like Fleetly because it is simple, visual, and fun to use.

I also track my physical activity using FitBit Ultra, which shows me how much I have moved during the day and how well I sleep. Fitbit helps you make every step you take a step toward better fitness. The Fitbit Tracker shows your real-time activity stats so you know how close you are to your goals. It’s with you every step of the day, motivating you to make small changes that add up to big results. My personal goal is to make 10,000 steps a day. Fitbit syncs with RunKeeper, which then syncs back with Fleetly.

On occasion when I need to track my jogging, I use RunKeeper, which is a running app designed to track various cardio workouts..

Mental and Spiritual Health

I use Evernote to track my goals and to keep a journal. My journal is based on the simple technique called “The Three Blessings”. Each night before I go to sleep I:

Think of three good things that happened today.
Write them down.
Reflect on why they happened.

This technique from positive psychology allows me to review my day and remember all the good things that happened during that day. I also try to understand why they happened. Not only do I reflect on how my day went, I also train my brain to focus on the positive aspects of my life.

I track how I feel, where I am and who I am with using an iPhone App called (GottaFeeling](http://gottafeeling.com). This app helps me analyze where I feel my best.

My relaxation/mediation sessions are tracked using an iPhone App called Equanimity. Equanimity has been carefully designed to help you establish and maintain a daily meditation practice.

I track my time spend on the computer using RescueTime, which is a personal-analytics service that shows you how you spend your time & provides tools to help you be more productive. At the end of week I am able to see if I have used my time productively or wasted it on something that was not important.

To track my read and want to read books I use Goodreads, which is virtual bookshelves with online community.

Conclusion

Remember, it is not about how you track yourself and what you use to track yourself. It is about having a clear understanding of why you track yourself. Neither a cool gadget nor a well-designed iPhone app will be useful if you do not know why you want to quantify yourself. First establish a clear purpose for self tracking, then figure out how you are going to track yourself, and only then research what you can use to maximize your purpose.

I will experiment using all these tools to help me maximize my purpose. I will do this for several months and will write an update about my results. So far these tools work as a good reminder to keep moving towards my goals.

Quantified Self Resources:

The Quantified Self Forum is a place for the community to discuss any topics they want.
The Complete QS Guide to Self-Tracking is a collection of tools, apps, and projects. Our goal is to gather and organize the world’s collective self-tracking resources in one place.
Quantified self tools.
Videos from the meetups are available at the Quantified Self Vimeo Group.

References:

[1] Thirteen Virtues of Benjamin Franklin

[2] Deus Ex: Human Revolution

[3] Self-actualization

[4] A Compact Guide to Creating the Fitness Habit

[5] Brain Rules by John Medina

January 30, 2012 No Comments Short URL

Top Ten Tips For a Better Memory

Most world-class memory performers use mnemonics rather than have any extraordinary brain power. Neuroimaging studies of exceptional memorizers found no differences in brain anatomy between world-class memory performers and people with average memories (1).

This means that almost anyone could attain a “world-class memory” by practicing the right techniques, such as a mnemonic system (2). Unfortunately, there is no scientific evidence that world-class memory masters are any better than the rest of us at memory challenges in the real world, such as remembering where we parked our car or when someone’s birthday is (1).

When you read, you will remember material better if you take the time to scan a chapter first, or get a sense of the major points before reading in detail. The more deeply you analyze information, the morel likely you are to encode the information in memory – and the more likely you are to remember it later. An overloaded working memory impairs (metacognition) our ability to accurately monitor and evaluate our own thinking (1).

Focusing on one task at a time greatly improves your ability to use your working memory effectively, which is your system that actively holds information in your mind to do verbal and nonverbal tasks such as reasoning and comprehension, and to make it available for further information processing (3).

In contrast, high levels of stress reduce the working-memory span and your ability to concentrate and focus executive control. Some research has suggested that stress elevates dopamine levels in the prefrontal cortex, impairing its ability to efficiently monitor and update information. Why overload your working memory if you don’t need to? Maybe it is time to shut off that cell phone, put away the Ritalin (4), take a piece of paper (think of it as a third work-ing-memory buffer), and start writing things down.

1. Pay attention.

Often when we forget something, it’s not that we’ve lost the memory but that we didn’t learn the thing properly in the first place. If you pay full attention to what you are trying to learn, you’ll be more likely to remember it later. Stop multitasking and start paying attention to the information you are trying to learn.

2. Create associations.

Associate what you’re trying to learn with other information you already know. For example, if you are familiar with the basic mnemonic (2) technique consisting of letters and numbers, you can easily memorize your credit card and your bank account numbers.

0 – S
1 – T, D
2 – N, M
4 – R
5 – L
6 – Sh, Ch
7 – K, G
8 – F, V
9 – P, B

Thus, you can convert 4527 into Roll and Neck where you can imagine a rolling neck.

Another example, while memorizing the periodic table for a chemistry class, it will be easier to remember that Ag = silver if you know that argentum is the Latin for silver. It might also help if you knew that Argentina got its name from early European explorers who thought the region was rich in silver (in fact, the native populations had imported their silver from elsewhere).

3. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Information such, as names and dates is more memorable if you can link it to an image. The effort you expend generating an image strengthens the memory. For example, in an art history course, you might have to remember that Manet specialized in painting figures and his contemporary, Monet, is famous for paintings of haystacks and water lilies. Picture the human figures lined up acrobat-style to form a letter “A” for Manet, and the water lilies arranged in a daisy chain to form the letter “0” for Monet.

4. Practice makes perfect.

There’s a reason kindergarteners drill on their ABCs and elementary school children drill all their multiplication tables. Memories for facts are strengthened by repetition. The same principle holds for memories for skills such as bike riding and juggling: they are improved by practice.

5. Use your ears.

Instead of just reading information silently, read it aloud. You will encode the information aurally as well as visually. You can also try writing it out; the act of writing activates sensory systems and also forces you to think about the words you’re copying.

6. Reduce overload.

If you’re having trouble remembering everything, use memory aids such as Evernote, Post-It notes, calendars, or electronic schedulers to remember dates and obligations, freeing you to focus on remembering items in situations where written aids won’t work say, during an exam!

7. Time-travel.

Remembering information for facts doesn’t depend on remembering the exact time and place where you acquired it. Nevertheless, if you can’t remember a fact, try to remember where you first heard it. If you can remember your high school history teacher lecturing on Napoleon, perhaps what she said about the causes of the Napoleonic Wars will also come to mind.

8. Get some sleep.

Two-thirds of Americans don’t get enough sleep and consequently are less able to concentrate during the day, which makes it harder for them to encode new memories and retrieve old ones. Sleep is also important for helping the brain organize and store memories.

The brain is in a constant state of tension between cells and chemicals that try to put you to sleep and cells and chemicals that try to keep you awake. The neurons of your brain show strong rhythmical activity when you’re asleep replaying what you learned that day.

Everyone needs a different number of hours of sleep and preference for when to go to sleep, but the biological drive for an afternoon nap is universal. Take a nap during the day that is no longer than 25 minutes. Loss of sleep hurts attention, executive function, working memory, mood, quantitative skills, logical reasoning, and even motor performance (5).

9. Try a rhyme.

Do you have to remember long string of random information? Create a poem (or better yet, a song) that includes the information. Remember the old standard: “I before E: except after C: or sounded as ‘A: as in ‘neighbor’ or ‘weigh’”? This ditty uses rhythm and rhyme to make it easier to remember a rule of English spelling.

10. Relax.

Sometimes trying hard to remember is less effective than turning your attention to something else; often, the missing information will pop into your awareness later. If you are stumped by one question on a test skip the troublesome question and keep working; come back to it later, and perhaps the missing information won’t be so hard to retrieve.

There you have it, the top ten tips for better memory. There is nothing magical or extraordinary about having a great memory. Perhaps the best way to get a great memory is to use your brain more often. How can you do this? Read more books, solve more real life problems, relax, and remember to exercise.

Visual Summary

Bibliography

[1] Gluck, M. A., Mercado, E., & Myers, C. E. (2008). Learning and memory: from brain to behavior. New York: Worth Publishers.

[2] Mnemonic major system.

[3] Working memory.

[4] Ritalin is a psychostimulant drug.

[5] Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina.

January 24, 2012 No Comments Short URL

The 4-Hour Workweek Book Notes

Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint.

The 4-Hour Workweek Notes

Tim Ferris – 4 Hour Workweek Book Notes

DEAL – Definition, Elimination, Automation, and Liberation.

Definition

Elimination

Automation

Liberation

Selective Ignorance

Productivity vs activity

Productivity

Parkinson’s Law

Pareto Principle

One week media fast

How to become an expert in 4 weeks

Focus

Environment

Efficient vs. Effective

Effectiveness vs. Efficiency

Art of Non-finishing

January 10, 2012 No Comments Short URL

Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Most people believe that the best way to motivate is to use rewards like money, but according to Daniel Pink’s provocative and persuasive book Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us, most people are make a mistake thinking that external rewards are the best way to motivate.

He suggests that the secret to high performance and satisfaction at work, at school, and at home consists of three pillars: the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to become better at things that matter to us, and to do something meaningful for ourselves and the world.

What is motivation anyway?

The word motivation comes from the Latin verb movere, which means to move (1). Motivation makes us move from point A to point B. It helps us achieve goals, and do what we have to do so that we can do what we want to do.

One of the most common ways to motivate someone to do something is to use the principle of carrots & sticks, which is based on rewards and punishment. Organizations all over the world use this principles to motivate their employees and increase work engagement. Daniel Pink suggests that when it comes to motivation, there is a gap between what science knows and what business does (2).The current business operating system for the majority of business out there is built around external, carrot-and-stick motivators, which often doesn’t work and sometimes does harm.

A brief history of the evolution of motivation

Motivation 1.0 – hunger, thirst, shelter, and reproduction. Think of people living in caves.
Motivation 2.0 – rewards and punishment to manipulate the behavior. If you do this, then you will get that. Carrots and sticks approach that influences peoples’ behavior using external rewards.
Motivation 3.0 – the three elements of true motivation are autonomy, mastery, and purpose. People will be most creative when they feel motivated primarily by interest, enjoyment, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself rather than by external pressures.

What’s wrong with extrinsic motivation?

Extrinsic motivation is based on the idea that if we want to increase a behavior we needs to reward it and if we want to decrease a behavior, we must use punishment. However, when people are motivated only by external rewards, they often shift their attention from the experience leading to the goal to the reward that follows the goal. Pure focus on goals may cause systematic problems for organizations such as focus only on short-term gains and lose of sight of the potential devastating long-term effects on the organization. The symptoms of goals only focus include:

Narrowed focus.
Unethical behavior.
Increased risk taking.
Decreased cooperation.
Decreased intrinsic motivation.

This does not mean that everyone should stop using external rewards. Rather, it is important to understand that for routine tasks, which aren’t very interesting and don’t require creative thinking, rewards can provide a small motivational booster shot without harmful side effects.

The new science of motivation

Pink suggests that organizations should implement a new way of motivating people, which is based on the three pillars:

Autonomy – the desire to direct our own lives;
Mastery – the urge to get better and better at something that matters;
Purpose – the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.

Autonomy

Autonomy means that people want to have control over their work. Autonomous behavior means that people act with a full sense of volition and choice. It promotes greater conceptual understanding, better grades, enchanted persistence at school and in sporting activities, higher productivity, less burnout, and greater levels of psychological well-being. Control leads to compliance. Autonomy leads to engagement. Autonomy is different from independence because autonomy gives people the opportunity to act with choice. This means that people can be both autonomous and happily independent with others.

One of the ways to establish autonomy in the workforce is to create a results oriented working environment where people don’t have schedules, they show up when they want, and they don’t have to be in the office at a certain time. The only requirement is that they have to get their work done and show their results. In other words, autonomy emerges when people have a choice over their tasks, time, technique, and team. Autonomy stimulates intrinsic motivation, and people with high intrinsic motivation are usually better coworkers (2).

Mastery

Mastery means that people want to get better at what they do as long as it matters to them. Mastery requires engagement and begins with flow – optimal experiences when the challenges you face are exquisitely matched to your abilities. Pink suggests that smart workplaces supplement day-to-day activities with Goldilocks tasks – not too hard and not too easy. The three rules of mastery:

Mastery is a mindset. It requires the capacity to see your abilities not as finite, but as infinitely improvable.
Mastery is a pain. It demands effort, grit, and deliberate practice.
Mastery is an asymptote. It’s impossible to fully realize, which means that there is always room for improvement.

Purpose

Purpose means that people want to be part of something that is bigger than they are. Viktor Frankl suggested that the will to meaning is the basic motivation of human life. Human beings are not in pursuit of happiness, instead they search for reasons to be happy (3). Daniel Pink argues that in general, people are purpose maximizers and that there are three pillars of purpose:

Doing something that matters;
Doing it well;
Doing it in the service of a cause larger than ourselves.

Unfortunately, the majority of companies focus on profit maximization rather than purpose maximization. Purpose is a nice thing to have as long as it does not get in the way of making profit for the company. However, there are some companies that focus on maximizing their profit by maximizing their purpose. Theses companies usually express purpose motive in goals that use profit to reach purpose; in words that emphasize more than self-interest; in policies that allow people to pursue purpose on their own terms.

Apple is an example of a company that is focused on maximizing their profit by maximizing their purpose. Apple’s primary goal is to create great products that everyone can enjoy. By maximizing their purpose, Apple is maximizing its profit because people love their products.

Conclusion

As long as people are being paid enough to get the question of money off the table, companies need to look beyond reward based motivation. People want to be self-directed, they like to master things, and that they want to be a part of something that is important. If we start treating people like people rather than animals that can be manipulated by rewards and punishment, we can improve work engagement, increase happiness, and even make the world a better place.

Bibliography

[1] Reeve, J. (2009). Understanding motivation and emotion (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons

[2] Pink, D. H. (2009). Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.

[3] Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s search for meaning. Boston: Beacon Press.