THE DIDEROT EFFECT: INTERTWINED BEHAVIOURS

The famous French philosopher Denis Diderot lived nearly his entire life in poverty, but that all changed in 1765. Diderot was 52 years old and his daughter was about to be married, but he could not afford to provide a dowry. Despite his lack of wealth, Diderot’s name was well-known because he was the co-founder and writer of Encyclopédie, one of the most comprehensive encyclopedias of the time.

When Catherine the Great, the Empress of Russia, heard of Diderot’s financial troubles she offered to buy his library from him for £1000 GBP (in AD 1765….!!) Suddenly, Diderot had money to spare. Shortly after this lucky sale, Diderot acquired a new scarlet robe. That’s when everything went wrong.

The Diderot Effect

Diderot’s scarlet robe was so beautiful, that he immediately noticed how out of place it seemed when surrounded by the rest of his common possessions. In his words, there was “no more coordination, no more unity, no more beauty” between his robe and the rest of his items. The philosopher soon felt the urge to buy some new things to match the beauty of his robe. He replaced his old rug with a new one from Damascus. He decorated his home with beautiful sculptures and a better kitchen table. He bought a new mirror to place above the mantle and his “straw chair was relegated to the antechamber by a leather chair.”

These reactive purchases have become known as the Diderot Effect, which states that obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption which leads us to acquire more new things. As a result, we end up buying things that our previous selves never needed to feel happy or fulfilled.

Why We Want Things We Don’t Need

We can spot similar behaviours in many other areas of life. Some common instances are:

Life has a natural tendency to become filled with more. We are rarely looking to downgrade, to simplify, to eliminate, to reduce. Our natural inclination is always to accumulate, to add, to upgrade, and to build upon.

The Role Of The Diderot Effect In Evolution

Now it may seem from the get-go that the Diderot Effect feeds on something negative, and the words greed and consumerism come to mind. But when we think about it, the Diderot Effect could be a form of evolution. After all, as the world progresses towards a new chapter, everyone in it would also evolve in terms of their needs and wants.

For example, decades ago, one would not think about having the ability to talk to someone from the other side of the world on a real-time basis, and never at a low cost. However, smartphones, mobile gadgets and the internet has made all this possible. Now, these are not just considered as wants, but actual needs. And with these needs comes a string of other needs, like the subscription to a data plan. For business owners, this effect causes you to think about two things:

• The consumer’s need for upgrades
• The consumer’s need for accessories and/or complementary products

The Diderot Effect in Action

Here’s a clear example of how this works. Let’s look at a professional on the go. This person probably has a laptop that he/ she uses to communicate with the team and prepare presentations and reports as the person flies from one site to another. If we are in the business of developing software for this professional, how would we take advantage of the situation?

Well, we would probably make sure that the tools the person uses continue to be as efficient as possible. For every challenge or difficulty these professionals encounter, we can have a ready upgrade that would solve the problem in an instant. However, these upgrades would require other peripherals as well, sometimes, reaching a point where the person using it has to upgrade their laptop’s operating system, or buy a new and more advanced laptop.

It is the same scenario as your basic Diderot Effect – but with an underlying reason that justifies the process. It’s not just about a senseless yearning for exquisite things for the want of upgrading one’s lifestyle. It’s also about keeping up with the times and understanding that as the world evolves, our needs would have to evolve as well for us to continue being productive and successful.

Mastering the Diderot Effect

The Diderot Effect tells us that life is only going to have more things fighting to get in it, so we need to understand how to curate, eliminate, and focus on the things that matter. Nearly every habit is initiated by a trigger or cue. One of the quickest ways to reduce the power of the Diderot Effect is to avoid the habit triggers that cause it in the first place. Unsubscribe from commercial emails. Call the magazines that send catalogues and opt out of their mailings. Meet friends at the park rather than the mall. Block favourite shopping websites using tools like Freedom.

Become aware it is happening. Observe when we are being drawn into spiralling consumption not because of an actual need of an item, but only because something new has been introduced. Analyse and predict the full cost of future purchases. A store may be having a great sale on a new outfit—but if the new outfit compels us to buy a new pair of shoes or handbag to match, it just became a more expensive purchase than originally assumed.

Buy items that fit our current system. We don’t have to start from scratch each time we buy something new. When we purchase new clothes, we can look for items that work well with our current wardrobe. When upgrading to new electronics, we can get things that play nicely with our current pieces so we can avoid buying new chargers, adapters, or cables.

Buy One, Give One. Each time we make a new purchase, we can give something away. Get a new TV? Give the old one away rather than moving it to another room. The idea is to prevent the number of items from growing. The habit of always be curating our life to include only the things that bring us joy and happiness can be effective.

Let go of wanting things. There will never be a level where we will be done wanting things. There is always something to upgrade to. Get a new Honda? You can upgrade to a Mercedes. Get a new Mercedes? You can upgrade to a Bentley. Get a new Bentley? You can upgrade to a Ferrari. Get a new Ferrari? Have you thought about buying a private plane? We need to realize that wanting is just an option our mind provides, not an order we have to follow.

Our natural tendency is to consume more, not less. Taking active steps to reduce the flow of unquestioned consumption makes our lives better.

Setting self-imposed limits helps as well. Live a carefully constrained life by creating limitations for you to operate within. Avoid unnecessary new purchases. Realize the Diderot Effect is a significant force and overcoming it is very difficult. There are times when we have a legitimate need to buy new things. But the best way to overcome the Diderot Effect is to never allow it to overpower us in the first place.

Remind ourselves that possessions do not define us. The abundance of life is not found in the things that we own. Our possessions do not define us or our success. Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status. Stop trying to impress others with our stuff and start trying to impress them with our life.

***Source Credits: http://www.en.wikipedia.org

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

EXPLORING HUMAN BEHAVIOR THROUGH SCUBA DIVING: LESSONS AND INSIGHTS – (CHAPTER 02)

***Continued from Chapter 01 (Points 01 to 04 Covered- Link Below)

LESSONS IN BEHAVIOUR FROM SCUBA DIVING – (CHAPTER 01)

05) -> Always Dive with a Buddy

Our buddy is there to help should we need them: we run out of air, our equipment malfunctions, we see something incredible that no one else will believe unless we have a witness. Our buddy is there to hold us accountable, to encourage and to calm us down should panic arise. A good buddy thinks not only of themselves, but of their counterpart as well. Our dive buddy could be a stranger we have just met on the boat or a lifelong friend with whom we share a passion. We enter the ocean on each other’s terms, agreeing on a dive plan, understanding that while each person is responsible for himself, they are also there to lend a helping hand. You share the dive together, exit the water together, drifting along in a sort of dependent independency (interdependency).

Lesson:……………………………….. Going through life without someone with whom you can communicate, without someone to be there should you need them, is not an ideal way of life. We need to be able to be alone with ourselves, to love ourselves independent of others, in order to make ourselves happy. But there is something to be said for having an ear that listens. We cannot isolate ourselves too much, closing ourselves off from the rest of the world. We thrive on connection, on acceptance, on belonging to something bigger than ourselves.

The buddy, whether they are a partner, parent, or best friend, can help to appreciate the solitude found in our world while remaining there for each other should we need one another. It is comforting to know that a buddy will be there, or will need us too, when needed.

06) -> Slow Down

The primary purpose of moving on a dive is to do so slowly and purposefully, carefully creeping along a coral reef, checking cracks and crevices for hiding creatures. The more slowly we move, the more we are likely to see. The diver who surfaces after their planned bottom time has lapsed, complaining of not seeing anything, is likely the diver who moved too quickly.

There is no telling what kinds of alien-like life forms are lurking in the lush shelters of vibrant reefs. Many are minuscule or camouflaged, only visible to the trained eye of a curious scuba diver. The marine world is an interesting, astounding, captivating place where no two dives are the same, and no two dives will yield the same sights. The experienced diver knows that careful observation is the secret to uncovering the treasures, both big and small, that the ocean has to offer.

Lesson:……………………………. We are in a world where everything is immediate and fast paced and needs to happen as soon as possible. Diving teaches, for the love of all things beautiful, to slow down and appreciate the environment we are in. It shows us that stress and pressure should not be our motivating factors, rather the reasons behind our actions should lie in what interests us. The forces driving us forward are curiosity and inquisition, our motivation propelled not by what lies ahead, but what lies right here, right now, right in front of our eyes if we will only take the time to look.

07) -> The More We Dive, the Less Weight We Will Need

The first breaths underwater will most likely be taken with a weight that is heavier than the weight we need. There is so much to take in, inhaling with enthusiasm, that we often forget to exhale, filling our lungs, bringing stubborn buoyancy to our bodies that can only begin to be counteracted by adding a few extra pounds to your weight belt.

But then we learn, and the novelty wears off. We start to put techniques into practice, controlling our breathing and remembering to exhale when we feel ourselves floating up. We make it a goal, like many divers have, to continue dropping our weights – diving with our ideal weight, with no more weight than we need. Thus, we begin to conserve energy, making our air consumption lighter and our tank last longer.

Lesson:……………………………… The more we have moved through life, the more weight we have begun to shed; the weight we always seem to carry with us; trying to drag us down when we are clearly meant to fly. It probably begins in adolescence when we are first exposed to all these new expectations that society has for us to act or be a certain way. Weight after heavy weight gets added, draining ourselves faster than we should, leading us to rely on crutches to achieve our neutral buoyancy, our peace of mind. Here is when it is important to exhale- to let it go.

It takes dedicated and consistent practice. The more we go through life, letting go of the unnecessary, the more comfortable we get in our own skin, the more we can conserve our positivity.

08) -> Not Every Dive Will Be Breathtaking

Stunning underwater encounters will be present, but for every magnificent moment, there will be even more hours spent in which we see a lot of the same. That does not mean those dives were not beautiful in themselves, rather they just weren’t as noteworthy as others.

Lesson:………………………….. It’s true in our lives as well. We become accustomed, getting caught in a routine. We wake up wanting our days to look a certain way, thinking that if we do something different it’s going to be the answer that unlocks all of our problems, thinking that every day should be significant. Not every day in our lives is going to be incredible. We must have the ordinary to balance the outstanding. We need monotony in order to appreciate the magnificent.

We have learned to let go of our expectations, to let every feeling wash over us, and to not get discouraged by a little boredom or normalcy. We have learned to create a life for ourselves in which the good outweighs the bad, and, in between the repetitiveness and regularity, we have put ourselves in a place that we can appreciate.

09) -> We Are the Awkward Creature in an Unfamiliar World

Diving in the ocean allows us to get incredibly close to nature, being mere inches away from multiple wild animals. And then, seeing these creatures move in a lightning-fast haste, changing direction and whizzing through the water like its less than air, is incredibly humbling; a reminder of just how vulnerable we are in this unearthly environment. That is why, as divers, we are taught to treat the marine world with such respect; we are outsiders in an arena that does not belong to us, slower than any underwater being no matter how quickly we kick our fins.

Lesson:…………………………………. It is the same with traveling, with seeing more and more of the earth, encountering new cultures, and leaving tracks in our wake. Scuba diving shows us that we are all just awkward creatures in an unfamiliar place. We all have experiences that humble us, that remind us just how vulnerable we are in comparison to the other forces in this world. We think we are in control, and then the change happens, a movement so fast that it occurs in the blink of an eye: a destructive hurricane hits, a pandemic runs through the world, fires rip through forests and suburbs. Which is why we learn that we need to treat our world with respect, acting in our lives with the knowledge that anything can change in an instant. We have become more conscious of our habits, trying to limit the waste we produce, trying to step more lightly through life, leaving less of a footprint behind.

10) -> Always Do a Safety Stop, Even if it’s Not Required

We do a safety stop at the end of every dive, spending 3 minutes at 5 meters or 15 feet, allowing excess nitrogen to begin dissolving from our tissues. Research and the Recreational Dive Planner (RDP) exhibit that a safety stop is not always necessary or required, but we always do one because it is a good diving habit to be in.

Lesson:……………………………… In life, we can look at our safety stops as moments to ourselves. A few minutes each day where we can allow ourselves to decompress the stresses and pressures that have built up throughout the day.  Examples – safety stops as a morning run, sitting down for afternoon tea, or reading a book before we go to sleep, yoga classes, writing my thoughts out on a page, or going for a sunset swim. We take our safety stops as precious moments to ourselves, a chance to reflect and relax before ascending to what’s required of us the following day. It may not always be required, but getting into the practice of doing something for ourselves, creating a habit that allows us to have that time to unwind, to relax and reflect and release all that we have been holding onto, is valuable in our immense vulnerability to the harsh ways of the world.

In Conclusion:

Life has so much to offer for those that decide to indulge in it. We have millions of opportunities every day to discover and experience something new. It seems as though we sell ourselves short far too often, thinking that we aren’t good enough or aren’t worthy enough to try something new. 

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

EXPLORING HUMAN BEHAVIOR THROUGH SCUBA DIVING: LESSONS AND INSIGHTS – (CHAPTER 01)

Scuba Diving is one of those activities that changes us in many ways. Not just through the training, but also by what we see and experience underwater, has this lasting effect on how we experience the world above. A lot of sports and hobbies can reinforce our character and teach us valuable life lessons. Here are some ways in which we think, Scuba Diving has changed our lives. It might be a stretch, but some of those lessons apply to management and business as well.

01) -> Equalize Your Airspaces

During descent, the pressure changes, increasing with the weight of the water, pushing on places in our body with airspaces that are unaccustomed to it. The first things to complain are the ears. We can fix this discomfort, equalizing the pressure to match the change around by pinching our nose and lightly blowing. This adds air into the cavities and canals running through our head and the discomfort dissipates. Every dive is different. Sometimes the ears complain and sometimes the build-up is in the head: behind the eyes, stemming from the nose, centred in the forehead, wherever our congestion may be. Everyone descends at a different rate depending on how their body responds. Sometimes we feel stuck above everyone else, watching them continue to their depths, while we are left behind. Other times we watch others from below, kicking up slightly, wiggling their jaws, trying any and everything to get their sinuses to cooperate.

Lesson:……………. Equalization can be correlated to life; everyone is moving at different rates, allowing themselves to become accustomed to their surroundings at different times.

We need to be patient with our self and to not worry about the other people around us. Diving with pressure-induced pain is not fun, just as forcing yourself into certain situations can be uncomfortable. If we give ourselves time to adjust, time to equalize and overcome the surrounding pressure, we will get to the destination all the same. It does not matter how quickly or slowly we descend along our paths of life, as long as we keep trying and keep practicing different techniques until we find the one that works for us individually.

Trying to muscle through the pressure and stresses of our lives can end up hurting us. And with that comes the simple notion of listening to our body, heart, and mind. Sometimes it is okay to take a step back, kick ourselves up a bit where the pressure is not so strong, and give yourself some extra time. Sometimes it is okay to say, “it’s not happening today, I’m going to sit this one out and try again tomorrow”.

02) -> Breathe Continuously And Never Hold Your Breath

While underwater, it is essential to maintain a constant breathing rate, inhaling and exhaling, that raspy, rhythmic sound filling your ears. The reason for this is that when we are diving, we are breathing compressed air under pressure. If that pressure changes, so does the volume of air. As we descend underwater, the pressure increases, compressing the air, swelling its density, causing us to inhale a higher volume of air than we would take in with a breath at the surface. When we ascend, the pressure decreases, and that compressed air, in response to the drop in pressure, starts to expand.

When we breathe normally, the expanding air is vented out naturally when we exhale.

If we hold our breath, our lungs do not inflate and deflate like they are designed to.

Our lungs are a fixed airspace, a flexible organ that can only hold a finite amount of air.

That held breath of air grows upon ascent, enlarging inside the lungs, unable to find a way out, filling them up until they can swell no further and, like a balloon that cannot hold another breath, they can rupture, causing a lung over-expansion injury that can turn fatal.

Lesson:. . . . . . . We hold our breath in life, maintaining our rigidity, not allowing ourselves to inhale new air and exhale the old. We are steadfast in our habits. We liked things a certain way and don’t want change. We are not meant to be uncompromising, inflexible, and unchanging, like the lungs stretching and straining under the confines of a held breath. We should accept the new in all its forms, accepting novel ideas and cultures and ways of thinking about things, eliminating old habits and prejudices and things we thought we knew.

When we move through life, the pressures are either increasing or decreasing, stresses are either heightening or diminishing. We need to remember to breathe. To take in all the new and good and unfamiliar regardless of what our depth is, and to release all the old and bad and comfortable, thereby making room for the new. If we hold onto the old for too long, it continues to fill us up, expanding and growing and getting bigger until we, unaware of its cultivation, burst at the seams. We should strive to immerse ourselves in new environments, surround ourselves with new pressures, growing and changing and adapting, and all the while remembering to breathe.

03) ->  Adjust Your Buoyancy in Small, Frequent Amounts

Balanced buoyancy, horizontal trim, that perfect composure of rising slightly on the inhale and faintly falling on the exhale, is what separates the good divers from the bad.

Any diver will tell you that, in order to find that perfect positioning, you have to adjust your buoyancy in small, frequent amounts. We do not need to press the inflator button for too long, filling the BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) with air that wants to bring us back to the surface. Little bursts will do, and the same goes for releasing air as our tank empties and we become more buoyant throughout the dive.

Moving the weights around little by little, trying new positions on each dive, finding that ideal spot on your body to bring yourself into a sleek, straight line is something that divers do the more and more they submerge themselves. We learn to minimize your movements, quick flicks of the fin to change direction, mostly floating and flowing along with the current, frog kicking to propel yourself along a constant plane running parallel to the ocean’s bottom.

Being able to control the body and maintaining jurisdiction over its movements and manoeuvres in the water is key to be able to spot microorganisms by getting close to coral without touching it. During diving, adjustments made too quickly or drastically, can have chaotic results. Power inflating the BCD, causing us to balloon to the surface, can result in bubbles forming in the blood. Using big, clumsy kicks as we swim along can either damage coral or disturb the visibility.

Lesson:………………… Having good buoyancy carries over into our lives. Making small, intentional movements brings about a sort of self-awareness that you cannot achieve with those big, drastic changes. Think of it as biting off more than we can chew. If we make too many big changes all at once, how will we ever figure out which variables yield desired results? Making small adjustments: try this today, try something else tomorrow, find what works to bring myself out of that feeling that everything around me is crashing.

This is a secret to moving through life: small adjustments, acting with intention, understanding what actions and thoughts make you feel certain ways. It is all a process of trial and error, moving our weights, practicing as much as we can, getting better with each new discovery.

04) -> Communicate with Proper Hand Signals

We all learn the universal hand signals: thumbs up means “I want to go up”, thumbs down means “lets dive deeper”, two fingers to the other hand’s palm is asking “how much air do you have”, and the thumb and pointer making an O with the other three fingers released is a question and an answer: “Are you okay?” and “yes, I’m okay”. The main thing here is that communication is key. In an underwater world where the tongue is tied, we have to be able to say what we want with the tools we have. And, we sometimes have had to learn how to read and understand people, not with words, but by how their eyes look behind their masks, sometimes wide and fearful, other times crinkled with a smiling excitement.

Not everyone speaks the same language and not everyone communicates the same way, but, as soon as we descend, letting that water wash over our heads, our language becomes universal, and being able to understand one another can make or break the dive.

Lesson:………………………………… The same is true in our normal lives. Communication is key. Almost every major problem, whether that be on an individual, communal, or global scale, is rooted in a conflict of communication. Different words and phrases have different meanings around the globe.  Listening to each other, establishing a norm, understanding the root of what someone is saying and the reason why they would be saying it that way is something that has challenged us all. We are all brought up differently, raised to believe different things, but at the end of the day we are all trying to communicate the same thing: this is me and I just want to be accepted.

Being empathetic and understanding other aspects of communication are vital to finding and providing that acceptance: reading the look in someone’s eyes, interpreting body language, deciphering why someone may be acting a certain way. We are all floating along in a sort of shared solitude, alone with our thoughts and interacting with others when we get the chance. But understanding each other, using those agreed upon hand signals and being aware of other cues, makes or breaks our time with each other.

***To be continued in Chapter 02 (Points 05 to 10- Link Below)

LESSONS IN BEHAVIOUR FROM SCUBA DIVING – (CHAPTER 02)

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS: IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENT

A Short Story- Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine:

In 1952, polio killed more children than any other communicable disease. Nearly 58,000 people were infected. The situation was on the verge of becoming an epidemic and the country desperately needed a vaccine.

In a small laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh, a young researcher named Jonas Salk was working tirelessly to find a cure. (Years later, author Dennis Denenberg would write, “Salk worked sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, for years.”). Despite all his effort, Salk was stuck. His quest for a polio vaccine was meeting a dead end at every turn. Eventually, he decided that he needed a break. Salk left the laboratory and retreated to the quiet hills of central Italy where he stayed at a 13th-century Franciscan monastery known as the Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi.

The basilica could not have been more different than the lab. The architecture was a beautiful combination of Romanesque and Gothic styles. White-washed brick covered the expansive exterior and dozens of semi-circular arches surrounded the plazas between buildings. Inside the church, the walls were covered with stunning fresco paintings from the 14th and 15th centuries and natural light poured in from tall windows. It was in this space that Jonas Salk would have the breakthrough discovery that led to the polio vaccine. Years later, he would say…

Today, the discovery that Salk made in that Italian monastery has impacted millions. Polio has been eradicated from nearly every nation in the world. Did inspiration just happen to strike Jonas Salk while he was at the monastery? Or was he right in assuming that the environment impacted his thinking? And perhaps more importantly, what does science say about the connection between our environment and our thoughts and actions? And how can we use this information to live better lives?

The Link Between Brains and Buildings

Researchers have discovered a variety of ways that the buildings we live, work, and play in drive our behavior and our actions. The way we react and respond is often tied to the environment that we find ourselves in. For example, it has long been known that schools with more natural light provide a better learning environment for students and test scores often go up as a result. (Natural light and natural air are known to stimulate productivity in the workplace as well.)

Additionally, buildings with natural elements built into them help reduce stress and calm us down (think of trees inside a mall or a garden in a lobby). Spaces with high ceilings and large rooms promote more expansive and creative thinking.

So what does this link between design and behaviour mean for us? Change Your Environment, Change Your Behaviour. Researchers have shown that any habit you have — good or bad — is often associated with some type of trigger or cue. Recent studies (like this one) have shown that these cues often come from your environment. This is important because most of us live in the same home, go to the same office, and eat in the same rooms day after day. And that means you are constantly surrounded by the same environmental triggers and cues.

If our behavior is often shaped by our environment and we keep working, playing, and living in the same environment, then it’s no wonder that it can be difficult to build new habits. Studies show that it is easier to change our behavior and build new habits when we change our environment.

We are more reliant on environmental triggers than we’d like to think. In one study conducted on “habits vs. intentions,” researchers found that students who transferred to another university were the most likely to change their daily habits. Those habits were easier to change than the control group because they weren’t exposed to familiar external cues.

The mirrors research on the stimulus control theory, or the effect of a stimulus on behaviour shows that techniques involving stimulus control have even been successfully used to help people with insomnia. In short, those who had trouble falling asleep were told to only go to their room and lie in their bed when they were tired. If they couldn’t fall asleep, they were told to get up and change rooms.

Strange advice, but over time, researchers found that by associating the bed with ‘It’s time to go to sleep’ and not with other activities (reading a book, just lying there, etc.), participants were eventually able to quickly fall asleep due to the repeated process: it became almost automatic to fall asleep in their bed because a successful trigger had been created. Perhaps we are more like Pavlov’s dogs than first imagined, it is interesting to see how small cues can greatly impact our behaviour.

If we are struggling to think creatively, then going to a wide open space or moving to a room with more natural light and fresh air might help us solve the problem. (Like it seemingly did for Jonas Salk). Meanwhile, if we need to focus and complete a task, research shows that it’s more beneficial to work in a smaller, more confined room with a lower ceiling (without making ourselves feel claustrophobic, of course).

And perhaps most important, simply moving to a new physical space — whether it’s a different room or halfway around the world — will change the cues that we encounter and thus our thoughts and behaviors. Quite literally, a new environment leads to new ideas.

Putting This Into Practice

In the future, we hope that architects and designers will use the connection between design and behavior to build hospitals where patients heal faster, schools where children learn better, and homes where people live happier. That said, we can start making changes right now. We do not have to be a victim of our environment. We can also be the architect of it. Here is one simple 2-step prescription for altering our environment so that we can stick with good habits and break bad habits:

Our environment can also be tweaked to make certain tasks more difficult or easier to do. Here are some examples…

These are just a few examples, but the point is that shifting our behaviour is much easier when we shift to the right environment. Stanford professor BJ Fogg refers to this approach as “designing for laziness.” In other words, change your environment so that your default or “lazy” decision is a better one.

By designing our environment to encourage the good behaviours and prevent the bad behaviours, we make it far more likely that we’ll stick to long-term change. Our actions today are often a response to the environmental cues that surround us. If we want to change our behaviour, then we have to change those cues.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

ZEN CONCEPT: SHOSHIN – THE BEGINNER’S MIND- A SELF INTROSPECTIVE VIEW

During my time, I have played a variety of sports and games in my life. In that time, I had many different coaches (both professional and seniors) and I began to notice repeating patterns among them.

Coaches tend to come up through a certain system. New coaches will often land their first job as an assistant coach with their alma mater or a team they played with previously. Or the coach is a senior who has been on top of the game for a while. After a few years, the coach will tend to replicate the same drills, follow similar practice schedules, and even yell at their players in a similar fashion as the coaches (or seniors) they learned from. People tend to emulate their mentors.

This phenomenon—our tendencies to repeat the behaviour we are exposed to—extend to nearly everything we learn in life. Our political or religious beliefs are mostly the result of the system we were raised in. Although we may not agree on every issue, our parents political attitudes tend to shape our political attitudes. The way we approach our day-to-day work and life is largely a result of the system we were trained in and the mentors we had along the way. At some point, we all learned to think from someone else. That’s how knowledge is passed down.

Here’s the hard question: Who is to say that the way we originally learned something is the best way? What if we simply learned one way of doing a thing, not the way of doing things?

Consider my sports coaches. Did they actually consider all of the different ways of coaching a team? Or did they simply mimic the methods they had been exposed to? The same could be said of nearly any area in life. Who is to say that the way we originally learned a skill is the best way? Most people think they are experts in a field, but they are really just experts in a particular style.

In this way, we become a slave to our old beliefs without even realizing it. We adopt a philosophy or strategy based on what we have been exposed to without knowing if it’s the optimal way to do things.

There is a concept in Zen Buddhism known as shoshin, which means “beginner’s mind.” Shoshin refers to the idea of letting go of our preconceptions and having an attitude of openness when studying a subject. (**Source: Shoshin – The Beginner’s Mind)

When we are a true beginner, our mind is empty and open. We’re willing to learn and consider all pieces of information, like a child discovering something for the first time. As we develop knowledge and expertise, however, our mind naturally becomes more closed.We tend to think, “I already know how to do this” and we become less open to new information.

There is a danger that comes with expertise. We tend to block the information that disagrees with what we learned previously and yield to the information that confirms our current approach. We think we are learning, but in reality we are steamrolling through information and conversations, waiting until we hear something that matches up with our current philosophy or previous experience, and cherry-picking information to justify our current behaviors and beliefs. Most people don’t want new information, they want validating information.

Another way of understanding this. After reading many books on a certain topic, we know it so well that we can’t just skim through similar books. Most of the information will be repetitive, so we need to read line-by-line to discover the one insight we haven’t heard before.

The problem is that when we are an expert we actually need to pay more attention, not less. Why? Because when we are already familiar with 98 percent of the information on a topic, we need to listen very carefully to pick up on the remaining 2 percent. As adults our prior knowledge blocks us from seeing things anew.

How to Rediscover Your Beginner’s Mind
Here are a few practical ways to rediscover your beginner’s mind and embrace the concept of shoshin.

Let go of the need to add value: . . . . Many people, especially high achievers, have an overwhelming need to provide value to the people around them. On the surface, this sounds like a great thing. But in practice, it can handicap our success because we never have a conversation where we just shut up and listen. If we’re constantly adding value (“You should try this…” or “Let me share something that worked well for me…”) then we kill the ownership that other people feel about their ideas. At the same time, it’s impossible for us to listen to someone else when we’re talking. So, step one is to let go of the need to always contribute. Step back every now and then and just observe and listen.

Let go of the need to win every argument: . . . . . . “Others do not need to lose for me to win.” This is a philosophy that fits well with the idea of shoshin. If we are having a conversation and someone makes a statement that we disagree with, try releasing the urge to correct them. They do not need to lose the argument for us to win. Letting go of the need to prove a point opens up the possibility for us to learn something new. Approach it from a place of curiosity: Isn’t that interesting. They look at this in a totally different way. Even if we are right and they are wrong, it doesn’t matter. We can walk away satisfied even if we do not have the last word in every conversation.

Tell me more about that: . . . . . . . One strategy is to ask someone to, “Tell me more about that.” It doesn’t matter what the topic is, we are simply trying to figure out how things work and open our mind to hearing about the world through someone else’s perspective.

Assume that we are an idiot: . . . . . . . . . In his fantastic book, Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Taleb writes, “I try to remind my group each week that we are all idiots and know nothing, but we have the good fortune of knowing it.” The flaws discussed in this article are simply a product of being human. We all have to learn information from someone and somewhere, so we all have a mentor or a system that guides our thoughts. The key is to realize this influence.We are all idiots, but if you have the privilege of knowing that, then you can start to let go of your preconceptions and approach life with a beginner’s mind.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.