How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

PRIMING THE PUMP
Do you have a favorite song that always perks you up? Or a place where you
always seem to do your best thinking—perhaps an airy room or a cherished
window seat? On the flip side, maybe some things are guaranteed to make your
heart sink—like hearing the phrase “two-hour conference call,” for example.
How is it possible that such tiny prompts have such a palpable effect on us? Are
we imagining things? Probably not. Not entirely, anyway, thanks to the highly
associative nature of our brains.
Every one of your thoughts, feelings, and actions corresponds to a network of
neurons firing electrochemical signals in your brain. One batch of neurons fires
when you think of the color red; a slightly different batch of neurons fires when
you encounter something orange. Other groups of neurons come to life when
you hear a particular song, snag that precious window seat, dial into a
conference call, and so on. And each of those networks is in turn linked to many
others, representing all the things you associate with that song, seat, or call.
For example, your neural network for the word “orange” is probably linked to
your network for the word “red,” given that they’re both colors. And “red” is in
turn connected with a whole number of other associated thoughts and memories
in your mind, including perhaps “fire engine” and “sunset.” To illustrate this,
University of California psychologist Elizabeth Loftus created the following
simplified example of the sort of neural maps that many of us might have in our
brains, reflecting a lifetime of associations between various objects, experiences,
and ideas.
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And here’s the thing. Once one small corner of a neural network gets activated,
it can act like a falling domino, prompting a cascade of activity in connected

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neurons. So if you were the owner of the neural map shown in the illustration
above, and you encountered the color red in any form, you might find that it
unexpectedly triggered a vivid memory of a gorgeous vacation sunset. Seeing a
fire engine might unaccountably make you feel like buying cherries. A thought
like this can pop into your consciousness seemingly out of nowhere, if you
encounter a cue that your brain somehow associates with that specific thought—
a phenomenon known to scientists as the 
spreading activation effect.
So if you once spent an afternoon cranking out great work while settled into
that window seat, your “window seat” neural network might be connected with
the one representing “extremely productive and focused behavior.” As a result,
you might find yourself getting a subtle efficiency boost whenever you sit there.
Meanwhile, your neural network representing “conference call” might be
connected to the network for “feeling bored”—which means you might find
yourself feeling weary merely at the thought of dialing the phone number. An
upbeat song might connect to the memory of a fun evening with friends where
that song was playing, which in turn connects to your brain’s network related to
a happy mood. Recalling one aspect of that evening—the song—might end up
rebooting other parts of the memory, including your emotional state. So you
listen to the song as you’re heading into work, and you feel happy—perhaps
conscious it’s because of that fun evening, but perhaps not.
You’ll notice I’m saying all these connections 
might
get made. They’re not
guaranteed. As you’ll know if you’ve ever struggled to remember someone’s
name, neural connections don’t always fire up on demand or in predictable ways.
But neurons are more likely to connect if they’ve often done so in the past—
which is why it’s easier to remember the name of our spouse than that of a
casual acquaintance. There’s a saying in neuroscience that “neurons that fire
together, wire together,” reflecting the fact that neural connections get stronger
the more they’re used.
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So in the case of our uplifting song, the more we
associate it with feeling good, the stronger our brain’s connection becomes
between “that great song” and “feeling happy.”
That’s my excuse for humming Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” to myself
before client workshops. The song does a good job of firing me up before I
speak to a roomful of people, because it’s associated in my mind with a Blue
Man Group show I enjoyed some years ago. I found their performance hugely
energizing, and “I Feel Love” was the high-octane song they played in their
finale. So whenever I hear it, a small part of my brain launches the “feel

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energized” routine. It’s a nice little nudge toward being ready for action.
And that’s the basic mechanism behind a large body of research that suggests
quite small cues can push our thoughts, feelings, and actions in one direction or
another. For example, in one study, pairs of volunteers were asked to play a two-
person game where each player got to choose between a collaborative strategy or
an individualistic strategy. When the exercise was introduced to them as “The
Community Game,” two-thirds of the volunteers chose the collaborative
strategy. But when it was called “The Wall Street Game,” two-thirds chose the
individualistic one. Why? Because the words triggered a bunch of associations in
people’s brains, rightly or wrongly, and those associations influenced (or
“primed,” as scientists say) the choices they felt like making.
Similar effects have been found with physical and visual cues, too. In one
experiment, the mere presence of business-related objects—a briefcase, a
boardroom table—made people more hard-nosed in negotiations with another
volunteer, without any mention of Wall Street.
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Another study found that after
people were shown a picture of a library, they went on to speak more softly.
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 In
a third study, where volunteers were given a test to measure their concentration,
those who were asked to wear a lab coat made half the number of errors of those
who wore their street clothes—presumably thanks to an association between lab
coats and high academic performance. Sure enough, when the coat wearers were
told that the white coat belonged to a painter (rather than a scientist or doctor),
their scores dropped.
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These experiments would seem to present clear recommendations on how you
should start every morning: put on a 
doctor’s
lab coat and dunk inspirational
objects in your coffee. Of course, it’s not that easy (if it were, this would be a
very short book). No single experiment can prove that a particular cue will
inspire particular behavior, not least because each person’s brain has different
associations with a given cue. For example, fire engines might have been yellow
rather than red in the town where you grew up. You might hate Donna Summer
and find nothing but positive connotations in the idea of a two-hour conference
call. But there’s little disagreement that the cues around us can provide small but
sometimes useful nudges to our state of mind—especially if we’re 
deliberately
exposing ourselves to influences that we know are likely to trigger helpful
associations in our brains (like my Donna Summer trick).
To apply this in your everyday life, think back to your intentions, and consider
the kinds of thoughts and feelings you want to encourage in yourself today. Ask

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yourself:
Which words or phrases might help remind you of those intentions?
• Try writing a “note to self” that prompts you to keep this language in mind
today.
• Consider using that language on your to-do list, or in your meetings and
emails.
Your language doesn’t need to be poetic to be an effective prompt. Ever since
political strategist James Carville coined the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid”
during Bill Clinton’s 1992 U.S. Presidential campaign, politicians of all stripes
have used variations on that blunt phrase to remind them of whatever they need
to keep top of mind while talking to voters. Clichés are fine, too, as long as they
speak to you. For example, if you’ve got an intention to say less and listen more
in a meeting today, scrawling “less is more” in your notebook might be an
excellent cue to lodge in the corner of your field of vision.
Can you make your surroundings a metaphor for your intentions? Choose a