The author of Homo Deus compared us trading our private data (conversations and likes etc.) for free online services to native americans trading their land for some beads and guns from the settlers.  It's not about privacy, it's about control.  

The author said Facebook has done studies that it can predict your responses better than you or your friends with only data from 10 likes.  I didn't look it up, maybe the exact number is a bit off, but it doesn't matter, these services have thousands or millions of data points on us, they will definitely know us better than we know ourselves.

Lexus has even started getting computers to write their ads.
https://newatlas.com/lexus-ai-tv-commercial/57310/

So, I think rather than debating about privacy we'd should be debating who made a worse deal, land for beads or data for photo sharing capabilities, which not only give them unprecedented powers of persuasion but are also leading to a lot of other problems like screen addiction and depression and isolation.

Whatever you do, please don't buy those smart speakers that are always listening.
​

I can't believe I've had this blog for two years?

My site analytics say I'm getting almost 200 people a week, but not one comment on anything makes me wonder.  I think it's just 2 people :)

So as I said last month, I'm going to be moving a lot of this to Church of Life Hacking.  I don't know if this is me just hearing what I want to hear, but these three TED Talks I heard today, seem to reinforce the need for something like The Church of Life Hacking, a platform for solutions and their implementation.  The same goal as this site, but with more of a community in mind.

#1 - Everyday citizens need to claim their power on the internet.  
I see this as what the Church is doing, letting people find ways to claim their power by finding solutions, by finding ways to vote with their time and money to shape the companies we all use the way we want them to be.

#2 - How isolation fuels opioid addiction
The Church aspect is providing a community for people with no church, a community where people from all religions can come, and come to help each other, which she says is the best way to make a connection, the best way to counter addiction.

#3 - How will we survive when the world hits 10 billion?
He says there are two camps wizards and prophets, those that think technology will save us, and those that think we need to change our ways, survive by conserving.  The Church is all about bridging this gap.  Showing people how to get more with less, no compromising, but use tech to create more efficient processes, but at the same time be self reflective and not waste time and energy on things that don't add value to your life.

So, if I do have 200 people reading this, tell your friends, we're starting a Church! A Church of Life Hacking, the goal is to help each other live the  lives we want, achieve the goals we've been trying and failing at for years, and to take the stress out of being happy.

And if you want to start a congregation, you can sign up on my patreon site. I don't want 10% of your paycheck or anything.  I want to show you how to save hundreds of dollars a year.  I want to be providing at least double the value any of my donors contribute.

After one day of the Happiness Service Provider idea I wasn't feeling it.  I still like the idea, and maybe one day, but for now I thought I'd start a Church instead. 

The Church of Life Hacking

I hesitated a bit because it seemed crazy, but then I decided to just try it out.

Compared to the Happiness Service Provider name it's less like something you sign up for, more like something you check out.  More of a community, less of me telling people what I think they should do.  I was talking to a friend once and he was saying people who don't go to church need some place to go and socialize, so this is a church for those with or without a church already.  No worshiping here that will conflict with other religions, just trying to learn from each other the best tips and tricks out there!

Check it out https://www.churchoflifehacking.org/

I don't think they exist yet, but I envision them as being a company that you pay, like you pay for your internet, but they make sure you're happy.  'Happy' is pretty subjective and ambiguous, but they'll make sure you're not too stressed out for the wrong reasons, and that you're making progress on your goals.

I really want one to exist, and I mentioned last month that I think if we all pursued happiness more efficiently, because you need to be efficient if you want to be as happy as possible :), so I'm going to try rebranding this site into one!

Here's a quick look, let me know what you think
www.happinesssp.com

This site is all about achieving goals.  We all struggle with them and I think it's because we have a poor mental model of how our brain works, a poor understanding of what gets us to take action and what doesn't.

Today I got a great email from Engineers Without Borders (ewb.ca).  They've got some goals they want some help with.  They want all of our help, and their goals aren't really their goals, but the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

​I'm pretty sure they're not going to make their timeline of 2030.  I don't mean to sound negative, or like a know it all.  Yes they will make progress, yes they have made big progress in the last 18 years as you can see in this report.  But I don't see things getting to: No Poverty & Zero Hunger, with their action suggestions like, "I will run a food drive for my local food bank".   I don't think more food drives solves the need for food drives.

Anyways, what I'm saying is I'm going to see what I can do, try to get in touch with EWB, try to approach the problem with a better mental model of why people do what they do, and with the design methodology from BJ Fogg (did I cover this already? if you don't know B=MAP click here).

In general, as covered in my things you should know, the stronger your reason, the stronger your associations, the more likely you are to do something.  But your short term auto-pilot brain is there to demotivate you from long term goals every step of the way, using any rationale to talk you out of it (made progress, might as well ease up, no progress, might as well give up, thought about making progress, well take a break, you don't want to over do it).  Thie B=MAP is a design philosophy that pushes the need to make things easy for people to do.  

All of the suggestions I see in the EWB report take some effort, so by the B=MAP model people need to be really invested and motivated to follow through.  But in a rich country where we're already doing pretty good we can get distracted from these too easily.  We need things really easy for us, and we need to push for the reasons why it will benefit us.  We need to move the dot on the B=MAP chart.

I can't recall if I've mentioned it on this blog or not, but I think the key is to try to help people in the rich countries be as happy as possible as efficiently as possible.  It might sound crazy, but if you look at the list of problems, a lot of them come from the rich countries missguided pursuits of happiness.  And the research shows happiness is a lot less resource intensive than we think it is.  This seems like the perfect business plan to me.  Low resources needed, and an ability to charge a ton because this is what everyone is spending their money on already, and not making much progress.

What do you think?  
What would it take for you to take some action towards these?
What would you pay monthly for a 'Happiness Service Provider', more or less than what you pay for your Internet Service Provider?

Whoa, a few days late on this on, where does the time go.

What have I been up to recently?  I'm reading (listening to) 'Solve for Happy', a book that is touted as taking a mathematical or engineering approach to solving for happy as if it was an equation, and coming up with novel ideas not seen in the other books out there.  Hmmm ... I'm not quite seeing it that way, maybe I misread the reviews.  It is interesting but I'm over 80% done and I'm not seeing these equations I was hoping for.  It's an interesting listen, and if you have 11 hours on your hands, maybe while commuting, check it out.  For my unified theory of 'why we do what we do' on this website I'll add that the default mood of the auto pilot part of our brain is grumpy.  I already mention that it's against you no matter what because your desires are usually long term and it's are short term, so it will tell you to give up when things get tough, and it will tell you to take a break when you're making progress.  What he points out in this book is that the auto pilot is always on the look out for something that might be bad, something that might hurt us.  It's always assuming the worst in an effort to keep us alive.  Being more cautious than less cautious will keep you alive, but it's also kind of always grumpy if you let it be your default state.

Aside from that book, but on the topic of being on the lookout for things that might harm you I like to point out things you should be worried about, and which things you shouldn't be as worried about.  Some people worry about getting on airplanes, or driving, or they get excited for giant lottery draws they might win, but don't tend to be as worried as they should be about things like mental illness or cancer.  As a general rule I think if you hear about something that has a 1 in 10 chance of happening or 1 in something less than 10, like 1 in 5, or 1 in 3 or, even 1 in 2 chance of happening to you, like they are saying about getting cancer, or experiencing mental illness or suffering loneliness, you should pay some, I mean, a lot of attention and do at least some simple things to try to make it less likely to happen to you.

The disturbing statistic I heard recently is, girls have a 1 in 3 chance, and boys have a 1 in 6 chance of being sexually abused by the time they are 18!  Do you know 6 kids?  Well this says 1 maybe 2 of them is likely to be a victim of sexual abuse!  Can you believe it?  Well believe it or not this is one of those situations where you should do something to try to prevent this.

The good news is the steps this article suggests are really simple things you can do to reduce the likelihood it will happen to a child you know, and simple things to share with other parents to help their children.  It's basically a matter of talking about our bodies with our kids, giving them an idea of what's right and wrong, and what to do if they are in a situation that seems wrong.  And, making it known to those around these kids to know they know what is right and wrong and what to do if they see something that seems wrong.

So, most people may be getting uncomfortable around now, wondering how to do this, how to have these conversations and when to have them, but the great thing is, there are amazing kids books out there designed just for this.  Just get one or two, read through them yourself and then read through them with your kids.  They won't know to be uncomfortable about it, so try not to be uncomfortable either.

Here's the article I was forwarded

https://medium.com/@anonymousparent/its-mid-morning-and-you-re-a-thousand-miles-away-from-home-when-your-phone-rings-66ffd089e8aa

​It's a very worthwhile read, and it has links to the kids books in it.  Next time you're thinking of buying a lottery ticket, and dreaming of all the great things you can do for your family with the winnings, realize you could use that money to buy a book that could do more than those lottery winnings could ever do to prevent distraught for your family, and the chances of losing by not playing (by not buying the book and reading it to your kids) are 1 in 6.

Last month I said I was going to write up some tips for people that want to help and support their friends/family that are depressed because in the past I had found it hard to find good resources.

Then a couple days later this TED talk was posted “How to Connect With Depressed Friends”, how great is that!​

The main thing I took away from the video was to not make a big deal of it, not to try to fix it, and not to make the person bad for having it.  He says don’t feel like you have to be Dr. Phil, … think of trying to be more like Ellen.
Watch the video for more tips.

This advice isn’t just applicable to hanging out with depressed people, in all of the books I’ve read they always echo similar strategies, such as repeating what’s been said, to show you're hearing the other person more than trying to offer solutions.  So you can try these out all the time with anyone you're interacting with.

Aside from that talk, in the past I ran across another TED talk where Dr. Ilardi outlines 6 steps to recovery, aimed at the patient, but I took them as a way to choose what to do when we did get together.  1) Omega-3, 2) Anti-Ruminate 3) Exercise 4) Light Exposure 5) Social Support and 6) Sleep Hygiene (link).

Based on this knowledge I would always try meet up for a walk in the park.  Doing this wouldn’t fully satisfy the list, but it would help towards four of them in one go.

For those of you who feel you want to try to do more, and you want to be like Ellen as suggested above, but running a game on her show rather than just chatting on the couch, check out this TED Talk.

This is a new approach and if you think you're friend is up for it check it out a bit more then send them some links to see what they think. (link to more info)

Aside from that, despite what I remembered in terms of not too many brochures for the people around those with depression, when you search they do come up now

Here's one that was near the top of the list
http://www.dbsalliance.org/pdfs/brochures/HelpingFriendsFamily.pdf

Here's one with suggested things to say
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/depression/helping-someone-with-depression.htm

So to wrap it up, I'd say make sure to let the person know you're there for them.  Watch/read things to try to get a sense of what they're going through.  If you're unsure of something, ask them questions.  In general though try not to get into a fixing mode or make them feel bad for being depressed.  And you may feel hesitant to call 911 since you don't call it too often, but if you suspect your friend may hurt themselves or others just call 911 as mentioned in the guides above.

This month is more TED Talks than typing, it starts with a recent one on Grandmothers treating depression, and ties back to the the Jan and Feb posts on what everyone wants, and more fulfilling endeavours.

Depression and mental health are in the news a lot, for good reason, suicide is the leading cause of death for people 15-29 world wide.  The percentage of people that will suffer from mental health issues is like 1 in 2 or 1 in 3, it's huge.  And from what I've tried to find online I haven't been able to find a lot of advice on what friends can do to help.  The tips are usually directed at the person suffering, things like, exercise, eat well, push yourself to get out and be active.  So from a friends point of view you can try to help encourage those activities.  As it's been in the news more I keep listening to see if depression is tied to a lack of meaning or sense of purpose.  I feel like I've heard that and I think it would make sense but it doesn't seem to be in the news.  So over the next bit I'll try to find that reference and I'll try to pull together what friends can do to help if they have a friend that is depressed.  The idea came to me when listening to an inspiring TED talk about a doctor who taught grandmothers to treat depression.  He did it out of desperation, in a country with a truly unbelievably low doctor to patient ratio, 12 psychiatrists in a country of 14 million people, but I think it's a great model to spread to the world.  Even where there are many more psychiatrists a grandmother would be more accessible and could be more effective as he mentions in his talk.

This isn't the first I've heard of the power of grandmothers.  They are an underutilized resource.  There is a TED Talk in which they are touted as the secret ingredient or catalyst to educating the world's children.  And in another talk they are recruited to take an active role in all sorts of technical endeavours.  Their ability to connect seems unmatched by those we'd typically look to to solve the problems, and this ability to connect seems more important than previous abilities which they can learn as they go.

Tying it back to February's post, there I talked about everyone wanting similar things but not realizing it.  I think this is another case of it.  People with depression want safe social connection, and those around them want to help.  It's a matter of the two sides understanding how to help.  As his TED.com bio says Dixion Chibanda "is passionate about connecting with ordinary people in ways that improve their lives using simple but effective programs that can be carried out by non-specialists or professionals".  To me this sounds like exactly what would help people living more fulfilling lives as discussed in the January post!

There's no shortage of people out there, and loneliness is the leading cause of death for the elderly.  Tapping into the resource of the elderly seems like a win-win-win.  Win for those in need, win for the overburdened professionals, and a win for the elderly.  I've seen some examples college students living in retirement homes.  I hope that takes off!

And speaking of 'what everyone wants', I'll put a bonus video at the bottom which comes at it from an unlikely angle :)


Here's the talk on Grandmothers treating depression.

​Here is a video to help understand how a person with depression is feeling.

​Here is the global vision to have Grandmothers help kids teach themselves everything!!

Here are Grandmothers doing everything from building solar cookers to taking care of 7000 children's teeth.  My favourite part about this talk is how it demonstrates that you people raise to the challenge you present them.  At 09:29 he starts talking about schools, and the role the kids play in the running of the schools, and if you listen for a minute about their trip to Sweden you'll see what I mean when you hear about how the 12 year old student prime minister reacts to questions from the Queen of Sweden.

Here is the Bonus Video, where a woman searching for god stumbled on some universal desires.  Enjoy!

A couple weeks ago I had a great idea for a blog post, it was going to take three things I'd come across recently that summed up all my ideas in a nice "A + B + C = The Future" ... at least I think it was.  I didn't write down any notes because I thought it was so obvious, but I lost it.  Not sure what I was thinking.

I know it all hinged on this talk though.  I feel like everyone needs to see this talk.
The speaker, Dan Ariely, seems to be most interested in showing us that we are biased in our decisions and our world views, and to demonstrate this he uses survey results showing how we think wealth is distributed, how it actually is distributed, and how different groups of people think wealth should be distributed.  The HUGE takeaway here from my point of view is that everyone agrees on how wealth should be distributed.  It's not equally but it is also nowhere near the way it is being distributed.  I'm not advocating for forced wealth redistribution, but I think everyone should see this and think about ways this could be achieved.  If you're up for this you should also take a few minutes to watch the talk on 'How to Buy Happiness' because it's not what you'd think.
​

On a side note, if you've read through the 'KNOW' section of the website you may be interested in this recent talk that seems to reinforce the ideas presented there.  In my "First Thing" you should know, I outline that we are all constantly making predictions based of the future based on our past experiences, that's essentially how we decide what to do moment to moment.  And in the "Fifth Thing" you should know I outline that our emotions are like non-verbal cues from our autopilot helping us navigate these decisions, again based on past experiences.
The talk is a nice summary and gives some practical applications.  Check it out :)
​

If you make resolutions or not January 1 is a time of reflection for most people.  We look back, wonder where the time has gone, look ahead and think of what's in store for the new year.  Some of us will do this in great detail, some of us will be content just shrugging our shoulders.

In general I don't think people usually do everything they hoped to do.

If thinking "what to do with my year", maybe think waaaaay forward, and look back.  This may seem morbid but think of yourself on your deathbed and think of what you'd have wanted to do more of and less of.  

Do you think you'll wish you watched more Netflix, or will you be kicking yourself for not flossing, or not connecting more with friends and family?

Thinking about your final days may seem morbid, but try to think of it as empowering.  It can clarify your life, that clarity can take out a lot of stress from your life.  When you have clarity deciding what to do and not do can become less stressful.  I'll come back to this at the end but having an aversion to thinking about death is a big problem.  People can have lots of regrets, families can be put under a lot of stress making decisions on your behalf.  One advocate for planning suggest we think of our lives as a book, and says we should not fear the end just like we don't fear the final pages of a book.  He suggests instead that we focus on writing a good story.   

Looking to the internet you can find many articles on deathbed regrets to learn from others.  You can probably guess what they are.  Things such as; live your life not the life others wanted for you, don't work so hard, courage to express my feelings, a wish to have been closer with friends and family,  and to have let themselves be happier.  A paramedic says, the dying need to know their life had meaning.  

With so much potential these days we are often stressed out that we aren't enough.  This is illogical, we can't all be Mark Zuckerberg.  Try hard, enjoy the process but don't feel like a failure if you're not a billionaire.  The biggest factor in a start-up's success is timing.  Something largely out of their control.

So if you're really thinking long term, like how to live today for your future self, should you eat healthy or work out.  There is a lot of research showing that your sense of purpose and your relationships are more important to living longer.  Eighty year olds with a spouse they feel they can count are less affected by their ailments than those that don't feel they have anyone their to help them.  In terms of eating/living healthy many of these people have cues to stop yourself from eating when you're 80% full, schedule time to downshift from hectic life.

So if you're in the self reflecting mood...

Think of your purpose, over the month of Jan try to nail one down you like.  Feel free to modify it as you go.

Over the year, make a resolution to schedule 1) time to unwind and 2) spend time with friends/family.

These should be easier than the typical resolution, but like anything, to be successful sticking to it long term you need to have a compelling reason.  In this case the studies show if you do these things consistently over your life you are more likely to have a longer healthier life!

The amazing thing about these things that can extend happy healthy years to your life can also be good for the environment.  A doctoral candidate at Berkeley suggests that if you invite friends over more and if you find time to unwind/sleep more, these activities have a low impact on the environment compared to other leisure activities and can help the environment.

Suggested References:

5 Common Deathbed regrets
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying

Live Happier (and More Energy Efficiently) by Sleeping More and Inviting Your Friends Over
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/live-happier-and-more-energy-efficient-sleeping-more-and-inviting-your-friends-over-180953743/

Blue Zones Study TED Talk

​


For those of you interested enough to have kept scrolling....

Above I said I'd back to the topic of thinking about our final days and how it can not only be empowering but it can also make that time significantly less stressful.  Below are all the references that helped me write this, the section below titled thinking about death in an empowering way is where you'll find the relevant reference.

What changes today will be most beneficial to my future self

https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100/transcript
- celebrate old people not young people
- they stop eating at 80% full
- they get put into groups of 6 friends for life
- they have a word for the reason for getting up in the morning, they have a reason for living
- move a lot but don't bother with the gym
- take time to downshift
- faith based community adds 14 years to your life

https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_pinker_the_secret_to_living_longer_may_be_your_social_life/transcript
- density, social cohesion (kitchen party), isolation is big risk
- social cohesion lends to wariness of strangers
-  chatting with strangers is the biggest factor

https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good_life_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_happiness/transcript
- loneliness kills
- marriage without affection is very bad for your health, worse than divorce
- old people in pain weren't as bothered by it if they had a partner they knew they could count on

https://www.ted.com/talks/ricardo_semler_how_to_run_a_company_with_almost_no_rules/transcript#t-213392
- On Monday's and Thursday's he does what he would do if he got news that he had a terminal illness

Living for my Resume or Eulogy

https://www.ted.com/talks/david_brooks_should_you_live_for_your_resume_or_your_eulogy
- Our life goals often don't align with our daily activities, and this helps reflect on why

https://www.ted.com/talks/lux_narayan_what_i_learned_from_2_000_obituaries
- Tips on if you want a good obituary

Not being too hard on yourself

https://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentler_philosophy_of_success/transcript#t-23019
- too much potential stresses us out
- Don't take your place in life too personally, try hard but understand we can't all be Bill Gates

https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gross_the_single_biggest_reason_why_startups_succeed?language=en
- biggest factor is timing

Thinking about death in an empowering way

https://www.ted.com/talks/candy_chang_before_i_die_i_want_to?referrer=playlist-talks_to_help_you_find_your_pu
- Thinking about death is one of the most empowering things you can do

https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_saul_let_s_talk_about_dying/transcript#t-439034
- No one is planning for death, but we should.  Dying in ICU is not a good option

https://www.ted.com/talks/judy_macdonald_johnston_prepare_for_a_good_end_of_life/up-next
- Helping people have the end of life they want

https://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_bennett_a_heroic_narrative_for_letting_go/transcript?referrer=playlist-new_ways_to_think_about_death
- We need to change from seeing dying as failure, or we'll all be failures.  We need a heroic narrative for death

https://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_cave_the_4_stories_we_tell_ourselves_about_death/transcript
- Think of life as a book, and don't fear the covers, don't fear the final page.  The only thing that matters is that you make it a good story.

An "Auto-Obituary" full of advice

https://www.thestar.com/life/2017/11/14/minnesota-woman-packs-her-own-obituary-full-of-advice.html

Deathbed Regrets

https://www.ted.com/talks/matthew_o_reilly_am_i_dying_the_honest_answer
- The dying need to know their life had meaning

https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_lesser_say_your_truths_and_seek_them_in_others/transcript?referrer=playlist-what_death_can_teach_you_about
- You don't have to wait until you are dying to clean up your relationship

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying
- Deathbed regrets summarized.  The links below are other variations on this theme.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/28/my-faith-what-people-talk-about-before-they-die/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/10/18/the-25-biggest-regrets-in-life-what-are-yours/1/
https://tinybuddha.com/blog/10-deathbed-regrets-you-can-avoid-by-making-changes-now/
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/these-20-regrets-from-people-their-deathbeds-will-change-your-life.html
https://www.trendsnhealth.com/life-regrets-and-lessons-taught-by-people-on-deathbed/

 There have been a lot of very interesting TED talks lately but I just picked one to add to the Trending on TED section of the Secret page.  And so far instead of adding what you can do about each of the many problems I listed down the side of that page I linked to one page talking about the common thread behind our problems.

As we head into the holiday and gift giving season a below is a trailer for a documentary on Netflix you might want to check to help you re-focus on what's important, or at least counterbalance all of the advertising you're being bombarded with.

Tip:  Remember that advertisements are selling you the 'promise of reward', they are making you think your life will be better with that product.  Take a second to assess the claim, think back to a similar purchase and try to remember if it lived up to the ad.
​

Last month I managed to clean up the 'Know' page so now on to the 'Do' page.

Looking at the Do page I realized it's nothing like I envisioned when I started this site as a proof of concept.  I think this happened because I felt limited by the Weebly templates and tools.  

So click here to go to a shell of a whole new 'Secret' Do Page

You can't click on much other than the 'Trending on ...' link, but let me know what you think.

I spent a few nights and finished the refresh of the 'Know' page.

Here's a link to the new one
Here's a link to the old one

Looking back I can't tell which is better.  The old one isn't quite the true old one, I updated the bullet points to be descriptive instead of click bait and now I think it might be the better option.

Let me know what you think.  I'll move on to the Do section for a bit now, enough with the Know.

Two new things a friend suggested and I tried out today that I'll be adding to the 'Know' page are
- 'Signal' for texting rather than what you're using now.  It seems like the only one that is serious about helping you keep your texts private.

- 'Brave' web browser.  Again on the theme of trying to keep what you're doing private.

You may not be that interested in taking back your privacy, it may seem daunting, it may seem like you have to give up a lot of conveniences.  I'm interested in it not because I have certain secrets to keep, but to try to stop marketers from knowing me better than I know myself, once they know that they'll be able to sell me on just about anything or any idea or policy.  Here is the article that helped me see this, it explains the future of marketing is easily tailored to each person these days, not only for products but for politicians too.  And I was talking to a friend who is a VP of marketing and he said this is the future, no more generic ad campaigns.

That was the title of this TED Talk below when it showed up in my iTunes. For some reason it was renamed on the TED site, maybe the tech companies complained :)

It's a great talk in the sense that it is something we should all know, and it should impact what we all do.  Eventually I'll have some reference to this topic on my other pages.
​

If you want more on this topic there is a TED playlist to inspire you to unplug.

If you're more of a book person check out Irresistible: The rise of addictive technology and the business of keeping us hooked, by Adam Alter.

But don't forget to put your phone down this weekend and enjoy the last long weekend of the summer :)

In an effort to really simplify things I've redone the home page and the main pages for Know and Do.  I don't like other sites that have too many words so I thought I'd try to simplify things here a bit.

​Let me know what you think of the new pages.

How to decide on what to worry about and do something about?

My advice is to be on the lookout for things that are likely to happen to you.  In general if you watch the news what you’re seeing is not very likely, that’s why it’s news.  But sometimes they are reporting warnings with some very daunting statistics, like 1 in 2 chance of getting dementia!

That is something to worry about and reminds me of one of my favourite TED Talks.

I love this talk by Alanna Shaikh because she recognizes that she might get Alzheimer’s and she’s taking an approach I’ve never seen or thought of before, she’s prepping for it.

She has spent the last 10 years taking care of her father and she’s come to understand their are things you can do to lower your chances of it but there are also things she could do now that would make living with it more enjoyable for her and the people around her.

I love this idea to be so proactive towards something you hope so badly won’t happen to you.  In a follow up blog post she mentions many people are often put off by the idea of living today with your future self in mind, she says:

“people seem to have this idea that your life now would be inherently terrible if you thought about your future too much as you live your daily life. But it seems like the “you” in the future is really going to regret that choice. The future Alanna is going to come back and slap me upside the head if I pretend that she doesn’t exist right now. It seems to be a surprising idea that you can live a good life now that prepares you for a good future. People think of it as a trade-off.”

As she says, people think it has to be a trade off, either be happy now or in the future, but it can be both, that’s the challenge, find things you like doing now that are also good for your future self.

This article recaps the some tips from this talk

• Eat well and exercise daily
• Get a genetic counselor (maybe this one isn’t within everyone’s reach)
• Take on a new hobby that you could do for long periods of time with your hands
• Work on being a better/kind person, so when your mind goes you’ll hopefully be in a better mood most of the time
• Hope and promote and support research in this area

​There’s a 5 talk playlist on TED.com on this topic where the speakers say give quite grim outlooks on this but give suggestions on things we can do.  

In addition to those above:

• Eat omega-3 oils
• Avoid head trauma
• Work on keeping your blood pressure low
• Stay mentally stimulated
• Keep some caffeine in your diet

I feel like these are fairly common tips to avoid many ailments so it’s an even better idea to try them out.

Most recently, and what brought this topic back to mind were more recent articles on the topic with more tips on what you can do to give yourself a 35% chance of not getting it.

Again, eat well, stay mentally stimulated.  In addition to those try to prevent hearing loss and social isolation.  Here is a link to an article on it and the study itself.


In addition to this dementia look out  for other things with high likelihood of them happening to you, and do something about it

• Get cancer 1 in 2
• Not have enough money to retire ~ 1 in 2 in Canada
• Get a divorce ~ 1 in 3

I’m not trying to depress you, I’m trying to point out things you can take some action now to help out your future self.  These are huge life altering things that people who look into these things for a living are predicting will happen to nearly half of us.  Even if they’ve overestimated by 100% that still leaves us with a 1 in 4 chance.  I think we might want to take a night off Netflix to think about this and make sure we’re taking some preventative measures.  It is in your own best interest after all, now and in the future.

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While thinking of ways to use the info from this site I thought of a way to get a lot more out of your office lottery pool than you currently are.  Not to cheat others out of the winnings or to guarantee a million dollar payout, but a way to get more out of the $5-$10 you put in each week.

The reason this came to me is because of an off the cuff comment my high school history teaching made a couple decades ago.  He said lotteries should be called ‘The Stupid Tax’ because based on the odds you’re pretty stupid to think you'll win, and this idea of it being a ‘stupid tax’ has stuck with me ever since.  I still play occasionally but I do feel kind of stupid each time I do.

My recommendation to get the most out of an office lotto pool is to convert it to a happy spouse/partner lotto pool.

Everyone pays in the same as before, but rather than spend all of the money on lotto tickets, raffle off a portion of the money to go to one participant for them to buy a treat for their spouse/partner.

This way you're actually likely to win, and spending money on your partner is one of the best ways to increase your level of happiness, short term and long term.  WInning the real lottery is one of the best to alienate you from your friends and family and to break up marriages, so reducing the odds of winning that one might be a good idea too.  You'll get to keep enjoying the dream of winning big without having it happen and ruin your life.

Two TED talks that helped inspire this idea
1) Mike Norton on How to Buy Happiness (highlighting how poor we are at predicting what purchases will bring us happiness and how to fix it)
2) Barry Schwartz on Practical Wisdom (keys to happiness are loving relationships and meaningful work, two things you may lose if you win the lottery)

By still putting a portion of the money to the big lotto you can have the best of both worlds.  High likelihood of winning money for a nice date night, and the potential to win millions.  You could set up the cash payout on a schedule or as a draw, or a draw where you can’t win again until everyone has won.  You can do anything you want with it.   To keep it familiar you could call it a 50/50 draw, 50% goes to one person to use as they wish (suggestion, treat their spouse) and 50% goes to buying lotto tickets for the group.

So what do you think, would you go for a 50/50 lotto pool instead of the typical one?

Let’s dissect what else is going on here.

1) Why do I remember this ‘stupid tax’ comment?
As we saw in the emotions section of things you should know, novelty and things that you have a strong emotional response to are bookmarked as important to remember.  Growing up my dad loved playing the big lotteries, and I, like many people, dreamed of winning big.  Those were very positive emotions, and I thought of myself as a smart guy, and really didn’t like the idea of looking stupid.  Now my history teacher, whom I hold in high regard is basically telling me I’m stupid and my dad is stupid, and everyone dreaming big is stupid!  I loved how simple he made it, how he cut through all the debating people could do back and forth, and I felt like he was right in the sense it should be called a ‘stupid tax’, I think it would reduce sales.


2) Would it reduce sales of the lottery if it was called the stupid tax?
I can’t say for sure but I’ve read in one of Dan Ariely’s books that we will go out of our way to not be like someone we don’t want to be associated with.  His studies dealt with rival schools.  In the lab they saw people doing the opposite of the people they thought were from the rival school but the same things as people from their own school.  So if people don’t want to be associated with stupid people then I think it would really help

3)  Why are people so into the lottery?
This is the perfect example of the ‘promise of reward’.  This is what the rats burnt their feet over and sacrificed eating and drinking for this.

4) What’s the problem here?
The stats not only show you’re not likely to win, but if you do win the stats show you will probably be worse off.  A windfall of cash like that given to someone that wasn’t too good with finances beforehand may not be too good with it.  
Why do we ignore this? Because we desperately want this promise of bliss and we tend to think better of our future selves than we do of our present selves.  We think they will make better decisions, but that doesn't usually happen.

This could also be a good example of the up and down wave (sine wave) as described in the book the Plateau Effect.  We often think more is always better but in their book they argue that the amount of benefit goes up and down like a sine wave. More money is better than no money, but not forever, with more money you could have more problems, with a lot more money you could take care of them, with a lot lot more money you could have even more problems. The trick is trying to find the sweet spot, and the first step to that is trying to be happy without needing to win the lottery.

6)  On the topic of the odds and what you should be excited or worried about is in this handy image below.  Note this was created by a company promoting online blackJack, which has very good odds, and now I can see why there is so much commotion at those tables. Hopefully you don't get hooked on blackjack now.  Please don't gamble with more than you can lose, maybe don't gamble at all. 

I plan to have this as the centerpiece of an upcoming post on what you should really be worried about and what you should worry less about.  In general if you hear a stat about something bad which you have a 1 in 10 or 1 in something less than 10 chance of getting, you should really look into how you can avoid that or prepare for dealing with that.
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To be able to focus on bigger picture aspects of the site I'm going to reduce the frequency of these blog posts to once a month.  To keep it simple to remember when they'll be I'll do it on the first of the month.  

Rather than continue on The Plateau Effect I'm going to put that on hold to talk about something more timely with the beginning of summer, sunscreen

The idea came to me when I attended a safety meeting at work where the topic of sunscreen came up, and how important it is to use.  And they shared with us some stories about their experiences with skin cancer and a short video promoting the use of sunscreen via statistics.

I was thinking, this isn’t going to be too effective and I thought with my knowledge of ‘why we do what we do’ I could come up with a much better solution and I thought I’d write it up as a case study here on how to use what I cover here on this site to find a better way to get people to use sunscreen.  But it turns out it’s still pretty tricky, I'll give you some insights but I wasn't able to come up with as good of a solution as I'd like.

So what did they do right:
They appealed to our emotions, i.e. they tried to scare us. They told us of people they knew with skin cancer and that they had had skin cancer removed.  Getting our emotions involved is key to getting people to act.  

What they didn’t do so well:
They brought in doubt.  They mentioned one instance of sunscreen causing harm to a baby.  They didn’t give the numbers but one product recall that caused harm to a small number of babies might be good to know about but I think it could have had a bigger impact on us than it should’ve when you look at it from a big picture.  Hundreds of millions of people use sunscreen and didn’t get the reaction those babies did.  Yes, we can talk about checking the ingredients but they could've been clearer on the likelihood of those risks vs. not using sunscreen at all.
And going back to the emotions, I don't think they really got us emotional enough about the topic to really pursued us.  This is tricky in a workplace, you don't generally want to get people to worked up and crying which could happen easily with a topic like this.

What I think they could’ve done better:

• Get people to think about why they tan
• Get people to think about why it doesn’t make sense
• Get them to imagine having skin cancer
• Get them to think about why they put it on their kids but not themselves
• Get people to talk about bad burns they had and why they hadn’t used suncreen
• In general get them to make some negative associations with burns (Dicken's Method), but again these are pushing the boundaries of what might be generally accepted given the setting.
  

Beyond the session I went to what can marketers do better:
Dan Ariely likes the slogan “getting people to do the right thing for the wrong reason”. He studies human behaviour and says information alone has little effect on our actions, and sometimes has opposite effects.  He gives the example of calories listed on menus.  He said some people start looking for the best deal, the most calories per $ instead of an appropriate dish based on the other meals they ate that day.

Bring the future them into the picture

• Apps that show effects on your face (aging apps)
• Tracking apps incorporated into fitness monitors
• Here is a great video aimed at younger people from their future selves

• This video is also powerful 

Appeal to wanting to fit in:
Many studies show we'll adjust our behaviour to fit in more readily than we will based on logical reasoning.  We seem to see the immediate gain of fitting in as more important than the long terms gains.  Someone could try ...

• Campaigns that say something like ‘don’t be a burden on your family or society with increased health care costs just because you want a tan’
• Promote how much other people are putting on sunscreen
• Equate tanning beds to looking desperate to fit in
• Make it less 'cool' to be overly tanned

As my favourite inventors would say 'Give them a better solution'

• If people don’t like the experience of putting it on make a better experience
• Pull a starbucks and make a really expensive option that seems way better.  
• Make a nice feeling lotion that helps keep you cool in the sun and don’t even promote the sunblock aspect.
• Come up with a pastime to replace sunbathing somehow

What can you do?

• Be a good role model!  Aside from promoting it use it yourself
  
• When people come back from vacation don't congratulate them on their tan
• When you go on vacation and people comment that you aren't tanned, tell them it was intentional and be proud of it.

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As you can see I didn't come up with the perfect solution but I hope you can see there is more to persuading someone that just giving them data.  
Here is the video they showed.  I liked it because data appeals to me and he does use some of the other techniques, but I'm also already on board with the sunscreen :)
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After last weeks post I realized I was a victim of focusing on a specific goal too much.  Where you get caught up doing something for the wrong reason,.  These weekly posts were supposed to be updates on new info added to the mainframe work but they were becoming their own thing and a bit detached from the framework.

Personally I don’t like sites that have endless posts where you have to read each post to catch up.  It’s like a treadmill you can’t get off, and it’s too hard to catch up.  I want more of a wikipedia site, where you can just come and get the info you want, leave, and come back when you need more info.  

So rather than do long entries I’m going to try to go back to updating what’s new to the site or I’ll go over how I’ve incorporated a new book or other resource into the framework.

For tonight’s example I’ll recap the main ideas mentioned in The Plateau Effect, pointing out which ones have already been covered in the ‘Know’ section and what new info we can add.

From their appendix here are the 8 things they’ve found to be the cause of plateaus

1 - Immunity - (I’d say adaptability, or familiarization (getting used to a smell)) it’s when you get used to something, when you stop noticing a persistent problem and you let it keep getting in your way.
Cure - diversity.  That’s all they say.  For smelling things or tasting things, you should switch things up frequently.  In business it’s good to get an outsider's opinion, or rotate positions in a company.  
Where it fits - this is similar Part 4, your emotions helping you remember things.  We notice and remember unique things, things that stand out.  Over time we can stop noticing things, this starts to fall under a cognitive bias, I think I’ll have to add it there.  I’ll add the diversify under the things you can do to counter it.

2 - Greedy algorithm (picking short term goal over long term goal, thinking to locally physically and in terms of time, like only thinking of yourself now)
Cure - Extend your gratification horizon - think long term, think more globally than locally
Long term greed is good - confusing use of language I think.
Where this fits - This would fall under Part 2, you and the other you(s).  The greedy algorithm is the auto pilot or the devil on your shoulder or the elephant you’re riding.  Extending your gratification horizon is just thinking long term.  That goes back to Part 1, our predictions of the future.  Start using farther out predictions to choose your actions and you’ll have more success in the long run.  I don’t think I’ll add this anywhere, I don’t really like the terms they used.  What do you think?

3 - Timing, they say sometimes it’s good to wait.  This is tricky, there is a whole chapter on this memory trick where you don’t have to try hard to remember something as long as you are reminded of it at very specific intervals.  It seems impractical to use in too many applications but it has some potential, and has been used in successful commercial products.
Cure - Wait.  That’s all they say, just wait.  This is a big potential pitfall, this could be fuel for the ‘greedy algorithm’.  It could be one more excuse for your short sighted auto pilot to convince you to take a break and cheat on your goal.
Where it fits - I think this is new, I guess I’ll need to put the spaced repetition technique under things you can do for memory, and the act of waiting as something counterintuitive you should know.

… The remainder next week.

What do you think of this format?

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