Category: Lists

List #3: David Brooks and the 4 Commitments that define you: “It’s the things you chain yourself to that set you free”

David Brooks is my favorite big thinker, a more grounded version of Alain de Botton. A longer essay about David Brooks and his work is coming, but for this week’s edition of Nerdy Lists I want to introduce his Four Commitments.

The people we admire most, Brooks says, make FOUR commitments: to family & friends, to a lifelong vocation, to a belief system, and to a local community. These commitments are hard to make and even harder to sustain, but they define us. People who make them are moral exemplars, our modern day heroes who improve the world and inspire everyone around them, both in person and from a distance. People like Atul Gawande and Dorothy Day and Stephen Lerner.

Brooks shared these commitments in his Commencement Address at Dartmouth:

David Brooks’s Four Commitments

“In the realm of emotion they have a web of unconditional love. In the realm of intellect, they have a set, permanent philosophy about how life is. In the realm of action, they have commitments to projects that can’t be completed in a lifetime. In the realm of morality, they have a certain consistency and rigor that’s almost perfect.” – David Brooks in The Atlantic

1. To Spouse and Family

Love humbles you. It is both a gritty commitment (like washing dishes) and transcendent magic. And love is not zero-sum: the more you love, the more you can love.

2. To Career and Vocation

A vocation is something “that summons you”. You feel drawn to it, called towards it, despite pressures and obstacles that would push you away. The most important passions are often found, importantly, not by looking within, but by looking at the world and seeing where there is a void, where people need help.

3. To Faith and Philosophy

4. To Community and Village

I wonder if Brooks would make an exception for strong online communities. It would be interesting to get his take on self organizing groups like Wikipedia and bitcoin and reddit.

And how do you become like these role models?

  • Through habits: fake it til you make it. Organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous are very good at helping you do this
  • Like St. Augustine: continually examine and question yourself
  • By imitation: surround yourself with admirable people and mimic them!

“It’s the things you chain yourself to that set you free”

Thanks for reading! What are your favorite lists? Here’s the collection :)

List #2: Steve Pavlina’s 11 Personal Assessment Categories

Welcome to the nerdy lists project! Each week I publish a new list about habits and personal growth.

List #2 is Steve Pavlina’s eleven areas of personal assessment. These 11 categories are a mece way to assess your life performance. About once a month (or when I’m lazy, once a quarter), I review each item on the list and give a score between 1-10. Steve recommends that you replace any rating below 9 with a 1, for motivation (this I haven’t done).

The categories are curated from his book, Personal Development for Smart People [link]. His blog is incredible, too, and Derek Sivers has great notes from the book.

Steve Pavlina’s 11 Personal Assessment Categories

Pavlina’s essential question: how do you routinely measure and monitor the important areas of your life?

in each category, I provide an example of a personal benchmark

1. Habits & Daily routine: did I average 7 hours of sleep a night?

2. Career & work: did I focus on one main project instead of several side projects?

3. Money & finances: was I able to invest some money this month?

4. Health & fitness: did I exercise at least 4 days each week?

5. Mental development & education: did I finish at least one book?

6. Social life & relationships: did I hangout with friends every weekend?

7. Home & family: did I call Mom at least once a week?

8. Emotions: did I meditate 10 minutes each day?

9. Character & integrity: did I not gossip? (I hate gossip)

10. Life purpose & contribution: have I published at least once a week to Kevin Habits?

11. Spiritual development: did I go to Church at least once, and/or read the Bible (and other religious texts) regularly?

Since October 2008, I’ve completed this exercise. Some categories have persistently low ratings, and I struggle with improvement. Also, I should analyze my scores and identify trends. I did this, once, and a conclusion I can remember was that calling Mom more often was correlated with higher average scores. Unfortunately, I’ve struggled to maintain that particular habit :)

In general Steve has great essays on habits (my favorite technology for behavior change). Here are some:

  • Why you should add the best and drop the worst habits: Be down to earth and specific. When you choose a specific habit, there will be a clear and sharp dividing line between success and failure. Either you did the action or you didn’t. There’s no gray area in the middle.
  • How to keep up not-quite daily habits: I find that when I occasionally skip habits that are part of a longer daily chain, it’s fairly easy to put them back in again as long as I continue to maintain the first and last links in the chain.

Thanks for reading! What are your favorite lists? Here’s the full index, including what’s to come.

List #1: Robert Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion (CLASSR)

I love to collect and learn lists. Yeah, it’s weird. But it gets me excited to memorize lists like the 7 habits of successful people and Ben Franklin’s 13 virtues and Jonah Berger’s 6 “stepps” for viral media.

Similar to my TED notes, I’ll publish a list each week. Each list will be brief and include a learning/memorization aide.

Here’s the first! Robert Cialdini’s 6 principles of persuasion.

The list is curated from his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion [Kindle], one of my favorite business-psychology books.

My favorite memorization trick is acronyms. Here, the phrase CLASSR (pronounced “classer”) captures this list. Let me know if you come up with a better acronym.

CLASSR: the 6 keys to persuasion

Cialdini’s question: what are the strategies used by the world’s most persuasive people?

1. Consistency and Commitment: you are more likely to do something if you consistently do it, and if you commit to doing it (e.g., by signing a contract, by shaking hands)

2. Liking: you are more likely to do something when you like the person or company making the request

3. Authority: you are more likely to do something when your boss asks you

4. Status and Social proof: you are more likely to do something when you see others doing it, or when its perceived as high status (e.g., apply to Ivy League schools, buying luxury goods)

5. Scarcity: you are more likely to do something when there is perceived scarcity

6. Reciprocity: you are more likely to do something to return a favor or kindness

Remember CLASSR: Consistency & Commitment, Liking, Authority, Status & Social Proof, Scarcity, Reciprocity.

Examples and notes from his book:

  • The trigger word “Because” makes people more understanding (e.g., “I would like you to attend my event because I think you’ll meet a lot of great people”)
  • The most powerful reciprocation tactic: ask for a big favor, then concede and ask for a smaller one. What is known as “rejection then retreat”
  • COMMITMENT: When someone does something small, they will stay consistent and do something larger as a followup request. Car salesmen will use the lowball tactic to get someone to commit to buying a car, and then claim they made a mistake in pricing. A study showed that you can ask someone to put a 3 inch sign on their lawn, then followup 2 weeks later with a request to place a much bigger sign.
  • LIKING: Guinness Book of World Records’ most successful salesmen is Joe Girardi. He had a simple trick: every month, he sends a card to his 13K former customers with one phrase: “I Like You”. Plus his contact info. That’s it!
  • SOCIAL PROOF: “the Werther effect”. Werther was a character in a Goethe novel who committed suicide, and this led to a rash of suicides in Europe when it was first released). A frontpage news story about suicide can lead to a wave of suicides and fatal accidents in areas where the story was publicized. Strikingly, the original suicide victim is similar in age/race/gender to the fatality victims
  • RECIPROCATION: Hare Krisha’s tactic for soliciting donations is to gift a flower or book to a prospect. People are hardwired to reciprocate, even when they dislike you
  • RECIPROCATION: Amway representatives will place a bag of free products in a customer’s home. “No obligations, just try it, and I’ll come back and pick up what’s left.” Half the customers would buy the bag because they used a little bit, felt guilty, and wanted to reciprocate.

Thanks for reading! What are your favorite lists that I could add? Here’s my collection :)