Becky's Learning Rampage

As you can probably tell, life has gotten *enormously* busy lately.  Between figuring out how to install crown molding in my house (I finally mastered those rounded corners!), powering through various home projects, and kick-starting my psyc courses, I am not around my computer as much anymore, and therefore, not able to blog as frequently.

Check back in a few weeks, as I hope to be able to include some fun learnings from my classes - especially my Psychology and Human Sexuality class.  It goes without saying that that is a fun class!

Thanks for your patience!

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While perusing the Plano library last week, I stumbled upon a nice little gem, tucked away in the audio/video section.  It was a 12-part lecture DVD set entitled Psychology of Human Behavior from The Great Courses series.  And given that I have been sick this last week, it gave me a great excuse… uh, I mean reason… to sit down for an entire day to just kick back, watch, and absorb it all.

Here’s a fun little tidbit from Lecture #2.  Dr. David W. Martin from North Carolina State University was discussing psychological experimentation, and he mentioned a very interesting experiment that he conducted with one of his classes.  He wanted to see how his lecture pace impacted his students’ focus/attentiveness in class.  

The basic gist of his experiment is that he would change his rate of speech to be low, medium, or high, with a designated number of syllables per minute for each level.  Then, in order to measure the student’s attentiveness, he would measure the ambient noise level in the class room (subtracting out the noise he produced, of course) at each of his speech rates. The idea here is that, if the students are more attentive, then there would be less ambient noise (rustling papers, talking to fellow students, moving around) in the class room.

What Dr. Martin found was that, if you graphed the ambient noise level as a function of low/medium/high speech rate, you found a V-shaped function.  This says that the students are more attentive when he was speaking at medium pace; if he spoke at too low a pace or at too high a pace, they would make more noise and, thus, be less attentive.  So, in essence, there was a sweet-spot of effectiveness in his rate of speech for his lectures.

Granted, this is only one study, but I was intrigued enough with this general idea that I thought it would be fun to put this to the test in my own life.  I was scheduled to give my next Toastmasters speech on Wednesday of this last week – a perfect opportunity to tinker around with this.  It was a Storytelling speech, so rate of speech is very important to the impactfulness of the story.  Given that I normally speak at an energetic, fairly high pace, I cut my rate of speech down to about 60-70% my normal rate for this speech.  This dropped my rate of speech from a high pace to a medium pace.

Here were the results:  Not only did I notice a difference in the audience’s attentiveness while I was delivering the speech, but 3 people commented to me after my speech specifically about my very effective rate of speech.  Pretty cool, if you ask me.  I obviously moved closer to that sweet-spot in my rate of speech – at least for public storytelling. 

This is something I definitely plan on continuing to monitor and adjust – both in and out of Toastmasters.  Hopefully, I can eventually...

Tags: public speaking

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When we hear the word "facilitator", we commonly think of that person in a meeting or group setting who assists the group in determining their common objectives and works with the group to achieve them, without taking a particular position in the discussion.  But it has another, and perhaps a far more interesting, meaning...

In the book Life Skills: Improve the Quality of Your Life Using Metapsychology, the author mentions that the content is based on the concepts and principles of Frank A. Gerbode's "Applied Metapsychology".  Here's a snippet from the book that I found very interesting (p. 2):

"When making use of Applied Metapsychology in the one-on-one sessions, we call our practitioners 'facilitators', rather than counselors or therapists, so as to emphasize the idea that the practitioner's job is to bring about the safe time and space of the session for the client to do the important work of that session.  The facilitator provides the structure and guidance to allow the client ("viewer") to see things as they come, which turns out to be the most effective way to get the job done.  We can't get inside another person's mind.  We can only ask him/her to look and tell us what s/he sees.  Things shift and change for the viewer during the process of viewing."

In this context of Applied Metapsychology, the facilitator's job is simply to create a completely non-judgmental, accepting, and warm atmosphere for the "viewer".  Facilitators primarily do this by: (1) asking questions, (2) listening attentively, (3) acknowledging and understanding the answer, and (4) refraining from comment, judgment, or interpretation.

Part 4 is definitely the hardest!  How easy would it be to quickly interpret or judge, or even jump in with a comment or suggestion when someone is talking??

So why am I writing about this new definition of a facilitator?  Because I think it plays a powerful role when it comes to our closest relationships/friendships.  There will always be times in our lives (and in the lives of our friends and family members) when we all need a facilitator.  Someone to just listen non-judgmentally and who creates an environment of warmth and acceptance.  Someone who listens so attentively and truly seeks to understand what we are saying - all while casting no judgment or comment.

When I think of the people closest to me in my life, I quickly realize that we have both (at one time or another) been facilitators for each other.  Perhaps it was because we had a close relationship that we could be so non-judgmental with each other and just listen and be supportive.  Or perhaps being facilitators for each other is what caused us to develop a close friendship/relationship in the first place. 

Or perhaps... it is both...  :-)

Tags: psychology

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One final blog entry with regards to Chuck Norris's book: The Secret of Inner Strength....

After reading this book, it becomes very clear to the reader that Chuck's progress in life and rise to fame is primarily due to one significant trait.  He admits freely that he's not the smartest, not the most business savvy, and not even the best martial artist.  But his key to success is his unwavering sense of discipline.

Chuck utilized a concept called the discipline chain.  The idea behind the discipline chain is that, as long as you continue to repeat a good habit, that good habit will always remain with you.  But if you "break the chain" and skip a good habit even just once, it makes it that much easier to skip it again in the future, thus potentially causing you to lose your good habit altogether.  For more on that, here's Chuck (p.180):

"There are many mornings when I don't feel like working out.  But I know if I take off one day, it will be easier to take the next day off, and eventually I'll stop working out.  So I tell myself that maybe the workout won't be as hard today as it was yesterday or as it will be tomorrow, but that I must do something so I don't break the chain of discipline."

An outstanding concept (thanks, Chuck!), and one that is applicable to each of our lives.  Remember that the end of a good habit starts with skipping it just once.  But if you keep your discipline strong and never allow a skip to happen, then your good habit will remain with you permanently.

Tags: motivation

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Don’t let your quest for the future overshadow your enjoyment of today. 

This was one of the key messages in Eckhart Tolle's new book The Power of Now.  On more than one occasion, different people have recommended this book to me.... and I have finally had a chance to read it last week.

We are all so busy with planning for the future.  And, in general, this is good.  Without thinking ahead and knowing what you want, it is impossible to ever achieve anything great in your life.  But when it comes to planning for the future, Tolle rightly asks, “Is your goal taking up so much of your attention that you reduce the present moment to a means to an end?  Is it taking the joy out of doing?” 

Both of these are eye-opening questions.  Planning for the future is a wonderful thing, but if you are so focused on the future that your mind is never in the present moment enjoying what you are doing, then that becomes an issue.  You have swung the pendulum too far, favoring the future too much over the present.

Life is filled with both journeys and destinations.... be sure to equally enjoy both.

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While reading Chuck Norris's autobiography "The Secret of Inner Strength: My Story" last night, I stumbled upon something in that book that made me stop and pause for a moment. Chuck was describing his first year of training in Tang Soo Do while stationed in Korea, and he made the following comment about his slow journey to building his immense sense of discipline:

Despite the agony of training, I said to myself, "If I can stick with this, I can stick with anything." I was learning discipline by developing the ability to do something that was never easy, not always pleasant, and about which I was not always enthusiastic."

It was the last part of his final statement "... about which I was not always enthusiastic" that really caught my attention. It's pretty outwardly apparent that self-discipline burgeons out of tackling challenging tasks that push you to your limit in order to bring out the best in you. It's about continuing to pursue a goal, despite the discomfort and sacrifices you have to make.

But the ultimate test of discipline is when your heart begins to wane and your enthusiasm and desire for your goal begins to temporarily diminish. In my opinion, this is often the breaking down point in one's discipline - more so than any challenge or unpleasantry. In other words, it isn't the "Oh, this is too hard" or "Wow, this is physically rough" that typically stops you from pursuing your goal, but it's the "I just don't want to do this today" that halts goals and dreams in their tracks. When you lose heart, it's easy to lose your goal.

Whenever you find yourself with a challenging goal but a waning heart, keep in mind a couple of things. Know that this decrease in enthusiasm is likely temporary and will subside. Just stay the course, and if your goal is truly important to you, your enthusiasm will return. In the meantime, to get you through your "low heart" period, remind yourself of your goal and why you want to achieve it. Sometimes this simple reminder is enough to kick start your drive again. And, if all else fails, you can always utilize your environment (see previous post) to get you through this trying period. Find things that you can use in your surrounding environment that will force you to stay on track while you are waiting for your enthusiasm to be rekindled.

Know that, if you can power through the times of a waning heart, your resulting sense of discipline will be given a permanent boost. And that, as proven by Chuck, pays dividends over the course of your lifetime.

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Stop for a minute.  Take a moment, and think about a positive change you have recently been trying to make in your life.  Maybe you want to drink less soda, or perhaps you’d like to stop smoking.  Or maybe you want to lose weight (don’t we all!), or even improve your communication skills.  Whatever it is, take a moment and think about how you approached making this change.  Did it work?  If not, can you identify why it didn’t work?

When attempting to make a positive change in our lives, many of us rely heavily on willpower.  Willpower is a phenomenal internal force that drives us to take action that moves us one step closer to our goal.  However, willpower is flighty.  It can come and go depending on your mood, stress levels, motivation, etc.  So the $10,000 question is: how does one combat this flightiness of willpower in order to achieve our goals?  The answer: if you want to make a successful and lasting change in your life, don’t try to adjust your willpower, try adjusting your environment.  Environment changes are more concrete and will see you through those times when your willpower is low and undependable.

Don’t believe me?  Consider the following…

Take a quick moment, and think about a negative change that has occurred in your life.  Maybe you recently started swearing.  Or perhaps you have been overeating or drinking too much.  Now, think about why this change occurred?  Is it because you wanted that change to occur, and you deliberately increased your willpower to make this change happen.  Likely not.  9 times out of 10, this change occurred because of a change in your environment.  Going back to our examples: if you recently started swearing, are you finding that you are watching more “adult” TV that uses fowl language, or perhaps you are more exposed to a person in your life who also uses fowl language?  If you are eating or drinking more than normal, perhaps you are surrounded more by food and drink in your everyday environment than you were before (such as attending more parties, going to more buffets, having more food/drink in the house, etc)?  

The power of the environment is HUGE.  Our every day environments have a strong residual effect on what we do, and in turn, who we are.  If you are looking to make a change in your life, the best and easiest place to start is by finding a way to alter your environment so that it forces the desired change the take place.  

For example, let’s say you have been wanting to exercise more.  You have tried relying on willpower to hit the gym after work, but your willpower is pretty well zapped after a long day at the office.  Why not solicit a friend to be a workout partner and set an appointment to meet him at the gym after work?  Better yet, why not establish a policy with your friend that if you miss a...

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What do Bill Gates, the Beatles, and Tiger Woods all have in common?

They are all “outliers” – i.e. the best of the best – in what they do.  But if you look under the covers even more, you will find something far more tangible that they all share.

They have all spent more than 10,000 hours honing their elite skills. 

According to expert sociologist Malcolm Gladwell in his latest book called Outliers, the greatest athletes, musicians, scientists, and entrepreneurs emerge as the best of the best only after spending at least 3 hours a day for a decade mastering their chosen field.  Instead of just being “blind luck”, he argues that it’s these years spent intensely focused on their area of expertise that places these world’s most successful people above their peers.

Granted, Gladwell points out that “demographic luck” does play a role in increasing someone’s opportunity to spend 10,000 hours perfecting their skills.  For example, Canadian hockey players born earliest in a calendar year (ex: January or February) have the greatest opportunity to fulfill 10,000 hours of practice. As kids, Canadian hockey players are segmented into groups based on the calendar year, which means that the oldest kids will be more successful (faster, better balance, more mass, greater agility, etc) simply because they have several months of a head start over their younger peers.  This means the older kids are more likely to get picked to move up to the next league to play even more hockey – thus accumulating more hours of practice and getting them closer and closer to the 10,000 hours that marks an expert.

But what does all this mean for you and me?

It means “practice makes perfect”.  If you want to get better and better at something, then you must practice, practice, practice.  The more hours you put in, the closer and closer you will be to becoming a true expert in your chosen talent.   Although some people have “demographic luck” on their side to more easily reach the 10,000 hour mark, it shouldn’t deter the rest of us for striving for the same.

So the next time you are struggling with something and think, “Gosh, I’ll never be good at this!  I just don’t have the natural talent”, stop and think about the 10,000 hour rule.  Know that if you continue to practice and persevere in your chosen skill, you will continue to improve.  And someday you just might reach that 10,000 hour mark and become a true expert yourself.

Tags: motivation

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To continue to saga of human lie detection...

In addition to some of the bodily signs that might indicate someone is lying to you, there are also a handful of verbal clues that can be used as well.  Although, it seems to me like these are a little less reliable, since the frequency of possible multiple interpretations is higher with verbal clues than with bodily clues.

Nonetheless, here's the list that I complied from a variety of different expert sources:

• Too little information:
  • They tell you practically nothing, and you feel like you have to force information out of them
• Too much information:
  • You ask a simple question, and they go into extreme details and/or talk too fast with few pauses
• Long hesitation/pause before responding:
  • Can be a sign that they need buy some time to construct an answer
• Words of Honor:
  • Someone is more likely to be lying when they state words of honor, like, "you can believe me", "that is the truth!", "you have no reason to doubt me", "I would not lie to you", etc.
• Clearing Throat:
  • A common sign of anxiety or discomfort... 2 emotions that are felt when someone is lying  (this one is a little less reliable, IMHO)
• Lack of Contractions:
  • A statement with a contraction is more likely to be truthful: “I didn't do it” instead of “I did not do it” (the liar is intentionally emphasizing the word "not" in the latter case)

As you can see, just as the body attempts to cover or hide a lie physically, a liar may also attempt to cover and hide a lie through words, often showing up as verbal overcompensations.  And these overcompensations are exactly the clues that can be used to see if someone might be lying to you.  But remember, there's a lot more to this than just seeing if someone does one of the items above.  It takes really knowing a person well and being able to "calibrate" for their normal behavior.  And, of course, lot and lots and lots of practice.  :-)

Tags: lie detection, psychology

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They say that actions speak louder than words.... and in the case of lying, that is very true.

According to research from the famous psychologists Paul Ekman and David Lieberman, when people lie, their bodies respond by unconsciously trying to hide or "cover" any clues or cues you could use to discover that they are being dishonest with you.  This instinctively happens and is out of control for most human beings.  But, what's ironic is that these unconscious "covering" techniques actually become the clues and cues that are used to help tell if someone might be lying to you.  This is called "leakage".

Here are some interesting examples of how people might "leak" when they are lying:

• Bringing hands to the face/nose/head - to cover themselves
• Involuntary increase blink rate  (average blink rate is 20x per minute)
• Head turn - down or away
• Lack of eye contact - eyes look down or close before the person answers 
• Arms across body (ex: crossing arms) - to unconsciously protect/hide self
• Fake smile (i.e. they do not use their eyes to smile, only the muscles around their mouth)
• Pointing at you - as a means of trying to convince you; puts an object in between you and them for safety
• Lack of expression ("the straight faced liar") - because they don't want to give anything away

Want to give it a try?  Here's part of a video clip from famous Clinton's testimony from the Monica Lewinsky trial.  Remember, Clinton was thoroughly coached on how to answer the questions - to remain perfectly still and look straight forward.  But some of his involuntary bodily movements still leaked out:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClfpG2-1Bv4&feature=related.

Now before you go trying this out on your friends or family members (or your unsuspecting boss!), keep in mind that this not as straightforward or easy as it might seem.  You can't just memorize this checklist and say, "Oh, you looked down when you were saying that - YOU'RE LYING!"  It doesn't quite work that way.  :-)  Someone might be looking down because they are shy, not because they are lying.  They say that you really need to know how a person naturally reacts when they are telling the truth - a process called "calibration" - in order to know if what their body is doing is normal or out-of-the-ordinary.  Trust me, I wish it was as easy as a simple checklist, but unfortunately, it's not.  :(

Next time, I'll share some of the verbal clues that might indicate someone is being untruthful.

Tags: lie detection, psychology

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