Nonfiction4Life

SUMMARY

Dr. BJ Fogg, founder and director of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University, unveils his breakout book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything. A bright yellow sheath striping the book cover boldly claims, “This Book Will Change Your Life!” Inside the book, Fogg explodes myths promoting traditional approaches to change, explaining why old ideas such as exercising willpower, strengthening resolve, and getting motivated just don’t work. In their place, we learn the Fogg Behavior Model that cracks the code to human behavior by revealing how we actually form new habits. In brief, we can change by simply starting small. Indeed, by starting tiny! Beloved by more than 40,000 students, Fogg himself embodies his own teachings, finding success at every turn by creating Tiny Habits. His advice: “You don’t need to procrastinate changing your habits. It’s so simple and easy and straightforward!”

KEY POINTS

• Only three things can change behavior: having an epiphany; redesigning an environment; and making tiny, incremental changes that wire in habits.
• Tiny Habits don’t require tapping into willpower or sustaining high levels of motivation.
• Willpower is effective in helping us get things done, but it’s not good for creating habits over time.
• Focus on “wants” rather than on “shoulds.”
• Big aspirations or audacious goals are great, but the way to get to them is through Tiny (consistent) Habits.
• Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, creators of Instagram, found wild success because their original design was very simple.
• “After” is the best place to place a prompt, relying on a routine already in place. Action prompts (AKA: anchors or routines) work best for creating Tiny Habits.
• “Pearl Habits” originate with something that annoys us.
• To be most effective, Tiny Habits should be immediately followed by a celebration.

SOME MYTHS FOGG EXPLODES

• It takes 21 days to create a habit.
• I need to measure my progress in order to create a habit or break one.
• By setting a resolution I can change my habits.
• If I find what’s behind my habit — the craving — then I can break it.
• Changing behavior is painful or unpleasant.
• I must have an accountability partner in order to stick to my new habit.
• You should change only one habit at a time.
• The only way to stop a bad habit is to replace it with something else.
• You need to track your behavior daily to form or break a habit.
• As you get older, you lose the ability to change your habits.
• If you repeat a behavior enough, it becomes a habit.

QUOTES BY FOGG

• “Information alone does not reliably change behavior (AKA ‘the Information Fallacy’).”
• “Help people do what they already want to do.”
• “Behavior change is a skill…but as you practice it, it becomes second nature—just like driving.”
• “Forget about everything you thought you knew about habits and behavior change, and start over! There’s a new and better way of thinking about this.”

BUY Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything

RECOMMENDATION
BUY the movie What About Bob?

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SUMMARY

Howard Ross, a lifelong social justice advocate, has authored the Washington Post bestseller, Everyday Bias: Identifying and Navigating Unconscious Judgments in Our Daily Lives. Smashing long-time myths we hold dear, Ross addresses the many faces of unconscious bias. His book offers a plethora of data and anecdotes illustrating the urgency to develop a greater awareness of our own irrational beliefs and leanings. In short, Ross lays out a strong case for watching ourselves more carefully to notice and at least neutralize our biases.  

SOME KEY TERMS

• Unconscious Bias - comes from social stereotypes, attitudes, opinions, and stigma we form about certain groups of people outside of our own conscious awareness; can be fed by snippets of information that we might get from biased media or social media or other sources, which are often taken out of context
• Theory of Mind - the ability to attribute beliefs, intentions, wants, and knowledge to others, and to understand when others have beliefs that are the same or different from our own
• Superego - the civilizing facet of the personality structure, controlling the id through rules that we have picked up during our life
• Selective Attention - a mental process through which we see some things but not others, depending upon our point of focus
• Diagnosis Bias - the propensity to label people, ideas, or things based on our initial opinions
• Pattern Recognition – the tendency to sort and identify information based on prior experience or habit (includes stereotyping)
• Confirmation Bias - a tendency for people to gather information or respond to a circumstance in a way that confirms their already established beliefs or ideas
• Priming - the implicit tendency to respond to something based on expectations created by a previous experience or association
• Anchoring Bias (AKA focalism) - the common tendency to rely too heavily or “anchor” on one trait or piece of information when making decisions
• Mirror Neurons – cause us to feel a deep connection to the experiences of others; sometimes called “the basis of civilization”

QUOTES FROM ROSS

• “Unconscious influences dominate our everyday life. What we react to, are influenced by, see or don’t see, are all determined by reactions that happen deep within our psyche. Reactions which are largely unknown to us.”
• “We are constantly making decisions that are influenced by unconscious biases. In fact, even when our biases seem conscious, they may be influenced by a pattern of unconscious assumptions that we have absorbed throughout our lives.”
• “Whether you think they should or not, qualifications rarely have anything to do with Presidential elections. In fact, since 1950 arguably the least qualified candidates won more often than they lost! Whether we should or not, we vote for president based on how the person makes us feel.”
• “We are trained to think we can talk people out of their points of view if we give them the right ‘evidence.’ But…political biases actually distort our ability to reason logically. In the battle between emotion and rationality, emotion usually wins!”
• “Most people I know like to think of themselves as ‘good people.’ We like to think that we treat everybody around us fairly, at least most of the time, and we shudder to think that we might be biased in our nature. And yet it is apparent that to be biased is almost as normal as breathing, and that our hidden fears and insecurities often get expressed in the various ways we react and respond to each other.”
• “We like to think we are rational, and that our emotions are secondary. This is not unusual in Western cultures. We have a long history of valuing the rational over the emotional.”
• “We tend to have much greater empathy for people who are similar to us, particularly racially.”

RECOMMENDATIONS

BUY Our Search for Belonging: How Our Need to Connect Is Tearing Us Apart

BUY Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think 

Begin to identify your own biases, take the free, computer-based Implicit Association Test (IAT).

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SUMMARY

Ryan Atkins shares the true and difficult journey with quadriplegia in his memoir, One Step Closer: How a Life-Altering Accident Led Me to Everything I Almost Missed. A college student in 2009, Atkins has the world by the tail. But a freak car accident leaves him paralyzed below the shoulders, changing his life fundamentally. Even after working and fighting harder than most to regain his mobility, physical miracles continue to elude him. So, he has to reach deeper for help, hope, and meaning. His crumbled dreams are reshaped and his hope soars as he rediscovers the need for God and what matters most.

KEY POINTS FOR COPING

• Writing – process ups and downs of recovery and adjustment; overcome terror of being vulnerable
• Accepting help – realize others genuinely want to help/serve; take a dose of humility
• Turning to God – He reveals meaning and purpose while also helping us see our true identity
• Embracing an eternal perspective – see life beyond the here and now, recognizing mortality is merely a blip in eternity

QUOTES FROM ATKINS

• “As unbearable as a lifetime of paralysis sounded, having people think I was mentally compromised was even worse.”
• “Suddenly I was no longer viewing Jesus as a genie whose sole purpose was to grant my wish of walking once again. Unexpectedly, the healing itself began to take a back seat on my priority list. ‘Seek the Healer, not just the healing’ became my mantra."
• “It really took me getting flat on my back to develop a sense of empathy, a desire to have a purpose greater than just myself.”
• “Life took on a much deeper meaning and richer hope for the future.”
• “As it turns out, there is a thin line between allowing suffering to accomplish its purposes and adopting a scarcity theology that assumes hardship and lack in and of themselves are the central pillars of godliness.”
• “God can still allow me to have a purposeful life no matter what the abilities of my arms and legs.”
• “There’s a reason to have hope!”

BUY One Step Closer: How a life-altering accident led me to everything I almost missed

RECOMMENDATION

For more about Ryan’s journey being a quadriplegic, check out his blog, “Flat on My Back.”

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SUMMARY

In her award-winning book, Role Reversal: How to Take Care of Yourself and Your Aging Parents, Iris Waichler blends her personal experience with her professional expertise as a licensed clinical social worker and patient advocate for over 40 years. Her book is designed to help caregivers who are now 53 million strong in America, 90 percent of whom are adult children or spouses. Realizing caregivers lose a loved one twice, the author teaches how to cope with and overcome the overwhelming challenges that arise while caregiving for a loved one—especially an aging parent. Packed with invaluable information, Waichler addresses a myriad of pertinent topics ranging from dealing with grief and estate planning to taking precautions to avoid scams and finding the right level of care for an elderly parent.

AVOIDING CAREGIVER BURNOUT:

• Pay attention to your body (headaches, body aches), emotional symptoms (increased irritability), and mental pressures (guilt).
• Have a backup/respite plan, and then revisit the plan frequently and adapt it to allow for changes.
• Incorporate weekly time off to recharge.

MORE IDEAS TO HELP CAREGIVERS:

• Hire a geriatric care manager.
• Identify people who live nearby who can help.
• Divide caregiving assignments, maximizing skill sets.
• Use reminiscence therapy.
• Reach out to get additional help.

QUOTES FROM WAICHLER

• “It doesn’t matter how old you are when you lose a parent. It can be a surprise even when you expect it. It remains a loss or an absence in your life regardless of the relationship you had. Your life is forever changed.”
• “This role reversal…can be emotionally difficult and stressful for all concerned. It can test everyone’s patience and commitment.”
• “The best thing you can do for a person with dementia is recognition of the person they were and are and be compassionate in your communication.”
• “The people we see in their old age today are an altered reflection of who they were when they were young.”
• “The intimacy of being with someone who is ill, and taking care of that person, is both a powerful and painful experience.”

RECOMMENDATION

Find a geriatric care manager and other resources to support caregivers at the Aging Life Care Association.

BUY Role Reversal: How to Take Care of Yourself and Your Aging Parents

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SUMMARY

Radiologist, author, and speaker Linda K. Olson shares the story of becoming a triple amputee in her new book, Gone. On the cusp of becoming doctors, Olson and her husband are hit by a train in Germany, leaving Linda without three limbs. Uttered by her husband Dave just after the accident, the words “If you can do it, I can do it” become the couple’s mantra. Olson’s book, “A Memoir of Love, Body, and Taking Back My Life,” takes us through the arduous years of healing and rehab to the happy years of creating a family, pursuing a dream career, and traveling the world.

KEY MOMENTS FOR OLSON

• Losing three limbs
• Choosing humor and happiness over misery
• Making lists of things to attack
• Learning to walk
• Living alone to finish a medical residency
• Getting pregnant and having two children
• Going on high-adventure camping trips
• Becoming a world-renowned radiologist
• Being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease
• Giving motivational speeches around the world

KEY QUOTES FROM THE OLSONS

• From Linda’s husband Dave in his first conversation with her after the accident: “I didn’t marry your arms and your legs….I married you—what’s inside."
• From Linda’s daughter Tiffany from her online writing class at UCLA: “I wanted everyone to know that her disability was only physical, not mental, and that she could do everything that everyone else could do."
• From Linda’s son Brian in his personal statement for medical school: “As a couple, my parents reveal the dedication and effort required in a genuine partnership. I have learned that what some call sacrifice is actually a combination of compassion, respect, and willingness—even eagerness—to change for someone else.”
• From Linda: “Attitude was the only thing I had control of, so my mind went into overdrive trying to be optimistic and cheerful. I pretended my brain was a muscle, which, if squeezed tightly enough, would power my way through, all the challenges ahead of us.”

BUY Gone: A Memoir of Love, Body, and Taking Back My Life

RECOMMENDATION

• Watch Linda do 22 one-arm pushups!

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SUMMARY

Brad Aronson, author of the National Bestseller HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act a Time, discovered content when his wife was recovering from leukemia. Inspired by the many demonstrations of "humankindness" that supported their family through this dark time, he began writing a blog. Then, realizing that even the smallest of gestures from friends and strangers can lift, Aronson began seeking out simple acts of kindness across the globe. Collecting these good deeds of everyday heroes, Aronson now offers HumanKind. But it’s more than just a compilation of feel-good anecdotes. The book also provides a resource section filled with dozens of ideas, organizations, and service opportunities to motivate anyone wanting to “change the world one small act at a time.”

"The most uplifting and life-affirming book in years" (Forbes). All author royalties go to the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.

KEY IDEAS

• Barriers to offering acts of kindness include feeling we can’t make a difference or feeling awkward reaching out to others.
• Small acts of kindness can have large ripple effects.
• The best way to start making a difference is by taking baby steps (e.g., sending a text, sharing a joke).
• Long-term follow-up is invaluable to those in long-term difficult circumstances.
• We don’t have to solve everyone’s problems; we just need to be there and be ourselves.

QUOTES FROM ARONSON

• “I believe that most people are good.”
• “We all have different gifts to give—what’s important is rising to the occasion, whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.”
• “Just doing anything matters!”
• “[Heroes] don’t command an army of helpers or have an abundance of free time. They’re everyday people who focus on what they can do to make a difference. Their acts of kindness change lives and even save them. These everyday heroes don’t just hope the world will get better—they make it better.”
• “Conversation is a medicine any of us can dispense and it provides lasting respite.”
• “No expression of love is wasted, and even the smallest gestures tend to go much further than we think they will.”

BUY HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act At a Time

RECOMMENDATIONS

• For many ideas to change the world one small act at a time, check out JustServe.
• Consider giving to or getting involved with Mentors International.

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SUMMARY

Much-decorated professor and accomplished author, Charlotte Gray chronicles Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention. Bell originally hailed from Scotland, emigrated to Canada for better health, and eventually settled in Boston, Massachusetts (USA) where he acted virtually solo while inventing what we know as the modern telephone. Although Bell felt miserable having to keep careful notes, his writings proved essential to his landmark patent, which ultimately made him the winner of the tight race to transmit human voices over wire. Says Gray, “His imaginative breakthrough is…what makes Alexander Graham Bell the quintessential inventor of the nineteenth century—the era when an untrained individual working alone could dream up such a crucial scientific advance.”

KEY CHARACTERS

• Alexander Graham Bell – the father of modern communications and inventor of the telephone
• Melville Bell – Alexander’s father who taught him the physics and nuances of sound; inventor of “Visible Speech” to help the hearing-impaired assimilate into the hearing world; plagued by a degree of jealousy towards his son-in-law while also insisting Bell complete and submit his patent application
• Mabel Hubbard – student-turned-wife of Bell ten years his younger; went deaf at age five from scarlet fever
• Gertrude Mercer McCurdy – Alexander’s mother-in-law, a deaf woman, who insisted her daughter Mabel pursue rigorous intellectual achievements
• Gardiner Greene Hubbard – Bell’s father-in-law and business partner; instrumental in getting Bell to file a timely patent
• Samuel F.B. Morse – invented the Morse Code, an invention that catapulted the speed of communications
• Elisha Gray –rival inventor who first congratulated Bell then later disputed the win
• Thomas Edison – Bell’s contemporary and competitor; enjoyed the process of invention more than the inventions themselves
• Helen Keller – deaf and dumb genius; contemporary of Bell who often invited Bell to her own stage appearances
• Thomas Watson – Bell’s 22-year-old assistant of the famous “Watson, come here” moment

QUOTES FROM GRAY

• “Electricity seemed to them like an invisible power, and if they could harness it, they could go to the moon.”
• “European ‘oralists’ appealed to the notion of speech as God’s special gift to mankind, which it was cruel to withhold from deaf children. Since the Renaissance, the human voice had been regarded as an image of the divine soul, and language as the source of civilization.”
• “[Bell] never accepted the argument that sign language was ‘natural,’ and he continued to insist that most deaf children were better off if they remained in the speaking world.”
• “Today, we can understand the technological revolution of Bell’s day only if we compare it with the impact that microprocessors have had on our own lives.”

BUY Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Watch “Telephone Hour” from the musical Bye Bye, Birdie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sPU3ymk2ms)
• BUY Dial M for Murder (DVD)
• BUY the '90s romantic comedy, Sleepless In Seattle, and see how the telephone plays an essential role in society.

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SUMMARY

In her memoir, The Smallest Lights in the Universe, author and astrophysicist Sara Seager shares her journey exploring both outer and inner space. An MIT professor standing on the cutting edge of discovering exoplanets, she is widowed at age 40 and plunged into deep grief. But with patience, time, and the help of a tight-knit widows’ group, Seager finds small lights to grasp while pulling herself out of overwhelming sorrow. When the piercing pain subsides, new connections serve as life-giving light.

As the story unfolds, we see Seager’s professional work providing a metaphor for her personal life: “At its essence, astrophysics is the study of light. We know that there are stars other than the sun because we can see them shining. But light doesn’t just illuminate. Light pollutes. Light blinds. Little lights—exoplanets—have forever been washed out by the bigger lights of their stars, the way those stars are washed out by our sun. To find another Earth, we’d have to find the smallest lights in the universe.”

KEY POINTS

• In contrast to watching a baby grow and develop, watching someone die means taking steps backward every day.
• Helping our loved ones die peacefully is our gift to them.
• Timing and cause don’t really affect losing a loved one; grief is grief.
• Healing is enhanced when the person left behind has few or no big regrets.
• Finding like-minded people going through a similar experience of loss is very helpful.
• Being a widow is like having no emotional reserves—no extra emotional strength—so when anything goes wrong, widows can come unglued.
• Being there for a friend months and years after she loses a spouse might be even more important than helping her immediately after.
• Those who heal best from grief give into the feelings and exercise patience.

QUOTES FROM SEAGER

• “When you hit rock bottom through grief…or depression or anything, you have to hold on to those smallest lights…the smallest glimmer of hope to climb out.”
• “My life became a study in contrast, the light and the dark, the hopeful and the hopeless. I spent my days at MIT with my students, trying to see. I spent my evenings at home with Mike, pretending to be blind.”
• “When you lose someone, you don’t lose them all at once, and their dying doesn’t stop with their death. You lose them a thousand times in a thousand ways. You say a thousand goodbyes. You hold a thousand funerals.”
• “The lesson I took from it? The universe might be infinite, but our appetites for exploring it are finite, and so are our resources. Time is the most precious resource of all.”

BUY The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir

RECOMMENDATIONS

BUY or watch The Theory of Everything, the story of another brilliant astrophysicist and futurist Stephen Hawking.

BUY or watch Hidden Figures, the story of smart African American mathematicians who worked at NASA.

Author Cecilia Rodriguez Aragon, once a shy, timid child riddled by fear, shares her breakout memoir, Flying Free: My Victory over Fear to Become the First Latina Pilot on the US Aerobatic Team. Her book, 20 years in the making, features Aragon facing her fears head-on through learning to fly. With fierce determination matching her mathematical superpower, she becomes the first Latina pilot to secure a place on the United States Unlimited Aerobatic Team. But her journey to "flying free" includes much, much more. Aragon not only overcomes her fear but she also conquers racial and gender prejudices as well as her own mental barriers to getting a Ph.D. in engineering from UC Berkeley.

KEY POINTS

• Life is unfair.
• Women are often taught to abdicate authority and not be in command.
• Change usually happens gradually, one day at a time, through doing daily, small, challenging tasks.
• Visualization costs nothing but is a very effective way of honing skills.
• Saying “no” to things too many times boxes us into a safe, boring life.

QUOTES FROM ARAGON

• “I had been living a very narrow life and letting my fear define me, and then, at one point, I realized that living life too safely was dangerous for my spirit, and I decided to do something that was terrifying to me.”
• “Flying became my art, my science, and my passion. I used my training in math to optimize split-second performances in the air.”
• “Everybody has something that can help them achieve anything.”
• “When you face your fears, and triumph over them, life opens up before you, becomes more exciting, larger, and more vibrant.”
• “I’ve learned this about having a dream: It doesn’t matter if you tell anybody or not. What matters is that you make some progress in that direction every day.”

BUY Flying Free: My Victory Over Fear to Become the First Latina Pilot on the US Aerobatic Team 

RECOMMENDATIONS

Listen to Nonfiction4life Episode 86: Fly Girls by Keith O’Brien

Listen to Nonfiction4life Episode 137: Limitless Mind by Dr. Jo Boaler

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SUMMARY

Heidi Herman serves up her latest book, On With the Butter! Spread More Living onto Everyday Life. Taking the title from an Icelandic expression meaning “Carry on, keep doing what you’re doing, forge ahead, and keep moving!” and inspired by her nonagenarian mother who lived by this mantra, Herman compiles dozens of ideas to fully embrace each day with enthusiasm and curiosity. She includes both spontaneous and planned activities for a rich life filled with zest, offering a wide variety of activities and challenges for those in retirement or for anybody with a little free time looking to add some fun and adventure to everyday living.  

SOME "BUTTER" IDEAS

• “Grandmas Project,” spearheaded by Jonas Pariente, allows families to capture videos of older family members sharing their heritage through cooking or sharing recipes and skills that they want to pass on.
• “Take the scenic route” by traveling by train or bus.
• Keep learning by taking advantage of free community classes, going to museums, or attending lectures at nature preserve.
• Volunteer in places you love—National Parks, libraries, gardens, and nonprofits.
• “Musicians on Call” connects musicians and singers who bring music to healthcare facilities.
• “Be a hometown tourist” by referencing brochures in hotels, using resources from the Chamber of Commerce, touring local factories, and checking online for nearby events.

QUOTES FROM HERMAN

• “Being spontaneous—even occasionally—also prevents us from getting into ruts and opens the door to more connection with our family and friends. And it turns out that playing life by ear can be beneficial for our health and happiness.”
• “There’s no reason that the lack of a companion should stop us from visiting someplace new. In most cases, if we’re enjoying a park, a museum, or a gallery alone, no one will take a second look. Likely, no one will care or find it odd if we’re alone…Let’s not worry about what other people think.”
• “There is no maximum age for new experiences and no expiration date for a challenge. To truly reach life’s full potential, we should never stop pushing ourselves toward something new. Testing our limits helps us determine what we’re fully capable of, whether that’s a physical accomplishment, a mental challenge, or a leadership achievement in a group.”
• “As adults, we often have to remind ourselves that it’s okay to play, laugh, and joke around and that, in fact, it’s healthy. Too often we avoid play because we’re self-conscious about looking silly, especially as we get older.”

BUY On With The Butter: Spread More Living onto Everyday Life

RECOMMENDATIONS

Listen to Episode 139 of the Nonfiction4Life podcast with Jo Giese, "Never Sit If You Can Dance."

https://www.nonfiction4life.com/139-never-sit-if-you-can-dance-jo-giese/

Listen to Episode 12o of the Nonfiction4Life podcast with Melody Warnick, "This Is Where You Belong."

https://www.nonfiction4life.com/120-this-is-where-you-belong-melody-warnick/

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