This is my personal reading log, reading 25 pages per day!

I never thought to actively work on Synergy as a way to foster interdependent relationships amoung the various groups that I am currently associated with, he really explained the benefits of doing so in these readings. I am quite excited to implement my new found paradigm shift. Also going to wrap this book up tomorrow.

A friend of mine loaned me this, but he needed it back, so a chapter was all I got to read. It was good though, it talked about how Society has molded our concept of what happiness should be and how this actually making us less happy. It went into 4 myths about happiness that has been created because of our current Society.

I am very impressed with this book, the author got 26 straight As back to back in his sophmore and senior years, and he interviewed hundreds of other straight students across North America from all the top universities including Harvard, Yale etc. So far he has shared many case studies and quotes from all these students, and I am quite mind blown at just the genius of there techniques in how they become great students. I also found that the techniques (planning, time management and defeating procrastination etc.) can be applied to other parts of life other than being a student.

The past two weeks haven't been the best for reading, I found myself starting to reading in the morning or afternoon, then I would take a break, and I would totally forgot to come back to it Haha. Well I fixed it today by setting a 30 minute reminder on my phone when I took a break. So I got reminders from my phone for the rest of the day until I got it done. I'll try this strategy for a few more days until I build up back the habit. So a quick note about this book, the author Dean Graziosi has made many outstanding ponts so far, the one that has stood out the most to me though, in todays reading, was the success habit of seeking to really understand others, I think this lesson can be summed up in this quote "People will learn from you, listen to you, love you, buy from you, and hire you when they feel understood, not when they understand you." The point is we have an innate desire to be understood, and when we feel that desire being met, we start to have positive emotional response to that situation. I could be wrong, but I think we make most of our dicisions based on our emotions.

Today’s reading was brilliant, he gave a lot of tips that would take your business to the next level, which I taught were well thought out and organized, I am yet to get bored reading this book. He gave 10 Happiness tips, I’ve read 6 so far, and they are extremely valid, one such happiness tip was to live in the present, I annotated on the page that I didn’t deserve such a personal attack lol.

Finished. The author Dean, is a master in my opinion at giving simple easy to follow recipees for success, many of which I am now incorperating in my life, for example, to not waist time persuing goals that you are not naturally good at, but to spend most of your time in your unique ability, that thing that you naturally excell at, he shares that this is the mindset of majority of the successful people in his circle.

So I read the pologue and the first 25 pages of the first chapter today. Chapter 1 is titles the habit loop, so basically he shared scientific case studies of men who has had brain damage, which has let them to lose all ability to remember anything pass a few seconds, but are still able to perform daily routines, he shared that is is a result of the habits engrained in the core of the brain the basal ganglia. Thus even though the outer portion of the brain is damaged (which desrupts memory), the inside of the brain (incharged of autonomic behavior) still remembers how to perform various tasks. He also shared how when a rat is put in a new environment, the brain works overtime to process all the cues, but once a cue/routine/reward loop has been established after many trials, the brain becomes quiet and only the habit portion of the basal ganglia is active, which results in an automatic response getting through the environment and finding the reward. Overall it was a good read, I wasn't sure where he was going during the first 10 pages(this is where he was talking about the case studies), but once he shared the story of the rat and the habit loop(cue/routine/reward), it all came together. He shared the thesis in the prologue, page xvii "Each chapter revolves around a central argument: Habits can be changed, if we understand how they work".

Today was an interesting read, Chapter 2 was titled 'The Craving Brain, how to create new habits', it started out just sharing historical accounts of significant marketing campagnes that made no name products into common household names, for example, Quaker Oates, Goodyear tires, etc. It talked about the man responsible for these advertising campagnes, Claude C. Hopkins. Mr Hopkins was one of the major figures responsible for pepsodent/ toothpaste becoming so popular after world war 2. He was so sussessful as an advertiser that many of his methods are still studied and practiced today in the ad industry. His methods followed the habit loop discussed in the previous chapter, but with real world applications of what people found rewarding, and the cues that would trigger the proccess that would lead to that reward. It was said about Mr Hopkins that ***he had "learned the right human psychology." That psychology was grounded in two basic rules: (1) Find a simple and obvious cue (2) Clearly define the rewards.***(page 36) So you mind be wondering how the craving part comes into all this, so the author didn't touch on that till further down in the chapter when he was discussing the findings from an experiments that involved chimpanzee. The experiment basically had the monkey in in a chair infront a TV monitor, a pipe coming down from the ceiling and a lever. Whenever shapes would appear on the screen if the monkey pulled the lever sweet blackberry juice would run down and he would get a quick taste, so basically the craving as shown on his brain scans would only appear after the habit had been well established through the habit loop and the reward has been withheld. If the habit loop hasn't been established then if given the oppertunity to do something else (like if the researchers open the door, the monkey would leave), but if the habit has been established through repetition, the monkey would just sit there looking at the screen, no matter what is going on around him.

So I just finished up chapter 2 which was on 'The Craving Brain' and I started chapter 3 'The Golden Rule of Habit change, why transformation occurs'. So what I got from chapter 3 was that for real change to occur we can't just attempt to alter old behavior, without first trying to replace it with new habits, by replacing the old habit with the same cues and rewards, we are able to satisfy the old craving that has been well ingrained in our minds by the old cues. It is much easier to change the routine in the habit loop, that to try to change the whole loop. Thats pretty much what I got from chapter 3 so far. A strength that I have found so far is that each chapter builds on the next, in this case I am able to paint a clearer and clearer picture of the habit loop from chapter to chapter. Another strength I found was the use of visual aids, so far in the reading it was mostly various habit loops from various product successes or of people trying to change a certain habit, the visual representation of the habit loop always helped me to paint a clear picture of what I am reading. A weakness I found is that the readings are primarily strories of mass habit change throught the advertising effeorts of various cooperations for certain products, or mild case studies of individuals seeking a behaviour change, and liitle analysis of the information. So I say it is 80% stories and visual aids and 20% analysis. Overall though I am enjoying it, it has great readability.

So I am not really into the writing mood tonight, so I'm just going to type exactly what comes to my mind about the reading, no matter how jumbled it might come across. So I finished chapter 3 and started on chapter 4, at the end of chapter 3, he talked a lot about 'Belief' and how it plays an integral part in making habit change more concrete, he shared that without belief the probability of relapsing under stress or pressure is quite high. One thing that stood out to me was when he was describing why Alcoholics Anonymous was so successful, he shared that it was because having a belief in something greater than one self was the core of the treatment. This would give people something to believe in, if they didn't have a belief in the first place, and this belief along with the shared belief of the other people in the group, would lead them down the path to believing in themselves, and as they believed in themselfs, their success rates would dramatically increase. ***So to summarize chapter 3, we cant simple iliminate habits, we have to replace them with something else, and once we establish new habits we have to believe on those habits and ourselves, for lasting change to occur. --- So Chapter 4 so far shared that if we want to change ourselves, we cant start changing everything all at once we have to start with a Keystone Habit that would then create a ripple effect on establishing other productive habits. Thats all I have so far for chapter 4, I'm intrigued about the idea of a keystone habit, so I am looking forward to reading the rest of chapter 4 tomorrow.

I think I might have to start reading more pages per day, because it has already been 5 days and I haven't even reach half way yet....well I'll get there. On average it is talking me around 1 hour to read 25 pages and I would say that the text is on the smaller side. Well I am growing to like this book, I am learning stories of many well known people, who have accomplished great things within the pass few dacades, Chapter 4 focused on Keystone habits, and how they played a role in Michael Phelps rise to the top of the Olympic ladder. He also shared how CEO O'neal transformed the aluminium company Alcoa into one of the safest places to work, after O'neals appointment to office Alcoa would go on to trippling there stock market value within the next decade. The Author share that O'neal was able to accomplish cultural change at Alcoa because he focused on one Keystone habit that no one could dispute which was 'Workers Safety'. ***So I realized today that in terms of effectiveness and readability he gets his points accross primarily by recounting historical events around certain people then tie their story into the topic of habit change that he is currently discussing, the stories deffinately keep me engage, I also find it pretty informative, now if someone mentions Michael Phelps, I could add to the conversation by sharing his background and how he trained when he was a boy. So I find the stories entertaining and it is good it that they are easily remembered after I finished reading. So in terms of Readability he goes back and fourth stories throughout the chapter, so he might start a chapter with on storie, then break and start discussing another story, then later on he would come back to the initial story, sharing maybe a different aspect that he hadn't covered earlier. Anyways, I think thats all the notes I have in me tonight, I'll see you guys tomorrow.

Willpower seemed to be the focus of the remainder of chapter 5, he examined starbucks a great deal, in how they set up orginizational habits with the intention to increse self disepline, the think that stood out the most to me occured on page 151 he shared shared an experiment of how when people are treated poorly and then asked to not eat a tray of cookies, they had less willpower at the end when day an on screen task, then indifiduals who were treated nicely, well it seems that a bunch of big companies took this research and decided that they needed to start treating their employees nicer so that they would have the same effect on theire willpower that they might work harder. Well it seems that that approuch worked because startbucks sales went up quite a bit after the changes. ***I find it interesting that this is all common sense stuff, but I guess big executives dont want to risk anything unless there is backing from a concrete reference, in this case scientific research. Anyways thats all I got for today, Peace! P.S forgive to grammer errors, too lazy right not to proof read

(1) Societal habits I feel was the main topic discussed in todays read, I finished chapter 7 and started chapter 8. Chater 8 title is 'Saddleback church and the Montegomery bus Boycott, How Movement happen', Rosa Parks story of her refusal to give up her seat at the front of the bus was a core part of the biggening of the chapter, the auther used it to illustrating how community habits begins and stread, he shared that the act of her refussal wasn't as important as the many conections she had in the community that started the protests (Rosa Park wasn't the first person to refused and be jailed, it's just that she was the first person to have refused and had powerful friends that cared). Long story short the author shared how connections, peer pressure and weak ties played a role in igniting the fire of the civil rights campaign. Ok so thought the 3 things that make a movement page 217 was pretty cool, I also thought how the author talk about Social Pressure on page 225 as a method for social change to be pretty mind blowing, it really got me thinking I could use it to promote my ideas (hey don't judge me, companies do it all the time). (2) So an analytical review, I thought his research behind the portrayal of the story of Rosa Parks and the Civil RIghts Movement to be very detailed, I felt like it covered all the angles in the painting the picture as to that particular insident made a difference and the process of how it all haapened, the readability was excellent, because he started out by share what happened, why it was different from the previous incidents, what immediately happened after and then he analysed the broader scope of why the movement caught fire by difining other influencial factors like the roles that peer pressure and weak ties played. I thin that will be my thoughts for tonight, really enjoyed todays reading.

Finished. So I made it, the last Chapter 'The Neurology of Free Will, Are we Responsible for our Habits?' ended page 274, so that is technically the end of the book, seeing that the readings that comes after has nothing to do with defending the thesis. So basically he just wapped up all the previous arguments with 2 stories, (1) A compulsive Gambler and (2) A man who murdered his wife in his sleep. He compared and contrast these two stories in portraying the idea that there are consiquenses to our actions. With the story of the murderer, he was unaware of his habits, but with the story of the Gambler she was aware, thus because she was aware she is morally resposible to change her habits or suffer the consequences. He compared habit to water and people to fishes (page 274).

In todays reading he talked a lot about Possibility thinking and Reflection thinking, he basically just share his opinions on the topic backed by many refferences from success stories ether from himself or from famed individuals. The readability is quite straightforward, most of his writings so far is from his own life, the book is only 121 pages and there are 12 chapters, so the chapters finishes quite quickly, which I find helps my engagement. Thinking back to what I read today, a lot of it just felt like general advice, I can't remember anything that stood out that I have a burning desire to write about, to be fair though, I read the pages and I tried to think about what I was rreading, but my engagment with the material could have been better.

110-124, VIIII-XVIII

Finished. So I finished it and started over, now that I have finished it, I felt the need to start over to recall his intentions to where he wanted to take the book and compared it to where he eventually ended up, I thought he did a good job in his content to the various types of thinking he mentioned in the introduction. The book was short, so his writing was quite simple and easy to follow. The last chapter talked about Bottom Line Thinking, I got the feeling that it was to him the most important type of thing, I thought it was basically another way of saying that alines with ones main purpose and values. He shared the story of a woman who later became the CEO of Girls Guide of America, he shared that for the CEO to turn the organization around to become successful, the CEO had to go back to the bottom line, which was "Helping young girls live up to there full potential" and so anything that did not correspond to that bottom line they would stop doing. Overall it was a good use of a historical event to give substance to the argument. *****Overall it was a good read, but I found that his writng style was a bit too simple for me, that might be a good thing for other readers though.