59 Seconds — My summary of Richard Wiseman’s Book
With huge steps forwards in Psychology in the past 5 decades, huge amounts of data being pooled together has allowed us to easily see solutions to personal problems in the world. Most of which, after being learned, can be applied in under a minute.
With this 7 step summary of Richard Wiseman’s 59 seconds, you too could learn the best ways to hack your life in less than a minute.
Job interview? Think likeable.
Studies show that those more likeable are more likely to do well in interviews. Yes, answering questions well is important, but if the interviewer doesn’t like you, you’re going down the pile. Talk about interesting topics unrelated to the position. Do your research and speak highly of the organisation, the interviewer is representing the company and will take it as personal praise, making you more likeable. Smile and be genuine, people can tell. Studies also show that revealing your weakness towards the beginning of the interview and letting strengths come up organically later is beneficial. Lastly, if you think you’ve made a mistake, chances are they didn’t even realise, they seem glaringly obvious to you but are most likely minor.
Small mistakes and compliments will make you more companionable.
Likeability isn’t just beneficial for job interviews. It’s a great tool in general. And there’s easy ways to achieve it day to day. People are actually more inclined to like you when you’ve made a mistake despite being competent. No-one is perfect and you seem more human when you mess up occasionally. If you flawlessly succeed, you will be less relatable and less liked. Also stay away from gossip, it’s synonymous with being untruthful, unreliable and untrustworthy. Want to give off a positive image? Then say nice things about people when you don’t have to.
Motivation without visualisation.
Studies have shown that those who visualise compared to those who don’t perform worse overall. Setbacks happen frequently and when these aren’t accounted for in visualisation, people react negatively. In order to succeed and be motivated towards a task, make a plan and accompany it with small short and long term goals. One more tool is accountability. Tell friends and family about your goals, share them publicly, this will have profound effects on workflow and your success.
Struggle getting into the creative mindset? Skip brainstorming.
Diffused responsibility in groups occurs because those within the group believe others are contributing towards the task and so won’t give 100%. But everyone else is thinking the same leading to a less productive outcome. Therefore, individual work quality is far better when working individually than in a group. A lot of the time, people overthink when trying to get into the creative mindset. Creativity is mostly subconscious, so in order to help your subconscious do it’s thing, you should pick out something to do that will challenge yourself and keeping your conscious busy. You can achieve this by doing a puzzle or crossword. Creativity comes from interaction with the environment. Prime your subconscious with greenery. Flowers reduce stress and induce good moods. A study of workplace creativity from Texas A&M University revealed that placing flowers and plants in an office resulted in a 15 percent increase in idea generation from male employees and improved the problem-solving abilities of female employees.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Most people know this but find it difficult to implement it practically, its more intuitive to focus on the negative. But try to avoid getting upset or stressed in every bad situation. Try to focus on the positives, focus on what you have gained in that situation, think about all the experience gained. When you think about gaining something in return for what happened, you feel like you’ve been part of a transaction rather than being unlucky and the world being against you.
Be careful with what you say in relationships and improve them with this advice.
Studies show that in order to foster a positive happy relationship, you should outnumber any negative comments towards your partner with positive ones by a factor of 5–1! That’s right, have something nice to say, no matter how small, you might want to let them know because who knows when you might say the wrong thing next! Also, make sure to write down your feelings and thoughts in a diary, studies have shown that couples are 25% more likely to stay together. Lastly, implement the ‘But’ strategy. If you do have some sort of criticism to mention to your partner, make sure you qualify it with a redeeming quality of there’s.
Are people being truthful? Spot a liar with psychology.
People lying are just as calm as those speaking the truth says a 2008 research study carried out by University of Southampton. In the test, 50% of students exaggerated their grades when asked, but they were no more stressed than their honest peers according to their pulse rate.
The easiest ways to spot a liar is that they take longer to answer questions, often pausing throughout due to overthinking, they also don’t use personal words such as ‘I’, ‘Me’ and ‘Mine’. Lastly, they ask questions themselves to deflect away from the conversation.
Final summary
The key message in this book:
You can apply many different 1 minute techniques to your life to significantly improve certain aspects without much time or effort. The techniques in this book show you how to make quick and easy changes that enhance your creativity, likeability, relationships and more.
Practical advice:
Write your own eulogy. If you think about what people might say after you have died, you’ll get a sense of what you want to achieve long term. Counteract liars through emails. Studies show that people are less likely to lie when their words are written down forever.
I hope you have found this summary interesting and useful. Let us know in the comments below whether you would like to read the whole book or prefer summaries.
About the Author
James Allen is the co-founder of embrk.online, where he makes videos based around providing high value to entrepreneurs and small business owners through leverage.
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