9. Power of Habit Chapter 5

 - Travis Leach grew up in a family where his dad was a functional heroin addict, and he and his siblings were used to it. When his dad overdosed when he was nine, his older siblings were used to it and knew what to do. 

- He dropped out of high school at sixteen, and started working part time jobs, but would lose control when people were rude to him. He got a job at Starbucks, and learned how to control his temper and got a hold of his life. He is now a manager of two different branches and makes a decent amount of money. 

- Starbucks focuses on training it's employees to remain focused on making people happy and putting their own emotions aside. It teaches them willpower, and how to stay focused on their job. 

- A study on four year olds and marshmallows made people assume that willpower is a skill. However, Mark Muraven decided to question this further, because he realized that unlike normal skills, willpower doesn't stay constant. 

- Muraven conducted an experiment where he had sixty seven students sit in front of two bowls each, one full of cookies and one full of radishes. Half the students were told to ignore the cookies while the other half was told to ignore the radishes. Muraven's theory was that willpower is subjective, and that those who were told to ignore the radishes would have a much easier time than those who had been told to ignore the cookies. 

- After five minutes, everyone was given a puzzle to solve which they were told would take fifteen minutes. In truth, it was an impossible puzzle. This was to see if willpower was a finite resource. Would the students who had already used their willpower to ignore the cookies have a harder time doing this than the ones who hadn't used their willpower? 

- They discovered that yes, by putting people in  a state where they had to use willpower, they made them willing to quit much faster than the other group. 

- Willpower isn't a skill. It's a muscle, and it gets tired like all muscles as you use it. 

- Megan Oaten and Ken Cheng enrolled two dozen people in a fitness program, where they had to use more and more willpower each time they went to the gym. Oaten and Cheng found that most people had also changed other bad habits. 

- They did the same thing with a money management program, and the same thing happened, and again with a student academic improvement program. Willpower was contagious, and once it became stronger, it touched everything. 

- Starbucks was determined to solve their employees' willpower problem, starting programs like the ones Oaten and Cheng did, but attendance was spotty. 

- A Scottish study was done on people in their sixties who had done hip or knee surgery, a surgery that is hard to recover from because of all the rehab sessions. The scientist gave each patient a booklet where they could write down their specific goals for each week. Then she compared the progress of those who used the booklet and those who didn't. The ones who wrote it down did much better. They gave themselves specific cues and rewards, making self discipline a habit. 

- Starbucks decided to give it's employees specific steps on what to do when something went wrong, running drills with them and making habit loops. 

- Muraven did another experiment to figure out why some people find it harder to learn willpower than others. He put undergraduates in a room with cookies and asked them to ignore the cookies. Half of them were treated kindly while half were given orders. None of them are the cookies. Then, the researcher asked everyone to look at a computer screen which was flashing numbers, and to hit the space bar every time they say a four or a six. The students who were treated kindly had no problem, but the ones who were treated rudely were too tired. 

- When people exercise willpower for a reason, instead of just being treated like cogs, they find it much easier.