Mind Gym (38 page)

Our clients, who have supported and advocated Mind Gym since our launch in North America:

Michael Molinaro (New York Life); Kate Minnikin, Michele Isaacs, Patsy Doerr, and Vera Vitels (Thomson Reuters); Rachel Lee, Jane Clements, Arnold Dhanesar, Elizabeth Nieto, and David Henderson (MetLife); Pete Heller, Kyran O’Neill, Zaakera Stratman, and Stacey Gardner (Microsoft); Rachel Levy, Joe Garbus, and Philippe van Holle (Celgene); Susan Connor (Hanover Insurance Group); Regina Brab, Rebecca Campbell, and John Hoguet (SunGard Data Systems); Kathy Oates, Jaison Williams, Sarah Leonard, and Tim Haynes (GSK); Allison Bebo and Evan Izquierdo (ANN Inc.); EJ Henry, Chris Leady, and Elizabeth Walker (Campbell Soup Company); Meredith Lubitz (News Corporation); Mary Slaughter and Michele Resnick (SunTrust Banks); Melissa Janis (McGraw-Hill Education); Juliana Melo and Chris Wortmann (Diageo); Melissa Frescholtz and Susan Amori (AOL); Steve Uren (Schlumberger); Lisa Ciampolillo (Hasbro); Mark Sullivan (Sunovion Pharmaceuticals); Eric Tolman and Jennifer Duncan (Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.); Steve Dealph (The Walt Disney Company); Michael Futterman (Allianz Global Investors of America); Don Carter (MasterCard); Moira McFarlin (Lincoln National); Lori Bradley and Jennifer Underwood (PVH); Monika Czarkowski (Northern Trust); Yvan Mau and Jennifer Blakey (Irvine); Juan Barajas (Cisco); Per Wingerup (CBS); Rohit Singh (Massachusetts Mutual Life); Michael Byars (Children’s National Medical Center); Kara Schillaci (PepsiCo); Carol Ryan Ertz and Karen Bradbury (Unum Group); Tara Stevens (Interpublic Group of Companies); Clyde Haynes (RetailMeNot); Kevin Hitchmough and Vicky Lodor-Martinecz (L’Oréal USA); Beth Messich, Heather Robsahm, and Chrissie Leibman (The Gap); Erin Deemer (Biogen Idec); Rolf Huelsenbec and Christine Locher (BCG); Princess Cullum (Cancer Treatment Centers of America); Daniel Gandarilla (Texas Health Resources); Leslie Solomon (Palomar Health); Carol Wells (Genentech); Anita Flagg (Fidelity Investments); Lindsay Flannery and Lisa Edler (Avery Dennison); Lori Bober and Laurie Jerome (Experian); Regis Courtemanche (BuzzFeed); Holly Rush and Bernadette Phillips (Luxottica); Connie Chartrand (Morgan Stanley); Stacy Critzer (Avalere Health); Kimo Kippen and Winnie Larsen (Hilton Worldwide); Lorna Hagen (OnDeck Capital); Ken Fendick (Bank of America); Nick Pope (Unilever); and Mike Foley, Kathleen Savio, and Tracy Lampert (Zurich).

Mind Gym coaches in the Americas, who have delivered the workouts in 20 different countries in 270 organizations. In particular
,

Anil Saxena, Becca Niederkrom, Becky Heino, Bennett McClellan, Beth Adler, Bob Wiesner, Cara Barrineau, Carolyn Laughlin, Cathy Marshall, Edwardyne Cowan, Elaine Arons, Ellen Lee, Erin Gelzer, Fernando Caramazana, Frank Leitzman, Gene Moncrief, George Rossi, Gigi Gilliard, Gina Caceci, Hywel Berry, Ingrid Wiese, Jack Flanagan, Janet Oldenbroek, Jeanne Jones, Joe Bill, John Ford, Jolene Shouman, Kate Duffy, Katelyn Donald, Kim McConnell, Kim Perkins, Kristina Katayama, Laura A. Davis, Laura Lewis-Barr, Laurie Carrick, Leif Everest, Lisa Mickey, Lou Orzech, Louise Litt, Lucy Counter, Margaret Cooke, Martha Mendoza, Matt Horan, Michelle Benning, Olivia Lockwood, Paige Chen, Pamela Miller, Pat Travis, Peter Margaritis, Renee Torchia, Robin Knudsen, Russ Johnson, Tal Hershko, Theresa Picone, Wayne Meledandri, Windy Warner, Beatriz Terinelli, Eng-An Chou, Jorge Gibbons, Marina Hoyos, Alfredo Lago, Juliana Taioli, Liz Bittar, Barbara Henders, Chris Irwin, Dayna Patterson, Jill Hooper, Carlos Garcia, Tara Donato, Sharon Weber, Christina Olex, Joan Findley, Denis Olaizola, Hope Miller, Julia Douglas, Sandra Birckhead, Gabriela Pagot, Susan Boras, and Rebecca Wirtel.

Joanne: a sage Non-Exec Director for Mind Gym, a deeply supportive wife, and a remarkable mother to the mind gym of my non-working life, our deliciously curious daughter, Brontë.

Juliet, Genevieve, and Miranda, who bring laughter, joy, and meaning to my every day.

The indefatigable Lacy Lynch of Dupree Miller, who is an agent to wish for, particularly with her rare combination of wise counsel and commercial savvy. Much of the writing was aided by Todd Nordstrom, who got our British jokes and idioms and translated them for an American ear, along with Katelyn Thomas, who sought out obscure original references and examined the rigor of more recent theories.

The team at HarperOne, who instantly saw the potential and believed in the concept from the outset, with particular thanks to our magnificent editor, Genoveva Llosa, who had a significant hand in shaping the structure and tone of the book.

The greatest thanks of all are due to the hundreds of thousands of people who take part in Mind Gym experiences and share, every day, what they do and don’t like. These honest (sometimes very honest) views are the basis on which Mind Gym is constantly revised, refreshed, and renewed. We hope that, as a reader of this book, you too will share your opinions and so make sure that Mind Gym constantly improves and consistently gives you what you want. Well, as near as.

The ideas contained in this book use thousands of psychological articles as an evidence base or for inspiration. A constraint of space means that only a few can be included here, so below is a selection we believe will interest readers with an appetite for more detail.

Chapter 1: Flip the Switch on Automatic Thinking

1
. John M. Darley and C. Daniel Batson, “From Jerusalem to Jericho: A Study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
27, no. 1 (1973): 100–108.

2
. This is the original paper where the term “impostor syndrome” was coined. At the time, the researchers thought the syndrome was unique to high-achieving women. Since 1978, the syndrome has been studied extensively and found to affect men as well, of all ages, in nearly any situation in which someone is challenged to a high degree. Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes, “The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention,”
Psychotherapy Theory, Research, and Practice
15, no. 3 (1978): 241–47.

3
. Pauline Clance,
The Impostor Phenomenon: Overcoming the Fear That Haunts Your Success
(Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, 1985).

4
. John Gravois, “You’re Not Fooling Anyone,”
Chronicle of Higher Education
54, no. 11 (2007): A1.

5
. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
Flow: The Classic Work on How to Achieve Happiness
(London: Rider, 2002).

Chapter 2: Think like an Attentive Optimist

1
. Richard Wiseman,
The Luck Factor
(London: Arrow Books, 2004).

2
. Optimistic athletes show greater performance after negative feedback, which may relate to the way negative information is processed as something specific and non-pervasive, as well as the way optimists approach goals. Optimists, it turns out, have greater goal commitment and perseverance in the face of challenges. Basically, optimists get things done and achieve what they set their minds to. So, it’s less about having a Pollyanna personality and more about getting what you want out of life. Ying Zhang, Ayelet Fishbach, and Ravi Dhar, “When Thinking Beats Doing: The Role of Optimistic Expectations in Goal-Based Choice,”
Journal of Consumer Research
34, no. 4 (2007): 567–78.

3
. Optimism is correlated with high levels of well-being, better coping with adversity, better physical health, more educational achievements, higher salary, and better relationships. Charles S. Carver, Michael F. Scheier, and Suzanne Segerstrom, “Optimism,”
Clinical Psychology Review
30, no. 7 (2010): 879–89.

4
. T. Maruta, R. Colligan, M. Malinchoc, and K. Offord, “Optimists vs. Pessimists: Survival Rate Among Medical Patients over a Thirty-Year Period,”
Mayo Clinic Proceedings
75, no. 2 (2000): 140–43.

5
. D. Danner, D. Snowdon, and W. Friesen, “Positive Emotions in Early Life and Longevity: Findings from the Nun Study,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
80, no. 5 (2001): 804–13.

6
. S. G. Jowsey et al., “Seligman’s Theory of Attributional Style: Optimism, Pessimism, and Quality of Life After Heart Transplant,”
Progress in Transplantation
22, no. 1 (2012): 49–55.

7
. Martin E. P. Seligman and Peter Schulman, “Explanatory Style as a Predictor of Productivity and Quitting Among Life Insurance Sales Agents,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
50, no. 4 (1986): 832–38.

8
. Randall A. Gordon, “Attributional Style and Athletic Performance: Strategic Optimism and Defensive Pessimism,”
Psychology of Sport and Exercise
9, no. 3 (2008): 336–50.

9
. There’s a dark side when you study optimists in certain circumstances. Some research indicates that in rapidly changing business environments the pessimists actually fare better, because optimists focus too much on previous experience and a positive belief in the future instead of on detail and negative information that may present itself. Keith M. Hmieleski, “A Contextual Study of Entrepreneur Dispositional Optimism: Implications for New Venture Performance,”
Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings
8, no. 1 (2007): 1–6. Even with personal finances, pessimists outperform optimists by playing it safe. Optimists are more likely to run up a credit card tab, spend now, and avoid saving enough for the future. David T. Robinson and Manju Puri, “Optimism and Economic Choice,”
Journal of Financial Economics
86, no. 1 (2007): 71–99.

10
. Martin E. P. Seligman, Tracy A. Steen, Nansook Park, and Christopher Peterson, “Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions,”
American Psychologist
60, no. 5 (2005): 410–21.

Chapter 3: Take Charge

1
. Julian B. Rotter,
Social Learning and Clinical Psychology
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1954).

2
. This meta-analysis did not just look at locus of control but also found that self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, and emotional stability are predictors of job performance and job satisfaction. These four traits are highly correlated and are sometimes used together as a single construct known as “core self-evaluation.” T. A. Judge and J. E. Bono, “Relationship of Core Self-Evaluations Traits—Self-Esteem, Generalized Self-Efficacy, Locus of Control, and Emotional Stability—with Job Satisfaction and Job Performance: A Meta-Analysis,”
Journal of Applied Psychology
86, no. 1 (2001): 80–92.

3
. Combining forty years of locus of control research with more than thirty thousand people across eighteen cultural regions, this meta-analysis looked at the influence of culture on locus of control. In particular, the researchers were interested in the difference between individualistic cultures and cultures with a more collective orientation. Results showed that, across cultures, an external locus of control is correlated with depression and anxiety, though anxiety varied more with cultural orientation, with more individualistic societies (such as the United States) having a higher correlation of anxiety and external locus of control. Cecilia Cheng, Shu-Fai Cheung, Jasmine Hin-Man Chio, and Man-Pui Sally Chan, “Cultural Meaning of Perceived Control: A Meta-Analysis of Locus of Control and Psychological Symptoms Across Eighteen Cultural Regions,”
Psychological Bulletin
139, no. 1 (2013): 152–88, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0028596.

4
. Qiang Wang, Nathan A. Bowling, and Kevin J. Eschleman, “A Meta-Analytic Examination of Work and General Locus of Control,”
Journal of Applied Psychology
95, no. 4 (2010): 761–68.

5
. Though many studies show that stress and illness are strongly related, this study looked at the role of one’s locus of control and level of self-efficacy when it comes to stress and illness. Results showed that participants with high levels of stress reported higher levels of illness and were more likely to have an external locus of control and low levels of self-efficacy. Locus of control was found to be a partial mediator between stress and illness, meaning those who were highly stressed but had an
internal
locus of control reported less illness compared with those who had an
external
locus of control. Angela Roddenberry and Kimberly Renk, “Locus of Control and Self-Efficacy: Potential Mediators of Stress, Illness, and Utilization of Health Services in College Students,”
Child Psychiatry and Human Development
41, no. 4 (2010): 353–70.

Chapter 4: Start a New Chapter

1
. Studies show that our upbringing leaves many of us fearful of letting others down, and we spend a lot of time attempting to avoid the stigma of failure. S. S. Sagar and J. Stoeber, “Perfectionism, Fear of Failure, and Affective Responses to Success and Failure: The Central Role of Fear of Experiencing Shame and Embarrassment,”
Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology
31, no. 5 (2009): 602–27.

2
. Beverley Stone,
Confronting Company Politics
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997). The existential cycle is built on work in the learning sciences, including research by David Kolb. Kolb used studies from across five decades to look at how we learn from Experience. D. A. Kolb,
Experimental Learning: Experiences as the Source of Learning and Development
, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1984).

3
. Suetonius, “The Crossing of the Rubicon,” in
Readings in Ancient History: Rome and the West
, ed. William Stearns Davis (Hawaii: University Press of the Pacific, 2004; New York: Allyn and Bacon, 1913).

Chapter 5: End Procrastination Now

1
. Timothy A. Pychyl, Jonathan M. Lee, Rachelle Thibodeau, and Allan Blunt, “Five Days of Emotion: An Experience Sampling Study of Undergraduate Student Procrastination,”
Journal of Social Behavior and Personality
15, no. 5 (2000): 239–54.

2
. Gregory Schraw, Theresa Wadkins, and Lori Olafson, “Doing the Things We Do: A Grounded Theory of Academic Procrastination,”
Journal of Educational Psychology
99, no. 1 (2007): 12–25.