Saturday, January 19, 2019

How Well Do You Know The Habits Of These People?

As a follow up to my last post, The 15 Laws of Habits, here’s a fun quiz on the habits of well-known people. Let’s see how you do on this test of your knowledge and your intuition.

Which of these was not one of Einstein’s habits?
1. Drinking caffeine free coffee
2. Building houses of cards
3. Never wearing socks
4. Sailing
5. Writing letters
6. Listening to Wagner and Debussy’s music with pleasure
7. Joining Christmas carolers on his violin
8. Sleeping 10 hours a day
9. Walking over 2 miles every day

Which of these was not a habit of Steve Jobs?
1. Going on walking meetings to brainstorm
2. Dining at Jin Sho Sushi restaurant in Palo Alto every night
3. Waking up at 6 a.m. every day
4. Asking people for things or resources he lacked or needed
5. Driving a Mercedes Benz SL55 AMG
6. Practicing Zen Buddhism
7. Wearing black mock turtlenecks
8. Taking his family to Kona Village in Hawai every year
9. Eating sushi and soba
10. Rehearsing relentlessly on stage for presentations
11. Eating carrots

Which of these was not a habit of Beethoven?
1. Daydreaming
2. Improvising
3. Falling out with his teachers
4. Publishing his own music
5. Walking every afternoon
6. Counting 60 coffee beans for every cup of coffee he drank in the morning
7. Studying music under Mozart
8. Annoying his landlord by causing water to drip through the floor onto the living room below because of the way he took his baths
9. Retiring to bed early

Which of these habits is not associated with Andy Warhol?
1. Regularly clearing his house and getting rid of stuff
2. Sporting a wide variety of wigs
3. Calling the same friend at 9 a.m. every day to dictate the previous day’s events
4. Drawing movie stars
5. Sending body doubles to lecture for him
6. Volunteering at homeless shelters
7. Painting each of his fingernails in a different color
8. Hosting coloring parties
9. Recording his thoughts and conversations with people on tape

Which of these habits is not true of Mahatma Gandhi?
1. Fasting
2. Wearing a dhoti
3. Running home from school as a boy so he wouldn't have to talk to anybody
4. Practicing non-violence
5. Switching hands while writing
6. Spinning cotton by hand
7. Practicing celibacy
8. Enjoying a good drink and a hearty meal
9. Writing
10. Protesting through marches
11. Reading
12. Amateur boxing

Bonus Question: Can you guess who this is by looking at this list of habits?
1. Eats according to Dr. Richard Bernstein's book The Diabetes Solution
2. Watches Tom Bilyeu podcasts on YouTube
3. Gifts the book Tools of the Titans by Tim Ferris to young people
4. Meditates regularly
5. Has long talks on the telephone
6. Bounds up the stairs for exercise
7. Checks out 10-30 books from the library
8. Watches old Hollywood movies like Talk of the Town
9. Blogs
10. Practices intermittent fasting from time to time
11. Sleeps on a mattress on the floor
12. Spends time people watching rather than going on rides at amusement parks

Answers:

Einstein:
6. Listening to Wagner and Debussy’s music with pleasure. Einstein did not like either of these composers and their music provoked his disgust.

Steve Jobs:
2. Having dinner at Jin Sho Sushi restaurant in Palo Alto every night.
Steve Jobs had dinner at home with his family every night.

Andy Warhol:
1. Regularly clearing his house and getting rid of stuff.
Andy Warhol was a famous hoarder.  The Warhol in Pittsburgh is a 7 floor museum dedicated to the stuff he collected over his lifetime. In the last 13 years of his life Andy deliberately created 610 boxes of stuff, which he referred to as time capsules. Contents included flyers from galleries, junk-mail, fan-letters, gallery-invitation cards, unopened letters, solicitations for work, freebie LPs, a lump of concrete, eccentric pornographic assemblages by Warhol's friends and associates, thousands of used postage stamps that the artist tore from envelopes, packets of sweets and unopened Campbell's soup tins, now open and on display at The Warhol.

Mahatma Gandhi:
8. Enjoying a good drink and a hearty meal. Mahatma Gandhi was a teetotaler and an ascetic when it came to his meals.

Beethoven:
7. Studying music under Mozart. Beethoven did not study under Mozart. He studied under other teachers, Joseph Haydn, notable among them. He fell out with most of them, Joseph Haydn included.

Bonus Question:
Mmm…..wonder who that is?

Hope you enjoyed this quiz.

Before you go, you should check out previous posts in which Steve Jobs, Gandhi and Einstein are featured or mentioned:

Posts in which Steve Jobs is featured or mentioned:



Posts in which Gandhi is featured or mentioned














Posts in which Einstein is featured or mentioned













Acknowledgements:

Thanks for the feedback, (comments, likes, shares) on my recent posts. I appreciate the kudos from old friends, new friends, and relatives who have become friends. You keep me going.

NEXT, thanks for sharing my journey to wisdom, meaning and a better life.  Like you, I am trying to find my way through this complex maze we call life, and I am honored to have you share my journey, as I continue to seek the wisdom hidden in plain sight.

FINALLY, A Happy Birthday shout-out:  to those with January birthdays. I hope you will use your birthday month to think about your habits and decide which ones to keep and which ones to discard. If you can think of new habits to replace your old discarded habits with, it's a double win.

To all my readers, have a blessed “doing good for yourself while doing good for others week”, and see you next week.
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Sunday, January 13, 2019

The 15 Laws of Habits


1. It's easier to start a new habit than to give up an old habit. What does this mean? Don’t start new habits that would be hard to give up.  You can see all the habits people find hard to give up – smoking, drinking, doing drugs, playing video games, criticizing.  Do you really want to start any of them, knowing that?  If you are already into any of these habits, get out while you can.

2.The company you keep, the places you hang out at, and where you source your information and advice from is key to picking up habits. Spend time at bars, you are likely to drink, spend time with video game players, you are likely to play video games a lot. Join a book club or a walking group, and you will read books and walk more. Learn to discern.

3.To develop a new habit, you have to take the first step. If you’ve never been to a gym, you have to sign up and go.

4.There are alternatives to many habits.  For example, therapy, exercise, meditation, yoga and sleep can be an alternative to prescription medicine for stress and insomnia. Low carb diets, intermittent fasting and weight loss programs can be an alternative to metformin and glucophage for diabetes.

5.Alternatives that do not work when you first try them may well work when you try them later.  I tried to meditate several times in my life starting from my 20s, but I succeeded later in life.

6.It is okay to be nervous about a new habit.  Some new habits are more nerve-wracking than others. Driving is nerve-wracking in the beginning. Public speaking is nerve wracking in the beginning. Understand that many things which are nerve-wracking become less and less nerve wracking as you develop confidence and do it again and again.  This was true for me with learning Excel when I switched from an advertising copy career to a commissions administration career. It was also true for me when I learned driving and I learned public speaking, just to name a few areas of my life which were nerve wracking.

7.Besides being nerve-wracking, everything is tough in the beginning.  Remember how tough it was for you to learn to ride a bicycle.  Or to learn to swim, or to skate, or to golf.  What’s tough in the beginning, gets easier as you become habituated to it.

8.You may ask, “Minoo, how do you write and publish a blog post every week?” The answer is: I have been at it for 8 years and 450 posts. So I have gotten better and better at both coming up with ideas and writing. Or you may ask me, “Minoo, how come it is so easy for you to meditate?” The answer is: I have been meditating as well for the past 8 years.  The more you do something, the better you get at it. Take a page out of my book. Better still, take a page out of your favorite athlete’s book – keep doing something, and you will get better and better and better and better and better at it. 

9.There are tools to give up habits.  If you have a spending problem, you can create an expense tracker and track all your expenses.  If you have a hard time being on time, you can use the alarm on your phone, or set your clock back so you are always on time. If you have an addiction, you can join AA. If you have been unsuccessful in giving up a habit without tools, then there's no question about it - you need to use tools. Do not resist this or procrastinate on this.

10.A habit can be liberating.  A regular exercise habit liberates you from gaining weight and being less healthy than you want to be. A reading habit liberates you from boredom and ignorance. A purposeful writing habit or community service habit can liberate you from the "now what" feeling that happens after you achieve any milestone.

11.Some habits you should take up just because they are character building. I have a friend who regularly cleans the bathrooms of the Buddhist temple she goes to. This is an example of a character-building habit.

12.It is easier to give up a bad habit if it is inconvenient for you to continue it.  I once met a person who told me she used to smoke when she lived in India, but she gave it up soon after coming to America, because she did not like to have to go outside to smoke. If you want to give up a habit, make it inconvenient for you to continue it.  For example, if you want to give up alcohol, live far from a liquor store, avoid social events where liquor is served, and avoid people who enable your addiction.  Make it inconvenient.  If you want to give up cakes and ice-cream and anything else that’s bad for you, don’t stock it at home and if you know it's going to be served at a party, eat before you go to the party.  You will have an easier time of giving up an unhealthy eating habit this way.  Do you know after I went low-carb, I stopped buying potatoes and rice and bread altogether.  Take a leaf out of my book.

13.Repetition is the key determinant of success with new habits.  You have to take the first step. Then you have to do it again.  Then you have to do it again.  Then you have to do it again.  Then you have to do it again.  People who excel at things often do so only after they have been at it for 10,000 hours. Repetition is essential and it is powerful and rewarding.

14.Good habits lead to great habits.  The more you exercise, the more you can exercise. The further you can go. And the more challenging things you can attempt. In yoga - you may find yourself starting with the easy Lotus pose and eventually being able to do the difficult crane pose. The 2 mile walker becomes the 5 mile walker. The 5 mile walker becomes the 10 mile walker. The 10 mile walker becomes the 13.1 mile walker. The 13.1 mile walker becomes the 26.2 mile walker.

15.Finally, we become associated with our habits. Depending on when and how you know me,  you will associate me with this blog, or with the Fiesta advertising campaign I created, or with wearing sweaters in the Chennai heat, or with wearing sunshades at night, or with drinking till I passed out, or with playing my own compositions on the guitar. For your information, of the above, this blog is the only habit which still stands.

Hope this post inspires you to give up any habits that are bad for you.

More importantly, I hope this post inspires you to embark on new habits that are good for you.

What better time than the start of a brand new year to do both? When December 31,2019 rolls around, you should be able to celebrate at least one habit victory - preferably the most important one.

I suggest you firm up your resolve by writing this in the Dec 31st box of your 2019 calendar – “Celebrate my habit victories with Minoo”.

How are we going to do that?

Leave that to me.  When Dec 31 2019 rolls round, just let me know your habit victories of 2019, and we will figure out a way to celebrate them.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks for the feedback, (comments, likes, shares) on my recent posts. I appreciate the kudos from old friends, new friends, and relatives who have become friends. You keep me going.

NEXT, thanks for sharing my journey to wisdom, meaning and a better life.  Like you, I am trying to find my way through this complex maze we call life, and I am honored to have you share my journey, as I continue to seek the wisdom hidden in plain sight.

FINALLY, A Happy Birthday shout-out:  to those with January birthdays. I hope you will use your birthday month to give up bad habits and start good ones.

To all my readers, have a blessed “doing good for yourself while doing good for others”week, and see you next week.
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