Hooked - Varaibale reward of self

In the hooked book Nir Eyal speaks about the variable rewards divided in 3 categories:

1. Reward from the tribe

2. Reward of the Hunt

3. Reward of the Self

These are the different types of variable rewards.

Nir tells a story with respect to the study conducted by a psychologist B.F Skinner. 

B.F Skinner placed food pellets in the pigeon cage attached to a machine that dispensed the when the a level was pulled by the pigeons.

B.F Skinner observed that when he modified the level to dispense the pallet on randomly, the number of times the pigeons pushed the lever increased.

He revealed that intermittent rewards dynamically increased the number of times the pigeons tapped the lever. 

The same principle applies to humans. I will explain more in my next post. 

Variable reward - Notes from 'Hooked'

Everyone likes to be rewarded for their actions and sometimes for taking any action.

In the chapter on 'variable reward' I learnt that it not the act of receiving the reward but the expectation of a reward that is most enjoyable / rewarding to everyone.

Everyone one of us must have taken an lottery ticket in their life. If you carefully think about it was the expectation that you might have a chance of 1 in 27,269,633 (Lottery Mathematics) that motivates you to buy that lottery.

In any product of app,

Learning from today:

1. If you are not prepared for a client call, don't attend it. You will just make it worse.

2. Focus on 2 or max 3 things at a time. The more you learn, the more you will struggle to put to practice.

3. Always think twice before doing a task. Do the 20% that will yield you 80% result. The better you can delegate and present the better you will get in your career.

Preparation never fails

Today I learnt that we have to be prepared always (at least most of the times), as the preparation would not ever fail you.

The preparation starts with asking more questions, taking a moment before committing/agreeing on something.

The next step is to visualize it happening, as I am not that great at visualizing all the scenarios I get started by writing it down in a piece of paper. 

Will power depletion

One thing I learned today is that will power is not an unlimited resource.  It is definitely limited and more you use it less you have for rest of the day.

The most simpler method to explain this is to think of willpower as point.  In the beginning of the day you have 100 will power points and then as you progress through your day slowly deplete it and by the evening,  if you had a hard day,  it is going to be 0.

This is where most of the time all the diets gets blown of and we crave for some sugary foods.

The main reason why you start craving is because sugar can increase the glucose lever like of our body which in turn gives an energy boost to our body.
Sleep is another action that can restore our willpower.

The best way to utilize our limited willpower is to use our environment to conserve our limited willpower.  If we use our will power to change our environment,  our new environment can help us to conserve our will power.

TL;DR

Will power is a limited resource,  we careful how use spend it through out your day.

Vision Statement - Does it really matter ?

Vision. It might be the most derided word in the business vocabulary. Most often vision is something that you say to yourself or your colleagues to feel good about your work, but it might not have anything to do with your daily work.

 Why do we need a vision?

A vision is essential to keep us aligned to our initial dream/ goal. Many team get deviated from the goals they initially started out with. The vision statement helps to start conversations and questions about what we do on a day to day basis.

Who is responsible for the vision statement?

A vision statement can only be forged by a visionary. A visionary is someone who understands the big picture. A visionary is anyone who gets a bright idea, evangelizes it and get it approved to pursue it.

More to come in the next posts.. Come back soon :)

Working with others

Commander's Intent


Don't tell others what to do, explain to them why you want them to do that.

Don't become a micro manager.