Jason Hartman interviews research scientist, Heidi Grant Halvorson regarding the science behind human motivation and success. There are many successful people in the world who are highly motivated and have concise goals, but how many actually understand why they’re successful or why they fail? The common belief is that certain people are just genetically wired to succeed or fail. Heidi states this is not entirely the case and shares the findings of scientific research on achievement. She talks about strategies that people use, principles that people can count on and apply to their own life, and states that our own intuition about what helps us succeed or causes us to fail can often be incorrect. It’s not about ability or IQ. Listen at: www.JasonHartman.com for additional details. Heidi explains the psychological factors behind how people react to challenges, the beliefs and mindsets that people have as they try to reach a goal. Defining success is personal, dependant on an individual’s sense of well-being, lasting happiness and autonomy. She says it’s important to be specific about goals, to break them down into manageable, specific pieces that are planned out with when and where, and taking the time to define success for ourselves.
Jason and Heidi also discuss the relationship between money and happiness, expressing that there is a money point where it does make it easier to make choices and pursue the things individuals find interesting in life, plus containing a sense of accomplishment and opening the door to help others. Unhappiness comes about when a person makes and uses their money for the wrong reasons, lacking sensibility, leading to dissatisfaction. Heidi emphasizes motivation and realistic goals are important. Jason shares his own opinion on wealth, noting that, on the one hand, having more “things” can actually become a burden, but it does allow a person to help others and create experiences and memories. Heidi states that what people do with their wealth is the important factor for fulfillment and happiness. Heidi Grant Halvorson is a rising star in the field of motivational science. She is a an Expert Blogger for Fast Company, The Huffington Post, and Psychology Today, as well as a regular contributor to the BBC World Service’s Business Daily, the Harvard Business Review, and SmartBrief’s SmartBlog on Leadership. Her writing has also been featured on CNN Living and Mamapedia. Heidi is also Associate Director of the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia University Business School. In addition to her work as author and co-editor of the highly-regarded academic book The Psychology of Goals (Guilford, 2009), she has authored papers in her field’s most prestigious journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,European Journal of Social Psychology, and Judgment and Decision Making. She has received numerous grants from the National Science Foundation for her research on goals and achievement. Her work has been praised by Carol Dweck and Matthew Kelly, among many others.
Dr. Grant Halvorson is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and was recently elected to the highly selective Society for Experimental Social Psychology. She gives frequent invited addresses and speaks regularly at national conferences, and is available for speaking and consulting engagements, primarily in education, marketing, and management. She received her PhD in social psychology from Columbia University.
FeMale Voice: Welcome to Creating Wealth with Jason Hartman. During this program Jason is going to tell you some really exciting things that you probably haven’t thought of before and a new slant on investing fresh new approaches to America’s best investment that will enable you to create more wealth and happiness then you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine, self made multi-millionaire who not only talks the talk but walks the walk.
He’s been a successful investor for 20 years and currently owns properties in 11 States and 17 Cities. This program will help you follow in Jason’s footsteps on the road to financial freedom. You really can do it. And now, here’s your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.
Jason Hartman: Welcome to Creating Wealth Show. This is you host Jason Hartman and this is Episode Number 260 Thank you so much for joining me today, and thank you for all of you who joined us in St. Louis and St. Robert over the last weekend. Just had a fantastic time and again, it always amazes me how much I learn and how much my team learns from you, our listeners and our clients. So, thank you again so much for your contribution and of course your business. We very much appreciate that as well, of course. And yeah, it was a fantastic time.
We had the reception on Friday night. People came from all over. It was really nice seeing familiar faces and new faces, as well. I think we had kind of a nice mix of both at this event and did the Creating Wealth Seminar on Saturday and then Sunday we toured St. Louis and then Monday the group went on without me but with a couple of other team members of ours, Molly and Ari and Zack, our St. Robert Specialist and looked at St. Robert, Missouri and the feedback I got was just excellent from that. I heard all of you had a great time and we ate some BBQ and had some nice meals together and it was just really, really great to see everybody and to do the Creating Wealth Boot Camp out there again.
So, a look at the headlines before we get to our 10th show today, our 10th meting every 10th. This is Number 260, of course, where we talk about a non-financial topic and we have Heidi Grant Halvorson today, who’s going to talk about Succeed, How We Can Reach Our Goals. And I think you’ll get some great insights from that. And of course, we got a whole bunch of great shows coming up for you afterwards in the 260 era, 261 and on, and before we get to Heidi though, let’s just talk about a couple of pieces of news. This one comes to us from Channel 13, which is an Indianapolis station, Eyewitness News there in Indianapolis, Indiana one of the markets we’ve done business in for many years, one of the markets I own in myself, and you know, we haven’t talked that much about this market lately because we’ve had so many other markets frankly kind of overshadowing it a bit, but it’s just a great market. It’s nothing exciting goes from there, and that’s what’s great about it. You know, it’s just really consistent, stayed, stur4dy, consistent market in Indianapolis, and this article is entitled “Tight Housing Market”, puts Indy on the national rents by list.
It Says, Indianapolis, food prices, gas prices, now add rent to the list of essentials that are on the rise. A national broker rates Indianapolis as the City with the fifth highest spike in rent prices. A tight housing market is putting the squeeze on consumers. For lease, for rent, but for how much? The answer is, more than many renters expected. “In places I’ve lived, the rents have gone up anywhere from $25 to $30 a month”, said Carla Cassinelli, who has rented numerous apartments over the last decade. How bad is it? Internet real estate broker truly has said rent increases in Indianapolis are among the highest in the Country, jumping an astounding 11 percent in one year. Did you hear that? Jumping an astounding 11 percent in one year. “People can’t buy houses like they used to. They are forced to rent, which means higher demand for renting , so a little more can be squeezed out of the rents”, said Jeff Adler Dorphen. By the way, that’s one of the management companies we’ve used there. It looks as if renters will continue being squeezed. “In Indianapolis Metropolitan area, I see rents moving somewhere in the two to five percent range. And by the way, that includes apartments. Single family homes have gone up a lot more. So, this is really, really exciting for us as landlords.
And you know, Indianapolis is just an example. This is happening all over in markets that we represent in many, many places, all around the nation. What a great time to be a landlord, and you know, on the last show, I want to kind of clarify some of my remarks on the last show, because I talk about it but sometimes I go and listen to the show and I’m thinking like, did I really make that really make that clear to people what I was talking about and if you ever have questions about what I say, please question me, post to comment on our website or whatever. And fill out one of the remarks and let us know. Tell our investment counselors, gosh what did Jason mean by this when he was on the show. It will be glad to answer it on a future show. We love to get our listeners, our clients on the show and we love to get listener questions and comments. So, keep those coming and you can submit them at JasonHartman.com.
But one of the things I talked about was the W shaped recovery. On the last show I talked about that and I talked about it on several prior shows. And what I mean by that is that, and it’s really not a recovery at all, it’s kind of a misstatement by saying that, but the W shaped pattern that I think the economy will follow.
So, the first part of that, as I explained on the last episode, is the depressionary deflationary recession that we’ve been in for the past couple of years. The second part of that t W, which misleads people into thinking it’s a recovery — and see, I don’t think we’re in a recovery at all. I just think it’s an illusion of recovery created by inflation, by all of this massive amount of money printed.
And you know, remember the election campaign that Ronald Regan used many ago, it was this, it was questioned. It said, Are you better off than you were four years ago? And the answer was, no, you know with Jimmy Carter, right. That was the impetus to elect Regan as President, and the great question for Obama is, are you better off then you were five trillion dollars ago? And I bet the answer was, no, you’re not. It’s given the illusion of a recovery a little bit here, a bit5 of an illusion of recovery and we see housing markets increasing in prices all over the Country. Some massive price increases, frankly from the low point, but it’s not a recovery because it’s going to inflict a lot of pain on people through inflation.
So, this looks like a recovery. It’s a massive recovery for people following my plan. Using inflation induced debt destruction, investing in commodities that have universal need, like rental housing. It’s a great recovery for them, but for the rest of people, it’s not a recovery at all. In fact, it’s going to be very, very painful, and no one could ever accuse me of being an optimist, right? I’m just an optimist, right? So, you might ask yourself and this is a question I’ve been asking many of my seminars, live events over the years, Jason, you’re rather pessimistic about things. You’re not an optimist.
Well, if things are going to get so bad, then who’ll be around to rent my property from me? Things have got to be good enough for everybody else, otherwise I’m not going to have renters if they don’t jobs or if they don’t have high enough paying jobs, how are they going to rent my property? Well, the answer to that is this. And you might envision this, picture this in your mind. Picture two ladders and the ladders are moving and they represent the socio economic ladder, and every one of us finds ourselves on — you know, a different place on the socio economic ladder, right. Some are richer, some are poorer, some are in the middle, okay. And that’s the ladder that’s existed throughout human history, even in Communist countries. They have very, very elite class that control and run everything. I mean hey, Communism is great, socialism is great for the people at the top running the show, right. It’s just not great for everybody else.
So, everybody’s in a different place on that ladder, and your tenants today, if you were renting a property in say, ad I’ll just pick Indianapolis, because I just mentioned it, but Indianapolis and Atlanta, those are the two markets where we have really large, large homes that people rent. And our investors buy those properties and they’re pretty spacious. Okay. So, in Indianapolis or Atlanta, say for example you are renting — you own a property there and you’re renting it to a tenant and that property is, just for sake of discussion, 2.500 square feet and it’s 2012. Now as things progress and as the “recovery” occurs, which is not really a recovery at all, but the illusion of a recovery keeps occurring, what these people will find because they’re not following our plan because they’re not listening to the Creating Wealth Show, what they will find is that, as time goes on, they become progressively poorer and poorer. And why is this, because inflation destroys the value of what assets they have.
So, what assets do they have? Well, they have their income. Their income will be the base and it will decline in value through inflation. Hopefully, they have some savings, but that savings will be attacked by inflation. If they own any stocks, bonds or mutual funds, well those things will be attacked by inflation and if they happen to own a property somewhere else, they’re renting this one from you but maybe they own a property somewhere else they don’t live in. They might be an investor too. I’ve certainly had tenants over the years who own real estate in maybe another area or in a property in the same area but it’s not the one they happen to live in and they rent from us. So, if they have equity in that property, that equity is also attacked by inflation.
And see, I’ve always said that. I’ve always taught you that regardless of the amount of equity you have in a property, the property will still rent for the same amount of money regardless of the equity, whether you own it free and clear or you have it leveraged to the hilt. Even if it’s under water, and the loan to value ratio is 150 percent of the property, the property will rent for what its market value is.
Also, the value of the property will go up and down with the market regardless of the loan balance on the property. See what I mean? So, what happens here is the equity of the property is attacked by inflation, so my advice, once again is, constantly engage in the activity of equity stripping as much as you can. Now, is it better to have equity in a stock account or a savings account, or in real estate? Well, it’s much better to have it in real estate, of course, because at least then you have income from the property, you have tax benefits from the property and you control commodities that have absolute unequivocal universal need, housing. Everybody on the planet needs food, clothing and shelter, right. So, let them rent that shelter from you. But, if you were one of the fortunate people who can finance properties then of course, you should finance them. If they have equity in them now, refinance them, pull the equity out, get control of that money, don’t spend it on worthless consumer goods that go down in value, spend it n the guns not the butter, you know the old guns and butter theory. The guns are the things that give you offensive capabilities in life. Butter, that’s the appearances of wealth. Those are the things like new cloths, nice cars, expensive vacations, things that go down in value. Those are the butter and you don’t want to be using the equity, pilling the equity out of your property to buy butter. You want to buy guns with that.
Okay, you want to make that equity work for you once you pull it out. So, very important thing to think about there. Guns and butter theory, equity stripping, more on this on prior episodes, get my products at JasonHartman.com, the Creating Wealth Seminar, the one I did Saturday. I have a recorded version of that on the website. Very, very valuable, and I highly recommend of course that you listen to that. Very reasonably priced too,
And you know another thing, I’m always getting these questions about asset protection. Now, I’m not a lawyer, okay and I cannot give legal advice, but I can share with you my own experience. And my own experience is that I see a lot of clients putting the cart before the horse. I see a lot of people setting up these LLCs and all these entities when they could simply get a good insurance policy and they have no idea the kind of complexity they’re creating for themselves. Different bank accounts, separate tax returns for the new entity, and the financing hassles, very, very difficult for finance properties, residential properties under four units when you use these entities like an LLC. Okay so, be a little careful and really think twice about that.
My recommendation is go listen in the Member Section at JasonHartman.com, go listen to the interview I did with Rich Dad Author, Garrett Sutton, who wrote one of the Robert Kiyosaki books. It’s excellent. He explains so succinctly and so inexpensively how you can do asset protection. And I am following his plan. It is right there for you to listen to. I think I did about an hour interview with him and before you go spend thousands of dollars with one of these services that creates these entities, or a lawyer, just give yourself some education. Join — get the membership. There’s tons of other benefits. It’s $197.00 a year. Probably the best money saving investment you’re ever going to make okay before you fool around with all this other stuff. All right.
I wanted to also share with you a listener wrote me and you know, I get these all the time and I don’t feel it’s proper to spend the show’s time sharing them with you, but you know, once in a while I do and I just want to thank our listener and client, Richard, for sending this one in and he did give me permission to use this on the air. And he just wrote me a nice little note. It says, “Hi Jason. Thanks for the recent slew of great shows and congratulations on breaking the 250 episode mark. I really enjoyed Harry Dent again. I personally don’t think he’s right about another crash coming, but who knows. I do like his deep analysis of the economy and like you, worry about where things are headed. I remain optimistic and realistic, but in banking and betting on real estate’s continued bright future, especially in the rental arena, I deeply share your enthusiasm for our investor market and I am trying to bring all of my family and friends into your cult. Ha ha. I do credit you for my knowledge in this area and without you I might not have come to where I am today. One year ago, my wife and I owned one rental property and now we own nine rental properties, with two more properties in escrow, scheduled to close in the next two weeks. Our goal is to own 20 by years end and I believe we will make it. You are a true inspiration”. Richard.
Hey Richard, I know you’re listening to this so thank you so much. That was really kind, and I could have retired several years ago and people sometimes ask me why I’m still. working.
One of my listeners, Joel, who lives in France asked me that just the other day and first of all folks, I don’t think retirement is really that good for people. I don’t think I’ll ever be too interested in retirement, even though I have financial dependents and could retire. I wouldn’t want it because number one, I feel like I’m making a difference in the world. I feel like I’m really providing a service and thank you for — thank all of you for your feedback in that respect. And gosh, you know, what else is there to do? I mean, this fun, you know. I love what I do. It’s just great to be in a position where you don’t need the business, but you can do the business and you can really operate sort of a higher level with a more principled level, I think, when you don’t need the money.
You know, everybody likes to make money. Sure it’s all great but at some point you’re just doing it because it excites you, because you’re interested, because you’re on a mission, and that’s how I feel about it. So, it’s a great place to be. I wasn’t always there. Seven, eight years ago, I wasn’t in that position but I’m thankful with my investments and my business that I’m in now.
John Burns, you know I’m talking about his stuff all the time. We’ve got to have John back on the show because some of the stuff he’s putting out lately is just fantastic. John Burns Real Estate consulting, out with the newsletter it says, Rental housing booms set to explode. Rental households comprised 34 percent of the housing stock and are growing at an incredible rate of 1.6 million per year. Well owned households, in other words owner occupied, are actually declining in number. This is an incredible surge in rental demand, and he shows a graph here that’s a very, very telling about the increase in rental housing demand. From the year 2000 to 2015, in 15 short years, we went from 33 million up to 45 mi8llion.
Now of course, that’s a projection, but just between 2010 and 2015, the — and part of it is already curd of course, the projection for growth and rental housing demand is 8.2 million households. In our summary of the U.S. Housing Market, he goes on to say, oh well, note that only 20 percent of renters live in large buildings, 20 plus units, and the remaining 80 percent of renters live in alternate types of housing. He says, approximately 55 percent of new renters are renting single family homes. Did you hear that, listeners, because that’s what most of our clients are buying, approximately 55 percent of new renters are renting single family homes. Wow, that should be music to your ears, shouldn’t it?
Well 45 percent are renting apartments. The single family rental business, which is already larger than the institutional quality apartment business is booming unprecedented levels of distressed home sales at home price rent ratios that are the lowest in decades is driving the boom. Eventually, most of these renters will become home owners, but in the meantime, smart investors will take advantage of the temporary disconnect in the market. Single family renter growth.
Now, there’s a chart here. New households, .4 million owners displaced three million and multi-family moving into single family. So, these are people moving from apartments into single family homes, 1.1 million. That’s 4.5 million growth in renters renting single family homes. Folks, the opportunity we have now, it’s just unbelievable. It is stellar. Never in my many, many years in this business have I seen so many of the stars aligned, so many of the factors aligned to be in our favor as investors. It’s a wonderful, wonderful time, and I know I may sound like a salesman saying that, but I’ve got to say it because it’s true.
And you know, if you’ve been listening to the last 260 episodes, you know I didn’t always say it that way and you know I didn’t always sight all of these factors that I’m citing now.
The one I always cited pretty much was inflation induced at destruction, and for many years that has been the case. But hey, check out our properties at JasonHartman.com, in the Properties Section JasonHartman.com/Properties and our educational products that our member’s section, great opportunities for you and we will be back on the next show Episode Number 261 to talk about economics and inflation and income property investment, directly. But remember, every 10th show w talk about a non-financial life enrichment topic and for that, we have Heidi Grant Halverson, which will be back with us in just a moment.
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Jason Hartman: My pleasure to welcome Heidi Grant Halverson to the show. She is the author of Succeed, How We Can Reach Our Goals, and unlike so many people taking abut the subject out there, Heidi is a Research Scientist. So, we’re going to hear about some real hard science today and how it applies to motivation and how we can live more successful lives. Heidi, welcome.
Heidi Halverson: Oh, thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Jason Hartman: Well, our pleasure to have you. So, where are you located, by the way?
Heidi Halverson: I spend my time sort of between New York City and Eastern Pennsylvania.
Jason Hartman: Fantastic. Well, so you are a Research Scientist —
Heidi Halverson: Right.
Jason Hartman: — in the subject — the field of human motivation. What do you do every day? I mean, I don’t understand what that would — what would be your typical day?
Heidi Halverson: Well you know, a typical day involves things like you know, conducting experiments, but what I think is different about the approach that I take to motivation from say, you know a lot of the other kind of advice that you get out there from people. You know, much of that advice is person, and so someone who is very successful says, this works for me, this didn’t work for me, so that’s my advice to you. The approach we take is really to take a step back and say sort of objectively, let’s look at 100 people trying to lose 10 pounds. Let’s look at 100 people trying to get a promotion and let’s look at what they do and let’s look at who succeeds and who fails and try to figure out you know what the difference is. And the difference is usually has to do with like the strategies they use to try to reach their goals, and so we’re able to identify, oh that’s a strategy that works and that’s a strategy that doesn’t. so, we kind of take a — by taking a little bit of a step back, you kind of get better sense of sort of what works for everybody, not just what works for one person but what seems sort of principle that you can really kind of count on. And then you can apply those principles in your own life that can sort of count on. And then you can apply those principles in your own life to be more successful, and one of the things that we find is that our intuition about success and failure and what makes someone successful or not, are tend to be really wrong.
You know, there are lots of areas in psychology where kind of common sense tells you basically how something works. This is not one of them. You know, we kind of — we feel like we know what makes someone successful. We feel like we know why we were successful sometimes, and other times not. And many times our answers are just wrong. And then we know that by kind of again taking the step back looking at hundreds and hundreds of people and seeing what the success stories have in common and what the failure stories have in common and often they’re not the things that you would intuitively think are the reasons.
So, it’s a different kind of approach but I like about it is, it’s fairly — you know, it’s an evidence state’s approach, and so what I do on most days is you know, design, study to try to kind of isolate these things, to try to say, you know what, I wonder if this strategy would be a good strategy, and then you try to design a study that really tests that idea by having people use that strategy in the lab or in the classroom or in the workplace and see if it works for them.
Jason Hartman: So then your academic training — I mean, you were a professor —
Heidi Halverson: Um hmm.
Jason Hartman: — are you a professor now?
Heidi Halverson: Well, I’ve been a professor now. I’m actually at the Columbia Business School and an Associate Director of the Motivation Science Firm to there. So, I used to do a lot more teaching, now I mostly focus on doing research. And then writing about — in a part of — a big part of what I do these days has to do with sort taking what we learned in these experiments in these very studies and kind of translate them into English so that people can actually use them. So, I spend a lot of my time these days writing for different kinds of outlets. I write for the Harvard Business Review a lot and for kind of get people to learn about this stuff so they can use it to actually improve.
Jason Hartman: And I should also say you write for Fast Company.
Heidi Halverson: That’s right.
Jason Hartman: You barge for them the Huffington Post Psychology Today and you’re a regular contributor to the BBC’s World Service Business Daily. So, that’s fantastic. Now — so, is your academic background then in psychology or —
Heidi Halverson: That’s right.
Jason Hartman: — or statistics or — I mean it would seem you would have the most —
Heidi Halverson: The — you have — in psychology, we learn a fair amount about statistics just to be able to do our jobs. But my thesis is in psychology and my area is specialization, is motivation. So, I’ve always been interested in the questions having to do with why do some people — you know, when you do something difficult which is challenging, why do some people withdraw and they feel helpless and they face the difficulties, while other people sort of kind of dig deep and experience it as a challenge and then really kind of rise to the occasion and the way — how are those two kinds of people different from each other? The interesting thing is that, you know, what you might think but then like, oh you maybe one is smarter than the other. It turns out not to be the case. IQ does not predict anything about how someone handles difficulties.
So, it tends to be these more sort of psychological variables, our beliefs about ability, the kinds of goals we set for ourselves, the mindset that you have when you’re approaching this old — the strategies as I said that you use when you’re trying to reach it, that really actually spell out the difference between success and failure.
Jason Hartman: So before — you know, we’re going to drill down into this Heidi —
Heidi Halverson: Um hmm.
Jason Hartman: — but let’s — I mean — I think before w start we have to define success.
Heidi Halverson: Right.
Jason Hartman: And of course that means something different to everybody, but the general western idea of success, I think would be fair to say, would be economic success, mostly. It’s the most visible, it’s the most quantifiable motive success, but of course there are many other definitions in areas of success. How do you define success?
Heidi Halverson: Well, in the work that I do and other people do in this area, we tend to define sort of in the eye of the beholder. It really doesn’t — in many cases matter what the kind of goal is that you’re pursuing. It just matters that you have a goal and then we kind of figure out what works, because this — surprisingly, the things that tend to work trying to lose the strategy you would use trying to lose weight, are often in many cases the same strategies — motivational strategies you would use to get your finances in order or get along better with your spouse, or remember to call your mother. Whatever the goal is often tends the same kinds of strategies are useful.
Now having said that, and you know, that success is very much I think personal. It has everything to do with being successful at the goals you choose and they’re going to be determined of course by your experiences and your values. I would say, on top that there is really quite a bit of research showing that some goals are better than others and by better, we mean better to give us a lasting sense of well being and having this. It turns out, accumulating money for the sake of accumulating more of it, fame, popularity, power. These kinds of goals which are by the way the goals most of us [inaudible] all the time, really actually tend to not predict — I mean, everybody’s happy when they reach their goals, but they don’t necessarily predict lasting happiness as well as goals that we kind of think of as ones that satisfy our basic human needs, the things like feeling connected to other people, feeling competence, you know being able to use your skills and develop new ones and feeling autonomist which is kind of these are the things that you get to choose what you do and your choices reflect who you are, your values, your preferences. You feel like you’re authentically you. When people set goals that kind of get to the feelings of connecting, the feelings of confidence, and feeling that they’re kind of — doing things that are chosen because they speak to them personally, those are the goals that when you reach them, seem to be to — much of those deeper and longer lasting happiness. It has nothing to do with the other goals aren’t good and of course often it’s the case that you need to be concerned about making money in order to maybe do some of these other things that your want to do that are kind of more — so, it’s — so, they’re interrelated you know.
Jason Hartman: Sure they are. They are interrelated. That’s a very good point. So, a couple of comments on that and let’s just talk about kind of a money thing first, if we can.
Heidi Halverson: Um hmm.
Jason Hartman: You know for a minute here, because that is so visible and quantifiable and in the Western world, most people have their basic needs met. They’re moving up mazel’s hierarchy and you know, they’ve got the basics taken care of fortunately. I mean, thankful we — that of course it becoming maybe less true now days in this time of economic hardship where you’ve got — you know you see tent cities around the U.S. and homelessness rates and so forth, but by and large, anybody listening to this show has their basic needs, but — and they’re striving beyond that to move up that run. And so, money does create independence to some extent and that feeling of being autonomist and being able to make one’s own choices in the life is a freedom, and that creates a sense of well being and happiness, right?
Heidi Halverson: Absolutely.
Jason Hartman: Now, in some of the studies I’ve read about money like whether prosperity really the old saying is you know, money can’t buy happiness and what I say to that is, it buys more happiness than poverty does.
Heidi Halverson: Yeah, that is certainly true.
Jason Hartman: Yeah, it doesn’t solve problems, it just creates new sets of problems and it maybe makes the stuff that’s less pleasant in life. You know, you can hire other people to do that stuff that you don’t to do.
Heidi Halverson: Yes.
Jason Hartman: So there’s maybe some freedom and independence in that.
Heidi Halverson: I think you’re absolutely right I that idea that you mentioned before that sort of having money up frees you to making autonomist choices, is I really think a big part of it. I mean it sort of becomes about what you do with it. The studies that look at the relationship between wealth and happiness, they do show that there — you have to get to a certain level before you’re not miserable, because obviously poverty is very bad. You know, but then what sort of what happens beyond that. What happens beyond when my needs are met and which is really interesting space.
Now, what the data seems to show is that there isn’t really a reliable relationship between what happens after the needs are met, so you’re accumulating more wealth and you’re not necessarily happier, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people in that — you know, that’s an on average. And I think there are people in that, that are in fact happier because they have more money, because of what they’re doing with it, that they are using that money in ways that allow them to — like I said, that it satisfies these other needs. It satisfies them to be able to the freedom to make choices, the freedom to pursue the things that you find interesting in life and rewarding, the freedom to have time to be with people you want to have connections with. And there is of course a feeling of achievement. You know that there is something to be said for that too. Someone here is really excellent at what they do. That is also very satisfying and leads to greater well being and so there’s a kind of a satisfaction there that’s less about the money and more than just the — like wow, I’m really good at this and that feels really good.
You know, so I do think that it’s too simplistic to say money doesn’t buy you happiness, and it really is more about making wise choices abut what that money affords you to do, and when people get too wrapped up in just making the money for the sake of making the money and then not really attending what the other needs —
Jason Hartman: That doesn’t work. No.
Heidi Halverson: — that’s when you’re going to find people who aren’t happy and that’s why your find sort of on average. People aren’t happier because there’s a lot of people that kind of aren’t doing it right.
Jason Hartman: Yeah, so the things I’ve read about6 that you know I remember reading about a really interesting study maybe five, six years ago, and it talked about the prosperity issue and it compared — it talked about different countries and then within the U.S. and there was a lot of stuff about this out at that time. Maybe it was one of your studies, who knows, but it basically said that in the United States and of course this is for a person who’s into their ’40s and older than that, probably, but in the United States, if you could put a number on it in terms of a net worth number, they came to the conclusion that the net worth number that really kind of buys” you the ideal level of happiness, and it depends where you live —
Heidi Halverson: Right.
Jason Hartman: — and what your expenses are, now if you live in New York City or California, this number’s got to be higher, but if you live in the Mid-West or the Southeast, this number is going to be fine, right. Here’s the number. I bet everybody’s waiting with beta’d breath —
Heidi Halverson: Right.
Jason Hartman: — and I want to hear what you’re going to say. What is the number? Is it one million, is it ten million? It was about one and a half million dollar net worth, 1.5. That was the number they came up with and that was of course before real estate prices doubled.
Heidi Halverson: Right.
Jason Hartman: So, maybe that number needs to be adjusted. It went up and then now it’s back down a little bit. What are your thoughts on that?
Heidi Halverson: I do think it has a lot to do with the point at which people feel that they’re not worried anymore. Now of course what happens for people — you know, there’s a keeping up with the Jones’ thing that happened for a while. You know, if you get — if you’re making $50,000 and then suddenly you’re making $100,000 a year, you don’t necessarily feel quite as wealthy because your expenses generally go up too. You’re moving to a nicer neighborhood, you buy a nicer car and that happens for a while and it keeps progressing. You know there was an article in the New York Times that was interesting not too long ago that was very controversial about basically how rough it is for the ultra rich in New York, because they have such expenses. And they are staggering. I mean, if you — because you have to have to have a house in the Hamptons and you have to have — and if you look at all these costs, and — but there is that sensibility that it’s sort of — and my guess is that somewhere around that point is where people are feeling like they can breathe. They really — it’s not hard to keep up anymore and they can maybe relax a little bit. You know, there’s also a lot of research showing that your money either — the ideal way to kind of make people happy is to take money out of the equation. Sometimes — so in other words, you have — but in order to do that you have to make the amount of money so big. Dan [Inaudible] talks about a list about his motivated employees, that the idea about taking money out of the equation is basically pay them really, really well, and then money is no longer something they’re kind of worried about and so you open up all this mental space for creativity and evasion and you know, really enjoying their jobs, because you’ve kind of taken that out, which is usually something people kind of fret over.
So you know, I think there is probably a wealth point in which people sort of don’t worry quite so much and that opens up space mentally for all these other things that really are kind of enriching, and that would be my guess.
Jason Hartman: I would agree with you and I would say that one needs to get to the point in the money game where money buys margin, where you have this margin of comfort, cushion —
Heidi Halverson: Right.
Jason Hartman: — that you don’t have to worry about things and that you have freedom and autonomy from everything. And I say that things are — it’s really a paradoxical time that we live in because I’m an economist, okay. and things are deteriorating in many ways and I think they will get a lot worse for some but for others, they are accumulating more and more and it’s really kind of sad to see the middle class going away in this country —
Heidi Halverson: It is.
Jason Hartman: — because I think it’s been such a stabilized factor. But yeah, I think that’s a really good way to look at money and the only other comment I would have and would love to get your thoughts on is that, I think when — and I’ve noticed that at times in my life when I’ve been successful, sometimes all these things you buy really become more of a burden and a ball and chain on you, then a pleasure. You know, I used to have a big yacht, but it was just a big hassle. And frankly —
Heidi Halverson: And you know, you don’t — yeah, it’s — it is a burden. It’s a responsibility done. It has to be taken care of.
Jason Hartman: The things you own start to own you, and what I’d say that people want to have in their lives is they want to have that margin, that autonomy, but they also want to use their money to do some good in the world because that’s very gratifying internally.
Heidi Halverson: It is.
Jason Hartman: And also, to buy experiences, experiences and memories —
Heidi Halverson: Absolutely.
Jason Hartman: — those are really important things. So, one that comes up with the travel is, I think a good one for a lot of people. It certainly for me and experiences and education, things that enrich the soul and the psyche.
Heidi Halverson: I absolutely agree and you know there’s actually some very interesting research you just reminded me of looking at another reason why — trying to explain why wealthier people aren’t necessarily happier and there’s a very interesting research showing that the more money you have, the less likely you are to savor. And savoring, you know whether it’s a really great steak or a fantastic vacation, or a beautiful sunset that you know that thing we do where we really focus on how wonderful something is and how special something is. That is a very powerful source of well being and it turns out that the more money you have the less likely people are t take the time to savor something, because things feel a little bit less special, because they’re more easily gotten.
You now, my mother who had very little when she grew up and in Germany after the War and there’s was almost nothing — you know very, very poor, and you know when she got an orange at Christmas, I mean she — it was the most magnificent food experience she had ever had. And she was — it as just — there’s no oranges in Germany so it was shipped in and it was very special and very expensive. And you know, she said, I almost miss — you know, I don’t think I have ever eaten anything in my entire life even now having much more money to go to expensive restaurants and things, ever eaten anything as good as that orange, because it was so very special. And so it doesn’t mean that when you have a lot of money you can’t engage that experience, but you have to sort of make yourself do it. You have to make yourself aware of — you know, ask yourself, am I appreciating, am I taking a moment to appreciate these amazing special things I have in my life, because if it turns out that it’s the more money you have, the less likely you are to do it, and you can fix that by just taking time for savoring. And that turns out to be a really powerful way to really kind of access a sort of happiness and the thing you’re talking about when you say, you know spending the money on creating experiences, creating memories, that is that kind of using my money to create things that I’m going to really savor and just really get the most sort of bang for my buck our of you know, in terms of my well being and my happiness.
So, I think that is really the absolute best way to think about what the accumulation of wealth in the end should be for. It should be for creating happiness, your own and other people’s and other people’s, you know, this is typical. You create happiness for other people, it creates more happiness for you. So, you just have to think about how you — what you do with it. It’s always what matters.
Jason Hartman: Yeah. No question about that, and you know there’s a great quote about it and forgive me because I’m going to totally butcher this, but it’s something t the affect of, as you climb the mountain to success, in other words that’s the metaphor for moving towards your goals, stop and enjoy the view along the way because there are many great things to see as you’re doing that, and that’s —
Heidi Halverson: Absolutely.
Jason Hartman: — a much more fore filling experience. So, we’ve got to just keep in check that the money doesn’t become a master. I think that’s —
Heidi Halverson: That’s right.
Jason Hartman: — really the way to look at it. It is important, no one can deny the importance of it, but let’s give it a check.
Heidi Halverson: It’s an instrument of something else. It’s an instrument —
Jason Hartman: Right.
Heidi Halverson: — not the end in itself, and I think that that’s — then when you keep things in prospective and then you can — and it’s for your own sake. You know, it’s for masterminding your own happiness. It’s just the best way to think about it.
Jason Hartman: No question. Well hey, let’s not focus totally on that, prosperity, money, wealth aspect. Let’s talk more about the science of how we can get ourselves —
Heidi Halverson: Sure.
Jason Hartman: — to achieve our goals, whatever they are, whether they be more healthy and fit or to make more money or to do whatever.
Heidi Halverson: Well you know, one of the first things we — you lean when you start studying this and then looking the right — people have been studying motivation and achievement for 50 years, and when you start looking at past studies and doing your own, one of the first things you realize is that the one big mistake we make — that people make in general that nobody makes mistakes more than Americans do, is thinking about ability as really fundamentally the cause of success and failure, and by ability we usually mean something like inability. Like — so we see someone who just is amazingly successful and we think prodigy, we think oh, genius this person is a genius. And by that we usually mean something like it’s just won the DNA Lottery, right and to be reborn to win. And that turns out to be wrong in two ways that are both very important.
First is that ability doesn’t work that way. So really, nobody wins the DNA Lottery. It is true that your genes play a role in shaping your temperament. They shape what kind of things you find interesting on the tendency — not everybody thinks math is fascinating, but in fact everybody can do math. Is one of the ones that drives me most crazy. People that you constantly hear people say I’m not a math person or I am a math person. There’s no such thing as a math person. You know, what there is is people who like math and so they do a lot of it and they get good at it. And people who don’t like math or are frightened of math or who have convinced themselves that they’re not a math person, so they don’t put in the time and then they’re not good at it. The ability is profoundly immutable whether you’re talking about intelligence, activity, athletic ability. I mean, we just find whatever ability we study, but it turns out to be this profoundly, profoundly immutable. It’s really — it’s just so influenced by your effort and your experience.
So, but that’s one way in which that kind of thinking is wrong. And the other way in which is sort of even more wrong is that, actually assert ability and that will have very little to do with who succeeds and who fails. What w find is that the difference between say someone who succeeds in losing 10 pounds and someone who doesn’t, or someone who succeeds in getting a promotion and someone who doesn’t. Whatever the goal is, it’s not usually that one has ability and the other doesn’t. It isn’t even that one person knows what to do and the other one doesn’t. They both know what to do but only one of them can actually get themselves to do it. And that’s really where a lot of the strategies that I talk about in the book kind of come into play, because with what Bob Sutton has called the — and other Psychologists have called the Knowing Doing Gap, right, that w know what we should do an we just don’t seem to be able — and we fell as we want to do it by the way, you know we feel that we really are — we’re committed and we just can’t get ourselves to do it.
Jason Hartman: You know, Heidi, there’s —
Heidi Halverson: — and — yeah.
Jason: Hartman: — there’s a great saying for that and for 20 years I have loved this quote. It’s a Zen quote, and here it goes. To know and not to do is to not yet know.
Heidi Halverson: Exactly, right. Because there is knowledge missing and it’s that knowledge of how do I get myself to do the things that I want to do?
Jason Hartman: So, how do we do it?
Heidi Halverson: And we approach I think, partly — partly the problem is we think okay life needs to get more committed. Well, that’s — committed is very important. You know you really do need to really want to go, especially for the tough one, but commitment predicts less about success then we think it is. It’s sort of necessary but not sufficient. Right, it’s the philosopher’s terms. It’s something you have to have but it’s not enough. We find on average that about 50 to 80 percent of the time, depending on the kind of goal it is, people have plenty of commitment and they fail anyway.
So, it’s not that’s you’re not committed. It’s not that you lack ability. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s not that you lack willpower. Willpower doesn’t work that way either. You know, nobody is born with lots of willpower and other people don’t. So, it really turns out to be sort of I need to get myself to do this thing and you have to recognize what the actual obstacles are, and they tend to be very simple things that we don’t do.
One of them is we don’t get nearly specific enough when we think about our goals, so we tend to think, human beings in general sort of like to think in abstract in terms. We like to think, I want to be successful. Well, what about needs? You know, and we tend to sort of live at this sort of higher level of thinking and I mean to be really successful in terms of reaching goals, we need to break things down. Very — it’s not enough [inaudible], how much weight do you want to loose? You know, it’s not enough to say, I want to be —
Jason Hartman: Can I win?
Heidi Halverson: — richer. You know, I want to have more money. We, how much money exactly and by win? How much more money do I want to have if I win because those differences — part of the reasons why — there are a lot of reasons why this is important and one of them is that if you’re difficult to know what actions to take, if you haven’t gotten specific about what the goal is. So, you don’t know what the next step is, if you’re not sure about exactly what the instate is that you’re going for.
The other reason that is really important, how the kind of view with the way our brains are wired. We feel like — most of — when you think about routine goals and setting goals for ourselves, we feel like it’s a really conscious deliberate process, I’m setting a goal for myself and I’m thinking it through and it turns out that the vast majority of it — or the actions we take in order to reach goals, happen unconsciously, in a sense of that we’re just not aware of them.
You know, all throughout your day you’re doing a million things to reach all the different goals you have and you’re not necessarily aware at every moment that you’re doing something in order to kind of get closer to your goal. If you stopped and thought about it, you’d be aware of it but we don’t because we’re busy, right. So, your unconscious mind which is most f your mind is handling these things for you and it’s a great foot step. You know, it’s how you can get in your car to get home at the end of the day and be preoccupied thinking about something and the next thing you know, you’re in your driveway and you think, I don’t even remember driving home. Well you know, your unconscious mind handles that for you because you knew where you were going and so it took you there. So, our brains are kind of amazing. The thing is, if you really ant to take advantage of all of that processing power and to do that you need to kind of talk to your brain in its own language, right, and it needs to know what the specific goal is.
If it knows you have a specific goal, like losing 15 pounds, getting a promotion, driving home, then it knows what to do. Whether you’re thinking about it or not, it can actually take that needs to be taken in order to get you loser to get involved.
Jason Hartman: Okay so then what you’re saying, if I’m hearing it correctly, is that we need to talking to our brain in the language it understands —
Heidi Halverson: That’s right.
Jason Hartman: — and does that mean that w need to program our subconscious mind? I’m — certainly I’ve heard a lot about —
Heidi Halverson: Oh we do it, it’s really —
Jason Hartman: — that.
Heidi Halverson: — it’s very simply. No, it’s not even anything that elaborate.
Jason Hartman: Okay.
Heidi Halverson: Like simply just taking the time to say to yourself, okay, I know I want to get ahead at work. What do I mean by that? What would success look like? How will I know — and the question I tell people to ask themselves is how will I know when I’ve succeeded? If you said you want to be richer and I say well, how will you know when you’ve succeeded, people kind of look at you like, oh I — well, I’m not really sure. Well, if you can’t answer that question, you haven’t gotten specific enough, right because you need that end state in mind. Once you’ve kind of narrowed in on the end state that you’re looking for, then you bring this around. That’s all it needed. It needed to know — it’s like trying to program a GPS without putting in a destination. It doesn’t know where to go and your brain is exactly the same thing.
So, until you kind of guess that destination clear in your own mind, you are missing out on a lot of brain power depicting working for you. So, getting specific is one big thing and then the other big thing you know among the strategy they talk about in the book, the most powerful ones is something that’s called it’s been planning, but the basic idea is that to not only — we need to get specific about the goals, we need to get specific about the actions we’re going to take in order to reach the goal and when and where we’re going to take them.
It’s sort of like not enough to make it to do list. Everybody likes to do lists, they’re great, but the problem is that most people’s to do list don’t actually include when and where they’re going to actually take each of the steps to complete the action — item on the to do list. S, nothing ever comes off the to do list, right, because you just go oh yeah, I forgot I wanted to do that. And it didn’t actually happen. So, we miss opportunities to act on our goals all the time. So, it’s really about — it’s again taking a little time and thinking okay, I really want to get a promotion. These are the concrete steps I’m going to need to take in order to make that happen. When and where am I going to take these steps? Planning it out, like when am I — I’m going to need to meet with my boss more regularly. Okay, when are you going to do that? When are those meetings going to happen? Break it down and then it’s amazing we find that when people do that, when they take — they break their goals down into that and add that when and where information, like and this when I’m going to do it and this situation is when I’m going to do it, they’re on average about three times more like they’ve reached the goal.
Jason Hartman: Sure, sure. So, chunking —
Heidi Halverson: Chunking the fact.
Jason Hartman: — so chunking the goal, having a road map, you know I talked to my real estate investor clients about having a five year plan. What are the steps along that way? You know, the old saying, the journey of 1,000 mi8les begins with the single step.
Heidi Halverson: Right.
Jason Hartman: Most people — and look at these goals that some big thing out there like in the distance and someday my ship is going to come in rather than just the daily ding this other —
Heidi Halverson: The nitty gritty, you know.
Jason Hartman: Yeah, right.
Heidi Halverson: Exactly.
Jason Hartman: It’s not sensing —
Heidi Halverson: That’s — and then making it happen.
Jason Hartman: — all that nitty gritty is not sensing. It’s just —
Heidi Halverson: It’s not —
Jason Hartman: — it’s just a process.
Heidi Halverson: — it’s not — it’s not how we like to think but it’s how successful people do things and they make themselves do it because they see the results. They know that often it’s sort of intuitively. They know, hey when I do this, when I really breaking down from myself and I say okay, these are the steps and this is when I’m going to do them, and I’ve planned all that out, they’re just much more successful and we find — I mean, I’ll give you a fine example. There was a study that we did where we — there was a bunch of people who were all not regular exercises and they were half of them, and we said, okay half of them — and they’re all joining a gym and we did half of them and we said, okay when and — when are you going to exercise each week, because they all said I want to exercise at least three times a week and half of them we just said, okay when? When are you going to do it, and they would — they could say whatever they wanted to. They said, oh Monday, Wednesday and Friday, before work or whatever they like. And then we came back a month later, and saw to look at who was still exercising regularly. And about 32 percent of the people who didn’t make a plan, were still exercising, 91 percent of the people who made a plan were still exercising.
So, I mean that’s huge, right. And just from taking a moment to stop and think about when am I actually going to do this? I want to exercise regularly. I want to meet with my boss more. I want to put away more money in investments each month. Okay, how are you — when is that going to happen? How much money are you going to put away? When are you going to do it? What’s the system you’re going to use? And be very firm about it and you get typically like a 300 percent increase in success. I mean it’s just — it’s just — they’re amazing and they’re so simple. By the way, I’ve gotten into doing all this logging and writing and it’s really like when I read about these things and I started doing these studies I thought people have to know about this. This isn’t hard. This is not a difficult strategy to use and it’s so effective and it really gets right at what the real problems of goal pursuit tend to be. It’s not that you lack ability. It’ not that there’s something wrong with you. It’s that you’re having trouble getting over that gap between when you want to do and actually doing it, which by the way, we all have, and you just need the right information in order to help you kin of break that gap and it really works.
Jason Hartman: Let me take a brief pause. We’ll be back in just a minute.
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Jason Hartman: So, do you want to talk anything about self sabotage in why that occurs, because I — you know, I think that comes into play. It’s kind of like what you said before. A lot of people know what to do but they just don’t do it and you outlined some of the reasons for that but —
Heidi Halverson: Yeah.
Jason Hartman: — you know, they also kind of shoot themselves in the foot along the way. Is that because maybe one feels that they don’t deserve the outcome, that they don’t deserve the goal? What’s going on there?
Heidi Halverson: I think that can happen — I think that can happen — I think the bigger — sort of when you look at the research on self sabotaging and self — sometimes they call it self handicapping right, when people kind of set themselves up to say, oh you know, why did that happen? One of the biggest predictors is that — actually has to do with insecurity about ability. So, you find in the classroom for example, that students who are concerned, you know who believe that ability is sort of a fix thing, right, and you’re going to want it or you’re not, and they’re concerned that they might not have enough. Well, intentionally not study, and the reason they’ll do that is because that way they know they’re going to fail the test, but when they fail the test, they can blame it on not having studied, which psychologically is less painful than having to run the risk of actually studying really hard and then still failing an having to say, it’s just that I’m not smart enough.
So, we find that in general people self sabotage in these situations where they feel they are — that if they really tried — in these situations where they feel they are — that if they really tried, they would be able to judge something about themselves that can’t be changed.
Now again, that’s wrong headed thinking because there’s really almost nothing about ourselves that can’t be changed. I mean, we could — people have pretty stable personalities, some things like that but you know, in terms of abilities there’s nothing you can’t improve on. So I think that’s sort of a — that’s part of the problem and say kind of people that go into situations thinking, you’re either creative or you’re not. You’re either good with money or you’re not. You’re either a risk taker or you’re not and then we think, if I try really hard in this situation, I’m going to find out what — I’m going to find out what I am and maybe the answer’s not going to be good. So, I’ll just avoid that. And it’s like you know, it’s treating one pain for another but they find that the pain of failing is easier to swallow than the pain of really kind of reviewing something about themselves that they would find deeply humiliating and — and it’s a shame.
Jason Hartman: That’s really sad, yeah.
Heidi Halverson: Sometimes having is never a good thing.
Jason Hartman: Yeah, that’s really sad.
Heidi Halverson: It is because you know you’re always — when we find that it’s really one of the most — the biggest predictors of who handles difficulty well and who doesn’t, turns up to be this mental mindset that people have when they’re performing any activity or kind of pursuing a goal, but I think it’s about validating their ability or it’s about for the developing ability. So, when people go into some situations, you know a new job and they think of it as well, I know I’m not going to be great at this at first because there’s a learning curve, but I’m going to get better at it over time. And so when are difficult, they handle that difficulty much more easily. It’s not that upsetting to them because they kind of expected things to be difficult, but they see themselves as growing over time.
Other people get into that new job and immediately think, everybody’s judging me. Everybody’s judging me and I’m judging me and can I do this? Do I have what it takes and everybody else is looking at me and saying, do I have what it takes? And so now, the whole thing becomes about, do I have the ability or don’t I, rather than, this is an opportunity for me to develop my ability in a new area, which is really exciting and that mental shift turns out to be just really, really powerful. And if the people who feel they’re being judged, who do the self handicap thing. And again, being judged by others or even by yourself, they want to avoid the judgments, so they do something to themselves like not bother trying, and I think it is — it’s a shame because you’re always — every time you take that road, you’re selling yourself short. And so one of the things we work with in schools a lot now is develop interventions trying to teach kids to think about intelligence and other kinds of abilities as malleable things or trying to kind of combat this sort of cultural story that’s out there that we kind of think about people with high ability or low ability, and sort of say — actually not what the evidence suggests. That’s not how ability works, and w find that when we can get into situations and teach these kids, you know, no actually ability doesn’t work that way, it can grow. You see amazing differences in their math scores, in their English scores, I mean, just see them having a totally different attitude towards school.
So hopefully over time, eventually we’ll kind of get people embracing this idea that we have to put aside our old ideas about what abilities are like and then we’ll hopefully see a lot of this self sabotaging behavior start to disappear.
Jason Hartman: Good points, good points. Well, who would you wrap this all up for people, Heidi? I mean, is there any actionable steps that you want to recap or think you didn’t mention that can just help people get what they want? Achieve their goals and be more successful and fulfilled?
Heidi Halverson: As I said, I think that the very first thing is to put aside this idea that the reason that you had difficulties with something in the past had to be with something you lack, you know some critical quality that you don’t have. We just simply find that that is not ever the case. It really is about what you do and you don’t do and this other — there’s a lot of strategies they talk about in the book. They’re kind of good for different kinds of things. There’s willpower strategies you can use for resisting temptation, all kinds of different strategies for tackling different problems, but the most powerful things I can say right off the bat are, really get specific about what you want to achieve. Really be able to answer that question. I’ll know when I have succeeded when, and have that a clear visual in your mind, because that’s going to — again, just engage all of that processing power of your brain. It may have not been engaged before to help you address this problem. And then really when you break it down into the steps that you need to take, really take that extra step, and think about when and where you’re going to take each step, and that’s called instant planning, so if I’m in this situation, this is what I’m going to do.
If you actually take the time to do that, you’re going to increase your chances of success about three fold. So, if the best five minutes you could possibly spend to increases your chances of reaching your goals.
Jason Hartman: Good stuff. Well Heidi, where can people get the book and learn more?
Heidi Halverson: Oh, as they say, anywhere books are sold. It’s on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and I also have another short e-book that I just put out with Hubbard Business Press a couple of months ago called “Nine Things Successful People Do Differently”, that also talks about sort of nine of these key strategies that people can use and you can find that on Amazon, as well.
Jason Hartman: Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Heidi. And do you have a direct website that you want to give out?
Heidi Halverson: Yeah, I do. It’s just my name. I have — my website’s called The Science of Success. The address is www.HeidiGrantHalverson.com and that’s where I put all my bloging and videos and interviews and things. And so you can find lots of things that I’ve written about motivation and of course a whole bunch of different topics that you know, definitely check it out.
Jason Hartman: Well Heidi, thank you so much for joining us today and I hope everybody has learned some good things that will help them be more successful and fore filled and just happier in life in general. So, thanks again for sharing this scientific research with us. Appreciate it.
Heidi Halverson: Thank you so much, Jason.
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