CompleteIssueSLOLifeDecJan18LR

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| PUBLISHER’S MESSAGE Ab Lounge I have a friend who likes to say, “Life is mostly lived inside your own head.” And I think, for the most part, he’s right. This is always the time of the year that I go deeper inside of my own head than I usually do. That little voice is talking to me a lot more these days, highlighting my shortcomings and pretty much narrating my life. That was such a dumb thing to say; why’d you say that?... Seriously, man, you’ve got to exercise more… Is pro wrestling really fake?... You’re just an old dad now, dude, and kids don’t think Nirvana is cool anymore. Like a lot of people, I’m looking back at the year that was and thinking about how I can become a better version of myself in the year ahead. It’s always an interesting period of reflection, evaluation, renewal, and hopefulness. Lately, I have been contemplating the concept of New Year’s Resolutions. We’ve all had experience with them. And, what is the common theme? They generally don’t work. For instance, the time I bought a piece of exercise equipment called the Ab Lounge for “just a few EZ Payments” so that I could develop rock-hard, six-pack abs like the guy in the infomercial. By the second week of January, my wife caught me reclined back on that thing drinking a beer while watching a football game in the garage. This year, however, I know what I am doing because I have figured out my own head after reading a fascinating book called “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.” The book, written by New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg, starts with a brief story that summarizes the essential premise for making pretty much whatever change you would like to make in life, regardless of what is going on in your own head. Of all things, Duhigg begins by talking about his time as a journalist in Iraq. There he encountered a major in the U.S. Army based in the small city of Kufa who was struggling to quell the violent protests that broke out with alarming frequency. The major became obsessed with this issue, and studied videotape of the events just as a defensive coordinator from the NFL would study the film of the opposing team’s games prior to Sunday’s contest. After looping the tape over and over again, he observed that riots were always preceded by a crowd of rowdy Iraqis gathering in the plaza, swelling in size over a few hours, and later the food vendors would show up to feed the hungry protestors. Then, invariably, someone would throw a bottle and bedlam would ensue. Do you know how the major solved the problem? He sat down with Kufa’s mayor, shared his hypothesis, and then made a request: “Could you please keep the food vendors out of the plaza?” A few days later, an unruly crowd showed up again, looked around for the kebabs as they normally did at that hour—it was dinnertime, after all—and found none. By eight o’clock the angry mob, now hungry and dispirited, headed for home. The habit was broken. Duhigg goes on to explain that all habits begin with a cue. In this case, eating together in the plaza until someone chucked a bottle, which was then followed by a routine, the rioting. Finally, the author argues, there must also be a reward for any habit to stick. With the Kufa riots, the major noted that they had become a strange sort of street festival, a type of violent farmers’ market. People ate, drank, threw rocks, and blew stuff up. For many, it was great entertainment and hundreds of townspeople showed up to take in the show. The cue initiated the routine, which then resulted in the reward. With the mechanics of habits identified, Duhigg then shares several different examples of this feedback loop in action. Take Pepsodent toothpaste, for instance. As it turns out, Americans, early in the twentieth century, were not too keen on brushing their teeth. The toothpaste of the day was bland, and many suspected that it wasn’t actually doing anything anyway. An especially shrewd ad man named Claude C. Hopkins changed all of that with his message suggesting that people run their tongue over their teeth to feel the sticky film (the cue), brush with Pepsodent, the only one with minty flavor (the routine), and then feel the tingle (the reward). It was a brilliant advertising campaign that rocketed Pepsodent to massive commercial success, while also spawning dozens of copycats who all, to this day, add ingredients not to improve our dental hygiene, but to create a better tingle—the reward—that you and I seek. So now that we understand habits and how to access the circuitry inside our own heads to create useful ones, as well as drop the bad ones, we are in good shape heading into 2018. For me, the first thing I am going to do in the New Year, taking the lead from the army major, is to start by eliminating any cues that initiate bad habits—anyone interested in a gently used Ab Lounge? I would like to take this opportunity to say “thank you” to everyone who has had a hand in producing this issue of SLO LIFE Magazine and, most of all, to our advertisers and subscribers—we couldn’t do it without you. And, to you and your family, my best wishes for a happy holiday season and a healthy and prosperous 2018. Live the SLO Life! Tom Franciskovich tom@slolifemagazine.com 14 | SLO LIFE MAGAZINE | DEC/JAN 2018
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CompleteIssueSLOLifeDecJan18LR

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