Sally, our trusty Explorer, all set for "mud-bogging".

While on the west coast, we put almost 4,000 miles on our borrowed car. (And when I say “we”, I mean Michael. Remember when I wrote about living outside my comfort zone? One limit I have yet to test is facing my fear and getting my driver’s license. But that’s a story for another day.) Anywho—4,000 miles in four weeks means lots of long stretches of time to fill, and when your radio doesn’t work and you’ve spent every waking moment with the person in the seat next to you, you need to find a way to fill the hours.

Enter: audiobooks. We listened to The Tipping Point and Outliers, both by Malcolm Gladwell, as well as the first half of Switch, by Dan and Chip Heath. (The narrator for Switch is a bit tiresome—imagine an entire book read by a male GPS navigator voice—so it got switched (badum ching) out for the ever-entertaining This American Life podcasts.)

Holy lot of ideas, Batman! I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how to implement these concepts—understanding cultural differences in order to better address problems (Outliers), affecting change by tapping into people’s intellectual and emotional centers (Switch), harnessing different people’s distinct skills to help further your cause (The Tipping Point)—into my various ventures.

Are these approaches new? No, not really. But the specific case studies helped me see the rather limitless ways they could be applied, many of which, much to my chagrin, had never occurred to me. As someone with three very different ventures (and not one, but two, pretty rad, brand new pipe dreams), understanding the psychology of progress in a new way could make my time spent on different projects more fruitful, thus allowing me to be of greater use.

Here are some of the changes I feel I could make, some better than others, across my various roles.

• When a large class isn’t behaving according to prescribed standards, focus on the bright spots. Praise the students who are behaving well, and try to understand why. Try to duplicate these successful parameters rather than focusing on the negative behavior of other students. (This idea comes from Switch.)
• When writing or talking about health and veggies (yum!), break things down into absurdly manageable pieces. For example, I was talking with a friend the other day who said he really wanted to “be healthier.” I asked him what one change he would make if he could only make one. “Exercise more.” “What does that look like?” “Well, I bought that punching bag so I could do a form of cardio I like while at home with my baby.” Awesome. Do that for 10 minutes, three times a week. A concrete, specific goal, particularly one that is so easy to do, you feel silly not doing it, is much more likely to garner results than abstract, lofty goals that never get put into place. [This isn’t really new, either; Martha Beck addresses it brilliantly in both Expecting Adam and Finding Your Own North Star.]
• As I get my business off the ground over the course of the coming year, try to pinpoint who I know who’s a Connector, a Maven, or Salesmen. Target my conversations (and requests) for each different type of person specifically to harness their individual strengths. (Gladwell talks about this in The Tipping Point.)

If you read through that list and think, “Well, of course,” then you are savvier than I. I admit these aren’t difficult or earth-shattering ideas, but that’s what makes them so valuable. These are all things I can do. Starting now. Things that will make me a better teacher, health advocate, and entrepreneur. What’s cooler than that?

What books have made a difference to how you (inter)act? Are there any you thought would make a difference but turned out to be big flops? If you could recommend one more book for me to read (or listen to, as the case may be), which title would you suggest?