The Proteus Effect

Perception really is reality.

Your perception of the world around you, and of yourself, changes how you behave and the choices that you make. But interestingly, it isn't even necessarily how you perceive yourself, but your perception of how others think of you.

The book The Narcissism Epidemic (119) talked about this phenomenon and a study called the Daedalus Project that was done to test it:

One fascinating study randomly assigned people to an avatar in a virtual world. In the first experiment, some individuals were given attractive avatars and some unattractive avatars. The attractive avatars were more socially confident; they walked closer to the other avatar and talked about themselves more. In the second experiment, people were assigned either a short or tall avatar and completed a negotiation task. People with a tall avatar were more competitive in the negotiation. The researchers concluded that the type of avatars people use actually change social behavior in a virtual world, which they called the Proteus Effect.

It certainly helps to explain why people might enjoy these games so much - they can take on a persona that they believe others will like and respect based on skills and looks from the virtual world.

It also shows that you might be holding yourself back based on your perception of how you are viewed in the world. If you think others see you as weak in some area, then you are going to subconsciously make it so. All this leads down a spiral of never achieving as much as you could, and all because of a perception that may or may not be true.

As a way to help you gain confidence and try to extend yourself, try this method: How would [use a name of someone you think would do well at this project] do this? You might be surprised at what you can accomplish, and the gains in self confidence that this can produce. After all, if you can imagine yourself being down, you can also imagine yourself being up.

You might be better than you think - if only you had the confidence to try.

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Master your art

There is probably no more famous teacher of writing screenplays than Robert McKee. If you are not sure who he is, maybe you saw him portrayed in the brilliant movie Adaptation.

In his book Story, McKee says this near the front: Story is about thoroughness, not shortcuts. It is about mastering the art. You can see when people have short-circuited the process, have gone for the easy fix.

Is it possible to do that in real life? Aren't there times when we just need to take the shortcut at work because of deadlines and the every-day minutia that beats you down? Aren't there times when we should just go for the easy fix because the alternative means pain and a long haul?

The hard answer is is no, there is no good time to go for the shortcut. Even in deadlines, there should be a struggle, there should be sweat, blood, and tears to give it the best; and then work hard to understand how it can be better next time. It is what separates great companies from the pack, your favorite products from the has-beens, the best friends from the acquaintances, the growing parents from the oh-well ones. And the great movies from that fourth installment just trying to make money.

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A solution to congestion (you're not going to like it)

There is a solution to all that congestion. It's going to cost you find out what it is. From Traffic, (148):

Parking may be part of the problem of urban traffic congestion. Cars spend 95 percent of their time parked. One survey found that a third of cards entering lower Manhattan were headed to free or subsidized parking spots. If those spots were not free or subsidized, there would be fewer drivers during the morning rush hour. Ironically, near the Department of Transportation itself, the streets are filled with DOT vehicles bearing special parking permits.
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When the city of Copenhagen was looking to reduce the number of cars entering the central city in favor of bicycles and other modes of transportation, it had a very crafty strategy: Get rid of parking, but without anyone noticing. From 1994 to 2005, Copenhagen cut parking spaces in the city center from 14,000 to 11,500, replacing the spaces with things like parks and bicycle lanes. Over that same time, not accidentally, bicycle traffic rose by some 40 percent - a third of people commuting to work now go by bike.

Much of the time when you are driving down congested downtown streets, many of the cars are looking for parking. Garages are around five times more expensive than street parking; therefore, many people cruise around causing congestion looking for cheaper spaces.

When Donald Shoup and his researchers tracked cars looking for parking near UCLA (they rode bikes, so other cars would not think they were looking for parking and throw off the results), they found that on an average day cars in one fifteen-block section drove some 3,600 miles - more than the width of the entire country - searching for a spot. One car stopped on a two-lane street creates a bottleneck that cuts traffic capacity in half.

Shoup's solution - charge more for parking on the street. Then people will use the garages rather than getting in my way. I like the idea most of the time - except when I am going to eat at Lulu's downtown and only want to park for an hour. Then I am one of those annoying people slowing everyone down, waiting for cars to move, and backing into a spot.

Here is a better solution - let everyone work from home at least two days a week. Stop making "time sitting at a desk" a performance review; start making results as what really counts. People can make results happen from all over the place, and often results happen the least in the cube. But more ranting on that later.

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What's different?

A few years ago my daughter Autumn and my son Jonathan were playing the game "What's Different?" In this game, one player turns around and the other changes something about their appearance. The other player then turns around and tries to guess the change. For example, maybe a button was undone or glasses were removed. After playing a few turns, Jonathan was having a hard time figuring out what was different with Autumn. Eventually he gave up. When he asked, she responded, "My name is Rico."

Sometimes change is pretty easy to see. When we show people pictures of our wedding day, the general comment is to Nancy, "Who was your first husband?" I looked very young; in fact, not long after we were married and owned our first house, someone knocked on the door. When I answered, the person asked if my mother was home. Today I have some grey hair which I choose to see as distinguished, weigh a little more, and can feel it more after a workout (when those actually happen).

Sometimes change is difficult to see. The changes that I want other people to see are not quite as evident as the wrinkles around my eyes. A year from now I want my kids to see a better parent, my wife to see a better husband, and I want to see myself as the person that I want to be.

Hopefully I won't be the same a year from now, with the only difference in that my name was changed to Rico.

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