Business Law Prof Blog

The Mental Health Crisis in the Legal Profession

If you follow me on LinkedIn, you know that I posted almost every day in May for Mental Health Awareness Month.

 

Last week,  I had the opportunity to discuss mental health and well being for an AmLaw 20 firm (one of my coaching clients) that opened the presentation up to all of its legal professionals. Hundreds registered. Too often, firms or companies focus on those with the highest salaries. As a former paralegal, I know how stressful that job can be. And I know I could never have done my job as a lawyer without the talented legal professionals who supported me.

Here are some scary statistics that I shared from the most recent ALM Mental Health and Substance Abuse Survey.

If you’re a law firm leader or work with legal professionals in any capacity, please read the report and take action. If you can’t get rid of the billable hour (which would solve a lot of issues), think about how you allocate work, respond to unreasonable client demands, and reward toxic perfectionism and overwork. 

✅ 71% of the nearly 3,000 lawyers surveyed said they had anxiety

✅ 45% said their morale has not changed since the pandemic

✅ 38% said they dealt with depression

✅ 31% struggled with another mental health issue

✅ 44% said they knew co-workers who struggled with alcoholism

✅ 15% said they knew someone in the profession who died by suicide in the past two years

✅ Over 50% of said they “felt a sense of failure or self-doubt, lost emotion, felt increasingly cynical and negative, and had decreased satisfaction and sense of accomplishment”

✅ A third said they felt “helpless, trapped, detached, or alone in the world.”

✅ More than 60% said they felt overwhelmed, irritable and exhausted or struggled to concentrate

✅ 28.1% used all of their vacation time, but only 31.1% said they could fully disconnect

✅ More than 76% of lawyers blamed their work environment for these problems

✅ 68% cited billable hour pressures

✅ 67% cited the inability to disconnect

✅ 54% cited lack of sleep

✅ 51% of lawyers said they would feel comfortable talking to an offsite professional

✅ Only 33% said they thought that they could take a leave of absence to address their mental health

✅ More than 72% indicated that remote work improved their quality of life

✅ 60% said that some amount of remote work improved their physical well-being.

😮 50% of the lawyers surveyed indicated that the profession is in a mental health crisis.

I see these issues with my students and with the lawyers I coach. Everyone may not have the passion I have to change the profession, but we can all do our part. So what can you do about it? Here are some resources to get you started. 

How and Why Adults Learn- Pt 1.

We need to be honest. Most of our students aren't learning or retaining the information we teach them. If you're not in academia, you've likely attended a a required training or taken a course on your own and you probably can't fully articulate what you've learned or how it applies to what you do daily in your profession. Over the past few months, I've been spending time with neuroscientists learning about learning. I'll pass on some pointers over the next posts to translate how and what we want to teach to how our students or employees actually learn. For example, we all know about the "gunners" in our classrooms or those who beg for the extra point on the exam so that they can maintain their stellar GPAs. But for the most part, adults don't get motivated through gold stars and report cards in the same way that younger learners do. 

I'll start with an overview of ten things we need to know about how adults learn. I'll expand on them in future posts. 

1) Many professors focus on pedagogy, which is based on how children learn and still stick to the teacher-centered approach of learning. The science of adult learning is called andragagy, and neuroandragogy adds the overlay of neuroscience and neurophysiology. 

2)  The myth of learning styles has been debunked for years, but we still continue to focus on visual, auditory, and kinesthetic approaches when we teach. Although people have preferences, when we try to teach to a specific style, we actually perpetuate a fixed mindset rather than encouraging a growth mindset. By the way, for those who have read Carol Dweck's work on growth mindset, please remember that it's like the appetizer and without sound teaching and instruction (the main course), it won't matter what kind of mindset the students have. 

3) Most of our law students and employees have been digital natives since birth. They've been playing on tablets and on smartphones before they could read. They learn via YouTube, TikTok, and social media with algorithms that cater to what they want and need. Many of them are also content creators with their own social media accounts. They understand how algorithms change and thus change their content to get more views and likes. Like it or not, they expect the same from professors or corporate trainers.

4) Adult learners are task-oriented and would rather solve a problem than passively receive content from a professor. Similarly, adults need much more self-directed learning than younger learners and want to apply the knowledge immediately. This may be why clinics are so popular in law school and why the best corporate training leaves attendees with tangible, actionable learnings. 

5) Children listen to teachers because they don't have much context and have been raised to listen to and respect adults (whether that always happens is a different story). Adult learners have years of lived experience and are typically taking a course for a specific purpose. When we teach them something new, it may be harder for them to absorb or retain because they filter it through their working memory first, and this slows them down. They also determine very quickly whether they "need to know" this information. This may explain why so few students retain information after an exam. It doesn't relate to what they believe they need to know for their careers after graduation, particularly if we teach theory and don't connect it to practice. 

6) The average adult attention span in a lecture is 15-20 minutes. Some argue that it's shorter. In addition, adult learners tend to learn more by doing than by merely listening. This makes the standard lecture format the least effective way for adults to learn. 

7) The brain understands the world through emotion, metaphors, and symbols, but we spend time most of our time using words. We need to go to experiences that speak to the brain. Adult learning experts want us to forget the Descartes quote, "I think therefore I am," and instead reframe it to "I feel, therefore I know."

8) Movement and play are particularly helpful for adult learning, just like with children. Sometimes we need to have students get up and move around in class and develop activities that can anchor the learning. 

9) The best way to reach adult learners is to provide a choice of topics, real world problems, and relevance to current or future positions. Adult learners need to know the why behind the what we are teaching. They won't accept it blindly just because we are in the front of the classroom as younger learners will.

10) Scaffolding and formative assessment are critical for metacognition, reflection, and reapplying what adults have learned. According to cognitive neuroscientist Dr Jared Cooney Horvath, we forget about 60-70% of what we learn within 48 hours. This means we need to change how we teach so students can change how they learn and retain information. 

I'll dive in more deeply to these topics in the future. How do you "play" in a professional education setting? Do you have to dance like a TikTok video star to reach students? What do I mean the students have to have a choice of topics? What is the "curve of forgetting" and how can we use those insights to maximize learning outcomes? What is heutagogy and how can we help students with self-directed learning? How will these students make it in the real world if we cater to them this way?

You may miss the "good old days" where students sat in a two-hour lecture, had one final exam at the end of the semester, and we could dust off our notes the next semester to do it all over again. Those days are gone forever. Corporate trainers use microlearning and short 3-7 minute videos to convey key concepts to workers. That's what's happening in "the real world." We don't have to change everything we do, but we need to re-think how WE think so that the next generation of lawyers can learn what they need to learn. 

What tips or best practices do you have to share about teaching and learning?

Strengthening or Destroying

As I have heard many other educators state, this was the toughest semester in my dozen years as a teacher. In my case, it was a mix of difficulties – teaching an overload, representing my colleagues in a heated faculty senate term, and balancing family responsibilities.

Among the most difficult parts was working with students who were struggling more than I have ever seen. To be clear, I was quite proud of my students this semester. Even with a Zoom option, most students showed up in person, engaged with the material, and worked hard. But several students communicated true hardships, and all students seemed to drag more than usual. Typically, I am a stickler for deadlines, but I pushed deadlines back in every class this semester, and I graded with more grace.

It has been a while since Colleen or I had a running post, but today’s track workout felt a bit like this semester. My plan for this morning was 1 mile at tempo pace followed by 8x400m at goal mile race pace. I haven’t been getting great sleep this week so the run started sluggishly. The warm-up and the tempo mile went fine, but I could tell they required more effort than normal. Starting the 400s, I refocused mentally, dug deeper, and came through faster than expected on the first one. On the second 400, however, my legs felt like logs, and I stepped off the track halfway through that rep. I knew 8x400 simply was not going to happen at the planned pace, and I reconfigured the workout on the fly to 800@3K pace, 2x200@800m race pace, 800@3K pace, 2x200@800m race pace. This maintained roughly the same amount of hard running, but in a format that I could actually complete.

Younger versions of myself would have seen this “busted workout” as weakness. And the line between strength building and destruction is a fine one. At times, you want to “go to the well” and “see God” in a workout. Training yourself to be mentally tough and push through pain can be a valuable part of the process. You do have to tear down somewhat in order to build. But an effort that is “too difficult” will hamper progress either through injury or through extreme fatigue that ruins other planned runs. Disgraced Nike Coach Alberto Salazar seemed to miscalculate in his training of Mary Cain and squandered her immense talent with too much intensity.

Obviously, both as a teacher and as an athlete, finding the right balance is difficult. Frankly, I may have been a bit too easy on my students and myself this past semester, but it did seem like we were moving into territory where holding strictly to plan would have been more destructive than stengthening.     

The Business Case For Promoting Lawyer Well-Being

It's been one year since the US declared a pandemic. It's been a stressful time for everyone, but this post will focus on lawyers.

I haven't posted any substantive legal content on LinkedIn in weeks because so many of my woo woo, motivational posts have been resonating with my contacts. They've shared the posts, and lawyers from around the world have reached out to me thanking me for sharing positive, inspirational messages. I hope that this care and compassion in the (my) legal community will continue once people return back to the office.

Earlier this week, I took a chance and posted about a particularly dark period in my life. I've now received several requests to connect and to speak to legal groups and law firms about mindset, wellness, resilience, and stress management. I've heard from executives that I used to work with 15 years ago asking to reconnect. Others have publicly or privately shared their own struggles with mental health or depression. I'm attaching a link to the video here. Warning- it addresses suicide prevention, but it may help someone. 

I'm also sharing an article that my colleague Jarrod Reich wrote last year. He and I have just finished sitting on a panel on Corporate Counsel and Professional Responsibility Post COVID-19, and it's clear that the issue of lawyers and mental health could have been its own symposium. Here is the abstract for his article, Capitalizing on Healthy Lawyers: The Business Case for Law Firms to Promote and Prioritize Lawyer Well-Being. 

This Article is the first to make the business case for firms to promote and prioritize lawyer well-being. For more than three decades, quantitative research has demonstrated that lawyers suffer from depression, anxiety, and addiction far in excess of the general population. Since that time, there have been many calls within and outside the profession for changes to be made to promote, prioritize, and improve lawyer well-being, particularly because many aspects of the current law school and law firm models exacerbate mental health and addiction issues, as well as overall law student and lawyer distress. These calls for change, made on moral and humanitarian grounds, largely have been ignored; in fact, over the years the pervasiveness of mental health and addiction issues within the profession have persisted, if not increased. This Article argues that these moral- and humanitarian-based calls for change have gone unheeded because law firms have not had financial incentives to respond to them.

In making the business case for change, this Article argues that systemic changes designed to support and resources to lawyers will avoid costs associated with lawyer mental health and addiction issues and, more importantly, create efficiencies that will increase firms’ long-term financial stability and growth. It demonstrates that this business case is especially strong now in light of not only societal and generational factors, but also changes within the profession itself well. As firms have begun to take incremental steps to promote lawyer well-being, lasting and meaningful change will further benefit firms’ collective bottom lines as it will improve: (1) performance, as clients are demanding efficiency in the way their matters are staffed and billed; (2) retention, as that creates efficiencies and the continuous relationships demanded by clients; and (3) recruitment, particularly as younger millennial and Generation Z lawyers—who prioritize mental health and well-being—enter the profession.

If you have any feedback on Jarrod's article or tips on how you are coping, surviving, or thriving in these times, please feel free to drop them in the comments. 

Take care and stay safe.

How To Thrive in 2021

Happy New Year!

I first posted this on Thrive Global a few weeks ago. In the spirit of the New Year, I'm sharing it with you all. 

It’s time to work on your happiness like it’s a full-time job. 2020 has challenged everyone and 2021 may not be much better. You’ve made it this far so now it’s time to reclaim your power at work with these five tips.

• Worklife balance is a myth. Whether you’re working from home or actually going to a work site, there’s no such thing as work life balance and there never has been. It’s impossible to devote your full attention to work and family at the same time — something will suffer. As time management guru David Allen explained, you can do anything you want, you just can’t do everything you want. Learn how to say no to anything that isn’t absolutely necessary. For me, if it’s not a hell yes, then it’s a hell no. Unless you can’t say “no,” use your non-work time to do something that brings you joy and sustains you. Find a passion project. When you focus on life balance, your work life will improve.

• Change your thoughts and change your life. Do you focus on everything that’s happened to you? Why not reframe that to believe that everything happens for you? What are the lessons that you can learn from the curveballs that life has thrown at you? A job loss could be your impetus to start your own business or go back to school. An abusive boss may be what you need to get out of your comfort zone and look for another job. Changing your mindset will help you at home and at work because you’ll get much less frustrated over things you can’t control. You’ll soon be the go-to person because you’ve shown that you can be flexible and you’re able to pivot. Resilience and grit are key currencies in the workplace, particularly in the age of COVID.

• Forgive no matter what. Before you stop reading, I didn’t say that you have to forget. Anger and resentment impacts everyone in your life and it can affect your health. You’re either complaining to your colleagues about your family or complaining to your family about your colleagues. Don’t demand an apology and don’t dwell on the fact that you’re “right.” Forgive without conditions and treat everyone as though they only have 24 hours to live. Forgiveness is a gift, not to the other person but to yourself. Once you forgive someone, they no longer have power over you because they no longer take up space in your head or your heart. You don’t even have to tell the person you’ve forgiven them, but it helps. Acknowledge any role you’ve played in the issue, apologize, and then forgive. Even if you don’t want to be magnanimous, just think of how much you’ll upset the power dynamic with the person who hurt you if you make it clear that you’re no longer angry with them. Remember, the opposite of hate isn’t love, it’s indifference. No matter what they’ve done, let it go and set yourself free. You’ll be much lighter and a much more pleasant person to be around.

• Words have power. We’ve all heard about the power of affirmations and gratitude. I wake up in the morning and journal about what I’m grateful for, even if what I want hasn’t happened yet. I’m specific and I write in the present tense. I see, feel, smell, taste and hear what I would experience if what I wanted was true. Sooner or later, some variation of what I journaled or something better comes to pass. When you dream big, you achieve big. Think of that job or promotion as though it were already yours. But words are equally powerful when you speak negatively. Do you say, “I always get sick,” “the boss will never promote me,” or “I hate my job”? Think about what you say to yourself and how that corresponds to where you are in your life. I’ve literally gone to the hospital within days of telling  someone they were going to cause me to have a heart attack or stroke. Twice.

• Have your FU fund and make sure people know about it. This is my most important tip. Never let your employer think you need the job. Know your value and then add tax to it. When you have a “forget you” fund, you’re not tied to either a job or a relationship for financial reasons. This affects how people treat you because they know that you can leave without a second thought if you see something unethical, get passed over for a promotion, or don’t get the respect you deserve. When I was in corporate America, I had saved enough to live for two years without working. My boss knew it and so did the board of directors. But let’s be honest, some of us are struggling just to pay the bills. In that case, start thinking of your side hustle. What skills are in demand? What kinds of certifications can you take online? How many other languages do you know? Are you using LinkedIn or Clubhouse to make meaningful contacts? If you have time for Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and Netflix, you have time to learn something new so that you can level up your skills and be ready for any opportunities that open up either in your current workplace or someplace else.

Old habits are hard to break. If you’re a people pleaser, think self-care is selfish, have limiting beliefs, or have resentments that you can’t let go of, some of these tips may seem out of reach. If so, find an accountability partner and just pick one or two to work on. It will change your life. Don’t just survive 2021. Thrive.

If this woo woo stuff appeals to you, feel free to follow me on Instagram at @illuminatingwisdom or check me out on my website. 

Finally, I hope to "see" some of you at AALS on January 8 at 1:15 EST at the Section on Socio-Economics, Co-Sponsored by Business Associations, Minority Groups and Securities Regulation: For Whose Benefit Public Corporations? Perspectives on Shareholder and Stakeholder Primacy. Join me and co-bloggers Joshua Fershee and Stefan Padfield, along with:

• Robert Ashford, Professor of Law, Syracuse University College of Law
• Lucian Arye Bebchuk, James Barr Ames Professor of Law, Economics, and Finance and Director, Program on Corporate Governance Harvard Law School
• Margaret M. Blair, Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise; Professor of Law,Vanderbilt University Law School
• June Rose Carbone, Robina Chair in Law, Science and Tech, University of Minnesota Law School
• Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci,Cornell Law School
• Michael P. Malloy, Distinguished Professor of LawUniversity of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law
• Edward L. Rubin, University Professor of Law and Political ScienceVanderbilt University Law School
• George B. Shepherd, Emory University School of Law

Stefan is giving us 8 minutes each, so there's no way you can get bored. See you there!

Where Were The Gatekeepers Pt 2- Social Media's Social Dilemma

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the role of compliance officers and general counsel working for Big Pharma in Where Were the Gatekeepers- Part 1. As a former compliance officer and deputy general counsel, I wondered how and if those in-house sentinels were raising alarm bells about safety concerns related to rushing a COVID-19 vaccine to the public. Now that I’ve watched the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma,” I’m wondering the same thing about the lawyers and compliance professionals working for the social media companies.

The documentary features some of the engineers and executives behind the massive success of Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms. Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist, is the star of the documentary and the main whistleblower. He raised concerns to 60 Minutes in 2017 and millions have watched his TED Talk.  He also testified before Congress in 2019 about how social media companies use algorithms and artificial intelligence to manipulate behavior. Human rights organizations have accused social media platforms of facilitating human rights abuses. Facebook and others have paid billions in fines for privacy violations.  Advertisers boycotted over Facebook and hate speech. But nothing has slowed their growth.

The documentary explicitly links the rising rate of youth depression, suicide, and risk taking behavior to social media’s disproportionate influence. Most of my friends who have watched it have already decreased their screen time or at least have become more conscious of it. Maybe they are taking a cue from those who work for these companies but don’t allow their young children to have any screen time. Hmmm … 

I’ve watched the documentary twice. Here are some of the more memorable quotes:

”If you’re not paying for the product, then you’re the product.”

“They sell certainty that someone will see your advertisement.” 

“It’s not our data that’s being sold. They are building models to predict our actions based on the click, what emotions trigger you, what videos you will watch.” 

“Algorithms are opinions embedded in code.”

”It’s the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in our own behavior and perception that is the product.”

“Social media is a drug.”

”There are only two industries that call their customers ‘users’: illegal drugs and software.”

”Social media is a marketplace that trades exclusively in human futures.”

”The very meaning of culture is manipulation.”

“Social media isn’t a tool waiting to be used. It has its own goals, and it has its own means of pursuing them.”

“These services are killing people and causing people to kill themselves.”

“When you go to Google and type in “climate change is,” you will get a different result based on where you live … that’s a function of … the particular things Google knows about your interests.”

“It’s 2.7 billion Truman Show. Each person has their own reality, their own facts.” 

“It worries me that an algorithm I worked on is increasing polarization in society.”

“Fake news on Twitter spreads six times faster than real news.”

“People have no idea what is true and now it’s a matter of life and death.”

“Social media amplifies exponential gossip and exponential hearsay to the point that we don’t know what’s true no matter what issue we care about.”

“If you want to control the operation of a country, there’s never been a better tool than Facebook.”

"The Russians didn't hack Facebook. What they did was use the tools Facebook created for legitimate advertisers and legitimate users, and they applied it to a nefarious purpose." 

“What [am I] most worried about? In the short term horizon? Civil War.”

“How do you wake up from the matrix when you don’t know you’re in the matrix”?

“You could shut down the service and destroy . . . $20 billion in shareholder value and get sued, but you can’t in practice put the genie back in the model.”

“We need to accept that it’s ok for companies to be focused on making money but  it’s not ok when there’s no regulation, no rules, and no competition and companies are acting as de facto governments and then saying ‘we can regulate ourselves.’ “

“There’s no fiscal reason for these companies to change.”

This brings me back to the beginning of my post. We’ve heard from former investors, engineers, and algorithm magicians from these companies, but where were and are the gatekeepers? What were they doing to sound the alarm?  But maybe I’m asking the wrong question. As Ann Lipton’s provocative post on Doyle, Watson, and the Purpose of the Corporation notes, “Are you looking at things from outside the corporation, in terms of structuring our overall legal and societal institutions?  Or are you looking at things from inside the corporation, in terms of how corporate managers should understand their jobs and their own roles?”

If you’re a board member or C-Suite executive of a social media company, you have to ask yourself, what if hate speech, fake news, polarization, and addiction to your product are actually profitable? What if perpetuating rumors that maximize shareholder value is the right decision? Why would you change a business model that works for the shareholders even if it doesn’t work for the rest of society? If social media is like a drug, it’s up to parents to instill the right values in their children. I get it. But what about the lawyers and the people in charge of establishing, promoting, and maintaining an ethical culture? To be clear, I don’t mean in any way to impugn the integrity of lawyers and compliance professionals who work for social media companies. I have met several at business and human rights events and privacy conferences who take the power of the tech industry very seriously and advocate for change.

The social media companies have a dilemma. Compliance officers talk about “tone at the top,” “mood in the middle,” and the “buzz at the bottom.” Everyone in the organization has to believe in the ethical mandate as laid out and modeled by leadership. Indeed, CEOs typically sign off on warm, fuzzy statements about ethical behavior in the beginning of the Code of Conduct. I’ve drafted quite a few and looked at hundreds more.  Notably, Facebook’s Code of Conduct, updated just a few weeks ago, has no statement of principle from CEO Mark Zuckerberg and seems very lawyerlike. Perhaps there’s a more robust version that employees can access where Zuckerberg extols company values. Twitter’s code is slightly better and touches more on ethical culture. Google’s Code states, “Our products, features, and services should make Google more useful for all our users. We have many different types of users, from individuals to large businesses, but one guiding principle: “Is what we are offering useful?”’ My question is “useful” to whom? I use Google several times a day, but now I have to worry about what Google chooses to show me. What's my personal algorithm? I’ve been off of Facebook and Instagram since January 2020 and I have no plans to go back.

Fifty years ago, Milton Friedman uttered the famous statement, “There is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.” The social media companies have written the rules of the game. There is no competition. Now that the “Social Dilemma” is out, there really isn’t any more deception or fraud.

Do the social media companies actually have a social responsibility to do better? In 2012,  Facebook’s S-1 proclaimed that the company’s mission was to “make the world more open and connected.” Facebook’s current Sustainability Page claims that, “At Facebook, our mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” Why is it, then that in 2020, people seem more disconnected than ever even though they are tethered to their devices while awake and have them in reach while asleep? Facebook’s sustainability strategy appears to be centered around climate change and supply chain issues, important to be sure. But is it doing all that it can for the sustainability of society? Does it have to? I have no answer for that. All I can say is that you should watch the documentary and judge for yourself.

Brave New World, Aristotle, and Happiness

In a reflection on the meaning of career success, a majority of my business ethics students mentioned happiness as a barometer. 

“Happiness,” however, is an incredibly imprecise term. For example, here is over seventy-five minutes of Jennifer Frey (University of South Carolina, Philosophy) and Jonathan Masur (University of Chicago, Law) discussing happiness under two different definitions. 

Frey, in the tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas, considers happiness not as a private good, but rather as the highest common good. Happiness is enjoyed in community. True happiness according to Frey, is bound up in the cultivation of virtue and human excellence. Under Frey’s definition, happiness makes room for sacrifice and suffering as beautiful and awe-inspiring. 

Masur, a self-described hedonist, seems to have a more psychological, subjective view of happiness. Masur defines happiness as positive feelings, and unhappiness as negative feelings. Masur acknowledges that happiness--maybe even the deepest happiness--can arise from relationships and altruistic behavior. Unlike Frey, however, Masur includes positive feelings that are artificially produced or arising from unvirtuous behavior as part of “happiness.” Masur sees happiness and living a good, moral life as often overlapping, but as not necessarily intertwined. 

These are two different conceptions of happiness. I think we need seperate words for the different conceptions--perhaps joy and pleasure--though I do not think any two English words fully capture the differences. 

Somewhat relatedly, this month, my neighborhood book club is reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Throughout the book, Huxley explores a future devoted to pleasure. In this world, a drug called soma, a sport called obstacle golf, and touch-engaging films called the "feelies" combine to drown out negative emotions. While the elimination of virtually all infectious diseases seems enviable in this moment, there is very little I admire in the brave new world---it seems incredibly shallow. Some of Aristotle’s virtues are largely missing. Courage, temperance, and liberality are only seen in the outcasts of this world. Self-denial and committed relationships are strongly discouraged.

Ross Douthat, in The New York Times, hits some similar notes below: 

• In effect, both Huxley and [C. S.] Lewis looked at the utilitarian's paradise--a world where all material needs are met, pleasure is maximized, and pain is eliminated--and pointed out what we might be giving up to get there: the entire vertical dimension in human life, the quest for the sublime and the transcendent, for romance and honor, beauty and truth. 

But even John Stuart Mill, the utilitarian, seemed to realize that there can be a depth to happiness that extends beyond pure pleasure. Mill wrote:  

• It is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides. 

Near the conclusion of Brave New World, the Savage (John) has an illuminating verbal spat with the Controller Mustapha Mond: 

• Savage: "But I like the inconveniences [of life.]"
• "We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."
• "But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
• "In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."
• "All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I am claiming the right to be unhappy." 

The Savage meets a tragic end (in part because he gets cut off from supportive community and has not grasped the concept of forgiveness), but I am still more drawn to his life--of pain and love, desire and disappointment, art and decay, principle and struggle--than to a life plugged into the pleasure producing experience machine. 

Even though Frey and Masur disagree on the breadth of the term “happiness,” both seem to agree that devoted relationships, selflessness, and self-transcendence often lead to durable, deep happiness. While many of my business ethics students did not define “happiness” in their reflections, I hope they increasingly realize the fulfillment that can come from cultivating virtue in the midst of difficulty. 

Science of Well-Being (Yale University - Professor Laurie Santos)

I am taking a free online course from Coursera and Yale University on the Science of Well-Being. The course is taught by Professor Laurie Santos.

Join me.

I may blog about the course at a later date. I am taking the course both for the content and for online teaching strategies.

Update (1/2/21): While I found some suggestions in this course helpful, I think philosopher Jennifer Frey makes a thoughtful critique of this course and the happiness hacking it promotes. In relevant part, Professor Frey writes:

"Happiness, pagan and Christian philosophers agreed, requires something more than technique or self-help; it requires the transformation of the person that comes with the acquisition of virtue: wisdom, prudence, justice, courage, and temperance. Wisdom gives us a clear vision of what is truly good, prudence allows us to deliberate well so as to attain and maintain that vision, justice to realize it in our actions, and courage and temperance to preserve it in the face of fears and temptations. Acquiring virtue is not about hacking oneself or engaging in other forms of self-manipulation; it is about the proper habituation of one’s thoughts, feelings, and desires so that one becomes existentially ready to seek what is truly good and beautiful. In this view, there is a truth about the human desire for happiness, which is that it can either be properly directed toward the possession of what is actually beautiful and good, or it can be improperly directed, remaining within the prison of the self and closed off from transcendence."

How to Be A Happy Lawyer (Or At Least Less Miserable) in 2019.

 

 

It's the  start of a new year and a new semester. As Joan wrote earlier this week, we need to step back and take stock of our mental health. I'm the happiest lawyer I know and have been since I graduated from law school in 1992, but many lawyers and students aren't so lucky. In fact, I probably spend 25-35% of my time on campus calming students down. Some have normal anxiety that fades as they gain more confidence.  I often recommend that those students read Grit or at least listen to the Ted talk. Others tell me (without my asking) about addictions, clinical depression, and other information that I should not know about. I know enough to refer to them to help. Closer to home, my 22-year old son has lost several friends to suicide. Many of those friends went to the best high schools and colleges in the country and seemed to have bright futures. And as we know, the suicide rate for lawyers is climbing.

Thankfully, the American Bar Association has gathered a number of resources for law students here. Practicing lawyers can find valuable tools for lawyer well-being here and a podcast for lawyers in recovery here. Law students can access their own ABA wellness podcast here. To help keep my energy high, I listen to a lot of podcasts of all types. I’ve found that listening to wellness podcasts, meditating, and exercising instead of watching the news has had a dramatic impact on my health. I know for a fact that the wellness stuff works. Due to significant stressors as a caretaker, my blood pressure spiked to a clinically dangerous level last week. This week, with mindfulness exercises and other wellness activities, I was able to lower it to normal levels without my new medication having kicked in yet. This is a big deal for me because despite my professional happiness, I’ve been hospitalized twice in 14 months for medical conditions exacerbated by stress. Being calm and stress free is literally a matter of life and death for me. Some of the podcasts I listen to are probably too “woo woo” to post for this audience but if you’re interested, you can email me privately at [email protected]. I’ll keep your secret.

Mainstream lawyer/business wellness podcasts include:

The Happy Lawyer Project (“The Happy Lawyer Project is an inspirational podcast for young lawyers looking to find happiness in life with a law degree. Each episode provides you with the tips, advice, encouragement and inspiration you need to craft a life and career you love.")

The Resilient Lawyer (“Practical and actionable information you can use to be a better lawyer. The Resilient Lawyer podcast is inspired by those in the legal profession living with authenticity and courage. Each week, we share tools and strategies for finding more balance, joy, and satisfaction in your professional and personal life! You'll meet lawyers, entrepreneurs, mentors and teachers successfully bridging the gap between their personal and professional lives, connecting the dots between their mental, emotional, physical and spiritual selves.”)

Happy Lawyer, Happy Life ("A knowledge centre for lawyers who want to make the best of their life in and outside of the law.")

The Tim Ferris Show (“Each episode, I deconstruct world-class performers from eclectic areas (investing, sports, business, art, etc.) to extract the tactics, tools, and routines you can use.  This includes favorite books, morning routines, exercise habits, time-management tricks, and much more.”)

The Mindful Lawyer (it's no longer running, but my colleague Scott Rogers pioneered the field and these are short tracks.)

Dina Cataldo Soul Roadmap (“So, you’re a lawyer who doesn’t have it all figured out? Design the life you deserve. Stop killing yourself to achieve success and redefine it instead.”)

You may need more than a podcast to get you through whatever you're going through right now. If you, a student, a colleague, or family member needs immediate help, please get it. I’ve cut and pasted the resources below from our law school’s web page for students.

Key National Referral Services

Suicide Prevention

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255), National, Toll-Free, 24 Hours
Dave Nee Foundation, 646-801-7392
Law Lifeline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

Chemical Dependency and Self-Help Sites

Addition Recovery Resources for Professionals, 540-815-4214
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), 212-870-3400
American Medical Association, 800-621-8335
Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), 240-276-1660
Cocaine Anonymous (CA), 310-559-5833
CODA Drug Abuse Hotlines, 1-877-446-9087

Crystal Meth Anonymous (CMA), 213-488-4455
Dual Recovery Anonymous (DRA), 913-991-2703
International Lawyers in A.A. (ILAA), 944-566-9040
Marijuana Anonymous (MA), 800-766-6779
Narcotics Anonymous (NA), 818-773-9999
National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information(SAMHSA), 1-877-SAMHSA (726-4727)
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), 301-443-1124
Nicotine Anonymous (NA), 415-750-0328

Compulsive Gambling

Debtors Anonymous (DA), 781-453-2743
Gamblers Anonymous (GA), 213-386-8789

Eating Disorders

Anorexia Nervosa & Associated (Eating) Disorders (ANAD), 630-577-1330
Overeaters Anonymous (OA), 505-891-2664

Family Support

Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA), 562-595-7831
Al-Anon/Alateen, 757-563-1600
Nar-Anon Family Groups, 310-534-8188
Co-Dependents Anonymous (CODA), 888-444-2359
Co-Dependents of Sex Addicts (COSA), 763-537-6904

Mental Health Sites

Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA), 240-485-1001
Journal of General Psychiatry (JAMA), 1-800-262-2350
Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder(CHADD), 1-800-233-4050
Depression and Bipolor Support Alliance (DBSA), 800-826-3632
Lawyers with Depression
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), 800-950-6264
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 1-866-615-6464
National Mental Health Association (NMHA), 703-684-7722

Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity

Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA), 800-477-8191
Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA), 210-828-7900
Sexaholics Anonymous (SA) 615-370-6062

I'm sure that I've missed a number of resources. I just finished attending a wellness tea brunch at a French patisserie with fresh baked goods and champagne so I'm incredibly relaxed (#selfcare). If you have more resources to add, please feel free to comment below. Let’s make this the best year yet for our students and for ourselves. If I can ever be an ear for anyone, I’m always available.

 

Summer Reading: Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

Shortly after hearing Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant speak on a Harvard Business Review podcast, I purchased Option B.

After listening to the podcast, I expected the book to contain more references to the research on resilience than it ultimately did. While I knew the book was popular press, I expected Penn Professor Adam Grant to add a more scholarly flavor. As it was, the book was a relatively short memoir focused on the death of Sheryl Sandberg's husband Dave. Had I started the book expecting a window into Sandberg's grieving process rather than an accessible integration of the resilience research, I think I would have appreciated the book more.  

On the positive side, the book is an extremely easy read and is written with a punchy, engaging style. Sandberg is quite honest, and is blunt in sharing with the readers what is and isn't helpful in interacting with those who have experienced great personal loss. In Sanberg's opinion, you should address the elephant in the room, and should not worry about reminding them of their loss, as they are already thinking about it all the time. Vague offers like "let me know if I can do anything to help" were deemed less helpful than more specific offers like "I am in the hospital waiting room for the next hour if you would like a hug" or "what would you not like on a burger." Also, mere presence was deemed meaningful. As someone who is always at a loss for what to say or do in these situations, her suggestions were helpful. 

Of the relatively limited references to research, I found the discussion of Martin Seligman's work helpful, including the finding that "three P's can stunt recovery: (1) personalization - the belief that we are at fault; (2) pervasiveness - the belief that an event will affect all areas of our life; and (3) permanence - the belief that the aftershocks of the event will last forever." (16).

Also, I appreciated the references to Joe Kasper's work on post-traumatic growth in its "five different forms: finding personal strength, gaining appreciation, forming deeper relationships, discovering more meaning in life, and seeing new possibilities." (79). Thankfully, the authors note that you do not have to actually experience trauma to benefit from this sort of growth, you can experience pre-traumatic growth (especially through observing the trauma of others or near-misses in your own life). 

Based on the podcast, I was hoping on more information on raising resilient children, and there is a chapter on this topic. That said, the chapter did not offer much new. Sandberg and Grant refer to Carol Dweck's work on growth mindset, which I reviewed a few years ago on this blog. The main suggestion was to help "children develop four core beliefs: (1) they have some control over their lives; (2) they can learn from failure; (3) they matter as human beings; (4) and they have real strengths to rely on and share." (111).

While this book wasn't quite what I expected, given the very limited amount of time it took to read (2-3 hours), I think it was worthwhile as a honest look at one person's grief and suggested ways to serve grieving people. 

Wisniewski, Yekini, and Omar on “Psychopathic Traits of Corporate Leadership as Predictors of Future Stock Returns”

Tomasz Piotr Wisniewski, Liafisu Sina Yekini, and Ayman M. A. Omar posted “Psychopathic Traits of Corporate Leadership as Predictors of Future Stock Returns” on SSRN on June 13, 2017. You can find their abstract here. 

I was particularly interested in how the authors measured psychopathy. Here is a relevant excerpt:

Using UK data, we construct a number of corporate psychopathy indicators and link them to the returns that ensue over the next 250 trading days - a period roughly equivalent to one calendar year.

Even if clear guidance exists on how to diagnose psychopathic personality disorder in humans (Hare 1991, 2003), the practical difficulty is that executives will be generally unwilling to participate in time consuming surveys, particularly those that are likely to expose the dark side of their character. We choose to follow a more pragmatic approach and, similarly to Chatterjee and Hambrick (2007), collect information in an unobtrusive way by going through company-related archives and data. Firstly, using automated content analysis we assess to what extent the language in annual report narratives is symptomatic of psychopathy. This is done by counting the frequency of words that are aggressive, characteristic of speakers who are self-absorbed and who have the tendency to assign blame to others. Secondly, we look at likely correlates of managerial integrity. More specifically, we try to identify companies whose auditors have expressed reservations in the Emphasis of Matter section of the annual report and those that have experienced a publicized Financial Reporting Council (FRC) intervention. Thirdly, we consider a measure that derives from the observation that psychopaths require stronger external stimuli to experience emotions and, therefore, have the tendency to take high risks. We assume that excessive exposure in a corporation will result in a high degree of idiosyncratic risk. This type of risk, which is entirely company-specific and unrelated to the broader economy, is measured in our empirical inquiry. Lastly, we construct a variable to capture the reluctance of a company to donate to charitable causes.

Our empirical investigation documents a negative association between the presence of managerial psychopathic traits and future return on common equity.

Summer Reading: The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

While I am already looking forward to returning to the classroom in the fall, one of the reasons that I love summers is that I get to catch up on reading. It has been an embarrassingly long time since I have finished a fiction book, but I am committed to making fiction an increasing percentage of my reading.  

Percy's Moviegoer won the 1962 National Book Award. I have my brother Will to thank for the recommendation and for the book itself. The novel focuses on the life of a New Orleans area stockbroker "Binx" Bolling, and his search for meaning. I won't ruin the story for those who have not read it, but I was moved by the Binx's struggle against what he called the malaise and everydayness. Binx appears to be a pretty sad character, spending a good bit of time hiding from life in movie theaters and engaging in flings with his secretaries, but he can also inspire the reader to ask serious questions, engage in meaningful relationships, and live more intentionally. 

Focus Group Experience

Recently, I participated in a focus group on running shoes for Brooks. A few years ago, I did something similar for New Balance. 

Brooks paid each participant $100 for 90 minutes. 

The group was well-facilitated, and the group members stayed incredibly engaged. The 90-minutes flew by.

The research Brooks was conducting on both shoe design and marketing was extremely qualitative. It was essentially a brainstorming session. I do think Brooks could have gotten more out of the time if they would have had everyone privately write down their own ideas first, as there were about three or four of the ten of us who dominated the discussion. 

While this type of focus group was not cheap---$1000 in payment plus renting the room plus travel for two employees from Seattle---it was surely a very small fraction of their production and marketing budget. And I do think Brooks got some valuable ideas. Brooks does this sort of thing all over the country, and their employees said that they do start to hear patterns in the responses. It is those patterns that Brooks acts on, as they can't possibly address every one-off comment. 

This focus group made me think that universities should consider similar focus groups with applicants and with local companies. I know a bit of this happens informally at most places, and perhaps it happens formally at some places, but I do wonder if it is done with the same regularity and intensity as for-profit firms like Brooks. I think the insights would be valuable, and even if the insights are poor, the organizing institution does get to explain itself (and show it really cares) to the focus group participants. 

[Over]confidence in the C-Suite, Politics, and the Employment Interview Process

Interesting research has been done on overconfidence in business leadership (see, e.g., here, here, and here) and political behavior (see, e.g., here and here).  I periodically consult the literature in this area for use in my work.  It is fascinating and often helpful.

In my continuing career development advice to law students, and as a member of our faculty appointments committee at UT Law this year, however, I recently have come to notice and be concerned about overconfidence in job searches.  Specifically, I see law students who, in testing out a new confidence in their knowledge and skills, overdo it a bit and over-claim or come across as unduly self-important.  I also see faculty candidates who have registered for the Association of American Law Schools Faculty Appointments Register (FAR) puff and oversell--using the comment areas to make cringe-worthy self-aggrandizing statements about their teaching or scholarly background or abilities.

Most of us prefer to associate with confident people.  Confidence in a leader or colleague is an attractive trait--one that we associate with strong governance and high levels of performance.  Confidence wins appointments, elections, and jobs.  Yet overconfidence, if recognized, is unattractive and often means lost opportunities.

Overconfidence is common.  Don Moore, a faculty member at Berkeley's Haas School of Business, notes this in a recent blog post on Overconfidence in Politics.

I study overconfidence among all sorts of people, from business leaders and politicians to college students and office workers. And my research shows that most people are vulnerable to overconfidence. We are excessively confident that we know the truth and have correctly seen the right path forward to prosperity, economic growth and moral standing. Research results consistently show that people express far more faith in the quality of their judgment than it actually warrants. . . .

How do those of us who advise law students enable them to be confident and show confidence without becoming overconfident--or projecting overconfidence?  In his post on résumés and interviews two years ago, co-blogger Haskell Murray advised students to avoid overstating their accomplishments.

Lawyers, perhaps more than other professionals, will call you out on any overstated items on your resume. While I have met plenty of arrogant lawyers, and perhaps was one, arrogance isn’t going to win you many supporters in the interview. Avoid vague self-congratulations (e.g., “provided excellent customer service.”). Stick to the specific, verifiable facts (e.g., “voted employee of the month in April 2012” or “responsible for a 35% increase in revenue from my clients.”).

I totally agree.  I also made a related point regarding the written word in my post on cover letters back in January.

. . . I see a significant number of cover letters that use strident adjectives and adverbs to help make their points. The sentences in these letters tend to smack of over-claiming. Also, in many cases, these adjectives and adverbs represent poor substitutes for well-chosen . . . stories. Most employers are likely to be more favorably disposed to the documentation of specific facts substantiating an applicant's suitability for an open position than they would be to sentences consisting of self-selected (and sometimes over-blown) characterizations of the applicant's suitability for that position.

But I have learned that the line between confidence and overconfidence, as important as it is in the job search process, can be a thin one.  And decisions about how to confidently--but not overconfidently--communicate with contacts, mentors, and prospective employers (among others) often must be made on one's own and quickly.  So, my bottom line advice to students is to focus generally in all communications, oral and written, on being other-regarding.  This article written by a Forbes Contributor makes some great observations and offers tips along those lines.  And if you can ask a trusted mentor to help you prepare for common questions or review the text of emails or letters, that's great.  

What else?  You tell me.  I am not confident that I know more . . . .  :>)

Do Clothes Make the Lawyer? Maybe They Do . . . .

As many of you know, I often like to post on issues relating to advising students (witness my cover letter posts, the most recent of which can be found here).  I also like to post from time to time on issues relating to fashion and the law (e.g., this post).  And sometimes, I fuse the two in a single post.  This post is one of those fusion posts.

Many of us intuitively understand that clothing affects not only the perceptions others have of us but also the perceptions we have of ourselves.  Some of us may even have done research to unearth evidence that these intuitions have some empirical traction.  But can what you wear affect your performance?  Research provides some evidence that it can.

Researchers at Northwestern University have identified a "systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer's psychological processes" that they term "unclothed cognition."  Their research, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2012, found that the attentiveness of the subjects was higher when wearing a lab coat than it was when they were not wearing a lab coat or were wearing a lab coat described as a painter's coat. The research was fairly widely reported at the time.  Although the study explored the effects of wearing a lab coat, one can see how the results may also hold for people wearing other performance-linked clothing, like athletic wear or other professional clothing, including business suits.  (A subsequent study on the cognitive effects of business suits can be found here.  More general commentary is available here and elsewhere.)

Admittedly, the results of these studies and others like them are qualified and the research in this field is at an early stage.  Having said that, as our students start interviewing for jobs and engaging in clinical practice and other experiential learning in the new semester, the possible effect of clothing on performance may be a relevant footnote for them.  I admit that I am not a fan of dress codes, as a general rule.  However, I may mention these studies to my students so that they can use the information in their decision-making, if they so choose.

Reflection on Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

I have been following Professor Angela Duckworth's work on grit for well over a year, so I was eager to read her new book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. In fact, I can't remember the last time I bought and read a book within a few weeks of it being published.  

The book is an easy read, written for a for a popular audience, and I was able to finish it in three relatively short sittings.

Below, I reflect on the book, hopefully in a balanced way. 

Thesis. As may be evident from previous posts of mine, I like Duckworth's thesis - essentially, that passion and perseverance in pursuit of long-term goals are important in achieving success. Duckworth is careful to caveat her thesis, noting at hard work and passion are important, but are not the only factors that matter in achieving success. With this caveat, her thesis seems rather obvious and uninteresting.

Grit Scale. The Grit Scale Duckworth created for her studies seems easy to fake, and to her credit, she admits that it can be faked, like most self-reporting measures. Given the ability to fake the Grit Scale, I am not sure that it would be of much use in practical settings where the stakes are high (such as admissions or hiring). In one of the more interesting studies, Duckworth discusses how they gave the Grit Scale to West Point cadets before going through Beast Barracks (described as the toughest part of the four years). Supposedly, Grit scores did a nice job predicting who would stay and who would drop out. Given that the scale is easy to fake, maybe the interesting finding is not "those who actually have more grit perform better" but rather "those who think they have more grit (or are willing to lie that they have more grit) perform better. 

Parenting and Teaching. As a parent, I appreciated her chapter on parenting for Grit (though she admits that these are just her thoughts, and unlike other parts of the book, the parenting chapter is lacking directly applicable scientific studies). In particular, she notes the importance of being both supportive and demanding. This is also fairly obvious, but easy to forget, hard to consistently apply,  and important to remember. This instruction applies to teachers as well -- make clear that you have high expectations, but also communicate you are there to help and believe the students can meet the expectations with work. For a skeptics view, at least on the point of whether grit can be taught, see here. 

Creativity, Talent, Structural Barriers: While Duckworth admits that there are other factors that contribute to success, I didn't think she made a strong case for grit being more important than creativity or talent. In fact, most of the gritty people she mentioned had certain natural advantages over many others. While grit may be needed to get things done, it seems like creativity and talent and access are all necessary and may be even more important than grit in some cases. 

Anecdotes. There are a number of anecdotes in the book. The stories are less convincing than the academic studies, but the stories help illustrate her points. I especially liked the sports stories, including the ones about the UNC women's soccer team and the Seattle Seahawks. The coach of the UNC soccer team, for example, had his team memorize passages related to each team core value, and then also integrated the values into practices and games. Much better than a meaningless organization vision statement. 

All in all, I think the book was worth reading, if only to stay current on some of the theories that are likely to be talked about by educators at all levels, and to inspire more passion and perseverance in general.

For a fair and thoughtful critique of Grit see here. 

Grit and Popular Press

I recently finished Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (2016) by Angela Duckworth (Penn Psychology).

Next week, I will post some reflections on the contents of the book, but for now, I would like to discuss professors publishing for a popular audience. Tongue-twisting alliteration unintended.  

I am thankful that Duckworth wrote this book for a popular audience rather than in a way that would target a narrow slice of academia. Even as a professor myself, I find books written for popular audience easier to digest, especially if in a different discipline. While popular press books often oversimplify, I would rather a professor author a popular press book on her studies (and studies in her field) than have a journalist attempt to explain them. Also, while a popular press book may oversimplify, professors tend to be intentional about avoiding claims that are too sweeping. Note that in this interview, like the book, Duckworth is careful to state that grit is not the only thing that contributes to success. Finally, especially when the professor has done the background academic work first, as Duckworth did in many peer-reviewed journal articles, a popular press book can reach more people and inspire change and may eventually lead to broader engagement with the underlying academic articles. 

Grit, as a popular press book, has already reached a large audience. Grit was published by Scribner: An Imprint of Simon & Schuster (not a university press) and jumped into the top-5 of The New York Times best-seller list for hardcover non-fiction. Duckworth had already reached well over a million people with her TED talk, and the book allowed her to be much more nuanced than she could be in a 6 minute speech. The TED talk was a gateway to her popular press book and perhaps her popular press book with be a gateway to the academic research she cites.   

One problem with engaging a large, popular audience is that the professor may lose control of her message, and people may misinterpret the findings. Duckworth looks like she is staying engaged in the conversation, however, and has, for example, written to argue against grading schools on grit. 

In short, there are certainly potential problems when writing about academic topics for a popular audience, but I am glad Duckworth took on the challenge and spread her research in this way. That said, as I will discuss next week, Grit does have weaknesses, in addition to its strengths.

Milkman on Temptation Bundling

I recently listened to a podcast on temptation bundling, featuring the work of Katherine Milkman (Wharton). 

Temptation bundling is explained here and here by Katherine Milkman, who (I believe) coined the term.

In short, temptation bundling is putting something you want to do together with something you should do. 

Temptation bundling can make both activities more enjoyable --- you feel better about the want activity because you also accomplished a should activity, and the should activity is less difficult because it is married with a want activity. For example, temptation bundling is what I have been doing with podcast listening; I only listen to podcasts (want) when I workout (should).

Below are a few temptation bundles that might work for professors:

• Drinking caffeinated drinks only while researching;
• Listening to your favorite music only while grading; and
• Eating chocolate only when in faculty meetings.

Forming Habits in the New Year

Happy New Year!

Last year I wrote a bit about New Year's resolutions.

As some of you know, I wasn't able to go the full year without checking my e-mail on Saturdays. In fact, that resolution was toast a few weeks into 2015.

One of the problems, I think, was that I had 20 resolutions in 2015. We all have limited self-control, and we can experience overload in January.

I have been doing New Year's resolutions for as long as I can remember, with varied amounts of success, but I am going to try something a bit different this year.

The Cass Sunstein article I included last year gave me the idea. In the article, he states "But how can we ensure that our resolutions actually stick? Behavioral economists have three answers: Make them easy and automatic, make them a matter of habit, and make them fun. A resolution is more likely to work if it is concrete and can be translated into a simple routine."

This year, instead of a long list of resolutions, I plan to focus on forming one habit each month. I hope the habits will continue after that month, but after one month of intense focus, hopefully the habit will have moved into the less laborious System 1.

Interested to see how this works. It may be a more sustainable solution. If you form the right habits, then it is less likely that you will have to continue setting the same goals (like "lose weight" and "save more") each year. For example, my saving-related resolutions are always the simplest to keep because I just change my direct deposit rules and let it run its course. Direct deposit acts a bit like an already formed habit - easy and automatic. Of course, many habits are quite difficult to form, but I think focusing on one a month sounds doable. Whether I can keep all 12 going in December 2016 (and beyond) remains to be seen.

Good luck to all those making resolutions!