Have you ever gotten into the car to go to destination A and a few turns later realized you’re going to destination B and have to turn around?

If so, you’ve experienced the power of habit.

Have you ever told yourself you will NOT eat the cookies sitting out on the counter and two minutes later pick one up and eat it?  Or perhaps it was the cigarette.  Or the drink.

Habit.

Did you know that the genius behind the methods of Tony Dungy–the only coach in the NFL history to reach the play-offs ten years in a row and the one who turned a troubled Colts team around and three years later took them to win the Super Bowl in 2007–was to teach his players to be faster than everyone else.  But they wouldn’t be faster because they would focus on increasing their physical speed. They would be faster because they would learn habits that would make their moves instinct.  When his strategy worked, Dungy’s players could move with a speed that was impossible to overcome.

According to some research, more than 40% of the actions we perform each day are not actual decisions, but habits.  And habits that we didn’t always consciously choose to start.  We have sleeping habits, shopping habits, exercise habits, eating habits.  Habits at work, at home, at school.  Habits of the mind.

Companies have a huge interest in changing our shopping habits.  Coaches have an interest in changing the habits we use when we play. Teachers have an interest in the habits of their classroom. Families and communities have habitual ways of interacting. We all have personal habits we’d like to adopt and others we’d like to give away.  But unless you know what you’re doing, habits can be extremely intransigent and slippery things.

The good news is that a lot of research has been done in the last few decades, and we now know how habits work. When we arm ourselves with this knowledge, we’ll have a much better chance of changing. Luckily for us, we don’t have to track all that information down.  In The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business, Charles Duhigg draws on hundreds of academic studies, interviews with more than three hundred scientists and executives, and research conducted at dozens of companies in his book and distills all this knowledge to its essence.

The title might sound boring, but Duhigg follows the style of Malcom Gladwell (Outliers, Blink, The Tipping Point), and the Heath brothers (Made to Stick), and has written a book that I couldn’t put down.  For example, I couldn’t stop reading about coach Tony Dungy, or Target as it predicts who is pregnant and how far along they are, or the scientists who couldn’t figure out why Alcoholics Anonymous works, or how bad organizational habits led to thirty-one people being burned alive in London’s King’s Cross subway stop.  I couldn’t stop reading about why Rosa Parks, not the first African American to refuse to give up her bus seat, could pivot the civil rights movement.  I couldn’t stop reading the stories of individuals losing bad habits, others picking up good ones, and others who lost their minds but not their habits. Duhigg uses these and many other examples and studies to illustrate the key principles underlying how habits work.  In the appendix, he gives us a guide for examining and forming our own habits.

I personally know the power of changing habits of the mind (which I’ve already written about). And teeth. A few years ago, I flossed once a week. It was such a pain. Now it’s a habit that I almost crave each night. I look back at how I made those changes and see it all laid out in Duhigg’s book. Can I actually change my habit of going to bed late? Stay tuned.

If you’re interested in forming the habits of a class, team, company, or family; if you want to change some of your own habits; if you’re interested in knowing why we do what we do and enjoy the style of Malcom Gladwell and Dan and Chip Heath, then I think you’ll love this book. Let me suggest you watch the video below.  Then go to http://charlesduhigg.com/the-power-of-habit/ and click on the “Additional Resources” to watch and read more. Then just get the dang book.

Which animals do you think have a better life: family dogs or cattle on ranches?

Think about it. Cattle get branded and tagged and slaughtered. Some live only a year or two. Meanwhile, Fido gets the run of the house, a spot in front of the couch, and chew toys.

You might be surprised to know that many cattle have it better than pampered family pets. That’s the claim Temple Grandin makes in her fascinating and practical book Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals.

Grandin is not a beef industry lobbyist working smoke and mirrors PR to make ranchers look good. She’s a practical, down-to-earth, get-your-hands-dirty animal scientist who has revolutionized the beef industry and had an impact on many others. She isn’t a vegetarian, and has no intention to become one. But she does love animals. And her insight and research has made the lives of millions of animals better.

When people ask her how she can work in the beef industry instead of being an activist against it, she says that all things die. It’s the cycle of life. She has no problem eating animals. In fact, she believes that our relationship with the animals we use for food is symbiotic–mutually beneficial. But she also believes that if we’re going to raise them, or keep them as pets, we need to give these animals a quality life.

So what do animals need for a quality life? Should we give our cattle rubdowns? Let our dogs roam through city streets? What do our cats and pigs and horses need? Is it freedom?

Her answer, surprisingly, is that focusing on freedom really isn’t a good guide for trying to give animals a good life. Not because freedom is a bad thing, but because it’s too confusing. Instead, she believes that we should be basing animal welfare on the core, or what she calls the “blue ribbon,” emotion systems in the brain. The key systems are SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, PANIC, and PLAY.

The rule is simple: avoid stimulating the negative emotions; do stimulate the positive ones. In the book she shares what she knows about how to do that for dogs, cats, horses, cows, pigs, chickens and other poultry, wildlife, and animals in zoos.

Grandin is always fascinating, and with her trademark style of stories and practical insights, she shares what the research and her more than 30 years of practical hands-on experience working with animals has taught her. You’ll learn why your chickens need a place to hide, even if you’ve fenced out every fox and skunk with thirty feet of concrete; what makes pigs happy; why clicker training is so successful with horses; why you might want to consider the color of your cat’s fur; why leaving your dog locked in the house with food and plenty of toys may actually be very stressing. You’ll even learn to look at zoo habitats differently. Each chapter focuses on a different animal and how to avoid the negative and stimulate the positive blue ribbon emotions. This is not touchy-feely fluff. It’s not the ranting and raging of someone who thinks the planet would be better of without humans. It’s the insights of someone who is rigorously scientific, down-to-earth practical, and passionate about animals.  

In her own words: “Everyone who is responsible for animals needs a set of simple, reliable guidelines for creating good mental welfare that can be applied to any animal in any situation.” Read her book to find out what she suggests these should be. If you own pets or raise animals, I think you’ll love this read. If you’d like to sample the first chapter, you can at Grandin’s website:  http://www.grandin.com/

A Man and a Team of Girls

Back in 1964, Jim Keith took a job at an Oklahoma high school to coach boy’s basketball.  But when he arrived, the administrators changed their minds and gave his job to someone else.  Keith’s contract didn’t specify which gender he’d coach, just that he’d coach.  So they switched him to the girls.  Keith was extremely disappointed.  Who wanted to coach girls when it was the boys who played real ball?  Especially when Keith was supposed to be head coach.  Keith tried to get the promised position back, except the girls he coached had other things in store for him.  Harold Keith, Jim’s brother, wrote a novel based on what happened.  That novel was made into a movie in 2006 called Believe In Me.  

Now, we all know the plot line of sports movies: a losing underdog of a team rises up to win.  It’s predictable, right?  But we could say that of all crime shows as well—in this episode investigators discover a crime and figure out who did it!  Wow, what a shocker.  We could say it of all romantic comedies as well—in this movie a couple at odds gets together.  No way!  We could say it of lots of stories.  And yet we love these stories anyway.  Why?  

Because the characters suck us in.  Because the story tellers do such a good job with the particular details we forget we’re watching a movie or reading a book.  We forget to think about the ending.  Furthermore, the stories are often about more than just winning games.  And so we worry about these people who have become real to us and focus on their immediate situation.  At least, that’s what happens when the story tellers do a good job.

And Robert Collector, who both wrote and directed the film, did a great job with Believe In Me.  Now, I don’t know how accurate the film’s depiction of five-on-five play is; I believe the girl basketball teams of that era played six-on-six.  But that’s a niggling technical detail.  Besides, the movie isn’t about technique anyway.  It’s about a man and a group of country girls who have to face difficult obstacles, not so much on the court, but off it.  If you have girls or like sports at all, I think you’ll love this movie. 

Cyber War

I recently reviewed America The Vulnerable which explained how exposed we are as individuals, corporations, and a country to cyber crime, cyber espionage (both state and corporate), and cyber attacks.  Of all the cyber threats we face as individuals and a nation, the least likely is an all out cyber war.  But just because it’s less likely that doesn’t mean the threat isn’t real.  Especially since cyber warfare has been in use since the 1990′s.  We used cyber weapons openly in the gulf war in 2003, knocking out Iraqi air defenses.  Israel used them to own Syria’s air defenses when bombing their clandestine nuclear site in 2007.  Russia used them against Estonia in 2008 and Georgia in 2009 on a variety of targets, bringing many critical systems to a halt.  In 2010, somebody, most likely the US or Israel, developed the Stuxnet worm to sabotage the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz in Iran.  China has already conducted trial runs of cyber attacks on the US and has planted logic bombs and trap doors to activate in the future.

In Cyber War, Richard Clarke shares his insights into what cyber war is, how cyber weapons work, and how vulnerable we are as a nation.  He discusses the cyber warriors (hackers) we now employ in the US military, and how a cyber war is like and unlike other wars.  In the second half of the book, he discusses the factors that have created our current vulnerability, how to set up a defense, and what we need to think about when conducting a cyber war. 

And Clarke knows his stuff.  He worked for the State Department during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.  In 1992, President George H.W. Bush appointed him to chair the Counter-terrorism Security Group and to a seat on the United States National Security Council.  President Bill Clinton retained Clarke and in 1998 promoted him to be the national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection, and counterterrorism, the chief counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council.  President George W. Bush kept him in the same position and later made him special adviser to the president on cyber security.    

The thing I liked most about the book is that in addition to describing cool cyber war weapons, threats, and incidents, Clarke examines answers to many critical questions.  For example, how can we set up a defense without the government becoming a 1984 nightmare?  Would arms agreements work in cyber space?  (No.)  How do you prevent a cyber war from turning into a kinetic (guns and troops) war?  How do you attack your enemy when it’s sometimes hard to know who launched the attack in the first place?  He discusses these and many more questions.

The book does have one fault.  Clarke has an obvious axe to grind with the Bush administration, and can’t help but make snide and irritating comments whenever he brings them up.  The good news is that those spots are few and far between.  If you want an excellent introduction into how cyber weapons are used and will likely be used in the future, you’ll want to read this book.

Buck

About two years ago I was walking out in Round Valley and saw a rider on a horse coming down a hill through the brush.  I got to him just as he moved onto the road. Right away, I noticed that there was something a bit off with the horse’s gear—the rider was not using a bridle. The rider, Wayne Batty, was using nothing more than a rope harness that went around the horse’s head. I was amazed; how did you steer the horse without a bit in its mouth?

I asked Wayne if I might walk alongside as he rode. He agreed, and then began to talk about training and riding horses. I stuck with him for little over a mile before I had to turn back. I learned in that short period that Wayne was able to communicate with that horse with small nudges. The horse also communicated to him many things with its stance, ears, the cock of its head. Most importantly, I learned they both had built up a trust of each other. Wayne’s methods were not based on fear, it seemed, but something else.

It reminded me a lot of the fascinating and compelling The Man Who Listens to Horses, the autobiography of Monty Roberts, that shares Roberts’ life and his development of natural horsemanship methods. Unlike many training approaches which seek to break a horse’s will through harsh punishment-based methods that often veer into abuse, natural horsemanship employs methods that are much gentler and seek to build trust in the handler. Roberts can join up with (he doesn’t “break” horses) a wild or un-ridden horse, be up on the saddle calmly riding the animal, in an incredibly short period of time.

But Batty and Roberts aren’t the only ones practicing this. These methods have been around some time. One of the most famous practitioners and teachers is Buck Brannaman, who found his years of being severely physically abused by his father actually provided some insight into training horses.

Says Brannaman: “I’ve started horses since I was twelve years old and have been bit, kicked, bucked off and run over. I’ve tried every physical means to contain my horse in an effort to keep from getting myself killed. I started to realize that things would come much easier for me once I learned why a horse does what he does. This method works well for me because of the kinship that develops between horse and rider.”

Recently, a film was produced that looks at Brannaman’s life and methods. It’s called Buck and is worth every minute. If you love horses, you’ll love this movie. If you have a horse and think you might want to learn these methods, or just want to watch and listen, you might want to check out Brannaman’s teaching schedule at his site brannaman.com. He travels all over the country and is likely to hold a class within driving distance.

America The Vulnerable

A few years ago I received an email from my bank. At least, it looked legit to me. I opened it. It said it needed me to update some parts of my account and provided a link to the bank’s website. I clicked on the link, which took me to my bank’s website. At least, it looked exactly like my bank’s website. I entered my account number, login, and password. I made the requested changes and logged out.

Two days later, somebody in Spain cleared every penny out of my account—thousands of dollars stolen.

That email was a phishing (fishing) scam. The website had been a fake. I had willingly handed over my account number, login, and password to thieves.

Luckily, the bank insures such thefts. But the problem of information security remains. Thieves living in Spain, or Russia, or LA, or China, can rob me blind from their bedrooms in their pajamas. They can do this because our information processing nowadays is increasingly tied to the internet.

And they don’t just rob dopes like me, because it’s not just individual criminals who are in the business. Corporations and governments are in this business as well.

They steal billions of dollars of trade secrets, engineering designs, and other intellectual property from American companies through computer hacking. They steal military secrets. For example, the US Navy spent years and about $5 billion dollars to develop a quiet electric motor for submarines that would make them incredibly hard to find and track. Chinese spies stole that technology. The Navy then spent billions more to develop a new radar for their top-of-the-line Aegis Cruiser. Chinese spies stole that, too.

And they not only steal. Terrorists, crime organizations, and foreign governments can now insert malicious software into the computers that control, among other things, our electrical grid. They can use this in an attack, not just to shut the grid down for a while, but to destroy power generators. They can insert such software into our air traffic control system. Our train transportation systems. Our banks. They have already done this. They have already breached some of our most secure government systems.

It sounds too far-fetched to be true, but it’s reality. Joel Brenner, who has served as the former senior counsel at the National Security Agency (NSA), the national counterintelligence executive in the office of the director of National Intelligence, and as the NSA’s inspector general writes about what he’s seen in America The Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digial Espionage, Crime, and Warfare. In the book, he explains the cyber threats to individuals, corporations, and the country and what we can do about it. If you want a fascinating look into the next phase of crime, espionage, and warfare, and an introduction to some of the things you need to do to protect yourself and your company, and what we need to do as a nation, you’ll want to read this book.

Pure Delight

One of the most delightful literary characters to appear in the last decade is the cheeky Bartimaeus–a five-thousand-year-old djinni (“genie”) who plays the lead role in Jonathan Stroud’s trilogy The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem’s Eye, and Ptolemy’s Gate.

In Stroud’s world, magicians have no magic in themselves, but they do have the lore to summon and enslave demons, who can work magic. There are demons of various levels and powers. The lowest regularly summoned and enslaved are Imps, who can be crude and like to tell outright whoppers, but are good for standing watch and carrying messages. Next come Foliots, which Bartimaeus describes as “cut price djinn.” In the middle of the great chain of beings are the Djinn themselves, whose clever intelligence Bartimaeus extols, followed by Afrits, and finally Marids, who are rarely summoned because they are too strong for any but the most powerful magicians to control. Of Marids, Bartimaeus insightfully reveals that they are “dreadfully full of themselves.”

In the trilogy, Bartimaeus is summoned and enslaved to do the bidding of a sometimes jerkish young magician who learns to be a better person, despite himself. Of course, along the way the magician sends Bartimaeus in great peril, which he eludes with cunning, sardonic wit, and many good one-liners. I read the first book, loved it, then listened to all three read by Simon Jones, who makes these stories even better. The sad news is that I finished them. I simply wasn’t ready to let Bartimaeus go.

Which is why I was so happy to find that Stroud recently released a fourth book: The Ring of Solomon, which is a stand-alone prequel to the trilogy. The family and I just finished listening to it, and it is every bit as good, if not better, than the first three.

This story is set in biblical times where King Solomon has risen to uncontested power because of his possession of an all-powerful ring which allows him to summon hordes of powerful demons in a blink. Bartimaeus is enslaved to one of Solomon’s magicians.  A mean man, who Bartimaeus catches in a mistake and escapes, principally by devouring him. But Solomon doesn’t take kindly to that, and orders Khaba, a sinister and cruel magician, to summon him back to make an example for the other demons.

Meanwhile, the Queen of Sheba, having denied Solomon’s marriage proposal three times, is sent an extortion threat.  Angry and frightened, she sends Asmira, a young woman and loyal captain of the guard, to Jerusalem to assassinate Solomon.

Bartimaeus and Asmira hook up and find themselves in quite a pickle as they attempt to solve their problems. The story provides lots of humor, adventure, peril for both Bartimaeus and Asmira, and a number of surprising turnarounds. It also, in its own way, makes a comment on leadership, loyalty, and zealotry.

You’ll find it in the middle-grade section of your bookstore, but don’t let the placement fool you into thinking it’s not for adults. Like the best stories, it offers something for everyone. It’s a perfect blend of insight and entertainment and had my whole family, oldest to youngest, spellbound for the duration as we listened to it riding in the car. This is one of my favorite books this year. And if you want to really indulge yourself, listen to the audio book read by Simon Jones.

Travel to Medieval England

I love learning new things about places and peoples, even if it’s a place I’ve “been” to before, which is why Ian Mortimer’s The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England intrigued me. The first page convinced me to buy to book. And I’m so happy I did.

I’ve read my fair share of interesting and well-written texts on this subject, including, among others, Life in a Medieval City and Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies, Standards of Living in the later Middle Ages by Christopher Dyer, The Medieval Castle by Philip Warner, Daily Life in the Middle Ages by Paul B. Newman, and Power and Profit: The Merchant In Medieval Europe by Peter Spufford. All engrossing reads. What sets Mortimer’s book apart is that he not only approaches the topic as a travel guide that leads to you interesting sights and shares fascinating tidbits about the place, but he also helps you imagine how it would be, as a 21^st century person, to actually travel there.

For example, where would you go if you got sick? What happens if you’re robbed, where do you report the crime, and should you? Where might you get food and would it be something you’d find palatable? How will you get from place to place? Why kind of entertainment can you expect? And what can you wear without offending your hosts?

Mortimer focuses on the fourteenth century England, since this period comes closest to the popular idea of the medieval times. He tackles the topics of the landscape, people, the Medieval character, basic essentials, what to wear, traveling, where to stay, what to eat and drink, health and hygiene, the law, and what to do. And he does it all in a chatty, clear, and informative manner, with a bit of humor thrown in for spice.

Each page was a delight, and I found myself feeling like I was there. Furthermore, I learned a number of things that I hadn’t picked up in my previous readings. I’m tempted to quote all sorts of interesting tidbits he shares about the age, but I’ll refrain. If you are at all interested in the Middle Ages, I think you’ll love this book.

David Farland has been a big influence on me. It was his workshop back in the 90′s that actually made me think I could write professionally and led directly to my first publication as a Writers of the Future winner. Later Dave gave me comments on my first novel which helped me write a second, much better one that attracted Tor Books. And it was Dave who showed me the ropes on my first ever author tour.

But long before all that, Dave was a writer whose work I loved. I read ON MY WAY TO PARADISE when it first came out and enjoyed the heck out of it. SERPENT CATCH and PATH OF THE HERO were next. I gobbeled them up too. Then came the THE GOLDEN QUEEN. By the way, SERPENT CATCH and THE GOLDEN QUEEN are two of my favorite novels. Now, all of those were written under Dave’s given name–Dave Wolverton. When he switched over to fantasy he used the Farland pseudonym.  His first Farland book was RUNELORDS. Folks, RUNELORDS is, in my opinion, one of the top 10 epic fantasies ever written. Ever.

Of course, Dave has written many other novels and was involved with some Hollywood producers. Now he’s doing something new. He’s started his own publishing company–East India Press–and is releasing the first of his enhanced books through it.  Enhanced meaning far more than a book in print or electronic form–there’s also a soundtrack and art. NIGHTINGALE is that book. I asked him to share with my readers a bit more about it. Here’s his reply.

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JOHN:  Tell us about how you came up with the idea for Nightingale?

DAVE: Years ago, in the late 1980s or early 1990s, I read a book by a doctor who had worked for the CIA, experimenting with drugs that would erase both long- and short-term memories.  It was fascinating work, and he eventually won the Nobel Prize for it.  So I became interested in memory transfer.

Later on, one Christmas, I got to thinking about the three “Wise Men” from the bible.  Normally, a “wise man” is called a wizard.  A “maji” is called a magician.  Why was it that the writers of the bible were using double-speak when discussing these guys?  Weren’t they astrologers?  Doesn’t the Old Testament condemn these folks to death?

So I went back to the Hebrew and found out that indeed these three gentlemen were in the same class of magicians that the Old Testament condemned to death, the m’khashepah—which originally referred to a class of magicians that hung around royal courts.  Of them the bible says, “Thou shalt not suffer a m’khashepah to live.”

So the thought occurred to me, “What if they weren’t just coming to give Jesus gifts?  What if they really had come to be . . . advisors.  What if they wanted to give him wisdom?”

That started a whole train of thought dealing with memory transfer—transfer of memories, the possibility of training reflexes, transfer of memories on a cellular level, and so on—which led to the creation of my magic system. 

The questions arose, what would people do with such power? 

And of course from that a novel was born.

Nightingale tells the story of a young man named Bron Jones, who is abandoned at birth.  Raised in foster care, he’s shuffled from home to home.  At age 16, he’s kind of the ultimate loner, until he’s sent to a new foster home and meets Olivia, a marvelous teacher, who recognizes that Bron is something special, something that her people call a “Nightingale,” a creature that is not quite human. 

Suddenly epic forces combine to claim Bron, and he must fight to keep from getting ripped away from the only home, family, and girlfriend that he has ever known.  He must risk his life to learn the answers to the mysteries of his birth: “What am I?  Where did I come from?  Who am I?”

This is a big project, an enhanced novel with illustrations and animations from half a dozen talented illustrators.  It has a sound track by the head of the National Composer’s Guild, James Guymon, with a dozen professional musicians and vocalists.  We’re releasing the novel in several formats, as an enhanced novel, a normal e-book, an audiobook, and as a hardcover.

But we did one last cool thing.  The enhanced book was designed for the iPad, though you will also be able to read it on just about any other pad or smartphone.  But we had our programmers create a web app so that you can enjoy the book on your computer—read a few chapters, take it for a test drive, or simply buy it for reading online.  You’re free to go check out the results at www.nightingalenovel.com.  If you like it, remember to “Like” us on Facebook.  Better yet, re-post our site info and tell your friends on Facebook.

Oh, and while you’re there, check out our short-story contest, where you can win $1000.

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John sez: I’m very excited to see where this goes. I’ve loved Dave’s stories for a long time. And the premise of this book sounds great. Samples are available at: www.nightingalenovel.com