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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
A science-backed recipe for creating engagement, fulfillment, and achievement
We're stuck. Stuck to the couch. Stuck scrolling. Stuck at work. Stuck in worn-out paths of habitual action. Stuck in patterns and echo chambers of thought. Stuck in carefully curated lives where we've traded our agency for endless comforts that wrap us in existential ennui.
As our eyes fixate on a constant parade of images meant to engage us, we notice something in the periphery. We see folks who are just like us, except they are actually, deeply happy and fulfilled. They seem to go through life with ease and grace, overcoming obstacles and making amazing things happen for themselves.
Peering closer, we see that these aren't gods or superhumans. They're just people who have chosen to not be stuck and decided to become the main characters in their own lives. Their success (as they define it!) is not a birthright bestowed upon a lucky few, but the result of lives lived with intention. And that's what this book is about — a practical guide on infusing purpose into life in a deliberate and evidence-based way.
Through a combination of inspiring stories about unlikely high performers and evidence from the bleeding edge of behavioral science, we present you with a toolkit for learning intention — not as a fluffy concept, but as five very trainable skills.
Get your copy of Intention today and live your potential.
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Seitenzahl: 393
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PART I: Fundamentals
CHAPTER 1: Introduction
Why Intention?
No, These Traits Are Not Innate and Immutable
What Do We Mean by
High Performance
?
Beyond the Individual
About Us
Note
CHAPTER 2: A Languishing World
As Far as the Eye Can See
Languishing and Self-Destruction
The Decline of Workplace Autonomy
Notes
CHAPTER 3: What Is Intention?
Intention as a Survival Tool
What Are
Shared Intentions
?
Intention, Passed on as a Flame
Intention and Self in the Modern Age
Notes
CHAPTER 4: Becoming Main Characters
Intentionality 101: Making Choices
NPCs, Pawns, and Wantons
Finding Our Pools of Will
The Power of Responsibility
Becoming a Main Character in a World of Shared Intentions
Notes
CHAPTER 5: Intention Is Trainable
Training Intention as a Key to Sports Performance
Training Intention as a Key to Academic Performance
Training Intention as a Key to Healthier Eating
Notes
PART II: Willpower
CHAPTER 6: The Surprising Impact of Willpower Attitude
The Birth of Limited Willpower
Shifting the Willpower Narrative
How Tired Are You, Really?
Seeing through the Limited Willpower Illusion
Notes
CHAPTER 7: High Performers Have Nonlimited Willpower
Finding Our Real Limits
Willpower Can Make Anyone a High Performer
Make Your Next Challenge a Test of Willpower
Define Your Limits
Notes
CHAPTER 8: Physical Ingredients to Willpower
Does Being Hungry Make You Lose Self-Control?
Re-thinking Drowsy Days at Work
Is Willpower Even Real?
Looking for Cues
Notes
CHAPTER 9: How to Train the Experience of Willpower
How Seeking Novelty Can Replenish Us
Start Small
Small Wins Are Better than Major Losses
Good Motivation versus Bad Motivation
Productivity Tools Don't Build Willpower
Take Pride in Your Achievements
Exercising Willpower
Notes
CHAPTER 10: Willpower as a Team Sport
Willpower as a Group Superpower
The Three Keys to Sharing Willpower
Closer Teams Share Willpower Better
Training for Team Willpower
Notes
PART III: Curiosity
CHAPTER 11: High Performers Are Curious
Knowledge for Its Own Sake
The Real Superpower: Focused Curiosity
Living the Atelic Life
Notes
CHAPTER 12: Don't Stop (Re)believing
The Art of Changing Your Mind
How to Get Cognitively Flexible
The Science of Cognitive Flexibility
Notes
CHAPTER 13: How to Change Your Mind
Techniques to Reduce Extreme Beliefs
Deep Canvassing Inward
What Do You Get from Your Beliefs?
Notes
CHAPTER 14: Believing Together
Two Minds Aren't Always Better than One
Group Beliefs: A Whole New Ballgame
Groupthinking Our Way to Disaster
Psychological Safety 101
Notes
PART IV: Integrity
CHAPTER 15: Living Our Values
Integrity: The Seeds of Intention
How Do We Identify Our Values?
Growing into Integrity
Ashoka's Lasting Legacy
Notes
CHAPTER 16: How to Uncover Your Values
The Complexity of Values through AI
How to Clarify Your Own Values
Notes
CHAPTER 17: When Values Conflict
The Benefits of Value Tension
Reconciling Intentions
The Power of Diverse Dissent
Set the North Star
Pick Alignment over Consensus
Leading with Integrity
Notes
CHAPTER 18: Know Thy Team
How Well Do We Really Know Others?
The Mistake of Assuming Values
How to Know Thy Team
The Benefits of Sharing
Notes
PART V: Attention
CHAPTER 19: High Performers Are Focused on the Right Things
Open the Aperture to Focus It
Attention as a Tool
The Illusion of Choice
Notes
CHAPTER 20: Directing the Spotlight
Building a World, One Piece at a Time
Attention as a Magnet
Notes
CHAPTER 21: Spotlights at Work
Attentional Spotlight: Workplace Edition
KPIs as Shared Intentions
The Problem with Most KPIs
Notes
CHAPTER 22: Intentional Wandering
The Benefits of a Wandering Mind
Structuring Your Environment
Reframing Your Language and Story
The Stories We Tell
Open Expectations Lead to Unexpected Paths
Notes
CHAPTER 23: Not All Flow Is Created Equal
Is Flow the End-All-Be-All?
How Does Flow Work?
Not All Flow Is Created Equal
The Intentional Flow Spectrum
Flowing Our Way to Burnout
Creating Team Flow
Notes
CHAPTER 24: Focusing Teams
Nothing Focuses You Like a Fight
Breaking It Down with the 1-2-3 Model
Create Open Pathways
Notes
PART VI: Habits
CHAPTER 25: The Roots of High Performance
The Basics of Deliberate Habits
Habits as Tools for Intention
Note
CHAPTER 26: Taking Control of Unconscious Actions
Are Habits a Bad Thing?
Habits as an Expression of Intentions
The Natural Ease of Habits
Building Intentional Habits
Disrupting Negative Habits
Stacking Your Habits
Rewire Your Own Brain
Notes
CHAPTER 27: Finding the Power Within
The Behavioral Zeitgeist of the 1970s
What Drives Us When No One Is Looking?
The Beginner's Guide to Extrinsic Motivation
Hijacking the Brain's Reward Systems with Awareness
The Seven Steps to Rewire Our Habits
Notes
CHAPTER 28: The Importance of Workplace Rituals
The Power of Workplace Rituals
The Need for Workplace Rituals
The Benefits of Workplace Rituals
Choosing Workplace Rituals
Notes
PART VII: Closing
CHAPTER 29: Intention in Our Relationships
What Makes a Family?
Bringing Intention into Our Relationships
Other People Have Intention, Too?
Helping Others Be More Intentional
Giving Up Power for a Good Cause
Notes
CHAPTER 30: The Garden of Intention
Planting a Garden
Becoming a Gardener
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Index
End User License Agreement
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MIKE JAMES ROSS
SEKOUL THEODOR KRASTEV
DAN PILAT
Intention
The Surprising Psychology of High Performers
Copyright © 2024 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
ISBN 9781394189151 (Cloth)ISBN 9781394189168 (ePub)ISBN 9781394189175 (ePDF)
Cover Design and Image: © Laurence AntonAuthor Photos: Courtesy of the Authors
To our families, friends, and colleagues. Thank you.
PART IFundamentals
CHAPTER 1Introduction
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why Intention?
We're stuck. Stuck to the couch. Stuck scrolling. Stuck at work. Stuck in worn-out paths of habitual action. Stuck in patterns and echo chambers of thought. Stuck in carefully curated lives where we've traded our agency for endless comforts that wrap us in existential ennui.
As our eyes fixate on a constant parade of images meant to engage us, we notice something in the periphery. We see folks who are just like us, except they seem to be deeply happy and fulfilled. They go through life with ease and grace, overcoming obstacles and making amazing things happen for themselves.
Peering closer, we see that they aren't gods or superhumans. They're just people who have chosen to not be stuck and decided to become the “main characters” in their own lives. Their success (as they define it!) is not a birthright bestowed upon a lucky few, but the result of lives lived with intention.
Take a moment right now to imagine a different version of yourself. A superhero in your daily life. Your superpower? Infinite self-control. Your circumstances haven't changed one bit, but you suddenly have the power to deeply engage with everything you do and unstick yourself. Visualize this and think about your life. What would you do differently in your day-to-day life (e.g., how would your morning routine change)? What would your life look and feel like? How would this new way of being affect your feelings about yourself? What about the value you bring to your family, friends, and colleagues?
This exercise is more than a fantasy—it's a challenge. One that we spend the rest of this book preparing you to face.
Borrowing from a wide variety of related disciplines—philosophy, psychology, religion, neuroscience, and organizational management to name a few—we focus on the five key ingredients of intention: willpower, curiosity, integrity, attention, and habits. For each ingredient, we provide an overview of the current scientific understanding of why they are important and how they work. More importantly, we provide information that's actionable, and present you with knowledge and methods that you can actually apply to your working and personal life to gain a higher sense of agency, authenticity, and engagement in everything you do. Intention is an expression of our identity, and to live without it is to lose ourselves. Our aim is to help you reconnect with that power in you.
No, These Traits Are Not Innate and Immutable
Some combination of willpower, curiosity, integrity, attention, and habits can be found in every high performer and recent research shows that they're strong predictors of success. But there's a second reason why we focus on these, which speaks more broadly to how we can claim our agency and lead fuller lives: The other thing these five ingredients have in common is that many of us were taught (and still believe—see the following survey data) that they're innate, and we're born with a fixed amount of each. They are not. And in this book we show, with scientific evidence, that each of them is highly trainable, and we teach you how to train them. If there's any aspect of your life you want to excel in, whether work, home, sports, the arts, or spirituality, you can exercise these five aspects of intention and improve.
Nearly 50% of people believe that willpower, curiosity, integrity, attention, and habit formation are inherent traits that cannot be trained.1
Although this book is based around the science behind each of these aspects, as with any story told with science, this is not the full picture—which is why we also illustrate our points with case studies, stories, diagrams, and drawings that support the idea that no matter who you are or how you approach these ingredients, you can use them to become more intentional.
Our core message is that intention can be trained—not just a fleeting feeling of agency, but the real application of intention that improves our lives and the lives of those around us.
What Do We Mean by High Performance?
This book focuses on the skills of high performers—not their ability to run consecutive marathons or lead Fortune 500 teams, but their willpower, curiosity, integrity, attention, and habits. We understand and love that high performers don't always have traditionally lofty achievements to their name—maybe they only ran one marathon, or maybe they took a walk around the block for the first time in decades. We see high performance not as a competition against others or the attaining of some objective standard, but as a way of life. What sets our high performers apart from the rest of us is their ability to act with intention. These aren't just CEOs and top athletes; they're students, stay-at-home parents, minimum-wage workers, and artists. Despite the limits of their circumstances, these individuals harness the power of intention and—in some cases—are able to radiate that feeling of intention to others.
Consequently, for us, high performance can be domain-specific (eating 25 hotdogs in 10 minutes) or not (being a generally “good” person). It can be outwardly reflected (Michael Phelps's long list of wins) or something much more personal (a 67-year-old getting over their life-long fear of driving). It can lead to “Success” (big S, as defined by society) or “success” (small s, as defined by how you see a life well lived).
We're not passing judgment or comparing the ways each of us can exhibit high performance. We define high performance as: “the ability to do subjectively hard things.” So if your goal is to eat a lot of hot dogs quickly, more power to you—we'll help you get there as best we can. We are also there for you if your vision of high performance is about making the world better. On that front, there has never been a time that doing hard things has been needed more, and we can all increase our impact by strengthening the five skills in this book. Intention is not a cure-all for languishing and disengagement. In some cases these feelings might have deeper roots than we’re qualified to address. But we’ve found that being more intentional in our lives has helped us to break out of moments of languish and get unstuck.
Beyond the Individual
This book is an answer to the corporate challenge of improving engagement at work. By building intentional teams using the five core muscle groups of intention, you can improve how your colleagues are performing and give them back a sense of autonomy. In doing so, we can together create more dynamic, adaptable, and resilient organizations. Additionally, by addressing the challenge of languishing and applying intention in one aspect of your life, you can dramatically improve how you exercise intention in all other aspects. Becoming more intentional in your own life is good for your family, your community, and for society at large. This is not only because your level of engagement will be contagious to those around you, but also because you will be contributing your best to the world—at whatever scale and in whatever areas you choose.
About Us
While much of this story revolves around what it means to be a high performer and how to get there, we're not claiming to always fit the bill ourselves. We're certainly working hard at it, but we're on a journey just like everyone else. That said, we do know a lot about applied behavioral science and how to motivate people. Bringing that knowledge to you is what this book is all about.
Dan and Sekoul are co-founders of The Decision Lab (TDL), an applied research and innovation firm that uses behavioral science to generate social impact. They were roommates in Toronto, where Dan worked in banking and Sekoul was a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. They decided to take their backgrounds (in decision systems and neuroscience) to build an organization that would be intentional about the type of work it does. TDL works with some of the largest organizations in the world, carrying out research in priority areas and running one of the most popular publications in applied behavioral science. In the past, they've helped organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Capital One, the World Bank, and many Fortune 500s solve some of their thorniest problems using scientific thinking.
Mike is a former lawyer, private equity investor, McKinsey consultant, and startup founder who is currently the CHRO for a large Canadian retailer, helping motivate and engage more than 5,000 employees while maintaining a unique corporate culture that has lasted for more than 180 years. For him, his highest performance is raising his children to be good citizens and intentional in their own right.
Note
1
. A note on survey data: to get a better sense of how everyday people viewed our core themes, we surveyed 700 North American employees. We've included our key findings so you can get a sense of what the wider public thinks about intention and its many facets. The most relevant and surprising findings from that survey are interspersed throughout the book in notes, like this one.
CHAPTER 2A Languishing World
“I would prefer not to.”
— Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener
There's a powerful gravity to modern life, pulling us toward routine, passivity, and meaningless actions. We've all been victims of this force. It lures us to the couch when we should go for a run. It tempts us to watch TV instead of starting that creative project. It hinders us from taking a chance on love, taking control of our lives, and living up to our true potential.
In short, a staple of modern life is being in a state of languish. Neither mentally healthy nor mentally ill, just in a generalized “blah-ness.” Coined by Corey Keyes in the early 2000s, languish is an emptiness and stagnation, constituting “a life of quiet despair.” People who languish describe themselves and their lives as “hollow,” “empty,” “a shell,” and “a void.”1 As eloquently expressed by Adam Grant in his widely read New York Times piece, languishing comes with “the dulling of delight and the dwindling of drive.”2
How did we get here? How is it possible that in an era that has blessed us with longer life expectancy, and in societies with unprecedented comfort and security, we find ourselves grappling with escalating depression,3 anxiety,4 and suicide rates?5 Why is it that the same modern technology and tools that have made us almost godlike compared to our ancestors leave many of us feeling powerless? How is it that workplaces, that have never cared so much about fostering purpose and meaning, feel meaningless and empty? And why is it that more people than ever express a sense of disengagement or loss of interest and motivation?
The root of this disengagement is tremendously complex.6 One reason is that many of us live in an era of ease and convenience, where everything is taken care of. And in our work, we strive for higher and higher levels of specialization. So we can be more efficient. So we can be more successful. But while we were busy delegating the mundane to gain that success, we also delegated our agency along with it. We've created a world where each of us has limitless options and no real choices, and our answer to that is to disengage and stop fully participating in our lives.
As Far as the Eye Can See
Now for the good news: languishing and disengagement aren't necessarily signs of personal failure. They're often consequences of our environment. Think of the last time you felt that you weren't where you should be, and instead of making the effort to change your circumstance, you felt there was no hope. When we languish, we feel a combination of “I need to get out of here” and “meh, not likely,” and too often we then opt not to act.
While it's tempting to blame the rise of the internet and our increasing lack of community, languishing isn't entirely new. In the late 1800s, Émile Durkheim used anomie to describe the sense of disconnection that modern production lines created in industrial laborers. Even Plato identified a similar feeling in akrasia: a strong sense of “I should,” followed by acting against our better judgment and not doing anything.
Languishing isn't limited to North American society either——take Japan's hikikomori movement. The country's economic stagnation in the 1990s, combined with social pressure and mental health challenges, resulted in a modern-day hermit movement. Up to a million Japanese citizens live as recluses, remaining at home while avoiding work and personal connections. Hikikomori is even thought to be growing, not just in Japan, but globally.7
Languishing and Self-Destruction
In response to our loss of agency, we find ways to take control of our lives. But our usual responses tend to cause more harm than help. There are extremes, like the abuse of alcohol or drugs, but also small day-to-day behaviors: bingeing meaningless television shows, neglecting our physical health, eating too much sugar, or failing to make time for quality connections.
Why do we turn to self-destructive choices? Edgar Allen Poe explained our tendency to procrastinate when we know we shouldn't, calling this The Imp of the Perverse:
We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until to-morrow, and why?8
Our self-destructive choices are evidence of how our deep-seated drive for agency manifests itself wherever it can. Sometimes it feels like the only decisions we get to make are bad ones. Take the modern phenomenon of bàofùxìng áoyè, or as it's translated from Chinese, “revenge bedtime procrastination.” Journalist Daphne K. Lee used the term to describe what happens when individuals “who don't have much control over their daytime life refuse to sleep early in order to regain some sense of freedom during late-night hours.”9 If you've ever done something that you know is bad for you just to feel free, you'll understand this.
Suggestions for overcoming bad bedtime habits generally come in the form of establishing rules for better sleep discipline, like avoiding technology before bed. But revenge bedtime procrastinators know the tips and tricks for better sleep and still choose to stay up. As one bedtime procrastinator put it, “It's a way of revolting against all the obligations that you have. Because, well, my life, and I think the life of most adults, consists of lots and lots of obligations.”10These procrastinators are simply reclaiming freedom via one of the only outlets they have. We don't need a reminder to put down our phone before bedtime. We need space to make choices for ourselves. We need to exercise the basic human need to decide our own destiny. If you relate to the bedtime procrastinator—perhaps to a lesser extreme or in another domain—you're not alone. In our survey, 63% of people agreed they sometimes do things that are bad for them just to feel like they're in control. So, the next time you find yourself scrolling rather than sleeping, realize that part of the reason you're doing so is that you want to feel free to choose (and that maybe there's a healthier way to feel that).
63% of people say they do things that they know are self-destructive to feel a sense of control.
The Decline of Workplace Autonomy
Perhaps nowhere is more prone to languishing than the workplace. It's no coincidence that Émile Durkheim's anomie came at the advent of the industrial revolution. Unless work is designed to combat it, languishing will persist. Case in point, a whopping 77% of workers around the world were disengaged at work in 2022.11
And despite employers' best efforts, workplace disengagement has been increasing for quite some time. The rise of efficiency tools has dramatically reduced autonomy for workers. Managers are given clear scripts for what they can and cannot say to their teams; directors have defined measurement tools like Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to meet on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. No one gets to decide for themselves anymore.
Languishing in our personal lives and feeling disengaged at work come from the same root: lack of freedom and satisfaction. Unfortunately, most pieces of advice on engagement given to managers are, as with our personal lives, aimed at the wrong aspect of the problem. Rather than giving workers more autonomy and a sense of control, we try to fix disengagement by building mission statements or communicating purpose—emphasizing the meaningfulness of the work. Purpose statements are important, but they're not enough. We need agency, and with it, identity, first. Without agency, meaning and purpose have nowhere to root.
Unfortunately, individual autonomy is often viewed as a distraction from more important goals like consistency, efficiency, and productivity, and as such, it is seen as dangerous and unproductive.
Ironically, not only does a lack of autonomy cause disengagement, but organizational outcomes also suffer. Events like the COVID pandemic exposed the vulnerability that anchoring on hyper-efficiency and leanness causes in modern workplaces. When unanticipated events occurred, the companies leading in modern management science were the ones left high and dry. By decreasing autonomy, we've decreased organizations' ability to respond to change and disruption.
Every single one of us has the power to overcome disengagement and reclaim intentionality. However, the forces against us get stronger all the time. These forces express themselves in a myriad of ways, from the proliferation of social media, to pressure from our families, co-workers, and peers. At work, these manifest in the reduction of real choices and the separation of our working selves from our true nature. The effort to resist these forces is getting harder as the distractions and tools of sabotage get stronger, but that doesn't mean that we have to let them rule our lives and stop us from realizing our potential as human beings.
Notes
1
. Keyes, C. L. (2002). The mental health continuum: From languishing to flourishing in life.
Journal of Health and Social Behavior
,
43
(2), 207–222.
2
. Grant, A. (2021, December 3). Feeling blah during the pandemic? It's called languishing.
New York Times
.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/well/mind/covid-mental-health-languishing.html
.
3
. Major depression: The impact on overall health. (n.d.). Blue Cross Blue Shield.
https://www.bcbs.com/the-health-of-america/reports/major-depression-the-impact-overall-health
.
4
. Goodwin, R. D., Weinberger, A. H., Kim, J. H., Wu, M., & Galea, S. (2020). Trends in anxiety among adults in the United States, 2008–2018: Rapid increases among young adults.
Journal of Psychiatric Research
,
130
, 441–446.
5
. Martinez-Ales, G., Hernandez-Calle, D., Khauli, N., & Keyes, K. M. (2020). Why are suicide rates increasing in the United States? Towards a multilevel reimagination of suicide prevention.
Behavioral Neurobiology of Suicide and Self Harm
, 1–23.
6
. Purcell, J. (2014). Disengaging from engagement.
Human Resource Management Journal
,
24
(3), 241–254.
7
. Kato, T. A., Kanba, S., & Teo, A. R. (2019). Hikikomori: Multidimensional understanding, assessment, and future international perspectives.
Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences
,
73
(8), 427–440.
8
. Poe, E. A. (2021).
The imp of the perverse
. Lindhardt og Ringhof.
9
. Liang, L. (2022, February 25). The psychology behind “revenge bedtime procrastination.” BBC.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/worklife/article/20201123-the-psychology-behind-revenge-bedtime-procrastination
.
10
. Nauts, S., Kamphorst, B. A., Stut, W., De Ridder, D. T., & Anderson, J. H. (2019). The explanations people give for going to bed late: A qualitative study of the varieties of bedtime procrastination.
Behavioral Sleep Medicine
,
17
(6), 753–762.
11
. Gallup, Inc. (2023, July 10). Global Indicator: Employee Engagement—Gallup.
Gallup.com
.
https://www.gallup.com/394373/indicator-employee-engagement.aspx
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CHAPTER 3What Is Intention?
“When spiders unite they can tie down a lion”
—Ethiopian Proverb
When humans first appeared on Earth 300,000 years ago, Homo sapiens were hardly the only hominid around. We likely shared the planet with five to seven other hominid species. Some of them, such as the Neanderthals, were likely bigger and stronger than we were, and as far as we can tell from their skulls, they also had significantly bigger brains. While modern humans have a cranial capacity of about 82 cubic inches (1,344 cubic cm), Neanderthals could reach up to 100. Brain size accounts for only 9–16% of overall variability in intelligence, but nevertheless, Neanderthals had an advantage over us.1 Despite their physical advantages, these hominids died out 40,000 years ago. But “died out” is perhaps not the right terminology here—they thrived for a long time until we came to Europe and “outcompeted” them (sometimes by eating their food, other times by murder).2
What did we have that our brethren didn't? The answer likely lies in how we used our brains rather than our brawn. While factors such as our access to fire certainly helped, perhaps the most important difference between us and other hominids was our ability to use social cooperation, complex language, and abstract concepts. Our ability to plan, communicate, and work together allowed us to overcome our physical limitations, especially in groups. Our special brains allowed us to transcend the here and now, formulate complex beliefs, share them with others, and to work together.
Rather than focusing exclusively on our immediate survival needs, we could mentally time-travel. We could formulate complex plans that anticipated, and more importantly, created an unseen future. What set us apart wasn't our physique, or even tools like fire, but something invisible: our shared intention.3
Intention as a Survival Tool
Various fields such as anthropology, evolutionary biology, and developmental psychology have spent decades studying how shared intention evolved, how it helped us outcompete other species, and how it manifests in people today. Some of the most impactful work on this comes from Michael Tomasello, a developmental psychologist based at Duke University. In research spanning decades, Tomasello has argued that social cognition is the “secret sauce” of being human. He points out that nonhuman primates are unable to do many tasks that come easily to humans: over-imitating (copying the style of an action, not just the action itself), recursive mind reading (being aware of what another person knows we know), and social learning through deliberate transmission (intentionally teaching each other how to interact with others).
While it's hard to say exactly how we evolved to have these abilities, they likely developed as a result of environmental pressures. Around 2 million years ago, and again 200,000 years ago, resources were scarce—but not so bad that everyone died off. This resulted in a Goldilocks situation that allowed only certain types of individuals to survive: those who learned to collaborate. Too much adversity, and the group of early hominids would die off. Too little adversity, and they wouldn't be exposed to enough selective pressures to force evolution toward any particular trait. However, with just the right level of adversity and enough time, these pressures can knock down walls between individuals, forcing them to share thoughts, ideas, and intentions. If this happens in an isolated situation, individuals might put their heads together, come up with a solution, and go on with their lives. But when the environment itself rewards shared goals, over generations, the result is a species that has advantages beyond the ability to coordinate together in the present moment.
What Are Shared Intentions?
While coordinated intentions and shared intentions may look somewhat similar, shared intentions are more than mere coordination. To illustrate this point, one of the most famous philosophers of the last hundred years, John Searle, created a thought experiment.4 Imagine two groups of people: picnickers eating in a park, and a dance troupe practicing for a recital. Picture the following scenarios:
A rainstorm breaks out, and the picnickers run for cover under the trees.
The dance troupe practices a routine in which they run for cover under the trees.
What's the difference between these two scenarios? According to Searle, it's the difference between what he calls I-intentions and We-intentions. While the coordinated action of the picnickers looks like shared intention, it's actually a group of individuals acting in self-interest. Their actions happen to coincide because they're responding to the same stimuli, so they express self-interest in a way that may appear coordinated. The dance troupe, on the other hand, has deliberately chosen to collaborate and coordinate. They show We-intentions. The same may be true for other animals, which coordinate actions that seem to express shared intention, but in most cases, they demonstrably act in coordinated self-interest.5
This brings us to an important point, which runs throughout the book: the same behavior (including what some may deem “high performance”) can be connected to different internal mechanisms. This is less obvious when observing a group of people running in the park. But it becomes extremely obvious when you consider some of the incredible results of human intention throughout history.
Intention, Passed on as a Flame
To accomplish complex goals that are distant in the future, we must persevere. This ability to continue working towards a goal is the crux of what we think of as intention (as opposed to deciding to pick up a pencil). But it's far from our limit. As we've seen throughout history, intention can far outlive an individual. When Qin Shi Huang became the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty in 221 BCE, one of his most important projects was to unify a set of walls that he and his opponents had built in what is now China. That set of defenses, which originally began between the 8th and 5th centuries BCE, evolved, expanded, and continued until well into the 16th century. They resulted in what is commonly known as the Great Wall of China, one of the largest human-made structures with 10,051 wall sections, 1,764 ramparts or trenches, 29,510 individual buildings, and 2,211 fortifications or passes, stretching a total length of 13,170.70 miles (21,196.18 km).
When he started, did Qin Shi Huang imagine that his wall would repel foreign invaders for multiple millennia? Or attract over 10 million tourists per year in the distant 21st century? Probably not. Whatever his initial vision was, his will became a collective will. Hundreds of thousands of workers over thousands of years lived in service of that wall (admittedly, they probably didn't all share the same intention, but enough people did for the project to continue). The idea that the wall must exist spread like wildfire, carrying his vision from one generation to the next. That's the power of shared intention.
From an individualistic point of view, it seems unnatural that we should care about a distant future we'll never live to see. But it's this level of intentional action—stretching out across people, places, and centuries—that makes Homo sapiens unique.
Intention and Self in the Modern Age
As the world has evolved, we have willed ever-more complicated things into existence. Putting a person on the moon is hard. Beyond the immediate technological challenges, think of the sustained human effort that was put into developing those technologies. Each generation picked up the mantle from the previous one. First, we were generalists, focused on the nature of the universe. Then, we started to branch off, with specialists in math, chemistry, and physics. As the technologies became more complex, we began to specialize even further, with thought leaders spending entire lifetimes on a single formula. Only after countless lifetimes spent solving a series of tiny problems did we finally get to the last small step. That step was a great accomplishment, but it was also an inevitable expression of our identity as humans and a great leap for us all.
And intention is, above all, an expression of identity. Our sense of self—in an individual it might be called consciousness, ego, or a soul, whereas in a group it might be an allegiance or loyalty—is a vehicle that transports intention through time. Intention has proven to be one of the most powerful tools we have.
We have the power to will our goals and ideas into existence. But without the right approach, we might spend our entire lives manifesting an identity that isn't truly our own. Our book is based on the idea that the sense of languishing or disengagement that so many people feel today is the result of exactly that—carrying out a will that is not our own. In the following chapters, therefore, we explore what science has to say about intention and how we might apply those concepts to become more authentic and critical humans.
Notes
1
. Koch, C. (2016). Does brain size matter?
Scientific American Mind
,
27
(1), 22–25.
2
. Tattersall, I., & Schwartz, J. H. (1999). Hominids and hybrids: The place of Neanderthals in human evolution.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
,
96
(13), 7117–7119.
3
. O'Madagain, C., & Tomasello, M. (2022). Shared intentionality, reason-giving and the evolution of human culture.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
,
377
(1843), 20200320.
4
. Searle, J. R. (1990).
Collective intentions and actions. Intentions in communication
. PR Cohen, J. Morgan and ME Pollak.
5
. For more on this, see De Waal, F. (2016).
Are we smart enough to know how smart animals are
? WW Norton & Company.
CHAPTER 4Becoming Main Characters
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
—Oscar Wilde
In the 2021 movie Free Guy, Ryan Reynolds is an NPC—a non-playable character—in a video game. One day, he becomes self-aware, shown by him making the ultimate self-affirming choice: asking for a cappuccino instead of drip coffee.
Seeing the stunned looks of the barista and the other clients in the cafe, he quickly goes back to his regular order, but the damage has been done. He has, in a moment of awakening, realized that he doesn't need to follow the script. He has free will. He can choose what to do. As he asks for his cappuccino, Ryan Reynolds starts to become a Main Character, able to make decisions. As he leaves the coffee shop, we see a confused awakening on the face of the barista, who is maybe discovering that freedom is also possible for her.
But there is much more to this event in the movie's plot development than meets the eye. Reynolds’ insight isn't only that he doesn't have to follow the script, it's that he has been following a script. When we make choices, we usually believe that we're deciding for ourselves. It can be jarring to acknowledge how strongly we're influenced by others, whether it be parents, social media, or marketing.
If asked whether we'd like to live as NPCs or Main Characters, most of us would claim to prefer building our own destinies. This makes sense. Research by Roy Baumeister and Lauren Brewer has shown that just believing in free will is positively correlated with life satisfaction, finding life meaningful, lower levels of stress, self-efficacy, and self-control.1 Who wouldn't want to be Free Guy?
The problem? Freedom is much harder than it sounds. First, we live in societies with other people, and as a consequence, we're constrained by shared intentions. While shared intentions have allowed us to progress far beyond our primate cousins, they often come at the sacrifice of personal choice. Navigating these waters successfully is a significant part of what defines a Main Character.
We may have evolved the ability to collectively act on ideas and build things like the Great Wall of China. But at a personal level, that shared intention often comes at the cost of individuation, pushing us to follow goals that were never our own to begin with. A C-suite executive might spend her career chasing status and money, only to realize she never really wanted them in the first place but was just adopting society's idea of a good life. A son or daughter who makes big life decisions to please demanding parents might realize that he or she is not satisfied with these accomplishments. It's not that these folks aren't acting with intention. They've learned to act on someone else's intention. The cost of this misplaced identification can be enormous—both for the individual and for society.
We must also acknowledge that it's a lot easier for some to exercise freedom than others. Many are limited in their choices due to various circumstances, such as differences in gender, sexuality, race, ability, or socioeconomics, and so on. However, it's equally true that there's always an opportunity to express some choice. As Viktor Frankl said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”2 So how do we go about making those choices like the Main Characters we want to be?
Intentionality 101: Making Choices
As the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus maintained, life is a constant state of change. This means that we need to focus on the process rather than the destination, and concentrate on making the choices that are available to us, no matter how small they are. Life isn't about deciding to order a cappuccino instead of a coffee, but the goal is to become more cognizant of the scripts we are following and make the choices we can. These small choices add up, and also help prepare us for bigger ones in the future.
These might even begin with choosing to copy others. We all know folks who can inspire us to become Main Characters. No matter where or how you live, you've met people who embody this mindset. They're not necessarily the richest or the fanciest, but they're the ones you want to spend time with. They make you feel inspired just by being around them because they are living their own, full lives that haven't been predetermined for them.
There's nothing external limiting your ability to be more like these people. You don't need anything other than the intention to make it happen. But the simplicity of the path to become a Main Character doesn't make it an easy one. Becoming a Main Character is the work of a lifetime, but that work can start at any time and in any place. Fortunately, there are plenty of people to serve as inspiration—from history as well as in our daily lives. And just like the barista in Free Guy, these inspiring figures push us to be more ourselves, not more like them.
