Jeremiah Stanghini

The Perfect Exercise Routine – *Guaranteed

Almost two years ago, I wrote a post about the perfect diet and because I’d been seeing lot of news about the “single most efficient exercise regimen,” I thought I’d write a post along the same lines as the one I wrote in June 2011. So, here goes!

There are over 11,900,000 returns when you type perfect exercise routine into Google and over 29,000,000 returns when you type best exercise routine into Google. Exercise routine by itself gives you 35,700,000. Clearly, people are not only interested in exercise and how to do it, but the best way to do it. This is great.

Exercise is such an important part (or at least it should be!) of our lives. Without it, we’re sure to not live nearly as long as we could. Now, maybe some people don’t want to live as long as they possibly can and would rather spend their time doing other things. I understand that. But exercise is not just about living longer, it’s about living better (or healthier), i.e. quality of life.

Certainly there are innumerable exercise routines. In fact, on one of those searches I mentioned above, there was a result near the top that said “1000+ exercise routines.” However, which one’s the best? Is there a best exercise routine? Well, sure there is. If you want better abs, you only have to come through about 10,000,000 Google results to find the best one. I could go through this for every major part of the body, but I’ll spare you the time. I would contend that there is no *perfect* exercise routine for everyone. That is, there isn’t one exercise routine that will be the “best” for everybody. Instead, I’d argue that there are as many perfect exerciser routines as there are people… so, more than 7 billion.

Some may quibble that I’m playing semantics, but just as is the case with food, each body has different things that it needs to thrive. Sure, there may be some general themes for bodies that live in northern climates vs. southern climates and general themes for women’s bodies vs. men’s bodies, but on the whole, I think that finding the perfect exercise routine is about finding what works best for you.

*Disclaimer: Because America is known for being a society of litigation, I thought it necessary to say that I cannot be held responsible for your decisions based on reading this post. I am not a physician, nor do I hold any degrees in exercise, so before making any changes to your exercise routine, I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend you consult a physician or educated professional.

Imagine If the USA Went to War… and No One Cared

While the title is a bit provocative, it’s not completely unsubstantiated. Right now in the United States, some veterans have waited over 600 days to hear back about their benefits… SIX HUNDRED DAYS! That’s almost two years. I shudder when people make the improper analogy between governments and businesses, but can you imagine what would happen if a business waiting 2 years to tell its employees about their benefits claims? These soldiers aren’t even the ones that are coming home right now. Logic would tell you that the veterans that are coming home today wouldn’t have to wait as long as those that have come before them… wrong. The wait time is getting longer.

I was born and raised in Canada, so my cultural perspective on joining the military and going to war is a bit different from someone who was born and raised in the United States. Nonetheless, I’ve done quite a bit of reading on the subject and the American culture’s beliefs about war and soldiers permeate… everything. The “Support our Troops” campaign was long-adopted in the USA before it was in Canada. Not to mention the way that war is glorified in TV, movies, and video games.

Given all of this, I can’t understand how a country like the United States would not properly care for their veterans returning home. It’s unfathomable. People give of their time (and become soldiers) only to return from war zones with injuries — both physical and mental. Isn’t it the obligation of the country to then properly care for those people? Shouldn’t people be chomping at the bit to help these people. These people who risked their lives for — presumably — the country’s freedoms (or to help another country assert its freedoms). Note: I realize that the last couple of sentences may spark conversation about foreign policy and the US as interventionists overseas, so I wanted to acknowledge it in this side note and redirect to the main point of taking proper care of veterans.

Last night, Rachel Maddow had on the CEO of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Paul Rieckhoff. He’s been on the program before, but last night seemed like a special interview. I’d urge you to watch it (couldn’t embed it on WordPress, so here’s the link: Veterans appeal to Obama to step in on VA backlog) and then do something about it! Tweet about it, email your member of Congress, email your Senator, call ’em, tell your friends, tell your family, shout it from the rooftops!

If Cats and Dogs Could Vote, Which Party Would They Vote For?

The other day I was playing with my dog and I said something about moving ‘to the left.’ Naturally, my wife recalled the Beyoncé song, “To The Left.” However, since I spend a lot of time watching and thinking about politics, my first thought was that our dog was moving “to the left” — politically. That then made me think, if cats and dogs could vote, who would they vote for?

Now, we can quickly descend into a discussion about animals’ ability to think, but that’s not where I’d like to go with this. Let’s assume that animals would be “rational actors” and vote in their best interest (regardless of how they may or may not be swayed from charismatic politicians or issue ads). Keeping in mind that this is all meant in jest, let’s begin!

If dogs could vote, who do you think they’d vote for? If I had to choose, I think they’d probably vote for the Democrats (or a Liberal party). Why? Well, let’s look at a dog’s life — they’re really interested in ‘programs’ (take me or a walk, feed me, etc.) where the government (owner) takes care of them. Of the two main political ideologies, who do we think is more likely to offer this?

Okay, now let’s look at cats. If cats could vote, who do you think they’d vote for? If I had to choose, I think they’d probably vote for the Republicans (or a Conservative party). Why? Well, look at a cat’s life — they really say (well, they don’t speak, do they?) and do whatever they want, whenever they want. They’re not interested in coming when you call them and they pretty much take care of themselves. To me, this *sort of* gets to the whole idea of ‘personal responsibility that you hear from politicians/parties on the right.

This experiment was meant in jest, but it’s a great way to exercise your thinking muscles. Can you think other pets and which parties they might prefer? Let us know in the comments!

Trying to Form a New Habit: Take a Vacation

Have you ever wanted to make changes in your life, but haven’t been able to stick to those changes? What about a New Year’s Resolution? If I’m being honest, there have been changes that I’ve tried to make that I haven’t been able to keep up. However, I think I may have discovered a trick to making it easier to stick to a new habit. (Truth be told, I’m probably not the first person to make this discovery, but I don’t remember reading it in any of the literature on habit-forming and/or making changes. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t.)

There have been some new habits that I’ve tried to form over the past couple of weeks. One of those habits is practicing French. (I’m Canadian and I think I ought to know both of the national languages. Plus, it makes good sense to be able to speak more than one language and since I had some training in French, I thought it was the best one to start with.) Anyways, I’ve tried to practice French. At least once I day, I make a point to practice French. Although, this hasn’t been as easy as I thought it would be.

If you’ve ever tried to create a new habit, you know what it’s like: you’re used to doing certain things throughout your day and as a result, it can be difficult to try to squeeze something else into the day — even if you’ve removed some of the other things that you used to do!

I recently returned from a trip this past Monday. As a result, I thought that this was a perfect time to try and carry out a new routine. Having been away from my “regular” routine for the last 10+ days, I can now impose a new routine. I’ve only been doing it for a few days, but so far, it’s been working great. If we look at it from a physics standpoint, it makes sense. The way I went about my day was an “object in motion,” and until that “object in motion” was acted upon, it was going to maintain its course. My attempts to affect its course weren’t strong enough to move that object in motion, but when I left the country, the object was acted upon strongly enough. Inertia is also another concept that applies here. Inertia is the idea that an object will resist a change to its state of motion (or rest).

So, if you’re trying to make some changes in your life, consider going on vacation or getting out of town for a few days to shakeup your routine. It just may be the change you need to make the change you need!

Situations Dictate Behavior: List of Biases in Judgment and Decision-Making, Part 8

We’re into the 8th week of cognitive biases. A couple of weeks ago, I was trying to decide between the confirmation bias and the fundamental attribution error and decided on the confirmation bias. I’m not sure why I decided to go with the gambler’s fallacy last week (as opposed to the fundamental attribution error), so I thought I’d “circle back” and pick up the fundamental attribution error… in case you were really pining for it.

The fundamental attribution error may sound complicated (I mean, hey, there are three words!), but it’s actually quite simple once you get the hang of it. Normally, I explain the bias and then provide examples, but I think talking about an example will help to solidify the understanding of this bias. In a study done in 1967, researchers asked participants to assess whether a person was pro-/anti-Castro based on an essay the person had written. In one group, participants were told that the essayists were able to choose whether they wanted to write for the pro-side or the anti-side. Of course, when participants believed that essayists were able to choose which side they wanted to write for, they rated those essayists as having more positive (or negative) feelings towards Castro. In the second group, participants were told that the essayists would have their position determined by a coin flip. Meaning, the essayists had no control over whether they were going to be writing a positive/negative essay of Castro. It was all left up to chance (the situation!). Despite the participants’ knowledge of this, on average, they still rated the positive essays as a sign that those essayists had a positive view of Castro. Similarly for the negative essays as a sign that those essayists had a negative view of Castro. Participants were blind to the situation constraints.

So that’s the fundamental attribution error — the idea that the situation dictates the behavior of the person, rather than the person’s personality. If you’re looking for some more examples:

You call up your friend and find out that they’ve done nothing all day. You assume that your friend is lazy. In fact, your friend was up all night caring for their sick grandmother.
You’re sitting a stop light when it turns to green. You advance out into the intersection only to nearly be smashed into by someone who runs the red light. You scoff at the person for running the red light. Little did you know that person was racing to get a pregnant wife to the hospital as she’d just gone into labor. (Ironically, you’d done something similar the week earlier.)
Mitt Romney’s declaration that 47% of the population who don’t pay income taxes will categorically support larger government “because those ‘who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them’ can never be persuaded to ‘take personal responsibility and care for their lives.'” In actuality, the 47% of the population who don’t pay income taxes are “…not some distinct parasite class, but rather ordinary, hard-working people who either already have paid or will soon be paying quite substantial taxes.”

Ways for Avoiding the Fundamental Attribution Error

1a) Empathy

As with many of the other biases, empathy is one of the quickest ways to thwart its power of you. If I put myself in the shoes of another, I’m more likely to understand that there might be more going on in the situation than I can see from my perspective. For instance, if we look at the red light example from above, by empathizing with the driver who runs the red light, I have a much higher chance of understanding that there running the red light is not a demonstration of their disregard for the world around them, but maybe that there’s something urgent to be taken care of.

1b) “Why Would a Rational Person Behave This Way?”

The above sentence is essentially a way to create a sense of empathy, but in case empathy is an ambiguous term, I’ve marked this ‘way’ 1b. Asking yourself this question will make it easier to consider the other factors at contributing to a situation.

Note: While the fundamental attribution error tells us that people make the mistake of devaluing the situational factors, it’s important not to sway too far the other way and totally discount the personality factors that might be contributing to a situation. For those folks that do sway too far to the situational factors affecting behavior, there’s a bias for it: actor-observer effect.

If you liked this post, you might like one of the other posts in this series:

The Best Laid Plans… Are Flexible

Forgive me for the long absence (it’s been a week since my last post). In fact, I even missed my weekly cognitive bias yesterday. I’ve been out of town for the last couple of weeks. In fact, the last post I wrote was on a train from Toronto to Ottawa. Nonetheless, something happened this weekend that I think makes for a perfect post. (Note: look for the weekly cognitive bias in tomorrow’s post.)

On Sunday morning, I was scheduled to drive from Ottawa back to the DC area. I was in Ottawa for my brother-in-law’s wedding. As Saturday was a rather late night, waking up early and heading back to DC didn’t seem like a good idea, so I woke up without an alarm. Upon waking, I was still pretty tired. As a result, I didn’t get on the road until later than anticipated.

After driving through New York, I was pretty tired. I still had about 5 hours to go and it was nearing the seven o’clock hour. Normally, I would have thought to myself, ‘I’ve gotta get home — push through this.’ Just as an aside: I’ve done quite a bit of ‘long drives’ in my day. I grew up in the Greater Toronto Area and went to school in mid-Michigan, so there were frequent trips back and forth. I’ve also driven across the US twice (remember these two posts?) and back and forth from DC to Toronto or DC to Ottawa.

So, long drives aren’t foreign to me. In fact, of the long drives I’ve done, I can only remember once stopping in a hotel for the night. That was on a drive from Virginia Beach back to mid-Michigan. I was down in Virginia Beach over New Year’s for a conference and when I made my way into Ohio, there was a pretty bad snow storm that made the driving difficult. Instead of pushing through at the end of a long trip, I decided to stay the night somewhere. I was really happy with that decision. Back to this past Sunday.

I’ve got about 5 hours to get back to DC, it’s around 7 o’clock, and I’m still really tired from the night before. I reviewed my Monday schedule to remind myself that I didn’t have any obligations on Monday until the afternoon. I weighed the cons and pros of driving to DC, while still being quite tired. In the end, it didn’t seem worth it — I stopped in Scranton for the night.

What’s the takeaway?

Plans can change. New data are unending and it’s important to notice that. At the
start of my trip last week, I would have — without a doubt — planned on driving back to DC sans stops. However, with the late night on Saturday and the late start to the drive on Sunday, by the time dinnertime on Sunday rolled around, I was ready to grab some grub and hit the sack.

My point here is that it’s important to stay flexible even when you have an idea of how something “should be.”

Note #1: If you’d like a different perspective on the matter of how something “should be,” I’d urge you to read this: “We’ll See…“

Note #2: I should say that I wasn’t alone on this drive. My lovely wife was with me and it was our mutual decision to stop in Scranton. Although, we’ve been known to drive straight through on many occasions.

Know The Rules: Bench-Clearing Brawl at the World Baseball Classic

A couple of weeks ago saw the start of the World Baseball Classic (WBC). This is only the 3rd WBC, but it’s already proving to be quite enjoyable to watch and from what the players say, quite enjoyable to play. The World Baseball Classic is akin to the World Cup (of soccer/football) where countries compete to qualify for (and play in) a tournament against other countries — in baseball. This past weekend, there was a game between Canada and Mexico that erupted into a fistfight. Now, as a baseball player of many years, I can tell you that never have I been in a fistfight on a baseball field. So how did it happen?

In the WBC, there are 4 pools with 4 teams in each pool. Each team plays each other once and the top 2 teams advance. Pretty simple, right? Well, with mathematics, there’s a high probability that there will be a tie for 2nd (or 1st!) and there will need to be tiebreakers to differentiate between teams. The first tiebreaker is head-to-head. Meaning, if Team A and Team B have the same record at the end of the pool play, the winner of the game between those two would advance to the next round. If we included a Team C in that scenario (all three Teams have the same record), then it gets dicey. Let’s also say that Team A beat Team B, Team B beat Team C, and Team C beat Team A. Our first tiebreaker doesn’t work. So, we’ve got to go to the next tiebreaker — run differential (it’s actually a bit more complicated than that, but we’ll just call it this to make it easier). Basically, run differential is just what it sounds like — the difference between the number of runs you scored and the number of runs that were scored against you.

Okay, now that we’ve got the basic understanding of the rules, we can talk about what happened this past weekend. In Pool D of the 2013 World Baseball Classic, Italy beat Mexico in the first game. In the second game, Italy mercy’ed (beat by 10 runs!) Canada. In the third game, Mexico beat the USA. At this point, the standings were: Italy 2-0, Mexico 1-1, Canada 0-1, and USA 0-1. In the fourth game, Canada was to play Mexico. Going into the game, Canada had a -10 run differential because they lost by 10 to Italy. So, if Canada won the game, they knew they were going to have win by a lot (in case that the 2nd tiebreaker came into effect).

Cut to the 9th inning of the game between Canada and the USA. At this point, Canada was winning 9-3. They had the game solidly in hand. The first batter of the inning noticed that there was an opportunity to bunt and make it to first base — so, he did. The 3rd basemen didn’t like this and instructed the pitcher to hit the next batter! Let’s take a step back for a second.

In the way that baseball is normally played (without the imposition of tiebreakers), you wouldn’t a team to try to “run up the score.” Meaning, a player wouldn’t take the advantage that the Canadian player did when he bunted — this is considered ‘bush league.’ So, when the Canadian player bunted to reach first base, the 3rd basemen suggested to the pitcher what would normally be suggested — bean him. Now, I’m not condoning this as a response, but generally, this is how things go in baseball. However, because of the tiebreaker
rules, Canada wasn’t trying to embarrass Mexico, they were trying to even out their run differential! Herein lies the problem — the Mexican player didn’t know the rules. After the Mexican player beaned the Canadian player, the benches cleared. When the benches cleared, a fist fight erupted.

This whole kerfuffle could have been prevented if the Mexican players knew the rules. I’m not writing this to place blame on the Mexican players for not knowing the rules. This post is meant to highlight what happens when you don’t know the rules of the game. More than that, we can broaden this to not knowing the rules of play (in business, politics, education, etc.). If you’re operating under the assumption that the rules are X, Y, Z, and the rules are actually Cup, Dog, Queen, then you’re probably going to miss something. More than that, when someone does something relating to Dog, you may get pretty upset expecting that the rules were X.

In short: Know the Rules.

Don’t Fall for the Gambler’s Fallacy: List of Biases in Judgment and Decision-Making, Part 7

A little later in the day than I would have liked, but today’s cognitive bias is the gambler’s fallacy. The bias gets its name from, as you’d expect, gambling. The easiest example to think of is when you’re flipping a coin. If you flip a coin 4 times and each of those 4 times the coin turned up heads, you’d expect the coin to turn up tails on the next (or at least have a higher chance of turning over tails), right? WRONG!

The odds are exactly the same on the 5th turn as the 6th turn as the 66th turn as the 11,024th turn. Why? Because the two instances of flipping the coin are independent events. (Note: we’re ignoring, for the time being, any effects that quantum reality might have on a given event in the past and the future.) So, every time you flip a coin, that’s an independent event — unaffected by earlier events.

Another important example is the reverse fallacy. That is, if we think that heads are “hot” because it’s been flipped a number of time, thinking that there’s a better chance that heads will be flipped is also a fallacy. Again, this is an independent event — unaffected by previous events.

This fallacy is so named because there’s a famous example of the gambler’s fallacy happening at the Monte Carlo Casino where, on roulette, black came up 26 times in a row. A number of gamblers reasoned that red would come up because there had been such an unlikely number of blacks that came up in a row. As the story goes, they lost millions.

Other examples of the gambler’s fallacy:

Childbirth: “we’ve had 3 boys, so we’re going to have a girl now…”
Lottery: “I’ve lost 3,000 times, so I’m due for a win…”
Sports: “Player X is playing really well, they’re bound to start playing bad…”
Stock market: “Stock X has had 7 straight down days, so it’s bound to go up on this next trading day…”

Ways for Avoiding the Gambler’s Fallacy

1) Independent Events vs. Dependent Events

The biggest way to avoid the gambler’s fallacy is to understand the difference between an independent event and a dependent event. In the classic example, the odds of a coin landing on heads or tails is — negligibly — 50/50 (I say negligibly because there are those who contend that the “heads side” weighs more and thus gives it a slight advantage). An example of a dependent event would be picking cards from a deck. There are 52 cards in a deck and if you pick one card without replacing it, your odds of picking one of the other 51 cards increases (ever so slightly).

If you liked this post, you might like one of the other posts in this series:

Can We Make “Looking Down Your Nose” a Good Thing?

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I was going to be doing a post about Chrystia Freeland‘s book Plutocrats. I haven’t yet finished it, but there is something I wanted to talk about before I got to the end. I’m about halfway through the book and the main focus of the conversation is the 0.1% vs. the 1%. The sad truth in Freeland’s words is that those in the 1% continue to spend like they’re in the 0.1% (for a variety of reasons that I won’t get into right now). The important piece here is that they’re not happy with where they are — and they’re looking up.

The idea of the “grass is greener on the other side” seems to be a theme that runs throughout (at least the first half) of Freeland’s book. So, as I was reading, I thought, if people just looked down, they’d be a lot happier. Proverbially down, of course. And not in a pejorative fashion as in the phrase, “looking down your nose.”

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase that someone’s always got it worse than you — why don’t we implement this as a way of being? Instead of being upset that we can’t buy the newest Bentley or Ferrari, why can’t we “look down” to the person next on the wealth list and realize that we have it better than they do? I hope it’s clear that I’m not suggesting that people think of themselves as “better than” the people who would follow them on a wealth list. I’m merely trying to emphasize how well that people have it and that if they compared themselves (down the chain) they’d probably feel better about themselves. My secret wish is that this would also foster more empathy within us.

So, I wonder… do you think that we can take back the phrase “looking down your nose at someone” and turn it into a good thing? Probably not, but I hope that the next time you hear someone say this (or the next time you think it?) you’ll remember my brief conversation about how much better we’d feel if we compared ourselves to those who had less than to those who have more.

Religious Pluralism: Isaac and Ishmael

I’ve recently started re-watching The West Wing. I don’t remember what prompted it, but I’m really glad that I have. I first watched the series a couple of years ago — before I was to start business school. The show was really engaging and that made it easy to watch multiple (3, 4, and 5!) episodes at a time. Now that I find myself nearing the end of my formal business education (graduate with an MBA in a couple of months), re-watching The West Wing has been quite different. I feel like I have a better handle and understanding of the nuances to the plot. That’s not because I’ve seen it before (I hardly remember the ‘minor’ plot lines of the series), but because I’ve learned so much in the last 2 years.

I’m into Season 3 and the first episode that airs in Season 3 is one that’s not part of the plot. That is, it’s a play — with the characters of The West Wing, but it’s not part of the timeline of the show. This episode airs about a month after 9/11. Well, the actors/actresses can do it better than I, so here’s the introduction to the episode that aired:

When I was watching the series the first time, I don’t remember watching this episode — I was too eager to carry on with the plot. Since I knew what was going to happen, I thought I’d take the time to watch this episode. I thought it was very well done. I tried to imagine how I might be feeling back in October of 2001. Would I be upset? Would I be typecasting? Would I have understood the nuances of different religious beliefs? Different sects?

I’ve had a hard time finding critical reception for this particular episode, but of those articles I was able to find, there’ve been mixed reviews. From what I can tell, that has more to do with what appears to be something against Aaron Sorkin (the creator of the show). While some found the “teacher-student” paradigm a bit hokey, I thought it was a great way to convey an important message. Anyway, if you get the chance, I highly suggest watching the episode. If you’ve got Amazon Prime, here’s the link to the episode on Amazon that you can watch for free: The West Wing – Isaac and Ishmael.

As an aside, there was another really great episode that I saw recently. This one was part of the plot of the show, but it dealt with a really important issue: post-traumatic stress disorder. I was surprised when I clicked over to the Wiki page for this episode to find that it had only won one award (and helped Bradley Whitford win an Emmy). If I’m keeping score, this has to be one of the top 5 episodes of the series. Here’s the Amazon Prime link: The West Wing – Noël.