Trust your own results, not some famous scientist, or worse, some newsletter writer.

Single subject research is generally not even thought of as science. ~ Mark DrangsholtAnd yet… ___ Tr [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( Single subject research is generally not even thought of as science. ~ Mark Drangsholt And yet… _ Trust your own results. In the topics I cover in this newsletter, science is both incredibly useful and simultaneously frustratingly overconfident. So a theme I try to push is to trust your own results. Every bit of advice you hear needs to then be tested against your own combination of psychology, skill, energy, and context. If the advice succeeds, then you’ve just completed a successful experiment. If it fails, move on. The reason I’m bringing this up now is that I was reading [a critique of the UC Berkeley sleep researcher, Matthew Walker](. I’ve linked to Walker’s work before ([probably his TED Talk](). But what resonated most with me was the way his oversimplified and overconfident advice was causing harm. Here’s how one coach explained it: As someone who works with individuals with insomnia on a daily basis, I know from firsthand experience the harm that Walker’s book is causing. I have many stories of people who slept well on less than eight hours of sleep, read Walker’s book, tried to get more sleep and this led to more time awake, frustration, worry, sleep-related anxiety, and insomnia. OK. If those people had received my advice to trust their own results, what should they have done? If some mega-famous scientist tells you to sleep an extra hour and following his advice makes you miserable, then stop following his advice. Coaching has a term “co-active” that refers to how coaching and clients go through a change together. When you apply the advice of a scientific researcher, then imagine yourself as a scientific researcher as well. You are the world’s leading researcher of your own success, and these other scientists are merely collaborators. I am not a nudgelord. Most of coaching is facilitation and a lot of that facilitation is listening to you figure something out, maybe nudged by the occasional great question. When we succeed, you change your behavior. We do a lot more than this, but listening really is a core piece. Those behavior change skills put coaches inside a group of professions that are categorized as behavior designers. The difference is that coaches have your blessing, and these other professions do not. Think of the supermarket designer who realized that if they stock the milk in the back of the store, then more customers will have to walk past other products. The result is that they have nudged your behavior toward buying more than you came for. So I just heard a pejorative for these other professions and it cracked me up. [They are nudgelords](. Watch out, nudgelords! We are on to your manipulative ways and are fighting back. 2x speed as a skimming strategy. Here’s a reader response about how to combine 2x listening speeds with slow and thoughtful learning. Taking notes pairs well with 2x listening and pausing. People have different approaches to learning. It is astonishing how little is retained without systemic effort. This is great practical advice because so much content is information-light. So speeding it up helps you skim to the transformational parts. You just have to be disciplined about pausing at those points and really taking them in. Give yourself permission to deface books. I’ve always been a note-taker, especially for lectures or other organized learning (like textbooks). But now it’s spilling over. In fact, one of my Codex Vitae “rules” (thanks, Coach Tony) is that if a meeting isn’t worth taking notes on, it probably shouldn’t be held. And wildly, I’ve started keeping a pencil with whatever non-fiction I’m reading. Cause now I’m that person, underlining passages and adding marginalia. It engages me with the reading at a new level. Definitely took a little while to be OK with “defacing” books though… __ Have you ever had surprising results that conflict with popular advice? Respond and tell me about it. Don’t miss out on the other issues by Coach Tony [Become a member for $5 per month]( Did you enjoy this issue? [Yes]( [No]( [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( Tips, inspirations, and knowledge on productivity, happiness, health, and making an impact on our world. Official email of the Better Humans publication on Medium. (@bttrhumans) You can manage your subscription [here](. In order to unsubscribe, click [here](. If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe [here](. Created with [Revue by Twitter](.