Bob Sullivan - The Plateau Effect: Getting from Stuck to Success

THE PLATEAU
EFFECT

GETTING FROM STUCK TO SUCCESS

Bob Sullivan and Hugh Thompson

DUTTON

DUTTON

Published by Penguin Group

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Copyright 2013 by Robert Sullivan and Herbert Hugh Thompson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Sullivan, Bob, 1968 author.

The plateau effect : getting from stuck to success / Bob Sullivan and Herbert Hugh Thompson.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-101-62424-1

1. Self-actualization (Psychology) 2. SuccessPsychological aspects. 3. Achievement motivation. 4. Learning, Psychology of. 5. Performance. I. Thompson, Herbert H., author. II. Title.

BF637.S4S85 2013

158.1dc23 2012038324

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To everyone who still thinks things can get better

CONTENTS

THE SCIENCE

Three Forces

Uncovering the Forces That Drive the Plateau Effect

The First Plateau Force

The Second Plateau Force

The Third Plateau Force

THE ENGINE

Building Your Approach

Step Functions, Choke Points, and Mystery Ingredients

Navigating Bad Data and Other Tricks of the Plateau

THE ACHIEVEMENT

Peak Behaviors

The First Action

The Second Action

The Third Action

: The Eight Elements of Plateaus

THE BEGINNING

G ive us three minutes, your imagination, and your nose, and we bet well convince you that the Plateau Effect is the most powerful force of nature youve never heard about.

Let us take you to the Paris of the West, to a block in San Francisco where the unmistakable aromastench?of garlic suddenly overpowers every other gritty smell on Columbus Avenue. About half a mile from the famous triangular Transamerica building, theres a restaurant that you cant help but notice. The unusual name, The Stinking Rose, might persuade you to take a look inside, but thats not what really grabs your attention. No, its that smell wafting out the front door onto the sidewalk, swirling around all the passersby.

The Stinking Rose is a sort of homage to garlic, has every garlic dish you could possibly imagine. These range from the traditional, such as garlic spaghetti, to the exceptional, like garlic ice cream. The restaurant serves more than three thousand pounds of garlic a month, and as you walk inside, you can smell every clove of it.

But once you are seated at your table, something remarkable starts to happen. With stunning speed, the scent of garlic fades and the other smells of San Francisco return. Your wifes perfume, or the grapy wine, or the bleached tablecloth curiously reemerges, and its aroma seems to overpower the garlic.

Of course, thats not at all whats happened. Your nose has simply gotten tired of the garlic scent and stopped telling your brain that its there. You might say youve grown numb to the garlic, but the word numb hardly does justice to the amazing evolutionary trait weve just described.

Weve become so used to this disappearing smell phenomenon that most of us dont even think about it. Its why you might need someone else to tell you its time to reapply deodorant or suck on a breath mint. Its why most of us grow queasy at the thought of entering a high school locker room, but the athletes dont seem to mind. With incredible speed, people become immune to even the most pungent odors.

This immunity is the bodys natural defense against being constantly distracted by stimuli. If our bodies didnt adapt, our attention would be relentlessly divided by millions of smellseven our own scentand unable to notice changes in the environment around us. The effect is called acclimation. Without it, stopping to smell the roses would be an act of unending distraction. Acclimation is a critical element of our evolutionary design.

Naturally, acclimation is not limited to smell; it governs all of our senses. Acclimation is why people who live in big cities learn to ignore the sound of traffic outside their windows while it drives suburban guests crazy. Its why we forget that were wearing a wedding ring, or glasses, when initially they are so irritating. Acclimation is why we get used to things.

Humans are hardwired to eventually ignore consistency, especially in the forms of smell, taste, touch, and hearing. At its most base level, this behavior is a survival instinct: The ability to adapt and ignore distracting information is a natural form of self-defense. It allows us to focus on changes and new things that enter the environment that might be threats. This ignoring of a persistent stimulus is generally a welcome feature of how the body works. But often, acclimation does more harm than good.

There are times when it would be very helpful to turn off this defense mechanism.

The Plateau Effect will show how athletes, scientists, relationship therapists, companies, and musicians around the world are learning to do just thatto turn off the forces that cause people to peak out or get used to thingsand turn on human potential and happiness in ways you probably think impossible. The Plateau Effect will show you why the world is full of one-hit wonders, why all good things come to an end, why all trends eventually fall, why most people get less for more, and how you can break through again and again. Plateaus are like governors that cap your U-Haul van speed at fifty miles per hour. We will show you how to disable this secret governor and turn on your inner Maserati.

Just give us another few hours or your time.

Understanding why we reach a plateau can help us stop wasting time on things that weve stopped getting value from and focus on other things that leverage our time and energy better. The Plateau Effect tells us when to eat, what we should do in the gym, how to build a successful business, and even how to build stronger and broader relationships. Knowing how the Effect influences everything in our lives helps us get maximum value in minimum time and then move on quickly once weve reached a goal. It helps us do a good enough job quickly for things that arent very important to free up time to concentrate on things that are. Those who master the Effect, who can identify a plateau and break through, leave one-hit wonders in the dust.