Download Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done AudioBook Free
Would you lose weight if you put $20,000 vulnerable? Might you finally set up your billing software if it intended that your favorite charity would earn a fresh contribution? If you have ever tried to meet an objective and emerged up short, the condition may well not have been that the target was too difficult or that you lacked the discipline to succeed. From giving up cigarettes to increasing your productivity at work, you might simply have neglected to provide yourself the proper incentives. In Carrot and Sticks, Ian Ayres, the New York Times best-selling writer of Super Crunchers, can be applied the lessons discovered from behavioral economics - the amazing new research of rewards and punishments - to present readers to the concept of "commitment contracts": an easy but high-powered technique for setting and achieving goals already used by successful companies and individuals across America. As co-founder of the web site stickK.com (where people have entered into their own "determination deals" and collectively put more than $3 million on the line), Ayres has developed contracts-including the one he honored with himself to reduce more than 20 pounds in one year-that have previously helped many find the best way to help themselves at work or home. Now he shows the strategies that can give you the impetus to meet your individual and professional goals. Ayres shares participating, often astounding, real-life experiences that show the carrot-and-stick theory in action, from the compulsive sneezer who needed a "stick" (the actual loss of $50 per week to a charity he didn't like) to those who need a carrot with the stick (the New York Times columnist who stop smoking by pledging a pal $5,000 per smoke cigarettes...if she'd do the same for him). You'll learn why you might like to seek the services of a "professional nagger" whom you'll do anything to avoid-no, your partner won't do!-and how you can "hand-tie" your own future self to accomplish what you would like done now. You will discover out how a New Zealand ad exec successfully "sold his smoking addiction", and just why Zappos offered new employees $2,000 to quit cigarettes.
