The rider of the elephant is your neocortex, the newest, most rational part of your brain. If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want.ĭownload PDF Lesson 1: Focus all your energy on one specific, critical aspect of the change you want to make, so you don’t have to decide.

Ready to tame the elephant and harness the power of habit change? Let’s go!

Make the path of change easy to follow, because human behavior is highly situational.

Get the elephant moving with a powerful emotion.

Focus on one specific, critical aspect of the change, so the rider doesn’t have to decide.

Here are 3 ways for you to influence the rider, the elephant and the path they’re on: Originally introduced by Jonathan Haidt in The Happiness Hypothesis, the Heath brothers pick it up and use it as the common thread of Switch.

You might have heard the analogy of your brain as a rational rider, sitting on top of an emotional, stubborn elephant, trying to direct it, which makes it easier to understand how your brain’s rational and emotional side work together. In order to address the problem, they look at three driving forces behind behavior change: the rational side, the emotional side and the environment in which the change is supposed to happen. Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account*:Īfter Made To Stick, Chip and Dan Heath tackled the issue of how to change human behavior, an important question, especially for leaders in organizations, but also for individuals, who suffer from their bad habits.

Switch on your brain book review