The 5 Second Rule summary

On a cold December night, in 1955, Rosa Parks was sitting on a city bus and refused to stand up and give her seat to a white man. This relatively small act of defiance was nevertheless a historic moment of great courage in the fight for civil rights; and it shows us that it doesn’t necessarily take grand gestures to spark significant change.

This is the same kind of philosophy that makes the five-second rule effective. Counting backward from five isn’t a dramatic lifestyle change, but it can push you toward being a more courageous person.

If you want to change the perception your coworkers have of you, all you need to do is raise your hand during a meeting and speak your mind. If you want to add some joy to someone’s day, all you have to do is take a moment to compliment them.

All these acts require is for you to make a decision, which is something you can always put off by telling yourself that today isn’t the right day. Eventually, this can be your life’s story, forever waiting for the right moment to arrive.

To many people, professional athletes are extremely inspirational. As they should be; athletes show us what’s possible when you put your mind and body through rigorous training and practice.

Some pro athletes seem practically inhuman, but their ability to push past most people’s physical limits is determined by one simple trait. Despite feeling too exhausted to continue, an athlete has the ability to separate from this feeling and continue to run or swim or cycle.

There’s an irony to modern technology like smartphones and tablets. They were designed to make us more productive, yet they often end up distracting us, and they’ve exponentially increased our ability to procrastinate.

But there’s a difference between innocent procrastination and destructive procrastination.

There’s no big mystery to why we’re all so prone to worrying. As children, most of us were constantly being taught to worry by over-concerned parents telling us to “be careful” and “put a coat on or you’ll catch a cold.”

As a result, we’ve become adults who spend far too much time worrying about things that are beyond our control. And the fact is, we’ll likely come to regret all this time spent sweating the small stuff.