Name: Switch Craft
Rating: 4.4 (412 reviews)
Author: Elaine Fox

What’s in it for me? Embrace uncertainty and thrive in a complicated world.

We are surrounded by uncertainty. We are constantly bombarded with choices, then left to wonder how things could have been different. What if we had married a different person? Chosen a different career? Even simple day to day decisions can leave us overwhelmed.

The fact is, uncertainty is one of the only certainties in life.

If you’re not careful, you can deal with this uncertainty by making changes too quickly, or sticking with something familiar, even though it isn’t the best solution.

Introducing switch craft: The art of being able to make the right decision in the right moment.

In these Blinks, you will learn how to hone your switch craft by building and maintaining its four basic pillars. Through mental agility, self-awareness, emotional control, and intuition you can learn to flourish in this complex and rapidly-changing world.

So, let’s get started.

An agile mind can help you change, adapt, and thrive.

Meet Paddi Lund. Paddi spent 10 years setting up and running an expansive and hugely successful dental practice in Brisbane, Australia. On paper his life should have been perfect – he was financially well-off and his business empire was thriving. Yet, Paddi was profoundly miserable.

So, Paddi reflected on his situation. He realized that in building his empire he had lost track of what he loved – the dentistry itself. In a radical and life-changing move, he got rid of 80% of his clients, stopped all advertising for his practice, and transformed half his building into a cafe to create a happiness-centered dental business. Now he’s working a fraction of the time, has doubled his income, and is spending more time with family and friends. Paddi is happy.

Paddi turned his life around by finding a creative and agile response to his stressful situation. This ability – called mental agility – is the first pillar of switch craft.

Mental agility means being able to approach the complicated world with flexibility. It comes down to one basic decision – when you’re faced with challenges in life, do you stick or do you switch? While it is often easier – and sometimes useful – to stick with the current situation, being able to easily switch things up can help you thrive.

This was shown in a study on three cognitive biases in teenagers: Attention bias – whether they focus on pleasant or unpleasant things; memory bias – which type of things they’re more likely to remember, and; interpretation bias – what meaning they make of ambiguous situations.

The study found that biases towards focusing on and remembering threatening or negative words and situations – and interpreting ambiguous situations negatively – were tightly connected in those who struggled with depression and anxiety. For example, triggering a traumatic memory is more likely to make you focus on and interpret negativity around you.

On the other hand, those who were happy and thriving were able to think about negative things without experiencing all the other negative biases. In other words, they were more agile in their thinking, leaving them in a more open and flexible frame of mind.

What can you do to train this mental agility? Try paying attention to when you feel annoyed or upset and see if you can find other ways to interpret these negative situations. Maybe you’re bothered about a friend who is always slow to stay in touch with you. Sure, you can interpret that as her not wanting to see you, but there are always more positive explanations. Maybe she is too busy, or thinks that you are.

Your mental agility – this ability to stick or switch as circumstances require – can be applied to all sorts of situations. Whether you’re raising kids, managing a large project, or living in a long-term relationship, knowing when and how to change can help you thrive, and let you approach challenges with an open mind. Just like Paddi and his dental business, it’s always possible to change your life for the better.

Know yourself so you can make the right choices.

On a column in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, you can find a short maxim, inscribed over 2000 years ago. Throughout history, this simple piece of wisdom has appeared over and over again, from the works of Socrates, to the poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the words of Benjamin Franklin.

Today it can be translated into two little words: “Know thyself.”

Be in control of your emotions.

In April 1986, Jennifer Guiness was kidnapped from her Dublin home by a group of armed men. The group had mistakenly thought that she was related to the wealthy Guinness brewing company, and they proceeded to demand a huge ransom payment.

For eight days Jennifer was held captive. Being a strong, no-nonsense woman, she suppressed her understandable fear and remained calm – closely observing her captors. She noticed an older man who seemed quite intimidating, so she was careful and polite around him. On the other hand, there was a younger man who seemed a bit less confident.

Learn to trust your gut.

In the summer of 1984, Elaine Fox was working as a chambermaid in a New York hotel. There, she became good friends with a girl called Jenny. One afternoon, Elaine bumped into Jenny at the beach – along with Jenny’s new boyfriend. She immediately felt that something was wrong. He was very handsome, charming, and friendly, yet Elaine couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable and wary around him. There was a subtle hostility in the way his eyes lingered. He didn’t do or say anything intimidating – it was just a feeling.

A feeling that turned out to be accurate. A few weeks later the boyfriend came to Elaine’s flat in a fit of rage, demanding to know where Jenny was. He stormed off after punching a hole through the screen door, before disappearing into the night. A few days and police interviews later it was discovered that the charming boyfriend had been on the run after a series of rapes in California.

Kernaussagen in Switch Craft

Worum geht es in Switch Craft?

Switch Craft: The Hidden Power of Mental Agility (2022) introduces the concept of switch craft – the art of being able to change and adapt in this fast-paced world. Drawing on scientific research and real life experience, switch craft uses the four pillars of mental agility, self-awareness, emotional awareness, and situational awareness, to give us the flexibility and understanding to thrive in any situation.

Über den Autor

Elaine Fox, PhD. is a cognitive psychologist well known for her research on mental health that integrates psychology with genetics and neuroscience. She is the founder of OCEAN and currently works for the University of Adelaide, Australia, as the head of the School of Psychology. Fox’s previous work is an international bestseller, Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain (2012).