The Marshmallow Test by Walter Mischel

The main takeaways I got from reading this book, were:

Buy the book here

1. Self control in all humans can be learnt overtime, since our brain is malleable.
2. The Marshmallow test experiment, was a phenomenal indication of the importance of delayed gratification vs immediate gratification.
3. Teaching young children traits to help them develop self control, can have extreme long term benefits, in terms of how they deal with stress and their overall development as humans.

Mischel, is a cognitive researcher, and his research will stand the test of time, for years to come. In his book, he speaks about several ways, to increase self control. and ways to improve a person's ability to delay gratification. Some of which, he recommends are:

• Meditation (20 minutes daily)
• Making the gap between your future self and your present self, smaller and more realistic, that way a person is likely to act in the best interest of his future self (doing things like investing into his/her retirement, etc)

In my personal studies, I found other aspects to also improve self control, after learning that our willpower(or self control) is like a muscle, based on research conducted by Roy F. Baumeister. In Mischel's book, he speaks about self control being based on context as well, saying a person is likely to be strong in one area, (such as resisting chocolate for example) and be weak in other areas(such as resisting sex for example)...I disagree, and I think our brain does too. In Mischel's book, he speaks about the cool system(prefrontal cortex) and our hot system(limbic system) in our brain, saying how the hot system, is likely to make a person excited about the temptation, whereas the cold system, would be direct strategies a person would use, to calm their desire for gratification now, in order to delay the gratification for a better reward later! I read a study once that was done in 2012, that 25% of Americans, have at least six months of their rent saved, I strongly believe this is also a result of a lack of self control by three(3) in every four(4) Americans!

Buy the book here

Remember, Reading makes you unsuitable to live like a slave!