If someone offered you $20 today or $40 in a month, what would you choose?
The question may seem trivial but, Stanford researchers discovered one’s response to a similar question highly correlates to their success in health, work, and life.
In the Stanford experiment, children were given the choice of receiving one reward immediately or two if they waited for 15 min. The reward – marshmallows. The difficulty came when they had to wait alone in a room with a single marshmallow sitting on the table right in front of them.
One can imagine the overwhelming temptation as a 5-year-old with no one to stop them from popping the ball of fluffy, sugary, goodness right into in your mouth. I probably would have convinced myself the scientists wouldn’t even notice it was gone and give me another one….
