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How To Be Clear-Minded AudioChapter from Think in Models AudioBook by Nick Trenton
Think in Models: A Structured Approach to Clear Thinking and the Art of Strategic Decision-Making (Mental and Emotional Abundance Book 5) By Nick Trenton
Hear it Here - https://bit.ly/thinkinmodels
00:05:04.009 Julia Galef’s famous TED talk
00:14:53.029 An expert in doing this was Charles Darwin
00:21:01.940 Internet activist Eli Pariser
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NZWFRLS
Learn mental models for error-proof thinking, analysis, and decisions.
The world is not as it seems. It requires a bit more analysis to see reality, and applying mental models is the best way to start.
A thinking toolkit for nearly all problems and complexities in life.
Think in Models is a collection of the world’s (and history’s) greatest mental models that are exclusively focused on getting the most insight from the least amount of information. You’ll learn over 20 of the most helpful and widely-applicable mental models and above all else, learn to think like a genius.
A wide variety of examples, explanations, and step-by-step guidelines are also included.
Nick Trenton grew up in rural Illinois and is quite literally a farm boy. His best friend growing up was his trusty companion Leonard the dachshund. RIP Leonard. Eventually, he made it off the farm and obtained a BS in Economics, followed by an MA in Behavioral Psychology.
Knowing how to think is always better than having more information.
•The simple way to know whether you are truly open-minded or not
•Why you must always ask yourself a few questions in Latin
•What your gut feeling is really telling you
•How to analyze systems in your everyday life
•How Sherlock Holmes thinks and solves crimes
Don’t just wing it. Emulate the best and reach your goals.
Thinking in models isn’t just important for large decisions or work issues. You can use all of these skills in daily life to live better, happier, and more stress-free.
Think in models and think like history’s most accomplished thinkers.
#AnnaFreud #BiologistEOWilson #CharlesDarwin #CharlieMunger #EliPariser #Freud #Galef #GoldenRule #JuliaGalefs #Projection #Psychoanalytics #Rationalization #SigmundFreud #ThinkinModels #HowToBeClear-Minded #NickTrenton
Transcript
Think in Models, a structured approach to clear thinking and the art of strategic decision making, written by Nick Trenton, narrated by Russell Newton.
Speaker:In the two examples in the introduction, prior banked knowledge was not only insufficient to solve the problem at hand, it actively impeded the process.
Speaker:This is what psychologists and managers alike have noticed for years and called the paradox of expertise.
Speaker:Though culturally we all admire and respect those individuals who have amassed enormous experience and expertise, the truth is that it's this prior knowledge that gets in the way of solving novel problems.
Speaker:Experts with knowledge in one particular area are often less capable of solving problems or generating innovative concepts precisely because they've spent more time than anyone doing the same thing over and over again.
Speaker:Expertise may actually come with more fixed and rigid thinking, a lack of flexibility, and all the errors that come with it.
Speaker:Experts become experts at using very particular and niche models that mean they resort to stereotyped ways of understanding the world.
Speaker:This works perfectly, until the problem falls outside of their mental schemas.
Speaker:Then, because experts additionally have an identity, let's say ego, associated with their expertise, they may not even be able to perceive inefficiencies or mistakes and succumb to their old bias and tunnel vision believing all along they're right.
Speaker:After all, they're the authorities.
Speaker:All of this is to say that none of us is immune to bias, habitual thinking, prejudice, cognitive errors, assumptions, and unconscious psychological influences in the way we create and use our mental models.
Speaker:stubbornly clinging to expertise is not the only possible way we can trip ourselves up, however.
Speaker:In this chapter, we'll look at some fundamental ways that our clear, open-minded, and unbiased thinking can be undermined.
Speaker:Whether you call it a mindset, an attitude, an approach, a life philosophy, or a mental model, the way that we think about the world can influence the quality of our thoughts, decisions, and understanding.
Speaker:In the same way as a sophisticated computer can't work properly if it's infected with a virus, your clear, rational mind cannot do its best if it's continually under the influence of something or someone controlling it externally.
Speaker:With this in mind, we aim to maintain our focus on inner personal development and our internal state of being.
Speaker:We begin within, understanding that it's a question of removing obstacles to our own clarity of mind and allowing ourselves to succeed.
Speaker:What does it really mean to be clear-minded? Clear of what? Exactly.
Speaker:Your conscious awareness is like a lens you peer through when looking at reality. This lens is your personal collection of mental models, your ego, your history, your expectations, biases, and prejudices, assumptions, and hidden, unconscious material.
Speaker:Just like a lens can be dirty or warp an image making it bigger or smaller or filter its color, your mental models can either enhance or distort your perception of reality.
Speaker:When we become clear-minded, we become aware of the fact that we're using this lens in the first place. Before we can examine the images we see through the lens, we need to ask about the lens we're using.
Speaker:Is it full of smudges? Is it serving our purposes as it is right now? Or is it time to switch to a different lens?
Speaker:Human beings are destined to have a specific, subjective experience in life. There's no option to view reality without a lens. However, we are at liberty to change and improve the lenses we use.
Speaker:In fact, this is precisely what we do anytime we learn something new and change the way we think.
Speaker:Approach or defend two fundamental orientations.
Speaker:Quick, here's a question for you. Right now, what is your dominant way of interpreting the information that comes your way, including this question?
Speaker:We all like to think that we're neutral, that we are objective data processing machines in an objective universe, and that we're simply taking in information and responding to it.
Speaker:But we don't acknowledge a powerful, intermediate step in which we interpret what we perceive. This interpretation is total, constant, and may happen without you being in the least aware of it.
Speaker:Julia Galeff's famous TED Talk outlined what she saw as two fundamentally different mindsets, or approaches to interpreting incoming data from the world. The first she called a soldier mindset.
Speaker:The soldier approaches new information with a handful of beliefs they've already decided on. The aim is to defend and protect those beliefs from new data, if necessary, as though conflicting data were an enemy that needed to be shot down.
Speaker:We can see this mindset anytime we encounter warring factions, be they literal tribes or nations, or simply feuding families or groups of people who have decided they are one another's enemies.
Speaker:Believers versus atheists, liberals versus conservatives, rich versus poor, and so on.
Speaker:This reminds us of the fixed mindset, when an idea is settled on before new information is taken on board and new information is filtered according to what we already know.
Speaker:As an example, consider a person who holds the sexist belief, women are bad drivers. One day they encounter a brilliant woman driver. This data point is a threat.
Speaker:The person simply concludes, well, a kind of a masculine sort of woman anyway. They're clearly an exception.
Speaker:According to Galeff, the other approach is the scout, which is the person who is motivated by a desire to understand, learn, and gain insight into the truth.
Speaker:This mindset is more flexible, since it is fundamentally curious and receptive. It's asking a question of the surrounding environment rather than marching in with a forceful statement.
Speaker:This aligns neatly with the growth mindset we've explored. New information is not seen as a threat, challenge, or competition, but something new and interesting to explore.
Speaker:To continue with our previous example, the presence of an excellent woman driver might alert someone with a scout mindset to think again about their own assumptions and conclusions.
Speaker:They might decide, maybe this idea I have about women isn't really true after all. More likely, they wouldn't have believed in such a stereotype in the first place.
Speaker:There are probably more mindsets than these two, and subtle variations of each.
Speaker:You could approach the world and the new information it contains with more or less active agency, more or less curiosity, more or less ego.
Speaker:You could view the world like a scientist, like a gambler, like a prey animal who sees threat everywhere, like a child, like a parent, like a businessman, as though it's a game, as though it's a gift, or as though it's an epic TV series that you're half-heartedly watching unfold as a mere spectator.
Speaker:Whatever your orientation to reality itself, it's decidedly not neutral.
Speaker:We all like to think of ourselves as somehow centered, with our opinions and values being the obvious norm, while everyone else has biases, beliefs, preconceptions, and so on, but of course we have them too.
Speaker:At the root of either mindset is not rational thought, but emotion.
Speaker:The soldier approach is driven by fear and mistrust of difference and novelty.
Speaker:This is a basic emotional temperament that craves stability and fears the unknown.
Speaker:This is the person who gravitates toward tradition. Testing one's beliefs is seen as weak.
Speaker:The scout is guided by curiosity. The world feels like a more friendly and interesting place to them, so they don't respond with defensiveness but interest.
Speaker:This is the person who gravitates toward novelty and innovation, testing one's belief as seen as a strength.
Speaker:To find out which one you may lean toward, ask yourself how you view changing your mind.
Speaker:Do you think that you've won an argument if you haven't budged at all and convinced the other person you're right?
Speaker:Do you think that admitting you are wrong is embarrassing?
Speaker:When you meet someone with a different opinion than you, do you ask questions and become curious?
Speaker:Or do you silently gear up for mental battle thinking of all the ways you could prove them wrong?
Speaker:How do you see engagement with foreign ideas and the people that hold them?
Speaker:Are conversations a chance to learn, to bond socially, or to prove your superiority?
Speaker:Many people think that being argumentative makes them intellectually formidable. In fact, the opposite is true.
Speaker:Imagine two people enter into a heated political discussion.
Speaker:They both see the discussion as an opportunity to prove which team is right and to boast their superior knowledge and force the other to surrender.
Speaker:It's a matter of protecting their mutual egos. Their entire identity and self-worth rests on whether they're perceived as right and, therefore, superior.
Speaker:Can you imagine anything less productive and less likely to lead to learning, understanding, and insight for either person?
Speaker:The first thing to do is acknowledge that being neutral or objective is an illusion.
Speaker:We all have a subjective perspective we're inhabiting, conscious or unconscious.
Speaker:Our culture is set up to reward the soldier mindset, unfortunately.
Speaker:Whether it's in business, politics, academics, or science, so many of us go through the motions of learning or asking questions when, in reality, we're only seeking to confirm what we already believe to be true.
Speaker:Though most of us would like to be the scout, we're probably guilty of being the soldier more often than not.
Speaker:After all, isn't it only our ego's desire to belong to the right team, i.e., the scout, that makes us believe we're already functioning that way?
Speaker:Maybe you read the above section and thought, well, yes, sounds like a good idea. All those other people who are soldiers should clearly be more like me, a natural scout.
Speaker:Becoming aware of and detaching from our bias is not easy, but it is simple.
Speaker:First, uncover why you inhabit this mindset. In fact, just noticing and admitting that you have this mindset in the first place is halfway there.
Speaker:The desire to defend ourselves often comes from an unconscious belief that disagreement is the same as attack, and there can only be one right person, so it had better be you.
Speaker:Where did you first learn that being wrong was a weakness or flaw? Where did you internalize the idea that the point of mastery and understanding was not for its own sake but as a way to bolster the ego?
Speaker:Try to detach your own identity and sense of worth from your beliefs.
Speaker:If you catch yourself in the soldier mindset, remind yourself that there is no war, metaphorically speaking.
Speaker:Try some of the following affirmations to gently challenge and remove this mindset when you notice it crop up.
Speaker:It's okay for me and others to change our minds.
Speaker:My beliefs are provisional, and I'm always open to learning more.
Speaker:I have value and worth as a human being, no matter whether I'm right or wrong.
Speaker:I learn for the joy of learning.
Speaker:I do not have to compete, convince, or prove anything to anyone.
Speaker:Of course, sometimes your beliefs are worth holding on to.
Speaker:Sometimes it's worthwhile to defend and justify your position, not to prove your superiority to your opponent, but to clarify for yourself why you hold the ideas you do.
Speaker:We can reduce the effect of this mental block by carefully considering our own perspectives as rationally and objectively as possible.
Speaker:If we have to see anything as a threat to defend against, it can't hurt to imagine our own ignorance, bias, and irrationality as the real enemy.
Speaker:Can we transform our soldier mindset into one where we are fully on guard for closed-mindedness in ourselves?
Speaker:A great way to do this, practically, is opposite to our usual impulse.
Speaker:Instead of finding reasons to support what we already think, can we actively seek out evidence to disprove it?
Speaker:We need to deliberately act to loosen the hold of our own ego and to get our minds to accept that being wrong is not the end of the world and is, in fact, a prerequisite for anyone who values learning.
Speaker:Think about how you deal with incoming data that challenges your worldview.
Speaker:Think about your most cherished personal beliefs and assumptions, the ones that are tightly wrapped up with your own identity and sense of self.
Speaker:You know the ones, and then put yourself in the position of being faced with strong evidence that these are, in fact, not correct, useful, or accurate.
Speaker:What do you do? How do you feel?
Speaker:The automatic unconscious response is usually to go into soldier mode.
Speaker:Evidence against my opinion? Well, there isn't any. That's why I have this opinion. It's the right one.
Speaker:However, if we want to be in scout mode, we have to be more proactive and deliberate and purposefully work against knee-jerk impulses of our ego wanting to protect itself.
Speaker:An expert in doing this was Charles Darwin.
Speaker:Darwin's Golden Rule
Speaker:Charles Darwin, the naturalist whose theories on evolution and the development of species had wide-ranging effects on scientific study that persists today, was not a genius.
Speaker:He wasn't especially good at math. He didn't have the quick thinking skills often attributed to geniuses.
Speaker:Charlie Munger once said he thought that if Darwin attended Harvard in 1986, he probably would have graduated around the middle of the pack.
Speaker:Biologist E. O. Wilson estimated that Darwin's IQ would have been around 130 or so, high, but not quite the level 140, where the word genius starts getting mentioned.
Speaker:Darwin was, however, relentless about learning. He devoured information about all the topics he was interested in pursuing. He hoarded facts and was hyper-diligent about taking notes.
Speaker:His ability to hold attention was legendary, and when it came to testing, his work ethic was tireless.
Speaker:Darwin's thinking was purposely slow because he was so fastidiously detail-oriented.
Speaker:He believed that to have any authority on any topic, one needed to develop deep expertise on it, and expertise doesn't happen overnight, or in a month, or in a year.
Speaker:The point is that Darwin is regarded as one of the ultimate examples of the importance of hard-working diligence in surpassing natural intelligence.
Speaker:Darwin's method was so all-encompassing that he even gave deep attention to information that countered or challenged his own theories.
Speaker:This approach forms the backbone of his golden rule, as he expressed it in his autobiography.
Speaker:The very basic guideline of Darwin's golden rule was to be more than just open to contradicting or opposing ideas.
Speaker:Indeed, Darwin gave them his fullest attention.
Speaker:I had, also during many years, followed a golden rule, namely that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once,
Speaker:for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from memory than favorable ones.
Speaker:Darwin completely immersed himself in evidence or explanations that went against his findings because he was aware that the human mind is inclined to dispose of those contrary views.
Speaker:If he didn't investigate them as fully as he could, he'd be likely to forget them, and that created mental dishonesty.
Speaker:Darwin knew that his own instinctual thinking could be a hindrance to finding the truth as much as it could help, and he established a way to ensure he wasn't missing out on any information.
Speaker:Darwin handled all this conflicting information responsibly.
Speaker:He genuinely considered material that might have disproved his assertions and took pains to fully absorb every single scenario, anomaly, and exception to his theories.
Speaker:He didn't filter out information that didn't support his beliefs. He was utterly immune to confirmation bias.
Speaker:More than anything else, Darwin didn't want to be careless in finding the truth.
Speaker:He knew that a half-cocked assertion solely intended to persuade others without much thought was intellectually dishonest.
Speaker:His thorough method required more time and effort on his part, but he was committed.
Speaker:Of course, the Darwinian Golden Rule calls back to intellectual honesty and the maximum strong opinions but held lightly.
Speaker:It assumes intellectual humility as being unattached to any stances or theories and simply following the evidence.
Speaker:Uniquely, Darwin forces a dialogue of skepticism back to himself instead of to others in defensiveness.
Speaker:To himself, he would direct questions such as, what do you know? Are you sure? Why are you sure? How can it be proved? What potential errors could you have made?
Speaker:Where is this conflicting view coming from and why?
Speaker:As you can imagine, it takes quite a bit of self-discipline to constantly double-check yourself.
Speaker:Darwin accurately realized that if you hold the belief that everyone else is wrong, you're in trouble.
Speaker:What Darwin seemed to understand is that the biggest threats to our intellectual and cognitive rigor are often unconscious, personal, and psychological,
Speaker:and nothing to do with the soundness of our arguments or the quality of our reasoning.
Speaker:In fact, you've probably encountered someone who cloaks their unconscious biases, assumptions, and desires in neutral terms precisely to conceal what is really motivating their behavior,
Speaker:i.e., it's other people who have irrational emotions and beliefs, but I only believe in the objective facts.
Speaker:Try this exercise for yourself.
Speaker:Think of something you deeply believe to be true.
Speaker:Take your time with this because it may be that your most pervasive belief is actually the one that is almost invisible to you.
Speaker:Now, imagine you're not yourself, but a person who actually believes in precisely the opposite.
Speaker:Play pretend for a moment and genuinely try to occupy the other person's point of view.
Speaker:Imagine, if you like, that you're in a lively debate with yourself as this other person.
Speaker:Really try to immerse yourself in this other world view.
Speaker:What other priorities does that person have?
Speaker:What does the world look like to them?
Speaker:In what ways might they be right?
Speaker:As you debate yourself, don't worry about deciding who's correct.
Speaker:Simply watch what stories and narratives your brain throws up in the dialogue.
Speaker:Internet activists Eli Pariser noticed how online search algorithms actually encourage our human tendency to grab hold of everything that confirms the beliefs we already hold, while quietly discounting or ignoring information that doesn't align with those beliefs.
Speaker:We set up a so-called filter bubble around ourselves where we're constantly exposed only to that material that we agree with.
Speaker:We're never challenged, never giving ourselves the opportunity to acknowledge the existence of diversity and difference.
Speaker:In the best case, we become naive and sheltered.
Speaker:In the worst, we become radicalized with more and more extreme views unable to imagine life outside our particular bubble.
Speaker:The results are disastrous, a complete erosion of civic discourse, intellectual isolation, narcissism and self-centeredness, and a lack of everyday empathy, as well as the real distortion that comes with believing that the little world we create for ourselves is the world.
Speaker:When two people from mutually exclusive echo chambers encounter one another, the effect can be explosive.
Speaker:As a general rule, try to avoid filter bubbles in your own online world.
Speaker:Notice where click history, algorithms and personalized search results are shaping your view of reality online.
Speaker:Look at websites like AllSides.com or HiveFromTheOtherSide.com to deliberately challenge yourself.
Speaker:Consult a different news site from a completely different country and compare their coverage of an event.
Speaker:Use a search engine other than Google and access it anonymously.
Speaker:You could also try deliberately seeking out material critical of your worldview.
Speaker:Find quality information and genuinely engage with it.
Speaker:Whether you end up revising your old opinion, making a few adjustments or doubling down on your belief doesn't matter.
Speaker:The task is merely to challenge yourself to do due intellectual diligence.
Speaker:If you do these exercises honestly, which is very hard to do, it won't take long to encounter what is a greater enemy than the people who don't agree with you.
Speaker:Your ego.
Speaker:The armored ego.
Speaker:The first barrier in almost any kind of effective thinking comes from the ego's need to protect itself.
Speaker:Sometimes our thinking is erroneous because we don't see all the factors involved in a situation or we're too hasty to jump to a conclusion.
Speaker:Those are errors in observation or perception.
Speaker:But those reasons pale in comparison to the ego's power to distort your thinking.
Speaker:Someone who's underperforming at work might feel the need to protect their perceived skills and talent by deflecting responsibility to the boss who's always had it in for me and who trained me, him.
Speaker:It's all his fault, one way or another.
Speaker:Someone who trips and falls, yet fancies themselves, graceful, will blame the fact that it rained six days ago, their shoes have no grip, and who put that rock there anyway?
Speaker:Someone who fails to make the school basketball team will grumble that the coach hated them, they weren't used to that particular style of play, and they didn't really want to make the team anyway.
Speaker:This is what it sounds like when the ego steps in to protect itself.
Speaker:There's so much justification and deflecting going on that it's difficult to know what is real and what is not.
Speaker:Clear thinking becomes impossible.
Speaker:This all stems from the universal truth that nobody likes to be wrong or to fail.
Speaker:It's embarrassing and confirms all of our worst anxieties about ourselves.
Speaker:Instead of accepting being wrong as a teachable moment or lesson, our first instinct is to run from our shame and cower in the corner.
Speaker:This is the same reason we will persist in an argument to the death, even if we know we are 100% mistaken.
Speaker:If the ego had a physical manifestation, it would be sizable, sensitive, and heavily armored to the point of going on the offensive, essentially a giant porcupine.
Speaker:When the ego senses danger, it has no interest or time to consider the facts.
Speaker:Instead, it seeks to alleviate discomfort in the quickest way possible, and that means you lie to yourself so you can keep the ego safe and sound.
Speaker:We try to cover up the truth, deflect attention from it, or develop an alternative version that makes the actual truth seem less hurtful, and it's right in that moment that intellectual dishonesty is born.
Speaker:Are any of those convoluted theories likely to withstand any amount of scrutiny?
Speaker:Probably not, but the ego doesn't allow for acknowledgement and analysis of what really happened, it blinds you.
Speaker:Let's be clear, the ego's justifications aren't lies that you dream up or concoct in advance.
Speaker:You do not intend to lie to yourself, you don't even feel their lies.
Speaker:You may not even know you're doing it, as sometimes these defense mechanisms can occur unconsciously.
Speaker:They're not explicitly intellectually dishonest because you want to delude yourself, rather they're automatic strategies that the constantly neurotic ego puts into action because it's terrified of looking foolish or wrong.
Speaker:Unfortunately, that's the worst zone to be in, as it means you don't know what you don't know.
Speaker:Over time, these ego-driven errors in thinking inform your entire belief system and give you rationalized justifications for almost everything.
Speaker:You never make any sports teams because the coaches always hate you, and you keep failing the driving test because your hand-eye coordination is uniquely special.
Speaker:These lies become your entire reality, and you rely on them to get yourself through problematic situations or to dismiss efforts to find the truth.
Speaker:We're not talking about just giving excuses for why you aren't a violin virtuoso.
Speaker:This manner of thinking can drive your decisions, thought process, and evaluations of anything and anyone.
Speaker:Let's take Fred.
Speaker:Fred was an ardent fan of a pop star his whole life.
Speaker:He grew up listening to their music and formed a lot of his identity around his admiration for him.
Speaker:We're talking an entire bedroom wall filled with posters of this star and outfits that were replicas of this star's clothes hanging in his closet.
Speaker:Late in his career, this pop star was put on trial for a serious crime.
Speaker:Fred steadfastly stood by his pop star idol, even as lurid details of his case were reported by courtroom reporters to the press.
Speaker:Nobody I admire this way would ever be guilty of this, Fred said.
Speaker:It's all just a conspiracy put together by the people who resent him for whatever reason.
Speaker:The pop star was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to multiple years of prison.
Speaker:Fred had showed up outside the courthouse bearing a sign that protested his star's innocence.
Speaker:Even as compelling evidence was eventually released to the press, Fred maintained that the pop star was absolutely innocent,
Speaker:dismissing all of the victim's claims by protesting that they were jealous and just trying to get the spotlights themselves.
Speaker:Why would Fred continue to insist against all reasonable and provable evidence that his idol was innocent?
Speaker:Because his ego was so wrapped up in his worship of the pop star that it was predisposed to consider him blameless.
Speaker:For him to believe the truth would have meant a devastating blow to almost everything he valued.
Speaker:I worship a criminal? What does that say about me?
Speaker:And the ego wasn't going to let that happen for a minute, even if it meant making him deny what was fairly compelling proof that the star was guilty.
Speaker:In your pursuit of truth and clear thought, your ego will rear its ugly head like the enraged porcupine.
Speaker:It has set up a series of tactical barriers to keep you from learning something that might upset your belief system.
Speaker:It's only after you can rein in your ego that you're open to learning. After all, you can't defend yourself and listen at the same time.
Speaker:Defense mechanisms are the specific ways we protect our ego, pride, and self-esteem.
Speaker:These methods keep us whole when times are tough. The origin of the term comes from Sigmund Freud.
Speaker:You just might recognize these two defense mechanisms put forth by his daughter, Anna Freud, denial, and rationalization.
Speaker:Denial is one of the most classic defense mechanisms because it's easy to use.
Speaker:Suppose you discovered that you were performing poorly your job.
Speaker:No, you might say.
Speaker:I don't believe that report ranking all of the employees. There's no way I can be last, not in this world.
Speaker:The computer added up the scores incorrectly.
Speaker:What is true is simply claimed to be false, as if that makes everything go away.
Speaker:You're acting as if a negative fact doesn't exist.
Speaker:Sometimes we don't realize when we do this, especially in situations that are so dire, they actually appear fantastical to us.
Speaker:All you have to do is say no often enough, and you might begin to believe yourself.
Speaker:And that's where the appeal of denial lies.
Speaker:You're actually changing your reality, where other defense mechanisms merely spin it to be more acceptable.
Speaker:Denial is actually the most dangerous defense mechanism because even if there is a dire problem, it is ignored and never fixed.
Speaker:If someone continued to persist in the belief that they were an excellent driver, despite a string of accidents in the past year,
Speaker:it's unlikely they would ever seek to practice and improve their driving skills.
Speaker:Rationalization, on the other hand, is when you explain away something negative.
Speaker:It's the art of making excuses.
Speaker:The bad behavior or fact still remains, but it's turned into something unavoidable because of circumstances out of your control.
Speaker:The bottom line is, anything negative is not your fault, and you shouldn't be held accountable for it.
Speaker:It's never a besmirching of your abilities.
Speaker:Rationalization is an extremely convenient tactic, limited only by your imagination.
Speaker:Building on the same prior example of poor job performance, this is easily explained away by the following.
Speaker:Your boss secretly hating you, your coworkers plotting against you, the computer being biased against your soft skills,
Speaker:unpredictable traffic affecting your commute, and having two jobs at once.
Speaker:These flimsy excuses are what your ego needs to protect itself.
Speaker:Rationalization is the embodiment of the sour grapes fable.
Speaker:A fox wanted to reach some grapes at the top of a bush, but he couldn't leap high enough.
Speaker:To make himself feel better about his lack of leaping ability, and to comfort himself about his lack of grapes,
Speaker:he told himself, grapes look sour anyway, so he wasn't missing out on anything.
Speaker:He was still hungry, but he'd rather be hungry than admit his failure.
Speaker:Rationalization can also help us feel at peace with poor decisions we've made with phrases such as,
Speaker:it was going to happen at some point anyway.
Speaker:Rationalization ensures you never have to face failure, rejection, or negativity.
Speaker:It's always someone else's fault.
Speaker:Those are not the only defense mechanisms.
Speaker:You can be sure that as many different lies as there are to tell oneself, there are different ways to tell them.
Speaker:Projection is a classic one, and is basically the mental trick we play anytime we first disown an uncomfortable truth,
Speaker:and then locate it somewhere else, i.e., we magically find it in other people.
Speaker:The cheater who is suddenly suspicious of their own partner, for example,
Speaker:gets to protect themselves from confronting the horrible truth about who they are
Speaker:by essentially confronting that horrible truth in some imagined other.
Speaker:A sexually repressed man who is deeply attached to the image of himself as chaste and righteous
Speaker:may see a woman that he personally finds attractive and immediately judge her for being promiscuous.
Speaker:This judgment tells you more about the unwanted parts of his own psyche than anything about the woman in question.
Speaker:But more importantly, it completely destroys the man's ability to think with clarity and honesty on this topic.
Speaker:As long as his defense mechanisms are working to keep him from comprehending the whole truth,
Speaker:his ego will drive his perception of the world.
Speaker:He will see his own bias reflected back at him and mistake it for reality.
Speaker:Other defense mechanisms include displacement, channeling your emotions toward a more acceptable target,
Speaker:like kicking the dog when you get home from work instead of kicking yourself for staying in a job you hate but don't have the courage to leave.
Speaker:Reaction formation, behaving in a completely opposite way as though to cancel out the thing you wish wasn't true,
Speaker:like that cocky, arrogant person who is actually deeply insecure about themselves.
Speaker:And sublimation, converting undesirable urges and drives into higher emotions or activities,
Speaker:such as working through your aggression by taking up rugby or local politics.
Speaker:While these tactics are comforting, where do reality and truth go amidst all of this?
Speaker:Out the window mostly. Intellectual honesty requires you to first defeat your natural tendencies to be dishonest.
Speaker:Thoughts dictated by self-protection don't overlap with clear objective thoughts.
Speaker:Psychoanalytics aside, the main point is that all of these mechanisms will sit hidden in the background
Speaker:and quietly distort and influence your rational thinking until you can take them out into the open and look at them objectively.
Speaker:Remember that defense mechanisms exist in response to the perception of an attack,
Speaker:but there's no need for a defense if there is no attack.
Speaker:Perhaps the first conscious act of reworking your mental models to your own benefit is to reframe how you experience being wrong
Speaker:or even receiving criticism.
Speaker:Adopt the scout mindset and deliberately retrain yourself to see counter-evidence,
Speaker:not as an attack on you, but an invitation to reappraise the current model and, best of all, to learn and improve.
Speaker:When you can derive your sense of identity and worthiness not from holding the right belief, i.e. from content,
Speaker:but from willingness to engage in true learning, i.e. from the process, then being wrong is not uncomfortable
Speaker:and doesn't trigger the need to flee the truth and shield oneself with defense mechanisms.
Speaker:After all, when we protect ourselves from a painful truth, we're still shielding ourselves from the truth
Speaker:and nothing could take us further from genuine learning.
Speaker:Defense mechanisms come with a hefty dose of shame.
Speaker:They only exist because somewhere along the line we've told ourselves a story about what is and isn't acceptable.
Speaker:What is unacceptable is then unacknowledged.
Speaker:Instead, commit right now to approaching yourself, all of yourself, with compassion, curiosity,
Speaker:and a genuine desire to understand and improve.
Speaker:Everybody uses defense mechanisms. This, in itself, is nothing to be ashamed of, either.
Speaker:Use a little humor.
Speaker:Dig your ego out of the equation and remind yourself that you can always derive a far deeper, more satisfying sense of identity
Speaker:from knowing that you're able to tolerate the truth in service of becoming a better person, even if it's a bit uncomfortable sometimes.
Speaker:Takeaways
Speaker:Every single person is susceptible to falling prey to old, outdated thinking habits, biases, cognitive distortions, etc.
Speaker:Experts, in particular, for all their knowledge, are notorious for being unable to escape their preconceived notions and rigid thinking
Speaker:because they've become accustomed to applying the same models over and over.
Speaker:To rid ourselves of this issue, we must learn how to be more clear-minded.
Speaker:Being clear-minded means seeing reality without the distortion of our bias, expectations, prejudices, assumptions, unconscious drives, or cognitive errors.
Speaker:Contrary to what we think, our orientation to reality is never neutral.
Speaker:The mindset we hold, consciously or unconsciously, influences our perception and the content and quality of our thoughts.
Speaker:There are two fundamental orientations to the unknown, approach or defend.
Speaker:The scout or growth mindset adopts the former strategy and embraces the new with curiosity and humility.
Speaker:The soldier or fixed mindset encounters the unknown intending only to defend already-held beliefs.
Speaker:We can embrace a scout mindset by remembering that being wrong is not a flaw or weakness, but a necessary part of learning.
Speaker:Too often, we attempt to confirm and reinforce things we already believe to be true.
Speaker:However, the key to being clear-headed is actually the exact opposite, actively seeking things that go against what we think.
Speaker:Garwin's Golden Rule is to deliberately entertain information that conflicts with deeply-held beliefs so as to guard against intellectual blind spots.
Speaker:The primary factor that prevents us from being open to thoughts, opinions, or facts contrary to our beliefs is our armored ego.
Speaker:An armored ego is a threat to learning and understanding.
Speaker:It's the need we feel to justify away mistakes, erroneous modes of thinking, etc., instead of taking steps to acknowledge these mistakes and improve on them.
Speaker:We need to become aware of unconscious defense mechanisms so we can remove them and see with more clarity.
Speaker:This has been Think In Models, a structured approach to clear thinking and the art of strategic decision-making.
Speaker:Written by Nick Trenton, narrated by Russell Newton.
Speaker:Copyright 2020 by Nick Trenton. Production Copyright by Nick Trenton.
