Zen Tools For How To Think Effectively - Blog
Event x Response = Outcome Articles & Resources Of Interest
Roxanne - I Will Not Share You With 1,300 Other Men
The Toxicity Of Addiction To Instagram Self-Validation
Roxanne...
You don't have to put on the red light
Those days are over
No more posting selfies on Instagram tonight
You don't have to sell your body for likes
One man's pain at losing a much loved woman through her obsession with posting sexualised body pics to 1,300 exclusively male followers on Instagram.
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Less Is More - Subtractive Solutions
Why do we nearly always add something, regardless of whether it helps or not.
Why do our brains miss opportunities to improve through subtraction?
How to reduce your subtraction bias? Ask yourself “What are the things that I should avoid?” rather than asking “What should I do?”
Understanding The Effect of Multiplying by Zero
In a multiplication equation each number is entirely dependent on the number it is being multiplied by. Thus a zero in the equation wipes out the whole total.
You need to be very clear whether you're in an additive system where a zero will make no incremental difference or a multiplicative system where it could wipe you out!
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Regression To The Mean - Why Perfection Rarely Lasts
Regression to the mean shows that following an extreme random event, the next random event is likely to be less extreme.
"Regression to the mean is a common statistical phenomenon that can mislead us when we observe the world.
Learning to recognize when regression to the mean is at play can help us avoid misinterpreting data and seeing patterns that don’t exist."
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Pareto Principle - 80/20 Rule
In practical terms: 20% of your actions/activities will account for 80% of your results/outcomes.
However, the disparities are even larger than most people think. The really striking part is just how concentrated the “fat tail” of the curve is. Less than 1% of your resources will deliver over 50% of the results
Compounding - Making Gains On Gains
Compounding is the process whereby a gain made on an invested resource is reinvested alongside the original resource, and further gains are made on that gain.
"Compound interest is the eight wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't pays it."
Margin Of Safety - If It Can Go Wrong, Assume That It Will
How much slack, or scope, have we got if something goes wrong or it doesn't work out according to plan?
Assume that it will take twice as long to happen than you think it will, that it will cost twice as much as you think it will, that the gain/profit/pleasure will be half what you expect it to be.
If it stacks up against this - then do it. If not, rethink!
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Incentives - What's In it For Me?
Incentives are what drive human behavior. Understanding this is the key to understanding people. Conversely, failing to recognize their importance often leads us to make major errors.
In seeking to understand what drives the other person, ask yourself, if I was in his/her shoes, what would I want?
The Red Queen Effect - Running Faster and Faster Only to Stay in the Same Place
The message of The Red Queen Effect is you can’t be complacent or you'll fall behind. To survive you have to run very fast and hard, and you need to co-evolve with the people and the systems you interact with.
The challenge is to find ways of doing things that enable you to run smarter rather than faster AND to develop the capabilities that will enable you to keep doing that.
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Leverage - Achieving A Large Output For A Small Input At The Right Place
A small well-focused action can produce a significant and long-lasting improvement - when applied in the right place.
High leverage activities are those where you can achieve a large increase in output for a relatively small amount of additional input.
When applied in the right place, a small well-focused action can produce a significant and long-lasting improvement.
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Do Something Syndrome
When to step in and when to leave things alone?
Iatrogenics is a term, drawn from the medical world but now used generically, that refers to any effect resulting from an intervention that causes more harm than gain.
Rather Than Trying To Win, Focus On Avoiding Losses
"Amateurs win the game when their opponent loses points, experts win the game by gaining points." (Shane Parrish)
Most of us are amateurs but we refuse to believe it. This is a problem because we’re often playing the game of the professionals. What we should do in this case, when we’re the amateur, is to invert the problem and focus on avoiding losses.
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Not Confusing Activity With Accomplishment
“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” [Warren Buffett]
"You need to be able to distinguish between tasks that offer a lot of speed and those that offer a lot of velocity..." and select the latter.
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Avoiding Stupidity Is Easier Than Seeking Brilliance
"It is remarkable how much long term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent." [Charlie Munger]
By simply thinking about what you want to avoid or the opposite of what you want to achieve, you can plan effectively to prevent failure.
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How To Build Self Esteem - If You Don't Take Care Of You, Who Will?
Your self esteem is based on how you value and respect yourself and not on the opinions of others.
Self esteem = Who you think you are.
Mastery in self esteem = Who you know you are.
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Mental Models - Help You Think Effectively
A mental model is a high level representation, or overview, of how something works.
“...developing the habit of mastering the multiple models which underlie reality is the best thing you can do.”
Our world is multi-dimensional and our problems are complex. Most problems cannot be solved using one model alone.But if you don’t have a range of models, you become the proverbial man with a hammer to whom every problem looks like a nail.
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Cognitive Distortions - The Psychology of Human Misjudgment
Cognitive distortions are irrational thought patterns that cause you to to perceive reality inaccurately.
Our focus in this article is the area of decision making in life in everyday situations and also in a work and a business context, its about identifying and avoiding cognitive distortions and biases to cut through complexity and make good judgement calls and good decisions.
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Petulant Posing and Posturing - The Weaknesses Of Existentialism
Live authentically - rise above your circumstances, make your choices, accept total responsibility...
Existentialism makes some interesting observations that contribute to your understanding of life, and how to navigate your journey through it; but it undermines these ideas by adopting a dramatic and petulant posture based on clever word play that has little substance when seen from wider angles.
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You Are Not Your Thoughts - It's Not The Content But Your Relationship With Your Thoughts That Matters
There are four stages in dealing with your thoughts:
# awareness of your thoughts;
# understanding your thoughts;
# accepting your thoughts; and,
# living with your thoughts.
Ultimately, what matters is not the content of your thoughts but your relationship with your thoughts.
The Power Of Framing - Change Your Language To Change How You Feel
Framing is about how we define context, make associations, establish reference points and emotional touch points all designed and positioned to convey the sense and meaning that we want to convey.
How you mentally characterize a situation has a profound impact on how you respond to it emotionally.
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