TKP Insights: Learning and Thinking

0:17 Welcome to the Knowledge Project podcast about mastering the best what other people have already figured out. So you can apply their insights. to your life. I'm your host. Shane Parish. Every Sunday I send out the Brain Fowsletter to over six hundred thousand people.

0:33 It's considered noise cancelling headphones for the internet, and it's full of timeless wisdom you can apply to life and work. Sign up for free and see what you're missing at fs.blog slash newsletter. If you're listening to this, you're missing it. If you'd like access to the podcast before public release, special episodes that don't appear anywhere else. Hand edited transcripts. pre-release events, or you just want to support the show you love,

0:57 You can join it fs.blog slash membership. Check out the show notes for a link. Over the last five years, I've been lucky enough to speak with some of the most incredible people in the world. When I listened to these past episodes, one thing that stands out for me is how well the ideas stand the test of time. They're as relevant and insightful today as when they were originally recorded. That's why a few times a year we go back to earlier episodes, some of which you may have missed, some of which you might have forgotten, and pull out some key insights around a single theme. The theme for this episode is Learning and Thinking.

1:33 You'll hear Daniel Kahnman give advice on how to create an environment that's more conducive to clear thinking and explain ways to improve your intuition. Then Barbara Oakley will teach you about the two main modes of thinking, diffuse thinking and focused thinking. you'll hear back to back segments from Adam Robinson on the learning process. Plus he explains how and why your biggest insights can often feel illogical at first. Tyler Cowan will then explain how to use

2:02 Online experimentation to develop good judgment. And finally, Adam Grant will use the idea behind Preacher prosecutor and politician to explain. How the identities we develop for ourselves can often cause us to have blind spots in our thought process. Plus, he discusses a brilliant metaphor. for fixing those mistakes.

2:21 It's time to listen. and learn. Uh-huh. From episode number sixty eight, here's Daniel Conman.

2:38 situational decision making based on sort of like what we see is all there is and we have these feelings that we can't sort of disassociate with. How does environment play a role, like the physical environment? in sort of what we decide or does it Uh

2:55 I mean, you know, there are s sort of obvious things that we know. people are are hot and bothered and distracted and And there is a lot of noise and so on, then they'll think as well. Um that we know that's But even there there are puzzles. I mean many people Think and work a lot better in cafes.

3:16 You know where there is. actually ambient noise and activity around them. And it helps them concentrate better, so. This is a very simple story. Uh the environment.

3:27 But certainly you can make the environment tough enough so that people won't be able to think properly. That's Feasible. Other things that we could do to I guess push.

3:38 The environment to be more conducive to clearer thinking? The physical environment in this case. Oh Yeah, all sorts of you know. Oh the finding, you know the colour of the room, the

3:52 Some colours are better than others. Um you would expect that some colours are more calming than others. So you wouldn't want to be in a in a red room. Making decisions. Making decisions. But you know those uh Extreme and minor effects.

4:09 Uh I wanna come to intuition and noise later. Is there anything else that stands out that gets in the way of clear thinking that we can Sort of bring to the surface now. Well. Yeah.

4:22 Well it gets in the way of fear thinking that we have We have intuitive views of almost everything, so As soon as you present a problem to me, uh Yeah. That's some ready made answer.

4:34 And But gets in the way of clear thinking those ready made answers and we can't help but have them. So that's one thing that gets in the way. Emotions get in the way. And I would say that independent clear thinking. Yeah.

4:51 For first approximation impossible? I mean in the sense that You know, we believe in things most of the time, not because we have good reasons to believe them. If you ask me for reasons, I'll explain you. I'll always find a reason, but the reasons are not the causes of our belief.

5:09 We have beliefs because Mostly we believe in some people and we trust them. and we adopt their beliefs. So we don't Read from beliefs by clear thinking.

5:21 Some you know, unless you're scientists or doing something like that. But even then it's probably a very narrow but that's very narrow and there is a fair amount of emotion when you're a scientist as well. that gets in the way of clear thinking. You know, commitments to your previous views. Being insulted that somebody thinks he's smarter than you are. I mean, lots of things get in the way even when you're a scientist.

5:45 So I'd say there is less clear thinking. And people like to think. Yeah.

5:52 Is there anything that we can do at the belief formation stage? Like it sounds almost as though when you say that we're reading a newspaper. We read this op ed and it's well constructed and fits with our view of the world. Therefore we adopt that opinion. And we forget the context that we didn't learn it through our own experience or reflection. We learned it. sort of from somebody else. So we don't know when it it's sort of likely to work or not work.

6:21 But we just proffer that as our opinion, is there? That's how I believe in climate change. You know. I believe in the people who tell me there is climate change. And the people who don't believe in climate change, they believe in other people. So

6:36 But similarly, there's like fake news and all this other stuff that we we would have the same reaction to. But I'm much more likely to believe fake news on my side. Then The fake news on on the other side. I mean it's true.

6:51 That there is a A huge degradation and In public discourse and In the recent ten, fifteen years in the United States. I mean

7:02 There used to be an idea that facts matter. What would be your hypothesis as to why that That is playing it. With it getting into politics'cause I don't wanna talk politics, but like why is that? Well, I mean to It's hard to answer that question with us.

7:17 Without politics because It's a general. Political polarization. That's hard. A very big effect.

7:26 And The fact that people can choose the sources of information. Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about Intuition. I think one of the

7:38 The things that strikes me the most about some of the work that you've done is the Cases where we're likely to trust our intuition and when we're not. And so if I'm correct me if I I'm getting this wrong, so it's sort of like a stable environment. Repeated.

7:56 attempts. And rapid feedback. It strikes me that most decisions made in organizations do not Fit that.

8:06 Environment. Uh and yet we're making a lot of these decisions on judgment or experience. What are the ways that we can sort of make better decisions with that in the context. Well

8:20 In the first place I think you know you You shouldn't expect too much. About improving decisions. I mean there is, you know, one basic rule is slow down.

8:35 Especially if you If you have the Immediate conviction slow down. There are procedures, you know, there are ways of reaching better Better decisions. But

8:45 So we should better judgments and we can talk about them. I would love to. If you really want to improve the quality of decision making. Use algorithms. I mean whenever wherever you can. Uh if you can replace judgments by

9:01 by rules and algorithms. They'll do better. Oh the the Big social costs. Two Trust me.

9:09 allowing algorithm to make decisions. But But the decisions were likely to be better. So that's one thing. If you can't use algorithms. Then you slow yourself down. And then There are things that you can do.

9:21 for certain types of problems. And the different types of problems. So One class of problems. like forecasting problems.

9:31 A friendfield deadlock, you know, has that book on So the forecasters. Where Identifies with people who are good at Focusing.

9:41 The future. What they do that makes them good. And you know it tries to train people and we can improve people. So that's one class of problem. I'm interested specifically

9:52 In another kind of problem judgment problems. Well basically You're considering options or you're evaluating a situation. And you're trying to

10:02 Give it a score. There there there is advice I think on how to do it. For me, it goes back to Something. I did. And the Israeli army when I was like twenty two years old. So

10:16 That's a long time ago, like sixty three years ago. I was a psychologist in the Israeli owner. And I was fine. The job of Setting up an interviewing system for

10:28 For the army. It's ridiculous, but you know, this was the beginning of the state of Israel, so People who were improvising all over the place. I had a BA and I was I think it were the best train psychologist in the army.

10:41 Might My boss was kids. Brilliant. But anyway. And the the existing system. was one where people would

10:50 interview and try to form an intuitive global image of how well that recruit would do as a combat soldier. Twice. The objective of the object of the interview. And Because I have read a book.

11:03 But Paul Me. I took a different talk. And the different type was I identified. Six traits that they sort of made up.

11:12 And I Had them ask questions and evaluate each of these traits independently. and score it and write down the score then go on to the next street. And they had to do it for all six traits. Um that was That's all I asked them to do.

11:28 And the interviewers Who are about one year younger than I'm not. All recruits, but very, very smart, selected. For being good at it. They were furious with me.

11:39 And they were furious with me because They wanted to exercise their intuition. And I still remember that one of them said, You're turning us into robots. So I compromise with them. And

11:50 I said, okay, you you do it my way. And I told them, You try to be reliable, not valid, you know. I'm in charge of the EU be reliable, which was Pretty arrogant, but that's that's Oh present.

12:05 But then when you're done Close your eyes. Um Just put down the number of How good a soldier is that guy going to be? And when we validate it.

12:16 The results of the interview. It was a big improvement on what had gone on before. But the other surprise. Was that The final intuitive judgment

12:29 Amen. It was good. It was as good as the average of the six trades. And not the same. It added information. So actually

12:39 We ended up with a score that was half was determined by the specific ratings and the intuition got half the way. And And that, by the way, stayed in the Israeli army for well over fifty years. I don't No, whether it's I think it probably some version of it will still be in force, but

12:56 About Fifteen years ago I visited my old base and And the commanding officer of the research unit. It's telling me how they run the interview, and And then she said uh

13:10 And then we tell them, Close your eyes. So that that had stayed for fifty years. Now The close your eyes and that whole idea is now the basis of the book that I'm writing. So actually I have Same idea, really.

13:25 That's when you are making decisions. You should think of options as if they were candidates. So you should break. Break it up into dimensions, evaluate each dimension separately, then look at the profile. And

13:39 And the key is Delay your intuition. Don't try to form an intuition quickly, which is what we normally do. Focus on the separate points. And then when you have the whole profile

13:53 Then you can have an intuition and it's going to be better. 'Cause people make form intuitions too quickly. And the the rapid intuitions are not particularly good. So if you delay intuition until you have more information.

14:07 It's going to be bad. I'm curious how we delay intuition. You delay intuition by focusing Under separate problems. So Our advice is

14:17 that if you have, you know, uh a board of directors making a decision about in investment. We tell them you do it that way. Take the separate dimensions. And really think about each dimension separately and independently. And don't allow

14:34 You know, if you're the chair, don't allow people To give the final judgment. Wait. Until We covered the whole thing.

14:44 I mean if you find a deal breaker, then you stall. But if you Haven't found a deal breaker. Wait to the end. And look at the profile.

14:53 And then Your decision is almost certainly going to be better. Do does that include weighting the different aspects of the problem differently, or do you highlight that in advance or do you keep it in it? It makes you see the trade offs more clearly. Otherwise.

15:09 When we don't follow that discipline There is a way in which People To form impressions. Very quickly you form an impression.

15:19 And then you spend most of your time confirming it. Instead of collecting evidence. And so If accidentally your impression was in the wrong direction. You're going to confirm it.

15:31 And you don't give yourself a chance to correct it. Independent is the key. Because Otherwise. When you don't

15:40 Take those precautions. It's Like having a bunch of witnesses. to some crimes. And allowing those witnesses to talk to each other.

15:50 They're going to be less valuable. If you're interested in the truth. than keeping them rigidly separate. And collecting. What they have to say.

16:02 From episode number thirty one. Here's Barbara Oakland. I wanna go back to something you said earlier about the two modes of thinking. So focused and diffused. And How does that relate to procrastination? Yeah.

16:17 Oh. I think it relates in that it is It is the other main key of learning. And

16:29 Learning about focused and diffused helps inoculate you against thinking you're stupid when you're trying to learn. But the other major, major issue in learning relates to the fact That um The people procrastinate. And uh yeah, how do you do how do you deal with that?

16:48 Yeah. Because I I think I'll I'll A lot of times it's just it's easy to say great learning takes place when you use deliberate practice and so forth. But they people forget about the fact that Well, you gotta get to the table, you gotta not procrastinate before you even

17:06 Um You know, start Using deliberate practice. So in in any case, um What happens when you even just think about something you don't want to do? Uh or don't like.

17:20 it activates a portion of the brain in the insular cortex that experiences pain. So it's kinda like that same feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you don't really want to do something. Right. You know, so what Does the brain do? The brain says, Oh, hey, guess what? I didn't like this. When I thought about this, it made me feel uncomfortable. So I'll think about something else. And so off it skitters to uh think about. uh Facebook or something or anything. I mean even cleaning your room can be more pleasant than whatever unpleasant task you're you're thinking about. So the best trick um you know to overcome this as uh as Literally

18:03 thousands and thousands of people from learning how to learn have told us. Is the Pomodoro technique. So this technique is just It's fantastic. Uh it was invented by an Italian Francesco Cirillo, and all you have to do is just Turn off all distractions, so nothing bugging you on the phone or whatever. Uh nothing popping up on your computer screen. And instead what you do is

18:32 You just And After turning off these distractions, set a timer for twenty five minutes. And then focus for twenty five minutes and g uh your mind may drift off it because that's very natural, but just bring it back. And you're the whole idea is you're focusing as intently as you can for those 25 minutes. And when you're done

18:55 You and this is the most important part of the whole Pomodoro technique. You reward yourself. So listen to a piece of music you like, go on to Facebook, you know, go walk around, go dance around. Anything. to comfortably distract yourself from what you've been doing. And that can This whole business of

19:17 Uh focus intently and reward yourself at the end. That almost trains your brain. Two um Two be more comfortable in the focused mode.

19:30 And to uh and to enjoy it. And then to integrate that the consolidation that's happening in the diffuse mode. at the end of your your little session there. And it it is really a powerful technique. Are there some activities that are better than other for encouraging that diffuse mode kind of reconciliation, like going to the gym, or are they all very similar as long as they take your mind off? Well

19:58 I I always think that something active is Is better than than anything else in that um What you want to do let's say you've been writing a report. And then when you're taking your break.

20:11 You don't want to go onto Twitter. or Facebook and continue writing because you're using sort of the same areas of the brain and it's not giving that area a little bit of a rest. So the uh the best all purpose break thing is to uh move around to some extent, do something that's physical. And We of course, as far as exercise itself goes, oh my gosh, that's one of the best.

20:39 things you can do for learning. Um What exercise does is it Helps produce brain derived neurotropic factor in your you know in your brain. And this is kind of like a fertilizer.

20:53 That helps dendritic spines grow. In other words, it helps make new connections. So and you can see it. I mean, there's some great neuroscience papers, like a nature neuroscience, that that show That little dendritic spines just Popping right out when they've got BDNF, um, you know. Uh that they they're exposed to that. And so exercise is what kind of brings this all out for you, and it's it's um.

21:23 I it is a fantastic Learning Um, you know, it's like a medication to help you learn better. Um, my my co instructor, Terry Sinowski, um I'm convinced he did some of the earliest studies that showed the exercise is a really helpful tool uh in learning. And because it in part because it promotes neurogenesis. You get new neurons and they help you build new patterns.

21:53 Uh But The guy is a He's approaching You know.

21:58 Seventy. And he's going stronger now than he ever was before. And I'm I'm convinced part of it is just he really makes exercise an important part of his working day. And um, you know, every other day or so he's down on the beach going for a run. And um I I I I I I think that

22:20 People don't quite Sometimes don't Take the um The wherewithal to add exercising, you know,'cause they're they're working as hard as they can and they don't realize that

22:32 adding at at least a little bit of exercise can actually help them to learn in shorter periods of time and help it kind of stick in their brain better. Is there kind of like an ideal frequency or ratio between how much time we should be spending in focused versus diffuse mode? Mm. Um, not that I'm aware of. Um I think the one thing to be

22:57 Yeah. that I'm just aware of Is I think There's a little bit of

23:05 of concerning evidence and it still has to be borne out with even further research and so forth. Yeah. the the more time you spend focusing, as for example, if you are foc if you do focused mantra type meditation. Uh and let's say you add that in to a lot of other focused work you're doing and so forth.

23:28 Um the the The mantra medisation can be excellent in helping to even further build your focusing ab ability, but there's some evidence that it At the same time, um, it's also suppressing That

23:43 default mode activity. So it may be. That you're focusing great. You can get even better at focusing, but you may be doing it at a uh trade off cost as far as that other Very different network, which makes wild and random and totally crazy connections, which is what fuels your creativity.

24:06 So I can't help but wonder um that Um. I I think It's important to spend at least some part of your day letting your brain just go random.

24:17 Um And that's why I think going for a walk is excellent, especially if you're just kinda uh letting your brain go while you're doing it and and almost letting yourself be bored for some periods of the day. Uh is helpful because

24:34 If you focus every every single second that you have available, I'm just a little concerned that that That's It's not healthy for uh for your creative thinking. I like that a lot because I I I do think we need this sort of downtime and we can't always be on

24:52 I wanna come back to a little bit more about learning, which is can you explain to me kind of the The role that memory plays as it relates to learning. Yeah. Well. Memory is integral to learning.

25:06 And And we all know that. But it Yeah. We've kind of gone off

25:12 Амі, здесь like seesaw through history. I m we see this. Um in all sorts of ways through history, some some I'll idea will Take hold, and then everybody will go nuts for this idea, and they go way overboard, and then it goes way overboard. And like Freudian psychology. Um or psychiatry there.

25:35 But everything got Freudian. And then you couldn't like break out of that. And then it went to Skinarianism. And then you couldn't Publish anything that was against Uh Skinarian uh approaches and so forth. And

25:54 Similarly in education, we've gone on to this thing where memorization is No, never allow people to memorize things because you just want them to understand it. And I mean it's gone just crazy and um and the The fact of the uh I even had a student I remember uh had a student come up to me

26:18 And You'd float this test. And uh he's like, Oh, you know, I just don't understand how I could have flunked this test. I understood it when you said it in class. And he'd heard for so many years that all he needed to do was understand something, and that was it. That's enough. That's like the golden thing. And and it's not enough. It's not enough at all. Um

26:43 Sometimes I I will say to people, like you'll hear Um Poets say memorize the poem. and you will understand it more deeply. It's

26:54 Why should we let the poets have all the fun? I mean It if you memorize an equation. you will also understand it more deeply. So sure, I think there's ways you can memorize where it's just sort of your your rote Putting something in your mind, and you're not thinking about it while you're doing it. But actually, if you memorize equations, if you Actively

27:20 Pull out. uh a solution from your mind enough times it's it's You've memorized it. Right. But it's really a healthy form of memor memorization that allows you to master the material.

27:42 From episode number forty seven and forty eight. Here's Adam Robinson. I wanna come back to something you said about thinking and how we learn to think better. How do we learn to think better? Huh. You know, um

27:58 That reminds me of a great Quote by The uh physicist uh Niels Bohr. Who chastise One of his colleagues.

28:06 And he said. No no you're not thinking, you're just being logical. And there are limits to logic. And I think that

28:13 The thing about thinking is It's a relentless asking of questions that one question will suggest will offer an answer. Which will suggest another question. And so Part of thinking.

28:25 At least Logical thinking is the relentless asking of questions. The Mm Greatest insights.

28:32 Such as they are, the meager insights I've had in the world. always come to me spontaneously. Out of the blue. And I know you wanted to ask me about the Princeton Review and other things and

28:43 my work and investing and my insights and They all came out of the blue. They weren't A logical chain of Of uh Of a

28:52 Deductions and Therefore, this is the answer. The answer pops into my head. And then I work backwards to What steps?

29:01 should have gotten me there. But I never know. beforehand, really. So thinking I think part of it is

29:09 Listening to your unconscious. Modern thought. Logic. Is the creation of

29:16 The ancient Greeks Perhaps a civilization or two earlier than that. Relatively recent, a few millennia. A modern. History.

29:24 And Logic only takes us so far. Uh the the uh SAS GK Chesterton once said You can discover truth by logic only if you've discovered it first without it. And I think that's true. The great truths

29:37 Can't be reached by logic. I can prove that, logically. Mm. If you think about it, we've had many Billions of people on this planet.

29:46 A lot of their lives to thinking about the world. Using logic and I'm using air quotes now. Common sense. And yet

29:56 They haven't answered all the questions. So if logic could get us to the the answers. We seek. As as beings, as human beings.

30:05 To the real questions. The real insights, the great truths with a capital T. Then logic would have given them to us. Centuries ago, we'd have all be a little book. Like a booklet.

30:16 Here, here are all the answers. But no. And the the great insights come From our unconscious. Somehow.

30:24 Unbidden. They just Out of the blue. And uh So yeah, I don't think uh Any of the great.

30:33 For example, Steven Jobs was walking around What? Forty years ago thinking, how can I change the world? Right, he and Wozniak had the little Those little Atari

30:44 mini computers or something. I think they were Wasn't Atari, but it was something like that, right? You You look packard little things and And they said, Oh my gosh, this is gonna change the world. Right. They were all brew kits. Right, those homebrew kits, right. Yeah, that you could just make On your own.

31:00 And So notice the Steven Jobs didn't what I don't even think Whenever he first saw that kid, he was asking himself, How can I change the world? He saw it. And then he realized, Oh my gosh.

31:11 This is just gonna change Everything. And I think the the great insights happen like that. I come. Not from logical thought. No,'cause you're gonna have to apply logic at a certain point.

31:22 But I think One thing That should be taught. Is Uh.

31:27 Certainly in schools, to the extent that it can be. is allowing students to get in touch with their unconscious. And to listen to that voice. Um How do we learn to do that?

31:38 Wh what does that mean? Gee. You know It's a bit like asking um Bob Bowman, who is Michael Phelps

31:47 Coach. How do you get uh uh you know No Michael the you know, extend his arm reach, you know, and

31:56 He's gonna go, Well, I don't know, it's just the inspiration of the moment. Um so I'm not sure. That uh That I can offer a An easy rule for how do I how do how would I teach

32:08 Someone to get in touch. With his unconscious. I think it would start with just allowing themselves some time. Here's Here's a clue that you've tapped into truth with a capital T.

32:21 And that your unconscious is speaking. Is that the answer will surprise you. You'll be startled by it. In the same way that I was startled by what I said up on stage. That was something I had never thought about. I'd been an introvert my entire life.

32:34 And So here I was up on stage talking about The delights of extraversion. And and as I was saying it, it surprised me. I had no idea where that came from.

32:44 So Yeah. Talk to me about the power of things that don't make sense or surprise us. What does that mean? It means our our expectation of the world is different or off. Yes. Well, it you know, Sherlock Holmes once said it's a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the facts. And I think it's That's silly advice with respect.

33:05 Uh Sherlock. Um We we can't help but theorize beforehand before we have all the facts. It's not clear what all the facts I'm using air quotes. Constitutes. But it's more important to have expectations about the world.

33:18 and then look for anomalies. Surprise is always what surprise is telling you, Shane, is this. Your model of the world Is incorrect. Which is fantastic. It's a learning opportunity. That's what surprise is.

33:33 And so I know when people talk about surprise. That's Surprise is an investing algorithm for me. When things don't make sense, when people say things don't make sense. All that tells me is they're not thinking about the world correctly.

33:45 So when someone says for example It makes no sense why tenure yields US tenure yields remain below three percent. After all, the Fed's talking about how Well the economy's doing.

33:56 And By historical standards. Three percent is pretty darn low. So I don't understand. It makes no sense why tenure yields aren't going higher. And when someone says that

34:06 I know that tenure yields are gonna stay below three percent for quite a while. Because That person's model of the world. Is Is in conflict with

34:15 what that person is seeing. That person is in denial. So when someone says it makes no sense why gold keeps going higher. Or Tesla stock. doesn't sell off or

34:26 I by the way, I'm not offering investment advice, but when people say those things I know that they're experiencing confirmation bias that the world is conflicting With What they think should happen.

34:39 And really when someone says It makes no sense that Really what they're saying is this. I have a dozen logical reasons why gold should be going higher. But it keeps going lower.

34:51 Therefore that makes no sense. But really what makes no sense is their model of the world. Right? So I know When that happens.

34:58 That there's some other very powerful reason. Why gold keeps going lower? The Trumps all All the logical reasons I'm using air quotes the logical reasons, the case, as it were. Their argument for why it should be going higher.

35:14 So I know. Once I hear that. Whether it's from an individual or some talking head on Bloomberg or C N B C That there are a lot of

35:23 Traders out there, investors. Who are still on the wrong side of the trade. Staring at disbelief about what is going on right in front of their eyes. And that's true not just in the investing sphere, it's true in the political sphere, it's true in any sphere. Yep.

35:38 you wanna find gold, it's where things don't make sense. I I spoke at length with Tim about that. Things that don't make sense. But that's that's an algorithm. for finding opportunities You know. The question is where do we get our good ideas?

35:52 And one way to get good ideas is to look where no one looks. And I'll tell you one place that no one looks. With things that don't make sense. 'Cause they dismiss them. I go, Well that doesn't make any sense and they

36:03 Shake their head and they move on. Instead of diving in. Instead of diving in going, Yeah. Let's find out why that's true. I mean you could almost lay it out as a as an algorithm. I'm not offering investment advice. That when somebody says it doesn't make any sense that X keeps going lower.

36:18 get in the trade, it's got a lot lower to go. It's probably gonna go lower. It's gonna go lower. Yeah. For sure. And the more people that say that, and they'll say things like this, they'll say or they'll say permutations of that. They'll say, After all, how much lower can gold go? Right. They're all permutations of the same thing, a person in denial. Instead of seeing.

36:36 What's actually going on in front of them. What is the process for learning? Is there a process? Well, I think yes, there is. How do we learn? Right. So that's such a good question. Uh

36:49 I wrote a book, uh Wow. Twenty five years ago. Called What Smart Students Know. And I I did the following.

36:57 I I realize that By the way, I'm not plugging the book. I am not. Absolutely not. Uh,'cause I can summarise it now and I wish I had the time to rewrite the book. But what I did was this.

37:07 No one ever shows us how to learn. Ever. Nowhere in school. For example, imagine Shane in French class with French one oh one.

37:16 Your first French class. Your teacher said. Everyone, you're gonna have to learn a lot of vocabulary in this class. So before I teach you any words, I'm gonna teach you a way to remember vocabulary. They never do that. You just go

37:28 We're gonna have a quiz on these thirty words on Monday. Good luck. Right. But they don't teach us how to learn. Actually or remember things. Like for example, they don't tell students if you want to remember anything. Create a picture. A pattern?

37:41 A story. Or a rhyme out of it. All mnemonics come back to picture. Pattern, story, or rhyme. But they don't tell us that.

37:49 So we struggle. We you know, we create flash cards which are totally ineffective. Um And we keep re reading our notes. So I wrote What

37:58 What smart students know I I gave students a page from a geology textbook. Like a sample page. And I spent the next Two hundred pages showing how to actually what it would mean to learn that. Like I actually Oh that's amazing. It it's really cool, right? I mean, not that you would do that depth, but like what does it mean to learn that page of information?

38:17 Like here's everything that you would actually need to do. By the way, if I told you All the steps it would take you to tie your shoe, it'd be much harder than just Watch this. Yeah. Right? So

38:28 So the secret to learning anything is this. Anything. I'm glad you asked that question. Rehearsing. If you want to get good at football

38:37 Play football. If you want to get good at playing the guitar. Play the guitar. If you want to get good at chess, you've got to play chess. Now you want to break that down to certain skills and rehearse each one of them.

38:50 So you see people playing pickup basketball or tennis and they haven't broken it down to skills And they're just out there. Playing. Right? You wanna break

38:59 The domain down to sub skills. and then rehearse each one. Now the reason I use rehearse Is you want to do exactly what you would do. In the actual game. Right? So for example, if you want to get good at taking tests.

39:13 You have to take tests. Which is to say the following. Let's deconstruct that. So I'm gonna in the next two minutes summarise

39:23 Everything there is to know about learning a subject. And it's this. You rehearse whatever you were required to do on the test. So think about a test. On a test. You were asked questions you've never seen before.

39:36 And you have to search your memory for the relevant information. Right. So Step one, read the question. Step two Search brain for for relevant information. Step three. collate that information into an answer.

39:50 Right answer. You have to rehearse each one of those steps. To do well. in those subjects. So what that means is you need the way to prepare for a test. I hate the word prepare or study.

40:04 'Cause here's what most people mean by the word prepare for or study for a test. Reread my notes. If you think back to when you were in High school and college. I looked at most students and what they would do is they would

40:15 Highlight their textbooks. And take lots of notes and then reread their highlightings. and reread their notes. But that's not rehearsing a skill. Right. No one tests you on how will you highlight.

40:26 Right. No one tests you on rereading your notes. Because on the test you're not re reading anything. You're seeing an entirely new situation. So the way to get good at At any subject in any domain.

40:39 is to rehearse the skills that you're actually required to do. So practice questions. Practice questions that you've never seen before. And you then have to search your memory. For the relevant information, by the way, helps.

40:53 What I would do in in college is I would get textbooks the teacher wasn't using. And I would see what questions were asked there, so I'd really get questions I'd never seen before, even from teachers Teachers, uh uh authors, textbook authors.

41:08 That weren't my professor and weren't Mm. the authors of the textbook I was reading. So I really get

41:15 Stump with questions. Right. And so'cause that's gonna happen in the actual Game. So for example, imagine you're a basketball coach.

41:23 Right? And you wanna train your basketball players. At certain points your key player is gonna be out of action. Right? Fouled out or

41:31 Who are injured. Right? I would have them play basketball games where Take out one of the players and you're now playing with four. Right.

41:39 Or one of you Like I would try to find a way to Make their arm a little like wrap it up or something. So it was a little constrained, like okay, you've got a muscle sore. Now you're playing the game. Now practice. Now practice. Now rehearse. Now rehearse. Right?

41:54 So rehearse under varying conditions. But a key The key to learning any skill Really, if there's anything I said today, like that was super important. The key to learning any skill

42:05 Rehearse it. Break it down into subskills and the rehearsed. each of those skills. If you're doing something other than that, you're wasting your time. Rereading your notes, waste of time. You wanna get good at a job interview?

42:18 Have someone ask you questions, someone who doesn't know you. Ask you questions. Right? And then grade your feedback and listen to it and exactly right. And then exactly right with the feedback chain. Then okay.

42:31 I spoke too fast. Right. I was Coaching a young woman. She had a job in her

42:37 Feel coming up. And Mm. Wenever I spoq She's she did the following.

42:43 Here, talk to me. Talk to me right now and I'm gonna pretend to Be her listening. So talk to me right now, Shane. Just say anything. What I want you to do is uh Uh-huh. Go to Uh. Uh huh. She would say uh huh. So quickly. And I said, are you aware?

42:59 that you are signaling that you're not listening to the other person. And she was dumbfounded. And she'd gone to Columbia University. I mean, you know, good school, right? Great school. She said, No one's ever told me that before. I said You say aha so quickly, there's no way you heard what I

43:15 Asked you. Or said to you. And all you're signaling is you're not listening to me. I already don't like you. I liked her.

43:22 I mean I was giving the feedback as a mentor, right? And so so you need feedback. And she was stunned. She said, No one's ever told me that before. I said just Talk more slowly.

43:32 Don't say aha so quickly. Listen to the person. So let me encapsulate this a little bit. If I'm in school, I'm in university, high school I'm doing physics. Mm-hmm. The question's at the end of the chapter. Which most people annoy or or avoid and teachers may assign the odd numbers or the even numbers. Right. You should be doing them all and not not looking at your notes, trying to do them And then if you're stuck, go back and look in your books. Exactly right.

43:59 If you re read your notes, all you're getting good at is like following following problems you've already seen before, that's not gonna help you when you get a new problem'cause that's what's gonna happen on the test. How go one better. You want to get really good? Try the sample questions at the end of the chapter before you read the chapter. Oh, that's interesting. Now.

44:17 'Cause what that does is it primes you. Now now all of a sudden Well, how about I there's no way I can answer those questions. Let's now your primed As you read the chapter. of what's relevant and what's not. And you also prime yours for the following. What happens

44:32 when I have incomplete information. Right. What happens if I forget the Pythagorean theorem? How do I answer the question then? That's what I did at the Princeton Review, by the way.

44:42 What happens when you know only two of the five choices? What do you do? Right. Like there's There's a whole Uh

44:49 range of things that you can do when you're skilled. Right. So what happens Uh Yeah. What happens to this baseball player if I've if I've got sweat in my eye and a and a fly ball is coming at me, what do I do, right? I mean you need to rehearse

45:05 for the unusual as well as non optimal conditions. Non optimal conditions, because you can't ever count on optimal. Ever. And uh if you get them, great, you're lucky. So would you organize what's what uh smart students know differently now, or would you take this same approach, which is like here's a page of geology and how would you update that? I would ask them to say I'd I'd I'd ask them to break down I'd have I teach them how to teach themselves.

45:30 I'd say okay. In a little Socratic way. Mm. Will you on their test on this material, will you have seen the questions before yes or no? No. Like I'd step them through and get them to discover, Whoa, reading my notes, rereading my notes is just a total waste of time.

45:48 Right. Like that's all they do. They take notes in class, verbatim. Here's the skill. On the test. Do you parrot back exactly your teacher's words or do you express them in your own words?

45:58 Well, of course you express them in your own words. Well then you have to rehearse doing that. Right. Right. So When you take notes in school

46:07 They're probably verbatim just'cause you gotta keep up with the teacher, right? but then translate those notes into your own words because that's what you're gonna have to do on the test. Don't we read your notes. Translate them. Because you gotta do that on the test. And if you haven't

46:20 done it before, you're not going to be able to do it on the test. That's really fascinating. How does that carry over to adults then who might be working in an organization or um need to acquire new skills or Ah, well, to figure out what it is you're required to do. And then and to rehearse that skill. Like let's say it's presentations. You've got to give presentations to clients.

46:43 Right? then you're gonna r have to rehearse that. From episode number thirty nine. Tyler Cowan.

46:56 How in your opinion do we develop Good judgment. I think having people you trust who serve as your mentors, and I mean that word in a very gent General way. Who teach you things about different areas and teach you judgment.

47:10 Are that supplemented by, you know, extreme and intense online experimentation. That's the way to do it. What do you mean by online experimentation? Read Wikipedia, use Google creatively, listen to your favorite podcasts, read your favorite blogs, Twitter. Put time into having a wonderful Twitter feed, whatever it's going to be, it is worth investing time in and do a lot of it because today is the golden age for that. For the first time in world history, there's this new thing like internet culture, the internet way of learning, internet modes of writing.

47:41 Uh right now is to that as say, you know, the seventeen eighties were to classical music. So enjoy it. It's incredible. Online education, as we have it. And we've put almost all of it in place in say fifteen years and incredibly rapid transformation. So do that, but you cannot neglect face to face learning from other human beings who can like guide you, inspire you, motivate you. Steer you.

48:06 It's really people who can combine those two things who will do well. How do we collect the feedback for ourselves to realize our own limitations? Like there's two problems with that. One is getting accurate feedback and the second is kind of moving out of the way of our ego and allowing ourselves to see it. How how d how can we be better at that? Well, I think there's more feedback today than ever before. So many jobs your performance is measured or can be measured. In a way that wasn't true twenty or thirty years ago.

48:32 Uh you know, if you're a programmer, it's Not that hard to figure out how good you are. You know, there's GitHub and you can Post what you've done and th the world will want to hire you or they won't. Right. So a lot of it's psychological. How can you accept the feedback

48:47 Because You know, none of us are actually that great. And uh Life is an experience of being humbled all the time. So you're either discouraged Or you're re energized by that.

48:58 And I think learning how to re energize yourself. you can always go online and see someone who's like smarter or better looking or who can, you know, lift more weights in the gym than you can, whatever the metric is. Unless it's Magn unless you're Magnus Carlson in his chess, there's someone better than you. And when knowledge and peer groups were more local in earlier periods of time, that wasn't usually the case. So attitudinally adopt to never being the best.

49:24 uh I think is a you know a new tough challenge brought to us by the internet. But I see many people up to it. Uh it can be re energizing. It's exciting how much new stuff there is to learn. So be more internally motivated. Like I want to become something, I aspire to something, and be less like, Oh, you know, I'm the best at this, I'm the best at that, because you're not.

49:45 As a parent, how did you foster that in your kids? Uh we have one daughter. She is now twenty eight. And uh she's doing great. Uh I don't really claim credit for her. That credit goes to her.

49:59 But as a parent, you shape the environment and uh you you have you do have some influence. I mean, was there anything that you consciously were doing in terms of building resistance and tenacity and internal motivation? Other than the platitudes, here's what I recommend. Expose your child in teen years To as many of your Trends who might be possible role models as possible. Like at some margin they're just not gonna listen to you anymore.

50:26 They're not gonna watch your behavior anymore. They know what you're about. They've taken from that what they're going to. Have them meet and spend time with some of your quality friends. Show them new role models. That's what I tell people. Your influence is limited.

50:40 For better or for worse. used to read a few important books. You called them I think Quake Books. And now you read many more books almost Uh disposable, like why the change? When you're young, it's quite easy to read books that will shake everything you know, and those are the quake books.

50:58 So for me, you know, a Quake book was reading uh Friedrich A. Hayek. A Quake book was reading the early science fiction I read in my life. A Quake book was reading John Stuart Mill's autobiography. And because you don't your worldview is is not as formed. Books have an incredible influence over you. Uh then as you get older say

51:17 You know, by the time you hit forty I don't mean that you never change your mind about things, you're changing your mind all the time. But it's very hard for something to have the impact, say, like the first time you heard Beethoven Or the first time you, you know, picked up Shakespeare. It's just not Possible anymore.

51:33 So you read more history books, you read more biographies. You read more for a particular fact, you read for a kind of entry into cultural anthropology of different places or different industrial sectors. And what reading is uh changes. And books do in a way become more disposable, like the books I still own.

51:52 Or you know, Homer, Shakespeare, some basic works of economics. And I'm not ever gonna give up those books. But they're not necessarily the books I'm reading now. I do reread them sometimes. Do you reread anything you've kind of read in the last five years? Uh Shakespeare I reread pretty frequently. That's probably what I reread the most. But any classic work I'm likely to reread.

52:13 over the course of say a ten year period. So James Joyce's portrait of the artist as a young man, I'm going to reread soon. I probably haven't read it for twenty years, I would guess. Wha what are your rules for reading? I mean, do you read cover to cover or do you how how do you P after you pick up a book, what's your process like?

52:30 Classics I read cover to cover. Uh almost by definition of a classic. Uh most books I don't finish. Very good books I finish. Maybe one book in ten I'll finish.

52:39 But I don't mean that as any slight to the books. You've always got to think Well, you know, chapter seven in this book, is it better than starting a new book altogether? So much of my reading now is shaped by my reading for my own podcast series to interview guests. So I just interviewed Matt Levine of Bloomberg. And he writes on law and finance, but when he was an undergraduate, he was a classics major. So I reread quite a bit of Horace.

53:03 you know, the Roman essayist and poet to try to get into the mind of Matt Levine. So that more than anything now drives my reading reading to understand other people I'm interviewing. So with a typical nonfiction book, are you reading introductions around or I flip around, you know, I start

53:22 the opening twenty thirty page just just to see should I read this book at all. More than half of all books I get don't pass that test. Uh, then there's plenty of books I'll read, you know, maybe half of. And be quite happy with them, but still want to read something else. And then, you know, a really good book like the new Charles C Mann book, The Wizard and the Prophet about

53:40 History of debates over the environment. I read all of that. Uh That kept my interest the whole way through. There's certainly still plenty of books like that. Do you Read mostly in Kindle or physical books. Uh I don't like Kindle. Sometimes when I travel I need to use it. I can manage with Kindle.

53:57 I find it hard with Kindle to like turn back. And I also remember things better when I think physically what is their place in the book. Maybe that's silly. But I think oh that was like early in the book and I see where it is in my mind in the book and I remember it. And I can't do that with Kindle. I have the same thing. It's really weird. I can remember oh, I think it's like this part of the page, you know, between seventy and eighty, but I can't do that at all with the Kindle for some reason. That's a really strange uh Do you write in the books?

54:25 Uh no, what I sometimes do is fold over pages. Where there's something notable, that's if I own the book, not a library book. And then uh Maybe I'll go back to it, but usually I don't just the act of folding over the page helps me remember it. Like I found that notable, I'm telling myself. And then it sticks with me better.

54:42 And then I'll, you know, give the book away or throw it out. Be careful about giving books away. If you give a book away, the danger is a person will read it just because it's a gift. Unless you think it's the book they should be reading. It's actually slightly curlac to give someone a book. I've had that happen before where I've given people books and they've taken messages out of it. Like I was trying to send them a subtle

55:02 uh subtle message that I w I was never intending to to give them. Oh, you think I'm this neurotic character. Well, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's exactly what happens and it it takes a while for it to come out and it's like hey, what happened? So giving books away, you know, it's overrated, I think. Uh I also get a lot of review copies because I blog, I cover a lot of books. So a typical day, I could you know, five to ten books could come in the mail.

55:30 And uh You know, I I need some way of dealing with those. And I've some I do give away. And then there are people, I know them well enough, they trust me. They know my giving them the book signals nothing. And that's just like a beautiful relationship. I usually take those uh advanced copies, preview copies, review copies, and chuck them in the lending library right by my house, which

55:50 Probably has you know it has more books coming out before they're actually out than people must love being around there. Um one thing that you said a while ago was that you read fairly quickly and You said to read quickly you should read a lot. What did you mean by that? I read nonfiction very quickly. I don't read fiction very quickly. Maybe I read it a little quicker than most people. Uh the more you've read, the more you know what's coming in the books you're reading. So the easier and quicker it is to read them.

56:21 So like if I read a book now, you know, I'm fifty six years old, I started reading when I was three. If someone asks me, Well, how long did it take you to read that book, the correct answer is fifty three years. It doesn't matter what the book is. You're bringing to bear. Your last fifty three years of reading

56:38 on the book. And most of your reading your understanding results from your prior investment. So That's the way to read well, is uh you know, stick around on this earth and keep on reading. That's by far the best advice, I think.

56:51 Keep at it. Stay alive. I like that. What would you say is the way to think well? I don't know anyone who thinks well. Uh I I think y you wrote a a piece a while ago, or I seem to remember this, which is um

57:05 the work required to have an opinion. I think you alluded to writing an article from the point of view Of someone else. Yes, there's a basic dilemma from what's called Bayesian statistical theory Why should you ever hold an independent opinion? Like on almost any matter, maybe any matter.

57:21 There's someone out there who knows more about it than you do. So you should in a sense just find other people's opinions to copy. But then how do you judge who's the person who knows the most or understands it the best? There's a paradox in that, because if you don't know the right answer, it's hard to judge who is the best judge. So one implication is we should just be far less sure

57:41 About a lot of our opinions. Uh but also this point I referred to it earlier, the wisdom in knowing how and when to defer. is like the key wisdom of twenty eighteen of our time. And this is underpublicised. W what do you mean? The wisdom to knowing how to defer or when to defer?

57:57 Well you can Google to such a high percentage of the world's information. And again, this is pretty new. So when you No. how to judge the quality of something on the internet. Sometimes said, you know, the internet makes smart people smarter.

58:11 And stupid people stupider. So it gets back to averages over, like which category do you want to be in? Be epistemically modest, but also be a critical reader. And just having a general knowledge of how to evaluate sources, getting back to being generalist versus specialist. If you're gonna be a generalist, one of the best things to be a generalist in is evaluating the quality of sources in your Twitter feed.

58:33 Online, everywhere. That is so important. And it's skyrocketing in significance. Most people they're not Getting that much better at it. H how do you think about that? How can we improve our ability to judge I think again it's this triangulation with really good face to face people you trust and who know something.

58:51 And then intense uh use of the internet to like cross check. And investigate things. And just kinda bounce back and forth and do that around and around in a circle as much as you can, as quickly as you can. And uh you get better.

59:05 And don't think you know it all. You know, if something offends you, don't assume it's wrong. I would also recommend. I'm not saying it's right. But if you dismiss it, you won't learn from it. So try to be able to learn from almost everything. So when you read something that disagrees with your thoughts or opinions, how do you how do you process that information?

59:22 Uh I try to be happier about it. It's not always possible. We're all imperfect creatures, but I would say a lot of times I succeed. Overall I'm more interested in reading books I disagree with than books I agree with. A lot of books I agree with, they could be quite good, but they tend to bore me. And I that's one thing about myself I feel good about. Books I agree with tend to bore me.

59:43 I view that as some kind of like minor tiny victory I've achieved in life. I think that's a pretty big victory. Do you have a mental state before you read the book as in like this is my position and then after a book you maybe disagree with and view how your position has changed. I don't know, I think I'm more blase than that. Like there's a pile of books on the floor. And probably my wife thinks the pile is too large. But if I put them away I'll forget where they are.

1:00:09 So I want the pile to be smaller and I'm I'm more focused on very mundane things. Than like the grand ideological struggle of of our time, whatever. And uh You know, to focus more on the mundane things maybe is also helpful for reading the books. 'Cause you don't get too caught up in being offended or

1:00:26 Like, oh I've heard this person isn't like doesn't know this or that and I can dismiss them, uh There's a an intellectual move which I call devalue and dismiss. And uh You know what? Try not to do devalue and dismiss.

1:00:39 You learn much less. And it's always justified, right? Uh again, unless it's Magnus Carlson playing chess or maybe a computer program playing chess, you can always devalue and dismiss. Oh, that person, he didn't, you know, understand this event ten years ago, you know, he or she doesn't know very much. Always possible. Don't do it. Are we doing that to discredit them or relatively position ourself better?

1:01:02 I think both, but mostly the latter. People want to feel good about themselves. They want a kind of easy path to virtue, to truth. to feeling in control. We live to feel somewhat in control. And finally from episode one hundred and twelve, my friend Adam Grant. Let's talk about the preachers.

1:01:26 Prosecutors and politicians and scientists. Yeah. So credit to Phil Tetlock for bringing this framework onto my radar. Uh Phil wrote this amazing paper uh almost twenty years ago now. Where he said, look, you know, a lot of a lot of research on decision making and judgment assumes that people are are thinking like hyper rational economists or scientists. And

1:01:49 We're not, actually. We're much more social creatures than that. And As I read this paper, it it suddenly dawned on me that This is this is a perfect metaphor for me as an organizational psychologist. Because

1:02:00 We spend an inordinate amount of time thinking and talking. Like professions we have never held. Like occupations we were never trained in. So think about how much time you spend in your life preaching. Right. You've already found the truth and your job is to proselytize it.

1:02:16 Prosecuting. You find somebody who you think is wrong and your job is to prove it and win your your case or come out ahead in the argument. And politicking. Where you think, okay Uh I've got a base of people who I'm trying to curry favor with.

1:02:34 And so I've got a campaign for their approval and support. What what I started realizing as I was uh I was actually about halfway through writing Think Again I realized it needed an organizing framework. And so much of what I was trying to encourage people to do was about getting out of the mode of of preaching, prosecuting, and politicking and into the mode of thinking more like a scientist. And part of the reason that I wanted to do that is I think that, you know, the danger of preaching and prosecuting Is that you don't change your mind.

1:03:02 You're right. Everyone else is wrong. And so you might be very motivated to get other people to rethink, but your views are frozen. They're set in stone. And politicing is interesting because when we're being political, we're actually more flexible. Right. But we're doing it at the wrong times and we're doing it for the wrong reasons. Because we're just doing it to appease our tribe.

1:03:23 As opposed to doing it to find the truth. And so I think We could all get better at thinking more like scientists. To say, you know what? Your views they're actually just theories.

1:03:35 Right. You could You could kinda make them into hypotheses. And then you could run little experiments in your life to figure out whether they're true or false. And that should leave you not only more mentally flexible, but also more likely to change your mind at the right times for the right reasons. If it's not a love, nature. Effectively it's just a theory.

1:03:51 Exactly. Can you say that again and repeat it to uh approximately Eight billion people. Yeah, I wish. In that case, would you want your identity sort of tied up with your profession a little bit? Scientists are known to sort of think and and change their mind and look for evidence and That that is such an interesting reframing of my stance on identity. I think you might be right. See myself as a social scientist.

1:04:19 Right, and thinking about myself, seeing myself as someone who likes to think and talk. Scientifically. And who was trained to do that. What that means to me is I value truth. I'm I'm more interested in

1:04:31 In getting the answer right. than I am in being right. You know, that that means lots of my opinions are still flexible, right? I have a set of tools. So I really like experiments. I really like uh doing, you know, carefully constructed longitudinal studies Uh and I think those those tools have been rigorously tested over centuries, right, as being the the most valid and

1:04:55 probably independently verifiable, or at least most difficult to falsify. Right, techniques for for reaching the truth or at least getting closer to it. And I think as an identity scientist is helpful because it it reminds me how much we don't know. And how hard it is to you know to arrive at the truth or a pro an approximation of it. I wanna preface uh my next sort of question with I don't wanna talk about politics. I don't wanna talk about sort of liberal democrat, republican, conservative, anything to do with that. I really what I wanna hit at is

1:05:27 It seems that most of our leaders we elect them for being strong minded Clear sighted, you know, often charismatic. Is why are we drawn to these people if we know that Actually maybe the best elected official would be the one that gets up and says, I don't know how to fix this. I would just Hire the best people and listen to them. But we would never elect that person. Why do you think that is? Why are we drawn to this? I don't know. I think I think we have elected that person.

1:05:56 I don't I don't think it happens that often. But I think that in the US, uh Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that was literally his campaign with the new deal. It was It was uh it was a whole campaign to say

1:06:09 You know what? We're gonna we're gonna run a bunch of trial and error experiments and learn from what works. I think it's hard for that person to get elected though, because As we face crises and we grapple with uncertainty. We're drawn to people who we feel like are gonna figure it out and gonna fix it. And so if if somebody hedges too much, if somebody shows too much humility

1:06:31 I think we mistake that as a sign of ignorance, right? And it's the it's the basic trap that you've You've railed against for years, Shane, which is we should stop confusing confidence for competence. Right. Just because somebody is is sure of an opinion does not mean they actually know what they're talking about. And in fact Anybody who is is familiar with the Dunning Kruger effect. Well, no, that the the more sure people are of their opinions, the more hesitant we should be to listen to them, right? But there's something very intoxicating about following someone.

1:06:59 Who believes they've already found the way. And I think it You know, it gives us a sense of coherence. It can give us a sense of purpose. it's easy to put our trust in people who, you know, who who have a clear vision. Uh of course, you know, in the long run, those are the people that I worry most about because they're the ones who are most likely to to get too attached to that vision and stick to it long past its time.

1:07:23 And I I think it removes uncertainty too. We would almost rather be wrong and certain. than uncertain and land in the correct spot because it like wrecks havoc on us. At some level, you're right. It It's a way of letting other people do your thinking for you. And this this is why political parties have always been such a mystery to me. Like when w you know, when people ask me what my politics are.

1:07:46 Uh I think for myself I try to form independent opinions based on the impr information that I encounter. And the idea of identifying myself as a Republican or a Democrat or a Liber or conservative That's ridiculous to me because it means I've outsourced my thinking to some group of people that I don't think are thinking very scientifically. Let's talk about that w without using politics sort of, but like tribes. Like we we fit into these group we want a sense of belonging. It's a very human thing to wanna fit in with a group, be part of a group.

1:08:18 um have status within that group in a hierarchy. There's a biological sort of hierarchy need that we have. Even if we're lowest on the totem pole, we sort of like want to know where we stand in this pecking order. And then we assume group identities and group positions and those are really hard. Talk to me about that. Well, I think the the idea that comes to mind right away here is The these twin desires that human beings are constantly grappling with. We want to fit in, we also want to stand out.

1:08:46 Right. We want belonging, we also want status. There's there's a theory that I love. Marilyn Brewer calls it optimal distinctiveness. And she says, Look, there's a way to fit in and stand out at the same time. It's by joining unique groups. Because then you are part of something, and you're not only part of something.

1:09:04 You're part of something that has a clear identity because there are very few other groups like it. But you also stand out. because of the very way that that group has differentiated itself from from others. And so if you can join a a group that gives you that sense of optimal distinctiveness, um, if you can join a kind of an unusual group or a group with with uh with clear, well defined boundaries. then you're able to satisfy those those motivations simultaneously. That explains the rise of a lot of movements and a lot of groups.

1:09:34 Where people will say, Okay I wanna I wanna belong somewhere where where I also feel like, you know, I'm not like everyone else. You know, it goes back to that's how people gain a sense of predictability. It's how they they have a sense of control in their lives. It's how They avoid feeling excluded and frankly the other function it serves is existential. Right. One of the one of the most robust findings in in psychology over the past three decades is that belonging to uni a unique group actually serves a a terror management function.

1:10:02 That it helps you Avoid threats to your own mortality. Uh or at least it it makes you worry less about what might happen to you in the future and you know, whether you have a legacy. It connects you to something larger and more lasting than yourself. And so Yeah, it's it's easy to see why people are drawn to these groups. It's also a little bit scary.

1:10:20 That's a perfect place to end this conversation. Thank you so much, Adam. No, we can't end it. You haven't told me what I should rethink. I'm gonna push for this. Ha ha ha.

1:10:33 You have a phenomenal, phenomenal website and phenomenal articles, and it's really a pleasure to be here with you. I'm a huge fan of your site, so thank you for your interest. Shane, it was a delight. Thank you so much. Thanksing and learning with us. For a complete list of episodes, show notes, transcripts, and more, go to fs.blog slash podcast or just Google the Knowledge Project. The Fernham Street blog is also where you can learn more about my new book, Clear Thinking.

1:11:10 turning ordinary moments into extraordinary results. It's a transformative guide that hands you the tools to master your fate. Sharpen your decision making. and set yourself up for unparalleled success. Learn more at fs.blog slash clear.

1:11:26 Until next time.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 10 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.