Clear Thinking

🔗Connect

🔼Topic:: Critical Thinking

✒️ Note-Making

💡Clarify

🔈 Summary of main ideas

1. Beware of defaults - Most of the regrets or bad decisions in life is not the result of low quality thinking, but rather lack of thinking at all. We are moved by defaults (either biological or social) that control us and hijack our thinking, causing us to act impulsively, biased, and towards the wrong things. Therefore, the most important act is to rid ourselves of those behaviors, to create systems that will protect us from what we can't control, like Ulysses tying himself before hiring the sirens.
2. Look back, then act forward - Wisdom is not just know how to get what you want, but also knowing what you should want, which goals are worth pursuing. Try to think about your life from the prospective of old you, recognize what's important and what's not, and then adjust your present life accordingly in order to minimize regrets and maximize happiness.
3. Take control of your life - no matter which cards you were dealt, do the best you can do with them. Assume responsibility whenever possible, recognize what is in your power to control, know yourself, and find others to inspire good behavior in you. Don't be a victim to your own life, the world is not to blame, be the sailor in these rough waters guiding yourself towards your destination.

🗒️Relate

⛓ Life lessons, action items

🔍Critique

✅ by following this method, what will happen?

1. Better match between thoughts and actions - once we know how to pause and defend ourselves from negative defaults, it will be much easier for us to actually think and decide what do we want to do in the moment, what is important to us, and which goals should we strive for.
2. Positive positioning - with time, the more we think clearly in the important moments and act accordingly we would create better positioning for ourselves in the future, able to enjoy the fruits of our decisions.

❌ the logical jumps, holes or simply cases where it is wrong...

🧱 Implementations and limitations of it are... The parts of building strength and managing weaknesses is rather short, which is a shame because the core message of the book is that we need to provide ourselves with space for clear thinking before we could use it, so these sections should have been more in depth.

🗨️Review

💭 my opinions on the book, the writers style... The fourth part which makes more than half the book is a brief iteration of Decisive (book), so unfortunately it doesn't add much to my existing knowledge, nor does it displays it better, often rephrasing the same recommendations to match his array of models.

🖼️Outline

📒 Notes

Preface

By default, we often react without thinking, failing to surpass our biases and weaknesses of our thinking. To master clear thinking, we first have to create a space for it. Acknowledging our freedom to react, to pause between situation and action. Second is to use this space, once we have created the opportunity to pause, we need to use this time well.

Preface

• In order to get the results we desire, we must do two things. We must first create the space to reason in our thoughts, feelings, and actions; and second, we must deliberately use that space to think clearly. (Location 122)

The Power of Clear Thinking in Ordinary Moments

Life is a result of countless small moments, rather than few big decisions. Even getting the partner of your dreams is worthless if you don't treat them well on the day to day.

To have better results in life, you need to be aware of Positioning, it is to take control of your situation agency and create a situation that is beneficial to you. Those who have good positioning are also more likely to enjoy good luck since they are more likely to seize opportunities and have the requirements for reaching them, while those who lack positioning are either blind to opportunities, or lack the ability to use them, and usually would suffer rather than benefit from luck. It's like being the worker who helps others and is always focused on the job, it's no surprise that they will be more likely to get promoted, or get support from co-workers when the situation is dire.

Clear thinking will create good positioning, which will help you reach good results in life.

The Power of Clear Thinking in Ordinary Moments

• What happens in ordinary moments determines your future. We’re taught to focus on the big decisions, rather than the moments where we don’t even realize we’re making a choice. Yet these ordinary moments often matter more to our success than the big decisions. (Location 153)
• Each moment puts you in a better or worse position to handle the future. It’s that positioning that eventually makes life easier or harder. (Location 169)
• Time is the friend of someone who is properly positioned and the enemy of someone poorly positioned. (Location 180)
• ordinary moments determine your position, and your position determines your options. Clear thinking is the key to proper positioning, which is what allows you to master your circumstances rather than be mastered by them. (Location 183)

The Enemies of Clear Thinking

Thinking Badly, or not Thinking at All

We often fail to notice that we have the freedom of response, we stick with our default behavior, which is more often than not destructive. We waste so much time correcting the damages we have caused by our defaults than trying to stop them in the first place.

First step to clear thinking is identifying those Defaults. They stem from our System 1 brain, those mental shortcuts that create a response without conscious thinking. The default behavior is often triggered when:

1. Emotional - we react strongly to emotional cues rather than logic
2. Ego - anything that threatens our self worth, our social status
3. Social - we confirm with social norms
4. Inertia - we have status quo bias, resisting change, and stick with the familiar

Thinking Badly—or Not Thinking at All?

• In the space between stimulus and response, one of two things can happen. You can consciously pause and apply reason to the situation. Or you can cede control and execute a default behavior. (Location 230)
• our first step in improving our outcomes is to train ourselves to identify the moments when judgment is called for in the first place, and pause to create space to think clearly. (Location 238)
• You have little hope of thinking clearly, though, if you can’t manage your defaults. (Location 253)
• The emotion default: we tend to respond to feelings rather than reasons and facts. 2. The ego default: we tend to react to anything that threatens our sense of self-worth or our position in a group hierarchy. 3. The social default: we tend to conform to the norms of our larger social group. 4. The inertia default: we’re habit forming and comfort seeking. We tend to resist change, and to prefer ideas, processes, and environments that are familiar. (Location 300)

The Emotion Default

In highly emotional states, not only that we make mistakes that in hindsight are obvious, we even don't recognize in the moment that those situations required clear thinking at all. Usually these are moments of Regret, saying or doing things that we shouldn't have because we lost all control Emotional hijacking

The Emotion Default

• when we respond emotionally, we often don’t even realize that we’re in a position that calls for thinking at all. (Location 329)

The Ego Default

Our ego helps us feel right rather than be right, and it drives us towards over confidence and a sense of a Just World Bias, we feel immune to bad luck while being sure that we see the world clearly. This is a classic problem of Image vs core, we prefer to protect our image rather than doing what's necessary to improve ourselves. We focus on social status rather than skills, information and capabilities.

The Ego Default

• Our ego tempts us into thinking we’re more than we are. Left unchecked, it can turn confidence into overconfidence or even arrogance. (Location 373)
• The ego default urges us to feel right at the expense of being right. (Location 424)

The Social Default

Our biology drives us to Conform with the group because back then it was the only way to survive. Both out of fear, and the desire to belong, we tried to be a part of the group. This entailed "outsourcing" our thoughts to the group, letting them control us.

Nowadays however, it is essential to be different from the group to survive. If we do the same as everyone else, we would get the same results, so our only way to stand out is to work harder/longer. Conformism weakens creativity. To be different means to think differently, to be confident enough to take risks and knowing that this is the only way to surpass the mediocrity of the group.

The Social Default

• Because we needed the group, our individual interests became secondary to the group interests. Though the world we live in today is very different from the one we evolved from, we still look to others for cues on how to behave. (Location 460)
• Doing something different means you might underperform, but it also means you might change the game entirely. If you do what everyone else does, you’ll get the same results that everyone else gets. (Location 486)
• Change happens only when you’re willing to think independently, when you do what nobody else is doing, and risk looking like a fool because of it. (Location 515)

The Inertia Default

Inertia is a strong force of Status-quo bias, be prefer consistency of improvement. We fear of risks, of change, and the longer we go the same path, the harder it is to change course (path dependence)

Default to Clarity

While we can't remove our defaults, we can reprogram them using Environmental design. The best way is to surround yourself with people who exhibit good defaults. That way, you don't have to count on your limited willpower or self discipline, but rather use the defaults for your advantage

Default to Clarity

• the same biological tendencies that make us react without reasoning can be reprogrammed into forces for good. (Location 606)
• The people with the best defaults are typically the ones with the best environment. (Location 621)

Building Strength

Through acknowledging our freedom to react, we can reshape our defaults, which will in time create a positive momentum that will work in our favor. This is true strength. For that, we will need:

1. Self accountability
2. Self knowledge
3. Self control
4. Self confidence

Self Accountability

To be accountable means taking Responsibility for your actions and the results under your watch. It means that responsibility isn't the same as control. You could have done your best, or things outside your control messing everything up, it doesn't matter. As the person accountable, you have to ask yourself what can you do to improve the situation, to advance towards a solution, to have a better position tomorrow . What matters is not whether you were dealt a bad hand, but rather what do you choose to do about it, especially when the circumstances are not in your favor. Complaining gets you nowhere, action does.

Many things are beyond our control, spending any minute or focus on them, even if it's just complaining, is a waste of energy that could have gone towards what we are in control of - our reactions and actions.

When people are not accountable, they become the victim of circumstances, they exhibit Helplessness, blaming everyone but themselves, a sort of Self Bias. But the truth is that nobody cares about your excuses, only your results. Those who become a victim, are often staying a victim, focusing their energy and focus on all the wrong places, on complaining about external circumstances rather than action. On seeing obstacles as an opportunity for growth.

Self-Accountability

• There is always something you can do in the moment today to better your position tomorrow. (Location 692)
• No one cares about your excuses as much as you do. In fact, no one cares about your excuses at all, except you. (Location 744)
• Just because something happened that was outside of your control doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility to deal with it the best you can. (Location 755)
• Thinking about how it wasn’t your fault doesn’t make anything better. The consequences are still yours to deal with. Always focus on the next move, the one that gets you closer or further from where you want to go. (Location 760)
• There is always something you can do today to make the future easier, though, and the moment you stop complaining is the moment you start finding it. (Location 804)
• Self-accountability is the strength of realizing that even though you don’t control everything, you do control how you respond to everything. It’s a mindset that empowers you to act and not just react to whatever life throws at you. (Location 850)
• Self-Knowledge (Location 856)

Self Knowledge

Self knowledge is to know everything about yourself, the limits of your knowledge, the quality of your skills, your behavior and your triggers, your strengths and weaknesses. Without self knowledge you will likely lose because you will be forced to participate in bad matches Matching

Self Control

Self control is the ability to distance yourself from your emotional state, to pause, reason, and act accordingly.

Self-Control

• Strength is the power to press pause on your defaults and exercise good judgment. (Location 655)
• Self-control is about creating space for reason instead of just blindly following instincts. (Location 904)

Self Confidence

Self confidence is the combination between having Humility and a sense of Self Worth. It's to know and believe that you are valuable, or have something that you can contribute to others. Without humility, we will become over confident, and without self worth, we will result to Self Criticism.

It's important to promote healthy self talk, one that acknowledges the progress we've made, and our readiness for new challenges.

It's also about Standing up for yourself and go against conformism if you believe they are wrong, but still open for feedback and evidence. You have to be capable of changing your mind and admitting that you're wrong. It's a sign of strength, to prefer outcome over ego.

Self-Confidence

• In order to be right, you must be willing to change your mind. If you’re not willing to change your mind, you’re going to be wrong a lot. (Location 996)
• Self-confidence is the strength to focus on what’s right instead of who’s right. It’s the strength to face reality. It’s the strength to admit mistakes, and the strength to change your mind. Self-confidence is what it takes to be on the right side of right. Outcome over ego. (Location 1031)

Strength in Action

Setting the Standards

If we want to have better results, to be better, we have to expect more of ourselves and others. We are who we surround ourselves with, if people we work or live with have lower standards, we will eventually embrace those. Ask yourself (or others) - is this the best you can do? And only continue once the answer is yes.

Setting the Standards

• if you do what everyone else does, you can expect the same results that everyone else gets. If you want different results, you need to raise the bar. (Location 1133)

Exemplars and Practice

To raise the bar, you need good Role Models, they don't have to be someone around you, or even alive for that matter. Dead or fictional characters are good just the same if they have a message to teach. A good role model is one that has spent his time learning so that you don't have to. You can learn a lifetime of knowledge in a few hours. With technology so easily available, we can consume information from our role models directly, hearing them in podcasts or reading their books.

Once you have role models, ask yourself "what would they do in this situation", have mental Simulations of tough moments or decision points in life and practice their teaching. You're not trying to surpass them, but rather yourself of yesterday.

Exemplars + Practice

• People at the far right of the bell curve (the positive outliers) can teach you tips, tricks, and insights that might otherwise take a lifetime to learn. They’ve done the heavy lifting. They’ve already paid for the lessons, so you don’t have to. (Location 1175)
• The only person you’re competing with is the person you were yesterday. Victory is being a little better today. (Location 1226)

Managing Weaknesses

Knowing Your Weaknesses

We all have weaknesses, cases we stick with the defaults and fail to act otherwise, when our judgment is impaired. It's important to recognize which kind we face:

1. Biological - like being hungry, tired
2. Acquired - like being implosive

The weaknesses we can't change, i.e the biological ones we just have to accept. Even if we can't get rid of those, it doesn't mean that there's nothing to do about it. The first step is to be aware, to recognize the limited perspective we have, and start seeing the world through other's eyes.

Knowing Your Weaknesses

• Some of our weaknesses aren’t built into our biology; instead they are acquired through habit, and stay with us by force of inertia. (Location 1299)

Protecting Yourself with Safeguards

To protect ourselves from our built-in weaknesses, we can put safeguards. To use methods and tricks to make sure we can't act on those weaknesses.

Types of safeguards:

1. Prevention - like not having any healthy food at the house so there will be no temptation
2. Automatic rules - like "meatless Monday" or an automatic savings, you reduce the amounts of decisions you have to make thus also reducing the chance to error
3. Creating friction - put your phone in another room, delete the app, make it harder for you.
4. Guardrails - have a checklist to follow to make sure you don't miss or skip important factors in a decision
5. Shifting perspective - ask yourself (or others) "what did I miss"?

How to Handle Mistakes

We all make mistakes, and when we do we are faced with a choice, either to acknowledge it, or ignore it, saying it didn't happen or that it wasn't our fault. The problem with the latter is that we fail to learn from it, we become negative and dishonest, and hurt our positioning.

The way we should handle mistakes is by:

1. Accepting responsibility
2. Learn from mistakes
3. Commit to doing better
4. Repair

How to Handle Mistakes

• When you repeatedly don’t get the outcomes you want, though, the world is telling you to update your understanding. (Location 1574)
• Even if the mistake isn’t entirely your fault, it’s still your problem, and you still have a role to play in handling it. (Location 1604)
• The most powerful story in the world is the one you tell yourself. That inner voice has the power to move you forward or anchor you to the past. Choose wisely. (Location 1634)

Decisions - Clear Thinking in Action

Defining the Problem

When we are facing a problem, the first thing we need to do is to define it. To ask ourselves what is our goal, and which obstacles we face. More often than not, we fail to address the true problem, focusing too much on symptoms or short term solutions rather than the root cause, which would lead to a long term solution. Focusing too much on "extingushing flames" rather than fires, is a strategy that leads us in a Negative cycle, always staying in the same place solving "today's crisis" rather than preventing it beforehand.

One way to make sure we address the right problem is to not switch too quickly to "solver" mode. To not assume that the problem is obvious. Surround yourself with people of different views, and ask each one "what do you know about the problem that other's don't"?

Define the Problem

• Defining the problem starts with identifying two things: (1) what you want to achieve, and (2) what obstacles stand in the way of getting it. Unfortunately, people too often end up solving the wrong problem. (Location 1695)
• the way we define a problem shapes everyone’s perspective about it and determines the solutions. The most critical step in any decision-making process is to get the problem right. (Location 1722)

Exploring Possible Solutions

To make sure we find all the relevant possible solutions, we can:

1. preform Pre-Mortem - think about how we can fail, and what can we do about it to prevent it
2. second level thinking - for each option, we ask ourselves "we choose this and then what", we think about the potential consequences, and which additional information we need to make sure we get the positive consequences without the bad ones
3. avoid Binary Thinking - in most cases the choice is more complex than a 2 option solution, an "either/or". We can search for other combinations of solutions, or a win-win situation (also called integrative thinking of "both-and"). Imagine that both options are not available, what will you do? or try to come up with a third, even if it is ridiculous. multitrack
4. Oppertunity cost - think about what you are missing by choosing each option, and try to avoide being drawn by sunk cost.

Explore Possible Solutions

• You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” (Location 1826)

Evaluate the Options

To evaluate the options, we need criteria, and they have to be both simple and related to the desired goal. Even between your criteria, you need to prioritize, decide which is the most important so that you could break ties.

To measure the criteria, you need good information. As obvious as it's sound, it's not always clear in implementation. Remember GIGO. Sources can be biased, especially if we are not going to the raw data but rather rely on summaries and highlights that by definition are processed through someone else's perspective on what's important.

The best option is to find someone who solved this or a similar problem Imitation. In general, the less levels of abstraction of information you have from the problem itself (the more relevant the information) the better. Like the difference between navigating a place and looking at a map of it.

Do it

Now that you know which option is better, it's time to act on it. We sometimes fear this part because it realizes the costs of our decision, it "makes it real", or that we are afraid of making mistakes.

It's important to understand both the magnitude of the decision - i.e how large of an affect it will have on your life, for example buying a new chair or having a baby. Second it's important to understand how reversible it is - you can always sell the chair and buy a new one, although there's no going back with having kids.

The more unimportant and reversible the decision, the better it is to "test and adjust", i.e make quick decision and adjust ourselves on the fly, and to slow down and gather information on the opposite cases (important and irreversible). Just be careful not to be too overwhelmed with information, because it will be hard to filter out the Noise

Do it!

• There is no purpose to knowing what you should do and not doing it. If you want results, you need action. (Location 2474)
• When the cost of a mistake is low, move fast. (Location 2502)

Margin of Safety

Since Prediction is very hard, and we tend to be loss averse, it's better to have a margin of safety. To be prepared for the worst case scenario such that we don't end up ruined. Diversifying your stock portfolio is one example. While it will feel sub optimal or redundant when everything is good, it will be valuable if/when things go wrong, and they always do.

One way of creating a margin of safety is to Pivot, to make small experiments before diving head first to gather more information and live the consequences of that decision. Like shadowing a doctor for a day before committing to years of medical school. Another is to give yourself pause between deciding and acting. For example to decide to do something, yet start it the next day, i.e "to sleep on it" and see how it feels.

Set up trip wires so that you will know when you have to stop and reevaluate before the costs become too high, because it's easier to plan for disaster beforehand when you're not drawn by the allure of "just one more try" that could be destructive, like a gambler trying to win back his debt.

Learning from Your Decisions

We have to learn from our mistakes not only because they usually hold valuable lessons, but also because they can help us understand which of our successes are the result of luck, which happens more than we think. Since luck has such a huge effect on our results, we should focus on the process that has lead to our decision, rather than it's consequence post-mortem.

To be able to review the process, we have to document what was the logic behind our thinking and which information was available at that time because otherwise we might retroactively fail due to the Curse of Knowledge, believing we had thought differently Unbiased brainstorming. Documenting our thoughts can also expose our gaps of knowledge Feynman Technique and help others to understand us better, either to give us feedback or to learn from us. It creates Transparency for the decision making process.

Learn from Your Decisions

• Great decision-makers have mastered the ability to learn both from their mistakes and from their successes. (Location 2840)

Wanting what Matters

Dickens's Hidden Lesson

Good decisions is not only to know how to get what you want, but also to know what you should want. Many believe the "happy-when" hypothesis Future disillusionment, that we'll be happy when we get a car, a promotion, a partner... only to find out that we are happy just the same, or not at all for that matter. We chase a dream only to find another dream to chase once we reach it, not even enjoying where we are now, just the stress of where we want to be. This is the curse of the Hedonic Treadmill. Being happy is knowing what is truly good for you, to learn to enjoy the moment, and say no more than saying yes.

Dickens’s Hidden Lesson

• Happy-when people are never actually happy. The moment they get what they think they want—the “when” part of the conditional—having that thing becomes the new norm, and they automatically want more. (Location 3038)
• being wise requires more. It’s more than knowing how to get what you want. It’s also knowing which things are worth wanting—which things really matter. It’s as much about saying no as saying yes. (Location 3075)

The Happiness Experts

Based on the opinions of elderly, what matters is:

1. showing love and gratitude towards those close to you
2. spend time with friends and family
3. savor little moments of joy
4. work in a job you love
5. choose your partner carefully

wealth, career and all those status symbols are not important. Happiness is an internal state, a leap of faith into Optimism. To be immune to external events.

The Happiness Experts

• Happiness is not a passive condition dependent on external events, nor is it the result of our personalities—just being born a happy person. Instead, happiness requires a conscious shift in outlook, in which one chooses—daily—optimism over pessimism, hope over despair.” (Location 3111)

Memento Mori

Try to see your life from the perspective of 80 year old you. What would you do differently looking back? What was the most important to you? Usually the answers revolve about finding the courage to follow your dreams, to focus more on family, friends and connections, about being who we want to become, to take better care of yourself, and less about irrelevant leisure.

Conclusion - The Value of Clear Thinking

Better thinking doesn't come from being more rational, but rather allowing yourself more moments of thinking without forces that hold you back, without the effects of defaults that cause us to behave without thinking, impulsively, usually leading to either regrets or missing the goals we try to pursue.

The Value of Clear Thinking

• Improving your judgment, it turns out, is less about accumulating tools to enhance your rationality and more about implementing safeguards that make the desired path the path of least resistance. (Location 3258)