Smart is:• Situational awareness• Filtering information• Troubleshooting• Clarity of goals• Good taste• Empathy and compassion for others• The ability to make decisions that further your goalsSmart is a choice, and smart is a skill.

Are you smart

There are habits, assets and learnings that seem too expensive right now. And so we simply stick with our status quo.When we take the time to itemize the carrying benefits and write them down, understanding the accumulated benefits over time, they’re harder to overlook.

Carrying Benefits

People always address now problems before they work on later problems.All problems are short-term problems if we tell ourselves the right story. But we usually don’t, because we discount the future significantly. A grilled cheese sandwich today is more important than two grilled cheese sandwiches next week. Unless we tell ourselves a present and urgent story about what it feels like to ignore the future.

Problems Now (Problems Later)

When we seek to make change, our instinct is to start pushing. But shifting to pull can create efficiencies that can’t be matched by mass promotion.

Push Vs Pull

Skepticism is a virtue. It requires a willingness to question conventional wisdom, and the guts to accept something after you discover that it’s actually true.Denialism, on the other hand, is a willful rejection of reality. It’s safe and easy, and unproductive. Because there’s no room to change your mind.To be a generous skeptic, we need to state in advance specifically what it would take for us to engage with the proposed insight, and then do so after our standards are met.

Skepticism and Denial

Sometimes, we choose to use the urgent crisis as fuel. We set up our lives around creating these deadlines, reminding ourselves that if we cross that line, we’re dead.And then we allow the world to do it to us. To create urgencies simply to take our attention and focus.Productivity is a measure of the value of what we ship in the time we’ve got to invest. It’s not measured in drama.It’s possible to do great work without putting everything in jeopardy.

The Next Train

The strategy of the smallest viable audience doesn’t let you off the hook–it does the opposite. Instead, you have to choose your customers–who’s it for and what’s it for. And when you’ve identified them, the opportunity/requirement is to create so much delight and connection that they choose to spread the word to like-minded peers.Specificity is the way. It has nothing to do with absolute scale and everything to do with being really clear about what hook you want to be on and setting a standard for producing work that people connect to and are changed by.

Smallest Viable Audience

Great stories succeed because they are able to capture the imagination of large or important audiences.A great story is true. Not necessarily because it’s factual, but because it’s consistent and authentic. Great stories make a promise. The promise needs to be bold and audacious.Great stories are trusted. Great stories are subtle. Great stories happen fast. First impressions are far more powerful than we give them credit for.Great stories don’t always need eight-page color brochures or a face-to-face meeting. Great stories don’t appeal to logic, but they often appeal to our senses.

How to tell a great story

Great stories are rarely aimed at everyone.Great stories don’t contradict themselves.Most of all, great stories agree with our world view. The best stories agree with what the audience already believes and makes the members of the audience feel smart and secure when reminded how right they were in the first place.

How to tell a great story (continued)

Get smarter. Hurry. Learn something new and difficult and valuable. Learn it today and continue learning it tomorrow.Solve interesting problems.Care. More

Three simple and difficult steps

That would be you.Even if you’re not self-employed, your boss is you. You manage your career, your day, your responses. You manage how you sell your services and your education and the way you talk to yourself.Odds are, you’re doing it poorly.If you had a manager that talked to you the way you talked to you, you’d quit. If you had a boss that wasted as much of your time as you do, they’d fire her. If an organization developed its employees as poorly as you are developing yourself, it would soon go under.Think about how we manage ourselves.

The world’s worst boss

Deniability–“They decided, created, commanded or blocked. Not my fault.”Helplessness–“My boss won’t let me.”Contempt–“They don’t pay me enough to put up with the likes of these customers.”Fear–“It’s good enough, it’s not worth the risk, people will talk, this might not work…”

The four horsemen of mediocrity

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Cambridge English Dictionary: cognitive bias as the way a particular person understands events, facts, and other people, which is based on their own particular set of beliefs and experiences and may not be reasonable or accurate.PositivePsychology.com: “We are often presented with situations in life when we need to make a decision with imperfect information, and we unknowingly rely on prejudices or biases.”

What Are Cognitive Biases?

Confirmation Bias: Making decisions based on media and information sources that are in alignment with your current beliefs.Anchoring Bias: Becoming committed or attached to the first thing you learn about a particular subject. Similar to the halo effect , which is when you assume that a person’s positive or negative traits in one area will be the same in some other aspect of their personality.Hindsight Bias: Inclination to see some events as more predictable than they are; also known as the “I knew it all along" reaction.

Common Types Of Bias 

Misinformation effect: Memories of an event can become affected or influenced by information you received after the event occurred. Researchers have proven that memory is inaccurate because it is vulnerable to revision when you receive new information.Actor-observer bias: You attribute your actions to external influences and other people's actions to internal ones.False consensus effect: Assuming more people agree with your opinions and share your values than actually do. This happens because you tend to spend most of your time with family and friends, who share beliefs similar to yours.

Availability bias occurs when you believe the information you possess is more important than it actually is. This happens when you watch or listen to media sources that tend to run dramatic stories without sharing any balancing statistics on how rare such events may be.Bandwagon effect, also known as herd mentality or groupthink: Te propensity to accept beliefs or values because many other people hold them as well. This is a conformity bias as most people desire acceptance, fearing rejection if they hold opposing beliefs. People assume an opinion is correct because many others agree with it.

Authority bias is when you accept the opinion of an authority figure because you believe they know more than you. You might assume that they have already thought through an issue and made the right conclusion. And, because they are an authority in their field, you grant more credibility to their viewpoint than you would for anyone else.Negativity bias: Paying more attention to bad news than good. This is a natural bias that dates back to prehistoric days when noticing threats, risks, and other lethal dangers could save your life. In today’s civilized world, this bias is not as necessary.

Illusion of control is the belief that you have more control over a situation than you actually do.

Exposing yourself to new information and different viewpoints helps open up new neural pathways in your brain.Understanding these bias and being alert for them will help improve critical thinking.Communicate better to understand the source of the information

Knowledge And Communication

Cognitive bias can impact critical thinking

Recognizing your biases enhances understanding and communication.

Understand yourself and those around you.

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Cognitive Bias

<ul><li>You expect yourself to succeed in making life changes without designating any time or mental space to accomplish them.</li><li>You see your capacity to change as being dependent on other people’s behavior. </li><li>You’re a <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/perfectionism">perfectionist </a>who is dismissive of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-practice/201801/easy-self-improvement-examples-one-percent-improvements">incremental improvements </a>, and you’re only satisfied when 100 percent of a problem is fixed.</li><li>You’re “too busy chasing cows to build a fence.” You’re too busy to come up with processes or systems that would help you better manage your time.</li></ul>

How You Approach Change

<ul><li>Your approach to pleasure is a <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/denial">denial </a>-binge cycle. You deny yourself simple pleasures and relaxation, and then stay up watching Netflix until 3 a.m.</li><li>You ignore the warning signs that you need a break.</li><li>You don’t solve simple roadblocks to pleasure. For example, you enjoy taking photos, but your phone is full, and you haven’t gotten around to backing it up.</li><li>You hold back from doing the things you want due to erroneous “I can’t…” thoughts.</li></ul>

Pleasure and Self-Care

<ul><li>Wasting time and emotional energy reinventing the wheel</li><li>Needing better routines that work for you. </li><li>People defer all <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/decision-making">decision-making </a>to you even though you can empower them to make decisions.</li><li>Choosing to be miserable in situations in which you can choose happiness.</li><li>Creating self-imposed rules that trigger or support procrastination.</li><li>You think and research endlessly, trying to find perfect solutions which overcomplicate problems.</li><li>Staying stuck in patterns that are psychologically comfortable, but not working for you.</li><li>Allowing yourself to ruminate or worry without taking problem-solving actions.</li></ul>

Hidden Drains on Your Time and Energy

<ul><li>Over-focus on decreasing negative interactions, but under-focus on <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-practice/201301/50-characteristics-healthy-relationships">increasing positive interactions </a>and shared experiences.</li><li>Complain about other people’s behavior when you need to make the same change yourself.</li><li>Repeat strategies for influencing others that aren’t effective 90+ percent of the time.</li><li>Operating based on how you think a situation should be rather than dealing with reality.</li><li>Not acknowledging valid points other people make and ignore when they bring up genuine behavioral problems.</li><li>Your emotional raw spots when triggered, result in out-of-proportion reactions.</li></ul>

Relationships

<ul><li>You self-generate <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/stress">stress </a>. For example, you start more projects than you have time to finish.</li><li>You work on low priority tasks, but leave high priority tasks undone.</li><li>You overwork when what you really need is to step back and see the big picture.</li><li>You’re self-critical when self-acceptance and compassion would have a more positive impact on your behavior and emotions.</li></ul>

Work

<ul><li>You hold back from investing or otherwise taking charge of your money, because of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/embarrassment">shame </a>and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/anxiety">anxiety </a>about a bad decision or experience from years ago.</li><li>You overpay for items due to risk aversion.</li><li>You will overpay for minimal extra gain. For example, you’ll spend more for a top-of-the-line model when the extra features that the model offers aren't even particularly important to you.</li><li>You make financial decisions based on being sucked into <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/consumer-behavior">marketing </a>incentives when those decisions don’t make logical sense.</li><li>You keep paying for subscriptions you rarely use.</li></ul>

Money

1. Consider addressing any habit you’ve rated a 5 or above. 2. Once you see your patterns, make specific behavioral plans of what you’ll start doing instead. 3. Any behavior change plan you come up with needs a contextual trigger. 4. Aim to improve your habits (by say <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-practice/201801/easy-self-improvement-examples-one-percent-improvements">1, 10, or 20 </a>percent), rather than to eliminate all self-defeating behavior from your life.

Overcoming Self-Sabotage

Self sabotaging patterns to be rated on a scale of 1 (not a problem) to 7 (big problem)

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30 Types of Self-Sabotage (and What to Do About It)

An inner voice that provides a running monologue internal chatter combining conscious thoughts and unconscious beliefs and biases, provides a way for the brain to interpret and process daily experiences.This critical inner voice can raise awareness of internal and external obstacles to achievement. It can also take a toll on one’s confidence, fostering shame and limiting personal growth.

Self-Talk

Destructive self-talk causes you to question yourself so constantly that you can soon become paralyzed with doubt and uncertainty.In constructive self-talk, you cheer yourself on, focus on the positive aspects of a situation, and allow yourself to feel good about what you’ve done. They insightful, thoughtfully constructed, self-reflective, and motivational in nature.Dysfunctional self-talk is focused on the negative aspects of challenging situations rather than on their positive aspects, and had a pessimistic attitude toward change of any kind. Also termed as catastrophic self talk.

Types Of Self Talk

<ol><li>All-or-nothing or black-and-white thinking</li><li>Overgeneralization—applying the results of one situation to all similar situations</li><li>Mental filter—dwelling on one negative detail in an otherwise good experience</li><li>Jumping to conclusions or catatrophizing—concluding the worst not necessarily substantiated by facts</li><li>Emotional reasoning—using our emotional state as evidence of objective truth</li><li>Magnification—exaggerating the significance of a negative event</li><li>Personalization—assuming responsibility for a negative event not under your control</li><li>Blame—blaming others as a way to feel more in control of a negative situation</li></ol>

Most Common Thought Distortions

<ol><li>Notice automatic thoughts. Notice the words and ideas being expressed.</li><li>Identify distortions. See if you recognize any thought distortions or irrational beliefs like should, must, have to, ought, always, and never.</li><li>Challenge your thoughts. This step is often the most difficult and may even require some courage to push through. Ask yourself: What is the evidence? Is there another way to view this situation? Is it in my best interest to hold this belief?</li><li>Rewrite your thoughts. Replace the thought distortions and irrational beliefs with more accurate, constructive statements.</li></ol>

Rewriting your internal script

<ol><li class="ql-align-justify">Personify your inner critic. Give it a silly identity that’s outside of you so you can gain distance from it. </li><li class="ql-align-justify">Play with your thoughts like sing the self-critical thoughts or use humor and lightness by imagining a funny font.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Remind yourself with a rubber band snap and silently say “STOP.” to come back to the present moment.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">End with an “and.” to focus on what other facts might also be true.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Draft power statements.A power statement is a reminder that helps bring you back to your center.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Keep a brag file of accomplishments on a daily or weekly basis.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Create a playlist</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Give someone else a compliment</li></ol>

Inspiration from Seth's Blog

Cognitive Bias

30 Types of Self-Sabotage (and What to Do About It)

Rewriting your Self Talk

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