Category Archives: Philosophy

How To Get What You Want: Use the “As If” Principle

I don’t remember how many books I’ve included in the section that use the “As If” principle, but I do remember that Dooley’s books do ( and ). I’m a big proponent of Twitter as it’s where I get most of my news and updates on the topics that I’m interested in (, , , etc.).

I saw a this morning (from my psychology stream) of a psychologist in London, Richard Wiseman. The tweet included a video of the “As If” principle and the preview made it look like the video was going to be animated in the same way that the are animated (with a hand writing down words/pictures, etc.). This was part of the reason that I had bookmarked it to view later.

After having just watched the short (1+ minute) video, I felt compelled to write a quick note about it. Why? Well, I had forgotten that the “As If” principle started with William James (famous psychologist) from the late 1800s. Additionally, the narrator mentions that there is decades of research to support James’ “As If” principle.

Why We Lie, Cheat, and Steal: The Truth About Dishonesty

I’ve just finished the 5th week of my 4th year of graduate school. For folks that have been in graduate school this long, there’s usually a development of research interests. Because of the nature of my time in graduate school (1 year in a PhD program, 1 year completing my first Master’s, and now into year two of an MBA), I never really had to declare my research interests or choose a dissertation topic. Though, for my first master’s, I did have to write a final paper. That final paper was on a topic that, if I were asked, would probably appear on a list of my “research interests.” It was on intuition and decision-making. Ironically, I’m working with a professor at George Mason University to test whether or not one can improve the conditions for one’s intuition (in the context of decision-making).

If I were to list another research interest, I’d have to say that it’d be on the topic of ethics or morals. Ironically, during my time as an undergrad, I worked on a research project with a psychology professor where we were examining (among other things) people’s moral judgments. I’ve had an RSA Animate talk bookmarked for about two weeks and I just finished watching it — I think you’ll enjoy it.

It was given by Dan Ariely on the content of his new book: The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves. Ariely is also the researcher I referenced a few months ago when I was talking about the research on American’s perceptions and misperceptions of wealth inequality. I’ve pulled a few important quotes from the video:

“The magnitude of dishonesty we see in society is by good people who think they’re doing good, but in fact cheating just a little bit, but because there’s so many of them — of us — it has a tremendous economic impact.”

“You can’t go and say to yourselves, chef really want their food to be eaten. And it’s really owned by a conglomerate that is really not that good. Some things lend themselves to a much higher degree of rationalization.”

“At some point, many people switch and start cheating all the time. And we call this switching point the ‘what the hell’ effect. It turns out we don’t have to be 100% good to think of ourselves as good. But if at some point you don’t think of yourself as good, you might as well enjoy. And many people, by the way, report this same thing with diets.”

“Your motivation influences how you see reality.”

Tying Up Loose Ends — Again

Earlier this year, I did a where I talked about a number of ideas in one post. This served a couple of interconnected purposes: 1) it emptied my “posts to write” list, and 2) it allowed me to flood that list with some new ideas. (I said the purposes were interconnected.) My list has again started to grow a little bit, so I thought I would do another one of those to flush out the list. There are a couple of ideas that I won’t include in this post because I do want to write a “fuller” post on them, so look for some posts in the next few days about “balance,” “The Stockdale Paradox,” and the idea that “every game (in a season) counts equally.”

The Enneagram — Through my exposure to transpersonal psychology, I was introduced to the . I don’t know this for a fact, but my suspicion is that the Enneagram is highly underutilized relative to its helpfulness in understand one’s self and others.

Life’s all about making decisions — One of my interests is “decision-making.” Books, literature, research: I’m fascinated by how humans make decisions. On that note, one of the things I’ve learned is that life is — really — all about making decisions. More importantly though, it’s important to put yourself in situations that allow you to make good choices. Let me say that again: “It’s important to put yourself in situations that allow you to make good choices.”

Measuring outcomes in the non-profit sector — I’ve talked before about my time with , but I also had a class in this summer. The thing that struck me the most about the non-profit sector is the lack of ways to measure outcomes. That is not to say that there aren’t ways to measure outcomes in the non-profit sector, but when compared to the for-profit sector, it seems that, for whatever reason, there aren’t as many established and agreed upon ways to measure outcomes.

Reframing your life — Many people, myself included, sometimes get caught up in choosing things they want to do (career-wise). An important realization on that front: it’s not what you want to do for the “rest of your life,” but simply, what you want to do “for right now.” Meaning, it’s okay to change your mind later and move into a different position, field, or industry.

Psychological reasons why good people do bad things — I came across this a few days ago that recounts a number of reasons why good people do bad things. I think it’s really important to understand the underlying psychological concepts that contribute to these errors in “decision-making.”

6 Principles for Living from 2nd Century Indian Philosopher Nagarjuna

I’ve mentioned that I’ve been spending this summer working for , (which, by the way, is a fantastic organization — be sure to check out what they do). On part of my route, I take the , which could use some upgrading. While I’m only on the Metro for a few stops, it gives me time to read. Usually, I read . However, since I’ve moved recently and my mail hasn’t caught up with me yet, I’ve gone back to reading books.

I mentioned that I was reading a by the Dalai Lama. Yesterday, I found a passage that I thought would be good to share:

When it comes to avoiding harmful actions of body and speech, in addition this fundamental rule [the Golden Rule], I personally find a list of six principles from a text by the second-century Indian thinker Nagarjuna to be helpful. In this text, Nagarjuna is offering advice to an Indian monarch of the time. The six principles are as follows:

  • Avoid excessive use of intoxicants.
  • Uphold principles of right livelihood.
  • Ensure that one’s body, speech, and mind are nonviolent.
  • Treat others with respect.
  • Honor those worthy of esteem, such as parents, teachers, and those who are kind.
  • Be kind to others.

Distinguishing the Action from the Actor

I had a moment of “world’s colliding” this afternoon when I sat down to catch up on some reading I started quite a while ago. The passage is worth repeating, so I thought I’d include it and then get back to the “world’s colliding” part.

The important point about the principle of compassion, as a basis for the exercise of justice, is that it is directed not toward actions, but toward the actor. Compassion demands that we condemn wrong actions and oppose them with all means necessary, while at the same time forgiving and maintaining an attitude of kindness toward the perpetrators of those actions. Just as, in theistic terms, God forbids sin while still loving the sinner, so we too should forcefully oppose wrong while maintaining concern for the wrongdoer. It is right to do this because, again, all human beings are capable of change. I think we all know this is from our own experience. After all, it is not uncommon for those who lead reckless lives when young to become responsible and caring as they gain in maturity and experience. In history, too, there are many examples of individuals whose early lives were morally reprehensible, but who later brought great benefit to others. We might think of Emperor Ashoka, for example, or Saint Paul, or numerous others. (p. 64-5)

I’ve been reading this (off and on) since at least April and there have been some really good passages, which is probably to the surprise of no one. I found this passage particularly important because of how the Dalai Lama uses religion to help build the bridge for his audience from what he’s talking about to their way of understanding the world.

Now, to the part about “world’s colliding.” I’ve mentioned before that I’m working at this summer, but before beginning with this organization, I had no idea who/what Ashoka [the person] was. Ironically, this summer I’m taking an elective in social entrepreneurship and one of our required texts is ‘s . The ironic part is that this book is often used to help explain what it is that Ashoka (the organization) does. [Brief aside: Although, with the recent publication of , many turn to it (Rippling) as it has an updated understanding of the mission of Ashoka (the organization).]

The point about Bornstein’s book is that he sits down with Ashoka’s founder (Bill Drayton) and speaks with him about how he came to found the organization. One of the questions posed/answered is how/why Drayton came to call the organization Ashoka. So of course, the reader then learns a bit about who Ashoka (the Emperor) is and a bit about Bill Drayton’s thinking. So while I didn’t know who Ashoka (the Emperor) was when I started reading the Dalai Lama’s book (or when I started working for Ashoka the organization), I have come across Ashoka (the Emperor) in a number of places. One of the other places comes from in world history: Week #6 was about .

Do You Sign Your Emails With Intention?

Most people have some sort of email signature that is attached to every message they send. This can be helpful because it usually contains other contact information, relevant titles, associations, etc. While I can see the value (read: saving time, saving money) in this, I wonder if not signing your name at the end of emails may begin to foster an ambivalence to the content (or more importantly) the tone of the email?

A brief aside: Having spent time in PhD program, I became accustomed to the phrase, “that’s a dissertation topic,” and I’ve definitely kept note of that since. There’ve been a number of times since enrolling in business school where I’ve come across potential ideas for a dissertation. While I have no intentions (in the immediate future) to return to a doctoral program, I have a feeling that I may continue to see ideas in this way. My guess is that this is a positive attribute as it continually reminds me to think in terms of the scientific method. This digression was meant to point to the fact that I think it might be interesting to see some research on email signatures and the author’s ambivalence to the tone of the message. Back to the email signatures.

I wrote a about a year and a half ago about the “whys” with regard to how I sign-off emails or messages. I’ve slightly changed the way I sign-off emails (no longer writing “love”), but the good intentions are still the same. My desire to ‘write it out’ each time is, in part, because in writing this word (gratitude) every time I send an email, it reminds me (if even for a millisecond) to feel gratitude. Similarly, when I write my name, it feels like — to me — as if I’m signing my name in ink to what I’ve said in the email. In so doing, I take a greater sense of ownership over the content of the email.

After my stint in business school has concluded and I’m back to working full-time, I wonder (hope?) that this inclination still remains.

Tying up Loose Ends: Or, a Mishmash of Ideas in one Post

It’s been awhile since I wrote a post () and even longer since I wrote consecutive posts ( and ). Obviously, I’d like to have written more, but that’s just not how things have worked out. Regardless, I thought it might be a good idea to write a “post of posts” of sorts. That is, I’ve had a list of “ideas to write about” for over a year. Some of the things on the list are recent (thought of in the last few months) and some have been there for at least 9 months. As a way to inject some fresh energy into that list, I thought I’d write a post where I spent some time talking about a number of things on the list — rather than writing a post about just one of those ideas. Hope you enjoy!

It’s Kind of a Funny Story () – I saw this movie awhile back and thought it was rather good. The premise is that a teenager checks himself into an adult psychiatric ward. Some very serious issues are addressed and I think they were done so in an appropriate manner.

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never () – This whole list won’t be of movies, but I thought I’d group the two. I saw the “Justin Bieber Movie” sometime this past summer. I didn’t really know too much about Justin Bieber, just that he was pretty famous with the younger age groups. While this movie wasn’t necessarily an unbiased biography, it definitely did showcase how much hard work Justin invested in himself. Hard work (by itself) will not get you where you want to go all the time (for example: ), but it will go a long way to getting you where you want to be.

What if the car (automobile) were invented today? – I wonder if the car were invented today, would we accept it as is? Meaning, given everything that goes into making the car and everything that is affected because of the car (read: environment), I wonder if consumers would accept it as a product.

Nordic spas – This past summer, just before moving to DC, I spent some time at in Quebec. It was the first time that I’d seen the idea of (hot, cold, hot) in an establishment. Growing up in Canada, it was a common thing — in the winter — to sit in the hot tub for awhile, jump in the pool for a minute (or the snow!) and then get back into the hot tub. I remember trying to find some scientific evidence to back this up as a (positive) thing for the human body, but I couldn’t find anything. That’s not to say that there isn’t any out there.

Blowing in a dog’s face – I find it interesting that dog’s don’t like it when someone blows in their face — but — they can’t wait to stick their head out the window when you’re driving down the road. I wonder if this has something to do with carbon dioxide (on the exhale of someone blowing in their face) vs. oxygen (from the car ride).

Jaywalking – Intuitively, I would think that laws against jaywalking would have been written with a focus on keeping pedestrians safe. Believe it or not — this was not the case. I forgot where I heard it (maybe NPR?), but did you know that jaywalking was — in a way — instituted because of the automobile associations lobbying legislators? In doing some research for this (part) of this post, I found from three days ago talking about this very thing.

Visioning for a job? – Have you ever noticed how couples plan for a baby? Even before they’ve conceived, (sometimes) they’ve bought the crib, painted the room, and are in a sense, planning for this new part of their lives. I wonder why this is normalized, but doing the same thing for a job is viewed with some disdain. Why shouldn’t someone wake up and get dressed as if they’re going to work (even though they may not be)? They could even go to the “office” (library?) and prepare themselves for work.

Secret to happiness – Short and sweet. The secret to happiness is not wishing things were different from they currently are.

Evolution of the electric car – I wonder if there’s a special (or one in the works?) on the evolution of the electric car. I remember reading that the electric car was first invented in the 19th century, but fell out of favor when the internal combustion engine was invented (see: ).

People’s relationships to their body – It’s interesting to see how people relate to their body (in general) in comparison to how they relate to their body at a place where the body can sometimes be more prominent (at the gym or the beach).

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That’s narrowed down my list to four! Three of those are “recurring posts” (, , and personality tests). There is one post that I do want to dedicate some time to, so I didn’t want to shorten it here. Look for it in the next little while.

What if Every Major Religious Holiday Were a National Holiday?

There were a few articles (, , and ) in The Economist over the last few issues that got me thinking about religion. And not any one particular religion — all of them — and how they might be very much interrelated. At the same time, I often think about the growing . It seems the ways of balance has completely gone out the window.

There are lots of different explanations as to why people continue to overwork themselves. One from this claims that Americans mistake overwork for good work. Meaning, they think that if they work harder (they’ll be working better). by way of a calculator that lets you visually see how much time you’re spending on a variety of activities, which include: work, sleep, leisure, chores, meals, commute, etc.

Another contribution to the nature of overworking is the amount of holidays that people are ‘allowed’ to take. In some countries, it’s pretty to have 6, 7, or 8 weeks as holidays. We could also say the workweek itself is a pressure to work harder. In France, they have a . There’s also the idea that you need to work longer hours in order to .

Circling back to my initial point about religion: there are certain days in countries that are designated as . In the US, for instance, Easter and Christmas are holidays for which it is illegal to mandate that someone needs to be at work. According to , there are an assortment of religions represented across the United States.

So, my “big” idea: make all the major religious holidays national holidays.

When I say national holiday, I mean that these are days that are mandatory days off for businesses. I realize that this kind of idea would take an enormous amount of planning, that there would need to be legislation passed, that we’d need to define “major religious holidays,” and all that jazz, but just think about it (abstractly) for a moment.

Think about the extra days off to spend with family. Think about the prospect of religious acceptance for the younger generations. Instead of just “taking the day off and ,” parents could spend the day with their kids explaining to them what the major holiday means to that religion. Or, if there were no kids, the adults could take the day to learn about the culture and religion for the holiday. This could definitely foster a greater sense of compassion and empathy between people of different faiths.

Twitter: Who I’m Following, Part 6

It’s been just about two months since I last updated the list of people I’m following on Twitter. I thought today might be a good day to give a brief update. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll try to catch “all the way” up to who I’m following. In case you missed the earlier posts:





So, without further adieu, here are the people I have followed since my last post.

: Louise Hay is the author of one of the most the most famous self-help books of all time – . It lends credence to the idea that your thoughts can affect your biology.

: “A collection of quotes that will challenge, motivate and inspire you to be the best you can be.” Curated by , Personal Development Trainer & Coach.

: He is a former Governor & Congressman and is currently . He has bee notoriously held out of , but has some intriguing ideas.

: CNBC is a cable television business news channel. They are dedicated to covering business headlines and financial markets.

: LeVar Burton played the lovable character from . He’s also a big proponent of literacy.

: Justin Trudeau is the son of the famous . Justin has gone on to become a politician in his own right.

: Since the passing of Jack Layton, Turmel has filled in as the interim leader of the NDP. Shortly, the NDP will pick their leader.

: Dahlia is a Canadian (eh?) and mostly tweets about issues regarding law and the court system.

: This is the account of the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron. I’m not sure, but I think the account will stay with the Prime Minister’s office, regardless of party.

: Melinda Gates is the co-founder and co-chair of the , which is the largest .

: Jim Carrey was born in (I lived there when I was younger!) and is one of the funnier comedians of today.

: Lewis Black is a stand-up comedian and is a regular on . His tweets are often funny.

: “Word Spy is devoted to ‘lexpionage,’ the sleuthing of new words and phrases.”

: Michael Steele is a former RNC Chairman. He is a contributor to MSNBC (often representing the conservative viewpoint).

: She is currently a Washington correspondent for GQ and often has interesting commentary on the political debates.

: Julie is one of my friends from SVSU. She currently works for the American Red Cross.

: The Dalai Lama is the most influential figure in Tibetan Buddhism. His “reign” has lasted over 60 years!

: This twitter account is aimed at iPad users, but during “The Rachel Maddow Show,” it often tweets links to articles of which Maddow is referring.

: Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 and is a very well respected academic.

: I used to watch Ali back when he was on . I always found him to be very intelligent.

: From the Twitter account: “We work to help all people lead healthy, productive lives, focused on health, poverty, and opportunity.”

: I listened to a lecture of Prof. Aaker (look for it in my upcoming post in the series “, Part 6.”)

: The : Informing and inspiring leaders of social change.

: Bill Gates doesn’t tweet very often, but when he does, he often, “shares cool things he’s learning.”

: Jack Welch is one of the preeminent businessmen of our time. It’s great to be able to follow his commentary via Twitter.

: Tweets to articles in that have to do with news or insights for business education.

: I like to view information by way of charts, so it’s great that has an account dedicated solely to charts.

: Tweets from this account are from and have to do with business, finance, or economics.

: This is the Twitter account for a blog and there are often tweets about the economy, business, and finance.

: This account retweets Humblebrags. As is made clear on their about statement, “Humblebrags are different from brags.”

: Paul La Monica tweets — often — about stocks (what’s up, what’s down) and the economy. He’s quite a barometer for the market.

: Richard writes about social and economic theory. He’s current a at the University of Toronto.

: Roubini is a rather famous economist. In fact, he predicted the collapse of the US housing market and the worldwide recession.

: Felix Salmon is a noted finance blogger for Reuters. He’s won for his scientific reporting.

: “GOOD is the global association of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits powering what works.”

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As I said earlier in this post, I’ll do my best to catch up to the updated list of who I’m following in the next couple of weeks. As always, if there’s someone you think I might like to follow, leave me a comment, send me an email, or me.

Overconfidence: Know Thyself

On the way to the grocery store this afternoon, I passed through a construction zone. As I was driving by, I glanced over at the work they were doing and remarked, “Oh, it looks like they’re almost finished. They’ll probably be done by the end of the month.” I kept on driving and then laughed out loud. I know nothing about construction and certainly don’t know enough to look at the progress of the job site regarding road reconstruction to be as “confident” as I was in saying they’ll be finished in a month.

Earlier this year, I wrote about lectures I listened to on my trip from . One of those lectures was by Maggie Neale on the subject of negotiation (I highly recommend listening to it!) One of the things she spoke about in this lecture is exemplified by my story about the construction site.

She had a pop bottle full of paperclips and asked the audience to guess how many paperclips were in the bottle. She told them there wasn’t some sort of trick to it and asked them to think up a number. Then, she asked them to come up with a 95% . Meaning, she wanted the people to come up with a range of the number of paperclips that could be in the bottle, such that they could be 95% confident that the number of actual paperclips in the bottle fell within the range. If I recall correctly, she even said something about being certain that there were less than 1,000,000 paperclips in the bottle.

After they were all done, she told them how many paperclips were in the bottle and then polled the audience to find how many people had the actual number of paperclips within their range.About half of the audience raised their hands. Neale went on to say that statistically speaking, only 5% of the audience should have not guessed a range wherein the actual number of paperclips lay. That is, 95% of the audience should have had the actual number of paperclips fall within their range. As only 50% of the audience raised their hands, she went on to explain why.

The explanation for the paperclips is the same explanation as to why I made a guess about the construction site. Humans have a tendency to be confident — nay — overconfident about their judgments (regardless of their accuracy). This is known in some circle as the .

I knew about this particular bias and I still fell into the trap (albeit shortly) of making an overconfident assessment about the construction site. I wonder what judgments you (or maybe your compatriots) are being overconfident about? Now that you know about this particular bias, I hope that you’ll be a bit more mindful when making estimations and the like.