Tag Archives: Fresh Perspective

We are Just One Small Adjustment Away from Making Our Lives Work

Have you seen the movie, How Do You Know? It’s a 2010 romantic comedy starring Paul Rudd and Reese Witherspoon. It also has Owen Wilson and Jack Nicholson in it. If you like romantic comedies, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy the movie. It’s a movie written and directed by James L. Brooks who also directed As Good As It Gets.

Anyhow, there’s a quote (from Paul Rudd’s character) that I wanted to share with you. I think you might find it… enlightening. To put it in context: Paul Rudd’s character (George) is trying to decide whether he wants to go to prison for his dad (Jack Nicholson). To make this decision, he needs to find out whether the girl he loves Lisa (Reese Witherspoon) would rather be with Matty (Owen Wilson), who she’s currently with, or him. I found a version of this clip on YouTube, so I’ve also included it below the dialogue I transcribed from watching the clip.

George: This is only half the gift. It doesn’t work without the story. This stuff was invented by this man in Central Ohio as white goo and he used it to remove soot off of wall paper from old-fashioned heating. So, when gas and electric heating came, there was no longer a need for the cleaning goo. So, the guy was going under. But, his sister-in-law, was a nursery school teacher.

Lisa: Now, is this a true story?

George: The man’s name was Joe McVicker. His sister-in-law was Kay Zufall.

Lisa: OK, I believe you.

George: So, Kay Zufall, discovered that her little kids liked squeezing the goo a lot more than hard modeling clay. So, she suggested to her brother-in-law, Joe, they color the stuff and call it play-doh.

Lisa: Hey, nice.

George: So, I have kept this for a long time as proof that we are just one small adjustment away from making our lives work.

The Question No One’s Asking in the Debate about Privacy and Terrorism

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or don’t read/watch/consume the news), you’ve probably heard about Edward Snowden and his decision to leak classified documents about a US government agency, the NSA, to the public. I thought I’d raise an issue that I haven’t seen raised or written, yet. In fact, I’m a little surprised that I haven’t seen it raised. There have been plenty of Op-Eds (Brooks, Friedman, Shafer, Cohen, etc.) and columns (Simon, etc.) from many of the common people who write Op-Eds and columns about national security, but no one seems to be taking a step back and re-examining the question.

Most of what I’ve seen has the illusion of taking the step back and saying something to the effect of, ‘remember 9/11? That’s why we need programs like these to spy on those would seek to do us harm. It’s because of terrorism that we need these types of programs.’ Did you catch it? Did you see the underlying question that this line of reasoning assumes away?

Before I spell out exactly the point I’m trying to make, I think another analogy may help. Have you ever been sick? Of course you have, what a silly question. Upon being sick, ill, or injured, you’ve probably had to visit a doctor. When at the doctor, you were probably asked about your symptoms. After a few minutes, the doctor likely gave you a prescription or recommendation for something that would help you take care of your symptoms. As the symptoms were the thing that was bothering you, taking care of them probably seemed like a good idea to you, too.

Unfortunately, treating the symptoms won’t solve the problem of you being sick. It’ll just make the symptoms go away, but leave the underlying issue! Maybe you got sick because you were too stressed out about a big project and so that compromised your immune system, thereby making you more susceptible to being sick. And because your immune system was compromised, not washing your hands after playing with your kids at the local park meant that those germs that remained on the swing from one of the other kids was able to take up residence in your body. So, giving you medicine to make your symptoms go away might be helpful, but it weakens your immune system slightly (as it’s not able to develop antibodies on its own to take care of what’s affecting your system) and you still have that big project to finish.

What’s the tie-in? Terrorism is a symptom. It’s not the cause. The kind of terrorism that’s trying to be prevented isn’t the kind of terrorism that happens on a whim. It’s thought out, it’s well planned, it’s premeditated. Actions like that come with a reason. There’s an underlying cause to that terrorism. What is it that the US has done to provoke “terrorism?” That’s not a facetious or rhetorical question, but I think that’s the missing question from this debate. That’s the question that needs to be debated in Op-Eds and in columns.

When Was the Last Time You Took the Long View?

I really like psychology. I like it so much that even though I’ve already got a couple of degrees in it, I continue to learn/read about psychology. I also really like magic and illusions. There’s something about the mystique of believing that what you’re seeing is actually happening — even though you’re sure that it’s probably some sleight of hand. While some may think that magic and psychology aren’t related, they most certainly are. Just for fun, here’s an article from Psychology Today of 5 Amazing Psychology Magic Tricks.

Naturally, my interest in these subjects led to my desire to go see Now You See Me. As Jon Stewart said a couple of weeks ago, “Morgan Freeman’s in it, so it’s gotta be good.” I thought it was pretty good, but that’s probably more a result of the “life lesson” that I culled. Now, what I’m about to talk about may be perceived as a spoiler, but I’m not talking directly about the plot. I won’t mention any characters or anything specific about the movie (even though it would help with analogizing), but as I said, some may consider even what I’m going to talk about as a spoiler.

Can you think of one moment in your life where something changed? A moment to which, had you chose differently, your life would be completely altered? Maybe you think that if you’d gone to a different university your life would be very different. Or maybe you think that if you’d chose to take the job offer from company X instead of company Y. What about those smaller moments, the ones that don’t “seem” as powerful, can you think of any of those that might have had that same impact?

Watching this movie reminded me to take the “long view” on life. Not only when thinking about the ‘bigger’ life decisions, but also the smaller, day-to-day decisions. It’s truly impossible to know how what you’re deciding today will impact your life in 10 years. Impossible! One can speculate, yes, but that’s all — speculation. Even the best forecasters are terrible.

Of course, it’s probably not a good idea to always be taking the long view, but every once and awhile (monthly? weekly? daily?) it’s probably a good idea to check-in with that long view and see if you might be taking something too seriously. It’s really hard to know whether what’s happening to you in your life — right now — is a good thing. Maybe this time of hardship will make you appreciate  something that’s going to happen later. Maybe this time of hardship is teaching you about what it’s like to have hardship, so that when you no longer have this hardship, you’ll have more empathy for those that do. As I’ve said before in regards to thinking about whether something is good or bad — we’ll see…

If All You Have is a Hammer…: List of Biases in Judgment and Decision-Making, Part 13

The popular ending to the title of this post is, “… everything looks like a nail.” I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase (or some variant thereof) before, right? I bet you didn’t know that this represents an important cognitive bias, though. In fact, I didn’t know that this phrase was popularized by one of the giants of psychology — Abraham Maslow. It comes from a book that he published in 1966 — The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance. This sentiment behind this phrase is a concept that’s known as functional fixedness.

One of the easiest ways to explain this concept is with a different example — the candle problem. Dan Pink does an excellent job of explaining this in the opening of a TEDTalk he gave a few years ago. I’ve set the video to start just before he begins talking about the candle problem. At about the 3-minute mark, the explanation of functional fixedness ends, but he goes on to talk about an experiment with functional fixedness. Meaning, he couches the importance of functional fixedness in management theory. I’d urge you to come back and watch the remaining 15+ minutes after you’ve finished reading this post:

So, as we can see from the video, it’s hard for people to imagine the box as something other than a receptacle for the tacks. Similarly, when we’re holding the “proverbial hammer,” everything appears as if it’s a nail. One of the most important consequences of functional fixedness is how it contributes to a dearth of creativity. If you’re a manager in a company, maybe you’re not thinking about how you can position your employees to maximize their impact on realizing profits. It’s also possible that you’re not seeing a creative way to reassemble your raw materials (or resources) to design a product that will create a new market!

Ways for Avoiding Functional Fixedness

1) Practice, practice, practice

Probably the easiest and most effective way of overcoming functional fixedness is to practice. What does that mean? Well, take a box of miscellaneous things and see if you can design something fun/creative. The emphasis should be on using those things in a way that they weren’t designed. For instance, if you’re using a toolbox, you might think about how you can use something like wrenches to act as “legs” of a table or as a conductive agent for an electrical circuit.

2) Observant learning — Find examples

Another good way of overcoming functional fixedness is to look at other examples of people who have overcome functional fixedness. When I was giving a presentation on functional fixedness to a group (of college students) about a year ago, I showed the video below. About halfway through the video, one of them remarked: “So, basically, it’s how to be a college student 101.”

If you liked this post, you might like one of the other posts in this series:

How Do I Break a Habit? First, Notice

Last year, Charles Duhigg published a great book called, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. It has been really well-received garnering almost 900 five- and four-star ratings out of 1050+. I haven’t had the chance to read it, yet, but I have seen many interviews with Duhigg explaining the principles from the book and videos like the one I’ve embedded below with some animation.

A few days ago, I noticed the video embedded on Farnam Street and I thought it’d be a good idea to share it with all of you. It’s one of the best summaries I’ve seen Duhigg give on the principles from the book. In fact, it’s one of the best summaries I’ve seen on habits, in general. If you’re interested in habits, another good person to read (or listen to) is BJ Fogg. Without further adieu, here’s the clip from Duhigg:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H0fTwtPLfo

There’s so much good information in there, but the piece I want to draw your attention to is near the very end:

Studies have shown that if you can diagnose your habits, you can change them in whichever way you want.

That’s really important because this thinking wasn’t always the case. Sometimes, folks will tell you that you need to focus on the cue, while others will say you need to focus on the reward. As Duhigg suggests, you can focus on whichever aspect you want, so long as you’ve diagnosed the habit. Happy habit-breaking!

Tying Up Loose Ends: Food for Thought and Brief Hiatus

Since moving to the new domain (www.JeremiahStanghini.com), this has been the longest time between posts. The last post I wrote was on April 5th. The hiatus from posting will continue for a little while after this post because I’m working on the last requirements for finishing my MBA. There are about 3 weeks left until the end of exam period, so I’ve got a few papers/presentations to finish and a lot of grading of papers/exams.

Whenever I open my computer I see the list of posts that I’ve been meaning to write. In an effort to “clear out some mental space,” I thought I’d do what I’ve done a couple of times in the past and flush out my list of posts to write. In this way, the list will be fresh for when I come back (save for the few cognitive biases that I still want to write about). So, without further adieu, here are some of the things that I had planned on expanding upon. I hope you enjoy!

Cars and Transportation — It’d be really cool if they could *feasibly* develop a car that could transform. A car that could be a single-passenger when commuting, but it could expand/transform into 2, 3, or 4 seats when it necessary.

Political Ideology — What if a given political ideology’s thoughts/plans don’t work unless they can be fully implemented? And because there’s a split in Parliament/Congress, it’s worse. But what if when either party had total control, it’d be worse than this middle-ground between the two ideas?

LeBron James vs. Michael Jordan — A few weeks before the conversation about LeBron vs. Jordan started, I’d had it on my to do list to write about it. I was a bit peeved when the conversation started (without me), but there were some interesting (and some not) things written about it. I think it’s extremely difficult to compare players across decades. It’s akin to comparing players across sports! I remember a few years ago when there was talk that Alex Rodriguez would be the greatest baseball player ever. I think it’s safe to say that conversation has died down a little.

Fear of Public Speaking — I was thinking back to one of the first times I had to stand up in front of a group of people and give a speech. I don’t even remember what I spoke about — but I do remember one of the speeches from my classmates who did quite well (it was about the NBA dunk contest). As I watch some folks present in front of rooms, I can empathize with their nervousness. Heck, even I still get a bit nervous sometimes. One thing I’ve learned — it’s really about repetition. The more times I’ve spoke in front of groups of people, the less nervous I get the next time I go up there. (On a slightly related note: I’d say another key factor in minimizing fear of public speaking is the extent to which you’re prepared to speak on the topic. Read: know your stuff!)

Focus on Labor — I’ve never been the CEO or a highly placed Vice President of a company, but from an outsider’s perspective, I always have a hard time understanding the lack of focus on the labor force. At times, it really looks like labor is the key to success. If the labor force is well taken care of, production and profits tend to do well. It reminds me of that post I did about sustainability and pitchers. The relation here is that when management takes care of the labor force, it is with an eye towards long-term sustainability.

Life, Liberty, and Property? — Why is property so valued? What about nomads or North Americans who show us that land isn’t to be owned? What about animals? They don’t seem to own land.

Star Trek: Inheritance — This is an episode from the final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The gist of is that Data has to decide whether or not he’s going to tell his mother that she is an android (when she believes she’s a human). In thinking about this episode, I wondered about the ethics of telling someone they aren’t who they think they are. What about an adopted child?

Social Entrepreneurship — George Mason University‘s Center For Social Entrepreneurship has a massive open online course (MOOC) in social entrepreneurship. If you wanna learn about social entrepreneurship, this is a great place to start!

“I AM” — I saw the movie I AM quite some time ago and there were some cool things that stood out to me. I’ll be brief:

  • The HeartMath Institute — check them out! They’re doing some fascinating work.
  • Animals are more likely to cooperate than we may have first thought. There was a reference to a journal article about how a herd of deer decided to go in a given direction after hydrating at a water hole.
  • Rumi poetry is medicine for the soul.
  • I am continually amazed at the kinds of things that are correlated with Random Number Generators.
  • Did you know that the word “Love” appears 95 times in Darwin’s “The Descent of Man?”
  • A great quote that Desmond Tutu read: “God looked at me and said, all I have is you.”

And so that clears off most of my list. Look for a new post sometime in the next month, but probably not for the next 3 weeks. Happy end of April and early May!

It is Important to Speak, but not More Important than it is to Listen

A couple of days ago I wrote a post about leadership and followership, the overwhelming majority of literature dedicated to leadership, and the dearth of literature dedicated to followership. When writing that post, it reminded me of the same relationship between speaking and listening. That is, how much literature do we see dedicated to speaking or communicating and how much do we see dedicated to listening?

Don’t get me wrong, I think that communication is an essential part of the human experience, but dont we think that learning to listen should be equally (if not more?) important than speaking. We can make the same comparison we did with leadership: how much time do we spend speaking in relation to how much time we spend listening? We spend far more of our time listening. So, shouldn’t it follow that we need to learn how to be excellent listeners?

Of course, if we don’t know how to speak (at all) then the listening is futile, but I suspect that if the majority of people were excellent listeners, we might be able to aid the speaker in communicating their point. Just as I made the case with followers who can make a leader better, I think that listeners can make a speaker better, too.

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A slight tangent: how many courses are there in communication? There are probably quite a few more than there are in listening. In fact, there’s even an entire academic discipline dedicated to communication. Is there one for listening? Some may argue that clinical/counseling psychology might be how listening creeps its way into an academic discipline, but that’s only one piece of the training for clinical/counseling psychologists. It’s important to note that psychologists who don’t go the route of counseling won’t get this kind of training, so it’s necessary to specify clinical/counseling.

I like to think I’m a pretty good listener (and have been given affirmative feedback), but I don’t doubt that I would benefit from the insights of academic research on listening. In fact, I bet we all could benefit from academic research on listening. Until then, we’ll have to rely on the wisdom of quotes:

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” – Plato

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway

“If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut.” – Albert Einstein

“Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.” – Andre Gide

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” – Stephen Covey

“We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may hear more and speak less.” – Diogenes Laërtius

And one last one that I really like:

“You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.” – M. Scott Peck

Maybe We Don’t Need to Workout At All

About a week ago, I wrote a post about the perfect exercise routine. My point was that there is no universal perfect exercise routine because there are so many different people on the planet, but that there may be some universal principles that could be applicable across peoples. It turns out that one of those “perfect” exercise routines might just be not exercising at all. Curious?

I recently came across a post from Harley Pasternak in, of all places, People. The post has a great opening illustrating just how sedentary our lives have become — amounting to the fact that we spend 45 minutes at the gym and the other 23 hours and 15 minutes sitting at our desks or sleeping. I really encourage you to read it because it paints quite a picture.

After I read it, I was reminded of the post I wrote a week ago that I referenced above (perfect routine), but also of the post I wrote about the obesity crisis. In that post, I focused on the neuromarketing aspect. That is, the idea that consumers may not have an *unbiased* choice to make when they reach for that bag of potato chips or for a second piece of chocolate cake. My main point in that post was that neuromarketing is having a large impact on the choices that are leading to the obesity epidemic. Pasternak argues that are innovation is also leading to obesity. Because we’ve worked so hard to make it easier to do things, we’ve cut out a lot of the time we spend getting from A to B or completing task A and completing task B:

They take leisurely daily walks, do their errands on foot, and walk, bicycle, or take public transportation to work. To make my case, consider this: the average European walks 237 miles every year and cycles 116 miles. The average American walks just 87 miles and cycles just 24 miles. No wonder Europeans are healthier – they’re three times as active!

It never occurred to me that public transportation would be linked to a country’s health, but I guess that just goes to show you the power of externalities and unintended consequences. This revelation makes me think that it’s even more important for the US to get on with advancing the infrastructure of the public transportation in the country.

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This brief bit about public transportation increasing a country’s health does remind me of something I read recently about the amount of time that patrons spend walking to and from public transportation. Something to the effect of it doubling the number of steps they take in a day. I couldn’t find that particular article, but I was able to find something from the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) that supports that finding:

Walking to and from public transportation can help physically inactive populations, especially low-income and minority groups, attain the recommended level of daily physical activity. Increased access to public transit may help promote and maintain active lifestyles.

Speaking the Same Language is Harder than it Looks

Have you ever tried speaking with someone who’s native language is not your own? That is, if you’re an English speaker, have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone who’s first language is not English? As the world grows closer to itself (in many ways) I suspect that you’re more likely to be forced to converse with people who won’t be communicating in their first language. I bet you might be surprised just how difficult communication can be with someone who’s native language is not your own. It can be quite an experience and I encourage you to try it.

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The corollary that follows from this idea is you being the person who’s not the native speaker. That is, if you’re native language is English, try learning another language and then speaking with someone for which this language is their native language. So, maybe you’re trying to learn French. It can be quite a humbling experience to try and speak to someone who is a French-speaking person. You might recognize some of the frustrations you had when you were the native speaker when looking at the person speaking French with you.

The important point I’m trying to make here is the idea of empathy. This exercise I’ve just outlined is a great way to foster empathy. You’d be able to tangibly experience what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes.

Can We Make “Looking Down Your Nose” a Good Thing?

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I was going to be doing a post about Chrystia Freeland‘s book Plutocrats. I haven’t yet finished it, but there is something I wanted to talk about before I got to the end. I’m about halfway through the book and the main focus of the conversation is the 0.1% vs. the 1%. The sad truth in Freeland’s words is that those in the 1% continue to spend like they’re in the 0.1% (for a variety of reasons that I won’t get into right now). The important piece here is that they’re not happy with where they are — and they’re looking up.

The idea of the “grass is greener on the other side” seems to be a theme that runs throughout (at least the first half) of Freeland’s book. So, as I was reading, I thought, if people just looked down, they’d be a lot happier. Proverbially down, of course. And not in a pejorative fashion as in the phrase, “looking down your nose.”

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase that someone’s always got it worse than you — why don’t we implement this as a way of being? Instead of being upset that we can’t buy the newest Bentley or Ferrari, why can’t we “look down” to the person next on the wealth list and realize that we have it better than they do? I hope it’s clear that I’m not suggesting that people think of themselves as “better than” the people who would follow them on a wealth list. I’m merely trying to emphasize how well that people have it and that if they compared themselves (down the chain) they’d probably feel better about themselves. My secret wish is that this would also foster more empathy within us.

So, I wonder… do you think that we can take back the phrase “looking down your nose at someone” and turn it into a good thing? Probably not, but I hope that the next time you hear someone say this (or the next time you think it?) you’ll remember my brief conversation about how much better we’d feel if we compared ourselves to those who had less than to those who have more.