A sign of a good thinker is someone who follows the evidence, even when their "tribe" is going in a different direction.
Too often our opinions on difficult topics sway along with the tribe we belong to.
A sign of a poor thinker is, as my friend @BStulberg says, someone who is: "Smart enough to convince themselves they're right. But not smart enough to realize they are convincing themselves they're right."
It’s not that your moral views determine which group you belong to, it’s the other way around.
Your tribe does more to determine your morality than your morality does to determine your tribe.
As a group of researchers summarized the science: “We will switch our moral compass depending on how it fits with what we believe politically.” onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…
A good self check is to ask yourself is there any topic where you disagree with your tribe.
Be it a religious, political, business, or whatever tribe. Can you identify topics where you hold opinions counter to the majority in that tribe?
If not, that might be a sign...
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Yet, most of us fall back on cramming or mindless repetition. Practices that make us feel like we are learning, but don't really help much.
How do we make things stick?
THREAD on the science of learning better 👇👇👇
Take rereading text over and over:
It FEELS like we must be learning. It becomes easier over time to read through the same passage. But, we're tricked by short-term fluency. The feeling that it's easier when what we're after is long-term ingrained.
We suck at knowing what works
So what actually matters when it comes to learning: 1. Attention 2. Emotion 3. Repetition- Not the mindless kind... 4. Errors
To achieve almost anything, you need to work hard.
But what if you aren't achieving, is it because you aren't working hard enough?
Does hard work separate those who make it and those who don't?
THREAD on hard work, deliberate practice, and how much it matters for performance:
First, hard work obviously matters. It leads to improvement in just about anything. But here's where we mess up:
We confuse hard work aiding in our own improvement, with hard work separating us from others. Meaning, does hard work/practice differentiate how much success we have?
After all, that's the story we are so often told. Work hard enough, practice more, and if we do so, we'll achieve our goals.
It's the lesson we're taught in sport, schools, entrepreneurship, and so-called 'tough' love self-help. But is it true?
No, not in some feel-good self-help way. But the real science behind how a purpose helps us avoid burnout, deal with discomfort and boost our performance.
THREAD on the science of having a self-transcending purpose: 👇👇👇
To understand purpose, let’s look at how we protect ourselves:
Consider running: We ‘fatigue’ well before we’ve hit some physiological limit. We don’t run out of injury or push until our legs are filled with acid. Our brain shuts us down before we’ve hit an actual limit.
Why do we shut down if we still have fuel left in the tank? For protection.
To prevent us from harming ourselves. In the case of exercise, it's to literally protect our body from damaging ourselves.
Working out, doing deep work at your job, deliberate practice, etc. aren’t when you get better. Your body and mind adapt, learn, and grow during rest and recovery.
Let’s talk about ways we can help you physically and mentally recover!
THREAD on RECOVERY 👇👇👇👇
Recovery is about many things, but what we’re essentially trying to do is switch from a state where your body is dominated by stress hormones that prepare for action and the releasing of energy to a recovery state based on repair and build-up.
Let's go through a few types:
Social Recovery:
Interaction helps transition us from stress to rest.
Decreasing stress hormones, shifting us into a recovery state, which allows us to process what just happened. It fulfills our need for connection, releasing oxytocin which dampens down your sympathetic NS.
Sleep is the best performance enhancer this is. Yet, many of us neglect or lack the recommended dose.
We all know we need to sleep more. Instead of telling you that, let's look at the science of sleep and how to get better at it:
THREAD on Sleep 👇👇👇👇
An hour after we fall asleep, anabolic hormones start to flood our system
Testosterone & human growth hormone (HGH), both of which are integral to muscle & bone growth, are released after the first REM cycle and pulsed throughout the night
Sleep= Performance Enhancing Hormones
HGH levels peak about 1.5 to 3 hours after you fall asleep, with subsequent pulses of release during each subsequent phase of deep sleep.
If the onset of sleep is delayed significantly from your routine, your HGH levels decrease significantly.
The first time I was asked to present to hundreds of Strength and Conditioning coaches, I wondered, "How am I going to get these guys to listen to me, someone who is 145lbs soaking wet…"
A THREAD on presenting, teaching & getting buy-in any environment:
Our first instinct is to impress with accolades. Don't!
Don't list all the pro athletes, teams, or success you've had right off the bat.
Accolades impress the inexperienced, not people with competency in their field.
Don't fall for the need to prove yourself. No need to drop names or to try to impress with complex jargon or to overdo it with science. It mostly backfires.