Mental Models

How to … Change Your Life When Nothing Seems to be Going Your Way

May 4, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Recollect what it means to be human: we go through ups, downs, shortcomings, triumphs, losses, confidence, and apprehensions are all just a part of life. While unpleasant, failure is also a common and essential element of life. Bearing failure with equanimity is more likely to help you find success and get what you want.

Next, think about something that’s challenged you in the past and consider how you’re better off for having been through that experience. When you acknowledge you’ve overcome setbacks before, you can recognize that you can—and will—weather this one, too.

Ponder about whatever challenges you presently and see if you can reframe it. Try to perceive it as an opportunity for growth and consider what gifts could come from this experience. Visualizing successful outcomes is the best way to reset or repurpose your goals.

Idea for Impact: Developing resiliency isn’t easy, but excessive rumination and dwelling on past failures for longer than necessary will keep you stuck. When things aren’t going your way, challenge yourself to find any upsides, no matter how small. Find the good in the less-than-ideal. You’re more likely to get unstuck by trying a low-risk baby step forward.

Maximize Your Chance Possibilities & Get Lucky

April 27, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

British psychologist Richard Wiseman’s Luck Factor (2003) explores what makes some people lucky and others unlucky.

Being lucky is a mindset to bring to life. Lucky people maximize their chances of creating and noticing a lucky opportunity. They listen to their intuition when they get an opportunistic hunch.

The book’s core premise is whether you’re generally lucky or unlucky depends on your attitude—an optimistic mindset is a self-fulfilling prophecy, indeed. Lucky people expect good fortune; they expect good things to happen in their life. When they do have a run of bad luck, they adopt a resilient attitude and somehow turn that into good luck.

Idea for Impact: Lucky people aren’t lucky by sheer accident. To maximize your chances of getting lucky, get more opportunities and feel luckier. Get out there more often, produce more work, and talk to more people. Be open to the world and ready for new opportunities.

It Takes Luck as Much as Talent

April 24, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

In The Frontiers of Management (1986,) Peter Drucker writes about how Thomas J. Watson, Sr. emerged as a pioneer in the development of accounting and computing equipment:

Twice in the 1930s [Thomas J. Watson, Sr.] personally was on the verge of bankruptcy. What saved him and spurred IBM sales during the Depression were two New Deal laws: the Social Security Act in 1935 and the Wage-Hours Act of 1937–38. They mandated records of wages paid, hours worked, and overtime earned by employees, in a form in which the employer could not tamper with the records. Overnight they created markets for the tabulating machines and time clocks that Thomas Watson, Sr., had been trying for long years to sell with only moderate success.

Idea for Impact: It’s hard for people who pride themselves on their extraordinary skills to accept that they’re just as lucky as they’re smart.

Luck is primarily the result of identifying opportunities and taking appropriate action. Watson could capitalize on the newly created need for business machines because he had worked in the field for decades. And he gave this kind of luck much credit without feeling that doing so devalued his talent and hard work.

The Problem with Positive Thinking

April 18, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

When positive thinking is seeing bad situations in a favorable light, you can look for the good and make the best of life’s terrible blows. That’s OK.

The problem with positive thinking is the implication that if things don’t go right, you’ve failed yourself. That you’ve not believed in yourself enough. That you should blame yourself because there’s nowhere else to go.

Positive thinking so isn’t a temperament that works when things aren’t going well—that’s the real test as to whether a mindset holds up.

What you need is an attitude that radically embraces reality. It allows you to face the possibilities of negative encounters and not shun away from them. It lets you honestly appraise your circumstances.

The Upsides of Slowing Down

April 17, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Making faster and faster decisions can look like the proper response in a culture obsessed with speediness and efficiency that bleeds into the reckless and hasty. But as investment banker turned-law educator Frank Partnoy’s Wait: The Art and Science of Delay (2012) argues, while fast thinking—like fast food—hits the spot on occasion, too much speed can, however, be counterproductive.

Today we jump faster and more frequently to firm conclusions. We like to believe there is wisdom in our snap decisions, and sometimes there is. But true wisdom and judgment come from understanding our limitations when it comes to thinking about the future. This is why it is so important for us to think about the relevant time period of our decisions and then ask what is the maximum amount of time we can take within that period to observe and process information about possible outcomes. … The amount of time we take to reflect on decisions will define who we are. … Our ability to think about delay is a gift, a tool we can use to examine our lives. Life might be a race against time, but it is enriched when we rise above our instincts and stop the clock to process and understand what we are doing and why. A wise decision requires reflection, and reflection requires pause.

Time pressure, high stakes, and emotionally charged situations make it more likely that we will deviate from rational decisions and fall back on heuristics—caveman thinking indeed. Mental shortcuts may have their place for helping us to navigate quotidian risks like crossing the road or boiling a kettle. However, for every decision that can be made in a moment, there are many others where a considered and judicious approach may save you from calamity.

Idea for Impact: The next time you feel pressured to make a quick decision in the face of the unexpected, try to slow down, take a breath, and ask yourself whether your natural desire to get on with it needs to be tempered with caution.

Avoid Being Money-Rich and Time-Poor: Summary of Ashley Whillans’s ‘Time Smart’

April 13, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Stress and life dissatisfaction are often caused by being chronically “time poor”—having too many things to do and not enough time to do them. We equate time poverty with success and pay the physical and emotional price of rushing around.

Harvard academic Ashley Whillans’s Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life (2020) shows that people with more free time are happier, healthier, and more productive than people who work all the time and make more money.

The effects and costs of time poverty are so stark that researchers now compare it to a famine—a severe, drastic shortage of time affecting all of society—that carries many of the attendant negative consequences that a natural disaster produces. … No matter our age, education, or income, we share the same reality: none of us knows how much time we have left. One day, time runs out and tomorrow never comes. … Chasing money is valuable to a point, but it’s an infinite errand. You can always try to get more—and research shows people do that, no matter how much money they have already. Given how precious time is, we should put it first.

Idea for Impact: Develop a time-centric mindset and work fewer hours if necessary. Consider time as currency and become more purposeful, dodging mindless tasks and unfulfilling chores. Ask how much time you will give up for more money or productivity. Money is a powerful tool that can buy you time and amplify your freedom to pursue your values and priorities.

When Implementing Change, You’ll Encounter These Three Types Of People

April 6, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

To successfully make changes in your workplace, you’ll need to have everyone on board. But don’t try to get them all to accept change at once. Not everyone responds to change similarly; some employees will not react well to it initially.

According to Hans Finzel’s Change is Like a Slinky Paperback (2004,) you must anticipate your allies and adversaries. Determine which of these three groups each of your employees belongs to and adapt.

The Innovators and Early Adopters. Some people love the challenge of change for its excitement and the opportunity to spearhead change. These employees can research the topic, develop prototypes, and act as “change ambassadors” to motivate people further down the hierarchy.
The Careful Majority. Most employees will support change once they’re reasonably confident it’ll succeed. Demonstrate to skeptics what the change will represent and how it will benefit them and the company. Acknowledge concerns—both the spoken and unspoken—and the discomfort of being in unfamiliar territory while focusing on what’s within their control. Eventually, the majority will follow the early adopters’ lead.
The Holdouts. A few employees may resist—and even sabotage—change because they feel uncomfortable about it, don’t believe in it, or can’t see any benefits in it for themselves. If their contentions are worth the time and energy to debate and discuss, make a fair effort to gain alignment on perspective and resolution on position, but be firm with your strategic direction. Get key organizational leaders to give these dissenters reasons and opportunities to get on board, but let them know the price if they don’t accept change.

Idea for Impact: The best managers understand that each employee has different skills, sentiments, wants and needs—and work to put each employee in a position to feel valued and contribute.

Knowing When to Give Up: Establish ‘Kill Criteria’

March 27, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022) by the professional poker player and “decision scientist” Annie Duke meditates on how you could become so wedded to some predetermined goals that you don’t reassess your ever-evolving values and priorities based on new information that you may unearth along the way.

Quitting isn’t bad, especially if you’re blindly heading toward a “fixed object goal” that’s perhaps no longer serving your values—even hurting you in some way you didn’t anticipate.

A Mental Model to Help You Cut Your Losses

Duke suggests instituting “kill criteria” in advance. Before a pursuit, ask yourself: what signals you could see in the future would tell you it’s time to quit or change course?

Before entering a marathon, for example, you could decide if the medical tent counsels that you’re hitting your physical limitations, you’d quit trying to push yourself and walk out.

In other words, every goal needs a resolute “unless” for every task, investment, and relationship. E.g., if you’re miserable at your job, you could give it three more months and pre-select some indicators that would tell you if things haven’t improved even after you’ve increased your efforts.

Idea for Impact: Know when to give up. Grit is great—but only for carrying on for hard things that are worthwhile. Beware of tunnel vision; don’t get so narrowly focused on a specific goal and overlook other opportunities or priorities.

Be Open to Being Wrong

March 22, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell, one of history’s brightest minds, was once asked whether he’d be prepared to die for his beliefs. He replied, “Of course not. After all, I may be wrong.”

Feeling that you’re making more sense than others shouldn’t be the gauge for being accurate about your convictions. Especially when you’re good at arguing, you can take your ideas and judgments in various directions that will mislead you in ways that are more convincing to you than what the other side thinks. Blind spots can spawn certainty quickly.

Idea for Impact: Hold yourself to a higher standard. Turn doubt into a deliberate attitude. Allow your mind to wander in unexpected directions. Be open to other perspectives. Be open to being wrong.

The Hidden Influence of Association

March 16, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The “Law” of Association, a maxim popularized by motivational gurus Jack Canfield and Jim Rohn, implies that you’ll become the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

This is to say, empirically, everything about you is the average of the five people you hang around most. For instance, your happiness level will be the average of the five of your best mates.

If you want to raise the quality of your life, rub shoulders with people already living the quality of life you aspire to. To become a better communicator, hobnob with great communicators. If you want to be more positive, mix with more optimistic individuals. If you want to be a fabulous parent, spend time with parents who’ve mastered the art.

Birds of a feather flock together … because they share a common vision, and they’re all going in the same direction. So if you’re pursuing a goal, find the people who’ve already attained that goal or are well along the path to achieving that goal. Then be with them, hoping some of their principles rub off on you.

Idea for Impact: In regards to relationships, we’re greatly influenced—whether we like it or not—by those closest to us. Get out there and connect with those whose lives you want to live. Those connections can pay off careerwise and personally.

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Mental Models

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A Mental Model to Help You Cut Your Losses

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