Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Confidence

A Bit of Insecurity Can Help You Be Your Best Self

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Self-confidence, so often peddled by the self-help genre as the panacea for low achievement, can indeed cause it. Beyond a moderate amount, self-confidence is destined to encourage complacency—even conceit. You’ll never reach anything better with that attitude.

Paradoxically, conceding your insecurities—and having a certain amount of humility about your capabilities—-is usually to your advantage.

Deep down, some of history’s greatest icons—from Abraham Lincoln to Mahatma Gandhi—regularly worried that they weren’t good enough. That’s what kept them striving harder.

A Bit of Insecurity Can Help You Be Your Best Self Face up to your self-judgment. Low self-esteem is present only when your self-appraisal is more acute than reality.

Channel that nagging voice in your head that keeps saying negative things about you. Don’t be self-defeatingly vulnerable. Don’t worry yourself into perfection, anxiety, or despair.

Engage that little “sweet spot” of insecurity to motivate yourself to exert the additional effort required to seek a better self. For example, ignore anyone who tries to calm your nerves by telling you to “just be yourself” or “who else could be better suited” before a job interview.

Idea for Impact: Satisfaction can be deadly. Lasting self-confidence derives from your ongoing effort, not by virtue.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Smart Folks are Most Susceptible to Overanalyzing and Overthinking
  2. Why Others’ Pride Annoys You
  3. It’s Probably Not as Bad as You Think: The 20-40-60 Rule
  4. How to Embrace Uncertainty and Leave Room for Doubt
  5. You Can’t Know Everything

Easy Solutions

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This Buddhist joke evokes the old saying, “If you find yourself in a hole, first, stop digging.”

Prince Gautama, who had become the Buddha, saw one of his followers meditating under a tree at the edge of the Ganges River. Upon inquiring why he was meditating, the follower stated he was attempting to become so enlightened he could cross the river unaided. Buddha gave him a few pennies and said: “Why don’t you seek passage with that boatman. It is much easier.”

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus said, “Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will—then your life will be serene.”

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Presenting Facts Can Sometimes Backfire
  2. Anger Is Often Pointless
  3. The Drunkard’s Search or the Streetlight Effect [Cognitive Bias]
  4. Smart Folks are Most Susceptible to Overanalyzing and Overthinking
  5. Accidents Can Happen When You Least Expect Them: The Overconfidence Effect [Cognitive Bias]

No One Has a Monopoly on Truth

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The notion of god means different things to different people. Religions vary in identity and function. Almost all religions require their adherents to believe their specific religious doctrines with absolute certainty. These deep-seated beliefs and attitudes then become inflexible and are held with great zeal.

Closed Minds and Closed Hearts: Absolutism is Evil

Beware the Danger of Religious Certainty The self-righteous voices of fanaticism, the cruel voices of indifference and intolerance, and the uninformed voices of hate are revolting. Religious extremists are accountable for a lot of pain and suffering in the world. Crusades, inquisitions, faith-based discrimination and persecution, religious wars, and other forms of sheer hatred of other human beings are attributable to attitudes of hate and narrow-mindedness. Nothing deceives you as much as extreme passion.

The Scottish Anglican cleric Richard Holloway reflects on these concerns in Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt (2014,)

Religions may begin as vehicles of longing for mysteries beyond description, but they end up claiming exclusive descriptive rights to them. They segue the ardor and uncertainty of seeking to the confidence and complacence of possession. They shift from poetry to packaging. Which is what people want. They don’t want to spend years wandering in the wilderness of doubt. They want the promised land of certainty, and religious realists are quick to provide it for them. The erection of infallible systems of belief is a well-understood device to still humanity’s fear of being lost in life’s dark wood without a compass. “Supreme conviction is a self-cure for the infestation of doubts.” That is why David Hume noted that, while errors in philosophy were only ridiculous, errors in religion were dangerous. They were dangerous because when supreme conviction is threatened it turns nasty.

COEXIST: Bumper Sticker Designed by Jerry Jaspar

Idea for Impact: Beware the Danger of Religious Certainty

We, humans, tend to have a profound need for certainty. It’s easy to embrace prepackaged convictions unquestionably and deny doubt. Most people draw their faith as children from their parents and never question their beliefs for the rest of their lives.

Religious certainty can provoke limitedness in the human condition. We always have to concede that we may be mistaken and learn to tolerate others’ attitudes that may actually bother us.

Be a voice for peace. Be a voice for humanity, for open-mindedness, for wisdom, for justice.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Fight Ignorance, Not Each Other
  2. Group Polarization: Like-Mindedness is Dangerous, Especially with Social Media
  3. Presenting Facts Can Sometimes Backfire
  4. Does the Consensus Speak For You?
  5. It’s Probably Not as Bad as You Think: The 20-40-60 Rule

How to Embrace Uncertainty and Leave Room for Doubt

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The value of sound decision-making is to be mainly sought from embracing uncertainty.

As the Presocratic philosopher Xenophanes proclaimed, “All we have is but a woven web of guesses.”

Physicist Richard Feynman on how doubt informs critical thinking and learning The physicist Richard P. Feynman often talked about how doubt informs critical thinking and learning. In a 1964 lecture on “What Is and What Should Be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society,” published in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999,) Feynman warned,

A scientist is never certain. We all know that. We know that all our statements are approximate statements with different degrees of certainty; that when a statement is made, the question is not whether it is true or false but rather how likely it is to be true or false. … Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.

'The Meaning of It All' by Richard P. Feynman (ISBN 0465023940) Science produces ignorance, and ignorance produces more science, reminded Feynman in a 1963 lecture on “The Uncertainty of Science” published in The Meaning of It All (1999,)

To solve any problem that has never been solved before, you have to leave the door to the unknown ajar. You have to permit the possibility that you do not have it exactly right. Otherwise, if you have made up your mind already, you might not solve it.

When the scientist tells you he does not know the answer, he is an ignorant man. When he tells you he has a hunch about how it is going to work, he is uncertain about it. When he is pretty sure of how it is going to work, and he tells you, “This is the way it’s going to work, I’ll bet,” he still is in some doubt. And it is of paramount importance, in order to make progress, that we recognize this ignorance and this doubt. Because we have the doubt, we then propose looking in new directions for new ideas. The rate of the development of science is not the rate at which you make observations alone but, much more important, the rate at which you create new things to test.

The Czechoslovakia-born Israeli American scientist Itzhak Bentov formulated the so-called “Bentov’s Law,” reiterating that science produces ignorance both deliberately and unintentionally. In Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness (1977,) Bentov wrote,

One’s level of ignorance increases exponentially with accumulated knowledge. When one acquires a bit of new information, there are many new questions that are generated by it, and each new piece of information breeds five-ten new questions. These questions pile up at a much faster rate than does accumulated knowledge. Therefore, the more one knows, the greater his level of ignorance.

How to Embrace Uncertainty and Leave Room for Doubt

Idea for Impact: If you can’t tolerate uncertainty and ambiguity, you may as well embrace a fanatical ideology.

Learning the boundaries of your knowledge—the shortcomings, caveats, hedges, and the standard deviations toward everything you think you know—hones decision-making.

In other words, to get to the right answers, you first have to ask the right questions. So the first thing is to ponder about is what questions to ask and how to ask them. What are the things you don’t know, and how can you reach out into these areas that may be new to you to uncover somethings about the world and yourself?

Once you discover the answers, you’ll realize that approximate statements and varying degrees of certainty will require you to think probabilistically. Your inquiry shouldn’t be, “Will I be right, or will I be wrong?” but rather “What is the probability of this scenario versus that, and how does this judgment impact my choices?”

Leave room for doubt, even in your highest conviction ideas. If not, you’ll risk becoming smug and self-satisfied.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Nothing Deserves Certainty
  2. Admit When You Don’t Have All the Answers
  3. Care Less for What Other People Think
  4. It’s Probably Not as Bad as You Think: The 20-40-60 Rule
  5. Smart Folks are Most Susceptible to Overanalyzing and Overthinking

We Live in a Lookist Society

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From Irmgard Schlögl’s The Wisdom of the Zen Masters (1976,)

Wealthy donors invited Master Ikkyū to a banquet.

The Master arrived there dressed in beggar’s robes. His host, not recognizing him in this garb, hustled him away: “We cannot have you here at the doorstep. We are expecting the famous Master Ikkyū any moment.”

The Master went home, there changed into his ceremonial robe of purple brocade, and again presented himself at his host’s doorstep.

He was received with due respect, and ushered into the banquet room. There, he put his stiff robe on the cushion, saying, “I expect you invited the robe since you showed me away a little while ago,” and left.

That what you wear affects how others will perceive you is well-known empirically and has been established in scientific literature. People dressed conservatively, for example, are seen as more composed and trustworthy, whereas those dressed bold and suave are viewed as more attractive and self-assured. Women who wear menswear-inspired dress suits are more likely to be perceived well in job interviews. Men are shown to misperceive women’s friendliness as sexual intent, particularly when the women are dressed suggestively.

In the Second Quarto (1604) of Hamlet, Shakespeare, in the voice of the Polonius, declares, “For the apparrell oft proclaimes the man.” Mark Twain seemingly pronounced, “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”

Several maxims remark about the notion that an individual’s clothing is confirmation for his/her personal, professional, and social identity:

  • In Egypt: “لبس البوصة، تبقى عروسة” or “Dressing up a stick turns it into a doll”
  • In China: “我们在外面判断这件衣服, 在家里我们判断这个人” or “Abroad we judge the dress; at home we judge the man”
  • In Japan: “馬子にも衣装” or “Even a packhorse driver would look great in fine clothes”
  • In Korea: “옷이 날개다” or “Clothes are wings”

Idea for Impact: We live in a lookist society. Always dress the part. Ignore this at your own peril.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Want to boost your self-confidence? Dress sharply and look neat.
  2. No White Socks with Black Shoes
  3. How to Address Employees with Inappropriate Clothing
  4. Party Etiquette: Can you take your leftovers home?
  5. Accidents Can Happen When You Least Expect Them: The Overconfidence Effect [Cognitive Bias]

It’s Probably Not as Bad as You Think: The 20-40-60 Rule

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The 20-40-60 Rule, believed to be written by humorist Will Rogers for his movie Life Begins at 40 (1935,) states,

When you are 20, you care about what everybody thinks of you.
When you are 40, you don’t care about what people think of you,
and when you are 60, you actually understand that people were too busy thinking about themselves.

In essence, don’t agonize about what other people are thinking about you. They’re perhaps busy worrying over what you’re thinking about them.

The 20-40-60 Rule became popular when venture capitalist Heidi Roizen cited it (incorrectly attributing it to the actress Shirley MacLaine) at a 2014 lecture at Stanford. First Round Capital’s Review has noted,

People have enormous capacity to beat themselves up over the smallest foibles—saying the wrong thing in a meeting, introducing someone using the wrong name. Weeks can be lost, important relationships avoided, productivity wasted, all because we’re afraid others are judging us. “If you find this happening to you, remember, no one is thinking about you as hard as you are thinking about yourself. So don’t let it all worry you so much.”

Idea for Impact: Don’t Beat Yourself Up Over Your Mistakes

Chances are, people around you aren’t nearly as critical of you as you are of yourself. No one’s going to remember or care about your mistakes, and neither should you.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Care Less for What Other People Think
  2. Ever Wonder If The Other Side May Be Right?
  3. You Can’t Know Everything
  4. The More You Believe in Yourself, the Less You Need Others to Do It for You
  5. Could Limiting Social Media Reduce Your Anxiety About Work?

Accidents Can Happen When You Least Expect Them: The Overconfidence Effect [Cognitive Bias]

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Accidents Can Happen When You Least Expect Them: The Overconfidence Effect In the context of decision-making and risk-taking, the “overconfidence effect” is a judgmental bias that can affect your subjective estimate of the likelihood of future events. This can cause you to misjudge the odds of positive/desirable events as well as negative/undesirable events.

As the following Zen story illustrates, experience breeds complacency. When confidence gives way to overconfidence, it can transform from a strength to a liability.

A master gardener, famous for his skill in climbing and pruning the highest trees, examined his disciple by letting him climb a very high tree. Many people had come to watch. The master gardener stood quietly, carefully following every move but not interfering with one word.

Having pruned the top, the disciple climbed down and was only about ten feet from the ground when the master suddenly yelled: “Take care, take care!”

When the disciple was safely down an old man asked the master gardener: “You did not let out one word when he was aloft in the most dangerous place. Why did you caution him when he was nearly down? Even if he had slipped then, he could not have greatly hurt himself.”

“But isn’t it obvious?” replied the master gardener. “Right up at the top he is conscious of the danger, and of himself takes care. But near the end when one begins to feel safe, this is when accidents occur.”

Reference: Irmgard Schlögl’s The Wisdom of the Zen Masters (1976.) Dr. Schlögl (1921–2007) became Ven. Myokyo-ni in 1984, and served as Rinzai Zen Buddhist nun and headed the Zen Centre in London.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Smart Folks are Most Susceptible to Overanalyzing and Overthinking
  2. You Can’t Know Everything
  3. Make Decisions Using Bill Hewlett’s “Hat-Wearing Process”
  4. This is Yoga for the Brain: Multidisciplinary Learning
  5. Problem Reversal: How to Solve a Problem By “Standing It on Its Head”

Benefits, Not Boasts

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Just about every interaction is about selling something, whether you realize it or not.

When you try to be persuasive in a pitch or a presentation, you may come to pass as being overconfident at best, or boastful at worst.

Benefits, Not Boasts---Selling Without Boasting Here’s a method that can help you transform your boasts into benefits in support of a prospective customer.

“I have 15 years of experience in this field,” may sound boastful. Instead, say, “I bring to you 15 years of experience in this field, promising you that, should any problems surface, they will be handled promptly and proficiently.” This tolerable way to promote yourself also won’t make you seem forceful.

More to the point,

  • Avoid self-superiority declarations such as “I am better than others.” Instead, couch your claims as endorsements from others: “My past clients have told me that … .” According to a study by organizational theorist Jeffrey Pfeffer, you’ll be regarded more likable and competent if you can get somebody else (even a paid agent) to sing your praises for you.
  • Steer clear of humblebragging, i.e. masking a boast as a self-deprecating statement as in “I’m a perfectionist at times; it is so hard!” Humblebraggers appear less sincere than blatant braggarts do.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Why They Don’t Understand You and What to Do About It
  2. Good Questions Encourage Creative Thinking
  3. Become a Smart, Restrained Communicator Like Benjamin Franklin
  4. Facts Alone Can’t Sell: Lessons from the Intel Pentium Integer Bug Disaster
  5. Use Active Voice for Persuasive Communication

Could Limiting Social Media Reduce Your Anxiety About Work?

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Limit Social Media Participation, Reduce Envy and Anxiety In a recent article on “Facebook envy,” I wrote about how looking at the carefully curated lives of others on social media can provoke insecurities about one’s own accomplishments—or lack thereof.

In response, a blog reader directed me to journalist Keith Breene’s writeup about a study on why millennials aren’t happy at work. Here’s a précis:

Much of the stress and anxiety reported by twenty-somethings is caused by ruthless comparison with peers. Emerson Csorba, director of the consultancy Gen Y, reported one millennial describing the challenge like this: “If we are not doing something exceptional or don’t feel important and fulfilled for what we are doing, we have a hard time.”

Where is the pressure coming from? With millennials more connected than any previous generation, opportunities to compare levels of success are ubiquitous, creating anxiety and insecurity. The accomplishments of peers, shown on social media, are a constant prompt to examine millennials’ own successes or failures. The problem is made much worse by the fact that only positive achievements are posted—you only ever see the good stuff.

Even though everyone knows that social media is a kind of PR feed of people’s lives, when you spend so much time online, these messages can easily become overpowering.

Idea for Impact: Resist the Envious Consequence of Social Media

Everyone’s lives are far from perfect, notwithstanding the dreamy pictures they’re posting on social media.

Protect yourself and your own internal goodness from self-sabotage. Rejoice in your real accomplishments without needing to show off to anyone else or seek external validation. Care less for what other people think.

Life isn’t a competition. There isn’t a race to the finish lines.

Furthermore, making others envious should never be a motivation for curating your social media posts. Nothing good comes from trying to be the envy of others.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  2. Doesn’t Facebook Make You Unhappy?
  3. Group Polarization: Like-Mindedness is Dangerous, Especially with Social Media
  4. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  5. The More You Can Manage Your Emotions, the More Effective You’ll Be

Fight Ignorance, Not Each Other

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Demonization in the Era of Hyper-polarization and Hyper-politicization

We live in a era of hyper-polarization and hyper-politicization. Studies suggest that we Americans have mostly devolved to two political groups that fervently believe that all wisdom resides in their particular standpoints and therefore care less and less to empathize with the other side.

People loathe the “other” ideological group with such visceral obsession that their hate pollutes their minds. Thanks partly to social media, self-organized tribes are isolating themselves into geographic, religious, ideological, educational, ethnic, and media bubbles of like-minded crusaders.

As I wrote previously, studies have shown that hanging around a group of likeminded folks can make people even more scornful of differing viewpoints, than they are as individuals. They demonize anyone who disagrees with them. They neither account for the case against their positions, nor find middle ground.

In the wake of the 2011 Tucson shooting (where perpetrator Jared Loughner shot and killed six individuals, and injured 14 others at a political gathering,) meditation teacher James Baraz of wrote a Huffington Post essay underscoring the ignorance that brings about the aforesaid demonization:

The real villain is in this story is not Jared Loughner. It’s not the media. And it’s not the gun rights advocates. The real villain is ignorance. Because of ignorance, people project their fear and turn those who are different into enemies—both in their minds and in actuality. Once you demonize the “other” they become less than human and you can inflict pain on them without guilt or shame.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Group Polarization: Like-Mindedness is Dangerous, Especially with Social Media
  2. Charlie Munger’s Iron Prescription
  3. Presenting Facts Can Sometimes Backfire
  4. [Effective Arguments] Explain Your Opponent’s Perspective
  5. Rapoport’s Rules to Criticize Someone Constructively
Here’s a prayer to help you deal with annoying people. Learn from the Stoics!