hello and welcome to the moonshots
podcast it's episode
271 I'm your co-host mik Parsons and as
always I'm joined by the man himself Mr
Mark Pearson Freeland good morning Mark
hey good morning Mike and good morning
moonshots listeners uh viewers on
YouTube as well as our amazing members
and patrons subscribers Mike I'm not
going to lie to you or anybody dialing
in and tuning in today we have
I think a very clear very actionable
very reassuring episode ahead of us for
today uh you're clearly well prepared
and it would only suggest that you're
thinking clearly so Mark why don't you
reveal what Clarity is about to become
of our listeners and members well I
think the uh the Mist is clearing from
my mind my indecisions and cognitive
biases are getting out of the way as we
lean into this week's episode on Rolph
deell art of thinking clearly for those
who aren't familiar with Ralph he's a
Swiss author as well as an entrepreneur
he's got a background in business uh a
little bit of philosophy Mike that's a
moon shot's favorite for us but his book
is all essentially a guide I suppose you
could call it that helps you and I all
of our listeners and members and the
moonshots family help us avoid errors
that we might un uh
unnaturally or totally naturally I
should say
unog Mak in our days in order to Cloud
our judgment and help us make the wrong
decisions I mean Mike this is something
that I certainly probably struggle with
each day and I don't even know about
it well I can tell you mark the the art
of thinking clearly by deell is one of
my favorite reads of this year so this
is a strong recommend from Mike Parsons
and where I want to go with this is if
you like Shane Paris
greatest mental models episode that we
did some few years ago this will blow
you away this book because if you want
to make better decisions if you want to
be sort of Buffett like or Elon Musk
like this is the book for you because
the thing that struck me about this book
is as you are becoming aware of all the
different ways to
think it takes a lot of the mystery out
of tough decisions and the crazy thing
because this book has like a 100 mental
models in it for you to use and you're
like you feel like well I have to carry
this book around with me for every
decision I'm going to make in life
because until reading this book I must
have made so many bad decisions because
I was unaware of these biases and so
forth so that's all a long way of saying
if you want to think better make better
decisions this is the show for you Mark
I can't wait to jump in now you've found
a bunch of Great Clips here where do you
want to kick off the moment of clarity
that we're going to have together yeah I
I think like you say there's going to be
a lot of surprise perhaps in the way
that we all function in our day-to-day
lives without these models uh
Illuminating the right path and one of
the key areas that Ralph tries to lean
in towards is helping us uh simplify
those complex moments so this first clip
we've got is really helping you and I
and all of our listeners understand
today that sometimes this idea of choice
is not always such a good thing in fact
a paradox of choice can be totally
overwhelming so before we talk about
actionable insights and ways to help us
think clearly let's set the scene by
hearing from Ral himself help us
understand the issues with the Paradox
of
choice if you have too many options you
get
distracted um and and sometimes you have
to learn how to close doors how to close
options we have a tendency to leave all
the options open in a relationship oh
we'll have this option open and then you
know I'm married but I'm also going to
have you know little you know little
Affair here and there or I have a job
but then I have some side jobs I'm doing
side careers and or I study something
but I'm also studying three other things
on the side because it gives me options
this this this notion of having as many
options available to you as possible is
not a good one because it distracts you
it's better to close some of the doors
I'm not saying all doors except one but
close some doors because doors distract
you you can't focus a lot of energy onto
your main door into your main room then
so closing doors is important the other
one is the Paradox of choice the more
choice we have the harder it is for us
to make a decision you know if you go uh
to your
Supermarket you have an abundance of
let's say yogurts you have 300 different
choices of yogurt and you will never be
happy because you'll never be sure
whether the yogurt you pick that
specific brand you pick was the perfect
one so it makes you happier if you have
maybe three or six types of yogurt left
uh only three or six types of yogurt on
the shelf that makes you much happier
than picking out of 300 so limiting
Choice has a certain has a certain U way
of making you happier you know even
though I'm not currently living in
America you know keep one thing about
this Choice idea America is built
currently on the idea of waking up on a
Saturday morning and going to Walmart
where you are are faced with more
choices of assorted plastic formations
than you than you will ever know what to
do with but that's what people love
people love the idea of walking into
these Mega warehouses with choices for
just everything that it never ends and I
think if the typical Walmart was six
times the size of the current one they'd
love that even more yeah I think so too
it almost has something like
entertainment to me it has it's almost
like a video game you walk into a major
mega store of a Walmart and you go
around it's it's more of a game uh more
of a huge it's it's almost like watching
a movie you walk through the aisles it's
like you know watching a movie it
doesn't really add to your life to the
quality of your life it just distracts
but the people there think just the
opposite of what you said yeah yeah they
they do but you know science science is
clear on
you you much happier when you have a
limited Choice after having made a
choice uh than when you have a a huge
sample of of things to pick
from so mark this is a very good place
to start because one of the things that
we totally have within our circle of
control is how many options we want to
present ourselves with now a great
example of that is your
wardrobe um if you always spend 20
minutes looking at your wardrobe going
what am I going to wear that would tell
me you probably could call that wardrobe
and you might remember the show that we
did on uh the one thing right as a sort
of sorting uh princip of saying what is
the one thing I could do now that would
make things easier in the future and
really getting focused I think this is
all my way of saying that there are
choices that you can make there are
decisions on how many many options you
you bring to yourself what you get
focused on and this is all by this kind
of transition to being in control and
taking control and taking ownership for
the things around you not only the
stimulus coming in but how you go about
thinking and this is the power of this
book if you have made the choice to take
ownership of how you think what you
think about how you spend your time and
attention the Paradox of choice Mark
it's just one step it's one example of
what you can do in order to liberate
your mind because I think our minds are
overrun if you think about our lives
pre- internet and look at where we are
now 20 years later we have so many
notifications emails Services pings
dings and dongs like our brains are just
like going bananas so this is why mental
models matter this is why reducing the
choices simplifying and focusing I mean
this really threads so many different
ways into like what we've learned on the
show right yeah big time I mean we know
that our brains are not a supercomputer
right so naturally we do all get
overwhelmed by too much information like
you say the dings and the dongs also
right now as we record you know you got
Black Friday deals you've got Christmas
Around the Corner Thanksgiving so we're
all getting bombarded with
advertisements for new items and more
options oh do you need this TV or that
TV why then you up skill or upsize your
um your your wardrobe or all the skills
that you already know so on and so forth
so all of these opportunities from
businesses to help sell us a new product
or service equally is very very
overwhelming and you're right Mike we
talked about you know simplifying your
wardrobe so it's nice and easy when you
look in and you just see the moonshots
uh outfits of black t-shirts and yellow
backgrounds it's all very very simple
but limiting options is a real way to
help do that another thing that I read
that helps with a paradox of choice mik
which I thought was quite interesting is
embracing the idea of good enough oh
here we go yeah yeah yeah yeah so rather
than being you know and I know our
personality types Mike and our listeners
probably know as well you and I can be
maybe we've got traits a little bit of
perfectionists and you know we kind of
beat ourselves up if it's not quite
right but if you adopt a a satisfier
mindset I think is what they call it
then you can find maybe a little bit
like the happiness equation more comfort
and gratitude in the results and the
outputs of the things that you do in
order to then remove elements of other
choices because you realize oh I don't
need to worry about one two and three
instead I'm happy with how number one
turned out okay let's move on to the
next thing is that something that speaks
volumes to you Mike this idea of
embracing good enough uh well you know
that is just another great example of a
mental model that you can deliberately
take on you're going to look at your
work through a good enough model and you
would do this because you want to ship
the work and avoid being caught in this
perfectionist Loop so you never ship
anything right so that's that's sort of
the risk but you know what's interesting
like there are so many ideas in this
book like just to give you an idea we
were talking about just a couple then
there's one called the swimmer's body
illusion which is hilarious right so
people think oh look if I swim I'm going
to look like the swimmers but what he
points out is many of the reasons
swimmers look like they look is because
they biologically are better suited to
swimming so they tend to swim but we all
think if I swim I'm going to look like
them but he's like you got no chance
because you just don't even have the
biological uh starting point interesting
other ones uh clustering illusion the
recency effect uh the availability heris
the halo effect framing the Winner's
curse the planning fallacy Mark there
are so many options in how we want to
look at the world how we want to see
data how we want to make decisions and
what I want to say to you is if you
thought the great mental models by Shane
Parish was good yeah this is like
literally 99 mental models to help you
make better decisions and I I would have
to say one of the best decisions you
could make off the bat would be becoming
a member of the moonshots podcast would
you not say Mark that's right Mike
because to coin one of the other uh
phrases from within the book uh
chauffeur knowledge Mike which is one of
my favorites the idea of uh genuinely
understanding a subject rather than M
merely parting it yes the difference
here is that we actually have members
who know the subject matter these are
individuals who sign up for that piece
of information from the moonshot show
and I know that putting into practice
every single day so let me just dust off
my trumpet here you go please welcome in
all of our members who are winning each
day Bob dmar Maran and Connor Lisa Sid
Mr bonjo and Paul Berg cman Joe
Christian samuela Barbara Deborah and
lass Steve Craig Ravi and evet R niikada
Ingram and Durk vanata Marco Jet and
Roger Steph RW Diana and Kristoff Denise
Laura Smitty Mike Antonio Zachary Austin
and Fred Ola Andy Diana Margie Jasper
fabin guong and Eddie as well as our
brand new members L and saaba guys thank
you so much for joining us here on the
moonshot show we have an action-packed
show 271 ahead of us but Mike it just
keeps on giving doesn't it the moonshot
show not only do we give them a little
bit of Luna powered goodness but also
you get access to the Master Series yeah
you certainly do and a couple of newbies
a couple of fresh moonshots in in there
as well well so big shout out to you too
um coming back to the to the bookmark
it's insane to think
like the amount of wisdom that is
available to you and I really do hope
that what we're doing on the show here
for all of our listeners members and
viewers helps them see that there are so
many tools in the universe to go out and
to be the best version of yourself the
crazy thing about this book though is if
you kind of cataloge the the 99 models
they're like basically look like this
there's biases that we might have there
might be emotional triggers that we have
classic decision-making errors uh logic
pitfalls um misperceptions
fallacies uh self-identity biases risk
mistakes and behavioral economics points
of view Mark that's why I was so blown
away by this book because I was like oh
my gosh first response is how bad is my
decision making when I look at how good
he is and then when I get over the pain
and suffering there I'm like wow um one
of the big things here is like we can be
just more self-aware of how we can
deceive ourselves and beholding biases
so if you take a little bit of caution
there that can set you up like whenever
you see some data or there's a potential
problem coming and you need a solution
and answer or a decision even if the
only thing you take from this book and
this show is like pause take a breath
you have all of these starting points
which may lead to a poor decision so if
you just try and be more deliberate more
objective you can get a better result
and Mark I think this next clip that
you've got for us really kind of sets us
up to being more self-aware yeah I think
that's a great introduction Mike and
you're right with 99 models we're only
going to focus on a few key ones today
and maybe we'll bring back uh some kind
of blown out series on R's book but
today Mike you're right let's get into a
little bit of the biases from rol's book
that are going to help us really
understand this idea of self-deception
biases and social proof deception biases
so first off we're going to break in
with productivity game who's going to
introduce us to four key elements from
the book all around the idea of
self-deception
biases clustering
illusion flip a coin and chart the
result by moving a line up one for heads
and down one for Tails after 10 coin
flips you may have a chart that goes up
and to the right after a string of heads
now it would be foolish to bet that you
would continue seeing more heads than
Tails since the outcome is 50/50 and a
sample size of 10 doesn't mean much but
people make small sample size bets all
the time a person moves to a city with
long Winters after spending just 5 days
in that City in the middle middle of
summer a person buys a $2,000 treadmill
after using a treadmill at the gym just
a handful of times or a person sells all
their Investments based on a 30-day
Trend when they have a 30-year investing
time
Horizon our brains love to find meaning
and short-term Trends and rush to
conclusions we irrationally make big
decisions based on small data sets
especially if a data set supports
something we want to do which brings us
to the next item on our checklist
confirmation bias I used to stare at
stock price charts for hours searching
for buy and sell signals if I felt the
market was going to go up I always found
a bullish price pattern that signal a
buy and when I thought the market was
ready for a correction I always found a
price pattern that confirmed my fears
Warren Buffett once remarked what a
human being is best at doing is
interpreting all new information so that
their prior conclusions remain intact if
there's something you feel like doing
you will almost always find enough
evidence to support doing it if you're
in the market for new house and you have
a good feeling the instant you walk into
an open house you'll suddenly expand
your Pros list for that house and the
cons like a long commute to work or a
noisy road behind the house will
suddenly matter
less the next item on our checklist is
special case
syndrome Business Leaders go forward
with costly projects despite knowing
similar projects have failed because
they insist the next project is a
special case or an
exception investors routinely buy at
Peak Euphoria and sell when everyone
else is panicking because they insist
that what's happening now is unlike
anything in financial history but as Sir
John Templeton famously said before most
expensive words in the English language
are This Time It's
Different our next bias is not invented
here
syndrome one evening author Ro de belly
tried a new sauce recipe to go with the
fish he was cooking when his wife took a
bite she made a face and slowly scraped
the sauce off the fish Rolf didn't think
the sauce was that bad two weeks later
his wife was cooking fish and made two
sauces her tried and true sauce and a
sauce from a famous French chef Rolf
tasted the second sauce and thought it
was absolutely awful after dinner his
wife confessed the second sauce was not
from a famous chef it was the sauce that
Ralph made two weeks
earlier when we have an idea for a new
business or a family vacation we feel it
is far more brilliant than it actually
is and we are far more likely to commit
to that idea than if it came from
someone else
Rolf says we are drunk on our own ideas
to sober up take a step back every now
and then and examine their quality in
hindsight which of your ideas from the
past 10 years were truly
outstanding
exactly oh man boy have we got some
insights here so um drunk on your own
ideas this one stands out in the small
sample size
um how many times have you being pitched
an idea by someone drunk on their own
idea saying oh I've got this great idea
let me tell you about it and you know
that they haven't talk to anybody else
or they're not listening to anybody else
and they pitch you and you're like that
sounds awful
um so being drunk on your own ideas I
think we're all a bit guilty of that I
mean the other one obviously the sample
size like someone asks two people and
thinks that's how the world thinks right
um but I think the point here here that
this illustrates is the feeling I had
when I read the book which was like oh
my gosh as he reveals each of these new
paradigms and mental models and ways to
think you realize oh my gosh we are such
terrible decision machines like humans
really we're full of all these problems
like we get affected by our emotions and
the risk and what an Perfect
story of Ralph cooking for his wife and
he thought that the Second Source was
disgusting but it was exactly the same
as his recipe that they had had two
weeks before and he couldn't in the
author himself couldn't see how self-
deceived he was about his own bias does
that not tell you everything about as
long as you
realize that we're very bad decision
machines and take a step back and just
try and be more
self-aware I think that that's the big
Call to Arms here isn't it yeah I think
you're right being self-aware and also
maybe double clicking or you know sense
checking what you've decided upon you
know I like the two that you called out
Mike as well the not invented here and
this clustering illusion you know I have
actually been guilty of making a source
that I claimed was pretty good and my
wife also saying what are you talking
about you don't add you know vinegar to
Salmon you know that sort of thing um
and you you do have to check yourself
sometimes
I'm I'm going to be typically doing this
sort of behavior when I feel very
defensive maybe that's a product of
being angry or maybe it's a product of
feeling anxious or insecure whatever it
might be and often obviously on the show
we've spoken about journaling and
reflection and so on when you do look
back at your behavior when perhaps you
defended a source that was absolute
garbage or when you're only taking the
point of view of maybe two or three
people instead of going out and getting
a full sample size of of information you
do almost have to take a step back and
think okay am I doing this properly am I
really doing this with all the diligence
that I should do because more often than
not at least in my case I've probably
utilize some of those biases when I
don't want to go further and I don't
want to have to go out and talk to 20
people or I don't want to have to admit
that I'm no good in the
kitchen totally I totally know what you
mean there so where I would take this
Mark
is where do I see this kind of
self-deception uh the most and what
comes to my mind in my professional work
is the amount of people working on early
stage businesses who are self deceived
what I mean is it's the classic thing
someone comes to me with an
idea and says here's what I'm thinking
and I'm like okay how many people have
you interviewed who are customers and
how many people have you surveyed how
many prototypes have you shown them and
asked them for feedback on and it blows
me away Mark the amount of people who
say less than 10 hardly any or scarily
zero and that means that like they're
not only
self-deceiving but their chances of
creating a great product at like zero
because if you haven't validated the
problem and that you've got potential
solution why would you build anything
why would you be in this guest
guesstimation world like surely we we
only want to spend our time doing stuff
that's well thought out be it a product
or decisions in our personal lives and I
think this this book just illustrates
and makes us self-aware it's a big
wakeup call you know it's a big cold
bucket of water going boom you're full
of these bies now the crazy thing is
Mark we're riffing here and exploring
these self-deception ones but the crazy
thing is Ralph has got a whole bunch
more as well right I know he does this
next clip that we're going to have leans
in if we' just understood a little bit
about the ways that our brains maybe
naturally over life build these biases
around self-deception you're right Mike
we're now going to take it into a little
bit of a different direction we're now
going to lean into some of the biases
that rol calls out within his book that
are more around social proof deception
so let's hear from productivity game
again he's going to break down four more
of these elements with us uh within the
book to help us understand some more
fantastic
biases it's survivorship
bias behind every successful person is a
graveyard of unsuccessful people who are
silent when you drive around town you
see hundreds of stores open for business
making money but you don't see all the
businesses that came before them that
failed if you drove through town when
day and suddenly saw that half the
stores were abandoned representing the
average failure rate of a business after
5 years you might think twice before
quitting your job and investing your
life savings in a brick-and motar
business if you took up golf after
watching golf on TV you would have
unrealistic expectations and probably
quit after a few weeks golf on TV shows
the best shots from the best players who
are having one of their best days on the
course as a new golfer you would
probably enjoy the game more and
continue playing if you saw a highlight
reel of terrible shots and started
learning with realistic
expectations next up selection Factor
neglect unless you're around 6'2 in tall
have a long torso big feet and an arm
length to height ratio higher than most
people dedicating your life to becoming
an Olympic freestyle swimmer will be a
very frustrating Endeavor because you
can put in more work than someone with a
swimmer's body and never defeat them in
a race we want to believe that we can
succeed with hard work alone so we look
past prerequisite traits I.E selection
factors of top performers in select
fields we can learn most things and
Excel in many fields but we must be
careful not to emulate someone with
extreme
traits next up outcome
bias the only thing worse than emulating
an extreme outlier is emulating someone
who got extremely lucky a famous hedge
fund manager can make a string of dumb
decisions and get rich but years later
that same investor will make similar
decisions and lose everything luck plays
a Bigg part in success than we'd like to
admit if we picked a random group of 100
successful entrepreneurs only one on
average will have success starting
another business in the book rol says
you would assume that such self-starters
who are blessed with Talent a good
personal Network and solid reputation
will be well equipped to found numerous
other startups but repeat success is
rare because luck often plays a bigger
role than skill does group think our
doubts get washed away when we see a
room full of people arrive at the same
conclusion but the consensus we see is
likely an illusion if the room had just
one attractive and confident person in
position of authority who told a great
story they could have persuaded the
group to take their side however if the
group had not been subject to that
persuasive leader and anonymously wrote
down their conclusions on a sheet of
paper there probably wouldn't be
consensus never underestimate the power
of a persuasive person to get a group of
people to make irrational
decisions now the next time you're about
to commit your limited time and
hard-earned money to an Endeavor quickly
check out the eight items on the
cognitive bu check list when you are
aware of your cognitive biases you are
more likely to embrace trial periods
create backup plans and predetermine a
stopping point just in case your
forecast is wrong since you now know
that cognitive biases are prone to lead
to over optimistic forecasts it's safe
to assume that what you want to do will
take twice as long and the payoff will
be half as rewarding as you think if
something take twice as long and yield
half the reward but you still deem it
worth doing it is probably a worthwhile
Endeavor let me hit you with that list
here we go this is the bias checklist am
I overestimating my knowledge or
abilities am I seeking information that
only confirms my existing beliefs that
one's a huge one is my decision being
influenced by the first piece of
information I received am I being am I
basing my judgment on recently or easily
recalled examples am I sticking with a
decision because of past Investments not
current value am I underestimating the
time and resource needed for this am I
following the crowd without questioning
it am I judging someone or something
based on one good trait I mean I can
just go on and on these are the sort of
things you can practically do from
reading this book and isn't it
interesting as I was reading of those
how many of those did you kind of Mark
go oo yeah I've kind of done that like
it's a little it's a little
uncomfortable right I mean you know our
viewers probably couldn't see my screen
but yeah I was wincing M because again
as we're finding out with this book
there are so many biases that you're not
necessarily even aware of until somebody
points it out and you realize oh yeah
I've totally done that before I am
influenced by that first piece of
evidence maybe because it's easier
it agrees with me yeah each one of those
you're like guilty yep guilty is charged
guilty but but it kind of unravels a
little bit this is what I wanted to
really point out about the book like it
it's it's wonderful in so many ways but
it's quite confronting because you
realize how flawed your thinking truly
is yeah the the the the one that's
really stands out to me is the um
survivorship uh bias which I think is
quite an interesting one Mike because I
think when particularly when we're
looking at social media
uh overnight abs and so on I think
people compare themselves to what they
can see online and people might look at
um you know an individual like federa
and think okay well he is an amazing
tennis player um he's the best person in
the world um how can I become like him
but the truth is it takes hard work as
we were learning from productivity games
clip just then and a stat that I think
maybe we've spoken about on the show
before is that Roger feder only one 55%
of all the points he ever played
55% so even though he dominated you know
tennis for a couple of decades he's
still only won by just over 50% let me
do a build let me do a build so take the
professional sports
concept and apply survivorship
bias now what's so cool in life is all
the young boys and girls that see
professional athletes and say I want to
be like them that's
great but the survivorship bias is what
people don't realize when they say I
want to be like Serena Williams or I
want to be like Tiger Woods what they
don't see is
statistically for every Tiger Woods
there's
literally millions of people that
failed it's just like all the kids right
now that look at the NBA and go I want
to be in the NBA do you realize the
statistical chance of making it is so so
low and if you actually knew that and in
some ways it's kind of good that we
don't because you want people to Hope
into dream but the reality is like when
we are making big decisions to be aware
that actually what is the true
likelihood as opposed to oh I see lots
of pro sports on telly great there's
lots of pro sports opportunities but
actually if someone does the
math on you know
what are the chances like we should this
is really fun let's try and actually
apply your federa thing what do you
think statistically what are the chances
of of being a pro a pro tennis player oh
I mean I suppose it's going to be a
surprisingly low percentage because I
heard that tennis is now more popular in
the world than ever before okay so hit
me what What statistic what what have
you found okay here we here we go um so
what I want you to do though is is it
like 1 in a thousand okay I'm gonna say
it's one in every 100,000 okay well
you're saying like Okay one in okay
let's have a look here I'm asking the
famous chat gbt to give me a
number it's like this is like it's so
funny even chat gpts like dude the
number you're asking for is like so
insanely low
oh okay so it says the chances of
becoming a professional tennis player
are extremely low it's almost impossible
to calculate but at a
minimum at a minimum it's one chance in
every
100,000 and it's basically saying I
can't it's so low I can't even give you
a proper number yeah so this would be
not 1% not 0.1 but it's
.1%
chance that's that's the truth of it and
and you're you're right Mike we're not
trying to discourage all of our aspiring
Tennis Pros who are listening to the
moonshot show from giving it a go I
think you're right the caveat here is
we've got to go in with open eyes yeah
you've got to go in with maybe a sense
of dreaming but also a sense of realism
you need to understand as we heard you
know from the outcome bias as well there
is a part play for luck yeah sure not
every entrepreneur can have two home
runs every time um listen the number of
entrepreneurs that really struggle on
their second Venture and it's quite
confronting because they've
overestimated their own role in their
first success and not realize that
statistically that the the luck of
meeting the right person or they lucked
timing around a particular event that
was
pivotal um so that can be quite quite
challenging uh uh for them but here's
the thing though Mark what I would say
is if you use something like the social
proof um deception bias and you're aware
of
it you said this really interesting
thing like eyes wide open I think that
sets you on the stage to be resilient
and courageous because you know the
challenge is coming you know obstacles
are coming you know the valley of
darkness is a guaranteed thing because I
think part of what trips us up in life
is we weren't expecting the challenge
cuz we thought it would be easy so we
abandoned ship in like pure flight or
fight responses but we can manage that
way better if we're way more realistic
and we don't fall for the deception of
social proof right yeah I think you're
totally right and also I think the value
of knowing your
U you've got to be able to ask yourself
twice you know I know we've said it on
the show before but I love to make a de
ision and sleep on it oh totally and see
if my opinion changes by the time I wake
up yes because I find that there are as
you've already said so many distractions
in life but also there are so many
Inspirations yes so when I talk to a
colleague or I read a really insightful
or engaging uh blog post or email or if
I hear a bit of music I might change my
mind and think actually this could be
worth giving it another go right spot on
so there's a build I would do on that so
having read the book book I would say
what Ral would recommend to us is a few
additional
steps um so let's say you're like sleep
on it so you've got to your decision
there's a couple of things you could do
before that the first thing you would do
is challenge the
data so early in the decision process
when someone says here's a fact or
here's what's happening you can say well
really prove it show it to me let's
check let's verify that then you could
ask which model
of thinking would be most appropriate
for this kind of problem then when you
have your solution then you sleep on it
so challenge the data ask which model
sleep on it guaranteed better much
better decision much better path to
action um Mark I want to I want to
challenge you and say what is the
homework assignment out of the 99
possible homework assignments what's
what's yours look I think the the real
inside today was this idea of the book
being your manual to making decisions
but also specifically thinking clearly
Mike for me I am definitely guilty of
the clustering illusion as well as
confirmation biases I think my homework
will be really um challenging myself
when it comes
to uh um what's the word noticing my
first opinion yeah but not immediately
saying that's what I'm going to go with
yeah you know it's like noticing how you
feel with a bit of mindfulness in said I
think right this is my decision right
now let's put it on ice yeah let's relax
go for a run go for a walk whatever it
might be or as you've just said ask
which model I can use to test it yeah
that'll be my my homework really what
about you
Mike oh man like just
like uh pausing before really entering
into any thought process and just saying
you know which Paradox or bias am I
likely to suffer here my one is always
over optimism right bit of Wishful thing
ah it'll be great let's do it let's go
woohoo and then you're like oo this is a
lot harder than I
expected Mike are you saying that you're
giving up your dreams of becoming a
professional tennis player after the
show today I want you to be a dreamer I
was in Europe last week playing padell
so my my actual ambition is now to be a
professional padel player I can say that
shout out to my good friend yast him and
I played two young stallions
and we won
Bingo they did run us around the court
and we were like uh a little bit sore
and stiff the following day like two
geriatrics walking around with sore
backs and arms but we got the victory uh
so that's what really matters well done
that's that's the key takeaway today
there you go there you go Mark I want to
say a big thank you to you and a big
thank you to you our listeners our
viewers and our members too here for
show 271 where we studied the art of
thinking clearly by rool dobelli and
what a book it is and we really kind of
went through a couple of Big Ideas which
were just like a taster menu of what uh
the book offers in its
99 Concepts models that you can use in
your daily life and we really learned
how to overcome the social proof
deception uh that we all experience as a
bias but also overall we are self-
deceiving all the time and there's all
these pitfalls that we can run into so
if you're self-aware you'll challenge
the data you'll ask which model is best
and as Mark advised us we'll sleep on it
so we can make a better decision in life
and I think that is a true path to being
the best version of yourself which is
what we're about here on the moonshots
podcast that's a wrap