Stinkin' Thinkin': 37 Mental Mistakes, False Beliefs & Superstitions That Can Ruin Your Career & Your Life

37 Mental Mistakes, False Beliefs & Superstitions That Can Ruin Your Career & Your Life

Dr. Gary S. Goodman

• Publisher: G&D Media
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781722520830
• Topic: Crescita personale
• Subtopic: Processo decisionale

The US space program faced a problem. Astronauts didn't have a pen that could write inside a zero-gravity capsule. NASA invested upward of $1 million to devise a pen that could. Their rivals faced the same problem, but they solved it for less than a dollar. They decided to use a pencil. This story is emblematic of two styles of critical thinking and problem solving. America defined its quandary as a pen problem. "Fix the pen" became the marching order. Others defined the issue as a writing challenge, so alternatives were more likely to be considered and adopted. Most people lose friends, happiness, and career opportunities because they employ inadequate thinking skills and allow biases, false beliefs, and superstitions to govern their behavior. Even highly skilled professionals, such as physicians and attorneys, are not immune from bad thinking and runaway emotions. They can cost their clients fortunes and even their lives through poor advice and misdiagnoses. This unique program will help you to: Identify the strengths and limitations of your dominant thinking styles Consider various models for tackling common and unusual challenges Apply case studies and hands-on opportunities to use different methods to analyze problems and generate multiple effective responses Adopt easy methods for creating clarity in thought and written and verbal communications Take practical pathways to success

 1 

Should You Ask The Barber if You Need a Haircut?

A few years ago a Southern California publishing company contacted me about doing some sales training.

This ended up being one of the most bizarre requests I ever fielded.

They told me their salespeople were already well trained, but they were hiring me to simply have a more credible outsider “Tell them the same things we’ve been telling them.”

Coming from me, a best-selling author and accomplished presenter they felt the content would have a greater impact. Consequently, the troops would march the way they needed to march, which apparently they weren’t doing based on what headquarters was teaching them.

This may seem like a slam-dunk, right? Don’t break any new ground, just cover the ages-old verities and I’m home free.

I didn’t see it that way.

I knew the techniques I taught, inside and out. I was expert in their use. But I had no way of knowing what the company had told its people. It would take a long time to find out.

And even if I did, what if what they were teaching was WRONG? There was a strong possibility of this.

In fact, my guess is that the troops weren’t marching in a straight line because if they followed directions they’d stomp straight off a professional cliff getting fewer sales than what were getting at present.

Quite possibly, the marching orders were hopelessly flawed, and the company’s established order didn’t want to admit this and correct their errors.

Why would I rubber stamp directives I was unaware of?

Coming to me was like asking a barber if you need a haircut. Only the most unusual groomer will say no.

But that same barber will be flummoxed if you say, “Give me a haircut but leave every hair exactly the way it is.”

Lurking beneath the surface is a sort of professional jealousy. The trainers that were bringing me in didn’t want to be upstaged. But somehow they felt they had to bring me in, anyway.

I’ve seen something similar at work in people that seek out the help of attorneys. Some clients feel deficient that they have to get professional help, that they don’t know enough to take matters into their own hands.

But instead of stating their problems and allowing the professionals to apply their knowledge and do their duty, some clients cannot resist competing with their attorneys. They invent their own outlandish theories of law and expect their counsel to pursue them.

“You just have a license but I have all the ideas” is what they seem to be saying.

The same sort of behavior troubles physicians. People complain about certain symptoms and then refuse to expose the area in question to eyes of the doctor.

We make a huge mental mistake when we pay people to tell us what we already know.

If you ask a barber if you need a haircut, be prepared to get one, not to cut your own while he watches and grimaces.

 2 

Beware of Correlations, Coincidences, Superstitions, & Random Strings of Things

Did you know that the murder rate seems to go up at the same time ice cream sales spike?

Males with a bigger middle finger to ring finger ratio seem to outscore others on the math portion of SAT tests. You didn’t know that, did you?

These are correlations, events or phenomena that seem to be related.

Because our minds actively seek out patterns, we are always keen on connecting the dots and seeing meaningful relationships where there may not be any.

Sometimes, we mistake coincidence with correlation. You were just thinking of someone out of the blue, and then you run into her at the grocery store.

That’s interesting, but it doesn’t prove that thinking about people causes you to see them in short order.

Who would need phones or communication if this were the case?

I know people that believe there are certain good digits and bad digits on license plates. If they see 777 or even better, 7777 on a plate, this bodes well for the immediate future.

On the other hand, if they see 666 or 6666, then trouble lies ahead.

What are they apt to do if licenses go one way or another? Crawl back into bed? Boldly ask the boss for a raise?

You can see that these events are not connected, but we want them to be, especially if the signs seem positive.

People also read into events significance based on the frequency of good or bad things happening. Finding a piece of jewelry on the sidewalk or a hundred dollar bill certainly seems fortunate.

On the same day, if you are an instant winner in the supermarket’s contest and you walk away with a free turkey, this means you’re on a roll.

Go ahead and invest your life’s savings in lottery tickets because today is your lucky day!

Not a good idea, because we are being “fooled by randomness.”

It isn’t good luck that we’re benefitting from but one of those strings of things that will occur, statistically, every now and then.

My mother drove a car for forty years without incident and then in a single day she was ticketed for two moving violations.

Had her skills diminished so much, overnight? Was she really a suddenly awful driver that should be removed from traffic?

Frankly, she had her doubts after that day. Her self-image as a fantastic driver took not just one hit but two hits, in rapid succession and she started to read into those events an ominous message.

“Maybe I’m losing it, fast!”

More likely, was the fact that she made two detectible boo-boos that two different cops witnessed and wrote up.

We have expressions for chains of events and correlations.

“When you’re hot you’re hot, and when you’re not, you’re not” is one of them.

“Don’t press your luck” is another one.

Being “accident-prone” is how some folks are labeled and how others define themselves.

Believing this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we fail to be cautious and to heed proper safety warnings, then we’ll have mishaps and perhaps more than others have.

If we feel destined to experience these pratfalls, what motivation do we have to take extra precautions if we think we’re doomed, anyway?

Ever walk under a ladder? Ever wonder where that superstition comes from?

Somebody probably did that and something fell on his head or the ladder collapsed. But a mistake was made in retelling the tale.

It was said that walking under the ladder CAUSED the bad outcome.

All things that precede others are not causes. It is a mistake to think they are.

You wear a hat inside the house and the roof starts to leak. Did one cause the other?

Superstitions would have us believe that.

The problem with all of these mental mistakes is that they waste our time and dissipate our focus. They also send a message that outside forces are mainly responsible for our outcomes instead of self-directed action.

Thus they promote passivity instead of positive activity.

Much like medical quackery, where the advice given isn’t harmful per se, superstitions and other errors in thought prevent us from seeking other “cures” that we might discover and put to good use but-for the fact that we’re preoccupied with drivel.

In other words stinking thinking pushes out better, more productive thinking, and this is a fact that we need to acknowledge and correct.

3

Letting The Dead Hand of the Past Strangle New Ideas

One of the ways we let stinking thinking ruin our lives and especially our careers is by letting tradition strangle new ideas and innovation.

“We’ve always done it this way” is used as a justification to smother change in its infancy.

This is not to say all change is good. Sometimes it isn’t. Famously, Coke changed the formula for its soda without telling consumers. They rebelled, quite loudly, and sales plummeted.

Quickly, that giant and otherwise hugely successful company recanted and reissued “Classic Coke,” using the tried-and-true formula.

Companies are really on the horns of a dilemma when it comes to innovation. They have an obvious and justified attachment to what made them prosper. At the same time, they need to relentlessly expand their markets and their product lines to grow their profits and to make shareholders happy.

This makes the “abandonment decision” as Peter F. Drucker called it, very difficult to make.

Exactly when can a company, or an individual evaluating the progress of her career, know it’s time to let go and to move on to something new?

Certainly, when profits lag, when competitors enter the market with lower prices, higher quality, better service or some other competitive advantage, it is time to revalue one’s exposure.

The risk isn’t doing something new. It is continuing to stay with the old.

The Blockbuster video chain was in the business of renting and selling movies at a handsome profit. Redbox, a start-up with far lower costs entered the picture, renting and receiving back into inventory videos at a dollar each.

Blockbuster was charging about $4.50 and it was harder to do business with.

Clearly, something had to give. Blockbuster went bankrupt and closed most of its stores. Then it got into the kiosk business, side by side with Redbox.

But Blockbuster tried to charge up to $4 for a video, still. It failed, miserably. Redbox survives, with slightly higher prices, but it has also lost market share to streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.

There are risks you cannot afford to take. And there are risks you cannot, NOT afford to take.

You can just imagine the conversation inside of Blockbuster as it moved into kiosk rentals.

“We’ve always gotten $4 and up for a rental!”

“Yeah, but Redbox is down at $1.”

“They’re crazy.”

The dead hand of the past wanted $4 a rental.

When should you retool your career or move on to a different ki...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Should You Ask The Barber if You Need a Haircut?
• 2. Beware of Correlations, Coincidences, Superstition, & Random Strings of Things
• 3. Letting The Dead Hand of the Past Strangle New Ideas
• 4. Don’t Sit On Your Best Ideas, Disseminate Them
• 5. You Are Not Powerless
• 6. Overcoming Ambivalence
• 7. Are You Paranoid or A Prophet?
• 8. To All Lend Your Ear, But To Few Thy Tongue
• 9. Defining The Problem Incorrectly
• 10. That’s Impossible!
• 11. Forgiveness Dissolves Self-Contempt
• 12. Beware: Visions of Slippery Slopes & Floodgates
• 13. Devalue the Negative
• 14. Inch-By-Inch It’s A Cinch; Yard-By-Yard It’s Hard!
• 15. Stop Second-Guessing Yourself
• 16. “You’ll Never Learn English!”
• 17. Every Day In Every Way You’re Getting Better & Better!
• 18. I’m Too Young, I’m Too Old, & I’m Too Fill-In-The-Blank
• 19. “Money Is The Root Of All Evil”
• 20. What Time Zone Are You Thinking In?
• 21. Stop Victimizing Yourself By “Awfulizing”
• 22. Monitor Your Short Term & Long Term Thinking
• 23. Give Yourself A Good 20 Minutes to Think!
• 24. Thinking Things Have To Be Perfect Or That They Will Be
• 25. Is Scarcity Thinking Making You Poor?
• 26. How To Avoid Ineffective Decision Making
• 27. Thinking Out Loud: What Are You Telling Yourself?
• 28. Black Swans & Over-Generalizing
• 29. Do No Harm
• 30. Don’t Drink The Kool-Aid
• 31. Can You Count to Ten?
• 32. Choose Optimism: Treat Bad News As Good News
• 33. Overcoming Fearful Thoughts
• 34. Lifting The Fog of Thought
• 35. Give Up Resistant Thoughts
• 36. How To Dash Self-Pity
• 37. Eliminate Self-Criticism & Stop Criticizing Others
• Index