What We've Learned: Blogs 11-19 | Volume 20

Knowledge is power.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before. But I’m not sure this is quite right – to me, knowledge is potential power.

Knowledge isn’t just consuming information. To acquire knowledge, you must remember and apply what you’ve read.

Longtime readers will remember back in Volume 10 of this blog I discussed spaced repetition – a proven method to remember more of what you’ve read.

Well, 10 weeks and 10 volumes later, in the spirit of this proven method, I’m going to recap blogs 11 through 19 to serve as a quick refresher and hopefully help everyone retain some of the lessons we’ve learned.

Ok, here we go…

Well, before we get started, here were the three most popular blogs from the last 10 weeks:

1. How Our Cities Speak to Us: Denver’s Whispered Wisdom | Volume 16

2. Paradoxes About Life (That Will Make You Think) | Volume 14

3. Just Be Yourself. Everybody Else is Taken. | Volume 12

Honorable Mention: The Power of Perspective | Volume 18

Key Takeaway: how can two groups of people look at the very same play, yet interpret it completely differently?

Motivated reasoning: a cognitive bias in which people's reasoning and interpretation of information is unconsciously influenced by their pre-existing beliefs, desires and emotions.

This applies to much more than sports. Our biases influence how we see other parts of the world too.

Link: https://makesyathink.beehiiv.com/p/eagles-got-screwed-philly-perspective-volume-11

Volume 12: Just Be Yourself. Everybody Else is Taken.

Key Takeaway: Humans have an over-the-top obsession with what other people think of them - a craving for social approval and a paralyzing fear of being disliked.

In other words, we not only overly-fear social disapproval, we also have this constant desire to be fed with praise and approval.

We want to fit in – so we look for what to do from others around us. We do meaningless and unfulfilling work – just to collect titles and accolades that we think will win the approval of our friends, our parents or society.

The problem with this approval-seeking and people-pleasing behavior is that it forces us to change our actions or speech to no longer reflect what we actually feel or think.

We aren’t authentic. We aren’t ourselves. We aren’t hanging with the type of people, taking part in the type of activities or studying the type of topics that we actually enjoy.

Link: https://makesyathink.beehiiv.com/p/just-everybody-else-taken-volume-12 

Volume 13: Want To Be Happier? Talk To Your Uber Driver

Key Takeaway: Even if you don’t feel like it, research shows that by prioritizing social connections and engaging with others, we can improve our overall quality of life.

Even brief (five minutes!) interactions with strangers can have a meaningful impact on our sense of social connection, belonging and well-being.

In several large studies, research has shown that having positive relationships with friends and family is a stronger predictor of happiness than money or material possessions.

Link: https://makesyathink.beehiiv.com/p/want-happier-talk-uber-driver-volume-13 

Volume 14: Paradoxes About Life (That Will Make You Think)

Key Takeaway: The Paradox of Vulnerability

Acknowledging and being open about our flaws actually attracts people to us. When we admit our shortcomings, we show others they can trust us and that we have a high level of self-awareness.

What is scary and vulnerable to us can be beautiful and brave to another person. Not being insecure about an “unattractive” quality instantly makes you way more attractive. Funny how that works, eh?

“Imperfections are beautiful. They are the window into a person's complexity, depth, and character” - Lex Friedman

Link: https://makesyathink.beehiiv.com/p/paradoxes-life-will-make-think-volume-14 

Volume 15: Why Everyone in Denver Drives a Jeep

Key Takeaway: the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon: a new awareness of something creates an illusion that it’s appearing more frequently.

We constantly notice what is top of mind. It's how our brains work.

Once we become aware of something new, our brains start to prioritize that information, making us more likely to notice it in the future.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect: Awareness of the limitations of cognition (thinking) requires proficiency in metacognition (thinking about thinking). In other words, being stupid makes you too stupid to realize how stupid you are.

Link: https://makesyathink.beehiiv.com/p/everyone-denver-drives-jeep-volume-15 

Volume 16: How Our Cities Speak To Us: Denver’s Whispered Wisdom

Key Takeaway: No matter how hard you try, it’s hard not to be influenced by what’s around you – the people, the places, the culture.

Where you live is not who you are. But it does significantly impact the person you become.

Much like the reason aspiring movie stars and comedians move to Los Angeles – where you live can shape your environment in a way that supports your personal growth and development.

Link: https://makesyathink.beehiiv.com/p/cities-speak-us-denvers-whispered-wisdom 

Volume 17: How I Cut My TV Time In Half

Key Takeaway: What looks like discipline is often just an environment carefully designed to encourage certain behaviors. Conversely, what looks like a lack of discipline is often just the result of a poor environment.

Stop overestimating your own willpower. Make it easier to do what you already know you should be doing.

Change your environment. Change your behavior.

Link: https://makesyathink.beehiiv.com/p/cut-tv-time-half-volume-17 

Volume 18: The Power of Perspective

Key Takeaway: We don’t see the world as it actually is. Rather, we see it through our own unique lenses of experiences, attitudes, intentions and beliefs.

In other words, we all see the world as it appears from our own perspective.

“Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works”.

We’re all biased to our own personal history.

So, instead of arguing with those whose views we think are wrong, perhaps we’d all benefit from trying to understand how their past experiences led them to these different views.

Link: https://makesyathink.beehiiv.com/p/slow-drivers-idiots 

Volume 19: Beyond Our Imagination: The Missing Pieces in Our Vision of the Future

Key Takeaway: We often misimagine the future. When we imagine the future, we fail to realize what our imagination misses – and those pieces are more important than we realize.

When we fail to consider all the details of a situation, we fail to realize how these details could drastically impact the decisions we decide to make.

Link: https://makesyathink.beehiiv.com/p/beyond-imagination-missing-pieces-vision-future 

Now, you may be asking, how do I apply these takeaways?

After all, remembering isn't good enough - to truly know and understand something, you must apply it.

Well, as I've said before, I'll leave that one up to you.

I'm not here to tell you how to think or what to do...just to make you think.

Finally, thanks for reading my work and for encouraging me to continue to share my thoughts...it really does mean a lot.

20 straight weeks of writing down and many more to come!

Kevin